To break all the records he has broken is something special.
For us as part of this team to be involved with 79 of them is amazing.
Why did the team not call the drivers in earlier for slicks in Q3?
It is actually really, really tricky in those situations to know what we should do.
The strategists are looking at the delta times to try and work out whether we are at crossover
between the Intermediates and the slicks yet. We are listening to the driver information,
we are looking at the weather forecast, we are trying to take in all that information and decide
what we should do. When you look at what happened in Q3 we were right on the border line and it was
a really tricky call. And actually the problem for us was that we were actually on the wrong
bit of the track at the wrong bit of time, so others were able to make that decision,
come in and get two clear laps on the slicks. For us by the time we made the decision we only ended
up with the one lap and the consequences of that were clear. It is clear that in hindsight what we
needed to do was a prep lap to get the best out of the tyres for the fast lap that was needed.
Why did Lewis lose so many positions at the start of the race?
If you actually look at it he was on the dirty side of the grid and given that he
actually made a really good start. He was making his way through the field effectively
up until the point where Norris moved across blocking Lewis's path off. Norris we think was
also derating, so actually Lewis's closing speed was really high, partly because of the tow he had
and partly because Norris was derating. As is a consequence of that, Lewis had to make a decision:
Does he try and fight for that inside line or does he brake and make sure that he is
not involved in a first corner incident? You've got to bear in mind in Lewis's mind his main
protagonist in the championship is right at the back of the grid. And as a consequence,
Lewis has to make a decision in that split second about what is the right thing to do and the right
thing for Lewis to do was to make sure that he didn’t get tangled up in a first corner incident.
Was the strategy always to go long with Lewis in the first stint?
I think when you've got a quick car and we knew we had a quick car from Friday's running, what you
really want to do is to be in clean air. When you are tucked up behind another car you can't exploit
the pace of the car, so what you are trying to do with your strategy in that situation is to
maximise the time running in clean air and that meant ideally going long with Lewis on the basis
we were hoping our competitors would be fighting for position and they would pit earlier than we
did. That would allow us to go long in clean air and it would also mean that when we came out after
our pit stop, we would also have a chunk of clean air. So that was always going to be our strategy.
Why couldn’t Valtteri fight his way through from the back like he did in Monza?
First of all, Valtteri had a fantastic drive in Monza. It was amazing what he was able to achieve.
This race was different though, it was harder and the reason it was harder is because what we were
seeing with DRS trains. What I mean by that is one car at the front with a number of cars behind
all within that one second delta that allows them all to have DRS. As a consequence of that,
even though Valtteri has got more pace the car in front also has that same advantage of DRS and it
makes it much more difficult to overtake. We saw that up and down the grid with people stuck in
those positions, unable to get past because of those trains. On top of that Valtteri,
was also struggling with an amount of understeer in the car. And because of that he was struggling
in sector 3 primarily. What that leads to is that leads to a position where it is very difficult to
get close to the car in front and as a consequence of that, when you get onto the straight you don’t
get the full benefit of the tow because you are just too far behind. By the time you are really
sort of catching up you are already too close to the end of the straight to make that pass.
The timing for Lewis to switch to Intermediates was perfect.
What were the processes that fed into that? First of all, thank you for the positive comment.
I think the reality in these situations is really, really difficult for the strategists to
get it right. Let’s just talk a bit about Valtteri first, with Valtteri we were outside of the points
and that gave us some options to play with, it allowed us to take some risks with Valtteri
that maybe we couldn’t have done with Lewis. As a consequence, we were already thinking
about the weather and thinking about if there is a chance to switch to Intermediates do we go early?
So that was probably an easier call. With Lewis we knew we were in second in the race and we knew if
we got that wrong we could fall right back down in the field. So it is a much more challenging
call. But the strategists are looking at lots of different bits of information. They are looking
at the timing from each sector and trying to work out are we going to transition between slicks and
intermediates? They get the information fed into them about the weather from the weather radar
and they are also listening to the driver feedbacks and the drivers telling them
how they feel the circuit is like. So that position, we got a half dry circuit,
a half wet circuit. It is a really difficult call to make, probably one of the most difficult things
for the strategists to do. And the bit that really made the difference for us was the weather radar
and the person that was looking at the weather radar made a very clear call.
What they said is they expected more rain before the end of the rain, the track was actually going
to get wetter and that's what tipped the balance to the decision of pitting for the Intermediates.
How did Valtteri make it back up to P5? Just feeding on that last answer really, it is a
similar story, we made the right strategy, we got Valtteri onto the Intermediates at the right time.
Prior to the rain coming I think we were in twelfth position, we were outside of the points
and when that rain came down that gave us an opportunity. Between the strategists
and Valtteri they made exactly the right call, we fitted the Intermediates and we were able to pass
by others cars who were struggling on the track when they came in to the pit for the Intermediates
themselves. As a result, Valtteri ended up back in P5 which is a great result for the team.
How was my heart rate during the last six laps? Interestingly enough I have actually worn a heart
rate monitor to a couple of races in the RSR and I know looking at that that my heart rate
rises for qualifying, I know it rises at the beginning of the race and falls away and it
comes up a little bit for each of the pit stops. I suspect my heart rate was reasonably strong
during that last six laps. But what we have got to bear in mind is I am surrounded by a team of
people that all know what they are doing, they are all very calm and experienced and they are sitting
there making the right calls. So what you might think is a sort of frenzied amount of activity
in the race support room, that isn’t really how it happened. People calmly do their job,
focus on their bits of what they need to do and feed that information in. And it wasn’t
until after the race finished that the joyous sound came up within the race support room.
Fantastic given we hadn’t won for a few races, that opportunity to celebrate together.
With Lewis achieving the amazing result of 100 wins how does it feel to be a part of 79 of those?
Lewis has been an unbelievable driver to break all the records he has broken is something special.
For us as part of this team to be involved with 79 of them is amazing. But in actual fact,
what you have to bear in mind is some of us have been with Lewis for a lot more than that.
I personally have seen 88 of his wins because I spent a chunk of my early career at McLaren.
For some of my colleagues at HPP who work on the power unit
they've seen all 100 of Lewis's wins. So it is an amazing achievement for those guys as well.
Coming back to Lewis, I mean that is an unbelievable achievement. It’s probably
not going to be surpassed for a long, long time if it ever is. Massive congratulations to him.
I think I can do something better than that. What?
Thank you for all of your questions and all of your support. One of my colleagues will
be back here in two weeks’ time to answer more of your questions from the Turkish GP.