Hamilton was encouraged after a solid P4 in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring
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.”
Vowles has already moved Williams forward – now he has the time to complete the job
The recent confirmation that James Vowles has signed a long-term contract with the Williams Formula 1 team hardly came as a surprise given the upward trajectory of the organisation since he took over some two and a half years ago.
Ten races into the 2025 season and Williams lies fifth in the World Championship, with a relatively comfortable margin over those behind.
Vowles was responsible for the extraordinary coup of getting Carlos Sainz onboard alongside Alex Albon has already paid dividends, even if the Spaniard hasn’t had much luck thus far.
Clearly owners Dorilton have decided that they made the right call in headhunting Vowles, and they want to ensure that he is now in it for the long haul.
However the real focus of the ongoing rebuilding process is on 2026, and that’s what he can perhaps really be judged on.
What the long-term deal also does is put an end to any speculation that Vowles was using Williams as a training ground in preparation for a potential move back to Mercedes as successor to Toto Wolff. That is definitely not on the agenda, and for both sides agreeing to extend his stay in Grove was a no-brainer.
“I feel really at home here,” he says. “I loved my time at Mercedes. Mercedes is a fantastic place, but it just feels like home here. And what I think we have to do, first and foremost, we have to recognise that I wasn’t a TP. It’s the first job I’ve taken in that regard.
“So it’s a large step up, and I had to prove to myself and prove to everyone that I was able to do it. And I think we’re seeing evidence that it’s okay! I’m here to win World Championships, and the next step is the commitment to do we all agree that that’s what we want to be doing, and joined up in that regard?
“And the answer is yes. So it wasn’t even a millisecond. I feel at home. This is where I want to be. This is where I want my career to be, and I can see myself being here for the remainder of my career, that’s how comfortable I am.”
He insists that he didn’t speak to Wolff about his future: “There was no other person I called on the grid, really, when I was in discussion over this.
“Toto is an incredible individual, but he’s also very comfortable where he is at the moment, and wants to be there, I believe, for many, many more years. So that direction parted three years ago. And that’s it.”
For Vowles the promotion to team principal represented a huge step. As head of strategy at Mercedes he obviously carried a lot of responsibility, and at the time he left his role had expanded into other areas of management.
However being put in full charge of a business worth a billion plus by its owners is another level, and he admits that he feels the weight of being responsible for such a big organisation.
“There’s some amazing things about it,” he says. “You pinch yourself that you’re in charge of 1100 people, and that a word that you use, or ten words that you use, can drive the direction of that many individuals.
“You pinch yourself that you’re in charge of a multi-billion dollar company in that regard, because it isn’t something that most people will have access to. But here’s the difference to most other companies, you’re in front of 70 million people every weekend, so you’re adjudicated and judged.
“I think the biggest thing for me is I thought you would have more discomfort on what you’re doing daily, and question what you’re doing daily. And for me personally, I don’t.
“It feels so comfortable that I don’t even think about what the external ramifications are. I think those are the bits that no one can prepare you for. It’s it was described to me once as the view from the top is incredible, but it’s lonely at the same time. And that’s probably the right way of summarising it.”
The team may have a cushion in fifth place at the moment, but there are still 14 races to go, and a few good results for Aston Martin, Haas, Racing Bulls, Sauber and Alpine.
While everyone has turned their focus to 2026 R&D the consensus is that Williams did it earlier than most, and that’s perhaps been reflected by an improvement in form from Sauber and Aston in particular.
In the last couple of races little has gone right for Williams, but Vowles plays down the suggestion that
“In Montreal on Friday, I had a number of messages from other teams going, Jesus, you’re quick! And on Friday we were, there’s just no doubt about it, whatever we did, the cars were basically top six the whole time.
“And yet, we went into Saturday, and it was trouble. Trouble from any perspective. Obviously, in the case of Carlos, his lap was hindered by the red flag that was caused by our own car, by Alex’s bodywork. His lap would have otherwise been okay. Second lap blocked by Hadjar, but his pace was there.
“In the case of Alex, well done to him. But as you can see, getting into Q3 was about where the car is, and we did have an Aston ahead of us, however we want to see it, and we had a number of individuals around us.”
Sunday in Montreal didn’t go to plan, with Albon going over the chicane on the first lap, and eventually retiring with PU overheating. Sainz meanwhile struggled with overheating brakes.
“Now, the start of the race was poor,” says Vowles. “We didn’t capitalise on that with Alex, and we fell backwards. But I think otherwise you would have seen us racing a little bit further up. We were really caught it in the melee, and dropped backwards as a result.
“In the case of Carlos, he was out of position in qualifying at a track where he was held up for a period of time, and finally got back to the point. And the reason why I bring that up is it’s not a slow car in Montreal, but there’s still a big question, why didn’t we get it all right in qualifying?
“So what changed was a little bit of wind, not a lot, but the direction changed of the wind and about seven degrees of track temperature. But what I really enjoyed is the last week where we’ve been digging into, why did we fall back exactly?
“And there’s some really good hints that have come out of it, in terms of, really, it sounds boring, but we didn’t get the tyres working in the right way, simple as that. And it really hurts us in that particular event, that C6 is delicate, and we were on the wrong side of it.”
Vowles insists that Williams isn’t losing out on overall form relative to its main rivals.
“If it was just simply development, on Friday and in some of the race pace that you saw, we would have also fallen back, and we didn’t. We still have a fast package. I think what you’re more seeing is that there are elements of our operation where we’re simply not at the level we need to be there.
“And that includes the reliability we had with Alex in the race. That includes the still not quite there in terms of operating the tyres in the right window in different conditions, because it didn’t change much, but it changed sufficiently in that regard. And even with the bodywork, that’s just simply elements that aren’t at the right level. It hindered both drivers across the weekend.
“Now, that’s one side of things, but the second side of things is has Aston added performance and Sauber added performance? Yes, definitely to that, and it’s made life trickier.
“Now, when we don’t get it right, you fall back into the clutches of being behind some of those cars that you wouldn’t have dreamt of being before.”
The rookie believes that he needs to reach the limit earlier in each GP weekend
This weekend in Austria Kimi Antonelli returns to the scene of his first Formula 1 experience gained with a TPC run with Mercedes last year.
And he does so on a mission to “make a step” and up his game from the start of each race weekend.
The Italian has hitherto adopted an approach of steadily building up momentum over Friday and Saturday.
It’s a logical approach, and one taken by Oscar Piastri in his rookie season. And in Antonelli’s case it’s also a reaction to his Monza FP1 crash last year, when he went too hard too soon.
However it has sometimes caught him out as he’s found the jump from FP3 to the level of commitment required in actual qualifying to be significant.
Indeed, he’s regularly made good forward progress through actual qualifying sessions as he builds up his knowledge with each run. But the lingering feeling is that his ultimate grid positions could be better if he was able to be right on it from the start of Q1.
Having logged his first podium with third in Canada – and with team mate George Russell having proved there that the W16 is capable of winning races – he realises that he needs to approach the limit earlier in the weekend, and thus be in a potentially stronger position come qualifying.
“I think Canada was really important for me,” he said on Thursday. “It was a big relief. But as well, it was important because I think there was couple of time in the season where I came close to the podium.
“Australia, first race, I came incredibly close, and as well with Miami, with the pole in the sprint and P3 in the quali, I remember back then that was the goal to be at least in the podium. But I just missed out. And to finally achieve that in Canada definitely was really important.
“And I think as well, this will help me, as a driver, to drive a bit more relaxed as well. Because, I’m not going to lie, in the previous weekends, I’ve been maybe a bit too tense on some occasions, and a bit too conservative as well, especially in practice.
“And I think now is really the time, after achieving this result to make a step, and to make a step further and to improve, to prove myself, especially as well on the approach in practice.
“So trying to explore a bit more, especially the grip. Because I think in qualifying, I’ve been always arriving with a bit too many question marks, and having to explore too much and to learn too much.
“And in qualifying, you don’t really have much time, because it’s only one lap on the tyre, and then that’s it. So I think it’s really the time to make a step on this side.”
Antonelli readily admits that the Monza crash has weighed on his mind and affected his overall approach.
“I think still in Canada I was a bit too conservative, especially in FP, because if you look at the trend in FP, I would always arrive quite late into the session.
“I always put the time quite late in the session, just because it kind of required me many laps to get to get there.
“I truly believe I over-corrected after what happened in Monza, and now I’m a bit too safe, I’m a bit on the safest side. But that’s why I think after getting such a result this, results like this also help you to move forward and to make the step.
“I think now is the time to do the step, because nowadays, F1 is super tight, especially when you see qualifying, the gaps are just so close that even a 10th can put you in the back foot.
“So it’s really important to be on the top of the game, and that’s why I cannot keep arriving in qualifying with so many question marks and not the right confidence on how much grip there is, and having to explore too much and to learn too much.
“So I think now is the time, especially in practice, to get back a bit closer to Monza. Not exactly like Monza! But get closer to that in order to arrive ready in quali.”
An intriguing aspect of Antonelli’s season is that some of his best performances came in Miami and Montreal, tracks he didn’t know. He’s now coming to a run of European venues that he knows well from F2, and in some cases has also done TPC running.
“As a driver, when you go in a new track, it’s always very exciting. But I don’t know why I’ve been going so much better in tracks that I didn’t know. Even Suzuka. First time in Suzuka, you know, the race went pretty well. And then in tracks, I didn’t know I’ve been I’ve been struggling a bit more. I think,
“I think also in the European season, Monaco, Imola, I’ve been struggling, as I said, also previously with the C6 and that really also put me in a position where I also put kind of more pressure on myself, just because I could see I couldn’t really extract the best out of the tyre, and performance-wise, I didn’t really feel that confident.
“And while Montreal, of course, there was the C6, but you know, in those two races, I was able to learn a lot more, and I was a lot more confidence about the tyre and on how to extract the maximum out of it.
“But, yeah, I cannot find an explanation of why I went so much better on new tracks. That’s why this weekend I want to go well.”
All friends! Norris agreed today that McLaren has emerged stronger from Canada
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.”
He’s scored points twice in a row but Alonso still wants a quicker car on Sundays
After starting the season with an eight-race drought Fernando Alonso has now logged two consecutive points finishes, and the signs are that there’s more to come.
The Spaniard followed up his ninth in Spain with a seventh in Canada last weekend as best of the rest behind the top four teams.
It’s clear now that Aston Martin has made a decent step since its last batch of upgrades, and that it is back in the midfield fight.
However while the team has improved the AMR25 over one lap Alonso is still keen to improve race day performance. which he believes hasn’t kept up with progress in qualifying.
As in Imola in Montreal Alonso followed a strategy of focussing on the medium C5 tyre through qualifying, rather than the slightly less predictable C6.
He was P6 in Saturday’s FP3 session, and then with a display of remarkable consistency he maintained that position through Q1, Q2 and crucially, Q3.
“Let’s do it tomorrow!,” he said after the session when I drew his attention to the stats. “We are happy. Obviously, Norris is P7, Leclerc P8, so it’s a little bit unrealistic to think that we will finish in P6. But the job today has been done.
“A very tricky FP3 session with the wind direction change today, it was for everybody. A lot of people oversteering, especially in the last corner with the tailwind and things like that. So we changed the car a little bit into qualifying, and it was back to normal in quali. So happy for that.
“It seems that I’m able to push the car to the limit now in the last few races, since Imola. With the new package, I’m much more linked with the car, I feel the car, and I can push to the maximum. And I feel in a good moment. So let’s confirm it tomorrow.”
Although the C5 strategy clearly worked Alonso insisted that pursuing it was not a no-brainer before the session.
“In Imola, we had the feeling that the C5 especially on our car gave us the confidence to push a little bit more. And then in Monaco, it was 50-50, and then here still 50-50.
“Even after qualifying, I think we’re still not sure which tyre, because some people are faster on the red tyre than the medium. But we still believe that on our car is a little bit more robust with the medium.”
For the race his focus was to lead the pursuit of the top teams – and crucially for the midfield battle in the World Championship, beat the Saubers.
“Normally on Sunday we do struggle a little bit more than Saturday,” he admitted. “And as I said, we have very fast cars behind us. So yeah, P8/P9 – we need points, that’s for sure. We want to be in the top 10 tomorrow, especially after Nico [Hulkenberg] scored so many points in Barcelona.
“We are tied with Sauber now, but behind them [on best result], and we want to go back to be at least in front of them by tomorrow afternoon. That’s a personal challenge now.”
Regarding the ultimate potential he added: “It depends on what is happening in front of us. There are many races that all the top teams are finishing the race. Maybe tomorrow is the day that there are a couple of DNFs…”
In the end he only had one helping hand from a retirement ahead, but other than that, it went to plan.
As he expected Norris and Leclerc soon found a way past, and then having lost out to Hulkenberg he did what he needed to do and got back ahead before the flag on his way to seventh – enough to put Aston two points ahead of Sauber in the World Championship.
“I think realistically on the pace, we knew that eighth maybe was the maximum,” he said when I asked about his afternoon. “And we were eighth until Lando had the DNF, and then it became seventh.
“Happy with the car. I mean, I didn’t have any big issues with the car, apart from maybe excessive tyre deg, but still Sunday pace is not quite yet in the rhythm I think of the weekend.
“We are sometimes one or two tenths away from the top teams in qualifying, and then we are one minute away, in the race. So definitely, Sunday is still our weak point on the weekend, and we need to make some maybe set-up work or priority into Sunday for the next few races.”
With 14 races to go just eight points separate Haas, Racing Bulls, Aston Martin and Sauber, and Alpine is only 11 points adrift in last place. There’s a lot to play for.
“When I saw Nico in front of us, and 10 laps to go, and I said, ‘Wow.’ It was very competitive. And the Sauber clearly made a step forward. So we need to keep the pace. If not, we will lose again the position soon.
“But at the same time, we are getting closer to Haas, closer to Racing Bulls. It’s going to be a nice battle, until Abu Dhabi.”
Hamilton had another weekend of learning in Canada as new parts are finally on their way
For Lewis Hamilton the Canadian GP was very much a case of Groundhog Day, and not just because his race was spoiled by hitting one of the unfortunate animals and damaging his floor.
It was also yet another case of arriving at a track where he’s had a lot of success only to find that the unchanged Ferrari SF-25 behaves in a completely different manner to what he’s been used to at Mercedes. It’s a scenario that has been repeated at every venue this year.
As always it was a case of trying to improve session-by-session and find a way to get the best out of the car that he has.
The end result was a sixth place, and he was at least happier than in Spain a fortnight earlier, when he described it as his worst race ever.
He wasn’t too happy on Friday in Montreal, but P5 in qualifying was a decent outcome.
“We’ve progressed coming into today,” he said on Saturday afternoon. “So that is a positive. More often not we go through P1 and then P2, often at the previous races P2 has not been so great, because there’s been something wrong with the car, like the floor is not working, or the rear wing is not working.
“There’s always been something that meant that we’re down on downforce or something.
“And so then you have a bad P2 and you’re kind of recovering in P3. But we had a good, solid base yesterday, and then today, we made progress. We didn’t change a huge amount, and the car felt solid. We moved forwards, which is I think a first this season. So I’m grateful to get through to Q3.”
When I asked in what areas he’d made progress he said: “I think probably today most progress came from my driving, adapting driving style. So just made a few changes of how I drove.
“This car drives so much different to what I had before. You go into low-speed corners and you’re waiting and waiting; it doesn’t want to turn.”
He underlined his point with a vivid demonstration of crossed arms – the racing driver sign language for terminal understeer.
In Sunday’s race Hamilton initially sat in P5 behind Oscar Piastri, but as early as lap 12 he lost a chunk of downforce after his collision with the unfortunate groundhog.
Thereafter he lost out to team mate Charles Leclerc and to Lando Norris, before the latter’s crash promoted him back to P6.
“Until the damage, I was kind of holding on to Piastri,” he said. “With the damage, then I started to drop off from Piastri, and then we probably should have stopped around a similar sort of time, but we for some reason stayed out and then I lost a ton of time, came out behind a bunch of people, got stuck behind people, just sitting there in no-man’s land.
“But to still come away with a sixth it’s a positive. I think if everything was perfect, if we had done everything right and we didn’t have any problems, maybe we would have fourth.”
As noted he was in a much better place than he was after Spain, despite the relatively modest result. He could at least see signs of progress.
“I think mostly just me adapting,” he noted. “But I think this track really highlighted the weaknesses of the car, and I’ve never had a car understeer so much at low-speed here, just doesn’t want to turn through Turn 2 and Turn 10. So definitely not my most favourite weekend, but the next one will be better.”
He added: “Just incremental steps. We’ve not had any upgrades or anything like that. So it’s the same car for quite some time now, and so with the same package each weekend, I’m just challenging the guys. I’m constantly battling the engineers, asking questions.
“They set things up and this is how we always do it. And I’m like, Well, what about this? And so we work on trying things, and bit by bit, we are making progress. We’ve improved in our qualifying from Monaco onwards, which is positive.
“But ultimately, we need upgrades. We need an upgrade to be able to fight the guys up front.”
Hamilton and Leclerc have both mentioned upgrades on a consistent basis. Hitherto Fred Vasseur has been coy on commenting to the media. But after Montreal when I pushed him on the subject the Frenchman finally confirmed that something is coming “before UK,” with more to follow.
A performance boost before his home race would be welcome for Hamilton.
“It’s my first half of the year in a new team,” he said when I asked about the obvious frustration of having to wait. “It’s interesting to see different how different teams work and operate.
“There’s been times in my career where you’ve had a whole bunch of upgrades very, very early on in the season, and then you plough ahead very early, and then you stop and taper off. And then sometimes it’s been slower.
“It’s also in the last year of this generation of cars, it’s harder to find performance. And also, you’ve got to be focused on the next year. With this car, hopefully we can still fight for a second in the constructors’. That would be great, yeah, but I want a car that can win next year, so that’s priority.”
Hamilton has faced a lot of criticism this year given his struggles, but he insists that it’s all about the bigger picture.
“What all you guys don’t see is what’s happening in the background, and there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot that needs improving. A lot of things need to be changed. For me, I know we’re not fighting for a win this year. I know we’re not in the championship, which is not a great feeling.
“And also I know I’m in a period of getting accustomed to working with the team. foundation building and trying to steer them to make those changes so that next year we can have a car that can win, and we can then fight and be consistent and do have strategy and all those different things. So with that in mind, I’m okay, but obviously I want to win.
“And so when you’re not competing at the front, you’re not fighting for podiums, I’m definitely a little bit gutted with that. I was hoping today I’d have a fight for a podium, but we don’t have the performance currently, so hopefully, with an upgrade, maybe at some stage, we’ll be a bit sharper.”
Andrea Stella insists that valuable lessons will be learned from Montreal
It was inevitable given the high stakes that at some stage this year McLaren team mates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri would get into a tangle on track. Even team boss Andrea Stella acknowledged recently that it was a matter of when, and not if.
It happened in Montreal on Sunday, but in slightly unusual circumstances in that the drivers weren’t racing each other into a corner with blame to be apportioned, as was the case in the past with controversial famous moments involving Lewis Hamilton/Nico Rosberg or Sebastian Vettel/Mark Webber, for example.
In this instance they’d survived a wheel-to-wheel encounter heading into the final chicane, and it was on the straight that followed that Norris hit the back of Piastri, and paid the price.
He made a simple misjudgement under DRS in the Australian’s slipstream, and immediately told the team on the radio that it was his fault. Later he did the same when he bumped into Piastri in the TV interview pen.
It might not have been the typical sort of team mate conflict that we were expecting, but contact is contact, and the drivers are well aware that it’s a cardinal sin in any team.
Fortunately McLaren is in a good place at the moment, and Stella is a brilliant manager, always able to deal with any situation and find the positives.
When he spoke to the media shortly after the race he’d already found a way to ensure that the incident could be used to ensure that there would be no repeat.
“We said a few times that it wasn’t a matter of if, it was more a matter of when,” said the Italian. “And the when is Canada 2025. We never want to see two McLarens having contact. This is part of our principles. We saw it today.
“This is just a result of miscalculation, a misjudgement from a racing point of view, which obviously should not happen, but at the same time, it’s part of racing, and We did appreciate the fact that Lando immediately owned the situation.
“He raised his hand, he took responsibility for the accident, and he apologised immediately to the team. He came to apologise to me as team principal in order to apologise to the entire team, and it’s important the way we respond and we react to these situations, which ultimately will be a very important learning point.”
He added: “I don’t think it’s a learning from a theoretical point of view, because the principle was already there, but it’s a learning in terms of experiencing how painful these situations can be, and this will only make us stronger in terms of our internal competition and in terms of the way we go racing.”
For Stella Norris’s immediate mea culpa was crucial, and it was also a reflection of the team-focussed environment that he has built.
“I think in order to make an assessment as to the reason of having this sort of misjudgement from a racing point of view, I think we will have to have a few good conversations,” he said.
“Now that we are in the heat of the moment, for me, the most important thing is to see a reaction where people take responsibility of their actions, and we have already seen it.
“And I talked to Oscar as well, and he sort of is cool with the situation, because Lando apologised, they know that a misjudgement in racing can happen.
“But I think obviously in the coming days, thanks to these conversations, we will have to go into what is needed in order to make sure that when we go racing, we preserve the margins that are required.”
Stella downplayed the suggestion that having qualified only seventh Norris was perhaps under extra pressure to find a way by Piastri and get a result.
“From Lando’s point of view, specifically, I’m not sure that there is any reason to do with the fact that he might have struggled a little bit yesterday in qualifying to capitalise on his speed,” he said.
“Speed that he had demonstrated throughout the weekend. Surely, there was a bit of frustration for not having been able to qualify as high as he would have liked. But at the moment, I wouldn’t say that that’s the reason why there was a misjudgement today.
“I think this is too long a shot in terms of correlating these two events, but definitely, there will be good conversations, but they will happen once we are all rested and calm and we have the possibility to take all the learning and discharge what doesn’t have to come with us in the future.”
From the outside at least if there was any glass half full reflection it was the fact that as team McLaren had lost only a fifth place, as opposed to a first and second. However when I put that to him Stella insisted that the relative low cost didn’t make the incident any less serious.
“The fact that the points today, or what we were fighting for, was not a victory – even if you never know in a race until the chequered flag – I think this is just a very, very minor mitigation, let me say.
“We act based on principles, and based on principles, there should be no contact between two McLarens. So from this point of view, if anything, let’s say Lando pays the price, from a championship points point of view, and let me say, luckily, there was no double penalty with the points loss for the other car, which had no responsibility in this contact.”
The key thing now is to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Stella is adamant that it’s now a case of lessons learned.
“I think in terms of the moving forward and possible repeat or not when we go racing, and there’s many races like nowadays, because 24 races, and sprints, so more and more situations where we can have these kinds of episodes, like I said before.
“I think having experienced, rather than having talked, even if the conversations we had about that, they were certainly strong, impactful and absolved, but having experienced this kind of situation, I think it will make us just more robust as a team, and in terms of each of our two drivers against these situations because the two McLarens racing close to one another, it will happen again.
“But there will have to be better judgment in terms of the distance, because today, in effect, is just a matter of distance between the two cars. There’s nothing like one driver wanted to demonstrate something else.
“If anything, the dangerous situation was more approaching the last chicane when they were side-by-side. And I saw some wisdom there. But somehow after that, and we know that with the DRS, there could be some misjudgements that we have seen in the past as well.”
Stella insists that the drivers will remain free to race, and that it really will be a case of the best man winning – the team won’t make a call.
“The being free to race and the being clear as to how we go racing, is a value of racing,” he said.
“And is a value of racing that we want to try and exercise and respect as much as we can, rather than every time that we have a proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pit wall.
“I think like that, racing may soon become a bit of an artifact, and we want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race and opportunities to be at the end of the season in the position that they deserved to be in based on their merit, based on their performance based on the racing quality that they have expressed through the season, rather than being at the end of the season and realise that the points have been controlled more by the team, rather than the quality of their driving.
“This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise, but we want to try and do it as best as we can. So I don’t foresee that today’s episode will change our approach from this point of view, if anything, it will reinforce, and it will strengthen that the principle we have require more caution by our drivers.
“Because if we say that there should be no contact between the two McLarens, we need to have the margins to make sure that we have no contact, even if, in a DRS situation, the car may get almost a little bit sucked onto the other car, and cause this kind of misjudgement as to the distance.”
The bottom line is that Montreal will ultimately be a perfect demonstration of how with Zak Brown’s help Stella has built a great team, and has proven to be a great boss.
“In the heat of the moment that looks like the worst disaster ever,” said Stella. “But in reality, the strength of being racers, the strength that comes from having a strong culture, is the fact that you will process the episodes you will review, you will take all the positive learning, and you will dismiss anything that doesn’t have to come with us into the way we go racing in the future.
“This is the mindset that we all have at McLaren, and I think this has been proven by the way Lando handled the situation, and definitely that’s going to be the kind of conversation that we will not only have with our drivers, but this is the kind of conversations that we will have with the entire team.
“We lean on our culture, which is very strong, and we use these episodes once they are a little chilled and our mind is colder than it’s in the heat of the moment to become a stronger team with two stronger drivers.”
Lando Norris will start the Canadian GP from a frustrated P7
The balance of power at McLaren swung towards Oscar Piastri again in Montreal as Lando Norris finished qualifying in P7 following a frustrating Q3 session.
With Piastri himself only third behind George Russell and Max Verstappen it was a below par performance by the Woking team, reflecting perhaps the normal ebb and flow of circuit form and the fact that even the championship leaders have to get everything right to stay on top.
Norris had been looking solid earlier in qualifying, taking second spot in Q2, but it came undone in the final part.
“Just a couple of big mistakes,” he said when I asked him about his session. “One, hitting the wall on the last lap in the exit of seven, and first lap I think the last corner. So yeah, just two mistakes that cost me, I guess.
“I think we’ve clearly not been as quick as normal. I think that’s just because of the layout of the track. I think the car is still performing relatively well.
“And I was happy through all the qualifying. Maybe not the car to take pole today, but quick enough to be up there, and then fighting for a top three.”
Norris conceded that Montreal is not an easy track to get right.
“Just very low grip, I think first of all, is one of the bigger things. And therefore the car balance just never comes together as much as what it does in other tracks. So probably just low grip, and some of the kerb riding bumps, which just hurts us it seems more than some others.”
He added: “It’s very easy track to just push one percent too much, and pay the price, and that’s what I did today.”
Norris is running a front suspension update in Canada as part of an ongoing effort to make him feel more comfortable with the car, especially in qualifying trim. He admitted it was hard to properly assess it.
“It’s tough to say, because this track, everything just feels different. So I think it’s something we’ll have to wait and see on the next few races, through Austria and Silverstone and so forth, to understand, and maybe back-to-back test between them both.
“It’s nothing that I felt just yet, but it’s more than when you go to a new track, it’s hard to remember everything perfectly relative to other tracks. So like I said, we just need a bit more time to understand if it’s any better or not.”
Asked if it was expected to be most advantageous in qualifying he said: “I mean, it can be a benefit elsewhere, but it’s not a guarantee that’s going to be a benefit just yet.
“So like I said, this is aimed to maybe give a bit more feeling. It’s not aimed to make us quicker or give the car more performance. So it’s again something that we have to review over time.”
From seventh on the grid all is not lost, as Canada is a race in which stuff usually happens, so there is a chance to make progress with good strategy calls, and possibly a little mayhem ahead.
“I hope so. It’ll make my race a bit more interesting, and the more opportunity that comes my way the better tomorrow.
“I think we can go forwards anyway, but not a lot. It’s not like an easy one-two, like we have been on other tracks. So it’s going to be a bit more difficult. But, yeah, anything that can help us will be very welcome.
“I think a podium is tough, just because we don’t have the pace we’ve had in the last few races. But it could be easily, a one, two or three-stop, depending on how the tyres behave tomorrow.
“So of course, I’ll hope for a bit more to happen. Not as confident as in other places, for sure, but confident we can go forwards. But clearly, I think we don’t have the best car today, so we’ll be a struggle to get to the top.”
The team had a great race in Monaco but otherwise it’s been a difficult recent run for Haas
Form and luck swings back and forth among F1’s closely-matched midfield teams, as we saw with Sauber’s remarkable fifth place in Spain.
Just the previous weekend Esteban Ocon had secured a solid seventh for Haas in Monaco, but either side of that it’s been a difficult run for the US-owned outfit.
After a double score in Bahrain the team didn’t better a 12th place in the three races prior to Monaco, and then in Barcelona Ocon and Oliver Bearman finished 16th and 17th.
Ocon wasn’t helped in Spain by being one of the few drivers not to pit for fresh tyres under the late safety car, while Bearman had a 10-second penalty as a result of his fraught fight with Liam Lawson.
Bearman hasn’t had a lot of luck lately, and his progress was hampered by missing his final Q1 lap when the clock ran down in Imola, and by a 10-place grid penalty for a red flag offence in Monaco. In Spain he at least made Q2, but in the end he started 15th as a late set-up change didn’t really pay off.
Recent upgrades to at least seem to have improved the VF-25, which had had a weakness in faster corners.
“We will look at these three weeks, take the positives and draw some conclusion out of these three,” said Ocon when I asked him about his Barcelona race.
“I think there’s a clear pattern, which is quite positive for some track, a bit more difficult on others. But we’ll take the week to analyse and come back stronger in Canada.”
He added: “I think the good points are the strengths we have in some of the tracks which are a bit more slow-speed corners and we struggle a bit little bit more on this kind of track, with longer corners, fast, although we did improve, I think we still lack a little bit.
“Our race pace was definitely better than our quali pace, which is a bit sad, because I think there was a bit more to play today for both of us. Big thanks to the team for keeping on pushing for these three weeks.
“And now we are going to be able to breathe a little bit, analyse what went on, and come back stronger in a race where hopefully we should perform well.”
Ocon remains hopeful that the team can make a step in Canada.
“I think we should be good in in corners in Montreal, we need to see about straight line speed obviously, this is what we need to be sure of. Plenty of work and understanding to go for us.
“But I’m positive that we should be able to come back in a decent level of performance.”
Meanwhile team principal Ayao Komatsu acknowledges that there’s work to be done in all areas.
“I feel like we really need to hit the ground running better, to give a consistent platform for the drivers to run every single run,” he said in Spain. “I don’t like to separate, but for sure we are still learning how to get the best out of Esteban.
“And when he’s in a good spot, in terms of car set-up, mentally and everything, you’ve seen what he can deliver. Shanghai was a very, very good race. Bahrain was amazing. And Monaco, what he delivered in qualifying, was excellent. So we know we can do it.”
Williams missed the points for the first time in five races – but Albon says lessons were learned
Williams enjoyed a remarkable run of four races from Jeddah to Monaco with both cars finishing in the points, helping to put the Grove team into a comfortable fifth place in the F1 World Championship.
That streak ended with a frustrating weekend in Spain, at a track that the team expected to be a little tricky.
Neither driver made Q3, with Alex Albon qualifying a still respectable 11th and Carlos Sainz a frustrated 18th at his home event.
Both men then suffered early front wing damage, necessitating a premature first stop for Albon that put him out of synch with rivals. Later he received more damage in further contact with Liam Lawson, and that led to his retirement. Sainz meanwhile could manage only 14th.
The positive was that all the woe occurred on a weekend when the car was not at its best, and points would have been a struggle.
“I don’t care, put it all be one race,” said Albon when I put that to him. “We’ll get it all done with, and then we’ll move on to Canada!
“In all seriousness, I think as bad as it looks today, there’s some learnings from this weekend. I think we’ve shown that our car is going in the right direction. Q2 and P11 proves that. It shows we still have work to do. We’re not this ultra-midfield car that that’s quick everywhere. We still have our flaws and our weaknesses.
“There’s a clear trend now that pretty much everyone around us is already upgraded, so we will inevitably fall down the pecking order eventually. We need to look at this track and understand why is it always this circuit that hurts us?
“We know it’s long corners, but we need to understand why the long corners. And in the race honestly, I think we could have been fighting for points. Could have, would have, should have.”
Albon insists that there’s always much to be learned from difficult weekends as Williams continues to make progress.
“It might sound weird, but I enjoy coming to these tracks, because I feel like I want us to be a top team,” he said. “And I know that these are the tracks where we need to be better at if we are going to be one.
“So it’s good to take our medicine and to understand it, and to really put the car to the test and understand and look at it, see it visually, quite a lot of work to do here. Let’s really get on top of it.
“We’ve improved the car everywhere, and we’ve definitely improved the car in long corners, but it’s still a step behind some of the others.”
Albon’s Sunday afternoon in Barcelona was made worse by a poor getaway that saw hm swallowed up by those behind, which contributed to the contact with Nico Hulkenberg.
“We had a clutch issue at the start,” he explained. “My clutch drop felt good, and I believe I was on target, but we just had an issue with the clutch. So we lost out quite heavily at the beginning, that cascaded, or put us back on the back foot into Turn 1.
“There was a concertina of cars avoiding each other, and I was the last one to get hit. So I lost my front wing. It forced us on a three-stop because of that, but an early three stop, and then when we had to a front wing change, you do the three-stop without an undercut. So it’s like the worst of everything, everyone’s coming out in front of you.”
Later in the race Albon had a couple of fraught moments with Liam Lawson, one of which earned him a 10-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. He was at least able to take it before parking the car, so that it doesn’t carry over to the next event.
“The first penalty incident, I don’t know how I was ever going to make the corner,” he noted.
“For me, it was avoiding action because he was running me out. So I thought, well, he couldn’t complete the move cleanly without pushing me. So I’m entitled to the position. Maybe it might be I might be wrong in that, but that was my feeling towards it. So I thought.
“And anyway, I boxed the next lap, so I got out of his way. Maybe that wasn’t early enough for them. And then we came with Liam later in the race, a bit of a tricky one. I think I tried my best to stay out the way. I think by that point, my tyres were gone. And another front wing.
“A lot of the contacts I was getting were on the side, not just clipping the front, but clipping the end pieces of the floor. And so at that point, the car was pretty badly wounded, and we just decided to stop.”
Montreal is next, and it looks like the type of circuit that should suit the FW47.
“I agree. We’re good on ride, we’re good on a low downforce wing, so that bodes well for us, and we’re generally quite good in low-speed corners.
“Honestly, I think we’re in a good place. I feel like we’re generally understanding the setup of the car well. we’re in a good rhythm with the car. I feel like I’m driving well with the car. You just have to hope that Canada falls towards us as a track layout, and optimise it.
“I think this weekend, if we optimised everything perfectly, we would have maybe got P10. So it was a tricky one. I think in Canada I’m looking more towards Q3 and that kind of race.”
Adam Cooper F1 