Adam Cooper F1

Carlos Sainz agrees that Ferrari has “nothing to lose” heading into the Formula 1 constructors’ title showdown with McLaren in Abu Dhabi.

After last weekend’s race in Qatar the team is now only 21 points behind its British rival, with up to 44 to be won with a one-two finish and a fastest lap.

Sainz feared last weekend that it would be “mission impossible” if Ferrari didn’t eat into McLaren’s advantage on race day in Qatar.

However a second place for Charles Leclerc and sixth for Sainz himself kept the fight open.

“I think it’s still going to be tough,” said the Spaniard when asked by this writer about the team’s prospects. “Twenty-one points requires a perfect weekend from Ferrari and a bad weekend from McLaren.

“But we’ve seen worse things in racing, so we’re going to give it our best shot. I think if we nail a good weekend, we could still make it happen.”

Asked if Ferrari had nothing to lose he said: “Exactly. That’s why we’re going to give it our absolute best, nothing to lose. We’re going to throw everything in to make sure we give ourselves the best chance.”

Sainz had a messy Qatar GP that saw him forced to complete a full lap with a punctured front tyre, but thanks to attrition elsewhere he managed to climb back to sixth by the flag.

“I think we couldn’t have got it worse,” he said. “We had a puncture pretty much coming out of the last corner, or around the last sector. It meant I needed to do a full lap on a punctured tyre, losing a lot of race time. Then we had a slow pit stop during that slow puncture.

“And then as soon as I came out of the pits, they put the safety car, so everyone can take the stop. And I’ve lost all that time with the puncture and the pit stop under racing conditions. And then a safety car comes out exactly while I’m exiting the pit. So it couldn’t have been any worse.

“At the same time, I started P6 I finished P6 with everything that happened, and I had to race, probably with some damage in the car for the rest of the race.

“A bit of a nightmare day, and bringing home a P6 maybe it’s not as terrible as it now feels, but at least the other car could get maximum points available for Charles. It’s damage limitation, with everything that happened.”

Sainz believes that several factors contributed to the puncture, which happened just after Valtteri Bottas ran over Ale Albon’s lost mirror.

“I think it was a bit of a perfect storm,” he said. “I think everyone was running very low on the front left tyre in terms of tread. I think no one had much tread left. This exposes, obviously the tyre and the carcass to a puncture, and then the sharp kerbs, the gravel on the track, the debris, it could have been any of them, the cause of the puncture, we will never know.

“I just know that I caught the worst of it because I had to do a full lap with a puncture, plus a slow pit stop, plus the damage, plus the safety car when I came out of the pits.

“We managed to bring the fight into the next race. At the same time, on my side of the garage, we would have finished P4, P3 depending on the race scenario, so we lost points that might be crucial for the end of the championship.

“But at the same time if they tell you you’re going to start the race P6, you’re going to have a puncture, then they’re going to put a safety car when you have finished the puncture, and you’re still going to finish P6, you maybe don’t even believe it!”

Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda effectively have one race in which to stake their respective claims to replace Sergio Perez at Red Bull Racing in 2025.

Should his departure be confirmed sources indicate that Lawson is set to get the job, but the final decision won’t be made until after the Abu Dhabi race.

Christian Horner has given the clearest signal yet that the team has reached the end of the road with the Mexican, and that he won’t be retained next season.

His Qatar weekend included a sluggish reaction to the pitlane traffic light going green at the start of Saturday’s sprint, and he was passed by Franco Colapinto.

Perez said he was trying to ensure clean air as the race was a test session, but the team was unaware of his plan.

In Sunday’s main race he spun just before the safety car restart, and suffered a clutch failure as he tried to get going.

Perez is understood to have a contract with no performance clauses on the team’s side, and thus ending it early is set to be an expensive exercise for Red Bull.

“Checo has had a very tough year, and obviously the points tables are what they are,” he said after the race.

“We’re very much focused on really supporting him to the to the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi, and then obviously it’s not an enjoyable situation for Checo being in this position, with speculation every week.

“He’s old enough and wise enough to know what the what the situation is, and let’s see where we are after Abu Dhabi.”

Asked by this writer about the traffic light issue he said: “I mean, we sent him to the end of the pit lane seven minutes ahead of Colapinto for a reason.

“But look, Checo has contributed a huge amount to this team in the four years that he’s been here. You know the world championship that Max achieved in ‘21, the constructors his World Championships in ‘22 and ’23, and obviously this year has been particularly hard.

“He’s won five Grands Prix for us, and he’s had some outstanding performances in races like Singapore, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, to name but a few. Everybody holds Checo in the highest of regard and respect.

“But obviously, the situation that we’re in is as painful for him as it is for the team.”

He added: “I’m going to let Checo come to his own conclusions. Nobody’s forcing him one way or another. It’s not a nice situation for him to obviously be in.”

“We got one more race this year, so we’ll throw everything at it. And hopefully he can have a strong race to end the season in Abu Dhabi.”

Red Bull’s problem is with whom to replace him having declined to take Carlos Sainz when he was free in the first half of the year and Perez has not yet been re-signed.

Liam Lawson’s was given the VCARB seat in place of Daniel Ricciardo to give him a chance to prove he was ready for promotion, but then the Franco Colapinto’s arrival on the scene made the Williams driver a candidate.

That would have involved a hefty buyout of his contract – said to be as much as $20m – which would potentially be compensated by sponsorship from Argentina. However after his crashes in Brazil and Las Vegas interest in him has faded.

Horner has indicated that the team is now focussing on its own talent pool.

Lawson has done a solid job, but arguably not quite enough to prove that he is a clear first choice over Yuki Tsunoda, who will test for Red Bull in Abu Dhabi net week.

Tsunoda is regarding in the RBR camp as not being consistent enough to take on the challenge of being Verstappen’s team mate, despite his obvious speed.

Isack Hadjar, who has a chance to win the F2 title in Abu Dhabi, remains the logical candidate for any vacant VCARB seat.

George Russell admits he was “expecting a crash” with Max Verstappen at the start of the Qatar GP given how motivated the Dutchman was after losing pole to a grid penalty.

In the end Russell didn’t have a good start, and Verstappen was able to get past the Mercedes driver and claim the lead, with Lando Norris also following him through.

Russell then had a slow first pit stop, and he subsequently picked up a penalty for failing to maintain his distance behind the safety car.

However he still managed to salvage fourth place on a day when many others also had issues.

Russell admitted that he was confused by a “strange” change in form over the course of the weekend.

“I think P4 is probably a flattering result considering how the race went,” he said when asked by this writer about the result. “Funny how this sport changes. Everything was great on Friday, Saturday was a great day, and then we had no pace today.

“At best, we were two or three tenths behind Max and Lando. The start was bad, had a slow pit stop, a penalty, I don’t even know what for, to be honest. So, yeah, it’s strange.”

Russell knew that Verstappen would be on a mission at the start after being so frustrated by his one-place penalty for driving excessively slowly.

“Yeah, to be honest, I was expecting a crash, but ultimately we made it easy for him, because both Lewis and I made terrible starts,” he said.

“So it was a pretty simple overtake for him, which was a bit frustrating for us. But it’s strange how when things are working and the car is quick, everything seems just to work so well, and when the car is off the pace a bit, everything just seems to go wrong. And today was a great example of that.”

He added: “We know Max is a fighter and is aggressive. I expect no difference. I really wanted to go out there and fight with him today, like we could have done in the sprint.

“But yesterday in the sprint, he was probably two or three-tenths behind us. Today, we were two or three tenths behind him.

“And it just goes to show what a night can do in this sport. It’s always on a knife’s edge. It’s a shame we didn’t have the pace when it mattered.”

Max Verstappen says he has lost respect for George Russell after the Mercedes driver successfully argued for his rival to get a grid penalty in Qatar.

Russell came across a slow-moving Verstappen late in Q3, and highlighted his frustrations on the radio.

He continued on that theme at the subsequent hearing, where Verstappen was found guilty of driving excessively slowly and docked one place, which handed pole to Russell.

“I couldn’t believe that I got it,” the Dutchman said of the penalty. “But in a way, I was also like, yeah, I’m not surprised anymore in the world that I live in. So, you’re not happy with it.

“But at one point or another, you have to just turn the page. But it wasn’t very enjoyable to see that happen, because I think that’s the first time that in a slow lap someone has been penalised.

“While actually, I just tried to be nice. So maybe I shouldn’t be nice. But the thing is that well, being nice, because at the end of the season, everything is more or less decided, for me especially, I didn’t want to screw anyone over to prepare their lap.

“And by doing that, being nice, basically you get a penalty. And that’s what I tried to explain as well. But I just felt like I was talking to a brick wall. So there’s not much that was possible for whatever reason.”

He added: “I think I really spoke about valid reasons of what happened and it was clear cut that around me there were different scenarios going on as well, with people having colder tyres and stuff so they had to push anyway, and I didn’t want to then cause a scene into a last corner. and then no one had a lap. So very, very surprising.”

Verstappen made his thoughts about Russell clear.

“I was quite surprised when sitting there in the stewards’ room, what was all going on. Honestly, very disappointing because I think we’re all here, we respect each other a lot.

“And of course, I’ve been in that meeting room many times in my life, in my career with people that I’ve raced, and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard. And that for me… I lost all respect.”

Verstappen got his revenge by passing Russell at the start and going on to win the race in dominant fashion, having been chased by Lando Norris until the McLaren driver landed a penalty/.

“It’s never straightforward,” he said. “I think in the first stint as well, with Lando being there, honestly, I think the gap has been between 1.6 and 1.9 seconds, the whole stint, and you can’t afford to make a mistake.

“And he didn’t, I didn’t, and we were just pushing flat out at one point. And it was honestly really enjoyable to drive because, of course, most of the races that we do, the tyres deg and you have to manage a lot. It felt like here you could push a bit harder and the track as well, the layout, I enjoy a lot.

“The grip is very good on the track. So yeah, that was a great stint. The second stint was a bit more stop-start with the safety cars involved and then of course the temperature as well in the tyres was very tricky, because my middle restart wasn’t particularly great.

“I tried something else, but the tyres basically were too cold, so I just kept on sliding and having no traction. So that was not ideal.

“Besides that, the pace was good. A dry race like this for us has been a long time, so I’m very happy with the improvements that we made compared to the start of the weekend.”

Verstappen was pleased to see the RB20 return to winning form in normal conditions.

“The last few races in the dry, we haven’t been particularly strong on managing the tyres,” he said.

“And that’s why I was a little bit careful after qualifying. But yeah, it’s been nice. I mean, it’s still not where I would like it to be in terms of the behaviour of the car compared to, let’s say, last year.

“But at least now we are back in a fight to win races. So if we can just learn from this year’s car, take the positives, of course, from also last year and try to build a better car, I’m sure that we can be again very competitive next year.”

Charles Leclerc admits that his second place finish in the Qatar GP came as a surprise and that his Ferrari team was “lucky” to get such a result at a track where McLaren had superior pace.

Leclerc was running fourth when he jumped Oscar Piastri around the safety car pit sequence, and later he moved up a place when Lando Norris had to take a stop and go penalty.

Team mate Carlos Sainz finished sixth after being hampered by a puncture, but the result kept the team firmly in contention for the constructors’ title.

Leclerc admitted that the team had exceeded its own expectations.

“Yes, we did, because to be honest, we knew that it would be very difficult pace-wise,” he said.

“We expected McLaren to be very strong in terms of race pace. We maybe did not expect Max to be that strong, but he was super strong today.

“However, finishing second after such a weekend, where the track characteristics are very far off from the optimal of the track characteristics we need for our car, is a surprise.

“We got a little bit lucky, obviously, on my side. A bit unlucky with Carlos and his puncture. But as a team, it’s been a positive weekend.

“So yes, we exceeded our expectations because coming into the weekend, I kind of expected to lose a bit of points compared to McLaren here. However, we recovered some, so that’s good.”

Leclerc indicated that the team got the maximum out of the package it had.

“I felt like we optimised yesterday and today,” he said. “We knew that it wasn’t going to be our strongest weekend, but we decided to just focus on ourselves, and try to do what was the best possible result for us.

“And I think we achieved that very well. We should be happy. Then we of course need to look at what we can do in the future to be faster on those kind of tracks. But yeah, this weekend we did work very well as a team.”

The only negative was that he lost the used of his drinks bottle before the start.

“I did not drink, but I honestly, I don’t think it was that much of an issue for this race. Last year it would have been a really, really big issue.

“I think I wouldn’t have finished the race without my drink, but this year it was actually pretty, pretty chill.

“So yeah, in terms of dehydration, it wasn’t bad, but it was quite physical in the corners just because we had no saving to do today.

“There was basically no saving. It was just flat out pushing from the first lap to the last lap, which is quite enjoyable as a driver. I don’t think any of us drivers had our heads straight in the fast corners at the end of the race. It was very physical.”

Leclerc remains positive about the team’s prospects at the Abu Dhabi finale.
 
“To be honest, I haven’t even seen the numbers yet. So we’ve got to wait and see. But I feel like on paper, it should be a bit more positive than Qatar was.

“Again, today we’ve been quite lucky, but without what happened to Lando, we would have been very, very far off. And without the Safety Car, we would have been very far off. In terms of race pace, we weren’t fast.

“Abu Dhabi should be better for us. We’ll wait and see. But it’s not too many points between us. So we’ve just got to focus on ourselves and try to maximise everything. And hopefully we’ll bring back the title to Maranello.”

Lando Norris has apologised to his McLaren Formula 1  team for his costly penalty in the Qatar GP – while also insisting that he’s “not an idiot” and was unaware of the double yellow flag situation.

Norris was caught out when a mirror fell off Alex Albon’s Williams and lay on the track at the approach to the first corner.

Initially the yellows flashed on and off, but they were showing when leader Max Verstappen and Norris passed through.

The Red Bull driver slowed, and having seen that his rival had closed the gap he immediately reported him over the radio.

After an FIA investigation Norris subsequently received a 10 second stop-and-go penalty, which initially dropped him out of the points.

He recovered to 10^th place while also picking up the fastest lap bonus.

“Disappointed of course,” he said when asked by this writer for his thoughts on the penalty.

“I’ve let the team down. The team gave me a great car today, easily the quickest out there, and I fucked it up.

“I don’t know what I did wrong. I’m not an idiot, if there’s yellow flag, I know I need to slow down. That’s rule number one you learn in go-karts.

“But for some reason, I didn’t do that today, because I’ve not seen it, or I’ve missed it or something.

“So I have to take it on the chin. They think I’ve done something wrong. I must have done something wrong, and I can only apologise for the rest of the year to the team.”

Asked if he thought the penalty was too hard Norris acknowledged that it was standard for a double waved yellows offence.

“No, it’s fair,” he said. “If I did what they said I did wrong, then good on them for giving the correct penalty.”

When I informed him that Verstappen had reported the offence he said: “Good on him, that’s what everyone does, I would do the same. Happy for him…”

Norris did at least retrieve two points that could prove crucial in the battle between McLaren and Ferrari come the final race.

“I didn’t give up until the end, and we were quick,” he said. “I did the best I could. But disappointed to have only got two points with the quickest car out there today.

He added: “The team gave me the best car out there today, and I’m very happy and thankful for them. I got a good start. I got past George. I thought George would be our biggest competitor today, and that wasn’t the case. Max was, and he did an incredible job.”

Norris suggested that Abu Dhabi won’t be as good for McLaren as Qatar.

“We go in the same as every weekend,” he said. “Wanting to win, wanting to be the best, wanting to be the fastest, and I just need to not be an idiot and do what I did today, clearly.

“I don’t think [the car] will be as good as today. So it’s a massive opportunity lost, and I’ve disappointed the whole team. The only thing I care about is my team.”

Charles Leclerc admits that Ferrari has to “do something special” in the Qatar GP in order to gain points on McLaren in the fight for the constructors’ title.

The Maranello team lost a further six points in Saturday’s sprint, leaving the gap at 30 heading into today’s main event.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will start third and fourth, behind George Russell and Max Verstappen, while Leclerc is fifth and his team mate Carlos Sainz seventh.

“Honestly, today was the best we could do,” said the Monegasque driver. “I was really happy with both of my laps. There was very little between them, I think two or three hundredths. There wasn’t anything more in the car tonight.

“I honestly think that we are much closer than what we thought, compared to McLaren. However, compared to Mercedes and Red Bull, it’s another story. It was surprising for us to see them so fast.

“We did not expect them to be so strong. McLaren, we expected them to be better compared to us. So all in all, we are fighting McLaren, so we have a good race pace and tomorrow everything is possible.”

Leclerc said the target had to be to get ahead of the McLarens in the race.

“We still had hope that we could turn the situation around,” he said. “Because at the end, if we want to win the constructors’, we’ve got to finish in front this weekend, and we cannot afford to just take the points available.

“We need to overperform in order to target the constructors. So, yeah, tomorrow we’ve got to do something special in order to gain some points on them.”

He added: “I think we’ve got a good race pace. We’ve got to have a good start, because I don’t think our race pace is enough to overtake on track.

“So definitely strategy and race starts will be key moments for us in order to gain positions on the McLarens.”

Carlos Sainz is concerned that Ferrari will face “a mission impossible” in its fight for the constructors’ championship unless it beats McLaren in today’s Qatar GP.

McLaren gained six points on the Maranello outfit in Saturday’s sprint race and can clinch the title today race if Ferrari has a bad race.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri start third and fourth, while Charles Leclerc is fifth, and Sainz seventh.

The Spaniard acknowledges that even it the title remains mathematically open heading to Abu Dhabi it could be beyond Ferrari’s reach.

He says that come what may the team has to beat McLaren, disregarding the fact that a Mercedes and a Red Bull start ahead of both teams and could potentially take the biggest haul of points.

“I don’t think it’s about third and fourth, I think it’s about recovering points on them,” said Sainz. “I think we just need to finish ahead of them and independently of the position.

“And of course, it’s good for us if they don’t win P1 and P2, but even if they finish P3 and P4 ahead of us, it’s still going to be almost mission impossible in Abu Dhabi. So it’s more than that.

“It would need to be a very, very big change of pace, because from going a couple of tenths off to being a couple of tenths in front to be able to overtake them, there needs to be a big swing in performance.

“But at we can least stay with them in the race, play with them with strategy and see the start, which is always to do the pit stop, and then see what can happen.”

He added: “So far, I think we’ve maximised everything. Today, I think I should have qualified P6 instead of P7, I went into the last lap of Q3 without a car in front, a tow in front. I don’t know why we were leading the pack, and that’s normally a couple of tenths in the straights for free. Probably missed a bit of that.

“At the same time, the 20.8 of Charles is the 20.8 that the car can more or less achieve. So far, I think we’re maximising everything, but maximising everything, as I said, might not be enough, or might be good enough.”

Sainz admitted that Ferrari struggled to switch on the soft tyres in qualifying.

“I think it’s just the type of corner,” he said when I asked about the team’s form. “You see the track, and we shouldn’t be very quick. And it just seems our through corner balance, overloading in the car in these long combined fifth, sixth gear corners, that doesn’t seem to be performing as well as it should.

“I think we’ve tried everything possible with a soft tyre to switch it on better. Faster, slower, out laps, anything you can imagine.

“And we just simply seem to be finding a bit of a hard limit with the lap time that that we could produce. Particularly with Charles, with the new floor, and also me with a bit of a more difficult session than yesterday.”

Sainz confirmed that the team made changes between the sprint race and qualifying.

“We definitely tried quite a few things, both on setup, but also in tyre preparation. But it just didn’t seem to change our fundamental issues.

“I think when you’re talking about tyre preparation, you’re talking about the last tenth, when you’re like three or four tenths and you see all the medium speed corners, you’re just lacking minimum speeds and a bit of through corner balance, and you realise that maybe just it’s not quite in there.

“But anything can happen still tomorrow, a lot of people also there in the front to upset a bit the order. So I think we can still have a good day.”