In the round-up: Racing Point team principal Otmar Szafnauer says the team has made big gains since it was rescued from administration in mid-2018.
What they say
Lawrence Stroll’s consortium has invested in the team since taking it over and Szafnauer says they expect to make gains in 2020:
We’ve improved a lot. CFD improvements, I think we’re up to the same level as everybody else. Manufacturing improvements, we’ve hired people. There’s a lot of things we’ve done that are now better.
That should bode well for next year.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B60jHhkHy0x/
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
McLaren: Stella promoted in Seidl's three-pronged restructure (BBC)
"Stella, who joined McLaren from Ferrari at the end of 2014, will now be head of all trackside operations, including engineering and race strategy."
Abiteboul: No team is as focused on 2021 as Renault (Motorsport magazine)
"There is no team looking at 2021 the way we are looking at that particular year. I don't think there is any team as advanced as we are on 2021, simply because we have decided to allocate lots of resources to it."
Vesti secures Prema seat for 2020 (F3)
"Frederik Vesti has been announced as the latest driver tasked with filling the shoes of Prema’s title winning trio, securing a seat with the F3 team for the 2020 season."
"We’re going (to IndyCar) for our partners and our fans. North America is an important market for McLaren. It’s the number one market for our automotive business, it’s important for our McLaren Applied and for the majority of our partners, North America is critically important to them. And so, while Formula 1 is on a nice growth curve, in America it still only races there once a year. Hopefully, soon, twice. So to have platforms for our fans and our partners to follow us racing around the world and in North America is important to us."
Mental training and vegan diets – the fitness secrets of Formula E stars (FE)
"Interesting fact: Lewis Hamilton and Jean-Eric Vergne – the reigning champions in Formula 1 and Formula E – both follow a vegan diet. And since the summer, Sam Bird has chosen to avoid foods that contain animal products. As a result, the Envision Virgin Racing driver has dropped six kilograms and promptly won the opening race in Diriyah."
2019: My motorsport year (Katy Fairman)
"I was pretty sceptical about W Series at first. The idea of a sport, which is one of only a few that lets men and women compete against one another, separating the two sexes left me confused at first. However, after spending time with the series both at Autosport International and at Brands Hatch, it made me realise that the championship is beneficial."
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Comment of the day
Lee reckons McLaren have their priorities sorted:
Getting Seidl was the best thing McLaren have done in a decade.
To be honest, I wouldn’t blame them for sacrificing 2020. The rules haven’t really changed, they’ve shown they can make the fourth-best car (with the current rules, that’s as good as they’ll get) and putting energy into 2021 will pay off.
Of course they don’t want to be seen as going backwards, but I think they can relax a bit, maybe take a few risks knowing it’ll all be reset next year but not worry as they’ve proven themselves after a difficult few years.
Lee H (@Stopitrawr)
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DB-C90 (@dbradock)
3rd January 2020, 0:14
Interesting article about Cyril.
I suspect he’s kidding himself is he thinks that the big three aren’t as advanced for 2021 as they are.
It’s concerning though that they’ve devoted a lot of resources to 2021 – that can’t possibly be good for 2020 and I’d have thought they’d want a very positive year this year to have any chance of retaining Daniel. Either that or they have him so integrally involved in the 2021 project he’ll have no choice but to see it through.
I’m excited at the prospect of a changing of the guard in 2021, but don’t want this season to be ruined by teams shifting their efforts too early and allowing 1 team to dominate in the hope they’ll gain an advantage in 2021.
Jere (@jerejj)
3rd January 2020, 8:27
@dbradock Indeed a bit weird by him to try and imply the big three wouldn’t be as far advanced for the next significant technical reg-changes as Renault.
Only Facts!
3rd January 2020, 10:01
Abiteboul is buying himself some time. Two years time by telling the board not to worry… We’re focused in 2021!
What can Ricciardo expect from that comment?
I trust McLaren judgment better. New pit stop equipment, keep pushing forward to keep the winning spirit alive and transfer that momentum to 2021.
Scottie (@scottie)
3rd January 2020, 0:14
Yes McLaren have made great gains since their aquasition of Seidl, but this year will be the litmus test on if they understood why their car was good or not.
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
3rd January 2020, 2:54
“”There is no team looking at 2021 the way we are looking at that particular year. I don’t think there is any team as advanced as we are on 2021, simply because we have decided to allocate lots of resources to it.”
Erm…does this mean that he thinks that Renault will be fine in 2021 because they’re chucking a bunch of money at it? Worrying.
Oh and Mclaren promoting Stella…thats got to be Alonso’s long and evil arms at play…surely.
Andrey Baydin (@minilemm)
3rd January 2020, 7:07
Re CoTD – completely agree. I dont really see why any team in the midfield wouldn’t do the same, to be honest.
Minor battles to win in 2020 – retaining a driver, or getting a few more millions (bigger deal for them than I make it sound, of course), but comparing to the gains of potentially being on top of new regulations… I think the latest illustration of what that is like is too recent for anyone to forget.
Jere (@jerejj)
3rd January 2020, 8:30
@minilemm I agree with the COTD 100% as well, but the point about the latest illustration being too recent for anyone to forget is equally valid.
Robbie (@robbie)
4th January 2020, 15:02
@minilemm @jerejj I too would not be shocked if mid-field teams started putting as much emphasis on 2021 as possible as soon as possible…sooner than they normally would start prepping for the next season when said next season has rules stability. The top teams (I consider Mac one of them) can afford to do both and will have to keep 2020 up for the sake of the title fights, but at least they have the money, staff, and resources to do both at once.
But just as a reminder, it will be very interesting to see if one team dominates ala Mercedes since the last sea change of regs for 2014, but I think more likely we will not see the types of dominant runs we have had pre-Liberty (I include Mercs current run as pre-Liberty). I would think the hybrid Pu(s) will have converged even more by 2021, and with the teams and the cars running closer (on paper for now but I believe it will be the case), I think we may have seen the end of multiple season in a row utter domination, and rather closer harder fought Championships amongst several players, not just the two on the dominant team.
I know I am already projecting that in the future I will be happily regaling Max’s Championships (and I don’t get wrapped up in quantity but rather quality), as being closer and harder fought drivers Championships than dominant lift and coast, cruise according to the engineers instructions type of Championships from what BE brought in his last decade particularly.
Andrey Baydin (@minilemm)
4th January 2020, 20:20
Who doest love an optimist! :)
Although I do expect vastly different levels of preparation and understanding from different teams still, I also have a suspicion that the new regs will have less engineering freedom and less perfomance differentiation built-in, so the difference between the class-of-the-field car and a solid midfield car will probably be much less – not sure how I feel about that (probably for the best, but its a shame to lose what always seemed to me like the integral part of f1) but that is my expectation anyway.
Actually re engineering freedom it seems a rather big deal to me.
I hope the cars arent made too “prescribed” before the new financial model had the time to set in and produce its consequences – cos maybe we dont even need to help out the backmarkers out in the brave new world we’ll build, but it seems like both is being done at the same time… cos ain nobody got time for that y’know.
Andrey Baydin (@minilemm)
4th January 2020, 20:22
I.e… i think the best thing would be to change the regs yet once more when the budget cap has been in place for a couple of years and that would actually give us a level(er) playing field cos the big guns wont have money to throw at it, and wont have any “frozen advantage”
ColdFly (@)
3rd January 2020, 8:38
Great to see Seidl making McLaren F1 team his own.
I expect a lot of him and his team.
I found another quote by Zak Brown (from McLaren website) much more intriguing:
Does he really think that the main reason for the better performance in 2019 is due to the driver change?
I wish he were right with Sainz being the new and improved Alonso, and Norris the next Verstappen. But I think he is selling his engineers and design team short there.
Last year’s car was simply very good, creating some space between them and the true F1.5 cars.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
3rd January 2020, 16:41
Seidl is a superhero, the way he managed to help mclaren become 4th best team is epic, he didn’t even need to do a thing… mclaren has done a good job, it is not down to 1 person especially Seidl. Want to laud Seidl wait till the end of the year.