Esteban Ocon, Alpine, Albert Park, 2024

Softer tyres will make Australian GP a “more interesting race” – Ocon

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In the round-up: Esteban Ocon believes the softer tyre compounds Pirelli has selected for this weekend’s race should make for a more entertaining Australian Grand Prix.

In brief

Softer tyres will improve racing – Ocon

With Pirelli bringing its softest range of tyre compounds to Melbourne for this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix rather than the mid-range it used last year, Ocon expects the race to be more exciting for it.

“It was interesting to test the new softer compounds here compared to last year,” Ocon said.

“I think it goes in the right direction. It should be a more interesting race with that side of things. It’s a very low-degradation circuit and it could make some more interesting strategies in general. Last year we could do the whole race with one tyre and it should be different this year.”

Sauber pit problems caused by redesign

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Sauber’s pit stop problems which affected Valtteri Bottas in Bahrain and Zhou Guanyu in Saudi Arabia were due to a redesign of the team’s wheel components.

“We redesigned all the components from the hub, nuts, everything, in order to improve our pit stop and we changed also the equipment,” said team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi.

“We found that there is an issue with the design of a part and we are redesigning the part but of course this takes time also for the production and everything.”

Bahrain holding company takes over McLaren Group

Zak Brown
Brown has extended his commitment to McLaren
Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat has taken full control of the McLaren Group, which owns the road car business and has a majority stake in McLaren Racing. The latter competes in Formula 1, IndyCar, Formula E and Extreme E.

Brown extends McLaren contract

McLaren has also confirmed Zak Brown will remain as the CEO of McLaren Racing until at least 2030, after signing a new contract with the team. He joined the team in 2016 and became CEO two years later.

Set-up changes behind Prema’s speed – Antonelli

Mercedes junior driver and Prema F2 racer Andrea Kimi Antonelli says that major changes in the set-up of his car are behind the improvement in the team’s performance. Antonelli secured a front row start for tomorrow’s feature race in qualifying yesterday, following the team’s disappointing start to the season in Bahrain last month.

“In Bahrain, it was my first weekend and so obviously I was not driving very well,” Antonelli explained. “But I was still quite happy with all the experience that I made during the weekend.

“I was more confident after Bahrain because the team learned a lot. Actually we showed in Jeddah that the car was much better. And here, we’ve shown once again that the car is getting better. So obviously I’m really happy with what we’re doing.

“The set-up changed a lot, between Bahrain and Jeddah and also here. So we’re finding the right way and I’m really happy for that.”

Antonelli’s team mate Oliver Bearman, who returned to the series after making his F1 debut for Ferrari two weeks ago, blamed a technical problem on his final run after qualifying 16th.

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Comment of the day

Alexander Albon's pit garage, Williams, Albert Park, 2024
Poll: Are Williams right to bench Sargeant so Albon can race after crash?
After Williams’ controversial decision to sideline Logan Sargeant so team mate Alexander Albon can race his car after crashing his in practice, two different views from Jere and Christopher Rehn…

I can’t really be surprised in the end, but still an illogical and unfair decision despite Alex being the better-performing because he ultimately caused this entire situation rather than Logan, so penalizing for a teammate’s error is totally unfair on him, especially as he critically needs race distances to gain experience and generally improve, so I’m disappointed James Vowles doesn’t have the guts to tell Alex ‘tough luck’ for making such an unforced error in a non-competitive session.

The fact they have to switch between PU and gearbox allocation components and thus voluntarily cause themselves added inconvenience only strengthens the illogicality of temporarily changing the garage side for the sake of changing.

However, not having a spare monocoque on site in the first place, even as a one-off thing, is equally inexcusable in the modern era for any team.
Jere

Williams are fighting for few points. Albon is more likely to secure them. He should drive.

But on the other hand, Albon binned it and Sargeant did not.

Therefore I vote “slightly agree”. Albon should drive, he is proven to be a more likely points scorer – but it doesn’t make it fair.
Christopher Rehn

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Cacarella, James Newnham, Tommyc and George!

On this day in motorsport

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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