Mexican Grand Prix revival “being studied”

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: The son of the world’s richest man is looking into reviving the Mexican Grand Prix.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Mexico eyes return of Formula One racing (Reuters)

“A Mexican entertainment company hopes to bring back the globally popular Formula One motor races to Mexico after a two-decade hiatus due to the high price of hosting the international events.”

Turkey hopeful of 2012 GP reprieve (Autosport)

Ferruh Gundogan, Director of SMEs Department in the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce: “Certainly we are hopeful about the 2012 Turkish GP, but it depends on the result of ongoing negotiations.”

Analysis: McLarens Rear Wing Vapour Trails (ScarbsF1)

McLaren… have been almost alone in creating a DRS wing with a large flap, this creates the opposite characteristics of a small flap wing. Less DRS effect is created, but the wing can create a larger amount of downforce when DRS is not activated. Thus their rear wing is steeper and more heavily loaded at the wing tips.”

Hungarian Grand Prix video edit (F1)

Official video review of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Six-Wheel Appeal (Williams)

“[Jonathan] Palmer gave the car its only competitive outing at that [Goodwood] Festival of Speed and took the hillclimb record, which stood until ’99 when Nick Heidfeld beat it in a McLaren-Mercedes MP4-13 with tyres straight from the blankets – and then by only a couple of seconds.”

On track for new era in 2012 (IndyCar)

Tony Cotman: “It’s a lighter car, it has more horsepower and it has a lot less drag than the current car, so naturally on the right day it will go quicker and that’s something that the fans have to look forward to. I think it also will provide a different type of racing with different engine manufacturers, too. I will be interesting, it will be exciting and it will be a bit of a change.”

Keep Formula 1 Free To Air in the UK (UK government)

Petition on the UK government’s official e-Petitions site to keep F1 on free-to-air-television.

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Comment of the day

Prisoner Monkeys does not believe Pirelli’s choice of tyres for the rest of the season indicates they are favouring Ferrari:

Likewise, the traditional mis-season political furore – this year’s subject, off-throttle blown diffusers – and the subsequent changes made to the regulations have resulted in no discernible change in performance from Ferrari. Furthermore, Pirelli did not alter the composition of the hard tyres between Barcelona and Silverstone. In the six weeks between the Spanish and British Grands Prix, Ferrari clearly developed their car enough to use the harder tyres more effectively. If anything, Pirelli’s decision to discontinue use of the harder compound robs them of a potential weapon in the 2011 title fight.
Prisoner Monkeys

From the forum

Senna_ asks if the characteristics of the Red Bull contributes to Sebastian Vettel’s perceived inability to pass?

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On this day in F1

Louis Rosier won the non-championship Sables d’Olonne Grand Orix on this day in 1953, driving a Ferrari 500.

The event was run over two heats with the overall result being declared on the aggregated times from the two races.

Rosier did not win either of the heats: the first went to Jean Behra in a Gordini, Rosier finishing third behind Louis Chiron.

Maurice Trintignant in another Gordini won the second heat. But second place was good enough for Rosier to win overall by 27 seconds from Chiron, Stirling Moss coming third in a Cooper-Alta.

Image © Williams/LAT

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30 comments on “Mexican Grand Prix revival “being studied””

  1. I REALLY do hope that Turkey gets back on the calendar. It’s my favourite circuit. However, this is a business interested in making money…

    1. What is that new indycar. Looks like a corvette from 1980. Can’t wait for 2012.

      1. Is it just me or does it have a huge rear bumper? XD

        1. Kinda does looks that way, Zecks. I wonder if maybe its a huge diffuser?

          I know that one of the big selling features of the Dallara proposal for the 2012 Indycar was safety, so perhaps it is something to protect drivers who rear-end each other?

          Also note the sidepods that do not allow drivers to interlock their wheels with another car. Also in the name of safety. I like the swooshiness of the sidepods – kind of like the flipups (dont know if that’s the right term) that were on the 2008 F1 Cars until aero appendages were reigned in for 2009. Super cool looking.

          1. That’s correct. The coverings around the rear wheels are intended to prevent wheels from interlocking.

    2. With all these new circuits looking for a space on the calendar, Ecclestone surely will drop a race as soon as the chance shows itself, sadly, as Istanbul Park is a great track.

  2. There’s a significant factual problem with PM’s CotD, in that Ferrari didn’t use the hard tyres during Friday or the race at Silverstone because of the wet weather.

    So we’ll never know if Ferrari truly solved their hard tyre woes.

    1. They did run them in practice, though, and said they were happy with their progress.

      1. Ferrari don’t usually toot their own horn either unless they’re deadly serious. I do think the last two cool races have shown it’s going to be a small boost for them, but it’s going to be minimal at best.

        1. I tend to agree with that Ichtyes, they seemed rather releaved by not having too big an issue with these tyres in Silverstone practise, but will be glad to see the back of them nontheless

        2. True, but we didn’t see it in a fully competitive environment, so I don’t think we can be sure that their problems were solved. I don’t think FP3 and Q1 and Q2 is enough to be sure.

          Also, I think the diffuser ban played a role in their relative comfort on the hard tyre.

  3. turkey and mexico… just where are they going to go? usa going for a spot aswell…. let the neverending 2012 season comence!

    1. But then without a team that’s already WDC and WCC by august please!

  4. Has grown so used to this daily round-up feature. Lest i start taking it for granted, thanks for the efforts. Very useful for me to follow the developments in F1

  5. Likewise, the traditional mis-season political furore – this year’s subject, off-throttle blown diffusers – and the subsequent changes made to the regulations have resulted in no discernible change in performance from Ferrari. Furthermore, Pirelli did not alter the composition of the hard tyres between Barcelona and Silverstone. In the six weeks between the Spanish and British Grands Prix, Ferrari clearly developed their car enough to use the harder tyres more effectively. If anything, Pirelli’s decision to discontinue use of the harder compound robs them of a potential weapon in the 2011 title fight.
    Furthermore, Pirelli have developed everything that was asked of them this year. They have said that they will make no tyre allocation decisions to favour one particular team, even if such a decision would make the racing closer or draw out the championship. Why would they suddenly do a backflip on that?

  6. Have had a few emails from people saying they’re being shown the mobile site incorrectly instead of the standard desktop site. You can fix this problem by clearing cookies for F1 Fanatic. We’re working on a permanent fix for the error. Apologies for the problems today.

    1. Yes, noticed that as well.

    2. Ctrl-F5 should work in most cases as well.

  7. Be studied, but the conclusion is the same. If they had said several times that this circuit could disappear from the calendar will be this way. It is normal, come many new circuits and have to make way, because if it continues, the championships would last 2 years.

  8. I wonder why Bernie is not asking teams to add two more races? I think 22 races calendar is possible.

    We could have 3 GPs in North/Central America (US, Canada and Mexico). Unfortunately I think the South African GP is logistically too demanding once South Africa is the southernmost site of the continent. So it’s miles away from Europe, America and Australia. In light of that, an isolated GP would be hard to sell, however Canada has survived…

  9. Mexico City was a fantastic track until they put in a chicane at the final corner. Mansell overtaking Berger around the outside is stuff of legend!!

  10. Bernies devotion to Oil Sheiks may combine with the drive to take as much money out of the sport as profit, rather than re-investing in the cars and technology, to allow Indycar to expand and take “market share “ie.fans from F1.
    The new rules for Indycar suggest that the car should be as fast if not faster than the new (2014) F1 cars and will have the added interest of major manufacturers competing to supply engines.
    With re-newed interest in open wheel races in the Americas Indycar are in a good position to run a major series in Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and other countries in S.America that could make a commercial success of holding an Indycar race that would charge the promoter a lot less than the fees FOM charge.
    From a succesful series in the Americas, it would be easy for Indycar to expand across the Pacific to compete with and replace Formula 1. If such a series develops and is successful how long could Ferrari ignore its commercial potential in the worlds biggest developing markets?

    1. Ferrari is not ignoring developing markets. Actually Formula One is still way more popular than Indy in developing world, pretty few people outside the US can name a single Indy team… I guess that HRT gets more global exposure, globally, than top teams in Indycar series.

      Maybe Red Bull, present in multiple motor sports disciplines can give us a more accurate picture on the topic.

      1. Pretty free people inside the US can name a single Indy team.

      2. Correct but Indycar are working to correct their shortcomings while F1 are moving toward the current Indycar formula. F 1 will have the numbers in Europe for a very long time but in emerging markets a better product at a cheaper price will be hard to beat. Remember the organiser of the Australian GP is already considering a switch to Indycar based on price and the percieved downgrade to the F1 spectacle expected with the (now defunct) 2013 engine rules.

      3. Indycar are working to improve their series by going away from the 1 design cars they have now to various engine and aero kit options to differentiate the cars and teams, while F1 is going in the opposite direction, towards what Indycar have now.
        When the 2013 engine rules were announced the organiser of the Australia GP threatened to change to Indycars ( already racing in Australia) based on cost and crowd-pulling power. In an emerging market with no tradition of F1 a better show at a cheaper price will win.

  11. Regarding the new Indycar chassis they ran yesterday, please remember that this is Dallara’s road course aero kit. There will be other aero kit builders. It is not a spec body.

  12. It’s funny, I was looking Maurice Trintignant up last week since he’s the subject of one of my favourite f1 photos (top of this article http://thechicaneblog.com/2011/06/15/road-race/ ), same year too. I was surprised he was actually a pretty successful driver as I’d never heard of him, he won Le Mans too.

  13. Also see here:
    http://mccabism.blogspot.com/2011/07/mclarens-rear-wing-vortices.html

    It’s an excellent site if you’re an F1 fan and geek like me.

  14. Lindsay Lohan is my girlfriend
    9th August 2011, 22:57

    I’d love to see mexico back on the calendar.

    Btw, there is a recent song by a post-rock band from Scotland, called “Mexican Grand Prix”.

    http://drownedinsoundcloud.com/post/3254675979/mogwai-mexica-grand-prix-video-stream

Comments are closed.