In the round-up: Former Sauber driver Esteban Gutierrez is linked to a potential return in 2016 with the new Haas team.
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Haas driver shortlist narrows (F1i)
"He’s a Ferrari driver, so they would be interested in seeing how he does and it kind of helps both parties. We get a driver who Ferrari has a lot of potential and we can see how he does too."
Smith's impact limited on 2016 Sauber (Autosport)
"Certain things by mid-September will be frozen, like our chassis surfaces to commit them to pattern and mould manufacture."
Australian Grand Prix names new chairman (Crash)
"(John) Harden will take over from Ron Walker, who confirmed he was retiring after more than 20 years in the role last March. "
Tweets
I always loved this. Is it legal in any series at all? Need to work there. And, by the way, beautiful cars back then https://t.co/16DmrkPvfX
— Marco Schuepbach (@mschupbach34) August 9, 2015
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
You all outdid yourselves with this week’s excellent crop of Caption Competition entries. Here’s the winner – but make sure you check out the links to some of the very funny runners-up, too:
Lotus F1 prepare to welcome creditors to Enstone
@Jethro
Thanks as always to everyone who entered, especially Budchekov, Me4me, Max Jacobson, John H, Hzh, Melker Thompson and Glynh.
From the forum
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On this day in F1
The 1980 German Grand Prix was won by Jacques Laffite:
Jack
10th August 2015, 0:09
If Magnussen or Vandoorne don’t get a seat next season, I would be very disappointed. Gutierrez is an ok driver but if Magnussen doesn’t regain his seat at McLaren, I’d rather see Vandoorne and Rossi at Haas. If Magnussen gets his seat back, id like to see Vandoorne and Rossi. Feel like that combination would more likely get them points
Jack
10th August 2015, 0:11
*if Magnussen doesn’t regain his seat at McLaren, i’d rather see him and Rossi at Haas
Monosodico (@monosodico)
10th August 2015, 4:30
Why on earth will a team who have a technical partnership with ferrari consider give one of their seats to a McLaren reserve driver?
MattyPF1 (@mattypf1)
10th August 2015, 0:36
I think that Rossi is more than likely number 1 on Haas’ wish list and he’s proving in GP2 this year that he finally deserves an F1 seat. As for McLaren, I reckon, if Alonso doesn’t call it quits, Button will go in favour of Vandoorne and I think Magnussen’s 2014 campaign was definitely not the best in race terms. Qualifying, superb. But for the sake of his race craft, Haas should definitely consider Magnussen. But if I’m not mistaken, Magnussen seems like he wants to with McLaren forever but then again, he might just want to race again. But I’ll guess we’ll find out later on in the year when drafting season picks up
Corey (@dragon86)
10th August 2015, 0:52
Does Rossi earn his Superlicense based on being a test driver last year or does he need to finish 2nd in GP2 to earn it?
BasCB (@bascb)
10th August 2015, 6:06
Rossi was on only 3 points from his 2013 GP2 season, so he has to gain 37 points, meaning that yes, he can get his superlicence only if he finishes the GP2 season in first or second @dragon86
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 16:10
@bascb @dragon86 Does Rossi continue with one for another 3 years? I thought there was an exemption period brought in for all current holders at the revision which added new series.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 16:11
Ah, just a retrospective action to 2013 and 40 points. Rossi needs 5 Manor drives..
Jordi Casademunt (@casjo)
10th August 2015, 1:59
Why would a Ferrari backed team take McLaren junior drivers?
Bforth (@bforth)
10th August 2015, 6:14
They might consider it because the McLaren backed drivers make Gutierrez look like a joke. Just in case you were looking for a real answer.
John H (@john-h)
10th August 2015, 8:11
To nick them. Remember, Perez drove for McLaren.
Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
10th August 2015, 8:36
@john-h …after he formally left the Ferrari driver programme.
John H (@john-h)
10th August 2015, 8:59
@optimaximal just an example, k-mag could do the same for the right price… Anyway, we all know Gutierrez will be going if rumoured, because of the $ (not his ability which is average at best).
Hopefully that will mean they can put Rossi in the car though.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 10:38
I reckon they only signed him to the program to be a comparison for Bianchi, who was a tenth faster when testing at Fiorano. Thus they could say that he would have done at least as well as Perez at Sauber, perhaps fighting for a few race wins. Plus, some sponsorship from Slim helps too, see Gutierrez this year.
Park
10th August 2015, 11:39
Vandoorne and Rossi could be nice for Manor, but not very good for a completely new team in F1
CountryGent (@countrygent)
10th August 2015, 12:19
There is a rumour among the Italian and Spanish press that Vandoorne has been signed to Button’s seat for 2015, although McLaren deny that they are going to announce their “long term driver plans” at the Belgian Grand Prix.
I’ve known Jenson on a first name basis for seventeen years, and whilst he can be prone to patches of heavy demeanour, I have never felt he is ready and willing to wave goodbye to F1 until this year (although he won’t thank me for writing it). By contrast, and despite F1 media conjecture, Alonso’s almost sinister beam has probably been on show more regularly than last year. I know Jenson and Jessica would like to start a family, and since the 2009 champion has achieved the goal he set himself when he embarked on a career in F1, and you get the feeling he is struggling to find an answer to what he wants achieve by doing a seventeenth season in F1.
For Raikkonen and Button, just like it was for Webber in 2013, the time is right.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 16:04
@countrygent Indeed, last year he fought back and his form improved in the second half of the year, it was clear he wanted to continue in F1. This year he’s letting his frustration about the car flow out in the interviews. He’s always said he’ll retire once a baby is due – maybe marriage is the first step on that path.
megatron
14th August 2015, 21:05
And what about Vergne????
DaveD (@daved)
10th August 2015, 0:36
I’d rather see Haas pull in Vandoorne and Rossi, but I have a feeling they will get Gutierrez. He’s a North American driver (Mexican) with a race in Austin and a race in Mexico City both of which will be dominated by Mexican fans as well as the money he brings.
Haas is a smart business man and it will be hard for him to pass that up. Anyway, I have a feeling that McLaren won’t be able to pass up Vandoorne next year as he’s the most dominant driver coming up since Lewis…possibly more so. He’ll get Button’s seat….and then we’ll see how patient ALO can be with yet ANOTHER rookie hotshot getting attention. LOL I predict bad blood and bad actions.
Kroon (@kroonracing)
10th August 2015, 10:30
Vandoorne is only dominant because his competition is weak. He is leading Haryanto, Rossi and Sirotkin, who all have been racing in FR3.5/GP2 for years without much success.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 16:05
@kroonracing Sirotkin is still very young and actually hasn’t been around that long – I can see him being on the grid in a few years if the Russian economy situation sorts itself out.
bezza695 (@bezza695)
10th August 2015, 12:25
the issue is Haas is going to be a Ferrari B team no reason to believe in anything else at the moment, Vandoorne is a Mclaren driver so it won’t happen
George (@george)
10th August 2015, 0:38
I find Gutierrez to be an incredibly uninspiring driver, I never understood why Ferrari hired him in the first place.
Michal (@michal2009b)
10th August 2015, 0:46
Yeah, it’s not normal to gain an F1 promotion after being beaten by a rookie team-mate in GP2. And having a good driver in Kobayashi. Gutierrez is a good driver but not on F1 calibre. He clearly don’t deserve Ferrari’s F1 tester role. Ericsson too shouldn’t have been in F1. His promotion to F1 was questionable already and then that incident-packed year and now being beaten by Nasr, who himself flatlined in terms of potential after good 2012 GP2 season. And I don’t even want to hear about Stevens and Merhi.
But if Gutierrez do get F1 seat that would be clearly for marketing and financial reasons. How frustrating that would be for Rossi who was twice denied an F1 race drive despite been on the entry list!
matiascasali (@matiascasali)
10th August 2015, 3:04
maybe it’s a good testers, as De La Rosa, Gené, or Badoer. Quite slow on race, but maybe really good giving feedback to the engineers
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 7:29
@george Ferrari need the cash, they’ve taken the pay driver with the biggest benefactor… :P
Asanator (@asanator)
10th August 2015, 13:17
Why can’t people understand that teams don’t need a ferociously fast driver as a test driver. In fact it is often less useful to have one. Teams want a test driver who can lap consistently, doing the same thing for lap after lap so that they can see how the changes that are made to the car effect the car not the driver. It is the same for poor Carmen Jorda and to a lesser extent Suzie Woolf (now that she has had some outings and doesn’t appear as bad a people initially thought). They are not there to be race drivers, they are development drivers, there to help develop the car, as long as they can lap consistently and give decent feedback it doesn’t matter what they did in their junior formulas.
As an example, When Michael Schumacher first moved to Ferrari in 1996, they found he was an awful test driver, instead of driving consistently for lap after lap he would instinctively drive around problems, great for a racing driver, bad for a test driver.
Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
10th August 2015, 0:51
Gutierrez and Rossi always seemed the likely pairing. I thought perhaps JEV might have sneaked in either, with a Ferrari connection as well as a US connection with Andretti. A pity as he has more to offer the startup squad.
rm
10th August 2015, 6:41
Based on the story (who knows how much that’s worth) it sounds like Hulk and Gutierrez are the preferred pairing.
Kevin
10th August 2015, 11:26
It would be career suicide for Hulk to go to HAAS
faulty (@faulty)
10th August 2015, 20:01
Not if they let Kimi have another year.
We really don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, I’m thinking Vettel would rather be paired to a veteran and become champion first and then allow a young hotshot like Bottas join him.
Deej92 (@deej92)
10th August 2015, 21:03
If they are hiring Gutierrez I can’t see them going for Rossi.
They need experience and they could try for Hulkenberg or Perez. I see Gutierrez as a wise choice as they’ll gain a lot of Mexican sponsorship money and probably an engine discount (if they haven’t already got one). That frees up the other seat where they can really push the boat out for a driver they want. The driver doesn’t have to be American.
Jack
10th August 2015, 22:33
Unfortunatelty, Vergne has signed a full time season for the DS Virgin squad in the Formula E championship
beneboy (@beneboy)
10th August 2015, 1:00
Loving the link on Marco’s Tweet. Also agree that the cars from that era are some of the best looking modern F1 cars. They look so much better proportioned, and the relatively simple wings and aero kits look so much more elegant than the hideously complex monstrosities we have these days.
I was a fan of active suspension, shame it’s never been reintroduced.
Sonics (@sonicslv)
10th August 2015, 1:31
@beneboy I’m a fan of it too, and active aero. Those are much more cheaper and still have lot of improvement potential for R&D. Not to mention more relevant to road cars development too.
beneboy (@beneboy)
10th August 2015, 12:40
@sonicslv
I couldn’t agree more. I’d love to see the cars fitted with much more simple, single element wings that were active. I think they’d look a lot nicer, and suspect they’d cost a not less to develop than the current multi element wings with their silly winglets and other bits hanging off them.
@HoHum (@hohum)
10th August 2015, 2:49
@beneboy, that would have worked well at Hochenheim 80, look at those track undulations and also look at how you could see under the car from front to back, making the tracks billiard-table smooth took suspension travel and damping out of the equation leaving only downforce for the chassis engineers to work with, but hey, sparks are the best thing in F1, right ?
anon
10th August 2015, 9:50
@hohum, some of the F1 cars of the 1980’s had relatively limited suspension travel too, with some cars in 1982 having almost now suspension travel at all (Williams did actually consider running the FW07 with the suspension arms locked into position at one point).
beneboy (@beneboy)
10th August 2015, 12:49
@hohum
While I’m no fan of the super smooth tracks we’ve got now, I doubt we’ll ever see the kinds of bumps and humps we used to see until the nineties. It doesn’t take much for the drivers to start calling for sections of track to be resurfaced these days.
I think it’s another challenge that’s been taken out of the sport, and one that will never return as the first accident occurring on a bumpy section would lead to an outcry from some fans and competitors who would claim safety was being compromised.
@HoHum (@hohum)
10th August 2015, 23:58
Sad but true @beneboy .
bezza695 (@bezza695)
10th August 2015, 12:29
Because within 5 races everyone would be complaining how its making it even more about the Machine than the driver than it is without it
@HoHum (@hohum)
11th August 2015, 0:00
@bezza695, and the point of F1 is ?
Nerrticus (@nerrticus)
10th August 2015, 1:05
Considering the Ferrari connections all around I’m surprised moves haven’t been made to get Rossi into a Manor seat this year. Mehri’s grasp on that seat has always seemed tenuous, and it would give AR some pre-Haas experience and ensure he has a superlicense.
Correct me if I’m wrong but if he doesn’t finish in the top 2 in GP2 he’ll be out of luck for a superlicense…
Michal (@michal2009b)
10th August 2015, 1:09
I don’t know how this idiotic system works but he did finish 3rd in 2012 and is 2010 GP3 and 2008 F.BMW champion. Looks like he had potential but some small things went wrong and it ended up nothing good.
BasCB (@bascb)
10th August 2015, 6:08
Simple: not enough money from Rossi and not enough interest from Ferrari combined means this is not happening.
Dan Brown (@danbrown180)
10th August 2015, 10:21
Also, I’m not sure how keen Manor would be on effectively gifting their main rivals a driver for next year.
Dan Brown (@danbrown180)
10th August 2015, 10:22
By which I mean, giving Rossi five races so he can get a superlicense.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 10:35
@danbrown180 I reckon that’s what they are going to do with Leimer, get some cash in and give him 5+ races to extend his super licence for a few more years.
PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
10th August 2015, 6:33
Vandoorne has already split management with Button, perhaps to properly ‘fight’ for the seat.
Macca (@macca)
10th August 2015, 7:56
Congratulation and farewell to Ron Walker. The man has almost single handedly keep grand prix racing alive and kicking in this country. Without him our government would have giving up on the Australian GP 10 years ago. So from an Aussie fan that loves seeing the greatest cars on this plant, thank you Ron for all you have done in your time in the sport, you have truly made the Aus GP one of the greatest events on the calendar.
Alex Ward
10th August 2015, 9:34
He has done a lot, and F1 wouldn’t be in Australia without him, but he did suck a lot out of it for himself and his mates (much like Bernie), not that you can blame him, but I hope his replacement does an even better job.
ColdFly F1 (@)
10th August 2015, 10:29
I’m looking forward to an article with the results of yesterday’s poll: What should be the top priorities for F1?
Both the preliminary results and comment are very interesting, and gives (IMO) a better insight than the GPDA’s poll. It seems we want to have accessible races between many differentiated true racing teams piloted by the most skilled drivers on historical circuits.
I’m especially heartened that we don’t want artificial racing (gimmicks, rece weekend format), artificial catch-ups (help Mercedes’ rivals) or focussing on trivial matters (aesthetics).
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 10:42
Hulk, Vergne, Sutil, Gutierrez, Rossi.. best line up? Hulk-Vergne-Rossi. Probable line up? X-Gutierrez-Rossi.. Vergne has committed to Formula E, Hulk depends on other movements, Rossi FP1 at Austin is a no brainer.. we saw from Sauber’s 2013-14 seasons that Hulk would at least get them the most out of the car, but I can see Sutil or even Perez there. Hulk/Perez-Mercedes junior might help improve Force India’s cash flow.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
10th August 2015, 10:43
How does Telmex Haas sound? Hulk-Wehrlein would be a good comparison line up, although adding in Vandoorne or Magnussen would be another. Honda are committed to F1 but another B-team (Manor) is sadly out of the question, they are already 6 months behind on running the main team..
Park
10th August 2015, 11:36
The first year in F1 is very different from the tenth year.
Experience and sponsor money are really more important than talent at this stage.
The most sensible plan for Haas should be one vastly experienced driver + one driver with a lot of sponsor money.
ColdFly F1 (@)
10th August 2015, 12:14
If you’re looking for an experienced driver, with sponsor backing, and no (need for) talent, then there’s only one name! And he is American as well.
Yawn
10th August 2015, 19:28
Jacques Villeneuve?
@HoHum (@hohum)
11th August 2015, 0:02
Canadian, watch your back.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
10th August 2015, 11:40
Gutierrez? Really?
Granted the Saubers he had weren’t particularly stellar but he was comprehensively outclassed by each team-mate he had.
Given the Ferrari link to Haas I was expecting Jean-Eric Vergne, or a long shot on Kamui Kobayashi. If they looked out of the Ferrari stable there’s Kevin Magnussen, Jolyon Palmer, Pascal Wehrlein and maybe Fabio Leimer.
Rossi is kinda expected given he’s probably the best American choice they have, but Gutierrez? There are better choices. If they take Gutierrez I can’t see it being anything other than a financial choice or to give some coverage for the Mexican GP.
I mean, sure – Gutierrez might come back and display the stunning talent he left at home last time but somehow I doubt it. I’ll be happy to be proved wrong.
bezza695 (@bezza695)
10th August 2015, 12:26
Vergne would rather spend his time in the high speed fast life of Formula E!
Jack
10th August 2015, 22:36
It’s not that bad tbf, majority of the races were better than all of the races (apart from Hungary and Britain) this season
bezza695 (@bezza695)
10th August 2015, 12:28
Why are people even thinking about Kevin Magnussen or Stoffel Vandoorne for a Haas drive, Haas is going to be a Ferrari B team, there is no reason to speculate anything else other than that at the moment, Ferrari have been using Haas as a loophole to get more work done in the wind tunnel so why on earth would Haas have a Mclaren Honda young driver drive for him?
George (@george)
10th August 2015, 17:52
@bezza695
Well, McLaren took a driver from the Ferrari young driver academy (Perez), no reason it couldn’t work the other way. McLaren don’t need Magnussen any more, I don’t see any reason why he would stay for another year if they’ve got nowhere to put him. He also has a fair amount of F1 experience which Haas are looking for.
I’m not suggesting it’s probable that they would hire him, but it’s far from impossible.
ura
10th August 2015, 19:31
Some insight into F1 paddock: http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/lack-of-camaraderie-in-modern-f1-sad-vettel/
SauberS1 (@saubers1)
10th August 2015, 23:01
I’ts a good choice.
Apex Assassin
11th August 2015, 14:24
Not Gutierrez. No. Please no.
Just no.
danny11 (@danny11)
11th August 2015, 23:57
I hope Haas doesn’t go that route. Guitierez is mediocre with a ton of money behind him. If he didn’t have huge sponsorship we wouldn’t even be talking about him. Like c’mon, Ferrari saw something special in him while at Sauber?
Guitierez belongs in Gene Haas’ camp as part of the paying ‘junior driver’ program to boost the budget. Rossi is a must. Button’s experience would be good too for the other seat.
danny11 (@danny11)
12th August 2015, 0:02
If I had the magic wand:
Haas: Rossi and JB
Ferrari: VET and ALO (back home where belongs)
McLaren: Vandoorne and Magnussen (they suck so bad I can’t see a big name with experience stay or want to come over help develop the car/engine).