| By Ben Anderson and Jonathan Noble | Wednesday, July 2nd 2014, 15:22 GMT |
Red Bull has ruled out switching to any of Renault's rival Formula 1 engine manufacturers because it believes its chances will be limited if it becomes a mere customer team
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| Thursday, July 3rd 2014, 08:42 GMT |
Former Caterham Formula 1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul is returning to Renault as the French manufacturer attempts to turn its F1 engine programme around.
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| By Jonathan Noble | Thursday, July 3rd 2014, 10:47 GMT |
Renault says that Sebastian Vettel's engine problem in Austria was caused by a glitch with the way Formula 1's standard ECU interacted with its own mapping software
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| By Ben Anderson and Jonathan Noble | Wednesday, July 2nd 2014, 09:29 GMT |
Daniel Ricciardo has revealed that Formula 1's drivers made clear their unhappiness at the introduction of standing starts after safety cars in 2015 when consulted by teams.
The decision to force drivers to form up the grid for a restart after caution periods has drawn much criticism since it was approved by teams and the FIA.
And, with Ricciardo questioning both the sporting fairness and safety aspects of it, he says his unease at the move is not unique.
When asked if F1 drivers had been asked for their opinion on the idea and discussed it, he said: "We did, we all pretty much disagreed as far as I am aware.
"I will let the veteran drivers speak their minds. I said I don't think it is the best thing. We will see what other drivers say about it."
Ricciardo thinks both the fairness issues and safety matters are as important as each other in relation to the new rule.
"I don't want to go into it too much, but if you are leading the race by 20 seconds, the safety car comes out and you lose that 20 seconds advantage, then what was looking like an easy victory is still questionable.
"That is already a big disadvantage for the leader who has worked hard to build up that gap.
"To then put him on the start, and anything can happen at the starts, not only an accident, but you get a poor start you can be from first to fourth before Turn 1, it seems harsh on the leader.
"Then what is happening with the tyres? If you cannot change them you will lose a lot of temperature. At first my argument was the big disadvantage for the leader, but the big one that everyone is talking about is safety.
"Starts in F1 are already quite tight a lot of the time and that is with new tyres, and tyre warmers.
"If we have tyres with 20 laps on them or even more, because when there is a lot of rubber that has been taken off the tyres, they don't hold temperature, it will be significantly more difficult."
F1 tyre supplier Pirelli suggested this week that proper research was needed to understand the safety implications of cars starting on used tyres.
| By Ben Anderson | Wednesday, July 2nd 2014, 10:30 GMT |
The McLaren Formula 1 team says it is in no rush to decide whether to retain Jenson Button in its driver line-up for next season.
The 2009 world champion is out of contract with the Woking-based team after this year, but has repeatedly expressed his desire to remain with McLaren for Honda's impending return to the sport in 2015.
The Briton told reporters at the Canadian Grand Prix earlier this month there had been "no progress" on a fresh deal, but reiterated his desire to remain with the team.
Those comments were followed by McLaren Group CEO Ron Dennis telling Sky Sports he wanted to see Button "try harder" in response to the challenge of rookie team-mate Kevin Magnussen, who has outqualified him for four of 2014's eight grands prix so far.
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has recently implemented a major restructure of the team in a bid to return it to winning ways in the longer term, but the Frenchman remained non-committal on Button's future when quizzed by AUTOSPORT.
"It's the question where I cannot say yes and I cannot say no," said Boullier, when asked by AUTOSPORT whether McLaren intended to retain Button for next season.
"We are evaluating strategies and we are lucky to have two drivers who want to commit to us for the future.
"We have contractually some options we can pick up, so we are not in a rush to decide next year or the future driver line-up."
CONFIDENT OF HONDA PROGRESS
Boullier is confident the changes he has made at the team, coupled with a new works engine partnership with Honda for next year, will improve McLaren's prospects by 2015.
"I do have confidence we will have a good car for next year, just because we addressed all the issues internally and I believe we made all the right changes," Boullier added.
"This [the Honda engine deal] is a big project and it takes months, even years, to build up.
"Having a works engine allows you to play with much more channels, data and set-up possibilities than if you have a customer engine.
"So far, everything is in order and matching the path we have until the first race of next year."
| By Jonathan Noble | Wednesday, July 2nd 2014, 11:57 GMT |
Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff thinks Bernie Ecclestone is wrong to let Formula 1 ignore social media for money reasons.
Ecclestone has dismissed the need for F1 to officially embrace the millions of people who use platforms like Twitter and Facebook because he sees no instant profit in it.
But Wolff suggests that grand prix racing is missing out on a potential huge audience, and should be preparing better for when social media does start delivering income.
"I had quite a long row with Bernie in a meeting," said Wolff about Ecclestone's dislike of social media.
"We were talking each other down again and saying, we have lost 30 per cent of TV audience in Italy and we have lost some of the audience in Germany - although interestingly the UK is growing.
"Then you wonder why the audience is not growing and is diminishing if you sell the rights from free TV to pay TV. That is completely normal.
"But the other thing I mentioned was that we are having such an explosive growth in online activities - before Bernie said, 'those guys are not paying and half our profit is TV.'
"Sure the [social media] model does not work yet as you cannot monetise it, but I can tell each of my sponsors that the audience seeing his logo is growing even though TV figures are down.
"Even the big players like Twitter have not worked out how to monetise it, but it is just a matter of time before we do that."
Last month, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo called on Ecclestone to arrange a workshop with F1's key players to work out how it could attract a younger audience.
| By Jonathan Noble | Tuesday, July 1st 2014, 09:12 GMT |
Niki Lauda says 'alarm bells' are ringing at Mercedes over the fact that its Formula 1 rivals have closed down on it in recent races.
Having been totally dominant earlier in the campaign, Mercedes was beaten to the race win in Canada by Red Bull and then lost out on pole position to Williams in Austria.
But despite still appearing to have the fastest car, Mercedes non executive chairman Lauda says the team needs to react to the stronger challenges it has faced.
"The alarm bell is ringing that the competition is coming closer," said Lauda.
"But if the alarm bell rings in time you can do something.
"If you sit back, which we don't try to do, you miss out. So what we have to do is keep developing the car."
NOT HIDING ADVANTAGE
Fernando Alonso, who was the only non-Mercedes powered drivers to finish in the top seven in Austria, suggested after the race that the German car manufacturer has the pace to lap the entire field.
The Spaniard said: "They seem to use the maximum power on a few laps in the race and then they have so much advantage that they play a little bit.
"I closed with [Felipe] Massa at the end and then when I was close I think he pulled away. It was the same with [Lewis] Hamilton on the first lap.
"It is unbelievable the difference between the two cars. If they run with those settings they would lap everyone, but they cannot do it for the whole race."
Lauda sees things very differently though and insists that Mercedes is pushing as hard as it can to maintain its place at the front.
"We were fighting Williams [in Austria] and how far behind were they in the end? Six seconds or something.
"We were going flat out. We were not playing around at the front. They were fighting each other and the Williams was just six seconds away.
"Then look at Nico and Lewis. One would go quicker and then the other would respond, because they are fighting from beginning to end.
"They went full blast from start to finish, like all the other races. The other races we won by 49 seconds, but in Austria it was just six."
| By Jonathan Noble | Tuesday, July 1st 2014, 10:11 GMT |
Formula 1's plan to introduce standing starts after safety car periods for 2015 has become one of more controversial changes to have been agreed by the sport's chiefs.
But despite widespread criticism from fans about the idea, the details of the new regulations have now been officially laid out in the FIA's F1 sporting regulations for next year.
Here is how the new standing start system will work:
The procedure of the safety car will remain the same as it is now until after backmarkers have been allowed to unlap themselves and move to the rear of the field.
Then, when F1's race director deems it is safe enough to call in the safety car, a 'safety car in this lap' message will be displayed on the official notice system.
The safety car will pull into the pits and the cars will carry on for another lap - with the pit exit lights turning red until the whole field has passed the end of the pitlane.
Team personnel who normally sit on the pit wall will have to move to the safety of the garages, with the exception of two people from each outfit.
The drivers will then proceed to the starting grid to stop in their respective positions, and the five-light starting system procedure that is used at the beginning of races now will be run through.
There are circumstances, however, when a standing start will not be used following a safety car.
That will happen if the safety car has been deployed within two laps of the start of the race, of if there are less than five laps of the race remaining.
Furthermore, F1's race director has the right for the race to get going without cars forming up on the grid if he considers 'conditions are unsuitable for a standing restart'.
In those circumstances, the rolling safety car restart where the leader dictates the pace, as has been common in F1 in recent years, will be used.
Also, the rules state that there will be no standing start if the race began under safety car conditions.
| By Jonathan Noble | Tuesday, July 1st 2014, 11:59 GMT |
Felipe Massa is able to perform better than he has for years because the atmosphere at Williams is helping him, reckons Rob Smedley.
The Brazilian claimed his first pole position since 2008 at the Austrian Grand Prix as Williams emerged as the main threat to the dominant Mercedes team.
And having recaptured the kind of form that had been missing in recent years at Ferrari, Smedley is convinced that it is the way the team works with Massa that is having a huge impact.
Smedley, who is Williams' head of vehicle performance, said: "He is slightly more comfortable in himself, comfortable in his surroundings and what that brings out is a more relaxed approach to how he drives.
"Certainly you see him make much fewer mistakes than the last few years. I am sure he feels less pressure.
"There is a great deal of pressure in a team like Ferrari and for a team like Williams there is less.
"That is something that he needed: to get his head above water, and catch his breath. I am massively impressed at the minute."
Smedley also thinks that having escaped the constant pressure that Fernando Alonso puts on his team-mates has been a boost to Massa.
"Fernando is an incredible competitor, really one of the very best drivers of all time I would say," he said.
"Having Fernando Alonso as a team-mate is never easy, as Kimi [Raikkonen] is finding out now, and we all know Kimi is an incredible driver.
"But Fernando just delivers: and it is not weekend in, weekend out, it is session in, session out.
"The guy hardly ever puts a foot wrong and that puts you under pressure because it is normal when you have got to battle against somebody who is so very good that you do feel pressure.
"Here [at Williams] we do have a more equal pairing between the drivers and that has helped Felipe to relax a little bit and relax into his role."
| By Jonathan Noble | Friday, June 27th 2014, 14:27 GMT |
Mercedes' Niki Lauda has brushed off suggestions that Lewis Hamilton is cracking under the pressure of an intense Formula 1 title fight after another costly qualifying mistake in Austria
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