In the round-up: Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has brought a legal action against the team.
In brief
Steiner brings legal action against Haas
Steiner, who was replaced as Haas team principal in January, is alleging they failed to pay all he was owed upon his departure from the team.
Papers filed at the North Carolina county of Mecklenburg court reveal Steiner believes the team did not make some payments he was entitled to during his final three years in charge. He also claims the team has made unauthorised use of his name, image and likeness following his departure without paying him any royalties.
Verstappen put “emotional reactions” behind him – Buscombe
Max Verstappen has “very few obvious negatives” left in his performance, according to former F1 strategist Ruth Buscombe.The former Haas and Alfa Romeo tactician said the three-times world champion raised his game by steering clear of unnecessary run-ins with rivals once he had a chance to win the world championship. Verstappen’s weakness “used to be his emotional reactions in the racing,” Buscombe told The Red Flags.
“He’d punt people off, kind of thing. Which is fairly typical for a talented younger driver, they don’t know, like Marty McFly-style, just they get themselves into fights when they don’t need to.
“You saw the second he had a championship-winning car, you don’t pick those, you back out because across the championship it’s way more important. But same you have the same evolution with like Senna and Lewis [Hamilton] and all the people like that. There’s very few, there’s very few obvious negatives because in order to see a negative you have to actually lose.”
Russell’s car cleared after extra checks
George Russell’s Mercedes was subject to extra physical checks after the Chinese Grand Prix. His W15 was chosen at random for a detailed inspection of its braking system, which it passed.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Red Bull confirm exit of design chief Newey (BBC)
'(Eddie) Jordan and Newey have succeeded in pulling off a major coup in extricating the designer from a contract that ran to the end of 2025 and included a 12-month 'non-compete' clause which should have meant he was not available to any other team until 2027 at the earliest.'
A $10 billion offer rejected? Miami Dolphins not for sale as F1 race drives up valuation (USA Today)
'(Miami Dolphins owner Stephen) Ross recently entertained a stunning $10 billion offer for control of the Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium, and the F1 Miami race – which nearly matches the combined record-setting sales of the Denver Broncos ($4.65 billion in 2022) and Washington Commanders ($6.05 billion in 2023).'
Thirty years on, fans pay tribute to Senna at Imola (Reuters)
'Fans carrying the Brazilian flag walked along the track before a minute's silence was held at 2:17 p.m. (1217 GMT) at the Tamburello corner to mark the time of the crash which cost the charismatic Brazilian his life aged just 34.'
Ricciardo opens up on criticism in fickle world of F1 (ESPN)
'(Carlos) did great in Melbourne, coming back after the surgery, winning the race -- amazing win, he did frickin' awesome. But it's one win and suddenly people can be like 'oh he's the highest rated driver on the grid' or whatever.... then if Charles wipes the floor with him for a few races those same people would be 'oh, it was just a one-off, Carlos isn't all that,' you know what I mean? It's like that.'
Shwartzman: No. 83 crew's focus must be on overall wins (Sportscar 365)
'Obviously most of my career I was always aiming for F1, but now that I tried WEC, I’ve realised that there are other big categories, and that the world doesn’t revolve only around F1.'
Who to look out for in the 2024 Italian Formula 4 season (Formula Scout)
'While this season the number of Formula 1 juniors on the grid is down to four (Kabir Anurag, Matheus Ferreira and Kean Nakamura Berta from the Alpine Academy and Alex Powell from the Mercedes Junior Team), there is still plenty of talent racing who could make it to F1 in the future.'
Top five overtakes from Imola (WEC via YouTube)
Seymour-Hyde joins F1 commercial team (Sport Business)
'Formula 1 has bolstered its commercial team with the hiring of Joel Seymour-Hyde, who joins as head of partnership management, having departed his role as managing director, UK at Octagon in December last year. '
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
And of course Max #Verstappen will have it written into his contract that he has an option to leave if Adrian Newey he does. Will he exercise it ?
— Byron Young (@byronf1) May 1, 2024
A privilege to show racing legend @MarioAndretti the halls of Congress today as we discuss the inclusion of the first all-American team in @F1 . #LetAmericaRace pic.twitter.com/kHvXrpzDsy
— Miller Strategies (@millerstrat) April 30, 2024
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Ferrari’s Miami Grand Prix livery did not impress many of our readers:
If you really want to have ‘special’ livery every season, and even more often than that, at least be creative, be brave, do something different. This looks more like an accident with the wrong stickers than a real thought-out design, something that someone had actually worked on for more than three minutes.
And it’s all about promoting the sponsor, the rest is obviously just a fake story. “Special”, right… Lazy, uninspired and nothing but an empty PR. It could at least be more fun.
Dex
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Adam Kibbey and Ruliemaulana!
On this day in motorsport
- 25 years ago today Juan Pablo Montoya won the fourth round of the CART IndyCar season at Nazareth, from pole position
Nick T.
2nd May 2024, 0:47
Gene seems like the type of guy who, to this day, will use the take-a-penny dish, but will never leave a penny. Meanwhile, he can’t export enough advanced CNC equipment to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, etc…you know, his “regular customers.”
MichaelN
2nd May 2024, 9:53
He doesn’t just seem like that, he’s really serious about it! In a sort of twisted up-side, Gene Haas actually went so far in his tax evasion that he spent over a year in prison for it. Take that, you ‘Monaco has such a great climate and the airport is near’ folks!
An Sionnach
2nd May 2024, 0:56
I’m not sure what Ruth Buscombe is talking about. When did Senna stop driving into people in desperation when push came to shove? Lewis has driven into people several times in the last couple of years.
MadMax (@madmax)
2nd May 2024, 7:55
Last championship winning car of Merc was 2021, obviously. The title which was eventually gifted by the RD. Lewis backed out of Verstappens way like 20-30 times that year, while the crashkid searched for contact all the time.
BamBoomBots
2nd May 2024, 14:11
It’s truly extraordinary to see how stories and narratives grow and develop inside the human mind over time.
oweng (@oweng)
2nd May 2024, 8:00
There’s a difference between common racing contact made between drivers (where one is at fault) and some of the tactics Verstappen has employed in the past. I don’t like it personally but many are ok with that sort of stuff.
Mick Kuhn
2nd May 2024, 11:14
Who’s Buscombe?
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
2nd May 2024, 13:26
Can’t compare Senna and Lewis to Max. Max is the ultimate track offender by a mile. Senna literally stopped his race to help a driver. He had principles. Lewis is the ultimate wheel-to-wheel racer – you search for wheel-to-wheel racing and his name comes up as the definition. Most of his incidents are with rookies who just race Lewis much harder than they’d race anyone else because it’s their dream to race Lewis just like a swimmer’s dream is to race Phelps.
Jere (@jerejj)
2nd May 2024, 6:33
Good for Steiner & I initially didn’t get the Marty Mcfly reference but quickly realized it was for the chicken-calling meme.
oweng (@oweng)
2nd May 2024, 7:58
I’m not sure I see a change in Verstappen’s driving as it hasn’t been tested yet. From 2022 onwards he’s had a dominant car with few moments of proper on track racing for position. It’s far easier to not have these incidents when the only pressure you’re facing is your own to deliver with the best car rather than pressure from opponents. He’s doing that brilliantly though.
baasbas
2nd May 2024, 8:29
@oweng
Yes, this seems closer to the truth to me too.
On the other hand, I also feel it’s too simple to attribute him picking fights to his youth when one sentence later they say that he stopped doing that because he had a car that had a shot at the championship. By your own logic it seems closer to the truth he picked fights because he was not a title contender and used it as leverage: ‘a crash with me will hurt you way more’
MichaelN
2nd May 2024, 9:54
Verstappen was right back to his ‘I’ll just drive you off the road’ antics in Las Vegas last year.
As you say, it’s easy to be calm when you’re going to win anyway. It’s when the pressure is on that the truth comes out.
Mog
2nd May 2024, 9:57
Exactly.
The same “evolution” can be said of Lewis when he had a dominant car as well.
Also, he had a championship winning car in ’21 and was aggressive that year, because the championship was close. Its only the sunday drives off into the sunset in a dominant car that it changed. And thats because it isnt close anymore.
Seems anachronistic and hagiographic from the commenter I think
Craig
2nd May 2024, 16:32
Even now when things either aren’t quite right or go fully wrong he does have outbursts. How exactly he’ll handle real adversity is to be seen, but at present I doubt it’ll be pretty.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
2nd May 2024, 10:43
I’ll go a bit conspiracy theorist on the Newey news I think.
You don’t just let one of the most valuable and prized people in F1 walk out the door to go and work for your opponents this free and easy.
Has Adrian assured them that he is quitting F1 and so won’t be a threat?
Or is he in possession of info that could make things even worse for Red Bull and its Management, but has promised to keep his mouth shut if turned loose?
I think it is most likely that Red Bull have decided they are screwed anyway, so why not let the guy who gave them so much walk free as a thanks.
Though I am often quite naive ;)
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
2nd May 2024, 12:49
Newey is the ultimate insider, so I imagine that he has insider information that is worth quite a bit to Red Bull, enough that he (and Eddie Jordan!) can set the terms of his departure. We may never know the details, but I am glad that Newey is able to dictate the terms of his career.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
2nd May 2024, 22:53
who knows, he might just get on a boat and tell F1’s dreams of driver-less cars to shove it.