Tag: Interlargos

Race weekend review

Going into the weekend, the F1 community was still awaiting the announcement from Haas on who would partner Kevin Magnussen next season. A number of sources reported that the seat was already Hulkenburg’s and the announcement was the final piece of the puzzle. The opportunity for a reserve role in Mercedes may present itself to Schumacher if this is the case as Toto Wolff spoke highly of Schumacher in an interview recently.

Practice 1 &2

FP1 was of high importance as the drivers would only have one session to obtain the necessary data before Friday qualifying since it was a sprint race weekend. Perez, Leclerc and Verstappen were the top three, the smallest of margins between the trio. Lando Norris, after feeling unwell and missing media duties on Thursday, was out on track on Friday. FP2 on Saturday morning was a pretty standard session but it was the Alpine of Ocon who lead Perez and Russell on the time board.

Qualifying

The weather forecast had predicted some rain over the weekend but it was hard to tell for how long and how heavy it would be. Drivers were setting times on intermediates but in the latter part of Q1, Gasly was the first to switch to soft tyres when it was dry enough to do so; the others followed in pursuit. The drop zone was changing rapidly and it was a tense finish due to the constant improvement of times. Eliminated in Q1: Latifi, Zhou, Bottas, Tsunoda, Schumacher

Clouds were still looming in Q2, everyone was trying set their times before the rain came down. Verstappen pipped Sainz to the top spot by 0.009s while there was joy in the Haas garage because Magnussen found himself in P7 and in Q3. Eliminated in Q2: Albon, Gasly, Vettel, Ricciardo, Stroll

In preparation for rain in the Q3, everyone chose slicks to run their first flying lap- except for Leclerc whose team put him in out on intermediates, but the rain hadn’t fallen yet. A mistake by Ferrari? He stayed out on those tyres to complete his lap, and Perez was behind the struggling Ferrari so his lap was compromised. Russell beached his Mercedes in the gravel and the red flag came out. Magnussen was on provisional pole. When the track was cleared, rain came down and inters were the only way to go; meaning that it was virtually impossible to beat Magnussen’s time. As drivers got out of their cars and time was running out, celebrations began in the Haas garage because the Dane, who had returned to F1 this year, was on course to take the first pole position of his career.

Top 10: Magnussen, Verstappen, Russell, Norris, Sainz*, Ocon, Alonso, Hamilton, Perez and Leclerc

*Taking a 5 place grid penalty for Sunday’s race for new engine components

Sprint race

What tyres would be the most effective during the race? Softs or mediums? Red Bull and Verstappen thought different to most and wanted to have a fresh set softs for Sunday so he started on mediums. A good start from Magnussen saw him keep his lead into turn one ahead of Verstappen. Ocon and Alonso raced hard and had two incidents, one of them resulting in contact and the other was investigation after the sprint race which Alonso was later penalised for with a 5 second penalty.

Soon enough Verstappen, Russell and Sainz overtook Magnussen as the Dane struggled to keep up with the front runners. Stroll received a 10 second time penalty for a dangerous manoeuvre on his teammate, Vettel, which saw the German take to the grass.

By this stage, Magnussen had dropped down to P7 when Hamilton, Perez and Leclerc overtook him. At the front, Russell got past Verstappen for the lead on Lap 15, and not long after, Sainz passed the world champion too. But, there was contact between the pair which resulted in damage for the Red Bull, giving Hamilton the opportunity to overtake him too.

Leclerc managed to make his way up to P6 ahead of Norris and Magnussen who took the final sprint race point. Vettel and Gasly just missed out on points in 9th and 10th.

Top 8: Russell, Sainz, Hamilton, Verstappen, Perez, Leclerc, Norris, Magnussen.

Race

George Russell became a Grand Prix race winner at the Brazilian Grand Prix. The young Brit kept his cool after the safety car restart and made his way to what was an emotional, well deserved victory. Contact with Verstappen at the start slightly hampered the 7x world champion’s race who started on the front row, but he made a fantastic recovery which saw him finish 1.5 seconds behind Russell; the first 1-2 of the season for Mercedes.

Carlos Sainz drove a solid race for Ferrari, starting 7th due to his grid penalty. The Spaniard overtook Perez after the safety car restart and was rewarded with the last podium place ahead of his teammate. Leclerc also had a very good race; contact with Norris saw him drop to the back of the grid at the start of the race but he stormed his way through the field to P4- he asked his team to swap him and Sainz around to help his championship fight for P2 but the team refused.

It was not the best of weekends for Red Bull. They lacked the pace to keep up with Mercedes and Ferrari. Verstappen’s contact with Hamilton meant that the Dutchman needed to make his way through the field as he had dropped down several places after an impromptu pitstop along with a 5 second penalty for causing the collision. He finished the race in P6. Towards the end of the race, he overtook Perez on the quest to get by Leclerc and Alonso to help out Perez for P2 in the standings; but when asked to give back the position when he couldn’t get the job done, Verstappen didn’t and when questioned he responded with:

“Are we clear about that? I gave my reasons and I stuck by it.”

– Max Verstappen on why he did not give back position to Perez at the Brazilian GP

Perez who was unhappy with his teammate finished in P7, losing points to Leclerc in their fight for P2, this means that they are level on 290 points going into the final race.

Alonso had a fantastic race, starting down in P18 and finishing in P5 ahead of the Red Bulls. Ocon was given the order not to fight Alonso who was on a different strategy to him, he managed to finish P8.

The Brazilian GP was a dismal weekend for McLaren. Ricciardo made contact with Magnussen, ending their races on Lap 1 and the Aussie also received a 3 place grid drop for the Abu Dhabi GP because of it. Norris received a 5 second time penalty for his contact with Leclerc but he found himself in a worse situation when he stopped with an issue in his car, resulting in a DNF for him and a safety car for the others.

Bottas was the leading Alfa Romeo driver, coming home with 2 points in P9, while Zhou missed out in P12. There were no points scored for Haas as Schumacher finished behind the Alfa Romeo in P12 and Magnussen DNFd.

Tsunoda and Gasly did not have good races either; Tsunoda’s pitlane start saw him finish P17, while Gasly was given a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pitlane and finished P14. Finally, Albon and Latifi completed the race in 15th and 16th for Williams.

The final race of the season is on Sunday in Abu Dhabi where we will bid an emotional farewell to some drivers…