Wolff isn’t smiling about the Red Bull ride height saga…
Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff has called the situation surrounding the controversial Red Bull ride height adjustment device “outrageous” – and questioned why it was needed on the car.
The FIA’s Nikolas Tombazis has made it clear that the matter is closed and that no sanctions will be taken against Red Bull.
In Austin TV cameras caught a Red Bull mechanic demonstrating to the FIA that a large and very obvious tool was required to change the settings on the device, and Wolff suggested that it was used for theatrical effect.
“My view is from the distance of what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard. It’s outrageous,” he said. “I really like that when they put this real ‘broom’ in the car to demonstrate how that is only way of that getting changed. I wonder how long it took them to make this, and to stick it in there?
“And I didn’t know that in F1 we were using such devices. It’s not good enough to say ‘You know, that’s it. Promise I’m not going to do it again.’
“Why would you design such a thing, and put two marks on it for two positions? Is that the precise decision making in F1?”
Asked to expand on his “outrageous” comment he questioned how long it took for the device to be spotted.
“I think we’re all designing parts that are F1 standard, that are to the highest specifications,” he said. “We’re designing parts that are within the regulations. Sometimes on things like aero elasticity, you would probably try to go as far as you can.
“But there are certain parts which you would question why they exist. They [the FIA] haven’t just seen it for a long time when they should have.”
Regarding the FIA’s position he said: “I cannot speak for the FIA at all. I cannot speak for Nikolas. Obviously that’s something that’s been not spotted for a long time.”
Strategy boss Ravin Jain was sent to the Austin podium
Carlos Sainz has credited Ferrari Formula 1 head of strategy Ravin Jain for playing a key role in helping the Italian team to return to winning form by making the right calls.
Jain was asked by Fred Vasseur to represent the team on the podium in Austin after Charles Leclerc led Sainz home in an impressive one-two finish.
Ferrari has made some strategy errors in past seasons, but has been much more sure-footed of late.
In Austin Sainz jumped Max Verstappen for second place after pitting earlier for hard tyres.
“I think full credit for Ravin and all the strategy team for the progress that’s been made in Ferrari over the last couple of years,” said Sainz. “I think it’s been important to see progress in that side. And there’s been a lot of work being done behind the scenes.
“And obviously, Ravin has played a fundamental role in that work. Like I’ve said many times, having a good car on race day always helps to make the strategy work. And I feel like this year, compared to last year, we have a very strong car on race day.
“The best example is today. A car that allows you to be the first one to box and still extend the hard tyre and still be quick on the hard tyre, and not because of being the first one to box then degrading more than the others. That is something that I’ve struggled in the past, especially last year, a lot with that.
“And yeah, Singapore, I remember boxing in lap 14 of a 70-lap race or a 60-lap race and still making it to the end. With any other car or with any other year that we’ve had, where degradation [was high] and the car was weaker in the race, this wouldn’t be possible.
“So making bold strategy moves on race day wouldn’t be as easy, and you would look more crazy by doing them. And this year, having a car that degrades less the tyres and makes you more competitive on race day also allows you more flexibility and better opportunities to play with the strategy.”
Sainz congratulated his team for the job it did in securing a one-two.
“I think everyone needs to be very happy and very proud of this weekend,” he said. “And of how we’ve recovered from a tricky middle part of the season to suddenly put ourselves in a position to dominate the race like we did today and to be clearly the fastest car on track come race day.
“I’m very happy to see this and I hope it repeats itself from here until the end of the year because it would be really nice to get another win before the end of the season.”
Regarding prospects for the last five races he said: “If I would have to bet, I would say Mexico and Vegas are good tracks based on last year. I’m basing myself a bit on last year.
“This year everything seems a bit different. But yeah, and then I think Qatar is going to be a bit our bogey track, if I would have to bet again my money and then Abu Dhabi I’m not sure.
“I’m not sure what we can achieve in Abu Dhabi, but let’s see. I just hope this pace shows itself again before the end of the season and gives me another chance of going at it.”
Norris admitted that he drove like “a muppet” at the start
Lando Norris has questioned what he calls a “rushed decision” by the FIA stewards that cost him third place in the US GP.
Norris was penalised five seconds for gaining an advantage by going off track while attempting to pass Max Verstappen in the closing laps.
He didn’t quite open a big enough gap to cancel out the penalty, so the positions were reversed after the flag.
Calls on such penalties are routinely made without speaking to the drivers concerned, and when a podium position is at stake and an incident happens in the late stages there is obviously an urgency to produce a quick outcome.
In this case it had a significant impact on the World Championship, creating a six-point swing in Verstappen’s favour.
“It’s a tough job to steward these kinds of things,” said Norris. “For me, whatever I did, the point that is incorrect is what Max did, which is also defend his position by going off the track, and what effectively would be keeping his position, which is not correct.
“He went off the track by defending, and he’s overdefended and made a mistake, and therefore he’s gained. The same time, because of that, I’ve had to go off the track.
“It’s impossible for people to know if I could have made it on the track or couldn’t. Therefore you cannot steward that kind of thing. But those are the rules.
“They seem to change, because I feel like it’s quite inconsistent from say, what happened in Austria, where Max didn’t get a penalty and went off the track gained an advantage. So I think there’s again inconsistency.”
Norris suggested that in such instances the views of the drivers should be heard.
“For me it’s just a rushed decision, and they don’t hear or understand our points, which they should do after the race,” he said. “They just want to make a decision at the time, so you don’t alter points and podiums and things like that.
“But therefore it’s a rushed decision, and they don’t hear my point of discussion, or my team’s point or Max’s point, which I don’t think is maybe the most correct thing. But today it was a penalty, and not a lot I can do apart from just accept that I tried.
Expanding on the theme he said: “They’re just guessing. I don’t think that’s how stewarding should be done. It’s a difficult job for them to do.
“So not complaining against them. I think it’s just more the fact they don’t see everything, understand everything as well as we do when we’re inside the car.”
Norris and Verstappen had another close moment at the start of the race, when both went wide and Charles Leclerc was able to steal the lead.
“I think both times Max went off the track, he had a lot of commitment to keep me behind,” said Norris. “Thing is, with Max, you’ve got to commit. People don’t understand that kind of thing. With Max, you can’t just go half hearted.
“Turn 1 is a bit harder to say whether it was because I didn’t commit enough, but the fact that he committed so much speed in that he again went off the track.
“I can’t just dive up the inside of someone, run off and then keep the position in normal running, but for some reason it’s completely okay on lap one in Turn 1.”
Norris stressed that both drivers in the fight are competing in a high stakes environment.
“I think Max drove very well,” he said. “I think it’s very hard to do what we’re doing, and it’s hard when you’re side-by-side, you’re completely on inside of the track, to guess what your braking marker is.
“You’re going quicker than you have before because you use the battery, the tyres are older, there’s different bumps, there’s a lot of dirt. We’re battling and we’re fighting hard.
“So I respect the battle that we had. It was a good one. It was enjoyable. I think it was respectful. I think turn one I didn’t do the correct thing. But I feel like what happened in the end of the race was more on my side.
“Otherwise, it was a good battle, and I enjoyed it. We just didn’t come out on top because I didn’t do a good enough job.
“If I defended better in turn one and wasn’t driving like a muppet, I’d have led after turn one, and we shouldn’t have this conversation in the first place.”
Regarding the impact on his championship challenge he said: “It’s a momentum killer, but we came in here with our mind open, not expecting to dominate or just win or anything. So the fact that Ferrari was so quick today showed they’re just as competitive.
“Even if I came around turn one in first I would never have finished first or second, and only could have finished third.
“But the one guy I need to beat is Max, and that’s the guy I didn’t beat today. So it was a non-successful weekend all in all, but we gave it a good shot. I tried. It wasn’t good enough, and we have work to do, and I have work to do it myself.”
Verstappen and Norris enjoyed a fantastic battle – but only for third place
Max Verstappen is adamant that Lando Norris was in the wrong when he was docked five second for gaining an advantage by overtaking off track in the closing stages of the US GP.
The pair were battling for third place when Norris made his move, and having received the penalty the McLaren driver was only able to gain 4.1 seconds on the Dutchman, and thus dropped back to fourth in the final result.
There were contrasting views about what happened, with many people sharing McLaren’s view that Norris was forced wide by Verstappen. However the World Champion was adamant that he was the innocent party.
“I think it’s quite clear,” he said. You can’t overtake outside of the white line. I mean, I got done for it also here in, I think, 2017 or whatever it was. So I lost my podium like that.
“So I just remained calm, tried to do the best I could after that to bring the car to the end, because it was not easy with the tyres and the situation that I was in. But yeah, overall, I still really enjoyed that battle that we had.”
Asked if he had any sympathy for McLaren’s suggestion that Norris was forced wide he said: “No, I don’t. I mean, they complain about a lot lately anyway, but it’s very clear in the rules. Outside the white line, you cannot pass. I’ve been done for it as well in the past.”
Verstappen and Norris had another incident at the start, when poleman Norris was forced wide by the Dutchman, and both lost out to Leclerc.
“There was a gap on the inside, so I went for it,” he said. “That corner is very wide, so it gives you a lot of opportunity of going very wide or try to go really tight. I chose for that option, and I still came out second! Started second, came out second out of Turn 1.
“This time, of course, it was Charles in front. I think it worked out quite well for me because Charles was anyway faster, so he just pulled away. From there, I just tried to do my own race.”
Verstappen made it clear that it wasn’t a straightforward race for him as he dealt with various issues.
“I think today wasn’t the best race for us compared to yesterday, for example,” he said. “Just struggling for balance, for grip. Couldn’t really brake, rotate the car. So yeah, quite quickly onwards, I realised that we’re not going to win the race. But just tried to do my own race.
“I think we did the best strategy we could as a team. And then it was just surviving to the end. And then, of course, Lando arrived. We had some really good battles, honestly. It was really a lot of fun. But yeah, overall, it was still quite a tough race for me.”
Crucially Verstappen beat Norris in both the sprint and the main race, thus extending his championship lead.
“That is definitely the positive,” he said. “I did hope for a little bit more performance today, so that’s what we have to analyse, why today we were just not that good.
“I think everyone was a little bit better or at least the same as yesterday, and it felt like we were definitely worse. So I need to understand why that was, because I don’t know at the moment.”
Leclerc won in some style in Austin after passing the title contenders
Charles Leclerc says he had a “lonely race” to victory in the Formula 1 US GP – and he hopes to reproduce that form in the future.
Leclerc qualified only fourth but he got ahead of team mate Carlos Sainz before jumping Lando Norris and Max Verstappen when the pair ran wide at the exit of the first corner as they fought each other.
Once in front Leclerc soon established a healthy lead that ensure he was never under threat, and later in the race he had Sainz riding shotgun in second.
“It feels really good as every victory feels special for its own reason,” he said. “And obviously from the start I felt really good with the car.
“I was quite confident from yesterday, because even though there were quite a lot of fights yesterday, the car felt great, and we knew that we had a good race pace.
“We were a little bit more sceptical about qualifying but P4 was good. And then after that start, when I got out of Turn 1 into first, I knew that it was all about trying to use the pace of the car that we had yesterday, and trying to take care of those tyres.
“And the car felt great. So from that moment onwards, it was a bit of a lonely race, but it’s a good kind of lonely. And I hope we can reproduce that in the future.”
Expanding on the start he said: “I knew that Max and Lando would be very aggressive towards each other. I mean, they are fighting for the championship. I got a good start.
“I saw that Max was going towards the inside as well as Lando and I was like, ‘I’m just going to prepare the exit of the corner’, which was obviously a winning bet. And from that moment onwards, then I could focus on my own race.
Leclerc admitted that it was difficult to judge the car’s form from race to race.
“I wish I could tell you exactly, but it’s always difficult because we rely on very small gaps that could make a big difference,” he said. “So it’s very difficult to predict where we will be in the next few races.
“However, we’ve said since two or three races in Monza, in Baku, in Singapore, we brought a few upgrades, and we were always waiting for Austin because it was going to be the real test for those upgrades.
“And it seems to be working all good. So that is positive for the future. It doesn’t mean that we’ll be having every Sunday the way it’s been today, but it means that we are working in the right direction, and that can only be positive. So I hope we can reproduce these kind of results more often.”
Ferrari now lies 48 points behind McLaren in the World Championship with five races left to run.
“We’ve got to target winning the constructors’ title,” said Leclerc. “It’s an optimistic goal, but that’s what we are here for. So, yeah, we’ll do the math at the end of the season. Until then, I think the best thing we can do is to focus on ourselves, on our own performance, just like we did this weekend.
“It’s been a really good weekend for the team and for the constructors’ title. And we’ll try and reproduce that as often as possible. And hopefully at the end of the year, when we do the math, we will have won the constructors’ title.”
He downplayed his own chances of winning the drivers’ championship: “I mean, never say never. Let’s say that for the constructors, if we do everything perfect until the end of the season, no matter what McLaren does, if we do better than them, I think we can still clinch that title.
“With the drivers’, I see it a bit in a different way. Even if we do everything perfect, I feel like it will require a little bit of luck inside that to try and get that title, and we cannot really rely on luck. So the drivers’ seems to be quite unlikely. But again, I’ll believe in it until it’s mathematically impossible. But trickier.”
Charles Leclerc believes that a “race win is possible” for Ferrari in Austin based on the team’s performance in Saturday’s sprint.
However he cautions that Red Bull and McLaren may have improved their cars with changes made before qualifying.
Carlos Sainz finished second and Leclerc fourth in the sprint, and they appeared to have the fastest cars on the track over the full distance.
In qualifying for the main event they earned third and fourth, with Sainz again ahead.
Leclerc acknowledged that Lando Norris and Max Verstappen were out of reach over one lap.
“None of us were capable of going to fight with the top two, they were too fast, but that’s also what we expected as a team,” he said.
“The first sector in qualifying yesterday and today, we knew we have a limitation in our car at the moment, and none of the setup options we thought of would cure that issue.
But in the race, we have a lot less that issue, and so that’s why I’m a bit more optimistic for tomorrow’s race.
Asked if a win was possible he said: “If we see the same race pace as today, I think it is. I think McLaren and Red Bull, most likely will do a step forward in terms of car setup for tomorrow, and we need to see how much of a step forward that is on lap times. But if we see the same race pace as this morning, for sure, the race win is possible.”
Ferrari came to Austin with an unchanged car, and Leclerc suggested that the team is learning more about the updates introduced in recent races.
“I think we did, if I assess what we see and what we feel from the beginning of the weekend,” he said.
“But tomorrow is the real test, obviously, with the whole race, but if we see a similar pace to this morning, tomorrow in the race, I think we did a step forward, for sure, because it’s normally quite a good track to look at all characteristics of a car.”
Regarding potential tyre issues in the race he said: “I think it’s quite balanced. So as a driver, you can play with either you want to have front degradation or rear degradation. So it depends a little bit how you drive. And yeah, we’ll see how everybody manages tyres.”
Gasly even surprised himself by earning P7 in Austin
Alpine Formula 1 driver Pierre Gasly admits that his charge to seventh on the grid for the US GP was “a fantastic surprise.”
He will actually start from P6 after George Russell was obliged to start from the pitlane.
Gasly has a package of updates on his A524 this weekend, while Esteban Ocon still has the earlier version.
He was fifth in Q1 and eighth in Q2 before securing seventh in the final session, which was curtailed by a yellow flag for George Russell’s crash.
Alpine has failed to score a point in the past four races.
“It’s a fantastic surprise,” he said when asked about the session by this writer. “I’m very happy because we made quite a lot of changes after the sprint, and on a sprint weekend, it’s not easy, because you don’t have much time to actually figure it out, especially when you’ve got a new package and new parts on the car.
“You don’t have much time to understand or try things, and we made quite a few changes setup wise, and the car was just in a much better place. So a lot more potential, more drivable, more controllable.
“It was reacting well to my driving, and I was just very pleased. A lot more enjoyable, and I managed to put some very strong laps, Q1, Q2, Q3, so very happy for the guys to see the parts have some good potential.”
Gasly stressed that his consistent pace through qualifying was encouraging.
“Clearly, today we were in the mix, and every single lap I was putting out there put us in a decent position,” he said. “So it wasn’t only one lap. That’s what I’m most pleased about. I think now we still need to figure out.
“We obviously have some ideas. I know what we’ve changed on the car, and the effect was, let’s say, quite important for what we did. And I’m sure it will help the guys to to unlock even more potential.”
He added: “To be fair, everything we are doing, the most important thing for me is really to figure out and understand as much as possible from this package for next year, from this season.
“We’ve done so much races, we’re not really fighting for any important position in the driver on the team championship. So for me, it’s anything we can take that allow us to be fighting for points consistently next year is definitely positive. And that’s what the guys gave me today.
“So also very pleased to see the correlation. Whatever they’re seeing, they’re coming with a new package, so not always guaranteed that it delivers. And there is definitely some, some good potential.”
Gasly concedes that in the Austin race his fight will be with the cars behind him on the grid.
“I think at the moment, looking at the last few races, we were fighting to get out of Q1,” he said. “Now we made it to Q3, I think that’s my best qualifying of the year. So I think before looking at the top four, we’ll look at our battle.
“I think Alonso, we’ll be able to fight him. The Haas look very strong all weekend. So I think they’ll be the ones which are going to be slightly more tricky to keep behind. But yeah, I’m sure we’ll be.”
Russell was frustrated by a performance drop-off in qualifying
George Russell said he paid the price for a lack of performance from his Mercedes W15 by pushing too hard and crashing in qualifying in Austin – an incident that has obliged him to start from the pitlane.
Russell went off in Q3, ending the second runs of the rest of the field and leaving himself in sixth place on the grid.
The crash damaged the upgraded floor and other parts on his W15. Mercedes only has two sets in Austin.
Lewis Hamilton offered to donate the new parts from his car but Russell is reverting to an older spec, which will involve a significant rebuilding job by the crew.
On sprint weekends drivers can go back to an earlier declared spec while under parc ferme rules, but because of the work required the team had to drop out of parc ferme. That triggered a pitlane start.
“All season when the car is in the sweet spot we’re fighting for poles and wins,” he said when asked by this writer about his session.
“Yesterday we were both fighting for pole, and today we were both almost out in Q1. I really pushed it on that last lap, and ultimately trying to find performance that wasn’t there, and paid the price.
“And I’m really just disappointed with myself, because everyone’s worked so hard to bring the upgrades – now that’s in the bin.”
Russell couldn’t explain why the W15 was not as competitive as on Friday, when he qualified second for the sprint.
“We don’t have the answers,” he said. “Because we keep finding ourselves in this position. It’s how the cars interacting with the tyres, the temperature, small changes, the wind, small changes.
“But it has been the story of the season. Old upgrades, new upgrades, either we’re there, or we’re half a second, six-tenths off.”
Regarding the damage he said: “Right now the concern is about the bits. We will have to revert on the upgrades Lewis has kindly offered his ones, but we’re not going to swap. So I don’t know what, what’s going to be happening now, but that’s the biggest concern.”
Lewis Hamilton will start the US GP from 19th on the grid after a disastrous Q1 session saw him fail to progress and beat only Sauber driver Zhou Guanyu.
Hamilton’s day was compromised by a broken front suspension element that hampered him in the sprint and left him with severe oversteer.
The team discovered the problem before qualifying and also made set-up changes in an effort to improve the car, but Hamilton struggled with the car and also had traffic issues.
“It’s been pretty terrible,” he said when asked by this writer about his day. “The car felt great yesterday, so obviously came really optimistic for today. And something failed in the front suspension, literally, as we pulled away from the line for the formation lap.
“And I had that through the race. So they figured that out. They changed the corner, and It just felt like a mess. This shouldn’t happen, and it’s obviously not planned.
“When the suspension is failing and breaking and things aren’t coming together… I mean today, honestly I can’t explain. You have to ask the team what happened with the suspension. But I know the guys are working as hard as they can. They did the change.”
Hamilton is downbeat about his prospects for the race, although he hopes he can make progress from 19th.
“There’s not going to be a lot going on. But I mean, I started in karts with a pretty bad go-kart, and I used to come through the field, so see if I can do that tomorrow.”
Regarding the update package he said: “Any performance we bring is positive. And as I said yesterday all of a sudden we were looking really quick. I don’t know where that went. But we’ll keep pushing.”
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin confirmed that the suspension issue had been costly.
“We found a broken part on Lewis’ front suspension post sprint, and that definitely impacted the overall balance,” he said.
“In an effort to get the car back to the sweet spot we had on Friday, we made some set-up adjustments ahead of qualifying. Sadly these didn’t have the desired effect.
“A consistent balance continued to elude Lewis, although he was unfortunate to be knocked out in Q1 having been impacted by traffic in sector one.”
Norris says he would have been worse off without the latest updates
Lando Norris has no regrets about his McLaren Formula 1 team bringing an update package to a sprint weekend despite struggling to optimise the MCL38 with only one practice session.
Norris insisted that he would be worse off without the new package, which is highlighted by a new front wing, despite admitting that the car was far from optimised for the track.
Norris started the Austin sprint in fourth and ran second for most of the event after making a good start, although Carlos Sainz demoted him to third on the last lap. He thus lost two points to winner Max Verstappen.
Asked by this writer if he would be better off had he had a stable car with no new parts – as is the case with Ferrari this weekend – Norris made his views clear.
“No, I’m very happy we brought updates here, otherwise I’d be even further down the grid,” he said. “The team have done a good job to get the bits here. We’ve had some great races lately, like Singapore and other places, but everyone thought we were easily and way far ahead of everyone.
“And clearly we’re not. Even if you go back to Baku, both Red Bull and Ferrari were quicker than us. I think we’re close. But even when I look at the data comparing to yesterday, we’re a long way off of what Ferrari could achieve, what Mercedes could achieve.
“So, yeah, I think it’s going to be tough. It’s an opportunity for us to improve into qualifying, but these upgrades have made us go quicker, so we’ve been even further down without them.”
Norris said he was happy with the sprint outcome, despite being pipped by Sainz at the end.
“It was as a good start, a good Turn 1, which was nice to have, and immediately behind Max. It was pretty straightforward from that point onwards, George [Russell] was pushing a lot in the beginning of the race, clearly a bit too much, and he paid the price. I didn’t think I would ever be able to get Max.
“We’ve been struggling a bit all weekend, so my chance of getting Max was tough, but I did the best I could to manage my tyres and things like that. But at the end of the race, the Ferraris were at another level comparing to us.
“I did my best to try and hold on but there was that was pretty much zero chance I would ever hold on to second place today. From fourth, happy we moved up, we put up a good fight, but we just didn’t have the pace this weekend.”
Asked what he’d learned from the sprint he said: “Once the front tyres are gone, we’re quite slow! We didn’t get a lot of practice, we didn’t get a lot of running in FP1.
“And it’s hard to judge everything all in one go. And with tarmac being different, and bumps being different is hard to optimise the setup. So we’ll review everything and see what improvements we can make.”
Adam Cooper F1 