In the round-up: Toto Wolff says he made the unprecedented move to congratulate Lewis Hamilton over team radio after he stormed to pole in qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix.
What they say
Wolff came on the radio at the end of qualifying to tell Hamilton: “Lewis this is Toto, this was the most epic lap I’ve ever seen around here.” He explained why he made the rare step of talking on the team’s radio:
Today was teamwork. I think from Lewis’s side, for me, the stardust. The most epic lap I’ve ever seen from him.
I never go on the radio, it’s the first time I went on the radio to him, today. Because I hadn’t seen anything like this before. We knew exactly what split times that car was able to do – sector one, sector two – and when the purple times kept cropping up, it was surreal.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
So @RyanHunterReay on pole for the @IndyCar championship decider at @RaceSonoma ahead of points leader @scottdixon9, title rivals @josefnewgarden, @AlexanderRossi and @12WillPower 3rd, 6th and 7th – and newcomer @PatricioOWard an incredible 5th! #IndyCar
— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) September 15, 2018
A 1:36.015 by Lewis Hamilton!? I literally burst out laughing at that one. That's 11.9 SECONDS quicker than Hamilton's 2009 pole time here. Amazing #SingaporeGP
— Sean Kelly (@virtualstatman) September 15, 2018
Wow, that lap felt like magic! It was an incredible feeling as it all came together. I’m so massively grateful of everyone at the factory who always work so hard, thank you. This track is truly beautiful and I can’t wait until tomorrow! 🙌🏾 #Pole #SingaporeGP @MercedesAMGF1 pic.twitter.com/dSoQHRvqXd
— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) September 15, 2018
Hamilton to me after QUALI: “That was the best feeling of my life.” He said the flow was amazing and he’s never done a better lap in his life. He was quite emotional and wished everyone could feel what he just felt. #F1 @bbcf1
— Jennie Gow (@JennieGow) September 15, 2018
Very happy to be on the front row, really great! @redbullracing, thanks for the amazing car 👊🏻 Tomorrow should be fun #KeepPushing #UnleashTheLion #SingaporeGP 🇸🇬 pic.twitter.com/Of5FierpJZ
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) September 15, 2018
Calificación perfecta, una vuelta increíble! A pensar en mañana para cerrar un fin de semana perfecto! ••• It was a perfect Qualifying with an incredible fast lap! Let’s think of tomorrow to close with a perfect weekend! 💪 #SingaporeGP pic.twitter.com/JkH1sw35Dr
— Sergio Pérez (@SChecoPerez) September 15, 2018
Things are heating up in the ice bath… 😉 #SingaporeGP 🇸🇬 #F1 pic.twitter.com/gkhUBC5zru
— Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) September 15, 2018
ICYMI: Kvyat has signed a contract to race for Toro Rosso next season. #F1 @bbcf1
— Jennie Gow (@JennieGow) September 15, 2018
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Red Bull is working to solve Singapore qualifying mapping issue (Autosport)
Horner: "Unfortunately with the mapping (Verstappen's) just not getting the delivery of the power than he's requesting from the pedal, so it's very intermittent."
Magnussen at a loss to explain ‘light year’ difference to team mate Grosjean (Formula1.com)
"I don’t have any answers as to why we are lacking so much pace. It’s very strange. We have to look into it and try to find some answers."
Bottas now resigned to play support role at Mercedes (F1i)
"I understand that Lewis is fighting for the title while my chances are very small. So if I can help him do it, I will."
Is the pressure getting to Sebastian Vettel? (ESPN)
"Five incidents stand out as avoidable mistakes this season and combined they have cost him more than 60 points. The most costly - in terms of points and from a psychological point of view -- was at Hockenheim and, judging by his comments during a media session on Thursday, the mistake still has roots in the back of his mind."
Can you fry an egg on an F1 tyre? (Sky)
Ted Kravitz attempts to discover if you can fry an egg on a Formula One tyre.
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Comment of the day
After a series of recent setbacks in his championship fight with Hamilton, is pressure getting to Sebastian Vettel? @Toiago thinks any pressure on the Ferrari driver may be coming from within:
Just to add something regarding Vettel’s mistakes. I think more than anything else he feels the pressure he puts on himself to emulate Schumacher. He has openly admitted that Schumacher is his idol and he would like to do with Ferrari the same thing Schumacher did, reviving Ferrari from an unsuccessful spell and turning them to contenders again. It hasn’t been easy, since the advantage Mercedes had from the start of 2014 has been huge, and it took a bad year (2016) thrown fully into a new aerodynamic overhaul in the rules (2017) to make Ferrari championship contenders again.
Vettel and Ferrari are such a great fit for each other, and Vettel is no doubt a great driver, so he just has to regroup and do the best job he can. The Leclerc signing could indeed be a bad omen for Vettel, but it could end up being precisely what makes him elevate his game and eliminate the kind of amateurish mistakes he has been making.
@toiago
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Joao (@johnmilk)
16th September 2018, 0:12
Those Kvyat new are a certainty or just rumours?
Jere (@jerejj)
16th September 2018, 7:46
@johnmilk Yes, still just rumors as no official confirmation has taken place.
Joao (@johnmilk)
16th September 2018, 10:10
Ok. We don’t see that sort of thing atound here unless it is official. So I’m expecting a confirmation soon
erikje
16th September 2018, 13:07
TR will announce their drivers in sotchi.. Guess who😇
Klon (@)
16th September 2018, 1:49
The fact that they actually use the word “epic” on the team radio and in press statement makes you hope Mercedes-Benz go through a Audi-esque scandal and have to pull all their money from F1 and close down the works team for good.
David BR (@david-br)
16th September 2018, 2:25
So thousands of people have to loose their jobs because you don’t like the word ‘epic’? And presumably you think Wolff’s the one without a sense of proportion?!
anon
16th September 2018, 8:28
I have to hope that what Klon is wishing for is meant to be a joke (a rather unfunny joke at that), rather than the sort of nihilistic destruction that he wants, otherwise it is a pretty extreme overreaction.
Not only does he seem to want to bring misery to all those within the works team, it would also heavily damage both Williams and Force India as well, given the dependency of both of those teams on Mercedes – especially Force India, which, between the joint research group, wind tunnel lease agreement and component supply chain, is pretty interlinked with Mercedes.
It seems like an extraordinarily petty and callous response to the use of the word “epic”, and one where, if meant intentionally, he either hasn’t thought through the consequences or just doesn’t care what damage he does to those who would be on the receiving end of his treatment.
Iosif (@afonic)
16th September 2018, 2:37
Dunno, I just watched the onboard and that was an epic, EPIC lap there. And I’m a Ferrari fan.
BlackJackFan
16th September 2018, 3:10
Klon… RaceFans’ new troll… ;)
grat
16th September 2018, 4:48
Why is epic a four letter word to you?
papaya
16th September 2018, 6:36
Agreed with you, the most appropriate word Mercedes should use is… “Gifted”.
Hamilton was gifted pole due to Max’s engine issue, Vettel’s bad mood causing tyre locked up due to Q2 tyre conflict bla bla bla…
Todfod (@todfod)
16th September 2018, 7:42
Lol. Must hurt.
Aldoid
16th September 2018, 13:10
LOL! Apparently it’s excruciating. I feel no sympathy: I’ve been an F1 fan a long time & I’ve never been a Ferrari/Schumacher, Red Bull/Vettel or Renault/Alonso fan, but I don’t recall me or any of my friends or family being as worked up over our time in the proverbial wilderness as these brand new “fans” of mainly Verstappen. They act like angry, entitled cult members.
Aldoid
16th September 2018, 13:10
LOL! Apparently it’s excruciating. I feel no sympathy: I’ve been an F1 fan a long time & I’ve never been a Ferrari/Schumacher, Red Bull/Vettel or Renault/Alonso fan, but I don’t recall me or any of my friends or family being as worked up over our time in the proverbial wilderness as these brand new “fans” of mainly Verstappen. They act like angry, entitled cult members.
KGN11
16th September 2018, 2:14
Wow!
Edward
16th September 2018, 3:08
This isn’t going to be a very popular opinion, particularly given his egg stunt, but I honestly can’t get enough of Ted Kravitz. His notebook feature is both insightful and highly entertaining, he has good rapport with teams and mechanics, and he seems to push the limits of what the teams will accept for the sake of good PR – his escapades remind me of the way Martin Brundle pioneered the grid walk. For me, he is head and shoulders above the likes of Croft and Herbert and I feel he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves. Somebody out there, please back me up!
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
16th September 2018, 8:54
I love him but that egg stunt was ridiculously stupid. I wasn’t embarrassed as a F1 fan, I was embarrassed as a human being!
Will Jones (@sleepywill)
16th September 2018, 9:02
I’ll back you up – I don’t expect the average person to walk around knowing that the oil that you “fry” an egg in is way hotter than the 100 degrees limit of water (which takes several minutes to cook an egg in) which is why it’s so quick – but when making a feature I do expect them to google it and tell him…
However, Ted is great, just endlessly cheerful and insightful – even if the delivery of the knowledge is very conversational – but I think the Sky writers and team are somewhat letting them down for the last few years.
digitalrurouni
16th September 2018, 3:19
The comments of some F1 posters sometimes defy belief.
Mike Williams (@mikejtw)
16th September 2018, 6:50
+ 1
Matthijs (@matthijs)
16th September 2018, 6:52
Would be interesting to see Hamilton’s lap and Verstappen’s (second?) lap head-to-head to find out where Verstappen lost out. Both laps were mega!
Jere (@jerejj)
16th September 2018, 7:36
@matthijs Agreed.
OOliver
16th September 2018, 7:39
Verstappen would definitely be way much faster around the corners and lose out slightly in the straights.
Redbull have the outright best handling chassis and downforce levels.
papaya
16th September 2018, 9:57
Yes, the Hamilton 2018 vs Vettel 2017 posted on YouTube pretty much useless. People are more interested to compare current rival instead.
Jere (@jerejj)
16th September 2018, 7:45
”I never go on the radio, it’s the first time I went on the radio to him” – Yes, you do occasionally following a race win.
– I agree with both the COTD and the ESPN-article since both of them point out the same thing.
– I won’t buy the tweet of Jennie Gow nor the Instagram post of ZiggoSportF1 as long as the content of them isn’t officially confirmed, which indeed isn’t the case, so still nothing but rumors.
– BTW, Next year is when the 10th anniversary of the content of the ”On this day in F1” segment will take place, not yet this year (only the race itself in which it all happened.) Following the previous round-up, I was originally going to not bring this type of thing up again for a little while but decided to do it this one more time for a little while after all.
Will Jones (@sleepywill)
16th September 2018, 9:09
Wolff wears his heart on his sleeve (for a team manager) and says things that aren’t true if you use the precise definition of those words, but would not be considered untrue if you or I said the exact same thing in the same context to each other in a casual setting – I wouldn’t want him to change – but I wish that people would let people be people and not hold them to unobtainable standards – If you incentivise people to hide their flaws, then hide them they will, and you get to hear a corporate mouthpiece reading a brainstormed script and refusing to deviate. I like hearing the personality of the people in the sport, I think it’s important.
Gerke
16th September 2018, 8:25
https://racingnews365.nl/waar-maakte-hamilton-het-verschil-ten-opzichte-van-verstappen The differences in a grafic.
Will Jones (@sleepywill)
16th September 2018, 9:11
Interesting… do we thing Max can Massa his way past between corners 10 and 13… that would be epic!
Will Jones (@sleepywill)
16th September 2018, 9:12
*think
ColdFly (@)
16th September 2018, 8:31
I always saw Vettel as the new Schumacher, and his loss to Ricciardo as an anomaly.
Vettel surely has had some great qualis and races (Toto would say ‘epic’) with Ferrari over the past years. But every time when it started to count he began making mistakes.
It begins to feel that Vettel’s spell at Ferrari is a bit like Schumacher’s final years at Mercedes.
It’s a real pity Ferrari and Alonso could not stick it out a few more years to end the title drought for both (maybe not too late).
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
16th September 2018, 10:11
I suspect that it’s more of a case of the Ferrari not being quite as good as people think it is and that Vettel and Kimi are having to drive their socks off just to compete with the Mercs.
Tom
16th September 2018, 11:36
@dbradock
If you take off this Ferrari tints you’ll see things more clearly.
Wayne
16th September 2018, 17:30
Hamiltons lap was epic! Faultless. Unexpected and undoutably 1 of the best in recent years… Arguably too for the nay sayers…