Russell expects McLaren’s upgrade will keep them in the fight at the front

In brief

Russell expects McLaren to remain in the fight at the front

Mercedes driver Russell does not expect that McLaren’s performance at Silverstone where they fought Max Verstappen for victory to be just a flash in the pan.

McLaren qualified second and third behind Verstappen with Lando Norris finishing second behind the Red Bull driver. Russell was unable to pass Oscar Piastri for fourth in the closing laps. Russell says he expects McLaren to be in the fight at the front going forward.

“I see no reason why they shouldn’t be up there now,” he said. “We’ve come from the Red Bull Ring, which is a very different circuit to Silverstone, and they were a small step ahead of us on both occasions.

“I don’t know how they’ve found this much performance. It’s been quite surprising. We don’t tend to focus too much on our competitors, we just need to keep focusing on ourselves. I guess it gives inspiration that it can be possible, but we need to try and turn it up and we need to find more performance and quick.”

Sargeant confident qualifying results will improve

Sargeant headed into his first year in F1 describing qualifying as his “bread and butter”, but team mate Alexander Albon has out-qualified him at all ten rounds so far and has reached the final phase of qualifying four times, while Sargeant has only got as far as Q2 on two occasions. However, Sargeant says he will get better in qualifying as he gains confidence in his driving.

“It’s becoming more natural, but it’s still forced at times and that’s never ideal,” Sargeant said in response to a question from RaceFans. “I feel like as my driving continues to get better, it’s going to come back to me.

“It’s not something I’m concerned about because I’ve done it through my whole career that, in my opinion, I’ve been really good in qualifying, so it’ll come back to me. As I start to drive the car better, it’ll all just naturally come.”

MP Motorsport returns to FREC after Van ‘t Hoff tragedy

MP Motorsport have confirmed that their Formula Regional European Championship squad will return to the series for this weekend’s round at Paul Ricard.

The Dutch team did not participate in the previous round of the FREC at Mugello, following the tragic death of driver Dilano Van ‘t Hoff in a crash at Spa-Francorchamps the previous weekend. The team have confirmed they will participate this weekend in Paul Ricard, stating in a post on social media that their FREC team would rejoin the paddock for the upcoming races.

Links

Motor racing links of interest:

Hunt's F1 apathy and Prost's cunning: the 'different beasts' at McLaren (Motor Sport)

'Then-McLaren chief mechanic Gary Anderson reveals that there was more than meets the eye, suggesting that Prost deliberately flat-spotted the McLaren’s tyres during a test before handing over to Kevin Cogan in trademark calculating style; a minor act of sabotage, far from unknown in the world of Formula 1, which paved the way for Prost’s four championships.'

Interview with McLaren Applied Chairman Nick Fry (The Engineer)

'Motorsport is still the biggest segment, with the company providing engine control units (ECUs) for Formula One and several other leading race series. In F1, the standardised ECUs monitor and control essential functions such as engine management, power delivery and telemetry, as well as things like transmission, suspension, energy recovery system (ERS) and drag reduction system (DRS). The devices have clocked more than 1 million kilometres on track without a known failure since McLaren Applied started supplying ECUs to the whole grid in 2008. That F1 deal was recently extended out to 2030.'

F2 teams react to Andretti Autosport’s desire to join F1’s support series (Formula Scout)

Trident F2 team manager Giacomo Ricci: 'They are more than welcome and it would be nice to have a big name in the series. And I’m sure that it would be a great challenge also for them to join us.'

PHM Racing by Charouz confirms Woohyun Shin for remainder of 2023 F3 season (Formula 3)

'Woohyun Shin will race with PHM Racing by Charouz for the rest of the 2023 FIA Formula 3 season the team has confirmed. The South Korean driver joins the German outfit replacing McKenzy Cresswell, who had driven in the Spielberg and Silverstone Rounds. Prior to his move to PHM, Shin had been competing in GB3, where his best finish of the season is P4. He also raced in the Formula Regional Middle Eastern Championship earlier in the year.'

NASCAR teams dig deep for sponsors (Sports Business Journal)

'At the 2005 Daytona 500, approximately 60% of primary sponsors on Cup Series cars were part of the Fortune 500; by 2023, that had fallen to around 20%. Among the departures over that time: Caterpillar, Dollar General, Farmers Insurance, GoDaddy, Home Depot, Jimmy John’s, Lowe’s, Mars, Mountain Dew, Oscar Mayer and Subway.'

Miami leaders have always been a sly bunch. But Suarez and Carollo are vying to break records (Miami Herald)

'But Jones’ 24-karat faucet now seems peanuts compared to the sums Miami Mayor Francis Suarez — under investigation by the county ethics commission after the Miami Herald disclosed shady conduct — may have been inappropriately earning and accepting as undisclosed gifts. A $34,000 Formula 1 VIP weekend he now says he’ll pay for, but doesn’t show receipts.'

21 questions with Juan Manuel Correa (Juan Manuel Correa via YouTube)

F2 racer Correa answers some very frank questions from fans in a rowing boat on the middle of a pond.

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:

Race week. Haven’t said that in a while. Cool.

— Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo) July 17, 2023

Never forgotten. Jules, we miss you dearly ❤️ pic.twitter.com/UyoxFs58v2

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) July 17, 2023

Hill climb. Thank you. You didn’t disappoint! 🤍❤️ pic.twitter.com/TLWbTzTWqB

— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) July 17, 2023

Race Week is back!

And so are driver ratings 👀

Let's start with @HaasF1Team looking like a bunch of legends#F1Manager pic.twitter.com/DxkBGL8u9x

— F1® Manager (@F1Manager) July 17, 2023

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

Comment of the day

With Sergio Perez saying he’s open to the idea of more street circuits on the F1 calendar, @sjaakfoo offers their view…

I know Checo fancies himself the king of streets, so it’s no real wonder he’d welcome more tracks like that as he seems to like them. Understandable. I think for the sport it’s a double edged sword. Yes, street circuits are appealing from a presentation point of view. It makes Formula 1 seem thriving when the packed grand stands are in the shot all the time. As long as F1 is booming and popular at the tracks in question, it makes for great visuals. It also helps in showing the speed of the cars, etc. Street tracks, undoubtedly, look pretty cool.

Of course this is a double edged sword, as Formula E often demonstrates, it also really makes the show look low rent if the grandstands are empty. Now in FE’s case there’s generally only one or two grandstands to speak off anyways, so that makes it even worse when they’re half-empty and naturally F1 is not in direct risk of having empty grandstands any time soon with the current boom. But we’ve seen it in the past on certain circuits in countries where F1 wasn’t thriving and to me it seems empty grandstands are easier to hide when they’re further from the track, so maybe don’t do street circuits in those countries especially.

But for the racing point of view, street circuits are a death knell of excitement. Overtaking is hard, the tracks themselves are often uninteresting due to the nature of being flat, narrow, having tons of slow corners combined with maybe a long boring straight. Yes, qualifying can be exciting. And yes, there’s a risk of spectacular crashes (but also an element of danger with severe risk of injury or worse that F1 really should try to avoid). But all in all it’s more likely a procession from start to finish that’s boring for over 95% of the race. Have a few street races, sure, with 24 races having a few differing types of racing is fine. But don’t go overboard. Keep it simple, 4 or 5 street races are more than plenty.
SjaakFoo

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Wizardofoz, Icemangrins, Bill Niehoff and Gruntr18!

On this day in motorsport

• 70 years ago today Alberto Ascari dominated the British Grand Prix at Silverstone for Ferrari, winning by a minute