In the round-up: Kevin Magnussen admits Haas still has some reservations about its car despite the strong performance shown so far by the VF-18:
What they’re saying
While Romain Grosjean took the ‘best of the rest’ spot yesterday, Magnussen had a few niggling setbacks, one of which included the lining falling out of his crash helmet. Here’s what he said about his Friday:
Even though it a grand prix track and it’s the first race, we’re still cautious because it’s FP2 and not qualifying. But it’s only good that we can see the car is running well and the balance is good in the car.
Neither me nor Romain had a perfect day, particularly myself. I had lots of problems with the car and limited running. The first run I did properly, going out of the pits without pitting straight after and cooling the tyres [but] going straight out and pushing straight away on ultra-soft, the first lap was competitive.
There was a lot more in it. It was my first lap, I didn’t go to the limit of the car at all. That confirms that the car is working again here. It was in Barcelona, it’s working again here, that’s good.
But last year we had some competitive races as well. The inconsistency from last year is what’s making us cautious, now at least. But at least it’s positive so far.
Links
Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more from hundreds of sites across the web:
Chase Carey Is Making Some Big Plans for Formula One (The New York Times)
"Go back to the sport on the track. I don’t think it’s as competitive, and the action is as good — it’s gotten too perfect."
Raikkonen was ‘scared to move’ in Bottas FP2 near-miss (Crash)
"I didn’t see anything, that’s the problem. I knew he was somewhere there but I could not see him at all. Obviously the team tried to tell me, but the call came quite late when they told me. "
FIA F1 Future Stars take centre stage (F1)
"The boys and girls, aged between seven and 10 years old, will be selected by the local motorsports club and the race promoter."
Are F1's hands tied over latest halo irritation? (Autosport)
"Most observers believe that the traditional main overhead shot that is available from all 20 cars is still acceptable, and while the halo appears, it does not cause too much disruption."
Assen moves forward with Dutch GP endeavor, names promoter (F1i)
"The board of the TT Circuit is happy to entrust The Netherlands Grand Prix Foundation with the organization of a possible F1 race in Assen."
20 years ago I wrote to every F1 team — this is what they sent back (Duncan Stephen)
"Most shockingly of all, this technical information was all delivered on the least technical of typefaces: Comic Sans. Oh dear!"
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
#F1 drivers practising their starts earlier today with the new, lower 'repeater lights' in the background:https://t.co/nDJ1pA2HVf#AusGP
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) March 23, 2018
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
If driver helmets aren’t needed to identify drivers, why are drivers banned from changing their helmet designs?
Behold a link from this very site in which the same organisation claimed that drivers would not be allowed to change their helmet “in order for drivers to be easily distinguished from one another”.
They just make this up as they go along don’t they…
Ben Needham (@ben-n)
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Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
24th March 2018, 0:18
That Duncan Stephen fella can’t be satisfied.
dragoll (@dragoll)
24th March 2018, 0:30
To me, it read more like a “show and tell” rather than a valuable insight into how F1 teams deal with fans. Perhaps he was a little hurt that his schoolmate who did the “show and tell” of his favourite football team and was bothered that he didn’t think of it first.
dragoll (@dragoll)
24th March 2018, 0:24
“Something that makes competition interesting is mistakes or errors. If nothing ever goes wrong, you can admire the fact that nothing goes wrong, but it doesn’t create the most exciting and dramatic outcome.” ~Chase Carey, NY Times.
So does that mean Chase is about to implement sprinkler systems at every track or more cringe-worthy, a fan boost banana or even a red shell? I’ll be interested to see what artificial way that Liberty can impose on F1 to generate more errors? As I’ve always said, F1 is a sport and teams and drivers who do a good job should be rewarded. Those teams that cannot get their act together, do they deserve race wins? Do any race fans here want the McLaren Honda of the last couple of years to win a race as a “reward” of “trying hard”? Personally, if you like to watch staged events, perhaps switch to WWE.
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
24th March 2018, 3:12
@dragoll Agree.
Seems like Liberty isn’t concerned about F1 being the technical pinnacle of motorsport, just the pinnacle of Murican marketing prowess and ‘EXCITEMENT’!
Jere (@jerejj)
24th March 2018, 4:45
@dragoll Agreed.
David
27th March 2018, 14:11
If that were true we wouldn’t have had the ESPN ads.
bull mello (@bullmello)
24th March 2018, 0:30
Comic Sans, pretty much explains the downfall of Arrows.
David Sexton (@no-6)
24th March 2018, 2:26
Well ESPN is at it again. Preempting the first broadcast of the season so that they can cover the Greater Hartford Pinochle Tournament. I remember when they abandoned F1 mid season the first time they had broadcast rights. Wonder what race this season they will drop F1 from their lineup. Silverstone perhaps?
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
24th March 2018, 3:24
@no-6 – Really? Cards are faster than cars in the ESPN playbook?
Jere (@jerejj)
24th March 2018, 4:44
The Belgian GP being part of the Championship is enough. There’s no absolute need for another race in the Benelux.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
24th March 2018, 16:07
Bit of info.
Some of the planned aspects of the race broadcast (Music to the grid, Heineken hot lap, sponsored replays, Mid-race highlights) may be ditched based on feedback. There considering doing them tomorrow anyway just to get additional feedback but there is a possibility they may drop them from the live broadcast & instead just use them for social media videos.
Also expect a lot of changes to the graphics for the next race as certain elements of them have received a lot of mostly negative feedback over this weekend. It is generally felt that they have been dumbed down too much & that some of the information that was previously included which now isn’t needs to be brought back.
The biggest area of criticism has been the font, It seems as if it’s pretty much universally hated however because it is such a crucial aspect of the re-branding across all the various platforms doing anything to improve it quickly is going to be difficult.
The problem with this font is apparently that there isn’t much that can be tweaked to fix the issues that have been raised. With more standard fonts you can generally improve readability by increasing text size (As we had to in 2004 as it was too difficult to read initially) or by making it more bold, However because of the styling of this font simply making it larger or bold doesn’t really do anything to improve anything.
There pretty eager to put it out there that there looking at feedback & will be working on things as they go based on that.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
24th March 2018, 16:09
I also gather that they have received some fan feedback via e-mail & that some people from either FOM or Liberty (Or both) plan to actually hold conversations with some of those who contacted them to discuss potential changes to the graphics & presentation.
MAXimumF1 (@maximumf1)
25th March 2018, 9:01
@gt-racer According to a friend who works at Formula 1 in production (not in any decision making capacity) some of the graphics “leaked” on twitter are old early stage mock ups and proposals, some were never built upon and the decision to drop some that we’ve seen was made even before fans reacted negatively. Heineken Hop Lap was never even a goer in any way shape or form, it was just holding text.
MAXimumF1 (@maximumf1)
25th March 2018, 9:26
Heineken Hot Lap not Hop Lap although that does make sense with it being alcohol!! Heineken Highlights were direction that was planned.
bull mello (@bullmello)
24th March 2018, 18:34
@gt-racer Excellent info, thanks!
As a web designer this issue comes up quite often with branding and fonts. Getting the client to see that it is better to have their brand fonts heading everything up and more typical easier to read fonts for the actual info that viewers really need can be a bit tricky at times. Hopefully cooler heads prevail and can get them to see the data is not the branding and that their branding is still there heading up the data.