Racetrackmasters

Anticipation continues to grow ahead of Mercedes’ car launch with the team releasing another teaser of the W12. McLaren, AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo and Red Bull have already unveiled their latest creations ahead of the new season, with several teams set to join them in the near future. One of those is Mercedes, with the Silver Arrows taking the cover off their car on March 2. Until then, we have to make due with the pictures the team has released in the lead up to the date.

Fernando Alonso will not be present at the unveiling of the Alpine A521 Formula 1 car when its presented next week. The Spaniard will return to F1 this year following a two-year break which saw him compete at Le Mans, in the World Endurance Championship, Dakar and at the Indy 500. However his pre-season training schedule saw him involved in a road traffic accident earlier this month. He was struck by a car whilst cycling in Switzerland and required surgery to his jaw as a result. The 39-year-old is expected to make a full recovery ahead of the 2021 F1 season, but the team confirmed on Friday that he wouldn’t be taking part in the presentation of the car on March 2 due to his ongoing recovery. “We regret to confirm that Fernando Alonso will not be present for the media Q&A on this occasion,” an Alpine team statement read. “The sanitary situation and corresponding regulations in place do not allow him to do any communications and marketing activities while he undertakes his critical season preparation.” Alonso will partner Esteban Ocon at Alpine for the 2021 season and is set to take part in pre-season testing in mid-March before the first race of the season on March 28.

Alfa Romeo sent their 2021 challenger, the C41, into action for the first time in a filming day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. After officially launching the C41 in Warsaw, Alfa Romeo’s next stop was the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, home of the Spanish Grand Prix, to put together some much-needed data on their new challenger before pre-season testing. Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi will form Alfa’s driver line-up for the third consecutive season, while Robert Kubica is also staying put as reserve and test driver. And the Alfa Romeo crew arrived very early to start their preparations for the test ahead, literally at the crack of dawn. A nice side shot of the C41 displayed Alfa Romeo’s most noticeable livery alterations, with the company branding now swooping across a predominantly white base. Very stylish indeed.

Mika Salo has hit reverse gear after revealing details of Ferrari’s secret engine legality agreement with the FIA. However, the news has long since returned and after a dramatic 2020, Ferrari seem to have been punished enough in principle. The news all came up again though, through a Twitch Livestream in which Mika Salo along with rally driver, Kristian Solberg, spoke about Ferrari’s situation. ”Those teams (customers of Ferrari) have suffered because of Ferrari’s cheating and could use less fuel,” Salo revealed. “I don’t know if they will have a new engine for 2021, but Alfa Romeo will at least now get all of the power in order to use their full potential. They were not allowed to last year because of Ferrari,” he had been quoted as saying. Salo says his widely-reported words were “misunderstood”. “What I said in an interview a couple of days ago has been misunderstood,” he is now quoted by the Finnish broadcaster MTV. “I would like to clarify that I am not aware of the (details of the) agreement between the FIA and Ferrari. We only talked about what has already been in the media. “It was a stupid joke and just a conversation between two guys,” Salo insisted. “All I can say is that I have no idea what any of the agreements are. And even if I did know something, I wouldn’t talk about it out like that,” he added.

Gene Haas says he reversed his decision to sponsor Romain Grosjean in IndyCar this year after the latter’s dramatic crash in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Grosjean miraculously escaped the jaws of death last November when he ploughed into the barrier on the opening lap of the race at Sakhir and managed to free himself from a wreck engulfed in flames, suffering only minor burns to his hands. The Frenchman was sidelined from the remaining two races of the 2020 F1 season, his career as a Grand Prix driver grinding to a premature halt. Grosjean had previously been informed by Haas that he no longer figured in the team’s F1 plans for 2021. But Gene Haas was willing to support Grosjean in his efforts to find an IndyCar ride. However, the F1 team owner backtracked on a prospective deal to sponsor the 34-year-old in the US series after Bahrain, feeling apprehensive about a plan that equated to tempting fate in Haas’ view. “He had asked if we would be willing to sponsor him in IndyCar, and I think at the beginning I was pretty open to it,” Haas told RACER’s Chris Medland. “But then when he crashed in Bahrain, I was just so happy he didn’t kill himself. For someone who has just absolutely destroyed the car, I couldn’t be happier that he survived it. “I don’t know… he has a wife and three kids, and I just told him I couldn’t see giving him money to go out and kill himself. I just felt like he needs to stay home and take care of his family. “He escaped the big one there. If you really understood what happened there… if that car had been a few degrees one way or the other, he wouldn’t have been able to get out through that hoop, and he would have died. So, extremely lucky. “And the team was extremely lucky. I just could not fathom having to face a widow or his kids. I just couldn’t do that. So I said ‘Nah, stay home, I can’t help you there anymore’.” Grosjean will nevertheless be heading west this year to open a new chapter in his motorsport career, having struck a deal to race in IndyCar with Dale Coyne Racing, although the Frenchman won’t be competing on the series’ ovals. Gene Haas respects his former driver’s choice to pursue his career in IndyCar, but the terrifying images of Bahrain still linger. “You know, Grosjean’s a heck of a driver,” Haas added. “He has some really good days when I think he’s probably as good as any driver out there. “He loves driving, and that’s his choice. I just don’t want to be part of the bad choice. I feel as lucky as he is to escape being killed. “That was the luckiest day in the whole Haas F1 saga, that Grosjean managed to survive that, and relatively unscathed. “It wasn’t so terrifying in the fact that he jumped out, but the hoop was stuck between the guardrails. “If that hoop was a little bit smaller then his helmet wouldn’t have fit through it and he would have died. He came very close. “So I’m very happy. That was probably the happiest day in racing, was to see him jump out of that car.”

It’s been a busy few days for Red Bull’s F1 teams, with Red Bull Racing having shaken down their new RB16B at Silverstone on Wednesday – while on the same day, some 1,000 miles away in northern Italy, sister squad AlphaTauri were running their 2021 challenger, the AT02, at Imola. The team’s drivers Pierre Gasly and F1 rookie Yuki Tsunoda were on the ground at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari (to give Imola its proper name) to put the AT02 through its paces, after the car became the second 2021 machine – following on from McLaren’s MCL35M – to break cover on February 19. AlphaTauri used up one of their filming days for the Imola runs, limiting Gasly and Tsunoda to just 100km on demonstration Pirelli rubber – with Tsunoda having already completed a number of days previously in older spec Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri machinery in order to get him up to speed, as he prepares to make his F1 debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 28. For Gasly, meanwhile, 2021 will mark his fifth season of driving cars for the Faenza-based squad, having made his F1 debut with Toro Rosso at the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix. Following on from the shakedown, the next date for AlphaTauri’s diary is March 12-14, when the AT02 will run in anger for the first time at the Bahrain International Circuit, as 2021 pre-season testing gets under way.

Haas did not have an easy year in 2020. After constantly falling back during a race in 2019, the American stable’s car did not progress in qualifying in 2020 either. Gene Haas, the owner of Haas F1 Team however, points to Mercedes as a major problem. While Haas’ debut in Formula 1 was all well and good, the shine has gone off in recent years. The American racing stable is sinking further down the rankings, and where 2019 still had positive points from qualifying, Haas also slipped further down the rankings due to the downsized Ferrari engine in qualifying. ”We have no control over the parts we get from Ferrari. We are confident that Ferrari can solve this problem, and it’s not just Ferrari that has this problem. Everyone is lagging behind the Mercedes engine. They have built an extremely strong engine that other teams can’t come close to”, Gene Haas told Racer. The team owner does not understand why Formula 1 is sticking to this situation. ”In my opinion, this has killed what Formula 1 is all about. More power to Mercedes to dominate the whole sport, but who wants to race when you already know who is going to win every race? That just becomes boring”, the American clearly concludes.

The Hass F1 Team will showcase online the livery of its 2021 VF-21 next week on March 4, while the team will pull the covers off its actual car in the pitlane in Bahrain ahead of the start of pre-season testing. Due to current travel restrictions and quarantine requirements in the UK, Haas has been unable to complete the assembly of its new car with Ferrari, its engine supplier, at its Branbury factory. The team will therefore roll out its VF-21 at Sakhir and formerly present its all-new driver line-up of FIA Formula 2 champion Mick Schumacher and Russian hopeful Nikita Mazepin, while Pietro Fittipaldi will fulfill once again the role of reserve driver. The US outfit’s 2021 charger will be little changed from its predecessor, save for the mandatory aero design changes mandated by this year’s regulations. Haas will hopefully benefit from the input of Ferrari designer Simone Resta who has been dispatched to the US outfit by the Scuderia. However, Resta’s work this season will be mainly directed at next year’s contender when the rules are due to undergo a major overhaul to encourage closer competition.

Aston Martin has opted for a complete renaming of its Formula 1 car for this year, on the back of its rebranding of Racing Point. Although the team is carrying over the RP20 chassis from last year, which helped it to fourth place in the constructors’ championship, it will change the chassis designation of its F1 challenger to the AMR21 for this season. The new car, which will be powered by Mercedes engines again, is being launched in a digital event on 3 March. The AMR21 chassis name comes after Aston Martin’s previous efforts in F1 were with the famous DBR4 in 1959/1960 and the DBR5 in 1960. Aston Martin’s new car will be painted in iconic British racing green colours, with the team having ended a title sponsorship with Austrian water treatment company BWT – which had resulted in the car’s livery being bright pink. With teams forced to carry over a lot of last year’s parts in to this season, no outfit is running with an all-new car for 2021. However, Aston Martin estimates that there will be just 50% carry over from last year’s successful RP20 – with a major focus being on upgrading the aerodynamic elements of the car. Technical director Andrew Green began work on the developments last August, just after the 2020 season began, having also devoted a big effort to introducing some mid-season upgrades. Aston Martin’s return to F1 with a works effort comes off the back of a push to revitalise the British sportscar manufacturer by Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll.

Aston Martin will retain BWT as a sponsor for 2021, continuing the agreement after the team’s rebrand from Racing Point. BWT’s sponsorship of the Racing Point team resulted in one of the most visually distinctive aesthetics in Formula 1, with the team’s cars dubbed the ‘Pink Panthers’ due to their striking colour scheme. Having signed up with the former Force India team in 2017 and through the Racing Point ownership change, BWT’s involvement with the team grew to that of title sponsor in 2020. However, with Lawrence Stroll buying into Aston Martin and securing a naming rights agreement between his two entities, it was expected that BWT and Aston Martin would part ways – Aston have signed new title sponsor in the form of Fortune 500 company Cognizant while, on a superficial level, BWT’s pink branding being completely at odds with Aston’s green base colours. As reported by Decalspotters, BWT negotiated with Williams and Haas regarding sponsorship deals. However, these deals have fallen through and BWT have signed up again with Aston Martin for 2021. Aston Martin launch their new look car on Wednesday, 3rd of March, and the team have already confirmed an ‘all-new base colour’, but the car will now include ‘subtle BWT brand accents as well as BWT brand logos’ on the team’s livery. BWT, which stands for Best Water Technology, say that they will continue to work with the team on helping to reduce the use of disposable water bottles and minimise plastic waste. “As well as success on the track, we will work with Aston Martin to achieve its objectives away from the track by becoming more sustainable.” said BWT CEO Andreas Weissenbacher. “It means continuing the work from last year to cut down the use of disposable bottles at the track, minimise plastic waste and facilitate the local treatment and consumption of water. Additionally, we are looking forward to starting cooperation with more people in the F1 community who are also convinced of our mission to fight for a plastic-free planet and who are ready to spread this mission to people around the globe.” “Our friends at BWT have been loyal supporters of this team and I am delighted they have chosen to be a partner of Aston Martin.” said CEO and Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer. “BWT will support our efforts to become more sustainable in all areas of the business, but especially in our trackside operations – a goal that marries up with Formula One’s own sustainability objectives. This is a strong and historic partnership entering an important new era, and we are all excited to see what we can achieve together.” Aside from the new BWT deal, Aston have also signed new sponsor SentinelOne as their Cybersecurity partner on a multi-year deal. SentinelOne will provide the F1 team with their cybersecurity measures, having won the tender to supply the same to the Aston Martin Lagonda company in 2018. Stroll’s F1 team has also acquired equity in SentinelOne, binding the two companies together in what they say is a ‘game-changing level of technical co-operation’.

It was a sad day at Williams after losing Matt King OBE who was an inspirational team member and Williams’ Legal Counsel. The 33-year-old passed away on Tuesday (23rd February) following a prolonged stay in hospital. Matt was a talented rugby player as a youngster but suffered a serious spinal injury playing for London Broncos Academy as a 17-year-old. The injury left him paralysed from the neck down. His injury led to the creation of the Rugby League Benevolent Fund and Matt, never one to let hardship stop him from achieving his goals, went on to raise tens of thousands of pounds for the charity and other organisations including the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA). This included organising a series of events and activities, including taking part in the 2007 New York Marathon, and for his efforts Matt was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to charity. Matt also became a successful mouth artist, gained a first-class honours law degree and shared his inspirational story as a speaker to businesses, education establishments, and sports team, and as a mentor to other spinal-cord injured individuals. His story was also told in his autobiography 04.04.04 which The Independent described as “the inspirational journey of a truly inspirational man.” It was through Williams’ charity partner the SIA that Matt joined the team in April 2016, initially as part of a work experience programme. He quickly established himself as a key member of the legal team and became a permanent member of staff at Grove in October of the same year. Matt was very well-respected in his field and an absolute pleasure to work with. After being admitted to hospital last October, Matt sadly passed away yesterday morning. He was 33.