Leclerc amazed by praise from Hamilton and Vettel

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Charles Leclerc says it feels “crazy” to be praised by current world champions Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.

What they say

Leclerc pointed out he has received plaudits from other drivers too:

It feels amazing. Also Nico [Hulkenberg] when I was with him for the Formula One Live spoke very highly about me. Of course I was in front so it was difficult for him to say anything bad, as he mentioned! He still said many good things about me. Felipe [Massa] also.

So to have these four drivers speaking of myself that way and saying positive things about me is crazy. It’s great to hear that. On the other hand I try to not listen too much there’s a lot I can improve on but it’s always very special to hear those positive things from those drivers.

As a person when I’m out of the car I have very big respect and it’s very good to hear that. It’s an honour to hear that. Then when I’m in the car, when I have the helmet on I don’t think about anyone, these things disappear. The drivers that are there are just any drivers and I will fight as hard [with] any drivers. But when you get out of the car, yes, it’s great to hear that.

Quotes: Gabriele Koslowski

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Snapshot

Santino Ferrucci, Dale Coyne, IndyCar, Detroit, 2018
Santino Ferrucci, Dale Coyne, IndyCar, Detroit, 2018

Haas test driver and F2 racer Santino Ferrucci is making his IndyCar debut this weekend as a substitute for the injured Pietro Fittipaldi in Detroit this weekend.

Comment of the day

Should F1 increase wheel sizes from 13 inches to 18? David has a radical idea for how to decide…

What is the optimum size for performance? That is the size I want.

Being relevant to road cars is a poor excuse for adopting 18 inch rims. The linkage to road cars is already there: development of better compounds. There is nothing to gain from a cosmetic change, instead the sport loses an aspect of it’s technical history.

If someone asks why F1 cars have 13 inch wheels now, it becomes a question of history and the gradual evolution of technology in F1 and how the cars have been built to accommodate or exploit the particular characteristics of that wheel size. If someone asks the same question about 18 inch wheels, the answer will be ‘because some marketing focus group thought they looked cool.’

In my opinion, that would be a backwards step.

However, if there were compelling technical reasons behind the switch, I would accept the new size.
@DavidS

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On this day in F1

  • On this day in 1973 Jackie Stewart put his Tyrrell on pole position for what would be his final Monaco Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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43 comments on “Leclerc amazed by praise from Hamilton and Vettel”

  1. Oh come on! That tweet from Jamey Price highlights Exactly the difference between the old cars and todays! Not being able to pass back then meant wheel to wheel fighting, weaving to the left and right trying to get past and stellar defending – positioning perfectly on the track.

    Not being able to pass today means sitting back half a second behind because you can’t even get close at all for losing all downforce when u do. It’s not being hypocritical at all to realise that difference.

  2. I’ve said it many times, there’s no logical reason to switch to 18 inch tyres. Road relevance is a ridiculous thing in F1 too, nothing is relevant by the looks of it, it’s the development behind the scenes that is relevant.

    There’s no performance related reason for such a switch and it’d mean a massive change in the design of the cars, to a huge expense.

    Who cares if no one uses 13 inches tyres on their cars?

    1. ColdFly (@)
      2nd June 2018, 8:51

      Rim size (or more so the resulting shoulders size) has a massive impact on tyre behaviour and weight. Thus very ‘performance related’.

      And I for one find road relevance a good thing. It keeps the car (component) companies interested in the sport and their learnings will trickle down to our cars.

      1. Yes, it does have a massive impact on performance: it’ll make the cars slower.
        The tires are doing the majority of the suspension work on modern F1. If you take that way, they’ll have to ride higher, they’ll have more body roll, and they’ll have less grip.

    2. As I mentioned in the other thread, if they standardise the suspension, this is the best way to put power in the hands of the engineers. Less sidewall means chassis and suspension setup have more direct control of car behaviour than the current situation. Currently most of the flex is in the tyre wall which is controlled by Pirelli and the same for everyone.

      1. @tdm, if you have introduced a standardised active suspension system, then you are removing much of the power of the mechanics and engineers by then giving most of the control of the behaviour of the suspension system to the onboard computer systems that control the suspension behaviour.

    3. Thing is, as a tyre manufacturer you are going to have tons more of data on what and how it works best. And it is far easier to invest into studying and finetuning things when they can then be used to finetune millions and millions of tyres, and that is all apart from the evident marketing plus @fer-no65.

      To make it an easier question though: Would you want to stay with Pirelli, because they are the only ones willing to invest money into making tyres for F1, or would you prefer the likes of Pirelli, Michelin, Dunlop, Goodyear, Bridgestone-Firestone etc all to vie and compete to get the chance to put their tyres on F1 cars?

      That is the point of “road worthyness” – that it makes it easier to get manufacturers of those products interested in partnering the series.

  3. James Coulee
    2nd June 2018, 1:38

    It’s pretty straight forward to understand that large shoulder tires on small rims provide terrible performance when compared to larger rims with small shoulder tires. Road cars reached this conclusion years ago. F1 has kept 13″ wheels because of an arbitrary tradition and not because it’s the best technical solution.

    A tyre with a large shoulder acts like a spring (and can be integrated in the suspension calculations in conjunction with the actual spring). The problem is that, unlike the spring, the tyre deformation is not damped. Its action is not controlled. So, the less the tyre acts as a spring, the more that action is placed on the actual damped spring: the smaller the tyre wall the bigger the potential effectiveness of the suspension.

    1. I think u will find that the performance loss is with low profile tyres, the high side wall allows for a greater contact patch in during cornering and the contact patch is more controllable. They also make a difference when ministering curbs at high speed.

      The more movement in the suspension would been it would take longer for the motion to be arrested and stabilize the car.

      Do u not think if there was a performance gain to be had, the teams of engineers would be pushing for it.

      There is some good videos around the internet.
      It’s 2am so I’m not looking for links now. But there are plenty to back up what I’m saying.

      1. Andrew in Atlanta
        2nd June 2018, 5:16

        Then why have EVERY street car abandoned smaller rims? Not most but EVERY street GT or sports\hyper car has moved on from 13″ wheels but somehow that’s better performance? I think your info is incorrect, a more stable patch is maintained with less roll in the tire not more. 13″ wheels were introduced to limit brakes not because they were better.

        1. Simple – your not riding up kerbs for 50% of your driving.

          Further 30 years of suspension knowledge is not thrown our overnight although active may make that less of an issue.

          Unless it’s a standard part…

    2. Since the tyre sidewalls act like an undamped spring, why not develop active sidewalls? Seems logical with the plan for standardized active suspensions. Get with the 21st century materials science, Pirelli. ;-)

    3. It isn’t necessarily always disadvantageous for the tyre to have a higher degree of compliance in the side wall though, as that can have benefits when dealing with rougher surfaces.

      The other problem is that, with road cars, the use of larger rimmed wheels is often driven more by aesthetics and fashion rather than by engineering judgement. The trend for using larger diameter tyres in road cars is as much because people like the look of them more and because they think that, if the tyres are low profile, the car will have “sporty” handling – I’ve heard one or two tyre engineers complain that they’ve had their work overridden by styling departments because they wanted a solution that looked better, even if it had detrimental impacts on factors such as ride quality.

    4. Hemingway (@)
      2nd June 2018, 19:44

      The unsprung weight is a huge problem. It’s a double whammy- not only would the wheels be heavier, they would be less unsprung because of the reduction in the size of the sidewall.

    5. Don’t forget it all works together with the brake system. The carbon fiber cover over the brake rotors are so the the wheels can be changed fast. They would have to change that. Also larger and heavier more expensive rotors would probably be used. Like somone mentioned the larger rims are mostly looks.
      What they have now is really a thing of beauty and function.

      With the race in Miami coming with its horrible streets those larger rims would get destroyed. What they have now is better for all tracks including the terrible Miami streets.

  4. The key difference between the 1992 classic and last week’s snoozefest is the phrase “Mansell looked like he could pass Senna”. Vettel never looked like he was even trying to pass, and the same applies to almost every driver who had better pace than the guy in front.
    Blame the cars, the tyres the strategists the drivers or whatever but the race wasn’t tense at all.
    If Mansell and Senna were cruising around avoiding the barriers and nursing the tyres then I’ll agree it’s rose-tinted but close battles where the guy in front stays in front are rightly regarded as great spectacle!

    1. @bigwilk Of course Vetel never did… You know, lift & coast, aero wake, saving engine components, long season, graining, Hamilton behind anyways. Kind of boring indeed and hardly exciting from Vettel not to even try something at all.

      1. @spoutnik I’m pretty sure SV was trying the whole time. But as he said…get too close and all you’re doing is sliding at the front end. I’d give the 4 time Champ some credit here for kinda knowing what he’s doing.

        1. @robbie indeed, my comment was a bit of sour grapes? Obviously should there be a single opportunity he’d have gone for it. It’s probably that once the front settled for the same strategy it was locked to the end. And actually I enjoyed Monaco except a disappointing McLaren :)

  5. Grosjean sitting at that table, all shifty-eyed and wondering, “Damnit guys, say something nice about me!”

    1. @phylyp: Quel dommage! ;-)

  6. I’m not sure I agree with Jamey Price’s assessment of who the worst kind of person is… and btw I hate people who overuse hyperbole – they’re the most awfulest people in the universe ever.

  7. That Motorsport Magazine article about Sirotkin is interesting. It mentions that Sirotkin brings “what is believed to be the biggest driver budget contribution of all time”, which would imply its more than what Stroll is bringing.

    The bit that confuses me is how then does Stroll end up calling some of the shots in the team, such as it being Sirotkin’s seat that is given up for Kubica in FP, and why isn’t Sirotkin’s manager throwing his weight around more.

    1. I wonder how they got to know the amount of money Sirotkin brought in. I had a look at the Williams website, and 2018 results have not been published. Of course, there’s an article or two that says he’s rumoured to bring $15 mil., but lets not rely on rumours.

      Sirotkin could simply, as the piece stated, keeping his head down and trying to avoid bad press. If he manages to replicate his comfort with the car at Monaco in future races, he could shake off the “pay driver” tag by summer break, a tag he shouldn’t have got in the first place, considering the fact that he’s had 2 decent years in GP2, running against solid very highly regarded competitors in Vandoorne, Rossi, Gasly and Giovinazzi, just to name a few, and a few practice sessions in a Renault car. Sure, he’s not the best among that crop of drivers, but he’s by no measure the worst, or totally undeserving of a F1 seat.

      I suppose the only thing we can do now is wait and watch.

    2. @phylyp How do you know Stroll made the decision that it would be Sirotkin giving up his car to RK?

      1. @robbie – an assumption, seeing as even the next two sessions for Kubica will be in Sirotkin’s car. Do you believe otherwise?

        1. @phylyp I believe it is a team principal(s) decision, and not up to the drivers to decide who is going to drive in practice sessions.

  8. The front page has this in the subheading for the round-up “Williams to run six-wheeler at Thruxton“, but I don’t think there’s a link for this in the round-up itself.

    1. Andrew in Atlanta
      2nd June 2018, 5:17

      The first Twitter link has a 6 wheel car, no info but pictures

      1. Many thanks, Andrew!

      2. It’s the Williams FW08B. Stealth testing for the Back To The Future Williams 2019 car.

  9. Man..the first line of the Cotd xD

    1. @todfod – thanks mate, I cannot unsee it now!

      1. @todfod @phylyp I’m sure 13 inch rims perform very well. 18 inch rims might make the ride uncomfortable

  10. The image of Stephane Richelmi’s tweet, though, LOL.

  11. Sush meerkat
    2nd June 2018, 9:37

    Regarding wheel sizes and adding an element of strategy into the mix for races like the Monaco bore fest we had.

    Why not make it mandatory for teams at Monaco to use two different sets of wheels? I don’t mean two different compounds of tyres I mean two different wheel sizes!

    Start on 13 inch rims and come in lap 17 for a switch to 18’s!

  12. Monaco would have benefitted from having no-stoppers vs one-stoppers. Get rid of the mandatory pit stop for Monaco and maybe other tracks.

    1. Yes, and only one or two tyre compounds – tyres that fall off the cliff after 40 or 50 miles.

  13. Interesting to see Max prepping for Canada at the factory, assuming in the simulator.
    Wonder if it’s another crash course …

  14. YellowSubmarine
    3rd June 2018, 7:43

    current world champions Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.

    How is Vettel a “current world champion”??

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