Bottas “not talking to Renault at the moment”

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Valtteri Bottas denies he is in talks with Renault about a drive for 2017.

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Comment of the day

Could the FIA superlicence points system have unintended consequences?

Sometimes regulation has the opposite effect to that which was intended.

I do wonder if the revised super licence rules haven’t led to a number of young drivers saying ‘well, if I’ve turned 18 and have my 40 points, I should be in F1 now’ when they otherwise might have been more patient.

I’m sure that one thing that weighs on Lance Stroll’s mind is that if he has a couple of bad years in GP2, he may no longer have his 40 points and his chance may have passed.
Tyler (@Tdog)

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On this day in F1

Felipe Massa took pole position on home ground at Interlagos on this day ten years ago. Title rivals Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher took fourth and tenth respectively, the latter suffering a fuel pressure problem in qualifying for what at the time was intended to be his final F1 race.

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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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39 comments on “Bottas “not talking to Renault at the moment””

  1. A race in New York City won’t help f1 in the us. We already had a race at the most famous track in the us, and f1 decided to play politics and the race left. It doesn’t matter where it is, what needs to happen is more education for the fans to understand why it’s exciting and why we should care. 90% of the people I talk to think it’s the same as Indy car.

    1. F1 races being on Free to Air TV would help with educating people. Is Indy Car on Free to Air TV?

      1. Nah, IndyCar is on the same channel as F1, IIRC. Also it’s viewership is not terribly high. Outside of NASCAR, America doesn’t seem to watch a whole lot of motorsports these days.

        1. @kanil nascarl viewership is on a steep decline as well

      2. @drycrust American here. My one friend who is 50 now (F1 heyday should have been around the time when he was younger) calls F1 European nascar.

  2. Hey Lewis- the Port Imperial event would have been about a half mile or so from Times Square. All people would needed to have done to get from Times Square (which has by far the biggest subway station in the entire city) to the track is take the 7 subway train to 34th street, get on a ferry for $9 and arrive at the Weehawken boat station which just so happens to be right in front of where the start-finish straight would have been.

    F1 of course needs to be in the NYC area- and a race in the city would have produced a very un-challenging track that, thanks to American cities’ traditional grid-system layout (of which Manhattan is no different) would most likely have been like the Phoenix street circuit (minus the desert, palm trees and dry heat, and plus lots of tall skyscrapers and humidity and LOTS of wishful thinking) with a track surface that would have been very expensive and difficult to resurface for racing- if anyone has been to Manhattan, the roads there are so bumpy and badly maintained that they have to be experienced to be believed.

    The location for the Port Imperial street circuit is like finding Xanadu amongst a whole bunch of Mumbais. Quite simply, there is no better realistic location for a GP in the NYC area. Hopefully that event might just happen- I wouldn’t be surprised to hear news on a new USA GP from Liberty this weekend.

    1. The ferries even have free busses (including from Times Square) so you don’t even need to get to 34th st. I used to commute the opposite way each morning

  3. It looked like I was grounding a bit more as well. So scrubbing off a bit more speed on the straights. So a couple things which probably emphasised it.

    From the RIC article also. It’s hard not to notice the Red Bull sparking a lot around pretty much every track. Every single time I’ve seen that I can’t help but wonder how they’re content to allow so much bottoming out.

    People have a short attention span. We’re like kids, we can’t sit down and do one thing for so long – we have to move on and do something else.

    Couldn’t disagree more on Buttons comments here. The movie industry is still just as big, hell look at e-sports (sorry to bring it up again) but those grand final matches are usually best of 5’s of 30+ minute (sometimes an hour) games! Netflix releasing full seasons for people to “binge watch” at their pleasure also indicates that people have no problem sitting down and focusing on something for decent periods.

    Shorter racers are not the key, getting all the cars to finish on the lead lap is to me. Having the whole field be literally unable to fight at times due to either having traffic slowing them down, or having to pull over to let someone through for half of the race is what kills it for me. There would be a decent increase in the “action” if not for that, without doubt.

    1. How do you fix all cars finishing on the lead lap?

      1. Pick up the slack on the bottom teams, whether that’s through funding increase (which the jury’s out on whether cash directly equals performance anyway, but I’d like to see it) or performance ballast; which doesn’t have to equal performance, just reduce the average gap per lap from 2 seconds to 1 for example for the backmarkers.

        1. History usually shows that:

          Cash + Strong Leadership + Good Engineering = Performance.

        2. How dare you mention ballast in a F1 website?

          I’m with you on the funding distribution.

          But I don’t totally disagree with Button. The thing is people engage with things for long periods of time because usually those things are unpredictable (that is why we don’t like spoilers). I don’t mind sitting down for a 2hr+ movie. I suppose this happens to people who follow football.

          However F1 has become very predictable (which is very odd in Motorsport), you already know how things will unfold. You can always argument that drivers can make mistakes, but they aren’t allowed to be on the limit for 95% of the time, so that reduces the probability of a mistake. I don’t remember seeing a season with so little retirements as this one. Yes you have the occasional retirement due to mechanical failures, but that, at least for me doesn’t create excitement, frustration maybe. DRS doens’t help either (unless someone is trying to overtake Verstappen) and don’t even get me started on the Butterely tyres (sorry for the worst pun ever).

          By reducing the race length we are basically condensing the good aspects into a shorter period, this can be the pit-stops, the way how strategies pan out (I admit sometimes it is hard to follow, especially in the morning races what everybody is trying to do) and would make the teams push harder, because you won’t have as much time to react. And by condensing it it will be easier for people to engage.

          Now I do not think this is a perfect solution, but I can see the good side of it…

    2. About attention span: I think the difference between F1 and the example you mention is online presence.
      They allow for on-demand consumption. Some people feel their not having to work their schedule around media, because now they can choose when they want it. Why create time to make sure you can watch you’re favorite show, when you can wait until you have the time to watch as much of it as you want?

      I’m not always able to watch F3 or World RX, but I’m save in knowing they’ll be uploaded to their youtube channels, and I’ll be free to watch them whenever and however I want.
      If it wasn’t for that, I’d miss a lot of the events, and would probably result in me not bothering to follow them as closely.

      1. glad they found Ric’s probs..hopefully he can have a good Austin race

    3. Soccer games last as long as F1 races but soccer is still the most popular sport so I also think that length of races is not a big deal for people to watch, provided there is enough action.

      However, shortening the distance of races by a few percent might be an answer for more action : drivers would be allowed to push for longer as they would care less about preserving fuel and tyres.

      1. In that case it should be the tyres that change. That’s what is holding them back. The longer the cars run the more chance of overtakes, mechanical problems, mistakes etc. Esepecially if the tyres allow them to push they will be adding extra strain on the car. We don’t see as many mechanical problems (feels like it) and i think that comes down to the face they aren’t pushing the limits as much as they could.

    4. Tristan:

      Couldn’t disagree more on Buttons comments here. The movie industry is still just as big, hell look at e-sports (sorry to bring it up again) but those grand final matches are usually best of 5’s of 30+ minute (sometimes an hour) games! Netflix releasing full seasons for people to “binge watch” at their pleasure also indicates that people have no problem sitting down and focusing on something for decent periods.

      ..and just looking at football that lasts 90 minutes without much scoring being the most popular sport, and the argument falls flat.

      I’m worried these wild stabs like Button’s can be quite damaging for F1. With new American owners there’s a real risk that F1 might be changed to something that will just hurt it. Like you say, focus should be on obvious improvements and not the format.

  4. So you’re comparing Lewis & a xenophobic racist bigot?

    1. why not? lewis comes out of this incredibly specific and tongue-in-cheek comparison better.

      some people……

  5. No!! Get that slow coach out of Checo and Nico’s seat! The guy is literally the worst driver to ever touch an F1 car. He’s as bad as Ide.

    1. He is bad, but Mazepin is as bad and also likes to punch people. Mazepin is worse in that regard.

    2. Nobody was as bad as Deletraz. In addition to being horrendously slow, he was also way less physically fit than required to drive an F1. There was also Chanoch Nissany but he never raced; he only drove in practice once.

      1. mfreire, Deletraz was not just slow, he could be dangerously erratic on track as well.

        There was the famous incident where he began weaving back and forth across the track once, leading Murray Walker to utter the famous line “What is Deletraz doing?”. The thing is, even Deletraz himself didn’t seem to know what he was doing – he’s never been able to come up with an explanation for that incident.

        Kavin Kannan, trust me, there have been a lot of pretty terrible drivers in the history of the sport who were far, far worse – for example, Lavaggi was miles slower than Lamy even in dry conditions (sometimes in the order of two seconds slower) and managed to fall foul of the 107% rule three times. Rosset was also pretty unimpressive, to the point where the mechanics in his team once gave their opinion by switching the “t” and “r” on his name tag.

  6. Why is the Trump hate? Is it because Nigel Farage gave him his support and visited USA to coach him? In this case you should take the advice Keith, and handle BREXIT like a man.
    It is also innately sexist to say someone things like that. Is there something wrong with dealing things unlike that of a man would?

    1. Please, don’t read too much into that tweet.

    2. Trump and Clinton are both stupid and unfit to be president. That is a fact. Whether you like it, or not, Trump supporter.

      1. Sorry sweetheart, but your opinions are not facts. Hillary has decades of experience in politics and there isn’t a more qualified candidate in the whole US than her. She doesn’t want to ban you from the country either.
        For you to think she is unfit you need to seriously re-examine yourself and correct your thoughts.

        1. Michael Brown (@)
          21st October 2016, 14:38

          She sure has a lot of experience in corruption.

        2. I’m sorry darling, but your country will face at least 4 more years of utter chaos, no matter who gets elected.

    3. Why is the Trump hate?

      Why so much hate towards an elderly man who is merely a misogynist racist homophobic xenophobic Islamophobic harassing sore loser?
      Even deplorables should be able to vote for somebody.

      1. Person Without Name
        21st October 2016, 13:23

        I’m a gay person who will vote for him no matter what. What you say is a complete lie and a fabricated picture of him. After the Orlando terrorist attack he showed solidarity with the LGBT community and pledged he will protect every american, regardless of their orientation. He earned my vote with that big time.

        1. Trump will promise anything. But he never delivers, he has no plan, no experience, no ethics, no morals, and less clue. He is literally the least qualified major party candidate for President in my lifetime (which includes Gerald Ford).

          As a first grader (according to his biography), he hit his music teacher, because he thought he knew more about music than the teacher — and he hasn’t changed. He’s still an arrogant, self-centered bully.

          I’d suggest you fact-check Trump’s long term stance regarding the rights of the LGBT community– Between his selection of Pence as a running mate, and his support of HB2, you may have given your vote to the wrong candidate.

          …. and now back to F1 discussion. :)

        2. Mark my words anonymous person, Trump will be worse than Obama and Bush. So will be Clinton if she is elected. This is the worst US presidential election of all time.

  7. I’m not really in favour of more temporary (street) circuits, but if I’d have to choose between say NYC and Las Vegas, I’d choose NYC because of the time difference, but regardless, Closing the roads for a weekend in a city like NYC would be a difficult task to achieve I’d say more difficult than in Monaco, for example.

    1. Having a race in Las Vegas at night would not make sense for European audiences- Vegas is 8 hours behind the U.K. and 9 hours behind Western Europe. Maybe a race at 11:00 p.m. Vegas time might work but that is probably only wishful thinking.

      1. Regarding the ‘time difference thing,’ I was referring to an afternoon time slot, not evening. Las Vegas is 10 hours behind the time zone (Eastern European Time) where I live, while NYC is -7 behind, so a 2 pm start time in Las Vegas would be at 12 am on Monday, while with NYC it would be 9 pm on Sunday. A race in the Pacific time zone would be OK if it would start at say 12 pm (10 pm EET).

  8. This is a bit off-topic but I just have to share the feeling. Yesterday Williams shared in its official Facebook profile a photo by Symantec, one of its technology partners. The post read “#F1 was once a sport of metal, rubber, petrol, and reckoning. Now, it’s a technology race, thriving on #data”. I still enjoy F1, but the passionless accuracy of the statement regarding what F1 has become made me awfully sad.

  9. The USA is a pretty big country, how about changing the track every year, so more of the country gets the chance to go watch it.

    1. Simply too expensive given the investment Formula 1 requires of a track these days, I just can’t see tracks being able to afford being grade 1 compliant and only hosting once every two or three years.

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