Yas Marina extends contract to hold Abu Dhabi GP

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In the round-up: Formula One will continue racing at Yas Marina after the circuit’s contract to host the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was extended.

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Abu Dhabi wins F1 contract extension (The National)

“The announcement reflects both parties ambition to ‘lock in’ the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit ‘for future years at an early opportunity’, the Abu Dhabi company said.”

Sebastian Vettel Q&A: I’ve a mountain to climb at Ferrari (F1)

“First I thought that I would be in the [Ferrari] car for the [Abu Dhabi] test [next week]. Now I am not and will officially start in Maranello at the beginning of next year.”

Erster Kontakt zu Ferrari schon 2008 (Auto Motor under Sport, German)

Sebastian Vettel had his first discussions with Ferrari about joining them in 2008.

Stevens insists Caterham seat worth it (Autosport)

“Obviously teams want experience, there is nothing like it. The people who have been in F1 for a long time can bring a lot to it, and if you can come in and do a good job that counts for everything.”

Caterham still fighting for 2015 (Sky)

Caterham administrator Finbarr O’Connell: “If it is to be bought and to continue to run in exactly the way it is being run now, I think the next few weeks are absolutely key because the employees will all be beginning to drift away and there will no longer be a cohesive team like there is now.”

Raikkonen sees fun times ahead with Vettel (Reuters)

“Our relationship has been always been very straightforward and I don’t expect any changes… we try to beat each other all the time, but we can have fun and get things done in a good way.”

Nico Rosberg column on title climax with Hamilton (Daily Mail)

“Qualifying has obviously been a strong suit for me this year but I have had to work on my racing, and I was delighted that in Interlagos I took a huge step forward.”

Why is Formula 1 in crisis? (BBC)

Gerard Lopez: “We have proven that we can race well with a third to a half of what the big teams are spending. So it’s a bit shameful that they want to keep all of that money.”

Michael Schumacher paralysed and unable to walk or talk properly: friend (The Sydney Morning Herald)

“Schumacher’s spokeswoman Sabine Kehm would not confirm or deny [Philippe] Streiff’s comments, saying only that ‘he did not have contact with us’ and that the comments were ‘his opinions’.”

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton ‘Nico accepted second place, but Lewis cried’ (BBC)

Robert Kubica: “As a kid, I didn’t like pizza, but I remember often going out for dinner with Lewis and Nico. They would even have races to eat pizza, always eating two at a time.”

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Betting: Rosberg Can Make Late Title Dash (Unibet)

My Abu Dhabi Grand Prix preview for Unibet.

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Comment of the day

Is Sebastian Vettel’s decision to leave Red Bull for Ferrari another case of a driver’s heart overruling his head?

I think it is a perfectly natural decision that Vettel has taken to move to another team, he has been incredibly successful with Red Bull and the relationship has run its course. Don’t forget either that Adrian Newey is taking a step back from the F1 operations and there is no guarantee Red Bull will be producing the best cars in future (although with their resources it would not be a surprise if that were the case). His motivation is clearly not as high as it has been this season, he needs a fresh challenge to revitalise himself.

Several drivers have done similar things to Vettel previously too, not only Schumacher who don’t forget was double reigning champion and left to Ferrari in the doldrums, and Hamilton. Emerson Fittipaldi was a two-times world drivers’ champion and decided to go to his brother’s team; now that didn’t work out of course but he needed the new challenge.

Valentino Rossi in Moto GP took a huge risk in 2004 by leaving Honda to go to Yamaha, who hadn’t won a title for over a decade, but he made it work. Even Jacques Villeneuve was somewhat similar when he went to BAR, although perhaps the pay cheque was the biggest draw there.

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Polishboy808 and Piyush Arya!

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On this day in F1

Happy birthday to former F1 driver Jacques Laffite, who is 71 today.

Laffite’s best F1 season came in 1981, when he arrived at the final round with an outside chance of the championship following wins for Ligier in Austria and Canada – the latter in dreadful weather conditions. But he fell to fourth in the final standings, where he had also finished the previous two seasons.

No further wins came his way, despite two seasons at Williams, and after returning to Ligier his career ended when he broke his legs at Brands Hatch in 1986. That was at his 176 race appearance, which equalled the record held at the time by Graham Hill.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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31 comments on “Yas Marina extends contract to hold Abu Dhabi GP”

  1. “The island has continued to transform every year”, says Bernie – so why does the nasty, tedious, race-killing track layout stay the same every time we come here?

    1. Thats thanks to DRS.

      After 2010 the race organizers were planning to make changes to the circuit to improve the racing, Yet after 2011 they believed that DRS had solved all the problems & that they no longer needed to change anything.

      Dumb Racing System strikes again!

      1. Apperently DRS is so popular that even cricket has adopted it!

        1. petebaldwin (@)
          21st November 2014, 9:31

          :)

    2. The Abu Dhabi circuit in its current form sucks- and the layout needs to be changed. It could be made a lot better if it was a faster circuit with almost all of the needlessly tight corners taken out and replaced with faster bends.

      DRS- Dumb Racing System hahahaha. Unfortunately to get rid of DRS, the aerodynamic rules need to be rewritten, so that something like DRS doesn’t need to be there.

      1. I couldn’t agree more. It’s time for FIA and Tilke to understand that not only drivers like fast and challenging corners: we (fans) like them too !

        Plenty of money, plenty of space… and they come up with THAT ? Shame on them. This layout is an insult to F1.

    3. I left this out- something like this: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com?r=6468660

      1. Very similar to a layout I once came up with to help it. Albeit my hairpin was less tight but after a shorter run down to it, and the way I redesigned the complex at the end of the second straight was to have it cut off just where the grass ends (to have enough run off) and have it as one long corner back to the track about halfway down the straight before the two right handed kinks, although I much prefer your solution to the corner. I like my hairpin though, kinda Bahrain T4 esque.

        1. @philereid @tomsk I always thought they put the hairpin on the wrong way around – a long braking zone first would offer more opportunity for a divebomb – and the curved exits would open up switchbacks or compromise the entry enough to allow cars to pressure and get closer.

          If they took out the middle chicane, they could also lower downforce levels hugely, thus making two types possible, adding cars making mistakes on low downforce vs. grippy cars slow in a straight line.

      2. That would be miles better! Shame they don’t care to be honest.

      3. I like this one: https://twitter.com/faketilke/status/534629519068790784

        Tunrs 5-6 are really boring, it would be a good idea to implement the “esses” that already exist, and get rid of current 5-6.
        Turns 8-9 are the major issue on the track: there is plenty of room for a fast, challenging and spectacular curve.
        @mfreire: I like the idea of a faster turn 10 :-)

  2. I think Alonso will still get a good reception if he ever returns to the Monza podium.
    He drove his heart out for the Scuderia and I’m sure the Tifosi will still respect that.

    1. Massa got a great reception this year. I’m sure the tifosi won’t forget Alonso either.

    2. The Tifosi never forget who drove for the Scuderia. Look at Mansell’s reception at both Imola and Monza in the 90’s and you’ll see what I mean.

  3. This is very funny – Buttons reaction to Rosbergs comment in the press conference today!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30134015

  4. Oh, Robert… if only you were getting in the middle of those two again… or beating them, rather…

    1. Kubica — one day in the not too distant future?

  5. I can’t understand how PRODROMOU (Scarbs’s dyslexic episode) is the first guy to make a carbon copy of a RBR wing. We know that RBR didn’t want the other guy to leave but the one they left surely got his measurements right and possibly more importantly the construction. Guess Caterham got what they wanted, they could only hire one more pay driver for the season and they’ve achieved. I wonder how many millions is it worth.

    1. @peartree When I look at that wing, I think “wow, McLaren are finally set to run a modern complicated wing!”

      1. RedBull gives Mclaren wings!

        1. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
          21st November 2014, 10:02

          +1

  6. Promodrou? Scarbs plz…

  7. I understand how Marussia defaulted and ceased trading – but I think if Tony hadn’t thrown away his toys then Caterham would still be on the grid and set for 2015. Because imo, Caterham’s problems weren’t on the balance sheet but came about due to mismanaged liabilities and cashflow.

  8. On the money issue, the F1 racing magazine had another interesting point to make: The biggest teams are getting enough money to steal the sponsors from the smaller teams. They can go to a rival’s sponsor and offer sponsorship at a vastly reduced rate, with more perks and/or visibility. This quite obviously affects how much the smaller teams (and this includes the mid-field) can raise in sponsorship, damaging their revenue streams even further.

    They are in a vicious cycle at the moment. The current arrangement will kill half the field if left unchecked.

    1. And FOM does the same to the tracks and biggest teams @drmouse, it is pretty ghastly I think.

  9. It was 2012 I believe, when Raikkonen took the win with Hamiltons car quitting on him.

    1. Yes, that was the infamous, “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing” race.

  10. Wow! That rosberg’s column is just incredibly spiteful!

  11. all the boos

  12. I suspect the new race contract for Abu Dhabi may say something about being the season closing race every year :(

    As for the layout, a shame it doesn’t say that they have to change that.

Comments are closed.