Brazilian GP promoter says race will continue until 2020

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: The organisers of the Brazilian Grand Prix play down Bernie Ecclestone’s claims that the race could lose its place on the calendar next year.

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Following Eurocare’s letter to the FIA yesterday, William considers picking up a pen as well:

Can anyone write a letter to Jean Todt?

I wouldn’t mind writing one about the FIA’s childish battle for supremacy with FOM, or the delusional nature of the superlicence system, or the known correlation between aerodynamic grip and processional races…
WilliamB (@William-brierty)

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Keith Collantine
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42 comments on “Brazilian GP promoter says race will continue until 2020”

  1. Michael Brown (@)
    15th June 2016, 0:29

    I read the article on the Brazilian GP but the “paddock expansion” is vague to me. Are they going to relocate the pits to the straight after the Senna S?

    1. No, that project was scrapped, they will just expand the current one.

  2. My guess is as long as F1 exists so will a Brazilian GP as deserves.

    1. According to Joe Saward, Ecclestone told him that he was working on a GP in Argentina, but they have financial problems as well.

  3. These are some photos of the new Baku City Circuit that the F1 will be heading to this weekend.

    http://media.f1i.com/seasons/13084-baku-city-circuit.html

    Looks very interesting, there are some tight parts of the circuit that’ll really test the drivers.

    I’m looking forward to this weekend.

      1. Thanks Keith

  4. That Red Bull didn’t manage too bad at Montreal. 1.2 seconds to be lost on the Baku straight? I don’t believe it.

    1. Red Bull was completely off the pace of the Mercedes and upgraded Ferrari of Vettel. I’d say they have reasons to worry if the straights play a major role in Baku.

      It’s funny because when you hear about street circuits you often imagine Red Bull having the advantage. I guess Baku is a bit different from Monaco and Singapore.

    2. I thought the new Renault would perform well enough on qualifying in Canada, but either the PU didn’t progress much more than Spain suggested or they ran into some problems in Canada. Most power tracks have both more and longer straights than Spain, I guess Baku is too long for Renault, 1.2 is massive, fuel could also be a problem for Merc’s competitors.

      1. I think redbull blamed the tyre for the lack of pace compared to the front runner. I agree with you 1.2s sounds massive! Especially considering they haven’t been ridiculous with their vmax. One possible reason could be fuel saving, but in that case it will be real tough for Honda…

        @peartree

  5. Vettel can say all he wants about Ferrari strategist, but they are not the best ones out there.

    When he was at Red Bull, he benefited from a razor sharp team in terms of strategy, and while Spain and Monaco this year are not prime examples of that, since 2009 they’ve probably been the best out there.

    Ferrari has a tendency to fail, miserably, from time to time. Abu Dhabi 2010 being the best example, with Australia this year not far behind.

    1. @fer-no65 Yes. One thing is clear it’s never the strategy that let’s RB down.

      1. So the best thing for Vettel would have been to give his team a slagging off publicly when quizzed? No. He knows how to build a loyal team around him.

        1. yeah, but that’ll wear thin as time goes by…

  6. The Euro GP in Baku has the potential to be to F1 today what the South African GP was to F1 from ’67 to ’85. A country with a controversial government, nice weather and a good circuit.

    1. Controversial is a light way of putting it….

    2. While the government are no saints, I would certainly not compare it to Apartheid South Africa there mfreire.

      1. Ofc there is no comparison. S.Africa was in much better shape then Azerbeijan until corrupted “kill the Boer” mandela and his corrupted minions came to power.

    3. Bernie/CVC get their money, despots get to look legit in front of a world audience. That’s half of the calendar right there so we can’t complain!

  7. It’s ironic how the hypocritical activists care so much about alcohol and tabbaco sponsorship, but care little about whether races take place in venues such as Baku, Abu Dubai, China or Bahrain.

    1. @yoshif8tures Or the USA where on average has been a mass shooting every day since Jan 1 but gun control is non existent. Obviously not all of them but quite a lot are just what we call media-horny. It’s the same with that women from charmed complaining about the X-men poster. I don’t mind open letters or activists raising awareness for women rights or civil rights but going as far as saying a sign directly contributes to drunk driving…

    2. ColdFly F1 (@)
      15th June 2016, 6:35

      But that is not true @yoshif8tures.
      There are many activists who are vocally critical of F1 visiting places like that. And on many occasions it has been reported on here.

      I notice though that many of those activists seem to be a bit smarter in the way they make themselves heard. Rather than ‘shouting’ how wrong it is for F1 to visit those places, they use the opportunity and presence of the press to make their case for the human rights issues.

    3. Money talks, unfortunately- and money is what CVC are in business for.

    4. @yoshif8tures

      but care little about whether races take place in venues such as Baku

      There’s a pretty well-organised campaign against Baku’s race, it was mentioned here last week.

    5. As a Chinese I fail to understand your logic about cancelling the Chinese GP would do China more good than harm. In fact these ‘western activist’ has done very little to our country other than displayed their arrogance and ignorance.

  8. “The extremely long straight will not benefit us. Our computer simulations showed we will lose 1.2s per lap there.”

    The straight is a massive 2.2 kilometers. Ignore the first and last corner and the breaking zone: say there is 2 km that you accelerate in a straight line. With an average speed of 300 kmh it will take 24 seconds to complete it. To be 1.2 seconds faster, Mercedes will have to be 5% quicker dan Red Bull. Add 5% to 300 and you have 315 kmh. Mercedes should be on average 15 kmh faster on that single straight than Red Bull to gain this 1.2 seconds. Assume they have the same exit speed out of the last corner, it would mean that Mercedes’ top speed is 20 to 25 kmh faster. I don’t buy that. It would also mean that Mercedes could overtake a Red Bull when they are outside DRS range. I don’t buy that either. We will see.

    1. Yeah, we saw in Canada that the difference is not That much, we say that is was tough enough to pass the Red Bulls even when they did not have DRS and the chasing cars did.

      The only ones who are likely to be losing that amount of time on the straights would be the McLarens, who were significantly slower than others on the straights in Montreal too.

  9. It was nice having a couple of races without Red Bull complaining about their, ahem, Tag Heuer powerunit. Sad to see normal service has now resumed.

    1. Wholeheartedly agree about that one @geemac. I almost started to like them again, they were pushing, they were fast they were winning, and making some mistakes and quite honestly talking about them, a great part of F1.

      Now Marko ruins it again with this statement that greatly overstates their difficiency for some reason.

      1. @bascb I think that the reason clear, he knows the lap time deficit will be under 1 second, so by claiming a loss of 1.2 seconds due to power deficit they can keep claiming they have the best chassis on the grid and put the blame for all time lost on a supplier.

        However, the speed trap data from Canada qualifying shows that, with the possible exception of the Honda, the engine used is not the only significant determinant of top speed. The level of downforce varied enough to give a difference of something like 6kph amongst Merc engined cars. If Red Bull are concerned about top speed then they need to run aero and gearing targeting a higher top speed, but they know that’s not the best way for them to go because they would lose time in the corners.

        It’s like if Manor were complaining about how unfair it was because they were losing 2 seconds per lap in the corners – ridiculous and unsporting.

  10. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
    15th June 2016, 8:28

    I may actually write a letter, but I’m not optimistic that it would be read by anyone other than the office intern. What about an F1Fanatic affiliated e-petition? This blog’s role in the online discussion is so central that it could easily gather upwards of 10,000 signatures.

    1. @william-brierty

      What about an F1 Fanatic affiliated e-petition

      I’m very dubious about the effectiveness of online petitions (and that’s putting it politely). And don’t underestimate the difficulty of trying to find common ground for people to rally around – unless it’s something hideously stupid like double points getting anywhere near unanimity on a subject is rare!

      1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
        15th June 2016, 10:14

        @keithcollantine – What about the sport’s aerodynamic affliction? On this blog especially (probably because it is a congregation of the sport’s more intellectual fans) there is almost complete consensus on the virtues of a more mechanical formula in relation to both improving the on-track spectacle, and democratizing performance away from the aero R&D powerhouses (“Is F1 overtly dominated by aerodynamics?” – F1Fanatic poll?).

        I take your point on e-petitions though. They are a pseudo-democratic gimmick, and thinly veils politicians’ contempt for the wishes of the masses. Wake me up when they have had the tiniest role any kind of tangible reform…

        …a friend of mine has text me Todt’s official correspondence address, so it might give it a go anyway…

        1. @william-brierty You’d be surprised. I bet, given a soapbox or a mouthpiece, the conversation will switch to the lack of noise of the hybrids or the tyres.

    2. There are ways of getting letters read and acted upon by the people one intends to read and act upon them. Alas, I don’t know what the applicable ways would be for the FIA – the last time I tried influencing it was back in 2012 (about the breach of Statute 1 in Bahrain), and I just got nonsense excuses back from them.

  11. LovelyLovelyLuffield
    15th June 2016, 10:06

    On a scale of one to Movie 43, the worst movie on Earth, how atrocious is Ferrari’s strategy?

    1. I’d say Freddy got Fingered.
      Some will laugh because they find it funny, some will laugh because they find it stupid, some will cringe and some will cry.

  12. I like Vettel (by now) but I’m still not okay with him defending Ferrari’s strategy so vehemently. He did so after the race as well. And all his points are… well… pointless. It was a tough call, yes. But that does not really relieve one for a mistake. They simply didn’t know. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, yes. But then why did Mercedes do the right thing. In Montreal and in Melbourne. They did not simply guess. (I assume, with all those data engineers supporting their work.)

    They should have simply known, or at least strongly sense, as Mercedes, that they have the pace and the clean air to work the tyres well to make them last for a one-stop. Only Vettel and Hamilton had both of these two crucial factors going their way. Even the Red Bulls and Raikkonen were too slow to avoid graining and even Rosberg had too much battle to do to avoid wearing out the tyres. But still. Hamilton’s men knew, even before Vettel’s plan became evident, and Vettel’s didn’t.

    It’s not that hard to admit a mistake. The hard thing is to get up and try to do it right the next time around, but refraining from even admitting one has homework to do is just plain fear from being unable to live up to the job the next time around.

    Of course, it could be that internally Ferrari, including Vettel, do know the state of play, they just decided not to go public with it and show the image of invincible unity instead…

    1. @atticus-2 Mercedes haven’t exactly been perfect on strategy calls over the last three years, they’ve made plenty of “mistakes” too (some weren’t really mistakes without the benefit of hindsight). In such a fluid and dynamic situation, with limited testing done, it’s not surprising that teams don’t always get their strategy calls right and often what looks like a great strategy can suddenly look rubbish just because someone else manages to do something different. Also, people tend to make the assumption that the strategy employed by the winner would have been the best for everyone else and that is rarely true, because the position of other cars, the driver and car’s ability to make the tyres work and last, overtaking ability etc all come into it.

      The idea that Ricciardo would have won in Spain with a different strategy is complete insanity, we have no idea what would have happened to him on that strategy, for all we know he could have struggled with tyres and finished lower than fourth, or Vettel could have made a successful undercut work on him beating him anyway.

      The best drivers will make the best of the strategy they are on, it might not always be a win but they maximise each opportunity and when the good/poor strategy calls even out over time the best driver is left with the best points. I can’t see what is to be gained on beating up on the guys doing their best to make the right decision at the right time. It’s likely to be no more effective than criticising your power unit provider.

  13. My excitement is waning for the new track if it turns out the long straight is the main factor in performance, especially if it’s a one stop and dry weather.

  14. “…computer simulations showed we will lose 1.2s per lap there.
    Despite this view, Marko is hopeful Red Bull will “be chasing Mercedes and on the same level with Ferrari” on the 3.732-mile street track.”

    Well, who they lose those 1.2 sec to then, top-fuel dragsters?
    RBR managers and in particular Marko are my heroes when it comes to keeping a straight face while saying stuff that should make themselves chuckle, at least

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