F1 Today – 24/11/2021
Verstappen aiming to be stronger in Jeddah
Max Verstappen says that Red Bull is going to try and come back stronger at next weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, following a second successive defeat by Lewis Hamilton in Doha.
After recovering to second following a late awarding of a five-place grid penalty, Verstappen recovered to second place behind Hamilton, which has narrowed the gap in the driver’s championship to eight points. With two races to go there is a maximum of fifty-two points to play for.
Meanwhile, the Dutchman said “I never get presents from them” about the stewards after he was handed a five-place grid penalty ahead of Sunday’s race for failing to slow sufficiently for double-waved yellow flags at the end of qualifying.
Verstappen told Sky Sports, “I would, of course, have liked to make it a bigger gap, but when you don’t have the pace, it’s impossible to do that, so we’ll just try to be better, and come back strong, especially in Saudi on the street track, and then yeah, we’ll see in Abu Dhabi.”
He says that he wasn’t surprised by his late penalty on Sunday, saying that he never gets favours from the stewards. Explaining he was very motivated to move ahead. Verstappen says the opening laps were good, where he moved into second five laps into the race, then he attempted to keep the gap small, so Mercedes couldn’t do an extra stop.
Asked if he felt hard done by in regards to the stewards, the Dutchman replied: “I don’t want to talk about it too much because I don’t want to give anyone the pleasure to talk about it even more. But it’s of course not great.”
The extra point for the fastest lap meant he left Doha with a slightly bigger gap than if he has just finished second.
Verstappen leads Hamilton by eight points in the drivers, meaning Hamilton must outscore Verstappen by eighteen points to seal his maiden title in Jeddah. However, that has only happened once (Monaco) this season.
One corner behind Doha weakness for Red Bull – Horner
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes weakness in one corner was behind the team’s deficit to Mercedes during the Qatar Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton’s victory in Doha meant he closed the gap to Max Verstappen to eight points with two races remaining this season.
Verstappen had a weekend of ‘damage limitation’, after being behind in qualifying as well as being given a five-place grid penalty, which he executed perfectly by moving back up to second and grabbing the extra point for the fastest lap. Asked what was the main difference between the two teams, Horner said it was Turn Six where the main deficit was to Mercedes. Something the team are investigating before Jeddah.
Asked about the slowest corner in Losail, Turn Six, Horner said, “I think there’s one corner that’s differentiated us all weekend and it’s been Turn 6. We lost two tenths a lap every lap from Friday to Sunday at that corner and I think that’s one the things we need to go and understand and where we need to improve”
Jeddah’s long straights and flat-out sections means it is likely to be a strong track for Mercedes, with Hamilton likely to re-use the fresher power unit he used to great effect at Interlagos.
Mercedes director of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin agreed his team primarily made the difference in cornering after much has been said about its straight-line speed in Brazil.
In his regular post race de-brief, Shovlin said, “In some recent tracks we’ve been matching Red Bull in the corners and extracting a benefit in the straight-line but in Qatar, it ended up being the opposite. We were matching them in the straight line and finding all our time in the corners.”
“Where does that time come from? Well, really there are two areas. One is the downforce that you can get on the car and clearly, our package was working quite well there, helping us generate a lot of apex speed.”
Shovlin says that the drivers were also happy in Doha with the stability of the car meaning the drivers could attack the corner, carry speed.
Mercedes in the best shape of the year – Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton believes that he and Mercedes are in the best shape they have been in all year as they head into the final two races in Jeddah and Abu Dhabi. The seven-time champions victory in Doha allowed him to close to within seven points of Max Verstappen with two races to go.
After a season where he has sometimes struggled with illness and suspecting he has long covid, and where Mercedes has struggled for pace against Red Bull, Hamilton thinks everything is coming together at the right time. He is clear that early-season difficulties he had physically from the after-effects of coronavirus, which he caught at the end of 2020, have now been shaken off.
Following the race, Hamilton said, “I feel great. I feel in the best shape physically that I’ve been in all year. Obviously at the beginning [of the year], not particularly that well, so yeah, I feel great.”
“The car is feeling better than ever, and I feel positive going into these next couple of races. I think they should be quite good for our car, so I’m looking forward to that battle.” Hamilton’s win was also his first back to back win since the Iberian double header in May.
The victory has given Hamilton optimism going into the final two races, believing that as the season has gone on he has managed to squeeze more performance out of the car without bringing upgrades. He says that despite not having upgrades since Silverstone, it has been phenomenal to see the improvements.
Hamilton admits it’s very close between the two cars and hopes that the performance the team has had in the last two races can carry into the final races. Mercedes itself has been impressed with the job that Hamilton has done over the past two weekends and singled out his Brazil performance as a career-high.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: “I think Brazil was the best race I have ever seen him race. Qualifying, that lap, was unbelievable when you think how close Red Bull have been to us. Today [in Qatar] he had the race under control from start to finish so he actually didn’t have to work as hard as we thought he might have to.
Hamilton hopes pride helmet sparks positive change
Lewis Hamilton hopes his wearing of a crash helmet at the Qatar Grand Prix featuring the Progress Pride flag “sparks positive conversation and change”. The seven-time champion showed his support for the LGBTQ+ community, Hamilton raced with the design during F1’s inaugural event in Qatar, a country where same-sex relations are illegal.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Hamilton explained what led to the creation of the special design. He said, “For months now I’ve been thinking about these last three races and the location. Trying to educate myself on also the issues that we are surrounded by here. They are not small; they are big issues.”
“I’ve been trying to think, ‘what is it that I can do?’. I’m only one person; the sport and all the drivers together, and athletes, can do more. In the last race I finally came up with the idea and luckily in a really short space of time”
“I got my helmet painter to send me a clip of this image with the flag over my helmet and I was like ‘that’s what I want for the next race so can you make it happen?’. Hamilton says it was amazing to see a positive response. The back of the crash helmet design contained the words ‘We Stand Together’.
Hamilton added: “I hope there are kids here and whoever are watching asking what the flag is if they don’t know, and why I’m wearing it.
Ahead of last weekend, Hamilton spoke ahead of the event about the need for sports organisations and sportspeople to speak out more on human rights issues.
Russell & Williams frustrated by recent dip in form
George Russell admits he and his Williams team are frustrated by the recent loss of form following a strong first two-thirds of the season. Since finishing tenth in Sochi, the Englishman has finished the last five races outside the points.
He has also struggled to match his single-lap pace from earlier in the season, where Russell had been a regular in getting through to Q2. Despite the dip in form, Williams remains on course to seal eighth in the constructors holding a twelve-point lead over their nearest rivals Alfa Romeo.
Russell told Motorsport.com, “I think everybody within the team is a little bit frustrated at the moment. I think we need to go away and understand what’s changed. I think we’ve got a few indications. We normally had difficult Sundays but we had really great Saturdays to sort of compensate.”
“It’s easier to hang onto a position than attack for a position given our car pace. But for whatever reason, the pace hasn’t been there on a Saturday either, so we need to make the most of it in these last two and make sure we seal that P8, because that’s the main thing for us at the moment.”
Russell’s race in Doha was compromised by a front left tyre failure that led to a slow lap back to the pits and an extra pit stop. However, before that, he had been able to run as fast as he could. Reflecting on the race, he was impressed by how hard they were able to push.
He says that the race was one of the highest tempo in terms of how they could push, making it enjoyable for Russell. Saying he believes that he could have probably driven home on them.
After qualifying Russell had made it clear that the team was struggling to get the tyres to work in Qatar. Saying the team were struggling to switch the tyres on, even in the afternoon’s practice sessions, which is unheard of especially in the Middle Eastern races.
Adding, “Q1 we did the fast-slow-fast sequence and I improved both times on the second lap. Q2 we sort of put it all on the table for that one timed lap and just couldn’t get the tyres working for the first two corners and that sort of sets you up for the rest of the lap.”
Aston Martin poaches Blandin from Mercedes
Mercedes chief aerodynamicist Eric Blandin is the latest big name to be hired by Aston Martin and will leave Mercedes at the end of the season before completing ten months of gardening leave.
His appointment is part of the teams long term plan to challenge for titles, but is a surprise as he is the first key player to be headhunted from the teams engine supplier. Although Aston hasn’t announced what his role or job title will be.
An Aston spokesperson told Motorsport.com: “We can confirm that Eric Blandin will begin working for Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team next year. His exact start date is not yet confirmed. The transition from Mercedes AMG F1 Team to ourselves will be an amicable one.”
Blandin began his career at an Italian wind tunnel concern Fondmetal Technologies in 1998, before moving to Jaguar Racing as an aerodynamicist in 2002. He remained with the Jaguar team when it became Red Bull in 2004, before join Ferrari for fourteen-month period in 2010-11.
He ten joined Mercedes in May 2011 as principal aerodynamicist. He was promoted to the role of chief aerodynamicist in September 2017.
Blandin is just the latest in a long list of signings by the British manufacturer as its owner Lawrence Stroll targets making the Silverstone based team into a genuine title contender.
Other recent signings include Dan Fallows from Red Bull as technical director also from Red Bull Andrew Alessi the teams head of technical operations, Luca Furbatto from Alfa Romeo as engineering director.
Team principal Otmar Szafnauer has said recently that Aston Martin was still hiring as it prepared to challenge for the World Championship. Saying that with the mix of human resources, infrastructure and factory, the team are on the right trajectory towards winning championships in four years time
He added, “Things haven’t slowed down in the recruitment. But unless they’re very senior, we don’t we don’t announce everybody. We’ve hired over 150 people this year, and we will continue to hire.”