Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Fans have been given the chance to design Valtteri Bottas’s crash helmet for the 2018 Formula 1 season. The Mercedes team said the winning design, which will be selected by Bottas personally, will be used for the “majority” of grands prix

Mercedes will back Lewis Hamilton in the 2018 Formula 1 championship fight, according to his former title rival Felipe Massa. Hamilton clinched his fourth world championship last year, fending off Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel with Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas 58 points adrift. Mercedes operates a policy of letting its drivers race, but Massa, who was narrowly

Esteban Ocon says Mercedes is happy with the progress he made during his first full year in Formula 1 with Force India. Ocon, who was voted number five in Autosport’s team principals’ top 10 drivers poll, finished eighth in the standings, one place and 13 points behind team-mate Sergio Perez. The Mercedes junior saw the

Upgrade for free today You have 10 articles remaining to view this month. Renault admits it “played with fire” by chasing extra performance from its 2017 Formula 1 engine through the season, at the expense of reliability. Red Bull won three races with Renault power in 2017, but all three Renault-engined F1 teams suffered persistent

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Williams performance chief Rob Smedley says Felipe Massa could not have ended his Formula 1 career any better than with his two strong races in Brazil and Abu Dhabi. Massa enjoyed tussles with his former Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso in both

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ferrari had a disastrous start to the 1.6-litre V6 turbo era in 2014, but hit back the following season with Sebastian Vettel winning three races in the Ferrari SF15-T. Born into Ferrari’s latest era of revolving-door management and patchy performance, the

Lewis Hamilton says a winter meeting with Toto Wolff ahead of the 2017 Formula 1 season was “really important” to reset their relationship following Nico Rosberg’s departure from Mercedes. Internal relations became highly strained as Hamilton’s F1 title battles with Rosberg from 2014-16 became affected by various controversies relating to on-track collisions, off-track behaviour and

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Michael Schumacher had spent four seasons with Ferrari when he finally won his first Formula 1 drivers’ title for the team in the F1-2000. This was the car that started five years of supremacy for Ferrari, which won the drivers’ and

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Haas probably hurt itself in the 2017 Formula 1 season by switching focus to its ’18 car too early, team principal Gunther Steiner has admitted. At the championship’s halfway point, Haas sat seventh in the constructors’ standings – four points behind

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Honda will have its current Formula 1 engine available as a back-up if there are problems with its 2018 specification. Honda completed a major revamp of its engine design over the 2016-17 winter, but a problem with the oil system put

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Max Verstappen upped his game during the 2017 Formula 1 season, particularly in qualifying, according to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. Verstappen finished 32 points adrift of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo in 2017, but scored more wins (2-1) and had the

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The Ferrari 641 was not only arguably one of the most beautiful Ferrari Formula 1 cars, but it also came so close to taking Alain Prost to the world championship. During McLaren-Honda’s dominant seasons from 1988-1991, no car pushed it harder

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton expects title rival Sebastian Vettel to return “all guns blazing” in 2018, having learned from his major errors during their 2017 championship battle. Vettel led the points standings for 12 straight races at the start

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ferrari lost one legend after the 1977 season when Niki Lauda left for Brabham, but gained a new one for the following year in Gilles Villeneuve. Driving the Ferrari 312T3, Villeneuve won his first grand prix on home soil in Canada

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton says the French Grand Prix’s long-awaited return would be better if it was at Magny-Cours, not Paul Ricard. The French GP will return after a nine-year absence when it takes place at Paul Ricard on

Pascal Wehrlein reckons his best race performances of the 2017 Formula 1 season were overlooked because Sauber was so far behind by then. Wehrlein scored all five of Sauber’s 2017 points via eighth place in the Spanish Grand Prix and 10th in Azerbaijan, but has lost his seat to Formula 2 champion Charles Leclerc for

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Red Bull chief Christian Horner says his Formula 1 team has suffered its worst season with engine reliability since 2006. A string of Renault failures blighted its 2017 campaign, with Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo unable to mount a title challenge.

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The Ferrari 156 ‘sharknose’ was the first Ferrari Formula 1 car to win the constructors’ championship – and its first rear-engined success story. It also carried Phil Hill to the 1961 title after the death of team-mate Wolfgang von Trips in

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Haas has proved new Formula 1 teams need not be an “embarrassment” in the first two seasons, reckons team principal Gunther Steiner. The previous generation of new F1 entrants had all fared badly, with 2010 incomers Lotus/Caterham, Virgin/Marussia/Manor and HRT all

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Fernando Alonso felt humiliated at the start of the 2017 Formula 1 season when he realised Honda had gone backwards over the winter, according to McLaren racing director Eric Boullier. After its abject first season back with Honda in 2015, McLaren

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The Ferrari 500 carried Alberto Ascari to the marque’s first Formula 1 drivers’ title in 1952, although it was actually a Formula 2 car. This makes it a key car in Ferrari’s journey to becoming the most successful constructor in F1

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Lance Stroll believes he has answered his critics by finishing his Formula 1 rookie season with a podium and 40 world championship points. The Williams driver, who graduated to F1 after winning the Formula 3 European championship, had a tough start

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. World champion Lewis Hamilton has described the 2017 Mercedes as “the toughest” to understand of Formula 1 cars he has driven during his grand prix career. Hamilton broke Michael Schumacher’s F1 pole position record with the Mercedes W08, and won nine

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Stoffel Vandoorne admits the early part of his 2017 Formula 1 season “wasn’t good enough” as he struggled to get up to speed amid McLaren-Honda’s reliability problems. After a decorated junior single-seater career, including the 2015 GP2 title and a successful

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Felipe Massa says Formula 1 ended its era of “grandmother” driving with its 2017 cars, which he likened to the 2006-08 V8-powered machines in which he was most successful. Massa won 11 grands prix for Ferrari between 2006-8, but ended his

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. It’s interesting to see the FIA is taking a stand on what constitutes an aerodynamic advantage by tackling the lowering of the front ride height with steering lock in Formula 1. The FIA is using a 5mm change from lock to

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Mercedes aimed to produce what it has described as “a 90% car” for the 2017 Formula 1 season, as it was the first year of a new set of technical regulations. The dominant team of the V6 hybrid engine era managed

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Valtteri Bottas admits he must be more consistently competitive to be able to take on Mercedes Formula 1 team-mate Lewis Hamilton and challenge for the world championship. The Finn scored the third victory of his first season with Mercedes in the

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ferrari’s 2018 Formula 1 car has successfully passed its FIA frontal crash tests, and is believed to be the first new model to do so. The car, known internally as the 669, passed the tests at the FIA-approved CSI facility at

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The aftermath of his controversial collision with Lewis Hamilton in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was Sebastian Vettel’s “worst feeling” of the 2017 Formula 1 season. Vettel was penalised and widely condemned for deliberately driving into Hamilton’s Mercedes as they prepared for