#'A step in a different direction' – Sainz hopeful Ferrari can 'get the season' going in Barcelona with first major upgrade of the year

[f1]

'A step in a different direction' Sainz hopeful Ferrari can 'get the season' going in Barcelona with first major upgrade of the year

As he prepares for his home race this weekend, Carlos Sainz is hopeful that the upgrades Ferrari will be bringing to Barcelona will be a step in a different direction to make the F1-23 easier to drive for him and his team mate Charles Leclerc. Ferrari have scored just one podium finish this year – Leclerc's third place in Baku – and are currently fourth in the championship with 97 points, trailing championship leaders Red Bull by 159 points. Compared to this time last season it represents a decline as the team had two wins and were just 26 points off the Milton Keynes outfit. READ MORE: Vasseur insists there is ‘big room for improvement’ with current Ferrari car ahead of Spanish GP However, to improve their performance, Ferrari are set to bring their first major upgrade of the season this weekend to Barcelona, and Sainz says it is hopeful that they will allow the Scuderia to head down a different development direction. “Hopefully a step in a different direction and a first opening of a window that allows us to start developing a car that has proved to be a very difficult car to drive, very on the edge, both in the race and in quali conditions,” said Sainz, when asked what the upgrades will bring. Sainz admits he has been driving the car on the edge this season “It is a difficult car, and it has given Charles and I some tough times. But I think hopefully it can be in the right direction.” Asked how on edge the car has been for him and Leclerc this season, the Spaniard replied: “A lot more than people imagined, and we are both doing the best we can. DESTINATION GUIDE: What fans can eat, see and do when they visit Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix “We are still both doing some pretty good laps when we are done, but it is not easy what we are trying to do. Also hopefully now it is get into a bit of rhythm. “We’ve tried really hard but maybe, because we were not at the level we expected at the beginning of the season, I think now we need to settle down, realise that this is what we have, that we need to develop it and start scoring some consistent results.” Sainz will be racing at home for the ninth time this weekend and he was hopeful that the nature of the track will be a good place to try out the upgrades brought by Ferrari. “I think it’s a great place to try the upgrades, try to see how the car feels,” said Sainz. “A good testing ring also as you guys know and hopefully we can get the season going here.” Sainz will be racing at home for ninth time this weekend and he was hopeful that the nature of the track will be a good place to try out the upgrades brought by Ferrari. “I think it’s a great place to try the upgrades, try to see how the car feels,” said Sainz. “A good testing ring also as you guys know and hopefully we can get the season going here.” via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com

[meaningofmotorsport]

F1 2021 Season Review

Despite how it ended, 2021 was still an epic year for F1, with a worthy champion, and plenty of moments that will go down in history. It wasn’t until the outro season montage for Sky Sports, which was brilliant, that I really was able to look back and appreciate the season we had. I will not discuss the FIA in this article, as that deserves its own piece, for all the wrong reasons. This is just the good and the bad of each team, with hopefully less of the controversial!

With the most wins and most podiums in the season of any driver, no matter the ending, you have to take your hat off to Verstappen. Plus, he still had to pass Hamilton on track with a very powerful Mercedes engine, and under so much pressure, to get the title. In fact, of the four times he wasn’t 1st or 2nd, three weren’t really his fault. We all knew he had this potential when he joined the sport, so it is nice to see it being fulfilled. The car was a rocket ship this year, arguably better overall than Mercedes, and Max made the most of it. Luck was not massively on one side or another, both got unlucky in different ways. Is he the complete driver yet? No, the pace is there, and he can perform under pressure, however, the aggression when wheel to wheel does need to be brought down a notch. I hope this comes with age, and does not get worse as he gets more successful. Perez had a solid year, but there were plenty of poor weekends from him. Hopefully it will get better for him moving forwards, as he beds in more with the team. The experience though has helped him take his own direction in the team, and get his best out of the car. Baku and Mexico showed there is clear potential to be a great driver for the team. Red Bull as a whole performed well, with great strategies on occasion, strong pit stops, and simply amazing car pace. The emotion and war of words after Silverstone was a bit much, they just needed to get on with their own job, and some comments were over the top.

The streak had to end at some point for Hamilton and Mercedes, but this is not the way they wanted it to happen. As I said in the race review, with how close the title was, it is unfair to Max, to say that Lewis was robbed of the title, but he was definitely robbed of the race win. He and the team got all they could out of a car which had been severely hampered by the new regulations for 2021. This really was a year of young against old, and to begin with, Hamilton was being pushed around by the young pretender. Silverstone was where he tried to fight back, which didn’t go too well although he did gain points on him! Since then, he has played it safe in battles with Max, which went well for him mostly. I hope Lewis does return in 2022, with renewed vigour to get what he feels was probably taken from him unfairly. It was another alright season for Bottas, who like Perez could play wingman on certain occasions, yet other times was nowhere. You can see how the move to Alfa gave him more speed at Monza, clearly showing it was the right move, and he looks happier for it. He shouldn’t be disappointed with his time in the team, he was just up against one of the best ever! As for Mercedes, they were similar to Red Bull, with loads of great decisions, however, in moments like Brazil, they felt more harshly done by, than I feel is true. Similar is true of Abu Dhabi, but I can’t blame them much for that.

Only next year will be truly know if Ferrari are over the pain of 2020, yet the way they came through in the second half of this year especially, is testament to the leadership and sheer power of that organisation, and why I think they could be a threat next year. There was a limited amount that could be changed going into this year, so it was a great use of the tokens by Ferrari to maximise their impact. The drivers undoubtedly were a big part of the step up, as Vettel was nowhere near Leclerc in 2020, but Sainz has come out of the blocks and been right with him. Leclerc continues to be blistering on a Saturday, with two poles to his name, but mistakes and poor tyre wear have hurt him, he needs to grow slightly more to be a true superstar. It is easy to forget how experienced Sainz is, and this year that strength has shone through. He could be my pick for the title next year, once the issues with a new team have been ironed out.

What a weird year for McLaren! They were so fast early on, and got their first win since 2012, however, they will likely end the year disappointed, with finishing behind Ferrari. Seemingly the Ferrari engine upgrade took away the major advantage they had over the Italian team. They will see 2022 as an opportunity though, and have a lot to be proud of this year. As does Norris, who led the team for almost the whole year, and was the best driver of the first half of the season in my view. Luck then seemed to evade him as the year closed out, and the pit decision at Sochi was on both team and driver. There was a real worry halfway through the year, that Ricciardo would never get to grips with the McLaren. It seems to have got better though from the summer break onwards, although I am sure there is still more to come. Yes, Monza was lucky, but Daniel pounced at the opportunity, and earnt the win by holding them off.

Before Qatar, it seemed that Alpine were lucky to be in 5th for the constructors, as a lot of their points were from Hungary, where AlphaTauri had similar pace to them, but couldn’t get past slower cars. Now though, in the last part of the season, we have seen a return of their pace, which has been unbelievable at points. This is even more foreboding, bearing in mind how old most of their 2021 car was, so they could be a dark horse for 2022. Alonso on his return to F1 acted like he never left, with all the cunning, pace, and race craft we saw when he was last in the sport. It is nice to see he still has it, and with the right car could easily be right at the front. It was always going to be hard for Ocon to keep up with a 2 time champion, and at points in the year he was struggling, but he brought it back, and did show pace on occasion. To be honest though, I did expect more from a driver who was said to be the next big thing back in 2016, as one win doesn’t hide a season where he was beaten by a driver nearing the end of his career.

It is clear now that AlphaTauri were overhyped pre-season, as their high rake set up was not as powerful as first thought. That being said, if they had executed the season better, they should have got 5th in the constructors easily. Bahrain and Imola are two clear examples of this, and early on in the year, Gasly couldn’t back up his qualifying pace in the race. By the time he did, it was too late to take on Alpine, especially with their late spurt. Pierre had another excellent year, outperforming the car on a Saturday, he just seems to be stuck in AlphaTauri for the near future. For his rookie teammate, it did end well, however, for most of the season it was a disaster. Mostly down to overdriving the car, he was crashing a lot, and not finding pace either. Hopefully he can continue the form he found in the last few races, as when Honda goes, he will find it much harder to stay with Red Bull.

Off the back of the team’s best ever year in F1, the newly branded Aston Martin expected to continue that pace into this year. It wasn’t to be however, as they were the team hit hardest by the small rule changes for this season. They still had pretty good race pace, which is what saved their year really, but even that couldn’t get them above 7th. Vettel looks to be reborn at the team, and had great drives at Baku and Monaco, showing that he hadn’t lost it all at Ferrari. It was a shame that he couldn’t pass Ocon at Hungary, as it would have been a well-deserved win, although with the fuel issues, it could have hurt even more. Stroll has become a solid F1 driver, not far behind Vettel, and able to get good results when they are presented to him.

Alfa Romeo too had a mediocre year, and they can’t put this one down to the engine. It does feel as though the team has stagnated, after the boost the Alfa Romeo sponsorship brought. So, if a buyer such as Andretti does come along again, they have to see it is the best option for them. Kimi was clearly done with the sport early on in the year, there were odd good moments for him, but mostly he was just running around towards the back. It is a shame to see his career end this way, but I am sure he won’t care. For Giovinazzi, as much as people love him, he had his time in F1, and never really showed anything amazing to us, apart from after he had been fired. It’s a brutal business, and a new young star deserved to be there, although not Zhou.

It says a lot about 2021, that I had forgotten about Russell getting 2nd at Spa, although it can be argued if it was truly a second place. Even without that, Williams have had a superb year on track, with clear improvements all round for the team, and luck finally going their way. Obviously, the passing of Frank has put a dampener on it all, but at least he died knowing the team was on the way back to the front. Russell has been a star at the team, always pushing, despite spending most of the time towards the back. I can’t wait to see him in a Mercedes next year. Latifi is growing into F1, and was starting to get close to Russell towards the end of the year, so there shouldn’t be a pace vacuum at the team for 2022, especially with Albon joining.

We knew it would be bad for Haas, with a barely developed car, and two rookies, but even this was worse than expected. It wasn’t the driver’s fault really, apart from the crashes, the car just was so far behind the rest. Mick has been unsurprisingly quick, and hardworking, and that has yielded the odd Q2 result. He does have the potential to be a great F1 driver, he just needs to iron out the crashes. Mazepin has improved a lot over the year, although that says more about the start of the year than the end. The good thing is he is trying hard too, and has bettered his attitude it seems, so it may not be a bad 2022 for the team.

The way that history works, is that when we look back on 2021, whilst there will always be the caveat of the Abu Dhabi finish, people will mostly remember the good times, and the intense battle that went right down the last lap of the last race. A finale to rival Brazil 2008! So, just appreciate this year for the good times, instead of just focusing on the bad, which is easy to do with the world as it is right now. As for 2022, it’s a new era for the sport, and any one of a number of teams could come out the blocks best, will Verstappen or another young star confirm that the new generation are taking over the sport for good?

-M

[ilovejevsjeans]

IS RICCIARDO WORTH THE MONEY TO RENAULT?

Defining what a driver is worth to a team is a challenge, doubly so when it’s Daniel Ricciardo at Renault. If you’re talking about a driver like Lewis Hamilton who wins the majority of the races and the title, then by definition they are worth every penny, but with Renault known to be paying Ricciardo $25million per year for his two seasons how does that stack up?

Absolute results are of limited value as a measure and only really count when you are in a frontrunning team. Ricciardo isn’t and was never expected to be winning races within the scope of his two-year deal with Renault. What he was sold was a team with the potential to get to the front, with hoped-for progress in 2019-2020 leading to the promised land of the new rules in ’21.

Now, the new rules have been put back, Ricciardo is on his way to McLaren and Renault spent the first half of his time there getting nowhere – hence the desire to leave. But Renault is making progress, has beaten McLaren, which uses the same engine, in four of the last five races and now has a realistic chance of challenging for third in the constructors’ championship. This was the upward trajectory Ricciardo was supposed to be part of.

Ricciardo was recruited as a big-name star driver to help take Renault to the promised land not of a single third place, but something more than that. So has this spend been justified for the team or could it have been better used elsewhere?

Team principal Cyril Abiteboul, whose response to Ricciardo’s decision to leave lacked grace and showed how hard hit the team was by it, has talked up the value the Australian has brought.

“It’s equally important to the team, to Daniel, to myself also,” said Abieboul. “We’ve been questioned about this decision of him joining us and also his decision of joining the team – in both directions really.

“It was very important for everyone to put the commentators at bay and show why it made sense at the time. Yes, it was disappointing last year, you could argue that it was one year too early. But there’s not that many opportunities to have a driver like Daniel, who was available on the market.

“So I still believe that it was the right thing to do at the time. The team wouldn’t be what it is today without Daniel – and maybe thanks also to the year that we had together last year, which was indeed a very painful year, which has pushed all of us to take the measures that that we’ve taken, and also with the team in Enstone with Marcin Budkowski and so on and so forth.

“So now we are finding ourselves in a much better position for this year and for next year and Daniel is capable of doing this type of thing. So yes, it’s a statement.

“I know that our communication was a bit negative when we found out that he would not stay with the team at the time, but I think that it’s precisely because it was an honest, emotional, unfiltered communication at the time. Daniel is also being unfiltered and genuine in what he’s doing today for the team.”

It’s standard practice for a team boss to be positive about a driver after a result, particularly one who was at the forefront of the decision to spend such an enormous sum of money on that driver. But after the initial negative reaction, the fact the relationship between team and driver remains strong speaks volumes.

While at Ferrari, the team’s decision to drop Sebastian Vettel has caused endless friction, what happened at Renault has not had the same effect. Partly that reflects the nature of the characters involved, but crucially Ferrari has its spearhead in Charles Leclerc.

Ricciardo remains Renault’s spearhead and it’s logical for team and driver to want to get the best out of each other as the season runs down. As Ricciardo has stressed, every race counts in F1 and it serves him well to had to McLaren following a strong run of results.

So where would Renault have been without Ricciardo? Chances are, it would have continued to run Nico Hulkenberg and perhaps kept Carlos Sainz alongside him. If not, perhaps Esteban Ocon would have come in a year earlier.

The impact Sainz would have had is difficult to judge as he reached a higher level when he moved to McLaren – by his own admission the step he made from 2018 to 2019 after leaving Renault was the biggest he’d made in his career – but in his final Renault season Hulkenberg was the stronger driver. Maybe that would have continued to be the case in ’19 without the change of scenery.

As Hulkenberg and Ocon have both definitively performed at a lower level than Ricciardo in 2019 and 2020, it’s fair to conclude that the car is being driven a little faster thanks to its driver choice. Ricciardo is a seriously quick driver and given he’s competing in a part of the field where a tenth or two can make a big difference, that is having an impact.

Last year, he outscored Hulkenberg 54-37 after a shaky start and this year he’s 78-36 up on Ocon. He’s also forcing Ocon to work hard to improve himself. Ricciardo has outqualified his team-mate in all nine dry qualifying sessions but Ocon did get closer than ever in the recent race at the Nurburgring. A Hulkenberg/Ocon combination might never have pushed itself on in quite the same way.

Then there’s the effect on Renault. Having a proven race-winner is a boost for any team but the day-to-day realities of racing in F1 can soon replace that feeling. But Ricciardo is an energetic and inspiring character and during the early races when he was struggling to adapt to a car that was very limited on corner entry and not compatible with his style, his attitude ensured the team wanted him to do well. This might sound obvious, but many an experience and proven driver has had the opposite effect when they’ve joined an underachieving team.

This helped to create a constructive environment where Ricciardo was able to benchmark the performance of the Renault against his experience of the Red Bull. That kind of knowledge is valuable and can help to ensure the right characteristics are pursued and the correct changes are made.

That Renault has made a good step from 2019 to 2020 proves this. The car was immediately better in terms of getting the power down at corner exit, but subsequent improvements in terms of rear downforce, upgrade packages further forward on the car that have worked far better than last year’s attempts have made Renault into a genuine all-rounder.

The driver does not design or engineer the car, so the responsibility for these improvements lies within the walls of Enstone and Viry, but Ricciardo has had a key part to play in terms of input into this process. Not only does everyone know that he’s a winning driver, which gives his opinions great strength, but he appears to have remained constructive with his contributions even when frustrated.

What’s more, he’s also not been afraid to admit when he has underperformed, admitting early last year that he had been a little shocked by the challenge of stepping from a frontrunning car into a midfield one and that his job was to adapt rather than endlessly blame the machinery.

Ricciardo’s contribution has likely played a part in ensuring the team could sign Fernando Alonso for 2021. While Renault was the only realistic choice for his F1 comeback, it’s unlikely he would have seen the value in joining the team were it still performing as it did in 2019 – inconsistent and only really strong on low downforce tracks. Ricciardo has, in effect, helped to prepare the team to be able to recruit his illustrious replacement.

Is this all worth $50million? Only Abiteboul can really answer that but given Ricciardo has played a central role in the team eliminating the fundamental weaknesses it had – and as Abiteboul suggests, this also had a role in the technical personnel changes that have had some positive effect with far more to come – he’s certainly been worth something.

If that $50m has given Renault nowhere to hide, no easy get-out by blaming drivers and no excuse to disregard the start comparisons in terms of characteristics between its products and those winning races, then it has been money well spent.

After all, what price is $50m over two years for an F1 team if it ensures that it can now justifiably aspire to challenge for wins if it aces the 2022 regulations when it might otherwise have carried on going around in the same circles?

Ricciardo has not and could not have transformed the team and perhaps it would have got to this point itself regardless of his presence. But his superb performances behind the wheel, which have been consistently good from the middle of last season onwards, his effervescent attitude and vast experience from Red Bull have allowed him to make an important contribution.

The team will have plenty of personnel who would argue their department could have done more with that amount of money spent on more facilities or more people – but that’s always the case regardless of how much you are spending on drivers.

And despite the age-old complaints of it all being about the car, the driver is the biological heart of the machine who must bring it all together and extract the potential. For its money Renault got exactly what it paid for – one of F1’s best drivers who has got the best out of it race after race this season. That’s all you can really ask for from a driver – and Ricciardo has delivered that and more. (X)

[slow-button-off]

Laurent Mekies-TP press conference- Mood in the team, Carlos and the Car and leadership

Q: Thank you. And on the evidence of yesterday, Ferrari are living up to their pre-race favourites tag. Is the car performing as you'd hoped? Is there more to come? Just can you give us an assessment of where you're at?  LM: The day was positive yesterday in the way that we completed our programme. We know yesterday's picture is not the picture we'll have today, because it's going to be probably, you know, much colder and rainy today. And even if it's race is going to come dry tomorrow, we expect much cooler temperatures. Nonetheless, the drivers were comfortable with the car, we have made small steps forward with it. And now it's all about trying to be able to anticipate what the condition change is going to do to your set-up, to your performance windows and I think that's what we're all trying to focus on right now.

Q: Laurent, what is the mood in the camp? LM: The mood in the camp is as high as it gets, because people like Charles, Carlos, Mattia, these guys are driving the team in all situations. You have the good moments, you have the bad moments and I think the difference comes from this sort of leadership, when they are able, whatever happens, to press the reset button, to bring everybody together, to look back at what happened, to learn from it and to go and look to the next race with a smile and with more motivation than the race before.

Q: (Claire Cottingham – Racefans.net)  Laurent, we're seeing a lot of mistakes coming from Ferrari in France, especially Carlos being told he had a different penalty on the radio. I just wondered if Ferrari are feeling the pressure at this point and what you're doing moving forward after the summer break to kind of stamp out these small mistakes that might be costing you a couple of points here and there. LM: I think the France/Carlos radio message example is a good one of how different situations can be, seen inside the teams and outside teams. I think what you describe was simply the result of the radio message being broadcast 30 or 40 seconds after what had really happened. And if you had to go back there, you will call Carlos back exactly as we did and do the pitstop exactly as we did so it just shows how difficult nowadays, in a complex sport, it is to understand the reasons behind a strategy or another. That being said, we've lost quite a few points this year. We have reliability issues, we have a few things that we need to be better at. And yes, we are working extremely hard on it, it does not increase the pressure because the pressure is maximum all the time because it's a competitive world and that's the way we like it anyway but it's a positive pressure, it's what pushes us to improve race after race, and it's with that spirit that we approach Budapest. 

Q: (Laurie Vermeersch – F1Only.fr)  Laurent, Carlos Sainz showed super pace in the last races. He won in Silverstone, he has a good pace in Austria before the DNF, he has a super bass in France. He helped Charles to  the pole position in qualifying. Can we say now that he’s becoming the leader of the team?  LM: So at first you are  very right in saying that Carlos has had three extremely strong weekends:  Silverstone, Austria, France.  We are very, very happy with that.  It did not show up so much on the final race classifications besides Silverstone because we had other things to deal with. But you are very right in saying that he has made great progress since the start of the seasons.  We made no secret at the beginning of the year that naturally the car was not suiting him very well.  We had to work a lot with him, with his engineers, with everybody back in Maranello to make sure we can give him something he is more comfortable with. And these things take time. And slowly, it seems that we are heading towards the right direction, which is another great sign for the team and the way we interact. So I think that's where it is. Does it make somebody a leader or not? No, it doesn't, it is not what makes a leader or not.  We know we have two very, very good drivers. We treat them in a way that we can maximise our championship positions and we want them as fast as they can possibly be.

[thisdaynews]

French Grand Prix: All you need to know

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/french-grand-prix-all-you-need-to-know/

French Grand Prix: All you need to know

Sunday’s race is live on 5 live and the BBC Sport website at 14:10 BST

As Lewis Hamilton began his television interview immediately after taking pole position for the French Grand Prix, his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas crouched down by the side of the track. He was looking in Hamilton’s general direction, but staring into the middle distance, his face set.

Bottas looked for all the world like a man who knew his championship hopes were slipping away before his eyes. And perhaps because that’s the way it looks to everyone else as well.

The Finn came into this race 29 points behind Hamilton, and really needs to beat him on Sunday to pump some life back into his title challenge.

For much of the weekend, it had looked as if Bottas would start in the best possible way, with pole position. He had a small but decisive pace advantage, and Hamilton appeared to be struggling with his car, a big spin in second practice only the biggest piece of evidence for that.

But then in final qualifying, Hamilton brought his ‘A game’. A small deficit became a significant advantage, and his 86th career pole position – ponder that for a moment, it’s at least 18 clear of anyone else – was in the bag.

If Hamilton can convert that into a lead at the first corner, the win – a sixth in eight races – is surely in the bag, barring misfortune. For Bottas, even if he finishes second, it will be a long way back from there, against an adversary so formidable, in the same car, with no-one else threatening to regularly get in amongst the silver cars.

Lewis Hamilton on French Grand Prix pole

Chequered Flag podcast: French Grand Prix Preview

‘Bottas has to play hardball’

Circuit Paul Ricard: there is margin for error. It’s just that Hamilton doesn’t really make any

How Bottas’ hopes have unravelled

Bottas has not done a lot wrong this year; far from it. For much of it, he has looked a different driver from the man who faded so badly in the second half of 2018, and in qualifying he has been very close to Hamilton. In fact, until this pole position for the Briton, Bottas was actually slightly ahead on average qualifying pace. Now, it’s Hamilton who has the edge – by 0.06secs.

He has been toe-to-toe with Hamilton at most races. They have three poles each so far. After four races, Bottas was leading the championship by a point, the two men had two wins each, and a title challenge for Bottas looked very much on.

But since then, things have slowly slipped from his grasp. A second place in Spain behind Hamilton was followed by an unlucky third in Monaco, which would have been second but for a puncture caused by a collision in the pits with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Then, an off weekend in Canada really did the damage. Qualifying sixth after a spin, he lacked pace in the race and could finish only a lacklustre fourth. Hamilton, meanwhile, is on a run of three wins in a row, even if he owes one of them to Sebastian Vettel’s error, off-track moment and subsequent controversial penalty in Montreal.

All the while, Hamilton, who has admitted to struggling to get the best out of the car in qualifying, is giving the impression of slowly getting on top of it.

As he has proved so often in the last few years, once he has worked out how to get the best out of his Mercedes, he is close to unstoppable, and he looks to be building up that sort of momentum now. Bottas needs to find a way to try to stop it at Paul Ricard on Sunday.

“Not happy about today,” he said, “but ready to give it all tomorrow. Never give up. It’s a nice long run into Turn One, so hopefully I can do something there.”

For his sake, he needs to.

French Grand Prix qualifying results

BBC coverage of French Grand Prix

Hamilton has won five of the seven races this season

How Hamilton did it

After qualifying, Bottas said it was a change in wind direction for the final session that put him off his stride. Wind can seriously affect the sensitive aerodynamics of F1 cars, especially at an exposed track such as Ricard, and a number of drivers spoke of it making things difficult in Q3.

Hamilton, though, adapted better. He was ahead after the first runs, and while both drivers had moments in the penultimate corner on their second runs, Hamilton still improved. Bottas’ lap was already a scrappy one, and it ended his chances altogether.

“The first lap was fantastic, really, really happy with it,” Hamilton said. “However, I knew it was still relatively close and I needed to find some more areas in which I could improve. I went out for that second run.

“The second run, I was on for one of the best laps I have done for a long time. And it’s crazy: it never gets old, it never gets easier, and it’s always such a challenge, regardless of what position you are battling for.

“I was up four-and-a-half tenths coming into the second-to-last corner, but it’s really gusty out there, and I think I just lost the back end, partly through that or maybe going too quick.”

For Hamilton, the weekend started with him missing the media day on Thursday to attend Paris fashion week and, particularly, a memorial for the late fashion mogul Karl Lagerfeld, who died earlier this year.

As ever, there were those who criticised both Hamilton for doing it, and Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff for allowing it.

But after qualifying, Wolff expounded on his philosophy – which he says extends to everyone in the team – to give people the space they need to work in the best way they can.

For Hamilton, he says, this means, “not putting him in a corset”. Wolff gave the example of Singapore last year, which was preceded by Hamilton flying to Shanghai and New York to launch his fashion collection, then back to Asia for the race. There was criticism then, but Hamilton produced what Wolff described on Saturday as his “best ever” weekend.

France, Wolff said, was “another example”. For Bottas, it must be a dispiriting sight on occasion.

That’s more like it from Leclerc

Leclerc’s talent is evident, but so have been his mistakes this season

Bottas was not the only man who needed a good weekend in France. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was another.

The 21-year-old has had a difficult few races and he came into this weekend 6-1 down to team-mate Sebastian Vettel in qualifying. No matter that the raw stats did not reflect the reality of the underlying performance, Leclerc realised he needed to sort out his qualifying form, and – refreshingly open and honest – he admitted it publicly.

His focus, he said, was on ensuring he got the car in the right place in final qualifying and – even more importantly – cut out the errors, small and big, that have blighted his season so far.

Leclerc was true to his word. Not for the first time, he looked to have the edge on Vettel leading up to qualifying, but this time he delivered on his potential, while the German had a weak session, complaining of losing momentum, and an inability to get a consistent feel for the car.

“I am pretty happy with the qually today and overall the weekend has been quite good,” Leclerc said. “One thing I focused on and we did well today was the set-up for Q3. Finally I have a car I was happy with in Q3 and that was my focus for this weekend but we need to confirm it at the next race.”

He is aware that challenging Mercedes in the race is unlikely to happen, but a solid run to third, with Vettel behind him, might be just what he needs as a springboard for the rest of the season.

McLaren edging back to form

It has been four seasons since McLaren last qualified higher than fifth on the grid

No prizes for identifying the stars of qualifying – McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz in fifth and sixth, the Briton just 0.009secs behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

Their performance not only underlined what has been an extremely impressive start to his grand prix career for Norris, but also the progress McLaren have made since the dark days of last year, when for the second half of the year they looked to have arguably the worst car on the grid.

Now, their car is on average the fourth fastest, and it is improving all the time. This was not the closest they have been to pole in percentage terms – Sainz’s qualifying in Bahrain pipped it – but it was a mark of the steps forward they have been making with the car that it came at Ricard, a track where, according to new team boss Andreas Seidl, they expected to struggle, as it should have exposed what until now were weaknesses in the car’s behaviour.

As befits their new modus operandi, the team are not getting carried away with it. For the race, Norris said it “doesn’t look like we could fight with Red Bull, but you never know”.

He added: “If we can just get some good points, if we can race the Red Bulls and kind of be around them, I think we can be happy.”

Seidl has been tasked with identifying McLaren’s deficits in infrastructure, and he revealed on Saturday that a decision had been made recently to build a new wind tunnel at their Woking base.

It should come on stream in two years’ time, and end their reliance on the Toyota tunnel in Cologne, which they have been using for nearly 10 years now, in what in old McLaren-speak might have been termed a “sub-optimal situation”, regardless of the Toyota tunnel’s quality.

McLaren might “still have a long way to go to catch the top cars”, as Seidl puts it, but they are clearly very much back on the right track.

Read More

[ultrasfcb-blog]

Formula 1: Is Kimi Raikkonen right to stay in F1? - Jolyon Palmer

Formula 1: Is Kimi Raikkonen right to stay in F1? - Jolyon Palmer

Formula 1: Is Kimi Raikkonen right to stay in F1? – Jolyon Palmer

Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer, who left Renault during the 2017 season, has joined the BBC team to offer insight and analysis from the point of view of the competitors.

The Singapore Grand Prix wasn’t a classic by any means. Lewis Hamilton took a good step closer to the title with a dominant victory, but while the 2018 title fight is starting to fizzle out, there is already plenty to get excited about for 2019.

This year’s driver-transfer market has probably been the most interesting I can remember. There have been so many switches, resulting in plenty of new pairings and match-ups that will be fascinating to watch in 2019. It looks like of all 10 teams, only Mercedes will remain unchanged.

The most exciting changes for me are two movers into top teams – Charles Leclerc to Ferrari and Pierre Gasly to Red Bull.

Why it’s good to take risks on drivers

It is always interesting to see new, young faces in top drives, and down the years it’s actually been very rare that a young star has failed to deliver when a top team has taken a risk on them.

In the last decade, Red Bull took a chance with Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel and McLaren with Lewis Hamilton, and all went on to win races or championships for those teams and be extremely successful.

The only exceptions have probably been Daniil Kvyat – who arguably was promoted too soon at Red Bull in 2015 and subsequently dropped – and Heikki Kovalainen, who replaced Fernando Alonso at McLaren in 2008.

Kovalainen won a race and Kvyat had a few podiums, but they both failed to reach the heights expected of them at the time of the move.

All in all, the stats say that teams who make bold driver choices benefit from them. I think it’s not only good for the sport to see new faces in the hunt to win races in the top teams, but it’s also good for those teams as well.

Leclerc the right call for Ferrari

Twenty-year-old Sauber driver Charles Leclerc, will partner Sebastian Vettel in 2019

A couple of months ago, Vettel stated a preference to retain Kimi Raikkonen as his team-mate next year. Of course he would. As a driver, you are always compared to your team-mate and Vettel has had the measure of Raikkonen for four years now.

Raikkonen is a fair driver, who doesn’t involve himself in too much politics and gets on with Vettel. It’s a harmonious relationship within the team, but a fresh new youngster will be a different thing for Vettel to deal with and he may need to up his game again.

After Vettel had won four straight world championships at Red Bull, Ricciardo replaced the retiring Mark Webber as his team-mate in 2014 and immediately beat the German, in a team that was built around him after a dominant era.

Ferrari are poised to see another title slip through their hands right now as Hamilton seems imperious and Vettel has made a few too many mistakes in comparison this year.

Vettel’s errors ultimately may end up costing him this title, but overall he has been extremely good. The fact he is still 67 points ahead of Raikkonen in spite of those mistakes tells you the level he can operate at. But Hamilton’s season has been unbelievable, faultless; his best in Formula 1 in my opinion.

Fresh motivation and impetus in the team for next year in the form of the very promising rookie Leclerc is a big step in the right direction for Ferrari.

Red Bull’s case is different because they were forced to replace Ricciardo after his decision to switch to Renault.

Gasly also a good call for Red Bull

French driver Pierre Gasly will replace the departing Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull next season

I’m sure Red Bull would have preferred to keep their race winning Australian, but Ricciardo’s surprise switch to Renault (another exciting prospect and story for the neutral to see in 2019) meant they had a natural choice between Gasly and Carlos Sainz.

They chose Gasly, another driver with an impressive rookie campaign under his belt at Toro Rosso, and I look forward to seeing how he gets on alongside Verstappen next year.

Like Ferrari, Red Bull are a team who need a fresh new impetus after a disappointing season this year. A switch to Honda engines for 2019 is a big deal, but a new driver line-up will also give them a fresh start to build for the future again in a new era for the team.

Some great talent missing out

Overall, it’s been a positive driver market, with plenty of changes at the front end of the grid, and still some seats to be settled further back as well.

But there’s a log jam of extremely good talent coming through that is a bit of an underlying frustration, mainly for Toto Wolff, whose Mercedes team have plenty of them on their roster.

Esteban Ocon, a Mercedes junior, is set to lose his seat at Force India and have no 2019 F1 drive at all. This would be a big shame for the sport. And George Russell, the current Formula 2 championship leader, is struggling to make the natural step up to F1.

For Ocon, his performances have made him worthy of a top drive in F1, but he has the doors closed off from the main Mercedes team for next year at least by their decision to retain Hamilton and Bottas for 2019.

Russell, meanwhile, is below Ocon in the Mercedes pecking order. Recent reports have linked him to a seat at Williams for next year to replace Lance Stroll, who is surely bound for Force India – now owned by his father. If Russell and Williams can make a deal work, it would be a great step for the promising Brit.

All the latest F1 Gossip

A seat in F1 is unbelievably tough to achieve. There are only 20 in the world, and at grass roots go-karting there are millions of young drivers who all aspire to get there at what will be a cost that varies between reasonable and huge.

I dreamt of being an F1 driver from an extremely young age, but in reality I never thought I would actually get there. The stats speak for themselves and it is an almost impossible challenge.

Only once I was winning GP2 – the forerunner of F2 – in 2014 did I think it could realistically happen.

Every step a driver moves up the ladder, the dream becomes more of a reality. But even winning F2 is not enough these days. When I was GP2 champion in 2014 I needed a year as an F1 reserve in 2015 to get a chance (as well as a reasonable amount of good fortune). It was the same for both Vandoorne and Gasly in the following years.

That’s why there’s a frustration when drivers who are under performing stay in F1, because the talent pool coming through is so vast and so good.

Should Raikkonen have quit?

Raikkonen signing for Sauber on a two-year deal is a strange one for me, and many in the paddock were surprised by the move as well.

Having driven in top F1 machinery since his switch to McLaren in 2002, Raikkonen is stepping back to a midfield team, with next to no hope of a podium despite Sauber’s recent progress.

Yes, Raikkonen was on pole at Monza earlier this month, setting the fastest lap ever set in a Formula 1 car, narrowly pipping Vettel and Hamilton. But that was only his second pole position in more than 10 years, while Vettel has had five this year alone.

Raikkonen’s lap of one minute 19.119 seconds meant he averaged 163.793mph

On the whole, Raikkonen has had a brilliant F1 career. I remember growing up watching him putting in some mesmerising performances for McLaren, before winning his title with Ferrari in 2007. And he has generated a huge and loyal fanbase with his trademark ‘ice man’ personality.

But the results haven’t been there of recent years. He hasn’t outperformed a team-mate since the first half of 2013 against Grosjean in the Lotus. In 2014, he scored a third of the points of team-mate Fernando Alonso on his return to Ferrari.

Mercifully for him, Alonso left at the end of the year and he has been closer to Vettel since. But only in 2016 has Raikkonen got within 100 points of his team-mate at the end of the year. This year is going a similar way, with the gap between the two up at 67 points now with six races left.

Raikkonen will be 41 by the time his two-year contract at Sauber expires, and with drivers’ careers extending ever further it makes it that much harder for new talent to make the grid.

If they are still at the top of their game, as Alonso appears to be at 37, with a brilliant seventh place for McLaren in Singapore on Sunday, then of course there’s no reason to stop. Although, ironically, Alonso has decided to call time on F1 at the end of the year.

But for Raikkonen, bar the odd flash of pace, it feels like his best was a while ago.

Nonetheless his experience could help Sauber develop in the short term, as long as he can retain motivation in a car in which he will probably do well to score points.

And although it’s surprising, it is nice to see that Raikkonen really is still in love with F1 and the thrill of driving.

Big hopes for Norris

Meet Lando Norris – McLaren’s new kid on the block

The final exciting mover over the summer, especially from a British point of view is Lando Norris moving to McLaren to replace Vandoorne.

I have sympathy for Vandoorne because I know how good he can be, and for some reason he hasn’t been able to deliver that at McLaren against Alonso. I hope he can find a seat elsewhere to prove himself, but it isn’t looking too likely right now.

Norris, on the other hand, is a reason for British fans to get excited. Currently second in F2 behind Russell, he has won every single-seater category he’s raced in at the first attempt. While he’s enjoyed a vast amount of testing in all series he’s competed in as well, he’s made the most of it with some dominant displays.

His ability in the wet is plain to see, and for me that signals a natural talent, an innate ability to find grip and balance within a car. That’s the stuff that you can’t really teach a driver.

With McLaren going backwards this year, it isn’t ideal timing, but as I said above, just to get into F1 is phenomenally hard in itself and Norris now has a platform where he can show off what he can do to the world.

When Hamilton won GP2 and was promoted to McLaren in 2007, he had the benefit of a lot of testing and a race-winning car. Norris will not have either, but he will also have less pressure and that can have benefits as well.

The icing on the cake for the UK and motorsport on the whole would be for Russell to join him on the grid, making three British drivers for the first time since 2016.

BBC Sport – Formula 1 ultras_FC_Barcelona

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#Barcelona

[f1]

FP1: Verstappen comfortably leads Perez and Ocon during first practice session in Barcelona

Max Verstappen picked up from where he left off last weekend in Monte Carlo, to top the timesheets of the first practice session, comfortably ahead of his Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon in preparation for this weekend’s action in Spain. Under the baking hot Spanish sun, which saw track temperatures reaching as high as 43C, it proved to be ideal temperatures for the drivers to test the new Pirelli tyre construction ahead of them being used at next month's race at Silverstone. READ MORE: Verstappen sets simple target for rest of the season as he ponders whether Red Bull can win every race in 2023 Many of the drivers opted to start the day with a run on the prototype tyres before switching to the mediums, with Verstappen setting the early pace ahead of both his former and current Red Bull team mates Pierre Gasly and Perez. 1 Max Verstappen VER Red Bull Racing 1:14.606 2 Sergio Perez PER Red Bull Racing +0.768s 3 Esteban Ocon OCO Alpine +0.812s 4 Nyck De Vries DEV AlphaTauri +0.898s 5 Pierre Gasly GAS Alpine +0.939s The Red Bull pair then made the early switch to the soft tyre, with Perez going to the top of the leaderboard, only for Verstappen to set a time of 1m 14.606s, eclipsing his team mate’s time by a whopping 0.768s, just moments later. Fresh from finishing on the podium last time out in Monaco, Esteban Ocon was third fastest, ahead of the surprise package of AlphaTauri's Nyck de Vries in fourth, and his Alpine team mate Gasly in fifth. READ MORE: 'A step in a different direction' – Sainz hopeful Ferrari can 'get the season' going in Barcelona with first major upgrade of the year Home favourite Fernando Alonso was sixth fastest for Aston Martin, ahead of Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, and the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in eighth and ninth, respectively – with Sainz the lone Ferrari running their upgraded package in FP1. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton – a six-time winner in Barcelona – were 10th and 12th, respectively, for Mercedes with the McLaren of Lando Norris between them. Nyck de Vries enjoyed a strong session for AlphaTauri at FP1 in Spain Zhou Guanyu, in the Alfa Romeo, was 13th quickest, ahead of the other AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunoda, and the other Aston Martin of Lance Stroll down in 15th. Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas was 16th, ahead of McLaren rookie Oscar Piastri in 17th, the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg, with the Williams pair of Logan Sargeant and Alex Albon at the bottom of the field. Join us again at 1700 local time for the second practice session ahead of this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix. via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com