Formula 1: It bangs when the team bosses meet – Sport

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on the Île Notre-Dame in Montréal is a race track that many drivers have the most diverse memories of. Good and terrible. The straights are long there and lined with thick walls close to the slope. Brave pilots flirt with danger and let their tires touch the concrete in some places. If it goes well, they are the heroes. If things go wrong, they look like novice drivers.

Lewis Hamilton was also once a rookie in Formula 1. It was almost 15 years to the day on Sunday since he traveled to this treacherous track as a pilot, which he had actually never driven before. In June 2007, Hamilton was a 22-year-old talent at McLaren alongside two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, three years his senior. But then, on his sixth race weekend, the apprentice passed his master’s exam in Montréal. After taking his first pole position on Saturday, he clinched his first Formula 1 race win the following day. In a memorable Grand Prix in which the experienced Alonso lurched more than the newcomer Hamilton. Quite a lot of material for memories.

“I’m young again,” rejoices Hamilton in Montreal

And Hamilton also took off on Sunday when he lightly jumped out of his Mercedes in third place in Canada and chatted: “I didn’t expect that today. It’s my second podium this year. It feels really special, really especially here. I love it in Montréal!”

All right, but the back?

“He’s good. I’m young again!” Hamilton exclaimed.

Longitudinal sections through history, i.e. the comparison of similar situations at different points in time, have always fascinated historians. In the case of Hamilton, not only the 15-year parallel was exciting on Sunday, but also the 7-day equivalent. If you put the two pictures side by side, in which Hamilton climbed out of his racing car, first in Baku, now in Montréal, you felt as if you were witnessing a miraculous healing.

In Azerbaijan, after the roller coaster ride in his bouncy Silver Arrow, Hamilton needed what felt like an eternity to climb out of the cockpit, and he was supported on the way to the pits. In Canada, he walked buoyant and in good spirits to what was only his second champagne celebration of the year, and it didn’t take an X-ray to see that his spine had received less concussion than a week earlier. Mercedes didn’t just have that in Montréal bouncing known phenomenon better under control than in Baku. The Silver Arrows also had reason to be in high spirits, as George Russell’s fourth place confirmed the impression that the team had moved closer to rivals Red Bull and Ferrari, who had rushed away from the start of the season.

Mercedes now wants to win individual races instead of the overall standings

“We have to be happy. We drove it out on the track. That’s okay,” emphasized Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, but also said: “We have to be careful. One swallow doesn’t make a summer.” Helmut Marko, the Red Bull motorsport consultant who is not known either as an ornithologist or as a friend of aphorisms, packed a similar observation into a simple warning: “Mercedes has caught up massively.” In order to prevent any unjustified anticipation among Mercedes supporters, Wolff made it clear that “the train had long since left the station” in the fight for the title. But the goal is still to win races: “And I think we can do that.”

Open detailed view

Now, a look at the World Cup status is indeed disillusioning for the neutral observer. After his sixth victory, the leader Max Verstappen is already down to 46 points. The fact that the second is his teammate Sergio Perez, who scored three more points than Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari, does not exactly make the competition overflow with excitement.

In fact, however, the Scuderia, which had cost itself the points in the three previous races with technical breakdowns and blatant strategic mistakes, again had the fastest vehicles in the field on Sunday. Leclerc, who was penalized in the last row of the grid because of various exchanged parts on his engine, at least raced ahead to fifth place. And his team-mate Carlos Sainz, who, thanks to a safety car phase, suddenly had the leader Verstappen in front of him again shortly before the end, he fought his way through the air vortices on fresher tires again and again close to the Dutchman.

However, the fiercest battle was not fought on the track, but behind closed doors at the meeting of the team bosses. Although they are no longer fighting for the relevant trophies this year, Mercedes boss Wolff and Red Bull team boss Christian Horner came up against the question of how to proceed bouncing to each other. And that’s exactly why. Red Bull is obviously worried that the Silver Arrows, which continue to suffer the most from the incessant hopping of the cars, could soon be competing for victories again if the world automobile association Fia makes improvements to the aerodynamics of the cars that Red Bull and Ferrari have so far have the best control.

Pilot spokesman Russell fears serious incident is ‘only a matter of time’

At the meeting on Saturday, Wolff is said to have become very loud when he argued in favor of the health of the drivers, who had initiated an investigation by the Fia with an official protest in the first place. Russell, spokesman for the community of all 20 pilots, said it was “only a matter of time before we see a serious incident. A lot of us can hardly keep our cars in a straight line.”

Horner, however, did not want to hear any health concerns at the meeting. Instead, he is said to have once again given his colleagues at Mercedes the snake-tongued advice that they should raise their cars to stop the cars from constantly touching down, which would of course continue to slow down the Silver Arrows. Wolff got angry. “There are colleagues who try to manipulate what is said in order to maintain the competitive advantage and play political games,” he said afterwards. That was “pathetic” and “sneaky”.

In fact, the Fia had reacted unusually quickly to the advances of the drivers and had already ordered measurements of the vehicle vibrations for the last race weekend. What consequences this investigation and possible countermeasures will have on the fight for the title is an exciting question in times when Verstappen seems to be firmly in the lead in the overall standings.