Paddock Diary: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix day two

Formula 1 teams are discussing plans to standardise pit stop equipment, @DieterRencken learns on day two at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

9:30am

Depart for circuit – with Fridays being the start of weekends in this regions, traffic flows easily, and I’m in the car park within 30 minutes and media centre 15 minutes later.

Along the way to the paddock I catch up with a trusted sporting director, who shares details of the previous day’s sporting meeting: “Nothing much was discussed,” he says, “except standardising pit equipment from 2021.

“The plan is that all teams have exactly the same kit, allegedly in the name of cost-saving, but it means that seven teams [except the top three, who already have state-of-the-art-kit] will need to chuck away half their stuff, and buy new gear… for what?”

He suggests the move is driven, in part at least, by commissions on the sale of each standardised item, which in turn accrue to F1’s commercial rights holder, Liberty. True, under the sport’s revenue structure the teams eventually benefit from all income, but only share a percentage, which is unlikely to cover the costs of dumping perfectly good kit. I’ll keep you posted.

11am

Depart for ‘Dutch Oriental’, the yacht rented by British American Tobacco for the weekend, where McLaren announces a continuation of its alternative tobacco products sponsorship, which for 2021 includes support for the all rounds of the team’s IndyCar programme.

No numbers are mentioned, of course, but I get the impression that the deal is worth well north of $20m a year – a significant boost to the resurgent team’s coffers.

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Noon

Return to paddock via golf cart and, as we navigate our way along Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina’s various quays, I compare the number of yachts to that in Monte Carlo earlier this year. Direct comparison is difficult due to the more compact nature of the principality’s harbour, but I’m left with the impression that this event has outdone Monaco in the fleet stakes – certainly in number, if not outright size.

Thereafter I grab what is effectively brunch – beef burger and fries in the media cafeteria – before taking another stroll through the paddock. I’m told hear that all team bosses met in the on Thursday in the imposing Yas Marina Hotel opposite the paddock to discuss Liberty’s 2021-onwards revenue share ‘pot’.

Although they seem to have largely accepted the percentage split – which varies marginally from the current table, but substantially reduces blanket bonus payments to all teams bar Ferrari – they are said to be unhappy with Liberty’s retention of 35 per cent of the sport’s $1.4bn annual retained revenues, which effectively means the ten (current) teams share a billion bucks annually – over and above any commercial income.

Yet some plead poverty.

3pm

FIA press conference – and I’m again bewildered by Ferrari’s point-blank refusal to openly discuss the farcical crash in Brazil between drivers Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc. Indeed, so frustrated have quarters of the medium become that a colleague stressed that he’d “like a straight answer” to his question to team boss Mattia Binotto.

I’m left wondering which is more disrespectful: That line of questioning, or Ferrari’s point-blank refusal to provide some “straight answers” to a very public debacle.

• Binotto says Vettel-Leclerc collision “will not happen” again

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6:30pm

[icon2019autocoursempu]Hit the evening interview trail and am amused by the suppressed smile on the face of Romain Grosjean, who’s had a fair share of run-ins with stewards over the past couple of years, when I ask whether it was a pleasant experience to have encountered sympathetic officials after Valtteri Bottas drove the Haas driver off the road. The Mercedes driver earned only a reprimand for his misdemeanour.

I can’t help wondering, though, whether the penalty would have been as light had the roles been reversed.

9pm

Head for Yas Rotana Hotel across from the circuit, where Vietnam Grand Prix hosts a select group of journalists and FIA/F1 folk for dinner. I’m sat next to F1 media guru Luca Colajanni, formerly of Ferrari, who regales our end of the table with tales of his life in Rosso during the Michael Schumacher era.

Our hosts are most gracious, and have clearly made enormous progress in gearing up for their event since our exclusive interview with CEO Le Ngoc Chi. I’m seriously looking forward to F1’s first visit to a totally new venue in four years – the last being Baku’s race, added in 2016.

2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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• Leclerc would welcome Hamilton as Ferrari team mate
• Vettel aiming for small improvements and fewer mistakes in 2020
• Perez praises Norris’s driving after last-lap pass
• Dominant Hamilton shows F1’s new generation the way in 2019 finale

Browse all 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix articles