In the round-up: Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Ferrari could be three-time race winners on the strength of their performance so far this year.
What they say
Wolff was asked whether he was surprised Red Bull-Honda had won a race before Ferrari and whether Ferrari make a mistake by qualifying on the soft tyre in Austria.I think Ferrari was really unfortunate this season. They could have won three times already. The Red Bull was the quickest car on-track [in Austria]. You never saw our performance because we were racing with a hand tied behind our back but between Ferrari and Red Bull-Honda today the Honda was the benchmark.
I don’t think [Ferrari’s tyre strategy was a mistake] because at the end they had only a few laps left on the hard tyre. I think that the tyre degradation was still a topic for them and we have to not over-analyse it. I think that the combination between Max, the Red Bull chassis and the Honda engine was the best package.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
LandoHow much fun was Lando having with a 7.6-litre V8? #FOS pic.twitter.com/PRRPEkJCtv
— Goodwood FOS (@fosgoodwood) July 7, 2019
With Corinna Schumacher, Ross Brawn & his wife, Luca di Montezemolo, @marc_gene at @FOSGoodwood to celebrate 7-time @F1 World Champion @schumacher pic.twitter.com/QRCECSXhYf
— Jean Todt (@JeanTodt) July 7, 2019
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Behind the scenes with Sainz (F1)
"My competitiveness as a racing driver made both Friday and Saturday very tough and didn’t put me in a good mood. These penalties are difficult to digest because they go against the driver for no fault of his own."
2019 World Rallycross of Sweden highlights (World Rallycross via YouTube)
Highlights Race 17 Townsville 400 (Australian Supercars via YouTube)
Highlights Race 18 Townsville 400 (Australian Supercars via YouTube)
Highlights WTCR Race of Portugal 2019 race one (WTCR via YouTube)
Highlights WTCR Race of Portugal 2019 race two (WTCR via YouTube)
Highlights WTCR Race of Portugal 2019 race three (WTCR via YouTube)
Highlights DTM Norisring race two (DTM via YouTube)
Highlights Hungaroring race two (Euroformula Open via YouTube)
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Comment of the day
This weekend’s Caption Competition winner is Pat:
Wow, you really did have two tenths up your sleeves
Pat Ruadh (@Fullcoursecaution)
Thanks to everyone who joined in, especially Sham, A.R., Derek Edwards and Short Circuit who also came up with great suggestions.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Ev!
If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.
On this day in F1
- 35 years ago today Keke Rosberg won the only F1 race held in Dallas, the track surface disintegrating in fiercely hot conditions
Toxic
8th July 2019, 1:13
Those two V8 Supercars races (especially second) were just outstanding (but the Highlights are not really showing the action). It was really wet in the second and yet there were no BS safety cars as they would be in F1. I have switched my attention to this series from F1 2 years ago and it’s totally worth it. You can actually watch it online for 50$ per season from anywhere in the world. F1 is good when I try to fall asleep quickly.
MEGATRON M12 (@megatron)
8th July 2019, 1:58
F1 requires safety cars under wet conditions because the pirelli wet tires are incapable of moving enough water to cope with much rain. I think it was Nico Rosberg who let the cat out of the bag, the pirelli wets and inters aquaplane much more than the Bridgestone tires. Pirelli confirmed it when they posted the numbers that show that their full wet tires displace just a little more than the Bridgestone intermediate tires.
anon
8th July 2019, 7:55
@megatron, the thing is, I don’t believe that Bridgestone ever stated what the test conditions were supposed to be for those wet tyres, so how accurate any comparison might be is unclear at best.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
8th July 2019, 10:10
All tyres will aquaplane if pushed hard enough. My suspicion is the space between the tread has a lot to do with preventing it, as does the road surface.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
8th July 2019, 23:15
@megatron This is hardly a surprise – for the last several years (since 2013 at least), the wet tyres have kicked up so much spray that they’re not usable at much above Safety Car speeds in a use-case where intermediates are inadequete. If they’re only going to be used under a Safety Car period, it’s not surprising they only displace enough water to get cars round under a Safety Car.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
8th July 2019, 2:12
Yeah I dont know what the broadcast is like on that but I genuinely enjoyed having the time to watch the supercars yesterday on Kayo. All the support races were entertaining too; turbo deisel utes, toyota 86’s, porsche carrera cup, and the development series all provided great action.
Having Mark Skaife and Craig Lowndes as the presenters is a great touch. It’s hard not to hang on to every word of those legends. If only F1 could be so lucky.
Also impressed that De Silvestro has stuck around as long as she has. For low budget teams she’s been in her results aren’t terrible. Shame they didnt get the calls in the rain right yesterday, she had the pace to be top 5. Seems much more down to Earth in interviews than when she first came to the series.
maiagus
8th July 2019, 13:23
Supertrucks are the funniest thing on wheels.
Foggy
8th July 2019, 9:01
Great series and living in Asia I get to watch them all live and yes the commentary team are just great, they put Crofty and co. to shame and Larko knows his stuff too.
a (@aaaa)
8th July 2019, 15:36
@skipgamer
Yeah, V8 Supercars is great to watch, it’s a whole lot more “Argy-bargy” than F1.
I think next weekend’s race is just up the road from us…sunny Queensland, plus it’s Saturday/Sunday afternoon free to air TV for me. Don’t really know why I still follow F1, perhaps it’s the tech or just because it’s on once a fortnight, however now a days we have to wait up until 11:10pm on a Sunday night to get a race fix.Hate to sound like a Gerald Ratner…..but, I do like all the drivers in F1 & look forward to their mostly placid combats. Just wish Danny Ric would retire from F1 after the Renault contract & come back to Aus to flog a couple of Kiwis for us. His presence in the paddock’s would be awesome & entertaining to watch. The series would be fantastic if this ever happened.
“All the support races were entertaining too”
Don’t really know how you get the time to watch all this racing.🤔
and it is lovely to watch/listen to Simona De Silvestro. 😍
Darryn Smith (@darryn)
8th July 2019, 5:16
This championship could be very tight if Ferrari and Vettel weren’t so incompetent. That’s really it. They have made Merc look better than they are even though Merc is very good.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
8th July 2019, 6:46
@darryn
Mercedes have had comfortably the best car in 6 out of 9 races. It would take a seriously incompetent driver to lose the WDC with a car like this.
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
8th July 2019, 8:26
@darryn thank you for your competent comment, I suppose your team in Motorsport Manager is very successful.
anon
8th July 2019, 13:54
@m-bagattini, the thing is, there have been quite a few races this season where Ferrari have allowed chances to slip away through operational mistakes, driver error or strategic errors.
In Melbourne, they were badly off the pace due to a major miscalculation in the cooling requirements of the engine and the need to nurse slightly fragile powertrain components.
In Bahrain, the combination of Leclerc’s engine problems and Vettel’s spin gifted Mercedes a 1-2 finish when Leclerc was comfortably pulling away from Hamilton beforehand.
In China, the way that the team mishandled their team orders meant that they allowed Red Bull to get ahead of Leclerc, a situation that was potentially avoidable.
Baku saw them pushing both of their drivers very hard in Q2, even though it was clear that it would take multiple laps for the tyres to warm up given the low ambient temperature, with Leclerc ultimately crashing under that pressure and Vettel lucky not to also stick it in the wall. At a venue where Leclerc had been leading most sessions, they helped give Mercedes yet another 1-2 in that process.
In Spain, again they allowed themselves to get in a tangle over team orders that hindered both drivers at different phases of the race.
Monaco went OK for Vettel at least, but the strategy error with Leclerc was avoidable and cost them an opportunity to at least try to get him amongst the other leading drivers.
Canada is an incident that, frankly, is not worth trying to discuss at this point, because most have already made their decision over it.
France was another race where Vettel’s qualifying error meant that he probably lost at least one position in the race, since Vettel was quicker than Verstappen, but just couldn’t make up the time he lost in the opening laps whilst getting through the traffic. The fact that Leclerc managed to close on Bottas near the end suggests that, just maybe, there might have been a very slim chance of 2nd place in that race.
Even Austria is another example, as in retrospect the decision to pit Leclerc when they did actually looks like a bad mistake. If you look at Leclerc’s lap times, he was matching or pulling away from the two Mercedes drivers behind him, and whilst Verstappen was beginning to lap slightly faster than Leclerc, that was only by a couple of tenths and that was only on the lap or two before they pitted Leclerc.
If you looked at the lap times of Leclerc, and if you also looked at the midfield runners who were using the soft compound tyres, those using the soft tyres were still setting competitive lap times – several drivers on the softs went on to run longer first stints than Leclerc did.
Now, starting on the soft tyres was arguably a strategic mistake to begin with, but Leclerc was making that strategy work – he wasn’t just setting competitive times, he was pulling away from his rivals. Ferrari could have afforded to leave him out on track for a few more laps, slightly shortening that final stint on the hard tyres – rather than having to run the second longest stint on the hard tyres, a slightly shorter stint on the hards might just have been enough to hold Verstappen off at the end.
Even with the performance of Mercedes this season, simply going “well, Mercedes are too strong, it’s all futile” glosses over the fact that Ferrari have not managed to achieve the maximum number of points they could have scored in every race this season – if they can’t maximise their potential when not having a winning car, they aren’t going to be doing it when they do have a winning car.
hobo (@hobo)
8th July 2019, 14:25
@anon – I appreciate this sort of analysis and you make a lot of good points. Some of them stretch a bit far, but I do see the larger picture you are painting.
However, my response would be that when every single thing (barring cooling in Austria) breaks for 1 team—Mercedes—it’s not just that Ferrari makes bad decisions and Merc makes good ones. We have seen a number of Ferrari missteps or issues, but we have to assume that Merc has to ‘put out fires‘ and manage issues as well. I still think that Merc has the better package overall, and so when issues/mistakes happen to them the impact often still leaves them better off than other teams.
So, to your point…
I agree that it probably isn’t that simple, but I personally don’t think that it is far off.
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
8th July 2019, 15:03
You’re analysis is complete, I agree on most of the points and appreciate the time you put into it. But one thing is
> simply going “well, Mercedes are too strong, it’s all futile” glosses over the fact that Ferrari have not managed to achieve the maximum number of points
a whole different thing is
> This championship could be very tight if Ferrari and Vettel weren’t so incompetent
which is the comment I replied to, that has – in my opinion – two big problems: I don’t think that neither Ferrari nor Vettel are incompetent and I absolutely don’t think that the championship could be “very tight”.
F1oSaurus (@)
8th July 2019, 19:01
Great analysis anon. 100% agree.
@m-bagattini Vettel is incompetent though. Just read all the big mistakes he made already in the first few races.
Either way, if Vettel and Ferrari weren’t so incompetent they would have won 4 races out of 9. Hamilton might then still be in the lead, but it wouldn’t have looked so hopeless and it very well could have been tight.
Ferrari finally seem to be able to get a good setup for their car. A bit more improvement and the tide could swing in their favor. So at least there would be hope for a championship.
So far they have utterly thrown away every chance they had and they need pretty much a miracle turnaround.
Alex
9th July 2019, 21:25
In my opinion one of the main reasons Ferrari are making these mistakes is because they know they have to be 100%perfect to even have a chance of winning a race whereas Mercedes know they have room to play with. Having that bit of breathing space takes a lot of pressure off both driver and team
F1oSaurus (@)
11th July 2019, 19:10
Nonsense. They start from pole, and have the faster race pace, they should be able to win.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
8th July 2019, 6:45
The 2019 Mercedes is basically the 2011 Red Bull. Not as dominant as the 2014-2016 cars, but still has a clear advantage in 60% of the races.
F1oSaurus (@)
8th July 2019, 7:59
@kingshark Yes, but the point is that Ferrari (and notably their #1 driver) are so incompetent that the fail to win even the races where they do have the fastest car. 2018 they had the fastest car on average easily, but if their #1 driver blunders away 7 races over the whole season, it makes them look slow.
Ferrari was also fastest in Baku. Or at least Leclerc was. So it would really be 4 out of 9 races that they could have won. The season would have looked a lot more competitive then. When Ferrari finally understands their car and manages to drive it to it’s potential (and lets loose their #2 driver) they could have wrapped it up anyway.
Indeed now they blundered away 4 races and they are pretty much without a shot at the championships again already.
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
8th July 2019, 8:31
@f1osaurus to be fair, they could have won 12 out of 9 races! Vettel was so stupid in Australia that he forgot his car has 8 gears and used only 6. And they screwed their strategy in Monaco by mounting the rear wing on the front and viceversa. Don’t even get me started with China, Ferrari put Franz Vettel, Sebastian’s evil twin, in the car instead of Seb!
Kingshark (@kingshark)
8th July 2019, 18:58
@f1osaurus
Lmao, why does this delusional myth continue to persist?Leclerc was slower than Gasly on the same strategy in Baku. GASLY.
If a team has comfortably the best car in 2 out of 3 races, then it is simply not possible to win the WDC against them. Red Bull had a roughly similar advantage in 2011 and 2013. Where was Hamilton those years?
F1oSaurus (@)
8th July 2019, 19:16
@kingshark Leclerc was fastest by a big margin in qualifying. Leclerc actually did make it through Q2 on medium tyres. Vettel couldn’t. They should have never been on medium tyres, but that’s Ferrari’s strategy blunders for ya.
Then Vettel blundered in Q3 by overtaking the cars that he needed a tow from. It’s just an endless array of small mistakes up to huge blunder.
You truly don’t understand F1, why do you keep pretending that you do? The obvious reason leclerc was slower during the race than Gasly was because they used Leclerc as a pawn to be in the way of the Merc drivers. He’s the #2 driver and they apparently don’t care about his result even if there is a 1% chance they can use him to help Vettel.
Although that stance seems to turn a bit now Leclerc is showing more and more that he actually is the better driver. Perhaps marginally slower in Q3, but a lot more stable and faster during the race.
2 out of 3 races advantage for Mercedes? What’s with the delusional nonsense indeed? Mercedes had the best car in at most 5 out of 9 races. Ferrari in 4 out of 9. Really not that big of a difference.
The point is that if Ferrari/Vettel performed at least half decent then they would have been in with a shot for the championships still.
Ferrari have the best engine and if they get their setup right, the fastest car outright. All it takes is a small change for their drivers to finally figure out how to get a good setup for that car.
Plus the season would not be so boring if Ferrari and Vettel actually managed to compete.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
9th July 2019, 1:56
@f1osaurus
Leclerc had the same race pace as Gasly on the same strategy, to argue that he had the pace to win the race is your typical delusion. You write a lot of posts and very little content. Mercedes was comfortably the fastest around Baku.
Yes, Mercedes have had the best car in 6 out of 9 races. That’s very similar to the 2011 and 2013 Red Bull cars. Hamilton was a nonfactor in both of those seasons.
F1oSaurus (@)
9th July 2019, 18:21
@kingshark I didn’t say he had the pace to win. What on earth is your problem? Clearly he was on the wrong tyres. WHat Gasly was doing in another car and without any gight or detrimental issues fomr being a #2 pawn is completely irrelevant.
Besides Leclerc was much faster, but they kept him out for an eternity with his tyres to mush. So he lost a heap of time. There is no comparison.
Thepoint is, Leclerc could/would have gotten pole. If Ferrari had not messed up his strategy by putting him on mediunms in Q2 then he wouid have won the race. How is it that hard to understand this?
The car was fast enough, the driver was fast enough. They could and should have won that race. 4 out 9. It’s Ferrari and Vettel incompetence that makes the season so boring. AGAIN! This is the third season that they are throwing it all away. How does this even need discussing?
Kingshark (@kingshark)
10th July 2019, 21:18
@f1osaurus
Make up your mind.
Leclerc was slower than Gasly on the same strategy. The rest of your post is delusion and fiction.
F1oSaurus (@)
11th July 2019, 19:18
@kingshark I get you don’t understand it. You don’t understand anything about F1. Really, just stop watching F1 man. It’s not your thing. Give. It. Up. It’s embarrassing to read your nonsense.
I already explained that Leclerc was on the wrong strategy. Besides he had to come from far back because Ferrari insisted that he needed to go faster still than he did before on medium tyres. Tyres on which Vettel couldn’t even get through on Q2. That’s how far he was ahead of Vettel. So yeah you can blame him for not telling to go F themselves, but there was no need for them to take that risk.
The point is, he had the pace in Q1 and Q2 and in free practice long run pace. Given the right strategy, he would have started from pole and won the race.
Also with “slower” do you mean that Leclerc was 30 seconds ahead from Gasly on the same strategy?!?!?! Seriously. Just crawl back under your bridge.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
12th July 2019, 15:49
@f1osaurus
He was on the exact same strategy as Gasly. How the hell did you miss that?
There was nothing wrong with Leclerc’s strategy. Gasly was able to take the same tyres long into the race without any significant drop off in pace.
Gasly started further back. Look at lap times.
F1oSaurus (@)
13th July 2019, 21:27
@kingshark LECLERC GOT 30 SECONDS MORE OUT OF THOSE TYRES! How on earth can’t you grasp this? Ah I know, because you don’t understand anything about F1. Really, just stop watching F1 man. It’s not your thing. Give. It. Up. It’s embarrassing to read your nonsense.
Although I really love kicking your ars e. Every. Time. Again. Easy victim, but still.
Either way, I’m sure you were amazed by yet another embarrassing quali from Vettel? While Leclerc put in a great drive yet again.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
24th July 2019, 3:12
@f1osaurus
Gasly started a lot further back than Leclerc because of engine penalties. Once he cleared traffic he was quicker than Leclerc, get that through your thick skull.
This is as pointless as arguing that Rosberg was definitely faster than Hamilton in Russia/China/Belgium 2016 on the basis that he finished ahead, and completely ignoring who started where.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
24th July 2019, 3:13
Are you mentally ill? Do you realize that you are talking to a stranger on a message board right? Here you are talking as if you are some kind of UFC fighter. Embarrassing.
F1oSaurus (@)
25th July 2019, 20:24
@kingshark You still completely lost the plot. So let me start by reiterating that F1 just really is not your thing. why not watch knitting matches instead?
It’s really not that hard though. Leclerc was 30 seconds ahead of Gasly. That takes more from the tyres than cruising around slowly.
You were the one who claimed that Vettel going 4 laps longer on a set of tyres than Leclerc was the reason for Vettel being half a second a lap slower.
So you can claim that and at the same time pretend that taking 30 seconds more performance out of those tyres means absolutely nothing? Are you having a laugh?
Either way, I just love kicking your ar.,se. Every. Time. Again. Even though I know I’m fighting an unarmed nit.
You are almost at bad at arguing as Vettel is at racing in a “merely competitive” car with other cars around him.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
28th July 2019, 23:25
@f1osaurus
https://www.racefans.net/2019/04/28/2019-azerbaijan-grand-prix-interactive-data-lap-charts-times-and-tyres/
Compare Gasly to Leclerc from lap 13 to lap 31. They display identical pace. and Gasly continues to lap quicker until lap 34 while Leclerc pits on lap 31 on finished tyres.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
8th July 2019, 11:14
Toto and his Ferrari talk. Mercedes could have messed up more times but didn’t. That is the entire point of their success. They could easily be worse, but are not. They are good and consistent, their bad races are few and far between. Being this good is hard, but because they achieve it so often we call them the dominant team.
Every race someone else almost wins it, difference is maybe 10-20 seconds, but in F1 that is called one of the most dominant performing teams ever. Over last years since 2014, they are extending their dominance records, even Schumacher era Ferrari was not this good.
Jere (@jerejj)
8th July 2019, 12:36
@jureo But the key difference between the Schumacher/Ferrari era and this Mercedes era is that only one driver was allowed to win races then compared to now.
hobo (@hobo)
8th July 2019, 14:34
Was better with Rosberg (20 wins during 3 Merc championship years). Bottas’ percentage looks more like Ruben’s.
2000-2004: Barrichello wins = 9
2017-current: Bottas wins = 5
F1oSaurus (@)
8th July 2019, 15:06
@hobo Hamilton has had a lot less technical issues since Bottas joined Mercedes yes.
Still, the difference is that Bottas is allowed to win. In fact they won’t even help Hamilton past Bottas when he’s clearly holding him back. That’s a massive difference with Ferrari where the #1 drivers gets the best equipment, the best strategy, the tow for Q3 and preference on track position.
hobo (@hobo)
8th July 2019, 22:30
@f1osaurus – there have been instances where Bottas was told to move over and did.
And I get the point being made that BAR wasn’t allowed to beat MSC. I concede the point, though there were a number of instances where BAR simply was better on a given day and won.
That aside, my point was that what is currently happening is just as bad as then. It doesn’t really matter if someone is allowed to win (BOT) if they are doing so at such a low rate as to be indistinguishable from someone who isn’t (BAR), right?
F1oSaurus (@)
9th July 2019, 18:17
@hobo Yes INSTANCES. That’s clearly not remotely not the same as by definition.
And yes the distinction does matter.
hobo (@hobo)
9th July 2019, 20:47
@f1osaurus – Not to me.
2 points.
1) Let’s be honest with each other, Barrichello was not going to beat Michael Schumacher on merit day in and day out. Likely Rubens was held back at times even beyond those that were more obvious. Again, I concede that. But he was hired as a second fiddle to a team with a two-time world champion. He signed the contract, that is unfortunately how it was. The end result was that it was a one-horse team.
Bottas is similarly unlikely to beat Hamilton day in and day out. Yes, he could maybe, possibly pull a 2016 Rosberg and somehow use all his skill and all his luck and beat Hamilton one year. But we haven’t seen anywhere near Rosberg’s level yet. The end result is a one-horse team.
2) What is the difference at the end of the day? If there were two relatively equal drivers at Merc right now—and by that I mean take your pick of your personal favorite HAM-VER, HAM-VET, HAM-ALO, whatever—and Hamilton beat another great driver with no team orders, that would be one thing. BOT, unfortunately, isn’t that. I like him, but he’s not a great. So what you have is a de facto second fiddle. In this discussion between fans, a de jure second fiddle is a worse thing than a de facto second fiddle. But watching the races, if the results are largely the same (and I showed you above that they were), then you’re making a big fuss about “six” instead of “a half dozen.”
F1oSaurus (@)
10th July 2019, 11:33
@hobo
Sure if you insist on making stuff up then were done.
If you truly don’t see the difference betwene a team mate who is consistenlyt held back and pretty much never will be allowed to win vs one that can win and is actually helped in doing so. Done.
hobo (@hobo)
10th July 2019, 14:06
@f1osaurus – Done is fine.
I did not make up a single thing. Please point out where you think I did.
I didn’t say I don’t SEE a difference, I said that at the end of the day I don’t CARE about them. We can talk all day on comments and forums about the merits or ethics or sportsmanship, etc. of each approach. But if 85-90% of the races are Driver A beating Driver B—no matter which system the team is using (free competition or no competition)—then it’s still boring. And normally intrateam doesn’t matter because there is some competition between teams. But in years we are discussing (Ferrari years, and Merc years especially), intrateam matters because sometimes it’s all there is.
Free competition between a star driver and an okay/good driver is not the same as free competition between relatively equal drivers. Twist that around however you wish.
Joao (@johnmilk)
8th July 2019, 11:38
Tiago Monteiro Caralho!
That will be all for today, thank you
Jere (@jerejj)
8th July 2019, 12:37
I see his point, but unfortunately, there aren’t really any viable alternatives as has been discussed many times before.