FORMULA 1 - 2016

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TODT ASKED POPE FRANCIS TO PRAY FOR SCHUMACHER

Pope Francis has promised to pray for Michael Schumacher claims the F1 legend’s friend, former Ferrari boss and current president Jean Todt, after the Frenchman met this week with the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Todt sat with the Pope to discuss road safety, but “in view of the positive atmosphere of our conversation”, the topic turned to Schumacher, he revealed.

“Michael is close to my heart, as everyone knows,” Todt told Vatican Radio. “He is part of my family. I asked him (Francis) if he would like to pray for him (Schumacher), and he gladly accepted. Francis knows of Schumacher and had also heard of his accident.”

Todt said he phoned Schumacher’s wife, Corinna, after the meeting to inform her.

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Williams should dump Mercedes in favour of Honda - Hill

Williams should dump Mercedes power in favour of Honda, 1996 world champion Damon Hill has suggested, believing it is the only way the Grove outfit can ever challenge for the championship.

The claim might surprise some, given Mercedes currently have the dominant power unit on the grid, whilst Honda's is arguably the worst by some distance, but Hill reckons in the long-term, once Honda have resolved their problems, having a different engine to Mercedes will enable Williams to challenge for wins.

"I sort of suggested to Claire [Williams] last year that the problem is they have the same engine as the Mercedes team and that is always going to be a barrier between them winning a championship and Mercedes themselves winning a championship," Hill told Sky Sports.

"I think as a team wanting to win the outright championship strategically they would be better off with another engine and I think the only other engine you can think of is a Honda."

The Briton is confident Honda, following its troubled return with McLaren last year, will begin to fight back and eventually emerge a powerful force in F1.

"I would have liked to have seen Williams opt to go with the Honda engine, I think Honda are going to fight back," he claimed.

"They had an absolutely catastrophic year last year, but they learnt a lot, I could be wrong, but if they make the sort of impression they should do, then for Williams to get ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes they are going to have to have a different engine to the Mercedes team."

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Return to refuelling a ‘very retrograde step’

As Jean Todt opens the door on a return to refuelling, Claire Williams has urged against it as it would have a negative “gas-guzzling” impact on the F1 brand.

With F1 determined to entice viewers back to the sport, the powers-that-be have put forward various suggestions on how to make Sunday afternoons more exciting.

And although talk of reintroducing refuelling was scrapped last year, FIA President Todt has put it back on the table.

He revealed: “We (will) re-address (the subject of) is it right not to have refuelling?”

However, Williams deputy team boss fears it could harm the Formula 1 brand.

“The manufacturers have just spent hundreds of millions on these new hybrid power units,” she said at the Autosport International show on Saturday.

“[They] are much more relevant to the road industry, and to the energy-efficient conversations that we need to have in society now.

“To bring back refuelling, and to make F1 again appear as a gas-guzzling sport, just completely steps all over that message. So I am very anti-[refuelling].”

And she is not the only one at Williams who feels reintroducing refuelling would be a mistake for Formula 1.

Technical chief Pat Symonds has rubbished suggestions that it would make the sport more exciting, explaining that it would limit strategies as teams would be forced to stop after a predetermined number of laps based on the fuel load in the car.

“[Refuelling] takes away from the spectacle of the racing, and the uncertainty of the racing,” he stated.

“I think what it leads to is deterministic racing; what I mean by that is that at the moment we can determine a strategy, and then we take a more tactical view as we get into the race.

“In other words, we determine our pit stops based on what our tyres are doing, which won’t necessarily be what we’ve predicted, and what’s happening with our competitors around us.

“The minute you’ve got refuelling, it becomes deterministic – if you put in fuel to get to lap 24, you stop on lap 24.

“You obviously can’t go further than that, and if you stop earlier than that, the penalty is way too high.

“So you tend to get these races when you’re stopping when you don’t really want to.

“If we think back a few years to when we had refuelling, we saw much better racing afterwards. So I think it’s a very retrograde step.”

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Prost: People only talk about the problems

Although Alain Prost concedes F1 could do with a complete overhaul from engines, to chassis, to rules and revenue, he feels people focus too much on the problems.

In recent years Formula 1 has suffered slump in audience figures as fans not only not only fail to purchase tickets but even switch their televisions off.

This has led to a great deal of debate over what needs to be done to potentially save Formula 1.

And although he admits the sport could do with an overhaul, the former driver feels there has been too much criticism of late.

"I don't want to enter too much into this perspective and I'll tell you why: people only talk about one thing and that is the problem with F1," Prost told Motorsport.com.

"People look at the engine, the chassis and then the sporting regulations. But, in my opinion, we need to have a complete package and that is going to take a long time.

"So I don't want to see things going out in the press, as I can see sometimes quotes that don't reflect what I think. There are a lot of things that you need to change altogether."

However pushed on whether he also had concerns about Formula 1, the four-time World Champion said: "Yes, but as I said I think the better way is by having a full package [of changes].

"It is not only the engine, or the chassis. It is revenues, it is sporting regulations, it is everything altogether.

"You need to give the possibility to small teams to be more competitive, not only by adding more money, but by finding different ways in the regulations, [especially] the technical regulations."

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New Pirelli tyre will challenge F1 teams - Williams's Rob Smedley

Williams performance chief Rob Smedley reckons Pirelli's new ultra-soft tyre compound will present a "big challenge" to Formula 1 teams in 2016.

F1 has revised its tyre rules for 2016, introducing a new compound for circuits where the current super-soft tyre is considered too hard - principally street tracks such as Monaco.

Teams will also be given greater freedom over their tyre choices at each grand prix, with Pirelli nominating a third compound for each event.

Williams has often struggled to get the best from the delicate Pirelli rubber over the past couple of seasons, and Smedley reckons the new ultra-soft will compound the difficulty of overcoming this obstacle.

"I think it's going to be a big challenge for everybody, to be honest," said Smedley, speaking to Autosport at the annual Autosport International exhibition at Birmingham's NEC.

"It's certainly not insignificant, and I would be so bold as to say I think it was sold as a little bit insignificant to reduce the tread depth by 30 per cent and therefore have 30 per cent less wear.

"It's not that simple. You've got very different thermal properties on the layer that sits underneath the compound, and that gives you different properties of the compound itself after a certain extent."

He believes Williams has taken the change seriously enough to find adequate solutions.

"I think we've done the right things," Smedley said.

"We've sat down and we're considering extensively what difference that's going to make.

"We're considering it at a much deeper level technically than just knocking 30 per cent off our wear models."

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FIA being independently audited, president Jean Todt confirms

The FIA has brought in an independent audit company in an attempt to show the organisation is above board and transparent in its dealings.

It comes after two other world governing bodies, football's FIFA and athletics body IAAF, have been engulfed in scandal in recent months.

Closer to home, the European Union agreed to look into a complaint made by Force India and Sauber late last year over what the teams claim to be an "unfair and unlawful" division of Formula 1's revenues and setting of the rules.

To that end, the FIA is determined to show it is beyond reproach, so has opted for the independent audit.

Speaking at Autosport International, Todt said: "Unfortunately some global sporting organisations have been facing some problems, and I can only be sorry for them.

"Am I comfortable about the way our organisation is structured and run? Yes, I am, and I am very proud of all the people involved with it.

"Saying that, I feel if you are aiming for excellence then you can always try to do better.

"I have asked a specific audit company to have a look at our organisation, and if they feel they can advise on some improvements, then I'm very happy to take them on board."

Todt has confirmed to Autosport the matter was debated within the FIA, going all the way to Senate level, before a decision was taken.

"We felt the need to ask an audit expert company to address the situation and to be able to highlight the way we are structured," added Todt.

"Maybe we will be given some proposals due to their expertise, and I'm happy to take them on board.

"We are a very transparent organisation, and we are very happy to see if we can go to the next step, which I've tried to do since I was elected six years ago.

"They are currently working with us, and we are expecting something from them in the coming weeks, but not any kind of revolution.

"All our accounts have been submitted to an audit company and they have already certified them.

"This is more about the governance, and even then we've modified the statutes over the last six years, and always to improve them, but it's an ongoing process."

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The numbers game

The idea of drivers having their own personal numbers in Formula 1 was introduced at the start of 2014, following the long-established tradition from racing in the United States, where numbers are used not just for instant recognition, but also for brand-building and merchandising. What real NASCAR fan does not know who drives the 24, 48 and 88 cars?

To whom does this famous number belong in NASCAR?

Or why 43 is such an important number in the history of the sport. The numbering is now so important that the big names in the stock car racing series have all trademarked their numbers in their own styles , colours and fonts, in order to protect the brands.

The idea is now beginning to catch on in F1 and it means that merchandise can have more than one year of shelf life, if carefully designed. But how successful has that been? How many of us can instantly say which drivers has which number, or recognise that a cushion with a number 8 written on it, is a sign that one is in the presence of a Romain Grosjean fan?

Just stop and think about it. How many F1 race numbers can you instantly recall? This probably depends a little on your nationality. The Dutch, for example, will instantly say 33, the British will say 44 or 22 and the Finns will say 7 or 77. But how many of you know Felipe Massa’s number, or that of Nico Hulkenberg? Having said that it is clear that the numbers are being used more and more by the folks in marketing and merchandising, as one can see from the illustrations that are appearing in this article. And I guess that the fact that this is happening is a sign of the success of the idea.

As you can see from some of the merchandise on offer, the drivers are still to entirely break free from their teams, as the colour schemes seem to reflect the teams as well as the drivers.

There are one or two of these numbers which appear to be reserved for third drivers and have been used by a number of different drivers in the last 24 months, but once a driver gets a permanent drive, he has the right to request a number, if it is available. It is not entirely clear how this works, nor how long a driver who is no longer in F1 can lay claim to his number, although if he had trademarked a style and cool there is no reason he cannot use that for his own promotions for the rest of his days. We have also yet to see whether the FIA will allow such numbers as 00, or 07, or even 007 come to that.

The number 1 remains for the World Champion to use, if he chooses to do so. When the new numbering was Sebastian Vettel decided that he would use the number 1 in 2014, but would then switch to number 5. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, has chosen not to use the number 1 and has stuck with 44, to which he is so attached that he actually has the number tattooed behind his right ear.

Anyway, to help you out, here are some of the numbers that have been used:

3 Daniel Ricciardo

5 Sebastian Vettel

6 Nico Rosberg

7 Kimi Raikkonen

8 Romain Grosjean

9 Marcus Ericsson

10 Kamui Kobayashi

11 Sergio Perez

12 Felipe Nasr

13 Pastor Maldonado

14 Fernando Alonso

19 Felipe Massa

20 Kevin Magnussen

21 Esteban Gutierrez

22 Jenson Button

25 Jean-Eric Vergne

26 Daniil Kvyat

27 Nico Hulkenberg

30 Jolyon Palmer

33 Max Verstappen

44 Lewis Hamilton

55 Carlos Sainz Jr

77 Valtteri Bottas

99 Adrian Sutil

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RENAULT SET TO RETURN TO F1 WITH YELLOW LIVERY

Renault looks set to the Formula 1 fold as a fully fledged works team a yellow and black livery in 2016 as the French carmaker takes over and rebrands the team formerly known as Lotus.

Leaked photos of the latest edition of the British magazine F1 Racing depict last year’s once black and gold E23 now in a yellow livery reminiscent of the one raced by Robert Kubica back in 2010.

But it features Pastor Maldonado’s race number 13 and the branding of his sponsor PDVSA, with the article also quoting track chief Alan Permane as predicting a “tricky” season for the new works team.

“It is no secret that the 2016 car is a car designed initially for a Mercedes engine that will now have a Renault in it,” he said.

The article said Renault plans to eventually return to the top step of the podium with an audacious EUR 300 million per year budget.

But Permane warned: “We know 2016 is going to be a tricky year — a transition year if you like.”

Auto Motor und Sport said on Monday that Renault plans to reveal more about its 2016 plans, including the full management team, on February 3.

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NEW 2016 SAUBER WILL NOT BE READY FOR FIRST TEST

Sauber will take last year’s car to the first of Formula One’s two scheduled pre-season tests in Spain next month because their new one will not be ready due to late changes in the race calendar, a spokesman for the Swiss-based team revealed.

He said Sauber, who have had financial difficulties in recent years and finished eighth of 10 teams in 2015, planned to debut the new C35 car at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya on March 1. The first four-day test starts at the same venue on 22 February.

The opening race in Australia was originally scheduled for April 3, in what would have been the latest start to a season since 1988, but was brought forward to March 20 when the final calendar was published in September.

That meant the start of winter testing, where teams prepare their cars for Melbourne and a record 21-race season, was also advanced.

Some of the smaller privately-owned teams, including Sauber, have suffered cash-flow problems over the winter months in recent years but the team spokesman said the revised timetable was the main reason for the delay.

All teams start designing their cars for the following season to a tight schedule and long before the calendar is finalised but the smaller ones have less flexibility due to their relative lack of resources and budget constraints.

Force India missed most of pre-season testing last year after delays to the build of their 2015 car due to financial difficulties in paying contractors.

Sauber, Force India and Manor have all sought advances on their 2016 championship payments, with Sauber principal Monisha Kaltenborn saying she had made the request because the other two teams had done so and she did not want to be at a disadvantage.

“If you can make your liquidity easier, of course it helps the company,” she said in December. “We are not in a position where you can say it doesn’t matter at all.”

Sauber, who made their F1 debut in 1993, have never won a grand prix as an independent team. Their one race success, in Canada in 2008, came during a four-year ownership by BMW.

Most of the other 10 teams, including U.S.-owned newcomers Haas F1, are expected to launch their 2016 cars immediately before or at the first test — several of them with online presentations.

McLaren, who are hoping to be much more competitive this year after a woeful start to their new Honda partnership last season, announced on Monday that their MP4-31 car would be unveiled to all online on 21 February.

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WILLIAMS: WE NEED TO DO A BETTER JOB ON OUR CHASSIS

Since 2014 when Williams became Mercedes powered much has been expected of the Grove based team and right now they are third in the Formula 1 pecking order behind Mercedes and Ferrari, with deputy team principal Claire Williams believing that they need to improve their chassis to ruffle the top two.

“We have a great power unit in Mercedes and we’re very fortunate that we made that decision to jump from the Renault [in 2013] and take the Mercedes power unit,” she said at the Autosport Show.

“But it’s as much about the chassis as it is the power unit and the Mercedes guys have done a fantastic job on their chassis, they have a great power unit and therefore they’re dominating. We need to do a better job on our chassis in order to take the fight to them,” she admitted.

In 2013 the team the team were expecting much, but things did not go according to plan, “We got to Australia and thought the car was pretty good in 2013.”

“But we were very misguided in testing and when we all saw quite how bad the car was we did literally get a clean sheet of paper and wrote down: what do we need to do?”

“It wasn’t really rocket science either. The people we had in engineering needed bolstering, restructuring, we needed to choose a new engine, did we need to look at our driver line-up?”

“Hardest piece of the puzzle is now in that: how do we close the gap to the Ferraris and Mercedes and fight for a championship?”

“Really turning around [when things go] so badly you’ve obviously got so many things wrong in your organisation and you know what they are, you’ve got to change them.

“This is the hardest piece of work for us now moving forwards,” predicted Williams whose team have not won a grand prix since 2012 when Pastor Madlonado triumphed in Spain.

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WILLIAMS FW38 WILL BE READY FOR BARCELONA

The 2016 Williams car – the FW38 – will be ready to run on the opening day of Formula 1 pre-season testing next month in Spain.

“There will be no glamorous unveiling,” chief engineer Rob Smedley said at an auto racing show on the weekend. “We will run the car for the first time on 22 February in Barcelona.”

Having finished the constructors’ world championship in third place for the past two seasons, there are high hopes but technical boss Pat Symonds smiled that there are also “millions of reasons” why Ferrari sped past in 2015.

He is referring to the big difference between the budget of F1’s top independent team, and the grandees like Ferrari and Mercedes.

Nonetheless, Valtteri Bottas declared last week that he thinks winning in 2016 is “quite possible” for the Grove based team.

But on the 20th anniversary of his 1996 world title for Williams, Damon Hill questioned whether the team can ever win as a mere Mercedes customer.

“I think as a team wanting to win the outright championship, strategically they would be better off with another engine,” Hill told Sky. “And I think the only other engine you can think of is a Honda.”

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TODT WARY OF CLOSED CANOPIES FOR F1

FIA President Jean Todt warned that Formula 1 should be “careful” amid its deliberations about enhancing safety by covering the cockpits with a cage or canopy.

“We must be very careful,” Todt is quoted by Speed Week, “because we do not want to change the special nature of the different motor sport categories. On the other hand, we must do everything possible to improve safety.”

Todt said he was badly affected by the death of Jules Bianchi last year, but particularly the sad plight of his close friend Michael Schumacher.

“Coincidentally, I am seeing him (Schumacher) this very evening,” Todt revealed last Friday.

As for the Bianchi and Schumacher cases, he explained: “I’m not going to compare them. Through my son [Nicolas], I felt the terrible loss of Jules, but with Michael the situation is different because he is like my family.

“When someone is a part of your family, it is very painful to see them hurt,” Todt is quoted by the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti.

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AKI HINTSA MAKING PROGRESS AMID CANCER BATTLE

Former McLaren doctor Aki Hintsa (pictured above with Lewis Hamilton) says he has made some progress since being diagnosed with cancer mid last year.

The well-known 57-year-old Finn, who stepped away from F1 at the end of 2013 to focus on his clinic in Geneva, was diagnosed last July with a malignant abdominal tumour.

Hintsa, who has worked with the likes of Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and many other drivers past and present, has now told the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that he was given only three months to live.

“Tests have shown that the majority of the tumour has already disappeared,” he said.

However, he said he cannot talk of being cured, but rather of having achieved a “significant partial victory”.

“The fact that I saw Christmas and the New Year is already a miracle,” said Hintsa. “The probability is 99.5 per cent that I should no longer be alive. But the real miracle is the condition that I am in now.”

Indeed, Hintsa is reportedly now well enough to do a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum next week.

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Channel 4 confirms which races it will show live in 2016

UK broadcaster Channel 4, which has taken over the Formula 1 television rights from the BBC for 2016, has announced which races it will broadcast live.

The season opener in Australia will be shown exclusively on Sky Sports F1, with Channel 4 opting to wait until the second round in Bahrain before broadcasting its first live F1 race.

It will also broadcast the new European Grand Prix which will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, the British GP and the season ending Abu Dhabi GP.

The channel has taken over the BBC's contract, which had three years remaining, which means it has the rights to show half the races live, whilst the remainder will be shown as an extended highlights package.

Earlier this month, C4 confirmed that David Coulthard would move across, continuing his pundit and commentary role, whilst also confirming that races would be advert-free.

Further plans are due to be announced in the coming weeks.

The full list of live races: Bahrain, Spain, Europe (Azerbaijan), Britain, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico and Abu Dhabi.

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McLaren to unveil MP4-31 online on February 21

McLaren have confirmed that they will launch their 2016 Formula 1 car online on February 21, just a day before pre-season testing kicks off in Barcelona.

The team announced the date on Twitter, whilst also taking a swipe at Ferrari which teased fans with a "big announcement" and a countdown which concluded on Monday, only to reveal a registration process for ten fans to attend their launch in Maranello on an unspecified date.

"Feeling blue? Seeing red?? You can ALL see the MP4-31 launch on Feb 21! #McLarenMP431," McLaren wrote on social media.

McLaren are the first to announce their launch date, though it's expected the majority will launch on the opening day of the first Barcelona test.

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Hamilton “was desperate to drive for Red Bull” – Horner

Lewis Hamilton made more than one attempt to leave McLaren for Red Bull, according to their team principal Christian Horner.

Speaking to F1 Racing magazine Horner revealed Hamilton approached him about a seat at Red Bull in 2011 and 2012 before making his move to Mercedes in 2013. According to Horner, the fact Sebastian Vettel occupied one of their seats prevented it from happening.

“He was desperate to drive for the team,” said Horner. “In 2012, he wanted to come and drive for us, but there was no way we could accommodate him while Sebastian was with us. Then before he signed for Mercedes he was very keen to drive for Red Bull for 2013.”

Horner said he played a role in Hamilton landing at Mercedes in 2013 and admitted he did not expect the team would become the dominant force they now are.

“The McLaren had been very competitive in 2011 and 2012 and I thought it would probably be better for us for him to be at Mercedes than McLaren, so in the event of us not being able to sign him I encouraged Niki Lauda to sign him to weaken McLaren – not envisaging that Mercedes would become the absolute powerhouse they are today.”

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New Williams "biggest evolution yet" - Smedley

Williams' Rob Smedley says the new FW38 features significant aerodynamic changes compared to its predecessor, while following the same concept the old model.

The Grove team's head of vehicle performance believes that the car represents the biggest evolution that he has seen between seasons, given the lack of FIA rule changes.

Smedley also confirmed that the car will be launched at the first day of Barcelona testing on February 22.

"Essentially it's an evolution of [the FW37] design," Smedley said at the Autosport International show.

"You're going to see some quite interesting developments around the front wing area and underneath the chassis.

"There are some really interesting developments around the back end of the car that you're going to see as well.

"The guys in the wind tunnel in particular have done an absolutely stellar job, and we're really pleased. We're finding new methodologies, new ways to develop the car, and they're all bearing fruit at the minute.

"The car is an evolution, but definitely in my years in F1 with such stable regulations it's one of the biggest evolutions I've seen."

Wet-weather performance

Smedley said that work continued on addressing the car's performance in the wet and on slow circuits. The team is determined to not have any weaknesses this season.

"That really comes down to my responsibility, to understand why the car has specific weak areas. I think if you take last year, and a little bit with the 2014 car but it was masked by how dominant the power unit was, then the car has struggled a little bit in the low speed corners, and in the wet as well.

"At Williams we have a really good culture of sitting down and admitting what our problems are, and then from that trying to analyse it as scientifically as possible, and trying to understand it at a fundamental engineering level, and then going on to find solutions.

"Those solutions are always in any form engineering or technical forum will be short, medium and long term solutions.

"Last year it was very much focussing on the short term solutions, what could we do to improve our wet weather performance? That essentially is car set-up, it's how you use the tyres.

"One of the directives that I get from my boss Pat Symonds is that we mustn't have any circuits that we call our 'bogey' circuits, like Monaco, like Singapore, or if it rains and we're leading the race like in Silverstone and we end up fifth and sixth or whatever.

"So he's been very clear to give me that target, and on the back of that we've put together these working groups. It's not easy, but we're working on it."

Asked if Williams can challenge for the world championship, Smedley said: "That's a very tall order in 2016, I think. Our ambition as it's been since the restructure at the end of 2013 start of 2014 is to keep improving.

"I think we had a good year in 2014, we had a good year last year, and that's kind of consolidated where we are, that we're running towards the front end, and I think we just have to keep improving from there on.

"It's incredibly tough, it's not an easy ask to even win races in F1 these days, with the level of competition we've got. But we still keep pushing forward."

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Fans offered chance to be part of Ferrari launch

Ferrari is offering fans the chance to play a part in the launch of its 2016 Formula 1 car, which is set to be unveiled next month.

The Maranello-based outfit has launched a social media campaign – titled #ReadySetRed – where those fans who engage the most will be awarded points.

The top 10 highest scoring fans will then be given the opportunity to participate in the online launch of Ferrari’s 2016 challenger – which currently has the codename 667.

It is unclear what role the fans will play, but the competition rules suggest they will interact via Skype messaging in the live streaming.

The closing date of the competition is February 7, with the new Ferrari set to be launched shortly before the first pre-season test at Barcelona later on that month.

More details of the Ferrari competition can be found here.

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Christian Bale bails on Enzo Ferrari Hollywood biopic

Hollywood superstar Christian Bale has passed up the chance to play legendary sportscar manufacturer and Formula 1 team boss Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s upcoming movie blockbuster, citing health concerns.

Former Batman star Bale, who has been nominated for an Oscar for his role in The Big Short, is believed to have pulled out of the role due to the weight-gain process required to play the part of Ferrari.

According to multiple sources in Hollywood, Bale didn’t feel comfortable with the timeframe to gain the weight – despite his renowned bodyshape fluctuations for films such as The Machinist and American Hustle.

He would have played Ferrari in period from 1957, when the automotive entrepreneur faced crucial decisions over how his marque was to develop.

Production is set to start in the Spring, leaving director Mann in a race against time to fill his lead role.

The film is based on a screenplay based on Brock Yates’s book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, The Races.

Mann has been working on the project for 15 years, initially alongside the late Sydney Pollack and with Al Pacino cast in the role.

This film is not to be confused with the other Ferrari film in production, which is set to star Robert De Niro.

[NaFFe]

Hope its ok to post this here, but just wondering if any melbourne people know a good hotel to stay at for the F1 a lot has already booked out so just going to grab something in the city and tram/bus to the track. Any help would be great. thanks

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Hope its ok to post this here, but just wondering if any melbourne people know a good hotel to stay at for the F1 a lot has already booked out so just going to grab something in the city and tram/bus to the track. Any help would be great. thanks

Mate there are a bunch of Hotels here, everything is close to Albert park so you have a lot to chose from.

I'd suggest checking out Trivago as not only is everything in one place but you get better bang for your dollar.

You might be able to get a Hotel at Albert Park, give it a shot

Oh - And everyone is always welcome to post here!!

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SMEDLEY: GUYS IN THE WIND TUNNEL HAVE DONE A STELLAR JOB

Head of Vehicle Performance at Williams, Rob Smedley has promised the teams drivers – Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas – a vastly evolved car for the 2016 season.

The British team has finished the past two seasons in a solid third place, but last year was arguably a step backwards for Williams as Ferrari raced past.

Smedley, a senior engineer at Williams, said the new FW38 will be an “evolution” of its 2015 predecessor.

But he explained: “You are going to see some quite interesting developments around the front wing area and underneath the chassis. There is some really interesting development around the back end of the car — the guys in the wind tunnel have done a stellar job.”

“It is an evolution,” added Smedley, a former Ferrari engineer, “but with stable regulations, in my years in formula one, it is one of the biggest evolutions I have seen.”

Bottas, however, has been talking about the possibility of winning races in 2016, “I believe it is quite possible this year, as long as the car is better.”

Teammate Massa agrees: “I think so. That is what we are working for,” he told Sky. “I really hope it can be possible.”

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SYMONDS: MERCEDES HAVE CHINKS IN THEIR ARMOUR

Dominant Formula 1 world champions Mercedes have ‘chinks in their armour’ that Williams must be ready to exploit this season, according to the latter team’s technical head Pat Symonds.

Speaking to Reuters, Symonds declared himself “reasonably optimistic’ about the latest wind tunnel data and looked forward to seeing how that translated on track when testing starts in Spain next month.

“I’m not an optimistic person but I know the improvements we’ve made to the car are greater than we made last year,” he said. “I have to say I am quite pleased with the improvements on paper that we’ve made with the car.”

Williams, once dominant as their current engine partners Mercedes are now with Britain’s triple champion Lewis Hamilton and Germany’s Nico Rosberg, have finished third in the constructors’ championship for the past two seasons after a period in the doldrums.

Last year, Frank Williams’ staunchly British team finished ahead of Red Bull, themselves dominant champions between 2010 and 2013, and the season before that Williams pushed Ferrari into fourth place.

The team that have won more constructors’ crowns (nine) than any team apart from Ferrari (16) in the history of the sport, and are third on the all-time list of race winners, have not tasted the victory champagne since 2012, however.

There are those who doubt whether any ‘customer’ team can nowadays win in normal conditions against a well-funded ‘works’ outfit owned by the manufacturer and using the same engine, but it has been done before.

Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso won at Monza with Sebastian Vettel in 2008 while Brawn won both 2009 championships with Mercedes engines at a time when McLaren were the German manufacturer’s favoured partners.

“I still want to believe that we can [beat Mercedes],” said Symonds.

“If they are running their engines a bit harder than us, which of course they are perfectly entitled to do, and that’s worth a 10th of a second then we’ve got to make a car that is a 10th of a second quicker than theirs to get on equal terms. Well, why not?

“Red Bull, Ferrari have got much greater resources than us, so have McLaren. And all of those are teams that we have beaten in the last couple of years. We can do it.”

Brazilian driver Felipe Massa, a winner with Ferrari before joining Williams, agreed that in a year of evolutionary change, with stable regulations rather than anything revolutionary, it could be possible.

“We are really near. We were on the podium a few times last year and maybe more times the year before in 2014,” he told Sky Sports at the weekend. “We really hope we can get back to the victories… I really hope it can be possible.”

Red Bull’s Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo won three races in 2014 when Mercedes dropped the ball and a resurgent Ferrari, with four-times world champion Vettel joining from Red Bull, did the same last year.

“Even if you get as dominant a situation as Mercedes have got, we are not in the McLaren 1988 era when they absolutely win every race,” said Symonds, referring to that team’s Ayrton Senna/Alain Prost era.

“Mercedes have chinks in their armour. There aren’t many because they are an amazingly strong team but we’ve got to be there for those days.

“At the same time we have to keep pushing ourselves so we are not looking for that way of doing it, ultimately what we want to do is beat them fair and square. That’s what we’ve got to aspire to.”

Symonds recognised that Williams must also cut out the mistakes, of which they made far too many last season, to have any chance of doing that.

The memory of Finland’s Valtteri Bottas lapping on mismatched tyres — colour coded to make it even more glaringly obvious — after a muddled pitstop at the Belgian Grand Prix in August remains a painful one that cannot be repeated.

“We certainly made far too many operational errors last year, there’s no doubt about it,” said Symonds. “In my pre-season briefing to the guys at the beginning of the year we concentrated a lot on that.”

“I can’t say we will be faultless, nobody is immune… but certainly the number of errors we made was way too high and we are working hard to try and improve that.”

The season starts in Australia on March 20.

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MCLAREN WORKED THROUGHOUT CHRISTMAS ON 2016 CAR

McLaren staff worked throughout the Christmas break in order to keep its Honda-powered 2016 Formula 1 car on schedule.

After a woeful ‘reunification’ season last year the Anglo-Japanese collaboration is desperate to improve after a woeful performance in 2015.

But Simon Roberts, operations director, admitted the fast-forwarded Australia race date was a problem for the original McLaren schedule.

“Our entire build programme wasn’t lined up for that!” he smiled. “So we knew we had a problem to solve. The build schedule is on a critical path — it (the car) needs to pass all the FIA safety tests and be ready for the first test, which was also brought forward.”

Roberts revealed that, even though Christmas was looming, McLaren had to look into speeding up the process, “In simple terms, we put about eight shifts of work back into the programme over a five day period — a fantastic effort.”

“In total, there were about 110 people involved and we looked after our Christmas workers with a competitive package. It was a bit weird, not having all the time off, but there was a good spirit in the place. Everyone knew why they were doing it, and it really cleared the decks,” said Roberts.

“Most pleasingly, it meant that, once we came back in the New Year, we were back on schedule — and it felt like the programme had always been phased that way. It was an incredible effort.”

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FORCE INDIA STILL HOPEFUL ASTON MARTIN DEAL WILL HAPPEN

Force India has confirmed reports that a touted deal with the British luxury carmaker Aston Martin has fallen through for now.

Talks with the Silverstone based team about a naming sponsorship deal obviously took place, but Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer said just before Christmas: “We do not have the means to invest in F1.”

Force India is now confirming that news, although chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer is not ruling out a future deal with Aston Martin.

“It probably won’t happen for 2016,” he said, “but we’re still talking. It’s flattering for a company like Aston Martin to be talking to Force India – to want to partner with us and come into formula one – but the story isn’t final there yet.”

“So for 2016 I don’t think that will happen, but for the future there are still possibilities,” Szafnauer added.