{"id":1699,"date":"2016-03-10T19:38:25","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T19:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/f1vault.co.uk\/?p=1699"},"modified":"2016-03-10T19:38:25","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T19:38:25","slug":"f1-today-10032016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/f1-today-10032016\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Today – 10\/03\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ending the winless drought – Bottas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Valtteri Bottas says he believes that his Williams team can end there win drought this season. The British team hasn\u2019t won a race since that surpise win at 2012 Spanish Grand Prix and last won a championship in 1997.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a sponsor event in Italy Bottas said that he believes Williams are primed to return to the top step when the season gets under way in Melbourne he said \u201cOf course we want to win, and as a team our goal is to do better than last year.\u201d Last season the team finished third<\/p>\n

Bottas added \u201cI think it is possible and I think we can do it. We’ve been getting stronger all the time as a team and the new car we have improved from last year so it’s going to be close this year. We have high hopes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felipe Massa said he totally agrees with the Fin. During testing it appeared the team was third in the running order. Massa said \u201cI am totally with Valtteri. We want to win, we want more, and we want to put this car on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘We did some good lap times in Barcelona; some consistent long runs as well and we’re working really hard to get close to Mercedes and Ferrari.\u201d He added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sauber pay staff in full <\/strong><\/p>\n

Sauber has completely paid wages to its staff for February and is not doubting it will be on the grid at next weekend\u2019s Australian Grand Prix. The team confirmed yesterday to the magazine Autosport that a solution had been found to make sure that staff would be paid.<\/p>\n

Last November Sauber, Force India and Manor, asked Bernie Ecclestone in for advance on their championship payments. This is because the smaller teams find it hard to make money.<\/p>\n

Sauber are believed to be in the advanced stages of securing a title sponsor, though an agreement has yet to be signed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unprecedented confidence \u2013 Tost <\/strong><\/p>\n

Toro Rosso\u2019s team principal Franz Tost says his team is entering the season with \u00a0unprecedented confidence\u00a0following testing. The Italian teams STR11 emerged as a reliable car during the two test.<\/p>\n

On Monday he said \u201cIt was a positive surprise. To be honest, we didn’t expect that we would be in a position to do so many laps.\u201d Today he went a step futher saying \u201cWe’ve had the best preparation as long as Toro Rosso has existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding \u201cWe’ve done so many laps and collected so much data, and from the driver point of view, the engineering side, the team itself, we have reached quite a good level.\u201d He said the teams confidence is higher than ever before. Tost says while the car works on track it needs to prove itself on track.<\/p>\n

He added that he expects Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr to regularly be in the top ten this season.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Watkins Glen Wonderful home \u2013 Whiting <\/strong><\/p>\n

Race Director Charlie Whiting believes that Watkins Glen would be a \u201cwonderful\u201d home for the United States Grand Prix. The circuit in New York State last held the race in 1980.<\/p>\n

Whiting is charged with making sure that the sports circuit is safe to hold races. He told local TV \u201cI am really, really impressed with the work that has been done. It has been done to a very, very high standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added \u201cI think it would be an absolutely wonderful circuit for F1 cars to race on, but we all know it is not quite as simple as that.\u201d The sport is once again facing uncertainty in America after local politicians in Texas pulled funding from the event.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tapping into America <\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Brad Hollinger an investor in Williams says the sport should make a more concerted effort to tap into the potential offered by the United States. Hollinger is the second largest investor in the team after Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.<\/p>\n

Hollinger said \u201cFormula 1 is quite strong right now [in the US]. It is in a transformative era, with huge growth opportunities internationally, but even more so in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added \u201cWhen you think of the success of Formula 1, without a meaningful penetration in the US, that portends well.\u201d He said Haas will create more exposure of the sport in America. \u00a0He said there should be a focus on the two coasts.<\/p>\n

He offered to lend \u00a0a hand in facilitating the possibility of such a race. \u201cI can’t say I have experience in sponsoring major sporting events, however, I am happy to assist in anyway I can. I would certainly be a strong proponent in helping.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was asked about Top Gear \u2013 Coulthard<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Coulthard said he was asked to join Top Gear but turned it down because \u00a0“Channel 4 pulled a blinder” with the offer to be head of its Formula One presenting team.<\/p>\n

The former F1 driver turned broadcaster was announced as part of the Channel 4 presenting team alongside Top Gear presenter and colleague Eddie Jordan on Tuesday. Speaking on Channel 4 tonight he said \u201cI was being lined up for it because Formula One used to be on the BBC, before Channel 4 pulled a blinder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Formula One. I love car racing so I just couldn’t not be part of this new opportunity.\u201d He praised the corporation for the presence of two women on the team and Coulthard said that F1 was not a sexist sport.<\/p>\n

He said the sport isn\u2019t sexist and there has been an openly gay driver in the sport. This puts him at odds with Berine Ecclestone, who said in 2014 that he \u201ccompletely agrees\u201d with the Russian president\u2019s views on homosexuality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ending the winless drought – Bottas Valtteri Bottas says he believes that his Williams team can end there win drought this season. The British team hasn\u2019t won a race since that surpise win at 2012 Spanish Grand Prix and last won a championship in 1997. Speaking at a sponsor event in Italy Bottas said that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[42,301,344,369,389,393,514,664,675,699,754,780,1283,1770,2025,2082,2083,2105,2149],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-analysis","tag-42","tag-brad-hollinger","tag-business","tag-carlos-sainz-jr","tag-channel-4","tag-charlie-whiting","tag-david-coulthard","tag-f1","tag-f1-today","tag-felipe-massa","tag-formula-one","tag-franz-tost","tag-max-verstappen","tag-sauber","tag-toro-rosso","tag-united-states-gp","tag-united-states-grand-prix","tag-valtteri-bottas","tag-williams"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}