Rosberg hits out at media “misrepresentation”

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Another F1 driver complains about the media coverage he received in Valencia.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Nico Rosberg: “There was a serious misinterpretation of statements.”

“I would like to set the record straight: I am a fan of the German women’s football team and will be cheering them on during the World Cup. Equally, I also follow some of the events in the Paralympics.”

UK must value F1 industry – Parr (BBC)

“Parr believes that the prized asset of the UK business cluster in central England dubbed ‘Motorsport Valley’ is something that could be targeted by countries like China in the long-term.”

Audi impacted 2013 engine decision – Newey (ESPN)

“Adrian Newey has revealed that Audi was the driving force behind the aborted plans for Formula One to switch to four-cylinder engines in 2013.”

Red Bull eyeing new Renault engine deal (Autosport)

Red Bull Racing has set its sights on extending its engine partnership deal with Renault – having revealed it was already close to a new contract before last week’s rules switch to 1.6-litre V6 turbos for Formula 1 in 2014.”

McLaren: European GP wing movement (Scarbs F1)

“However this movement is caused, it is likely to spark questions on flexible aerodynamics, although its clear the McLaren was passed as legal by the FIA scrutineers checks.”

Hamilton and Button get arty for British Grand Prix exhibition (Daily Mail)

“The images chosen by the British pair include Nigel Mansell famously giving Ayrton Senna a lift back to the pits in 1992 after the Brazilian retired on the final lap, two-time world champion Graham Hill arriving at the track on a monkey bike, and Hamilton winning his maiden British Grand Prix in 2008.”

Q&A Adrian Sutil at Europe (Force India)

“I think the DRS zone didn’t work very well. The first activation point was far too late, and the second was not necessary, because there’s a third gear corner where you can’t be close at all, and we lose so much in the exit that you are never close enough to pass. I would need the whole first straight with DRS, but the activation was working 400m after the exit of the previous corner.”

Exclusive interview – Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn (F1)

“I wouldn’t go so far as saying that I have some kind of ‘mother role’ [with the drivers] because I don’t consider myself that old and they are not so young any more that it would fit in that equation. Our talks are never very confrontational, but they are very clear. It is a kind of, you say it once and it has to be done – there are no excuses. I’m probably more strict in some ways – but also more approachable!”

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Comment of the day

A conversation on Twitter about oval racing sparked fresh debate on an earlier article, Why F1 should race on ovals. Here’s what Alan had to say:

I’d love to see an F1 race on an oval, even if they decided to do a non-championship event (remember those?) as a tester one year to see how it goes I’m sure they could fit it in where Valencia is right now given it would come straight after Canada.

Watching the video, though, it seems there is one point where F1 would really need to tread carefully. Those IndyCars are capable of slip-streaming each other quite efficiently, a feature F1 cars have obviously been lacking in recent years and I’m quite sure an oval is one track where DRS would not act as an aid given that you’d be in the wall faster than you could blink if you opened it I reckon.
Alan

From the forum

Gnarly Racing asks How would you improve the Valencia circuit?

Goodwood Festival of Speed competition

The competition to win tickets for Friday at the Goodwood Festival of Speed closes today so get your entry in here now:

Happy birthday!

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On this day in F1

Around this time of year we used to have the French Grand Prix. Sadly, the country that gave the world Grand Prix racing has not been on the calendar since 2008.

We’ll remember past French Grands Prix throughout the week in On This Day in F1.

First up the race which took place on this day in 1997, comfortably won by Michael Schumacher:

Author information

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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80 comments on “Rosberg hits out at media “misrepresentation””

  1. I would love to see Audi come to F1, and hopefully spark a frenzy of manufacturers lining up for a slice of the new V6 pie

    1. How does their V6 Turbo diesel LeMan engine (theoretically) compare to the new F1 engine?

      I hope VW (Audi owners) get involved with F1, and I hope BMW come back as an engine manufacturer.

      I think we will see a big German company enter F1 to provide Mclaren with new engines if Merc are serious about meking their team front runners – it would be easier for Mclaren and Mercedes if they had differant engines.

      And Mclaren-Porsche has a nice ring to it! ;)

      1. Mclaren-Porsche has a nice ring to it!

        Sure does, Prost won back-to-back championships in a Mclaren-Porsche! ;)

        1. TAG-Porsche…Porsche didn’t want sole name rights to the engine in case it was rubbish, so I’ve been told.

          1. And then in 1991 Porsche badged the V12 engine they supplied to Footwork – but it was rubbish – too big, too heavy, not powerful enough.

        2. Auto Union. Enough said.

      2. Porsche pretty much own VW so it would be interesting to see if they tag their name on instead of Audi as I am sure there have been rumors of Porsche wanting to enter F1 in some way.

        1. Not any more Lee. They had a big share and were talking of taking over VW altogether in 2008/early 2009. But with the financial crisis Porsches financial clout diminished a bit, while VW wat spot on in the lower end markets and therefore by now VW has all but finished the Merger/takeover of Porsche!

    2. Will not happen audi possibly being interested in f1 was what sparked the *entire* move to v4’s 10000 rpm engines in the first place. The rules were approved (sort of) then audi said they wern’t interested anyways. They are not going to change their minds now the rules have been changed again.

      Who needs them anyway? They have less imagination than the leather in my shoes, that doesn’t bode well for f1. My shoes are more unique to because of course all audis look almost exactly the same. Just like porsches and bmws

      1. Have a look at Audi’s Le Mans program if you want to see some innovation and imagination.

        1. No-one in their right mind will want to manufacture an engine for F1 unless they get to supply every team, any superiority of design or performance will be dialled out by the FIA so your Bugati-McLaren will be overtaken on the straight by the Renault-Lotus but you still risk negative publicity if you have engine failure even if caused by installation issues.

          1. HoHum, True dat.

        2. I have, i have been watching the series for the past 3 years and peugeot in that time has always looked soooooooooooo much sexyer.

  2. How about a CanAm F1 Roadtrip, got 3 weeks to spare?

    We race in Canada on the Sunday, then on the Monday F1 fans and the team trucks travel in a convoy from the Canadian GP in Montreal and through America to an oval in the USA to race.

    After the “Second Sunday 2hr Oval Endurance” the teams and fans travel off again on the Monday in an F1 convoy to Texas, and there will be a race once more at the Circuit of the Americas.

    That would be awesome, a giant continental F1 roadtrip! Anyone else up for it? :D

    1. i’d rather see mexico-us-canada, early in the year and moving north to beat the heat.

      1. They could make it on an even bigger scale and start in Brazil!!

        Wasn;t there was a rumour on here that Mexico was perhaps going to come back on the calender, with Canada, USA, Mexico and Brazil you have one fifth of a season calender, that would be brilliant.

        1. Let’s go the whole hog and get Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, USA and Canada on the calendar!

  3. A road-car manufacturer that races successfully with 3.7L V6 turbo diesels isn’t going to care too much about whether it’s V4 or V6 1.6L turbo petrol hybrids in F1. Infact I think a lot of manufacturers would rather like the sound of that.

  4. i dunno why, but i find that nico rosberg story hilarious.

    1. Same! What a bizarre read. I think he handled it very well.

    2. Quote: “Journalist in the background: Women are essentially handicapped.”

      It was a very funny read, but I honestly believe that Nico made a very good point.

    3. Yeah it is funny, and a bit weird to find people like that Journalist that says he doesnt like women sports because they are not performing at the best level, weird question to begin with about the F1 Women Series, not sure who would be interested in Nico’s answer to that question. I think in F1, having a mechanical interface like these cars that are so complex, women and men could be in the same series.

  5. Good for Nico, I’m glad the internet allows people to bypass the conventional media, such democratisation of knowledge does wonders for accountability. On the same day as some rather shoddy journalism by Johann Hari was exposed online Rosberg was able to articulately refute misrepresentations in the German press. Three cheers for the internet and twitter in particular.

    1. Yeah, they put him down saying that he ranks Women football only at the level of the Paralympics (in a negative way). When he rather said he rates the both of them positively.

      1. It was a weird interview.

        1. +1 Ads.

          Very weird Fixy. I still don’t think it’s the best PR for a comparison between the two but reading the transcipt it felt like they were just trying to goad/; trap him the whole time.

    2. “I’m glad the internet allows people to bypass the conventional media”

      Hear Hear.

      1. The sooner the internet fully and finally steps on the expense-account throats of the bloated mainstream hacks the better.

        Their days of twisting stories and superficial sensationalism are numbered, and their passing won’t be mourned. They brought it on themselves.

  6. Michael Griffin
    29th June 2011, 0:38

    The media mis-reporting (is that even the right term?) what drivers have said is infinitely more interesting than the snorefest I endured on Sunday.

    1. The race wasn’t that bad. It was rubbish compared to most races this year, but compared to races before 2011 it was fine.

      The track needs to go though. But according to this article, Valencia is going to replace Barcelona as the Spanish GP. The new contract will last until 2021.

      1. Michael Griffin
        29th June 2011, 1:34

        Oh crap. Still, further proof that money talks, not entertainment.

      2. well if thats the case at least we lose barcelona, which is rubbish too

      3. Maybe Barcelona is the race that will be dropped from the 21 provisionals.
        So if Valencia goes to the Barcelona date in May, that leaves a four week gap between US on 17 June and GB on 15 July. So which race goes here? It would not be good for the wider audience to forget about F1 for four weeks and then have another four week break in August.
        Could it be a ‘test’ weekend?

        1. it would allow the US GP to move to an earlier date where it may be a bit cooler.

          of course Canada would have to move with it.

          1. That doesn’t make sense. The 4-week gap would be in between the USA and GB – why would you then move Austin to an earlier date? That would extend the break.

            If it wouldn’t conflict with other major festivals planned in those cities, I would give Austin Montreal’s date and then move Montreal two weeks later, space it out. America’s huge, it’s going to be hard to get all the stuff across in three days. Then move Britain and Germany a week forward, as Hungary is meant to be a week after Germany.

          2. can’t see britain moving a week forward. that would put it on a collision course with the wimbledon tennis finals. i know which sport would lose out on coverage then, and it wouldn’t be the one that involves lots of grunting and a certain annual joke ;-)

        1. Hopefully to make this big step they’ll improve the track.

  7. Jeez, Nico got stuck between a rock and a hard place by the “journalist” didn’t he?

    No wonder these guys look so miserable during press conferences, if they have muppets like those trying to set the up and potentially ruin their careers at every turn….

    1. Reminds me of something Michael Owen said on twitter when talking to a football writer, he was saying that players have no trust in journalists and expect that whatever they say will be misrepresented. Makes them reluctant to open up and I imagine something pretty similar goes on with F1 drivers.

      1. The reason Footballers don’t speak to the journos is they REALLY don’t like being held to account or critiqued. They speak if they’ve got a story they want out but otherwise its the same old non statements. TBH if there is one profession that has the cash to fight mis-quotes its footballers. Sue if you’ve been libelled mr footballer otherwise shut up and stop lying.

    2. also explains why you see a team member with a recording device at every interview given by their drivers.

  8. Oval racing in F1 would work well, but DRS would not help passing.

    A venue like Indy or the (now) old Phoenix would be perfect – relatively flat track but high speeds.

  9. Reports out of Spain suggest Catalunya will be discreetly dropped from the 2012 calendar, with Valencia being promoted to the title of Spanish Grand Prix and the European Grand Prix being discontinued (for now). Valencia would also be brought forward to May to take Catalunya’s traditional early-season spot.

  10. I’ll add this quote from one Keith Collantine to the discussion, before the inevitable “go fast, turn left” comments appear.

    Oval racing is poorly understood in F1’s European heartland and viewed with some hostility and derision. But those who trot out tired clichés like “it’s easy because you only have to turn left” should listen carefully to Doornbos’s words.

    1. I agree, I quite like indycar racing on the ovals, but “go fast, turn left” did remind me of this onion news report http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG2OcW_Hwkg

      1. Aaaaah the onion. That is really a fantastic video.

        1. I don’t buy newspapers, and I dislike them a fair amount. But if the Onion was a real newspaper, I’d buy it every day.

          1. It is a real newspaper, and you can pick it up for free every week on the street in New York City!

          2. Actually it is available in newspaper form in certain cities. I know for certain that it’s available in Austin for free.

  11. If any anti-womans’ sports or sexism could even be found in that transcript came from the reporters, not Nico!

    1. True, I was face-palming a few times reading the transcript.

      I heard this scenario is the reason why all interviews done by the drivers are taped by the media guys/girls of his team (insert comment about how good the Red Bull blonde looks): if one “journalist” tells some BS they can prove that it’s not what the driver said.

      1. The one that shepherd’s the drivers round the press interview area post race?

        She’s tidy. ;)

        1. Most of them are quite tidy. I never knew what exactly their purpose was so I asked Peter Windsor once via twitter. Mr. Windsor is quite fantastic when it comes to replying to tweets. He posted a pic of MW and his press manager and since I was tired of wondering who it was, I posted an @ reply (my first time doing that on twitter) and he told me it was his press manager. Made perfect sense, I felt rather dumb.. I wasnt sure if they worked for the team or for the driver.

  12. Audi to F1 sounds good to me,I always think that someone from Volkswagen group should come & join F1.

    1. Why? According to Newey, Audi stipulated as their entry conditions the switch to four pot turbos. F1 went to great lengths and approved those four-pot pathetics which go against everything F1 stands for, and are also much worse than V-type engines in terms of packaging. And then Audi decided that it won’t join anyway.

      So in essence, what they did, is get a free ride on F1’s publicity for a few months, which is much higher than endurance “racing”‘s and then bugger off.

      I say it’s a great thing they didn’t join, and we’ll have much better engines now. Good riddance Audi, don’t come again!

      1. Have you got a souce link for that, sounds interesting.

        1. Link to what? It’s all in the Newey’s ESPN interview in Keith’s round-up.

          1. It’s a slightly odd situation isn’t it? If the ESPN article is correct, then all the teams in F1 were swayed (however much against their wills) by the promise of one manufacturer entering the sport.
            I’ve just read the report again, and it doesn’t say that Audi were preparing to enter F1 as a team; could they have been planning to come in as an engine supplier only, with a very low price tag on their engines?
            Giving teams like Williams and HRT competitive engines on the cheap might be a way to get them to agree to using unstressed i-4’s instead of stressed v-6’s or v-8’s.

          2. Interesting point. Although I still find it hard to believe all the rest of them(apart from bottom 4 teams) had agreed to it. But, as we know, normal logic doesn’t apply to F1…

  13. Keith, you could also have titled today’s round-up with something like: “Marko questions Webber’s future with Red Bull” :

      1. Adrian, if the question was who would replace Massa, they reply will never be ‘Someone as good as Massa’. This article with the fancy title is no different from the Nico Rosberg debacle listed. And seriously your article source is ‘FoxSports’. I might as well forgive stupid articles because at the end of the day it’s the people who take the misconstrued messages to their heart.

        1. The article was run on the reasonably respectable Dutch newsportal nu.nl, which linked to the FoxSports page.

          I’m not sure whether you are implying that it is me that is stupid, but anyway I don’t know FoxSports, and at 6:30 in the morning I didn’t bother to check its credentials.

          Anyway, if true, I found it quite a remarkable statement from Marko, so I thought I’d share it with F1Fanatics.

          1. No, I’m not blaming you. It’s just that the title and the content of the article don’t matchup at all. And I have just explained the reason under such an answer might have come up.

  14. What a beautiful video. The mid-late 90’s, probably my favourite period of watching F1. Several different champions in consecutive years, many different winners, many many surprises (Panis, Frentzen, Herbert to name but a few), a few more teams who were there for the thrill of it, and such a colourful field of cars. The racing was fairly good, and most of the points-paying positions were a free-for-all, this being a time where there was no chance in hell that every car would finish the race. Far from it… they broke, they crashed, they made mistakes.

    Although for the first time, I’ve watch that video and thought “wow… those cars are just about beginning to look… old.”

  15. The 1997 French grand Prix was more exciting than the start looked.

    Schumacher led comfortably when towards the end of the race it started to rain. Schumacher was just far enough ahead to pit for intermediates, but he didn’t. Ferrari simply covered what Frentzen was doing and he didn’t come in either. Meanwhile other cars were slipping and sliding off the track, even Schumacher. But he kept it going and won the race.

    At the end, he let Ralf unlap himself as he was in 7th place, according to Murray ‘silly, because he’s got to do another lap’. Then Alesi took out Coulthard whilst fighting for position and Ralf was able to score a point.

    After the race Murray said ‘What a man, what a brother, what a world champion.’ I only wish today’s generation could be reminded of this Schumacher, the one I used to know so well.

  16. Newey saying Audi was the main push behind the 4cylinder turbo engines, highlights why F1 shouldn’t bend over backwards to satisfy a manufacturer.
    Imagine if F1 had at great costs, gone to the 4cylinder engines, and then Audi didn’t show up, won’t they have looked foolish.
    The switch to the current V8s was expensive, and it was done to try keep Ford in F1 and competitive, since their Cosworth engines were already V8s, but Ford still left the sport.
    4 cylinders was always the wrong way to go, it has balance problems, and as Newey just said, difficult to mate to the chassis and still maintain good balance.

    A serious manufacturer coming into the sport should not expect F1 to be cheap, but rather hope that it can be cheaper than it is currently.

  17. McLaren’s front wing device is very interesting. Mainly for the fact that it is a ‘device’.

    1. What is this device? I have just deleted the recording of the Valencia race so can’t go back an take a closer look. Must see if I can get some shots via the web….

      1. Ok, now understand the device. Seems like Charlie either needs to shut up or change the tests as this device looks like it does a redbull and passes the test but clearly breaks the rules. (If indeed it is not just a faulty mount). It is possible that this is an attempt by Maclaren to force the FIA to do something about Redbulls wing as you would imagine that they would not want their wing camera giving the FIA evidence if they wanted it to stay secret?

  18. The switch to the current V8s was expensive, and it was done to try keep Ford in F1 and competitive, since their Cosworth engines were already V8s, but Ford still left the sport.

    The switch to V8s done mainly to kerb power output. The Stewart team used Cosworth CR-1 V10 engines. Ford bought that team and continued to use V10 Cosworth badged engines in the Jaguars. They were all V10 engines. Williams tested the new Cosworth V8 in 2005, ready for the 2006 season in which STR used a rev limited version of Cosworths V10 engine.

    1. What I meant to say was that, Ford already had years of experience with V8s. The Cosworth angle was just out of familiarity and not necessarily, reality.

  19. “Watching the video, though, it seems there is one point where F1 would really need to tread carefully. Those IndyCars are capable of slip-streaming each other quite efficiently, a feature F1 cars have obviously been lacking in recent years and I’m quite sure an oval is one track where DRS would not act as an aid given that you’d be in the wall faster than you could blink if you opened it I reckon.”
    Alan

    Hmm. Maybe because F1 cars are designed to go around circuits. The emphasisi is mostly on maximum downforce. If there would be an oval race the package brought to that race (which would be even more extreme than monza) would be designed specificaly for that purpose and easily beat the indycar. I wouldnt even attempt to try and compare the performance of an f1 car versus an Indycar, let alone suggest that the Indycar would win.

    Also, why would you say that the DRS would not be an aid? You’d use it on the straights and have higher downforce through the corners. And even if we assuma that the DRS would be open the whole lap, then the deownforce produced by an F1 car with the DRS open is still higher than thatof an Indycar, so why would you sugguest that the drivers would crash? looking at the corners where red Bull are able to drive flat out in 6th gear with the DRS open i’d say in Indycar would struggle to match the apex speed (IT would probably crash).

  20. Wow, hard to believe there are still Men out there with a firm belief women are inferior and what’s worse they’re journalists too.

    Nico should have named and shamed them imo, ridiculous attitude they all have. Sad thing is not even 5% of people who read that story will see Nico’s statement.

  21. Regard Rosberh: God, i thought the British media were w”n&^*s, but these german guys are worse!!!

  22. Austin City Counsel voted to go ahead with the contracts enabling COTA to get the USD 25 million in state money for the race fees! Good news http://bit.ly/jTLsVx

  23. On Nico Rosberg’s press conference misunderstanding: the bigger point is surely the general attitude to women in motorsport. Most websites feature a “lovely ladies” or “pit babes” page, which is frankly embarrassing (well done F1F for not doing this). After every F1 race we see the winning drivers make their way to the podium through an arcade of applauding young women, whose role is merely to be decorative. It’s antediluvian.

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