In the round-up: Max Verstappen makes it clear there’s no chance of him joining F1’s virtual grand prix series in future.
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Norris and Verstappen conversation during Virtual Vietnam GP (RaceFans via YouTube)
Verstappen: "I don't even have that on my (computer)... I think you really have to close down the game and throw it off your PC. Throw it in the bin... I will never join that."
McLaren boss says F1 needs big changes to survive (BBC)
"I could see four teams disappearing if this isn't handled the right way."
Deletraz lockdown Q&A (Formula Rapida)
"I don’t have a budget to buy a seat in F1, so it has to come from performance."
McLaren tycoon races to feed NHS (The Times - subscription required)
"On the side of the angels is former McLaren boss Ron Dennis, 72, whose Dream Chasing foundation is donating £1m to deliver free meals for NHS workers."
Wayne Rooney says players face a no-win situation in wage debate (BBC)
"Rooney questioned why 'big stars from other sports, who are able to avoid tax by living in places like Monaco' are not being scrutinised over the financial support they are offering in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic."
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Where are they now: David Brabham (Speedcafe)
"It’s unusual for a team to race after that (the death of a team mate). Normally you pull out but I continued on for (Roland Ratzenberger) the team and the people."
Supporting Bob Varsha's Prostate Cancer Fight (Go Fund Me)
"Well, that ended poorly. After completing my final, and toughest, round of chemo weeks ago, the side effects never seemed to go away. Then one day my temperature spiked, so my oncologist leapt into action and got me a Coronavirus test. On Friday the result was “positive.” So here we are, enjoying another 14-day quarantine."
Innovation in times of War (RobWigginsOnF1)
"Formula One, the pinnacle of Motor-Racing, is an environment where all those involved are highly skilled professionals, trained to do battle in whatever capacity it may be. Therefore, with a health crisis gripping the world, it comes as little surprise Formula One is at the forefront of the fight to save lives."
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.
Comment of the day
This weekends Caption Competition winner is Derek:
Fearing that the 2020 season might be very badly delayed indeed, Renault assess their driver options.
Derek Edwards
Thanks to everyone who came up with caption idea this week and a special mention to Phylyp, Cyberaxiom, TFLB and Pat Ruadh who all came up with particularly good captions.
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
First virtual GP. Pole position. Win. Only one thing didn't go to plan for @Charles_Leclerc:
"I've been working on that for three hours this afternoon… …but it's not working… …oh no… … I'm disappointed now…"#F1 pic.twitter.com/cFVJIfCkUl
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) April 5, 2020
After technical problems prevent him from competing in today's race, @LandoNorris theatrically uninstalled F1 2019 from his system…#F1 pic.twitter.com/ym1Wa7Nlk6
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) April 5, 2020
476k peak concurrent views for our #F1Esports Vietnam #VirtualGP, smashing our Bahrain numbers just 2 weeks ago.
What a fun race it was. Congrats to @Charles_Leclerc! He picked up the game just 8 days ago and took the win on his esports debut. Pure talent.
— Dr. Julian Tan (@julianlipyi) April 5, 2020
https://twitter.com/HSouthwellFE/status/1246895942323879936
"There's either Superman or Ayrton… I wanted to be one of the two" 😍
Six-time champ @LewisHamilton on ticking off some goals and setting new ones – climbing Mount Everest, going into space and more 🤩#F1 pic.twitter.com/OoiNTT4zTq
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 5, 2020
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
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Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Lak!
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On this day in F1
- 35 years ago today Michele Alboreto took pole position for the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix at Jacarepagua in his Ferrari
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
6th April 2020, 0:40
I’m a lot more interested in knowing that Max has a second secret account in iRacing which he uses to “grind some iRating” meaning he spends time just joining public races and beating the hell out of everybody (surely)!
ColdFly (@)
6th April 2020, 9:00
Can somebody get a full list of participants of iRacing yesterday evening around that time.
And then slowly eliminate all of those who ever raced at the same time as Verstappen.
@fer-no65
N
6th April 2020, 11:00
I used to play iRacing like 10 years ago, and when the Williams F1 came to the sim i was on a server with about 15 people on Lime Rock Park – i know, what a car/track combination lmao!, someone called ‘Lewis Hamilton’ joined the server (and as far as i am aware, you can only sign up with the name on your bank card when subscribing), everyone kept asking if it was ‘really him’ and he didn’t reply to anyone, his lap times blew everyone else away, like seconds faster than us all, on such a small circuit, then he just said ‘Kerbs are very slippy’ and left the server.
I’ve always wondered… :]
stefano (@alfa145)
6th April 2020, 11:57
fake or not,
it’s a cool story you got
JMDan (@danmar)
6th April 2020, 20:37
:-) Indeed.
Macca (@macca)
6th April 2020, 2:32
It is an amazing story of what David had to go through just to get his own name back. How amazing would it be to see the Brabham name back in F1 or at Le Mans one day. And even better with a Brabham in the car. Matt is an exceptional talent that simply lacks the funds and by all accounts Sam is just as good, if not better.
We Aussies can dream i guess :)
Phylyp (@phylyp)
6th April 2020, 3:36
Some interesting stuff in the Zak Brown article on the BBC:
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
6th April 2020, 8:03
Don’t forget who you are reading. Benson is a bit… unreliable.
SadF1fan
6th April 2020, 8:43
I’ll always remain part of the argument that F1 doesn’t need a budget cap because it has the potential to raise enough money itsself, once it finally gets the formula of car right..
F1 used to bring a lot more money and fans when it was boring as hell, imagine how much money it can bring in, when it isn’t…
Also I think it is a bit ridiculous that manufacturing sports team have got a smaller budget than a Premier League football. 11 guys kicking against a ball is more expensive than hunderds of people designing, engineering and manufacturing prototypes…
antony obrien
6th April 2020, 10:27
sadf1 fan. Your argument makes zero sense. The whole problem is f1 teams cant raise enough money. They are either funded by car manufacturers or they are struggling to pay the bills. This leads to massive disparity in performance and with almost zero unreliability you get no upsets. THATS why the cap is coming in. The analogy with football is almost not worth commenting on. But, they pay astronomical wages, they have maybe 40-50 players on their books and they have to run a stadium, will suffice.
Anyway this ship has sailed, the cap is coming and I hope they lower it further as Zak has mused upon.
ColdFly (@)
6th April 2020, 10:45
SadF1fan, I won’t go as far as saying your argument ‘makes zero sense’ but you miss a major difference between F1 and Premier League.
The Premier League has ‘fairly fair’ distribution of income amongst the teams. Thus teams have more money to start off with and spending will be closer to the top teams to buy and develop their players (engineers and cars for F1).
Also the Premier League does not divert a major part of its income to an external owner, but keeps it in the sport.
I’m convinced that if the money distribution in F1 would be similar to the EPL, and even better that the teams would also have an equity stake in FOM, then the budget cap would not be needed. It would self regulate as the teams would not need a major backer and could become independent enterprises.
ColdFly (@)
6th April 2020, 8:50
What does this mean?
Or is it Benson again stringing some sense into confusion.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
6th April 2020, 10:10
@peartree – oh, is he? I didn’t know that. I assumed that since it’s the BBC it could be taken at face value. Good to know though, for the future.
@coldfly – since it’s Horner’s statement, I’d guess he’s working an angle. Maybe expecting Liberty to contribute towards travel and logistics? Or, remember that teams pay the promoter for some kit at the fly-away races (it came up in the motorhomes discussion)? Maybe he wants Liberty to pick up the tab for that.
ColdFly (@)
6th April 2020, 10:35
Had to look it up and this is the interview with Horner, @phylyp.
He’s quoted as:
He seems to be making a point that in the short term he prefers freezing certain components of the car, so the teams cannot spend money on those.
And of course this is not altruism, but his preference to cut costs in the short term and allow the big teams to outspend and outdevelop the smaller teams when this is all over and/or ‘pre-spend’ to gain an advantage on the next generation car.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
6th April 2020, 11:06
@coldfly – thank you for that, good to have that interview referenced.
And you’re right, his reasoning is sensible. And even if it isn’t altruistic, it’s definitely better than my tinfoil theory!
I wonder if they can cap CFD/wind tunnel work specifically on the 2022 cars (instead of just the current cap for a season) to prevent such a tactic from defeating the very point of a budget cap.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
6th April 2020, 11:28
@coldfly Budget cap is the maximum one can race with.
The other concept I believe is being discussed is the minimum required to race.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
6th April 2020, 3:39
Nice caption, Derek. In fact, I was amused by all the entries, so a ‘well done’ to Keith for choosing a nice and wholesome picture.
ColdFly (@)
6th April 2020, 8:53
Well done to the runners up as well; they deserve a (small print) reproduction of their caption.
Mike Davies (@nanotech)
6th April 2020, 4:37
Pulling for Bobby V!!! Terrible setback but hope he pulls through it!
Brett Woods (@pertwee)
6th April 2020, 5:11
Maybe Max should just chill. Everyone knows its goofy fun, but also awesome having current or former F1 drivers do it with all the pro commentary. Max and Pierre Gasly are two guys I want to see. It would be great, come on. I already got my wish for the next one with George Russell also joining.
Aussie Rod (@aussierod)
6th April 2020, 6:51
Max was pretty chilled… basically just having a laugh about Lando’s problems. Headline makes his comments sound more dramatic than they were (as headlines are supposed to do!).
Jeffrey (@jeffreyj)
6th April 2020, 12:36
In the past, Max has said in Dutch media that the Codemasters game isn’t a SIM. It’s totally incomparable with RFactor, Assetto Corsa or iRacing. It’s more like Forza or Gran Turismo that you can play with a controller.
Mayrton
6th April 2020, 13:18
True that. Basically there are three tiers: Arcade, sim light and sim. F1 game is in the middle tier with Forza and Gran Turismo yes. I can imagine that a F1 driver will limit himself to rFactor, iRacing and Assetto Corsa. I know Max is even critical on those sims as well as on his RedBull simulator. I guess it needs F1 drivers feedback to be able to improve these already good sims.
Jere (@jerejj)
6th April 2020, 7:50
And that’s good. iRacing is better for virtual-driving purposes anyway.
kuvemar
6th April 2020, 8:18
This whole thing is very eye-opening about what series and which drivers actually care about the fans of the sport.
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
6th April 2020, 9:22
Not true at all. The F1 game as a platform is horrendous and I have no clue why someone would enjoy watching professional drivers driving around like farmers on their tractors. Button, Russell and also others cutting corners and driving on the curbs – is that an essence of driving? Hardly. Verstappen has every right not to participate in such a cheaf show.
John H (@john-h)
6th April 2020, 8:34
I wish they were on iRacing and made it more serious (even with money involved) but…
Having watched both indy and F1 races, I found the latter much more entertaining tbh. They still need to get rid of Ben Stokes, but at least there were less joke drivers this time. I also watched Leclerc’s live stream which was great. They also need to show replays somehow.
But .. agree with Hazel. Going to a studio is not essential travel and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
6th April 2020, 10:03
I much preferred the Indy iRacing version myself. It gave off an air of legitimacy with a better platform, more real life drivers, better presentation and 2020 liveries.
The F1 broadcast was fun, but it was a bit of a clown show.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
6th April 2020, 13:42
@fullcoursecaution @fer-no65 I’m the opposite & find the F1 virtual GP’s to be more fun/enjoyable than the Indycar one’s.
The Indycar one’s are presented in a more realistic & serious way but I know i’m not watching a real life race so don’t want it to be presented as if it was. The less serious, More fun approach that F1 have gone for is something I just find a lot more enjoyable & the direction i’d prefer to see it continue down.
I’ll keep watching the F1 things done as they are but don’t plan to watch anymore of the Indycar one’s.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
6th April 2020, 10:50
@john-h I prefered the Indy race. The F1 guys were having a laugh, not taking it seriously at all, which is fine by itself if that’s the premise. But as a race, it was meh… the game is just horrible.
On iRacing they had their spotters and engineers chatting and deciding strategy. Made it look very professional. I watched Newgarden’s stream and it was very serious. But I also enjoyed Conor Daly just laughing his arse off
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
6th April 2020, 10:50
@john-h I prefered the Indy race. The F1 guys were having a laugh, not taking it seriously at all, which is fine by itself if that’s the premise. But as a race, it was meh… the game is just horrible.
On iRacing they had their spotters and engineers chatting and deciding strategy. Made it look very professional. I watched Newgarden’s stream and it was very serious. But I also enjoyed Conor Daly just laughing his butt off
John H (@john-h)
6th April 2020, 12:00
@fullcoursecaution @fer-no65
I think I need to get some better additional streams going for the next Indy race, thanks for the tips. I dunno, I really wanted to find it more interesting, but for some reason I couldn’t. It would be nice to see some static cameras in iRacing too, the camera angles do become a little stale. Maybe it’s just my poor attention span :)
…And indeed, I know codemasters is a bit of a joke arcade game. I hope they can get out of whatever contract is signed and get on iRacing at some point.
Islander
6th April 2020, 10:17
Ron Dennis is inching slowly towards a knighthood with donations to the NHS, and he would be very deserving of recognition.
“Dream Chasing Foundation” is news to me. So his James Bond activities at the ministry of defence leave him time for other ventures. At 72, you’d think Ron was getting tired of dream chasing and might want to do some dream ‘realising’ for a change. Last dream realised was 2008, and it wasn’t exactly plain sailing…
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
6th April 2020, 13:19
I don’t understand why F1 does not simply order drivers to show up for virtual races.
They will now ship a simulator to Nico Rosberg to Malta! Just to get more relevant racers online.
All the top drivers are such hipocretes. They say they love racing, but they only do it in F1 where they are the greatest in the world. Lewis Hamilton for example can only go backwards in every other category of motorsport, considering how great he is in F1, there is a chance, he might not be as good as some Lando Norris, who practices more.
Meh.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
6th April 2020, 13:31
@jureo – I presume it’s because their contracts don’t cover such a scenario, and that’s because the people drafting the contracts never envisaged such a situation. Remember the first F1 fan festival in London? Attendance there also couldn’t be compelled because FOM had no such hold over the drivers (something they might address for the 2021 contracts with the teams).
It’s a shame that we don’t see the “old guard” of F1 online in these games, but I think that’s more a generational thing, with the younger ones doing it for pleasure, and the older ones only likely to do it if it was seen to provide an advantage on the real-world track.
Martin
6th April 2020, 14:39
I think you need to learn the definition of hypocrite, you aren’t using that word correctly.
anon
6th April 2020, 18:35
@jureo because, as many others have noted, it is an indictment of the Codemasters official game – which the more serious end of the sim racing community thinks is a half-hearted cash grab by a developer that has a reputation for producing buggy games and has been mostly rehashing the same stuff over the past few years.
In fact, you should be rather well aware of the fact that the Codemasters games aren’t that great – because you yourself were lambasting them for being poor games only a few days ago (and not the first time either).
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
6th April 2020, 18:49
I have infact deleted F1 from my PC, it is simply not a sim. But I am a civilian, I do not get paid 40 million per year to entertain F1 fans.
anon
6th April 2020, 21:51
@jureo it seems strange that you yourself are doubling down on your condemnation of that game by pouring scorn on it because it is “not a sim” and admit to deleting it out of a dislike of the game, as that only seems to reinforce my point.
Why should you expect somebody else to be obliged to have to play a game that you dislike and you are actively discouraging others from playing? We’ve seen how some drivers, such as Verstappen, quite clearly hold the game in disdain – should he also be forced to drive something that he clearly thinks is a joke?
moogleslam
6th April 2020, 14:11
Max is right. F1 2019 is a joke of a game, and is a waste of the F1 license. Someone needs to make a sim out of the license, and not the bug ridden arcade mess that is the F1 201x series.
ColdFly (@)
6th April 2020, 15:35
Don’t forget that it’s just that; a game. moogleslam
It was never meant to be a fill-in for missed real-life races.
As a monetiser in general it probably served its purpose well.
PJ Gaudie (@moogleslam)
7th April 2020, 14:16
Covered some of this in my reply to xcm below too, but I’ll touch on it again here.
Yes, it’s just a game, but it didn’t need to be; it could have been a sim. That’s the issue so many have with it. And a sim would have been a lot closer to a fill in for missed races! That’s why Max won’t race in it. The game is a joke to him, and so, you’ll find him in iRacing on a regular basis.
F1 201x has been a commercial success, but it could have been a finished product too. Something that catered to all audiences, and that didn’t have all the bugs we’ve endured with it over the years.
xcm
7th April 2020, 3:25
F1 2019 is literally a video game. A VIDYA!
Its not codemasters fault corona hit. They didnt know they were supposed to host melbourne 2020.
You people sound like children, over vidya. No wonder people like verstappen and hamilton want nothing to do with you.
moogleslam
7th April 2020, 14:06
Verstappen actually likes racing against people like me! :) It’s F1 2019 he wants nothing to do with because it’s trash. He wants nothing to do with it, because he races in iRacing, and he knows what a sim should be like. F1 2019 is definitely a commercial success, but it’s a joke of a game, and a waste of the F1 license. Yes, it’s a video game, but it doesn’t need to be. It could be a sim. Or it could be both. Lots of sports allow more than one developer to create software for their sport, NBA for instance with NBA 2K & NBA Live. F1 need to allow the likes of iRacing, ISI, Kunos, or Sector3 develop an F1 sim.
This has nothing to do with Codemasters being unprepared for hosting virtual races either. There’s nothing they could actually have done to prepare because the netcode is just broken. Indycar is hosting virtual races in iRacing with zero issues.
For the record, it’s not like I don’t know the F1 games. I owned a sim racing website for many years, and we hosted leagues for 9 of these games, have had dozens of championships, and hundreds of drivers. I’m well aware of all the issues, and there’s a LOT.
rsp123 (@rsp123)
6th April 2020, 18:15
F1 cannot afford to lose any teams. We need more competitors, not fewer. The rumours of existing teams leaving are bad enough. It could very well be that there is no racing this year, or at most a handful of meetings. That will leave some teams on life support. Even Liberty must be hurting – have you seen their share price? If F1 dies, some shareholders will be very upset…
Some serious reform of F1 is required beyond the cost cap. All stakeholders need to recognize that without some pretty fundamental change F1 has a very uncertain future. The new reduced cost cap is welcome, but must go further. There must also be an emphasis on getting more eyeballs back on F1, and that means free-to-air TV. It can’t be beyond the wit of Liberty execs to find a way to keep a portion of TV advertising, or to license FTA broadcasters. They may not make as much as they used to, but if the alternative is making nothing at all…
It also means, paradoxically, fewer races. Liberty might like a race every weekend, but ask a psychologist and she’ll tell you that there is a maximum for this kind of thing, and going beyond it turns people off. We’re already well past the optimum number of races. They cease to be special when they’re too frequent.
anon
6th April 2020, 19:05
@rsp123 to some extent, the comment that Horner has made – even though he has his own agenda behind it – does have a certain point: what benefit does lowering the cost cap make right now?
Right now, I would argue that the bigger problem for the midfield teams is going to be cash flow – income is likely to be fairly significantly reduced, but their expenditure, although that is also likely to be reduced, will still be reasonably high.
A budget cap doesn’t really do anything about potential short to medium term cash flow issues – it sounds more like trying to apply a measure that has already been agreed to the current situation because people have agreed to it, not because it’s the right tool to deal with the current situation.
You could draw a comparison with MotoGP and the approach that Dorna is taking – right now, their focus has been on making sure that teams have an income to deal with the current situation by making monthly payments to the privateer teams, which is being treated as an advance on their end of season payments.
In the short to medium term, you could argue that what you really need is something more akin to that – Brown’s talk about a budget cap for 2021 is all well and good, but is going to be useless if a team has already gone bankrupt this year because their cash flow ground to a halt.
baasbas
6th April 2020, 19:39
Ok. Brainfart here. Max doen’t want to participate in the Codemasters demolition derby… Fair enough. He plays iRacing, right? Indycar has their virtual race in iRacing, right? They have guest racers on Indy. Surely someone at Indy is trying like crazy to get Max on a virtual Indycar race, right? Right?? Riiiigght????
I’d watch it too
Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
6th April 2020, 22:52
Norris too. Wouldn’t even have to change t shirts
ivokbg
7th April 2020, 7:57
But he will be great there. Damage is turned off.
Dave
7th April 2020, 11:44
Probably doesn’t want to get “karma for Austria”.
Carlos Medrano (@carlosmedrano)
8th April 2020, 18:57
Cause he’s scared to compete in equal machinery and not have an advantage over his competition