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  • 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference – Part 2

    2017 Bahrain Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference – Part 2

    PART TWO: DRIVERS – Fernando ALONSO (McLaren), Kevin MAGNUSSEN (Haas), Jolyon PALMER (Renault)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: So, Fernando, twice a winner here in Bahrain but really only one thing to ask you about this afternoon, which is the Indianapolis 500. First current F1 driver to do Indy, I think, for around 40 years. What’s in it for you, and what’s in it for Formula One?

    Fernando ALONSO: As you said, it’s something that is not very common now. I think the past it was all about the best drivers in the world with the best cars in the world and the best races in the world. Then it became more and more professional, the sport, and everyone was dedicated or fully committed to only one series and I think that changed over time. This possibility, it was there for us this year, and I think I am excited to try a different thing. If I want to be the best driver in the world there are two options: I win eight Formula One World Championships, one more than Michael, which is very unlikely; the second one is to win different series in different moments of my career and be a driver that can race and win in any car, in any series. So, that’s very challenging – but attractive as well. So, this is the reason behind. With the same team is a win-win situation. I think it is good for Formula One. This big market in North America that we’ve been pursuing for many years: I think it’s good to go there now and show the respect for the Indy Car series; good for Indy, I guess, to have some Formula One drivers in the competition, and same for McLaren-Honda. I think, as a team, to be racing in the same day in Monte Carlo and in the Indy 500, two McLaren-Hondas in different series, is an amazing thing for motorsport fans. As I said, I think it’s a win-win series for everyone.

    Q: It’s obviously a very different kind of driving discipline. In terms of the preparation, how many days of running do you expect to get before race day and what kind of preparation do you think you’re going to be able to do?

    FA: There is not a defined plan yet, it’s still on-going, so I cannot answer 100 per cent sure what will be there. The plan, at the moment is that next weekend I will be in Alabama just visiting the race and meeting the team members to see how things go there. Probably on Monday after the race I will do the seat fitting, and then I will fly to Russia for the race. After Russia, I will try to be in Indianapolis for a couple of simulator days and hopefully test the car – but it’s not 100 per cent sure. And after that I will go to the Spanish Grand Prix and then fly to America on Sunday after the race because the free practice is on Monday at midday. So, definitely busy weeks in front. On the planes, I will try to look at some videos and some races from the past years and try to learn as quick as I can. It’s completely different skills that you need there, to adapt to the car, to adapt to the circuit, strategies, ways of racing: that close, at that speed, so many things that I have to learn and I’m not ready yet, at the moment – but in the next couple of weeks I am confident I will be able to adapt as quick as I can.

    Q: Just before you came in, Lewis and Sergio were talking about it and thinking about the challenge ahead of you, they were both saying they think you’ll go great because you’re outstanding at race management: if you need to save fuel, save tyres, managing the tyres – but also moving through traffic. When you look at those races do you feel confident that there’s a lot of areas like that that you’ve got in your game that will really help you?

    FA: Hmmm… not really. I never thought about that before making the decision. I think… I don’t feel prepared now. I don’t feel… let’s say I’m not in my comfort zone driving those cars or thinking about those cars. But I’m not afraid of trying and I’m not afraid of not delivering a good result – but knowing at the same time that there are very important weeks ahead. If I want to win one day the triple crown, I have to make this step. This year was the best opportunity for us as a team.

    Q: Kevin, coming to you. Eighth, obviously, in China, scoring Haas’ first points of the season. We asked Sergio earlier on about the intensity of that midfield battle this year, with Haas’ best-ever result coming here 12 months ago. Do you feel this again is a circuit that gain you can rise on, as a team?

    Kevin MAGNUSSEN: I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be as good as China, or even Melbourne. I think we have a good car that works well in most conditions and I think, yeah, as I said, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to perform here. The midfield is very close and competitive, so getting points, you really need to be on top of everything. That’s our target: to be on top of everything and to try and score points again – but it’s not easy.

    Q: You’ve raced with two well established operations in McLaren and Renault. How different is it racing for a start-up? Does being in a team like this actually suit you?

    KM: In some ways it does. Being small some things are easier, some things are more difficult. I think there’s a lot of talent in the team. They’ve got together a really strong, small group of people that work really well together. In some situations, it’s difficult when you’re small. For example, when we need to go into FP3 with no practice; when we miss Friday like we did in China, it’s not easy because our preparation before the race weekend is not as strong as the big teams, of course. But, we react quickly and we take decisions well and, as I said, if everything goes well, I think we should be strong.

    Q: Jolyon, a brutal weekend in Australia but then in China, qualified 18th but finished 13th, it’s clearly not gone as expected so far? So, what have you had to deal with?

    Jolyon Palmer: Australia was very tough for many reasons but China was much better, to be honest. The car was feeling good, I finally had a clean session in FP3 and we were in the top ten. And then qualifying I really feel I could have been in Q3 as well but I didn’t get a lap in in Q1 really. Starting from the back, it’s difficult to do much and we couldn’t make a lot of inroads in the race. I think the performance of the car is pretty good, as Nico has been showing, especially in China qualifying, so it’s just a matter of putting a clean weekend together, getting some laps on Friday – I think I’ve done about ten so far across two weekends, so yeah, would be nice to have a clean weekend and I think we can get in the points.

    Q: Do you think this generation of cars suits you?

    JP: I like it! That’s for sure. I think probably every driver is enjoying driving one of these cars: there’s a lot of downforce. For me, having never driven a V8 or a V10 era of F1 car, this is really exciting. It’s easily the quickest I’ve ever driven. The downforce is the main thing that we feel and it’s exciting.

    Q: Do you feel you’re more comfortably in race mode than in qualifying? Is qualifying an area that’s a particular focus for you going forward this year?

    JP: No, I just think we’ve had particularly difficult weekends. Qualifying in China would have been fine. The lap that I was on in Q1 would have easily seen me through to Q2, so I’m really sure I could have been in Q3 but it’s just how it goes. The Sauber crashing meant that meant I couldn’t complete the lap properly.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Fernando, if you win in Indianapolis, and you’re able to win at  Le Mans after that – and both are big ifs unfortunately, it would still only pull you level with another double World Champion who won the triple crown. So, what other iconic event could you aim for to really set yourself apart from everybody else, as you said earlier on you’d like to?

    FA: I don’t know. That’s thinking too much ahead. Go-Kart World Champion. I don’t know if the other guy was.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – New York Times) Fernando, two-part question: would this have happened had Ron Dennis still been in charge. And b) more significantly, would you be doing this if you had a competitive car beneath you this season?

    FA: First part of the question, I guess not. Zak is a man who has a bigger vision that other team principals or bosses that I had. He sees motorsports differently; he sees McLaren bigger, not only concentrated in Formula One. McLaren won Le Mans a couple of times, won the Indy 500 in the past as well a couple of times. I think he is a true racer. I think it is great that McLaren and Zak joined forces last year It’s a good thing. Secondly, if the car was competitive this year and we were with 43 points together with the other two guys, you cannot afford to lose 25 points possibility missing one race. So, probably the feeling was different if we were competitive.

    Q: (Jerome Pugmire – AP) Fernando, do you have any idea when you think you’ll be able to race Le Mans?

    FA: I don’t know. It’s between Canada and Baku no? We’ll see how many flight connections there are! No, I think definitely… it was something also on the table this year, also because Zak, as an American was pushing for the Indy 500, Eric as a Frenchman, he was pushing for the Le Mans, so I had two good friends in one moment pursuing the race. I think the McLaren-Honda partnership, to be able to run this in the Indy 500, was very attractive this year. For Le Mans it is something I will do – probably as soon as I can. I don’t know if it will be next year or from the following years. The only and first priority is Formula One, so if I can race together with Formula One and other series, as I’m doing this year, will be great. If not, I will do only Formula One.

    Q: (Simon Lazenby – Sky Sports) Just to follow-up again, on what Ian Parkes was saying, you said this wouldn’t have happened under Ron Dennis potentially but it’s happening under Zak. What about the new owners, Liberty, have they given it their blessing – they don’t have to but have they done so? And could you imagine you being allowed to do this, or would the squeeze have been put on for you to not, one of the leading Formula One drivers to have done this, under Bernie?

    FA: As you said, I don’t think they have a key role on all of these decisions. It’s more of a team decision but yeah, I think they are also more open than in the past. We see that also with all of the things we are allowed to do here now. A little bit more relaxed environment. I think it’s also great for Formula One.

    Q: (Abhishek Takle – Midday) Two part question to Fernando: firstly, who would you like to see replace you in Monaco, who do you think would be the ideal driver to do that? And secondly, when you say good result at Indy, what do you mean? Are you going there for the win, or is it too early to set that target? Do you see winning this year a realistic prospect at Indy?

    FA: I think for the Monaco replacement I don’t know. I have no idea of what the team is thinking of at the moment and I don’t have any preference either. I think whoever will be in the car will do great because the team will try to make the best decision possible. Also I’m sure that Stoffel will put the car where he will need to put it because now with some more races and also testing next week here, I think we will get to the maximum speed as soon as possible, so I’m not concerned for this. It will be a good weekend in Monaco for the team, I’m sure. In Indy, I don’t have a clear target, let’s put it that way. I’m going there just with the feeling of enjoy this experience, learn as much as I can from the track side with the different skills that I will need to drive those cars – and also from the outside which I think… the event is quite big, it’s a 14 day event with many things happening there. So (I’m) very open to anything that comes, but at the same time I’m a racer and if I want to win the triple crown one day I have to win that race. If that win happens earlier than expected it’s welcome. Otherwise I need to go again.

    Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Fernando, was McLaren’s desire to keep you for 2018 any part of these discussions?

    FA: No, no. At the beginning of the year, the team asked me what was my intention  and my thoughts for the future. I told them the same thing that I told you guys at the launch of the car. After the summer I will think and I will make a decision of what I will do next year, so nothing has changed after this discussion. It’s not that I’m thinking ‘away from Formula One’, so this will be my last year because this decision and obviously it’s not that thanks to this decision… You know I’m closer and closer to McLaren and to renew the contract so it’s completely independent. After the summer I will see.

    Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday, Motorsportweek.com) Fernando, you said you’re open to other things in Indycar as well. Would you be open to other Indycar races, bearing in mind there’s a double-header the week after Indy before Canada, and you’re in North America already? And it’s a street circuit?

    FA: No. I don’t think so. I think it’s a one-off. I will do the Indy 500 because it’s the race, it’s the biggest race in the world and the fastest race in the world but after that, especially after Indy and Canada I will probably be two weeks in the living room watching television and relaxing.

    Q: Just before we move on, I just wanted to ask the other two gentlemen what do you think of this and is it something that you’d like to do?

    JP: I think it’s cool. I think it’s obviously something pretty different, it’s exciting for everyone, for him especially but the whole of F1. For me to do it, we’re in quite different positions right now so maybe in 15 years if I’m in a similar position then maybe.

    KM: Yeah, I can see that with his situation it makes sense and it’s a really cool thing  to do so I can understand it.

    Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Fernando, two parts: was it your idea to go racing elsewhere, Indy or Le Mans, and secondly, you had some tough times physically in Bahrain – I don’t remember when, 2006? Did you prepare differently for this race with the new cars?

    FA: Indy and Le Mans – I don’t know, it was a conversation at dinner in Australia that we were sharing our ambitions for the future: me as a driver, of my karting school and different things, different projects that I’m in and as a driver to win something else other than Formula One that we succeed to win a few things was attractive. Zak was telling me his vision about the team in the near future, expanding McLaren into different series in motorsport so I think it was a conversation that  began casually but it didn’t come from my side or his side. It was just a conversation. And then in Bahrain, it was 2009 when I lost five or six kilos of sweat, five or six litres of water. We had a problem with one of the looms on the radiator. I completely burnt all my back in the race and after the race I was completely off, so hopefully everything will be in place and we will not burn the skin any further than in the sun in the morning.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globosport.com) Fernando, what is the influence of the difficulties of your team today in your decision to compete in the USA 500? And will this decision interfere in your presence in this Formula One season this year in other races?

    FA: It will not influence anything for the remainder of the year. I will be back in Canada, stronger, hopefully, because there are some improvements also during the year which will put us in a more normal position. Right now we are very uncompetitive and we are not happy with the situation so I think it’s going to be much more fun for us, the remaining races from Spain onwards, let’s say. And what was the first question? Not really. I think it’s true that it’s a good motivation and the possibility to win a big race, a big trophy like the Indy 500 in the middle of a year is like winning a World Championship in one weekend so you have two possibilities in one year, so it’s very attractive but it’s not that it came to our mind because this year we’re struggling or last year or the last two years we’re not competitive. This is something that I keep repeating since 2014. I remember leaving Ferrari and talking about this possibility to Mattiacci and people at Ferrari, even racing the 24 hours of Le Mans with a 458, so you’re competing in two different categories in the first year in the same year. So it’s nothing new because of the performance of this year.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Fernando, given what you’ve just said, if you don’t win in Indianapolis would you consider putting a clause in your future contracts regardless of which team, that you can actually compete in say Le Mans or the Indianapolis 500?

    FA: No, no, I think if it’s something that comes naturally from the team and from myself and we want to do it, it’s one thing but my commitment and my desire to win in Formula One is bigger than any other challenge that I can find outside Formula One so it’s Formula One or nothing at the moment but if, together with a team, we arrive at a decision that maybe could be interesting for both sides to try something else we do it but I will never put a clause or anything in a future contract because Formula One is the only thing that I want to do and the only thing that I’m probably prepared to do. The other things are just a question mark.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Fernando, how hard is it then to miss the race in Monte Carlo, the one where you can probably overcome the deficiencies of the car more than at any other place?

    FA: It’s very hard. Definitely Monte Carlo, we know with the package we have in the last couple of years, it was our best opportunity, it’s where we achieved the best results in the last couple of years so it’s a very magic event in Formula One so with all respect to all the other races, any other race to miss was fantastic compared to Monte Carlo. I will try to follow it from Indianapolis, also that that weekend is more or less free there, it’s only the race on Sunday so I will miss Monaco massively.

    Q: Abhishak Takle – Midday) Fernando, I know that you said you haven’t yet set any targets but you must be reasonably confident of being able to run at the front because without that, to give up competing in Monaco is a pretty big decision.

    FA: Yeah but in a way Monaco is the biggest race of the calendar in Formula One and the event is amazing, not only the race on Sunday but the whole weekend is amazing but the best result that we achieved was last year, fifth. Thinking that we are a little bit less competitive this year, you know and maybe you had a possibility to do another top five or seven or six or wherever, it’s great to have some points but I’ve won a couple of times there already and two times World Champion so to have fifth, seventh or ninth in Monaco will not change my life. In a way, it’s impossible to compare… to have the minimum chance to win the Indy 500 compared to a fifth or sixth or seventh in Monaco. It’s much bigger, the other possibility.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Kevin and Jolyon, your fathers both raced at Le Mans in the endurance championship etc. Could you see yourselves going there?

    JP: It’s possible but yeah, I think for me, I’m so focussed on Formula One at the moment, only my second year so yeah, my position’s pretty different. Still all eyes only on Formula One. I think I love the sprint racing but wheel to wheel racing which is not so much endurance. But Le Mans is still a legendary race so maybe.

    KM: I think, for me, I want to be in Formula One and focus on that but my Dad is still racing, he’s in a competitive team in his series and also racing at Le Mans, so I think it would be a shame not to try and do a race together. Me growing up with him racing all the time, it would be a really special experience to do a race with him and imagining winning something like Le Mans with him would be fantastic. It’s weighing up those two things that Formula One is my main priority, that’s what I want to do and what I want to focus on but there is the desire to do something like that with my Dad as well so we will see what happens.

    Q: (Rebecca Clancy – The Times) Fernando, just saying then that coming fifth or sixth at Monaco isn’t going to change your life, is that the approach you’re also going to take when you look at where you’re going to be next year as well and who you’re going to be racing for?

    FA: Yeah, yes, definitely. I want to win, I’m here to win. I think this year I prepared harder than ever for this year. There’s also the change of regulations. We have high hopes for this year. I feel great with these cars, I’m able to extract the maximum from the cars while during the last couple of years it was difficult because especially with the tyres you had to manage the tyres in a strange way: the less you push, the more performance was there in the tyres so this year is coming back to more normal Formula One and I really enjoyed the race in Australia and in China as well. We were running and securing eighth place. With the performance we have now, it was completely unexpected. Even the most optimistic simulation we had was telling us that we were around 14th  or 15th. So I think I’m really at the best of my career right now in terms of driving so for next year, the target has to be only one: fighting for the World Championship, so not any more fifth or sixth.

  • 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference – Part 1

    2017 Bahrain Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference – Part 1

    PART ONE: DRIVERS – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes), Sergio PÉREZ (Force India), Stoffel VANDOORNE (McLaren)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Lewis, great win last time out in China, current joint leader of the FIA Formula One World Championship – so far so good?

    Lewis HAMILTON: So far, so good, yeah. Happy to be back in Bahrain; always amazing weather. Yeah, it’s been an awesome season so far. We’re working very hard collectively as a team to try and continue at that level.

    Q: Just following up on some comments after the last race, obviously you are a two-time winner here in Bahrain but given the circuit layout here, and particularly the higher temperatures, which could possible play to Ferrari’s strengths are your expecting an even tougher battle to keep them behind you this weekend?

    LH: I definitely do. I think Ferrari have shown tremendous pace and I think obviously in the first race, particularly in race trim, they’re very, very quick, particularly on the hotter circuit. So, being that it is a hotter race here I think the gap is going to be even closer, if not different that to perhaps it was before, but we shall see.

    Q: Obviously, yesterday Fernando Alonso announced he’s going to race at Indy next month, in the Indianapolis 500. As a motor sport fan yourself, as well as an old rival of Fernando’s, what do you think of him skipping Monaco for Indy?

    LH: I think, firstly, it’s great that a driver is able to do that. I think us drivers should be able to do more than one series. Obviously there was a period of time in the past when there were drivers doing multiples series, so I think it’s pretty cool that he’s doing it. And I hope that Jenson comes back, I think it would be great for the sport to have Jenson back in.

    Q: Thanks for that. Stoffel, coming to you, you obviously made your Formula One race debut here 12 months ago with a points-scoring finish. It’s been a pretty tough first couple of races for you, but what have you taken from them to make you stronger going forward?

    Stoffel VANDOORNE: Yeah, it’s great to be back in Bahrain. I obviously had a good race here last year, which was nice to get that opportunity. A year on, I think it’s a lot different; I’ve now got two races under my belt and a bit more experience. It’s not been an easy situation for us at the moment but I feel in a good position and hopefully this weekend we can prove again that we made a step forward.

    Q: Clearly very tough for you to have that lack of performance from the McLaren-Honda package at the moment. When do you expect a step change and how have you revised your expectations for the season?

    SV: It’s difficult really to put any timeframe on it, when it will get better. Obviously we are all hoping it’s gets better sooner rather than later, I don’t know exactly when we will see a step in performance.

    Q: Thanks for that. Sergio, you finished on the podium here in 2014 and you have a 100 per cent finishing record at this track, so is it one of your favourites?

    Sergio PÉREZ: Yeah, I think it’s one of my favourites. I’ve had good races here in the past, certainly the podium the year before. This track suits my style quite well, so hopefully we can have a good finish, close the gap to the cars ahead, especially now that the midfield is so packed and we are probably a little bit behind in that group but hopefully we can keep scoring good points on Sundays.

    Q: Let’s drill down into that a little bit, about the midfield. The team has bagged two double points finishes in a row, but give us an insight into just how tight that midfield battle is and what kind of things make a difference to getting a good result in that battle?

    SP: Basically the whole difference is getting a perfect qualifying because if you don’t get a perfect qualifying it’s the difference between getting P8 and P14 or P15. So having a great qualifying makes a huge difference to your weekend. The first lap counts a lot as well and yeah, just have good strategy calls, executing a perfect weekend. Otherwise, that’s the difference between scoring points and not scoring any points.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Frédéric Ferret – L’Equipe) A question for Lewis. You said you love the weather. How have you been working to deal with the heat for Sunday’s race?

    LH: Just running in this heat. I was in Dubai from Tuesday onwards. I was in Dubai for a couple of days and got here this morning. A couple of good runs in this heat always help. It’s hard work, but that’s really all you can do.

    Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday/Motorsportweek.com) A question for all three drivers: with Fernando announcing that he is doing the Indy 500, would any of you like to do the Indy 500 or possibly another iconic race like Le Mans if you were offered?

    SV: Yeah, I think I’ve decided to do the Spa 24 Hours instead of Hungary this year!

    LH: I wouldn’t miss out any of the races in Formula One. I’d definitely continue to do all the races, but I’d like to do MotoGP. I’d like to ride a MotoGP. Is there another race? Probably a NASCAR race, like the Daytona 500 maybe.

    SP: I certainly wouldn’t miss Monaco because for me Monaco is my favourite weekend in the whole calendar, so I wouldn’t miss Monaco and normally you have that clash. But I’d like to do some other racing. I certainly have some interest in IndyCar. The Indy 500 is certainly one of the best races in the world, so I’d definitely to do some.

    Q: (Simon Lazenby – Sky Sports) A question for Lewis. I know it’s early days but how does it compare, fighting a four-time world champion at another team as opposed to fighting your own team-mate in the same car? Does it excite you more this year if you were to take it a relative stage as last year say?

    LH: I’ve commented on that same question a couple of times in the last two races but yeah, it is more exciting racing another team, very much like I experience in 2007 and 2008. Also, growing up seeing races with McLaren and Ferrari, the great teams that were at the top competing with each other was always exciting. So to be in amongst the fight with the Silver Arrows and Ferrari, which is also a very historic, great team, I think it’s more exciting than just silver at the front.

    Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS.nl) A question for all three drivers. This is a back-to-back race. Can you explain a little bit not how heavy it is for you as drivers but for the team, logistically, physically, mentally?

    SP: Yeah, it’s very hard for our guys. They have such a hard time, the mechanics, they come here very early in the morning and they leave very late at night, pretty much every day, they are coming here since Tuesday, so it’s very hard for the mechanics. I think for us as drivers, it’s not that hard. It’s another race and we have plenty of time to rest. But especially everyone who is involved in the team they have a very hard time. Having two races back-to-back is pretty much the limit, if week have a third one it would be very hard for all the boys in the team.

    Lewis?

    LH: Yeah, I think for the drivers it’s easier doing back-to-backs. Could be back, weekend on, weekend off. Just keeping weekend in, weekend in, I think would be easier for us because staying in the zone between races, it’s just easier that way. When you have the gap you have to switch back into it, so it’s a little bit trickier. But for the team it definitely is very, very tough. It’s time away from the family; they’re on their feet for long, long hours during the day. But in all honesty, a lot of the guys, particularly my guys, they love it. There’s nowhere in the world they’d rather be. So whilst it is very tough for them, for sure, and they definitely feel it, it’s great to see that enthusiasm, and that sheer drive to just keep doing something you love. So, I never, ever see them complain, ever.

    Stoffel?

    SV: I think they pretty much covered everything.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Lewis, when you are racing your team-mate, regardless of who it is, you both have very similar characteristics, similar strengths, weaknesses, you have data. When you are racing someone in a different car, the Ferrari for example, that car has different characteristics, you don’t have data. Which is more difficult to do?

    LH: Ah, I think it’s more difficult for sure racing up against… I wouldn’t say there’s one more difficult than the other, they’re just different. When you’re racing up against another team there are strengths and weaknesses. You know last week when we were qualifying against the Ferrari they looked like they were going to get pole but we were finding a bit more time on the track, in the blind really, because at the time I was the quickest of the two guys in our garage, so I was having to base myself on myself, I couldn’t base myself on Sebastian. Definitely having to push the boundaries on your own is more of a challenge, which I love. When you are comparing data and you are constantly pushing each other, it’s OK, but it’s not as much fun as competing against an unknown.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globosport.com) I’m sorry to come back to the same subject. If you were going to race in the Indy 500, what would be the biggest challenge, considering the average speed you have, the cars are most of the time very close, you have a wall at your side? What would be the main lesson should be important to race there?

    LH: It’s a completely different category; it’s a lot, lot different. I’ve never driven one of those tracks, but it would so much different for us to go and do that – how a car’s set up, because it’s asymmetric I think, I believe the set-ups are asymmetric. The banking, how much you lift, how you use the tyres. It takes us guys forever through these test days to learn how to operate these tyres in the right window, so I would imaging it’s not an easy thing to do in one go, so it’s definitely a tall order in a short space of time, but Jeez, you’ve got one of the best drivers in the world going there, For sure, he will be the best driver in the paddock, but he won’t have the experience any of them have. So I think it will be a very exciting challenge for him, to see how strong he can fare against those who have all that experience.

    Q: What do you think Stoffel? You’ve obviously watched a few of these races. What’s the biggest thing you would be wanting to understand straight away?

    SV: I think it’s a very strategic race. We’ve seen last year Alex Rossi winning the race and doing huge amounts of fuel saving. I think anything is possible. Fernando is a clever guy. He knows what he is doing. Hopefully he comes back with a trophy. I’ll give him a bottle of milk as well.

    Q: Have you spoken to him about it?

    SV: Only a little bit at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll catch up with him over the weekend.

    Q: And what about you Sergio? What would you be thinking about on your first runs around the Speedway?

    SP: Yes, as these guys say, there’s so much to learn from a completely new series. I mean we have been doing this for many years and through the lower series as well, which is something more similar to what we do now, so going to a completely new tyre, new characteristics, new ways of setting up the car, circuits, driving in the traffic. But I think with Fernando that’s probably one of his strengths, how he can manage the race situations, so he’ll be really good on that. Indy really depends on the last 10 laps, so I think he wqill be really good at it.

    Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) Lewis, you said you’d like to see JB back in the car for Monaco. Can you just elaborate on why you’d want to see him there? And Stoffel, is JB the man you’d like to see back at McLaren replacing Fernando in Monte Carlo?

    SV: It’s not in my hands in the end. I’m sure the team has got everything under control. I don’t know yet who it will be. I’m sure the team will pick the right driver.

    LH: Because I like Jenson and I think he’s still one of the best drivers and his calibre is still higher than any other driver that’s going to be able to take that spot for sure.

    Q: And experience is important in Monaco?

    LH: Yeah, his calibre and his experience for sure

  • 2017 Bahrain GP Preview: The Battle in Bahrain

    2017 Bahrain GP Preview: The Battle in Bahrain

    Not long after the chequered flag dropped at the end of the Chinese Grand Prix, the big pack up had already begun for the next round in Bahrain for Round 3 of the Formula 1 World Championship.

    The Bahrain International Circuit situated about 30km south of the Bahraini capital Manama was completed in 2004 and has been hosting F1 races ever since. The circuit is an ultra modern facility with many possible configurations. The F1 configuration consists of 15 corners with 4 straights which precede heavy braking zones and potential overtaking chances. The twisty in-filed section has a stop start nature with slow and medium speed corners. There are two DRS zones. One the main straight to Turn 1 and the second between Turn 10 and Turn 11.

    The abrasive track surface puts tyre degradation on the upper end of the scale and with the stop-start nature of the circuit the cars require lots of mechanical grip from the tyres. Playing it safe for the first few races, Pirelli have opted for the white medium, yellow soft and red super soft tyres this weekend. Although degradation is quite high the new Pirelli compounds, which we’ve seen in the past two races are quite durable, should hold it’s own around the Bahrain International Circuit and we should see a two-stop race compared to three stops last year.

    Formula One - MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS, Bahrain GP 2016. Nico Rosberg ; Formel 1 - MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS, Großer Preis von Bahrain 2016. Nico Rosberg;

    Hamilton vs. Vettel

    If there was any doubt that Ferrari’s performance was a once off in Australia, their showing in China may have put some of those doubts to rest. Although still lacking a bit on one lap pace in qualifying trim, the SF70-H holds it’s own during the race and has shown that it is the better car on race day. However, we are only two races into the season, so one should be weary about singing their praises just yet.

    We did not get to see a full on Hamilton vs. Vettel fight in China. Vettel’s strategy in China was compromised by the safety car after Antonio Giovinazzi’s crash. We could see a close battle between the two this coming weekend. Perhaps similar to the Rosberg v Hamilton battle in 2014.

    The Battle in the Middle

    This year the battle is in the mid field is as close as it can ever get. With Red Bull not on pace with Ferrari and Mercedes and with Williams very close on pace to Red Bull, we’ve seen two tiers emerge in the mid field. The second tier is very close between Force India, Toro Rosso, Haas and to some extent, Renault. The on-track battles that are being served up is great for the fans as the drivers leave nothing to chance and snap up every chance they get.

    It’s shaping up to be a long hard slog for superiority in the mid field and it could be the source of many talking points in the races to come. Few teams will be looking very closely as the young guns fighting it out as they look to replace drivers that are out of contract at the end of the season.

    Further down the field we have Sauber and Mclaren. Since the departure of the Manor team, Sauber has picked up the label of the back marker team. Antonio Giovinazzi who subbed in for the injured Pascal Wehrlein put in an impressive performance at the first round in Australia. Two weeks later and he was less impressive after crashing out in Qualifying and crashing again in the same spot in the race.

    Over at McLaren it just seems that the team is on a knife edge. Alonso is growing increasingly frustrated in the car and is not shy to make his frustrations known over the team radio. One wonders what he may be saying behind closed doors. Make no mistake, McLaren do seem to have a good package put together, and just like last year, the engine is letting them down. Honda say they their confidence is increasing with the new engine and that upgrades should make things better. In the mean time Stoffel Vandoorne and Alonso will have to put on a brave face.

    Battle in Bahrain

    Meredes and Ferrari will be fighting it out in front. The warm conditions may suit the Ferrari’s more than the Mercedes. Mercedes are also bringing their longer wheelbase car to Bahrain to try and maintain their small advantage now.

    While Hamilton and Vettel were clear ahead of the field in China, both their team mates had races they would rather forget. Bottas spinning twice under the safety car dropped him down the field. After the race he apologised for his “amateur” mistake. Raikkonen was unable to pass Daniel Ricciardo which held up Vettel behind. Vettel was able to eventually pass his team mate and Ricciardo but Raikkonen remained stuck behind Ricciardo. The Finn feels confident enough to turn things around this weekend.

    As we get settled into the season it’s plain to see that Vettel and Hamilton will battle it out till the end. On the way there, they will definitely be thrown some curve balls and do not rule out Red Bull just yet. When they get over their issues and move to tracks that are more suited for their car they should be able to take the challenge to Mercedes and Ferrari. But for now it’s a damage limiting exercise for them.

    Fans have been waiting for the day when Mercedes gets challenged. It looks like that day is here. The battle continues in Bahrain.

  • 2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Post Qualifying Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Post Qualifying Press Conference

    DRIVERS

    1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    2 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    3 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)

    TV UNILATERAL

    Q: Lewis, great lap. Under a little bit of pressure after your first run in Q3, but you really hooked it up – fastest ever lap of this circuit?

    Lewis HAMILTON: What a start. It’s obviously not been a smooth-sailing weekend in terms of pace. Nico’s been right on it all weekend and I was just generally struggling to put laps together. Luckily the one lap I did put together was the last lap. That was actually the only lap probably the whole weekend so far. I hope that’s the first of many. The car felt great. It’s quite incredible to think that we are quicker now to the V10 days. It just shows how far technology has come. Lastly, just for my engineers and mechanics who have been biting their nails all weekend and working so hard to get the car to where it is today, a big thank you to everyone here and also at the factory.

    Q: Thank you for that. Coming to you Nico, just a few hundredths of a second between you and Lewis. As he was just saying, you’ve been on it all weekend. The difference?

    Nico ROSBERG: I think Lewis just did a great lap in the end there. My lap felt good and I was actually sure that I was on pole! But that wasn’t the case, so there we go, that’s the way it is. Anyway, you know, at this track, I think it’s one of the tracks where pole counts least, because a lot of things can happen in the race and strategy and everything tomorrow is going to be quite messy maybe even, so there are still a lot of opportunities.

    Q: Thank you for that. Coming to you Sebastian. Only a tenth off in the first run in Q3, but at the end when push came to show it was more like half a second, what is that all about?

    Sebastian VETTEL: I don’t know, you should ask them [Mercedes]! I was very happy with the first attempt and yeah, my second attempt was more or less copy-paste. I thought that there was a little bit, there was, but five hundredths is probably not enough if they improve by half a second. I think very happy today, very happy with the car, the car felt fantastic throughout qualifying, it just kept getting better, which is natural as the circuit gets quicker. But there isn’t one place or anything wrong on the track, where the car doesn’t feel right. It feels good. We know that we are not where we want to be, but step by step I think we are getting there. We know what to do. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow. We’ll push them very hard. Ideally, we’ll do the same thing on the start as we did two weeks ago. I wouldn’t mind! So, yeah, we’ll see. It’s a long race. As Nico touched on, there are a lot of things that can happen here. Last year we saw an interesting race, so let’s see what happens tomorrow night.

    Q: Thank you. Coming back to you again Lewis, on pole. Looking for your third Bahrain victory tomorrow but of course, as Sebastian just referenced, a good start tomorrow, unlike Melbourne, will be important for you?

    LH: It will be, for sure it’s always important to get a good start. It’s a longer run down to Turn One than there was in the last race. Of course it’s something we’ve been trying to improve on, but it’s only been a couple of weeks so whether or mot we’ve made big improvements I highly doubt it, but hopefully it’s better than it was, on my side at least. But yeah, just really happy with that lap. So happy with that lap, because throughout qualifying and practice you go round, do a lap, it wasn’t quite perfect, Nico goes a tenth ahead or whatever it may be, so to finally pull it all together… It was actually even more of a pressured lap as well, because the previous lap I went off, so knowing that I’ve got to improve even more so than I did on the lap before, so yeah, super happy.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Lewis, you were referencing the speeds there and looking back historically but times were a lot quicker compared just to last year. I wonder if you could put your finger on what that is. It’s a little colder ambient temperature, how much has that contributed? What else do you think is making the cars that much quicker this year?

    LH: Well naturally it’s with the development of the car. It’s definitely a bit of… the tyres seem quite grippy this weekend so maybe a little bit of a step in grip on tyres compared to last year but just, overall, the car is globally, I guess everyone’s cars globally have improved, be it power and downforce. The race is a little bit different. Obviously with different kind of tyre wear, it’s still going to be a real challenge there, but every single lap it’s… you would hope that we would be faster, otherwise we wouldn’t be…

    Q: Nico, I was going to ask you about the strategy choice tomorrow: two stop, three stop etcetera – then in your unilateral answer, you said you thought it was going to get ‘messy’. So do you want to drill down into that a little bit and explain why you think it’s going to get messy?

    NR: I think we are going to see many different strategies and also surprises. People will be surprised if maybe their strategy doesn’t work the way they thought – because we’re going to see graining on the soft tyres because it’s so cold, and that always causes a lot of unexpected things – because if you get graining you lose a lot of time, and you’ll get it in different ways. And then three different tyres, Safety Cars maybe coming into it, it’s going to be all over the place.

    Q: Finally to you Sebastian, this was a strong race for Ferrari last year. You’ve repeatedly said that, obviously, when it comes to the end of quali, you’re giving something away to Mercedes but that you’ve got much closer race pace. So, does that give you a degree of optimism you can get amongst them tomorrow?

    SV: Always. I think, yeah, last year we were very strong in the race. Kimi put a lot of pressure on Nico at the end of the race and managed to get past so I think we can be in good shape tomorrow. Obviously it’s impossible to predict but the car feels good; the car felt good this afternoon with different conditions to the evening. It kept getting better. Some of it, I guess, is the track but also we made little improvements here and there. So, very happy with how the car feels on one lap but also for the race. So, yeah, high on confidence. Whether it’s enough, we’ll see – but we’ll try to give them a hard time.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action/Speedsport magazines) A question to all three. We’ve now had two sessions of the new format. Are they more stressful or less stressful compared to the old Q1, Q2, Q3?

    Lewis?

    LH: Honestly, there’s zero difference to us, I guess, at the front. You go out and position might help a little bit but really doesn’t make any difference. I have not noticed a single difference, personally – you have to go out and get your laps just as you did before.

    Nico, I guess the only difference is that the laps are done earlier on rather than right at the very end, right?

    NR: Yeah, but I think in the end we should just listen to everyone watching in front of the TV and the fans at the racetrack, see what they say and, if they continue to not like it – as I’m sure they won’t – we should change.

    Sebastian?

    SV: Well, naturally with this format everyone has to go out more or less straight away otherwise you get knocked out and then there’s quite a lot of time you spend sitting in the garage and waiting, so obviously for us, running in, let’s say, the top five… but yeah, I think it’s just not right when you have the last four minutes and nothing’s happening. That’s usually when people should be smashing the lap times: not only in Q3 but also Q1 and Q2.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – GloboSport.com) Nico, you were fastest yesterday and today you were 77 thousandths slower. Any reason – nature of competition or did you have any kind of a problem?

    NR: No, all the way through the weekend it’s been going well and even in the end of qualifying it was going well. I got a good lap in, Lewis just did seven-hundredths better. That’s it.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Sorry to slightly move the conversation away from qualifying but to all three of you, and particularly Seb, given your role on the GPDA, Bernie said yesterday that drivers are just saying what their teams tell them to; they shouldn’t have an opinion and I think he used the word ‘windbags’. I just wondered what your response to that was, whether you think it’s valid for you guys to have an opinion and what your response to Bernie is.

    SV: Look, we’re not political, I think if you read the letter, and you read the very end, it says, ‘on behalf of all drivers’. I think Alex, my name and Jenson but, in general, all drivers. So, I don’t read ‘on behalf of all the teams’ – or some of the teams. What I read is ‘on behalf of the drivers’. So that’s it.

    Anything to add? Nico? Lewis? No.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport)  Sebastian, you challenged Mercedes in Melbourne with, let’s say, a riskier strategy, choosing more the softer tyres. Is the supersoft tyre here good enough to do the same, or is that only a tyre for the first stint?

    SV: I think it always depends on how the race goes. I think probably here, more so that Melbourne, you have a couple of options with the strategy – but as I said it largely depends how the race goes. How you start off, where you are after the first corner, the first lap. And then it has to be seen. I think it should be fairly clear which tyre is the preferred one to use and then, I think we all go from there but, as we’ve seen last year, I think Kimi was on a mirrored strategy compared to Nico and Lewis, myself, and it worked out at the end – so there’s always room for doing something different, so let’s see what happens. If we can be smart tomorrow then I hope we will.

    Q: (Christopher Joseph – Chicane) Question for Nico and Lewis. From this point on, how does the process work in terms of considering all of the variables tomorrow? How will you decide your strategy, both individually and how much do you look across the other side of the garage.

    NR: So, the strategy is done by the team. We’re going to discuss it tomorrow morning and we’re going to go for the best possible strategy and then there will be a Plan B in case Plan A doesn’t work out and I’m not even 100 per cent aware yet what we’re going to decide to do – so let’s see for tomorrow morning and then go for it.

    Lewis?

    LH: Yeah, it’s not like we get any options. There’s the optimal, and then there’s sub-optimal and then there’s worse. The team choose the optimal. They do all the simulations and know what’s best. Of course you could ask for something different – but our strategist is incredibly smart, as all strategists in the teams will be, so we just follow in their direction.

    Q: (Ralf Bach – Autobild Motorsport) A question to Sebastian. Do you really believe you can win the championship with Ferrari until 2020 and, if yes, can you tell us why?

    SV: Until what? 2020? Well, it’s a long time. I don’t have a contract that goes to 2020 so that could be the first thing I need to sort out. Yeah, apart from being old at that time, I’ve very confident. I was very impressed when I first went to Maranello and saw the facilities, saw the potential, met the people and nothing has changed. Obviously it has been a very strong year last year which, to some extent, came unexpected – but obviously was very good to boost our motivation – but we know a lot of things have happened, a lot of things are still due to happen that will make us stronger in the future. Naturally some of the stuff happened already and I think this year’s car is a lot better than last year’s car, big step. Other stuff is in the pipeline, still to come – that’s talking about this year but also in general about the future. So once I think everything calms down and we focus and have everything in place then, I think, it will only make us stronger. Currently I think, if you measure on track, we are half a second behind today. Let’s see what the gap is tomorrow. I don’t see any reason why we cannot gain at least half a second or more in the future. To… whoever.

  • Hamilton Given Reprimand for Reversing In the Pitlane

    Hamilton Given Reprimand for Reversing In the Pitlane

    Lewis Hamilton has been given a reprimand following his pit lane incident after qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

    Hamilton who took a pole position with a record setting lap time was summoned to the stewards after qualifying for reversing in the pit lane. This is in breach of Article 28.3 of the FIA Sporting Regulations.

    The stewards decided that a penalty is not necessary and the Briton was given a reprimand and will therefore keep his pole position.

    “A reprimand has been imposed on the driver due to the fact that no clear instruction was given to the driver on where he should park the car after qualifying,” said the stewards in their decision document.

     

    Picture by courtesy Pirelli

  • Magnussen to Start Bahrain GP Race from the Pit Lane

    Magnussen to Start Bahrain GP Race from the Pit Lane

    Renault’s Kevin Magnussen will start Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix race from the pit lane after failing to stop at a red light for a weight check.

    Magnussen, behind Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat, was given the red light for a weight check. Because the drivers were close together, this caused a bit of confusion. Kvyat stopped when he was not supposed to while Magnussen carried on toward his pit garage. This is in breach of Article 29.1 of the FIA Sporting Regulations.

    “The driver failed to stop for weighing during P2 when signalled to do so by the red traffic light, the car was not returned to the FIA garage and work was undertaken,” a statement from the stewards read.

    “In accordance with Article 29.1 iv) of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations the driver is required to start from the pit lane.”

     

    Picture Credit: Renault Sport Formula 1 Team

  • 2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES:

    Franz TOST (Toro Rosso)

    Dave RYAN (Manor Racing)

    Robert FERNLEY (Force India)

    Claire WILLIAMS (Williams)

    Not in attendance: Monisha KALTENBORN (Sauber)

    Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli)
    PRESS CONFERENCE
    Bob, the car showed some flashes of real speed in pre-season in testing and in Melbourne you had a good result with seventh. How confident are you that you’ll be able to take a step on from the fifth place overall the team achieved last year? ?
    Robert FERNLEY: I wouldn’t say that I was overly confident but optimistic. I think that Toro Rosso have done a good job. Williams are always strong. Red Bull are coming back and the engine’s proving well there. So I think the competition for that third to sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship is going to be very, very challenging this year and very tough and we’ve just got to prove that we’re up for it.

    Talking about Toro Rosso and other teams, in the second half of the race in Melbourne, Romain Grosjean in particular was able to stay ahead of the Force India. Were you surprised at the pace of the Haas and do you think that everybody has closed up behind you, quite tightly?
    RF: I don’t think that necessarily the Melbourne pace was something worrying. Melbourne’s just a very difficult circuit to overtake on and I think the red flag played in the favour very much of Haas. In our case I think it went against us slightly. So I don’t think it was a pace issue particularly, just a circuit-related issue.

    Thanks for that. Franz, coming to you, you got off to a good start in Australia, with a double points finish, and the car clearly has some pace. That obviously puts the team in the spotlight, in many different ways. Does the improvement in the team’s pace make you attractive again for outside investors?
    Franz TOST: I hope so. At Toro Rosso the doors are always open for people who bring money, because we have many ideas how to invest it in a proper way. Of course it’s easier to negotiate with partners if you are successful at the race track. This year, so far, we have a very competitive package. The STR11 shows a good performance; also both drivers are very skilled and very fast. The engine is also good and the team has improved as well and therefore I expect to have a successful season and I hope that we can find additional money.

    That improvement in pace was evident in Melbourne but you might not have got the race result you wanted. Obviously, we all saw what happened with Carlos and with Max in the pit stops. Have you spoken to the drivers in between and how has that been resolved?
    FT: Yeah, we had a very good first part of the race until the red flag. After the red flag we lost the pace. The reason why we called in Carlos was that he had a lot of vibration on the front axle and for safety reasons we wanted to change the tyres. Max then came into the pits and the team didn’t know this and we were too late with the tyre change. Therefore, he came out behind the group of Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Palmer and behind Carlos and then of course there was a little bit of a fight between them. But that’s normal. That’s competition. We discussed everything after the race, we analysed everything and we explained to the drivers what happened. Everything is sorted out and I expect from them a good and competitive race here as well.

    The battle between the drivers looks like it might shape up to be one of the season’s most intense. How do you, in the team’s best interest, manage them, given that they a relatively young partnership?
    FT: You must not forget that both of them are very young. Both of them want to make a career in Formula One and therefore they are fighting for every millimetre. This is what we want to see and therefore why we also have them in the team. At Toro Rosso the philosophy is not to come out with a team order, to say ‘you have to let the other past’. Only if we change the strategy, of the drivers are on a different strategy and if we think it will be an advantage for the team, then of course, but otherwise there are no team orders. We expect discipline from the drivers. What do I mean by discipline? That they respect each other, that they let the other driver the space to survive, that they don’t crash on each other and that they compete on the race track like people want to see it and then we will see who will be the better.

    Dave, welcome back, a couple of questions for you. Your car seemed fairly comfortable running in the lower midfield in Melbourne. What kind of result of results do you expect from the rest of the season, what’s achievable? 
    Dave RYAN: I’d like to think we can run with the pack. We haven’t been able to do that in previous years. If we can do that then we can be in a good position to seize opportunities that come our way. I believe we can score points and we need to score points, and that’s the goal.

    You’re almost six months into your tenure at Manor. When you arrived what did you feel were the things that most urgently needed addressing and now where do you feel the team is at now in terms of personnel, resource and operational stability?
    DR: The team was clearly, or had been, in a very difficult place. They did a fantastic job last year. They were in a bit of a holding pattern really. Most of last year was spent looking forward to getting a package together for this year. Stephen Fitzpatrick, our team owner, did a great job on that front: he secured a terrific engine deal, a great transmission arrangement. After that, it was just a question of putting a good car together, which our guys have done. So, last was a bit of a holding pattern and it was all about getting ready for this year. We’ve got a pretty good package. There are no excuses on the engine front, the driveline, and it’s down to us to show we belong here – and we do. And we’ve managed to change the team considerably. We’ve got a lot of new people. There were a lot of good people anyway. Even from Melbourne to this race it’s developed, it’s changed a lot and we’re going forward and that’s what we need to see.

    And what about your drivers? They are both quite inexperienced. What do you see is the potential from both of them?
    DR: I see huge potential. First of all they’re both young guy, a bit like Franz was saying. I enjoy their enthusiasm. Having youngsters around is very invigorating. They’re both very, very switched on young guys. Quite different personalities but fierce determination in both of them to succeed and I’m sure we’ll see two very good drivers develop during the year.

    OK, thanks. Claire, coming to you, lonely at the front there…
    Claire WILLIAMS: I have no friends!

    Williams have finished third in the past two seasons. This year, do you see it as the same battle again, against Red Bull for that third position, or has there been that step over the winter that will allow you to take the fight to Ferrari and Mercedes?
    CW: I’d like to think so. As you say, we’ve come third in two consecutive seasons now, which is a fantastic achievement for Williams. But we did come into this year knowing and understanding that it was going to be much harder to try to maintain that position, let alone push forward and try to catch the Ferraris and Mercedes, but of course that was the target for the guys back at Grove over the winter period. I think in Melbourne it was far too early to tell really where anybody is on the grid this year, so we’re going to have to give it a few races to see where we are, but of course the target for us as a team is always to make improvements. We’d love to be able to close the gap to Ferrari and Mercedes, but I think we’ve seen in Melbourne that the competition has closed around us. The Force Indias, the Reds Bulls, the Toro Rossos, they are all there. We had a great fight in Melbourne and I expect the rest of the season will be like that, so we have our work cut out if we are to maintain third, let alone push forward.

    One of things you have been working on is the new short nose that is supposed to be arriving. Are we going to see that tested tomorrow? Has it arrived? Is it arriving?
    CW: It is winging its way here as we speak, so I very much hope it will be on the car, it’s going on Felipe’s car tomorrow in P3, and we’ll just have to understand where it is, what performance it’s giving us and then decide whether we run it in qualifying or not.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Kate Walker – motorsport.com) A question for everybody please. We’ve had an awful lot of doom and gloom – and I’ve very over that. Could everybody please tell me one thing that you’re looking forward to about the 2016 season. Something that excites you, that makes you passionate.

    RF: If you look at it from the point of view that probably the first… the manufacturing teams in terms of Mercedes and Ferrari are clearly ahead of the game, I think what’s exciting for me is what Claire’s just hit upon: I think we’ve got four or five teams that are really fighting hard for those third to sixth places. I think that’s going to be an incredible battle through the year. If that was the front of the Formula One field, think how wonderful it would be for the fans.

    Franz?
    FT: We have a very competitive midfield where all the competitors are very close together, we go to Azerbaijan and see a new race, and we have 21 races.

    Claire?
    CW: The same as what everyone else has said: I think the competition this year is going to be phenomenal. I think we’ve had a couple of good years of racing. As I said, Melbourne really demonstrated that it’s going to be a really close fight for everybody this year, up and down the order, which is really exciting. I’m really pleased with what you said about the doom and gloom, because I’m totally over it as well and I think it would be really nice if we recognised the positives of our sport, of which there are so many. I think actually now Formula One, from a strategic perspective, and looking at where we’re moving forwards to into the future to into the future, now coming close to signing off the new power unit regulations – hopefully – in addition to the new 2017 regulations, I think there’s a lot to hopefully look forwards to. I think the driver aids situation, as much as there’s been a lot of talk around that, positive and negative, I think that’s really exciting: the drivers have what they wanted, and that’s to be drivers in the car again and to take control of their cars. For me, to see drivers going out there, having a fight, I think it will be a really exciting season. That’s what I’m looking forward to.

    David, it’s a new role for you…
    DR: Yes, I endorse that. Melbourne showed, or gave every indication of the season to come. For me personally it’s going to be… I’m really looking forward to the season and I’m going to enjoy seeing Manor Racing progress. That’s what I’m looking forward to most.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) A question to Robert Fernley. Bob, there’s been a fair amount of negative coverage about your team owner, team principal Vijay Mallya recently. He’s not here so I need to ask you. Is the team endangered in any way? We hear some stories of $400million dollars being offered in repayment. How does that affect the team?
    RF: You know Dieter, I didn’t see you behind the camera – I thought I’d got away with it for this meeting! Vijay’s issues are well publicised but, like all things, I think there’s been a bit of media over-reaction, especially from India on all of that. It’s something, just to give you an idea of India itself, I’ve been in and out of India for well over 30 years and the only thing I’ve learnt in 30 years is how little I know about India, so I think you’ve just got to let that flow and for Vijay to deal with it. Force India is blessed with a very good technical team and that technical team has progressively moved Force India up the Constructors’ table and I think today we are realising some of the best returns the team has ever had from the payments side of things, even though we complain about the disparity – which is a separate issue. And we also have a very good commercial team. And I think the commercial team is allowing Force India pretty well now to stand on its own feet and, whilst the shareholders are always there to help us – and Vijay’s been the main person in doing that over the last nine years. It’s not a short term, nine years, to be keeping a Formula One team going. I don’t think there’s any concerns for Force India.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Claire, very brief one to you. You’ve just said you’re signing off the 2017 powertrain regulations and ‘hopefully’ the 2017 aero regulations. Can you elaborate on why you use the word ‘hopefully’? I doubt you normally use words willy-nilly.
    CW: I think I should have applied ‘hopefully’ to both. We have a Strategy Group meeting that’s just been scheduled coming up, and as we all know in Formula One, things are fluid. I said ‘hopefully’ just to temper it. I don’t think you should put too much emphasis on that word.

    …so there is a chance that they may not go through, based on that?
    CW: I doubt it. I think it’s becoming far too late in the day. I think we pushed the date anyway and we need to get these signed off if we’re all to be ready for 2017.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) My second question to all of you. There’s been a lot of noise coming from the GPDA recently and one of their points of concern is that they’re not being heard, particularly when it comes to the governance structure, regulations changing etc. given that two of you people are on the Strategy Group and the other two on the Formula One Commission, have the drivers aired their concerns to you at all as team principals on the various commissions and groups?

    BF: No, I’ve not spoken to any of the drivers on that Dieter. I think the drivers have got a role to play. They do have a meeting every race weekend with Charlie so they do represent their views at that meeting and those are transmitted to us through Charlie, which is the correct way of doing it. I think it’s very difficult to have a member of the GPDA on the F1 Commission. It’s very difficult to represent 22 people with one opinion. We have enough difficulty doing it with six on the Strategy Group, so I’m not sure where that would go. Clearly the voice of the drivers is very, very important and we should be listening to them.

    Claire?
    CW: Yeah, I echo what Bob has said. The drivers are one of the key stakeholders of our sport, as are the teams, the media and our fans and we have to listen to all those stakeholders if we’re to create a sport that’s going to sustain in the long term. I’m pleased that they’ve come out and talked about their concerns. I think now we have to go away and think about them and address them and to see how we can engage them. Personally, in the team we have a constant and open dialogue with both our drivers and they always feedback information. On the converse, I think drivers have been listened to, probably more than they have in recent times, talking about the driver aids and the cars we are producing for them for next year – but as Bob said, it’s difficult to represent such a wide group. And then, how does that potentially fit in to the current governance structure that we have at the moment.

    Dave, your thoughts on this.
    DR: I think the drivers are the great personalities of this sport. I think they should be listened to. I think their opinion is really valued and we should heed what they say. We should certainly take notice, that’s for sure.

    Finally, Franz.
    FT: Our drivers are fortunately young, they are not so involved in all of this political issues. Generally the drivers are here for driving and, regarding the Formula One rules, there are so many parties being involved, it’s unnecessary to bring in another party. Nevertheless, the drivers can come up with ideas – but not after regulations are being defined. Like now, the 2017 regulations. To come now and say ‘this is not good’, it’s too late: because this has been defined. They should do it before. Generally, they should be concentrated to drive. That’s their job.

    Q: (Sanjeev Palar – Fox Sports Asia) The fans are holding their breath to try and understand and then figure out what’s happening with qualifying, so perhaps someone can tell us how is it going to be resolved, are there going to be any more changes that we see this season, and what is the process and opportunity to implement such changes?
    DR: We’re holding our breath as well.
    FT: We’ve discussed this qualifying procedure many times and the reason why this new qualifying came into play is because the organisers wanted to increase the show. Now, we saw in Melbourne that qualifying three ended up in a mess, because during the last four or five minutes  no car was out there, but this was already mentioned before, because the calculation of all the teams showed that at the end, maybe one or two cars would have tyres to go out twice in qualifying three. The new qualifying model itself is not so bad but in qualifying three, the eight cars need to have two sets of tyres so that all the cars are out there. Why? Because qualifying three is the most important part of the qualifying, it’s when pole position is being decided and therefore the cars need to be out on the track and neither the old qualifying… all this would be good, in combination with the new one because then the drivers would be out only at the last one or two minutes and with the new qualifying we know that the last four or five minutes no one is out any more. Therefore, in my opinion, we should go back to the old qualifying when we know that the cars will be on the track and will race for pole position.
    CW: In qualifying, the revised form in Australia came out and we said we would give it a go and if it didn’t work we would revert and come back to the drawing board, and obviously that meeting happened on Sunday and everybody agreed that we would revert back to the 2015 format until we could all come together and decide and actually try and come up with a well considered revised process for qualifying. Unfortunately that obviously has happened in the interim, we’ve had a new vote among strategy group members which then went to the commission. Now we have this hybrid system which we’re running tomorrow. Personally, from a Williams perspective, we would have rather to have gone back to the 2015 format as a holding pattern, to give us time to meet again as a group and to actually have time to go through what a new system could look like rather than kind of go to a hybrid system which might not work again. I think we have to wait anyway and see whether that will work or not tomorrow and then take the time to actually think about it. I think otherwise our fans are just going to look at our sport and go ‘what are they doing?’ You can’t do this in the second race of a championship so it’s really important to us that we get this resolved as quickly as possible but to do it in a well-thought through manner.
    Q: Dave, your drivers were probably disadvantaged in Q1 last time out, it didn’t probably go according to plan. What’s your feeling about it?
    DR: No, it didn’t go according to plan for us in Melbourne. I think the important thing is that the regulations were changed for Melbourne, we did give it a try and it clearly didn’t work for many reasons. But the fans have overwhelming said ‘we didn’t like it’. We did have the meeting on the Sunday morning and we did agree to change it. However, since then circumstances have intervened and we’re now back to what we had in Melbourne, so I guess we’re going to go through it again and just see how it pans out. Maybe we’ll all be a bit better prepared for it this time round and maybe it will be a bit different. So let’s see what happens in qualifying tomorrow and we’ll review it again on Sunday morning.
    Q: Bob, do you think teams will be a bit more comfortable with the process tomorrow and it might go a bit more smoothly than it did in Australia?
    BF: For sure I think teams will be better prepared. There still could be issues with it. From a personal point of view, I would like to have seen the compromise programme come in because I think that actually Q1 and Q2 were quite exciting. Clearly we got it wrong for Q3. I would have liked to have seen a little bit of an adjustment before we stopped everything but we have to go, at the end of the day, with the way the governance system works and we are where we are and let’s see how it goes tomorrow.

    Q: (Sanjeev Palar – Fox Sports Asia) Everyone has expressed their opinion on what they prefer but I think what we’re trying to understand and what we’re trying to convey to the fans is what process happens to decide what the final qualifying system will be for 2016, because it doesn’t seem like we have one. We had one in Australia, then we thought it’s gone all over the place, so what is the actual process to finalise the qualifying system that we’re going to have for this season?
    BF: It has to go through the strategy group and then from the strategy group it has to go through the F1 commission. You need 100 percent of the votes from the teams, the F1 commission, and then if it gets the majority that’s necessary, it will go back to the world council to be put into sanction, so that’s the process. There is no other process.
    DR: I think it’s true to say that once it passes through the strategy group for the Formula One commission, it can’t be changed so it can only be approved or disapproved from that point on, both at the Formula One commission and beyond. We only get what comes through from the strategy group, so that’s the process and then we vote on it and it’s a yes or a no, not a maybe we can do this instead, so that’s the process, it is very clear cut in fact.

  • Rosberg Fastest Again in Bahrain Second Practice

    Rosberg Fastest Again in Bahrain Second Practice

    Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg went faster than his team-mate Lewis Hamilton to take the fastest time of Free Practice 2 for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

    Rosberg set a time of 1:31.001 on the super soft tyre edging out his team mate Hamilton by 0.241s. Hamilton managed a best time of 1:31.242. Rosberg’s time is about 1.6s faster than last years pole position time.

    In a rather surprising turn of pace McLaren’s Jenson Button finished 3rd fastest with a 1:32.281 and 1.281s off the pace. After setting his fastest time, Button quipped, “I found the go faster button. I found it!” over the radio. His time on the super soft tyres put him ahead of Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen who finished 4th fastest.

    The Ferrari pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel finished the session 5th and 6th respectively. Both drivers’ were unable to capitalise on their flying laps due to traffic in the middle sector. Towards the end of the session Vettel came to a stop on the track. It was initially thought that he had a gearbox problem. While waiting for his car to be lifted on to the flat bed truck the rear left wheel could be seen hanging off. Vettel was seen tightening the wheel nut. He later radioed his team informing them that the wheel nut had come loose.

    Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat was 7th fastest with Williams’ Valtteri Bottas in 8th. Kvyat’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo ended his session 9th fastest with Felipe Massa in the other Williams rounding out the top 10 nearly 2 seconds off the pace.

    On his Formula 1 debut, Stoffel Vandoorne ended his second practice session 11th fastest in the McLaren. Haas F1’s Esteban Gutierrez was 12th fastest. His team mate Romain Grosjean suffered a front wing failure at Turn 13 after running over the bumpy apex of the corner. Haas say that because of the vibration of the car the wing was caught on one of the bumps which caused the failure. “It wasn’t a failure – he went over the kerbs and something broke, it touched the kerb with the vibration,” said Haas F1 Team Boss Gunther Steiner.

    Carlos Sainz finished down in 13th with Grosjean 14th fastest. Sergio Perez finished 15th fastest in the Force India ahead of Renault’s Kevin Magnussen. Nico Hulkenberg in the second Force India ended his session in 17th.

    Finishing in 18th was Jolyon Palmer ahead of 19th placed man Pascal Wehrlein in the Manor. The two Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr finished 20th and 21st respectively with Rio Haryanto closing out the grid in 22nd.

    Pos. Driver Team Best Time Gap Laps
    1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:31.001 – 38
    2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:31.242 0.241 32
    3 Jenson Button McLaren 1:32.281 1.280 32
    4 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:32.406 1.405 31
    5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:32.452 1.451 38
    6 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:32.650 1.649 26
    7 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:32.703 1.702 34
    8 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:32.792 1.791 39
    9 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:32.870 1.869 23
    10 Felipe Massa Williams 1:32.873 1.872 36
    11 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:32.999 1.998 30
    12 Esteban Gutierrez Haas 1:33.129 2.128 31
    13 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:33.177 2.176 36
    14 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:33.384 2.383 23
    15 Sergio Perez Force India 1:33.406 2.405 35
    16 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1:33.447 2.446 34
    17 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:33.570 2.569 37
    18 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:33.640 2.639 35
    19 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 1:33.953 2.952 21
    20 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:34.224 3.223 31
    21 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:34.477 3.476 34
    22 Rio Haryanto Manor 1:34.562 3.561 33

     

    Photo by courtesy Pirelli

  • 2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference

    DRIVERS:

    Pascal Wehrlein (Manor)

    Max VERSTAPPEN (Toro Rosso)

    Romain GROSJEAN (Haas)

    Felipe MASSA (Williams)

    Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    Fernando ALONSO (McLaren)

     

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Fernando, we have to start with you: three times a winner here in Bahrain, but clearly we have to deal with the accident in Melbourne and the aftermath. You aren’t racing here this weekend. Tell us the process that led to that decision and how disappointed you feel?

    Fernando ALONSO: Well, yeah, a little bit disappointed obviously. We want to race. We are competitors, drivers and we like competition, and we love the sport. So when you come here and you cannot even try it’s always sad, but it’s understandable and I respect the decision. I try until the last moment to be able to race, at least to try in the practice. There has been some painful days, with some pain at home, but I was ready to go through this pain somehow in the car and make sure I could race, because at the end of the day the pain is manageable if you don’t think too much probably and [with] the adrenaline of driving, but there are some other risks that the doctors they think. So it’s a risk management that I understand, to minimise everything is the logical thing to do, so a little bit sad for that but it’s the only way to go.

    So, looking forward, how optimistic that it will be fixed and that you will be able to race at the next round in China?
    FA: Well, you know, it’s not 100 per cent. There will be another test that I need to do in the next eight or ten days and after that test the FIA will evaluate again, as they did now. First of all is the safety and then the performance, so hopefully everything is OK but it’s something we need to see with the next test.

    Thank you for that. Romain, coming to you, you’ve had some great days in Formula One, some emotional podiums and so on, including two right here in Bahrain, but where does that sixth place on Haas’ debut rank for you?
    Romain GROSJEAN: Well, it was a special race for us. We got a bit lucky with the red flag but we were unlucky on Saturday with the new qualifying format. It was a great debut, better than what we were expecting. It’s been one of those races that I will probably always remember, when I’m getting older and I tell the kids of my kids my stories. But I think it was good for everyone. It was good for Formula One. It was good for the team. I think a brand new team coming and showing that it’s possible to score points at the first venue, it was a very good thing. And for all my guys and everyone that has been working so hard in the last two months, it was just a good morale boost and a confirmation that the car we are driving is probably one of the best I’ve ever driven.

    Really? Because you did seem to have the pace to comfortably stay ahead of the Force, particularly after the restart. Is that about the level you think the team is at or will it fluctuate depending on circuit?
    RG: I think there is a lot we need to learn, there are a lot of things we could do better. We didn’t have any practice in Australia because of the rain and then the crash in the pit lane in FP3, so you know we put the car on track with barely any set-up work and guess where we should be, so I’m sure that whenever we get more running, more time in the car, there is more potential to be coming. I’m not saying we’re going to be in the top five here this weekend, I’m just saying that it’s the beginning for the team. But generally I think we will have up and downs, but the potential is big.

    Thank you. Pascal, welcome. You made your long-awaited Formula One debut in Australia, running as high as 13th for a while. Do you feel this car can get among the points this season?
    Pascal WEHRLEIN: I think so. I think it’s really depending on the track. Australia was great, especially in the race, my first lap was amazing and also the next few laps at the beginning were great. I could follow the other cars easily, so that was good, definitely, yeah.

    It’s interesting looking at the tyre selections for each race weekend from Pirelli, once again you’ve gone for a large quantity of medium tyres. What’s the strategy behind that?
    PW: I think the first things is that we want to drive a lot in free practice because we still have to learn a lot about the car and you know that’s easier with the medium tyres.

    OK, thank you. Felipe, coming to you, fifth place in the opening round in Melbourne, behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull. Is that about where Williams are at at this stage? Do you think you might get ahead of Red Bull this weekend, on this track?
    Felipe MASSA: Well, I think it was a good start for us. It was more or less where we expected to be. It’s also true that Red Bull was quite strong in the race and even the Toro Rosso; they were pretty strong. It was quite a big fight with them, including qualifying. I really hope here we can be in front. I hope we can be more competitive on this track, because we know that we are going to have a big fight with these two teams and maybe some other teams as well. I think we saw that Mercedes and Ferrari they were pretty strong, as expected. I hope this track can be better for us.

    Like Fernando, you have a good record here, you are a two-time winner on this racetrack. Tell us what you like about it, tell us about the challenge of this place?
    FM: Well, it’s a very nice track. I like to drive here. You have some nice corners but also some very tricky corners that you need a good car in terms of braking, in terms of traction as well. But it’s a nice track. I had some good races. Always when you have good races on a type of track, you enjoy, so this is what I’m looking forward to have another one on Sunday.

    Coming to the championship leader, Nico Rosberg: celebrating the 10th anniversary of your Formula One debut right here in 2006. Melbourne made it four wins in a row, how big a psychological boots was it to get off to such a good start?
    Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, of course it was a great start but it’s one race out of 21, so it’s really early days. But I’m really pleased with the car that we have. The team has done an incredible job to give us such a car again this year. It will be a great couple of races coming up for sure, but of course we are also looking closely at the battle with Ferrari.

    Well, one possible weakness appeared to be the race starts. Once again a problem for both Mercedes cars, the Ferraris got ahead. What steps have you and the team taken to address that?
    NR: Yeah, for sure we’ve worked on it, but it’s a challenge this year, because it’s one clutch lever that we’re only allowed to use due to the rule changes. So it has made it more difficult but it’s definitely an area we are focusing a lot.

    Max, coming to you finally. Positives from Melbourne: you were the first teenager for 55 years to qualify in the top five and also you personally went past the 50 championship points mark. But the negative, obviously, was the dispute over the Toro Rosso pit stop strategy. What lessons did you and the team take from that?
    Max VERSTAPPEN: First of all, I think we had a great qualifying, so we could be very happy with that. But of course the race didn’t pan [out] like we wanted to. But, yeah, we analysed a lot of things and hopefully we can try to come back stronger here even though I think this track hasn’t suited us so far in the history but we try to make the most of it that’s for sure.

    Both the Toro Rossos were right up the front in qualifying in Melbourne. Has the pace of this year’s car exceeded your expectations after testing?
    MV: Well, I wanted to be there, so yeah, we just kept working hard, we saw the improvements during the winter time of course but you still want to see how it goes on track and in winter testing you don’t know exactly where you are. But I think in the end to be P5 in qualifying was definitely a great achievement by the whole team, especially with such a short winter for us.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports) Fernando, what are the extent of your injuries that have prevented you from driving this weekend and what are the risks that you mentioned that the doctors brought up about keeping out this weekend?
    FA: Well, just to summarise a little bit. Last week I was OK Sunday – some knee pain but not big things. I had the green light from the doctors to leave the track and everything was OK. On Monday, I had a little bit of overall pain but nothing too serious. I flew back. I arrived in Spain and the pain was similar or a little bit more, so we decided to do a proper check – a CT scan. I had a small pneumothorax on the lung. So we took the advice from the doctors to relax at home and make everything come to normal and we repeat the scan last Monday. The pneumothorax is gone more or less but I have some rib fractures, so because of that there are the risks of driving, because Formula One is a very unique sport, a unique position on the car, and the G-Forces that a fracture could move into the lung as well, so yeah, it’s not like a broken leg or broken arm, that you can deal with the pain, this is in the chest where some organs are there and we cannot do much more.

    Q: (Alex Popov – NTV/Match TV) For all the drivers, about the start in Australia. How much it was different to last year considering it’s just one clutch lever and slightly less preparation for a bite point on the starting grid. And for Pascal, if you can compare the start to DTM.

    PW: DTM is completely different. We have the clutch pedal with the left foot, so it’s different, that one. Starting an F1 race, I only know this system. My start in Melbourne was really, really good and I made up seven positions – so I cannot complain about it!

    MV: I think quite similar. I had a good start so I was very happy about it but in general it just asks a bit more practice – but you can deal with it.

    RG: I think I prefer the old-style one. Why? Because it was more about the precision of the reaction time and at the end it didn’t change much of the procedure. I think some teams have done it better than others. We’re a brand new team and still have some work to be done. We didn’t have a great start but at the end it won’t change much.

    FM: I think it’s a little bit more difficult to do but I would say that after one or two, three races it will be similar to before.

    Nico, you spoke about the single clutch in your previous answer. Anything more to add?
    NR: It’s a good challenge. It makes it more difficult, there will be a bit more variability in the starts.

    Fernando?
    FA: The same comments. More challenging, so it’s good. There will be some random performance so it’s good for the show.

    Q: (Abhishek Takle – Mid-Day) Question to Fernando. Fernando, I just want to get your thoughts… every time you step into a Formula One car you take a risk. At what point does the risk outweigh the reward? In terms of the risk you’re taking and the performance you’re getting back for it. If I could have your thoughts on that. Thank you.
    FA: I think we don’t think about the risk at any point. Even you see it now, I have broken ribs and I’m here with some pain, not easy to sleep sometimes, depending which movements. I would like to sit in the car and see how is the pain in the car and how to enjoy driving the car. So, you understand that this is motorsport and anything can happen. Everytime you jump in the car. But yeah, you love it so much it’s completely transparent, the risk, when you jump in the car.

    Q: (Marco Canseco – Marca) For Fernando. You have started last season and this season with two accidents. Are you worried by that?
    FA: No, not really. I’ve been very lucky all my career. This is my sixteenth Formula One year and it’s normal that you have accidents here and there. It happened unfortunately in the last two years, two accidents that I miss one race. The last one in Australia that probably you all saw. It was quite a big impact, so I knew that it was risky, my possibility to race in Bahrain because it was only ten days from the big shunt. I tried my best, as I said, the team did a fantastic job preparing the car for this race, so I wanted to try until the last moment. I flew last night, I arrived this morning, I wanted to at least try to practice but I understand also the position. But now, yeah, I want to stay here for the weekend, help Stoffel because it’s a good opportunity for him and help the team – because I love what I do. I love Formula One and racing and I will miss this race but I want to learn from the outside also, how the team prepare the race and how are the actions around the new qualifying system, the race itself, the strategy, the pitstop moments. I want to get involved in everything from the outside because it could help me on the inside at the next race. It’s a step forward that we need to do together and yeah, hopefully help the team because I’m very thankful for the job they did last week.

    Q: (Ralf Bach – Auto Bild) A question to Fernando, and then a question for Pascal. Fernando, your broken ribs, have they something to do with the g-forces of the accident or maybe with the broken seat?
    FA: Just the g-forces of the accident. The impact.

    And Pascal, you see how quick it can be that a second reserve driver has to make the race. Would you be prepared in the Silver Arrow case to drive in this car at once from the mental side?
    PW: In general. Of course, I’m a member of the team since 2014 and I’ve done many days in the simulator and also a few tests and I was travelling to all the races last year so of course, I’m prepared.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) After the Australian Grand Prix the GPDA published a fairly hard-hitting open letter. To all of you, are you members of the GPDA, do you agree with the contents and, if so, what would you like to see changed?

    Fernando?
    FA: I think the letter says everything. We love the sport. We love it so much that maybe we think the last couple of years we’ve been a little bit moving left and right with not a clear direction and we want to help in any of the things the fans want, the drivers want, the sponsors want, that are quite clear in some of the things we’ve been searching in the last couple of years. Yeah, it’s just a letter of… a supporting letter from all of the drivers that we do care about our sport and we would like to get involved in some of the decisions or in some of the things that we could help somehow. It’s a start. It’s the way the sport is moving in the last couple of years, maybe we don’t see it completely right.

    Nico?
    NR: Yes, we’re all united on this opinion because we love the sport and can see the fans are criticising some aspects that we could do better. We could be even more exciting as a sport and we want to question whether or not the F1 governance cannot review the process in which decisions are made in all these things to try to get it to a point where we can get some better decisions done and become a more exciting sport. There’s recent examples, with this qualifying where the fans are just at home and they’re not happy with it. We’re racing for the fans. Mostly for the fans. That’s the examples that are now the recent cases. Even the rules for next year. We’re putting on more downforce although actually we should be trying to help overtaking. More downforce is known for making overtaking and following other cars more difficult. It’s not necessarily the right way. With all of these things we are saying that we would like to be more involved, have more of a say, us drivers – so let’s see where this takes us.

    Felipe?
    FM: The same. I totally agree with both of them. All the drivers are united on this letter that you guys saw. We just want to be part of… changing. To improve the sport.

    Romain?
    RG: I think Fernando resumed it pretty well: he has broken ribs and he wanted to race because we love the sport. We are fans of Formula One. We want it to be the best that it can be with the best drivers, the best car, the best shows. As Nico says, right now the decisions haven’t been so good in terms of fans replies, or media or the sponsors. We just want to help the sport that we love more than anything.

    Max – did you play a part in this?
    MV: I have nothing to add. I think it’s all explained very clear. I’m not a member.

    Pascal?
    PW: I just joined Formula One. I always dreamed of Formula One, then when you join it you want it to be on the best peak it could be. Definitely everyone is not 100 per cent happy today and we just have to improve that.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Fernando, it was obvious that after such an accident you wanted to leave the car as soon as possible.  Two questions on that: first of all, in such a moment, do you have the time and the nerves to watch whether the car could be under electrical power, because we saw this totally destroyed car, cables hanging out, hydraulic lines hanging out? Maybe there was still high voltage in the car? And the second thing is, do you think that with the halo fitted, you would have still been able to escape as quickly as you did in Melbourne?
    FA: First question: I didn’t see anything. You just want to get out of the car and at that point you just want to put your feet on the ground and walk away. This is the only thing you are thinking at that moment. The halo system? I don’t know if I could have got out of the car as quickly as I did. I guess so, because I’m sure the system is designed to look at all the scenarios but probably my only concern when I was rolling over was just to avoid hitting the head, because obviously I was very tight from the belts and I was flying but I didn’t feel any risk at all in the middle of the accident, apart from to my head, that I wanted not to crash with anyone, so the halo was probably very welcome in my accident as well. I would avoid that concern, when I’m flying.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Fernando and Nico, just going back to the GPDA letter, you talked about the processes and the governance structure, what about the people at the top, because there’s a structure we work within but there’s also the people trying to bring in new rules? So can I just ask you specifically, do you both have your full confidence in Bernie, Jean to move the sport in the direction that you think it should go in?
    NR: It would be inappropriate now to mention any names or criticise any individuals or even compliment individuals, it’s just that we know that it’s not perfect the way it is, it could be better and so it needs to be reviewed and that’s what we’re trying to encourage.
    FA: Yeah, as Nico said, it’s not a problem of any names. Actually I think Bernie has been looking to protect the sport all the time and to improve the sport and to improve the show. I think Bernie, Jean, everyone is doing their best but the system is somehow a little bit old in terms of decisions. As Nico pointed out before, the new qualifying system, also the new rules, these radio restrictions now that seem very attractive for you guys and from the outside, it’s a little bit contradictory when we have a very complex car, very complex technology with hybrid engines, with everything to manage and now we cannot have any information about the cars. You cannot give us a spaceship and then not tell us anything when we are there. These kind of things are making drivers a little bit confused and a little bit… we need to help in the future for Formula One.

    Q: (Jon McEvoy – Daily Mail) Fernando first, have you re-run the accident in your mind? Do you get nightmares about it?
    FA: No, I don’t have any nightmares, I just have pain sometimes. As you all know, a broken rib is painful when you make some movements but apart from that, zero nightmares and really looking forward to jumping in the car and sad to miss this opportunity. The team told me ‘you will fly back home’ and I said no way. I want to hear the cars, I want to help Stoffel, I want to see the new updates in the car, how they work so this completely fine on that.

    Q: (Jon McEvoy – Daily Mail) And to the three drivers in the front row, not linked to that, do you feel that all the drivers should be members of the GPDA and that there would be a greater solidarity if everyone was a member?
    FA: Yes, it would be nice to have all the drivers inside the GPDA but I have to say also that in all the important decisions that we make in the last couple of years we are all united, it’s not that being part of the GPDA doesn’t make the group united in the important things. Yeah, it would be nice but we will see.
    NR: Yeah, this letter was signed by the GPDA but it is all the drivers, the whole grid, and that’s what counts.
    FM: Yes, I’m not a member but I totally agree with the letter and the help that the drivers can give to Formula One.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Back to the GPDA situation, I’m sorry gentlemen, but on the Friday before Melbourne, Charlie Whiting suggested that the drivers weren’t using every single platform and forum available to them to voice their opinions and he gave examples, for example a visit to Pirelli to which not all the drivers went, to a meeting at testing in Barcelona, not all the drivers went. He also said that on the Friday in drivers’ briefing you have plenty of opportunities to voice your opinions. So what other platforms do you actually need, why aren’t these enough?
    RG: I was in the Barcelona meeting, I couldn’t make it to Pirelli for sponsors’ event. I think that’s unfortunately our lives and it’s going to be very hard to get all the drivers to come to meetings outside the paddock. I think we have been trying to raise our voices through different methods and I think Alex and the directors of the GPDA have been trying different ways before the letter was sent. I think again, all the drivers have been united on that subject and everyone is willing to help things to get better. We’re not saying we’ve got a magic fix, we’re not saying we’ve got the solution but we’re just trying to help the best we can.

    Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Fernando, which side are your broken ribs? On your left side. And I just wondered if there were any concerns whether you would recover from this? There are no worries that you won’t recover from these ribs?
    FA: No, I will recover. I am already recovering from the pneumothorax and the problem is that the rib is just too fresh, it’s still not completely ‘glued’, let’s say. This thing could be a potential problem, very very low risk, also I didn’t have any respiratory issues at any time, so the risks are very very small but I understand that we all want zero risk. It’s just a question of time that the rib goes a little bit together and with that we will be OK. The next ten days should be OK for this but we cannot guarantee;  maybe ten, maybe five, maybe twelve. It’s just a normal rib.

    Q: (Ralf Bach – Auto Bild motorsport) Me Again …Question to all the drivers: normally if you write a letter you want to see a reaction but what will you do when there’s no reaction at all?
    NR: Well, let’s see. It’s a process. It’s a process where we want to try and integrate ourselves a bit more into the whole thing. Let’s see, step by step.
    FA: Yeah, it’s a process and I think it’s very early days and I’m sure that in the next couple of steps or in the next decisions, I’m sure that we will have a part.
    FM: As they say, it’s a process. I was in every meeting that happened before, even with the FIA, with Pirelli, I was everywhere and I think we need to try and give our opinion and this is part of trying to be closer to the decisions in the future. It’s a process. I hope it will work and I believe it will.

    Q: (Christopher Joseph – Chicane) Nico, you mentioned in some of your previous answers the fact that you feel that the decision-making process is flawed. Do you think then that this letter is the first step perhaps in integrating the drivers’ opinions and perhaps giving the drivers more say in the governance of Formula One?
    NR: First of all, I didn’t use those words. I think I just said ‘for sure it can be done better.’ We’re driving those cars, we know, we have a really good opinion on what would be best to make the racing more exciting. It makes sense for us to be more integrated into the whole process.

  • Weather Report for the 2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix

    It almost never rains in the desert. Bahrain surprised us this week when we saw rain at the track.

    But this rain will be short lived and we can expect sunny and warm weather for the rest of the race weekend. Temperatures will remain in the mid twenties with sun all weekend round.

    Bahrain 2016_Weather