In the round-up: McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says the team is bringing in Andreas Seidl to ensure it remains focuses on Formula 1 as it diversifies into other forms of motor racing.
What they say
Andreas has an excellent history not only with Porsche but before that working with Sauber and Williams on the BMW side. So he’s someone who’s been around racing a long time has a great pedigree.
When we started going through our changes last year we recognised ultimately you need someone waking up every day solely focused on Formula 1. My role is to look after McLaren Racing and our various racing activities of which Formula 1 is the most important, and then I brought on Gil [in the] middle of the year to assist me with those global efforts until we had identified – and ultimately they have yet to start – people like James Key and Andreas. We all had to jump in and kind of fill that gap until they arrive.
So what I’m looking is for Andreas to lead the team. I think we have a great group. I think the team’s stronger than any one individual. But he, James Key along with the existing organisation will take it forward and Gil and I will obviously play our role in Formula 1 while also kind of fulfilling the ambition of our shareholders in the various activities. Obviously we’re doing the Indy 500, we’re involved in cycling, as has been reported we’re looking at sports cars and so we needed to make sure before we take on any other activities that we have all of the right resources dedicated to Formula 1 because what we won’t do is have any distractions to our Formula 1 team.
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
First out-ins for the #SF90 ! #essereFerrari pic.twitter.com/bNfTL8sUCY
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) February 17, 2019
World, meet the Renault R.S.19.
Renault R.S.19… meet @danielricciardo! #RSspirit #ItsON pic.twitter.com/CIz9WO1h0I— Renault F1 Team (@RenaultF1Team) February 16, 2019
Hi everyone! 😉👋 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/MMxkuKXl1O
— Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (@Circuitcat_eng) February 17, 2019
As this 21 race season looms like a dark cloud, my thoughts as always turn to Jean-Paul Sartre and his remark that "L'enfer c'est les autres" or "hell is other people." But how did he know, given he was never spotted in an F1 paddock?
— f1bastard (@f1bastard) February 17, 2019
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
F1 needs 1500bhp cars to make drivers 'kings' (Autosport)
"Power is relatively cheap to get and provides a greater challenge for the drivers. So why not have 1500bhp engines?"
Toyota chief hints at Alonso NASCAR Cup road course idea (Yahoo)
"Putting him behind the wheel of a road course race, at Sonoma or Watkins Glen, that would be fun."
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Comment of the day
A lot of you were impressed with Saturday’s Formula E race:
A brilliant race, so good I watched it twice.
It had everything, close racing through the field, an alarming crash (which all emerged from unharmed, thankfully), overtaking (even though we were told that probably wouldn’t happen), a great crowd and tactical cock-ups by the back-room strategists.
Formula E’s decision to retain race information from the teams until the last minute (race time remaining, in this case) is proving to shake up the on track action.
Can’t wait for Hong Kong.
@Dave-f
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to _Ben_ and Mike!
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stefano (@alfa145)
18th February 2019, 1:24
I’m not much into FE, can anybody explain what does cotd mean when he says race information is retained from the teams until the last minute race time remaining? They don’t know how much time is left for the race? They can’t use stopwatch? Thanks in advance for clarifying
HUHHII (@huhhii)
18th February 2019, 3:36
@alfa145 Quoting an article from FE’s official web site:
“The details of ATTACK MODE (the number, duration and the minimum amount of times drivers can arm it) are decided by the FIA one hour before the race, meaning the teams and drivers only have 60 minutes to decide the race strategy, ushering in more uncertainty and unexpected action. ”
There’s also an added uncertainty regarding FanBoost, because nobody knows who’s going to win the poll. And of course at the last EPrix laps spend behind the safety car completely altered the need for energy saving.
minnis (@minnis)
18th February 2019, 7:28
@alfa145 to add to what @huhhii has already said, what also added to this race was that there was a large crash resulting in a full course yellow and then a red flag. However, the clock kept on ticking down while the session was stopped.
Race control decided what to reset the clock to just before the race restarted. So none of the teams knew how much time would be on the clock – whether it would be reset to the start of the red flag period, the start of the full course yellow, not at all or some arbitrary number in between.
All of this meant that strategists could not plan energy usage as efficiently.
tonyyeb (@tonyyeb)
18th February 2019, 8:53
Just think if Wehrlein hadn’t have gone round for one extra lap at the red flag, he might’ve not needed to coast to the line…
pastaman (@)
18th February 2019, 2:05
I can read a thousand glowing reviews of FE, I won’t watch until Fanboost is gone and they start running on permanent circuits.
petebaldwin (@)
18th February 2019, 3:54
OK. You’re missing out though as you can watch it for free and it’s great fun!
HUHHII (@huhhii)
18th February 2019, 3:56
@petebaldwin To be fair, it’s free-to-air in just a few countries.
petebaldwin (@)
18th February 2019, 5:18
Fair enough – the full race gets uploaded to YouTube though after 24 hours. https://youtu.be/UX_xa0sugC0
Trido (@)
18th February 2019, 6:53
Maybe for you but not in Australia.
HUHHII (@huhhii)
18th February 2019, 10:11
@petebaldwin @trido Yeah same for me. Feels like they’re shooting themselves to the foot with this geo-blocking.
An advice for those who’re geoblocked and can’t watch FE’s official live stream: get a VPN, connect it to the UK and go to BBC iPlayer page. That solution has worked for me so far.
Balue (@balue)
18th February 2019, 6:24
@pastaman Same
Retired (@jeff1s)
18th February 2019, 7:04
The Ferrari man was just run over, he’s not been shot while shooting a war scene in Syria. As legitimate as it is, he’s doing a bit too much…
Jere (@jerejj)
18th February 2019, 9:38
The same Renault tweet has now appeared on three separate round-ups. Is it necessary to have the same tweets and or article-links appearing more than once on a round-up?
I disagree with Hembery. F1 cars don’t necessarily need 1500bhp to provide a more significant challenge for the drivers. The current amount is perfectly fine.
socksolid (@socksolid)
18th February 2019, 12:08
For the 1500hp to make any difference it needs to be driver controlled. Not computer controlled. As long as the computer decides when and where to use how much of the electric power the numbers won’t make any difference. The current cars maybe have 750hp peak for the driver to control. Rest is the computer. In these heavy cars with massive downforce and tires that is easy enough for the strolls to drive competitively.
To make the racing better f1 needs three big things. Lighter cars. Less downforce. Better engines that are 100kg lighter. None of those won’t happen as long as the only thing matters is ferrari’s and mercedes’ opinion. The current f1 cars need high downforce to be fast to offset the 100kg weight penalty of these engines. And because the engines are so heavy the f1 cars are heavy. And that is not even mentioning the political issues these engines have caused. Midfield teams are just satellite teams with those lucky ones holding onto their ferrari and mercedes engines like it is the only thing that mattters.
It almost like we are living in the 1990s and we are watching group c die. F1 had the same engine formula as the lemans prototypes. Now lmp1 is practically dead and f1 is suffering when nobody wants to come to f1. When bernie allowed these engine rules to happen he was expecting the engines to be super unreliable on early seasons which would have attracted new engine manufacturers because there would be this perceived concept of instant competitiveness. But he was played like a fool by mercedes who spent insane sums of money to build best engines they could as a multibillion euro company. Instead of attractive engine formula we got total domination instead with massive cost increase and locked down performance levels. Instead of f1 engine building being an interesting proposition it because a money sink with no chance to be competitive. The dot on the i is the honda’s massive ongoing issues. After 5 years they can’t even build an engine that lasts a race distance.
Take half of the downforce away, put either 3 liter na engines to the cars that are light and make 900hp or put 1.3 liter turbos into the cars that make 1000hp. That makes the cars 100kg lighter which means they are still almost as fast in terms of whole race distance while being a little faster on single lap. Those engines make the drivers kings and queens because it is not the electronics that are in control. It is them. When you press the accelerator you get the power from the engine that you want. Not what the computer decides. When you brake you control the brakes directly and not the electronics. With those engines the ferrari and merc don’t have their own division anymore. Which is why they don’t want any of this.