Tag Archives: McLaren

Verstappen had a difficult time in Baku qualifying

Max Verstappen endured another difficult Formula 1 qualifying session in Baku, and the Dutchman will start Sunday’s race in sixth place – two spots behind Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez.

Verstappen was generally happier with the car over the weekend after a floor tweak since Monza. However, a last minute set-up change for qualifying made the car worse again.

He still managed to top the times in Q2, but the final session proved difficult, and he made a mistake on his first run.

“It’s always difficult to know of course what will happen in Q3,” he said when asked by this writer if he’d expected more after being fastest in Q2.

“But as soon as I went out in Q1 the first lap, I just felt the car took a step back. We made some changes, and the car just became incredibly unpredictable, difficult, just because of the changes that we made.

“And of course I’m a bit disappointed with that, because you always try to, of course, optimise things and try to make it better. And unfortunately, we just tipped it over the edge.

“Yeah, a shame that that happened into qualifying. Then, of course, my first one in Q3 I lost it in the last corner. Otherwise, you’re still fighting for P2, P3, but then you still have a run, you can still improve your lap time.

“And yeah, just didn’t have the feeling in the car. I didn’t feel comfortable, because the car was difficult.

“And when you don’t feel comfortable and you can’t attack corners, you’re probably a bit under it. And yeah, that’s what’s going to happen.”

Asked if the car was still the “monster” that he described in Monza he denied that was the case.

“No, no, I think what we did improve the car. But now with the setup we tried to of course make a few things better, and unfortunately, it went the other way.

“We changed change some things on the car, where the car just started jumping around a lot, so you lose contact patch with the tarmac.

“I was not happy with the car, already from lap one Q1, so I knew that it was going to be tough qualifying regardless.

“I think my lap in Q2 was actually good, considering all the issues that I had, because personally, I was not happy with how the car was behaving. But of course, you still tried to do the best you can.”

Regarding what has been improved he said: “I think the balance disconnect, but I think naturally it’s any way the track for it.

“But yeah, we’re still working and fine tuning that further from now onwards, to try and just get the balance disconnect more together. Let’s say like that.”

Norris will start a disastrous 17th in Baku

Lando Norris admits that he doesn’t expect “anything magical” to happen for him in Sunday’s Azerbaijan GP after he qualified a frustrated 17^th.

The McLaren driver needed a good time on his final lap in Q1 in order to progress to the second session.

He ran over the kerb on the exit of the lefthander that leads onto the long pit straight, but continued his lap.

However he then caught yellow flags that were displayed as Esteban Ocon toured back to the pits with a puncture after clipping the wall. Having backed off he aborted the lap and pitted.

The grid position is a clear blow to his title aspirations, although rival Max Verstappen will only start sixth.

Asked by this writer if his only hope to score decent points on Sunday was to rely on a strategy Norris agreed.

“I think everything’s kind of going to have to be done with strategy, because you can’t overtake,” he said.

“There’s plenty of cars at the back, which have just kind of taken all the wing off and just hope for the best. And that makes it impossible for a lot of cars to overtake them.

“The car’s quick, and we kind of hope that I can come into our hands and at some point I can get clean air.

“But on a street circuit, everything gets backed up so much, you just kind of get forced into a position, and you can’t do a lot at times. So we’ll hope for the best. But I don’t expect anything magical, unless strategy comes into play.”

Asked what is possible on Sunday he said: “I don’t know how to answer, try and race and go forwards and overtake. But it’s not as simple as saying it.”

Although he was in the position of having to make his final Q1 lap count Norris denied the suggestion that he was on the back foot as the session unfolded.

“No, I wasn’t really on the back foot,” he said. “Just the guy ahead of me crashed and there were yellow flags. I was feeling good.

“I mean, when you have a 2kms two straight and you left lift at the beginning – of course, so nothing I could do, honestly. So of course, a bit disappointed and frustrated, but nothing I can change.”

Bearman had an encouraging first day in Baku

Oliver Bearman impressed his Haas team in Azerbaijan on Friday on what he called a “dry run” ahead of his fulltime Formula 1 graduation next season.

The teenager has stepped into the team as a one-off replacement for Kevin Magnussen, who has been banned for a race after accumulating 12 penalty points.

Baku is his first full F1 race weekend after he was called into action for Ferrari on Saturday in Jeddah earlier this year.

He logged 10th place in FP2, just 0.072s shy of team mate Nico Hulkenberg, at a venue where he shone in F2 last year.

“I was really happy with how we finished,” he said. “The main thing was that I completed all the laps we could. A lot of red flags, a lot of interruptions.

“But I was pretty happy with how things went. I was building up step-by-step, and at the end, I found good confidence with the car. So, yeah, good way to go to sleep and start fresh start tomorrow.

“This whole weekend is a dry run for next year. I’m learning so much. Today was my first FP2 session!

“I’m in a much better place than I was few months ago going into FP3, which is great. And the track is making a big step every time I run. And these are things that I wouldn’t know. It’s my first time doing the full weekend, and I’m learning a lot.”

After the session his engineer praised him on the radio for an “excellent” long run performance, and he was pleased to receive such positive feedback.

“Yeah, it was an encouraging day overall,” he said. “I started with a few question marks. This is a really tough track, and my second F1 race is going to be on another street track.

“So it’s not easy, but I was really happy with how the day went. I made a good step from FP1 to FP2 and I felt comfortable with the car. So what more can you ask for?”

He added: “I’m focusing really on myself, and the encouraging part is that I feel confident in the car, I’m comfortable, which was a bit less the case in FP1, but with the track conditions like that, it’s really tough.

“FP2 I was feeling comfortable, and I felt like I could do what I wanted with the car, and I was controlling it. FP1 was a bit more messy, just for the track state.”

Max Verstappen says that Red Bull is starting to understand more about the weaknesses of the difficult RB20 – but he admits that solving its issues will take time.

Verstappen called the car a “monster” after a difficult Italian GP that saw him qualify seventh and finish sixth, allowing Lando Norris to put a dent in his championship lead.

The Dutchman says that the Monza weekend provided useful lessons to the team about the car.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “But I do think that in a way Monza was positive to learn more about the car, and now it just takes time to make the car better basically, and understand our weaknesses. 

“I think we did. Now it’s about just trying to find solutions for it. I also know that it’s not coming within one or two weeks, from when you understand your problems.

“But yeah, I hope that from now onwards we could just look ahead and try to be better, not like a monster.”

After the Italian race Verstappen said that the drivers’ championship was now unrealistic for him.

Asked by this writer if he stuck with that view he said: “If we perform like Monza, it’s not realistic. So we definitely need to be better than what we have been delivering lately. We know that.”

He added: “I also know that we can do a better job in general, and if we understand our problems, then, yeah, if we can find a better balance with the car, then actually we’ll be more competitive. And if more competitive is enough, I don’t know.”

Verstappen acknowledged that Baku might be more suited to the RB20 despite its problems.

“Yeah, it’s a completely different track. So for sure, you have different kind of limitations, potentially, but we’ll see throughout the weekend.”

Verstappen downplayed the impact of Adrian Newey stepping back from the frontline duty earlier this year on the car’s form.

“I wouldn’t say it’s just that,” he noted. “Of course, when it was announced, that’s where it started to go a little bit wrong for us. But I think it already started to go wrong for us a long time before, but we didn’t really see that at the time.

“So I personally don’t think it’s related. That is not to be of course negative towards Adrian or whatever, I definitely don’t see it as something that is related, but it’s something that crept in over time.”

Regarding Christian Horner’s suggestion that the problems began in 2023 he said: “The car last year was quite different to this year. This one was always difficult.

“But of course, there are things that you develop over a period of time that add up to it. To say a specific race, I don’t know, but it’s been a period of time that it’s been going on.”

Verstappen said he had no concerns about McLaren team orders potentially improving Norris’s chances of eating into his championship lead.

“I’m not disappointed,” he said. “At the end of the day of course, they do what they want. That’s not my problem. I have my own problems at the moment.

“So yeah, of course, from Oscar’s side, he’s closer to Lando than Lando is to me in the championship, but it’s something that they have to deal with.”

“They’ve never really been that far apart anyway in the championship as well. And also from Oscar’s side,  you come in as a number one driver, both of them. I don’t think Oscar is the type of driver that needs to be labelled as number two anyway.”

Piastri has said he’ll help Norris if asked to do so

Lando Norris is “thankful” for a call by McLaren on team orders that will see Oscar Piastri support his title campaign if it is necessary to ask the Australian to help.

The decision was made after internal discussions at McLaren since the Italian GP, where Piastri passed Norris on the first lap and put him in a position where he then lost second place to Charles Leclerc.

Team boss Andrea Stella says that the Monza move was detrimental to the overall situation of the team, and he wants to avoid a repeat.

Piastri has also said he’s willing to mover over if he’s asked to do so, although Norris is coy about accepting such help.

“I mean, good, thankful,” said Norris when asked about the call. “How do I say it? I mean, he’s still fighting for his own racing.

“He’s still going out and doing the doing his stuff. And it could be that there’s no time this year that he needs to help me.

“It’s more that I’ve got Oscar’s help when needs be. But he’s still going out with the intent of every session of fighting for himself and going to do his job.”

Norris insisted that he doesn’t want Piastri to have to hand over a race victory: “No. Probably for lower positions. But if he’s fought for a win and he’s deserving of a win, then he deserves to win.”

He said that he doesn’t want a win the championship based on help from Piastri, and that if a decision in his team mate’s favour means he loses at the final round, he will have to deal with it.

“I’m sure it will hurt,” he said. “But I’m also here to race, and if a driver is doing better than me, and outperforming, he’s just doing a better job. So I wouldn’t want to take that away from someone. And I also don’t want to be given a championship.

“Yes, it would be great to have a championship, and short term, you’d feel amazing, but I don’t think you’d be proud of that in the long run. And that’s not something I want.

“That’s not how I want to win a championship. I want to win it by fighting against Max, by beating Max, beating my competitors, and proving that I’m the best on track. And that’s how I want to win.”

Max Verstappen says his run to an eventual fourth place at Spa was “damage limitation,” especially as he finished ahead of title rival Lando Norris.

Having taken pole Verstappen started 11th thanks to a grid penalty. He rose to fifth by the chequered flag, just in front of Norris, before gaining a place from the exclusion of George Russell.

Verstappen said that he couldn’t make further progress simply because he didn’t have a speed advantage over those who started ahead.

“The balance of the car wasn’t too bad always in the first few laps,” he said. “But of course, I also ran a lot in traffic, which probably also didn’t help. But yeah, we were just not faster than the cars around us, and then you just get stuck in that DRS train.

“And I think as a team, we maximised the performance today. Naturally, if you start P1 with the pace that we had, I think you’re fighting for the win, regardless. But starting P11, I knew that it was always going to be a damage limitation race.

“Looking at the championship, it was still a positive day. I extended my lead, where it could have also easily been calculating losses. So from that side, of course, it’s a positive day.”

Verstappen made it clear that beating closest pursuer Norris was the key achievement of the weekend.

“Naturally it’s always better to gain points than lose points,” he said. “And today could have been either way, because he was very fast behind me, but at the same time I was also hunting in front of me.

“I think also naturally we were on two mediums and a hard. I think today, a hard tyre would have helped. Of course, George won the race on a one-stop. But I don’t think we had the tyre wear or tyre life to do that anyway.

“So yeah, also there a few things to analyse, but as a team today, we did a good job. We definitely did the right thing with the strategy, to try and be a bit aggressive initially, to try and get ahead of a few, and it made my race a little bit better.”

Regarding the RB20’s form he added: “With the car at the moment that is probably not the quickest in the race, it’s about just limiting the damage, and trying to be as close as I can be every single time. And that’s what we have been doing lately.

“Next year, I would just hope that we can find a little bit more performance, because we will make our lives a bit easier in the race.”

Verstappen acknowledged that the form book has changed a lot since the days of Red Bull domination.

“I think it shifts a little bit, for sure,” he said. “Constantly, McLaren has been really quick. Mercedes has been quick, but not everywhere. And from our side, we have a bit of work to do. We know that, we have a few things to analyse as well, what to do with the car for the remainder of the season.”

Lando Norris says that Max Verstappen is still a threat for victory in the Belgian GP despite starting only 11^th after taking a PU grid penalty.

He added that Verstappen’s qualifying pace indicated that McLaren still has work to do despite the Woking team’s recent strong form.

Norris and team mate Oscar Piastri are starting fourth and fifth after the wet qualifying session, but they are expected to be competitive relative to the cars ahead – those of Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton – in what will be a dry race on Sunday.

However Norris concedes that Verstappen is likely to come through the field and provide the biggest challenge to the Woking team.

“Definitely a threat,” said Norris when asked about Verstappen’s chances of winning. “I think he’s clearly been quickest all weekend, even yesterday in FP2, they just didn’t turn up the engine, and we had. So considering we were only two-tenths ahead, they had a lot more in their bag, basically.

“So yes, in a way, a good thing, it shows that we still have a lot more work to do, even after a lot of great races the past few weeks, I think Red Bull have always been there thereabouts.

“People want to try and count them out at times, but Max was easily on par with us in quali last weekend, and pretty much the same race pace, just made more mistakes than what we did, simple as that, but just as quick.

“At the minute, they look very strong. He has been since the first lap in FP1, he was quite easily the strongest, so going to be a threat tomorrow.

“But that’s low fuel, and hopefully high fuel is a little bit more even, but 100% he’s going to be coming through quickly, and I’m sure he’ll be a threat for us at some point.”

Norris said he wasn’t worried about Sergio Perez potentially holding the McLarens up and allowing Verstappen to close.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a concern, honestly,” he said. “For our race against Max, we have to get past all of them. I know Checo potentially will have bit more defensive mindset than the others, but Charles is still fighting off pole and for a win, so he’s going to be fighting hard for it.

“He’s not just going to let things go easily. Same with Hamilton. He’s always going to be aggressive and defensive what he needs to be.

“So I wouldn’t say Perez is any more of a threat from that side, but he’s in the quickest car, so in terms of getting past that, kind of making the tyres last better than him, and that kind of thing is going to be harder than some of the others.

“I think when you look at the pace from Friday, it gives us decent amount of confidence that if we can just keep our heads down and focus on ourselves we can hopefully get through them at some point in the race. And try and keep Max behind.”

Piastri suggested that a big delta between old and new tyres means that it won’t be hard to overtake.

“I pitted at one point in practice, and I was three seconds a lap faster than the car ahead of me,” said the Australian.

“So if you manage to defend and the car behind is three seconds quicker than you, then that’s pretty impressive!

“So I think it will kind of work itself out naturally, let’s say, depending on how the race goes. But obviously we’re in a fight with Red Bull in the constructors’, and Max is leading the world championship in the driver’s standing.

“So of course, I’m expecting Checo to put up a fight. I think even for his own sake, it’s not been the easiest run for him.

“And I think, of course, more than anyone, he probably wants a really good result for himself. So I think he’ll fight hard for it, but I don’t think any harder than he would if was another situation.”

Piastri says that Red Bull has been more competitive in recent races that many people might think.

“I think we definitely do still have some different characteristics,” he said. “I think in my opinion, Budapest is really the only weekend for us where you can clearly say we were the quickest.

“And even in saying that, I think had Max got through the traffic a bit quicker in the race, he would have posed a serious threat at the end. So I think they were still, very competitive, and qualifying obviously it was very close.”

Piastri says that “little things” have helped to determine the pecking order: “I think just some days we’ve made mistakes. Some days Red Bull have made mistakes.

“Last weekend, I think our car probably favoured that track a little bit more. This weekend it probably favours Red Bull a little bit more. So all these little things put together is what’s making the difference at the moment.

“And I think we just need to try and make sure we maximise the ones that are in our control, really. But I don’t think we’ve necessarily had the edge over them for the last five or six races.

“I think it’s fair to say we’ve been very even, but I don’t think we’re quicker week in, week out. I think again, Budapest is really the only one where I think we did have a bit of an edge.”

Sainz qualified fourth in Hungary but lost two places in the race

Carlos Sainz was left frustrated in Hungary after a poor start saw him waste his fourth place on the grid and lose out to both Lewis Hamilton and team mate Charles Leclerc.

From the dirty side Sainz slipped from fourth to an initial seventh, with Fernando Alonso also briefly getting ahead before the Ferrari driver repassed.

However Sainz remained behind Hamilton and Leclerc for the duration of the race and had to settle for sixth place at the chequered flag.

“Obviously disappointed, because the start cost me pretty much the whole race,” he said when asked by this writer about his getaway.

“First bad start of the season. So it’s not like I can be too hard on myself or on the team. We need to analyse whether it was my mistake in the procedure, or whether we just had too aggressive clutch settings for the start, and we just paid the price with that wheelspin that then get me off the line. So we’ll have to have a look and analyse it.”

Sainz conceded that being on the dusty right side of the grid, traditionally an issue in Hungary, probably didn’t help.

“The dirty side of the grid you’re a bit more on the limit with clutch slip always,” he said. “I don’t know if we were too aggressive on the targets, or if I just simply did a procedure mistake. This is what we need to analyse.

“At the same time as I said, one bad start in the whole season. All the other starts have been great. So I’m going to try not be too hard with myself or the team, and it’s just a shame that it’s happened at the track where the start is probably more important.”

Ferrari ran an updated version of its latest floor in Hungary, where bouncing was not an issue because of the lack of fast corners.

“It seemed okay,” he said of the package. “Honestly, difficult to judge from my side, because I was always playing catch up.

“Especially in the first two stints I had to overtake cars at the beginning of my stints, which always compromises the tyre deg – having to go on the marbles and use the tyre at the beginning of the stints, to use the peak of the tyre, rather than nursing it in, and then being fast in the second half of the stint.

“The only positive was the third stint, that was quite quick with that medium tyre, and then it degraded a bit too much at the end, which didn’t allow me to pass Max and Charles there at the end.”

Sainz said it was no surprise that McLaren has moved into second in the constructors’ championship.

“I think it was a matter of time that McLaren would overtake us, given their performance and our performance,” he said.

“So yeah, it happened on a day where they were pretty much an easy one-two for them, and we were P4 and P6, which is more or less where we’ve been playing the last three or four races.

“Now it’s time to get our heads down. It’s going to take a bit of time to bring a package that is able to fight the McLaren.

“I don’t think we can bring it for Spa or the first race after the summer break, but hopefully soon after that we will come up with something, and that will close the gap and we can get back in the fight.”

He also acknowledged the recent improved form of Mercedes: “There have been a couple of races where in cold tracks or tracks that suit them, they can win the race, like we saw.

“Other tracks like here, we seem to be very on par with them. At the same time when you look at where they were eight races ago and where they are now, clearly they’ve outdeveloped us, and now it’s time for us to clearly try and hit our development targets.”

Sainz admitted that Spa could be tricky for the team, which has not been at its best at low drag venues in the ground effect era.

“Always been one of our toughest tracks as a team. I think we’ve always struggled there in the last two years.

“At the same time, I feel like you never know our low downforce rear wing might work a bit better this year, and we might be a bit more performing. So obviously, always optimistic, at the same time realistic.”