Category Archives: F1 News

June 30, 2015 · 9:16 pm

Urgency for F1 improvements, says CVC boss Mackenzie

Donald Mackenzie, the chairman of F1’s key shareholder CVC, has said that there’s an urgent need to address the sport’s issue.

Mackenzie has been a regular sight at Grands Prix this year as discussions continue about how to improve the show. He was also present at the Strategy Group meeting on May 14th, where many ideas were bounced around.

“I think the sport is actually much better than people are writing,” he told this website. “But there is definitely some urgency to see some improvements made, to make it a more exciting sport. Bernie, the teams and the FIA are working on it, and I hope some of the improvements will come along soon.”

Mackenzie acknowledged that things like the multiple power unit grid penalties we saw in Austria are not popular with the public.

“We don’t like that either. It does seem unfair that the driver gets punished for a poor engine, or a mechanical failure. But that’s the FIA’s domain. I know that there’s goodwill everywhere to see if we can make it more interesting and exciting for the fans.

“I’m not sure that refuelling is one of the top priorities. I think we’re just trying to work out how to make the cars go faster. They need more fuel to go quicker, and someone said we might need to refuel, but it was never a strategy.”

Asked about the impact of Dietrich Mateschitz’s recent complaints Mackenzie said: “I think he’s obviously disappointed about where the team is. But he’s a good guy, and I’m sure they’re going to sort that team out, and he’ll be winning again. Red Bull need a better engine than they have, and it would be great if Renault could come up with it. Bernie’s trying to find them a better engine.”

Mackenzie reiterated that CVC has no interest in providing more money for the struggling midfield teams, but said that there was a bigger picture that could ultimately help them.

“There are contracts in place, and they agreed with the contracts when they signed them. It’s always annoying when people change their minds later. We want to help the small teams when we can. We can reduce costs, make the sport more attractive, and get more sponsorship. That would be a good thing.”

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June 24, 2015 · 8:35 pm

Max Mosley: “I don’t really see Bernie’s role changing…”

Former FIA President Max Mosley believes that Bernie Ecclestone is likely to stay on and run continue to run F1 even if the sport is sold on by CVC.

US firm RSE Ventures has been linked with a joint bid with Qatar to buy CVC’s 35% shareholding.

“I think it’s still very early days for a possible takeover,” Mosley said in a BBC radio interview today. “Because before they actually move they will do due diligence, and that will take some little time. A lot will then come out about the current state of the sport, which may or may not encourage them.

“But I think whatever happens, if it is taken over, I don’t really see Bernie’s role changing – unless and until he wants it to change. Because he’s the person who’s managed to sell it everywhere. I’m sure CVC has had thoughts about an 84-year-old chief executive. The fact is that there’s nobody else that does the job as well. That’s my gut feeling.”

Asked about Ecclestone’s survival at the top of the sport he said: “I think the thing is he’s pretty amazing, the way he keeps going. Most of us, when we get to a certain age – and I’m quite a big younger than him but still old – you get tired. I said to him the other day, don’t you feel tired in the afternoon? And he said then the phone calls come in and the emails come in, and the adrenalin goes. I think the fact is that he’s really interested in what he does and does it very well. Age then tends to be flexible.”

Meanwhile Mosley said that the high spending by the big teams was F1’s major problem at the moment.

“I think there have been a few strategic errors, but the fundamental thing is because it’s become so expensive, and you’re allowed to spend as much money as you can get your hands on, then you have two or three teams at the top who spend a vast amount of money, then you have a succession of teams, like a tail end, who’ve got much less money. So they can’t compete.

“And that means then that the grid is relatively uncompetitive, and that of course interferes with the show. The key move would be to make the small teams competitive, and there are one or two ways of doing that. If Bernie and the FIA get together, they can overrule the teams. Put crudely that’s how it is.”

Mosley also reiterated his suggestion that teams spending less money should have more technical freedom.

“The way to solve the problem is to say to the small teams you can have more technical freedom on condition that you work within a cost cap. So then they for example would be allowed to have a moveable front wing. There are a thousand things that they could do to make their cars competitive with the very expensive cars at the front, but on a much smaller budget. The expensive cars at the front would say, ‘I can’t stand for that, I can’t get overtaken by one of the small teams,’ to which the answer is you could operate under the same regime should you choose to do so.

“Fundamentally the problem is soluble, but it needs a fairly determined attack on the current structure.”

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June 20, 2015 · 10:56 am

Button joins Alonso, Ricciardo and Kvyat on grid penalties

Jenson Button has been handed 25 places of grid penalties in Austria after changing engine components overnight.

Button became the first driver to take a sixth power unit element in 2015 when he went to his sixth turbo, and his sixth MGU-H. The first change earns him 10 places, and the second another five. In addition he has gone to his fifth V6 and fifth MGU-K, which are worth five places each, making for a total of 25.

The FIA has confirmed that it was informed last Tuesday that the first three changes would happen in Austria, but the MGU-K was added to the job list only on Friday night.

Fernando Alonso already had 20 places of engine grid penalties, but he has picked up another five today after a gearbox failure in FP3 necessitated a change. Both McLaren drivers look set to face a drive through or more likely a 10s stop and go in the race because they won’t be able to use up the grid penalties.

Meanwhile Daniil Kvyat has officially joined RBR team mate Daniel Ricciardo on a 10 place penalty after taking a new V6 overnight.

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June 19, 2015 · 9:20 am

Massa cautions that F1 was “worse” when Senna was winning

Felipe Massa has cautioned that critics of current F1 have forgotten that the racing was not always close in the past.

While discussing possible future rules changes the Williams driver cited the Ayrton Senna and McLaren Honda era as an example of people looking back with rose-tinted spectacles at a time when one team was dominant.

“When it was 20 years of Ayrton’s crash I remember in Brazil they were showing all the races,” said Massa. “And I was watching most of the races he did, it was a lot worse than how it is now. The difference in the qualifying was maybe 1.5 seconds to the third [place], they were lapping the third every race. So the difference was a lot bigger than it is now. But when you speak to the people everybody says the past is amazing.

“So go back and watch, and then compare to now. So I think this is something that people need to do, not looking in the past without remembering so well, and just saying the past was amazing. The past looks more interesting also, because the tracks were a lot worse, they were a lot more bumpy, so when you see the cars driving with the bumps it looks more difficult. But now everything is more for our world, everything is more safe, the tracks are different.”

Massa is adamant that any rule changes for 2017 should be properly thought through.

“When I see Kimi [Raikkonen] or Niki Lauda say that it needs to be more dangerous, I don’t agree it needs to be more dangerous, I just agree it needs to be better, it needs to be more intelligent. There needs to be a very important study to make things more intelligent, not just to change. I think in F1 we always had a lot of change, but maybe some times change is not changing anything, so I think that’s important.

“I don’t believe the FIA will change the tracks and make [them] more dangerous, because I don’t think it’s correct, I just believe we need to think about the changes, and be more intelligent, to see where we can improve. So maybe this is something we need to understand.”

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June 19, 2015 · 5:30 am

Sebastian Vettel: “We need to have a flawless weekend”

Sebastian Vettel is in optimistic mood heading into the Austrian GP weekend, although the Ferrari star concedes that he’ll only get a shot at victory if Mercedes under performs in some way.

“I think ideally we always try to fight for the win,” he said on Thursday. “I know that we have a strong package this year, a strong car, so if everything goes normal then we should be a little bit further up again, especially on Saturday this weekend.

“But we also have to be realistic [in] challenging the Mercedes. We know that first of all we need to have a flawless weekend, a perfect weekend and maybe hoping for them to have a little bit of a struggle. But in normal circumstances it is quite difficult to beat them as they are still the favourites going in, and there is still quite a big gap.”
Meanwhile Vettel conceded that he enjoyed his charge through the field in Canada.

“For sure it was more entertaining than the races before. It’s normal when you come from the back. Obviously first of all you go through cars that are slower than you. In general, obviously it was busier and at the end once I had my position I think I could extract a little bit more the pace of the car.

“But overall it was quite exciting and it was a good recovery, valuable points. We avoided all the risk in the opening lap which is always a bit messy if you are in the back of the field, but fortunately it all worked out and as I said we could get good points.”

Regarding prospects for the rest of the year he added: “First of all I think you have to see that it is natural that from track to track it might vary a bit but I think we’ve already done an incredible job. If you look at winter testing and where we are now, I think we consider ourselves to be quite a bit closer. Yeah, obviously it’s not that easy to make the gap smaller and smaller because Mercedes is a strong team, and obviously they are improving as well.

“They introduced a new spec of engine in Canada so they’re also making progress but our target for sure, is to make bigger progress to finally close the gap, so for sure, we are hoping that in the second part of the season, we are starting to get closer – closer than we are now.”

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June 18, 2015 · 4:24 pm

Lewis Hamilton: “I think people are looking to blame something…”

Lewis Hamilton says driving a current F1 car is not as easy as it looks after the “lift and coast” radio messages in Canada made many observers question how hard drivers have to push these days.

Hamilton insists that current drivers have their hands full as they manage fuel, tyres and other parameters, and they need information from the pit wall.

“It’s different definitely from the years where you had fuel pit stop and you had tyres which you could perhaps push further,” he said today. “But it’s the new way of F1, apparently. It’s not easy to be accurate with the different driving techniques we have to use nowadays.

“Naturally when you’re behind people you want to be pushing to get past, but you’ve also got to watch your fuel, and watch your tyres, because otherwise you won’t make your stop. There’s so many things which you have to have in the back of your mind when you make those decisions.”

Lewis insisted that drivers need to have information from their engineers.

“For us drivers with the way these tyres are, [for] the optimum way to get to the end of the race, we don’t have all the information in front of us. You can’t feel how much fuel you are using. You are driving as fast as you can the majority of the time, so you need some guidance with that.

“What do you think’s going to happen if they don’t tell me about tyres? I’m still going to drive the same. And if they don’t tell me about fuel, then maybe more cars won’t finish. If that’s more exciting, we can do that!”

Elaborating on the lift and coast issue he said: “You have no guidance to know how much fuel you’re using. There is an indicator that you can have, but it’s not very accurate. You’re just driving your race, and you know you have 100kgs to use. It’s not like you have a figure that shows you how much money you are using in your bank account and you can see it going down as you make your payments.

“A lap is payment and you don’t know how much fuel you used than any other lap. You could just use one lower gear and you lose than than the one before, or you can be a little bit more aggressive on power and you use a little bit more fuel than on the previous lap, but you can’t see that. So that’s where you get the guidance.

“A couple of years ago there was more information, so I’m not really sure, I think people are looking to blame something because they’re unhappy about something.”

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June 10, 2015 · 10:09 am

Ecclestone keeping door open for New Jersey F1 race

Bernie Ecclestone has indicated that the New Jersey F1 race could still have a future, despite the event appearing to be dead in the water.

Billed as the Grand Prix of America, the street race at Port Imperial appeared on the provisional calendar in both 2013 and 2014, only to be dropped on both occasions.

The main problem was that promoter Leo Hindery could not find the outside investment he had been seeking, and indeed at one stage Ecclestone organised a loan that provided some funding to get the project moving – a clear indication of just how keen he was to make the race happen.

However, that still wasn’t enough to save the event, and given its absence from the 2015 schedule it’s been widely assume that the plans had been abandoned.

However cable TV mogul Hindery met with Ecclestone on Friday morning in Montreal to discuss a possible way forward, and despite the already cramped calendar Bernie has indicated that the event could still have a future.

Ecclestone told this writer: “He’d like to see that race happen. We’ll have a look and see what we can do for him.”

Asked about the past financial arrangements with Hindery Bernie added: “He doesn’t owe us anything.”

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June 8, 2015 · 4:18 pm

Kimi Raikkonen: “There is no way I could control it any more…”

Kimi Raikkonen’s spin in the Canadian GP was related to software settings catching the Finn out on his first lap out of the pit lane.

Raikkonen lost third place due to the incident, and had to make an extra pit stop for tyres before salvaging fourth. He also had a similar spin last year.

“It is something that we know now,” he said after the race. “And probably should have been more smart about it and been able to avoid it. I don’t know how to explain it is on the edge, you move the pedal a little bit and you get massive difference on the torque, and there is no way I could control it any more. So, it happened last year but it is slightly different thing but same ending.

“It is something that is to do with the pit stop maps and stuff like that. It it is not to do with the tyres or anything else. It is an unfortunate thing but it happens. We have to learn those things, and improve.

“It is a stupid thing but it happens, so we have to learn from it and obviously it hurt us in the race but disappointing results in the end. We wanted more but it is what it is.”

Raikkonen said it was hard to properly judge the upgrades Ferrari brought to Canada.

“We were hoping for a better result and better speed against them, but I think this circuit really is going to show you the difference if you are lacking or something. I am sure the upgrades that we did was good, it works a expected and we still have to work hard and improve things overall, but I am sure when we go to more normal circuits we should be stronger. We know where the differences are, we were hoping to be a bit more close fight and a better result.”

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June 6, 2015 · 2:59 pm

Verstappen stuck with 15-place grid penalty

Max Verstappen has become the first driver to take an engine penalty in 2015 – in only the seventh race of the season.

The Toro Rosso driver has taken his fifth Renault V6 for FP3 in Canada, and that triggers a 10-place penalty. This will be added to the five places he already had after his collision with Romain Grosjean in Monaco.

Depending on where he qualifies, he could face an extra penalty in the race. Last year if a driver could not take a complete grid penalty – due to qualifying well down the grid – the remaining places carried over for one race.

However, this season any penalty places not taken translate into penalties in the current race. If one to five places are not taken, the driver will have a 5s time penalty at his first pit stop, and if it’s six to ten places, that becomes a 10s time penalty. Anything between eleven and twenty places not taken leads to a drive through penalty early in the race.

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June 3, 2015 · 6:12 pm

Manor reserve role for Leimer

Former GP2 champion Fabio Leimer has joined Manor as reserve driver, and the Swiss will be given some FP1 sessions over the course of this season.

The 26-year-old won the GP2 title in 2013, but despite testing for Sauber never really had the momentum with which to move into F1.

Team boss John Booth said: “Fabio will be joining us at selected races for the rest of the season, contributing to engineering meetings and on hand to substitute for either race driver should they be unable to compete at any stage. Familiarity with the car is therefore important, so we plan to run Fabio in a number of opening free practice sessions this season, allowing us to further evaluate his potential.”

“In particular I’m very excited to have the chance to drive the car in selected FP1s,” said Leimer. “But I am also looking forward to spending a lot of time trackside with the team, contributing my observations and experience in engineering situations and also learning about the team and a Formula 1 operation. It’s a huge step for me and I can’t wait to get started and hopefully reward the team’s confidence in me.”

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