Ferrari hopeful of maintaining low-speed advantage
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto is hopeful the team can maintain its low-speed advantage over McLaren at this weekends Monaco Grand Prix. Following the teams worst season in four decades last year, the Italian manufacturer has made a decent step this year currently fourth in the constructors.
The Italian outfit held the advantage last time out at the Circuit de Barcelona, outperforming its Woking-based rivals in the final sector, which predominantly consists of low-speed corners. This is normally a good indication for Monaco, because of the circuits nature.
Assessing his team’s chances ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix, Binotto told Crash.net, “I think it’s a very specific circuit. Yes, obviously having good downforce here in the last sector gives you a good feeling and it puts you in a good state of mind going to Monaco because, for sure, you prefer to be quick in sector three in Barcelona.
“And at the same time, Monaco then has a lot of specifics of car set up, tyre preparation for qualifying. The cars are so different in Monaco that it could change a bit the picture.”
“What we need to focus now is in keep learning from what we learned this weekend, try to put together the best possible plan, the best possible setup for Monaco and we try to maximise our performance there.”
Binotto however is taking a cautious approach and wait and see because of the unique set-up needed for Monaco. Leclerc hasn’t finished in the points in his previous two home races, but he is confident of a competitive weekend.
He added, “But I’m really looking forward to Monaco, obviously it is a very special weekend for me. And a weekend I have not been very, very lucky in the past so I hope we can have a good weekend, as a team.
“And also looking at the third sector. We were quite competitive here so of course, it’s different but we seem to have a strong car so hopefully, we can be competitive at home.”
Ricciardo says Hamilton has silence doubters
Daniel Ricciardo believes that Sir Lewis Hamilton’s hard-fought wins in F1 this year are helping silence doubters who questioned just how good he is. The seven-times world champion is locked in a championship battle with Ricciardo’s former teammate Max Verstappen and has won three of the first four races so far this season.
The tight fight with his Red Bull rival has forced Hamilton to push to the max, and that has cast fresh light on the contribution he makes to Mercedes’ success. Mercedes dominance of the sport since 2014 has prompted suggest that Hamilton only wins because of his car, however believes perceptions are being changed.
peaking at the unveiling of the new Gulf livery that his McLaren team will run in next weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, Ricciardo, said “A lot of people are probably tipping their hat to Lewis. He’s getting it dished back at him and he’s holding his ground. And, I guess, showing people that maybe doubted him, why he is as good as he is.”
Asked about who he thinks will come on top in the battle, Ricciardo said: “At this stage, you’d always, I guess, take experience. So if it was really down to the wire, then I think Lewis has showed some strong signs. But then again, if there’s a gap, Max goes for it. That’s why obviously I respect Max a lot.”
The Australian believes there are potentially some mind games between the F1 title rivals in the wake of comments from Hamilton about how much he learned from Verstappen’s driving when following him at the Spanish Grand Prix.
He added, “If it had been in qualifying, then he would have been able to see a different line that Max may be taking, or something like that. So maybe that could be just a little bit of a comment to like, get some shout about nothing. Maybe it is a bit of a way to engage in some mind games.”
Ricciardo said that you can sometimes tell when following someone when they’re starting to slide the car more, lock a brake, or drop a wheel here.
Norris has no cause for alarm after not peaking in Q3
Lando Norris says his recent failure to hit his qualifying peak in Q3 is no cause for alarm, after revealing that car damage hurt him at the Spanish Grand Prix. The Englishman has had a strong start to the season and is currently fourth in the driver’s championship.
However, his qualifying sessions have not played out in an ideal fashion, as he has often been unable to match his best time from Q2 in the final run of Q3 that secures the grid slots. In three of the four Grands Prix, so far this season, Norris’ fastest lap has come in the Q2 session. But while that may be the case, a pattern has started to emerge that the second run in Q2 and Q3 can be slower than the first lap.
Speaking at the launch of the team’s Gulf livery for this weekends Monaco Grand Prix, Norris said “I don’t think my qualifying’s have been too bad. Q1s and Q2s have been very good, and Q3 run one has often been very good. But then Q3 run two is often where it’s gone a little bit downhill, but all for kind of different reasons.”
“It’s not because I’ve not been able to put laps in or put it together or anything like that. In Spain, I had damage on the car. In Imola, it was for going off the track. Portugal was going too early and getting caught behind the Aston Martin.” Norris says he was not concerned at the moment but says if it became something which became consistent it would be something to work it.
He suggested that while it was going well in Q1 and Q2, he still needed more confidence to get it together in Q3. Norris said on his final run in Q3 his lap was by floor damage that he picked up on his first run on old tyres.
Adding “I ran wide between Turn Eight and Nine on run one, which was unluckily on a relatively new tyre. Then on the new tyre, the damage kind of cost me a bit, so it wasn’t ideal.”
Sainz still building confidence with starts
Carlos Sainz says that he still building his confidence when it comes to race starts in the Ferrari after he struggled off the line in Barcelona. The Spaniard has typically been a good starter through out his career, but at the last race, he lost positions to Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez on the opening lap in Barcelona, slipping from sixth to eighth.
He was then unable to regain positions which he lost and then became stuck in the midfield with his teammate Charles Leclerc pulled clear after starting fourth, ultimately finishing twenty seconds up the road at the chequered flag. Sainz lost positions off the line on debut in Bahrain before making gains at both Imola and Portimao, giving him an average of zero places made up on the first lap of races so far this year.
He says that he was aware of his issues at the start and was already discussing them with Ferrari in a bid to gain confidence, and build a better understanding following his winter switch from McLaren.
He told reporters in Barcelona, “I was just going through a bit of analysis with my engineers 10 minutes ago, trying to understand what I could have done better. What is clear is that I still need to get a bit better and a bit more confident with the start system, and the way we operate to get that perfect launch and the perfect first 100 metres.”
“Although today, I don’t think that was the main limitation, the main limitation of it was the positioning, getting in and out of the slipstream and then being boxed in behind [Esteban] Ocon going into Turn One and losing quite a bit of position to the cars around the outside.”
Sainz believes there was a combination of factors which allowed Leclerc to get a good result in qualifying. To have a similar result he sys he needs to put the whole weekend together.
Ocon a “significantly improved driver” – Budkowski
Alpine boss Marcin Budkowski says that Esteban Ocon has become a “significantly improved driver” after working hard over the winter to build his confidence. The Frenchman struggled last season to match his then-teammate Daniel Ricciardo but has raised his game in the opening four races.
Budkowski believes Ocon has carried the momentum from his second place in Sakhir to be the team’s leader. He started on the third row of the grid in Portimao and Barcelona with his best result being seventh but he has scored points in the last three races.
Ocon has also out-qualified and beaten two-time world champion teammate Fernando Alonso in the last three races, leading Alpine’s charge as it bids to join the upper-midfield fight with Ferrari and McLaren. His performances and consistency this year have drawn praise from a number of paddock figures, with Alpine executive director Budkowski noting a step in performance from his driver compared to last year.
Budkowski told Motorsport.com, Ocon has “improved throughout last year, and he was getting closer and closer to Daniel in qualifying. Confidence is one thing – confidence in the team, confidence in himself. The podium did help.”
“He did a lot of work during the winter. He is a significantly improved driver, and you can see it in the way he approaches the sessions. We made changes to his race engineering team, we changed his race engineer over the winter [Josh Peckett replaced Mark Slade in this role].”
“That’s great, because he can work in a much more constructive way than he was able to last year. And then it’s confidence, it builds up, especially in these kind of qualifying burners.”
Alpine appeared to struggle in the opening races of the season, Alpine managed to take a big step forward in performance over the Portugal and Spain weekends, appearing to comfortably run as the fifth-fastest team when they brought their upgrades.
Budkowski says the car wasn’t up to the team’s expectations in Bahrain and there was pressure to improve the car. He says “It was great for everybody to be there on third row in Portugal, but we knew the conditions were very tricky.”
Perez enjoying Marko’s brutally honest approach
Sergio Perez says he is enjoying Helmut Marko’s brutally honest approach since joining Red Bull, saying he has a lot of respect for the team’s motorsport advisor. The Mexican joined the team at the start of the season following his departure from what is now Aston Martin after a maiden win at the Sakhir Grand Prix.
However, in the first four Grands Prix, he has struggled to match teammate Max Verstappen which is to be expected because of the limited testing. Marko who has a reputation for brutally honest and forthright views on the performance of the team’s drivers has been something Perez said that he is enjoying when working with Marko at Red Bull, appreciating his direct nature and feedback.
He told Motorsport.com, “The truth is that I am delighted with Helmut. He always tells me what he thinks. If you do well, he tells you. If you do badly, he tells you, not only to you, also externally to the press.”
“He is very direct and I respect him a lot because having someone like that in F1 is not very common. I think we have a good relationship. We are getting to know each other more and more. Normally after the race, I have calls with him, and there he tells me if I did wrong or not.”
Perez managed to out-qualify Verstappen at Imola, but he is yet to beat his teammate in the race with him scoring half the points of the Dutchman. However, he does believe that he has made progress in the opening races in adapting and understanding the car.
He says he has had to change his approach to racing and made big steps forward in race trim with the Red Bull RB16B car. Perez added, “My aspiration is to win. It’s early in the season still, I have to be patient. I know that 10 races from now, I will know exactly where I stand and the chances I have in the championship.”
The Mexican stresses though its still his aspiration is to win, but it was early in the season to assess where he stands in the championship. Saying it “doesn’t matter where you start or how you start, but how you finish in Abu Dhabi.”
Perez struggled to eighth place in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix after struggling with a shoulder issue, but said he has regained full fitness ahead of this weekend’s race in Monaco.
