Press Information
1 December 2024 |
F1: Session Report 2024 Qatar Grand Prix - Sunday Challenging evening at the Lusail Circuit
 - George Russell finished P4 while Lewis Hamilton crossed the line P12.
- Both cars unfortunately lost positions at the start with George dropping from P1 to P3 and Lewis losing out from P6 to P9.
- Unfortunately, a slow stop for George on lap 24 resulted in him losing an additional three places and from there he struggled to make gains due to the shortened DRS zone despite pushing hard.
- Lap 35 saw a front left puncture for Lewis after running over debris on the main straight. This forced him to box on lap 36 when he also served his five second penalty for a false start.
- A drive through penalty was also handed to Lewis following a failure to activate the pitlane speed limiter behind the Safety Car. He served this on lap 48.
- Additionally, George landed a five second time penalty at the end of the race for a safety car delta infringement. This didn't impact his P4 result.
- The Team's attention now turns to the final race of the season next weekend in Abu Dhabi.
Driver | Grid | Result | Fastest Lap | | George Russell | P1 | P4 | 1:23.355 | | Lewis Hamilton | P6 | P12 |
|
| |
Strategy | Start | Stop 1 | Stop 2 | |
No.63 | Medium | Hard (L24) | Hard (L36) | |
No.44 | Medium | Hard (L36) | | |
George Russell
It was a very strange race because our pace has been so strong all weekend, but it just didn't seem to be there today. Overall, my race wasn't great, I had a bad start then poor pace and finally a penalty at the end of the race. We ultimately didn't have the pace on the hard tire that we thought we would and they were not quick enough compared to those around us. Max and Lando managed to pass by at the start and I didn't have the speed to catch them again. Even after the pit stop I struggled to try and make it back through to regain my position. The car was great all day Friday and yesterday so we need to understand where that peace went for us today. Both Lewis and I made bad starts and we have some idea why, but we need to fully understand how we lost the performance that we showed in the Sprint. I think ultimately you can see how you only need to gain two tenths or lose two tenths and you go from being a front runner to being down in P6 or P7 so I hope we can have the car from yesterday and Vegas next week in Abu Dhabi . It would be great if we can hopefully have a better weekend together as a Team.
Lewis Hamilton It was a pretty bad race for me overall, but these things happen. It started off badly with my false start which was my fault and resulted in a penalty which I served during my stop. Then I had the puncture which was just unfortunate, followed by the pitlane speeding which was on me, too. The car had a lot of understeer today because we didn't have enough front wing in the setup. I gave it my best shot, but it all seemed to go downhill from the start. This race weekend hasn't been great but we have another week next week where we can try and finish a bit better and I hope we do have a better result. These last races don't have an impact on all of the great things we have done together as a Team. Races are a rollercoaster ride of emotions, I've had great races in my life and bad races too. Ultimately, it's not how you fall it's how you get back up and we will try again next week.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO Today we ultimately didn't have the peace. Our car is a handful to drive on its worst days and today was one of those days and both drivers had a similar experience. I think if the race had been yesterday then we would have had a shot at winning but today we just didn't have the speed behind Lando and Max. The car was supper difficult for both Lewis and George to drive, we had a lot of understeer and both of them suffered from that. We started to lose ground from those ahead of us and that's when we decided to box George and hopefully put us in a better situation. Unfortunately, we suffered a slow stop, then ended up in traffic and struggled to make it back through. Then with Lewis we had the false start and pit lane speeding which impacted further on his race along with the lack of pace.
We have one more to go and we will continue to give it our utmost. We will celebrate the relationship and partnership we have had with Lewis and these difficult races will be quickly forgotten. We have had an amazing partnership with Lewis that's spanned over twelve years with six driver titles and eight builders' titles won together, and these are the things which we will hold dearly.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director That was a difficult evening for the team. The underlying picture was that the car balance was very different from yesterday's Sprint - and both drivers were limited with severe understeer in the opening stint, and lacking pace relative to the cars around us. However, we made too many other errors to earn strong finishing positions, and we were ultimately fortunate to salvage P4 with George thanks to retirements or problems for cars ahead of him. It's a valuable lesson in how quickly things can turn from a week ago in Las Vegas, and we have seen these kinds of performance oscillations for all teams at various points this season. There's plenty for us to learn in order to improve, and we will be focused on doing so as we prepare for the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi - and what we hope will be a fitting farewell for Lewis.
