WOLFF WEIGHS IN AMID MERCEDES AND MCLAREN MCL40 UPGRADE STAND-OFF

 

Toto Wolff gave his verdict on McLaren winning the Hungarian Grand Prix

The McLaren resurgence in Hungary has sparked a debate over exactly how much of a role the MCL40 upgrade package played.

Mercedes’ Simone Resta suggested that more was behind the McLaren result. Andrea Stella said the upgrades alone sparked McLaren’s return to the F1 summit. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has weighed in, claiming a clear step forward for McLaren. Yet, he also pointed to McLaren’s recent impressive record at the Hungaroring.

Toto Wolff declares McLaren step, but…

McLaren’s revisions for its MCL40 in Budapest included a revised floor body design, rear wing endplate and rear corner winglets.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri went on to contend for the victory. After a Carlos Sainz collision and later a gearbox failure, Piastri was eliminated from the race, as Norris drove on to an impressive win.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told PlanetF1.com and others post-race that “the improvement, from a competitiveness point of view, can be entirely ascribed to the upgrades that we took here.”

Mercedes deputy technical director Simone Resta was not so sure.

“The update package was certainly significant, and it must have contributed to their performance,” Resta said on the Nu Silver Arrows radio show.

“At the same time, if you look at the gap between their two cars, there was clearly more to it than the upgrade alone.

“Throughout the year we’ve seen McLaren perform very strongly, with the balance of performance between their two drivers varying from race to race.

“We’ve also seen strong performances from Lando several times this season.

“Budapest may simply have been one of those weekends where he found himself in a particularly good place with the car, the setup and tyre management. I think it was probably a combination of both factors.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has had his say. Similarly to Resta, he acknowledged that McLaren found performance with its upgrades.

But Wolff was also keen to stress the Hungaroring as a potential caveat.

McLaren has now won the last three Hungarian GPs.

“When you ask the artificial intelligence who would be the favourites in Budapest, the artificial intelligence is going to say McLaren, because they were the dominant team here in the last few years,” Wolff told PlanetF1.com and others.

“So definitely one of the good tracks for them, and not very good for us.

“So we need to be careful not to swing from everyone is suddenly competitive, to a team is suddenly not competitive.

“I think they’ve definitely done a step. They are in the fight. We haven’t brought an upgrade for some time, and you can see that this is going to be a development fight also going forward.”

- Jamie Woodhouse

LEWIS HAMILTON F1 SPEEDING PENALTY MARTIN BRUNDLE DUBBED AS 'HARSH' QUESTIONED

The pit lane speeding penalty issued to Lewis Hamilton in Hungary has been questioned.

Hamilton was hit with yet another penalty in Hungary

Sky Sports F1 pundit Anthony Davidson has questioned the five-second time penalty issued to Lewis Hamilton for pit-lane speeding at the Hungarian Grand Prix. 

Seven-time world champion Hamilton was hit with his second penalty in two days - and fourth in the past three race weekends - after the stewards found he had exceeded the 80km/h pit lane speed limit by just 0.1km/h during Sunday’s race at the Hungaroring. 

Hamilton finished fourth on the road but the penalty dropped him to fifth behind Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc once it was applied after he crossed the line. 

Hamilton picked up another penalty in Hungary

Analysing the incident on the SkyPad, former F1 driver Davidson said he could not see what Hamilton did wrong. 

“I’ve looked at this so many times and I can’t work out why he gets a penalty,” Davidson said during Sky Sports F1’s coverage of the Hungarian Grand Prix. 

“For me, he slows down sufficiently well. We’ve got this marker board on the left-hand side that stipulates the 80km /h speed limit. I don’t see that [speeding].

“Let’s have a look at the exit. Obviously knew he was under time pressure to get out in that race with Antonelli. Again, for me, it sounds like he releases the pit lane button on the line itself.

“This guy knows what he’s doing when it comes to white lines and when to press the button. Maybe there was just an error when he was a bit too close to the line on the actual speed of the car and they were just pinged by that. Who knows.

“Strange that it only happened that one time. I don’t have enough data here and I can only go by the sound of when he’s pressing that button. For me, it looked totally fine on the way in, and on the way out.” 

Hamilton finished fourth on the road but was demoted to P5

Fellow ex-grand prix driver turned Sky Sports F1 analyst Martin Brundle described the penalty as “harsh”, but acknowledged the rules have to be black-and-white. 

“It’s like being a quarter of a kilo underweight. You’re going to feel aggrieved, but the rules are the rules in that respect,” Brundle said. 

“Where my alarm bells are going off is in Monaco, where a lot of drivers there were getting this 0.1 [over the speed limit], and then of course we had all the shenanigans after the race. 

“They set their pit limiters throughout the weekend, they aim at 59 and a bit if its a 60kp/h limit, or 79 and a bit. They really fine-tune it. We see a lot of penalties on a Friday, a few hungered euros for going over the pit lane speed limit.

“But it’s perceived as a competitive advantage, and when you see how close those lines are with Antonelli for example, if somebody goes ‘0.1’s alright, so 0.3’s alright’ then suddenly you get ahead. 

“So there has to be a cut-off point. Whether it’s the width of the car, the weight of the car, the speed of the car in the pit lane. 

“It’s painful and it’s harsh but it’s the rules, as long as he was actually doing that speed, which they weren’t in Monaco.”

- Lewis Larkam