In the round-up: A few days after testing for McLaren in Spain Stoffel Vandoorne has taken pole position for today’s Super Formula race at Fuji.
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Remarkable effort by @svandoorne taking pole position at @fswpress in only his third @SUPER_FORMULA race. #F1
— F1 Fanatic (@f1fanatic_co_uk) July 16, 2016
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Force India compares F1 radio rules to elimination qualifying (Motorsport)
"We kind of looked at it and thought, 'that is not right', and perhaps with other rules we should have the same approach."
Red Bull expects Ricciardo's luck to change (Autosport)
"Daniel is dealing with it very well. It's just the run (sic) of the green."
Adrian Newey: Renault engine showing the potential to catch Mercedes (ESPN)
"I think it's fairly well recorded that at the start of last season there was a frustrating time when Renault if anything, frankly, were going backwards rather than forwards"
Rosberg welcomes Red Bull battle (Crash)
"They've done well to catch up. We're still the best but, lately, they've been our closest competitor. Sometimes it's Ferrari, sometimes it's Red Bull, but it definitely helps us and it's good to fight against them."
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Comment of the day
Would adopting Halo mean Formula One could relax safety restrictions in other areas?
I would happily settle for the halo if it meant that some of the other Nanny state areas of F1 were relaxed e.g. actually racing in the wet instead of running behind the safety car until intermediates can be used.
I don’t like the halo amongst many other things in F1 but it’s like I’ve said before, everything else pales into insignificance if we are simply entertained on a Sunday afternoon. All that would take right now would be another team on Mercedes level. Let’s hope 2017 can deliver that.
Stu
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On this day in F1
It’s one year to the day since Jules Bianchi died as a result of the injuries he suffered during the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix.
Uzair Syed (@ultimateuzair)
17th July 2016, 0:17
I can’t believe that Vandoorne still isn’t in Formula 1. Great talent.
Uzair Syed (@ultimateuzair)
17th July 2016, 0:19
R.I.P Jules. Another great talent who was taken away too early. I’m sure that he would have given Vettel a run for his money at Ferrari.
Atticus (@atticus-2)
17th July 2016, 11:17
@ultimateuzair Yes. His was a great career cruelly cut short – and unfulfilled talent of sorts, etc. And what even more mind-boggling is that, in his case, these are not just courtesy rounds of respect – he DID look like a great driver.
My friends know I follow the sport especially closely but they still don’t believe me on this. They simply don’t believe he was special no matter how hard I try to tell them the feats he achieved at the minnows, be it spectacular, like his Monaco move on Kobayashi and the resultant 9th place (this year’s poor Rascasse attempts prove just how hard Bianchi’s move was to carry out without wrecking) or some less visible and recognised achievements, like destroying Max Chilton, etc.
It is so frustrating not to be able to do the guy justice.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
17th July 2016, 0:24
One year since my last tear and I still can’t believe it. Every time Jules is mentioned, I remember those days and I almost want to punch myself. It’s so unfair.
I miss him so much.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
17th July 2016, 19:07
I’m sad for Bianchi, I hope the family gets what they deserve. I miss my dog though.
dam00r (@dam00r)
17th July 2016, 1:00
Getting more and more annoyed at the great McLaren because they’ve kept Alonso and Button instead of bringing Stoffel Vandoorne and Kevin Magnussen to the team..
The new Coulthard – Häkkinen generation
ColdFly F1 (@)
17th July 2016, 8:43
Don’t forget what McLaren said last year when they let Magnussen go. They looked at the data and decided to cut the ties.
Based on the results at Renault it seems that they were certainly not totally wrong.
@dam00r
Atticus (@atticus-2)
17th July 2016, 11:24
@coldfly @dam00r I second that. Magnussen was great in the first half of 2014 vs. Button and really special in wheel-to-wheel combat but he faded a bit in the second half when the pressure over the race seat was well and truly on.
This year it seems like he’s fading even more quickly. He looked to have destroyed Palmer during the opening flyaways on pure pace – they were dead even in Melbourne but Magnussen had better one-lap and race pace for three races afterwards – but Palmer has since put in quite respectable performances against him. In fact the only time Magnussen was clearly quicker than Palmer during the last three or four race weekends was Silverstone qualifying. Most often they were dead even or – in Baku qualifying – Palmer was ahead.
F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
17th July 2016, 8:57
Are you comparing Alonso and Button to Häkkinen and Coulthard? That’s a bit of an insult. I think McLaren has the best driver line-up of all teams and therefore they won’t bring any youngsters. Maybe 3 cars per team is not such a bad idea after all.
Miki
17th July 2016, 9:43
No he was comparing Vandoorne and Magnussen i guess @f1infigures
F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
17th July 2016, 10:54
Ok, makes sense. I thought he meant that Coulthard and Häkkinen had stayed too long at McLaren. That’s a bit unfair to Häkkinen, who retired fairly early and was successfully replaced by Räikkönen. So instead he was comparing Alonso and Button to Senna and Prost, the “old” generation of world champions. Too bad Alonso and Button can’t fight for the titles nowadays. I don’t think they are bitter rivals either.
Neil (@neilosjames)
17th July 2016, 1:07
I’m a believer in the idea that while many drivers can eventually reach a high level given enough time in a car, the truly exceptional ones are those who can hop into a new series, formula, whatever, and instantly be quick.
Vandoorne has done that every single time he’s stepped up a level in his career. Slightly infuriating that he ended up in the McLaren Young Driver Car Park, rather than in a programme that actually pushes kids forward when they’re ready…
Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
17th July 2016, 22:00
Sadly you could say that about Robin Frijns too
BNKracing (@bnkracing)
17th July 2016, 1:57
Button should retire and pass on the torch to Vandoorne. Not to say Button isn’t still a top performer, but if he is sticking around in hopes that McLaren produce a race winning car he could be waiting another year or 3 or longer. He’s had a great long career, time to give youth a chance!
AntoineDeParis (@antoine-de-paris)
18th July 2016, 10:25
“Alonso should retire and pass on the torch to Vandoorne. Not to say Alonso isn’t still a top performer, but if he is sticking around in hopes that McLaren produce a race winning car he could be waiting another year or 3 or longer. He’s had a great long career, time to give youth a chance!”
Fixed that for ya :)
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
17th July 2016, 2:25
It will be so wrong if Vandoone doesn’t end up in a 2017 F1 car. Surely if he’s not at Mclaren they should “loan” him to another team.
Best investment they could make would be to provide enough sponsorship funds behind him to replace one of the pay drivers on the grid.
Nick
17th July 2016, 3:20
Is there a place to watch super formula?
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
17th July 2016, 15:59
http://burningwhee1s.blogspot.ca/
Not streaming in real-time, but pretty great site.
AlexanderF1
17th July 2016, 17:08
http://racing4everyone.eu is also a great one. I got into all kinds of motorsport thanks to these sites
Scottie (@scottie)
17th July 2016, 3:26
Does anyone else notice the size of the tires on that super formula car? Looking pretty familiar to next years tires eh?
McLaren might have pulled a blinder putting him in that category, and that might be what’s making Jenson’s decision so hard!
I really hope Stoffel can get Jenson’s seat, and Honda can claw their way up over the winter to give us 4 top teams at the top!
anon
17th July 2016, 9:52
@scottie, unfortunately, your theory doesn’t work particularly well – the current tyre size of a Super Formula car is closer to that of the current tyres than the 2017 spec tyres, especially for the front tyres (which are only 5mm wider for a Super Formula tyre).
2016 F1 tyre widths: 245mm front, 325mm rear
Super Formula tyres: 250mm front, 360mm rear
Proposed 2017 F1 tyres: 305mm front, 405mm rear
There is also the catch that, in Super Formula, the ratio of the width of the front tyres to the rear tyres is lower than in F1 (the front tyres of the 2016 and 2017 spec F1 tyres would be about 75% the width of the rear tyre, whereas Super Formula is slightly lower at 70%). Now, whilst the available mechanical grip to the driver will not increase linearly with tyre width, it would suggest that the handling balance of a Super Formula car will be slightly more rear biased than an F1 car.
Mr. X
17th July 2016, 5:13
For everyone who complains about F1 aero.
Just watch super formula, it’s exactly what you keep asking for.
Hans (@hanswesterbeek)
17th July 2016, 7:37
I’d love to watch it. But, just like many other motorsports, it’s very hard to watch it from The Netherlands.
Any (Dutch) people here who may have a hint as to where I can watch Super Formula?
Arahones
17th July 2016, 15:17
Motors TV, available trough most of Europe.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
17th July 2016, 16:00
http://burningwhee1s.blogspot.ca/
jCage
17th July 2016, 20:51
I think the OP’s main point is that average number of passes after the first corner in a typical Super Formula race is zero.
Passing isn’t everything of course, there have been good nose-to-tail battles, but yeah, it’s damn near impossible to pass in the series with its combination of durable tyres, equal equipment, and very high speeds.
Robbie (@robbie)
18th July 2016, 14:11
Well so far we don’t know what we’re
in for in 2017, but I like the direction…the bigger tires whose behaviour remains to be seen, more aero related to ground effects from floor work and rear diffusers, power unit restrictions being relaxed. Can’t be worse than what we have now with processions on tires that can’t be pushed.
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
17th July 2016, 8:03
Not mentioned here but definitely worth mentioning is the story of Lance Stoll, who is a Williams young driver and son of a billionaire, whose father has conveniently bought loads of Williams shares. Williams are now helping him (but not his teammates) at Prema in the Euro F3 by developing parts for him. He’s been disqualified as a result as the parts were against regulations.
Morale of the story is this kid is being given absolutely every possible shortcut into F1. To me, it’s awful to see.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
17th July 2016, 12:44
Lol, special parts, i thought F3 was a spec series?
anon
17th July 2016, 15:00
@jureo, the report of “special parts” seem to have been taken a bit out of context.
During the qualifying session for the second round at Zandvoort, the front suspension arms on Stroll’s car had a new type of aero cover fitted to them (though I’ve not seen any confirmation whether that aero shroud was actually developed by Williams, nor whether the future use of it, provided it can be adapted to be made legal, will be limited to just Stroll).
However, it was judged that the aspect ratio of the aero cover was slightly too high and therefore he was stripped of his times – he was not the only driver to lose his times in that session though, as Red Bull’s driver, Sergio Sette Câmara, who would have lined up 4th for the second race and 2nd for the third race, had his times deleted for having a non conforming airbox.
On a wider note Jureo, technically the Formula 3 series is an open series, but one that runs to an extremely tightly governed rule book that means it is a spec series in all but name. Dallara has a very dominant position in that series, but there have been occasional attempts by new manufacturers to enter the series, such as Mygale a few years ago.
It is, however, very hard for new entrants to participate – the homologation rules on the engine, suspension and transmission system have effectively been written around Dallara’s cars, since they have had such a dominant position in that series for several years. The gearbox casing, dampers and exhaust homologation rules were based on Dallara F312 to F314 generation of cars, since they were pretty much the only F3 cars in use at the time, making it very difficult to do anything different to them.
There was a recent attempt by Artline Engineering and their new car, the ArtTech P315, a new car which they designed in house and entered into a few races at the end of the 2015 European F3 series. That car had an extremely different exhaust and rear suspension layout which necessitated the use of non homologated components – the FIA, with considerable reluctance, did eventually re-homologate some components to allow the car to race, but it was a very controversial entrant and the legality of the car was under question for a long time (questions which make those over Stroll’s car look pretty trivial by comparison).
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
17th July 2016, 15:05
It isn’t a spec series, there are possibilities to differentiate, say suspension and such, and Williams apparently have one engineer at every race to help, as well as reserving a space in their HQ to constantly analyse that Dallara car. It’s giving him a ridiculous advantage.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
17th July 2016, 16:03
Although I would love to see another Canadian racer in F1, I hope that it isn’t Lance Stroll.
Andy (@turbof1)
17th July 2016, 8:49
For those curious for a summary of the race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubr9sTxZ3XQ
Note how close the top 8 are: around 5 tenths. The individual gaps are no never bigger then a tenth, except between the number 2 and number. That must have been one hell of a lap from Vandoorne.
Andy (@turbof1)
17th July 2016, 8:50
*Qualifying, my apologies
Iosif (@afonic)
17th July 2016, 10:06
Wow the coverage is pretty bad…
Akshat
17th July 2016, 9:26
Rest in peace Jules. Missing you always.
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
17th July 2016, 9:38
Vandoorne has already crashed due to a brake failure,…
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
17th July 2016, 11:51
To bad. I only cought podium ceremonies. Sad to not see him there…
Rick Lopez (@viscountviktor)
17th July 2016, 12:20
Will never forget the sadness and shock I felt waking up to the news of Jules’ death. Such a great talent gone too young.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
17th July 2016, 15:36
Very sad for Jules and for his family who suffered for a year hoping he would come out of his coma and then to have to make the hardest and saddest decision a parent ever has to make. My heart goes out to them.
Zim
17th July 2016, 19:40
I don’t think they made the decision, man. Think he slipped away.
Still, sad indeed.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
17th July 2016, 21:20
There is so much conflicting information going around about that Force India brake problem call.
At some point they said they never asked FIA to send a message because they didn’t see a slight brake overheating issue as an acute problem.
Yet now they want to make it seem they wanted to warn Perez from not killing himself because his brakes were going to explode. If that was the case they, should have called him in anyway.
It really does not make sense anymore.
I wish they would just come clean and give us the actual message that they wanted to transmit. Also we need to know if they have a warning light on the dash for overheating brakes (like Mercedes does) or not.
So was the message something like “Perez you know the dash is telling you the brakes are hot, so heed that warning or you might encounter some brake issues” or was it something like “Brake failure imminent. Advise to slow down NOW!”.
Since they are not giving us the actual message I’m going to see this as a political play to get what they want. Or perhaps a political play to help their engine manufacturer who seem to be hurt by the radio ban most.
Robbie (@robbie)
18th July 2016, 13:11
Well the article tagged here has FI saying they thinks it’s wrong that a team can warn a driver of a gearbox problem but not of a brake problem. But that is inaccurate. Mercedes did not get away with it.
It sounds like FI didn’t ask if they could warn Perez, due to a safety concern. Had they asked, perhaps they would have been given permission but instead they made an assumption.
So you want to hear their original message, like that is your right, yet it sounds like there wasn’t one anyway. And why do ‘we’ need to know what they have on their steering wheel?
So because you haven’t been made privy to a message that didn’t exist, that means politics? I find that strange.
Anyway, it seems like there is much discussion about this and I won’t be surprised if they tweak it in the name of safety. By FI’s own admission they didn’t think the problem was that serious and maybe next time if they call up FOM first and say they’re concerned for their driver’s safety, they’ll be able to inform him…or…FOM will say bring him in then, which could also have been a concern of FI’s in their assumptions.
Grammo (@grammo)
18th July 2016, 12:17
Tragically not the first time for the Bianchi family
http://en.f1i.com/magazine/18991-the-tragic-destiny-of-the-bianchi-name-in-motorsport.html
I hope Vandoorne takes a seat in McLaren next year. He deserves a chance
I do not think Button’s pace has been consistent enough and he’s had a good run. Time to give somebody else a go
ia
18th July 2016, 19:54
The risk of getting a promising driver into F1 too soon is that he will end up in a bad car and look bad and be out.
Hope Stoffel will show up soon in F1. I believe he has lot of talent.