Racetrackmasters

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.”

Former world champion Fernando Alonso had his first test outing with the Renault team as he will be racing for them in 2021 after making a Formula 1 return with the team on Tuesday. This outing was the first for him in F1 since the Mclaren outing in Bahrain back in April 2019. After the test Fernando Alonso went ahead to say that the R.S20 was outperforming at the moment. This was after he drove for 100 Kilometres with the R.S20 model in what was classed as a promotional event. He also conceded that it will take time to adjust to the car’s braking and cornering performance levels after racing in other categories. “It has been a very good day in Barcelona, our filming day,” he said in a video interview. “Only 100kms, but for me they were very special, getting back to an F1 car and to the team. “The feeling was good. I think the car is obviously outperforming me at the moment, because I cannot extract the maximum from the car. “Getting back to the F1 speed is not so easy. I was improving lap after lap, and trying to give feedback to the engineers. Also we had some filming to do, so there were cameras, there were drones following on track. S o it was hard pressure, hard work today. “I think the car has potential, as we see every weekend. But still some room to improve, as we know, and we’ll try to do it in the shorter term.” Alonso said he had no concerns about dialling himself in. “The last three cars I drove were the Dakar in January, Indycar in August, and now the F1, so they cannot be more separated, each of the three! “With the F1 it’s a little bit easier, because it’s the thing that I’ve been driving all my life, and after 18 years in F1 and now getting back, it’s true you are missing a little bit the braking points, how quick all the corners arrive, braking performance, cornering speed performance, so there are many things that I need to get used to again. “But it will take a shorter period of time than getting used to a completely new thing, for example Dakar and Indy.” Alonso also admitted that he had to work on his physical condition as he prepares for 2021. “There are many things to get ready. First will be the fitness – you have to be back in shape, you have to train for F1 standards, the neck, especially all this part of the body, the upper part, will need to be reinforced and worked on in the next couple of months. “The neck is OK after 100kms, but I will tell you tomorrow! Maybe a little bit of pain. So far it has been good, but I know that I need to keep working. “Then preparations in terms of comfort, seat fitting, the steering wheel, pedal positions, there are many things we need to go through. And also the engineers, trying to have a good relationship, a good connection, that we understand each other even just looking at each other. “All those kinds of things, we will need a bit of time. We are using this part of 2020 and also the winter of next year to build the momentum.” Alonso is already embedded in the Renault team on race weekends, albeit in virtual form. “Of course I watch all the races from home. I have also a nice set-up, I have a computer that the team gave to me a couple of weeks ago, so I can follow Esteban’s on-board camera, Daniel’s on-board camera as well, I can follow the radio communications from the team, the debriefs, the strategy meetings. “So I know what is happening every weekend. The results are getting better. The podium in the last race was I think a very deserved podium finally, for the hard work.” Asked about prospects for next year he repeated his earlier assertion that, he doesn’t expect a big change in the status quo, and that his real ambitions lie with 2022, and the new regulations. “We all have high hopes inside the team, looking at the team’s progress in the championship, and the positions on the weekends. At the same time we also have to have the feet on the ground, knowing the regulations will be more or less the same until 2022. “We know that the deficit the midfield teams have this year will carry on next year. With the feet on the ground and a lot of positive energy and optimism for next year I think we have a great team, talented people in the team, great sponsors, a lot of fans around the world. I think we have all the ingredients to do a good 2021.”

Lando Norris’ race retirement due to engine failure was an exact copy of the same problem that saw his teammate Carlos Sainz retire in Belgium before the start of the Spa race. Norris had been contending for a podium finish at the Nurburgring in the Sunday’s race but he encountered problem as his MCL35 suffered a power loss. The team tried countless efforts to help Norris over the team radio to override the system shutdowns to counter the issue but it was of no help as the British driver’s pace began to fade away as he came to a halt eventually. His Mclaren was spotted with a smoking bodywork as the extent of internal damage became very obvious. Mclaren boss, Andreas Seidl said that the problem was the same as the ignition fault that Carlos Sainz encountered before the beginning of the Belgian Grand Prix which saw him retire from the race. “It looks like the same issue that we experienced in Spa on Carlos’s side,” Seidl said. “So what happens here in the end is that there’s an issue on the ignition side, which is causing unburned fuel going into the exhaust. And then it goes ‘kaput’. Seidl insisted that the Renault engineers had tried to assist Norris to override the problem, but in the end there is nothing more they could do. “We tried to get out of this, let’s say, protection mode the engine goes in when having such an issue. But unfortunately, it wasn’t possible because the problem was constantly there then.” “Obviously it was very disappointing because we were with Lando in a very good position in the race. He was running with P4 on a different strategy compared to Daniel [Ricciardo], and he was actually catching him.” “So it would have been interesting how that would have played out with the different tyre life towards the end of the race. So very disappointed by that, because it was good to see that he had good pace in the race to fight with our main competitors.” Renault team principal, Cyril Abiteboul said he would prioritise the efforts to see that they got to the bottom of the issue that Mclaren suffered, as the works team are in a close competition with Mclaren for the third place in the Constructors Championship. “Given the situation with McLaren at the end of our contract, the very tight championship position, we need to be beyond any reasonable doubt in relation to that,” Abiteboul said. “So from Monday, the team in Viry will be on that. And the team in Enstone equally needs to be on the hydraulic problems that we had on Esteban Ocon’s car, because that reliability is what’s going to determine the championship order on the evening of Abu Dhabi.”

Redbull Racing driver, Alexander Albon had run-ins with the AlphaTauri drivers, Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat during the Eifel Grand Prix. Albon did not get a good race experience at the Nurburgring on Sunday. This was after he dropped to the seventh place in the opening stages of the race despite starting at the fifth position. The Thai also pitted very early and came back through the field but was stuck behind his former teammates Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat. At first he damaged the tyres of his RB16 when he locked up trying to pass Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri AT01 while they were approaching the first corner forcing the Italian Grand Prix winner off the track. Albon later tried to overtake Kvyat in the other AlphaTauri and it seemed like he had accomplished the move when Kvyat ran deep in the final chicane, only for Albon to pull up along his line ripping off his front wing. This move earned Albon a five-second penalty which was implemented when he pit to change his flat-spotted tyres sustained after the contact with Gasly. The puncture was not as simple as it seemed, because it was later found out by his team that his side pods had collected debris from the contact with Kvyat and had punctured his radiator in the process. This saw him retire from the race and had to watch his teammate, Verstappen as he took another podium finish after he finished the race second. “The pace in the car was good today so it’s a shame to have a result like this and not see where we could have finished the race. I had a lock-up avoiding contact on the first lap which meant I had to pit really early because I had severe vibrations from a flat spot on the tyre,” Albon said. “I don’t really know what happened with Daniil and I need to watch it back. I think he may have run a little wide into the chicane when we did the re-start and I guess it was a bit of misjudgment from my side.” “After that, the team saw the temperatures rising and I was asked to box and then retire the car. It initially looked like a power unit issue from the data but the team investigated and found that some debris had pierced the radiator system which led to the rising temperatures,” the Thai added. “It is definitely not the way I wanted to end the weekend as the car felt good, but onwards and upwards and I’m looking forward to Portimao in a few weeks’ time.”

Fernando Alonso is set to make his first run in Formula 1 since his return to Renault Formula 1 team when he will be testin in Barcelona on Tuesday. The former Formula one champion will be driving the current Renault R.S in the test that will be classified as a promotional filming day, and 100 Kilometres of driving will be allowed. The team has however not officialy announced the test. Cyril Abiteboul, the team principal was asked on the matter after the Eifel Grand Prix and he said that he couldn’t confirm or deny the test on Alonso was happening. A spokesperson for the Barcelona circuit had confirmed that on Tuesday they will have activity on their track and that their client was confidential. It’s not known whether the team will also take an older 2018 car, which will not be subject to any mileage restrictions, following the strategy used by AlphaTauri at Imola earlier this year. Renault has such a car ready to go, as it ran Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon in a two-day test in Austria before the start of the season. Although he wouldn’t confirm the test, Abiteboul said that Alonso has been following the progress of the team closely, and sent messages during the Nurburgring weekend, suggesting it was a sign of the Spaniard’s commitment to the project. Alonso has been getting up to speed in recent weeks by spending time at the Renault factory in Enstone, working with the engineers. “We received a message before, during and after the race,” said Abiteboul. “You would be impressed to measure his level of interest. And I think that when he initially joined the team, and in his communication when we announced him, it was very much about 2022. “And the more the season is going and with the team’s progression, the car progression, the more he starts to be interested in 2021. I think Fernando is like a big shark. And as soon as he starts to feel the blood he wants to attack. That’s what I see – I see a shark very hungry.”