Tag Archives: Ferrari

After a frustrating weekend in Canada the Austrian GP was a more positive experience for Lewis Hamilton – and one that he needed ahead of Silverstone and the biggest weekend of his season.

Hamilton and Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc have both been calling for upgrades for several weeks, and the first step finally arrived in the form of a new floor.

It wasn’t flagged internally as being worth a significant chunk of time, but it appeared to improve the SF-25. Hamilton was certainly happier after qualifying fourth, while knowing that a small snap had cost him a shot at second.

The start of the race saw him have a brief but enjoyable tussle with former team mate George Russell, and having won that battle he settled in fourth and stayed there for the duration.

It was a decent performance, and he left Russell far behind. However he wasn’t happy with a 9.2 second gap to Leclerc – and his priority now is a search for better race pace.

“Great start, and a great battle with George from Turn 1 to 3 all the way to Turn 6,” he said when I asked about his race. “And I managed to hold on to it on the outside, which is pretty awesome.

“And after that, the car didn’t feel too bad. I was able to hold on [to Leclerc] for a second, but then I was really struggling with the balance, and we have brake issues, so having to manage these brakes from really early on, which was losing definitely some time.

“That’s something I’m really pushing to get fixed, because that’s not great. And then with balance, I was really struggling just through balance.”

Hamilton conceded that the new floor had been a better boost than anticipated as Ferrari nudged ahead of Mercedes by a single point into second in the World Championship.

“Well, I think we’ve moved forwards,” he said. “I think the upgrade was quite small, so we didn’t really know. They didn’t even mention any time, because it was that small, but I think perhaps it was a bigger result from putting the floor on. And so that’s a real positive.

“Really great to see the team bringing the upgrade and us moving forward. Being the second fastest this weekend, and getting third and fourth is a real positive. So there’s lots of good things to take from a weekend, and there’s lots of areas to focus on.

“I think qualifying was better. We found a problem that I had through my qualifying lap, which lost me a tenth due to some issue on the car. So that’s again, a positive, but I would have gone backwards if I started second anyways. So I’ve got to find race pace. That’s key for me.

“I’m still losing massive ground, to lose eight seconds, nine seconds to Charles is not good enough.”

Intriguingly after qualifying Hamilton noted that he was able to move closer to Leclerc’s set-up. When I asked why that wasn’t possible before he said: “Just struggling with the balance. I mean, he drives a massively oversteering car and somehow slides the rears and doesn’t have degradation. When I slide the rears, I get massive degradation.

“So it’s definitely something I think you have to… I suppose it took Carlos a couple years to get used to. So I don’t want to do that. I think I’m improving. As I said, I’ve got closer in quali, didn’t have the race pace.”

Hamilton remains hopeful that the next Ferrari upgrade, the last for the 2025 car, will provide some benefit – and at least enough to ensure that the team can fight Mercedes for second in the World Championship.

“Well, compared to McLaren, I don’t think anyone’s catching them,” he said. “But never say never. Hopefully with our next upgrade that works the way we hope it works, and maybe that’ll bring us a little bit closer. But we’re not a minute down this weekend, which is great.

“We should be fully focused in terms of development onto next year’s car soon, or ASAP. I’m sure all the teams are doing that already. I know Mercedes is already focused on next year.

“The key is going to be developing that engine, making sure that [we come up with] the right philosophy for next year, suspension wise-and everything.

“And I’m trying to work on with the engineers to make sure we rectify some of the issues with this car, because there’s a few problems that need fixing.”

Any Formula 1 rookie can expect to face a rollercoaster first season, and for Kimi Antonelli the last two races have certainly seen him encounter two extremes.

In Canada he qualified a solid fourth and went on to log his first podium finish with third place.

The Italian saw result that as a springboard to pushing harder earlier in the weekend, and thus being better prepared for qualifying.

However in Austria poor Mercedes form and not getting a final Q3 lap in consigned him to P9 on the grid.

Worse was to come on the first lap on Sunday when he lost control under braking for Turn 3 and took out World Champion Max Verstappen.

After the pain of clipping the chicane barrier early in Monaco qualifying this was undoubtedly Antonelli’s lowest low of a season that has seen a lot of highs.

To his credit he immediately apologised to Verstappen and to his team for his error.

He wasn’t making an ambitious lunge – something the FIA stewards acknowledged when giving him a three-place grid penalty for Silverstone – and in essence the mistake was a result of not adjusting his brake balance after the first corner.

“It was very unfortunate,” he said when I asked him about the incident. “Probably I should have just changed the brake setting going into T3, because I had the normal start, and I was just trying to maintain position. And when I went to hit the brake, I locked the rear completely, and I just lost the car.

“And when I lost the car, then I was about to hit Lawson, because obviously I lost a lot of deceleration. And then I had to avoid Lawson, and then when I reapplied the brake, I locked the front left, and just couldn’t stop the car.

“It’s a definitely the first mistake I do in the race start, and definitely it’s a big lesson, especially I just should have changed the brake setting, and none of this would have happened. So I think is a lesson for next time, and I’ll try to come back stronger in Silverstone.”

Expanding on where he’d gone wrong he noted: “Obviously, for a race start, we have the brake balance set to avoid locking fronts. But obviously T3 starts to be a strong braking, even in lap one.

“And definitely the brake balance for that corner was too rearward, and that caused the rear locking. And so I just should have changed the brake balance and put it a bit more forward, and none of that would have happened.”

Antonelli is smart enough and well trained enough to know that there were going to be mistakes in 2025. The trick is to learn from them, and he’d proven to be pretty good at that thus far.

“Obviously you can expect that in the first season you can have big highs and also big lows,” he said. “Of course, the thing I want is to minimise are these lows, and I want to be more consistent as possible.

“This is a mistake from my side, and same as the one I did in Monaco. So I just need to reset, and try not to repeat the same mistake. Obviously, this was first time that happened to me, something like this. And definitely for next time, I will know better how to react.”

“In the constructors’, it’s very important to bring points. And today I just threw points away, and especially because such a close fight with Ferrari.

“So it’s important to really reset and come back stronger in Silverstone. I did it already after the triple header. So definitely, that’s the goal, and there’s no reason why I wouldn’t come back stronger for next weekend.”

The Austrian GP is the biggest race of the year for Red Bull and a massive one for the tens of thousands of Max Verstappen fans who travel south from the Netherlands.

In that context a Turn 3 retirement for the World Champion was a total disaster. And yet to his credit the man himself shrugged it off and was very generous to Kimi Antonelli after he was taken out by the Italian teenager.

He may have let himself down with the road rage incident with George Russell in Barcelona, but his measured reaction to the Austrian disappointment was an indication that – for the most part – Verstappen is growing into the role of F1 elder statesman, able to deal with the ebb and flow of fortune.

He knows too that he’s had his own moments, especially in his early days, and it helped that Antonelli was quick to apologise.

His calm demeanour may also have been confirmation that he really doesn’t believe that he’s still in with a shot of the title, despite Montreal showing that McLaren can be vulnerable.

He might have stolen sixth place in Austria, but that was probably all that was on offer anyway, so in that sense wasn’t such a big deal.

On top of that the ultra cynical view is that no points for Red Bull could be quite handy if there’s a top three constructors’ championship performance element that could make it easier for Verstappen to walk away from his 2026 and beyond contract in the coming weeks.

You really couldn’t make up the fact that he was taken out by a car from the team he might want to join…

“Of course, it’s not what you want,” said Verstappen when I asked about the disappointment of an early retirement in front of his fans. “At the end of the day, probably I’m the most disappointed about it, but at the end that’s racing as well.

“We’ve had a lot of great moments here, so probably we got a little bit spoiled with that as well at the same time. So sometimes that’s the case.”

He added: “Every year for me is different, because cars change, tyres change as well. So you can’t say that ‘Oh, because we were good the last few years at this track, it should be no problem, it will be good.’ There are always so many factors that come into play that you have to nail to be competitive. And clearly, this weekend, we were not.”

Verstappen admitted that initially he didn’t know who had hit him.

“We had a really good start,” he said. “So that was I think already a nice improvement from I think the last two races where I was not particularly happy with the start. Then in Turn 3, the race was over. Of course at that point, I didn’t know what happened.

“We had quite a bit of damage, the car nearly turned off. I guess unlucky a little bit yesterday in qualifying [with yellow flags], and unlucky today in the race.

“But of course, if you look at the weekend, we were not where we wanted to be, I guess, in terms of pace. And we have to try and analyse that, and hopefully have a little bit of a more positive weekend next week.”

Antonelli, who kept his helmet on, admitted that he couldn’t hear the other side of their subsequent conversation.

“I just asked what happened,” said Verstappen. “Because he was the only car that was there with me with his wheel hanging off. So I was like, I’m pretty sure that he hit me. And then of course I saw the footage once I came back.

“It happens, I mean every driver has made a mistake like that in their careers. And also Kimi is a very big talent, so he learns from that, and that’s all fine.”

Pressed on Antonelli he said: “I spoke to him already. But for me it was already case closed anyway, I saw what happened. And no one does these things on purpose. It can happen.”

As we approach the mid-point of the season at Silverstone Verstappen is 61 points behind World Championship leader Oscar Piastri, and thus the slim hopes that he could keep in touch with the McLaren drivers taking points off each other are fading.

“I was never thinking about that anyway,” he insisted, “So we just take it race-by-race, and we try to just find more performance with the car, try to learn from all the things that we are doing, and then we’ll see what happens.

“The McLaren pace, I don’t think about at the moment. I just think that for sure there is more in it, but we’ll see if we can find it.”

Updates are on the way, but he admits that it’s impossible to judge their potential impact.

“Is it enough to challenge McLaren? I’m not sure. Probably not. But I also don’t want to sound depressed, or whatever.

“I know that everyone in the team always gives it 100%, and we keep pushing, keep learning, keep trying to bring more performance to the car, and that’s the only thing that we can do.”

McLaren was utterly dominant in Austria, but Verstappen hasn’t given up hope of making the Woking team’s life difficult on occasion.

“It’s a bit hit and miss, right? Because if you say to me that question in Montreal, it’s a bit different. So some tracks probably work a bit better for certain cars, and then other tracks, it’s a bit closer. In general they’re definitely the benchmark.”

Lewis Hamilton hasn’t always been in an upbeat mood after qualifying sessions or races this season but a strong performance in Austria put a smile on his face on Saturday afternoon.

He wasn’t too happy with the car on Friday, but after overnight changes he was a solid fifth in FP3. Come qualifying he was seventh in Q1 and eighth in Q2 before putting in his best lap of the weekend to claim P4 on the grid.

Even that wasn’t quite perfect, with Lewis highlighting a snap in Turn 6 that potentially cost him a front row slot alongside Lando Norris.

There have been false dawns before, but there are at least signs that things are starting to come together for the seven-times World Champion

“Definitely made some progress overnight,” he said when I asked him about his session. “I was much happier with the car in P3, and the direction we went I think has been really positive.

“And I think edging closer in terms of performance to Charles, who’s really, really used to the car. He hardly ever changes it. And so I think that’s real positive.

“I think also my I had more time in the lap. I was nearly three-tenths up going into Turn 6, and I had a massive snap going in, and then I came across the line 0.06 up. So that would have put me second.

“So there’s positives in it, for sure. And I think operationally, the team did a really great job today. It’s the best qualifying process operationally that we’ve done, I think.”

Expanding on that theme he added: “Operationally, I think the guys in the garage always do an amazing job. But I just think how calm the people the guys were, the head engineers were on the pit wall.

“The timing was spot-on, when they got us into the pit lane, the gaps they were giving us, staying out of the traffic management, not getting penalties for traffic here, the turnarounds were just spot-on, really good.”

In Austria the team has its first major update in many weeks in the form of a completely new floor. Hamilton is convinced that it’s an improvement.

“The guys, they’ve definitely been able to extract more from the floor this weekend. It was a really small step. First there’s degradation in floors, so a new floor is always a little bit better.

“And then on top of that, the step of improvement and performance. And so I’m really thankful to the team back at the factory, for the work that put in to bring it.”

Hamilton insisted that there was no disappointment in just missing out on an even better grid position,

“No, I mean, jeez, I’ve been in this business for such a long time. You win some, you lose some.

“I’m grateful that we’re on the second row at least. And usually our race is better, our car is better in the race generally, than it is usually in qualifying. So we’ve improved in qualifying this weekend. Let’s hope that we can carry that over into the race.”

Hamilton says he can see the team improving, but he knows it’s a not a fast process.

“Bit by bit,” he said. “It’s definitely slow to change. We are making progress, but there are lots of things that need to continue to improve for us to be able to do what we do, like this weekend consistently, weekend in, weekend out. But we’re working on it.

“I hope we can take this performance through to Silverstone and be in the mix of the fight. That would be freaking awesome! I think, for me, I’m continuing to keep my head down, continuing to work away. The fact is, every time I go to the track, it’s a new characteristic of the car at that track.

“When I started on Friday, I’m like, ‘Shoot, this is so different to what I raced here with last year.’

“You’d be just so surprised at the different way you have to set things, and the different way you have to turn the car through corner, but I think I’ve got on top of it to the best of my ability. Ultimately, the last lap wasn’t good enough. But I keep working on it.”

In the immediate aftermath of the collision between the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in Canada team boss Andrea Stella was quick to suggest that now the inevitable contact had been got out the way everyone would learn and move on from it.

It was a sentiment echoed in Austria on Thursday by Norris, in the wake of some frank discussions over the past 10 days or so about the Briton breaking rule number one – hitting your team mate.

Norris, who took full responsibility within seconds of the incident happening, agrees that valuable lessons have indeed been learned – albeit via a somewhat painful process.

“There’s been a good amount of talks, there’s been good understanding of everything, realising my thoughts and understanding things from my side and explaining that to the team,” he said.

“But I think I made it clear from the immediate moment that I misjudged it, and I took the fault for it.

“Of course, not the most joyful conversations, but conversations that needed to be had, clearly, and obviously from us as a team, because it’s not just about myself, it is how we perform as a team.

“And we all know what rule number one was, and continues and will always be. So some very constructive things, and in the unfortunate way, but a good way. I think many things have come out stronger than I would say they were prior to the weekend.

“Which you might have not expect, but I think is a good outcome. Through an unfortunate circumstance, a lot has been learned, and a lot of a lot of things have turned into being stronger than they were before, which is just a good thing for all of us.”

Expanding on precisely what had been learned Norris made it clear that it was more a case of maintaining trust, and that the actual Papaya Rules that govern how the drivers fight each other have not changed.

“No, everything’s the same,” he said. “But I think one of the first good lessons was just me taking accountability for it, which I did in the moment, me owning up, me taking accountability for what happened, and responsibility for what happened.

“I think sets a good example for us as a team. Not that I’m here to try and set like the best example of how to earn up for mistakes! Also one of the things that over the last few years, we’ve done much, much better at, and I think we’re at the top level now, is how we can work as a team.

“Because it’s part of sport, it’s part of nature and it’s human to make mistakes, is taking responsibility, learning from it, and then coming forward and improving. So yes, I think from that point it was an unfortunate positive.

“But it’s also between the trust and the honesty, I think that Oscar and I have for one another, it’s important that we keep it up.”

Norris has seen how things can go wrong: “We stay strong as a team, because we don’t want to have the downfall that we know many other teams have had in the past. We want to race each other fair and hard and on the limit, and not have a repeat of what happened last time out.

“And that takes both of us, even though Canada was on me. So, from a mentality point of view, from a constructive point of view, I think that’s why it was positive.”

Norris admits that it wasn’t easy to get over the disappointment of Canada.

“It took me a little time, because my team means everything to me,” he said. “The people that I’ve grown up with, the people who have given me my opportunity in F1, and I want to win with McLaren.

“So for me, for what happened in Montreal, to have happened with my teammate, disregarding whether it was with any other car, but it was my teammate, this is probably the most painful part for me, because it’s the last thing that I would ever want to happen between me and my teammate.

“Of course for the action to come for me, so I felt bad, I felt very bad for for the team, and all the people who work in McLaren. So it was a tough couple days.

“But also I think something I got better at is dealing with those moments and speaking to Andrea, my team around me, Zak, and trying to move on as quickly as possible was very important. So coming to this weekend with that in the past, and go again.”