In the round-up: Nico Rosberg says Mercedes have to adapt to the FRIC ban while Jenson Button sees no effect on his McLaren.
Links
Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more.
Nico Rosberg: “We’ve got some new challenges to rebalance the car” (Adam Cooper’s F1 Blog)
“For sure it will shuffle things around a little bit, without this FRIC system, and we’ve got some new challenges to rebalance the car and get happy in the car.”
Jenson Button Q&A: Improvement is the magic word (F1)
“Q: How much of a difference was I not having FRIC suspension on the car?
JB: It was no difference at all.”
Finding race seat difficult – Wolff (BBC)
“Sometimes a chance comes and the most important thing is I’m ready but a full race seat here next year is something that’s not realistic.”
Susie Wolff comes through engine scare in F1 grand prix test run
“I had a little bit of a worry at the beginning to get back to the pits because of a problem, but as soon as they said: ‘OK, we can fix it,’ I thought: ‘Oh, thank goodness,’”
Ricciardo: No more in the car (Sky)
“Hopefully that was Mercedes’ best pace as well and then we can have a fight on our hands.”
Alonso promised ‘decisive’ step for 2015 (Ferrari)
Marco Mattiacci: “I guess he has sat through a few of these meetings already, I hope the presentations that I put his way, as well as a few of my colleagues, have been convincing but I guess you need to speak to him to get his view on that.”
“The fire, at the Hotel Mondial in Wiesloch situated eight miles from Hockenheim, started at 3am, resulting in an immediate evacuation of the building.”
“With those threats on the horizon, the Moscow Raceway is rather presumptuously hinting it could step in if Sochi flounders. The track would need only a few minor upgrades to be fit for F1, and ahead of last weekend’s DTM success, raceway spokesperson Yekaterina Beltsevich was bullish in comments to the ITAR-TASS news agency. ‘We’re sure,’ she said, ‘sooner or later this track will host a Formula One round.'”
Maylander is a leader who can never win (Reuters)
Safety Car driver Bernd Maylander: “I remember a few grands prix really well like Fuji, Montreal in 2011 when I was leading more than 47 percent of the race.”
David Coulthard’s Inside Track (The Telegraph)
“The old track here was a unique and a challenging circuit. The engine screaming as you were doing 200mph in the forest might not have been great for spectators, but it was amazing for the drivers. It’s a shame that the new version is a bit more like everywhere else.”
Tweets
Confirmed that the @RenaultSportF1 2015 Power Unit was fired up on the dyno this week
— Craig Scarborough (@ScarbsF1) July 18, 2014
Maldonado will become the second driver to use his fifth ICE (ordinary engine) this weekend. Ten-place penalty for using a sixth component.
— F1 Fanatic (@f1fanatic_co_uk) July 18, 2014
Also both Lotus drivers are on their fifth turbocharger, Maldonado also on his fifth MGU-K and MGU-H, Vergne on his fifth MGU-K.
— F1 Fanatic (@f1fanatic_co_uk) July 18, 2014
And Kobayashi's on his fifth CE. The penalty system is a bit complicated, here's how it works: http://t.co/6CsZU6BQXU #F1
— F1 Fanatic (@f1fanatic_co_uk) July 18, 2014
Another prob in Ericsson's car. Feel sorry for him and surely his SPONSORS :)
— Khalil Beschir (@khalilracing) July 18, 2014
Not many fans at Hockenheim today. I wonder if there's been some other sporting event that has distracted Germans this week #F1
— Sean Kelly (@virtualstatman) July 18, 2014
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Attendance at the Hockenheimring wasn’t great yesterday but there’ll be at least one more person in the crowd today:
There are probably many reasons for the lack of spectators but I am going to Hockenheimring tomorrow and all I can say is that this is a very expensive trip.
We all know how much good F1 tickets cost – my bank calls me every time I buy two F1 tickets as I never buy anything else that expensive.
The accommodation costs are also ridiculously high. I am staying in Heidelberg (around 20 km from Hockenheim) and a simple double room in a 4-star hotel costs as much as €340 [£269] per night. And there are other costs as well, such as transport.
For sure, there are also cheaper ways to enjoy F1 in Hockenheim but generally you have to be either rich or crazy to do what I am doing right now (I do not consider myself to be rich).
Anyway, German media are widely reporting that this might be the last grand prix at Hockenheim so maybe Wolff, Ecclestone and co. can now try to find more rich and/or crazy people elsewhere…
@Girts
From the forum
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Cube, Phil G, Tom Haxley, Robk23 and Toiago!
If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.
On this day in F1
Jim Clark triumphed in the non-championship race at Germany’s Solitude circuit 50 years ago today.
Giggsy11 (@giggsy11)
19th July 2014, 1:05
2015 is do or die for Alonso it seems, I cannot see him in a Ferrari past 2015 unless Ferrari give him a really good car. It’s depressing seeing his talent wasted on a poor car year after year now and as a Ferrari fan we still continue to clutch at straws hoping that next year will be better.
dennis (@dennis)
19th July 2014, 2:47
Comment of the day is spot on, but I doubt that’s a problem only Hockenheim has.
When I was there years ago, prices were high, traffic was aweful and parking was impossible. Just like today, but at least you were rewarded with a unique track and cars that would slide around on the edge through the Motodrom because of the little downforce they had. It’s not an attractive track in my opinion, unlike Silverstone or Spa.
Being in the middle of the holiday season, plus the facts that not many people accept Mercedes as a german team and Rosberg never really caught on with the german fans interest has gone down a lot.
Theoddkiwi (@theoddkiwi)
19th July 2014, 3:19
If Russia has been involved with the downing of MH17 directly or indirectly, what are the chances of Sochi going ahead. Russias attitude and reaction to the tragedy is arrogant and highly insensitive.
F1 didn’t go to Bahrain due to the issues there, should F1 be involved with a country that has been giving support both financially and militarily directly and indirectly to one of the worst aviation murders in history.
Australia’s Foreign minister has been told no one in the Russian foreign ministry is available to talk to her, apparently the Russian Minister is away on holiday and unable to be contacted.
Some say Sports an Politics should not mix, but to ask the Teams to go to a country that is likely involved in such a atrocity is a big ask a morally wrong.
Dave (@)
19th July 2014, 18:38
F1 skipped Bahrain in the name of safety, not politics.
Theoddkiwi (@theoddkiwi)
20th July 2014, 9:53
Officially yes, but there was not much appitite to go political grounds for many in the paddock.
If reports are to be believed, the is indications the suspected systems used to shot down this aircraft have been spirited back over to Russia. If this is the case then Russia is directly involved and have no place holding a major sporting event while they pretend they know nothing and assist in destroying or hiding evidence.
37 Australian ciitzens and residents, 6 of then were just kids on holiday, i doubt Riccardo would be very keen to race.
Tom
20th July 2014, 17:34
As a Britt living and working in Russia I’d ask you to be a bit more careful about clumping the reaction of 143 million people together behind that of one man’s media image. We have enough problems with Britain’s own,smaller population being assumed to think identically to it’s prime minister; and that’s in a supposedly fair democracy.
By all means, point fingers directly at individuals who ate to blame but not at people who are just as removed from the situation as Alonso’ grandmother’s cat.
BasCB (@bascb)
19th July 2014, 6:16
Some interesting reads again. I liked reading the one with Maylander most though.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
19th July 2014, 8:00
Regarding the COTD, I absolutely understand what you mean. Whenever I go to Singapore (And I’ve been there for every single race since 2008), it costs a lot. And every hotel there is around $600-700 per night and that’s not including the ticket, which is one of the most expensive out there at close to $1000! And that is discounting the price of food, plane tickets etc.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
19th July 2014, 10:25
FRIC didn’t affect McLaren, really? They don’t look that great for a track that should suit them, but according to what they’ve been cooking they’ll try to justify their relative gains with their new upgrades , but reality is their performance is track related and maybe will be FRIC related. Why else would anyone support something that won’t benefit them, especially McLaren. McLaren and RedBull teamed up, so lets just see who’s going to win with this no FRIC situation, not to mention what actually is FRIC, some teams may have taken out some part of it but not all.
beneboy (@beneboy)
19th July 2014, 14:04
I have to agree with @Girts COTD that F1 is a very expensive sport to follow live but for the sake of comparison I have to point out that tickets for the Open Golf competition that’s currently taking place at one of our local courses were far from cheap.
The first two days of practice cost £15 each.
The 3rd practice day cost £42.
General admission for the week started at £300 if booked early, other packages started at £420 with VIP passes costing thousands of pounds.
Our local hotels and restaurants have increased prices by anywhere between 50-500% ! I went to a local Indian restaurant at the weekend and they’d had new menus printed with prices more than double what we normally pay, luckily we’re regulars there and the owner told us we could pay the normal price when we asked about the increase.
I spoke to some golf fans a couple of days ago and they told me they’d spent over £1,000 each for tickets and hotels for the Open plus several hundred pounds for flights and they were expecting to spend at least another £500 while they were here so in total they were expecting to spend close to £2,000 each for watching a week of golf – which seems extortionate to me, but then I’ve never understood the attraction of watching middle aged men hitting balls with sticks :-)