Category Archives: F1 News

The FIA World Motor Sport Council has now issued an official 2015 schedule that as expected includes 20 races, with the Mexico GP the only addition to this year’s calendar.

Changes to a preliminary schedule that had been circulating include Austin now running before Mexico, and Japan being moved forward to run back-to-back with Singapore, leaving Russia as a stand alone event.

As mentioned here previously there will be anxious faces at COTA given that many Mexican fans who have been travelling to the USA may now focus on their home race.

2015 FIA F1 World Championship

March 15: Australia
March 29: Malaysia
April 5: Bahrain
April 19: China
May 10: Spain
May 24: Monaco
June 7: Canada
June 21: Austria
July 5: GB
July 19: Germany (Nurburgring)
July 26: Hungary
August 23: Belgium
September 6: Italy
September 20: Singapore
September 27: Japan
October 11: Russia
October 25: USA
November 1: Mexico
November 15: Brazil
November 29: Abu Dhabi

The FIA is pushing ahead with its plan to cut back on radio transmissions – by banning all messages from pit to car relating to the performance of the car and the driver.

Drivers can still say whatever they want to the pits, however.

The FIA has used a long standing rule that says that drivers must drive the car “alone and unaided.”

The news was confirmed to teams today in a Technical Directive, issued by Whiting and seen by this writer.

Whiting wrote: “In order to ensure that the requirements [sic] of Article 20.1 of the F1 Sporting Regulations is respected at all times we intend to rigorously enforce this regulation with immediate effect. Therefore no radio conversation from pit to driver may include any information that is related to the performance of the car or driver.”

He also confirmed that teams cannot get round it by sending information in other forms: “We should also remind you that data transmission from pit to car is specifically prohibited by Article 8.5.2 of the F1 Technical Regulations.”

Team and driver can still talk about pit strategy and so on, but nevertheless the decision is sure to create a huge stir in the days to come…

Luca di Montezemolo is to leave his job as president of Ferrari, and he will be replaced by Fiat/Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne, as predicted here yesterday.

He will leave on October 13th, after the celebrations for Ferrari’s 60 years in North America.

Announced in a short statement from Fiat, the news came after a summit meeting between Montezemolo and Marchionne, the latter having recently made negative comments about the way the team was performing.

In statement Montezemolo said: “Ferrari will have an important role to play within the FCA Group in the upcoming flotation on Wall Street. This will open up a new and different phase which I feel should be spearheaded by the CEO of the Group.

Michael Schumacher’s management has confirmed that he will continue his rehabilitation at his home in Switzerland.

The move follows follows a period in a hospital in Lausanne, where he was taken after his initial stay in Grenoble.

An official statement said: “Henceforth, Michael’s rehabilitation will take place at his home. Considering the severe injuries he suffered, progress has been made in the past weeks and months. There is still, however, a long and difficult road ahead.

“We would like extend our gratitude to the entire team at CHUV Lausanne for their thorough and competent work. We ask that the privacy of Michael’s family continue to be respected, and that speculations about his state of health are avoided.”

Ferrari endured a tough Italian GP weekend against a background of continued speculation about the future of Luca di Montezemolo, which only intensified after critical commented emerged from Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne.

Marchionne is tipped to take over the presidency of Ferrari himself, possibly as an interim measure, although there are also suggestions that the 62-year-old’s end game is to eventually quit his Fiat and Chrysler jobs to run Ferrari as a ‘project’ as he eases towards eventual retirement.

Meanwhile Marco Mattiacci made it clear that the pieces are being put in place for a return to form in the future.

“We have a very clear picture about where is the deficit, and about the assets,” he said. “I can say definitely the assets are that we have a lot of talented people, but it’s evident in which areas we are lagging behind, and we are already working for a few months in order to address those issues. I’m definitely not going to make public giving my competitors an advantage about where my weaknesses are. We know and we are already working to address those issues. As I said and I keep saying this a medium/long term project, because we are talking about engineering investments, so it takes a while.

“The strong points are the drivers, the brand, the company, the heritage, the culture, the people who work every day from 7am to midnight. There are many, many assets to start from. And there is the tradition of winning, we know how to win, and we are obsessed to go back to the top. There is a huge motivation and hunger to go back to the top because we belong there. My role is to shorten as much as we can as much as we can that kind of curve.”

Mattiacci said that the Italian GP was a valuable experience for him.

“First of all I think for me it was important to experience the impressive love and passion that there is around Ferrari, and to understand the relevance that Ferrari is much more than just a racing company, it is an institution, and we have an obligation to fans. And this gives me again a lot of motivation towards the team, to make sure that this frustration is going to end. I still believe that we had a good pace, the car confirmed an improvement, but definitely we had a deficit in qualifying.

“If you start lower on the grid, it’s going to be difficult, if you don’t have a strong power unit. But I think we had the same pace as Red Bull, and some of the others, and we could have done better. Unfortunately we started too far behind to have a normal race.”

Mattiacci said that Alonso’s rare retirement at Monza was inevitable, given the long streak of good reliability the red cars have demonstrated.

“So far we have been good in terms of reliability, but statistically we had to face something. We had an issue with the ERS. We never had this issue before, but it happened. Everybody was having reliability issues this year, but Ferrari, so we joined the group.”

Regarding the performance of the power unit he said: “As you know there is this great regulation which does not allow you today which to improve what could be absolutely improveable, but it’s as it is. I keep saying we have been doing small but consistent improvements on the car.”

Toto Wolff has laughed off suggestions that Nico Rosberg took to the Monza escape road deliberately, in order to allow Lewis Hamilton to pass.

Inevitably the web has been buzzing with theories suggesting that his second excursion was a convenient way for Rosberg to make up for Hamilton’s retirement in Spa, by ensuring that Lewis gained maximum points.

“He tried to protect the rear,” said Wolff when asked about Rosberg’s offs. “So he went forwards with the brake balance, hit the brake hard, and missed the braking. I think there was no technical reason behind that.

“It’s not like many other races I’ve seen with Nico, he rarely makes mistakes, and two today in the same place. To be fair and to give him credit we haven’t really analysed it through every detail, whether he had a problem with the brakes. As I said before he went forward with the brakes, and that is the moment where he locked up the first time.

“Then one of the main messages to the drivers was don’t flat spot the tyres, because if you flat spot the tyres we will need to pit you. So maybe this is why he didn’t really try hard into that corner, because it’s better to take the exit and not flat spot them.”

Earlier he had been asked about the conspiracy theory by TV pundit Eddie Jordan: “I said to Eddie that only a paranoid mind could come up with such an idea, if it would have been our idea it would have been bloody well done! I think there was lots of pressure on Nico because Lewis was so quick yesterday, and you could see that today as well.”

Meanwhile Wolff said he was pleased with the way Hamilton had bounced back from recent disappointments.

“I’ve been impressed with Lewis since many races, because he had some dreadful weekends, dreadful Saturday, dreadful Sundays, and he has always come back with a smile to the next race. He was always in good spirits and a good mood. That is something which is impressive in general.”

Christian Albers has left his job as team principal of Caterham just two months after being appointed by team advisor Colin Kolles.

Caterham says that erstwhile deputy team principal Manfredi Ravetto will take over his duties.

Albers made the huge leap from being a driver to team boss at the invitation of Kolles, with whom he has a long relationship. Officially the former Minardi and MF1/Spyker driver is resigning to spend more time with his family, but reading between the lines it would seem that the arrangement simply hadn’t worked out as well as had been hoped.

In a Caterham statement Albers said: “Over the past months I have dedicated all my energy to ensure the takeover of the team would go as smoothly as possible and to achieve the best possible result for our investors, sponsors and all the people involved with Caterham F1 Team.

“As such I worked tirelessly to reconstruct the team while, at the same time, making technical updates on the car. In doing this we created both a better foundation for the team’s future and achieved significant improvements on the speed of the car.

“Due to private reasons and in order to be able to spend more time with my family, I will resign from my position as CEO of Caterham F1 Team. I wish the team all the best in the future‎.”