Russian Grand Prix 2021: Qualifying team radio
62 radio messages were recorded during qualifying at the Russian Grand Prix 2021, across 17 drivers. 61 of them have a transcript; the rest are audio only. Lewis HAMILTON had the most, with 8.
These are transcripts of real team radio audio, produced by speech recognition and presented as an archive rather than as edited prose. Radio is clipped and noisy, so wording can be imperfect. Each message is attributed to the driver or their engineer, and the original audio is playable in the archive.
Who was on the radio
- Lewis HAMILTON · Mercedes · 8 messages
- Valtteri BOTTAS · Mercedes · 6 messages
- Lance STROLL · Aston Martin · 6 messages
- Carlos SAINZ · Ferrari · 5 messages
- Pierre GASLY · AlphaTauri · 5 messages
- Lando NORRIS · McLaren · 5 messages
- George RUSSELL · Williams · 4 messages
- Charles LECLERC · Ferrari · 3 messages
- Daniel RICCIARDO · McLaren · 3 messages
- Sebastian VETTEL · Aston Martin · 3 messages
- Sergio PEREZ · Red Bull · 3 messages
- Fernando ALONSO · Alpine · 3 messages
- Nicholas LATIFI · Williams · 2 messages
- Esteban OCON · Alpine · 2 messages
- Yuki TSUNODA · AlphaTauri · 2 messages
- Kimi RAIKKONEN · Alfa Romeo · 1 message
- Mick SCHUMACHER · Haas · 1 message
Every message, in the order it happened
Charles LECLERC: Wait, maybe before it's green, so we keep the tires hot.
Engineer: Copy.
Engineer: But am I going ahead of George? No, now we need to let George pass but we cannot wait more with blankets
Engineer: The pit lane is wettest on the left so just to keep to the right hand side of the fast lane.
Engineer: So all cars are inters except Alonso the two McLarens are inters
Engineer: Good warm up on the brakes and on the tyres, all cars are on track.
Engineer: OK, so no significant rain expected for the rest of QALY 1.
Engineer: Ok Niki, so expect a bit more rain sooner than expected, important to close all laps.
Engineer: And Gasly going quick on lap two, so we're going for consecutives
Engineer: So we are slow on this one. We can just cool the tyres a bit and then we'll decide if we're going to box now to get Push Cool Push on another set. What's your thought?
Sebastian VETTEL: Tyres still seem to be good. Go to cool. Go to cool to charge.
Engineer: Let's cool this one and then we'll push the next lap.
Charles LECLERC: I want one lap on the new impulse, can I cool down for another lap and push again next lap?
Carlos SAINZ: I have very harsh downshifts, I don't know why
Engineer: Copy, we can check For
Carlos SAINZ: me it's box and try to do a good lap
Engineer: OK, you can go to mode out. You cannot move me. If
Kimi RAIKKONEN: I would have stopped, I would have hit the car in front.
Engineer: Copy, copy. Oh, the car is coming. OK, watch for Perez. He's pushing behind. Perez, 3 seconds.
Engineer: B-Bell 6, B-Bell 6 and positive on the brakes into 13, positive on the brakes into 13.
Charles LECLERC: Yeah, okay. I feel like we're going to the out even if it obviously doesn't change anything for our weekend, but
Engineer: OK, let's make sure we just keep temp in the tyres. P2 at the moment, nearly half a second to Perez, P1. Mainly braking turn 4, braking turn 13.
Engineer: One more lap, keep pushing, keep pushing.
Engineer: Strat 5, Strat 5.
Engineer: It was one second out from Q2, but really good, really good improvement.
Mick SCHUMACHER: Uh, beep! Beep, beep, beep, beep!
Engineer: Beep. Shoot.
Lance STROLL: I got blocked completely blocked
Audio only, no transcript available for this message.
Pierre GASLY: Why is nobody coming?
Engineer: No idea, just do your things.
Pierre GASLY: Yeah, just let me know for the traffic, end of the lap.
Engineer: Yeah, they will have to let you by, don't worry, you will be pushing.
Carlos SAINZ: What's the forecast?
Engineer: Dry Q2 and Q3, dry Q2 and Q3
Engineer: And we have no more rain expected, keep working on your bikes.
Engineer: Everybody on intermediates at the moment.
Pierre GASLY: I have no f***ing grip!
Lewis HAMILTON: Split between the two fronts.
Engineer: OK, copy.
Lance STROLL: Yeah, it wasn't the best lap, but you tell me.
Engineer: Currently P4, currently P4, we can cool and go again, we don't think boxing is the right thing, so keep push, cool, pushing.
Lance STROLL: Okay.
Engineer: So Sebastian is pushing eight behind.
Lance STROLL: Why don't we think boxing is the right thing?
Engineer: We think the tyres are recovering with cool laps, so we can keep cool and push again.
Engineer: So if you think you're not damaging the tire, you can push another lap. So Lewis now P145.4, so it's a tenth there. It's mainly sector one. So sector one. So you've got three laps left. It'll be strat five if you're going for this lap.
Pierre GASLY: Yeah, the f***ing Williams, is he kidding me? Yeah, f***ing Williams, what the hell is he doing?
Engineer: Copy Lewis, just keep an eye on the tyre condition and let us know what they're like
Lewis HAMILTON: Tyres are good Copy,
Engineer: main loss to Valtteri is braking turn 10
Pierre GASLY: My problem with the front tires is f***ed
Engineer: Ok Pierre we have to try again, we have to try again, let's see what we get, keep the head down
Engineer: OK George, so target we think we need is a 46.2, time to find turn 13, 15 and turn 18, we know there was some traffic there.
Engineer: Flag is up, I keep pushing sector 1 to see how the tyres are.
Engineer: P-11, we're out. No
Sebastian VETTEL: way!
Engineer: Five hundredths.
Sebastian VETTEL: No f***ing way! Aaaaaah!
Yuki TSUNODA: Yes, sorry guys, but I think it feels like we met the competitor. I don't know his rank condition
Engineer: But
Yuki TSUNODA: I don't know for the dry still feeling similar feeling as a braking
Engineer: At
Yuki TSUNODA: the lap, you know before we change For traction was definitely better for the traction. But yeah
Engineer: We
Yuki TSUNODA: have to we need to see
Engineer: Yeah, we have a good look, but I think he's a step forward. I
Yuki TSUNODA: think I have massive understand the 24 Definitely comes from the 10-3 almost flat as a big understand and that love time was quite a lot
Engineer: You know, we saw that you he was a bit of a mix
Lance STROLL: We're having trouble with the machine here start the engine so we might think we might want to think about pushing the car
Engineer: Copy that we're sending the guys they're coming up to you. They're coming up to you. It's okay. That's fine. Send them back. It's all good
Engineer: So Lewis, answer to that last question, not a big difference.
Engineer: You can open a Def entry to 5 to help turn 2.
Engineer: Okay, we have Sanayo 7, Sock 8 for single lap. Sanayo 7, Sock 8.
Engineer: OK, all cars on enter so far. You are the sixth car.
Sergio PEREZ: This is the blood right?
Engineer: Confirm. Confirm.
Engineer: So I'll slow it up and charge the pack
Engineer: It's just that moment on AstroTurf out of Turn 4, I'm sure you're aware.
Lance STROLL: There is a dry line developing.
Lando NORRIS: I mean it's definitely much drier, definitely a lot drier, but I think in these conditions these tyres could be the correct choice.
Engineer: Everyone else is stopping on the slicks as well, so we're happy with this decision.
Lewis HAMILTON: Just hit the wall man, hit
Engineer: the wall
Engineer: Okay George, we want to take another cool lap, so we're going to go round again, let's go cool.
George RUSSELL: Are you sure? I don't think that's correct, let's keep cracking.
Engineer: Lando we can back off warm up the tires and go again. There's one minute fifty to the flag one minute fifty to the flag
Lando NORRIS: Yeah, how far off was he give me an answer?
Engineer: He did a 55 zero because he backed off in sector three sector one He did a 38.3 which was about 1.3 slower sector two. He did a He was about four tenths slower It's the second lap. So prepare this tire for the second lap
Lewis HAMILTON: I can't get a temperature man
Engineer: OK Coffee Loose, just do what you can
Lando NORRIS: Yeah, I'm pushing still sir, okay
Engineer: Okay, uh, pole position, mate. Pole position. Oh, f***ing
Lando NORRIS: God!
Engineer: Yes!
Carlos SAINZ: I was looking into a steering and I spun, stupid.
Engineer: This
Lando NORRIS: is awesome, congrats guys, thank you, that was an awesome job
Engineer: P2 confirmed Vamos! Not bad guys! Pulled it off in the end I love when a plan comes together
Engineer: Okay, that's it, P3. Nice,
George RUSSELL: guys. Very well done. Very well done. Good team effort there, again.
Engineer: Excellent work, mate. Well done.
Lewis HAMILTON: The cars had a beat in the session, so yeah.
Engineer: all right well after all that we have qualified p10 um by the looks of it most cars have got a second lap uh on the slicks improved there are only two cars that didn't yourself uh perez and in fact four cars and the two mercs um who both only had time for one lap and fernando improved as well uh standby fernando did improve yeah fernando did improve so p10 two laps so at the moment we're p10 uh fernando's qualified p6 so let's box now please box now
Esteban OCON: copy
Engineer: Well done, mate.
Daniel RICCIARDO: That's good. That's good.
Engineer: Lando managed to put it on pole.
Daniel RICCIARDO: Well done, guys.
Engineer: Yeah, well done, Daniel. We can have a good race from there. We can have a good race from there tomorrow.
Daniel RICCIARDO: That was good fun. Well done, guys.
Engineer: OK Checo, we're in P9, we're P9. The soft tyre only really worked for those that got a build lap on it.
Sergio PEREZ: Sorry. Yeah, it was a lap too early.
Fernando ALONSO: Ayy, ayy 10.16 eh? Yeah, shame about that last centimetre that was a good lap. Yeah, one centimetre on the dump was enough. With a half a second faster.
Engineer: Yeah would have been P4 potentially, but anyway, nice shot. We can work from there tomorrow.
Fernando ALONSO: Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So
Engineer: it was all on the table for us.
Fernando ALONSO: yeah man that sucks we will do it at the start hopefully
Engineer: OK, Lance, that's P8, P8, that was a fantastic lap, you were a second up, that was a really, really good lap, a second up that you lost would have been P4, that was a very, very good lap, box, box. They are looking at the incident, they're looking at it.
Lance STROLL: Yeah, there you go, it was completely in my way.
Engineer: Yeah, copy that, we saw it. Yeah, made the exit at 16 very difficult, so we'll talk about it later, but that was a very good lap, well done.
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