Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsManor

Stevens frustrated at race incidents

40

Will Stevens admits he is frustrated to lose out to team-mate Roberto Merhi once again at Spa-Francorchamps having suffered contact at the start of the race.

Having made an impressive start to the season compared to his team-mate, Stevens has been beaten in the last four races in which both Manor cars have been classified. Despite only having been outqualified on three occasions, Stevens has struggled to have as clean races as Merhi recently and says he was again hampered by early contact at Spa.

“My start was actually really good, I got up the inside of [Felipe] Nasr in to the first corner and then when I came out I don’t know who was on the left but I think it was [Fernando] Alonso on the right and they both sandwiched me,” Stevens told F1i. “He hit my front right, which damaged my front right and I thought I was going to have to pit at the end of the first lap because I had a massive vibration.

“It got better as the lap went on, so I tried to do another lap and it seemed like I could drive round. We had it for the whole race so for sure it compromised our pace but even with it our pace was always strong.”

And Stevens says such incidents prove costly in what has become a much closer battle with team-mate Merhi in recent races.

“Being behind, obviously [Merhi] pits first and he gains four or five seconds every time he comes in the pit lane before us. It’s another race where something hasn’t gone our way but actually pace-wise the whole weekend has been really strong and I feel good in the car again.

“A disappointing result but overall I think it’s been a really positive weekend and I think we’re on the right foot so I think heading in to Monza it should be a good weekend.”

Click here for F1i's driver ratings after the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.