Challenging Saturday at Spa

Saturday began with the F1 Sprint; George starting P13 with Kimi P19 after both drivers were hampered in Sprint Qualifying on Friday.

In a quiet race, George made up one position to come home P12 with Kimi advancing two positions to P17.

Qualifying proved a tricky affair too with the car struggling for the pace needed to fight for the front two rows of the grid.

In Q1, both drivers improved on their final efforts but Kimi was unfortunately knocked out in P18.

George meanwhile progressed to Q3 but could only manage P6 on his last run.

Tomorrow’s forecast is mixed with potential rain throughout the day.

George Russell

Today was a better day than Friday in terms of the result but, if you take out yesterday, then this was one of our worst Qualifying performances of the year. We are struggling here in Spa this weekend and we are working hard to understand why. We were potentially slightly light on rear wing level, given we were fastest in sectors one and three, but that is really just a compromise of where you gain lap time across the circuit.

Starting P6 tomorrow still gives us a chance of fighting for decent points for tomorrow. We set the car up today so we could maximise Qualifying, so we will have to see what the weather does tomorrow. If it does rain, we may be slightly compromised but I’d much rather be starting in P6 with that than outside of the top 10. Let’s see what happens on Sunday.

Kimi Antonelli

That was another difficult day in what has been a tricky period for us over the past few races. I was struggling with the car balance on Friday and that continued into Qualifying today. The confidence wasn’t there and that showed in the lap time. It is frustrating as we know we have more pace than we showed today.

We are working hard to improve so we can get back on track and putting in good results. Whilst Qualifying didn’t go the way we want, we have a chance to do that tomorrow. The weather forecast is changeable, and we may have rain. That would give us a chance to make up more positions than may be possible in a standard dry race.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

As a team, this weekend has fallen far below our standards so far. It has been our weakest performance this year and we need to quickly understand why. We have struggled with a car facing several balance limitations, losing the vast majority of our lap time in the middle sector. We knew we would struggle to get into the points in the Sprint given our starting positions, so focused on improving these balance issues for Qualifying. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make sufficient headway and suffered as a result.

With a mixed weather forecast for tomorrow’s race, we will be looking to take advantage of any opportunities that come our way. We are not fooling ourselves though; the pace of our car has not been sufficient this weekend to challenge at the front and that is unlikely to change tomorrow. We will race hard to maximise our result but must ensure we start the weekend in a much stronger position in Budapest next week.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

That was another disappointing day for us here in Spa. We were looking to bounce back from a tough Friday, knowing that the big points were still on offer ahead of us. Starting from outside the top 10 in the Sprint, we knew that progress would be difficult to achieve. The low wing levels being run here result in a modest DRS effect and other than Kimi making one pass, we were unable to make any further overtakes.

We made quite significant changes to our car for Qualifying but the underlying limitations were still there and neither driver had good confidence in the rear end. Kimi was eliminated in the first cut; George did a good job to get as far as P6 but it's clear we have to get to the bottom of the issues with the car as it simply wasn't quick. We're expecting some rain for the race tomorrow. Considering our starting positions that's a good thing, and hopefully both drivers can move forward if we operate well, but our bigger focus is to understand why our pace has been so poor at this track.

Sprint Result

Qualifying Result