In the round-up: Williams team principal James Vowles said the team’s core problem at the United States Grand Prix was a lack of performance in qualifying.
In brief
Medium ‘like a soft’ for Williams
Williams scored one point in Austin, thanks to Franco Colapinto, but Vowles believes they could have taken more if they’d qualified higher up the grid.
“I think the race pace would have shown you that we’re there or thereabouts in terms of the car working, but we’re not able to get it all right for one lap in a qualifying condition,” he said in a video released by the team. “So nothing really to do with the circuit, and even if it was, it’s our responsibility and duty to make sure we have a car that’s working everywhere and we can set it up well.
“This, very specifically, was down to not extracting performance or grip from that soft tyre. Probably as extreme as, actually for us, the medium was faster than a soft in a qualifying condition. And it shouldn’t be, it should be a large grip step, which is what most other teams have experienced.
“But the base package, the package that allowed us to score a point is still very much there or thereabouts. If we qualified in position I’m sure we would have the opportunity to score more again.”
Formula E teams penalised for cost cap breaches
Two Formula E teams have been fined for exceeding the series’ cost cap, which was set at €13,668,000 (£11.4m) for the previous season. Nissan over-spent by €269,252 (2%) and Jaguar by £73,849 (0.6%). The teams were fined €300,000 and €100,000 respectively and both had their pre-season testing allocation reduced by three hours.
US viewing figures remain healthy
ABC’s live broadcast of the United States Grand Prix attracted the joint second-largest average audience since Formula 1 returned to the channel six years ago. ESPN confirmed 1.3 million people watch the race from the Circuit of the Americas.
Five rounds so far this year – Miami, Monaco, Canada, Britain and Italy – have attracted record-breaking US audiences.
Del Pino to F3
Bruno del Pino will graduate from Eurocup 3 to Formula 3 with MP Motorsport next year. He finished third in the junior series this year behind Francisco Javier Sagrera and Christian Ho.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Adam Tate!
On this day in motorsport
- 20 years ago today Juan Pablo Montoya won his final race for Williams, beating his future McLaren team mate Kimi Raikkonen at Interlagos, while Jaguar started their final F1 race
