F1Weekly Podcast # 1050
Play Podcast: 06-30-24f1weekly1050.mp3
Max looses his cool with bad moves crashing into Lando! Toto says “You can win George” and Haas cash in on the chaos. Nasir prepares for his physical with Dr. Marko. Motorsports Mondial brings you Jill from Penn State with her report on the Rainmen “Great drives in the wet”. Our weekly interview is a brief chat with Guenther Steiner.
Max had appeared to be cruising to victory with a seven-second lead over Norris before his final pit stop, even though the McLaren had been closing in on the Red Bull and the world champion complaining his tyres were losing grip in the final laps of that stint.
But a slow stop for Verstappen as both pitted together for their final stops, and the choice by Red Bull to fit a set of medium tyres which had three laps of use on them while Norris had a new set set up a grandstand finish.
Verstappen and Norris rejoined the track with the McLaren just 1.7secs behind and the Briton was on his tail within two laps.
They fought hard for several laps. Norris complained that Verstappen made an illegal move under braking when he attacked at Turn Three on lap 55, with 15 to go.
Norris then passed the Red Bull into Turn Three on lap 59, only to run off the track on the exit, which earned him a five-second penalty for abusing track limits because he had already been given a black-and-white flag for the same offence.
After another close run through Turns Three and Four Norris then came on the radio to say Verstappen was repeatedly moving under braking and responding to his attacks in ways that are now allowed.
The critical moment came on lap 62. Norris attacked on the outside and Verstappen moved back towards him as they approached the corner.
The two cars touched, and both suffered punctures – Verstappen on the left rear and Norris on the right rear and that was the end of their chances of victory.
Verstappen managed to get around to the pits without too much damaged as his tyre stayed intact, but Norris’ tyre flailed on the rim and tore his rear body work apart and McLaren were forced to retire the car.
Max
“We were battling today and Lando tried to move around the outside, and then we touched with the rear tyres. It was very hot so immediately we had a puncture. From my side it seemed like a weird move but we obviously need to review this and of course we will talk about it. The shape of the corner also provides these kinds of issues sometimes and it is never nice to come together. This, however, isn’t currently my main focus as we need to take a look at the overall performance today and the difficulties we had with the car.
It was very hard to manage the tyres, the first stint was not too bad and I had a fairly comfortable lead, the second stint was difficult; I think we stayed out a bit too long and then there was the issue with the pit stop. The overall Team performance wasn’t what we expected it to be and the strategy didn’t work that well in this case. It was a shame because of the lead that we had. There are definitely a few things we need to improve looking to next week and hopefully we can work on the performance, tyres and balance.”
Lando
“It was easy to make mistakes but difficult to drive because of the windy conditions and things like that. I just feel let down. A lot of damage on the car, the car’s completely destroyed now so… Yeah, a shame. I don’t now.
“You want to keep driving, and if I got back to the pits in a better way I could have probably gone out and got some points, but the car was too badly broken. I don’t know what I’m meant to say. I did all I could, I gave a fair, respectful, on-the-edge battle, but that’s not what I got in return.”
George Russell (GBR, ART Grand Prix). Photo: Zak Mauger / FIA Formula 2. ref: Digital Image
George
Incredible! That’s the only way I can describe it. We had a tough fight in the early stages to make sure we held on to P3. That would prove crucial at the end. I could see that Max (Verstappen) and Lando (Norris) were having a big battle. We were only just over 10 seconds behind the pair of them, which is really encouraging pace-wise. I knew there was a possibility that they could come together, even if it was only a slim chance. You have to be there at the end to pick up the pieces and that’s exactly where we were. I am so proud to be back on the top step of the podium.
The team have done an amazing job to get us closer to the fight at the front. We have made so many strides since the start of the season. The last few races have been great and hopefully there is more to come. It’s no secret that Max and Lando are a little bit ahead of us at present but we’re now consistently putting ourselves in that third position. It’s an exciting time for us; we’re riding a bit of a wave, and I can’t wait to go to my home race at Silverstone next week and see what we can do there.