Adam Cooper F1

Aston Martin Formula 1 performance director Tom McCullough says that the bumpy nature of the resurfaced Interlagos track contributed to “a difficult race” for the Silverstone team.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll both crashed in Sunday morning’s wet qualifying session after showing some good initial speed.

The cars were repaired for the race, but Stroll went off on the formation lap and Alonso finished 14^th after struggling with bouncing and a painful back.

“It was a difficult race,” McCullough told this writer. “I think the consistency of the car, it’s not easy to drive, and we’ve seen that for a while now. Both drivers were really struggling.

“So yes, we had some reasonable pace at times with Fernando, but we were also struggling with locking both front and rear, and the very bumpy nature of the track didn’t play to our strengths.

“The track was resurfaced, and was by far the worst-riding track of the year. So we could make the car nicer from a ride perspective, but it costs performance, so we’re always playing that balance.”

Regarding Stroll’s pre-race off he said: “”The rundown to Turn 4 was particularly bumpy. We found that difficult all weekend. We tried working with setups to help that. But the car is struggling in those areas at the moment.

“It’s an old school track, it bites. It was wet, and it bit a lot of people, didn’t it? It’s got walls quite close by as well.”

Things were made more complicated in the race by a switch to an alternative floor spec for both drivers as a result of the qualifying accidents.

The initial pace in wet qualifying did at least provide some encouragement for the team.

“I think throughout qualifying ordering the cars were competitive, which was good,” said McCullough. “We made a lot of changes, and with the understanding of the tyres, and the wet setup that most people had gone to and that we went to, we were definitely more competitive.

“So it was disappointing to finish quali with damage to both cars, but good to get them both into the top 10.”

Regarding the remaining races of the 2024 season he said: “We don’t have any more updates coming. It’s about maximising the spec of the car for the three very different kinds of tracks. And we’ve got to score some points in those three races.

“I think that will maybe play a bit more to our strengths, based on what we’ve seen so far this year. So we go there trying to score some points.”

Ferrari Formula 1 boss Fred Vasseur insists that the Sao Paulo GP was “not a dramatic weekend” for the Italian team despite a poor overall result.

Following two superb performances in Austin and Mexico City Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished fourth and fifth in the Saturday sprint, and then both really struggled in Sunday’s rain. 

Leclerc eventually claimed fifth, while Sainz crashed in both qualifying and the race.

Overall the team lost seven points relative to leaders McLaren in the constructors’ championship, and 12 to Red Bull, and it remains in second place.

Leclerc pitted early for new tyres, just before the VSC and subsequent red flag turned the race on its head, but the call didn’t pay off.

“It was a difficult Sunday, but I think overall it’s not a dramatic weekend,” said Vasseur when asked for his verdict by this writer.

“It’s more on some choices. It was quite difficult to anticipate the pit stop. And for sure, you can say at the end of the day if you stay on track and you are waiting for the red flag it’s the right call, but if you crash, you look stupid.

“Honestly, this kind of weekend is quite difficult and difficult to manage from the pit wall and from the car. It’s more the pace today and the setup, that it’s perhaps problematic.

“Probably we were six or seven tenths slower than Norris at the beginning of the stint, and probably six or seven tenths faster than him at the end of the stint!”

He acknowledged that Leclerc’s early stop in Brazil unexpectedly put him into traffic.

“We underestimated I think the loss in the pit exit,” he said. “It was very, very slippery, and he lost a couple of tenths. It was enough to lose the position.

“If you look at the race, I’m not sure that it’s a game changer, because at the end, we would have pit the lap after with the VSC or whatever, that it mean that there was not a game changer. The game changer on the strategy would have been to stay on track, and to bet for the red flag.”

Regarding Sainz’s costly accidents he said: “I’m not worried about this. I think he will be back in Vegas very strong.

“Last year, Vegas was a good example. He started on the wrong side of the weekend last year with that drain cover. And he had a very good recovery over the weekend. We have three weeks to do a full reset, and he will be back strong in Vegas.”

Regarding the constructors’ championship situation he added: “We knew that probably the track will be difficult, probably much more for McLaren, and at the end of the day on the weekend, we didn’t lose so many points.

“Okay, I don’t want to lose some points, I want to make points. It means that we have to have a better weekend than this weekend. But it’s not a drama, and we’ll have probably a much better weekend next race in Vegas, and it’s where we’ll have to score the big ones.”

He added: “We have the same approach for months now. We want to be focused race-by-race, because for me, it’s the best attitude, and just to be focused on what you can do, and not to try to think or to calculate, and we keep the same one for the next week.”

Carlos Sainz has apologised to his Ferrari Formula 1 team for what he called “two very strange, unfortunate crashes” on Sunday in Brazil.

Sainz went off heavily in the morning Q2 session, stranding himself in P14. However the team decided to take a complete fresh power unit plus a new gearbox, which meant a pitlane start.

From there he found it hard to make progress and he was running 13th when he again spun and hit the barrier, which led to his retirement after 38 laps.

His team mate Charles Leclerc also had a difficult day, but managed to score points in fifth place.

“Two very strange, unfortunate crashes today,” said the Spaniard. “Bit of a nightmare day. Honestly, the two of them, just no sign of me crashing, so I couldn’t do anything to avoid them.

“But at the same time, it didn’t look easy out there to overtake today. So starting from the pit lane, it was always going to be difficult to make it to the points with the lack of overtaking there was.

“At the same time apologies to the whole team for the two crashes. I hope we can come back stronger.”

Sainz admitted that the SF-24, which is kinder on its tyres in normal conditions that its predecessor, has not been an easy car to drive in the rain.

“I’ve always been a very strong driver in the wet,” he said. “But for some reason, ever since I tried this car in the wet this year, I’ve never had a good feeling with it.

“I don’t know if we just don’t put energy into the tyres, or we run it too stiff in medium to high speed, or what is it?

“But it’s clear that it’s very unpredictable, and very difficult to drive. I’m glad Charles brought it home in P5. I heard he was also struggling out there.

“So honestly, a bit of a nightmare the whole race, but yeah, hopefully some dry races coming up, and we will try and go for it.”

With three GPs and a sprint still to come Ferrari remains in contention in the constructors’ championship.

“We will be alive until the very end,” said Sainz. “Three weekends now coming up that are going to be obviously important for the whole team.

“And now we need to refocus, we’ll regroup and see how we can approach these last three races in the best possible way.”

Oscar Piastri says braking issues and an overall lack of speed in the latter stages contributed to a “tough day” at Interlagos that saw the McLaren driver finish in eighth place.

While team mate Lando Norris took pole for the Sao Paulo GP Piastri could manage only P8 in the wet Q3 session, having struggled with a brake locking problem that persisted into the race.

He also found it hard to overtake, and eventually moved up to seventh when he nudge Liam Lawson into a spin.

That earned him a 10-second penalty, and having finished seventh on the road he then dropped behind Yuki Tsunoda in the final results.

“I think it was just a tough day from start to end,” he said. “I think qualifying, partly a mistake, partly a bit of a problem. And when you put the two together, it creates a big problem, and then we’re still struggling with that a bit in the race. But I think we were just slow.

“The first half of the race, we seemed very quick. Lando was stuck behind George. I was stuck behind Liam.

“I got Liam out of the way, not really in the way I intended. But yeah, I think the second half of the race, after the red flag, we were just slow.  think both of us just struggled with pace, and that was a pretty tough 30 laps.”

Regarding the clash with Lawson he said: “I went for a move. I was stuck behind him for a long time.

“Didn’t really get far enough alongside, and I spoke to him about it, and he said he didn’t see me either, which, in those conditions is fair enough. But I think it was clearly my mistake. And the penalty was deserved. So just a tough day.”

He added: “Honestly, the toughest part of the race was behind the safety car trying to stay on the track. I think it kind of exposed a bit of the issue that we have with the wet tyre, when everyone is praying for a red flag, but refusing to go onto the wet tyre because it’s so bad.

“So a pretty dangerous situation to have cars literally struggling to stay on the track behind the safety car. But it’s not really anything new, so hopefully we can try and at least change it now.”

Earlier in the race he was powerless to keep the charging Max Verstappen behind.

“I just didn’t have enough pace at the beginning, but he seemed to be pretty much the only one that could actually overtake,” said the Australian.

“We were struggling with the brakes all day. We had a decent problem in qualifying that was the same in the race. So that certainly wasn’t helping things. One benefit for Max was going out so early, had a bunch of new inters, which I think probably helped a little bit.

“But I think he was just fast today. And the cards didn’t fall his way in qualifying with the red flag, they certainly did in the race. I think he was just quick and just had a good race.”

McLaren opted for high downforce for Sunday’s conditions, although Piastri didn’t blame that choice for the difficulty in overtaking.

“Top speed didn’t seem great, but I don’t think that was our biggest problem,” he said. “We were obviously gaining in the corners with the downforce we had, but clearly not enough. I think we need to understand a bit better, because the first half the race, we looked really quick, and then the second half, both cars seem to struggle a lot more.”

Elaborating on the wing level he added: “I’m not sure how limiting it was. You could argue with qualifying it helped with the extra downforce in the race. It should have helped in the majority of the lap, the first half of the race, yes, maybe you could argue it was, was holding us back a bit, because we were stuck behind cars.

“But the second half, we weren’t stuck behind cars. We were just slow. So I think it doesn’t really matter which rear wing we had on in the second half, we weren’t really going to finish any better.”