Sebastian Vettel has admitted that the death of Ferrari\u2019s The Italian is credited with turning around Ferrari\u2019s\nbusiness and Formula One operations, with the team posing a significant\nchallenge to Mercedes since 2017. In an interview released today, the German\ntold Crash.net \u201cThe passing of our chairman, Mr Marchionne obviously had an\nimpact and was tough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think it\u2019s up to us to look into every single detail and make sure we come out as a stronger group, enabling us to build a stronger package for next year and for the future.\u201d Ferrari\u2019s failure to capitalise on what appeared to be the strongest car saw the team come under fire, for failing to capitalise on what was arguably the strongest package of the field and making a number of operational and driver-related errors throughout the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, drew a link to Marchionne\u2019s passing and the Scuderia\u2019s subsequent lack of performance, winning just twice in the remaining nine rounds that followed Hungary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking at the end-of-season prize giving ceremony at St Petersburg, Vettel added: \u201cCertainly it was a big loss. The day-to-day business continued, I think people knew what was their job and knew what to do, but surely it wasn\u2019t easy for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vettel says that the team tried to continue in the best mental <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mercedes CEO and team principal Toto Wolff Bottas failed to win a race this season, while on his way to his fifth title Hamilton equalled his career best with eleven wins. The Finn missed out on two wins this season, the first in Baku because of a puncher and in Sochi he gave up a win to help his teammates title hopes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wolff has defended Bottas\u2019s record this season given the number-two role he was forced into by circumstance, and declared to Motorsport.com, \u201cwe wouldn\u2019t have won \u201cTo strike the right balance between having two alpha pilots\nin the car, that are able to push each other, but equally maintain a positive\ndynamic within the team, a productive working environment is key. Valtteri,\neven with his bad luck, did never allow the spirit and the mindset to drop\nwithin the organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wolff says that Bottas was always able to maintain high\nsprits and kept the team from becoming dysfunctional, as losing out can be\ndraining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bottas could of lead the championship after Baku where a late puncher cost him the win. It will be hard to say and debated into He was hit by Sebastian Vettel at the first corner in France, then retired from the next race in Austria after starting from pole. Strategic decisions went against him in Britain and Hungary, which meant Bottas went into the summer break, trailing Hamilton by 81 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But despite his difficulties in the first half of the season, Wolff says that he believes Bottas performed at a higher level and believes he can become and is focused on being a Mercedes champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wolff added \u201cI am sure that it is a big blow that you significant challenge digest and he has not let this negatively affect the team. He needs some time off to recharge the batteries and come back again for another world championship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Daniel Ricciardo says that he was losing sleep during the second half of the season because of the misfortune which plagued his final races as a Red Bull driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Australian, who will join Renault in 2019, had been as high as third following his second win of the season in Monaco. However, Ricciardo suffered reliability issues and had more retirements than He grew increasingly frustrated as his issues piled Ricciardo told Motorsport.com, \u201cFor sure a lot went on this year and I\u2019d be naive to think it didn\u2019t affect me at some points. It\u2019s not like I can pinpoint a race and be like ‘that race went badly because I had too much on my mind’.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think it\u2019s draining and when your mind is ticking over, sometimes rather than sleeping eight hours you\u2019re sleeping six hours and then the accumulation of that might slow down your reaction or your reflexes.\u201d After back to back retirements in Texas and Mexico City, he said that he was \u2018looking forward to giving up his seat.\u2019 In a Red Bull podcast, he said that his side of the garage <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lewis Hamilton says that when he retires from Formula One is This season as well as winning his fifth title, he has spent more time on his other projects in fashion, education and conservation. But his biggest project has been designing and launching a clothing range with Tommy Hilfiger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking at an event for Mercedes partner Hewlett Packard Enterprises, the five-time world champion said he that he does not “like to think too much about retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, he said he was attracted by the prospect of pursuing other opportunities when he stops racing. He said \u201cI don\u2019t really know what\u2019s beyond F1. A lot of sportsmen and women, when they stop competing, they\u2019ve done it their whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve been racing since I was eight. All my focus has been\non this. In my part-time role outside F1 I\u2019m trying to figure out what else I\nwant to do or get involved in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNaturally it\u2019s super-easy for me to come to all the \u201cI\u2019ve been racing it for years, I know it just as well as anyone else. [But] I\u2019m more intrigued to learn something new.” This year, Hamilton committed himself to a new <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Carlos Sainz says that after the Abu Dhabi test where he joined McLaren, he compared notes with Fernando Alonso. Sainz will replace his fellow Spaniard next The team has been in decline since its last victory in 2012 and will start the 2019 season with a new driver line-up and heavily-revised technical team. McLaren will be hoping that the changes can allow the team to return to the front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking at the ‘Salute to Speed’ launch event at the team’s factory in Woking, he said he exchanged voice notes on the handling of this year’s MCL33 with Alonso but would speak in more depth at a later date. He said\u201cWe’ve sent each other a couple of voice notes regarding the balance of the \u201cWe [Alonso and I] haven’t sat completely around a table and discussed the direction of the team or what’s going to happen or where the team is going, but we’ve sent each other voice notes commenting on car balance, the things we like or don’t like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lando Norris says he chose not to use \u201846\u2019 as his race number on his car because he didn\u2019t want to be a \u201ccopycat.\u201d The Englishman has long used the number in his junior career, but it has a close association with the seven times Moto GP champion In the end, Norris chose #4 instead because of how the digit looked, as well as its scope for use in the social media hashtag #L4ndo. Speaking at the launch of McLaren\u2019s OnePlus 6T McLaren special edition phone this week, he told reporters \u201cThere is a story behind #4: but the story is that there is no story\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe hashtag is great. But there has not been a number I have used consecutively in all the series. I had #31, I had #11, and in The 46 has been used by the Italian in tests Alexander Albon has yet decide if he will use the number, he\nhas used the number in his junior career. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vettel admits that Marchionne death impacted Ferrari Sebastian Vettel has admitted that the death of Ferrari\u2019s chainman Sergio Marchionne had a impact on the team this season, and was a \u201cbig loss\u201d for the team. The teams CEO and Chairman died in the days leading up to theHungarian Grand Prix, following surgical complications. The Italian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[44,369,493,664,675,707,709,1131,1287,1291,1298,1637,1639,1642,1791,1806,1843,2031,2103,2105],"class_list":["post-6119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-analysis","tag-44","tag-carlos-sainz-jr","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-f1-today","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-ferrari","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-mclaren-renault","tag-mercedes","tag-red-bull","tag-red-bull-tag-heuer","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sergio-marchionne","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-toto-wolff","tag-valentino-rossi","tag-valtteri-bottas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bottas is a \u201calpha\u201d driver like Hamilton<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ricciardo lost sleep over poor results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Hamilton looking to learn something new<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Comparing notes with Alonso<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Norris didn\u2019t want to copy Rossi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n