In the round-up: Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says sprint races are a tougher challenge for them as they have found it so difficult to get the W14’s set-up right.
In brief
Sprint races tougher for Mercedes
The fourth sprint race of the season will take place at Losail International Circuit this weekend. Teams will only have a single practice session to dial their cars in before qualifying for the grand prix, which Wolff says exacerbates a key weakness for Mercedes.
“The car is still so sensitive and difficult to set up that we need more sessions to get on top of it,” he said. Its drivers “don’t know what the car is going to do when [they] turn in.
“It’s a matter of gaining confidence over those sessions and the longer we run, the better we get, the more we can fine-tune the tools and that helps. So sprint race weekends are not great for us because the car is just so diva-esque to get on top of.”
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished fourth and sixth respectively for Mercedes in the last sprint race at Spa-Francorchamps.
Doohan’s F2 season “difficult” – Famin
Alpine’s interim team principal Bruno Famin gave a less than encouraging assessment of Jack Doohan’s second full season in Formula 2. Doohan, who finished sixth last year, lies fourth ahead of the season finale. He has won two races but is no longer in contention for the title.“It’s true that his second season has been a bit difficult,” said Famin. “He made two very good wins but for all the first part of the season he was not happy at all with his car. The car has improved a lot now.”
Doohan and Martins were due to test for Alpine following the Japanese Grand Prix. “The idea is to see how both of them will keep going, keep improving,” said Famin. “Then we are trying to give them as much experience as possible and we will see what we can do with Jack of course but maybe also with Victor. But they are part of the family.”
Leon takes Euroformula title
Former Red Bull junior driver Noel Leon clinched the Euroformula Open title at Mugello yesterday with three races remaining. He pipped team mate Levente Revesv to third place by less than five-hundredths of a second to put the title beyond the grasp after race winner Cian Shields.
CryptoTower’s Josh Dufek, who joined the series mid-season, took second. Leon is one of only four drivers to have contested every race.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Fornaroli: ‘Wanting too much too soon cost valuable points’ (Formula 3)
'It was a breakthrough, especially in Qualifying, but also in the race as I made a good step there. Of course, it was difficult to be in front without the DRS so unfortunately, I lost the position to Ollie, but I think from Silverstone, I’d taken a very good step forward.'
'W Doha Hotel and Residences announced that, in partnership with Lusail International Circuit (LIC), it has been appointed as the official hotel partner and caterer for the highly-anticipated Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix 2023.'
Prema Racing: Fighting to win back the Championship in 2023 (Formula 2)
'What the team needs though is a weekend like they had in the middle phase of the year. Vesti’s hopes are intertwined with Pourchaire’s fortunes and whether he gets a clean weekend.'
FIA Girls on Track UK and Cosworth strengthen collaboration (Motorsport UK)
'The collaboration will deliver an increased number of events at Cosworth’s Northamptonshire base for local schools, plus provide ongoing support for girls whose interest has been piqued by the existing programme.'
'In Extreme E's inaugural 2021 season, the average time difference between the male and female drivers was 5.8 per cent. Last year that dropped by almost a third to 4.5 per cent, with the gap down to 3.1 per cent at the final race in Uruguay.'
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
🏆 WINNERS! 🏆
First win in endurance racing and really happy to be on the top step of the podium after an intense and hard-fought season in the GTWC.Big shoutout to the team for the great car all weekend and my team mates @alessio_rovera & @_Nicklasnielsen 🌟 pic.twitter.com/0dwi8ntjFl
— Robert Shwartzman (@ShwartzmanRob) October 1, 2023
P1 in mugello! pic.twitter.com/3DE2Zf6wIS
— Alister Yoong (@alisteryoong) October 1, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
There were a lot of really good suggestions for this weekend’s Caption Competition which made picking a winner even harder than usual. Philip, Keith Campbell and NullaPax came up with great suggestions bit the winner is Flying Lap:
“Darn, they kept the zero sidepod design.”
Flying Lap
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Scribe, Stacy and Silfen!
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
2nd October 2023, 0:26
Swapping personnel around at Mercedes isn’t getting the job done. Their design team needs to be sacked as they still continue to move forward with a design that doesn’t work. That car is their “baby” and they refuse to move on.
S
2nd October 2023, 2:50
Yep. Sacking people all the time is clearly the best way to get better results, right? Just ask Ferrari. And Alpine.
MacLeod (@macleod)
2nd October 2023, 8:20
Sacking experienced developers who were very succesfull is the worst you could do (Is this something from the States) if you want to be succesfull again.
This isn’t a case of 1 person failed on purpose it’s a a design idea who theoretish was super but the whole group couldn’t implement good enough. The best what you could do is getting someone outside that group looking to the big picture and try to steer to do different things/designs.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
2nd October 2023, 8:39
Isn’t the problem that the theory was wrong, not that it wasn’t implemented well enough?
slowmo (@slowmo)
2nd October 2023, 9:01
Well they switched to a traditional sidepod and that seems to have made zero effect on moving them forward so I’m not sure that’s huge proof that the theory was wrong. The biggest issues for Mercedes is it’s inability to maintain a stable aero platform and handle bumps. It matters little what aero platform you run on top of a car that cannot maintain the stable platform needed. It might be that if they had been able to solve their suspension and ride issues they could have optimised the zero pod better but they’ve clearly seen that the RBR path seems to have more head room than their concept which they’ve not been able to extract the baseline they expected.
Dex
2nd October 2023, 8:48
I suppose you’re better at your job (being third or second best in the world)? If not, you should feel morally obliged to quit your job before making this suggestion, don’t you think?
grat
2nd October 2023, 21:11
Their problem is the suspension. The zero-pod design was, if anything, too good, and was negatively affecting their suspension.
The problem is, changing the suspension requires changing the chassis in a significant fashion, re-certifying it for crash testing, and blowing their development budget right out of the park. If Mercedes could throw another $50 million at their development, it would be a radically different car, but that simply isn’t an option under the budget cap.
Jere (@jerejj)
2nd October 2023, 6:01
Yet another diva reference, lol.
sethje (@seth-space)
3rd October 2023, 21:50
yep, maybe they should stop building “Diva-esque” cars
Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
2nd October 2023, 7:41
Diva car, diva driver.
SteveP
2nd October 2023, 7:53
You think Lewis is your goddess?
Hmmm…
tielemst
2nd October 2023, 10:41
I’m not going to speak for other Verstappen fans, but just for myself: give it a bloody rest, already.
There was zero reference to Hamilton here, there is zero substance in your post.
RomTrain
2nd October 2023, 14:39
Diva Verstappen changes to Mercedes?
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
2nd October 2023, 14:47
You may be an armchair expert – how many armchairs have you sat in? – but you’re no F1 expert, obviously.
Someone cares
2nd October 2023, 15:27
I”m always surprised why calling Lewis a diva is insulting.
He dresses like the diva of F1 and gets credit for that.
So every Lewis Fan should be proud when someone in favor for another driver reflects on that.
SadF1fan
2nd October 2023, 10:14
Mercedes could build a car with a bigger setup window. So that the drivers can actually maximize the performance that is in the car.
Rather than going for a car concept that might theoretically be a rocket ship but with unreachable performance.
Ferdinand
5th October 2023, 9:35
In all honesty they had a good car once, which originated from Brawn. I don’t think they ever will have a good car again as back then their approach was throwing endless money at it and analysing data, data, data. Now they lack endless means because of the budget cap and lack racing heart and strategic insight. Even Hamilton can’t compensate for that. Their 2014-2021 streak was a pay-to-win streak in video games terms.
Edvaldo
2nd October 2023, 15:46
Every car they produce since 2017 is a diva. Incredible. Time to look at themselves for a bit then.
It can be just coincidence.
Free_B
2nd October 2023, 17:43
Hey @Keith Collantine, I think you meant “Doohan’s **F2** season ‘difficult’ ” – not **F1** in your headline…