Tag Archives: F1

The number one point of discussion in Friday’s Formula 1 drivers’ briefing in Suzuka was not kerbs or run-off areas but the state of paddock toilet facilities around the world.

You may think that I’m pulling your chain but the subject really did emerge and was extended into a chat about showers.

There is a serious point here in that drivers always spend the build-up to a race hydrating, and they factor in a comfort break between parking their cars on the grid and going to the national anthem ceremony.

One driver told me this morning that “a shit can be worth two-tenths” but he might have been little optimistic in his calculations.

At most tracks they simply return to their own garages for their personal pitstop, but there are some venues where they have to venture out into the public part of the paddock and potentially join a queue to use temporary facilities, with Melbourne and Montreal among those highlighted.

The problem is that if they are late to the national anthem they potentially face a penalty, something that the FIA has highlighted, and thus any time lost could be very costly. Drivers also pointed out to the FIA how they can be delayed by being doorstepped for TV interviews.

They are keen for the FIA to log the WC issue and add better pit building facilities to the guidelines for new venues.

GPDA director George Russell also mentioned the lack of shower facilities at many tracks. At European events team hospitality units usually have showers for the use of drivers, but they are not common at flyaway venues, and especially at temporary circuits.

However Russell’s plea didn’t get much traction amongst his colleagues, with one of them suggesting that circuits should ensure that there is a hair dryer just for George’s use…

The issue of facilities is not a new one. Max Mosley once told me that in the early days of FOCA he and Bernie Ecclestone delegated the job of paddock toilet inspector to none other than Frank Williams.

An otherwise perfect Sunday for McLaren in China was spoiled by a brake issue that Lando Norris had to manage for the last part of the race.

The team came away with a welcome one-two result led by Oscar Piastri after a difficult sprint the previous day, but a long brake pedal for Norris created some tension.

Paradoxically at the same time the situation also made the team’s life easier in terms of any stress associated with allowing the two drivers to race, as it prevented Norris from being able to fight with Piastri.

Nevertheless team principal Andrea Stella made it clear that any sort of reliability issue was “not acceptable” in the context of the World Championship fight.

“We have been tense at the pitwall, and I’m sure the entire team and the fans, because we had one issue on Lando’s car with a brake pedal that we needed to manage over the last 20 laps,” said the Italian.

“Lando and the team did a very good job in being in the loop as to how to adapt the driving style to this kind of problem, which then got worse and worse through the race, and put the entire result at risk, which is obviously just not acceptable from a reliability point of view. We need to do better.

“And this will be one of the points that we will definitely re-emphasise to the entire team that has worked at an incredibly high level, but we cannot have issues that put these sort of results at risk.

He added: “The brake pedal was going long, and what we needed to do is we needed to avoid more and more the peak pressure.

“So he needed to brake with less and less and less peak pressure, to the point that over the final laps, he was just costing for a long time off the throttle, and then applying just a minimum amount of brake pressure to stop the car and go around the corner.”

Stella declined to elaborate on exactly what the root cause of the issue was.

“We understand what the problem is, which I don’t disclose for IP reasons, but fundamentally, it had to do with a leak in one of the components, not the brake line, but somewhere else.

“And the main action required was to limit the peak brake pressure, or like just you could brake, but very, very gently.

“So what was a 100 metre braking, now it became 200 metres, and towards the end, it was a 300 metres, because Lando needed to lift the throttle, cost to a certain speed and then apply very gentle brake pressure. That was to avoid that leak to become too fast.”

Lewis Hamilton says it’s “not the moment to throw the toys out of the pram” and insists that his Ferrari Formula 1 team should not be defined by its difficult race in Australia.

Hamilton qualified eighth in Melbourne, a place behind team mate Charles Leclerc. After a bad decision to stay on slicks cost both men a chance to make progress they finished eighth and 10^th, with the Monesgasque driver still ahead.

Hamilton has made no secret of the fact that he still has a lot of work to do as he learns about the team and the car.

“We’re just going to set the car up a bit different this weekend,” he said in Shanghai. “So to this point, I think I’m still having to witness and take a view and see how the team operates.

“I’m still learning, it’s the first weekend to see how they operate on a race weekend – it’s different to testing – how they like to set the car up, the changes they like to make during the weekends.”

He added: “I think as I get more and more comfortable and more knowledgeable about the car, I can start making more decisions, and say, actually, this is the setup change I want to go with.

“So already this weekend I’m having those discussions, and I’m going to lean a little bit more with adding my experience, hopefully there’s a bit more in it. But they’ve got a lot of experience already.

“And yep, it wasn’t the race that we wanted. It’s not the moment to throw the toys out of the pram. It is what it is. One small thing could have made a big difference in our result. But we move forwards.

“Everyone’s still motivated. You’ve got everyone here with their heads high, and I think that the energy is still good in the garage. We’re not going to be defined by that one race.”

Hamilton’s radio conversations with race engineer Ricardo Adami attracted a lot of comment in Australia after he asked several times to be left to it.

The pair are still discovering the most efficient way to communicate, and when I asked how that process is going Hamilton was keen to downplay the subject.

“Naturally, everyone overegged it,” he said. “It was literally just a back and forth. I was very polite in how I suggested it. I said, ‘leave it to me, please.’ I wasn’t saying ‘FU,’ I wasn’t swearing.

“And at that point I was really struggling with the car, and I needed full focus on these couple of things. We’re getting to know each other. He’s obviously had two champions or more in the past, and there’s no issues between us. Go and listen to the radio calls with others and their engineers – far worse, far worse.

“The conversations that Max has within engineer over the years, the abuse that the poor guy’s taken, and you never write about it, but you write about the smallest little discussion I have with mine. Ultimately we’re we’re literally just getting to know each other.

“So afterwards I’m like, ‘Hey, bro, I don’t need that bit of information. But if you want to give me this, this is the place I’d like to do it. This is how I’m feeling in the car and at these points, this is when I do and don’t need the information.’

“And it’s that’s what it’s about. There’s no issues, and it’s done with a smiley face. And we move forward.”

Oscar Piastri’s dream result of a win in the Formula 1 Australian GP slipped away on lap 44 of Sunday’s race, when his pursuit of McLaren team mate Lando Norris was ended by a sudden shower and a trip onto the Albert Park grass.

A recovery to ninth place and a couple of points was of little comfort given what he had lost, but nevertheless it was a strong weekend overall for the 23-year-old.

Norris may have been a step ahead for most of the time, but Piastri was right there throughout, and was especially strong in the race. It’s now in his hands to get in front and prove that he can be the team’s main title candidate.

“Oscar today was deserving to be in contention for the victory until the last moment,” said team boss Andrea Stella.

“And he drove exceptionally well. And when I use the verb driving, that’s not only driving the car around the track, but it’s also the kind of assessment of the conditions of the decisions that we should have taken.

“It was very lucid, very calm. And he is starting his year three in F1, but he looks like one of the most expert drivers that I worked with. So, extremely impressed by Oscar today, just a little bit unlucky.”

Piastri’s life was made harder by losing a spot to Max Verstappen at the start, but he was able to keep the pressure on the Dutchman, eventually pushing him into a rare mistake.

“The start was not amazing,” he said when I asked about his race. “I just got pinched on the inside a little bit, and I got overtaken, I think the pace was really strong until we pitted for slicks. I think Max obviously locked up a little bit and went wide, and I was able to show the pace I had.”

On lap 32, shortly after a mistake had cost him a couple of seconds, a radio message revealed that only now – with backmarkers out of the way – was he free to race Norris.

“We were holding position before that. I think by the time we were free to race, it kind of killed my front left a little bit getting to the back of Lando. So by that point, there wasn’t much I could do.

“I think today’s race and the circumstances were pretty extreme. We were approaching backmarkers, one dry line, not knowing if there’s going to be rain to come. I’ll speak to the team and try and understand better what the thinking was. I think it’s always clear that those calls can come in either direction.”

It was when the rain returned that things went from for Piastri. At the end of lap 44 both he and Norris went off towards the end of the lap, and while his team mate was able to scrabble back onto the track and dive into the pits Piastri was left stranded on the wet grass for what seemed like an age.

“I tried to push a bit too much, I guess. In those conditions, very difficult to judge just how slippery it’s going to be. I think from one lap to the next, it had really changed a lot. And I could see Lando going off in front of me, but I was also already in the corner, basically.

“So there wasn’t much I could do to slow myself down at that point. And then once you’re in the gravel and the grass, you obviously try to keep the car as straight as possible. And then obviously to get stuck in the grass like that was pretty unbelievable sat in the car, but I’ve only got myself to blame for being there, so it’s a shame.”

Eventually he managed to reverse back onto the escape road and get into the pits: “I was just trying to stay in the race. Tried to go forwards, and I couldn’t, so a good thing I spent some time in the off-season trying to learn how to reverse a tractor on Jeremy Clarkson’s farm, because I think it came in handy today. I was just trying to get myself back in the race.”

He was 13^th for the restart after the safety car, and was given a little help through being waved past to regain his lap – which helped to take the green with warm tyres.

“I knew that we had strong pace. I knew that I had strong pace. Even after the final restart it was frustrating. Ocon went wide or nearly lost the car at the last corner. So I went past just by driving normally, and then had to give the position back. So I lost three or four seconds doing that.

“And then given that I had to unlap myself, I had some pretty good temperature in the tyres, and was just able to capitalise on that, the car’s pace and my own confidence, I think. I’m glad that we at least got back to the points, but it should have been a lot more.”

He made it as far as ninth, pulling off a bold passing move on Lewis Hamilton right at the end. It was another sign that he means business this year.

“I think for essentially 56 laps of today’s race I was very proud of the job I did,” he said. “I feel like the pace was really strong, and obviously disappointed with the mistake I made.

“But I think that doesn’t take away completely from just how strong the whole week has been for not just the team, but for myself. I feel like I’ve done a good job all weekend. So I think it would be pessimistic of me to just write-off the whole weekend because of one mistake.”

Swearing on team radio won’t incur penalties – unless aimed at officials

The FIA has clarified the new swearing rules after the subject came up in Friday evening’s Formula 1 drivers’ briefing in Melbourne.

The new guidelines and table of fines have been a major talking point in recent weeks with drivers concerned about the scale of potential penalties.

However it was made clear that team radio conversations are exempt, and that the main focus of the new swearing guidelines is on press conferences and similar situations.

The FIA’s call not to take action on Dan Ticktum’s colourful rant in the recent Jeddah Formula E race served as an informal precedent for what would happen in F1.

That approach was confirmed by steward Garry Connelly in Friday’s briefing after drivers brought up the subject.

The FIA view is that car-to-pit conversations are “private” and the fact that some are broadcast and others aren’t mean that the stewards won’t take any action.

However the FIA also stressed that any abuse of stewards, the race director or any other officials in radio conversations would be subject to an investigation and potentially a penalty. The FIA made the point that online abuse – which can be stoked by driver comments – has led to some stewards deciding that they no longer want to serve in the role.

Drivers were also reminded that the size of any fines was at the discretion of the stewards, and wouldn’t necessarily be as high as the published numbers.

Gravel traps were another topic of conversation in the briefing after were stones thrown onto the track at Turn 6 in practice, causing a red flag at one point.

The plan is for the track to be swept in that area between qualifying sessions on Saturday. The track will also be cleared during the race should a safety car or red flag create the opportunity to do so.