Adam Cooper F1

Binotto with former Ferrari colleague David Sanchez in Monza

Audi AG CEO Gernot Dollner insists that the management combination of Mattia Binotto and Jonathan Wheatley will be the “perfect constellation” for the German marque’s Formula 1 project.

Binotto started last month as COO and CTO of Sauber, while Wheatley will join next summer as team principal after first undertaking gardening leave following his end-of-season departure from Red Bull.

They replace Andreas Seidl and Oliver Hoffman, who had been running the Hinwil project.

Dollner insists says that the two newcomers will have specific roles in the operation.

“We started by the end of July to realign our management structure with clear responsibilities,” said Dollner.

“And I’m really happy that we found a strong management for our F1 project with Mattia Binotto, who will be in lead for all the operations in Hinwil as COO and CTO, and at the latest July 1 next year with Jonathan Wheatley, who will be team principal and taking care of all the racing operations on track.

“And with this we believe very future-oriented set up with a strong dual leadership team, one taking care of the operations with the project and the car, and the other one handling our operations on the race track and being the spokesperson. We believe that we found a perfect solution for our future operations.”

Expanding on the decision he said: “Mattia is to me, the perfect fit to our team with his 30-year experience. He knows how it feels to win. He has experience in different roles.

“And so together with Jonathan, who will join later, we believe that we have a perfect constellation to see where we are right now, and really to create a set-up, an organisation, technological aspects, to develop that plan that brings us to the top in the future.”

Dollner denied rumours that at one stage Audi had considered cancelling the F1 project.

“To be honest, that was that was never questioned,” he said. “It was never questioned that F1 is a great motorsports platform, the pinnacle of motorsports worldwide.

“We just re-evaluated if our setup is the right one. And as you know, we then came up to take over complete responsibility for the Sauber team earlier than we expected.

“And in the second step, we now established future-oriented management structures, so that was not our question. It was more how to how to organise, and how to how to move on.”

Dollner conceded that Audi has now realised that it will take longer than anticipated to become a frontrunning team.

“We see our F1 project really, as a long-term project,” he said. “And after I joined Audi, in September last year, we did an evaluation of our project, and it ended up with the setup we found, and also we maybe recalibrated our time path to a more realistic to a more realistic one.

“We can’t tell details, as we are still discussing several aspects, how to sort out. But I think we are quite realistic when it comes to timing.”

He added: “We are aware that it will be a several-year programme. We started the discussion how ambitious we can be, but we haven’t finished that discussion.

“And so we will have that in the upcoming month, and after re-evaluation of the of the actual management team, and then come with that information later.”

Horner says Verstappen is playing his part in trying to turn things around

Christian Horner insists that Max Verstappen is “not panicking” and remains sully supportive of Red Bull Racing despite the recent drop-off in the form of the RB20.

Verstappen has made it clear in public that he’s unhappy with how races have gone recently, having finished a distant sixth in Italy last weekend.

However Horner says that the Dutchman is still fully behind the ongoing efforts to turn things around for the remainder of the season.

“What’s really impressed me with Max is how he’s really engaged in this process,” said Horner. “He’s not panicking. He’s working with the engineers. He’s explaining very clearly where the issues are. He’s putting the time and effort in.

“He was in early [on Sunday] morning, he was on Zoom calls last week, he’ll be on the simulator before the next race, and he’s really working hard at this.

“And I think he’s shown great maturity as a World Champion, the way he’s working with the engineering group.

“Nobody likes the situation we’re in at the moment. Nobody’s happy with it, and we’ve got to work really hard to turn it around. But the one thing this team has is strength and depth and talent, and we’ll come back.”

Verstappen has made it clear that he would have liked Adrian Newey to have stayed at RBR, but Horner downplayed any potential impact of the former technical chief’s departure.

“I think we would have had all of these issues, because the issues were already there, and one man’s input could never be so dramatic so quickly,” he said. 

“This started to really highlight itself in Miami, and Adrian was plugged in up until Friday of Miami, so there’s no way it would have impacted so quickly.

“F1 is a team sport. It’s a team it’s a team issue, and the team will come up with a resolution.”

Horner said that the team is looking everywhere for the roots of its current issues.

“You’ve got to question everything,” he said.  “You have to question has something else changed? So you can leave no stone unturned.

“When the car is in the window and it works, you see in Austria, all four sets of tyres, Max put the car on pole position, and was leading the race easily until the final pit stop.

“Spa in the wet, even if you take out Max’s super talent, Checo was still on the front row.

“When the car is in the window it works as predicted, or closer to prediction. But that window is so small, and that’s what we have to work on, and we have to broaden its operating window.”

Horner acknowledged that there are some correlation issues.

“I think you have to pick your tools,” he noted. “CFD and wind tunnel data, obviously, it’s not unusual that when something’s not working on the car, you end up with a different reading from your simulation tools, and they don’t converge.

“Then you get three sets of data. You get CFD, you get wind tunnel, and you get track. Obviously, the one that really counts is the track data, but to develop it, it’s like telling the time with three different watches.

“You’ve got to focus on the tool that’s going to give you the most valuable input. And of course, the track data is the most reliable.”

Mercedes has lost race performance since Spa

Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff admits that the W15 has lost “quite a chunk” of performance since its strong run of form prior to the summer break.

The Brackley team won three of the four races held before the break, culminating in a one-two on the road at Spa, although original winner George Russell was disqualified and Lewis Hamilton inherited the victory.

However race form has dipped again and after finishing seventh and eighth in the Dutch GP the team logged fifth and seventh at Monza.

“It was better than Zandvoort,” said Wolff when asked by this writer about the Monza race. “But we are quite a chunk of from pre-summer performances. I think we scored a podium in five races or six races and three victories, two on merit.

“And we don’t seem to be playing there at the moment, in the front. And when you’re on the back foot pace-wise, then obviously you’re in a bit of a no-man’s land in terms of strategy. So it’s good that we have a little bit of time to analyse that.”

Wolff admitted that tyre management in races, something that worked so well for Russell at Spa, is the key weakness at the moment.

“I think we’re able to extract a single lap, which is in principle, good news,” he said. “But then the balance isn’t, in a way, good enough to keep the tyres happy for the race.

“That’s been a little bit the topic since Zandvoort, it’s been more on the edge, more difficult to find the right balance.

Regarding Monza he added: “We suffered from front left graining, I think it came at various times, with George the graining started a bit earlier in stint one, and then we were very defensive in our lap times in the second stint in order to maybe extract more tyre performance, maybe to make a one-stop last, but then the graining came up.

“But it was so easy to get it wrong. As a driver it was very difficult to judge., can you make it to the end or not? Because you see the front is opened up, or the front has started to grain.”

Alonso didn’t expect to finish as high as 11th in Italy

Fernando Alonso admits that it was “painful” to miss the points in the Formula 1 Italian GP after stopping twice when his immediate rivals were able to make a one-stop work.

From 11^th on the grid the Aston Martin driver passed Nico Hulkenberg at the start, and then got ahead of Alex Albon at the pit stops.

He then dropped back when he made his second stop and went on to finish 11^th, right on the tail of Albon and the penalised Kevin Magnussen, both of whom pitted only once.

Nevertheless the Spaniard admitted that the outcome was better than he had anticipated.

“Today is much, much better than expected,” he said when asked by this writer about his race.

“I think the execution of the race was really good for us. We got lucky with the start, a very good start, we overtook Nico, and then we were 10^th, and close to Alex.

“So we kept the pace, surprisingly, with the Williams, so happy with that. And then we undercut him.

“We were running ninth for the majority of the race. And then we opted for two stops, we could not make it on one with our tyre degradation.

“We tried to catch at the end. And eight-tenths from Albon, one-tenth from Magnussen. So P11, only one second away of P9, which is very painful to lose the points, because I think we deserved it in a way, with a well-executed race. But the car is what it is at the moment, and we need to get better.”

Alonso said the two-stop strategy was the only choice for Aston Martin.

“We anticipated that the race was two stops for us,” he said. “We are quite hungry on tyres normally, our car, and we don’t have downforce on corners, so we rely completely on the mechanical grip from the tyres.

“So we stress the tyre normally more than the others. That’s our problem on Sundays. So here, because it was between one and two, we knew that for the Aston it was two.”

Alonso is resigned to the team’s current form.

“Nothing we can do,” he said. “I mean, we are in our team’s hands. And I think Lance and myself, we’re trying to do the best we can every weekend.

“One inspired weekend like this, one from my side – I know it’s going to be completely anonymous, Monza 2024 from Alonso.

“But I think this year we’ve been Lance and myself very close, two or three seconds away at the end of the race. He’s always in front of behind.

“And today was, it was one of those weekends that I was a little bit better, and I was happy with the car, and pushing to the level that maybe was beyond 100%, and that was P11. So yeah, disappointed on that.”

McLaren celebrated second and third at Monza – but did a win get away?

McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andrea Stella says that Ferrari was just as quick in Monza – and that a victory for the Woking team would have been far from clear cut.

Charles Leclerc won the Italian GP by sticking to a one-stop and inheriting the lead after Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris pitted for a second time.

Piastri came close to catching the Ferrari driver on his fresh tyres, but just missed out.

While the race has been widely considered as a missed opportunity and strategic mistake by McLaren given the pace of the papaya cars Stella insisted that it was not that straightforward.

“In terms of the race today, I think there may be a misunderstanding that the McLaren was by far the fastest car,” he said.

“I think Leclerc was as fast as McLaren today, because he could stay with Oscar in the first stint. And normally, when you have the dirty air and you can stay with the race leader, it means that you are at least as fast as the race leader.

“This normally leads to some more degradation, like then Leclerc had in the final bit of the first stint.

“And even in the second stint, he was behind the two McLarens, and still he could stay with the McLarens. And even if you look at the practice and the qualifying, I think lap times were essentially within the noise of putting together laps.”

Stella managed to draw positives from Ferrari’s pace:  “I think Ferrari at this weekend, they were as competitive as us, at least with McLaren, which for us, is somehow bad news, because it meant that we couldn’t simply cruise in the race. We needed to deal with them, and they did a good job in exploiting some of their strengths.

“But at the same time, it’s good news because we have more cars that can take points away off Red Bull.

“I think this is better news for us, and we need to make sure that we maximise the potential that is available in the car, even if it means that in this kind of circuits, Ferrari will set a very, very serious challenge for the victory.”

Stella acknowledged that Piastri could have won the race: “Especially with Oscar after the stop, if we had driven the car to say, like we drive before a one-stop, even if we see the graining on the hard tyres, we don’t get too worried, and we just simply trying to respond to Leclerc, then I think the victory could have been possible.

“The thing is, you go into some of the variations in terms of how much you use the front tyres from car-to-car. And I think our car traditionally tends to be very good on the rear tyres, but when we deal with front graining, we tend to be on the aggressive side. 

“So this made us a bit nervous, especially after Lando had a lock-up on the front left a couple of laps before, which for us, normally would have been the symptom that the tyres were starting to struggle.

“But in hindsight, I think there wasn’t enough degradation for Leclerc for us to go and beat him on a two-stop, because we missed a couple of laps. But a couple of laps is a lot.

“So it remains a question mark whether we could have won the race or not. But it looks like there was potentially more in the tyres than what we might have anticipated.

“Probably everyone entered the race with doubts as to the tyres, because nobody runs the hard tyres. And when you are P3, it’s easier to say let me try the one-stop than when you have the lead.”

Russell says the fight with Perez was a little too close…

George Russell thought he was “about to go airborne” during his battle for position with Sergio Perez in the Italian GP.

The Mercedes driver damaged his wing on the first lap and after a long early stop for a replacement he had to make his way back up.

He was fighting Perez for seventh place when the Mexican made it hard to get by.

“I thought I was about to go airborne when he was squeezing me at 340,” he said when asked by this writer about the fight. “Hard racing, and at least glad to make up one position. It was right at the very, very limit.”

Asked if he would speak to the Red Bull driver he said: “There’s nothing to say. We didn’t crash at the end of the day. And I got past him. Half a centimetre more, and it could have been a different story.”

Russell’s wing damage occurred after he got out of shape behind Oscar Piastri under braking for the first corner and had to slalom between the escape road marker boards.

He damaged a front endplate, something that the following Perez was quick to point out in the radio in an effort to force Russell to pit.

“Just got caught out by Oscar’s braking point,” said Russell. “The brakes started locking up because I was so close to him, and I had to take avoiding action.

“So it’s quite upsetting when your whole weekend goes away from you so quick. But looking at the pace afterwards, I don’t think we would have been able to keep up with the McLarens and Ferrari.”

Regarding the impact of the damage he said: “It lost a huge amount of performance in stint one, so we had to pit on lap eight.

“Obviously you change the wing, slow stop. It was a really disappointing day, but ultimately, we didn’t have the pace.

“The sport is a bit strange at the moment, with how Red Bull have lost so much pace. Ferrari seemed to be struggling in Zandvoort and all the races prior, but then they were so quick on Sunday in Zandvoort and this whole weekend. So I don’t really know.”

Horner admits that there is work to do…

Christian Horner has explained how a serious balance issue that has been a characteristic of the Red Bull RB20 for some time came to the fore over the Italian GP weekend.

The team had a difficult weekend in Monza, with Max Verstappen qualifying only seventh and finishing a distant sixth.

Horner suggested that the car is “a little too complex” compared to the 2023 model and that it has created a “vicious circle” as the team, tries to solve its problems.

“I think this circuit has exposed the deficiencies that we have in the car versus last year,” said Horner. 

“And I think that we have a very clear issue, which has been highlighted this weekend that we know we have to get on top of and address, otherwise we put ourselves under massive pressure.”

Asked why the car was difficult at Monza he said: “I think on others, running more downforce perhaps hide some of the balance issues that we have. And you can see that we got a disconnection in balance that just isn’t working.

“And then as soon as you end up in that situation, you’re harder on tyres, you end up compensating, you move the balance around, you secure one problem, you create another. So you just end up in a vicious circle.”

Intriguingly Horner suggested that the team had tried to make too big a step compared to last year’s car.

“I think you’ve got to look at all aspects of the car,” he noted. “There’s a balance issue with the car that isn’t allowing the drivers to commit to corner entry. So as soon as you calm down the rear, you do that by compromising the front.

“So then you end up with understeer, and then you kill your tyre that way. So I think what we really need to do is get the map.

“If you look at the McLaren, it almost looks like an evolution of last year’s car, a much simpler car than ours. Perhaps we’ve gone a little too complex, and perhaps we need to simplify a few things.”

Horner was adamant that the problem hasn’t just emerged recently.

“I think it’s been there for some time,” he said. “I think really going through the data, there was issues there at the beginning of the year. I think others have obviously made a step, and as we’ve pushed the package harder, it has exposed the issue.

“So even if you go back, there were a few races last year where we started to see this in Austin and so on. I think it’s a characteristic that we know we have to address. And it’s full focus in the factory of Milton Keynes to do that.” 

Horner stressed that the issue is all about finding a balance that the drivers can live with.

“We haven’t got a connection between front and rear,” he said. 

“I think Max can’t lean on the rear on the way into the corner, or Checo. And I think you then end up compensating for that.

“Then you create understeer, and it’s on such a fine line, and you can see it in qualifying, on a scrubbed tyre with a balance, we could do a 1m19.6s that matched the best times.

“Then we put two new sets of tyres on, the balance is then completely out, and we go four and a half tenths slower.”

He added: “If you dig into it, I think there were some of these issues early in the year, even when we were winning races by 20 seconds.

“Recent upgrades, whilst they’ve put load on the car. it’s disconnected front and rear. We can see that, our wind tunnel doesn’t say that, but the track says that.

“So it’s getting on top of that, because obviously, when you have that, it means you can’t trust your tools. Then you have to go back to track data and previous experience.”

Magnussen will miss the Baku race

Kevin Magnussen will serve a one-race ban and miss the Azerbaijan GP after picking up two penalty points in Monza and bringing his points total for the past year to 12.

Although Haas has made no announcement his seat is likely to be taken by Ferrari reserve Oliver Bearman, who will race for the US-owned team in 2025.

Bearman has an F2 commitment with Prema in Baku, but the Italian team should have enough notice to find another driver. 

That was not the case in Jeddah, when Bearman was called in to replace Carlos Sainz at the last minute.

Magnussen picked up a 10 second penalty plus the penalty points after contact with Pierre Gasly, with both drivers continuing after the incident.

He crossed the line in an encouraging ninth place and the best runner outside the top four teams, but was demoted a spot to 10^th.

“Yeah, frustrated about the penalty, I don’t understand it at all,” he said when asked by this writer. “Flat out, just completely confused.

“Me and Gasly raced hard into Turn 4. We had slight contact, we both missed the corner, came back on track again. No damage to either car, no consequence to the race of either of us.

“And I get a 10-second penalty. Then lap one, Ricciardo and Nico, Ricciardo put Nico in the grass at 300km/h completely destroyed Nico’s race. Massive consequence, and damage to Nico’s car, and he gets a five second penalty. Where’s the logic? I just don’t get it.”

Asked if there was anything he could do about the ban he said: “Come back in Singapore and have zero points.

“I said all the time, I’m not going to hold back, and it doesn’t make sense, and I scored a point today.”

Gasly admitted that the penalty was harsh.

“I’m a bit surprised for that,” said the Alpine driver. “Because he tried, but it was a bit of wheel-to-wheel. And in the end I really didn’t lose any time.

“I hope somehow they can revert on that, because that will be definitely unfair.”

Max Verstappen says that Red Bull’s RB20 has turned into “a monster” – and his team now has to “turn the car upside down” to find performance.

From seventh on the grid Verstappen finished a distant sixth in the Italian GP, having lost time with a bad pit stop.

However, the car lacked speed throughout, and at times he was missing the full Honda PU performance.

The only good news was that title rival Lando Norris could manage only third place.

“It was pretty boring,” said Verstappen when asked about his race by this writer. “We’re too slow. The pitstop, of course, cost me a bit. I couldn’t run full power for most of the race as well with the engine, because we had a little issue.

“And I think also strategy-wise, we could have done a better job to be at least a little bit more competitive in the fight or whatever. It wouldn’t have changed the position. But yeah, I think we didn’t do our optimal race.”

Verstappen explained a radio message about people in the team staying awake.

“That had to do with my battery percentage,” he said. “Because, of course, there are certain levels where you’re at, and certain modes that you use.

“And basically I see the battery, of course, topping up, and at one point, then maybe you can go into a faster mode. So I asked, and then they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, you can.’ Like, come on!

“These are obvious things that you need to be on top of. I know that I’m not racing anyone, but that shouldn’t matter. It’s still in an F1 race where you have to maximise everything.

“I think, today and this weekend, we were weak on a lot of fronts. And a pit stop like that again… It’s not ideal.”

Asked about his title prospects he said: “At the moment, both championships are not realistic.

“The car is undrivable. It’s a massive balance problem that we have, and that, of course, is not only over one lap, but also in the race.”

Asked if Adrian Newey’s input is being missed he said: “I’ve always said that I would have liked for Adrian to stay always, but it’s not about that now, because last year we had a great car, which was the most dominant car ever, and we basically turned it into a monster. So we have to turn it around.”

Verstappen made it clear that he has voiced his opinion about the RB20 in team technical meetings.

“I’ve said a lot, and now it’s up to the team to come with a lot of changes with the car,” he said.

“Because we basically went from a very dominant car to an undrivable car in the space of, what, six to eight months? So that is very weird for me, and we need to really turn the car upside down.

“I’ve said a lot, and now it’s up to the team to come with a lot of changes with the car, because we basically went from a very dominant car to an undrivable car in the space of, what, six to eight months? So that is very weird for me, and we need to really turn the car upside down.”

He added: “Unfortunately, I don’t have a degree in engineering or aerodynamics, but I think I gave everything that I could give.”

“I mean, it was quite clear I think for everyone, what we have to do. Now we have to turn it around. And it’s not easy to do that very quickly. And then if we can put that on the car, that it becomes more drivable.”

He conceded that third place for Norris helped his cause.

“In a way, yes, but that’s not how I like to look at the championship,” he said. “We have to go from our own fortunes, and today and this whole weekend has been very bad.”

Ocon felt he could have achieved better than 15th

Esteban Ocon was left frustrated by a switch issue after earning 15^th place in qualifying for the Italian GP.

On his in-lap after the Alpine driver highlighted that the entry switch – which locks the diff for corner entry on new tyres – had not been reset in the garage for his final lap.

It was doubly frustrating for the Frenchman as he felt that the car was stronger in qualifying than it had been earlier in the weekend.

“I think to start with on the positives, from Friday to Saturday really more like a level of performance that we had pre-Zandvoort,” he said when asked by this writer about the session.

“So really, there’s something that we touched overnight that has made the difference. We need to investigate exactly what it is, because it is not very clear at the moment, but the car, since this morning, FP3 and now, feels like more of a normal car, more like the one I’m used to from pre-Zandvoort.

“So that’s, that’s a very positive. On the other side because of that we could have gone a little bit quicker on today’s lap.”

Regarding the entry switch comment he said: “Basically, it’s a switch that I’m doing on the last corner of the previous run. But that’s normally reset in the garage, and I don’t think we’ve reset it that time.

“A bit my fault, a bit the guys’ fault, we messed it up. We should have seen it. And basically that gave me some understeer on the lap.

“And there’s going to be some work to do for tomorrow. I think our straightline speed is decent. So hopefully we can gain some places.”

Meanwhile Ocon’s team mate Pierre Gasly will start 14^th after front brake issues and a struggle for grip.

“I can’t turn the car and regardless of what we do,” he said. “We try to energise, and we have a problem with the rear, and then the front doesn’t quite come. Just felt like the grip was never there, together front and rear.

“Every single set we’ve put this weekend, we’ve had the same sort of behaviour on all compounds. We’ve tried, but unfortunately, we haven’t found the magic trick.”