FORMULA 1

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WOLFF: EVERY TEAM HAS THAT ISSUE WITH TWO ALPHA DRIVERS

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff knows a thing or two about internal driver conflicts and how they can jeopardise a campaign, thus after the Chinese Grand Prix his insights into the Ferrari ‘team orders’ shenanigans were interesting.

For four years Wolff managed Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton as teammates, what began as a friendship turned into a bitter feud which turned the Mercedes pit garage into a veritable civil war battleground. It got ugly beyond repair between the pair, to this day Hamilton remains bitter while Rosberg enjoyed his days in the sun and now is one of us.

Meanwhile, in Shanghai on Sunday the Scuderia made it clear that Sebastian Vettel is their number one driver by castrating Charles Leclerc when they told him to move over for his teammate, and then, to add insult to injury, used the Monaco Kid as a wingman for the German later in the race.

After another Grand Prix which his team once again utterly dominated, Wolff weighed in with his opinion of the Ferrari drama that grabbed headlines post-race, “It’s a tricky situation of course because you would like to have the quicker car hunting down your opponents.”

“Sebastian said that he had the quicker car at that stage, so they reverted the order. I can understand that somehow. Nevertheless, once you start doing these things, it becomes very complicated, because you start to set a precedent and you’re opening up a can of worms.”

“Then you might have to call every single race that the car is behind would say: I can go quicker. It’s not an easy situation. We have been there with Nico [Rosberg] and Lewis, and we have been there with Valtteri and Lewis as well.”

“We had a situation today where they were pushing each other very hard, taking a risk of potentially not finishing the race. So it’s not a Ferrari problem alone. Every team has that issue if you have two alpha drivers,” added Wolff.

MIKA: Hardly the same considering Charles has only been with Ferrari all but 3 races...

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CAREY: HANOI TRACK CAN DELIVER SOME SPECIAL RACING FOR FANS

Formula 1 chief Chase Carey said next year’s inaugural race in Hanoi will be “uniquely exciting” thanks to a street track he hopes will help make the event a global spectacle.

Carey was speaking Monday after inspecting initial work on the 5.6 kilometre (3.5 mile) track that will combine existing roads with newly-built routes in the Vietnamese capital, which is hosting its first F1 race from April 2020.

“We think this track can really be a special race that provides some uniquely exciting racing and competition,” he told reporters.

“It’s the combination of a city race — we’re in the city centre — a street race which always has some special elements to it, and a track that I think we’ve really had the opportunity to work (on) from day one,” said Carey.

The course has been designed “in a way that we think can deliver some special racing for fans,” he added.

The track is around Hanoi’s My Dinh stadium, about 13 kilometres from the city centre after it was deemed too expensive to hold the race in the city’s famed Old Quarter.

Carey compared plans for the Hanoi track to Britain’s Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, which he called “historic” sites.

Carey said he was happy with Hanoi’s pre-race progress so far but warned organisers to keep at it.

“There’s a lot to get done, so the right thing is to continue to worry, not to take things for granted.”

Formula One announced last year it would host its first ever race in Vietnam as it seeks to gain a foothold in Asia, where the franchise has a patchy track record.

The Marina Bay Sands street track night race in Singapore remains F1’s crown jewel in Asia, with the city state’s Grand Prix drawing 263,000 fans last year.

But Malaysia, South Korea and India have all pulled the plug on hosting races in recent years after hemorrhaging money.

Vietnam — where racing is a marginal sport — is hoping to avoid those pitfalls. It has not said how much it will cost to host the event, but has vowed not to dip into government coffers to fund it.

Instead the country’s largest privately-owned conglomerate VinGroup is the main financial backer.

Carey hopes Vietnam will adopt a winning formula to ensure it doesn’t go the way of past flops, “It’s got to have all the elements that creates the race at the centre, creates that excitement, and that energy and that breadth of activities that really enables it to be the spectacle we want it to be.”

MIKA: Another Tilke track with 40km long straights followed by 100 x 90 degree turns. In the bin!

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21 hours ago, Lotusguy said:

...and we’re back to the usual Mercedes domination....

 

Wake me in 2021 when there are new regulations.

 

Domination? Really?

Sure, Mercedes have won again thus far this season, but Bahrain was Ferrari's 1 - 2 for the taking until they had issues. Mercedes were left in the dust there and it was attrition that gave them the win not domination. Ferrari have been dropping the ball IMO when they clearly have a pretty solid car this season. Hopefully they get it all together and develop as the season progresses and the second half will yield better results.

Mercedes got their strategy spot on the last race, double-stacking their drivers seamlessly during the pit stop, while Ferrari carried out team orders which back fired. That was a desperate move on their part for nil gain.

The only reason Mercedes can't claim a perfect start is the introduction this season of a point for the fastest race lap, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc quickest in Bahrain and Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly in Shanghai.

I'm a Mercedes fan but just like you, I'd love to see another team take some wins and make things interesting. I'm still gunning for a midfielder like Alfa Romeo to take a podium too.  

I'd love a season where there's at least 3 or 4 teams in the mix very closely for the WDC and the Constructors but I dont think there has ever been such a season in the entire history of F1. There's always "a" dominant team. Ferrari had their era too if you can recall and that too was boring despite my being a Schumacher fan, it was boring. 

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PEREZ: I SAW A GAP, WENT FOR IT AND IT PAID OFF

Racing Point driver Sergio Perez gave a masterclass in overtaking and composure under pressure when he powered from 12th on the grid to eighth place on track during the opening lap of the Chinese Grand Prix.

Watching the veteran Mexican’s clean moves through the field was top order driving, picking his rivals off one at a time, while behind him chaos ensued through Turn 1 when Daniil Kvyat’s Toro Rosso torpedoed both McLaren’s.

Perez’s cause was helped when he managed to get good momentum off the start, into Turn 1 he edged ahead of Kvyat, then around the outside, he picked off the Haas duo of Romain Grosjean Kevin Magnussen.

Then he nearly snuck past both the Renault’s in one swoop, although he made easy pickings of Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo was more stubborn and nipped the position back.

Nevertheless, it was a ballsy opening lap by Perez to make up four places which, at the same time, sends a signal to some of his rivals that overtaking can be achieved without damage and drama.

Speaking to reporters after finishing eighth – the work mostly done within those first few miles of the race – he summed up his afternoon in Shanghai, “The start was fantastic: I saw a gap, went for it and it paid off.”

“Our race pace was good, we were able to maintain the pace and manage the tyres well. It wasn’t an easy race, though, because I was under pressure from Kimi for most of the second stint, which made it more difficult to look after the tyres and keep up the pace.”

“It was the same with Daniel ahead of me – I think he was working hard to manage his tyres because every time I got close to him he found the pace to pull away again.”

“This was never going to be our strongest track so it’s important to take opportunities such as today and keep scoring points. I think we have the potential to be stronger at the next race in Baku,” added the 29-year-old.

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ZHOU DREAMS OF BECOMING CHINA’S FIRST F1 DRIVER

Zhou Guanyu had a whirlwind week at his home Chinese Grand Prix but it was merely a taste of what the Shanghai teenager faces if he achieves the dream of becoming his country’s first Formula 1  driver.

With nearly 1.4 billion people, China is the world’s most populous country but 15 years on from its first Formula One race it is still waiting for a driver to fill one of the 20 slots on the starting grid.

Zhou is seen as the country’s most promising prospect to date, however.

In January he joined the Renault F1 team as a development driver and academy member after winning two races in the hotly-contested European Formula Three championship last year.

This year the former Ferrari driver academy member has graduated to Formula 2, the feeder series that was previously GP2 and has provided a steady flow of drivers to the F1 grid.

“I’m not thinking about being the first one of something,” the 19-year-old told Reuters at the Shanghai International Circuit before the 1000th F1 world championship race.

“I’m trying to be, like, just reaching my own goals I set when I was young. I think also if I reach that I’ll be the first ever Chinese in F1.

“That’s definitely making myself proud, also make the country, the Chinese motorsport history, to have much more people following motorsport, following me and following the racing.”

Zhou is not the first Chinese hopeful to make it to the brink of Formula One, with compatriots Ma Qing Hua and Dutch-born Ho-Pin Tung both testing Formula One cars in the past.

The latter was even Renault’s reserve in 2010, the first Chinese driver to fill such a role, after the company that owned his management agency Genii Capital bought a large stake in the team that raced as Lotus for a period.

But Zhou, whose love of motorsport began when he attended the first Chinese Grand Prix as a five-year-old in 2004, is the first to sign a deal with a manufacturer team and is showing promise.

He finished in the points in both races in this month’s Bahrain season-opener, including fourth in the Sunday sprint race, and is one place ahead of Michael Schumacher’s son Mick in the standings.

A homegrown driver on the grid would only add heft to the sport’s push to expand in a key market, with Formula One keen to add a second race in a country with a rapidly emerging middle class.

“The last few years I didn’t actually get much chance to be here in the grand prix and I was doing more stuff in Europe,” said Zhou, whose week of PR appearances and fan events culminated in a demonstration drive in a 2012 Formula One car in downtown Shanghai and at the track before the race.

“This year, coming back, walking around Shanghai, there’s people knowing me from the city. Also here on the track, I was in the fanzone, the other side, next to the grandstand, everybody wants your autograph.”

China is also an attractive market for carmakers like Renault but team principal Cyril Abiteboul said signing Zhou and Ye Yifei, another rising Chinese star announced as a member of Renault’s young driver academy last week, was not a commercial decision.

“They are not here for marketing, they are not here for commercial purpose,” said the Frenchman. “They are in the academy on merit because they deserve it because of their achievements so far and I hope they will achieve more in their respective categories.”

Zhou’s immediate challenge is to secure the superlicence points he needs to move up to F1 and he knows that will only come with talent and hard work, “If I can do well and show everybody the potential then if I’m good enough, I’ll be more than happy to be in F1.”

“And then once you have everything in hand at the same time you have to wait for the opportunities. It’s so tight. Every driver is wanting that seat so we will just have to wait and see.”

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Max Verstappen knew he had just one shot at Sebastian Vettel

Max Verstappen says he knew he had just one shot at passing Sebastian Vettel, after his attempt at wrestling away third place in China ultimately failed.

Verstappen started from fifth but kept the Ferrari duo in check and used the undercut to force Ferrari’s hand.

Verstappen reeled in Vettel through the Ferrari driver’s out-lap and launched a move into the hairpin, though Vettel fought back and re-claimed the position as they exited the turn.

It proved to be the only wheel-to-wheel action the pair enjoyed throughout the race as Vettel edged clear to claim the podium spot, with Verstappen fourth.

“We planned a good strategy to undercut a Ferrari and stay ahead, so we definitely maximised the result to finish fourth ahead of Charles [Leclerc],” said Verstappen.

“I had a good battle with Seb when he came out of the pits on colder tyres which was good fun.

“That was my one shot and I tried but after that you could see that we didn’t quite have the pace to fight him to the end.

“We still need a bit more pace to fight Mercedes and Ferrari but we are in a good position and collecting solid points each race.”

Vettel added that he gave Verstappen sufficient room as he knew the Red Bull driver would try and snatch the position.

“I saw him coming and the speed delta at the end of the straight is quite big now, so knowing Max as well, I knew that he will try,” said Vettel.

“I was sort of predicting that he would try and go down the inside and try to cut back and it worked.

“I had a bit of a moment in which I had to open the car a bit, but it was good because I just kept nearly a car length ahead and then at the end going into the last corner for him I guess wasn’t sexy so that was good fun.”

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Vasseur had "fingers crossed" for Raikkonen reliability

Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team boss Frederic Vasseur admits that he had his fingers crossed during the Chinese GP due to concerns over the reliability of the Ferrari power unit in Kimi Raikkonen's car.

Unlike rivals Haas, the Hinwil team had chosen not to take the new spec of control electronics offered by Ferrari after the problem suffered by Charles Leclerc during the Bahrain GP, and opted to stick with the first version. 

On Saturday, Antonio Giovinazzi's qualifying session was ruined by a recurrence of the issue suffered by Leclerc, and the Italian was given a fresh example of the old spec for the race.

However, Raikkonen stuck with his original unit, and inevitably there was a risk that he too would have problems.

In the event, the Finn enjoyed a successful charge from 13th on the grid to ninth, logging points for the third race in a row after an aggressive drive.

"I had my fingers crossed on the pit wall," Vasseur told Motorsport.com. "It was not easy to push on the buttons! I think overall it was a good Sunday for us, we had a good recovery compared to yesterday.

"It's important for us to score points every race and be consistent. We know perfectly well that if we want to stay on the top of the rest – I don't care if it's P4 or P5 – if we want to stay like this we have to be consistent over all the races, and be able to score points in every single event."

Vasseur says that Raikkonen, who was frustrated to lose some performance in the closing stages while chasing the cars ahead, continues to impress the team.

"He's scoring points, even when he's starting 13th. He was a bit upset not to be able to catch Ricciardo and Perez at the end, which is a good sign!

"The pace was there, and I think we were even able to catch Ricciardo and Perez, but we had some small damage 10 laps before the end on the front. We also lost temperature in the front tyres, mainly due to the fact that we lost downforce."

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Strategy left Renault with "miserable pace" in China

Renault Formula 1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul admits that a one-stop strategy left Daniel Ricciardo showing "miserable pace" during the Chinese Grand Prix.

Ricciardo was one of five top 10 qualifiers obliged to start on the soft tyre after using it in Q2, along with Pierre Gasly, Nico Hulkenberg, Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen.

Knowing that Gasly would be out of reach on pure performance, Renault decided to put Ricciardo on a one-stop strategy in order to protect him from those who started from outside the top on the more favourable medium tyre.

That meant a long 18-lap opening stint on his used softs, followed by a run to the end on the hard tyre. Ricciardo ended up being lapped, but the strategy paid off he finished in seventh 1.9 seconds clear of Racing Point's Sergio Perez. His fastest lap was only the 16th fastest in the whole field.

"It think it was a more solid performance than it looks," Abiteboul told Motorsport.com. "It was extremely challenging to make the one-stop work, starting on the soft compound. We had to face the usual dilemma of starting from P7 to P10 with our kind of pace, and having to start on the softest compound, and still make it work.

"We knew that anyone from P11 onwards would be starting on the medium, and the top five would be starting on the medium, there was no point in trying to do some crazy stuff just trying to look for Gasly at this point in time. That P7 was the target, and we achieved that."

Abiteboul admitted to some frustration at not seeing the true potential of the car.

"There's nothing to be proud of, but just in terms of pace it was better than it looked, because we were so much into the tyre management.

"Even myself I didn't want a one-stop because of that reason, because I knew that our pace would look miserable. But it was very clear from our strategists that a two-stop would not work for us, so we had to make the one stop work, and it worked."

Abiteboul said both driver and team had done a good job after a difficult start to the 2019 season.

"That was very challenging. We were really driving to the tyre, and not to the pace. The only thing we were monitoring was the gap behind to Perez, to be sure that we would not enter into the DRS zone.

"In that respect a very solid race, very good communication with the team, with his engineer, which is good, it's what we needed at this point after the first two races."

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Frustrated Ferraris, Angry Kimi Plus The Best Team Radio | 2019 Chinese Grand Prix

MIKA: Stroll pressing radio button instead of energy... 

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Tyre issues to blame again for Haas's China woe

Haas find themselves in esteemed company with Mercedes and Ferrari as the only teams to have got both cars into the top 10 all three qualifying sessions so far in 2019. But come race day, they went backwards in Bahrain and then again in China, with Team Principal Guenther Steiner blaming the woe on the way their car uses its tyres.

There was a big inkling something was wrong when Kevin Magnussen spoke of disappointing race pace during the long runs in Friday practice at Bahrain – and that was confirmed on Sunday in the Grand Prix. A productive test in Sakhir followed, with the team suggesting they had identified the problem.

But with the end of the test on Wednesday and the team arriving in China early the following week, there was very little time to find a solution and implement it. As a result, it was a case of déjà vu in Shanghai, as both Magnussen and Romain Grosjean fell away.

“The car’s amazing over one lap, but as soon as we go two laps on the tyres, we’re not there anymore,” said Grosjean. “We need to understand exactly what happened.”

Magnussen added: “It’s frustrating that we see we’ve got a good car, that can qualify well, then we can’t convert that into race pace.”

This isn’t the first time Haas have struggled to get on top of the Pirelli tyres in their relative short history – but Steiner is hopeful that with more time, they can cure the issue.

“The problem is getting the tyres in the heat range so that the tyres work,” said Steiner. “It’s high-speed tracks with long straights and low energy corners where we can’t get the heat into the tyres.

“In winter testing, even if it was cold in Barcelona, you load the tyres a lot, you have energy to put in, you can keep the heat in it. In Australia, the temperature is higher and it was fine. But in Bahrain and China, it just doesn’t work.

“Baku could be even worse. I’m readying myself for the disappointment. I hope we find something before Baku. At these types of race tracks, we can’t get energy into the tyre.

“We understood the problem after Bahrain but we couldn’t fix it in time for here, we still need to work on it. We’ll work hard this week to try and be prepared and then we’ll see in Baku.”

Haas currently have eight points, the same as McLaren, to leave them sixth in the constructors’ championship, four behind Renault and Alfa Romeo and 122 behind leaders Mercedes.

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‘I was able to build from FP1’ – Ricciardo reflects on first points for Renault

It may have taken three races with his new team, but once Daniel Ricciardo finally saw a chequered flag for Renault, he did so in the points, claiming seventh place at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Damage on the opening lap in Australia meant a premature end to Ricciardo’s home race, and he then retired late on in Bahrain when struggling to hold on to a top 10 finish. In China, however, Ricciardo reached Q3 and duly converted a seventh-placed start into the same position at the end, picking up six points for Renault.

READ MORE: Ricciardo says not trying to be ‘too clever’ key to Renault’s race weekends

“It feels good,” said Ricciardo, who sported a Jack Brabham tribute helmet this weekend in honour of the 1000th F1 race. “Probably just for my guys in the garage as well – we hadn’t seen a chequered flag yet. So for them, a couple high fives going around. It’s good that they can fly home with a smile on their face.

“It always helps when FP1 goes smooth and sometimes I don’t know if that is luck or good preparation pre-race. But the set-up was there and we didn’t really have to change too much through the weekend. I felt like I could just build on myself as opposed to learning the car by changing this and that. Some of those things we learned from the test in Bahrain – hanging back for that was positive.”

The previous race in Bahrain had seen Ricciardo fading while attempting a one-stop strategy – and it was a bold move to go for the same approach in China given those struggles.

“I’m happy that we made the one-stop work,” he said. “Considering in Bahrain we tried it and it didn’t work out for us, I am happy that we made it work.

“It was not easy,” he added. “[Sergio] Perez was really quick, he pushed me in the whole race. I was trying to manage the gap for the moment, but then he was coming so I just had to go. Towards the end, it was getting a bit tricky but he was also suffering, so it didn’t make it too tense over the last few laps.

"I definitely felt like I managed it well. Part of me wanted the tyres to drop off quickly so I could say ‘let’s do a two stop’. But they were not dropping off, so I was like, ‘let’s try to push these’. I knew we had to go a long way with the hard and I was a little bit nervous. But happy we made it work.”

Even though Renault secured ‘best of the rest’ behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull on both Saturday and Sunday, Ricciardo is wary of the pace of some of the other midfield teams at each track so far this season.

“That is certainly positive for us. I was a bit surprised by Perez’s pace in the race. Ideally, we want to stretch the gap to the others, but he had a really strong one. There are still some areas we can improve but generally speaking, if we can put the weekend together, we should be at the front of the group.”

Renault had started with both cars on the fourth row but lost Nico Hulkenberg to a suspected MGU-K issue early on, with Ricciardo admitting the team’s third retirement in the past two races is a point of concern.

“I didn’t know [Hulkenberg retired]. I suspected because I didn’t see his name on the score board, and at one point I stopped seeing him in my mirrors. I felt it was too early for his pit stop, so I did suspect but I prefer not to know and just focus on my race. Now I know, it is still some work to do reliability-wise. I don’t know what his problem was, but I know it was not an accident, so reliability.”

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BRAWN REPORT: DEFINITELY A TRICKY YEAR FOR SEBASTIAN

The 1000th Formula 1 race in China was a dull one to say the least as Mercedes powered to their third successive one-two while their rivals trip up in their wake.

F1’s Managing Director Ross Brawn casts an eye over the big moments in China, pointing to the potential for some tough choices to come for Ferrari, another standout drive from one of this season’s talented young rookies and to the immediate success of the sport’s latest battleground – the fascinating tussle for the fastest lap of the race and the bonus point it brings.

A thousand reasons to celebrate

It was an historic weekend for Formula 1. Celebrating the milestone of 1000 races is quite amazing, and is proof of this sport’s deep roots, not just in the world of motorsport, but it is also significant that it took place in China, as this is one of the new frontiers for Formula 1.

It’s true that the sport, which we have loved since we were kids, has its roots in Europe on tracks like Spa, Silverstone, Monza and Monaco, which have been figured heavily on the calendar since the sport’s first season in 1950, but Formula 1 is now a global sport and China is a venue that has the greatest potential for growth.

That fact was evident this weekend with a 10% increase in the crowd, with 160,000 turning up over the three days. The downtown Shanghai Heineken F1 Festival was also a great success, bringing the sport closer to people who possibly had no previous interest in Formula 1. They got a real feel for the excitement of being near these cars on the streets of the city.

Now we start another ‘millennium’ but more importantly, we are in the crucial phase of defining the future of this sport. Along with the FIA and the teams, we are listening to what the fans have to say as we put together all the pieces of the jigsaw. We hope that like the 1000 pieces we have put together so far, that it will continue to enthral millions of fans around the world.

Rapid success

On the subject of the fans, I was particularly pleased to see that the innovation introduced in partnership with the FIA for this season, that of awarding a point to the driver setting the fastest race lap, is beginning to have an effect.

The lure of an extra point, as long as it’s set by a driver who is in the top 10 at the flag, was driven by the desire to add a bit of spice to the final stages of a race, especially when the order seems more or less set.

China worked out just that way. The top six positions more or less decided, but with Pierre Gasly a healthy amount of time clear of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo, his Red Bull team decided to exploit the opportunity that gap gave for a free pit stop. They pitted the Frenchman for a set of soft tyres and sent him on his way for a crack at the fastest lap.

It was great to watch the timing screens on the penultimate lap, seeing Gasly post personal bests in all three sectors to eventually steal the fastest lap from Sebastian Vettel.

Prior to Gasly’s stop, you could also listen to other drivers discussing their options in the closing stages with their team on the pit wall, even though none of them took any extreme risks. This was a rule invented to please the fans and I think that today we saw that it really works!

Mercedes triple treat

Three one-two finishes in the first three races in the championship hasn’t happened since 1992. Back then, it was Williams-Renault who were the dominant force, with Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese at the wheel. It was down to a superior technical package in the era of active suspension, to the extent that Mansell brought home a further two wins before Ayrton Senna delivered one of his trademark miracle performances in Monaco, which momentarily interrupted an incredible run of wins.

However, despite the statistics being racked up by Mercedes, I don’t believe that 2019 will follow the same script as ‘92. The three consecutive one-two finishes scored by Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas are definitely down to a team that is operating to perfection at the moment, with a top-notch technical package, but it’s also fair to say it is up against stronger opposition than was Williams back in ’92.

In Bahrain a fortnight ago Ferrari dominated qualifying and save for the technical woes that derailed their efforts in the race, the team were heading for an emphatic victory with Charles Leclerc. In China, however, the performance pendulum swung towards Mercedes, as was the case in Melbourne.

Red Bull, especially in the case of Max Verstappen, are ready to pounce, proving that this year’s switch to Honda is so far beginning to show results. However, one has to accept that Mercedes can still draw strength from the fact it has been the dominant force over the past few years, as can be seen by the way it fought back last year when it seemed that Ferrari had pretty much caught up in performance terms.

Of course, I have nothing against Toto Wolff, Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and the many friends I still have in that team, but I hope that 2019 won’t be a repeat of 1992. Whatever the outcome, I hope that the championship fight will be truly spectacular, as befits this sport.

Ferrari’s balancing act

And now let’s come to Ferrari. In Bahrain, the team had the performance but not the reliability. In China, the performance was not at a level to fight with Mercedes for pole on Saturday or the win on Sunday.

Thus, having come away from winter testing convinced it could fight the Anglo-German squad on equal terms, the Italian outfit found itself behind in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ classifications and in the latter, the gap is already quite big.

Furthermore, Team Principal Mattia Binotto finds himself having to manage what is definitely a new situation for Ferrari, in the shape of two drivers fighting at a very high level. For now, Mattia is managing the situation well, dealing on the one hand with the talented young Leclerc, while managing the valuable resource that is Vettel, who as a four-time world champion has shown himself capable of dealing with pressure in the past.

This is definitely a tricky year for Sebastian and the podium in Shanghai will have been a confidence boost, while Charles has shown great maturity in accepting team decisions that are not easy to digest.

The first three races have confirmed that if Ferrari wants to challenge Mercedes everything has to be perfect at all levels: performance, reliability and teamwork. That’s what Binotto and his guys have to do and, knowing Mattia, I am sure he is aware of that and will devote all his energies to ensuring it happens.

Albon arrives

Going into the season, Alex Albon was perhaps the least highly rated of the three rookies in the class of 2019.

George Russell was already part of the Mercedes family and while he is currently having to deal with the difficulties at Williams, he knows this experience is useful never the less. Lando Norris, meanwhile, is making progress with the new McLaren and has already delivered some strong performances.

And Albon, already in the points in Bahrain with a brilliant ninth place, in China he produced a second great performance, especially following the mistake that saw him smash into the barriers in FP3, requiring a complete rebuild of his car.

Getting to the points after starting from the pit lane is clearly an excellent result and a noteworthy performance that belies the fact this is only his third race. Quite rightly the fans voted him Driver of the Day. This tenth place will be an important step for him, boosting his confidence and that of the team in him, which is vital to help any young driver on the way up.

MIKA: The Chinese GP is a boring venue. I hardly call 160,000 attendance with a populous of 26 Million people in Shanghai alone, successful. Not enough to warrant a Grand Prix.

The Melbourne GP attendance rate over this seasons 4 days was 324,100 with a population of 4.2 Million. Of course, guests and visitors also attend every GP but irrespective, thats a really bad turn out for the Chinese GP. #justsaying  

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VERSTAPPEN: NOT FRUSTRATING YET BUT WE LACK RACE PACE

Fourth place in the Chinese Grand Prix is more than Max Verstappen expected, but the Red Bull driver laments the lack of race pace in the RB15 package which he is hoping improves as the season progresses.

Expectations were high in Australia when the Dutchman nabbed a podium but since then the true pecking order has emerged and with the Honda ‘party mode’ fully dialled-up in qualifying was half a second down on Valtteri Bottas’ pole-position winning time.

A day later in the race, the deficit was pretty much the same as the #33 Red Bull crossed the 56 lap race 27 seconds down on race winner Lewis Hamilton, again about half a second shy of the benchmark pace.

Reflecting on his performance in Shanghai, Verstappen wrote on his website, “We did have another good result points-wise, but during the race, there was not much action. To say frustrating is a bit extreme, but at this moment we lack race pace so then you need to make sure that you extract as many points as possible.”

“The season is still long and we have to hope that, at a certain point, when the upgrades come, we will be able to slot right back in.”

Last year Verstappen clattered into the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel while battling during the race, this year a similar scenario presented itself but this time no swapping paint occurred.

Asked if memories of the previous year incident tempered his attack on the German this time around, the Red Bull driver replied, “No, not at all. I saw an opportunity, but I was way too far from him and thought, I would still try it.”

“I knew that he was faster and that he also had colder tyres, so I tried to out-brake him. Even if I would have passed him, he was still quicker on that tyre and he still would have overtaken me back again.”

#MsportXtra pointed out in a Tweet that, since Verstappen’s DNF at the Hungarian Grand Prix “he never lost a spot from start to finish. 12 races in a row, that’s pretty impressive.”

But, according to Holland’s most famous 21-year-old, things could be even better, “So far I haven’t really had any decent start. With the Honda-engine, we’re still trying to find a good start. That is something that can be improved.”

“In Baku we are expecting new parts for the car and engine, the real work is set for a later date. It is hard to say at this moment. I find it a bit hard to be really able to gauge the season so far. This week Mercedes is fast and then the other week it’s Ferrari, for us it’s a bit of a question mark,” admitted Verstappen.

[MIKA27]

BRATCHES: WE ALSO WANT A STREET RACE IN CHINA

Formula 1 is in talks with six local governments in China this week about holding a second grand prix in the country, a senior F1 official told AFP, with a Beijing road race said to have been floated.

A second grand prix — most likely on the streets — would complement the existing one on the $450 million Shanghai International Circuit.

No country currently has two Formula One races, although F1 officials are negotiating for a second grand prix in the United States.

Formula 1’s landmark 1,000th race took place in Shanghai on Sunday, underlining China’s growing role as the sport’s US-based owner looks to Asia.

A source with knowledge of the matter told AFP that a race on the streets of the Chinese capital Beijing has been raised as one idea.

Sean Bratches, Formula One’s managing director of commercial operations, did not confirm or deny the road-race plan for Beijing when approached by AFP.

“In terms of interest, we would be highly interested in a street race,” he said.

“It would be a nice juxtaposition to the purpose-built, extraordinary facility that we have here,” Bratches told AFP in Shanghai. “Our intent is to bring our show to the people.”

Bratches said Formula One chiefs will this week embark on a visit to six potential host cities in China.

“There’s meetings set up in each with government officials to talk about identifying a second city to host a grand prix,” Bratches said. “We think there’s an opportunity to grow from that perspective.”

Liberty Media, which took over Formula One in early 2017 in a multibillion-dollar deal, is wants to have more street races, believing that is the best way to attract new fans.

Next year, the bustling Vietnamese capital Hanoi will host an F1 road race, while on Saturday crowds watched China’s Zhou Guanyu drive a Formula One car in central Shanghai.

“If you want to elevate the brand to the casual fan and the non-fan to move them up the ladder to become avids, you’re going to need to… demonstrate and show to them what this sport is about,” Bratches said.

The shift to China, the world’s most populous country and home to a growing number of motorsport fans, has angered some traditionalists.

There was talk of moving the milestone 1,000th race to Silverstone, in England, the unofficial home of Formula One and which staged the first race back in 1950.

But staging it in Shanghai was apt, said Bratches, who says it will not be long until there is a Chinese driver and team in the sport, “It did not take us long to land on Shanghai (for the 1,000th race). We have no regrets about it and we’d make the same decision (again).”

[MIKA27]

F1 title rivals conservative in Azerbaijan GP tyre choice

Formula 1’s title rivals Mercedes and Ferrari have adopted a relatively conservative stance regarding tyre choices for next weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Pirelli has nominated the C2 (Hard), C3 (Medium) and C4 (Soft) compounds in order to cope with the demands placed upon the rubber by the six-kilometre Baku City Circuit.

As per usual each driver has 13 sets of tyres for the weekend; they are permitted free choice of Softs, Mediums or Hards for the 10 sets not mandated by Pirelli.

Eight of the 10 Formula 1 teams have chosen either nine or 10 sets of Soft tyres, but Mercedes and Ferrari have diverged by choosing only eight and seven respectively.

As a result Ferrari’s drivers will have five sets of Medium tyres available, and Mercedes’ four, in comparison to the solitary set of Mediums that Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo will have in his armoury for the entire weekend.

The white-banded Hard tyre has been all but abandoned, with only Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen, Daniil Kvyat and George Russell selecting more than one set of the hardest tyre.

 

[MIKA27]

Russell: Chinese GP rivals passed me "like I stood still"

Williams driver George Russell says he felt like he was “stood still” when he found himself racing Formula 1 cars from other teams in the Chinese Grand Prix.
Russell's strategy of starting on medium tyres meant he had climbed to as high as 12th after several midfield cars made early pitstops and Daniil Kvyat served a drive-through penalty in the Toro Rosso.

But the Williams man was shuffled down the order before long, and, when asked by Motorsport.com about how it felt to be racing other cars, admitted he took little interest in the short-lived battle.

“I wasn’t even looking, to be honest,” he said. “The pace differential is so large that they come and go like I stood still, really.

“It’s not really a surprise, we know what our pace is and my job is to make the most of that.”

Russell said his lowly 16th-place finish was an expected one as “we're just being realistic” about the FW42's current pace, but nevertheless described the Chinese GP as “an intriguing race”.

He was happy with how he stacked up against teammate Robert Kubica, who finished 16 seconds behind despite making one stop fewer. The Pole was left admitting that he had “no race pace”.

Russell said: “I was really pleased with my first stint, I pulled a sizeable chunk to Robert and at this stage he’s the only person I can compare myself with. We were sort of hanging on to the cars ahead of me.”

However, Russell's own race was later compromised by having to slow down to allow the leading cars to lap him, which led to his Pirelli rubber dropping out of the temperature range.

“In my middle stint it was very tricky because I came out of the pitlane on the harder tyres, had two really good laps, and then I started getting blue flags,” he explained.

“Once I got the blue flags the tyres just dropped out of the window. I was pushing absolutely flat out and they weren’t coming back to the window.

“Because of that the tyres weren’t in the range and I was just getting slower and slower, and the tyres were getting colder and colder. That’s why we had to do the additional pitstop at the end, unexpectedly.”

[MIKA27]

Where Mercedes (and others) were asked to change their F1 front wing designs

Mercedes caught the eye with a new front wing design at the Chinese Grand Prix, but the FIA asked for it to be changed before it could hit the track. Technical expert Jake Boxall-Legge joins Glenn Freeman to explain what Mercedes had to change, what its latest design is trying to achieve, and how Red Bull and Williams were also caught up in the rules clarification

MIKA:

What the rules say...
3.3.5 A mathematical surface (referred to as the “virtual endplate surface”) must be constructed in order to subsequently define the endplate.

The front wing endplate is defined as the bodywork created by the union of two volumes. The first such volume : e) Must fully enclose a minimum of 95% of the virtual endplate surface

3.3.6.f Once the inboard and outboard profile surfaces have been defined, blending surfaces must be defined to join the profiles together. These surfaces must lie within the volume of the single, inboard profile surface, and entirely within the transition volume. Once these minimal transition surfaces have been defined, the original overlapping surfaces of the inboard and outboard profiles must be trimmed accordingly.

Once the front wing profiles have been defined, they must be trimmed by the virtual endplate surface defined in Article 3.3.5, and the portion of the front wing profiles outboard of that surface must be discarded. Where the front wing profiles intersect the front wing endplate, a maximum fillet radius of 10mm may be applied.

[MIKA27]

Red Bull now needs top speed gains after improving chassis

Red Bull boss Christian Horner thinks his team has got its chassis back on track judging by its pace at the Chinese Grand Prix, as he suggested the team's main deficit is now top speed.

After struggling to find a good balance with the car in the opening two grands prix of the season, a breakthrough in the post-Bahrain Grand Prix test helped the Milton Keynes-based outfit make progress in understanding where it had gone wrong before.

Having shown promising pace in Shanghai, as Max Verstappen split the Ferraris to take fourth place, Horner says the performance is proof of the progress the team has made in getting more from its car.

"Definitely," he said. "We have made a step forward from Bahrain and we were definitely more competitive this weekend.

"When you look on the overlays, particular sector one and sector two, we are in good shape. In sector three we still have some work to do, but we have some upgrades and so on coming soon that will help with that. So generally on that side, a positive weekend."

The reference to sector three in China, which includes the 1.2 kilometres long back straight, would appear to put the onus back on Red Bull's engine partner Honda to lift its game.

With rivals Ferrari and Mercedes having more aggressive engine modes to play with over a race weekend, Horner is hoping that gains will come on this front from Honda too.

"I think they are making progress with it," he said. "There is stuff in the pipeline that will certainly help but others aren't standing still.

"It is all about evolution. Our goal this year has been all about closing the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari and we are doing that.

"We split the Ferraris, and were certainly closer on pace to Mercedes. There will be a concertina effect that will happen between now and the halfway point of the year."

Despite being able to overhaul Charles Leclerc in China, Horner reckoned that the result was more down to clever strategy calls than the performance of its car.

"I don't think we had a faster car than Ferrari, so our best way of beating at least one of their cars was going on to the two-stop.

"That then sparked some discussion between Sebastian [Vettel] and his pit wall as to whether or not they were going to stop at all, but in the end they covered, and Mercedes had to cover him.

"Leclerc got hung out to dry a little bit. So for us, P4 was the maximum."

[MIKA27]

Raikkonen looking to improve qualifying pace to help Alfa in midfield battle

Kimi Raikkonen has looked supremely comfortable ever since he first climbed into a Sauber/Alfa Romeo cockpit at the end of last season. But despite a strong drive to ninth at the Chinese Grand Prix, the Finn was targeting an improvement to his and the team’s qualifying pace to help Alfa Romeo rule the midfield.

Raikkonen failed to make Q3 for the first time in 2019 – actually, the first time since Hungary 2016 – but used the free tyre choice that afforded him to great effect in the race, slicing his way through the order with a series of perfectly executed overtakes to finish P9, behind Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, at the flag.

And while Raikkonen was satisfied with his race result – which makes him the only non-Red Bull, Ferrari or Mercedes driver to take points in all three races so far this year – he was eyeing up improved one-lap pace from Alfa Romeo in the coming races to help them in their midfield battle.

“In the race, the car was very good and I enjoyed it,” said Raikkonen on Sunday evening, having stretched his advantage in seventh place in the drivers’ standings. “But unfortunately [in qualifying] we were not as strong as we were hoping for.

“I think we understood already some things, but I think if we can get the qualifying better, we can have a much more [strong] race. We have the speed to be on top of the guys around us, so we’ll keep fixing things and try to make it.”

Raikkonen will now look ahead to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix where, despite his consistent scoring in 2019, he’ll be chasing his first ‘best of the rest’ result of the campaign in either qualifying or the race.

[Lotusguy]

Domination? Really?
Sure, Mercedes have won again thus far this season, but Bahrain was Ferrari's 1 - 2 for the taking until they had issues. Mercedes were left in the dust there and it was attrition that gave them the win not domination. Ferrari have been dropping the ball IMO when they clearly have a pretty solid car this season. Hopefully they get it all together and develop as the season progresses and the second half will yield better results.
Mercedes got their strategy spot on the last race, double-stacking their drivers seamlessly during the pit stop, while Ferrari carried out team orders which back fired. That was a desperate move on their part for nil gain.
The only reason Mercedes can't claim a perfect start is the introduction this season of a point for the fastest race lap, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc quickest in Bahrain and Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly in Shanghai.
I'm a Mercedes fan but just like you, I'd love to see another team take some wins and make things interesting. I'm still gunning for a midfielder like Alfa Romeo to take a podium too.  
I'd love a season where there's at least 3 or 4 teams in the mix very closely for the WDC and the Constructors but I dont think there has ever been such a season in the entire history of F1. There's always "a" dominant team. Ferrari had their era too if you can recall and that too was boring despite my being a Schumacher fan, it was boring. 

I agree, that was boring. As was the Red Bull dominance. Ferrari had no answer to Mercedes all weekend. I also wish that the entire field was closer and we didn’t have a 2.5 horse race every time :/

[MIKA27]

7 minutes ago, Lotusguy said:

I agree, that was boring. As was the Red Bull dominance. Ferrari had no answer to Mercedes all weekend. I also wish that the entire field was closer and we didn’t have a 2.5 horse race every time ?

I have a massive feeling that Ferrari shouldn't be ruled out just yet.

As long as they score consistently now and improve/develop a little more as well as have their drivers like Vettel get their act together, I'm certain they will be really close toward the end.

[Lotusguy]

I have a massive feeling that Ferrari shouldn't be ruled out just yet.
As long as they score consistently now and improve/develop a little more as well as have their drivers like Vettel get their act together, I'm certain they will be really close toward the end.

If they can stop shooting themselves in the foot, for once

[MIKA27]

INSIDE LINE: SEB, CHILL ON THE MEDIA AND FOCUS ON BEATING CHARLES

When a four-time Formula 1 World Champion speaks you listen, thus when Sebastian Vettel had a stab at the media when questioned from the floor, during the post-Chinese Grand Prix press conference, it revealed an interesting side to the German’s demeanour under pressure.

That he is under pressure is obvious – even Ross Brawn reckons so – therefore the first rule in the ‘Celebs Under Media Scrutiny Manual’ is of course to attack the media and, as a result, the beleaguered VIP instantly gets 90% of the sympathy vote from the masses. Seb clearly has the manual.

We are not alone in reporting that this is something of an ‘all or nothing season‘ for Seb, his fifth year for the Scuderia and the title is already edging out of reach and we are only three races into the new season.

The background to his outburst is that he is having a torrid start to the season, first he faces the very real prospect of being bettered by teammate Charles Leclerc and, second, the fact that for a fifth season running the Reds have once again failed to provide him with a superior car.

There is no doubt that Seb is a great race driver but he falls into the category of ‘great drivers that needs the best car to shine’ like no other can, but once they do not have the package built around them their greatness diminishes somewhat.

He is in illustrious company as Jim Clark, Nigel Mansell and Jacques Villeneuve are also cut from the same nomex. In great cars, their majesty and greatness can flourish and is unmatched but anything less than a fantastic weapon becomes a problem.

In contrast, there are those greats that no matter what you give them they will drive the wheels off it: Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, Gilles Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, etc.

Hence Seb’s four fantastic F1 World Championship winning years with Red Bull were the result of a great driver and the best car in harmony, with the German able to extract maximum from the near perfect packages he had at his disposal – which the RB6, RB7, RB8 and RB9 were. His teammate at the time Mark Webber could not match him.

But when the RB10 came along, a car not to his liking, Seb was humbled by Daniel Ricciardo in 2014, coinciding with the new hybrid turbo engine rules.

I would venture that this was the beginning of the German’s downfall because, to me, he has never really been comfortable with the technology and the way these cars are driven. But that’s a chapter for his book of excuses.

From this side of the fence, I would imagine this is the consensus of the unbiased media brigade and neutral fans out there.

There is no doubt that Seb is well respected but the reason he is copping flak from media and fans (them too) is because he is not delivering at the highest level AND, annoyingly, the fact that Ferrari are denying Charles Leclerc to blossom when the youngster is proving to be as fast, if not faster, than the man ten years his senior in the sister car.

Although the subject is fodder for another Inside Line, facts are Ferrari are fumbling their driver management immensely. First in Australia and now, most blatantly and unashamedly, in China when they lobotomised Charles on the world stage with everyone watching. It was gory.

In the wake of the race, during the press conference and after the pleasantries of the early questions, L’Equipe reporter Frederic Ferret asked the most obvious question:

Quote

Have you asked the team to ask Charles to let you past? If not, do you think it was fair to do that?
SV: “Well, let’s put it this way, I knew the moment it was happening that I would have to face these questions. Not sure I want to answer because I’m a little bit against the way you – all of you – work, because you take bits out of answers here and there and put it into the wrong light. So, if you ask me again in half an hour down in the paddock, maybe I give you a straightforward answer and you don’t write it down or record. Seems the way that, not maybe all of you but some of you are working.”

Shots fired! In that para alone I am sure psychologists would have a field day.

Even an armchair shrink would ask what was he doing thinking about the media when he should have been racing hard? Was that why he could not pull away when he told his team he was faster than his teammate and they gave him a free pass?

Then in the next sentence, he blames all of the media – not cool – because apart from most of the Brit media posse with their tribal loyalties – he has many friends on our side of the fence. Credit to him and the smart chap that he is, he immediately realised the obvious faux pas, he then relented with “some of you” to soften the blow.

I would imagine that Seb does not visit grandprix247.com, but clearly he reads the stuff out there, the media he is bitching about are the ones that are on his radar, which I imagine would be the heavy hitters of the industry.

And history shows that messing with the Italian media has been the downfall of many at Maranello and to be honest they have been mighty kind on Seb considering the circumstances.

But now questions are being asked, and Seb’s statements won’t be well received because the rough ride has hardly started.

It is interesting that his gripe is with “all of you” (bad?) media people who by his account misinterpret him, twist his words, lose him in translation etc. Where have we heard that before?

While he berates the phantom ‘enemy’ he should also appreciate that our powder is actually being kept dry on his behalf, because one of many uncomfortable questions we could be asking him is:
Are you not past it Seb?

[MIKA27]

Non-championship F1 races - time to bring them back?

You hardly can have missed that the Chinese Grand Prix just passed was the 1000th race ever in the Formula 1 world championship. And competing with this in the ubiquity stakes were the equally attention-demanding pedants. They had noticed that F1’s past is like any part of the truth: rarely pure and never simple.

Wherever you turned before, during and after the Chinese round there was an article or social media post pointing out – sometimes earnestly – that it wasn’t actually the 1000th F1 race. That there were Indianapolis 500s; two years of using Formula 2 regulations; blah de blah…

You’d imagine these guys are great at parties.

Yet there was something else that appeared in pedants’ corner. A few of them threw in F1’s non-championship races too.

These were exactly as described – races for F1 cars that did not provide points for the world championship table. And they used to be a frequent feature, to the point that F1 would have cruised past its 1000 total long ago had they been included. To take an extreme example for illustration, in 1962 there were nine grands prix counting towards the F1 championship. And how many non-championship F1 races were there that year? Twenty.

Further two of them were on the same day and in the same country. Mallory Park and Crystal Palace on June 11, since you asked.

As that indicates, Britain was particularly well-served by non-championship meetings generally; indeed fully eight of those 20 non-championship races in ‘62 were held in Blighty.

For years there were three regular non-championship F1 races in Britain on the schedule. The International Trophy at Silverstone taking place as an F1 event almost every year between 1949 and 1978; the Race of Champions (not to be confused with its modern day stadium-based namesake) at Brands Hatch which was first held in 1965 and last happened in 1983, and was the official British motorsport season curtain-raiser; while the Oulton Park Gold Cup existed as an F1 race on and off from 1954 to 1972.

As for why non-championship races existed, it all reflects F1’s conception. The grand prix long pre-dates the F1 world championship, with the first grand prix that in France in 1906 which was some 44 years before the championship came along (some extend it back even further and note a ‘Pau Grand Prix’ in 1901, though that was a city to-city loop rather than a circuit race of the sort we’d recognise today).

And when the F1 world championship started it picked but a small number of existing grands prix to provide points for the title. The inaugural world championship had six races (seven if you, yes, include the Indy 500), but they were very much in the minority, as in addition there were some 18 F1 races during 1950 that did not count towards the championship. And for years and decades that followed that’s how the landscape remained, with teams and drivers often keen to take part in championship and non-championship races alike to get their hands on some more prize money.

Non-championship races performed other roles too, such as acting as de facto test sessions and shakedown opportunities in an age wherein standalone test days were very rare. For this reason a lot of these races were scheduled in the spring.

Occasionally too the meeting acted as a dry run for a new circuit before it got onto the championship schedule proper. This was the case for Mexico City, Imola and Interlagos among others.

Non-championship races were popular as well. As the late journalist Alan Henry put it in 2013: “We loved ‘em! And just imagine how much you would still love ‘em now if, as you read this on the sunny Sunday of the May Day Bank Holiday weekend, instead you were en route to Brands Hatch or Silverstone or indeed even Oulton Park to watch a non-championship Formula 1 race involving Jenson Button, Checo Perez, Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa, Seb Vettel, Mark Webber, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes-Benz et al!”

There is of course always a risk of over-eulogising such things, and it’s certainly true that some of these races were rather risible affairs. Pity anyone who turned up to Vallelunga in mid-1972 for the Grand Prix of the Republic of Italy to find only seven cars to entertain them, and the same number of F1 cars proper were at the 1979 Race of Champions so the field had to be padded out with machines from the short-lived British F1 series.

Some non-championship races were downright curious, not least in 1974 when the fraternity was invited to remain in Brazil for an extra week after the grand prix proper to attend a street race in Brasilia, put on for a variety of political reasons by the country’s then-President. He named the race after himself in case anyone didn’t get the message. As it was only half of the field took up the offer and the race was tepid. F1 machines never laid rubber on the place again.

But this was far from being the norm. Most of the greats of the time took part in non-championship races and many won them. Some of the drives have gone into folklore, such as Jochen Rindt’s 1969 Silverstone International Trophy effort as well as Lotus’s Jacky Ickx triumphing in the 1974 Race of Champions in Brands Hatch’s teeming rain, taking the lead from Niki Lauda’s Ferrari around the outside of Paddock.

Come the 1980s the non-championship race suddenly petered out however. Discounting two of them that were an offshoot of the FISA-FOCA war, the only post 1970s non-championship F1 race was the final Brands Hatch Race of Champions in 1983, which was won by Keke Rosberg’s Williams (giving Rosberg the distinction of having won both the final F1 International Trophy – which he took in torrential rain driving for Theodore in 1978 – and the final F1 Race of Champions).

And you can probably guess the reasons why these races died out. The commercial and prestige value of the F1 world championship grew over time and dwarfed other available races. The championship’s calendar has grown too, and that plus the advent of 24/7 testing meant non-championship races were harder to find space for. Plus drivers as precious commercial assets to be protected from unnecessary injury also grew in focus.

But what of today, where testing is severely restricted and – touch several pieces of wood – injury in action is much less common. Might the non-championship race have a role once more?

The plusses of such races would be almost never-ending. Of course, we fans would have more racing to watch.

We can add that Liberty has been flying several kites on changing F1’s weekend format, and a non-championship meeting would be the perfect place to try innovations out. Shorter races; having two races in a weekend a la F2; squeezing everything into a single day a la Formula E; qualifying races; reverse grids… Perhaps even, purely for the sake of spicing up the non-championship races, you could apply some success ballast.

Think of the disastrous knockout qualifying from early 2016. Had that been tried – then quietly dropped – in a non-championship event rather than at F1’s actual curtain-raiser it would have been a lot less offensive.

There are plenty of other benefits too. Just like back in the day the race meetings could become effective test sessions and shakedowns, which surely would be welcomed by the teams in an age wherein as mentioned such opportunities are limited. Plus trying a new car, aero part, system or whatever in a race, as opposed to a test, surely would have more simulation value to teams given it’s a closer replication of a race weekend for real.

Equally sponsors surely would welcome the additional airing the races would provide; while circuits – and F1 itself – would welcome the additional ticket sales.

Non-championship races could also provide desperately-needed race opportunities for third drivers and others waiting patiently for their chance. Potentially a non-championship race rule could be that at least one nominal reserve or rookie pilot has to be raced.

So, with all that, just think if this weekend coming we had Esteban Ocon in a Mercedes alongside Lewis Hamilton to look forward to; Dan Ticktum in a Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen. At Imola.

Yet there are at least two conspicuous stumbling blocks; perhaps insurmountable ones. One is that with a 21-races-and-growing calendar (Liberty’s apparently pushing for 25) finding spare weekends to schedule non-championship races would not be the work of a moment. The size of the existing itinerary already is a bone of contention and your average F1 travelling circus member already spends 30 weeks or more of the year on the road. They’d be unlikely to welcome more.

Perhaps non-championship races could be held during existing grand prix weekends (certainly Kyle Busch in NASCAR has no problem with taking part in several races in a weekend; neither did Stirling Moss back in the day). Failing that, perhaps they could be held instead of the existing scheduled test days?

These would head off the scheduling problem but would have the drawback of having non-championship races held at the same circuit that had just held or was just about to hold a championship race proper, thus depriving the non-championship race of a lot of its potential novelty.

The other stumbling block is likely even greater, as it’s to do with all-important commerce. Even in F1’s post-Bernie age, hosting fees are important and it’s in the interest of the commercial rights holders to have more potential hosts than calendar slots, making it a sellers’ market. Circuits having the ability to go off and hold a non-championship race instead would greatly reduce Liberty’s bargaining power. Even if you charged a hosting fee for the non-championship race, presumably a non-championship fee would necessarily have to be lower than one for real, and Liberty would not welcome being undercut.

With that, the non-championship F1 race may be one thing that has to remain in the past. And be argued about by pedants.

[MIKA27]

Mika Hakkinen: Ferrari has to stop 'playing games'

Double World Champion Mika Hakkinen believes Ferrari has to stop “playing games” with team orders and concentrate on beating Mercedes, after another disappointing outcome in China.

Ferrari has yet to win in 2019 after lacking pace compared to Mercedes in Australia and China, while an engine issue denied it victory in Bahrain, where it held the fastest package.

Ferrari has also issued team orders at each event, with Charles Leclerc instructed to allow Sebastian Vettel through during the early stages of the most recent event in China.

That decision contributed to Leclerc slipping behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen through the first round of stops, with the youngster coming home fifth, two places behind team-mate Vettel.

Hakkinen, World Champion in 1998 and 1999, praised Mercedes’ “strength” so far in 2019 but cast criticism on Ferrari for how it has handled matters of late.

“[Mercedes] helped to show how much work Ferrari still has to do - developing a car quick enough to dominate qualifying, having a clearly defined race strategy and eliminating any potential for conflict between their drivers,” he wrote in his Unibet column.

“Charles made a better start to the race than Ferrari team mate Sebastian Vettel and should really have been allowed to get on with it and take the fight to [Valtteri] Bottas if he could.

“Instead he was asked to slow down and let Vettel past, which looked like a mistake.  

“When you have a team as strong as Mercedes to beat there is no point playing games; Ferrari needs to stop focusing on themselves and start concentrating on beating the competition. 

“In the battle to beat Mercedes no one should care whether it is Leclerc or Vettel who wins the race. 

“I think Leclerc was right to be upset, because the subsequent strategy managed him back into fifth position, behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.  

“Forget about team orders, concentrate on the team winning.

“Three races into 2019 and, in spite of Ferrari having the strongest engine and a good package, Mercedes continues to dominate. 

“The mistakes of the other teams are helping them, and we must hope that Ferrari and Red Bull Racing can deliver a more consistent challenge in the races ahead.”

Ferrari trails Mercedes by 57 points in the Constructors' Championship.