Race Highlights | 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix

Over the moon, what a weekend. And totally unexpected, which makes it even sweeter. And, you know, it's not the first race we've been leading this year, so I was just waiting for, you know, the safety car, a red flag, rain, you know, a bloody tree flying onto the track, I don't know what. But it didn't happen. And I guess that fortunes have turned. Yeah, I mean, it's the first... Well, of course we had a couple of races like Spa and Silverstone, but it's like maybe only the third race where we felt like that. But today it really felt great out there. I had a long way to come back from after a poor effort yesterday. And, yeah, if I'd qualified the way I should have, it would have been a long way. But I've been in a nice place today. Yeah, very tricky race. First of all, and most importantly, I don't think we had the pace. Whenever we were pushing to try and keep up the pace of the Mercedes, we were opening the graining, and it meant that we just couldn't push today. As a team in the car, it was just simply generating too much graining on the tyres. And then from there onwards, yeah, timing of the pit stops, the execution, I think we've been very good all year with those things. But today wasn't our day. We lost too much race time on the first pit stop. We pitted one lap too late. We pitted two laps too late on the second with a mess with Charles letting by and with a mess of the pit entry. It was just not our day in that sense. But I don't think it could have changed much the final result. I mean, I was very excited at the start, speed too. And then, unfortunately, everything started to go very quickly wrong because I pushed too much on the tyres. But then on the two other sets of hard, we were very strong. But yeah, we lost too much in the first one. We've had a lot of moments together, also off track. And, of course, these things we discussed already. And I told him, your time will come one day. You have to be patient. Even at McLaren, when it was not going that well, he said, I know that you are capable of winning titles. Now this year, of course, there was that opportunity. And at one point, it was looking like it was going to be a proper battle. And in the end, of course, we overturned it again to a bigger advantage. But yeah, they were close. And, of course, it's looking like they're going to win the constructors. But we keep battling. We have, I think, a lot of respect for each other. And, of course, very nice that he just came back into the pen and congratulated me. And I think that's how it should be. Yeah. I mean, I'll start off by saying a congrats to Max. Yeah, I'm disappointed that I'm out of it. But Max deserved to win it. He drove a better season than we did and than I did. And yeah, he deserved it more than anyone else. You know, Max just doesn't have a weakness. When he's got the best car, he dominates. And when he's not got the best car, he's still just there always. I didn't think I was that far forward. But clearly, I must have been. I don't think it changed much. Yes, it made the early part and the middle part of the race a bit more difficult. But I don't think it affected the result. We just weren't quick enough. So, some things to look at for sure. Very pleased. P8, I think, was the best we could achieve today. Fifth best team. So, very happy about that. Clean race. Good execution. As expected, it was very challenging on the tyre side. With graining on the front axle especially. So, yeah, I think that kept everyone occupied and busy. But we came through that well and offset ourselves a little bit to our main competition. And I think that worked well. And the pace was also decent. Yeah, pretty annoying, I would say. Finishing points, we're very happy. I think pace today was good. Definitely, we made a step better compared to three practices. But at the same time, it was still on the edge. Yeah, I think we got caught out with the level of degradation that we had out there. You know, we were not expecting this level of deck. And that really hurt us quite a lot, unfortunately. So, yeah, I mean, we used the best tyre at the wrong time. And then I had to do quite a long stint on the medium. That was quite vulnerable in the middle. So, it was all a little bit out of sync, unfortunately. Yeah, we were in the points until three or four laps to the end. So, yeah, a little bit sad now. Probably we deserve it today. We did a very good race, I think, starting from the back. And the pace was good. The car was in a happier place on Sunday, on Saturday. So, yeah, obviously now, right after the car, I just want to jump in again and go in Qatar. You know, and try to have some revenge there. But, yeah, on the positive side, today the car was competitive. And we were in the mix. So, yeah, a good way to finish the weekend. Yeah, I think we did a one-stop, which wasn't the right thing, I think. But, yeah, that's what we did. And we finished P12. Yeah, I wouldn't say the best performance of the year. But I think it's definitely where we've been missing for a long time. And it's just great. The team, obviously, makes the upgrade work at that time. And this whole weekend, I was able to have a car to fight. So, I enjoyed the race. I think that was the maximum we could, considering there's nothing dramatic happening ahead of us. The pace is where we stand, actually. Better than what we expected. And, yeah, it was a clean race. Everything was good. Shame we couldn't really pass people on the straight lines. Maybe it was lacking. Otherwise, I think we could maybe gain another one or two positions more. You know, it was a tough race, I think. A lot of dirty air. The tyres were opening a lot. The fronts were really, really difficult to manage. A lot of raining. The strategy was tricky as well. I think we lost a lot of time on the first stint. Then I think we did a good job. The pace was okay in the other two. But it was tough on the dirty air. We were just hurting the tyres so, so much. Then it was difficult to manage. But I think overall, after a tough day yesterday, today was decent. Yeah, well, no radio the whole race. So, I lost the radio for the first lap. So, I was trying to give them some indication that I was coming in. But that didn't happen properly. So, that ended my race. It was tough, I think. The start of the race was tricky. And then, after the first pit stop cycle, we were in an okay position. But I guess we tried to stretch it a little bit too long. And then, in the end, we had to box anyway. So, yeah, it's tough. But obviously, it doesn't help where we're starting. First of all, congratulations to Max. I think, you know, not having the quickest car this year, and still, you know, showing what he's done. He's been outstanding. And, yeah, he really deserved the title this year. He's been the strongest out there. And, yeah, it's been nice to watch. Yeah, on our race, we gave ourselves an extra stop, unfortunately. A drive-through, I would say. Yeah, we need to review as a team exactly what happened there. But, yeah, after that, we are basically on the back foot. And we tried to stay on that one stop in case it was going to work. Unfortunately, it was a bit too aggressive. And, yeah, we had to box towards the end. I think we did everything right on that first part of the race. We probably could have fought, you know, for a top-10 finish. For me, from today, it's kind of hard to say. Because we were really heavily compromised by the change in the strategy. I mean, we aimed to do one stop. That's why I started on the hard. But, actually, the tyres just went away way earlier than we thought. So then we had to go for the two-stop. And then everything was suboptimal. And, actually, yeah, towards the end of the... From middle to the end of the race, I was trying to help Joe a bit. Try to hold up Colapinto and Lance. But, unfortunately, we still didn't get points. It's just frustrating. And, you know, I was excited about the race. I felt like, you know, great points. Hopefully, we can repay the team. Especially the mechanics and everyone at the factory. For all the hard work we've been going through over the last few weeks. It would have been great to repay them. But it wasn't meant to be. And another one to add to the list. So, hopefully, we can bounce back stronger in Qatar. It's a very tough one to take. Because we had such a high yesterday. And, obviously, today was possibly the wrong outcome possible. So, you know, I think we did well. We knew the cars around us at the start were faster. So, you know, Max and the McLaren. Norris and Hamilton got past us. But then I think we were on for a good fight with Juki for best of the rest. To fight for some important points for the championship. It's just very disappointing from one day to another to have this ending.