Imola podium would not have been possible in Bahrain-spec McLaren – Norris

In brief

McLaren’s improvements “amazing” – Norris

After coming third at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, Lando Norris said that small improvements from Bahrain onwards had been crucial to his performance at Imola.

“When it’s raining and when it’s wet, especially, you need a car which gives you confidence,” Norris explained. “If I had the car which I had in Bahrain, I probably wouldn’t have done what I did.

“We made some small improvements and it just helps me be able to find the limit easier, push the car and push it to a higher limit and have the confidence in wet conditions in qualifying to put it P3. You do need a good car in order to do that.”

McLaren began the season poorly in Bahrain, failing to score, but have steadily improved since. “I have to thank the team just from where we were in Bahrain to now, it’s amazing to see the improvements we’ve made,” said Norris. “We have so far to go still but we’ve made some good stuff, so we just need to continue trying to take more steps.”

“Trying to do a good job is not good enough” for Formula E success now

Formula E’s only two-times champion, Jean-Eric Vergne, said that the fourth year of the series’ second-generation cars has pushed the competition closer than ever.

“The level of competition is extremely high this year,” said Vergne, who arrived at last weekend’s Monaco Eprix leading the championship and was able to secure a third-placed podium. “It is now the fourth year of this car, therefore all the drivers understand it very well, all the teams understand it very well and to make a difference, you need to look for the details that can make that.

“Now turning up in the races and trying to do a good job is not good enough. Of course there’s huge work that’s done at the factory and also the simulator, to try and understand what we could have done better in the last race and try and improve those tiny details that we will find.”

Powell joins Alpine Academy as coach and talent scout

W Series driver Alice Powell has joined the Alpine Academy as its talent identification and development mentor, to find up and coming drivers and provide coaching and mentoring to those in the scheme.

Powell, who has been Alpine Academy associate driver Abbi Pulling’s mentor for several years, said: “More and more opportunities for women within motorsport are emerging now, but budding drivers often lack guidance and experience in the early days of their career.

“The Alpine Academy is an extremely useful stepping stone for all drivers. It provides a sense of credibility and has a defined place on the motorsport ladder. Mentoring is very important. We need to change the mindset of young women that these opportunities do exist, but to also give them the resilience to reach out and grab these opportunities with both hands.”

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

New F1 22 screengrabs reveal how the Miami International Autodrome looks in the game. #F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/7GZOcG2ZIC

— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) May 3, 2022

Here's a "fun" fact about the superstitious among you. In Monaco, Sam Bird…

– missed the duels by 0.013s
– dropped to P13 due to a penalty
– retired after 13 minutes

Better luck next time! 🤞🍀 #ABBFormulaE

— Tobi Bluhm (@TobiTweetings) May 3, 2022

Throwback to 2017 📅

Leclerc finishes his first #F1 session over three tenths quicker than team-mate Wehrlein 🔥 pic.twitter.com/lnC7oJzb8y

— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) May 3, 2022

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdBvtXuPJ6m/

• Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory

Links

Motor racing links of interest:

Column: Miami ready to showcase F1's glitz and glamour (Miami Herald)

Tom Garfinkel: 'We do have a lot of high-end hospitality and luxury suites and people spend a lot of money for very high-end tickets. We wanted to make sure this is a fantastic experience. Open the map. Do you want to go to North Campus and have Harry's pizza? Do you want to take a gondola ride to the racetrack? Do you want to go see the yachts or the DJ's? People are going to be able to experience the racetrack from different places in different ways, that's what we tried to create.'

Webber insists most of Hamilton's struggles are through 'no fault of his own' (Daily Mail)

Webber: 'I think people are being pretty harsh, pretty fast on Lewis. In Bahrain he drove brilliantly to third place. In Saudi there was a safety car involved there with a pit stop.'

Button: 'I don't miss Formula One' (The Gentleman's Journal)

Button: 'Formula One is obviously the pinnacle of motorsport, best drivers in the world, best manufacturers in the world. But, I think if you turned around and made them EV tomorrow, they’d become very heavy – and that’s exactly what you do not want.'

Mansell’s Ferrari 640 Heading to RM Sotheby’s Monaco Auction (Dupont Registry)

We believe that this is the first time in history that a Works driver has offered his own Grand Prix Ferrari publicly at auction. With such an outstanding provenance and race-winning history, this stunning V-12 Ferrari F1 car would surely be the centerpiece of any motorsport collection.

Williams Racing in Grove supports deaf F1 fans in new campaign (Oxford Mail)

The organisation highlighted areas Williams Racing needed to improve on. In the past year a huge amount has been achieved including: deaf awareness training for staff, 10 members of staff from different departments are currently undertaking a 30-week BSL course, first deaf friendly tour was hosted for F1 fans, portable hearing loops have been placed in meeting rooms and in the museum, and BSL content is set to be available on the Williams Racing website.

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.

Comment of the day

Looking at the evolution of the Miami track design, StefMeister says that regardless of where F1 adds new tracks and on what streets, circuits are starting to look extremely familiar to each other:

My biggest gripe with most of the more modern circuits, Especially the more recent temporary one’s is how they all follow the same template.

They all have to have really long straights with a tight corner at the end, The corners at the end of straights have to be really open on the entry, They all have to have a tight fiddly ‘stadium’ section, They all have to have a really long corner like Sochi turn three or a long multi-apex Istanbul turn eight replica and then they all have to have a fast sequence sort of replicating Maggetts/Beckets/Chapel.

I just struggle to get all that excited about these new additions because of this. Each circuit is clearly different in layout but when they are all following the same template they still just end up feeling too similar which just makes it tricky to get all that interested in them.
@Stefmeister

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Jack Sargeant, Martin Stanley, Three4Three, Skodarap, Vickyy and F1_Barbie!

On this day in motorsport

• Born today in 1946: John Watson, who went on to win five F1 races and took the 1982 title fight down to last race. He also set record for winning an F1 race from the lowest starting position: 22nd