Your basket is currently empty!
Tag: F1
-
A good gamble and great strategy from the team, says Hamilton
DRIVERS: 1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes); 2 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull); 3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes)
TRACK INTERVIEWS (Conducted by Jenson Button)
Q: Max, a bitter pill to swallow that one. You looked like you had it in the bag.
Max VERSTAPPEN: In a way I could see it coming. Already at the end with the softs he was faster and when we put on the mediums he had a lot more pace, he could just stay within one second, so there was not much we could have done. They went for another stop and then I knew it was over. I was already struggling with the tyres and he was just getting closer and closer, so I was a bit of a sitting duck.
Q: The first pit stop, you guys seemed to a fantastic job getting in. Obviously it was a slightly longer stop, but they didn’t jump straight after and it looked like you guys were doing a fantastic strategy and the second time they were able to jump just before you. It’s always tricky when it’s the car behind that jumps first. You don’t know whether to jump behind them or do a different strategy and it was always your plan to do a one-stop?
MV: Yeah, I mean also when you are in the lead with the cars behind, with traffic and stuff, you don’t want to pit into traffic. But of course it makes it a lot easier when you have a clear advantage, more pace in the car. So for us of course if we would have jumped for another stop I’m not sure I would have caught up again. Just clearly lacking pace. Nevertheless, I tried everything I could.
Q: To be fair, this circuit has always been a Mercedes track hasn’t it, so for you guys to be so closing in qualifying and so close to the victory it must bode well for the coming races?
MV: Yeah, it does, but it shows that we are not there where we want to be. We still have to push hard and catch up because at the moment we are a little bit slower. But still nevertheless, compared to last year it has been a big jump forwards for us.
Q: Valtteri, tough race out there? How do you look at that race and find some positives to take from it?
Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, I think what made it more tricky for me was that I lost a place to Charles on lap one out of Turn 3. I didn’t see him actually so I think he chose a better line through Turn 3 and he got me and then I was stuck behind him for a while and that compromised the race a bit. Otherwise the pace wasn’t too bad. It’s a bit of a shame but at least I could make it to the podium.
Q: Do you think there was another strategy you could have done with your car to take yourself back into the fight a little bit more?
VB: I think it’s just small details today – lap one, Turn 3. I think otherwise the pace there and as a team we are still scoring solid points but not perfect points so there is work to do. Monaco is obviously going to be quite a unique track and I look forward to that.
Q: Yeah, it looked like you got a fantastic start down into Turn 1 but you were just blocked. These cars are just so big and with Max getting a good start there was nowhere really to go for you?
VB: Yeah, there wasn’t really much space and it’s so close between the first three cars, so hard luck.
Q: Lewis, this has always been your circuit. I remember being your team-mate, it was always impossible to get anywhere near you around here and you’ve proved it again. What a fantastic way to win?
Lewis HAMILTON: Thank you so much. First, I want to acknowledge all the fans that are here because this is one of the first races, the first race this year at least, that we’ve had people come which is great to see. There’s even a British flag there, which we haven’t seen for a long, long time. I feel great after this. I feel like I could go again. Obviously the training is paying off. It was such a close start, obviously there was a lot of rubber down on the right hand side and the Red Bull obviously got a great start. After that I was just hunting. And I was so close for so long and I didn’t think in doing that I was going to be able to make the tyres last but I was just able to keep them in somehow and it was a long way to come back from some 20 odd seconds back but it was a good gamble, a really great strategy from the team.
Q: Yeah, obviously the pace was fantastic on that tyres but you must be also so thankful, as you said, that the team was able to come up with that great strategy to get past the Red Bull?
LH: Yeah, well, it had been the plan all weekend, to make sure we had two mediums to do a two-stop. Even thought a one-stop potentially looks better, I know from experience here that a one-stop is very, very hard to pull off. As soon as we had the pace that we had, I knew as I soon as I could get past him… and I was about to, I think, have a shot before I pitted right at the end and I was really conflicted. Do I come in or do I ignore the call and stay out? Obviously, I did what the team asked and natural that’s because there is a great trust between us. Just a remarkable job by everyone in this team through and through. Yeah, what a day.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis, many congratulations. It was a thrilling strategic battle with Max and Red Bull today. How much satisfaction does this win give you?
LH: Well, I’m continuing to love this battle we are having. I didn’t know whether we would be able to follow them as closely as we did in the end. Obviously, Turn 1, the start was not ideal and we are going to have to review it and see how we can do better in the future. But as soon as we got passed in Turn 1, I was like, ‘OK, switch into a different mode’. It was actually a really good day. I learned a lot about Max today, perhaps more than all the other races put together. This has been a good one in that sense and great, great teamwork from all of us. We were here until late most evenings discussing strategy, last night and this morning and we had all the bases covered in that respect. Of course it just meant that I had to do the job on track. Coming back from 20 odd seconds wasn’t easy but I think it was the right one in the end.
Q: You say you learned a lot about Max today. Can you elaborate a little bit about what you learned today?
LH: Not particularly, no! It was just a good… When you are with people on track you get to see different things and watch closely and obviously I was following relatively closely and I learned a lot about his car and how he uses it, so it was a good race in that respect.
Q: Now, when you came out 20s behind him after that second stop, how confident were you at that point of getting the job done?
LH: Not a huge amount. It was really interesting because all weekend, a one-stop strategy was the quickest way to the end of the race but this is one of the most abrasive circuits that we go to in terms of how aggressive it is with the tyres. It isn’t easy to make these tyres go that distance – even when the track was a lot cooler this weekend than perhaps it was last year here, and compared to how it was yesterday. All these little details have an affect on how these tyres last – but still, it is a really challenging circuit to save them and make them go the distance. So, I think it was quite clear early on to me, particularly of how close I was pushing to keep within a second, or just over a second behind Max. I knew that I was going to a two-stop strategy and then the team told me and I was like: ‘nothing new’. Of course, when I came out 20-odd seconds behind, I thought that’s going to be… it seemed so far, it’s such a huge gap to close but when you see the time difference that we had. I was in the mid-20s and he was mid-22s, or sometimes late 22s. I had plenty of laps to catch-up – but I didn’t know whether or not I would have enough pace at the end tyre-wise but then you just have to offset: he’s going to have even worse pace at the end. It was, as I said, the perfect strategy.
Q: Final one from me Lewis: 94 points from four races. This is your best-ever start to a Formula 1 season. Does that stat surprise you?
LH: It’s… every year I come back and I’m always trying to improve. Most often it tends to be, or it seems impossible, but it’s a necessity. The Red Bulls have started off incredibly strong. Max has a… They do both have a championship-winning car and opportunity. As do we. It’s going to take everything from us, not only me bringing my A-game but the team bringing their A-game, weekend-in, weekend-out. Otherwise these guys will be winning.
Q: Max, coming to you next, really well done. It looked so good for you after the start, you took the lead and had a 1.5s gap after just one lap. How do you sum up what happened after that?
MV: Too slow. That’s how you sum it up. There’s not much else to really discuss. I tried everything to manage it as good as I could, looking after tyres and stuff, but it’s just not enough when behind you they are just pushing you at the rate you see there’s clearly a bit more pace. You, of course, try to keep up with it and do the best possible strategy you can, but even if I think we had gone, let’s say, for that earlier second stop, I don’t think I would have caught Lewis up after that – because on the Mediums I think I was just a bit slower – because for Lewis to be that close on a track like this, all the time within a second, sometimes having DRS it just shows that, yeah, there was not much I could do out there to make a difference. But, nevertheless, I think still, of course, a good result. Of course, you always want more. I think that always needs to be the aim. I think that we shouldn’t be happy with a second place at the moment, but yeah, nevertheless, we tried everything. I got ahead at the start, so basically you really try to go for it. And then, of course, it looks good when you are leading for so long in the race – but you have to also look to all the things that are happening throughout the race and, I think, overall, we were just lacking a little bit of pace in the race. It has been like this a little bit so far this season where it seems like qualifying, we are quite competitive and in the race struggling a little bit more.
Q: Can you tell us about the run to Turn 1?
MV: yeah, the launch was good. And I, of course, ran a little bit less wing, I think, compared to Mercedes and, of course, that helped a bit, to get alongside Lewis and then I went for it in Turn 1.
Q: Valtteri, coming to you: podium number 59 for you and your 50th for Mercedes. Is it a case of what might have been for you today?
VB: I think, if I would have been a tenth quicker yesterday then the race would have been probably a bit different and a bit better battle. Today, the main issue was in lap one, Turn 3, Charles got by and here, if you lose track position, it definitely means trouble. It was costing me a lot of time in the first stint and also at the Safety Car restart I couldn’t get him, so I was stuck behind and losing ground to Lewis and Max, so that was it really. To be honest, I didn’t see Charles in Turn 3. Once I saw him, on the outside going a lot quicker than me, then it was too late. So, yeah, need to review that.
Q: Had you lost a bit of momentum, because of these two guys scraping in front of you at Turn 1.
VB: Turn 1? Yeah, for sure, but I mean, Turn 1, 2, there’s only one line, you can’t do much. I knew that I could keep my place there but then in Turn Three I was really trying to follow closely Lewis on the inside and had no chance that Charles was so close and managed to get good grip and a line from the outside.
Q: Final one from me. Were you happier today with the pace of your car than you were in Portugal last weekend?
VB: I think we had a good car. It’s not a huge difference to Red Bull but I think today we were strong. I’m happy that we could get more points than them as a team. That’s always good – but obviously it was not perfect, and we always aim for perfection and, of course, personally, I’m not happy to be third. Wouldn’t be happy to be second. That’s how it goes. So, there’s always more you can do, and I’ll keep pushing and, as a team, this weekend again we learned a lot and hopefully we can take that to the future.
VIDEO CONFERENCE
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Question to Lewis. Lewis, I know you said you’ve got to review what happened at the start but what were you thinking on that run down to Turn 1? Was there a moment that you could have defended more against Max? And what were you thinking right in the moment about his move there at the apex? Thank you.
LH: So, I know Valtteri was obviously starting in third and the goal is to work as a team. So I stayed to the left. I think in hindsight there could have been a moment, looking back, that when Max moved in behind me for a second, I could have pulled across and sealed the job there – but I didn’t. And then, as we went into Turn One, I just made sure I gave as much space as I could to Max. In my mind, it’s always a marathon, not a sprint, so I’m just always thinking the long game and sure, you could be a little bit more aggressive. Do I need to? Well, I’m in the position that I’m in because I don’t get too aggressive when I don’t need to be.
Q: (Christian Menath – motorsport-magazin.com) Question for Max. Can you talk us through the situation before the first stop because we’ve heard there was some miscommunication? The team didn’t want you to pit at that moment.
MV: Yeah, just miscommunication. Between when to pit. I thought I had to pit that lap and clearly it wasn’t – but luckily we didn’t lose too much time with that.
Q: (Scott Mitchell – The Race) To the two Mercedes drivers: there was obviously the moment during the race when Lewis, you were coming up to Valtteri; Valtteri had to move out of the way. What happened there, in terms of the communication on making that swap basically, because we know, Valtteri, we heard the message to you to say don’t hold Lewis up but obviously it took some time for Lewis for you to get past? Both your thoughts on that please?
VB: Yeah, I got the message and obviously we were on different strategies at that point so unless something crazy would happen, I wasn’t really any more with him. But the thing was, at that time, I was trying to get Charles off my pit window so I could stop again and try and be ahead of him, so I was really conscious that I didn’t want to lose too much time, and I was really focusing on my race so it was about balancing things. Of course, as a racing driver, you prioritise yourself, your race, because that’s what we do but also we work as a team, so you don’t want to ruin the win for the team if that is possible; if it is not possible for you. So I tried to do the best thing I could for us as a team and for myself. It’s always hard doing those kind of things and either know… ask the other driver if he predicts what’s going to happen and where to go but I think in the end it was kind of OK.
LH: I think we’re the best teammates so… honestly I didn’t know that he had a message so in my mind I was like ‘we’re racing’ and that’s totally fine for me, particularly early on in this part of the season so in my mind I was ‘so I’ve got to get close and hope for an overtake’ but then obviously when we went into turn ten, we were on massively different strategies so I was going to get him at some stage because I had much better tyres. And we were going into turn ten and I thought there was a gap there and I wasn’t quite sure and then there was a gap and Valtteri was completely fair, I wouldn’t lose too much time but this is how we win as a team. We sometimes have to… sometimes we’re in that position where you just… you’ve got to put the team first and getting a second and a third is good but getting a first is obviously max points and that’s key.
Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) One for Lewis: yesterday Damon Hill tweeted about you, that you’re one of the most talented people to have ever walked the earth. What’s your response to that? Do you think that you’re operating at the highest level you’ve ever operated in your F1 career?
LH: Well, firstly I saw that yesterday and I felt so much gratitude to Damon, because I remember growing up watching Damon and having – as I do now – so much respect for him. And I remember rooting for him, as a Brit, wanting him to succeed, even when he didn’t have a great car or a good team so it’s definitely humbling when you see people who you’ve admired, you’ve watched and grown up taking inspiration from or whatever it may be, and having them say respectful things and positive things. That’s an amazing moment when that happens. As I just said to you just before, this is a period of time where I have to be at the best, weekend in, weekend out. These guys are… Max is driving exceptionally well as is Valtteri. Valtteri’s qualifying laps are hard to beat. It’s so close between all of us. You saw yesterday, it’s going to take perfect delivery each weekend and I don’t think anyone can do that but I am trying to get as close as possible.
Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Lewis, you said on the TV that you’re still feeling fit and your training’s all paying off. There’s obviously plenty of life in the old dog, if you’ll excuse that phrase. I just wondered how much of your attention is now going to be turning to next year? Toto said that he wanted to get the contract done early. I wondered if you had had any discussions or any thought about next season yet?
LH: Yeah, thanks Ben. There’s still some life in this old dog! I would say I’m more conscious than ever about my body, about my training regime. I’ve been training myself for a long time now but constantly growing and learning how to look after, naturally, the vessel that I’m given and feeling great. Contract-wise? Yeah, we never want to be in the position that we were in in January, in February. It ruined my whole winter and I’m sure it wasn’t helpful for Toto’s, in terms of being out to be off and relaxed, so it felt like we didn’t really have much of a break. I think we have to be sensible. Naturally we don’t have to rush anything but I think we have to be sensible and start conversations. They’re very complex, it’s never a super simple procedure and so hopefully soon we can start, as long as it doesn’t interfere the actual job. We still have 19 races to do but it would be great to get something in place before the break so then we could, again, be in that break and have a clear picture of the future.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Max, this race bears a lot of similarities to Hungary 2019; I think that might have been mentioned to you over the radio at one point as well. What do you think Red Bull has to do so that this situation won’t come up again, to win one of these situations?
MV: Just need a faster car. It’s very simple. Then you don’t need to get into a situation like that. That’s what we have to focus on.
Ends
-
Hamilton becomes 1st driver to reach 100 pole positions
Barcelona, 8 May 2021: Lewis Hamilton beat Max Verstappen by just 0.038 seconds to make history as the first driver to reach 100 pole positions in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix. Verstappen finished ahead of Valtteri Bottas at the end of a tight session in which the top three drivers were covered by just 1300ths of a second.
At the start of Q1, Mercedes opted to send its drivers out on medium tyres and Bottas took top spot in the session with a lap of 1:18.005. Verstappen slotted into P2 on soft tyres with an opening time of 1:18.090, while AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took third place in the early part of the session. Hamilton’s opening time 1:18.245 was not solid though and as the segment neared its final stages he began to slip down the order. The champion went out on a set of softs for a precautionary final run that he abandoned after his out lap when it became clear that his progress to Q2 would not be threatened. It was Lando Norris who put in the segment’s fastest lap, however. The McLaren driver had been disadvantaged by traffic early in the session and required another attempt on a new set of soft tyres. He rose from the drop zone to P1 with a lap of 1:17.821.
Norris’ jump to the top of the timesheet meant that AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda slid into the drop zone. The Japanese driver then went wide in Turn 9 on his final run and he was thus eliminated in P16 ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen, Haas’ Mick Schumacher, Williams’ Nicholas Latifi and the second Haas of Nikita Mazepin.
Verstappen set the pace in the opening runs of Q2. Mercedes were first across the line with Bottas setting a lap of 1:17.400 to edge Hamilton by two tenths but Verstappen set blistering pace to cross the line almost half a second clear of Bottas thanks to a lap of 1:16.922.
It was a different story for the Dutch driver’s team-mate Sergio Pérez however. The Mexican driver was struggling to find a comfort zone with his car and his opening lap of 1:180.69 left him in P12 and in the drop zone ahead of the final runs. He improved on his final run, however, and jumped to P5 and safety with a lap of 1:17.669.
While Verstappen stayed in the Red Bull garage for the final runs, Mercedes sent it’s drivers out again and Hamilton improved on the set of softs he had used for his precautionary lap in Q1. He finished in P3 behind Bottas with a time of 1:17.166.
Eliminated at the end of Q2 were Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll in P11 ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, Aston’s Sebastian Vettel, Alfa’s Antonio Giovinazzi and Williams’ George Russell.
Verstappen’s Q2 pace seemed to indicate that the Dutch driver would deny Hamilton a historic 100th pole but in the opening runs of Q3 the seven-time champion responded to take provisional pole with a lap of 1:16.741. Verstappen got closest to that benchmark, finishing his opening flying lap just 0.038s behind the Mercedes driver and a tenth clear of Bottas.
It set up a knife-edge finale but soon after the start of the final flying laps it became apparent that none of the top three drivers was improving and Hamilton took his 100th pole with his opening time, while Max had to settle for a 17th career front-row start ahead of Bottas.
2021 FIA Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:16.741 –
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1:16.777 0.036
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:16.873 0.132
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:17.510 0.769
5 Esteban Ocon Alpine/Renault 1:17.580 0.839
6 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:17.620 0.879
7 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren/Mercedes 1:17.622 0.881
8 Sergio Pérez Red Bull/Honda 1:17.701 0.960
9 Lando Norris McLaren/Mercedes 1:18.010 1.269
10 Fernando Alonso Alpine/Renault 1:18.147 1.406
11 Lance Stroll Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:17.974 1.233
12 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri/Honda 1:17.982 1.241
13 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:18.079 1.338
14 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:18.356 1.615
15 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1:19.154 2.413
16 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri/Honda 1:18.556 1.815
17 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:18.917 2.176
18 Mick Schumacher Haas/Ferrari 1:19.117 2.376
19 Nicholas Latifi Williams/Mercedes 1:19.219 2.478
20 Nikita Mazepin Haas/Ferrari 1:19.807 3.066 -
Lewis Hamilton tops timesheets in FP2: Spanish GP
Barcelona, 7 May 2021: Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheet in second practice for the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya beating Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas by over a tenth of a second as Max Verstappen finished in ninth place following an error during his qualifying simulation.
Bottas, the morning’s fastest man, set the early pace in the one-hour afternoon session, working his way to a time of 1:18.419, with Hamilton 0.042s slower than his team-mate, while Verstappen sat in third place, three tenths off the pace.
The session was briefly slowed when a Virtual Safety Car was deployed after 10 minutes to allow marshals to clear a piece of bodywork that had become dislodged from Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.
When the track went green again teams set about preparing for their qualifying simulations with Bottas getting down to 1:18.309 before Hamilton toppled him with lap of 1:18.170.
It was then Verstappen turn to bolt on soft tyres and after losing a small amount of ground to Hamilton opening sector the Dutchman then went wide on the entry to Turn 10 and as he tried to recover he got a snap of oversteer that sent him off track. He kept going but backed off in the final corners and finished in ninth thanks to his earlier lap on medium times.
With Verstappen down the order, third place in the session went to Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari driver was just 0.165s slower than Hamilton. Esteban Ocon took fourth place just ahead of team-mate Fernando Alonso on an encouraging afternoon for improving Alpine, while Pierre Gasly finished in P6 ahead of AlphaTauri team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.
Sainz was eighth for Ferrari ahead of Versatappen and the Dutch driver’s team-mate Sergio Pérez, finished in P10 as he too failed to complete his qualifying simulation. He ended the session 0.748s off Hamilton’s best time.
2021 FIA Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix – Free Practice 1
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 32 1:18.170;
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 31 1:18.309 0.139;
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 28 1:18.335 0.165;
4 Esteban Ocon Alpine 29 1:18.466 0.296;
5 Fernando Alonso Alpine 30 1:18.518 0.348;
6 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 32 1:18.593 0.423;
7 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 30 1:18.619 0.449;
8 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 30 1:18.674 0.504;
9 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 26 1:18.785 0.615;
10 Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing 23 1:18.918 0.748;
11 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 30 1:18.947 0.777;
12 Lando Norris McLaren 28 1:19.092 0.922;
13 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 29 1:19.122 0.952;
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 29 1:19.134 0.964;
15 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 28 1:19.195 1.025;
16 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo 30 1:19.213 1.043;
17 George Russell Williams 29 1:19.957 1.787;
18 Nicholas Latifi Williams 26 1:20.046 1.876;
19 Mick Schumacher Haas 30 1:20.326 2.156;
20 Nikita Mazepin Haas 27 1:20.753 2.583. -
2nd win and crucial points for Hamilton ahead of Verstappen
Portimao, 2 May 2021: Lewis Hamilton took his second consecutive Portuguese Grand Prix victory after passing both Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas in a close battle at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. Verstappen took second place ahead of Bottas but had to cede the point for fastest lap to the Finn after exceeding track limits during a last-lap flyer, in the third round of the 23-round FIA Formula 1 World Championship race on Sunday.
At the start pole sitter Bottas took the lead ahead of Hamilton and Verstappen. Behind them, though fourth-on-the-grid Sergio Pérez was passed by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon also lost a place, dropping to seventh as McLaren’s Lando Norris stole through to P6.
There was little time for further progress, though, before the safety car intervened. Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen collided with team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi on the pit straight at the start of the second lap and lost his front wing. The Finn pulled over in a run-off area but with debris scattered across the main straight the safety car was dseployed.
When racing resumed on lap 8, Bottas held onto his lead but Hamilton was passed by Verstappen the outside into Turn 1. Pérez also profited on the re-start getting ahead of Sainz. However, later in the lap the Mexican went backwards again when he was mugged into the hairpin by Norris. Pérez quickly fought back, though, and on the next lap muscled past the McLaren driver into Turn 1.
At the front Verstappen was under pressure and after a moment of oversteer in Turn 14 Hamilton closed in on the main straight and passed the Red Bull in Turn 1 to take back second place.
The Mercedes drivers then began to eke out a gap and by lap 18 Hamilton was 1.5s clear of Verstappen, with Pérez eight seconds further back. Norris lay fifth ahead of Sainz, with the Spaniard’s Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc in P7. Ocon had slipped to eighth ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo.
The lead changed on lap 20 when Hamilton got a good exit out of the final corner and pounced at the end of the pit straight to overtake Bottas around the outside of Turn 1.
Red Bull pitted Verstappen at the end of lap 35 for hard tyres. Mercedes tried to cover the move by pitting Bottas at the end of the next lap and though he emerged from the pit lane marginally ahead of Verstappen, the Dutchman was quickly on the attack and passed the Mercedes into Turn 5.
Hamilton then pitted for hard tyres and handed the lead to Pérez. On lap 41 the Mexican held a 11.8s lead over Hamilton, with Max third, 3.4s behind the Mercedes man.
Hamilton quickly began to claw away at Perez’s lead and after the Red Bull was seriously impeded by the backmarking Nikita Mazepin, the Mercedes driver was just 5.5s behind the Mexican on lap 47. Mazepin was later handed a time penalty for ignoring blue flags.
On lap 51 Hamilton made his move, passing Pérez into Turn 1. Red Bull then pitted Pérez and he slipped to the fourth place he would hold until the chequered flag.
With Bottas enjoying a sizeable gap to Pérez in the closing stages Mercedes opted to pit the Finn for a fresh set of soft tyres and a fastest lap attempt and the Finn went quickest on lap 65 of the 66.
Red Bull responded by pitting Verstappen at the end of the penultimate lap and soon after Lewis Hamilton had crossed the line to take victory, Verstappen set the fastest lap of all at 1:18.849. However, his hopes of taking the point on offer were dashed soon after the chequered flag as officials deleted his lap time for exceeding track limits at Turn 4.
Behind the top four Norris took a well deserved fifth place for McLaren with Charles Leclerc sixth for Ferrari. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon dropped back to seventh from a starting place of sixth but for team-mate Fernando Alonso it was a better day, with the Spaniard climbing from 14th on the4 grid to eighth place at the flag. McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo also did well, recovering from 16th place on the grid to finish ninth and the final point on offer went to AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly.
2021 FIA Formula 1 Portuguese Grand Prix – Race
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes F1 W12 EQ Power+ Mercedes –
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing-Honda RB16B Red Bull 29.148
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes F1 W12 EQ Power+ Mercedes 33.530
4 Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing-Honda RB16B Red Bull 39.735
5 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes MCL35M McLaren 51.369
6 Charles Leclerc Ferrari SF21 Ferrari 55.781
7 Esteban Ocon Alpine-Renault A521 Alpine 1:03.749
8 Fernando Alonso Alpine-Renault A521 Alpine 1:04.808
9 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren-Mercedes MCL35M McLaren 1:15.369
10 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri-Honda AT02 AlphaTauri 1:16.46
11 Carlos Sainz Ferrari SF21 Ferrari 1:18.955
12 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari C41 Alfa Romeo 1 lap
13 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin-Mercedes AMR21 Aston Martin 1 lap
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Mercedes AMR21 Aston Martin 1 lap
15 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri-Honda AT02 AlphaTauri 1 lap
16 George Russell Williams-Mercedes FW43B Williams 1 lap
17 Mick Schumacher Haas-Ferrari VF-21 Haas 2 laps
18 Nicholas Latifi Williams-Mercedes FW43B Williams 2 laps
19 Nikita Mazepin Haas-Ferrari VF-21 Haas 2 laps
Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari C41 Alfa Romeo -
The race was very tough, but yes, it was a great race: Hamilton
Portimao, 2 May 2021: The following drivers attended the FIA post-race Press Conference on Sunday: 1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes); 2 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull Racing); 3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes)
TRACK INTERVIEWS (Conducted by Paul Di Resta)
Q: Max, started third, finished second, you had a great jump on Lewis at the restart, you got in front but then you made a small mistake in Turn 14. How was your race.
Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah, it was pretty decent. I had a good re-start and then I tried to put the pressure on Valtteri. At the end it think we just lacked a little bit of pace overall, so Lewis got by again and after the pit stop, the warm-up is super hard on these tyres, but I think once we settled in second you could clearly see that around here we were lacking a bit of pace compared to them. But still, second, fastest lap in the last lap…
Q: Ah well, I think you have been deleted for track limits at Turn 14, right at the end. The good thing is it didn’t go to Lewis, it went to Valtteri who took it the lap before you?
MV: That’s a bit odd because they were not checking track limits in 14, but whatever?
Q: Well, onto the next race, what’s your feeling? Did you think this was a weekend that would favour Mercedes and then on to Spain where you can make a fight back?
MV: Yeah, I think in general this was a bit of an odd weekend in terms of grip. We were not on top of it here but we’ll see again what we can do in Barcelona.
Q: Lewis, I think you’ve got to be pretty pumped for that result – absolutely textbook. But you managed to get the position back and onto the next one?
Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, I’m telling you that was such a tough race, physically and mentally. Just keeping everything together… it was very windy out there, obviously, so it was very easy to put a foot wrong. I just didn’t get quite as good a start as Valtteri and then I lost out on the re-start, which was not good. I was not happy about that, naturally. I really had to try and position myself as best I could. I can’t remember, but I think Max made a mistake at some point in the lap, which was like perfect, and I knew that that was going to be the lap I would be as close as I could to him in the last sector. With Valtteri, I had to make the move early on, before the tyres were destroyed and I managed to just get him in Turn 1, just right on the limit. But a great race.
Q: I know you relish the challenge of people and opposition pushing you all the way. What does the next four days look like for you heading to Spain because it’s a very different year with Red Bull this close?
LH: Yeah, I think the next few days… We head back home for just a couple of days and it’s about recovery and a lot of physio. Angela will be with me. Recovery and get yourself back, turned around as quickly as possible for the next one. A lot of kind of debriefs, a lot to download today, there are improvements we can make. Today wasn’t all perfect so we look at those areas and we try to turn over the stones.
Q: Valtteri, P3. I know you would have wanted more. You got the fastest lap as Max’s lap got deleted. How did your race go?
Valtteri BOTTAS: It was a tricky day today. I don’t really know what happened in the first stint. I just didn’t have the pace, for unknown reasons. So we will need to have a look at that. But afterwards I think the second stint was pretty good but we had a bit of an issue with some sensor or something, so I couldn’t get Max.
Q: Like you say, why did the car become better when it was on half tanks, you were able to push on and even had Toto Wolff on the radio giving you that extra push. It seemed like when the fuel burned off you had the fastest race car?
VB: I don’t know really. Overall, we have had a strong package today and I don’t know why in the first stint it didn’t work. We need to look at that but otherwise good points.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis, many congratulations, what a race. First of all, how good does this feel?
LH: I’ve been racing a long, long time, and we’ve had a lot of success over the years and I’m really grateful that each one feels new and different and it was a completely different journey today and this weekend to get the result we just got. It’s a much different feeling of course when you are battling so closely with two great drivers. So yeah, it feels fantastic today. I’m very grateful for and really proud of the team. We had a great pit stop and a strong strategy and everyone had just kept their head down to try and extract more and more from this car that we have. So a big thank you to everyone.
Q: You’re not one for statistics, you’ve told us that many times, but this was your 150th points finish for Mercedes.
LH: Nice. It really is incredible, right. It’s down to a lot of great, great people working so hard over all these years, so I hope they feel this success.
Q: Couple of key moments to ask you about. The re-start: you said a moment ago you weren’t happy with yours, what happened?
LH: (laughs) I lost position, that’s what happened! Well, it was interesting because I was focusing on Valtteri naturally and literally just for a split second I looked in my mirrors to see where Max was and in that split second that’s when Valtteri went.
VB: (laughs) I could see looking in the mirrors!
LH: Ha! So that wasn’t great and then I was Valtteri’s tow and you (Max) were about to pull out and I pulled out and gave you Valtteri’s tow and I was like, ‘you idiot’, to myself you know. So then after that being behind the two… what a great track. It really enabled us to fight closely in that first stint and I think that’s what the fans want and that’s what I want from a racing point of view. This track is really great because you can have certain different lines in certain corners, a bit like Austin, so it was really awesome.
Q: And eight points the gap between yourself and Max at the top of the table. It’s tight.
LH: It’s very tight. I saw that he had gone in for the fastest lap and got it but obviously Valtteri ended up with it at the end. But as you can see I think it is a great fight between Mercedes and Red Bull and I’m sure also down the field and we will be pushing each other right to the last race. We’re going to be sick of each other at the end I would imagine or sick of racing, because there are so many races.
Q: Max, well done. Are you happy with second today, given the relative pace of the cars – or do you feel this was a missed opportunity?
MV: I’m pleased. I tried everything I could really. I had a good restart because the actual start, I just missed-out a bit. We didn’t really have particularly a great launch so yeah, I couldn’t really do anything there but then yeah, it was a good fight into Turn One with Lewis. Managed to keep it on the kerb as well, so didn’t have to give the position back like in Bahrain. From there it was just super-close between the three of us. I tried to attack Valtteri but all the time I could not get close enough in those last two corners and then the run onto the straight. By pushing I had a little wobble but I didn’t really lose-out a lot from that. And then Lewis was already super-close behind and he got me into Turn One and then, of course, Lewis was putting the pressure on Valtteri and I just could not stay close to Lewis for that, to also pick up the DRS. But yeah, it was close. I just tried to put the pressure on and, of course, Lewis cleared Valtteri and then I was, I don’t know for how many laps, in Valtteri’s DRS. It was incredible – but it was good. It felt a bit more like… not flat-out racing but at least a bit more than continuously tyre saving. So, yeah, it was nice.
Q: As you say, you spent a lot of time on a Mercedes gearbox today. Tell us about the relative pace of your car and there car. Where was the Mercedes better, where were you better?
MV: To be honest, it depends a bit and it’s difficult to tell when you are so close because you anyway lose a lot of downforce. For me, I think the whole weekend we haven’t been really satisfied with the grip in general, the car. Last year this was a very difficult weekend for us and it seemed like it’s still not great for us. Let’s say it like that. It’s a bit difficult to judge, to be honest. I prefer to wait again to Barcelona and see how the progression from the beginning of the season to that track will be. This is a bit of an odd weekend in terms of grip – but clearly we still have to improve and do better because we should be fastest on every single track and in every single condition – because the track is the same for everyone. Still, second place, pretty happy with that. Good fights on the track, also with Valtteri afterwards, after the pit stop. It was quite close in Turn 4, because I washed out a bit but yeah, it was quite a decent race.
Q: Can we just get your thoughts on that gap to Lewis in the Championship? Just eight points.
MV: Yeah it’s close. I wish it was closer! It’s a long season and we can’t afford to have any retirement or silly mistakes so we just have to keep on doing what we’re doing.
Q: Valtteri, well done, podium number 58 today. How would you sum-up today’s race?
VB: Disappointing. When you start from the pole position, you have only one target for the race and that is to win the race. It didn’t happen today so I’m disappointed – but I don’t really know why in the first stint I didn’t really have the pace. I mean, I felt everything in terms of the race start, the restart, everything was good from my side but I could see quite early on in the race that, with the Mediums, I just didn’t have pace like Lewis and Max had. I have no idea way. I don’t have the explanation. It was better on the Hard tyre and at some point I was catching Max and then I had an issue with one sensor that, I started to lose power and then I lost like five seconds to Max and that was it.
Q: Did the car feel immediately better on the Hard tyre?
VB: Not on the first lap. It was really bad but we know the warm-up today with the Hard tyre was going to be tricky. Afterwards, once I got heat in the tyres, it was actually not bad and better than with the Medium. Yeah, lots of things to look at, to analyse and learn from in the next two days before starting to focus for the next race.
Q: There was some encouragement over the radio mid-race from Toto Wolff. Is it slightly unusual for him to do that?
VB: No, it’s not. There’s been many times that he’s, you know, opened the radio to say something. It’s all supportive and it shows there’s the support and the passion behind – and it never hurts. Obviously I’m always giving it every single bit I have on track. But yeah, it’s good.
VIDEO CONFERENCE
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Lewis, first of all, congratulations on the win. I wonder if you can please talk us through the phase of the race just after the restart when you were behind Max and Valtteri. Were you just hanging back to see what was going to happen with the tyres and how they were going to progress ahead of you as well, or were you pushing flat-out throughout, as Max suggested earlier. Thank you.
LH: Thank you. No, I think Max was super-fast on that restart and there was a moment I think we were all very, very close. I fell back, maybe a second or something like that and I needed to get closer but for a moment there was far too big a gap. I wasn’t in the DRS, and I just had to gather my thoughts and made a couple of tweaks in terms of how I was driving and then start on the attack again. Once I did, obviously I got closer and Max, I think, had a small mistake which then put me in a nice position out of Turn 5 and then I just needed to keep that gap through the rest of the lap and that was where I was able to get past him. Then, after that, was just focussing on bridging the gap between myself and Valtteri, who was very quick out of the last corner.
Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Lewis, two part question for you: one is we’ve seen this a number of times with you now where you are able to follow really closely behind other drivers for a period of laps and still keep the tyres in decent condition and then pull off an overtake. I’d like to ask you how you do that? And secondly, just how energised are you by this close fight you’re having with Max for the championship, and that one’s for Max as well?
LH: Well firstly, yes, massively excited and driven – I think we all are, as a team – to be in the fight with Red Bull. This weekend, I think, I feel like maybe Red Bull lost a little bit of performance this weekend, because I don’t think we improved but from the last race to here I think they took a sidestep closer to us this weekend, for whatever reasons. But this is great, this is what we all live for, we live and breathe for, to get up and fight and try and pull out the smallest bits of performance to be able to fight a great competitor. With the tyres, it’s really… I guess it’s just knowledge of the tyres, really and knowing which ones you can lean on and where you can… I can’t really say too much, to be honest. I think everyone was pushing and they put on their tyres. I think I just managed to get the balance pretty sweet, better for the race than it was for qualifying.
Q: Is it different with the new constructions this year?
LH: It’s a little bit different. The tyre is slightly different and so there’s a slightly different approach in terms of how you treat the tyres but it’s not a massive different, people wouldn’t notice otherwise normally, but here, this track, there’s not a huge amount of grip and you’ve got the hardest compounds but being that they are the hardest compounds means that they can do the race distance and there’s not a huge amount of wear, so you can push every single lap and I think that’s great, because there are races we’ve been in in the past where we have to do a lot of lift and coasts, slow down to make the tyre go the distance because the pit lane is so long. So I think it was the right tyre for this weekend.
MV: Yeah, I think it’s what everyone wants to see but of course what I want as well, because the last few years we have not been close enough so it’s a good start to the season, that’s for sure and I hope it can be like this for the rest of the season because it keeps everyone excited.
Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) Lewis and Max, Nico Rosberg called Lewis’s drive phenomenal today and said that now Max is starting to get a better understanding of how good Lewis is, so I just guess following on from that, Lewis, how good was your performance today? Was it a big statement of intent for the championship in terms of you passed Max and Valtteri on track and I guess to Max, are you now beginning to understand how good Lewis is given that you’re racing him so closely every weekend?
LH: I think none of us here are under any illusion of just how hard it is out there for us, how close the battle is and how… we’re all giving absolutely everything in our day-to-day lives in order to be best prepared and deliver at the weekends. The pressure is immense between us all and I think there’s a huge amount of respect between the three of us and obviously with the other drivers here. Of course, it’s always great when you have a race like today where you’re able to follow and overtake and capitalise on the small margins and gaps that have but at the same time, look at the restart. Max had been pulling absolutely everything out of the Red Bull and given us a great run for our money so I think it’s going to be like this for the rest of the season, which I think can be incredibly exciting.
MV: Yeah, I don’t need Nico to make me realise how good Lewis is. I know he’s very good, otherwise you don’t win so many championships.
Q: (Edd Straw – The Race) Max and Lewis: you’ve had a wheel-to-wheel fight in all three of the races this year, which is great because it’s quite rare in Formula 1 so 100% of those battles. How have you seen those battles in particular, how much are you enjoying them? They seem forceful but fair from both of you so far. Do you think that’s sustainable, especially as we could have, at this rate, another twenty of those battles this year?
MV: Yeah, it’s been really cool, especially when you race a driver, when you know that you can go to the absolute limit, I guess you can trust each other to just race super-hard. I think that’s always really nice because you can see the in the three races we’ve had we haven’t really… well, we gave each… how you say? It’s been really close to each other but predictable. Lewis has never had something like ‘oh, we’re going to crash’ or something. I always have full trust in Lewis that we all give each other enough space.
LH: Yeah, I just second that. I think it is naturally down to respect and I think both very, very hard but fair and I think that’s what makes great racing and great racing drivers and I think we will continue to keep it clean and keep it on the edge but I don’t think either of us has a plan to get any closer than we have been.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Another question to Lewis: how do you feel about Max and Valtteri being able to stop at the end of the race to chase the fastest lap point? Before they did that, you were ahead of them. I think Perez may have ended up with the fastest lap anyway but you had much more to lose if you’d come in and the pit stop had gone wrong so how did that go?
LH: Yeah, I think… you came in first, right?
VB: Max came first, I think. Did you? I don’t know.
MV: No, I think you pitted before me, one lap…
LH: Otherwise you wouldn’t have pitted. Yeah, I think, for me, I’ve come from third place so for me it was a solid job and there are days when it’s necessary to take the extra risk to take the extra lap but today wasn’t one of those. I think it was just about making sure we finished strong and bag the points, you know, because every point does count but I’d heard that Valtteri had stopped and then I heard that Max had stopped so it was going to be close between the two. At the time, Max had obviously got the point, which takes a little bit off the great result that we had but obviously it didn’t turn out in the end.
Ends
-
It feels like it has been a while; so it’s a good feeling to be on pole: Bottas
DRIVERS: 1 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes) ; 2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes); 3 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull)
TRACK INTERVIEWS (Conducted by Paul Di Resta)
Q: Max, I know you’re not going to be happy with that, you’re lining up P3. You actually set the quickest lap time of that session but you got track limits. Tell me from your point of view?
Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah, the whole qualifying was very difficult to drive, I was struggling a lot with grip. That first lap in Q3 was decent but I just had a big moment in four and went a little off track. I was quite confident we could do another good lap but in the last sector there was a car in front in the last two corners and it just disturbs you, especially with the low grip we already have and the tough wind out here. Basically, it cost me a lot of lap time but it is what it is.
Q: It’s a tricky one with strategy – some guys going for that extra warm-up, but you could nail it. Looking ahead to tomorrow do you think you have got a car that you can fight these two Mercedes up front?
MV: Yeah, it’s of course not ideal. We’ll try to fight them tomorrow in the race, see what we can do. Hopefully everything stabilises a bit more because up until now it has not been a lot of fun to drive here.
Q: Valtteri, if you ever needed a confidence booster that was what was going to nail it. Lining up P1 tomorrow and replicating last year?
Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, it’s a good feeling to be on pole. It feels like it has been a while. It was nice to get a good qualifying. It’s been the weak point for me in the first two races getting the tyres to work but again this weekend we have been working hard and it’s nice to see it’s paying off, which means a good position for tomorrow.
Q: Completely different tyres for you guys at the end there. Did the conditions go away? You weren’t able to improve on your first run?
VB: Yeah, the whole weekend there has been a so-so feeling with the soft tyres. It’s been feeling better with the mediums. Last year we put the medium tyre at the end of the qualifying and it worked and we tried it again but maybe the wind picked up in the last run and I couldn’t get temperature into them. I’m glad that we still had a good result obviously. Tomorrow, starting with the medium tyre I think it’s good. It opens up… it means we can go as long as we want in the first stint.
Q: What’s the plan for tomorrow?
VB: We need to focus on the race start and go from there. You know what the plan is.
Q: Lewis, an exceptional lap from you in Q2 and then the conditions went a bit away from you, but you’re lining up on the front row and ahead of Max and I guess that’s the important bit?
Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, great job by Valtteri and a great job by the team for us to be on the front row, it was definitely not expected this weekend. We have got to be happy with that. Max obviously pulled something out towards the end. Not really sure where they were early on. Not the perfect lap, but I gave it everything.
Q: Are you satisfied with the way the team is moving forward, allowing you to have the car to keep competing against Max. Obviously Red Bull aren’t going to give you a breath?
LH: I don’t think we can ever be satisfied. That’s what we exist to do is to continue to push forward. I’m definitely happy with the work that we are doing and the steps we are taking.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Valtteri, many congratulations, superb pole position for you. First, just how sweet does this feel?
VB: Thank you. Definitely it put a smile on my face because in the first two races of the season the qualifying from my side, at least the Q3 session, hasn’t been the strong point. Getting everything out of the tyres and getting the tyres to work well has been a bit of a weakness but now it felt like things were starting to go in the right direction. I’ve been feeling strong all weekend, so I knew it was possible and it definitely makes me really happy to put it together in Q3 and be on pole and as a team as well, with the pressure and the battle from Red Bull it’s good to be ahead.
Q: After the frustrations of Bahrain and Imola, what’s been the breakthrough for you over one lap?
VB: Just getting Q3 right. I would say tyres preparation, out laps and looking at those things, because it’s so much about tyres and yeah also trusting your own work and your set-up direction and everything, so yeah…
Q: Looking ahead to the grand prix, how fast is your race car over longer runs?
VB: It didn’t seem to bad on Friday but it’s always Friday. We will truly see in the race how the tyres behave, if there are going to be any gaining issues and I reckon it’s going to be a tough battle with Red Bull no doubt.
Q: Lewis, such fine margins today. Can you just start by talking us through your session please?
LH: It was a difficult session, I think, for everyone. It’s not that easy here, particular as it’s windy and it’s quite slippery on this surface. So, I think it was challenging for everyone. Quite a messy session really, for me. Q1 wasn’t good, Q2 I only had one good lap and I would say in the whole session generally I only had that one lap. Q3 was pretty poor also. Valtteri did a great job, given the conditions that we’re in.
Q: What about the decision to run the medium tyre for your final run of Q3. You’d been so fast on that rubber in Q2, where did the lap-time slip away?
LH: I don’t think it was… it probably wasn’t the right decision at the end but it was just tricky out there. You saw us having to do multiple laps. The tyres are too hard here, so they don’t work very well with the surface so we have to do extra laps to get temperature in and at the end, just didn’t have very great grip, so didn’t do the greatest job.
Q: And did the wind change, towards the end of the session.
LH: Not that I know of.
Q: Max, coming to you, it was a tough session for you and Red Bull. First up, how frustrated do you feel immediately after the session?
MV: It has been a bit hit-and-miss anyway, the whole weekend, where we’re struggling a lot to find a balance. I didn’t enjoy one single lap this weekend, just because of the state of the track. The layout is amazing but grip we are experiencing, I don’t think it’s nice. I know it’s the same for everyone, but for me personally, it’s not enjoyable to drive. But then, I started off in qualifying really slow. I had no balance in the car. We slowly got to a point where I was happier but it was basically just compromising one thing and then also losing a bit of performance in the other thing – so it was just not nice. And then I had my little moment in Turn 4 on the first run in Q3. At the end it showed that was the fastest lap, but… it just showed that it was a really difficult session to get any kind of grip in it because that corner is flat and suddenly, out-of-the-blue the car just snapped on me and I ran a bit wide. And then, I thought, you know, I can do that lap again, so I go out and I was within a tenth of the lap and in the last sector I lost all my lap time. An Aston Martin in front and then taking my tow on the line as well. Yeah, messy – but it is what it is.
Q: What about the long-run pace of the car. Do you think you’ll be more competitive tomorrow in the race?
MV: Yeah, it’s in the right… we’ll see tomorrow what we can do. It’s not so easy to follow here but if we have good pace then for sure we’ll put the pressure on.
VIDEO CONFERENCE
Q: (Scott Mitchell – The Race) Max, just to pick up on what you were saying there about not being enjoyable here. Is this something you expected pre-weekend, given obviously the difficulties here last year – or is this come as a surprise, to struggle to this degree?
MV: No. Basically I checked the MotoGP times and they were the same already. I know of course they have a little bit of a different front tyre but in general, yeah, just poor. I remember coming here last year, before grand prix and I was really… I mean honestly, top three of my favourite tracks, but then they change the tarmac and for me… yeah, I don’t enjoy it any more.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question for Valtteri. After what happened last week, today you seemed very calm, very Zen. What do you do during the week after that crash, the days after, to try to get in the right frame of mind again?
VB: I don’t know how you can read that – I don’t look Zen! I don’t know. I didn’t do anything too different to normal. Race analysis. Obviously we were testing still. Lewis was in the car on Tuesday after the race, I was on Wednesday. Got home Wednesday night and did my things and had a good weekend. And yeah, went to the factory preparing for this weekend in the simulator, etcetera. If you talk about mentally, I took all the learning points, and there were a lot of lessons from the last race, as always. Took those. The rest that I should forget, I completely moved aside and forgot those and moved on. Yeah, I know that always hard work will pay off and that’s what I’ve been telling my team as well. It’s only Saturday and I always knew it’s possible with a good quali and yeah, we’ll see tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the day that matters.
Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Lewis, you did that blistering lap in Q2. Can you talk through what it was that was different in Q3 that meant that you couldn’t do that? Was it the wind, was it tyre temperatures, was it a combination of all of those? Was it mistakes, was it just the low grip surface as Max said, and is there something about the new tyres this year that you’re all finding particularly awkward? Are they even more difficult to get on top of them than they were last year?
LH: I don’t think they’re any more difficult than the previous year’s tyres. I think last year here we were faced with the same issue of a very peaky grip and very narrow grip window and I think that’s really the case today. It felt quite good in P3 today and as I said, on that Q2 lap, it felt solid and I thought we were in the right window but it’s temperatures, there are gusts of wind so you can be unlucky and get tailwinds that perhaps you wouldn’t normally get on particular corners. So it’s a combination of things and then just generally just not particularly the tidiest – not great laps from myself really so I only had that one in Q2.
Q: (Luke Smith – Autosport) Valtteri, you spoke after Imola about your struggles with tyre warm-up with the car this year. Obviously that’s something very important this weekend with the track. Do you feel you’ve made a big breakthrough with tyre warm-up? Do you feel you’ve really got to the bottom of the issues now?
VB: I think it’s always the track-dependent, tyre compound-dependent, but it’s something that we really paid extra focus on since the last race and I think there were many good lessons that we could take from Imola and put those into use. It felt like the pole lap itself the tyres were working fine so that’s good, but what was a bit disappointing at the end with the medium, that we didn’t quite get those to work as we wanted. I think there would have been a bit more to come but yeah, I think we made progress with that and we will keep doing so.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Lewis, bit of a random one, but just looking back to the 2020 race here, you mentioned having to lift off several times because you were getting cramp towards the closing stages. Will you be doing anything different in terms of your preparation tomorrow with that in mind, or was it just a one-off?
LH: Er, yeah, no, I’m in a different place now physically so I should be good.
Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) You had the chance to ride a MotoGP bike in Valencia last year. Can you imagine riding a MotoGP bike around this track and if you could choose a Formula 1 track to ride a MotoGP bike on, what would you choose?
LH: I wouldn’t want to ride one round here, because there’s no grip. You’d take off over some of these humps, you know. Coming out of Turn 15 and onto the straight at 1… something you would probably take off. I don’t fancy that. In terms of what track I would like to have a go on…
MV: Monaco!
LH: No… where could be good?
MV: Austin?
LH: Austin maybe, yeah.
MV: It’s nice and heavy.
LH: It could be quite cool, a cool circuit to ride on.
Q: (Scott Mitchell – The Race) To the Mercedes drivers: just to pick up on what Max was saying about enjoying this track less. I know that when you guys went back to Turkey last year, the surface there sparked a bit of criticism because the track wasn’t as enjoyable to drive. Is it the same here for you? Do you feel that this experience here is lessened by the grip that’s available on the surface?
VB: I really like the layout. I think it’s cool and I always like the elevation changes. It brings a bit of character, all kinds of different types of corners, so that’s good but yeah, it is low, extremely low grip, it makes it more tricky and for sure a bit less enjoyable than if it would be a quicker tarmac, but it’s the tarmac and it’s the same for everyone. You have to try and make the most out of it.
LH: I don’t really understand what they do to make it worse but Turkey used to have good grip and obviously the last time we went there we had none and we’re finding we’re going to more and more circuits that seem to be changing the tarmac that they’re using. It’s not that great when we’re struggling for grip; it means it’s harder then to follow and so then it has that knock-on effect so we should ask for the good stuff back.
VB: Like in Imola…
MV: I don’t even want to think about Turkey because probably that will be…
LH: It’s going to be horrendous.
-
Hamilton charges through to 2nd after a mistake as Verstappen takes facile win
Max Verstappen took an excellent victory in a drama filled Emilia Romagna Grand Prix held at the iconic Imola circuit as Lewis Hamilton recovered to P2 after making a mistake and Lando Norris’s superb drive earned him 3rd position.
London, 19 April 2021: Max Verstappen took his 11th career victory as Lewis Hamilton charged through the field and recovered to P2 and got the fastest lap of the race with Lando Norris completing the podium at Imola. Home favorites Ferrari finished in P4 and P5, Charles Leclerc finishing ahead of Carlos Sainz. McLaren’s new recruit Daniel Ricciardo finished in P6, who admitted he could not match the pace of his younger teammate Norris. Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly finished P7, ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll as he received a 5-second post-race penalty for overtaking Gasly illegally. Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso completed the top 10, earning Alpine their first points of the season.
Red Bull’s other driver Sergio Perez had a dismal race as he finished P11, ahead of Japanese rookie Yuki Tsunoda. Kimi Raikkonen received a 30-second post-race penalty for start infringement which demoted him to P13, ahead of Alfa Romeo teammate Antonio Giovinazzi. Sebastian Vettel was classified in P15 but retired two laps from the end due to gearbox issue. Haas duo of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin finished in P16 and P17 respectively. Valtteri Bottas and George Russell were involved in big crash as they DNF’d, as did Nicholas Latifi on lap 1.
The heavens opened up 30 min before the race start as it poured down on the track. This meant it would be a wet start. 16 of the 20 drivers chose to start on intermediate tyres whereas, the Haas drivers, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly chose full wet tyres. Verstappen got an excellent start in 2nd gear and jumped Hamilton, who started from pole. Hamilton and Verstappen made slight contact and the Mercedes driver went over high kerbs in turn 2 damaging his front wing endplate. Behind Perez lost P3 to Leclerc as well. On lap 2 the safety car was called out as Latifi and Mazepin came together, taking Latifi out of the race.
At the race restart, Hamilton tried to pull a move around Verstappen but to no avail had to back out and settle in P2. Meanwhile Perez was handed a 10-second time penalty for overtaking under the safety car. Gasly being on the wet tyres was much slower and therefore held up a train of cars. Eventually Norris, Ricciardo, Sainz, Stroll and Bottas made their way through. Gasly got rid of the wet tyres for intermediates on lap 14, emerging 17th in the race.
Team orders were at play at McLaren as Norris was allowed to pass Ricciardo due to the Britain having much stronger pace.Sainz caught up to the struggling McLaren of Ricciardo after making multiple mistakes and going off track.
The track had started to dry up with Vettel being the first one to pit for dry tyres on lap 20. At the front, Red Bull called in Verstappen for dry tyres on lap 27, meanwhile, Hamilton stayed out hoping to overcut the leader. Hamilton had a fast in lap, but due to a slower pitstop than usual he emerged 5-seconds behind the leader. As he tried hunting down Verstappen, in getting past a lapped car, he went onto a wet part at turn 7, slid off track and into the barrier thus, damaging his front wing. He slowly reversed and recovered his car onto the track.
Behind a huge crash happened as Russell in an attempt to overtake Bottas went onto the wet grass and lost control of the car. He collected Bottas and both went into the barrier taking them out of the race. The race was red flagged. This was a blessing for Hamilton as he had pitted and emerged a lap down, with red flag he would be on the lead lap again, in P9.
A Pirelli Graphic The race resumed in the form of rolling start, as Verstappen half spun but maintained the lead before green flag was waived. Both Norris and Ricciardo had changed to soft tyres in a bid to overtake the Ferrari’s early on. That is exactly what happened as Norris got past Leclerc in P2. Meanwhile, Verstappen had started to check out in the lead. Behind, a fast-charging Hamilton was making up positions. By lap 43 he overtook Ricciardo for P5, by lap 50 he was past Sainz for P4, lap 55 he overtook Leclerc for P3 and on lap 60 Hamilton was able to get past Norris for P2, in the process setting the fastest lap of the race and recovering to where he was before his off-track mistake.
Verstappen finished 22 seconds in the lead as he had a near perfect race. It means he is now just one point behind championship leader Hamilton. This was another close race with the honours going to Red Bull this time.
Red Bull did not have the dominant pace like they showed in Bahrain as Mercedes were much closer. But a near perfect execution of the race enabled them to take victory. Perez had a disappointing race as he spun and dropped out of the points. Red Bull will be hoping to have the support of the second car next time around. Mercedes showed improvement compared to Bahrain with drivers having much more confidence in the W12. It is evident from Hamilton’s pole position on Saturday. Mercedes has also worked on the drivability of the engine which has helped in better torque distribution and a more stable rear end.
McLaren had the pace to challenge Mercedes and Red Bull in one lap pace as evident from Norris’s lap in Q3 (which was deleted due to track limits violation). Race pace wise they are still behind the top 2 but look like the class of the midfield, ahead of rivals Ferrari. Ferrari has considerably improved compared to 2020 with Leclerc qualifying and fighting for podium on merit rather than being a one-off chance. AlphaTauri again impressed in qualifying but failed to capitalise in the race due to wrong strategy. They have showed good pace but remains to be seen if they can consistently challenge McLaren and Ferrari over the whole season.
Aston Martin have struggled to adapt to the new regulations as they argue that the low rake cars were hit harder than the high rake cars. They have taken the subject matter over to the FIA. On pace terms they seem slower than AlphaTauri or Ferrari but have managed points through Stroll in both the races. Alpine too, seem to be struggling as they were on the fringes of points. Their car has been unable to challenge the upper midfield teams so far even though they introduced an extensive aerodynamic package at Imola. It remains to be seen if produces the expected performance.
Both Alfa Romeo and Williams had positive race weekend as they had pace to run in the top 10. Raikkonen finished in the points but the post-race time penalty meant he scored nil. For Williams it was a positive weekend in that both cars had the pace to finish in the points. The negative was that either of them failed to finish the race. Haas had another dismal weekend, but it is to be expected a both the rookie drivers are getting up to speed and their car is underdeveloped compared to the rest of the field.
Saturday Qualifying results were:
P1: Lewis Hamilton- 44 (Mercedes) P2: Sergio Perez- 11 (Red Bull) P3: Max Verstappen- 33 (Red Bull) P4: Charles Leclerc- 16 (Ferrari) P5: Pierre Gasly- 10 (AlphaTauri) P6: Daniel Ricciardo- 3 (McLaren) P7: Lando Norris- 4 (McLaren) P8: Valtteri Bottas- 77 (Mercedes) P9: Esteban Ocon- 31 (Alpine) P10: Lance Stroll- 18 (Aston Martin) P11: Carlos Sainz- 55 (Ferrari) P12: George Russell- 63 (Williams) P13: Sebastian Vettel- 5 (Aston Martin) P14: Nicholas Latifi- 6 (Williams) P15: Fernando Alonso- 14 (Alpine) P16: Kimi Raikkonen- 7 (Alfa Romeo) P17: Antonio Giovinazzi- 99 (Alfa Romeo) P18: Mick Schumacher- 47 (Haas) P19: Nikita Mazepin- 9 (Haas) P20: Yuki Tsunoda- 22 (AlphaTauri) Note – Tsunoda failed to set a qualifying time within the Q1 107% requirement, so races at stewards’ discretion. Penalised five places for an unscheduled gearbox change and required to start from the back of the grid for use of additional power unit elements.
-
Max Verstappen wins inciedent-packed race; Hamilton recovers
Imola, 18 April 2021: Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen navigated a treacherous wet start, safety cars and red flags to take his first victory of 2021 as Lewis Hamilton recovered from a mid-race spin to fight back to second place at the end of an incident-packed Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The Imola circuit was hit by heavy downpours in the hour leading up to the race start and on the laps to grid the track proved difficult as Alpine’s Fernando Alonso when he spun off and damaged his front wing. The Spaniard made it back to the pit lane for repairs and took the start but his troubles were a sign of just how difficult the conditions would prove to be in the early stages of he race.
However, despite the treacherous conditions Verstappen made an excellent start from P3 on the grid and passed team-mate Sergio Pérezx and and pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton in the first chicane to taske the lead. In a bruising overtaking move, Hamilton was forced wide and the champion recovered recovered Pérez also tried to get past. The Mexican was forced to back off, however, and losing pace he lost a place to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Moments later as the field swept up the hill from Tosa, Williams’ Nicholas Latifi slid off track at Piratella. He kept his car going but as he rejoined the track he collided with Haas’ Nikita Mazepin and was bounced into the wall. The safety car was swiftly deployed.
When racing resumed at the end of lap six Verstappen controlled the re-start well to keep Hamilton at bay, while Leclerc held fourth ahead of Pérez. However, under the safety car the Mexican had a spin and afterwards was deemed to have illegally overtaken cars to return to fourth place behind Leclerc. He would later be handed a 10-second time penalty by the stewards for the transgression.
At the front, Verstappen was regularly putting in fastest laps and by lap 16 he had built a five-second gap to Hamilton. Leclerc was now 15 seconds behind the lead Mercedes, with Pérez a further eight seconds back.
As the one-third distance point arrived, Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel judged the conditions to be good enough for slick tyres and he pitted for medium compound Pirellis. Soon the German was setting personal best times and Red Bull responded by pitting Verstappen for mediums at the end of lap 27.
Mercedes then pitted the world champion at the end of the following lap. The stop was slow at 4.0 seconds, however, and as he made his way to the pit exit Max powered past in the lead once again.
Checo made his pit stop at the end of the next tour. The Mexican not only served his 10s time penalty but also changed his steering wheel and he rejoined in fifth place, behind Leclerc and Norris.
After a brief period of incident-free racing, drama erupted when Hamilton lost control and went off track at Tosa as he tried to navigate his way past back markers. He slid across the gravel and came to a halt just before the barriers. However, as he tried to get going again he hit the wall and damaged the front wing. The Mercedes driver rejoined eventually but it looked like his race was run. However, within moments he was granted a reprieve soon when Williams’ George Russell and Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas were involved in a heavy accident.
Russell went to overtake the Finn but as Bottas defended, the Williams driver put a wheel on the grass on the right side. He slammed into the side of the Mercedes and both cars hit the barriers hard. The safety car was deployed but with debris strewn across the track at Tamburello the red flags were soon shown.
The race was suspended for some time as the track was cleared but at 1625 local time the cars flowed out of pit lane to prepare for a rolling start. The track was still tricky, however, and Verstappen was almost caught out by the conditions.
Trying to warm his tyres, the race leader lost control in the final Rivazza corner. He managed to regain control, however, and narrowly avoided a costly spin just as the safety car was about to leave the track. Within seconds racing resumed and Verstappen showed great composure to fend off a challenge from Leclerc to hold the lead.
Behind them, Lando Norris, who had moved to soft tyres during the suspension, managed to get past Leclerc to steal P2, with Pérez now in fourth place ahead of Sainz. Pérez then spun at the exit of Turn 4 and dropped back to P14. The Red Bull driver managed to claw back two places by the end of the race but it was a frustrating afternoon for the Mexican.
At the front, however, his team-mate was in total control. On Medium tyres Verstappen stretched away from Norris and then set about managing his run to the flag.
Hamilton, who took the rolling start in P9, put in a determined fight back in the final third of the race, but despite dragging himself back to P2 in the closing stages, he could make no impact on the yawning gap to Max and after 63 incident-packed laps, the Red Bull driver crossed the line 22 seconds ahead of the Briton to claim his first win of the year.
Norris’ gamble on soft tyres for the re-start paid off too. Although he was unable to jeep Hamilton at bay in the final laps, the McLaren driver nursed his fading tyres to the flag in third place to take his second career podium finish.
Behind him Leclerc finished fourth with Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz in fifth. Sixth place went to Daniel Ricciardo in the second McLaren, while Lance Stroll finished in seventh place for Aston Martin ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.
Hamilton’s determined comeback netted the Briton fastest lap in the closing stages and the extra point for that means that he leaves Imola with a single-point lead over Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship standings.
2021 FIA Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix – Race
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 63 2:02’34.598
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 63 2:02’56.598 22.000
3 Lando Norris McLaren/Mercedes 63 2:02’58.300 23.702
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 63 2:03’00.177 25.579
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 63 2:03’01.634 27.036
6 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren/Mercedes 63 2:03’25.818 51.220
7 Lance Stroll Aston Martin/Mercedes 63 2:03’26.507 51.909
8 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri/Honda 63 2:03’27.416 52.818
9 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 63 2:03’39.371 1’04.773
10 Esteban Ocon Alpine/Renault 63 2:03’40.302 1’05.704
11 Fernando Alonso Alpine/Renault 63 2:03’41.159 1’06.561
12 Sergio Pérez Red Bull/Honda 63 2:03’41.749 1’07.151
13 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri/Honda 63 2:03’47.782 1’13.184
14 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 62 1 Lap
15 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin/Mercedes 61 Not running
16 Mick Schumacher Haas/Ferrari 61 2 Laps
17 Nikita Mazepin Haas/Ferrari 61 2 Laps
Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 30 Collision
George Russell Williams/Mercedes 30 Collision
Nicholas Latifi Williams/Mercedes 0 Spun off -
Miami will join the F1 calendar for 2022 season
Formula 1 is delighted to announce that the Miami Grand Prix at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, FL will join the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship under a ten year deal. The exact date of the race on the 2022 calendar will be set out at a later time.
Imola, 18 April 2021: The circuit will be 5.41km, have 19 corners, 3 straights and potential for 3 DRS zones with an estimated top speed of 320km/h. Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins, will sit at the heart of the circuit. Formula 1 and the FIA will be liaising closely with the promoter, who is working to build a brand new track that will provide high speed straights, multiple overtaking opportunities and exciting racing while meeting the highest safety standards.
Miami will be the 11th location Formula 1 has raced in the United States since the Championship began in 1950. Since that time Formula 1 has raced at Riverside, Sebring, Watkins Glen, Long Beach, Las Vegas, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix, Indianapolis and Circuit of the Americas in Austin.
The race will provide an additional tourist boost and economic impact to local businesses in the greater Miami region. Formula 1 and the promoter will be working closely with the local community to ensure an allotment of discounted tickets for Miami Gardens residents, ensuring they have the opportunity to experience the thrill of the sport.
Additionally, there will be a programme to support local businesses and the community to ensure they get the full benefits of the race being in Miami Gardens, including a STEM education programme through F1 in Schools as well as the opportunity for local businesses to be part of the race weekend.
Stefano Domenicali, President & CEO of Formula 1, said:
“We are thrilled to announce that Formula 1 will be racing in Miami beginning in 2022. The US is a key growth market for us, and we are greatly encouraged by our growing reach in the US which will be further supported by this exciting second race. We will be working closely with the team from Hard Rock Stadium and the FIA to ensure the circuit delivers sensational racing but also leaves a positive and lasting contribution for the people in
the local community.”
“We are grateful to our fans, the Miami Gardens elected officials and the local tourism industry for their patience and support throughout this process. We are looking forward to bringing the greatest racing spectacle on the planet to Miami for the first time in our sport’s history.”
Tom Garfinkel, Managing Partner, Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix
“The Hard Rock stadium entertainment campus in Miami Gardens exists to host the biggest global events to benefit the entire greater Miami region and Formula 1 racing is as big as it gets. We have worked with specialist designers to create a racetrack that we, Formula 1 and the FIA believe will provide great racing and we hope to create best-in- class unique fan experiences that are reflective of the diverse and dynamic nature of Miami.”
“I want to thank Formula 1 and the Miami Gardens and Miami Dade County elected officials for working to bring this hugely impactful event here for years to come.”
-
I did not expect to be ahead of the two Red Bulls, says poleman Hamilton
DRIVERS
1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
2 – Sergio PÉREZ (Red Bull)
3 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull)
TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Davide Valsecchi)
Q: Well done Checo, wonderful performance. First row for you, second position. How was your quali because you surprised everyone by improving, improving and then at the end second position?
Sergio PÉREZ: Yeah, first of all, I have to say well done to team. Yesterday I made a mistake and I made them work hard during the day, so it’s a good recovery. The most important thing is that we are showing progress. I never expected to be here today, you know, [after] where we were yesterday. We’ve been improving. It’s just important. P2 today. I should have been on pole today. I did a mistake today on my final corner. I think it’s everything positive. We just have to make sure that we keep progressing and tomorrow is what matters.
Q: Tell me about tomorrow. Usually it’s your strongest part of the weekend, the race. What do you think about the race?
SP: Yeah, I think anything can happen tomorrow. We are on a different strategy to Lewis and Max. It’s going to be interesting to see what we can do and most important, get those points, get that learning, which is the priority at the moment.
Q: Ciao, Max. How was your quali? You struggled a bit in the last part of the quali. Third position, same strategy as Lewis Hamilton for tomorrow: how was your day?
Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah, not so good. In Q3 I went off at Turn 3, so a bit messy; just not a good lap. But you can’t be good every time. We’ll see what went wrong but it was definitely not the easiest in Q3, but still P3, which is a good starting position.
Q: Tell me please about tomorrow, because it seems the opposite of Bahrain, where you were alone against two Mercedes. Tomorrow you will be two Red Bulls against one Mercedes. How will be your race?
MV: Yeah, it’s going to be interesting. Of course we have the two cars on different tyres, so we will see how that will work out but we will try to make it difficult for them.
Q: Lewis, what a day. Your numbers, your quali was just amazing from outside. 99 pole positions, 30 different circuits; the record of all time. Congratulations, how was your day?
Lewis HAMILTON: Thank you. Today’s been great, obviously. I definitely didn’t expect us to be ahead of two Red Bulls. I think they have been so quick this weekend. There were times when they were six tenths ahead and we didn’t really know where we would be. But the car was already feeling a lot better from the beginning this weekend. So mad respect to the team for the hard work to really narrow down the window.
Q: Please, tell me about tomorrow, because it will be opposite to Bahrain. You are alone against the two Red Bulls behind, it will be not easy at all. What do you expect from tomorrow?
LH: Oh, I love it! I love the challenge. I think it’s great that we’ve finally got the two Red Bulls behind there. I think it’s going to definitely make strategy harder and it’s going to be a real challenge tomorrow because they’ve got great race pace. I think their pace was looking strongest for the race in the long runs yesterday. But I’m just so happy. The first lap was really, really nice, really clean. There were some improvements on the second lap but it wasn’t quite as good as the first one. I’m really grateful. I came round the last corner and heard that I got the pole and I was super grateful.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis, tremendous performance, well done. It’s so close between Mercedes and Red Bull this year, just how satisfying is this pole?
LH: Thank you. I’m just amazed at how close it is and how exciting that is. It really adds to the fire and the adrenalin rush. I didn’t know whether or not these guys had improved on that last lap for quite some time and so I was definitely nervous and that’s the excitement of closer racing. But really grateful to the team. We came here and the car was feeling better already from the first lap out and I think that’s probably track dependant but really good steps forward. Just one step forward all weekend and fantastic work from everyone.
Q: You say the car feels better, can you tell us a bit more about that? Where are the improvements over Bahrain a few weeks ago?
LH: Well, Bahrain the temperatures are a lot different and the track surface is a lot different. In Bahrain we always struggle with overheating and a lot of cross winds and we don’t seem to have that here and it’s a lot cooler and we are very rarely over with the temperature of the tyres. So that’s kind of brought us more in line with the Red Bulls and I think it’s really just focusing on balance. Refining the balance is a very narrow window of tyres operating at their best and also our car is probably more on a knife edge I would say than previous years.
Q: Can you just describe the thrill of a qualifying lap around Imola? So narrow, so fast…
LH: It’s incredibly fast here and the speeds that we are doing and the accuracy we need. I mean, you saw with Lando, a couple of inches to the right and you’re off track and over the track limits and you really need to use every inch of the road. And the speed that we’re travelling through those first couple of corners – it’s all medium and high-speed corners here, there are no real slow corners – it’s phenomenal. It’s a beautiful lap. And it’s obviously got the history. I remember watching Mika and Ayrton and Michael here, so it’s pretty phenomenal to come to a circuit like this and have a good day like today.
Q: Checo, coming to you, many congratulations, this is your first front row start in Formula 1. How good was not only your Q3 lap but your session as a whole?
SP: Yeah, thanks. It was a very good session from our side, because every time we are in the car we are making big steps. So it was a good session in that regard. Every time I drive this car I’m learning something new and that’s pretty good. If there’s a place that you don’t want to come in your second race with a new team, it’s probably Imola. It’s one of the most difficult circuits around to put a lap together. The limit is… as Lewis described, everything is so narrow, you are millimetres all the time from the grass, you know. To be here in my second race is a pretty good step from our side, which shows that we are definitely making good steps. But the most important is that we keep making those steps and that the we understand today why we went quick and that we can keep that level of consistency, just getting better.
Q: You mentioned a mistake on your final lap. Just how much time do you think it cost you?
SP: Enough to be on pole position.
Q: OK, that’s frustrating, but looking ahead to the race. How important is the start?
SP: It’s very important. Today has been a good day but what matters is tomorrow. I think we have a fantastic car for the race. We are on a different strategy to Lewis and I think as a team we are going to be pushing pretty hard and hopefully tomorrow a Red Bull wins.
Q: Max, after the frustrations of yesterday with the driveshaft failure, just how good was the car today, first of all?
MV: It felt alright in FP3 and yeah, just in qualifying a few… you change tyre from Soft to Medium, try to put your lap in and it was all coming along nicely, then in Q3 the final run… yeah. I just didn’t have a good lap. I mean, I went off in Turn 3 with two wheels. I know that Honda makes good lawnmowers but I don’t think this is suited for that. At least I tried. Yeah, I know, it was really just a scrappy lap and I haven’t had that in the long time, so we just need to understand why that happened. Nevertheless, I think we were very close to that’s positive and I think, like Checo said, we have two cars close to Lewis on different tyres, so hopefully that will give some excitement tomorrow.
Q: We can sense the frustration now but looking at the positives, what is the race pace of the Red Bull like around here?
MV: Yesterday it seemed alright. I didn’t do any long runs but we’ll have a look at it. I don’t think it will be a big issue but it’s hard to overtake here, so we’ll see what we can do.
Q: Final question from me. Do you feel Mercedes have closed the gap to Red Bull here, compared to Bahrain?
MV: It’s always difficult to say but at least from what I can see it all seems a bit more, let’s say, under control, a bit more predictable on onboards.
VIDEO CONFERENCE
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Question for Lewis. First all of, congrats on pole position. I was just wondering, could you please just talk us through your two runs in Q3. I think you were fractionally slower on your second run. So just what was different compared to the first one that got you pole?
LH: yep, thanks Alex. I think honestly, once we finished P3, for example, we had that gap to the Red Bulls, I couldn’t go sixth-tenths faster – but we just kept our heads down and worked on just tweaking the car a little bit into qualifying. Generally very, very smooth. Great strategy in terms of getting us out in nice clean air on all of our runs. And, of course, I managed to do my time on the Medium, and then I got to have a practice run on the Soft, and then I knew, going into qualifying and particularly that last lap, was going to take something special. It really had to be the most perfect lap that I could do – and a little bit more, in order to beat the Red Bulls. They really have been fast all weekend. So, I didn’t honestly know whether or not we could do it. Like that last lap, it started up… the first lap, for example, of Q3, started I think a tenth up out of Turns 1 and 2 and I knew that I was onto a good lap but the second sector lost a little bit in Turn 12. The second time around, unfortunately came out of Turn 2 and 3 a tenth and a half down, I think it was, or a tenth down, and by the time I got to Turn 9, I was a tenth and a half down but managed to regain that through the middle and the last sector. So, having those two together I think would have been the perfect, perfect lap – but I’m honestly so happy with that lap. The first lap really is obviously where it counted. So, grateful for it.
Q: (Scott Mitchell – The Race) Checo, you’ve said before, openly admitted that it’s going to take some time to get that one-lap performance and it looked like through most of the event so far that was the case here, you were quite a bit off Max. And then it just seems to have come to you through qualifying, especially with that big step in Q3. Can you explain where exactly that came from?
SP: Yeah, I think just understanding where to get the time. I have a pretty good reference in Max, it’s just getting 100 per cent all time out of the car, it’s just adapting myself to it, learning step-by-step. I wasn’t expecting myself to be here at the moment because I feel that I am miles away from where I should be. Things are not coming naturally yet. So it’s a good boost in confidence, not just for myself, also for the team, to make them feel that they have both drivers and that we can push the team forward together. That’s an important bit. Hopefully from here on, we just keep that progress and tomorrow, we do another step in race performance and… yeah, it’s the target just to keep step-by-step. I’m not in a hurry, I know that I’m not where I should be but certainly it’s positive to be up here just in my second race with the team.
Q: (Fred Ferret – L’Equipe) Max, appreciate that it’s a frustrating day for you today – but in which areas do you feel a different driver to the one who started in 2015? Where do you think you have changed and progressed the most?
MV: I guess just general experience – in car racing in general because I only did one year in F3. So just all of the understanding of a race car: racecraft, tyres, tyre management. A lot of things, to be honest! Which you keep learning every year, every single race. I think I had a good day again for that, to learn what went wrong and what can be done better. You just constantly keep improving, keep trying to understand things what go wrong and you try to become better. It has been like that from 2015.
Q: (Christian Menath – motorsportmagazin.com) Max, you have mentioned, it doesn’t happen very often that you make a mistake in qualifying. Do you already have an explanation, is it something different when you know you’re fighting for pole position, you’re in a different situation, different mindset or is it just that it sometimes happens?
MV: It has been going really well for a very long time so… unfortunately we are not robots. I can’t programme myself like that. But yeah, sometimes it happens that you make a mistake.
Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Lewis, there was an exchange between you and Bono on the radio where you were both sounding incredulous about the fact that you’d managed to get pole. I notice that Valtteri’s a long way behind you today. Was this one of those laps from you like Singapore 2018 and whichever one it was last year, I forgot I’m afraid, apologies for that, where you’ve really pulled it out? Or was there a different explanation?
LH: OK. Thanks for noticing, Andrew. I guess we’ve not really hyped it up too much but the fact is that as you saw obviously in the last race there was a good gap to the Red Bulls. I think we did feel that we could close it up a little bit coming into this weekend but that was a really clean qualifying session. I guess time and time again we’d just be tweaking and adjusting. In terms of my own performance I’m really grateful that I’m still making steps in the right direction and yeah, it was a real surprise. The team definitely did not… anyone in the team, expected to be on pole today but of course that’s what I was gunning for but it really was the tidiest lap that I could put together and a little bit more. Whether or not it was a Singapore lap or not, it was a different vibe, but it definitely feels good.
Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) Lewis, I suppose it’s just a follow-up on that really. Do laps like these show the others that you’re still at the top of your game, not perhaps that you need to prove that to yourself, but to others that you’re still the main man out there and Max, I suppose the question to you is do you think that you need to finish ahead of Lewis tomorrow in terms of the championship? You probably don’t want to let Lewis continue to build a lead.
LH: Hey, Phil. I think you already saw from the get-go we knew in Bahrain that it was going to be close and it is going to be close throughout this season and it’s going to take laps like that, it’s going to take us as a team performing as close to perfection as possible, not leaving any stone unturned and I know that’s kind of the idea going into most weekends but we can’t afford any slip-ups and I think so far we’ve really been firing on all cylinders and we still are hunting, believe it or not. I think today was really fortunate. I think as Sergio was saying, it wasn’t a perfect, perfect lap for him but I think for all of us we’re operating at such a high level, the differences are milliseconds between us all and we could all go back and look at our data and say we can go faster, but at the end of the day it’s what you do on that one moment that counts and so that’s what we really try and focus on.
Q: And Max, please?
MV: Yeah, it’s a very long season so it’s not only about tomorrow.
Q: (Luke Smith – Autosport) Max, we saw last year at Imola that Mercedes essentially split strategies with their two cars to try and get the jump on you. This year it’s a bit of a role reversal: we’ve got two Red Bulls at the front of the grid and only one Mercedes. How much of a strong position do you feel compared to last year, with Checo as your teammate now?
MV: Yeah, I mean of course we have to wait and see what is going to happen tomorrow but yeah, it’s going to be interesting what can be done, but not only with that but also what the weather is going to do, if there is a bit of rain or not so I guess we just have to wait and see what’s going to happen but hopefully, in the race, it will be close again.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Sergio, can you please explain the decision to use softs in Q2; why didn’t you use the mediums like Max to get the better starting strategy?
SP: We felt as a team that the soft is nowhere near where it was last year, so it’s a good race tyre. It’s just different to the medium when it’s important… it was very important and crucial for me to get that learning, that consistency and that progression. Last time I missed Q3 and really getting those laps, you know, as Lewis described, we can all look back and all do better but just getting in that mood with the car is very important for me, to be able to put it when it matters. I needed this clean qualifying. Whether or not it is the right or wrong strategy I think there’s not much between them so we are definitely in the game for tomorrow.
Q: (Christian Menath – motorsportmagazin.com) Lewis, the other way around, there was a question to Max earlier – usually it was always two against one with Mercedes because you were always up there with Valtteri but this time it’s the other way around so what does this change for you and how difficult does it make it that Valtteri is not there?
LH: Yeah, it’s much different, Christian, from obviously past experiences. Very rarely have I seen… I can’t remember the last time I saw the Red Bulls so close, so I think tomorrow, of course, they have these… if we’re able to get off in order then they obviously have a bit of a better set of cards in terms of strategy but that doesn’t mean we can’t pull out something unique and do something different. I’m not really sure what happened with Valtteri. It’s very hard to overtake here so obviously we probably won’t have the support of him early on but nevertheless maybe he will make it through but otherwise we’ve just got to focus on our job and try and do absolutely everything and more to keep these lads behind.
