Teams will discuss details of the rookie race plan this week
Discussions over a Formula 1 rookie sprint to be held on the Tuesday after the Abu Dhabi GP are ramping up – however it is still not certain that the event will take place.
The idea emerged from an F1 Commission meeting with a view to making more use of the end-of-season young driver test day at the Yas Marina circuit.
At the moment December 10 is still set to follow the same format as last year’s post-season test as defined in the FIA sporting regulations, with all teams obliged to run two cars – one for rookies (who have started two or fewer F1 races) and one with a race driver conducting Pirelli testing with 2025 tyres.
The initial idea was to have the testing lead into a sprint event for the young drivers on the following day, but that has already been reserved for FIA F2 testing, while a suggestion that all 20 cars be raced by rookies was also quickly dropped.
The provisional plan now is to break up the usual two-car Tuesday testing with a qualifying session for 10 rookies, followed by the sprint at the end of the day.
There are still lots of logistical problems to be addressed, while provision also has to be made in the regulations, which are currently geared for the test session format.
The details will be discussed by the FIA, F1 and team sporting directors at a Sporting Advisory Committee meeting this week.
If it is ultimately deemed too late for a rookie sprint to be organised for this year there is a strong possibility that the format could be incorporated into the 2025 regulations.
The idea has obvious appeal for those teams who will have a rookie race driver in 2025, with Jack Doohan and Oliver Bearman already confirmed at Alpine and Haas respectively, and Kimi Antonelli set to be named soon at Mercedes.
Other teams who have obvious candidates with prior FP1 experience include Aston Martin with Felipe Drugovich, Ferrari with Robert Shwartzman, Williams with Franco Colapinto and Zak O’Sullivan, and Red Bull/VCARB with Isack Hadjar and Ayumu Iwasa.
If the sprint plans are confirmed teams will have still plenty of time to give FP1 mileage to other drivers who have not yet driven a current F1 car in an official session.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella admits that despite a dominant win for Lando Norris at Zandvoort the MCL38’s performance is still “not enough” to ensure that it’s the best car at every circuit.
Stella promised that more upgrades are on the way as the team continues to take the fight to rivals Red Bull.
Norris scored a comfortable win in the Netherlands, despite losing out to Verstappen at the start, and having to pass him for the lead.
However Stella cautioned that the Dutch track was particularly favourable to the car.
“I have to say today is very encouraging from a performance point of view,” said the Italian.
“At the same time it happens at a track that seems to be just very suitable for our car, like Hungary was.
“Even after Hungary, we said, ‘Ah it’s going to be P1, P2 every race.’ But it’s not. It just seems to be very track dependent at the moment.
“But today was definitely beyond expectation, including yesterday, in terms of qualifying performance, in terms of race performance, and to some extent, even the tyre degradation was very good, to the point that Lando scored the fastest lap of the race at the last lap.”
Stella admits that it’s hard to judge how cars will compare at different types of tracks, but he expects Red Bull to still be the pacesetter at some venues.
“I’m not so sure in terms of relative competitiveness,” he said. “I think if we go to tracks which belong to this kind of family of tracks, then I think we can be confident that we will perform strongly – like high downforce, long corners.
“If we go to tracks where you have very high-speed corners, like in Silverstone, then we know Red Bull, they are very strong in this kind of layout. And still, I think if you go back to Austria, they will be faster, because in Austria, they pulled off like a four-tenths advantage in qualifying.
“But I think thanks to the upgrades now, we will be more competitive even where Red Bull were faster than us, potentially.
“It’s not easy to see. I think it’s in a way, we miss the opportunity to see in Belgium, who would have been the fastest car in dry condition because of the qualifying intermediate tyres.
“But we think that the car in the current configuration is possibly not enough in terms of the performance required to be the best car at every single event. That’s why we plan to deliver more upgrades before the end of the season.”
Stella said that the team realised early in the Zandvoort race that Norris had the pace with which to pass Verstappen on track, rather than via pit strategy.
“It must have been around a few laps before the overtaking where Max’s pace started to drop off compared to Lando,” he said.
“And looking at Lando’s data, he still seemed to be pretty comfortable, like he could be fast without having to abuse car balance, or abuse the tyres.
“It became apparent that with this kind of pace, we could have overtaken, even because Max was on a Monaco rear wing, and we were on a relatively smaller rear wing.
“So we knew that if we got into potentially what was half a second or something, we could have gained massively down the straight. At some stage it became apparent let’s not think about undercutting, because I think this situation will sort itself naturally with an overtaking.”
Stella says the “Lando Norris factor” contributed to pole in Zandvoort
McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andrea Stella has downplayed the role of the latest MCL38 update package in the team’s Zandvoort pole – and added that the “Lando Norris factor” played a part.
Norris stunned rivals by being over 0.3s faster than second placed Ma Verstappen on a track with a relatively short lap.
While McLaren brought a substantial package of new parts to the Dutch track Stella says that a combination of circumstances contributed to the impressive showing.
“I think we cannot read into the gap from pole position to the second position as this being a reflection of the upgrades that we took trackside,” he said. “Because the upgrades do not deliver this amount of performance.
“I think what we have seen today is the combination of several conditions that helped our car deliver a strong performance.
“First of all, I would classify this circuit in the category of Hungary, Barcelona, in which we have long corners in the medium speed range, which do suit our car characteristics very well. And in fact, we had pole position in Barcelona and in Hungary as well.
“Then the second factor is certainly the upgrades. Numerically, they seem like they have confirmed the expectations. So they did add some lap time compared to what was already a competitive baseline. Then we were in conditions today, if we want to mention a third factor, whereby there was no sunshine.
“Those relatively cold-ish truck and ambient temperature conditions, which again, seem to suit our car. And then I would say today we have seen also a bit of the Lando Norris factor. I’m not surprised at all, that Lando can put together this kind of performance, because he has done it in the past.
“And here in fairness it seems like he’s been in great shape throughout the entire weekend.
“So I think all these factors compounded may give this kind of result, which obviously is very encouraging, but I would take it with a pinch of salt, because all these factors may vary once we go to the next event.”
Verstappen has won all three Dutch GPs held in the modern era from pole position, and Stella acknowledged that ending that streak would be particularly satisfying.
“Even if I’m an engineer, I do recognise that beating Red Bull and Max here would have a special kind of flavour, even if numerically it may give the same amount of points!,” he said.
“But definitely this would have a special meaning. I would add to the special meaning the fact that Zandvoort has been a bit of a struggle for McLaren in terms of track layout, it has been a place where really we haven’t performed very well.
“So if we can confirm a strong performance tomorrow in the race, then this would be extremely encouraging in terms of the strides forward that we’ve been able to make.
“And it’s interesting that in the note I said before, actually the points of strength now, a circuit like this is what in the past, when I say the past, no more than 12 months ago, was our main weakness.”
Stella said that the change of fortunes showed that McLaren is going in the right direction.
“I think our technical team have been in condition to turn the characteristics of the car around, and make it more competitive in the areas where we were weak, and these are also areas that you find very frequently in most of the circuits.
“So it’s where you really want to be competitive, rather than being competitive in high speed and in straight line like we used to be a couple of seasons ago.”
Stella expects to see an intriguing race today, with much depending on Norris’s start from pole.
“They are the usual factors for the race, like first of all, the tyres,” he said. We will see how the tyres will behave, because there’s some options in terms of strategy.
“And I think nobody really knows whether some of these options will prevail rather than others, and it will be important to discover during the race what the behaviour of the tyres is.
“Then obviously the start itself and the first lap, I would really be interested in trying to see what we are able to do if we have a good start with Lando and we can take the lead and then see what the pace of the car is, rather than the pace being controlled by Verstappen for instance.
“Another variable is that Oscar is in a very strong position as well, and even if the three cars go off the grid in qualifying order, still, I think each of the three is in condition to have a go for the victory, because you can play with the strategy and therefore, there’s multiple options in terms of those who can win the race.
“And I wouldn’t certainly forget Mercedes and Russell, like we have seen, what they are capable of, and they are definitely in contention. So there’s a multiple amount of variables.”
A frustrated Esteban Ocon was only 17th in qualifying at Zandvoort after a session that he described to his Alpine team as a disaster.
The Frenchman struggled for grip and a big snap of oversteer towards the end of his final lap in Q1 ensured that he didn’t make it out of the session.
In conversation with engineer Josh Beckett he said it was “the car was a disaster since the beginning of the weekend”.
When Beckett highlighted that he was four-tenths up and safe for Q2 before the Turn 10 snap Ocon added “I’m about to crash every corner. I cannot drive the car, I tell you. Please listen to me.”
Ocon revealed that he’d had a change of chassis since the last race in Belgium.
“I said yesterday that it was going to be a long weekend, if we were not finding what the issue of the car was,” he said when asked by this writer about his session.
“Since we’ve put the car down here, there’s a lack of grip. The car is not behaving as normal, and as it has done in the past.
“We had a good car in Spa, which was quite decent, which is hard enough to have already. But we changed everything, chassis, floor and a lot of components on the car.
“And since we put it here, it is not working. We have left the car the same from yesterday to today, and unfortunately, it is the same results as it was.
“So I couldn’t keep it on track how I was pushing, I was sideways and having snaps in most corners. And you cannot finish a lap with that amount of sliding, basically.”
Regarding the feisty radio chat he said: “We discussed very openly about it. But what Josh said at that moment, saying yes, but you were four-tenths down before you had the snap – yes, for sure.
“But I had three snaps before. So it is normal that we’re not having those snaps, because the tyres are over the roof. And you cannot finish a lap like that.”
Ocon conceded that it might be worth changing the set-up and starting from the pitlane.
“We’ll see what we decide,” he said. “I think it’s going to be important to take the opportunity to think about the future races, and try and understand also why it didn’t work.
“But yeah, today it was a very poor day. It looked like it was going to be from FP2, to be fair. Disappointed that we didn’t turn things around.”
In stark contrast to Ocon his team mate Pierre Gasly was pleasantly surprised to make it to Q3 and earn 10th place on the grid, before earning a spot from a penalty for Alex Albon.
“Our numbers were definitely worse than that,” said Gasly. “We expected to struggle to get to Q2and that’s why we went with three sets. Actually, we didn’t manage to get the last run.
“So we managed to get through on two. I think to get in that last stage and beat a Ferrari and a Mercedes to get to that Q3 was a very good surprise.
“And it was tough conditions out there, so we just tried to focus on ourselves, get some clean out laps, good track position, manage this wind, to put a strong lap together and that’s what we did. So very pleased.”
Haas has now returned Uralkali’s 2022 sponsorship funds
A threat to the Haas Formula 1 team’s participation in the Italian GP is over after the team paid former sponsor Uralkali the money it was owed.
A legal dispute over the payment meant that there was a chance that the team could have been blocked from taking its cars and equipment out of Holland after this weekend’s Dutch GP.
However it’s understood that the payment was made late on Friday and the team is now free to leave Zandvoort on schedule on Sunday evening.
The affair began when Haas ditched Nikita Mazepin at the start of 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made it impossible to employ him.
The team kept the sponsorship that had been paid in advance by the Uralkali company owned by Mazepin’s father Dmitry.
A Swiss arbitration court decided in June that the team should return $9 million to Uralkali, and Haas had no option but to pay.
The team said that international sanction laws slowed the process of returning the funds, although Uralkali disputed that claim.
On Friday team boss Ayao Komatsu said: “The arbitration ruling was made, and then we accepted it. We’re not disputing it whatsoever.
“It’s a complicated process to transfer the funds across, and we working on that, and it’s been taking longer than I would like. We are fully focused on making it across as soon as possible.”
In an effort to encourage payment Uralkali sent police and local bailiffs to Zandvoort on Thursday, and after some discussion it was agreed that Haas would be able to race this weekend.
However if the funds were not paid by the team could have be blocked from taking its trucks and equipment out of Holland on Sunday night, thus threatening its participation at Monza.
A new rear wing is at the heart of the Zandvoort package
McLaren Formula 1 chief designer Rob Marshall says that the team’s Zandvoort upgrade package should provide a “decent chunk” of lap time.
The package is the first major change to the MCL38 since the Miami GP in May, the team having gradually honed a relatively stable package since then.
A new high downforce rear wing is the main change for this weekend, along with a revised floor edge, brake ducts and suspension.
In Friday’s FP2 session Oscar Piastri was second fastest, while Lando Norris was fourth.
Marshall suggested that the strategy of bringing one major package came about by chance.
“I don’t think we consciously choose to target one event,” he said. “It’s the way the calendar works out.
“Sprint events make introducing new bits awkward, or harder to assess whether they are any good or not.
“And it just sort of turns out that, we managed to deliver a lot of stuff for Miami, which was our last real upgrade.
“You look at all the bits we’re bringing, and they all seem to have similar lead times. And you go, ‘Actually, we’ll just hit that one event and get them all there in one go.’”
Marshall admitted that it will be hard to match the success of the last big upgrade.
“It overdelivered, the Miami one,” he said. “So it was a bit of a surprise to us how successful it was. Hopefully it’s a decent chunk again, but less clear.
“There are some things we’re not so certain about, some things are slightly more risky than others. But unfortunately, with the weather as it is, it’s going to be difficult to assess this weekend is what I suspect.”
Asked about the benefits of the new wing he said: “If it delivers what we think, it’ll just be become our new high downforce rear wing, and it’ll obsolete the old one.
“Just general efficiency gains really, aerodynamic efficiency, and a few things to try and just help the way the car feels to the driver as well. A bit more downforce tends to fix everything!
“It’s a bit of a bit of a DRS improvement, and just a general efficiency improvement.”
Marshall admitted that having a stable package for a few months had its benefits.
“Sometimes when a part is marginal, you put it on, and I guess you don’t really know whether it’s better or worse,” he said. “You just kind of go, ‘Well it probably is better.’ And you leave it on. You can kind of get yourself a bit of a knot. The car is always different every weekend.
“Whereas in effect we’ve been racing in a more old-school way, where actually, for the last six or seven races it has been the same car – it’s even more than that – with very minor changes.
“The changes we kind of made were just the circuit specific changes you normally make, roll bars and wing choice.”
Fernando Alonso admits that Aston Martin can only expect to be the fifth best Formula 1 team for the remainder of 2024 – and instead he has switched his focus to preparing for next season.
The Silverstone outfit has had a difficult year in comparison to 2023, and is currently in a distant but fairly safe fifth place in the constructors’ championship.
Alonso says that his main motivation over the remaining races will be to help develop ideas for the AMR25.
“Ninth and 10th every race is what we fight for,” he said. “The four teams are between 30 and 45 seconds in front of us every race. So to be in the top eight, we need a DNF from the cars in front.
“To secure that ninth and 10th is not that easy. In fact, we never did in the last few races. So I think scoring points and being in Q3 will be the target every weekend.
“This is in terms of results, and things that you can see. But in the background, we have a lot of test items, a lot of ideas in the car that we want to test in preparation for next year’s car, and things like that.
“So that that will be my biggest motivation, or my biggest hope for the remaining 10 races, to have a good understanding of many of the question marks we have, and finish the season with a clear idea.
“It doesn’t matter if we are in the points or not, but we need to make sure that we start next year on the proper path.”
Alonso believes that the team understands what it did wrong with the AMR24.
“I think so,” he said. “I think there are some ideas and some evidence of things that we did right, things that maybe we didn’t understand at the first go. So I’m confident we have the talent in the team.
“We have the motivation, we have now the new factory. We have new people coming as well. Unfortunately in F1, you cannot change things from night to day. But we will not stop working until we get in a competitive position.”
Asked about rumours that Adrian Newey could come on board Alonso said it was a “privilege” that his name was being mentioned in connection with the team.
“We have so many things and so many problems to solve and to get performance in the car that we cannot get distracted every weekend of where everyone is going to go,” he said.
“For me it’s already a privilege that Aston Martin and Adrian Newey are linked, that combination, just to read it, it’s just a privilege, and I feel honoured to be part of Aston Martin.
“If one day it happens, I will be happy. But I cannot dream or I cannot keep thinking of things that are not in the present.”
Norris admits that his first laps have been poor this year
Lando Norris says that Formula 1’s summer break gave him a chance to review what he can do better in the second half of the season – and his focus is on improving starts.
The McLaren driver has lost positions on the first lap at several races this year, costing him valuable points.
While he scored his first career win in Miami other potential shots at victory have slipped away for various reasons.
“I maybe didn’t end the first half the way I wanted to,” he said when asked by this writer if the break was a chance to reset.
“I’m still very happy with how things were going in general. But it’s just given me a little bit more opportunity to look back at certain things, a bit more time to try and improve them, and go out again this weekend and do better.”
Expanding on what he learned Norris admitted that the first half of the season didn’t go entirely to plan.
“There are things I’ve looked back on and learned from,” he said. “But I’m fighting for a championship, so I’m not going to be happy if I’m not performing at the level that I need to do to beat Max, and to beat Red Bull, and to beat the other drivers that I need to be beating.
“I’m still very happy with how the season’s gone. But just one too many mistakes, and a few too many points given away. Which is not the level I need to be at if I want to fight for a championship in the end of the day, and to fight against a driver like Max.
“So plenty of things I’ve looked into, and I’ve tried to work on, and come back stronger.”
Asked to elaborate on what he wants to improve he said: “It’s mixture of things, but starts and lap one. Not like a single thing I need to change, honestly. That’s where most of my opportunities have gone away from me from me.
“After lap one onwards, generally, the races have been very strong, and pace has still been very good, and race pace has been good, strategy I’ve been very happy with. So there’s still so many strong things.
“But always overshadowed by having a bad start, or a bad turn one, or being a bit safe at times, trying to stay out of trouble, things like that.”
He added: “Especially the starts, it’s never been one thing. And even starts when they’ve not been bad, it’s just I’ve been passed by the guy who has maybe had the best start, and I’ve lost a win.
“Like in Spain, I lost out on a win because my start was not perfect, and Max, pretty much had the best start.
“And that’s allowed them to get ahead and things like that now. So it’s not even like things have been bad, honestly, it’s just they need to be perfect to compete against the guys we’re competing against, and the smallest deficit or weakness can bite you quite easily.”
With Sainz off the market Doohan’s promotion was guaranteed
The Alpine F1 team has confirmed at Jack Doohan will be promoted to a race seat in 2025, alongside Pierre Gasly.
The news comes as no surprise as the Australian has been in a strong position since it became clear that Esteban Ocon was leaving, although for a while the team tried to persuade Carlos Sainz to come on board. The Spaniard’s confirmation at Williams made the way clear for Doohan.
He has been conducting a programme of testing with a 2022 car this season, and took part in the recent Pirelli test at Spa with the current car. He has also been busy in the simulator.
He also has an established relationship with new Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes.
“I am very grateful for the trust and belief by the team’s senior management,” he said. “There is so much work ahead to be prepared and ready and I will give my best in the meantime to absorb as much information and knowledge to be ready for the step up.
“It’s exceptionally satisfying to be the first graduate of the Alpine Academy to be in a race seat with the team and I’m extremely thankful to those who supported me along the way to make this a reality. It’s an exciting moment, a proud day for my family, and I look forward to taking it all in and pushing hard behind the scenes.”
Oakes added: “We are very excited to promote Jack into the race seat from next season and, in doing so, giving him the opportunity to showcase his skill and talent in Formula 1.
“Jack will become the first driver to graduate from the Alpine Academy into a race driver position with the team, so that is exceptionally pleasing for the team and its young driver pathway.
“Personally, I have worked with Jack back in 2019 and I am fully aware of his raw talent and potential. He is a very hard worker behind the scenes and his commitment is hugely valued by the entire team.
“Alongside Pierre, we have a well-balanced driver line-up with a good combination between youthful energy, experience, and pure speed. We look forward to working with both Jack and Pierre in order to keep developing the car and bring the team up the grid.”
Sainz has made it clear that Vowles was key to his decision
Carlos Sainz says that Williams Formula 1 team principal James Vowles “did a very good job” of convincing him to join the Grove outfit.
Sainz spent months deciding where he wants to race in 2025 and beyond, with Williams initially regarded as the outsider after Alpine and Sauber/Audi.
Ultimately Williams won out over both manufacturer-backed teams because Sainz believed in the vision that Vowles presented.
“It was very important,” he said when asked about Vowles’s role in his decision. “Obviously, he’s the leader of the project. And he has the vision, and he shared that vision, and he convinced me.
“He did a very good job, in that sense, into convincing me and into sharing the vision that he has in the project that he has in mind with me.
“And I think we are relatively similar characters in terms that we are both very analytical, very fair and open. And I’m convinced, simple as that.”
Sainz stressed that having faith in the people involved is key to making such important decisions.
“I’ve learned over the years in F1 to trust in my feeling about people,” he said. “Also, I remember when I left McLaren in 2020 I felt like I had the feeling that team was moving forward, and was going to be successful in the future.
“Having spent time working with Zak Brown and Andrea Stella, when I left McLaren I said they might not be winning next year or the following, but this team with these people is going to be winning soon.
“And four years later, they’re performing at an incredibly high level. And if I had that feeling that time, and now I have this feeling about the people and the culture in Williams, I need to trust that feeling. And this is what I committed to.”
Sainz stressed that he was keen to make a call on his future before the summer shutdown, while acknowledging that the final decision was only made in the week of the Belgian GP.
“I think it was important for me to take the decision before the summer break,” he said.
“It’s been a very tough, let’s say, seven months of my career where I had to deal with everything that happened in January, in combination with obviously having to perform and deliver as a Ferrari driver in a high pressure, high attention environment in Ferrari.
“In combination with having to decide my future at the same time that you’re talking to so many other teams, and analysing and putting everything on the table at the same time that you’re competing.
“And that’s why I put myself the target to take the decision before the break. And when I took the decision, I wanted to be 100% convinced. That’s why I gave myself plenty of time.”
Expanding on his choice he said: “I took that decision because Williams is the team that from the beginning I had very good feelings and very good conversations with.
“I feel like they’re a team very committed to F1 with a very strong project in the future, very strong leadership, and the will to bring a historic F1 team with the pedigree that Williams has back to the front, is something that motivates me.
“And it motivated me when I went to McLaren, when I went to Ferrari, when Ferrari was far down in the grid, after a tough 2020, and it motivates me now to a project like Williams. I cannot wait. And I think it’s going to be an interesting few years in my career.”
Adam Cooper F1 