In the round-up: Alfa Romeo are unclear on the reasons for their disappointing performance in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
In brief
Alfa Romeo unclear on Jeddah struggles
Alfa Romeo’s head of trackside engineering Xevi Pujolar says the team do not why they lacked pace in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas finished eighth in the Bahrain Grand Prix but came in ten places lower at the next round. His team mate Zhou Guanyu also failed to score.
“In terms of performance in qualifying, we were same or even a step better than Bahrain,” said Pujolar. “On Friday we were struggling a bit, we were doing some tests, just trying to explore different areas on the car configuration to see if we could extract a bit more.
“We saw some improvements in some areas, but we lost too much in some others, and then we revert back on Saturday. We were close to Q3, and everyone was very, very tight.”
Based on their qualifying pace, and Bahrain result, Alfa Romeo thought they would spend the race fighting with at least one of the cars that reached Q3. They instead faced a trying night.“In the race, I think we struggled a bit more with the grip more than what we expected,” Pujolar said. “Everyone is so close that as soon as you lose a bit of pace, you struggle to get back there fighting for the points.
“With Valtteri, at the moment we’re still investigating. Now that we have the car, we will check what happened for him. For sure something wasn’t working as expected. We could see with the level of sliding and how everything was going on with all the tyres, that’s why we said ‘okay, initially, maybe something with a specific compound’, but we tried different compounds and do the same with all of them. So in that car we need to find the problem.
“With Zhou, he was better, running close to what we would expect, but still not enough. And on that one, we just need to now analyse everything and see what we could do.The pace that we had was not as good as we had in qualifying. So we need to understand if it’s grip-limited, if it’s power-limited. We need to analyse, compare to the competitors and see what we can do. But at the moment I don’t think we need to be too worried.”
Ex-Schumacher 2000 Ferrari goes on sale
The Ferrari F2000 that Michael Schumacher raced at the Brazilian, Spanish, Monaco and Austrian grands prix in the 2000 Formula 1 season is being auctioned by Sotheby’s next month.
Schumached claimed a race win and two poles in chassis 198, which was later sold by Ferrari to a collector in the United States. It was sold on again after that and was driven in Ferrari F1 Clienti events at Monza and Circuit of the Americas.
No price has been publicly listed for the car, although an estimate is available upon request from Sotheby’s.
F2 star Doohan to drive an Australian Supercar
Formula 2 racer Jack Doohan, son of Moto GP champion Mick, has revealed he has an exciting driving opportunity ahead of his home race in Australia next month. “I’m driving a V8 supercar around Calder Park or something as a Castrol event, which will be very cool,” he said.
The Alpine reserve driver flew from Saudi Arabia to Paris this week to conduct marketing duties for the team, then this Saturday he will head down under on Saturday morning to acclimatise with the time zone difference before more promotional duties next week.
F1 Exhibition reveals global first
An F1-spec Ferrari hybrid power unit will be displayed publicly for the first time in the upcoming official F1 Exhibition in Madrid.
The last time a Ferrari F1 engine was displayed was in 2013, and F1 switched to hybrid powertrains a year later. The example that will feature at the exhibition comes from Ferrari’s 2021 car.
The 065/6 power unit, which features a turbocharged 1.6-litre V6 engine, two electrical motorsport and an energy store pack, can be found in the exhibition’s ‘Revolution by Design’ room.
Ferrari’s road car division suffer cyber attack
Ferrari have revealed a cyber incident has occurred on the automotive side of their business in which an attacker accessed their clients’ data. The attacker had “a ransom demand related to certain client contact details,” said the company in a statement.
The brand’s CEO Benedetto Vigna said “based on our investigation, no payment details and/or bank account numbers and/or other sensitive payment information, nor details of Ferrari cars owned or ordered have been stolen.”
There has been no indication the brand’s racing teams were affected by the attack.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Joann Villeneuve: ‘Gilles was ruthless but very conscious of the dangers’ (The Guardian)
"I think (Pironi) was taken aback by Gilles’ reaction. I think he thought he could fix it but then with Gilles passing he could not fix it. It was a heavy load he had to carry also."
EU antitrust officials raid Red Bull (Bangkok Post)
'European Union antitrust investigators have raided the energy drink maker Red Bull over suspicions it abused its dominance in the wildly popular market, officials said on Tuesday. Red Bull said EU Commission officials 'visited our premises' on Monday.'
Iwasa says he 'didn’t have great speed' in Jeddah races despite win (Formula Scout)
'DAMS’ Ayumu Iwasa claims he 'didn’t have great speed' in the Formula 2 races in Jeddah, despite winning the first.'
Longer Supercars races at Australian Grand Prix (Speedcafe)
'The demand for track time means that the four Supercars races had to be trimmed to accommodate the F1 feeder championships, as first reported by Speedcafe. However, some of those losses have now been pared back, with one of the four races in fact being longer than the quartet of 20-lap, 100km affairs which were held in 2022, according to a new schedule obtained by Speedcafe.'
'The fuel is a 100% renewable product made from second generation bio-based components and synthetic fuel produced by German manufacturer P1 Racing Fuels which has been selected as the official fuel supplier for the FIA Karting Championships, Cups and Trophies from 2023 to 2025.'
Construction of race circuits planned around Saudi regions (Saudi Gazette)
'Prince Khalid bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal, president of the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation, has said that they are working on building infrastructure for small race circuits around Saudi Arabia's regions. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Prince Khalid noted that the circuits will include academies and schools for teaching racing. The kingdom will witness many changes in terms of circuits, local events and academies in the upcoming years.'
EU drafts plan to allow e-fuel combustion-engine cars (Automotive News Europe)
'The European Commission has drafted a plan allowing sales of new cars with internal combustion engines that run only on climate-neutral e-fuels, in an attempt to resolve a spat with Germany over the EU's phasing out of combustion-engine cars from 2035.'
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 to us via the contact form.
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
So my legend teammate told us he is learning Portimao on his sim… 🤣 @Vanwall_Racing @rFactor2 pic.twitter.com/f1fwEGQWRR
— Tom Dillmann (@TomDillmann) March 21, 2023
We are deeply saddened by the death of Lady Susie Moss, wife of the late Sir Stirling.
A true powerhouse, Lady Susie's warmth and wit will be dearly missed by those who were lucky enough to have known her.
Our love goes out to the Moss family. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/NQXeixWchY
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 21, 2023
1v1 us on FIFA, @SChecoPerez 😏 pic.twitter.com/KMuW5hCGsn
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) March 21, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
F1 wanted the racing to be closer with the new era of technical regulations that were introduced last year, and while there may be battles further down the order this is a big gap between Red Bull at the front and the chasing pack. DRS has now been present in F1 and has been accused of making overtaking too easy as well as ‘DRS trains’ where a group of cars are able to run closely but unable to pass each other.
Technical handicapping (such as the existing aerodynamic development restrictions) could make the gaps between teams smaller, and potentially increase overtaking as well as the chance of other teams making it to the top, but could DRS also be used as a control tool if charges like Max Verstappen’s from 15th to second place at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix are too easy?
I think DRS is still too powerful but not in favour of handicapping. I would be in favour of DRS to be used selectively when in range but opening the wing on a lap makes it unavailable on the next lap. This would break DRS trains and make defending more worthwhile.
Michael
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Hamilton Wc 09, Juan Pablo Heidfeld, Shaneb457, Chris and Mike Shefford!
On this day in motorsport
- 20 years ago today Fernando Alonso scored the first pole position of his F1 career in Malaysia, becoming the sport’s youngest pole-winner at the time
SteveR (@stever)
22nd March 2023, 4:10
The Gilles article is really worth a read.
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd March 2023, 6:10
Coincidently I’ve also played iRacing on a laptop with a console controller.
Not too powerful necessarily, or certainly not at most circuits, but more relevantly, I’m against any handicapping, including selective usage when in range.
The DRS trains aren’t overly bad, so I don’t mind them.
At least something can always happen in these scenarios versus if everyone drives with more than a second gap between each other.
The only actions concerning DRS use I see as worthwhile for now are experiments in Baku, Spa, & Interlagos Sprints without activatability on S/F, Kemmel, & S/F straight, respectively.