In the round-up: Kevin Magnussen enjoyed having qualifying and the race on the same day in Japan.
What they say
Although Magnussen had a poor result at Suzuka, he enjoyed the changes to the weekends prompted by Super Typhoon Hagibis.
Absolutely, it’s been a really fun day. I think a very interesting and very intense. I’d love to see this be the way forward in the future.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Snapshot

Formula E began testing for its 2019-20 season at Valencia yesterday, with new teams Mercedes and Porsche joining the 24-strong field.
Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Miami Grand Prix website (Miami Grand Prix)
This appears to be the official website for the planned 2021 Miami Grand Prix.
'He doesn't get the credit he deserves, and that's a problem for our sport' (Daily Mail)
Daon Hill: "Perhaps he (Lewis Hamilton) doesn’t get the wider credit he deserves but that is a problem with our sport. I don’t think it’s Lewis’s fault. I wonder if it’s the sport itself that has drifted away from the centre of attention."
Racist paedophile threatened to kill journalists and said Lewis Hamilton is not English (LeedsLive)
"Hargreaves' full messages were not read out in open court, but were described as 'grossly offensive' and all displaying a preoccupation with motorsport, particularly Formula 1, and racist language."
Farewell Nanni (F1 Grand Prix Drivers' Club)
"Sad news for the Club and for the whole motorsport community. On October 12th our dear friend Nanni Galli died at the age of 79."
NASCAR round 31: Talladega (NASCAR via YouTube)
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.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Comment of the day
Is Sebastian Vettel right that Ferrari have all they need to beat Mercedes?
They have a slightly better car sometimes. What they lack is operational perfection to get the most out of every weekend and then a safe 0.3-0.5s lap time advantage.
They fixed the car with one third of the season to go. Before then they were only competitive on the right tracks.
But overall yes they are there about. Especially Vettel under-performed greatly. If he was two to three tenths ahead of Leclerc like a great driver should be, then that would be enough for many more wins this year. But with all the mistakes in last two years what feels like every second weekend was thrown away in some kind of incident (mostly Vettel under pressure).
Meanwhile look at Hamilton, I cannot remember when was the last time he dropped the ball? Certainly not every second race. Even Bottas would be a serious threat if he did that.
NewVerstappenFan (@Jureo)
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Jeepneyman!
If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
16th October 2019, 1:08
Meanwhile look at Hamilton, I cannot remember when was the last time he dropped the ball? Certainly not every second race. Even Bottas would be a serious threat if he did that
I think the year he was beaten by Rosberg was probably the last time. Hamilton certainly wasn’t at his best and has been a far better driver since. That is why Bottas has not seemed as competitive as Rosberg IMO.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
16th October 2019, 7:41
True there were years when Rosberg seemed way off Hamilton. But still Rosberg was getting his hands dirty in ways Bottas does not. Makes him a great #2 but not that great competition for #1.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
16th October 2019, 8:40
@dbradock though Rosberg had another rivalry background and looked more eager to win than it seems I’ll ever sense in Bottas. It’s like the guy accepted to be second from start while Rosberg was in the team before Hamilton and had a more established status. Rosberg has been a better competitor than Bottas imho.
tonyyeb (@tonyyeb)
16th October 2019, 8:58
@spoutnik And Rosberg had been beating Schumacher most weekends too.
Balue (@balue)
16th October 2019, 13:19
If Vettel had been in the dominant Mercedes he would have been at 99% and made far fewer mistakes too, and likewise, if Hamilton had been in the Ferrari and knew he would have to give 100% and seize each and every opportunity, he would have made more mistakes.
Dom (@3dom)
16th October 2019, 13:31
@balue Hamilton has shown to be far more good at wheel to wheel battles than Vettel throughout his career. We have over a decade of evidence of both of them, and Vettel has only shown glimpses of such skill. Hamilton has done it in every season (even in his troubled 2011 season). I doubt that it was Vettel trying too hard, he’s just not as adaptable a driver as Hamilton.
Balue (@balue)
16th October 2019, 14:18
@3dom Even in overtaking situations it is much easier in a dominant car to appear the better driver when the car is obviously faster and better handling and when you can bide your time to make a clean pass, and likewise worse in a non-dominant car where you know there might only be one opportunity and you have to go for it when it’s not an ideal time and you are desperate to get ahead to get the points needed to stay in the championship fight etc.
When Hamilton was in Vettel’s position of having to scrape every last tenth and point in the McLaren, he was much more error prone both when it came to forced and unforced errors. His fights often ended in crashes and an unforced error in reality cost him a championship (going off in China 2007) as we all know.
But I don’t know why there’s a need to argue what seems an obvious point that surely everyone realize. I simply wanted to remind people about this fact before it is empirically declared that Vettel can’t deliver championships because of errors, when we all know this is not true.
John H (@john-h)
16th October 2019, 18:12
2007 was his rookie year @balue. I’m not sure you can compare that to the recent mistakes Vettel has been making.
Dom (@3dom)
16th October 2019, 23:12
@balue who had the best car last year was arguable. They seemed pretty even imho.
I appreciate what you’re saying about a driver being able to be less “on the edge” if their car is better.
What I’m saying is that regardless of the last 2 years, if you look at both Ham and Vet’s wheel to wheel racing over their whole F1 careers (I think 13 and 11 years respectively), Ham has shown to be significantly better. Even in 2011 when he did have his worst season he showed how good he can be, just look at the way he raced Alonso to take the win in Germany that year as an example of how good he still was wheel to wheel in his worst year. I think Vettel is still a good driver, but he’s not done enough to show that he’s anywhere near as good as Hamilton wheel to wheel, and for that reason I can’t believe that he would have done as good a job as Ham if the situation was reversed, because you need that skill to be able to eke out the points even on weekends where you’re on the back foot. That’s what Ham and Mercedes did mid-season last year
sumedh
16th October 2019, 13:32
I would have agreed with the Vettel statement until mid-2018. But since then, I don’t. Vettel is now perfectly capable of spinning off on his own, running wide on his own, crashing it into the walls on his own no matter which position he is running in at that point of the race.
Give Vettel the Mercedes of 2018 or 2019 and we may even have got Bottas as champion.
Carlos Medrano (@carlosmedrano)
16th October 2019, 19:03
Except 2018 ferrari had the fastest car at a lot of tracks and at a lot of those tracks vettel still managed to make mistakes and throw away the win
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
16th October 2019, 6:27
Of course Ham is not an Englishman, he is monegasque like every f1 driver, except Albon, he is thai.
Dom (@3dom)
16th October 2019, 13:33
@peartree Thai people seem to have great southern British accents don’t they? 😜
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
16th October 2019, 23:48
@3dom that’s racist.
I just tag along Lewis Hamilton to get more coverage.
Jere (@jerejj)
16th October 2019, 7:46
If we had to change the GP-weekend format, then here’s a compromise I’d suggest:
Friday: Only (current) FP2 either 90 minutes or 120 minutes to compensate for the lack of FP1 and 3 to an extent
Saturday: Only Qualifying
Sunday: Race
At least for the Middle Eastern-venues, this alternative format wouldn’t be such a bad idea given the daytime FP1, and FP3-sessions are more or less a waste of time anyway, so might as well do without them on these two venues.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
16th October 2019, 7:50
:D Thank you for COTD.
As for Deamon Hill claiming Lewis does not get the credit he deserves?
What credit exactly does he deserve? Mostly people tend to agree he is the best of current-outgoing generation.
There are a number of fans who can easily claim with some evidence to suggest he is the greatest of all time.
To support that he is the greatest in several recorded stats. He needs few more wins and two (one is nearly done) more champions to match Michael Schumacher. And then most of measurable stats will be on his side.
What more does he deserve? He might not impress fans with his pleasant personality or simple lifestyle. But racing driver wise, nobody can dispute it much.
AllstarGP
16th October 2019, 9:34
Perhaps he’s referring to the large swath of people who recognise the statistics but don’t credit him as being a more outstanding driver than anyone else who would be given the same equipment.
The tired refrain of “If Fernando/Max/Leclerc/etc. had Lewis’ car they’d have X more driver championships” is common in any environment where team/equipment play an outsized factor for individual accolades.
sumedh
16th October 2019, 8:32
Regarding the proposed changes in qualifying, effectively, I see the modified race weekend as 1 long race with a forced red flag in between. Teams will be allowed to change tyres, repair cars and refuel during the red flag. The starting order for this long race will be the reverse championship order.
So, what is really happening is that qualifying is being completely abandoned (not just being replaced by a different format) and we have got reverse grid races. While it is being advertised as a “different type of qualifying format”, I hope fans see it for what it really is – abandonment of qualifying.
I really hope this proposal doesn’t go through. Abandoning qualifying would be a travesty.
GechiChan (@gechichan)
16th October 2019, 9:00
Re COTD: “What they lack is operational perfection to get the most out of every weekend and then a safe 0.3-0.5s lap time advantage.”
The operational perfection is easier to achieve, and Mattia Binotto seems to be the perfect TP to fix these issues with time. But the second part is much harder… At the moment, Ferrari managed to sort-of fix their downforce issues but they only have a slight edge in qually trim, in race pace it seems to be the other way around, the Mercedes is quicker and kinder on its tires. In Singapore and Monza, this qually advantage proved to be enough to win because track position and straight-line speed were paramount. And this fooled everyone into thinking Ferrari is the new car to beat, but I think they are still second fastest in race-trim.
Dom (@3dom)
16th October 2019, 13:36
Like 2017 in reverse then @gechichan?
RB13
16th October 2019, 14:46
“Racist paedophile threatened to kill journalists and said Lewis Hamilton is not English (LeedsLive)”
Probably BigJoe off here.
pSynrg (@psynrg)
17th October 2019, 7:09
And I’d love to have my work commitments reduced by a third Kevin.