LIVE: Singapore Grand Prix Post-Sprint Show – Transcript

00:39What a sprint race it was as the rain fell just moments before the cars were set to take the formation lap. It truly threw a wrench in the plans of every team and every driver, a pole to flag victory for Max Verstappen.

00:54Looks simple and straightforward on paper, but it was anything but the Red Bull man was unstoppable. Takes his first win of any type around the streets of Singapore, though I know he is going to want the Grand Prix victory even more. Lots to unpack, a high race of attrition.

01:12Let's break into it now in the post sprint show. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the pit lane after what was a truly chaotic sprint race in Singapore. First of its kind here around the Marina Bay Circuit, joined by Julian Palmer and Ruth Buscom.

01:29Julian, you were up in the booth to call that. That first lap was super exciting, but let's take a step back just to the start. Everything changing for teams and drivers as the rain fell. What does that do to the Saky? Was that kind of contributing to all the chaos we saw at the beginning?

01:44Yeah, totally. We said it before the race, didn't we? That everything we said went out the window because, yeah, you've obviously got to fit into medias. There was a long delay. What are the track conditions going to be like? And then initially we saw that inside line being better in the wet conditions. I think we were talking about it being worse in the drive because it wasn't rubbed in.

02:01That makes it a gain in the wet. So it means George Russell leaps into the lead and look behind Lewis Hamilton, swarms past Piastri and Leclerc to jump into third, which will eventually be his second place. So that inside line suddenly became beneficial and then it changes the nature of your race.

02:18And then of course you just go further in towards the end of this lap. They're fairly well behaved up until that final corner when George Russell finds the curbing on the outside. I'm just reminded as well looking at that of Lando and Oscar's position on that first lap. It was a little teaser for what happened right at the end, foreshadowing a little bit later.

02:37Yeah, it was interesting to see that incredible jump from Hamilton up into P3 from P6 on the grid, but it became P2 after this moment here. Yeah, so I mean it's a classic wet incident that you drop your wheels onto the white lines, onto the curves, you lose grip and you just spear off the road.

02:54It is the easiest way to crash out of slippery conditions. I'm always a staggered how drivers can do it because at some point the track dries up and you need to do it. You have to figure that out on a lap and George has gone done that on the first lap and he's overcooked it basically.

03:10He's found that white line, there's no grip. You're loaded up, it's a fast corner actually on this slow speed circuit and he's off into the barriers. But if you keep avoiding the curves and the white lines forever, you're just going to be slow as the track dries up. So the drivers are always hunting for more and more but just for George that was too much too soon. Too much too soon, ends up Ruth with quite a bit of damage to that W17.

03:30It puts a lot of extra pressure on the team. It's already a tight turnaround between the sprint race and qualifying. How much harder is it now for that group? Yeah, it's not ideal, is it? I mean, it's all about risk versus reward management and as you say, it's so not bad to be on the even side of the grid and dry but then it becomes amazing in the wet because that rubber that helps you is then going to hurt you and vice versa.

03:50He had everything. You know, for a leading lap one, I would say that's, you know, as you say, it's the moment to take margin. Nobody is going to try to overtake you. Even Max let George go effectively. He knew that he was not going to have the great traction and didn't make the kind of classic lunges because Paul is king here.

04:06Now George can't be on pole for the grid tomorrow. So it's a less of a loss but the caster needs to be ready to contend if they want to have a go out there. And also, I don't know how many new old parts they've got left. That would be my question. Do they have a full set of the old aero package available to replace?

04:26And he can't be on pole. He's going to be starting at the back on the Grand Prix which means this was his best opportunity to score points and he ends up with absolutely nothing. We will hopefully hear from Deputy Team Principal Bradley Lord in just a moment, but before that, let's hit head back and hear what George Russell had to say in the pen after the incident.

04:44Hey George, it's never easy to be the first one through after a wet kind of dry conditions. Just talk me through that final corner after a great start. Yeah, I just misjudged it. To be honest, I came around the corner. I came on the throttle. I got more power than I was expecting from the battery.

05:00I went a little bit wide and then I touched the white line and the number one rule in the rain is don't touch the white lines. And it's a very, very silly mistake. Overly confident. Yeah, just think it's my first crash of the year.

05:15It's annoying to happen from that position. Right, thanks George. Thank you. Right, I'd say that I saw you in the gym and you told me to put on some soft soffs on. And that is the words from the man himself but now we are down in the Mercedes garage joined by Deputy Team Principal.

05:33We've got a car coming in behind us trying to stay out of the team's way as they get. Kimmy Antonelli is coming back. They keep going, watch your back, Bradley. Yeah, a little bit chaotic here as the teams now have to get everything turned around. So let's have a touch on that. George's car, you know, a little bit of damage, certainly.

05:49How confident are we going to get everything fixed in time for Grand Prix qualifying? I mean, there's never been a qualifying session we less need him to compete in. So if it can't be fixed, that's okay because we know where he's starting tomorrow regardless. But we'll try and get him out. I think it should be to up the rear end, right front corner.

06:05And hopefully the floor isn't too badly damaged. They didn't look it, but you never know. Given the penalties that we have coming on that side of the garage, I mean, how disappointed is George to kind of lose the only opportunity to get at least a couple of points here, hopefully this weekend? Hopefully not the only opportunity to get a couple of points. There's still someone off for tomorrow.

06:21But yeah, super disappointed, obviously. I mean, great start, great first lap, pulled a second on max. And then unfortunately, I think it was a bit of a power surge as he came through the last corner. You get the clipped power at full throttle. You get more power until you get to full throttle. And I think that sort of surged.

06:37And then obviously right rear on the curb and it spun up and yeah, we saw what happened after that. You're going to replace the parts like for like, still back to Baku spec for George. Yeah, yeah. And how's the test going? Talk us through the weekend with the two different cars. Reasonably limited data from that race, Jolien, because then we got one lap of comparison.

06:54What about from yesterday? I mean, from yesterday, we could see that obviously, you know, we've got a car we've raced for 16 weekends and on at 16 and 14 and we understand very well. And then a car that we don't yet understand as well. What Kimmy reported is lacking confidence on a corner entry, difficult to get the power down when there's still lateral load on the car coming out of the corner.

07:13So we've got to fine tune the balance because the balance window is too wide at the minute. If we can narrow that down and give him something he's more comfortable with, like we saw in the second half sprint, then we think the performance is in there. But we'll do that this evening, we'll race tomorrow and then conclusions will happen back at the factory on Monday.

07:30So for Kimmy for qualifying, still the new spec. It has to be, yeah. No, it's a two-day job to revert, so it's not possible to revert before qualifying. Fine tune. We're in for the weekend. We knew we were at the start of the weekend and, yeah, hopefully giving something a little bit sweeter, a little bit more in its sweet spot and then see what you can do.

07:47So in terms of the direction for 2027, do you have enough data now? Do you, were you excited to get more data here, maybe even Austin? No plans yet. You know, we don't know yet what we'll do for Austin. But for here, yeah, we need more data. We need a race that's worth hopefully tomorrow and then we'll have a better idea of if something isn't working, what isn't working, or if we've just made the car faster, but more on a knife edge and that's not a super helpful thing, particularly in Malaysia and particularly around a circuit like this as well.

08:17So that'll be what we troll through once we get through tomorrow's Grand Prix and once we're back at base on Monday. All right, Bradley, lots of work for you guys. We'll let you get back to it. Best of luck this afternoon and tomorrow. Thank you very much. It was a very chaotic race, a high attrition race when we come back. We will chat to some of the drivers who did not finish the sprint here in Singapore.

08:36Don't go anywhere. Yeah, it was a big shame because it was a bit of an opportunity, although the race is pretty short. I hope we get these conditions later on in the week. And yeah, I was on the inside in 2016 with Lance and I wasn't expecting him to shut the door there, but when he closed the door, I tried to break, but it was just too late and I ended up locking

09:02and there was nothing I could have done. Yeah, a bit of a rubber band effect, I think. It seemed like we were going, but then suddenly the cars, two cars ahead of me came to full stop and I just didn't have time to react. So it's messy out there, but it's a real shame.

09:20Was there a lot of damage? Front wing and we had to stop the car because the wishbone, I think we broke one wishbone, but hopefully not more than that. Let's see, I hope we can get the car ready for Koli and then we can try it all again. Just I want to fix it. In the end, it's always the cars at the back, but get the biggest delta and yeah, my brakes are good, but they're not like it.