In the round-up: The Russian Grand Prix will receive less public money as the race heads into its fourth year.
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Future of Russian GP in hands of private investors (F1i)
“Despite President Vladimir Putin attending the race every year, the Russian government has seemingly cooled on the idea of keeping Formula One in the country and has capped the amount of public money that they are willing to pay in order to retain the Grand Prix.”
Pecking order tipped to change during season (Autosport)
“I don’t expect the fastest car in Australia to be the fastest car in Abu Dhabi. What that allows is some change in the pecking order through the season.”
Haas: F1 development race will be ‘different game’ in 2017 (Motorsport)
“We haven’t made our plan on when we start with the 2018 car because we want to see where we are with this (2017) car because it depends a lot on that – and it is too early to decide that.”
Bernie Ecclestone: what F1 legacy does he leave behind? (Autocar)
“Along the way, one got the impression that he lost his love for the sport and that it became a Monopoly board, but the passion was still there somewhere.”
Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
Many happy returns to former F1 and motorcycle world champion John Surtees. 50 years ago, he piloted the RA300 to victory in the Italian GP. pic.twitter.com/4wMWNQVixW
— Honda UK (@Honda_UK) February 11, 2017
Cool day at the Ring playing with these toys with DC! 🇦🇹 #sideways pic.twitter.com/2aQKNaiVMX
— Pierre Gasly 🇫🇷 (@PierreGASLY) February 10, 2017
Comment of the day
Should F1 have rules to prevent drivers undertaking the kind of drastic weight-saving Nico Rosberg used before the Japanese Grand Prix?
I still don’t understand what’s stopping F1 from having a very simple rule regarding driver weight. Have a fixed minimum weight for the driver (one that is above the weight of all the drivers), and the weight difference should be made up for by putting more weight in the seat.
So say the minimum weight is 80kg, and Rosberg weighs 67kg (according to a 2015 source), he would require a seat weight of 13kg
@samueleatrontium
From the forum
Video: India’s F1 track now has a massive bump
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HUHHII (@huhhii)
12th February 2017, 0:28
Maybe now it’ll be perfect timing to move Russian GP from Sochi to Moscow Raceway?
ExcitedAbout17
12th February 2017, 6:25
Why would you buy an F1 race if you can buy a US President!
Van Deer Druck
12th February 2017, 8:47
But Hillary lost the election.
Imre (@f1mre)
12th February 2017, 8:50
Moscow doesn’t seem to be a much better track.
HUHHII (@huhhii)
12th February 2017, 10:02
Strongly disagree. I’ve only seen great races there. I think it has lots of potential for hosting F1.
regs (@regs)
13th February 2017, 18:53
It does have Grade 1, but it’s way too short for modern F1. It needs some long 1,5-2 km straights. There were plans to extend it to 5,5 km. They do own some lands around. But it’s private and they don’t have money to build extension.
Sochi is pretty good except few things – they should narrow it by 4-5 meters, at least sections 2 and 3, so 90 deg turns will be slower and suitable for overtaking and they have to work out turn 2 to ditch cutting at all.
socksolid (@socksolid)
12th February 2017, 0:40
I think there was a move to increase the car weight or add some kind of minimum driver weight at one point but iirc it was blocked by alonso and massa (read ferrari) because them being lighter they felt he was giving away some performance benefit. And I’m sure all the teams (mercedes is mentioned) who had light drivers were as keen as ever to not increase the weight limits in any way.
source: http://autoweek.com/article/formula-one/fernando-alonso-and-felipe-massa-dont-want-fia-raise-formula-one-car-weight
It is one of those things that make sense but are blocked simply because people only care about themselves. The tall drivers will always be handicapped but they are a minority so if change happens it won’t be by voting. Fia could do it on safety reasons but they don’t seem to care enough.
Tiomkin
12th February 2017, 8:47
And that is why drivers should not be involved in rule making. Only on safety matters.
@HoHum (@hohum)
12th February 2017, 0:43
The only thing wrong with the COTD solution is that it involves common sense and simplicity, 2 things F1 never use. Maybe without Bernie at the top F1 will adopt rules that do not favour very small people.
Balue (@balue)
12th February 2017, 9:07
Touché @hohum
glynh (@glynh)
12th February 2017, 11:39
That was bernie, always looking out for the little people. :)
nase
12th February 2017, 0:59
@ CotD:
That’s pretty much how minimum weight already works in F1. The days of overweight cars are long gone, so that rule wouldn’t change anything. The real problem isn’t total weight, it’s weight distribution. Humans tend to be rather top-heavy and less dense than a metal weight, so that it’s nearly impossible to reach a stage where it wouldn’t be beneficial to starve the driver a little more and replace the squishy mass he’s lost with good solid metal bars that are fixed as close to the floor as possible to lower the car’s centre of mass.
In fact, it all boils down to the centre of mass. The perfect F1 car would have a centre of mass that’s an atom’s width over the surface of the track. The further away you get from that, the more it hurts your cornering speeds.
W-K (@w-k)
12th February 2017, 7:16
As F1 is not really short of money couldn’t they use Computerized Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to measure the drivers body weights and the differences between each driver and an average very fit 80 kg individual. Then specify where the correction weights are to be placed for that drivers seat, i.e. if a driver has heavy muscular legs with a small head and narrow shoulders most of the correction weights are near the upper most parts of the seat.
These two imaging techniques are now considered to be the most accurate methods for measuring tissue, organ, and whole-body fat mass as well as lean muscle mass and bone mass. (1) CT and MRI scans are typically only used for this purpose in research settings.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
12th February 2017, 9:35
So place the weights above drivers center of mass. Next week drivers would all be 3-4 kg heavier to avoid high center of mass weights.
Loen (@loen)
13th February 2017, 9:56
Yes….I think we all forgetting something rather fundamental here. The idea of a normal human being
who is not half starved and deprived of sufficient water driving a vehicle that resembles an ordinary mode
of transport only in the fact that it has four wheels and a power unit, has now reached the point where
some people want to modify the drivers physical characteristics as if he ( or she ) were part of the mechanism……
Time to get real ! Yes, the driver should be as fit as an athlete. No, the driver should not have to
be physically deformed or impaired in order to fully compete.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
12th February 2017, 4:07
On COTD, good initiative. I’m pretty sure, after looking back at Fom’s graphics driver’s weights, there’s some trickery going on. The drivers are bulking up but 2016 was a year of famine for drivers yet many were around the 70 kg mark. Considering how the avg height of drivers, I can’t believe the figures. Felipe Massa weighing in on 62 kg and 166cm tall has a bmi of 22.5, perfectly inside normal bmi.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
12th February 2017, 9:32
I wigh in at Nico Hulkenberg height and 2kg more… But look nowhere near as skinny. Maybe their bodies have heavy bones and dense muscles…
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
12th February 2017, 9:37
Also filipe Massa looks fat for an F1 driver.
Most notable for example is Fernando Alonso from 2006 and 2016.. Like a shadow of himself…
Vettel was always skini, Kimi used to be quite built in the olden days.
Bob
12th February 2017, 10:37
It all depends on the kind of training they do. Muscle can be up to 8 times more sense than fat, so the same weight of muscle would actually look much smaller. Training for fitness with lots of cardio burns fat too, so you end up with a very lean body. Diet is king though, if they’re cutting out bulking foods then they’re not going to get heavy regardless of how much training they do.
Pound for pound smaller guys tend to have a slight strength advantage when it comes to lifting, but in real terms they start at a much lower level so your big muscly guys will always be taller.
Personally I think that getting the drivers in shape is good, it’s just another part of the evolution of the sport. But my issue is when drivers are putting their health at risk to be competitive
Bob
12th February 2017, 10:38
‘Dense’, blood sausage fingers 😳
Robbie (@robbie)
12th February 2017, 14:09
Lol….blood sausages fingers = bulking foods?
Paul A (@paul-a)
13th February 2017, 22:25
You write “Muscle can be up to 8 times more [d]ense than fat…” which is patently incorrect. Medical and scientific papers suggest that muscle is about 18% (or 1.18 times) denser than fat. And you can’t stay alive without it — for example, the human brain is about 60% fat…
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
12th February 2017, 5:36
I think this misses an important point, which is how good will the racing be? Will the order of the cars at the end of the first lap be almost exactly the same as they across the finish line at both Melbourne and Abu Dhabi? I think if the order is almost the same at the end of the Melbourne GP as it was at the end of lap 1 then I think F1 will have to do some brain storming so that situation doesn’t occur at every other GP of the season.
Guybrush Threepwood (@guybrushthreepwood)
12th February 2017, 12:49
The Melbourne GP has always been a terrible track for passing. I know cause I’ve been in the stands for the last 9 years.
*note that I have left the stands when the GP isn’t on.
Robbie (@robbie)
12th February 2017, 14:12
Lol
Adrian Hx
12th February 2017, 17:10
Appreciate the clarification sir
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
12th February 2017, 5:53
Where I live F1 is largely forgotten, it hardly gets mentioned. As far as I know Mr Ecclestone’s exit didn’t attract any media comment here either.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
12th February 2017, 9:29
https://youtu.be/-b-wu3cVjeI
Here you go friends of racing. A fine example, why DRS is not important, why engine note is just a note and why Racing is what it is all about.
How do we bring this to F1 – a much superior series?
– Allow different powerplant technologies with more powerful KERS action… Thus cars will generate acceleration and top speed in a different way. Performance balance it, to gain roughly same laptime.
-Remove DRS, easy
-replace comentators with people actually passionate about racing. Sky F1 is filled with staff of negative whinners.
Presto we have a proper motorace on our screens.
BasCB (@bascb)
12th February 2017, 13:20
First of all, I think that F1 and Russia’s all too cozy embraze (see the footage of BE and Vlad together in recent years in Sochi) cooling down somewhat is not bad for the sport at all.
But honestly, when it is the likes of Lukoil and Rusal paying for the event, that is not very far from the kremlin at all.