{"id":4858,"date":"2018-03-29T17:42:07","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T17:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/f1vault.co.uk\/?p=4858"},"modified":"2018-03-29T17:42:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T17:42:07","slug":"f1-today-29032018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/f1-today-29032018\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Today – 29\/03\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vettel lacks confidence but sees potential<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sebastian Vettel has admitted that this year\u2019s Ferrari has \u201chuge potential\u201d but he does not yet have the confidence to drive the car on the limit.<\/p>\n

Vettel took advantage of the mistake that Mercedes made with Kiwis Hamilton\u2019s error on strategy during the Virtual Safety Car. Hamilton had been quicker than Vettel all weekend and out-qualified the Ferrari driver by nearly 0.7s.<\/p>\n

The German was also out-qualified by his teammate Kimi Raikkonen and admitted he still struggles to get the best from the car. After the race, he said \u201cI think the car has huge potential but, yeah, I\u2019m still struggling a little bit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think if we also compare to where we\u2019re still a bit weak, it\u2019s where I also feel that the car is not yet there. The car doesn\u2019t respond the way I like and it\u2019s still sliding in places I don\u2019t want it to slide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to ESPN, he said the car needs to be on the spot when he turns in on the breaks and the car wasn\u2019t in that window. He added that the loose rear of the Ferrari means driving it is too much of a \u201cconscious\u201d experience and is not yet second nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can live with it but I feel also if we get on top of that then you feel more confident. A track like here, when you have confidence it makes a big difference. You always try to push but equally to try to be a bit safe \u2013 because you don\u2019t want to throw it away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mercedes confident that Hamilton didn\u2019t damage the engine<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mercedes are confident that Lewis Hamilton did not suffer any damage to his engine despite getting close to temperature limits when he chased down Sebastian Vettel in the Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Hamilton was forced to chase his\u00a0Ferrari\u00a0rival in the closing stages of the race after Vettel’s well-timed VSC pit stop meant he was able to retain the lead. As the Englishman pushed, engine temperatures increased and the team instructed Hamilton to back off.<\/p>\n

The reason the team called off the chase was because his engine temperatures did get close to the limits the team had set but says there were no indications it had exceeded them.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Mercedes’ Pure Pitwall strategy debrief on YouTube, Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said \u201cYou may have heard us on the radio telling Lewis it was getting hot, which is just the fact that when the cars get so close you don’t get clean air going into the radiators keeping it cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did get quite close to its limit temperature, and we are monitoring all these limits very closely. You can run up to them, you just have to be careful that you don’t run over them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the decision to save the engine was made by Hamilton, who turned the engine down and the team believe that the engine will be in good shape.”<\/p>\n

Mercedes will inspect the engine ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix but have no plans to bring in a second power unit to help boost Hamilton’s pool of components.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Renault calls for a freeze on engine development<\/strong><\/p>\n

Renault has called for a freeze on engine development between the end of this season and 2021, when new engine regulations are set to be introduced.<\/p>\n

The manufacturer believes that if development was frozen, it would allow them to fully focus on preparing for the new regulations, while not handing an advantage to any new entrants who can devote all their resources to the 2021 projects.<\/p>\n

Renault customer Red Bull believes that a way should be found to equate engines for the last two years of the current formula, in order to generate more competitive racing. However, F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul says he wants a freeze as part of the proposals Liberty will outline next week.<\/p>\n

He told Motorsport.com \u201cThe one thing we will not want to do is to have the burden of developing two engines in parallel. That’s one thing that is sure, but it’s too early to talk about the technicalities of the way achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two things basically in our key message and our position at Renault. First before committing to a regulation, we need to understand the bigger picture.\u201d Abiteboul says it not acceptable to have two engine programmes running at the same time, as new entrants could have the advantage over the current teams.<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u00a0motorsport boss Helmut Marko believes that the FIA should try to equalise engine performance for the last two years of the current formula. Saying \u201cIf new engine rules are coming which we hope should be announced pretty soon than we have to freeze the engines as they are now.\u201d<\/p>\n

“And there should be a rule that every engine has to be within three percent, and that is to be properly fulfilled.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hartley makes Vergne laugh<\/strong><\/p>\n

Formula E and former Toro Rosso driver Jean-Eric Vergne say that Brendon Hartley driving for the team \u201cmakes me laugh\u201d because he was dropped from the Red Bull programme in the past.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Paris, the Frenchman said that the reason he got his seat in World Series by Renault, was because Red Bull fired him, after eight years with the Red Bull programme. He said \u201cIt makes me laugh that\u00a0Red Bull\u00a0called on Hartley, given that he’s the one they fired to give me his seat in World Series by Renault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vergne says that Sebastien Buemi would have got the seat he would have been fired. Vergne was dropped by Red Bull at the end of 2014 and joined FE, which he said was a turning point in his career.<\/p>\n

Saying \u201cI think I was lucky to join Formula E at the right time and quickly change my mentality and my state of mind. Today, I think it’s the best thing that can happen to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alfa Romeo could expand influence at Sauber<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alfa Romeo\u2019s influence with Sauber could be about to expand as they are evaluating the possibility of expanding the technical partnership with the manufacturer.<\/p>\n

As part of a branding deal announced last December, the team agreed to carry the name of engine supplier Ferrari\u2019s sister company Alfa. Also a technical arrangement, which wasn\u2019t outlined at the time. Now, team principal Fred Vasseur says outlining that agreement is a priority.<\/p>\n

Vasseur told Motorsport.com \u201cWe didn’t do it in a rush but we did it quite fast. We agreed on the engine supply agreement at the end of July, August, then we started to discuss about Alfa Romeo and we did the announcement at the beginning of December. Trust me that it was quite fast!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are more than open to extending the collaboration with Alfa Romeo and will see step by step how and what could be the next options. A technical collaboration will be one.\u201d The branding deal, came after the team agreed to use a 2018 spec power unit.<\/p>\n

Vasseur says that the team is not looking for a similar deal to the Ferrari deal with Haas. Sauber technical director Jorg Zander joined the team after Audi withdrew from the World Endurance Championship.<\/p>\n

He said the Alfa collaboration had given another boost to the team and was “telling people we’re moving on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zander told Motorsport.com, \u201cWe’ve got a beautiful car \u2013 we want it to perform better \u2013 but people do realise there’s a big change taking place, definitely since I joined [ahead of the 2017 season].\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that people in the team have more confidence, creating a much stronger belief and this is of course very positive but it takes time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vettel lacks confidence but sees potential Sebastian Vettel has admitted that this year\u2019s Ferrari has \u201chuge potential\u201d but he does not yet have the confidence to drive the car on the limit. Vettel took advantage of the mistake that Mercedes made with Kiwis Hamilton\u2019s error on strategy during the Virtual Safety Car. Hamilton had been<\/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":[44,115,153,207,208,314,478,616,621,675,709,754,782,799,902,1021,1076,1298,1637,1639,1642,1656,1771,1791,1843,2025,2026],"class_list":["post-4858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-analysis","tag-44","tag-alfa-romeo","tag-andrew-shovlin","tag-australian-gp","tag-australian-grand-prix","tag-brendon-hartley","tag-cyril-abiteboul","tag-engine-devlopment","tag-engine-regulations","tag-f1-today","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-one","tag-fred-vassuer","tag-future-of-f1","tag-helmut-marko","tag-jean-eric-vernge","tag-jorg-zander","tag-mercedes","tag-red-bull","tag-red-bull-tag-heuer","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-renault","tag-sauber-afla-romeo","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-toro-rosso","tag-toro-rosso-honda"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858","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=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}