In the round-up: Williams F1 academy driver Logan Sargeant will race in this weekend’s F2 rounds in Jeddah with HWA Racelab.
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In brief
Sargeant offered F2 shot with HWA in Saudi Arabia
Logan Sargeant will step up to F2 for the first time and compete in all three races across the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend.HWA announced on Twitter Sargeant will drive for them in the Saudi Arabian races. The American driver will drive in place of Jake Hughes and joins Alessio Deledda at the team.
Sargeant finished seventh in the Formula 3 championship this season with a single victory. This followed him narrowly missing out on the F3 title in 2020 to Prema team mate Oscar Piastri, who leads the F2 standings heading into the penultimate triple-header.
Sargeant will be joined by Olli Caldwell and Clement Novalak as the third F3 driver to make their F2 debut at the new Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
Prost expected Ricciardo to be “much quicker” compared to Norris
Former world champion Alain Prost, who worked with Daniel Ricciardo over two seasons at Renault, says he expected the team’s former driver to be faster compared to McLaren team mate Lando Norris than he proved in 2021.
“I’m very close to the drivers – as you can imagine being an old racing driver – and with Daniel it was really a big connection,” said Prost.
“It’s always difficult in a career to make a good choice. And it was difficult for him. I’m surprised – I was expecting him to be much better, much quicker in the McLaren compared to Lando [Norris]. But that means also the different ambience in the team or different way of setting up the car could suit a driver a little bit less than another one. It’s another part of the life of a racing driver.”
No concerns over Bottas’s power unit after Qatar retirement
After Valtteri Bottas was forced into retirement at the last race in Qatar following his mid-race puncture, Mercedes are satisfied that Bottas has no potential power unit problems carried over ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
After repairing a cracked pipe outside of the FIA sealed perimeter of the power unit, Mercedes are confident that Bottas’s power unit will have no ill-effects from the damage that led to his eventual retirement in Losail.
Ex-F1 driver Fontana recovers helmet stolen 23 years ago
Former Formula 1 driver Norberto Fontana has been reunited with one of his helmets which was stolen from him the year after his brief appearance in the sport.
The 46-year-old made four starts for Sauber during the 1997 season as a substitute for Nicola Larini and Gianni Morbidelli. A helmet which he used at the time in testing at at Mugello and Estoril was stolen from him the following year.
Fontana revealed on social media he recently recovered the helmet after Christian Bodrato Mionetto, a fellow racer and friend of his, spotted it being worn by a motorbike rider near Buenos Aires. Mionetto alerted Fontana to his discovery, retrieved the helmet and returned it to the original owner.
Bird sets early pace in opening day of Formula E test
Jaguar and Sam Bird set the pace on the first day of Formula E pre-season testing in Valencia as outgoing Alfa Romeo F1 driver Antonio Giovinazzi opened his career with Dragon Penske.
Bird was fastest by just over a tenth of a second ahead of Lucas di Grassi in the Venturi after the first of three days of testing. The series’ three rookies for the 2022 season – Oliver Askew, Giovinazzi and Dan Ticktum – sat at the bottom of the timesheets at the end of the day.
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
The Formula E paddock paid tribute to the late Sir Frank Williams ahead of the start of testing in Valencia today with a minute of silence followed by a minute's applause.#F1 #FE pic.twitter.com/kf7th1pLq3
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) November 29, 2021
"Through his motivation, I recognized how important it is to motivate others in similar situations to overcome their challenge and exceed all expectations.
Thank you for being an inspiration to the team, Sir Frank Williams." 🧡
– Sam Schmidt pic.twitter.com/Jb2K5Z9zDL
— Arrow McLaren SP (@ArrowMcLarenSP) November 29, 2021
|@Alo_oficial and @OconEsteban – doing their best Daft Punk impression – present the Ballon d'Or trophies awarded to the world's top football players as chosen by @francefootball.pic.twitter.com/XQ2C9a4M15#F1
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) November 29, 2021
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
Motor racing links of interest:
McLaren Racing concludes agreement to acquire majority shareholding in Arrow McLaren SP (McLaren)
"The conclusion of the agreement means that McLaren Racing will become the majority shareholder in the team with a controlling 75% stake, with Arrow McLaren SP to formally be part of the McLaren Racing organisation."
"In September, Piria announced the launch of the #LaMiaVittoria initiative, with 6 selected women having the chance to spend a day at Wave Italy – the professional simulator facility where the racer trains – and receive coaching from Vicky herself."
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
With both Mercedes and Red Bull believing that the fast, flowing layout of the new Jeddah Corniche Circuit will suit Mercedes the best of the two, reader Ben thinks that track grip, not layout, could be the crucial factor this weekend…
Layout is one thing and it does look to suit Mercedes more on paper, but let’s not forget about the track surface. Grip looks like it’ll be extremely low which could swing things back to RedBull. It’s a race many expect Mercedes to dominate at, but they could genuinely struggle here. Turkey, Singapore and Baku spring to mind. That extra engine power is no good if you can’t get the grip.
Ben
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Anirudh, Daniel and Mark Stevenson!
November on RaceFans
A selection of RaceFans’s top reads from last month which you might have missed:
- How fans’ designs inspired the team behind Yas Marina’s dramatic new layout
- Ferrari has little to fear from the possible loss of its biggest F1 sponsor
- Red Bull on red alert as dominant Hamilton continues assault on Verstappen’s lead
- Why talk of a McLaren takeover by Audi – or another manufacturer – is premature
- Three-stop strategies? No passing? What to expect from F1’s first race at Losail
- How a chance meeting sparked the Middle East’s rise as an F1 power
- It’s not just having a Chinese driver in the car, you also have to perform – Vasseur on Zhou
- Analysis: Which teams could gain the most from F1’s 2022 rules revolution
- Verstappen braced for a fight to the end despite emphatic Mexico victory
- Ricciardo on homesickness, suffering his “lowest lows” – and rooting for Red Bull
- F1 must avoid past errors in USA as it seeks to capitalise on ‘Netflix effect’
- Power unit penalties: Tactical battleground or unwelcome factor in the title fight?
- Why the timing wasn’t right for an Andretti-Alfa Romeo F1 deal
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Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
30th November 2021, 0:19
So looks like messi won because he is in France…
Qeki (@qeki)
30th November 2021, 10:09
Well he finally won the Copa America so it was justifiable to give it to him
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
30th November 2021, 11:27
@qeki
The Copa America trophy is a joke. You just have to look at the results of both Argentina and Brazil at the world cup in the last 10 or 15 years to realize how mediocre the level of that tournament that I now personally rate below the African Cup.
Besides if we are going to use the team’s (club or national team) achievements as a criteria then Jorginho who won both the Champions League and the Euro 2020 and Benzema who won lately the Nations League are more deserving candidates. Besides, Messi didn’t play for 5 months this year and has scored 4 goals with PSG (1 goal in League 1 and 3 goals in Champions League) which is very poor compared to players like Benzema, Lewandowski, CR7…
There is no way that Messi would have won this year’s Ballon d’Or because he is lagging in every criteria (goals, assists, achievements, influence over the team’s result…). He is the top scorer of La Liga but so is CR7 who is the top scorer in the Serie A and scored more goals than Messi over the year with both club and national team.
Messi has won this year’s Ballon d’Or for the same reason we have had a F1 GP in Qatar and there is no need to talk about how the Qatari have owned the French football since France have awarded them the World Cup with the decisive influence of Platini in the voting process.
Qeki (@qeki)
30th November 2021, 11:51
@tifoso1989 While I follow football I can’t argue with your statement. He didn’t score most goals, didn’t win domestic league, didn’t win champions league.
He now got that Copa America trophy but when I think it again maybe that is not enough to be crowned as best of the world.
Leroy (@g-funk)
30th November 2021, 4:46
Honest question: the What to Expect story is written by the Saudi race promoter. I don’t recall seeing an article written by a race promoter in the past. Is it common on this site? I would ask this question on that story but comments are disabled.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
30th November 2021, 6:51
I don’t recall seeing it before @g-funk, but in fairness it is prominently labelled as a promoted article and clearly explains where it’s come from.
This is not the only site to have done similar, in fact most of the online content previewing the Saudi GP appears to be promoted content in one way or the other.
I have an opinion
30th November 2021, 13:40
Not by a race promoter, but I have skipped over other promoted articles in the past, maybe by F1’s sole contracted tyre supplier (just can’t think of the name right now).
GeeMac (@geemac)
30th November 2021, 4:53
I honestly only have time to follow football casually but I was surprised he won the Ballon d’Or this year…I assumed it would be Lewandowski.
Right, back to F1!
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
30th November 2021, 6:16
Openwheelers #Tasmanseries S5000 is racing on Mount Panorama ! Hot lap on youtube
juan fanger (@juan-fanger)
30th November 2021, 20:58
Hey @uneedafinn2win, do you know if there will there be live coverage?
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
1st December 2021, 7:37
@juan-fanger ,Yes indeed motorsport.tv seems to still carry them worldwide.
Jere (@jerejj)
30th November 2021, 7:58
Bottas did have his gear number surrounded in red warning color on a few occasions in the last race until eventually disappearing every time. Anyway, I’m not worried about the remaining events either.
I had never heard of Norberto Fontana until yesterday, but a good thing.
Cyril finally got a tattoo more than a year after the Nurburgring P3. Better late than never.
Nice Daft Punk impression.
While COTD has a valid point, I still expect Mercedes & especially car #44, to be ahead on pace.
Aapje (@aapje)
30th November 2021, 11:57
Amusing that Alonso had buckled his chin strap. Habit, I guess.