FORMULA 1

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Mercedes won’t repeat 2019’s entirely new car for Australia tactic

Mercedes won’t be debuting a huge upgrade package at the second Formula 1 pre-season test like they did in 2019, technical boss James Allison has confirmed.

Last year Mercedes unveiled a W10 at the first test that bore very little resemblance to the car that was raced at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, having unveiled a major upgrade package – almost amounting to a B-spec car – at the second test.

This tactic, Allison explained, won’t be repeated in 2020 as the stable regulations means there is simply no need to do so.

“No, we will be more conventional this year,” he replied when asked about the ploy. “We will still have upgrades for Melbourne that will come in the second week of testing, but the entire new car approach of 2019 won’t feature.

“Last year, the regulations were changed quite significantly, and they were decided quite late in the year. Under those circumstances, doing a launch car and a week two car gave us the chance to build the maximum amount of learning into our Melbourne car.

“With the regulations being more mature this year and with the opening stab of the 2020 development already being at the same level as the finish of last year’s car, repeating last year’s approach would not make sense.”

Such is the stability of the rules, the cars will simply be evolutions of their predecessors – and Allison is therefore expecting more lap records to be broken during the course of the season.

“I love it when the cars set new records with each passing season. I really like the fact that records that have stood for many years have fallen in the last two and that Formula 1 cars of current generation have smashed every record that existed.

“I find it slightly sad to think that 2020 is likely to be a high-water mark for some years but I will just enjoy it while it lasts.”

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Experience a driver’s eye view of the AlphaTauri AT01

Ride onboard with AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly during the team’s filming day with its new 2020 Formula 1 car, the AT01, at Misano on Saturday.

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Discover the hidden technical secrets of Red Bull’s new RB16

To the untrained eye the RB16 might appear relatively similar last year's car, but further examination proves that Red Bull has been hard at work, not only refining pre-existing concepts but also learning lessons from others and pushing the design envelope even further – as you’d expect from technical team led by Adrian Newey.
The first thing that draws the eye is the radical new nose solution, which takes inspiration from all corners of the grid and composes them on a scale that only it seems able to achieve... 

Radical nose tip

The double open-ended snout is straight from its own playbook, having used a similar design over the last few seasons. This now wider and flatter protrusion no longer extrudes straight upward to the main nosebox though, instead it wears a peaked cap to cast a longer shadow over the front wing’s neutral section below.

The nose tip, now closer to the front wing pillars, is joined via a snowplough device, which will capture the airflow traveling down the centre of the car and funnel it to the awaiting aerodynamic devices downstream.

Atop the main snout is a narrower ramped section with two inlets of its own, it’s unclear where these will exit at present but suffice to say the air it captures will be repurposed by the designers to improve the cars overall output.

The nose box itself is also much narrower than before, allowing them to install a sizable cape on either side of the structure. The cape draws inspiration from the Mercedes design, with a downturned leading profile capturing the nearby airflow and funneling it down low.

Revised S-duct packaging

The narrowing of the nosecone has also freed up the design team to revisit their camera pod fixings, using stalks to reposition the cameras in a more aerodynamically prudent area. Naca-style ducts are still present on the side of the nose, albeit reshaped, in order to provide additional flow to the S-duct that exits on the bridge of the nose.

It’s also worth noting the intake scoop that sits beneath the bulkhead, an older Red Bull trick that appears to have resurfaced and will likely provide even more flow via conventional S-shaped internal pipework. The nose/chassis transition has also been softened for 2020, likely due to the repackaging of the inboard suspension elements housed below. 

Meanwhile, the narrower S-duct inlet first seen in Japan last season is also retained but features further refinement, with a pair of tails seen extruding out from the exit onto the top surface of the chassis, a nod perhaps to the designs seen in the early part of the last decade and a way of better controlling the direction of the airflow that’s ejected.

The horns that were introduced last season and are placed either side of the S-duct also return, as the team looks to minimise losses around the nose/chassis transition.

Squeezed sidepods

The bargeboard and deflector region is relatively unchanged from a concept point of view, but several necessary adjustments have been made to account for how much smaller and tighter the sidepods are. Not only has the inlet been narrowed, and the letterbox reduced in height, but the undercut also appears to have been shaved back further too. 

The jelly mould-style sidepod contouring remains, but the composition of the packaging within has led to the team altering their shape, drawing the bodywork in even more, resulting in a heavy downwash line being visible that will undoubtedly help with aerodynamic performance.

Fins mounted around halo

Meanwhile, a trick first seen employed by Marussia sees a small fin placed on top of the cockpit surround, in order to better manage flow off the halo over the sidepod and engine cover bodywork.

Below the oval airbox design, which is a carryover from last season, we can also find another winglet, taking advantage of both the airflow off the halo and the driver's helmet and spoiler.

Rear suspension revised

If you thought the RB16’s nose job was extreme, now we'll take a poke around the team's rear suspension. Giorgio Piola has helped us out in that regard as his first illustration of the RB16 this season focuses on just that... 

The forwardmost leg of the lower wishbone [1] is particularly high, clearing space for more airflow to make its way into the ‘coke-bottle region’ and further exposes the winglets mounted on the bottom half of the rear brake duct, so they may work the outer section of the floor and diffuser harder.

The lower wishbone is almost sat at the same level as the driveshaft, which itself is enclosed within an aerodynamic fairing [2], with the pair now likely to work much more closely in terms of their aerodynamic performance.

The upper wishbone is also mounted in a higher position, with the upright bracket (3) now held even more aloft than its predecessor was. This, like the adjustment of the lower wishbones position has aerodynamic implications, with a clearer line of sight afforded to the reworked brake duct inlet, winglets and fence.

Tail-end tidy up

The cooling outlet at the rear of the car seems to be pointed much further down than we’re used to seeing for a Red Bull-designed car too, although this is likely due to both the extremely high-angled rear suspension that’s being employed and a desire to extract flow by means of an aerodynamic link with the floor and diffuser below.

Above this we can see that the team has retained the Mickey Mouse-style exhaust and wastegate solution, with the pair of wastegate pipes tilted upward toward the rear wing.

Interestingly the team has moved to a double rear wing pillar layout for 2020 too, as perhaps we’ll see a more intricate endplate design during the course of testing or in the opening phases of the season.

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Sainz admits to early contract talks with McLaren

Carlos Sainz is in “no rush at all” to agree a new contract with McLaren beyond the end of the season, but has already held early conversations about his future.
Sainz joined McLaren for the 2019 season on a two-year deal alongside rookie Lando Norris, and led its charge to fourth place in the constructors’ championship, scoring its first podium for over five years at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard enters the final year of his existing contract in 2020, and said that while early conversations about the future have taken place, he saw no need to rush negotiations.

“Obviously it’s not a secret that I’m very happy here in McLaren, and there’s obviously been some things going on in the background,” said Sainz when asked by Motorsport.com about his future.

“We started to talk already, but at the same time we’re going to take it easy because we are in February. So there’s no rush at all.

“I’m not going to hide that I’m very, very happy in McLaren, and that I have a lot of faith in this project and the way it’s panning out at the beginning.”

McLaren F1 chief Andreas Seidl echoed Sainz’s thoughts, saying the team would not look to dive into formal contract talks too early.

“We all like always clarity as soon as possible. But especially on this topic, I think there's no rush for us at the moment to make any decisions or announcements,” Seidl said.

“We’re just going into the 2020 season now we're very happy with Lando and Carlos, with what they have done last year. So it's important now for us as a team to make the next step.

“I'm sure they can also make the next step with all the learnings from last year, and then I think there's no reason for us to change anything looking ahead.”

Last year marked the first season in Sainz’s career where he held a multi-year contract, giving the Spaniard stability which he has cited as being a major factor in his most successful F1 season to date.

Sainz finished the year sixth in the points, only trailing the five race-winning drivers.

“I think it played a very decent part in the way the season panned out. Having a bit of stability always helps any athlete or racing driver,” Sainz said.

“For me in particular, I’ve never had that in the past, so I didn’t know how I was going to affected by it, but it obviously did have quite a good effect on me.

“It just meant I could focus on myself, on how to be a better racing driver, on how to help my team be a better team for next year.

“Everything involved meant that I was just a more complete driver and ready to perform more consistently and better.”

 

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Raikkonen gives new Alfa Romeo its track debut

Formula 1 pre-season testing kicks off on Wednesday when all 10 teams will be in Barcelona to see if they've got things right with their new cars, or whether they've got a lot of work to do before the first race of 2020 in Australia next month.

But before testing begins, a number of teams will have already run their cars as some opt to do a shakedown run of their own on a filming day, when they are limited to 100km.

Mercedes completed theirs at Silverstone on Friday, while at the same time Alfa Romeo were putting their 2020 challenger through its first laps at the Ferrari-owned Fiorano track, near Maranello in Italy.

Kimi Raikkonen got behind the wheel of the C39 as team mate Antonio Giovinazzi and new reserve driver Robert Kubica watched on from the garage.

Alfa are yet to officially launch the new car, and will do so on the morning of February 19 - the day the first test in Barcelona begins. In the meantime they ran the C39 at Fiorano in a special one-off snake-themed test livery.

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Renault team mates Ricciardo & Ocon reckon they can avoid clashes

Renault chief Cyril Abiteboul said last year on the official F1 podcast Beyond The Grid that managing the new Esteban Ocon-Daniel Ricciardo relationship in 2020 will be a “challenge” – but the drivers aren’t anticipating any issues.

Ocon, who joins Ricciardo at Renault after a year on the side-lines as Mercedes’ reserve driver, had a tumultuous relationship with Sergio Perez during their time as Force India team mates. The duo banged wheels in both Azerbaijan and Belgium, forcing the team to instigate team orders.

The Frenchman concedes that “the atmosphere” was not good between him and Checo, but he doesn’t see the situation repeating itself. “What happened at Force India is not something I want to redo again,” he said. “It was not a nice atmosphere. We had respect - me and Checo - and it didn’t slow down the team or anything but the atmosphere between us was not so good.

“On track we came close too many times, that was clear, and that was not good. It’s not something I want to do again. The atmosphere is definitely a lot better between me and Daniel than it was with Checo.

“So if we can keep working like that, even though it’s going to be different on track, it’s going to be a lot better for everyone to have a positive energy and a great working environment. Hopefully we’re going to be solid on that topic and be able to push the team forward. But no, we don’t want to have that happening. Of course it can always happen at the start or something, but in a race like it happened it was not acceptable.”

From social media videos and the way they interacted at the team’s season launch in Paris, Ricciardo and Ocon appear to be getting on well so far, which might be why Ricciardo isn’t too bothered about Ocon’s history and is instead approaching things with a clean slate.

“I'm definitely coming into it with a fresh approach and I don't want to lay any rules down from day one, because I think already that will create a tension in itself,” he said. “'Oh so you're anticipating something'. His relationship with Perez, obviously they came to blows a few times and it's a little bit like when I joined Red Bull you know Mark [Webber] and [Sebastian] Vettel came to blows a few times so a lot of people were like, are you going to have blows from Vettel?

“But the way I saw it was: ‘Mark and Vettel have their own relationship. That's not my relationship so I need to establish something with him. It's a bit like Perez and Ocon and me and Ocon. Maybe he had his things in the past, even with Max [Verstappen, when they collided in Brazil], but I need to create something for myself with him. So I'm not going to come in with any kind of ideas or hesitations.

“I’m prepared for competition, but I'm not prepared for fun and games. If down the track fun and games appear then I'll deal with it at the time but I think I'm certainly coming in with an open mind and positivity, as opposed to, ‘oh ****, when's he going to blow up?’ I'm not I'm not thinking like that.”

“I have every intention of building something positive. On Sundays we're going to race it out and maybe we'll bang wheels at some point, but it's I think our best intention to try to get this team in a good place before they start losing energy focused on managing us you know they need to manage a better race car.”

The duo will get to drive the Renault R.S.20 for the first time in anger when pre-season testing gets under way on February 19 in Barcelona, with the first race of the season kicking off in Melbourne on March 15.

 

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Gasly aiming for podium repeat with AlphaTauri in 2020, as team target P5

Ever since he took his maiden F1 podium with Toro Rosso at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly has made no bones about the fact that the race at Interlagos was the best of his life. And after helping to launch the re-branded AlphaTauri squad in Austria, Gasly was already targeting a return to the rostrum with his ‘new’ team in 2020.

Gasly appeared at Red Bull’s extravagant Hangar-7 complex in Salzburg, to kick off AlphaTauri’s 2020 campaign, with he and team mate Daniil Kvyat – who also scored a podium in Germany for the squad last year – decked out in white and dark blue overalls, as the livery that will adorn the new AlphaTauri AT01 was shown off.

“It’s just an amazing adventure with Toro Rosso,” said Gasly, when asked by ceremony host David Coulthard about his time with the team. “The last two years have been pretty good. For sure the podium in Brazil last year was the best race I’ve had in my career, but of course the target is to repeat this kind of performance as many times as possible, and we’ll try to do it this year again.”

Also speaking at the launch, AlphaTauri Team Principal Franz Tost outlined a punchy goal for his team in 2020, after they enjoyed their joint-best ever constructors’ finish of sixth in 2019.

“We must be within the first five of the constructors’ championship,” said Tost decisively. “I’m really convinced that AlphaTauri will have a successful season.

“Why? Because first of all, the car showed very good results in the wind tunnel. Second, Honda, our friends in Japan, Sakura, made big progress during the winter months from the performance side as well as the reliability side.

“Third, we have two good drivers. They showed that already last year. We just missed the middle of the podium, so [to the drivers] that means that you know what you have to do!”

From Salzburg, Kvyat and Gasly were set to travel to the Misano circuit in Italy, where they will sample the AlphaTauri AT01 for the first time during a filming day on February 15, ahead of the start of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on February 19.

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7 of the cleverest deceptions in F1 testing history

“All warfare is based on deception,” wrote Sun Tzu in his famous military strategy treatise, The Art of War – and what is Formula 1 if not the ultimate sporting war, made up as it is of chivalric fighters backed by armies of people whose one goal is the crushing defeat of the opposition.

Pre-season testing is the first chance each year for battle to commence, with teams using all sorts of tricks over the years to outsmart one another and gain a psychological advantage ahead of the first race.

But what are those tricks? To find out, we’ve enlisted our resident poacher-turned-gamekeeper Pat Symonds, Chief Technical Officer of F1's Motorsports Division, to help us delve into the devious world of F1’s cleverest testing deceptions.

1. Glory running

Glory running is perhaps the oldest trick in the book, but it’s proven to be an effective ruse for fooling sponsors – which is usually the point of the exercise...

Basically, while everyone’s pounding around the test circuit at a reasonable pace, your glory running team will put a tiny amount of fuel into their car, send it out and try to set a lap time that sets tongues wagging – and sponsors reaching for their chequebooks.

“There's no doubt,” says Symonds, “that particularly in the pre-hybrid days, when it was possible to make a car that was well under the weight limit and then add ballast, there were definitely people in testing doing that, sponsor-hunting.

“There were many instances where, in the perceived pecking order in testing, someone was standing out and you’d think, ‘Wow, they really have improved’ – and then you’d get to race one and they’d be back to where you'd expect them to be!”

Jean Alesi in the sponsor-lite Prost AP04

The Prost team’s 2001 testing exploits are perhaps the most renowned example of glory running, with Jean Alesi setting some lightning quick times in the Ferrari-engined AP04, only to arrive in Melbourne and qualify some three seconds adrift of Michael Schumacher’s works Ferrari…

Another famous example was Eddie Jordan’s first F1 effort, the beautiful 191, which went like a rocket in winter testing, before the cars then dropped back when it was time to go racing.

Bertrand Gachot going suspiciously quickly in the stunning Jordan 191

2. Sandbagging

On the other end of the scale from glory running, you have sandbagging, where teams deliberately underperform in testing.

“Sometimes in the team, we’d decide that we didn’t want other people to know where we were in the pecking order,” says Symonds, recalling his time at the likes of Renault and Williams. “And the simplest deception, really, is just hiding your lap times.”

There are a number of tricks teams can use to achieve this – but Symonds had two favourites during his career on F1’s frontline.

“The clever people would do a qualifying simulation in testing with just that little bit extra fuel, say around 10 kgs, which is worth about 0.3s,” he says. “And that's where you’d get that sort of, ‘Were they or weren't they?’

“The other thing that we used to do at Renault a lot was to never really do a complete lap flat-out. Particularly in those days when you didn't have all the sector timing during testing, we would split the circuit up into sectors, and drive two of the three sectors flat-out and another one slowly, and then go slow in sector one and quick in two and three, to try and just disguise where we were and yet be able to take the car to its limit.”

Brawn tried their hardest to slow down the rampaging BGP 001

But that begs the question: why would anyone care about hiding their lap times – especially if they were looking quick?

In 2009, the Brawn team had a very good reason. Brawn’s BGP 001 was famously so fast at winter testing at the Circuit de Catalunya that the team looked for ways to slow the car down to avoid an early backlash over the car’s controversial double diffuser system – with little success…

“As soon as we saw it delivering those lap times,” the team’s then Chief Strategist James Vowles revealed in a recent interview with ESPN, “and that other people were not even close to touching it, we literally tanked it up, put more ballast on and then ran it that way for the rest of the week.

“A lot of people just came to the conclusion that we were doing glory runs, not knowing that actually, we were running every bit of metal we could on the car to slow it down!”

The RB6, with the red arrow pointing to the car's exhaust sticker

3. Trompe-l'oeil

Red Bull’s 2010 RB6 was the car that would give the team their first ever drivers’ and constructors’ titles. Key to that success was the car’s ‘blown diffuser’ system, a cunningly simple design where the hot exhaust gases from the engine were pushed directly onto the car’s diffuser, providing a juicy chunk of extra downforce.

So, keen to keep their trick exhaust under wraps, Red Bull turned up to 2010 testing in Valencia with a bizarre addition to the RB6’s paintwork: a pair of dummy stickers, one on each side of the engine cover, appearing to show conventionally-placed exhausts and drawing attention away from the real exhaust system lurking lower down on the car. That was an especially important consideration, when rival teams regularly employ spy photographers to snap clever bits on their competitors’ cars...

So, exhaust stickers… a stroke of genius, no? Er, no, says Symonds…

“I didn’t think it was genius,” he remembers with a chuckle. “I thought it was quite amusing, and very transparent.

“It was almost a bit of fun, and I don't even think that Red Bull did it particularly seriously because it was reasonably obvious. When the car's first launched, you're on the internet looking at the pictures and you think, ‘Oh, gosh, that's unusual’. So because it's unusual, you go and look at it in the pit lane – and then you say, ‘Oh, okay, now I see!’”

4. Misdirection

Williams enjoyed a purple patch at the start of the turbo-hybrid era, as they used their class-leading Mercedes power units to finish third in the constructors’ championships in 2014 and 2015. The 2015 FW37 was a particularly rapid car at the start of races (remember Felipe Massa romping into the lead at that year’s British Grand Prix?) – and it turns out that there was a very good reason for that, one which the team went to great lengths to keep secret at the time.

“When I was at Williams, we developed an onboard wheel rim heating device, and it was very sophisticated,” says Symonds. “We ran it for a long, long while, and no one really knew what we were doing.

“A lot of people couldn't really figure out why, for example, after a Safety Car, or on a first lap particularly, we had really good tyre performance. Well, the reason was our wheels were a lot hotter than anyone else's!”

F1 is the most technologically advanced sport on the planet. But while Williams’ method of heating the wheel rims was indeed sophisticated, their method for keeping it under wraps during testing and the races… wasn’t.

“We actually called it the ‘Default’ device,” recalls Symonds. “‘Default’ was a word that meant nothing, so we could quite happily talk over the radio and tell the driver to put it into ‘Default 4’.

“There were also a couple of extra controls in the cockpit that if someone had looked at them, they might have wondered what they were – but even those, we put a label on that said 'Brakes' or something like that, so that people would think they were something other than they were.”

The Williams making a quick getaway at Silverstone in 2015

5. Camouflage

Inspiration can come in many forms – and for their 2015 car’s testing livery, Red Bull took a creative lead from World War I battleships’ ‘dazzle paint’ concept to try and conceal the aerodynamic lines of that year’s RB11.

The car certainly looked cool. But while dazzle paint on battleships was used to play tricks with the enemy’s mind in the bounding waves of the mid-Atlantic, the ruse wasn’t quite so effective around Jerez – not that Symonds thinks it mattered much.

Daniel Ricciardo in the dazzle-painted RB11

“Red Bull are clever,” he says. “They got loads of publicity from doing this, and that's probably far more important than actually disguising some little detail from some bloke who's probably going to look at it anyway.

“In F1, we don't go to the level of taking stereoscopic photographs and measuring from them and things like that,” he adds. “So as a deception, for me, the dazzle paint didn’t really work.”

6. Hidden drivers

There have been occasions over the years where it was the drivers’ identities, rather than any clever bits on the cars, that the teams wanted to keep under wraps…

When Peter Sauber tested a contract-less 20-year-old sensation by the name of Kimi Raikkonen at Mugello in 2000, he was so paranoid about rivals Ferrari and McLaren – also present at the test – swooping in and signing up the Finn that Raikkonen was given a very fitting internal nickname.

“Within the team, we knew he was special,” Sauber’s then-Technical Director Willy Rampf recounted to F1.com recently. “We had to find a name for the driver to keep his identity a secret. We could not say ‘this is Kimi Raikkonen’ when we were referring to him for things like the seat fit, so we called him ‘Eskimo’.”

Meanwhile, back in 1992, photographers snapped away as Erik Comas tested his Ligier at Paul Ricard… only, it wasn’t Erik Comas. Trying to evaluate on the down-low whether he fancied a return to F1 with Ligier in 1992, Alain Prost had donned Comas’ helmet and a set of white overalls to try out the blue and white machine, keeping the helmet on and visor down even when the car stopped out on track. But when the photographers got home and developed their shots, there was no mistaking The Professor’s distinctive physiognomy…

Alain Prost (disguised as Erik Comas) tests the new Ligier-Renault V10, JS37. The speculation at the time was that Prost would partner Thierry Boutsen in ‘92. Pre-Season Testing, Paul Ricard Circuit, France, January 1992. #F1

7. ‘Woe is us’

To finish this list with another Sun Tzu quote, if you want to mess with your enemies’ heads, “appear weak when you are strong – and strong when you are weak”. It’s an approach that has served Mercedes well in the past few seasons – and one which was particularly in evidence in 2019 pre-season testing when, on paper at least, it appeared that Ferrari had them beat.

“We’ve got a hill to climb,” said an apparently distrait Lewis Hamilton during the test, estimating that the Scuderia had upwards of half a second advantage over Mercedes. “This is going to be the toughest battle yet… Their pace is very, very good at the moment, so the challenge is going to be harder than ever.”

Mercedes getting hunted down by Ferrari – or not – at Barcelona testing last year

Ten pole positions, 15 race wins and another pair of championships later, it appeared that Mercedes’ hill – if it had ever existed – had been well and truly climbed. But if fans had been fooled by Mercedes’ performance, old hands like Symonds saw through the pantomime…

“A lot of people think testing is about performance – but performance is actually baked into the car,” he says. “Testing is really about systems, and if I dug out one of my old checklists, you'd be amazed at the number of things you had to go through to sign it off…

“So if you go through all those sign-off phases, and you never actually get around to setting a fast lap, then there's no harm in saying, ‘Oh, gosh, we’re in trouble’…”

So when you’re watching pre-season testing this year, make sure to keep your wits about you. Not everything you see or hear from the teams will be quite what it seems…

 

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Albert Park track changes could happen for F1's 2021 Australian GP

Major resurfacing works at Albert Park, including tweaks to the current circuit layout, could happen before Formula 1's 2021 Australian Grand Prix.

The public roads used to make up the Melbourne parkland's circuit have not been renovated since the first event back in 1996, but major resurfacing has been on the Australian Grand Prix Corporation's radar for several years.

A new surface is expected for either the 2021 or 2022 race, and part of that project will include assessing potential changes to the current layout to help improve racing and overtaking, something the AGPC is discussing with F1.

A final decision on the timing of the resurfacing, which will include disrupting the daily traffic that uses the roads, is expected at to be made nearer to next month's Australian GP.

"In the next year or two we will be resurfacing," AGPC CEO Andrew Westacott confirmed to Autosport.

"We are having dialogue with Formula 1 about how we evolve the track to make sure the changes that have occurred in the cars since 1996 are reflected in changes or adjustments to the track.

"Whether that be widening in some areas, whether that be camber in some areas, or other aspects. That's all work in progress.

"We'll probably know, realistically, at event time more about timelines and when the works are likely to happen - whether it will be in the next 12 months or the next 24 months."

The AGPC seriously considered a significant overhaul of the circuit design several years back, with plans to convert the fast Turn 11/12 complex into a hard braking corner to encourage overtaking.

The concept was ultimately abandoned when the AGPC and FOM agreed the changes would not yield a big enough benefit to the racing.

According to Westacott, a wide range of options will be considered during this latest assessment of potential changes.

"When you get an opportunity for change, you've got to look at how you can improve something," he added.

"There's no doubt the cars have evolved and changed from 1996 to 2020, and they're certainly going to change again in 2021.

"Now what we can do is, if we're going to make a change, look at everything.

"The sorts of things we're looking at are asphalt mix and its impact on tyre degradation, we're looking at turns and whether they can be adjusted.

"But we don't want to diminish the character of the circuit, and we need to take into account that there's a lake, and there's playing fields, and there's massive revenues at, for example, Turns 1 and 2 and Turns 15 and 16.

"So you can't just go doing greenfield-style changes where you've got existing geography and topography and so on.

"It's not as if we'll be doing Zandvoort-style banking or anything like that, I can promise that.

"What we are doing is looking at all the different inputs, from speed limits in pitlane, to widths, to asphalt abrasiveness, and we're in active dialogue with Formula 1 about those."

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Gasly sees 2020 as ‘white sheet’ after tumultuous year

Pierre Gasly frequently labelled his 2019 campaign as a rollercoaster – comparing it to a film script – and he has described the new season as a “white sheet” with AlphaTauri.

Gasly stepped up to the front-running Red Bull Racing team last year but struggled for performance and results, and mid-season returned to Toro Rosso, for whom he raced across the end of 2017 and 2018.

Gasly emerged as one of the standout midfield drivers through the second part of the campaign and captured a shock runner-up position in Brazil, standing on the podium for the first time.

Gasly’s strong form assisted Toro Rosso in finishing sixth in the Constructors’ Championship – equaling its highest result – as it classified just six points behind manufacturer team Renault.

The Frenchman, 24, has remained with the squad this year as it morphs into AlphaTauri, rebranded to reflect Red Bull’s expanding fashion corporation.

“It was clearly very important [to have a winter reset] because last year I went through all sorts of emotion,” Gasly told MotorsportWeek.com.

“It was clearly the most intense [season] and one of the years where I’ve learned the most about myself personally, also as an athlete, and I also just needed some time with the family, the people that know me.

“I just needed to recharge and come back with a white sheet for 2020 and just be fully focused on the job. “

“It’s a completely new year, a new chapter with AlphaTauri. There are a lot of things to take from last year, positives and negatives.

“I’ve reviewed everything over the winter, through December and I’ve started the 1st of January fresh, so it’s only positives with me.

“I’m ready to build on the strong end of the year with Toro Rosso and then yeah, it’s a new start with AlphaTauri.”

Gasly has remained tight-lipped on the precise reasons for his early 2019 struggles but vowed that the lessons of 12 months ago will facilitate greater displays through 2020.

“What I think is I’m even more specific on what I need, personally rather than doing something a bit more general,” he said on preparation for the upcoming campaign, which begins with testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain on Wednesday.

“I know the areas I need to work on. I’ve only been in F1 for two years so this year I’ll have double the experience I had at the same time last year. I do feel it, I do feel I understand a bit more what I need personally as a driver from the team, from my engineers and the areas I need to work on. We need to focus a bit more on the details.”

But what can Gasly, and the rebranded AlphaTauri team, achieved in the coming 22 (or 21, depending on the situation in China) grands prix?

“You always want to do better than the past year,” he said. “Last year Toro Rosso had a really strong year, it was their best with two podiums and 80…I don’t remember exactly how many points, but quite a lot! We will try to do better this year but it’s too early to say if it’s achievable or not.”

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Williams reveals new look for 2020 with FW43

Williams has revealed its new-look livery for the 2020 Formula 1 season as it released renders of its FW43 on Monday morning.

Williams has endured a troubled spell on-track but last year signed a multi-year title sponsorship deal with ROKiT, and has taken on additional sponsorship from Sofina, Lavazza and Royal Bank of Canada.

The squad also extended its engine agreement with Mercedes through 2025.

Williams finished last in the 2019 Constructors’ Championship, scoring just one point, and failed to make it out of Q1, amid a lack of performance from its recalcitrant FW42.

Mercedes-backed George Russell is entering the second season of a long-term deal while he has been joined by Formula 2 runner-up Nicholas Latifi, who steps up from the role of test driver.  

The FW43 is poised to make its track debut on Wednesday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Racing Point will continue Formula 1’s launch season with an event set to be held at sponsor BWT’s headquarters in Austria later today (Monday).

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Williams: No concept change with evolutionary FW43

Williams says it has not adopted any fundamental concept changes for its 2020 Formula 1 car, the FW43, outlining that it is an evolution of its predecessor.

Williams has endured a troubled period in Formula 1 and last year finished adrift of the pack at the foot of the Constructors’ Championship, scoring just a single point.

It also finished last in 2018, having classified as high as third during the opening two years of the hybrid era across 2014/15.

Williams released renders of its FW43 on Monday morning, ahead of the start of pre-season testing on Wednesday, and explained the decision to take an evolutionary approach.

“The team at the factory have been working incredibly hard on the development of the car for the 2020 season,” said Design Director Doug McKiernan.

“We have paid significant attention to understanding the problem areas of the FW42 and we have carefully chosen parts of the car to develop, those that would give us the most performance for the resources we have.

“The main concept behind the FW43 is that it is a continuous development of the FW42, with no fundamental concept changes to the layout.

“The most important indicator that we are on the right path will be the level of correlation we have between the tool kit we use to design the car and what the track data is telling us.

“There has been a healthy development rate in the wind tunnel, and we have found reasonable improvements in the cooling efficiency.

“The team has addressed the mechanical issues that affected it in 2019, these include the brakes and the overall weight of the car.

“We have made some good progress across these areas and will continue to focus on them during the season.”

Adam Carter, Chief Engineer, added: “The decision to retain some of the core architecture of the FW42 means there has been less resource invested in developing new concepts, which in turn has rewarded the design team with greater bandwidth to optimise their work, evident in both packaging and component detail.

“By preserving some key parameters, it has allowed for an uninterrupted development programme within [the] aerodynamics[department]

in order to maximise the efficiency of the resources. “As we head towards the pre-season tests and then onto the race season, the most important measure will be the progress relative to our peers, along with our intention of continuing our recent record of reliability.”

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Racing Point unveils 2020 F1 challenger in Austria

Racing Point has become the latest team to unveil its 2020 Formula 1 challenger, taking the covers off the RP20 in Austria.

The Silverstone-based squad carried out its launch at the headquarters of principle sponsor BWT, in the Austrian town of Mondsee, on Monday afternoon.

Racing Point has kept the predominantly pink colour scheme first adopted in 2017, when it linked up with BWT, whose logos feature heavily on the car.

Racing Point has targeted a step forward this season in the wake of its early 2019 prospects being compromised by the hangover from its mid-2018 takeover by Lawrence Stroll.

Racing Point began 2019 slowly but scored points in all but one race after Formula 1’s summer break and sealed seventh position in the Constructors’ Championship.

The team has also retained the services of Sergio Perez, who first joined in 2014, and whose contract with the team now runs through 2022, after signing a three-year extension.

Perez will again by joined in the driver line-up by Lance Stroll, son of owner Lawrence.

It will be the final season under the Racing Point identity before it morphs into the Aston Martin works team from 2021, following Stroll Sr.’s recent investment in the company.

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Imola offers to host F1 race to replace cancelled China GP

Imola has offered to host a Formula 1 race to replace the cancelled Chinese GP in April – but even the venue’s boss acknowledges that the bid could be a “mission impossible.”
The circuit has approached Automobile Club of Italy president, Angelo Sticchi Damiani, about the possibility of staging a Grand Prix should an opportunity arise.

The Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari last hosted a round of the World Championship under the San Marino GP name in 2006, but the management has never given up its ambitions to bring F1 back. In 2016 it lobbied to host the Italian GP when there were some doubts over Monza’s future. In March 2011 the track stepped in at a late stage to host the GP2 Asia series, replacing rounds that were lost when two weekends of racing in Bahrain were cancelled due to civil unrest.

Imola president Uberto Selvatico Estense insisted that the venue could be ready on time, and said that it is licensed for F1 cars.

“It would be very difficult to arrange it, but the track is ready,” he told Motorsport.com. “We can move very fast to host a grand prix as we did in the past. We would not be at our best, of course. But if it’s necessary, we will move on with it.

“We’ve got the homologation for F1. The pit building is OK. I think we miss some parts of the hospitality, but we can organize it very quickly if necessary.”

Despite his enthusiasm, Selvatico Estense acknowledged that the logistical and commercial issues could yet prove insurmountable.

“It’s kind of a mission impossible, but why not?” he said. “Anything is possible if Liberty wants. I’m a dreamer! I always hoped that this opportunity would come. But it’s very difficult, it’s true.”

Inevitably, given the timeframe and lack of time to sell tickets, Imola would not be able to pay a representative European race hosting fee, which may make the plan a non-starter for Liberty from the outset, even without any logistical issues.

“For sure it will not be possible to pay the same fee that others are paying,” Selvatico Estense continued. “But it happened in a similar way in the past with the GP2 series, when the promoter asked us to solve the problem. Finally we reached an agreement and it was possible.

“When I spoke with Mr. Sticchi Damiani he said it’s not only a question of time, it’s also a question of money.

“But we are facing a good time with the political situation. We have a new president of the region, Reggio Emilia [Giorgio Zanni, elected in October 2018]. And we are talking about a very important sports event. So I think people will do their best effort, although I don’t know if will be sufficient.”

Selvatico Estense said that the traditional San Marino GP name could be revived if the race received the go-ahead.

“We have the opportunity to use the San Marino name, because I spoke in the past with those guys, and they agreed. So I think it should not be a problem.”

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Racing Point explains SportPesa deal termination

Racing Point CEO and team principal Otmar Szafnauer has explained why SportPesa is no longer the squad's title sponsor, after announcing a new deal with water tech company BWT.
SportPesa became Racing Point's title sponsor as part of a "multi-year" arrangement ahead of the 2019 season, but one year later the betting brand is no longer listed as one of the team's partners.

The company has recently ended other sports branding deals – including a shirt sponsorship agreement with Premier League football team Everton – and Szafnauer stated that "SportPesa had some difficulties in their home market", which led to the Racing Point title agreement ending.

"They still want to be involved but maybe at a different level – not as title [sponsor]," Szafnauer continued to Motorsport.com.

"So we're still talking to them and they're friends of the team and hopefully we can also include them as part of our sponsors and partners.

"But, first and foremost, BWT are a great new title sponsor and the car looks fabulous. A little bit more pink, big BWT three letters on the rear wing, which I think works tremendously well.

"BWT are a good story for the environment too, with what they're trying to do and it's in line with what Formula 1 are trying to do as well.

"Formula 1 are looking at sustainability – including making one race, initially, plastic bottle free. I BWT is talking to them about helping them do that and hopefully eventually make all the races plastic-free.

"But we've got to take one step at a time and hopefully BWT can help not just our team but the whole of Formula 1."

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F1 teams "can't afford" to lose testing time now

Formula 1's reduction of pre-season testing from eight days to six will mean a "big change" for teams, reckons Romain Grosjean, with pressure ramped up massively not to lose track time.
As part of a push to reduce costs and minimise the strain on staff because of an expanded calendar, F1 teams will get two days less official pre-season testing at Barcelona this year.

For Grosjean, whose Haas outfit is especially eager to get as much information as it can about its car in testing after the troubles it faced last year, there will be an extra edge to making sure things work this time out.

"It's a big change, it's a big difference," Grosjean told Motorsport.com. "All it takes is for the weather not to be yours and it's a lost day right away.

"Last year, we had a lot of electrical problems when it was just a fuse somewhere that was bothering us, and it put us out of action for whole mornings. Now, we can't afford to have that.

"We have to have the car working. We have to drive it and push it on a little bit, in all possible circumstances, to be ready so we know what to do at the races."

Renault executive director Marcin Budkowski says with so few days of testing now, it was important that teams minimised the chances of any unexpected surprises.

"Certainly when you have six days of testing you don't want to discover issues," he explained. "I think it's the same on the engine side.

"In any case, it is tight. You know if you have a monumental issue in Barcelona you are two weeks away from sending your car to Melbourne so if you have have six days or eight days, it's tight.

"It just puts more pressure and you really want to do the same amount of testing, acquire all the data on the aero, all the race data, all the testing on the tyres.

"We have six days to do it rather than then eight. No in-season testing as well this year, so it's significant in terms of what you can do."

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Watch the incredible trailer for Netflix's Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 2

The wait is nearly over. In just over 10 days, the must-see second season of F1: Drive to Survive is coming to Netflix. And if that wasn't enough to get you shaking with excitement, just wait until you watch the trailer...

Season 2 features more of the incredible behind the scenes footage and storytelling that gripped fans in Season 1, with unique insight into the drivers and other personalities from all 10 teams.

Executive-produced by Academy-Award winner James Gay Rees (Senna, Amy) and Paul Martin (Diego Maradona) for Box to Box films, F1: Drive To Survive season 2 launches on February 28, after the 2020 F1 cars make their debut in pre-season testing at Barcelona.

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Williams: 2020 marks a ‘fresh start’ for the team

Make no mistake, 2019 was a stomach-churning campaign for Deputy Team Principal Claire Williams as she watched her iconic racing team struggle. But after a productive winter, she’s putting last year behind her and treating this campaign as a “fresh start”.

Last in the constructors’ championship with just a single point, Williams were glad to see the back end of last year. The high point was some impressive reliability across the season, but they simply lacked the performance to compete in the midfield.

They worked aggressively on development, within the confines of the modest resources they have, to make gains with the car in the second half of the year and it is the direction they derived from that process that has formed the basis for this year’s FW43.

“This year marks a fresh start for the team,” she said. “We have spent time addressing our areas of weakness and have ensured that we have the right people, structures, procedures and resource in place to deliver competitive race cars.

“We are all committed to re-building Williams and returning the team to competitiveness. As such, our 2020 campaign is about making progress. The fighting spirit is still very much alive, and this year, everyone will continue that fight until we get back to where we want to be.”

Williams revealed the FW43 in an online launch on Monday, the car very much an evolution of its predecessor but featuring a revised livery.

It will break cover in public for the first time on Wednesday when pre-season testing begins at Barcelona, all being well. George Russell and Nicholas Latifi will split the reduced running of just six days this year between them.

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Ricciardo expects smoother start to second Renault season

Daniel Ricciardo says he and Renault should be able to “hit the ground running” when the 2020 season begins this week, following on from their first year together.

Ricciardo endured a mixed first campaign with Renault after moving across from Red Bull, scoring 54 points, and finished ninth in the championship.

Ricciardo scored points just once in the opening five rounds of his Renault career and admitted he found the initial nuances of switching teams a greater challenge than expected.

“I’m looking forward to blending into the team better on the back of having a full season behind us – so things are going to be easier in that sense,” Ricciardo said.

“Once I’m in the car at pre-season testing in Barcelona, I’d imagine things will run quite smooth.

“I already know my engineer, what the targets are, what to work on and what the general car characteristics are like so that should mean we can hit the ground running.

“This all means that I can provide more immediate feedback, and therefore it’ll be easier to make those comparisons between the R.S.19 and R.S.20.”

On his ambitions for the 2020 season Ricciardo said that “I have a few personal goals, but ultimately, I want to leave the race weekends feeling like I’ve completed the task at hand and given absolutely everything.

“It’s going to be important that I’ve applied my full attention and skill set, and not taken the easy route out.”

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McLaren’s MCL35 hits the track for the first time

McLaren’s 2020 Formula 1 car, the MCL35, hit the track for the very first time on Monday as the team completed a filming day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya ahead of Wednesday’s opening day of pre-season F1 testing.

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French GP to host ‘F1 Revival’ to celebrate 70th anniversary

Circuit Paul Ricard has announced it is planning its own Formula 1 revival festival at June’s French Grand Prix.

Over 70 historic F1 cars will be at the event, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Paul Ricard circuit and the 70th season of F1 competition.

Amongst the collection will be such cars from Ferrari, Shadow, Larrousse, Ligier, Brabham, March, Renault, Tyrrell, Williams, Benetton, McLaren and Toyota and many more.

A 3,000 square metre paddock will be set up with over 70 cars in attendance and access will be open to the public during the weekend.

Planned demonstration runs with over 40 of the cars are also set to take place on the circuit. A series of runs in two separate classes will also take place with cars from the 1950s-1980s in one class and the other with cars from the 1980s until the 2000s.

With the FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships not providing support races for the weekend, alternative support events for the F1 weekend have been added with the Renault Clio Cup and Alpine Elf Europa Cup.

Eric Boullier, Managing Director of the GIP Grand Prix de France – Le Castellet: “I am delighted with the creation of this “F1 Revival” paddock and these demonstrations at the next French Formula 1 Grand Prix.

“This show will be a real moment of intergenerational sharing on the occasion of the celebration of the various anniversaries that will mark our Grand Prix.”

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Romain Grosjean drives Haas VF-20 for the first time

What’s it like to drive a brand-new Formula 1 car for the very first time? Find out onboard with Romain Grosjean, as he took the new Haas VF-20 for its very first installation lap at Barcelona this week.

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Verstappen tests "insane" Valkyrie road car

Red Bull Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen declared that the Aston Martin Valkyrie was "insane" after his first test in the road car at Silverstone.
The Dutchman and teammate Alex Albon were sampling the road version of the car, developed in partnership with Red Bull Advanced Technologies, which Aston announced last year would enter in the 2020-21 World Endurance Championship that commences at Silverstone in September.

Although Aston Martin's partnership with RBAT on the Valkyrie was understood to be unaffected by the investment of a consortium led by Racing Point owner Lawrence Stroll into Aston Martin last month, several news outlets have reported that the programme will be imminently postponed.

It was unclear after the Stroll announcement, which would see Racing Point become the Aston Martin works team as part of the deal, whether Verstappen would be allowed to race the Valkyrie in the future.

Speaking after his first laps in the 6.5-litre VP1 car, which was equipped with a hybrid system that will not feature on the race-spec model, Verstappen spoke enthusiastically about the 6.5-litre V12 machine.

"I was here at Silverstone to watch the first runs of the Aston Martin Valkyrie at the British Grand Prix last year but of course it's always better to be behind the wheel yourself, and to be one of the first guys to drive an insane car like this was really exciting," he said.

"It was amazing to get a first taste of it. Of course it's still in the development phase but you can already feel the pace, which compared to a normal car is… pretty different!

"The Aston Martin Valkyrie and its levels of downforce are incredible, and it looks super aggressive. It was a lot of fun out there."

Albon added: "It was incredibly exciting to have this opportunity to drive the Aston Martin Valkyrie and the first thing that struck me was the visual aspect – it looks awesome! It also really feels like a racing car.

"Max had a go before me, so the anticipation was building, and to get a chance to drive it was really special.

"Obviously there's still some development to do, but already it feels very good, especially the balance between the corners. It's light; it feels sharp.

"Sure, compared to an F1 car, you're missing the outright downforce, but you still feel the Gs in the corners and it definitely reacts closer to an F1 car than a normal road car. It's pretty special, I just need to get my hands on one!"

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Carey "comfortable" with new F1 deal talks

Chase Carey is comfortable with where talks stand for the updated Concorde Agreement, saying the revised commercial terms for Formula 1 teams will be "better for everybody".
After approving the new technical and sporting regulations last October, all 10 teams are currently engaged in talks with F1 officials over an updated Concorde Agreement, which expires at the end of the 2020 season.

Among the revised proposals is a fairer distribution of revenue, intended to help make competing in F1 more sustainable for all teams, as well as closing the performance gap through the grid in tandem with a cost cap, which has already received approval.

Speaking to Motorsport.com at the BHMSE conference in Baku, F1 CEO and chairman Carey offered an update on Concorde talks, saying the proposals would benefit all parties.

"We've got agreements on the table, and we're comfortable. We've put together a proposal that is fair to everybody," Carey said.

"We're in discussions with the teams, I think they're constructive. I think the sport will be better for the fans, better for the teams and better for everybody. We think it's a real step in the right direction on all the fronts we've talked about before.

"We haven't finished it, but we're in a good place, and we'd like to get it done. It's for 2021, so there obviously is time. All along we've tried to make it more of a partnership, understand the various issues.

"We weighed all those, put forward what we think is again a fair and balanced proposal for everybody, and we'll do our best to get it finalised as soon as possible so we can focus on what is most important which is growing the sport."

Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff said last week there were "some topics" that still needed finalising in the commercial talks, calling them a "work in progress".

While Carey would not be drawn on any resistance to the proposals from teams, calling them "private conversations", he said: "I think we've listened to everybody, we've tried to be responsive to everybody.

"At some point, this is how we're going to race in 2021."

Carey also stressed the proposals were simply a first step for F1's future that would be built upon moving forward.

"I think we've said all along that this is not like we're done," Carey said.

"It's a big step, but it's a step. There'll always be more to do. I think there'll be things in what we've done that you continue to modify as things evolve.

"I think this is an important step to put the sport in a much better place as a sport, and the health of the sport, and the sport for fans, but it will be an ongoing process.

"Clearly we're not done. We're not claiming that."

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F1 reveals vision for future engine era amid 'crude' hybrid ban

Formula 1 chiefs says government plans to ban the sales of new hybrid cars within the next 15 years are "crude" - as they insist the sport can be a catalyst for a revolution in environmentally-friendly engine technology.
As part of a push by governments to cut back on carbon emissions, there has been a move by many countries to outlaw the sales of new petrol, diesel and hybrid engines in the next few years – with Britain announcing recently its push for a ban to be in place by 2035.

That move has prompted questions on what direction F1 will have go in the future.

It has closely aligned itself with hybrid engines since 2014, and needs to make a decision in the next few years about where the engine rules will go beyond 2025.

But while a hybrid ban on the roads could prompt manufacturers to question whether it is worth investing in the technology for grand prix racing, F1's top figures think that hybrid solutions have plenty of offer in driving forward a better solution for the wider world.

Asked by Motorsport.com about the impact of the hybrid ban, F1 managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn said: "I don't think we necessarily know where we're going, to be honest. I think that governments need to look at the whole picture. I think we need to look at the dust-to-dust carbon impact of personal transportation.

"I think picking on a specific technology is crude. For me as an engineer it doesn't make sense. [It should be] this is where we are now, this is where we want to be, what's the best solution in that process."

With F1 moving towards an increased use of bio fuels, Brawn senses an opportunity for the sport to lead the way in driving forward developments of sustainable fuel – such as that produced by carbon capture.

"Governments have to be firm. They have to force people to do things and they have to fund the way of doing things. But if we find a solution with synthetic fuels, for instance, where we capture the carbon out of the atmosphere, convert it into fuel, using renewable electricity, we've then got a solution where the infrastructure is in place for transportation," he said.

"Now there are needs like city centres where you need to move the pollution out, you can't afford to have it, so there's hydrogen, electricity, etc. But for me, it just seems inconceivable to have an infrastructure that can support only electric vehicles in 15 years time."

He added: "If we drive that [sustainable fuel] technology, we believe F1 can become the driving force. If the FIA say 'right it has to run on sustainable or synthetic fuels, and that's the only way you can compete in F1', you can be sure that that will drive that technology.

"And all the oil companies will be involved with that because they know they've got to find alternative streams in the future. So we can be the catalyst behind changing these things."

F1 CEO Chase Carey thinks that the idea of committing to electric cars only as the future is wrong, as he backs Brawn in suggesting that hybrid technology can deliver answers.

"I've read a lot of experts, so to speak, on the environmental issue, and I think the wide majority recognise that you're going to have an array of solutions, there's not a silver bullet," he told Motorsport.com.

"Electric has become a little bit of a silver bullet. There are environmental issues around electric, there are infrastructure issues, there are cost of electric vehicle issues. I think it will be part of the answer, but I think the answer is going to be a number of things.

"I think in many ways, a combustion engine with synthetic fuels and other types of technology and energy recapture, they will be the most important element to the solution.

"I think there'll be a reality, when electric becomes less of a political dream and more of a market reality. I think other solutions will come to the forefront and be recognised as being a very important part, if not a central part of how you achieve the goals everybody wants for the environment."