Hamilton unsure Mercedes upgrade works

In brief

Hamilton unsure over Mercedes’ upgrade

After being disappointed with his eighth-place finish at Zandvoort, Hamilton said the poor result was down to “partly me, partly the car”, and questioned whether the new floor Mercedes raced for the first time last weekend was working as intended.

“I think the car definitely didn’t feel as strong as the last race for some reason. We need to look into that, whether our upgrade is actually delivering or not, we have to wait and see.”

Gasly thrilled with ninth

Pierre Gaslys aid his ninth-place finish at Zandvoort far exceeded Alpine’s expectation.

“I’m extremely happy,” he said. “We definitely were not that optimistic yesterday and, what a race, to be fair. Honestly, it was amazing. I had a great start, managed to go around the outside of Lance [Stroll] and Fernando [Alonso] in turn one, which I think was extremely important for our race, and managed to control the race from there on.

“We managed the tyre, Fernando behind was putting quite a lot of pressure all the way through, had a couple of great battle with Lewis and Carlos [Sainz Jnr] as well. It was fun and very pleased we managed to get on top of that midfield.”

Makino pressures team mate into race-losing spin

Tadasuke Makino followed up his breakthrough Super Formula victory earlier this year with another triumph at Motegi, which moves him within five points of championship leader Tomoki Nojiri.

From fifth on the grid, Makino moved into position to win with a superbly-crafted, multi-corner pass on Toshiki Oyu. From there he closed on race-leading team mate Kakunoshin Ohta, who initially rebuffed Makino’s attack, only to succumb under pressure and spin on the penultimate lap. Pole-winner Kenta Yamashita took second ahead of Nojiri.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Victor and Apex!

• 40 years ago today McLaren dominated the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, Alain Prost leading Niki Lauda in a one-two