Category Archives: F1 News

Nico Rosberg managed to recover to second place after a difficult race in Shanghai, and in so doing ensured that he still leads the championship.

His pit wall lost telemetry even before the start, and that contributed to a bad getaway that saw him drop to seventh. He also survived first corner contact with Valtteri Bottas, after which he had to fight his way back up. He now has 79 points to the 75 of Lewis Hamilton.

“I’m definitely in the lead and that’s good,” said Rosberg. “Especially considering that the whole weekend was really, really bad for me. It went completely wrong in so many different respects. Also, in the race we had no telemetry so there was no communication between the car and the pits, so they had no idea what was going on on track, and that’s why the start was also so bad, and a lot of things came together. So I’m pleased with second and I just look forward to a normal weekend again in Barcelona, full attack again.”

Regarding his drive through the field he said: “It’s really a pleasure to drive this car at the moment. It’s incredible the car that the team has built – fantastic. So thanks to the whole team. And Mercedes. This thing is so quick. It really increases the enjoyment level even further.

“Set-up-wise it was a good team effort this weekend. Because it’s a very unique track here with the understeer being the main problem and the front-left tyre, so you really have to change everything, adapt to the needs of the track and we did well as a team. It wasn’t perfect in the race but it was definitely pretty good.”

Rosberg admitted that the telemetry issue was frustrating, especially as he had to give the team fuel consumption information from his dashboard.

“My telemetry failed, so I was completely on my own out there. The team doesn’t see any information from the car. So I had to do all the things on my own out there and, for example, it was then telling the team what my fuel level is so that they could judge if I was using too much fuel or if I’m safe – and I had to do that in Turn One, and Turn One is a difficult corner anyways, so I didn’t enjoy that point.”

Nico Rosberg starts the Chinese GP from fourth place, separated from Lewis Hamilton by the two Red Bulls – and thus he has to get past them to take the fight to his team mate.

Rosberg says tyres will be the key at a track that always put a big strain on the front left.

“It will be a tough race, because the left front tyre is a big issue,” said Rosberg. “For sure there will be things happening, some people will struggle more than others. I had a good run on Friday, so I’m going into it confidently, knowing that I’ve this Red Bull package in the middle, which is not very helpful. But that’s the way it is, and with the top speed that I have I’m hoping that I manage to get by them somehow.

“I’ve got my eyes set on Lewis, who’s that bit ahead. But the Red Bulls also had a good race speed, and they seemed to be OK with the front graining on Friday. So it’s not going to be easy to get by them. I hope to have a good start, maybe with the engine power that we have I can get a bit of a run into Turn One. We’ll see. But it won’t be easy, for sure.

“Then from there we just have to see how it goes with strategy and try and get my tyre management right. There will also be some interesting things going on also with option and prime, because the option grains that little bit more, so it’s not really clear which tyre is better at which point in the race. So that will open up the race a little bit tomorrow, and throw in also maybe some surprises, and some opportunities also.”

Rosberg, who had a scrappy Q3, was once again beaten by his team mate in a wet session.

“Even if everything would have gone right for me today, he was faster. So he’s just been doing a good job in the wet, that’s clear. Again today he was very quick. But also one must say that the set-up is completely wrong for the race today, we’re set-up for front left graining for tomorrow, which is the opposite of what you need in the wet, and the rear was just all over the place today. So that’s a little thing just to throw in. But nonetheless definitely he did a good job, and up to now in the wet, yes, he’s had an edge over me in qualifying at least.”

New Ferrari boss Marco Mattiacci says the opportunity to take over as head of the F1 team came out of the blue in a phone call from Luca di Montezemolo last week – some 72 hours before the news of his appointment was officially confirmed.

The erstwhile Ferrari North America boss was in New York when his boss rang.

“I received a call at 5.58am on Friday morning,” he said. “It was the chairman Montezemolo on the phone, and he told me this is my idea. And I thought that April Fools was already far away, it was 15 days later! Then after the second or third minute of discussion I understood that it was serious. I understood because there was already a ticket ready to go from New York, to Milan, after three hours. I arrived Saturday morning at Maranello, at the Fiorano track.”

Mattiacci said he spent some time talking with the departing Stefano Domenicali.

“Stefano is a great person, he’s a friend of mine. We spent Saturday, a few hours, Monday, we spent the entire day together. He is a person that I have the utmost respect [for], first as a human being, second as a professional. So it was natural for us to discuss the role.”

He insisted that running the F1 team had not been on his horizons: “I never had an agenda about what I want to be. I always worked extremely hard to be prepared for whatever chance was offered to me in any environment. That’s the beauty of life. I don’t think you can control or plan too much. I think you need to be prepared.”

Mattiacci said it was premature to say if there would any restructuring.

“It’s too early for me to make such statements. What I know is that I worked in Ferrari since 14 years, I’ve been the last four days in Maranello, in the Gestione Sportiva. We have an amazing group of talented people. I think we have a history, a pedigree that is unique, a pride that is impressive.

“To talk about restructuring is too early. Definitely we are here, I’m here. Mr Montezemolo is extremely focussed on giving any kind of support to the team, and if needed, to go on the market, but clearly to go in the market if you really believe there’s going to be another value, an impact, to this team. That’s at the moment what I know.”

He also made it clear that he feels his business background is beneficial.

“In the last 20 years I have assembled a lot of teams, I’ve benchmarked a lot of business structures, and as I told you this is a different perspective. Probably not in terms of a sporting team, but definitely assembling teams, working with people, managing people from different nationalities, with diversity, diversity in the industry, diversity in nationalities. I will try to bring, if I have [them], some best practices from there. But definitely this is a very specific culture, I’m aware of that. Time of reaction is completely different, you need to do things that happened yesterday, not in two months, like in corporate.

“I come with a lot humility, to understand and work very hard, this is what I can commit to the team, to the drivers, that are the best drivers in the world. I’m an extremely humble person that will listen and will fight 150% to be be a facilitator to utilise the best talent that is within Ferrari.”

Asked about his role in improving Ferrari’s form he said: “I’m not an engineer but we have 800 people that are working to make the car faster, and as I said the best talented engineers. For me it’s to get the highest motivation possible, and to define a certain project management. It’s not me that’s going to give one extra second to the car, it’s the engineers who work for us.”

Lewis Hamilton may have been fastest on Friday in China, but the Briton was clearly far from satisfied with the set-up of his Mercedes.

At one point he told the team “there’s something wrong with this car.” He’d already had suspension issues in the morning session, which saw him run only nine laps.

“It’s not been the easiest of days, but we’ve got this evening to do some work and try and figure out where we are,” he said. “The car can always be better.

“It doesn’t feel spectacular, it’s a lot harder here for some reason than it has been in other places.”

Hamilton admitted that he was frustrated to have run so few laps in the morning session.

“We don’t have many laps as it is, so every lap counts. Usually in P1 you make a set-up change, and go out and test it again when you get fresh tyres, then you do a bit of a longer run on that set. We lost a bit of time, but it’s OK. It’s not the first time.

“You need more laps, more tyres, more opportunities to change the car, so tonight we’ve got to gauge where the track is going to go tomorrow, and hope that we get the balance right. If it rains tomorrow we won’t even know if we’ve made the right change, then you get into the race and find out if you’ve got it right or not.”

Fernando Alonso appeared to be distinctly underwhelmed with this week’s management change at Ferrari when speaking about it for the first time.

Alonso said he had not yet spoken to Marco Mattiacci, the erstwhile Ferrari North America boss who has replaced Stefano Domenicali. Surprisingly he seemed not to know whether or not his new boss would be present this weekend, despite it being part of the team’s PR announcement.

“No, I haven’t had the chance.” he said when asked if they had spoken. “I don’t know if he’s coming here, I guess so, so it would be a good time to welcome him. I don’t really have much to say. I drive the car. He will be good enough to recognise what are the weak areas of the team, what are the strong areas of the team and hopefully improve them. I think that as drivers, we will try to drive as fast as we can, Kimi and I, and try to help him in whatever field our help is required.

“I think we need to give him time and try to see how he settles down. It’s too early to say if it will be a very good thing or very bad. I think we need to make sure he has all the facilities ready, all the technical stuff ready, all the team behind him, try to help him settle down as fast as possible. And, yes, try to put him in a condition to feel comfortable from day one. We are really hoping it will be a successful managing of the team and everyone is looking forward.”

Regarding Domenicali’s decision to leave the team, he said: “I think we need to assess what Stefano decided. He was probably not any more in the mood to continue and with the feeling of taking the weight on his shoulders. He made a very responsible move. It’s not easy, when you have a very privileged position in one Formula One team to be able to step back and to say ‘maybe it’s better to move’. But he did it, just for Ferrari’s interest and improvement so that’s something that we cannot forget and now we have to respect that decision.

“From that point, for sure, it’s not that in this race we will improve one second, because I don’t think Stefano was doing the front wing or the rear wing or whatever by his hands, so probably we need to wait a little bit of time and see what we can improve and try to help all the team with the new people coming to make us a little bit stronger and try to get back some of the success from the past.”
Alonso made it clear that he regards Domenicali as a friend.

“I think that Stefano was a great man, first of all. I’m a close friend of his, not just on the circuit. We ski together every January 1st in Italy in the mountains. We still have a close relationship. We’ve been talking all the week long. I think that will continue, because we have known each for many years and we have worked very closely for this couple of years, so that’s important, to separate work from friendship.

“Then, as a team principal, I think he made good choices, good things. Obviously we missed opportunities in 2010, in 2012. They missed opportunities in 2008 with Felipe. If not, he could probably have three championships in his pocket. I think he brought in Pat Fry, he brought James Allison, Raikkonen, so I think all the things that people ask from him he was giving to them, probably, as I said, the results in the sports are important and the pressure at Ferrari is also quite big, so he made his decision which we respect and we will try to move forward in different directions but try to move forward. I’m happy with the time that we passed together.”

The FIA Court of Appeal has upheld the original decision of the stewards of the Australian GP, which means that Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo have now definitively lost their second place.

The court, which sat on Monday, rejected the arguments from RBR about the unreliability of the Gill fuel flow sensor in the RB10.

The FIA noted: “On 16 March 2014 the panel of the stewards decided to exclude car N°3 (driver Daniel Ricciardo) from the results of the race as it was found to be not in compliance with the Technical Regulations (the Technical Delegate reported to the Stewards that car N°3 exceeded the required fuel mass flow of 100kg/h).

“The Court, after having heard the parties and examined their submissions, decided to uphold the Decision N°56 of the Stewards by which they decided to exclude Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s car N°3 from the results of the 2014 Australian Grand Prix.”

The team quickly responded by saying that it accepted the decision, and now wanted to move on.

A statement read: “Infiniti Red Bull Racing accepts the ruling of the International Court of Appeal today. We are of course disappointed by the outcome and would not have appealed if we didn’t think we had a very strong case. We always believed we adhered to the technical regulations throughout the 2014 Australian Grand Prix.

“We are sorry for Daniel (Ricciardo) that he will not be awarded the 18 points from the event, which we think he deserved. We will continue to work very hard to amass as many points as possible for the team, Daniel and Sebastian (Vettel) throughout the season. We will now move on from this and concentrate on this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix.”

The decision validates the FIA sensor as the approved method of measuring fuel flow. Had it gone against the governing body it would have set a precedent that could have called into question other parts of the rule book.