In the round-up: Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says the team is keeping its options open regarding its driver line-up for next season.
What they say
Haas have the longest-running driver partnership in F1 at the moment, along with Mercedes, but Steiner indicated the team may consider replacing Romain Grosjean or Kevin Magnussen for the 2021 F1 season:
We just got the Concorde [Agreement] done and I did not speak with Gene [Haas] about the drivers yet. I want his input in the drivers, so that will come soon, as soon as he can make it to a race we will sit down and discuss it.
But at the moment, everything is on the table, from keeping the drivers we have got to getting two rookies.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
The FIA and Formula 1 can today confirm that between Friday 21st August and Thursday 27th August, 3,591tests for COVID-19 have been performed on drivers, teams and personnel. Of these, one person tested positive.
— F1 Media (@F1Media) August 28, 2020
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
IndyCar one step closer to street race festival to Nashville, group says (Fox 17)
"IndyCar is one step closer to bringing a street race in Nashville, organisers of the Music City Grand Prix said Friday."
A steeper mountain to climb than Eau Rouge (Ferrari)
Charles Leclerc: "It’s probably a surprise to be so far back, but we are just lacking pace at the moment and have to work hard to catch up. But I’m not expecting any miracles this weekend. Our job as drivers is to give our best and that’s what I am trying to do. It has happened before that we have been struggling on Friday and then come up with a solution on Saturday, so I hope this will be the case tomorrow."
Esteban Ocon: "We’ve made a good step from Barcelona and I’m happy with today’s running. There were lots of things we understood, which we’ll aim to put into tomorrow and Sunday. It definitely looks promising for qualifying. It’s always nice to see a purple sector next to your name and that shows we have the speed."
Drivers and team’s reaction after free practice (AlphaTauri)
"We lost a bit of time with Pierre’s car due to some damage to his floor after having hit a kerb, which was unfortunate, so he didn’t get all of the running that we would have liked in that session. You can run a car quite low and aggressive here, but the downside is that if you run a bit wide you can cause quite a bit of damage. "
"We didn’t do any laps in FP1, other than the installation laps, because of both engine failures. The only good thing from today is that the guys did a fantastic job to get the cars together again."
Christian's Column: Signing on for more (Red Bull)
"If you look at (Albon's) race performances for the past 12 months, they have been great and he impresses us every week with his ballsy overtakes, that is something we have always looked for in our drivers and he certainly has what it takes. Lewis has been his nemesis in terms of a podium in Brazil and even a victory in Austria in the first race this year and to get one of these under his belt would have done wonders for his confidence."
Herbert Diess, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Group (LinkedIn)
"F1 becoming CO2 neutral using synthetic fuels is much more excitement, fun, racing experience, tech-competition than Formula E driving a few laps in city centres in gaming mode."
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Comment of the day
If Ferrari’s car problem really was ‘drag’ there would be a simple solution, says Marcel:
Still they keep denying it’s the engine and tell everyone the car is ‘draggy’. The rules haven’t changed so why don’t they use last year car? It’s an easy 1.3 second upgrade.
Marcel
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Dan (@canon1753)
29th August 2020, 5:18
Be. Hmmm.
kpcart
29th August 2020, 5:34
Ferrari can’t go back to using last years car, that would put them back further with testing and development for 2021, they need to just best develop this car. Also they have timelines for manufacturing spare parts. We has seen in previous years teams develop a slower car (ie Williams) but not go back and use the previous years car.
Balue (@balue)
29th August 2020, 8:30
It wasn’t a serious suggestion. Just an ironic comment about last year’s engine tricks.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
29th August 2020, 12:46
@balue yes indeed but writting this comment 12 hours on just after fp3, maybe it’d be better, since haas is ahead of ferrari.
BasCB (@bascb)
29th August 2020, 13:32
Also, wasn’t there a rule about changing the chassis completely?
TheJGG
29th August 2020, 8:05
Yes, Lewis punted Albon off twice from a podium position, but neither Albon nor Christian Horner should use that as an excuse for Albon’s lack of confidence. He nearly got passed in the same fashion by Perez in Styria, and held his ground to the point that Perez broke his wing. In Hungary He passed Grosjean, and damaged the Haas’ floor in the process. At Silverstone he passed god knows how many people around the outside of Copse corner, and in Spain he nearly passed Sainz around the outside of Turn 4, I believe (?), only for Sainz to defend his position in a supposedly dangerous manner. He has confidence to do these “ballsy” moves, but his qualifying and race pace compared to Verstappen and the Mercs, and even the McLarens and Racing Point cars, which Verstappen laps regularly, is appalling. Yes he can pass, because he has a second-per-lap-quicker car. But in Styria when he qualified close to the front (I think it was fifth) his pace allowed for Mercedes to put Hamilton ahead of him after the pitstops, and ultimately he finished nearly half a minute behind Verstappen (and then he stopped for fastest lap). His confidence isn’t the issue.
JohnH (@johnrkh)
29th August 2020, 8:18
The comment by Herbert Diess is interesting.
Andy Bunting (@wildbiker)
29th August 2020, 8:51
Hydrogen power.
Possible with any engine using the exhaust heat to
split the hydrogen & oxygen molecules apart.
Very environmentally friendly! Just uses Water!
Emissions water vapour & minimal CO2.
ColdFly (@)
29th August 2020, 10:11
You want to use a combustion engine (otherwise there won’t be ‘exhaust heat’) to split water (note you need 3000C to get a mediocre splitting process) to use the H2 (and O) as input for a fuel cell to power an electric motor.
Genius
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
29th August 2020, 12:54
great to see f1 turn explosive, a mere road car tank (bomb) of 5 to 10 kg weighs around 100 kg, all that under ~700 bar of pressure, imagine what f1 can come up with. saving the plant, until someone crashes and eliminates all life on the planet.
StephenH
29th August 2020, 10:29
And no used batteries with chemicals and poisons in them to be sent to landfill after they’ve been exhausted.
anon
29th August 2020, 12:11
StephenH, do you think really think that the supply chain for hydrogen fuel isn’t itself a lot dirtier than it wants to admit to? It reminds me of the criticism made by the former head of the Geological Society in the UK, where he blasted hydrogen as being the fuel pushed by the hydrocarbon industry in an attempt to ensure that they do not end up with a significant amount of worthless assets (i.e. fossil fuel fields).
BasCB (@bascb)
29th August 2020, 13:34
It sure is. And I agree that it would be interesting to see development of syntethic fuels. They can be a great help in achieving CO2 balance. If those fuels work and they don’t require too much from the engines, then it can immediately help all existing cars, as well as diesel engines in a huge amount of purposes become less of an issue.
Would be good if VW went with that and entered F1 to be there for it.
TheJGG (@thejgg)
29th August 2020, 8:35
Yes, Lewis punted Albon off twice from a podium position, but neither Albon nor Christian Horner should use that as an excuse for Albon’s lack of confidence. He nearly got passed in the same fashion by Perez in Styria, and held his ground to the point that Perez broke his wing. In Hungary He passed Grosjean, and damaged the Haas’ floor in the process. At Silverstone he passed god knows how many people around the outside of Copse corner, and in Spain he nearly passed Sainz around the outside of Turn 4, I believe (?), only for Sainz to defend his position in a supposedly dangerous manner. He has confidence to do these “ballsy” moves, but his qualifying and race pace compared to Verstappen and the Mercs, and even the McLarens and Racing Point cars, which Verstappen laps regularly, is appalling. Yes he can pass, because he has a second-per-lap-quicker car. But in Styria when he qualified close to the front (I think it was fifth) his pace allowed for Mercedes to put Hamilton ahead of him after the pitstops, and ultimately he finished nearly half a minute behind Verstappen (and then he stopped for fastest lap). His confidence isn’t the issue.
hunocsi (@hunocsi)
29th August 2020, 8:37
Hamilton — Vettel at Haas then?
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
29th August 2020, 9:25
No, as AWS told us earlier, Kovalainen-Trulli is your top tier, and not contracted at the moment.
Andy Bunting (@wildbiker)
29th August 2020, 8:53
Haas “Keeping options open”?
Hmmm? Crashjeans out, Seb in 2nd tier Ferrari!
Han
29th August 2020, 9:05
Seb and Robert at Haas
Aapje (@aapje)
29th August 2020, 9:15
Horner translation: Albon needs to improve his qualifying.