Radio Replay: Differing emotions at the flag

After a tough Saturday, the 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix ultimately proved to be a positive race for the team, adding to our points tally in the fight for P7 in the Constructors’ Championship.

Alex Albon, who had opted to start on the hards, was able to make a one-stop strategy work, not changing his tyres during the red flag, and pushing on to a P9 finish.

Logan Sargeant fought his way through the field on two occasions, the latter being a charge from P18 a few corners after the restart, right up to P12, before we were dealt the unenviable task of asking him to retire just a few corners from the chequered flag.

In this edition of Radio Replay, hear what our pair had to say over the airwaves at the end of the race.

Before getting too caught up in an eighth points finish of the season, James Urwin is immediately reminding Alex that it’s time to start cooling the car.

In Mexico City, we race at 2.2km above sea level, so getting the temperatures down on our FW45’s key components is much more difficult. You can learn more about the effects of altitude on an F1 car here.

He is also fed key information on where the cars immediately involved in our Constructors’ Championship battle finished.

The red flag midway through proceedings effectively offered us a half-time break, so Alex would have seen that Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda and Nico Hulkenberg had all been sitting in points-paying positions at the time.

James Vowles, dialling in from Mission Control at our Grove headquarters, expressed his appreciation for Albono’s efforts, acknowledging that it was probably the maximum we could have got out of the afternoon’s proceedings.

No racing driver wants to hear the words that ask them to pull over, not least when you’re entering the very last sector of the circuit on the final lap.

But unfortunately for Logan, that’s exactly what he was asked to do. Again, you’ll see that the very first message our American racer receives is to cool his car.

In his situation, this was even more pressing as he only had a handful of corners in which to do it.

Ed Regan, Logan’s Race Engineer for the weekend, had been requesting switch changes in the closing stages as the team looked at the best ways on which to manage the problem. You can learn more about the process behind this decision in The Vowles Verdict, presented by Kraken.

In the heat of the moment, you never know how an elite sportsperson will react when being asked to stop, especially just before the finish line.

James was quick on the radio to consolidate Sarge following a battling driver that saw plenty of moves made in what was set to be a very good P12 finish.