Engine problem caused bizarre practice spin for Norris

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In the round-up: Lando Norris says an engine glitch caused his spin as he entered the pit lane during Friday’s first practice session at Sochi.

In brief

Norris explains practice spin

Norris suffered slight damage to his front wing when he McLaren spun around on the way into the pits at Sochi yesterday. He said the low-speed impact “wasn’t my fault.”

“Something happened with the engine so not my fault, not an embarrassing spin,” Norris explained. “But not ideal, obviously it damaged the front wing as well which was not what we wanted at the end of the session, or at all.”

Despite the setback Norris was pleased with how his Friday went. “The whole day was a bit up and down. We struggled quite a bit in [second practice], we made quite a few changes on the car for the second practice and definitely improved it quite a bit. So we’re left with the more positive feeling today going into tomorrow and Sunday.”

Giovinazzi encouraged by pace despite crash

Antonio Giovinazzi had a harder hit with the wall in second practice, but felt his Alfa Romeo had good pace around Sochi.

“The wind was quite inconsistent during the run and I got a little bit of understeer, more understeer than the lap before,” he said. “I touched a little bit the [artificial] grass on the exit and I lost the rear. So unfortunately it happened.

“Otherwise I think we were not too bad in terms of pace so we’ll see tomorrow.”

Piastri continues pole run at Sochi

Piastri led the way in qualifying again
Oscar Piastri has claimed pole position for the third Formula 2 feature race in a row. The points leader saved his best until last as times tumbled throughout F2’s qualifying session, and beat Jehan Daruvala by almost two-tenths of a second.

Piastri’s closest championship rival Guanyu Zhou claimed fourth on the grid for Sunday’s main event and will share the second row with Theo Pourchaire. Dan Ticktum, who was tenth fastest in qualifying, will start the first sprint race on Saturday morning from pole position on the partially reversed grid.

Herta leads opening practice at Long Beach

Fresh from his victory at Laguna Seca five days ago, Colton Herta led the first practice session for this weekend’s championship-deciding race at Long Beach. Points leader Alex Palou was third while Josef Newgarden and Patricio O’Ward, the only drivers who can stop him taking the title, were 10th and 16th.

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Comment of the day

Should Lewis Hamilton use the opportunity this weekend to replace his power unit?

Probably too simplistic, but I’d take a new PU as well.

This seems to be the ideal weekend as knowing that you do not need to qualify well allows you to set up the car for a dry race instead of a wet quali.
Jff

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On this day in motorsport

Vettel on his way to victory in Singapore today in 2011

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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...

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8 comments on “Engine problem caused bizarre practice spin for Norris”

  1. But football is not the only sport to walk this path. American sporting executives in the NFL, NBA and MLB executives are fretting over how to attract and retain the next generation of supporters, with recent research showing that younger fans prefer to watch highlights over full matches. The study’s author described the “TikTok-ification” of sport, with fans “wanting smaller bits, shorter segments, highlights.”

    Chasing changing trends is a mugs game and successfully predicting future trends is all but impossible. The best formula in my opinion is always think in terms of the core audience, not the blow ins who change from day to day week to week. The example of Football seemed an odd one as there has not seemed to have been a drop in it’s popularity amongst it’s supporters. I’m not a follower of the sport but I have read that there is a suggestion to play the World Cup bi-annually. But the format of the game it’s self has not been changed.
    Cricket would be another example. Several changes have been made, introducing one day and Twenty 20 games. But the 5 day test series is still the jewel in the crown and will stay that way for the foreseeable future.

    F1 are in my opinion going down the wrong path trying to chase an unpredictable and ever changing demographic. while at the same time risking alienating the core F1 fans with some of the changes they are bringing in and some of the proposed changes.

    1. @johnrkh not to mention that there has been the suggestion that the trend towards a preference for highlights packages is motivated in part by the subscription costs being quite a bit lower when compared to the cost of watching the full broadcast.

    2. @johnrkh It’s quite a predictable demographic. In this case, the evidence indicates that the full product isn’t compelling enough to overcome the barriers between the fans and the content. Of course, determining what the real cause of that problem is will take quite a lot of work.

  2. Just a thought seeing F1 and Indycar articles here. If Liberty really wants to boost F1’s profile in the US, why not run the two events at the same time. Race Indycar over the F1 weekends at COTA and Miami. Surely the exposure for both series would be beneficial. Just don’t use the term support category for either…

    1. @tommy-c IndyCar’s format is different than F2, F3, W series, etc., so perhaps space would be limited time-wise.

      1. RandomMallard (@)
        25th September 2021, 8:12

        @jerejj I reckon it may well work though. One race would of course have to go before the other, the order of which may cause some disagreements, but WEC/IMSA managed Super Sebring so I don’t think it’s entirely implausible.

        @tommy-c The only problem is that Indycar’s season finishes in September, so they probably only be able to race together in Miami, unless COTA gets a date change.

    2. @tommy-c That would be impossible for F1, which is officially the pinnacle of single-seaters and wouldn’t be allowed to compromise that for Indycars even in the unlikely event Liberty would wish to do so.

      @randommallard Super Sebring was a one-off because of administrative problems, so that’s a factor too.

  3. I partly copy-paste from the previous article: Changing for the same race as VER would be foolish as this would reduce HAM’s chance of retaking the WDC lead, so better not voluntarily take, if not an absolute must.

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