Hamilton cranks up pressure on Verstappen
Lewis Hamilton has cranked up the pressure on Max Verstappen and Red Bull ahead of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, believing that they should be further ahead in the championship. The seven-time champion believes because of the pace advantage Red Bull has over Mercedes, “people underappreciate just how well we’ve done.”
One of the closest seasons in almost a decade between two drivers, different teams and four races in five weeks, is heading for a climax like no other. Hamilton is currently nineteen points behind Verstappen in the driver’s championship, while Mercedes are just a point ahead of Red Bull.
However, despite going for his eighth world title, he has admitted that he is surprised that Mercedes were even still in the reckoning due to Red Bull’s speed, which he says has been evident all season. He told Sky Sports, “I think people underappreciate just how well we’ve done considering the pace they’ve had since day one.”
“The struggles we had in testing before the season, then just skimming by and winning the first race and then we had a couple of races where… I just don’t think they optimised and probably made more mistakes than they would have liked to. I think we’ve done a pretty good job. We’ve not been as fast as them most of the time.”
Referencing the rule changes this year in the press conference, Hamilton said Mercedes had their “wings clipped” and asked about the importance of this weekend, stating that “every race is a must-win race”. Hamilton says that Red Bull’s pace was phenomenal in Mexico City and they have had the fastest car all year.
Asked about if the return of the Sprint – the short Saturday race that sets the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix – Hamilton was also pessimistic. Repeating his message, “It doesn’t play into your hands if they’re quicker. We just need to focus on getting the car in the right window. It’s not the easiest car to set up.”
Unstable weather makes Sao Paulo difficult to predict
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin believes the “very unstable” weather forecast for this weekends Sao Paulo Grand Prix could impact the ongoing title battle between Mercedes and Red Bull.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen currently leads Lewis Hamilton in the drivers championship following last weekends race in Mexico City, marking his second victory in three weeks. While Red Bull cut Mercedes lead to a point. Red Bull have enjoyed a pace advantage against Mercedes in the last couple of races, leaving the German manufacturer looking to respond at Interlagos this weekend.
Shovlin noted that there were still big swings in performance between Mercedes and Red Bull, which was unusual for so late in the season, having seen his team dominate in Turkey just three races ago.
He told Motorsport.com, “Normally this far into the season you see the performance settle down a bit, and the swings are still big. There will be circuits that will suit us. We had very strong races in Turkey and Sochi and plenty of strong races since the summer break. So it will be up and down, and we’ve definitely got out work cut out.”
“I think on balance, they are a little bit ahead of us, but it’ll get affected by the weather, the track temperatures – those will all play a part. But the biggest thing will be the circuit characteristics and it seems that when we’re on an understeery track, we tend to go a little bit better.”
Asked what the pecking order could be at Interlagos, Shovlin said it would “depend a bit on the weather there” as it “inherently is very unstable” at Interlagos. He believes warmer conditions would play to Red Bull’s strengths.
Shovlin felt that warmer conditions would likely play to Red Bull’s advantage, much as they did on race day in Mexico, but felt the weather would be impossible to predict. He says that if it’s a hot race it would probably swing towards Red Bull, but cloud cover could swing towards Mercedes.
Verstappen interested in racing at Le Mans
Max Verstappen says remains interested in entering the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the future alongside his father, Jos, who will soon make his return to competitive racing. The Dutchman may be on course to win his first championship with a nineteen point lead over Lewis Hamilton with four races to go
While the Dutchman has always been laser-focused on his F1 efforts since joining the grid in 2015, becoming the youngest ever Grand Prix winner the following year, he has previously spoken of a desire to race at Le Mans one day.
Asked by Motorsport.com last week if he had spoken any more with his father about a possible Le Man’s entry, Verstappen said it was still something on his radar for the future.
Verstappen said, “Yeah, we do talk about it a little bit. Hypercar is now coming along, but it still needs a few more entries to be fully established. I think it takes a few more years to really get a bit more of a proper picture of what I want to do possibly in Le Mans. It’s something I definitely would like to do in the future.”
The hypercar class debuted at Le Mans this year with Toyota and Glickenhaus entering bespoke cars, and is set to enjoy a rapid influx of manufacturers in the coming seasons.
Peugeot will join the grid in 2022, while Ferrari has a programme planned for 2023. Audi, BMW, Porsche, Acura and Cadillac are all due to join the sister LMDh class in the same year.
Verstappen Sr, who raced in F1 between 1994 and 2003, has not raced competitively since Le Mans in 2009, the year after he won the LMP2 class in a Porsche RS Spyder run by Van Merksteijn Motorsport. He will make his rally debut later this month in Jack’s International Drenthe Rally at Assen.
He will then race in the Dubai 24 Hours race in January alongside Thierry Vermeulen – son of Max’s manager, Raymond Vermeulen – and two other drivers in a Porsche GT3 car.
Looking ahead to Jos’s rally debut, Verstappen backed the 1994 Hungarian Grand Prix podium-finisher to “do well” as “he takes it very seriously”.
Russell still focused on helping Williams
George Russell says he remains focused on helping his team secure eighth in the championship and thinks it would be “unprofessional” to start thinking about his move to Mercedes next season. The Englishman was announced as a Mercedes driver for 2022, there has been plenty of questions about the move.
However, he says that it would be “unprofessional” to be thinking ahead already, while his current team is still embroiled in a tense scrap over eighth place in this year’s constructors’ championship.
asked by Motorsport.com, if his Mercedes move was already on his mind, Russell said, “Obviously, I get asked a lot of questions regarding the Mercedes move next year, but I think it is unprofessional if I start thinking ahead too quick or too early. I am giving as much effort into this season and the remaining races as I ever have.”
Since Budapest Williams has been ahead of Alfa Romeo, that was followed by Russell taking his maiden podium at the abandoned race at Spa where half points were awarded. However, two eighth places for Kimi Raikkonen Alfa has brought the gap down to twelve points, trailing twenty-three to eleven, meaning the fight with Williams is wide open again with four Grands Prix left to run in the 2021 season.
Speaking following last weekend’s race in Mexico City, he said “I want to make sure that we seal this P8 in the championship but obviously Alfa picked up four more points now.”
“I don’t know what happened to Antonio [Giovinazzi] as they were both in the points at one point. So that is our goal now, to try to score some more points and try to stop them scoring points.”
Staff “on the limit” with triple headers – Alonso
Fernando Alonso says that the end of this year’s calendar choice this year is “strange”, and has left team mechanics and staff “on the limit”. F1 is currently in its third triple header of the season but the most demanding of the season, across Central and South America and Qatar.
The travel and strain at this end of the season pushing the stamina of F1 personnel to the edge, Alonso suggests that it is a bit weird to have had a two-week gap between the United States and Mexico, and then go for the three consecutive races. Speaking before leaving Mexico, Alonso told Motorsport.com, “This triple-header is not the most convenient. Every race is separated by 12 hours [on a] plane or something like that. And we have to race three consecutive weekends.”
“It’s important for the team, for the mechanics to save energy. They are in the garage, packing everything, they will finish late, they will take a plane, arrive in Brazil, and they will pack everything and mount the garage. So it is on the limit for them, for sure.”
The Alpine driver called for better solutions, believing its strange that some races are separated two weeks and some of the races that are in another continent they are back-to-back.
The decision to have a two-week break between Austin and Mexico were prompted by the countries being on the UK’s red list. That required mandatory quarantine on return, something that could have proved troublesome for teams. However, since that decision was made, the UK government scrapped the red list.
By hosting Brazil and Mexico back to back, with Qatar afterwards, it meant F1 personnel could have avoided the quarantine restriction by the time they returned from the Middle East.
Lance Stroll is one who thinks it important F1 considers downtime for staff, and does not just push on in adding on races without caring about consequences.
Saying “I understand there’s a motive financially to increase the number of races and expand the sport. But I think there has to be a balance thinking of the mechanics, the engineers, and all of the personnel in Formula 1, that have families at home, that travel around the world and dedicate a lot of their times to go racing.”
Masi is confident Jeddah will be ready
FIA race director Michael Masi says he is confident that the Jeddah Corniche circuit will be ready in time for the first Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on 03 – 05 December. The circuit is still under construction which has prompted concerns that the street circuit will not be ready for next months race.
While Masi conceded that the organisers still have a lot of work to do before the F1 circus arrives next month, but he has no doubts about it being ready. He told Motorsport.com, “I was there a couple of weeks ago and obviously there is a lot going on there, there’s a huge amount of work happening concurrently.”
“But we, the FIA and F1 are getting daily updates about where things are at, and it is progressing very, very quickly. So from when I was last there, yes, there is a lot to do. There is nothing to deny there, I think everyone will acknowledge there is a lot to do. But I am still confident of the race going ahead no problems.”
Masi however conceded that there was still a huge amount of work to do, things were progressing quickly, and that daily updates were being given. There is however a lot to do with the Australian confidence that the work would be done on time.
He seemly suggested that the critical infrastructure like the pit building, race control and safety-related are the core elements that would be completed. Even if the other infrastructure wasn’t completed.
Adding, “Having seen the level of progress and everything that is being used, put up, erected between Tilke being there, a lot of very experienced contractors, Geobrugg, Tecpro. Everyone that we normally use is there in force, and doing a fantastic job.”
Ferrari unsure about concessions to potential manufacturers
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto is unsure concessions should be given to potential new power unit manufacturers amid continued interest from Volkswagen Group brands Porsche and Audi.
Throughout the year the sport has been in talks with various manufacturers about the next set of power units will look like upon their planned introduction in 2026, agreeing on the removal of the MGU-H.
That has led to interest from the two German manufacturers, with discussions continuing over potential concessions to ensure that any incoming manufacturers are not uncompetitive against rivals who have more experience with the existing turbo hybrids.
Binotto accepts any new manufacturer would need to start from scratch and that there could be extra allowance for CapEx investments, he did not feel this should also apply to the operational side.
He told Motorsport.com, “On other resources like dyno hours or OpEx, I’m not too sure [about concessions]. If you are a newcomer, you’ve got an advantage on the fact that you are only focused on the new development, while we as current manufacturers need to split our effort into the currently running operations and what will be the new one.”
Binotto believes by removing the MGU-H means that the new engine means everyone is starting from scratch, and new entries won’t be disadvantaged. Saying that VW has skills on renewable fuel, electrical meaning he is sure they are not lacking competencies to the current manufacturer
Recently Porsche vice-president of motorsport, Thomas Laudenbach, recently said that conditions for an F1 entry were “coming true”, but warned it cannot “wait too long” to decide on a potential entry.
The manufacturer has been looking at whether to enter the sport for several years, and even went as far as beginning an engine project for 2021 before plans were scrapped to overhaul the regulations.
The weekend ahead
This weekend’s race could be a very important one in deciding this year’s title, as we said in Mexico City momentum is starting to move towards Red Bull. Interlagos is going to be another game of chess between all the teams, on paper the circuit is one where overtaking is possible.
We also have the sprint format this weekend, this means every session matter I think this is the hardest circuit of the three sprint venues for overtaking. But the last two races here have seen more overtaking in my view. It’s also worth noting that at the last two sprint races, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton have crashed.
This race can also be hard on cars, Interlagos we know is hard on the cars and there is not much run-off areas meaning strategy is going to be important. We also know weather can play a role here, anything can happen as we know it’s a narrow tight circuit. Safety cars are also a common factor here and team will need to bare that in mind.
Interlagos I think will be a more Ferrari circuit because its twister, having said that there is very fine margins between them and McLaren in the fight for third in the constructors. That could be wrong as there has been races this season you have expected one team to hold the edge going into a weekend and the other one does.
There has been concerns starting to emerge about whether Jeddah will be ready for the start of December, I think this might be talked about in the background. But the feeling is while it not going to be 100% ready the circuit will be useable for the race weekend. These are off track topics.
