Racetrackmasters

Toto Wolff has doubled down on his claim that Red Bull has raced ahead of Mercedes due in large part to engine power gains. Honda took fresh engines to Paul Ricard, prompting Mercedes boss Wolff to observe that it explains why Red Bull has now put its nose ahead in 2021. Christian Horner hit back, with the Red Bull chief pointing out that engine development is actually tightly restricted at present. Wolff, though, says Honda has still managed to improve. “You can do that if you increase the durability, then you can perhaps get more performance out of it even if you have almost the same hardware,” he is quoted by Speed Week. “They have clearly made a big leap – bigger than we did. You can see it on the straights already. There is no passing them at the moment.” Another theory is that while Red Bull is charging ahead for the 2021 title with full focus, Wolff has decided developing the all-new 2022 car is even more important. When asked if winning the title in 2021 or the three seasons after that is more important, the Austrian insisted: “They are all equally important to me. “But you have to consider that the 2022 regulations will remain in place for a few years, so the steps we take for that now are enormously stronger than the same effort with the current car,” he admitted. So for the short term at least, beginning at Red Bull’s own circuit in Austria this weekend and next, Wolff admits Mercedes is no longer the favourite. “I have no illusions,” he said. “With the current package that Red Bull has with the power and the good chassis, they are very difficult to beat.”

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen sent a statement in the final practice at Paul Ricard, finishing seven tenths clear at the top of the timesheet in France. The World Championship leader pumped in a 1:31.300 in the final quarter of the session to sit well ahead of nearest rival Valtteri Bottas in P2; a still out-of-sorts Hamilton finished down in P5 with both Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez able to be quicker. Elsewhere, McLaren and Alpine look to be best prepared of the rest as both of their cars finished inside the top 10. With quite a lot of cloud cover hovering above the Paul Ricard circuit, track temperature was some 10 degrees lower than what the drivers were having to face on Friday. However, as the track light went green, there was no immediate rush from anyone to head out there and take full advantage of the cooler conditions. It took all of 11 minutes for the first driver to appear on track and took all of 25 minutes for the track action to properly heat up with the first collection of hot laps. After their first attempts, it was Verstappen who held the early advantage with a 1:32.337 but he was just 0.009 seconds ahead of Bottas. The Dutchman wasn’t particularly happy with his lap, though, calling his first effort “sh*t”. Both drivers kept the same red soft tyres strapped on for a second hot lap attempt and both found improvement. Bottas retook top spot with a 1:32.309 and Verstappen found an extra three tenths on that time – but he exceeded track limits at Turn 6 and had that lap deleted by the FIA. Meanwhile, Hamilton found himself a little cut adrift from the P1 as he found himself 0.358 seconds off the pace with 25 minutes of the session remaining. Some minor repair work was needed to the underside of his car before he headed back out for another push lap. There was minor improvement from Hamilton, but it was nothing to trouble Bottas at the top of the timesheet as there was still a two-tenth gap in play. Bottas, meanwhile scrubbed his latest effort after going off the track at Turn 2. Hamilton began to fall back down the timesheet as both Sainz and Perez managed to sandwich the two Mercedes drivers. However, it wasn’t long before Verstappen was making everyone standing up and take notice as he shot to the top of timesheet by seven tenths. Message sent. Hamilton had zero response to that eye-catching lap from Verstappen, 1.2 seconds slower on his follow-up effort, and neither did anyone else for that matter. Advantage Red Bull it seems, heading into qualifying… FP3 timesheet1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:31.300 11 laps2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 0.747s 143 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 0.895s 174 Sergio Perez Red Bull 0.938s 155 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 0.966s 156 Lando Norris McLaren 1.036s 147 Fernando Alonso Alpine 1.324s 158 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1.381s 169 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 1.407s 1610 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 1.459s 1411 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1.520s 1512 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing 1.717s 1713 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1.751s 1514 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 1.900s 1815 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo Racing 2.028s 1616 George Russell Williams 2.064s 1617 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 2.124s 1718 Nicholas Latifi Williams 2.284s 1619 Mick Schumacher Haas 2.843s 1420 Nikita Mazepin Haas 3.342s 13

FIA race director Michael Masi has rejected requests from Formula 1 teams to remove the controversial exit kerbs at Turn 2 at the French Grand Prix. Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly broke car parts on the yellow ‘sausage kerbs’ that line the outside of the exit kerb at the second corner. They are designed to prevent drivers exceeding track limits on the exit of a high-speed corner where there is time to be gained and were in place at the previous French GP in 2019. “Those yellow rumble strips at Turn 2 have done an awful lot of damage to our car,” Mercedes team manager Ron Meadows reported to Masi during FP1. “They’re just too aggressive.” After being told the kerbs were the same ones in place two years ago at Paul Ricard, Meadows replied: “All I’m telling you is our car’s rooted because we went over them. “And we can’t say ‘you shouldn’t go there’ because that’s tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage by going three feet too wide.” Meadows’ Red Bull counterpart Jonathan Wheatley communicated a similar concern after Verstappen broke a front wing endplate on the kerb. Having previously requested to Masi that the part be recovered, Wheatley radioed to report: “We’ve just done a shed-load of damage to our car and pretty sure Max didn’t end up there on purpose. “It just seems to be such a huge penalty for a minor indiscretion on the drivers’ part. “I was wondering whether you would consider, I don’t know, removing half of them. “It just seems the penalty for going wide is about £100,000.” Masi said he would take a look at the issue after Friday practice but has decided not to accept the request to make a change. The kerbs are still in place and in the same design ahead of final practice. As mentioned before, they were not new for this event, and furthermore teams and drivers have been calling for hard methods of policing track limits after various complaints earlier this season. Elsewhere on the circuit, the Turn 6 right-hander that leads onto the back straight has a specific track limits instruction for the rest of the event. Leaving the track there will invalidate a lap in FP3 and qualifying, and will be part of a driver’s tally counted during the race that could lead to a penalty. Exceeding track limits at Turns 1-5, the exit of Turn 6, and the Turn 8-9 chicane on the back straight in the race will be noted and if a driver does it three times, across any combination of those corners, he will be shown a black-and-white flag – with any further track limits abuse referred to the stewards.

Fourteen drivers start the Grand Prix at Paul Ricard with a fresh gearbox in the back of the car. This includes Perez, Verstappen and also Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas, unlike his teammate, will not start with a new gearbox. This is because he already had to change his earlier in the season after the crash at Imola with George Russell. After every six Grand Prix that a driver gets through without changing a gearbox, he will be allowed to do so without getting penalised. As the 2021 French GP is the seventh Grand Prix of the 2021 season, several drivers can use a new gearbox.

The fall-out from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has continued into the next round in France, with all 20 drivers boycotting a meeting with Pirelli. That was first reported by leading Dutch outlet De Telegraaf, who say they have had several paddock insiders confirm to them that a proposed meeting between Pirelli and the drivers did not go ahead as they refused to turn up. This was later confirmed by Sky F1 during their live Friday practice broadcast from Paul Ricard. The aftermath of the two huge high-speed crashes for Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll during the race has turned into a complex blame game. Red Bull and Aston Martin have both insisted they were not at fault for the tyre blow-outs that ultimately caused the crashes, but Pirelli say, while not breaking any rules, the two respective teams did run lower tyre pressures than expected in Baku. Max Verstappen in particular was very critical of Pirelli during his media duties ahead of the French Grand Prix, but Pirelli boss Mario Isola has continued to offer an olive branch to him if he wants to talk further about it. “I understand that Max is angry,” Isola said in France. “But he also knows that I’m always available for questions.” In an attempt to avoid a similar incident at Paul Ricard, Pirelli have raised the minimum pressure levels again by a further two psi. “We can’t do much more,” Isola added. “We know that teams are going to run with lower pressures, so this is the only solution. “We haven’t said that these teams are doing something that is against the rules. But when we see that the tyres worked in a certain way, this means that the teams have found a way to achieve this. “How they did it, you’ll need to ask them.” But, when Verstappen was asked, the response is still a defiant one. “Our team complied with all the tyre pressure requirements,” Verstappen insisted. “They say they have no way to monitor pressures during the race, but we gave them our data. “If their instructions are incorrect, we can’t do anything about that. We go to the limits of course, but Pirelli can’t blame us for that. “Just like Aston Martin, we didn’t do anything wrong.”

During the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, both Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll experienced a tyre blowout on the long straight. Pirelli have faced their fair share of criticism for the incident, and it’s a topic that remains a talking point in the French Grand Prix paddock. McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl is disappointed about the lack of transparency. Ahead of the race this weekend, Pirelli published an updated version of the technical directives regarding the tyres. Seidl suggested that McLaren won’t need to change anything as a result of this because they were already abiding by the regulations. “You need to check on other teams to see what the impact is on these technical directives. On our side, it doesn’t change anything. I think the rules have been clear before, and there’s not something new in this technical directive. It was an interesting week to see the sequence of events, with the technical directive coming out and the carefully worded press releases from Pirelli and the teams,” Seidl told Sky Sports. Whilst Seidl believes this won’t change anything for McLaren, he wishes to see a change in the process following the tyre failure. Seidl hopes for a more transparent process. “What is disappointing to be honest for us is the lack of transparency. We still don’t know exactly what happened. it would help everyone in the paddock if this topic was treated with more transparency. Because in the end, it is a safety-critical topic which is worrying to all of us, especially the drivers. That’s what we are disappointed with,” he added. “Again, we don’t know what other teams did but I can only speak for McLaren. I think the regulations were clear before, and it’s also clear why you get the prescriptions from Pirelli and what you have to do with them in a responsible way as a team. Because we all know sticking to it doesn’t put your drivers at risk. It doesn’t change anything from what we did in the past to what we do now, but it’ll be interesting to see if it affects other teams.”

Mercedes is starting to get a bit nervous according to Helmut Marko. The Germans have already pointed out Red Bull Racing’s rear wing, and they are now targeting Red Bull’s pit stop equipment. Marko is not worried though. The battle for the world championship is far more exciting this season than it has been in recent years as Red Bull Racing finally has a car with which it can attack Mercedes, and that clearly puts pressure on Toto Wolff’s team. Speaking to German RTL Helmut Marko says that Mercedes is not used to that pressure. “Yes, Mercedes is nervous. You can tell by their reaction, but we won’t lower ourselves to their level”, says Marko. ”We focus on the racing, and make sure we are optimally prepared for that.” After the discussion about the rear wing, Mercedes would now like to take a closer look at Red Bull Racing’s pitstop material. Whilst Mercedes lose a lot of time in the pit stop every week, Red Bull is by far the best team in this area. ”Now they also see our pitstop material as illegal, but that’s not based on anything either.” As far as that is concerned, Marko does not want to spend too much time on this war, which he has earlier said hopes will cause Mercedes to lose focus on their own problems. ”We are not concerned with these peripheral issues. The fact that Mercedes is waging this psychological war actually says enough. As Max has said, we prefer to talk at the circuit”, concluded Red Bull’s top man.

French Grand Prix – Valtteri Bottas was the quickest in the opening practice session as Mercedes return to the top of the timesheets. Bottas’ fastest time was set half an hour into the session on the soft compound beating the 1:33.783 set a few seconds earlier by his teammate, Lewis Hamilton. It wasn’t all smooth running for the reigning champions however as there was some costly damage done to Bottas’ car when he went wide in T2 and bounced over the yellow kerbing. Mercedes were heard on the team-to-FIA radio complaining to Race Director, Michael Masi, about the amount of damage done for going such a small distance outside the track limits. Max Verstappen’s best effort saw him 0.432 off the pace of the Mercedes in third with Baku race winner, Sergio Perez, three tenths further back in the second Red Bull car. Esteban Ocon was the highest placed French driver in fifth and it’s a good weekend for him as, aside from this being his home race, Ocon has also just signed a three-year extension with Alpine. Sixth was Daniel Ricciardo for McLaren with a 1:34.644 with Fernando Alonso’s Alpine in seventh. The other home-driver this weekend, Pierre Gasly, posted the eighth fastest time for AlphaTauri, a 1:34.699, with Lando Norris’ best only 0.008 slower. The second AlphaTauri, driven by Yuki Tsunoda, was tenth 1.399 seconds off Bottas. After back-to-back pole positions, it wasn’t a great start for Ferrari with Leclerc and Sainz 1.5 and 1.9 seconds off the pace.There were a few tyre-destroying incidents during the session with Schumacher, Vettel and Sainz all spinning off track and over the brightly coloured, abrasive paint around the circuit. Vettel also lost running time as his spin ended with his Aston Martin rear-ending the barriers and that took time for the team to repair. 2021 F1 FRENCH GRAND PRIX – FREE PRACTICE RESULTS (1) POS DRIVER NAT. TEAM TIME 1 Valtteri Bottas FIN Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team 1m33.448s 2 Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team 1m33.783s 3 Max Verstappen NED Red Bull Racing 1m33.880s 4 Sergio Perez MEX Red Bull Racing 1m34.193s 5 Esteban Ocon FRA Alpine F1 Team 1m34.329s 6 Daniel Ricciardo AUS McLaren F1 Team 1m34.644s 7 Fernando Alonso ESP Alpine F1 Team 1m34.693s 8 Pierre Gasly FRA Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda 1m34.699s 9 Lando Norris GBR McLaren F1 Team 1m34.707s 10 Yuki Tsunoda JPN Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda 1m34.847s 11 Charles Leclerc MON Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow 1m34.950s 12 Antonio Giovinazzi ITA Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen 1m35.116s 13 Kimi Raikkonen FIN Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen 1m35.135s 14 Lance Stroll CAN Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team 1m35.275s 15 Sebastian Vettel GER Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team 1m35.289s 16 Carlos Sainz ESP Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow 1m35.342s 17 Nicholas Latifi CAN Williams Racing 1m35.612s 18 Nikita Mazepin RUS Uralkali Haas F1 Team 1m36.651s 19 Mick Schumacher GER Uralkali Haas F1 Team 1m37.329s 20 Roy Nissany ISR Williams Racing 1m37.881s

Formula 1 championship leader Max Verstappen says he is unconvinced by Pirelli’s explanation into his Baku failure, while rival Lewis Hamilton suggested the tyre supplier was not to blame. Verstappen suffered a left-rear failure at high speed during the closing stages of the race at Baku and was pitched into a heavy collision with the wall. It came in the wake of Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll also suffering a left-rear tyre failure during the race. Pirelli published its own findings on Tuesday in which it outlined that there was a “circumferential break on the inner sidewall, which can be related to the running conditions of the tyre.” Pirelli stressed that the prescribed starting parameters had been followed in both instances. Red Bull and Aston Martin also released separate statements to assert that it had not breached any guidelines. In response Pirelli will implement a new set of protocols, including updated technical directives, ahead of this weekend’s French Grand Prix. Pirelli is due to meet with drivers later on Thursday afternoon before addressing the media. Speaking during the pre-event press conference, on whether he was satisfied with the conclusion, Verstappen said: “Personally not, because for me it was just a bit vague, what came out. “The only thing I can say is from our side the team did everything like they should have done, I mean they followed all the guidelines with tyre pressures and stuff, so there was nothing to be found there. “It would also be nice to just know if it was tyre pressure related… just speak out, I think that would be I think a bit easier to understand than I think the explanation we got so far because the team didn’t do anything wrong.” Verstappen went on to add that “they [Pirelli] cannot put the blame on us, and I think they have to look at themselves” while expecting tyre pressures to be raised for the upcoming event at Paul Ricard. Hamilton, sat alongside his title rival during the press conference, outlined his view that Formula 1’s tyre supplier was not at fault. “For me and for my team there have been clear rules and guidelines as to where we have to operate,” he said. “So I was very surprised, naturally, to see they had to clarify those… which obviously you can take what you want from that. “I’m happy that they have acknowledged that they need to clarify it, and I think what’s really important from now is how they police it, as they’ve not been policing how the tyres are being used, tyre pressures, tyre temperatures, and we need to do better. “It’s great they’ve done a TD, but it’s the action now we need to see them follow through, and be really vigilant, to make sure it’s equal across the field. “The integrity [of the tyres] … wherever there is a failure, they always put the pressures up, so that tells you something. “More often than not the tyres are not running at the pressures that are being asked. “We didn’t have a problem with our tyres, I think they’ve [Pirelli] done a great job with the tyres this year, they’re more robust than before. And in this particular instance I don’t think Pirelli are at fault.”

The 2021 F1 season has been disappointing for Valtteri Bottas so far. He is not only struggling with poor results with Mercedes but also trying to address rumours and questions about George Russell joining Mercedes in 2022 which means the 31-year-old will be left without a seat. The last two race weekends have been very tough for the Finn. In Monaco he had to retire from the race after the front hubcap jammed and failed to come off during a pitstop, Baku was also unforgiving after he finished twelfth. According to Bottas as he tries to explain the mishaps he admits the problems are a result of a combination of many things. In Baku, the Finn admits he struggled to find the right set-up “The direction we took was not ideal. So I hope we can get it right again in France.” Bottas is currently sixth in the championship with just 47 points compared to 101 points for Lewis Hamilton and 105 points for Max Verstappen. Also at the press conference in France, the subject of George Russell quickly comes up. He understands that he can’t stop these kinds of rumours. “It’s always the same speculation, it’s part of the sport,” Bottas said. As such, he is not at all concerned yet with possible other teams he could go to. According to Bottas, no negotiations have started yet and he has not heard anything about a departure from Mercedes. “I can’t confirm that, nobody has told me that. These speculations are not true.” So the rumour machine can keep running for a while in the near future.

Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri will have a brand new Honda engine at their disposal in France, with a new name as well. From now on both cars will feature Honda e:TECHNOLOGY. Honda is in its final year in Formula 1, and hopes to finish with a bang. Red Bull Racing is at the top of the standings, and Max Verstappen is also on top of the drivers’ standings. So there are certainly chances for Honda, especially now that they will present a new engine for the French Grand Prix. It was already known that this engine would be available, and it should provide the drivers of Red Bull and AlphaTauri with more power and reliability. Honda now also announces a new name, and that is Honda e:TECHNOLOGY. With that name, Honda is focusing more on the carbon neutral future and sustainability of motorsports.

It has been announced that BWT will be the title sponsor for the two upcoming races at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. The Austria water company have been in the sport since 2017 when they became Racing Point’s title sponsor, with the team adopting their pink colours. They remained in that position until the end of the 2020 campaign when the team became Aston Martin and the company went from the main sponsor to a Global Partner. Through Sebastian Vettel’s helmet and subtle accents on the green livery, their presence can still be seen on the grid. That presence will be much more prominent when F1 heads to Austria with it being announced that they’re to be the title sponsor for both races there. “We are excited to announce that BWT will be our title sponsor for the Austrian double-header, increasing their already strong presence within the sport,” Ben Pincus, the sport’s Director of Commercial Partnerships, said: “The circuit will be alive with fans against a backdrop of BWT’s pink and will be a bright and vibrant return for F1 in Austria. “Both F1 and BWT’s sustainability agendas are fully aligned on eliminating single-use plastics and we are pleased to be joining forces to use our expertise to tackle the issues important to the communities we visit while promoting the excitement on the track.” Specifically, there will be signs located throughout the circuit that sport the company’s name and colours, with the goal being to spread sustainability messages as part of a wider goal the company and sport have to reduce the use of plastic water bottles. “It is an honour for BWT to be part of the Formula 1 sustainability initiative and to become the Title Sponsor of both Austrian Grands Prix,” said Lutz Hübner, the BWT CMO. “With our unique and patented water treatment technologies, we can help to ‘Change the world, sip by sip’. “Plastic waste, disposable bottles and their worldwide transport, as well as the associated CO2 emissions, must be drastically reduced. “With BWT Bottle Free Zones, we realize this concept now also in cooperation within the F1 community. The joining of forces to increase the awareness as well as to fight for sustainability puts BWT and F1 perfectly together.”