Hamilton back in “shooting range” for second

In brief

Hamilton giving his “best shot” to take championship runner-up spot

Hamilton cut his deficit to second-placed Sergio Perez to 20 points last weekend by finishing second and setting the fastest lap on the way. It was an important gain after he took just 11 points from the previous two rounds having crashed out of the Qatar Grand Prix and been disqualified in Austin two weeks later.

But he says his chances of finishing second in the championship are “mostly dependent on Checo’s weekends” as Mercedes have trailed Red Bull in performance all year.

“They have the championship-winning car,” said Hamilton on Sunday in Mexico. He’s just been unfortunate, I think, in some scenarios. Obviously I’ve lost quite a lot of points in the last two races but he lost points today. So it’s swings and roundabouts.

“I think coming into the weekend, having lost points last week, I didn’t think I would really be in shooting range particularly but after today, yeah, we’ll just give it our best shot.”

However the seven-times champion admitted “it’s not going to make a big difference to my life whether I come second or third. It’s more important to get the team second in the constructors.”

Albon pleased to salvage points from lack of pace

Alexander Albon says Williams “didn’t quite have the pace” to be competitive on race day in Mexico despite adding to his points haul.

“Two points, very happy,” he said. “I think it was a great race for us. We had a different strategy to most people, I think we were actually making it work quite well.

“I saw the Safety Car, and thought that was perfect, we’d get a free pit stop. And then it turned into a red flag, and that was actually one of the worst things that could have happened. We ended up losing all the advantage, we pitted a lap before the red flag so we basically lost about five or six positions.”

Albon said he took good advantage of both standing starts. “We had two very good starts today, made good positions, and salvaged some points so I’m very happy. I think we had a race where we didn’t quite have the pace, we were managing quite a lot and we had quite a good race.”

Goethe expected to fight for 2023 FIA F3 title after Euroformula success

Oliver Goethe admitted he expected a better result in FIA Formula 3 this year after dominating the 2022 Euroformula season. He came a distant eighth in the standings with two podium finishes and nine non-scores in a row.

“I expected to fight towards the top,” he said. “I was in a top team with Trident and I knew I was capable of fighting towards the top. The pace was really, really, really strong at moments, so I was expecting to be there. Ideally, I would have liked to be up there a bit more in order to fight for the championship. In the end, it was a very positive season, many ups and downs but good positives to take.”

“It was strange because I was struggling quite a lot at testing in Bahrain,” he added. “So I did a lot of sim in between that and worked really hard. Then the weekend in the end went very well. I was one of the quickest drivers and I was P2 in the championship at that point, so it gave me a huge boost as it was a strong start to the season.”

He admitted he was surprised by the downturn that followed. “At that point, I thought I would be in the title fight I’m not going to lie, but the next few rounds after that I struggled a bit. There were a few mistakes from my side, a few unlucky moments and just not putting it all together.”

Links

Motor racing links of interest:

Schumacher family lawyer lifts lid on battle to protect F1 icon’s health privacy (The Mirror)

‘Michael Schumacher’s family lawyer has insisted privacy surrounding his medical condition will continue despite the enormous demand for information about the stricken Formula 1 legend. Schumacher suffered a skiing accident in December 2013 which led to him being placed in a medically-induced coma. Several months later, he was moved to his family’s Lake Geneva home where his care would continue.’

Rossi: ‘Antonelli can be the future Italian hope in F1’ (Formula Scout)

‘Motorcycle racing legend Valentino Rossi would be keen to support Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s pursuit of a Formula 1 career. The seven-time MotoGP champion-turned-sportscar racer has recently been training in go-karts with Mercedes F1 junior Antonelli.’

Insider: Here’s where the IndyCar silly season, Indy 500 field sits for 2024 (IndyStar)

‘Within the last ten days, IndyCar’s silly season has proven things can change on a dime – or, right in the middle of writing this story, as I found out. I wasn’t as much surprised that Callum Ilott and Juncos Hollinger Racing opted to ‘mutually part ways’ as much as the fact that it happened at this point in the off-season.’

Doohan confirms end of the road with F2 (Speedcafe)

‘Jack Doohan has confirmed his F2 career will come to an end in November. Doohan concedes his two seasons with Virtuosi Racing have not yielded the results he had hoped for, although there have been numerous highs, including back-to-back feature race wins in Hungary and Belgium this year.’

Between the Regional and the girls? A difficult story, but not with Weug (Italiaracing)

‘Weug is a real asset to be safeguarded, Ferrari Driver Academy should include her in a top team instead of having her inexplicably placed in the small KIC Motorsport. In short, life in FREC will not be easy for Marta Garcia, but obviously we hope that she can repeat the results of Weug and not of her colleagues who challenged her for the title in the F1 Academy. It will be a very interesting challenge.’

Spielberg Flashback: Verschoor gets his Red Bull Ring win at last (Formula 2)

‘One year on from losing the race victory at Spielberg for a lack of fuel, Richard Verschoor left those memories firmly in the past as he secured redemption and race victory at the Red Bull Ring in 2023. The Dutchman was a popular winner, with plenty of Dutch fans packing into the Austrian circuit.’

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