Nikita Mazepin, Haas, Imola, 2021

Retiring on first lap of F1 debut was “very painful” – Mazepin

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In the round-up: Nikita Mazepin is eager to move on from a difficult start to his Formula 1 career at this weekend’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.

In brief

Mazepin: ‘I’m over it’

Mazepin got no further than turn two on his F1 race debut, as his Haas car got loose after the opening corner and then he spun into the barriers. The spin wasn’t his first of the weekend and while embarrassing also put him under extra scrutiny. But he said his troubled Bahrain weekend is already long behind him.

“The answer is [I’m] over it,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. “Things happened very quickly and the moment when I realised where I ended up, which was in the wall, was a very painful one.

“In Formula 1, there’s 23 races, I’ve raced 12 rounds a year previously, and then nine before that. So you obviously have your ups, you have your downs, and it’s important to get as much knowledge from the bad experience as possible. But then don’t drag the negativity with you because that will leave you in the place where you were, when you’re trying to move on. Fully going forward.”

Motorsport UK’s tribute to Prince Philip

Motorsport UK, the governing body for motorsport in the United Kingdom, has requested race meetings taking place this weekend to ensure no on-track action is occurring at 3pm on Saturday, when the funeral of British royal Prince Philip is taking place and when a national minute of silence has been announced.

“As a mark of respect during the ceremonial funeral of His Royal Highness the prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Motorsport UK has asked the organisers of events taking place on Saturday 17th April to observe the national minute’s silence at 3pm,” it said in a statement.

“All event organisers and participants will be required to honour the tribute. In addition, we encourage, where applicable, circuit flags to be flown at half-mast, and any further measures that are appropriate and respectful, such as the wearing of black arm bands by officials.”

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Comment of the day

F1 may have been able to piece together a calendar of 17 rounds for last year during the Covid-19 pandemic, but its plans to expand to a record 23 rounds and potentially 26 races this year look under threat as countries continue with restrictions aiming to limit infection rates and therefore making mass meetings such as a grand prix difficult to organise.

As the Canadian Grand Prix becomes the latest 2021 race under threat, RaceFans reader Tom wonders if it will be followed by several more.

I think we’ll actually see much less racing than last year which feels very strange. Last year the season started when Covid was in decline in the countries with planned races. Right now the numbers are raising or are much higher than last year in Europe, Canada, Brazil etc… Even Russia, Hungary and Turkey are sadly having more deaths per day than when they hosted races last season. With numbers going up and strict restrictions in the other countries I do worry this season will be very short indeed.Tom

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22 comments on “Retiring on first lap of F1 debut was “very painful” – Mazepin”

  1. Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei’s 2020 pay package totalled $47 million, up from $44 million in 2019 (Deadline)
    He earns more than the highest paid driver.

    1. pastaman (@)
      16th April 2021, 2:26

      He runs the show

      1. Not a good reason. Fewer than a handful of people on the planet could do what Hamilton does, hence his compensation. Anyone with the right connections could do what the CEO of Liberty does.

        1. Then do try to get such a position.. And its all of Liberty, not just their minor F1 asset

        2. I think Liberty has different priorities. No cap on your top executives, but cap a driver. Put dozens of engineers out of a job, but spend as many millions as you like on motorhomes that will be used a dozen times before being scrapped, and btw here’s half a million extra to put on a wacky race.

          1. Liberty will pay whatever Carey is worth. It’s a ridiculous amount of money but he’s making them a lot more.

  2. Graphics that give us some actual live data such as throttle, brake speed, revs, ERS usage etc…. are things I actually like. However I really dislike some of the less accurate things such as the tyre life graphics & some of the other things such as the car/driver performance/comparisons & scores.

    I absolutely hate all of the graphics offering predictions & things though as I feel like they take away some of the unpredictability & drama of some of what they are predicting. I just don’t like been shown a lot of that stuff as I would prefer to either not know or simply try & work things out for myself which is something I find helps keep me fully engaged in a race.

    I also still just in general feel the screen is a bit too cluttered at times now & that elements of the graphics are far larger than they need to be.

    1. I agree about the predictions stuff, most of us can work out ourselves if someone is catching the car in front and how quickly.
      Other graphics like tyre wear etc seem to be completely inaccurate and seem to be shown more to honour sponsorship than for any relevant reason or benefit.

      1. @dbradock, @stefmeister for me there are two issues with those predictions, namely the quickly falsified claim of accuracy, but most importantly, that by giving some Blackbox produced number, they don’t give/teach the reasoning of why they think that,which would have been the interesting data.

        That’s an example of bad use of AI.

        And apart from it now not adding value for viewers, the worry is it is exactly what the advertised Amazon wants, because understanding would imply it can be done without in a future where all fans know how to reach such conclusions (but while realizing the fake certainty isn’t) , which of course Amazon won’t want.

    2. Yay! New graphics.

  3. I’m not as pessimistic as the COTD.

  4. Zach (@zakspeedf1team)
    16th April 2021, 8:10

    Mazepin spinning out isn’t “very painful” it’s “very funny”. Unlike, let’s say a mining accident which left 9 miners dead which is fact was very painful.

    1. Expect him to crash again this race.

      1. he did it already, in fp1 at imola.. so no surprise Go mazespin !!!!!!

        1. Now wait for Sunday!

  5. I disagree with the COTD. There are two key differences between this year and last that suggest to me the season will be at least close to full length. Firstly, we are starting in March not July, so that’s four extra months to fit the Grands Prix into if there are cancellations. Secondly, due to the vaccines, COVID will decline far more quickly this time around than last time. Maybe we won’t get 23 races, but I expect we will get at least 20.

    1. @f1frog I don’t know about Covid declining to be honest. The virus is mutating quickly, and Oxford’s AstraZeneca’s efficacy is extremely low for some of the new variants, and I’m sure some of the other vaccines will also be affected.

  6. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    16th April 2021, 8:47

    I’m going to defend Mazepin for this incident given his instant reaction to it was entirely blaming himself.

    He had problems with his car in practice. One of his qualifying spins was a BBW failure which many people took to blaming him instantly as it was when he’d overtaken several drivers to do his lap. Had this problem not occurred, doing what he did won’t have looked as bad.

    His qualifying was in no way perfect, but being last in by far the worst car is no surprise.

    The reason why I’m also wanting to defend him for the race is that his team mate pretty much mirrored his mistake at the same corner, but was just more lucky with the outcome. That car looked a total handful to control and Mazepin was instantly apologising to his team and seemed very hard on himself for sometime after too. Given the reputation he had coming into F1, I’m getting a better impression of his attitude so far and I think we should give him a bit more time before judging him.

    1. @thegianthogweed Schumacher’s mistake was at turn 4 exit, Mazepin’s was at Turn 3.

  7. I really liked that ELO (not the band) rating article, and those ratings in general, rather than the AWS graphics.

    The results resonate my view of the season (Max more raw speed vs Lewis more reliable), but you need to take into account that Lewis wasn’t pushed to the limit due to a somewhat weaker teammate and no other car getting close.
    When pushed to the limit I think his raw pace would’ve been better (not sure where it would end up) with maybe just a small dip in reliability.

    I’d like to see these ELO reviews referenced here more often.
    Such in-depth statistical reviews is what originally attracted me to this site more so than the salary revelation of a CEO or the meaningless stuff of Social Media.

    1. @coldfly, I like the Elo ratings as well. It’s still a model with several limitation like any other model but it is usually consistent with the general perception seasoned, rational fans will have. We cannot expect more than that really. They have it for several other spots.

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