Andy, welcome. We might as well start with you. The updates at Imola appeared to work. Are they working here as well? What can you tell?
Andy Cowell: Difficult to say, to be honest. They worked well at Imola. We’re not doing a comparison here. We were happy with the data that we got from Imola. So, both cars just running all the updated parts right from the beginning of FP1 and we’ll optimize based on that.
Andy, also it’s great to see Adrian Newey in green this weekend. How’s the garage received him on the ground here? What difference does it make to the guys?AC: Adrian’s been welcomed well in the factory back in March and welcomed well here. So, it’s great to have him here with the engineers during meetings, helping to look at the way we look at data, the way we set the car up, and also in the garage seeing how everything’s going together. Yeah, everybody’s really excited to have him on board.
How hands-on is he in the garage?AC: He’s got his notebook. He’s looking intently at what’s going on. The pencil’s been scribbling in there. He and I have had the odd conversation, and the jobs list gets bigger, but it’s all good positive actions to help us move forward.
James, Williams – two cars in the points at the last three races. It looks like you’re on a roll. Is that how it feels inside the team?James Vowles: I definitely think we’ve stepped forward a little bit relative to the field. There are elements that we’ve just been working on in the background that are coming to fruition, but you can’t take anything for granted. Our goal from the beginning of the year was to get two cars in the points, which is a tall feat in this competitive field. Across the last few races, we haven’t extracted all of the points that are possible, but it’s good to see we’ve been able to work across different circuits.
Alex Albon has been in the points at every race, bar one. Are you seeing an improved Alex this year? Where is he better?JV: Undoubtedly, he is. I remember on Boxing Day [December 26], he started his physical training. He dropped the Christmas lunch and got straight into it. He executes the weekend cleanly from start to finish. No small mistakes creeping in. He’s focused on building up across the weekend. He has the advantage of data next to him from, really, a world-class driver, which brings him up to that level as well. His communication, his work in the simulator – all of it has stepped up.
And this weekend, he started well. The car is performing well. What can you tell us from FP1?JV: I don’t think you can really tell much from it. Teams are running, a) different fuel loads, and b) different engine modes. Frankly If you’re lucky to get a lap in, because it’s busy out there, then you get fortunate to put your car up there. But it was a sensible place to start. What I’m more interested in is where the balance is and it was a little off, so we need to rectify that going into FP2.
Once a strategist, always a strategist. Looking ahead to the race, mandatory two-stop – is that going to present more opportunities than normal?JV: I didn’t have my best record in Monaco, so I might not be the right person to ask. So, I think this is what it will do, which is a good thing for the sport. I think it means you can’t back up the queue anymore at the front of the pack. You’ve got to get on with it. There are going to be cars stopping early on and that will force you into position. That’s good for where we are. it creates unpredictability. If you listen up and down the paddock no one is quite sure what is going to happen. That’s good for us. We’re here to be a sport and a spectacle above all and I think it will do that.
Toto, you said earlier this week that you were working hard to understand the car’s limitations at Imola. What conclusions have you reached?Toto Wolff: First of all, you know, Andy and I, we are exchanging politeness here at the beginning, when coming in, but it’s, for me at least, a pinch moment to see you two here. I never thought that you were doing chassis because you hated chassis. No? You’re an engine person! We had such a good time, so many wins, so tough moments, and absolutely deserved, you being leaders of these organisations. It’s a proud moment for Mercedes, I guess.
Toto, just on this topic, did you always see these two as future team principals?TW: With Andy, he was one of the strongest managers that I’ve seen ever in my life with all the other businesses. He had also the human side and the people management, on the other side, the technical skill. We used to laugh when we had an engine issue, that Andy was having his fingers on the pistons, and in the cylinder head on the Saturday, after qualifying. And I always said, ‘are your nails dirty?’ Because that meant he was in control of what was happening on the engine side. So, yeah, definitely. And James, you know, James could have been a team principal in Mercedes if it wasn’t about me. I was in his way. So, he chose another route, and does that very well as you can see. And as by the way, and as a strategist, we all remember the monumental situation when our screens froze. But it was also a learning.
So, Toto, what about Imola then? Just very briefly, what have you learned? What conclusions have you drawn since Imola about the performance then?TW: Well, in Imola, we got our car in a completely wrong place. It’s always painful to find out in a postmortem what you did wrong. But I guess we know that, you know, we just really screwed that up, and gave the drivers a car that was very difficult. We overheated the tyres, massively, and that’s why we underperformed.
Yeah. Well, what about here in Monaco?TW: Well, we didn’t exactly – we weren’t exactly stellar also here at the beginning of the session, but it is a totally different track than Imola. There will be different learnings. I think, like James said, most important is to put the laps in to understand where you need to balance the car, how you need to, you know, find a sweet spot in the tyre temperatures and get the drivers up to speed. You know, Kimi has just done an F2 race here, so it’s his first time. And you can see some of the rookies, they just need the time before they have the confidence to let the car fly through some of the high speed.
If you look at the strengths and weaknesses of the car over the season so far, do you think it, at least on paper, should be quick here?TW: Well, you know, I’m formulating this very simplistically. We’re still fast in the cold and slow in the hot, which you have seen last year and our relative overperformance when the ambient went towards us. And so what this is going to be is again very, very different. It’s a qualifying – even with the new strategy, it’s going to be a qualifying race. The drivers need to feel confident with the car. They don’t at the moment, and you just need to align the stars to be in the front in qualifying. And from there on, obviously, you have a few options, but I wouldn’t say that I would count us in the favourites. At the moment, it’s a tough fight. You have the Williams right in there. Alonso did a good lap. So, you know, just stay humble and try to do the best possible work and count everybody in.
Questions From The Floor
(Ian Parkes – Racing News 365) Question for you, Toto. It was in September, the Italian Grand Prix, that you finally confirmed Kimi Antonelli as your driver alongside George Russell. Is George going to have to wait that long this year until he’s finally confirmed as having a new contract, or is there anything this year again in the latest Max Verstappen rumours that just will not go away?TW: No. Definitely not that long. George and I are totally clear of how this is going to go, and 100% alignment. There is no such thing as, you know, dragging this on because that’s not what we do.
(Adam Cooper – Adam Cooper F1) The C6 tyre was a bit of a tricky one in Imola. It was expected to be a bit more straightforward here because it’s a different type of track. What have you learned in the first session? Is that the case? It won’t really be a talking point, but also, is it a potential race star for the last 20 laps or something depending on how things play out?JV: It’s still a tricky tyre. There’s no doubt about it. But it is working. I mean, it was more designed for this track than it was for Imola. The energy you put into a tyre in Imola is quite strong which is why the medium was quite good in qualifying relatively speaking. So I think it’s more appropriate here. However, I’d say the early sign is the medium and the soft haven’t got a huge amount between those two. So, they are two usable tyres. So, will people fit a Soft in the race? Potentially, as you described, right at the end, but I think you’ll primarily see Medium as the good tyre.
AC: So similar to James, we’ve only run the C6 tyre so far this weekend. In Imola, the C5 was the best for our car in qualifying. And we’ll learn through the next session and then make the call tonight as to which direction we’re going in.
TW: No idea. The only reference is McLaren on the Mediums. And then I think Plasti put the soft on, and that wasn’t much faster than the Medium if I recollect. How much was it? A tenth?
JV: Not even. I think the tyres were about the same.
(Scott Mitchell-Malm – The Race) A question for Toto. You mentioned about the similar trend to last year in terms of good in the cooler conditions, struggling in hotter conditions. Are you surprised or disappointed by that? How much was that focus, sorry, of the development for this year’s car?TW: I think it’s not so much about being surprised or disappointed because it’s a fact. You know, we are in front of a situation that we wanted to work ourselves out. I think we had a much more decent start to the season than last year, so that is maybe the positive way of looking at things. But definitely for all of us and under expectation delivery so much, maybe also a little bit influenced by Miami – Miami and Imola having been really not good enough. So, let’s see how we can sort ourselves out a little bit more, after Monaco. Again, Monaco is such an outlier. You between hero and zero, it goes quickly. So, Barcelona is the one that counts in order to assess our performance levels.
Check out our Friday gallery from Monaco here.
