Alpine has brought a number of development pieces to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, though itâs unclear how many of the new parts may have been damaged in Pierre Gaslyâs fiery stoppage during practice.
The Alpine A523 is sporting an upgrade package comprising a new floor as well as new front and rear suspension that the team hopes will haul it closer to Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin. Itâs also equipped with circuit-specific low-drag front and rear wings designed to tackle the high-speed Baku straights.
Speaking before the practice hour, Alpine technical director Matt Harman said the floor represented a significant step forward in the teamâs thinking about its aerodynamic concept.
Continue reading on RACERFormula 1 has a new sprint round format on trial this weekend in Baku, and predictions are for chaos through the tight and twisty streets.
Max Verstappen has reiterated a threat to walk away from Formula 1 if it continues to put what he considers to be business priorities ahead of sport.
This weekendâs Azerbaijan Grand Prix is the first of six sprint rounds this season but the first run to an altered format, with the shortened Saturday race getting its own qualifying session and standing alone from the main event on Sunday.
Verstappen stirred controversy at the Australian Grand Prix when asked about the changes, telling Portuguese TV that he âwonât be around for too longâ if the sport continues tinkering with its weekend format and increasing the number of events in a season.
Continue reading on RACERFernando Alonso says heâs been enjoying being âactive and ironicâ on social media amid online gossip that heâs in a relationship with Taylor Swift.
The internet has been ablaze with unverified rumours that the two-time champion has been dating the 12-time Grammy winner. Rather than ignore or rebuff the rumours, Alonso took to social media to post a video of himself winking at the camera to the backing track of Swiftâs song Karma and with the caption ârace week era,â an apparent reference to the singerâs Eras tour.
Asked about how he had reacted to the sudden boom in international interest, Alonso said he took it as a sign that the sport was able to attract new fans if it played its cards right online.
Yuki Tsunoda said news of Franz Tostâs intention to quit his team principal role at the end of the year surprised him despite long-running rumours of impending changes at AlphaTauri.
AlphaTauri announced this week that Tost would be stepping down at the end of the season and would be replaced by current Ferrari racing and sporting director Laurent Mekies, while ex-FIA secretary general Peter Bayer would take over as team CEO.
Rumours of changes to Red Bull-backed team have been rife since the death of company founder CEO Dietrich Mateschitz late last year, with some speculating the team could be moved to the UK to cut costs or be sold completely. Instead it appears Red Bull is satisfied to have restructured the teamâs management for the medium term.
Continue reading on RACERCharles Leclerc has been reassured by Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur that the teamâs recovery is still on track despite racing director Laurent Mekiesâs impending departure and rumours linking him to Mercedes.
AlphaTauri announced this week that Mekies would replace Franz Tost as team principal at Faenza from next season. Itâs the third significant departure from the team in the last six months.
Former principal Mattia Binotto left at the end of last season and chassis head David Sanchez will defect to McLaren for 2024 after a period of leave. Several other personnel of lesser profiles have also reportedly left the team since the end of last yearâs campaign.
Williams rookie Logan Sargeant thinks his recent Formula 2 experience could give him a leg up in Formula 1âs new condensed sprint format.
The F2 weekend format offers far less time for practice than F1âs usual schedule, with drivers allowed only 45 minutes of free running on Friday compared to the three hours ordinarily afforded to their premier-class counterparts across two days.
Qualifying usually follows around two hours later on the same day rather than the next afternoon, with Saturday reserved for the sprint race and Sunday comprising the longer feature race.
Continue reading on RACERFeaturing Matt Clayton, freelance motorsport journalist and In the Fast Lane host. Max Verstappen wins easily in Baku to extend his title lead after another DNF cruels Charles Leclercâs championship chances.
Two-time Formula 1 champion, 14-time Grand Prix winner and double Indianapolis 500 victor Emerson Fittipaldi joins us to discuss his trailblazing move from Brazil to Europe in the late 60s, the tragic and dramatic story behind his maiden F1 win in 1970, his influence on the establishment of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the Fittipaldi motorsport dynasty and the 2022 F1 season, while we wrap up last Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku won by Max Verstappen.
We play our own original game ‘Well Done or Not Well Done’ but immediately forget the rules. Ferrari is no good and we forget to talk about Max Verstappen.
Max Verstappen empathized with title rival Charles Leclercâs crippling run of engine failures but says that his team has done a better job of improving his carâs reliability.
Verstappen opened the season with two engine failures in the first three rounds and has suffered a variety of more minor technical niggles throughout his campaign, but heâs yet to finish off the podium when heâs seen the flag, collecting five victories and a third place.
Leclerc, on the other hand, has seen his rock-solid early-season reliability melt away, with two engine retirements of his own in the last three weekends as well as a strategy misstep that cost him victory in Monaco.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton says heâs never experienced as much pain while driving in Formula 1 as he did during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, thanks to his Mercedes carâs aggressive bouncing.
All teams have had to deal with either aerodynamic porpoising or their cars bottoming out along Bakuâs 1.4-mile straight, but Mercedes suffered most thank to the W13 already being predisposed to the bouncing.
The team clarified during the weekend that in Baku it wasnât suffering from the same porpoising that afflicted it before the Spanish Grand Prix; instead the car was scraping along the track on the straights because it needs to be run extremely close to the ground to generate performance.
Continue reading on RACERCharles Leclerc has called for Ferrari to ensure its double DNF in Azerbaijan isnât repeated this season after taking a massive hit to his title campaign.
Leclercâs power unit blew in a plume of smoke on the front straight on lap 20, forcing his retirement. Teammate Carlos Sainz had stopped with an engine hydraulics leak just 11 laps early, cementing a shocking day at the office for the Italian team.
The double retirement facilitated an easy Red Bull Racing one-two finish with Max Verstappen in the lead, consolidating a 21-point title lead ahead of teammate Sergio Perez. Red Bull Racing also widened its lead over Ferrari in the constructors standings to 80 points.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen has blown open his championship lead with a comfortable victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after both Ferrari drivers retired with mechanical failures.
The race was bubbling into a strategic thriller, with pole-getter Charles Leclerc having made an early pit stop during a virtual safety car on lap 9. The track-wide caution was triggered by Carlos Sainz, whose power unit suffered a hydraulic failure that forced him to park up in the run-off area at Turn 4.
Sergio Perez, having jumped Leclerc for the lead on the first lap, stayed out ahead of teammate Verstappen for a more conventional one-stop strategy that would have squeezed the Monegasque at the end of the race. But the tactics never had a chance to play out, with Leclercâs power unit popping in the final sector after just 20 laps, forcing him into a costly retirement, his second in three races after the Spanish Grand Prix.
Continue reading on RACERGeorge Russell has doubled down on his calls for Formula 1 to address the âsafety limitationâ in its new-design 2022 cars, declaring itâs only a matter of time before the chassis bouncing phenomenon, also known as porpoising, results in a significant crash.
Russell spoke out on Friday against the physical toll the bouncing was taking on drivers in Baku, where the long front straight is triggering the phenomenon for virtually all teams to varying extents, more severely than at any circuit this season so far.
Mercedes is arguably the worst affected, with the car intermittently scraping along the ground down the straight as well as moving up and down on its suspension. But after qualifying sixth and 1.3s off the pace on Saturday, Russell said the experience of the car on the limit was so extreme that a crash owing to the bouncing was inevitable.
Continue reading on RACERSergio Perez was in a pole-getting mood on Saturday afternoon in Baku but was left to lament a fuel problem that left the Red Bull driver unable to compete with Ferrariâs Charles Leclerc.
Perez and Leclerc had traded quickest time throughout practice and qualifying in Azerbaijan, and the pole shootout was set to go down to the wire when Red Bull Racing realized it had under-fueled the Mexicanâs car ahead of the final runs. It meant Perez had to be held in his garage for refueling, and by the time he rejoined the track, he had lost touch with the pack and had to set his lap without the benefit of the powerful slipstream down 1.4-mile straight.
Ultimately missing out to Leclerc by 0.282s, the Mexican was left to wonder what could have been partway through a particularly competitive weekend.
Continue reading on RACERCharles Leclerc claimed his fourth pole position in a row by dominating qualifying at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Ferrari held a provisional front-row lockout, but with Carlos Sainz leading a slightly scrappy Leclerc, the drivers battling with grip on a cooling track fast approaching sunset.
Sainz was first out among the front-runners for the second runs, but it was the Spaniardâs turn to struggle, and after some snaps of oversteer in the first few corners, his pole challenge was as good as over at the end of the first split.
Continue reading on RACERFerrari boss Mattia Binotto says Formula 1 must work more closely with its new race directors to accelerate their improvement after they were parachuted into the role at the start of the season.
Eduardo Freitas and Niels Wittich are sharing the race directorship this year after the FIA restructured race control in the wake of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix scandal that saw the world title decided after some controversial decisions from then race boss Michael Masi.
An internal investigation found Masi was overworked in the role and lacked support. Doubling up the number of race directors is one of the governing bodyâs responses to the findings.
Continue reading on RACER