F1 Today – 28/08/2015
Mexico nearly ready
The promotor of the Mexican Grand Prix say the circuit is 90% ready ahead of the returning to the country in November. The circuit which last held the race in 1992 has been redeveloped over the past year.
The first layer of the track surface has been laid ahead of a visit by FIA to be signed off by the FIA race director Charlie Whiting later this month. Managing director of race promoter CIE Federico Gonzalez is confident that they will complete the homologation process.
Gonzalez told Autosport that there are almost there. Saying “Progress is being made every day and we’re on schedule.”
Adding “We have completed the first layer around the whole track and expect to have the second and third layer in place in approximately three weeks.” The race is being held on a bank holiday which may helped them sell all the tickets meaning they increased the capacity by 10%.
He added tickets “have sold quickly and we maybe have 10 per cent of the additional capacity left so we expect to be a sell-out.”
No change at Red Bull
Team principal of Red bull Christian Horner says the team has no reason to change their line-up of Daniel Ricciardo and Danill Kyvat next season. The Australian was link to a move to Ferrari but said he had a long-term contract with Red Bull.
Kyvat’s season got off to a difficulty season with limited testing and engine reliability in the early part of the season. With Red Bull’s advisor Helmut Marko putting the pressure on after both Toro Rosso rookies Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz outshone him.
He gained his first podium in Budapest last month. When asked about 2016 Horner replied: “I don’t see any reason to change it. We don’t have any rush to make a decision, both the drivers are on long-term contracts, but it’s a successful partnership and it’s working well.”
Domination is wrong – Ecclestone
F1 boss Berine Ecclestone has told dutch TV that Mercedes current domination of the sport as “wrong.” The 84- year old has called for more competition in the sport.
He told Dutch TV he doesn’t want to see Mercedes winning unopposed on such a regular basis. He said: “What we really need is more competition. What I don’t want to happen is what’s happened [last weekend] – before that race, you could guarantee that the Mercedes cars were going to be first and second if they finished – we’re talking about qualifying, and the race as well.”
He says that when F1 is described as a “crisis” he say the problem is the dominance of Mercedes. He says having them dominate the sport is very wrong. He adds changes are needed to guarantee the best drivers in F1 were able to fight each other for race victories.
CFD amnesty
Teams have been given a ‘CFD amnesty’ by FIA technical director Charlie Whiting so that rules for 2017 can be finalised in seven months time. Plans have been discussed to make cars five to six seconds per lap faster and look visibly different via a range of measures.
The regulations will allow wider wings and tyres. However, Force India technical director Andrew Green recently expressed concern there was not enough time to finalise them by March next season.
This means the FIA allowed the teams more time to work on CFD which is normally capped to make sure proposals for bodywork can be shaped and ratified come March. Whiting told Autosport “We’re on track to have a pretty good idea as to where we are going by October 2. This is the next milestone in discussing what CFD work they’ve done, and we’ve given them extra CFD time.”
He says it will be vary from team to team on their capability to use CFD. He added there are waiting for Pirelli “to provide us with some appropriate grip estimations on the new agreed tyre sizes.”
No worries about competitiveness
Force India say they have no worries about their competitiveness going into the title run-in with Lotus. The team had a strong race in spa with Perez leading at one point.
The Mexican had to settle for fifth but helped the team take fifth in the contructors championship from Lotus by a point. deputy team boss Bob Fernley told Sky Sports “We qualified fifth and we finished fifth. I don’t think we quite had the pace of the Lotus, that was very good, and the Red Bull, but we beat Williams and Ferrari fair and square.”
He said it was bittersweet after the team got their best result of the season but lost a place in the championship. The team wasn’t helped after Nico Hulkenberg’s car lost its turbo boost before the race, forcing him into retirement after he ground to a halt on the starting grid.
Which Fernley says would have been a different story and both cars in the top 10 and working well.
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