Month: November 2019

McLaren executive Zak Brown has labeled McLaren’s 2017 budget as ‘healthy’, but the pressure to land a major sponsor for 2018 is slowly growing.

The team’s major shareholders, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat and Saudi-born businessman Mansour Ojjeh, have backed up their investment with a specific budget increase this year while Brown commits to securing a commercial partner for next season.

“We have very wealthy owners who want to win,” Brown said at Friday’s launch of the new MCL32.

“They are not going to let budget get in the way of us progressing up the field.

“The partners that we do have make healthy contributions, Honda’s obviously a fantastic and big contributor to our racing team… and we have lots of other revenue streams inside McLaren Technology Group.

“So budget-wise we’re healthy.”

• Brown: the opening of a new era for McLaren!

The American executive who now guides the destiny of McLaren in F1 has already initiated his search for a major backer, but it will take time says Brown.

“No miracles were going to happen in 2017. Most companies, any big decisions they are making are taken by October, November, December at the latest,” he said.

“2018 is when we need to deliver a title partner. I already feel that pressure because it takes a year. So I am counting down the days.

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“But I haven’t seen any new sponsor announcements on any car, including on those that have won the championship for the past three years.

“I think that’s an indication of the headwinds we’ve been facing in F1. With Liberty Media coming in we now have a great story about where the sport is going.

“McLaren is now a good story, and so is F1 – so there are positive times ahead.”

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Formula 1’s new sporting director Ross Brawn isn’t ruling out introducing a limited resource provision into the sport’s regulations in the future.

Ensuring the long term economic viability of F1’s smaller teams while also attempting to make them competitive is the complicated conundrum faced by both Brawn and his commercial counter-part Sean Bratches.

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You are right,” Brawn, F1’s new sporting chief in the post-Bernie Ecclestone era, told the French magazine Auto Hebdo.

“What is required is complex and that’s why it’s important not to rush.”

With contracts negotiated by Bernie Ecclestone still in force on all fronts, substantial changes to Formula 1’s current structure won’t be possible until 2020.

Brawn’s mission is to determine the future base on which the sport will be built beyond this date.

“First we need to create the right foundations, and then we build on them. By good foundations, I mean less difference between the top and the bottom of the grid.

“The real question is ‘What do we need to focus on to move in another direction in the future?’ Resource dependence is one of the areas we need to explore.

“Should we move towards a capped budget or a series of technical constraints? Perhaps a combination of both?

“But we need to reduce the importance of money in the performance of the cars, because this is the current direction in F1.

“What we want is to try to raise the overall level of the grid without resorting to the artificial,” Brawn added.

• Brawn: ‘Manufacturers add to the magic of F1’

To help with his endeavor, Brawn is to set up a task force of independent experts who will provide input and expertise.

“We will have some experts, industry recognised people, working within FOM, who I think people will be able to respect,” Brawn said in an interview with Motorpsort.com.

“It won’t be a big team, just five or six people, but there will be enough capacity with my experience and knowledge to be able to create and get a proper reasoned argument for what we want to do and have an input into the process.

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Local hero Daniel Ricciardo had a home Grand Prix to forget on Sunday at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne.

Ricciardo didn’t even complete the initial installation lap before the RB13 ground to a halt with an electrical problem. He was two laps down by the time he finally emerged from pit lane to join the race.

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“Obviously I was lapping a few laps down,” Ricciardo said after the race. “But we were getting some information which was better than nothing.

“I think the more laps we get with this car the more we’re learning. It was still valuable track time.”

However, even this upside was curtailed when the car finally died on lap 25. Ricciardo was forced to pull off and park by the side of the track.

“That was a separate issue [to the start],” he explained. “At the end we believe it was something to do with fuel pressure – basically it just switched off. There was nothing – it was just instant. No procedure I could do to stay out there.

“I feel bad for everyone, bad for the fans,” he added.

“Obviously I believe there’s more people here supporting me than the others. I’m sure they would have loved me to get out there and race, but it just kind of snowballed I guess from yesterday.”

• Vettel delivers shock Ferrari win in Melbourne!

Ricciardo took heart from his team mate’s performance, after Max Verstappen went on to claim a solid fifth place.

“I think the positive – if I’m going to look on the bright side – Max looked to be doing a relatively good pace. Maybe we can learn from something from his race today and as a team move forward.

“Happy to move on,” he concluded. “It’s okay. Obviously I’m disappointed today but I’ll wake up tomorrow and be fine and ready to prepare and go for China.”

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If Lewis Hamilton has anything to say about it, Fernando Alonso won’t be joining Mercedes anytime soon.

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The McLaren driver’s contract expires at the end of 2017 and it seems highly improbable, at this stage at least, that the Spaniard would extend his lease at Woking.

Pundits therefore are already relishing the prospect of a move to Mercedes  and a mega-battle in-house with Lewis Hamilton.

But the Brit is hardly keen on such an outlook when asked in Shanghai yesterday.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said.

“If you have got two kilos on either side, and then take the two kilos off and put four on, what is the point? You need the balance,” he said.

• Hamilton: ‘Drivers engaging with fans is key for the sport’

Hamilton thinks the balance at Mercedes is perfectly right as it stands with current team mate Valtteri Bottas. A judgement whihc Mercedes boss Toto Wolff agrees with.

“Again here he is only two tenths behind Lewis, which is a strong performance given how great Hamilton’s (qualifying) lap was,” said Wolff.

“I am also very happy about how well Lewis and Valtteri work together.”

Would the ‘entente’ be just as good if Bottas was beating Hamilton ? We hope to soon find that out…

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The father of Carlos Sainz has told his son to forget about the rumors linking the Toro Rosso driver to Renault and focus on the job at hand.

Sainz’s talent is well appreciated up and down the F1 pitlane with Renault in particular taking a keen interest in the 22-year-old, encouraged by the very positive opinion voiced by its special advisor, Alain Prost.

But former world rally champion Carlos Sainz says his son should be happy with Toro Rosso and disregard for now any speculation about his future.

“He is privileged because he is in Formula 1 and in the Red Bull orbit,” he told the Spanish sports newspaper AS.

“What he needs to do is focus on Toro Rosso and forget about everything else. He should try to do another good year with Toro Rosso and realise there is more time in the future.

“If he has a good year, there will be other opportunities,” insisted Sainz Snr.

“It is logical that he wants to develop as a driver and to do that you seek other opportunities, but my advice is to focus on Toro Rosso and the Red Bull world today.”

• Carlos Sainz will be ‘pushing like hell’ in 2017!

Sainz believes his son’s interests would be better served by blocking from his mind any outside interest, be it from Renault or any other team.

“I think it would be a very serious mistake at this point to get confused — it is the worst thing you could do.

“I am convinced that if he continues as he has and does a good year, he will have his options,” the 54-year-old concluded.

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Williams new tech boss Paddy Lowe believes his team has the potential to win a world championship, even as a Mercedes customer team.

The 54-year-old engineer left the German squad over the winter to return to Williams where he worked almost three decades ago, from 1987 to 1993.

While Lowe assumes the role of chief technical officer, as a shareholder he also now enjoys a seat on Williams’ board of directors, a prominent position which apparently eluded him at Mercedes.

Lowe has no doubts a customer team can win the world title, with Red Bull racing serving as a perfect example of such an achievement.

“Yes. I mean the engines are actually all the same between the different Mercedes teams, they are supposed to be between all engine suppliers,” Lowe say in a meeting with the media on Thursday.

“So it’s absolutely possible to win a championship. There’s no better example of that than Red Bull who have done very well with the Renault engine when they were not classified as a works team.”

• Patrick Head puzzled by Lowe’s departure from Mercedes

Claire Williams has hailed Paddy Lowe’s arrival at Williams as a ‘game changer’,  with the Grove-based outfit eager to optimize its development. Lowe is looking forward to the challenge.

“It’s a great opportunity, I think that’s the simplest way to put it. We achieved incredible things at Mercedes in three years and, of course, they may continue to do so.

“I’m very proud of the part I played in that set of championships, but for me personally a great opportunity came up at Williams and I’m very excited about it.

“It’s been discussed many times the disparity of funding between teams in the pitlane so clearly it’s more difficult to compete at the front when you have less money, nobody will deny that.

“The challenge here is to make the most efficient use we can with the resources we have. In parallel you’re constantly trying to gain access to more resources that’s what drives success in this sport.

“Do a good job, generate more income so you can do an even better job. If we want to move forward we have to move forward technically and then financially when you make all of those factors contribute together.”

Gallery: all the pics from Thursday’s action in the Melbourne paddock

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Valtteri Bottas pulled off his first-ever pole position in Formula 1 on Saturday, and he did it in style.

His Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton had thrown down the gauntlet at the start of Q3 with a time of 1:28.792s that looked impossible to beat. But Bottas dug deep and went 0.023s faster, while Hamilton’s own response fell short.

“Obviously I’m really happy,” beamed the Finn after qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix. “It’s the first pole in my career.

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“It’s my fifth season now in Formula 1. It took a few races but I’ve got it and hopefully it’s the first of many.”

• Bottas beats Hamilton to Bahrain pole!

“It’s not an easy track to get everything right,” he pointed out. “It is quite technical. There’s quite a few difficult braking points, turning-ins to the corners. It’s easy to have a lock up or just miss the apex slightly.

“It’s just getting the lap together and get the car well balanced, and it was a good enough lap for the pole today so that’s good.”

Mercedes had been hiding their true form somewhat in practice, especially in the daytime sessions held in hotter conditions than will be the case in the Grand Prix itself.

“I think we’ve made a good job this week and to really focus on the evening conditions,” Bottas acknowledged. “We really managed to get a lot of lap time out of the car in the cooler conditions. Hopefully that’s going to help us.”

Unfortunately for Bottas there’s little chance to celebrate before planning begins for Sunday’s race.

“You need to enjoy what you’ve done so far in the weekend,” he said. “But the main thing is tomorrow.

“There’s no point starting dreaming about anything. We need to look at everything. Whatever we can do tomorrow. Work together as a team and make a good strategy, and plan for the race tomorrow.”

“It’s all just focussing for the race and geting the maximum out of it.

“But definitely a good place to start. I think as a team we can be really strong tomorrow and hopefully we can get that one-two.”

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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton has emerged stronger than ever following a reset of his relationship with the German squad.

Wolff revealed that an in-depth discussion with the Brit at the end of last season following a difficult campaign enticed the driver to come back with a fresh mindset and more determined than ever.

“There was a point towards the end of the year where we sat down and it felt like a reset of the relationship,” said Wolff.

“So many things came out which needed to be discussed, and since then I have perceived him as being in a really good place.

“He’s happy and motivated and I’ve seen the strongest Lewis on track that I’ve seen so far consistently over the weekend.”

• Hamilton thanks team for ‘fantastic’ pole position

Following a performance in Melbourne which some have called a bit disappointing, Wolff also defended new recruit Valtteri Bottas.

“He’s competitive and probably setting his own targets,” explained Wolff.

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“It’s the right attitude, but he has really progressed well over the days he has been in the car and coming out that close in various sessions during qualifying is actually what we have hoped for.

“So there is an awful lot of pressure if you’re being put into that car next to Lewis and he has coped very well.”

“You need the talent to drive this car on the edge with the right speed and then you need to have the diligence and the understanding of doing the office job right.

“And I think there was never any doubt on him being able to drive the car fast and now it’s about putting the dots together and learning and developing and so far he didn’t do any mistakes.

“He kept driving and you can see how the times are coming together.”

Gallery: all the pics from Saturday’s action

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Romain Grosjean was a happy man at the end of Saturday’s Australian GP qualifying session, placing Haas and himself sixth on tomorrow’s grid.

The performance gave the US outfit its best qualifying effort to date, bettering its previous best of seventh earned by Grosjean in last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

The French driver gradually increased his pace in qualifying, accessing each segment to find himself battling it out among the heavy hitters in Q1.

“Happy day. It was quite an unbelievable qualifying session for us,” enthused Grosjean.

“It’s a shame that we didn’t get Kevin there, but the car is looking good, even better than what we’ve seen recently.

“We’ve made some good progress over the weekend. There’s a lot more we can understand and analyze but, generally, it’s a great start for us.”

• Hamilton takes comfortable first pole of 2017

In addition to an opportunity to head the mid-field tomorrow, Grosjean’s performance simply validates in the best possible way the team’s work and direction, as well as the potential of its VF17 design.

But it can still all go right or terribly wrong when the lights turn green tomorrow, with Haas still optimizing  its grid launch procedure.

“It’s always good to start with a strong qualifying session. It tells you that if you keep improving the car, you could be in a good place very soon.

“If that’s our baseline, and you can fight between sixth and 10th position, where it’s so tight, it would be great to be there most of the time and enjoy some good times.

“Tomorrow’s start is a big unknown. We’ve been practicing and some have been good, others not so much. Hopefully, we’ll get the first one right tomorrow.”

Gallery: all the pics from Saturday’s action

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Sauber boss Monisha Kaltenborn is advocating for a franchise system to govern teams’  involvement in F1, believing the concept would alleviate financial fears for mid-field teams.

Kaltenborn says that organizing the sport around a franchise system, a fairly widespread approach in major US sports, would go a long way towards helping smaller outfits who do not enjoy the benefit of manufacturer backing.

“I think it makes sense to have that kind of a system,” Kaltenbor told GP Gazette.

“For me the most important thing is that the value of the sport and the value of each team is improved.

“Because we do ideally want to be in a world where it takes a lot to come in, but then, when you are in, you have a certain income and a certain existence, maybe not guaranteed – that is too strong a word – but given.

• Honda-FIA moral agreement forced Sauber supply deal

“You don’t have to fear that you won’t be able to exist at this level, because the sport is giving you enough income to have a business that works.

“You don’t need to have a huge profit, but one that allows you to be competitive in the sport. Maybe not for the top three, but, if you are among 10, in the midfield.

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“So that’s the idea behind this and that’s something very good for the sport.

“If we do that kind of a franchise system, I think it’s important that the brands which are in the sport are preserved – because that again adds value to your franchise.”

Gallery: All the action from Sunday in Sochi

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