FIA president Jean Todt has asked Formula 1 bosses to consider whether refuelling should return from 2021 to help improve the spectacle. Motor racing’s governing body is working with teams and Formula 1 owners Liberty Media on a raft of new rules for the 2021 season, designed to simplify cars while also making the racing
Month: July 2019
Daniel Ricciardo says the Renault engine which expired in Formula 1 British Grand Prix FP2 was a high-mileage, older-spec unit which was reserved solely for Friday running. He was forced to park up at the Maggotts section in the closing stages of Friday’s second practice at Silverstone when his car shut down. Ricciardo, who claimed
The architect of Bentley’s 2003 Le Mans 24 Hours victory and its current GT3 programme will retire at the end of this month. Brian Gush is stepping down from the position of director of motorsport he has held since the beginning of the programme that climaxed with Le Mans victory for Tom Kristensen, Rinaldo Capello
LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow claims the 2019 MotoGP title fight “finished four races ago” in favour of Marc Marquez, who he says is riding ‘better than ever’ this year. Marquez was near-untouchable in the first half of the season as, apart from crashing out from a dominant lead at Austin, he finished every other
Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams has rubbished talk of tension with Robert Kubica and dismissed rumours that he may not see out the season. As well as Williams facing competitive struggles, which prompted the departure of technical chief Paddy Lowe, Kubica has struggled to match the impressive pace of teammate George Russell. The disparity
A new statement attributed to Rich Energy CEO William Storey has blasted the company’s own communication in a fresh twist to the Haas Formula 1 team’s title sponsor saga. On Wednesday, a Tweet emerged from the energy drink’s account announcing that it had terminated its deal with Haas due to “poor performance”. The post added
Charles Leclerc says he is happy to race aggressively like how Max Verstappen won the Austrian Grand Prix if their controversial incident is consistently viewed as acceptable in Formula 1. Leclerc lost the first victory of his F1 career when Verstappen passed him late on at the Red Bull Ring – a move that triggered
Andrea Dovizioso says Ducati will be more competitive in the coming MotoGP races, but says this still won’t be enough to “even start thinking” about challenging championship leader Marc Marquez. After finishing fourth in the Dutch TT at Assen, Dovizioso could manage no better than fifth in Sunday’s German Grand Prix, behind factory teammate Danilo
McLaren has completely eliminated its infamous “matrix” management structure and will have a traditional Formula 1 leadership arrangement under new team principal Andreas Seidl. The British team adopted the aerospace-inspired matrix set-up in Ron Dennis’s time, with McLaren’s former CEO Martin Whitmarsh the architect. It avoided the traditional divisions of responsibility in the racing team
Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi says he can’t blame his age for his recent MotoGP slump, pointing out he was “already old” last year when he finished second at the Sachsenring. Rossi struggled to a disappointing eighth place in last weekend’s German Grand Prix from 11th on the grid, while factory Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales finished
Rich Energy has announced that it has terminated its title sponsorship contract with the Haas Formula 1 team, citing “poor performance”. In a statement posted on Twitter on Wednesday, the drinks company also claimed that the “politics and PC attitude” of F1 is “inhibiting our business”. A Haas spokesman declined to comment when asked to
Over the last few seasons, McLaren has struggled to haul its way up Formula 1’s competitive order, but a change to its fortunes has taken place in 2019. Currently standing on top of the ever-tight battle for supremacy within the midfield, McLaren has made a number of changes behind closed doors to its team framework,
Honda team boss Alberto Puig has hit out at comments made by Ducati which suggested the Japanese marque has only built its MotoGP challenger for Marc Marquez. Marquez has won five of the last six premier class titles aboard the RC213V, and is well on course for his sixth in 2019 after a fifth victory
M-Sport team principal Richard Millener says this weekend’s Rally Estonia will be the first real test of the firm’s all-new Ford Fiesta R5. Eric Camilli drove the Fiesta as a course car on the Ypres Rally in Belgium last month, but there were no official times to gauge the Frenchman’s progress. Finn Teemu Suninen –
Moto2 frontrunner Brad Binder will make the step up to MotoGP in 2020, after signing a one-year deal with KTM to join the satellite Tech3 team alongside Miguel Oliveira. Binder made his grand prix debut in 2011 in Moto3 having won a race in the KTM-backed Red Bull Rookies Cup, before winning the lightweight class
Renault Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo says rival team McLaren currently has “the kind of package that we’re looking for”. Renault hoped its French GP update package would leave the RS19 as the clear fourth-fastest car in F1, but this has not materialised, and its showing at the Red Bull Ring – with both cars
Eight-time Ski World Cup winner and Olympic gold medallist Marcel Hirscher tested KTM’s MotoGP bike at the Red Bull Ring on Tuesday. Hirscher has won the Downhill Ski World Cup slalom title eight times and seven gold medals in the World Championships, as well as two gold medals in slalom and the combined categories at
The controversial Formula 1 DRS zone that included the first two sweeps of the Silverstone circuit has been dropped for this year’s British Grand Prix. Silverstone will return to having just two areas where drivers can activate the drag reduction system, after an experimental addition of a third zone last year from the exit of
Ferrari recently tried and failed to get Formula 1 to revert to 2018-specification Pirelli tyres in a bid to close Mercedes’ advantage this season. Ferrari pushed for the switch in the middle of a disappointing and so far winless 2019 campaign, suggesting that the change was for the good of the championship in a year
Spire Motorsports Chevrolet driver Justin Haley says his shock NASCAR Cup Series win at Daytona would likely not have happened without the red flag that ultimately ended the race. Part-time Cup driver and Xfinity regular Haley won the Daytona race, having run as low as 27th, following a pile-up that caused more than 20 cars
Five-time MotoGP race winner and current World Superbike rider Marco Melandri will retire from motorcycle racing at the end of the 2019 season. Melandri announcement he had made the decision, which will bring down the curtain on a career that also yielded a 250cc title and 22 World Superbike victories, in a press conference in
McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andreas Seidl says the championship’s incoming budget cap is “the only way” his outfit can fight with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull again. The British team has not won a race since 2012, its last championship success was Lewis Hamilton’s inaugural title in 2008 and it has undergone a major
WRC Promoter managing director Oliver Ciesla says the Kenyan Motor Sports Federation’s 2019 Safari Rally was worthy of the event’s return to the World Rally Championship for ’20. Last weekend’s candidate event reportedly ran without any safety issues and, pending an FIA report from the governing body’s WRC manager Andrew Wheatley and safety delegate Michele
WRC Promoter managing director Oliver Ciesla says the Kenyan Motor Sports Federation’s 2019 Safari Rally was worthy of the event’s return to the World Rally Championship for ’20. Last weekend’s candidate event reportedly ran without any safety issues and, pending an FIA report from the governing body’s WRC manager Andrew Wheatley and safety delegate Michele
Petronas Yamaha MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo says his early German Grand Prix crash was down to “hesitation” over whether to try to overtake Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci. Quartararo had a strong launch off the line from second on the grid at the Sachsenring led into Turn 1, but he was out-braked by Marc Marquez and then
McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andreas Seidl targeted the development of a new windtunnel “from day one” of his new role. Ex-Porsche LMP1 head Seidl joined McLaren at the start of May and the team’s commitment to building a new windtunnel was announced less than two months later. McLaren currently uses Toyota’s facility in Cologne
Robert Wickens will drive an Acura NSX equipped with hand controls at this weekend’s IndyCar round at Toronto, with modifications made by his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team’s partner Arrow Electronics. It will be the first time the 30-year-old Canadian has driven in public – he will lead the parade lap before the IndyCar race –
Justin Haley’s against-the-odds NASCAR Cup Series victory at Daytona last weekend became embroiled in controversy on social media, despite it being a proper underdog success story. Jim Utter says only NASCAR could be handed the opportunity to champion one of the things it craves the most, yet allow it to become entangled in ill-feeling. An
Pierre Gasly is still yet to overcome a difficult start to life at Red Bull’s senior team after nine grands prix at the start of the 2019 Formula 1 season. Gasly has only beaten Max Verstappen once in qualifying so far this year, and finished the most recent race in Austria a lap down on
Formula 1 teams are not equipped for the championship to revive a tyre war and believe it would be worse for racing than having a single supplier. F1 has had one tyre supplier since 2007, with Pirelli taking over the responsibility from Bridgestone from 2011. Pirelli’s F1 era has been dominated by a demand for,