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Tag: Formula 1
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Hamilton equals Senna’s 65 poles
Hamilton poseis after taking his career 65th pole at the Canadian GP on Saturday. An FIA image Montreal, 10 June 2017: Lewis Hamilton set a blistering pace in hto take here to take the 65th pole position of his career and equalled the marker set by his childhood hero Ayrton Senna. Hamilton’s lap of 1:11.459 was the fastest ever lap of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and was good enough to beat Ferraris Sebastian Vettel by 0.330s. Hamilton’s achievement was reward with the gift from the Senna family of a helmet worn in races by the legendary Brazilian driver.
In Q1 both Vettel and Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen were on track early and both chose to do so on the supersoft Pirellis. Vettel quickly rose to the top of the order and with his second lap on the tyre set a time of 1:13.046 that was eventually good enough to secure passage to Q2 in P3. Raikkonen, too, set an early banker, though his time of 1:13.548 saw him drift out to P9 by the time the flag fell.
It was ultrasofts all round for their rivals and the session was topped by Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas with a lap of 1:12.685. Hamilton was second, just three thousdanths of a second behind.
At the other end of the order, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz was hovering just above the drop zone with a minute remaining but the Spaniard’s blushes were spared when Pascal Wehrlein made a mistake in Turn 1 of his final flyer.
The Sauber driver took too much of the track on the right hand side of the exit and got on the dirt. He immediately spun and slid backwards into the barriers, bringing out the yello flags. The flags ended any hope of improvement for those behind and the session ended with McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne eliminated in 16th place ahead of Williams’ Lance Stroll, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and the Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Pascal Wehrlein.
As with Q1 the second session was again a by-the-numbers exercise for the front-runners. Hamilton topped the order with a lap of 1:12.496, six hundredths of a second clear of Bottas. The Ferraris slotted into third and fourth, with Raikkonen ahead of Vettel after the latter’s lap was compromised by a loss of control in Turn 3. The Red Bulls of Verstappen and Ricciardo were fifth and sixth ahead of Williams’ Felipe Massa, the Force Indias of Sergipo Perz and Esteban Ocon and the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg.
Eliminated in 11th place was Daniil Kvyat, who suffered a right-rear puncture on his final lap and was forced to return to the pits. It was a tricky session for team-mate Sainz too. The Spaniard spun early in the session at Turn 1 and was quickly on the radio to tell his team that the car was “a nightmare’ and that he could “do nothing’. His later laps were an improvement but Sainz was eventually ruled out in P13, just behind the McLaren of Fernando Alonso. The final men eliminated in Q2 were Haas’ Romain Grosjean in 14th place and Renault’s Jolyon Palmer in P15.
At the start of the Q3 Hamilton laid down the early mark with a superb lap of 1:11.791 to set the fastest ever lap of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 0.484s up on Ralf Schumacher’s 2004 time.
Vettel was operating at a similar level though and with his run the German posted a time just four thousandths of a second slower than his rivals.
Hamilton was in inspired form, however, and is final run utterly ruled out any comeback from the German, with the Mercedes man sliced 0.332 off his first run to set Vettel the huge task of bypassing a time of 1:11.459. Vettel tried a third run, but pushing too hard the lap slipped away. Hamilton claimed the 65th podium of his career to equal his great hero Senna.
With Vettel second, third place went to Bottas with Raikkonen fourth. Row three went to Red Bull Racing, with Verstappen ahead of Ricciardo. Massa was seventh for Williams, while the Force Indias of Perez and Ocon were seventh and eight respectively. Hulkenberg will start tenth.
2017 Canadian Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:11.459s –
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:11.789s 0.330s
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:12.177s 0.718s
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:12.252s 0.793s
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:12.403s 0.944s
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:12.557s 1.098s
7 Felipe Massa Williams 1:12.858s 1.399s
8 Sergio Perez Force India 1:13.018s 1.559s
9 Esteban Ocon Force India 1:13.135s 1.676s
10 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1:13.271s 1.812s
11 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:13.690s –
12 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:13.693s –
13 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:13.756s –
14 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:13.839s –
15 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:14.293s –
16 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:14.182s –
17 Lance Stroll Williams 1:14.209s –
18 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:14.318s –
19 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:14.495s –
20 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber 1:14.810s –eom/FIA press release
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Queries on Ferrari strategy dominate press meet
Monte Carlo, 28 May 2017: Transcript of the FIA press conference after the Formula One World Championship race at Monaco on Sunday. The following drivers who finished on the podium attended the Press Meet. 1 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari),
2 – Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN (Ferrari), 3 – Daniel RICCIARDO (Red Bull Racing).
PODIUM INTERVIEWS Conducted by Nico Rosberg:
Q: Sebastian, great weekend, first Ferrari win in 16 years, how does it feel?
Sebastian VETTEL: Unbelievable. I think it was a very intense race. I was hoping at the start to have a bit of a better launch but Kimi had a good start. I had nowhere to go, so I had to be patient. Then, there was a phase in the first stint that was really tricky, The tyres started to slide, I think you remember how that feels, it was quite uncomfortable. I think Valtteri and the pack was catching up a bit; we were facing some traffic. But then I had a… I don’t know, a second attempt, a second set of tyres. I had a couple of laps where the car was really, really good. I pushed, everything I had, because I knew if there is a chance to win then that’s it. So I was able to use that window and came out ahead, so at that point I could control the race. After the restart it was really tricky with the cold tyres. I think every one of us was really struggling, Daniel said he brushed the wall in Turn 1 first lap. So it was really difficult but after a couple of laps I was able again to control the gap to behind, so fantastic job, the team has done really well, so great thanks to them and a fantastic weekend for Ferrari.
Q: Was that planned, that when Kimi comes in, you stay out a bit longer?
SV: No, not really. I don’t think there… we couldn’t plan much. The plan was to try and pull away, which we did. Then, Valtteri had really good pace. I think we were struggling a little bit, both, with our rears and at that point the window opened. So as soon as Valtteri pitted, Kimi responded. For me, I think I still had a bit of a gap, nothing to lose in P2, so I tried to push as hard as possible and within two laps I was surprised myself to be able to pull a gap to be able to come out in front.
Q: Congrats. Kimi, I think it’s fair to say the whole F1 community would have been very happy as well to see you get that win today. What are your thoughts? You lost it during the pit stops of course, what are you thoughts on that?
Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: It’s hard to say really. Obviously it’s still second place, but it doesn’t feel awful good but this is how it goes sometimes and we go for the next race and try to do better but it’s one of those days that you wish you get a bit more.
Q: I know how it feels. It is not a good feeling. But great result anyways. Daniel, a great recovery after a problem in qualifying. You’re pleased with that?
Daniel RICCIARDO: Yeah, happier today, for sure. Just yesterday I felt that we had so much more to offer and it was just a shame not to be able to really show our potential around here. I got my chance today when Max and Bottas pitted. I had the track to myself for a few laps and just managed to get some good times, good times in those tyres. I did some consistent laps and got in the overcut, so I was happy with that.
Q: Turn 1 after the Safety Car looked like a bit of a hit, was it scary in the car?
DR: Yeah! I didn’t enjoy that. I wasn’t sure if I damaged anything and then I saw Bottas trying to get inside me. These tyres, man, when you get a Safety Car they’re like driving on ice. It was hard. That was not a fun moment, but happy to hold it.
Q: Sebastian, back to you, the Ferrari car is looking good at the moment, do you think you are going to be able to keep it up for Canada?
SV: We hope so. Canada is a completely different track but to be honest, for now I am just going to enjoy the win here. You know yourself, it’s very, very special to win here. I think we’ll have a fun night and then we have enough time to prepare for Canada.
Q: Where’s the party?
SV: I don’t know, you tell me! You won more times than me here!
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Sebastian, there are wins and there are big wins. First Ferrari Monaco victory for 16 years, as Nico was saying, first Ferrari one-two since 2010 and more importantly perhaps a 25-point lead over Lewis Hamilton in the drivers’ championship, so what does today mean to you?
SV: If you want the honest answer, I think it’s most important that we had a very, very good day, a win. A supreme day for Ferrari; it’s been a long time. Yeah, I think it means an awful lot to the team. I will not find the right words but for me it was a pretty special race. At some point I was thinking, “there must be a Safety Car” and then it came at the end when I didn’t really need it but fine. I dreamt all night about how to get ahead of the start because I knew that would probably be the only chance I would get. It didn’t work. Kimi had a good start, mine was OK, so I couldn’t really go anywhere. Then, I think in the first stint I was just trying to pace myself, trying to stay within range. At some point I was really uncomfortable with the rear tyres, they were sliding quite a bit. I think when the gap opened again that’s when Kimi pitted. I knew that if I have any chance that might be it until I get the call because Valtteri was on fresh tyres so it’s likely that he will go quicker, so I just tried to push as hard as I can and wait for the call to box. When it came and then when I came out ahead of Kimi even, I was surprised myself. But for sure I take it. It’s a great win. Those couple of laps were really crucial, I was pushing flat out. I had better laps than in quali today in the race. I was very happy with how the race went. The car was great. So to sum it up, it’s just been fantastic, a fantastic weekend for the team and a great reward. This team is working very hard. Obviously this year is very different to last year but the people are the same, the spirit is the same, so it’s important that we keep pushing, improving the car. We had again a couple of new bits for this race. Yeah, the next race will be completely different but I don’t really care now, just looking forward to tonight.
Q: Kimi, coming to you, obviously you lost the race in the pit stops. The normal wisdom in Monaco is that when you’re leading you’re not the first one to make a move. But just before you made your stop we heard a radio message exchange with your engineer in which you were asking about pitting. So to be clear, were you asking for the stop or did they call it?
KR: No, I was called in and that’s about it.
Q: How do you feel about the first one to move?
KR: I don’t know, obviously it didn’t work out very well for me. But apart from that, I have no idea. I mean… that’s about as much as I can say about it right now. I got the bad end of the story today. I mean it’s still second place but obviously it doesn’t count a lot in my books at least.
Q: Thanks for that. Daniel, the story today was that the overcut was more effective: Hamilton gained six places, Sebastian got the win because of it, and you picked up two place spectacularly through that pit stop sequence. Extremely fast once you got some clean air. Tell us about your approach today?
DR: Yeah I’m really pleased to be up here. You don’t often start fifth and get a podium here. It’s hard to make any positions. I was just frustrated yesterday because I knew we had so much more to offer here, so much more to give than what we showed. I felt like I didn’t really also get to show my pace around here. It was how the pit stops worked, the two cars pitting before me and that allowing me to show a bit more my pace. That was perfect and we got into a realty good rhythm, I think we were doing 16 dead, 16 dead and at the time I think that pace was really strong and I was able to do a good overcut. It was a good combination of obviously the lap times coming from me and the team leaving me out there and allowing me to run in clean air. That was fun. That definitely made my race. The Safety Car nearly ruined my race. At the restart I hit the wall in Turn 1. I hit it pretty hard, so I thought I had damage. I assumed I would have damage. And then I saw Valtteri. You don’t see much in these mirrors. I know Jenson has talked about it. Obviously he hasn’t been in the cars this year, but he has been vocal about it. You certainly see it here and I knew Valtteri was kind of there, in my blind spot but I just managed to hold on at the restart and then I was quite happy to see the chequered because the tyres after restarts are so tricky to get going.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Viktor Bognar – Magyarszo) Kimi, do you think it would have been possible to cover Sebastian if you are stopping later?
KR: I don’t know. Obviously, this is what we got today. The end results. And obviously for the team it’s a great result. Who knows? This is really the end, we can say ‘if’ as much as we want but it doesn’t change anything.
Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Kimi, when you pitted you came out behind some traffic and Bottas was also behind Sainz at the time. Have you had an explanation as to why they pitted you at that point?
KR: I don’t know. Obviously, I have just finished the race. I have no idea. Obviously they have reasons for whatever we did do. It doesn’t matter here or any other race. It’s not up to me to answer that.
Q: (Ben Anderson – Autosport) Kimi, in the first stint, you seemed to have really strong pace in the early part and then from about lap 20 your pace dropped off quite substantially. Was there an explanation for that? Were you struggling with something in the car?
KR: Not really. I think the worst place was when we had lapped cars and got stuck behind them on quite a few laps but apart from that the car was behaving well. Not really having any issues. I think we had to take it a little bit easier here and there but nothing to complain really. The most lap time we lost behind the lapped traffic but that’s about it.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / Speed Sport) Daniel, yesterday you told us maybe you’d go for the overcut but was that a decision on the fly by the team – and how did the team decide whether to pit you first or Max first?
DR: I’m not sure what position Max was in with the tyres at the time – I don’t know if he wanted to make the pitstop and try to undercut Valtteri. I assume that was probably the thinking behind it. Obviously I was at the tail of that pack and we had pretty good communication with my engineer. We were going back and forth and I think he had a pretty good idea of what my pace was and what I could do. Yeah, then once we got clear air, I think probably a couple of laps before that I closed in a bit on Max who I think was closing in on Valtteri, so we seemed to bunch-up. And it looked like they were struggling more, probably, with the tyres at that time, from what I could see, so yeah, I was happy certainly to stay out there. Then it was pretty evident that I could keep going quicker and quicker. So, it was nice to push. Especially… if you don’t start on pole here you’re normally in traffic for a lot of the race and you can’t really get a time to feel the car on the limit on Sunday – but it was good to get that block of laps in. Even though the tyres were sliding around a bit with the rear, it was still quite fun in that session of the race.
Q: (Paul Johnson – Australian Associated Press) Daniel, obviously really encouraging performance with the pace you had today throughout the middle sector of the track. How encouraged are you moving forwards? Also, can you take us through exactly what happened coming out of the Safety Car into Turn One?
DR: Yeah. Today I felt like, particularly that point of the race where we had clear track and were able to show our speed, I felt that was more representative of what we could of probably done yesterday. It was nice to at least show something this weekend and now at least get a podium for it. After the Safety Car… I knew getting behind the Safety Car, I could see Kimi in front of me trying to warm the tyres – well, keep them warm. I was trying to do the same: doing burnouts and trying to scrub the front tyres and get them going. They just turned to concrete blocks. They’re so slippery. So, I think we were all dreading the restart, to be honest. At one point you see it as an opportunity and I saw it as a potential opportunity to maybe jump Kimi but as the same time it’s… you see it as a potential risk. Coming into Turn One I didn’t feel like I came in hot at all – but as soon as I turned it, I just kept going straight and the wall got closer until I hit it. I think I hit it flush, which meant I avoided damage. Yeah, not fun.
Q: (Mike Doodson – Honorary) A bit more about the same thing. There were several incidents at Turn One you may not have known about – several people, a couple of other people crashed there. The track was breaking up – did that contribute to your accident – or your smack of the wall?
DR: If I can use it as an excuse, sure! No, certainly not. It was in my control. The excuse I guess is just cold tyres. We can see the temperatures on our dash, so we’re aware when they’re cold. We can feel them, we don’t always need to see the numbers but I could see they were very cold. They just lose temperature really quick. We’re all aware of that but we’ll see. Maybe in years to come we can have a super, super, supersoft tyre for Monaco. I think will that be not only more fun in quali but avoid scary moments like that in the race. I guess it keeps it exciting for everyone at home.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for Seb. Seb, you looked very emotional on the podium. What were you thinking about in those moments? And what does it mean to have 25 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton at this point in the season?
SV: It’s a long way so I’m not really bothered about that. It was more the fact to stand up there and see the team. I think obviously, it’s a small part that we have here at the track but thinking of everyone else back in Maranello in the factory. We got a lot of hard times last year and this year everything seems to be upside down – but the team is the same, the people are the same so it’s really clear to them. I guess in these small moments you just realise that it’s a special group of people. If things go well, we’ll work hand in hand, we must make sure we keep the momentum up in the next couple of races – but I think we’re just having a great time. Obviously, we wanted today to have the one-two and we got it. So for the team obviously it means a lot. It’s been a long time – you know the numbers better than I do – since Ferrari won here and then to get a one-two is just fantastic. I think you can see when the guys are singing the Italian anthem. I think it’s impossible not to get goosebumps and feel very special standing up there representing them. For me, I think that’s what makes racing so special. I love driving, I loved driving today, I loved a couple of laps that I had where I could really, really push to the limit and I was so close to touch the wall, a couple of times I thought, ‘OK, I’ll lose the car’ and I just managed to get it back, so that’s obviously great fun. Big adrenaline around here because you don’t have any room for error – but then to have the rewards, standing on the podium, just send a message to base, to the factory, is what it’s made for.
Q: (Beniamino Casadei Lucchi – Il Giornale) Question for Seb. It’s a fantastic victory. But now, if you were Kimi, what do you think?
SV: Well, obviously I… we were right behind each other. In that case I think it’s normal that the lead car gets the priority because you go normally faster on the new set of tyres, and I when I got the lap times from Valtteri, he was doing 16.1, I think, and Daniel was a little bit faster with the old tyres with 16.0. I was, at that point, at 16.4, so I was a little bit slower, so I was assuming Kimi must do something like Valtteri. So I just… I knew that the team would call me as soon as we were really tight to Valtteri. We had a little bit of a cushion. I was just going flat-out, trying to go as fast as I can because for me it means that I’m staying ahead of Valtteri, first of all, and close to Kimi. I was surprised myself when I came out ahead. So, yeah, I think the warm-up on the supersoft was fine. Arguably you can say it worked for Daniel and for myself today, it worked well to stay out longer but I think if you were looking at it before the race then you couldn’t predict. We are racing, we get along well, I can understand that Kimi’s not entirely happy today. He drove well in the first stint and then obviously you get the message to go in. You do the pitstop and then you push. Obviously it’s a bad surprise when somebody comes out ahead. For me, I take it, there’s no reason to lie, obviously I’m very happy but I can understand obviously that he’s upset.
Q: (Daniele Sparisci – Corriere della Sera) Seb, how do you feel to be the first Ferrari driver to win here after Michael Schumacher and compared to the other victories with Ferrari, does Monaco have something special?
SV: Well, I think Monaco is always something special, it’s just the nature of the weekend: a lot of attention, a lot of people which is great, a lot of support. Definitely I felt that with the beginning of the season that we had, Ferrari fans and Ferrari flags are increasing so that’s nice. A lot of people screaming, from outside, Forza Ferrari. A lot of Italian lines which in the recent years maybe I didn’t get so much so that was great to see. It’s obviously a great day for the team. I’m just… I’m pretty exhausted now, to be honest, so I’m very happy and it’s great to get the points, it’s great to get the win so it’s been a fantastic day for all of us. To be the first one after Michael for Ferrari – I don’t know, I wasn’t aware (of that). I think the most important thing is that we won today. I’m sure there were occasions more recently where Ferrari could have won but the most important is what happens today.
Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Seb, there’s nothing wrong with team orders, they’re not illegal and you are the leading driver in the championship and it wasn’t clear before the race whether the overcut or the undercut would be the best strategy. So was there a plan to give you a chance to get ahead of Kimi at some point?
SV: Not really. We spoke about the race before. It was clear that, as I said, I think they had the same plan to be honest so the lead car normally gets priority so if I had a choice at that point, sitting behind Kimi, if I was going in the pits first, that’s maybe what you like to do because you are sooner on the fresher tyres so I think it’s probably one of the rare occasions where the overcut turned out to be positive, so I’m really glad I made that work. From the team point of view, there was no plan of any team orders or anything and as I said, I can understand that obviously Kimi’s not happy, I would feel exactly the same, one hundred per cent the same, but as I said myself, I was surprised that the overcut… I don’t think Daniel had priority over Max going into the race. I don’t know where they are in terms of points and so on so I don’t think they look into that but I think the rule of thumb… the rule is pretty clear when you qualify ahead and you are ahead in the first stint, you get priority on the first stop and that’s what happened. As it turned out, obviously today it worked in my favour which, as I said, I will take it but we are a team at the end of the day and I can see that Kimi’s not happy.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) To Kimi and Sebastian, obviously now it seems that Mercedes is sometimes very quick but at other tracks they have serious problems. Of course it’s early in the championship but do you think this consistency of the Ferrari car can really win you the championship this year?
SV: I don’t know.
KR: It’s quite an early part of the year so we’ll see. It’s very hard to know what happens in the future but we will keep trying and try to make the best out of every weekend and just do what we can do. We cannot control what the others will do but no, I’m sure everybody will have some difficult weekends during the year. We will try to minimise those. When you have a hard time, try to make the best out of it.
Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) Kimi, talking about lapping cars, do you think the blue flag for Button came out a little bit too… not at the right moment? The blue flag which signals to let you past immediately?
KR: I don’t know. There are obviously rules and I’m pretty sure I was – I don’t know if it was one second or one and a half seconds but I was pretty close in the hairpin and I was told that I have to be longer inside their time, so it was not enough to be once, it was something that I’d never hard before but anyhow that’s what happened and it cost a bit but that’s how it is.
Q: (Stuart Codling – F1 Racing) Kimi, given that your team will have known that when you pitted you would emerge in the vicinity of traffic, with those two slower cars ahead, do you feel that you could have gone quicker in those laps, before your pit stop, had you known this?
KR: I don’t know. We tried to figure out something that is impossible to know right now, at least from my side. No, obviously it wasn’t ideal to end up behind a lapped car and obviously it is something that definitely doesn’t help but the end result is what it is but we have to see. We just finished the race and I only know what happened and that’s it. Obviously I got second place but yeah, for the team good but not for myself, not so great.
Q: (Marco Giachi – Paddock) Kimi, as a driver, could you reject the instructions? From a technical point of view, did you have enough information to decide by yourself or are you 100 percent in the hands of the engineers?
KR: Obviously I can stop the car if I want! I’m driving it. We have a team, we work as a team and if you start… if you don’t believe what you’ve been told or how we work then it will get very complicated sometimes because we always try to work as best as we can and today, as a team, we won it one-two, that happened, but as for myself it could have been better, but like I said, we just finished the race and who knows? We will talk about it and I guess there are some reasons for everything that happens in life but we will see. As a driver, I can obviously do what I want but that’s not how we work as a team. Simple as that.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – GloboEsporte.com) Sebastian, did you expect that Kimi would stop on lap 33 before the first part of the race and then when you knew that, did you think this is my chance to overtake him? And were you informed of Lewis’s position during the race?
SV: Well, I was told at some point where Lewis was but I didn’t really care so… You have to do your own race around here. Daniel clipped the wall at the restart, I brushed the wall on the laps to the grid so it’s really close. You try to go as close as possible to the walls and you must not allow yourself to drift away… your thoughts to drift away for even one corner so you need to stay at it. Small mistakes, like Ericsson had yesterday in qualifying, they have a big consequence and this can happen to all of us. We all try to chase the limits, we all try to go close. I wasn’t too keen to know what others were doing. Obviously we have a plan before the race. I didn’t look down and count and say OK, we are getting to the window but when I saw that Valtteri pitted, I saw it also on the screen, and then I was told that Bottas is in the pits at the same time, then I knew that he would try to undercut, otherwise what was the point for him to pit. If he believes that it’s faster then he will stay out and try to put us under pressure once we pit, so he was obviously waiting for his chance, went for it and then I was told in the same lap that Kimi’s obviously getting the pit stop and I know that I can’t pit at the same time, we were too close behind each other to come in on the same lap, so I knew that at least I get one lap, maybe I get two, I don’t know, depending on the gap to Bottas which increased again to three, four seconds before the stop. At that point I was just trying to go flat out, that was my race, obviously it made my race today which, looking at the final result, it’s easy to say but at that point it was impossible to predict. When I heard the lap times of Bottas, the first lap, I think 16.1s, I was really… OK, I need to stretch myself. As I said, I was surprised that I could take so much pace from the car and I was going even below the 16s. At the same time, Daniel was lapping in 16.0s so there seemed to be a second tyre somehow, because the laps before I was struggling as much as Kimi was with the rears so yeah, I think there were a couple of laps where we weren’t comfortable at all, Valtteri was closing the gap, that was not the plan.
Q: (Ben Anderson – Autosport) Kimi, when you look back at a race, do you feel that you were just unlucky with traffic and the way things fell or do you think Ferrari’s strategy just cost you the victory?
KR: I don’t know. Like I said, I haven’t seen… I only know what happened when I was in the car but I haven’t seen the bigger picture. I only know that we came second, Seb won, the team got one-two, obviously great for the team, but the rest… Until we have our meeting then obviously you can see all the graphs, I don’t know.
eom/FIA transcript of the press meet
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We have got the best out of the first five races: Andrew Green
PART ONE: TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Andrew GREEN (Force India), Paul Monaghan (Red Bull Racing), Jörg Zander (Sauber).
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Andy, let’s start with you. Stunning start to the season: 53 points; clear fourth place and even breathing down Red Bull’s neck in the championship. With the resources that you have, how have you managed to do it?
Andy GREEN: It’s been, yeah, it’s been a good start to the season but as we proved last season, you can’t take anything for granted and our lead over fifth place is a lot smaller than where we were behind the Williams last year. So, reminding the guys that it’s a long season and we’re only a quarter of the way through it with a long way to go where a lot can happen. So, we need to keep pushing, keep developing, do what we’re doing – we’re on a good trajectory at the moment – and not to slack and see where we end up in the end. So far it’s gone better than expected and I think we’ve capitalised as much as we could of in those first five races. I don’t think you look back at those first five and think ‘what if?’ I think we’ve basically got the best out of it.
Q: In Spain only three cars finished on the lead lap, which is the fewest since 2008 so obviously, does that speak to the problem that the field in Formula One, with these new regulations, has become very spread out? Do you think that’s going to remain the case for the rest of the season?
AG: I hope not. It was another point I did make to the factory last week. I hate being lapped. It just shows the potential that there is in these regulations and how much there is to find. We look at it as an opportunity to make the car even faster, knowing that there’s that much performance left in it.
Q: Paul, coming to you, 75 seconds behind at the finish in Spain last time out but a clear and very promising looking P2 in practice today with last year’s pole-sitter. What’s your overview of today’s running and how competitive do you think you’re going to be this weekend?
Paul MONAGHAN: It’s nice to see us nearer the sharp end than we’ve arguably been at points this year. Our overall competitiveness… it’s still hard to tell. I’m not sure Mercedes showed their full hand today. I think it’s going to be pretty tight on Saturday and you need to have a reasonable qualifying around here to then capitalise for Sunday. So, I’m not going to count any chickens yet. We just knuckle down, do what’s within our control, get the most out of our car, and get the most out of it on Saturday and see where we end up.
Q: So where’s the shortfall been then in the first five races of this season – some way behind, as we said, in Spain. Is there still belief that you can catch them over the span of the season?
PM: There’s belief, yes, and a strong desire as well. I think if we lost belief it would be a fairly early end to our season. So, there’s a strong belief, a strong desire and a real determination to get more out of this car and close on the others – because they’re not standing still and as such our development rate has to exceed those guys. I think it can. It’s fair to say that we’ve not extracted as much as we can in terms of points-scoring from the first four and there’s a little bit of performance coming each race. We set out on a pathway to catch them, let’s see if we can.
Q: But where’s the shortfall? It’s fair to say you haven’t extracted the most from the regulations. You’d have expected, looking at the way they were framed, that this was going to play to Red Bull’s strengths, particularly on the aerodynamic side.
PM: Well it’s strange thing, isn’t it? In that, within our own control is our own destiny and what others do will always be judged against that. And yes, it’s fair to say we don’t have the leading car at the present time. I wouldn’t want to say that it’s one area. It’s going to be several areas and it’s up to us to identify the ones that have the greatest returns that we can alter, capitalise upon those and get the most out of our car. It’s only what lies within our control. Can’t do anything about what the others do. We will identify the shortfalls – I don’t think it’s going to be a singular – it will be a plural, and we will chip away at them as we have been for some time now.
Q: Jörg, welcome to you. Very valuable points, obviously, for your team in Spain that puts you ahead of McLaren in the Constructors’. How optimistic are you that you can stay there?
Jörg ZANDER: First of all there was obviously a massive boost for the morale and motivation of the team. We actually didn’t expect us to be there in Barcelona. The upgrade package which we planned for Barcelona, we moved to this event. So somehow things seem to have been turned upside down. We didn’t expect us to be on P19-20 today. It was a bit more of a difficult start for us, into the season and it was affected by various parameters. As you know, we didn’t have Pascal for the first two races, so we had to go with Giovinazzi and, of course, that introduced quite a bit of a change to the operational side. So we had a very young, new driver into the car, which we needed to get adapted – but obviously, let me say, from a development point of view, we do understand that the car is behind, compared to our, let me say, defined competition, which is the midfield, primarily because we started pretty early in the season to develop that car, so we have to try and catch-up. But the parameter we fight here, of course, is time and it’s difficult to gain time over the competition. They have a certain time available as we have, so there’s not any difference. The thing is, of course, about resources, and these resources, we’re just about to configure and to adapt. We have made plenty of recruitments but these are all new people so there is a human factor involved, with regards to getting more out of this operation – and these are the kind of difficulties that we are fighting at the moment, let me say.
Q: You mentioned today P19-20. It looked a bit of a struggle, lap time-wise. I was out on circuit. The car didn’t look too bad but the times were a long way off the next-slowest car. What’s going on?
JZ: There’s definitely something wrong. It’s a little bit more work ahead of us. At the moment we don’t seem to get the tyres to work, at all. So, as I said, it was a bit of a surprise. We came here with a new aero upgrade which works according to the data, actually quite fine. So, as expected. We thought we could draw some more potential from it. Of course, now while the tyre temperature management worked very well in Barcelona and panned out very well for us on both compounds, supersoft and the medium, yeah, we do seem to struggle at the moment. The same is true of both compounds: ultrasoft, supersoft. We don’t’ really seem to be able to put the energy into the tyres that it needs to develop the grip which is required.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ralf Bach – Autobild Motorsport) A question to Paul. I read last week that Adrian Newey said that he was more or less not involved in the new cars. Not his car. Can you tell us how much involved he really was?
PM: In terms of hours, I can’t tell you how he’s split his time. He’s part of our team, has been for a long time and continues to be so. He was involved in the process of developing the car and continues to be so.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question for Andy. Esteban was saying yesterday that he’s confident that he can get a podium this season. How confident are you that he can do that and how impressed have you been with his start?
AG: Well, I can tell you how impressed I am: very, very impressed with the way that he’s come into the team, adapted, the speed at which he acclimatised himself to this track especially this morning, for me shows what a talent he is. Undoubtedly. I watched him for quite a long time in the simulator last week, pounding around the lap here, and his car control was incredible. He could put the front wheel through the barrier by an inch every time. He just needed to bring it back an inch! He’s an amazing talent. Can he get a podium? Well, we need to give him the car to do that – because ultimately on our current car pace and ranking, if everybody finished we would never get a podium so it would need a big slice of luck. But he has an uncanny ability to finish races. He races really well on a Sunday. He has a lot of mental capacity remaining, when he’s driving the car, which is a really, really good sign. If he’s given the opportunity, I’m sure he’ll take it.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) A question to Paul. I think if you look at qualifying in Barcelona, corner speeds of the new Red Bulls were quite encouraging. If that is so, how encouraging is that regarding the new upgrades. And also, has there been a change of philosophy towards more downforce versus less drag with the new update introduced in Barcelona.
PM: OK, the first part of your question then. The changes made to the car for Barcelona yielded improvements to it, undoubtedly. There’s always a simulation target and then what the real car delivers – and the testing of the real car is usually imperfect. So, as far as we can tell, they’ve done what we expected to do – I’m encouraged by that – we did pick up a bit of speed. I think it gave the drivers more confidence and that’s another little bonus that you can take. In terms of change of philosophy, no, not really. We have efficiency targets that determine do pieces go on the car or not. It’s perhaps easier to judge that than it is your expected lap time gain of an update package. We’re not changing our philosophy: you can see how the car is set up; we’ve been pursuing that for some time and that remains. I think a change of philosophy at this stage would be, for us, unwise. What we do longer term is entirely our choice and our business.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Jörg, if we look at your career, you’ve always worked with very, very well-funded teams: Toyota, Honda, in sportscars Audi, with BMW-Sauber when it was manufacturer-backed. How difficult is it to reset the engineering mind set to operate and work in a team with a more modest budget the way that Sauber is right now?
JZ: First of all, I think we have actually quite a good budget, so we have all opportunity that you can find in other midfield teams to do a decent development and dover those development processes. So, from that perspective I think we are not too badly adjusted at all. The other point is that, the way I see Sauber is actually, from the point of talent level, actually quite good. We have very experienced people, very, very… people have a good talent, they are very competent. They have been in the sport for a long time, so I think you may want to look into the economic side of things, which are really decent but you have to look from a human resource point of view as well: what kind of quality level of human resource do you have available for your developments. I think Sauber is actually placed very well in that regard.
Q: (Sam Collins – Racecar Engineering) There’s been a lot of talk about the frontal cockpit protection system being introduced for the 2018 season. What have you heard from the FIA and their research institute about what form it will take, in terms of technical regulations. Also, what’s the latest in terms of monocoque design and lead times in manufacturer to start working and introduce it into the car?
AG: Well, there has been a meeting a couple of weeks ago, the first meeting for the installation of the Shield. We weren’t part of that meeting but there is another meeting tomorrow that we are having with the FIA to discuss it further. We’ve seen some preliminary models. We’ve been looking at how we integrate those into the chassis next year. There are a lot, a lot of question marks over it. There’s a lot of work to do in the timeframe that we have been given. So we need to make some smart decisions going forward. Hopefully we’ll be discussing that tomorrow, with a view to how we answer all those questions in the time period we’ve got.
PM: To answer your question, ‘what’s the deadline?’ I think it depends which colour shirt you have on. We, as a team, can be amongst the later, but we are going to very, very tight to get this on to a car for ’18. I think the research into its functionality and protection, it’s got to happen almost in parallel with the installation, which makes it quite a tricky job, because whatever they change in terms of screen then has an implication to a chassis and if you have cut your patterns then you are in a fairly awkward situations. I think if it all happens in parallel then the cut-offs are going to be somewhat team dependent. As Andy said, there is a hell of a lot to get through to ensure that this is a thoroughly developed and sorted package to put on next year’s car.
JZ: With regard to the deadline, so usually we would by the end of July, beginning of August, define the monocoque. Of course the fundamental question here is about the integration of the shield and the attachment, so there is a question about structural integrity, but again, as my colleagues said, we are going to discuss this tomorrow, so we need those detailed informations of course. At the moment, as far as I know, we want to test this system at some point in September, which I think is good. I think the enhancement of safety, improving safety is a fundamental let me say job of ours and I think we should support that, we do support this. But of course we have to makes sure that these things are worked out sensibly and that they fit within the time schedule. But we are working together with the FIA in order to achieve this, don’t we Paul?
PM: Absolutely.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – Associated Press) I just wanted to follow up on what I was asking about Esteban before. Could you just talk about his capacity and desire to learn, because he has said that he does hours and hours of simulator work and, quote, “intense debriefs with engineers”, so that shows his application. Could you talk about his desire to learn and willingness to improve?
AG: He’s like a school child. He’s like a sponge and he just absorbs information as fast as you can give it to him. His want and his desire are unquestionable. He absolutely wants this and he has the talent to do great things but he is going about it the right way. He’s doing it a step at a time. He’s doing the learning at the pace he wants to and that we allow him to do and I have no doubts that he is going to get to where he wants to be in a few years’ time.
Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) A question for everybody. Did you need to change the jack support at the back of the car after Laurent Mekies’ document, and what do you think about it, will it really help in the case of accidents?
PM: To answer your first question: yes, we were requested to change, so we have changed. We’ve taken a bigger step than some of our competitors by the looks of it and we have done a new jack, we’ve modified the associated receptacle on the back of the rear impact structure. As for the note, well, it’s given to us, and it’s up to us to interpret it, deal with it, liaise with the FIA, achieve a design that design that satisfies them and equally that we could get here, and with a lot of hard work and dedication we’ve got a solution here.
JZ: It’s the same for us. It added a little bit of complexity to our operations as well, but that’s what we have done. Of course, we have a Ferrari gearbox, so there’s a rear impact structure that is homologated by Ferrari. So we had to work this out in co-operation with our colleagues in Italy. So there was immediate action required which we did and yes, of course, we have had extra support here to make sure that it all works nicely. But then again, as I said before, it’s a safety critical subject, so we do understand and if there is urgency because of that then we would support that. That’s what we did.
AG: We didn’t need to change our rear impact structure, we just changed our livery.
PART ONE: TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Andrew GREEN (Force India), Paul Monaghan (Red Bull Racing), Jörg Zander (Sauber).
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Andy, let’s start with you. Stunning start to the season: 53 points; clear fourth place and even breathing down Red Bull’s neck in the championship. With the resources that you have, how have you managed to do it?
Andy GREEN: It’s been, yeah, it’s been a good start to the season but as we proved last season, you can’t take anything for granted and our lead over fifth place is a lot smaller than where we were behind the Williams last year. So, reminding the guys that it’s a long season and we’re only a quarter of the way through it with a long way to go where a lot can happen. So, we need to keep pushing, keep developing, do what we’re doing – we’re on a good trajectory at the moment – and not to slack and see where we end up in the end. So far it’s gone better than expected and I think we’ve capitalised as much as we could of in those first five races. I don’t think you look back at those first five and think ‘what if?’ I think we’ve basically got the best out of it.
Q: In Spain only three cars finished on the lead lap, which is the fewest since 2008 so obviously, does that speak to the problem that the field in Formula One, with these new regulations, has become very spread out? Do you think that’s going to remain the case for the rest of the season?
AG: I hope not. It was another point I did make to the factory last week. I hate being lapped. It just shows the potential that there is in these regulations and how much there is to find. We look at it as an opportunity to make the car even faster, knowing that there’s that much performance left in it.
Q: Paul, coming to you, 75 seconds behind at the finish in Spain last time out but a clear and very promising looking P2 in practice today with last year’s pole-sitter. What’s your overview of today’s running and how competitive do you think you’re going to be this weekend?
Paul MONAGHAN: It’s nice to see us nearer the sharp end than we’ve arguably been at points this year. Our overall competitiveness… it’s still hard to tell. I’m not sure Mercedes showed their full hand today. I think it’s going to be pretty tight on Saturday and you need to have a reasonable qualifying around here to then capitalise for Sunday. So, I’m not going to count any chickens yet. We just knuckle down, do what’s within our control, get the most out of our car, and get the most out of it on Saturday and see where we end up.
Q: So where’s the shortfall been then in the first five races of this season – some way behind, as we said, in Spain. Is there still belief that you can catch them over the span of the season?
PM: There’s belief, yes, and a strong desire as well. I think if we lost belief it would be a fairly early end to our season. So, there’s a strong belief, a strong desire and a real determination to get more out of this car and close on the others – because they’re not standing still and as such our development rate has to exceed those guys. I think it can. It’s fair to say that we’ve not extracted as much as we can in terms of points-scoring from the first four and there’s a little bit of performance coming each race. We set out on a pathway to catch them, let’s see if we can.
Q: But where’s the shortfall? It’s fair to say you haven’t extracted the most from the regulations. You’d have expected, looking at the way they were framed, that this was going to play to Red Bull’s strengths, particularly on the aerodynamic side.
PM: Well it’s strange thing, isn’t it? In that, within our own control is our own destiny and what others do will always be judged against that. And yes, it’s fair to say we don’t have the leading car at the present time. I wouldn’t want to say that it’s one area. It’s going to be several areas and it’s up to us to identify the ones that have the greatest returns that we can alter, capitalise upon those and get the most out of our car. It’s only what lies within our control. Can’t do anything about what the others do. We will identify the shortfalls – I don’t think it’s going to be a singular – it will be a plural, and we will chip away at them as we have been for some time now.
Q: Jörg, welcome to you. Very valuable points, obviously, for your team in Spain that puts you ahead of McLaren in the Constructors’. How optimistic are you that you can stay there?
Jörg ZANDER: First of all there was obviously a massive boost for the morale and motivation of the team. We actually didn’t expect us to be there in Barcelona. The upgrade package which we planned for Barcelona, we moved to this event. So somehow things seem to have been turned upside down. We didn’t expect us to be on P19-20 today. It was a bit more of a difficult start for us, into the season and it was affected by various parameters. As you know, we didn’t have Pascal for the first two races, so we had to go with Giovinazzi and, of course, that introduced quite a bit of a change to the operational side. So we had a very young, new driver into the car, which we needed to get adapted – but obviously, let me say, from a development point of view, we do understand that the car is behind, compared to our, let me say, defined competition, which is the midfield, primarily because we started pretty early in the season to develop that car, so we have to try and catch-up. But the parameter we fight here, of course, is time and it’s difficult to gain time over the competition. They have a certain time available as we have, so there’s not any difference. The thing is, of course, about resources, and these resources, we’re just about to configure and to adapt. We have made plenty of recruitments but these are all new people so there is a human factor involved, with regards to getting more out of this operation – and these are the kind of difficulties that we are fighting at the moment, let me say.
Q: You mentioned today P19-20. It looked a bit of a struggle, lap time-wise. I was out on circuit. The car didn’t look too bad but the times were a long way off the next-slowest car. What’s going on?
JZ: There’s definitely something wrong. It’s a little bit more work ahead of us. At the moment we don’t seem to get the tyres to work, at all. So, as I said, it was a bit of a surprise. We came here with a new aero upgrade which works according to the data, actually quite fine. So, as expected. We thought we could draw some more potential from it. Of course, now while the tyre temperature management worked very well in Barcelona and panned out very well for us on both compounds, supersoft and the medium, yeah, we do seem to struggle at the moment. The same is true of both compounds: ultrasoft, supersoft. We don’t’ really seem to be able to put the energy into the tyres that it needs to develop the grip which is required.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Ralf Bach – Autobild Motorsport) A question to Paul. I read last week that Adrian Newey said that he was more or less not involved in the new cars. Not his car. Can you tell us how much involved he really was?
PM: In terms of hours, I can’t tell you how he’s split his time. He’s part of our team, has been for a long time and continues to be so. He was involved in the process of developing the car and continues to be so.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question for Andy. Esteban was saying yesterday that he’s confident that he can get a podium this season. How confident are you that he can do that and how impressed have you been with his start?
AG: Well, I can tell you how impressed I am: very, very impressed with the way that he’s come into the team, adapted, the speed at which he acclimatised himself to this track especially this morning, for me shows what a talent he is. Undoubtedly. I watched him for quite a long time in the simulator last week, pounding around the lap here, and his car control was incredible. He could put the front wheel through the barrier by an inch every time. He just needed to bring it back an inch! He’s an amazing talent. Can he get a podium? Well, we need to give him the car to do that – because ultimately on our current car pace and ranking, if everybody finished we would never get a podium so it would need a big slice of luck. But he has an uncanny ability to finish races. He races really well on a Sunday. He has a lot of mental capacity remaining, when he’s driving the car, which is a really, really good sign. If he’s given the opportunity, I’m sure he’ll take it.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) A question to Paul. I think if you look at qualifying in Barcelona, corner speeds of the new Red Bulls were quite encouraging. If that is so, how encouraging is that regarding the new upgrades. And also, has there been a change of philosophy towards more downforce versus less drag with the new update introduced in Barcelona.
PM: OK, the first part of your question then. The changes made to the car for Barcelona yielded improvements to it, undoubtedly. There’s always a simulation target and then what the real car delivers – and the testing of the real car is usually imperfect. So, as far as we can tell, they’ve done what we expected to do – I’m encouraged by that – we did pick up a bit of speed. I think it gave the drivers more confidence and that’s another little bonus that you can take. In terms of change of philosophy, no, not really. We have efficiency targets that determine do pieces go on the car or not. It’s perhaps easier to judge that than it is your expected lap time gain of an update package. We’re not changing our philosophy: you can see how the car is set up; we’ve been pursuing that for some time and that remains. I think a change of philosophy at this stage would be, for us, unwise. What we do longer term is entirely our choice and our business.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Jörg, if we look at your career, you’ve always worked with very, very well-funded teams: Toyota, Honda, in sportscars Audi, with BMW-Sauber when it was manufacturer-backed. How difficult is it to reset the engineering mind set to operate and work in a team with a more modest budget the way that Sauber is right now?
JZ: First of all, I think we have actually quite a good budget, so we have all opportunity that you can find in other midfield teams to do a decent development and dover those development processes. So, from that perspective I think we are not too badly adjusted at all. The other point is that, the way I see Sauber is actually, from the point of talent level, actually quite good. We have very experienced people, very, very… people have a good talent, they are very competent. They have been in the sport for a long time, so I think you may want to look into the economic side of things, which are really decent but you have to look from a human resource point of view as well: what kind of quality level of human resource do you have available for your developments. I think Sauber is actually placed very well in that regard.
Q: (Sam Collins – Racecar Engineering) There’s been a lot of talk about the frontal cockpit protection system being introduced for the 2018 season. What have you heard from the FIA and their research institute about what form it will take, in terms of technical regulations. Also, what’s the latest in terms of monocoque design and lead times in manufacturer to start working and introduce it into the car?
AG: Well, there has been a meeting a couple of weeks ago, the first meeting for the installation of the Shield. We weren’t part of that meeting but there is another meeting tomorrow that we are having with the FIA to discuss it further. We’ve seen some preliminary models. We’ve been looking at how we integrate those into the chassis next year. There are a lot, a lot of question marks over it. There’s a lot of work to do in the timeframe that we have been given. So we need to make some smart decisions going forward. Hopefully we’ll be discussing that tomorrow, with a view to how we answer all those questions in the time period we’ve got.
PM: To answer your question, ‘what’s the deadline?’ I think it depends which colour shirt you have on. We, as a team, can be amongst the later, but we are going to very, very tight to get this on to a car for ’18. I think the research into its functionality and protection, it’s got to happen almost in parallel with the installation, which makes it quite a tricky job, because whatever they change in terms of screen then has an implication to a chassis and if you have cut your patterns then you are in a fairly awkward situations. I think if it all happens in parallel then the cut-offs are going to be somewhat team dependent. As Andy said, there is a hell of a lot to get through to ensure that this is a thoroughly developed and sorted package to put on next year’s car.
JZ: With regard to the deadline, so usually we would by the end of July, beginning of August, define the monocoque. Of course the fundamental question here is about the integration of the shield and the attachment, so there is a question about structural integrity, but again, as my colleagues said, we are going to discuss this tomorrow, so we need those detailed informations of course. At the moment, as far as I know, we want to test this system at some point in September, which I think is good. I think the enhancement of safety, improving safety is a fundamental let me say job of ours and I think we should support that, we do support this. But of course we have to makes sure that these things are worked out sensibly and that they fit within the time schedule. But we are working together with the FIA in order to achieve this, don’t we Paul?
PM: Absolutely.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – Associated Press) I just wanted to follow up on what I was asking about Esteban before. Could you just talk about his capacity and desire to learn, because he has said that he does hours and hours of simulator work and, quote, “intense debriefs with engineers”, so that shows his application. Could you talk about his desire to learn and willingness to improve?
AG: He’s like a school child. He’s like a sponge and he just absorbs information as fast as you can give it to him. His want and his desire are unquestionable. He absolutely wants this and he has the talent to do great things but he is going about it the right way. He’s doing it a step at a time. He’s doing the learning at the pace he wants to and that we allow him to do and I have no doubts that he is going to get to where he wants to be in a few years’ time.
Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) A question for everybody. Did you need to change the jack support at the back of the car after Laurent Mekies’ document, and what do you think about it, will it really help in the case of accidents?
PM: To answer your first question: yes, we were requested to change, so we have changed. We’ve taken a bigger step than some of our competitors by the looks of it and we have done a new jack, we’ve modified the associated receptacle on the back of the rear impact structure. As for the note, well, it’s given to us, and it’s up to us to interpret it, deal with it, liaise with the FIA, achieve a design that design that satisfies them and equally that we could get here, and with a lot of hard work and dedication we’ve got a solution here.
JZ: It’s the same for us. It added a little bit of complexity to our operations as well, but that’s what we have done. Of course, we have a Ferrari gearbox, so there’s a rear impact structure that is homologated by Ferrari. So we had to work this out in co-operation with our colleagues in Italy. So there was immediate action required which we did and yes, of course, we have had extra support here to make sure that it all works nicely. But then again, as I said before, it’s a safety critical subject, so we do understand and if there is urgency because of that then we would support that. That’s what we did.
AG: We didn’t need to change our rear impact structure, we just changed our livery.
eom/FIA transcript of the press conference
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Hamilton sets the quickest time in FP1
Monte Carlo, 25 May 2017: Hamilton set the quickest time of opening practice in Monaco, beating Ferrar
Hamilton top timecharts in FP1. An FIA image i’s Sebastian Vettel by almost two tenths of a second. The Mercedes driver also eclipsed last year’s pole position time by a similar margin and beat his own lap record in the principality by 4.5s.
Hamilton recorded a time of 1:13.425 on Pirelli’s ultrasoft tyres to finish 0.196 seconds clear of Vettel, with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen third, 0.15s adrift of the Drivers’ Championship-leading German.
The opening 90-minute session saw a number of drivers quickly try out the weekend’s softest available compound, the Pirelli ultrasoft, and Vettel set the early pace. However, the Ferrari man, who has a six-point title lead over Hamilton going into this weekend, was edged out of top spot when Mercedes swapped from supersoft tyre work to ultrasofts soon after the hour mark had passed.
Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas then traded fastest times before Hamilton set his best time of the session.
After slipping back as Red Bull, which was debuting a new T-wing, found pace and Daniel Ricciardo moved up the order but Vettel then jumped back to P2 with good lap that saw him finish 0.196 behind Hamilton.
Verstappen, meanwhile, stole into third place late in the session after he had spent a long time in the Red Bull garage after the team had detected a possible right rear puncture. Returning to the action late on Verstappen quickly found a groove and after initially slotting in behind tea-mate Ricciardo he chipped away at his lap time to eventually take third place with just over 10 minutes left in the session.
The Dutchman also set the quickest first sector of the session, but lost time in the following two to miss out on an even closer challenge to the top two drivers.
With Bottas fourth and Ricciardo fifth, sixth place in the session went to Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat, the Russian being the quickest man on supersoft tyres with the lap of 1:14.111, just under seven tenths of a second off Hamilton’s pace.
Kimi Räikkönen was seventh in the second Ferrari, though the Finn was more than half a second slower than Vettel over the 3.337km circuit. Force India’s Sergio Perez was eighth, ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr, who like Toro Rosso team-mate Kvyat was on the super-softs. Perez’s team-mate Esteban Ocon was 10th quickest.
Elsewhere, Jenson Button was 14th on his return to McLaren as stand-in for Fernando Alonso who is this weekend competing in the Indianapolis 500. Despite only having driven McLaren’s car on the team’s simulator, Button was soon finding a comfort zone with the car and completed 35 laps for a best time of 1:14.954, just 0.141 behind team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne.
There was trouble though for Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg and for Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson. Hulkenberg failed to complete a flying lap after a problem was discovered with his car’s energy store, while a geabox issue sidelined Ericcson.
2017 Monaco Grand Prix – Free Practice 1
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:13.425s – 40
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:13.621s 0.196s 34
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:13.771s 0.346s 32
4 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:13.791s 0.366s 40
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:13.854s 0.429s 45
6 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:14.111s 0.686s 42
7 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:14.164s 0.739s 37
8 Sergio Perez Force India 1:14.201s 0.776s 32
9 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:14.333s 0.908s 39
10 Esteban Ocon Force India 1:14.425s 1.000s 39
11 Felipe Massa Williams 1:14.617s 1.192s 37
12 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:14.813s 1.388s 38
13 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:14.870s 1.445s 34
14 Jenson Button McLaren 1:14.954s 1.529s 35
15 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:15.321s 1.896s 33
16 Lance Stroll Williams 1:15.595s 2.170s 44
17 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:15.949s 2.524s 42
18 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber 1:16.258s 2.833s 33
19 Nico Hulkenberg Renault – – 3
20 Marcus Ericsson Sauber – – 3.eom/FIA press release
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It’s exciting, but I don’t feel the pressure: Button
PART ONE: DRIVERS – Jenson BUTTON (McLaren), Nico HULKENBERG (Renault), Esteban OCON (Force India)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Jenson, 2009 Monaco GP winner and World Champion of course, welcome back. Unusual circumstances to say the least. What level of preparation have you done for this race and how well do you feel you know the 2017 McLaren F1 car?
Jenson BUTTON: First of all it’s great to be back, good to see so many faces I haven’t seen for six months, apart from TV obviously. The preparation has been good; apart from [the fact that] I haven’t obviously driven the car. These new regulations… so it’s not perfect. The option was to do half a day in Bahrain, which I though was absolutely useless for me to do, a completely different type of circuit. I said to the team, I think it’s best if I do a few days in the simulator. Obviously as drivers we love the simulator, so I was raring to go. I spent a lot of time in the simulator getting a feel for it. Yeah, it’s been interesting. You know, most of the stuff is the same, but there are a few things that are obviously different, with the difference in regulations, and there are always… it just changes year to year with new technology and what have you. A few things to learn but it’s still a racing car, just got to get used to it being a bit wider.
Q: The McLaren was competitive in Alonso’s hands in Spain in qualifying and this track is now McLaren’s best chance of scoring some points in the near future. And I guess you need them now after Sauber bagged some points last time out in Spain. So, although this substitute appearance was supposed to be fairly low pressure, do you actually feel there is a lot of pressure on you to score some points for the team?
JB: Definitely not. I’m very relaxed. Very excited, actually. It’s interesting coming back for one grand prix. It being Monaco it’s very special. I’ve won here before, I’ve lived here for 17 years, and I’ve had some really good experiences here. It’s exciting. But I don’t feel any pressure – none at all. I will obviously get in the car and I will do the best job I can, that’s what I’m here to do and everything I do in life is the same: you want to be competitive, you want to get the best out of yourself and you want to get the best out of the equipment and the team that you are working with. That hasn’t changed. The car seemed to be working well in Barcelona in qualifying. Fernando did a good job. I think it still proves that the car itself is working well. I drove it in the simulator and I drover the upgrade, which I was misquoted on by the way, but I drove the upgrade and it was a definite improvement and there are more improvements here as well. If it’s all straightforward this weekend, we should be reasonably… reasonably competitive.
Q: Well have a great weekend, thank you very much. Nico, three consecutive points finishes and you have three time qualified in the top eight this season, so does it feel like it’s all starting to come together with Renault?
Nico HULKENBERG: Yeah it does, especially Barcelona; Sunday was a good race for us, although we had quite a bit of help from some colleagues. But that’s racing sometimes. Overall the global situation is good, the team is very hungry and working pretty hard, little upgrades coming every weekend, which is very important in the season. I think we are putting ourselves in a position where we can just constantly battle for points which is the target and the ambition for this year. So as far as I can see looks all promising and good.
Q: Now you qualified fifth on the grid here last year in a Force India, so what’s the secret to punching above your weight around Monaco?
NH: It’s just nailing the lap when it counts. Obviously here it’s tough to push your personal limit higher and higher and it’s just building up that confidence over the weekend and then you peak really in that Q3 lap. Last year I remember it was a hell of a lap that I was very happy about and I’ll try to do more of the same this year.
Q: Esteban, five points finishes out of five and a career best fifth place in Spain, that’s some start to the year. You must be absolutely delighted. Now presumably the target is to be really troubling your team-mate Sergio Pérez every weekend and getting front of him?
Esteban OCON: Yeah, I’m pleased with the start of my season with Force India. The target was to be scoring points at every race, that’s what we are doing at the moment and the car is constantly improving as well. On my side we could have done a little bit better. For the first three races I was still learning and if we had put all the details together a bit more was possible. But I’m pleased with that, scoring points at every race, just keep improving all the time, keep getting closer to Sergio as well, and now we are having the same lap times and the same pace so we are fighting on the same step which is really good and that’s what I want to keep doing for the future.
Q: You’ve never raced at Monaco before, despite racing in some series that have been here but Force India has a strong record here, both cars finished in the top six here last season. How have they prepared you for this race and what’s your own research shown you about how the race unfolds?
EO: Yeah, unfortunately I’ve never been racing here, I’ve just been here to watch the race in the previous years when I was a reserve driver. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the simulator. It’s like I know the track already, because I have ben playing it on games since I was so young, I’ve been around as well. A lot of days in the simulator, a lot of research on the internet for me, watching just onboard laps from Jenson, from all the guys…
JB: The old guys.
EO: The old guys, yeah! No, it has been good and I think I can’t be more prepared to arrive.
Q: Before I pass it to the floor, one quick question to Nico and Jenson on driving these wider 2017 cars around these streets. They are quite a bit wider, so from the point of view of judging the barriers and overtaking, maybe a thought on that Nico?
NH: Obviously by now we have done a couple of races and spent quite a bit of time in these cars so I think we all adjusted to that. But yeah, first time tomorrow maybe we’ll have to readjust a little bit but I don’t think that will be too difficult or take too long.
JB: I haven’t driven the car, so I don’t know! To be fair, it’s probably not a bad thing stepping in it here. It’s going to be a shock to the system anyway driving the car so… I think it’s going to be a little bit unusual for everyone having the car wider, but you’re still sat in the middle, so you should be able to judge things pretty easily.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and Speed Sport) Jenson, when the idea was broached to you was it an instant yes, or did you have to think about it, even for a few seconds?
JB: I asked my dogs and they said “we can do without you for a week or so”. My girlfriend said “you gotta do what you do” and I said yes, and it was my decision. I could have said no if I wanted to, as we all can – no one wants a racing drive who doesn’t want to drive. Really excited but obviously the preparation could have been better if I had the opportunity to test the car in a proper test, but that’s not the way Formula One works. You’ve got to be ready. I think fitness-wise that’s not an issue. I’m sure the neck is going to be a bit sore after Thursday, even around Monaco. But we’ve got Friday off, so a little bit of rest. Mikey Muscles is back for a one-off race, my physio as well, so he’s going to be rubbing me once again. So it’s an exciting challenge and that’s what it’s all about isn’t it and that’s what we’re here for and I’m really looking forward to it.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) Jenson, obviously you have driven cars with more downforce before, before 2009 actually. Wouldn’t you have done the Bahrain test even if you hadn’t driven those other cars or do you think it would have been help for you?
JB: Well, in hindsight it’s always easier to say “no, I wouldn’t have” because I would have only done 17 laps the day that I would have tested and I was only going to do half a day anyway. So, no, I think Bahrain is such a different circuit to here. I think as long as you understand the way the car is working and obviously I have every bit of information possible and I run through it for days in terms of set-up work and what helps the car in certain ways and how it reacts to certain things, those are the key things you need to understand and those things you can do in the simulator, which is what I have done. Obviously it’s wider, so that’s the bigger thing for me. In terms of the way the tyres work. You know they have been pretty tricky for the last few years. I know they work differently, but you work your way around it and I have a couple of days to do that. It’s also warm, which helps. Over the weekend there will be things where I’m sure it will be a little bit tricky but it’s about putting the time and the effort in working around those issues and hopefully coming out on top.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – Associated Press) A question for Nico and Esteban. Some of the drivers have described how much more physically tiring and demanding the race is this year. Can you give your feedback on that and how much more difficult you’re finding that, physically?
EO: I think it is a bit more difficult. To be honest I was expecting it to be more, much more than that. The main difference is you push harder in the race because the tyre lasts longer. But all in all it’s not that much more difficult.
NH: Yeah it is a bit more physical for sure, but I think the real test will be later in the year when we go to Singapore and the really tough tracks that every year are the most difficult ones. Then it will make even a bigger difference. So far it’s been OK. I think we all took it seriously in the winter and prepared for it, so that’s why I think we’re OK.
Q: (Barna Zsoldis – Nemzeti Sport) Jenson, according to the official announcement in Monza you are now a key member of a very innovative three-driver line-up. If it’s like that, why did you hesitate to say yes or no and what is your exact position in the team now?
JB: That hasn’t changed. I’m still an ambassador for the team, some might say a third driver and this weekend I’ve got the opportunity to race the car. I was going to be here anyway and instead of sitting around drinking champagne I can actually do what I’m supposed to do and that’s race cars for a living. Very lucky position and as I said it’s a very exciting position to be in – a challenge, but a good one.
Q: (Andrew Frankel – Forza) Nico, you’re already a champion at Le Mans and we have Fernando this weekend at Indy. Should he do as well as we would all like him to do, would you gentleman all consider having a go at Indianapolis?
NH: For me, personally, at the moment, no. There is nothing that strikes me about it or gets me excited. Le Mans was one thing, so I can see myself going back there. Indy, for the moment, no. Maybe in the future, in the next few years, that might change, I don’t know – but at the moment I’m happy where I am.
Jenson?
JB: Indy’s not really been something that I’ve thought about. Personally, I was surprised that Fernando was interested in doing it but we all like different things. We’re racing drivers, we’re not just F1 drivers and we like trying other sports. For me, I’d like to do Le Mans one day, I think it would be a great experience, great team atmosphere. Obviously it has to be the right opportunity, like Nico had . I would like to race in NASCAR, I think that’d be fun. Yeah, I went along to one of the races this year, Jimmie Johnson invited me and I had a great time and loved seeing ‘the show’ as it is. It’s very different to other motorsports but equally it’s a challenge. It’s a massive challenge. Who knows? And then there’s the other motorsports that I love like Rallycross as well. There are many things – but Indy hasn’t been up there for me, for many different reasons.
Esteban?
EO: No, from myself, I don’t think Indy or Le Mans actually now I want to do. I definitely want to focus on Formula One. Always been my goal to be here and I want to be successful here in Formula One. So maybe in the future but I’m even not sure I would want to do that in the future. I would be more a rally driver if I retire. I want to try that.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Jenson, are you following what Fernando is doing at Indy and will you watch the Indy 500 on Sunday?
JB: What time is it on? [6pm] Oh, yeah, I’m sure that I will. I watched when he drove the car for the first time, which is always interesting, seeing a driver’s reaction. Actually, probably it was more the reaction to the media being right next to him every second that he was out of the car. That’s the bit that I loved watching the most – because we all know how Fernando loves the media so seeing his reaction to that was even better than seeing his reaction to driving the car around the circuit. So yeah, it’s absolutely mad, isn’t it, Indy, in terms of the media and how much attention it’s getting – which is fantastic for the sport. I just want to see what Fernando says when he gets back. But of course I have an interest. I’ve been team-mates with Fernando for a couple of years and raced against Fernando for many more years than that. It’s interesting to see how he does. Very different type of motorsport. There’s a lot of talent out there, talented drivers that have been doing that for so many years, so it’ll be interesting to see how he gets on. Qualifying went pretty well and the race is obviously something very, very different. Wheel-to-wheel around there, it’s pretty mad. I wish him the best but the most important thing is that he stays safe, which we’ve already talked about.
Q: (Leigh Diffey – NBC Sports) Jenson, if you haven’t already noticed, as the weekend goes on you’ll see how much the paddock is enjoying you being back…
JB: Thank you Sweetie!
…but for you, what’s it like being away from the paddock?
JB: It’s been amazing! Nothing against the paddock because it is great to be back and it’s great to see you guys. This has been my world, it’s been my life for so many years. You’re never going to just walk away and forget about it. It’s a very special feeling for me being back here, seeing so many friends and colleagues and what have you. It’s nice – but my life away from Formula One has been pretty cool. So… very different. I’ve been spending a lot of time in one place rather than traveling around the world and flying three times a week and I’m in a very lucky position where I can do that. To be fair, I’ve been busier than ever because I’ve been training really hard for my passion, which is triathlons. I’m flat out with training, and picking up dog poop, so it’s been busy, yeah.
EO: It’s good training for the biceps…
JB: It is very good! And I’ve seen on social media all winter, these guys training so hard. I saw Daniel Ricciardo standing on a Swiss Ball with something in his hands. Don’t know what use that is to a Formula One driver – but it looked so cool. These guys flat out in the gym. Amazing. It’s really good to see. The only thing I’m worried about is my neck but apart from that it should be alright.
Q: (Joe Van Burik – De Telegraaf) Question to Nico. How would you rate the power unit development process is going at Renault at the moment?
NH: I think that’s OK. The power unit took a big step forwards last year to this year. I didn’t know it last year but that’s the feedback I have from Renault and from talking to some of the drivers.I think there is still more work to be done to close the gap to the Mercedes and Ferrari power units. We get an upgrade in the next few races, so I think it’s pretty much on target.
Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS) For all drivers. This special circuit, what’s your favourite corner – and Esteban, it can be a simulation corner.
JB: Favourite corner… it’s a tricky one around Monaco because it’s not just about one, it’s difficult to pick one corner out. Tabac is pretty crazy. Most of the corner here it’s easy-enough to pick out the apex and the exit but Tabac is quick: very difficult to pick the apex and the exit. It’s very tough with the barriers. If they were different colours maybe it would help. Yeah, that’s the toughest. Also, from what I’ve heard with the cars this year, Tabac and the Swimming Pool are the corners that are really going to be a step above last year – and the entry to Casino. Slow-speed, maybe not so much – but high speed is going to be pretty awesome.
NH: Yeah, Like Jenson says, it’s going to be difficult to name one corner. I think it’s more about a few sequences. I really like down from Mirabeau, through Loews corner and then the two right-handers into the tunnel. That’s cool. And then, yeah Tabac and the Swimming Pool because it’s so fast and it’s really… yeah pretty spectacular from inside the car. It’s always a challenge every lap, so that’s fun too.
Esteban, which one are you looking forwards to?
EO: I think they said it: Swimming Pool and then the other right to left just after that. I don’t know the names of the corners because I’m quite new – but those four in combination. I like chicanes and those look really demanding and challenging.
Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) Jenson, could I just ask your thoughts on the terror attack in Manchester early this week and whether as a British driver you plan to run any sort of tribute on your helmet or car his weekend.
JB: Obviously, it’s horrific. It’s amazing how often it seems to be happening all around the world and more and more in Great Britain. So, yeah, there aren’t many words for it really apart from my thoughts are with everyone that’s been affected. The most heart-breaking thing… I mean every life is important but with mostly kids going to the concert that’s what I think hurts the most for everyone. I’m not a parent, but I know a lot of people who are and I think that’s what hits home the most, how heartless certain people can be. But it’s also been a pretty bad week for people we know and respect in motorsport as well, and the cycling world, well the triathlon world for me. So, it’s been tough with Nicky losing his fight over the last the last few days – it just shows you how precious it is. You’ve got to enjoy every moment. That’s it really.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) Nico, you have scored points in Barcelona again but in terms of raw pace it wasn’t a really good weekend for Renault. Have you identified the problems and also, in the slower corners the car seemed to be a bit better than the fast ones. Does it bode well for Monaco for you?
NH: I thought it was the opposite: fast ones are better for us than slow. Anyway, I think it depends sometimes on the track, on the tyre. The pace on the medium wasn’t great but we had track position and when you have that you hang on to it. It’s just a matter of sometimes if you don’t hit the tyre in the sweet spot, in the right temperature window you lose out on performance. I think to some extent that’s what happened in Barcelona on the medium compound. And then, during the harder compounds we seemed to be suffering a bit more on those relative to softer compounds – so quite good that we have softer ones here this weekend.
Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Question for Esteban, the start you’ve had this season, how does that make you feel about your potential in Formula One, do you think you can get a podium this season? What is your view following your start this season?
EO: Yeah, it is my personal target to get a podium at some point and I want to have it as soon as possible. It makes me confident to have a great start like this, this season, progressing all the time, feeling very well into the team. The team welcomed me so well, working with them a lot at the factory as well. I think we can achieve great things, y’know? All together. I look forward to many more successful races like this and hopefully we can get a podium this year.
Q: (inaudible) Jenson, you qualified for the triathlon World Championships. What are your expectations regarding your triathlon career?
JB: I’m old! I think that’s my comments on that. I will always be amateur, never a professional at a sport like that. There’s a lot of big talent that’s British, which is great. The Brownlee brothers, Holly Lawrence, which is great – but for me it is more about just pushing myself. I enjoy it a lot and obviously I’m going to the World Championship – and if you’re going you might as well aim to win it – and that’s my aim, as an age-grouper though, not as a professional. That’s what all the hard work’s for this year. Looking forward to that. It’s in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as well so it should be fun.
eom/FIA transcript of the press conference
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Monaco GP, a jewel in the F1 calendar: A Mercedes preview
Toto Talks Monaco
“It’s always good to come away from a race weekend with a points advantage, no matter how small. But the gap is just that: very small. We are in a massive fight with Ferrari. On one side, this is very exciting and challenging. But on the other side, it is going to stretch us to our limits. You cannot base your current assessment on the balance of power on just Barcelona.“It was painful to lose 15 valuable points with Valtteri retiring from P3. We’ve identified the root cause of the problem, which was the turbo. We haven’t seen that defect before, which shows you that you need to be double diligent. This is a technical sport and if you stretch your limits, you’ll encounter technical problems.
“If you look at the results, both Pascal and Esteban had a really good weekend. Pascal made the one-stop strategy work and could have been P7 – but P8 is still very good for him and very valuable points for Sauber. I’m happy to see how Pascal has fitted into the team. He speaks highly about the team and is on a great learning curve.
“As for Esteban, Force India have been very successful in scoring regular points. Esteban is making a good contribution to that. He will really need to stretch himself to beat Checo (Pérez), who is the benchmark for him, but I’m interested to see how that battle develops. They’re pushing each other to new levels and Force India will be the beneficiary.
“We expect Monaco to be a completely different ball game to Barcelona. The circumstances, working environment and driving challenges are completely different to anywhere else – and you need to get everything exactly right if you want to perform to your maximum around those streets. Not every factor is under your control, either, so you need to turn fortune in your favour at the right time if you want everything to come together.
“Monaco is also one of our busiest races. We welcome many guests, executives and partners, who all contribute to our success in different ways. It’s extra special to have this group cheering for us, so we look forward to their support at the track.
“Every weekend will push us to the limit; this is the new reality of Formula One in 2017. The last three years were extraordinary. But this season I have re-discovered why I love the sport. I love the intense competition. This competition means that you won’t be winning easily – but that you’ll have a fierce fight on your hands. Because of that, the feeling is even greater when you manage to come out on top, as we did in Spain.
“If we get the job done in Monaco, I’m pretty sure we’ll bring down the garage roof. We’re all properly fired up for this fight, so let’s see what we can do…”
Featured this Week: Monaco – One of a Kind
Monaco is a race like no other. You don’t need to be an F1 aficionado to know that much. The tight, twisting circuit that threads its way through the famous streets of Monte Carlo is a one-of-a-kind throwback to the eras of Fangio or Caracciola. And even now, decades later, this remains the crown jewel of the Formula One calendar.It’s the race every single driver on the grid wants to win – or win again, in Lewis Hamilton’s case. But victory in the Principality isn’t quite like winning anywhere else. The greatest Grand Prix of them all offers a unique challenge not only to the drivers but the teams as well.
Monaco is the ultimate drivers’ circuit – a track all about precision. Drivers spend hours at the factory ahead of the race studying and preparing for this one race. Some go even further…
“I’ve been doing this for a long time now,” says Lewis. “I spend a lot of time at the factory with the engineers to understand past races. Just the other night, I was driving around the track in my Smart car, visualising the circuit. It’s not so easy, though, when there are lots of cars around!”
As Lewis explains, racing at Monaco is all about peaking at exactly the right moment. A driver must feel his way into the weekend, building up confidence and momentum as the track develops. From the moment they turn left out of the garage on Thursday morning in FP1, this process begins. They’ll push that bit harder, flirt that fraction closer with the barriers and brake a touch later, as they find more time from within themselves.
“The most important thing is that you have to learn to walk before you run,” says Lewis. “You have to build up to the pace so that, by the time you work up to that second run in Q3, you’re at 100%.”
You’ll often see drivers who are quick in the earlier sessions crash out on Saturday morning in FP3 where they’ve pushed just that bit too much, too early. Monaco is not a circuit that forgives. If you misjudge your braking or your turn-in point even by a matter of millimetres, you’ll end up in the barriers. And if you lose a session in Monaco, you’ll struggle to recover from it.
“It’s one of those weekends when you really need to be on the top of your game,” explains Valtteri. “You need to be so focused on what is a mentally exhausting weekend. You need to be focused on every single car of every single lap, because one mistake will cost you.”
Then there’s the added challenge of 2017’s wider, heavier, faster cars. “We have new cars this weekend which are wider and faster, so that’s going to be a massive challenge,” says Lewis. “In trying to push the car as close as you can to the limit, it’ll be a real test of your awareness of where the car is. I’m sure there will be some brushing of the barriers…”
Monaco is the one race of the year when the Grand Prix can almost feel like a side show to the main event. Amongst the boat parties and the superstar celebs, having a distraction-free weekend is a huge part of the challenge for the drivers.
To combat this fatigue, the engineers spend a lot of time ensuring that their drivers are able to break up their time and switch off. It’s tough, with Monaco a busy weekend from a media and marketing perspective. But this is crucial in allowing the drivers to relax and get away from what is a very intense weekend, with immense pressure.
“It’s a circuit which is all about mental strength,” says Lewis. “You need to be sharp and clear. Experience counts here too – that helps massively in setting the car up.”
Ultimately, Monaco is a weekend all about compromise, from the engineering setup to the cars themselves. The pit wall, for example, sits one story above the compact garages rather than overlooking the start finish-line as it does at every other circuit.
While engineers don’t necessarily need to see the cars to engineer them these days, instead relying on bespoke software for strategy and live feeds for visual aids, they do like to be able to see the garage. In Monaco, the occupants of the pit wall have to rely on cameras to show them what is going on. It may seem simple – but good communication becomes even more important in that environment.
Logistically, too, Monaco is tricky to say the least. A distinct lack of garage space means the engineers share their office with front wings, floors and hydraulic systems. The frequent support races during the weekend mean they also have to deal with a near constant level of noise, as cars fly past while important debriefs are underway.
There’s not much space downstairs either. The tyre technicians, for example, have to work down in the harbour – carrying all of the tyre sets up to the pit lane as and when they’re needed because there is simply not enough space in the garage. These factors heap extra pressure on what is already a tough weekend for the team.
Track position takes on an even greater level of importance and must be considered in any strategy move here. When you’re in the lead of the Monaco Grand Prix, it’s all about protecting that position and managing the advantage. The last thing you want to do is offer the trailing car clean air and an opportunity to pass through strategy. .
In fact, you’ll often see the leader driving within their means through fear of storming into a lead, only to see their advantage wiped out when they’re left on worn tyres later in the stint. This year’s tyres offer a new challenge, as teams expect to be able to complete the entire race distance on either the UltraSoft or SuperSoft. That low degradation rate means a smaller delta between the tyres, which will only make it trickier to pass.
All these factors converge to make Monaco the stiffest test a driver can face in F1. Amid the yachts, glamorous guests and VIP events, it all comes down to mastering those 3.337 km of undulating tarmac. “Monaco is always a great challenge,” smiles Valtteri. “We live for these kinds of challenges.”
Stat Attack: Monaco and Beyond
2017 Monaco Grand Prix Timetable
Session Local Time (CEST) Brackley (BST) Stuttgart (CEST) Practice 1 (Thursday) 10:00 – 11:30 9:00 – 10:30 10:00 – 11:30 Practice 2 (Thursday) 14:00 – 15:30 13:00 – 14:30 14:00 – 15:30 Practice 3 (Saturday) 11:00 – 12:00 10:00 – 11:00 11:00 – 12:00 Qualifying (Saturday) 14:00 – 15:00 13:00 – 14:00 14:00 – 15:00 Race (Sunday) 14:00 – 16:00 13:00 – 15:00 14:00 – 16:00 Circuit Records – Silver Arrows at the Circuit de Monaco
Starts Wins Podiums Poles Front Row Fastest Laps Silver Arrows 8 4 7 4 9 2 L. Hamilton 10 2 5 1 4 1 V. Bottas 4 0 0 0 0 0 MB Power 24 11 22 10 20 8 Technical Stats – Season to Date (Barcelona Pre-Season Test 1 to Present)
Laps Completed Distance Covered (km) Gear Changes Petronas Fuel Injections Corners Taken Silver Arrows 2,681 13,570.77 132,493 107,240,000 42,963 L. Hamilton 1,247 6,328.32 61,789 49,880,000 20,006 V. Bottas 1,434 7,242.45 70,704 57,360,000 22,957 MB Power 7,341 37,331.93 365,391 293,640,000 117,840 All-Time Records – Silver Arrows in Formula One
Starts Wins Podiums Poles Front Row Fastest Laps 1-2 Finishes Silver Arrows 153 67 135 77 138 50 36 L. Hamilton 193 55 108 64 109 34 – V. Bottas 82 1 12 1 4 1 – MB Power 424 153 401 160 322 144 61 eom/AMG Petronas Mercedes release
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It’s one of the hardest races: Hamilton
DRIVERS: 1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes); 2 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari); 3 – Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull Racing)
PODIUM INTERVIEWS (Conducted by Pedro de la Rosa)
Q: Lewis, tell us about the race? First of all, bad things, what happened at the start?
Lewis HAMILTON: First of all, I just want to say a big thank you to the crowd that came today, for the warm welcome and for the support. It’s been a long, long time coming to Barcelona [for me] and I can say it didn’t start out the greatest when I first came but it has grown so much and my love and appreciation for the country has grown so much as well, so thank you. The team did an incredible job today… what an amazing… that’s how racing should be. That’s as close as it could be. Sebastian was incredibly close, incredibly fast. The team did a great job with the strategy. The start – I don’t really know what’s gone wrong. I have to see with my guys…
Don’t worry about that…
LH: But it wasn’t good enough, I know! Trust me, I thought I did everything I was supposed to do but I got a bit of wheelspin.
Q: Tell me about the squeeze, let’s call it the squeeze into Turn One? Seb was coming out the pits with the medium tyres. How did you handle that?
LH: I think in the heat of the moment it’s difficult to know from the outside view what it’s like. I felt like I ran out road but I was alongside. It was definitely close but again, as I said, that’s how racing should be and I loved it and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Q: Well done man, your 55th grand prix victory in my home town. Seb, do you think you should have pushed a little bit further? Was it enough?
Sebastian VETTEL: I was pushing! I had a really good start, best start maybe at the beginning. I think Lewis and myself we both picked up wheelspin straight away, then I pulled the clutch in again and then I could gain on him so I was really happy with that. Then again the run to Turn One was quite long, but I managed to stay ahead. Then I settled into a nice rhythm, everything was fine. Obviously Lewis stayed out longer, did the opposite, mirrored the strategy so I knew in the end it would be crucial. Then he came out, I was a bit surprised when he came out and it was already so close. I tried to brake as late as possible into Turn One, locked up. I don’t know if we touched but I managed to stay ahead so it was really close. The laps after I was doing everything I can to stay in front and I was a bit luck because there was always a car in front giving me a tow, but as soon as I was alone, he just flew past down the straight, which was a shame. We tried to stay in the race but well done to him, he drove a good race and we did everything we could.
Hey man, you’re still leading the championship, so don’t worry, six points in front.
SV: It was a nice race and a great crowd, so it would have been great to win but…
Q: Tell us about the Plan C. Was that a real option towards the end – change your strategy and try to attack?
SV: Yeah, we had a huge gap to Daniel behind, so we could have done anything really. We weren’t sure. Obviously there was a big conversation, trying to do something. We were hoping Lewis would maybe struggle with his tyres at the end but normally in the end of the race the track picks up a lot of rubber and the tyres last long so he didn’t have any problems. We tried to keep pushing, stay close, but it was never close enough.
Q: A fantastic drive my friend. Hey, last but not least, come on man, no shoey, just behave yourself, I’m very elegant today. Your favourite podium of the year, first since Mexico 2016, how does it feel?
Daniel RICCIARDO: Feels good. We had a little bit of fortune today with Valtteri stopping. We were fourth and then he had his… I’m not sure of what his problem was in the end, but for now we take what we can and it’s nice to be up on the podium. Really happy to spray some champagne again. The weather is good. They said maybe a chance of rain. It’s cool, we got some sunshine, so gracias a todos.
Q: Well done amigo. Lewis, was it that hard, because obviously this is possibly the most demanding phsyically?
LH: Yeah, this is one of the hardest races.
Q: How’s your neck after it?
LH: My neck is fine, but physically, yeah, I probably lost two kilos just in that race. It’s draining, the car is fast, to keep up with him… he drove fantastically well and it’s a re4al privilege to race against such an awesome driver so…
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis, many congratulations, win number 55 of your career and your second here in Barcelona and I have the feeling from your celebrations that it meant a lot to you. It was one of those races that was getting away from you but you and the team made it happen your way and from your side making the softs work first and final stints critical to turning it round.
LH: Yeah, I really just have to congratulate my team and thank my team for doing such a great job with the strategy and the pit stops and everyone back at the factory with the upgrades enabling us to be as close as we are to Ferrari. It has been a really good weekend, being able to bounce back from Russia is a great thing. But I obviously lost out on the start. I’m not quite sure exactly what it was. The initial phase was good, just got wheelspin later on and saw Sebastian fly by. Then seeing him after that, he was so fast up ahead, it was such a push to try to keep close to him and not let him pull away. I don’t know, I think it was the rawest fight I can remember having for some real time, which I loved. This is what the sport needs to be every single race for sure. This is why I race and this is what got me into racing in the beginning. To have that close battle with him, with a four-time champ, is awesome. The first stint I was able to manage the tyres and stay relatively close. The second stint was a little bit difficult to keep up the pace with him with the medium tyre. At the end came out so close together, very, very close into Turn One. I gave you space, otherwise we would have touched…
SV: I thought I gave you space too…
LH: Not really! Definitely didn’t give me much space! It was close; it was cool…
SV: We’re still here so…
LH: Yeah, just! And then after that was just biding my time, trying to find the right opportunity. There were backmarkers we were coming up against, which made it fun. Trying to get past backmarkers is very, very tough and so clocking the DRS with the use of the battery pack and everything… But as I said, these guys have done a phenomenal job, their car is awesome and the pace that he had… it’s very close between us both. But at the end I was able to manage the soft… wow, I’m talking as long as you normally do when you win!
SV: Go on.
LH: But the last stint: when they told me I had 25 laps I didn’t think… at the end of the stint he would come back, being on the harder tyre, but I was able to manage it.
Q: Well done, it was a fantastic race. Sebastian, I guess you file this one down as the one that got away. You had the lead, you made that early stop when they looked like they were going to make that early stop but they didn’t it. Then they played a tactic where they left Bottas out for an extra eight laps to hold you, you lost four seconds behind him…
SV: Nice, huh!
Q: …It was just one of those days that you were trying to catch something that was like a bar of soap, always getting away from you.
SV: That’s a good way to put it. Well done to him. He won it fair and square, so I can’t take it away from him. Obviously I’m not happy because as you said it was there and… yeah, the start was good. I saw Lewis struggling with wheelspin and so did I, but then I pulled the clutch in immediately and reacted and tried to set off a second launch phase, which worked excellent. Looking in the mirror straight away to see if any of the guys behind got a better start, but I think we probably all overestimated the grip, which wasn’t that good. First stint, I was really in control. Happy with the car, but it wasn’t easy. Just trying to control the gap, the pace was similar. Then we had to obviously go, because otherwise they might go and then you get jumped. I wasn’t sure. I came out right behind Daniel I believe. The second stint I thought was pretty good and then Lewis has the luxury to stay out and then think about what to do, and not being in a rush, gap behind, choosing a different tyre, which might allow him to come back in the end, which unfortunately was the case. Second stint, which you touched on, with Valtteri was… yeah, I was catching him but I knew they wouldn’t pit him. He was all over the place with his tyres so they used him a bit to block me. He still managed to somehow get a decent exit so I didn’t quite make it the first time round so the second time round down the straights I thought “now, I have to find some way, even if it’s over the grass”. He used a bit more of the track. It was really close. I don’t know what is the word, I faked it on the inside, went back on the outside and then on the inside to surprise him, which worked, but I nearly lost the car doing that because I had the DRS open and it was a quite aggressive move on the steering wheel. So I was really happy but then equally I looked down and I’d lost an awful lot of time so I wasn’t that happy becau8se the real fight was with Lewis. Then I don’t know what happened in the last stint because I came out of the pits and I was surprised to see him that close because I thought I had eight seconds in hand. It must have been because you stopped a lap sooner or something. So yeah, obviously that could have bought us a bit of a cushion. Then it was nice he stayed behind and I just managed always the end of the straight, end of the straight, and I thought it would be more difficult for him the longer her tries. But then I had no tow from any car in front and he sailed past. He managed a good exit and he was very quick in the last sector and he went on to win the race. We did everything we could, we tried everything. I think the car was good, nothing to blame there. I think our weekend was a bit scrappy overall. So I think it’s still a very, very good result.
Q: Well, you’re still leading the world championship?
SV: I think I was more focused on the race today. It was very close when we came out. You come out on fresh tyres – I was just guessing. I wanted to stay ahead but I was just guessing on the brake point. It worked, but there was no room for him. He reacted well, because he avoided the contact. I don’t know if we touched? I think we just missed. It was good, because I stayed ahead, so you always take it, but it was really close.
Q: Daniel, welcome back. Podium, nice to have you here but 75s behind despite massive upgrades all around is, I guess, a little bit of a cold shower after the champagne-shower.
DR: Yeah, I’ve definitely got a less exciting story that these two guys. I’m pretty envious sitting here listening to the battle they had. But look, firstly, it’s nice to be back up here. Absolutely. But it’s nice to see that at the front there are some battles and they’re enjoying it. As Lewis touched on, that’s a big part of why we race: we want to have these battles and fights. I’m enviously not to be part of that but we’re going to try to work on it. I think today certainly we just have to be grateful that, y’know, first podium of the year, it’s nice. We got, I guess a bit lucky, not sure what the problem was with Valtteri, looked like he just stopped on the side of the track, I guess something with engine failure or whatever but yeah, it’s nice to be up here nonetheless. As for my race, yeah, not any exciting stories besides watching a bit happen in front of me at the start. Otherwise, just trying to manage it. At the end, I felt I was trying to get the most out of it, pushing but yeah, I heard the lap times they were doing at the end, and yeah, we’ve still got a bit to go but we’ll keep working at it, try and stay positive and keep everyone motivated.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Roksana Cwik – Swiatwyscigow.pl) Sebastian, another situation with Felipe Massa. What can you say about it?
SV: No, I like Felipe. He was given me space so nothing to blame on his side. It’s really slippery and then when you get close to the other car, the car in front, I just locked up both wheels. At some point I wish I had a handbrake to get the rear turned. It was really close; I was lucky to not bump into him and damage my front wing. But it’s difficult for him because he gives the space and he just waits for me to go through. I should look at the lines in Turn Ten. Sometimes you are really at the kerb but most of the time you are 1.5/2 metres off the apex kerb there. It was quite slippery and I obviously underestimated that so if anything it was me to blame – but it a bit of a pity because again it was Felipe. Last race we had a bit of a misunderstanding, this one again but he’s very experienced and he knows how to move in these situations, so nothing to blame for him.
Q: (Mike Doodson – GP+) This is for Lewis. Thank you very much for turning what looked like being a bit of a monotonous parade into a really exciting race – particularly for the incident with Seb. I can see it’s all peace and love between the two of you as usual right now – but I’m pretty sure I heard the word “dangerous” from you over the radio. Would you like to go into a bit more detail about that?
LH: Not really. In the heat of the moment it feels… when I run out of road and particularly where we went off at the exit of Turn One, so it meant by the time I had… I tried to stay straight but I came over the kerb so I lost all steering and he was just ahead of me. Could have been close, could have been some real good contact but fortunately I avoided it. I didn’t say anything bad, just ‘be careful, that was very, very, very close,’ but I enjoyed it and I’m glad that afterwards I was able to have a battle and didn’t damage anything and there’s nothing lost between us. The respect stays the same. I think he was tough and hard just to the edge and no more. I think if he’d hit me that would have been a bit different.
Q: (Angelique Belokopytov – Autodigest) Lewis, congratulations, what were your thoughts when you saw this red guy in front of you at the start and were those thoughts the same after you saw him again after his pitstop?
LH: No, definitely not. At the beginning, you’re on the back foot, thinking ‘damn it, we worked so hard, we got a great pole position’. The starts are just so unpredictable. I prepared, I did everything I needed to do for the start and just got a bit of wheel-spin and he got a better start. Naturally, when you go into Turn One and you’ve lost position, you just know here in Barcelona it’s so hard to follow. As you come out of Turn One into Turn Two, Three it’s often kind of like… the chances of winning this race from now, this position, behind such a fast car is… the percentages are very, very small. I just stayed on it, I tried to keep them… y’know he was so fast in that first stint so I just tried to keep on his tail and I think to the end of the stint I was able to start closing the gap to him, and I’m like ‘Oh my God, we’ve got a real race on now’. But what I don’t know is what the overall picture is looking like, so what the engineers see of what our strategy is going to be, and so I have absolutely no idea, apart for our strategy stops, and what they tell me, I don’t know how it’s going to pan out – so all I can do is give it everything I’ve got. It was amazing when I saw at the end that we were coming out close. I was a bit worried that, by going long in the first stint, everything I’d worked for in the first part of the first stint, I would have lost because I think he was pulling me back in at a huge step. But anyway, I trust my engineers and my strategist and they did an incredible job. And y’know, it was great that we were able to have that battle at the end, and again the tyres stayed… the reason we were able to stay so close is that we were offset on tyres. If I had the same tyre as him, it probably wouldn’t have been that exciting.
Q: (Flavio Vanetti – Corriere della Sera) To Sebastian. First of all I would like to know if it was an option to make the second stint not on the soft but on the medium like Lewis, and after the race, how is the situation between you and Mercedes? Do you believe that the situation is like in the first part of that they’ve got an advantage on Ferrari?
SV: There’s always the option, obviously, to go on the medium tyre rather than the soft. We had a new soft and a new medium but yeah, looking back, I was just thinking about it, we obviously lost… I don’t think the decision is to blame. We lost a lot of time fighting Valtteri, we lost four seconds. Then, I don’t know why, we made eight seconds disappear for the second stop. If you add those two things it’s 12 seconds and it would have been a bit better but that’s how it goes. Yeah. I think it could have been the same if we go on the medium tyre. Then obviously they are the second in the row at that point and easy to react, so they could have gone on the other tyre to put pressure and maybe pass us there – so at that point I think there’s nothing to blame. Later on, obviously he had the tyre advantage and he did a good job. It’s not easy to pass but he still made it, so he got close. You saw the race, that’s what happened. So I think for us, to answer your second question, very happy when we have the chance to race Mercedes. They have been proving over and over in the last few years that they are the team to beat. We are given them, so far, a good run for their money. I think we can be very happy – but today we’re not entirely happy because the win was there, the car was quick enough but the way the race happened, it wasn’t meant to be. But the most important thing is that we were there: once again fighting; hanging in there; not much missing at the end. The car is good, the team is in great form and we know that we need to improve. We don’t want to battle with them close, we want to be ahead of them. The idea obviously is nice, to have close battles – but you want to have them in your favour at the end of the race, which today wasn’t the case but that’s, as I said, how it goes sometimes.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – GloboEsporte.com) To Lewis, and also if Sebastian can comment, what is your understanding what we saw this weekend. In the race you have a car completely different than you have been using until now and we have a battle with Sebastian as in the four races before. As exactly the same yesterday. Did the Mercedes change the car in the correct way, or was the step forwards not what you expected, or even Ferrari also developed their car in a way that the difference became more or less similar.
LH: I think we delivered what we thought we were bringing in – it just looks fancy. It does the job, it works well with our car, it’s just that we have… while the rules are the same the cars are fundamentally a lot different and they’ve been bringing upgrades to the last two races whereas we’ve just bought one here. So, if the brought five piece in the previous race and five here, we’ve brought ten here – but yeah, I think we just made a similar step together. We were slightly quicker this weekend, I think, slightly had the edge. And even if it’s only half a tenth, it’s brought us a little bit… particularly in the race pace. Before I don’t think I’ve really had the pace in the race to keep up with Sebastian. I think today is a bit different – so there is an improvement.
Q: (Iolande Skinner – Motosport Monday) For all three of you: what was going through your head as you stood on the podium today?
DR: Relief. And happiness. It’s been a little while. It’s nice, weather was good, the fans were good. So it’s good. Actually I noticed on the in lap, I think it was turn 12, it looked like a dedicated Max sort of fan club, all in orange, and maybe they were doing it for everyone but they seemed to actually give me a lot of love so… they seemed pretty cool so obviously they were still hanging around and showing support. I’m sure they support Max but maybe, as a team, they love Red Bull so that was nice to see.
LH: Just grateful, grateful for… it’s difficult for you all and people watching to comprehend what goes on in the background to enable days like this to happen. Every week, I go back to the factory, I get an opportunity to go and see different departments and catch up with people that I’ve obviously known for the five years now and just see how… there’ s people who have been there for 25 years, 29 years and it’s just remarkable to see what goes on in the background and then we turn up at a Grand Prix and it looks all glitz and glamorous but so much work goes on behind… this is just the tip of the iceberg here, so I think on the podium I was just grateful and I just got to race an incredible race today and I’m very proud of my team and grateful I was able to deliver what I know was in my ability in my heart as well. It was just a combination of all that plus just massive excitement, kind of on the rev limiter.
SV: Well, honest answer, I was a bit disappointed. I didn’t want him to win, I wanted to win myself so it was great, beautiful weather, beautiful crowd but…
LH: I’m glad you didn’t want me to win!
SV: I don’t know. With the start that I had, the view into turn one was pretty nice. No one ahead, so it was great. There was a clear track and the car felt good but yeah, it was just… just couldn’t grip it, you know? Here and there, always a lost a bit. I knew it would be tight at the end, I thought I would still have a chance to hold him off and during the race I thought this was like 2011. I think I had a long stint at the very end of the race, Lewis was quicker but I managed to keep him behind and I thought yes, it will be the same you know, but unfortunately he turned it around so this year wasn’t so happy. Then there was another incident in turn 12 that is like an area with a lot of fans, orange, Dutch, they’re all barefoot to support Max but when I came round they…
DR: Also for you…
SV: They did to me! They gave me a good wave.
LH: On the last lap, coming round, they didn’t move. The crowd next door were moving but they were sat, like this, I thought oh my God, there’s no love there. But then when I came back round, i thought OK, they were cheering so when…
DR: They had these things, sticks. It’s not love for me then, it’s love for everyone. I can spread it.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action, Speedsport) Daniel, talk us through your start and the first couple of corners. There was quite a bit happening right in front of you there.
DR: To be honest, my start sounded similar to Lewis’s. It felt like the first part of the launch was OK. The guy closest to me was Max. That first part looked competitive, relative to him and probably Kimi in front and then that second phase, picked up some wheelspin and we all kind… it felt like we all slipped behind each other and then tried to get a tow down to turn one. I remember kind of looking at the inside and let’s say committed to that line but then there was I think three abreast in front of me so there wasn’t really much I could do and from memory, I think Max kind of went from inside-ish to the near outside and I think tried to go around them and I think just three into there… they all tried to outbrake each other from what I could see so then there was that contact. I guess Kimi and Max made more contact and then they went off then I slipped into fourth. From that point on, I could see, I think, Kimi… I realised Kimi was out of the race quite early. I wasn’t sure where Max was but obviously I realised my position there was probably going to be a lonely one for the next 66 laps and the fourth turned into third with Valtteri’s – I guess – mechanical. As I said on the in lap, obviously we’ll take what we can for now and that was pretty much it.
Q: (Jacqueline Magnay – The Australian) Lewis and Daniel, the race seemed incredibly physically demanding and Lewis, halfway through the race you sounded exhausted – I don’t know whether you were. I’m just wondering if both of you can comment on the physical demands of this particular track?
DR: Seb doesn’t look tired!? No, the pace was a bit quicker than previous years so you know, you feel a little bit more but I think we’re going to come to races, Singapore, Malaysia, it’s more the hot ones, I would say, the more physical so today was yeah, not too demanding, let’s say. I feel pretty good right now.
LH: I think it’s dependent on what kind of race you have. A lot of the races that we do with the type of racing that we sometimes have to do, where you’re saving fuel, like in the last race for example. I couldn’t push, the car was overheating, whereas today it was.. from turn one to the end it was flat chat and so those races are the most… you’re just using everything you’ve got so for sure, in that first stint, for instance, to keep… to stay on Sebastian was a killer. Also I don’t carry drinks in my car either to save weight so I’m not having a drink through the race. And then at the end, I used everything I had left when I jumped into my team and my heart rate hit the ceiling. I was good when I got out of the car but jumping into… I don’t know if I will do that again. I was a little bit tired after that one.
SV: If I may add, thank you very much for not asking me the question. I take it as a compliment. Maybe we can exchange phone numbers after the press conference and maybe it’s a good match to the car, it doesn’t look so flashy on the outside but it’s really good on the inside. I take it as a compliment, thank you.
Q: (Sef Harding – Xiro Xone News) I just want to get an assessment from you guys, all three of you, of the weekend because there are some new additions to the fan area to enhance the F1 experience for fans. I just wanted to get you guys’ thoughts on these new additions? Do you look forward to more opportunities for fans to engage with you guys? Obviously what we saw after qualifying was something different. I just wanted to get your thoughts on it.
LH: I think this weekend was… what did we do different? We just did the one thing at the end of qualifying, I think it was. What was the other one?
SV: But no alcohol.
LH: I think the interaction with the fans was definitely better. I think there were less fans then I remember being here. I think maybe when Fernando was battling at the front, the place was packed. There was still a lot of seats… I would imagine it was 65-70% full, I would imagine, something like that. So we’ve got to encourage more to come and I’m not quite sure why more don’t come but the ones that were here… when you come through turn seven, it’s completely packed up there. We’ve just got to continue to engage… like what they’ve done with the entry to the paddock, some fans could come and be close in. We’ve just got to keep coming up with ideas to try and bring people in and not seclude them. This is a sport where you just can’t really get very close and the pit lane walkabout was really great but we somehow need to do more.
DR: I think in the paddock, at least they’ve started with the idea of having a bit of a bar area. I thought that was a new addition. I think that’s cool because we all have guests coming to races and whether it’s friends of ours or there are celebrities or whatever they always hang out with the team they’re invited by but if there’s a more social area then you’ll get everyone hanging out in the same place, so I think that’s cool, so it’s a bit more laidback environment which is cool. I question: is it still called a bar if it sells non-alcoholic beer? Does it turn into a cafe?
LH: Is it non-alcoholic?
DR: Yeah, zero percent.
SV: Don’t you ever read the signs on the track? Never alcohol behind the wheel.
LH: Really? I don’t see it.
DR: But they’re heading in the right direction. I definitely feel that, there’s some positives.
SV: Did you see that? There is that Heineken.
LH: I didn’t know that.
SV: Did you notice that they painted the kerbs blue in sector one?
LH: Yes, I noticed that. At turn three.
DR: Only because you were on them when you pushed him there.
SV: And four.
eom/FIA transcript of the press conference
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Hami pips Vettel in a thrilling battle: Spanish GP
Hami celebrates after winning the Spanish GP on Sunday. An FIA image Barcelona, 14 May 2017: Mercedes Lewis Hamilton took his second career Spanish Grand Prix victory after winning a thrilling, tight strategic battle with Sebastian Vettel after the Ferrari driver led for the first half of the race. Third place went to Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian inheriting the podium spot after an engine failure ruled Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas out midway through the Spanish Grand Prix, the fifth round of the Formula One World Championship here on Sunday.
When the lights went out, it was Vettel who made the best start. The German powered away from P2 on the grid and grabbed the lead as he and Hamilton went through Turn One.
Behind, Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari was making a move around the outside of Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes. With Red Bull’s Max Verstappen further outside it was a tight squeeze into the first corner and Raikkonen’s rear right got inside of his countryman’s front left. There was contact and the impact bounced Raikkonen into Verstappen. The result was suspension damage and early retirement for both.
There was contact, too, between seventh-placed starter Fernando Alonso and ninth on the grid Felipe Massa. Local Hero Alonso had worked miracles to haul his underperforming McLaren to P7 on the grid on Saturday but it was undone when he was hit in Turn 2 by the Williams man. Alonso dropped to P11 and eventually drifted out to P13 by the end of the race.
By lap 14 Vettel had pulled out an almost three-second gap to Hamilton. The German then pitted for soft tyres, leaving Hamilton in clean air. His engineer was quickly on the radio telling the Briton it was “his opportunity, give it everything you’ve got”. Hamilton responded with a race fastest lap, but Vettel was alive to the threat and fought back with a purple time of his own.
Hamilton made his first stop on lap 22, taking on the medium tyres. He rejoined in third, 7.3s behind Vettel, who was right on the tail of leader Bottas who needed to pit.
Vettel’s frustrations grew as the Finn thwarted his efforts to pass. Vettel eventually got past but Bottas’ baulking lost him more than three seconds to Hamilton. When Bottas, who needed to pit, allowed Hamilton past, Vettel found himself with just three seconds in hand over the Briton, relatively matched on lap time but on different strategies.
Bottas then made his first stop and resumed in third place ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian was a lonely fourth for Red Bull Racing, almost nine second behind the Mercedes and almost 14 ahead of Force India’s Sergio Perez. The Mexican’s team-mate Esteban Ocon was sixth ahead of Sauber’s Pascal Wehrelin, who had yet to pit, Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg, the Haas of Kevin Magnussen and the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz.
At the halfway point there was a collision between Massa and Vandoorne as the Brazlian was hit when he tried to pass into Turn One.
The VSC was deployed as Vandoorne ended up beached in the gavel with broken front suspension and while there was a flurry of pit stops in the midfield, Hamilton waited until the VSC was ending to make his stop for soft tyres on lap 36. Vettel immediately responded and took on mediums at the end of the following lap.
He emerged almost alongside the Mercedes man and the pair banged wheels in Turn One. Vettel emerged in the lead but Hamilton had the quicker tyres and pressed for a way past. Vettel made his car as wide as possible and a tit-for-tat battle ensued.
Behind them Bottas’ race came to an end on lap 39 when his power unit failed on the run through Turn 3. The Finn had been forced to revert to an older engine on Friday night after a water leak was detected on his new unit.
At the front Hamilton was still putting pressure on Vettel and eventually, on lap 44, it told. The Briton got a good run out of the final corner and passed the German under DRS into Turn One.
Within a few laps though Hamilton was on the radio complaining that the rear of his set of soft tyres were already overheating. With Vettel on the more durable mediums, the race was not yet over as a contest.
As the laps wound down, it became clear it was a case of whether either of the top two would blink. With lap times similar, would Vettel, who had almost a minute in hand over Ricciardo, attempt a three-stop and take on soft tyres for a late attack on Hamilton as his soft tyres faded? If he pitted would Mercedes respond?
The answer came on lap 58 when Hamilton was told the gap was sufficient to prevent Vettel from trying a strategic gamble and that he should nurse his Mercedes to the flag.
And that was how it remained until the flag. As the front pair threaded their way through traffic the gap widened to over four seconds and after 66 laps Hamilton crossed the line to take a narrow 55th career win. Vettel was forced to settle for second ahead of Ricciardo who had a lonely run to his first podium finish since the 2016 Mexican Grand Prix.
Force India enjoyed an excellent race, with Perez fourth ahead of team-mate Ocon. Nico Hulkenberg gave Renault something to celebrate by rising from 13th on the grid to sixth. Carlos Sainz was seventh for Toro Rosso ahead of Sauber’s Pascal Wehrlein with Daniil Kvyat ninth in the second Toro. The final points position went to Haas’ Romain Grosjean.
eom/FIA press release
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Valtteri had great starts, I will try to follow in his footsteps: Hami
DRIVERS: 1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes); 2 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari); 3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes).
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Lewis the 64th pole of your career and your third of this year. Sixty-fourth pole puts you one behind Ayrton Senna, I’m sure you’re well aware of that, but did you feel you had control throughout today or did the red cars give you a bit of a scare?
Lewis HAMILTON: It started out that we were potentially a tenth ahead of the Ferraris, but in P3 it seemed that we were lot closer, so, quite level. So it was really intense for us, making sure we pulled out every millisecond we can. We made some changes as we got into qualifying and the car felt great, so I was very happy with it. The Q1 lap was very, very good. The Q2 lap was so-so, but good enough. Then the first lap of Q3 was very good and the second lap was up, I think almost two tenths. I didn’t finish it that way but still it was good enough to keep me ahead.
Q: That’s interesting. Was that conditions or was that you, because Sebastian also had an issue in the final sector?
LH: It’s difficult to know. I didn’t make a mistake. I didn’t lock up or go wide or anything like that. I did the corner perfectly, but it’s very gusty out there, so from corner to corner… sometimes you arrive in the corner and you brake in the same spot and understeer off because you have a tail wind or a head wind and you stop quicker. Particularly for me, I feel for that moment maybe I didn’t have a tail wind, because the car stopped really well, as opposed to the previous lap where it was more on the limit. I don’t know if that was the same for Sebastian but it was tricky for us all.
Q: A quick final thought on the race pace. It looked very strong yesterday and particularly the degradation on the soft looked really good, so you must be feeling pretty strong going into the race tomorrow?
LH: Yeah, I mean firstly, I have to say the team have done an incredible job; the guys back at the factory, as always really… I don’t know if they get tired of hearing it, but they really have done an incredible job to make small increments, steps forward and bring a great package for this track to keep us in the fight with the Ferraris. Very grateful for everyone’s hard efforts and we want to work as hard as we can to make sure that doesn’t go to waste.
Q: Sebastian, I’ll bet you’re glad when they told you to switch the engine off in Q1, you questioned it for a minute or two and didn’t switch the engine off? Otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here and you’d be looking at losing your championship lead tomorrow afternoon wouldn’t you.
SV: I don’t know. You never know. Obviously much better that way. But I have to say the team did a phenomenal job. By surprise we had an issue this morning and had to change the engine. Normally that’s close to a three-hour job, if you’re rushing. I don’t know how they managed. They did it in sub-two hours. I was basically, at 10-to-2 or five-to-2, I was ready and we were ready to fire up and go out in Q1. So really a big thank you to them. Kimi’s crew helped out too. It was quite funny at one point: one side of the garage there was one or two mechanics and the other one was completely crowded, like bees hovering around the car. A great effort, so big thanks. I think we could have had pole today, so not the ideal end, but when I consider where we were this morning, then obviously with the change we made it out, as you talked about in Q1, a small issue there, so I think it’s a really good recovery. Yesterday I wasn’t happy with the car balance at all and today it was phenomenal. I felt yesterday that it was in the car but I just couldn’t get to it. And today, as I say, was really a pleasure, especially the first two sectors. Conditions were very tricky, with the wind, never easy, never knowing what to expect. And I think I got caught out a bit in the last sector – my favourite place – which Mark Webber teached me many lessons over the years and I still haven’t got it. I don’t know, I need to go back to school maybe and sit down and have a proper look. I have done so many laps but still the last chicane is a bit tricky so I’m sure with the race and with the rhythm tomorrow it will be fine, but for quali today it could be a bit better.
Q: There was a lot of talk about the upgrades everybody was going to have coming here this weekend. Are you very encouraged to be sitting here now after they turned up with all these Starship Enterprise bits on their car and all the rumours and you’re actually so close and, as you say yourself, you could have been on pole in terms of ho the season goes from here?
SV: Yeah, I think from the outside at least it looks like they had a smooth weekend, at least Lewis, I think Valtteri had a surprise engine change as well this morning. Overall, I think they looked a bit more in the rhythm. As I said yesterday, for us it was a bit more up and down. Then I did a long run on the medium compound, which was quite slippery. So, as I said, today I was a lot happier. The car is good. You mentioned Starship Enterprise: I’m not a Starship Enterprise fan, but I guess you can look at it from the outside and from the inside. I’m happy with the bits we brought here. Maybe they’re not as flashy and bling, but they’re working, so our guys back in the factory are pushing really hard. We brought some stuff in Russia, we brought again a lot of stuff here, so yeah, I’m really happy with how it’s going.
Q: Valtteri, we heard you say on the radio “not good enough.” Were you talking about yourself or the general picture? Just that middle sector on your final run that caught you out?
Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, just myself. I think the team has done an amazing job with the car, managing to still battle so close with Ferrari and for most of the weekend we’ve been quicker, so it’s only really Q3 where they raised-up their game and we were slightly, nearly, trouble with them, especially me. For me, starting the day with the engine change, going back to the old engine, I was always going to be slightly on the back foot, and just really struggled through the qualifying with the rear stability – that was the main issue. It was difficult to find a good rhythm from one quali to another, like I normally do. Just every lap, the car felt a little bit different. It wasn’t one of my best quali but very happy for the job the team has done and Lewis was very strong today, very quick, so yeah, as always the race is tomorrow and I’ve done some good things from P3 before.
Q: As we were saying earlier, the Mercedes race pace is strong, the deg was low – but it’s always about fine margins, isn’t it: you had an extra lap on your start set of tyres and you had a couple of lock-ups, so a couple of flat-spots there – or are you not too worried?
VB: No, the tyres had felt good and the extra lap was just a second out-lap so it was a good feeling with that set, so no issues.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Sef Harding – Xiro Xone News) Lewis, it looks like The Force has been strong with you all weekend, everything looked good for you. This guy [Vettel] is going to be right next to you tomorrow: do you expect a tight run off to the first corner – and is the Jedi Knight ready for a battle tomorrow?
LH: You’re obviously a big fan of the movie, right? Thank you for always being such a positive person – you’re always positive when you come into this press conference, so thank you for that. Yeah, I think it’s going to be a tough race tomorrow, for sure. You see how close it is between us and it’s all milliseconds between us. It’s a long run down to… I think it’s the third longest run down to Turn One so of course it’s going to be important to get a good start but we’ve worked hard on them so I’m going to try to do the best job I can. Valtteri’s had some great starts so I’m going to try and follow in his footsteps there and then yeah, positioning can help a lot here and being on the clean side of the grid is an advantage generally. Usually it’s a little bit of an advantage and hopefully I’ll be able to utilise that – particularly compared to Sebastian – and then in the race it’s just about looking after those tyres. It’s a very, very long, hard race, both physically and mentally and for the car and the tyres – but we’ve prepared in the best way we can and I think hopefully got the car in a much better position than I did in the last race.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Valtteri, how much more difficult is it here to make the same kind of striking start like you did in Sochi?
VB: For sure it’s a much shorter run into Turn One than to Turn Two in Sochi. So, it’s always more tricky – but it’s still, if you have a good start you can gain places. We’ve seen in the past many times here people starting from the second, even the third row, have made many positions so anything is always possible –– but I can’t always rely on a good start, y’know? For sure the other guys are going to have good ones as well at some point. But yeah, good starting point, everything is still wide open and we feel our race pace is good and still upbeat for tomorrow.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – GloboEsporte.com) Still on this question of the start tomorrow, this circuit is very difficult to overtake historically, even now more here this year. And Sebastian, you are in the dirty part of the track – and you have a long straight into the first bend and, in this case it’s normally a small advantage to who’s behind, in this case Valtteri. Is there anything that you can defend yourself against the possible attack from your opponent?
SV: Yeah, there’s a lot of things. I need a perfect start, simple as that. There’s a long way but I think the grip will be the same. I don’t think it will be much different. There’s a lot of racing series this weekend: you have the Porsche Cup, GP3, F2. Usually they put a lot of rubber down everywhere so I don’t think that’s a real disadvantage – and then as I said, I just need to do everything right and that’s the best way to attack and defend.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Seb, are you happy to see that despite all the new stuff that Mercedes put on the car that Ferrari was able to reply with other stuff and you are at the same level of performance like some races before?
SV: Well, we will see tomorrow but I think so far for us this weekend has been a bit more up and down. Yesterday was a bit wobbly, I wasn’t really feeling the rhythm yet. Today was a lot better. I think in terms of performance it’s really close. We will see in the race. I think looking after the tyres with the conditions will be key. Strategy, there should be some options so we will see. The plan for now it to go back and say thanks to all the guys because thanks to them I made it to qualifying and then we focus on the start, the beginning of the race and I think then we will see. I think it will be close. As I said, maybe they brought more visual stuff but I’m happy with what we brought and it seemed to work well and bring us very close. We could have been ahead today, that’s down to me, but I had lost enough to miss pole, like a tenth or something. But that didn’t happen, now we start P2 and take it from there but I’m confident for tomorrow.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Sebastian, when you were asked to stop the car on the track, was it always clear for you to carry on? These engines are so complicated, you never know, you could have risked the engine as well by continuing.
SV: We had an issue, it turned out to be a programming issue but for sure I’m blind in that moment, I don’t know what to do. I was quite far away from the garage and I was sort of cruising down already so I just wanted to double check that I got the message right. I think I got it but that’s the last thing you want to do. Still, if I had the confirmation I would have stopped in the next convenient place. I just missed the opening on the track so that’s why I also had time to ask are we sure because I had time to go round turn four and then look for another opening.
Q: (Barna Zsoldis – Nemzeti Sport) I think you’re all aware of the difficult situation of McLaren-Honda, but still Fernando managed to get seventh position, beating his teammate by 1.5s. I’m just wondering how you rate his performance?
LH: Yeah, looks fantastic. I think that’s amazing for McLaren and Honda to get in the top ten. Shows progress.
You (Sebastian) were with him in the press conference on Thursday and joked about seeing him in the final corner – you might!
SV: Yeah, you never know, so that’s why we’re here, we’re here to race. Looks like he had a good session. I think Stoffel went out in Q1 so obviously the track improves a lot. If you look at our times between Q1 and Q3 it’s not fair but it looks like he had a good session. I think the car’s really good. This track’s not so sensitive on power so see what happens tomorrow.
VB: I think he had a good session personally and the team is making progress.
Q: (Livio Oricchio – GloboEsporte.com) To all drivers, we saw massive changes in the cars for this race but the picture of qualifying didn’t change much, even the gap is more or less the same. In race conditions, do you think we can see these changes or are you predicting that we will see more or less what has been seen yesterday and today?
LH: I’ve not really looked at the long run pace but I would imagine so, yeah. It is crazy that we keep… Sebastian said that they’d brought an upgrade to Sochi and we’ve only brought an upgrade here so… I think it’s going to remain a close battle of development through the whole of the rest of the season. Clearly Ferrari are pushing very very hard as are we. I think for us it’s more about quality rather than quantity or upgrades so we’re just working hard to make sure that the ones we do stick on the car… but it is strange when you bolt all this stuff on and you remain within half a tenth of each other. I think that’s great for racing.
VB: I think maybe our upgrades were a bit more visible. You know we make progress all the time, we had a more visible package but it seems like it’s been a similar improvement with both teams so I think tomorrow’s going to be close.
eom/FIA press conference
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Ferrari dominates in Free Practice
Sochi, 28 April 2017: Ferrari continued to set the pace at the Sochi Autodrom with Sebastian Vettel heading up a Maranello one-two ahead of team-mate Kimi Räikkönen in second practice ahead of Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix.
The Finn had been quickest in the morning session beating Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas by four hundredths of a second on supersoft tyres. However, when the teams moved to the qualifying simulations and the ultrasoft compound in the afternoon, Vettel, who had finished in P5 in a scrappy opening session, made an emphatic step putting almost three tenths between himself and his team-mate and finishing almost seven tenths of a second clear of third place Bottas.
The German’s qualifying run start with a momentary note of concern as he reported an “engine hesitation” but after an opening lap, Vettel’s second ‘push lap’ yielded a time of 1:34.120, 0.263s up on team-mate Räikkönen.
Mercedes could find no response to Vettel’s pace and Bottas finished 0.670s off the pace, with tean-mate Lewis Hamilton three hundredths of a second further behind in fourth place.
Fifth place in the session went to Max Verstappen whose qualifying run resulted in a three tenths of a second advantage over sixth-place team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. The session ended in disappointment for the Dutchman, though, as he was force to pull over at the side of the track 20 minutes before the end, reporting a power loss.
Behind the top three teams the midfield battle again looks tight, with just three tenths of a second separating seventh-placed Felipe Massa of Williams from tenth-place Sergio Perez of Force India.
Massa finished just six hundredth of a second clear of Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg, with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen just under two tenths further back in ninth place.
Elsewhere, Fernando Alonso was a decent 12th for McLaren, finishing behind the second Force India of Esetban Ocon, but there were more problems for the team as it was forced to change Stoffel Vandoorne’s power unit.
Lance Stroll was the only driver not to use ultrasoft tyres during the session, with the result that the second Williams driver finished in 19th place, 1.5s slower than team-mate Massa.
2017 Russian Grand Prix – Free Practice 2
1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 36 1:34.120
2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 36 1:34.383 0.263
3 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 36 1:34.790 0.670
4 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 34 1:34.829 0.709
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull 15 1:35.540 1.420
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 26 1:35.910 1.790
7 Felipe Massa Williams 39 1:36.261 2.141
8 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 38 1:36.329 2.209
9 Kevin Magnussen Haas 31 1:36.506 2.386
10 Sergio Perez Force India 38 1:36.600 2.480
11 Esteban Ocon Force India 39 1:36.654 2.534
12 Fernando Alonso McLaren 27 1:36.765 2.645
13 Jolyon Palmer Renault 22 1:36.771 2.651
14 Romain Grosjean Haas 31 1:37.039 2.919
15 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 36 1:37.083 2.963
16 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 25 1:37.125 3.005
17 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 35 1:37.300 3.180
18 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber 30 1:37.441 3.321
19 Lance Stroll Williams 36 1:37.747 3.627
20 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 29 1:37.819 3.699eom/FIA press release
