In the round-up: New managers at Turkey’s Istanbul Park are looking to bring Formula 1 back to the circuit.
In brief
New Istanbul Park
Can Bilim Egitim Kurumlari AS has been appointed as the new operator of the Istanbul Park track which held nine grands prix between 2005 and 2021. It is part owned by Lale Cander, who is also chairman of Pirelli’s tyre operation in the country.
Haberturk reports that under the terms of its tender to operator the track, the company must agree a deal Formula One Management to bring a race back to the venue from 2026. The company bought a 30-year lease for $117.8 million (£93.6m).
Two drivers for Cadillac at Imola
Cadillac will not field a third driver in its V-Series R in the next round of the World Endurance Championship at Imola. Sebastien Bourdais is unavailable as he is racing in the IMSA series at Long Beach.Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber will therefore share the car for the six-hour race at the Italian track as the team strives to score its first points of the season following its disqualification from the opening round. Their rivals’ line-ups are unchanged.
F1 Esports returns
After more than four months of radio silence since its first round, F1 Esports has announced the resumptions of its championship with six races packed into three days beginning one week from today. The final five races will then be held from May 7th to 9th.
Getty acquires Motorsport Images
Getty Images has acquired Motorsport Network’s Motorsport Images, which includes the extensive LAT, Sutton and Schlegelmilch archives. Formula 1 appointed Getty as its official photographic agency in 2021, though other publications and agencies are still allowed to take pictures at grands prix.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Horner complainant is 'upset, scared and lonely', says family friend (BBC)
'A Red Bull spokesperson said: 'Christian has not made attempts to (make sure the employment tribunal is private). And she has not been suspended with the intent of firing her.'
Sainz im Red Bull? Das sagt Helmut Marko (Laola1 - German)
'From the side of the Thai shareholders, everything is clear. Everything is okay for them. Whether something else is coming or not - I have no idea. It's a very complex thing that's difficult to understand.'
Claire Williams: 'I’m really pleased that someone like James (Vowles) is running that team. Not many people have the experience that you need to run a team, let alone bring a team up that was in pretty bad shape – if I can say that because I was running it!'
'We will take strict measures, including providing information to the police, regarding this matter. Please be aware that purchasing tickets from sources other than the official ticket office may put you at risk of crime or trouble.'
Regulators force another Microsoft split (The New York Times)
'The private equity firm Arctos Partners has raised another $4.1 billion to do more deals... Since its founding in 2019, the firm has invested in Formula 1, basketball, baseball and soccer clubs.'
'Following the successful partnership between the FIA and iRacing.com in 2023, iRacing now provides a fully licensed and authentic virtual version of the FIA F4 car, available to be used in iRacing. In addition, thanks to this partnership, each FIA Member Club is able to offer subscriptions to the iRacing service, including the FIA F4 car.'
'The study, led by Hiroshi Yoshida, a professor of economy at Tohoku University, projected that if Japan continues to insist that couples select a single surname, every single Japanese person will be known as 'Sato-san' by 2531.'
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
How cool does the F1 Tokyo Festival look? 🌸😎
Don't forget you can still head to the Roppongi Hills Arena tomorrow to get up close to the Honda RA271 and McLaren Honda MP4/7 and there'll be appearances from Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda too.… pic.twitter.com/NjFU3whzub
— Honda Racing Global (@HondaRacingGLB) April 2, 2024
I guess it’s obvious now why I’ve been so inactive across all socials recently 😅
Sorry for the lack of content and posts recently, been ridiculously busy but looking forward to FINALLY going racing in @F1Esports again 🫡 @McLarenShadow
— Lucas Blakeley (@LucasBlakeley01) April 2, 2024
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
This weekend’s debate asked how long Red Bull should keep the faith in Daniel Ricciardo after his indifferent start to the season. While many argued for Red Bull to replace him swiftly, a few others made the opposing case:
I want him to stay the whole year. First of all he is not bad, Yuki is just preforming better.
I expect Yuki to beat and have advantage over Ricciardo overall but Ricciardo will also have some good races. Moreover, Ricciardo’s communication skills and experience will help the team overall. I think these were also the reason they wanted him in the team.
Yuki had lot of trouble when he came to F1, he has improved over the years for sure but I am not sure that is his strongest skills set.
Honda
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Jt19, Shreyas Mohanty, William and William Olive!
On this day in motorsport
- 20 years ago today Michael Schumacher took pole position for the first Bahrain Grand Prix
Nick T.
3rd April 2024, 1:00
It’d be great to have the Istanbul track back on the calendar. Such a great track.
earthling (@34rthl1ng)
3rd April 2024, 3:24
Turn 8 is definitely the works, the rest of the circuit is not so memorable. Maybe the new circuit in Madrid will have a similar turn, we’ll see
Jay
3rd April 2024, 1:34
500 year out predictions always come true! Garbage-in, garbage-out, just like most computer modeling and predictions.
“Yoshida conceded that his projections were based on several assumptions”
and
“Sato already tops the list of Japanese surnames, accounting for 1.5% of the total population”
In other words, 98.5% of surnames in Japan are NOT Sato currently. It’s easy to dupe people with numbers but this is hyperbole on a whole other level.
notagrumpyfan
3rd April 2024, 8:25
Indeed! Yoshida’s (apparently a university professor) research should be the first example in Huff’s book ‘How to Lie with Statistics’.
According to the article he calculated that ¨the proportion of Japanese named Sato increased 1.0083 times from 2022 to 2023¨ and then he simply extrapolated that. A trend based on 1 measurement over 1 year!!!
Based on this quality of research Sainz will be 2025 WDC!
Sainz won 1/22 races in 2023 and 1/3 in 2024. So his ‘proportion’ of race wins increased 8 times from 2023 to 2024. If we extrapolate this then he will win all races in 2025.
PS It actually calculates as more than all the races, so I guess he will win the Spint events as well ;)
PlosslF1
3rd April 2024, 10:17
Considering that its widely predicted that in the future (If where still here) that the World will be speaking 3 languages, Chinese Mandarin, Spanish and English, which will eventually merge like in Bladerunner, I think they should be more worried about anyone even speaking Japanese. Much more likely that in the future we will be a number and bar code lol
And don’t get me started on such an abuse of extrapolating Data to fit the answer your looking for, bit like Clima….. second thoughts, lets not go there… :)
Jere (@jerejj)
4th April 2024, 13:04
PlosslF1 The language is even more unlikely to die in the long-term despite effectively being a single-country language, although overall far more spoken than, for example, Dutch or Scandinavian & Baltic ones.
Lorengzte (@lorengzte)
3rd April 2024, 2:15
Another race? 25 is a lot of grands prix. I mean they could replace Istanbul with another grand prix like Miami which would be great
grat
3rd April 2024, 4:45
…. I hope you meant they could replace Miami with Istanbul, which even as a Floridian, I would have no regrets over.
Lorengzte (@lorengzte)
3rd April 2024, 5:00
That’s what I meant sorry
Jere (@jerejj)
3rd April 2024, 6:39
@lorengzte Of course, Istanbul Park would replace another location (mainly because 24 is intended as the long-term stable figure), if it ever returned in the first place, which is doubtful.
Simon
3rd April 2024, 16:39
And if the track returns to the calendar, you’ll say “as expected” – as usual
This page bookmarked for reference.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
3rd April 2024, 18:22
We’ve heard talk of “limits” a million times, and we always get more races. The teams have signed a contract that agrees to 25 races max, so 25 is what we will get! I expect this!
Jere (@jerejj)
3rd April 2024, 6:38
Despite the operator change, I doubt Istanbul Park would return on an annual basis anymore.
If FOM truly wanted, I’m sure that would’ve already happened.
Well, Satō happens to be the most common surname, which shows not only in motorsports (although I’m also aware of quite a few Yamamoto’s within the industry), but also in entertainment & even one Manga-Anime franchise (probably also others).
On a Japanese GP-related note, I was in the Roppongi ward & also walked in the Arena section beside the TV Asahi building in late December, so a familiar sight.
MichaelN
3rd April 2024, 9:02
F1 needs a lot of money to function. Hence the huge hosting fees. Selling the track off is not usually a sign that there is a lot of money there. But who knows! It’s a fun track, so if they can make it work it’ll be a good addition.
notagrumpyfan
3rd April 2024, 9:37
Probably all F1 races are to some extend sponsored by the local government/authority/business club. It would be interesting to see a list of what the (rumoured) amounts are for each race.
Any example of a race which is promoted purely by a commercial party without support from the local government/authority/business club?
MichaelN
3rd April 2024, 9:47
The Dutch GP gets no government support. Although one might sy the traffic management is support ‘in kind’. They’ve had to be quite clever about attracting sponsorship compliant with FOM rules (i.e. it must not be visible on any of the TV coverage).
Jere (@jerejj)
4th April 2024, 13:06
MichaelN True, but that isn’t dependent on one particular circuit, especially as the location isn’t even a lucrative one a la Middle East ones, China, or even Azerbaijan to a lesser extent.
notagrumpyfan
3rd April 2024, 8:30
I typically don’t open links to tabloid stories, but this time I was duped as it linked to a BBC page and was awarded the top spot in the links (Keith previously claimed to put the most relevant links on top).
Benson didn’t disappoint; he was able to extract all the juicy stuff exclusivelyfrom a friend of the PA of a team boss :P
Tristan
3rd April 2024, 12:05
Maybe open your eyes before you click and you’ll have one less thing to be grumpy about.
notagrumpyfan
3rd April 2024, 12:38
If you read my comment you know why I clicked on this specific link :P
And I won’t stop sharing my views on poor editorial choices (and good ones) only because Tristan doesn’t agree.
An open minded reader will see it as constructive feedback (with a bit of sarcasm on top).
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
3rd April 2024, 10:08
I don’t agree with the COTD. With Lawson waiting, they should try him instead. They know Yuki is not the future of Red Bull, so why not put someone that can potentially be just that in the car instead of a guy that’s underperforming massively. As much as I love Daniel, something happened within him and he’s not going to reach those 2016-2018 highs again.
Tristan
3rd April 2024, 12:05
Really sad, I hope the tribunal applies some urgency to the case. It would be good to see the matter concluded properly, regardless of the outcome. A quick flick through the UK’s employment tribunal portal shows decisions which aren’t struck out mostly being a year or two old. I guess that’s the timeframe to expect, assuming it doesn’t settle.
Tristan
3rd April 2024, 12:09
Oh, and the free 12 months iRacing sub is surprisingly legit! Great initiative. It can only be used on a new account though. Highly recommend for anyone with a wheel that hasn’t tried it.