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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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
someone's been in our car… pic.twitter.com/Oux1APnvp7
— Scuderia AlphaTauri (@AlphaTauriF1) April 15, 2021
Yesterday a Twitter account impersonating @AlpineF1Team claimed one of their #f1 drivers would be substituted this weekend due to a positive Covid-19 test. @Twitter has suspended the fake account which spread the false story.#fakenews
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) April 15, 2021
La @F4Argentina ya en el @AutodromoConco1 para disputar la primer fecha de la temporada 2021 pic.twitter.com/1rERL94IUX
— Pucho Gómez (@PuchoGomezFoto) April 15, 2021
F1 press conference cut short due to questions from kids (ok, I get it) and a loaded question about FIA's Visuals…whatever that is. Niice. Top work. Hope you all are enjoying this.
— Ben Hunt (@benjhunt) April 15, 2021
Spanish Formula 4 teams tested at Motorland Aragon this week.
Pepe Marti was quickest, and German karter Valentin Kluss drove for Teo Martin Motorsport again after testing with the team at Spa. pic.twitter.com/VgzfeIBIJt
— Formula Scout (@FormulaScout) April 15, 2021
The newest additions to the International broadcast lineup now allow the NTT INDYCAR SERIES to be watched in over 200 countries.
Check your local listings. The season kicks off this weekend @BarberMotorPark.
You won't want to miss it.
Read: https://t.co/gkfDEt6KSJ#INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/KP9FgNxkCC
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) April 15, 2021
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Maffei’s base pay was $871,880 but he received an option award worth nearly $25 million and a stock award of $8.3 million, according to the company’s proxy statement filed with the SEC Wednesday. He was also granted non-equity incentive compensation – a cash payment – of $11.7 million.
IndyCar paddock nearing herd immunity in fight against COVID-19 pandemic (Autoweek)
Penske Entertainment Corp. president and CEO Mark Miles said that the IndyCar paddock is closing in on 90 percent of IndyCar teams and personnel are now vaccinated. Miles expects that number to go up in time for the Indianapolis 500 in May.
In F1, does the driver or car matter more? (FiveThirtyEight)
If we remove the team factors and put both drivers in equal equipment, Elo saw Verstappen as actually having had the better season in 2020. Verstappen led the field with a relative Elo of +90 points on an average team, compared with Hamilton’s +78 mark.
Braking Performance first of six new F1 Insights Powered by AWS graphics set to debut in 2021 (F1)
The graphics will be rolled out throughout 2021, and following 'Braking Performance' is 'Car Exploitation', 'Energy Usage', 'Start Analysis', 'Pit lane performance' and 'Undercut Threat'.
Ahmed fastest of three cars in Indy Pro 2000 practice at Barber (Formula Scout)
Drivers are assigned just three sets of tyres for this race weekend. Carrying over a set of tyres from the previous event is not possible, as it is the first event of the season. This prompted all bar three of the 17 entered drivers to sit out the 30-minute session.
The official entry list and new schedule at Imola (FRECA)
32 drivers are officially in the entry list of the participants who will be at the start in Imola for the first meeting of the 2021 series of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine – certified by FIA. A slight change to the schedule has been necessary too.
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link relating to single-seater motorsport to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it in via the contact form.
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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
Happy birthday!
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OOliver
16th April 2021, 0:44
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.
pastaman (@)
16th April 2021, 2:26
He runs the show
Exediron (@exediron)
16th April 2021, 6:41
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.
Mayrton
16th April 2021, 7:55
Then do try to get such a position.. And its all of Liberty, not just their minor F1 asset
ian dearing
16th April 2021, 8:52
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.
glynh (@glynh)
16th April 2021, 9:24
Liberty will pay whatever Carey is worth. It’s a ridiculous amount of money but he’s making them a lot more.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
16th April 2021, 1:12
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.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
16th April 2021, 4:24
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.
bosyber (@bosyber)
16th April 2021, 6:16
@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.
BasCB (@bascb)
16th April 2021, 8:27
Indeed @bosyber.
Qeki (@qeki)
16th April 2021, 7:04
Yay! New graphics.
Jere (@jerejj)
16th April 2021, 7:57
I’m not as pessimistic as the COTD.
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.
Dave
16th April 2021, 10:03
Expect him to crash again this race.
D@m@7@ (@domo70)
16th April 2021, 11:14
he did it already, in fp1 at imola.. so no surprise Go mazespin !!!!!!
Dave
16th April 2021, 14:45
Now wait for Sunday!
F1 frog (@f1frog)
16th April 2021, 8:26
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.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
16th April 2021, 8:56
@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.
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.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
16th April 2021, 8:57
@thegianthogweed Schumacher’s mistake was at turn 4 exit, Mazepin’s was at Turn 3.
ColdFly (@)
16th April 2021, 9:03
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.
PaulK (@paulk)
16th April 2021, 11:45
@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.