In the round-up: Mercedes admit they took a more conservative approach to their car set-up at the Brazilian Grand Prix following Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification two races earlier.
In brief
Mercedes were “conservative after Austin”
The Brazilian Grand Prix was the first sprint race weekend since Hamilton’s disqualification for excessive plank wear in the Austin round. With only a single practice session to set their car up, Mercedes were anxious to avoid a repeat and played it safe by raising their ride height.
Mercedes’ head of vehicle performance Riccardo Musconi admitted this was a contributory factory behind the team’s poor performance at Interlagos.
“First of all we were faced again with an enigma of tyres,” he said in a video released by the team. “We can see them switching on and off within a few degrees, so it’s very, very difficult to be on top of them.
“The second thing was the degradation. We were not at the best end of it as we normally are, so that’s a new thing for us to explore and understand.
“The third thing was that we were perhaps too conservative with the ride heights after Austin. Possibly, and part of the answer may be there, but we don’t think that explains the full picture as we saw it unfolding at the weekend.”
Hulkenberg says Haas had “no performance”
Although he claimed his second-best regular qualifying result in nine rounds, then qualified 12th for the sprint race, Nico Hulkenberg said he had “no performance” with his Haas VF-23 in Brazil.He finished the 24-lap sprint race down in 18th and a minute behind the winner, and was a lapped 12th in the grand prix after a dramatic start which eliminated team mate Kevin Magnussen.
“It was a typical start situation where it got too tight there, and it was very similar to what happened to me in the sprint in Qatar, I got sandwiched. You can’t really bail out at that point, so I made contact with [Alex] Albon which then put him into Kevin,” said Hulkenberg. “There was damage but the red flag allowed us to repair it, so the car was fine, there was just no performance this weekend.”
GB3 runner-up joins Macau grid
Alex Dunne will make his Formula 3 debut in next weekend’s Macau Grand Prix. The Irish 17-year-old was last year’s British Formula 4 champion and Italian F4 runner-up, then this year came second in the GB3 championship with Hitech GP. He will stay with the team for the FIA F3 World Cup appearance.
ART Grand Prix has announced a change in their line-up for the event, with Gregoire Saucy vacating the number 21 car and being replaced by Nyck de Vries’ protege Laurens van Hoepen who was 10th in this year’s Formula Regional European Championship.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
What fuels Verstappen’s F1 success (Time)
'Verstappen sees it differently. 'The NBA survived when the Chicago Bulls were dominating,' he says. 'At the time, or even afterwards, people are like, ‘Oh, that was amazing'. If you are a real fan of the sport, you should be able to appreciate a team doing very well.' Slight quibble: Michael Jordan’s teams, in the 1990s, won three of their six NBA titles on late game-winning shots, in tight series. They didn’t sweep every play-off series with ease. That’s what Verstappen’s doing now.'
I want you to know this about me (The Players' Tribune)
Zhuo Guanyu: 'A few seconds in, I just looked at the steering wheel for help as everyone went right by me. If I’m being honest with you? In that moment... I felt the pressure. I felt the weight of a whole country, the scrutiny that came with getting the seat, the expectations I put on myself — I felt it all.'
FIA, ACO aiming to improve Hypercar BoP process (Sportscar365)
'The FIA and ACO are looking to make further improvements to their Balance of Performance system in the Hypercar class for the 2024 World Endurance Championship season, although series executives have stressed that competitors must not rest solely on the process.'
Saudi wealth fund raises stake in carmaker Aston Martin to over 20% (Reuters)
"Aston Martin chair Lawrence Stroll remains the top shareholder at the carmaker made famous for being fictional spy James Bond's car brand of choice."
Hartley and Herta in at WTR Andretti for IMSA endurance races (Racer)
'Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti has chosen Brendon Hartley and Colton Herta as the endurance co-drivers for the full IMSA Endurance Cup during the 2024 IMSA season. Hartley will join Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque in the number 10 Acura ARX-06 while Herta will co-pilot the number 40 sister car with Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz. WTR Andretti plans to announce additional drivers for the Daytona 24 Hours in the coming weeks.'
Esteban Masson, a top five for his first in the WEC (Autohebdo - French)
'Esteban Masson is diversifying. The 18-year-old Frenchman, used to single-seaters, found himself in the deep end of the FIA World Endurance Championship during the 8 Hours of Bahrain. The native of Montreal was associated with two very experienced drivers in the discipline with Daniel Serra and Takeshi Kimura. It was also a meeting with the latter that led Masson to participate in the final round of the 2023 WEC.'
EA should save the IndyCar game from endless delays (Racing Games)
'The game could be stuck in limbo for years, missing this boom period and leaving the growing sim racing community without a way to fall in love with it. Which is where EA comes in. EA is one of the most hated game developers around, just ask any FC 24 or Madden player about them. But they also happen to own Codemasters, the studio that has developed the F1 game for more than a decade.'
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Why October and November are now tougher times for visiting Vegas (The Wall Street Journal)
'Construction work to repave roads and build grandstands and stanchions has taken place over several months. For visitors and locals, this construction has made navigating the city an exercise in patience. Driving or walking from one resort to another can take much longer than usual. Many visitors are complaining that the construction has ruined views of popular attractions.'
Plan to revive Bloodhound UK land speed race car (BBC)
'The UK wants another crack at the world land speed record and needs a driver for its Bloodhound supersonic car. To be in the running, you'll need to prove you can handle travelling at more than 800mph (1,290kph), and have a major sponsorship deal behind you. Bloodhound has been sitting in the Coventry Transport Museum since impressing on testing runs in South Africa's Kalahari Desert in 2019. To go racing again and break the land speed record would likely cost £12m'
Extreme E claims double success at British Association for Sustainable Sport Awards (Extreme E)
'Extreme E has won two prestigious accolades at the third annual British Association for Sustainable Sport Awards. XE received the Strategic Leadership Award, while the championship’s social impact and fan engagement strategist Naganethra Reddy won the highly-coveted Rising Star Award.'
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link relating to single-seater motorsport to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it to us via the contact form.
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
Working out in 🇺🇸 this week and Vegas is busy getting ready for F1 action… pic.twitter.com/rBSG2rmQ9I
— Ryan Champion (@Ryan_Champion) November 8, 2023
Special race. Special colours. 🔴⚪️
Fit check for the #LasVegasGP 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/4MIGWPSvE0
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) November 8, 2023
🚨 UNHEARD TEAM RADIO 🚨
Hear from our mechanics as they worked against the clock to get @OscarPiastri back on track during the #BrazilGP red flag. 👊 pic.twitter.com/kdQvbAFT6c
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) November 7, 2023
Success always leaves a trail of clues behind…
Even before @lewishamilton became an #F1 driver he was desperate to learn information that might one day help him in that quest.
This pic shows me explaining the intricate technical workings of our @McLaren @F1 car so he could… pic.twitter.com/9YjVqdh6XK
— Marc Priestley (@f1elvis) November 8, 2023
3, 2, 1… Here we go! 🏁
We will be partnering with @AlphaTauriF1 in the Las Vegas Grand Prix! Gundams Aerial and RX-78 will be supporting @yukitsunoda07 on the track.#Gundam #F1 #AlphaTauri #YukiTsunoda #VegasGP pic.twitter.com/VMd5VuWz0h
— Gundam.Info NA Official (@GundamInfoNA) November 7, 2023
I was not waving, it was another gesture. You ruined my lap https://t.co/bcyW2GZ4RB
— Pietro Fittipaldi (@PiFitti) November 8, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Max Verstappen’s list of accomplishments in F1 continued to grow at the Brazilian Grand Prix, but Jere found some other notable statistics from the weekend noted by RaceFans readers.
For the first time since the 2018 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Bottas attended a race weekend without facial hair, albeit he still had the mullet.
The second consecutive Sao Paulo Grand Prix with pole position celebrated in the garage rather than on track.
Jere
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to George, Adrian Hancox and Cristofer Lima!
Tristan (@skipgamer)
9th November 2023, 2:28
Ah CotD, these are the stats that matter, thank you!
Haha, that’s a crack up… I could almost understand the argument, until the mention of the sim racing community. While sim racing is a subset of gaming, EA will never be their saviour, by design. Sad that a site dedicate to racing games coverage is not aware of that.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th November 2023, 6:05
Another good Players’ Tribunal article by an F1 driver.
The Wall Street Journal: Not necessarily everything has been built up over a few months, though, as I saw images in September with nothing yet done around the Strip section or the preceding & following corners, but merely on the S/F straight & the top-left section.
I didn’t expect my trivial stat note to get a COTD honor & for that matter I’ve just generally noticed that many drivers never or rarely appear on race weekends without facial hair since around 2010, which can’t be a mere coincidence.
SteveP
9th November 2023, 9:04
Maybe the removal of the Bottas fur is connected to the arrival of the James Key ‘tache?
I think your stat was a valid item, do you happen to know the number of laps Bottas has done with facial hair?
Is he the GOAT for fur? People want to know… ;)
Jere (@jerejj)
9th November 2023, 19:45
Counting every single racing lap he did from the 2019 Australian GP opening lap until the Mexico City GP final lap would take quite a while, lol.
MacLeod (@macleod)
9th November 2023, 8:01
Interesting colebration with Gundam but fitting for a Japanese driver :) So they can use blasters too that would fun in Vegas.
Coventry Climax
9th November 2023, 10:58
FIA, ACO admitting their Hypercar BoP process needs improvement, with series executives having stressed that competitors must not rest solely on the process.
So apparently, competitors now do rely on it solely?
Means to me the best improvement would be to do away with it altogether: With racing over show again, that just might even make me consider to follow the series again.
Ah, the Coventry Transport Museum.
Nice name 😛, nice visit.
MichaelN
9th November 2023, 14:53
No doubt there have been behind-the-scenes talks about how the FIA/ACO is currently failing to have a competitive Hypercar class. Toyota, especially after their moaning about losing Le Mans, has dominated most of the season. That’s not what Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, Peugeot and others signed up to.
It’ll always be harder to balance performance over an endurance-length race than a single lap, as cars can be equally quick but then have very different tyre-handling characteristics. Same in F1, where Red Bull is not that much better in qualifying but absolutely miles ahead of anyone else in the race.
So the FIA/ACO probably want some teams – mostly Peugeot probably – to make changes to their cars as well. This is a bit unfortunate, because the idea of the ‘performance caps’ was that there would be many different ‘solutions’ and thus different kinds of cars, that would (visually) match real road-going cars. But it’s starting to look like Hypercar cars will instead become very similar because there is no other way the FIA/ACO can come up with a workable BoP.
Coventry Climax
10th November 2023, 0:04
Isn’t that the same then, as teams relying on it all being arranged for them, through BoP?
You can explain all you like, but 1: I know how the system works and 2) I simply detest such fake systems. It’s like giving faster runners heavier shoes, so others have a chance too, which would otherwise be so sad and sorry for them as they too paid their entrance fee. Cow dung. That’s not sports.
Jack
9th November 2023, 12:56
I thought Toto said he would always risk the chance of disqualification vs removing performance from their cars?
Ajaxn
10th November 2023, 20:56
Would it really pain the FIA to allow the drivers an extra 30 mins of set up time? The restriction to set up is the biggest hinderance to the sprint weekend. In quick succesion we have two race spoilt because of the time allowed to set up the cars correctly. They have 60 mins and then that’s it, they are stuck in parc ferme barring an accident allowing them to rebuild the car.