Tag Archives: Lewis Hamilton

Max Verstappen has elaborated on his silent protest in the official press conferences in Singapore – and hinted that “silly” punishments and restrictions imposed by the FIA could force him out of Formula 1.

On Thursday Verstappen was called to the stewards after using the word “fucked” in a press conference.

He was found guilty and given an “obligation to accomplish some work of public interest.”

Verstappen was back in the same room for official top three conferences after Saturday’s qualifying session and Sunday’s race.

On both occasions he gave minimal answers and instead agreed to speak to journalists outside the official conference, giving him a chance to explain his views on the FIA.

“For me personally there was absolutely no desire to then give long answers, when you get treated like that,” he said.

“I never really felt like I had a bad relationship with them. Even this year, I did voluntary work with junior stewards. I gave them a half an hour interview, like all set up. So I tried to also help out. I’m not a difficult person to say, no, you know. Okay sure, if that’s what you guys like, I like to help out.

“Then you get treated like that. Well, that’s just not how it works. So for me, it was quite straightforward. Because I know that I have to answer, but it doesn’t say how long you have to answer for.”

Verstappen made it clear that he was frustrated by the restrictions on what people can say.

“I think it’s just the wording, the ruling that the sport is heading into for me personally, with these kinds of things.

“I know, of course you can’t insult people, that’s quite straightforward. I think no one really wants to do that. But, yeah, it’s all a bit too soft really, and to be honest, it’s silly, it’s super silly, what we’re dealing with.

“If you can’t really be yourself to the fullest, then it’s better not to speak at the end of the day. But that’s what no one wants, because then you become a robot, and then it’s not how we should be going about it in this sport.”

He added: “I think you should be able to show emotions in a way. That’s what racing is about. I mean, any sport.

“Everyone walking around on a pitch, if they get tackled or get pushed, or there’s something not happy with something, or there’s a frustrating moment or something that they get asked about, I think it’s quite normal, that there can be a sort of reaction.”

He admitted that such distractions could impact his commitment to staying in the sport.

“Oh, for sure, yeah,” he said. “These kinds of things definitely decide my future as well, when you can’t be yourself, or you have to deal with these kind of silly things. I think now I’m at stage of my career that you don’t want to be dealing with this all the time.

“It’s really tiring, of course, it’s great to have success and win races. But once you have accomplished all that, winning championships and races, and then you want to just have a good time as well.

“Of course, everyone is pushing to the limit. Everyone in this battle, even at the back of the grid. But if you have to deal with all these kinds of silly things, for me, that is not a way of continuing in the sport, that’s for sure.”

Asked what the FIA would make of such a threat he said: “I don’t know how serious they will take that kind of stuff, but for me, of course, at one point when it’s enough, it’s enough, and we’ll see.

“Like I said, racing will go on also without me. It’s not a problem, but, also not a problem for me. It’s how it is.”

Hamilton is cautious about his prospects in Singapore

Lewis Hamilton says he will have to “roll the dice” at the Formula 1 Singapore GP this weekend as he has doubts about the competitiveness of his Mercedes W15.

Hamilton believes that the car is not well suited to street tracks, and that Ferrari will be on strong form after showing so well in Baku.

The former World Champion has had three difficult weekends since winning at Spa prior to the summer break.

The team has been swapping back and forth between its old and new floor specs, with the older version again in use this weekend.

The four-time Singapore GP winner is cautious about his prospects for this weekend.

“Similar to the past races probably,” he said when asked about his chance. “It’s not been great for some time. I don’t know. I’m just going to roll the dice and see how it goes.

“I wouldn’t say this has ever been a really great track for me, it’s been a bit of a bogey track, I would say for us in general.

“I think just the way we design cars, or we have designed cars, if you look at a lot of street circuits we’ve never been particularly strong at, whereas the more open circuits we would be better at.

“So look at us compared to Ferrari, for example. They were mega at Monaco, mega in the last race, they’ll be strong this weekend, just a certain design that they have that seems to bode well for those circuits.

“And then when we get to somewhere like Silverstone, we’re very, very strong. So I think there’s lots of good lessons to take from those, but ultimately, when it comes to track like this, it’s a struggle.”

Asked what had changed in the car since his Spa in Hamilton suggested that it was more a case of rivals improving.

“I don’t think it has changed. I think the others have gained,” he said. “We haven’t brought enough. We’ve brought an upgrade to Spa, but then we didn’t end up using it. And then I think the others from Zandvoort to Monza have brought upgrades, particularly Ferrari. And I think McLaren have as well.

“So we’re waiting for ours in a couple of races. McLaren seemed to be the ones that are evolving and advancing the fastest, if you look at their impressive wing. We just have to kind of wait and see, and do the best with what we have.”

Hamilton made some interesting observations about how hard it is to drive the W15 on the limit.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and honestly I don’t think it’s necessarily that I’m not being able to access it,” he said. “It’s just the envelope that we have is much more on a knife-edge.

“You’ll be in the braking zone, and the rear is out of the window, and then all of a sudden mid-corner, or before the apex, it’s in the window, and then it’s out of the window again.

“And I think it’s the aero characteristics are shifting every week. So from having a bigger wing to smaller beam wing to having the bigger beam wing to having the front wings that are flexing, rear wings that are flexing – it’s such a competitive and really challenging time I think for the aerodynamicists and for simulations, to have them make sure they correlate each weekend.

“I think it’s been probably one of the most challenging times at least for I know for my engineers. It’s been a very, very challenging time to try and get this car in the perfect window.

“When we were in Spa, we had no understanding, but all of a sudden we were quickest. We’re hoping that that comes back to ourselves on stage.”

Carlos Sainz said that Ferrari didn’t get his strategy right in the Belgian GP and that the timing of his first pit stop was not ideal for either a one or two-stop option.

Sainz was the only driver at the front of the field to start on the hard tyres, and he rose from seventh on the grid to the lead as others pitted.

He came in on lap 20 but despite the long first stint he then ran a similar two-stop strategy to most of his competitors – other than George Russell, who stopped once on lap 10 on his way to victory on the road.

The Mercedes driver was subsequently disqualified, promoting Sainz from his seventh at the flag to sixth.

However the Spaniard felt he might have done better had he tried to stop once.

“I feel like we took some risks at the start, starting on the hard,” he said. “We even won a position [from Norris]. So I was very optimistic and positive about this strategy.

“We managed to extend it quite a bit to lap 20, with hindsight, not long enough, because probably one-stop seemed like a good possibility today.

“And yeah, probably the main thing is that we didn’t do a one, but we also didn’t do an optimal two, because we boxed too late for the two, or too early for the one.

“It’s easy to say now in hindsight, but I felt like the race was promising a lot more. After 20 laps, I was like, we might have a shot at the podium.

“And then suddenly I finished P7 nine seconds behind the P6, so clearly, there’s something that we will have to look at. At the same time I think our direct competitors today were quicker, so I don’t think it would have changed much.”

Expanding on what could have been done differently he said: “Starting on hards, if anything, we would have needed to commit to extending another 10 laps at least.

“On a two-stop, maybe boxing five, six laps earlier to spend as much time as possible on that hard tyre that today was performing really well.”

While team mate Charles Leclerc took pole and finished fourth on the road and third in the final results Sainz said there was no real sign of progress.

“When you see the pace of Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren in the race, I don’t think so,” he said. “I think two or three-tenths. So yeah, we started on pole, and we still finished P4.

“With my car, I felt like we were on for a podium.  And then as soon as everyone put their hards on, you could see which pace everyone was doing, and even though my last stint, I felt very competitive and quick, then when they told me the lap times of the others, I was not quite as quick as I thought I was.”

Regarding bouncing he said: “Yeah, the quicker we go through corners, the worse it gets, so towards the end of the race, we were not on holidays!”

Hamilton believes that a wet qualifying session flattered Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton says that an overnight change to an older spec floor has improved the Mercedes W15 at Spa – but he admits that it was only the wet conditions that allowed him to qualify fourth.

Hamilton was unhappy after Friday’s running with the latest update package, and he was only 10^th fastest in FP2.

Prior to the uncertainty of the wet Saturday running the team opted to switch both Hamilton and team mate George Russell back to the floor used until Hungary to provide a stable baseline.

It paid off in wet qualifying as Hamilton took fourth and Russell seventh, with both men also set to gain a place from a grid penalty for Max Verstappen.

“If it was drying I’d be struggling to be in top 10, I would imagine,” he said. “And then I think just out there timing was everything, getting out on track at the right point.

“I think we were a little bit too early at the end, we were first out, and that was when we used our new tyres. And then we didn’t have any new tyres towards the end, when the three guys ahead did. So a bit unfortunate in that respect. But I’m grateful to be up there.

“I’m okay with being on the second row, for sure. It’s close enough. I think today, if we got everything perfect, we could have been on the front row, or even first, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Hamilton admitted that the car was difficult to drive with the update package as used on Friday.

“Our car is not really feeling strong this weekend,” he said. “Yesterday, we were a second off. I’m hoping it’s not the case tomorrow. But it was a real struggle yesterday.

“We made changes overnight, so I’m hoping we’ll be in a better position. But even with the changes, we’re not on par with McLaren. They’re much faster, and the Red Bulls.”

However he admitted that the rain made it hard to properly assess those changes: “It’s impossible to say today, because we didn’t drive yesterday’s car in the rain, but I’m pretty sure it will be better than what we had yesterday.

“It couldn’t get much worse than that! So it will be better, but how much better? I don’t know.”

Regarding the changes Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin confirmed that there were also mechanical set-up changes as well as the floor.

“We weren’t happy with the balance or pace of the car yesterday, so we made some fairly major changes to the mechanical and aero specification of the car overnight,” he said. We’d hoped for a dry window in FP3 to evaluate those, but unfortunately it stayed wet throughout and there was no chance to accumulate any meaningful running.
 
“Wet qualifying sessions are difficult at present as the grid is tight. You need to time your new sets to coincide with when the track is at its quickest. By Q3, we were down to one new set of Intermediates. We’d decided to carry more fuel and do multiple laps to try and land one with the driest conditions. That was similar to McLaren. We lost out to the Ferrari of Leclerc though who used his new set right at the end. Had we not been carrying the fuel, we would have had the pace for P2.
 
“We don’t know where we will stack up on race pace, as the car is quite different to the one we ran in the dry yesterday. Starting from P3 and P6 though, we are hopefully well placed to fight for a podium.”