Adam Cooper F1

The family of Sid Watkins have extended their thanks to all those who have paid tribute to the former F1 doctor, who passed away in London yesterday evening.

In a short statement the family confirmed that, following a private funeral, there will be a memorial service in London.

The Watkins family statement said: “Professor Sid Watkins, Formula One doctor and leading neurosurgeon, died peacefully in a London hospital last night aged 84 after a short illness. His family would like to thank everyone for the many messages of support and the touching tributes from the world of motor racing, medicine and beyond.  There will be a private family funeral in Scotland followed by a memorial service in London in the coming months, details of which will be announced shortly.”

The FIA and FIA Institute issued a joint statement: “Throughout his life Sid made a unique contribution to motor sport, particularly in improving safety for F1 drivers, officials and spectators around the world. He was highly respected as an acclaimed neurosurgeon; F1 medical delegate; chairman of the FIA Expert Advisory Safety Committee; and as the first President of the FIA Institute. Sid’s experience, intelligence and endearing humour will be forever greatly missed. Our thoughts are with the Watkins family at this difficult time.”

FIA President Jean Todt added: “This is a truly sad day for the FIA family and the entire motor sport community. Sid was loved and respected in equal measure by all those who knew and worked with him. We will always be grateful for the safety legacy that he has left our sport.”

Many past and current drivers sent tributes via Twitter. However their thoughts were summarised by the GPDA: “Thanks to his enormous efforts throughout more than two decades Formula One achieved its present safety standards. His contribution to Formula One with the improvements in the standards of safety and medical intervention in motor sport has been invaluable. He helped to save the lives of many Formula One drivers by modernising the medical intervention. Due to his work many serious injuries have been avoided since.

“All our thoughts are with his family in this sad moment. Professor Sid Watkins’ charisma and spirit will always be with us at all circuits around the world. We miss the great Professor and friend he was to many of us.”

Veteran team boss Sir Frank Williams, helped by Sid after his 1986 road accident, said: “Sid Watkins gained the respect and admiration of all the drivers throughout his time in Formula One.  I know a number of them, throughout their time as racing drivers, looked to Sid for many different kinds of advice, in addition to his medical expertise.  Perhaps most significant in my mind is that Sid was held in high regard by Bernie Ecclestone.

“He was in all respects a very special human being.  In particular, his dedication to the safety of the drivers required endless persistence to achieve the safety standards and level of medical care that were necessary to save drivers’ lives.

“My own endorsement of Sid’s abilities goes without saying. He took splendid care of me when I spent 11 weeks in his hospital post-injury.  After that I emerged as a human being who, if not fully mobile, could continue with a perfectly normal and healthy lifestyle. I remain forever grateful to him.”

McLaren Group boss Ron Dennis said last night: “Today the world of motor racing lost one of its true greats: Professor Sid Watkins. No, he wasn’t a driver; no, he wasn’t an engineer; no, he wasn’t a designer. He was a doctor, and it’s probably fair to say that he did more than anyone, over many years, to make Formula 1 as safe as it is today.

“As such, many drivers and ex-drivers owe their lives to his careful and expert work, which resulted in the massive advances in safety levels that today’s drivers possibly take for granted. But, more than that, Sid was a dear friend of mine, and I’ll miss him bitterly. To his widow Susan, and to his family, I extend my sincerest condolences. He was a truly great man, and the world of motor racing simply won’t be the same without him.”

Red Bull technical director Adrian Newey said: “Professor Sid Watkins became a very good friend over the years. He was one of the great characters of the sport, who quietly changed the nature of it with the advancement of safety. He was very passionate about motor racing in every respect and tried to ensure the health of it at all levels, including club level and national racing. He will be sadly missed.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner added: “It is with great sadness that I learned of the passing of Professor Sid Watkins. His contribution to the safety of Formula One has been enormous. Many drivers and personnel within Formula One owe him a great deal. Above all, he was a genuinely nice person and one of life’s real characters. I would like to pass on my sincere condolences to his family.”

Professor Sid Watkins, who served for nearly three decades as Grand Prix racing’s doctor and medical chief, has died at the age of 84.

Known to everyone as ‘The Prof,’ Watkins made an incalculable contribution to the sport both with his active involvement on the scene of accidents and with the work he did behind the scenes to help improve all aspects of motor racing safety.

Much loved by everyone who knew him in the paddock, and famed for his wicked sense of humour, he remained modest about his own achievements.

The son of a Liverpool garage owner, Watkins always had an interest in cars. After training as a doctor at Liverpool University Medical School he served with the British army in Africa before returning to the UK. He then trained as a neurosurgeon at Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, a hospital noted for its expertise in head injuries and trauma. It was while working in Oxford that he first became regularly involved in motor racing at nearby Silverstone.

In 1962 he moved to Syracuse University in New York State, and he was able to continue his involvement with motor sport at Watkins Glen. He then returned to Europe in 1970 to become head of neurosurgery at the London Hospital – and institution he would remain connected with for decades to come. He also resumed his involvement with British motor sport via the RAC Medical Panel.

It was after getting to know Bernie Ecclestone that Watkins was invited to become the first full time F1 doctor, starting at the 1978 Swedish GP. He faced one of his darkest days just a few months later when Ronnie Peterson died in hospital the day after the Italian GP. The tragedy provided further proof of the need for higher standards and a guarantee that drivers would receive suitable treatment both at circuits and nearby hospitals.

Over subsequent decades Watkins would oversee improvements in medical facilities around the world while personally dealing with many major accidents. He became an integral part of the F1 scene, forming close relationships with many key figures and drivers, most famously of course Ayrton Senna.

The 1994 San Marino GP weekend at Imola, which saw the deaths of Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, was without doubt the biggest challenge he ever faced. However, positives came out of it, for it led to a safety campaign instigated by Max Mosley and led by Sid under the banner of the FIA Expert Advisory Safety Committee. F1’s safety record since 1994 owes much to what Sid achieved in conjunction with the engineers and specialists he called upon.

Although he retired from his frontline on-circuit doctor role before the 2005 season, he remained involved with safety matters as President of the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety, a role held until stepping down last year.

Sid wrote two fascinating books about his experiences, Life at the Limit and Beyond the Limit, in which he detailed his experiences and recalled some of the major incidents with which he was involved.

Martin Donnelly, Mika Hakkinen and Rubens Barrichello are just three of the F1 drivers who would readily concede that they owe their lives to Sid and the medical teams that supported him at various tracks.

However, there have been many more in all kinds of categories spared injury or worse by the improvements that Watkins helped to force through in medical facilities, circuit design, and technology – both in terms of cars and equipment such as composite helmets and the HANS device.

And of course he had a parallel life in the ‘real world’ of his day job at the London Hospital, where the impact he had on so many people’s lives was no less important.

Always remembered with a smile on his face, and very often a cigar or glass of whisky in his hand, Sid will be much missed by all who knew him.

Force India owner Vijay Mallya says that no deals are yet in the works to take either Paul Di Resta or Nico Hulkenberg to a frontrunning team, and insists that he wants to keep both of them.

Both Force India drivers have been mentioned in connection with possible vacancies at Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari, but they have ongoing contracts, which means that should one of those teams pounce a deal would have been agreed with the team if they were to move on for 2013.

By co-incidence Force India has relationships with all three potential suitors, since it uses technology sourced from the first two and current reserve driver Jules Bianchi is a Ferrari protégé.

“I have confirmed to both my drivers that I want to retain them, and that’s it,” Mallya told this writer. “I will do whatever I have to do to retain my drivers.

“I’ve not been approached by anybody, contrary to all the speculation. The fact that their names are mentioned only shows that my trust and faith in them is not misplaced.”

Hulkenberg said it was flattering to be mentioned in connection with bigger teams, but insisted that he wasn’t taking it too seriously just yet.

“It’s a positive thing if you get linked to those teams, that shows that we’ve done something right,” he told this writer. “But you shouldn’t get too carried away. We’re here to race and we have seven races to go, and the focus must be on maximising our performance.

“I think it’s quite typical for this time of year, a lot of rumours and speculation, and I think we all know how it works. We just sit back, relax and maybe laugh about it.”

Ferrari’s relief at Fernando Alonso’s third place in Monza was not a surprise given the trying circumstances of the weekend.

After several failures on Alonso’s car on Friday and Saturday the team lost its telemetry early in the race, which made managing the progress of the cars extremely difficult.

“We had a problem of a power supply loss of both the main system and the back-up system,” said team boss Stefano Domenicali. “It never happened before. So we were totally black with no telemetry, no information. The only thing that was working was the radio communication with the drivers. That happened in the crucial part of the race when there were the pit stops.

“It was good that we were able to keep calm between everyone, and we were just watching as in the old days, finding the right television that was connected somewhere and try to manage the stop watch and try to manage the gap with the radio communication with the drivers.

“The last back-up we have activated during that time was a telephone with Maranello, because they were able to see our data. It was a good management, not easy from the emotional point of view, but it was good that at the end of the day it didn’t cost anything on the performance of the team.”

Later damage caused to both the bodywork and suspension of Alonso’s car after his trip across the gravel behind Sebastian Vettel gave the team an extra headache.

“We had a problem on the car. It has very big damage on the left rear, and we also had something broken from the mechanical point of view, so we had to try to manage that situation, telling him above all not to go on the kerbs, because he could have had the problem bigger.”

Regarding the drive through penalty given to Vettel, Domenicali said: “After what happened in Bahrain there was a clarification from race control that the driver in front has to leave space if there is a part of the car that is approaching that is beside the car. Technically speaking there’s nothing to say, it was exactly what’s written in the regulation.”

Williams Grand Prix Holdings has announced an improved financial performance for the six months to June 30 2012.

The company say turnover on its core F1 business has increased by 57% from £46.4m to £73.0m, while its net profits are up from £2.9m to £8.5m.

The team makes no secret of the fact that its performance has been boosted by a ‘sweetener’ payment from Bernie Ecclestone related to the new Concorde Agreement.

It said in a statement: “The notable increases in half year turnover and profit are largely due to our diversification strategy as well as the recent receipt of a one off payment following a new commercial agreement for our continued commitment to Formula One.”

Sir Frank Williams said: “Williams is at a very exciting stage in its history and these promising results are indicative of this. We have made good progress on track this year, thanks in part to a new technical team, which has seen us pick up our first win in eight years. Our diversification strategy is also gaining momentum, positioning us as a leader in the development of cutting edge technology in areas such as sustainability and safety.”

CEO Alex Burns emphasised the company’s diversification strategy: “These results also validate our long term business plan of adapting technology and know-how developed in Formula One for commercial application in energy efficiency, safety and education. Our core business is now generating strong revenue figures from projects outside of Grand Prix racing.

“For example, our partnership with Jaguar, to develop the ground breaking C-X75 hybrid supercar, is making good progress and other Formula One teams are also using our technology, including a new deal with Marussia that will see them use our KERS technology next year.”

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh says he’s delighted with the outcome of the Monza weekend, with only Jenson Button’s retirement spoiling the party after Lewis Hamilton’s victory.

“It was a brilliant weekend from both of them,” said Whitmarsh. “The result wasn’t brilliant for Jenson, but they both did a great job in qualifying, they were very strong, and neither put a foot wrong in practice, in qualifying, or in the race.

“For Lewis the right result and the right reward, for Jenson obviously a clear disappointment, and a disappointment for the team of course. We should have gone away from here with a one-two.

“We’re second in both championships, there’s a real championship fight on now, and that’s great. If we’d had the second place from Jenson then we’d be right up there, very, close to the lead of the constructors’. That’s disappointing, but on balance we’ll enjoy a win in the Italian GP.”

Regarding Button’s retirement, he said: “There’s fuel in there, but it just wasn’t coming out and being delivered to the engine. Fuel systems are very complex, they’ve got a whole range of baffles, pumps and weirs and all sorts of complexity. Something within there went wrong so that we weren’t collecting the fuel and maintaining fuel pressure to the engine. It could be a whole multitude of things.”

Meanwhile Whitmarsh says he expects to resume talks with Lewis Hamilton’s management company about a deal for next year in the coming days. He had stressed throughout the Italian GP weekend that the focus was on the race.

“As you probably know, we deal with management companies now, not directly with drivers, that’s the way of the world. We’ll be – I’m sure – having those conversations very quickly. I imagine we’ll have some conversations before Singapore.”

Asked if he was aware before this week’s media frenzy that Hamilton’s management had talked to Mercedes, he said: “I’m aware of quite a lot of things. It’s a small paddock, and they’ve got to be seen doing their due diligence, as you can imagine. I’m not surprised. I have some knowledge in fact of what’s been going on.”

Whitmarsh insisted that the team didn’t have an alternative plan, should it not conclude a deal with Lewis.

“I haven’t given a Plan B any thought. I want Lewis to stay – we want Lewis to stay if he wants to stay. You have a number of priorities when you’re trying to win a championship, and you divide your time, energy, focus, on those things.

“One of them is of course making the car better, faster, one of them is dealing with all the operational issues and making sure you don’t make mistakes, and the other is dealing with your own drivers. Rightly or wrongly I haven’t spent a lot of energy on that subject.”

Sebastian Vettel suffered his second alternator related retirement of the 2012 season after an Italian GP weekend when Red Bull struggled for pace.

Before the retirement cost him sixth place Vettel had already been delayed by a drive through penalty for an incident with Fernando Alonso.

Despite his misfortune, Vettel insisted that he was happy with the speed he was able to show.

“We lost some points today, obviously we didn’t finish, and it doesn’t help if the others are finishing,” said Vettel. “All in all I think we were more or less where we deserved to be. We did the best we could, we could see the pace was not as strong as the leaders. It was a good race for us, given the lack of pace.

“There are not so many straight lines in the next couple of races, at least different types, so we shouldn’t lose so much.

“There’s a long way ahead of us. We need to improve the car, we could see today the pace was not there, nevertheless we were in a position to finish fourth or fifth, something like that.”

Meanwhile Vettel said that his drive through penalty was not justified: “From my point of view no, but it’s not for me to judge.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner was quick to express his frustration after Sebastian Vettel retired from the Italian GP with an alternator failure – a part that is supplied by Renault.

Vettel lost victory in the European GP after a failure, and had another problem in FP3 at Monza. Jerome D’Ambrosio also experienced an issue in Italy, which led to a precautionary change.

Asked to compare the Monza race problem with the one that stopped Vettel in Valencia, Horner said: “I haven’t seen the component itself, but the similarity is it’s caused another DNF. Two race stopping failures – one that cost us a certain victory, and today a sensible amount of points – is extremely costly, and something that needs to be rectified for the remaining races.

“It looks like there was a similar issue on another car with the same component during the weekend. Very disappointing, but we need to work with Renault to try and understand, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“We need to find rectifications for the DNFs that have occurred. DNFs are extremely expensive, and it’s our first non points scoring race since Korea 2010, which also happened to be an engine failure that cost us on that day as well. We can’t afford to not be finishing races.

“It makes the mountain higher, but both the drivers are still in the championship race, we’re still leading the constructors’ by 19 points, and with seven races to go we’ve got to make sure we throw everything at it.”

Horner said that Vettel was doing a good job in the race, despite a lack of straightline performance.

“Sebastian was really hanging on, and he was doing a really strong job. He managed to hold onto Jenson early on in the race, but then the Ferraris were just too quick for us on the straights. We were powerless to defend. But Sebastian did nothing wrong, he drove as hard as he could, and this circuit unfortunately just exposes our weaknesses.

“We were on target, we felt we could one stop. We knew it was marginal, but we really felt we could do it. Certainly in Sebastian’s case his tyres were in pretty good condition right up until the terminal failure with six laps to go.”

He declined to say much about Vettel’s drive through penalty for forcing Fernando Alonso off the road: “It’s irrelevant effectively after the DNF. Judge it for yourself – it seemed a bit harsh. It didn’t seem to warrant a penalty, but that’s my opinion.”

Sergio Perez left rivals scartching their heads by taking a stunning second place for Sauber at Monza, having started only 12^th.

The Mexican was the highest placed driver to start on the hard rather than the medium tyres. He was able to find unexpected pace on them, and was able to run a long opening stint as he worked his way up the order.

In the second half of the race he was on the medium tyres while those ahead were on the hard, and on the rubbered-in track, that proved just the ticket. He passed both Ferraris and was closing on winner Lewis Hamilton at the end of the race.

Although Perez and Sauber have pulled off some similarly successful strategies before, rivals struggled to explain the advantage he had.

“It was really enjoyable,” said Perez. “One of those races where you have the pace, and you are the one attacking. It was very crucial moments during the race, especially during my first stint, to go that long and to be able to keep the pace was not easy at all. I did quite a lot of laps on those tyres.

“Then in the second stint we managed to go maximum attack, and I was able to have good fighting with some drivers. It was just a great race.

“With the first stint I was a bit worried, especially with the data we had from Friday. I was a bit worried I was feeling some degradation from the tyres, so I was a bit worried that it was going to drop, that the tyre was going to drop but once I got until lap 20 it was looking really good.

“Before that I was in contact with the team every lap, trying to say that everything was fine. Every lap I asked them to stay in contact every lap, just in case we were in need to change the strategy.”

Perez admitted that qualifying had been something of a mess.

“I don’t think we had the pace in qualifying, on a single lap, to be even close to gaining the front row or close to the top five. We were not quick at all, we were lacking too much speed on the straights, and that was our problem. I’ve been sick all weekend. It’s been difficult, but it did not affect me at all, just yesterday in qualifying I did not have the good lap.

“I was too close to Bruno Senna so I lost a lot of downforce – it was the reason why we qualified just out of the top 10. Maybe top 10 was reachable, but more than that, not. It helped us, in a way, to change the strategy. We risk, I don’t know if we were the only one, or one of a few, to go for prime and it worked quite well. We were a bit worried about the warm up in the beginning, but it worked quite OK.”

Long linked with a future at Maranello, Perez downplayed the fact that he passed two Ferraris.

“I’m fighting for my team and will always fight for the team that I’m in. I will always give my maximum I can. And I will fight any driver, no matter if it’s Fernando or Lewis, I will fight for my team to get the result – and I think every driver will do the same.”

Sebastian Vettel will start the Italian GP from fifth place despite Red Bull struggling for one lap pace at Monza.

Vettel only just made it out of Q2, while his team mate Mark Webber was left stranded in 11th place.

In Q3 Vettel benefited from problems for Fernando Alonso to take sixth, and gained another place from Paul Di Resta’s penalty.

In Spa Vettel qualified 11th, made a bad start, and still managed to finish second. Asked by this blog if today had been a good case of damage limitation, Vettel agreed.

“Yeah I think P6 was probably the maximum we could get today,” he said. “The final attempt was a bit messy with traffic. Obviously I tried to get a bit of a tow. It probably wasn’t working perfectly but nevertheless as I said sixth on the grid and then with Paul’s penalty to start from fifth was more than we probably expected this morning, to be honest.”

Vettel said that any weaknesses in the package this weekend were not related to previous events.

“We think it’s a different story here compared to other races. It’s not a big secret that we are not quick enough on the straights, and equally we’re not quick enough in the corners. If you combine the two then it’s difficult to be fastest.

“I think race pace should be a little bit better. It’s difficult to know what’s going to happen, but I think since yesterday we made progress, and if anything our most competitive run was the long run yesterday. So we should be in better shape.

“Obviously we need to wait and see how the others are, how quick they will be, maybe they have done little tweaks or adjustments, but I think we should be alright in the race. But surely we are not expecting to win. I think the pace was not there at any time this weekend. I’m looking forward to a good car in the race, but it’s difficult to know what we can do.”

One extra concern for RBR is that in FP3 Vettel suffered an alternator failure – something that Renault and the team thought had been addressed after Valencia.

“It was a big surprise, it happened this morning, and we didn’t expect it at all after what happened earlier this year in Valencia. We had a fix and we were convinced that we would not run into any kind of problem again, therefore it was a big surprise. At the moment obviously it’s not clear why it happened. It’s difficult to react – you obviously just put a spare alternator on the car, and you go again. But I’m reasonably confident that with the mileage we’ve done so far without any trouble then we should be fine tomorrow.”