Verstappen “innocently” lost over fifty points – Marko
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko believes Max Verstappen’s gap in the championship could be bigger if not for “over fifty points” lost “innocently”. The Dutchman currently leads the championship by twelve points with five races and a maximum of a hundred and thirty still to play for.
Marko cites the examples of the British, Azerbaijan and Hungarian Grands Prix as examples that Verstappen should be further ahead in the standings. The Red Bull driver retired from the British GP while leading after contact with Hamilton, who went on to win the race despite a penalty for the incident.
While in Baku he was forced to retire with five laps to go when one of his tyres exploded, and in Budapest finished in ninth after being hit at the start when Valtteri Bottas overshot the first corner.
Marko told Motorsport.com, “Before the last three races, we actually feared that we would be significantly behind. The bottom line is that we scored more points than Hamilton in those Grands Prix, mainly because of Hamilton’s race in Turkey where he was only fifth, while Max finished second in Sochi – certainly by luck as well, because of the rain.”
“But even more remarkable is: we innocently lost Baku, lost Silverstone and lost Hungary. If you calculate the amount of points we lost carefully, then it’s over 50 points in those three races. As a result we are only twelve points ahead now. So we have survived all those setbacks and we have also been able to match the upswing from Mercedes.”
Marko believes that Verstappen will need two more wins this season to secure his first title. He says Mexico City and Interlagos should suit Red Bull significantly better, however pointed out that not all circuits expected to suit Red Bull or Mercedes have done.
Saying that the tiniest of factors can affect the competitive balance between Mercedes and Red Bull, but he feels it’s Verstappen and Hamilton who are making the difference.
Adding, “It’s so balanced that the form of the day, the tarmac and even the temperatures are extremely important. It looks like Mercedes is much quicker to get their car to the right set-up. We have a more complex car and on average it takes us longer to do it, but still, there are only two drivers who always get the maximum out of it”
Hamilton would love a return to South Africa
Sir Lewis Hamilton says he would love the South African Grand Prix to return to the calendar in the future. The race was dropped from the calendar in 1985 after some drivers and teams boycotted the race because of apartheid before a brief return in the early 1990s.
However in recent months, there have been talks of a return to Kyalami in 2023, but every time there is talk of the race returning no deal has managed to be reached. Last March a fan festival in Johannesburg last year, but the event was called off because of the pandemic.
The sport will visit Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the first time this year, while Miami will be added to a record twenty-three race calendar in 2022. Africa, meanwhile, has not hosted a race in nearly three decades and is the only inhabited continent without a race.
Asked about which country he would like to see added to the F1 calendar, Hamilton told Motorsport.com, “The place that I really feel is dear to my heart and most important for me is to get a race back in South Africa.”
“I think there is a great following out there and I think it would be great to be able to highlight just how beautiful the motherland is.”
Hamilton has also given his backing to the sports continued expansion, however, saying one event was not enough for the US. he added, “The US GP is fantastic and is such a huge country, having just one race here isn’t enough to really to be able to tap into the sporting culture here and encapsulate the fans and get them on a journey with us.”
He says America needs at least two races, saying that having continental or mini championships was not a bad thing for the sport.
Charles Leclerc said he would also welcome a third race in the United States as well as one in Africa.
Adding, “Formula 1 is getting bigger and bigger in the last year’s thanks to the Netflix series and here I can definitely feel it and see it and I love also this country, it is great to be here and I would be very happy to have a third race here. I agree with Lewis, on Africa in general, it would be great to have a race there.”
Sprint qualifying could be the standard format – Brawn
Formula One motorsport and technical managing director Ross Brawn, says the sprint qualifying could eventually become the standard approach to a Grand Prix weekend. Liberty Media, teams and the FIA have already agreed to increase the number of ‘sprint’ events to six next year, and they are assessing how to modify the format to reflect the lessons of this year
Brawn said F1 “wants to take progressive rather than radical steps” with the format. But he said there was “no reason” why having a one-third distance race in addition to qualifying and the Grand Prix could not be used at all events in future.
He added, “It’s open. It could evolve that way, but if it does, it will be because it’s the best thing to do. We are taking it carefully step by step and off the back of six you can decide whether you want to increase the number I don’t think we should be afraid of doing that because, if we did that, it would be a measure of the success of the sprint.”
One of the criticisms of the format by fans has been pole position going to the winner of the sprint race rather than the fastest driver over one lap, Brawn said that was a mistake and that this had “clearly not been popular” with fans and drivers.
Among other matters likely to change are increasing the number of points available to enhance the drivers’ desire to attack and race. Brawn said he wanted to increase the points to a third of what was on offer for the Grand Prix and increase the points to a larger number of drivers.
Another option is to separate out the ‘sprint’ completely and make it a stand-alone event, by making qualifying set the grid for the Grand Prix as normal and deciding the sprint-race grid another way.
Brawn said he was keen to introduce grids in reverse championship order for this, he felt that would “perhaps be a step too far” next year. But he says next years technical regulations aimed at improving the racing, by making the cars more capable of following closely and overtaking, was the reason for caution.
He said the races at which the six sprint events would be held next year had not been decided – although at least one of them is again expected to be the British Grand Prix
FIA to continue with double yellow flag lap deletions in Mexico
FIA race director Michael Masi says that the double yellow flag lap time deletion process will be used again at the Mexico City Grand Prix. The idea emerged following controversy in Istanbul when Fernando Alonso escaped a penalty after an investigation for allegedly not slowing sufficiently under double yellows.
After discussions with teams, the FIA trialled a system in Austin that automatically deletes lap times in practice and qualifying for any driver who passes through a double yellow zone.
Similar to the system in place for track limits, designed to stop any debates about whether a driver had reduced speed sufficiently, especially when changeable conditions over a session move the goalposts in terms of what constitutes a “meaningful” lap time.
Masi’s race director’s notes issued to teams each weekend now stress that “any driver passing through a double waved yellow marshalling sector must reduce speed significantly and be prepared to change direction or stop.”
“In order for the stewards to be satisfied that any such driver has complied with these requirements, it must be clear that he has not attempted to set a meaningful lap time. For practical purposes, any driver in a double yellow sector will have that lap time deleted.”
The plan was welcomed by the drivers, although Kimi Raikkonen was the only driver to have a lap deleted in FP3. Masi says they will continue to do the same in Mexico City, with a few back-of-house processes to try and speed up that system.
Adding, “But that seems to have ticked the box in that world, and all the drivers were quite supportive of it being very clear from that perspective, and probably from not having engineers and so forth trying to debate what is and is not meaningful.”
Although only Raikkonen had a lap time deleted in Austin, there was an unusual scenario in qualifying when Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll abandoned a lap when he saw double yellows ahead after Antonio Giovinazzi spun in Q1, and assumed that he’d lose his time.
Williams points cushion allowing Russell to take risks
George Russell says that Williams’s comfortable eighth place in the constructors’ championship has allowed him to push to the limits in recent races. His second place at Spa moved the team into eighth in the championship, which led Russell to suggest that he would no longer be wary of taking risks and losing opportunities of points.
He has now confirmed the points cushion has given him the confidence to try different things, especially on first laps. In Austin on the opening lap, he moved from last to fourteenth. Russell told Motorsport.com, “I think the pressure has been sort of lifted off my shoulders for a while now for these first laps,”
“I have more confidence to really attack it and go for it. And P20 to P14 was a strong start for me. I think, in this position now, where we are in the championship, we’ve got this small buffer it’s allowing me to go out there and really push the limits. I’m quite enjoying it to be honest.”
Russell said he was a driver who didn’t normally make huge mistakes but says he has wanted to push himself out there, giving his FP3 crash at Zandvoort as an example. He says he will continue to push to the limit saying that its “been sort of reaffirming my strategy of you don’t need to be driving 110% to get the most out of the car, sometimes you only go slower.”
With his move to Mercedes next season, he believes that he is in a very strong position personally meaning he is able to go out there and try new things and not afraid to make some mistakes. He described it as a similar position to his debut season in 2019, where he can go and try new things and continue to build the toolbox.
Despite his strong start in the US GP Russell could not better fourteenth place by the flag, admitting that the venue had not suited the car.
Saying, “Just this weekend we struggled for pace. It’s a very strange circuit I felt, there wasn’t much adhesive grip from the tarmac, and I think all the drivers were sliding around a lot, and we just didn’t optimise that and make the most of it.”
Aerodynamicist Antonia Terzi killed in car crash
Former Williams and Ferrari aerodynamicist Antonia Terzi has died aged fifty in a car crash in the UK. Terzi, who was born in Italy, was best known in F1 circles for having been the inspiration for the famous ‘walrus nose’ that appeared on the Williams FW26 in 2004.
She began her F1 career at Ferrari working under Rory Byrne in 2001, after making a good impression she moved to Williams as chief aerodynamicist and playing a key role in the team’s race-winning push during its engine partnership with BMW. One of the things she helped develop was the ‘walrus nose’ concept in 2004.
The idea of the concept was to shorten the nose as much as possible in a bid to maximise downforce and minimise drag – with the twin ‘tusk’ pylons sloping down to act as an attachment for the front wing. Although the design proved beneficial, by Budapest the team switched to a more conventional nose configuration.
More recently she devoted times towards academic ventures. Terzi was employed as assistant professor by the Delft University of Technology, which is the Netherlands’ oldest and largest public technical university.
One of her ongoing projects there was the Superbus, a fully electrical vehicle made of composite materials that featured ‘gull wing’ doors and could carry up to 23 passengers.
Last year she was appointed as full professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, where she was planning to move once COVID travel restrictions had eased.
