Tag Archives: Max Verstappen

Charles Leclerc says that the Ferrari Formula 1 team’s collective mindset is the key to the Italian outfit’s strong form in 2024.

Leclerc believes that under Fred Vasseur the team has learned to ignore “outside noise” and work in a more disciplined way.

The team has won five races this season, and is chasing McLaren in the battle for the constructors’ World Championship.

“I think the mindset is a big part of why we are much stronger as a team now,” said Leclerc. “In F1, and especially around Ferrari, there are always rumours, there are always things that are being said.

“There’s obviously very deep analysis on why we are not performing at this race, or why we are really good at this race. And all this outside noise in the past used to affect us a little bit, and in the way we worked.

“And I think since Fred got within the team there’s been a big step forward in that, and I think that helps the whole team to work better, to work in a more disciplined way, without being affected by the outside perception, which is very, very important. So that was a that was a big step forward.”

Leclerc remains confident that Ferrari can still catch McLaren in the championship fight.

“I think the target is to beat McLaren, and we really think that we have a shot at it this year,” he said. “We’ve been particularly strong in the last three races, but we are also aware that we cannot rely on the good results of the last three races.

“We’ve got to focus step-by-step, as I was saying. And the mentality is super important in those times, and not let yourself be carried away with the positive environment we are in at the moment, and just work as hard as whenever we were in a tough time.

“And that’s what we are trying to do, to try and put everything together, to first of all focus on this race and try to maximise everything. There are still lots of points to grab this weekend, but in Qatar, there will be a sprint weekend as well, so quite a lot of points. So we’ve just got to stay on it and stay focused until the end.”

Ferrari is expected to be strong in Las Vegas this weekend in terms of its overall aero and mechanical package.

However Leclerc acknowledges that tyre warm-up could be a problem in the cold conditions.

“I do still think that this could be the case,” he said. “However, we don’t exactly know how much that did change from last year. I mean, it’s very difficult to compare obviously a completely different car.

“However, we know that we are better on tyres, that we are less aggressive on them, which means that the temperature builds up a little bit slower, and on track like this, where tyre warm up is going to be an issue, it was the an issue for everybody last year, I expect it to be a bit more of an issue this year.

“Don’t get me wrong, I still think that is going to be a positive weekend for us. I think on paper, it seems that our car characteristics are fitting this track, and I think we should be fast.”

Pierre Gasly says his record of not sustaining any crash damage with his Alpine A524 Formula 1 car this season is “a great stat” and important for the Enstone team.

Damage has become a key factor in the budget cap era as teams have to account for all parts used over the season, and resources put into making replacements can have an effect on car development.

Crashes have had a huge impact on Williams, with the team having five major incidents over the Mexican and Brazilian GP weekends.

Gasly’s statistic became a talking point on social media in recent weeks, and the Frenchman is keen to maintain the record to the end of this season.

“It makes it easier to insure my cars back home!,” he joked when asked by this writer about his feat. “It’s a great stat, and at the end of the day, it’s also a very, very, very important for the team, because this money is also something which goes into the budget cap.

“So it does play a factor in the development throughout the year, and what it offers the team in terms of parts and money available.

“So obviously, we’ll try to keep it that way until the end of the year. You go into every race trying to fight at the limit. And I must say, on a season like this year, I was most of the year in the middle of the pack, so I’m not too sure, but I managed to keep it clean.”

Asked how he’s managed to stay out of trouble he said: “I think you’ve got to have a look at when is it coming from a driver mistake and error from a driving point of view, and sometimes it’s just racing incidents, and you’re not so much involved.

“At the end of the day, since the budget gap came into play, this is something we discuss a lot with the team, because it does play a big factor into the resources of the team. So I think it’s actually very positive and important to keep it that way.”

Gasly noted that Alpine’s double podium in Brazil had had a positive effect on a team that had been struggling in ninth in the championship and has now jumped up to sixth.

£I was very pleased just to see the impact of such a result on the motivation, the energy,” he said. “I spent a couple of days back at the factory, and just the smiles on everybody’s face, and just the feeling of the pride of all the guys of achieving such a result on such a difficult season.

“So big motivation, especially going into next season. I think we needed it after the season we’ve had. And I mu say every single person I came across at the factory was absolutely buzzing. So great to see.”

Gasly qualified fifth in Las Vegas last year, before dropping out of the points with tyre issues in the race. He’s hopeful that that can be addressed.

“I think last year was a fantastic quali,” he said. “The first stint, I was fighting with George [Russell] for top three, and then I fitted the hard and I had a terrible graining on the hard, and I just dropped back the order the last 30 laps.

“So I know exactly what I need to work on for this weekend. It’s a track I like, it’s a street track, it offers the usual challenges of a street track. Obviously we’re coming here with some confidence, and at the same time knowing on my side what I need to really work on.”

Franco Colapinto says that the Williams Formula 1 factory staff are “the heroes of the week” after they manged to get two FW46s ready for the Las Vegas GP following the team’s disastrous Interlagos weekend.

In Brazil Alex Albon failed to make the start after his crash in qualifying, while Colapinto went off in both qualifying and the race.

The damage sustained, which came right after two incidents for Albon in Mexico, left the team scrambling to get two race cars and spares ready for Vegas.

“It was a tough weekend in Brazil,” said Colapinto. “I think over these past six races, I have had five very good ones. It’s been full of new challenges, like every weekend I’ve had something new.

“Brazil was an exception. It’s just that I didn’t really manage well the race. In the wet it’s sometimes like a switch. The tyres were not fully in. There was a lot of aquaplaning, and the situation was always more tricky.

“Unfortunately for the team we left the race with a lot of damage. But the boys in the workshop have been working so hard to get the cars back here in Vegas in the latest spec. The cars are looking great.

“The guys did a fantastic job in the in the factory. So very proud of them. They are the heroes of the week by far. So, yeah, very grateful.”

Asked by this writer about the tight spares situation is he said: “You can imagine that after a triple header, where we had a lot of, a lot of damage in Mexico – Alex had a lot, in Brazil, we had a lot with both cars – it’s going to be tough. But I think the cars are fully ready for it, and the team is doing a great job to get the spares ready.

“And we are looking strong, we are looking strong as a team. Maybe it looks worse than what it is. I think we are in a good position, and we have to be aggressive.

“We lost eighth place in the championship, so we are going aggressive now, and trying to recover points, race to race, and until Abu Dhabi there is always an opportunity, so we’ll try until then to do our best.”

He added: “It is very important that both cars have a clean last few races. It is important always to close the year in a right way, to close the year with points, hopefully.

“You are only as good as your last race. And our last race was not great. So we have to recover from that. I’m sure we can do. We have a good car for this track as well. So looking forward to it.”

Aston Martin Formula 1 performance director Tom McCullough says that the bumpy nature of the resurfaced Interlagos track contributed to “a difficult race” for the Silverstone team.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll both crashed in Sunday morning’s wet qualifying session after showing some good initial speed.

The cars were repaired for the race, but Stroll went off on the formation lap and Alonso finished 14^th after struggling with bouncing and a painful back.

“It was a difficult race,” McCullough told this writer. “I think the consistency of the car, it’s not easy to drive, and we’ve seen that for a while now. Both drivers were really struggling.

“So yes, we had some reasonable pace at times with Fernando, but we were also struggling with locking both front and rear, and the very bumpy nature of the track didn’t play to our strengths.

“The track was resurfaced, and was by far the worst-riding track of the year. So we could make the car nicer from a ride perspective, but it costs performance, so we’re always playing that balance.”

Regarding Stroll’s pre-race off he said: “”The rundown to Turn 4 was particularly bumpy. We found that difficult all weekend. We tried working with setups to help that. But the car is struggling in those areas at the moment.

“It’s an old school track, it bites. It was wet, and it bit a lot of people, didn’t it? It’s got walls quite close by as well.”

Things were made more complicated in the race by a switch to an alternative floor spec for both drivers as a result of the qualifying accidents.

The initial pace in wet qualifying did at least provide some encouragement for the team.

“I think throughout qualifying ordering the cars were competitive, which was good,” said McCullough. “We made a lot of changes, and with the understanding of the tyres, and the wet setup that most people had gone to and that we went to, we were definitely more competitive.

“So it was disappointing to finish quali with damage to both cars, but good to get them both into the top 10.”

Regarding the remaining races of the 2024 season he said: “We don’t have any more updates coming. It’s about maximising the spec of the car for the three very different kinds of tracks. And we’ve got to score some points in those three races.

“I think that will maybe play a bit more to our strengths, based on what we’ve seen so far this year. So we go there trying to score some points.”

Ferrari Formula 1 boss Fred Vasseur insists that the Sao Paulo GP was “not a dramatic weekend” for the Italian team despite a poor overall result.

Following two superb performances in Austin and Mexico City Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished fourth and fifth in the Saturday sprint, and then both really struggled in Sunday’s rain. 

Leclerc eventually claimed fifth, while Sainz crashed in both qualifying and the race.

Overall the team lost seven points relative to leaders McLaren in the constructors’ championship, and 12 to Red Bull, and it remains in second place.

Leclerc pitted early for new tyres, just before the VSC and subsequent red flag turned the race on its head, but the call didn’t pay off.

“It was a difficult Sunday, but I think overall it’s not a dramatic weekend,” said Vasseur when asked for his verdict by this writer.

“It’s more on some choices. It was quite difficult to anticipate the pit stop. And for sure, you can say at the end of the day if you stay on track and you are waiting for the red flag it’s the right call, but if you crash, you look stupid.

“Honestly, this kind of weekend is quite difficult and difficult to manage from the pit wall and from the car. It’s more the pace today and the setup, that it’s perhaps problematic.

“Probably we were six or seven tenths slower than Norris at the beginning of the stint, and probably six or seven tenths faster than him at the end of the stint!”

He acknowledged that Leclerc’s early stop in Brazil unexpectedly put him into traffic.

“We underestimated I think the loss in the pit exit,” he said. “It was very, very slippery, and he lost a couple of tenths. It was enough to lose the position.

“If you look at the race, I’m not sure that it’s a game changer, because at the end, we would have pit the lap after with the VSC or whatever, that it mean that there was not a game changer. The game changer on the strategy would have been to stay on track, and to bet for the red flag.”

Regarding Sainz’s costly accidents he said: “I’m not worried about this. I think he will be back in Vegas very strong.

“Last year, Vegas was a good example. He started on the wrong side of the weekend last year with that drain cover. And he had a very good recovery over the weekend. We have three weeks to do a full reset, and he will be back strong in Vegas.”

Regarding the constructors’ championship situation he added: “We knew that probably the track will be difficult, probably much more for McLaren, and at the end of the day on the weekend, we didn’t lose so many points.

“Okay, I don’t want to lose some points, I want to make points. It means that we have to have a better weekend than this weekend. But it’s not a drama, and we’ll have probably a much better weekend next race in Vegas, and it’s where we’ll have to score the big ones.”

He added: “We have the same approach for months now. We want to be focused race-by-race, because for me, it’s the best attitude, and just to be focused on what you can do, and not to try to think or to calculate, and we keep the same one for the next week.”

Carlos Sainz has apologised to his Ferrari Formula 1 team for what he called “two very strange, unfortunate crashes” on Sunday in Brazil.

Sainz went off heavily in the morning Q2 session, stranding himself in P14. However the team decided to take a complete fresh power unit plus a new gearbox, which meant a pitlane start.

From there he found it hard to make progress and he was running 13th when he again spun and hit the barrier, which led to his retirement after 38 laps.

His team mate Charles Leclerc also had a difficult day, but managed to score points in fifth place.

“Two very strange, unfortunate crashes today,” said the Spaniard. “Bit of a nightmare day. Honestly, the two of them, just no sign of me crashing, so I couldn’t do anything to avoid them.

“But at the same time, it didn’t look easy out there to overtake today. So starting from the pit lane, it was always going to be difficult to make it to the points with the lack of overtaking there was.

“At the same time apologies to the whole team for the two crashes. I hope we can come back stronger.”

Sainz admitted that the SF-24, which is kinder on its tyres in normal conditions that its predecessor, has not been an easy car to drive in the rain.

“I’ve always been a very strong driver in the wet,” he said. “But for some reason, ever since I tried this car in the wet this year, I’ve never had a good feeling with it.

“I don’t know if we just don’t put energy into the tyres, or we run it too stiff in medium to high speed, or what is it?

“But it’s clear that it’s very unpredictable, and very difficult to drive. I’m glad Charles brought it home in P5. I heard he was also struggling out there.

“So honestly, a bit of a nightmare the whole race, but yeah, hopefully some dry races coming up, and we will try and go for it.”

With three GPs and a sprint still to come Ferrari remains in contention in the constructors’ championship.

“We will be alive until the very end,” said Sainz. “Three weekends now coming up that are going to be obviously important for the whole team.

“And now we need to refocus, we’ll regroup and see how we can approach these last three races in the best possible way.”