In the round-up: Christian Horner is sceptical Mercedes will lend help to struggling rivals Honda.
F1 Fanatic Live this weekend
The Indianapolis 500 field, including a certain two-times Formula One world champion, are qualifying for the big race this weekend. We’ll be following the action live from 8pm on Saturday and from 7:45pm on Sunday.
Also this weekend Formula E heads into a rare back-to-back race weekend. Having been in action in Monaco last week the teams head to Paris as they reach the halfway point of the 2016-17 championship. F1 Fanatic Live will be running from 2:30pm for Saturday’s race.
Links
Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more from hundreds of sites across the web:
Red Bull ready to rise again - Christian Horner Q&A (F1)
"I would be highly surprised it the Honda/Mercedes thing were to happen. Honda has with Mario Illien a very capable man who I think will be able to sort out the issues."
Sauber thought Wehrlein wouldn't return until Spain (Motorsport)
"The team thought that my first race would be Barcelona. For me there was no point. I couldn't believe that I would skip four races, so I said: earlier than Barcelona."
This French driver is in the good graces of 'the Professor' (F1i)
"We still have to see (Ocon) in one of the manufacturer's top teams to see if he can win, but I'm pretty confident in his ability."
McLaren rejects Button comeback criticism (Autosport)
"I think it's good-natured banter, and I think we'll see him focused."
10 Minutes with... Valtteri Bottas (Crash)
"Canada last year, being on the podium with Williams. The car wasn't that great, it wasn't a regular podium finisher. So I think that was definitely one of my best races."
Tech Highlights: 2017 in illustrations (The WPT Formula)
"McLaren’s pace in the final sector in Barcelona shows that their chassis is reasonable, certainly above the other midfield runners but not quite there with the top dogs. The team’s aero department are constantly churning out alterations to the car – the front wing is tweaked almost every race weekend."
Fernando Alonso: Indy 500 'horrible laps' await McLaren driver (BBC)
"Gil de Ferran, my coach, my mentor, told me the four laps in qualifying will be the most horrible you've ever done because the car is very on the limit."
Fernando Alonso interview: 'I will finish Indy as a better driver' (Racer)
"Obviously sometimes it's not ideal in the sense that you need to talk to the engineers. It's the right moment when you've got a fresh run in your head, so you want to talk about something. You remove the helmet and you would like to talk with the engineer, but you spend 20 seconds there with the fans."
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As per discussion w/ @IndyCar i've looked up the YouTube Indy 500 practice views:
Best 2016 day: 76,041
Best 2017 day: 606,682 (+698%)— Sean Kelly (@virtualstatman) May 18, 2017
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Duncan reckons Haas have gone all McLaren with their new livery:
It’s a cleaner, tidier, design. The nose always looked a bit awkward to me on the original 2017 livery. But “dull” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Even the Amercian flag on the side of the cockpit is monochrome. This is motor racing. It’s supposed to be fun. Now that Ron has left, Haas are officially the new McLaren (and even they had that awesome reflective chrome for a while). I expect Steiner will start talking about “sub-optimal iterations of the qualification process” and suchlike any day now.
Duncan Snowden
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Understeer (@abdelilah)
20th May 2017, 0:17
It will be crazy for Mercedes to help Honda, it can also be a good publicity, “German” technology helping the Japanese technology.
F1Junky
20th May 2017, 2:29
Don’t mention the war! Couldn’t help it. Ref:Fawlty Towers. For the older people.
Chris (@tophercheese21)
20th May 2017, 2:33
I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it alright.
F1Junky
20th May 2017, 2:53
@tophercheese21
Well you started it.
James
20th May 2017, 18:52
We did not start it!
Tommy Scragend
22nd May 2017, 10:30
Yes you did, you invaded Poland.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
20th May 2017, 8:49
I agree, F1 is as much a technology race as it is a car race, and if Honda can’t keep up with the technology then maybe they shouldn’t be in F1. I don’t know where this suggestion of Mercedes helping Honda came from, but Mercedes wouldn’t do it unless they could guarantee Honda weren’t going to ever beat them.
If the claim that Mario Illien is helping Honda is true, then that might explain the departure of Gilles Simon from Honda last year, and it would mean Mercedes weren’t really needed at all.
Kgn11
20th May 2017, 10:51
Did Mercedes not help Renault?
Racerdude7730
20th May 2017, 0:41
Today was a big test for Alonso in Q trim at Indy. He was 4th fast with a lap of 231.827 mph which is faster then last years pole. I think he will have a good qualification and hope for a clean race. Also he will get the real feel of the craziness with the fans race day with 300,000 people at the track! Bigger then any one day F1 crowd
@F1-liners (@f1-liners)
20th May 2017, 7:33
So Alonso was 4th on Wednesday; 4th on Thursday, and 4th on (Fast) Friday.
I will be part of the 698% today ;)
Oversteer (@oversteer)
20th May 2017, 9:07
Speaking of Indy doesn’t anyone know how to watch it without bt sport in the uk, and legally.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
20th May 2017, 11:05
@oversteer Pretty sure that BT is the only way to watch it legally in the UK.
Lee (@leejo)
20th May 2017, 12:43
Its on Youtube streaming live right now. Look for the Indycar channel. Is it blocked in the UK?
I recently cut off my cable and, here in the US, there is no legal way for me to watch F1 online any more. When I went to look for videos about Alonso practicing and found that Indycar had almost 7 hours of video up almost as it happened, my jaw dropped. That Indycar streams qualifying live is mindblowing compared to F1’s communications strategy. I sure hope Liberty fixes this fast.
@F1-liners (@f1-liners)
20th May 2017, 14:10
only this session will be live on YouTube
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
20th May 2017, 0:57
About the Haas. I disagree. Even the McLaren wasn’t THAT dull. The new Haas livery beats everything ever seen.
Why they painted it tarmac colour is beyond me. And they even went as far as to call it “more visible”!!!!
Robbie (@robbie)
20th May 2017, 13:29
@fer-no65 Perhaps Google Haas CNC for answers as to why they have chosen the colours they have for their F1 cars.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
20th May 2017, 14:36
@robbie I know that, I work with CNC machines from Haas, incidentally. But as a livery, I don’t care about what they sell… it was always a dull car, and they made it even duller.
socksolid (@socksolid)
20th May 2017, 23:03
Well obviously the main sponsor is haas. But the car still should not try to look like a cnc machine. A red-white car would look so much nicer than grey on grey with some darker grey bits.
Duncan Snowden
20th May 2017, 1:26
Yay, COTD! Thanks, Keith. I’ve a feeling that might be my second. I’ll get around to registering one of these days. :)
Strontium (@strontium)
20th May 2017, 1:33
And a very worthy comment of the day, too. I wasn’t best pleased when they swapped the white for the grey at the start of the year, but it’s gone a step in the wrong direction. When I heard they had a new livery I was very hopeful we would see something brighter, not duller.
If I recall correctly they started off with a metallic silver look in 2016 testing, and then ditched that in favour of the white by the time they had entered their first race. How they’ve progressed since baffles me. And to think they nearly chose yellow as their colour before Renault announced its return.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
20th May 2017, 1:44
Perhaps the livery will feature iridescent charcoal and metallic asphalt grey. Wow.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
20th May 2017, 1:51
Seriously, I share your concerns.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
20th May 2017, 8:21
You’re welcome!
Strontium (@strontium)
20th May 2017, 1:27
I’ve not been been following Formula E properly this year, so I had thought Paris and Monaco would alternate annually for the half-way slot in the calendar, so I’m surprised to hear they’re going in Paris this weekend.
There’s a large part of me that wishes they didn’t just do capital cities. It would be nice to see smaller cities have a part to play, getting their chance.
F1Junky
20th May 2017, 2:36
The series is young and cheaper than F1. F1 got going using disused airfields(I may be wrong). When FE matures then we shall see proper circuits.
Sundar Srinivas Harish
20th May 2017, 6:05
The FE cars are suited to tight, twisty layouts due to the naturally lower speeds. They’d need some serious battery power to make them viable for purpose-built circuit, otherwise it’d just be a snooze. (And we would miss the obligatory Prost-Heidfeld collision)
F1Junky
20th May 2017, 8:49
Technology upgrades are getting faster. What was years is now less. So optimist, 5 years, pessimist, 10 years.
anon
20th May 2017, 11:15
F1Junky, however, that would also conflict with one of the aspects that Formula E has been able to turn to their advantage – the fact that it is much quieter than a conventional racing car enables them to race in city venues that are out of bounds of other series due to noise restrictions (no other series could, for example, hold a race around Les Invalides).
Strontium (@strontium)
21st May 2017, 0:21
You’re right about the airfields, and not just any airfield, more specifically Silverstone itself
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
20th May 2017, 1:40
I predict that Wehrlein’s comeback may prove itself to be the stuff of legend. It is early times, of course, but his character and his commitment have been tested, and have withstood serious injury and scrutiny. I initially rated him in the Sainz, Perez, and Grozjean territory, but now that he has something to really prove, Look Out! All that talent really requires is a driver.
Levente (@leventebandi)
20th May 2017, 11:17
Regarding the new Haas:
I dunno why they don’t wrote the driver names on the sidepods, instead of advertising themselves.
Retro West-Mclaren style.
Actually why do they have those big Haas logos. Red Bull at least advertises their fizzy drink brand with it…
David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
20th May 2017, 12:36
@leventebandi To advertise Haas Automation?
PJA (@pja)
20th May 2017, 12:45
@leventebandi From what I gather one of the reasons Gene Haas founded Haas F1 was to promote his machine tool business Haas Automation. So it makes perfect sense for them to have their name all over their cars just like Red Bull.
When they first announced their intention to enter F1, as I really don’t follow other motorsport series, I thought it would be something to do with the Newman Haas team that Nigel Mansell won the Indycar title with in 1993, but that was Carl Haas and the two are not related.
Levente (@leventebandi)
20th May 2017, 15:27
@pja & @davidnotcoulthard
Haas automation has already a big piece of advertising space on both sides of the engine cover
AJ
22nd May 2017, 18:37
honda will leave macca. they will go back to being a mercedes customer team and be clever at making a chassis that works.