Tag Archives: McLaren

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.”

Oscar Piastri says braking issues and an overall lack of speed in the latter stages contributed to a “tough day” at Interlagos that saw the McLaren driver finish in eighth place.

While team mate Lando Norris took pole for the Sao Paulo GP Piastri could manage only P8 in the wet Q3 session, having struggled with a brake locking problem that persisted into the race.

He also found it hard to overtake, and eventually moved up to seventh when he nudge Liam Lawson into a spin.

That earned him a 10-second penalty, and having finished seventh on the road he then dropped behind Yuki Tsunoda in the final results.

“I think it was just a tough day from start to end,” he said. “I think qualifying, partly a mistake, partly a bit of a problem. And when you put the two together, it creates a big problem, and then we’re still struggling with that a bit in the race. But I think we were just slow.

“The first half of the race, we seemed very quick. Lando was stuck behind George. I was stuck behind Liam.

“I got Liam out of the way, not really in the way I intended. But yeah, I think the second half of the race, after the red flag, we were just slow.  think both of us just struggled with pace, and that was a pretty tough 30 laps.”

Regarding the clash with Lawson he said: “I went for a move. I was stuck behind him for a long time.

“Didn’t really get far enough alongside, and I spoke to him about it, and he said he didn’t see me either, which, in those conditions is fair enough. But I think it was clearly my mistake. And the penalty was deserved. So just a tough day.”

He added: “Honestly, the toughest part of the race was behind the safety car trying to stay on the track. I think it kind of exposed a bit of the issue that we have with the wet tyre, when everyone is praying for a red flag, but refusing to go onto the wet tyre because it’s so bad.

“So a pretty dangerous situation to have cars literally struggling to stay on the track behind the safety car. But it’s not really anything new, so hopefully we can try and at least change it now.”

Earlier in the race he was powerless to keep the charging Max Verstappen behind.

“I just didn’t have enough pace at the beginning, but he seemed to be pretty much the only one that could actually overtake,” said the Australian.

“We were struggling with the brakes all day. We had a decent problem in qualifying that was the same in the race. So that certainly wasn’t helping things. One benefit for Max was going out so early, had a bunch of new inters, which I think probably helped a little bit.

“But I think he was just fast today. And the cards didn’t fall his way in qualifying with the red flag, they certainly did in the race. I think he was just quick and just had a good race.”

McLaren opted for high downforce for Sunday’s conditions, although Piastri didn’t blame that choice for the difficulty in overtaking.

“Top speed didn’t seem great, but I don’t think that was our biggest problem,” he said. “We were obviously gaining in the corners with the downforce we had, but clearly not enough. I think we need to understand a bit better, because the first half the race, we looked really quick, and then the second half, both cars seem to struggle a lot more.”

Elaborating on the wing level he added: “I’m not sure how limiting it was. You could argue with qualifying it helped with the extra downforce in the race. It should have helped in the majority of the lap, the first half of the race, yes, maybe you could argue it was, was holding us back a bit, because we were stuck behind cars.

“But the second half, we weren’t stuck behind cars. We were just slow. So I think it doesn’t really matter which rear wing we had on in the second half, we weren’t really going to finish any better.”

Charles Leclerc admits that his Ferrari Formula 1 team was “nowhere” at a wet Interlagos on Sunday, and he took part of the responsibility for a wrong turn on setup that didn’t pay off.

Leclerc was sixth in wet qualifying on Sunday morning, and then struggled for pace throughout the race.

He was the first driver to pit for new tyres, coming in on lap 24, and that further compromised him. Helped by issues hampering others he eventually finished fifth.

Team mate Carlos Sainz had an even tricker time, crashing in qualifying, starting from the pitlane with a new PU and gearbox, and then spinning off again in the race.

“I think I’m partly to blame for it,” Leclerc said when asked by this writer about the SF-24’s poor wet weather form.

“Because obviously we decide the setups together with the team, and today I wanted to go into that direction.

“However it was the wrong one, for sure. And today, the pace was just not there. I think in qualifying, we actually weren’t too bad. With the new tyres, low fuel, you can extract more out of the car. But in the race, we were nowhere.

“And more than being nowhere, it was extremely difficult to drive, extremely difficult to not do any mistakes. And at the end, looking at all this, the only thing we could be a little bit satisfied with is being in front of the two McLarens.

“To only lose four points in the constructors’ is big damage limitation on a weekend where they seem to be so strong. Now we need to put everything together for the last few races of the season.”

Leclerc admitted that the early pit stop call, which he prompted, was the wrong choice.

“That was a mistake,” he said. “It’s easy to be said as well that on a race like this it’s very difficult to not do any mistakes in terms of strategy, because there are so many calls that you need to do.

“And if you look, I think only the top three did no mistakes on a race like this. We were on the other side of things. We stopped, I wanted free air, so I asked the team to find free air. They boxed me that lap.

“But unfortunately, the pit entry and the pit exit time in the wet was a lot longer than what we thought.

“And I ended up in the middle of traffic with Ollie [Bearman] and Lewis [Hamilton], and from that moment, I knew that we were losing so much. Then there was a safety car. We lost like three or four positions there. So then it was a lot more difficult.”

Regarding the new track surface he said: “I think it made it very difficult. I think honestly, the tarmac this weekend wasn’t a step forward.”

Pierre Gasly said the later stages of the Sao Paulo GP “felt like an eternity” as he successfully fended off the challenge of George Russell on his way to third place.

Gasly started only 13^th after getting caught by the same red flag as Max Verstappen in Q2. Up to ninth on the first lap, he then lost a spot to the charging Verstappen. He gained a few more positions before the VSC led to several drivers pitting for fresh intermediates.

Like team mate Esteban Ocon and Verstappen he didn’t pit, and moved up to third before a red flag gave him a free tyre change.

He remained third through the second half of the race despite pressure from Russell, crossing the line just three seconds behind Ocon.

“He was quite big in the mirrors,” said Gasly of the Mercedes driver. “I must say it wasn’t easy. It was difficult conditions. I wasn’t at ease with the car balance. So I was kind of like fighting it a bit. But I always had him at bay.

“I don’t think he ever had the idea of trying anything. So I knew as long as I keep him within one second, it’ll be good enough. He damaged a bit his tyres. So it was a long end of the race, but we managed to hold him off.

“There was Lando [Norris] at the restart and Charles [Leclerc] as well. So we’ve had our fair battles during the entire race, which felt like an eternity, to be fair, with the red flag and in these conditions.

“But we managed to make the right calls, faultless drive and strategy and excellent day for the team.”

Gasly made it clear that it hasn’t been an easy season for the Enstone camp.

“It’s been very difficult for everyone at times,” he said. “You’ve got to come every single weekend with the same mindset, the same approach, trying to put your best, even though you know that your chances are not really high.

“But it’s important to never give up because, you know, especially on days like today, anything’s possible.

“And I’m very grateful for all the work the team has been doing, because it all makes it worth it on a day like today when we get both cars on the podium.

“I don’t think anyone in the world today would have thought at some point this year, two Alpines are going to be on the podium.”

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner has praised Max Verstappen’s “mental resilience” after he bounced back from a difficult qualifying session to win the Sao Paulo GP.

Verstappen was caught out by a red flag in Q2 and left stranded in 12^th, which became 17^th after his PU change penalty was added.

In TV interviews after the session he expressed his frustration at the timing of the red flag, which allowed drivers ahead of the incident to set lap times.

However he put that behind him and put in a storming drive through the field to win the race, and give himself a chance of clinching the title in Las Vegas.

“Today was an emotional roller coaster,” said Horner. “We knew we had a good car. Yesterday, the car was quick, and to finish third then lose it with a VSC, but to be able to follow that closely around here in the sprint race, we knew we that we’d got good pace.

“Quickest in I think Q1, and Q2 obviously, the way things played out, we were just very unlucky.

“And so then having elected to take the five-place penalty as well with the engine, you’re on the penultimate row of the grid, P17.

“So very quickly you have to brush yourself down and focus on the race ahead. Max’s mental strength and attitude to deal with that is outstanding.”

Horner suggested that he didn’t have to give Verstappen a pep talk after his frustrating qualifying session.

“You know when to put an arm around him, but he’s not that kind of driver,” he said when asked by this writer if the Dutchman had needed any support. “He works it out for himself. His mental resilience is huge, and that’s part of the strength that he has.

“But you can see how much it meant to him. I don’t think I’ve seen him that animated on a podium for, I can’t remember the last time, so it meant a huge amount to him. And I really believe that we’ve witnessed one of the great drives in F1 today.”

Horner compared Verstappen’s early progress with that of Ayrton Senna at the 1993 European GP.

“I thought his start today was electric,” he said. “And that first lap was up there with Donington ’93, around the outside of Turn 3. I think he passed six cars on the on the first lap.

“He was the only car that was really making progress, being able to pick cars off, and so late on the brakes into Turn 1, whether it was with Lewis, with Oscar Piastri. And then obviously at the restart with Esteban.

“And then he just controlled the race and pulled away with ease, at some times a second a lap. So on a pretty dreary day, he shone pretty brightly today.”

He added: “I think the best response is to do your talking on the track, and that’s what he’s done today. And an attacking drive, to go from 17th to first, I think, is one of the best drives of his career. And on a day where conditions are difficult, obviously you see the differences in the drivers.

“There have been a lot of comments that have been made, and opinions that have been voiced against Max and the way he drives. And I think the best way to answer those critics is to drive, produce the drive that he did today.

“And we’ve watched a lead that has been diminishing since before the summer break, and having not won since June, it was great to hear the Rolling Stones playing again in the garage in memory of Dietrich Mateschitz that we play every time we win a Grand Prix.”

Lando Norris insists that he has no regrets about pitting for tyres under the VSC in the Sao Paulo GP before a red flag gave rivals a free tyre change.

However the McLaren driver called the regulation that allows such changes “a silly rule that no one agrees with.”

While running in second place Norris followed leader George Russell into the pits just as the VSC was ending, but Esteban Ocon, Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly all stayed out.

A red flag then allowed all three to get fresh intermediates under the stoppage without penalty.

Having passed Russell before the red flag Norris was thus in fourth place for the restart, only to drop behind the Mercedes driver when he ran wide.

At a later restart he had a second off, and eventually finished in sixth place after a hectic afternoon.

“You can change your tyres under the red flag, it’s what the others did,” he said. “So just unlucky, unfortunate. Sometimes it just goes your way. So nothing we did wrong.

“I don’t care what people say. Staying out was not the right thing to do. It shouldn’t been red-flagged, but obviously there was the crash in the end, which caused the red. That’s life sometimes. You take a gamble, and it’s paid off for them. It’s not talent, it’s just luck.”

He added: “It was the right time to box. So no regrets. Just unlucky.”

Asked by this writer about the stop Norris said that all F1 drivers dislike the rule that allows a free tyre change.

“It’s a silly rule that no one agrees with, but you’ll always agree with it when it benefits you. So every driver said that they don’t agree with it, and they wanted it changed.

“So it’s just unfortunate, but it’s the rule. You win some you lose some. It benefited them today. So, well done to them.”

Norris’s day was made worse when he ran wide at a safety car restart and lost out to Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri, although he soon moved back ahead of the Australian.

“I still made a couple of mistakes in the end,” he said. “I had cars on my left, on my right. I locked the rears, I went off. I lost two positions. So a little bit unfortunate there.

“My own fault. So not a perfect race for me. But I think no matter what, fourth was the best anyone could do today, of the people who boxed and didn’t get lucky.”

It was a rollercoaster day for Norris, one that included a qualifying session that saw him on the bubble for elimination in Q1 before taking pole.

“It’s been an up and down weekend, for sure,” he said. “Not a lot more I could do. I’m sure George probably feels like he won the race today, he deserved it more than anyone else. I probably finished third realistically, so it’s tough.

“Max probably would have come through anyway, and probably beaten us. Just unlucky for us, nothing more than that. I made a couple of mistakes, which I own up to, and it cost me a couple of positions in the end.”

Max Verstappen says that on Sunday at Interlagos his emotions went from “almost trying to destroy the garage to winning the race” after he recovered from a major setback in the early morning qualifying session.

The win was his first since in a full length race since Barcelona in June, and enabled him to build a cushion on Lando Norris, who started from pole but finished only sixth.

Verstappen qualified 12^th after getting caught by a red flag in Q2, after which he made his frustration clear. He then dropped to 17^th on the grid due to a five-place PU change penalty.

He was up to 11^th by the end of lap 1 and had risen to fifth when a VSC emerged on lap 27.

While many drivers took the opportunity to pit for fresh inters Esteban Ocon and Verstappen opted not to and moved into first and second immediately before a red flag gave them a free tyre change.

Soon after the resumption Verstappen moved past Ocon into the lead and he set a series of fastest laps as he pulled away to a comfortable win, giving his title campaign a massive boost.

“I don’t even know where to start, because my emotions today have been from almost trying to destroy the garage to winning the race,” said Verstappen.

“I mean, starting P17… I knew that we could have a good race, but in qualifying, I think it was quite clear that there was only one line that you could take. So I knew that overtaking was going to be quite tough.

“But yeah, in the race, we had a good start. That helped already. We had a good first lap. From there, we just picked off a few drivers here and there. Then I got a little bit stuck behind the train of Yuki, I think. Then we just stayed calm. It was still a very long race, naturally.”

Verstappen stressed that the team got his strategy just right: “We made the right calls. When some pitted, the rain was coming, we stayed out. Which was very sketchy.

“And then I saw Esteban in front of me flying, like four seconds a lap faster and I was like, ‘I’m just happy to keep the car on the track.’

“At one point it was just red, like we needed a red flag. It was just undriveable, even on extreme tyres, it would have not been possible because of the banking of the track here, it’s filling up very quickly and it almost felt like I was driving a boat.”

Verstappen admitted he had no specific expectations heading into the race.

“I was just very motivated to get a good race and just let the race pan out and see what happens,” he said. “Because in a wet race, always some crazy things can happen.

“But soon I was passing a few cars, and I had always one lap or two laps of free air. I was always the fastest on the track.

“So, I knew that, ‘OK, we are quick.’ I just need to try and pass the guys to try and have a run to the front. I felt comfortable in the car. I feel comfortable in the wet anyway, but then when the car is also performing, it just doubles up and you can really pick up the pace.”

Verstappen insisted that he only realised that he could win the race when he passed Ocon.

“When I got past Esteban in Turn 1. I mean, before that, the pace was there, I was just trying to build it up slowly. Because after the red flag, the restart was very fast. And then just when the safety car actually came out, I was starting to catch him a bit. But then the tyres were, again, very cold. And then in the restart, I got by.

“And from there onwards, I just tried to look after the tyres, because you never know what was going to happen to the end.

“The wear is always very high around here. But yeah, I felt good. The car was having a nice balance. I just had to be concentrated to not make any mistakes, because the surface was still slippery.”

Regarding the championship fight he said: “Of course looking at it it was incredibly important because in a way I was expecting to lose points today.

“So from now, I just want clean races to the end. I’m not thinking about clinching the championship in Vegas or whatever. I just want clean races.”

Like a hole-in-one, Leclerc’s title chances are a “long shot…”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc admits that the chance of him winning the 2024 Formula 1 drivers’ World Championship is “a long shot” – and that he can only control his own destiny and not rely on Max Verstappen having problems.

With four Grands Prix and two sprint events left Leclerc has 291 points to the 362 score of leader Verstappen and the 315 of Lando Norris.

Leclerc says that Ferrari can win the constructors’ championship – in which the gap to McLaren is now just 29 points – but he has accepted that the drivers’ version will have to wait for another season.

“The drivers’ championship, I think is a long shot,” he said. “I think the constructors’ championship only relies on us doing well. I think the drivers’ championship, doesn’t rely only on me doing well, but it also relies on Max doing badly.

“And what happens to Max, I cannot control. I can only control my own destiny. And so I’ll try and do the best possible job, and then we’ll see at the end of the year. But realistically speaking, it looks very unlikely that we will get the drivers’ championship this year.”

Leclerc said that a constructors’ title would be very significant for Ferrari, the team having last won it in 2008.

However he stressed that internally the focus is still on taking this season it a race a time.

“It will be very, very important, especially after so many years of Ferrari being out of chances of winning that world title,” he said.

“However, it’s not something we focus on. It’s not something that we speak of, to be honest, inside the team. We are just focusing step-by-step.

“We really believe that this is the way forward, and in order to give ourselves the best chance, in order to win the championship, we’ve got to not think about it too much.

“So we are just focusing on this weekend, starting with this weekend, hopefully maximising the result, just like we’ve done in the last two races.

“We have a good momentum, the motivation is super high in the team, and we need to use that in order to do a very good short-term, and then we’ll see at the end of the season how it goes.”

Carlos Sainz noted recently that he believes the Qatar GP is the only race in the last four where Ferrari might not be in a position to win, and Leclerc agrees.

“I think Qatar on the paper is probably the most difficult weekend for us in the remaining ones,” he said. “I think here [Brazil] maybe it’s the second one where we don’t expect to be particularly stellar. Las Vegas should be a really good one for us, and Abu Dhabi, neutral.

“So all-in-all, again, I come back to the point of before, that we really have to focus step-by-step. It’s very fine details, and sometimes this can make a big difference.

“And especially on sprint weekends like this, it’s not because on paper, you are not the favourite that it cannot be the case tomorrow.

“We only have one free practice session, if we manage to do a really good job during this free practice session, everything is possible, and the margins are not big enough for it to be a clear P3.

“So it’s all about the job we’ll do this weekend, and if we do a really good job, then we will have chances of winning this race, even though, on paper, I don’t think we are favourites, and probably McLaren will be the team to beat.”

Ocon will have his Haas debut in the Abu Dhabi test

Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg have both been confirmed as being released to drive for their future employers in the post-season Abu Dhabi Pirelli test in December.

Haas boss Ayao Komatsu has said that the Frenchman will have his first taste of the Haas VF-24.

His 2025 team mate Ollie Bearman will drive the rookie car on the same day as he is still qualified to do, having started only two F1 races.

Meanwhile departing Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg will make his first appearance for Sauber, as officially confirmed to this writer on Thursday by team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi.

Sauber has yet to make a call on a rookie driver for Abu Dhabi as it has yet to decide who will drive the second car in 2025, and it could yet sign a newcomer such as Gabriel Bortoleto.

Meanwhile a senior Williams source confirmed that the Grove team is still in negotiation with Ferrari over a release for Carlos Sainz.

Usually such tests involved special arrangements such as drivers using unbranded overalls and helmets and running without logos on their cars due to them still being contracted to their previous teams for marketing purposes.

A release deal from Ferrari will probably more complicated to arrange for Sainz than for drivers from some other teams, given the commercial implications.

One driver who definitely won’t be sampling his new team in Abu Dhabi is Lewis Hamilton.

The seven-times World Champion won’t be sble to drive the Ferrari SF-24, and is instead committed to a major event in Malaysia on that day, and which is in effect his farewell to longtime Mercedes partner Petronas.

Meanwhile Komatsu says that Ocon’s early debut will be very valuable to Haas.

“That will be the first time for Esteban to drive our car,” he said Komatsu. “Which is important, because obviously regulations are stable. So next year’s car is an evolution of this car.

“So at least it’s good that he tastes this car before January or as soon as possible, to see what our car is like, strength and weakness. And then if he has input, we can still work on it, during the development.

“And also, obviously Ollie has been driving this car, limited to FP1 and one race, so Ollie is going to be driving as well. So again, just to have the opportunity to work with the team, experience the VF-24.

“Everything helps, right? We’ve got one driver doing the rookie test, and then one driver doing the tyre test.”

Future race drivers Kimi Antonelli and Jack Doohan will handle rookie test duties in Abu Dhabi with Alpine and Mercedes respectively.