In the round-up: Sebastian Vettel says he will miss the competition from team mate Mark Webber next year.
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Sebastian Vettel says he will miss F1 rivalry with Mark Webber (The Guardian)
“You can say what you want about our relationship, but in the end we pushed each other very hard. I will miss that.”
Raikkonen: I only joined Ferrari for the money (The Telegraph)
“The reasons why I left from the team are purely on the money side, and the things I haven’t got, my salary. That is an unfortunate thing.”
Relentless Vettel seeking more victories (Reuters)
“I didn’t know it was 53 (points). I knew it was more than before Monza but yeah I’m not trying to get carried away with the gap.”
Ricciardo experience ‘doesn’t matter’ (Autosport)
Vettel: “For next year, with a lot of new things coming in, it probably doesn’t matter so much if you have been around the last couple of years.”
Hamilton out to ace Singapore (F1)
“We do have a great package for the next few races that are mainly high-downforce tracks. We will be quick.”
Button worried about ride height on Singapore bumps (Adam Cooper’s F1 Blog)
“The only thing is we’ve got to be careful with the ride quality of the car, because it’s very bumpy. That’s obviously been a weakness over the whole season, really. It has got better, and we just have to hope that we can put the car somewhere in terms of aerodynamics that keeps us off the deck, because that causes us a few issues.”
Hamilton lauds Ferrari line-up (Sky)
“It will be an incredibly strong line-up. They talk about me and Nico being the strongest package, but I think they will now have it.”
Todt challenged to Presidential Debate (David Ward and Team 2013)
“If the 2013 presidential election encourages open debate… the FIA will be the winner regardless of the outcome of the election. I hope that you will, therefore, agree to participate in presidential debates that will also give the FIA membership a unique and unprecedented opportunity to engage in the 2013 elections.”
Singapore Grand Prix Betting: Mercedes good value for success (Unibet)
My Singapore Grand Prix preview for Unibet.
Tweets
#f1 pitboard #proposal between nick from @Lotus_F1Team and kezza from @redbullracing. congratulations! :-) pic.twitter.com/5gB9INzRfL
— Christian Nimmervoll (@MST_ChristianN) September 19, 2013
I can't be sure, but I think I may have captured the pivotal moment … #f1 #kimi #ferrari @BadgerGP @Lotus_F1Team pic.twitter.com/5ChWFW1S4C
— Michael (@Free_The_Bees) September 19, 2013
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
How is Massa going to play things over the next seven races, @AdrianMorse wonders:
It will be interesting to see whether he can back up these strong words with strong performances on track. Can Massa talk up the self confidence that he seems to need?
If Massa does ignore team orders, it will be very interesting to see Ferrari’s reaction. Will they fire him, and sacrifice any chance of second in the constructors’ championship? With the championship on the line I’m sure Massa would still play the team game, but currently Alonso is too far away to be thinking of the championship.
@AdrianMorse
From the forum
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On this day in F1
Happy birthday to Juan Pablo Montoya who is 38 today. The ex-F1 driver is heading back to single-seater racing next year after seven years in NASCAR:
Image © Red Bull/Getty
John H (@john-h)
20th September 2013, 0:10
Really? The leader in the Formula 1 world championship doesn’t know the gap to 2nd place. I don’t know what to make of that to be honest. What!?
Jon (@jons)
20th September 2013, 0:48
Vettel never looks at the standings and does not like to be told about it, it’s a well known fact.
Hell, in 2010 he wasn’t even sure he was champion until the team told him because he didn’t know how many points he needed to be crowned.
John H (@john-h)
20th September 2013, 0:59
I would believe it if he didn’t love his stats, flaps and records so much.
Reminds me of not looking for the Christmas presents as a child. Come on, we’ve all hunted them down in a wardrobe somewhere even if we don’t tell our parents about it.
$:)
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
20th September 2013, 8:37
@john-h
I didn’t! But perhaps I clung to the Father Christmas illusion longer than most…
Vettel saying he doesn’t look at the points standings is pretty consistent with what he’s said in the past. We often hear him talking about how he just tries to get the best possible result in each race. Whereas Alonso seems to pay closer attention to the points standings and can even recall the details of last year’s points scores off the top of his head.
aka_robyn
20th September 2013, 11:27
Exactly. He takes a similar approach (on a smaller scale) to qualifying: he doesn’t pay attention to the times other drivers are getting while the session is going on — he tries to focus only on his own lap times. (Doubters can see for themselves that he never has the video screen on his car while he’s in the garage during the session.)
Klaas (@klaas)
20th September 2013, 11:41
I wonder if Vettel had any idea about the point standings when he was given Mark’s front wing
Chris (@tophercheese21)
20th September 2013, 1:53
He wasn’t sure of how many points he needed because he’d finished yet the race was still going and it was dependent where Alonso and Webber finished.
He only had to wait for those two to cross the finish line and then his team read out the positions and he knew he’d won.
Believe me, he knew exactly what needed to happen to win the 2010 ‘chip.
Bleu (@bleu)
20th September 2013, 7:17
His team radio after the finish (heard at the official season review) didn’t react until Alonso finished (in 7th place), while in fact they could have reacted when Rosberg finished 4th (as Alonso needed top 4 position, that moment clinched the title for Vettel).
Patrick (@paeschli)
20th September 2013, 13:02
He even said in an interview he checked the standings Monday after the race in 2010, just to be sure he was really World Champion ;)
JCost (@jcost)
20th September 2013, 7:30
I don’t buy it. It doesn’t make any sense in the world of today and him keeping saying this nonsense is ridiculous.
mnmracer (@mnmracer)
20th September 2013, 8:52
Or you know, just a crazy idea, maybe it’s true. Maybe these ‘PR robots’ actually do have genuine feelings and habits, emotions and fears, highs and lows, like any real human being…
Nah, you must be right. They must all be evil corporate machines.
Patrick (@paeschli)
20th September 2013, 13:04
We see the standings after each race on TV, that isn’t the case for the drivers so it’s possible to have no idea what the rankings are if you don’t check them on the internet afterwards :P
BasCB (@bascb)
20th September 2013, 9:05
He has said things like that a lot of times in the past too @john-h, hard to tell whether he seriously doesn’t look at the points at all (that would be taking a lot of trouble to stay uninformed, wouldn’t it).
Maybe he means it more as saying that he doesn’t think too much about the exact points too much.
gdewilde (@gdewilde)
20th September 2013, 10:19
Oh come on, He has got a very good idea about these things. I mean he is always chasing lap times, poles, fastest laps, etc… He, like all drivers, looks at the time/ranking screens after the race/quali to see where he is. So I can not Imagine that he doesn’t care/know about his current ranking/point difference in the WDC (even if it’s just a wild guess: ‘About 50 points ahead’)
Chris (@tophercheese21)
20th September 2013, 0:14
I don’t believe Vettel when he says he doesn’t look at the championship points table. He may not follow it as religiously as Fernando, but he absolutely knows exactly what’s going on at all times.
Rambler
20th September 2013, 7:44
Yes well not everyone steps out of the car having the entire top 10 in standings calculated…
AmirAnuar (@amiranuar)
20th September 2013, 10:32
the very least he should know his nearest competitor point compared to him.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
20th September 2013, 10:48
@amiranuar absolutely – he’ll be told that constantly in interviews. The points standings seem believable though.
Ed Marques (@edmarques)
20th September 2013, 0:14
Hahaha great photo!
ScuderiaVincero (@scuderiavincero)
20th September 2013, 0:23
Contratulations Nick and Kezza! I don’t see pitboard proposals as often as I think I should :)
celeste (@celeste)
20th September 2013, 0:35
One of them have to resign to his/ her job?
Can´t be good for teams that employees marry with people in another team if the confidentiality is a risk?
Alex de Brito (@corix)
20th September 2013, 0:45
I don’t think so. Remember Susie and Toto Wolff?
celeste (@celeste)
20th September 2013, 0:55
Yeah… but we are talking Susie Wolf at Williams. Not the same as talking Red Bull.
And somehow I can´t imagine she maniging lots of ultra secret information :pAnd Toto is a shareholder, so same rules don´t aply :)…
@mantresx who knows…
BasCB (@bascb)
20th September 2013, 9:06
Not sure Toto is actually still a shareholder. Didn’t we get some info of him selling his stakes to Ross Brawn recently?
mantresx (@mantresx)
20th September 2013, 0:50
@celeste Well we don’t know what their jobs are, but I imagine there’s already a lot of leaked information between all the teams, especially the British ones, because it is a very small community that travels together to the same places.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th September 2013, 9:07
Not to mention that they would be carefull not to leak, as its pretty certain that they would be the first a team would look at if any information came out unwanted!
@HoHum (@hohum)
20th September 2013, 0:24
Awwww, isn’t that sweet, if it’s a girl they can call her Lotus and if it’s a boy they can call him Bull.
Yappy
20th September 2013, 4:01
A wedding that takes 2.4 secs. Marko gifting a place in the RB drivers program at the baby shower. Pit passes while growing up, the coolest child ever.
Hamilfan (@hamilfan)
20th September 2013, 4:10
hahahaha
BasCB (@bascb)
20th September 2013, 9:08
Nice one @hohum!
George (@george)
20th September 2013, 0:36
Re: CotD – If Massa does the best for himself and manages to find more performance then that’s good for the constructor’s championship too, whether he finishes ahead of Alonso or not. I think as long as he lets him past when they’re on different strategies (which is what any good team player would do) Ferrari have nothing to complain about. If he holds up Alonso when they’re not fighting for position that could cause some trouble though.
The likelihood is it’ll never be an issue though, even if Massa manages to get in front of Alonso on merit I expect Alonso would just pass him, just like Vettel always passes Webber and Hamilton passed Button.
bull mello (@bullmello)
20th September 2013, 0:50
Not being paid for work done is a bad deal. It has happened to me along with 20 other co-workers, by a former employer who was a friend for many years and best man at my wedding. I’ll never get paid what is due. Without knowing all the details of what is owed Kimi I would still say that he has handled it as professionally as possible. He will race as hard as he can in his final races for Lotus even knowing he might not get paid.
At least he knows Ferrari will not renege on a contract. If a team can’t pay the driver how can they afford a full program to develop the car? I wish Lotus well with their finances. They are still a team to be reckoned with and F1 is better off with a competitive Lotus than without.
Alexander (@)
20th September 2013, 3:13
According to finnish broadcaster Lotus owes him over 20m euros(inside stuff)… from last year and this year, and he still races just because he likes it(good guy kimi)… And if they can’t pay him, how can he be sure they have the resources to compete at top level next year?? I wouldn’t be surprised if Force india would better them in 2014
bull mello (@bullmello)
20th September 2013, 4:39
Wow. I’ve wondered how much they owe him and that’s even more than I would have guessed. I hope Lotus can get the investors or sponsors they need, but this kind of news is not good for attracting new money. That’s why I think Kimi has been professional about this. He could have raised hell about it hasn’t done that. F1 is an expensive sport and it’s easy to see why some teams resort to pay drivers.
Hotbottoms (@hotbottoms)
20th September 2013, 7:20
@alexanderfin
Did MTV3 really say over 20 million euros? At least on their web pages they say “toistakymmentä miljoonaa euroa”, which actually means “over 10 million euros” or “between 10-20 million euros”. I didn’t see Tulosruutu last night though, so I don’t know if there was different information.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
20th September 2013, 7:46
Same stuff in Tulosruutu (“over 10M”).
BasCB (@bascb)
20th September 2013, 9:50
Here theres a mention of it being his salary for this year + bonusses for points scored amounting to about 15 Million EUR (which is about 20 Million USD, maybe thats where the 20 million comes from?).
celeste (@celeste)
20th September 2013, 19:04
Well you can´t argue that he is being greedy. He has continue racing for the team even when there is no money involve
celeste (@celeste)
20th September 2013, 4:06
I wonder if Hulkenberg will go to Lotus. He is leaving Sauber because they have no money, and according to media they haven´t pay him either… Now that Hulk knows Lotus don´t have money will he go?
bull mello (@bullmello)
20th September 2013, 4:57
Hulkenberg is caught in a real conundrum. If he doesn’t go to Lotus, then where else? Better to be in F1 with the chance of not being paid or out of F1 altogether?
celeste (@celeste)
20th September 2013, 5:09
Started to think Hulkenberg has really bad luck :/
^Mo^
20th September 2013, 6:29
He does. And he’ll have to go to Lotus. There’s no place for him anywhere else (unless McLaren decide to dump Perez, but I doubt it). Not being paid that’s one thing, though I don’t know how Hulkenberg is doing financially (whether he can handle not being paid for a while). But what I do hope for him, if he goes to Lotus, that they are as competitive as this year. I’m interested to see what he can do in a proper car, and getting noticed then will move him up for sure.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th September 2013, 9:12
I guess they put every penny they can afford to put in into development first and then the salaries @bullmello, that would also explain a part of why Kimi stuck with them – knowing that while they were not paying him, at least the car was developed (as he doesn’t need it as badly).
However I fully agree with the point you are making, and I also agree that they can be happy with Kimi still racing for all he is worth while in the team, as it will certainly help them both get more money from Bernie and have a better profile for potential sponsors/partners.
Patrick (@paeschli)
20th September 2013, 13:07
I heard the number € 17M :)
Shreyas Mohanty (@)
20th September 2013, 3:23
FUN FACT : Every F1F Round-up is posted at 12.01 am. :p
Thomas Baer (@yogibaer)
20th September 2013, 13:36
No, its posted at 9:01am. :0
Alexis Ryan (@wench)
20th September 2013, 3:44
Might be that he didn’t know it was *exactly* 53 points. Surely it would have been known that it was more than 2 wins though
Patrick (@paeschli)
20th September 2013, 13:08
Yep, he’s just saying he doesn’t follow it like Alonso ^^
Btw, anyone heard the rumour that Alonso is going to McLaren next year? :)
OmarR-Pepper (@)
20th September 2013, 3:58
Great way to propose it. If I had known this way 2 months and 11years ago!!! I’m happily married, but this proposal with an F1 element is great!!!! (For me, for my wife, who knows?)
Hamilfan (@hamilfan)
20th September 2013, 4:17
haha cute stuff with the proposal and the wine tweet .
Classic example of media twist . I watched his interview and all he said was that he did not get paid at lotus and the reason for leaving lotus was because of financial constraints . This headline makes the lay person feel as if KR was offered $x from Lotus and $y from Ferrari and that because y was exceedingly higher than x , he decided on Ferrari without considering any other factor and that he would have done so if any team had pitched him $y which is blasphemy .
bull mello (@bullmello)
20th September 2013, 4:50
Agreed. Tabloid style of “reporting” at best. The body of the article somewhat contradicted the headline and itself several times. Overly sensational writing leads to less credibility and makes me read a writer like this more as if he is writing celebrity gossip than hard F1 news.
^Mo^
20th September 2013, 6:33
That’s why you should actually read the article instead of just headlines. This particular headline can be interpreted in many ways (heck, any headline probably can be interpreted in many ways).
matt90 (@matt90)
20th September 2013, 12:54
I almost didn’t read it though because I knew that it was misrepresenting the actual story, having already read about it elsewhere.
sumedh
20th September 2013, 7:51
Is it just me or Vettel and Webber are being slightly nice to each other lately? Webber made a word against the Monza booing which Vettel comprehensively won. And Vettel saying he will miss Webber.
They are not becoming like Hamilton and Alonso last year. But they both seem to respect the others’ skills now.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
20th September 2013, 16:41
I’ve noticed that to, and heck I can’t say it’s a bad thing! Guessing Aussie Grit is going a bit soft on his old age :P
On a completely separate note, I don’t really know why but I think that RB7 looks great from a frontal view.
Hotbottoms (@hotbottoms)
20th September 2013, 8:05
http://www.hs.fi/urheilu/R%C3%A4ikk%C3%B6nen+HSlle+Alkaa+ik%C3%A4+painaa/a1379564179102?ref=hs-top4-2
Helsingin Sanomat (the biggest newspaper in Finland) interviewed Räikkönen and there’s some interesting stuff in it.
First of all, it states that when Räikkönen made a deal first time with Ferrari in 2006, he actually thought that Schumacher was going to be his team mate (I’m not sure if this is new information or not). Räikkönen also says that “most likely [I’ll end my career with Ferrari], but you never know about these things. What ever happens in the future, I don’t think I’m going to make a contract with any other team” and that “it doesn’t sound good” that he’ll be the oldest driver in F1 next year.
Patrick (@paeschli)
20th September 2013, 13:11
Haha nice one :D Thx for that @hotbottoms :)
I think he will be bored of F1 again after 2015, sa then Ferrari is his last team yes …
astonished (@)
20th September 2013, 8:53
FIA ahead of time ( for the fiesta time ever?)
FIA Thursday press conference – Singapore 19 Sep 2013
Reproduced with kind permission of the FIA
Drivers – Adrian Sutil (Force India), Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber), Valtteri Bottas (Williams), Sergio Perez (McLaren), Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), Nico Rosberg (Mercedes).
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2013/9/14988.html
Patrick (@paeschli)
20th September 2013, 13:13
This made me laugh: http://www.f1i.com/image-du-jour/premonitoire/ :D
Mike Dee (@mike-dee)
20th September 2013, 13:53
Unbelievable, these are not fakes – I just checked my FIA RSS feed – in the press conference schedule they say Hülkenberg is at Lotus, and in the transcript they say that Räikkönen is at Ferrari!
astonished (@)
20th September 2013, 8:54
Fiesta = First…. Spanish keyboard to blame
David Margono (@woshidavid95)
20th September 2013, 10:51
Rivalry? What rivalry? Bar 2010 Webber was never really capable of matching Vettel… but of course, as a teammate Webber is clearly more of a challenge than Massa and Grosjean (Although the latter is is improving).
Thomas Baer (@yogibaer)
20th September 2013, 14:01
I would also add the first half of 2012 to that tally, as he was the closest rival to Alonso at the halfway stage of the season
PMccarthy_is_a_legend (@pmccarthy_is_a_legend)
20th September 2013, 14:58
Very true, it was never a rivalry between Webber and Vettel, more like a one-sided beating @woshidavid95
David Margono (@woshidavid95)
21st September 2013, 5:25
@yogibaer
I’m referring to the season as a whole, sure Webber was actually pretty respectable in the first half of 2012 but ended up a 100 points behind Vettel by the end… apparently he’s unable to sustain a WDC challenge; even in 2010 he was only that close to Vettel because Vettel bore the brunt of the Red Bull’s reliability issues.
Robbie (@robbie)
20th September 2013, 19:20
My first thought reading “Vettel will miss being pushed by Webber” was that one could infer from that that he doesn’t think he will be pushed by DR.
Upon reading the article I find it interesting that SV thinks experience won’t be as crucial next year as things are going to be so new…whereas, as they point out, Ferrari have gone completely the opposite direction from their norm and from what RBR have done in terms of philosophy, Ferrari saying because everything is going to be so new they need the experience of two top drivers.
Personally I like the Ferrari philosophy for next year better…for one reason because I prefer the top teams to have the best drivers they can possibly get and let them duke it out on the track, and secondly because if it was me I’d rather have the experience when things are so new, and certainly it can be said that one can not go wrong having as much experience behind the wheel as possible, whereas having a less experienced driver might make for less input less quickly in terms of car development.