Sao Paulo Grand Prix

Championship leader Max Verstappen has been fined for touching Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes W12 in perf ferme conditions yesterday following the qualifying session for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The talk of the paddock on Saturday morning was the on-going investigation of Hamilton’s DRS overtaking aid and Verstappen’s summons to the stewards for an alleged breach of the International Sporting Code. “The stewards also examined a fan video taken from across the track, CCTV video footage taken from pit lane and in car footage from car 14, car 33, car 44 and car 77. “In all, these videos gave a clear picture of what occurred in parc fermé following the qualifying session. Verstappen exits the car, then moves to the rear of his car. He then takes his gloves off and puts his right hand at the slot-gap of the rear wing of his car. He then moves to car 44 and repeats the exercise, touching the rear wing in two places, once on either side of the DRS actuation device, but on the bottom rear side of the wing, in the area of the slot gap and never near the actuator or the end fixation points.” “Clear, high definition video from the rear facing roll-hoop camera on car 44 shows that there is absolutely no movement of any of the wing elements on car 44 when Verstappen touches the back of the wing and the Stewards are satisfied, from watching all the videos, his body position and the video of the wing, that there was insignificant force when Verstappen touched the wing.” “It is clear to the Stewards that it has become a habit of the drivers to touch cars after qualifying and the races. This was also the explanation of Verstappen, that it was simply habit to touch this area of the car which has been a point of speculation in recent races between both teams. This general tendency has been seen as mostly harmless and so has not been uniformly policed. Nevertheless, it is a breach of the parc fermé regulation and has significant potential to cause harm,” read the FIA statement. “Considering the fact that no direct harm was caused in this case, in the opinion of the stewards, and that no earlier precedent of penalties for this exists – on the one hand; but that it is a breach of the regulation and has potential for serious consequences on the other, the stewards determine to take action in this case and order a fine of €50,000. The stewards further note that it is intended that all teams and drivers take notice that future breaches may incur different penalties from the stewards of those events.”

Lewis Hamilton was quickest in the first and only practice ahead of Sao Paulo Grand Prix qualifying – but Mercedes and Red Bull had different approaches to the session. Hamilton, who has a five-place engine penalty to overcome on Sunday after a new ICE was fitted to his W12 car, was three tenths quicker than rival Max Verstappen. However, Red Bull seemed more focused on race pace compared to Mercedes, where one-lap pace was of more importance. The data collected from AWS suggested the gap between Hamilton and Verstappen was much closer, just o.50s heading into qualifying. Sergio Perez completed the top three with Valtteri Bottas behind in P4. Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc, Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll completed the top 10. There was an even greater importance placed on a cool, overcast FP1 session, with drivers and teams restricted to just one hour of practice before being thrown straight into qualifying later on Friday afternoon – Formula 1 completing its third and final sprint weekend of the 2021 season. As the cars hit the track for the first time, confirmation came from the FIA of a fifth ICE element being fitted to Lewis Hamilton’s W12, which will result in a five-place grid drop for the seven-time World Champion for Sunday’s race. But it wasn’t the new engine causing Hamilton problems in the early stages of FP1, it was the front suspension instead. In the opening runs, Hamilton asked via team radio for a “solution to be found” as he bobbled and bounced around the Interlagos circuit. He found himself eight tenths down on title rival Verstappen, who set the opening benchmark at 1:10.189, a slender 0.020s ahead of Red Bull team-mate Perez. As we approached the halfway stage of the session, Lance Stroll reported spots of rain dropping on the circuit, keeping the paddock on their toes ahead of qualifying. Even though the clouds looked particularly dark and brooding, it was still dry enough for drivers to continue with their dry tyre running for the rest of the session. Verstappen re-emerged on the soft tyre compound for a qualifying sim run and promptly ate five tenths out of his previous best time by the time he had completed the second sector. He crossed the line with a 1:09.417 to his name, Perez still falling just short of the target by being 0.075s behind. In the other Mercedes, meanwhile, Bottas was struggling to make an impression on Verstappen’s leading time. He had to abort his first attempt at a hot lap and, on his second, already found himself two tenths down in the first sector. Traffic in the middle sector did nothing to help his cause and he could only manage a 1:09.857 to sit nearly five tenths off the pace. With 16 minutes of the session remaining, Hamilton, complete with front suspension tweak, put pedal to the metal for his qualifying sim attempt. He all-but matched Verstappen through the first sector, but the gap would slowly increase to three tenths by the time he crossed the finish line. It provided further evidence that Red Bull were the ones to beat heading into Friday afternoon qualifying. Bottas would try to discredit it as he surprisingly went fastest in the first sector on his latest effort and, while still unable to topple Verstappen, he did move above his team-mate and to within a tenth off the pace. 2021 F1 SAO PAULO GRAND PRIX – FREE PRACTICE RESULTS (1) POS DRIVER NAT. TEAM TIME 1 Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team 1m09.050s 2 Max Verstappen NED Red Bull Racing 1m09.417s 3 Sergio Perez MEX Red Bull Racing 1m09.492s 4 Valtteri Bottas FIN Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team 1m09.567s 5 Pierre Gasly FRA Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda 1m09.880s 6 Carlos Sainz ESP Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow 1m10.124s 7 Charles Leclerc MON Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow 1m10.142s 8 Esteban Ocon FRA Alpine F1 Team 1m10.145s 9 Fernando Alonso CHI Alpine F1 Team 1m10.201s 10 Lance Stroll CAN Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team 1m10.352s 11 Yuki Tsunoda JPN Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda 1m10.374s 12 Sebastian Vettel GER Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team 1m10.413s 13 Kimi Raikkonen FIN Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen 1m10.443s 14 Antonio Giovinazzi GBR Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen 1m10.587s 15 Lando Norris GBR McLaren F1 Team 1m10.610s 16 Mick Schumacher GER Uralkali Haas F1 Team 1m10.885s 17 Nicholas Latifi CAN Williams Racing 1m10.902s 18 George Russell ISR Williams Racing 1m10.938s 19 Daniel Ricciardo AUS McLaren F1 Team 1m10.990s 20 Nikita Mazepin RUS Uralkali Haas F1 Team 1m11.342s