Antonio Giovinazzi, Sauber, Sochi, 2018

Giovinazzi expects “tough” start alongside Raikkonen

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In the round-up: Antonio Giovinazzi admits he is likely to have a tough start to his first full season of F1 next year alongside Kimi Raikkonen.

What they say

Giovinazzi will be Raikkonen’s team mate at Sauber.

For sure after two years not on the race weekend there will be the pressure of the race weekend. It’s what I miss actually from a race weekend.

But it will be quite tough for the first races of course because also beside me is a world champion with a lot of years in F1 like Kimi. But from my side I need to do just my job, think myself and try to improve myself race by race and then we’ll see at the end of the year if we did a good job or not.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Snapshot

Pippa Mann, Tatiana Calderon, Amna Al Qubaisi, Carrie Schreiner, Carmen Jorda, Beitske Visser, Jamie Chadwick, Simona de Silvestro, Katherine Legge, Ad Diriyah Formula E test, 2018
Pippa Mann, Tatiana Calderon, Amna Al Qubaisi, Carrie Schreiner, Carmen Jorda, Beitske Visser, Jamie Chadwick, Simona de Silvestro, Katherine Legge, Ad Diriyah Formula E test, 2018

Formula E teams were allowed to run an extra car to give seat time to a female racer in yesterday’s test which followed the season-opening race in Ad Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.

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Comment of the day

How strong has Vettel been since he joined Ferrari?

In 2015, Vettel did have a good season, I remember him nearly beating Rosberg to second place, despite Rosberg being in a vastly superior car to Vettel’s. And it was Vettel’s first year at Ferrari too, so he was also going through a period of adjustment. He did well. Overall though, Hamilton got the nod from the team bosses in their yearly end of season vote.

2016 was awful for Vettel, 2017 was OK, 2018 truly awful. Let’s hope he can get his head together and cut out these errors next year.
A*

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On this day in F1

  • 25 years ago today Simtek tested its first Formula 1 car, the S941. David Brabham drove.

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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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51 comments on “Giovinazzi expects “tough” start alongside Raikkonen”

  1. So hitting the debris in Baku was shameful, but there’s no mention of the one win that he absolutely deserved, but was forced to give up? I think Russia alone would’ve saved Bottas’ self-confidence, and we wouldn’t have had that statement from him in Abu Dhabi about waiting for the season to get over.

    1. @sundark This is so true. Wolff tries to come across as balanced and fair, but if anything was shameful here it was clearly what he himself did to Bottas.

    2. By the time he was asked to give up that win he could not win the championship. It was absolutely TW’s job to tell him to give it up because it was the right thing to do. Harsh reality.
      Now, if Bottas had not hit that debris in Baku then maybethe relative points position would not have made the team orders decision such a no-brainer, but Bottas at least is able to recognize that his performances this season were – in general – not good enough. He went backwards.

  2. Disappointed that the times from the FE test involving the women entries were not published. We know Simona was the highest placed female in 10th, then Calderon in 12th, Chadwick in 14th, and Legge in 16th, but that”s it. No way to judge properly and seems contrived.

    1. @gitanes they were published and with more info than I ever saw during an f1 test: power, sectors and even stint length are published. The only reason you didn’t get the detail in the news is that most journalists just copy/pasted the official news from the FE site.

      Here are the personal best for session 1 you’ll fin the rest from there.

  3. I think Vettel underperformed in the second half of the season but to call it “truly awful” is a stretch…

  4. The womens photo shoot has put me in a position to either shut up or be shot, metaphorically speaking. You know me, so here goes, none of the women, with the possible exception of the tallest and shortest look anywhere near the level of leanness and fitness required to race F1, for balance (and somewhere to hide) a similar picture of male NASCAR drivers would probably be equally deserving of the same comment.

    1. @hohum – Are you mistaking women’s natural physiology in having wider hips (for childbirth, you know) as a reflection of their inadequate leanness/fitness?

      Secondly, if any of them are actually overweight by F1 standards, they would be able to lose what is required if they do land an F1 seat.

      1. @phylyp, No, I don’t think that is necessarily the problem any more than the tendency for men to be larger generally than F1 drivers is for men, fitness for purpose is what counts. As for losing weight after F1 selection I ask how they would be selected, possibly the simulator is neutral in this regard but you don’t get superlicence points in the simulator. It’s a long, hard road to get to the top.

    2. @hohum that’s a stupid comment, but I’ll play along. Why should Simona de Silvestro train to be as fit as an F1 driver when she drives Supercars which weights 1.5 tonnes? Besides, neither of them are F1 drivers, so why would they have to be fit to drive those cars?

      1. If they arent fit enough now maybe it is a reason for none of them landing a seat on f1.
        The lady in the left seemes to be in better shape than most of the drivers on the photo.
        The fact that Silvestro is not fit as a F1 driver might help explain her results on Supercars.

        1. Simona has driven races in both Indycar and Formula E, and she did really well. She is more than fit enough for F1.

          I wonder how much of this conversation is about F1 drivers starving themselves to the point of looking like 12 year old boys…

          1. @graham228221, asides from that, there are no reports of Simona having any problems with her physical fitness when testing for Sauber in 2014.

            In fact, her comments about testing for Sauber highlight the fact that looking for raw physical strength is definitely not the right approach for F1. She noted that driving an IndyCar was more about the strength of your muscles and arms, since those cars do not have power assisted steering, whereas the process of driving an F1 car was more about core and cardio management – I wonder if perhaps people are trying to judge fitness for the job in the wrong way here, and are focussing on what may well be superficial differences.

      2. @fer-no65, Well the emphasis seems to be on getting women into F1 and I expect the women selected to be in the vanguard for this even knowing that Simona has been there and done that.

        1. @hohum In general that might be the case, but I think the point of Formula E’s exercise is to try to get women back into Formula E (there were some in the first two seasons, but they got more lucrative contracts in America – Simona is an example of this).

    3. Yeah @hohum, I really for you, you know, being put in that position and all, I mean the responsibility on your shoulders to opine on women’s aptness for an activity based on body shape. Your struggle is real.

      1. :-) @maciek – one for the “mick drop” moment

    4. @hohum Agree with this. Says something for the seriousness of female racers.

    5. I was going to say “Who would you rather”, but you guys found another way to talk about the female form.

    6. @hohum Thank you. I’ve been thinking how to say almost the exact same thing for the last ten minutes before deciding to look comment section. It’s true. They didn’t look like they had experience of what Ericsson had been through.

    7. It’s not possible to accurately judge how fit someone is just by looking at them in a race suit. Would you have said Felipe Massa was fit enough for F1 just to look at him? Or, on the other side of the issue, Esteban Ocon? Massa looks a little overweight and Ocon looks dangerously skinny, but they can both drive an F1 car just fine.

      1. RAI looks pretty chunky in a race suit, no spring chicken, but he did ok behind the wheel a few weeks ago. Nigel Mansell? Ricky Bobby? Alonso? Grosjean is fairly slim though so may be superior.

        1. Well Nigel is the perfect example, unable to fit back into an F1 car after a couple of years racing in Indycar. I’m not attacking women, I’m not attacking these women, I’m suggesting that it’s not just gender keeping them out of an F1 car regardless of how much natural talent they may have, just as there are many talented American (and other nationalities) drivers that don’t have the physique for F1 but succeed in other classes.

          1. @hohum I could agree that unfit drivers shouldn’t be considered for a drive. But you have no clue about that. That’s sofa wisdom. You are just looking at their suits, hardly a valid observation.

          2. @hohum, except that the story of Mansell not fitting into the car because he was supposedly too fat is not true, not least because it helped McLaren to say that the problem was with Mansell rather than admitting to the fact that they’d made a mistake when designing the car.

            Because of the accidents that the sport had seen in 1994, the FIA insisted that the teams had to increase the size of the cockpit opening to make it easier for a driver to get out in an emergency, as well as making it easier for medical workers to access a driver if he was injured and inside the car.

            Now, since that change took place at the same time as tougher side impact tests, most teams ended up redesigning the cars with a slightly wider survival cell and, as a result, a wider cockpit opening. McLaren, however, wanted to keep a rather narrow chassis – so, in order to fit the regulations, they built a car with a long and narrow opening that met the area requirements for the cockpit opening, but allowed them to keep a narrower chassis than most teams.

            When Mansell and Hakkinen tested the car, both of them started complaining that they were constantly banging their hands, wrists and elbows against the sides of the cockpit as they twisted their arms round to turn the wheel. It was actually Hakkinen who first made that complaint – he was the first to test the car – but, not being a household name like Mansell, nobody in the popular press really paid that much attention to Hakkinen.

            Now, what happened is that Mansell did make a remark about having bashed his hip on the side of the cockpit, which was of course then warped into the notion that Mansell was too fat to get into the car because that sounds funnier to the press and makes for a better story – but Hakkinen was having exactly the same issues as Mansell was, underlining that there was a common issue with the car.

            Of course, from McLaren’s point of view it would be preferable if the press were to spin the story as “Mansell is too fat to get into the car”, rather than “McLaren deliberately designed a car with a cockpit that was too narrow to begin with”. That latter point might have made Mercedes, which had only just signed a deal with McLaren to supply them with engines, question the competence of McLaren’s engineers and be inconvenient politically for them: making it sounds like the former draws attention away from the team and makes it a story that most will laugh off before quickly moving on to something else.

          3. anon – that’s a good story… but where did you get it… or are you the only one with it…?

      2. @exediron “Just fine” is very debatable. There’s no doubt that in F1 become tiny and fit is important. Rosberg intentionally slimming 1 kg of his leg muscle to gain 0.04 second, a fraction of time that he said it was huge to fight Hamilton.

        If Ericsson already lost 8 kg in 2017, he might have been better against Wehrlein and Nasr which could lead his team to think twice to replace him even if he got beaten by Leclerc this year.

      3. @exediron, Felipe is no longer in F1, hence the added girth but he has a tiny frame to his advantage.

    8. I won’t shoot you @hohum, but it’s still a stupid comment. Especially it lures really the wrong commenters out of the woodwork.
      The best reason for the different physical appearances are mentioned above.

      But maybe it’s better to have some extra weight around the bottom than having an inflated head. Best way to get the centre of gravity down :P

    9. The only question I had looking at that photo, and it’s one I had since the “extra car for teams running a female driver” F! test was announced, was how did they get round the law in Saudi Arabia which requires women to have a male chaperone to appear in public?

      1. F! = FE. Curse my typing.

        1. The cameraman?
          @geemac.

      2. @geemac The law got changed a while ago regarding women driving without a chaperone; I suspect, from the timing, that it and the contract for Formula E to race there were linked.

        1. And even before the law changed, it was 100% allowed for women to be race drivers.
          @alianora-la-canta, @geemac

    10. Funny with the (feigned) outrage for simply pointing out the obvious that a lot of these drivers have not watched their weight as much as they should have. ‘Natural body shape’ is something I can go to the pub and see a lot of, but never when watching sports where weight and fitness is at a premium, regardless of the gender. I somehow doubt there would be anything but agreement if the picture had showed a bunch of big-thighed and full-faced (naturally shaped) male hopefuls.

      1. There’s always a bit of ‘PC’ reaction to comments like this… and so the subject never gets discussed – which some people prefer…

  5. …and Formula One boss…

    Shouldn’t that be former F1 boss?

    And seeing that Mr. Mallya no longer has any involvement in F1, maybe we can dispense with any further news about him, unless it is significant and noteworthy (e.g. if an extradition/indictment happens)?

    On a tangential topic of possibly dodgy dudes – have there been any further updates on Rich Energy’s sponsorship of Haas? Any figures discussed?

    1. Rich is milking this to the max, even posting Imus with the bearded midget.
      Thus will probably last until they have to write the first cheque.
      @phylyp

      1. @coldfly – Thank you, yeah, I remember that photo with Bernie some days ago.

        It’s a bit ironic how the same team ends up being the example of positive and (possibly) shady brand building. Haas have brought their brand name to a wider audience the proper way, while Rich Energy just makes me feel icky.

        Gene Haas isn’t a m/b-illionaire by making stupid decisions, so I’d give him the benefit of doubt that there’s some substance to Rich Energy, but for the life of me I can’t fathom what it might me.

  6. If they arent fit enough now maybe it is a reason for none of them landing a seat on f1.
    The lady in the left seemes to be in better shape than most of the drivers on the photo.
    The fact that Silvestro is not fit as a F1 driver might help explain her results on Supercars.

    1. @gusmaia Simone only didn’t reach F1 due to running out of sponsorship. Sauber were really happy with her from a performance perspective, so she must have been fit enough.

      As she is also one of the drivers in the photo, it indicates that you are almost certainly wrong about everyone else in the photo.

      1. Her fitness at Sauber was years ago – cannot be compared with this photo.

  7. Sorry for posting this here @keithcollantine but I get a pop-up regarding privacy every page I visit. I’m logged in and ad-free, isn’t it supposed to go away after the first time?

  8. Like I pointed out at the time already: A marshal should’ve gone to pick up that debris immediately after all the remaining drivers in the race had passed that section of the circuit following the incident that led to the piece of debris falling onto the track surface in the first place.

    – It’s going to be interesting to see how Gio is going to fare out against someone of Kimi’s caliber in equal machinery.

    – I thoroughly agree with the COTD.

    1. A marshal should’ve gone to pick up that debris immediately after all the remaining drivers in the race had passed that section of the circuit following the incident that led to the piece of debris falling onto the track surface in the first place.

      @jerejj – good point, there was a window of opportunity at the restart where the field would have been relatively bunched together. However, I think this problem was compounded by a sequence of factors:
      – typically marshals are not allowed to enter the track on their own initiative without an instruction from race control
      – race control are sometimes only aware of debris if they are informed by the drivers or trackside personnel
      – the drivers didn’t notice it since the debris was caused by a collision near/at the end of the field
      – the marshals themselves had probably just caught their breath after cleaning up all the toys that the RBR drivers tossed out of the pram

      It makes me wonder if marshals can be equipped with leaf blowers to – in circumstances like these – try and blow away pieces of debris away from the racing line without having to physically go and pick it up. Carbon fiber is light, so that might help, but the distances might not be conducive. Or maybe just giant rakes!

      1. @phylyp They can and sometimes are, though we don’t see much of them for debris in F1 (possibly since they’d need to be reinforced leaf-blowers to handle carbon fibre).

  9. So COTD is again bashing Vettel? No doubt he underperformed in the second half of the year but ‘truly awful’? The amount of bashing he gets on this site you’d think we were talking about Maldonado or Palmer.

  10. Just for fun, was just sent this which gave me a few chuckles…

    http://motogpnews.com/category/f1/

  11. Some major seatfitting was needed to fit certain female race drivers or so it seems… #hipsdontlie

    So Carmen Jorda went 2nd fastest?

    1. No. She was sharing a car with another driver, and the other driver got the 2nd overall. Carmen, from what I heard, only did an out/in, with no time recorded.

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