Formula 1

Lewis Hamilton has been backed to extend his stay with Mercedes because Valtteri Bottas is the only F1 driver who can get anywhere near him. The Brit is on the cusp of winning a seventh F1 Drivers Championship. He’s way ahead of his Finnish team-mate and former Formula One star Max Chilton can’t see him leaving. Hamilton has been coy about what the future holds, with the Brit refusing to commit to Mercedes for the time being. He’s been with them ever since 2013, where he left McLaren, while Bottas has been with them since quitting Williams back in 2017. Hamilton has been dominant of F1 in recent years and Chilton thinks that, with Bottas the only driver who can near him at present, there’s no chance of him jumping ship and he also believes the 35-year-old will retire once he’s won the crown for an eighth time. “In short, I can’t see Lewis leaving Mercedes,” Chilton wrote in his column for GQ Magazine, “Lewis clearly wants a record 8th world title, and the best place for that to happen is with Mercedes.” “They have the best car, so why would he want to bring this record-breaking partnership to an end? “We have seen this season that the only driver who has put him under pressure is his teammate Valtteri Bottas, so why give up that advantage? “What I can see happening is Lewis doing one more year with Mercedes, winning that record-breaking 8th title, and then retiring.” “I can’t see him following Fernando Alonso in trying to win the triple crown and competing in Le Mans, Dakar and the Indy 500. I also can’t see him going to Ferrari like so many champions before him.” “What drives Lewis on, race after race, season after season, is an unmatched competitive spirit – and if the car is not performing to his expectations, it could quickly turn into a nightmare.”

Vietnam’s first Formula One Grand Prix in Hanoi, cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, has been dropped from next year’s calendar, following the arrest of a key officials responsible for organising the race. The BBC said the move followed the arrest in August of Hanoi People’s Committee chairman Nguyen Duc Chung. A source with knowledge of next year’s calendar confirmed to Reuters that the race was not listed. Chung was arrested in August for alleged appropriation of documents containing state secrets. The case is not related to his involvement in the grand prix. However, Chung was the key figure in the race being introduced and championed it with the national government. Formula One said the draft schedule would be issued on Tuesday. The calendar will still have to be approved by the governing FIA’s World Motor Sport Council, usually a formality, and will include at least one new race with a stop off in Jeddah for the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in November. It is expected to be the penultimate race of the year, with the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix bringing the curtain down on 2021. The calendar could extend to 23 Grands Prix – a new record – if F1 bosses can find a replacement for Vietnam. The return of some of the circuits used this year to patch gaps left by cancellations due to the pandemic. Portugal’s Algarve circuit, Imola in Italy and Turkey’s Istanbul track would be the leading contenders to take Vietnam’s April 25 slot. Brazil is also set to remain on the calendar, despite earlier doubts, with South America’s only race returning to Sao Paulo’s Interlagos circuit in November rather than one yet to be built in Rio de Janeiro.

Romain Grosjean says George Russell was the only driver on the grid to send him a message of support after Haas announced the Frenchman’s exit from its team for 2021. Grosjean and teammate Kevin Magnussen have both been dismissed by Haas, a decision that could signal the end of the pair’s career in Formula 1. There’s obviously little compassion among F1 drivers when a rival is forced to head to the unemployment line, but Russell felt compelled to offer a few words of support to Grosjean. “I’ve had a good relationship with George,” said the 34-year-old Frenchman. “When the announcement was made that I wasn’t going to be with the team next season, he was the first and only one to send me a WhatsApp message. That really shows that he’s a great guy.” Grosjean returned the support recently when Russell crashed behind the Safety Car at the Emilia Romagna GP, a blunder that reminded him of an embarrassing and costly mistake of his own at the Azerbaijan GP in 2018. “I know how painful it is to crash under a Safety Car period, especially when it’s going to be your first point of the season,” he said. “I believe it was the same for me at Baku in 2018.” “In the lower part of the field, you really need to work the tyres a lot. I’ve said it many times, if I was doing Baku again, I’d probably do the same thing as I did three seasons ago.” “George didn’t do anything crazy, but he just lost the car. It was a tough day for him, but he’ll have plenty more [good days] to come.”

Redbull driver Alexander Albon has made it clear that he wouldn’t be happy returning to AlphaTauri should he lose his Red Bull race seat. Albon is in a race against time to save his current job as number two driver to Max Verstappen. Although Red Bull initially set a two-race target for Albon to save his seat, Portugal and Imola, that has been extended to the final lap of the very last race of the season. However, calls to put Nico Hulkenberg or Sergio Perez in the car continue to grow with even Max Verstappen reportedly wanting Hulkenberg as his 2021 team-mate. Albon is doing his best not to listen to the rumours. “There’s talk, there’ll always be talk,” said the Thai driver, “but at the end of the day, I know listening to whatever has to be said doesn’t change anything on-track.” “My focus is more on driving and the results more than anything else.” “I know that if I focus on that, all the other stuff will quiet down a bit. These things happen, but I focus on the job and that’s all that matters.” Should he fail to keep his Red Bull seat there are three options: he would return to AlphaTauri to partner Pierre Gasly, he could take up a test driver role or he could be out of Formula 1 entirely. Asked if he’d accept a demotion to AlphaTauri, he replied: “No, not at all.” “I think it’s every driver’s dream to race for a top team like Red Bull, and my intention is to stay here.” Red Bull meanwhile have made it clear that they want Albon to succeed and continue at the team next season. “It’s Alex’s seat,” said team boss Christian Horner. “He’s got his bum in the car and everyone wants to see him retain that seat.” “I think he has to block out the outside noise, get his head down, just have a good weekend.” While AlphaTauri waits on Red Bull to decide its 2021 line up, the junior team is preparing Yuki Tsunoda should a seat be available.

Daniel Ricciardo says his personal helmet collection is “coming on”, boosted by the trades he does with other drivers every year. But the Aussie is eager to add one special lid to his lot in the future. F1 drivers who are avid collectors often exchange helmets at the end of a campaign, with Fernando Alonso a leading proponent of the practice. Every season, the Spaniard adds a few more prestigious pieces of memorabilia to the vast exhibit housed at his museum at Llanera in the Asturias and Ricciardo is now slowly building up a collection of his own. “The helmet collection is coming on. Each year, I will try to do a couple of swaps and it is cool,” he said,” quoted by Motorsport.com. “I like to keep a collection for myself with my designs, but I also like to trade with another driver. “For a driver it is the biggest sign of respect, so that is always fun. So we will see who we will do swaps with this year.“But helmets take up a lot of space, so I need to start organising a proper room to keep them all in. But it is a nice problem to have.” And whose precious lid is the future McLaren driver hoping to get his hands on next? “To be honest, Sebastian,” replied Ricciardo. “I haven’t done a swap with Sebastian and, because he was a teammate, it would be nice to do that. “Maybe I have a bit more time as he is staying in the sport a little longer, but if he retired this year I had better get in quick. I’ll have to ask Sebastian as I am yet to do that yet.” Last month, after Lewis Hamilton’s milestone win at the Eifel GP that allowed him to match the 91-win record in F1 of Michael Schumacher, the Briton was presented by the great German’s son Mick with a helmet that the seven-time world champion had used during the 2012 season. Ricciardo thought the gift was “one of the coolest” he’s ever seen in the sport, although the seven-time Grand Prix winner admitted to being rewarded with a few great bonuses of his own in the past. “I’ve got some nice gifts for sure,” he said. “Leaving Toro Rosso, now AlphaTauri, they gave me a steering wheel which I thought was really awesome. “And then Red Bull gave me a dirt bike, so that was pretty awesome as well. I feel quite spoilt with these gifts.”

Gunther Steiner has revealed that he was recently in contact with Nico Hulkenberg. Steiner, the team boss, is yet to fill Haas’ two newly-vacated seats for 2021, although he admits that young drivers are at the top of the shortlist. “Yes, we focus on young drivers for next year,” he told Sport1. “We want to go with the same drivers in 2022 as well, so it’s important that we lay the foundation with our new drivers next year.” In the paddock, it is an open secret that Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin are the hot favourites to be signed by the small American team. “Formula 2 is very strong this year and logically our collaboration with Ferrari could lead to a collaboration with one of these juniors,” said Steiner. “Mick Schumacher will probably finish first or second in the championship and Robert Shwartzman is currently fourth or fifth, so these gentlemen are doing very well and both are certainly an option for next year.” 33-year-old Hulkenberg, though, is another option, with Steiner revealing: “I certainly spoke with Nico.” But he also says there is no need for further talks. “We know exactly what Nico can do, but I no longer need to talk to Nico about what he wants. We know that exactly,” Steiner added.

Racing Point’s actions in cloning last year’s Mercedes W10 caused controversy earlier this year, with rivals unhappy that the Silverstone-based outfit had gained such an advantage by copying a rival car. Formula 1 teams will be banned from using 3D cameras and complex software systems to copy rival designs, as rules preventing a repeat of the ‘Pink Mercedes’ controversy are revealed. Following a protest from Renault, Racing Point was found guilty of having illegally used Mercedes’ design IP with its rear brake ducts. The team was fined 400,000 euro and docked 15 constructors’ championship points for its actions. Amid concerns that Racing Point’s tactics could open the door for other teams to be forced to go down a copycat route to be successful, the FIA moved earlier this year to come up with regulations that would prevent that happening. The FIA’s head of single-seater matters Nikolas Tombazis said at the time: “This will prevent teams from using extensive part of photos to copy whole portions of other cars in the way that Racing Point has done. “We will still accept individual components to be copied in local areas, but we don’t want the whole car to be fundamentally a copy of another car.” The new technical regulations have been revealed and explain in detail that teams will no longer be allowed to share IP with another outfit, or ‘reverse engineer’ rival designs for those listed parts that it must create itself. The rules make clear that teams can be ‘influenced by the design or concept of a Competitor’s’ design. However, they can only do so ‘using information that must potentially be available to all Competitors.’ Such knowledge can only be gained at race and test events, so no work on this front can be done away from the track. To prevent teams from reverse engineering rival designs, the FIA has imposed strict bans on a number of actions that have been open to teams previously. The FIA states that teams will not be allowed: a. The use of photographs or images, combined with software that converts them to point clouds, curves, surfaces, or allows CAD geometry to be overlaid onto or extracted from the photograph or image b. The use of stereophotogrammetry, 3D cameras or any 3D stereoscopic techniques c. Any form of contact or non-contact surface scanning d. Any technique that projects points or curves on a surface so as to facilitate the reverse-engineering process If there are occasions where there are big similarities between listed components on different cars, the FIA has to right to investigate the matter and will ask teams to prove that the design was done independently. The regulations state: “It will be the role of the FIA to determine whether this resemblance is the result of reverse engineering or of legitimate independent work.” Teams will be asked to provide data and information to prove that they have complied with the rules and designed components themselves from scratch. While Racing Point’s 2020 design was in breach of the regulations, and will be used again next year, the FIA says that there will be a cut-off point for judging if components were reverse engineered – so the outfit will not need to change things for next season. It says that any listed parts components used in 2019, or the first event of the 2020 championship, will be classified as having been designed by teams and not reverse engineered. However, any new parts used after that period will need to comply with the new restrictions.

Daniil Kvyat finished in the fourth place at the Emilia Romagna GP which was quite a performance given that he has been always behind his teammate pierre Gasly in terms of performance. Kvyat’s recent performance although may have come a little bit too late to save his AlphaTauri seat for the 2021 Formula 1 season. This is because AlphaTauri has already confirmed Pierre Gasly and Formula 2 race winner Yuki Tsunoda for the 2021 driver line up and Kvyat seems to be on his way out of Formula 1. The Imola race was a rare opportunity for Kvyat to grab the headlines with his charge from seventh to fourth in the final six laps after the restart, overtaking Sergio Perez, Alex Albon and Charles Leclerc to take his best result since finishing third at Hockenheim last year. It was a reminder that, while Kvyat has not lived up to the potential he showed earlier in his F1 career, he can be a very effective race driver But by all relevant performance metrics, Kvyat has been outperformed by Gasly this year. Gasly has out-qualified him 11 times in 13 races – with the average gap over the year just under two tenths – and has scored 63 points to Kvyat’s 26. Even factoring in the good fortune Gasly had to be in a position to win at Monza, Kvyat has been convincingly outclassed. While his race performances are generally better than those in qualifying, Gasly has also excelled on Sundays in comparison. This has been the case ever since Gasly returned to what was then called Toro Rosso after the August break in 2019. Even at Imola, Kvyat was two tenths slower than Gasly in qualifying and would likely have finished as the second-best Toro Rosso had the Frenchman not suffered a coolant leak that forced him to retire early on. Kvyat has usually shrugged off questions about his future, insisting that he’s not concerned regardless of whether or not AlphaTauri keeps him. But he did argue after the race that he is delivering at a high enough level and a performance like this will help his cause in the unlikely event Tsunoda is not able to take up the drive. “I am doing enough, but it’s not up to me,” he told Sky Sports F1. “There are other things out of my control and I am just focusing on enjoying these last five races of the year and then we’ll see. “We had a strong race. I am very happy for my side, from the team side they made a very good [strategy] call and I’m very happy with them. I’ve been in this team since 2014 and they came a long way. I am proud of that and also had a lot of fun on that safety car restart “It’s a shame to miss out by very little on the podium spot but I pushed until the end. Daniel [Ricciardo, who finished third, having not stopped for fresh rubber under the safety car] just managed to warm up his tyres when I got behind him.” While part of the reason for Kvyat’s results was the improved performance relative to the rest of the midfield of the AlphaTauri, which allowed him to reach Q3 for the first time in a year, the car’s strengths were in the right place to suit Kvyat. Generally, he’s struggled more in qualifying compared to Gasly when the rear end of the car has been more lively, but one of its strengths at Imola was stability. Despite his struggles to match Verstappen at Red Bull, Gasly has not lacked for confidence when driving for Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri even at times when the car hasn’t been so well-balanced. This has ensured he has very rarely been outperformed by Kvyat. “You need a reasonable level of efficiency round here, our downforce package is pretty much suited to it and you need a good level of stability in the car,” said technical director Jody Egginton after qualifying. “We’ve been working hard to get rear-axle stability into the car and that’s allowed the drivers to push here, which gives them confidence. And the car’s got a reasonable operating window. “Our main area of focus nearly every event has been getting the rear axle to work properly and getting the rear tyres to work properly over the longer runs – and we’ve managed to have the rear axle under control, the tyres are in the window. The car’s well-balanced over short and long runs. So if we hadn’t got that right here, and we were struggling with the rear axle, be it tyre or stability, then we wouldn’t be where we are.” Team principal Franz Tost suggested during the Portuguese Grand Prix weekend that the final decision on AlphaTauri’s second driver will not take place until after Tsunoda runs in the post-Abu Dhabi Grand Prix young driver test. This also follows the final event of the Formula 2 season, which is almost certain to confirm he will have sufficient points to qualify for a superlicence. This means Kvyat’s slender hopes of retaining the seat are technically still alive as is the possibility Alex Albon could be recalled if required – with Tost suggesting “it’s better to have a queue than nothing” when it comes to driver options for 2021 even though an F1 career that should encompass 110 starts by the end of the season is set to stall again. “We were not lucky, we took the right decision because all the other teams could have done the same,”said Tost of the decision to stop under the safety car that allowed Kvyat to launch his late charge. “Some of them did it, some not. We did and we got something out of it. “Three places at the end because he was seventh and afterwards he was fourth, just behind Ricciardo and with more laps to go I think he could have had a good chance also to overtake him. “It…

There are a lot of speculations that Max Verstappen will be receiving a new teammate at Redbull for 2021 F1 season. This has come as a result of underperforming Albon who has yet to get to the required standards of the Formula 1 team. However, the biggest question is who is up to the task to join the United Kingdom based Austrian outfit. Robert Doornbos tries to highlight the driver possibilities given that Verstappen has a very huge influence on the driver decision. Alexander Albon on the other hand, after his mistake in the Emilia Romagna GP now looks on the very edge and there is certainity that he might be leaving Redbull. The 24-year old has had an year and a half to prove his worth for the team but has not been performing well enough to cement his seat for the 2021 F1 season. Doornbos goes ahead to discuss the possibilities as he takes into consideration the influence Verstappen has on Redbull. “Max has indeed been asked about his preference and he has indicated that he would be happy with the arrival of Nico Hulkenberg. He has good contact with them and of course, Nico has given his business card with his raids for Racing Point,” says the former Formula 1 driver. However, he still sees an option. “There is another hijacker on the coast and that is Sergio Perez. In Imola, he has once again shown that he has amazing racing skills and is constantly able to finish in the points. He is therefore an important candidate for the seat. Max certainly has influence, but he is not the deciding factor.” Doornbos was also asked why Kevin Magnussen is never mentioned, but the Dutchman is very clear about that. “He scored a nice podium on his debut for McLaren and shows beautiful things with Haas despite the limited material, but I don’t see him as a candidate. Red Bull looks outside the talent pool, but not at Magnussen. He would be ideal for Indy Car,” concludes the former Indy Car driver.

Formula 1 and the FIA have confirmed that eight cases of Covid-19 were detected in the latest round of testing on championship personnel. Between last Friday (October 9) and Thursday 1,506 tests were carried out on drivers, teams and personnel, with the time frame including three days of the Eifel Grand Prix weekend. Under the Covid-19 code of conduct outlined by governing body FIA all Formula 1 personnel labelled as Profile 1 Attendees must carry out a test for the virus every five days. Those who return a positive test are immediately isolated while those in their sub-bubble are also quarantined subject to a negative test or further instructions. Formula 1 teams are operating in bubbles, and sub-bubbles, in order to reduce the risk of the virus. Masks are mandatory within the paddock while social distancing is enforced where possible. Cases of Covid-19 have spiked in recent weeks in Western Europe, where the majority of Formula 1 personnel are based, with tighter measures set to be introduced in several regions of the United Kingdom on Saturday. Formula 1 has an elite sports exemption that clears personnel from some restrictions.

Formula 1’s 2021 season is still set to start in Australia despite the COVID-19 pandemic, while a new street race in Saudi Arabia is also likely to join the calendar. The 2020 season schedule had to be completely revised due to COVID, with the championship only officially starting in Austria in early July with back-to-back races at the Red Bull Ring. An initial attempt to start 2020 in Melbourne as planned was cancelled on the Friday of the race weekend after a McLaren team member tested positive for the virus, and led to the sport going into shutdown as the world dealt with the global outbreak. Now a 17-race schedule has been finalized that will end in Abu Dhabi on December 13, attention has turned to the 2021 plans that still prove extremely challenging due to the uncertainty of the COVID situation moving forward. Australia enacted extremely harsh travel restrictions to control the virus, and currently only returning Australian citizens, residents and those with special permissions are allowed into the country. The majority have to quarantine for two weeks, and there is a limit of 4,000 people per week who can enter, but the restrictions have not stopped plans to start the 2021 season in its traditional location of Melbourne. Albert Park is due to kick-off a 22-race calendar — the same amount of races that were originally on this year’s schedule — with RACER understanding at least one new addition is likely to be added in the form of a street race in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, late in the year. There has been an increase in Saudi investment in the sport in recent years, including the arrival of energy company Aramco as a global partner and race sponsor this season. Plans for the 2021 calendar remain provisional due to the COVID-19 situation, with increasing numbers of cases in Europe seeing further restrictions introduced in many countries — including the UK where F1 is based — in recent weeks.

Rumours have been going around that AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly is looking for a place in another team. Gasly would like to go to Renault and the team would very much likely listen to the Frenchman. This comes amidst the 2020 silly Formula 1 Season, there has been rumours that Gasly has been having several arguments with the team internally and he is looking for another team. The frenchman had been promoted to the senior Redbull team last year but his performance was not upto the management’s expectations. This saw him being taken back to AlphaTauri in a move that was not pleasant to him at all. Despite the rumors, Pierre Gasly’s teammate, Daniil Kvyat has been struggling to keep up with Gasly’s performance of late and has been facing a lot of pressure since Formula 2 championship contender, Yuki Tsunoda is set to be having his Formula 1 test on November with AlphaTauri. The Japanese has been tipped on the Formula 1 seat by Honda despite their departure from Formula 1 at the end of 2021 season. Albon has been under the same pressure and scrutiny as many feel that he will not be racing for Redbull come 2021. What is more interesating is, Fernando Alonso is set to join Renault in 2021 after having a Formula 1 test with the team earlier on this week as Esteban Ocon is also contracted to be in the team in 2021. However, according to Sergio Perez situation with Racing Point, it has shown how worthless the little contracts are and so, Renault might not pass the opportunity if they really wanted Gasly. Lewis Hamilton has still not renewed his contract with Mercedes and in the midfield, there are big changes with Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo all moving to different teams. Behind that there are plenty of candidates for the last seats at the smaller teams as well. So the Silly Season is far from over and there are still a number of surprises lurking.

Renault boss, Cyril Abiteboul has revealed that he is at least free to choose the size and location of the tattoo after a beer-fuelled bet with Daniel Ricciardo. This was after Daniel Ricciardo earned himself a podium finish by ranking third in the Eifel Grand Prix at the Nurburgring on Sunday. This was the first podium finish for Renault since they came back to F1 in 2016. Ricciardo is currently mulling over the design after winning a wager with Abiteboul that was set 15 months ago. Abiteboul, who does not sport any tattoos in comparison to Ricciardo who currently has several, is now apprehensive as to what the Australian will choose. The Frenchman, though, does have some say in the matter. Asked whether he and Ricciardo had set any rules, Abiteboul said: “I think he gets to choose the design and I get to choose the location and the size – because size matters. “As long as I got the size, I think I can get away with pretty much any design.” Revealing as to how the wager came about, Abiteboul said: “It [a tattoo] is not really my style. I guess that’s why I made that bet. “I remember that night in Silverstone last year. Daniel was showing me a new tattoo that he had and I asked him ‘How do you get there? What’s the mental journey that gets to this type of tattoo?’ “He told me he was just walking in front of a tattoo place and he thought ‘Let’s do one’. I thought ‘Okay’ and I said ‘Let’s do something. If you do your podium – and it was after a few beers – I’ll do one’ “I’m a man of my word so I’ll do it. I just need a bit of time to decide the size and the location.” Ricciardo believes the tattoo should possess “a German flavour” due to the location of him winning the bet. “It is obviously the place we did it so a little tip of the hat to something traditional in Germany,” said Ricciardo. With the Nordschleife suggested, Ricciardo added: “There’s going to be a lot of brainstorming. He’s going to be excited. The first one is always a fun one. We’ll think of some things – but yeah, [it] could be this.”

Daimler, the dominant Mercedes team’s carmaker parent, intends to slash the amount of money it spends on Formula 1. It emerged recently that Mercedes spent a staggering $430 million to win last year’s championships – with a $145 budget cap coming in for 2021. Daimler CEO Ola Kallenius has rejected rumours that Mercedes could be pulled out of the sport. It was indirectly announced last week that Mercedes won’t leave Formula 1. On Wednesday, Daimler also confirmed this through Ola Kallenius. The CEO of Mercedes’ parent company states that there is currently no reason to turn their backs on the pinnacle of motorsport. “We have no more reason to retire from Formula 1 than Bayern Munich has to retire from football,” he is quoted by TV6. “But the financial burden in the next three years will be halved. In this regard, we set ourselves more aggressive goals for Formula 1 than for other areas of the company,” Kallenius was quoted by Reuters press agency during an online meeting with several journalists.

Japanese Formula 2 driver Yuki Tsunoda will be having his first test in the AlphaTauri AT01 at Imola on Wednesday 4th November. Tsunoda is a protege of Redbull and AlphaTauri’s power unit supplier Honda and is a potential candidate for a driver seat in AlphaTauri for the 2021 Formula 1 Season. The Japanese is hopeful to cover the 300KM that is a requirement that would qualify him to take part in a Friday Practice Session. If he is to undergo the test, there are only four races remaining in the 2020 F1 Season where he could take part in the Free Practice. The 20-year-old is currenly ranking third in the 2020 Formula 2 Season which has only two rounds to go and his position guarantees him the Super Licence that is required for any driver to race in Formula 1. “My main priority is to do those 300 kilometres,” Tsunoda said on Wednesday as he had a seat fitting at the Alpha Tauri factory in preparation for the test, which will come at the wheel of the 2018 Toro Rosso car. “I don’t want to crash or go off the track because the more mileage I do, the more I can understand the car, so I will take it easy. “But I am confident that I can do it and I will drive the way I normally do. I will focus on my job while enjoying my first day in a Formula 1 car. “I am sure I will be very excited when I’m sitting in the car waiting for the green light at the end of the pit lane.” The AlphaTauri team has said they are planning to run Yuki Tsunoda in the young driver test after the end of the 2020 F1 season which will be finalised in Abu Dhabi. Tsunoda was considered close to a certainty to take the AlphaTauri seat that is currently occupied by Daniil Kvyat until Honda announced that they will be quitting Formula 1 at the end of the 2021 season. The General Manager of Honda Motorsports, Masashi Yamamoto during the last weekend’s Eifel Grand Prix said that he did not believe that Honda’s decision would have any impact on whether Tsunoda would graduate from Formula 2 to Formula 1 in 2021. “Red Bull don’t just let anyone drive their cars,” Yamamoto said of Alpha Tauri’s owners. “I think they will be evaluating him strictly as a junior driver and also it depends on his Formula 2 results as well. But we’d like to back him up where we can.”

Redbull said that they could consider Hulkenberg as a driver option for the team in 2021, they revealed that they even spoke to the German about driving at the Nurburgring. All this was amidst the inconclusive Corona virus test that Alex Albon had undergone before the Eifel Grand Prix, the redbull motorsport advisor, Helmut Marko said that he had a talk with Hulkenberg about a possibility to be a stand in for Albon if the Covid-19 tests turned out to be positive. In the end, Albon’s test came out negative before Hulkenberg was coincidentally called by Racing Point the following day to replace Lance Stroll who was not feeling well. As Helmut Marko was being interviewed at Sport 1, he said, “We were already in talks with Hulkenberg on Friday, because Albon, like many others, had an inconclusive test result. “It could have turned out to be positive. Right after landing I called Hulkenberg, because our suspected case was Albon. But thank god it turned out that Albon was negative after all.” The revelation about Hulkenberg comes in the wake of renewed speculation about Albon’s long-term future at Red Bull in the wake of what many felt was a disappointing outing at the Eifel Grand Prix for the Thai driver. His afternoon was derailed by a major lock-up on the first lap which prompted an early change for tyres. Later on he got a penalty for his part in an incident with Daniil Kvyat before eventually retiring after a stone pierced a radiator on his car. Red Bull is much more relaxed about Albon’s form though, and believes he has the potential to be as close to Verstappen as it wants him to be. However, Marko admits that the team needs Albon to perform at his best and, if not, then the obvious options for the team are Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez. “We can call the names that are available on the market,” said Marko. “This is Hulkenberg and this is Perez. The question is how far away they would be from Max? “We have comparisons with [Daniel] Ricciardo and we can draw conclusions about where the drivers stand. I don’t think that anyone would get closer than three tenths. “On good days, Albon is also able to create this proximity to Max. Albon is young, but we are aware that if he can’t stand the pressure, we can’t afford to be standing on one leg when it comes to the world championship. That is the situation. “It is actually impossible for a world championship if you only have one car in the action. But we are not there yet. “The performance [of Albon] at the Nurburgring was satisfactory. That’s just the situation.” While Red Bull has previously been resolute that its preference is to promote drivers from within its own junior programme, Marko says the situation is different now. For while Yuki Tsunoda is impressing in F2, Marko thinks it is too early to promote him straight to Red Bull, so he would be better off at AlphaTauri. “Up to now we have always recruited our drivers from our own junior squad. But there’s nobody here at the moment,” added Marko. “We do have a Japanese who is very fast, but this would be his first year. And to put him in a top team like Red Bull Racing for the first year would risk burning him out. We are not planning to do that.” “So we would have to go the way most other teams do, to rely on proven drivers.” Marko said Red Bull wants to make a decision about its line-up by the Turkish Grand Prix in November, with the ball in Albon’s court. “We are actually already clear about three positions,” said Marko, in reference to the likelihood of Tsunoda stepping up with AlphaTauri alongside Pierre Gasly. “We want to make the fourth one by Istanbul in mid-November at the latest.” Asked what factors would drive the final decision, Marko said: “Primarily it is the performance of Albon. As long as he is in the green zone, there is simply no cockpit available.” Marko was full of praise for the job that Hulkenberg did at the Nurburgring, when the German finished eighth despite not having driven the car before qualifying. “I think the worst thing that can happen to a driver is to get into a car for qualifying,” he said. “You have to take into account that he knows the Racing Point from his previous races, but it was certainly a very difficult situation. “He gradually improved during the race, did nothing stupid and drove the car to a commanding eighth place. We followed the times. At times [Pierre] Gasly and [Daniil] Kvyat were also close to him. “Then I saw that he was gradually getting closer to Perez’s times. Hats off. A great performance.” Marko also revealed that Red Bull has been in regular contact with Hulkenberg for several months, but not about a race seat just yet. “We are in talks with Hulkenberg, for example, as a television commentator and expert for ServusTV. After all, we have the rights for Austria next year, alternating with ORF. These are the first talks.”