In the round-up: Daniel Ricciardo says he hopes to emulate Sergio Perez, the only driver to have reached the Baku podium more than once, in this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
What they say
I think for any kind of midfield team, hats off to Perez, he’s the inspiration around here. I think I saw he’s had more podiums here than anyone else? What a legend! He’s the best example.
It’s one of those ones where you have to be in it to win it, you really do, but you have to take the most of the opportunity. It’s just having that kind of balance on Sunday where you’ve still got to be fired up and ruthless enough but it’s like if this is going to maybe take your race away from you in the first 10 laps it’s like, maybe save it for later, because more shit’s going to happen.
But it’s a good one, I’m looking forward to it, well aware anything could happen, so hopefully things happen.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Snapshot
IndyCar’s Advanced Frontal Protection device made its debut in this week’s test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The 1.2-kilo titanium part which passes the same impact tests as the car’s toll hoop sits in front of drivers and is intended to deflect debris.
IndyCar president Jay Frye said: “This will be Phase 1 of our solution. Sometime in May, we’ll announce what we’re doing next. This is Phase 1, it’ll do X. The other things we’re working on will be Y and Z in the process.”
Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
So what did @danielricciardo make of @F1's #AvengersEndgame poster?
"Oh shit, [Max's] got tits!
"What am I? Is he cool? Captain America's Lewis, I guess.
"What's Seb? He's got a big head, he's like a prominent character.
"Is that Toto? Have they added wrinkles to Toto?" #F1 pic.twitter.com/5ASZ88Sr93
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) April 25, 2019
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Fernando Alonso: "With every run we were discovering new things but at the end of the day it was a very short time on the track, so it is difficult to say if I feel we have a competitive car."
Ilott and Correa confident following the 'steep learning curve' of Bahrain (F2)
Callum Ilott: "With tyre deg there are three stages. There is when you think to yourself, that is what I have to do. Then, you have got someone telling you that you’ve got to save more than normal. And, then there is Bahrain, which is just another level."
2019 Euroformula Open season preview (Formula Scout)
"There are 21 drivers currently signed for the season opener, which is less than expected but does include junior drivers from Red Bull and Honda, last year’s BRDC British F3 title contenders and inspirational double amputee Billy Monger."
Emma Hunter: 'The best days for reliability are when no one is talking about it' (Fast and Fearless)
"Whilst being part of the crowdfunding effort to get Caterham to the last race of 2014, I saw the job advert for a Design Reliability Coordinator at Mercedes (AMG Petronas Motorsport); although I had no direct experience of working with reliability, I had carried out many of the fundamental requirements of the role as part of my job at Caterham."
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it in via the contact form.
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Comment of the day
Do Ferrari need to rein Charles Leclerc in?
Leclerc is in his first Ferrari year.
The kid already disobeyed a team order in Bahrain (wait two laps before attacking Vettel), and he’s always complaining on the radio.
He’s young, he’ll probably win championships, but man. This kind of attitude will lead to big tension in the team, very soon.
Not sure that’s what Ferrari wants.
Thegamer23
From the forum
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MtlRacer (@mtlracer)
26th April 2019, 0:19
re COTD:
Steve Jobs is quoted as saying “we don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do, we hire them to tell us what to do.”
The F1 version should be even blunter and go something like “we don’t hire fast drivers to tell them to go slow.”
And in the end, if both drivers finish in the points, disobeying team orders pays off in attention and publicity, so it might not necessarily be viewed as a bad thing.
@HoHum (@hohum)
26th April 2019, 1:24
As Seb himself proved, the way to succeed in F1 is to ruthlessly and greedily demolish your team mate and disregard any team tactics or agreements that get in your way of scoring extra points, fastest laps, pole positions etc. Only LH seems to be able to succeed as a gentleman-racer.
rob91
26th April 2019, 1:52
Lewis Hamilton is not a gentleman racer.
koddamn (@gufdamm)
26th April 2019, 1:59
Explain.
Keith Crossley
26th April 2019, 3:49
Explain
@HoHum (@hohum)
26th April 2019, 5:44
@rob91, LH may not have been born into the class of “gents” but the way he conducts himself on the race track satisfies my definition of a gentleman racer or sportsman.
Urvaksh (@thedoctor03)
26th April 2019, 7:36
@hohum well said and I have to agree. As much as I dislike Lewis outside of the car, I respect the driver in it. Very rarely will you see a rash move from him. You know that in wheel to wheel combat, if he knows he’s losing he will drop back and then pounce when the opportunity presents itself. But I also have to agree with the COTD to an extent. I don’t think LEC moans or complains, it’s just his frustration speaking. However, he needs to understand there is a policy in place at Ferrari, he’s got his big break and now he must slowly and steadily start demolishing VET for Ferrari to take notice. By demolishing I don’t mean overtaking him rashly or not obeying team orders. I mean he should simply be so fast (like in Bahrain) that there is nothing anyone can then do about it.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
26th April 2019, 10:51
Big Joe
26th April 2019, 11:02
@hohum
Don’t go down the ‘unpriviledged’ route with Lewis. He was born into a well spoken middle class family. He has the ingrediants to be a gentleman racer and was always one of the most well spoken and polite on the Kart track.
His driving was one of the most harshly criticised for a period at McLaren. Being told he’ll kill someone by Niki Lauda and Jackie Stewart.
Mark Zastrow (@markzastrow)
26th April 2019, 9:29
@gufdamm Perhaps rob91 is referring to the more traditional meaning of the phrase “gentleman racer” or “gentleman driver”—a rich amateur moonlighting in racing as a hobby.
About which, incidentally, I hear there’s a good Netflix doc right now.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
26th April 2019, 3:11
@mtlracer – perfectly said.
Prab
26th April 2019, 6:57
Couldn’t agree more!
Luke S (@joeypropane)
26th April 2019, 8:34
“Multi 21, Seb. Multi 21”
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
26th April 2019, 4:03
Stop it with the Leclerc talk. This feels like the bbc here. Fake news for a lack of a better term. Ferrari seldom resorts to team orders, after 5 seasons without any noteworthy team order people call on Ferrari for wasting points, now Ferrari’s trying to maximise, trying to be as good as their opponents with strategy(still failing) and all press starts deriding team orders, as if team orders were not the main dish at Mercedes for the past 5 seasons and in particular the last couple seasons.
Martin O. Powell
26th April 2019, 7:01
@pennyroyal, you appear to be very new to this sport or do not understand ‘Team Orders’ a quick glance at the orders Ferrari have given and why, you will be enlighten.
fake news: a story known not to be true or fabricated before reporting. Name one BBC instance, please?
mog
26th April 2019, 7:21
Pennyroyal is an old timer on this site.
Who are you?
BlackJackFan
26th April 2019, 10:01
Maybe so… but I have no recollection of this name here… Ans why does he need you to defend him…? ;-)
bosyber (@bosyber)
26th April 2019, 7:21
Well, I think it’s partly the ‘new guy’ shine the media likes @peartree, but you seem very sour about people just questioning (as Ferrari must be doing internally too) how Ferrari missed opportunities to do better so far this year.
In Australia, they clearly could have either let Leclerc past Vettel in that last stint (as he was at that point faster), or they should just have pitted him, he’d have a good chance of another point (ie. equal with Vettel, w. everything else the same) – I know, risks, but still would be a point taken from the competition; in China, sure, hindsight, but still, if they had been more reluctant to order Vettel past (or much faster to maybe!), and then mess with Leclerc’s strategy further for unlikely chances he’d slightly hinder competitors to give Vettel a slight chance he couldn’t take because the pace wasn’t in the Ferrari, they’d have done better as a team with 3rd and 4th. Similar to last years Kimi strategies, it lost them a better result for the 2nd Ferrari on track, and continuing like this means Mercedes are already very likely to win the WCC, even if Ferrari recover and get to be in the WDC fight (which think they are unlikely to win this way either, personally).
And of course there is the question of whether Ferrari will actually get on top of their car issues, which we can hope for, but their track record on that has been quite mixed in these last few years.
I think they need to perhaps rethink their priorities: Do they try to win it every time with Vettel, or should they maximise team points when they see they cannot win it that weekend (and they should maybe be more ready to admit that when it becomes likely), even if that means Leclerc is ahead of him that time, and work to improve the car so they can target a 1-2 next time around. That’s how Mercedes won last year, it seems to me.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
27th April 2019, 7:52
@bosyber Not sour, sour are the anonymous users. Bosyber like you said and I hinted, Ferrari’s strategy is still bad, a swap would’ve been pointless in melbourne but not going for the point was dumb, then the pointless swap in Shanghai, I’m not too sure that it cost them 3rd and 4th, it didn’t help. my point is that the media is focusing on the 2 drivers and running away with that story, a story they love to focus on, if it’s the red team, so much so that some users see red, in spite of the turquoise tinted glasses.
In my view it’s the sort of team orders that’s relatively less enraging, it’s team focused rather than driver favouritism. I don’t think much would’ve been written if it had been RB or Merc, and it shouldn’t, if only for the fact these swaps happen every couple gp’s, sometimes a team either misses an opportunity to swap the teammates on track or does swap drivers to no benefit.
bosyber (@bosyber)
27th April 2019, 7:58
Ok, that’s fair enough @peartree, though nowadays it probably would have been written for RB and especially Merc too (with copious comments about how team-ordered Merc are), but indeed, it’s the team that’s the main issue here (though perhaps it’s in an effort to ‘help’ Vettel, which would make him part of the problem?). Of course, fighting against a team like Mercedes which has been perfecting its’ game for a good few years now isn’t easy, especially not with a team like Ferrari that’s always feeling pressure to get immediate results from the italian press, I hope the new team management is helping there at least.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
27th April 2019, 8:14
@bosyber The italian press caves in to the blaming game and the British press always tries to find something wrong with Ferrari, any time it gets close to the front, the team is cheating or the press singles out the team on one subject and roasts Ferrari all season. too much drama.
bosyber (@bosyber)
27th April 2019, 8:20
@peartree, while I do see some of the British press (for example here), because they have the most F1 coverage, I guess I miss a lot of the nonsense by living in Germany; the Dutch press is, still, mostly Verstappen gushing, or very short so I know more already before reading; the German main press is, like RTL Germany, focussed on Vettel/Red Bull, and tends to be against Mercedes (which is odd if you see them as a German company, but they seem by default biased against, if impressed by, HAM, and were only a bit positive, sometimes, about Rosberg), so again, I just don’t follow them much and let a lot of drama pass me by :)
GtisBetter (@)
26th April 2019, 7:38
While maybe not direct team orders, Ferrari does have a habit of engineering a race for their nr 1 at the start of the season for years. Right now they are forced to use team orders and it’s just more obvious.
Didi
26th April 2019, 9:13
On the surface they don’t, but countless times, for example, they left Kimi out on old tyres to try to hold up the Mercs and put him out of the way of Seb.
Tim
26th April 2019, 11:05
Exactly. The only front running team who used this tactics, never saw Mercedes use Bottas the same way, never ever.
erikje
26th April 2019, 12:20
I hope this was a funny remark?
bosyber (@bosyber)
27th April 2019, 8:02
Pretty sure that was sarcasm erikje. One difference with Mercedes – they only do that when there’s a reasonable chance/opportunity for it to be effective, while Ferrari seem to do it for the heck of it a lot of the time, which usually loses their 2nd car a lot more time in the race for little apparent gain, which often makes them look rather foolish and over eager to mess with that 2nd car.
Martin
26th April 2019, 9:16
Obvious troll is obvious
sumedh
26th April 2019, 6:33
Does Ricciardo say “inspiration around here” to mean “inspiration around Baku” or “inspiration in the midfield teams”
If its the former, its fine. But if its the latter, I feel its arrogance of Ricciardo. He doesn’t consider himself part of “here” (= midfield teams) to pass a comment as if he is an outsider. And all teams are F1. They are not “here” and “there” between F1 and F1.5
bosyber (@bosyber)
26th April 2019, 7:25
I read it as him being new to being a midteam driver at the moment sumedh, and I think he was also talking ‘here’ as being Baku, given context and rest of what he says about things happening ‘here’ (but, it realistically could be applied to the midfield fight too, and not wrong to say Perez has gained more podiums than others in the midfield).
Phylyp (@phylyp)
26th April 2019, 7:32
I’ve never got an impression of arrogance from Daniel in the past, so it would be very unlikely that his statement was made in such a manner.
Jere (@jerejj)
26th April 2019, 7:41
I’m not sure I really agree with the COTD: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with his attitude. I actually thought it was good that he disobeyed the order to stay behind for two more laps in Bahrain considering how much faster he was on raw pace than anyone else on that day. I share the same views on this topic as @mtlracer above.
The AvengersEndGame poster, though. Is Toto supposed to be a villain or something, and Gasly an Iron Man, LOL?
terro (@terro)
26th April 2019, 8:29
heeeey, where’s my shout-out? ;(
Racingdave
26th April 2019, 9:07
When Prost arrived at Maclaren he was clearly already on Lauda’s heels….
Prost learnt everything he could maintaining a great relationship – Lauda won by a point that year and Prost took the title the following plus three more. I would say what Prost learnt from Lauda over that year made it possible for him to beat Senna and take himself stronger – Leclerc should take note.
Look at Verstappen the question marks are forming – a great talent but can he learn how to win a world title? He clearly lacks respect for anyone…..
bosyber (@bosyber)
27th April 2019, 8:06
The difference for me is that Vettel has already seemingly continued in the same, flawed, modus as in the last two years, so for Leclerc to pace himself (or be ordered to by Ferrari) to his teammate seems to be losing them pace and points already.
As for Verstappen, I sort of agree, but on the other hand, even if he would be ready now, the car doesn’t seem to be there, so let’s see how he goes when he does get that car, maybe the increased pressure and results could make him perfect. Or not, of course.
Travis (@)
26th April 2019, 9:28
I fail to see how a 1.2kg hunk of metal is “advanced”.
erikje
26th April 2019, 12:24
It even looks dangerous sharp and pointy.
Alesici (@alesici)
27th April 2019, 10:16
Yes. Why did they need to loosely attach a razor blade to the top of the safety device, right in front of the visor???
Todfod (@todfod)
26th April 2019, 9:34
I don’t think I could disagree anymore with the COTD.
Maybe he hasn’t realised that all F1 drivers on the grid are racers. Everyone’s been trying to win their whole career… and no ones came to F1 thinking I’ll do my best to support another driver’s (potentially slower driver) championship campaign.
Leclerc was super obedient in Australia. He asked the team and followed protocol despite being significantly quicker than Vettel at that point in time. In Bahrain, he said screw this because he was just going to held up behind him. And in China he had every right to complain because the team screwed him out of a podium finish.. and made him finish in P5.
If Ferrari want to hire a top talent. They need to treat him like a top talent. They can’t ask a top driver to play second fiddle to someone he’s been capable of beating in 3 out of 3 races so far. If this was Max Verstappen in Leclerc’s place, he would have probably disregarded team orders in all 3 races and then confronted the team principal, and in the worse case scenario torn up the contract and thrown it on Binotto’s face.
Ferrari’s management is a joke.
bosyber (@bosyber)
27th April 2019, 8:10
And if it was Vettel, I doubt he would have behaved as the COTD seems to want Leclerc to behave either @todfod, he’d probably be more in line with what you describe for Verstappen. Why should Leclerc then let himself be put into a ‘supportive’ role that’s difficult to get out of, because at Ferrari it seriously limits how much you are able to show your worth (see last race).
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
26th April 2019, 9:59
That poster has got to wind a few people up hasn’t it, even if it is done in fun? :)
Not sure I would put a lot of faith in the Frontal Protection device :(
GechiChan (@gechichan)
26th April 2019, 10:14
why isn’t the Hulk green in that poster? such a missed oportunity :))
Phylyp (@phylyp)
26th April 2019, 10:28
@gechichan – an excellent question!
Matt Clark (@mattc888)
26th April 2019, 18:35
Haha classic. I love these kind of posters, still have the Lord of the Renault one from 2012 with Kimi on the fridge ; D
frood19 (@frood19)
26th April 2019, 11:16
That fast and fearless article was kind of interesting – it’s something you rarely hear about (how to engineer reliability into a car) but it’s clearly of paramount importance. I guess it’s not the most alluring of the technical side of the sport, but clearly a good reliability engineering team/process is worth its weight in gold. how many titles have we seen decided on reliability? I would say, without having thought a lot about it, most of them!