In the round-up: Sergio Perez backs Lance Stroll to impress when he joins Force India.
What they say
With Mercedes confirming Esteban Ocon will be their test and reserve driver next year, the path is cleared for Force India to confirm Perez’s new team mate.
I don’t know him much as a driver. In Formula 1 it’s so difficult to compare a driver from another team. 95% of your results is done by the car. He’s certainly had a poor season down to his car, I think Williams had a lot of trouble.
But the kid definitely has talent, you know. He’s been on the podium. When it’s wet he’s always up there with that car.
I think he’s coming to a great team with one of the best engineers in the world so I think he will be in great hands to deliver good potential.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
This weekend is the 10th running of the #AbuDhabiGP. Remarkably, @ScuderiaFerrari have never had a win or a pole position at @ymcofficial, which is just around the corner from the @FerrariWorldAD theme park#F1 pic.twitter.com/dqemrNKRtb
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) November 23, 2018
Our class of 2018! What a year, thanks everyone for your hard work! #AbuDhabiGP 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/EP2BrQNMP4
— Toro Rosso (@ToroRosso) November 23, 2018
Not a big crowd for Friday practise but the twilight circuit looks as spectacular as ever… pic.twitter.com/euIcVT8588
— Steve (@MotorPassion) November 23, 2018
A small fire occurred in a Williams Advanced Engineering test cell at around 9am today. There were no injuries & thanks to the prompt action of Williams personnel & the fire services the situation was quickly brought under control. Thank you to all involved for their support.
— Williams Advanced Engineering (@WilliamsAdvEng) November 23, 2018
Someone at @TheSun has got it in for @LewisHamilton:https://t.co/P0O3JjjdC3 #F1 #AbuDhabiGP
— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) November 23, 2018
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Valtteri leads on Friday (Mercedes)
Andrew Shovlin: "We also ran through a number of checks on Lewis's power unit and so far it all looks normal which is good news."
F1 audience levels out, some races show strong growth (Reuters)
"Nielsen said the return of the French Grand Prix after a 10-year absence had been a boost, with the races in Monaco and at Le Castellet’s Paul Ricard circuit broadcast free-to-air in France on the TF1 channel."
"A lot of these relationships were personal with Bernie, and I don’t think you can ever take that away. He really was kind of formidable... (but) when you’ve got governments or big private companies who are investing on a long-term scale into F1, as much as that might have been built originally on relationships, ultimately there is a business reason to continue."
Alonso: Comparisons with Lewis Hamilton & what makes Spaniard an all-time great (BBC)
Andrea Stella: "I don't want to create a myth like he is a magician. Nothing like that. It is just a matter of preparation, and developing an immense competence in what you do. Similar to playing the violin."
Alonso wraps up long, stellar career (The New York Times)
"In go-karts or single-seaters, you need to give up a lot of school time. You find yourself studying in the back of the car, coming up with a different way of living because when you are at home you don’t go out to play football with your friends or to a bar on a Friday night."
Why two-time champion Alonso is going out with a whimper (Daily Mail)
"Alonso is not saying he is retiring, keeping open the possibility of a return. Not a hope. Nobody wants him."
MPH: 'To label Sirotkin a pay driver is grossly misleading' (Motorsport magazine)
"If it were judged on performance alone, he has done comfortably enough to justify his place on the F1 grid for another year. But it’s not to be."
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Comment of the day
Should F1 have ‘team numbers’ instead of ‘driver numbers’?
[In NASCAR] it’s the teams that keep the same numbers years on end, and drivers who join get one of those; they will keep the number during their whole tenure at the team, and driver turnover isn’t as frequent in NASCAR, but the driver doesn’t own the number. Matt Kenseth was number 17 for a long time, because he drove for Roush, and then he moved to Joe Gibbs, where he ‘took over the number 20’ from Tony Stewart.
The same goes in IndyCar. Dixon isn’t number nine, Ganassi’s entry is. If Alonso wants to race number 14 at Indy, he has to sign for Foyt.
I’ve never been a fan of driver numbers in car racing, I’ve always seen it as a bike thing. Car racing traditionally had team numbers, and the fact that driver numbers in F1 are written in the team’s font on the car is not a detail in my mind.
FlyingLobster27
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Gabriel (@rethla)
24th November 2018, 0:07
95% is the car but the other 5% is more than enough to see Stroll has not earned his place in F1 and i doubt he ever will.
ColdFly (@)
24th November 2018, 9:05
Yet he outraced 70% of the drivers to a podium these last two years :P
@rethla
Mark (@mrcento)
24th November 2018, 0:15
Hahaha like Perez is going to say anything else about Stroll.
Firstly, his dad is bankrolling the team, calling his son crap wouldn’t be a good call.
Secondly, If Stroll is there or thereabouts Perez at any point, he can say “i knew he was good, he just needed a platform to show it”
Thirdly, If Perez wipes the floor with him, he’d be on a hiding to nothing and get zero credit.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
24th November 2018, 2:37
It’s almost like he was reading from the same script that Clare Williams had to.
Not like he has a choice, wouldn’t be a great move to criticise the owners son. Let him do the talking on the track (assuming of course they get equal machinery)
ColdFly (@)
24th November 2018, 9:07
And I thought you were one of the sensible comments, @dbradock
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
24th November 2018, 23:49
Sorry @coldfly, I couldn’t resist giving the tin foil hat brigade a ready set of ammunition if Stroll outshines Perez next year.
If it’s the other way round (as I think is more likely), I’m sure it will only be used by one person.
MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
24th November 2018, 1:26
Homeric Talent, that is
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
24th November 2018, 2:38
Well he does. Whether it’s sufficient talent for F1 is another matter entirely.
Todfod (@todfod)
24th November 2018, 9:43
@mrboerns
Going to disagree with you here. No one can de laminate a tyre with as much ease as Lance Stroll. This year, he’s also shown tremendous consistency in qualifying by occupying that P20 spot more often that anyone else on the grid.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
24th November 2018, 1:47
Re. CotD, I’ve always wondered why they don’t put the driver’s 3-letter abbreviation on the car instead of a driver number. Just one character more, but it makes identification far more easier, and makes it easier to die in to the timing screen.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
24th November 2018, 2:42
I don’t actually look for numbers at all. Much easier to look at the camera mount and much easier to see than numbers buried on a car.
It’s almost like the FIA/FOM “have” to have minor things that they can treat seriously so they can be seen to be “doing something”. Yes I know, all race cars have numbers, but sheesh who really cares.
If there wasn’t a point of differentiation like the camera mount, sure, it’s important but there is so it’s not.
John H (@john-h)
24th November 2018, 7:31
Race cars and numbers go together. There’s no issue here really, other than making the numbers more visible.
FlyingLobster27
24th November 2018, 7:43
@phylyp, three-letter shorthands also came from bikes. MotoGP TV graphics were the first, I believe, to use them on the side of the screen. They’re fine in top classes, but it annoys me a bit when I see them used in series where I don’t know the drivers and many Ams and wildcards are present (I saw it in TCR Europe for example). You could say I’d be none the wiser with numbers, but touring cars happen to have a massive hi-viz yellow numbers on the back seat windows… which leads me to my next point.
@dbradock, I think that originally, car numbers were important to identify cars in a practical way. Back when scoring was done by spotters, a visible, simple number was essential. For stewards to get a message across, it had to be the car number, short and easy. Today, we have GPS tracking and laser display boards that can accommodate more than two characters, so numbers feel somewhat redundant. It doesn’t help that teams don’t do anything cool with the numbers, like giving each driver their trademark font, as is done in MotoGP, or even place them well – Hamilton’s #1 is conveniently positioned BEHIND the antenna, making it hard to see from head-on, so someone on the publicity stunt team is overpaid. But like any tradition, some have an attachment to numbers, I have an opinion on them, and drivers like to choose them based on personal significance.
@dragon86 replied to my post, saying that numbers can follow drivers in NASCAR. He cited Chase Elliott, and after some research, even his father Bill managed to get his #9 to follow him to some extent. But that boils down to the number a driver wants either being available, or being yielded by its previous owner. In any case, it’s still a teams’ decision (the new team has to request it, the old team has to agree to let it go).
Finally, thanks to Keith for the CoTD!
Daniel (@db01)
24th November 2018, 2:33
That Mark Hughes article highlights a lot of things I hadn’t noticed about Sirotkin’s season. I’d seen that he was generally ahead of Stroll on pace (but for two important races where they scored points) but I hadn’t noticed those stand out qualifying performances. Still, Massa was nearly a second on average ahead of Stroll which makes me think Sirotkin is still maybe not fast enough?
It also sounds like his backers basically sacked Williams for being so bad this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if he reappeared on the grid in 2020.
anon
24th November 2018, 9:30
@db01, the thing is, it could equally be questioned whether the real problem is that Williams are rubbish at helping rookie drivers develop. After all, we have seen other rookie drivers struggle at Williams and being beaten by more experienced drivers, even when that rookie driver is highly rated.
Just think about how badly Hulkenberg did when he first drove for Williams – he was highly praised when he entered the sport on the back of his success in junior series (and is still fairly highly praised now), but back in 2010 he was pretty comprehensively beaten by Barrichello, qualifying and finishing two places lower than him on average and Barrichello scored more than twice as many points as he did (47 versus 22 points).
Now, had it not been for Force India basically rescuing Hulkenberg’s career, it is quite likely that we would not think that much of him now if we only considered his results at Williams. He was clearly struggling, and similarly other rookie drivers who have driven for Williams since then have given that impression as well – which does make me wonder if Williams’s somewhat archaic management style really struggles to know what to do with rookie drivers.
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
24th November 2018, 2:36
That article from the Daily Mirror is utter rubbish. People actually get paid to write that nonsense?
I’m happy Fernando is leaving, enough is enough of the various media outlets always trying to taint him or take his words out of context. Sometimes I feel that they attack him because of how good he is. It’s no secret he has limited support in the British press, only people that speak of him in favourable light are Nigel Roebuck and Andrew Benson, the rest just turn to pitiful remarks at times.
Yes, I am Alonso fan, and I suffered for long. I’m glad that it’s ending. No person is perfect, and Fernando has made his fair share of mistakes. Let this weekend be the celebration of a man who has given some of the greatest drives in the last 15 years.
faulty (@faulty)
24th November 2018, 3:31
Well, he has only won 17 races in four years at McLaren.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
24th November 2018, 9:56
@jaymenon10 – you mean the Sun article about Hamilton? I just saw the title and knew the kind of tone it’d have,so didn’t bother clicking through. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
TribalTalker (@tribaltalker)
24th November 2018, 13:29
@phylyp – Daily Mail article 2/3rd of the way down the “Links” section, probably. Poorly informed, hurtful nonsense. Pretty much as you’d expect from the Daily Mail.
hyoko
24th November 2018, 14:15
This blog will never be the same without the CWABA (Compulsory Weekly Alonso Bashing Article). Oh, well, they can still produce some more journalistic inventions from well over a decade ago.
Michael Ward
24th November 2018, 4:30
Perez knows not to disrespect the bosses son.
Mark in Florida
24th November 2018, 5:25
Let the butt kissing begin!! It’s sickening already. Can’t wait for next year’s excuses for poor performance. It will be someone’s fault other than Lance I’m sure.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th November 2018, 7:36
Just confirm him already.
“If it were judged on performance alone, he has done comfortably enough to justify his place on the F1 grid for another year.” – Indeed.
That’s an Interesting article by BBC.
I disagree with the COTD. I’ve got nothing against with a driver using the same number throughout his tenure in F1.
peter
24th November 2018, 8:11
So far it’s not the kid’s talent but dad’s supply of countless talents silver and gold that make the difference.
Todfod (@todfod)
24th November 2018, 9:44
Didn’t know Perez had a sense of humour.
MaliceCooper
24th November 2018, 12:33
Stroll is a “very good” racing driver, just as there are thousands of “very good” racing drivers in all kinds of vehicles all around the world. Does he have the elite skill and “x factor” that we expect from F1? Maybe. Difficult to tell in that Williams, but next year should give a clearer idea. What he does have is generous sponsorship, but then that’s something all drivers need.