Tag: Valtteri Bottas

Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team Principal and CEO Toto Wolff says that following Saturday’s qualifying for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix it is 1-0 to Red Bull after Max Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton to pole position.

Hamilton, who is level on points with Max Verstappen starts the race from second place with a time of 01:22.480s.

Speaking following the action, Wolff said:

On days like today, you have to take it like it is, it’s 1-0 to them, they got the tyres in the perfect window in the last run, the tow functioned flawlessly and that’s why they are on pole. I’m happy we’ll be starting on the Medium tyre tomorrow. We will have a slight disadvantage on the start I guess, and the first six or seven laps, but we can go longer, or also go for an aggressive undercut and try to control track position. Overnight we’ll be running lots of programmes and algorithms to help form our strategy for tomorrow.

The pace was there in practice, obviously on the long runs you don’t know, but whichever car is faster tomorrow will win the race. We just need to focus on that, recoup and then hopefully come out on top tomorrow. We are on the back foot and sometimes that’s not bad as a starting point. Lewis will be super motivated for tomorrow and just go hunting, as always. For Valtteri, the gap between P3 and P6 was all within a tenth so its unfortunate he’ll be starting in that gaggle but he just needs to make it through the first lap or two, and get back up.

Lewis Hamilton said:

Well, firstly Max did a great lap today and we just couldn’t compete with that time at the end there. It was a fantastic lap from him but we’re in a good position, I’d like to think, with our tyres tomorrow and I hope that we can have a good race. On the first lap of Q3, I dropped a bit of time in the last corner and Turn 5, but my final lap was nice and clean, I just couldn’t go any quicker. I don’t know if it’s tyre prep or whatever it may be, in terms of the out lap, but nonetheless I couldn’t beat that time so he deserved the pole. I’m still on the front row for tomorrow, with the tyre difference and I’m grateful I can see where he is, so we can try and navigate from there.

Valtteri Bottas who starts the race from sixth place, he final event with Mercedes said:

I was hoping for more, it was a tricky Quali – a good Q1, decent Q2 but by Q3, I couldn’t improve any more. My setup was definitely more focused on the race rather than Quali so as the grip levels increased, I couldn’t improve my times and hit a bit of a limit. I’m happy with my setup for tomorrow which should make it exciting. Also starting on the Medium tyre tomorrow opens up different strategy options, we can go long in the first stint if we want to but on the Soft, you can’t, so it’ll be an interesting race. Overall, not the best result today but we can definitely make it up tomorrow, it’s game on.

Mercedes chief engineer Andrew Shovlin said:

It was a tricky qualifying for both drivers and unusually, the car felt at its best in the first session and seemed to get less competitive as we progressed. Of course it would have made tomorrow easier if we had pole but we’re pleased to be starting on the Medium tyre and we’ve hopefully added some long run pace overnight. We’ve got a busy night going through the various strategy options for tomorrow but we’ve shown good race pace recently, along with an ability to recover positions and pass on track. We had a much bigger challenge in Brazil and showed what we are capable of, so we’ll be doing everything possible to get ourselves into a position to bring home the win and the championships tomorrow.

The Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team had luck on their side in qualifying for Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton took pole position despite Max Verstappen being extremely quick for Red Bull, the Dutch driver was on course to grab pole however, he crashed coming out of the final corner of the Jeddah circuit meaning that he will start the race from third place.

Hamilton set a fastest time of 01:27.511s and speaking following the action he said:

This place is one of the hardest tracks to get right, I was on the limit the whole way round and the car was on a knife-edge. Trying to pull out the maximum with the tyres was so tough. It’s difficult to understand why – it’s so warm here but we were having trouble getting temperature in the front and rears at the same time to have grip at the start of the lap. I’m very proud and thankful that we were able to put it on the front row for tomorrow, it’s going to be an intense race. It’s always important to have Valtteri beside me, particularly in this part of the year, he’s been driving exceptionally well and hopefully tomorrow we can do a good job together.

Valtteri Bottas who starts the race from second place commented saying:

You get such an adrenaline rush from this track! Tomorrow’s going to be hard, this place is so intense but at least we’re starting in the best places. Given how tricky qualifying was today, it’s a great result. Starting on the left side tomorrow is definitely going to be dusty but I’ll be trying hard to keep position. This is one of the toughest tracks of the year, both mentally and physically, which is exciting because come tomorrow, anything can happen.

Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team Principal, CEO and team co-owner Toto Wolff commented saying:

What a crazy session! We expected to be stronger today, we have a quick car and it looked like those quick corners would suit us, but like so many times this season, you’re constantly surprised. Austin should have been our track and wasn’t, and then suddenly in Brazil we were performing really well, so you just never know. It was important today that we kept attacking and attacking, and we’ve ended up with a front row lockout which is a big advantage for tomorrow.

There is a brutal energy running through the whole Team. We just look forward and keep pushing, and pushing, and when you go in the debrief room or in the garage, you don’t need to talk because you can feel the energy and how buzzed everyone is.

Chief engineer, Andrew Shovlin commented saying:

It’s been a very busy day. The final practice session wasn’t great for us, we were doing OK on the Hard tyre but not finding great grip on the Soft. We found an issue with Valtteri’s power unit just before the end of the session so had to swap that out for another in his pool just before qualifying; it was a lot of work but everyone in the garage did a great job to get the car ready in time.

Our struggles didn’t disappear going into qualifying, we were able to do reasonable lap times but every time Max went out he’d beat the time we just set, and his final run showed clearly that they have the upper hand here on a single lap. Had he completed the lap, there’s no way we could have matched it so whilst we’re pleased to have the front row, it doesn’t feel like we’ve earnt it. It’s hard to know what to expect tomorrow; we were good on the long run on Friday but Red Bull seem to have found a chunk of pace overnight and if that translates into the long run, it’s bound to be close

The Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team’s Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas set the pace on the opening day of practice for Sunday’s inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah street circuit with Hamilton setting a time of 01:29.018s and speaking following the action he said:

The track was rapid – unbelievably quick and with a lot of grip as well. Once you get in the rhythm, it’s beautiful to drive. The grip was very high from the moment we went out and was similar in both sessions. Traffic can be a problem here, it’s Monaco-esque and the closing distances to other cars was definitely getting dangerous. We tried a couple of things with our setup, and although we aren’t rapid on single run pace compared to the others, our long run pace seemed pretty good.

The Medium and Hard tyre both performed well, the Soft is probably a little too soft for the high-speed sections, it feels like the tyre is giving up slightly. I’m generally happy with the setup, we changed a few things in between sessions, and we’ll work with the guys in the factory back home to make sure we have the correct setup for tomorrow.

Valtteri Bottas set a fastest time of 01:29.079s and speaking following the action the Finn said:

The track is really cool, it’s full-gas and close to the walls at high-speed which is exactly what you want and enjoy – it’s an adrenaline rush. In FP1 the track was better than I expected, a little bit dusty but thanks to the other racing categories running here this weekend, it was improving step by step. They have done a nice job with the tarmac here, it was very grippy even though it’s new and with no real bumps, nice and smooth.

It was good to get confirmation of the grip level here, you base your starting setup on the simulations and estimated grip level, and we started in a good place. The biggest surprise today was the tyres – they lasted well and I’m not sure we’ll see many stops on Sunday. All the compounds seemed to work well here, even though you could feel the Softs giving up slightly in the high-speed corners.

Chief Engineer Andrew Shovlin commented saying:

As with any new track, a significant part of the first session is about understanding whether you’ve made the correct assumptions on grip and tyre behaviour, and in the warmer conditions of FP1 we had the car working well. The second session was more of a challenge in terms of single lap pace, we’ve got some ideas on how to tackle that and we’ll be running our simulator in Brackley overnight exploring a few directions. The long run pace seemed competitive, Lewis was a little happier than Valtteri, and we finished the day with quite different setups on the cars so there are some interesting comparisons to draw out of that data. It does seem like the car has good potential around this circuit but we’ve clearly got a bit of fine-tuning to do which will keep us busy overnight.

Andrew Shovlin

In a separate development, the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team has confirmed that despite protests from the British government on both sides of the political divide they will continue with their partnership with Kingspan.