Romain Grosjean, Haas, Suzuka, 2019

Steiner expects “bad” Mexican Grand Prix for Haas

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Haas team principal Guenther Steiner expects a difficult race for the team in Mexico next week.

What they say

Steiner said the team won’t have an upgrade to address its ongoing problem with the VF-19 over the final rounds. He was asked whether the upcoming races will be “painful” for the team:

Some more than others. Mexico will be bad, it’s the obvious reason that the air is lighter.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

The F1 calendar needs some reorganising, says @Black:

Irrespective of whether Miami gets a place in the calendar, something I could not understand over the years that I watch F1, is why the Canadian Grand Prix is scheduled in early June as a single overseas trip and then back to Europe for the rest of the summer.

Wouldn’t make more sense to have most of the Asian rounds around March-April (like we do now), then have all the European rounds from May until August, and once the summer break has ended, at the start of September all the North American rounds (I mean Montreal can’t be that cold on the first week of September). After that, on October maybe a Singapore-Japan back-to-back and closing the season in Brazil and Abu Dhabi (hopefully the latter gets dropped in favor of another South American round, namely Argentina).

And if Miami gets a spot on the calendar, it would fit just after the ‘new’ Canada date, early-middle September.
@Black

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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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59 comments on “Steiner expects “bad” Mexican Grand Prix for Haas”

  1. Haas is drifting, figuratively and on track. I agree that Max is probably the quickest ever driver on this type of f1 car.

  2. Thought I saw Hamilton driving a Ferrari in Malibu two weeks ago. I doubt he has stopped living the good life. I doubt one guy stopping jet travel is going to make a difference. A drop in the ocean. ( pun intended)

  3. Button just saying there we can’t compare between eras, which is fair enough.

    A bit premature to be quite so glowing about Max, he’s clearly very quick but has made many, many more errors than would be ideal, from a team managers point of view. He has loads of potential but is a long way from matching Hamilton at this point.

    1. @paulguitar
      “”A bit premature to be quite so glowing about Max, he’s clearly very quick but has made many, many more errors than would be ideal, from a team managers point of view.”
      I’m not gonna debate the amount of errors (because since Monaco 2018 there is basically nothing to talk about, unless being torpedoed by a Ferrari counts)), but, 4 times world champion Vettel made more errors in the last year than Max in his entire career, pre 2017 5 time world champion made lots of mistakes to (actually throwing away world titles, something Max so far hasn’t done) and then there is 7 time world champion Michael Schumacher, whose career is basically a string of incidents, wins, errors, wins….this guy made more mistakes in a single year than the entire current grid combined.
      Then we have, say, Danny Ric…..hmmm, has he made a lot of mistakes this year….or Hulk, Grosjean…..
      My point is; All drivers make “mistakes” when they are fighting for wins/positions, and only those drivers like post 2017 Hamilton who are driving a superior car, without a proper teammate to challenge them, drive mostly error free because all they have to do is: Show up, qualify there where the car is supposed to be, drive around in circles and add a lot of points to the tally.

      1. > unless being torpedoed by a Ferrari counts

        Cough-cough-Belgium-cough-cough

      2. Schumacher’s career filled with mistakes, what? He made some but so did senna, so did hamilton, schumacher was actually a driver you could rely on to deliver the max from the car reliably, I agree about vettel, titles don’t always tell the whole picture.

    2. Button didn’t say Max was the best or least error-prone, he said he was the fastest, presumably in terms of raw speed, which doesn’t take into account errors.

      1. “he said he was the fastest”

        Which is based on absolutely nothing, what-so-ever.

        How could Button possibly have any idea at all about how much Verstappen is getting out of his own car and where that cars limits actually are, never mind how Hamilton would do in that Redbull or Max would do in Hamiltons Merc. Would people have thought the 2012 McLaren was only capable of a single pole position if Hamilton wasn’t along side Button that year?

        Losers focus on winners, winners focus on winning, Mr Button.

        1. More than that, how exactly has Button weighed up the 773 other drivers who have participated in Formula 1 over the current lifespan of the category to come to the conclusion that Max is the fastest driver ever to have sat in a Formula 1 car?

          The other aspect is whether Button can be trusted as an independent observer here – he is employed by Honda as a “brand ambassador” and drives a Honda-NSX Super GT car for a team founded by a former member of Honda’s works motorbike team.

          For quite a long time, Button has had quite close personal and financial links with Honda – given that Honda are now backing Red Bull, and thus backing Verstappen, is he truly independent there, or is there a certain element of toeing the corporate line from Honda?

        2. @N @anon First off JB is hardly a loser as he is one of the rare number (still only in the thirties) of WDCs in F1. It is ridiculous to suggest that JB couldn’t possibly know what he is talking about or that he would have had to analyze in detail 773 other drivers to come to this conclusion. He’s obviously just making a remark from observation and would know that such a comment would be highly subjective and debatable. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting to be taken to a court of law to have to prove his personal assertion. People in racing have to go out on a limb when taking on drivers all the time, speculating based on what they have seen, without having a crystal ball as you would suggest JB alone would require in order to be perfectly accurate. Sheesh, lighten up. Ya maybe it helps that he has ties to Honda as does Max for him to claim what he has, but something here is undeniable. Max is indeed special, and exciting, and given that he has only ever had a third place car in the WCC yet has won races, one can fairly safely say that he in a WCC car would be quite formidable. The best ever? Yeah for sure to be fair to all the drivers before him, we have to see Max see his career through to make that assertion. But for me since I was never going to chisel ‘Max is the all-time fastest driver in the history of F1’ on a tablet just because JB said it, I still find it fascinating that he would make that assertion, and it is just another little bit of ‘evidence’ that we are going to see great things from Max.

          I’m also mindful that Max is about to see the bulk of his career through in an F1 that presumably will be putting more of the emphasis on the driver so that will make his career both more challenging than the F1-lite we’ve been having, as well as more fulfilling.

  4. A number of interesting and contentious articles today.

    Hints that teams think there’s something possibly illegal with the Ferrari PU
    Buttons comment .. yes it is impossible to compare a current WDC with past drivers but history will still show that he’s been among the best ever in terms of WDC’s and that can’t be overlooked. Nor can the fact that his consistent and improving form still shows he’s worthy of the WDC’s he’s won.
    Ricciardo’s comments .. spot on. Drivers these days should be listened to by Liberty, their teams and the FIA. They’re no longer the billionaire playboys of the past that partied every day between races.

    Lots more news likely during the off season methinks.

    1. A number of interesting and contentious articles today.

      That’s what the round-up should be every day.
      But please stop with the old quotes from the last GP and promote them as headline.
      Those quotes are too old for a daily round-up (unless under ‘On this day in F1’) and have previously been reported elsewhere.

  5. Re COTD: Miami is prone to hurricanes and tropical storms in late-summer, early-autumn. With hurricane risks being so high, it does make more sense to hold the race in spring.

    But honestly, your idea is sensible enough that I would rather see Miami (and some other races) dropped to enable a more logistically reasonable calendar.

  6. COTD. @black

    The calendar tends to be organised the way it is for a few reasons.

    Firstly is that they try to get races to fall around the middle of summer in order to try & get the best conditions possible as this in turn helps ticket sales. Trying to sell tickets to an event that fall’s in the colder/wetter times of the year is usually a much harder sell. There is a reason things like music festivals tend to fall around the same time of the year in a certain region.

    There are then also local considerations in terms of promoters trying to avoid local events that may draw attention away from the F1 (Sporting or otherwise). And you also have some promoters who push to get an F1 race held at a specific time in order to fall in line with certain local events/traditions. And there are also local holidays which may help draw families to the circuit.

    And you then also have promoters who insist on a race been at a particular time for commercial reasons. Melbourne loves to hold the first round because been the first round creates some extra attention which helps draw fans, Zandvoort pushed hard to be the fist European round because they feel that will create an extra buzz & Abu Dhabi insists on been the final round (And pays extra to get it) because should a championship go down to the wire that creates extra attention that like with the first round helps draw fans.

    I also think some promoters look at when people tend to go on family summer holidays & stuff in order to try & ensure you don’t have people going on holiday abroad & such while the race in on.

    There is a lot of stuff that goes into forming the calendar, A lot of negotiating with promoters, Looking at the climate at certain times of the year among many other things people just don’t think about & it all makes organizing it trickier than you would think.

    And something that is going to make things more difficult is the expending calendar. It was much easier to sort a lot of this out when you had 16-18 races as you had more room to play with, With 22+ there’s far less room to shuffle things & I think in the coming years we are going to see a lot of issues with organizing the schedule because of the expansion.

    1. Just to add this with regard to Montreal specifically (as I’ve lived here the last few years now).

      I think there are a few reasons why the organizers of the race would be reluctant to agree to a move. One is the weather, the race was held in September in the early 80s but they moved it to June for warmer weather, the first two weeks of September aren’t usually cold but can be a bit temperamental.

      Another would be concern of competition from another race on same continent, a lot of Americans come over for the race as Montreal is only about 70km from the boarder, and good chance attendance could well take a hit with people opting to go to Miami instead.

      Finally I think the major reason is tradition and practicality. The race has now been held on 2nd weekend of June since 1982. Montreal has a lot of events & festivals over the summer and the F1 is one of the first big ones of the year. The city seems to really embrace it, with streets in downtown closed for fan festivals & activities, restaurants and bars are packed. Afterwards nearly every weekend there are music and arts festivals throughout June to August, many with there own traditional dates (to tie in with public holidays) that take place in Downtown and Parc Jean-Drapeau where the circuit is, so I think for most other weekends it’d just be logistically impossible for the city to host the event without re-arranging many other long-standing events.

      1. @dvary The distance between Montreal and Miami is 2,272.83 km by air (2,639.40 km via driving route), though, so not exactly ‘close’ to each other. Austin and Mexico City are far closer to each other than Montreal and Miami, not to mention Montreal and Austin, or Montreal and Mexico City. For further reference, the distance between Montreal and Indianapolis is roughly the same as the Austin-Mexico City one.

        1. @jerejj: The colder Montreal gets, the closer Miami becomes. It’s one of those geographic thermal contraction things that many Canadians understand.

          1. @jimmi-cynic How, LOL? The physical distance between any given two locations stays the same regardless of the weather-conditions on them. The precise distance to the Sun varies slightly throughout the year, but the distance between two cities, etc., remains the same.

          2. The distance between a joke and the intended recipient’s head does seem to vary, however 😉

          3. @jerejj @jimmi-cynic I believe it works on the same logic that has British people craving holidays abroad as soon as October comes round, even if for various reasons they end up having them when it is summer. Mostly people just want to be nearer the Sun (even if Miami is at lower elevation than Montreal so technically is further from the Sun ;) )

      2. The Montreal-Miami or Montreal-Austin distance is so large, that it’s like avoiding holding Barcelona and Sochi back-to-back because you fear one will “steal” the other’s crowd.

        As a general area Montreal targets Canada and Northeast USA, whereas Miami targets mostly Southeast USA. Miami could sustain itself just by the state of Florida probably, not having to worry to attract other states’ crowds.

    2. Furthermore, the NFL season starts in early September – so holding a race around the Miami Dolphins’ stadium in mid September is probably not possible.

      1. @imhotep222 Well, the Miami Dolphins could do an extended road-trip streak to accommodate for the F1 race-event.

    3. First of all, Keith thanks for the COTD!

      Secondly… @gt-racer Look i understand it is difficult to accomodate every race whenever the organisers want, with no consideration to the entire caledar. But not holding a race at a specific date other than the current one because it’s nice to have some festivals around the original date and that’s the way it’s been for years is totaly different to not holding a race at a specific date because it would probably be hit by a hurricane that period. If every race got its way we would end up with a calendar looking like this for example: China-Spain-Canada-Hungary-Brazil…

      Once Liberty purchased F1, they expressed their intentions to “group” the races based on their geography. And at ever expanding calendar Liberty holds the big bargaining chip, not the promoters. I love Montreal and of course i don’t want to lose this race, but i don’t think any race promoter has the leverage to stand up to Liberty and demand to be held at a certain date just because it’s nice and not because there is a big important reason. Because Liberty could easily chop off one classic race and replace it with another one at bland Tilke-designed country if they had to.

      My idea is the same, have all the European races between May and August and leave the flyaway races before and after those months. Which is basicly what we do now, with the exception of Montreal. Here is a draft calendar for 2021 for example (with no Spain and Germany as it stands at the moment and the Russian GP held at St. Petersburg like it is rumored and maybe moving if possible the summer break a month earlier mid July-mid August so that we can have Belgium-Italy once the break ends like we are used to but that’s not necessary, it’s more like a preference):
      Mar 14: Australia
      Mar 28: Vitenam
      Apr 4: China
      Apr 18: Bahrain
      Apr 25: Azerbaijan
      May 9: Netherlands
      May 16: Austria
      May 30: Monaco
      Jun 6: Russia
      Jun 20: Great Britain
      Jul 4: France
      Jul 11: Hungary {summer break}
      Aug 8: Belgium
      Aug 15: Italy
      Aug 29: Canada (i mean come on, late August date cannot be that much colder and unpredictable than early June)
      Sep 5: USA [Austin]
      Sep 19: Singapore
      Oct 3: Japan
      Oct 17: Mexico
      Oct 24: USA [Miami] (i may have been a bit optimistic when i said early September is possible, but seriously i find it hard to belive that in late October a hurricane can strike Miami)
      Nov 7: Brazil
      Nov 21: Abu Dhabi (hopefully if another South American race joins, like Argentina, and Abu Dhabi insists it pays double to host the final race, then have ‘Argentina’ back-to-back with Brazil and move Abu Dhabi a week later).

      1. @black Overall not too badly formed alternative race calendar of yours, but there are a couple of points I’d like to bring up here: Firstly, Monaco-Russia (either Sochi or St. Petersburgh) as a double-header mightn’t be an easy task to achieve, and secondly, yes, the Canadian GP could take place in late-August, but the US GP at COTA in early-September wouldn’t really be viable as the area is still scorching following the summer, and remains that way more or less throughout the month. As I pointed out in my separate post below: ‘COTA can still be quite hot throughout that month.’ Here are the ambient temps for Elroy, TX (the precise area where the COTA-circuit locates) for this year’s September: https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/elroy/78617/september-weather/2237406?year=2019

        1. @jerejj Well the entire European season calendar that i’ve created is not set in stone. Basicly the only reason for each GP’s date is convenience rather than climate which is similar from venue to venue. So the Monaco-Russia double header could easily change to any other European venue that is viable at that date (maybe NED-FRA … MCO-AUT … GBR … HUN-RUS for example).
          As for the ‘Austin problem’… maybe Austin and Mexico could swap dates (Sep 5: Mexico & Oct 17: Austin) and possibly move Mexico a week later to ~Sep 12 (and make Singapore-Japan back-to-back) to avoid as much as you could the rainy season (it would still be inside but towards the end of it). Or at the very least have the Canadian GP as a stand alone on late August, then the two Asian rounds and then the Austin-Mexico-Miami trio in October.

        2. @jerejj @black Specifically, Monaco only works as a double-header if the other round is in the EU, due to the way travel restrictions work on cargo and the lack of proximity involved (back-to-backs involving two rounds in east Asia tend to work better, though I don’t fully understand the reasons). Monaco-Spain has been done as a double-header before.

          Mexico paid extra to have the date it has (because they believe the value to be recouped by combining with Day of the Dead festivities), so Liberty would have to accept a revenue cut from Mexico to move it anywhere other than the date it has.

          The other complexity is that some tracks have other series that use the track that are accustomed to fixed dates. Since F1 tends to be break-even at best, and the other events make money for tracks, the other events almost invariably take priority (the only exception I can think of is Formula E, which may be why Formula E usually does the moving when there’s a clash between it and WEC). Liberty may appear to have power over the tracks, but the other series have more power over the tracks than Liberty does – at least until Liberty makes hosting a F1 race a clear profit for the track proprieters.

          1. @alianora-la-canta ”Mexico paid extra to have the date it has” – Source? I’ve never read/seen anything along the lines of that on any website.

          2. @jerejj Thank you for picking that one up – I could have sworn I’d read it somewhere, but I can’t find the reference. Please could anyone reading my previous comment strike out the Mexico section of it in their minds until further notice?

  7. I know my opinion will not be popular, but when I listen to people stating that Lewis is the GOAT, it looks that they forget that amongst all drivers, he’s maybe the one that has spent the most time of he’s career driving dominant cars or race winning cars at least since day one (not his fault , he had talent enough since Karting to impress, and he always made great career choices by his own merit). He had probably been in a race winning outfit for more than 80% of his career ( a bit like Schumacher’s career). When we see the entire career of other great drivers, they had proportionally much less time of winning cars at their disposal. We can see that Alonso, Hakkinen, Senna, Prost, Stewart, Emerson just to name a few of them could arguably fare as good or even better than him, they just hadn’t the opportunity to do so. Button is not the first driver to say this about Hamilton (Verstappen, Prost , Montoya, Berger and other drivers had similar views) , they acknowledge he’s a great driver (which he is) but they are always a bit reluctant to tell he’s an absolute legend or the greatest ever, because of the fact he has so dominant cars. My wish was to see the inverse scenario we have today: it would be great to see Ham to drive a Red Bull against a Verstappen in a Mercedes. In my opinion, he wouldn’t be able to do more than Verstappen for example. But this is only my opinion, and I’m probably gonna be bashed , but that’s fine.

    1. @mmertens

      I agree with all your points. This is pretty my position as well. Except for 1 or 2 years in his career, Lewis has had a front running car, which he used to good effect. I have no qualms with that.

      You can draw parallels between Schumacher’s 2000 to 2004 hegemony to Lewis’ current reign. However, you have to remember that between 1996 and 1999, he dragged a pretty crap (relative to the Williams and Mclarens) Ferrari to fighting for the championship, kicking and screaming, literally in some cases :). I’m no fan of him, but you have to admire how relentless he was. Would Lewis have done the same? Judging by past performances, Lewis hasn’t fared well in terms of consistency when he’s not had a good car under him.

      For me, if I had to pick an all time great, it would be Prost. I believe he would have been a 7 time champion if he’d scored 4 more points or something like that. I dont think there’s ever been a more complete driver.

      1. @jaymenon The only years in which Hamilton didn’t have a top car were 2009, 2011, and 2013. He performed pretty well in 2009 and 2013, with 2011 being the only blip. Also, I think Lewis has improved a lot in terms of consistency since 2016, so he’s not the same driver he was in his early years. One of the reasons Alonso rated Hamilton more highly compared to Vettel was that he believed the former had scored some of his victories in a car that was not the best on the grid.

        1. @jaymenon10 sorry, didn’t tag you properly

      2. Thanks mate! I am with you about Prost. He is in another level, really consistent during his career (apart maybe from the infamous 1991 season). As for Schumacher, I believe that at least we had the opportunity to se what he was capable on underdog cars in 1991 and 1992, and 1996. But I think in 1997 and 1998 he had a winning capable car already, not the best one, but a really good one already. I suspect that Hamilton , if put not in a dominant car, would fare a bit more like Vettel are doing, being more error prone and feeling more the pressure. The “Red Bull era Vettel“ was praised as unbeatable and one of the greatest of all time. This stint at Ferrari is showing more his weaknesses and how he cope with pressure. I tend to believe the same would happen to Hamilton. Both are excellent drivers, but not necessarily as good as their stats show.

    2. Agree that HAM had the luck to spent most of his carreer in top cars, plus with chance of racing in longer and longer seasons, he already tops most important stats, but I think Schumacher was somehow better in performing in inferior machinery, on the other hand I don’t think Hakkinen is that good. He made a lasting impression only when he drove the best cars: 1998 and 1999.

      1. @mg1982 Mika was a bit like Kimi, given the right circumstances, he was untouchable.

        Guys like Schumacher and Alonso were relentless, which is probably why they did well in inferior machinery.

    3. With all this discussion about GOATs and other animals, it’s time to make my point about the sport/championshp again.
      F1 is a team sport first and individual competition second.
      I think there should be much more focus on the WCC than the WDC*.
      I’d like to see a race podium with the 3 best teams on top, and maybe the winning driver on the side podium.
      I’d like to see a big celebration and flashing on-screen messages in Japan because Merc won the championship.

      *maybe there should be 10 WDC’s; one for each team.
      That would keep the championship interesting.

      1. @coldfly: I agree. But with the big teams having over 1,000 ‘players’, the podium ceremonies could get crowded. ;-)

        Also the media wants to big up the drivers – the road warriors, because it’s simpler in a celeb-obsessed culture. Try to imagine the Sky TV crew interviewing engineers – blank stares and awkward silences don’t make good TV. And Liberty is happy to dumb-down the sport. If only the leading teams would let them.

        1. @jimmi-cynic I once watched a race with 55 competitors and 9 podium ceremonies (the 2012 12 Hours of Sebring; it had four classes from one organiser, three classes from a different organiser, and two classes had a combined podium because they had entrants from both organisers). It took them an hour to get through the ceremonies.

          1. @alianora-la-canta: Impressive. The 13 hours of Sebring. Endurance racing indeed. ;-)

          2. @jimmi-cynic And that was before the post-race stewarding enquiry about what to do with the car that nearly took out the eventual winner of three different classes (to clarify, that was two cars that narrowly avoided collision, not three…). That turned it into the 16 Hours of Sebring.

      2. @coldfly – I’d be lion if I didn’t say ewe made a good point there.

  8. I don’t know how Hamilton matches up historically but for Button to say that Max is the fastest ever??? What does that have to do with anything? This is F1 and you need to be consistently fast and make as few mistakes as possible. If Hamilton locks up on 1 corner during a race, it is highlighted as Hamilton making a mistake. Other racers such as Verstappen, stall at the start, run through other cars, cut through corners, etc race after race. It shows that Hamilton is at another level and the racing has little to do with being the fastest.

    1. Max is now on the age Lewis was when he started in F1. And he was never in the best car yet. The Lewis you’re talking about is driving a dominant Mercedes car. Maybe you should look at the Lewis that drove in the back of another car in the pitlane i.e.

  9. COTD: Before suggesting to move the date of the Canadian Grand Prix, you should try attending it. It would not be the same in September.
    Also, the Canadian has “seniority” over the Mexican and American ones, so they should be moved instead.

    1. @mtlracer I would love to attend the Canadian GP, probably more than any other on the calendar, but i live way across the Atlantic and it’s way out of my budget. But the “seniority” factor cannot be applied here. If it did, then the older races (Britain, Monaco, Belgium, France, Italy) could dictate the entire calendar just because they date way back to 1950 and every race after them is just new. Every race on the calendar is subject to compromise with the others and with Liberty who organises the entire calendar.

      1. @black Arguably, Monaco and Italy could. However, the other three have moved dates in the past, so there’d be precedent for moving them again (however, moving Belgium to May immediately after a track resurface, and Britain to April for any reason, would both be Very Bad Ideas, judging from history). Two races as reference points shouldn’t be too difficult to have in place.

  10. That Spectator piece is an unbelievable pile of garbage.

    1. No…it isn’t. He’s bang on!

    2. Why is it garbage in your opinion? Just throwing an insult without explaining why doesn’t add anything to the discussion.

    3. Ah, the Spectator. Part of a 15 billion pound operation that places it companies abroad and through trusts to avoid tax, whilst the owners are also tax exiles. I wonder how much of all that loss of tax to the UK could be spent on improving our environment?
      Interesting that he refers to a ‘maybe’ in relation to Hamilton driving a car (Oh the horror!! Stone Hamilton!) whilst his bosses are in legal dispute over their repeated violation of Sarks law banning motor cars.
      Attacks the millionaire rich on behalf of the billionaire rich whose abuses in this field far outweigh anything a racing driver, film star or celebrity could do. Just another sad little enabler spouting ill-informed bile. And meanwhile the usual plebs lap this nonsense up.

    4. I take it the author of this piece who claims Hamilton ‘maybe’ used his car; legally I assume, realises his bosses are in dispute with the government for violating Sarks law banning motor cars?

  11. Regarding the COTD: There’s one reason (and only one) for the Canadian GP taking place as a standalone North American event in June, and that is called the climate: September is also on the edge temperature-wise, so moving Montreal there wouldn’t really be worth it either, and COTA can still be quite hot throughout that month, and Mexico City’s ‘rainy-season’ (June-September) is still active then. There just isn’t really a time of year when all three (Montreal, COTA, and Mexico City) would have ideal weather-conditions to F1’s liking at the same time. The Mexican GP could take place in June alongside the Canadian GP as the daytime temps in Mexico City stay relatively stable all-year-round, unlike on the other two venues, but June is one of those very wet-months, so on that front, it’d be unideal for the Mexican GP as well.

    1. Regarding Joe Saward’s notebook: It’d be all too easy just to do that and expect miracles to happen. October is decent temperature-wise and not even the rainiest month of the year. The wettest months of the year (at least in Suzuka, and capital Tokyo) are June-September, and after that, it gets drier towards the winter. Suzuka has a similar climate to that of Shanghai, so yes, it could hold a slot in April as well, but April’s cooler than October even if less rainy, so I’d rather keep the Japanese GP at this time of year. I’d instead move the Chinese GP back to this time of year. Alternatively, the Japanese GP could take place in November, but it’d then better be the first half of the month as the daytime temps cool down the further into the month we go.

      ”A switch would also create a problem in that the last round of the Super Formula Championship is traditionally held at Suzuka a couple of weeks after the Grand Prix and so it would mean that there would be two similar races close to one another on the calendar.”
      – How would switching the Japanese GP away from October (to April as he suggests) cause a problem for the Final SF-round traditionally taking place towards the end of October, though?

      I agree with him on the ”The ever-growing F1 calendar means that such problems really need to be fixed because if the sport is going to go up to 25 races in the years ahead, the dates need to be properly streamlined and not being stand-alone flyaways, which make no sense at all” part, though. The race-promoters should be willing to give up on certain demands/desires on when in the year precisely to be. I can understand the Mexicans wanting to be associated with the annual Day of the Dead-proceedings, but not as much the rest of the similar desires on local, national holiday-periods.

    2. @jerejj • Take Canada off early June.
      • Move the European races 2 weeks ahead due to the gap created and have ALL the European races take place between May-August. Make as much possible back-to-back weenkeds when the European season is at full swing.
      • Then place Canada on late August and make it back-to-back with Austin on early September.
      • Have the remaining Asian rounds after that (Singapore-Japan), i mean the teams would anyway return to their bases after the double North American races before they embark on the next set. It doesn’t really matter logisticly whether they go first to Mexico-Brazil or Singapore-Japan after that, it’s a flyaway set anyway.
      • Leave Mexico with Miami {pending on confirmation} back-to-back on late October.
      • Scrap Abu Dhabi and finish the season at Brazil. Problem solved :P

  12. One theory relates to Ferrari’s intercooler and how a controlled leak may allow a small amount of oil to enter the combustion process, and produce a power boost for a short period of time.

    It is still speculation, though very persistent and even Ferrari covered evidence in a shroud of smoke last year.
    But I’m not sure why there could be even the tiniest of doubt about the ilegality of such a design. RBR got banned when they used just a molecule of extra fuel through their fuel flow meter, and it seems Renault was punished for a few electrons extra.

    1. According to our Dutch F1 commentator Olav Mol in a Dutch podcast there are strong rumours from (as he calls them) very trustworthy people in the other teams Ferrari is cheating. They see things in the GPS data that are beyond logic explanation with the current spec PU. And they believe the FIA is allowing it for the show.

      I don’t know if it’s true, but if this is really the case Redbull is really the big victim here.

      1. Please don’t say our. I’m Dutch and take offense. I avoid any Dutch F1 coverage like the plague including Olav Mol…

        ;-)

        1. I don’t like him that much either, but Ziggo is the most stable way to watch races. And sometimes it just feels good to scream at the scream ;-)

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