In the round-up: Sebastian Vettel says he wouldn’t support the plan to award double points at the last race of the season even if it turned happened to help his trouble-hit team.
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Sebastian Vettel Q&A: There’s no quick fix to our problems (F1)
“Q: When looking at your current situation, is it a blessing that there will be a double points allocation at the last race of the season?
SV: Gee, that is pretty harsh. It is February and there is a long way to go. Whatever the situation will be I am not a fan of the double points, as I don’t understand the reason behind it.”
Grosjean: Lotus fighting to catch up (ESPN)
“I don’t know why we haven’t been able to carry everything over from the filming day. I think it’s a temperature thing, we don’t understand everything for now. There were small issues related to batteries too. It’s undecided if it’s a problem with Lotus or with Renault yet.”
Hamilton ‘proud’ of Mercedes (Sky)
“Whilst it looks like we’re doing lots of laps, it’s still a massive challenge for us and we’re still coming across issues and things that we’re finding out about the car. It looks like other people are having issues and some perhaps bigger than others.”
Renault: no more holding teams back (Autosport)
Renault head of track operations Remi Taffin: “We will try to do some longer runs and to be as much as possible on track.”
Ecclestone court judgement expected (The Telegraph)
“A High Court judgement will be handed down on Thursday morning in Constantin Medien’s $140 million damages lawsuit against Formula One chief executive Bernie Ecclestone.”
Bernie Ecclestone denies Sainsbury’s boss to replace him at Formula One (The Guardian)
“Asked what the Sainsbury’s boss knows about running a motorsport series, Ecclestone said: ‘All he knows about is looking for support for his kids.'”
Formula One having no real discussions about series takeover by Liberty Global (Autoweek)
“A source close to Formula One has revealed that ‘no real discussions’ are taking place with sports and media group Liberty Global, which is understood to be interested in investing in the Grand Prix racing series.”
jm1419fe200.jpg (James Moy Photography)
“A Red Bull Racing engineer records the engine noises of cars leaving the pits.”
Graham Hill’s Lotus F1 car to make £1m at auction (Auto Express)
“The legendary F1 Lotus 49-R8, raced by Graham Hill, is to go up for sale. Introduced in the 1967 season, the race car is expected to fetch between £700,000 and £1 million when it goes under the hammer in June.”
FIRE UP: 1991 McLaren MP4/6 V12 (McLaren via YouTube)
Tweets
Jules is in the car today & I will be in tomorrow & Friday. Still odd sitting on the pit wall with no ear protection pic.twitter.com/VPDnlUcft3
— M A X Chilton (@maxchilton) February 19, 2014
Barely heard the McLaren pull in till it was almost in its pit box. pic.twitter.com/htrKeAa33e
— sanjeev palar (@sanjeevpalar) February 19, 2014
Back in business! pic.twitter.com/kZEJO1fEDc
— Eric Boullier (@eboullier) February 19, 2014
Presumably Dr. Marco doesn't have any one whom he can blame and complain instead of @AussieGrit .
— Taki Inoue (@takiinoue) February 19, 2014
Ferrari sold fewer cars but made more money from them last year. USA new car orders are filled until 2016. Business is good! #F1
— F1 Fanatic (@f1fanatic_co_uk) February 19, 2014
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
@Mateuss is encouraged by the sound of the Mercedes W05:
The onboard sound is a million times better as far as I am concerned. Not just because the new engines sound better, which they do, in my opinion, but also because the little microphone can capture it better.
On the V8 onboards the noise was a little annoying, partly because the microphone probably maxed out and did not relay all the texture of the sound in good detail. Where here is seems not to be the case, probably because the new engine has all kinds of texture at different frequencies and different volume.
Remains to be seen how will they sound in the FOM onboard cameras.
@Mateuss
From the forum
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On this day in F1
Happy birthday to Bobby Unser, who turns 80 today.
Though best known for his single-seater racing career in America, where he won the Indianapolis 500 three times and United States Auto Club championship twice, Unser also entered two grands prix in 1968.
Image © Red Bull/Getty
Diego (@ironcito)
20th February 2014, 0:12
Good point there in the COTD. Maybe we’ll also be able to hear the drivers better through the radio.
mantresx (@mantresx)
20th February 2014, 0:32
Well the actual FOM onboard audio can only get better, although I don’t know if the mics buried in the sidepods will capture all these complex sounds that can be heard standing on the side of the track.
Banburyhammer (@banburyhammer)
20th February 2014, 0:24
I suspect Inoue is more on the button that he realises!
In all seriousness however, I hope the times in testing that are being acheived do finally put the rest the fear of an overly slow formula that seems to be haning around. Yes the cars are particululary slow at this precise phase of the formula but all the running is an extended systems-check shakedown. The amount of data on the engines theyll need to collect to baseline the engine on its own will have to be huge.
Its easy to forget just for how long the engine – the heart of entire car – has been a non-entity in car setup in pre-season testing. The V8’s themselves were just an ugly truncation of the 3L V10 engine, and those were designed and testing in the era of unlimited testing. So going slow now shouldn’t be a reason to panic, after all the formula now is at its slowest most unreliable point, and can only speed up, get more powerful, etc.
And that is in a nutshell why I feel so let down by JV’s rant. Even though on DRS and double points he’s entirely correct, on this point hes not just wrong, he should know better.
JCost (@jcost)
20th February 2014, 6:13
And they’re not going that slowe anymore. Hulk have beaten last year’s best lap (on race day).
Robbie
20th February 2014, 14:13
I think JV does know better. I think folks are dissecting to the second per lap, based on testing, his assertion that F1 is too slow, including compared to GP2, but also compared to the past. But it’s not just literally about how fast these new cars are to last year’s times, which we won’t know until they actually have to race them in anger in a manner that gets them to the checkered flag.
It’s JV’s thinking, if I were to extrapolate what he is saying, that by now the cars should be 10 seconds faster (just a number I’m throwing out there to make the point) than they are and than they were when he won in 97, such is the safety there both within the cars and within the tracks, and the improved technology. And it should not be about tire and fuel conservation that is done now by the pits telling the driver what he can and can’t do and when. And DRS should not even be there. The drivers are more like passengers now, there to monitor a moving science experiment, and able to push a button to pass. If that has to be the reality then at least on top of all the gadgets and gimmicks the cars should be so much faster than GP2 that the words wouldn’t have even entered JV’s mind let alone come out of his mouth. Yet look at the debate it has caused, and the people rushing to F1’s defense, all while there are several aspects to F1 that are indefensible right now.
Whether or not the cars are a bit or a lot slower than last year, or possibly a bit faster by the end of the season, but I think not likely a lot faster, is not really the point. It is about a trend downward toward cars that are certainly not significantly faster if at all than 17 years ago, that are less and less in the drivers’ hands to race. They should be way faster and still as much in the drivers’ hands as before.
Carlitox (@carlitox)
20th February 2014, 0:27
Hey, thanks for the mention! And I also agree with the COTD. I (as many) was kinda getting used to V8s, which IMO sounded far better when they didn’t have a rev cap. But the whistling and the furious nature of these turbos, regardless of how restricted they are, makes me excited for the season to start.
Thats one point for you FIA. You still have like a gazillion of negative points, BTW.
Chad (@chaddy)
20th February 2014, 0:57
Am I crazy or does Vettel have a hint of muscle tone this year?
Chad (@chaddy)
20th February 2014, 1:01
I guess he always knew Mark could beat him up, so he focused on his books instead. Now he has a shot at being tougher than the whippersnapper
Garns (@)
21st February 2014, 13:34
No chance- Dan is a tough Aussie and already has Seb covered LOL!!
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
20th February 2014, 1:05
Max chilton decided to shave the last few tenths off his legs, that’s all he wanted to show.
Kimi4WDC
20th February 2014, 4:23
That’s some wishful thinking there from Max :)
f1freek (@f1freek)
20th February 2014, 5:34
so is that how they plan getting into Q2?
The Abbinator (@abbinator)
20th February 2014, 5:54
Maybe that’s the trophy for finishing every race (last).
JCost (@jcost)
20th February 2014, 6:05
So he’s just like you Bernie! You’re doing everything to support your daughters flamboyant life style…
OllieJ (@olliej)
20th February 2014, 8:35
Given Vettel’s respect for F1 history, he’d probably be the only driver who, if he was going to win the championship in the Abu Dhabi super-bonus-season finale-bonanza purely because of double points, would pull over and let the rightful driver win it.
Probably a lot easier to do when you’ve won four in a row of course…
V. Chris (@vasschu)
20th February 2014, 9:27
I totally doubt it :) Maybe he won’t be satisfied by the way he will win, but he will never voluntary give up win or title. Malaysia 2013 for example. He won’t let his team mate win, what about driver from different team. And after all you might be against the double points, but when they are fact for everybody else, why don’t you just take the opportunity. You can always say after that “Yeah, they were bad idea. I told you so, but you didn’t listen” :) Actually i do hope something like this happens, because i want the people who supported it, to suffer from it.
JCost (@jcost)
20th February 2014, 12:58
+1 @vasschu
The one who can’t cope with a team order to let his team mate win? You gotta be kidding @olliej.
Robbie
20th February 2014, 13:34
Lol can you imagine the looks on RBR’s and their sponsors’ faces if SV handed a WDC to someone else? It would probably be grounds for firing and maybe even a lawsuit for breach of contract.
Unless there is a runaway leader such that double points don’t matter, which is what is trying to be avoided, the unfortunate consequence of double points is that someone will be robbed and the winner will have won because of the luxury of the points, so there will be unavoidable asterisks beside their names. I’ll assume that is why most within F1 seem to be against this, including of course SV.
OllieJ (@olliej)
20th February 2014, 14:01
@jcost The negative reaction he got from Malaysia 2013 might make him all the more likely to turn down a tainted title.
If he’s worried about being sued for breach of contract he could always just stick it in the tyres and drop a few hints in the media – no one would be able to prove anything.
Robbie
20th February 2014, 14:33
Put another way @olliej you are dreaming. Saying he doesn’t want the help of double points is all well and good and I would like to think the quality of most of the drivers is there such that they are thinking the same thing. But the fact is that it is there, and the fact is he wasn’t going to let a team order stop him from cheaply passing a cranked down MW in the first race of last season, so I don’t know why you think he would have such morality if it came down to winning or losing the WDC this year on double points. If he can win it that way and rob someone else, that finger will be flying just as high as ever, and when pressed about his ‘not wanting the help from double points’ comment, he’ll just remark ‘yes that rule is unfortunate but it is the same for everyone, no?’
karter22 (@karter22)
20th February 2014, 9:09
Gee, I thought RBR was an almighty team. They should have figured stuff out by now shouldn´t they?
That is the advantage of being a Constructor and not a client. Look at how far ahead are Merc, Ferrari and McLaren!! They are constructors and they seem to have everything in order!
There is one thing that surprises me. It´s amazing that Renault, the pioneers of the first Turbo era are having such a hard time with the this new Turbo Power Unit.
aka_robyn
20th February 2014, 11:40
Yeah, RBR, trying to fool everyone into thinking they’re all that, with their fancy four consecutive drivers’ and constructors’ championships. The REAL question is, what have they achieved during 2014 preseason testing?? Uh huh, that’s what I thought. What a bunch of amateurs.
Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
20th February 2014, 9:23
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
20th February 2014, 9:48
I can’t agree with COTD. It’s awful. For sure there will be more room for other sounds, but it really does not sounds great. There is absolutely no madness at all in this sound. I’m going to Spa this year so when I will hear it live I may think different from now.
That said, there will be so much exciting challenges this year that I may even not pay attention to the engine noises – but still – it’s not great.
MinusTwo
20th February 2014, 12:50
Am I the only on that thinks that if you put the nose of the Lotus and the McLaren together, they could have babies?
Craig Woollard (@craig-o)
20th February 2014, 13:29
*Takes hat off and claps*
Respect Mr. Vettel, respect. As one of the more experienced of the drivers now and the most successful I do hope he says something to somebody who will actually listen to him.
Nevim
20th February 2014, 23:05
Vettel wants double points, he just wanst to be more liked so he says that he don’t want them, obviously.
obviously
20th February 2014, 23:10
I still can’t understand how can Ecclestone change a race into a double points one. Isn’t all this sporting side of the matter FIA’s business. You’d think, all they need to do is call the meeting with team bosses and Jean Todt. Everyone votes to scrap the idea, and no problem. Ecclestone is a non-entity, or at least he should be non-entity in this whole points business.