In the round-up: Pierre Gasly says that the new Miami International Autodrome will provide a “great show” for fans after visiting the scene of the new addition to the 2022 F1 calendar.
In brief
Miami GP circuit will provide “amazing” racing – Gasly
Pierre Gasly says the Miami Grand Prix will provide “amazing” overtaking opportunities after visiting the under-construction circuit.The AlphaTauri driver took a tour of the Hard Rock Stadium, the home of the Miami Dolphins NFL team that is the site of Formula 1’s newest venue. The 5.4km circuit around the stadium features two long straights at the north and south side of the track.
“I was really impressed,” Gasly said of his visit. “The track looks really cool, especially with the two very long straights. In terms of racing and overtaking possibilities, it’s going to be pretty amazing. It should be a great show for all the fans.”
Gasly says his excited to see how the city of Miami embraces Formula 1. “Miami is a cool place, so I’m excited to come here and spend time discovering the city,” he said. “All of my friends and all the fans are looking forward to this one and I’m excited about having a good race here.”
The inaugural Miami Grand Prix takes place on May 8th.
Leclerc takes Formula Regional Asia Championship lead as Montoya goes pointless
Ferrari academy driver Arthur Leclerc won the first of two races at the Dubai Autodrome yesterday to take the championship lead in the series from Sebastian Montoya.
Leclerc, younger brother of F1 driver Charles, took the lead at the start of race two and hold off attacks from Pierre Louis Chovet, then Dino Beganovic and Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar to take the win as Montoya retired after contact.
Race three was claimed by race one winner Hadrien David, with Hadjar taking third and Leclerc in sixth, one place behind another Red Bull junior, Jak Crawford.
Leclerc holds a nine point lead over David in the championship after the second of five rounds in the championship, with Hadjar sitting in third. The third round takes place again at the Dubai circuit next weekend.
IndyCar drivers take multiple class wins at Daytona 24 Hours
IndyCar drivers Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud won the Daytona 24 Hours for Meyer Shank Racing with team mates Oliver Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist. Castroneves celebrated in his trademark style by climbing the speedway catchfence after taking the chequered flag by just over three seconds ahead of three-time defending race winners Wayne Taylor Racing.
In the LMP2 class, IndyCar drivers Pato O’Ward, Colton Herta and Devlin Defrancesco took the victory along with team mate Eric Lux for the Dragonspeed team.
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
#workinprogress 🏎🚧🏍Can you imagine the breathtaking view from this grandstand !!! 👀🤩😍#update #raidillon #circuitspa #spafrancorchamps pic.twitter.com/esLJknXsNb
— Spa-Francorchamps (@circuitspa) January 30, 2022
Red Bull filming at the factory today! #F1 pic.twitter.com/TaSb7JS6MX
— Toby Howard (@tobyhowardf1) January 29, 2022
Way to go, @PatricioOWard! 🏆
Great drive in the 24 Hours of Daytona to take an impressive LMP2 class win. Let’s go! 👊 pic.twitter.com/4TycVEmWeC
— Zak Brown (@ZBrownCEO) January 30, 2022
I’m more nervous before the race of my F4 driver than before my own race 😂
— Richard Verschoor (@R_Verschoor1) January 30, 2022
📍 @IndeMotorsports, Arizona
We’re all set for a week of driver testing here at this stunning circuit. #WSeries 🌵 #WSeriesArizona pic.twitter.com/9ivzVlUGVq
— W Series (@WSeriesRacing) January 30, 2022
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Can Ricciardo and Norris return their team to glory? (Formula 1)
"The fact remains that there was a gulf between the two McLaren drivers last season and the Woking squad need the Australian to match his British team mate’s performances in 2022 if they are to compete with Ferrari, let alone Red Bull and Mercedes."
Mercedes-AMG F1 W12 E Performance & Mercedes-AMG Project One (Lego)
"Kids and race fans can now collect and explore two vehicles at the forefront of race car design with this Lego Speed Champions Mercedes-AMG F1 W12 E Performance & Mercedes-AMG Project One building set."
Scunthorpe teen on the road to success in male-dominated motorsport (Grimsby Live)
"Up until this last year, most of the time I was the only female on the grid at my karting races. Unfortunately there aren’t many women in the top end of motorsport which is something that needs to change and I’m hoping to be a part of that."
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
This weekend’s Caption Competition winner is Only Facts!:
ALONSO: “Not sure I can block this guy, Esteban. You’re on your own!”
Only Facts!
Thank you to everyone who entered this week’s caption competition and a special mention to RandomMallard, Peartree, JamieFranklinF1 and Qeki, who all scored a slam dunk with their entries.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Sharan!
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
31st January 2022, 1:03
Congrats Only Facts!
Only Facts!
31st January 2022, 9:21
Thank you all!
BasCB (@bascb)
1st February 2022, 13:14
Nice one Only Facts!
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
31st January 2022, 1:04
As much as it’s good that there is no tobacco branding in F1 any more, they are still some of my favourite liveries. In fact I tend not to like busy designs and yet I still like this one.
I hope Gasly based his hypothesis on simulator work and not the poster in reception.
Re: Caption comp. Nice winner, but I must admit I liked @nullapax suggestion.
MacLeod (@macleod)
31st January 2022, 7:56
I hope so as noone even drove the new car yet but i expect F1 drivers can see how corners are can be taken and give a oppinion over overtaking on that track.
jff
31st January 2022, 9:39
The good thing about the tobacco sponsoring (era) is that most cars had one major sponsor/theme rather than the eclectic mess we have today.
mmertens (@mmertens)
31st January 2022, 1:41
1997 was the last year where F1 cars were truly beautiful. From then onwards the cars proportions weren’t never right again.
ECWDanSelby (@ecwdanselby)
31st January 2022, 9:18
Inclined to agree, but at a push i’d say 2000. 2001 they started raising the ends of the front wing, which just looked ugly as hell.
amian
31st January 2022, 13:06
@ecwdanselby
The 180cm narrow track cars from 1998 onwards were just unaccepetable for me. There were a couple good looking cars like the 1999 McLaren, Arrows and Williams, but on the whole the cars looked like F3 cars.
I agree with the fron wing raising – it was one of several awful trends. The other one was the angular sharp edged shapes introduced by McLaren in 1998, although this went back to 1995 Williams.
1995 was the last season with plenty of beautiful, low nosed cars.
RandomMallard
31st January 2022, 2:01
I’m still baffled by the scheduling near the start of the season. Crossing the Atlantic 4 times in 6 weeks. I can understand not wanting to pair the two USA races together, but surely Miami could pair up with Canada?
Also gonna be weird to get Silverstone before Austria and France. Not as annoyed about that, just gonna be different
Tristan (@skipgamer)
31st January 2022, 4:54
And they say they care about their carbon footprint which F1M has already admitted travel is the biggest contributor to 🤷♂️
Hopefully Vettel or someone that will be heard brings the matter up. Having the fly away races together in a sensible travel pattern should be the #1 priority of scheduling.
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
31st January 2022, 5:19
I’m not sure many are surprised by this though, are we. I mean yes, we may have assumed they have enough ‘clever’ people in the mix to notice how things like this highlight the lack of sincerity in the carbon reductions goals.
I am not terminally sceptical, but by and large I do not believe many businesses, or otherwise financially oriented organisations pursue such initiatives unless there is marketing value, financial benefit, or regulation/legislation.
Let’s be honest, if it were the top priority I am quite sure there are many way’s to make a reasonable dent in F1’s net carbon emissions (which of course would require some big changes) whilst still having a top quality cutting edge international racing formula.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st January 2022, 6:43
@RandomMallard Same. A Miami-Montreal pairing should’ve been a no-brainer, especially as they aren’t even nearby geographically & are already close in schedule, like Austin & Mexico City at the tail-end.
jff
31st January 2022, 9:47
Even that I don’t get; the races in Europe are much closer together and it doesn’t bother too many people.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st January 2022, 6:39
We’ll see. Overtaking might be challenging outside the two long straights.
drmouse (@drmouse)
31st January 2022, 10:54
I think we still need to see the effect of the new regs before jumping to any conclusions either way. With older cars, you are definitely right, but let’s see how the new cars go (assuming, of course, the “god rule” is dealt with…)
BasCB (@bascb)
1st February 2022, 13:17
Yeah, well, Pierre was hosted there, so it is understandable that he liked the presentation they gave – Surely they would have been enthusiastically showing their predictions of how things should work. As almost always, those accounts tend to be somewhat on the positive side of things.
But as you both are right to say, especially @drmouse has a good point that with the new cars we are even more in the deep as to how what kind of track sequences will or won’t work than normally, it might even be hard to predict what we could have more or less expected from the cars that we had @jerejj.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
31st January 2022, 8:36
No mention of the incredible finish to the GTD Pro class? it went down to the wire until the very last lap!
Leroy (@g-funk)
31st January 2022, 14:42
Re: Miami, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what drivers say in public before they actually race on the track. They, along with the FIA, all say the races are going to be “great”, “exciting”, “awesome”, etc. to build up the press for the race promoter. Even Vettel said that Sochi was going to produce a lot of overtaking and be “very exciting”.
https://www.racefans.net/2013/04/23/vettel-drives-future-russian-grand-prix-track-sochi/
BasCB (@bascb)
1st February 2022, 13:18
Off course they will, yeah @g-funk, can you imagine flying in an F1 driver you show around would then go “meh, I think it will be hard to see ahead, not much room for following anyone and only one or two overtakes using DRS, not sure I like it” or something :-)
amian
31st January 2022, 19:23
The finals laps of Daytona 24 were amazing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ2vqT9CJKI
All eyes were on those GT Porsche’s and their fantastic battle.
amian
31st January 2022, 19:28
Also, another great success for Helio Castro-Neves and his legendary celebration! At 46, what a guy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEJGFoqfxNA
I hope he will be as successful in the full IndyCar season this year as well.
On a side note – I hope to see Alonso racing and winning stuff at that age too.