Racetrackmasters

Formula 1 is open to discussing who gets credited with pole position on a weekend in which the format includes a Sprint event, according to F1’s director of motorsport, Ross Brawn. Currently pole position is defined as the driver who qualifies in first place for the grand prix, therefore traditionally it is awarded to the fastest driver in qualifying. However with a new Sprint format trialled last weekend at the British Grand Prix, the winner of the Sprint event was credited with pole. In that case, Max Verstappen was given credit for pole position despite qualifying second, behind Lewis Hamilton, because Verstappen won Sprint and lined up first for Sunday’s main event. Several drivers have called for that to be changed, including Sebastian Vettel who believes it will confuse the history books. “I think that’s wrong,” he said. ‘Pole is the fastest lap time achieved in qualifying, so it gets all a bit confusing.” “Pole position should go to the guy who is fastest on one lap. It’s a new discipline. They didn’t have it 50 years ago and now they have it. So you add a new column to the statistics.” Haas team boss Guenther Steiner agreed: “I think if we go ahead with this sprint qualifying for the future, qualifying should be counted as a qualifying, as a pole position and the sprint qualifying as a sprint qualifying win.” Following the first running of the new format at the weekend, Brawn hailed it as a success, but was asked whether F1 would reconsider how it awards the pole position winner title. “I think that’s a very good point and maybe something we need to think about if there’s some change in the nomenclature of what we’re doing, and should Friday be the pole position?” “It’s things like that we’ll talk about and discuss with the FIA and teams. But we can’t be held back by history, we need to respect history but we must never be held back by history.” That is one of a number of items on Brawn’s “job list” of potential tweaks for the next two Sprint events, which will take place later in the season. “I don’t want to go into detail but we have a job list, things we want to enhance. We will start to work through, we need to engage all the other partners.”

Lewis Hamilton is hopeful that he and Max Verstappen can continue to race wheel-to-wheel in Formula 1 with ‘respect’, despite their clash at the British Grand Prix. For the first time in 2021, the F1’s two title rivals came to blows on the opening lap at Silverstone when Hamilton attempted to overtake Verstappen into the fast right-hander of Copse. Verstappen was sent into the barrier, while Hamilton went on to win his eighth British Grand Prix, even though he had to serve a 10-second time penalty at his pit stop. With tensions likely to be high at next weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, Hamilton a ‘balance’ in terms of space given and respect on track. “I would like to think that we should generally grow and learn from these experiences,” Hamilton said in the post-race press conference. “There’s never a… there’s rarely an incident that’s 100% someone’s fault. It’s always a mixture because there are two people – or more obviously – so I think there’s things that we can both learn. “I would say that Max is probably one of the most aggressive drivers here – just from my personal opinion – he does a great job of course – but I think we have to really try to find the best balance we can on track with space and respect between one another so that we can continue racing and have good races without colliding.” Hamilton believes Verstappen is more aggressive than he was in his McLaren days and the pair’s varying degrees of experience impacts their philosophies when battling wheel-to-wheel. “I would say that Max is probably one of the most aggressive drivers here – just from my personal opinion – he does a great job of course – but I think we have to really try to find the best balance we can on track with space and respect between one another so that we can continue racing and have good races without colliding.” Hamilton believes Verstappen is more aggressive than he was in his McLaren days and the pair’s varying degrees of experience impacts their philosophies when battling wheel-to-wheel. “I think it’s a normal battle,” Hamilton added. “I think I’ve generally… when I was younger, of course, I was probably as aggressive – maybe actually not as aggressive as Max is, but I was pretty aggressive as a youngster – and I think now, I’m a lot older now and I know it’s a marathon not a sprint and so I think I have a better view in how I approach my racing. “But we’re in a battle and I think this year he has been very aggressive and most of the times I’ve had to concede and just avoid incident with him and live to fight on later on in the race. As you saw yesterday, once he’s out in the clear, they’re too fast so when an opportunity comes, I’ve got to try and take it, that’s what we’re out there doing, and racing, and this one moment, I got a great exit out of Turn 7 and I was really happy with the dummy that I was able to go to the left and then go to the inside and get up that gap. “Fortunately he wasn’t able to close it. But unfortunately the aggression stayed from his side and we collided.”

Valtteri Bottas is fighting for his place at Mercedes, but it is starting to look more and more like the German team is going to choose George Russell. While the Finn was mainly linked to Williams, Bottas appears to have had talks with Alfa Romeo. Bottas and Russell will have to fight it out for the second seat at Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton has already extended his contract, but the second seat has yet to be filled. Toto Wolff seemed to hint at Russell’s arrival the other day, and there have been more signs that the Brit will be chosen. This means that Bottas has to find a new place in F1, and because of his ties with Mercedes and his past with the team, a return to Williams was seen as logical. According to information from the usual well-informed Motorsport-total.com Bottas has already held talks with Alfa Romeo. Talks have reportedly taken place between Bottas’ management and team boss Frederic Vasseur. The team boss of the Italian team will be free to choose his drivers from 2022 onwards, and will no longer be bound by drivers from the Ferrari squad. In addition, Kimi Raikkonen will turn 42 years old in October, and his career seems to be coming to an end. Vasseur still has all options open, but the arrival of Bottas would of course be a huge boost for the team. With a possible departure of Kimi, the team would lose a lot of experience, and Bottas could partly fill that gap. The Finn is still very fast in qualifying, and therefore a good match for Antonio Giovinazzi.

Formula One drivers have been reacting to the Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen drama which unfolded on Sunday, as the two championship protagonists went head to head in a heated battle that saw the Dutchman crash out on the very first lap of the British Grand Prix. With Verstappen on pole, Hamilton piled on the pressure for the opening eight corners, trying to find a way around his main title rival, before making contact with the Dutchman at high speed, spearing the Red Bull driver into the barriers at Turn Nine. Subsequently, the British driver was handed a ten-second time penalty, with Red Bull left fuming it should’ve been a more severe punishment after Verstappen was sent to hospital for further checks. The Dutchman was released without any major injuries, however, the fallout seems to have left its mark on the F1 paddock. Asked what the stewards believed Hamilton should have done differently to avoid the incident, Michael Masi replied: “I don’t know that they express a view of what he should have done but having looked at it all, their view was that he was predominantly to blame for that.” Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who finished second, had the best seat in the house, sitting just behind Hamilton as the pair tangled going into Copse, however, couldn’t commit either way as to who was at fault. “It is very difficult to judge it from the car; we are very low,” said Leclerc. “So it’s difficult to see. “Everything went very quick. Obviously, I could see there were quite a bit of things going around in front of me. And yeah, I think it’s a racing incident. “It’s quite difficult to put the blame on one or the other. Obviously, there was space on the inside. Maybe Lewis was not completely at the apex but it’s also true that Max was quite aggressive on the outside. So, things happen. “What is the most important today is that Max is unharmed and is fine.” Daniel Ricciardo, who finished fifth for McLaren on Sunday gave his assessment of the day’s major talking point while watching the replay. “When you’re in such a high-speed corner and just side-by-side, you’re both going to lose aero, particularly Lewis there with Max kind of in a little bit of dirty air,” Ricciardo said. “But I think they were both going in hot. “Ultimately Lewis went in too hot for the given level of grip and that’s where you see [he] just drifted up into Max. “Completely unintentional, but just the nature of the aero on these cars and [you] just have to allow a little more. “But I’m certainly not going to sit here and judge and say he should have done that or that.” Alpine’s Fernando Alonso also gave his view, admitting “Lewis could not disappear” as the two went wheel to wheel. “It’s difficult from the outside,” said Alonso, quoted by The Race. “It looked quite close. Lewis had more than half a car alongside Max,” said the two-time world champion. “So, in a way, Lewis could not disappear from the inside line. It’s not that you can vanish. “It was an unfortunate moment of the race, but nothing intentional or nothing any of the two drivers did wrong in my opinion. “That was an unlucky moment.” Fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jnr, Leclerc’s Ferrari team-mate added: “I obviously had a look at it, and honestly I had a bit of mixed feelings with the accident. First of all, wishing Max a speedy recovery because I heard the crash was quite big,” Sainz told Formula 1. “The accident itself I think is very difficult to judge. Only both know what they could have done differently to avoid the crash. It was very tight, they are obviously fighting for big things and I’d prefer not to judge too much.” Meanwhile, Red Bull test driver Alex Albon admitted “this has been brewing since race one of the championship”. He added: “Part of me thinks Max could have closed [the door] to stop Lewis from ever going into that position, but at the same time…when Lewis overtook Charles, it was a similar position to me, maybe slightly different angles.” Verstappen still leads the driver standings but had a 33-point lead slashed to just eight thanks to the crash. Red Bull’s lead in the Constructors’ Championship also took a beating and was cut from 47 to just four over Mercedes.

Martin Brundle says Red Bull have told him they have data that shows Lewis Hamilton would have run wide at Copse had he not collided with Max Verstappen. But rather than Hamilton’s car entering the gravel on lap one of the British Grand Prix, it was Verstappen’s Red Bull – which did so at high speed and hit the barrier with a 51G impact, putting the Dutchman out of the race and in hospital for precautionary medical checks. Red Bull were furious at Hamilton’s manoeuvre as the two World Championship contenders duelled for the lead, the Mercedes driver ‘dummying’ Verstappen by challenging up the inside only for their wheels to make contact as they turned into the corner at 160mph. After the race was red-flagged, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was straight on the radio to FIA race director Michael Masi, saying: “Every driver who’s driven at this circuit knows you don’t stick a wheel up the inside at Copse.” Although it is unlikely to happen, Sky Sports co-commentator and pundit Brundle thinks Red Bull may feel they have sufficient evidence to lobby the FIA to issue a greater punishment to Hamilton than the 10-second in-race penalty he received, which did not stop him from winning and reducing his World Championship deficit to eight points. “I am told by Red Bull there is data to prove Lewis was significantly faster into Copse than at any other time and he would not have made the corner without running wide, and inevitably contacting Max,” wrote Brundle in his post-race column for Sky. “Presumably, that will be made publicly available and if Red Bull feel they have ‘new evidence’ they may well make an appeal to the FIA as to their perceived degree of fault and leniency regarding Hamilton.” Regarding the protestations by Horner and his Mercedes adversary Toto Wolff, and their respective colleagues, to Masi about the incident during the stoppage, Brundle suspects this new innovation to the broadcast coverage may be reviewed in future with different procedures implemented. “It was a little uncomfortable hearing the Red Bull and Mercedes team managers and team principals endeavouring to influence the situation by lobbying the race director, but that seems to be the communication system in place and which we are broadcasting for the first time this season,” said Brundle. “Michael Masi quite rightly pointed them towards the stewards, and I can imagine a future revision on this process.”

Haas F1’s Mick Schumacher took to the Silverstone Circuit on Tuesday in a specification of the car his father made his Formula 1 debut 30 years prior, the Jordan 191. Schumacher was filming a feature with Sky Sports F1’s Karun Chandhok ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, where his father made his F1 debut in 1991. It’s not the first time Mick has stepped into one of his father’s former F1 cars. At Spa-Francorchamps in 2017, he drove the Benetton B194, the infamous car which secured the first of Michael’s seven World Championships. At the 2019 German Grand Prix and 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix, the 22-year-old demonstrated the Ferrari F2004. Mick is currently in his debut season of F1 with Haas F1 having won the FIA Formula 2 title in 2020. Designed by the well-renowned Gary Anderson, the 191 was the first F1 car for Jordan Grand Prix which was driven by Andrea De Cesaris and Bertrand Gachot. After an altercation with a London taxi driver, Gachot was held in police custody which meant Eddie Jordan had to find a replacement driver ahead of the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix. Jordan approached Schumacher – who was a works Mercedes sportscar driver at the time – to drive the car on the belief the German knew the circuit – which he didn’t. Despite having no track knowledge, Schumacher qualified seventh, but his race would only last just three corners after clutch issues ended his race. Mick drove the No.33 car, which was designated to De Cesaris, as the No.32 car currently resides within the MotorWorld family museum in Cologne.

Helmut Marko has suggested Red Bull Racing have hired a lawyer to investigate the punishment of Lewis Hamilton. Helmut Marko told Austria’s Kronen Zeitung. Marko is still angry after the incident. Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen were in such good shape prior to the British Grand Prix. In both championships they had a large margin, but with the retirement of Verstappen that lead has disappeared completely. Red Bull is now investigating whether a heavier penalty can still be imposed on Hamilton, with the help of a lawyer. ”He [the lawyer] has to investigate what we can do in such a situation within the frameworks of sports law,” the Austrian argues. ”It was fortunate that nothing serious happened to Max. The car, and possibly the engine, are broken. You can’t let that happen. A suspension (for Hamilton) would be justified.” The ten second penalty did not go down well with Marko. “That’s ridiculous, but maybe it’s the fault of the regulations. The regulations need to be reviewed, as well as the stewards’ system. Perez gets two five-second penalties for marginal contact where no one flies off. You could have given a ten-second penalty plus drive-through for Hamilton, but they didn’t.” ”Max was on the racing line where Hamilton was, so he has to get off the gas. You can’t drive into your opponent’s rear wheel in one of the fastest corners. The slightest touch has fatal consequences. It’s an irresponsible action. Hamilton should know what the consequences are”, concludes an angry Marko.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has hit back at Red Bull’s “dirty driving” accusation aimed at Lewis Hamilton following his collision with Formula 1 title rival Max Verstappen at the British Grand Prix. F1 2021’s leading protagonists clashed at the high-speed Copse corner as Hamilton attempted to snatch the lead away from Verstappen on the opening lap of Sunday’s race at Silverstone. Hamilton received a 10-second time penalty for the coming together which left Verstappen requiring a trip to hospital following a 51G impact with the barriers. Speaking to Channel 4 from the pit wall directly after the incident, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner labelled Hamilton’s attempt to pass Verstappen as “desperate” and “dirty driving”. “He failed to make the move in the first part of the lap, and then it was just a desperate move sticking a wheel up the inside which you just don’t do,” Horner said. “Copse is one of the fastest corners in the world, you don’t stick a wheel up the inside. That’s just dirty driving.” Speaking to media after the race, Wolff rejected Horner’s claim, insisting that the relatively few incidents Hamilton has been involved in throughout his career shows he is the opposite of a dirty driver. “I mean everybody has an opinion, and that’s okay,” Wolff said of Horner’s comment. “Of course, every team will have a certain bias towards incidents like that. “When you hear the comments about his driving and the incident, Lewis is the contrary of someone that ever drives dirty,” he added. “I think he’s a sportsman. We have not seen any big incidents with him and that’s why he keeps his demeanour. You saw that the incident wasn’t particularly bothering him.” A furious Horner continued his criticism of Hamilton after the race. Asked if he felt Hamilton had risked a life, Horner replied: “Of course you’re putting your fellow competitors safety at jeopardy. “I think a move at that corner, every grand prix driver knows, is a massive massive risk. You don’t stick a wheel up the inside there without there being huge consequence. “We’re lucky today, after a 51G accident, that there wasn’t someone seriously hurt, and that’s what I’m most angry about is just the lack of judgement and desperation in this move, that thankfully we got away with today. “But had that been an awful lot worse, a 10-second penalty would have looked pretty menial.”

Max Verstappen and his engine survived his 51G crash at the British GP, but the damage to his RB16B will set Red Bull back “three quarters of a million euros”. That’s the estimate from Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko. Verstappen was involved in a high-speed crash at Sunday’s British Grand Prix, hit by Lewis Hamilton as the Mercedes driver tried to take the lead off him into Copse. The Red Bull driver went screaming through the gravel trap, hitting the tyre barrier at 150mph with the impact said to be 51G. He thankfully walked away with nothing more severe than bruises and a sore neck while Honda believe his engine can be salvaged. What won’t buff out, though, is the car. His RB16B was wrecked with Marko estimating the damage to be around 750,000 Euros. “As things stand,” he told RTL, “it is about three quarters of a million euros, although the engine situation is not quite clear yet.” That’s 750,000 Euros that Red Bull will have spend building him a new car, money that the team would have rather sunk into developing this year’s car or designing next year’s all-new Red Bull. Marko added: “Especially in times of the cost cap, it is a significant amount and hurts us.” And that’s not taking into account the financial loss the team could face if his Silverstone DNF is the difference in their battle with Mercedes for the championship titles. The good news, though, is Verstappen is “okay”, suffering with “only a bit of neck pain”. Marko says he will be back in the car come next weekend’s Hungarian GP, just not that car. “Unfortunately not in that car anymore since it’s completely damaged,” he said. “But you will see a very motivated Max in Hungary.” Having arrived at the British Grand Prix with a 32-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship, Verstappen is now just eight points ahead of Hamilton.

Although he believes it was a racing incident, Bernie Ecclestone says the stewards were lenient in handing Lewis Hamilton a 10s time penalty. Over the many years he has been involved in the sport, Bernie Ecclestone has witnessed more than his fair share of controversy. However, while fans of a certain vintage will recall incidents far more controversial – and ultimately tragic – than Sunday’s first lap clash, 24-hour rolling news and social media tend to shine the spotlight of attention far more intensely these days. Asked about Sunday’s clash, former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone believes it was a racing incident. However, in deciding to investigate and apportion blame he believes the stewards should have punished Lewis Hamilton harder than a 10s time penalty. “In the old days we would have said it was one of those things, a racing incident,” he tells the Daily Mail. “It was clear that both were doing their best to win the championship. “If you have to give a sanction, which in some ways they didn’t need to, this was not the right decision,” he adds, “it wasn’t enough. “If the stewards needed to get involved then they should have given Lewis more than a 10-second penalty… it should have been 30 seconds. “Lewis was not in front at the point they collided. It wasn’t his corner,” he insists. “He was almost a car’s length behind. That’s why he hit him at the back not the front. “Ten seconds was not right. The punishment did not fit the crime.”