In the round-up: Despite McLaren’s recent upswing in form, Lando Norris is wary some corners at Spa-Francorchamps will highlight their car’s weaknesses.
In brief
Norris wary ahead of Belgian Grand Prix
Norris’ second place finish at Silverstone showed how strong the upgraded McLaren MCL60 was on a high-speed track, and last weekend he followed that up with another second place at the high-downforce Hungaroring.
This weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix takes place at Spa-Francorchamps, another high-speed venue that should suit McLaren. But Norris is wary some corners will expose the MCL60’s shortcomings.
“I think it’s still clear that we’ve got some weaknesses and those weaknesses are going to show in certain places,” he said. “Even in Spa we’re going to struggle in certain places even more, like turn one. I’m already scared of turn one in Spa.”
F1 Academy increases its F1 branding
All 10 Formula 1 teams’ liveries will appear in the all-female Formula 4-spec F1 Academy series next year.F1 has coordinated the deal to nominate 10 of the 15 drivers on next year’s grid to run in the colours of F1 teams. The 2024 season will take place exclusively on the support bill of F1 grands prix.
The other five drivers, even if they are F1 juniors, “will be supported by other partners” when it comes to their car liveries, said the series in a statement.
Abel Motorsports hands Indy Nxt debuts to two drivers
Abel Motorsports will expand from one to three cars for the next Indy Nxt round on the streets of Nashville.
The team has signed USF Pro 2000 graduates Francesco Pizzi and Yuven Sundaramoorthy on part-time deals. Both will race in Nashville and at the double-header Laguna Seca finale, Pizzi will race on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course and Sundaramoorthy will race at Portland, which means he misses the USFP2000 finale.
Pizzi – previously of FIA Formula 3 and a Formula 4 champion – is currently sixth in the third-tier series with a pole and a podium, while Sundaramoorthy is 14th in the standings.
McLaren reveal AI livery
McLaren are running a one-off livery for this weekend’s Formula E season finale in London, which they claim is the world’s first livery designed using artificial intelligence computing, as part of the team’s 60th anniversary celebrations.
Using input from their races drivers Jake Hughes and Rene Rast plus four others, a brief for the design was created which “with the help of AI, we turned into the world’s first livery designed using generative AI,” said the team in a statement.
“We inputted the six visions into a text-to-text AI, where we asked for prompts for an image AI. These prompts were then put into a text-to-image AI, which produced six individual artworks, one per vision, that were then combined into one single piece of artwork by an image-to-image AI.”
Carlin get another new face in F3 line-up
Rodin Carlin has signed Euroformula race-winner Francesco Simonazzi for the last two rounds of the FIA F3 season.
The 19-year-old takes the place of Max Esterson, who was signed for two rounds after Hunter Yeany lost his seat after a points-free first five rounds of the season.
Simonazzi is currently fourth in the Euroformula standings with one win, and last year he took a win en route to sixth in the F3-level championship. In Euroformula he has picked up plenty of experience at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza, the two tracks he will race at in F3.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Iowa was a reminder of why IndyCar needs more bullrings (Racer)
'The latest calendar rumors have the August Indianapolis road course round being traded for the long-awaited return to the Milwaukee Mile. Additional rumors suggest World Wide Technology Raceway's short oval, which ran as a double-header in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, could return to the twin-race format in the future.'
Man dies in crash on Mount Panorama circuit (Speedcafe)
'A man died in a single-vehicle crash on the Mount Panorama Motor Racing Circuit on Wednesday morning. The incident occurred at the intersection of Mountain Straight and Hinton Road, which forms ‘Hell Corner’ (turn one) of the 6.213km race track.'
Andretti sponsor's NASCAR move could foreshadow team's move to series (Sports Business Journal)
'While Andretti Autosport is focused on trying to get into F1, a recent move in NASCAR by its major sponsor Gainbridge is indirectly serving as an experimental step into the stock car series for Andretti, according to people familiar with the matter.'
Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s $6bn spend on ‘sportswashing’ (The Guardian)
'In 2021, Public Investment Fund invested in a $550m sponsorship of McLaren, a Bahraini-owned company based in Woking. PIF's $6.3bn figure, however, does not include the $40-45m which state-owned oil giant Aramco spends annually to sponsor F1, or other contracts signed prior to 2021 such as $65m to hold an annual grand prix in the kingdom.'
Las Vegas Grand Prix paving continues with lane closures coming (Las Vegas Review Journal)
'The first Sphere portions of F1's Las Vegas Grand Prix circuit were paved over the weekend, with a bevy of road impacts planned over the next few months on the rest of the 3.8-mile track. Crews will continue initial track paving operations through Sept. 1 on the public portions of the track, while final paving work will begin July 31 on Sands Avenue between Las Vegas Boulevard and the Sphere.'
Formula E CEO: We must look at US and China expansions (City A.M.)
''We need to be in mainland China,' said Jeff Dodds. 'I know we can dance around that a bit but we need to be in mainland China. Every manufacturer partner of the six manufacturers we work with says the most important market for them globally is China.'
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:
It literally couldn't be any closer 🤯@NickCassidy_ and @JakeDennis19 have both led the EXACT same number of laps in Season 9 heading into our final weekend 😳@Hankook_Sport #LondonEPrix pic.twitter.com/HluVLMY231
— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) July 26, 2023
Have you ever seen a car like this?! 🤩
The spectacular Recover E car designed and built by @lazerian … as unveiled on @BBCTheOneShow today!
Made out of discarded electronics – laptops, phones and more – to highlight the growing issue of e-waste and the need to recycle it! pic.twitter.com/wcdiFqC0By
— Envision Racing (@Envision_Racing) July 25, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
The Hungaroring paddock was full of talk about AlphaTauri through the weekend. Were they right to sack Nyck de Vries after just ten grands prix? Was Daniel Ricciardo going to struggle as his replacement? And if did do well, what would this mean for team mate Yuki Tsunoda and even Red Bull’s Sergio Perez?
Ricciardo did beat Tsunoda in qualifying and the race, but is one event enough to draw conclusions from? And was ten events even enough to truly merit if F1 newcomer de Vries was up to the job?
I think Nyck’s biggest problem was just expectations. He’s a FE champion, he’s older and experienced, and his one run in the Williams was amazing. Red Bull brought him in not as a rookie to be nurtured, but as a hired gun to deliver results right from day one.
And when you are brought in as a hired gun, you don’t last long if you aren’t delivering.
Gary Simmons
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Spud and Mikef1!
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
27th July 2023, 0:24
It’s La Source, Orlando. Not “turn one”.
Maybe TheOneShow should stick a load of banknotes onto their smug BBC publicity shot to represent the licence fee.
Yellow Baron
27th July 2023, 1:23
Pioneering work from McLaren using AI to replace a human being. They rightfully seem excited about it too.
Wonder if they also prompted the AI that they need to save weight considering the largely black livery.
Jere (@jerejj)
27th July 2023, 5:18
So he’s wary about getting passed into Les Combes on the opening lap regardless of starting position.
R.I.P. to the person who fatally died on Mount Panorama Circuit roads.
Great full FE car replica.
COTD: General racing experience indeed proved against him in the end.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
27th July 2023, 8:20
Looks about as bad as you’d expect from AI generated stuff. I hope the regular human designers at McLaren have marched into Zak’s office to demand job security, because it’ll be hard to support a team running that eyesore.
PeterG
27th July 2023, 11:55
I’d love to see some more short ovals added to Indycar as i think the racing on those circuits can be fantastic.
However i would also love to see them return to a Super Speedway such as Michigan as the racing on those was always spectacular.
I would just love to see Indycar return to the real diverse mix of all different styles of circuits seen back in the CART days.
Also please bring back Cleveland! For such a short and relatively simple looking track it always produced fantastic racing and was really challenging.
SteveR (@stever)
27th July 2023, 14:33
Ah, Burke Lakefront Airport! There are about twenty different lines into turn 1, great fun to watch!
As to the ‘AI’ paint job – if that was done by a human he/she would be fired. I guess if you can say ‘AI’ that makes it great….