Romain Grosjean, Haas, Paul Ricard, 2018

Paul Ricard to address pit lane safety concerns for 2019

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In the round-up: The French Grand Prix promoters will address Formula 1 teams’ concerns about the safety of the pit lane in time for next year’s race, according to FIA race director Charlie Whiting.

What they say

The circuit appeared to be very willing to try and do something different next year. So we will work with them on that. There’s a great willingness to do it so I think they’ll be happy to.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

F1 Vision 1

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Comment of the day

Sadly there will be no German Grand Prix on the F1 calendar next year. But is the affection for the ‘classic’ Hockenheim configuration misplaces?

The biggest flaw of that track is that it wasn’t entertaining for visitors, as most of the action happened in the forest. And since the track was almost 7 km long, the GP was only 45 laps ‘short’. Yes, this is also the case at Spa-Franchorchamps, but that track has action at almost every corner, plus a great challenge for drivers.

I remember that the drivers hated the old Hockenheimring. Long boring straights, and thanks to very low downforce, awfully performing cars in the stadium area.
Oxnard (@Montalvo)

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On this day in F1

  • 20 years ago today Michael Schumacher led a Ferrari one-two in the French Grand Prix with Eddie Irvine

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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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31 comments on “Paul Ricard to address pit lane safety concerns for 2019”

  1. I liked old Hockenheim.

    It offered something unique, compared to a homogenous layout template we find with a lot of more modern circuits. The cars were hard to navigate through the stadium corners on hyper-low downforce – this was a good thing – they challenged the drivers.

    I did not mind having a stand-out engine dominant circuit. I would prefer a mix of different track styles.

    1. I agree, but something tells me with these PUs it just wouldn’t be the same these days. I think those days are gone.

  2. Vandoorne really has to pull something remarkable quickly or articles like the BT one will become a reality and with Norris doing fine it’s a matter of time for the pressure to pile up. I really hope to see him shine and time is running out against one of the very best out there.

    1. Nando is the more likely to leave McLaren I think. Vandoorne will be around next year.

  3. Kimi Raikkonen at McLaren? as if their problems weren’t huge already… what is Kimi supposed to bring to a struggling team like McLaren? he doesn’t pull a team together and move it forwards, and he’s not setting the world on fire on the track either.

    What are they going to do next then? bring Grosjean to join him…??

    1. @fer-no65 Couldn’t agree more. If true this screams of a team that has completely run out of ideas. You’ve got one of the best (close to THE best) drivers in F1 right now and you still can’t make it work. McLaren should be targeting great design and aero talent, drivers are currently the least of their worries.

    2. Kimi is clinical behind the scenes, and that is what they need. Yes he is way past is competitive years, but so are McLaren, and as it stands it is not a priority. He also has inside info from Ferrari.

      Their current drivers are a inexperienced Vandoorne, and Alonso, which is, since the moment he re-joined McLaren, more focused on himself that anything else, he won’t pull a the together either.

      Now that I think of it, it would be a better move to sign Kimi in the first place, than it was to sign Alonso

      1. Personally I don’t share nearly the same degree of negativity toward McLaren, and toward Kimi, that many do. I consider that Mac is still a well-resourced team and so if anyone can pull out of the doldrums they’ve been in, they can, and will. And given their resources and their situation, if I were them I’d be trying to retain the very best drivers they can get their hands on, and forgo using a rookie for now, because the thing they need the most is experienced feedback to help get the cars up to where they have always traditionally belonged at Mac, fighting amongst the top. Yeah for sure FA’s presence and his experience have not solved their problems but they might be quite worse off without him for all we know, and certainly for me at least a rookie will not likely be as much help as someone with more experience.

          1. Suggestion would be to look to management for both the problem and the solution. Or at least the path out of the doldrums…..we hope.
            Maybe someone can confirm or refute something I had read a while ago. That being that Kimi R. was very good at setting up the car and this is why Vettel is so keen to keep him on the team. Not likely it is his zeal and presence at sponsor promos and gatherings.

  4. I’m getting a felling that the teams imbalance is creating a grid of losers.
    Every weekend there are 22 drivers. Only seven had won a race. Fewer if one considers the last two years.
    Yes, it is not entirely new but this seems to be getting worse.
    Only a couple others have podiums – Hulkenberg does not, i think.
    Most of them would never get a point in the old system -1st to 6th.
    F1 is the pineapple of motorsport but a little more viariation and opportuniy would be better.
    Certainly it is bad comparison but Takuma F. Sato has a win on Indy.

    1. ColdFly (@)
      28th June 2018, 6:35

      F1 is a team sport first and foremost. Thus it is very hard for a driver outside the big teams to win a race.
      It’s a bit like football, but there we seem to accept that of the 20 is teams even less than seven have won over the past decades.

      I would love to see a more open drivers market, where drivers change team more often and all have a fair shot at a top drive if they perform well.

      1. @coldfly, a lot of sports are often heavily dominated by a small number of teams, not just F1.

        People draw comparisons with the Premier League, for example, but in reality that is more imbalanced than is often portrayed. Since 2000, just four teams have won the title in all but one year, whilst six teams have essentially dominated the top six spots in the sport for years.

        There is also a pretty large financial gap between the top six teams and the rest – even the smallest of the “Big Six” has around 50% more to spend than the next largest team, whilst the wealthiest have closer to double that of the next largest. Compared to clubs further down the table, that is more like four or five times as much money to spend (for example, even a midfield club, such as Everton (in 8th in the table at the moment), is outspent by about 350% by a team such as Manchester United).

        Other forms of motorsport that are sometimes bandied about as being more egalitarian often aren’t quite as open as some suggest. IndyCar is often brought up, but just three teams have dominated that series since 2002, with the title winning driver coming from those three teams and those three teams typically taking around 70% or more of the wins per season – there’s a greater disparity between them and the rest of the field than is sometimes acknowledged).

        As an aside, with reference to the original post, when he laments the small number of previous winners at “just” one third of the grid, that’s actually pretty much about what you’d expect by historical standards.

    2. F1 is the pineapple of motorsport

      COTD

      1. F1 is delicious on pizza???

        Oh.. shots fired on pizza toppings

      2. +1 but don’t put it on pizza

  5. The article on Leclerc links to an old forum on here about linkedin profiles…

    1. It’s Unibet article. Here’s the link.

  6. Maybe a bit left field, but why don’t McLaren try to go for someone like Magnussen? Really impressive this year and obviously he’s a known quantity at McLaren. Seems to have improved a lot since leaving them, especially since joining Haas. Magnussen and Norris would actually be a pretty strong line-up in my opinion and still quite a young line-up at what would be 26 and 19.

    1. As I opine in my comment above, I don’t envision a Magnussen and Norris lineup as being stellar at advancing the cars, which I think has to be their main goal. They need the very best they can get, the most experienced they can get, for the quickest route back to fighting closer toward the top.

      1. No, it does seem McLaren are trying for an experienced hand which is fully understandable in their position. I think it’s time for Alonso to move on and it could be a good thing. They need people to come in with a fresh outlook to fix things. More of the same won’t do that.

  7. Much rather see a motivated and hungry Kubica in a McLaren than a tired Kimi hanging around because he can’t admit he should retire.

    1. I too think he’d be great for them m, to help advance the car.

  8. Kimi back at Mclaren? I highly doubt it’d happen.
    – In response to the COTD: You can’t really regard a 45-lap long race on a 7-km long circuit ‘short’ as it doesn’t affect the total race distance, which is approximately the same on each track (except for Monaco) regardless of the number of laps.

    1. @jerejj I think that the CotD meant that a 45-lap race of a 7km circuit is “short” in the sense that the spectators have a limited number of opportunities to see the cars. If you’re at a 7km circuit you’ll see the cars 45 times, compared to 60-ish times at a 5km circuit.

      1. @jimg Yes, but the opportunities to see the cars aren’t really limited since the total distance is still the same regardless of the number of laps as I pointed out in my original comment. The opportunities would be limited if a 3-4 km long circuit had a similar number of laps to the longest tracks of the race calendar instead of the 70-something they currently have.

        1. but you can’t travel instantly for different parts of the circuit. if a GP has 70 laps, you will see the cars pass by you 70 times, if it has 45, you will only seem them pass 45 times, regardless of the total distance, it only affects the amount of time that you have to wait to see the cars again.

          We are talking about people in the actual stand bare in mind

  9. Neil (@neilosjames)
    28th June 2018, 11:56

    Vandoorne and Norris would be better than any lineup with Raikkonen in it… although I’m not convinced Norris is actually ready.

  10. I can perhaps understand McLaren’s possible approach for Raikkonen. I expect they are thinking that two relatively inexperienced drivers in 2019 would not really help their development.

    I have never been a particular fan of Kimi’s and I think he’s way past his best days to be honest. I would advise them to look elsewhere.

    Does this mean though that we can kill off the rumour that McLaren were after Ricciardo’s services at a high price?! He’d be mad to go there even as a clear no. 1.

  11. @tweet Austria organised and France a disaster?
    No noone who has ever been to those two countries are surprised.

    1. @rethla Your comment is very on point! I went to the Austrian GP last year with GA tickets. We drove with a car from Vienna and there was literally no lines 3 hours before the race start (when we arrived at the circuit), leaving the circuit took us about 30 minutes to cover the first 10km but that was about it, no further traffic, plain sailing back home. Having previously only been to the Italian GP, this was a very welcome change.

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