In the round-up: James Vowles says he is trying to prepare Williams to undergo three years of work at once
In brief
Williams prepare for three years of work in one
Williams team principal James Vowles says he is trying to set up his team to carry out “three years worth of work in one” with the major regulation changes for 2026 looming on the horizon.
“We go into every race weekend wanting to achieve the absolute maximum we can and we are highly competitive, which means where we finish in this year’s championship – and next year’s championship – is of significant impact and merit to us,” Vowles said. “It’s also an indication of where we are as an organisation. So the balance of those is what my job is to do, to make sure we strike the right one.
“I’m confident now that we do have a good amount of forward vision taking place in the background. That we have teams working, be it on an aerodynamic perspective or concept development ’26. And that’s going to be very, very strong in the years to come. And what we’re also trying to do is make sure our company is structured correctly, such that we can deal with almost three years’ worth of work in one, because that’s what we’re now asking of the organisation.”
Red Bull domination “should be celebrated”
NASCAR hall of fame driver Dale Earnhardt Jnr believes that the dominance of Red Bull and Max Verstappen in Formula 1 should be “celebrated”.“I think that if a guy goes out – and we had this happen when Martin Truex Jnr won a race at Kentucky by like 13 seconds one night and everybody just thought the sky was falling – I’m thinking ‘why don’t we think this is amazing?’,” Earnhardt said on a recent podcast. “This team went out and set themselves so far apart from anyone else. Why aren’t we amazed and just in awe of what they accomplished tonight?
“But instead we thought ‘oh man, this is the worst! Gosh, I hope this never happens again…’ And I thought ‘that wasn’t the case 30, 40, 50 years ago – somebody went out and did something truly unique and was quite a bit better than the rest of the competitors. We celebrated that for decades’.
“It’s not always going to be that way. When it does happen, whoever deserves the credit – Max, the cars, the developers – all of that should be celebrated.”
Sette Camara and De Vries penalised
Sergio Sette Camara lost his points finish from Saturday’s Misano Eprix after he was hit with a post-race drive through penalty of 50 seconds for
overpower use. The ERT driver had finished in seventh but was demoted to 16th in the final classification, promoting Jean-Eric Vergne, Norman Nato, Stoffell Vandoorne one place each and Sacha Fenestraz into the points in tenth.
Nyck de Vries was also hit with a five second penalty after the race for forcing Jehan Daruvala off the track in the closing laps, but the penalty had no affect on his finishing position.
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Links
The drivers Vettel could follow by coming out of retirement to make an F1 return (F1)
'A year later, and with the CART title also under his belt, Mansell returned to F1 and Williams following Ayrton Senna’s death, making several appearances through 1994 and scoring a pole position/victory double at the season finale in Adelaide – only for Williams to give David Coulthard a full-time drive alongside Damon Hill in 1995. Mansell subsequently headed to another legendary British team in McLaren, but having struggled to fit into the narrow MP4/10B and missing the start of the season, he could not get to grips with the car when he eventually sat behind the wheel and permanently retired after two challenging race weekends.'
Motor-racing deal faces quick antitrust pitstop (Reuters)
'John Malone’s group must first win a green flag from the European Commission. The acquisition brings back memories of a 2006 case involving CVC Capital Partners, a previous Dorna owner. The buyout firm wanted to purchase F1 while holding onto MotoGP. The EU Commission was at the time concerned with the private equity firm gaining too much 'bargaining power' on TV rights deals in countries where racing sports were most popular, particularly in Spain and Italy. These fears led the EU antitrust officials to rule CVC had to sell the Spanish company to acquire F1.'
A $10bn car? The trend for hyper-personalised cars gains momentum (Financial Times)
'This hyper-personalisation boom is a major factor in rising profitability for those brands, such as Ferrari and VW-owned Bentley, that can cater to the demands of the big spenders. Last year, Ferrari was so profitable it increased its forecasts every quarter and posted a record €1.26bn of net profit for the year, of which about €460mn came from higher prices driven by customisation.'
Bold new Formula 1-style format changing the face of triathlon (Yahoo Sport)
'A radical new Formula 1-style format is shaking up the world of triathlon. And with the second event of a globetrotting race calendar on the horizon, double Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee reckons it’s the perfect way to catapult the profile of the sport to new heights.'
Title contender Aron: ''It’s easy to get too comfortable too quickly'' in F2 (Formula Scout)
''I think already last year in the Formula 3 season, we saw that I was very, very consistent. I would say I’m beginning to be quite a complete driver, and especially in a championship like F2 where driving with your head and taking risks in a smart way works out. It’s showing now because we are second in the championship.''
Formula E round 7: Misano (Formula E via YouTube)
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Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
Let’s gravel.
Weekend for it back home 🚵🏼♂️ pic.twitter.com/cg2MzZXpGs
— Valtteri Bottas (@ValtteriBottas) April 13, 2024
Chatting Smooth Operator with Novak and Ferraris with Jannik 😁🎶🎾
Join @CarlosSainz55 at the Monte-Carlo Masters after he swapped the track for the court this week👌 pic.twitter.com/oHOjObrz3v
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) April 13, 2024
Take a look behind the wheel of our FIA
Formula E Safety car, led by our driver Bruno Correia. 👀#FormulaE #MisanoEPrix #Motorsport #SafetyCar #Racing #FIA #Speed #Porsche pic.twitter.com/hoDn7AZLKR— FIA (@fia) April 13, 2024
THE STREAK CONTINUES 🤩
We have now had six different winners in six races this season!#MisanoEPrix pic.twitter.com/WZv26DoKxI
— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) April 13, 2024
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Comment of the day
Our deep dive into the radio messages at Ferrari from Suzuka prompted this dry response from Osnola…
The biggest update Ferrari used had nothing to do with the car. They – at last– discovered a new and exciting tool: Strategy!
Osnola
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Cmcgato!
Tristan
14th April 2024, 1:57
$10 billion? Ridiculous. Wish the article wasn’t paywalled. Sounds like clickbait.
I’d be buying half the grid!
Matt (@hollidog)
15th April 2024, 8:59
archive.is
ElGreco
14th April 2024, 2:52
I can tell you why I, personally, have a hard time celebrating the domination of Red Bull/Verstappen. Because, more than any other sport I’ve followed, it feels like corporations competing, not teams/athletes. And who in their right mind trusts that a corporation is winning on true merit?
Mog
14th April 2024, 3:33
Perhaps. But F1 is dominated by big companies, so your alternative to Red Bull is also a massive corporation. Not much you can do to get around it!
Tristan
14th April 2024, 4:22
So your saying Red Bull are doing something that means their results have no merit? I don’t see their success that way at all.
To me, it’s just boring, just as MercHam were.
In before someone lists off why they think Merc domination was more interesting (although same article quotes were flying around throughout.)
Alan Dove
14th April 2024, 5:18
Merc’s dominance resulted in 2021 being an epic season. Years of dominance creates stake because it creates a Goliath. You need years of dominance to become a giant or King. It’s narratively very powerful.
Close racing is not in short supply anywhere in the world, high stakes racing is.
I will concede that F1 has regulatory issues where homogony has locked in performance, counter intuitively. However ‘bad’ seasons create the foundations for great ones.
S
14th April 2024, 6:53
F1’s stakes are no higher than those of other series – especially to the competitors involved.
You might think F1 is a bigger deal, but that’s only your opinion of it.
To someone competing in banger racing or gymkhana events at their local club, that’s the highest stakes in motorsport for them. It’s usually their own money and resources on the line – not those of some faceless, inhuman corporation that only seeks to make profit from their investment…
F1 has always had disastrous regulatory issues, regardless of how open the rules were, and it always will. Too much freedom means no racing – too little freedom means no technical diversity. A little bit of freedom, as now, means the team who does that one thing best has the biggest advantage, and it is substantially more difficult to overcome. Right now, F1 would be much better as a spec series.
Depends on how much you like F1 as an engineering show and how much as a racing competition. You can’t have both without BoP and/or strict homologation – both of which, I’m sure, you totally reject in F1.
As for 2021 – it was what it was, and could have happened regardless of the 6 or 7 years prior. It is as well regarded as it is in huge part simply because it is so rare. Far, far too rare.
People constantly complain about external factors affecting the racing – but when it happens, it allows some fantastic racing moments… People don’t really know what they want.
Alan Dove
14th April 2024, 9:12
These aren’t compelling events for the general public, thus trying to twist the argument into “well what about club racers” doesn’t really have any logic. That’s trying to argue for arguments sake.
2021 only happened because Hamilton was gong for a record 8th and Max was going for his first title. The young buck vs the old bull. It had every narrative mechanism you could ever dream of to generate a compelling season. This would not have been possible without Hamilton’s dominance in the proceeding years. F1’s narrative is constructed over multiple years. Formula E has just had its sixth different winner and the engagement, despite the disproportionate level of media coverage to actual viewers, is barely scraping any interest at all. There’s a reason for this.
Like all things F1 is a balance between engineering and driver. There’s always be friction there. I don’t think F1 technical direction is a good one, but alas it’s so far ahead of the competition you can’t help but say “this is the model that generates compelling racing”.
asz
14th April 2024, 9:22
You = Alan Dove + a 100 million other people
someone = thousands of people
So the stakes in F1 are much, much higher. Both literally and in terms of perception.
MichaelN
14th April 2024, 11:26
The 2008 season was plenty compelling, and neither Massa, Hamilton nor Kubica needed a period of domination to make it so. Indeed, two of those hadn’t been F1 for much more than a year.
Same with 2014, 2010, 2005 or any other season with close competition. Sure, history adds another dimension, but it’s the fight in that season that really counts.
2021 wasn’t exciting because Hamilton dominated in 2019, but because 2021 was, in itself, exciting.
Alan Dove
14th April 2024, 11:41
@MichaelN
2021’s season doesn’t de-legitimize other seasons. They all have narrative interests but it’s fairly obvious that 2021 will go down as a best of all-time season for F1. History is THE dimension by the way, not some little aspect. Any motorsport on the planet can have a close season. The thing that separates F1 from everything else is the importance we place on its heritage. The in-season fight is meaningless without history. This is why at the 2023 KZ World Championship the Masters category with Fore Vs Manetti actually stole the show.
Anyway in 2021 we had a driver going for the record of world title wins. His competition? Possibly the finest driving talent the sport has ever existed. Of course there were outside forces at play that put more eyeballs on the sport but it was the perfect narrative, and the popularity of F1 soured.
2021 absolutely WAS as exciting as it was because of what was at stake, and what was at stake (GOAT status) was a direct consequence of Hamilton’s prior dominance.
S
14th April 2024, 12:31
Not really. For the vast, vast majority of people on Earth, their weekly grocery bill is much more ‘high-stakes’ than F1 will ever be.
Okay, you keep telling yourself that.
It has nothing to do with F1’s ever-evolving technical regulations and the increasing desire to increase on-track competition and content wherever possible. It’s really all about Hamilton and Verstappen.
What is this nonsense?
This is not compelling for the general public.
Honestly, I have no idea who they are. Nor, I expect, will most people here. Especially those of us not based in Europe.
Karts are great fun to drive, but not so much fun to watch. Go karts are accessible, whereas F1 cars are not.
Okay, so you’re F1’s biggest fan. Good for you.
But it doesn’t mean the same to you as it does to everyone else. People watch F1 for a multitude of reasons, and many would still watch it without any history whatsoever, and without even knowing who the competitors are. It’s entertainment for profit – no different to the movie and music industries.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
15th April 2024, 1:54
I will always disagree with this and I’m sure many others: we want competition, not 7 years of domination (hyperbole, I know) so the stakes are high, 2021 was liked because of the big competition, hamilton and verstappen, merc and red bull having almost even cars.
2017, 2018 were potentially good, but not so good because the competition wasn’t as close, ferrari kinda gave up in the end.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
14th April 2024, 5:40
I for one can’t see what’s exciting about the possibility of Vettel returning. After that crash at Hockenheim in 2018 he was very disappointing…
notagrumpyfan
14th April 2024, 9:48
This could actually be a great story for a movie or series. Based on real events until Hockenheim and then create an alternative storyline where Vettel does win that race and the championships, and continues to be successful.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th April 2024, 8:00
People should really stop thinking Seb would return as he isn’t truly attempting or intending to return in the first place since he stopped for a reason.
Also on this day, the most recent Chinese GP to date (& the 1000th world championship round) took place.
Riccard
14th April 2024, 11:19
I think he’d return if someone gave him a top car. Why not?
But I doubt that will happen. Not only is the grid packed with experienced drivers (with more recent success), but there are several very promising youngsters who say this point are less of a gamble than Vettel himself.
Mayrton
14th April 2024, 8:20
notagrumpyfan
14th April 2024, 9:51
Senna, Schumacher, Alonso, Prost, etc.
No cheers?
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
14th April 2024, 8:41
I can accept James Vowles dream of fitting three years worth of work into one season, but not if it means three years worth of crashes in that one season!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
15th April 2024, 3:32
Ahah, good one!
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
15th April 2024, 21:53
It’s like having Latifi and Sargeant at the same time.
MichaelN
14th April 2024, 9:07
Bit odd that Dale Earnhardt is so concerned with the technical aspect of F1, given the series he has raced in.
Red Bull has made a good car, sure. But what makes it dominant is its unique strength is in handling spec tyres that are poorly made, and to a degree, purposely so. That’s not that cool. And do they have the best engine? Maybe. But nobody is allowed to work on the engine. Again, not that cool.
Their advantage is locked in. Hakkinen and his dominant 1998 McLaren could have won five title if the first opportunity for others to change their equipment had been in 2003… sounds stunning on paper, but it’s it’s not actually that impressive when it’s just a consequence of a largely frozen field.
Plus, as viewers I don’t really care to see technical excellence. That’s only interesting in so far as it adds a variable, a storyline, to a competitive season. There’s a reason the highlight videos FOM puts out never feature a segment on new bodywork…
S
14th April 2024, 13:03
For someone who’s never really known life without being in a race team, it would indeed be something to admire.
And for a guy who’s spent almost his entire career in driver-focused series – he probably quite likes the idea that, if he were in F1 instead, his team could be giving him a car that he only needs to drive at 80% capacity to score plenty of victories and win multiple championships, and get paid the most money of everyone to do it.
DMC
14th April 2024, 12:32
It seems the dominance by one team is getting worse rather than better, despite the FIA rules to stop it. Great drivers in cars that are superior to the others is just plain boring.We are constantly told these are the best drivers in the world, but they are not allowed to compete on anything like an equal footing, its just crazy IMHO.
S
14th April 2024, 13:04
Thus is the history and narrative of F1….
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
15th April 2024, 3:33
While f1 always had periods with dominant teams, if you take a look at the post 2009 situation, you will see it’s never been this bad.
S
15th April 2024, 6:45
It really exploded (or imploded) around 2000 when Schumacher hit the top and his team managed to keep him there very consistently, year after year.
As you say – it’s only got worse from then on, as the technical regs have tightened (and become clearly defined eras in their own right) and data collection/analysis has taken over from driver input.
That’s about 25 years of F1’s championship history, equating to more than 40% of all the races they have held in total.
The biggest problem is that dominance (in F1 terms) means something very different now than it did prior to 2000.
It doesn’t mean strong results in one or two consecutive seasons anymore – it means eliminating any semblance of competition for the whole technical-regs era of roughly 5-7 years.
DaveW (@dmw)
15th April 2024, 1:41
I like Vowles’ energy. But they are going to be looking at the back of the Andrettis on the grid.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
16th April 2024, 1:45
the harder you work the less you get paid.