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51
Formula One / 2023 São Paulo Grand Prix - Saturday
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:37:50 PM »
George Russell

I had a good first lap but after that, it was a struggle. We expected the tyre degradation to be less than it turned out to be. We certainly didn’t expect to be outright quickest, but we were surprised by the pace delta to those ahead. That all came down to the tyres. Sometimes we seem to be able to get them to work, other times we struggle. It’s a shame but we clearly got it wrong today where others didn’t. We need to rectify that for tomorrow.

The track will be a little bit cooler on Sunday which may swing things more into our favour. We will obviously learn things from today too and make some changes. It’s likely to be at least a two-stop race, but I’m not as optimistic heading into tomorrow’s Grand Prix as I was this morning.
Lewis Hamilton

That was not an enjoyable race. We made a good start and managed to gain a position on Sergio Perez. After that though, we really struggled with the balance. We had a lot of understeer, then snap oversteer, and I was fighting the car from very early on. By the closing stages, I had run out of grip on the tyres, and I can only assume that we got the setup wrong. We will need to find a way to make some changes for tomorrow. I suspect it will be a long afternoon if we aren’t able to make improvements. I will of course be fighting as hard as I can, and trying to manage the tyres a bit better than we were able to today.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

That was a difficult day. We pushed very hard at the beginning of the race, and we suffered from that in the later stages. The car was not balanced optimally, with the rear end not strong enough to live with the front. You’re having to drive the car on a knife’s edge but it’s almost impossible to do so. Both drivers were trying to hold on to the pace, but we didn’t give them a car to do that today. They were both subsequently sliding around a lot more than they would want and that killed the tyres. We need to go away this evening and work through what we can do to improve it for tomorrow. There are no easy fixes, but we will do everything that we can.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

That was not a good race for us today. We likely pushed a bit too hard early on and it took a few laps to realise that we simply didn't have the pace to race for a top three position. That hurt the tyres and caused us to suffer from high levels of tyre degradation in the closing stages.

We know that we’ve got what we've got in terms of the setup and that there are only a few tools to play with to make improvements. We therefore know that making a big step in performance for tomorrow is out of the question. However, there are a few things we can use to balance the car and there's clearly a bit to learn about how we use the tyres across the stint. It might be a little cooler tomorrow and that could help; not so much that the tyres will be in a drastically different operating window though. It's therefore imperative we can make progress overnight if we're to avoid another tough race on Sunday.
52
Formula One / 2023 São Paulo Grand Prix - Friday
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:37:07 PM »
Lewis Hamilton

P5 is never going to feel that great. I did the best I could though and hopefully we will have a better race on Sunday. The car was showing signs of decent performance, but we did seem to be a couple of tenths off the guys right at the very front. We made a few changes ahead of qualifying and it did seem to make the car a little nicer to drive. In general though, it wasn’t particularly fast. Having said that, the conditions and circumstances at the end of Q3 have maybe put us slightly further back than our true pace would have showed. It is difficult to say with any confidence though. Over the rest of the weekend, I think we’ve got a bit of a battle on our hands. Overheating with brakes and managing tyres will be important but if we can use our strategy to progress forward, then we will do that.
George Russell

The weather today was absolutely crazy! I’ve never seen it change so drastically as that during Q3. I was really disappointed with my final push lap. I was sliding around and had no grip. I didn’t see that much rain on my visor, but I was one second off and I wanted to pit for new tyres as I was confident that I would be last. We ended up P6 though which, whilst the lap was disappointing and frustrating, it’s not a bad place to start. The team did a great job, and the car has been performing well here. We also know race pace is more important than single lap pace here. We will still be aiming to get on the podium. Aston Martin have been quick today, and will start ahead of us, but I hope our long run pace is better than theirs. I expect there to be multiple pitstops during the race on Sunday, so it’s all to play for. Let’s see how we perform over the rest of the weekend.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

We had a useful FP1 with plenty of focus on the long run. That is very important here and the car seemed to be working well although as always, it's tough on the tyres here when the track is hot. Qualifying was tight but that's normal with how competitive the entire grid is these days. Even so, we'd managed to get both cars through to Q3 with two new sets of soft tyres still available for each. It looked like we were in the hunt for the top three spots.

For what turned out to be our final run, we left the garage early and queued at the end of the pitlane. It was clearly right to be at the front of the pack, but we'd lost too much tyre temperature whilst waiting for the green light. We therefore didn't have good grip opening the lap; that was particularly costly given that the circuit had started to get damp from the rain. It was frustrating to end up P5 and P6, but if we can get through the Aston Martins in the early stages of Sunday then we'll be in the fight for a podium. Before that though, we've got Saturday’s standalone sprint format to get on top of and there are some useful points available. We will be working hard to maximise that opportunity.
53
Formula One / 2023 São Paulo Grand Prix - Preview
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:36:09 PM »
Toto Talks São Paulo

We came away from Mexico with our advantage over Ferrari in the fight for second in the Constructors’ intact. That is an important battle for us and one we are focused on winning.

Leaving Mexico with a second-place finish, given the challenging start to the weekend and our grid positions, was positive. The car showed very good race pace however we know we’ve got more work to do to extract the maximum from the W14 across all three days. Lewis put in a very strong performance to score a podium and George gave it absolutely everything, even when his tyres had gone off at the end.

We’ve got one last race in this triple header and it’s in Brazil. We know we’ve taken a good step forward in recent races, but Mexico showed W14 can still prove tricky to master. We will look to arrive in Interlagos with a solid baseline to work with and we’ll see what we can do from there.

Of course, we have fond memories from Brazil, especially the past two visits with Lewis’ spectacular win in 2021 and George’s first victory in 2022. The fans are super passionate about F1, and we always get such an enthusiastic reception from them. Hopefully our package will run well there, and we can put on a good show for everyone.
Fact File: São Paulo Grand Prix

    The Autódromo José Carlos Pace is the fourth-shortest circuit on the 2023 F1 calendar at just 4.309 km long.
    The only tracks shorter than it are Monaco, Zandvoort, and last weekend’s venue, Mexico.
    However, 67% of the lap is spent at full throttle.
    That ensures that it is the second-quickest lap time of the year, behind only the Red Bull Ring.
    The current lap record is held by former Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas, who recorded a 1m 10.540 in 2018.
    The absolute track record, the fastest ever lap of the circuit in an F1 car, is held by Lewis who recorded a 1m 07.281 to take pole position in the same year.
    The São Paulo Grand Prix venue is situated 800 metres above sea level, the second-highest altitude we visit on the calendar.
    Again, only last weekend’s venue in Mexico City is higher although that has significantly more elevation, clocking in at over 2,200 metres above sea level.
    Interlagos provides a tricky challenge to set-up the cars. The first and third sectors require low drag for the long straights, but the twisty middle sector requires high downforce.
    With two DRS zones, the focus typically falls towards higher downforce for the ultimate fastest lap, but a balance still needs to be found to be competitive for overtaking and defending during the race.
    From the exit of Turn 12, there is 1.2 km of full throttle before reaching the braking zone for Turn 1.
    In this part of the track, there is also an elevation change of 33 metres.
    The biggest change in elevation however is from the start/finish straight to Turn 4, which sees a 40 metre drop in elevation.
    The long straight before the start of a flying lap requires smart deployment of energy from the ERS to maximise performance towards the end of the out-lap.
    Turn 1 is heavily banked towards the inside, which unloads the front-left wheel and can cause lockups.
    However, as the tyre is unloaded, flat spots are less likely and time loss isn’t as high due to the steep banking and variety of lines possible.
    The uphill grid requires the drivers to find a balance between holding the car on the brakes as gently as possible, without rolling backwards.
    From Turn 10 to Turn 6 (around 3.5 km) the left-hand front tyre does very little work and therefore cools down quickly. This provides a challenge in keeping the tyre in its operating window.
    Interlagos is a flowing circuit, with plenty of combined corner entries (where the car is cornering and braking at the same time). This means good stability is important along with a good front-end for the low-speed middle sector.
    Track temperatures can reach some of the hottest of the season here, getting up towards 60 °C.
    The weather in São Paulo can also be mixed at this time of year. It is not uncommon to see sunshine and high daily temperatures followed quickly by a thunderstorm bringing a deluge of rain.
    This weekend’s São Paulo Grand Prix marks the final sprint event of the 2023 season.
54
Formula One / 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix - Sunday
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:35:17 PM »
Lewis Hamilton

It’s a great result considering we started from P6 and amazing day for the team. We pushed hard and I’m proud of the whole team for all their work. It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for us so it’s great to finally bounce back. The car felt much better today, and the pace was strong. Today was about the balance of the car and managing the tyres and we managed to do that well. We dug really deep this weekend to improve the set-up and get it right and the result today shows the hard work everyone in the team has put in to achieve that. Now I can’t wait to get to Brazil and hopefully continue with the strong pace of the car.
George Russell

I felt really good in the car today, the pace was there so definitely a positive from this weekend. I was right behind Carlos wanting to overtake when my brakes overheated. We were concerned about making it to the end, so I had to back off and that’s where I lost all the temperature in the tyres and didn’t manage to get them back into the right window. It was like driving on ice for the last 20 laps so I’m glad I managed to finish in P6.  Another difficult weekend for us but the car was performing well. We just need to have some clean weekends and show consistency, but I'm confident we'll achieve that. I’m looking forward to Brazil and I hope that we will show some good pace there too and hopefully we will be in a position to fight for the podium.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

We had a strong car today so we’re happy with the result and it gives us confidence. Once Lewis managed to get into free air, the lap times were good and great job that he managed to get fastest lap at the end of the race too. The pace was there and that’s a positive for us building on the last two races. Tyre management at this track is so marginal, a few degrees of track temperature and they’re out of the window and the other way around. George unfortunately totally ran out of tyres, so it was tough for him to defend. Still, a strong result for him today and he fought well to keep the position from Daniel in the final lap. We don’t know yet how we will perform in Brazil next week. We will keep both feet on the ground, do our best job there and hopefully we’re in position to fight at the front.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

A great drive by Lewis to take second place from sixth on the grid. We've had a tough run of races recently and it's really encouraging to see the pace in the car, especially on a weekend where we have found it really difficult to get it into the window. George was disappointed to lose the place to Lando in the final stages, but he was clearly much quicker than Carlos on the restart and whilst it's easy with hindsight to say we should have backed him off and preserved the tyres, we'd rather be a team that's looking forward in races than one that is looking behind. We've not had an easy weekend here, it's been difficult, very difficult to keep the tyres in the right window and we were very disappointed with how qualifying went. However, to leave here having matched Ferrari on points given our grid positions is encouraging. The car was working well, we were managing brakes and we'll fix that for next year but the pace was strong. We can improve on this weekend and we'll be working hard preparing for the sprint race next weekend in Brazil.
55
Formula One / 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix - Saturday
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:34:29 PM »
Lewis Hamilton

I've been struggling all weekend with the car and it has been a bit of a nightmare to drive. We've had to try and put the performance together piece by piece, and we made good changes going into qualifying so that I was much happier with the car. Q1 and Q2 weren't looking too bad - especially the second run in Q2. But the car is just really peaky - sometimes it's in the window, sometimes not. And I couldn't squeeze anything more out of it on that final lap. The race is definitely going to be a challenge: we will be overheating the tyres and the brakes, so it won't be easy to battle the cars around us. I don't really know what kind of race to expect but it's going to be on a knife edge.
George Russell

It was a bit of a shame to end up P8 because we showed signs of strong pace at points, but we didn't deliver when it counted. We lacked consistency today - some runs we were strong, others not, so it was a confusing picture. On the final run, we had one set of new tyres and tried something different on the out lap, and it didn't work and the tyres weren't in the window. As for tomorrow, it will be hard from P8 - the brakes will need managing and PU temperatures are always a challenge, too. We came here expecting to be competitive and I hope we can make progress in the race, but it won't be easy.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

P6 and P8 are less than we had hoped for from qualifying today. We made some good steps with the car today, but we couldn't put the lap times together when it really counted. Ferrari made a massive jump from Q2 to Q3, and you could see all the way through the session that it was all about fine margins - two or three seconds of out lap pace, and getting the tyres perfectly in the window, or just slipping out of it. On our final new tyre, it looks like we were a bit too slow and the tyres a bit too cool - but it's just tricky to find that sweet spot. We are less than three tenths off pole, but it feels like a lot more given our starting positions. We showed some decent race pace yesterday - but we don't know if that will translate tomorrow, after the set-up changes we made. But the only goal will be to move forward from where we start.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

To qualify P6 and P8 is disappointing after we made good progress with the car since yesterday - and doubly so when the gap to pole is less than three tenths of a second. The field is just so tight these days and we were not fast enough when it mattered. It's frustrating as the team worked hard overnight to get the car into a better place and it feels like we have made good progress, it's just clearly not enough. It's very difficult to know how the race is going to pan out; we've made enough changes overnight that our Friday long run data is not particularly relevant, but hopefully we've improved the pace. Ferrari certainly look like they have a good car here and, given the championship position, it's important that we can stay in the race with them. Also, interesting that Daniel is up there. We've had good race pace recently but for many different reasons we've not been converting it into points. Hopefully we'll do a good job of that tomorrow.
56
Formula One / 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix - Friday
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:33:40 PM »
Lewis Hamilton

It’s been a challenging day for me today, the car felt completely different to what it felt like in Austin a week ago and we need to understand why. We didn’t show the most competitive long-runs, so we’ve been focusing on trying out different set-ups. The track here comes with its challenges, but we’ve done well here in previous years. So, we’re not yet fully where we want to be ahead of tomorrow, but we will work hard overnight to improve and make necessary changes. The car showed a promising pace in Austin and I’m confident we can get it to a good place here and there’s plenty of room for us to improve. 
George Russell

It felt good to be back in the car, but I had a challenging session today with mixed weather conditions and a bit of rain towards the end of FP2, which compromised the consecutive laps for everybody. It’s a tight grid out there and lots of traffic during the sessions today, so one of the challenges we will need to tackle this weekend. We also need to make some improvements with the pace of our car, if we want to be at the front end of Q3 tomorrow, but I know we will work hard overnight to achieve that.
Fred Vesti

This is a very special weekend for me, it’s a dream come true and I’m very grateful to the team for the opportunity. Since I’ve joined the team’s junior programme, there’s been a lot of work going into getting the right results and lots of preparations in the simulator to prepare me for today. It was a good session for us overall, we managed to get some useful information from the long run stints and understand the prototype tyres and degradation at this track. I’ve never raced here before and it’s definitely a difficult track with low grip, which you can also really feel in the car. So, lots of learnings for me and the team today in this one-hour long practice session and hopefully good preparations for decent results on Sunday. And I can’t wait to be back in Abu Dhabi and sit in the car for the team again.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

We’ve struggled with the car today and it wasn’t the easiest introduction to a free practice session for Fred; Lewis was finding the car quite a handful, but Fred did a good job to get through the test items, he didn’t make any mistakes and had some fun driving the track here. The extra sets of tyres that we had to evaluate tend to mean that the programmes up and down the grid diverge a bit, which makes it more difficult to compare, but we’ve seen enough to know that we have work to do on both single lap and long run. George is still getting up to speed having missed the first session and both lost a bit of time on single lap with traffic, but we need more than that. It’s also interesting that most teams have had a driver featuring near the front at some point today, which almost certainly means that getting through to the final part of qualifying will not be comfortable. We’ve got some good lines of enquiry to follow up overnight so we’ll keep working on it, the balance has been pretty poor throughout the day which is normally a good indication there is lap time that can be found.
57
Formula One / 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix - Preview
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:32:44 PM »
Toto Talks Mexico City

Austin was a weekend of mixed feelings. The positives are that the upgrade looks to have given us a step forward in terms of performance. Our pace was strong all weekend and it was encouraging to be in the fight for victory.

The negative was of course failing to capitalise on our pace with the result. Losing a podium finish hurts and is not a position we want to find ourselves in. The complexities of a sprint weekend and a bumpy circuit caught us out. But rules are rules. We will learn from this and improve. Now we move on to the next race.

Mexico is always an exciting weekend. The fans are super passionate and energetic. The venue also presents a unique challenge with the high altitude. It has a major impact on how we operate the car, and it is always a challenge to find the optimum solution.

It will also be a good test of our upgrade package; seeing how it performs at a circuit with very different characteristics. That will be useful for our continued learning and development for W15. Finally, FP1 will see Fred Vesti in the car for one of our two mandatory rookie sessions. He has acquitted himself well in Formula 2 and I am sure he will do a good job for the team.
Fact File: Mexico City Grand Prix

    The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is the third-shortest circuit on the 2023 F1 calendar, behind only Zandvoort and Monaco.
    It does however have the longest run from pole position to the first braking zone at 811 metres.
    Mexico City sits at over 2,200 metres altitude which affects the car in a number of different ways.
    Because of that high altitude and therefore low air density, the air is incredibly thin.
    The ambient pressure is by far the lowest of the season at 782mb.
    The oxygen levels are therefore 78% of what they are at sea level. This has a big impact on the aerodynamics and the Power Unit.
    The Power Unit sees a decent drop in output due to the thin air. The turbocharger makes up for some of the power loss, but not all of it, and has to work much harder than it does in normal conditions.
    Due to the altitude, we run a high downforce package in Mexico City but experience Monza levels of downforce.
    Top speeds are therefore some of the highest of the season and typically exceed 350 km/h.
    The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez still largely follows the original outline of the circuit which was first developed in 1959.
    The main difference is the former, more fearsome version of the Peraltada corner is now bisected.
    The first championship Grand Prix race took place at the circuit in 1963, before disappearing from the calendar after 1970.
    The second F1 stint at the circuit came between 1989 and 1992, before the championship returned in 2015 with Nico Rosberg victorious for our team.

Insight: Rookie FP1 Sessions - How we Prepare a Driver

"It's my first ever Free Practice so obviously my expectations are high, but there is a check list that I need to go through and tick all the boxes and that's where I'm going to keep my focus."

Fred Vesti is quite rightly excited to make his maiden appearance in an F1 car on a Grand Prix weekend. Whilst it will be a proud moment for the Dane, he is aware that he has an important job to do. How do we make sure a rookie driver is ready for that task?

"We can replicate plenty of things in the simulator. For Fred's outing, we've got a session prepared with George's race engineers so that he can go through all the comms, all the language that they use, get ready for that and then also he will be helping us doing our pre-event work," says Senior Performance and Simulation Engineer, Zhaoming Li.

Holly Chapman, Trackside Power Unit Engineer, adds: "To make sure a rookie driver is fully prepared for driving the car we'll go through a pack of slides with them, which covers all the basics that they need to know. As they become more experienced, we can then add to that, but we really tailor it to the rookie at that time."

The learning also continues on once the driver is on track. Hugues Bretonnier, Senior Performance Engineer, comments: "As with the race drivers, there will be an opportunity between runs to have a look at the data. We can discuss with the engineers how he can build up his confidence, progress the speed in a couple of corners maybe, using different tools on board and adjust the setup to try and progress with our weekend according to our run plan."
58
Formula One / 2023 United States Grand Prix - Sunday
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:31:45 PM »
Lewis Hamilton

Firstly, congratulations to Max and Red Bull. They have done an incredible job all year long, they’ve dominated and been nearly flawless. We were catching them towards the end, though. I was hopeful that I could, but I just need a couple of more laps. There has been so much work to bring this upgrade here and it was difficult after the last race in Qatar. I really felt like I let the team down, so I had to go through such a deep process to get myself back to here. It’s one of those experiences of “it’s not how you fall, it’s how you get back up”. I came here in the mood to fight hard, felt great and I’m really happy with my performance.

Overall, we still didn’t perform optimally today. We had good pace and I was feeling great in the car. It was tough racing those around me as they were so quick, but we can be happy with many things. I feel positive as we’re moving forward, even if reflecting on it we could have possibly won today. It is of course disappointing to be disqualified post-race but that doesn’t take away from the progress we’ve made this weekend.
George Russell

The race start really cost me today. I lost three positions and then, and I don’t know why, when we put the Hard tyre on, I was massively off the pace. I had to manage the lift and coast too and I was just dropping like a stone. When we put the Medium tyre on, suddenly we were amongst the quickest cars on the track. I closed over 10 seconds on Max (Verstappen) in that final stint. It’s disappointing when I definitely felt that there was the potential to fight for a podium.

The positive is that the car has improved. We have full focus on 2024 but we also know that the upcoming weekends should suit us more than here. We need to wait and see how we get on there. It’s been a scrappy weekend for me but I’m feeling excited and motivated for the final four races of the year.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

We can take a lot of positives from the car performance today. We hate coming so close to winning and falling short. But this is a circuit where only a few races ago we wouldn’t have performed well because of the fast, sweeping corners. The upgrade seems to have made the car happier in those areas and it is working well. Directionally, it’s a very good sign.

Turning to the race result and the disqualification, set-up choices on a sprint weekend are always a challenge with just one hour of free practice – and even more so at a bumpy circuit like COTA and running a new package. In the end, all of that doesn’t matter; others got it right where we got it wrong and there’s no wiggle room in the rules. We need to take it on the chin, do the learning, and come back stronger next weekend.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

We are of course naturally very disappointed to lose our podium finish. Unfortunately, it is one of the pitfalls of the sprint format where we have a solitary hour of running before parc fermé. Without running at a race fuel load in FP1, combined with a circuit as bumpy as this and the parts of the track where the drivers have to put the car during the Grand Prix, have contributed to the higher than expected wear levels. We will go away and learn from this but also take the positives from our experience as a whole.

Lewis had a very strong weekend, and it was exciting to see him closing in first on Lando and then Max, with a shot of winning the race. Unfortunately, we ran out of laps. In hindsight, it is easy to say that we should have covered Verstappen in the first round of stops. However, at the time the one-stop strategy still looked viable. If it had worked out, that would have put us in a very strong position to win. As always, we will analyse the race in the calm of the factory to see if a different strategy would have given us a better chance of the win. George had a lonelier race, suffering in the middle stint on the Hard tyre as he was having to save fuel. That contributed to the tyres not being at their optimum. He was much happier once on the Medium tyre in the final stint. He can take some encouragement from this for the remaining races.

We can afford to be cautiously optimistic that the step we have made will translate into future race. Both drivers felt the improvement and it is positive for our development trajectory for 2024. Whilst we are disappointed with the ultimate outcome today, we can be encouraged by the pace shown.
59
Formula One / 2023 United States Grand Prix - Saturday
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:30:54 PM »
Lewis Hamilton

That was a fun race! I made a good start into turn one and had a really good battle with Charles (Leclerc). Running in second, I was then focused on trying to get closer to Max (Verstappen) in those early stages. Their pace at the moment is undeniable though so I wasn’t able to get close enough to challenge him. We’ve still got a long way to go to equal the pace he showed throughout the Sprint. Nonetheless, I’m really happy to be back on the podium.

Starting ahead of Max tomorrow is helpful. Ultimately, I think he will be breathing down our necks before too long given the pace that he had today. I think that will open up a good fight though between ourselves, the Ferraris and the McLarens. We’re all quite similar in pace this weekend by the looks of it so I hope we get to have a good battle tomorrow. Keeping Max behind would be awesome but if not, we’ll do everything we can to finish on the podium and bring home good points.
George Russell

It’s been a bit of a scrappy day for me. Both penalties that I received today were fair. I was unable to give the position back to Piastri in the Sprint as Gasly had already passed him. If I let Piastri past, I would have had to let Gasly past too. It was a bit of a shame as it was an optimistic move from myself. Ultimately though, there aren’t a huge amount of points up for grabs on a Saturday.

We’re in a good place to fight for a podium from P5 tomorrow. It’s going to be an interesting race. The tyres felt good in the Sprint but that was helped by the cloudy conditions and the temperature dropping a little. It will be close between a one and a two-stop tomorrow and we’re going to have to be dynamic in order to react to the situation. We should have a good fight with the Ferraris and the McLaren of Norris. We may have the speed on them, but they are starting ahead so we will see what we can do.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

We can be carefully optimistic with how the weekend has gone so far and how our updates have performed. We didn’t think this would be a track where we would be anywhere near the front. There are a lot of fast corners that are not usually our strength, so we’ve made a good step. That has proved key in putting us in a position to score solid points today.

After a tougher Sprint Shootout, both drivers showed strong pace in the Sprint itself. Lewis pressured Max early on but ultimately his speed proved too strong. We know we’ve still got a lot of work to catch up to the very front, but we can be encouraged by our first sprint podium of the season. George did everything he could today and bringing a point home having started P11 is useful for the team. His penalty was completely justified, and we should have given the position back. That was my fault as I thought we had more pace to get further ahead than five seconds. If we play the strategy well tomorrow, we should be racing for a solid podium position.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

There's lots of encouragement we can take away from today, even if we could have walked away with a few more points if everything had gone our way. Lewis had good pace in the Sprint Shootout. We were 0.139s off pole on Friday but 0.069s today. That’s a good sign that the update has moved us in right direction. George didn't have a new set of soft tyres for his final run which is costly here, so he was never going to be able to trouble the front rows.

In the F1 Sprint, George did a good job to pick up positions. It's a shame to drop a place with the penalty but it's good to have got into the points. Lewis meanwhile did a great job. Second was the best that the car had in it today, but it was encouraging to see how much pace he had over Leclerc. That’s another sign that we are moving in the right direction. We've now got some good data to review overnight as part of our preparations for the race. The longer race opens up some options on strategy, so hopefully we'll be able to make progress with both drivers. Max was able to keep us at arm's length today, but it looked like we had the pace to challenge everyone else. Our stretch target for tomorrow therefore has to be a double podium.
60
Formula One / 2023 United States Grand Prix - Friday
« Last post by fasteddy on November 14, 2023, 04:29:35 PM »
Lewis Hamilton

I have to say a big thank you to everyone back at the factory. They have been pushing so hard to improve our car and we have taken a step closer to the front this weekend. I know everyone is working flat out for that and I appreciate all the efforts. Unfortunately today, we weren’t quite at the very front, but we will give it another shot tomorrow.

I love being in the United States! It’s such a beautiful country and this circuit is just incredible. It is definitely one of my favourites. It has a legendary layout, it’s bumpy, and all the drivers find it very tricky. Each section is an incredible challenge. I hope tomorrow we can fight for P1 again. I’ll be giving it my best shot and with this crowd, I think anything is possible.
George Russell

It’s been a really challenging day. I’ve been off the pace, and I’ve not been able to identify why. I can definitely feel the improvements we’ve made with the update, but it’s been a strange Friday. I’ll put it on my shoulders though as the driver; I just need to work on finding out why I’ve not been as quick as I think we can be.

I’m pretty pleased with P5 as at some points it looked like we may not have even made it through to Q3. My final lap was a reasonable effort; I made a small mistake at turn one which probably cost me one more position on the grid. Turning to tomorrow, we can be encouraged. With the exception of Qatar, the Sprint Shootout on Saturday morning tends to go better for us. I will take all those positives and work on finding some more pace tonight.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Sprint races are always difficult with the limited practice time we have. It's particularly challenging to try and bring an update kit into one. Going through the data, the upgraded floor looks to be giving us what we hoped for, and the drivers are feeling a benefit. That is encouraging.

In terms of the on track running, Lewis has had a relatively straightforward day. We thought at times that we had a chance of pole position and in the end, it was pretty close. Unfortunately, he couldn't squeeze any more out of it on his final effort but still took a strong P3. George had a tougher day in terms of the single lap work. He chipped away at it but getting through the first two parts of qualifying was stressful. Fortunately his lap in Q3 was a solid effort and he can do a lot from P5 on the grid.

The long runs of both drivers looked good this morning in FP1. It's hard to know what fuel loads everyone was running with this format, but we're optimistic we can race well. We were managing to keep the tyre temperatures under control and that's going to be the key to good long run pace on Sunday.
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