Tag Archives: Max Verstappen

Alonso says that the AMR24 upgrades worked well in Hungary

Fernando Alonso says that his Aston Martin Formula 1 team is “a little bit more calm” after the upgrades introduced for the AMR24 worked successfully.

This season the Silverstone team has struggled to get performance out of the car, and earlier upgrades haven’t always worked as planned.

Despite the fact that the team came away from Budapest with only a humble 10^th place for Lance Stroll Alonso says that the new parts made a difference.

“I think we are quite happy with how the new package worked in Hungary,” he said. “It’s doing what the wind tunnel was saying.

“And we had a very good correlation, which was very important, after a few other upgrades were a little bit more up and down.

“So I think the team is quite happy with Budapest. Not forgetting that this is only the first step, and we are still long way off where we want to be.

“But now that it seems that we found a path, and we see on track what we see on the wind tunnel, maybe it’s easier for us to add downforce now, without any scare of not seeing it on track.”

Underlining that he now expects upgrades to work well from now on Alonso noted: “We are a little bit more calm after the Budapest upgrade in terms of what is coming for the future, or what will come in the future.

“Maybe the team has now a better understanding of where to put performance, with the safety that it will add lap time, and it will make the car faster. So this was a key upgrade for us, I think, and it worked as expected. So it gives us more confidence, for sure.”

Alonso says the progress made by rival teams has shown Aston Martin that a package can be improved.

“Mercedes this year and McLaren last year, both of them they proved that it’s possible to recover a significant gap to the leaders,” he said.

“Mercedes was fighting with us for four races, and now they won two Grand Prix. McLaren was out of Q1 for few races at the beginning of last year, and they were fighting for victory. So it is possible.

“It’s up to us, it’s up to the team to understand the upgrades. Where are the key parts of the car to find performance? How to find that performance? We have the facilities. We will have the wind tunnel at the end of the year.”

In the short-term Alonso expects the AMR24 to be competitive in Belgium this weekend.

“I don’t see any reason why not,” he said. “I think Budapest probably was, at least on our expectations, a little bit more difficult. Maybe Spa is a little bit better for our package.

“But we changed the car so much in Hungary that we come here with some extra tests to do, after all the learnings of Budapest. So I think FP1, FP2, we still have to dedicate them to test the new package. And let’s see where we are.”

He added: “We have a lot of test ideas to maximise the package. But also the weather is not looking great for tomorrow, so maybe we don’t have that possibility.

“It will be gold if it’s dry, because I think we can optimise a little bit the car, and then we need to be in the points. Both cars in the points, both cars in Q3, that’s the clear target.”

Alonso made an interesting observation about why it’s so hard for teams to optimise their cars under the current regulations.

“The pursuit of adding downforce the car is more fragile, and more peaky on everything that you do,” he said. “Obviously one thing is testing cars on the wind tunnel, on ideal and consistent conditions.

“And on a racetrack, here in Spa you go at 60km/h in Turn 1, you go at 300 in Tune 10-11. The last corner, it goes uphill, I think, 8%.

Max Verstappen insists that sim racing on Grand Prix weekends does not impact his performance in the real car – and he denies that he has agreed to no longer race late at night.

The Dutchman, who is set to land a power unit change grid penalty in Belgium, took part in a Spa 24 Hours GT event the night before the Hungarian GP.

His eventful race to fifth place, which included some heated radio comments, led some observers to speculate that his late night had had an impact.

However Verstappen is adamant that was not the case, citing previous occasions when he stayed up late.

“I raced until 3am,” he said when asked by this writer about his Budapest sim activity. “It’s not something new. And for me, it’s something very important in my life. Now there are no other sim races coming up anyway, so no one needs to worry about that.

“Always when you don’t win the race, you will always blame it on, ‘Ah, he was staying up until 3am,’ or ‘He’s one kilo overweight.’ There’s always things to make up that you can argue about when you don’t win a race.

“But for example, in Imola, I did win the race, both of them. So for me, this is not something new. I’ve been doing this since 2015, so for me, this is not something that is any different in my preparation.

“I’ve won three World Championships, I think I know pretty well what I can and what I cannot do, and I’m always very hard on myself, what is allowed and isn’t allowed. So I think with all the experience that I have in F1 I think I know quite well what is possible.”

Verstappen denied a suggestion from Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko that he had agreed not to compete into the early hours of the morning on F1 race weekends.

“We talked about it,” he noted. “I said anyway, you don’t need to worry. Like I just said there’s no other race coming up so, but no, it’s not that I have a ban or whatever.

“I also don’t need to tell them what they do in their private time during the weekends. And that’s the same for me.”

Verstappen also downplayed criticism of his colourful radio comments in Hungary, when among other things he complained about the strategy that he had been given.

“People that don’t like my language, then don’t listen in, or turn the volume down,” he said. “I am very driven to success. I think I’ve proven that already. And I always want to optimise stuff.

“Now, people can argue that you might not be so vocal on the radio, but that’s their opinion. My opinion is that it needs to be said at the time to maybe also try and force that the second pit stop would have been a bit different.

“And yeah, that’s how it goes. We are very open-minded. We’re very critical to each other as a team. And that’s been working for us very well, so I don’t expect that to change.

“That’s our approach. I think it’s important that we can be critical, because in this world that we are living now, I feel anyway, that a lot of people can’t take criticism anymore like it used to be, and I don’t want to end up like that.”

Verstappen disagrees with the principle of radio traffic being broadcast.

“In other sports people say things, but they don’t have a mic, of course, attached to their mouths,” he said. “I say what I want, but that’s our sport as well, naturally. You’re communicating a lot with the pit wall. You have, of course, the opportunity to talk.

“In other sports, maybe you swear yourself about stuff that you didn’t like, or a teammate didn’t pass you the ball. You call them whatever it is, but there is no mic. So just how our sport is, I guess.”

Yuki Tsunoda says a one-stop strategy in Hungary was “not even in our conversation” before he used it for an impressive drive to ninth place in Hungary.

The VCARB driver started 10^th after the team had to build up a brand new car following his huge crash in Q3.

He managed to make his medium tyres last for 29 laps and then used a set of hards to get to the flag as the only driver in the field to pit once.

While he inevitably lost out to the faster cars of Sergio Perez and George Russell that started behind he managed to jump the Astons of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, as well as his own team mate Daniel Ricciardo.

“One stop was not even in our conversation before the race,” he said when asked by this writer about the strategy. “So I’m very surprised that we’re able to achieve one stop and hang on until the end of the race.

“That was good, and obviously big thanks to the team that they repaired very fast and precisely overnight. Without that, I wouldn’t be here, so big credit.”

Tsunoda admitted that he didn’t know that the race would pan out so well for him.

“The start wasn’t that great, I wasn’t able to gain a position,” he said. “So I think what I did for the tyre management, also what the team decided to make, that was really decisive and really good.

“To be honest, I thought we were just waiting for a safety car. But actually, I heard that pace is actually faster than the people who pitted. So that was actually an unexpected thing. And I was very surprised.

“Inside, the feeling wasn’t that great. Obviously, it’s quite on edge pretty much everywhere. But I guess the management I did in the beginning was pretty good.

“And also I was feeling rushed, because a couple of fast cars that pitted tried to overtake me, so I lost out couple of times there. But I hung on quite well.”

He added: “It was important to be able to finish in front of all the competitors where we fighting, especially Haas. I guess they’re very fast, and they will be very fast even more in Spa, I’m expecting.”

Coming after a solid 10^th at Silverstone the timing of Tsunoda’s Budapest performance was ideal, given the current speculation over Red Bull’s plans for Sergio Perez, and how the company might juggle its drivers around.

However RBR Christian Horner is known to be lukewarm on Tsunoda as a potential candidate for the senior team.

Asked if his Hungarian drive might help his case with those who don’t see him as an RBR driver Tsunoda said: “I don’t know. Hopefully they’ll change their mind, obviously, just keep improving myself with these results.

“These things, I can control with the results and everything, and those mindsets or whatever, about their thinking, is out of my control.

“So hopefully, with my efforts with the last two tracks I’ve done, and also next track, will count a little bit, and hopefully that will make a little bit change for their mind.”

Ricciardo was anticipating an apology from his team after the flag

Daniel Ricciardo was left “angry” after his VCARB Formula 1 team gave him what he felt was a poor strategy call in Hungary – and then failed to apologise on the in-lap for getting it wrong.

The Australian started ninth on the medium tyre, and lost a couple of spots at the start to drivers on softs, and who had better initial grip.

However he was then surprised when he was called into the pits for an early first stop just on lap seven, as the gaggle of soft runners were stopping.

He then found himself on the same strategy and his immediate rivals. He eventually finished 12^th, while team mate Yuki Tsunoda used a one-stop strategy to go from 10^th on the grid to ninth at the flag, jumping both Aston Martin drivers.

“Massively,” he said when asked by this writer if he was disappointed. “Why they pitted me when they did at the beginning… We followed the soft cars in. They’ve just come in, we have a clear track, and we decide to pit behind them and put ourselves in a DRS train, and then on the same tyre, we’re all on the hard.

“I’ve had a lot of races, and I’ve had a lot of frustrating ones, but that’s up there, because we had the pace, and we basically gave Yuki the race that we had in front of us. And we both could have done that, and we didn’t.”

Ricciardo said he didn’t have an opportunity to challenge the call to pit early.

“I didn’t have time,” he said. “It’s a late call, box, box, box, and you pit in. But honestly, as soon as I’m pulling in the pits, I’m questioning it. But you can’t, you get called in Turn 13, and you have to react.

“Two cars jumped us at the start with a soft tyre. That’s fine. Let them go. They pit, and we follow them, to then just be on their strategy. We would have had clear air and a chance to, I think, from what I understand, do Yuki’s race.

“Honestly, I was expecting more. On the in-lap I was waiting for a ‘Sorry, we fucked up,’ and I didn’t get it, so that made me even more angry.”

He continued: “Cars had already pitted, so for us to then pit, I don’t understand. We had a medium, the tyre is going to go, so let’s just use it. I don’t know if by doing that, that allowed Yuki to get points, but from my understanding, we both could have done it.

“We were both quick enough. We had the pace all weekend. So unless I’m missing something? I really don’t think I am.”

Ricciardo said it was made worse by the team asking him to hold up Lance Stroll near the end on fading tyres.

“Stroll’s catching me a second lap and maybe more, and they’re saying it’s really important to keep him behind,” he said. “And what do you want me to do? You pitted me so early. I’m on older tyres.

“I’m also being expected to fight when we’re not really in a fight anymore. So that that was also frustrating. There were times where I just felt the bed was made. So yeah, frustrated.”

Team principal Laurent Mekies admitted that a mistake had been made.

“Unfortunately, we got it wrong with Daniel and pitted him too early in heavy traffic, which lost him a chance to fight for points,” said the Frenchman.

“His pace had been extremely strong all weekend long, and he demonstrated that again in the final stint of the race when he was finally able to find some free air and fight his way back. 

“We certainly share his frustration, and we will learn and come back stronger next week.”

Alonso said his “strategy didn’t help” after missing the points

Fernando Alonso was left frustrated by Aston Martin’s strategy choice in Hungary after tumbling out of the points and finishing 11^th.

Alonso started the race in seventh place, and he briefly gained a spot from Carlos Sainz at the start, before the Ferrari driver quickly repassed.

However like other soft tyre starters the Spaniard was called in for an early first stop, coming in on lap seven.

Left with two long stints to the end of the race he knew straight away that it would be a struggle, and that proved to be the case.

In the closing lap the team told him to let the faster Lance Stroll past to attack Yuki Tsunoda up ahead. Although the Canadian failed to pass the VCARB the positions were not switched back.

“The strategy I think it was not optimal,” said Alonso when asked by this writer about the early stop. “Obviously, very easy to say after the race, but at that point probably the team felt that it was the good one.

“Bit surprised when we stopped in lap seven, because we talked this morning, our car is hard on tyres normally. So if you stop in lap seven, there are 63 laps to do, with one medium and one hard. 

“So it was a challenge from that point. And yeah, we didn’t have the pace, and the strategy didn’t help.”

He added: “We spoke this morning, we have to even a little bit the stints, if not, there is a high price to pay if you do a very long stint with one set of tyres. They called me box in lap seven, on lap eight, I knew that the race was over.”

Alonso said he wasn’t too bothered about ceding the final point to Stroll, who did a longer opening stint of 14 laps on the soft tyres.

“I didn’t care too much. It was one point for the team. It doesn’t matter which car takes that point. And I think he was trying until the last corner. So, yeah, I think it was the right thing to do.”

Alonso was non-committal on the value of the latest upgrade package.

“I think we need to analyse,” he said. “But for sure, these 70 laps, there are a lot of things to learn from the car. It’s the first race, the first long distance we do with the package.

“So let’s understand all the numbers that the factory can see on data, also the tyre degradation that we had today, and see if we can learn something for Spa.”