Category Archives: F1 News

Adrian Newey admits that Sebastian Vettel has struggled to adapt to the loss of the blown diffuser in 2014, and says that RBR is trying to adjust the car to suit his style.

Vettel was the master of the art of driving with the extra rear downforce that was generated until the use of exhaust gases was completely outlawed for this year.

“There’s a fair bit of that,” Newey told this writer. “Seb has a very particular way of driving, and if we can get the car to suit that driving style, then he’s very effective. If we can’t then he’s not able to exploit that. So it’s a work in progress.

“We can’t replace the blown diffuser obviously, but Sebastian was quick before they came along. It’s a re-learning curve.”

Meanwhile Newey says that he’s been hugely impressed by Daniel Ricciardo.

“He’s been right on it really from Day One. So often a relatively inexperienced driver coming to a new team, it takes a while to settle, and he seems to have adapted straight away to the new engine regulations and the slightly different characteristics of the car as a result of that. He’s been very good.”

Newey concedes that while the RB10 was closer to Mercedes in Monaco, that might not be the case in Canada.

“It was encouraging, but the circuit flattered us, let’s say, so it may not be the same at some of the circuits coming up. Montreal may not be our strongest circuit.”

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier remains confident that the team will make progress as upgrades are introduced over the next few races.

The team ended its streak of failing to score in Monaco after three frustrating weekends.

“The plan has always been the same, as I said many weeks ago,” Boullier told this writer. “It was going to suit us in Monaco and suit us in Montreal, and Austria as well because it’s a medium downforce track. The first part of our upgrade is coming in Austria, the second part at Silverstone, and it should give us a clear step to catch up a little bit. We keep working and we have many more in the pipeline coming. The target is really to be in the top eight all the time.”

Boullier said the team was pleased to be back in the points with Jenson Button’s sixth place in Monaco, although Kevin Magnussen dropped back to 10th after a technical glitch that took him two laps to resolve.

“It was the usual unpredictable Monaco racing. Let’s say we’re reasonably happy, even if it’s not the ambition of McLaren, to be back in the points. We could have finished sixth and seventh, but as usual in racing you need to pass the chequered flag. We lost the electrical power for a couple of laps, which is why cars were able to attack Kevin. It took two laps to recover, unfortunately. At this time cars were passing him, and Kimi did this very brave move!”

Boullier was pleased with Magnussen’s first F1 outing in Monaco: “To be honest Kevin did a very good weekend, except for a little mistake on the restart when he passed Vergne before the safety car line. We obviously let Vergne pass back.”

Kimi Raikkonen has not enjoyed a great start to the season, but he remains confident that he will be able to get more out of the Ferrari F14 T when he feels more comfortable with it.

Raikkonen, who lost third place in Monaco when he picked up a puncture, has not finished higher than seventh in the six races held so far. He has 17 points to the 61 of Fernando Alonso.

“Obviously we need to improve in many areas,” said the Finn after Sunday’s race. “We’ve done a lot of things with the engine and stuff like that to improve already, but we’re still lacking speed, and if we have to compare it to Mercedes, they’re still quite a way ahead of us. We know what we have to do, but those things will not be easy to fix. It just takes time.

“We’re going forward all the time, but other teams are improving also. So we know where the weaknesses are, but solving those, if would be easy, everybody would have a fast car. We keep working and I’m sure if we can get the results that we were close to get today, with the feelings that we have now, once we get a good feeling with things I’m sure it’s going to be a lot better. But obviously until we get the results and things fixed, we have to keep fighting and hopefully be a bit more lucky in the future.”

Although from the outside Monaco looked like his most impressive race to date in 2014 Raikkonen says that circumstances have disguised his potential on other occasions.

“I’ve driven well many times, but obviously there’s always been something going wrong in the races, punctures from other people hitting me, and it’s just never come together really. It’s just a shame. Today again we had a good position, and got a puncture. It’s just bad luck, small things going wrong and making a massive difference. Unfortunate things.

“I was still unhappy with the car in the race, it was better than in qualifying, but we still have a long way to go to be where we want to be. Obviously I could take results like we were supposed to get today. At some point at least it will turn around, but it wasn’t today.”

Kimi Raikkonen endured a nightmare race in Monaco that saw the Ferrari driver lose a potential third place to a puncture he received after being hit by Max Chilton.

He later retired after an incident with Kevin Magnussen during his attempt to recover ground. The Finn received a reprimand from the FIA stewards for the latter.

Kimi’s day started with him missing the driver’s parade, something that can earn a reprimand and/or fine. In the race he jumped up to third at the start only to receive a rear puncture when he was hit by Max Chilton at Mirabeau under the safety car. At the time the lapped cars had been told to pass those ahead in the queue, but Kimi did not realise that the Marussia wanted to get by.

“For some reason he managed to run into my rear tyre and damage it,” said the Finn. “They were unlapping themselves, but I don’t know how he expected to me to go offline in the tight corner. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he destroyed my race at that point, and after that the race was gone. I had a good position, I had a good speed. I got nothing really out of it, but I wasn’t really hopeful.”

During his recovery drive Kimi had a hard time getting past Kamui Kobayashi, but he didn’t have any problem with the way the Japanese driver behaved.

“I don’t think he did anything ,” he said when asked by speed.com if he was unhappy with Kobyashhi. “On the second one we almost came together, because I think he tried to brake late, and lost the rear, and he was going all over the places, I was already trying to overtake him so I was there. We got really close but he didn’t do anything on purpose, he just tried to brake late. That’s how it goes, we didn’t touch, so that’s OK.”

Later he tried to pass Magnussen at the hairpin after the Danish driver had lost some ground with a technical problem. There wasn’t enough room, so the pair slide wide towards the barrier, although they didn’t make contact until Kimi tried to reverse out.

“I tried to overtake on the inside kerb. I just tried to overtake and couldn’t make the corner. He moved a little bit on the left. I went in the end over the kerb. I was pretty close to turn, but the wall was too close, so I had to reverse. I mean I never hit him until I reversed, because he was behind me. But I didn’t really care at that point. Two points, or eighth place, 10th place or 11th, it made no difference to me.

After the race Kimi was called to to the stewards. They accepted his explanation for missing the drivers’ parade, but received a reprimand for the clash with Magnussen. However they had not planned to investigate the Chilton collision until Kimi brought it up. Chilton later received a reprimand.

“Nobody talked about the safety car thing until I asked. They said we don’t know anything about it, and I said how can it be possible/ Then One guy said we haven’t got anything from Charlie, then Charlie said that he told them, but these guys are telling me 10 minutes later that nobody said anything. I don’t know. It’s not very straightforward unfortunately with those things sometimes. Obviously that was the thing that destroyed the race, but they were not very interested in that, obviously. I missed the driver parade because I didn’t feel good, so they made a big story out of that.”