Norris ‘confirmed he’s definitely something special’ with recent form – Seidl

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In the round-up: McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl says Lando Norris’ form this season shows why McLaren secured him to a long-term deal early in the year.

In brief

Norris performance ‘confirming that he’s something special’

After two weekends where he drove to points finishes despite suffering the effects tonsillitis, Lando Norris’ 2022 form shows why McLaren signed him long term, Andreas Seidl says.

“Lando is just blooming all season already,” the McLaren team principal explained. “It’s why we signed him for so many years. He is confirming that he’s definitely something special, that he has everything he needs in order to become a great one in this sport.

“That’s obviously great to see for me, as being in charge of the team and also how he pulled through these last two weekends with his illness as well was impressive.

Seidl was particularly impressed with how Norris was immediately on the pace in Monaco. “Not putting a foot [wrong] throughout the race was again an outstanding performance,” said Seidl. “I’m just happy to have him in place within the team for many, many more years.”

Norris has comfortably had the beating of Daniel Ricciardo in their second season as team mates so far. Seidl said McLaren has a responsibility to give both drivers a car to reflect their talents.

“It’s simply down to us to make sure that, for both Lando and Daniel, we keep working hard in order to give them an even better car, because in the end they want to fight higher up and not just for a P6.

“We have the same ambition. At the same time as we always say we need to be realistic on the deficits we’re still having in some areas of the team, but we are working on it and looking forward to many more good races with both of the guys.”

Gay driver ‘would help push F1 in a better direction’ – Vettel

Sebastian Vettel has become the first Formula 1 driver to be cover star for an LGBTQ+ magazine, in the pride month edition of UK publication Attitude. In the interview, which is published in the current July/August issue, Vettel discusses allyship and advocating for LGBTQ+ rights as part of the F1 world.

“Perhaps it wouldn’t have been the case in the past, but now I think a gay Formula 1 driver would be welcomed – and rightly so,” he told the magazine. “I feel that a gay driver would help to speed up the elimination of prejudice and help push our sport in a better direction. So I think and hope our sport would be ready for one.”

Vettel said he understood why drivers might have felt compelled to stay closeted in the past, however. “I guess it might be similar to the situation in a sport like football: the old image of a player or driver as a ‘hero’ who should match a certain set of criteria. But the judging criteria are just wrong. How are those stereotypes in any way related to performance? Who got to decide?

“It takes enormous courage to show your real self, rather than hiding behind a façade based on what people expect.”

Baku’s track dimensions and weather present power unit challenge

Nicola Bariselli, Ferrari’s power unit track operations director, explained how Baku puts unique demands on the hybrid system’s performance.

“The nature of the circuit means the power unit has to be versatile,” Bariselli explained. “The driver wants it to be nicely drivable in the tight and slow sections without, however, wasting energy, as it’s essential to be able to deploy it down the long straights.

“Outright power is also essential, especially when it comes to acceleration out of the many low speed corners, when going for a quick lap in qualifying as well as during the race”.

Balancing that power management with Baku’s coastal weather conditions, Bariselli said, was a particularly delicate balance. “The changes in intensity and direction of the wind in particular can produce different operating conditions in terms of speed through the corners, which therefore impact torque and gear ratio settings and time spent on the straight.

“A tailwind or headwind down the last straight can have an effect of several tenths of a second”.

Baku a stand-out even in street-circuit heavy calendar – Alonso

Having already been to the street circuits of Jeddah, Miami and Monaco this year, Fernando Alonso says that Baku still stands out as unique.

“We have a lot of street circuits now in Formula 1,” the Alpine driver said. “I do enjoy them as there is really no margin for error.

“Baku is a track where overtaking is very possible. In my last three races there I’ve managed to gain a number of places during the race, so it’s very different to Monaco in that respect. It’s a fun track and one where overtaking is possible.”

“It’ll be interesting to see how the 2022 cars find this circuit,” Alonso added. “I can’t really compare it to a track we’ve already raced on this year. Also, Saturdays don’t necessarily decide your race there too, and a Safety Car can completely shake up the order. I think it’ll be a fun one and for sure I’m excited for the challenge ahead.”

Vips hoping to repeat double Formula 2 Baku win

Jüri Vips, who gained four places in the Formula 2 championship standings during the last round in Monaco, hopes to repeat his 2021 win double in Baku.

“After last year I can’t say that I’m not excited to race in Baku again,” Vips said. “Last year, it was a very, very good track for me and Hitech because we were very fast there. It’s a nice place in general, and it’s a very unique race weekend in itself.

“I’ve always enjoyed street tracks and even though it’s not one of the most difficult ones, it’s very unforgiving,” he said, of the often-chaotic F2 races in Azerbaijan. “Baku has always got good racing so I’m looking forward to it. It has a bit of everything and hopefully, we can repeat what we did last year.”

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Comment of the day

Since Sebastian Vettel discovered his pragmatic form of environmental activism, Tommy C says that it shows how compatible caring about the planet can be with normal life, rather than hypocrisy:

It frustrates me so much when people scream “hypocrite!” at people like Seb. Caring for the environment doesn’t mean giving up everything we love. It really is just acknowledging the harm our actions cause and trying to minimise their impact.

For the everyday person, joining local environmental groups building habitat for wildlife and restoring floral diversity is probably the biggest immediate impact you can make and you can probably go do it this weekend if you like!

Environmentalists aren’t always extremists as the media seems to like to frame them. Trust me, I am one! I also happen to be obsessed with F1.
@tommy-c

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Stevo and Ricardo Marques!

On this day in motorsport

  • 10 years ago today Justin Wilson scored his final IndyCar victory in the Texas 550 for Coyne. He died in a crash at Fontana three years later

Author information

Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

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20 comments on “Norris ‘confirmed he’s definitely something special’ with recent form – Seidl”

  1. Great COTD @tommy-c

    1. Agree. The main problem with the environmental talks, like many other topics, is that it’s very polarized and listening to activists, it feels like it has to be all in. On the opposite I think we should incentive all the little bits as we can’t go fully eco friendly overnight but every bits help and it’s going to be easier to convince the naysayer to take the first step and start the journey. A bit tired of the bashing, close minded attitude instead of supporting each others and exchanging views in respectable manners whether we agree or not.

      Good to have public figures taking a stance on some topics.

    2. Agree as well ! Count me as one more environmentalist who happens to be addicted to watching F1. By using his influence in order to talk about climate action, Vettel might be even better than carbon-neutral, when all his actions are considered.

    3. Agree, forget the extremists and listen to common sence. It goes step by step. (Steb by Steb)

      1. I ment Seb by Seb..

  2. Seb is just trying to make the world a better place, and like everyone you don’t have to be perfect to do it. Nor can one person solve everything, I like this Seb, he is trying and he certainly hasn’t said anything I’d disagree with and I’ve probably learnt a couple of things along the way.

  3. Great hypocritical comment of the day.

    1. Sviat,
      Please explain me what’s ‘hypocritical’ about @tommy-c‘s comment.

      Or do you indeed mean that this is a great CotD about hypocrisy?

    2. First of all, thumbs up for CotD, especially this part “Caring for the environment doesn’t mean giving up everything we love. It really is just acknowledging the harm our actions cause and trying to minimise their impact.

      Second of all, these days it is not so difficult to find hypocrisy.

      For example, let’s take a look at a profile picture of Mercedes F1 Team’s twitter account. It’s a Mercedes star in rainbow colors, honoring the Pride month. The same picture is also on Mercedes-Benz official twitter account, and on Mercedes-Benz USA official twitter account.
      But, curiously, not on theirs Middle Eastern twitter account. I wonder why? Will Lewis react to that? If not, is he a hypocrite?

      Similar thing goes for Aston Martin. There is a lot of content on theirs F1 twitter account about Pride month, but nothing on Aston Martin’s Middle Eastern twitter account. What will Seb do?

  4. Norris ‘confirmed he’s definitely something special’ with recent form – Seidl

    Ha I said that twelve months ago :)
    I also said Ricciardo would be right up there with him :(
    Good COTD 👍

  5. Baku may be a stand-out to an extent, but even more so, Jeddah.
    BTW, Melbourne is missing from the opening paragraph.

    Re DRS zones: As expected, so entirely unsurprising.

    I fully agree with Brundle & reckon Ricciardo will see out his 3-year deal in the end.

    COTD couldn’t be more accurate.

  6. The DRS zone on the long straight in Baku has always been too long & led to most of the passes been far too easy push of a button highway passes.

    The fact they are not changing any zone lengths just shows what they are going for with it. It’s no longer been used just as an assist but to create as many passes as possible because padding the statistics are clearly now deemed more important than actually good/exciting wheel to wheel racing thats down to the skill of the drivers.

    And I guarantee that even if the DRS zones over this year with the different regulations prove to be far too powerful again nothing will be altered for next year. Just look to Spa as proof of that, A DRS zone that was never needed that has always been far too powerful yet which hasn’t been dumped or significantly altered.

    Quantity is now clearly deemed more important than quality & that is not only a shame but it’s also exactly what those who were so against DRS been introduced 11 years ago warned about. It would be introduced & sold to us as a temporary band aid only for them to become more & more reliant on it when they see they can use the padding passing stats to give a false impression of quality.

    1. If they are going to keep the silly gimmick and keep these horribly long gimmick highway passing zones then maybe at least try & find a way to get the gimmick wing to close once a car draws alongside the car ahead so that it works more like the slipstream.

      That is the issue with it when comparing it to the slipstream.

      With a slipstream you have the overspeed advantage when behind another car yet as you pull out (And timing that to maximise the tow is also a skill with the slipstream) to try the overtake & hit the normal airflow that overspeed bleeds off so we get a good wheel to wheel scrap to the braking zone with the overtake or defence been more down to the skill of the drivers on the brakes.

      With DRS you get into the 1 second gap at a line drawn on the track, Then hit a button to open a wing at another line on the track & have that massive overspeed advantage all the way to the corner so we get more easy highway passing & less good side by side scraps.

      Maybe, Just maybe if they were more sensible with how they used the silly gimmick and where they placed the zones it would actually help the quality of the racing rather than hurt it by creating a bunch of boring push of a button highway passes that ruin good battles & are devoid of skill, tension & excitement.

      But it’s all about quantity rather than quality so they will never fix it.

      1. But it’s all about quantity rather than quality

        I’m starting to think the same about your DRS rants, @roger-ayles. At least you’ve taken a break from Pirelli-bashing for a while.
        If they have more blowouts here this year, I know what to expect though…

        There’s (at least) one flaw in your argument about Baku… If they really are only interested in more overtaking quantity, wouldn’t it be better to have a DRS zone that only ‘just’ works to create an overtake, such that the overtaken car is still within 1 second to use it themselves at the following zone?
        The main straight is so long that a car can overtake and be more than a second ahead by the braking zone as things stand now. There’s no counter attack option.
        In that sense, quality and quantity are one and the same.

        As to DRS as a concept – well, without it F1 wouldn’t have been very watchable for the last decade or so either. F1 will never encourage decent racing (IMO) without such ‘gimmicks’ because nobody within F1 wants them to.
        This is where the technical development aspect you (used to?) love has taken F1, and they will never go back.

        1. “Quality and quantity are one and the same” maybe, but the quality is siht. I agree entirely with @roger-ayles, and your point about the straight being so long as to take the DRS assisted car out of danger of being re-passed is exactly what is wrong with DRS as it is.
          They should have kept the FAN and banned the WING, hindsight is always right.

  7. In the F1 tradition of teammate mind games, Norris should say “Awe shucks and I’m sorry how my performance is outshining the 2nd best F1 driver of all time, Daniel,

  8. Hazel, thank you for the link to the SpeedCafe interview with Brundle.

    It is the only article I have seen that confirms there was a fault with Ricciardo’s car in Spain

    is there any information about what the issue was? I have been on the lookout for this information and have not seen any mention of it anywhere else.

  9. Vettel has officially gone full retąrd. Formula 1 – or any sport for that matter – shouldn’t be “pushed” in any direction that has nothing to do with the sport itself.
    The last thing any sport needs is to be a platform for intimate personal manifestations.

    They only thing I would like to see pushed here is Sebastian Vettel and his agendas… out of Formula 1.

  10. I feel that a gay driver would help to speed up the elimination of prejudice and help push our sport in a better direction. So I think and hope our sport would be ready for one.

    There are two ways to take Seb’s comment. One is that should there be one in F1 right now, then for him to come out would be a step forward. Second way to interpret it is to say F1 should find a gay driver. Obviously [I hope] one is entirely as it should be and the other is simply bonkers.

    BTW W series has at least one affirmed lesbian driver and it’s no big deal.. shows we already live in more enlightened ages.

  11. Seb is making the huge assumption that there isn’t already a gay driver in the series…

    Maybe they are being private about it and not feeling the need to base their career on a completely irrelevant issue, preferring instead to be judged on their driving skill.

    Its 2022 and not the 1950s after all! There are more than enough people, maybe even too many, who are championing the uality cause.

    To go further there are already strong rumours, that doesn’t take a genius to realise, that certain McLaren, Ferrari, Merc, AT, AM, Haas and Williams drivers are gay. There could already be up to seven gay F1, many who have been in the sport for years – they’ve just chosen not to disclose it because it really doesn’t matter.

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