FORMULA 1

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Stroll: Racing Point eyeing ‘big result’ for 2019 after strong Baku showing

Ask most of the teams in the midfield what their goal is for 2019 and you’ll hear the same answer: fourth place. Racing Point are no different – and following their best result of the season at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Lance Stroll was feeling more convinced than ever that it is a realistic goal for this year.

On the back of his ninth-place finish in Baku, Stroll has now brought home points for Racing Point twice this year, which, combined with the efforts of team mate Sergio Perez – who currently sits sixth in the drivers’ standings, tied on 13 points with Pierre Gasly and Kimi Raikkonen – has moved the team to fifth in the constructors’ table, just one point adrift of McLaren.

“Absolutely,” replied Stroll when asked whether fourth place was still Racing Point's target. “We’re aiming for a big result this season. There’s a long way to go though, it’s still early days, but every point is critical. [The race in Baku] was a great example of that, both cars in the points. It’s a big jump from the team and we’re going to have to see some more of that over the year.”

Development throughout the 2019 season will be crucial for all the midfield teams, who know that the difference between qualifying on the fourth row or the ninth row on Saturdays this year will usually be a matter of just a few tenths. And Stroll was eyeing the next race at Barcelona for his new squad to begin their development programme proper.

“We’re going to try and bring some pace for Barcelona,” he said. “It’s going to be a development race all the way through to the end of the season. The midfield’s very, very tight – there’s just a couple of tenths between the fourth to ninth team, so very, very tight but it’s going to be a good battle all the way to the very end.”

One thing that will be giving Racing Point extra confidence will be the struggles that their rivals Renault and Haas appear to be having this year, with those teams currently lying seventh and eighth in the constructors’ standings, with neither of them having managed to score in Azerbaijan.

 

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MIDWEEK WRAP: MARKO V W-SERIES, BAKU FALLOUT, IMOLA ’94

Helmut Marko in trouble, another Mercedes 1-2 in Baku, F1TV still having hiccups, GPs coming and going, the latest twist in Alonso’s journey and the anniversary of F1’s “Blackest Day”  – it’s been another busy seven days in the F1 world.

Another week, another round of stories to wrap, so let’s get to it:

Marko courts controversy, quickly backpedals: You knew that sooner or later, someone was going to stick their foot in it regarding W-Series and the state of female racing drivers, and really, it shouldn’t come of that much a surprise it was Helmut Marko.

Never one for political correctness, the Red Bull advisor’s professed scepticism over whether women were up to the physical and mental rigours of F1 went down about as well as you’d expect, and predictably led to backtracking from himself and Christian Horner.

Fallout from the Azerbaijan GP: Another race, another Mercedes 1-2, and another round of “what’s wrong at Ferrari?”

A step forward from their dismal showing in China, the reds seemed slightly more content this time around, but as Sebastian Vettel pointed out, they still have a ways to go to unlock all the potential of the SF90. Maybe Barcelona will be the turning point – then again, you can never get your hopes up with the Scuderia.

Also coming out of Baku, Valtteri Bottas’ second victory of the season means he again leads the world championship, and hopefully he can continue to be a foil to Lewis Hamilton even if Vettel and co. can’t. If he does, it will be very interesting to see how long their “very good relationship” lasts, as we’ve seen in the past that nothing gets under the Briton’s skin more than a driver capable of challenging him.

F1TV still failing to deliver: You would think after an embarrassing start to the season, F1TV would get its act together. Apparently not. Here in Australia F1TV isn’t a thing because all rights are owned by our local pay-tv provider, but as someone who uses similar services to follow the NBA and NFL, I know the value of a reliability, which is something Liberty would do well to prioritise if they want to gain new fans and keep existing ones from looking for “less legal” alternatives.

The GP Hosting Merry-Go-Round Continues: A mixed week for current F1 venues, it was good news for all when it was announced yesterday that Monza had extended its contract until 2024, but the same can’t be said for Silverstone (still waiting on confirmation) and Barcelona (reportedly to be replaced by Zandvoort). Also, at what point do we just declare the Miami race MIA? Maybe they should get Ace Ventura on the case…

Alonso Leaves Toyota: News that came as a bit of a surprise (at least to me), Fernando Alonso is set to depart Toyota’s WEC programme at the end of 2019, presumably with an eye on other projects. 

25 years since Imola ’94: A milestone no one wants to commemorate, but one we unquestionably must, it has now been exactly a quarter of a century since the tragic events of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Two drivers at opposite ends of the F1 spectrum, both Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna deserve to be remembered and celebrated, for all they did, and indeed continue to do, for the sport we all love.

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HILL: REAL DEAL SENNA CHANGED THE SPORT

Damon Hill was Ayrton Senna’s last teammate, sharing a pit garage for the first two races of the 1994 Formula 1 season at Williams before the race at Imola robbed the sport of one of its biggest stars.

At the time Hill was 33 years old, around the same age as Senna but while the Brazilian was already a three-time F1 World Champion his teammate had only two seasons of racing in the top flight under his belt.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Senna’s death at Imola on 1 May 1994, Hill spoke to Sky F1 about the F1 legend, “Every era has someone who changes the sport and I think he was one of those people. He changed the sport, he changed the approach.”

“He was far more aggressive and far more committed, to the point of almost craziness. But he had such self-belief, and I think that inspired people – I think they were fascinated by him.”

“I think he was a bit of a shock to the system when he arrived in Formula 1 because he was audacious. I think that’s why everyone wanted to have him in their team, because they knew that this was the guy who would give everything he absolutely had to get the very last drop out of that car.

“Sometimes it went wrong, sometimes he went too far – but fans loved him and he was a massive, massive symbol of hope and success to Brazilians, and people around the world.”

“He had an air of uniqueness about him and he was also not messing about, he was a very serious person. He wasn’t here to have fun, he was clearly here to do business. So he was quite intimidating from that point of view.”

“But whatever attitude he had off the track, it was backed up by his results on the track. It wasn’t like he was putting on airs or graces, he was the real deal,” explained Hill.

Johnny Herbert, who raced against Senna, added, “I knew him from karting and the first thing I always remember was that he did things differently to everybody else. He was always thinking outside of the box.”

“That strength allowed him to get the absolute maximum out of the team, and then he was able to produce the purest racing car for when he was able to get in and show those skills like he did at Donington Park in 1993. It’s that type of skill that is very rare.”

“The pure skill he had seemed to work in the wet weather, in dry weather, in a race, in qualifying. He was almost like the complete package. It was always a challenge for him, and I think that challenge was to show he was the best,” concluded Herbert.

[LLC]

I watched that race live on TV and will always remember the details of that day. There are certain things that happen where you remember where you were and what you were doing and for me this is one of those. Such an icon of the sport gone too soon.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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IMOLA 1994 BY PETER BURNS

Going through my archives incredibly I found an image of Peter (top right with Marlboro shirt and glasses) on the fringes of a media scrum around Ayrton during a Monaco Grand Prix in the early nineties – Paul Velasco.

Imola used to be one of the nicest Grand Prix events. It was much more laid back than Monza and usually the start of the European Grand Prix season, a great circuit, friendly environment and of course in Italy, fantastic food in the very understated trattorias.

That all changed in 1994. Although now 25 years ago, I remember it as if it was yesterday!

There had not been death at a Grand Prix for 12 years, not since Riccardo Paletti was killed at the Canadian Grand Prix. So when at Imola there were not one, but two fatal accidents over the weekend, it was a terrible shock, especially for those of us who knew both the drivers involved.

I had got to know Roland Ratzenberger in my early days in McLaren marketing when we ran the TAG Heuer Downhill Ski programme and the skiers had the same management as Roland. He was a very likeable character and whenever I saw him he always had a ready smile and a joke.

In Formula 1 I used to look after the sponsors and liaise with the drivers for their promotional activities and I had broadly started regularly attending the races at the time when Ayrton Senna joined the team. After his many successful years in a red and white McLaren, we were still adjusting to seeing him in a blue and white Williams.

The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix was a most bizarre weekend. At Imola that weekend it felt that the previous 12 years was compounded into a bubbling cauldron of bad luck set to explode.

Firstly, at the beginning of the weekend, we had a McLaren sponsor who fell ill and had to be admitted to hospital.

On Friday, Rubens Barrichello literally flew off the track in his Jordan having been launched from a kerb at the Variante Bassa corner at 140 mph (225 km/h). He hit the top of the tyre barrier and was knocked unconscious.

Having been transferred to Maggiore Hospital in Bologna by helicopter for routine tests and observation, he returned to the track the next day, with a broken nose and a plaster cast on his arm, which forced him to sit out the rest of the race weekend.

On Saturday, it was twenty minutes into the final qualifying session when Roland Ratzenberger failed to negotiate the Villeneuve Curva in his Simtek and hit the opposing concrete barrier wall almost head-on. After the impact the engine cut out and there was an eerie silence as the car came to a halt with poor Roland fatally slumped in the cockpit.

The Formula One paddock went silent in a state of shock. Ayrton Senna was deeply affected by the tragedy. In his memoirs Professor Sid Watkins recalled Senna’s reaction to the news, saying that “Ayrton broke down and cried on my shoulder.”

Sid tried to persuade Ayrton not to race the following day, asking “What else do you need to do? You have been World Champion three times, you are obviously the quickest driver. Give it up and let’s go fishing.” Senna replied, “Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to go on.”

The season so far had not gone to plan for Ayrton. His dream drive with Williams was proving a challenge. Active ride and traction control had been banned at the end of 1993, which stripped Williams of some of the advantages they had from their previous two World Championships.

In addition, Ayrton was struggling to understand how the Benetton of Michael Schumacher was so competitive against the Williams and there were rumours of hidden traction control on the Benetton buried in the depths of a software programme. The pressure was on and Ayrton knew he had to deliver.

For those of us who had been in the red and white colours of Marlboro McLaren for the years of Ayrton’s championships, it was strange seeing him now in the blue and white colours of Rothmans Williams. The styles of the two teams were rather different.

Whilst both had a family feeling within, McLaren went out of its way to cosset their drivers, whilst Williams left them more to get on with it and at this stage of the relations with his new team Ayrton must have felt it. In fact, at the first Grand Prix of the year in Brazil, he seemed to spend quite a bit of time in his old team’s garage!

The McLaren team stayed at the Hotel Castello in Castel San Pietro Terme, which was a twenty-minute drive from Imola. We were always looked after very well, and once Ayrton had left the team he persuaded Williams to move there as well.

I remember on Saturday night when we all were in a numbed state of shock, looking out of the window and saw Ayrton arriving back in the hotel from the track in his Renault Espace, looking very shaken and that night he stayed quite a while in Frank Williams’ room talking.

Ayrton had a routine behaviour over a Grand Prix weekend. On Thursday when we arrived he was usually open and friendly. I used to have to sit down with him to go through the sponsor promotional schedule with him for appearances and dinners he was to attend. This was covered in some detail, how long it would take when he had to be collected and what he had to do.

Once agreed, the schedule was fixed and there was to be no deviation, you couldn’t slip in anything else and woe betide you if you messed up! However, that didn’t work both ways, especially when you heard him utter those terrifying words to a marketing person: “I know that I am obligated but ….”!!!

As the race weekend progressed, he would become more and more focussed and single-minded, to the point that he would be sitting in the car on the grid, with his helmet on, total concentration and almost oblivious to the crowds around him.

In 1994 it was different. If you watch the movie Senna, you see him on the grid, helmet off and visibly distracted. There have been all sorts of theories about his behaviour and I am not going to go into that, but he was deeply affected by Roland’s death plus he knew he had to push hard from the start to win.

At the start of the race, the Benetton of J.J. Lehto stalled on the grid. Pedro Lamy, who started further back had his view of the stationary Benetton blocked by other cars and slammed into the back of Lehto’s car. Such was the impact that parts of the car and a wheel were launched over the safety fencing into the startline grandstand injuring a number of spectators.

This brought out the safety car. Unlike the high powered Mercedes sports cars used today, this was a saloon car which could not be driven that fast and as a result of travelling at slower speeds, the tyre temperatures on the F1 cars fell. In fact, onboard footage from Ayrton’s car shows him almost overtaking the safety car in an attempt to make the safety car driver go faster.

Once the track at the start-line was cleared of debris, the safety car was withdrawn and the race restarted with Ayrton leading Michael Schumacher. On the second lap after the restart, with Ayrton pushing hard, his car unexplainably veered off the track at Tamburello and hit the barrier and came to a stop.

With debris lying on the track and the sad sight of seeing Ayrton lying motionless in the cockpit, the race was red flagged and stopped. The medical team led by Sid Watkins lifted him from the car and after on-site medical attention, he was airlifted directly to Maggiore Hospital in Bologna.

In Italy, it is seldom that a driver has been known to have been pronounced dead at a track, apparently for the legal reason that if that happened then the race would have to be abandoned. It was not until 6:40 pm local time, that it was officially announced that Ayrton Senna had died.

The autopsy recorded the cause of death as head injuries, likely caused by an impact from a piece of suspension that pierced his helmet. It has been said that if the impact on the helmet had been a few inches either side then he may well have survived, as otherwise there was scarcely a bruise on his body.

After the accident at the track, a sense of shock engulfed the circuit. In the McLaren hospitality area, our then test driver Jonathan Palmer, who also qualified as a doctor, carefully explained the procedures to the assembled guests, but a sense of numbness prevailed.

For the teams, many were operating on remote-control to get ready for the restart of the race, which Michael Schumacher won ahead of Nicola Larini in a Ferrari and Mika Häkkinen in a McLaren.

However, the drama continued at the second restart. On lap 48, when Michele Alboreto pitted, the rear-right wheel of his Minardi came loose as he left the pit lane, striking two Ferrari and two Lotus mechanics who had to have hospital treatment.

The paddock was a sombre place and we couldn’t wait to leave. I went with Jo Ramirez the McLaren Team Co-ordinator, my colleague Peter Stayner and Nigel Geach one of the team’s sponsors.

We were early for the flight so we found a little restaurant where we had a few much-needed glasses of wine, to reflect on a very sad and tragic weekend. We all knew Ayrton in various ways and it was impossible to believe that he was no more.

Many of the teams were on a charter flight that night from Bologna Airport to Gatwick. Both the McLaren and Williams teams were positioned at the front of the plane as the team management were conscious that there might be the media waiting for us when we landed, but this was expertly managed by the teams’ press officers.

So bad had been the outbreak of serious events, that we even started to wonder whether the plane would safely make the flight home! In fact, what we didn’t know at the time was that the Pacific F1 team’s race transporter carrying their cars caught fire on its way back to the UK when going through the Mont Blanc Tunnel!

It was the most bizarre and tragic weekend, but actually it didn’t end there.

Two weeks later it was the Monaco Grand Prix and during the first practice session, a deadly hush descended over the track as Karl Wendlinger had a serious accident as exited the tunnel and lost control of his car under braking for the Nouvelle Chicane.

His Sauber hit the wall sideways with considerable force. Wendlinger’s head struck a water-filled barrier within the metal crash barrier. He remained in a coma for several weeks and did not drive in a race for the rest of the year, although thankfully he recovered.

It really did feel that the previous 12 years without a fatal incident had had its revenge!

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Just now, LLC said:

I watched that race live on TV and will always remember the details of that day. There are certain things that happen where you remember where you were and what you were doing and for me this is one of those. Such an icon of the sport gone too soon.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Likewise mate, I watched the race also. Was a pretty bad weekend for many, ultimately for Ratzenberger first and Senna whom both paid the ultimate price.

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WEBBER: RENAULT HAVE TO DELIVER FOR RICCIARDO

While reasons for Daniel Ricciardo’s decision to move from Red Bull to Renault are well documented, it was always going to be a big risk departing a team with a recent winning pedigree for one hunting former glory.

Right now it is looking pretty bleak for the man from Down Under, the risk he took has got off to a bad start and risks failing altogether unless his new team can get their act together immediately.

Retired F1 driver and fellow Australian Mark Webber is concerned that below par results with Renault will render Ricciardo the forgotten man of a sport where the line between hero and zero is very fine. A hot property can turn cold very quickly.

The first four races this season suggest the French outfit and their drivers will struggle this season unless a minor miracle takes place at Vichy. Team bosses were bullish that this year they would be podium contenders and naively predicted that in 2020 is the time to start winning.

Surely with the promise of the above is how Renault would’ve lured the highly rated Ricciardo to the team, clearly not expecting the quagmire of unacceptably bad performances that they have delivered, with the recent Azerbaijan Grand Prix of particular embarrassment.

Right now, Ricciardo and teammate Nico Hulkenberg, for that matter, are on the wrong end of the grid with another below-par package produced by the French manufacturer whose engines have powered drivers to F1 victories on 168 occasions.

But after the dust settled on the weekend in Baku, it has emerged that Renault are only better than Haas and Williams in the pecking order ahead of Barcelona in ten days time. Breaking into the top three was their ambitious preseason target.

Webber told Wide World of Sports, “Daniel hasn’t forgotten how to drive, but the form guide changes very quickly in this sport. A driver’s momentum and his career can be challenged.”

“He’s valued, but clearly he’s not in a good position at the moment. That’s obvious. You need results, you need to be drinking the champagne on the podium. That’s what concerned me with this move, so let’s hope the team can lift for him and start getting results.”

“Every few months, if the performances aren’t there, other managers and agents and young drivers are trying to muscle in, the sport moves on so fast. Daniel benefited from it in the past, he was one of the guys that had it on the way up. Now Renault have to deliver for him.”

The reality of their plight is that in qualifying – the single occasion where all teams max out their cars – Renault were way off the pace. Ricciardo managed to scrape out of Q1 with the 15th best time, albeit 1.1 seconds shy of the top time which, ironically, was set by Pierre Gasly, the man who replaced him at Red Bull!

In Q2, Ricciardo’s best lap time of 1:42.477 was not good enough for Q1 and two seconds down on the pole-winning time set by Valtteri Bottas on his final Q3 run in the Mercedes.

Webber continued, “Daniel’s season hasn’t really started, has it? It’s been very challenging for Renault, and it’s starting to sink in now, in terms of the amount of work in front of them.”

“As predicted, they’re a long way off, they’ve got a big job to do. They’re a team under tremendous pressure already, because their performance doesn’t back up the chat. Renault were saying in the off-season they can challenge the top three, but they’re a long way from that.”

“It’s been challenging, they’ve got some reliability issues as well, McLaren are beating them with the same engine, which is not good. McLaren are a long way down the road at the moment.”

Facts are facts, although the season is still new it does not take Nostradamus to predict that Ricciardo’s decision to ditch Red Bull is not on the right track. As mentioned, it was always going to be a risk.

Webber went on to explain how the opposite worked for him, “Thankfully I did it the other way around! I was in average teams for a long time and I never ever wanted to feel that again, even though I had offers to continue in F1 when I left Red Bull.”

“I didn’t want to know what that felt like again. I had that through the early part of my career through sub-par machinery,” added Webber who quit the pinnacle of the sport at the end of 2013.

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BRAWN REPORT: BOTTAS IMPRESSIVE IN TAKING FIGHT TO HAMILTON

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend dished out a strange Formula 1 weekend, starting with that bizarre man-hole cover incident that struck luckless Williams which in turn wiped out FP1.

Thereafter the ‘might’ of Ferrari never appeared thus we were all left stumped by another Merc one-two in qualifying which was followed but the record-breaking one-two in the race. While Mercedes can do no wrong, it seems Ferrari can do nothing right.

From the helm of our sport, F1 motorsport chief Ross Brawn gives his take on the Adventures in Baku:

It’s never been done before. Four one-two finishes in the first four races of the year is an incredible result and it sets an incredible standard for this season.

Congratulations therefore to Mercedes who are showing once again this year that they’re not prepared to rest on their laurels. And well done too to Valtteri Bottas, who has started the season in fine style, with two wins and two pole positions and he definitely deserves to be leading the championship.

Valtteri has managed to raise his game to fight against an extraordinary champion in Lewis Hamilton. I have seen for myself how a driver can suffer, consciously or not, from being in the same team as a truly great champion and Lewis is one of the greatest we have seen.

It can be incredibly intimidating and cause a driver to fall below their true ability. Getting out of that mindset can be difficult and takes a lot of effort, especially on the mental side.

Valtteri has managed it and he has shown grit and determination in the first four races and especially in the way he has taken the fight to Lewis in qualifying has been really impressive.

The fans voted Charles Leclerc as their ‘Driver of the Day for the second time this season, but again, as was the case in Bahrain, the Monegasque driver had reason to wish for a more tangible prize.

Hitting the barriers in Q2 at Turn 8 cost Charles dearly and although he produced a great drive, especially in the first stint, that public vote is probably scant consolation given that, from what we saw over the weekend up to that point, he could have finished on the podium.

The decision to try to qualify in Q2 on the medium tyre was the right one in my opinion, because on the softs, Mercedes had shown they had a better race pace on Friday afternoon.

If Charles had managed to get ahead of them in Q3 – and there was a chance of that – and then run a long first stint, as he went on to do, then he would have been in with a good chance of finishing at the front.

Unfortunately for him, despite a strong climb up the order, he finished fifth, for the third time this year. And I doubt that taking an extra point for setting the fastest race lap would have cheered him up. However, even after this race, he bears all the hallmarks of a driver on the way up, destined for great things.

It would be no surprise to see Racing Point clamouring for more races to be held in Baku. Both the teams’ drivers appear to have a real affinity with the place and Sergio Pérez and Lance Stroll demonstrated yet again that they go well around the streets of the city.

Checo has twice appeared on the podium at the Baku Street Circuit and yesterday, although he finished ‘only’ sixth, he produced a strong drive to be best of the rest.

Lance, meanwhile, has finished in the top 10 in each of his three appearances here, and scored the only podium finish of his career to date in 2017.

The team deserves much of the credit, and in 2019 they are again proving that it’s important to spend well rather than spend a lot. It certainly helps, especially in terms of staying calm, to know that the team can rely on much more solid backing than in the recent past, but the infrastructure of the team is still the one that produced miracles over the past number of years. It continues to do a great job, which means it can fight well and the team often finishes ahead of bigger teams such as McLaren and Renault.

On the subject of Renault, one can’t deny that the French team has had a difficult time in this first part of the season. After coming fourth last year, one could realistically have expected that their form would not only be confirmed but that there would possibly even be a partial closing of the gap to the top three teams.

However, the team based in Enstone and Viry has only managed two points finishes from the eight available so far, with two seventh places, and finds itself not only behind Ferrari-powered Alfa Romeo and Mercedes-powered Racing Point, the companies that set the current bench mark in terms of engines, but also behind its only customer team, McLaren.

The two drivers seem to lack confidence in the car, especially Daniel Ricciardo. I know the people there and I know the team will roll up its sleeves and all pull in the same direction and they will close the gap to the big teams, which is the most realistic goal, given how the tight things are in the midfield. It all makes the fight between the six teams in question even more exciting.

As the first tranche of races that make up this long championship comes to an end in Baku, one could ask oneself if we can still expect to see at least two teams fighting it out for the titles.

At the moment, a negative response would seem logical, given that Mercedes has taken four consecutive one-two finishes, but I feel there is still time for Ferrari to fight back, as it showed in two of the four races that it has what’s needed to win.

The duel between the two Mercedes drivers is definitely wide open, with Bottas and Hamilton only separated by the point scored by Bottas for fastest lap in Australia.

Meanwhile, It will be interesting to see how things pan out at Ferrari between four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and the explosive new talent that is Leclerc.

As previously mentioned, it’s really close between the teams currently lying fourth to ninth. It’s going to be interesting to see how the youngsters develop, from Leclerc in his first year in a top team to the trio of rookies, Lando Norris, Alex Albon and George Russell. Norris and Albon again enjoyed strong weekends in Baku, and Russell is showing great maturity in toughing it out in difficult circumstances at Williams.

There are therefore plenty of interesting stories to watch closely this year and not just in Formula 1. There’s also its two feeder series, which feature on around half of the grand prix weekends of this year’s calendar.

In Baku, we were treated to two action-packed FIA Formula 2 races and again I was pleased to see rookies making their mark. In Barcelona, the brand new FIA Formula 3 series will make its debut. That’s a lot of action on track and a lot of reasons to meet up again in two weeks time in Barcelona.

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Has Ferrari blown it already?

They say you can’t win a race on lap one, yet you can most certainly lose it. The equivalent it seems applies to championships, certainly on the basis of recent evidence. Just four rounds in, good luck finding anyone who thinks Ferrari can salvage its 2019 Formula 1 season.

It hardly could represent a more dramatic shift either. We are but six weeks on from all heading to Melbourne’s season-opener thinking assuredly that, based on pre-season testing, Ferrari was the team to beat. That this might even be the year that it at last takes its first title since 2008.

It wasn’t the usual smoke and mirrors either. All rival squads, including Mercedes, felt sure on this point. ‘Sandbagging’, as people often like to suggest when testing predictions are confounded, isn’t really a thing these days.

Yet Mercedes has claimed four 1-2 finishes from the first four races, the first team ever to start a season with such a dominant run, beating the previous record of three 1-2s off the bat set by the imperious Williams FW14B in 1992. Ferrari for its part has been off the pace for a lot of this time and, especially, wayward in its operations.

The 1992 example cited ended with the titles wrapped up in August. Indeed any driver or team claiming more than two races on the trot at the start of an F1 season ends with that year’s championship without fail. So for 2019 do the math. Ferrari, already, perhaps has blown it.

But things might not be that simple, even with topline historical evidence heading only in one direction.

Take Nico Rosberg in 2016. He won the opening four races, and indeed took the crown that year in the end. But it’s easy to forget that come just round 11 in Hungary Lewis Hamilton in fact had overtaken him at the table top, before subsequent failings let Rosberg back in. In other words, there was nothing necessarily insurmountable about Rosberg’s early accumulation of wins and resultant points.

And that’s often the problem with historic trends; things have a maddening tendency to overlap so it’s tricky to disentangle the influence that each individual factor has independent of the others. Williams winning the first five races in 1992 and Williams then easing to the ‘92 titles reflected one and the same thing – that the FW14B was insultingly superior to its opposition – rather than the first part causing the second. Same goes with Michael Schumacher and Ferrari winning the first five races of 2004 – three of those were Ferrari 1-2s as well. The titles were cruised to due to the vast pace superiority, not (just) that their early points advantage made them safe.

We know as much from the – necessarily very rare – cases where early dominance in results does not reflect an inherent pace advantage. The case with Rosberg in 2016 is instructive. Rosberg with all due respect rarely had much of an inherent pace advantage over team-mate and rival Hamilton, and his experience that year showed that in such a situation early points leads can still be lost quickly.

There was a similar example in 1991; one which may give Ferrari the most hope of all. Reigning champion Ayrton Senna won the opening four rounds, often by a long way, which gave him a 29 point advantage (in the age of 10 points for a win, so pushing 75 points in today’s money). This was almost a quarter of the 120 points remaining available even at that relatively early stage of the campaign. McLaren also had won the previous three championship doubles, so almost all thought it was over already.

But one person emphatically not persuaded was the man himself. Senna had been glum about his 1991 mount ever since returning on the season’s eve from his winter in Brazil. “It’s not good enough,” he declared just after sampling the car for the first time, “they have not made sufficient progress”. Four wins from the first four later, and most dismissed the words as odd melodrama.

But Senna in fact was right. The Williams FW14 had the McLaren’s legs, and for once McLaren was being let down by its Honda engine. The Japanese concern had for that season changed to V12s from V10s, and the new unit was seriously overweight, fuel-thirsty and was not even producing the anticipated power.

Senna’s four season-opening wins all had peculiar circumstances too. Two of them were on street circuits where Senna always excelled; the other two Senna may well have been beaten by Williams had it been reliable. At this stage though the FW14 was still having plenty of teething problems, particularly with its new paddleshift gearbox.

Yet after these first four rounds Williams really hit its stride and Mansell as soon as after round nine at Hockenheim was within striking range – just eight points off Senna at the top.

As it was, Senna still won the title. There remained a bit more Williams unreliability to come (and, in Portugal, calamity); Senna’s brilliance and consistency did the rest. Yet even after its sticky start, the points Williams threw away subsequently would have been more than enough to shift the championship in its direction.

And the relevance of this historical retread to our point at hand? It shows that for Ferrari in 2019 all is not yet lost, so long as its car can be got right.

Yet there is a problem even so. Ferrari’s in a situation where it can’t afford to drop many more – perhaps any more – clangers. And which team would you hardly bet your life on not to do that… On the evidence of 2019 so far Ferrari’s clangers can be dropped in pretty much any area, including those that the rest of us would not so much as have considered.

One circumstance at least helps Ferrari this time though. That the Mercedes pair has split the wins evenly, as it’s left them still just about within reach in the championship standings. Valtteri Bottas tops the pile currently on 87 points with stable-mate Hamilton a point shy. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel meanwhile is 35 points off the summit with 52; his team-mate Charles Leclerc 40 off on 47. Significant gaps, but not unbridgeable ones. Particularly not with 17 rounds remaining.

And particularly not with a car that might, just might, still be the best if all can be got right with it. Some might scoff at the notion, but at the very least it’s not impossible. Testing as noted suggested this sort of latent advantage, as did the Bahrain round which was only lost due to a late technical failure (and driver error in the other car). Ferrari might have won in Baku as well had Leclerc not binned it in qualifying. Taking this counterfactual to its conclusion, all of a sudden Ferrari would have a 50% win rate, even with its underperformance.

Ferrari can also point at the mitigating circumstance that all four season-opening race tracks are for their own reasons atypical. Melbourne is a temporary parkland track with a low-grip surface. Bahrain taxes rear tyres like no other, and the night race in the desert also has unique and varying ambient temperature challenges. China is an outlying track in being ‘front-limited’ (F1 parlance for challenging front-end grip much more than rear). Baku is a wacky street circuit. You can add to the mitigating circumstances that in Melbourne Ferrari had to run its engine in a compromised state due to a cooling concern, something fixed by Bahrain’s round two.

Maybe with more standard tracks coming up the Barcelona testing sweet spot will be rediscovered more regularly? Vettel for one seems to think so. “We have a very strong car,” he said after China. “There’s nothing wrong with it but I think we’re not able to yet put it in the window.”

“A lot of homework for us, the last couple of weeks,” he added post-Baku. “I’m sure once we get everything together the car is strong and then we will be much more in the fight.”

Yet it is equally clear that whatever the mitigating circumstances, the Ferrari’s testing form has in the main not been replicated in the four races so far. The main culprit identified in dispatches is a shortage of front-end grip. And in F1 nothing succeeds like failure; Ferrari as a result of its problem has reportedly gone to extreme outlying solutions just to achieve an aero balance, with obvious implications for lap times.

“Does that [the front-end grip problem] mean a rethink of the aero philosophy around the front wing, with its tapered outer-ends to promote outwash?,” asked Mark Hughes recently. “This would have major implications upon the rest of the car. Or is it possible to correct the aero imbalance within the existing philosophy? In which case this might all just be an early-season blip rather than a designed-in shortfall.”

Ferrari’s season hinges on the answer to this question.

Has Ferrari blown it? Despite everything, it’s still a bit soon to conclude as much.

[MIKA27]

F1 abandons plans for 'Q4' qualifying tweak in 2020

Formula 1's plans to introduce a fourth qualifying phase from 2020 onwards look to have been dumped, with the publication of the 2020 Sporting Regulations.

The FIA document has qualifying unchanged from the three sessions currently in use, which has proven popular with fans since it was introduced back in 2006 – although it underwent a brief and short-lived change in 2016, which was quickly dumped after two rounds.

F1 floated the idea of adding a Q4 with its own simulations suggesting it might increase the drama as drivers would have to survive three sessions, rather than two, to reach the final top-ten shoot-out (or in the case of Q4, a top-eight shoot-out).

The proposal was put to the teams last month during the Chinese GP, but support for introducing it next season was lukewarm.

In various polls, a majority of fans were also against its introduction and it would seem F1 has now listened and dropped the plan.

Under the rules, regulation changes after April 30 require unanimous agreement amongst ten teams, which is very unlikely given their initial response.

"These Sporting Regulations apply to the Championship taking place in the calendar year referred to in the title ("the Championship") and may only be changed after 30 April of the preceding year with the unanimous agreement of all competitors, save for changes made by the FIA for safety reasons which may come into effect without notice or delay."

[MIKA27]

Kimi Raikkonen concedes he expected more from opening 2019 F1 races

Kimi Raikkonen is the only midfield driver to have scored points in each of the four grands prix held so far in 2019 – but that hasn’t left the Finn completely satisfied with his and Alfa Romeo's results.

Raikkonen reunited with Sauber – now competing under the Alfa Romeo name – 18 years after he completed his rookie season for the Swiss squad.

Following an encouraging 2018 with Charles Leclerc spearheading the squad, Alfa Romeo has continued its upward trend largely courtesy of 2007 World Champion Raikkonen.

Raikkonen has taken all of Alfa Romeo’s 13 points – with a best of seventh in Bahrain – but he feels there was more potential in the C38.

“I think we’ve been getting some points at least,” Raikkonen, eighth in the standings, told Motorsport Week.

“But I don’t think we got everything out of any of the weekends from the package, so on that side it’s a bit disappointing, but we’ll keep fine tuning things.

“It’s a young group of people so we need to do things better a little bit here and there and I’m sure it will turn out to be good.”

Raikkonen’s prospects in Azerbaijan were dented by his exclusion from the results of qualifying due to excessive flexing of his front wing.

Raikkonen revealed that Alfa Romeo detected the problem in China but could not develop a replacement in time for Azerbaijan.

“At the last race I had an issue at the end of the race and broke a strake on the front wing and we lost the downforce,” he said.

“It’s probably a similar thing. We knew the issue after the last race but we didn’t have time to produce a new one and this is what you get.

“For sure it doesn’t make you faster but this is what it is. Hopefully it will be fair for everybody after this.”

[MIKA27]

Stroll Sr "couldn't be happier" with Racing Point's Baku effort

Racing Point Formula 1 team owner Lawrence Stroll says he "couldn't be happier" with how the outfit performed in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Sergio Perez finished sixth and took best of the rest honours behind the top three teams in Azerbaijan, while Stroll's son Lance recovered from a subpar qualifying to take ninth place.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Stroll Sr told Motorsport.com. “I think we finished where we deserved to finish, on merit.

"We know that there are six cars that are in a different league. So we couldn’t have asked for more.”

Baku has been a happy hunting ground for Racing Point in its previous Force India guise, with Perez picking up podium finishes in 2016 and 2018.

On both occasions the Mexican was aided by a high attrition rate among the frontrunners, whereas this time Red Bull's Pierre Gasly was the only retirement among the top teams.

“If look at what happened ahead of us I think we extracted the most we could have from our starting position,” team principal Otmar Szafnauer told Motorsport.com.

“The quicker cars finished ahead of us, Sergio was sixth, Lance did a great job to get into the points from 13th, so it was very good. We got everything right today.

“I think in the last few races, from seventh to 18th in qualifying was like three-tenths of a second, so it’s really hard to know where in that you’ll fall. It is what it is, and it means we’ve got to fight more in the midfield.

“We still have to improve the car, which hopefully we’ll do in Barcelona, and then see how we go for the rest of the year. It’s a huge development race this year.”

Perez, who had qualified fifth, actually jumped ahead of Max Verstappen at the start, before switching his focus to keeping the McLarens of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz behind.

“It was looking good after lap 1,” said the Mexican. “I was ahead of Verstappen, I overtook him at the start, but then very early we realised that it was not our race. I was more concerned about the McLarens because they were very strong all the way through, and they pushed me massively.

“I was on the limit the whole race apart from the last laps, so it was a very demanding race. No mistakes, no lock-ups, and it was the only way to keep the McLarens behind because they were a lot faster than us.

“I’m very pleased with Lance scoring good points, with everyone around us apart from McLaren struggling to get some points, so it's been a good weekend.”

[avaldes]

Lance Stroll is such a wanker. I can't stand his smug attitude, knowing that he has not accomplished anything in F1 without the help of his dad. No talent punk.

[MIKA27]

6 minutes ago, avaldes said:

Lance Stroll is such a wanker. I can't stand his smug attitude, knowing that he has not accomplished anything in F1 without the help of his dad. No talent punk.

I second that!! 

[MIKA27]

Haas concedes VF19 "absolutely the worst" with tyres

Haas Formula 1 team principal Gunther Steiner says he is "very conscious" about the VF-19 being "absolutely the worst" on the 2019 grid at getting tyres to work.
The team's new F1 car has shown flashes of superb pace in 2019 so far, but has been hit badly by tyre warm-up issues in race trim.

After the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, in which Kevin Magnussen finished a distant 13th and Romain Grosjean retired with a brake problem, Haas sits eighth in the constructors' standings, and is now on a three-race point-less run.

Due to the characteristics of the Baku track, Steiner had said in the lead-up to the Azerbaijan GP that he was braced for disappointment – but when those words were put to him after the race, he stressed lowered expectations made the poor outing no easier to take.

"It's still never good when you get a disappointment. It is quite disappointing - or very disappointing."

Haas' Baku performance was compromised by graining, which means bits of rubber sticking to the surface of the tyre and lowering the grip it provides.

For the VF-19, graining would take tyres out of the right temperature window for good, and it left the team looking well off the pace all throughout the Azerbaijan weekend.

"Other people can get it to work so we need to get it to work," Steiner conceded. "There's no point to say 'it's not working, oh'.

"Nine teams get it to work. Who better, who worse. But we are absolutely the worst one to get it to work. I'm very conscious about that one.

"It's very serious, because it's the point, you go slower, that's what it is. We know the cause now, we just need to find out how to fix it.

"We can talk about half an hour about it, we know what it is, we just need to fix it."

Haas was in strong form in pre-season testing in Barcelona, with the venue's tyre-stressing layout concealing the VF-19's warm-up woes.

But when asked whether he was confident the team would get the Pirelli rubber to work at the same track for the Spanish Grand Prix, which is next up on the calendar, Steiner said: "I mean, my confidence level in the moment is not very high, obviously. As you can imagine."

[MIKA27]

Kvyat urges Toro Rosso to look into sudden pace drop-off

Daniil Kvyat says Toro Rosso needs to investigate why its pace disappeared at the start of the race in Azerbaijan, after a strong showing through practice and qualifying.
The Russian and his teammate Alex Albon had impressed with their speed for much of the Baku weekend, with both drivers delivering their best grid positions of the season so far.

But despite starting a hugely encouraging sixth, Kvyat struggled for pace in the race and slid down the order before the bizarre escape road collision with Daniel Ricciardo put him out.

Kvyat said there were no immediate answers for why things had been so difficult in the race, but thinks it important his team gets to the bottom of what went wrong.

“We lost a big amount of grip all of a sudden,” said Kvyat about a very difficult first stint that dropped him to 12th by lap five.

“It was like a big warning. So we think we got something slightly wrong. I don't know whatever it is, but we need to analyse it now and we can learn from it.”

Kvyat said the pace after his switch to mediums was not too bad, but by then the damage had been done.

"When we pitted for the yellow [medium] tyre, C3, it wasn't looking too bad. The pace still wasn't excellent enough to match perhaps McLaren, but we were hanging there.

“We were still in a race for a point or a couple of points, and obviously Daniel caught [me]. I was aware he was going to catch me sooner or later. So honestly he just had to be a little bit more patient and it wouldn't have been an issue.

“It’s a shame, but we need to investigate why we were so competitive throughout [practice and qualifying] and we lost all of a sudden the pace [in the race]. I am sure our guys will be on it and we'll be better next time.”

[MIKA27]

F1 2020 clutch changes to make starts more driver-dependent

The FIA has introduced a raft of changes to the clutch management in 2020’s Formula 1 technical regulations, increasing the difficulty for the drivers at the race start.
Along with making pull-type paddle-activated clutches mandatory for each driver, the clutch signals used by the standard ECU will also be heavily monitored by the FIA to limit any advantageous mapping.

Should a team wish to use two clutch paddles on the steering wheel, each paddle must now be identical in form, motion and mapping - and drivers may be asked to demonstrate that both paddles work identically.

Furthermore, the paddle must work linearly with the clutch - meaning that the drivers’ actions must be wholly representative of the engagement of the clutch.

Article 9.2.1, section F in the technical regulations states that: “To ensure that the signals used by the FIA ECU are representative of the driver’s actions, each competitor is required to demonstrate that the paddle percentage calculated by the ECU does not deviate by more than +/-5% from the physical position of the operating device measured as a percentage over its entire usable range.”

This ensures greater responsibility is placed on the driver at the race start, meaning that there is the potential for greater variation off of the line.

Further changes have been made to stamp out the effect of oil burning within the car, creating more stringent rules for the transfer of oil to the powertrain.

This comes in the definition of the auxiliary oil tank (AOT), of which only one may be included within the car. This, and the pipework connecting to the engine, cannot exceed 2.5 litres - and must be solenoid controlled.

The amount of fuel outside of the survival cell has also been reduced from 2 litres to 0.25 litres, stopping any fuel flow trickery or mixing of oil with fuel in other areas of the car.

In addition, the FIA has also made changes to the regulations restricting rear-view mirrors, enclosing them in a smaller box to minimise the aerodynamic gain that can be taken from them.

These have also been moved further inwards, following suggestions that the 2019-specification mirrors offer limited visibility, and must now be 30mm closer to the survival cell and 40mm lower down.

[MIKA27]

McLaren explains call to stop Norris late in Baku

McLaren racing director Gil de Ferran says the team's decision to swap its drivers and give Lando Norris an extra pitstop in Azerbaijan was an "aggressive and defensive" choice.
Having qualified ahead, Norris had run ahead of Sainz throughout the race.

In the closing stages the pair had such an advantage over the cars behind that there when the virtual safety car was deployed it was a possible to do a free pitstop that would not cost a position to another team.

Norris was ahead of Sainz but, having made his first stop four laps earlier, the Englishman was on older tyres, and there were concerns about how they would behave at the resumption after the VSC.

The McLaren pit wall thus elected to stop the rookie, dropping him behind Sainz, but without impacting the team's overall haul of points.

The potential upside for Norris was that had a late safety car subsequently closed up the field his much fresher final set could have given him an advantage.

"That was a strategic decision that was designed to be both aggressive and defensive at the same time," de Ferran told Motorsport.com. "We obviously had a free pit stop.

"Because we didn't run on Friday there was some uncertainty as to whether the tyres were going to be able to restart well, being quite worn, on a late safety car. There was also some concern over were they going to be able to last the race in a good way.

"By doing a pi stop we protected ourselves against that eventuality with one of the cars, and also put ourselves in a position where if the soft came into the window better late in the race we could have been in a strong position to attack.

"None of that happened, but it was a piece of risk management that we deployed because we had the opportunity to do so."

Norris said he had no problem with the decision to pit and drop him behind Sainz, despite losing two points from his personal tally.

"It's not an easy place to turn the tyres on and get them working," he told Motorsport.com. "The main thing that didn't play into our favour is the temperature, the ambient temperature.

"What's gone on in the past, in practice and P3 and qualy, is people aren't able to turn tyres on when they get cold, and we were just banking on that a little bit more, and hoping that after the safety car they wouldn't be able to get the tyres to work as well. But it was almost the opposite.

"They gained quite a bit of pace, and I was dropping even the last couple of laps. I didn't have the pace. It was a good decision for us to make, a good thing to try, as a team. It was only me who lost a couple of points, or a point, whatever it was.

"As a team, we didn't lose or gain, so it was a good decision, just didn't turn out how we wanted it to."

[In-A-Gadda-Davidoff]

I'm extremely disappointed with the showing of Haas this year.  They aren't the only team struggling at keeping the tires up to temp.  However, it is frustrating to watch Haas fail to even get their cars into the points since Melbourne.  Coming into this season I had much higher hopes for the team, and so far the results have been pretty dismal.

 

 

 

[MIKA27]

6 hours ago, In-A-Gadda-Davidoff said:

I'm extremely disappointed with the showing of Haas this year.  They aren't the only team struggling at keeping the tires up to temp.  However, it is frustrating to watch Haas fail to even get their cars into the points since Melbourne.  Coming into this season I had much higher hopes for the team, and so far the results have been pretty dismal.

 

 

 

Completely agree! I think K-Mag is doing a decent job, Romain needs to get the flick as even when HAAS have had any opportunity, he's blown it.

The car itself clearly has some gremlins to sort out.

[MIKA27]

INSIDE LINE: ENOUGH TALK, IT’S TIME FOR ABITEBOUL TO DELIVER

It was refreshing for me to hear both Paul di Resta and Karun Chandhok while commentating on Sky F1 during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, question if the Renault board were not starting to ask questions of the team’s lack of progress under the stewardship of Cyril Abiteboul.

Because I have, and while the original title of this piece was ‘What is happening with Renault?’ until it evolved into the finger pointing exercise that it is.

The French team was woefully off the pace at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Neither of their cars made it beyond Q2 on a weekend they were sorely outshone by McLaren, the only other team on the grid using Renault power units, whose Lando Norris was half a second faster than the best Renault driver when the chips were down.

During qualifying in Baku, Daniel Ricciardo’s best time in Q1 was 1.1 seconds shy of the top time, with Nico Hulkenberg two seconds adrift. In Q2, the Australian’s best effort – with everything dialled – up was two seconds off the pole-winning lap set by Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes.

The drivers cannot be faulted. Ricciardo is a proven Grand Prix winner and Hulkenberg packed with experience are not as bad as the Renault package suggested last Sunday. They simply did not have the tools to do the job on those three days.

Renault has not delivered on promises made by Abiteboul who this year was targeting breaking away from the Best of the Rest tag and at least challenge the top three for podiums. Wins would be a bonus they teased, but those are supposedly on the menu for 2020.

However, the reality is that their power unit package is behind Honda, and thus worst of the quartet of manufacturers providing engines for teams in the top tier. Apart from lacking firepower, their PUs are proving to be unreliable too.

They have gone seriously backwards if the weekend in Baku is anything to go by, and surely they are hoping the tricky street circuit was an ‘anomaly’ for their package.

But the question remains: Is Abiteboul the man for the job at Renault?

In early 2015, he scoffed at any idea that rules needed to be changed to reel in Mercedes’s big advantage at the time, “I would never ask for a change in the regulations to catch up with a competitor. I see no reason why we cannot come up to the level of Mercedes. It’s just a matter of time.”

Over four years down the road and the gap remains pretty much the same, if not bigger. At least with Red Bull the Renault-built engines did taste victory, but during the same period, the works team never got a sniff of a podium.

Their chassis was always around three-quarters of a second down on Red Bull’s best offering since the turbo hybrid era. In Baku, the gap to McLaren was over half a second.

In early 2016, Abiteboul set his own noose when he predicted, “What we can say is that we will not be on the podium this year [2016]. That’s absolutely impossible. Everything we do this year is in preparation for 2017 and 2018. But in 2018, podiums must be possible.”

That didn’t happen did it?

At the start of 2017, when was asked if Renault could close the gap to Mercedes, Abiteboul was not short on the big talk, “There is absolutely no doubt about that, and maybe in the future the potential to overtake them.”

He was wrong because there was no silverware to be added to the F1 trophy cabinets at Viry-Châtillon, in fact the last Grand Prix trophy they added was back in 2011 when Nick Heidfeld finished third in Malaysia, before he shipped off to Caterham.

Looking back on Abiteboul’s career, Bloomberg report that after graduating in 2001, he joined Renault at Boulogne-Billancourt, looking after the team’s F1 website. He was made Business Development Manager for the Renault F1 team in 2007 and went on to become Executive Director of Renault Sport F1 in 2010.

According to the team website, Abiteboul is currently Renault Sport Racing managing director whose role “ensures all aspects of Renault Sport Racing are structured, resourced and working to their optimum to deliver on their performance potential.”

“He also sets the commercial, marketing and communication targets to ensure Groupe Renault takes full advantage of its Formula 1 activities.”

That’s a big briefcase for one man to carry and that perhaps is the problem. He himself declared the role of team principal as redundant when he and Frederic Vasseur parted ways when the latter worked for the team. A difference in vision was cited for the split.

Vasseur then joined Sauber which has since morphed into Alfa Romeo under his leadership. Considering the difference in budgets, the Hinwill outfit is on about half of what Renault are spending then it is becoming increasingly apparent that kept on the wrong guy.

And one would agree that a modern F1 team might not be for solo managers of his ilk, but rather govern by committee so that more can take the blame when things go wrong. In other words: “they just don’t make team principals these days as they used to back in the day.”

Insiders claim that in the world of quasi-government bureaucracies, which Renault is, ‘who you know’ is often more useful than ‘what you know’ suggesting that Abiteboul has friends in high places.

After all, he was once upon a time made redundant from Renault, popping up at Caterham until they sank with him at the helm upon which the French manufacturer took him back and, not only that, put him in charge of turning the shambles of the Genii Lotus operation into an F1 team.

But, in retrospect, at least that ‘Lotus’ effort won a race or two and grabbed podiums with very limited resources.

Brash, arrogant, confident, intense, self-righteous are all descriptions that have been attributed to Abiteboul while his gift for the gab is something to behold. In press conferences, he tends to enjoy the sound of his own voice and can ramble on with no real check on reality of what he is saying.

This guy will talk to you from a shitstorm and tell you he is in paradise, provided it suits his agenda.

In the most recent one, on Friday in Baku during the FIA Press conference, he spoke as a man still inheriting the ‘patient’ when in fact he has it now for quite some time and things are not looking any better, as mentioned they may actually be getting worse.

He conceded during the presser, “It’s not enough, it’s never enough for sure. As a starting point, we clearly need to improve the reliability of the engine; as you know over the winter we have been very vocal about the expectation but also about the ambition in terms of power gain on the engine.”

“I think we’ve accomplished that, but in order to secure that we had to on a number of occasions to fast-track some of the internal processes because it’s a Catch-22.”

Sorry to intrude on the delusion, but what power gain have they accomplished?

This is just PR speak to keep his bosses happily confused in the classic ‘baffle them with bullshit’ strategy that works at times but not all the time. Facts are Renault has gone backwards and he is claiming otherwise!

Then he adds, “You’re running against time, and sometimes also running against limitations in resources, and clearly every single time we could, we biased our internal processes towards performance.”

“So we are paying a little bit for that, but I hope that it’s short term pain for long term gain,” he explained as if is a”little bit” – it’s not, it’s a lot – in Baku qualifying they were two seconds off the pace, with Hulkenberg marooned in Q1 and Ricciardo just making it into Q2.

Again who is he deluding with this next statement?

“On the chassis side, I’m extremely positive about the rate of development, which is stronger than it’s ever been, which is saying something about also the new Renault that we are starting to see in action.”

They are slower than McLaren who have hardly produced a masterpiece, last year the chassis was seven-tenths, or more, shy on the best Red Bull throughout the season when they used common engines.

The Renault RS19 is not a nice piece of kit. Ask Nico. Ask Dan.

Surely Abiteboul cannot believe that anyone with a semblance of interest or knowledge about F1 accepts what he says in the ongoing defence of under-accomplishments which tend to follow the bluster.

A Renault powered car won’t win a race this year unless the six front-runners wipe themselves out. And in Abiteboul’s own words Renault should be winning or at least in with podium chances at this stage of his road-map.

Clearly, they are not and while we will put Baku down to an anomaly (imagine Monaco or Singapore!) but next up in Barcelona there is nowhere for Abiteboul to hide, as there we will be able to see who has progressed since winter testing and who has not, as well as a true pecking order and not the fake one we had heading to the opener in Melbourne.

Circuit de Catalunya is the first common denominator in a crowded season. We will learn much from the next weekend on the calendar, weather permitting of course.

For now, the 41-year-old Frenchman appears firmly at the helm of the team, even Alain Prost (for some reason) has his back, so he must be doing something right which is not obvious or apparent.

Nevertheless, no matter who he knows up the Renault food chain there has to come a point when Abiteboul mist to deliver or be accountable for massively underachieving on promises and suffer the consequences thereof.

Barcelona might just be the beginning of his end.

[MIKA27]

MAX VERSTAPPEN HAS A NEW HALF-BROTHER. GO JOS!

Max Verstappen has a new half-brother according to news posted on his website confirming that his father Jos Verstappen has again become a father, the family welcoming Jason Jaxx Verstappen on Tuesday 30th April.

Jos, 47, reported on Instagram, “We are happy to let you know that our little boy Jason Jaxx has been born. I’m super proud of my wife and mother of our baby boy. Father, mother and newborn are doing well.”

The former Formula 1 driver, also has two children with his first wife Sophie Kumpen, namely Max and Victoria. He also had a daughter Blue Jaye with Kelly van der Waal, with whom he was married from 2014 to 2017.

[MIKA27]

RICCIARDO BURNS RUBBER ON PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS IN NICE

The Formula 1 Grand Prix de France brought together tens of thousands of people on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice on Wednesday, May 1 for its roadshow. Renault F1 Team Driver Daniel Ricciardo gave a unique demonstration in front of motorsport fans.

In addition to Daniel’s run in the Renault-powered E20 Formula 1 car and R.S.01 GT Car, an “F1 Village” offered many activities such as Formula 1 simulators in virtual reality, pit-stop workshops, and reaction tests.

Christian Estrosi, President of the GIP Grand Prix de France – Le Castellet: “The roadshow of the Formula 1 Grand Prix de France brought together crowds around the Promenade des Anglais. I congratulate the Formula 1 Grand Prix de France team for this unique event, offering an incredible show to the people of Nice with the exceptional presence of Renault F1 Team Driver Daniel Ricciardo. This feat is a real guarantee of success ahead of the Formula 1 Grand Prix de France on June 23rd.”

Cyril Abiteboul, Managing Director of Renault Sport Racing: “We are proud and happy to have participated in this major event on the iconic Promenade des Anglais in Nice and to have contributed to offering a unique show to the tens of thousands of people who came to attend this stage of the roadshow tour. In our commitment to Formula 1, we are dedicated to being as close as possible to our fans and the roadshow confirms the public’s interest in our sport.”

Daniel Ricciardo, Renault F1 Team Driver: “It was a wonderful day: we were very lucky with the weather and the fans turned out in huge numbers to attend the demonstration with the E20 Formula 1 car and R.S.01. We made a lot of noise on the Promenade des Anglais! It was a pleasure for me to put on a show and to participate in my first roadshow with Renault F1 Team. It was great to see the crowds of people and feel the support of the fans ready to host the Formula 1 Grand Prix de France!”

Dates:

May 3: Châteaurenard (Parking des Allées)
May 4: Salon-de-Provence (Place Morgan)
May 5: Toulon
May 8: Aix-en-Provence
May 9: Brignoles
May 10: Sisteron
May 11: La Londe-les-Maures (Port de la Londe-les-Maures)
May 12: Saint-Raphaël (Parking Beau Rivage)

[MIKA27]

VILLENEUVE: LECLERC IS READY BUT FERRARI ARE NOT

While the Ferrari team and army of Tifosi hail the arrival of Charles Leclerc at the Scuderia, Jacques Villeneuve believes the youngster is a destabilising factor and is having a negative impact on the team.

The 1997 Formula 1 World Champion turned Sky Italia pundit said in an interview with Motorsport Network, “If you listen to any fan or go on the forums, even the qualifying accident [in Baku], Leclerc doesn’t get criticised.”

“If it had been Vettel, he would have been destroyed by the media and everyone, for the same mistake. Ultimately I think that’s having a negative effect for the team. Seb’s spin in Bahrain came because of that, then the team orders in China, it all comes from there.”

“And Leclerc’s accident in qualifying also, wanting to prove that he’s the number one of the team. Ultimately that’s damaging the whole team.”

“I hope it re-balances out, because they should have been the one that’s being chased by Mercedes, and instead they’ve got three podiums, and that’s it. It’s not had a good positive effect on the team, that’s all.”

It is well known that Leclerc got the nod last year, to replace Kimi Raikkonen, in what was initially a plan which the late Sergio Marchionne instigated. Maurizio Arrivabene was against the idea and preferred Raikkonen to be on board for another year.

Ultimately the call is said to have been made by current Ferrari president John Elkann. Leclerc spent last year at Sauber for his rookie season, which despite a wobbly start ended strongly enough to convince Maranello it was time to promote the 21-year-old to the big time.

Villeneuve acknowledged, “Leclerc is quick, he personally is ready. It’s Ferrari that’s not ready for this kind of situation. If you take Leclerc’s perspective, it’s great to be there this year, for him it’s amazing, and he’s shown that he’s super quick.”

“But if you take Ferrari as a team, you have to look at Vettel’s past, and you have to remember Ricciardo when he joined Red Bull. Seb needs to know that he’s loved by the team, and by the fans, and that’s gone this year.”

“They already had Leclerc, so they could have given him a contract for 2020 and 2021, and kept Kimi for just one year, because this was the year to fight. Then everybody’s happy, because you give them time in advance, it doesn’t unbalance anything.”

“That’s not saying Leclerc is not good, he’s amazing, he’s super quick, he deserves to be there, that’s not the issue. But the way Ferrari operates, the way Seb is, he needs this kind of love around him, and it was just not the right move.”

“Look what they did at Mercedes, and look how strong it is this year. If they had put Ocon there, Lewis would have reacted the same way – he would have wanted to eat him alive straight away, and destroy him.”

“But there’s respect with Bottas, and even if they both have two victories, Lewis doesn’t seem to be upset about it. That wasn’t the case with Nico [Rosberg] for example, and that really allows the team to perform at a level that it almost hasn’t performed at before,” explained Villeneuve.

Ahead of the forthcoming Spanish Grand Prix, after four rounds Mercedes are dominating with a quartet of one-two finishes, Ferrari need to raise their game before they run out of time and excuses.

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Sergio Perez: Racing Point still playing catch-up due to takeover

Sergio Perez says Racing Point is still playing catch-up in Formula 1’s midfield battle, owing to the nature of last year’s change of ownership.

Racing Point – under its Force India guise – endured a fraught 2018 season amid former owner Vijay Mallya’s financial troubles, leading to a takeover by Lawrence Stroll.

Stroll’s investment gave the green light to a raft of upgrade packages, as well as longer-term planning that includes an expansion of Racing Point’s factory and relocation of its windtunnel activities.

But Racing Point arrived pre-season with a ‘vanilla’ car – in the words of tech boss Andrew Green – given the relatively late takeover, in terms of 2019 planning.

“You have to remember that the new administration came in very late in the year, so we are a bit behind schedule ideally, but we’re playing catch up,” Perez said.

“I think obviously we are in the same boat as everyone in the midfield. It will be very important to see where we stand with our upgrades.

“If they work as planned, we should be making a good step, but I think everyone is in the same boat, so it is all relative and we will see where we are.”

Perez, whose sixth place in Azerbaijan helped Racing Point move into fifth spot in the Constructors’ Championship, reiterated his confidence in the squad’s potential.

“I see a bright future here where in the previous years it was always about the next year where I was going,” he said.

“Here I see good progress and am feeling very comfortable. I’m very happy, so we’ll see what happens.”