In the round-up: Sebastian Vettel’s continuation of his Aston Martin deal is expected to be announced in the near future.
In brief
Vettel to stay at Aston Martin
Aston Martin executive chairman Lawrence Stroll indicated on Monday that Vettel is expected to remain at the team next year.Asked about the world champion’s future Stroll said: “You will be getting an answer to that imminently and all indications are saying yes.”
Andretti confirms Hunter-Reay departure
Andretti has confirmed it is parting parts with Ryan Hunter-Reay, the 2012 IndyCar champion and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner, after 12 years with the driver. Hunter-Reay is in his third consecutive win-less season and has fallen to 17th in the standings.
He is tied on points with rookie Romain Grosjean, who has missed three races this year, and is widely tipped to take Hunter-Reay’s place at the team next year.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
A dramatic new angle on the Hamilton/Verstappen collision#ItalianGP 🇮🇹 #F1 pic.twitter.com/PvN2KGUbbi
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 14, 2021
We have some news: @kvyatofficial will be testing the 2022 #Fit4F1 18-inch intermediate tyres tomorrow and full wets on Thursday with @AlpineF1Team at @MagnyCoursTrack in France. #F1 #FIA pic.twitter.com/V8YuSvkwYb
— Pirelli Motorsport (@pirellisport) September 14, 2021
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Formula 1 fan arrested after being mistaken for mafia boss (BBC)
"It would have been a genius of an Italian to have such a strong Liverpool accent."
Jost Capito: 'I absolutely believe we can reach the top again' (Autocar)
"Because our team is running at the back, people ask me whether F1 needs some kind of balance-of-performance system. Maybe we need to reverse the grids? I always say no. I say we have to do a better job."
Verstappen is 'taking longer than expected to mature', blasts Stewart (Daily Mail)
"If it weren't for the halo, Lewis could have died, and the supposed culprit only gets a slap on the wrist!"
Column: Johnson’s leadership steadies Palou for title fight (Miami Herald)
Jimmie Johnson: "I shared some of my challenging championship moments with him as a starting point. Just trying to enforce the fact the big trophies don’t come without struggle and the need to overcome."
'Enough of clunky F1 sprint races — award one-shot qualifying points instead' (Motorsport Magazine)
"Reverse grids are a great idea for touring car racing, but for F1 it smacks of desperation. For all its flaws and faults, F1 must aspire to be a genuine meritocracy and throwing in random factors – don’t even get me started on Bernie Ecclestone’s stupid old sprinkler idea – is just naff."
‘Let’s talk after Sochi’- Shwartzman confident he can go up a level from Monza (F2)
"I would say that I’ve over pushed myself a little bit in terms of thinking, planning, and controlling things. I should just let go more and let my natural instincts do the job. I think that's where I am going to gain the performance."
Hamilton bought a Met Gala table for emerging black fashion designers (CNET)
"The seven-time world champion bought his own table and invited four young black designers as his guests."
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.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Comment of the day
Stephen feels Aston Martin’s new F1 factory is missing something obvious.
Given the James Bond connection I’m disappointed they didn’t build it in an extinct volcano or out at sea. At the very least I hope they have a shark pool in reception.
Stephen Higgins
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Siy, Butch27, Warfieldf1 and Sudhi!
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 motorsport
- 20 years ago today Alex Zanardi incredibly survived a violent crash with Alex Tagliani in a CART race at the Lausitzring, but lost both his legs. Kenny Brack recovered from as spin to win the race.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
15th September 2021, 0:27
As much as I admired him as a driver, I think it’s time the media stop asking Jackie Stewart for his opinions in much the same way they should stop asking Bernie.
Markus (@aesto)
15th September 2021, 0:47
Yeah, it’s kind of a strange comment of him to make. There’s a reason the FIA doesn’t look at the consequences of crashes when deciding on penalties. It is extremely uncommon for crashes at such low speed to lead to dangerous outcomes. What happened was pretty unlikely and not really predictable for Verstappen (or for Hamilton for that matter). If you replayed that accident a hundred times, Verstappen going over Hamilton happens maybe once – the rest of the time, he’d just damage his front wing or Hamilton’s rear tyre/floor.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
15th September 2021, 0:50
Interesting that no one has really said anything about the sausage kerbs launching him up.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
15th September 2021, 2:11
Could this be seen as verstappen luck for once this year? If hamilton had passed it would’ve been bad for him, so being launched up and damaging hamilton’s rear wing sort of saved him, although not sure he can be considered lucky for that, and in any case he was in that position due to an unlucky pit stop.
someone or something
15th September 2021, 11:13
Doubtful. Hamilton getting ahead would’ve been bad for him, but I’m pretty sure the grid drop for Sochi hurts more.
Also the fact that he was penalised for one of the weirdest reasons I’ve heard in a while.
However, Verstappen did get lucky with Hamilton’s poor start in the sprint race. It may have only swung the battle by 3 points in his favour, but who knows how important these points will be when the season wraps up …
Maxx Silver
15th September 2021, 11:56
No sausage kerbs = no accident or just banging wheels?
erikje
15th September 2021, 12:42
The fia is using the crash for its safety evaluation. So the kerbs will be part of that investigation.
Carbonized
15th September 2021, 14:43
It has been mentioned many times .
some F1 fan
15th September 2021, 2:33
Yeah, Sir Jackie is getting out of touch with a sport nowadays that has changed a whole lot
over the last 15 years and massively over the last 50 years. Back in 1971 (when Sir Jackie won his 2nd championship) on-track behavior was much more gentlemanly, because of the danger involved with the circuits (which had almost no safety up until around 1971) and the poor construction and flimsy nature of the cars, and how easily they could catch fire. No driver back then would ever have dared to try pass around the outside of a corner like the first chicane at Monza even if it meant getting ahead.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
15th September 2021, 4:31
I had the same thought, unfortunately media cares only about controversial headlines, so the more geriatric inflammatory opinions the better!
Balue (@balue)
15th September 2021, 8:05
Ageism
erikje
15th September 2021, 12:45
Interesting to see in the new twitter linked images, max did check on Lewis.
Strange no-one is questioning the behavior of Lewis who still tried to escape underneath while max was on track walking.
If that car had escaped the consequences would be devastating.
Mayrton
16th September 2021, 12:22
Hey you know by now that Lewis is the King. He can’t do anything wrong. It is always the other guy.
V
15th September 2021, 19:50
… if it weren’t for the halo … could have … would have …
That is all irrelevant. The fact is the halo is there and cars are way much safer now than they used to be in Jackie’s era. That lets ALL drivers to be more reckless.
How about Hamilton being immature enough to try to reverse from the wreckage? Max was climbing out, he COULD HAVE ended up under the car, IF it suddenly dropped.
By the moment Max stepped on the ground he knew already that Lewis is perfectly okay. An injured driver WOULDN’T shake his car by trying to reverse.
Mayrton
16th September 2021, 12:21
Yeah, they are funny though those fossils. And nobody dares correcting them which enhances the funniness. As interviewer I would show Giovinazzi onboard lap 1 race start and then ask him whether he needs glasses or something. Poor old man.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
15th September 2021, 0:49
Damn 20 years already. What an absolute legend and inspiration Alex is. So sad that he’s going through such trauma a 2nd time.
Broccoliface
15th September 2021, 2:56
Stewart criticising Max for not checking on Lewis has firmly seated him in the camp of people seeing (or not seeing) what they want to see. Max looking over to Lew and seeing him rocking the car in reverse in an attempt to get back on-track, whilst your own car wobbles in the air just infront of his cockpit. Yeah, no-ones walking anywhere near to that wreckage in their right mind.
kpcart
15th September 2021, 3:10
So you see it as a Max fan. Stewart makes a good point, Verstappen has done more races than previous champions, but he hasn’t learnt in wheel to wheel racing, too aggressive and never thinks of showing respect for the other driver
Luca Goodoer
15th September 2021, 4:12
I don’t think Max is the aggressive one here for trying to overtake someone coming out the pits.
Luca Goodoer
15th September 2021, 4:13
Also FYI RaceFans admins, it would be nice to have a confirmation popup for reporting comments in case anyone fat fingers the button.
OOliver
15th September 2021, 4:41
Aggressive for forcing his car through a key hole.
Nandy
15th September 2021, 15:56
Odd how Ham left Norris room on the first lap at exactly the same place…
F1oSaurus (@)
15th September 2021, 8:03
What’s even worse is that he did learn, but in this case he cynically choose to dive into a hole that never existed.
Broccoliface
15th September 2021, 8:42
So I see it as somebody with eyes. How else could it be seen? Everything I catalogued was in front of us on the screen, get a grip.
kpcart
15th September 2021, 3:07
Overnight in some foreign race sites, all talk about Vettel retiring. Apparently it was talked about during the drivers parade. Talk of Stroll maybe hiring Kubica to replace Vettel as he has a fondness for him for helping his son Lance when he was Williams reserve.
kpcart
15th September 2021, 3:12
And interesting were George Russell’s comments on Kubica after the race. He says we will definitely see him on the grid again.
Red Pill (@redpill)
15th September 2021, 3:42
Rumor is that if Vettel does retires then Merc wants Nyck de Vries in the seat, making Lance the senior driver.
F1oSaurus (@)
15th September 2021, 8:08
Indeed, Wolff was talking about trying to get Nyck de Vries into a seat at Aston Martin. Depending on what Vettel is going to do.
Nandy
15th September 2021, 15:57
Kubica would be an excellent choice for Aston.
Ohm
15th September 2021, 3:27
I’ve been thinking about this ‘penalty shouldn’t be judged from the consequence of the action’ thing and am starting to think don’t society normally do that in the real world anyway?
In the real world, if you are playing with a gun and accidentally shoot someone and they only get away with a nasty wound, you probably end up in jail for a few months. However if your shot kills the other person, you would probably be in jail for much longer.
Even in formula 1, if you block someone in quali and they get through, you probably end up with a reprimand. But if the other car doesn’t get through, it’s most likely a grid drop.
The only times when looking at the consequence does not do justice is if the action is deliberate like if you are meaning to shoot someone in the head and somehow they survive – then you shouldn’t get away with a few months in jail. Same for F1, if it’s proven that you deliberately torpedo-ed someone then it shouldn’t matter if they retire or get away with minor damage, you should get a race ban.
F1oSaurus (@)
15th September 2021, 8:19
They only look at consequences in the sense that there actually needs to be an incident. Verstappen running off Ricciardo and Hamilton in turn of of the sprint and Full race does not get penalized because they don’t let it come to an incident.
Later in the race Hamilton does let it come to an incident (if he even had any chance of avoiding int really) and then the stewards hand out the penalty. It’s still only a 5s/3 place grid drop penalty though. So pretty minor for taking a competitor out of the race. So they don’t actually took into consideration the consequences further than the fact that there was an incident
I think the fact that Verstappen keeps getting away with his dirty driving is killing the sport. Other drivers have started doing the same. It’s becoming impossible to overtake anywhere but on the straight since more and more drivers go for the “try to pass me and we will crash” style of when the attacking driver is actually far enough along to own the racing line and should be given space. Or vice versa when the attacking driver was not far enough along at corner entry and goes for the dive anyway.
It’s like driving through a red light and the police says you won’t get a fine because the car taking the green managed to stop in time and you didn’t hit it. A foul is a foul regardless if it worked in bullying someone off.
Forcing a driver off in a situation where that driver owns the racing line should also be considered an incident. Not just when the cars touch.
black (@black)
15th September 2021, 10:39
I think the stewards sometimes change their perspective depending on the end result, even though they say they don’t.
Take the Verstappen-Hamilton at Silverstone incident – if Hamilton did the same move, they touched wheels but somehow Verstappen lost a bit his steering and just went for 1sec to the run off area and then continued normally, then it would most likely been declared as a racing incident. But because Verstappen retired, the stewards were ‘forced’ to hand a penalty.
Same situation in Monza – if none of them retired (or only just Verstappen), and Hamilton stayed in front, they would most likely say “hard racing – racing incident” – if only Hamilton retired, I believe the penalty would be bigger (like 10sec), to compensate.
We’ve seen time and time again, some of the justifications are purely based on rule interpretations by the stewards and not so much as slam-dunk cases. And that’s logicac because not every incident is the same.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
15th September 2021, 4:11
Good Capito interview, fascinating interaction with Frank; no love lost there. Not only do they not have agreeable principles, they can’t even agree on what a principle is.
No punches pulled by describing the Williams team as disfunctional prior to his arrival. Disappointing he isn’t aiming to take them to a championship though. Hopefully the performance improves to a point where be feels he can carry the team to the top step, not just the midfield.
Balue (@balue)
15th September 2021, 8:08
@skipgamer His optimism comes across as more than PR-speak, so maybe his VW connection has told him something..
jff
15th September 2021, 8:06
Balue (@balue)
15th September 2021, 8:10
..but how will you attract the younger audience who are just clamoring for fanboost and the like?
jff
15th September 2021, 8:14
Yet unfortunately most fans love random factors
jff
15th September 2021, 8:17
Yet unfortunately most fans love random factors (just check the scores here for red-flagg ed races like Monza 2020).
Gmacz
15th September 2021, 8:19
Stewart has more knowledge of F1 on his toenail than any of us will ever have and deserves respect. His opinion has merit although I’m unsure whether I wholly agree.
The fact is Hamilton could be dead or seriously injured if there was no halo but Verstappen would have launched that impetuous move anyway as he frequently does, without penalties, seemingly because he’s “aggressive”. I’ve watched dynamic and thrilling moves by many drivers in my time but there was always a sense of respect and tolerance for the fellow competitors. Verstappen shows none of those qualities – win at any cost is unacceptable in this sport.
jff
15th September 2021, 8:26
Toenails tend to grow with time/age, and when you cut that part you’ve lost it forever ;)
Mayrton
16th September 2021, 12:28
I am getting really tired of this. Please have look at the onboard of Giovinazzi lap 1 race start. He is in the rol of Max and the Ferrari he is battling with is in the role of Lewis. That is how it is done and exactly what Max could have expected from a claimed skillful driver as Lewis. Please stop defending Lewis. He chose to shut the door. He knows exactly what he is doing and Stewart needs a pair of new glasses.
Mayrton
16th September 2021, 12:36
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agwTDlThjww&t=413s
At 6:39
jff
15th September 2021, 8:21
Yet unfortunately most fans love random factors (just check the r@te-the-r@ce scores here for red-flagged races like Monza 2020).
But many fans get all upset when these ‘random factors’ are introduced in a meritocratic way by the sports owners.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
15th September 2021, 20:49
They love random factors as long as they occur naturally and are not seen to be forced in some way. A red flag because of an accident that requires clean-up or barrier repairs that leads to a thrilling finish to the race is great. A race which had a red flag that was thrown because F1 was trending on Twitter or whatever would not get the same appreciation from the majority of fans.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
15th September 2021, 10:15
If it weren’t for a lot of things on the cars these days Max would’ve died at Silverstone too, and the culprit won the race the same day with only a slap on the wrist. So?
I’m not choosing sides, just going with the same facts Sir JYS is using. I don’t know why that’s relevant… It was unfortunate that Max’s car jumped on Lewis’ (I still blame the kerb for that), but as incidents go, it was low speed, low risk…
Nandy
15th September 2021, 22:22
Absolutely, a freak low speed accident vs an ill-judged 180mph nudge. There’s no comparison.
RB13
15th September 2021, 11:31
Hell has officially frozen over, Jackie Stewart has come out with something resembling support for Lewis Hamilton. More shocking than F1 fan being mistaken for Mafia boss.
Lapov Onor
15th September 2021, 13:39
In my eyes, the major factor in the turn one incident is the track layout. I appreciate that the chicane was added to slow the cars through Curva Grande, but the layout isn’t modern F1 friendly due to width etc. There is a notable incident here every race. Discussing this with a friend yesterday we concluded that if the chicane (currently 90° right, >90° back left) was more like the final chicane at Suzuka (45° approx to right, 90° back to the left) it might help and still achieve the necessary speed reduction as it does so admirably at Suzuka after the high speed of 130R. In fact if you look at the aerial view there are two track layouts at the Suzuka chicane, the F1 version being the suggestion for Monza and the other version being similar in many respects to the existing Monza layout (just a whole lot wider!)
petebaldwin (@)
15th September 2021, 13:46
I’m amazed how this move by Verstappen is being twisted by people to prove their point… It was a low speed contact and he happened to bounce over a sausage kerb and ended up on Lewis’ car. It’s not like this was a desperate lunge at top speed…. There will be very few accidents this year with the cars travelling at a lower speed than that!
Every time we see people fail to slow for a yellow, we don’t get people shouting “he could have killed him!!!” If we look at the various bits of contact between Red Bulls and Mercedes this year, this was the least dangerous. It was just back luck that meant Verstappen ended up on top of Lewis and good luck that no-one got hurt during the other incidents.
Rufernan (@rufernan)
15th September 2021, 14:46
Does Stroll Sr. have an IndyCar team then for Vettel to be ‘confirmed’?