In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton expressed his frustrating at the handling of his Mercedes after qualifying in Abu Dhabi
In brief
Mercedes “more inconsistent than ever” – Hamilton
Hamilton says the irregular handling of his Mercedes W14 was as bad as it has been during the final qualifying session of the season in Abu Dhabi. He will start 11th on the grid for the last race after being eliminated in Q2 when team mate George Russell improved on his final push lap.
“It’s more inconsistent than ever before,” Hamilton said after the session. “It’s just up and down.
“Per corner, from the moment you hit the brakes to the moment you turn, to the moment you hit the apex. It’s massively out of balance and very hard to predict what will happen.”
F4 Italy champ Sztuka joins Red Bull
Kacper Sztuka, who stormed to this year’s Italian Formula 4 title with eight wins from the last nine races, has been signed as the newest member of the Red Bull Junior Team.The 17-year-old denied F1-affiliated drivers Ugo Ugochukwu and Arvid Lindblad to win the F4 title with a stunning run of form to end the season. It is reported that Sztuka may race in next year’s Formula 3 championship.
Porsche Formula E appeal dismissed
Porsche’s appeal against Antonio Felix da Costa’s three-minute time penalty in Formula E’s season-ending race in London four months ago was rejected after being deemed inadmissible by the FIA’s Court of Appeal.
Da Costa was hit with the hefty penalty as his right-front tyre was found to be under the minimum tyre pressure as a result of debris from an accident. The court determined the penalty imposed by the event stewards was “unusual” but not arbitrary and dismissed the appeal.
Porsche accepted the court’s decision but expressed they were “disappointed” by the ruling.
Ronhaar beats Opmeer in Sim Racing opener
Alfa Romeo esports racer Thomas Ronhaar beat fierce rival Jarno Opmeer to win the opening round of the rebranded F1 Sim Racing World Championship series around the Bahrain International Circuit.
Amid controversy over the event held in Sweden, Ronhaar dominated from pole position to win race one in the official F1 esports championship held on the F1 23 platform.
A winning margin of more than five seconds over Mercedes driver Opmeer at the first in-person race since the Covid-19 was especially satisfying for Ronhaar, who has been at the centre of speculation and allegations from some rivals in the independent league racing scene.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Formel 1 übt Aufstand: Ärger wegen AlphaTauri und Red Bull (Motorsport Magazin - German)
'The meeting of the Formula 1 Commission was primarily about 2026. Some teams want to find mechanisms for the new rule period and the new Concorde Agreement that prevent suspicion from arising in the first place. Among other things, the opponents want each team to use a different wind tunnel. Red Bull and AlphaTauri were the fiercest opponents of any plans to break up the alliances.'
After years in the pits, F1 goes up a gear in the US market (Financial Times)
'Its audience is also more diverse, with the sport particularly popular in the Hispanic community, which accounts for about 20 per cent of US fans. Meanwhile, 77.2 per cent of F1 fans identify as socially responsible, compared with 44.9 per cent for non-fans and 58 per cent for the general public. This suggests F1 fans are younger and more likely to live in cities compared with other sports. That opens doors with certain partners and advertisers, but also provides prime customers for the rest of F1’s extensive business.'
Vesti jubilant and Pourchaire optimistic ahead of final day title decider (F2)
Vesti: 'I truly think we have a great shot at this. It’s 16 points, so it’s a fair amount, but there’s 26 up for grabs tomorrow, so anything’s possible if we do it right. I woke up this morning knowing I had to win with the fastest lap to put myself in the best possible position for tomorrow. That’s exactly what we did and now it’s full push tomorrow going for that title.'
Flags and firefighters: keeping everyone safe at an F1 grand prix – in pictures (Guardian)
'As the 2023 Formula One season draws to a close, documentary photographer Lexie Harrison-Cripps went behind the scenes at last month’s Mexican Grand Prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez, to see the work that goes on to keep everyone safe.'
Yifei Ye Set To Join Privateer Ferrari Hypercar Effort (Daily Sportscar)
'Chinese racer Yifei Ye impressed with his pace at Hertz Team Jota in its Porsche 963 and now looks set to go head to head with his previous team in the WEC’s Teams Championship for privately entered Hypercars.'
Yas Marina Circuit retains environmental certification from FIA (Trade Arabia)
'Building on previous achievements, Ethara has unveiled a raft of new green initiatives at Yas Marina Circuit for this year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, including a 100% upgrade of all track lights. With a switch to LEDs and brand-new RGBW track lights, the new system has reduced the number of lighting fixtures by 17%, power consumption by 40%, and carbon emissions by 30%.'
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
|@danielricciardo's handwritten tribute to @alphataurif1 team principal Franz Tost ahead of his last race:
"Franz,
"I hope to see you relaxing on the beach instead of running on the beach
"Grande grande grande grazie per tutti!!!"#F1 #AbuDhabiGP #RaceFans pic.twitter.com/8uaPueCih9
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) November 25, 2023
5 front rows in a row 😘
I’ll do everything to get that 2nd place in the constructors tomorrow ! pic.twitter.com/iRJspIH5Jv— Charles Leclerc (@Charles_Leclerc) November 25, 2023
And this time I can keep P3 😉
— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) November 25, 2023
One team 💙 pic.twitter.com/azD278ZqjH
— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) November 25, 2023
Congrats to @ThomasRonhaar1 who drove a phenomenal event from start to finish proving everyone wrong (including me). Also congrats to @NicolasLonguet who managed to have an epic comeback after his incident up to P3.
— Jarno Opmeer (@jarno_opmeer) November 25, 2023
Congrats on P2 Jarno. Appreciate the tweet about Thomas performance. But hey, we told you 😂
— Romain Grosjean (@RGrosjean) November 25, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
With signs indicating that AlphaTauri is set to be rebranded as ‘Racing Bulls’ next year, Tristan is less than impressed:
What was ever wrong with Toro Rosso? Dignified in its verbal disparity, but still paralleled the Red Bull nicely while paying tribute to its Italian team’s base.
‘Racing Bulls’ means absolutely nothing by comparison – might as well be called ‘Red Bull 2’. Why not at this point? Hey, why not just call it what it is; the budget cap doubler.
Tristan
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Carlos Santos, Nick and Andy Alexander!
Jack
26th November 2023, 2:17
Yawn. I guess The pros at Mercedes should stop listening to their number 1 and then maybe they might stage a comeback in 2024…
Nick T.
26th November 2023, 3:43
Hamilton’s statement is kind of ironic considering the only consistent thing about the Merc has been its inconsistency.
Matt
26th November 2023, 2:18
Regarding AlphaTauri’s proposed new name, anything with the word ‘Racing’ in it makes me cringe.
How about reverting to Minardi?
Nick T.
26th November 2023, 3:42
On F1 TV, Buxton (god, I loved Brazil when Kimi’s former race engineer, Julien Simon-Chautemps, was there and Buxton’s irritating person was gone) said they’re going to remain AT.
S
26th November 2023, 6:20
Minardi is a trademark, still owned by Paul Stoddart.
He’s even expressed some interest in returning to F1 – though not while it’s being run the way it currently is.
melanos
26th November 2023, 15:18
Bull Run aka Manassas is best.
There were two Bull Run battles in the ACW so it could go like this: RBR —> Bull Run I, AT—> Bull Run II
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
26th November 2023, 2:31
Merc probably throwing a few bits in at the end of the season to test stuff perhaps. The car is a frankenstein though, so it has no real mathematical basis for existing. Lets hope Merc figure out why they lost the plot a couple years ago. Might it have something to do with a shakeup in the engineering department, that saw politically favored peeps over more intelligent design ?
Jere (@jerejj)
26th November 2023, 4:32
While switching to LED lights (& RGBW, an acronym or term I’ve never encoutered) was a good move, they could help the overall matter even more by not switching any of those lights on until 16:00, as I’ve noticed that some of them at least appear switched on already during earlier afternoon sessions, which is ridiculously early.
Even before they got switched on from around 15:00 to 15:30, but 16:00 should be more than enough for them to become wholly bright in time for the session start times, especially as Sakhir & Losail circuits turn theirs on closer to sunset times from what I’ve noticed in pre-season testing & during the last Qatar GP weekend.
However, LEDs mean that a light show similar to that in Losail will probably happen after the podium ceremony, as already happened on Thursday.
Perhaps Sakhir & Jeddah get LEDs for next year.
S
26th November 2023, 6:43
RGBW – Red, Green, Blue, White.
LEDs individually only produce a single output colour – secondary/mixed colour outputs come as a result of using multiple wavelength diodes together. Red, Green and Blue being the primary colours for this purpose.
And switching them on early isn’t about ‘warm-up’ (LEDs reach full output almost instantly) – it’s about smoothing the transition from natural light to artificial such that it is imperceptible to the human eye.
notagrumpyfan
26th November 2023, 7:12
It would be nice to have a source link to the top stories as well. It’s not clear to me how an appeal which was defined as inadmissible (no review, no ruling on the content) was later dismissed with reasoning about the original verdict.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
26th November 2023, 10:51
Toro Rosso was the perfect name for the Red Bull second team as COTD says. If they really must change the name again, best to go back to that.