Lap one red flag negates strategy options on the streets of the Principality.
- George Russell finished P5 with Lewis Hamilton P7 in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix.
- Lining up P5 and P7 respectively, the team opted for an alternative strategy with both drivers starting on the Hard compound tyre.
- The four drivers ahead of George all started on the Medium tyre with Verstappen, in between our duo, also on the Hard compound.
- That offered the opportunity to run long into the race and explore any opportunities that may present themselves further into the Grand Prix.
- That strategy was negated though as a first-lap incident brought out the red flag; that afforded those ahead the opportunity to switch their Medium tyres for the Hard compound and run to the end.
- The team opted to switch both George and Lewis to the Medium tyres under that red flag too, with George managing well to take them 77 laps to the end of the race.
- Lewis, with the opportunity of a free pit stop, switched to a second set of Hard tyres on Lap 51 and utilised them to claim the fastest lap point.
- George came under pressure in the closing stages from Max Verstappen, also on new Hard tyres, but resisted well to take P5 with Lewis P7.
Driver | Grid | Result | Fastest Lap | Start Tyre | Stop One | Stop Two |
George Russell | P5 | P5 | 1:15.228 | Hard | Medium (L1) | - |
Lewis Hamilton | P7 | P7 | 1:14.165 | Hard | Medium (L1) | Hard (L51) |
George Russell
That was the best race of our season so far. We had good pace and were able to show that near the end, despite being on 70-lap old Medium tyres. We were closing on the top four at the end and only finished a handful of seconds off P1. There are plenty of positives to take from the weekend as a whole.
We spent a lot of time this morning going through all the strategy options. When we lined up on the grid, and everyone ahead was on the Medium compound, I was very happy. That looked even better when Carlos (Sainz) stopped on the opening lap. The red flag came out though and made our lives more difficult! I spent the first 30 laps taking it easy and in the end, I was able to keep the tyres in a good place and get to the end. Max (Verstappen) put me under a bit of pressure at the end but it was all pretty controlled.
Lewis Hamilton
There have been plenty of encouraging signs from our performance this weekend. The team has worked so hard to bring updates to the car and we’ve got more to come across the next few races. We have taken a step forward with the car and, if we can continue to make a few more, then we can hopefully get ourselves into the fight with the three teams ahead of us.
The race today was non-eventful. Everyone was managing their pace after the red flag and ultimately, whatever tyre you were on, you could make it to the end. That took away our options of making forward progress which was frustrating. I’m looking forward to going to Canada and seeing what we can do there.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
Overall, we’ve had a positive weekend. We were much closer than we have been in Qualifying so far this year and showed good pace throughout the race. That was despite the first lap red flag which took away many of our strategy options. We opted to switch to the Medium compound tyres under that red flag and both George and Lewis did a good job to manage them throughout. Lewis didn’t need to make a stop, but we were able to box him and secure the point for fastest lap.
The trajectory is going in the right direction. We’ve understood where we need to improve the balance car and we’re bringing updates to enhance that. We know there will be ups and downs depending on the circuits we go to but overall, I am happy with the development direction. Let’s see how we perform in Canada.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
We opted for an alternative strategy by starting both cars on the Hard tyre. There were pros and cons to this; a red flag or Safety Car intervention after the front four had stopped would have provided an opportunity to get both cars on the podium. However, a lap one red flag would prove awkward. This is exactly what befell us as the race got underway.
We were therefore in a situation where we had to try and get to the end on the Medium tyre. Most cars were doing a fair bit of management, so this was relatively easy to handle in the end. George seemed to have good pace in the closing stages and was able to defend well against Max and it was encouraging to see the improvements we made in our long run since Friday. The stop with Lewis towards the end wasn't necessary from a tyre point of view, but it did give us an opportunity to take an extra point for fastest lap.
Overall, the weekend was another indication that we are moving in the right direction. We were just 25 milliseconds off P3 in Qualifying, which is an annoying margin to miss out on a likely podium by. That said, a few weeks ago we couldn't even talk about podiums. We'll have both cars on the latest updates in Montreal with a few additional bits on top. We'll keep working hard and hopefully better results are not far away
No comments:
Post a Comment