New on RaceFans
- Red Bull staff exodus dashes Verstappen’s hope they would “keep the team together”
- Four power units a season still the “right limit” despite 24 rounds – Vasseur
- Is Mohammed Ben Sulayem doing a good job for F1 as FIA president?
- “Never look back”: Warwick’s autobiography reviewed
- Points at street tracks should not “hide” Aston Martin’s lack of pace – Alonso
- 10 years since F1’s last fatal crash: How Bianchi tragedy changed motorsport
- Colapinto is “best available option” for final 2025 F1 seat – Vowles
- Should Norris have taken the championship lead off Verstappen two races ago?
- US GP ticket sales have ‘taken off since Verstappen stopped winning’
- Williams reveal £84m loss after moving up to seventh in 2023 championship
Hello everyone and welcome to RaceFans Live for the Qatar Grand Prix weekend.
First up we’ve got the only practice session before the competitive action begins. This session is obviously going to take place in the daytime so we’re expecting high temperatures and it’s also very windy at the track which will make things tricky enough to begin with at a circuit with so many medium and high speed corners, and is also going to blow a lot of dust around.
Once this session is done we’ll be hearing from four team principles in the FIA press conference – Ferrari’s Frederic Vasseur, Williams’ James Vowles, McLaren’s Andrea Stella and AlphaTauri’s Peter Bayer – so keep an eye out on the site for more from them including what they make of the FIA’s decision to approve Andretti as an 11th team.
Then qualifying starts at 8:00 PM local time which for those in the UK is 6:00 PM.
+Qatar+ ??
The track layout is exactly the same as when Formula 1 previously raced at this circuit in 2021, however it has been totally resurfaced and several drivers have expressed concern there may not be a lot of grip.
As we’re getting close to the end of the season, only three teams have brought updates this weekend:
Alpine
Floor body
Rear corner
Cooling louvres
Alfa Romeo
Beam wing
AlphaTauri
Floor edge
As expected, hot conditions for the only practice session of the weekend, air temperature 35C, track 41C.
Cars dispersing a huge amount of dust as they head out.
Does anyone know if there is a specific reason that there are no support races on this weekend?
Is it Political – Financial – Fear?
Lando Norris reports he hit a polystyrene corner marker with his front wing.
Max just did one as well :)
Worrying signs for Ferrari as Charles Leclerc reports a problem with his power unit.
The slippery track is still catching out lots of drivers even as the track conditions improve, Leclerc is the latest one to catch a snap of oversteer and run wide.
Verstappen: “I have a lot of understeer in right hand corners.”
There’s 10 of those, so could do with sorting that out…
That’s better – it was looking like 1993 again with all those cars 3½ seconds off the trade.
Pace. Stupid phone.
I hope Williams get some more $$$ out of Mr Gulf next year and bring back the orange and blue. It looks great under lights.
Sainz & Perez (less so) were surprisingly slow.
Typical Sergio Paceless. What a pathetic 2nd driver
Invalidating Norris’ lap time takes surprisingly long for a clear-cut case.
Might as well be on the moon. Zero atmosphere in this horrible facility.
I still don’t get what was wrong with doing the extra 10-min non-competitive running earlier today or just 15:40-15:50 to avoid session timing change.
Wonder how long before they turn fp3 into 10 min warm up 20 mins before quali after this “test”
That 10 minutes seemed totally pointless to me.
Did anyone genuinely learn anything from that?
Lance slow again, & raging Yuki returned.
The only interest for me was Lawson in that session.
He has started well and just seems to be improving all the time.
Would like to have seen Lewis higher.
Are he and Merc sacrificing the sprint?
McLaren get the big smiles :)
An unexpected outcome at the top, but Max will probably overtake both eventually.
Almost certainly, but it’s nice to have a mix up :)
Unless he loses the final lap.
Hopefully, no tyre issues.
I’m not watching. No need for you to say “bye” or other snark. I won’t support these heathens.
The governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran appeared to back Hamas in its escalating conflict with Israel on Saturday.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/4243388-saudi-arabia-qatar-iran-blame-israel-hamas-attacks/
A lot of us respect your views, but we do not have the will to do as you do.
An F1 start as half-time entertainment in the football. Why not red-flag it instead of SC so we can have more starts? We love starts. Now, back to Palace v Forest.
Wonder if we’ll get more racing laps or more SC laps come the end.
The 18-lap maximum stint length limit will bring an interesting aspect into the race despite limiting strategic flexibility.
Teams should boycott this race and quit. What a stupid and pathetic sport this has become.
They should have brought in another tyre supplier ages ago in my opinion. Tyres are crucial aspect and major factor in a cars’ performance. If F1 claims to be the “pinnacle of motorsport” then they should allow competition and performance from the tyres as well, I’d be willing to bet that any tyre big-name supplier that came in would whoop them in their first year.
At least we would have some kind of rivalry in the “sport” then.
Sainz apparently won’t start due to a fuel-related issue.
Such poor form from Ferrari.
Multiple drivers are screwed given their usage of their medium tires.
For example Lewis has 3 mediums allowed to do 18, 13 and 10 so that is 41 laps meaning he either needs to take the hard (slow tire) for 16 laps or try to take his new soft but then has to make it last 16 laps (in sprint they were done after 7-8 hot race laps) or make an extra stop for fresh softs.
Processional race no.1
3 pit stops…
4 people on softs… this is going to be interesting
Oh well, 2016 happens again
Whoops!
Wheel leashes?
Some 7 WDCs urgently need to learn race basics
He knows race basics…
As just shown
Even crossing the track. Even a rookie would hardly do that.
some fans need to learn to control their hatred
Yep, it’s even in your nick, you urgently need to control it
my nick is none of your business, blacky
But mine seem to be some of your business, how come?
u started discussing about nicks.
your nick together with your blatant hate of hamilton could be understood racist. so i would not discuss about nicks , if i were you
I think that is a miss judgement by Hamilton, too tight
HAM could have been in first if he’d stayed a little wider
I don’t believe they crashed. I thought they were more than capable of avoiding it. They have given 2nd to Ferrari now.
Russel doesn’t need to beat himself up, that’s all on Hamilton.
To a degree. But if Russell didn’t realise that Hamilton would come out of the blocks fast on better tyres and be more aware, he shouldn’t be in F1
This is tbe definition of everything wrong with the racing in F1.
Lots of passing but no competitive racing or good battling. It’s all too easy with an overly powerful DRS or tire life differences.
And this silly tire stint length is making things really tricky to follow. It’s like a formula e race where the order is yoyo-ing everywhere due to power usage making it hard to know who’s where and the race as a whole becomes confusing to follow as a result.
I’ve said it before, 80% of the time F1 is simply an exhibition show of fast cars made to a certain rule set. I see no racing. What a joke this has become
This is a little flat reference specific limit on laps per tyre…
There’s something horribly wrong with these they’re and pirelli’s place im F1.
A race with 4 stints and they’re still being told to manage tyres, and told when to push or not. What a joke. Remove pirelli. F1 is not the top of Motorsports with them making tyres.
Russell needs to beat Leclerc
Dammit Fernando :(
Was hoping to see you on the podium.
Ok, they can’t do this tyre limit rubbish again, it’s killing strategy
Perez still Perez-ing
10s of penalties so far.
Nice work Perez.
It’s a good job you are in the top car this season huh ;)
Hope Sargeant is ok
Perez right behind Verstappen. Wow. ;-)
I wish Norris would stop sooking when behind Piastri.
Russell is dropping back so much.
I read that Lewis just took full responsibility on twitter?
What an impediment by Russell. 3-place grid penalty for the sprint incoming.
I get the same feeling as those in the ET locations with Australian, Japanese, & LV GPs.
Kudos goat Newey
Lower the weight and decrease the dimensions of these trucks. God damn.
They look so heavy and dog slow at the end of a braking point and at the beginning of acceleration.
I predict Max takes the race lead by lap 10 at the latest.
Stroll accidentally drove into the grid.
He really seems to have lost all focus these days to me.
Nice chilled grid walk
Great start
Go Lewis :O
Max looks like he is coasting
Max was very late with that but so was Leclerc
Max pits!
I was expecting him to run long.
Mercs going long
Go Lando :)
Plan B sounds good to me …… whatever it is!
Hmm Mercs are not doing a good job in strat
Good old Ferrari and their total alphabet of plans :)
soon they ll be using the plan X
ham impossible but close at the end… unlikely that max looses brakes… but chance is a chance
gonna be interesting last corners
He could’ve won that, lost too much time n the first pitstop
I thought Norris was a sitting duck for a while there.
Hello everyone and welcome to RaceFans Live for the first practice session for the Mexican Grand Prix.
Five test drivers will substitute for the regulars in this hour:
Frederik Vesti for George Russell
Jack Doohan for Pierre Gasly
Theo Pourchaire for Valtteri Bottas
Oliver Bearman for Kevin Magnussen
Isack Hadjar for Yuki Tsunoda
Why did he apologize to Checo?
The only logical explanation I can think of is that he imnadvertently ruined his quick lap by causing brief yellow caution.
Norris: “Something’s happened.
Joseph: “What do you see Lando, what do you feel?
Norris: “Just look at the revs, mate. It’s like the throttle got stuck on or something. It over-revved like hell.”
Norris: “Yeah but it was revving into the limiter.”
Joseph: “Yes, we see it and understand it. We’re happy to continue.”
Oh Lando :(
I predict Max will take P1 either into T1 or at least one Ferrari with the other within the next few laps after DRS becomes available at the latest.
I wish Sky would shutup about Sargeant finally earning his maiden point, he didn’t earn sod all, he inherited it by a stupid infringement that half the cars on the grid would have been taken up on had they all been checked, probably including Sargeant himself. It’s all hyperbole and they’re so desperate to big him up, it’s absolutely cringeworthy.
Piastri: “I think I have a paper sign stuck in the floor somewhere. I ran over it and I didn’t see it come out.”
The McLaren driver has since come in from his reconnaissance lap to get it removed.
No, Checo, other cars won’t make way, or disappear completely, just because you’re racing in Mexico!
Maybe if he tries that move just another thousand times he might actually pull it off. He’s such an idiot sometimes.
Worst and most boring season I can remember
15 minute delay, come on. Start the support track action between Friday sessions earlier so that possible crash debris would have a lower delay risk.
Thank you
What happened to the rule that you are not allowed to cross the while line on the entrance/exit of the pit lane??
That’s an angry sky! Better get their laps in early…
Deja vu from last season with top 10 order set early.
What a sight.
Stroll got lucky twice, but a good starting position for the race anyway & faster than Alonso on merit.
It will be awesome race !
Does anyone know that Tsunoda was moaning about yesterday? Mistaken identity with Hamilton or something else not on main feed?
Red Flag – not good for Lance :(
What an error by Ocon.
Alonso left him enough space, so Ocon’s throttle application error proved costly.
well, Alonso could have left more space. He stayed middle of the road. Ofc Ocon made a mistake, but avoidable damage for Alonso.
His marginal leftward steering had zero impact on the outcome, although I agree that he could’ve stayed more right, perhaps even entirely on the right edge.
The clean-up process is taking unnecessarily long.
Oh dear ocon and Alonso again
Finally
Another comfortable victory incoming, with NOR P2 & HAM P3 as my top 3 prediction.
Not going to get much argument from me there.
Would be nice to see Fernando get involved.
I think Mercs will struggle a lot I think a Ferrari might be on the podium
Unless Perez does a Perez I’m going with
Verstappen, Norris, Perez
Hoping Stroll does not hit anybody on the start.
Sweet Jesus Charles
Well… you don’t see that every day.
Ferrari strategists wont get the blame today then.
Wow, real quick starts from McLaren and Mercedes
I assume the teams have predetermined setup changes they’d love to make if a red flag appeared in the race? Some might not have as bad a day as they expected
Why are Mercedes scrapping, if Russel is faster let him through and split strats.
Russell is dropping back already. He just used more of his tires, obviously too much
I imagine driving up his team mates gearbox for numerous laps hasn’t helped with that.
George is is going to lose another position
This was the easiest championship I’ve watched in a long time…
mercedes ride height is crap! add the parachute like rear wing dragging them like a tractor! never seen mercedes this bad in setup. this is worse than redbul in singapore. guess they were scared of floor regulation, raised the car way too much. its rear looks like driving on jacks!
On or by
Come on Perez you have a faster car…
I hope Fernando is watching his mirrors for an ever more likely divebomb.
Why has Norris got 24% of the vote
That’s the difference with talent
If Perez can’t get Alonso here, he needs to lose his seat.
This must be so embarrassing for Perez
“Okay Oscar, let’s go with plan Flávio.”
i thought mclaren would retire oscar in middle of road like some teams done in the past to let norris get a free pit stop. i wonder why they didnt :)
wow perez with that car cant position the car into corners. sliding almost everywhere
Great racecraft from Alonso, but that was shocking from Perez. A car fast everywhere, especially on straights… yet he failed.
😯 there goes FP1
Now on with what it’s all.about, the show!
So a bump on the track takes out the ferrari. How can they not see this before the start of session. Unless payment gave way.
Lol.
Track looked about as awful as i feared. Just nothing of any interest about it other than it writing off at least 2 chassis.
Who was the second?
Ocon.
Bottas may also have suffered damage.
Brundle just serious suggested that teams should just raise the cars.
They are desperately jumping through hoops to defend ‘an amazing circuit’.
What are the odds FP2 is cancelled? 🤔
1/1000. Although I think it’s rather delayed to tomorrow.
No time for that.
What a mess.
It looks average on TV. They should have just built it again in the car park (I was there for both). $500 million could have gone into an amazing circuit 10 or 20 miles away. All the glitz would have still shown up. I love INDCAR, but sadly this looks like the Baltimore GP so far. Also so stupid to not have a single support race to test and season the track.
The delayed start time will be 01:00 or therebouts apparently.
Where did you hear this?
Irrelevant now as that reference proved incorrect.
10:00AM
Cancelled for today
nvm, that’s 10AM in England so yeah 2AM US, little over an hour away
15 past at the earliest, so race control simply can’t make up their minds.
Half past ultimately or for now at least.
Bizarre, marshalls and police are clearing the grandstands. Imagine having paid thousands of dollars for a ticket and not even be allowed to watch. The more people like Wolff defend this, the more insane it gets
Yeah like what? Who on earth made that decision? Worst case scenario marshall everybody to the main straight and have a skeleton crew to manage them. What a terrible story.
Nice
Please update for qually. This is my only link to action
Rod Stewart and Gordon Ramsay spotted… Cars just going out now
Thanks. keep it coming.
looks like VER is using 2 laps to warm up tires/car
verstappens brain out again
Beating both McClarens in Q1 and knocking them out. Danny Ric im sure is smilling.
Hopefully, a good & exciting race but for the right reasons, i.e., racing quality rather than chaos.
Donny Osman singing. So 1970’s.
Did a good job
So the car Piastri was in Brooke down on the straight dropping oil where LeClerc or MV is starting.(unclear). They’ve outdone themselves already.
No way Max should be P1. Doesn’t matter if it’s T1 lap 1, you can’t drive someone that far off the track legally.
5s really isn’t enough. Drive through or DSQ are the only sensible choices.
DRS looks way too powerful as expected.
There is things happening but it somehow doesn’t seem that interesting.
Track is not very interesting from a viewer standpoint. Too many shots of the trackside scenery from above.
Hope this track not around for long.
ughhhhm drs is absolutely terrible. tyres that drivers are afraid to lean on or push for more than two corners makes it worse. nobody wants to defend as per usual
That small bit of debris could easily have been cleared with a vsc.
Blatent show over sport full sc.
Interesting race so far, nice to see the stewards consistency
Russell 5 second pen
This is a peak verstappen racecraft race. I hate 5s penalties. Bring back more drive through. Don’t think that was Russell’s fault either.
Disagree. Max should have wier given Charles the position ASAP or has a drive through. If he wins, it’s a failure of F1 officiating
Thats a bad penalty for russell. Was nothing more than a racing incident.
Have no idea what is a penalty vs. racing incident vs. a stupid lunge these days. Bit like VAR.
Pointless safety car has killed this race.
Yep
This is why I hate the 5s penalty. Why would you not go for the lunge if there is no punishment. So frustrating. F1 is really annoying.
According to f1tv commentary this has been the best race of the season. Lol.
Absolutely opposite. Dull lifeless track, stupid penalty system, too much DRS and pointless safety cars. The fight for the lead was what has kept it out of the bin.
Perez needs to lose the drive that’s twice now
Sergio should have defended the inside there i think knowing how good charles had been on the brakes there.
Or at least make him work for it
Nice low Sun altitude view as always.
Weird rear loss.
Of course blaming dirty air. Excuses.
The clear-up process is taking surprisingly long.
Come on
Another driver error
Funny driving by Max. Impatience
Last qualifying of the year! Not much fanfare this year I guess…
Not much interest from most people I wouldn’t think.
I’m just hoping for an interesting fight in the midfield and to see how certain drivers perform tomorrow.
Oh Carlos :(
doubly sad to see after last week :(
Look forward to an entertaining fight back from Lewis tomorrow?
what could have been for Norris there
He has had an up and down season this year.
A lot of it his own fault IMO :(
I hope for an exciting season finale even if Max wins comfortably, but at least further down the field.
Max & George already practicing racing
Practicing
Last race of the season folks, so I will wish you all a Merry Christmas now and see you again in what I hope will be a Happy New Year for you all :)
Let us hope we don’t see a season like this again for a long time.
Sadly it does feel a little inevitable
The Merc era was fantastic in comparison. Even 2020 and 2015, the most dominant seasons with the least racing at the front were better than this season. F1 is a joke and this season is just further highlighting all the issues that were already clearly apparent
Leclerc needs to learn to stick his elbows out, far too passive there at the start.
I would suspect he isn’t interested in Max. Just wants to beat the Mercedes for the 2nd spot in the WCC
Absolutely. Gave max a lot of space on the entires to the corners which allowed max free reign
Confident three stop the way to go but as usual nobody willing to try it. Put lane speed reductions have compounded the issue.
Missed the start anything interesting happen?
Absolutely nothing.
Possibly the worst race of the season so far.
The only interest is the battle for WCC and 4th driver but even that isn’t providing any racing :(
Disliked the dominance this season but the mechanical robustness of these cars is incredible.
Agreed.
I can remember when it was normal for three or four cars to break down each race.
The reliability is a large part of *why* Red Bull have been dominant. In the past, if your car was 5% faster than the field (which should be dominant), it might still fail to finish 3 races and have compromised pace in another 3.
Now, if your car is 1% faster but it doesn’t break down, and your driver doesn’t have bad days, what’s to stop you winning them all?
There’s another corollary: if your car is x% faster you don’t have to drive at 100% to maintain dominance. And engine modes can be set lower to reduce the rush of failure.
But even the slower cars have been remarkably robust this year, it seems to me.
*risk of failure
Tsunoda is looking like he might be able to get a top 6 at this rate. The only viable 1 stopper.
Not sure why Mercedes weren’t using those tires more. You shouldn’t be coming in with the driver saying “I could do 24 more laps on these”. In contrast, Norris had clearly been pushing since Perez took Piastri
Why does Alonso still do those kind of radio messages? What is it supposed to benefit? The team will know, or if not they can talk about it in the debrief, it’s not as if they can do anything about it half way through the race. I just don’t understand it at all…
Likely mid-race frustration. As the commentators noted, his relative calmness this year has generally been surprising – for most of his career the way he gives 100% each race has led to tetchy messages. It obviously isn’t the detached, rational thing to say, but I’d rather see drivers with their hearts on their sleeves.
Bad idea lying for the stewards. Remember Melbourne
Jeez, after the 2009 debacle where Alonso couldn’t pass Petrov, Ferrari really need to learn their lesson on this circuit. It is almost always a boring predicatable race. They’ve screwed him on strategy and now their 2nd place in the constructors is totally dependent on a lucky safety car which historically never comes here.
Bad quali for Carlos, that’s gonna hurt
Or relying on Perez…
All 20 cars still running. That’s unusual.
Slim hope of a safety car with only a few laps remaining.
Ferrari’s strategy with Sainz seems to be “we want to come 3rd in the wcc and have more wind tunnel time”
It’s obviously gone awfully, but it went pear-shaped so early in the race, and after that what could they do? The idea to try it wasn’t a bad one – Tsunoda is showing it could have worked
Hasn’t Sainz gone hard-hard, so he was always going to need a second stop for mediums/softs?
Shame to have the constructors’ championship possibly decided by a very soft penalty. Surely Leclerc and Russell both classified ahead of him now, so Mercedes have 2nd
Confusing penalty for Perez
And Russell was very disappointing Leclerc was never troubled
Eh – Ferrari were clearly faster in quali, so keeping up with Leclerc seems like a decent race to me – especially with Russell 3rd and Hamilton somewhere around 9th. I think he could have pushed more in the middle stint, but his goals would have been to beat the McLarens and take 2nd in the constructors, and he’s on course to achieve that.
If I was red bull I’d help Mercedes get 2nd to handicap their wind tunnel time for next year.
Ferrari always seem to provide their own special handicaps…
ugh, this camera direction…
Loving Leclerc’s radio message… there’s someone thinking creatively!
And he’s let him through. Probably won’t help? But has made things interesting
Poor effort from Lewis today I would say.
I feel like losing the first practice session didn’t help him this weekend. May not have refined the setup as much as his teammate did. Not that he was alone in missing it
Yeh, Ham always gives up at the end of a season unless there’s a title chase for him. He totally failed the team today. Good to see Russell finally get a result, and it was critical for the team.
Well that’s a wrap, bring on the off-season. 2024! How the years fly. Thank you Racefans team for all the quality coverage <3
Credit where it’s due: this has been an amazing season from Max. No-one has dominated to this extent with a car so close to the pack. I think half the grid could have won in that car (if Max wasn’t there), but I’m not sure anyone could have done what Max did.
Credit shared by the team and the car, of course – car reliable, strategy consistently solid – gave Max the platform to show what he’s made of.
Stories of the year outside Red Bull include:
– Ferrari and Mercedes dropping the ball and sparring with the midfield all year
– Alonso rolling back the years / Aston strong out of the gate
– McLaren being everyone’s second-favourite (or 1st-favourite?) team with two young, friendly, talented drivers
– The closest front-to-back grid we’ve ever had in F1, with contests from about 2-16 basically every grand prix
McLaren’s dramatic improvement in form.
Red Bull’s strange lack of form in Singapore
Albon’s unusual quali dominance within his team
The most races ever in a season
Hats off to Alonso for 4th in the title! What a result!
As well as the skill, it’s been great seeing him actually happy in the car this year! (mostly)
Who’d have thought they named the RB19 after the number of races he’d win in it?
I wonder how Guenther feels watching the last car developed under his leadership start 10th and 15th? Sacked for being last when he’s laid the foundations for being something like 7th
Gutting for Stroll to get hit through no fault of his own. Wasteful from Hulkenberg. Possibly overeager with excitement… it was a good chance for him
No live anymore?
Safety car covers the blushes of the two on softs (Bearman and Bottas). Neither made the gains they would have wanted, but now everyone has a clean slate.
Such fine margins for Stroll – but that’s Formula One
I wonder whether the reason Norris hasn’t been penalised for his jump start is that he ultimately suffered for it. He started early, slammed the breaks, then started late. Perhaps the stewards decided that’s punishment enough?
It would be nice if the rules were clearer, though – or if the stewards made a statement. Even “will not be investigated” would be handy.
Now confirmed: no further action
Bearman already moaning about other drivers. Yup, he *is* a natural!
(and as a bonus, has now passed him)
Norris and Hamilton on new soft tyres now chasing Bearman on old hards. Nice little test for Bearman! Hamilton also the one who kept Bearman out of Q3 by 0.036s. Juicy.
This 12-15 battle is fantastic. I’d love to have similar at the front! Great to see Ocon (somehow) holding that Alpine in the thick of it
Zzz