In the round-up: Carlos Sainz Jnr doesn’t like the rule forcing drivers who reach Q3 to start the race on old tyres from Q2.
What they say
Sainz was asked whether having to start on old tyres put McLaren at a disadvantage in the Mexican Grand Prix:
[It affected us] quite a lot because without having to start on the soft I wouldn’t have dropped into traffic in the second stint. And on the hard tyre I wouldn’t have to push so much to overtake the Toro Rossos, we got undercut by them. So in the end, it’s a big limitation.
But I still think we should think about the qualifying P7 and not getting comfortable and trying to qualify P11 to finish in the top 10.
I hope [the rule] does change because at the moment it’s a big limitation for teams like us that are just half a second quicker in qualifying and then have to have a big compromise for the race.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
You can’t always have good luck, but you can have a good team. Austin, you better all be crossing your fingers for this weekend 🤞🏼 #USGP pic.twitter.com/HDVxKEbMh1
— Lando Norris (@LandoNorris) October 29, 2019
To all those who helped us rewind back to 1999. To Mika, the fans, the '99 team and everybody else who made tonight so special.
Thank you. 🧡🏁 #Mika99 🇫🇮 pic.twitter.com/7D6EAdVXOb
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) October 29, 2019
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Links
More motor racing links of interest:
United States GP preview (Racing Point)
"Finishing as best of the rest is realistically the most we could have achieved. It showed our strengths as a team and shows the progress we are making with this car – even in the final part of the year. I feel we can fight for points in all of the remaining races."
US F4 (F4 US championship exceeds world FIA F4 entry record for USGP finale)
"Breaking the international FIA F4 single-event entry record, a fleet of 38 Honda-powered Ligier JS F4 cars equipped with Hankook Tires will descend onto the fast and challenging Formula One circuit."
F1 still determined to secure Miami Grand Prix (ESPN)
"We felt it was better to get on the front foot and be open about that, than try and obviously keep things. We don't negotiate in public but at the same time when you're dealing with public government stakeholders there's a degree of transparency."
Guenther Steiner: "I think Formula 1 has made good progress over the last few years in the United States. The viewing figures are up and the United States Grand Prix in Austin is almost always sold out. I think progress is being made."
Palmer: Rivals wrong to be too hard on Verstappen (BBC)
"Verstappen's race was actually almost blameless. Hamilton's notion that Verstappen 'torpedoed' him at the start is well wide of the mark."
Brundle's verdict: Lewis, Max and Mexico (Sky)
"Nobody can justify ignoring yellow flags and accidents. We unequivocally owe it to the track workers and fellow racers, and that's especially the case with ambassadors looked up to by junior racers. He should have abandoned the lap."
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Comment of the day
Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel were critical of Max Verstappen following the first-corner incident in Mexico – were they right?
I do think Hamilton/Vettel’s torpedo criticism is a little unfair – especially coming from the pair of them who at different phases of their careers had similar accusations thrown at them too, often unwarranted.
Adam (@Rocketpanda)
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Aldoid
30th October 2019, 1:18
“Hamilton’s notion that Verstappen “torpedoed’ him at the start is well wide of the mark.
Actually, it was Hamilton who was bold in trying to pass Verstappen around the outside at the start. Hamilton ended up getting into a massive slide all on his own, and that forced Verstappen off on to the grass at Turn Three, along with the Mercedes.”
…I’m not sure which race Jolyon Palmer was watching, but during the Mexican GP Lewis didn’t slide “all on his own”. He slid because he got tagged by Max (and lost a chunk of his floor, proving there was contact). Max was the one who got a load of oversteer under power (all on his own) & tagged Lewis, who then lost it as well.
bosyber (@bosyber)
30th October 2019, 5:06
Yep, that’s my view too Aldoid, though I do also agree to a good extent with the rest of Palmers analysis, and with the COTD, and personally think that Hamilton took an opportunity to rub it in with Verstappen, with Vettel happily joining in. And I am not sure Verstappen didn’t ask for that with recent interviews ; after all, such criticism is largely harmless to a driver.
Having said that, the big mistake, as Brundle said, was not abandoning that lap, which he didn’t need for pole (though now he has officially set the fastest lap in Mexico, congrats). Plus then not admitting it was his mistake and going into the race with an ‘I was wronged’ attitude.
His moves still weren’t crazy, he remains a great driver. But it made him impatient and led him to not choose his moments well on those first laps. The fight back, while largely well driven, had this same entitledness, and should not have been necessary.
Aldoid
30th October 2019, 6:21
Yeah, not much I can argue with there, if anything. I called it a racing incident as well (& a pretty tame one, at that). It’s just that if we have to assign blame, it has to fall on Max for initiating the contact. The move on Bottas was ambitious, but not crazy in the least either. Bottas could have jumped out of the way, but I’m not sure he should be expected to… especially not in this new “let them race” era where drivers are pretty much encouraged to bang wheels & are no longer required to leave a car’s width.
Not lifting on Saturday though was just plain stupid. I have no doubt about Verstappen’s abilities… just his decision making.
Carlos Medrano (@carlosmedrano)
30th October 2019, 13:30
Lol no it wasn’t hamilton did a great clean move around the outside of max. Max couldn’t control his car and ended up hitting Hamilton causing both of them to go over the grass. If anyone was to blamr for that is was 100% on max. If you actually understand clean racecraft you wouldn’t even consider Hamilton to be at fault
Robbie (@robbie)
30th October 2019, 16:42
@carlosmedrano There’s clean racecraft, and then there’s the type of exciting racing that we want to, and often do, see at race starts, that is usually a bit of a melee. What we saw was racing, plan and simple. Neither driver was to blame for simply doing their job…racing. There was little room for Max once LH came around the outside, Max having already been a bit ahead of him down the straight. That they came together was no big surprise but of course his two main rivals LH and SV are going to jump on the ‘torpedo’ rhetoric, whereas former F1 racers as well as the stewards who are all unbiased saw it as racing.
Aaditya (@neutronstar)
30th October 2019, 6:49
Sainz and McLaren didn’t seem to mind the Q2 tyre rule in GBR, when he started 13th on the mediums, and was able to extend his first stint until the safety car arrived. Finished 6th in the end…
Mexico is an outlier anyway; it’s the only race so far this season where the midfield teams that made Q3 suffered considerably, as far as I can remember, so I definitely don’t see the q2 tyre rule affecting McLaren adversely on a regular basis. Sainz pretty much coasted to best of the rest in Japan.
Jere (@jerejj)
30th October 2019, 7:25
I hope so as well. While starting on the softest compound available hasn’t been significantly affecting every venue, it still wouldn’t be bad to give everyone the free choice of the race starting tyre compound and specific set.
bob (@riptide)
30th October 2019, 11:20
That amused me too, as I had just watched the youtube onboard of Hamilton that Formula1 had just put up; and you can’t miss the loud thump.
Still wasn’t it Palmer who laid the blame on Hamilton when Max hit him coming out of the tunnel at Monaco?
Adam (@rocketpanda)
30th October 2019, 12:22
Getting COTD always makes for a happy morning ;)