Category Archives: Grand Prix News

The FIA’s Deputy F1 Race Director Herbie Blash is to step down from his role at the end of the season having worked alongside Race Director Charlie Whiting for 20 years.

Blash will be replaced by fromer Minardi/Toro Rosso engineer Laurent Mekies, who is already safety director of the FIA.

Mike ‘Herbie’ Blash started his F1 career as a mechanic in the 1960s, working for Rob Walker, Team Lotus, and latterly Brabham. He became sporting director of the latter team prior to its demise, before joining  F1 engine supplier Yamaha. He took on his FIA role in 1996, but has continued a parallel career with Yamaha, helping to manage its two-wheeled programme.

The change reflects a desire from Jean Todt to introduce new people into key FIA roles, and it’s not yet clear how long Whiting will remain in his current role.

“I would personally like to thank Herbie for all of his hard work for the FIA over the past 21 years, and especially for his contribution in maintaining Formula One’s place at the pinnacle of motor sport,” said Todt. “Along with Charlie, Herbie has been instrumental in the seamless running of Grand Prix races for over two decades, and we are pleased that he will continue to work with the FIA in future.

“Replacing someone with Herbie’s immense experience was never going to be easy. However, we are fortunate to be able to appoint Laurent Mekies to this position. Laurent brings a wealth of Formula One experience, and has been responsible for driving the FIA’s safety agenda since joining us.

“Combining his strong Formula One history and work as the FIA’s Safety Director, I am confident that he will ensure that the FIA’s flagship single-seater championship continues to set the benchmark for race management and safety – a status that his predecessor, Herbie, can take great pride in helping to nurture.”

Whiting added: “I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Herbie for his years of tireless work for our sport. It has been a huge pleasure to be alongside him for almost two decades. Of course Herbie will be hard to replace but, with Laurent’s extensive experience in F1, I’m sure he will be a worthy replacement, he will also be able to bring a new dimension of experience to our team of F1 officials.”

The FIA won’t make any changes to the kerbs at the Red Bull Ring, despite concerns about the damage caused to several cars.

Nico Rosberg, Dany Kvyat and Sergio Perez suffered rear suspension failures after contact with kerbs, while Max Verstappen had a front suspension breakage when he ran wide on Friday.

Kvyat, Mercedes technical chief Paddy Lowe and GPDA chairman Alex Wurz all expressed an interest in viewing the kerbs up close, and they joined Charlie Whiting on a track inspection at the end of Saturday’s action.

The FIA race director duly explained the rationale behind the kerb design, which is used at many other venues, and has been extensively proven, and explained why there won’t be any changes.

One theory is that at this particular track drivers are simply able to use more of the kerbs, and that the extra time spent on them caused problems for some cars.

The FIA viewpoint is that teams with concerns should ensure that their drivers use the kerbs less.

After qualifying Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had suggested that the FIA should react and make changes.

“I don’t know what the FIA is going to decide,” said Wolff. “Whether they are going to take those sausage kerbs away, or whether they are going to modify some of the red kerbs, scratch them, or fill them with concrete. I don’t know. But we have seen a couple of failures on various cars with the various suspension design, and it still failed, I think there needs to be a reaction.

“There is some discussion happening. We discussed it during the session that we need to react quickly, with Charlie, and trigger some reaction. But that is not an easy one.”

Wolff stressed that Rosberg’s failure was caused by the red kerbs at the end of the track, and not the yellow sausage kerbs which are further off line, and which are supposed to act as a deterrent.

“It is a concern. The strange thing is at the beginning it seemed we had spikes of loads. But once we analysed the data there was not much load on the suspension. So it is some kind of strange frequency or oscillation on the tyre that makes the suspension break. And we don’t know what it is. It looks like it’s the red kerbs, which are new, which triggers that.”

Before qualifying Mercedes reinforced its rear wishbones with extra carbon layers. Other teams with concerns will not be able to make such a change without dropping out of parc ferme.

“We strengthened the suspension. Whether it’s the ultimate cure, I doubt it. I think with the parc ferme rules we are probably on the better side because we strengthened them already.”

Meanwhile Rosberg admitted that he is still has concerned about the kerbs heading into the race.

“The yellow kerbs, you’re not supposed to go there, that’s one thing,” he said. “People who do, break the car, that’s for sure. But what would the alternative be? I don’t know. The bad one was my incident, because I was in the really normal, shallow kerb, the first one, just driving out of the corner, and the thing failed. That’s the bigger worry which needs understanding, I think.

“It’s a vibration, a very unusual never seen before vibration, which comes when you’re on the throttle when you’re on that kerb. So that’s a worry, because it’s not something that we’ve planned for building the car, so not straightforward. They reinforced our car before qualifying, in those fragile areas.”

Pirelli says it was satisfied with the first day of F1’s new tyre pressure measuring procedure – and has confirmed that it could lead to the minimum figures being reduced in the future.

Tyre pressures have become a major taking point this year with Pirelli following a conservative path and setting high figures in its pre-race prescriptions in order to ensure that teams run at what they regard is a safe level.

Prior to this weekend pressures were measured with the tyres fitted to the cars. It’s believed that some teams used pre-heated brake/hub assemblies to boost temperature and hence pressures after the tyres were fitted, raising the pressure above the minimum levels before the measurements were made. Out on track the temperature fell, and in turn pressures dropped to a lower level that suited the team.

From today pressures have been measured with the tyres in the blankets, at a set temperature, so there can be no outside influence to get the pressures up to the minimum.

“With this new system, to check the tyres before they are fitted on the car, we have a consistent system to measure it independent from the session,” said Pirelli technical chief Mario Isola. “So in FP1, FP2, FP3 quali and race we measure always the tyre in the same way, and we have consistent numbers in all the sessions.

“So we are 100% sure that only the blanket is heating the tyre. Teams are quite happy because once they have fitted the tyre they are not allowed to bleed air, but they have a reference pressure. I can give you a result in a couple of races when we have some numbers to evaluate, but for me this system is working. So let’s see what is going to happen.”

The FIA has told teams that is the system is successful, and it’s clear that pressures are no longer falling on track, then the starting minimums could come down.

“It depends on what we see now,” said Isola. “That’s why we wanted to take some races to check which is the pressure evolution from starting to running, because we need to see the starting and running pressure.

“Now we know that from starting to running we have some cases the same value, or even a lower value with the running pressure. If this situation is going to change for the future, as it was a couple of years ago, where the running pressure is higher than the starting pressure, then of course we can adjust the starting accordingly to the numbers that we see.”

Pirelli is keen to point out that the starting pressures are calculated from data submitted by the teams.

“The 22psi front here was generated by the simulations we receive from the teams. If we see, as in the case here, that this year on the front we have 100kgs more of load, and 10kph more of top speed expected, we generate a preview that is based on this information.

“On Friday afternoon we receive the telemetry from all the teams, and we can compare simulation with telemetry, something similar to what happened in Baku. If we realise that there is a discrepancy between the two we can go lower with pressure or increase the pressure, depending on the number that we see.

“Of course we have to based our prescriptions on the most severe cars, this is clear. They are the same for everybody, you cannot have customised prescriptions for each team, each car, each driver.”

Meanwhile Pirelli hopes to have a live tyre pressure monitoring system in place next season: “The live telemetry data we are discussing for next year is a different subject. We still want to investigate this opportunity. It’s not easy to implement this new system with let’s call it an FIA TPMS, but the target is also to investigate this possibility. We are working together with the FIA to find the best way to put everybody on the same page, and work with consistent prescriptions.”

Felipe Massa insists that he is in charge of his own destiny, despite other drivers being linked with a Williams seat in 2017.

Massa’s contract comes to an end this year, and thus far he has no ongoing deal. Meanwhile the likes of Jenson Button have been mentioned in connection with a Williams drive.

“Nothing will be made for me, so I will choose what I want to do,” said Massa when asked if the choice would be made for him. “What I want to race, or what I want to do. Definitely the time will be the right answer. So just relax and thinking about my driving, and honestly I don’t know what’s going to happen. Things can happen in the right way. I will decide what I want to do, definitely.”

Massa said he was committed to a future in F1.

“That’s what I want to do, that’s what I’m really planning to do. I’m committed to do things which I believe will be good for me. I believe to race in a team that I think you have important work to do, not to participate. I’m not here to participate, I’m here to race and try to be competitive, and that’s what I’m trusting for.”

Asked if he had started talks with Williams he said: “Yes we’ve started talks, but as I said, the time will be the right answer.”

Red Bull Racing’s tyre struggles in the European GP were a result of the decision to run an ultra low downforce set-up, Christian Horner has admitted.

Both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen had to offload their supersoft tyres in the opening laps and run a two-stop strategy, the pair eventually finishing seventh and eighth. In Canada they also had to go to two stops for tyre reasons while others made it to the flag on one.

Red Bull had traditionally run very low downforce at fast tracks to make up for a power deficit, and in the past it has paid off.

“We’re on a very fine edge trimming the downforce out of the car,” said Horner. “The first few laps we turned the tyre on very well. Daniel said, ‘I was easily able to stay with Nico, I was cruising, and then suddenly ‘bang,’ the rear tyres get into a lot of trouble.’

“You find that your window by doing that is very narrow, I think today’s temperature, trimming the downforce out of the car, perhaps the car then sliding a little too much has caused the rear graining. As soon as you get into that you’re in a world of pain.”

Asked if there was any connection with what happened in Montreal Horner said: “I think the only link is running in a window light on downforce you get yourself into a very narrow band. I think that’s probably the biggest lesson. There’ll be a lot of analysis that goes into it – I think that will be the lesson out of this weekend certainly in race conditions.

“I think that the configuration that we’ve ended up running the car in in order to be sensible on the straight we’ve put ourselves in a very narrow window. I think it’s accentuated here by the length of the straight and of course we’re on pretty much Monza downforce. You’ve only got to be a little bit out of that window and you’ve lost control of the tyre.”

The team also experienced some brake issues in Baku.

“Daniel was in a bit of trouble in the last 10 laps, the pedal went very long, I think because he had been following so closely for quite a few laps. The temperatures started to rage a little, just on the front left.”

Horner admits that the team’s home race could be difficult once again.

“Austria is going to be a challenge for us for sure. I think it’s in the top three power sensitive circuits. Maybe there will be a chicane on the straight this year! Thereafter we’ve got circuits which we know will come back towards us. It’s get through Austria with damage limitation before getting to the likes of Hungary, Silverstone, Hockenheim, etc.”

Lewis Hamilton has admitted that his poor performance in qualifying in Baku was because he failed to get into a rhythm and struggled under braking.

Hamilton ended up 10^th after making mistakes in all three sessions and finally clipping the wall in Q3. He said that changes to the set-up overnight had made the car more difficult under braking, but insisted that he was at fault.

“Not anything particular,” he said when asked about why his session went so badly. “Obviously braking, which everyone could see. These things happen. I don’t feel like I need to find an explanation, It was nothing to do with anyone else, it was just me not doing good laps. I was four-tenths up on both laps, so there’s no question I was quicker, I just didn’t finish the laps.

“The car was a little bit different yesterday. It was better on the brakes yesterday, and we made some changes. It wasn’t as good today, and I wasn’t able to brake in the same places as I was yesterday. And I didn’t adjust. It was my mistakes.”

He wouldn’t elaborate on those overnight set-up changes.

“I don’t know whether I’m permitted to say what changes they were, but it was a change that affected the car today. It didn’t feel the same as yesterday as I said. Still good enough for pole.

He added: “It’s not the car. I just couldn’t get into a rhythm today. It wasn’t just in qualifying, it was in practice as well. Just an off day, unfortunately. An expensive day, but an off day today.”

Mercedes will ask the FIA if it can change the front tyres he damaged in Q2 and on which he is suppose to start, although finding replacements won’t be easy.

“All my tyres are flat-spotted, all fronts. Honestly, I have no idea what they are going to do, you have to ask the team. I’m sure I’ll get by either way.”

Lewis says anything could happen in Sunday’s race, and even suggested that he could still win.

“I’ve seen GP2, but it just shows that lots can happen at this track, I can’t predict what’s going to happen tomorrow. It’s not even worth thinking about it, I’m just going to arrive tomorrow and see how it goes.

“I’ll see when I wake up. It’s really strange, you know. Every Sunday is always different. The last race I didn’t feel good before the race, just didn’t have a good feeling. I drove fantastic. Some days you feel great, and it goes bad, and then some days you feel bad, and it goes bad, some days you feel good, and it goes good. I have no idea how it’s going to be.

“The best thing I can do is try to look forward, no point in looking at the past, no matter how pissed off you’re going to be. I;ve got another opportunity tomorrow, I’ve got a good car, good pace, providing we can remain clean on track and not get caught up in other’s mistakes or make mistakes we should be able to get some good points tomorrow. It’s not impossible to win from where I am.”

Hamilton said that getting tyre temperature on safety car restarts – especially in the cooler conditions later in the race – could be a problem.

“It always is with these tyres, an it will be for sure. But everyone will be in the same boat. I think tomorrow safety cars could be a blessing for me. As you’ve seen in GP2 there’s a long, long way down to Turn One. It could be helpful. But I’ve got to get round the first God knows how many laps to even consider that first.”