April 17, 2025 · 9:51 am

How a “confusing” Bahrain GP moved Antonelli along his F1 learning curve

The Italian teenager had his best qualifying result in Bahrain but missed out on points

Kimi Antonelli’s Formula 1 education continues apace, and the Mercedes rookie learned a few more lessons in Bahrain last weekend.

He was given plenty to think about after a superb initial P4 in qualifying turned into 11th place in the race – and for the first time he failed to score any points.

Nevertheless the Italian’s progress in qualifying over recent events provides an intriguing indication of how he’s moving along his F1 learning curve.

Saturday in Australia was spoiled by floor damage, but over the next three weekends his results in Q1/Q2/Q3 were P10/P9/P8, P8/P7/P6 and P6/P5/P4.

The last result became P5 on the grid with a penalty that was no fault of his own. However, the numbers show that not only is he getting better by the weekend, but he also improves through each qualifying session, and does his best lap when it counts most.

The race in Bahrain wasn’t straightforward for Antonelli. He lost a couple of places at the start, but thereafter was still very much in contention for points, and fighting with some big names, notably Max Verstappen.

He was pitted and given soft tyres just before the safety car came out. Rather than leave him out to gain track position the team stopped him again for more soft tyres.

That third pit visit put him out of synch with the cars that he had been fighting, and left him 11th at the flag. It’s all part of his ongoing education.

“It was pretty confusing,” he conceded when I asked him about his race. “Lap one was a bit borderline, because I got pushed off in six, and then obviously lost three places, but then I was fighting back. I was back to P5. And then in the first pit stop, I knew I would have got undercut, because obviously I pitted one lap later.

“But then obviously I was able to progress again. On the medium, honestly I was struggling, because I pushed a bit too hard on the on the out lap and first lap, and then cooked the tyre. And then I found myself a bit struggling, but I still had decent track position.

“And then I put the soft again. And after two laps, obviously the safety car came out, because there was debris, and there we need to review why we made the call to go back in. Because many other people stayed out, Verstappen stayed out, and Ocon stayed out, and they were behind.

“And so we need to review why that. At the same it’s always easy to talk after, but we need to review why it happened in order to improve it for Jeddah.”

Antonelli simply did what the team told him to do on strategy.

“I didn’t decide,” he said. “I just asked them if they were sure on the last pit stop to go back in because obviously it was two laps on the tyre. And I didn’t have any new tyre, I put another used soft.

“So definitely, we need to review why. But overall, also my side I didn’t do everything perfectly, and I definitely need to see when I need to do better for Jeddah.”

His race included an incident that earned Carlos Sainz a penalty for forcing him off track: “I saw [him] in the last moment. Luckily I opened the steering wheel, because we would have crashed for sure. I don’t know if he just missed the corner, or if he just launched in.”

Antonelli’s honesty in admitting that he needs to do better is refreshing. He’s learning by the weekend, and quietly putting all the pieces together.

“Qualifying was a good step forward in terms of pace,” he noted. “Also, I felt much more comfortable racing with others, much better making overtakes, moves. I felt quite comfortable with it.

“So definitely there are positives to take away. Of course, it was not what I was hoping for, because I was aiming for a lot higher.”

Bahrain was the first venue on the 2025 schedule that he’d experienced with an F1 car, so that gave him a head start that he hasn’t enjoyed elsewhere.

“On some tracks, like Suzuka, I felt really good with the car,” he said. “But obviously, I think it will take still a few races just to understand everything, especially on different tarmacs, on tarmacs like this, that are super open and the deg is big. So still a lot to learn.

“And definitely, I still am not even halfway. So much more confidence to take with the car and better understanding, especially in the race, how much to push.

“Suzuka was a race where I didn’t have to really worry about deg. And this was the first race where deg was massive. And plus as well I found myself in a DRS train, so deg was double. Still lots to learn.”

Jeddah will be another new experience for the teenager despite knowing his way around the track, simply because of the speeds involved and the lack of margin for error.

“I did it of course in the F2,” he said. “It’s going to be the first city track with the F1, so it’s going to feel quite quick, definitely, because the pace difference between the two cars is quite big. So the first few laps are going to feel fast. But I think we can do good.”

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April 16, 2025 · 2:47 pm

How Alpine moved from “rock bottom” to fighting Verstappen

Alpine logged its first points of the season in Bahrain

Perhaps the most unexpected performance of the Bahrain GP weekend was fifth place in qualifying for Pierre Gasly and Alpine, which later became fourth on the grid after Kimi Antonelli was penalised.

Hitherto the team’s best one-lap performance of the season was Gasly’s ninth in Australia, and in China neither driver even made it out of Q1. In the race there Gasly lost the chance to move from 11th to ninth in the final results when the two Mercedes drivers were disqualified when he was himself excluded for skid wear.

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With no points on the board after three events and the team firmly last in the World Championship the pressure was mounting. Gasly was able to put that that right with a strong drive in the Bahrain race.

However he was still in sixth and holding off Max Verstappen until losing out to the World Champion on the very last lap. It was frustrating for the Frenchman, but six points was still a decent haul.

“Crossing the line was kind of like a mixed feeling,” he said when I asked him about losing out. “Because I absolutely hate losing a position in the last lap, especially after having to work so hard, like over the last 20 laps, trying to keep Max at bay.

“So yeah, it’s always frustrating. But I think on the other side, once the adrenaline is going to calm down a bit, looking back last week, we were not even fighting for the top 10, and Max was winning the race.

“So it just shows how much of a good weekend we’ve had as a team. The car was competitive, quali was amazing, the race was great. Good strategy, good pit stops, and even with that unlucky timing with the safety car, where we lost the position to Lewis, in the end still a lot of positives to take.”

Gasly admitted that the timing of the safety car was annoying, especially given that it was dispatched for debris rather than anything more serious.

“When I saw for what it was… I’m sure we’re going to talk about it. At that time, I had a nice gap on Max, I had a nice gap on Lewis and the guys around. And it’s like, we worked all the race, and now for a few bits of carbon – actually, I think, if I’m not wrong, Yuki had a contact, and it actually gave him a 10-second reduction on his pit stop time. So it was a nice gain for some guys!

“Ultimately, that’s racing, we’ve got to get on with it, and that’s the way it is. Even though it didn’t all come our way, we still managed to finish that race in P7, and score our first points of the season, which is very positive.”

It was made even sweeter by the change in form since Bahrain 2025, which admittedly was a little earlier in the season as the opening race.

“Last year, I must say, it was kind of like hitting rock bottom, both cars 19 and 20,” said Gasly. “And I think Max probably lapped us after half race last year. So a very different picture, 12 months later, we were fighting with him until the last lap.

“I’m very pleased, and always the effort the team is putting in, and just the performance we’re able to extract.

“We know where the current weakness is, we know there is some work to do in the car, like some areas which don’t quite click, like low-speed, traction, all this stuff, are areas we need to improve.

“But the overall performance of the car is massively improved. And just thanks to all the great work people are doing at the factory.”

The weaknesses may be apparent, but Gasly admits that he doesn’t know if the Bahrain form will translate to this weekend in Jeddah and beyond.

“I want to believe so, the reality is I’ve absolutely got no idea,” he said. “We did the winter test here. The car felt really good. I think we definitely had quite high expectations going into the season. Australia, I think we were competitive, but China and Suzuka was a lot more difficult.

“So I think it’s important for us to understand where the performance came from this weekend. And I’m sure we’ll be able to repeat on some of the tracks, but hopefully we can just get it more consistently.

“I want to believe that we can be competitive, like when you finish P7 and qualify P5 it obviously boosts your confidence.

“I think we will have to get some answers on why we were so competitive this weekend. But I’m having a lot more fun fighting with Max than fighting more towards the back…”

Points came as a relief for the Alpine management as well. This is not a team that can afford to be at the bottom of the table.

“I think we needed it,” said team principal Oliver Oakes. “It’s not lost on me that you flick on a TV, and you see your zero at the bottom.

“That just piles a bit of pressure on. We know we’ve got a pretty good car. We know this is a bit of a transition year for us as well, into ’26 not just new regs, but obviously on the PU side.

“The main thing as well the start of this year, I think we feel we’ve got a pretty good group there, the strategy has been good, the way we’re working in the team.

“And I think it was a question of when not if. We knew we’d get some points, I think Australia to walk away empty-handed there was a little bit annoying, because we’d sort of been in the mix the whole race. So this is just nice to sort of get started a little bit.”

Like Gasly Oakes admitted it wasn’t easy to pinpoint why the car was good in Bahrain, especially as there have been no upgrades of late.

“I think in fairness it’s a little bit the swings of F1. Australia, we were pretty competitive. Obviously, we walked away empty-handed with the rain and all the trials and tribulations. China was just a little bit difficult for us.

“And I think Japan, we were pretty okay. It was just one of those races where you qualify, and it was kind of processional. It’s clear to see a track like this suits us a little bit. I think that’s kind of normal in F1, you have some places you’re stronger, some you’re not.”

“It’s the same car. Obviously you learn more as you start running a car on different tracks, different conditions. I just think it’s really tight as well. I think whether that’s getting out of Q1 even, you sort of go, there’s not much in it.

“What was nice in the race really was I think we felt we could hold our own. I think it’s hard on different compounds. You can see that some suit some cars, not others. And you’ve got to focus on yourself as well.”

How the car fares on upcoming tracks remains to be seen.

“I think genuinely the car is performing,” said Oakes. “We’ve only done four races with a new car. You’re learning every week, not just how to set up the car, but also some weekends, whether it’s got a sprint mixed in as well, make it harder to put the car in the right place.”

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April 15, 2025 · 12:51 pm

Is there light at the end of the Red Bull wind tunnel?

The outdated Red Bull tunnel is at the heart of the team’s struggles with the RB21

The Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team’s struggles in 2025 were perfectly encapsulated by the wild swing in form from Suzuka to Sakhir.

In Japan Max Verstappen took pole and scored a virtuoso win by staying ahead of the McLarens for the duration. Just a week later in Bahrain he started seventh and finished sixth after struggling throughout with balance problems and brake issues.

The difference was that on the first occasion team and driver found something akin to the sweet spot for the reluctant RB21 after trying every option. In contrast in Bahrain they didn’t hit the target, and a poor performance was the outcome.

“I think it shows the margins and the windows that you have to work within,” team boss Christian Horner said on Sunday evening.

“We’ve been struggling with two issues this weekend, one a braking issue, and secondly, just an imbalance. And when you have that, then tyre deg, etcetera, everything looks worse.

“On top of that, we’ve had a horrible day where we had what looks like a wiring loom issue in the pit gantry causing there to be a problem with the traffic light.

“So all-in-all to actually come away with a sixth place and limit it to an eight-point deficit to Lando [Norris] with the challenges that we’ve had… We need to leave here obviously focussed on what we can sort out for Jeddah in five days’ time.”

There really was nowhere to hide for Horner, with the pit stop delays – for different reasons – adding to the woes.

“It was a bad weekend for the team,” he said. “Nothing went our way from the start of the race. We didn’t get off the line cleanly, and pit stops didn’t work well for us today, and the track temperatures got very high.

“Certainly the tyre deg, if you’ve got a well-balanced car, the whole thing just comes together that much easier.

“But it’s a 24-race championship. We’re eight points behind in the drivers’ championship, and we know we need to make progress very quickly.

“So it was important today to score the most points, and he fought for, every point that he could in a difficult car today. It’s how they add up at the end of the year. That’s important.”

The brake issue came out of the blue, and just added to Verstappen’s frustration.

“He’s not getting any bite or feel from the pedal,” said Horner. “And of course, it’s such an important tool that gives the driver so much feedback that then on top of that your entries end up compromised, you’re taking too much speed in. It creates its own issues. We need to get to the bottom that pretty quickly.”

However it’s the struggle to find a workable balance that is the consistent problem with RB21.

Something isn’t correlating between the team’s simulations and what happens when the car takes to the track on Fridays, and that’s what is giving the engineers such a headache from the start of each event.

They managed to paper over the cracks in Suzuka, but there was nowhere to hide last weekend.

“Ultimately you can mask it a little through setup, and we were able to achieve that last weekend in in Suzuka,” said Horner. “But I think this race has exposed some pitfalls that obviously, very clearly, we have, and that we need to get on top of very quickly.

“And I think we understand where the issues are. It’s introducing the solutions that obviously takes a little more time.”

Elaborating on where it’s going wrong he added: “It’s the entry phase to mid-corner that needs addressing, and giving him the ability and grip and confidence that it takes to carry speed into entry of corners. Now, that’s fundamentally an aero issue that we need to be able to give him that grip.

“We need to just again unpick it. I think that you get a big balance shift. And how these cars are working with the back or front wings and so on. So it’s unpicking all of that. Basically it’s calming the car down.”

At the heart of the problem is Red Bull’s infamously old wind tunnel. It’s been good enough to create cars that have won multiple World Championships down the years, but the current machines are super sensitive, and even the best state-of-the-art tunnels have trouble keeping up with the real world.

Throw in the Red Bull tunnel’s well-known sensitivity to extremes of low and high ambient temperatures, and things start to get tricky.

“The problems are understood,” said Horner. “The problem is that the solutions with what we see in within our tools, compared to what we’re seeing on track at the moment, aren’t correlating. And I think that’s what we need to get to the bottom of.

“Why can we not see within our tools what we’re seeing on the circuit? And when you end up with a disconnect like that, you have to obviously unpick it.

“We’ve got a strong technical team that has produced some amazing cars over the last few years, and I’m confident that they’ll get to the bottom of this issue.

“Literally, the tool isn’t replicating with what we’re seeing on the track. And then at that point it’s like telling the time on two different watches.”

He added: “Primarily the wind tunnel has driven us in a direction that isn’t replicating what we’re seeing on track.

“Then you end up with a mish-mash between what your tools are telling you, and what the track data is. Obviously now, as we’re accumulating track data, it’s the track data that’s driving the solutions.”

The team is currently developing the 2026 model in the old tunnel as well as trying to firefight with this year’s car. It will have to wait for the RB23 in 2027 before the brand new tunnel under construction in Milton Keynes starts to have an impact.

Given the current struggles you might think there would be some concerns about getting it right for the new era. However, the intriguing aspect is that Horner insists that the tunnel works well with the sort of major gains that are being made as the team explores the 2026 rules.

It’s with the fine detail at the margins of the last blast of the current rules that things get a little fuzzy, especially with how the front end of the car behaves.

“The problem that we have is that we’re at the end of a set of regulations, where the gains are very, very marginal,” noted Horner. “And I think we’re seeing some of the shortcomings in our current tunnel that struggles in that area.

“If you’re not into the final few points of downforce, when you’re making significant steps, the tunnel and the tool that we have is, as it’s proved before, more than capable for those big incremental gains.

“You need to fix or understand the issues and the limitations you have because inevitably, you will get to that point in the future. We have a new tunnel coming online for ’27, but we have the current tool certainly for another 18 months or so.”

There’s one other aspect to the current struggles. It’s almost a year since Adrian Newey left the team – would Red Bull now be better off if he’d still in place with the kind of holistic overview that served him and the team so well over the decades? We can only guess…

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April 15, 2025 · 8:36 am

Verstappen staying “neutral” despite Bahrain GP frustration

Verstappen accepts that he’s not in the title fight at the moment

Max Verstappen could be forgiven for being angry after what was a hugely disappointing Formula 1 Bahrain GP.

In fact he was pretty philosophical after what was by his standards a hugely frustrating weekend at Sakhir.

He struggled throughout with balance and brake issues, as well as tyre management. Just to add to the problems he had two slow pitstops, the first compromised by an issue with the traffic light system, and the second by wheels not going on and off the car cleanly.

Passing Pierre Gasly on the last lap was a bonus of sorts for Verstappen, but nevertheless a distant sixth place was not what he wants or expects.

“The pace was very bad,” he said after the flag. “But of course, I didn’t expect the race that I had, because basically, everything went wrong that could go wrong. That probably made it a little bit worse. I think the position where I finished is at the end of the day the maximum that we could have done.”

In the circumstances he was remarkable cool about it, in contrast for example to Monza last season when he suggested his title challenge might falter at Monza if the car didn’t get better – a rare example of him making his frustration clear in public.

On that occasion he was in the heat of a World Championship battle and fighting a rear guard action against the McLarens, but this year it’s very different.

He seems to have accepted that the title has already gone, telling Dutch journalist in Bahrain that he’s not in the fight. In that context one particularly bad race is perhaps not as stressful as it might otherwise be.

“I don’t need to reset,” he said. “I’m okay. It’s what it is. I always try to do the best I can, even in disappointing, or let’s say frustrating situations, but you have to move on. And you keep discussing, keep trying to improve.

“We know that we have our problems, even if we win a race, that doesn’t go away. I said that already last week. I’m anyway not a guy that I think when you have positive or negative scenarios that you get influenced it a lot, I just stay very neutral. Just have to keep on working.”

Verstappen had struggled with the brakes throughout the weekend. The team changed some parts under parc ferme, but the issue resurfaced during the race.

“The brakes were a little bit better today, because we were allowed to change the material,” he said.

“But the problem is not only the feeling in the brakes, which is still not where I want it to be, but also our tyres are just overheating. So when I’m braking, there is no feeling, because it’s super easy to lock fronts or rears at the same time.”

He added: “I just feel like we are even worse on tyres somehow this year, makes it just very complicated, because last year we were not too bad around here, of course then people made improvement, but I feel like we actually had a worse weekend than last year. A bit weird.”

The big mystery remains how Red Bull found the sweet spot in qualifying and the race at Suzuka, or least successfully enough for Verstappen to outrun the McLarens.

“It’s hit or miss,” he said. “Friday in Suzuka was bad, qualifying was a bit better. The race, of course, was a bit better. It’s not where I wanted to be but at least you are competitive, here we were not competitive.

“Here the surface is completely different. The tyres play an even bigger role. And normally, our car in the very high-speed corners is quite a bit more stable. But here, there are a lot more other factors that come into play.”

What then of Jeddah this weekend?

“The layout will probably help a bit, because in general, there’s just a bit less deg,” said Verstappen. “But when you’re worse on tyres, you are worse on it everywhere…”

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April 14, 2025 · 11:13 am

How Hamilton is finding the answers to the questions he’s asking himself

A strong middle stint in Bahrain suggested that Hamilton is starting to find a direction

After qualifying in Bahrain Lewis Hamilton was clearly downbeat on Saturday evening, and he appeared to be a loss to explain why he was only ninth on the grid and 0.597s shy of team mate Charles Leclerc.

His struggles to adjust to a very different car at Ferrari have been well documented, but on this occasion there seemed to be an extra level of frustration.

Inevitably there was some soul-searching that evening, and to his credit he bounced back in the race, pulling off some good moves.

At times he wasn’t happy with his tyres, and having mediums for the opening stint when those around him were on softs didn’t help, but he was far from the only driver to complain.

However what caught the eye was a very strong middle stint on his second set of medium tyres, when he really seemed to get into the groove and even held fastest lap for a while. A gain of four places and fifth place at the flag was a decent result.

“A much more positive day,” he said when I asked him about his race. “The middle stint I felt really aligned with the car. The balance finally was in a spot, and my driving style seemed to be working in that moment. And so I learned a lot from today, and this weekend actually. A lot, probably more than all the other weekends.”

The challenge now will be to get the car into that same user-friendly window on a more regular basis.

“The key is to try and get back to it every weekend,” he agreed. “It’s clear that the car really does require a different driving style, and I think I’m slowly adjusting to that. And also set-up.

“I’ve been bit all over the place, a long way from Charles the past two weekends, and then slowly migrating towards him. So I think if I start the weekend in a more convenient spot and apply the techniques that I learned this weekend, hopefully I can improve from there.”

Hamilton is known for his late nights at the track working with the engineers, and typically he’s the last driver to leave the paddock on a Saturday. On this occasion the homework was of a more personal nature.

“I just went to my hotel to sort it out, had the discussion with myself,” he said when I asked about how tough that evening was.

“And I had a really good start today, and I knew that the next day would be a new day. So I just started or tried to start more positive as I said.

“Obviously qualifying isn’t good enough. But I think if I get the car where it was, for example, in that middle stint, and I start delivering qualifying, you could see I can still race. So if I fix that, then there should be better weekends.”

It’s easy to be sceptical when drivers talk about the difficulty in transitioning from one car to another, and Hamilton isn’t the only one with issues, as the likes of Carlos Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon are still adjusting.

It’s actually harder for more experienced drivers who have set ways of doing things than for rookies coming out of F2. In the case of Lewis his 12-year stint at Mercedes created muscle memory that is not easy to undo.

“It just feels so alien, it really does feel so alien,” he noted. “I think we all get stuck in our ways, and I’ve been very stuck, ‘I need to keep driving the way I’m driving to make the car come to me.’ But it’s not working.

“So I am adjusting myself now to the car, and also with the tools, it drives so much different with all the ECU, the controls that we have, you have to use them a lot different to the past.”

He added: “Just one example is I never used engine braking before, for the past 12 years. We never use engine braking. Well, here we use a lot of engine braking to turn the car. They’re much different brakes.

“Brakes are so much different to what I had in the past. Like in the last stint, I had to use the rears to turn the car, and then other times you have to put all the weight on the front. It’s probably a bigger balance window than I’m used to.

“It’s a much different car, but even worse qualifying this year than I had last year. So I just keep trying. I’ll get there eventually.”

Hamilton still sees plenty of positives in the bigger picture.

“Mercedes is an amazing team, as you know, but the energy in this team is fantastic,” he said. “And the guys are pushing really hard the pitstops fantastic today. They’ve trained so hard to get the pit stops that they’re doing. And I’m adjusting to their pit stops as well.

“And I think we’ve had really fast pit stops, particularly today as well. And strategy, we’re slowly getting on top of things.

“I think today it will be interesting to see what they say afterwards, with whether we would have used a different tyre at any point in the race. But the middle stint was great, and we’ve got some improvements to make to the car. But I’m sure we can do it.”

Fives races in six weekends is a tough schedule for everyone. Drivers are at least getting a lot of mileage, but they’ve had limited opportunity to catch their breath and properly debrief back at base with their engineers. Hamilton has an intriguing take on the upsides of travel.

“It’s been really nice to be at these races, to be honest,” he said. “Because it means less photo shoots and all that kind of stuff. The start of the year was brutal, more shoots and more things I’ve ever had before. So it’s been nice to into this long trip, and get back to what I love doing most…”

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April 13, 2025 · 9:31 am

Sainz still wants more despite Williams progress

Sainz qualified a solid P8 in Bahrain

It’s not been a straightforward start to his Williams Formula 1 team career for Carlos Sainz as the Spaniard has had to adjust to a very different car and power unit.

In Bahrain things have started to come together, and having been as high as seventh in Q2 he secured eighth on the grid, behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and directly ahead of his Ferrari replacement Lewis Hamilton.

However he insists that he’s not getting too carried away, and that there’s plenty more still to come.

It certainly didn’t hurt that he’d tested (and been fast) in Bahrain in February, although he lost valuable track time when he had to hand his car to Luke Browning for FP1.

Solid progress through FP2 and FP3, with some experimentation along the way, paid off in qualifying.

“I think a bit of everything for sure,” he said when I asked if familiarity with the track had helped. “I’m testing different things every weekend to try and unlock a bit more performance.

“And this weekend, I again drove a bit of a different car on Friday, tested some things learned, put them together for today, and seems like we did a little bit of a step in the right direction.

“It doesn’t mean that today we suddenly discovered everything, and we are back to my usual self of extracting the maximum out of the car, but at least step by step. Today we did a step in the right direction, and we need to keep our head down.

“This is still not where I want to be, P8. I want a bit more. But progress with the team, progress with myself, with my driving, with the setup, and we keep going.”

Sainz agreed that Bahrain was the best start to a race weekend he’s had thus far in 2025.

“I just felt like I did some clean laps in quali, which is hasn’t been the case up until now,” he said.

“I’ve always done mistakes, never put a lap together, really. I know when I put things together, I have the pace. It’s just understanding the car, where to push, where not to push, where to find the lap time.

“And today, I definitely did some steps in the right direction. As I said, not where I want to be still – you look at Gasly [starting P4]. But at the same time, we managed to qualify in front of a Red Bull and a Ferrari.

“So it must be that we’re doing things in the in the right way, and now we need to keep investigating things, testing things. Not missing FP1 in Jeddah could help also to try some things. So let’s see.”

In essence it’s mainly about understanding where the limits of the car are, and what works or doesn’t work. It’s largely a question of track time.

“Definitely more confident and more under control,” he said. “More than confident, it’s knowing where I was going to go and risk it and find the lap time, and knowing where I was not going to push, because I know the car cannot take what I can or what I want to do.

“So just stay in discipline, with my driving, with my tools, with my setups, with my front wings, with my things to know where to extract the lap time. Still as I said, a lot of things to learn, and many more qualis like this to do, to understand many other things. But at least today, we did a step.”

Sainz insists that he knew it would take time toget properly up to speed.

“Honestly, I wasn’t feeling too stressed about it,” he said. “I know where I stand, I know far I am from my limit, from the limit of the car.

“Suzuka was more a matter of putting the lap together, which I didn’t do. I know this will come, the more laps I do with this car.

“Obviously, China was a bit of a shock to the system, but at the same time, I shrugged it off pretty quickly after, with Suzuka and here.

“Honestly, as I said, I wasn’t feeling too stressed about it. I just know I need to stick to my plan, do small steps at a time, and it will come, because I know I have the speed and I have a good team around me.”

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April 13, 2025 · 7:31 am

Alonso won’t give up as he seeks “a small victory” in Bahrain

The Aston Martin driver will start the Bahrain GP from P13 on the grid

It’s been a difficult start to the 2025 season for the Aston Martin Formula 1 team, and especially for Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard crashed in the rain in Australia and then retired early in China with a brake issue. In Suzuka he logged 11th – a respectable result given that all 20 cars finished and there was little passing – but this season still represents his worst opening three races since the McLaren-Honda days in 2017.

In Bahrain he will start in P13, although realistically he would have been 15th at best had Esteban Ocon not crashed and Nico Hulkenberg been penalised for track limits. In addition the late penalty for the Sauber driver impacted Alex Albon, who would potentially have denied Alonso a slot in Q2.

At the end of the session Alonso said that the performance was “maximised” and thanked the team, acknowledging that 13th was better than had been anticipated.

The team’s current form is far removed from 2023, when he was on the podium three times in the first three races.

“I won three times here,” he said when I asked about his session. “So yeah, to be P13 is not the result that I wish or I dreamed, but at the same time, we have to accept the situation and where we are in terms of pace.

“We didn’t show the pace the whole weekend, all the free practices have been difficult and so on.

“To be at the end P13 is probably the best we could, so happy for that, happy for the team that we still work on, even on the difficult times, we never give up and this kind of thing.

“Let’s see tomorrow in the race, but points could be close to us if we do a good tyre management, and a good strategy and all these kind of things.

“So we will do our best. It’s a challenging for sure race for us, with maybe not such a great pace, but taking care of the tyres, fast cars behind us, so I’m looking forward.”

He remains upbeat about the prospects of turning the situation around.

“It’s one of those seasons where the challenge is welcome. Today you try to do the best you can. You start P13 tomorrow. Maybe it was difficult to guess P13 this morning, as it is difficult to guess points tomorrow.

“But what if we achieve the points? It’s a small victory. For us, every step we can do, and every understanding of the car, improvement of the car.

“The team is working day and night here, especially and under these extreme conditions. And they are not giving up. I will not give up. And I will be the first to show that.”

Just making Q2 in Bahrain was a big challenge, and ultimately Alonso had little chance to make any further progress.

“It was that fine line that we didn’t know if Q2 was possible,” he said. “And we had three new set of softs available for qualifying, and we threw all three in Q1 because we were not sure that Q2 was in reach.

“So then eventually when you go into Q2 I only had scrubbed sets for Q2, that’s the downside of it. But as I said, we are not giving up.

“We show every practice, every qualifying, every race, that we are attacking, and we are aggressive on the strategy and on decisions, and we are looking forward some upgrades on the car, and some performance coming from the factory. And we encourage everyone to do their maximum.”

Alonso sat out FP1 for reserve driver Felipe Drugovich, and also missed some laps in FP2 with a steering issue. However he didn’t want to use a lack of track time as an excuse.

“It was not really that bad yesterday. We probably felt the car in the window ready, but on the first three races, probably the low-speed content was our weakness on the car, in the package.

“Bahrain is all about low-speed. So we expected a tough weekend, and unfortunately we confirmed it yesterday.”

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April 12, 2025 · 10:14 am

Can “underdog” Verstappen really join the McLarens in the title fight?

Verstappen lies only a point behind leader Lando Norris after three race weekends

Max Verstappen’s victory in the Japanese GP gave his Red Bull Racing team a welcome boost and opened up the possibility that he could yet be a title contender this season.

Clearly Red Bull is going to have to improve the RB21 and make it consistently more competitive if Verstappen is really going to be in the fight.

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It says a lot that Suzuka was widely seen as an underdog win, not a phrase that has been attached to Verstappen very often in the past.

However, it was also applied to Ayrton Senna in 1993 when the Brazilian scored five victories with a McLaren powered by the Ford HB V8 against the otherwise dominant Alain Prost and Williams.

Senna won in the wet and at places like Monaco where his talent could make the difference, and Suzuka was a similar piece of opportunism by Verstappen.

What he does have going for him is the fact that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will continue to take points off each other.

Thus if he can remain in touch and the car is improved over what is going to be a long season – with the switch to the 2026 car impacting everyone’s development path – he can’t be counted out. Not that a title challenge on his radar at the moment.

“Honestly, I don’t like to really think about that too much,” he says. “I’m just focussed on finding performance in the car.

“As soon as we are close to them or level, then I know that it’s going to be fine, but we are not there, and we first need to get to that point. Because otherwise there’s no point to even discuss a championship battle.”

It was back to reality in Bahrain on Friday as once again the Dutchman struggled to hone his car in FP2, having handed it to reserve driver Ayumu Iwasa for FP1.

Perhaps of more concern to Verstappen is that it could be a tough Sunday evening for the team, given what a big role tyres play in races at Sakhir.

“It will be more severe,” he noted on Thursday. “The first stint in Australia, we got destroyed, also with the overheating and deg in general. Same in China, I would say, to a certain extent, also in in Suzuka, but you can’t pass.

“Lando was closing up to me in the end of that first stint again, and I knew that was coming, and I was just driving to my own pace. But I think because the track temp dropped quite a bit on the day, that helped a bit.

“And here it’s going to be hot. Of course, we drive in the night, so we’ll cool down a little bit, but still hot, aggressive tarmac. So on paper, from what we’ve seen so far this season, that’s not let’s say ideal for us, compared to McLaren.

“But it’s up to us to try and find those improvements in the car or tyre behaviour, and just go from there.”

Suzuka was a timely boost for the team, and Verstappen’s cheeky suggestion that he would have dominated had he been driving a McLaren was a nice bit of gamesmanship. He is well aware that it won’t be easy to repeat that victory.

“I think actually having a win is great,” he said. “Everyone loves winning, but we’re also very aware that we still need to improve. That’s been the target from the start, but still, it’s better than being second or third coming out of that weekend.

“So we take it, we’re proud we maximised our performance there, the car was not easy to balance out, and we made it, let’s say, driveable. And on the Sunday, it was good enough to hang in there.”

He downplayed any impact on him personally: “I did get happy, of course, after qualifying, just because my weekend so far was super difficult, I didn’t feel comfortable.

“So then the relief was there in qualifying, and I was very happy on the Sunday, because I think as a team, we executed everything very well. The pit stop was not fantastic, but the rest was really well managed, also with GP [Gianpiero Lambiase], but it’s not as enjoyable as ’23 or whatever.”

The big weakness for red Bull at the moment is that the RB21 has a very small window in which it works effectively. Finding that sweet spot isn’t easy, especially as the team struggles to start weekends with a set-up that Verstappen likes, suggesting that there’s a correlation issue. So is that window even narrower than last year?

“No, I don’t think so, but it’s also not necessarily much bigger at the moment,” he admits. “So we need to definitely find more.

“Sometimes the balance is just a little bit better, and sometimes it’s been a bit more off. So far, most of the time it’s been off because it’s just super sensitive to little changes that we make.

“And then, of course, you try to work your way through the weekend to make sure that at least you get the right balance for qualifying.

“But practice is also there to sometimes test things. Of course, you want to be quick, and you want to do well, but sometimes also things need to be tested and understood.”

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April 11, 2025 · 12:36 pm

How the end of the “diva” era has given Mercedes a boost

The W16 is a far more consistent performer than the three cars that preceded it

The Mercedes Formula 1 team has enjoyed a solid start to the 2025 season, with George Russell leading the chase of McLaren at the first two races.

He was also quick at Suzuka but lost out after a mistake in qualifying left him fifth on the grid, and again at the chequered flag.

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Crucially the team seems finally to have moved on from the “diva” characteristics of the past three years.

The W13, W14, and W15 were always a little hard to predict, and they didn’t always respond to new parts or setup changes as expected, often leaving the team in firefighting mode.

In contrast the W16 is proving to be much more user-friendly. Technical director James Allison has confirmed that it is generally doing what it is supposed to do.

“It’s reasonably tractable,” he said when I asked him in Bahrain about the end of the diva era. “If you look at us every session of every track this year, we’ve been in pretty much the same place and it’s been wet, dry, it’s been cold tracks, warmer tracks, rough asphalt, smooth asphalt. It’s been there or thereabouts.

“I think it means we spend more of our time making it quicker, and less of our time scratching our heads…”

It’s a pity that Mercedes is finally hitting its stride in the fourth and final season of the current regulations, as Allison concedes.

“The frustration is merely that we that we’ve done a poor job over the last three years,” he said. “And have got a position where, having made a big step forward, we’re still not quick enough. But the regs are the regs are the regs. Get on and deal with them.”

Allison agrees that it’s been a solid start to the season, with a consistent performance.

“We come back from every race weekend having plotted where we think we sit,” he said. “Just looking at sector times in quali and in race, and the gaps in quali are very, pretty steady.

“We’ve been to three tracks now, and the gap has been pretty much three-tenths to McLaren, two, if we’re feeling optimistic, much less to a Red Bull, sometimes us in front, sometimes a whisker behind, and generally us having the legs on the Ferrari.

“In the race, the gap has been reasonably small, at the last track we were only 10 or 12 seconds behind at the end of the race, but in Melbourne, much larger, and that is much more about whether the tyres are happy in the window or not.

“Because over a single lap on new rubber, you can get most of what you need to from them, but if you haven’t got them happy over a longer run, then it will tell and you can see the gap opening up to half a second, three quarters of a second. And this track will be a real test of that, because of its very degrading nature.”

So where is Mercedes losing out to McLaren?

“I think that no one knows that,” said Allison. “If we did, it’d be very easy to copy, wouldn’t it?

“I think you could take a reasonable stab at saying that their surface temperatures at the rear of the car are likely to be lower than the other teams, because their advantage is found most when you’re at a rear-limited track and where rear tyre temperatures are governing your pace.

“But it’s never one thing, and they would have done a good job across the board.”

Allison isn’t too hung up about the specific deficit to McLaren, as the team has its hands full racing Red Bull and Ferrari as well.

“I think it’s been more like two-tenths in one or two places,” he said of the gap. “You can normally easily win championships with a two-tenths lead. However, we don’t just fight the people who are winning the race.

“We fight those nearest to us, and the gaps are way smaller than that there, and we have to make sure that we can continue to put points over the Ferrari to make sure that we can beat Max in the Red Bull, and hopefully get closer to the McLarens, who’ve done a fine job with their car this year.”

Like all the teams Mercedes faces the challenge of how to allocate resources between the 2025 and 2026 projects.

“I think any team that has got a bit of common sense will still be putting a good chunk of their effort towards the future,” said Allison. “Because the 2026 rules are such a tear-up from these ones, and these ones have just got 21 races left to go, and then they’re done, done.

“So we’re trying to push as much as we can onto the car in this sort of first quarter, third of the year, and maybe we’ll have some bits after that, but a lot of effort is going into the future.

“Happily even without changing the geometry of the car, there’s still quite a lot of lap time just in fine setup work.”

He added: “We are certainly planning to bring a reasonable raft of stuff for Imola. But there’s some things this weekend as well, nothing as flash as a floor or as outwardly visible as a floor, but things that we’re interested in finding out how they perform.”

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April 10, 2025 · 4:31 pm

Sainz left frustrated by “out of the question” national anthem fine

Sainz was fined in Suzuka for being late to the national anthem ceremony

Carlos Sainz’s fine for being late for the national anthem ceremony in Japan has again highlighted the frustration of Formula 1 drivers over increased FIA penalties for off-track offences introduced for 2025.

Punctuality at the anthem has been a point of discussion in drivers’ briefings and was mentioned in Suzuka, and thus the timing of Sainz’s transgression was perhaps unfortunate.

As the FIA stewards in Japan noted “he experienced discomfort due a stomach issue which delayed his appearance on the grid,” as confirmed by his doctor. Nevertheless he landed a €20,000 fine, with half of it suspended.

Asked about the subject in Bahrain on Thursday Sainz made it clear that he wasn’t happy with the turn of events.

“I think I’m the biggest supporter of punctuality,” he said. “And being – in a way – a gentleman, being punctual to things, and especially a national anthem, with all the authorities there. So I was the first one to put my hand up and say, ‘I’m late, I’m sorry for that.’

“At the same time, I was five seconds late. And to be five seconds late and have to pay €10,000 or whatever the fine is, for me, it is out of the question that we are having to pay these fines.

“I don’t know if I’m going to get another fine for saying this, but shit happens. It’s the way it is, it’s the way it goes sometimes. I mean, €10K is—you guys know what €10K is. And for five seconds, it’s disappointing.

“As I’ve always said, I hope someone tells me where this €10K goes. And they say, ‘OK, at least it went to a nice cause,’ and I will be looking forward to seeing where they go.”

As noted last weekend, drivers are pretty busy either side of the ceremony with comfort breaks, and sometimes logistics make their lives difficult.

Sainz’s fellow GPDA director George Russell agreed that it’s not always straightforward to get to the anthem ceremony.

“I totally appreciate that we have a duty to be there for the national anthem,” said the Mercedes driver. “It’s not quite as straightforward as people may think for us to be there on time.

“We’re often running to the toilet, and there’s sometimes not toilets available between the time you jump out of a car, and going to the anthem.

“And then you get stopped by some people have agreed, or people asking for a quick interview. It’s not like we’ve got one sole job, and that’s only it. We’re trying to take our moment before the Grand Prix, and being there on that minute is sometimes not straightforward.

“So I appreciate it from F1’s perspective, because it’s a very important moment of the race, but also from a driver’s perspective, there are genuine logistical issues that sometimes you’re literally waiting to get into a bathroom cubicle.”

The Sainz fine is part of a bigger picture of driver frustration with the penalty system, which saw a debate over swearing during the off-season. It will be intriguing to see what the next example will be.

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