Mercedes trio reflect on F1 US GP as Lewis Hamilton felt the updates caused issues while George Russell and Toto Wolff differed, as they added on the penalty scene too.
It started off well for Mercedes on Friday in F1 US GP and even in the sprint race, it was looking good until degradation set them behind Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren. The qualifying then proved to be a disaster after Hamilton was knocked out in Q1 itself, while Russell crashed out from sixth in Q3.
He was then forced to a pitlane start, reverting to the old specification from Singapore. On the other end, Hamilton wanted to give the updates to Russell since he didn’t feel confident enough. And eventually, he spun off in the early stages of the F1 US GP – a very rare thing to happen for the Brit.
He reflected on the bouncing due to the updates, but Russell and even Wolff played down that the updates were causing issues with the car. The Mercedes chief noted that it wasn’t Hamilton’s fault in the spin either, while lamenting on the inconsistencies.
It remains to be seen if Hamilton will use the updates in Mexico, or give it to Russell after he damaged his, which needs to be repaired at the factory and will only be available in Brazil. Nevertheless, he had a sound end to the grand prix, finishing sixth after starting from the pitlane.
The recovery included a time penalty which brought back the debate around stewards and the inconsistencies associated with them. Wolff feels that the FIA President will have to chuck out the inconsistent stewards, who have always create problems.
Race –
Russell: “Yeah, really tough, I mean you feel as a driver you are letting the whole team down, your actions have such an impact on certain people but there is never any hard feelings. We all are pushing hard to the limit as a team to improve this car and get some big results and when we are in that window, we were there, when we are not, it bites. And that happened to be in qualifying, you saw it with Lewis in the race, he never make mistakes, the car just goes away from us that way. I had no what to expect going into the race but clearly the pace was really good, I am still confident that the upgrades were working as expected, and I think we could have been fighting for probably a podium, if we were in a normal starting position. I think in sprint race, I just destroyed my tyres but clearly on those early laps in the sprint, we had the pace, and we have shown glimmers of really strong pace this weekend, so lets see what we can do in the next races.”
Updates causing an issue –
Hamilton: “Yeah, I had a great start. I was feeling good, got up to 12th. It was my best start really in Turn 1 that I’ve had in a long time. It was only the second lap, I wasn’t even pushing it at that point. I was literally just trying to bring the tyres up to temperature. The car started bouncing. The left front started bouncing, and the rear end just came around. Same as George. In FP1, I had the spin in Turn 3, which is so rare. I’ve never spun in Turn 3 in all the years that I’ve been here, and I’ve never spun at Turn 19 before either. Definitely frustrating but I do know it was not that I wasn’t focused or anything, it was just unfortunate. I was just saying that, George obviously had the same problem, and he’s gone back to the old spec car, and he’s looking good out there, so maybe there’s something with our new upgrade.”
Russell: “No, I don’t think…I managed to change the set-up a bit at the parc ferme start, it was nothing really to do with the upgrades. I think it is pretty complicated to understand.”
Wolff: “I don’t think we have a fundamental issue on the upgrade, very much. I think it’s more interaction on aero and on mechanical stuff and therefore, I mean, we’re going to continue with the upgrade. Makes no sense to not because there’s a lot of time you leave on the table but on the other side you need to be very open-minded. I mean, George drove the July upgrade today because we didn’t have the floor and that seemed pretty competitive in the race. Having said that, if you’re missing a few tenths in qualifying that makes a big difference because it’s just not as good as it should be. So it is more that really getting on top of why do we have a car that on Friday [Hamilton] is by far the quickest before the Colapinto situation.
“It was four-tenths up and the last sector was just trouble, but he would have been quickest and then on Saturday it’s transformed. In the Sprint race we had a broken suspension. That’s one explanation. We fixed that in the qualifying, nothing would go anymore and we started to have pace. Today an incident in that corner that came out of nowhere. He was not pushing at all. So where I sit at the moment it’s 100 per cent not Lewis’ fault and it’s not to say that I’m protecting him. It’s clear. It was gusty, there was a slipstream. How does all of that interact? How does Ferrari who were written off before the summer, turns it around and have the most dominant car finishing 1-2? Hats off to Fred’s team, really spectacular what they are doing.”
Data gathering, Mexico scene –
Wolff: “No, we don’t. I think that this is a data driven sport, there will be lots of digging between why were we fastest on Friday evening, why not in qualifying the next day? What was the circumstances to that, what was the data to say? And after today’s performance, there was lot of data collection, so it is not concerning for me, it is just where we are, we are back to underdog status. We are not back to pre-summer situation, it is not coming into the weekend thinking we are going to win this but it is more going into the weekend thinking that at the moment, we are the fourth team on the road.
“How are we turning this around to be third or second and managing our expectations for the rest of the year, seeing it is very much as a test while going into the weekend and pushing as much as we can. I am 100% sure that we will head like before the summer, having a stable platform, we are going to come to these conclusions. Clearly, we will be missing the floor that needs to go back to the UK and then be repaired for Brazil. So we’ll be running the spare specification. With Lewis, normally he would have all the parts, but I’m not 100% sure that he’s keen on running that. So we’re going to find out how we want to tackle that weekend.”
Penalty, stewards –
Russell: “I think the stewards have a really difficult job because the regulations are so large. When you watch an incident in slow motion, or you pause it at a given point… my penalty with Valtteri, the rules state, if you’re not ahead of the apex and you push someone wide, you get a penalty. So by the letter of the law, my penalty was correct. But anybody who knows racing and anybody watching it knows it was not correct. I don’t really know how we move forward. I think we’d probably all want to see the same stewards all year long, so that the drivers and the stewards can all be on the same page. We can apply common sense when needed, rather than having to really follow the letter of the law.”
Wolff: “I think the stewards are in a really difficult situation. There’s always going to be one that’s happy and the other one unhappy. But we need to try to understand whether there are certain patterns in stewarding decisions and whether that correlates to some of the situations. Everybody’s racing hard, but for me the decision against George was inexplicable. We’ve seen plenty of these situations in turn 12. None of them was penalised until George, and then obviously there was another one afterwards. But the whole weekend until then it wasn’t.
“And I don’t want to comment on the Max/Lando situation because it’s not my race. I think Zak and Andrea are going to look at that. And everybody’s giving their best. I need to hold myself back here. I think there’s great stewards, honestly great stewards that have either been in the racing car or have a non-biased view on situations, doing the best of their abilities for a job that is truly difficult. We mustn’t put everybody in the same category. There’s a few inconsistencies, but I’m sure the President is going to look at it.”
Here’s spin for Lewis Hamilton: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-united-states-grand-prix-hamilton-spins-out-on-lap-3-to-trigger-safety-car.1813463038133479696
Here’s how F1 US GP panned out
Here’s how F1 US GP sprint panned out
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