In the round-up: Aston Martin says reports elsewhere claiming it attempted to sign Fernando Alonso are not correct.
In brief
Aston Martin did not approach Alonso for a 2022 seat
Reports in other publications claimed Aston Martin attempted to secure Alonso’s services in a meeting between team owner Lawrence Stroll and the Alpine driver’s manage Flavio Briatore. In response the team issued a denial yesterday.“Lawrence Stroll did not offer a drive to Fernando Alonso, as has been reported in some media,” said a team spokesperson. “Lawrence had lunch with Flavio Briatore in Sardinia during the summer break. Lawrence and Flavio are friends. They have lunched together in Sardinia many times over many years. It was a social occasion, nothing more.”
Alpine recently confirmed Alonso will continue to drive for them in 2022, while Aston Martin is expected to retain Stroll’s son Lance alongside Sebastian Vettel.
Norris: Williams could have beaten McLaren to Q3 without red flags
“It was just very close and very tight with everyone. Even like the Williams if they didn’t make their mistakes, they probably would have been extremely quick as well and made our life even tougher.
“I’m not comfortable enough to say, yes, I easily would have made it Q3 because I did a 10’4 for a reason and that was because we just weren’t quick enough to do a lot quicker at the time.”
Norris failed to reach Q3 for the first time this year. “Maybe I haven’t had the most confidence in the car, [unlike] in Spa or various other places we have been to,” he said. “I definitely think I could have improved, but not easily enough to say I one hundred percent would have been into Q3, so it was just tough.
“The field’s the tightest it’s ever been, we’re seeing a few like Alfa Romeo being so far up all of a sudden, there’s just a lot of cars which have taken a big step this weekend because of the track type or whatever it is. And maybe we’ve taken, not a step backwards, but we’re just not performing as well as what we normally do.”
Cohen and Ugran penalised after second Formula 3 race
Ido Cohen, who started the second Formula 3 race at Zandvoort on pole, has been given a grid drop of three places for Sunday’s race after he was found at fault for late-race contact that caused a puncture for title leader Dennis Hauger.
Filip Ugran has also been penalised, with 10 seconds added to his finishing race time for contact with Jonny Edgar. As a consequence of the penalty Ugran, who crossed the line 12th, will be classified 24th – one place ahead of Edgar.
Wolff accepts F1 must learn from Spa
Speaking at Zandvoort, Wolff conceded F1 had to reflect on what went wrong at Spa-Francorchamps. “I think there is a lot to learn from the Belgian Grand Prix because we need to tweak the regulations, we need to talk about the regulations that points are awarded for a race.”
Among the matters F1 should consider is whether it was correct to award points for an event in which no racing laps were completed. “I think we are all racers at heart, we want points to be given for racing,” said Wolff. “And I think in the future we just need to discuss in the F1 Commission whether a few laps behind the Safety Car is good enough for points or whether we actually want the cars racing.”
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
One of the biggest athlete doesn’t deserve booing. Period. https://t.co/CPKf7iiCht
— Giedo van der Garde (@GvanderGarde) September 4, 2021
As insightful these radio conversations between Team Managers and Race Direction are, they really make it sound like a kindergarten playground fight.#F1 #DutchGP
— Nina Rochette (@NinaRocky_48) September 4, 2021
Old school track. Mistake means done. How it supposed to be. Love Zandvoort! #F1
— Robin Frijns (@RFrijns) September 4, 2021
What I most appreciate watching the action at Zandvoort is I'm not looking at each corner trying to remember whether the drivers are allowed to go to the kerb or the white line or wherever. The track boundaries are obvious. That needs to be the case at all circuits.#F1 #DutchGP
— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) September 4, 2021
Jost met with Kimi yesterday but in a socially distanced manner and while he is therefore not a close contact and has been retested with a negative result, Jost and Williams have taken the decision as a precautionary measure to mitigate any potential risk to the team. (2/2)
— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) September 4, 2021
Even the extraction vehicles are @Max33Verstappen fans. #seaoforange #DutchGrandPrix pic.twitter.com/iAhIKGgi0X
— Fritz-Dieter Rencken (@RacingLines) September 4, 2021
2/2 Meanwhile a big thumbs up to the Promoter here at Zandvoort – fans encouraged to come to the track by train, bike and park & ride. A lot of hard work has gone into the logistics and it shows. None of the predicted traffic chaos, very different to Spa last week
— David Croft (@CroftyF1) September 4, 2021
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
Motor racing links of interest:
'Is Kimi Raikkonen weird?' TG asks the Iceman the Big Questions (Top Gear)
"Raikkonen: 'Why do I need to answer this? I tend to be myself.'"
Why there’ll always be a Ferrari on the F1 podium (Financial Times)
"To celebrate the F1 deal, Ferrari has created a 100 per cent chardonnay cuvée that will be uncorked for the first time at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza next week – a silver-green wine as crunchy and fresh as a Granny Smith. Each limited-edition bottle will come with a label depicting one of four Grand Prix circuits: Suzuka, Silverstone, Monza or Austin."
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
After Pierre Gasly‘s fourth place performance in qualifying at Zandvoort, Depailler suggests Sergio Perez may not be Max Verstappen’s most useful ally at the moment.
Gasly at AlphaTauri is a more effective number two than Perez right now.
I don’t think it would work for him if he went back but Red Bull should throw some serious cash at AlphaTauri to keep him in play. Although he can’t be involved in team orders, with a few extra tenths he could be hassling Bottas.
Depailler
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On this day in motorsport
- 50 years ago today Peter Gethin scored his only win in the Italian Grand Prix, leading Ronnie Peterson, Francois Cevert, Mike Hailwood and Howden Ganley over the line at Monza covered by just 0.61 seconds
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
5th September 2021, 0:10
I really enjoyed watching Gasly’s qualifying lap, the very first lap of qualy, after Gasly came out to track the coverage went all mission impossible. Really hard to appreciate f1 with this camera work.
S
5th September 2021, 2:40
Typical F1 TV direction.
The bigger problem for me is that the only two cars we ever get to see for more than 10 seconds are Hamilton’s and Verstappen’s. Doesn’t seem to matter who else is on the track – F1 is a two-horse race and nothing else is important enough to broadcast.
Oh, except the crowd. Can’t have an F1 broadcast without lots of crowd shots….
Hazel Southwell (@hazelsouthwell)
5th September 2021, 5:11
That seems extraordinary to me, in a session where we had multiple onboards and where the drone (or overhead) camera followed Latifi into the barrier. Maybe we were watching different world feeds.
S
5th September 2021, 6:35
Almost every time that multiple cars were on push lap, we only ever followed one of those two.
Maybe you just enjoy the broadcast that way? I just like to see all 20 cars, since there are actually that many of them…
jff
5th September 2021, 6:59
Do like I did: sign up for F1TV (and VPN).
Balue (@balue)
5th September 2021, 9:59
At least we got to follow some hot laps, unlike previous horrible messes, where they mostly picked up cars on out- or cool down laps.
Q1 should mostly follow the bottom 5 cars, and so on. How difficult can it be?
I agree the close-ups of a car is completely missing the point.
dot_com (@dot_com)
5th September 2021, 0:11
Interesting that Kimi was meeting with Jost – I wonder if he was trying to get Kimi to have one more year in a Williams
PT (@pt)
5th September 2021, 7:20
Interesting indeed.
Qeki (@qeki)
5th September 2021, 10:55
Well he almost drove for Williams after his comeback but he was then signed with Lotus. It was a very close call if I remember correctly
Broccoliface
5th September 2021, 0:48
I thought the story was that Lance was sent to give initial overtures to Alonso? Presumably so they could then use this denial and not have to lie.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th September 2021, 1:14
So as an italian I ended up learning years ago that if you deny something it means it’s not true, that’s the same everywhere except in f1, where if you deny something it’s true!
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
5th September 2021, 2:09
@esploratore1
And between Horner and Wolff, to ask whether one could possibly do some gamesmanship, ill-faith is automatically linked to the other because of the question in itself and the accused side concludes that his rival is the one who will certainly attempt or have already tried that gamesmanship, and they don’t even need to deny it!
jff
5th September 2021, 7:02
And if it is true, then what?
erikje
5th September 2021, 12:35
Then you know it was not toto who told you.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
5th September 2021, 5:36
What?! The Ferrari drink on the podium has nothing to with the Ferrari F1 team? Never knew that.
Tommy C (@tommy-c)
5th September 2021, 5:55
A wine that’s as crunchy as an apple? Has it been frozen…? Might make for a dull champagne spray.
Jere (@jerejj)
5th September 2021, 6:32
The AM case is somewhat contradictory as Seb joined on longer than a one-year deal, so nothing to announce unless his situation is the same as Alonso’s, i.e., 2-year deal in 1+1 form.
PT (@pt)
5th September 2021, 7:39
Remember, there were rumours like this a few years back suggesting Alonso would head to Mercedes after Flavio and Toto were caught having lunch together. It’s just one of those crazy rumours I guess though it isn’t totally improbable if both Alonso and Aston Martin can benefit from it. F1 has a history of contract breakages.
Dave
5th September 2021, 9:35
Re Alonso: Think he’s retiring at Alpine.
Re Giedo tweet: 100%.
Jasper
5th September 2021, 9:52
Alonso moving across to Aston for 2022 wouldn’t make much sense especially when they offered him Vettel’s seat last year. Apparently he had Alpine and Aston offers for 2021. He also had talks with Red Bull prior to them signing Perez but that didn’t go anywhere.
Balue (@balue)
5th September 2021, 10:00
It’s Red Bull that should approach Alonso
Markus
5th September 2021, 10:30
I wish the media would stop making such a big deal about the booing. Its not racist, its pantomime and part of “show” f1 has created. Schumacher was hated when he dominated. Vettel was booed when he won, even rosberg got booed when ruined Hamiltons races. Hamilton is being booed because he is dominating and people like to cheer the underdog. If max dominates the coming years he will no doubt get the same treatment eventually.
ian dearing
5th September 2021, 10:41
Maybe van der Garde who conducted the media interview asked them to stop because he assumed the vast majority there wanted to hear what Hamilton had to say ?
erikje
5th September 2021, 12:38
Point is I heard a lot of cheering for Lewis.
Nobody seems to talk about that..
But hey, media makes news. That’s the 2021 way.