Carlos Sainz Jr says McLaren’s incoming managing director Andreas Seidl has made a “very good” first impression and is “impatient” to start working at the Formula 1 team. McLaren has recruited the ex-Porcsche LMP1 boss to complete the management overhaul it hopes will lead it to the front of the F1 grid again. Seidl will

Robert Kubica believes Williams’s slump to the back of the Formula 1 grid is not a “one-man issue”, even though chief technical officer Paddy Lowe is leaving the team. Lowe joined Williams from Mercedes early in 2017 but the two cars designed and built under his technical leadership have been the slowest on the grid.

Antonio Giovinazzi says his experienced Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team-mate Kimi Raikkonen reminds him of his own final season in European Formula 3 in 2015. Raikkonen, the 2007 world champion, joined Alfa Romeo from Ferrari on a two-year deal, and is currently contesting his 17th season in grand prix racing, while Giovinazzi’s prior F1 record

George Russell says it is understandable under-pressure Red Bull juniors drive at “120%” given the programme’s “cut-throat” history, but believes fellow Formula 1 rookie Alex Albon can thrive this year. Red Bull dropped Albon in 2012 but managed to extract the British-born Thai from a Nissan Formula E contract last year so it could re-hire

Ferrari must ensure its Formula 1 team boss Mattia Binotto is not overwhelmed by his responsibilities and consider recruiting a secondary figure to help deal with politics, says Gerhard Berger. Binotto was previously Ferrari’s technical director but replaced Maurizio Arrivabene as team head at the start of this year. Ferrari was seen as the benchmark

Autosport readers have their own say in our Formula 1 driver ratings after each race, and so far in 2019 it’s not looking good for Sebastian Vettel and Pierre Gasly. While Lewis Hamilton took the lead from Valtteri Bottas in both the actual F1 world championship and the Autosport readers’ table following the Chinese Grand

Daniel Ricciardo believes short-term judgements on Formula 1 drivers’ form are like questioning the quality of a footballer on a brief goalless streak. A combination of terrible luck during his final season with Red Bull and his new Renault team’s lack of competitiveness means it is almost one year since Ricciardo scored a podium in

Pierre Gasly’s efforts to show more speed at Red Bull are being hindered by his style not totally suiting the team’s 2019 Formula 1 car, says boss Christian Horner. Toro Rosso graduate Gasly has had a difficult start to the F1 season, but managed to score his best result of the season with sixth place

The Williams Formula 1 team must outdevelop its rivals at “double or triple the rate” to make up for its current disadvantage, George Russell believes. Williams’s drivers Russell and Robert Kubica have qualified and finished at the back of the pack so far this season, well adrift of the other nine teams except when rivals

Former Formula 1 driver Gerhard Berger believes Ferrari is wrong to favour Sebastian Vettel over Charles Leclerc so early in the 2019 season. Team boss Mattia Binotto has made it clear since testing that Vettel would have priority in any “50/50” situation because his experience as a four-time world champion means that Vettel is the

Max Verstappen hopes Red Bull will be ready to challenge Formula 1 rivals Mercedes and Ferrari at all tracks from the halfway point of the 2019 season. Red Bull’s start to the season was made challenging by an inability to fully understand its chassis after Pierre Gasly’s pre-season crash and has admitted engine partner Honda

Sebastian Vettel believes Ferrari faces a vital few weeks in which it must establish how to develop its car over the middle part of the 2019 Formula 1 season. Ferrari emerged from pre-season testing with an apparent edge over Mercedes but has been muted in the first three grands prix, while its rival has claimed

Mercedes has revealed that original idea for the stacked pitstop for Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton in the Chinese Grand Prix came from its Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff. A strategy headache had been caused by Red Bull pitting Max Verstappen for the second time and raising the possibility of Verstappen undercutting the leading cars.

Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari is yet to achieve its “full potential” at any point so far in the 2019 Formula 1 season. Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas outpaced the Ferraris throughout the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, making Mercedes the first team to start a season with three one-two finishes since Williams in 1992. The world

Ferrari hopes Alfa Romeo will switch to new control electronics as soon as possible following the failures that have hit Charles Leclerc and Antonio Giovinazzi in successive Formula 1 races. Leclerc lost a certain victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix on only his second start for Ferrari when a short circuit within an injection system

Formula 1 is holding exploratory talks with government officials from six Chinese cities over the prospect of adding a street race to the calendar. F1 owner Liberty Media has ambitions to add another F1 race in China to complement the current race at Shanghai. Speaking at last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, commercial chief Sean Bratches

Sebastian Vettel believes his Ferrari Formula 1 team has been a victim of “poor journalism” and is unhappy with how comments about team orders have been used by the media. Under new team principal Mattia Binotto, Ferrari has attempted to set a clear policy on team orders after suffering from indecision in recent seasons. Binotto

Christian Horner believes his Red Bull team made a step forward in understanding its chassis in Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix, but that top speed is now its main weakness. Red Bull struggled to find a good balance in its car in both Australia and Bahrain before a breakthrough in the post-Bahrain Grand Prix test

Ferrari’s Chinese Grand Prix team orders failed to stop Mercedes claiming a third-straight one-two finish, and sparked debate about how it is handling new recruit Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel. Two weeks after Leclerc was robbed of Bahrain GP victory, in China he was ordered to let Vettel past early on. That forced Ferrari to

Valtteri Bottas admitted he felt doomed to defeat when Mercedes ‘double stacked’ its Formula 1 cars in the Chinese Grand Prix pitstops, but now accepts it was the best call. Mercedes opted to give both drivers a second pitstop with 20 laps to go at Shanghai after Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel had pitted over

Ferrari chief Mattia Binotto has admitted it was “difficult” to order Charles Leclerc to move aside for his Formula 1 team-mate Sebastian Vettel during the Chinese Grand Prix. Leclerc passed Vettel at the start but appeared to be struggling slightly more with his tyres than his four-time world champion team-mate, who he was eventually told

Daniil Kvyat believes the Chinese Grand Prix Formula 1 stewards accepted they were too harsh with his punishment for colliding with McLaren drivers Carlos Sainz Jr and Lando Norris. Toro Rosso racer Kvyat was given a drivethrough penalty and two penalty points on his licence for the opening lap incident at Shanghai. Both Kvyat and

Nico Hulkenberg’s retirement from Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix was caused by an issue related to Renault’s new specification MGU-K. Renault was forced to produce a new spec MGU-K after McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jr suffered a failure in the Australian GP. The Spaniard had the new unit for Bahrain, but the works team stuck with

Alex Albon was pleased to be named Formula 1’s ‘driver of the day’ for his Chinese Grand Prix charge from the pitlane, because he was “maybe worst driver” of Saturday. The F1 rookie crashed his Toro Rosso in final practice and missed qualifying because his team had to change his survival cell, consigning him to

In a perfect four-wheel drift, Charles Leclerc slides his kart at speed around a tight hairpin bend. With his fingertips, the Ferrari driver beautifully balances his steering with throttle inputs. Everything seems ordinary until you look at the surface he’s driving on. It’s a sheet of ice. Wearing his now familiar scarlet Ferrari overalls, the

Alfa Romeo driver Kimi Raikkonen suspects that Formula 1 becoming “more of a hobby” for him is what has made it “more fun again”. The 2007 world champion has joined Alfa, which is run by the Sauber organisation that gave the Finn his F1 debut back in 2001, after Ferrari opted to replace him with

Toto Wolff says the changes Mercedes had to make to its new front wing before practice for Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix did have an aerodynamic impact on its car. Mercedes brought a modified front wing to Shanghai, featuring a different cut endplate to produce a curved trailing edge. The aim of this was to

Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari will be very competitive at this weekend’s Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix. Leclerc’s hopes for a maiden GP win were dashed a fortnight ago in Bahrain, when an electrical problem caused him to lose the lead, but he hopes victory will be his in Shanghai. Speaking at a PR event organised

Mercedes was asked to modify its new front wing for the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix following an FIA technical directive. The team’s new wing was seen for the first time on Thursday, featuring a reworked, shorter endplate. This endplate exposed the profile of the uppermost element, aiming to strengthen the outwash effect produced by

The Haas Formula 1 team is confident an overnight fix ahead of Chinese Grand Prix qualifying will address the front wing failures it has suffered on two consecutive Fridays. Romain Grosjean had a failure in FP1 in Bahrain the team originally believed to be one-off, but the Frenchman suffered a similar breakage during second practice