Your basket is currently empty!
Tag: 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
-
Hamilton nurtures dead rubber to come out triumphant in Mexico City
By Abhishek Aggarwal
Vettel (red suit) and Hamilton celebrate on the podium. Photo by Abhishek Aggarwal for INDIAinF1 in Mexico City Mexico City, 27 Oct 2019: “Aay maan, I am so grateful for today.’’ Lewis Hamilton heaved a sigh of relief, pulling out an unexpected win out of thin air, once again nurturing his tyres . But he did not win the Championship here as teammate Valtteri Bottas came up with a third following Sebastian Vettel to the podium. So the Champ has to wait for the crown, a bit longer.
But, as is his wont, he never forgot to praise the crowd and thank the team, when Jenson Button took the initial interview. The defending World champion won more than half the races this season taking his 10th victory from 18 races and added to his overall tally making it an 83rd career victory. The Briton was in roaring form and unleashed his magic once again clocking unbelievable lap times with his aged Hard compound rubber, while Ferrari challenger and multiple world title winner, Sebastian Vettel, despite having the benefit of fresher rubber had to end up chasing the Day’s Hero.
Hamilton, delivered the victory taking the chequered flag 1.7 seconds ahead of the German as the large crowd at the Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez gave a standing applause as the Mexican Grand Prix, the 18th round of the FIA World Championship concluded here on Sunday.
Lewis Hamilton after winning the Mexican Grand Prix on Sunday. All photos by Abhishek Aggarwal In the end it was a perfect strategy by the team, stunning drive from the Briton and unwavering lap times by the seemingly-worn tyres that Hamilton could cull out, all mattered to add to the Mercedes strength as the Champion moves closer to another world title. In the post-event poser at the press meet, when asked that he won the championship here, the last two-years despite not winning the race and now in spite of winning the race, he had to wait for the Crown. Hamilton was bang on: “I love racing, man! Yeah, I don’t mind (waiting). I just take it one race at a time…’’ He went on to say that he is incredibly humbled for the op and for the car holding as it did today.’’
Earlier at the start, Hamilton did have a good push going into P2 from P3, but soon Max Verstappen of Red Bull tried to force his way and both he and Hamilton had to take an off-the-track excursion on to the grass and Hamilton ended up in fifth place. That was because, Verstappen after a good start, was involved in an aggressive car-to-car battle and after the contact with Lewis. He ended up P6 and alas, after the puncture later fighting with Bottas for P7, he wasn’t able to gain momentum. This is the fourth occasion, he finished behind his teammate Albon.
This is not just the set-back. Post the qualifying session, the mood in the paddocks for the Ferrari was surely highly as they hoped it would be a 1-2 for the Red Prancing Horse on the race-day. They did nurture hopes of the two long straights on the circuit, favoring Ferrari to the hilt.
However, Ferrari messed up their pit-stop strategy by pitting Charles so early, and leaving Sebastian too late… thereby causing two stops. Also in his second stop, the pit crew took an additional 5 seconds to set him free, and the Ferrari youngster was forced to join the race behind Bottas. Mercedes capitalized on it as Lewis perfectly controlled the race pace showing immense maturity and controlled tire wear with ease.
A jubilant crowd at the Mexican GP. Amidst all the hullabullah, it was Checo the Hero of the day for the Mexicans. The local boy, Sergio Perez, fondly called Checo, finished at a handsome P7 after starting 11th on the grid as he survived a fierce battle with Daniel Ricciardo who conserved his tyres in the first leg of the race.
Vettel was leading the race, with Hamilton and Bottas in tow, all seemingly going for a one-stop strategy when the Mercedes champion pitted on Lap 23 for hard compound. It seems Ferrari lost the strategy here as they opted to keep Vettel on track and failed to cover the Briton. Finally, when Vettel pitted on Lap 37, he ended up rejoining in fourth behind Leclerc, Hamilton and Albon. Bottas had pitted a lap earlier. With both Leclerc and Albon making an additional stop, it was Vettel and Hamilton in the closing laps of the race fighting for the win. But Bottas’ third place meant that Hamilton needs four more points than the Finn, to win the Championship. COTA at Austin beckons!
Vettel tried his best and pushed the tyres but it was Hamilton, who emerged in flying colours, nurturing his hard tyres and delivering stunning lap times. Bottas took the final place on the podium. Leclerc finished fourth, ahead of Albon and Verstappen, also took a point for the fastest lap.
2019 FIA Formula One Mexican Grand Prix – Race
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 71 1:36’48.904
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 71 1:36’50.670 1.766
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 71 1:36’52.457 3.553
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 71 1:36’55.272 6.368
5 Alexander Albon Red Bull Racing 71 1:37’10.303 21.399
6 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 71 1:37’57.711 1’08.807
7 Sergio Pérez Racing Point 71 1:38’02.723 1’13.819
8 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 71 1:38’03.828 1’14.924
9 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso 70 1:37’12.191 1 Lap
10 Nico Hülkenberg Renault 70 1:37’16.515 1 Lap
11 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 70 1:37’19.121 1 Lap
12 Lance Stroll Racing Point 70 1:37’21.215 1 Lap
13 Carlos Sainz McLaren 70 1:37’24.231 1 Lap
14 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 70 1:37’45.156 1 Lap
15 Kevin Magnussen Haas 69 1:36’50.489 2 Laps
16 George Russell Williams 69 1:37’36.095 2 Laps
17 Romain Grosjean Haas 69 1:37’40.796 2 Laps
18 Robert Kubica Williams 69 1:37’50.095 2 Laps
Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo 58 1:21’35.285
Lando Norris McLaren/Renault 48 1:09’26.792 . -
Charles Leclerc dedicates maiden F1 victory to Anthoine Hubert: Belgian GP
Charles Leclerc dedicates his first Formula One victory to his friend Anthoine Hubert who died on Saturday in an F2 accident. An FIA image Spa, 1 Sept 2019: Charles Leclerc took an emotional first Formula One win at Spa-Francorchamps and immediately dedicated his maiden victory to childhood racing rival Anthoine Hubert who tragically lost his life in a crash in Saturday’s FIA Formula 2 race at the Ardennes circuit.
“On the one hand, I’ve got a dream since being as a child that has been realised. But on the other hand, it has been a very difficult weekend since yesterday,” he said after defying late pressure from championship leader to take the win.
“We have lost a friend first of all. It is very difficult in these situations, so I would like to dedicate my first win to him. We have grown up together – my first ever race I have done it with Anthoine and there was Esteban [Ocon] – and just shame what happened yesterday. I can’t enjoy fully my first victory but it will definitely be a memory I will keep forever.”
Leclerc’s victory was scored from the second pole position of his career and the Monegasque driver kept his advantage at the race start to lead ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton, and Bottas.
There was drama behind the leaders through, with Max Verstappen’s race-ending within moments of the red lights going out to signal the start. The Dutchman’s start from P5 on the grid was not ideal and he was immediately passed by a number of cars.
Verstappen responded by taking a tight line down the inside into the La Source hairpin. As he approached the corner, though, he hit Kimi Räikkönen’s Alfa Romeo pitching the Finn into the air.
Verstappen’s car was also damaged in the incident and though the Red Bull driver attempted to carry on, his suspension broke as he exited Eau Rouge and he crashed out of the race.
The incident brought out the safety car and as the field formed up behind the course car, Leclerc led ahead of Vettel with Hamilton third ahead of Valtteri Bottas and McLaren’s Lando Norris who had profited from the turn one incident to climb from 11thon the grid.
Vettel was the first of the frontrunners to pit, with the German taking on medium tyres on lap 15. He rejoined in fifth place and was soon setting purple times as the new front three of Leclerc, Hamilton and Bottas continued to circulate.
Race leader Leclerc made his sole stop on lap 21, but he rejoined behind team-mate Vettel and after Hamilton and Bottas had made their visits to pit lane, the German emerged as the new race leader, two seconds clear of the younger Ferrari driver.
Vettel’s lead didn’t last long, however. Leclerc quickly closed the gap and on lap 25 Vettel was told to let his team-mate past. At the start of the next tour he obliged, drifting off the racing line on the run down to Eau Rouge to let his young team-mate re-take the lead. The German then came under heavy pressure from Hamilton. He defended well for a number of laps but on lap 31 he Hamilton got close enough and passed
Further back, new Red Bull recruit Alex Albon began to make moves forward after his sole pits to swap opening medium tyres for new softs. The Thai driver, who has started from 17thon the grid emerged in P15 began to power through the pack. On lap 30 he moved into the points when he passed Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly with a good move into Les Combes and he then made a good move down the inside of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo on the run towards Pouhon to claim an eighth place on lap 33.
The second Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat was the next target and on lap 38 Albon powered past the Russian on the run down the Kemmel Straight.
He now set off in pursuit of sixth-placed Perez, though the Mexican driver was nine seconds up the road. That was no deterrent, however, and by lap 42 he had reduced the deficit to the Racing Point to just two seconds.
And in a frenetic final two laps, the Red Bull driver continued his rise. At the start of lap 44, McLaren’s Lando Norris, who had been running fifth stopped just beyond the start-finish straight and then with pace in hand Albon made his move on Perez on the long run to Les Combes. It was a brave one too, with the new recruit putting a wheel into the dirt on the right side of the track as the Mexican tried to defend.
There was no denying the Red Bull’s pace, however, and as Leclerc crossed the line to take his first Grand Prix victory ahead of Hamilton, Bottas, and Vettel, Albon powered towards his best-ever F1 finish.
Behind the Red Bull, Perez clung on to sixth ahead of Kvyat and Hulkenberg took eighth place ahead of the second Toro Rosso of Pierre Gasly. The final point on offer went to Racing Point’s Lance Stroll.
2019 FIA Formula One Belgian Grand Prix – Race
1 Charles Leclerc Ferrari –
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 0.981
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 12.585
4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 26.422
5 Alex Albon Red Bull Racing 1’21.325
6 Sergio Perez Racing Point 1’24.448
7 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1’29.657
8 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1’46.639
9 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso 1’49.168
10 Lance Stroll Racing Point 1’49.838
11 Lando Norris McLaren
12 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1 lap
13 Romain Grosjean Haas 1 lap
14 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 1 lap
15 George Russell Williams 1 lap
16 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo Racing 1 lap
17 Robert Kubica Williams 1 lap
18 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing
19 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren
20 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing -
P3 was terrible and it was painful: Hamilton
DRIVERS
1 – Charles LECLERC (Ferrari)
2 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)
3 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Timo Glock)
Q: Well done for today. You seemed to be totally in control of the weekend so far and you got a really good lap in. How did it feel like in qualifying for you?
Charles LECLERC: It felt good. Obviously the first sector was not exactly what I wanted, especially in the first corner, we had to go very slow to prepare the lap because there was a lot of traffic. I struggled for that a bit, but after that from the second corner onwards then we were very strong and it felt amazing.
Q: It seemed like you were the only guy who stayed out of trouble on the out laps, because everyone struggled to find a clean spot, but you managed it really well, or not?
CL: Yeah, that’s what I asked actually when I was in the garage – to not really care about the slipstream, it was just too much of a mess to prepare the tyres and the lap overall, so ~I wanted to be alone and yeah, it worked out, so I’m happy.
Q: Good feeling for tomorrow for the race?
CL: Yeah, we were struggling a little bit more during the race pace yesterday, so we need to work on that. But, yeah, looking at the pace today I’m pretty sure we will be strong.
Q: Seb, well done today, P2. I think when I saw you in the middle of the same like Charles, you struggled on the out lap to get the tyres into the right window. Was that the key problem today?
Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, I mean in the end it’s good that we secured the first row. To fight for pole, I was sort of in the queue; it doesn’t help, but no excuses. We look forward to the race tomorrow. I think we have good pace in the car, so hopefully, we can show it also over, what is it 44 laps?
Q: But you didn’t seem that happen on the long-run pace yesterday. Do you think tomorrow it’s going to be OK when it’s a lot cooler?
SV: Yeah, I think it should be better. The car was better today, so we’ll see. Obviously temperatures should drop overnight, which makes a difference, but it’s the same for everyone.
Q: Thanks. Lewis, first of all, I think we need to talk about your mechanics. They did an awesome job.
Lewis HAMILTON: Absolutely. P3 was a terrible session for me. Of course, it’s painful because you know how many people work so hard to build those parts and then you know how hard the guys work to put the car together and I knew that was going to be a tough challenge. But my guys are just faultless, they always work and give 110% and I’m so grateful for that. After that I was really just trying to pay them back with a good qualifying session. Considering I missed P3 and a lot of P1 actually I’m really grateful I’m up here.
Q: You were nearly crashing, I think even Valtteri on the out lap, because it was a mess as well. Was it for you hard to get the tyres in as well, because everyone seemed to be affected by that?
LH: Yeah, that was a bit slow. Obviously he was trying to keep the tow of the car in front, so I was trying to hold behind him and everyone was behind me, so it’s really tricky. But nonetheless Ferrari have done a great job today, Charles did an exceptional job and I hope we can bring the fight to them in the race tomorrow.
Q: I think your long-run pace was very good yesterday and there is a chance for you on the long straight to attack the Ferraris straight away. Are you happy that it’s going to be 10 degrees cooler tomorrow? Is that helping you out?
LH: I don’t know, I’d have to ask my engineers. Either way I’m going to give it everything and hopefully give these guys a good race.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Charles, many congratulations, you dominated all three segments of qualifying. Can you tell us how it feels to be on pole by seven tenths of a second?
CL: It obviously feels amazing. It was very tricky, especially in Q3 I struggled quite a lot, the start of the lap was always very, very messy, because there was quite a lot of traffic with all the cars around but in the end I managed to do the full lap correctly and I’m very happy. I definitely did not expect to be that much ahead, but very happy with my lap anyway.
Q: Well, came close to winning in Bahrain earlier this year, so given your level of dominance so far this weekend how confident are you for tomorrow?
CL: I don’t know. I think we have been quick since FP1 but once we did the race simulations in FP2 we weren’t as quick, so I think it’s not going to be easy tomorrow. We will try to give everything. The gap is quite big today but it doesn’t mean it will be like that tomorrow, so we will working hard to improve on the race run we did yesterday and we will see.
Q: Well done again. Sebastian, you said on your cool-down lap “what a mess”. Can you just describe the session and particularly Q3 from your point of view?
SV: Uhh, messy! I think I was getting into a sort of a rhythm, maybe it took a little bit longer for me today to really get a hold of the car but it felt quite good. But then in Q3 it was quite messy, with everybody trying to get a tow and a lot of queuing for the last corner, which made it very tricky and, yeah, obviously the tyres then are not where they were probably supposed to be and being further back it I think it wasn’t ideal. Anyways, Charles did a better job today, also with that, so now looking forward to tomorrow. I felt the car was quite good, which is the most important thing so let’s see tomorrow with the change in ambient conditions, in track conditions, what the race is going to be like.
Q: Thank you and good luck tomorrow. Lewis, it’s been an impressive comeback by you and the team after your crash in final practice. First of all, any lasting physical effects from that crash and how was the car in qualifying?
LH: Firstly, it’s been an interesting weekend so far. We struggled obviously a little bit in the first session with some problems and then, yeah, I made a big mistake this morning with the change we made and it just didn’t feel great out there and obviously I had that incident. But the guys did an incredible job, incredibly diligent, to perfection – taking the car apart and rebuilding it. There’s so much pressure on those guys through the weekend and naturally I don’t ever want to put them in that position, but I think they relished the challenge and so really proud of them. So going into this session I was just hoping that I’ve got the car in the right place and ultimately hoping I can pay them back with a good qualifying session and I think today was really smooth and I think the team did an amazing job in terms of where they put us out there. It was a little bit tricky when everyone was slowing down but nonetheless, congratulations to Charles, he’s been so quick all weekend. But I think in the long run we can at least give them a bit of a challenge tomorrow. I think a bit of the straight speed, which is where generally all the speed is, it’s usually not there so much in the race, so hopefully we’ll be there or thereabout with them tomorrow and can put in maybe some interesting strategies, we’ll see.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Christian Menath – motorsport-magazin.com) Question for you Seb. You said you didn’t get into the rhythm very fast; it took a bit of time for you. Do you have an explanation for that – because yesterday it looked like you lost quite a lot time on the straights?
SV: No, not really. I don’t think we lost time on the straights. I think nothing out of the ordinary, so… No, I think it was quite tricky to get the car where I wanted it to be for one lap, and it was better in qualifying. I struggled a bit yesterday afternoon, this morning, but, as I said, by qualifying it was fine and then obviously towards the last part of quali it was a bit messy again, not ideal preparing the lap, so yeah, I’m not happy with the final attempt, it wasn’t clean. So, yeah, I’m not worried, I think pace-wise it was looking quite good and let’s see what we get tomorrow. Obviously a big change in terms of temps. Let’s see how we adapt.
Q: (Erik Bielderman – L’Equipe) Lewis, when you don’t claim the pole position, like today, do you head into the Sunday’s race in a more excited mood because of the challenge that awaits you?
LH: When you’re on pole, you’re always the happiest, naturally – but nonetheless, yeah, I’m happy that we have a fight. I think we knew that coming here, that it was going to be challenging. We didn’t know where the Red Bulls or Ferraris would be but we knew the Ferraris would be extremely quick given that they’ve been fastest on all the straights throughout the year. That’s a big gap: seven-tenths is a huge margin but nonetheless I think in the race trim it looked like it was a lot closer. So yeah, I’m excited that I’m in a position where hopefully I can try and battle these guys tomorrow. That makes it more fun for us, for me – and for the fans, hopefully.
Q: (Godina Zsolt – F1Valag.hu) Charles, congratulations, you said a few weeks ago that Sebastian is doing a better job in terms of tyre management. Were you able to work on that this weekend, and don’t you think that this could be the key to win this race tomorrow?
CL: Well, I’ve been analysing quite a lot Hungary. Actually, maybe it looked worse than it actually was but there’s definitely some work to do on my side on this. So, we’ll see if tomorrow it pays off. I changed a few things – very small things – but details always makes the difference at this level. So, yeah, we’ll see tomorrow if it’s any better.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question for Charles. Obviously you’ve come close to winning in Bahrain and also in Austria. Bahrain was nothing to do with you. What have you taken from those two races; those two close calls that you can perhaps take into tomorrow to give you a bit more of an edge?
CL: I mean obviously Bahrain was nothing to do with me, so not much to take from there. Austria, I think there were lessons learnt but I think I already showed it after in Silverstone, as I already speak about the aggressivity (sic) level I had with my opponents – but apart from this, nothing. I guess, at first it feels a bit weird when you are coming to Formula 1 and you do your first laps in the lead. So, the more laps I am in the lead, the more comfortable I am. And this feels good.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Possibly to all of you. When you were queuing up in your out-laps, what was more important for a perfect lap afterwards: to get a good tow or to have the tyres in the window? And was it possible at all to achieve both targets?
LH: On the perfect scenario you got the tow and the tyres in the window. In Q3 I don’t think so, no because everyone was backing up. Obviously we had that really slow section with Hülkenberg, I think it was, and then Valtteri and myself and then again in the next one, everyone again was backing up into the last one, so I think the second one was a little bit of a better position, a chance, but still, it’s very, very tricky. I don’t think they were both… they were optimum for all of us.
Q: Charles, how was it for you?
CL: Yeah, at first I really targeted the perfect slipstream for the first run in Q3 but after that I really felt that the tyres weren’t ready for Turn One and I actually lost quite a bit of time. So then, for the second run in Q3, I just asked the team to send me whenever the car was ready, to be alone and to try to do the job alone, without slipstreams, which I think, yeah, in my opinion, on my car, it felt better to have the tyres in the right window than having the slipstream. So, we went as soon as possible – but obviously we found anyway some cars in front.
Q: Seb?
SV: Well, obviously it was more important to get the tyres in the right position for me. Or in the right place. I was, on both laps, too close to the cars in front and the tyres not right to start the lap with. So yeah, it was a lose-lose. The straights were good – but I was too close and lost quite a lot, I think also in Sector Two.
Q: (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) Lewis, coming here, obviously Mercedes has the upgraded engine across for you and Valtteri and the customer cars. Two out of six of those cars have now had failures: Pérez’s car on fire and then Robert’s in the Williams in the qualifying. For you, going into tomorrow, does that present any concerns or do you just trust your team to analyse it and make whatever countermeasures they need to make.
LH: I don’t know the details of why the engines have gone, so I have nothing to worry about currently because I don’t know anything about it really. I’m sure, when I get back, I’m sure they’re trying to analyse it and they’ll give us a bit of an idea – but still, I’ve just got to keep my head down and do what I do and what will be will be. There’s not much I can do about it, so there’s no point worrying about it.
Q: (Luke Smith – crash.net) Charles, you spoke earlier in the season about your need to focus on qualifying and the build-up through all three sessions. I guess a third pole of the season proves your strategy is working; a sixth race in a row you’ve out-qualified your team-mate as well. Do you feel that you’ve cracked the code to F1 qualifying now?
CL: I’ve done some changes on qualifying and yeah, I definitely feel the difference, and feel it’s going the good way. As I said in Hungary, now I need to focus a little bit on the race because in some races I haven’t been as good as I wanted to. So, now I’m trying to focus on that, to rebalance a little bit and we’ll see how it goes.
Q: (Viktor Bognar – Magyar Szo) In the past weeks, in the mainstream media and social media it’s all about burning the rainforest and efforts of the global climate change. Do you think that Formula One should or could do something more to raise awareness to this problem? And do you agree with the way how Formula One promotes efficiency and sustainability at the moment?
SV: I think it’s a very important subject. I feel that Formula One has a wordwide operating platform and should do a lot more. I don’t think that just promoting the efficiency of our engines is enough plus I think unfortunately a large part of our technology inside the car will not go onto the road so you can argue about the necessity. So I think – not just on track but also off track – I think Formula One could do a lot more and should set an example because I think it is a very serious matter and serious subject.
CL: OK, to be honest it’s only my second season in Formula One. I’m not completely aware about how everything works on the engine so maybe I need a bit more experience to understand all of this.
LH: I’ve been here for a long time. I don’t really know what their current plans are but I think they are working towards a goal in trying to improve the carbon footprint that we have as a sport. But I think up until now the job we’ve done in the sport – they haven’t done anything, particularly I think when Bernie was in place, there wasn’t a lot being done then. So we are in the position where we are now, beginning to shift. If you look at the V8s and the V10s, we are now using a third less fuel than we used to use in a race distance, so that’s already a step forward but there is absolutely more that we can do. Also, on things like the amount of plastic that’s used throughout the weekend – I’ve got three bottles right here. I’m not opening them, but someone will drink these and that becomes waste so I think the amount of waste that comes out of a race weekend, also through all these weekends, we can do a lot about that and so I’m trying to encourage Ross and his team to make a change. And as a team, I’m pushing Mercedes to be the leaders in that, so hopefully soon you’re going to see some positive changes from our side.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – Associated Press) Lewis, we very rarely see mistakes from you. Can you put your finger on what happened there? Was it a loss of concentration? Can you figure out what happened, you made that mistake?
LH: You’re looking way too deep into it, man. Shit happens. I’m only human. I think my track record has been pretty good but it sometimes happens and yes, it’s frustrating and it never feels good, whether it’s in your first year or if it’s in your 13th year whatever, it doesn’t really make any difference but you can always learn from it. So there’s always a silver lining, there’s always an opportunity to pick yourself up, to rebuild and there’s always an experience with your guys and I think today was a massive challenge for the team. I think they did an exceptional job and I’m really happy, generally, with the job that I did in qualifying, so collectively it’s a positive. But I go in the back of the garage and I see my broken parts and I’m like ‘oh my baby’ but they’ll fix it, they’ll fix those parts hopefully or maybe I’ll have to put them up in Toto’s office or something and sign it and say sorry.
Q: (Christian Menath – Motorsportmagazin.com) This queuing thing in Q3 seems to be a bigger topic this season. There were quite a few occasions now where things happened like this. Do you think you need some stricter rules, what is allowed there? At some point it looked a bit ridiculous when other cars were on their fast lap and came and they were queuing up, five, six, seven cars whatever.
SV: I’m not in favour of any more rules. I think we have too many anyway.
CL: I didn’t personally feel that it was worse than last year, at least. I felt that last year was as bad, actually. Everyone is trying to have a tow, which is normal but yeah, I agree with Seb also. I don’t think it should be another rule written in the book for this particular case.
LH: I don’t remember ever going that slow before last year.
SV: I think what should change, actually, what we should take from this – seriously – is that tyre-wise we shouldn’t be so much on the limit so obviously you’re fighting for a tow and so on but you’re also fighting to get into the optimum window which years ago it wasn’t that critical, whereas now it is. So you’re fighting for the best spot on the track which will hit the climb or the peak next week in Monza for finding the right tow because it does make a difference but it has also been part of those type of track, let’s say. But I feel if we had better tyres we could play with probably a bit more speed and so on.
LH: I agree with Seb. Every weekend they put the pressures up so high it’s crazy, which again makes it a little bit harder for us but the tyres are so hard so getting them working, and they’re talking about taking blankets off for the future, we’ll never get temperature in the tyres if they do that. I think this year is definitely the slowest we’ve been. Today felt a little bit dangerous at one point because we were going round turn 15 on the kerb and there was a car coming and I couldn’t move, go on the grass. I was stuck behind Valtteri and I think the next… Hulkenberg or whatever. I can imagine if I was on a lap and I was coming round that everyone was crawling around at five miles an hour it would be a bit of a worry and a bit of a distraction so I’m not really sure what we can do to stop it from happening but maybe we have to be on the pit speed limiter or something like that. You shouldn’t be able to go five miles an hour or two or whatever we were doing because we were literally going as slow as possible to let people past. I did it in Austria, I think, to let everyone by because I was the first car out there and the tow is so strong this year with this car. They talk about the front wing being easier to follow, it’s just caused a lot more drag. This is a draggier car this year so the slipstream is even more powerful or the tow is more powerful than we’ve ever experienced.
-
Charles Leclerc takes pole as Ferrari lock out front row: Belgian GP
Charles Leclerc beat team-mate Sebastian Vettel by seven tenths of a second to claim pole position for tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix as Ferrari locked out the front row ahead of Mercedes at Spa-Francorchamps.
Quickest across the first two qualifying segments, Leclerc stretched the gap back to his rivals in the final top-10 shoot-out to claim his third career pole with a lap of 1:42.519, a massive 0.748s ahead of Vettel who chiefly lost out to his young team-mate in the middle sector of the 7km circuit.
Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, recovered from a crash in FP3 to claim third place on the grid ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen.
Q1 was red-flagged after five minutes as Robert Kubica’s Williams suffered a smoke PU failure that left him stranded at the side of the track. The session was immediately halted.
After a 10-minute delay the action resumed and at the end of the opening session it was Leclerc who sat in top spot with a time of 1:43.587, half a second clear of Vettel.
Verstappen took third place in the segment but it was touch and go for the Dutchman, who prior to the final runs was outside the 107% margin after struggling with his car’s handling in the early stages of the session.
In the final run he was quick over the first sector, but then spent the rest of what was a crucial run threading his way through a stream of traffic. The trickle of slower cars became a river at the end of the lap, but Verstappen eventually crossed the line in 1:44.622 to take P3.
The session was then red-flagged for a second time when smoke jetted from the back of Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo and he pulled over on the run down to Eau Rouge.
With just 43 seconds left on the clock, Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly was eliminated in P16 ahead of McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, the second Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat and the Williams cars of George Russell and Robert Kubica.
Leclerc again set the pace in Q2, taking P1 with a first run of 1:43.376 that left him a little over a tenth of a second clear of Vettel. Mercedes rose to third and fourth, with Valtteri Bottas ahead of Hamilton and that left fifth place for Max, who set an opening Q2 time of 1:44.132.
Leclerc then lowered the benchmark to1:42.938 to seal P1 with a tenth of a second in hand over Vettel. The German meanwhile was half a second clear of Hamilton with Bottas a further four tenths back.
Eliminated at the end of Q2 were 11thplaced Romain Grosjean of Haas followed by McLaren’s Lando Norris, Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, Red Bull’s Alex Albon and Giovinazzi.
There was no denying Leclerc in the final session either. The Ferrari driver went quickest in the first runs with a time of 1:42.644 as Max posted an opening time of 1:44.239 to slot into P5 behind Hamilton, Vettel and Bottas.
The Dutchman improved by a whopping half a second on the final run, but as they have been all weekend Ferrari were untouchable, and Leclerc claimed pole position with a small improvement to 1:42.519. Vettel completed the Ferrari front-row lock-out, seven tenths of a second further back while Mercedes annexed the second row ahead with Hamilton third ahead of Bottas.
That left Max as the session’s fifth fastest man and he’ll start from the front of row three tomorrow, ahead of the Renaults of Ricciardo and Hulkenberg, the Alfa Romeo of Kimi Räikkönen, Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen.
2019 FIA Formula One Belgian Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:42.519
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:43.267 0.748
3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:43.282 0.763
4 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:43.415 0.896
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1:43.690 1.171
6 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 1:44.257 1.738
7 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1:44.542 2.023
8 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1:44.557 2.038
9 Sergio Perez Racing Point/Mercedes 1:44.706 2.187
10 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1:45.086 2.567
11 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1:44.797 2.278
12 Lando Norris McLaren/Renault 1:44.847 2.328
13 Lance Stroll Racing Point/Mercedes 1:45.047 2.528
14 Alexander Albon Red Bull/Honda 1:45.799 3.280
15 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo/Ferrari –
16 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 1:46.435 3.916
17 Carlos Sainz McLaren/Renault 1:46.507 3.988
18 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso/Honda 1:46.518 3.999
19 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1:47.548 5.029
20 Robert Kubica Williams/Mercedes – -
Charles Leclerc tops FP2: German GP
Charles Leclerc tops FP2 at Hockenheim on Friday. An FIA image Hockenheim, 26 July 2019: Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc went quickest in the second practice session ahead of the German Grand Prix, but Pierre Gasly’s session ended early when the Red Bull driver crashed out in the final corner, heavily damaging his RB15 in the German Grand Prix, the 11th round of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship here on Friday.
Leclerc, who was second quickest in the morning behind team-mate Sebastian Vettel, took over at the top in the afternoon, setting a best time of 1:13.449 during his performance run on soft tyres. That lap put him 0.124s ahead of Vettel, with Mercedes Lewis Hamilton Mercedes third and 0.146s behind the younger Ferrari driver.
Following the qualifying simulations, the session was red-flagged with 16 minutes left on the clock when Gasly lost control in the final corner. The Frenchman lost the rear of his RB15 on entry and slid off through the gravel trap on the outside of the corner. He hit the barriers hard with the front left of his car and on the rebound slapped the rear left side into the wall too.
Gasly had earlier struggled on his soft tyres run and so finished the session in a relatively lowly 15thplace, almost a second behind team-mate Max Verstappen.
In the opening exchanges of the session, Ferrari carried on where they had left off in the morning session, with Leclerc, running hard tyres, and Vettel, on mediums, set the pace. Both Hamilton and teram-mate Valtteri Bottas then dislodged the Ferrari duo, but eventually, with around a third of the session gone, Vettel bolted on a set of soft tyres and set a new benchmark of 1:13.573 that was soon passed by Leclerc who edged a little over a tenth ahead.
Hamilton went closes to eclipsing the Ferraris, his soft run getting to within 1500ths of a second of Leclerc, but Bottas ended the session further back, with the Finn’s soft run yielding a time of 1:14.111, 0.662 adrift of Leclerc.
Fifth place on the timesheet went to Verstappen, with the Red Bull driver putting in a best time of 1:14.133 to finish just two hundredths of a second behind Bottas.
Haas’ Romain Grosjean continued to show well for Haas, with the French driver a little under five hundredths of a second behind Verstappen. The last within a second of Leclerc’s benchmark was Racing Point’s seventh-placed Lance Stroll, with the Canadian 0.819 behind Leclerc.
Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen took P8 1.009 behind the Monegasque pacesetter, with Nico Hulkenberg 0.14s behind in ninth. The top ten was rounded out by Sergio Pérez in the second Racing Point. Mexican finished the day 1.069 off the pace.
2019 FIA Formula One German Grand Prix – Free Practice 2
1 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 33 1:13.449
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 30 1:13.573 0.124
3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 30 1:13.595 0.146
4 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 30 1:14.111 0.662
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull 23 1:14.133 0.684
6 Romain Grosjean Haas 33 1:14.179 0.730
7 Lance Stroll Racing Point 32 1:14.268 0.819
8 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo 33 1:14.458 1.009
9 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 26 1:14.472 1.023
10 Sergio Perez Racing Point 30 1:14.518 1.069
11 Carlos Sainz McLaren 34 1:14.662 1.213
12 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 39 1:14.800 1.351
13 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 33 1:15.010 1.561
14 Alex Albon Toro Rosso 36 1:15.062 1.613
15 Pierre Gasly Red Bull 19 1:15.089 1.640
16 Lando Norris McLaren 29 1:15.247 1.798
17 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 31 1:15.406 1.957
18 Kevin Magnussen Haas 28 1:15.470 2.021
19 George Russell Williams 27 1:16.900 3.451
20 Robert Kubica Williams 26 1:16.980 3.531 -
Five-second penalty to Sebastian Vettel hands over win to Hamilton: Canadian Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton poses with Sebastian Vettel (left) and Charles Leclerc (right) on Sunday. An FIA image By Abhishek Aggarwal
Montreal, 9 June 2019: Ferrari, the grand old team of Formula 1, had lost its premier standing of late and the 2019 season is no different. Sebastian Vettel, the four-time world champion too, has been struggling to come to terms with his pace adding to the poor quality of performance by the car. But the week-end here at Montreal revived the spirits of the Tifosi as Vettel appeared to have recharged himself to put up a challenge to the Silver Arrows and he truly dominated on Saturday to take the pole position ahead of Mercedes, following amazing practice sessions. But their joy was short-lived.
It was race day on Sunday and all was going well for Vettel. After the pole position in qualifying and the tremendous start, the fortunes of the Red cars seem to have turned turtle once again. The fans call it a jinx. Did someone jinx the German driver’s incredible run when on lap 48… Under heavy pressure from second-placed Lewis Hamilton, Vettel was forced to make a mistake. He lost control of the rear of his car on the entry to the Turn 34 chicane and was forced to go off track on to the grass. He came back and was deemed to have done it in a dangerous manner. The stewards reviewed the incident and imposed a 5-second penalty to Vettel’s time on the grounds of `re-entering the track unsafely’. As a result, though Vettel crossed the chequered flag first, he was eventually adjudged second with +3.658 seconds behind Hamilton. Thus Hamilton continued his good run and won the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix.
This verdict wasn’t absorbed well by the Italian Red Tifosi which was evident from the mood in the Ferrari stands and supporters in the post-race celebrations. They cheered when Vettel took the No.1 board and placed in front of the area where his car was supposed to be parked.
Team Ferrari have decided to challenge the decision made by the stewards with all the supporting data from the cars involved, different viewing cameras and the telemetry.
It was Lewis Hamilton’s record-equalling seventh Canadian Grand Prix win. When Vettel made the mistake there were 22 laps remaining, in the Canadian Grand Prix, the 7th round of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship here on Sunday, but his challenge was essentially over with the stewards penalising later.
Leading from the start, Vettel had only relinquished control of the race during his solitary pit stop on lap 26 of the 70-lap race.
The German took the chequered flag 1.3 seconds ahead of Hamilton but was immediately demoted second place, with Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc third. Hamilton thus took his 68thcareer win and his seventh at the Circuit Gille Villeneuve, equalling Michael Schumacher’s record for Canadian Grand Prix wins.
“I was pushing to the end to try to get past, but obviously I forced him into an error, he went a bit wide, but then I obviously had a run on that corner and we nearly collided,” said Hamilton afterward. “It was unfortunate but this is motor racing.
“I took the corner normally,” the championship leader added. “When you come back on the track you’re not supposed to go straight back to the racing line, you’re supposed to come on safely.”
When the lights went out for the start, polesitter Vettel made a good start and quickly began to build a lead over Hamilton and Leclerc, with Renault’s fourth-placed Daniel Ricciardo keeping Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly at bay.
Gasly was the first of the top five to make a pit stop, with the Frenchman taking on hard tyres on lap seven. He emerged behind Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, however, and the slower pace of the Canadian driver allowed Renault to eventually pit both its drivers and get them out ahead of the Red Bull.
Gasly’s Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen had started the race from P11 on hard tyres and as the field pitted around him the Dutch driver rose up the order top fifth place.
By lap 20, Vettel held a 2.4s lead over Hamilton, with Leclerc three seconds further back. Bottas was now in fourth place but being pursued by Verstappen.
Vettel made his pit stop at the end of lap 26, taking on hard tyres. Hamilton made his stop two laps later, and after also bolting on hard tyres he emerged four seconds behind the German. At the end of lap 30 Bottas pitted for hard tyres, promoting Verstappen to fourth place.
Leclerc was then next in, and he emerged behind Verstappen. Still on starting hard tyres, the Red Bull driver offered little resistance when Leclerc made a move and by half distance the order again showed Vettel ahead of Hamilton with Leclerc bow third ahead of Verstappen.
Hamilton now began to chase down Vettel and by lap 45 the gap between the front pair was just under a second.
Vettel was now coming under serious pressure from the championship leader and on lap 48 the German driver made a mistake on the entry of Turn 3 and went off track. He managed to keep his lead but in rejoining he squeezed Hamilton towards rthe wall on the exit of Turn 4.
The incident was placed under investigation and race officials handed Vettel a five-second time penalty for “unsafe re-entry”. Hamilton was told the news and was told that to take the win all he needed to do was sit on the Ferrari’s gearbox.
Further back, The Verstappen has finally made his pit stop on lap 48. He took on medium tyres and rejoined in P7. He quickly moved past the Renault’s of Hulkenberg and Ricciardo to claim P5.
Ahead, Vettel took the flag ahead of Hamilton but Hamilton was immediately promoted to the top step of the podium ahead of the Ferrari driver.
Leclerc took third place ahead of Bottas, while Verstappen took fifth place ahead of the Renaults of Ricciardo and Hulkenberg. Gasly took his fifth points finish of the campaign with eighth place and the final points positions were taken by Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat. (With quotes and inputs from FIA release)
2019 FIA Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix – Race
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 3.658
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 4.696
4 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 51.043
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull 57.655
6 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 1 Lap
7 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1 Lap
8 Pierre Gasly Red Bull 1 Lap
9 Lance Stroll Racing Point 1 Lap
10 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1 Lap
11 Carlos Sainz McLaren 1 Lap
12 Sergio Perez Racing Point 1 Lap
13 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 1 Lap
14 Romain Grosjean Haas 1 Lap
15 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo 1 Lap
16 George Russell Williams 2 Laps
17 Kevin Magnussen Haas 2 Laps
18 Robert Kubica Williams 3 Laps
19 Alex Albon Toro Rosso
Lando Norris McLaren. -
The competition is incredibly tight in the midfield this year, says Racing Point’s Andrew Green
Shanghai, 12 April 2019: Team representatives who attended the FIA Friday Press Conference ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, the third round of the FIA Formula One World Championship: – Mattia BINOTTO (Ferrari), Toto WOLFF (Mercedes), Toyoharu TANABE (Honda), Andrew GREEN (Racing Point)
Transcript:
Gentlemen, welcome. I’d like to start by taking a moment to reflect on this being the 1000th world championship race for Formula 1, and to ask each of you why you got involved in Formula 1? What triggered your passion for this great sport? Andrew, perhaps we could start with you.
Andrew GREEN: So, this is my, not quite 500th, but close… 1991 I think was my first race and I was not quite out of college, maybe two years out of college and for me it was the Sunday afternoons sitting down watching those guys racing wheel-to-wheel that really gave me the buzz. That’s why I went to college to study engineering; that’s where I wanted to be. At the time my passion was also cricket. One of the guys I used to play cricket with was Rory Byrne. He was the one who inspired me to write off to all the chiefs and offer my services for free. And that’s how I got into F1 and motorsport all those years ago.
Q: Thank you. Toto?
Toto WOLFF: Less holistic. I was interested in racing cars when I made my driving licence actually but didn’t follow Formula 1 at all, although Austria had a great history of Formula 1 racing drivers. But I somehow got into the sport by the finance side. The passion for racing cars in general and then the business side of Formula 1, that encapsulates everything that the business covers around motor racing that somehow attracted me, a few years ago only.
Q: Thank you, Toto. Mattia?
Mattia BINOTTO: On my side, since I was a child I was watching the races with my grandfather. He was a fantastic, passionate [supporter] of motorsport, but especially of Ferrari. When, as myself, living in Switzerland, you were looking at the red cars, they are something special for Italy, so it was something important for me. So it was since I was a child really a dream, of being part of F1 but even more being part of Ferrari. And to this it might feel even like a mission – try to preserve what is the heritage of this sport and Ferrari.
Q: Thanks, and Tanabe-san?
Toyoharu TANABE: Since I was a child I’m very interested in the car. Then, in Japan, we actually didn’t have a lot of racing in that era. But then Honda started Formula 1 as their second era. Then I joined Honda and then after joining Honda I asked my boss: ‘I want to work in Formula 1’. And now I’m working for Formula 1.
Q: Mission accomplished. Thank you all. A few more questions. Tanabe-san, if we can stay with you: it’s been a very solid start for Honda so far in 2019. How satisfied are you and can you close the gap to Ferrari and Mercedes?
TT: So far, we have started this season with a reasonable performance and reasonable results. But reasonable means not fantastic yet and you see clearly you see there is still a big gap between the top runners and us. So we really need to push to improve our performance, to compete with our competitors here. But we understand it is not to improve our performance immediately but we’ll keep pushing through the year.
Q: What do you think is the performance gap between yourselves and Ferrari and Mercedes?
TT: I don’t tell you specific number but you see the gap at the track.
Q: Thank you. Andrew if I could come to you, please. How do you assess Racing Point’s start to the season and what sort of progress are you making with the car?
AG: It’s been a difficult start. I think the competition is incredibly tight in the midfield this year – tighter than I’ve known it for a long time. I think we’re just slightly behind. We’re not a long way behind but I think our weaknesses were probably exposed in the first couple of races. We’ve got a plan to obviously bring us back to our target level of performance, it’s going to take some time, but I think we have to remember that the car was originally conceived in the mid to late part of last year, when the team was in serious trouble. We were really struggling at that point. We had to make quite a few decisions about the car and the architecture of the car back then, not really knowing what was going to happen with the team, whether there was even going to be a team. We are still getting out of that. It will still take some time. We’re in a much better place now, but improvements take time. It takes time to build the infrastructure up to where we need it to be. It’s easy now to say that we have the bills paid at the end of each month, which we never used to be able to say, so it’s one less thing to worry about. But there are more things to think about, as far as the performance of the car, where we’re going in the future, which is something we’re thinking about a lot, where the regulations are going and where we’re going to go in the future. There’s a lot to think about now.
Q: And a quick word on Lance Stroll as well. It’s his first season with the team. How is he bedding in, what are your first impressions?
AG: First impressions are really good. We saw it at the end of last year when he tested for us post-Abu Dhabi. We could see the talent was there; he’s got some raw talent. We saw it in the simulator as well. He’s done a huge amount of work off-season with us. His dedication is incredible. His enthusiasm is incredible. He’s fitted into the team I think really well, really well, and I think he’s got a bright future ahead of him.
Q: Mattia, losing the Bahrain Grand Prix must have been very tough on everybody in the team but particularly Charles Leclerc. What did you say to him? How could you comfort him after the race?
Mattia BINOTTO: Losing was tough but even more probably frustrating but giving us even more boost for the following races and for here in China. To Charles, what I told him, I think he did a great race, he did a great quali a great race but more than that, I think he has been fantastic on the post-race comments, showing that he’s really a mature driver. So, simply telling him good job but we’re more happy with what you did after the race and during the entire weekend. And that’s enough. Because then I think all of us are simply looking ahead at the next challenge.
Q: Was there any reoccurrence of the problem during the test session in Bahrain after the race?
MB: No, not during the testing, so that’s a problem that occurs only once during the race. Never at the bench, never during testing, never in practices. Ten laps or 12 laps to the end of the race, whatever it was. I think on reliability, you need to be strong, on quality, you need to be strong, but it may always happen and I think it was really unlucky the way it happened. We changed all our units here in China for precaution, even on the other car, so even on Seb’s. Not because the one of Seb got the issues so far, but I think at the moment it’s the best way to protect ourselves with the issue we have. And then we try somehow to understand and verify the quality of all the units we have installed.
Q: And just a quick word if we may on Mick Schumacher who was testing one of your cars in that Bahrain test. How do you assess his performance?
MB: To assess the performance, I think it is very difficult because first, the weather conditions were very bad on that day and because at the end I think that the objective was not really to assess the performance. It was his very first day on an F1 car; more important for him still in the learning phase, day-by-day, is facing a completely new challenge in his F2 season. I think what was certainly positive was the way he approached the exercise, the approach to the day of testing, never pushing to the limit, trying to improve run-by-run, learning the car, learning the team, and I think in that respect he did a very good job: very well focussed, concentrated and tried to do the proper job and learn. I think that’s the most you may expect on such a day.
Q: Did you see any similar character traits with his father?
MB: The very first time I saw him after many years in Maranello, when he came back. If you looked at him, I don’t think he’s looking very similar to Michael but the way he’s behaving is very similar, and the way he’s approaches the exercise and the way he’s interested in the car, discussing it with the technicians. So even in Maranello, you are looking after him, but he’s always in the workshop looking at the car, speaking with the mechanics, and I think that’s very similar to his father.
Q: Toto, you’re leading both of the World Championships but what do you feel is the reality in terms of performance at the moment?
Toto WOLFF: It’s nice to lead the two championships, obviously you’d rather lead than not lead, but we have seen two very different grands prix. We had a very high level of performance in Melbourne, compared to Ferrari, and not a great level in the second level in Bahrain – but it was not only compared to Ferrari, also you benchmark yourself to the other teams and I think that was a race where we didn’t perform as we should have done – but we’ve always said there was one race that was the race over the winter: who comes out of the blocks best; and then there will be the development race throughout the season, and this is certainly a challenging situation for us, as it will be for all the other teams and good for the sport, I think, that you can’t really predict who’s going to win the race on Sunday.
Q: And a quick word on Valtteri Bottas. He’s leading the World Championship. Are you seeing anything different from him this season, compared to previous?
TW: It’s this mania depression of Formula One that people are being written up and written down and after Melbourne he was the reinvented superstar and World Championship contender and after the next race again it was not the case. I think we just need to let them go on with the Championship. He has started the weekend well today. I think it’s the same Valtteri we have seen in the last years. He has all that he needs to compete on a high level, to fight for race victories and eventually championships. I see the same guy.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Stuart Codling – Autosport) Question for Toto. Lewis said yesterday that, if Ferrari have established an advantage on the engine side, it will be much more difficult to catch up than if they’d established an advantage on the aero side. Could you elucidate a little bit on that? Is it a factor of the tightness of the regulatory box or the inherent risks of pushing engine development?
TW: First of all, what needs to be said – because when I read articles it’s always not accurately reflected – if somebody does a good job, he does a good job, and that’s fact. And whether he has a good engine and out-performs all the others, or he has a decent amount of downforce and goes quicker around the corners, that is irrelevant. It is always about the performance of the package. As we have seen, Ferrari operating in Bahrain, they were superior to all the other teams and there was massive engine power on the straight – but it’s not always engine power. Obviously, drag levels are playing an important role in the calculation. This is something we need to evaluate. This morning there was a frightening lap of Sebastian again, in straight line speed – but it is what it is, we have to stretch ourselves and fight and extract performance out of the chassis and extract performance out of the power unit and certainly see. Having a benchmark like that helps and motivates.
Q: (Julien Billotte – AutoHebdo) Question to Mattia. At the beginning of the season you said that Sebastian will be given priority status in some situations in the early part of the season. Could that philosophy shirt and change towards Charles if he were to repeat the sort of races we saw from him in Bahrain?
MB: Certainly as a team we need to give the priority to the team and try to maximise the team’s points at the end of the race. As I said at the start of the season, if there is any 50-50 situation where we need to take a decision, the advantage would have been given to Sebastian simply because Sebastian has got most of the experience with the team in F1. He won four championships and certainly for us he’s the driver who has most probability to challenge for the title. Something we agreed with both drivers is, in a few races’ time, things may change for whatever reason – bad luck or whatever could be the situation – we may change our position, no doubt. But on the track, they’re free to fight, on the track I think if there is one driver who is certainly faster, he will get the advantage. I think that Charles, as a matter of fact, he had an opportunity to be in pole in Bahrain, he had the opportunity to fight for the win and he had position in Bahrain.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines / racefans.net) Andrew and Toto, your two companies have recently signed an agreement for Racing Point to use the Mercedes wind tunnel. When does this become effective? What are you trying to achieve through it, Andrew? And then finally, why should we not see this as a precursor to a Haas-Ferrari-type deal?
AG: Later this year we’ll be moving into the Mercedes tunnel in Brackley for purely efficiency reasons. Our aero department happens to be located in Brackley; Mercedes wind tunnel happens to be located in Brackley. It’s a lot easier to go testing in Brackley than it is in Cologne. So, when it was offered as an opportunity for us to go testing there, it was an obvious choice.
And Toto, a closer affiliation between the two teams?
TW: Well, first of all, we are not doing a Haas-Ferrari model because Haas was a new entry, a team created from scratch. These guys exist for a long time. I don’t see what’s so bad in a Haas-Ferrari model actually. We have enabled somebody that was keen to enter Formula One in setting up a team, with the cooperation with Ferrari it got out of the blocks really well, and fights solidly in the midfield. I think that’s good for Formula One. Our model is very different. For the reasons stated before, Andy and his team know pretty well what they want to achieve with the car, they have a solid technical group of people and will go in that direction. They will be using some of our infrastructure and we will see where that moves for the 2021 regulations. Once these are carved out, we will decide which of the areas we want to collaborate and where it is possible, regulatory-wise.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action, Speedsport) Tanabe-san, one year ago you had one team, now you have two teams. How much faster, how much improved is your rate of development?
TT: Yes, so we can get double data compared to the one team (with) two teams and then there are some differences in the team philosophies or ways of working and we learned a lot. Then, not only twice but also more than twice we can receive information and then we had a different driver – four drivers with different characteristics and driving, slightly. It’s very hard how much in some things but two teams appear to supply and accelerate our development definitely.
Q: (Alessandra Retico – La Repubblica) Mattia, Montezemolo said in an interview with my newspaper that you are at risk, in his opinion, to be alone inside the Scuderia, because there is no one to talk with because the president, John Elkan is not so experienced in Formula One and CEO Camilleri is a great manager of course but his job is on the financial side of the company. And like it was Ross Brawn with Jean Todt and Montezemolo himself. Do you have any comment on that?
MB: I didn’t read the article, first, but I think that that’s completely wrong. I got the full support from my chairman and my CEO. I think that both John and Louis are great men, certainly very supportive to the team and I think that I have got plenty of people in Maranello to speak with so I’m well supported by my colleagues and I think that somehow we are quite a big and hungry team with plenty of competence and skills so I think I feel fully supported and hopefully I will have a long life in the team.
Q: (David Coath – Motorlat.com) Toto, we are celebrating the launch of the esports series China championship this weekend. I’m wondering if you are able to see much of the e-sports work, considering you have the reigning championship yourself?
TW: Yes, the virtual world was something I needed to get used to but interestingly, when you watch an esports F1 race there is almost no difference in how you perceive it than on a real on-board so it’s crazy to see how technology develops and the graphics have matured. We obviously enjoy very much. We have set up this programme where we are trying to give young kids a framework around their capabilities, it’s not only the driving and the coaching around but we are giving them a 360 degree support programme. They are little Mercedes works drivers and winning the championship last year was the icing on the cake. You can say somehow that we’ve done it in the real world and we’ve done it in the virtual world and again, as I’ve said before, you’d rather win that one than not. Yeah, I’m happy to see how that develops.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines, Racefans.net) Toto and Matteo, following the Liberty meeting, now that you’ve had time to reflect on what they presented, do your two teams have any red lines about what was presented, particularly with reference to the revenue, the governance and the cost-caps?
TW: (To MB: He is wearing red, he has many red lines). That is a work in progress. I think the meeting was good because in the meeting we… most of Liberty’s thoughts and proposals were made clear to the teams on the cost-cap, on technical regulations and sporting regulations going forward and that was important for us to really open up a thought process around it and this is still very much happening. And in each of those areas, we seem to have an alignment on what we want to achieve. Formula One needs regulations, Formula One needs to stay high tec but on the other side we recognise that if there are areas where we can save costs because these things are not visible to the fans, then we really need to look at them. On the cost-cap, for the big teams, I think it’s an intelligent step to contain the escalation of costs. We are fighting each other with more and more resource and if we are able to stop that and reduce it, it will be for the benefit of all of us, of our bottom lines and eventually it will decrease the funding gap between the smaller teams and the big teams and I think if we were to achieve that in the first step, that’s already a good step going forward. And because of the nature of things, in terms of the prize fund redistribution, nobody’s ever going to be happy. You would want to obviously maximise and optimise on your situation that everybody’s going to have pretty decent arguments why they should have more and this is a discussion which really has just started in my opinion, but obviously, I would say, a good first step.
MB: I think that Toto’s answered well. But I think yes, I think this is the start of the discussion and we’ve got some more clarity. I think it’s important to collaborate, be open with each other. As Toto said, we’ve got common objectives, us and F1. Pretty sure that we will find the right compromise if only through discussions, that we may find it, as we did for the power unit. I think we adopted a change, we considered that we were very back, finally we decided for a common good result which everybody was almost happy with the compromise. I think that’s the same for the revenues, we did the same for the governance, the budget cap, all the technical matters; it’s a discussion on-going but collaboration and discussions are all positive so even if there are some distances at the moment, I’m pretty sure we will find the right compromise at the end.
Q: (Stuart Codling – Autosport) Andrew, just to follow up on Dieter’s question from earlier about the wind tunnel: you take a Mercedes complete power train and now will be using the wind tunnel. Do you think this is as far as anyone should be allowed to go in terms of team affiliation?
AG: I hope not, because we take their gearbox and hydraulics as well. I’d like that to stay. I think that’s everything that is being discussed for 2021, I think that’s all on the agenda that Toto was referencing earlier and it is what I was referencing earlier as well. It’s where we go forward as a team, thinking ahead for 2021. We want to build our team to be the most efficient team based around those regulations and when those regulations are finalised we will have a clear idea of what we need to do.
-
Leclerc’s late-race engine problem allows Hamilton to win Bahrain GP
Hami consoles Leclerc after winning the Bahrain GP. An FIA image Sakhir, 31 March 2019: Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was denied a first Formula One victory by a late-race engine problem that allowed Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton to sweep past and claim his first win of 2019 in the Bahrain Grand Prix, the second round of the Formula One World Championship here on Sunday.
Leclerc had led for the bulk of the race, but in the closing stages began to slow and reported an engine problem that was quickly diagnosed as an issue with the turbo. His pace flagged dramatically and at the end of the 48thlap of the 57 scheduled, Hamilton powered past to claim the lead. He was followed by Mercedes’ team-mate Valtteri Bottas, and Leclerc might have lost out on his first podium finish had a late Safety Car period denied Red Bull’s Max Verstappen the opportunity to also pass the Monegasque driver.
When the lights went out at the start, Sebastian Vettel got the jump on polesitter Leclerc and seized the lead. Bottas, too, exploited the situation and muscled past the young Ferrari driver to take P2.
Hamilton then tried to pressure Leclerc and as they tussled, Verstappen, who had started fifth, tried to slip down the inside of both in the final corner. He couldn’t make the move stick, however, and settled into fifth place.
After his first lap difficulties, Leclerc quickly recovered and went on the assault. He pushed past Bottas at the start of lap two and then powered past Vettel under DRS into turn one at the start of the next lap to reclaim the lead.
Leclerc maintained his lead through the first stops, but Hamilton managed to get past Vettel to take P2. The German was now third ahead of Bottas and Max, who took on medium tyres during a superb 2.1s pit stop.
On lap 23 Vettel closed in on Hamilton and powered past the defending champion around the outside through Turn 4. Leclerc though was now 7.5s ahead of his team-mate. Behind Hamilton, Bottas was fourth, four seconds ahead of Verstappen.
Now third, Hamilton pitted soon after the halfway mark and shed his soft tyres for a set of medium Pirellis, a move that was repeated on the following tour by Vettel.
Vettel emerged ahead but the gap was narrow and the Mercedes driver was soon on the attack. He tried to pass in Turn 4 but was rebuffed by Vettel who held his line well. Hamilton was not to be denied, however, and on the following lap he made the move stick. Vettel spun following the pass and recovered but soon afterward his front wing mysteriously collapsed and he was forced to pit for repairs, dropping to P9. That bumped Verstappen to fourth place behind Bottas, with five seconds separating the Red Bull from the Mercedes.
With a dozen laps to go the shape of the race changed. Leclerc began to complain of engine issues and as his lap times increased dramatically he was told that he had “no H recover”, signalling a turbo issue.
At the end of lap 48 Hamilton swept past to claim the lead and with third-placed Bottas lapping five seconds quicker than the Monegasque the prospect of a Mercedes one-two came into view.
By lap 51 Leclerc’s advantage over Bottas was just 15.9s and Max was a further 6.6s behind. After Bottas powered past Leclerc, Max closed in fast, but then with just four laps remaining the works Renaults of Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo expired. With Ricciardo’s car close to the trackside, the Safety Car was deployed and Max’s chance of a podium frustratingly evaporated and he was forced to settle for fourth place.
With Max fourth behind race winner Hamilton, Bottas and Leclerc, fifth place went to Vettel. Lando Norris took sixth for McLaren, with Kimi Räikkönen seventh ahead of Gasly. The final points positions were taken by Toro Rosso’s Alex Albon and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez.
2019 FIA Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix – Race
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes –
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 2.980
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 6.131
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull 6.408
5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 36.068
6 Lando Norris McLaren 45.754
7 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo 47.470
8 Pierre Gasly Red Bull 58.094
9 Alex Albon Toro Rosso 1’02.697
10 Sergio Perez Racing Point 1’03.696
11 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 1’04.599
12 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1 lap
13 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1 lap
14 Lance Stroll Racing Point 1 lap
15 George Russell Williams 1 lap
16 Robert Kubica Williams 2 laps
17 Nico Hulkenberg Renault
18 Daniel Ricciardo Renault
19 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren
Romain Grosjean Haas -
Seb is an amazing driver and I’ve learned a lot from him, says Charles Leclerc
TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Paul Di Resta)
Q: Charles, it’s your first ever pole position in Formula One, your second grand prix with Ferrari, you’ve looked in control all weekend, and you’ve got the job done.
Charles LECLERC: Yeah, I’m extremely happy. Obviously, in the last race, I was not very happy with my qualifying – I did some mistakes in Q3 – and I really worked hard to try to not do the same mistakes here. It seems we did quite a good job, a front-row lockout and yeah, extremely happy.
Q: How hard is it to come to grand prix tracks and be up against a four-time world champion in the same car and try and get that task and take that [pole]?
CL: It’s obviously extremely hard because Seb is an amazing driver and I’ve learned a lot from him and I will probably learn all year long with him. But today I am very happy to be in front of him, so yeah, it’s a good day for me.
Q: And the plan tonight.
CL: Oh, going to sleep and work hard for the race tomorrow.
Q: Sebastian, you line up on the first row of the grid. You had to use an extra set of tyres in Q2. Did that compromise your last run and leave a bit of safety there?
Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, of course. You have to, first of all, make it to the end. Maybe I was a bit shy in the second sector but in the end, I think Charles did a very good job today and he deserves to be on pole, so happy with the one run I had at the end to get second and it puts us in a good place for tomorrow.
Q: And I guess happy to think that pace in Barcelona and what happened in Melbourne, to come here and dominate so far this weekend with Ferrari?
SV: Yeah, definitely. As I said that’s the main thing. I also said to the team that the main thing is that we got the job done, so this weekend the car felt a lot better all throughout the weekend, and it’s only getting better. Hopefully, we can carry that into the race tomorrow.
Q: Good luck tomorrow. Lewis, you had a job this weekend; Ferrari have been on a different level. I guess you can be happy that you got closer but the hard work starts tomorrow again?
Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, definitely. I really enjoyed qualifying and it was great to see the progression for us over the weekend. The Ferraris have been incredibly quick. Charles did an incredible job, so congratulations to him. It was very close between me and Sebastian. The last lap, there was a little bit of time there, but that’s the fun of the whole game. Tomorrow’s the important day and it will be interesting to see how we do but we’re going to give them a good fight that’s for sure.
Q: Do you still believe you can win this race after the pace they’ve shown this weekend?
LH: They’ve shown incredible pace but it doesn’t mean that they can’t be beaten. We’re going to work at it; we’ll just keep our heads down and see what happens.PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Charles, many congratulations, a huge day for you. Can you just describe your emotions right now?
CL: Well, a lot of emotions. I’m trying to stay as cool as possible because, unfortunately, there are no points awarded for the pole position and all points will be awarded tomorrow. So, of course I’ll enjoy the moment, it has been a great day and a great weekend overall until now for us, and I hope it will continue tomorrow. The target now is to focus on the race and try to do the best race possible – but obviously it’s amazing to be here.Q: You were fastest in all three segments of qualifying. You set a new track record. Leave anything on the table or was that last lap in Q3 perfect?
CL: Yeah, I think you can always do better. I am overall very happy with my lap in Q3. I think that was my weakness in the first race and yeah, I was disappointed after qualifying because of this. Today I am very satisfied. I think I put all three of my best sectors together, which is what I wanted. Then, of course, you can always do better but I’m extremely happy.Q: Sebastian, compromised in Q3 by getting just that one run. I was just wondering if we could get a few thoughts from you about the turnaround by Ferrari from Melbourne two weeks ago. You’re now first and second on the grid and it wasn’t the same back there.
SV: No, I mean obviously we’re both much happier with the car this weekend. I think, the credit really goes to the team because it’s a team effort. I mean, in the end, we didn’t feel very happy with the car in Melbourne and the team has done very, very hard work trying to understand why, and I think we had some answers coming here, proving today that we are running at the front and fighting for pole. Locking out the front row for Ferrari is, yeah, a great testament of their work, first of all. Happy, obviously, not exactly my day but that’s how it goes, so I look forward to tomorrow.Q: And a quick word about the man on your left?
SV: Well congratulations, I said to him earlier to suck it in, enjoy it. It’s his day in the end of the day. Certainly, my day was not ideal but even, I think, with an ideal day, it would have been very difficult to beat him today. So, well done. My first pole is a while ago but certainly, it’s a day you never forget.Q: Lewis, pole position in Melbourne two weeks ago, third today. A few thoughts from you about how that session went and the performance of the Mercedes.
LH: Firstly, congratulations to Charles. He did an incredible job, really really happy for him. The first pole is a dream that you set for yourself when you’re young. It only comes once, so he truly deserves. it. I had a pretty good session in general. Yesterday was a real struggle. All weekend we’ve seen incredible pace from the Ferraris. Honestly, I didn’t know if we’d be as close as we were at the end because they were pulling some serious speeds on the straights, which is generally where we lost a lot of the time today. It was just in the straight line. Great turnaround for them. I think my sessions went relatively smoothly. I’ve got the extra tyre for tomorrow, which I’m happy about and… yeah… I’m just excited because it was a close battle and that’s really how it should be. Three-thousandths, or whatever it was between myself and Sebastian. I definitely had it in that lap, the excitement of being on the edge and kind of having it and not having it is what makes it exciting. I couldn’t have done the same time as Charles, so we’ve got work to do but tomorrow is where the points are bagged. So, we will just focus, keep our heads down, try to maximise our strategy and our tyres tomorrow.QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Question to Lewis and Sebastian: when you had your first pole, you won. What are your expectations for Charles tomorrow?
SV: I think we both hope he doesn’t win! Straightforward! Obviously, we’re racing for the same team, so I think for both of us, we’re hoping to have a strong race tomorrow. If you start one-two, you want to finish one-two, so yeah, that’s the objective for tomorrow. Nevertheless, it’s a long race. I think taking care of the tyres will be crucial. I think on one-lap pace we looked very, very strong this weekend so far, so yeah, quali was all about confirming that and for the race I think it will be a very, very close battle with Mercedes – and also Red Bull.Lewis, anything to add?
LH: I commented earlier on his laps. He was quickest in every session so its very clear he had the pace and did a great job.Q: Do you think you have the pace to beat them tomorrow?
LH: From my pace yesterday, no – but I made changes to the car overnight and during the day today so I’m hopeful the car is in a better position. This is honestly a weak circuit for me. That’s why I’m a little more upbeat – because I had a deficit of three-tenths at least all day yesterday to Valtteri and managed to turn that around a little bit. The race here last year was quite strong. Ultimately, I had a gearbox penalty but now we’re in a much better fighting position. It’s very, very hard this race. It’s very tough on the tyres and it’s a physically-challenging circuit It is incredibly challenging for the car as well, so I just hope that there’s some excitement tomorrow – one way or another.Q: (Ben Anderson – F1 Racing) To both Ferrari drivers: Mattia Binotto clarified yesterday that it’s very important that the two drivers are not fighting, taking risks and battling each other. So in that context, how will you approach the start and turn one in tomorrow’s race, considering that you’re on the front row?
CL: Well, to be completely honest, we haven’t done the pre-race meeting yet so at the moment I don’t know. If you ask me, I will do absolutely everything to keep my first place but obviously, as you said, we are a team also, we need to work together and this will work, for sure.SV: I think it’s pretty clear that from the team’s point of view we got the front row today and we obviously have a very very tough race ahead of us tomorrow so I think we need to work as a team and try to make sure we stay first and second. I think the order is irrelevant for the team so I think it’s pretty clear. Obviously, Charles starts ahead so he has the advantage of pole position and then we will see how it goes.
Q: (Christian Menarth – motorsportmagazin.com) Sebastian, can you explain what happened in the first run in Q2, that you have to do the second run, and did you feel that you lost the tyre set already yesterday because you took a set of softs less than the others?
SV: No, nothing to do with the strategy yesterday and this afternoon. Obviously it was a bit hectic in Q2 and I was just in an unfortunate slot which sometimes is very difficult to control so I got unlucky and didn’t have an option other than following Daniel for the lap and it was very marginal so we had to go again and then we lost a set that we were planning to run in Q3. Not ideal, preparing for qualifying and I committed to one run at the end and it was crucial to get that lap to the finish. Second, I think, is alright. Obviously, I was hoping for more but I think that is how the day went. I’m quite happy so for tomorrow I think it should be a new day and a different start.Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Seb, can you tell us what problems you had? You seemed to have a few lock-ups in Q1 and Q2.
SV: Yeah, I think overall the car was very strong so far this weekend. I’ve been a little bit more vocal about the rear not being exactly where I wanted it to be. Maybe Charles felt a little bit more confident all weekend but I think our qualifying slipped away a little bit with what happened in Q2 so you lose the rhythm a little bit. It wasn’t ideal but it’s not about, at this point, sitting here now, being P2, is not about arguing here and arguing there. I think you have to give credit to the pole-sitter, especially as it’s his first pole, so again, congrats and the focus should be on Charles today.Q: (Jacques Deschenaux – Grand Prix Guide) Charles, you are the second youngest pole man in the history of Formula One after Sebastian and the first from Monaco. Did you imagine one month ago that your career with Ferrari would begin and be launched so quickly?
CL: Not really. I didn’t have any particular expectations from it. I was completely aware of how much of a big step there is, obviously team-wise and also competition-wise because obviously the drivers I’m fighting with now are the best so yeah, I didn’t have any expectations. I’m extremely happy that it has started like this but again, as I said, it’s only qualifying. I hope I will end up and have strong points tomorrow which is the most important (thing) so yeah, we will see, but I am extremely happy to start like this.Q: (Ben Anderson – F1 Racing) Lewis, you mentioned the struggles yesterday and this track not being a particularly strong one for you. What is it about this circuit that you find difficult and that the team has found difficult this weekend?
LH: I don’t really know where the performance has gone. As I said, a lot of it is on the straights, if not all of it. So somehow they’ve managed to find a lot more speed on the straights but I think for us, the car has felt OK. It’s just… I’m just thinking that over the years it’s not been a circuit that particularly suited our car, for whatever reason, but I think we got into quite a nice place today and as I said, I think it’s the straight (line) speed was really where we lost a lot of time. In sector one, we’re losing three tenths, two tenths, whatever it is, just on the straightline speed, so that’s a significant amount. We’ve got work to do but I think the race pace was better for Valtteri yesterday, he had a really good long run. I think he had the best on the soft, I believe, so I’m hopeful that we have that performance tomorrow.Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Are you confident with your race pace, in the case of Ferrari on soft tyres and in the case of Mercedes on the medium tyres and what does the strategy depend on, a one or a two stop strategy? What does it depend on?
CL: Yeah, I am satisfied with the race run we have done yesterday, also with the softs. I think it was pretty close between… Valtteri, I think, did a long run on soft and myself… so yeah, I think we are pretty strong on that and then on the one stop or two stops again, we will review that tomorrow morning before the race so for now, I don’t know.
SV: Nothing to add.
LH: You will find out in the morning!Ends
