May 24, 2025 · 7:04 pm

Why Russell and Mercedes could be the surprise package in Monaco race

Russell was left frustrated after his PU switched off [Photo: @tinnekephotography]

Qualifying in Monaco was a disaster for Mercedes, but could the team and in particular George Russell be the dark horses on Sunday as strategy choices play out with the bespoke two change rules?

The Brackley outfit’s day went from bad to worse after Kimi Antonelli crashed at the chicane at the end of Q1, and then Russell stopped in the tunnel early in Q2 after his engine cut due to a suspected electrical issue.

They will thus start Sunday’s race in P14 and P15, and thus somewhat out of position given that after a frustrating FP3 Russell found pace for qualifying, and was as high as P5 in Q1.

Amid all the speculation on crazy strategies by those at the back with little to lose Russell clearly has the quickest car of that group, and if the team makes the right calls and he benefits from clean air and optimum stop timing, he could make progress.

The stoppage remains something of a mystery, although it was related to a bump on the track.

“Yeah, it was definitely the cause,” he said when I asked him about it. “But it was a bump in the straight, a bump that’s been there all weekend and a bump that I’ve felt all weekend.

“But for whatever reason on this occasion, the whole engine switched off when I hit this bump. Really disappointing, because we got ourselves a bit lost this weekend with the setup, and we went back to basics for quali.

“From lap one, I felt back in the game, and also Kimi stayed with probably more with the setup he had in FP3. I went back to something that we knew. He was struggling. And we were. And I really feel we would have been in the top four today. And now we’re not.”

Russell was clearly pleased with the huge step made at the start of qualifying.

“Absolutely, it was clicking in Q1, and we were one of the few drivers not to take any new tyres.” he said.

“I did one corner in Q2, and I was already almost two-tenths up, and already that have been plenty enough to be into Q3 with two sets.

“We have the two hard tyres. We had a real chance this weekend, but now it’s up in smokes and weekend over. So it’s pretty deflating.”

But can Mercedes roll the dice and do something special on Sunday? The only other team with two sets of new hards is McLaren.

“For sure, there’s going to be some crazy strategies, but we qualified 14th, we probably should have been in the top five,” he said. “So there’s 10 cars between me and where we should have been.

“And if people are doing crazy things with the strategy, half of those guys will go one way, the other half will go the other way. Therefore whichever one we decide, we’re still stuck behind five drivers.

“You’re going to see one of two things, people pitting on lap one, or people going really long into the race. We do have a small advantage with the two hard tyres, but if you can’t pass, there’s not much you can do.”

I asked Russell which route he would prefer if he had to make that choice now.

“We will probably choose as soon as we know what tyres teams have started on,” hew replied. If they’re starting on the C6, you know they going for a very early one.

“If everybody starts on a hard tyre, you know they’re intending to go longer. So as soon as we see what they’re on, we’ll make that choice…”

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May 24, 2025 · 9:46 am

Andrea Stella on apples, pears, peaches… and papaya McLarens

Stella made some fruity comparisons with McLaren’s rival [Pic: @tinnekephotography]

McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andrea Stella is a great communicator, and his dealings with the media give some indication of just how good he must be as a people manager both at the track and back at the factory.

In Monaco he was asked if there was an explanation as to why the team hadn’t done as well as expected in Imola, given how strong the performance was at the previous race in Miami.

He made the point that the Florida track was not a good point of comparison, and that in fact Suzuka and Jeddah – where Max Verstappen and Red Bull had the edge – gave a better indication of Imola form.

To ram his point home Stella went back to his schooldays, quoted his teacher, and conjured up images of an Italian fruit and veg stall. And it all made perfect sense.

“I am in disagreement with this statement,” he said of the Miami/Imola form drop-off. “I think there’s a tendency to compare apples and pears.

“Like when I was at school, the teacher always said, ‘Don’t compare apples and pears. Make sure you are specific, analytical, precise in how you use information.’

“Imola belongs to the category of Saudi, Japan, high-speed corners, narrow tracks. And if we look at those circuits, pole position was Red Bull. And in the race in Saudi, if it wasn’t for the penalty of Max, Max would have won the race.

“And if we look at the pace between McLaren and Red Bull in Japan, in Saudi, for me, the picture is very consistent with the picture we had in Imola. And if we look at the gap between McLaren and Mercedes and Ferrari, the picture is very consistent with what we had in Imola.

“If we compare the race in Imola with the race in Miami, we are comparing an apple with a pear. My teacher at school would really take my ear and say, Don’t compare apples and pears, be specific, be analytical, be precise.”

The bottom line is that Red Bull camp has been good at positioning Verstappen as the underdog, when in Stella’s view the RB21 has had the edge at certain tracks, while McLaren has set the pace at others.

“Miami is a low-speed dominated circuit,” he said. “And with all the investment we have done from an aerodynamic development point of view, our car has improved massively in these low-speed corners.

“So we want to compare Miami, let’s look back at China. What happened in China? The two McLarens disappeared, P1, P2. We want to compare in Bahrain, a low-speed circuit. Oscar dominated the race, Lando started P6 with the penalty from the grid, and still he managed to recover positions.

“So if we compare the circuits that belong to the apple and the circuits that belong to the pears, I think you can derive your own implications in terms of where the factual assessment from a technical point of view is.

“F1 is a technical business, but obviously some people are good at dropping baits here and there, moving away from the technical facts. It’s up to you to take the bait, let me say.”

So what then of Monaco this weekend?

“This one is a peach! This one is a completely one-off. And in this peach category, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ferrari is the lead car. So we will see. Maybe we do a few more races and we create some better categories.

“I’m very curious to see where, for instance, Baku will be up here will be a pear or a peach. I suspect it’s a peach. Yeah, so we may continue this thread…

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May 23, 2025 · 9:15 am

Norris still needs time to address his “bad job” in 2025 F1 qualifying

Norris can’t afford to read headlines about another below par Saturday

The struggles of Lando Norris in qualifying this year have been well documented, and the McLaren man has been very honest about not feeling at one with the MCL39.

In Monaco a below par Saturday could be particularly costly in the title battle, even allowing for the new two-stop tyre regs meaning that pole is not necessarily a guarantee of victory.

Norris has been trying hard with his engineers to get to the bottom of his problems, but team mate Oscar Piastri has generally (but not always) had the edge over one lap in 2025.

“I’m confident I have the speed,” Norris said on Thursday. “But it’s true that this year I’ve not been able to put things together as well as what I have done in the past, for many, many years.

“So it’s always something I’ve been very at one with, and very – I wouldn’t always say, confident – but something I’ve always just been very, very strong in. And I’ve just not done well enough this season.

“So it’s not like I’m doing a bad job, but when you’re against the best in the world, not doing a perfect job, is also the definition of probably doing a bad job.

“I’m focusing on and I’m working with my team when I’m back home, or when I’m here at the track, on improving these things, because it’s been my biggest let down so far of my season.”

Norris has no issues with his race performance this season, although Piastri is ahead in the points after his string of victories.

“My races on Sunday have been very strong,” he said. “Maybe not every one, but my decision making, so my Sundays I don’t even need to think about. I’m very happy with them.

“My opportunity is on Saturday. So I know what I need to focus on, but like I said before, and I’ve said the last few weeks, it still takes time.

“It takes work from both halves, both from me as a driver, and people I work with, and also as a team, providing me the equipment, the feelings that I need to perform at the level that I did last season.

“I think the level I performed at last season is a level that will have got me a lot more poles this year. So I’ve got it. I know that is there somewhere, but unlocking it just takes work and time.”

Just how long it might take remains a grey area – and the clock is ticking.

“It could be days, or it could be months,” he said. “But I’d say weeks, weeks still is probably the best way of saying it. It could be a matter of months.

“It’s a constant thing that we’re looking into, and trying different things, and from those different things that we try, we get different answers, and that might lead us to more stuff. So, yeah, it could be weeks. It could be still a couple months.”

Meanwhile Norris is sceptical about Max Verstappen’s efforts to downplay Red Bull’s potential form in Monaco.

The Dutchman has been cast as the plucky underdog in 2025, and Norris doesn’t see it that way.

“They won last weekend, they’ve been pole several times this season,” he said. “Max has won several races, he should have won Saudi.

“There’s also slow speed corners in Imola, where they were very strong. So I think we have more of the facts than I think what people on the outside do. There’s a lot of negative stuff about how bad their car is, but they’re very quick.

“We’ve said that the whole season. Outside people have underestimated them, but we know that they’re a threat, they have been the whole year. They will continue to be, especially when you have a team that has won many World Championships, especially in the last 5-10 years.

“And they have Max. And I don’t think you can ever doubt them. They won last weekend because they deserved it. They were good in slow-speed, they were good in high-speed, and they have a good car, but like we saw between Miami and Imola for ourselves, we can look like heroes one weekend and then we get beaten the next.

“And it’s not because anything changed, literally just the track. The car is the same. Obviously, tyres were the same, it’s literally just the track is different, and we go from one to the other. So we just take every weekend as it comes. They could be amazing here. And we’ll wait and see.”

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May 22, 2025 · 5:17 pm

Why Monaco will be a test of Hamilton’s Ferrari learning curve

Can Hamilton build on his promising Imola race? [Pic: @tinnekephotography]

Lewis Hamilton was in upbeat mood on Sunday at Imola after his charge from 12th on the grid to fourth at the flag, and he was particularly happy with how he felt at one with the Ferrari SF-25 on the medium tyres.

There have been other sparks of hope in recent weeks, notably of course the Shanghai sprint, but also the odd race stint elsewhere.

The question now is can that Imola performance translate to Monaco and other upcoming races?

Lewis and the team did their best to ensure that it does by taking advantage of the track’s proximity to Maranello. The day after the race – and before he headed home to Monaco – he was hard at work in the factory, punching the numbers with his engineers, and seeing what could be learned.

“I was in the simulator on Monday,” he said when I asked him on Thursday if he had done a deep dive into the Imola data in search of answers. “I was there nice and early Monday morning.

“It’s really incredible to see. Probably people don’t realise, but the engineers and mechanics, it does not stop.

“They go straight from the track, you go home Sunday night and they’re in the factory the next day. It just does not stop, they’re churning through the data.

“Yes, there’s lots of, lots of positives, as we said last weekend to take from it. There’s still areas that we need to improve on.

“Clearly, our qualifying has been our biggest weakness so far this year. We’re not extracting the performance from the tyres, and that’s something we are working on.”

Time is of the essence, and as each race weekend goes by so team and driver get to know each other better and have more opportunity to try stuff.

“I had some ideas, the team had some ideas,” said Lewis. “And so we’ll try those this weekend. It’s not the best place to try those things, but we will try to make a step, and qualifying, as you know, is everything here.

“It’s a natural progression. I’m feeling more at home in the team. Things work differently here. They’ve never had anyone like me here, and so it’s been challenging on both sides, but we’re really finding harmony, I think, in the way that we’re moving forwards.”

The learning process is ongoing. Hamilton may have done seven races with Ferrari already, but Monaco is a law unto itself, and this is his first time here with the red car.

“I’m still in that first year with this team, every weekend is something new, like the last weekend was the first time I’ve been into the European races, seeing the truck, finding my room, getting accustomed to a new layout.

“And this weekend, walking into the garage, it’s all red, and that’s the first time I’ve been in Monaco.

“I’ve never been in the Ferrari garage at Monaco, always walked past it, always wondered what it like to be in the team. Still having to pinch myself – it’s awesome.

“And I have for years always wondered what a Ferrari would feel like around this track. Even my first year, I think the Ferraris were very strong, Felipe and Kimi were very strong. And obviously Charles in the last few years has been rapid here.

“You can see the car works a lot different to what I had driven in the past. How that will reflect this weekend, I don’t know. I’m definitely excited to experience it.”

Meanwhile like other drivers Lewis has to adapt to the new two-stop tyre regulations in place this weekend.

“I think it’s good to try something different,” he said. “You keep doing the same thing over and over and over, you can get the same result. And so I think it’s cool that they’re trying something different.

“Whether or not it’s the answer, we’ll find out this weekend, it’s definitely going to be different to what we’ve had in the past. Whether that’s better I have no idea, I can’t predict. But I like that we have something different.”

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May 21, 2025 · 7:17 am

Why Albon wanted even more than P5 in Imola

Fifth was a great result for Williams but Albon believes he should have done even better

A superb fifth place for Alex Albon in Imola generated mixed emotions for the Williams Formula 1 driver.

On the one hand it was a great result and represented a two-place gain on his starting spot, but on the other he knew that fourth place was in his grasp until the closing laps.

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An aggressive defence from Charles Leclerc as Albon tried to take it sent him through the gravel, and while the Monegasque driver later handed a spot back, both men had been passed during the incident by Lewis Hamilton.

Nevertheless it was a strong race for Albon, who was convinced that he could make a one-stop work while rivals couldn’t before the VSC and safety car periods handed him two cheap stops.

In contrast team mate Carlos Sainz, who started a place ahead, lost out by pitting before life was made easier for those who waited until the VSC.

“Each way you look at it, P4 was possible today,” said Albon when I asked about his race. “If the safety car didn’t come out at the end, that was a P4. If you take the Charles incident, that was also a P4.

“I’m not going to say I’m disappointed with P5, and honestly, when I look at the battle with Charles, I would have done the same in his position. I don’t think he did anything that crazy. It’s just someone trying to hold their position.

“And obviously, I just lost out to Lewis. Just thinking about it, could I have done something better, been a bit more patient with Charles and see if I could get him a little bit later.

“But at that point in the race, honestly, I was feeling so good. I thought Oscar’s up ahead on worn tyres, I can go after him and maybe get a P3. Still very happy with the race.”

Albon was confident from that start that his strategy was going to play out successfully.

“I think being the car behind at the start of the race, I didn’t need to push, and I just waited. George degged quite a lot at the beginning, and he kind of backed everyone up a little bit, and I could see all the cars in front was sliding around a lot, so I was just staying put.

“I knew that the amount that George was sliding, there were going to be cars in front who would have to convert to a two-stop. And so once they all started to drop in, I thought, okay, maybe I can extend this stint. I didn’t expect to fully be able to pull off the one-stop, but we were going to quite successfully.”

He added: “Even in pure pace, we were running P4/P5 today, so we were able to extend the first stint very strongly. And that kind of set us up for the whole for the whole race

“The VSC obviously played in our favour, but at the same time, everyone else was pretty much stuck on a two-stop. We were pretty comfortable in the one-stop, so we were looking really good.”

The Williams has now been competitive at every circuit, albeit some more than others, and between them Albon and Sainz have scored points at every race except Bahrain, where Sainz lost out in a collision with Yuki Tsunoda.

Albon admits that even he has been surprised by the pace of the car.

“Yeah, I have been,” he said. “Maybe I’m more pessimistic. I think James [Vowles] was a bit more optimistic about it. In the simulator it’s been better, when I think about all the work we’ve been doing last year.

“What’s been interesting is a lot of the balance has come together a lot more. There’s clearly a downforce gain, but there’s also a drivability/balance gain, which has made it easier to drive better, gives you more confidence. You’re less limited in terms of setup with what you can do with a car.

“I’ve said it a few times about being boxed with a car and only certain tracks suiting us. We’ve gone to so many different tracks down, and we’ve been in the points pretty much every single time, apart from once. So it’s working well, and that’s a good sign of a good DNA with the car.”

The risk is that Williams loses out in the development race by switching to 2026 earlier than rivals.

“We’ve seen a lot of teams this weekend bringing upgrades. They’re definitely caught up, but we’re still holding our own. It’s not like they’ve overtaken us convincingly.

“So far, so good, but they are going to learn their upgrades, and they might eventually get a bit a bit tighter. But for now, I’m very happy.”

Attention now turns to Monaco, where everyone is using the C6 that proved so tricky to optimise last weekend.

“That C6 has been a bit of a weird tyre, and you’ve seen it in Imola, being slower than the C5. I think it should obviously suit Monaco better than it has Imola. I think it will work better.

“Personally, speaking, I haven’t really clicked with the C6 yet. I need to understand it a bit better. I’ll do a bit of work over the next few days to come back a bit stronger.”

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May 20, 2025 · 8:12 am

Why Imola F1 race was “torture” for Alonso and Aston Martin

Alonso was out of luck at Imola once again [Pic: @tinnekephotography]

The Imola weekend was one of mixed fortunes for Fernando Alonso and his Aston Martin Formula 1 team after the promise of a brilliantly executed qualifying session was followed by a race of frustration.

With pit stop timing working against him and sending him down the order Alonso used team radio to call himself the unluckiest driver in the world, while also suggesting that the rest of the race would be “torture” for him.

On the plus side a major AMR25 upgrade package that Lance Stroll trialled on Friday and that Alonso took on Saturday worked well. The team then took a bold step for qualifying by focussing throughout on the C5 medium tyre, which others suspected might work better than the C6, but were hesitant to use.

While George Russell also took that route in Q3 Aston used mediums throughout, with Alonso Stroll progressing through the three sessions in P3/P4, P6/P7, and P5/P8 – way better than recent form suggested was likely, even with the upgrade boost.

In the early laps Alonso maintained his fifth place behind Russell and Norris before an early stop dropped him back. Like others who took that route it didn’t pay off as a VSC gave a free stop to rivals.

In addition while most of those who stopped early cut their losses and went for a second stop under the VSC, Alonso and Stroll stayed out on old rubber – and paid the price as they slipped down the order.

The full safety car later in the race at least gave them both a chance for a cheap change to new tyres, but it was too late.

Alonso made some passes and recovered to 11th, but he missed the points. It’s the first time since the dire 2015 season with McLaren that he hasn’t scored in his first seven outings of the year, and this time you can throw in two sprint races as well.

“The car was very strong today,” he said when I asked him about his race. “We started strong, and then I could follow Norris and Russell. Actually, Russell was a little bit slower than both of us. So I had to pinch myself that I was in the in the front part of the field and that competitive.

“And then we did a stop. We were okay, I think, to secure P6/P7 today with both cars. And then the virtual safety car obviously gave the opportunity to stop for free for the people that didn’t at that point. And they left the pits just in front of us already with newer tyres.

“And the race was over. So yeah, I think in 100 scenarios of the race, 99 were okay for us to score strong points for the team today, one was not, and it did happen. But let’s hope for other races that maybe we don’t deserve the points and we do score because of luck, but today I think it’s a little bit unfair.

“It was just the wrong time, the wrong moment for us, and at the wrong place.”

So should he have stopped under the VSC like Aston’s immediate rivals?

“I mean, I was out of the points. So it’s difficult to really make decisions at that time. And even at the end, I think the car was super strong, because in nine laps I overtook three cars, Nico, Lawson, Gasly.

“Our normal midfield group, they were very slow compared to us today, which is a very good sign for us, but with no points.”

It’s been a tricky year so far for Alonso, with everything that could go wrong going wrong when he perhaps had a sniff of the points.

“The whole season has been incredible, if I look back,” he said. “Australia, I felt strong. I had fire on the brakes [in China] when I was P11 at the start. And then there were three cars disqualified in Bahrain. In Miami, we didn’t stop for dry tyres.

“Today we have finally a strong car that we can score points on merit for the first time. And there is this virtual safety car. It was not virtual safety cars when we were P12, P13 in all the seven races.

“And in general as you know, my career has been always, on the on the bad part. And people that had a very average weekend, they are still top five.”

With Stroll finishing a lowly 15th the lack of points was frustrating for the whole Aston Martin camp after the promise of Saturday.

“It would have been wonderful to get a point today,” said team principal Andy Cowell. “Until the VSC, we were hoping and fighting for both cars to get points. But in this industry, you’ve got to go chasing after everything. You’ve got to make the race car quicker.

“You’ve got to make the pit stops better. You’ve got to make the detail of everything better, and then you’re not relying on good or bad luck, you’re just relying on an awesome machine and an awesome team. So that’s what we’ve got to strive towards.”

On the plus side the qualifying performance was genuine, and the indications are that there was a a positive correlation between the track and the new wind tunnel, something that the team was seeking with the upgrade package.

The successful call to use the medium tyres was also a confidence boost for a team that has been somewhat on the ropes of late.

“Being in Q3 with both cars, Fernando fifth, is a huge reward for all the hard work that this team’s been putting in,” said Cowell when I asked him about the tyre strategy.

“So yes, the mood shoots up. Picking either the soft or the medium was something that was being debated from Thursday even, as people were traveling here, exactly the way to play out. The car was quick on the soft as well as the medium in qualifying, a little bit quicker on the medium.

“But I think that the setup, the package, the understanding of the package, which is down to good wind tunnel data, good driver in the loop simulator work, do good preparation work before getting to the track. So it’s lifting all of those aspects up that’s helped this weekend.”

It remains to be seen how much the upgrade package helps at other tracks – and Monaco will be the first test.

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May 19, 2025 · 7:44 am

How Hamilton turned his Imola F1 weekend around

Hamilton got a great reception from fans [Pic: @tinnekephotography]

It’s not been easy few first months at Ferrari for Lewis Hamilton, and finishing qualifying at his first home race for the team in Imola in only 12th place was not what he envisaged when he signed up.

However on Sunday he turned it around with a superb performance, starting on the hard tyres and taking advantage of good strategy calls to climb up to fourth.

With the safety car having bunched up the field in the closing laps he even had an eye on the third placed McLaren of Oscar Piastri up ahead, but despite being on older tyres the Aussie remained out of reach.

The China sprint win was an obvious high for Hamilton in the first part of the season, and there have been odd stints elsewhere when he felt at one with the car, but it hasn’t happened very often.

On race day at Imola things came together for him, and now it will be intriguing to see if it really is a turning point as he continues to build up his knowledge of the car and the team.

“China was pretty great, but I would say this one was better,” he said. “I’ve always loved when you’re fighting from further back and coming through, that’s how I started off as a kid, around Rye House.

“It’s such a better feeling than starting first and finishing first, but definitely an absolutely mega race, and so many positives to take.

“There are tons of positives to take from today. One is the strategy was really fantastic today, they made great calls, didn’t put a foot wrong there.

“China, I felt really aligned with the car. And then the only other time is this today, like I felt that real synergy. And I think the setup was great. I think we made a bit of an improvement in our performance for the race.

“We’ve just got to unlock the potential in qualifying. Now, if we had qualified better, we would have been fighting for a podium, which is something we didn’t think would be possible.”

Could he really have challenged Piastri?

“I think I needed probably another five laps, something like that, to have really got close enough to really challenge. That McLaren’s still damn fast on old tyres!”

Nevertheless he raced plenty of other people, and made a few passes, including jumping team mate Charles Leclerc when he got tangled up with Alex Albon.

It was very different to Shanghai, where he started at the front and held on to win.

“Just the whole thing was entertaining,” he said. “Obviously, at the beginning, it wasn’t spectacular. I got a decent start. Kind of got squeezed and then lost ground to a Mercedes [Kimi Antonelli] that had the hard tyres. And then I was just sitting there waiting.

“Definitely had to be patient, just breathe. And then bit by bit, strategy started to plan out, and the car really came alive when I got into the medium tyres. And a great call at the end to switch.”

Imola was of course Hamilton’s first proper encounter with the tifosi since he switched teams, and it was clear that he enjoyed it.

At the end of Sunday’s driver parade lap both he and team mate Charles Leclerc stepped off the flatbed truck at the start of the pit straight to greet the crowd.

Lewis got a great reception, and after the flag he dedicated his feisty race – albeit to a humble fourth in the grand scheme of things – to the fans.

“It’s been incredible,” he said when I asked him about the love he’d received. “What an amazing experience. Already just on the drivers’ parade lap, all the drivers were all doing their normal talking, but I really wanted to see what… I even took a picture where there’s a memorial of Ayrton, I was just taking pictures, film, of the crowd, and just a sea of red everywhere.

“And it was just really reminiscent of when I was growing up, watching sitting at home on my couch having a bacon sarnie, watching Michael Schumacher here racing with Ferrari, and seeing the connection he had with the crowd.

“It’s quite an incredible experience to think that I’m now here in one of the two Ferraris having that connection with such a large, passionate group of people. It’s unbelievable.”

At Silverstone he always finds a little extra, so was it a similar feeling?

“Yeah, it’s definitely like that. I mean, the love that the Italian fans have. Silverstone, it’s a connection more so with me, being a Brit, which is super special, and I love it.

“This one’s like, good to see how passionate you get for Ferrari, I guess it doesn’t matter who’s in it. They just love to see the red car. It’s like the red car comes and they get so excited! It’s amazing to see. It’s really cool.”

Attention now turns to Monaco, where Hamilton has had some great days in the past, and where Ferrari has been quick in recent times.

Lewis doesn’t know what to expect, but the car’s inherent weakness in qualifying won’t help.

“Just every race I go to is the first time with this car,” he said. “So I really have no idea what Ferrari feels like.

“The races that are coming up, particularly Monaco, a track where they’ve generally been strong in the past, I hope we can take some of the learnings from this weekend in the car and apply it. I’m really hopeful we can.

“It will still be a question about getting the tyres working on a single lap. If we can figure that out next week, then I think we could be in a good position.”

Despite his strong recent record Leclerc is not optimistic, especially given the aforementioned qualifying weakness.

“I’m not sure either to be honest,” said Hamilton. “We’ve been struggling, particularly on a single lap. So I don’t know how that’s going to go. I’ve got some ideas of that I’m going to try and apply next week that people have been a little bit reluctant to do it, I think because we’ve had lots of other things to focus on.

“But I’m hoping next week we can find something to unlock some more performance. I really don’t know how this car’s going to be.

“I think our car is generally not as good in high-speed, okay in medium, and maybe a little bit not as strong as the others in low, and obviously the next race is all low, so we’ll see how we can try and pull some more out of it next week.”

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May 18, 2025 · 6:40 pm

How Russell’s Imola struggles showed Mercedes has to chase tyre issue

Russell had his most difficult race of 2025 so far in Imola [Pic: @tinnekephotography]

George Russell has had a good run of results for the Mercedes Formula 1 team in 2025, including four podiums.

However the W16 has often been harder on its tyres in races than its main rivals, even if it’s not always been obvious given the solid scoring. However at Imola that trait proved to be costly.

Even on the laps to the grid before the start Russell thought the rear of the car didn’t feel right, and as the race developed at one point he even suggested that it felt like a rear trackrod was broken, so unstable did it feel even on the straights.

The situation nudged him towards an early stop and like others who followed that route he dropped down the order when the VSC came those who hadn’t already pitted a cheap tyre change.

At one stage it looked like he might not even make the points, but he hung on and eventually salvaged seventh place, while admitting that he was lucky to do so. Not great given that he was third on the grid, but it could have been worse.

“Very odd,” he said when I asked about his issues. “On the laps of the grid, I was reporting problems with the car, and I thought something was wrong.

“My team had a good look round, and saw nothing. And that feeling continued for 60-odd laps after, so we had absolutely zero pace.

“There’s clearly a trend. The track was really hot today, when it’s hot, we’re nowhere. When it’s cold, we’re quick. That was the trend last year, the same trend this year. So, yeah, we need to try and solve that.”

The issue appears to have been purely tyre related, despite his comparison with a suspension breakage.

“Well, it didn’t feel quite right,” he said. “It was just like my rear wheels were moving. So we’ll review it. There was nothing obvious standing out, but just even in a straight line, the car was moving around, but the rear tyres were through the roof.

“We do have a bit of a fundamental. It’s either fronts are overheating, or the rears are overheating, circuit-to-circuit. But it’s not the first time we’ve reported that, so it was probably just the first time where all of our rivals probably had a semi decent race.

On the plus side Russell had a race that he described as “an absolute disaster” and still landed seventh place and six useful points.

In 2024 seventh was a pretty normal result for Mercedes, at least in the first half of the season.

“I think the fact is every team has a disastrous race weekend at some point,” he said. “This is our first one of the season. Red Bull had a disastrous one in Bahrain. This is our sort of first one of the year.

“So of course, I’m not very happy. But you know, your car isn’t going to be podium position week in, week out. That’s what we’ve been doing recently. There’s no excuses. It’s just reality of F1. You have all these different tracks, different tyre compounds, different temperatures.”

It’s clearly something that the team has to address, as trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin admitted.

“We’ve got to get on top of that quickly as there are a lot of hot races coming up,” he noted. “And we can’t continue to perform at this level. We’ve got a few days to regroup before Monaco, but we’ll be working hard to try and improve from here.”

At least another Mercedes W16 trait might be useful next weekend: “Quali pace has been decent this year,” said Russell. “So that’s the only promising thing.”

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May 18, 2025 · 7:33 am

“Gutted” Hamilton calls for more Ferrari upgrades after missing Q3

Hamilton is urging Ferrari to find performance [Pic: @tinnekephotography]

Lewis Hamilton’s first appearance for the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team in front of an Italian crowd was always going to be special, and which makes a below par performance for the home outfit at Imola even more painful.

Hamilton could manage only 12th in Q2, and it was of little comfort that his team mate Charles Leclerc was only one place and just 0.161s ahead.

The double frustration for Hamilton was that for once he felt comfortable in the car – the speed just simply wasn’t there.

After qualifying he called for more updates for the SF-25, while also stressing that for him that this is a “foundation building” year ahead of 2026.

“I definitely feel devastated, I feel just gutted I guess, because the car was generally feeling really good,” he said.

“I honestly felt like the setup was just right, the brakes were working, everything was kind of in place, and we just can’t go quicker.

“If you look how quick Max is going through Turn 2 and 3, we just can’t match it. And when we put that new soft on at the end, for some reason, it just didn’t come alive. There was no extra grip.”

He added: “I just I really thought we were going to be getting through. I thought the car’s alive, and watching these guys doing 14.7s. We could just get to 15.7, it’s a lot of time missing.”

Lewis insisted that the car felt better to drive after his recent struggles, even if the pace was missing.

“I think we made progress this weekend with the bit that I was talking about before,” he said.

“It’s still not where it needs to be. And there’s performance in that. And we need more upgrades for sure. We’ve got to start adding performance to this car.

“Clearly, we’re not at the level. I mean, look at Max’s rear, it just doesn’t move. He’s doing, like, I don’t know, like 6-10kph faster through Turn 2 than us, and we can’t match that. Same with the McLarens.

“So we just got to keep pushing, keep applying pressure. I believe that the guys can find some performance.”

However time is running out as every team turns its full R&D focus towards 2026 – and Hamilton himself is also eyeing next season.

“I think this is at least from my side, this is a foundation building year,” he said. “And getting to grips with everything within the team, making changes that are needed in order to help the team navigate to success long term.

“That’s stuff that I’m focused on. In the background, there’s a lot of improvements we can make across the board, as well as a faster car. I have all the faith and beliefs we can do that.”

In the meantime he has a race to do at Imola on Sunday. Ferrari has better long run pace than qualifying performance, but actually using it and passing people won’t be easy.

“This is not a great race circuit to great circuit to race on,” Lewis said when I asked about race form. “It’s great to drive a single lap, but overtaking, you get stuck in a DRS train, and there’s not going to be a lot of movement tomorrow.

“But we are all on softer tyres, and see what we can do strategy-wise. We’ll try and pick them off if we can. I feel like race pace could be good.”

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May 17, 2025 · 5:08 pm

How Tsunoda “tried to be a hero” in Imola F1 qualifying

Tsunoda has taken full responsibility for his huge Q1 crash

Yuki Tsunoda’s already difficult early run of races with the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team took a turn for the worse in Imola when he had a huge crash on his first flying lap in qualifying.

Fortunately he escaped unscathed, and to his credit the Japanese driver took full responsibility for his mistake. He admitted that he’d “tried to be a hero” in Q1 and get through on a single set of tyres, and had been bitten.

Not only did he push to hard on the opening lap of qualifying, he did it in a car that had undergone significant set-up changes since a disappointing P3 session, and thus reacted differently on the limit.

“I’m just really stupid for myself pushing like that,” he said. “I mean, unnecessarily hard. We made a lot of changes to the car, so especially pushing like that hard without understanding enough about the car – just very unnecessary, pushing that hard in that early stages.”

He was adamant that he had some pace: “Turns 2 and 3 it felt quite good. Obviously, made a lot of changes to the car, but the pace was there until yesterday, just that P3 was P-nowhere, a complete mystery.”

It’s easy to assume that Tsunoda is feeling the pressure after scoring only six points across his first four weekends with the senior Red Bull team, including the Miami sprint. He denies that’s the case.

“I don’t think so. I think the team is supporting me enough to take off pressure as much as possible. I just tried to be a hero in Q1, which has been unnecessary, and aiming, I would say myself to be just to pass the Q1 with just one set.

“And also, I mean, I made a lot of change to the car, you don’t know much about the car, how the car is going to react in everything, high-speeds, medium-speed, slow-speed, and like that kind of corner, you need to build up, especially with a massive change.

“I had a confidence that I can handle it, but at the same time, to be honest – this is kind of really an excuse – but it’s just experience from the car, and just car changes and how the car reacts is bit unexpected.

“But I know what kind of reason that caused that kind of, I would say, balance into the corner.”

Tsunoda now faces a tough task from P20, with a pitlane start looking likely. It’s also not the sort of knock to his confidence that he needed ahead of Monaco. Can he turn things around in the coming races?

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