#F1 - CHAOS & PENALTIES: 2024 #QatarGP Wrap: The Inside Line

3 December 2024

MotoGP mainstay, Qatar’s Lusail circuit celebrated its two-decade tenure with a thrilling Formula One race weekend that had the lot. Sunday’s Grand Prix, though, belonged to four-time World Champion-elect Max Verstappen, who stayed out of trouble in a chaotic, triple Safety Car affected race for his ninth win of the season.

Watch the video, and tell us what you think in the comments…

Mercedes

Saturday

Sunday

webmaster       John Nichols      @itcracing      @Linkedin

#F1 - Why Verstappen lost his pole start at the Qatar GP: Autosport

1 December 2024

Jonathan Noble and Stuart Codling sit down to review all the action from Saturday's Sprint Race and Grand Prix Qualifying from Qatar. There's an immediate reaction to the news that Max Verstappen's pole position was removed; with the Dutchman demoted to second via a controversial penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly with George Russell in Q3, with the British driver now inheriting pole as a result. There's also an analysis of Lewis Hamilton's continued criticism of his poor qualifying form, Lando Norris giving up a Sprint victory to teammate Oscar Piastri on the run to the line, and Sergio Perez's losing a position in the pitlane to Franco Colapinto after the Mexican driver missed the green light at the start of the Sprint.

and

MAX'S PENALTY: HOW THE STEWARDS GOT IT WRONG by Peter Windsor

webmaster       John Nichols      @itcracing      @Linkedin

#F1 - 024 Qatar Grand Prix - Saturday Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS TEAM

 

Press Information 30 November 2024

 
F1: Session Report
 
2024 Qatar Grand Prix - Saturday

• After a positive Friday for the Team this continued into Saturday, first with the Sprint Race followed by Qualifying later in the evening.
• Lining up P2 and P7 for the Sprint, George finished P3 after being passed by the McLaren of Oscar Piastri on the first lap and Lewis was P6, having run P5 for the first half of the race.
• Qualifying took place later in the evening and proved to again be a very close session between the top four Teams.
• Both Lewis and George continued to make progress throughout the sessions on the soft compound with George securing P2 and Lewis taking P6.
• George was unable to improve on his final lap and missed out on securing pole by just 0.055s.

F1 Sprint
 

Driver	Grid	Result	Tyres
George Russell	P2	P3	Medium
Lewis Hamilton	P7	P6	Medium

Qualifying
 

Driver		Q1		Q2		Q3
George Russell		11 Laps 1:21.241	P1 Medium, Soft, Soft	9 Laps 1:21.069	P4 Soft, Soft	8 Laps 1:20.575	P2 Soft, Soft
Lewis Hamilton		10 Laps 1:21.637	P7 Soft, Soft	9 Laps 1:21.095	P5 Soft, Soft	8 Laps 1:21.011	P6 Soft, Soft

George Russell
Today has been a great day, it's good to be in this groove at the moment with four front row starts. My first Q3 lap was really strong and I was pleased with it but unfortunately I wasn't able to improve on my final lap. This was mainly due to the scrappy out lap I had with the near miss with Max that meant I ended up in the gravel so that didn't help prep wise ahead of my final push lap. I'm still really pleased with P2, I'm taking all the positives and I'm feeling great in the car.
 
It's going to be exciting tomorrow as the top four teams are very close. Starting on the right side of the track does seem to have a slight disadvantage, which we saw earlier on in the Sprint Race for the majority starting on this side of the track, which meant I couldn't fight with Lando. I'm hoping tomorrow we'll be able to fight with Max and stay ahead of those behind us, our race pace this morning looked good and the tyres seem resilient so I'm hoping we don't end up in another DRS train and we can have some fun. There's a lot of possibilities to do something different, I'm looking forward to it.
 
Lewis Hamilton
It was a pretty straight forward session for us in qualifying, the car was feeling decent and we were able to fix the bouncing. The tyres and the grip of the track was feeling great, this track is amazing. My last lap in qualifying unfortunately wasn't great, I had the car snapping away from me which meant I lost time and couldn't improve higher than P6. I was giving it everything and was generally feeling good but didn't improve when I crossed the line.
 
Tomorrow I'm hoping for a good race, this track is great to drive so it should be an exciting race. I'm hoping the car will be in a better place tomorrow and we'll be able to make some improvements. Unfortunately, today in the sprint all of the top Teams were really quick and it was hard to overtake but 'll be giving it my all in the race tomorrow.
 
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
Overall, we are happy with the results we have seen today as a Team. The car seems to function well in these conditions as we can run the car low and stiff on a smooth track which ultimately suits the characteristics of our car and George seems to like the way it drives. We've seen this over the last couple of qualifying sessions and races. George was performing well in Q3 but was just lacking half a tenth to secure pole against Max.
 
For Lewis this generation of cars aren't always suiting his driving style, he likes to be aggressive on corner entries and unfortunately this car at the moment can't quite take it, especially on qualifying laps when it's right on the edge. Lewis in the race, however, usually manages to turn it around like last week where he was overtaking car after car and coming through the pack. We'll see what tomorrow brings and hopefully we can deliver another good result with both cars for the Team.
 
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
The Sprint Race was a bit frustrating, George lost a place into turn 1, he couldn't quite tuck in and lost a bit of ground to Piastri by not having a tow. It felt like we were close to getting a pass on a couple of occasions but once Lando was helping him out with DRS it was impossible to get through. Lewis had a good start, getting up to P5 but took a bit too much out of the tyres and dropped a place from there. It's a shame that the DRS zone was shortened for this year as it's always difficult to pass on the sprint races with everyone on the same age tyres, this has just made it even harder.
 
Qualifying was reasonable but frustrating for George to end up less than 60ms off pole for the second day in a row. The car was working well. It felt like George had a good shot at pole with a strong first lap but our second run wasn't clean and he failed to improve. Lewis was lacking a bit of rear stability in places which was preventing him going any quicker but P6 will still put us in the fight at the front. From the Sprint this morning it looks like the long run performance is very similar between all the cars so it should make for an interesting race.

Preview

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Sunday

#F1 #QatarF1 - Sprint Full Highlights 30th Nov. 2024 | 2024 Qatar Grand Prix: Breaking Sports 2024

30 November 2024

Oscar Piastri has claimed victory in the Sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix after team mate Lando Norris – who had led the event throughout – pulled over to let his fellow McLaren driver through at the very last moment, seemingly paying the Australian back for their previous switch during the Sprint event in Sao Paulo.

57 mins ago

#F1 - 2024 Qatar Grand Prix - Friday "Positives to be taken with Sprint Qualifying front-row" Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team

 

Press Information 29 November 2024

 
F1: Session Report
 
2024 Qatar Grand Prix - Friday

 
Positives to be taken with Sprint Qualifying front-row

• George Russell will start Saturday's F1 Sprint in Qatar on the front row in P2 with team-mate Lewis Hamilton P7.
• FP1 provided tricky windy conditions with continued track improvement. The Team worked on fine tuning the car ahead of Sprint Qualifying which was run in cooler conditions.
• That translated into a more competitive showing in Sprint Qualifying as both Lewis and George progressed into SQ3.
• Prep laps were completed ahead of each flying lap in SQ2 and SQ3 to bring the tyres into their operating window, which resulted in a front row start for George.
• Lewis will line up on the fourth row with Carlos Sainz.
• George was just 0.063s shy of taking P1 and will start alongside the McLaren of Lando Norris.

Driver	FP1	SQ1		SQ2		SQ3
George Russell	P8	6 Laps 1:22.021	P3 Medium	4 Laps 1:21.488	P2 Medium	6 Laps 1:21.075	P2 Soft
Lewis Hamilton	P10	7 Laps 1:22.151	P5 Medium	6 Laps 1:21.734	P4 Medium	6 Laps 1:21.474	P7 Soft

George Russell
Today we had a really strong session during SQ3. The car was feeling great and this circuit is one of the best with the high speed corners. For my final lap, I was able to go flat through these for the first time this weekend which resulted in me confusing the engine a little, so I lost a bit of time on the exit. Ultimately Lando was a smidge out of reach today and I don't think we could have secured P1 even without this slight loss.
 
Tomorrow we'll be going for the best result we can, hopefully making a good start and then we go from there. Our focus will also be on Qualifying later in the day to ensure we can achieve the best result we can there, too.
 
Lewis Hamilton
The car felt decent today and the positive is we seem to have a fast car here in these conditions. Sprint Qualifying for me today didn't go great but George should be able to have a strong run from where he's starting tomorrow.
 
Earlier on today the long run pace felt good so hopefully tomorrow this will come into play, and we'll be able to make some progress in the Sprint. Unfortunately, from where I'm starting in P7 it's going to be difficult to compete for the win, but I'll try my best and see what I can do. We also have Qualifying tomorrow evening so hopefully we can have a good session and make some progress there, who knows what tomorrow brings
 
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
FP1 was a solid session for us which is important on a sprint weekend with there being just one hour to get the car ready for Sprint Qualifying. Our initial performance showed our single lap performance wasn't quite there, but our long run pace looked more competitive, so we were able to learn enough to make the required changes to move us in the right direction for Sprint Qualifying.
 
We were optimistic coming into the weekend but didn't expect to see our performance in the same window as we did in Vegas so George's P2 today is encouraging for the Team. Pace across the top four teams looks very close so it's beneficial to be starting the Sprint Race on the front row. Lewis was looking competitive in his final lap of SQ3 but unfortunately lost a little time in the last two corners, prior to this it looked like he was going to also finish in the top four. We have a bit of time between now and Qualifying tomorrow to continue to work on our single lap performance.

Preview

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

last weekend

2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix - Saturday "Stunning 1-2 for the team in Las Vegas" Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team

#F1 - ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW: 2024 #QatarGP Preview: The Inside Line

27 November 2024

Formula One now returns its attention to the Middle East, with the desert region closing out the record 24-stop World Championship. … with Qatar the second leg of a triple header, and this year’s final Sprint weekend. The tour then concludes at its traditional finale in UAE-capital Abu Dhabi on December 8.

Watch the video, and tell us what you think in the comments…

webmaster       John Nichols      @itcracing      @Linkedin

#F1 #QatarGP - “What track are you on?!” | Qatar Grand Prix Preview: Ferrari

27 November 2024

Would you take wheels or pedals? C² take on the Lusail International Circuit in the ultimate test of teamwork as Charles takes the wheel while Carlos controls the pedals. Watch the track preview and get ready for this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix!

webmaster       John Nichols      @itcracing      @Linkedin #ScuderiaFerrari #CharlesLeclerc #CarlosSainz