Category Archives: F1 News

March 27, 2015 · 11:53 am

Fernando Alonso: “The car is easy to drive…”

Fernando Alonso had a solid first day back in the McLaren Honda today in Malaysia as he logged 45 relatively troublefree laps.

He finished FP2 in 16th, a place ahead team mate Jenson Button, and the only drivers who were slower than the McLaren duo were Romain Grosjean, who did very few laps before he was sidelined by a technical issue, and the two Manor drivers. Nevertheless Alonso is pleased with progress.

“It felt great today in the car,” he said. “Finally after the gym, after the simulator, whatever you do it is never the same as the car, so I enjoyed so much driving here. The conditions obviously are extreme, very hot, and physically it is very demanding. I am not 100 per cent physically and fit after two weeks on the sofa, and two weeks of not in the car.

“It was really the second day of testing for me because I have one good day in Barcelona with 63 laps. and today 45. The rest of the days were seven laps, nine, eleven, so today I really enjoyed it. Definitely a step forward, a big step forward for us.

“It’s much better. The experience that we had in winter was a lot of problems, after four or five laps we stopped and we had to change something, but today we ran 45 laps with zero problems, everything went as we predict. We will see tomorrow in qualifying. We were I think 4.6s behind pole position in Australia, here could maybe be 3-3.5secs, so that is a 1 or 1.5s gain in two weeks, so it’s a big step forward.

Regarding the latest updates he said: “I think there are a lot of things going on in the car now. There are big steps on aerodynamics, a lot of understanding of the power unit, interaction between everything in the car. Every lap is a learning curve for us. In terms of driving, I felt great. The car is very consistent, the car is easy to drive, and it gives you confidence to push to the limit.

“We had some issues today on braking, with front and rear locking that was a little bit inconsistent, and we are looking at this. Hopefully tomorrow we can push more.”

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March 27, 2015 · 11:05 am

James Allison: “We do look as if our pace is reasonably good…”

Ferrari technical director James Allison says it’s too early to judge Ferrari’s true form in Malaysia following a promising first day for the team in Sepang.

Kimi Raikkonen was second fastest in FP2 and some 0.373s off Lewis Hamilton, although admittedly the Briton did not have an easy day. The red car looked particularly good on the medium option tyre, although Sebastian Vettel didn’t get a clean run on it and was thus down in seventh.

“I don’t know, we’ll find out on Sunday!,” Allison said when asked about prospects for the race. “But we do look as if our tyre deg is quite good, and we do look as if our pace is reasonably good. But everyone uses the Fridays differently, so you never know what the others were doing. But we feel it’s been a good day.”

Regarding Raikkonen’s pace he said: “The car’s going well, he’s going well, and so is Sebastian, to be honest. If you look at where Sebastian was in FP2, his best time was set on the prime tyre, and Kimi’s on the option, albeit a scrubbed option. So I think both of them are going well and I expect Kimi will have a good race on Sunday, as should Sebastian, based on the pace we saw today.

Asked by this writer about closing the gap to Mercedes he said: “It would be nice if they could feel us breathing down their collars, or even in the course of time get ourselves in front of them. I think the delta we saw in Melbourne probably was a little unkind to us. I think we probably should have been a little bit ahead of the Williams in qualifying, and then driven up the road 15 or 20 seconds more than we did. It would be nice to have a clean qualifying here and see what we can do.”

Meanwhile Allison made some interesting observations about the improvements seen in this year’s Ferrari package.

“In pure lap times the gains are almost equal, chassis and power unit wise. I guess on the chassis as normal the lion’s share of the gains are aerodynamic, because that’s the thing that has the most authority to put lap time on the car. So on the chassis side its 80/20 aero versus some quite useful gains that have been made in the cooling efficiency of the car, which then translate into aero by allowing you to run the car tighter at the back.”

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March 27, 2015 · 8:16 am

Lewis Hamilton: “The Ferraris look great, they really do…”

Lewis Hamilton finished Friday on top of the times at Sepang, but it was a far from easy day for the Mercedes driver.

Hamilton stopped on track in FP1 with what turned out to be an inlet issue, and by the time it was addressed he had missed the first half of FP2. He also suffered with telemetry issues in both sessions which further restricted his lappery.

“Firstly it was just an amazing job done by my guys to rebuild the car and get the engine back on, and gearbox and everything, and get me back out,” said Hamilton. “I’m very grateful for that. Particularly here where it’s so hot it’s so difficult for the tyres and everything, it was really important to get back out and do some laps.”

He added that the lost track time was costly: “It affects you quite a bit. Fortunately I got a few laps of a longer run at the end, but in terms of my set-up I’ve not made any changes, so I’ve just driven what I have. It’s quite a bit off with where I probably need it.

“I know my lap wasn’t spectacular. As I said I think I’ve got some improvements I can make with the balance and the settings, they were all kind of brought from the last race. I’m sure we’ll tweak it and improve it a little bit.”

Meanwhile Hamilton admitted he was impressed by the main competition.

“The Ferraris look great, they really do. It’s surprising to see how good their times are. We’ll see whether that continues through the weekend.”

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March 27, 2015 · 6:37 am

Suspended fine for Williams after tyre mistake

Williams has been handed a €10,000 suspended fine by the FIA after the team made a mistake with tyre usage in FP1.

All drivers are given a set of primes which can only be used in the first 30 minutes of running and which are then handed back to Pirelli. However Felipe Massa was still using his after the 10.30am cut-off point today.

The stewards noted: “The competitor admitted the infringement and sought to mitigate. Having considered the facts the stewards accept that the infringement was inadvertent and no advantage was gained as a result. In the circumstances the stewards decided that a suspended penalty was appropriate for the infringement.”

They noted that the suspended fine would become payable if the team committed another similar offence.

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March 26, 2015 · 9:29 am

Red Bull’s call to rein in Mercedes is “funny,” says Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton said today that he finds Red Bull’s call for the FIA to rein in Mercedes as “funny” – given the success that RBR had in previous years.

Hamilton is adamant that Mercedes has worked hard to get where it is today.

“I find it quite funny,” he said when asked by this writer about Christian Horner’s comments. “It’s an interesting opinion coming from individuals who have had so much success. Also it’s only been one race, so to already have comments after the first race is what I find funny.

“And then on the personal side it was a big step for me to come to this team that had had so many years of poor performance – they hadn’t had the success of other teams. Not once did this team ever complain to others in order to equalise things, they just worked their arses off. We came to this team and saw them making that progress, and now they’re the best team, we’ve pulled together and done an amazing job.

“It’s not just me here it’s more than a thousand people working back at the two factories to build the best car, and we’ve done that with the same rules and the same resources that the other top teams have generally had. I’m really very proud of that. I think it’s kind of a funny situation.”

Hamilton is confident that Mercedes can stay ahead as this season unfolds: “With my understanding of the rules and how F1 is, and knowing how limited your time is in the wind tunnel and development, we all have that same amount of time. Providing we push forward thr same speed as everyone else, we should stay ahead. I believe the team will do that. Of course we never knew what others were going to do coming into the season, we didn’t know how much improvement others would have done.

“But we’re obviously very pleased with the work the team has done – obviously we were pretty competitive last year, and to still make an improvement on top of that is pretty exceptional. It’s a true showing of how amazing this team is now. If these people stay in the same place, and the right philosophy is taken, this team will be strong for many, many years.”

Meanwhile Lewis is hoping that he can keep up his Australian GP form.

“It’s only one qualifying session and Nico didn’t get his qualifying session right. I’m happy that I was able to perform that way and I plan to keep performing in that way. It still wasn’t perfect and I can improve, and with the race I think it just continued generally what I was doing for. There’s not really much progress – it’s small increments.

“I think Nico will be quick this weekend and he’ll be pushing as hard as he always did last year in qualifying. I’ve just got to try and keep up the momentum from the last race if I can.”

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March 26, 2015 · 7:17 am

Valtteri Bottas: “I really felt like someone had put in a knife…”

Valtteri Bottas has been passed fit to race in Malaysia by the FIA, and the Finn is confident that he won’t have any more problems.

Williams has adjusted the seat and pedal positions in order to put less pressure on his back.

“It’s good, no pain, so that’s nice,” he said. “The end of last week I could do something without pain, and during the weekend I could do some training, swimming and cross training, without any pain. The recovery was really good. We did everything we can in this short period of time, but luckily it was two weeks, and I feel confident to go back in the car.”

Regarding the cause he said: “We have a good idea, so we have changed the seat and pedal position quite a reasonable amount so the back is in a more neutral position in the car, so less pressure for the discs. We’re confident that it should be it.

“I’ve never had any problems before with the lower back, and obviously that kind of thing takes a bit of time to build up. There was no warning, it just went suddenly, I never had any pain before. It was maximum braking into Turn 13, and it was the last timed lap of qualy 2. I really felt like someone had put in a knife, and then it was ramping up, the pain, until midnight. Luckily then it started to ease off during the night and then in the morning I would have been ready to race.”

Bottas said he wanted to race but had to accept the FIA decision in Melbourne.

“I passed the tests, but they had all the access to the material we got from the hospital, the MRI and all that stuff, and maybe they thought it was just better in the longer term. Which could be true, but it as very disappointing not to able to race, but I respect the decision from the FIA. Now they say I’m feet to race, which I also feel, which is good.”

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March 20, 2015 · 1:14 pm

Carlos Sainz Jr: “I think we can keep up the good work”

Carlos Sainz says he’s learned a lot from a busy Australian GP that saw him eventually finish ninth, despite a delay of over 30s in his pit stop.

The Spaniard, who also survived first corner contact, lost several positions when the team had trouble with the left rear corner.

“I’ve learned everything,” he said. “They put a lot of problems in front of me in this first race, 58 laps without a single rest, and with all that to finish ninth we have to be positive. I just look forward to Malaysia, because I think we can keep up the good work.”

Sainz admitted the pit stop delay was hugely frustrating.

“It was a tough moment, for us, for the whole team, not only for me. We were in a very good position, we were fighting a Red Bull, which was our target. We were doing a great job, all of us, until that point onwards all the race changed, and it was just a matter of bringing it home without problems. We struggled a lot with fuel consumption and everything. It was a shame because to be honest we couldn’t fight much for a position, we were very limited down the straights as we expected.”

Regarding his first corner contact he said: “It was a bit of a shame, because I did a great start, and was maybe a bit too optimistic into Turn One. But lesson learned, and we turn the page and go forward.”

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March 19, 2015 · 4:06 pm

Last chance for German GP fades as Nurburgring drops out

The Nurburgring has now joined Hockenheim in confirming that it will not host a German GP in 2015 – a year that sees Mercedes as reigning World Champions, Nico Rosberg fighting for the title, and Sebastian Vettel racing for Ferrari.

Bernie Ecclestone, who said last week that the event was “dead,” had been negotiating for weeks with both venues. He had clearly been hoping that Mercedes would step forward and underwrite the race – the company has always brought a lot of guests to its home race – but Toto Wolff made it clear in Melbourne that it would not happen.

Nurburgring spokesman Pietro Nuvoloni told SID: “Due to time constraints, organisational and economic reasons, it makes no sense at this stage to stage the race.”

He added that the track had “submitted a very detailed offer and also underlined in this willingness to wear a manageable possible financial loss. Because so far no agreement could be reached, we have now closed the window. We regret that very much.”

Earlier this week Hockenheim said that there was no chance of a race. In any case even had a deal been reached, at this stage it would have been impossible for either of the tracks to properly market tickets.

The German GP has figured in every World Championship except in 1955 and 1960.

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March 18, 2015 · 2:44 pm

Sauber responds to Van der Garde: “It would only encourage a mud fight…”

Sauber has responded to Giedo van der Garde’s statement of earlier today by claiming that it has answers to his “statements and accusations” – but then choosing not to expand.

In a message addressed to fans the team said: “Many of you read today’s statement on Giedo van der Garde’s Facebook page. So have we and we were, indeed, rather surprised. We don’t know about Giedo’s intentions. He may try to present himself as a winner, while we had actually hoped to come to rest after our agreement. Giedo decided to take a different approach – the reasoning behind we cannot understand.

“We’d have very good answers to the many statements and accusations in Giedo’s post. But to expand on this wouldn’t help our race team nor our fans and partners. It would only encourage a mud fight via the media and we will not lend ourselves to that. The next race in Malaysia is where our focus is and that’s where we will build up on last weekend’s success together with our drivers Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr. All our efforts are drawn to this objective.

“With this in mind we’d like to encourage you to form your own opinion about what happened, however critical it may be. From our side we herewith close the matter and look already forward to celebrating future achievements at the race track together with you.

“Yours sincerely, Sauber F1 Team”

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March 18, 2015 · 9:01 am

Van der Garde: Case should wake-up call for F1 business ethics

Giedo van der Garde says he hopes his case acts as a wake-up call to the sport after many other drivers have had problems with teams – and not been in a position to fight back.

Several current drivers are owed money by teams (including Sauber), and for example it’s a matter of record that Timo Glock was one of the major creditors of Marussia.

Van der Garde is backed by powerful businessmen who were not willing to walk away without a fight, including father-in-law, Marcel Boekhoorn and manager Jeroen Schothorst.

Van der Garde has already been in touch with GPDA boss Alex Wurz on the subject.

“I would like to direct a few words to the teams, drivers, future drivers, their managers and the Formula One governing bodies,” said Van der Garde. “I sincerely hope that what has happened to me will start a movement aimed at setting new standards and bringing about new regulations to help protect the rights of drivers. I would like to think that the values and business ethics that apply in any other business should be equally applicable in Formula One.

“I am lucky to have had Marcel and Jeroen on my side. Both of them have extensive backgrounds in business and bring a lot of expertise to the table when it comes to resolving complicated business affairs. Without them, I would have remained empty-handed in the wake of this extraordinary affair.

“There are numerous examples of talented drivers with good intentions but without the sort of professional support that I have had, who have been broken by Formula One and who have seen their careers destroyed. I therefore hope that my unprecedented case which was heard last week by the Supreme Court of Victoria at Melbourne will serve as an example to illustrate what should change, and that new regulations will be implemented to help protect driver rights.”

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