Tag Archives: F1

Lewis Hamilton’s rollercoaster Ferrari season continued at Spa, as he turned a disappointing first couple of days into a charging performance in the race – and overcame a few hurdles along the way.

There’s was a lot to deal with, as he had a new performance engineer in his corner, albeit someone he knows from his Mercedes days.

Meanwhile the team introduced an upgraded suspension package that had been trialled at a filming day. There was also another unspecified mechanical element that Charles Leclerc had previously tried on his car, but which Lewis had not yet run before Spa.

Throw in the fact that it was a sprint weekend and life became quite complicated, especially on Friday, with just FP1 in which to sort things out.

A frustrated P18 in sprint qualifying, Lewis was then demoted from P7 to P16 in Saturday’s Q1 session after losing his lap time to track limits, a mistake he took the blame for.

With little to lose he then joined three other drivers in dropping out of parc ferme and starting from the pitlane with added downforce for the rain expected on Sunday, taking the opportunity to add a fresh PU to his pool.

The delayed start and extra safety car laps meant that he couldn’t use the full potential of his bigger wing, but it was certainly a help in the early wet laps as he charged up from an initial 18th to 13^th.

He then made a superbly-timed call to switch to slicks on lap 11, which put him into seventh by the time those ahead had pitted.

High downforce then became something of a handicap and he spent the rest of the race behind Alex Albon.

Nevertheless it had been a good day, and he had a smile on his face after the flag.

“Obviously massively challenging being all the way back there,” he said when I asked him about his race. “But we made some changes overnight.

“So much in the build-up to this week, obviously, with the upgrade that we had. There’s basically two elements to it. One of those elements, we had it to test back in Montreal, but I didn’t end up testing it. Charles ended up testing it, and he ended up using part of it for a couple of races.

“He did a great job today, and he’s feeling more acclimatised. For me it was the first time using it, and that spin that we had [on Friday] caught me out, because we didn’t have settings.

“Also a change of engineer, so we’re both in the deep end, basically. And I think we did a really good job overnight to rectify some of those, tweak it, fine tune it. And the car was so much better today to drive. So I had a lot of fun trying to make my way through.”

Hamilton felt that the race should have got going a little earlier, a view shared by others who had added downforce for the wet but could not take full advantage.

“We obviously started the race a little bit too late, I would say. I kept shouting, like, it’s ready to go, it’s ready to go. And they kept going round and round and round.

“So I think they’re probably overreacting from the last race, where we asked them not to restart the race too early, because visibility was bad. And I think this weekend they just went a bit too much the other way, because we didn’t need a rolling start, for example.

He added: “Definitely could have done a standing start, especially at the end there, because it was almost a dry line. It was hardly any spray. So definitely could have done that.”

Lewis said that he got the change to slicks just right.

“I’m really working to try to finesse that, to get it right each time. And I think I would say that’s been an area for me that’s not always been the strongest. And in the last race I called it, it was maybe a one lap too early, and I think this today was spot on.

“I probably could have just about done it one lap earlier, but it was like pretty much right there.”

Hamilton admitted that it hadn’t been a great weekend for him in the context of various changes. However, the race turned it into a positive.

“We obviously had these upgrades,” he said. “Everyone back at the factory works so hard. And then when you come and put a performance like I had in these past two days, it’s tough, because that’s not what the team deserves.

“And as I said, it wasn’t a case of necessarily coming in and not being in the right mind through the weekend, there were a few factors that did affect particularly on the Friday. Saturday, was just me.

“But I recovered today. So got some points, we outscored Mercedes on points, which is great. Charles did a great job. Clearly, the car is improving because Charles was able to hold on to another podium.”

Regarding the change to his engineering team he said: “”It’s not easy to switch engineers within the middle of a season, but it’s someone that I’ve known for years, who was actually on my previous team with me, but not in that position.

“So we’re getting used to each other and learning, having to learn, like, super, super quick. As I said, I think the changes that we had really caught both of us out.

“But I think we did a great job overnight, and we’ll just get stronger and stronger together.”

Lewis agreed that Spa gave him something to build on.

“I think this one’s definitely one to kind of put behind me, and I definitely feel confident going forward from here as I said, having learned more about the car today, fine tuned it. I’ll set that up better for next week, be at the factory on Wednesday. So yeah, I don’t see why we won’t have better results going forward.”

The surprise package of Spa qualifying was Alex Albon, who popped up in P5 at the end of Q3.

The Williams driver had endured a frustrating sprint qualifying, with PU issues contributing to his 16^th place on the grid.

In the sprint itself he finished in the same position, and prior to main qualifying he opted to make some aero changes – and somewhat counter intuitively given the rain forecast for Sunday he actually took downforce off while others were adding it.

Of course, it’s all relative to where you start from, and he felt that he was running too much wing.

He was ninth in Q1 and then just made it through to the last session with P10 in Q2. His fifth place in Q3 came as surprise to him as much as anyone else as he headed a very closely matched group behind the top four.

“It’s always nice to be on that side of it,” he said when I asked him about the session. “Really happy. I would say we were quite draggy on the sprint race, and we decided to drop some wing out of the car just to be in line more with other people. I felt like in the sprint race, I was quick, but couldn’t do anything behind any other cars.

“So it means going into qualifying, everything feels a little bit trickier, because you’re obviously sliding around a little bit more, the tyres fall away from you more as well. We fixed the deployment, which was the biggest difference from Friday to today.”

Albon conceded that he didn’t expect the change to work so effectively.

“I would say on pure pace, I felt less competitive during qualifying than I was at any point before the before the qualifying session. So it felt tricky. I mean, I was P10 in Q2 and I didn’t feel that happy.

“I didn’t really know where I could get more positions, let’s say. And then Q3 happened, and I found a chunk of time. So I put it down to tyres, as it always is, and we found the sweet spot today on the last run.”

He added: “I didn’t feel comfortable. I felt like when we when we took off the down force, we made the car much harder to drive, and the tyres weren’t lasting the whole lap. So it was becoming harder and harder.

“You go quicker in sector one and sector two, and sector two, and then you go slower again. You never felt like you could get all the lap in one place, and then in Q3 I did. I got it all in one. So I was really happy.”

Albon wasn’t concerned about compromising his wet weather form for the race, indicating that he still has a decent level of downforce.

“We were so far on the draggy side, though, that we’re still okay. If you remember Silverstone, I think it was the Red Bulls and ourselves, we were quite low on downforce, and we paid the price when it rained on Sunday.

“So we made sure not to overdo it. But yeah, hopefully we’ll be okay. I still think as a team, we struggle a bit more in the wet compared to some other cars out there. So if it can stay dry as long as possible, that will be great.”

He remains confident about his race form, although hopes of a dry race receded on a wet Sunday morning.

“We obviously haven’t done enough laps yet to really set up the car into a perfect place. I think a lot of that will come back to us just with setup changes.

“Being a sprint-based weekend, we haven’t really been able to do much. We’ve got more downforce. I think we need to see, because it hasn’t been the easiest weekend so far just to get the laps together.

“I think our race pace is strong. It’s hard to know, because I’ve been in DRS train the whole race this morning, but my race pace was good on Friday. I think we’ll be okay.

“We just need to kind of get some clear air, and I hope maybe the cars in front clear off and I can do my race.”

Inevitably the recent management changes at the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team provided the big talking point at Spa on Thursday, and of course the man we wanted to hear from was Max Verstappen.

Many observers suspect Christian Horner was ousted at least in part as an attempt to keep the Verstappen camp onside, and to help ensure that the Dutchman remains at the team into 2026 and beyond.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

If that’s the case it was something of a roll of the dice, because any such commitment is far from set in stone, it seems, despite his long-term contract.

When quizzed on Horner’s departure Verstappen was adamant that the decision to oust Horner was made by the parent company in order “to steer the ship in a different direction” – and that just like everyone else in the team he was informed that it has happened, and was obliged to accept it and move on.

“At the end of the day management and of course the shareholders decided that they wanted a change,” he said.

“And at the end of the day, they run the team. And I’m the driver, so whatever they decide, it’s fully in their right to do what they want. And that’s basically how it happened.

“And at the same time now sitting here, you look back at those 20 years of Red Bull, I think we’ve had a lot of great, great years, great, great results. Now, naturally, of course, are also years where it’s not going that well.

“And I think the last one and a half years have not gone how we would have liked, and management decided they wanted to steer the ship in a different direction, probably.

“And then everyone else, of course, has to, anyway, agree to that and look forward. And I am looking forward.

“Of course, I had already quite a few meetings with Laurent [Mekies] as well. The last two weeks have been quite intense for him to jump in.”

Verstappen paid tribute to his former boss.

“I’m equally also excited for the team now moving forward, because that’s what we have to do,” he said. “Looking back doesn’t make sense. It’s not going to make you faster.

“But at the same time you do appreciate of course those 20 years, and especially from my side the 10-11, years, I mean, part of Red Bull. Those things will be remembered.

“And the relationship between myself and Christian, for example, that doesn’t change. Of course, he’s not here now or during a race weekend, but it’s still like a second family to me.”

Asked if he was surprised by the Horner news he said: “At the end of the day, I think in this world things like that they can happen. And when they told me, it’s not like they just said this is what we just decided and then you hang up on the phone. You have a conversation about it.

“Now, I don’t need to go into the details of what they said. But it was okay, if you guys think that is the way forward, I’m the driver, you decide, and this is how we’re going to do it.”

Verstappen downplayed the part played in recent events by any conflict between Horner and father Jos, and insisted that the change wouldn’t impact any decision on his future.

“I think people can have a difference in opinion here and then. And I actually expect that to happen, because if everyone always agrees, there is a problem, you need to have difference in opinions. And yeah, that’s now something that we work with in a different direction.

“I’m excited about it. I don’t think it will matter at all, you know, for my decision in the future. At the end the only thing that matters is that we work on the car and make it as fast as we can make it, really, and like I said, the last one and a half years have not been where we want to be.

“Now, we try and be more competitive this year, a little bit, but for sure, also with the new regulations.”

That suggestion that there is indeed a decision to be made on his future was an intriguing one, given the debate over a potential move to Mercedes.

However when I asked if he there was a chance he would not be at RBR in 2026 and there was an option to go elsewhere he was keen to downplay the idea.

“There’s also a possibility I don’t wake up tomorrow, that there is no driving at all!,” he joked. “So life is unpredictable. But in general, I’m very happy where I’m at, and I hope and that was still the target that we set out when we signed a new deal, that I would drive here until the end of my career.”

Meanwhile Verstappen stressed that it was too early to form any opinions about a different approach from Mekies.

“Time will tell. I cannot say right now within two weeks with not even action on track, that suddenly everything is different or better, but we are trying to be better, and we are trying to work on that.”

He added: “It’s been good. I like Laurent, he’s a very nice guy first of all, very clever guy. He’s been in different areas of the F1 paddock as well, and I think that can be helpful.”

Silverstone hasn’t been kind to Charles Leclerc of late, and remarkably the Ferrari Formula 1 driver’s frustrating P14 in last weekend’s wet race replicated his result at the same venue in 2024.

The difference is that at this stage last year he’d had a much better season, winning in Monaco and lying third in the championship on 150 points, whereas this year he’s fifth on only 119 and has yet to secure a victory.

To be fair he has logged four podium finishes whereas team mate Lewis Hamilton has yet to make the top three.

Nevertheless it’s not been the year that he was expecting given the momentum that the team had at the end of 2024.

“It’s a bit of a shame, because until now, I kept saying that we were maximising the package that we had,” he said after Silverstone when I asked him to sum up the year so far.

“But clearly today I did not maximise the package that I had, at least on the Sunday. Very often on the Saturday, I think we felt like we left something on the table.

“Very often coming the Sunday, we always put everything together and since the beginning of the season. I don’t have much more to say, but today, clearly, I left points on the table, and that’s not nice.”

The reality is that Sunday at Silverstone was a complete nightmare for Leclerc. He was one of several drivers who followed George Russell into the pits for slicks at the end of the formation lap, a call that didn’t pay off.

“For sure, this did not help,” he said. “However, we were kind of nowhere the whole race. And when I say nowhere, it’s like, really nowhere. I was a second off and on top of that, I was doing lots of mistakes. I was really struggling to keep the car on track.

“So it was an incredibly difficult day. I need to analyse what was going on, what did I do in terms of tools, in terms of setup, in terms of driving that made everything worse, because today was extremely difficult.”

Pressed on the call for slicks he said: “That was my decision. I thought the first and second sector was kind of for slicks third sector was wet, but this I expected it. I had seen it, but I expected the track to dry up a lot quicker. It did not.

“And I think we were quite a few to have done that, mistakes of thinking that it will dry out quickly. This is part of the reason why we had a bad race.

“But I would say that the biggest part is the lack of pace today, and on that, I want the answers before going back home. So I’ll work hard to try and understand what was going on there.”

In his desperation to make up ground he became embroiled in a fraught battle with his old team mate Carlos Sainz that left the Spaniard frustrated.

“I did speak to him. I mean, Turn 4, it was aggressive, but I don’t regret that. That’s the way I had to do it. It was the only place on track that I could overtake.

“The one in Turn 15 was a mistake from my side, and that was clearly my fault. And I went to see Carlos for that, because that I know cost him points, and I’m sorry for that.”

At the end of the day the main issue was an overall lack of speed relative to Hamilton, who was himself disappointed to be only fourth at the flag.

“I didn’t see Lewis’s pace, but for sure, he was much, much stronger than me,” said Leclerc. “So the only positive I’ll say is that whenever you’ve got Lewis in the same car and being much faster than me today, there are definitely some things that I will learn from a day like this.

“When you struggle as a team and the two drivers are struggling, it’s a lot more difficult to know what’s going wrong. There we’ve got an example extreme in both ways.”

Leclerc is in no doubt about what he needs from the car in the second half of the year, and the hope is that a upgrade package scheduled for Spa will help.

“Eventually, it’s the performance that we need. We’ve got some upgrades coming, which will cure some particular weaknesses of the car, which I think will help us in some phases of the corner.

“I won’t go too much into detail, but again, I think there are some weaknesses. We’ve identified them, and we’ll try and fix them as soon as possible.”

Regarding the upgrades he added: “It’s still early days, but we’ll see how it goes. It’s still two weeks.

“I know that everybody’s pushing very hard production-wise, to try and give us upgrades as soon as possible. If they are here, I hope it can help us to do a significant step.”

Christian Horner has taken to social media with his first public reaction to his sudden departure from Red Bull Racing.

The news was confirmed today after Horner was relieved of his duties by Red Bull’s top management on Tuesday.

He has been replaced as CEO and team principal by erstwhile Racing Bulls boss Laurent Mekies.

In a short statement on Instagram Horner gave no details of the circumstances surrounding his departure, and instead paid tribute to the team and the people he has worked with over the years.

“After an incredible journey of twenty years together, it is with a heavy heart that today I say goodbye to the team I have absolutely loved,” he said. “Every one of you, the amazing people at the factory, have been the heart and soul of everything that we have achieved.

“Win and lose, every step of the way, we have stood by each other as one and I will never forget that. It’s been a privilege being part of and leading this epic team, and I am so proud of our collective accomplishments and you all.”

He continued: “Thanks to the amazing partners and fans who enabled us to go racing. Your support has helped grow the team from its humble beginnings to an F1 powerhouse that laid claim to six Constructors’ Championships and eight Drivers’ Championships.

“Equally, thank you to our rivals, with whom there would be no racing at all. You’ve pushed us, challenged us, and enabled us to achieve accolades we never dreamed possible. The competition has made every victory sweeter and every setback an opportunity to develop and grow.

“Formula 1 is a sport built on relentless ambition, passion, and respect. The rivalries have been fierce, but the mutual drive to innovate and raise the bar is what has made this journey so special.

“It’s been an honour to be part of this incredible era of motorsport. I leave with immense pride in what we’ve achieved and also with what’s in the pipeline for 2026 — and huge respect for everyone who’s made F1 the pinnacle it is today.”