INDIA in F1

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  • Photo gallery from Abhishek Aggarwal from Austin on Sunday: United States Grand Prix

    Photo gallery from Abhishek Aggarwal from Austin on Sunday: United States Grand Prix

    Austin: Reigning World Champion, Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport team, clinched his sixth Formula 1 World Championship at the Circuit of the Americas taking the second place on the podium in the US Grand Prix here on Sunday. Our Correspondent Abhishek Aggarwal sent a photo gallery of the proceedings on the race day.

    You can also read his previous articles from Thursday and other galleries here… Saturday & Friday.

  • My dad told me when I was like six.. to never give up; that’s kind of the family motto: Hamilton

    My dad told me when I was like six.. to never give up; that’s kind of the family motto: Hamilton

    Hamilton after he race on Sunday. Photos by Abhishek Aggarwal

    DRIVERS
    1 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes)
    2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
    3 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull Racing)

    TRACK INTERVIEWS
    (Conducted by Martin Brundle)

    Q: Valtteri Bottas, pole position to victory and you’ve just beaten on the greatest drivers of all time in Formula 1 history. You must be so satisfied with that victory?
    Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, it’s a nice win. Feels good. It just felt very good since yesterday, the car, and yeah, we had a strong pace so we were able to get the win. It was the only I could really focus on and do this weekend in terms of the championship, but obviously it was not enough and Lewis got the title…

    Q: You weren’t lucky with the traffic. Was there a point where you thought ‘I might not win this now’? You really had to come back at Lewis and his pace was amazing.
    VB: Yeah, I wasn’t quite sure which strategy was going to be ending up the better one, but luckily my pace was good so I could make even that two-stop happen, which was not planned initially. Yeah, we both had some traffic here and there.

    Q: Have you got a quick word about Lewis and for Lewis?
    VB: Yeah, obviously big congrats to him. I personally failed on my target this year, but there’s always next season. But he deserves it. He had some season.

    Q: OK, we’re going to talk to the six-time world champion. He had a great second place today as well. Lewis Hamilton, congratulations, six times a world champion. You’re one clear of the great Fangio and you’re one behind Michael Schumacher, bless him. How does that feel? What’s going through your head?
    Lewis HAMILTON: It’s just overwhelming if I’m really honest. It was such a tough race today. Yesterday was really a difficult day for us. Valtteri did a fantastic job, so huge congratulations to him. Today I really just wanted to recover and deliver the one-two for the team. I didn’t think the one-stop was going to be possible but I worked as hard as I could. I’m just filled with so much emotion. I have my whole team here, everyone back at the factory. I’ve got my mum and my dad, my stepmum and my stepdad here, my uncle George and my aunt from Trinidad, and all the family back home obviously. It’s just an honour to be up here with those greats.

    Q: Great start: you went around the Ferraris, so now you’ve put yourself into nice championship position. You could have put your feet up, but you just never give up do you?
    LH: My dad told me when I was like six or seven years old to never give up and that’s kind of the family motto, so no. I was pushing as hard as I could. I was hopeful that I might be able to win today but it didn’t have it in the tyres unfortunately.

    Q: How far can you go? How many championships? Just where can this end?
    LH: I don’t know about championships but as an athlete I feel fresh as can be right now, so I’m ready for these next races, we won’t let up, we’ll keep pushing. I’ve got to say a big, big thank you to all team LH around the world, everyone that has come out here this weekend to really make this event what it is, and also to all the Brits and people with the UK flags supporting me this weekend. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

    Q: Congratulations once again. Max, you kept the great Mercedes team very honest today, you pushed like crazy, but in the end the strategy didn’t quite work out for you?
    Max VERSTAPPEN: Well, it didn’t work out but I think we did the best we could. They were just a little bit faster today. I tried to stay close in case something happened. For us it was a very good race. It was fun, I could still see the cars ahead of me and I think we had quite decent pace today.

    Q: Yeah you did. Your pace was relentless. We thought you were going to have a chance to catch and pass Lewis right at the end. Was that in your mind too?
    MV: Yeah, but there was a yellow flag on the back straight, so I couldn’t use the DRS. Otherwise, I think we could have been second today, but nevertheless still good to be on the podium.

    Q: And a quick word about Lewis?
    MV: Yeah, of course very impressive. Yeah, what else to say? He’s just doing phenomenally. He has a great team behind him, and, yeah, I hope we can take the fight to them next year.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Valtteri, many congratulations, you nailed it this weekend, winning from pole position. Did you have any concerns during that race?
    VB: Thank you. Obviously, a really good weekend, some solid progress since last year on a track I struggled with a bit. So yeah, obviously, as an individual race weekend, really pleased. Crossing the line really made me happy, because it was not an easy race. Even though the start went as planned, it was strong, also the first stint. But for me, Plan A was to do one stop, but Max pitted quite early, moved to two stops, so I had to try to cover him and then I went for two stops as well. Lewis stayed long, he tried to do one stop and one stage I worried that it was going to be a better strategy for him. All I could was focus on my every single lap, corner, trying to perfect everything, you know, with the traffic, all that, trying to minimise the losses and maximise all the gains I could. Then it was all about seeing towards the end of the race where we are. And my pace was good today and at the end I could catch Lewis and have some good fighting with him on track, which I enjoyed, and it was a good feeling to get ahead and to win the race like that it feels good when it doesn’t come easy.

    Q: Well done Valtteri, second win in three races, very strong end to the season for you. Max, coming to you: without that yellow flag at the end for Magnussen might you have had a go for second place?
    MV: Yeah, absolutely. Because of that you have to lift off, otherwise I would have definitely gone by. But that’s how it is. Sometimes those things happen. Overall, we had a really good race. I was just struggling with some weird oversteer in the car. Initially, they said it was my front wing, which had a little bit of damage but after the race I looked at the car and I was missing a big piece of my floor in front of the rear tyre, so that definitely cost me a lot of lap time today. I don’t know when it happened but already quite quickly into the race I had this weird behaviour from the car, which I had not felt before. So that’s a bit unfortunate and otherwise I think we could have been stronger today. But still, to be on the podium here after a very positive weekend in general I think was a really good achievement for us.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Abhishek Aggarwal – Indiainf1.com) My question is for Max. As you finished third today and in the championship points you are closing the gap now, do you think with two races remaining you can pretty finish ahead of the Ferrari driver and finish the gap and close in at three?
    MV: I think the gap to third is quite big. It might be a little bit too big to close, but let’s see. Today was good for that. But of course my last few races we lost so many points, that was not ideal. I expect we will be competitive in the last two races so let’s see how it will all work out for us. It is of course always better to finish third than fourth or fifth, even though I think everybody wants to be first, but we will try everything we can.

    Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) Valtteri, I guess you knew coming into this that it would be unlikely that you would remain in title contention, so the fact that Lewis has wrapped it up here, does it take the sting out of that to win but also win in the manner that you did and beat Lewis on track in a straight fight?
    VB: This weekend, winning it was the only thing I could do to try and maintain the title hopes and delay them. Obviously I did my part, which feels good, but Lewis was strong this weekend, as he always is, so he got some solid points and got the championship. I’ve got mixed feelings, really. As an individual weekend it was strong but then, on the other hand, I felt this year being best of the rest it doesn’t feel good. But it always need a little bit of positives as well, you know. It’s my best season in Formula One so far, so that’s good, and looking at other positives, I’ve made huge gains in many areas, in terms of race pace and everything. But yeah, winning the race this way, Lewis still… I’m sure he really wanted to win this race, to win the title by winning the race, I could stop that and that feels good, obviously. But I just look forward to next year – it’s a new opportunity.

    Q: (Luis Vasconcelos – Formula Press) Valtteri, the first time you passed Lewis it was pretty straightforward, there was a huge pace differential. The second time you had two attempts: the first one you had to go wide and the second one you made it. Can you talk is through those last two attempts?
    VB: Yeah, I was closing in, there was also some traffic also ahead. Lewis had a bit of a mistake in Turn 11, so I could suddenly get this first opportunity. He covered the inside, so I had to take the outside line, although I was ahead, but he braked very late, so eventually I had to run off the track to avoid the collision, but it’s fine because if I was at his position I would have done the same, to defend as well as you can, so I’m fine with that. The other opportunity: again I think he went a bit wide on Turn 8 or 9, so I could get very close before the back straight and then it was much more straightforward. Again, I had good momentum out of exit of 11, got the tow and got him. So, then, after that, it felt like job done and tried to get car home without mistakes.

    Q: (Lawrence Edmonson – ESPN) A question for Valtteri. Congrats on the win but as you mention it’s slightly bittersweet. So when you look back at the year, where do you think it got away from and what do you think, ultimately, was the difference between you and Lewis this year?
    VB: Overall I think there were a few mistakes, for sure, from my side I should have been able to avoid. There were a couple on race starts, at least some of them were mistakes, some were maybe unlucky moments but they made me learn. Then a couple of qualifyings I messed up in Q3, definitely, which cost me starting position for the race and compromised the race and I lost points because of that. And then, otherwise, I don’t know, luck, unluck (sic) whatever has been pretty even for me and Lewis overall, so he’s just been on a great level again this year, every single race, and I’ve not been able to be at my very, very best every single race, but much more often than ever before, so the direction is clear for me in terms of my development, overall. It’s a good momentum now and in terms of race pace, which has been my weakness in the years before, I’ve made huge gains by working really hard with the engineers, you know, every single detail of my driving and set-up. That’s getting better and that gives me really confidence for next year and, unlike at the end of last year, now I really look forward to the year ahead, and I’m already excited to start the next season and start from fresh. So that’s going to be good fun.

    Q: (Stew Myrick – KTXX FM) Congratulations to you both on your respective finishes. There was talk on Friday about bumps on the track, on certain portions of the track. For both of you, how much of a concern was that today and how much did it change your strategy going into today’s race?
    VB: Only really the biggest effect in terms of driving was trying to avoid mistakes into Turn One with the bumps in the braking zone. Apart from that, there was a line in Turn Nine where there was a big bump that you could kind-of have a little bit less of an impact with that line, you would lose a little bit of time. So, always when I could, I tried to manage the car by taking that line, taking the time loss but making sure we didn’t damage the car – because obviously, example Sebastian, he had damage in his suspension, probably because of the bumps, so we tried to play safe when we could – but other than that it was not too bad. I think it brings a bit of character to the track. Obviously sometimes visibility is poor because of that but hopefully they don’t get any worse because that would be difficult to cope with.
    Max?
    MV: I don’t mind bumps but they’re almost like ramps in some places. But anyway, I think they will adjust it for next year. I think we have talked enough about it.

    Q: (Christian Menath – motorsport-magazin.com) Question for both of you. Ferrari was pretty strong since the summer break. Today they were nowhere. Have you been surprised by their performance and do you have an explanation for that?
    MV: Not surprised. At all. About it. After what came out. So that explains everything.
    VB: What came out?
    MV: The piece of paper.
    VB: I haven’t seen it.

    Max isn’t surprised. Are you surprised Valtteri?
    MV: Clearly!
    VB: Actually, I am. Because I haven’t seen that piece of paper. Look forward to seeing it. But yeah, it was crazy. Since the beginning of the race they were far away – but Red Bull was really strong today, as they’ve been now everywhere lately. So… yep.

    Q: (Peter Windsor – Clarksport) Congratulations Valtteri on a superb pole and win. Just going back to your driving again, there was a moment when you didn’t know if you would be racing for Mercedes after this year, and the contract was taken up, and it was announced that you were staying – and I’m wondering in the build up to that, how much uncertainty there might have been in your mind, and whether that might have affected your ability to work as you just described, and how long that period went on for – or was it a given in your mind that it was always going to happen?
    VB: There was definitely uncertainty for 2020 at some point. Lots of rumours. I had no idea what was going to happen. I just had to wait. So, for sure, as an athlete, as a driver, it’s not an ideal situation. You can’t be completely with peace of mind and focus on the job and, y’know, feel mentally free and in the right place. It’s tricky. When that continues, you know, year after year, every single year of your career, at some point it’s getting a pain in the ass – so it’s definitely nice to get the contract signed. But, it’s going to be the same story next year. But not too worried at this point because the pace is good, I enjoy the driving, I enjoy working with the team and hope they appreciate that as well.

    [Valtteri and Max leave, Lewis arrives]

    Q: (Abhishek Aggarwal – indiaInf1.com) Lewis, congratulations first of all. In two out of two races we’ve seen you went on with the one-stop strategy. Was that always the plan or are you kind-of improvising, the tyres are responding good and you are making it work ‘til the end?
    LH: Well, today, I think it originally looked like it was going to be a one-stopper but that changed once the temperatures came up today. You could see the guys ahead were starting to struggle on their tyres. Max then stopped quite early. So, I don’t think the team was expecting to do a two-stop, for sure, and on my side, I was thinking, ‘OK, I’m starting fifth, I’ve got to figure out how do I get to first.’ That’s all I’m thinking all day: how I could win this race. And so, I nursed those tyres like the best that I could possibly do. And I think that’s probably been a real strength of mine this year. I think I’ve always been able to do that kind of thing but to get the car in a position where you’re able to do that, and each year I’ve been getting better at it. And to eke as much as I could out of those tyres, I was so close to being just able to keep those guys behind – but I’m grateful to have been able to contribute to the team getting the 1-2.

    Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) How would you rate this title compared to the five before? Is it the easiest or the toughest?
    LH: No way has it been the easiest. It’s been the hardest year for us as a team. We lost Niki this year. A crucial member and a real pivotal member of our team and the emotional rollercoaster that we’ve been on with losing him, and a race where I didn’t have Bono here, outside of the car, just trying to remain focussed throughout the year. That is the toughest, and only really other athletes who are at the top of their game can really, probably related to it, probably because it’s just: arrive: week-in, week-out, can’t drop the ball – like I did yesterday, for example – and being about to bounce back from the tough… the lower days. And this car has not been easy, not been easy for us. It’s not been easy for us. We started the season honestly going off to Melbourne thinking that we were going to be behind. Mid-point of the season we were behind, and it’s been a real challenge, this second half of the season. It’s been the toughest second half of the season that I think we’ve had as a team, fighting against Ferrari and Red Bull, which is great, we welcome that. But, I don’t know, every journey is different. Every year you go through a different rollercoaster ride of emotions to get to where you’re going. I wrote something in my post this morning, that each and every single one of us is struggling with something in life. Whatever it may be: small, big. I tried to show people that, from the outside, things always look great but it’s not always the case. And I am also struggling with lots of different things and battling certain demons and trying to make sure that I’m constantly growing as a person. I think yesterday was something that was sent to test me, and I was able to do one of my favourite races today, I think. I was really happy with that one.

    Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) Congratulations Lewis. Because you’ve had this run of success now with Mercedes, I guess one of the things that sometimes critics question is how much of it as team and car – but if you look at Ferrari, they’ve had their strongest season to date and you and Mercedes have still pretty much wiped the floor with them. So how satisfying is it to have built this team around you. And a second question on Ferrari. Are you surprised at how much they faded from competitiveness this weekend specifically?
    LH: On the performance side, no I’m not surprised. You saw that advantage they had through the season, and even last year. They had a huge amount of power, but more so this year, out of nowhere, had a tonne of power and I really just think, at will, whenever they wanted they seemed to have more. This weekend, I don’t know how their speed traces with ours but it’s definitely not like it used to be. It was seven-tenths we were losing on the straights before. Winning world titles. There’s not a single driver in the past that’s won a title without having a great team around him. There’s not a single world tennis player that’s won a title without having a great team around him. It’s part of the game and it’s how you navigate, and how you utilise those tools that are around you and those people around you to shape the future of the journey that you guys are on. And I’m just a chink the chain with this team but I feel very, very privileged and feel very… I feel really happy with my contribution, y’know? That I’ve been able to help steer the team in the right direction with the development, with the way the car needs to get quicker. And, more often than not have delivered performances for them when we’ve had a car that’s quicker than the others and also when the car has not been as quick as the others. Particularly that last year, they were just too quick for us to beat but we out-willed them, we had to out-think them and we did that collectively as a team.

    Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Lewis, I know you’ve talked about qualifying this year and you not being happy with that, but overall you’ve kept up a very consistent level, probably the highest I think we’ve seen from you. Would you say this has actually been your best season overall, as a driver?
    LH: I think so. I definitely think so. I think last year was a year of just continuous growth and I think this year has also been continuous growth but I tried to make sure that I’ve started the season as I finished last year. And I think that’s just stayed through the season. If you looked, I’ve been very consistent in qualifying. I’ve not had particularly spectacular pole positions that perhaps I did last year – but it’s been, y’know, first, second row the majority of the time, except for this weekend. And apart from Hockenheim – but I’ll give myself a pass for that weekend because I wasn’t really 100 per cent. Otherwise I think it’s been the best performing year and I think I’m really just trying to… I’m working on a masterpiece and I haven’t quite finished it yet, so I’m trying to understand… it takes a long time to master a craft and whilst I feel like I am mastering it, there’s still more to master. There’s still more to add to it. There’s still more pieces to the puzzle to add. There’s going to be more ups and downs along the way but I feel like I’ve got the best tools now, to this point at least, to be able to deal with those.

    Q: (Peter Windsor – Clarksport) You’ve always said that you would take each race as it comes; you’re looking forward to the next race already and how motivated you are to win. But the championship is there now and I’m interested to know now whether – looking back at yesterday – maybe what happened yesterday wouldn’t have happened if the championship hadn’t been so close? That’s one question, and as a sort of corollary to that, when you woke up this morning, were you thinking ‘got to win today’; or were you thinking ‘got to get the championship done today’? Or both? Or neither?
    LH: I woke up this morning and I wasn’t really thinking of the championship. I think really I generally try to put that always at the back of my mind and during the season I’m generally not thinking about it, I’m taking it one race at a time. That’s worked for me in the past and so what ain’t broke don’t fix it. Each weekend there’s a different build-up to it, there’s a different journey towards… in that week or two gap that you have and you come across so many different people, different territories that you’re in and it’s a real roller coaster and each time you’ve got to arrive with positive energy, with the right fitness, the right mental attitude. So anyways, yesterday… it sucked, you know? I love qualifying and I was looking for one of those special laps and it was below average. I practised it, practised it and practised it and to think that we’re towards the end of the year and I’m still having those experiences… it’s OK because if it was all good and perfect there would be nothing to be excited about. I came here today in fifth, knowing that it’s going to be a very, very tough race. I watched all the starts from all the previous seasons that we’ve had here, trying to figure out where I’m going to place the car at the beginning of the race and all I could see was first place. How do I get to the guy that’s right on first. I wasn’t even looking at… when I was in third, I wasn’t even looking at the blue car that was ahead of me, I was looking at Valtteri and that’s how I’m built, I’m always looking and wondering… I was like, don’t give me the times of the car ahead of me, I want to know the times of the car ahead because that’s the one I’m trying to beat. So that’s how I’m wired and I was hopeful that potentially this… there was a long way to go on those hard tyres. So I tried not to doubt that we could make it. But Valtteri did a great job today so hats off to him and I’m really genuinely pleased for him and he’s done a fantastic job this year. He’s taken a real step in performance and I tell you what’s really hard: when you’re in the team, you help each other sharpen your tools so when I work with an engineer… I’m pretty sure Bono’s always been a great engineer but I like to think that through our collaboration, I think he’s now probably the greatest he’s ever been as an engineer and the same for me as a driver. And when you work with those people closely and then your number two goes over to the person in the other car and then starts to utilise what you’ve experienced for all those years to give advantage to the other driver, that makes it really hard, so this is why it’s probably been even more of a challenge, particularly from within the team to work with the first year new guy in Marcus, who’s done a fantastic job but it wasn’t so easy at the beginning. And then all my cards have been shown on the other side so creating new strategies, creating new thought processes, trying to really be innovative when it comes to my driving style, having to try and keep an ace in the pocket. Where the hell do you find that used time, so you’re constantly recreating the way you go about driving and try not to show everything, you know, and I think this year, as I said, I think he’s done a fantastic job but I’ve just managed to keep that edge which gave us this championship.

    Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Lewis, I was struck by something you just said to one of the previous answers, you were talking about dark or demons. You mentioned demons, battling demons. Would you care to elaborate any more on that at all? It just strikes me as a strange time to mention that, given the success that you’ve had this year.
    LH: Well, not particularly; to each and every one of us is personal, what we all challenge when you look in the mirror each day, when you feel good or you feel bad for whatever reason. There’s always the darker side that’s always trying to pull you down and you’re constantly having to wake up… I don’t know how you guys wake up in the morning but I look in the mirror and I’m trying to lift myself up and say ‘yes, you can do it. Yes, you are great. Yes you can be fit if you go and put that time in. Yes, you can win this race if you do the right steps and you continue to believe in yourself, and no one else is going to do it for you.’ So it’s just encouraging yourself always and I’m just trying to show a side that I didn’t understand that we’re all similar in many ways. I would say this year that losing Niki, I didn’t think that was going to hit me as hard as it did. It really was upsetting and I miss him dearly today and I didn’t realise how much I loved the guy, from the moment that he was calling me, when I was back home, asking me to come to the team, to when we sat together in the hotel in Singapore, the weekend my gearbox broke at McLaren, to him always taking his hat off so our negotiations to all sorts. Great conversations about his planes, that was a tough pivot point for us in the end and also we lost a young kid in Spa. Again, I saw it on the TV, I saw it happen. That again, when something like that happens, can put lots of doubts in your mind and batting that off and thinking OK, jeez, is it time to stop or shall I keep going, because there’s lots of life afterwards. I still want to spend time with my family, I still want to have a family one day, all these different things, but I’m so charged to do… and I love doing what I do so much that I don’t think there’s a lot that can particularly stop me in that sense.

    Q: (Rebecca Clancy – The Times) Lewis, six World titles, it doesn’t just put you among the greats of Formula One drivers, it arguably makes you one of the greatest British athletes ever. How do you get your head around that, is that something you are able to comprehend yet?
    LH: I don’t see no – and I don’t know why, I really don’t know why. How am I supposed to feel, you know? I was just saying out there in the scrum that I remember watching this sport when I was younger, waking up, come downstairs, my stepmum, Linda, who’s here today, she would make me a bacon sandwich and me and my dad would sit there together and watch the Grands Prix. It’s odd to watch it and see someone in the TV set and now to be the person that’s in the TV set, you know, and be doing something like the great that I saw in Ayrton and the great that I saw in Michael. It’s beyond surreal to think that this journey, my life journey has brought me to this point in winning a sixth title. But I don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel right now. I just feel… I don’t believe in the whole cloud nine thing, I’m flying super high right now and I’ve got my family with me which is just… I don’t remember the last time my stepdad and my stepmum, my dad and my mum were in the same… at a Grand Prix. I don’t think I’ve had them at a World Championship Grand Prix before so again, to experience that and share that with them, people who have ultimately been at the core of who I am and sacrificed everything they had for me to have the life that I have today, to have this opportunity to do this today, so I was really proud to see them all smiling and share it with them.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action, Speedsport) Lewis, you’ve talked a lot about what this all means to you. You’ve also not had a moment to yourself. Is there a time – tonight, tomorrow, next week – when you sit down and really reflect on everything?
    LH: Usually the reflection comes at the end of the year when work finishes and you can just take a load off and just sit back and have a beer. I will be with my dogs, with my feet up and just only then you can have a moment to grasp how great a year it has been. In my mind, I’m just too competitive, so I’m thinking OK, we’ve got two more races to go, how am I going to do a better job, how am I going to improve in qualifying. There’s two more qualifyings to try and get pole, how am I going to see if I can potentially pull out a lap like I did in Singapore last year. How am I going to work it that I can be at the front of both of those. I’m always just looking to improve and I really love being in this sport. I’m so grateful to this sport for giving me a life and giving my life purpose. Also, with social media, we have this platform where you can also have a work and have an impact on people so I’m grateful for the position I’m in and as I said, I really like the idea of trying to create a masterpiece. I think we all should be challenging ourselves to create our own masterpiece in some way, shape or form, and mine’s not finished.

    Q: (Phil Duncan – Press Association) You’re obviously now within one of Michael’s record. How motivated are you now to end your career as statistically the greatest driver that’s ever been in a Formula One car?
    LH: I think it’s really… it’s all about how you position your thought process. I’ve always said to you that reaching Michael’s was never a target for me. I’m not really one that really thinks of records and those kind of things. I definitely had thought that getting anywhere near Michael was just so far-fetched and I remember having my one for a long period of time, then getting a second one. It was so far away and now yet it seems so close yet it is so far away that I still can’t really even comprehend. The challenges that we’ll face in these next coming months, the next season. You look at these other teams that have really been putting some astonishing performances in in the second half of the season. It’s going to take another load of incredible performance and work from myself and all the people who are around me and I really don’t want to have to think about it right now. And also, I don’t want to build up the idea of trying to get to Michael’s… to get to seven because at the moment, I’ve got enjoy right now. Tomorrow’s not a given, I don’t know what’s going to happen over these next days or months but what I have to do and what we all really should try to make sure you enjoy each day because one day you’re here and one day you’re not. So not trying to think of what’s going to happen potentially at the end of next year or 2021. I believe that I have the ability to continue to grow and to do more with this team and within Formula One and so that would be the target but time will tell. Right now I just focus on trying to be as fit and healthy as I can be and smile as much as I can and enjoy this beautiful journey we call life.

    Ends

  • Lewis Hamilton clinches sixth World F1 Championship; Bottas wins race

    Lewis Hamilton clinches sixth World F1 Championship; Bottas wins race

    By Abhishek Aggarwal

    Valtteri Bottas wins the US GP on Sunday. Photos by Abhishek Aggarwal

    Austin, 3 Nov 2019: Defending World Champion Lewis Hamilton came second behind teammate Valtteri Bottas on Sunday. But it was enough as the Briton was crowned FIA Formula 1 World Champion for 2019, his sixth World Championship, just one short of the all-time record of Michael Schumacher, at the United States Grand Prix, the 19th round of the 21-event FIA World Championship here at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday.

    It was Bottas who won the race with a two-stopper, getting the ninth one-two for Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport team, who already clinched the Constructors’ World Championship. After a tense tactical battle, the top-three drivers fought till the last few laps and with his worn out tyres, Hamilton could not stop Bottas going past him, in a second attempt, and had to be content with the second place. As he just needed four points to clinch the sixth World title, the reigning world champ kept his cool and clinched the issue.

    The Circuit of the Americas, always offers a wide variety of strategies and the same was seen all the way down the field but Hamilton who dominated at the circuit, the last four years today, gave way to Bottas’ fifth win. But nevertheless, it was a creditable show having started from P5. Red Bull’s talented youngster Max Verstappen was locked in a tactical battle with Bottas for most of the race, and he was on a similar medium-hard-medium two-stop strategy but could not get past Hamilton at the finish and forced to finish third with yellow flags out towards the end. Bottas also sealed his second place in the championship.

    Hamilton would have loved to take the world title by winning the race as he expressed during a short chat after the win and also expressed `his love to return to India’, when this reporter spoke to him, but we well reserve that for another article.

    But it was team Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow, who were the big loser during the week-end as they ended up without a podium since Spain. However, the silver lining was provided by Charles Leclerc, who came fourth and also took the all-important point that clinched the team’s second place in the Constructors’ Championship. But all did not go according to Ferrari plan and the lead driver and multiple former world champion Sebastian Vettel retired on Lap 8 with a broken right rear suspension. Despite starting from P2, Vettel struggled during the race losing many places in the first two laps itself.

    The next stop, the penultimate in the 21-round calendar will be Brazil for the Formula 1 Heineken Grande Premio Do Brasil from November 15 to 17.

    FIA release adds: Hamilton started the race from fifth place, his lowest grid spot of the season, but after the start he quickly climbed into the top three as both Ferrari drivers had difficult starts. Sebastian Vettel was passed by Verstappen into Turn 1 and Leclerc was passed by Hamilton.

    Further back, Red Bull’s Alec Albon collided with Carlos Sainz and the Thai driver was forced to pit at the end of the lap. He took on medium tyres, rejoined in P20 and then began a fight back through the order.

    Vettel, meanwhile, was losing more ground. The Ferrari driver reported “crazy understeer” after the start and by the end of lap one he was down to P7 as both McLaren’s Lando Norris and Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo surged past.

    And by lap 8 the German’s race was run. As he ran over the kerbs in Turn 8, his rear right suspension collapsed. He managed to maintain control and pulled over at the side of the track and retired.

    By lap 12 Bottas had carved out a three-second gap to Verstappen, with Hamilton a further eight tenths of a second behind. Hamilton now began to close on the Red Bull driver and at the end of the following lap Verstappen elected to put for fresh tyres. He bolted on a set of hard tyres and rejoined in P4 ahead of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo.

    Mercedes responded to Verstappen’s stop by pitting leader Bottas at the end of the following lap and he rejoined in P3, just ahead of the Dutchman. Both quickly powered past the much slower Leclerc and resumed their battle in P2 and P3 respectively.

    Further back, Albon made a second stop, for medium tyres, on lap 20 and dropped back to P15. He once again started a march up the order and by half distance he was back into the points, in ninth place.

    Hamilton, though, stayed on track and nursed his starting his medium tyres until he was at last passed by Bottas on lap 24. The Briton dived for the pits and after switching to a set of hard tyres he rejoined in third place behind Max.

    Ahead, Bottas now led Verstappen by six seconds, with Hamilton a further 11 seconds back in P3. Leclerc was now a lonely fourth, some 25 seconds off Hamilton and 14 seconds clear of Ricciardo. The McLarens of Norris and Sainz were now sixth and seventh and respectively and after dismissing Pierre Gasly and Sainz, Albon found himself in P7. His next target was Norris and within two laps he’d caught his fellow rookie. He then made quick work of reclaiming his starting position of sixth with a good move past Norris into Turn 1.

    With his tyres fading, Verstappen was now beginning to drop back from leader Bottas. He dived into pit lane on lap 35 to take on a new set of medium tyres. Mercedes again covered the move by pitting Bottas at the end of the next tour and as Hamilton once again assumed the race lead as Bottas emerged in P2.

    Bottas then began to close on Hamilton and by lap 50 the Finn found himself within DRS range of his team-mate and began to attack. His first effort was rebuffed, but with five laps remaining there was nothing Hamilton could do as Bottas made the most of DRS on the back straight to power past on the inside and reclaim the lead.

    As Hamilton’s pace dropped on fading tyres, Verstappen smelled blood. With two laps left the Dutchman got to within DRS range of the championship leader, but though he pushed to find a weakness, no opportunity presented itself and as Bottas crossed the line to take his fourth win of the year, and Hamilton took second to wrap up his sixth Formula 1 World Drivers’ title, the Red Bull driver was forced to settle for third place.

    Behind the top three, Charles Leclerc finished a distant fourth, some 52 seconds behind the race winner. Albon finished fifth after once again dropping back following a third pit stop for soft tyres late in the race. Sixth place went to Ricciardo with Norris seventh ahead of team-mate Sainz. Nico Hulkenberg took an extra two points for Renault with ninth place and the final point on offer went to Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez.

    2019 FIA Formula One United States Grand Prix – Race
    1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 56 1:33’55.653
    2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 56 1:33’59.801 4.148
    3 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 56 1:34’00.655 5.002
    4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 56 1:34’47.892 52.239
    5 Alexander Albon Red Bull/Honda 56 1:35’13.691 1’18.038
    6 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 56 1:35’26.019 1’30.366
    7 Lando Norris McLaren/Renault 56 1:35’26.417 1’30.764
    8 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren/Renault 55 1:34’04.201 1 Lap
    9 Nico Hülkenberg Renault 55 1:34’08.115 1 Lap
    10 Sergio Pérez Racing Point/Mercedes 55 1:34’14.355 1 Lap
    11 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 55 1:34’15.280 1 Lap
    12 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso/Honda 55 1:34’17.420 1 Lap
    13 Lance Stroll Racing Point/Mercedes 55 1:34’37.575 1 Lap
    14 A.Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 55 1:34’49.443 1 Lap
    15 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 55 1:35’06.885 1 Lap
    16 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 54 1:33’11.079
    17 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 54 1:34’18.137 2 Laps
    18 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 52 1:29’53.921 Brakes
    Robert Kubica Williams/Mercedes 31 54’56.089
    Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 7 12’03.130

     

     

  • Drivers talk about bumpy track and tyre management

    Drivers talk about bumpy track and tyre management

    Saturday’s press conference in progress. Photo By Abhishek Aggarwal in Austin

    Austin, 2 Nov 2019: The following top-3 drivers attended the FIA press conference after the qualifying session on Saturday: Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes),  Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing).

    The Track Interviews were conducted by Paul Di Resta.
    Transcript:
    Q: Valtteri, congratulations, man. That’s got the team worked up, to get a pole position today. It looked a bit unexpected yesterday but you’re starting on the front row.
    Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, really happy about that. It was a nice lap in the beginning of Q3. You rarely get those kind of laps and on a track like this it’s a good feeling. Yesterday was tricky, there were many things not quite right with my car but we managed to find all the reasons and we did good work this morning with finding all the details and I could just find the places I needed to really focus on and, yeah, I knew how to put it together, but to put it together, it was a nice feeling to actually do it in Q3.

    Q: you nailed the first lap in Q3, conditions looked like they got worse. Was it very tricky at the end?
    VB: The last run there was a bit less grip overall. Sector 1 I was already losing one or two tenths. I’m glad no-one could improve at the end and I couldn’t either, so happy days.

    Q: I’m going to take a bit of credit for buying you that coffee this morning. You owe me one, but congratulations, well done. Sebastian, lining up on the front row, it’s a long run up that hill. How are you feeling?
    Sebastian VETTEL: I think it looks a shorter distance on the inside, no? I guess that’s what I have to say, being second. No, congrats to Valtteri, obviously it was very exciting because we were all so close. I thought I had a little bit more. I left some in the high speed for the last run, but in my final run when I got there I was already a little bit down. I had two decent laps. There was always… one hundredths, you know, there is always somewhere. But overall, happy, let’s see for tomorrow. Hoping for a good start and then for a good race.

    Q: I guess the main thing for you guys and the advantage comes down to the first lap and you’ll try to use that extra speed you’ve got on the straight?
    SV: Yeah, it’s not that long and part of it is uphill, but we will see. I hope to have a good start off the line, which will be crucial, and then we will see where it takes. Obviously all of us are on the medium tyre, so nobody has an advantage there and then, yeah, it’s a long race. We will have a busy race tomorrow. The first lap for sure is important but there is a lot of racing after that.

    Q: Max, P3, I know you’re not going to be happy with that but further up and it puts you in the fight.
    Max VERSTAPPEN: Absolutely. I think for us on this track to be that competitive was a very good result. Qualifying was just very tight.

    Q: And I guess the race… you looked very strong yesterday. Are you going to be in this fight all the way and pushing?
    MV: Let’s see. Normally we are quite good in the race and also now this time, even compared to last year, we were much more competitive in qualifying. Of course that gives us a lot more hope for tomorrow, so let’s see what’s going to happen.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Many congratulations Valtteri. Fifth in Q1, sixth in Q2 and then that brilliant pole lap in Q3.
    VB: Thank you. Yeah, it definitely felt good putting that lap together in the beginning of Q3. After yesterday it was not an easy day to approach as I had a difficult day yesterday. Luckily, we found many things ion the car that were no quite right and also the set-up direction we changed completely and it felt a lot better this morning. Then I was just focusing on the things that matter and the places I needed to improve. So I had a very clear vision in my mind of how to do it but it was then down to actually doing it and it felt good to have that lap in Q3. Even though Q1 and Q2 were a bit off I knew it was somewhere there and I managed to find it.

    Q: Now, let’s look ahead to tomorrow. You have to win this race to keep the championship alive. Are you happy with you car’s long-run pace?
    VB: I think as we have seen recently, normally on Sundays we are competitive. So, it’s obviously very good starting from pole here. Some corners are quite to follow for the cars behind. I believe we have the pace for that and that’s going to be the only thing in my mind for tomorrow. Now, you know, only a very, very small part of the weekend is done. The big part that matters is tomorrow and I need to focus on that.

    Q: Many congratulations Valtteri. Forty-three per cent of the races here have been won from pole. Sebastian, your 100th career front-row start. How satisfying is that?
    SV: Gosh, I’m getting old. Obviously it was a very nice session, it was really fun to drive the car thus afternoon, but if you are so close to pole and just on the wrong side of it then I guess Valtteri had a bit more fun. It was OK. I don’t know, what was the gap? It was very small, like one or two hundredths. So that is always there. I had a very good first lap and I had some margin maybe in the last sector where I was maybe taking it a little but too conservative, making sure that I finished the lap, set the lap first and then improve on the second lap. Unfortunately, I didn’t improve, so my plan didn’t quite work. Overall, it was good. I think we will have a strong race tomorrow. The car felt a lot better today than yesterday, which is also what we needed, so let’s see what happens tomorrow.

    Q: What are the tactics on your way to Turn 1 tomorrow. Do you think the man next to you might be a little bit tentative because of the championship? Are you hoping that’s the case anyway?
    SV: I don’t know, I’ll just pass him and then we’ll see what happens! If he’s thinking about it then I have a good chance. We’ll see. Obviously it’s a long race. The first lap is important but we have a lot of laps after that. But if I can pass him, I pass him.

    Q: Max, you were the only one in the top three to improve on your final lap in Q3. You actually said over the radio that you might have gone a little bit too early on that final lap. Do you think it cost you any time?
    MV: No, I just questioned if we were going a bit early but they just said we were ahead of the train compared to the Ferrari and Mercedes cars, so that was it.

    Q: And just tell us about that second lap. It is so close between the three of you. Have you been able to pinpoint where the time is, where you might have been able to get pole position?
    MV: Well, I think in general Q3 was a bit more of a difficult session than Q2, for example, where I found the grip was maybe not the same – but of course that’s the same for everyone. It was just a bit harder to get your lap out and yeah, in general it was just very positive for us in qualifying to be that close. Compared to last year we made a really big step forward and, anyway, now the last two races, I think, we have been a lot more competitive. So that is very positive. I think we are definitely improving and learning, and also looking ahead for next year, I think we are definitely going in the right direction. And yeah, in general very pleased. I think the whole weekend, we had quite a smooth weekend. I didn’t really have a lot of trouble with the set-up or whatever. So, to be here in the top three, of course I would have liked to sit in the middle bit still, I think it’s been very positive.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Christian Menath – motorsport-magazin.com) Question for you Max, could you please talk us through the situation, I think in Q2, Q3 with Lewis? It was a pretty close one.
    MV: Yep. So, we were all lining up to do our lap, or to get to the last corner, and I think it was Seb, the first Ferrari, then Charles and then I had Dany in front of me and we were all just slowing down to make space, and Lewis just drove by like nobody was there and didn’t care. So I was like: well, if you don’t care, I don’t’ care. So, I want to get my position back. I mean, everybody’s just respecting each other at that point, just to start the lap. That’s why it was such a close call.

    Q: (Abhishek Aggarwal – Indiainf1.com) Question to all the drivers. So, in the first three practice sessions we heard from all the drivers the track was a bit bumpy. We see lock-ups and cars being spun. So, in the race tomorrow how important is the tyre management, and have you thought about any other strategy to preserve tyres? What are your thoughts about that?
    VB: I think with the bumps here, just the main place where it can really affect your race, if you have big lock-ups into Turn One under braking. Those are quite big bumps – but normally, even though, if you lock the wheels, you can recover. So, I don’t think it’s going to make like a massive difference. Every track, there’s tricky points, tricky places that you can really damage the tyres and, obviously, coming into the weekend and in the weekend we’ve done all the analysis already for the long runs in terms of, in theory, where are the best places to preserve the tyres, and where to be slightly cautious at times, when you can, and so on. So business as usual, I would say.

    Q: Sebastian, how much worse are the bumps this year, compared to last year?
    SV: A lot worse! I think the ground is the problem here, it moves, for some reasons. I don’t know what they installed under the track when they were laying the track but yeah, I think they are aware. I mean, they tried everything. They brought some people out last night to grind parts of the track again to try and make it better for us – but now there’s not so much you can do. We’ll see, as Valtteri said, it’s not going to change the world upside down tomorrow in the race. I think it’s more an issue for quali where you’re really pushing to the ultimate limit and, you go also significantly faster. So, I guess tomorrow should be fine – but for sure it will be a bumpy race. I hope all three of us do well tomorrow but I think the last thing we need is somebody tapping our shoulders after all the tapping we get through the corners around the track. So, yeah, we’ll see what happens.

    And Max, your thoughts.
    MV: Yeah, not much more to add, is there? I can say the same, but…

    Q: (Lennart Wermke – Bild) Seb, question for you. Frankfurt beat Bayern Munich 5-1 today in the Bundesliga, I feel that’s quite an emotional result for you, what’s your opinion on that game and do you feel for Niko Kovač who’s very much under pressure as a Bayern Munich coach?
    SV: We are playing football or we are racing here? Is it that boring to watch? You have no question about what we actually do? I think there’s rain forecast in China tomorrow. Do you want me to comment on that?
    VB: I heard it’s snowing in Finland…
    SV: I’m a big Frankfurt fan but, to be honest, I didn’t know. I found out just before qualifying, so obviously by then the game was done. I think it’s a good result for my team and Niko Kovač has been part of Frankfurt for a while, so of course I feel for him – but I hope he finds back the success very soon.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Question to Seb and to Max. The run to the first corner is pretty short, but it’s uphill. Does that improve the chances to overtake compared to the same distance but flat?
    SV: Well, they say we have more power so probably it helps if it’s uphill, because you need more power but, yeah, it’s not an awful long way. We will all try to have a good start and then you go from there. That’s the main target. I think the uphill bit doesn’t change so much. It’s trickier here for braking, so I think we need to be watching out but other than that…
    Q: Max, you’ll be on the cleaner side of the grid…
    MV: yeah, I think it’s more than that the track is very wide, so you can of course do a lot of different lines, compared to some other tracks where it’s just very narrow. I think the uphill bit… it’s that short and, of course, power matters a bit, like Seb said, but not enough, I guess, to make a big difference.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / Speed Sport) For all three. The bumps were bad but were you ever even vaguely tempted with your engineers to do a softer suspension setting?
    MV: I think you always pay attention to it but luckily in most places… it’s only really Turn One where it can influence you but, of course, if you will go a lot softer then it influences the rest of the track, so sometimes you just have to live with maybe a little bit more difficulty into Turn One.
    VB: No, we didn’t really want to do that much compromise because of the bumps. The losses then, elsewhere could be quite big, so we just need to try and deal with the bumps, and we thought that’s the best way for this track, this year.
    SV: No compromise, no sacrifice! Put a cushion in my seat, that’s the only thing to soften it.

    Q: (Erik van Haren – De Telegraaf ) Max, are you surprised about the performance of your car, because you sound way more positive than a few weeks ago?
    MV: Yeah, I think of course Mexico was very good but we also expected it to be competitive. But of course the races we had before that were not like we wanted so I was a still a bit ‘ok, let’s see if we found the performance back?’ and clearly this weekend was very positive overall so I think we can be very happy about it. Like I said before, it’s a good effort from the team as well to not give up and just keep pushing and try to find the performance back like we also had actually before the break. That’s why I guess I sound a bit more positive.

    Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) For Seb and Max: the two of you usually like to roll out quite cool, special crash helmet designs. We’ve had a few US specials here. Last weekend in Mexico Lewis asked his fans on Instagram… to quote him he asked if he thought that the rule to only have one major design change each year was BS. I just wondered what you thought about the restriction on helmet designs and if that rule was relaxed, would you do more throughout the year?
    SV: Well, I change it anyway so… I think it’s our helmet and we should be free to do what we want, so I think the rule is major BS. Yeah, I think it’s a part of… we have very little room left to sort of express ourselves and the helmet is probably the only one and if people like it, that’s great, if they don’t like it well it’s not their helmet so I think we should be in charge for designing which way and which colour our helmet has.
    MV: Yup, I agree. I always loved when Seb was at Red Bull and changing his helmet every race, almost, more or less. It was cool  because you were just like ‘what is he coming up with now?’ I do a few but I’m not going to say I will do a different helmet every race because it’s just too much effort in designing the helmet but I think if you want to make it blue or red, the next race, why not? It’s your crash helmet and you should be able to do what you want and of course in the past, there have been drivers who have always had the same helmet and then they say ‘yeah, but that’s how we can distinguish the drivers’ but at the end of the day we have massive numbers on the side, we anyway have a halo on the top so let us do what we want with the helmet now. I think anyway it’s very nice to have a different design every year because it’s a bit boring always to keep the same helmet.
    Q: Valtteri, do you think it’s a bit boring to keep the same helmet?
    VB: I don’t know. Sometimes it’s nice to keep the same helmet but for sure sometimes it would be nice to do something special, every now and then and obviously everyone might have a special occasion, you know, whatever, or a special connection to some certain country where you want to do something special or pay a respect to someone you know or whatever. It would be nice to see a bit more freedom because like both of them have said, it’s our personal thing. We should be in control of that rather than anyone else.

    Q (Lawrence Edmonson – ESPN) Valtteri, yesterday it looked like you were losing a half a second to Lewis in the middle sector alone so was there an actual problem in the car or was it a set-up thing and did you get to the bottom of it – well you obviously did get to the bottom of it but what was it?
    VB: We actually found quite a few things not quite right. A little bit with the set-up, I think. I think I started to go in the wrong direction, some things on tyre pressures, temperatures and we found some reasons for quite a big straightline speed difference which made an effect on sector two so those combined, when I started today in practice three, I was like ‘wow, this is a different car, it feels normal’ and I was happy again. I knew, since the first run this morning that it can be a good day if we can get everything right.

    Q: (Jim Vertuno – Associated Press) Valtteri, how do you think Lewis, as your team-mate, how do you think Lewis will react or respond to starting fifth? Do you think he will be aggressive tomorrow on a track where he’s had so much success or do you think he will be patient and lay back with the championship on the line for him?
    VB: I think it would obviously be better to ask him directly. I don’t know what his mindset is right now but from what I know of him, he’s going to be there, fighting hard. For sure he also hates losing, he always wants to win like all of us and obviously he’s leading the championship with a big margin, he doesn’t need many points and I’m sure he would like to win the championship in a nice way eventually when and if it happens. But obviously I will try to delay that, I try to focus on my own race, try to focus on winning the race rather than anyone else’s opinions or mindsets.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Moto und Sport) Seb, you said the car was much improved compared to yesterday. Was it also on the longer runs, could you find out in P3?
    SV: Yeah, obviously we didn’t do long runs in FP3 but I think overall the car felt better than this morning so… we changed quite a couple of things which I think helped and they will also help in the race. How the pace will be, obviously we will find out tomorrow but at this stage I’m quite confident. I think we also struggled in particular on the hard tyres so I think we just didn’t get them to work and that should not be an issue tomorrow.

  • Bottas edges past Vettel for Austin pole; Hamilton to start on P5

    Bottas edges past Vettel for Austin pole; Hamilton to start on P5

    By Abhishek Aggarwal

    Valtteri Bottas in action on Saturday. Photos by Abhishek Aggarwal

    Austin, 2 Nov 2019: The pole position in Austin was decided by Twelve thousandths of a second. That was the infinitesimal gap that separated Sebastian Vettel from Valtteri Bottas’ pole times in qualifying session for the United States Grand Prix, the 19th round of the 21-event FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

    Thus it was even stevens, with the Silver Arrows stopping the dominance of the Ferraris in the qualifying sessions. Now both Mercedes and Ferrari have 9 pole each this year, with Max Verstappen being the fastest in Hungary. The German will thus start from second on the grid, when the race gets underway on Sunday night at 11.30 IST (13.10 local -20.10 CET).

    So it is Bottas, Vettel, Verstappen and right behind him will be Charles Leclerc, who had to settle for fourth place, these top four drivers were within 108 thousandths. Then comes the champion, Lewis Hamilton who will start on P5.

    Valtteri Bottas put himself in the best position to keep his slim Formula 1 title chances alive by claiming his fifth pole position of the season. But it would be easy for Hamilton, who just needs to finish sixth, even if Bottas wins the race, so as to defend his title.

    After finishing fifth and sixth in the opening two segments of qualifying in Austin, Bottas upped the pace in the first runs of Q3 to set an unbeatable time of 1:32.029. Vettel got closest, posting a first-run time of 1:32.041 but with only Max Verstappen improving slightly on his final run to keep third place, Bottas took his 11th career pole, just 0.012s ahead of Vettel.

    Another equation where Bottas can keep his title hopes alive is a must-win situation and if he adds fastest lap, he can hope that Hamilton finishes outside the top eight…

    Hamilton was able to give himself every chance of taking the four points that would bring with fifth place in qualifying thanks to a time of 1:32.321.

    Hamilton set the pace in the opening phase of Q1, with the Mercedes driver setting a best time of 1:33.454 that left him a little under a tenth of a second ahead of Max Verstappen who held P2. Bottas was in third place at the end of the first sequence of runs, with Vettel fourth ahead of McLaren’s Carlos Sainz and the second Red Bull of Alex Albon.

    The top six elected to skip final runs in the segment and their absence allowed Lando Norris to vault up the timesheet, with the McLaren rookie claiming top spot thanks to a lap of 1:33.353. That put him a tenth of a second ahead of Hamilton with Verstappen third.

    Along with Norris a host of other drivers improved on their final runs, with Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly jumping to fourth place ahead of Bottas and Vettel, and with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen jumping to seventh place ahead of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren’s Carlos Sainz and Racing Point’s Lance Stroll.

    The improvements meant that Albon slid down the order, but in the end the the Red Bull driver’s lap of 1:33.984 was good enough for P11, just ahead of the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg, Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat and Haas’ Romain Grosjean.

    The talking point here on Saturday is the bumpy track and when asked how it may affect tyre management, Bottas said:  “I think with the bumps here, just the main place where it can really affect your race, if you have big lock-ups into Turn One under braking. Those are quite big bumps – but normally, even though, if you lock the wheels, you can recover. So, I don’t think it’s going to make like a massive difference. Every track, there’s tricky points, tricky places that you can really damage the tyres and, obviously, coming into the weekend and in the weekend we’ve done all the analysis already for the long runs in terms of, in theory, where are the best places to preserve the tyres, and where to be slightly cautious at times, when you can, and so on. So business as usual, I would say.”

    Eliminated at the end of Q1 were Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Räikkönen in 16thand 17threspectively, followed by Williams’ George Russell, Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez and the second Williams of Robert Kubica, adds a release.

    In Q2, it was Albion who set the pace in the first runs. While team-mate Verstappen and the Ferrari and Mercedes drivers went out on medium tyres, the Thai racer opted for soft compound Pirellis and he took P1with a time of 1:32.898 ahead of Hamilton, Verstappen, Bottas, Leclerc and Vettel.

    Albon then sat out the final runs as the medium tyre runners from the first laps went out again on softs as a precautionary measure. As expected, though, Verstappen, Hamilton and Bottas aborted their laps in order to ensure a race start on medium tyres. The Ferrari drivers, though, bolted on a second set of medium tyres and went quicker, with Leclerc topping the segment with a lap of 1:32.760.

    Vettel took second ahead of Alex and Hamilton, with Max progressing in fifth place ahead of Bottas and Norris. Sainz went through in eighth ahead of Ricciardo and Gasly.

    Eliminated at the end of the second segment were 11th-placed Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg, followed by Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat, Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and the second Haas of Romain Grosjean.

    It was Bottas who set the early pace in the final top-10 shoot-out. The Finn put in a lap of 1:32.029 to head Vettel by just 0.012s. Verstappen took third place with a time of 1:32.191, with Leclerc and Hamilton fourth and fifth.

    And that was how the order remained. Desperate to find an improvement, Bottas’ rivals pushed too hard and only Verstappen made a dent on his opening time – though his 1:32.096 was not enough to make up a place.

    Bottas therefore took the 11thpole position of his career, a hundredth of a second ahead of Vettel and just under seven hundredths clear of Verstappen. Leclerc will start from the back of row two, with Hamilton ahead of Alex on row three. Row four will feature the McLarens of Sainz and Norris and the last two top-10 places will be filled by Ricciardo and Gasly.

    2019 FIA Formula One United States Grand Prix – Qualifying
    1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:32.029 7 215.658
    2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:32.041 0.012 7 215.629
    3 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1:32.096 0.067 7 215.501
    4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:32.137 0.108 6 215.405
    5 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:32.321 0.292 5 214.976
    6 Alexander Albon Red Bull/Honda 1:32.548 0.519 6 214.448
    7 Carlos Sainz McLaren/Renault 1:32.847 0.818 6 213.758
    8 Lando Norris McLaren/Renault 1:33.175 1.146 6 213.005
    9 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 1:33.488 1.459 3 212.292
    10 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 1:33.601 1.572 6 212.036
    11 Nico Hülkenberg Renault 1:33.815 1.055 6 211.552
    12 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1:33.979 1.219 6 211.183
    13 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso/Honda 1:33.989 1.229 6 211.160
    14 Lance Stroll Racing Point/Mercedes 1:34.100 1.340 6 210.911
    15 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1:34.158 1.398 6 210.781
    16 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:34.226 0.873 8 210.629
    17 Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:34.369 1.016 8 210.310
    18 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1:35.372 2.019 9 208.098
    19 Sergio Pérez Racing Point/Mercedes 1:35.808 2.455 5 207.151
    20 Robert Kubica Williams/Mercedes 1:35.889 2.536 9 206.976.

  • Photo gallery from Abhishek Aggarwal in Austin

    Photo gallery from Abhishek Aggarwal in Austin

    By Abhishek Aggarwal

    Austin, 1 Nov 2019: The first two practice sessions on Friday at the US Grand Prix at the Ciruit of the Americas proved that the track is a bit tricky due to the bumpy nature.

    The first day of the weekend and the two practice sessions are done and the track (10 to 25 C) and air temperatures (5 to 15) were a bit colder than usual and as a result favoured some due to more downforce and thick air from the circuit. The first practice session saw Red Bull’s Max Verstrappen at the top whereas Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton topped the second practice session.

    Many felt that the track was a bit bumpy and the likes of Romain Grosjean (Turn 5 followed by a crash), Daniel Kvyat (Turn 17) and Sebastian Vettel (Turn 15) spun around while many of the drivers had lock-ups and showed break sparks followed by understeer.

    The first practice session also witnessed 2020 Test tires being used for the first time by both the drivers of Haas team and Lewis Hamilton, however the result wasn’t that favorable (+2 secs than the best lap) due to the drivers taking those runs a bit slow.

    At the team principals’ press conference, Mattia Binotto on being asked about this week’s race pace, said: “First, we are still lacking downforce compared to our competitors and that’s an area of weakness, something that we improved all through the season. I think that today we’ve got a good package but not good enough and we are very aware that having downforce is important, certainly on some circuits, like Budapest and Mexico. But if you look from Budapest to Mexico we did a great step forward in the right direction. So we will need to add further downforce, we will need to add further downforce for next season and that is important for the race pace, tyre degradation and so on. Adding downforce will mean adding drag and we will be slower then on the straight. But still today we believe we’ve got a good engine and that’s in our favour and we hope to keep the same advantage in the future.”
    Tomorrow’s qualifying will look interesting with both Max Verstappen and  Lewis Hamilton pushing hard and getting competition from the two Prancing Horses’ drivers.

    Here are some photos for INDIAinF1 from Austin on Friday:

  • We have a good engine and we hope to keep the advantage in future: Ferrari

    We have a good engine and we hope to keep the advantage in future: Ferrari

    Austin, 1 Nov 2019: TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Franz TOST (Toro Rosso), Zak BROWN (McLaren), Mattia BINOTTO (Ferrari), Cyril ABITEBOUL (Renault), Claire Williams (Williams)

    The FIA Friday Press Conference in progress in Austin. Photo by Abhishek Aggarwal

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: The 2021 regulations are now locked-in, having been unanimously ratified by the World Council, so can we start please by getting your thoughts on them. Perhaps Mattia, you could start?

    Mattia BINOTTO: Obviously, as you said, it has been voted. As Ferrari we are part of the World Council, we voted as well in favour. We believe it is the right moment to look for a discontinuity, for our sport, it has to be sustainable, we are all aware of that. We need to work hard as well in the future on a more sustainable, green, as well, sport. There is a still much to work on, so if there is anything, I would avoid to say that it is locked down. I think this is still at a starting point where altogether now we need to collaborate, improve furthermore what is certainly a good set of regulations, but still much to develop, improve and certainly as well, looking at a more sustainable sport in the future, on the power unit, on the fuel, whatever can be done. I think that’s a responsibility we’ve all got together. So far, we collaborate well with FIA and F1 but still much to do.

    Q: Cyril?

    Cyril ABITEBOUL: Yes, I think it’s good that it’s done. It’s an important milestone but, as mentioned by Mattia, there is so much more to be one. I would still acknowledge a number of innovations in this set of regulations, because there will be a new set of regulations with the financial regulations that will complement technical and sporting. Otherwise it’s a compromise. Some people would have liked it to be a bit different, maybe a bit more open or a budget cap a bit lower, things like that – but it’s a first step, in my opinion a good step, it’s in Renault’s opinion a step that’s going in the right direction for a sustainable sport, so let’s see what’s coming next but it’s good now that we have clarity on what’s coming up for 2021. We can all now start building up this beautiful car that we have ahead of us, and start spending towards this new regulation.

    Q: Claire, your thoughts?

    Claire WILLIAMS: I think from a Williams perspective we’re delighted that that new regulations were approved by the World Motor Sport Council. They’re everything that we’ve wanted to see from the various perspectives, whether they be technical and most clearly the financial regulations that are coming on board for 2021 are exactly where we wanted to be. We understand that they’re a first step, moving forward but they’re certainly a right step in the direction that we wanted to ensure that the sport – but also teams like ours – remain sustainable for the future. I think we’re all very aware of how unsustainable at the moment Formula 1 is from a cost perspective. So, to have a level of cost-capping at this first juncture is really important to teams like ours. I don’t think that can be underestimated. The technical regulations as well are a step in the right direction. I think there’s probably some tweaking to do – but I think certainly as a first step they’re exactly what we wanted to see.

    Q: Zak?

    Zak BROWN: I agree with everything that’s been said before me. I think it’s a good day for Formula 1. I think it’s going to be exciting, 2021, because there’ll be much change. I think through this process, the Formula 1 teams got closer relationships with each other, which is something that, while we certainly still don’t all agree on everything, I think relationships have been built for the better of the sport. I also think working with Chase and Ross and the FIA, that’s been a good process. I’m sure we all would like to see some things modified but that’s always going to be the case. In our case, I think the budget cap, there was one area we would like to have seen something more aggressive, quicker, it would have been that, but it is what it is and I think most importantly we have clear direction moving forward.

    Q: And Franz?

    Franz TOST: All the parties have done a good job. That means Liberty Media, the FIA and the teams to come up with these new regulations – because all the main topics are covered. What are the main topics? The cost cap – because we need to come down with the costs in Formula 1; b) the money distribution: it’s more fair than it was before. Then the new technical regulations; the new sporting regulations and as well the governance. I think that’s an important time frame to bring everything within next year and then 2021 in the right direction. It’s a new start for Formula 1 and I hope it will be a successful start.

    Q: Zak, you’ve worked hard at restructuring McLaren over the last 18 months, so how much personal satisfaction does the prospect of P4 in the Constructors’ Championship give you?

    ZB: I’m very pleased with the season so far. There are still three races to go. We had a poor Mexico which I think was a good reminder that, while we’ve had a good year, with three races to go there’s plenty of points still up for grabs but certainly the off-season progress, the people that we’ve brought on board, Andreas leading the team, James Key, Andrea Stella getting promoted, and really all the men and women at McLaren. Our relationship with Renault, they’ve been an excellent partner. I’d like to give them a lot of credit for our success this year and our improvements. And yeah, it’s certainly a lot more enjoyable being at this Austin US Grand Prix than it was this time last year.

    Q: Cyril, while we’re talking about restructurings, you announced a reorganisation of your aero department this morning. Just tell us a little bit more about that. Why have you done that?

    CA: I think it’s fairly straightforward what we’re trying to achieve. This year has been marked be an amount of satisfaction but also some struggles. It’s clear that this position of P4 that we had last year is going to be challenging to retain this year, to say the least, against Zak. But I’m happy that it’s a Renault powertrain that’s going to maintain that spot in the future. We’re also in a close fight against Franz and Toro Rosso, and Racing Point, so a number of challenges. We’ve been focussed on growing, in terms of quantity, making up the numbers, it had to be done, but in parallel we need also to look for a bit stronger technical leadership and making the team stronger in that area where we were a bit lean at that level, so that’s exactly what we’ve gone by restructuring our aero department with a mix of external recruitment and internal promotion. So, I’m not going to go into the specifics but we all hope it’s going to support our best, all that there is to offer because aero department is a big department with very nice facilities, state-of-the-art equipment, so they need to know to deliver more.

    Q: Claire, Nico Hülkenberg has ruled out a move to Williams in 2020 and Nicholas Latifi is doing FP1 for the remainder of the season except for Abu Dhabi. Is that an indication of your plans for next year?

    CW: No, the plan was always to have Nicholas Latifi in the car for these practice session that you’re seeing him in, in the next couple of races and in Mexico as well. It’s no clear indication. We’ve made it very clear in the media that we won’t be making our driver announcement for that second seat for 2020 until after Abu Dhabi this year.

    Q: Franz, Pierre Gasly said yesterday that your car hasn’t changed much since he’s been back with the team – yet the results have been strong in the last few races. If what he says is the case, how do you explain the upturn in performance in recent races?

    FT: Maybe he slept not so good here. The car made some progress because we came up with a lot of aero updates, and don’t forget that also Honda also came with a new fuel, in Suzuka, which brought us a good performance advantage. Nevertheless, Pierre gets also more and more familiar with the car and with the team, and therefore he is showing a good performance and we are happy about this.

    Q: And you’ve finished in the points here for the last five years. Do you think you can do it again this weekend?

    FT: I hope so. This is the target. It’s not only to finish in the points. We should be really good in the points, to score a lot of points, not only one or two points. But we will see. Our competitors are very strong and it will become an interesting race.

    Q: Mattia, what’s your analysis of last weekend’s race in Mexico? Have you had a chance to look through what happened and how you can help yourself this weekend?

    MB: Well, what happened? Certainly when starting on the first row it’s always difficult somehow not to get the best result in the race but I think what happened is that first maybe we were not fast enough in the race, because if being faster they could not have undercut us. That’s the first analysis. Generally speaking, sometimes to win you need to take some more risks. And risk to me means somehow brave and brave enough means that maybe when Albon stopped we should not have stopped with Charles, staying out. But in doing that means that we were pretty sure the tyres would not have lasted to the end by stopping at that time, which was wrong, wrong assumption. So it means that in terms of tyre modelling, tyres understanding, there was still some tuning that was required. So now, they’re looking back at all the data. We are furthermore trying to improve our tyre model for a better understanding and that will give us in the future probably a better opportunity for a better choice.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Question to Mattia. Your two drivers are fighting for the third place in the Championship. Is it an important thing for you? And the one who will finish ahead of the other, will be the team leader for next year?

    MB: OK. What is important for us, at first is to confirm the second place in the Constructors’, and hopefully we can do it here this weekend. What is still important for us is to add some victories for Ferrari team in the last few races. And I think very last is third place in the Drivers’. And then whoever will be… not important. With that said, the start of next year, not at all.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Line / Racefans.net) A question to Mattia. Obviously, you are on the WMSC and you voted in favour of the regulations. You also have a veto. Had you any stage considered triggering the veto about any aspect of the regulations or at the very least voting against the set of regulations?

    MB: As first, as we said, we voted in favour, so we are happy with the new set of regulations or if not happy then we are at least convinced it is the right way to go. Did we consider it in the past? I think as many times we answered to the same question, for us it was more important to collaborate with F1 and the FIA to makes sure that by the end of October we got the best package to be voted and I think that’s where we put our focus and put our effort. That’s all.

    Q: (Abhishek Aggarwal – INDIAinF1.com) Mattia, last week in the post-race press conference Vettel mentioned that Ferrari cars are quickest in a straight line and the fact that the power unit is great, it’s just that there’s less downforce and that when the tyres get a bit older there’s some pressure. Now, given the fact that this track is more favourable with regard to downforce do you think Ferrari will have an edge this weekend?

    MB: No. I think of this as two different points. First, we are still lacking downforce compared to our competitors and that’s an area of weakness, something that we improved all through the season. I think that today we’ve got a good package but not good enough and we are very aware that having downforce is important, certainly on some circuits, like Budapest and Mexico. But if you look from Budapest to Mexico we did a great step forward in the right direction. So we will need to add further downforce, we will need to add further downforce for next season and that is important for the race pace, tyre degradation and so on. Adding downforce will mean adding drag and we will be slower then on the straight. But still today we believe we’ve got a good engine and that’s in our favour and we hope to keep the same advantage in the future.

    Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) To all five please. The final regulations came out yesterday. They’ve been described as immature and underdeveloped in recent weeks. Now you’ve got the initial tranche of provisional regulations, I guess, are there any early red flags or concerns about areas that needs further development or are particularly green?

    FT: No. So far we have now a good basis on the technical regulations as well as the sporting regulations. Of course there will be further discussions and some fine tuning but the most important pillars are fixed and the rest then we will see.

    ZB: I agree with Franz. There are no red flags. Fine tuning the regulations… they’re quite complex and long and new, so I’m sure there will be questions, comments and modifications but nothing that appears to be alarming and no big, gaping holes at the moment.

    MB: No big issues. Certainly all the teams will start developing the cars for 2021 and put more effort and I’m pretty sure by putting more effort into it we will find out eventually some areas that will need to be further improved. But again, I think what will be important is the process of discussions, the process of regs modifications, which means as well a governance we need to put in place and that will be key from now to the start of 2021 and the earlier we do that the better it will be.

    CA: To pick up from where Mattia left it: to confirm all details of the governance, because in order to make changes as we develop the cars and as we face some unknowns or some loopholes, we need to see how we can fix what is missing from the regulations. The other aspect, the other chapter that is maybe not developed enough is maybe the roadmap on the engine side. We exactly know where we are on 2021, but fuel, bio-fuel, freeze, partial freeze, progressive freeze, complete freeze? In our opinion those aspects need to be addressed so that the economic side of the engine activity is also sustainable – just as sustainable as the chassis side.

    CW: I would agree with what everyone has said so far. I don’t think there are any red flags in there. I would also probably say use of the word ‘immature’ would be slightly unfair to the countless people that have put a huge amount of effort into these regulations on the side of the FIA and F1. A lot of people have been involved and a lot of people have spent many, many hours making sure that these regulations are in the best possible place that they can be up until this point. And I agree with everyone else that there is just some tweaking that needs to be done to them.

    Q: (Bernardo Becht – Correio do Povo) With the cost cap coming and these new regulations – for Zak and Claire, the teams most concerned – won’t there be two development teams for two cars until the cost cap coming in, stars to take place. Won’t it be harder to catch up? Ferrari and Mercedes will have two teams working to develop a 2020 and 2021 car. Won’t it be harder to catch up later, with less money, when there is a cost cap working?

    ZB: It’s hard to catch them right now. Ferrari and Mercedes are fantastic racing teams and they have tremendous resources. Yeah, this is going to be a journey, the cost cap. There will be a lot of spending in ’20 that will have implications for ’21. And of course once you get a head start when you see regulations, whether it’s on the power unit front, stability over time tends to bring things together. So, I think Ferrari and Mercedes are in a great position and we’re all trying to catch up and it will take some time.

    CW: Yeah, obviously, I think we’re in a slightly different position to McLaren. Our budget is much smaller than theirs. For teams like ours, for Alfa, for Haas, they’re operating on considerably less budget than the rest of the grid. It’s a really difficult piece of work at the moment to try to marry up the programmes we are running for not just this year but for next year and ’21. But I would say it is probably the lesser of two evils. We did try, in the Strategy Group, to see if we could bring the cost cap in earlier, so the bigger teams wouldn’t have to spend all this money they’re worried about spending for next year. That would be clearly a bonus. There’s clearly going to need to be some convergence, which I’m sure we will see – we’ve got stability on these regulations for five years from ’21 and beyond. It is difficult. It is incredibly difficult. But these regulations, particularly as I said earlier, the financial regulations that we are seeing, are the right things for teams like ours that are truly independent and rely solely on sponsorship.

    FT: Yeah, I mean it’s clear that the top teams have an advantage. They will use the next year, even this year already for developing the ’21 car. They will have this performance advantage for ’21. The cost cap, real, will count from 2022 and ’23 onwards – 2021 will be a difficult one. But this was discussed anyway.

    Q: (Joe Saward – Autoweek) We’re talking about saving money and we’re increasing the number of races. Now, there is a cost to that, financial and human. I’d like to hear your views on whether 25 races is too much? To everyone.

    CW: Twenty-five is a lot of races, you quite right. Looking at 22 for next year is an awful lot and all the teams are having to look at the impact of that on personnel, just purely from a lifestyle perspective and having that work-life balance, it’s incredibly difficult. We’ve all got support personnel that we can rotate in and out. I think obviously for the bigger teams it might be an easier challenge from that perspective: they have a bigger budget in order to bring in more people in order to support that rotation. It is difficult. From a financial perspective though there is an offset, so obviously we go to more races, there is more money in the pot that then gets distributed. So really from an offset financial piece, it’s not the end of the world. It’s more managing people, the people we have working for us and not putting too much pressure on them for 25 weekends a year.

    CA: I think it’s a good summary. I’m pretty sure that the figures can work, so it can still be economically positive to expand the calendar, to increase the number of races, but as Claire mentioned it’s really a stretch for everyone and I think the main questions is a question of quantity versus quality. But having said that we live in a world where we need to have as much and as frequent touch points as possible with the fans, with the media, with digital, creating content. We are in a world of content, where you need market share, you need to visible, you need the exposure. It’s a difficult one, probably not one for us to answer, probably one for the promoter mainly. It’s a stretch for all of us. In my opinion the measure made on the sporting side to sort of reduce the weekend are going in the right direction, it doesn’t really balance enough of what an expansion of the calendar will mean in the future.

    MB: I think there is not a clear answer, and by not having a clear answer it means it’s a good question. I think we are not all convinced at the moment. I think it’s part of the discussions we may need to have with F1. It is a compromise at the end. It is an extra effort financially and I’m even not too sure it will be to our benefit. It depends on where we are going racing in the extra races. How much are the revenues for those ones. There are a lot of points that will need to be addressed on the number of races. But still, again, it’s a matter of being positive, collaborative and finding all together the right answer.

    ZB: I think my only build is I’d like to maybe see alternating races as a potential solution. I think when you have new countries that want to embrace Formula 1, that is a good things and it exposes us to new parts of the world, but maybe instead of having 25 races, which I think is achievable, though it would require doing things differently than we do today, then I think maybe alternating some races on the calendar would be a good compromise to grow the sport without straining the system as much as I think 25 races would.

    FT: There is nothing to add, everything has been mentioned.

    Q: (Jean-Louis Doublet – Agence France Presse) The track looks much bumpier this year than it was last year; do you think it could create problems with the integrity of the cars during the race?

    FT: So far I don’t expect any problems. The engineers have time to analyse all the data and then I’m convinced they will find a correct set-up, even for a bumpy track. I don’t expect any problems in this case.

    ZB: It certainly looked bumpy from what I saw on the screens from the first session. I’ve not had a chance to speak with the drivers to get their feedback. I’m not worried about the integrity of the car. Could catch a driver or two out in the race, there were definitely a few drivers going off the track so it could create some excitement.

    MB: Yeah, certainly bumpy. I think that to say right now that it will not affect the reliability would be very brave because later on in the race weekend we may find the opposite. As a matter of fact this morning, with Charles, we had a small inconvenience due to, we believe, on a bump, a small issue happened just as an example so yes, it needs to be managed, we all need to be aware of it and making sure that it doesn’t affect the result.

    CA: Not much to add. I think it’s in addition to the reliability, it can also affect the set-ups and finding the proper balance between sector one with the understeer that you can create on those bumps, that you can fight but to the expense of what you get in sector and stability and oversteer. So it will be a compromise, might be an interesting chance for all of us.

    CW: Our engineers were talking about it this morning, how bumpy it is and Nicolas was reporting particularly turn one and two were particularly difficult to get round, I think. Just from our perspective, we’ve had a lot of race attrition over the past three or four races and we just would like a very clean weekend so that our poor manufacturing guys don’t have to do a whole lot of work after this race going into Brazil.

    Q: (John Massengale – Speed City Radio) Zak, do technology fans need to worry about the 2021 rules with cost caps? Cars look great but technology fans don’t want F1 not to be at the pinnacle.

    ZB: No, I don’t think they have anything to worry about. Formula One’s always been the pinnacle of motor sport, unbelievable technologies and I think where things are going with the broadcasts and social media I think the way that we communicate with fans via technology is actually just going to increase so I think fans have plenty to be excited about for the future of Formula One.

    Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday, MotorsportWeek.com) For Franz, Zak and Cyril with perhaps some comments from Mattia and Claire: that dreaded word Brexit looks like it’s headed sometime before January 31. With Zak and Franz and Cyril having facilities in and out of the European Union, what measures have you taken that your daily workload isn’t increased and there are no problems going forward. And perhaps Claire and Mattia, have you made any preparations for Brexit, has it wasted a lot of money so far? Any other comments?

    CA: I have to say that I have lost this plot a bit recently but yeah, we’re working, we have some measures in place. I think we know how things are going to take place and shape up for anything related to races. We are not totally clear on the logistics between our two factories, one being in France, the other one being in the UK, that could cause some delay and that’s still unclear. We are working with the Renault-Nissan Group on the logistics side to make sure that we understand exactly… we have access to the authorities and then they will be able to help us in that respect so we are lucky to be part of a group in that respect. On the personnel side – because we’ve recruited a lot, 24 nationalities working in our factory in the UK, obviously we don’t want to lose these people, so we understand that there will be some sort of grandfathering, some measures to protect them, at least for initial years, until we know a bit more about the exact measures but again, I think we first need clarity about Brexit itself.

    FT: I was at the wind tunnel in Bicester on Tuesday when we discussed this topic for quite a long time. You know the major issues are logistics and of course the people, the employees who are working there, not coming from England and currently it’s difficult to make a plan and a programme because we don’t know all… at least the final process. Once this is out, once first of all if they decide the Brexit, that they know what they do, or what they want to do and then we have to sit once more together and find the best possible way.

    ZB: We have a team back at the factory, a little Brexit working group so we’re prepared for it. I think it will impact everyone’s business to a certain degree but fortunately it’s been going on long enough that I don’t think there will be any surprises and we’ll be working around it accordingly.

    Q: Mattia, any Brexit thoughts?

    MB: No, not really. We do not have a working group, at least in Maranello on that one. Obviously we will need to take care for our people we’ve got, for UK people in Italy but it’s not worrying us, certainly.

    CW: Like Zak says, we’ve had a steering committee on this for the past year now because there are clearly a lot of touch points that are going to have an impact when it eventually does happen around personnel in particular. I think Cyril said he has 24 nationalities, we have 28. There are a lot of considerations on obviously not just the people who are working for us but their families as well, whether they are based with those people in the UK or whether they are in Europe. There are issues around foreign exchange, around freight, crossing through borders, people crossing through borders, so there’s a lot of working that’s going on and obviously with the continued uncertainty that makes life a bit difficult so we’re looking forward to the whole thing being resolved sooner rather than later and we can all move on from that.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines / Racefans.net) I believe you’ve very recently received your draft commercial offers, let’s call it the Concorde Agreement. Is this is a good document, acceptable document for your business models or is it just a good starting point for negotiations?

    MB: So through that, we just voted the new set of regulations but the entire Concorde Agreement needs to be discussed and agreed and signed, that’s on the commercial button, the governance as well. Working group have been set, to start discussing the details of the documents. I think it’s only after having seen the details that we may assess where we are and what’s required.

    ZB: Same as Mattia. We’re going through it, it’s a long complicated document, no major red flags and we’ve got the necessary people within our group going through it to all contribute to questions, comments that we have so I think like any legal document, there’ll be lots of commentary but we’re pretty comfortable with what’s been presented.

    FT: The basis is OK, we are working on it, our people and so far I haven’t seen any big dramas or red flags. I think the document itself is so far acceptable. Once more, we are still studying it.

    CA: Well, I hope and believe that the principles of Concorde are more or less in a good place. Maybe not everyone will agree with that but I’m talking really about the key principles but clearly we are not dealing with the details… You are both looking at me. Am I going too far? No, frankly I don’t expect any major renegotiations of Concorde terms, what’s been proposed, because that’s something also that’s part of the discussion of the whole package, even though it’s not been signed up so anyone is free to sign or not to sign but clearly I expect that the details of the drafting of the document to take much longer – we all know that when one lawyer gets involved so at least we have twelve lawyers. So that’s going to take a bit of time probably to get a grid.

    CW: I don’t have much to add. Everyone has said what I would say. We’re looking through it and we haven’t seen any red flags to date.

    Ends

  • Lewis Hamilton quickest in FP2: US GP

    Austin, 1 Nov 2019: Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the second practice session for the United States Grand Prix, lapping three tenths of a second faster than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and third-placed Red Bull driver Max Verstappen

    Leclerc led the way in the early part of the 90-minute session, with the Monegasque racer climbing to the top of the timesheet with a lap of 1:34.434 on medium compound Pirelli tyres as Hamilton restricted himself to the hard compound.

    Prior to Leclerc’s table topper the opening phase session was briefly interrupted when Romain Grosjean crashed in Turn 5. The Haas driver lost control and arrowed into the barriers. The incident brought out the red flags while the Frenchman’s car was recovered.

    Halfway through the session the field began to migrate to soft tyres for qualifying simulations and again it was Leclerc who initially set the pace with a time of 1:33.553, though the Ferrari driver might have gone quicker if not for a slightly slow final sector.

    It was left to Hamilton to lead the way and just a couple of minutes after Leclerc has established the benchmark the Briton crossed the line in a 1:33.232 to beat the young Ferrari star by 0.301 with Verstappen 0.014s further back.

    Sebastian Vettel was fourth in the second Ferrari, though the German was more than three tenths of a second slower than team-mate Leclerc and some 0.658s behind Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas was fifth in the second Mercedes, while Alex Albon finished sixth in the second Red Bull.

    Best of the rest honours went to Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman couldn’t match the fourth pace he’d reached in the morning session but his lap of 1:34.509, 1.277 off Hamilton was good enough for seventh place and continued the Toro Rosso driver’s good start to the weekend.
    Carlos Sainz took eighth place for McLaren 34, a little under two tenths behind Gasly, Lance Stroll was ninth for Racing Point and the final top-10 position went to Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi.

    2019 FIA Formula One United States Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 
    1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 34 1:33.232
    2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 33 1:33.533 0.301
    3 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 28 1:33.547 0.315
    4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 35 1:33.890 0.658
    5 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 34 1:34.045 0.813
    6 Alex Albon Red Bull Racing 32 1:34.434 1.202
    7 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso 31 1:34.509 1.277
    8 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren 34 1:34.667 1.435
    9 Lance Stroll Racing Point 29 1:34.744 1.512
    10 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing 29 1:34.839 1.607
    11 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 29 1:34.924 1.692
    12 Federation Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 36 1:34.975 1.743
    13 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 32 1:34.988 1.756
    14 Lando Norris McLaren 30 1:35.025 1.793
    15 Sergio Perez Racing Point 26 1:35.109 1.877
    16 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo Racing 34 1:35.387 2.155
    17 Kevin Magnussen Haas 28 1:35.442 2.210
    18 Romain Grosjean Haas 4 1:35.789 2.557
    19 George Russell Williams 37 1:36.749 3.517
    20 Robert Kubica Williams 33 1:37.283 4.051.

  • Drivers talk about the 2021 car at the FIA Thursday Press Meet

    Drivers talk about the 2021 car at the FIA Thursday Press Meet

    F1 drivers at the FIA Thursday Press Conference with the 2021 car. An FIA image

    DRIVERS – George RUSSELL (Williams), Lance STROLL (Racing Point), Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull Racing), Lando NORRIS (McLaren), Pierre GASLY (Toro Rosso)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Gentlemen, you can see the 2021 car sitting in front of you. I’d like to start by asking you all about it, the car and the general direction of Formula 1 in a couple of years’ time? Max, if we can start with you, please?

    Max VERSTAPPEN: It’s a bit small!

    Lando NORRIS: I was going to say that! That’s my joke!

    MV: Yeah, also for us it’s still early days. I haven’t really looked through all the things – I mean it’s just announced. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how it looks like or whatever, as long as it gives us better racing and we can follow better. Of course we want to be within two seconds, three seconds of what we are doing now, definitely, because if it’s going to be about four or five it’s not what we want, because then it feels a bit too slow. But I think this is just the start of it and I’m sure that teams will come up with a little bit of a different look as well, so let’s just find out over time how it’s going to work out.

    Q: Ross Brawn has just said that lap times will be similar to 2016.

    MV: Yeah, I guess… To be honest I didn’t really enjoy driving the cars as much back then as I do now, but of course you have to find a middle way in terms of what you want with following and stuff like that. Anyway, throughout the season the cars will improve.

    Q: OK, let’s get some other thoughts: George?

    George RUSSELL: Yeah, from my side it doesn’t really matter how it looks or the speed of it as long as we have great racing. I think that’s what we all want. Obviously the weight is heavier which I think is not ideal for any of us. I mean, even driving like a Formula 3 car it was really fun to drive but it was much lighter than what these Formula 1 cars are. But as long as it improves the racing and brings the field together that’s all I care about.

    Q: Lance?

    Lance STROLL: Yeah, not much more to add really. I think the main thing is to focus on the racing. We need to be able to follow closer to one another and to improve the wheel-to-wheel racing, the show for the fans, and I think for us drivers, too, it will be very exciting if we can see closer racing. Hopefully it levels the playing field as well. If we can see the gaps reduced to the top teams and there are more opportunities for the midfield teams to score podiums and to fight for positions further up the grid, that would be exciting.

    Q: Lando?

    Lando NORRIS: I think it’s pretty much been covered. As they all said as long as the racing’s better and we all have a chance to fight for wins in different races and as teams we can all fight for being a strong constructor, I think that’s the key thing. That’s about it.

    Q: Do you like the look?

    LN: I would change the paint scheme slightly! Apart from that, I think it’s alright. I mean, I’ve seen the renders our designers are designing and it looks pretty cool. I don’t really mind too much, that’s not what I’m fussed about. I’m just fussed about the racing and having fun and being able to follow cars closely and just enjoy racing more than what we do now.

    Q: And Pierre?

    Pierre GASLY: Well, I agree with all of them, so not much to add.

    Q: OK, well Lando, a frustrating race for both McLaren drivers in Mexico. What did you learn from your various problems in Mexico and do the temperatures we’re experiencing here in Austin worry you?

    LN: Yeah, not a great race for us as a team, especially after our qualifying position and a good chance to score some more points. I think there are obvious things… I think my race was put down fairly quickly with the pit stop. There’s something that’s easily known and understood in terms of what the problem was, but fixing it isn’t something that is going to happen overnight and it doesn’t happen often at the same time, so it’s not like we’re worried about pit stops or anything, it’s just we can be a bit unlucky and this time it was the first pit stop that I had where I was a but unlucky. I’m not so worried about that; the team have got solutions in the pipeline, which is a good thing for us. We just have to look on to this weekend. I wouldn’t say we are worried about the track temperatures or anything, it’s just how it is. It’s similar to Barcelona in pre-season. It might be a bit more difficult to get the tyres in the right window and so one, but I’m hoping it will play a little bit more to our strengths rather than our weaknesses.

    Q: And an opportunity to reflect on your first season in F1. What’s the take-home message from this year for you?

    LN: Meh.

    MV: You sound like a sheep. I think there is a meme incoming now.

    LN: I’m happy with bits of it. There are bits I’m not so happy with. I’ve not made any huge mistakes. I’ve not crashed a lot, I’ve not done anything stupid. But as a racing driver, and I’m sure all drivers on the whole grid would say the same, there’s always room for improvement and things they want to do better. So, I am happy, I think 90% of the things I’ve done, I think I’ve done them reasonably well. It’s just the smaller things – you mess up a qualifying lap or you don’t progress enough on how you work on the set-up with the engineers as much as you want. It’s just putting all the small things together. A bit of it comes with experience, but a bit of I don’t think I did a good enough job in. I’m happy, it’s been a good year, a very enjoyable year, but I want to make sure I come back next year and already in the next races in slightly stronger form.

    Q: Thanks Lando and good luck this weekend. Pierre, how’s your health?

    PG: Really good. I think that’s about 20 times people asked me since I arrived in the paddock today. It was a rough time last weekend, but everything’s perfect now.

    Q: How tough was that race? You finished ninth but you really weren’t… 

    PG: Yeah, it was probably one of the most challenging race weekends I’ve had…

    MV: The seat [inaudible]…

    PG: No, the seat was clean – nothing wrong with that. It was pretty tough from Saturday morning onwards, just in terms of energy and trying to keep the focus. It wasn’t an easy one but I’m happy we went through it. We managed to get the best result we could out of the weekend. Pretty strong qualifying and race, even though it wasn’t easy, but yeah, it was definitely a challenging one.

    Q: You say strong qualifying. Both Toro Rossos got into Q3. How much progress have you made with the car recently?

    PG: To be fair, the car is more or less the same as it was in the last couple of races, since I rejoined. But I think it’s just trying to extract the maximum from what we have and trying to find the set-up directions that suit tracks and what I need from the car. I must say I’m really happy with the way we’re working with the team. They are providing me with everything I need so we can extract everything from the car. So far we are doing well. We can always do better and we’ll try to keep that form in the next three races.

    Q: You say the team is giving you everything you needs. Confidence looks high. Are you driving better now than when you were with Red Bull Racing?

    PG: Not really. I didn’t learn or forget how to drive in a couple of months. It’s just a matter of putting everything together. As I said, I’m just focusing on the job to do with Toro Rosso. I think we are doing pretty well. There are always things we need to focus on and improve and that’s what we need to focus one.

    Q: Lance, if I could come to you now. Belated happy birthday. Turned 21 on Tuesday. What have you done since Mexico?

    Lance STROLL: I mean, just been laying low and enjoyed my birthday. It was nice… I went for dinner and was able to have my first drink in America! That’s a real breakthrough. First time ever in the United States. So that was a lot of fun – but in moderation, looking forward to this weekend. I’m a professional athlete, so I’ve got to be in the best shape I can be for the weekend – and here I am.

    Q: Now, it was a competitive showing by both Racing Points in Mexico. Was that track-specific or are you really starting to add performance to the car?

    LS: A bit of both. I didn’t have the best weekend myself. It was really my team-mate who had a solid weekend. On Saturday and especially Sunday I had a scruffy qualifying session and then my race was going well until the second stint where I got a lot of lapping events, graining etcetera. Unfortunately, it didn’t go our way but we definitely had potential again to score points and it’s looking that way over the last five or six races since we brought the upgrade in Spa. That’s really positive. Looking good for the next three races.

    Q: George, coming on to you. The team has been introducing new parts in recent races. How much better is the car to drive now than it was at the start of the season?

    George RUSSELL: I think the upgrades we’ve brought to the car recently, it’s more been looking into 2020. We knew that it’s not going to necessarily unlock a lot of performance on the car as it is now – but it’s definitely looking promising going into next year. Overall, the car is definitely nicer to drive. I mean, at the start of the year it was not nice at all, let’s say, and it was pretty tricky just to get around a lap. But we’ve done a good job to fine-tune the balance, just to make it a nicer car to drive – but now we need to rely on the engineers back at the factory to bolt some more downforce on it.

    Q: And what about your own development as a driver this year? You said you wanted to learn out of the spotlight, which you’ve been able to do – but what do you take into year two next year?

    GR: Similar to what Lando said. I think there’s things I’ve been happy with, things I haven’t been… just experience really. The little things that you only improve on, race by race: understanding the tyres; the starts. It’s pretty tricky starting at the back of the grid, with all the cars around, a massive lack of downforce. Even less downforce than what we’ve got, let’s say. Just little bits and bobs here and there. I think I’ll definitely be a better driver into next year.

    Q: Max, just off the plane from L.A. at the fan festival yesterday. How was that?

    Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah, it was good. Good amount of fans and some good donuts as well. So, that’s always nice to do.

    Q: This weekend, believe it or not, is your 100th grand prix.

    LN: Same as Carlos!

    MV: Yeah, we started together.

    LN: That’s sweet!

    Q: What does that stat means to you, Max?

    MV: Good beginning! And, of course, it all happened very quick. To realise and see that you are about to do your 100th grand prix at 22 years old, I think I would never have expected that – but I guess it’s a good thing. Basically, those five years have gone very quickly.

    Q: Just looking ahead to this weekend, you had a cracking race here last year. Onto the podium from 18th. What are your expectations this year?

    MV: I think we can have a good race. Last year, coming from the back and then still finishing on the podium was a very good result. Of course, it gave me an opportunity to have a different strategy, which at the end of the day was not a bad one – but now we want to start a bit more upfront and see what we can do. But I think in Mexico the car was working really well, so we just try to continue that here.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Ian Parkes – New York Times) Question to Max initially and then secondary question to Lando and George. Max, it looks like Lewis is going to wrap up his title very soon – potentially here, he only needs four points. In competing with him these past few years, what makes him the driver he has become, do you feel, effectively now on the brink of becoming a six time World Champion. And to Lando and George, what does Lewis mean to you guys as British drivers growing up, potentially wanting to emulate him as a future British world champion?

    MV: From my side, unfortunately I haven’t really had the time to compete with him that much. I mean, just a few races. Most of the time we didn’t have equal material but he was always clearly the better of the two within the team. And then, when you have the best car out there, of course you can win the Championship. It’s amazing, of course, to go for your sixth World Championship.

    Q: Lando, let’s start with you. What does Lewis mean to you?

    LN: I guess he’s a guy who I’ve always looked up to since I was young. A driver who I’ve loved to watch. I’ve been very excited to watch a lot of his races since I started watching F1 when I was six or seven years old. So, I’ve kind of not been on the journey but I’ve been able to watch a lot of the races and it gives a bit of… I wouldn’t say belief or faith but it gives a bit of confidence knowing that, or hoping to go into the future and emulate him in a way – but like Max said, the equipment’s very different to when he joined Formula One, when he was with McLaren. So some things aren’t going to be exactly the same; it’s not possible to do the same as other drivers – but there are a lot of things that he’s extremely good at and I would like to improve on and be as good as him on, so yeah, a guy and a driver who’s inspired me and who I’ve looked up to since I was very young.

    Q: George?

    GR: Similar to Lando. Definitely somebody who I’ve looked up to for a while, since I’ve been wanting to become a Formula One driver but especially in the last couple of years. I’ve gained a huge amount of respect for him, seeing him within the team. I used to think he just relied on his natural talent to jump in the car and do the business but he puts a huge amount of effort in and the attention to detail he goes into is massive. I did learn a lot from him in the years I spent with Mercedes, so yeah, definitely respect and admire what he’s achieved.

    Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) For Max. Just on Lewis. He had some comments to say about you after the last race. Said he affords you more space than other drivers in fear of being torpedoed…

    MV: Torpedoed? I didn’t hear that one.

    Q: …well, it was part of what he said. And I think Seb also said that he copy-and-pasted what Lewis had to say. I was wondering what your feeling is about those two comments?

    MV: Well, looking at Turns One and Two in Mexico, I don’t think that happened. From my side, yeah, it was a bit of a silly comment to make. I think I’m always a hard racer but fair. I think it’s just not correct – but of course it’s easy to have a dig at someone. From my side, it’s fine. It’s always positive when the talk about you. That means you’re in their head, So, for my side, I just focus on my driving and I think that’s enough said.

    Q: (Chris Medland – Racer) Pierre, Lando and Lance: we’ve got the 2021 regulations which are aiming to bring the field closer together but for the three of you, competing in a very tight midfield this season, do you really enjoy those battles when the main target really for you is what we call best of the rest, behind the top three teams, and when you do come up on top of those, does it really feel like a win in a junior category or is it quite frustrating to be limited like that?

    PG: Well, I do enjoy these tight battles because at the end of the day I love racing and that’s what you get when you’re right there, like six to eight cars within three or four tenths. It brings a lot of excitement to the track on my side actually. I do like it; for sure, knowing that the best you can achieve is seventh is always a bit disappointing sometimes when you need to be satisfied with this kind of result because of course as a racer you want to fight for the top position. When you finish seventh, that’s kind of the first place you can target; you don’t get any trophy, you don’t get any champagne, it doesn’t really taste the same. Hopefully this can be improved for 2021. I don’t have the answer at the moment. Of course I think we have all the common targets with F1 and that’s what all the driver wants so yeah, hopefully it’s going to be achieved by 2021.

    LN: I agree with Pierre, to be honest. 2021 regulations are not going to mean we are going to be winning races or we’re going to be on the podium all the time. It’s a much better chance for us to achieve those things and as drivers to achieve those things and experience a podium at one time. It’s going to just even up the field I hope, make racing better, make it  more enjoyable to watch, more enjoyable to race for us drivers because that is something we miss. A lot of the drivers who are in Formula One have done very well in the junior categories since karting, F4, F3, F2, whatever, so we’ve always loved it and it’s part of the feeling we enjoy so much as a team is getting on the podium and knowing we’ve been able to beat sometimes the rest of the field and we’ve done a better job because of it. So it’s something I do miss but it’s not just me, it’s the whole team as well. Yeah, something I look forward to and hope we can take advantage of.

    LS: I’ve loved the midfield competition this year. I think it’s been tighter than it’s ever been. You look at the gaps on Saturdays and then on the Sunday how close the racing is, it’s great for the drivers, for the fans. Unfortunately we are so getting lapped by Mercedes and Ferraris, even Red Bulls, so hopefully that can change in ’21. I agree with what Pierre said: it’s great to fight for the best of the rest but when you’re seventh and there’s no reward for that. We’re always trying to score World Championship points but the podium is realistically out of reach and victories are out of the question in today’s sport. I really do hope that we can see some changes in ’21, closer racing as well. That is the priority, I think, with the regulation changes this year, capable of following cars nose to tail but then on top of that, if we can see the gaps reduced to the top teams the opportunity to fight for podiums and wins potentially – that would be awesome.

    Q: (John Massengale – Speed City) Pierre, we got to go to Houston with you yesterday to go to NASA. How was it, talking to an astronaut while he was live in the space station?

    PG: This was really amazing. I would have never imagined one day in my life talking to an astronaut who was actually in space, I don’t know how many kilometres away but that was just incredible to imagine that just from that fun talking and then getting an answer two seconds later from that same guy who was in space. It was an amazing experience. We got to visit the whole NASA control centre, speak with astronauts who have already been a couple of times in space. Saw some rocket ships – no, it was just an incredible experience.

    Q: (John Massengale – Speed City) Max, going to the festival in Los Angeles and the talk of a race in Miami, do you think this is important, not only for the sport but for you as a driver to get this exposure here in the United States, and what do you think about the possibility of more races here?

    MV: Well, in general I think it’s good for the sport, the owners as well, they want more races I think in the US. I think what we’re doing, at the moment, is of course trying to make the sport more popular and more well known in the US. I enjoy being here. It doesn’t matter if it’s in Austin or LA or Miami or wherever in America, I think it’s just a very cool place to be. I think a few – or one or two more races, they wouldn’t hurt, as long as they are exciting of course and a lot of fans are attending.

    Q: Max, what was the atmosphere like in Los Angeles yesterday? Was there a great atmosphere? What was the reception like from the crowd?

    MV: It felt good. They liked the noise as well from the cars, as soon as we were warming the engines already they loved it. Of course it was all very limited, we could basically only do a few doughnuts and stuff but I guess they liked that already but of course it would be even better to show how quick we can go through corners as well and hopefully with those kind of regulations coming in also the racing will be really cool to watch.

    Q: (Yhacbec Lopez – Motorlat) Max, do you think Lewis and Seb are more aggressive with you than any other driver on the grid?

    MV: I don’t know. I think you should ask them that question.

    Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Max, it’s for you, unfortunately, again…

    MV: It’s not a surprise so…

    Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Well, you’re quite topical at the moment. Do you think you’re being treated fairly by the FIA in the wake of what happened at the last race, for your honesty, your brutal honesty, about the yellow flags? And also do you think that you’re getting dug out by Lewis, by Sebastian? They don’t seem to dig anyone else out, it just seems to be you; you seem to be the centre of attention a lot of time.

    MV: No, I think it was very fair from the FIA. We had a good talk in the stewards and I said ‘I didn’t see the yellow flag’ but of course there’s a rule that when there is a yellow flag displayed that you have to slow down so from my side, there are also no hard feelings about that. It’s just very unfortunate I didn’t see that yellow flag and in hindsight I also didn’t need to go for that lap time because I was already on pole position but what was going through my head throughout that lap was you don’t know what the other guys in front of you are doing, if they are improving, are they beating your pole lap time? I didn’t see the yellow flag, I improved my lap time, in hindsight I didn’t need to do it but also in hindsight I think next time I’m anyway going to lift even if they would improve my lap time, just because they got lucky, they were in front of the accident. It is what it is but of course…. At the moment we are still not in a position to fight for pole position all the time so of course I was enjoying the moment as well. But still, it was a great result for us, it showed that after the few difficult races we’ve had in terms of performance the car was working really well so that was a big boost even though we didn’t start from pole position.

    And then your second question, I think from my side it only shows that I’m in their heads and I guess that’s a good thing but from my side I don’t need to dig in to other people in the press conferences because first of all I think it’s a bit disrespectful as well and I prefer to fight on track which I love to do and of course I like to fight hard but on the edge. Otherwise, if they want me to stay behind, it’s also better to stay at home. I really want to take the fight to them because that’s what we are here for. We are racers, we in Formula One, I think we are the best out there and we do fight for victories because that’s what I live for.

     

  • I am incredibly humbled for the team being so sufficient, says Lewis Hamilton

    I am incredibly humbled for the team being so sufficient, says Lewis Hamilton

    For a change, we upload the Podum picture with Press Conference report as Mexico offered a variety of colour… Watch out for the photo gallery by Abhishek Aggarwal

    Mexico City, 27 Oct 2019: Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes won the Mexican Grand Prix and along with Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari and teammate Valtteri Bottas attended the mandatory FIA post-race Press Conference to share his thoughts with the reporters.

    Before that he spoke to Jenson Button who did the Track interviews:

    Transcript:

    Q: Lewis, you’ve have had some pretty epic victories and a lot of them come through sheer aggression and excitement. This one was a very different victory it seems. Looking after these tyres like you did was immense.

    Lewis HAMILTON: Firstly, we’ve got to applaud this incredible crowd. This is like the best crowd I think I’ve ever seen. We’ve never seen anything like this. Today is an incredible result. I have to say a huge thanks to my team – Mercedes and our partners here. The guys have continued to work incredibly hard and stay focused. We came here thinking that we were on the back foot, knowing that it’s a difficult race for us, tut we pulled through. I had a quite a bit of damage on my car, so the race was quite a bit of a struggle. I just kept my head down. It seemed like a long second stint, but ah man, I’m so grateful for today.

    Q: Awesome, great to hear. It must a real mix of emotions. The last two years you come here and you haven’t been on the podium but you clinched the championship. This year, you come and dominate and win but you have to wait a little bit longer for the championship?

    LH: Yeah, I don’t mind. I love racing, man, and I just take it one race at a time honestly. As I said, this is a race I’ve wanted to win for some time but it’s always been a little bit tricky for us. So, I’m incredibly humbled by today’s opportunity, for the car holding together as it did, and for the team being so sufficient and executing the best strategy. Just to hold up the Ferraris was not so easy at the end but I hope people enjoyed the race.

    Q: Congratulations, go and enjoy this amazing crowd. Seb, I’m sure it’s not quite the result you were after. You looked really exciting in the first stint. You were able to put in some really good lap times. I thought you were going to pop out behind Lewis and make it happen but you didn’t quite have that?

    Sebastian VETTEL: Not really. I think surprisingly the hard tyres worked really well. It was a very intense race, because there was no break and obviously I had Valtteri behind me giving me some pressure in the final stint, before I could focus on Lewis in the front. But yeah, I think Lewis, he was just cruising for most of the second stint, up to the point that the attack was arriving and then I guess he had enough tyres left so… Yeah, I’m happy, because I think it was a good race, but I think here and there maybe with strategy we could have been a bit sharper. But overall, it’s a great crowd.

    Q: It’s amazing, the support these guys give you must really mean a lot?

    SV: Yeah… I didn’t hear what you said!

    Q: I said that these guys give you so much support. It must mean a lot.

    SV: You can tell! I didn’t hear what you said. It’s incredible. It’s one of the best races for that, so looking forward to the podium.

    Q: Great job. Valtteri: I’ll bet it’s a bit bittersweet after yesterday – the issue in qualifying – getting winded is never a nice feeling. But the pace today, and your aggression was really coming through.

    Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, I enjoyed. Considering yesterday it was a good result. Very happy about the pace I had in the race. The start was quite tricky, I dropped a place there, so I had to come back a little bit. Yeah, I don’t think we could have done much more today from where I started, so looking at that it was pretty good.

    Q: You seem really confident in the car. In the last few races you seem to have upped your game, which is necessary with a team-mate like Lewis. Are you feeling really good in the car? Is this promising for the rest of the season?

    VB: yeah, feeling good. Definitely a lot better than the same time last year. So feeling like I have the pace and the confidence and happy feeling in the car. I just need to continue and I look forward to next weekend.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Sebastian Vettel, our second-placed finisher. Great race by you, Seb. Couple of things: first of all, at the start we saw you flexing your muscles on the run down to Turn 1 to Lewis?

    SV: Not really. I didn’t see him. He came after the race as well and asked, but no intention to push him or anything. Obviously, as soon as I saw, I obviously got off and I tried to get in Charles’ tow and I checked the mirrors on the right and the mirrors on the left and that’s when I saw Lewis and then, you know, I tried to go right but before that point I didn’t see him. We see quite well in the mirrors but there is still obviously an angle that you can’t see.

    Q: You said a little bit earlier to Jenson Button that you could have been a bit sharper on strategy today as a team. What did you mean by that? You pitted at half distance, do you think you left yourself too much to do?

    SV: Not really. I think in the end… after the race it’s always easy to say but I think we were confident that we split the cars, we covered both options. Obviously in Lewis’ shoes and Mercedes’ shoes they had nothing to lose so they might as well from that early to make it. And Lewis did well managing his tyres in the second stint, and just cruising up to the point where we arrived. It worked finally but neither them nor us expected the tyres to last that long. We saw a lot of graining on Friday and so did they actually, they saw a bit more than us, so it was a bit of a surprise that today we didn’t have any and that made the difference. You might as well try, so it’s a brave call. In the end if it works you look great, if it doesn’t then you’ve tried. I think if it was so straightforward for them, the thinking of fitting the hard so early and easily making it to the end, then they should have pitted Valtteri as well, but you can see that obviously he stayed out with me, long, to try and make sure that you make the one stop work and you don’t fall off any cliffs. As I said, we tried everything but ultimately… yeah, maybe we could have been a bit braver, but then it’s a lot of unknown and you don’t want to do anything stupid at that point. And second, I think you could see that in the race trim we were just missing a little bit of pace. Valtteri was closing in at the end of the first stint. Lewis was fairly easily closing in during the first stint as well. So I think it’s also fair to say that they were just a bit quicker than us.

    Q: Thanks. Valtteri we’ll come to you in just a moment, but we’re joined now by our winner Lewis Hamilton. Congratulations Lewis. Now, given the pace of Ferrari and Red Bull this weekend, how surprised are you to be sitting in the middle?

    LH: I think probably for both of us it’s a bit of a surprise. We came into the weekend… I can only talk about my side, and not having ‘Bonno’ for the first time in seven years and the challenge of having two new engineers step up into different roles and trying to keep the balance of pressure and make sure we deliver and ultimately make Bonno proud was not easy. We come to Mexico, we always struggle here with our tyres, last year we lost by like 60 seconds or something. I think we finished like fourth but we were a long way away from these guys and on Friday their pace, particularly the Red Bulls, their pace was quite stronger than ours. Seb went like eight or nine laps further than I could make the tyres go. But we just kept our heads down and tried to work on trying to get the most out of our car and it wasn’t great through qualifying but the race pace, once we got through all the commotion at the beginning, he tried his best to…

    SV: Not really. As I said, I didn’t really try, I just didn’t see you!

    LH: I’m messing with you.

    SV: But if I had seen you, yes, I would have tried.

    LH: And then I obviously got torpedoed. I thought at some stage I’d get torpedoed by Max. And then after that trying to keep up with Seb was a real challenge. A first and third is a true showing of real strength and depth with our team and it’s a real pleasant surprise really, because we didn’t expect our tyres to go as far as they did. We didn’t think we could manage a one-stop and we made it work.

    Q: You said you were expecting a bit of action from Max early on in the race. Talk us through those opening corners?

    LH: I actually got a really good start, so I was pulling up to Charles and Seb is coming across, coming across, coming across and I’m thinking ‘I’m on the white line, I don’t have anywhere further to go’. And he just keeps coming. So I had to avoid crashing with him, going on the grass. Avoid his wheels as well, otherwise I could have caused a big collision for him. Then I was surrounded by a bunch of cars, I braked into Turn 1, and all of a sudden Max is alongside me. If you’ve seen races before, I always leave Max a lot of space – it’s the smartest thing you can do. But there wasn’t a lot of space to give him space. I think he had an oversteer moment or something and then I got a massive hit from behind. Then I nearly took him out…

    SV: He hit you?

    LH: Yeah. We were going through the corner, you were about to go into Turn 2, my back end came out and I nearly took you out and then we went straight over the grass. It was hair-raising.

    SV: Ah, that’s why there was such a big gap and there was Albon all of a sudden…

    LH: Yeah, me and Max went through the grass together, came out and there were other cars coming by. I thought I was going to get hit by other cars. But I managed to get my bearings and keep my head down. I was not expecting to have that pace and to be able to keep up with the Ferraris but it worked and even with a damaged car. Obviously Seb went a lot further and I think so did Valtteri, he did a fantastic job to come from sixth. I thought I was going to struggle at the end with Seb, with 10-lap younger tyres.

    SV: More than 10. Was it just 10?

    LH: Maybe more than 10. But I just managed to save enough in the early phase while he was doing that long run, which I was able to utilise. Particularly those last seven laps were the important ones and I kept him behind.

    Q: Great race, thank you Lewis. Valtteri, as Lewis said, great race from sixth to third. How was the car and were you suffering any after effects from your crash yesterday?

    VB: I think it was a good day considering the circumstances. And looking back to yesterday it was a pretty good contrast in a good way for today. The car felt good. It felt as good as before the crash and obviously the team made a really good in getting it back together, so thanks to the boys again for that. From my side no problem really. Small headache in the morning but I wasn’t sure if it was from the tequila or the crash. Anyway, all good. I felt good in the car and I’m pleased for today, even though I lost some positions at the start and I lost a lot of time behind the McLarens but I had really strong pace in both of the stints and as a team we maximised today for sure.

     

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

     

    Q: (Frédéric Ferret – L’Equipe) Question to Sebastian. We heard you during the race questioning the strategy of the team two times: about the Plan C and going to box. Do you think afterwards that one of these two strategies could have been better for the victory?

    SV: I think, as Lewis said as well, obviously before the race we were quite sure that you need to get to a certain lap to make the one-stop work and when Lewis pitted, that wasn’t the case yet. Obviously, you know, we were one and two and the two-stop looked like the better strategy and faster strategy so we split the cars, and obviously if you go for the one-stop, you might as well go for the one stop properly and not, sort-of, half-hearted, so when Lewis pitted, I think it was borderline and probably a bit too early but, as he said, he made the tyres last well and had enough towards the end. Plus, I think we didn’t see any graining in the race, which we did on Friday, which I think made the biggest difference. So, then, after that, you can argue maybe we could have taken more risk – but at that point you’re really driving into the unknown. I think what they tried to do is fit the Hard, see if it makes it. If it doesn’t make it, you might as well fit another set at the end and there’s your two stops. When you are sitting in P3 and then having the option to finish, maybe, first or fifth. I think you may as well try. So, that’s one. The second one, I think is just the laps when Valtteri was closing through traffic. Maybe we could have boxed one lap sooner because I hit that traffic quite hard and there was Sainz – or Norris, I don’t know – one McLaren and a Toro Rosso fighting each other very hard and I lost, like, three seconds just on that lap. That didn’t help but obviously it’s also difficult to foresee that these two guys on that lap will have a major fight. So, I think nothing big. As I said, I think we tried everything. Two and One stop, and you have to give it to Lewis, he drove well, he made the tyres last and I think Mercedes in the race was maybe just a little bit quicker than us.

    Q: (Christian Nimmervoll – motorsport-total.com) Lewis, after the incident with Max, was there any damage to the car and, if yes, did it actually cost you lap time?

    LH: Yeah, a big part of the side of my rear floor was missing. I didn’t actually know how much was missing or what was damaged but the balance was quite a lot different. The rear end was quite weak so I was particularly sliding around a lot in the high-speed, so I had to change my settings quite a lot and had to drive it a little bit differently because I couldn’t attack the same way on the entry of corners because the rear stability wasn’t the same. I’ll probably find out later on just how much we were losing but I would imagine a good couple of tenths probably, just from rear floor damage. It’s quite a sensitive area around where the tyres is. But why I’m probably even more happy that I was able to make these tyres last the way we did. And to do it here in Mexico is pretty special.

    Q: (Lawrence Edmondson – ESPN) Question for Valtteri. Your contact with Max in the stadium section, can you talk us through what happened there? And also, to all three drivers: Max – do you treat him differently when you’re racing against him and do you think he’s probably the most aggressive driver out there?

    VB: Yeah, for me, just out of nowhere he appeared on the inside into Turn 13 and, you know, I couldn’t disappear from there. He just dived in and we touched. He got a puncture from that, so… yeah, I couldn’t really avoid him, so I think he earned his own puncture, definitely. But… I don’t know, every driver is obviously different. Some are more aggressive, some are less. I haven’t raced very closely for some time with all of them, so I can’t say in detail for all the drivers.

    Lewis, you touched on this earlier. Do you treat Max differently to other drivers?

    LH: Err… yep. I think every driver is slightly different. Some are smarter; some are like very smart, aggressive and some are silly with it. And so, through those experiences of racing with people, you give some more space and others you don’t have to. They’re quite respectful. But yeah, Max, it’s very likely you’re going to come together with Max if you don’t give him extra space, so most of the time you do. But as I said, in my experience, I didn’t have a lot of space to give him extra space. But I don’t think it was intentional or anything like that. It was just… he’s a magnet for those kind of things but yeah, nonetheless, I managed to keep the car together and in a straight line, fortunately.

    Sebastian. Max?

    SV: Yes and yes.

    Can you put a bit more flesh on the bone?

    SV: No, just copy-paste. It’s true.

    Q: (Omar Alvarez – Graining) This is question for Lewis. What do you think, from your point of view, is missing from Ferrari? What is Ferrari doing wrong? They show pace. They show the speed and on the race day something happened. What do you think is missing in Ferrari?

    LH: Honestly, I usually get paid for that kind of advice, so I probably wouldn’t tell you exactly what it is! I don’t know. They’ve done a great job. The second half of the season has been obviously spectacularly for them. They came with a slightly different philosophy, I think, to some of the other teams. There’s generally a little bit less downforce through corners but faster in straights – which has worked really well because in a lot of tracks, positioning is everything and you can’t get past them down the straights and they’re just about quick enough in a straight line. But we managed to… I guess we managed to overlap them, or outdo them, particularly with great tyre usage within the race, and strategy. You don’t too often see me and Valtteri, our team like falling over each other. With us, they did a great job with that but sometimes Ferrari has that and it’s been unfortunate for one – or two – of the drivers. But Seb’s been driving great recently so it’s been good to see him back up there, driving so well. Naturally we want to have closer wheel-to-wheel races but on some of these tracks you can’t get too close, unfortunately. [to Seb] You’re sticking around for a little bit longer, right? Good good.

    Sebastian, I feel we should give you the right of reply. What do you feel you’ve been lacking on Sundays?

    SV: Well, if you want to be just pure and honest, then I think our car is good in a straight line: one because we have an efficient car, so that’s credit to us; two because I think we’ve done a really good job on the power unit front, so compliments to Maranello. But we are lacking downforce which leads into maybe a weaker race pace, leads onto struggling a bit more on Sundays when it’s about managing the tyres and successive laps, whereas in qualifying I think we can extract a bit more from our car, cover our weakness a bit more with fresh tyres on the car. With new tyres you can mask a little bit the problems here and there. So that would be just the straightforward, technical answer. To do better, I think we need to put things a little bit more together. I think we have all the ingredients; we have the people; we have the intelligence. So I think we just need to make sure things fall into place and once they do, I think things will start to click. Obviously Mercedes have proven in the last years that it is possible. I think they just got stronger and stronger throughout, which is credit to them as a team, credit to obviously Valtteri and Lewis, and in particular Lewis over the last years. They have shown what is possible, they are the benchmark and it’s up to us to do a better job in the future. Easily said, not so easily done but yeah, I think you also have to give credit where credit is due and both Mercedes and Lewis have been too strong in the last couple of years.

    Q: (Luis Vasconcelos – Formula Press) Questions for the Mercedes drivers. Valtteri, you managed to catch Sebastian pretty quickly at the start of the second stint. Twice you had DRS, didn’t seem to make any difference, what would you have needed to have been able to attack. And Lewis, this is the first time you had to deal with Alex Albon in a race. In the first 15 laps you were behind him, what impression did he make on you?

    VB: Yeah, got pretty good pace in the race in general, that was the feeling in general. Got close to Sebastian at a good rate. Sometimes got DRS, got close enough but I think mostly it was because of some backmarkers. Or he had a bit of a lock-up or something – but there was just not quite enough pace difference to make a move for the overtake. I was trying everything I could to get as close as I could but yeah, to get closer than 1.5s or one second is so tricky, and to overtake them, you need to be right in the gearbox, going to the main straight, because our speed on the straight is nearly the same when I have the DRS and they don’t. So, it was pretty impossible today and Sebastian didn’t really do any proper mistakes. So, that would have been needed, or massive help by backmarkers. There was no opportunities.

    Lewis, Alex Albon?

    LH: I don’t really remember a lot. He was obviously just in front of me for a while – and then he pitted, right? He was driving really well, not making any, or too many mistakes. I think this year has been… it’s a real challenge to go up against a driver that’s been spoken so highly of by so many people and built up onto a pedestal. And to come in so young, and with all the difficulties he’s had in his life as well – his life story is quite an interesting one – against all adversity. It was quite cool to just sit and view him for a second. He pitted very early, I’m not quite exactly sure why but they obviously then went onto the two-stop strategy and I didn’t really see him again after that. But he’s got a bright future ahead of him. I hope Red Bull give him the support over the years. It’s very, very important because they often spit drivers out pretty quick if they don’t always do the job. I hope they’re good to him.

    Q: (Alan Baldwin – Reuters) Lewis, this sport has American owners, they’re trying to grow the sport in America. You’re very much a household name in the United States, you’ve got a lot of friends there. How big a deal is it for you to win the title in America?

    LH: Honestly I hadn’t really thought about it. There is obviously an exciting market for me. The most important one for me is England. I’m constantly trying to grow with the fan base we have in the UK and I think the Silverstone Grand Prix is obviously spectacular but the US is getting more and more popular there. I’ve obviously done quite a few shows out there and definitely becoming more and more known in the States but it’s quite a diverse country. I think my story and my family’s story is something that a lot of people in different countries can relate to. America’s always a cool place to live. They do it their own way, it’s different. It’s not England with the British Grand Prix, which is so special in its own way. It’s not the Mexican Grand Prix which is … there were so many people here. It’s unbelievable. It’s its own unique amazing Grand Prix. The track is fantastic and it’s been a good hunting ground for me so very excited to go there and who knows whether we can get the job done, who knows? We’ll hopefully have a good race there.

    Q: (Jack Benyon – Autosport) Lewis, where do you rank that race in terms of your best of the season and also you mentioned adversity ; obviously Ferrari have been very strong since the summer break but this weekend you’ve been without your engineer as well so a lot of adversity to face. Could have you done that earlier in your career or is that something that’s come with experience to find that resolve and dig deep in races like that?

    LH: Experience naturally counts for a huge amount. Honestly I don’t remember every single race this year. I think we’ve had good races but it definitely feels like one of the better races that I’ve had, particularly with the things that were thrown at us at the beginning. And also with the build-up: knowing Bono wasn’t coming, I’m thinking, Jeez, in this intense fight for this championship… you could look at it as a disadvantage but me and Bono pulled together – he did a huge amount of work as did Marcus and Dom who’ve both stepped up into new roles. I’ve never worked so closely with Dom before and Marcus stepped into big shoes. It’s not easy to work alongside… I would say a World Champion in this sport, who generally demand quite a lot but because I have experienced him as my number two he kind of knew how it worked and he’s generally a very laid back individual. And then on top of that, Bono was on the radio, we were texting all weekend and I really just wanted to make him very proud this weekend. He’s devoted so much of his life to me for these seven years so yeah, I really wanted to do… I’m sure he’s happy with today’s race. I’d like to think that I can be really proud of today’s performance, particularly with the damaged car and the stuff we went through at the beginning. And what’s crazy is that I’ve – God knows how many races I’ve done, must be close to 300 races and it just never gets old and it always feels new. It’s a different journey each one, different emotions you go through in the gap before, you know. We had all the stuff last week with the media in terms of the stories that came out last week and then came to this week and an emotional rollercoaster and then obviously Bono’s not coming and then come to Mexico which is a very very hard race to win.. didn’t expect to win, that’s for sure but it’s a great great feeling, very humbling.

    Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Lewis, just checking what your plans are now between these two races: do you lie low, do you have public appearances, do you have all that sort of stuff to worry about as well as obviously focusing on this championship that you can win at next time out?

    LH: Yeah, I head to the States. Me and Toto have an event together in Madison Square… Times Square, sorry, Times Square which is kind of cool. I think Valtteri’s going to do the thing in LA. Then I’ve a photoshoot and then I fly off to Austin, get there probably Thursday or something like that and then straight into the same kind of week but I get there tomorrow, I get into my normal training regime. Naturally I like being in the States so it’s a pretty calm build-up. Shouldn’t be a problem.

    Q: (Carlos Alberto Velazquez – Reforma News) Lewis, last three years you’ve celebrated here. Are you going to miss the celebration of the championship here in Mexico or do you miss Mexico as a place to celebrate?

    LH: Honestly I prefer the way it’s happened today, I think, as the previous times we’ve won here, championship-wise, I’ve finished like eighth or 13th or something crazy so you see someone else on the podium, celebrating a win but I’ve won a championship, so you’re a bit conflicted because you wanted to do better in the race  but you’ve got the overall job done. But today and this weekend, I knew it was unlikely that I was going to be able to win the championship here because Valtteri’s been driving so well but I just wanted to take it one race at a time, I wanted to try and win this race. It actually feels better than perhaps it’s felt in the past. We’ve still got more races to fight for so…

    Q: (Jonathan Chora – First Drive Mexico) Seb, what do you think was the main mistake for this race? And also, were you expecting a more exciting race here in Mexico?

    SV: I don’t think there were any major mistakes so as I tried to explain earlier I think we’ve done well. We tried everything so I don’t think it was a mistake that we are not as quick to make things happen and force things to happen.

    I think it was quite exciting. Obviously we always knew that it’s difficult to pass and have a lot of overtakes because of the nature of the track and being so critical on downforce, up in the altitude it’s very difficult to follow, sliding the tyres is what hurts us most and then to get closer is really really difficult. But I don’t know… the top four cars at the end, within four, five, six, seven seconds I believe. It definitely was very tense, I was hoping that in the last 15 laps to go, I was hoping that in the next five laps to close the gap and start a fight; ten laps to go I was hoping that in the next five laps I’m closing the gap. It was definitely tense but obviously Lewis drove well and didn’t make any mistakes and managed his race. I enjoyed it but would have obviously enjoyed more to have a bit of a fight at the end but we were just not quick enough to do so.

    Q: (Yhacbec Lopez – Motorlat) Lewis, you said last week that you thought the Mercedes power unit lacked power. Do you think the same today?

    LH: We haven’t changed anything so that is still an area that we… reliability has been fantastic through the year but it has been an area of less progress for us as we know. We see the Honda and the Ferrari really stepping up their game on the engine front so we’ve got work to do in that regard but the engine has done well this weekend, considering usually this a really tricky one for our engine, it has been ever since we’ve been coming here with the altitude for our turbo but I’m really happy with how it performed this weekend.