Category Archives: Grand Prix News

Lewis Hamilton believes that he has a good chance of dragging past pole man Nico Rosberg after the start of the Mexican GP.

The unusually long run down to the first corner opens up the possibility of the car behind slipstreaming past.

“Co-incidentally I imagine it’s better just to be behind,” he said. “Coming into the weekend I thought about if I was on pole it would be very difficult to hold off the guy behind, because it’s a long, long way to slipstream someone.

“But if you look at Russia and he was just able to hold off into Turn One. I’ve got to think of a different approach for tomorrow. But I’m super wary of all the things that could happen and can happen, and I think about all the different scenarios, would I be behind him into Turn One, or would I be behind, or I’m on the outside, or whatever it is. I’ve got to look at all those and see if I’ve got them covered.”

Meanwhile Hamilton believes that the Mexico City track won’t necessarily lend itself to overtaking, except on the main straight when DRS and slipstreaming could play a role. Elsewhere on the track the biggest problem is being able to follow the car ahead

“I would be guessing, I don’t know whether it’s going to be an overtaking track,” he said when asked by this writer. Through that midfield section I don’t think you’re going to be able to follow, as little downforce as there is, and we’re sliding around like crazy as it is. But you might see more mistakes, which will enable us to, who knows?

“I think you’ll see most overtakings down to Turn One, and then after Turn One, then Turn Four probably.”

Hamilton doesn’t expect Turn 13 – the hard left in the stadium – to be a good passing place: “I don’t think you can follow out of Turn 10, it’s unlikely unless the guy’s made a mistake to be able to follow up to Turn 12. And then it’s unlikely that a guy’s going to leave the door open at Turn 13.”

Hamilton says that the general lack of grip makes life difficult for everyone.

“The car feels the same, it just feels like you have low downforce. It’s like Monza, but less. You’re just sliding around. That’s really all I can say. It still feels like an F1 car, it’s just the grip is not spectacular.

“Already when we are sliding around, so as soon as we get into turbulent air it’s going to be double that, that’s what’s making me think there isn’t going to be great racing, apart from down the straight, because you can tow someone from miles behind probably.

“But otherwise you are going to be sliding around through that middle Ess section. The guy in front, who may have clear air, is going to pull away from you. If we have more grip from the tyres this weekend, not downforce just more grip, we would then perhaps be able to still follow.”

It’s understood that both John Booth and Graeme Lowdon have resigned from the Manor F1 team.

There has been no confirmation from the team, and both men are still working in Mexico this weekend and will stay until the end of the season.

It’s believed that the pair have lost faith in the ability of current owner Stephen Fitzpatrick and his business partner Abdulla Boulsien to keep the team alive long term.

While the team has created a potentially attractive package by signing contracts with Mercedes and Williams (for gearboxes and other technology) the financial future remains uncertain.

Aside from the $50m of ‘Bernie money’ there has been very little investment from Fitzpatrick this year. Meanwhile the owners have turned down offers from at least two new investors – sources suggest figures of $50m and $40m respectively – presumably on the basis that they can hold out for more.

Given that most of the staff have long links with Manor and have stayed loyal to the current management it remains to be seen how many will opt to stay on.

Williams believes it can find a solution to the unexpected suspension problem that caused both Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa in Austin.

Bottas suffered a failure of the centrally-located rear inertia damper, or i-Damper, in Sunday morning qualifying, and in the race both drivers suffered repeats. The problem only emerged on race day as the drivers did more laps, and at higher speeds.

“There’s a really, really severe bump in Turn 11,” Rob Smedley told this writer. “Which is caused by the track subsiding over the last two years. As the car went over there the i-Damper saw a very high impact load, and basically locked up. It was massively severe, double the severity of anything else we see.

“Once we had Valtteri’s go again in the race, we spoke to the drivers about whether or not you could stay to the left or the right, but it was across the whole track. There was nowhere to go, so either you had to stop the car at that point or wait for it to fail on Massa’s car, which it did.”

Although the Austin bump was an extreme case the team is not taking any chances, especially given that Mexico is a new track.

“First of all you have to understand the problem, we’ve done that, we know exactly what the problem was, and we’ve got a series of measures in place. We’ll be running through those tomorrow in free practice, and seeing what is necessary and what is not around here.

“We’ve had a look at the design itself. Whatever is necessary from a reliability point of view, and whatever isn’t we won’t, because we don’t want to give away performance unnecessarily. There are a few ways to approach the problem to find a solution.”

In effect Williams has a beefed-up component that is potentially more reliable, but could cost lap time: “Something like that, and also in the actual settings of the car. It’s perhaps the way the suspension settings themselves and the way we run, the heave stiffness and the normal viscous damping levels that we run.”

CVC boss Donald Mackenzie has denied Bernie Ecclestone’s regular assertion that F1’s major stakeholder is obliged to sell its stake soon.

Ecclestone said recently that something could happen before the end of this year, with US firm RSE Ventures the entity most closely linked with the sale, in a partnership with Chinese investors.

“No, we’re not obliged to sell,” Mackenzie told this blog. “It’s unlikely that we’ll be here forever, but we’re definitely not obliged to sell. Bernie often says things he doesn’t mean…”

Meanwhile Mackenzie said that the spectacular US GP demonstrated that the sport can still put on a great show when the circumstances are right. Inevitably the recent dominance of Mercedes has put F1 in a negative light in the eyes of many observers, but the US GP did much to redress the balance.

“It was brilliant, wasn’t it? It often happens when it rains. I was pleased for Lewis, and also for the fans. I came from England, I was worried about coming all this way and it not happening! So it was great that it came off, and it was a brilliant race.

“And it also shows you that with the right ingredients, F1 is still fantastic. Close racing. You saw that the Red Bulls with less power and more grip were right up the front, until the slicks came on.”

Mackenzie is also a keen supporter of Ecclestone’s push for a budget twin-turbo V6, which was formally announced this week.

“I know Bernie would like an alternative to the big two. The current situation isn’t that healthy. If we can go to a good alternative engine at the right price, we’ll be very pleased.”