23/03/2024
NEWS STORY
George Russell qualified seventh and Lewis Hamilton 11th for the Australian Grand Prix. The team made several overnight changes after a tough day of practice on Friday at Albert Park.
FP3 gave the team the chance to evaluate those changes and the feedback was positive. Both drivers were happier with the overall balance of the car and finished the session in the top-five, within two tenths of P1.
Qualifying proved a more challenging affair, however. Conditions had changed with an increase in track temperature and a shift in the wind direction; that left the team struggling to find the same positive balance as in FP3.
Both drivers made it through Q1 but, despite taking two new sets of the Soft tyre in Q2, Lewis was knocked out in P11.
For Q3, George utilised his final set of new Soft compound tyres to secure P7, although the pace of the car was not sufficient to challenge those further ahead.
George Russell: It wasn't the qualifying session we were hoping for today. It was challenging to get the tyres in the right window, and it is so tight out there that a few tenths can have a major impact. The car felt strong in FP3 but unfortunately that feeling didn't quite translate into the afternoon.
We know where we need to improve the car and that is in the high-speed corners. Unfortunately, there are a decent amount of those here in Melbourne, so this circuit is definitely not playing to our strengths. I do think we'll be in a better place tomorrow though when everyone has the fuel in their car. There are also many unknowns heading into the race. Nobody has run the Hard tyre, and that will be the compound that is primarily in use throughout. We may also see some graining. I think it will be a more exciting race here than we usually see. And ultimately, it is the Grand Prix where points are scored.
Lewis Hamilton: The car felt great in FP3. It was much improved from yesterday and we were right there at the front. Going into qualifying, the inconsistencies within the car showed up though, unfortunately. The wind typically picks up here in the afternoon and I think we suffered with that today, similarly to how we struggled in FP2. The car is on a knife's edge, and it is difficult as a driver to work around these inconsistencies.
It's not a great feeling for anyone in the team at the moment but we will keep working away. George did a good job today to get the car into Q3. I'll be focused on coming back tomorrow and trying to do a better job.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO: It was an underwhelming qualifying session today, particularly as we were only a few tenths off the fastest time in FP3. The conditions were different between the sessions, and we suffered from that. We have a car that is difficult and small changes can cause it to be outside of the working window. There is no simple solution as it is about the complex interaction between all the constituent elements of the car.
It is frustrating that we are still saying this, but we will continue to keep working on it. It is not because of a lack of trying that we are where we are, and we will push to get better. We will keep our heads down and work through this. The car has potential, as can be seen by our performance in FP3. It is tricky to consistently get it into this place though and improving that is what we are focused on doing.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: It felt like we'd made good progress overnight and the car was working well across FP3 this morning. However, that pace didn't seem to carry into qualifying and we finished a disappointing P7 and P11. The track was a little hotter and it was a little windier in qualifying, but that does not fully explain why the car was well behaved in one session and such a handful the next. The work to understand those issues will carry on in the background as we turn our focus to the race.
We've hopefully improved the long run since Friday, but we need to be realistic as to what we can achieve from our starting positions. Managing the tyres is a challenge here. They can be fragile, but we will be a few laps in before we can start to see how we are performing in terms of degradation. It's also a race where the strategy is normally dictated by incidents on track. We'll be on our toes and hopefully we can still take away a decent number of points.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Melbourne here.