In the round-up: Alexander Albon admitted that he was concerned by the pace AlphaTauri showed during the Interlagos sprint race
In brief
AlphaTauri pace “a bit scary” – Albon
AlphaTauri’s pace in yesterday’s sprint race was unnerving for Albon as his Williams team aim to hold onto seventh place in the constructors’ championship. Yuki Tsunoda claimed sixth place in Saturday’s sprint event to score three points and move AlphaTauri clear of Alfa Romeo in the championship, while team mate Daniel Ricciardo narrowly missed out on points in ninth.
After rising from 19th on the grid to 15th, Albon admitted he is concerned about Williams’ performance. “It was a good race, actually,” he said. “I think we made up some good positions, had decent pace.
“It was a bit scary to see the AlphaTauris being so quick. But for us, that was okay.”
Haas performance “not good enough”
Haas team principal Guenther Steiner described his team’s performance in the Interlagos sprint race as “not good enough”.Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg started from 11th and 12th, respectively, two of the only three drivers to start on mediums, finishing down in 16th and 18th
“It’s a very disappointing result, starting P11 and P12 and finishing where we finished – it’s not good enough,” Steiner said.
“We have this tyre degradation, and it just seems that we can’t get it under control. We need to keep working on it as there’s no way out of this without a lot of effort. Tomorrow is going to be another tough day.”
Hedge claims FRAC title
Callum Hedge became the Formula Regional Americas champion with two wins out of three races in the final round of the season at Circuit of the Americas.
Hedge arrived in Austin with a comfortable lead over Ryan Shehan in the championship before taking pole position for all three races. He won the opening race on Friday before taking second to Oliver Westling in race two. In the final race on Saturday, Hedge again won from pole position to seal a dominant championship win with his 13th victory from 18 rounds.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
'I came here as a fan. I was always passionate about auto sport, about Ferrari. But this doesn’t change our fight for justice. Many drivers do support me in this, but they don’t want to speak. I don’t regret any of this, justice is a bigger good here.'
Haas USGP right of review ‘makes no sense’ and ‘ridiculous’ (Speedcafe)
Logan Sargeant: 'To me, it’s a bit ridiculous, to be honest. If they’re not monitoring it in the race and capable of telling us that we’re going off there, then that’s not on us.'
Title-deciding Bahrain win for Toyota Gazoo Racing (Toyota)
Sebastien Buemi: 'It feels amazing to win the world championship again, I am really thankful to the team. Everything went well and in the end we managed to win the race and the championship, so it was a fantastic evening. I think we deserved it this year. Obviously, not winning Le Mans was difficult but we showed our strength and won the championship ahead of such tough competition.'
Maiden wins and battling the elements: Arthur Leclerc on the moments that made him (Formula 2)
'The final one I would say is my first ever win in Formula 3 at Paul Ricard. I was coming from really far back on the grid, P30 race one and knew I had to be inside the top 12 for the reverse grid and on the last lap, I got 12th. Then I started from pole, and I remember I think Dennis and Olli Caldwell were right behind me and we managed to keep the lead and win with a good lap. It was a good weekend.'
Grosjean excited to bring ‘sauce’ to Juncos Hollinger ride (IndyCar)
'I left Formula 1 because I felt like I just didn't want to be on the grid to be on the grid. I wanted to be competitive. There was no option. Coming to IndyCar, I felt like I could be competitive with Coyne, I could be competitive with Andretti. I'm hoping we can be competitive about Juncos Hollinger and do well. We're all going to do our best. We're all going to work as hard as we can, and time will tell if it was the right move or no.'
Sky Sports F1 viewers baffled as Ted Kravitz interviews watermelon on live TV (Mirror)
'But the strangest moment came a few minutes later when Kravitz pointed his microphone at a watermelon. He had been asking people for their views on F1's Sprint format and didn't get many good responses, so posed the same question to the fruit.'
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
|@Max33Verstappen: "We need to make a decision here if we're going to push the high speed or not."
Lambiase: "Yes we are going to push the high speed, Max, I've been telling you the last three laps."#F1 #BrazilianGP #RaceFans
— RaceFans Live (@racefanslive) November 4, 2023
Strong Saturday! Felt good out there today, we learnt a lot in a very well managed Sprint @redbullracing 🙌 Looking forward to race day 💪#BrazilGP pic.twitter.com/49fMSQwwO1
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) November 4, 2023
We move forward, together. 💚
A mighty effort from our car crews sees them repair Fernando's #AMR23 in time for today's #F1Sprint. Pat yourselves on the back, team.#BrazilGP pic.twitter.com/USMGfxmTYt
— Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) November 4, 2023
Feeling the 💚💛 in Brazil. #F1Sprint #BrazilGP pic.twitter.com/Tb3cwYrJMq
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) November 4, 2023
the moment we brought home 3 points from the #F1Sprint 🙌#BrazilGP pic.twitter.com/gOYqLBMt0Q
— Scuderia AlphaTauri (@AlphaTauriF1) November 4, 2023
Love Interlagos, but the DRS is too powerful here. The race finishing order tomorrow will be the pace order. You can’t be tactical in defending really, you’ll get passed too easily.
— Mike Caulfield (@MikeCaulfieldF1) November 4, 2023
DRS placements (detection and activation) in Interlagos set a great example for other venues to follow.
Allowing multistage battles while seeming to continually advantage the driver behind. And weighted nicely to award a deft touch on the brakes when you get to T1 and T4!
— Alex Brundle (@AlexBrundle) November 4, 2023
|@logansargeant was unhappy at the @HaasF1Team getting in his way during qualifying today, but he'll be spitting blood if their request for a review of the #USGP takes his only @F1 point off him:https://t.co/KoiOvhYJ1z#F1 #BrazilianGP #RaceFans
— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) November 4, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Did Lando Norris shy away from putting up a fight for the lead in the first corner of the sprint race? Mark doesn’t think so…
He got off the line quite well and had started to squeeze over, but the second phase of the start let Max Verstappen in. No idea if it just bogged, he shifted up too early or got some wheelspin, but by the time he’d got to that starting to happen, Max was already part way alongside and not much Lando could do to block. He was never really in a position where he could get over. Even if he somehow started to move over the second the lights went out and immediately tried to sweep in front aggressively, that second phase of the start was always going to let Max squeeze through.
Mark
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Adam Dennehey, Amadis, Somersetracefan, Sonia Luff and Giggsy11!
On this day in motorsport
- Born today in 1905: Louis Rosier, who lined up ninth on the grid for the first world championship race at Silverstone in 1950
Leroy (@g-funk)
5th November 2023, 1:28
I think Felipe is confusing drivers positive opinions of him as a former colleague with supporting his foolish quest to overturn the 2008 title.
Jere (@jerejj)
5th November 2023, 5:46
I’m sure Williams will ultimately be safe for P7.
I disagree with Mike Caulfield as that has never really been the case, not to mention having separate detection points allows for immediate fightbacks.
If overtaking into T1 looked easy for some drivers, that was because of different unconnected factors.
On a related matter regarding Alex Brundle’s tweet, I’m surprised not all consecutive activation zones with 1-3 corners between them still have separate detections, even though all should have for consistency’s sake.
GechiChan (@gechichan)
5th November 2023, 6:32
1 more lap and I really think RIC would have passed Saint and Lewis for 7th. They were both barely dragging along, 2 seconds slower than Daniel. A bit of a missed opportunity for him, which was “caused” by his countrymen, Oscar Piastri, when they scrapped for a few laps.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
5th November 2023, 10:18
Alpha started the race on fresh softs, softs which hadn’t been murdered by a quali lap. That would have given them a reasonable advantage throughout the race which would account for some of the pace. That said they have drastically improved lately.
lynn-m
5th November 2023, 14:40
I still & always will detest the anti-racing Dumb Racing System!
But when the show is been put above the sport & it’s all about quantity rather than quality I sadly can’t see it ever been scrapped because the low attention span Netflix fans who just want to see a million cases of cars easily cruising past other cars are the key demographic for Liberty.
Those of us who want to see some proper racing with some proper fighting & some real, genuine, exciting & memorable overtakes are sadly no longer the segment of the fanbase that Liberty care about.
Drivers easily cruising past other drivers who have no opportunity to defend in a pre-designated FIA passing zone at the push of a button is not, never has been & will never be fun, exciting or memorable because it is not, never has been & never will be real racing!!!!!!!!
BAN the Dumb Racing System!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
S
5th November 2023, 16:57
Should restrict yourselves to club racing.
Professional, high-profile motor racing series exist primarily to make money, and they do that by being deliberately entertaining.
DRS isn’t ideal – but it is absolutely necessary until the mythical day in the fantasy future that F1 finally puts in place technical regulations that actually promote organic racing.
While the teams and the commercial rights holder remain in cahoots as they are now in modern F1, that day will never exist.