From the dancing Dutch, to the titanic Tifosi.
F1 is in Italy, and has returned to its most visited track, the Autodromo Internazionale Monza.
Zandvoort last weekend did not go to plan for Lewis, George and the Team, but the double-header allows for an immediate opportunity to respond.
What’s in an Upgrade?
It’s easy to get carried away with the thought of updates and upgrades in F1, but they are far from the be all and end all, as George explained.
“Ultimately when you bring an update to the car you are talking a tenth or two maximum, but performance can swing,” he said.
“If you have an off weekend it is very easy to say that it must be the upgrade, but if you do six races in a row with the same package your performance can fluctuate.
“I am confident it is working, but this weekend will be another good test.”
Lewis added: “I am more hopeful coming into this weekend, but you have others like Ferrari bringing upgrades.
“McLaren will also be quick with the advantage that they showed last weekend, so I am just hopeful that we are there or thereabouts.”
Bouncing Back from Zandvoort
“We underachieved and we have a number of ideas as to why that was,” said George.
“One of the changes we made to the car was probably not quite the direction we wanted to go, but it would not have been that obvious in the middle of the race weekend.
“It was only after we did the analysis that we saw that was the area we lost out in. We need to avoid that at all costs moving forward.”
Lewis added: “We just struggled to get the balance in the perfect window. It is on a knife edge and can go one way or another.
“I think a lot of teams experience that with today’s cars. In hindsight we look back and say we would have done things differently.
“Pace wise we were not terrible – I think I was the third fastest on average through the GP – but the results did not show the true performance.”
A Tale of Two Tracks
Monza and Zandvoort. Chalk and cheese. Or should that be stroopwafel and pasta?
From the high winds and chill of high-downforce Zandvoort, we move on to the low downforce, high grippy surface of Monza.
“It is incomparable weekend to weekend,” said George.
“Session to session, you can gain two or three seconds over the course of the day with the likes of F3, F2 and the Porsches at Monza.
“Even testing something in FP1 and changing something for FP2 makes it a totally different session again.
“You just have to trust the numbers and believe in the engineers back at base. If you do not you could be in a world of pain.”
One aspect that will not differ too much from last weekend is the passion from the grandstands – although, no-one does it quite like the Tifosi.
“It always feels special when you come here. It is always exciting just to see the fans throughout the weekend,” said Lewis.
“The passion here and the excitement that they really bring to this race is really not particularly matched in too many places.”
