Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Circuit de Catalunya, 2020

Three triple-headers in a row is “pretty much the limit” – Verstappen

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Ahead of the third consecutive triple-header of Formula 1 races beginning next week, Max Verstappen says teams are at the limit of what they can cope with.

What they say

Verstappen said he can cope with repeated triple-headers for now – another is expected at the end of the season:

I think for the moment it’s fine. We had a long break before. I don’t see this happening well, hopefully, next year, where you keep doing triple-headers. I think that’s a bit too much. If you can make sure that… two weekends in a row, I think that’s OK. Having a week break in between is fine.

But of course we have to accept that at the moment, we need to get the races in. So we just try to do the best we can. I think we have three triple-headers in a row. That’s pretty much, I think, the limit.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

A new series has been announced for hydrogen cars, but not everyone is convinced by its potential as an alternative to electric power:

Hydrogen is the least efficient of the ‘green’ fuels with massive energy loss through the conversions. Battery power is here to stay.

However I do see hydrogen with a strong future in long-haul applications; particularly road (and even rail) freight. Here in Australia long-haul trucks clock up over 1,000 kilometres every day of the week. It would take some pretty insane battery density to meet that goal—hydrogen certainly seems the more logical choice.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Woffin, Kozo.Higashi and Strontium!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

  • 15 years ago today Kimi Raikkonen took pole position for the first Turkish Grand Prix, at Istanbul Park.

Author information

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

22 comments on “Three triple-headers in a row is “pretty much the limit” – Verstappen”

  1. Charouz scoring only 1 point with 3 good drivers in it’s lineup is a shame. F3 the way it’s now is very hard for some teams to have a good performance. Carlin last year was nowhere with Sargeant and Drugovich. Sargeant is now leading the championship and Drugovich a front runner in F2. I think that shows how much some teams are underperforming. I feel for Igor Fraga too, after a stunning start of the year beating Lawson and Tsunoda he can barely run in the points. I hope Red Bull gives him another year, maybe placing him in a better team, Hitech or Trident.

  2. I think the CotD makes a very good point about Hyrdogen. It does have its place in applications where regular re-loading of batteries is not viable (ships, long haul transport etc.) and possibly in storage of wind and solar energy that would otherwise not be used.

    1. @bascb It’s very valid point on Fuel Cells vs Battery technology but it is influenced by the window you look through. The end to end supply chain and importantly cradle-to-the-grave life cycle for both technologies has to be considered.

      The current drive to the dead-end Lithium Ion battery technology centers around cleaning up air in cities and making consumer feel ‘virtuous’ (in the short term) about it .

      As soon as you explore the lithium, cobalt and nickel supply chains it looks a lot less attractive with direct environmental impacts and associated impacts on working conditions and communities.

      It’s a very complex challenge for the world and is far deeper than just comparing the relative efficiencies of differing technology.

      I recall reading an article last year by Hans-Werner Sinn that considered the split of countries power generation source to give a life-cycle CO2 emissions comparison of an average diesel vs an average electric car. By his calculations, due to the high use of fossil fuels in electricity generation in Germany you need to drive an electric vehicle for c210,000km before it was energy neutral with an average diesel car.

      Clearly this situation changes significantly as the proportion of electricity generated from renewable sources increases and this varies wildly by country.

      It’s complex!

      1. @Ju88sy, yes, Li-Ion batteries are a usefull technology because they offer relatively workable power to weight ratios compared to what was possible decades ago, but they also have many issues.

        We have to put a lot of hope into further development of alternative materials for batteries, including those for solid state batteries to find materials that can make batteries to better compete with the power/weight ratio of liquid engery carriers like fosile fuel, as well as the life cylce resources we need to be sustainable. More recycling of the materials will probably also play a role. As well as sustainable production of diesel/gasoline fuels by syntheses of wasteproducts or from algea etc.

        As for the comparison of diesel fuelled cars vs gasoline fuelled cars and battery electric cars in Germany you refer to from a few years back, it actually showed that even with the current engergy mix (which has already improved since then) EVs beat gasoline cars and yes, Diesel cars, provided they run mainly long distance and have a lifetime of over 200000 miles, ARE a more CO2 efficient solution than EVs. But only on long distances. And this doesn’t adress the other emissions (NOx) off course.

        I think the CotD clearly agrees with you that battery electric is more suited to short range solutions (around agglomerations) to solve air pollution, and that other things, including Hydrogen (provided it is made from otherwise “wasted” engery from solar/wind produced during lulls in demand), better storage methods all have to work together to lessen our CO2 and other resources burden on the planet.

      2. @ju88sy there have been some peer reviews of that particular study that have questioned that author’s data sources and raised questions of the biased selection of data – for example, using the more rigorous WLTP testing cycle for the electric cars, but then using figures for the more favourable NEDC testing cycle for the petrol and diesel cars (including using data from the NEDC testing cycle which was subsequently discredited in the VW “dieselgate” scandal).

        The list of criticisms included complaints that, for example, the author had assumed that the electric car would require a full replacement within 150,000km, had assumed that the sources of electricity for the battery car would produce 650g/kWh – emissions from the current sources of electrical power for Germany are more like 400g/kWh – and, because of the use of the NEDC test figures, had unrealistically low emissions for the petrol and diesel cars (e.g. assuming a value of about 140g/km for cars which, in real world driving conditions, have been measured as producing about 220g/km of CO2). There were also complaints about unrealistically high assumptions of the CO2 emissions for producing batteries (between 80-270% too high), whilst simultaneously ignoring emissions from the production cycle of conventional cars and ignoring emissions from the refining of diesel and petrol.

        Overall, the authors – none of whom had any competence in that field (they were all economists who had no expertise in automotive engineering or battery technology) – were using data that was, quite simply, wrong. At best, it was a case of individuals using data that was either badly out of date or inaccurate out of incompetence; at worst it might have been a case of deliberately falsifying the numbers to make electric cars look unrealistically bad and to artificially lower the emissions of diesel and petrol cars.

        To that end, I believe that, following peer review, the Ifo withdrew that particular paper from publication and no longer endorse it.

  3. That’s a heartening column by Matt bishop. I get the impression the F1 circus holds or held a number of prejudices that are easily dismantled – it gives me hope that other issues, such as racial discrimination, can be improved too though I think the heart of that problem is in participation in the lower formulas. This is as much a societal problem as it is the sport’s, but F1 can and should take a leading role.

    1. Yes it is. I wonder who that driver was. I can only think of one who might have used that kind of language. He had the initials EI. Of course I could be entirely incorrect.

      1. @phil-f1-21 EI it likely was, lol

  4. RocketTankski
    20th August 2020, 9:23

    Three triple-headers? Luxury! When I were a lad, drivers ‘ad to work 29 hour days down t’ mill and then build their own car out of cold mud and pieces of coal. They’d race for 16 months a year and Bernie would thrash ’em to sleep..
    And they’d be grateful!

    1. He isn’t talking about the drivers though, but rather about the team members who rock up on tuesday before the race to build everything up and go more or less non stop for 4 weeks in a row during a triple header of races Rocket Tankski

    2. ^^ Thank you Graham… :)

  5. I don’t see a future for hydrogen at all. ethanol is much easier and cheaper to produce and store; and while it releases carbon dioxide upon combustion, that has been taken out of the atmosphere by the plants that produced the sugar from which it was generated.
    The problem is that there are no stable affordable ethanol fuel cells yet (which would be the most efficient way to use it), but at least ethanol can be used in a conventional combustion engine with some adaptations.

    As for Formula 1 using ethanol instead of gasoline would not be that much of a change; at least not as much as using hydrogen or batteries would.

    1. Here in Brazil 99% of the cars run on ethanol. Toyota just introduced the new Corolla that’s hybrid and can be fueled with ethanol. It’s cheap and as you said, it’s production take out CO2 from atmosphere. Besides that even the wastes of sugar-cane are used to generate electric power. The problem here are politics. Eletric cars are misguising, some countries like Germany have almost half of it’s electricity coming from coal power plantas, the car itself is clean, but you’re still poluting the air in the production of the electricity (and I’m not even talking about the batteries).

      1. This is misleading @miani. Apart from all the ecological consequences of sugar cane massive plantation, and the fact there are still a lot of obstacles in the mass production of ethanol (this I know from talks with Brazilian researchers for prospective projects to increase efficiency), cars do not run on ethanol, they run on a mix of 27% ethanol with petrol. It should be better than 100% petrol but all things considered I still have my doubts. You should dig some more on this, a good starting point https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/report/downloadreportbyfilename?filename=Biofuels%20Annual_Sao%20Paulo%20ATO_Brazil_8-9-2019.pdf

        1. You’re a bit confused. Brazilian gasoline is a mix with 27% etanol. The etanol itself is pure.

          I live in a region of ethanol production. New technologies and advanced agronomy made it possible to increase production occupying the same amount of land. Also here in Brazil 20% of each piece of land should be of natural preserved forest. In 2019 was produced in Brazil 35,6 billions of liters of etanol. From what I know, there’s a lot of room to increase production.

          1. every acre of sugar cane plantation is one less acre for food production, which leads to brazilians burning down their own rain forest.

            if ethanol were so good, why not go 100% ethanol?

            and why require subsidies?

    2. Cutting down trees in South America to plant crops which then are turned into ‘bio’-fuel is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Sadly it has been encouraged for the past 15 years.

      1. No one “cut trees” to plant anything. Most of deforestation are to extract exotic woods that are sold for a good price in international market. Most of brazil agricultural production, like sugar cane and soybean, are very far from amazon in a ecosystem called Cerrado. Like I said in my comment above, there’re very specific laws in Brazil for farmers, like 20% of their lands must be preserved or reflorested.

        The problem is that people see something on TV that don’t comply with the reality. I lived here in my entire life and I can assure you of these things.

  6. Great news about Zanardi.

    1. + 1 Good news indeed.
      @ Evidently His Lordship stopped by Alex’s pit and said Hi.

  7. The big news this week – AZ is getting better! Long may that continue. A few more people like Alex in the world and we’d be living in paradise. #inspiration

Comments are closed.