In the round-up: Drivers who make mistakes at turn one will pay a higher price this weekend.
In brief
Turn one barrier changed for Canadian GP
Formula 1 drivers will lose more time if they run wide at the first corner on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve this year following an alteration to the barrier. The concreate wall has been repositioned and extended, meaning drivers who take to the run-off area cannot rejoin at the exit of turn two as easily as they could before.
Other modifications to the home of the Canadian Grand Prix include an enlarged run-off area at turn three, the removal of some orange kerbs from turns three and seven, and a reduction in the width of the pit lane entrance to 4.5 metres.
Alfa Romeo warned Zhou about groundhogs
Alfa Romeo warned Zhou Guanyu to beware the local wildlife before he raced at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for the first time last year.“That was the first thing I think the team mentioned to me last year,” he said. “Like, it could be a very boring race but you’re inside the points and you hit one of these and you’re out, new front wing. So I’ll have to keep an eye on that.”
Fittipaldi to join tyre test
Pietro Fittipaldi will drive Haas’ VF-23 for the first time in the tyre test at Silverstone on July 12th. Regular drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen will share the car the day before.
“There aren’t many reserve drivers who have the experience Pietro has, so his feedback on the VF-23 will prove invaluable to us,” said team principal Guenther Steiner. “Pietro has always had an impressive work ethic and his passion to learn and support the team in its objectives has been key in his continuation with us.”
F1 23 arrives today
F1 23, the latest edition of the official Formula 1 game, goes on sale today. Here’s our in-depth review covering all the major changes including the return of the ‘Braking Point’ story mode, the new ‘F1 World’ feature and more:
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Rosenqvist on the rise with new engineer and old buddy Lawrence (Racer)
'When Craig was going to Rossi’s car, I was very keen on having Chris as my engineer, because we, at that time, didn’t know who that guy was going to be. But obviously, he felt like he was ready. I felt like all those multiple days we’ve had in the simulator talking about things, he had a way of understanding what I like and what I say about the car. I don’t think I’ve had anyone yet in my career like that, who could understand me at that level and put it into numbers in a nerdy engineer way.'
How Renault's Alpine got a value boost from Formula One (Automotive News Europe)
'Asked about future sales targets, Rossi said that it would be a 'disaster' if the brand did not exceed 100,000 sales annually by 2030 with five models on sale by that date. The brand would continue to use racing to increase visibility, he added. 'We are doubling down on motorsport,' Rossi said. 'We will race on Sunday and sell on Monday.''
I pine for six wheels and rear fans (The Times - subscription required)
'How wonderful it would be to see something so radical on the grid again. Sadly, with the sport as it is today, that isn't going to happen anytime soon.'
Making Indy 500 history about pressure, pride for Team Penske pit crew ace Caitlyn Brown (NBC)
'He definitely locked them up pretty good coming in on our last stop. So there was a moment I was like, 'Oh no, he’s coming in hot, and we don’t know where he’s going to stop for sure.''
Heavy traffic expected in Montreal for grand prix weekend (Montreal Gazette)
'Up to 120,000 people a day are expected to descend on the race site, making it one of the busiest weekends of the year.'
'Al-Rumayyan was due in Venice in mid-May, scheduled to attend the wedding of the daughter of Lawrence Stroll, the billionaire Formula 1 racing titan. The lagoon’s islands were not exactly rife with golf courses, but the sides agreed that Venice would be where al-Rumayyan and Monahan would meet for the first time.'
Sim to Circuit (Mercedes via YouTube)
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
A productive day behind the wheel! 👊
Yesterday AMF1 Team Reserve and Development Driver @felipedrugovich took to the track in Austria, clocking up the laps as he continues his Driver Development Programme.
Ready for more, Felipe? Day Two coming right up. pic.twitter.com/yo9tfyzgLP
— Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) June 15, 2023
Today, marking 30 years since the 1976 world champion James Hunt’s life was tragically cut short, a life-size bronze statue is unveiled at McLaren MTC Woking. An acutely focused 12 month project to recreate Hunt exactly as his passionate fans will remember him. pic.twitter.com/yvc79L5OJ4
— Paul Oz (@PaulOz) June 15, 2023
>> many young female racing fans too.
I have many great memories from racing in the championship, including my win at the British GP in 2021, which will stay with me forever.
Thank you to Catherine and everyone behind W Series for the memories ❤️#wseries #motorsport #inspire pic.twitter.com/aU8VyVNWte
— Alice Powell (@alicepowell) June 15, 2023
W Series enters administration.
Regardless as to whether you agreed with it or not, W Series was groundbreaking.
It may have come to an end, but it has done exactly what it was intended to do – inspire thousands of young girls across the globe.
Thank you to everyone @ W ❤️ pic.twitter.com/CCpu84AB8X
— Abbie Eaton (@AbbieEaton44) June 15, 2023
|@alex_albon admitted he resorted to a "dodgy live stream" to watch the #LeMans24…#F1 #WEC pic.twitter.com/lfw8Uh2ZG6
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) June 15, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
I will say that Australian commercial media coverage of F1 drivers here is always unfavourable, when any Aussie driver does poorly (even if its in a practice session) there are always headlines of “weekend off to a nightmare start” or “out of his depth”. When a driver does well we hear nothing unless they win the race.
I guess he also hasn’t done much to win over Australian motorsport fans, the running joke at the moment is that Bottas is the most Australian driver on the grid given his recent appearance at the Adelaide Motorsport festival, Mullet and penchant for VB branded singlets. I’m not aware of anything Piastri has done to raise his profile with Aussie fans however.
Then there is his personality, there nothing to latch onto, no Ricciardo friendly jokester attitude or Webber’s bluntness. Piastri just seems like a focused professional racing driver, which I can respect but doesn’t do a lot to make him likeable.
I will say that DTS did Piastri no favours, they made him look like he ruthlessly betrayed the Alpine team. The truth is he was looking for another seat like Alpine asked him to as they intended to run Alonso and Ocon, and then Alpine threw a bit of a hissy fit about the situation when they realised they stuffed up rather than just admitting their mistake.
I’m hoping as Piastri becomes more established in the sport and becomes more likeable.
RatSack
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Plushpile and Jennikate Wallace!
On this day in motorsport
- 45 years ago today Mario Andretti put his Lotus on pole position for the Swedish Grand Prix
pastaman
16th June 2023, 2:12
Only DTS fans and their ilk care about driver “image”, such a shame that it even matters. Of course it was a thing before DTS, but it’s even worse now. Piastri’s already proved himself a capable pilot, that’s the only important thing. Why does a driver need to be likable? Oh he doesn’t crack jokes, he must not be F1 material…
Pete
16th June 2023, 11:54
It depends what you’re talking about though…. This seems to be in relation to how much media coverage a drivers gets – not whether they are F1 material or not.
If you’re winning races, it doesn’t matter what your image is – you’re winning races so you’re going to get plenty of coverage. If you’re finishing in the lower half of the field and are being beaten by your team mate regularly, you’re obviously going to get considerably less coverage in the media.
On top of that, if you always give entertaining interviews (whether they’re funny, really insightful or whatever), you’re going to get interviewed more than if you just give standard F1 driver interviews that aren’t entertaining or particularly interesting.
Combine those two things together and if you’re struggling to perform on track and are struggling to perform in interviews, you’ll find the media won’t flock to you. That doesn’t really matter though… For a young lad like Piastri in his first year of F1, I’d have thought the less media attention he has on him, the better!
Jere (@jerejj)
16th June 2023, 6:17
Good change to nullify or minimize any possible benefits driving straight through into T2 exit a la Alonso in 2007, Rosberg in ’16, Ocon in ’17, etc.
Heavy traffic or people could simply use public transport, given the track’s location near the city center.
Albon could’ve just used the Toyota & or Ferrari onboard live streams.
COTD makes at least some good points.
olpeculier (@olpeculier)
16th June 2023, 9:23
Don’t know if you’ve been to the circuit, but the metro drops you off in the middle of it. It can’t get more convenient!
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
16th June 2023, 12:51
I’m not sure if it’s still there, but when I used to attend, if you were in old Montreal, there was a water taxi that took you to the island…and they served beer!!! It arrived at a different part of the island, so while everyone else was going one way to get to the subway, we would be going the other way to the water taxi and a refreshing beverage.
Qeki (@qeki)
16th June 2023, 9:31
I love they gave James a cigarette
Kyle (@hammerheadgb)
16th June 2023, 10:48
While I like the idea of increasing the cost of running wide on the exit of turn 1, my concern is that drivers will now have no choice but to rejoin the track at the apex of turn 2. Could get messy.
Sihrtogg (@sihrtogg)
16th June 2023, 11:10
and of course we can expect all these sensible drivers to patiently wait until they can rejoin the track there in a safe fashion…
(I think of Vettel at this very track)
you are absolutely right, for anyone who is looking for revenge on the driver overtaking them, it’s mayhem looming
Sihrtogg (@sihrtogg)
16th June 2023, 11:13
Although looking at it again in the first picture at the article title, they did leave I think barely a car’s width of space between the white line and the the wall on the outside (hard to gauge the scale) so maybe you can squeeze past it, while still losing a decent chunk of time?
I think they did a good job actually.
Markp
16th June 2023, 16:03
On another view a car who heavily outbrakes themselves or is out or control after a crash into turn 1 is less likely to skip out of control into an innocent car exiting turn 2. Would be a heavy side impact but now there’s a tech pro barrier. From memory I cannot remember if this type of scenario has ever occurred. I think overall it appears to be a net improvement but does bring smaller issues that may not have been there before like mentioned it’s harder to rejoin as safely.
Pete
16th June 2023, 11:38
They’ll definitely need to have a word with the drivers about re-joining safely. As mentioned above, there is no doubt that someone will go wide at the start of the race and will ignore the fact that they are supposed to rejoin safely. As it stands, if you go off at the start, you either re-join unsafely or you sit and wait in the runoff for turn 1 for the field to go past which isn’t particularly safe either.
I’d have thought the better option would be to have a few bollards they have to go round with a small gap in the barrier leading them back to the track after turn 2 where they’d be off the racing line.
Overall though, it’s definitely an improvement as there will be several drivers who would have just straight-lined the corner and can’t now so they’ll slow down a bit more in order to stay on the track.