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This Week – 13/10/2024

News & Analysis This Week

This Week – 13/10/2024

Welcome to This Week a week where it felt very much like the summer break, like the summer Rwanda is back on the agenda and why Lewis Hamilton believes the sport can’t ignore Africa. Max Verstappen speaks about Red Bull’s turbulent year, and why Toyota are to return to F1 after fifteen years in a technical partnership with Haas.

General News

Lewis Hamilton says F1 cannot continue to “ignore” Africa as the sport explores new locations for future calendars. F1 has not raced in Africa since the 1993 South African Grand Prix in Kyalami, but the event came close to a return in 2022, however, the deal has been stalled over the country’s support for Russia in its war in Ukraine.

During the summer F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali recently held a meeting with representatives of Rwanda at the end of last month as the country looks to hold a grand prix on a permanent track. Hamilton also spent most of the summer in Africa travelling across the continent, saying that new races mustn’t be added while the sport ignores Africa, the only inhabited continent without a Grand Prix.

He said, “We can’t be adding races in other locations and continuing to ignore Africa, which the rest of the world just takes from. No one gives anything to Africa. There’s a huge amount of work needs to be done there.”

“I think a lot of the world that haven’t been there don’t realise how beautiful the place is, how vast it is. And probably they don’t even know what the countries are doing still to those places in terms of holding back. So I think having a grand prix there will really be able to highlight just how great the place is and bring in tourism and all sorts of thing.”

According to Domenicali, F1 has so much interest now that it can be more selective with discussions and negotiations with locations, but Rwanda is a country where talks are ongoing. Rwandan capital Kigali will host the FIA Annual General Assembly and Prize Giving Ceremony this December.

Rwanda’s human rights record has been in the spotlight since the previous UK conservative government signed a now cancelled deal to deport asylum seekers to the country with Human Rights Watch saying “Serious human rights abuses continue to occur in Rwanda, including repression of free speech, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture by Rwandan authorities.”

Hamilton says “in the short term, we should just get on that track and have that part of the calendar and then work on building out something moving forward.”

Red Bull

Max Verstappen has conceded Red Bull couldn’t have been expected to keep all of its key members together amid a string of high-profile departures in recent weeks. Designer and chief technical officer Adrian Newey resigned in May, sporting director Jonathan Wheatley to Sauber/Audi and head of strategy Will Courtenay join McLaren in the future.

Their departures come after a tumultuous year for Red Bull off the track. Tensions behind the scenes at the management level first surfaced around pre-season testing in Bahrain, when an investigation against alleged wrongdoing by team boss Christian Horner – a case which has since been dismissed – spilt out into the public domain.

Before that, Red Bull had already lost designer Rob Marshall, who is now playing an influential role at its 2024 title rival McLaren. Six months ago Verstappen warned about losing what he called “pillars” of Red Bull’s success story leaving the squad because of its inner turmoil, especially when his mentor Helmut Marko’s position was called into question.

Speaking to Motorsport.com six months later in Singapore, it is clear that that hasn’t happened, with Red Bull now opting to promote from within the fill the voids left by its outgoing staffers. Verstappen’s long-time race engineer GianPiero Lambiase is one member being entrusted with wider responsibilities under its revised management structure.

He said, “I would have preferred if everyone had stayed, but in the end, you can’t stop people. If you force them to stay when they don’t really want to be here anymore, if they are disappointed or don’t fully get what they want, then maybe it’s better for them to take up a new challenge elsewhere. Even if for the whole team collectively, it would have been better if everything had stayed the way it was.”

“It’s always been like that with successful teams, people will start picking them apart. You see that in any sport. And some people get such big offers from other teams that that plays a role as well.”

Other key figures like head of performance engineering Ben Waterhouse and head of aerodynamics Enrico Balbo did extend their contracts earlier this year. Verstappen says that he has a strong relationship with Newey’s replacement Pierre Wache suggesting that he is good and he is always meeting with him.

Mercedes

Mercedes says it will be still chasing answers to the current ground effect cars and has no interest in writing off 2025 to get a head start when the regulations change in 2026. Since 2022 the once-dominant team has struggled to fight at the front, despite a handful of wins in July it has once again slipped away.

The team is still playing catch up, but there is a big question facing all the teams about whether to give up on closing that gap for next year in favour of making an early effort to get ahead for the new regulations that are coming for 2026 is obvious. However, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says the squad has clear targets in delivering wins each and every season, so there is no question that it will push on as much as it can for 2025.

Wolff told Motorsport.com, “This is the crux of the matter every year, and especially if you have such a big regulatory change, are you going to compromise one year or the other? But I’d like to take it from Niki’s [Lauda] motto, when being asked. ‘Would you rather win this one or the next one?’ And he says, ‘Both.’”

“Sometimes it is much less complex than one thinks. Probably the transition of people and capability into the 2026 regulations is going to happen a bit earlier than it would under stable regulations, but it’s not going to be game-changing.” He also says that no one will be turning off development in January unless they are nowhere.

Mercedes’ determination to continue throwing everything it can at the current rules comes despite it scratching its head at times over what makes things click. Wolff explained that the fluctuating form of the top teams in F1 was very hard to understand.

Asked for his best guess about why car performance moves around so much, Wolff said: “We were before the summer [break] pretty clear where the performance came from. And today we are less because what everyone seems to find out is that more downforce doesn’t always translate into better lap time.

This week the team admitted they didn’t realise the pressure they placed on Andrea Kimi Antonelli in his first FP1 outing at his home race at Monza. But it was a mixed weekend while he was confirmed as a 2025 driver that outing in practice saw him crash at the Parabolica ten minutes into the session.

Wolff says it was not an error to give Antonelli his first run at Monza under such circumstances, but reckons it would have been wiser in hindsight to have let him run somewhere else first. He told Motorsport.com, “I wouldn’t say it was a mistake, but I think we weren’t completely right in assessing the pressures that he could find himself under.”

“Why that is, is that we talked about it, and how to approach the session. He has been brilliant in testing. He has never put a single foot wrong in the many thousands of kilometres that he’s done. But it’s a different ball game if you’re an Italian driver, you’re 18 years old in Monza and it’s your first opportunity.”

“Maybe if we had considered that as a risk factor against the set of data we had from him, probably it would have been wise to give him an FP1 that would have been in a totally different time zone than Italy. But he will learn a lot from that.” Wolff says that he likes Antonelli’s approach and the crash was a shame as he was showing decent speed.

Mercedes is aware that for all of Antonelli’s talent and potential, he lacks experience – and that means there will likely be more crashes to come. But Wolff thinks that developing him within the environment at Brackley is the right approach to help get the most out of him.

Adding, “I think that the F1 team that you join as a young driver is fundamental for your performance and for your development. That’s why we decided also to bring him straight into Mercedes, so he would be less polluted with another, different.”

 

Ferrari

Team principal Fred Vasseur reckons the fact Lewis Hamilton is joining from Mercedes confirms that his team is heading in the right direction. Despite having a deal in place for next season, Hamilton broke his contract with the Silver Arrows to force through a shock move to Ferrari for 2025.

Hamilton and Vasseur previously worked together in Euro F3 and GP2, with the Frenchman saying he knew the seven-times world champion always had ambitions to join Ferrari.

He said: “Yes, it was not that difficult to convince Lewis. I remember that in 2004 we were together (in the European F3 championship) he at the time was tied to McLaren-Mercedes, but he already had in mind that sooner or later he would go to Ferrari.”

Speaking at the Festival dello Sport organised in Trento by the Gazzetta dello Sport, Vasseur added: “We talked about it some time ago, he always had this desire in mind, but of course, he is a driver who wants to have guarantees in terms of performance, for him this aspect is always in the first place.”

“If he chose to join Ferrari, it confirms to me that we can have the right car. This is the ultimate goal, a driver like Lewis does not come to us on vacation and from my side, I think we are in the right place in terms of performance.”

Hamilton’s new teammate Charles Leclerc who came up through the junior series like Hamilton under Vasseur’s leadership repeated his message that he is unfazed by Hamilton’s arrival and will welcome the challenge of him being on the other side of the garage.

Leclerc said: “I don’t think there is jealousy. Fred is not my girlfriend! We love each other, we value each other but there is no jealousy. I was always aware of the negotiations between Lewis and Ferrari, I knew there was this possibility, everything was very transparent and I was the first to say that for me to have a team-mate of this depth would be motivating.”

McLaren

McLaren has signed Brando Badoer to its driver development programme. Brando is the son of Luca, who raced in F1 in the 1990s and stood in for Felipe Massa following his crash and head injuries in qualifying in Budapest in 2009.

McLaren had already signed an option on Brando, who currently competes in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine (FRECA), and decided to exercise it following “a 12-month period of evaluation”. Badoer made his single-seater debut in 2022, contesting full seasons in UAE and Italian F4. He continued in both championships for 2023, scoring five podium finishes in the Italian series and placing sixth in the overall standings.

In this year he claimed three podiums in the Middle East regional championship, and seven podiums in FRECA and is currently fifth in the championship going into the final round. Next season he will race in F3 alongside fellow junior Ugo Ugochuwu at Prema.

Badoer said, “I am excited to join the McLaren Driver Development programme. It’s a fantastic opportunity to join a team with such a great racing heritage and a proven record for developing talent.”

“Competing in the 2025 FIA Formula 3 Championship with Prema Racing will help continue my progression and I’d like to thank the whole team at McLaren for their support. I can’t wait to learn from the team’s guidance and get racing in the team’s iconic colours.”

Stephanie Carlin, Director of F1 Business Operations at McLaren Racing, welcomed Badoer’s arrival, adding: “We’ve kept a close eye on him over the past year and have been impressed with his performances as a rookie in the competitive Formula Regional championship, so it made sense to exercise our option and bring him into the programme full-time. We look forward to seeing him racing in papaya and supporting his development as he moves to compete in the FIA Formula 3 Championship with Prema Racing.”

Ella Lloyd has also joined the McLaren Driver Development programme. The Welshwoman will take part in Formula E woman-only test in Valencia next month and will race for McLaren’s entry operated by Rodin Motorsport in F1 Academy next season.

Lloyd, whose family is from Pontypridd in south Wales, joins the programme following an impressive British F4 season where she secured four podiums. Lloyd told the McLaren website, “I’m really excited to be joining the McLaren Driver Development programme as the team’s F1 Academy driver in 2025.”

“It’s an honour to drive for a team that has such a great racing history, and also a long track record for developing talent. With McLaren, I now have everything I need to keep developing and pushing the boundaries as a female in motorsport.”

Lloyd started racing in 2022 aged fifteen in Ginetta Juniors before moving into Formula Winter Series, taking the Female Driver Trophy multiple times. She competed in British F4, completing the 2024 season with three second and one third-place finish, plus multiple points finishes.

Aston Martin

Team principal Mike Krack has admitted that sharing a wind tunnel could be “a factor” in the team being off the pace, but that was no excuse for them going backwards. At the start of last year the team has gone from being the closet challengers to Red Bull with several podium finishes but over the last eighteen months has gone backwards

Asked about the compromises of sharing a wind tunnel, Krack told Motorsport.com, “I think that would be too easy of an excuse. We have another team using the same wind tunnel with less time. So this is not an excuse.”

Pressed as to whether it could be a factor in the performance deficit, he added: “That’s possible, but still, we are quite far behind that team. So it’s maybe a factor for them. It’s maybe a factor for us, but I think with the same tool, we could do better.” But the problem in the short term has been the shared wind tunnel, however, this will not affect the team in the long term with a new wind tunnel and several key signings to its technical department they hope will turn the team around.

Adding, “If you are a team in the building process, it’s not only to put the wind tunnel there but also to have the technology and the methodology and the way you go about testing. The same is [true] for simulation. We were a customer team for many years and you have to build all these things in parallel, but if that is the choice you make, you should not use it as an excuse afterwards.”

Fernando Alonso believes a strange quirk of the current generation of cars could be behind the safety car drought. There has not been a safety car for nine races the first time that has happened in two decades including both Baku and Singapore, the latter being the first without a safety car or VSC since its debut in 2008.

While there is no obvious explanation for why races have been relatively incident-free since the Spanish GP, Alonso has hinted at the characteristics of contemporary ground-effect cars being a factor. In particular, he suggests the fact that the cars are actually faster when not driven to the absolute limit could explain why crashes have been reduced.

Alonso said, “These cars are not easy to drive, but I think the problem of these cars as well is to extract the 100% So if you drive at 90%, sometimes you are faster because you don’t put the platform in an inconvenient angle or ride heights. You are not pushing the limits, and it’s where everything falls apart. So sometimes driving at 90% is fast.”

Alonso says that the performance of the current cars can get hugely confusing when they are pushed to the edge – which they have to be in qualifying. He suggests that this was because of the evolution of the cars and the fact drivers now have to take care of the cars which are happier being driven at speed while taking it at 90%

Williams

Alex Albon says he is welcoming the challenge of going head-to-head as teammates with incoming Williams driver Carlos Sainz next season. Sainz joins Williams having lost his seat at Ferrari to Lewis Hamilton, for Albon has beaten his teammates Nicolas Latifi and Logan Sargeant.

However Sainz is regarded as one of the best drivers in the sport, and in August Albon said,  “It will be a challenge, of course. Carlos is very highly regarded. I welcome it. I feel like it’s great to have that competition and I enjoy that. For me, I feel like it’s a great thing to have and we’ll be able to learn from each other.”

Albon and Sainz are both products of Red Bull’s driver programme, Sainz left for Renault at the end of 2017 before joining McLaren in 2019 and then Ferrari for the last three years. The British-Thai driver raced for Toro Rosso and Red Bull between 2019 and 2020 before being replaced by Sergio Perez in 2021 and joining Williams in 2022.

He told Sky Sports, “I always have self-confidence, so I rate myself, and it’s more just around the optics of, more around you guys [the media], I guess, in some ways. But it will be a great challenge. I think we’ll push each other hard.”

“Especially with his experience, I’ll be really interested to hear what he can bring into the team – not just in terms of feedback about the car but even driving styles and that kind of thing.” When Albon signed a multi-year contract extension with Williams in May, it appeared he was firmly established as the team’s leader.

Albon had been seen as a contender for Mercedes and Red Bull in 2025 before signing his deal, and some have questioned whether he would have committed to Williams if he had known Sainz would be joining. Williams team principal James Vowles, who was at Mercedes during Hamilton’s intense clashes with former team-mate Nico Rosberg, is confident both drivers will focus on pushing the team forward as opposed to beating each other.

Team principal James Vowles has warned next season could be difficult for the team as they put their focus on the following season’s regulation change. The team has struggled to finish in the top five, excluding the controversial 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, since 2017 causing the team to be sold in 2020 to Doriliton.

Since then they have invested heavily in the team with the focus on returning to the front, but Williams has always seen the regulation change as a big opportunity. Vowles told Motorsport.com, “It’s the message that Alex and Carlos both know: 2025 will be a struggle, I think. It’s not that you’re going to see us moving forward, we’re going to move back a little bit.”

“And if we are, I’m okay with that, because it simply says that I’m investing at the right rate for ‘26 compared to those around me. That’s what we should be expecting from it: we are going to compromise ’25. That doesn’t mean we’ll be tenth, but it’s going to be a hard year.”

Haas

Toyota are to return to F1 after fifteen years in a technical partnership with Haas. The manufacturer withdrew from the sport at the end of 2009, with the two “sharing  expertise and knowledge, as well as resources.”

Toyota would provide “design, technical and manufacturing services”, it said, while Haas will give “technical expertise and commercial benefits”. Haas will continue to use Ferrari power-units, having earlier this year extended their contract with the Italian team until 2028. The Japanese manufacturer aims expertise and knowledge, as well as resources”.

A source told BBC News that Toyota has in recent years found itself missing out on aspiring Japanese racing drivers and engineers to rival Honda because of Honda’s presence in F1, it believes by having this acts as a counterbalance to its rival.

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu said: “To have a world leader in the automotive sector support and work alongside our organisation, while seeking to develop and accelerate their own technical and engineering expertise – it’s simply a partnership with obvious benefits on both sides.

“The ability to tap into the resources and knowledge base available at Toyota Gazoo Racing, benefiting from their technical and manufacturing processes, will be instrumental in our own development and our clear desire to further increase our competitiveness in Formula 1. In return, we offer a platform for Toyota Gazoo Racing to fully utilise and subsequently advance their in-house engineering capabilities.”

Toyota’s return to F1 marks a significant step for both the company and the sport as a whole. It withdrew from F1 after eight years running its own team from 2002-09. In a decade marked by extensive involvement in F1 by car manufacturers, Toyota developed a reputation as the one with the biggest disconnect between budget and success.

Nico Hulkenberg believes the current investment in the team will help it become a “serious competitor in the years to come”. The German will leave the team at the end of the season to join Sauber which will become Audi in 2026, after a season under new Ayao Komatsu. The team has been in a much stronger position with seventh in the constructors.

The up turn in form has convinced owner Gene Haas to sign off on a recruitment drive designed to increase the squad’s 300-person size by 10% and is believed to have also green-lit a significant investment in the facilities at the team’s UK base in Banbury.

When asked how he predicts Haas’s future will go once he heads to the Sauber team that will become Audi in 2026 amidst F1’s next rules reset in an interview with Autosport, Hulkenberg replied: “I think the team is set up very well now. And I think it’s a working organisation and I think we’ve proved that to some extent this year where with the changes that happened over winter.

“It [also] always depends also on many other factors. Commercially – what kind of partners do they have, what are the budget, what are the resources? That’s obviously a key element in that kind of question. And I don’t know that going forward, what will happen here.”

Hulkenberg says that with what the team has in the pipeline should help them move forwards and become a serious competitor.

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