In the round-up: Robert Kubica says Michael Schumacher raised the standard of F1 drivers.
What they’re saying
Robert Kubica was one of several drivers asked during pre-season testing four their thoughts on Schumacher. Here’s what he had to say:
For sure Michael was the best driver at that period. This is no doubt about it. He had won so many titles.
I think he somehow showed that an F1 driver is not only about driving the car but there is also other work to be done. I think then people start understanding and he was the benchmark of physical approach, mental approach. He worked really hard away [from] the cockpit to become [the] best he could.
I think the modern generation, he was a big example also away [from] the car. He has for sure been, I think for every driver my age, a big inspiration.
Lewis Hamilton also shared his memories of competing against Schumacher.
Links
Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more from hundreds of sites across the web:
Verstappen: ‘I’ve never doubted myself. I just drive as fast as I can’ (The Guardian)
"I don’t want to sound arrogant but I always believed I was good in the wet. I was more surprised the other drivers were not when it came to finding the best grip as I was coming from the back to third place (in Brazil 2016)."
Ericsson performances masked by weight - Vasseur (Racer)
"Mid-season he was more-or-less 10 kilos overweight. We were able to close the gap and come back to the limit in the last part of the season."
Hamilton still inspired by karting 'abuse' (ESPN)
"At the end of the season of course I'm wondering to myself, do I want to keep racing? I have to ask myself that, for sure. Even through the year I'm like, 'how long do I want to keep racing?' I don't know at the moment. Do I want to do next year? Yes. The year after? Most, most likely. Do I want to go after that? I'm not sure."
Todt on F1's future, Ferrari, the Halo and his successor (Sky)
"I will not be specific about cost cap. Something is sure: We need to make racing globally, more specifically Formula One, more affordable. "
Fans 'won’t have a clue' which driver is behind halo (Motorsport)
"There’s definitely a problem in recognising the driver,” he said. “I went on track as well, I’ve been watching Formula 1 my whole life, and I couldn’t tell who was driving."
Hamilton still inspired by karting 'abuse' (Sydney Morning Herald)
"I think it (Melbourne) has been so well received for two decades now. I would see absolutely no reason whatsoever to tweak that."
Halo could be most effective method yet devised to reduce F1’s appeal (The Guardian)
"If racing drivers aren’t doing something dangerous, then what’s the point of them?"
2018/03 — Whadaya Rencken (Box of Neutrals)
"Dieter’s back to tell us what he Renckens the politics of F1 2018 has in store, Michael and Rob reminisce about car-themed carpets and Peter reminisces about his run-ins with plungers."
Got a tip for a link to feature in the next RaceFans round-up? Send it in here:
Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
Getting ready for our departure to #F1 R01 #Melbourne via #Singapore . Start of my 17th F1 Racing season. 👌👊 pic.twitter.com/jqbUBnZFdE
— Xevi Pujolar (@xevipujolar) March 19, 2018
I'm currently sat at a bar owned by Bernie Ecclestone. Out of respect I've ordered something short, bitter and expensive. pic.twitter.com/PuzPHw3es9
— Adam Hay-Nicholls (@AdamHayNicholls) March 19, 2018
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
There have been many complaints in the UK that Sky’s exclusive F1 broadcast deal prevents F1 TV from being offered here. But is it reasonable to suggest F1’s new owners should tear up the deal?
To be fair on Liberty the deal was made before they arrived. I don’t think they can be held responsible.
Whilst it would please me to have affordable (read; legal) access to races, if it meant they had to renege on a legal agreement, it’d be pretty shoddy behaviour.
We’ll just have to wait, and make sure that by 2024 the idea of providing direct coverage through the internet is more financially attractive for them than big deals with Sky.
@Gongtong
Happy birthday!
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Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
20th March 2018, 1:50
Absolutely love Melbourne. Albert Park is maybe my favourite track, possibly because most tracks don’t challenge drivers and cars like this track. Some people have struggles with expectations so the race is nowhere near the highest rated.
F1 has outgrown most of it’s tracks, the cars are so good that they run on tracks and follow by the order of their relative performance.
The guardian, that’s so silly. It’s not danger that entices a sane f1 fan, maybe a psycopath. Risk is what entices the audiences. Pushing the limits, put your result at risk, not your life.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
20th March 2018, 2:03
Huge +1 to this.
Also, that Adam Hay-Nicholls tweet… priceless!
favomodo (@favomodo)
20th March 2018, 8:33
So… why not close the cockpit and get rid of open wheels like they do in several other ‘open wheel’ competions? Just to be more save?
What is the point of open wheel and open cockpits if we’re trying to get rid of them? The halo is killing the DNA of F1, and so sad, we are never ever gonna gonna see a F1 car without it.
Richard
20th March 2018, 9:20
The halo might actually be revitalizing F1 when it comes to viewing figures. I’ve talked about F1 more with non-F1-friends because of it than because of anything else. People are curious and know about it. I wouldn’t say they like it, but I don’t see my non-F1-friends complaining about it either.
kpcart
21st March 2018, 4:54
I showed a testing highlights clip to a non F1 fan and asked notice anything different? He answered they sound different, then I pointed out the halo, and he said what? That’s nothing! It really isn’t a problem except for conservatives who always think negative first. Also F1 doesn’t have a DNA, except for the fact it is ever changing and ever getting safe, the halo fits that DNA perfectly. Enjoy the racing, don’t be a party pooper.
Strangely Brown (@irukaviking)
20th March 2018, 3:09
I’ll be in the Mercedes marquee for free practice Friday! I cannot wait!!
Hopefully I’ll get a selfie with Lewis!
Jere (@jerejj)
20th March 2018, 3:25
@irukaviking How did you get access to their (or any teams for that matter) pit lane/paddock facilities if I may ask?
Strangely Brown (@irukaviking)
20th March 2018, 3:55
Not at all.
I’m in the middle of negotiating a deal between my company and a company in the motoring industry. Said company is a client of Mercedes.
bosyber (@bosyber)
20th March 2018, 7:38
Enjoy it @irukaviking, hope you have a great experience!
Well said @peartree
I have to say, I’m afraid I might be missing the live view of the GP as I’m travelling, with only a phone (well, sleeping with Family on Sunday, in NL) so seems I can’t yet use the OTT service for now (apart from not having VPN on my phone, they don’t yet do mobile devices yet), which will be a first in a long time.
GongTong (@gongtong)
20th March 2018, 22:36
@peartree
“Risk is what entices the audiences. Pushing the limits, put your result at risk, not your life.”
this is the best comment on this matter that I’ve read. And I think we’ve all read A LOT of comments on it. Concisely put, well done.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
21st March 2018, 2:12
@gongtong @bobyser @phylyp thanks appreciated.
@favomodo I made no mention of the halo. It’s unanimous that we don’t want drivers to get killed. To claim that we want danger, that’s calling the fans sadists.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
21st March 2018, 17:32
Perhaps someone should explain to the Guardian the distinction between risk and hazard…
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
20th March 2018, 2:30
“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games” – Hemingway
Too bad motor racing is trying (or has?) to become a mere game.
Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
20th March 2018, 7:07
To be fair though he was talking absolute tosh!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
20th March 2018, 8:42
@jaymenon10 @rdotquestionmark There is some dispute about that quote. He also wrote a piece titled “Bullfighting is Not a Sport – It is a Tragedy”.
Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
20th March 2018, 9:29
Well I agree with that at least!
anon
20th March 2018, 7:09
@jaymenon10, of course, there is considerable doubt that Hemingway ever said those words in the first place, and quite a few now believe that it is what is sometimes termed “Churchillian drift”, a term given to the tendency for people to attribute various quotes, such as the one you give, to famous figures like Churchill or Hemingway, that most probably never came from them.
MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
20th March 2018, 11:27
Lets all remember Socrates who told us we should not believe everything we read on the internet
Martin
20th March 2018, 19:41
Socrates? I thought that was Abraham Lincoln.
Mach1 (@mach1)
20th March 2018, 21:39
I’m pretty sure it was in the Bible….
Jere (@jerejj)
20th March 2018, 3:22
Regarding the Motorsport-article: TBH, I haven’t really had any difficulties in recognizing a driver due to the Halo, so I disagree to a certain extent at least with K-Mag and the other drivers who claim so.
bosyber (@bosyber)
20th March 2018, 7:43
@jerejj I have come to disregard some of what the like of K-Mag say wrt. the halo; it is fair that he’s against it, he’s certainly not the only one, and of course, as a driver I’ll listen to any real complaints and worries he has from how it impacts his driving, but this is just hyperbole from him.
One good thing, I think, the halo has done, is that it inspired some drivers to reassess their helmet design, and go for a more clean, stark design (like Ericsson and Alonso), which is much more pleasing to my eye. Because for a while, many helmets have been very similar (also, no thanks to Red Bull, who force a big logo on the very visible side for all their drivers, taking away real estate for individualism), and hard to identify. If that changes now, the Halo has some visible good effect!
AliceD (@aliced)
20th March 2018, 9:44
Agreed, the cars all have big numbers on then now. Whoever said we won’t be able to identify the driver is not very clever, in fact they are the opposite of very clever.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
20th March 2018, 10:53
@jerejj I for one can recognize helmets even behind the halo. Furthermore theres the camera painted in black/yellow that’s easy to recognize. And a number of options are available; personalizing the halo with the drivers’ color, also like in WEC having numbers on the side of the airbox would easily do the trick. False problem IMO.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
21st March 2018, 2:37
@jerejj – In some of the photos and live shots I’ve found it a little harder to spot the helmet than earlier. That is probably because some of the trackside TV cameras are usually mounted higher than the driver’s eye level, which means that at certain angles the loop of the halo gets in the way.
I think (or hope) that we’ll get used to it quite soon and adapt to either identifying drivers by the little of the helmet we can see, or identifying drivers by other means such as camera colour / driver number.
In any case, I’m an unabashed supporter of the halo as a safety measure (not just the halo, but a better option if one comes along), so I view this inconvenience as a very small price to pay.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
21st March 2018, 17:37
I know I can’t identify the drivers through the halo, and it is hard for me, as someone who checks these things pre-season, to recall which race numbers are carried by some of the drivers. The race number is useless without the association with a name. There are bound to be others in the same boat, even if the majority are able to figure it out.
F1 has to work for a mass audience if it is going to get a mass audience, not just for those who study long and hard before each season or people who think unnecessary amounts of extra processing is a fun way to enjoy armchair sports.
DocNuke (@)
22nd March 2018, 1:59
They need to go back to making the color of the t-bar more visible. Make it either a solid yellow or solid black, and that solves this whole problem of identifying which car is which. Some of the pictures I googled it was hard to even tell who was who for last season.
TEDBELL
20th March 2018, 4:45
Kubicas words about Schumacher were heart felt. For this once great driver who tore up the record books to knowledge of his current life situation is still difficult to swallow. I miss his presence, his style and dedication while behind the wheel. Sort of feel the same about Kubica and his awful injuries. Both of these guys l admired because of the force they were at race speeds. Kubica remains classy accepting his Williams role and out of the box is faster than his teammates. That brought a smile to my face. Kubica is set for a ride after the kids all finish trying and teams come to realize he is still good. So thumbs up and l hope he gets a chance at a race start at some point.
anon
20th March 2018, 7:17
TEDBELL, can you really say that Kubica was actually quicker out of the box? Nobody seems to have provided any evidence of his performance over a longer stint relative to his team mates, so we cannot say how he might perform over a race distance.
Meanwhile, whilst Kubica set headline times on a couple of days that were faster, Sirotkin did ultimately set faster lap times than Kubica whilst also using a tyre compound one grade harder (he used the soft tyres instead of the super soft tyres that Kubica did). The picture from that side is, at best, mixed, with some lap times which would suggest he was faster, whilst other lap times that correct for the tyre differences would suggest he was slower.
Jack
20th March 2018, 11:07
Kubica drove with Stroll and Sirotkin on same days and set faster times than both of them on same compounds, you can not compare the time set in different day – different conditions much warmer etc., also Sirotkin did not improve his time when driving on softer compounds later in the day so you can not say that you can correct time for tyre difference.
TFLB (@tflb)
20th March 2018, 16:34
You can’t really compare anything in testing because everything is unknown by outsiders – the only thing that is known re Kubica is that he did not impress Williams as much as Sirotkin when it really mattered.
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
20th March 2018, 19:29
Exactly. Sirotkin had a better performing wallet.
Martin
20th March 2018, 19:43
Is that the reason Renault passed him over for Sainz as well?
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
21st March 2018, 17:41
Martin, Sainz didn’t come on his own – he came with the ability to get rid of supplying Toro Rosso in exchange for McLaren, which is worth something to Renault (note how they don’t seem especially eager to keep Red Bull as a client either). Even there, “wallet” is part of the reason (though definitely not the whole story, even if performance turned out to be irrelevant to the equation).
Colin
20th March 2018, 5:40
I do t understand comment of the day. It’s cheaper to watch F1 in U.K. than in the new F1 stream
Via now Tv it something like £7 for the race or £12 for the whole weeks access (from memory) & what’s more, you o it have to pay for 11 races as the other 10 are still in C4 – for this year anyway
I feel I am missing out on the ‘choose your camera’ option however
anon
20th March 2018, 7:28
No, the new F1 live stream service would be cheaper – in the recent Q&A about their new service, it was confirmed that the live stream service was priced at $100 per year, or $8-12 per month: at current exchange rates, that works out at about £70-75 for the annual subscription.
Currently, an annual pass for access via Now TV is £150 (or £13 for a one week pass), which means that an annual subscription to the Now TV service is about twice the price of the new streaming service.
AliceD (@aliced)
20th March 2018, 9:47
If you want to watch all sessions then SKY is double the price of the new service. Not unfair to call it a complete ripoff.
q85
20th March 2018, 12:28
and you can’t record Now TV which is such a crucial point to all of this.
Michael
20th March 2018, 22:33
You get all other sport on Sky Sports as well. So not really a rip off. You don’t get any other sports with the F1 streaming service
kwacky1 (@kwacky1)
21st March 2018, 2:06
I don’t watch any other sports
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
20th March 2018, 6:08
What a load of bull that Halo article. Halo designed to turn off fans? F1 needs to be dangerous to be fun?
F1 is resonably safe for nearly 25 years.
It has nothing on MotoGP in daredevil department, boys flying 350kph in leather thights…
F1 is about being fast, danger is only secondary to speed. By no means we cherish the breavest drivers, there were plenty to go around, we admire the fastest, the most skilled.
Halo has nothing to do with driver ability, potentially it makes cars safer to a higher speed. We should strive for better racing not less safety.
Joao (@johnmilk)
20th March 2018, 9:46
I read it last night, while I was falling asleep, and I was thinking to myself “what and where am I reading this?” then I noticed it was on “The Guardian”, I smiled, I waved, I realised I just wasted 5 mins of my life and I fell asleep
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
20th March 2018, 10:21
This is another reason why I’ve been trying to defend Eicsson fom all the people critisising him. I do think that Sauber not managing to adjust the ballast to to create the right weight balance may well have put Ericsson at a slight disadvantage. If they get things right, this may give him an oppertunity to show he is at least decnt. We will see.
BrawnGP (@brawngp)
20th March 2018, 10:57
Its worse for us in Denmark, the coverage is expensive, poorly made and includes adverts. We are also blocked from the new stream service :-(
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
20th March 2018, 14:27
Even with the Halo F1 will still be dangerous because driving cars as these speeds is always going to present an element of danger.
The Halo improves 1 aspect of safety in the same way that seat belts, Helmets, High cockpit sides, Various crash structures & many other things have over the years.
Drivers in Touring, GT, Rally & Sportscars are fully enclosed & surrounded by a full roll cage yet that doesn’t remove the risk’s & we still see injury & death’s occur in those series because there still dangerous. The danger, The thrill & the speed will all still be a part of F1 with the Halo, The Halo takes zero away from any of that so trying to use them as an argument against it just doesn’t really hold any water.
Ibrahim (@ibrahim)
20th March 2018, 15:50
Keith! Please I don’t know if anyone has told you, but the blue “help support…” page is causing problems on my phone, must be happening to others as well? The screen pops up and takes up the whole screen and you cannot pull it down to click the X to close it. My atm card doesn’t work for international purchase right now or I would donate.
Ibrahim (@ibrahim)
20th March 2018, 15:51
I am using a pc to post this and on the pc it’s fine, plenty of room on the screen.
Gary
20th March 2018, 15:55
One thing I don’t understand about the halo is that it could have been done 45 years ago. I personally saw several Formula Fords in the early-mid 1970s that had full roll cages.
Why now?
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
20th March 2018, 19:36
Because…FIA politics…but Todt thanks all the little people for pretending this was ever about driver safety. With Bernie’s departure, it is about Jean asserting his Todt Thong ascendancy in the F1 power vacuum.
Michael
20th March 2018, 19:51
I would say its because its becase they’ve fixed many of the other cause of driver death or near miss. Cars withstand most severe crashes while protecting the driver. Drivers hit safer and (SAFER) barriers (not trees / partially installed armco), if they even make it to the barriers. Cars don’t catch fire easily. Marshalls are well trained and well organised. Medical facilities have improved dramatically which has probably benefited spactators and other workers as much as anyone. Drivers necks are no longer exposed and are restrained reducing the chances of broken necks and basilar skull fractures. Cars must circulate at slow speed when removal vehicles are on track. etc
kpcart
21st March 2018, 4:58
Because there have been high profile injuries an deaths in the last decade or so involving things hitting drivers in the head. Let’s stop the FIA/Todt bashing, because other open wheel series not affiliated with FIA are also introducing cockpit safety measures.
serkankster
20th March 2018, 16:07
How can an athlete be 10 kg overweight? Wow.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
20th March 2018, 20:56
I believe they are talking about the overall weight of the car and Ericsson combined. Ericsson is not the heaviest driver on the grid. They are supposed to increase the weight of the ballast the lighter the driver is or something like that I think to balance it out. What I think was the case with Ericsson was that they didn’t get round to decreasing the weight of the ballast enough. So it resulted in him having a slight disadvantage due to being overweight. Ericsson has mentioned this a one or two times over the season as well as Sauber just now.
kpcart
21st March 2018, 4:59
Kubica got his weight down in a year from about 85kg to 69kg to be prepared for F1. Maybe this guy should too.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
21st March 2018, 17:43
It’s not clear whether that was an option for Marcus – or indeed whether the second half of the season already saw progress towards that.
DarkSChneider
20th March 2018, 19:24
If drivers dont die in race, then what the point watching them ?
I’m allways surprised that drivers’ live don’t seem to matter to some people ….
Martin
20th March 2018, 19:57
People are inherently selfish.