Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2014/09/19/fia-switches-radio-ban-focus-to-driver-coaching/
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Ricciardo happy without Red Bull team orders
Daniel Ricciardo says he is happy for Red Bull to avoid implementing team orders to aid his slim title chances so he can continue to earn victories on merit against Sebastian Vettel
Source: http://en.espnf1.com/redbull/motorsport/story/175617.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
Friday, September 19, 2014
Ricciardo not worried by FP1 issues
Daniel Ricciardo says he is not concerned by the engine issues he suffered in FP1 after recovering to make the top ten by Friday afternoon's session at Monza
Source: http://en.espnf1.com/italy/motorsport/story/173899.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
WTCC: RML upgrades WTCC Chevrolets
RML has introduced a performance upgrade for its Chevrolet Cruze customer teams ahead of the World Touring Car Championship's end of season Asian rounds
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Massa baffled by stewards' leniency with Rosberg
Felipe Massa does not understand why Nico Rosberg was not punished by the stewards at the Belgian Grand Prix for his contact with Lewis Hamilton
Source: http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/173619.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Aggressive strategy cost Vettel in battle with Ricciardo
Sebastian Vettel claims that chasing down the McLarens was part of the reason his tyres started to go off towards the end of the Italian Grand Prix when he lost fifth place to team-mate Daniel Ricciardo
Source: http://en.espnf1.com/italy/motorsport/story/174565.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
'The point of no confidence is quite near'
 The wreckage of Jochen Rindt's car at Barcelona |
“Colin. I have been racing F1 for 5 years and I have made one mistake (I rammed Chris Amon in Clermont Ferrand) and I had one accident in Zandvoort due to gear selection failure otherwise I managed to stay out of trouble. This situation changed rapidly since I joined your team. “Honestly your cars are so quick that we would still be competitive with a few extra pounds used to make the weakest parts stronger, on top of that I think you ought to spend some time checking what your different employes are doing, I sure the wishbones on the F2 car would have looked different. Please give my suggestions some thought, I can only drive a car in which I have some confidence, and I feel the point of no confidence is quite near.”A little more than a year later Rindt's Lotus suffered mechanical breakdown just before braking into one of the corners. He swerved violently to the left and crashed into a poorly-installed barrier, killing him instantly.
Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/09/the_point_of_no_confidence_is.php
US F1 still has 2011 hopes
A company that hired two engineers from the failed 2010 entrant US F1 says the team still wants to race in Formula One
Source: http://en.espnf1.com/teamus/motorsport/story/11408.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
Monday, September 15, 2014
Hamilton makes fast start at Monza in FP1
Lewis Hamilton topped the opening practice session at the Italian Grand Prix as he sets about clawing back some of the 29-point deficit to Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg this weekend
Source: http://en.espnf1.com/italy/motorsport/story/173793.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
F1: Mercedes appoints Wehrlein as reserve
Mercedes has appointed DTM race winner Pascal Wehrlein as its Formula 1 reserve driver.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Hamilton's tough decision
Since BBC Sport chief analyst Eddie Jordan reported on this website last week that Lewis Hamilton was on the verge of switching to Mercedes from McLaren next year, Formula 1 has been awash with speculation about the 2008 world champion's future.
McLaren did their best at last weekend's Italian Grand Prix to dismiss the story - team boss Martin Whitmarsh even joked: "Any sentence that begins, 'Eddie Jordan understands' is immediately questionable, isn't it?"
But it was noticeable that not only did McLaren not deny the story was true, they said very little to suggest Hamilton was staying with them.
From Whitmarsh, it was: "Lewis and his management have made their position clear to us", "my understanding is we're talking to him" and "I'm pretty convinced we will have a very good, competitive driving line-up next year."
None of which translates as "Hamilton is staying".
Hamilton was triumphant at Monza, but how many more races will he win with McLaren? Photo: Getty
As for the doubts cast on the veracity of the story, the source is strong and credible, and the core information - that Hamilton has agreed terms on a contract with Mercedes for next year - is based in fact.
That does not necessarily mean Hamilton will move but it does mean he is thinking about it seriously. And you can make what you will of his downbeat behaviour throughout the Monza weekend - even after he won the race.
In the paddock, the general view was that a move would be a mistake - but it is a much more complicated decision than that.
Firstly, McLaren have undoubtedly been more competitive than Mercedes in the last three years. Between them, Hamilton and team-mate Jenson Button have won 16 races since the start of 2010; Mercedes only one, with Nico Rosberg in China this season.
Over an extended period, McLaren have a winning pedigree beyond that of any other team. Only Ferrari have won more grands prix, and they have been in F1 for 16 years longer.
Hamilton, who has been nurtured by the team since he was 13, says: "I want to win." On pure performance, there's only one choice, right?
In F1, things are rarely that simple.
Yes, McLaren usually have a good car, but until this year it had been a long time since they had unquestionably the best.
It was close with Ferrari in 2007-8, although hindsight would suggest now that the McLaren was probably not quite as good then. In which case, you probably have to go back to 2005 to find the last time McLaren had conclusively the fastest car in F1.
This is known to have irked Hamilton in 2010-11, and played some part in the cocktail of issues that led to his difficult season last year, when his frustration at the car's inability to compete for the title and problems with his family and his girlfriend led to what he admitted was his worst season in the sport.
That all changed this season. The McLaren is again setting the pace. But a series of operational problems in the opening races badly affected Hamilton, costing him 40 points. Add those points to his current total and he would be leading Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, not trailing him by a win and a fourth place.
Hamilton has done well to disguise his disappointment publicly, but it was around this time that his management started approaching McLaren's rivals about job opportunities.
On top of that, McLaren are entering an uncertain period. For the first time next year, they will have to pay for their Mercedes engines - that's in the region of eight million euros they cannot spend on the performance of the car unless they find it from other sources.
Tied in with this is the question of salary. McLaren have made it clear they cannot afford Hamilton at any price. The word is they have offered him a cut in money for next season, on the basis that they cannot afford anything more. This might be offset by other compromises, such as over PR appearances, flights and so on.
Already on about half of what Alonso earns at Ferrari, one can imagine how that has gone down with Hamilton - especially as McLaren's portfolio of sponsors makes it very difficult for a driver to do personal deals elsewhere to top up his earnings. That's because almost anywhere he looks there's a clash with a company that has links with McLaren.
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Meanwhile, Mercedes are by definition a "works" team with factory engines, have the might of an automotive giant behind them. They can pay Hamilton a lot more than his current salary - believed to be about £13m - if they want to. And at Mercedes there is also a lot more freedom for a driver to do personal sponsorship deals.
The funding for Mercedes' F1 team comes entirely from external sponsors - and the budget is reputedly significantly less than enjoyed by Red Bull and Ferrari. But it is underwritten by the parent company so even if there is a sponsorship shortfall it doesn't affect the team.
Performance-wise, the team that is now Mercedes actually won the world title more recently than McLaren, when they were Brawn in 2009. Ironically, the man who won it was Button. His success - and what he interpreted as the team's ambivalence about him staying - led to him moving to McLaren.
Admittedly, Brawn's success in 2009 was tainted by the row over double-diffusers that clouded that season. Once everyone had them, the car was no longer as competitive as it had been.
Mercedes have certainly been under-performing since then, but that can at least partly be explained by the fact that Brawn, facing serious financial problems, slashed their staff by 40% in 2009. As Mercedes, they have been slowly building levels up again.
The pressure on the team to up their game is massive - hence the huge investment in terms of staffing and resources in the last 18 months or so.
And while they are a long way behind McLaren this season, they are on an upward trend, even if it is significantly slower than either the team or the Mercedes board would like.
Equally, few in F1 would disagree that Hamilton is one of the three best drivers in the world, alongside Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. Mercedes don't have any of them.
It's impossible to know how much faster the car would go in their hands than it has done so far in those of Rosberg and Michael Schumacher. Some might argue not at all. But, that's not how Hamilton, who raced and beat Rosberg in their formative years, will look at it.
Add all that up, and the decision doesn't seem so easy after all.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/hamiltons_tough_decision.html
FIA inspects US F1 factory
The FIA has sent technical delegate Charlie Whiting to inspect US F1's factory, after reports suggested the Charlotte-based squad is way behind on its chassis build and in financial trouble
Source: http://en.espnf1.com/teamus/motorsport/story/9521.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
Saturday, September 13, 2014
FIA to limit radio transmissions on car performance
Formula One racing's governing body, the FIA, has informed the teams that they must refrain from making pit-to-car radio transmissions relating to the performance of the car or driver.
The move follows recent media scrutiny about the amount of information being given to drivers by their race engineers, particularly in terms of how they can gain lap time
The move follows recent media scrutiny about the amount of information being given to drivers by their race engineers, particularly in terms of how they can gain lap time
Source: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2014/9/16343.html
Ferrari downplay lack of F1 experience
Ferrari have played down the lack of F1 experience of their new top dogs after Sergio Marchionne was named as di Montezemolo's replacement...
Source: http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3370/9464130/Ferrari-downplay-lack-of-F1-experience
Friday, September 12, 2014
Coulthard slams 'irresponsible' approach to new teams
David Coulthard has added his voice to those expressing concern about the presence of three new Formula One team on the grid this season
Source: http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/10465.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Never forget how great Michael Schumacher was
Michael Schumacher was given a round of applause by the assembled media after he finished the prepared statement with which he announced his second retirement from Formula 1 at the Japanese Grand Prix on Thursday.
It was a mark of the respect still held for Schumacher and a reflection of the appreciation for what was clearly an emotional moment for the man whose seven world titles re-wrote the sport's history books.
Schumacher stumbled a couple of times as he read off the paper in front of him and once, as he mentioned the support of his wife Corinna, his voice almost cracked.
Once through the statement and on to a question-and-answer session with the journalists, he was more comfortable, relaxed in a way he has so often been since his comeback, and so rarely was in the first stint of his career.
Schumacher's retirement from the Singapore Grand Prix had a familiar look to it. Photo: Getty
The Schumacher who returned to Formula 1 in 2010 with Mercedes was quite different from the one who finished his first career with Ferrari in 2006.
The new Schumacher was more human, more open and more likeable.
As he put it himself on Thursday: "In the past six years I have learned a lot about myself, for example that you can open yourself without losing focus, that losing can be both more difficult and more instructive than winning. Sometimes I lost this out of sight in the earlier years."
Most importantly, though, the new Schumacher was nowhere near as good.
In every way possible, there is no other way to view his return to F1 than as a failure.
When he announced his comeback back in December 2009, he talked about winning the world title. Instead, he has scored one podium in three years, and in that period as a whole he has been trounced by team-mate Nico Rosberg in terms of raw pace. In their 52 races together, Schumacher has out-qualified his younger compatriot only 15 times.
It is ironic, then, that there have been marked signs of improvement from Schumacher this season. In 14 races so far, he has actually out-qualified Rosberg eight-six.
And although Rosberg has taken the team's only win - in China earlier this year, when he was demonstrably superior all weekend - arguably Schumacher has been the better Mercedes driver this year.
Schumacher has suffered by far the worst of the team's frankly unacceptable reliability record and would almost certainly have been ahead of Rosberg in the championship had that not been the case. And he might even have won in Monaco had not a five-place grid penalty demoted him from pole position.
That penalty, though, was given to Schumacher for an accident he caused at the previous race in Spain, when he rammed into the back of Williams driver Bruno Senna having misjudged his rival's actions.
That was only one of four similar incidents in the last 18 months that have crystallised the impression that the time was approaching where Schumacher should call it a day.
It is unfortunate timing, to say the least, that the last of those incidents happened less than two weeks ago in Singapore, almost as if it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
That was not the case, of course. Schumacher has been vacillating on his future for months and in the end his hand was forced. Mercedes signed Lewis Hamilton and Schumacher was left with the decision of trying to get a drive with a lesser team or quitting. He made the right call.
His struggles since his return have had an unfortunate effect on Schumacher's legacy. People within F1 - people with the highest regard for his achievements - have begun to question what went before.
There have always been question marks over his first title with Benetton in 1994, given the highly controversial nature of that year. Illegal driver aids were found in the car, but Benetton were not punished because governing body the FIA said they could find no proof they had been used.
But since 2010 people have begun to look back at the dominant Ferrari era of the early 2000s, when Schumacher won five titles in a row, and begun to wonder aloud just how much of an advantage he had.
It was the richest team, they had unlimited testing and bespoke tyres. Did this, people have said, mean Schumacher was not as good as he had looked?
If you watched him during his first career, though, you know how ridiculous an assertion this is. Schumacher in his pomp was undoubtedly one of the very greatest racing drivers there has ever been, a man who was routinely, on every lap, able to dance on a limit accessible to almost no-one else.
Sure, the competition in his heyday was not as deep as it is now, but Schumacher performed miracles with a racing car that stands comparison with the greatest drives of any era.
Victories such as his wet-weather domination of Spain in 1996, his incredible fightback in Hungary in 1998, his on-the-limit battle with Mika Hakkinen at Suzuka that clinched his first title in 2000 were tours de force. And there were many more among that astonishing total of 91 victories.
So too, as has been well documented, was there a dark side to Schumacher, and it was never far away through his first career.
Most notoriously, he won his first world title after driving Damon Hill off the road. He failed to pull off a similar stunt in 1997 with Jacques Villeneuve. And perhaps most pernicious of all, he deliberately parked his car in Monaco qualifying in 2006 to stop Fernando Alonso taking pole position from him.
Those were just the most extreme examples of a modus operandi in which Schumacher seemed often to act without morals, a man who was prepared to do literally anything to win, the sporting personification of Machiavelli's prince, for whom the ends justified the means.
Those acts continue to haunt Schumacher today, and even now he still refuses to discuss them, won't entertain the prospect of saying sorry.
"We are all humans and we all make mistakes," he said at Suzuka on Thursday. "And with hindsight you would probably do it differently if you had a second opportunity, but that's life."
He was given a second opportunity at F1, and he took it because in three years he had found nothing to replace it in his life.
His self-belief persuaded him that he could come back as good as he had been when he went away, but he learnt that time stands still for no man.
He has finally been washed aside by the tide of youth that with the arrival of Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen towards the end of his first career already seemed to be replacing one generation with the next.
It seems appropriate in many ways that the agent for that was Hamilton, the man who many regard as the fastest driver of his generation.
That, after all, is what Schumacher was, as well as one of the very greatest there has ever been. And nothing that has happened in the last three years can take that away.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/10/never_forget_how_great_schumac.html
Wolff: no question marks over Rosberg's mental strength
Nico Rosberg has the right mentality to recover from the mistakes which cost him a chance of victory in last Sunday's Formula 1 Grand Premio d'Italia 2014, according to Mercedes-Benz's head of motorsport Toto Wolff.
Rosberg twice out-braked himself while leading, with his second error handing a race-winning advantage to team mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton
Rosberg twice out-braked himself while leading, with his second error handing a race-winning advantage to team mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton
Source: http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2014/9/16339.html
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