Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2018

Hard to spot trends in 2018 F1 form – Wolff

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff says it’s hard to predict which circuits the team will be strong at this year.

What they say

Melbourne has been pretty decent and Barcelona has been pretty decent – it wasn’t the greatest place for us last year. So I don’t see that you can really recognise a trend.

Which makes the championship exciting because you don’t know what to expect. You come to a weekend, all your preparation has to be spot-on. There is no time to be lost in terms of preparation on the Friday, because it’s going to come and bite you.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

I wonder what Mclaren will end up doing. Seeing them trundling round in F1 in no-mans land is pretty grim viewing.

If Mclaren decide to go to Indy Cars maybe they can try to match Mercedes-Benz and complete a triple crown of their own!

Mercedes-Benz
1915 – First win at Indy 500
1935 – First win at Monaco GP
1952 – First win at Le Mans 24hr

Mclaren
1984 – First win at Monaco GP
1995 – First win at Le Mans 24hr
???? – Indy 500
Calum

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On this day in F1

  • On this day in 1978 Niki Lauda won the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp in Brabham’s radical ‘fan car’ – which never raced again

Author information

Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

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    • 10 comments on “Hard to spot trends in 2018 F1 form – Wolff”

    1. geargrinder
      17th June 2018, 0:47

      A McLaren won Indy in 1972 with Mark Donahue driving a Penske team car. They followed that in 1974 with a McLaren team win with Johnny Rutherford driving. So they have already matched Mercedes!

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        Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
        17th June 2018, 1:11

        I was about to say that, they already did it. Not as an official team, but as a constructor.

      2. Calum Menzies
        17th June 2018, 19:23

        That’s really interesting. I didn’t know about that Penske McLaren.

        I’m off to read up about that!

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      Phylyp (@phylyp)
      17th June 2018, 4:34

      That article about the McLaren ‘revolt’ is interesting. Upon a superficial reading, it does feel like Whitmarsh is trying to drum up support to return him to the team. I don’t know much about the detailed politics of McLaren, but I’m surprised to know that Mansour Ojjeh is a close friend of Whitmarsh, yet was unable to retain him when Ron took over. I presume a lot of the mechanics and people on the factory floor have served with McLaren for years, if not decades, so their frustration is understandable.

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        Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
        17th June 2018, 6:09

        @phylyp – Look at Whitmarsh’s time at McLaren and compare it to Boullier & Brown’s tenures. The employees of McLaren loved Whitmarsh. One of the criticisms of Martin was that he was too friendly with the staff. It makes sense why they’d want him back.

        I think McLaren is a pressure cooker that’s deformed and leaking, and it’s about to explode at any moment. Unfortunately it seems like Eric Boullier is lost. During his time at Enstone/Lotus, he did a really poor job of people managing, especially during the end when people weren’t getting paid. He was also very bad at playing the blame game.

        McLaren desperately needs a leader with clear focus, hubris and the people skills to motivate people to want to work.

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          Phylyp (@phylyp)
          17th June 2018, 6:24

          a leader with clear focus, hubris and the people skills

          @braketurnaccelerate – so, basically the love child of Ron and Whitmarsh 😃.

          Humour apart, the impression I got of Whitmarsh were that he was quite a gentleman (e.g. not preventing Merc from supplying the Brawn team with engines), but don’t have any opinion on him as a TP (although I’ve seen criticisms of him, and that he started McLaren’s decline).

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        Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
        17th June 2018, 18:47

        I don’t think Zak Brown would support the return to McLaren of a person who previously did his job simply because they might want to take over his job.

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      Jere (@jerejj)
      17th June 2018, 7:36

      I wish Whitmarsh were back.
      – That height difference, though.

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      John H (@john-h)
      17th June 2018, 10:19

      Whitmarsh Quest

    5. BMF66
      20th June 2018, 18:24

      This journalist really digs up the real crap doesn’t she. (Re Whitmarsh article)

    Comments are closed.