In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton is yet to confirm whether he will be on the Formula 1 grid next year but Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says he will be back to race in front of his home fans again.
What they say
RaceFans: There will be a few hundred thousand Lewis fans in the crowd tomorrow wondering if it’s going to be his last British Grand Prix with Mercedes. Is there anything you’d like to tell them?
Wolff: “It’s not his last British Grand Prix. Everything is going well and we’ll see.”
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
Vettel's neck problem was news to @danielricciardo. "I'll give him a bit of shit on the drivers' parade tomorrow", he promises… #F1 #BritishGP
— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) July 7, 2018
Classic shot of the great Juan Manuel Fangio drifting his damaged Maserati 250F to #FrenchGP victory at Rouen #OnThisDay in '57. It was taken by Michael Tee, father of my good friend & fine photographer Steven Tee, who runs the LAT photo agency & archive to this day. pic.twitter.com/yK2F8YFZe7
— Matt Bishop 🏳️🌈 🏁 (@TheBishF1) July 7, 2018
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
All you need to know before the race at Silverstone (BBC)
"There is a free-to-air aspect of Sky's contract, which provides for live coverage of the British Grand Prix and highlights of all the other races on a channel that has '90% technical availability'."
British GP May Need a New Home in 2020 (The New York Times)
Formula One's global director of promoters and business relations Chloe Targett-Adams: "As a Londoner, I would think on a personal level that (a London Grand Prix) would be the most epic event that you could possibly think of. It really would be the greatest racing spectacle on the planet."
British GP - qualifying (Toro Rosso)
James Key: "It appears to be a suspension failure, the nature of which we have not seen before. Nonetheless, we are looking into it in detail and as a precautionary measure did not continue with Pierre's car in FP3 this morning until we understood what the problem was and acted accordingly."
Carlos Sainz Jnr: "We made some small set-up changes from FP3 to qualifying which didn’t work as I expected and together with a bit of traffic, this was enough to miss Q2."
Lewis storms to record-breaking British GP pole (Mercedes)
"It's not going to be easy to pass them tomorrow, but we've seen overtaking on this track before, so there's still opportunity for more."
Montreal pits demolished as building work begins (Motorsport)
"We need to be ready for April 30th, we need a buffer before the race. When the calendar comes out I can’t call Chase Carey and say I need one more week."
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Comment of the day
Somehow, it’s got even worse for Williams this weekend. Has the time come for drastic change?
Paddy Lowe is experienced enough to be starting to make improvements for Williams at this stage of the season… when we reach the F1 break, will we be debating did he resign or was he sacked?
joe jopling (@jop452)
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Mark Zastrow (@markzastrow)
8th July 2018, 2:32
The New York Times also has a remarkably frank interview with Claire Williams about the team’s struggles and the pressure she’s under, which I found through the link in the round-up. It’s quite the contrast to the tone out of Woking.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
8th July 2018, 3:00
Thanks for that tip, Mark, here’s the link for the benefit of the others: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/sports/autoracing/williams-f1-struggles.html
Jere (@jerejj)
8th July 2018, 7:23
It’s still four years until the next time a circular number of years will have passed from Dan Gurney’s and Porsche’s first F1 wins, though.
– Ricciardo on Vettel’s neck problem, though, LOL.
Sihrtogg (@sihrtogg)
8th July 2018, 9:07
… unless he dies before the next Silverstone.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
8th July 2018, 14:42
#PositiveVibes !
ColdFly (@)
8th July 2018, 9:29
Interestingly Toto did not answer the question if he would drive for Mercedes.
Probably reading something into nothing.
Ajaxn
8th July 2018, 10:03
These days it’s all about the car, having the best. The longevity of the driver is all down to the man.
Hamilton at his best and at his worst can be very emotional. I would argue this isn’t a good attribute for an F1 driver. Too much adrenaline sustained for too long can have a detrimental effect on your well being.
This factor more than any other will determine how long a driver like Hamilton lasts in this game. As a side note, the earlier Hamilton was almost Mansel-like, so measured and dead pan, showing a maturity beyond his age.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
8th July 2018, 12:29
Where does this “emotional” nonsense come from? It’s like when people talked about Hamilton “losing momentum” when in fact he simply had a string of technical issues (2015 and 2016).
What’s emotional? That he expresses annoyance on the radio about the fact that a strategy choice has cost him the lead of the race? If you want really bad and overly emotional then hear Alonso berate his team every other race or Vettel curse at Charlie Whiting.
Besides, showing some emotion is a lot less detrimental than the red mist which Vettel suffers from, causing him to lose his marbles and crashing into other cars.
Verstappen has this too to some extent, but in his case it’s more that he’s overly aggressive to begin with rather than that he loses his cool.
bosyber (@bosyber)
8th July 2018, 12:39
But maybe him becoming more open with his emotions is what allowed him to keep up with being in F1; keeping his emotions inside a Ronbot outside isn’t something that I’d recommend anyone – you need an outlet somewhere. Looking at his results since then, it certainly was, as you say, also the best of him, even if it includes somewhat cringe-worthy reactions too.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
8th July 2018, 15:09
The Mansell / Hamilton comparison is apt, but maybe not for the reason that you suggested. I always found both drivers to be amazing in the car, but fairly cringe-wothy outside of the car.