F1 Madness

Tag: haas

  • 2017 Pre-Season Test Day 3: Mercedes On Top While Ferrari Impresses

    2017 Pre-Season Test Day 3: Mercedes On Top While Ferrari Impresses

    It was another good day for the Mercedes Formula One team on day three of the first pre-season test of 2017.

    Valtteri Bottas, for the Silver Arrows, set the fastest time of the day of 1:19.705 on Pirelli’s Ultra Soft Tyres. The time seemed impressive until Sebastian Vettel in the Ferrari put in the second fastest time of the day crossing the line in 1:19.952 just 0.247s slower than Bottas on the yellow-marked soft compound tyres which are two shades harder than the ultra soft.

    “Braking is better, cornering is better, you’ve got more grip,” said Vettel at the end of the day.

    “Then in low-speed corners when arguably the downforce effect is less big, you have more grip from the tyres.”

    Vettel said that the 2017 cars fix everything. He wouldn’t make any predictions regarding the running order saying that it’s too early to tell at this stage. Although Ferrari were able to get some solid running during the past three days he does feel that they could have done more and says that Ferrari have a lot of work ahead of them.

     

    “It feels better than last year but I think everyone is saying that,” added Vettel summing up his feelings on the 2017 cars.

    “When you can go faster as a driver it’s always nice to be able to push harder.

    “I didn’t pay much attention to what the others are doing.

    “Everybody is looking at one lap time but it’s much more important what happens throughout the day and that’s difficult to read.”

    Daniel Ricciardo was able to get the 3rd fastest time of the day and added 70 laps to his name for the day. 4th Fastest for the day was Renault’s Jolyon Palmer who set his time in the morning session which stood for the rest of the day. His team mate, Nico Hulkenberg, took over in the afternoon session and finished 5th fastest a few tenths off Palmer’s time.

    Sauber had another good day of running clocking up 130 laps with Marcus Ericsson at the wheel of the C36. He managed to finish 6th fastest ahead of Lewis Hamilton who took over from Bottas in the afternoon session. Hamilton’s program mostly consisted of long runs racking up and impressive 95-laps for just the afternoon session.

    On his first taste of 2017 machinery Romain Grosjean was at the seat of the Haas VF-17 for the day. His fastest time on the day of 1:22.118 earned him 8th fastest on the day. The Frenchman had a reasonable day of running and had a total lap tally of 56-laps by the close of the day.

    After crashing in the second day of testing, Canadian rookie Lance Stroll was at the wheel of the Williams Fw40 again today. Stroll enjoyed some good running adding 95-laps to his count but a crash at the exit of Turn 5 ended his day before lunch. The front end of the Williams was badly damaged and the team had no choice but to end the day early once again. This is two crashes for the rookie in as many days.

     

    Fernando Alonso had a good day for McLaren in the MCL32 putting in a decent number of laps for the day after two days of engine troubles.

    Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat were at the wheel of the STR12 for Toro Rosso. The finished the day 11th and 13 fastest with a total lap tally of 63 laps.

    Force India’s development driver Alfonso Celis ended his day 12th fastest with 71 laps to his name.

     

    “It was a busy day in which we managed to complete nearly everything in our plan,” said Celis.

    “These cars are completely different and I enjoyed my first experience of the new regulations – you can really feel the step up in performance. It took me a bit of time to get used to the car and the conditions, and the track had very low grip early on.

    “I did a lot of aero passes in the morning and then we focussed on understanding the tyres in the afternoon. The most important objective of the day was to give the team as much data as possible so these 71 laps will hopefully be very useful for better understanding this car.”

     

  • F1 2017: Official Testing Day 1 Wrap-Up

    F1 2017: Official Testing Day 1 Wrap-Up

    The first official day of testing commenced at Spain’s Circuit de Catalunya on Monday.

    The eagerly awaited first day of testing got off to an expected slow start as the new cars trickled out of their respective garages to set the first installations laps. First out on circuit was Renault’s RS17 but the rest quickly followed suit.

    The first red flag of the testing session was brought out by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo who parked his brand-new RB13 at turn 3. Nevertheless, before the stoppage Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas had set a quickest time in the 1:24s with a set of Pirelli’s new medium compound tyre.

    This time was soon eclipsed by Sebastian Vettel who put the Ferrari on top of the timing sheets with a 1:23:560. The Ferrari and Mercedes teams easily set the most number of laps in the opening morning of testing. Meanwhile, gremlins struck in the McLaren garage as Fernando Alonso’s car developed an oil system problem. The team estimated a four to five hour period to get to the bottom of the issue.

    McLaren’s problems with their engine seem like a repeat of last years testing and was summed up by AutoSport’s Gary Anderson rather eloquently.

    “It’s not good news for McLaren-Honda to be sat in the garage chasing some kind of oil system problem. The engines coming to this test should all be test-bench run and where the engine connects up to the system of the car should be bulletproof. Using the excuse that this is testing and things will go wrong is rubbish because you only have eight days and you need to hit the ground running. Losing a big part of a day is time you will never recover, and by the time the McLaren runs again, most of its rivals will have built up a lot of mileage. We’ve seen a lot of finger problems for McLaren and Honda during the past few years, and maybe this is the same again. Not a good start to testing.”

     

    The second half of the day was more productive for the teams that were off to a slow start in the mornings.

    McLaren changed the engine in the MCL32 and sent Alonso out on track for a few laps and to catch on on some running he missed during the morning. Alonso ended his day with 14 laps on the board with a fastest time of 1:24.852.

     

    Ricciardo was the first one to emerge from the pits after the lunch break and Red Bull were able to get going with their testing program and managed to complete 50-laps before the end of the day. Ricciardo’s fastest lap put him 5th fastest on the day with a time of 1:22.926.

    Mercedes topped the time sheets at the end of the day and had the highest tally of completed laps on the day. Lewis Hamilton jumped into the car after lunch and set the fastest time of the day of 1:21.765. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was the second fastest with a 1:21.878. Vettel completed 128 laps and will welcome a day’s rest when Kimi Raikkonen takes over testing duties on Tuesday.

     

    After a brief retirement, Felipe Massa completed 103 laps on his return. He set the 3rd fastest time of the day with a time of 1:22.706.

    With limited running, Sergio Perez completed 39 laps for Force India and finished the day 7th fastest ahead of Carlos Sainz who was 8th fastest on the day. ON his first outing for Renault, Nico Hulkenberg set the 9th fastest time of the day completing 57 laps around the Circuit de Catalunya.

    Compared to last year the times are already much quicker and are set to become faster as testing goes on. The times have almost no meaning at this point. The objective for the teams is to get as much mileage on the cars during these few days as possible and learn as much about the car as they can. Engineers will be pouring over the data and will be ready with new setup parameters tomorrow

     

  • F1 2016: Brazilian Gp Review – Hamilton Cruises Amid Chaos

    F1 2016: Brazilian Gp Review – Hamilton Cruises Amid Chaos

    Three hours, five safety cars, and two red flags all combined to deliver a Brazilian grand prix that was high on intensity and high on emotion. But none of it fazed Lewis Hamilton as he cruised to his first ever victory in Brazil.

    Conditions proved so difficult that race director Charlie Whiting ordered a ten minute delay to the start of the proceedings in the hopes that the rain would ease. This wasn’t enough for Romain Grosjean though as his Haas speared into the wall while making his way to the starting grid. The race commenced behind the safety car and it quickly became apparent that visibility up the long start/finish straight was the biggest issue.

    Nevertheless, a handful of laps later conditions calmed enough to get some proper racing underway. Pole man Lewis Hamilton easily controlled proceedings and scampered off into the distance while Rosberg fended off a feisty Max Verstappen who had already made short work of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari at the start.

    Ferrari’s afternoon got more difficult as Sebastian Vettel spun at the exit of the final corner which dropped him down to fifteenth. Several drivers dived into the pitlane for intermediate tyres despite track conditions being more conducive to the full wet tyre. The first big crash came in the form of Marcus Ericsson who clipped a white line in the run-in to the pitlane and destroying the Sauber in the process. Ericsson’s stricken car ended up in the pitlane entry which prompted its closure. However, quick thinking from Red Bull saw Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo into the box. While Verstappen made it into the pitlane before the red light Ricciardo was as fortunate and was given a five second penalty for his troubles.

    GP BRASILE F1/2016The safety car once again led the field and just as racing commenced on lap 20 Kimi Raikkonen lost control of his car on the main straight which left him facing oncoming traffic in a situation with low visibility. Several drivers, including Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon, reacted brilliantly to avoid hitting Raikkonen’s car. This prompted the first red flag of the race with Hamilton still in the lead.

    Nearly fifty minutes later the race re-started behind the safety car but the field completed only eight laps before another red flag stopped it. It wasn’t too long before drivers clambered back into their cockpits for the re-start and this time the race ran until lap 48 until the safety car was required in order to recover the Williams of Felipe Massa which had shunted in a similar fashion to Ericsson. It was an bittersweet end the popular Brazilian’s last home race. While a solid result eluded Massa it did afford him an opportunity to salute the thousands of fans in the grandstands with a Brazilian flag draped over his shoulders and a few tears to boot. As Massa made his way into the pitlane it produced one of the most emotional scenes as team mechanics and personnel from several teams, including Mercedes and Ferrari, stood outside the garage to applaud him.

    GP BRASILE F1/2016On lap 55 the race re-started with the spotlight focused on a fast-charging Verstappen in 14th who swopped inters for new full wets. The teenager scythed through the field with some stunning overtakes which had more to do with his bravery than his new rubber. Verstappen eventually finished a miraculous third.

    As rain transformed the Interlagos circuit into a treacherous roller-coaster every F1 driver had to ply the maximum of their ability to keep their cars on track. Several drivers failed to reach the chequered flag but others impressed. Force India’s Sergio Perez was fourth ahead Vettel in fifth and Carlos Sainz in sixth. Nico Hulkenberg took seventh ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in eighth while Felipe Nasr scored Sauber’s first points of the season with a fine ninth place finish. McLaren’s Fernando Alonso survived his own spin to finish tenth.

    Nico Rosberg wasn’t able to clinch the title but he delivered the next best thing with a second place finish. He now takes a 12 point lead to the final race of the year in Abu Dhabi.

  • 2016 Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing), Maurizio ARRIVABENE (Ferrari), Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli), Monisha KALTENBORN (Sauber), Guenther STEINER (Haas), Frédéric VASSEUR (Renault)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Christian, can we start with you: just looking at the track action that’s been going on today, the long run pace obviously looks quite close to Mercedes, but is it really that offers you the chance to fight for victory, or can you be a little more optimistic after today?

    Christian HORNER: Well, I think under normal circumstances the usual business will happen. Mercedes have been the dominant force all year and there’s no reason to expect any different this weekend. But, race pace over the last few race, on a Sunday we’ve managed to get close to them particularly their tail car. Perhaps with a little bit of weather… there are some unpredictable forecasts over the next few days and opportunities can hopefully present themselves to put a challenge on.

    Either way, there is a pretty good chance that you are going to wrap up second place in the Constructors’ Championship this weekend. Given where you’ve been, in transition from 2015 to 2016, does that constitute a success?

    CH: It would represent an enormous achievement for the whole team. We came into the year thinking, ‘you know what, to get into the top five will be difficult’. But the guys have produced a great car. The people at Renault have done a good job with the engine over the winter. Our season has just grown stronger and stronger. To be sitting here having achieved 14 or so podiums, two grand prix victories, Max’s first victory in Barcelona, Daniel with a one-two finish in Malaysia and to be sitting here ahead of Ferrari on points and the nearest competitor to Mercedes represents and extremely impressive season for the whole team.

    Maurizio, what about your side of that story: the battle with Red Bull. It’s not the team you set our to be battling against this year in the world championship but how and why did they get ahead of you?

    Maurizio ARRIVABENE: I think first of all we need to take into consideration… it’s not an excuse but it is circumstances that happened where we lose position on the grid and you know when you start a bit in front the story is going to change. Having said so, they have a strong reaction, as Christian said, and we are below of our expectation. By the way, as I said many, many times, we are not giving up here and not either in Abu Dhabi. I know it’s tough, but the championship is still not finished.

    Now you told Sebastian yourself, personally over the radio in Mexico, to “calm down”, quote-unquote, and he admitted sitting here yesterday that he did lose his cool in Mexico but he said it was not down to frustration, so how happy have you been in general with his performance?

    MA: I have zero problem with Sebastian. I mean, as I said many, many times, Sebastian is quite emotional. Sometimes he looks a bit more Latino than German. I think Christian knows the matter like I do. He’s very emotional, he’s very passionate, especially when he’s driving and it’s in a racing battle. It’s not a question of frustration. Sometimes he can be unhappy as we are unhappy because our expectations are different. But he’s not a guy who is giving up; he’s a guy that is pushing like hell. Sometimes when the adrenalin is going up to the sky, maybe he’s choosing a word more than what is expected, but then my role, like in Mexico, is also to call him and to invite him to be focused on what he’s doing.

    Paul, you brought soft and medium again this year to Interlagos, but also the hard tyre. It’s quite an unusual move, only the second time this season you’ve brought a harder tyre than the one that came last season. How’s that looking?

    Paul HEMBERY: Well, you wouldn’t want the supersoft here that’s for sure, so it sort of chose itself from that point of view. The soft tyre is suffering. It’s hot, an aggressive track, high wear, so it’s pretty much as we expected, but that was the majority choice as well of the teams.

    Important test coming up for you in Abu Dhabi. Can you give us a preview of what to expect and a general overview on progress, where you are with next year’s tyres?

    PH: Well, we’re clearly homing in on final solutions now. There are still going to be a lot of combinations tested next week in Abu Dhabi. Still some compounding work, we’re still working on some internal aspects of the tyre but we’re progressing as planned.

    Fred, coming to you, you’ve retained Jolyon Palmer for 2017 to drive along Nico Hulkenberg. What were the reasons for that and what do you expect from him in his second year?

    Frédéric VASSEUR: First we had to secure the first one. It was done with Nico around Suzuka, something like this. Then we were able to postpone a little bit the decision. If you have a look at the last event, I think that Jo did a very good job; he is improving. If you have a look also to what he did in the past in the junior series he was always able to improve step by step, year after year and we took the decision to move forward with Jo and I would expect that he will have the same improving curve that he did in the junior series and it will be good.

    Now, a lot hinges for next season, for you team and for Christian’s team, on the Renault engine taking a decent step. So will it?

    FV: I hope so! It’s in the pipe… I think Christian also thinks so… no, no we are working on the project of the new engine and I think everything is going well so far and we will see in Barcelona.

    Guenther, coming to you and continuing on the theme of the drivers, Esteban Gutierrez has said on social media this weekend that he is leaving your team and there are strong suggestions that Magnussen will be leaving Fred’s team to come and join you. What’s most important for you over the next couple of years? Is it to have consistent drivers that you can work with to develop the team and the cars or would you look to bring in an American or a rookie? What’s the most important thing?

    Guenther STEINER: I think the most important… just if somebody hasn’t seen the press release, it just came out maybe 10 minutes ago, we confirmed that Romain and Kevin will join us next year, that just came out 10 minutes ago. We want to grow the team and therefore we wanted some experience of drivers that have been on the podium and that have scored points and Kevin was fitting the bill, therefore we moved forward with him. I would like to take this moment to thanks Esteban for what he did for us over this year. I think he has got a good future; he did a good job and whatever people say he is a good driver. He helped us develop the team from nothing to be where we are so thanks a lot to him.

    Q: The Ferrari partnership has obviously got you started in 2016; you’ve scored plenty of points but as you now move forward, are you now looking to build your own capability in the future to be able to take control of your own destiny.

    GS: No, we have a long-standing contract in place with Ferrari that we can continue the business model we are doing. We are going forward like this for the next few years and then we see, we rethink. But at the moment we are very happy with Ferrari, what they did for us over the year to get again to the point where we are now. Hopefully we finish eighth if Fred’s team doesn’t pull out something very special, and we hope we move up next year. But in the moment, for sure you always develop your team and you keep on getting better and more people in and that will happen – but in general it stays like we are now.

    Q: Coming to you Monisha, staying again on the theme of the drivers, the other teams clearly as we’re hearing have been tying down their drivers and making their announcements, just a few moments ago in the case of Haas. You did yours here a couple of years ago I think. How far off being able to do the same thing are you and should we expect any changes?

    Monisha KALTENBORN: Well we are still in the process of analysing our options but it’s not going to take that long any more. We still have the target that we do want to announce in the season, so there’s not that much time left. So that’s all I can tell you now.

    Q: Jörg Zander has returned to the team. How had he benefitted from his years with Audi in particular and what will that bring to your team?

    MK: Well, we know Jörg Zander for quite a while. He was the chief designer in our team earlier and now, as we decided to actually take up a technical director again it was quite an obvious person to look at. He’s been working at Audi for very long, he has a lot of motorsport experience now, inside Formula One, outside Formula One, so we do think he fits in very well with that because we also have third party business outside Formula One. I’m sure he’ll bring many new ideas and the team can only benefit from that because we are now in a new era, you know it’s a new chapter in the team history and this kind of influence and these ideas will only be beneficial to move into the right direction.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Alessandro Giannini – Agência O Globo) For you Monisha, I would like to ask you a direct question about Felipe. How are the talks with him and if he has one chance to stay at the Sauber team?

    MK: Well, Felipe is certainly one of our options, that’s clear, we know him well, we know his skills. We’ve had a lot of experiences together with him: good ones, bad ones, so we can assess him very well. So talks are taking place, that’s what I can tell you.

    Q: (Andrea Cremonesi, La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for Maurizio, yesterday you present an appeal now for the podium win in Mexico. I would like to know some more details, when you find out the new elements. If you can give us some more details about which are these elements.

    MA: Yes, if we present according with the International Sporting Code Article 14.1, we presented new elements, of course, as we said, what we think are new elements and we have the right to present it. If you want me to present all the elements here, is not something that I’m going to do because in 40 minutes we have a conference call and we have to discuss the matter. I think it’s not correct to share this kind of information here.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) As the previous question proves, there’s been a lot of controversy about the regulations etc and Christian, you and Maurizio have been particularly outspoken about them. You’re both members of the Strategy Group: would you like to take them up in the Strategy Group. Would you like to take them up in the Strategy Group? What would you like to see changed? And if anybody else would like to comment, feel free, please.

    MA: Back, if you refer to Mexico and many other races, I think, I understand the difficulties of the stewards because sometimes they have to take a decision immediately and to take this decision they need to collect in quick time all the available data and material – and it’s not an easy job, I think. That is further complicated by what we said many, many times at the strategy group level about sometimes the complication of the regulation. We ask many, many times to try to find a way to simplify the rules, so I think this is something that we need to think further for the future, making sure that we don’t have a Rule A that is covered by the Rule B that is covered by the Rule C and D and E and F and so on. If there is a rule it is A dot. And then we go to the B. I’m expressing my thought with all the respect for the people that is making the rule. But I think this sport, it is already complicated in terms of technology, in term of what we have to do to build-up the car and to make competitive the car. I think simplifying the rules could be a good help for everybody.

    Christian, your view.

    CH: Yeah, I think that we’re over-regulated in many respects, that the drivers need to take a rulebook with them really on a Sunday now in the car and consult it before they either defend or make an overtaking manoeuvre these days and there’s too much subjectivity and interpretation of different events. So Lewis Hamilton going straight on at the first turn last weekend, comes out half a kilometre up the road, is that an advantage or a disadvantage compared to Max going off and coming back in the same position he went off with, with dirty tyres later in the race. It’s very difficult for the teams, for the drivers and one can only think for the viewers as to what’s permitted and what isn’t. I think, like all things in life, keep it simple. Keep it straightforward. I’d say less rules in terms of… but more clarity in terms of what the rules of engagement are. Nobody wants to see dangerous driving but let the drivers race, let them go wheel to wheel. I mean everybody’s talking about the last five or six laps in Mexico because, let’s face it, the rest of the race was pretty boring. The last ten laps were fantastic and of course there’s been a whole bunch of discussion about it since then and that’s what Formula One needs to be and I think let’s avoid the situation that drivers can cut corners and gain an advantage. Put a gravel trap there. Put something to slow the cars down, and then it takes that subjectivity away from stewards having to interpret ‘well, is that result different to this one. Is that incident different to that?’ We can see so many examples of that that I think for the teams, for the drivers and most importantly for the fans, let’s come up with something straight forward and simple that’s easy to understand and interpret.

    Monisha, do you agree?

    MK: Well I agree with that but I think there’s another element to it which is how you actually apply the rules, and you would need to try to bring some consistency in there. At the end of the day it’s always up to an interpretation, it’s up to the discretion of the people who are doing it, so apart from making things simpler it’s also that you try to have consistency on the people. That you have somebody who is always there, or a group of people because this is how you will bring in certain consistency on how rules are applied. So I think you have to look at both sides: look at the rules themselves but also how they are implemented.

    Fred?

    FV: It’s not an easy point and to know if we are to take the decision during the race or not, the first one is that you will always have someone to complain: that if you take the decision during the race you will say that OK, the steward has to take time before to take a decision and, if they take the decision after the race, OK you will affect the results of the race, after the podium and so on. But for sure we’ll have always issue with the chicane and probably the only solution would be to do all the races in Monaco but even Monaco will be tricky. The solution to slow down the car when they cut the chicane would be the best one to be sure. We have to find a solution that the guy will be directly penalised, that will avoid discussion and the stewards and so and so and so because it will be always the same mess after the race.

    Final thought on this Guenther

    GS: I think everything was said. I think I’m good, y’know, they all spoke and I agree with all of which was said. It’s just to try to simply what we are doing.

    Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) Maurizio Arrivabene, just two days ago Bernie Ecclestone said that in his opinion maybe the problem with Ferrari not winning races is because it is 100 percent an Italian team. I would love to know if you agree with that and in which way the passion which we know the team has and which we know is fantastic is a handicap for your work?

    MA: First of all, we all know Bernie. The day after he said the opposite and he also came to me to explain himself without being requested to do so. If I’m not wrong, it’s said that I need somebody nearby me to help. I don’t need it. I’m part of the Ferrari racing department and I have hundreds of people who are nearby me. We have a new technical group led by Mattia Binotto. They are enthusiasts, they are working very very well. So we have a team. In terms of the passion, I was always passionate about Ferrari, all my life, I have to say, even before doing this job and Ferrari is about passion, it’s about emotion. When I’m at the factory and I cross the street to go in the GT department and I’m looking at new GT cars that are coming out from the factory, for me it’s a big emotion. And this is something that is not a handicap, it’s a dream.

    Q: (Andra Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Maurizio, it’s about the arguments of the last Grand Prix. Have you talked to Sebastian, have you tried to make a different approach for this Grand Prix, even because the FIA said they will not forgive another situation like this in the future?

    MA: Listen, first of all I think… I don’t know if you know but Sebastian asked… he excused himself in writing with Charlie and the FIA and the FIA responded to Sebastian in a way that we really appreciated. I spoke every day with Sebastian, and not only after the Mexican race. Somebody maybe thinks we have tension or things like this. No, we are honest  with each other. The word honesty must sometimes be put in the script or in the article, because we have an honest, open, straightforward relationship and if you are asking me, we are always in agreement, like all human beings, sometimes yes, sometimes no. We have a fantastic relationship and it’s based on an honest, day after day feedback. I respect him as a driver, he was four times World Champion. He’s putting all of himself into the job that he’s doing. A couple of months ago, I said sometimes even too much but it was not a criticism. I want to make it clear, once and forever. It’s because he’s putting all of himself – he tries to put all of himself into everything he’s doing and sometimes you just have to say, like in Mexico, ‘hey Seb, calm down, head down, look in front of you and push.’ And there’s nothing wrong with that so you ask me, you can ask him and you have the same version.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) I’m not Italian but the question’s for you, Maurizio, and I’d like to refer to yesterday’s teleconference call by your president to investors after your Q3 results. One of the things that Mr Marchionne didn’t do is rule out Ferrari possibly going into Formula E. And the second thing is that he said that Ferrari can’t continue throwing money at Formula One, which would indicate that the investors are starting to seek more value for money. How do you feel about these two comments? Could we see a red Formula E car and how do you see this for Ferrari’s future, that just maybe investor pressure could turn Ferrari away?

    MA: The strategy in terms of investment at Ferrari is not under my responsibility. Formula E, I think Mr Marchionne was very very clear, at the moment it’s not in the programme of Ferrari. If we’re talking about hybrid, we have Formula One, we are building up our experience in Formula One on that side. We could be but it’s not up to me to decide or to indicate the right strategy but Formula E, I don’t think so.

    Again, it’s not my responsibility to talk to the investors. I can talk about the word pressure. Everybody is talking about pressure when they are referring to our job and everything we are doing but there’s nothing strange in that. If you are working  in a team like this, the day that you sign a contract you know what you are doing, you know that the sport is pointing at you because we are Ferrari. Sometimes I am hearing ‘are you guys under a lot of pressure?’  It makes me laugh. So what, it’s expected when your name is Ferrari

  • F1 2016: Mexican Gp Preview – All Eyes On Rosberg

    F1 2016: Mexican Gp Preview – All Eyes On Rosberg

    The eyes of the racing world will be on Nico Rosberg this weekend as the Mercedes driver has his first chance to win the driver’s title.

    It isn’t a straightforward chance though. For Rosberg to clinch his first title he’ll have to win the race and Lewis Hamilton will have to finish tenth or lower. While it’s certainly not impossible [insert image of painful Malaysian engine failure here] it does seem improbable. Many are waiting with bated breath to see how Rosberg will react to the situation he now finds himself in. There probably won’t be a reaction from Rosberg because one isn’t needed. He’s gotten himself to this point and this position with a method that has worked for him the entire season, why change that now? A smart person once said: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The reality is that Rosberg has to keep doing what he’s done since the end of the 2015 season. It’s up to Hamilton now to pull something out of his bag of tricks.

    Rosberg’s first chance to take the crown comes at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez just south of Texas. If there is one thing that is true about Mexico it’s that they love Formula 1. A record-breaking crowd at last year electrified the grand prix. The final sector’s stadium section is likely one of the most visually stunning aspects of any circuit anywhere in the world. The hundreds of thousands of fans clambering for a glimpse of the heroes and raucous passion of all of them is truly something to behold.

    Sergio Perez (MEX) Sahara Force India F1 VJM08. Mexican Grand Prix, Sunday 1st November 2015. Mexico City, Mexico.

    It might have something to do with the fact that they have two Mexican drivers on the grid in the form of Sergio Perez at Force India and Esteban Gutierrez at Haas F1. “It’s a very special week for my whole career. It’s probably one of the best two weeks of my career because it represents so much to racing, to motorsports in Mexico in general, and to me,” says Gutierrez. “It’s a kind of connection where I can share my passion for racing and what I do with all Mexicans. I feel grateful for their support”.

    Besides the second highest top speed, after Baku, the Mexican circuit provides several other challenges. “The primary feature of the circuit is its altitude which tests the turbo charger of the power unit, as well as the vehicle’s cooling systems. The altitude is not only a test for the car, but indeed the drivers and the whole pit crew,” says Williams’ Chief Technical Head, Pat Symonds. “Of particular note is the brake duty cycle, with this circuit now being one of the highest benchmarks we need to achieve. For the second time in a row, the teams also have to handle back-to-back race events as we continue through the busy final stint of the season.”

    The circuit’s demand on power unit performance will be prevalent this weekend. Normally, this would mean that Ferrari should have the edge over Red Bull and their Tag Heuer branded Renault engine. However, it has been a season of decline for the Italian team and not just on car performance. If they are to get anything out of this weekend they’ll have to inch perfect.

    Nico Rosberg stands on the cusp of realising his biggest dream – to become a Formula 1 World Champion. Despite this overwhelming prospect there is a feeling that Rosberg will continue to do what he’s done best this season and see how the chips land at the end of it. One thing is certain though he will not relent.

     

  • 2016 Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference

    DRIVERS – Sergio PEREZ (Force India), Esteban GUTIERREZ (Haas), Carlos SAINZ (Toro Rosso), Esteban OCON (Manor), Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes), Marcus ERICSSON (Sauber)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    There is an incredible sense of excitement ahead of this Mexican Grand Prix. Checo, last year, those scenes of you being swamped on the drivers’ parade by the fans, just describe what that sense of adulation is like coming into this race.

    Sergio PEREZ: Yeah, first of all, I’m so happy, I’ve been waiting the whole season for this race and finally to be here with all my people, arriving to Mexico City – as soon as I arrived here on Tuesday for an event, I can see all the energy from all the people is getting bigger. Formula One is getting bigger, it’s growing. It’s something that makes me very proud and I’m so much looking forward to give them a lot of happiness on Sunday. Hopefully I can give then a strong race, a strong performance. They always say that racing at home is an extra two tenths that you have on you. There really is, because the energy that I feel throughout the weekend is just phenomenal and I’m sure that this weekend will be a lot of that and I will be there to give them my best. The weekend goes to fast to me because I’m full of events and full of commitments that I just want to enjoy every single moment and give my best to them.

    And Esteban, same for you really: are you going to find those two tenths in what is your first Mexican Grand Prix?

    Esteban GUTIERREZ: Well, it’s an incredible feeling to be here and see how all the people are excited. I feel honoured to be able to share this great weekend, this great moment, with all the people that are going to be here supporting us – family, friends, fans – it’s just an incredible feeling. It feels like a whole big party through the whole weekend. So, yeah, everybody is excited. I’m very grateful for the support and I’m going to give my best to give the best result possible this weekend and I’m lucky to be here, with another opportunity, thinking that it’s going to be in Mexico, in my home country and enjoying all together.

    Esteban, staying with you, one year ago you were announced as a Haas Formula One driver, how are your plans shaping up for 2017?

    EG: I think Gene has been very clear in the media, they want to wait a few races. Fortunately, we have other options, which we are now considering strongly, and I think it will be important to close something soon, because we cannot risk to just wait a few more races until the end of the season and risk to fall in between two chairs. So we are doing our best and things are looking very good for next season.

    Have you put a deadline for those negotiations to end?

    EG: Yeah, that deadline should be in the next two weeks.

    Checo, back to you, your current team-mate is moving to a works team in 2017, so what do you see in Force India that convinced you to stay there?

    SP: I see a good potential. If you see, since I arrived up to now, every season we have been moving forwards. It hasn’t been easy. Right now we are fourth in the Constructors’ and to go up the next top teams are locked out, they don’t have any vacancy, so really I felt like my next move was going to be sideways or probably backwards. I see going to a new generation of cars that my best future is staying where I am, knowing the people that I am working working, having the stability, and as well Force India has done so much for my career I want to be loyal to them.

    Moving on to Esteban Ocon, you’ve made huge progress in the six races you’ve driven in Formula One and you’re being linked with pretty much every available seat on the grid. How are those negotiations going and who will ultimately decided your future? Is it your decision or is it Mercedes’ decision?

    Esteban OCON: Well first of all I’m already really happy to make the progress we made with the team. Together we have done a really strong job. It hasn’t been an easy thing to arrive half way through the season but I’m happy with the progress. Mercedes is managing my career, so at the moment I’m trying to focus on the remaining races and, yeah, we will see from there on how it goes.

    Do you feel ready for a bigger team or do you think you’d benefit from another season with Manor?

    EO: I don’t know, you know, as I say I’m focusing as much as I can on the remaining races. If you do a strong job there will always be talks and opportunities.

    Marcus, you ran as high as 11th in Austin last weekend. Do you feel that Sauber are now starting to make real progress for the first time since the buyout?

    Marcus ERICSSON: Yeah, I think so. The last few races we’ve really been taking steps in the right direction, starting from Singapore really. Every race we are getting closer to the top ten, both in qualifying and in the races, and as you say, in Austin we had another really good weekend. In Q1 I was P14 on pure pace and that was really positive and then in the race I was running in P11 for a long time and I think it was with less than 10 laps to go I was still 11th but then obviously we struggled with the tyres and I dropped back a couple of positions. But as a team we have been pushing really hard and moved in the right directions. Also, the updates we brought to the car we got to work now better and better, so we realty see we are going in the right direction. But we just need to continue that now, really push our maximum these last three weekends. It’s no secret, we need to aim for that point to jump Manor in the championship and that’s what we are aiming for, but we are definitely moving in the right direction.

    Well, you’re absolutely right, the team really does need that point. Where do you think is your best chance at the remaining three races?

    ME: I think every one of them will be a good chance, but obviously on pure pace it’s going to be difficult because we still miss a couple of tenths it feels like to really take the fight for the top 10. It should be some races where there are some retirements or something like that and that should be a chance for us to benefit. We need to be there and do our maximum and be as high as possible in the races that we can take advantage of these surprising things that can happen. If this race is more chance than other races it’s difficult to say but we just need to be there to take the opportunities when they present themselves.

    Carlos, a tremendous race from you Austin and a great battle with Fernando Alonso. You’ve often said that he is your inspiration. Do you get an extra sense of satisfaction when you are racing him as opposed to the rest of your peers?

    Carlos SAINZ: Well, it’s already a big satisfaction to be a Formula One driver, because you are racing against the 21 best drivers in the world, but yeah, maybe that battle with Fernando was that tiny bit more special. I’ve been growing up looking up at him since he’s in Formula One in 2003. I’ve seen all his races and suddenly I saw myself in a position to fight on the last lap against him in Austin for a P5. It was special, but at that point you don’t really realise the thing you are doing. Maybe when you go to bed and you think a bit more about it, it’s that tiny bit more special, but it was an exciting one I enjoyed it a lot. I didn’t have all the grip available to put up a stronger fight, but I definitely enjoyed it a lot.

    Toro Rosso confirmed last weekend that Daniil Kvyat will be your team-mate next season. It’s going to be one of the most experienced driver line-ups Toro Rosso have ever had and when you combine that with the Renault engine coming your way, how does that affect your ambitions for next year, what do you think you can achieve?

    CS: I think Toro Rosso is in constant progress at the moment. Obviously this year we have been a bit hampered by this power deficit that you all know by now. But if you look at the car and how it was performing in Austin, it’s a pretty decent car I must say. I really enjoy driving it. So as James Key and his team they do a very similar job to this last couple of years and the Renault engine works well, I think Toro Rosso has a good line-up next year to exploit this full potential of the car with Dany and myself and I really think we can move a bit forward in the Constructors’ Championship. We have the right people on board and we just need a bit of straight line speed, a bit more things coming together to put together some stronger results.

    Q: Nico, it’s been a great season for you so far and the upshot of that is that you can clinch the world championship here in Mexico this weekend. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t think about that. How does it change your mindset?

    Nico ROSBERG: I’m well aware of that, and yeah, it’s been a great season so far, which has put me into this position, y’know? It’s exciting to be in this championship battle now with Lewis towards the end of the season. We’ve been there before but anyways, it’s very cool. And that’s it. As I’ve said before, that for me, my way at the moment of achieving the best possible performance is really just to focus on the things that are within my control – and that’s, here in Mexico, try and win the race, and that’s it.

    Q: Given the intensity of your battle with Lewis, how is the atmosphere in the team at the minute? Are there echoes of 2014 or is this different somehow?

    NR: The atmosphere is really, really good. As an example we had a great party on Sunday night after Austin. All the mechanics, engineers together, it’s great. The team has come a long way and, in every area, we’re just so strong now. Even just this team feeling. Pulling in one direction, having a good time together. Everything. The atmosphere is awesome. I think everybody is thrilled by this battle which we’re finding ourselves in.

    Q: What about the dynamic between you and Lewis?

    NR: Not something I think about too much really. I try and do my thing and get the best possible result. That’s it. Of course it’s intense – but at the same time there’s an easy-going side lately.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Flavio Vanetti – Corriere della Sera) To Nico Rosberg, in Austin we heard some quotes from Bernie Ecclestone. Can you reply to what he said? He said if you win it could be good for you and for the Mercedes team but not necessarily for the sport because there’s nothing to write about you. What do you say about it?

    NR: I spoke to him personally and he said that’s not exactly the way he said it. And anyways, for me it’s not something that’s important to me. For me, I focus on my thing and that’s it.

    Q: (El Grafico – Enrique Gutierrez) Checo, what is your great fears in your life?

    SP: To be honest it’s snakes, probably! Apart from that I don’t fear anything. To me, I don’t have a lot of fears, to be honest.

    Second question, what do you think about the death?

    SP: Nice questions. It’s a point in life that you don’t want to reach but everyone will reach death in their life. Sooner or later everyone will reach it but it’s a point of life no-one wants to reach.

    NR: I wish all Mexicans a great celebration of the dead.

    SP: He asks the question because we have this celebration this Sunday, I think.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Question for Nico, you’ve been racing your entire life: you’ve been in Formula One for ten years, been fighting for the championship for the last three, what would winning the World Championship mean to you?

    NR: It’s a childhood dream. But that’s where it ends for me. As I said, what’s important for me this weekend is winning the Mexican Grand Prix.

    Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) Question to Nico. How do you work with Lewis with the battle? Do you copy his settings, do you watch his telemetry or do you work all alone, apart from him?

    NR: It’s as-usual. Everything is open, everything is shared and that’s it. So nothing has changed.

    Q: (Jonathan McEvoy – Daily Mail) Here we’re a long way up in the air. What’s it like to drive at altitude or is there anything that you feel when you’re driving and is there anything extra that you need to do to be ready for that?

    NR: Have you noticed that on your run this morning? What do you do 21k? No, for sure you notice it. So it’s one of those races where the fitness is important and it’s one of those I’ve worked towards. But it’s OK because there are long straights also to relax – so it’s not the toughest race of the year.

    Checo, do you have anything to add about racing at altitude?

    SP: You obviously feel it. Whatever you do, not only racing, running, whatever activity you do, you feel it a lot more. As Nico said, the circuit probably helps us with the layout. It has one of the longest straights in the calendar so physically it’s not one of the toughest: we’ve been through those already: Singapore, Malaysia – but it’s quite demanding as well, the race here.

    NR: But it’s just as difficult for car. Not just for us drivers, because the car having less air volume density makes a big difference. For cooling.

    Q: (Lazaro  Montano – Record) Nico, how special will it be to get the championship here in Mexico, considering that last year your good streak started here? After Austin, you began to win here in Mexico? How special would it be to complete the year with a championship here?

    NR: I have great memories from here last year. Winning here was awesome, and also to get so much support from the Mexican people, even after that, through the whole year, social media, it’s really nice to see, so I look forward to meeting everyone again this weekend. The podium is one of the best in the year, in the baseball stadium, it was absolutely phenomenal and in terms of the championship, it’s not within my control if I get it this weekend, so for me it’s all about just winning the race and then we see what happens.

    Q: (Luis Alberto Aguirre – Reform) To Marcus, do you see any chance for yourself to go to Force India next year? Is there any possibility; do you see that seat as a possibility for you?

    ME: I think all the drivers who don’t have a contract for next year are looking at the seat. Obviously Force India is the second best available car at the moment, so it’s definitely an option but also Sauber is exciting for me looking at next year, because they have a very strong project building. So yeah, for me and my management, they are keeping their options open and talking to different teams that have seats left and hopefully sooner rather than later I will know what will happen for next year for me.

    Q: (Ben Hunt –The Sun) Nico, two questions to you: do you think it’s unfair when people say that you’re only leading the championship due to Lewis’s failures? And also, just to bring you up on Bernie’s point, 2016 he said it would not be good for the sport if you were to win. Last year he had another pop at you and said it would be bad for business if you won the title. He seems to be doing you a bit of a disservice, don’t you feel?

    NR: Well, you’re talking a lot about what other think and their opinions. I’m here to win races and not to please everybody that’s out there. There’s always going to be people that have opinions that will be going against me in some way or other. Those are two examples that you’ve given me and that’s the nature of the business, it’s always going to be like that so I like to focus on the people who really support me. And that’s it.

    Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Bernie’s come out and said that he’d like to see walls put around circuits. Now I know that you’re quite keen on driver safety; what do you make of that? He would like to see walls to stop people going off track, increase the drama, to increase the danger. It sounds a bit bonkers to me but I just wanted to get your opinions.

    NR: Well, my opinion is that there are ten other areas which we should look at before… if we want to make the sport even better than it is before we start looking at turning back time on safety. That would be my view on that.

    SP: I certainly agree with Nico. There are so many more areas where we can improve the sport before starting to put safety at risk. I think we can definitely make the circuits a bit more challenging for the drivers, not necessarily with walls but making the driver pay for mistakes if you go off, having a gravel trap and losing time, that kind of thing I think is good for the sport because that forces the drivers not to make any mistakes.

    CS: I fully agree with Checo on that one. For me, obviously safety comes first but also challenges for drivers. I just did a track walk this morning and you know when you see so much tarmac run-off where you can go wide like in Austin, it’s good for safety but I’m convinced we could use some devices to make it a bit more challenging, to make sure you use a bit more of the track. At least you pay something, you don’t gain an advantage. At the moment it’s too risky for us to just miss the braking point a bit, nothing happens, continue and you don’t even lock up the tyres. I fully agree on that one with Checo.

    Q: (Thomas Goubin – AutoHebdo) Sergio, about next season, for you, at what point will it be difficult to replace a competitive driver like Nico and what kind of a driver would you like for next season as a teammate?

    SP: Obviously having someone at the level of Nico is going to be difficult but I just want someone who comes with the right attitude to help the team, that gives good feedback and understands what’s going on with the car and hopefully if he can be fast as well, who pushes me, that would be great. I think that has worked really well with Nico because we push… (Esteban interjects) A Mexican as well, maybe would be good. Someone who pushes you, I think that’s for the benefit of the team and I think a lot of the success that the team has had has been because Nico and I have been pushing each other really hard. Since practice one up to the race, it’s always within half a tenth and that’s always good for the team.

    Q: (Luis Alberto Aguirre – Reform) Regarding that subject, would you like to become Checo’s teammate; would you like to be Esteban’s teammate, Checo?

    EG: Yeah, why not? It would be fantastic. Any teammate is good. Sure.

    Q: Is there any chance we can see you guys wrestling out there later on?

    SP: Why not?

    Q: (Juan Pablo Sanchez – Millenio) Nico, what do you think are the keys to repeat (your victory) here in Mexico on Sunday?

    NR: Well, we’ve seen this year that the results from last year don’t really make a difference to this year except for a positive memory, so we’re all starting from zero and the keys… I think to have a good rhythm through the weekend, starting from FP1, building it up and then the usual things: good qualifying, good start, race pace, those things.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Carlos, we’re in the land of the chilli and your nickname is Chilli. A reader called attribalF1 would like to know who gave you the nickname, when and whether you think it’s descriptive?

    CS: Yeah, this name comes probably from my friends, maybe on nights out or something, they get a bit too drunk and they come up from Carlos to Charlie from Charlie to Chilli and that’s how it ended up being… I don’t like chillis, this the interesting part, that I hate spicy stuff. Yesterday I went to have some tacos and I couldn’t have them because they were too spicy. Chilli is not my favourite.

    Q: (Jon McEvoy – Daily Mail) Again to Nico, it seems that your mindset is very much each race and your mind isn’t on the broader story. Is that a decision that you’ve reached, the way that it works for you  or is it as a result of you having had a word with an expert in the area of mind management? I was just wondering how you stumbled on or decided that the idea that it was one race at a time and that was it.

    NR: It just feels right, it feels right to focus on the things I can influence to keep it simple, be in the moment and it’s been working so just stick with it.

    Q: (Diego Mejia – F1 Canal Latin America) To maybe Nico and if Checo can answer it as well: how would you expect the track to have evolved twelve months on, how will it be different or not from last year and how would you expect the supersoft tyre to be a factor after last year’s experience?

    NR: Normally the track surface gets a bit rougher and that will make it a bit different on the tyres, so that’s the main thing we need to learn and discover and see how that’s gone.

    SP: Same as Nico. I think the track will be rougher and that will have an impact on the degradation and now that we have a compound a step softer that might help the degradation so we might see different strategies. I think last year a lot of people went for one stop and now probably that’s not going to be that easy to be on a one stop.

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  • 2016 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference

    DRIVERS – Romain GROSJEAN (Haas), Kevin MAGNUSSEN (Renault), Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams), Nico HULKENBERG (Force India), Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari), Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Nico, let’s begin with you: congratulations on your first works drive in Formula One, with Renault for next season. Tell us, why is this the right move for you now and what was the clincher that made you decide to take it?

    Nico HULKENBERG: Yeah, I believe that it’s the right step in my career at this point. I feel I have come a long way with Force India – it’s my fifth year with them. We’ve had some good success together. But I felt that it’s time for a new challenge. Since I’m in F1 I’ve always wanted to race for a manufacturer team and this is a really good opportunity. The timing was pretty good too. So I think it was a good decision I think from my side.

    You’ve qualified in the Top 10 at the last nine consecutive races, what has been the secret of the consistency you’ve been finding recently?

    NH: I think a good strong car! That always makes things easier. I feel the team has done a really good job to develop the car. The car has really become an all-rounder. If it’s a high downforce, low downforce track or low-speed, high-speed, we’re always inside the top 10 somewhere and really [we have] become a strong contender behind the top three teams and it’s just the result of some good, hard work.

    Kevin, coming to you: So where does this deal leave you? As Nico’s team mate or are you likely to pursue other avenues?

    Kevin MAGNUSSEN: No, I hope I can stay on as his team-mate. That’s my target and that’s what I hope is going to happen. And hopefully it won’t be too long before we will be able to announce what’s going to happen – either/or – so we’ll just do this race and focus on driving and enjoying my time in the car and we’ll see what happens.

    You started your F1 career with a podium, then sat out 2015 and came back this year with Renault. What are your thoughts on how your second run at F1 has gone and how the reality of Renault this year matched your expectations?

    KM: I would say it has matched the expectation. We knew it was going to be a tough year, because the car that Renault took over from Lotus was very underdeveloped. Renault, at the beginning of the year, was behind on engine power; so going from a Mercedes engine to a Renault was a little bit of a step back. Renault has done a great job to improve the engine. We’ve got more out of the car but haven’t really improved it in terms of getting more downforce, because the focus has been on next year’s car back at the factory. It was going to be a transition year, where the focus was on the future and not so much on this year in terms of performance, so I think we’ve got out of it what we could.

    Thanks for that. Valtteri, coming to you: what about your plans? I’m sure you’re aware that you have now broken the F1 record of Jim Clark for the longest F1 career spent entirely with a single team. Is it time to stick or twist?

    Valtteri BOTTAS: I understand that stick or twist is meaning if I stay with Williams or not. We’re going to still need to wait a little bit to get things confirmed about what’s going to happen next year. But, yeah, it’s a nice fact. I’ve had a great time with the time and we’ve had some good results but I feel like there could be something more still to achieve together but let’s wait and see.

    You’ve been in the points at the last two races, including a very strong run in Malaysia, but both races you’ve qualified outside the top 10. Has that surprised you?

    VB: Definitely. We’ve struggled a bit in the last couple of races with the pure pace and obviously the team has focused a lot on next year’s car and we can definitely see that if some other teams are improving then it’s more tricky in certain tracks. So hopefully here it’s going to be better and I’m sure there are still good races for us this year and we just need to make sure we get everything right.

    Coming to Lewis, then: the reigning world champion and four-times US grand prix winner. You’ve had a pretty busy time of it, pre-Austin, speaking with American TV – the Ellen DeGeneres show – and also the news about you appearing in the new Call of Duty game. Tell us about that and what does that say about your ability as an F1 driver to reach our beyond the sport to new audiences?

    Lewis HAMILTON: Well, good morning everyone. Yeah, we were fortunate to have been on the Ellen show the other day, which was fantastic. I love being out here in the States, so this was a good opportunity for me to reach a completely new audience that perhaps… I’m pretty sure that most of the people that were in the audience, on the show, hadn’t heard of Formula One, so they were all glued to their seats to learn something new. It’s a weird thing. I don’t think anyone’s been on the Ellen show, so I’m pretty proud of it.

    And the Call of Duty thing?

    LH: Yeah, Call of Duty: I play that game every winter… obviously during the year but particularly in the winter, so to have got the call with the opportunity to be a part of it, I was like – absolutely. I jumped at it. So I can’t wait for this winter. A friend of mine that plays with us, he had no idea… well, he might read about it… but I haven’t told him yet that I’m in the game, so when I’m playing him in the winter and he sees me on there, he’s definitely going to lose it a little bit.

    Back to the day job: 100 points available in the remaining races, you trail by 33 – clearly you need some wins to get back into it, so is Austin the ideal place to race next, given your history here. You’ve won three of the four races that have been held on this race track?

    LH: Yeah, Austin has always been… America has always been a good hunting ground for me. I’ve been out here for a week already, so I’m looking forward to fighting again. This is a fantastic track. They did a very good job with the design. It’s one of the few of the newer circuits that really allows good overtaking and following of cars, which is always difficult in Formula One. Yeah, I’m here, I know the weather is going to better this weekend, so particularly for the fans that will be great and yeah, I’m excited.

    It could hardly be worse than last year, could it! Thank you for that. Moving on to another former winner of this race here, 2013 US Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel. Sebastian, it seemed that Suzuka summed up Ferrari’s season in many ways: the car was fast, but through a variety of reasons wasn’t able to convert that into a podium or a shot at victory. Do you see any of the four remaining tracks, including this one obviously, as winnable?

    Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, I think there is always a chance. I think obviously in Japan we did some progress, so that was a positive, but as you said, it was probably was a good summary of our season so far. Nevertheless, I think the most important thing is that we fight, we give everything we have, and it could have been a better in Japan, it wasn’t and so we’re ready for this race.

    When we were in Monza, in the press conference, you talked about the feeling of being a Ferrari driver in Monza in front of the tifosi. Of course the US has a long, long history with Ferrari, it’s the biggest market for the cars and there is a tremendous fan base here for it, so what does it feel like to be a Ferrari driver in America?

    SV: Well, I had a very good race last year. Obviously we had to start a little bit further back. The weather helped us in that regard, to come back and finish on the podium, so it was a great first race with Ferrari here. As you mentioned, a huge fan base also here. Obviously, Italy is really the core, where the foundation lies, but I think everywhere around the world it’s amazing to see how much support we get. I think there are always a lot of Ferrari flags, people dressed in red and very passionate fans around the tracks, it’s great to be part of that family.

    Thank for that and coming to you Romain: your 100th grand prix this weekend, how appropriate, because it’s a big weekend, the Haas Formula One team’s first home grand prix in the USA. What special arrangements does the team have, to bring workers, families and so on to the race?

    Romain GROSJEAN: Yeah, we arrived Monday in Charlotte and then went to see the factory in North Carolina and went to see the NASCAR factory and did some media. Of course a lot of employees at the North Carolina factory are going to come here, which is great, as they don’t get to see us very often – the base is more in Europe – so that’s going to be good. Having my 100th grand prix here, home race for the team, is just a great thing.

    You’ve had some special days here in the past as well. You come here off the back of a Japanese GP where both cars qualified in the Top 10 for the first time ever. Can you repeat that here and this time convert it into some points?
    RG:     Well, if I’m not in Q3 but I score points that would be good as well! In Japan we had a great qualifying and we made some good progress on the car, which is good. We had a new front wing that we could eventually run, which worked well. It’s very hard for us every time we go to a track, because we don’t have any data from the past and we don’t know where to start with the set-up, so we have to guess a little bit and it takes more time than other people to find everything correct. But we definitely will try to qualify well and then scoring points in the race would be good, because we haven’t done that for a long time?

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Seff Harding – Zero Zone News) This question’s for Lewis: Lewis, you’ve done some great work with Unicef and recently you posted on your Facebook about the trip you took to Haiti two years ago, and you also noted the aid that’s needed for Haiti right now after the devastation of Hurricane Matthew. My question to you is: do you have plans to make another trip to Haiti to visit some of the devastated areas?
    LH:     Well, it’s good to see you again and thank you for the question. I haven’t another plan to go to Haiti, but I would love to. The trip that I had there was life-changing. To go to a country that has so much beauty but so much poverty was a huge eye-opener and obviously sad to see. But also to see the smiles on people who have so much less than all of us here. But knowing and seeing the devastation there and they don’t have the tools or the means to be able to make change and to recover from the difficult scenario they are in. That’s why we have an opportunity, us, as drivers, who have the following we have, not necessarily particularly to have to encourage people, but some people perhaps don’t know where to go to help. People are constantly on their phones, and if they see ‘oh, I didn’t know I could just go online, or by the click of a button help change someone’s life’, so that’s what I try to do. But I am working with Unicef on further plans for the future. I don’t know if it’s going to be in Haiti. If there’s a way I can get there and time for me to get there and help in any way. I don’t know what I could do, apart from taking a picture for social media, which is not really that helpful. But my thoughts and prayers are will all the families that are there.

    Q: (Flavio Vanetti – Corriere della Sera) Sebastian, we know that you’re contract expires at the end of 2017. Do you expect to start soon the negotiations with the team to extend it?
    SV:     Well, I think we are all fairly busy at this time to focus on the four races that are left and focus in particular to prepare for next year, so I think that’s where, honestly, the main focus lies. I don’t think it’s that important to look into details such as… my contract is all fine for next year, so as I said, with a lot of things happening back at the factory, back in Maranello, I think… I know we’re very, very busy and that’s where I want also the focus to be.

    Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Lewis, you’ve had some great races and pole laps this year – but also a couple of more shaky weekend. How do you look back on this season as a competitor, for you, leaving aside the reliability issues?

    LH: Honestly, I don’t look back. There’s very little point to look back, it’s only looking forwards. As I’ve said, there’s obviously the four races but I’ve still got hopefully some time here in my career for better days. I’m obviously aware that you can’t always have great races and it’s a long, old season. But no-one’s perfect but yeah, all I can do is work as hard as I can with the team, we’ve got a great car, a great team, there’s no reason why we can’t have more positive weekends moving forwards.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Question for Lewis. Lewis, you said previously that fans should be asking the questions and not the media. Well, there’s a fan who called himself @bigorangepaul on Twitter who’s asked, under the hashtag #fanQs4LH How will you feel if Nico wins the world championship this year? And the second question is: Have you considered when you will retire, or take a sabbatical?

    LH: Thank you for the question, what’s his name? @bigorangepaul. I don’t plan on taking any sabbaticals. If I stop, I stop, that will be the plan. And, what was the other one? Oh. Try to take it like a man. It is… you can’t win them all. Look at all the world championships in the past who’ve won championships and lost championships, it is part of the game. I am in the position right now where there are still a lot of points available so I’m going to give it everything I’ve got and still have the belief that anything is possible – but then I’ll move on. Once it’s decided and it happens, all I can do about it is shape the future, which is the next year. So, life will move on, we’ll go into next season and hopefully come back stronger.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – GloboEsporte.com) Lewis, I’m sorry to come back to this subject because we saw you taking pictures now with your mobile and it was a big discussion at the last grand prix. It’s also an opportunity for you to clarify your point of view about this, let’s say, behaviour. And also, my personal question is, you think it’s fair to go in the drivers’ parade using earphones, creating a barrier to the fans, where they want you to hear them say “Lewis, we like you, Lewis we are here for you”, something like that.

    LH: Well, on the drivers’ parade, you don’t realise… at the beginning of my career I would stand and… you know I have respect for every single driver here… we’d stand and we’d talk, just generally shootin’, talking about whatever, and often not noticing that there’s certain individuals in the crowd who have travelled, probably spent all their money to get to a grand prix. So I actually genuinely often stand at the front of the truck and I often have one ear off so I can generally hear people and I make sure that I connect with the people that have come out to support me, y’know? A  lot of the people that have… sometimes there’s a Grenadian flag, but there’s often people, whatever country we’re in, even if it’s not their nationality they’ll have a British flag there and they’ll be waving. And if I’m talking to these guys often you’ll miss that. If I was in the grandstand having come to support someone, and I’m waving at the dude and he’s not even paying attention, I’d be pretty pissed. So that’s what I try to do. I try to connect with every single one. If you look at it, I point out to everyone, let them know that I recognise them and I appreciate it because I never in a million years thought I would ever have fans; people who consciously would decide to follow me and not the dude next to me. We all have that, and I think it’s really important that we engage with them, so I do. And then, I just took a picture just now, I waited for everyone to finish their questions and their answers. So respect me, I just took a picture. It’s a good picture, you’re all in it. So… yeah.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Question for Lewis, just going back to, I think the fan’s question about Nico. You’ve been racing against him your whole life. Generally you’ve beaten him. The last two years you’ve beaten him for the championship, you’ve beaten him in karting. Does that make what’s happened this year quite hard to take – because it’s not something that’s really happened to you before?

    LH: Not really. I think if you look if all things were… we’ve always been having close races, close battles. I think in all fairness to all of us here, if all things were equal in whatever our scenarios are, there would be a certain result. Obviously this year it’s obviously been a little bit different in terms of how our performances have been, particularly mechanically. And there’s nothing you can do about that. But, out of the ten times the car has been good – whatever it is – I’ve often done the job with it but then there definitely has been a few that, probably in the first few seconds of the race have not gone that well. But that’s motor racing.

    Q: (Tony Di Zimo – NBC Sports) Question for Lewis, after Japan, Mercedes clinched the third the third consecutive Constructors’ Championship. Can you describe what it felt inside the factory when you guys had the celebration and just how difficult that achievement is to accomplish?

    LH: Good question. Honestly, it’s kind-of daunting when you go back to the two factories because there’s so many people. I remember joining the team and having to stand… they’re like “we want to introduce you to everyone,” and having to stand in front of 800 people at the first place and then 500 people at the next place and speak to them. That’s always a difficult thing. But then, after you’ve grown to know everyone and you’ve gone on the journey that I have with this team and reached the success, it’s an incredibly proud moment for us to stand up there and show our appreciation – because those guys are not travelling like us but they are working crazy hours to enable us to get off the line, to be up the front and win these championships. And it takes a huge amount of work for these people to come together and every single individual operate at the best they can possibly do. I remember joining this team and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the majority of the people that were in here, said that it wasn’t the right decision. I had the belief that this team would really go somewhere and I’ve been a part of that journey and very proud of it. It was incredible. Everyone was just so happy – and now they’re turning all of those energies to next year.

    Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) A question for Seb. Considering the last upgrades on the car, are you confident that Ferrari finally found a direction to follow from now to 2017? And what about strategies, is there something to correct?

    SV: About strategies, no, I don’t think so. I think… I’m guessing you’re referring to the last race… it’s one of those things with hindsight, it’s always easier to analyse but, in the moment I think where we were, we were in third, probably fourth place, because we didn’t have the pace that Lewis had from behind, so I don’t think there was much focus, I know that the there wasn’t much focus at that time on him, the main focus was to get second initially with Max. And we tried something different. It might have worked – and then you come out as the hero. In that case, it didn’t work, so it’s fine. We can live with that. The first question… for the new parts, yeah, I think it was a step forward, both Kimi and myself, we liked it straight away. I think it gave us quite good performance in Japan. Japan usually is quite a good test for the overall performance of the car, so here you can argue it’s similar in some ways. The first sector has a lot of fast corners as well, the last sector is a little bit slower but overall, yeah, it gave us a good indication for this year and then there’s always some things that you learn. Next year the rules are changing quite a lot – but still, every bit you understand about the car and how it works will help you also for the future.

    Q: (Frank Schneider – Bild) Question to Lewis, we saw you last week with some trouble with your feet. You weren’t able to drive at the Barcelona test. Are you 100 per cent? And what happened?

    LH: I am 100 per cent, yeah, feeling great. I basically had an injury that I’ve been carrying generally all year long, in both feet. Just induced by running. Unfortunately the physio said that it just takes a lot of stretching and it just heals over a long time. At the time I woke up in the morning, I was feeling quite a lot of pain the day before, and it hadn’t diminished, so there was very little… the most important thing was to be fresh for here and feeling better for here. This is actually the first week that it’s felt good.

    Q: (Will Buxton – NBC Sports) Lewis made the point in the last press conference in Japan that these press conferences needed changing in their format because they’d grown stale and a bit dull, so to the guys who haven’t answered anything in about the last 25 minutes – so that’s the back row and Nico Hülkenberg – what’s your current level of boredom and do you think this afternoon could be better spent?

    You’re smiling the most Romain, so you start.

    RG: Aw, thanks! It’s been great fun. I took a picture with a brand I’m not allowed to touch because I’m a Microsoft ambassador…

    LH: Sorry!

    RG: I may get in trouble with that! I’m just using the jet-lag. No, it’s not ideal, as a matter of fact, when you’re at the back and we don’t have any question. But we know it – but it’s how it goes. Maybe there’s room for improvement. Just keeping quiet.

    Nico, you’re at the front, how does it feel?

    NH: Yeah, quiet today. He takes the main questions, easy job for me.

    Valtteri?

    VB: Yeah, easy. Tomorrow anyway is the day we’re all looking forward to. This day anyway isn’t going to go any quicker, so I’m good.

    And finally Kevin.

    KM: Yeah, it could be better. But that’s how it is.

    Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) Lewis, just to bring you up on social media. Just curious really. You’ve taken to blocking journalists on Twitter. Not sure your reasons why, we’ve been fairly supportive of you during your early career. I wondered why.

    LH: That’s something that’s just been brought to me. I don’t actually manage every single part of my social media. I have a couple of other people that do. Our general approach is that if you see something, see someone generally talking smack then you kind of cut it. I’d flown back from Asia and then I got a message afterwards…  I don’t know who has been blocked or not… I don’t have any particular feeling for it… I don’t have a lot of time to go online and do that. I don’t think it was just media. It was a lot of people got… I think it was a blocking-spree. I don’t even have… if you look at my phone I don’t even have the app, I don’t really do my Tweets. So…

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action, SpeedSport) Valtteri, you say the car has not had the pace recently. Looking in the long term, do you think Williams has the structure and the resources to consistently fight with the works teams?

    VB: I think… like I’ve said, many many times, I definitely think Williams can do a  lot better than what we’ve seen for example this year. Two years back was a lot better, it was definitely not yet maximised really, every single bit, so there is potential. Definitely it is out there, the facilities. Team Haas, they are good, good to fight with the works teams but it’s tricky. It’s a massively competitive sport and everyone is pushing so hard, investing more and more but so also is Williams at the moment, trying to get some new interesting people and really trying to push forward. Obviously always when there is a rules change, there is always a great opportunity for every team to catch up, if you’ve let back a little bit. Yeah, I think we can do a lot lot better than this but we will see.

    Q: (Jonathan Green – SpeedCity) Lewis, again from the fans on Speedcast, on Twitter. We lost, here in the States, two great icons: one a sportsman in Mohammed Ali and obviously Prince and I wonder, given your interest in the States, how much those two people were any influence on you as a sportman and as somebody in the public eye?

    LH: Yeah, for me growing up, those two… as soon as I could remember hearing music, my Dad was always playing Prince so I grew up on that music and still today… Some of the races I’ve won this year, I’ve been listening to Prince, even before his passing.

    SV: What, during the race?

    LH: No, no, before the races, you know? Yeah, the beautiful thing about music is that it lives on so the great thing is that he’s left us a legacy that we can always… it’s timeless. And then when Mohammed Ali, absolutely as a sportsman who defied odds and stood for what he truly believed and was a remarkable man. I had the pleasure of meeting him but unfortunately the disease was too far gone at the time so I didn’t really get to have a conversation with him. I was hoping that I could be in the position that we could have a bit of banter and hear some of the comments that he wouldn’t normally say but still it was an amazing experience to meet him. He is truly missed. I think two races ago, I was watching Rumble in the Jungle, just because that… and some of the experiences he had are inspiring and we can all apply to whatever issues or situations we’re going through in our day-to-day life.

    Q: (Jim Vertuno – AP) Sebastian, Lewis is hopeful with four races left that he can catch Nico. In what you’ve seen on the track and your experience, is it realistic?

    SV: Of course. It’s realistic because I think he’s quick enough. It’s realistic because there’s a lot of points to get and I think it would be quite bad if you quit now. If I could swap, I would immediately and go for it, so I’m sure that he goes for it and four races is a lot of laps to do, a lot of things that can happen so it’s only over when it’s over.

    Q: (Ralf Bach – Sport Bild) Nico, we could hear you saying on the radio after passing Valtteri ‘see you later’ in Japan. So what did you mean? See you later in the race or maybe see you later at Renault next year?

    NH: No, I didn’t mean that actually. It just came naturally, a couple of seconds after the pass, I was just pleased with the move on him, just came out.

    SV: Why would you want to see him again, though?

    NH: Exactly, why would I?

    Q: (Silva Arias – Parabrisas) Nico, congratulations for this step forward. Tell me please, which are the main things do you expect to have at Renault which you didn’t have at Force India?

    NH: Well, I think them being a manufacturer, they are under some expectations to eventually be successful and be at the front and compete for wins and that’s obviously what I’m looking for. We know at the moment there is still a long journey ahead of them, to climb back to the top because it’s been a difficult year and where they’ve come from, when they bought Lotus last year was not the easiest situation so it will take time to rebuild the team and to get back to the top but obviously what I see there is a good future, definitely a big challenge, a massive challenge but I’m very much up for that and why not build a new success story with them?

    Q: (Leigh Diffey – NBC Sports) Romain, we’re the host broadcaster here in the United States so week in, week out we’re talking about you a lot, we’re talking about Haas a lot. We always preface the team ‘America’s Formula One team’. Tell our audience, tell the fans what life’s like in America’s Formula One team for the first time in 30 years because it’s a big deal for us and for our viewers?

    RG: Yeah, it is. It’s great to be here. Everyone is very much looking forward. I think it’s an extra pride to be wearing the American flag on the car and having the Haas name, Gene with Haas formation,  Stewart-Haas racing and now Haas… it’s got a huge story, huge successful life. I think it’s a big name and here in the US is quite special so hopefully a good race for us and a good result.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Lewis, based on what you’ve just said to Ben about social media and you not managing it, this is my question, not a fan’s question but I’m sure the fans would like to know…

    LH: There’s obviously several platforms so I’m not consciously doing every single platform all the time so I still have a lot of people who help me because it’s quite a big job.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) … so is there a chance though that some of the opinions that are expressed are not your own opinions on there? I’m sure the fans would like to know.

    LH: No, not at all. Every single thing that’s said is generally… I can either send it if I’ve not got it… for example time to post it or if it’s not the right time of course I can write it, send it and one of my team will post it when it’s the right time.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – Globo Esporte.com) Sebastian, one of the reasons Ferrari is getting better results recently is that the team is developing the car while other teams in the second part of the season, as far as you know, no, they are concentrated on next year’s project. The question is, what is this development for and considering the knowledge you have now, can you use next year’s car more? The limitation of forty hours wind tunnel combined with cfd is there for this year’s car and next year’s car so it means are you using space of next year’s car in this existing car? Your comment please?

    SV: Well, thank you for the lesson but I think I know the rules particularly well and so does the team so I think everything that we brought this year to the car has always been the plan to be brought to the car and I think everything that we brought made sense. I don’t think that we’re the only ones still bringing bits to the car. I think it’s normal in this time that if you’re not fighting actively for the championship obviously your main focus is on next year, given the demands of the rules that are changing but I still see the point in going round, I see the point of going to the next four races, not just to try and win and be successful and be there and fight, but also to learn about this year’s car which ultimately will help you also with next year’s car. I think every lap that we spend we try to spend wisely, we try to do the right thing in order to maximise the moment but in particular, looking forward to next year. So thanks for the lesson again. I am well aware of the hours and how they are split and so on but as I said, I’m confident we’re doing the right thing.

    Q: (Samuel Reiman – Fox Sports) Lewis, turn one, it’s a long run up to the first corner at this track. Obviously starts have been one of your difficulties this year it would seem. Does that concern you for this weekend’s race and have you been able to make any progress throughout the season with your starting procedure?

    LH: It has been an ongoing thing all year long. There’s been a lot of changes, a lot of work, perhaps more than in other areas. I was at the factory last week and we were working very hard to cover up all areas so we hope that we have a slightly better formula this weekend. If not  then there will be a better formula next weekend, but it is something that… I definitely feel that we’re in a better position so fingers crossed for Sunday.

    Q: (Kevin Lyttle – Austin American Statesman) Kevin and Valtteri, this track here has had some financial issues recently with damage from the storms and things like that. How do you think it stacks up and the city of Austin stacks up as an F1 stop. And the second question would be what’s the most interesting thing you guys have done in Austin?

    KM: The most interesting thing was the race last time I was here in 2014. But it’s also a great city, it’s a really cool city for Sunday night, it’s good for partying and other things as well: good restaurants. It’s great to hang out here but it’s a great race as well and it’s good to see American fans. It’s not often you see American fans at other tracks so it’s quite special here. So yeah, I think it’s a great race and it definitely deserves a place on the calendar.

    VB: Yeah, for me, overall this Grand Prix is a lot of fun. It’s a great track to drive. I think all the drivers really like the circuit and obviously a lot of support from the fans as well in here and just next door there is a great city like Austin with plenty of things to do and such a nice feeling in the city, so overall it is one of the best Grand Prix weekends in the calendar in my opinion. And the coolest thing I’ve done here? I think it was last year, it was not in Austin but it was in Georgetown, just next door. I had an opportunity to visit the police department in there so I spent the day with the local police and they showed me their work. I got to drive a police car around the track and everything. I beat their best lap time, by the way in their training circuit. That was a lot of fun.

  • How the 2017 Grid is Shaping Up

    How the 2017 Grid is Shaping Up

    Around this time of year into every Formula 1 season we are well into what has not become known as “silly season”. The rumor mill is cranking out at full steam about which driver is moving to a new team, which drivers are staying at their current teams.

    More often than not, the look of the following season’s grid depends on one driver who holds the key to starting the chain reaction of other driver announcements around the paddock.

    Early in the season Kimi Raikkonen held they key to the driver market for a short while. Ferrari moved quickly to sign him on for another season and the key fell into the hands of Jenson Button for some time.

    Over the course of the season Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren have confirmed their driver line up for the 2017 season. Nico Hulkenberg held they key to the market for some time with his future up in the air at Force India until he was confirmed at Renault for 2017.

    As it stands, Force India, Williams, Toro Rosso, Haas, Renault, Manor and Sauber have not yet confirmed their driver line ups.

    Force India

    Sergio Perez’s future at the team was in question for a long time. He was linked to Ferrari, Haas and then Renault. He confirmed his plants early in October which left Hulkenberg an unknown. Few days later Hulkenberg confirmed his plans that he will move to Renault for 2017. One seat at Force India is open and Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein has been widely tipped to join the Silverstone based team. Esteban Ocon has also been linked with a Force India drive.

    Toro Rosso

    Carlos Sainz will be at the junior Red Bull team for 2017. A question mark remains over Daniil Kvyat’s head. After being demoted to the team after the Russian Grand Prix earlier in the season, he has suffered a slump in form. His recent performances have seen an up-tick in form. Red Bull junior driver Pierre Gasly has been linked to the Toro Rosso drive.

    Renault

    Renault have signed Nico Hulkenberg for 2017 on a multi year deal. This keeps him in place at Enstone for a while. Renault needed an experienced driver for the new set of regulation changes that take effect in 2017. The second seat at Renault has a few drivers fighting for it with Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer in the running. Manor’s Esteban Ocon has also been mentioned and his chances are looking up at Renault. Valtteri Bottas who is not yet confirmed at Williams has also been linked with a move to Renault.

    Williams

    Williams like Sauber and Manor do not have their 2017 line ups confirmed. With Felipe Massa retiring at the end of the season and a question mark over Bottas’ future at the team. It is understood that if he were to re-sign for the team he wants a shorter contract term. Canadian Lance Stroll is in the running for a Williams seat. He comes with a $36 million cash injection which makes it hard for the team to turn down. He was also crowned Formula 3 Euro Series Champion.

    Haas

    Romain Grosjean is expected to keep his place at the team. Esteban Gutierrez, who’s had a string of 11th place finishes this season, seems to be on the bubble of staying in the team.

    Manor

    With both Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon tipped to move to other teams next season Manor will be looking for new talent next year. Being supplied by Mercedes we may see drivers that are closely aligned with the Mercedes young driver program.

    Sauber

    Both Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr are yet to hear about their futures at Sauber. The team’s new owners are likely to keep the driver line up for next year.

    McLaren

    McLaren have signed Stoffel Vandoorne to partner Fernando Alonso from next year while keeping Jenson Button on a retainer with an option to drive in 2018. In all honest it does seem that this will be Jenson Button’s

  • 2016 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Ayao KOMATSU (Haas), Bob BELL (Renault), Luigi FRABONI (Ferrari), Paddy LOWE (Mercedes), Yusuke HASEGAWA (Honda), Pat SYMONDS (Williams)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Bob, let’s start with you: How have you been getting on rebuilding the staff at Enstone, where do you still lack and what will the effect of all this be on the 2017 car?

    Bob BELL: Well, I’m only a small piece of the team that is doing the rebuilding, as you call it, but it’s certainly a big challenger. I don’t think perhaps from the outside people realise how run down the Enstone squad had become in the last couple of years, so there’s a lot to do. As well as the process of rebuilding the team of course we had to build a car for this year and start work on an even better one for next year, which wouldn’t be terribly hard. It’s been a challenge, it continues to be so, but there’s a very strong spirit in Enstone as anybody who knows the place will testify to and we’re certainly up to the challenge.

    The updates in Malaysia made the car a lot better, with Kevin 14th on the grid and Jolyon taking his first championship point, yet some are saying that Renault has not really been making progress this year. What’s happening from your perspective and what’s the short-term plan if you like, between here and Abu Dhabi, based on what you’ve learned in the past week or two?

    BB: I think it’s probably fair to say that in the last few races our progress forward other than what the Viry guys have been able to do with the power unit, on the chassis side it’s been less to do with new bits and more to do with understanding how to get more out of what we’ve already got and we’ll continue that process until the end of the season. I’m sure like most teams we’re pretty much totally dedicated now in terms of development capacity to looking ahead to 2017.

    OK, thanks very much for that. Coming to Luigi Fraboni, head of power unit operations at Ferrari. Next season will be a token free season, what will that mean in practical terms as far as the preparation pre-season and the competition we’re going to see during the year?

    Luigi FRABONI: You know, as Ferrari, we are in favour of not having the tokens, this for us is a good thing. Of course next year you will have still the four power units so we need to follow the rule, but not have the tokens will give you more flexibility on making you plan and also on changes during the season. On our side, as you know, we already used the tokens this year so this means that we had quite a strong evolution during the season and so not having this this limit for next season is good and at the moment the development of the power unit for 2017 is proceeding quite well.

    Now, earlier in the season we had a discussion in one of these sessions about starting negotiations about the post 2020 engine formula. What’s your opinion? Do you see them being hybrid turbos, similar capacity, but what other directions would you like to see?

    LF: Honestly, at the moment I’m more focused on 2017, so I honestly don’t have any strong opinion on 2020. I would say that the rules for me are very challenging and I really like it.

    Would you like to start the discussions soon though about it?

    LG: My chairman for sure will start?

    OK, perfect. Hasegawa-san, Honda has made several updates to its power units in 2016, was the result as expected and will you be introducing any further updates before the end of the year?

    Yusuke HASEGAWA: Of course we have to shift our development for next year already, so I don’t think we can have some update for the rest of the event. But, last update, which we introduced in Malaysia, and Spa was a big update… I think we made a decent level of step up with this. We are not satisfied but we can feel a little bit happier.

    Part of the new FIA agreement regards manufacturers supplying more than one team – Eric Boullier was telling us in this conference in Malaysia it would be a good thing – but the Mercedes teams seem to be locked in to 2020, Renault has commitments with its teams, so are you feeling the need to press teams who are not yet committed?

    YH: Not yet committed, but we understand the situation, so we are preparing the organisation and we are preparing resource for that.

    To supply a second team?

    YH: Yes, that’s right.

    Komatsu-san, we’ve heard Romain Grosjean on the radio quite a bit in recent races getting quite annoyed with various aspects of the car. What’s the problem been and how are you addressing it?

    Ayao KOMATSU: Yeah, I think one of the problems is with consistency. We have very small amount of resource and a limited number of people. It’s not just getting one specification of the car – each component has to be put together really well and we have to monitor the quality and that area I think we really need to improve. Sometimes you’re putting on the same parts but the performance is not exactly the same. Sometimes our diagnostics are not good enough to understand what Romain is feeling straight away, so we really need to improve in every single area but we’re really working on that. With Romain, on the radio he’s quite an emotional guy but once he comes up in a debrief he’s very, very good. He’s got a really sense, he really helps us in understanding the car and where we need to go.

    It may just be an impression from the outside but your fortunes this season seem to have risen and fallen in parallel with Ferrari’s. Is that coincidence or is there more to it and what does that say about 2017?

    AK: For us really, trying to understand the fundamental things about the car, aerodynamics, tyres, that’s what we are focusing on, but again with our team being new, slightly inexperienced and still with all the analysis processes, data processes in their infancy we just need to start improving in those area. We really got to put our systems and process in place so we don’t have the same problems next year, so we can hit the ground running from February.

    Paddy, coming to you, can you give us a bit more detail on what failed on Hamilton’s engine in Malaysia? Was it related to having to push so hard in the middle of the race, as Red Bull would have us believe, and what have you done to mitigate against a repeat?

    Paddy LOWE: So, Lewis had a failure one of his big end bearings, at a very low mileage actually, a little over 600km, because he had three new engines from Belgium, when he took all the penalties. This was the second of those, first race Malaysia, to be used properly. It was a very young failure for that bearing and not at all typical of the model. And we were operating it within completely normal bounds. There were no parameters out of their normal range. No, he wasn’t pushing particularly hard, he was running in a normal race state at that part of the race, so totally unexpected for that reason. We are trying analyse why the bearing failed. We don’t understand it precisely. It’s very difficult on these occasions, you don’t often see it – the box of bits your get back from an engine blow-up. Very difficult to analyse that forensically and arrive at a root cause. But we’ve taken a number of precautionary changes across all eight power units that are on the grid to try to reduce the stress on that bearing.

    Now Nico Rosberg looks a different driver this year, I don’t know if you feel the same way. What changes do you see in his approach and his mentality and likewise how do you see the evolution of Hamilton?

    PL: I think Nico is an incredibly strong driver and I think we have seen over the last three years that he can qualify extremely well. I think, for me, the step that he has made this year is that he has improved his race craft considerably. He’s proving himself much better able to fight for the positions. He’s come across a few points along the way, with a few incidents that didn’t quite come off how he wanted, but overall that’s where he has made the step.

    And Lewis?

    PL: Lewis, I think he gets better every year. Very , very difficult guy to beat for Nico, so in one way that’s unfortunate for Nico to have such a strong team-mate but the two together are an incredible force for the team – they push each other. That’s what is fantastic. When you have two very strong team-mates is that they actually elevate the total performance of the team, and we see that. We have races such as Monza where Lewis was incredibly string and then Singapore where Nico was incredibly strong and that’s what you need, for each driver to push each other to new limits.

    Pat, Williams are locked in this battle with Force India, just three points in it, with five races to go. At the moment, though, they are consistently outscoring you – Monza was the only time since June that you’ve outpointed them in a grand prix. What can you point to that gives you confidence you can end this season ahead of them and launch yourselves into 2017 on the front foot?

    Pat SYMONDS: Well I think it’s going to be a close fight. They have done a great job with their upgrades this year and we appreciate that it’s not going to be an easy job. I think what we must do is ensure that we have perfect reliability and in the last race in Malaysia I thin Felipe could have been in there, in the mix – of course Valtteri beat both the Force Indias in Malaysia – but Felipe wasn’t able to join the party because of an electronics problem on the starting grid. So that sort of thing is really the sort of thing that can determine these championship fights. It’s unfortunate but I think our focus is on getting the reliability and our focus is on utilisation, because we’re not bringing big upgrades to the car – we have a small change on the front wing here. It’s really now about making sure that what we’ve got we use well, we use out tyres well, we get our strategy and our tactics right, and we take the fight right to the end.

    We’ve some quite a lot of evolution in the senior technical staff at Williams over the last couple of years, will we see more changes in technical management going forward?

    PS: We’re always looking. We are still relatively speaking a small team and we need to increase our knowledge and our capability in every way, so yes, we are looking a long way ahead now at where we might pick up people, We know we are weak in some areas, we know we have to improve in those areas, so yes, we are always on the lookout for good people.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Last Sunday a driver hinted that his car had been technically sabotaged. Is it possible in this day and age – with all the telemetry, all the data, with the long life engines and components – for a team to sabotage a driver? A question to all of you but Paddy if you don’t mind starting, I think you know why.

    PL: Yeah, I can’t agree with you that the driver hinted there was sabotage. Lewis has been very clear, certainly with us, that that’s completely out of the question. I think anybody with an ounce of intelligence analysing the situation would realize that the prospect of us designing a system that would cause a big end to fail at that precise point in the race… if we were that good we would win everything and control everything at every point. We’ve had other failures in the year that are very unfortunate and if we were good enough to arrange such sabotage we wouldn’t have any failures. It’s a very tough business Formula One. The engineering is operating right at the boundary of performance and things do go wrong. The complexity is incredible and trying to engineer something to happen on purpose on a car… it’s similar to when people say to us ‘you favour one driver over another’ and the idea that we might give better equipment to one driver or another. If we’ve invented something that makes our car quicker of course we want it on both cars, because we want to win the race. We never hold back or would ever even contemplate it, even if we could engineer it, which we couldn’t. Anyone intelligent could work that out.

    Anyone have anything to add? Hasegawa-san?

    YH: I didn’t get the question. I didn’t understand.

    I think the question was based on comments Hamilton made after he retired in the last, regarding whether or not someone or something wanted him not to win.

    PL: And interpretations of those comments.

    Q: (Abhishek Takle – Mid-Day) Question to Pat. Pat, there’s been some speculation about your future recently, including that you may be considering retiring. I wonder if you could shed some light on that for us please.

    PS: Yeah, I read that myself! I was quite surprised actually. It reminded me of Mark Twain. You will all know that Mark Twain was once taken ill while he was in London and a newspaper in New York picked up the story and actually published his obituary. He sent a very famous telegram to them, saying ‘rumours of my demise are greatly exaggerated’. I think I’d probably take the same view on my retirement.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Question to Paddy, just returning to the previous subject. Regardless of the interpretation, Lewis did have some quite strong words on Sunday saying “I’ve got questions for Mercedes, this is unacceptable,” he said “something doesn’t feel right to me.” As the person responsible for the technical operation of the team, how hurtful is it to you and your guys even the insinuation that there may be some foul play involved?

    PL: I think the thing you have to bear in mind is that we’re all very rational people, certainly in the engineering area and we all know that you can throw three double-sixes in a row. That is possible, statistically – and yet when you see it done, emotionally you feel ‘how did that happen’. We have got a little bit of that scenario with Lewis. We have eight power units out there running around and, with the exception of one failure, they have all fallen to Lewis this year on his power unit and that is something that none of us can really understand, how things could turn out that way. But it is just the way the dice has been thrown. Things do go wrong. We understand that and it just so happens that, by pure coincidence, that has occurred repeatedly on Lewis’ car. We’re gutted about it. We just wish luck wouldn’t fall that way. Understandable that Lewis, as we all were feeling immediately after that blow-up, ‘how can that have happen again?’ Personally, I was only just getting over the idea of the consecutive failures he had in qualifying earlier in the year where already you felt the statistics had fallen very, very unfairly, and I was very happy for Lewis that he managed to recover his points back up to a place of level competition with Nico. So, y’know, it was a real blow. But we quickly try to become rational and just accept that these things happen and then you move on and look to the future.

    Q: (Sam Collins – Racecar Engineering) Question for the whole panel actually. There’s an engineering skill shortage currently in the UK which is well documented elsewhere. Is that causing problems for those of you who are actively recruiting at the moment and how do you see that developing over the next two to three years with the UK probably leaving the single market and freedom of movement and the EU, stuff like that?

    Bob, that’s a good one for you to start with, isn’t it?

    BB: What gives you the impression we’re recruiting heavily? Yeah, there is a shortage of skilled engineers, particularly if you want skilled engineers with Formula One experience and that is partially to do with the fact that most engineers in Formula One these days are locked down with long-term contracts which makes it difficult to get them at relatively short notice. I don’t think there’s necessarily a shortage of young, eager and very capable of graduates, for example, coming out of the education system. Most teams on the grid try and use that resource as much as they possibly can. And so, I think I would agree there is potentially a skill shortage but I think perhaps the difficulties that a team such as ours faces in recruiting is more to do with the difficulty of acquiring experienced F1 engineers already locked into existing teams. As for the influence of Brexit, it’s too early to tell what the consequence of that will be on the future of the supply of engineers in the UK. I think it would be great is the UK plc could develop a stronger industrial base. I think that would be good for the country and I think all of us in Formula One would be fully supportive of initiatives that helped develop that. Not only would it potentially provide more engineering candidates for us in recruitment – but I think it would be good for the country as a whole. But ultimately, what happens, post-Brexit, I don’t think any of us can really tell.

    Pat, your thoughts?

    PS: Yeah, I think I agree with what Bob said. In spite of what I said earlier about always looking for talent, we’re not a team that’s expanding rapidly in the same way that Renault are. We do run a very strong undergraduate program and I am continually amazed at the quality of the undergraduates that go through our team. They really are very strong indeed. And, of course, the undergraduate schemes are very good because they give us a chance to have a sort-of extended interview with people. We also run graduate schemes. We sometimes take on those that have been on the undergraduate scheme, sometimes others. We don’t find a problem at that level. We get very good people coming in. I do agree that getting the senior people is quite difficult. People are on long-term contracts, and we put a lot of time at Williams into succession planning. So we do try to look quite a long way ahead at where things are going. In terms of Britain leaving the European Union, I think it is too early to tell how it will be. We do employ a lot of Europeans. We have particularly in aerodynamics, there seems to be a very strong contingent from France. I hope that we still maintain relative ease of employing Europeans. It’s already very difficult to employ non-Europeans in the UK. In my opinion far too difficult. So I hope things don’t get any worse.

    Hasegawa-san, do you have a view on this? You were nodding a couple of times through what Pat was saying.

    YH: Yeah, actually I don’t know the exact situation but we have already concern about the effect of the Brexit. Maybe we can answer from the different aspect. It is obvious that we have a lot of good engineers from the UK but also the reason Honda is doing the Formula One is that we have to educate Asian engineers as well, so that we have to take this opportunity to hire more good engineers. But of course we always appreciate that the UK is very open to the world about this even. We don’t want to, I don’t want to lose this situation, so please minimize this effect of the Brexit. This is not place that we have to ask about.

    Paddy, anything to add?

    PL: I think we’re very fortunate in Formula One that it’s seen as a very attractive destination for engineers. That wasn’t the case in the past. We have things like Formula Student that have created a greater awareness of the sport and the engineering within it particularly. And I think because of that we have become increasingly international in the staff that we recruit – from Europe and also further afield. So, I see that continuing to grow. It is a great engineering activity. Formula One achieves great things and it is all about engineering. So I would like to see that develop in the future – and perhaps with Brexit we can become even more international. Maybe there’s a positive side to it. I hope that the UK would see Formula One as a particularly successful industry within the UK itself and therefore would see a way to making that work.

    Ayao, anything to add?

    AK: No. We’re  growing at the moment but so far we’re happy with our recruiting a mixture of young and experienced. No complaints really. It’s good.

    Luigi, you’re not based in the UK but anything to add?

    LF: No, nothing to add.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Question to Bob. Bob, obviously a global automotive brand like Renault cannot be seen to running around in tenth place and being ecstatic when they score a point – but given the difficulties you outlined earlier on, particularly the way that the infrastructure imploded, what sort of objectives has Mr Ghosn set the team regarding regular points-scoring, podiums, wins and then championships. And do you think they’re achievable?

    BB: Yeah. Of course corporately we’re not satisfied running around in tenth place and scoring single points. Actually that single point meant a lot to us. I’ve won a lot of points in Formula One over the years and that point meant more to me than perhaps any other. It’s a great motivator and it really lifted team moral so actually it was quite an important achievement. Moving beyond that, Mr Ghosn is very clear in his objectives for the team. He’s not here to make up the numbers, he’s here to see the team succeed. He also, of course, has been through this cycle before and he knows what it takes and how long it takes to achieve that and he’s set us realistic objectives that are in line with that. Next year the obvious step forward for us is to move into the midfield and be competitive there. 2018 to be looking at podiums and so on, and then out beyond that, four, five years hence, looking at a proper championship-winning campaign. No rocket science in that. If you look at history, if you look at what it took when Red Bull bought Jaguar, when Renault previously bought Benetton or when Mercedes bought Brawn it took five years in each instance for them to win a championship. That’s the sort of timescale, the sort of road map we’ve set ourselves. I think it’s realistic and it’s in line with corporate expectation.

    Q: (Gaeton Vigneron – RTBF) Question for Yusuke Hasugawa: Stoffel Vandoorne will be in your car next year; what do you expect from him and having raced this year in SuperFormula does that facilitate his adaptation to the Japanese way of working?

    YH: Simply speaking, he’s very good and he’s very clever and he’s always calm, especially in Bahrain. I was very surprised how quickly he suited to the new car. Although he was joining some tests in the winter, I think Bahrain was the first moment he drove this year’s car but he did a great job. Of course he’s a very good driver but other than that, he’s very calm and stable. It is a very great point, I think.

    Q: And on the point about him racing here in Japan this year, culturally, in terms of working?

    YH: Yes, I think so. He started to be around the Japanese culture and how do we feel and how difficult it is to communicate with Japanese people. I think it will be a great help for us as well.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) To all of you: there’s a debate at the moment about tyre testing in February, whether to go to Barcelona or Bahrain, go to both etc etc. There are also some suggestions that people are more worried about engine cooling than they are about the tyre testing because they say the tyres can’t really be changed much after the tyre test in any event. Where do your individual teams stand on this question?

    PL: Yes, so the situation is that we have the biggest change in tyre regulations probably for one or two decades and Pirelli have asked the FIA if they would support testing in Bahrain, which is outside Europe. So by regulation it requires a process to get there. So as I understand, a majority of teams support that request. For me, the important point that Pirelli were asking for is some hot condition testing of the compounds particularly. The structure of the tyre is created and tested in the lab but the compounds they can only evaluate in real circuit conditions and unfortunately the mule car programme which is running at the moment has delivered three cars which are very helpful to the process but they are not delivering the level of aerodynamic load that will be seen next year. So for me it’s a matter of supporting Pirelli’s request to contain the risk of arriving at the first race as being the first event with hot conditions and there’s real risk to the show. We’ve seen what can happen , for example, in Indianapolis 2005. We mustn’t forget that we need to put on a show, we need to run a 300 kilometers race with sensible numbers of tyres, so that’s not an inconsiderable risk and should be covered. So that’s why we particularly support that request.

    Q: Pat, where’s Williams on this?

    PS: Diametrically opposed. The cost of doing a test outside of Europe is vast. Depending on exactly how you do it and how much you have to ship back to the UK, how much you can ship on to the first race – we’re talking of a minimum of £300,000, probably a maximum of £500,000 so a likely figure sitting in the middle of that. Now to a team like Mercedes, I’m sure that they can put contingencies in their budgets to cover things like that. A team like Williams simply can’t, it’s a significant amount of our budget, it is unaccounted for and therefore I think it is the wrong thing to do. Now the rules do have an anomaly in them in that I’m sure everyone knows that at this stage of the year you normally need unanimous agreement to change the rules, but there is an anomaly in that there’s just this very one thing where at the moment the rules do not allow you to test outside Europe but there is this anomaly that by majority you can agree to test outside Europe. We are opposed to that. The thing that the rules do not allow you to do is to split the testing so you can’t have some people testing in Europe, some people testing outside. Now Paddy mentioned we need to have safety and the Indianapolis situation and things like that but I think it’s very very clear in the requirements that Pirelli have signed up to and indeed that Pirelli have asked for that we’re not running cars to test the safety of tyres. That has to be done off the car, that has to be done before they ever see a track, so I don’t think that that’s an acceptable reason to go testing in the Middle East or elsewhere. Yes, there will be difficulties but you know we’re in the same boat. We are having the tyres selected for us for the first few races which personally I think is a good thing. If it does come about, then obviously people are going to have to do it because, as I say, we can’t split the testing but it’s going to make a very very serious dent in our budget. If we do it, I think we need to consider where we do it because we do act like sheep quite often in Formula One and there’s this thing of ‘oh well, we’ve tested in Bahrain before, let’s go to Bahrain.’ Personally I don’t think Bahrain’s a very good circuit to go testing. We have tested there in the winter, some people remember some years ago that there was  a test there which was effectively sand-stormed off rather than rained off. And even when we tested there as recently as 2014, the first few hours of the day were spent just cleaning the circuit up. If you accept you’re going to stop on the way to Australia, it really doesn’t matter where you stop. I think Abu Dhabi would be a much better place, maybe even Malaysia. But as a team we’re opposed to the idea.

    BB: I tend to agree with Pat from a personal point of view. I think it’s an unnecessary waste. I don’t think it will make a massive difference to the show for next year. I think it’s just money. All teams at whatever end of the grid could well do without having to spend.

    AK: Yeah, I’m in the same camp as Bob and Pat really. If we can test in Europe it’s much better for a small team like us and in terms of a logistical challenge it’s much more manageable, so yeah, in favour of testing in Europe but at the same time I see the logic for testing in more representative conditions. Again for a smaller team like us, it’s difficult to get a comprehensive set of data and to extrapolate from what you’ve got, so it’s quite good to test in the most representative conditions but overall I think if you had to chose, you’d chose testing in Europe.

    Q: Of course it’s not just tyres that are being testing, it’s power units and engines as well. Luigi, where do you stand with Ferrari?

    LF: We will see what is the final decision of course. On our side, we have to co-ordinate with all the parts because if we go to Bahrain it’s different compared to Barcelona.

    YH: I have no opinion. I basically leave it up to McLaren. From a Honda point of view I don’t care. Either is OK.

    PS: Paddy, I don’t think you got your majority, did you?

    PL: I need to correct Pat because I think you misstated what I said. I wasn’t talking about the safety of the tyre from a construction point of view, I made that clear. It’s just safety from a show point of view with the compound. If you have the wrong compounds then we will be trying to do six or seven stop races and we don’t have the tyres to do it. That was my point.

    Q: (Ken Kawakita – Weekly Playboy) It was last year here that Fernando Alonso shouted ‘GP2 engine, GP2 engine’ and this year Honda made very big progress and is fighting midfield or fighting for points at every race. How do the other power unit suppliers see the progress Honda have made since last year? Can I have some words from Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes if possible, and having heard that, can I have one comment from Hasegawa-san?

    LF: Clearly, in the races compared to last year Honda has done a big improvement, it was a good job done for them which they will continue pushing. On my side, we are doing continuing improvement and I hope that next year we will do an extra step and we will come back to the picture from the last years.

    BB: I think it’s great for Formula One if all of the power units end up being reasonably close, the so-called convergence band. I think that’s good and healthy for the sport and well done to Honda for making such progress so quickly.

    PL: I think it’s great to see. Honda had a huge challenge to come into the sport having not been in it for a few years and to come fresh in with a totally new formula in 2015. It was always going to be a huge challenge so it’s great to see Honda back playing for points and I’m sure we will see more of them in the future.

    YH: Thank you very much for the very kind social comment here in Japan. I’m really really embarrassed. I’m happy to show some progress  but it’s very clear that we are still behind but I really want Fernando to correct his comment this weekend. Still we need to push more, much harder.

    Q: (Sam Collins – Racecar Engineering) Bringing you chaps back to the subject of tyres again; for 2017, how much evolution has there been in the wind tunnel tyres that Pirelli have supplied you with over the last 12/15 months, and also, how much information are you feeding back to Pirelli in terms of the loads you expect to see going through those tyres in terms of not just aero but the full vehicle dynamic model as well?

    AK: To be honest I haven’t been really involved in the ’17 wind tunnel development so I’m not really qualified to comment.

    PS: We got the wind tunnel tyres quite late actually. I think it was towards the end of February and believe it or not, we ran our first model with rear tyres on all four corners to get some idea of what was going on because we didn’t have the tyres available. We haven’t really evolved the tyres yet because it’s a parallel programme. To answer the second part of your question about anticipated loads, we regularly – in fact we have just in the last few days… all teams have updated the FIA and Pirelli with their latest simulations and it’s an ongoing process. So as we refine our estimates of loads, as we refine the vehicle dynamics and the aerodynamics, we regularly have to feed information in a given template – all teams do the same and all confidentially – to the FIA who check it for the coherence of the data and then pass it on to Pirelli.

    PL: I would say just the same as Pat. We are regularly providing data to the FIA and then onwards to Pirelli via a prescribed process so as we get closer to the final cars we will build, the data is becoming more and more accurate, so I think we’re keeping Pirelli well-informed through that process.

    BB: Not much to add, honestly. The processes described by Paddy and Pat are being followed by all teams.

  • 2016 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    DRIVERS – Esteban GUTIERREZ (Haas), Carlos SAINZ (Toro Rosso), Kevin MAGNUSSEN (Renault), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren), Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN (Ferrari), Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Kevin, obviously a horrible accident in Spa. How are you and what did you have to do to get ready for this race?

    Kevin MAGNUSSEN: I have just relaxed. Nothing was broken, I wasn’t injured so just a bit sore in my body and I didn’t need to do anything special. No special treatments or anything. Yeah, just took a couple of days at home and ready for the next race.

    And what happened?

    KM: I spin at the top of Eau Rouge. I hit a bump and lost the rear. I thought I was going to go left into a spin, but then the car caught grip again and I went right and into the wall. Yeah, that’s what happened.

    Thanks for that. Kimi, coming to you: some strong feelings after the Spa weekend, especially with regard to Max Verstappen. What would you like to happen now with regard to the rules of engagement between drivers out on the track when it comes to attacking and defending?   

    Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: I think it’s quite clear what they are and obviously sometimes you feel it’s not correct what happens on circuit but obviously I think the biggest problem is it’s not always the same. I think as drivers we always discussed it and it’s a bit up and down and I think that could be improved. Personally I have nothing against Max. He is doing a good job and he’s fast. It’s not a personal thing but certain things, at least in my feeling, were not correct if you have to slow down or brake under full speed but those things are never ending discussions but let’s see what happens.

    You’ve also now had a chance to study video of the collision at the start with Sebastian. Have you discussed it together during the week and what conclusions did you come to?

    KR: Obviously it was an unfortunate thing. Not really an awful lot to discuss except probably he said sorry and I said OK and you know we go forward. It wasn’t ideal for us or any of the three to be involved, but that’s how it goes sometimes. So next time we try to give a bit more room but it’s done now.

    Thank you for that. And your side of that, Seb? Kimi’s said you apologised to him. You’ve had a good chance to review it, to think it through again, what are you feelings now in the cold light of day?

    Sebastian VETTEL: Not so much to talk about,. It’s clear what happened. Obviously I thought there was Kimi on the inside but as it turned out there was three cars. The room that I gave was for Kimi, it was not for three cars because I think Max had a bad start and was out of that fight, but decided not to, so in the end we had three cars with not enough room. From my side, it’s clear. Obviously if I know that – I can’t see much in the mirrors, I could see that Kimi was there and I was slightly ahead – if I had to do it again, knowing that, I would give a little bit more room, at least I make I don’t know about the cars on the inside then, but I think it was a pity for all three to be involved and not to come out of the corner being able to race for the podium after that.

    OK, moving forward, Italian Grand Prix this weekend, special atmosphere here as always. You had a great experience here 12 months ago, on the podium, all that warmth from the tifosi. Is it fair to say, though, that this race comes at a slightly difficult moment for the team – you haven’t had a podium for a few races and Red Bull have moved ahead of you in the championship?

    SV: No, I think it comes at the right time, I think we need a bit of a boost and support, so very much looking forward to this weekend. Last weekend was very positive for us. Obviously the race didn’t unfold the way we expected or we hoped for but it was very positive in terms of pace. I think we had a couple of races before the summer break where we were struggling a bit and we seemed to reconnect to the group ahead again, so I’m pretty confident the car should be fine here. Obviously it’s a different track and unique in many ways, but like I said, I think it comes at the right time, with people supporting us. Already now the couple of hours this day has had it was very positive with a lot of fans and it’s one of the biggest pleasures for us to race in front of the home crowd.

    OK, thank you very much for that. Coming to you Esteban, you’ve finished just outside the points four times this season, do you feel that breakthrough points-scoring finish for Haas is just around the corner?

    Esteban GUTIERREZ: Yes, it is and it’s very important to have found the consistency and the rhythm we have in the last three months, because by being consistent and being persistent we will go an break through the top 10, which for us is obviously the target in every race from now to the end of the season. It hasn’t been an easy task, especially with how my season started, but we have been making very good progress inside the team in many ways and we can look into the positive sides and keep pushing and keep doing our best to get there.

    Haas obviously has a technical partnership with the home team here this weekend, Ferrari, a special weekend I’m sure, but how do you see the collaboration evolving?

    EG: I think it’s an important part for the team of course. It is something that gives a lot of confidence right from the beginning to have the support and obviously the relationship is important for the whole team. So I think that’s going to keep going and it’s going to keep going forward in the way that it has to be done, properly considering the regulations that have to be well respected but the relationship is there and it’s going to continue forward in the next years.

    Thank you very much for that. Carlos, coming to you, 22 years old today, happy birthday. A little bit of a frustrating race for you last weekend going out with a puncture and presumably it’s not a great moment as well for the championship for you, as it seems that the lack of updates now on the power unit is beginning to cost in terms of performance. What are your feelings about the rest of the races this season?

    Carlos SAINZ: Yeah, we are not going through our best moments at the moments. Yeah, since Hockenheim and the last race in Spa it looks like it’s taking us a lot more effort to get close to the top ten. Spa was kind of expected; Hockenheim not so much, but we are definitely not where we want to be. In theory we think were prepared for the performance drop-off of the engine in the second half of the season but it has been maybe a bit more than expected, so now there is a lot work going on in Toro Rosso, a lot of analysis, a lot of testing coming up in free practice to try to turn around this bit of a bump we are going through. I still have full confidence. Spa – it would have been nice to see what we could have achieved after being P7 at the start, but it’s how it is sometimes.

    Just looking at your record this year: when you’ve finished you’ve scored points in all but two of those races. So, from a personal point of view, comparing last season with this one, do you feel pleased with the progress you’re making?

    CS: I think I have to be very pleased, because last year I went through very difficult moments with the reliability and I kept telling the people ‘wait, because the moment I stop having these issues I will be able to show what I am more capable of in Formula One’. And that first half of the season was also to prove myself and to prove also that when I don’t have so many problems I can score some points. This consistency has allowed me to create a lot of points in the first half of the season… that will be probably be very difficult to keep for the second half!

    Thank you. Coming to you Jenson, obviously the power unit upgrades in Spa seemed to work pretty well, and rival team engineers tell me your corner speeds were very impressive in Spa as well, so it seems that it’s all starting to come together for McLaren?

    Jenson BUTTON: Well, yeah, I only did four corners, but I think they all look fantastic, so very happy with them! No, seriously, as a whole we probably did better in Spa than most people expected. I think we were probably running a little bit more downforce than other people as well. But if you look at Fernando, if you forget the first few laps, if you look at the actual pace of the car, Fernando was actually good in the race. It’s promising coming here, you know these are two reasonably difficult circuits for us, but we’ve definitely made good progress. Honda have done a great job of bringing the upgrade to Spa and it’s good to see progress pretty much every race we have with Honda and also with the car, so yeah, I think it’s progressing well.

    What about yourself? When do you expect to announce your plans, what you’re going to do next?

    JB: That’s progressing well as well. So, progress is the name of the game? So it’s good.

    Before we move on to the floor, just a few moments ago Felipe Massa announced that he is retiring from Formula One. Just some thoughts from each of you maybe about him, his contribution as a driver and as a colleague. Kimi, you were a team-mate of his, so maybe you could start?

    KR: Obviously it’s a big shame, but this is his choice in the end. We had a good relationship when we were in the same team and obviously he has had some difficult moments in F1, with the accident, but he’s been strong always and he’s a very nice guy. So, life goes on, and I’m sure he made the right choice for himself, so hopefully he has a good end to his F1 career.

    Kevin?

    KM: He’s had a long career. I don’t think I’ve seen Formula One when he wasn’t racing, so he’s had a long career. He’s had a good one. As Kimi said, if he feels it’s the right time then good luck to him and not much more.

    Sebastian?

    SV: He’s a really nice guy, really funny. It’s a shame to see that he quits because he will be missed. Obviously I wish him all the best for whatever he decides to do in the future. I think apart from the talent and speed he has on the track, as I said, he’s a great guy and very easy-going and he will be missed.

    Esteban?

    EG: Well I think it was quite a wise decision to make – which is probably not an easy one to make for everyone’s career. I have great memories for when he accepted my call and invited me for dinner back in 2008, when I was racing Formula BMW. At that time, that meant a lot for me. Now, I wish him the best. He has made an incredible career and he has to be proud of that.

    Jenson?

    JB: I’ve raced with Felipe since he started in Formula One, I think it’s about 15 years we’ve been racing together, so yeah, it’s always a strange feeling when someone retires from the sport that’s achieved so much, so many victories, and being so close as well to a world championship. But we all have our own reasons. I think it’s a brave decision but he’s chosen to retire so it’s definitely the right one.

    And finally, Carlos.

    CS: From my personal side I remember meeting him for the first time in 2005. I think I was 10-11 years old. He was really kind to me and was my hero Formula One driver. He was very funny, very kind to me and since then I’ve had lots of respect for him. Five minutes before coming here I went to give him a hug, wish him all the best and I’m sure he’ll have a good life from now on.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) This is for anyone who cares to comment on Max Verstappen’s driving but especially to the Ferrari guys. Sebastian, you said last weekend you were not a fan of punishing drivers because of how they drive. Have you maybe talked to Max about it and what do you think is the way to go to make him understand that he’s sometimes overstepping the limit. And Kimi, could you please clarify, when you overtook Max on lap 12, I think, when you both went off because he outbraked you after you left him on the straight. Who was it who asked you to let him pass again.

    KR: Obviously I asked from the team if I have to give the position back or not and they asked the FIA or Charlie and the answer was that I have. I haven’t seen where he went or if he stayed on the circuit or not and… kind of stayed on the circuit, much more than me, so obviously that was a pretty easy decision from my side.

    Sebastian?

    SV: Not sure I remember all of it but haven’t spoken to him yet. I think the thing that we’ve spoken about before and has come up again in Spa was the bit that is the moving under braking which obviously, as the lead car, is the wrong thing to do. The following car can react but there are situations where you can’t react any more and it will end up in a crash which has been something that we’ve talked about. I think he understood when we spoke about it so we obviously need to maybe have another chat. But as I said in Spa, I’m not a big fan of running to the stewards and complain there. I think it’s much better if we do it face to face. Unfortunately we haven’t done that yet but I’m sure we will.

    Q: (Nadia Enevoldsen – bmf1.dk) I have a question for Vettel. In 2008 you won your first grand prix here where you were the youngest driver ever – can you win on Sunday and if so will the feeling be even better than this feeling from 2008?

    SV: I think we should have a good weekend. I think Spa was a good step to come back and obviously this race means a lot to us, means a lot to me. Not only… I mean of course because being one of the Ferrari drivers driving on home soil is… with all the tifosi coming and supporting is great – but it also means a lot to me because it’s the place, as you mentioned, where I won my first race. I think the first race win is always something that will stand out and something that you don’t forget. Obviously I’ve been very lucky in the last couple of years to have some more wins but for sure, after last year’s experience here, being on the podium in the red suit, I probably realized that, yeah, people don’t hate me as much as I thought after the last couple of years with Red Bull! Very much looking forward to the race on Sunday and that’s definitely something that would be a dream coming true to win here dressed in red. We’re working very hard for that.

    Q: (Ralph Woodall – L’Equipe) Question for Kevin. After such a big crash how to you feel about going back in the car? Are you apprehensive? What are your expectations for the weekend?

    KM: After a crash like that it’s clear that the car is very safe and there’s not too much to worry about. I’m going to be flat-out again and pushing as hard as I can. I think in terms of expectations for this race, we had a stronger weekend in Spa and were a little bit surprised by our pace in qualifying especially. On this track the setup is not too different, the setup is very similar, so hopefully it will show that we are still on that level.

    Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, you have never won in Italy and have had three podiums here. How would you describe your relationship with the Monza circuit?

    KR: I enjoy the circuit, usually it’s always a great weekend, even before I raced for Ferrari. I had some good memories and some not-so-good memories from here. It’s never been straightforward weekends of races for me. But it’s a great place to come and, for racing, it’s quite a special place. The circuit layout and obviously the history what is in the place, plus being part of Ferrari, we have amazing support and obviously our home race so hopefully this weekend goes well.  We feel we have a good chance so hopefully we make all the right things and… choose right things when it comes and get the best out of it. But I enjoy to come here and race.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Question for Seb, couple of things. Why do you think this season hasn’t gone how you guys would have hoped. What reasons do you have in your mind for that, that you haven’t met the targets you set yourselves. Second to that, you moved to Ferrari to win the championship. How much patience do you have with the team to get it right? Are you going to be here until you win?

    SV: Maybe I start with the second one. I don’t feel old so I think I’ve got some time. I’m not a patient person, I’m pretty much the opposite, which I think goes hand-in-hand with your first question. It’s very simple: we were not quick enough up to that point. We didn’t therefore collect as much points as we wanted to. Obviously if you’re a lot quicker then you’re in a much better position to win races, you score more points and you get nicer questions. That’s usually how it goes. I’ve been on the other side as well. But yeah, I’m pretty confident we’ll have better days again and we have our home race ahead of us. Sounded pretty negative but I think actually it’s a lot of positives to look forward to. I think it will be amazing in terms of support. It’s great to come here, the place means a lot to us, to myself and I think we have a good chance to fight for a good and strong podium – maybe even more. We will see. I think it’s clear that all of us inside the team, we are not very patient, we have very high expectations which I think we’ve expressed many times at the beginning of the year. We want to fight for the championship but, as I said, as a net result so far we haven’t been competitive and quick enough – yet. We are trying our utmost to improve it. There’s a lot of things happening on the track, even more things happening back in Maranello at the factory to work on that and change that. People are fired up – even if it still takes a little bit.

    Q: (Fulvio Solms – Corriere dello Sport) Question is for Seb and Kimi. You have a very good relationship, that’s clear and that’s OK but wouldn’t you like to live every race with a really stressing weekend, fighting each other with a winning car like Lewis and Nico at Mercedes?

    SV: I don’t understand the question… the first part you say we get along and the second part you ask if we… wouldn’t like to get along basically! Oh, of course, if both of us could choose we’d love to drive the car that is more competitive and is a bit easier to win races – but I don’t think it would change anything in the relationship. Obviously we’re driving the same car, as you saw on Sunday we’re fighting for the same bit of tarmac, sometimes things go wrong which, obviously, is bad when it happens, but it happens. So in that moment, or after,  nothing you can do but overall, I think that’s what we’re working for. Us and the whole team. To have that winning car and fight for the championship.

    Kimi?

    KR: We race as hard as we can against each other, we try to beat each other every time and what would it change? We all want the team to be fighting for wins and fighting for the championship with both cars. I don’t see what… nothing would change. We still try to beat each other but we can still be friends. Would be just better for all of us.

    Q: (Ralf Bach – Auto Bild Motorsport) Sebastian, you said something before about nice questions. So what is a nice question for you in the current situation with Ferrari?

    SV: No, I think what I said was that obviously if you keep winning races and doing a good job people don’t ask you what’s wrong because clearly everything is fine. If you’re not winning, then obviously everybody is curious why you’re not winning. I think there’s always a reason and obviously, as I said, the more competitive you are the less then you have to deal with that sort of question, which is not a problem but it’s just a little boring if every weekend it’s the same question. You give the answer, you thought you’ve answered their question and then it comes up again and again and again. I think we’ve all been there so it’s part of the deal.

    Q: (Barna Zsoldos – Nemzeti Sport) To the Ferrari drivers: you were quite unhappy with Max’s driving in Spa but he said that you should be ashamed for causing a collision and destroying his race. Sebastian, you are 29, Kimi you’re almost 37. Looking at the fact that he’s just a teenager, does this make his comments and actions even more annoying for you?

    SV: Well, I think it’s nothing. I don’t think we have anything to be ashamed about, first of all, and secondly, I think as I tried in the answer before, it’s a question of respect. I think we’re all here to race, we love what we do, we share one great passion which dictates a very very big part of our lives. It’s something we all have in common. We might get along, we might not get along but that’s not really that important, but I think we should always have respect for each other.

    KR: Everybody is allowed to say what they feel like. Like I said before, I’ve nothing personally against him. It’s just certain things in my view that are not correct. I’ve no interest to call Max into it but obviously if somebody says during the race that he does something because of what happened in the first corner, that it’s payback, I don’t think it’s the correct sport to start doing purposely paying back something that has happened. It can end up in a very bad way. Yes, people make mistakes, everybody has made it and it will happen to probably all of us and you just have to accept it but it’s not the place to start acting silly in a way and paying back for something that has happened.

    Q: (Ralph Woodall – L’Equipe) Jenson, would you be interested in going to Williams or is your priority elsewhere, staying with McLaren? Now you know there’s a seat.

    JB: I would love to make this really exciting because yeah, but I’ve got nothing else to say on what I’m doing next year or my future. Sorry to say.

    Q: (Jens Nagler – Sport Bild?) Sebastian and Kimi, the two of you obviously made contact at the start in Belgium and you did in China earlier in the year as well, even if in both cases another driver was involved. I can imagine you will be quite keen to avoid a repeat of making contact with each other here in Monza. I don’t imagine as racing drivers you will admit to going a little more cautiously but will you be doing any extra homework, looking maybe at tapes of earlier races to avoid making contact with each other?

    SV: You answered the question yourself there. I don’t think we have to explain anything.

    KR: Nothing to add, not really.

    Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) Carlos Sainz, I want to know what changed in the team after the change-over between Daniel and Max?

    CS: Not much. My teammate has changed but my approach and my attitude to work, to Formula One, is exactly the same. The team, internally, had a bit of a reshuffle but it was all in a good direction. I think we can be happier with the first half of the season of Toro Rosso. We will see how the second half goes but it’s going to be tough for us. We need to make sure we put everything in our hands  to keep McLaren in our sights. I think it’s going to be very difficult because they’re already ahead but it’s going to be tough but we’re going to try our best.

    Q: (Peter Varkas – Auto Motor) Jenson, last year you often said that you felt like a sitting duck while trying to defend, because of the engine deficit. From the cockpit, how much easier has it become to defend against other people this year and is it fair to say that Monza will be one of the toughest tests of the Honda progress?

    JB: Yeah, especially here and Spa, it limits your strategy massively  or it has done in the past, it really does because you can’t hold people up on the straights but it’s very different now, very different situation I think in terms of the power unit itself. We’ve moved on a lot but also with the deployment; I think we’ve probably got the best deployment out there. I’m much happier coming here, especially after… the whole weekend of Spa was positive, the feeling of the car, the feeling of the power unit. We still know there’s a long way to go with it before we’re properly competitive but it’s great to see progress at almost every Grand Prix we go to, whether it’s a qualifying map becoming a race map or something completely new. The guys back at Woking as well, at the MTC, bringing new parts to almost every race and I think that’s probably more than most teams out there so we’re still pushing and obviously a lot of the stuff that we do that we are putting on the car is stuff that will help next year’s car as well, so yeah, it’s good to feel that progress and it’s so much more enjoyable to drive when you’re inside the top ten and fighting even further forward. It’s a really nice feeling, considering where we were last year which was very difficult, so big big progress but you always want more. When you finish sixth or seventh, it’s a good job for where we are right now but you’re still sixth or seventh, it’s not winning the race. When you’re used to winning – quite a while ago now – but you still want to get back there and it’s obviously the aim for the team.