Racetrackmasters

Haas Formula 1 driver Kevin Magnussen is set for a switch to sportscar racing in 2021, driving for Chip Ganassi Racing’s revived IMSA team. The 28-year-old Dane will be one of the full-time drivers in Ganassi’s single Cadillac DPi-V.R entry in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, a program confirmed last week. Magnussen’s future has been the subject of much speculation since he announced his departure from the Haas F1 team last month and his father Jan Magnussen, the former sportscar ace who manages his son’s career, advised him to seek opportunities within IndyCar and WEC. However, with WEC set for a ‘transition year’ as the first Hypercars are introduced, Magnussen was unlikely to find a particularly appealing opportunity on the European sportscar scene. Meanwhile, although it’s understood that he approached all but one of the IndyCar teams that still had a seat available in October, most owners were seeking a driver who could bring money. That left Magnussen without an obvious option since his personal sponsor Jack & Jones – a Danish clothing company – has a negligible footprint in the USA, and its Canadian parent company Bestseller filed for bankruptcy this past summer. But the seven-year F1 veteran’s approach to Chip Ganassi led to talks regarding the team’s IMSA program, which lay dormant this year following the end of the highly successful partnership with Ford in the GT Le Mans class. Jan Magnussen did not respond to Motorsport.com’s attempts to confirm this news. Kevin Magnussen, the 2013 Formula Renault 3.5 Series champion, made his F1 debut for McLaren in 2014, scoring second place on his debut in the Australian Grand Prix. He would score 11 more top-10 finishes that season and take 11th in the drivers’ championship. However, the team made him reserve driver in 2015 when it signed Fernando Alonso, and at year’s end he was released. Magnussen then spent a season at the struggling Renault team before being hired by the one-year-old Haas squad in 2017, his highlight being ninth in the championship the following year. Since Wayne Taylor Racing elected to clean house regarding driver line-up as it switches from Cadillac to Acura for next year, it means WTR’s 2020 full-timers Ryan Briscoe and Renger van der Zande became available to partner Magnussen. Despite Briscoe’s seven-year association with Ganassi – three in IndyCar, four in sportscar –Motorsport.com is given to understand that van der Zande will be confirmed as the second full-timer in the Ganassi Cadillac. The 34-year-old Dutchman helped drive the WTR Cadillac to two Rolex 24 and two Petit Le Mans triumphs. Ganassi’s six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon is set to join Magnussen and Van der Zande for IMSA’s four endurance rounds – the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, Sebring 12 Hours, Watkins Glen 6 Hours and Petit Le Mans.

Daniel Ricciardo insists he’s “fired up” to help Renault put right its double DNF from last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix at the Sakhir circuit this weekend. Bahrain marks the start of the final run-in to the end of the 2020 season, with just three of the 17 races remaining. Renault was on course to secure a double points finish at the 2019 event, only for both Ricciardo and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg to retire simultaneously just a few laps from the end of the race. Ricciardo, who acknowledged his recent unblemished record in Bahrain, feels there is “unfinished business” for Renault to address. “The Sakhir circuit in Bahrain is a good one, I’ve always enjoyed racing there and night sessions are always fun to take part in,” Ricciardo said. “In recent years, I haven’t had the best results in Bahrain, but I’m looking to set that right this weekend. “I’m feeling much more on top of the car since we were last in Bahrain, so I think we should be in a good place. We also have a bit of unfinished business there after last season, so I’m pretty hungry and fired up.” Ricciardo’s current Renault team-mate Esteban Ocon is targeting a points finish a difficult run of form, with three retirements out of the last six races. The Frenchman, who will partner double world champion Fernando Alonso when Ricciardo leaves to join McLaren in 2021, believes luck has evaded him of late but is eager to perform this weekend. “I’m definitely feeling motivated after what happened at the last two races” Ocon said. “I’ve said it doesn’t feel like we have too much luck on our side of the garage, but I believe it’s in our own hands to turn that around. “There’s not much time to feel sorry for ourselves, so I’m determined to have a solid weekend and take some big points at a strategic time of the season.” Renault lost ground to its main rivals McLaren and Racing Point in the battle for third in the constructors’ championship after scoring just one point at the Turkish Grand Prix. The Enstone-based outfit has slipped to fifth in the standings, 13 points adrift of fourth-placed McLaren, with Racing Point a further five points clear in P3.

Roy Nissany will be back in action for Williams at the Bahrain Grand Prix, putting in the laps in FP1. The 25-year-old Israeli driver will replace George Russell in the weekend’s opening practice session. Nissany has already had two Friday practices with Williams, driving the FW42 in Spain and again in Italy. “Bahrain is a very special track for me, driving a Formula One car around it for the first time means a lot,” he said. “It is always a great opportunity to develop on such a technical and demanding track.” Nissany will swap from Formula 1 to Formula 2 over the course of the weekend as he contests the final two rounds of the F2 season with Trident Racing. He is currently P19 in the championship having scored five points. He will also drive the FW43 in the post-season Abu Dhabi test next month, taking up the driving duties along with reserve driver Jack Aitken. Williams said in its statement that the team is looking ‘forward to hearing Roy’s feedback on how the car has changed since his previous outing in Monza, and to his feedback on the test components.’ Williams is the only team yet to score a single point this season. Russell and Nicholas Latifi have both had near misses with P11s with the team hoping to break its duck before the season is over. “I am really looking forward to these final three races, it has been a very intense season and it has absolutely flown by,” said Russell. “Bahrain is a circuit that I always enjoy and is a race that takes place at dusk which is an exciting dynamic to experience again. “There is plenty to look forward to and we want to end this season strong, to be satisfied and pleased with the job we have done before heading into the winter break and 2021.”

Lewis Hamilton is “better than Michael Schumacher”, this was according to the latter seven time world champion’s former Ferrari teammate. Rubens Barrichello was commenting on his former rivals after Mercedes’ Hamilton matched F1 legend Schumacher’s record seven-title tally recently in Turkey. “I have raced against both Lewis and Michael, but I only fought against Lewis at the beginning of his Formula 1 career,” said the 48-year-old Brazilian, who retired with more than 300 grands prix to his name after 2011. “Still, I think Hamilton is better than Schumacher,” Barrichello added. The former Ferrari, Honda and Williams driver was also asked about two-time world champion Fernando Alonso’s return to Formula 1 with Renault-Alpine next year. “I think Fernando is ready for a comeback,” he said. “He looks very fit and I think that’s the biggest difference between him and Michael in 2010. Alonso is better prepared and has also raced in other categories in recent years,” Barrichello added. He even revealed that he was in Barcelona recently when Alonso, 39, got his first taste of Renault’s 2020 car for a filming day. “Honestly, I saw the driver I knew from 2005,” said Barrichello. “He discusses every detail and always looks ahead. I’m convinced that he still has the same will to perform.”

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen has dismissed suggestions that the 2022 Formula 1 regulations are designed to stop Mercedes from dominating and says they “need to make racing more exciting”. In 2022, F1 moves to all-new technical regulations with cars designed to improve the show through a reduction of downforce. The shift from downforce primarily generated by the surface of the car to a more ground-effect driven concept should reduce turbulent air, which has prevented drivers from racing each other closely for a number of years. The technical changes coincide with the introduction of a budget cap and a more equitable prize money structure, as part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the sport to level the playing field. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff argued some of the changes are designed to put the brakes on his team’s crushing display of dominance in the V6 hybrid era, Mercedes scooping up all drivers’ and constructors’ titles since 2014. Wolff said that “everything has been done to stop us”, but that the new 2022 challenge “will motivate” the Brackley outfit to stay on top. Red Bull’s Verstappen, the driver who has been the biggest threat to Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in both 2019 and 2020, refutes Wolff’s claims that the new regulations are designed to stop Mercedes from winning. Verstappen argues that the technical changes are necessary to improve the show. “No, I think those rules are just the result of new owners listening to teams and drivers,” Verstappen said in Turkey when asked about Wolff’s comments by Motorsport.com. “They hear that it is really difficult to overtake and that we want more close racing. “You could see the current issues at Imola for example. Valtteri drove around with a car that was three to four tenths slower because of the damage, but I couldn’t get past him. “Even though I was much faster, you could see that once I did get past him. We have to find a solution for that.” Verstappen has enjoyed the unpredictability of the 2020 MotoGP season and hopes F1’s new rules will make qualifying less decisive in the future. “We need the racing in F1 to be more exciting and drivers to be able to follow other cars more closely and not that qualifying is the deciding factor during a race weekend as it is right now,” the Dutchman added. “Take a look at the MotoGP championship for example. Even if you qualify tenth, you can still win the race. That hardly happens in Formula 1, just because it’s so difficult to follow other cars at most of our circuits. “I think that’s why the new regulations are coming in from 2022 onwards. And whether those new rules will slow Mercedes down or not, you can’t even say that at this moment.”

Renault has fallen a long way behind in Turkey in the battle for third place and now even has to look back, because Ferrari is very close. According to Esteban Ocon, however, the team does not need to worry. The 2020 Formula 1 season is particularly exciting behind Mercedes and Red Bull Racing. There McLaren, Racing Point, Renault, Ferrari and sometimes AlphaTauri are fighting for the points and that results in an exciting championship. However, Renault has been hit hard in Turkey because it only managed to score one point. Because of that one point, Renault is suddenly eighteen points behind Racing Point and thirteen points behind McLaren. In addition, Ferrari has also suddenly come closer and the Italians are only six points behind the French. With three races to go, however, anything is still possible and Ocon thinks that those races are in Renault’s favour. “I think we generally perform very well when it is very hot. Normally we can handle the tyres very well on these kind of heavy circuits, so I am really looking forward to it,” said Esteban Ocon. “The car has always done well this season in these kinds of conditions, so I have no doubt it won’t be good for the weekend either”, added the Frenchman.

Despite the global pandemic that has impacted the lives of so many this year, Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz will likely look back on 2020 as a banner year, at least in terms of his personal finances, thanks to a €343m windfall. The Austrian billionaire and co-founder of the energy drink company is among the happy few who have received a special €550m dividend paid out by Red Bull. According to filings published on Monday by Austria’s market regulator, Red Bull GmbH distributed a €211.4m dividend to the family of Chaleo Yoovidhya, the former Thai duck farmer who invented the company’s energy drink and who died in 2012. But the bulk of the one-off payment was made to Mateschitz, the man who discovered and skilfully marketed through extreme sports – and Formula 1 in particular – the famous beverage, called Krating Daeng in Thai, that gives one’s wings. According to reports, Red Bull sold an estimated 7.5bn cans around the world in 2019. Mateschitz, a former globetrotting marketer who used to sell toothpaste, discovered the energy drink and its benefits on jet-lag in 1984 on a business trip to Thailand, and subsequently acquired an interest in the founding company in 1987. Thirty-three years, many billions of cans and 65 wins in Formula 1 later, the 76-year-old billionaire, worth an estimated $27.5bn, still holds a 49% stake in Red Bull, while another 49% is owned by 11 family members of the late Chaleo Yoovidhya. The remaining 2% is in the hands of Chaleo’s eldest son, Chalerm.