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Author: David Bodapati
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Honda supported Sarath, Rajiv for 2017 ARRC;
Johor Bahru (Malaysia), 31 March 2017: India’s top two-wheeler racers, Shankar Sarath Kumar and Rajiv Sethu, representing RAMA Honda Racing team by NTS T.Pro Ten10 team, and supported by Honda 2Wheelers India, are taking part in the 2017 FIM Asia Road Racing Championship which commences here tomorrow, April 1, with the first round.
Sarath Kumar, coming off a knee injury that severely impacted his 2016 season, will continue his campaign in the SuperSport 600cc class on a Honda CBR 600WR while Rajiv Sethu, riding the all new Honda CBR 250RR, has moved to Asia Production 250cc after a season in the Asia Dream Cup. Both are supported by Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India and Honda Motorsports Japan as a key talent development from India in the international racing series.
Sarath and Sethu, both Chennai-based, are also part of a five-rider contingent in two classes, backed by John Sudheer of RAMA Group of Companies and who is also the team ambassador.
The team also includes three experienced riders led by “pocket rocket” Tomoyoshi Koyama who shifts to the crucial AP250 class from SS600. While Tiga Hada takes up the mantle in SS600 to lead the championship fight for Honda, ARRC rookie Sena Yamada begins his Asian stint with vast experience in the European Moto3 and Moto2 circuits and is the dark horse to watch out for.
Looking forward to the 2017 season, Sarath Kumar said: “I am happy to get back to riding the SS600 this year. Personally for me, 2016 was a challenging year with injuries. This season, I have worked very hard and want to put up a strong performance.
“Throughout my career, Ten10 Racing with Honda 2Wheelers India always had faith in me and powered my dreams. I hope to deliver my best for them. I also thank Mr John Sudheer who has come forward to support this sport and a talent like me.”
Making his debut in the ARRC is the 2016 Indian National champion and former Asia Dream Cup participant, is Rajiv Sethu, the young rising talent from Chennai.
Visibly excited at his debut, Rajiv Sethu, said: “For any Indian racer, getting global exposure is a big opportunity. Honda 2Wheelers India has made my dream come true. I look forward to ride and learn from riders like Koyama San who is among the most experienced racers in the World.
“The 2017 season for me is all about improving my riding and presence in international races. This is my first exposure in ARRC and it’s a big deal for me. I will do my best to make my team and country proud.”
HMSI Statement by Prabhu Nagaraj: “India is making gradual but consistent progress in motorsport and our boys going international arena is great for the sport. As part of our rider development program two young talented Indian riders Sarath and Rajiv will be seen in action in ARRC this year. We are extremely delighted to have them in our international mix and are confident that they will put up a great show. I’m sure these riders will be creating and supporting dreams for many more young riders to make a career in Racing. Also, the Asia Road Racing Championship (ARRC) will return to India later this year and this will be another great opportunity for the riders as well as the motorsport fans in India.”
Team Owner, Yusuke Teshima: “I am so happy to put together such a big team across two classes this season in FIM Asia Road Racing Championship in collaboration with India. The team comprises of very talented racers from India and Japan and this will be a great platform for them to grow to the next level of professional motorcycle racing. We are confident of putting up some good performances for Honda and our sponsor, RAMA, this year.”
Team Ambassador, John Sudheer: “I have been associated with the team for one year during the 2016 season and I have been to all their races. The kind of passion and commitment they have towards this sport made me decide to continue my support for the 2017 season, this time with my own brand RAMA (Royal Asia Movie Awards). I see this as a perfect platform for Asian collaboration, uniting Asia through motorcycle racing. Moreover, with Indian talents involved and benefiting through this sport, it is something exciting to see especially when they carry my brand across Asia.”
2017 FIM Asia Road Racing Championship: The FIM Asia Road Racing Championship is the regional motorcycle road racing championship for Asia, held since 1996. This championship is part of the production-based category of racing, similar to the Supersport World Championship, British Supersport Championship and AMA Supersport Championship. Modified versions of production motorcycles that are available to the public are featured in the race. The Championship is currently divided into three open-make classes and two mono-brand developmental classes. The open-make categories are the SuperSports 600cc, Asia Production 250cc and Underbone 130cc. The developmental classes race on single-make motorcycles.
eom/AP Media Comm release
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McLaren-Honda announces Star Sports India as corporate partner
Star Sports India has today been unveiled as a Corporate Partner of McLaren-Honda as part of an agreement that will include the production of exclusive viewer content and fan competitions.
Already a broadcasting innovator, Star Sports India has transformed sports coverage in its native country. The country’s leading sports network, Star Sports India engages audiences across ten dedicated sports channels (Star Sports 1, 2, 3, 4 and Star Sports HD1, HD2, HD3 and HD4 and Star Sports Select HD1 & HD2).
McLaren-Honda file photo Star Sports, as the exclusive broadcast partner of the FIA Formula One World Championship™, plans to showcase the best-in-class Formula 1 experience on its Star Sports Select HD channels and continue to grow the sport’s fan base throughout India.
The partnership will see McLaren-Honda and Star Sports India work together to create bespoke content, including exclusive interviews, for their TV and digital channels that will help bring viewers and fans even closer to the team and the global sport of Formula 1.
As part of the agreement, viewers will have the opportunity to win an exciting range of prizes, including the chance to win a trip to join the team trackside at a grand prix race weekend, ride in a McLaren high-performance road car or meet the McLaren-Honda drivers.
Star Sports India branding will be displayed prominently on the drivers’ overalls of McLaren-Honda teammates Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne throughout the season.
Star Sports India is part of the Star India network which reaches around 650 million viewers every month and has been entertaining viewers for over 20 years. Boasting over 40 channels in eight languages, Star India is now one of India’s leading media forces, owns an entertainment channel portfolio that includes Star Gold, Channel V, Star World, Star Movies and Life OK. Star is a fully owned subsidiary of 20th Century Fox.
As well as a leading presence in regional broadcasting, Star India also produces and distributes film content through Fox Star Studios, an affiliate joint venture company.
Zak Brown, Executive Director, McLaren Technology Group, said:
“It’s always exciting to bring a new Partner onboard. I’ve had that feeling a few times in my career so far! With Star Sports India joining a brand as eponymous as McLaren the fit is as obvious as it is compelling. We are a sports and technology company – racers at heart, of course, and, therefore, innovators in everything we do. And talking to Star Sports India, we quickly discovered a similar innovative mind-set and shared passion for how we engage sports fans through great content. That’s why I’m really looking forward to working with the great team at Star Sports India and seeing what we can achieve together to bring fans even closer to the sport we love.”
Commenting on the agreement, a Star India spokesperson said:
“Star Sports India has always strived to build a multi-sport culture in the country and our strategic partnership with McLaren-Honda furthers this agenda. McLaren-Honda is one of the most successful teams in F1 history and their passion for technology and pushing the boundaries on innovation aligns with our mission here at Star Sports. Indian sports fans have always shown interest in engaging with multiple sports and this association will help viewers to closely engage with all the on ground action of Formula 1.”
eom/McLaren Honda press release
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Vinales pulls off a win for an incredible Yamaha debut; Rossi 3rd
Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA / Maverick VINALES SPA / Valentino ROSSI ITA
Podium
MotoGP GP Qatar 2017 (Circuit Losail)
23-26/03.2017
photo: MICHELINDoha (Qatar), 26 March 2017: Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Maverick Viñales made an incredible Yamaha debut at the start of the 2017 MotoGP season tonight, securing a perfect victory at the Grand Prix of Qatar. Teammate Valentino Rossi also put in a stellar performance during the opening round at the Losail International Circuit, finishing in third place for a double Movistar Yamaha MotoGP podium.
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi kept their heads cool under unnerving circumstances before the race and stormed to first and third position respectively.
As all sessions were cancelled yesterday, due to standing water on the track, thereby lessening the riders‘ time to practice and perfect their race settings, the level of adrenaline on the grid was even higher than usual. The race start then being delayed twice, due to sudden rain causing dangerous track conditions, added even more to the tension. Eventually, after two warm-up laps to give the riders a feel for the track, the race got under way 45 minutes later than scheduled.
Viñales secured his first MotoGP pole position thanks to a stunning lap in FP1, but it didn‘t help him at the start of the shortened 20-lap race. The young Spaniard gunned off the line and arrived at the first corner in second place, but had to sit up as 23 riders dashed through the first corner, losing him time and positions and pushing him back to fifth. He slowly picked up the pace as he got a feel for the conditions and, feeling the hot breath of his teammate down his neck, six laps into the race, he knew exactly when to put the hammer down.
As fellow Yamaha rider, Johann Zarco crashed out of the lead, the Spanish youngster saw the promise of a podium position dangling in front of him. He bridged the gap to Andrea Iannone and tapped on his back with eleven laps to go. A lap later the Italian cracked under the pressure and crashed in front of Viñales, who skilfully avoided him and pushed up to third place. Now on a charge, the Spaniard soon flew past Marc Marquez to start the hunt for leader Andrea Dovizioso.
Viñales put his head down to decrease the margin of 1.2s, making big strides. Two laps later he passed the Italian, clinching first position. Dovizioso fought back, overtaking the young hero at the end of the long straight, but Viñales used the nimble character of his YZR-M1 to perfection. The last five laps were filled with constant push and pull action between the two riders, but the Yamaha debutant’s stunning last lap, a personal best of 1’56.157s, saw him take the chequered flag in first place, 0.461s ahead of his closest rival. This victory makes Viñales the second youngest rider to win in the premier class with different manufacturers, after Mike Hailwood.
Teammate Rossi had to start his 2017 campaign from tenth position, but the Doctor didn‘t take long to cut through the field. Launching his YZR-M1 past various rivals as the starting lights went out, he grabbed seventh place, despite a collision in turn one. With 18 laps to go the Italian was the quickest man on track, trying to pass Dani Pedrosa in front of him. Seeing the front group break away, he made his move a lap later and slotted in behind his teammate.
The Yamaha duo moved up two places as Zarco and Iannone fell victim to the high pace needed to stay in contention in the first hot battle, under unfamiliar track conditions. Rossi ran wide going into turn 1 with ten laps to go, but he recovered quickly. He followed his teammate past Marquez, making the crowd cheer, as now both Movistar Yamaha riders were in for a podium place.
The veteran bided his time as Viñales and Dovizioso battled for the lead. With four laps to go he set his personal best time, a 1‘56.398s, and was looking threatening, but due to tyre wear he was unable to join in on the fight for the victory and had to settle for a hard-fought third place, crossing the line +1.928s behind his teammate.
Viñales‘ superb win earns him first place in the championship standings with 25 points. Rossi now holds third place in the championship with 16 points. Thanks to today‘s results Movistar Yamaha MotoGP take the lead in the teams’ championship with 41 points, whilst Yamaha leads the Constructor standings with 25 points.
The next round will be held at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit, in Argentina, in two weeks‘ time.
eom/Movistar Yamaha Press Release
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A big congrats to Ferrari and Sebastian: Hamilton
DRIVERS
1 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)
2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
3 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes)
PODIUM INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Mark Webber)
Q: Sebastian, all those thousands and thousands of hours of work from the whole team over winter testing, you guys have shown the form early in the season, massive victory, how do you feel?
Sebastian VETTEL: Unbelievable. Thank you everyone, it was a fantastic grand prix. It was quite, in a positive way, when I was coming back to the pits and there were people running on track going wild with Ferrari flags. It was unbelievable. Thanks for the support. Like you said, it was what we needed. The whole team has been working really, really hard. The guys didn’t get much sleep here and back in the factory. The car is really behaving well, incredible to drive, a beautiful day. Thank you.
Q: We’ll move across to second place. Lewis Hamilton, who did everything right, he did everything right. Come on, Australia. Absolutely world class is Lewis. On pole position, phenomenal start, mate. And for me, I think the strategy didn’t quite work out for you today. Did you have to pit? Why was it so early? And obviously for you then to get the race victory back off Sebastian was going to be very difficult from then onwards.
Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, definitely. Firstly, a big congratulations to Ferrari and to Sebastian, they did an amazing job this weekend. It’s been a great weekend for us and the team, but just in the race, I struggled with the tyres at the end. I had to pit a lot earlier than these guys because I just ran out of grip. Pitted and I got stuck behind one of the Red Bulls and sometimes that’s just the way it goes. But overall, a great race and good points for the team and I mean look at this crowd. Thank you for coming out today and it’s always such a great place for us to be.
Q: Well done Lewis and great sportsmanship there and I wouldn’t expect anything different from a world champion. Valtteri, first time up here with Mercedes, how does it feel? Big weekend for you, no errors, talk us through it.
Valtteri BOTTAS: Yeah, obviously first race with the team and really want to thank everyone. The team has been so welcoming. We worked really hard for this first race to be ready. Everything went nice and smoothly but it’s just that the red guys are a bit too quick, so that means we need to work harder. We are definitely ready for that. I am ready for that. This is just the start, starting with a podium, we can improve it from here, so I’ll look forward to the next few races.
Well done mate, we’ll finish with Sebastian Vettel. Your 43rd victory. The last time I saw this kind of atmosphere was with both our hero, Michael Schumacher. So emotionally for you it must be massive for you to have all these Italian fans down here in Melbourne, in Italy and around the world, winning the first race of the season and taking the championship fight to this man.
SV: Yeah, it’s a long, long way ahead. For now I think we’re just over the moon. I think it’s been a hard winter and an incredible race today. At the start I wasn’t entirely happy. I think I was a little bit too nervous.
I was surprised. I thought you were going to do it.
SV: I had a bit of wheel slip off the line. Lewis was a tiny bit better and then I had to take care of Valtteri in Turn One, but then I had a decent exit. But after that I was really trying to keep the pressure on to make sure that they get that message that we are here and we’re here to fight. Obviously got a bit lucky when Lewis came out in traffic but still we were hanging in there, the tyres were still good, the car was working, so excellent job. And as I said, the support around the track: I had a look with 20 laps to go left and right and especially last sector they were always on fire with the flags, so it was really great. Yeah, thank you.
Q: And a quick word on the beast: what are the cars like now compared to last year?
SV: Ah, you could push much harder. Usually the first couple of laps you were pushing last year and then the tyres were dropping off. Now the tyres are still dropping off a bit but you can keep pushing. You can keep braking at the same point. The car is screaming “more, more, more!” Also, at the end with the harder tyres there is hardly any degradation so it’s really good fun, especially in the fast corners. You could keep going forever, it was a great race, and I enjoyed it a lot.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Congratulations Sebastian, your second win here in Australia and the 43rd of your Formula One career. Great start to your year. Talk us through the conversation on the radio after Lewis made that early pit stop. What were deliberations in terms of the strategy? And when you came in and went out on the soft tyres, to try to warm that thing up, you had quite a bit of action behind you, tell us about how tense that got?
SV: I think we realised early on that we had decent pace. I was able to follow Lewis and then I think after 10 or 12 laps he was really pushing, trying to open a gap, and he succeeded a bit. I was struggling to keep up, but still hanging in there. And I knew if there was anything to happen around the first stop then I need to be right behind him to either put them under pressure or have a chance to jump into the pits earlier to pass him through the stop. Once it was clear that he went in, there was no point to follow. We stayed out, the tyres were still holding on and the pace looked alright. I wasn’t aware of the traffic situation at that point and I just tried to calm down a bit because I was quite hot on the previous laps, but still keep the pace up and hope for an ‘overcut’ so to say. Then I was told he was facing some traffic, which I didn’t know who and how fast the traffic was and whether he would clear but I just tried to hang in there. And then obviously we saw the gap, went into the pits and it worked. It was very tight. I lost a lot of time on the in-lap because I had a lapped car, I think it was a Williams. I lost about a second so I was a bit angry but that’s how it goes sometimes and still it was just enough and I had Max right behind me and Lewis as well, so that was quite tight. Turn One was a bit slippery, but I managed to get a decent exit and a decent run down to Turn Three. I just held the inside. I knew that Max would probably try something but I just kept in front. That was obviously crucial for our race. I tried to push for as hard as I could for the one or two [laps] Max was still out because he was slower on the older tyres, to open a bit of a gap and control the race. The car was really good, working well and I could control the gap and the pace, going through traffic and just bringing it home. It was very pleasant. A different race to last year, where you had to manage a lot. Now I think it was a bit more raw, especially the beginning. Even if it wasn’t a wheel-to-wheel fight I could see Lewis was pushing really hard. There were some corners where he was on top of me and other corners where I was catching up. It was nice that we could just push and race to let’s say the first stop. Then obviously we got a bit lucky with him facing some traffic. But equally we pushed him to the pits and did well. Otherwise, if he had a big lead after 15 laps then he could stay out, control the race and pit into free air. We did a very good race. I’m very happy with the calls today. It worked brilliantly and as I said, big thanks to the team. We say this all the time but I think if you’re not part of the team I think it’s difficult to realise but what this team has done in the last six months has been really tough, rough as well, not easy to manage the whole team but I think the new car, in general… obviously today is fantastic, a big reward a big relief for everyone. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. The foundation has been laid a long time ago and really proud to see it coming together. This is just one race. I’m sure we’ll have a great night, we’ll create… we did already, but we will create some great memories tonight and we’ll take it from there. I think we enjoy what we do, the spirit is great in the team and that’s for us to keep it up.
Q: Congratulations. Lewis, a lot of pressure on you at the start but the getaway looked pretty flawless so talk us through that. Then Sebastian said he felt he pushed you into the pits and you came in relatively early, lap 18, did you have to come in?
LH: We had a really good start, which is fantastic; it’s good to have a good getaway. After that, I was struggling with the grip from the get-go. Sebastian was able to always answer in terms of lap time and the majority of the time do faster lap times and then towards the end I got a bit in traffic and the car started to overheat the tyres and I was struggling with grip and it was to the point that I needed to come in. Plus, the gap was closing up and I was sliding around. So it was my call because otherwise he probably would have come by anyway. So then I came in and then I got obviously stuck in traffic, which is a little bit unfortunate but that’s motor racing. But a big congratulations to Sebastian and Ferrari. I know it’s been a long time coming for them to get a result like this. It shows we are going to have a race on our hands, which we are very happy to have, which is great for the fans. Unfortunately it’s harder than ever to get close to cars, which is a shame. We can’t even have a close battle but who knows, maybe in the future we will.
Q: Valtteri, so we learned that Ferrari’s pace from testing is real. What did you learn this weekend about your new car, your new team and where you yourself can improve going forward?
VB: Well, first of all I think it is a start. There are always things that could have gone better but it is a good starting point for the journey for me driving for Mercedes. I think the main things were obviously yesterday, the qualifying, I didn’t get everything perfect but it was the first qualifying with the team and this track really hasn’t been fantastic for me ever in qualifying. But there’s a long season ahead. Today, I think the race was good. As a team I think we did a good job with the car we have. I think Ferrari was quicker today, there’s no doubt about that. They have obviously done a great job and a better job for this race. From my side the main thing today was the first stint. I struggled quite a lot with the ultrasoft tyres. It felt like I was just sliding around, always missing front grip, rear grip, especially after like 10 laps of the first stint. That wasn’t easy. But once we put the soft tyres on it was quite a good feeling with the car and the car was behaving really nicely. It was really nice to drive. But it was a bit too late and still missing a bit of pace. Overall, I think not a disastrous first race weekend with the team but I do have my points I will take and I can do better next time and I look forward to that.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Flavio Vanetti – Corriere della Sera) To Sebastian. Can you tell us please which was the road map that the team had to follow to achieve this victory and how much is it a surprise to be on the top now?
SV: I think for all of us it is a positive surprise. I think the road we followed is pretty simple: we didn’t look left; we didn’t look right; we didn’t look forward; we didn’t look back. I think we focussed on what we had to do at the time. Obviously there has been a lot of up and down, left and right the last 12 months but I think, especially the last couple of months, things calmed down and we just tried to do our job. Obviously there has been a big reshuffle but, as I said, people are happy, happy to work, working with each other. That’s the key. At the end there’s no shortcut, you need to get the job done and invest a lot of hours thinking. Passion, I think, is a great driver back in the factory, also here. I think up and down the pitlane the amount of hours the guys are covering is mad. You need to love what you’re doing but especially… I said it years ago joining Ferrari, there seems to be an extra passion just working for the Prancing Horse and, I think, just focussing on ourselves really has been the big difference. I think a key to deliver a great car, which we obviously have. The speeds look alright, both on the straights and in the corners we are competitive. As I said, I was able to stay with Lewis. They had a little bit the upper hand yesterday but I knew, y’know, we had much better balance yesterday than on Friday so I knew in the race anything can happen. It’s the first race of the season, I’m surprised we didn’t have a Safety Car but anything can happen. I wanted to stay in there and make it clear we had the pace. It was nice to see that we have and, as I say, to get the job done.
Q: (Leon Alepidis – F1fan) Question to all of you, now that you have completed a decent sum of laps with 2017 cars around the Circuit de Catalunya and Albert Park, for which track and individual turn are you most looking forward to?
SV: I don’t know if I can get all the races together! Probably Silverstone. I think with that amount of grip and downforce. Probably Suzuka as well later on in the year. Also I guess the cars will be even faster from what they are now. So, yeah, I think that would be quite nice. I’m looking forward to that.
Lewis?
LH: Yes, Silverstone, I agree.
Valtteri?
VB: Yeah, I think all the quick ones: Spa; Suzuka; Silverstone will be nice. But I think even street circuits will be a bit more challenging I think – not that it wasn’t challenging before, but with these cars it will be nice.
Q: (Lennart Bernke – Bild) Seb, you are always talking about a different spirit inside the team and how you have changed from the last year. Can you tell us how exactly you have managed that or what happened inside the team that made the spirit different this year?
SV: I didn’t manage anything, I’m not the team manager so you need to ask other people. In the end it was clear that when we started off two years ago, three years ago that there’s a lot to do, a lot to reshuffle. I think the team was at a low. The spirit was very good in the first year, in 2015. I think last year was a very good year. Obviously not for the results but in terms of growing the team. It’s good also to hit some lows and go through difficult periods – even though it pretty much sucks – but if you look race-by-race it’s not great but seeing what happens in the background is important. I think people always kept the belief and, as I said, the last six months have been very calm. We have done our work and it starts to slowly pay off. Now it peaks and we are at the top of this grand prix but that’s a small achievement. If you look at who we are up against, I think Mercedes has been phenomenal the last couple of years: incredible team effort, incredibly by both drivers. I think Valtteri just fitted in and kept doing a fantastic job for the team. No weak link from the outside, not that we can see. They will be the ones to beat but for sure today I’m just happy and we take it as a team. You saw the guys: they were smiling, singing, so I’m sure we’ll see more of that tonight.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / Speed Sport) For all three. The first time with the new clutch rules at the start. None of you lost a position but how did your start go?
Lewis you’ve already dealt with that. Sebastian?
SV: I had a bit of wheel slip. It’s tough, obviously, it’s a very fine line. You try to guess where to go. If you get it right it feels fantastic; if not it’s… yeah, you’re not getting the maximum out of it. Hopefully a better start in China.
Valtteri?
VB: I think mine was quite average. Not the best possible for these conditions but not too bad. So yeah, pretty happy with that all obviously. Would have been nice to jump at least one car but yeah, it was good. Definitely been working hard on the starts and it seems to pay off but for sure we can improve on that.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Valtteri, in the Championship, is this the most important podium for you so far and was that the most physical also?
VB: Most important podium… I don’t know. For sure it is good to start with a podium this season with a new team. I think every position is important for the Championship itself. So it is too early to say if it is the most important. Most physical? I think one of the most physical. This is not one of the most physical tracks – but the new cars definitely make it harder. But yeah, based on what I felt today, some of the circuits will be quite a challenge but I was OK today. It’s nice to feel a bit more physical effect and a little bit more fatigue. I like it.
Q: (Chris Medland – Racer) Lewis, just saw you stretching out your left shoulder there a bit. Any discomfort after that race? And also, was it as physical as you guys expected? More? Less? With these new cars over a race distance.
LH: No, I’m just stretching. It was more physical but it was no problem for me and doesn’t look like it was for these guys either.
SV: It’s not the most physical circuit in the year. I think later on it will be very interesting. Here is very technical. So, first couple of laps, at least for me, were very intense. Obviously it’s easy to have an error, get something wrong under braking, go a bit wide etcetera. Later on I had a bit of a gap and I could control it, and therefore it was a bit easier.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Seb, Ferrari won the first race of the season last time seven years ago. Is this the biggest chance for the team and are you going to refresh your song compilation for victory?
SV: Was that in Bahrain? Yeah. What was the second part of your question? I was thinking about which race it was.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Are you going to refresh your victory song compilation?
SV: Ah, no, no, no, no. I’m not a good singer otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I’m pretty sure I will think of something if we’re lucky enough to repeat what we did today but no plans. I think it came very spontaneously now two years ago. We’ll see. I think that’s a very nice problem to have, to worry about which song to sing but for now I think we’re very happy with how the race went today.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Lewis, in the second part of the race you seem to have struggled to close the gap to Sebastian even when you had a free track in front of you. At one point you were asking the team ‘is there damage to the floor?’ Has there been anything with your car or were you just struggling with the tyres?
LH: Not that I know of. In the second part of the race… I had stopped about eight laps before these guys so I just didn’t know how long the tyres were going to go so I just took it easy and at the end, obviously, I got more pace but even if I did close the gap, you can’t overtake so… and I may not have made it to the end of the race having stopped so early.
Q: (Paul Gover – News Ltd) Sebastian, the last time Ferrari won here in Australia was Kimi and he went on to be World Champion. Do you have any feeling at all yet about how the championship might go for you this year?
SV: No, not interested at this point to be honest. Obviously I was very fortunate so far in my racing career. I’ve had some good races and good years but definitely the first race is not the time to look at the table. As I’ve said before, you really have to go step by step. It’s good to know that we have a great car but it’s just the beginning: new regulations, new generations of cars so there will be a lot of progress. These guys have proved to be the ones to beat for the last couple of years, more and more so. We know that they have a great engine but also they had a great car the last couple of years and they made good steps forward so we are the ones who need to catch up but as I said, for today I am just very happy and for sure whatever happens this year, the race today doesn’t hurt.
Q: (Phil Branagan – Auto Action) Lewis, we heard some of the radio communication after your tyre stop; there was a conversation about a switch to plan B and then a switch back to plan A. Did something happen in the car to prompt that change of strategy during the second half of the race?
LH: Strategy A is a one-stop, strategy B was a two-stop and I was in second so they were looking at alternatives of other ways to get me back to first.
Q: (Andre Leslie – DPA) Lewis has now suggested a couple of times that it’s very tough to overtake. Can I ask Sebastian and Valtteri if that is what you guys are feeling and can you explain to us why?
VB: I think it is definitely… you know even in the years before it’s been difficult to follow once you get within one and a half, one second just because of the turbulent air which messes up the aerodynamics of the car and that way we don’t have that much grip. Now, as more of the grip from the car is relying on the aero it’s a bigger effect and the cars are wider so I think there’s more turbulent air so now I think it’s more like two seconds or even two and a half because you actually feel quite a big effect from the car in front and that way in the corners it’s more difficult to follow. Obviously you have a bigger slipstream on the straight but if you can’t follow in the corners it’s tricky to get a slipstream. That’s the problem.
SV: Nothing to add.
Q: (Chris Medland – Racer) Lewis and Seb, the two of you have been the dominant drivers of the past decade in terms of World Championships but you’ve rarely had a year when you have been able to fight each other in fairly equal machinery. Sat here now, knowing that you’ve both got cars that are closely matched, is there a bit of anticipation between the two of you to go head to head?
SV: Great respect for Lewis. I think he had an amazing debut here ten years ago. I still remember his move around the outside, when he made other people look a bit silly. I think since then, since day one, he’s proved that he’s very very quick, very talented but also working hard. I think it was a matter of time before he won the World Championship which I tried to stop him doing in Brazil, as hard as I could, in my Toro Rosso. Great memories – but I don’t remember the last ten years. Roughly we’ve been racing each other but if I have the same outcome as you had on that day…
LH: I’m going to get you back.
SV: Yeah, to cut it short, I have great respect. He’s proven to be one of the quickest drivers on the grid and for sure I would love to have a close battle. Obviously right now it looks like we have equal machinery. I hope it stays that way and then we will see how it turns out but it’s obviously a lot of fun to race for victories and a lot of fun to race against the best.
LH: Yeah, I second that. Incredible amount of respect for Sebastian and what he’s achieved in his career. It’s been a privilege to be racing in an era with him and now finally at a period of time when we can actually have a real race. I wish we could race a lot closer in the cars that we have today but still I think the fact that we are similar pacewise, it’s going to be a very very hard slog this season I think. It’s going to be physically and mentally demanding but as Sebastian said, racing the best is what Formula One is all about and ultimately makes you work that much harder, having to raise the bar and I’m looking forward to that.
eom/FIA press release
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Maverick Vinales takes season’s first win
Doha, 26 March 2017: Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Maverick Viñales made an incredible Yamaha debut at the start of the 2017 MotoGP season tonight, securing a perfect victory at the Grand Prix of Qatar. Teammate Valentino Rossi also put in a stellar performance during the opening round at the Losail International Circuit, finishing in third place for a double Movistar Yamaha MotoGP podium.
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi kept their heads cool under unnerving circumstances before the race and stormed to first and third position respectively. As all sessions were cancelled yesterday, due to standing water on the track, thereby lessening the riders‘ time to practice and perfect their race settings, the level of adrenaline on the grid was even higher than usual. The race start then being delayed twice, due to sudden rain causing dangerous track conditions, added even more to the tension. Eventually, after two warm-up laps to give the riders a feel for the track, the race got under way 45 minutes later than scheduled.
Viñales secured his first MotoGP pole position thanks to a stunning lap in FP1, but it didn‘t help him at the start of the shortened 20-lap race. The young Spaniard gunned off the line and arrived at the first corner in second place, but had to sit up as 23 riders dashed through the first corner, losing him time and positions and pushing him back to fifth. He slowly picked up the pace as he got a feel for the conditions and, feeling the hot breath of his teammate down his neck, six laps into the race, he knew exactly when to put the hammer down.
As fellow Yamaha rider, Johann Zarco crashed out of the lead, the Spanish youngster saw the promise of a podium position dangling in front of him. He bridged the gap to Andrea Iannone and tapped on his back with eleven laps to go. A lap later the Italian cracked under the pressure and crashed in front of Viñales, who skilfully avoided him and pushed up to third place. Now on a charge, the Spaniard soon flew past Marc Marquez to start the hunt for leader Andrea Dovizioso.
Viñales put his head down to decrease the margin of 1.2s, making big strides. Two laps later he passed the Italian, clinching first position. Dovizioso fought back, overtaking the young hero at the end of the long straight, but Viñales used the nimble character of his YZR-M1 to perfection. The last five laps were filled with constant push and pull action between the two riders, but the Yamaha debutant’s stunning last lap, a personal best of 1’56.157s, saw him take the chequered flag in first place, 0.461s ahead of his closest rival. This victory makes Viñales the second youngest rider to win in the premier class with different manufacturers, after Mike Hailwood.
Teammate Rossi had to start his 2017 campaign from tenth position, but the Doctor didn‘t take long to cut through the field. Launching his YZR-M1 past various rivals as the starting lights went out, he grabbed seventh place, despite a collision in turn one. With 18 laps to go the Italian was the quickest man on track, trying to pass Dani Pedrosa in front of him. Seeing the front group break away, he made his move a lap later and slotted in behind his teammate.
The Yamaha duo moved up two places as Zarco and Iannone fell victim to the high pace needed to stay in contention in the first hot battle, under unfamiliar track conditions. Rossi ran wide going into turn 1 with ten laps to go, but he recovered quickly. He followed his teammate past Marquez, making the crowd cheer, as now both Movistar Yamaha riders were in for a podium place.
The veteran bided his time as Viñales and Dovizioso battled for the lead. With four laps to go he set his personal best time, a 1‘56.398s, and was looking threatening, but due to tyre wear he was unable to join in on the fight for the victory and had to settle for a hard-fought third place, crossing the line +1.928s behind his teammate.
Viñales‘ superb win earns him first place in the championship standings with 25 points. Rossi now holds third place in the championship with 16 points. Thanks to today‘s results Movistar Yamaha MotoGP take the lead in the teams’ championship with 41 points, whilst Yamaha leads the Constructor standings with 25 points.
Marc Marquez, fourth
Marquez and Dani Pedrosa took fourth and fifth place, respectively, in today’s Qatar Grand Prix. The Losail evening was affected by mixed weather conditions that created quite a tricky situation.
A brief, light rain shower fell just minutes before the planned MotoGP race time of 9 p.m., causing the GP start time and race distance to be changed twice. Finally, the lights went off at 9:45, following two warm-up laps that preceded a 20-lap race.
In the hectic moments preceding the race, Marc changed his front tyre on the grid, switching from a hard-front/medium-rear combination to a medium-medium spec. Dani kept his original choice of medium-medium, but both riders struggled with the front during the race.
The next round will be held at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit, in Argentina, in two weeks‘ time.
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Tactical mistake costs Hamilton dear; Vettal puts Ferrari on top
Vettel celebrates after winning the Australian GP on Sunday. An FIA image Melbourne, 25 March 2017: Sebastian Vettel took his and Ferrari’s first win after the Singapore Grand Prix of 2015 beating Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas to Australian Grand Prix victory after a strategic slip by the champions allowed Vettel to inherit the lead midway through the race at Albert Park.
Pole sitter Hamilton was in control of proceedings ahead of Vettel until his first pit stop on lap 17. After taking on soft tyres, the three-time champion emerged behind the slower Red Bull of Max Verstappen, as Vettel took the lead.
Hamilton could find no way past the Dutchman and when Vettel made his sole pit stop he emerge ahead of both, in the lead. The German then built a solid gap and controlled the pace until the end, finishing 9.9s ahead of Hamilton.
There was drama before the start as on his lap to the grid, home favourite Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull slowed dramatically. The Australian’s car had been repaired overnight following his crash in qualifying and his team had performed a gearbox change, which dropped him to 15th on the grid.
As he circled to take that spot he reported that the car had lost power and then stuck in sixth gear. It was recovered to the garage and his crew then began to work frantically to get the car repaired so that he could start from the pit lane.
They were afforded a little more time when there appeared to be confusion about grid slots following Ricciardo’s stoppage and the start had to be aborted.
After another formation lap the race finally got underway and Hamilton held his advantage, taking P1 through Turn One. He was followed by Vettel, Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen.
As the field flowed across the line at the end of the first lap, Ricciardo’s car was finally fired up and he joined the action – a lap down.
At the front, Hamilton attempted to stretch a small gap to Vettel but the Ferrari driver responded and over the course of the first 15 laps the deficit stayed hovered around 1.5s. Bottas held third, some six seconds behind the Finn, while Verstappen was fifth ahead of Felipe Massa, Romain Grosjean, Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat.
Grosjean’s stint in the top 10 was coming to an end though. On lap 15 smoke began to billow from his Haas’ engine cover and he quickly steered towards the pitlane where he retired from the race.
Hamilton made his first stop on lap 17 and took on soft tyres. He emerged in P5 behind Verstappen. Thus, Vettel assumed the lead. Soon after, Hamilton was told that it was “race critical’” that he pass Verstappen but the Briton was quick to point out that there was no way past the Dutchman. As Hamilton’s pace dropped behind the slower Red Bull, Vettel powered away at the front and when the German made his first stop, for soft tyres, on lap 23 he emerged ahead of both Verstappen and Hamilton, with Vettel quickly building a 6.0s advantage.
Later, Hamilton would say that his early stop was caused excessive tyre wear and that he has simply ‘run out of grip’.
Elsewhere, Ricciardo’s frustrating afternoon came to a close when he suddenly lost power on lap 29 and ground to a halt at Turn 3.
By lap 40, Vettel was looking comfortable in the lead, 7.8s ahead of Hamilton who was in turn 2.8s ahead of Bottas. Behind the podium positions Bottas was 13s ahead of Raikkonen and the Ferrari driver was 4.0s ahead of Verstappen.
Verstappen was making headway, though, and on lap 41 he turned a 4.0s deficit to Raikkonen into a 3.3 gap. A lap later he clawed another eight tenths of a second back. It looked like there might be a late-race duel on the cards but as his supersoft tyres faded it was as near as Verstappen got. By lap his pace began to drop and the gap to Raikkonen drifted to 2.2s.
Further back Fernando Alonso was heading for a P10 finish and McLaren’s first points of the season. However with just a handful of laps remaining the Spaniard was in trouble. First with Ocon and Hulkenberg swarming all over the back of his McLaren and then with a mechanical issue that was making his car pull to the right. Ocon swiftly pounced and took the final points position for Force India. Alonso steered to the pits to retire from the race.
At the front, Hamilton was offering no threat to Vettel and the order remained stable, with Bottas third ahead of Raikkonen and Verstappen now settled in fifth place.
Vettel took the flag for his and Ferrari’s first win since Singapore in 2015, followed by Hamilton and Bottas. Raikkonen took fourth ahead of Verstappen. Massa was sixth for Williams with Perez scoring solid points for Force India with an impressive seventh place. It was a good day too for Toro Rosso, with Carlos Sainz eighth ahead of team-mate Daniil Kvyat. The final points position was taken by Ocon.
Just three other drivers finished the race, with Nico Hulkenberg 11th for Renault and Italian Antonio Giovinazzi 12th for Sauber on his Formula One debut. Thirteenth place went to McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne. The weekend’s other rookie, Lance Stroll retired from the race at two-thirds distance.
eom/FIA press release
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The rule changes are huge and a massive challenge: Hamilton
DRIVERS – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes), Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari), Valtteri BOTTAS (Mercedes)
TV UNILATERAL
Q: Lewis, many, many congratulations, sixth Australian Grand Prix pole, the first time with these incredible looking new Formula One cars. How good was that?
Lewis HAMILTON: It’s been a fantastic weekend so far. It’s quite amazing to come here for, I think, the 11thtime. It feels like only yesterday that I came and had my first race here, in 2007. So, such a great journey and I’m just incredibly proud of my team. This rule change has been huge and such a massive challenge for everyone. The guys have just worked so hard to make this car what it is today and to be up here representing them, you know Valtteri Bottas did a fantastic job, being that it is his first qualifying session with the team. He has done a great job and it’s great for us, for Mercedes. Looking forward to the race and obviously it’s close between us all and as you can see there’s going to be a tight race this year I think.
Q: Thank you for that. Sebastian, coming to you. Less than three tenths of a second behind Lewis. Last year it was over eight tenths of second Ferrari were behind Mercedes. Encouragement for you in that and also an opportunity for you at the start.
Sebastian VETTEL: Definitely. We have a good car, we are working well as a team, things are improving, so obviously it’s nice to see things are working, the car is working. We had a mixed day yesterday but the confidence in the car was there from testing and we showed it again today. In the end I was not entirely happy with my lap. I was pretty happy with the end, maybe not the opening of the lap, where we lost a bit too much, but I think Lewis did a very good lap so… I would have loved to but I don’t think pole was out for grasp. But tomorrow I think we can do something in the race, as I said, the car feels good, we’ve improved it, so the pace should be much better than it was yesterday, when we had some practice. So looking forward to it. It’s been a big winter for us. A lot of change we have been through as a team the last 12 months, to the better I think. The team is getting stronger. Of course everybody has been pushing very hard. It’s not so easy coming here with the long journey to get to Australia but I think people are fired up and people are motivated for tomorrow as you said at the start, I think it’s the first good opportunity.
Q: Very well done. Coming to you Valtteri, I think 15th was your previous best starting position here at Albert Park, so third on your Mercedes debut and Lewis saying you did a great job. Are you satisfied?
Valtteri BOTTAS: Well, third position is not ideal I think in general I’m not happy for the result. But what I am really happy about and proud about, as Lewis said, is what the team has done, again, with this car. I only saw a very small part of the preparation of the new car in the new era of Formula One and it’s really nice to see that all the work has paid off and we’re fighting at the very front. Obviously it seems to be very close this year, at least here. Just myself, I didn’t get any perfect laps in, so not that satisfied. Tomorrow is the day that matters. It seems that in the race starts we have been quite strong, so hopefully we can keep that form like what we have had in the practice, have a nice and clean race and get some really, really good points.
Q: Back to the pole sitter: Lewis, when you arrived this morning I spoke to you at the fan autograph area and you said to me “I’m here for one thing and one thing only and that’s to win”, so tomorrow is really all about stamping your authority on this championship?
LH: Definitely. I think tomorrow is about putting [together] all the work that’s gone on over winter, all the work that’s gone through testing and over this whole weekend and really put it to work tomorrow. Make sure we get a good night’s sleep and come back stronger than ever.
Q: Lewis, the analysis shows these cars, in the lower-speed corners, are about 20km/h faster than last year’s; in the high-speed corners like Turn 11 about 30km/h faster than last year’s. Give us a window in: what does it feel like?
LH: It’s incredible. It’s the best that I’ve ever experienced here. Obviously the grip is fantastic, the aero is… it just makes such a drastic difference. You can really push deep into these corners. It’s amazing to not have the car skating around on the low grip kind of tyres that we had in the past. So, very exciting and fun to drive. Yeah.
Q: Sebastian, you touched on it very briefly but maybe you’d like to drill down into it a little bit more: this year another one of the changes is the start. Very much more under the control of the driver. You’re starting alongside Lewis. Ferrari traditionally has pretty good starts anyway, do you feel reasonably optimistic that’s going to give you a chance? I think the stat is also that pole has only won here once in the last five years. You’ve done it five years ago, he’s done it within the last five years, how do you feel?
SV: I think you’re right saying it’s harder for us. It’s in our hands, basically, whereas previous years… it was as well, to be fair, but I think we were relying a bit more to the settings. So, yeah, I hope we can keep the tradition up and good memories definitely. I think last year’s start was very good. Let’s hope we can have a similar start compared to the rest around… from P2 this year. I don’t think there’s any guarantee to have a good start so we have to work for it. I think we’ve prepared well so hopefully we can have a good launch, both of us. I think Kimi’s sitting in fourth, so it would be great to challenge Mercedes already into the first corner but then, as I said, the race is quite a bit longer than that. It’s the first race of the season: new tyres; new cars; nearly new everything so it will be a long race so hopefully we can kick off well.
Q: Let’s just develop that thought with Valtteri. How will it be to race these cars around this circuit. Overtaking, what’s your analysis on how easy or hard that’s going to be? Strategy options: is it relatively simple or is there a couple of different ways to do this race for you?
VB: I honestly think it’s going to be quite difficult to overtake here. I think you need quite a big pace difference between the cars to be able to do that – or a mistake. It’s quite tricky to follow – at least in practice – the other cars, but obviously we will see very soon. In 24 hours, we are much more clever with that. But, I think, strategy-wise, from what we see, you can do different things, definitely. But it’s difficult to see. Best to see tomorrow.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Seff Harding – Xero Xone News) Lewis, you stepped to it this weekend, you were focussed, you looked ready and you had absolutely no problem adjusting to these 2017 regulations – you can correct me if I’m wrong. And, to make a Dragon Ball Z reference, it looks like you’re ready to go Super Saiyan in tomorrow’s race. Did everything go according to plan for you today?
LH: I think it definitely didn’t start out the best day for me. I’ve been feeling great all week and today felt like a bit of an off-day – but as it got to qualifying I felt a lot better. Generally, it went very well and, of course, we can always try to improve. The laps are never perfect, there are little bits of time here and there – but very, very happy with how it’s gone and it puts us in a great state for tomorrow. So, now it’s really about focussing and making sure we do our homework tonight and making sure we’ve got an answer for these guys.
Q: (Jawad Yaqub – The Roar) Lewis, starts were a big thorn in the side for you last year, just want to know how confident you are going into this season and, of course, tomorrow, that you’ll be leading at the end of Turn One.
LH: Well we’ve done a lot of work over the winter, particularly knowing that the rules have changed this year. So, we’ve done as much as we can and we feel that we’ve prepared the best we possibly can. Definitely there were times last year where we would arrive and perhaps it wasn’t the case. So, we made sure that we put a lot of effort into making sure we are prepared this year – or I am.
Q: (Patrick Wedes – Otomotif) Valtteri, congratulations on your position where you are today. Could you tell me why you’re not happy? You don’t look happy. What is it?
VB: I’d prefer to be in the middle. I think as a team what we don’t want is to get another car from another team in between us, I think. I’m always optimistic, for a little while I can be disappointed. I know we can do good things tomorrow and it’s tomorrow that matters. But just my own performance. I set the bar very high; targets very high, I didn’t quite meet those today but a long race ahead of us tomorrow.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Seb, watching qualifying today, we had the same impression that we had some weekends in 2015 – not last year. It gives much more motivation – extra motivation – to you? Ferrari is really chasing Mercedes again.
SV: Hopefully. I think it’s very early to tell but I think clearly Mercedes is in a very very strong form, despite the rule change. They’ve done a very very good job. I think they’ve come up with a great car. I think both drivers are doing well. Yeah, for us, obviously it’s good news. We’ve felt quite good with the car straight away but we know there’s still a lot, a lot, a lot of work. As a team, I think if you look back in the last twelve months we’ve grown a lot, so a lot of positives. Obviously there was quite a lot of change but I think the motivation is super-high in the factory. People really want to build a strong car and make sure we get back to where we belong, so Mercedes is doing well but we try to do better than them. The season is very long so time will tell but I think for a start we’re very happy. I think qualifying on the first row is a very good opening to – as I said – a long, long season.
And then, just a point. Where is the gentlemen, asking the question before to Valtteri? What was your name again? I’d recommend you to travel to Finland and then you will find out that people… the culture is different, so I think he looks full of joy today! I’ve been there many times. It’s definitely worth a trip. It’s a beautiful country, very nice people.
Q: (Heikku Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Valtteri, how different would your feeling have been if you had been on the front row instead of P3?
VB: I think it would be a much better starting point for us as a team and for me personally any position is important. But, like I said, now qualifying is done, we’re starting first and third and I think it’s still a very good starting position for the race tomorrow. We’re both on the clean side of the grid – if you look at all the positives – it’s what it is. It’s third place for me and what I am now really doing is starting to look ahead to the race.
Q: (Phil Branagan – Auto Action) Lewis, 1m22.1s. There’s been a lot of talk over the winter about how much faster these cars would be. Is that been exaggerated or did you think there was slightly more speed to come today than a low 1m22s?
LH: I don’t really know. How much quicker were we than last year?
(Last year’s pole was a 1m 23.837s)
LH: Of course we thought it would be more than that. I’m not really sure why it’s so close. Yeah, it’s the track, it was cool today. I’m sure during the year it’s going to ramp up much quicker; development with this car – being that it’s a new car – development is going to be at a much faster rate than last year.
Q: (Chris Medland – Racer) To all three of you, based on what we saw in qualifying… Seb and Valtteri both said you weren’t happy with your laps. We saw Daniel put it in the wall in Q3. Are these cars very much right on the edge when you’re pushing for that final lap, that you’re right on the verge of a big mistake rather than a small error?
SV: Not really. I don’t think so. I think they’re much faster, they’re much more fun to drive so I think it’s much more what we’re here to do, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, what has been achieved before. I think Lewis obviously started in the generation where cars were, I think, similar to now in terms of grip. I just started before it started to change so I got a hint of an experience. I think those are the fastest cars we’ve ever driven and arguably the fastest cars we’ve ever had. In terms of mistakes – yeah, probably if you do a high speed spin, it’s more difficult to catch whereas before, as Lewis said as well, if you’re sliding a bit more on the tyres then it’s more of a powerslide or a slide in general rather than a snap and then losing the car, so in that regard maybe it’s a bit trickier. You have to be quicker to react but as I said, I would still go for it because it’s much more fun.
LH: Yeah, there’s not much to add to it but our job is to put the car where it is most uncomfortable. We’re not there to make it sit on rails so we’ve got to take it over the edge or just hold it on the edge of that cliff through the whole lap and that’s the fun of what we do.
VB: Yeah, I think that’s it really.
eom/FIA press release
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Team Principals at the FIA press conference at season opener in Australia
Melbourne, 24 March 2017:
FIA Friday press conference in progress. An FIA image TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Toto WOLFF (Mercedes), Eric BOULLIER (McLaren), Maurizio ARRIVABENE (Ferrari), Christian HORNER (Red Bull Racing), Paddy LOWE (Williams)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: Opening question to all of you gentlemen: obviously it’s the opening day of a new season of Formula One. Lots of changes on the cars but sum up how your first day went? Eric why don’t you kick us off?
Eric BOULLIER: Reasonably well. Obviously we didn’t add as many laps as we were expecting but if you compare with the testing it was a little bit better. Obviously the cars look more spectacular more aggressive, It was a good working day for us.
Christian, obviously you had the incident with Max that lost you a lot of track time but Daniel’s long run looked pretty reasonable.
Christian HORNER: Yes, not too bad. Certainly the first session today was encouraging. The few changes that we made the drivers didn’t like too much. Max did a little bit of grass mowing at Turn 12 and that compromised his session in the late afternoon but we got a lot of good information and we’re generally quite encouraged.
And Paddy, how was your first day of action at Williams?
Paddy LOWE: It was sort of a mixed day because we had a great first session, some encouraging pace. [It was] Lance’s first practice ever in Formula One, so he was taking it steady, step-by-step, making good progress. But into the afternoon we had an electrical problem on Felipe’s car, a short circuit, and that really ended his session very early. So we didn’t get the homework we would have liked on that car. But overall, quite encouraging for tomorrow.
Maurizio, did today go as you thought it would?
Maurizio ARRIVABENE: We were working mainly on car balance. This morning we were struggling a bit more than normal. But then in the afternoon we were still working on the car balance, but nothing different versus our Friday programme.
Toto, Lewis looking very much the man to beat.
Toto WOLFF: Yes, he had a very good day overall. For the team it was one of the better Fridays. Having had some question marks over testing in Barcelona it was encouraging to bounce back in that way, but it is a day that doesn’t matter.
Q: Eric, coming back to you. We hear you are collecting quite a lot of air miles at the moment going forwards and backwards to Japan. How serious are your problems and what steps are you taking with Honda to resolve them?
EB: Well, obviously we had a very bad winter testing, a lot of troubles, didn’t do many miles, no race simulations but like you said we are having many, many meetings with Honda. We both take it very seriously. All the options are open. Today we discussed how we can catch up and recover from that situation.
Q: Toto, they say you should never change a winning team, but here you are after three dominant seasons with a new technical chief and a new driver, so how has the dynamic in the team changed?
TW: It’s a very large organization, between Brixworth and Brackley it’s almost 1500 people and the dynamic is positive. Every year we are trying to reinvent ourselves without compromising performance and we are in good spirits.
Q: Christian, a slightly quieter testing period than with Ferrari and Mercedes, but lots of new parts arriving on the car today. Tell us how the development race will impact this year’s championship. Is it going to be the deciding factor and are you going to come out on the right side of it?
CH: Well, I think it’s going to be a big factor. These regulations are still very immature and there are going to be a lot of gains in a short space of time and it’s a matter of who can most efficiently develop their car and effectively get components on the car that drive performance forward. It wouldn’t be unrealistic to expect the cars to be 1.5s quicker by the time we get to Abu Dhabi than where we are here today. It will ebb and flow during the season but at the front of the grid hopefully we get a bit closer to Toto’s guys and have some closer races this year.
Q: Paddy, you’ve gone back to the team you did some winning with back in the early 1990s, a dominant period with Mansell and Prost. Why is this move to Williams the right thing to do at this time of your career?
PL: I had a great three years in my previous team, some great success there, but there was a great opportunity, a challenge at Williams. As you say, it’s going back to the team where I started my career in Formula One. It was quite emotional and special going back there a week ago, seeing people I literally hadn’t seen for 24 years, but fantastic team and we look forward to making substantial progress over the years to come.
Q: Maurizio you have been downplaying expectations going into this season, but what I’d like to know is, inside the team, how hard it was to build what looks to be a very competitive car given all the technical changes and staff upheaval that you had in the second half of last year?
MA: If you change something, it’s for the better, not to get worse. We have a change, the team is working very well together. Over the winter the guys were exchanging information; they have a common goal. Working all together, having a common goal and exchanging all the information they have, the car becomes not the car of one but the car of everybody and this is what has driven us until today and into the future.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (John McEvoy – Daily Mail) To Maurizio. Liberty have arrived, and one of the things they have said they want to do early on is make everyone more available to the media, but after arriving here it seems you have gone in the other direction. One of your drivers was unavailable yesterday in advance of this big race at the beginning of the season, from an organization as big as Ferrari. I was wondering why that is, whether that will go on or whether that will be addressed?
MA: Define media. What do you mean by media? Today, defining media is quite large in terms of communication media. It’s also social media. It’s not only what we are thinking about. Yesterday we had Sebastian who was talking and we were using social media and posting something related to Kimi. Liberty also said that in this business at the moment the digital platforms are used at only 1% of the potential. So, the good thing is to find the right balance. Instead of having two drivers on Thursday and talking and doing a copy and paste of one versus the other with the same questions we made sure that Sebastian was talking in one way and Kimi in the other. So we cover all the communication platform. Making happy also Generation Z.
Q: (Seff Harding – Xero Xone News) – To follow up on that, a question for all of you, do you feel that there does need to be a change in accessibility to the press, to arrange interviews that may be on social media, Facebook Live, Instagram, to reach out to other audiences, in other markets and of course to other demographics?
CH: I think the changes that have been put in place this year have been positive. I think that relaxing the rules regarding the digital platforms, allowing content to be generated… non-circuit content giving the ability for fans and followers to get a little bit beneath the covers and closer to seeing the personalities of the drivers in the build-up to a grand prix or pre-season is certainly positive. It’s a media business at the end of the day. Formula One is a media business. We have to engage with the media. It’s important that we give access to the drivers, access to the fans or how else are we going to promote the sport.
Toto?
TW: I think like Maurizio said, we have to cover three different generations. We have to cover the long-time followers, so-called middle ages, the Millennials and Generation Z. You kind of need to play the full span. For example, when we launched the car we put some time into the car launch, which is a risk on the engineering side, you’re compromising your time, and we did a Facebook Live launch, 360, and we had almost a million views in 24 hours and it was successful. We have to embrace all that, not forget any audiences within these groups but target all of them and Liberty’s approach has been right so far, in opening up.
Q: (Giles Richards – The Guardian) Question for all of you: we’ve had the big regulation change this season, can you tell me whether you think we will actually see better racing and the reason why this is so or why if not?
Eric, why don’t you start?
EB: I think the car, obviously it’s a hot topic with everybody talking about overtaking numbers and manoeuvres and whatever. I think 90 per cent of the overtaking is thanks to DRS since this device has been introduced. So as far as we are concerned the DRS is still on so I don’t think there will be many changes on this: the number of overtaking. The car philosophy stays the same as the previous generation and, as long as it is dictated by this front wing, you will have this loss of downforce effect into the corners. On the positive side, I think the drivers were the ones lobbying us, all of us, to have a faster car, fastest cornering cars and clearly we have achieved this, I think, with bigger tyres, more downforce, fastest cars today and obviously that’s going to facilitate, or help the bravest drivers to try or attempt some manoeuvres to overtake. So, I don’t think there will be a big difference compared with before. I think, and the drivers as well, I can already feel – and I’m talking for McLaren only – Fernando clearly was the one who was complaining about the previous generation, and he’s clearly happier now with this kind of car. He enjoys driving the car and you can see the cars today, in some fast corners they are flat-out already on Friday afternoon – so I think it’s a good sign about what we wanted to achieve. I think all the drivers happier should make the show better.
Paddy, any thoughts?
PL: Yeah, I agree with what Eric said but on top of that I think the other element we will see with much higher loads now in the car, with higher cornering speeds, driver endurance is much more demanding, so we may see more mistakes in races, drivers more on their human limits. So, I think that could be another interesting factor.
Anything to add Christian?
CH: I think the guys have covered it pretty well. I think the cars are going to stretch the drivers. I think sitting here, and we don’t know whether the racing is going to be better over the year or not, but I think the drivers are going to be working harder, you’re going to get perhaps more differential between drivers and they’re going to have to work harder for overtakes when arguably some of them have been a little bit too easy over recent years.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Based on comments that Ross [Brawn] made earlier today and also previously, it appears that the Commercial Rights Holder could play a more active role in the regulatory process. Which means that possibly entertainment could take precedence over technology etc. How do you feel about this? About the commercial rights holder getting increasingly involved in the regulatory process?
Toto?
TW: This is an entertainment platform and it should be around the entertainment of the fans and I think with Ross in place it’s the right individual. He has seen it from the other side; he knows pretty much what matters to the teams and now trying to seek a good balance between keeping the DNA of Formula One, keeping it at the pinnacle for racing drivers and for engineering and equally making sure it’s the best possible show for our fans will be the main priority. I think we are definitely in an interesting place and it looks positive.
Maurizio?
MA: I think for the future cost and performance, they are two key factors. Reducing the cost and increasing the performance, they are the two key factors. Then, of course, it’s an entertainment, what we are doing here. It’s part of the entertainment business. Everybody, they’re open to discuss and talk about new ideas in the appropriate places. At the moment we have governance, so talking to everybody to help the sport to grow is fine until we are all aligned to the actual governance. Or, if we want to change it, we have to sit and discuss about this.
Paddy?
PL: yeah, we welcome a focus on entertainment. That is what this sport is all about. I think the really encouraging thing is that Ross is building a team behind him who are going to do proper research into proposals that are under consideration, so I think there’s every reason to feel positive about the future.
CH: I personally think there is far too much emphasis on technology at the moment and we’re spectacularly bad at communicating that. I think the average fan and viewer understands very little about the technology that’s in a Formula One car which, as Maurizio alluded, is enormously expensive. So, I think the Commercial Rights Holder, it’s their business at the end of the day. They have to decide what they want the sport to be and, if the route is fan-attraction and creating a really exciting product, and at the end of the day they want to create great content on TV then it’s vital they come up with an outline of what their vision of Formula One is. And then, obviously, the FIA have a regulatory position and the teams need to be involved in that process. We have a process that that can be achieved in if two of the three parties agree.
EB: All has been said I think
Q: (Flavio Vanetti – Corriere della Sera) To Maurizio, given the results of the test and what happened today, do you have an accurate idea of the position of Ferrari?
MA: Yes, we have it in Barcelona and in Barcelona we have our programme, we follow our programme since the last week and as well it’s what we are doing here on Friday. On Friday we are working on the balance of the car, as on Day One in Barcelona we were working on finding the best performance day after day without panicking, without being under pressure and being focussed on what we were doing.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Another one for Maurizio. Daniel Ricciardo recently told us in an interview that Sebastian Vettel becomes even quicker and more motivated when he has a winning car in his hands. Do you expect him to give an extra performance this season? And what do you need: Ferrari and Seb to go home together, to sign another contract for 2018?
MA: I’ll start from the end of the question. Talking about contracts now is only distracting the attention of our drivers so I’m not ready to talk about any contracts. Then, I would like to see Sebastian happy during the season because if Sebastian’s is happy that means the car is very quick.
Q: (Jon McEvoy – Daily Mail) Maurizio, do you have as much belief that you can win this race now, as you did this morning. I hear what you’ve said and the work you’ve done during the day – but do you have as much belief that you can win it as you did at the start of the day?
MA: We want to keep our feet on the ground. It’s Friday. We have to work this evening. Tomorrow we continue our job and then, until Sunday, we have a lot of things to do, still. So, I don’t want to do any prediction.
Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS) For Christian. It’s only Friday but can you imagine Daniel winning on Sunday or is the gap too big?
CH: I think, being realistic, the performance we’ve seen today from Lewis, he’s the absolute favourite. He was the favourite coming here and all today has done is underline that. But then it’s motor racing and anything can happen. We’ve seen spurious results in opening grands prix in previous years and obviously to have a home winner would be an unbelievable result – but if you look at the pecking order at the moment that is a long shot.
Q: (Andre Leslie – DPA) Question for Mr Wolff, to do with the makeup of your team this season, with Valtteri Bottas now replacing Nico Rosberg, obviously Nico leaves a big hole in the team but Valtteri is keeping pace brilliantly today – we’ve seen twice. How do you see his role going forwards this season?
TW: It’s obviously very big shoes to fill. Nico is the reigning World Champion and Valtteri has to fill those shoes. He has a couple of days of testing behind him which were very positive and the work with the engineers went very well and today was the first proper day on a race weekend. I think that in terms of the mindset, he has settled in very well into the team and how he has to find his grip and benchmark himself against probably the best driver in Formula One at this time. I’m very confident he is going to find the pace and his place in the team.
Q: (Heath McAlpine – Auto Action) For all of you: today’s first practice session saw minimal running from the teams worried about engine mileage. Would you support a change in the engine regulations to increase the Friday running for your teams?
EB: Good question. I think if we don’t run it is because we may have some technical limitation or let’s say no interest to gather data at that stage so if we do between let’s say 18 and 30 laps per session it’s because it depends on the engine plan generally. I know you can have a different regulation to have more laps but we could do it simply by making sure there is an interest for the teams to run.
PL: I don’t entirely agree with what you’re saying, really. I think the teams are running pretty much a full programme during both sessions. If anything they’re limited by tyres more than engine mileage.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) I would imagine that this is the first Grand Prix that any of you have attended without having Bernie Ecclestone in overall control and charge. Have you, today, thought about the fact that you can’t just pick up the phone and phone Bernie if there’s some sort of issue?
CH: How do you know he’s not still in charge? What Bernie’s done for Formula One has been amazing. The sport is what it is today because of what he created. I think in the role that he has, he’s still going to be in a position to contribute, he still has a huge amount of historical knowledge, respect and relationships around the world and I think that harnessed and used in the right way is an asset to Formula One. I’m sure he’ll be at some forthcoming events and yeah, I think hopefully the new owners can use him constructively and beneficially to build on the good work that’s already been done.
MA: I think that Bernie deserves all our respect because if we are here and if the sport grows it is thanks to him. I think that the new group that is owning Formula One is here to make this sport grow even more so there is no future without the good historical base. If we have a good historical base then I think the new owners are looking forward to continue to grow and that’s thanks to Bernie for everything he’s done and now we need to look forward.
Q: (Mat Coch – pitpass.com) Earlier there was a question about cars not running on the circuit; what can be done in the interests of entertainment to spice up the Friday action which is comparatively dry for those at the circuit, given that everyone’s involved in their own programmes, preparing for the weekend?
PL: I don’t know. We used to have qualifying on Friday as well as Saturday back in the old days. Maybe that could be considered. I think the great thing now is that we have an evolving process to consider the rules properly and develop a sport that incorporates new ideas.
TW: I think you need to differentiate because we had a very busy afternoon with lots of track action. We had a morning which is completely normal and a green track so there is not a lot of interest in testing cars on a track that’s going to develop a lot with the limitation on tyres, with the limitation on engine mileage and if you start to open that up it’s like Pandora’s box because we’re trying to limit costs. The question is that as much as you need an entertainment most of the time entertainment on track, I think we have a good compromise at the moment.
Q: (Sam Tickell – Flagworld.com) We’ve had a lot of positive reaction to the change and the look and the appearance of the cars this year and it was mentioned previously that Liberty are looking to research for the future. How radical to the change in the appearance of the car would teams like to go to in the future, should the research suggest that a major change should be needed?
MA: Radical change with the new rules, everybody already changed their car and I think these regulations are offering the possibility to the designers of the cars, to the aeros, to exploit even more in terms of creative approach is the first step and then in the future we can do something more. We need to make sure that the car it’s still looking like a car and not something that is a bit strange, that’s for sure.
CH: I think the looks of the car… I think they currently look great. I think it’s all about evolution. I think that rather than focus on the looks I would prefer to focus on the sound. I think the best sounding car we have here this weekend is a 12-year old Minardi that 12 years ago had the worst sounding engine in it and was hopelessly uncompetitive and I think that when you hear the acoustics of a V10, you’ve only got to go and see the faces around the circuit to see what it embodies in fans of Formula One, so I would be far more focused on addressing that element than the aesthetics of the cars at the moment.
TW: I think we’ve changed the aesthetics of the car. I think trying to figure out what we could do next is maybe too far. Like Christian says, if we can work on the sound of the car and if we look into a future generation of engines that is something that needs to be considered. There wasn’t enough emphasis on the sound in the past and if we can combine great technology, affordable technology with a lot of horsepower and a good sound, that would be really ticking a box.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Last year Ferrari lost the pace compared to Red Bull for example in the second part of the season. Are you confident you can have a quick and a more efficient development during the season this year?
MA: What I can tell you is that we are putting all our effort to do all our work best to avoid the same result as last year. That’s it. What more can I say?
Q: (Leon Alepidis – F1fan) Regarding the new commercial deal and the discussions that will be taking place soon, we have already heard from the new owners that they are planning to scrap the historical status for a team and the money that that brings. Would you agree that in order to have a more fair distribution of the prize money and a more competitive sport or not and why?
MA: This kind of discussion you do it with the people who have the contract with you and not in public.
EB: I guess if you ask the people for more money they will be against and you ask less money they will be in favour but this is a discussion behind the scenes, not to be done in public.
CH: Well, there’s probably not a team principal in the paddock that would say they are happy to take less money. If they are, they’re mad so therefore I think it’s a question of bringing the bottom up rather than the top down and hopefully that may well be achievable.
eom/FIA press release
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Hamilton quickest in FP1
Melbourne, 24 March 2017: Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the first practice session of th
Hamilton during FP1 in Melbourne on Friday. An FIA image e new Formula One campaign, finishing more than half a second clear of new team-mate Valtteri Bottas at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
The three-time world champion ended the session at Melbourne’s Albert Park Circuit with a best time of 1:24.220, set on ultrasoft tyres, to beat Bottas, who moved to Mercedes from Williams at the start of this year, by 0.583 seconds.
Apart from the Mercedes pairing, no other driver ran with the purple-banded Pirelli tyres during the session and Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo used the red supersoft compound to take third spot on the timesheet. The home favourite set a best lap of 1:24.886 to finish 0.666 adrift of Hamilton’s pacesetting time.
Ricciardo was followed by team-mate Verstappen who finished a second off the pace after reporting gearbox synchronisation problems early in the session.
Ferrari, frequently the class of the field during pre-season testing, had a low key session, with fifth-placed Kimi Räikkönen heading team-mate Sebastian Vettel.
Räikkönen set a best time of 1:25.372s to finish just over 1.1s behind Hamilton. Vettel was a tenth further back in sixth.
Felipe Massa was seventh for Williams on his return from retirement, followed by Haas’ Romain Grosjean and new Renault signing Nico Hulkenberg. The four were, however, separated by just four hundredths of a second. Force India’s Sergio Perez completed the top 10 with a time of 1:26.276, which put him a full two seconds off the P1 pace.
Carlos Sainz was 11th ahead of Toro Rosso team-mate Daniil Kvyat, while 13th place went to 18-year-old rookie Lance Stroll who enjoyed smooth and incident-free start to his F1 career.
After a disastrous pre-season testing period, McLaren looked better placed in the opening session in Melbourne, with Fernando Alonso taking P14. New team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne was held in the garage for almost an hour at the start of the session, however, and he finished in last place having completed just six laps.
2017 Formula One Australian Grand Prix – Free Practice 1
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:24.220
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:24.803 0.583
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:24.886 0.666
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:25.246 1.026
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:25.372 1.152
6 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:25.464 1.244
7 Felipe Massa Williams 1:26.142 1.922
8 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:26.168 1.948
9 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1:26.183 1.963
10 Sergio Perez Force India 1:26.276 2.056
11 Carlos Sainz Jr. Toro Rosso 1:26.450 2.230
12 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:26.514 2.294
13 Lance Stroll Williams 1:26.734 2.514
14 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:27.116 2.896
15 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:27.348 3.128
16 Esteban Ocon Force India 1:27.656 3.436
17 Kevin Magnussen Haas 20 1:27.667 3.447
18 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber 22 1:28.539 4.319
19 Jolyon Palmer Renault 6 1:28.585 4.365
20 Stoffel Vandoorne McLareneom/FIA press release
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Charlie Whiting, Sporting Director, talks to the media
Q: Charlie, there have obviously been major changes at FOM, with Ross Brawn moving in. You had a very close relationship with Ross when he was at Ferrari etc. Ross is charged with improving the show from a FOM point of view, which could include technical or sporting changes. How do you see yourselves working with Ross going forward and what changes do you foresee?
CW: I don’t know what changes to foresee at the moment but I think we’re going to have a very good working relationship from what I’ve seen so far. I know Ross very well and I’m quite friendly with him so I think we’re going to have a very productive relationship.
Q: There’s been a rule tweak about incidents on track between drivers. Can you explains about it, because it doesn’t seem too different to last year, and are there any incidents from last year that wouldn’t be handed over to the stewards this year for investigation with the new tweak in regulations?
CW: Yes I think there will be a small change to some incidents which we saw last year that would maybe be handled slightly differently simply because the so-called Verstappen rule has gone, to the effect that before, we said any move under braking will be investigated. Now we have a simple rule that says effectively that if a driver moves erratically or goes unnecessarily slowly or behaves in manner that could endanger another driver then he will be investigated. We have a broad rule now. What we did in Austin last year, if you remember, in response to comments from drivers is that we used the existing rules to put into the event notes we issue as how we were going to interpret the existing rules. And the interpretation simply was that drivers shouldn’t move under braking and that’s what gave rise to the penalty given to Seb in Mexico. That will be dealt with slightly differently in that the stewards will be invited to simply focus on every incident and judge it on its own merits. So each dealt with only on the basis of whether or not it was a dangerous manoeuvre, not necessarily because he moved under braking.
Q: Charlie there was a lot of talk over the winter about suspension systems. I think the FIA were planning to evaluate all the teams over the Barcelona testing. Did the tests take place and is the FIA happy with all the designs on the cars?
CW: So far, so good, yes. Marcin [Budkowski, FIA Head of the Formula One Technical Department] and Jo [Bauer, FIA Formula One Technical Delegate] did a lot of work in Barcelona going through all the systems and the ones we’ve inspected so far have all been as we expected to be here, so we don’t anticipate any problems
Q: Have you inspected all of them?
CW: Not all yet, but they’re working their way through it.
Q: Have Pirelli met the requirements of the target letter, not just in terms of the exact clauses but also in the general intent of the drivers being able to push flat out or as much as possible?
CW: We think so at the moment, yes. It’s a little early to say. I think we need to judge it after a few races and if we feel they’ve fallen short somewhere then we will discuss it with them.
Q: Charlie, without me trying to read through all of the regulations and getting confused – standing starts after a safety car in the wet. Does that just apply at the start of the race or will there be a standing start if the safety car comes out again?
CW: Only if we start the race with a safety car. There was talk and it was discussed about having standing starts after every safety car interventions but we haven’t gone that far yet.
Q: There was a lot of talk about radio regulation last year and I wanted to know would there be any further tweaks to radio regulations because there is still that talk of too much instruction from the pit wall to the driver. But when it’s a mechanical issue or a safety issue would that be allowed?
CW: We freed it all up after lots of discussion last year, as you know. We put quite strict restrictions on the formation lap and that’s all. That’s really the only part where they have to comply with a certain set of messages they can send during that time, the rest of it is free. It’s exactly as it was towards the end of last year.
Q: Charlie, can you clarify the things on the suspension, because in the regulations from last year to this year there didn’t change anything but the FIA changed how they judged whether a system is legal or not. We understand that some teams had to makes changes to make them legal. Can you explain that for us?
CW: Well, we’ve been aware of hydraulically operated suspension systems on cars for some time but it became clear they were being used for purposes other than suspension. So under the regulations where you are not allowed to have a suspension system that affects the aerodynamic performance of the car in anything other than an incidental way, we don’t allow it. So that’s the approach we have taken. We wanted to see whether suspension is genuinely suspension or whether it’s there predominantly to affect the aerodynamic performance of the car. That’s the change effectively. We have been focusing far more on that this year.
Q: Now you have seen the new cars in testing and what they can do in terms of performance. I think the FIA was going to look at some of the circuit layouts and see if maybe any tweaks were needed for safety reasons. Have any been specifically targeted?
CW: Yes, most circuits will need a little tweak. This circuit here has had tyre barriers improved in four places; we’re finding similar things probably more on the older circuits, whereas Shanghai, Bahrain and those sort of places haven’t needed anything doing to them. But obviously the quite old circuits will need a bit of work and we’re going through that circuit by circuit, running simulations and seeing exactly what’s needed and where. We’re working our way through that.
Q: Does FIA plan to investigate so-called oil burning in engines as raised by Red Bull and Renault? Is it an area you’re concerned about?
CW: I wouldn’t say it’s an area of concern; it’s an area of interest. We’re monitoring it. We did quite a lot of work on that in Barcelona. We’re going to inspect all the oil systems here and we’re going to randomly check oil consumption to make sure it’s not being used as fuel.
Q: You seem pretty certain that the teams are not using suspension for aerodynamic gain. How can you be so sure?
CW: Two basic things, really. We think that if a suspension system behaves asymmetrically there is not a very justifiable reason for behaving like that. So if a suspension system goes down at one speed and comes back at a different speed, there really shouldn’t be any reason for that. Also, if there is any attempt to store any of the energy for later deployment, then we feel that’s not really part of a proper suspension system and it is being done for other reasons. The onus is being put on the teams to demonstrate that their system has an incidental effect only. If they are not able to convince us of that then they can’t use it.
Q: Also, if these cars turn out to be perhaps the fastest Formula One cars ever, or close to, doesn’t that mean that sooner or later they will have to be reined in, because we have seen several times over the last couple of decades that the speeds have had to be contained, as the circuits can’t contain them?
CW: We’ll see is the answer to that one. It was one of the briefs the Strategy Group gave us, that they should be the fastest cars ever. As I said just now in answer to the other question about circuits we’ve done a lot of work with all of the tracks but we’re also future-proofing them so we don’t have to keep coming back year after year, because we know the cars will get incrementally faster; it’s always happened that way. But we’re trying to make sure we don’t need to go back every year, so we are adding an element of future-proofing so we don’t need to do that.
Q: The new owners say they want to have more of a show. Would you say there is a risk that someone might come up to you and ask ‘oh, the easiest way to do that is have more safety cars’? How would you feel about that?
CW: If such a request was made our answer would have to be that we will only use a safety car for the right reasons. I don’t think we would deviate from that approach.
Q: The way that I understand it the deadline for any rule changes for 2018 has come and gone and although the Halo or any cockpit protection could be introduced on safety grounds, is everyone still on track for 2018 introduction and what sort of concept would it be?
CW: Yes, it is still on track. It was agreed by the Strategy Group and the Formula One Commission that there would be additional frontal protection for 2018. So far, the Halo is the only candidate solution that fits the bill. We are working on other solutions, for review, and after the 30th of April, which is the cut-off point for regulation changes, we’ll just have to see. If something better comes up after that we’ll have to look as how we approach it.
Q: Could you please talk us through the procedure for a standing start after a safety car, when it comes to a rain situation on Sunday. I would imagine that full wets are still mandatory but will you have a pre-warning? How long will you have to decide?
CW: It will be done exactly the same way as we’ve always done SC start, so at the 10-minute point, 10 minutes before the start of the formation lap the decision is taken to start with safety car. Everything will remain exactly the same at that point, until the start. Previously, at the start of what would have been the formation lap, that became the first lap of the race, so the race started at the start of the formation lap. What’s going to happen now, however, is we are going to do more than one formation lap, and then when we decide to bring the safety car in, say you’ve done five formation laps behind the safety car, the safety car will come in and instead of released, the cars will come back to the grid, all the grid boards will come out and the marshals will be there ready to do exactly as they do for a standing start and the race will start when the lights go out. The race shortened by the number of laps behind the safety car minus one – because that would be the number of laps we do, one formation lap plus the four or five or whatever it turns out to be. Then we will just do a standing start. It sounds very easy, and it is very simple in that respect, but there are a couple of little issues – if you have a car starting from the pit lane or required to start from the pit lane for example, they can take part in the formation laps, but they have to come back in. They can’t change tyres. In case the track’s drying out, if anyone comes in when the safety car comes in then they get penalised, they have to do at least one lap before they think about changing tyres. Lot of little bits and pieces that have emerged during all the conversations with the teams. That’s it in a nutshell.
Q: About five minutes ago you talked about simulations on the circuits – can you explain a little bit more about how it works?
CW: How the simulation works? It’s a fairly straightforward thing. We generate a speed profile based on – in this particular case – information from teams, then we try and match it up… We create our own speed profile within the simulation, and that calculates the speed of the car every 3m, then you draw a tangent to the racing line, see how long that is, how quickly a car will decelerate over that distance and at what speed it will hit the barrier. At that point you then decide what sort of barrier you need. It’s as simple as that, really. We’ve tested many arrays of Tecpro and tyre barriers, and we can say that if a car’s going to hit at 65kph then we need three rows of tyres and a bit of Tecpro, or something like that. It’s very, very simple; it’s not complex at all.
Q: Where do we stand regarding engines beyond 2020? What is the procedure for that?
CW: We are discussing this and we have a meeting next week in fact with a number manufacturers to discuss what they see as the need for F1 beyond 2020. We have no specific plans at the moment but we would like to see what the manufacturers think first.
Q: I think part of the engine rule is that you do an evaluation on performance of the engines after four or five races; you expect them to be within a certain range. If one of the four manufacturers stays as bad as shown in winter testing does it mean that you have to rewrite the engine rules for next year?
CW: That’s a bit of a tricky one, that one! I think we’ll just have to wait and see how we assess the engines first, before we tackle something as serious as that. But you’re absolutely right – we did undertake to assess the relative performance of the engines after three races; we will do that.
Q: With regards to the standing start after the formation lap, or safety car, if you do more than one lap of formation lap, when does the fuel restriction come in? I mean, the amount of fuel you can use.
CW: As now, at the end of the formation lap under a normal start, the fuel quantity is calculated from the point that the race start is given. So the fuel meters are reset at the start. The same will happen; they will have a bit more fuel because the formation laps will presumably be slower, so it will still get reset at the time the race is started.
Q: I’m sure that in Barcelona you checked the efficiency of DRS under the new regulations, but here you have the same distance – the same length of the DRS areas. Does this mean you are expecting the same effect, or are you going to inspect what’s going on here and change at future races?
CW: It’s a little difficult in testing to fully assess the DRS, so we have some information of course. We don’t see a significant difference at the moment; that’s why we should assess it over the first two races. As it happens, here in Melbourne you can’t go any longer. It’s actually not long enough for our needs, which is why a couple of years ago we introduced a second activation zone based on one detection point. In other words, you try and get the cars closer to the car in front on the first bit, then do something better in the second bit. It seems to have worked reasonably well; can’t actually make it any longer here anyway. We’ve undertaken to assess it after the second race.
Q: Teams must explain to you why their [suspension] system is legal. Is it possible that two teams who have exactly the same suspension, but one of them is capable of explaining to you why their system is legal and the other one can’t?
CW: Potentially, yes. Unless we’re satisfied that a suspension system isn’t capable of doing… We don’t want to hear that it’s not being operated like it should be; if we think that it can be used to do something we don’t want it to then they can’t use it.
Q: Can you tell me about the Technical Directive you issued between the two Barcelona tests with regard to the clutch? Can you still use clutch bite point? Clutch map and bite point finger or something?
CW: This is the one about driver aids, isn’t it? We put some restrictions on how much travel the clutch lever can have and how far away from any adjacent levers it can be. The simple point is that now with the torque being mapped against paddle distances instead of position, it’s got to be linear and the drivers have got to find it themselves, without help from any additional reference point. In fact, we’ve got a meeting this afternoon to inspect everybody’s steering wheel to make sure no one is doing what he shouldn’t. They’ve got to go to a position where they think the optimum torque for the start is by themselves.
Q: Back to the circuits. You said added barriers, especially at the old circuits. I’m thinking about Suzuka specifically, because there’s no room for more run-off areas. Are you going to ask them to put some tarmac there, or some other material is used in the run-off area?
CW: Not specifically in Suzuka, no. I was actually there on Monday, and I went through it all with them, in order to try and come up with a good solution for them; we’re still discussing it. You’re right, it is one of the more challenging circuits.
Q: What can you tell us about the situation with the Halo? Will we see more in Free Practices, and when will you make a decision about 2018?
CW: There won’t be any more use in Free Practice. The purpose of doing it last year was to allow every team and every driver to assess it, which we did all bar one driver. There are no plans to run it any more this year. An announcement is expected at the end of April, we hope.
Q: Just to go back to the so-called Verstappen rule, for clarity why did you remove the specific language? Was that to give more room for manoeuvre? Will that sort of manoeuvre – moving under braking – will that automatically trigger an investigation even though I realise you’ve got more space with the wider definition that remains in the rules?
CW: It probably would automatically trigger an investigation or a request to stewards to have a look at it, as with any incident. The way we interpreted the regulations last year was to simply use the rules that we had to say moving under braking was potentially dangerous and hence would be reported to the stewards every time. But what we were requested to do, and which we think is a more general way of approaching things is to give the stewards one rule to work with. It’s an all-encompassing rule; you can do more or less anything with that. That was the request from teams, they wanted less investigation and only in cases when something was clearly dangerous would they take action. We had a meeting yesterday with all the stewards, and we reviewed the controversial incidents from last year to see how they would be dealt with this year under the so-called new rules, and it was quite interesting. I won’t go into it now, but it was quite interesting.
Q: So were there changes to 2016 decisions?
CW: Things would have been interpreted slightly differently, yes, in some cases. We will probably talk to the drivers about it tomorrow.
Q: Saying that every incident will be judged on its own merits – does that mean that they can now move more than once if they want to?
CW: No, that’s a different rule. That’s defending, and what we’re talking about is moving in the braking zone. Obviously some drivers were more annoyed about it than others last year; it does give some drivers a bit of a problem. Defending is different – if you move more than once to defend a position, that’s a separate rule. There is a rule against that; it’s still illegal.
Q: Is there any limit of time now for you to give us a solution of this investigation, a result of this investigation? Especially for TV, we have to wait and postpone our satellite service.
CW: No, no specific limit. We have told all the stewards that we want to try and speed things up a little bit. We’ve taken some measures to get post-race checks done more quickly to get results out quicker than has been done in the past. It’s a little difficult, but what we’ve done to try and help the stewards by introducing what we call a video archive. It’s an archiving system, which allows them to instantly refer to similar incidents. Without having to trawl through and remember what happened to so-and-so, they’ll be able to pull up any similar incident. They’ll be sorted by type of incident, for example, causing a collision – click, click, click, for the last six, see what the decisions were because they’re tagged to the incident; that should give the stewards more chance to be consistent but also to do things faster. I’m optimistic we can do things quickly, and I do understand how this works for you guys. It must be very tedious hanging around for hours waiting for the stewards to decide things.
Q: There were some photos from the Barcelona test of T-wings flexing in corners. Has that come onto the FIA’s radar and is there any flexibility test for them?
CW: Jo will be checking those during the course of the weekend.
Q: To go back to the question earlier: does this mean that the penalties will now be a little more severe when they do get decided on by the stewards?
CW: Not necessarily. That’s not something the stewards normally do, try and be consistent in application of the penalty whatever the outcome, whatever the effect of that penalty. What they are being encouraged to do is to look at the consequences of accident. I don’t know if any of you remember a little incident in T2 in Malaysia last year, where Nico was penalised for banging into the side of Kimi. Both drivers continued, and it could be argued there was no harm done, just let them get on with it, but if Kimi had had to retire or pit for a new wing, you may have thought about it slightly differently. The actual penalty and the effect of the penalty would not be taken into account, for reasons of consistency.
Q: Shark-fins and even the T-wings for that matter. Would you say they are unintended consequences of the new rules? Are you hoping to close off that loophole going forward next year and beyond?
CW: Next year, I think there’s quite a strong chance that would be done; there appears to be quite a few people think they’re a bit of an unsightly thing. I personally don’t have anything against them. It was something that was always going to be possible, yes. I think the reaction of everybody against them was unexpected, to be honest with you.
Q: I understand the tyre supplier was expected to come up with certain parameters for the tyres this year, and in testing it appears that they weren’t exactly to that, but obviously that’s just testing. Is that something you’re monitoring? And if they doneom’t meet that requirement, will you be taking further action?
CW: I did answer this question earlier, if I remember. It’s the so-called ‘target letter’ that we sent Pirelli. I think it’s a little too early to judge whether they’ve achieved the targets; we’ll discuss it once we’ve been able to fully assess it.
eom/FIA press release
