Tag Archives: formula-1

April 20, 2025 · 10:01 am

Why Sainz will “pick better my fights” from P6 in Jeddah race

Sainz enjoyed his best qualifying session to date with Williams in Jeddah

Carlos Sainz continues to make progress as he finds his feet at the Williams Formula 1 team, and having qualified eighth in Bahrain he followed up with sixth place in Jeddah.

He was gifted a place by Lando Norris’s crash, but nevertheless on both occasions he has outpaced the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton and the Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda.

Bahrain ended in frustration for the Spaniard with damage from a collision with Tsunoda, and he was also penalised for forcing Kimi Antonelli off the track.

With that very much on his mind he concedes that he’s looking at a more conservative approach on Sunday’s race, when big points could be up for grabs for anyone who sees the chequered flag in one piece.

“Honestly, after Friday, I saw a very big difference in race pace between the top cars and the midfield,” he said of his race prospects.

“It seems like the top cars managed to overheat the tyres a lot less than the midfield. So I expect a very difficult race tomorrow to keep the two or three cars that I have clearly quicker behind me.

“I need to think a bit about it, think a bit good tonight. Think about whether I put on a good fight like I did in Bahrain with them, and challenge them and make myself as wide as possible, or pick better my fights.

“In the heat of the battle it will be tough to stay disciplined, but my feeling tells me probably tomorrow is a better day to live to fight another day, and give myself a good chance of finishing in the points.”

Given that history suggests that Jeddah is a race of high attrition that rewards patience, staying clear of trouble would seem to be a good strategy.

“Yeah, I agree,” he said when I put that to him. “It’s a race that requires patience; it requires discipline on staying just one step away from the wall. Today, definitely, I enjoyed pushing the limits of the car in such a demanding track, getting myself comfortable around these walls at these speeds.

“We’re going with a car that still feels not very familiar to me, but I discovered lots of new things, and tomorrow I hope to do the same, put together a solid race, and bring home the first big haul of points for Williams from my side, which is the target.

“At the same time, we’re still only in race five, and we seem to be making good progress. So step-by-step.”

Beating a Red Bull and a Ferrari twice in two qualifying sessions is a sign of progress, even if both drivers – like Carlos himself – are still in the process of adjusting to an unfamiliar car.

“Definitely another good weekend so far, right from the start of FP1,” he said. “Feeling a step better and going in the right direction with setup and driving, still having to think a lot to pull some good lap together, but definitely feeling more at home and more comfortable with things.

“Happy and proud with the progress that we’re making, with the direction we’re following, as you said, second weekend in a row, that we must be quite close to the limit of the car, given that we managed to beat a Red Bull and a Ferrari, and obviously McLaren with a crash.

“So yeah, let’s keep going in that direction, keep following the same philosophy, one step at a time, and it will come as it’s coming little-by-little.”

The fact that between them Sainz and his team mate Alex Albon are regularly getting inside the top 10 at a variety of venues has to be a positive sign.

“This is a very confidence-driven circuit,” he said. “You need a lot of confidence to hustle the car around the walls at the speeds that we’re going, and you need to trust the car.

“And I feel like definitely, this weekend, I’m a step closer to being comfortable, given that it’s a very high confidence track, I’ve been competitive. So it shows the progress.

“And the direction we’re going is the positive one. At the same time, I’m sure there will be a lot more setbacks where I will need to learn from, try set-up directions or driving styles that I’ll get wrong.

“But trial and error will keep working and give me the awareness of what I need to do to be quick with this car. For now, it’s definitely paying.”

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April 19, 2025 · 7:39 pm

Norris struggles to explain costly Jeddah Q3 crash

Norris was fastest in Q2 in Jeddah before he crashed out

Lando Norris was at a loss for an explanation and admitted that he had made his life “a lot harder” after a crash at the start of Q3 in Jeddah left him with no time in the session and stranded him in 10th on the grid.

It’s a huge blow to his title campaign with rivals Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri starting on the front row.

The shunt came after Piastri seized the initiative in Bahrain last weekend with his second win of the season, while Verstappen’s pole means that the Red Bull driver can’t be ruled out of the title fight, despite the limitations of the RB21.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Norris when I asked him to talk through the incident. “I’ve not had any time to look into it, obviously. So just a mistake I guess. I don’t know what I’ve done.

“I was pretty comfortable, I was pretty happy until then, the car was strong. So disappointed.

“Obviously, I made my life and everyone in the team’s a lot trickier for tomorrow and a lot harder, because the guys have got a big job tonight to try and fix everything. But it’s life. This happens on a rare occasion. So yeah, a tough one.”

Norris hopes to make progress on Sunday but he concedes that McLaren doesn’t have a pace advantage this weekend.

“We’ve got to look at the bright side and hope that we can have a good race tomorrow,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s going to be an easy one, because I don’t think it’s very easy to overtake around here, but we have a strong car, clearly not as good as what we would like, because we’re not on pole, and Max is first, and George is only a tenth behind.

“So it’s not like things are plain sailing at the minute. So yeah, a big job to try and do tomorrow.”

Team radio caught Norris calling himself a “****ing idiot” before he climbed out of the damaged car. Reminded of his words he stood by them.

“Makes sense!,” he said. “Well yeah, I agree with it. I should be fighting for pole and especially on a Q1 lap I shouldn’t be taking any silly risks like I seem to have done, and I need to go and review it all, like I said.

“But not a guarantee we would have been on pole, because Max looks like he did a good job. Red Bull, they were quick the whole of qualifying, it wasn’t a surprise. Would have been nice just to be in that fight. I was doing well until then, and feeling comfortable.

“I mean it makes sense, I shunted. So again, I’m not going to be proud, I’m not going to be happy. I’ve let myself down and let the team down, and the guys have got a big job to do now to fix it all.

“So, yeah, it’s the way it is. I agree with what I said, But I still look forward to tomorrow and have to try make up for today.”

The accident aside Norris agreed that he was more comfortable with the car than he was a week ago in Bahrain.

“I’m happier, but it’s a very different layout. It’s a lot grippier. The grip here is incredible. So happier. I mean, we’ve tried to work on a few things. I’ve had to work a lot of my driving.

“It’s got nothing to do with it. This is just a separate mistake, but the team are doing a good job in trying to understand these things. Yeah, just takes some time.”

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April 19, 2025 · 9:23 am

Will Piastri’s new qualifying pace give him a title edge?

Oscar Piastri has upped his game over one lap. Can he continue to outrun Lando Norris?

Can Oscar Piastri maintain the momentum that he’s started to build over the first four races of the 2025 Formula 1 season?

He heads into Sunday’s race in Jeddah just three points shy of McLaren team mate Lando Norris. They’ve been closely matched, but Piastri’s late off in the Melbourne rain proved costly and gave the Englishman the initial advantage.

Since then the Aussie has scored two wins from pole position, and he’s shown beyond all doubt that his one-lap pace has taken a big step since last year, when Norris was dominant.

Lando meanwhile has made it clear that he’s not comfortable with the MCL39, and thus far is not maximising his potential.

With his main rival on the backfoot now would seem to be the perfect time for Piastri to press home the advantage.

Amid all the talk of papaya rules and equal treatment if he continues to outqualify and outrace Norris then the World Championship will ultimately take care of itself.

“Qualifying is incredibly important I think,” he said when I put that to him in Jeddah on Thursday.

“Regardless of the kind of intra-team dynamics with pit stop preferences and whatever that that causes. Just the power of clean air is so important. So I think regardless of that, you always want to be qualifying at the front.

“But yes, with two drivers in the same car, I think with very similar pace, whenever you can be ahead, it’s a pretty major advantage.

“So it is going to be important to have good qualifying. But we’ve seen in the past that it’s not always everything, there’s other areas where you can make up the difference, if you do a good enough job.”

Piastri worked over the winter to improve his one-lap form, and it appears to have paid dividends. The team mate qualifying battle now stands at 3:2 in his favour, including the Shanghai sprint.

“I think the hard work we’ve been putting in definitely has been making a difference,” he says. “I think I’ve felt comfortable in qualifying, and felt like I’ve taken a bit of a step up. I think last year it wasn’t much that I often missed out by.

“But this year I’ve had a couple qualifying just on the wrong side of that gap still, but also more qualifyings on the right side of that gap now. So it’s been a lot of hard work in a lot of different areas, trying to get those last few hundredths of a second. And I think it has been paying off.”

His earlier dirty air reference is significant. We’ve seen this year how Lewis Hamilton in the Shanghai sprint and Max Verstappen in Suzuka were able to stay out in front of potentially faster McLarens. Piastri doesn’t believe that the MCL39 suffers more in traffic than other cars.

“Not necessarily, I think everybody struggles with it, it’s pretty similar for most of the teams,” he says. “We saw in China that the Ferrari was very quick through the whole weekend, and they also struggled to get through the dirty air. So I think it’s just a grid wide problem.

“I don’t think it’s specific to us, and I don’t really plan on testing that theory too many times hopefully! It is just difficult for everybody with more and more downforce going on, more and more dirty air.”

One intriguing aspect to the McLaren battle is that the team will have to work hard to ensure equal treatment, and especially that neither driver gets an advantage from having a single set of development parts, which happened on occasion last season when the team had to get new bits to the track asap. Piastri doesn’t see that as an issue this time around.

“I think this year the situation is very, very different,” he says. “I think last year, especially at the beginning of the season, we were incredibly keen to get whatever performance we could onto the car as quickly as possible. And we needed to make up a points deficit, in the constructors’ championship, especially.

“This year, we’re in a very different position. Obviously, we have already a decent gap in the constructors’ championship and both of us fighting for the drivers’ championship.

“It’s expected that that we’ll both have an equal opportunity and the same car to be able to fight for the drivers’ championship, and obviously in the constructors’ championship, we’re in a good place. While we have the opportunity to keep it equal, and have the same car every weekend, we should do that.”

Any advantage that either man can establish will have to come from the cockpit. You don’t have to be a sports psychologist to see the contrasts in approach between the pair, with Norris wearing his heart on his sleeve and being open about his struggles, and Piastri seemingly gliding serenely through each race weekend.

“I think for everyone, they kind of work in different ways,” he says. “For me, trying to stay calm is a very important thing. It helps me get the best out of myself. So that’s how I think I operate the best. And I think it’s been working so far.”

So does he ever get emotional in the car?

“I have been a couple of times through my career,” he admits. “And yeah, I think when they’re negative emotions, it does have a negative impact. So that’s why I try… I think it comes somewhat naturally being calm and trying to stay relaxed, but there’s a lot of conscious effort on that as well.

“But there’s also positive emotions that are there as well. I said after China if you had a camera on me, and you could see my face, I was pretty damn excited.

“So there are emotions out there. The radio is a button for a reason, and you use it when, when you think you should. There’s probably more that you don’t see under the helmet…”

What then of this weekend? Norris had the edge by just 0.163s in Friday’s FP2 session, and it will be fascinating to see how qualifying unfolds when it really matters on Saturday evening.

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April 17, 2025 · 9:51 am

How a “confusing” Bahrain GP moved Antonelli along his F1 learning curve

The Italian teenager had his best qualifying result in Bahrain but missed out on points

Kimi Antonelli’s Formula 1 education continues apace, and the Mercedes rookie learned a few more lessons in Bahrain last weekend.

He was given plenty to think about after a superb initial P4 in qualifying turned into 11th place in the race – and for the first time he failed to score any points.

Nevertheless the Italian’s progress in qualifying over recent events provides an intriguing indication of how he’s moving along his F1 learning curve.

Saturday in Australia was spoiled by floor damage, but over the next three weekends his results in Q1/Q2/Q3 were P10/P9/P8, P8/P7/P6 and P6/P5/P4.

The last result became P5 on the grid with a penalty that was no fault of his own. However, the numbers show that not only is he getting better by the weekend, but he also improves through each qualifying session, and does his best lap when it counts most.

The race in Bahrain wasn’t straightforward for Antonelli. He lost a couple of places at the start, but thereafter was still very much in contention for points, and fighting with some big names, notably Max Verstappen.

He was pitted and given soft tyres just before the safety car came out. Rather than leave him out to gain track position the team stopped him again for more soft tyres.

That third pit visit put him out of synch with the cars that he had been fighting, and left him 11th at the flag. It’s all part of his ongoing education.

“It was pretty confusing,” he conceded when I asked him about his race. “Lap one was a bit borderline, because I got pushed off in six, and then obviously lost three places, but then I was fighting back. I was back to P5. And then in the first pit stop, I knew I would have got undercut, because obviously I pitted one lap later.

“But then obviously I was able to progress again. On the medium, honestly I was struggling, because I pushed a bit too hard on the on the out lap and first lap, and then cooked the tyre. And then I found myself a bit struggling, but I still had decent track position.

“And then I put the soft again. And after two laps, obviously the safety car came out, because there was debris, and there we need to review why we made the call to go back in. Because many other people stayed out, Verstappen stayed out, and Ocon stayed out, and they were behind.

“And so we need to review why that. At the same it’s always easy to talk after, but we need to review why it happened in order to improve it for Jeddah.”

Antonelli simply did what the team told him to do on strategy.

“I didn’t decide,” he said. “I just asked them if they were sure on the last pit stop to go back in because obviously it was two laps on the tyre. And I didn’t have any new tyre, I put another used soft.

“So definitely, we need to review why. But overall, also my side I didn’t do everything perfectly, and I definitely need to see when I need to do better for Jeddah.”

His race included an incident that earned Carlos Sainz a penalty for forcing him off track: “I saw [him] in the last moment. Luckily I opened the steering wheel, because we would have crashed for sure. I don’t know if he just missed the corner, or if he just launched in.”

Antonelli’s honesty in admitting that he needs to do better is refreshing. He’s learning by the weekend, and quietly putting all the pieces together.

“Qualifying was a good step forward in terms of pace,” he noted. “Also, I felt much more comfortable racing with others, much better making overtakes, moves. I felt quite comfortable with it.

“So definitely there are positives to take away. Of course, it was not what I was hoping for, because I was aiming for a lot higher.”

Bahrain was the first venue on the 2025 schedule that he’d experienced with an F1 car, so that gave him a head start that he hasn’t enjoyed elsewhere.

“On some tracks, like Suzuka, I felt really good with the car,” he said. “But obviously, I think it will take still a few races just to understand everything, especially on different tarmacs, on tarmacs like this, that are super open and the deg is big. So still a lot to learn.

“And definitely, I still am not even halfway. So much more confidence to take with the car and better understanding, especially in the race, how much to push.

“Suzuka was a race where I didn’t have to really worry about deg. And this was the first race where deg was massive. And plus as well I found myself in a DRS train, so deg was double. Still lots to learn.”

Jeddah will be another new experience for the teenager despite knowing his way around the track, simply because of the speeds involved and the lack of margin for error.

“I did it of course in the F2,” he said. “It’s going to be the first city track with the F1, so it’s going to feel quite quick, definitely, because the pace difference between the two cars is quite big. So the first few laps are going to feel fast. But I think we can do good.”

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April 16, 2025 · 2:47 pm

How Alpine moved from “rock bottom” to fighting Verstappen

Alpine logged its first points of the season in Bahrain

Perhaps the most unexpected performance of the Bahrain GP weekend was fifth place in qualifying for Pierre Gasly and Alpine, which later became fourth on the grid after Kimi Antonelli was penalised.

Hitherto the team’s best one-lap performance of the season was Gasly’s ninth in Australia, and in China neither driver even made it out of Q1. In the race there Gasly lost the chance to move from 11th to ninth in the final results when the two Mercedes drivers were disqualified when he was himself excluded for skid wear.

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With no points on the board after three events and the team firmly last in the World Championship the pressure was mounting. Gasly was able to put that that right with a strong drive in the Bahrain race.

However he was still in sixth and holding off Max Verstappen until losing out to the World Champion on the very last lap. It was frustrating for the Frenchman, but six points was still a decent haul.

“Crossing the line was kind of like a mixed feeling,” he said when I asked him about losing out. “Because I absolutely hate losing a position in the last lap, especially after having to work so hard, like over the last 20 laps, trying to keep Max at bay.

“So yeah, it’s always frustrating. But I think on the other side, once the adrenaline is going to calm down a bit, looking back last week, we were not even fighting for the top 10, and Max was winning the race.

“So it just shows how much of a good weekend we’ve had as a team. The car was competitive, quali was amazing, the race was great. Good strategy, good pit stops, and even with that unlucky timing with the safety car, where we lost the position to Lewis, in the end still a lot of positives to take.”

Gasly admitted that the timing of the safety car was annoying, especially given that it was dispatched for debris rather than anything more serious.

“When I saw for what it was… I’m sure we’re going to talk about it. At that time, I had a nice gap on Max, I had a nice gap on Lewis and the guys around. And it’s like, we worked all the race, and now for a few bits of carbon – actually, I think, if I’m not wrong, Yuki had a contact, and it actually gave him a 10-second reduction on his pit stop time. So it was a nice gain for some guys!

“Ultimately, that’s racing, we’ve got to get on with it, and that’s the way it is. Even though it didn’t all come our way, we still managed to finish that race in P7, and score our first points of the season, which is very positive.”

It was made even sweeter by the change in form since Bahrain 2025, which admittedly was a little earlier in the season as the opening race.

“Last year, I must say, it was kind of like hitting rock bottom, both cars 19 and 20,” said Gasly. “And I think Max probably lapped us after half race last year. So a very different picture, 12 months later, we were fighting with him until the last lap.

“I’m very pleased, and always the effort the team is putting in, and just the performance we’re able to extract.

“We know where the current weakness is, we know there is some work to do in the car, like some areas which don’t quite click, like low-speed, traction, all this stuff, are areas we need to improve.

“But the overall performance of the car is massively improved. And just thanks to all the great work people are doing at the factory.”

The weaknesses may be apparent, but Gasly admits that he doesn’t know if the Bahrain form will translate to this weekend in Jeddah and beyond.

“I want to believe so, the reality is I’ve absolutely got no idea,” he said. “We did the winter test here. The car felt really good. I think we definitely had quite high expectations going into the season. Australia, I think we were competitive, but China and Suzuka was a lot more difficult.

“So I think it’s important for us to understand where the performance came from this weekend. And I’m sure we’ll be able to repeat on some of the tracks, but hopefully we can just get it more consistently.

“I want to believe that we can be competitive, like when you finish P7 and qualify P5 it obviously boosts your confidence.

“I think we will have to get some answers on why we were so competitive this weekend. But I’m having a lot more fun fighting with Max than fighting more towards the back…”

Points came as a relief for the Alpine management as well. This is not a team that can afford to be at the bottom of the table.

“I think we needed it,” said team principal Oliver Oakes. “It’s not lost on me that you flick on a TV, and you see your zero at the bottom.

“That just piles a bit of pressure on. We know we’ve got a pretty good car. We know this is a bit of a transition year for us as well, into ’26 not just new regs, but obviously on the PU side.

“The main thing as well the start of this year, I think we feel we’ve got a pretty good group there, the strategy has been good, the way we’re working in the team.

“And I think it was a question of when not if. We knew we’d get some points, I think Australia to walk away empty-handed there was a little bit annoying, because we’d sort of been in the mix the whole race. So this is just nice to sort of get started a little bit.”

Like Gasly Oakes admitted it wasn’t easy to pinpoint why the car was good in Bahrain, especially as there have been no upgrades of late.

“I think in fairness it’s a little bit the swings of F1. Australia, we were pretty competitive. Obviously, we walked away empty-handed with the rain and all the trials and tribulations. China was just a little bit difficult for us.

“And I think Japan, we were pretty okay. It was just one of those races where you qualify, and it was kind of processional. It’s clear to see a track like this suits us a little bit. I think that’s kind of normal in F1, you have some places you’re stronger, some you’re not.”

“It’s the same car. Obviously you learn more as you start running a car on different tracks, different conditions. I just think it’s really tight as well. I think whether that’s getting out of Q1 even, you sort of go, there’s not much in it.

“What was nice in the race really was I think we felt we could hold our own. I think it’s hard on different compounds. You can see that some suit some cars, not others. And you’ve got to focus on yourself as well.”

How the car fares on upcoming tracks remains to be seen.

“I think genuinely the car is performing,” said Oakes. “We’ve only done four races with a new car. You’re learning every week, not just how to set up the car, but also some weekends, whether it’s got a sprint mixed in as well, make it harder to put the car in the right place.”

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April 15, 2025 · 12:51 pm

Is there light at the end of the Red Bull wind tunnel?

The outdated Red Bull tunnel is at the heart of the team’s struggles with the RB21

The Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team’s struggles in 2025 were perfectly encapsulated by the wild swing in form from Suzuka to Sakhir.

In Japan Max Verstappen took pole and scored a virtuoso win by staying ahead of the McLarens for the duration. Just a week later in Bahrain he started seventh and finished sixth after struggling throughout with balance problems and brake issues.

The difference was that on the first occasion team and driver found something akin to the sweet spot for the reluctant RB21 after trying every option. In contrast in Bahrain they didn’t hit the target, and a poor performance was the outcome.

“I think it shows the margins and the windows that you have to work within,” team boss Christian Horner said on Sunday evening.

“We’ve been struggling with two issues this weekend, one a braking issue, and secondly, just an imbalance. And when you have that, then tyre deg, etcetera, everything looks worse.

“On top of that, we’ve had a horrible day where we had what looks like a wiring loom issue in the pit gantry causing there to be a problem with the traffic light.

“So all-in-all to actually come away with a sixth place and limit it to an eight-point deficit to Lando [Norris] with the challenges that we’ve had… We need to leave here obviously focussed on what we can sort out for Jeddah in five days’ time.”

There really was nowhere to hide for Horner, with the pit stop delays – for different reasons – adding to the woes.

“It was a bad weekend for the team,” he said. “Nothing went our way from the start of the race. We didn’t get off the line cleanly, and pit stops didn’t work well for us today, and the track temperatures got very high.

“Certainly the tyre deg, if you’ve got a well-balanced car, the whole thing just comes together that much easier.

“But it’s a 24-race championship. We’re eight points behind in the drivers’ championship, and we know we need to make progress very quickly.

“So it was important today to score the most points, and he fought for, every point that he could in a difficult car today. It’s how they add up at the end of the year. That’s important.”

The brake issue came out of the blue, and just added to Verstappen’s frustration.

“He’s not getting any bite or feel from the pedal,” said Horner. “And of course, it’s such an important tool that gives the driver so much feedback that then on top of that your entries end up compromised, you’re taking too much speed in. It creates its own issues. We need to get to the bottom that pretty quickly.”

However it’s the struggle to find a workable balance that is the consistent problem with RB21.

Something isn’t correlating between the team’s simulations and what happens when the car takes to the track on Fridays, and that’s what is giving the engineers such a headache from the start of each event.

They managed to paper over the cracks in Suzuka, but there was nowhere to hide last weekend.

“Ultimately you can mask it a little through setup, and we were able to achieve that last weekend in in Suzuka,” said Horner. “But I think this race has exposed some pitfalls that obviously, very clearly, we have, and that we need to get on top of very quickly.

“And I think we understand where the issues are. It’s introducing the solutions that obviously takes a little more time.”

Elaborating on where it’s going wrong he added: “It’s the entry phase to mid-corner that needs addressing, and giving him the ability and grip and confidence that it takes to carry speed into entry of corners. Now, that’s fundamentally an aero issue that we need to be able to give him that grip.

“We need to just again unpick it. I think that you get a big balance shift. And how these cars are working with the back or front wings and so on. So it’s unpicking all of that. Basically it’s calming the car down.”

At the heart of the problem is Red Bull’s infamously old wind tunnel. It’s been good enough to create cars that have won multiple World Championships down the years, but the current machines are super sensitive, and even the best state-of-the-art tunnels have trouble keeping up with the real world.

Throw in the Red Bull tunnel’s well-known sensitivity to extremes of low and high ambient temperatures, and things start to get tricky.

“The problems are understood,” said Horner. “The problem is that the solutions with what we see in within our tools, compared to what we’re seeing on track at the moment, aren’t correlating. And I think that’s what we need to get to the bottom of.

“Why can we not see within our tools what we’re seeing on the circuit? And when you end up with a disconnect like that, you have to obviously unpick it.

“We’ve got a strong technical team that has produced some amazing cars over the last few years, and I’m confident that they’ll get to the bottom of this issue.

“Literally, the tool isn’t replicating with what we’re seeing on the track. And then at that point it’s like telling the time on two different watches.”

He added: “Primarily the wind tunnel has driven us in a direction that isn’t replicating what we’re seeing on track.

“Then you end up with a mish-mash between what your tools are telling you, and what the track data is. Obviously now, as we’re accumulating track data, it’s the track data that’s driving the solutions.”

The team is currently developing the 2026 model in the old tunnel as well as trying to firefight with this year’s car. It will have to wait for the RB23 in 2027 before the brand new tunnel under construction in Milton Keynes starts to have an impact.

Given the current struggles you might think there would be some concerns about getting it right for the new era. However, the intriguing aspect is that Horner insists that the tunnel works well with the sort of major gains that are being made as the team explores the 2026 rules.

It’s with the fine detail at the margins of the last blast of the current rules that things get a little fuzzy, especially with how the front end of the car behaves.

“The problem that we have is that we’re at the end of a set of regulations, where the gains are very, very marginal,” noted Horner. “And I think we’re seeing some of the shortcomings in our current tunnel that struggles in that area.

“If you’re not into the final few points of downforce, when you’re making significant steps, the tunnel and the tool that we have is, as it’s proved before, more than capable for those big incremental gains.

“You need to fix or understand the issues and the limitations you have because inevitably, you will get to that point in the future. We have a new tunnel coming online for ’27, but we have the current tool certainly for another 18 months or so.”

There’s one other aspect to the current struggles. It’s almost a year since Adrian Newey left the team – would Red Bull now be better off if he’d still in place with the kind of holistic overview that served him and the team so well over the decades? We can only guess…

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April 15, 2025 · 8:36 am

Verstappen staying “neutral” despite Bahrain GP frustration

Verstappen accepts that he’s not in the title fight at the moment

Max Verstappen could be forgiven for being angry after what was a hugely disappointing Formula 1 Bahrain GP.

In fact he was pretty philosophical after what was by his standards a hugely frustrating weekend at Sakhir.

He struggled throughout with balance and brake issues, as well as tyre management. Just to add to the problems he had two slow pitstops, the first compromised by an issue with the traffic light system, and the second by wheels not going on and off the car cleanly.

Passing Pierre Gasly on the last lap was a bonus of sorts for Verstappen, but nevertheless a distant sixth place was not what he wants or expects.

“The pace was very bad,” he said after the flag. “But of course, I didn’t expect the race that I had, because basically, everything went wrong that could go wrong. That probably made it a little bit worse. I think the position where I finished is at the end of the day the maximum that we could have done.”

In the circumstances he was remarkable cool about it, in contrast for example to Monza last season when he suggested his title challenge might falter at Monza if the car didn’t get better – a rare example of him making his frustration clear in public.

On that occasion he was in the heat of a World Championship battle and fighting a rear guard action against the McLarens, but this year it’s very different.

He seems to have accepted that the title has already gone, telling Dutch journalist in Bahrain that he’s not in the fight. In that context one particularly bad race is perhaps not as stressful as it might otherwise be.

“I don’t need to reset,” he said. “I’m okay. It’s what it is. I always try to do the best I can, even in disappointing, or let’s say frustrating situations, but you have to move on. And you keep discussing, keep trying to improve.

“We know that we have our problems, even if we win a race, that doesn’t go away. I said that already last week. I’m anyway not a guy that I think when you have positive or negative scenarios that you get influenced it a lot, I just stay very neutral. Just have to keep on working.”

Verstappen had struggled with the brakes throughout the weekend. The team changed some parts under parc ferme, but the issue resurfaced during the race.

“The brakes were a little bit better today, because we were allowed to change the material,” he said.

“But the problem is not only the feeling in the brakes, which is still not where I want it to be, but also our tyres are just overheating. So when I’m braking, there is no feeling, because it’s super easy to lock fronts or rears at the same time.”

He added: “I just feel like we are even worse on tyres somehow this year, makes it just very complicated, because last year we were not too bad around here, of course then people made improvement, but I feel like we actually had a worse weekend than last year. A bit weird.”

The big mystery remains how Red Bull found the sweet spot in qualifying and the race at Suzuka, or least successfully enough for Verstappen to outrun the McLarens.

“It’s hit or miss,” he said. “Friday in Suzuka was bad, qualifying was a bit better. The race, of course, was a bit better. It’s not where I wanted to be but at least you are competitive, here we were not competitive.

“Here the surface is completely different. The tyres play an even bigger role. And normally, our car in the very high-speed corners is quite a bit more stable. But here, there are a lot more other factors that come into play.”

What then of Jeddah this weekend?

“The layout will probably help a bit, because in general, there’s just a bit less deg,” said Verstappen. “But when you’re worse on tyres, you are worse on it everywhere…”

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April 14, 2025 · 11:13 am

How Hamilton is finding the answers to the questions he’s asking himself

A strong middle stint in Bahrain suggested that Hamilton is starting to find a direction

After qualifying in Bahrain Lewis Hamilton was clearly downbeat on Saturday evening, and he appeared to be a loss to explain why he was only ninth on the grid and 0.597s shy of team mate Charles Leclerc.

His struggles to adjust to a very different car at Ferrari have been well documented, but on this occasion there seemed to be an extra level of frustration.

Inevitably there was some soul-searching that evening, and to his credit he bounced back in the race, pulling off some good moves.

At times he wasn’t happy with his tyres, and having mediums for the opening stint when those around him were on softs didn’t help, but he was far from the only driver to complain.

However what caught the eye was a very strong middle stint on his second set of medium tyres, when he really seemed to get into the groove and even held fastest lap for a while. A gain of four places and fifth place at the flag was a decent result.

“A much more positive day,” he said when I asked him about his race. “The middle stint I felt really aligned with the car. The balance finally was in a spot, and my driving style seemed to be working in that moment. And so I learned a lot from today, and this weekend actually. A lot, probably more than all the other weekends.”

The challenge now will be to get the car into that same user-friendly window on a more regular basis.

“The key is to try and get back to it every weekend,” he agreed. “It’s clear that the car really does require a different driving style, and I think I’m slowly adjusting to that. And also set-up.

“I’ve been bit all over the place, a long way from Charles the past two weekends, and then slowly migrating towards him. So I think if I start the weekend in a more convenient spot and apply the techniques that I learned this weekend, hopefully I can improve from there.”

Hamilton is known for his late nights at the track working with the engineers, and typically he’s the last driver to leave the paddock on a Saturday. On this occasion the homework was of a more personal nature.

“I just went to my hotel to sort it out, had the discussion with myself,” he said when I asked about how tough that evening was.

“And I had a really good start today, and I knew that the next day would be a new day. So I just started or tried to start more positive as I said.

“Obviously qualifying isn’t good enough. But I think if I get the car where it was, for example, in that middle stint, and I start delivering qualifying, you could see I can still race. So if I fix that, then there should be better weekends.”

It’s easy to be sceptical when drivers talk about the difficulty in transitioning from one car to another, and Hamilton isn’t the only one with issues, as the likes of Carlos Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon are still adjusting.

It’s actually harder for more experienced drivers who have set ways of doing things than for rookies coming out of F2. In the case of Lewis his 12-year stint at Mercedes created muscle memory that is not easy to undo.

“It just feels so alien, it really does feel so alien,” he noted. “I think we all get stuck in our ways, and I’ve been very stuck, ‘I need to keep driving the way I’m driving to make the car come to me.’ But it’s not working.

“So I am adjusting myself now to the car, and also with the tools, it drives so much different with all the ECU, the controls that we have, you have to use them a lot different to the past.”

He added: “Just one example is I never used engine braking before, for the past 12 years. We never use engine braking. Well, here we use a lot of engine braking to turn the car. They’re much different brakes.

“Brakes are so much different to what I had in the past. Like in the last stint, I had to use the rears to turn the car, and then other times you have to put all the weight on the front. It’s probably a bigger balance window than I’m used to.

“It’s a much different car, but even worse qualifying this year than I had last year. So I just keep trying. I’ll get there eventually.”

Hamilton still sees plenty of positives in the bigger picture.

“Mercedes is an amazing team, as you know, but the energy in this team is fantastic,” he said. “And the guys are pushing really hard the pitstops fantastic today. They’ve trained so hard to get the pit stops that they’re doing. And I’m adjusting to their pit stops as well.

“And I think we’ve had really fast pit stops, particularly today as well. And strategy, we’re slowly getting on top of things.

“I think today it will be interesting to see what they say afterwards, with whether we would have used a different tyre at any point in the race. But the middle stint was great, and we’ve got some improvements to make to the car. But I’m sure we can do it.”

Fives races in six weekends is a tough schedule for everyone. Drivers are at least getting a lot of mileage, but they’ve had limited opportunity to catch their breath and properly debrief back at base with their engineers. Hamilton has an intriguing take on the upsides of travel.

“It’s been really nice to be at these races, to be honest,” he said. “Because it means less photo shoots and all that kind of stuff. The start of the year was brutal, more shoots and more things I’ve ever had before. So it’s been nice to into this long trip, and get back to what I love doing most…”

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April 13, 2025 · 9:31 am

Sainz still wants more despite Williams progress

Sainz qualified a solid P8 in Bahrain

It’s not been a straightforward start to his Williams Formula 1 team career for Carlos Sainz as the Spaniard has had to adjust to a very different car and power unit.

In Bahrain things have started to come together, and having been as high as seventh in Q2 he secured eighth on the grid, behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and directly ahead of his Ferrari replacement Lewis Hamilton.

However he insists that he’s not getting too carried away, and that there’s plenty more still to come.

It certainly didn’t hurt that he’d tested (and been fast) in Bahrain in February, although he lost valuable track time when he had to hand his car to Luke Browning for FP1.

Solid progress through FP2 and FP3, with some experimentation along the way, paid off in qualifying.

“I think a bit of everything for sure,” he said when I asked if familiarity with the track had helped. “I’m testing different things every weekend to try and unlock a bit more performance.

“And this weekend, I again drove a bit of a different car on Friday, tested some things learned, put them together for today, and seems like we did a little bit of a step in the right direction.

“It doesn’t mean that today we suddenly discovered everything, and we are back to my usual self of extracting the maximum out of the car, but at least step by step. Today we did a step in the right direction, and we need to keep our head down.

“This is still not where I want to be, P8. I want a bit more. But progress with the team, progress with myself, with my driving, with the setup, and we keep going.”

Sainz agreed that Bahrain was the best start to a race weekend he’s had thus far in 2025.

“I just felt like I did some clean laps in quali, which is hasn’t been the case up until now,” he said.

“I’ve always done mistakes, never put a lap together, really. I know when I put things together, I have the pace. It’s just understanding the car, where to push, where not to push, where to find the lap time.

“And today, I definitely did some steps in the right direction. As I said, not where I want to be still – you look at Gasly [starting P4]. But at the same time, we managed to qualify in front of a Red Bull and a Ferrari.

“So it must be that we’re doing things in the in the right way, and now we need to keep investigating things, testing things. Not missing FP1 in Jeddah could help also to try some things. So let’s see.”

In essence it’s mainly about understanding where the limits of the car are, and what works or doesn’t work. It’s largely a question of track time.

“Definitely more confident and more under control,” he said. “More than confident, it’s knowing where I was going to go and risk it and find the lap time, and knowing where I was not going to push, because I know the car cannot take what I can or what I want to do.

“So just stay in discipline, with my driving, with my tools, with my setups, with my front wings, with my things to know where to extract the lap time. Still as I said, a lot of things to learn, and many more qualis like this to do, to understand many other things. But at least today, we did a step.”

Sainz insists that he knew it would take time toget properly up to speed.

“Honestly, I wasn’t feeling too stressed about it,” he said. “I know where I stand, I know far I am from my limit, from the limit of the car.

“Suzuka was more a matter of putting the lap together, which I didn’t do. I know this will come, the more laps I do with this car.

“Obviously, China was a bit of a shock to the system, but at the same time, I shrugged it off pretty quickly after, with Suzuka and here.

“Honestly, as I said, I wasn’t feeling too stressed about it. I just know I need to stick to my plan, do small steps at a time, and it will come, because I know I have the speed and I have a good team around me.”

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April 13, 2025 · 7:31 am

Alonso won’t give up as he seeks “a small victory” in Bahrain

The Aston Martin driver will start the Bahrain GP from P13 on the grid

It’s been a difficult start to the 2025 season for the Aston Martin Formula 1 team, and especially for Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard crashed in the rain in Australia and then retired early in China with a brake issue. In Suzuka he logged 11th – a respectable result given that all 20 cars finished and there was little passing – but this season still represents his worst opening three races since the McLaren-Honda days in 2017.

In Bahrain he will start in P13, although realistically he would have been 15th at best had Esteban Ocon not crashed and Nico Hulkenberg been penalised for track limits. In addition the late penalty for the Sauber driver impacted Alex Albon, who would potentially have denied Alonso a slot in Q2.

At the end of the session Alonso said that the performance was “maximised” and thanked the team, acknowledging that 13th was better than had been anticipated.

The team’s current form is far removed from 2023, when he was on the podium three times in the first three races.

“I won three times here,” he said when I asked about his session. “So yeah, to be P13 is not the result that I wish or I dreamed, but at the same time, we have to accept the situation and where we are in terms of pace.

“We didn’t show the pace the whole weekend, all the free practices have been difficult and so on.

“To be at the end P13 is probably the best we could, so happy for that, happy for the team that we still work on, even on the difficult times, we never give up and this kind of thing.

“Let’s see tomorrow in the race, but points could be close to us if we do a good tyre management, and a good strategy and all these kind of things.

“So we will do our best. It’s a challenging for sure race for us, with maybe not such a great pace, but taking care of the tyres, fast cars behind us, so I’m looking forward.”

He remains upbeat about the prospects of turning the situation around.

“It’s one of those seasons where the challenge is welcome. Today you try to do the best you can. You start P13 tomorrow. Maybe it was difficult to guess P13 this morning, as it is difficult to guess points tomorrow.

“But what if we achieve the points? It’s a small victory. For us, every step we can do, and every understanding of the car, improvement of the car.

“The team is working day and night here, especially and under these extreme conditions. And they are not giving up. I will not give up. And I will be the first to show that.”

Just making Q2 in Bahrain was a big challenge, and ultimately Alonso had little chance to make any further progress.

“It was that fine line that we didn’t know if Q2 was possible,” he said. “And we had three new set of softs available for qualifying, and we threw all three in Q1 because we were not sure that Q2 was in reach.

“So then eventually when you go into Q2 I only had scrubbed sets for Q2, that’s the downside of it. But as I said, we are not giving up.

“We show every practice, every qualifying, every race, that we are attacking, and we are aggressive on the strategy and on decisions, and we are looking forward some upgrades on the car, and some performance coming from the factory. And we encourage everyone to do their maximum.”

Alonso sat out FP1 for reserve driver Felipe Drugovich, and also missed some laps in FP2 with a steering issue. However he didn’t want to use a lack of track time as an excuse.

“It was not really that bad yesterday. We probably felt the car in the window ready, but on the first three races, probably the low-speed content was our weakness on the car, in the package.

“Bahrain is all about low-speed. So we expected a tough weekend, and unfortunately we confirmed it yesterday.”

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