F1 Madness

Tag: renault

  • F1 2016: Texas Gp Review – America Brings Victory For Hamilton

    F1 2016: Texas Gp Review – America Brings Victory For Hamilton

    Lewis Hamilton has returned to winning ways with a measured drive to victory at the United States grand prix.

    Lewis Hamilton ran perfectly controlled race to take his 50th career win and with it a fifth victory on American soil at the Circuit of the Americas. While the perception from the outside made it look like an easy afternoon for Hamilton the Mercedes driver admitted to being “petrified” that his car would suffer a reliability issue as it did in Malaysia earlier in the season. “I was just the whole race concerned the car was not going to make it,” said Hamilton. “Right up until the line, I was just in fear of the same thing, the same feeling I had, the sound I heard in Malaysia. So I was grateful the car made it across the line.”

    Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg was an ever-present second ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo in third but he had to work for it. The German dropped behind Ricciardo at the start of the race and faced serious pressure from Max Verstappen after the first round of stops. Nevertheless, the rub of the green went Rosberg’s way and he emerged in second.

    GP USA F1/2016Aussie driver Ricciardo was on his way to the second step on the podium but the deployment of the virtual safety car afforded Rosberg a de facto free pitstop and, crucially, track position ahead of Ricciardo. As if to add insult to serious misfortune the virtual safety car was deployed to recover the stricken Red Bull of his teammate Max Verstappen who suffered a catastrophic gearbox failure.

    There was a second high profile retirement in the form of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen as an embarrassing mistake from the pit crew at the Finn’s final stop meant he left the box with a loose wheel that eventually led to his retirement. As one side of the Ferrari garage suffered a costly self-inflicted blunder Sebastian Vettel was able to bring his Ferrari home in a lonely fourth in what was the best the team could have hoped to achieve regardless of the circumstances.

    GP USA F1/2016Fernando Alonso embraced the Texas spirit as he delivered a bigger and better performance than McLaren has seen in a while. The Spaniard’s feisty driving showed his fighting spirit as he battled his way into fifth while Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz finshed sixth ahead of Williams Felipe Massa in seventh. Force India driver Sergio Perez recovered brilliantly to eighth after a first corner incident while Jenson Button made up ten places to finish ninth in the McLaren. The Haas F1 Team became the first American team to score a point on home soil as Romain Grosjean collected tenth place.

    The grand prix in the lone star state delivered good news all around for Mercedes. The team secured its fifth one-two victory of the season and Lewis Hamilton stemmed Rosberg’s momentum and sliced his championship lead to 26 points. The good news for Rosberg is that he delivered exactly what he needs with his second place finish.

    Nico Rosberg’s lead in the championship has been sliced to 26 points with the Mexican grand prix just days away.

  • 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.

  • F1 2016: United States Gp Preview – Rosberg v Hamilton In Texas

    F1 2016: United States Gp Preview – Rosberg v Hamilton In Texas

    The F1 paddock travels halfway around the world from Japan to the lone star state of Texas and the Circuit of the Americas for the 16th round of the season.

    The Circuit of the Americas (COTA), designed by F1 architect Herman Tilke, hosted its first race in 2012. As one of the newest circuits on the calendar it doesn’t quite fit into the mold of a modern circuit. While it does have acres of run-off areas like its modern counterparts its in the layout where you can see a real throwback to old school circuit. The Esses section in Sector 1 is especially reminiscent of the Maggots-Becketts section at Silverstone with a hint of Suzuka bleeding into the combination.

    “The track in Austin is sick, I love it. It has a lot of unique features like the wide apex at turn one, you could fit about four cars side by side through there. There are loads of opportunities to overtake and have fun throughout the whole track. It has fast flowing sections and hairpins, pretty much everything I like in a track,” says Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.

    F1-2012-austin-texasIn 2015 a colossal level or rain mired the Texas grand prix weekend and severely impacted the level of spectators in the stands. However, the weather forecast for the 2016 race weekend is lot sunnier, literally and figuratively. Twelve months ago Lewis Hamilton arrived in Texas with one hand on the driver’s title but one year later it’s a much different story for the Mercedes driver. He trails teammate Nico Rosberg by 33 points with a maximum of 100 points still available.

    This means that even if Hamilton wins all four of the remaining races it does not ensure that he will win the title. Even if this situation eventuates Rosberg would still need to finish third in at least one of the races for Hamilton to be champion.

    But in the dominant era of Mercedes there has never been a better chance for Lewis Hamilton to show a real champion’s courage. Not ever has any driver or champion been revered for winning from the front but rather for how they respond when the odds are against them. Grand prix in the United States have been an enormously rewarding for Hamilton. As a rookie he won in North America at Indianapolis in 2007 and has won three of the four races held in Texas. It stands to reason, barring unreliability, that the reigning world champion will be difficult to beat in Texas.

    CircuitOfTheAmericasLet’s not diminish the performance of Nico Rosberg in 2016. The metronomic way he has been inching his way to the title has been extraordinary. Few could argue that he wouldn’t deserve the title at the end of it. And he’s, mostly, aced it off the start line this season. The beauty of the fight between Hamilton and Rosberg, despite the latter’s points lead, is that it is impossible to predict. There still hasn’t been a true wheel-to-wheel race between the two either. Perhaps Texas is primed for just such a battle.

  • 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

  • Nico Hulkenberg Confirmed at Renault from 2017

    Nico Hulkenberg Confirmed at Renault from 2017

    Nico Hulkenberg will drive for the Renault F1 team from 2017.

    Hulkenberg will join the Enstone based team on a multi-year deal.

    Rumors have been circulating about Hulkenberg’s exit from Force India but in the recent weeks they’ve become louder. He was, however, tied to Force India for another year but Deputy Team Principal at Force India, Robert Fernley has said that he would not hold the German back.

    The announcement earlier on Friday 14 October 2016 all but confirmed his move to Renault for 2017.

    “I’m very happy to join Renault Sport Formula One Team in 2017,” said Hulkenberg in a statement.

    “Renault has always been a big player in the motorsport world that brings up incredible memories: in his stint with Renault, Michael Schumacher not only helped make Germany an F1 nation, he also sparked my enthusiasm and fire for racing.

    “As a part of the Renault family, I want to develop the car and write new success stories.

    “It has always been my dream to work for a manufacturer team,” Hulkenberg added

    “F1’s new regulations will change the game and give our team a good opportunity.

    “In the years to come, Renault will play a challenger role, which fits my approach to racing 100%. I can’t wait to become part of the family.

    Jérôme Stoll, Renault Sport Racing Chairman had this to say about Hulkenberg’s appointment:

    “2017 will be the second season of Groupe Renault’s return as a manufacturer entry in Formula 1 and the next step in our journey.

    “This season has been about putting the foundations in place for future success. For our next step we required an experienced driver who is still hungry for podiums.

    “Nico Hülkenberg fulfils this role perfectly and is an excellent complement to what we want to achieve.

    “He is a highly talented, dedicated and motivated driver. Nico will enable us to harness all the hard work completed this season and translate it to improved results on track in 2017 and beyond.

    “We look forward to seeing him in our new car for 2017.”

     

    Photo credit: Sahara Force India Formula One Team

  • F1 2016: Japanese Gp Review – First Japanese Victory For Rosberg

    F1 2016: Japanese Gp Review – First Japanese Victory For Rosberg

    Nico Rosberg continues to achieve firsts in this 2016 and has now added a first-time victory in Japan. The Mercedes driver, never troubled, strolled towards the chequered flag while teammate Lewis Hamilton dropped further behind in the race for the championship.

    While Nico Rosberg charged off his pole starting position Lewis Hamilton was swamped by several cars off the line. The Brit ended up eighth after the first lap after he bogged down on the start with wheelspin. Through consistent driver, and a particularly strong second stint on the hard tyre, Hamilton was able to recover to third.

    In second place Red Bull’s Max Verstappen faced significant pressure from Hamilton for the second step on the podium. Nevertheless, the 19 year old did not succumb and more than held his own against the superior Mercedes. The Mercedes team later lodged a protest against Verstappen’s defence into the final chicance on the penultimate lap but has subsequently withdrawn it, seemingly, at the request of Hamilton.

    GP GIAPPONE F1/2016Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen delivered solid drives for Ferrari despite several issues plaguing the team throughout the weekend. For more than three quarters of the race Vettel was well in contention for the podium but yet another strategic error from Ferrari made sure he didn’t get there. As he battled against Hamilton for the position the call to make his final stop of the race came too late and the position was surrendered to Hamilton. Although Raikkonen qualified third on the grid he was forced to drop to eighth due a gearbox box. The Finn ultimately recovered to fifth place.

    Earlier in the weekend Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene made a point to sit down with a media outlet for an interview. He made very specific comments in this interview that include the statement that Vettel must earn his seat at Ferrari. There is nothing inherently wrong with this comment. No driver in Formula 1 is absolved from needing to earn their place in the sport. However, this comment and argument isn’t a one way street. For this reason the question must be asked: What is Ferrari doing to earn Vettel and Raikkonen?

    GP GIAPPONE F1/2016The pendulum swung dramatically for last weeks race winner Daniel Ricciardo who could only manage a sixth place finish seven days later in Japan. The Force India pairing of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg came home in a solid seventh and eighth place respectively. Meanwhile, Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, in ninth and tenth, took the final points on offer for Williams. This result strengthens Force India’s fourth place in the constructor’s standings to ten points over Williams.

    Mercedes secured the overall title of constructor’s champions with their Japanese Gp result. The German mark remains the only team and manufacturer to be champions in the hybrid era of the sport.

    Effectively Mercedes has also won the driver’s title, as no other driver is mathematically possible of taking the crown. However, the question remains will be Rosberg or Hamilton who takes the ultimate prize. Rosberg’s win in the land of the rising sun gives him a 33-point gap over Hamilton whose title chances have dimmed slightly. However, with 100 points still up for grabs it’s far too soon to call this race.

  • F1 2016: Japanese Gp Free Practice 3 Report – Rosberg Leads The Way

    F1 2016: Japanese Gp Free Practice 3 Report – Rosberg Leads The Way

    Nico Rosberg set the quickest time in the third free practice session for the Japanese grand prix.

    The one hour session was slow to get underway as the Suzuka circuit remained damp from an earlier rain shower. However, under overcast skies drivers began to venture out on intermediate tyres before soon switching to slicks.

    Mercedes’ Rosberg set the quickest time of 1:32:092 ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo on a 1:32:394. Sebastian Vettel was third quickest for Ferrari but some 6 tenths adrift. Max Verstappen was fourth quickest despite hitting traffic on his quail simulation run. Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen made a mistake on his first flying lap on the soft tyre and then encountered some traffic on his second go while Lewis Hamilton did not set a representative lap on the yellow-walled soft tyre.

    Final Free Practice Three Standings:

    screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-6-07-39-am

  • 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.

  • F1 2016: Japanese Gp Free Practice 1 Report – Rosberg On Top

    F1 2016: Japanese Gp Free Practice 1 Report – Rosberg On Top

    Nico Rosberg topped the timing sheets at the end of the first free practice session for the Japanese grand prix.

    The 90 minute session got underway in brilliant sunshine with a track temperature hovering in the low 30 degrees Celsius range. Championship leader Rosberg set a quickest time of 1:32:431 on the yellow-walled soft tyres as teammate Lewis Hamilton set a 1:32:646 some .292 off first place.

    The two Ferrari’s of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen completed the top four but a scruffy lap from Vettel left him one second off the front-running Mercedes pace. Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen were fifth and sixth quickest while the Force India pairing of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez ended in the session in seventh and eighth respectively. McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top then.

    Spaniard Alonso had an off early in the session when he lost the rear-end of his McLaren in the Spoon Curve. The former champion clouted the barrier on the outside of the corner quite hard with the rear of the car and required a rear-wing and floor change. The only other incident came in the form of Romain Grosjean who veered off the circuit at Degner two. The Haas F1 driver complained of brakes over the radio.

    Final Free Practice 1 Standings:

    screen-shot-2016-10-07-at-4-34-17-am

  • 2016 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix: Thursday Press Conference

    DRIVERS – Jolyon PALMER (Renault), Carlos SAINZ (Toro Rosso), Pascal WEHRLEIN (Manor), Kimi RAIKKONEN (Ferrari), Fernando ALONSO (McLaren), Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Fernando, there’s been a lot of talk about your starts this year and the fact that in the last five GPs you’ve made up 29 places on the opening lap! Making up places is something you’ve consistently done – in circumstances you’ve had to do it of course – but can you explain a bit about your starts; is it experience, instinct or is it just pure risk taking?

    Fernando ALONSO: I think it’s a little bit of everything probably. A little bit of luck as well. Sometimes you try to recover places and you try to choose a line into turn one – left or right – and you never know what if going to happen in front of you. It’s a little bit of luck also that you need. Over probably 16 years of Formula One, I recover many, many places so it cannot be only luck every single year. Yeah, probably doing a lot of Playstation and starting last – it’s good practice!

    The results seem to be coming through now more consistently for McLaren-Honda, outside of the top three teams on a more consistent basis. Are you seeing the things you need to see at this stage from the team to give you confidence you can fight for podiums more regularly next season and what’s the plan for the new engine you ran in Sepang?

    FA: I think let’s say we are happy with the progress we made this year and definitely we are able to fight with some competitive teams there, like Force India, Williams, and now we finished now like four times seventh after the top three teams in the last five races. Definitely a step forward that we are enjoying, this process of starting to be competitive but I think looking for next year I don’t think we can see anything that is clearly positive or negative. Everything will change massively so we need to work and to be very focused on next year’s car in a way now that is only theoretical – simulators and wind tunnel numbers and dyno numbers etc. I don’t think the performance of the actual car is a reference for next year. So that’s one thing. Yeah, we want to be more competitive next year. I think the biggest step has been done, from last year to this year, but we need another big step next year, which is going from the last Q3 spot and some points to fight for podiums and wins. I think it’s still possible. We have the potential, we have the facilities, we have the talented people. This project, as we have said many times, it’s a question of time that we will be able to win. Hopefully we are trying to make it as short as possible and let’s see. With the new engine, actually it’s just an engine that we fitted in Malaysia just for reliability issues more than performance. Also, we didn’t have engines to finish the season, so we chose Malaysia to fit new engines, to pay the penalty and then have the rest of the races without any more concerns. We plan to use that engine here but, as I said, the engine has exactly the same power, so we will fit the engine and we will try to do our best.

    Thank you. Lewis, coming to you: this has been a happy hunting ground for you recently, with victories in the last couple of years as you moved towards those two world titles. How do you feel going into Suzuka this year?

    Lewis HAMILTON: I feel same as probably last year. I feel good. Excited to get on track, the weather’s great today, I love being here, so ready to get going.

    What did you do then in the three days since Malaysia and what conclusions did you come to when you were thinking about the race: were you concerned about the championship position or were you satisfied about the way you drove, that you did everything right?

    LH: I haven’t been thinking about the last race. Usually when I leave the racetrack I think about a lot of other thing. I have a lot of other stuff going on. I was in Tokyo, enjoying my time. I love being in Tokyo. One of my favourite cities, it’s in my top three favourite cities in the world. That’s about it.

    Any thoughts on the way you performed in Malaysia?

    LH: Yeah, it was good, happy with it. I hope that I can continue performing like that.

    OK. Pascal, looking ahead to the new car Formula One cars of 2017 that Fernando referenced earlier on, you’ve done quite a lot of development work for Mercedes and Pirelli recently, what are you impressions of the changes, particularly with reference to the tyres?

    Pascal WEHRLEIN: It’s faster, but I think I cannot tell you in detail how it was. So yes, it’s faster and therefore more fun, but apart from that I can’t tell you, sorry.

    What about your own racing programme for next season? Are you likely to stay put with Manor but are there other options for you?

    PH: Let’s see. At the moment there are discussions going on and in the next few weeks I think I will know more.

    Fair enough. Kimi, you’ve already scored more points at this stage, you’ve gone past your 2015 points total, with five race to go and you’ve scored in more grands prix than your team-mate has, do you feel satisfied?

    Kimi RAIKKONEN: I think it’s a bit difficult to be satisfied with where we are right now. Obviously we want to be in better places, fight in the front, but this is what we have right now. We always try to do our best but obviously the places where we’ve been recently are not, for sure, where we want to be as Ferrari, but we have to keep working and giving our best and hopefully, sooner rather than later we will be up there.

    Picking up on what Pascal was saying, or not saying, about 2017, you are one of very race drivers that has done test work on the 2017 tyres with Ferrari’s mule car. What can you tell us about the difference in feel, for example, and what we can expect next year

    KR: It’s very early days. There’s nothing to really compare, apart from some lap time from the previous race there or testing, but obviously the conditions are different and a lot of things are… there’s a bit more grip but to be fair it’s very early days for Pirelli’s new tyres, so I think we are only going to really see what we have once we have the proper cars next year and the tyres in the first test and the cars are far from what they will be next year, what we’re using in testing. I think it will be faster, but how much and how it’s going to be, how the car is and the tyres together, it’s too early to say.

    Q: Jolyon, coming to you, congratulations on your first championship points finish in Malaysia. You were actually in a points-paying position for much of the race – what made the difference for you last weekend in getting the result?

    Jolyon PALMER: Firstly, I’d say performance-wise we were definitely quicker than we have been. I think on Friday we knew that on quali and also on the long runs we were looking quite good. And then in the race a mixture of keeping the tyres alive and good strategy because starting 19th there was quite a lot of work to do. We did one stop and we used the soft tyre which was quick to the end. So, I have Carlos putting me under a bit of pressure but we managed to keep the pace up and make the one-stop work.

    Q: You’re 3-3 in qualifying with your team-mate for the last six races. Do you feel now that you’re getting a chance to show what you can do? Again, what’s making the difference?

    JP: Well, I feel that the early part of the season was quite difficult but I think after Monaco everything’s been pretty close all the time with Kev. So, I don’t think the last six races, it could be the last ten races is more accurate really, between us there’s never much. Malaysia I think qualifying wasn’t my strong point to be honest. I think I was doing quite well until qualifying but at least I recovered in the race. I think we’re showing what we can do, both of us, pushing hard, always close and I’m sure it’s going to be the case to the end of the year.

    Q: Carlos, you qualified strongly in Singapore but got caught up in that start line incident and other results have slipped away recently. Are you getting a bit frustrated with the second half of your season?

    Carlos SAINZ: No, I wouldn’t use the word frustration to describe that tough end of the season we’re suffering at the moment in Toro Rosso. Singapore was obviously a very big opportunity missed, starting P6, we knew we had the pace to finish at least in the top six, which is when you are fighting with McLaren and Haas for those P6, P7, it’s a lot of points but you cannot keep thinking too much about it. We went to Malaysia; we knew we were not going to be as fast as in Singapore and it got confirmed – but yeah, we are trying to extract the maximum performance out of the car every race, we know our performance can vary a lot from circuit to circuit and we just need to go race-by-race seeing where we stand in every race.

    Q: We’ve heard a little about the 2017 cars, they’re obviously going to be quicker but how are you feeling about the physical side of driving next year? Looking at Malaysia, quite a few drivers said it was tough – I’m interested to know with much faster cars, higher cornering speeds next year, to what extend next year are you all going to have to step up the training in view of that?

    CS: I think for sure we will need to. It’s not a secret we will need to do a step in our physical condition for next year. Already Malaysia this year we were in qualifying nearly as fast as the lap record; the race, because of the tarmac change, was 3-4 seconds per lap quicker than last year and you could already feel it. It’s a challenge that I always welcome. At the end it means OK, more time in the gym, more time on a bike – but it means that also in the race a physical limitation comes into play and it’s where you can make the difference. So, I will welcome it. Also the challenge of driving a faster car is always more difficult, always more selective with drivers, so it can only do good for Formula One.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Manuel Franco – Diario AS) First question for Fernando Alonso, second for Carlos Sainz. Fernando, what’s your opinion about Ferrari’s situation because when you leave all people say were wrong – what’s your opinion now? And for Carlos, last year you were first in FP1 in your first time at Suzuka in rain – are you praying for rain again in the race?

    Fernando?

    FA: Nothing really to comment. They are struggling a little bit now but it didn’t change probably the situation in the last couple of years but yeah, I wish always the best for Ferrari. I will have always Ferrari in my heart. So, hopefully they can improve. Thanks for asking. It’s been a long time that they didn’t ask me about Ferrari. Especially after they won Malaysia last year.

    Carlos?

    CS: I have very good memories of Suzuka last year: first time in Japan; first time in this circuit and first in FP1 in the rain. So… yeah. I know the lines, I know that Toro Rosso normally performs pretty well in the rain, so I would welcome it. I always welcome the rain but particularly these last five races. We need some of that now to score a strong result. There’s some showers around for Saturday and Sunday, so I think also for Formula One, and apart from me it’s always good to have some mixed-weather races.

    Q: (Kate Walker – Motorsport.com) Two questions for Fernando please: first of all, I was wondering what you think of Honda’s philosophy and of their engineering ability? And secondly, I was wondering if you could say how you find working with Honda compared with working with Renault and with Ferrari?

    FA: I found it very interesting from day one working with Honda, the philosophy and the approach they have to racing in general and I think to some extent to life. It’s interesting and I’m a big fan of Japanese culture and Japanese traditions and I think they translate that also into their racing philosophy. They’ve been following their programme, sometimes for us as sportsmen or fans. Sometimes it’s frustrating because we want everything now or everything tomorrow but that is not this magic solution in Formula One. Everything requires some time but yeah, they are doing the job, they are doing the maximum. They are, as I said, they are following the times, everything made in Japan, only with Japanese people and it’s their mission, let’s say, so I’m extremely happy to feel part of this project from day one. Now that the results are coming, I also think they are a little bit more motivated and they are starting to be more creative, let’s say, in terms of design and progress. So, happy and compared to other big manufacturers, big car manufacturers, I think it’s just that. The way they work, the discipline, working and the loyalty also. All the engineers we have in our team, they’ve been working for Honda all their lives, from university. So the university they chose, one way to the other, they chose Honda and they will be with Honda for all their lives so that’s quite different to our culture and also I’m learning a lot.

    Q: (Luc Domenjoz – Le Matin) Lewis, in Sepang you said after the race that possibly ‘the high power’, using your words, would prevent you from winning the championship, so at this stage of your life, how important is religion for you in your culture, in your day-to-day life?

    LH: It doesn’t change, nothing’s changed. I just said it appears that currently the guy above doesn’t really want me to… perhaps doesn’t want me to win right now. But I’ve made a point on my Instagram so I don’t really have much more to say about it.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and Speedsport) Kimi, you say you can’t be happy with where you are right now. You’re currently fourth in the championship, third is within reach so two questions: would it make  a difference to you if you finished third, fourth or fifth? And would it make a difference if you finished ahead of your teammate?

    KR: Not really. We are here to try to win and anything less than winning is obviously not why we are here or why all the guys in Ferrari work hard to try to be best. So obviously not winning… second is better than third but it’s not an awful lot in the end. It’s been a more solid year and more consistent, and things are running most… but like I said, we want to be back in the front and fighting consistently for putting ourselves at least to have a good chance of winning. So that’s the aim and then obviously after that it depends on many other things also but we are lacking speed a bit but we’re not giving up and we keep trying and improving and I’m sure we’ll get there. It just takes time. In a way it’s been better than the last few years but it’s still not what we want.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and Speedsport) Lewis, is there anything you can share with us what you’re looking at?

    LH: Hunh? Yeah, no, just… it’s quite funny, just some snaps of us drivers, it’s quite funny. That’s about it. Hey man, we’ve been doing this a long long time and it’s the same each time so got to keep adding new things to it.

    Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) Lewis, I’ve noticed you’ve posted a series of messages on Facebook about your team last night. I was just wondering why you decided to do that?

    LH: Been planning to do it for a while. We’ve been building that up for a couple of weeks already, so it just turned out to be the appropriate time to do it.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Lewis, a lot of your fans, after the race on Sunday, they kind of felt the sense of injustice about your engine blowing up and some of them saying that they think Mercedes are favouring Nico, as they’ve said at different points in the year. I just wonder what your message to them is?

    LH: Well, they just go on my Instagram. I’ve put all my feelings on there so… They have the right to their own opinion but as you see from my posts, you see how passionate I am about this team and about my guys so…