Category Archives: F1 News

October 31, 2013 · 4:05 pm

Ward takes on Todt over FIA’s failure to follow IOC standards

FIA presidential candidate David Ward has taken another shot at rival Jean Todt by pointing out discrepancies between the way the FIA operates and the guidelines laid down by the International Olympic Committee.

Todt sees his successful efforts at getting the FIA recognised by the IOC as one of his biggest achievements.

However, Ward has written to FIA member clubs to point out the apparent anomalies in the arrangement.

Ward wrote: “Jean Todt claims that, ‘Membership of this family of international sports organisations once again proves that the FIA can now boast the highest standards of governance.‘ For this claim to be true one would expect that the FIA fully respects the standards set out in the IOC’s ‘Basic Universal Principles of Good Government of the Olympic and Sports Movement’ and also that the newly created Ethics Committee would be structured along identical lines to the IOC’s equivalent body. Unfortunately neither is the case.

“Disappointingly the FIA consistently falls short of the IOC’s principles and best practices. The attached document compares some of the key IOC’s governance principles with FIA practice. It reveals weaknesses in the FIA election process, an Ethics Committee undermined by a flawed composition and reporting system, an absence of financial transparency, and lack of international accounting standards.

“All of these weaknesses would be easily overcome if the FIA simply followed closely the guidance offered by the principles and practice of the IOC. So rather than boast that recognition by the IOC leaves the FIA with no need for further governance reform, I think the FIA’s membership of the Olympic and Sports Movement creates new responsibilities to apply the IOC’s good governance principles.

“In fact the FIA now has a duty to uphold the ‘Fundamental Principles of Olympism.’ This includes the ‘responsibility of ensuring that principles of good governance be applied.’ That is why I believe the FIA should now take action to fulfil these important and outstanding obligations.”

He goes on to suggest that there should be an independent review of the way the FIA operates. His letter can be found here: http://gallery.mailchimp.com/118437eec0352cad047fd181b/files/FIA_and_IOC_Governance_Principles_and_Practices_Compared.pdf

 

 

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October 31, 2013 · 3:27 pm

Pastor Maldonado: “The decision will be down to me…”

Pastor Maldonado said today that he still doesn’t know which team he will drive for in 2014 – and insisted that the decision is in his hands.

The Venezuelan has been closely linked to Lotus, amid much speculation that a deal has already been done. Meanwhile Sauber has also been mentioned as a possible destination. Not surprisingly his huge PVDSA budget is much in demand, although the sponsor has an ongoing contract with Williams.

Meanwhile his situation has created something of a logjam in the driver market.

“At the moment I don’t have a decision yet,” Maldonado said today. “The decision will be down to me, so I prefer to take some more time. I really hope to have a decision before the end of the season. There are still a couple of weeks to go, so we’ll see. I cannot guarantee I will leave the team, or I will stay. The decision is very important. It’s my third season in my career, so it’s a very important moment professionally for me, and I will want to have the best decision for my future.”

Asked if Lotus was his preferred option, he said: “I cannot mention that at the moment. I have some offers and I’m analysing that very well. I have to have the best decision for myself.”

Maldonado made it clear that various factors would play a part in his choice.

“Many things. It’s not easy as a driver to choose a team, especially when everything will be new for next year. I’ve been here for three years, so it will maybe be an advantage to stay in the team, because I know everyone here. In another team it will be something like starting from zero. I will not be the first one doing that in history. We’ll see.

“Apart from that you have many factors, you need to see who will work with you and for you, the projects, engines, many things. The people, the feeling is very important, to have a good feeling with the people around. Budgets, all the budget plans, it’s very important. I’m taking my time because I need to feel comfortable.”

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October 31, 2013 · 2:11 pm

Sebastian Vettel: “I had some quiet days at home, which was good to sober up…”

Following an informal victory party in the hotel in India on Sunday night Sebastian Vettel headed home to Switzerland for a couple of days before returning to duty in Abu Dhabi today.

The four-time World Champion says that he enjoyed the chance to relax and recharge his batteries after the release of winning in Delhi.

“Well, the reaction has been very positive,” said Vettel. “Obviously great relief when I crossed the line on Sunday, a great feeling. Sunday night, obviously the whole team still had to do the pack-up, but we had a little bit of fun in the hotel bar – quite spontaneous. Obviously, there’s not a lot of time between the race in India and the race here, so the team is very busy.

“So we couldn’t go completely mad, but I had a time on Sunday night and then I had two days at home before coming here, again fairly quiet, not very spectacular. I just enjoyed the peace at home. I had some time for myself, back with my girlfriend as well. So, fairly quiet.”

Vettel made it clear that the team won’t be backing off in the remaining races, despite the title being in the bag.

“Well, I don’t think we approach the weekend as if there’s nothing to gain. I think we – as a fact – we love what we’re doing. We enjoy the challenge and that’s why there’s no question as to why we are here and what we have to do. We want to race, race the others as hard as possible. If we have a chance, we want to win. As I said, I had some quiet days at home which was good, to sober up after India and get ready for here.”

However, he says he’s taking nothing for granted: “To be honest, I’m not getting in the car and thinking that there’s a guarantee that we will do well. Maybe that’s a little bit the impression that you get from the outside; obviously since the summer break we’ve won all the races but we come here and there’s absolutely no guarantee that we will do well, so we have to give it everything we have.

“Yes, we have a strong package so I think we have reason to be confident. I need the team, I think the team needs Mark and myself to push the car to the limit and to get some good results. There’s no guarantee for what we’ve been doing the last couple of races to make it last.”

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October 30, 2013 · 12:13 pm

Helmut Marko: “Now we go to win the last three races…”

Red Bull motor sport boss Helmut Marko says that the Indian GP was a lot more stressful for the team than it looked from the outside, despite Sebastian Vettel’s huge advantage at the flag.

Marko adds that the team now wants to finish the season by winning the remaining races.

“We had this problem on Mark’s car with the alternator,” he told this writer. “And with an alternator, bang, it just comes, there’s not much you can do. We also had a risky strategy, coming in on lap two, and then I don’t know how many people Seb overtook – just to the people who say he can’t overtake! And everybody was really relieved and more than happy, and now we go to win the last three races, and then we think about 2014. That’s our passion, and our approach to racing. And that’s what makes us successful.”

Intriguingly Marko says that Vettel raised his game in the latter part of the season.

“Unbelievable. He was already on a high level, but when he came back from the summer break it was a different step – no mistakes, always quick, using the tyres in the right way. I think it was perfection.”

Regarding the mechanical misfortunes that have hit Mark Webber so often this year, he pointed out that Vettel has not been immune to problems in the past: “There have been so many little issues with Mark’s car that were unfortunate, but that’s racing. Last year Seb had two alternator failures, he had engine failures in 2010, and so on. In the end it equalises.”

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October 28, 2013 · 2:07 pm

Stefano Domenicali: “These are crucial weeks that we have ahead of us”

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali admits that the team hasn’t done a good enough job – and says that the coming weeks will be crucial as everyone prepares for 2014.

It he also acknowledged that only Fernando Alonso’s “amazing talent” had kept Ferrari in the fight this year.

“We are well aware what it’s like to rack up win after win, season after season, because only a few years back, we did just that and we know how much confidence comes from winning,” Domenicali said on the Ferrari website.

“Taking a world title is very satisfying, doing it several times is an achievement, but it’s also a good thing to always be up there, fighting for the very top places, as Ferrari has done pretty much all the time for over fifteen years, barring a handful of exceptions.

“This year, we were unable to give our drivers a car good enough to fight with Vettel on equal terms, apart from at the very beginning of the season. Thanks to Fernando and his amazing talent, we managed to worry the world champion elect more than the others, but unfortunately, our efforts were not enough to fight all the way to the very end. Now, it’s important to try and end this season in the best way possible.

“These are crucial weeks that we have ahead of us to the end of the year, because the work we are doing in preparation for 2014 is vital if we want to be the team that puts an end to this Red Bull dominance, just as we and Fernando have been their main rivals over the past four seasons.”

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October 28, 2013 · 1:06 pm

Fernando Alonso: “The race was uphill from that moment…”

Fernando Alonso’s hopes of a decent result in the Indian GP were over at the first corner after he hit the rear of Mark Webber – ironically the other frontrunning driver who took a gamble on qualifying on the medium tyre.

Alonso also hit Jenson Button on the first lap and a second lap stop for a new nose ruined his strategy and left him struggling to catch up. He eventually finished 11th.

“Obviously not a clear start,” said the Spaniard. “I was a bit unlucky because I think Mark also was having a contact with someone, and the third part was me in that equation. And with Button as well in corner four, it was a little bit of a mixed start, and the race was uphill from that moment. We were last with one stop more compared to the others already done. So a difficult race, and not enough pace.”

Matters were not helped by the car not behaving well after the contact: “It was damaged, I think the front toe or something, because the steering wheel was very heavy to the right corners, and very light to the left, so there was something going on there. It was not only that problem. The overall weekend was not good enough, and in Abu Dhabi we need to improve if we want to pass Mercedes in the constructors’ championship.”

Meanwhile Alonso had some nice words to say about Sebastian Vettel.

“Very, very good, I congratulate him. They’ve been very strong, very dominant, especially in the second part of the season, so they deserve to be be champions, so congratulations. Obviously we need to start thinking for next year and hopefully try to make things a little bit more difficult for him.”

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October 28, 2013 · 5:16 am

Video: Nico Rosberg on his second place in India

Nico Rosberg outran his team mate Lewis Hamilton to take second place in India. Here are his thoughts on the weekend.

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October 27, 2013 · 2:27 pm

Vettel gets a reprimand after celebratory donuts

Sebastian Vettel has been given a reprimand by the FIA after his tyre smoking donut display after the Indian GP.

Officially it was for failing to proceed straight to parc ferme after the chequered flag ‘without unnecessary delay.’ In addition Red Bull Racing was fined €25,000 for failing to sufficiently ensure by radio that he went to parc ferme.

The punishment might have been worse but the stewards accepted that there were ‘special circumstances.’ Meanwhile Vettel told the FIA that he knew exactly what he was doing and thus it was no surprise when he was called up.

“I didn’t think about the donuts before the race today – it just happened,” said Seb. “My engineer directed for the usual procedure, but I said ‘not this time!’”

While fans may not welcome the decision the bottom line is that the FIA had to set a precedent by giving some sort of punishment, as the rules are clear to all drivers.

Given the coverage that his display will receive the 25K is probably a small price to pay…

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October 27, 2013 · 2:02 pm

Christian Horner: “It doesn’t get any better than that…”

Christian Horner has made it clear what a fourth set of double World Championships means to Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull team – and admits that he thought the achievement would be out of reach.

“Sebastian is very emotional and I’m sure every member of the team is emotional,” said Horner. “The effort that’s gone into this campaign has been huge, because not only is it this year, we’ve also got to develop and build a car for next year as well.

“You win a championship the first time the pressure is there to defend it. We defended it, and then we retained it, and having achieved a triple you think, OK, it doesn’t get better than that, and the likelihood of doing a quadruple double just seemed hugely statistically unlikely, if nothing else. But the passion, the determination, the dedication within the whole team, and of course the way that Sebastian has delivered this year, has been absolutely phenomenal.”

Horner confirmed that today there were concerns over the alternator in Vettel’s car following the earlier failure on Mark Webber’s.

“After the failure on Mark’s car, which was just sudden, there’s no reason to expect that it can’t happen on the other car. Immediately we tried to reduce the amount of draw on the alternator as much as possible, which included even turning off the KERS system in the end. There was then a problem with the sensor on the alternator, which gave us even more heart in mouth moments. And in the mean time Sebastian’s lighting up the timing screen with purple sectors!

“There were some heart stopping moments in there, but thankfully the car got to the end, and Sebastian did what he needed to. It was just tremendously cruel luck not to have Mark up there as well.”

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October 26, 2013 · 12:51 pm

Lewis Hamilton: “I’ve struggled a little bit through this weekend”

Lewis Hamilton will start the Indian GP from third on the grid, but the Brit was in a low-key mood after a qualifying session that clearly left him disappointed.

“It’s been a tough weekend for us,” said Hamilton. “Congratulations to Sebastian, it’s obvious that that’s some serious pace that they have, especially with Webber on the primes just behind us. But we’ve been pushing, as Nico said, as hard as we can. We really want to get a great result this weekend.

“Strategy is going to play a huge part but I was a little bit surprised to be where we are but generally, bit by bit, adjusting the set-up and everything, we got a reasonable balance and hopefully tomorrow we can push together to try and stay ahead of the rest.”

Hamilton played down the fact that he lost out to Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg.

“It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Nico did a great job, he’s been strong all weekend and on my side, I’ve struggled a little bit through this weekend. I struggled a little bit with something different on the car this weekend which Nico had had experience of seeing maybe in the past.

“I came to grips with it really quite quickly at the end and I’m really happy with the result and the lap time that I was able to get. There’s always a little bit of time everywhere but we’ll try and push these guys as hard as we can in the race obviously. They’re in another world but we’ll try to stay ahead of the rest.”

 

 

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