In the round-up: A former F1 steward says he does not believe there is an anti-Spanish bias in sport.
In brief
No anti-Spanish bias says ex-steward
After Fernando Alonso suggested to Spanish media in Miami that Spanish drivers like him are more likely to get penalties for incidents than their rivals, Spanish former F1 steward Joaquin Verdegay does not agree.
“I don’t see that there is a persecution against the Spaniards,” Verdegay, the vice-president of the Real Federacion Espanola de Automovilismo (Spanish automobile federation), told Marca. “What there is is a lack of control and a loss of direction that worries and saddens me. Why have we stopped racing in the rain? And now there are these absurd races behind a Safety Car.
“Of course, Alonso’s complaints are legitimate. It is possible that the regulations are difficult to interpret, but he does not want everything that happens to be sanctioned. I would not have penalised Alonso in China, or Lewis Hamilton in Miami either.
“The races are more intended to be a party than a sporting spectacle, it gives the feeling that the Miami Grand Prix is a happening organised to sell nacho trays.”
Verstappen success ‘dangerous’ for F1
The promoter of the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal has described Max Verstappen’s sustained success in Formula 1 as ‘dangerous’ for the health of the sport.The world champion won 19 of 22 rounds last season and has finished first in four of the first six grands prix so far this year.
“In the long term, for the average racing fan, there is a disinterest,” said race promoter Francois Dumontier. “Unless you are a die-hard Verstappen fan.
“How many fans said they watched the start and then went to mow their lawn before returning in front of the screen for the end of the race? For sport, it’s dangerous.
“We have to admit that Max is good. He has incredible calm and is an excellent driver who makes very few mistakes, He also drives a very good car. I’m not sure that a driver driving behind at the back of the pack would be able to do the same thing in this car, which is very well tuned by the engineers.”
Da Costa quickest in Berlin practice
Porsche driver Antonio Felix da Costa set the pace in the opening practice session for the Berlin Eprix double-header on Friday.
Da Costa’s best of 1’02.289 was a tenth of a second ahead of Sergio Sette Camara’s ERT and Stoffel Vandoorne’s DS Penske in third.
Pascal Wehrlein failed to complete a lap around the revised Templehof circuit after stopping on track with a problem.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Lewis Hamilton's F1 movie starring Brad Pitt surpasses eye-watering budget (Newsweek)
'However, the glamour of its cast and the novelty of its setting have come at a high price. Initially projected with a substantial budget, the actual expenses ballooned as the production involved the use of genuine race cars and rigorous safety protocols. These elements, while aiming to provide an authentic racing experience, have notably inflated the costs.'
Kenyan karting and golf prodigy Krrish dreams about Formula 1 (Kenyan Star)
''My favourite sport is motorsport and precisely F1 because the foundation of F1 is karting. I want to drive an F1 car one day or be in an F1 team. Karting is by and large a 'hidden gem' of motorsports where almost all of the world’s professional racecar drivers begin their careers.''
Alpine presents Alpenglow Hy4 at WEC Spa race (FIA WEC)
'The Alpine Alpenglow Hy4 will make its first public display tomorrow (Saturday) with demonstration runs. It will also be present for further demonstration laps at next month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans – round four of WEC (15-16 June). Alpine is reconciling environmental innovation and performance through its hydrogen combustion engine technology. This technology offers a new approach to decarbonising motor racing and a possible avenue for sports cars. Alpenglow is currently fitted with a 4-cylinder development engine, a working phase before the presentation of an all-new V6 engine specifically designed to be powered by hydrogen, developed entirely by Alpine. It will be unveiled in a second rolling version before the end of the year.'
IndyCar champ's Pride livery frickin' rules (Jalopnik)
'Not only is that a great initiative to support, and I hope the merch sells out, but the livery itself kicks a lot of ass. The DHL livery already showed a serious improvement when it moved to a Chip Ganassi car this season in its traditional yellow with red sidepods. Replacing the red sidepods with rainbow just adds an extra level of fun and color to the car that will be zipping past at over 230 miles per hour. '
'Newcastle United commercial partners Saudia have confirmed a new partnership between the club and Formula E. The full video announcement features Newcastle stars Anthony Gordon and Elliot Anderson waiting for the ‘Secret Driver’, who is revealed to be £63million striker Alexander Isak at the end of the video.'
How F1’s Miami GP’s food surplus feeds the city and fights climate change (The Athletic)
'Thousands of pounds of food are made over the three-day weekend, ranging from simple ingredients like common produce to filet mignon. By the end of the 2022 weekend, approximately 90,000 pounds of food were left over, which equates to roughly 75,000 meals — a significant amount of food that needed to be rescued.'
Lunch Money (Daniel Ricciardo via YouTube)
Behind the scenes of Ricciardo's tumultuous Miami Grand Prix weekend.
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Comment of the day
With Red Bull simracer Frederik Rasmussen winning the official F1 world championship title on Thursday, Fer no.65 offers their congratulations to their former rival…
Great to see Frederik Rasmussen winning the title. I was one of his team mates when he was starting, when iRacing implemented team races back in 2015, I think. He was 13 or so at the time and he already was the fastest on the team, which had very good drivers. He soon moved to a better team and started his journey properly.
Fer no.65
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to 130R and Sushant008!
S
11th May 2024, 3:58
While that’s most likely true, the inconsistency does seem to come off as them imposing different standards on different drivers and teams. And somewhat consistently…
Undeniably – but unfortunately, with the way the whole Liberty/teams cartel works, there is insufficient internal resistance to force change to the situation.
Even whispering “BoP” makes people shudder, on principle – despite the fact that it would give them the on-track F1 product that they actually want.
Ah well, we can always keep praying for a miracle or relying on the tiny, tiny chance that that one season prior to the technical regs change may be competitive.
Nick T.
11th May 2024, 4:25
Whether bias exists or not, there is a lack of consistency. I’d like to see this fixed by having permanent stewards or, at least, the same three for a minimum of six races at a time. Something like a fairly small group of designated stewards who would be used for all rounds. This would allow them to be a bit flexible in terms of the stewards’ schedule while maintaining higher consistency.
IMO, there no anti-[xyz nationality] bias, but there’s a pro-British bias. There are also certain stewards who have bad blood w/current drivers and shouldn’t be stewarding because of that.
MichaelN
11th May 2024, 10:49
There are a bunch of ‘main’ stewards already who do many races in any given year, and having one national steward is part of the tradition of F1. It’d be hard to ditch that now.
So far this year the main stewards have been Nish Shetty (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, China, Miami), Vitantonio Liuzzi (Saudi Arabia, China, Miami) and Loïc Bacquelaine (Bahrain, China, Japan). Then there are a bunch who have only done one race (so far): Derek Warwick (Bahrain), Matteo Perini (Saudi Arabia), Tim Mayer (Australia), Matteo Perini (Australia), Johnny Herbert (Australia), Garry Connelly (Japan), Enrique Bernoldi (Japan), Andrew Mallalieu (Miami).
Rain
15th May 2024, 9:36
Agree with you (and few others below) about the pro-British bias.
Case in point: Magnussen got penalty points in Miami for passing Hamilton off track.
Well he had done the exact same thing to Tsunoda earlier in Jeddah and didn’t get penalty points (just a time penalty, and separate time penalty and pen points for the Albon collision).
If the stewards ruled what was done to Yuki the same as that to Lewis then KMag would have already reached 12 pen points.
Jere (@jerejj)
11th May 2024, 6:04
So, Verdegay wouldn’t have penalized Hamilton in Miami?
Pit lane speeding, especially by a large-ish amount is quite serious, so a totally justified 20-second time penalty.
I disagree with Dumontier. No more dangerous than Mercedes’, Schumi’s, or Mclaren’s, etc., successes.
Diez Cilindros (@diezcilindros)
11th May 2024, 8:31
I think Verdegay talks about the Sprint start.
Jere (@jerejj)
11th May 2024, 20:47
@diezcilindros He indeed didn’t get penalized for that.
SteveP
11th May 2024, 9:28
I’m curious how he, in a stream of cars, managed to exceed the limit by 10.7 km/hr and yet others in the same stream of cars did not.
For reference, the average cycling speed of a 65-year-old is 18.5 km/hr
notagrumpyfan
11th May 2024, 10:22
If you close a 10m gap in 3s you exceed that speed difference.
For reference, the average 65-year-old is 1.71m tall.
SteveP
11th May 2024, 10:49
Yup, by 1.3km/hr, which apparently is 0.298 of the average walking speed of that 65-year-old we mentioned
Or, in common parlance, not a lot.
I’m still curious how in a steady stream of cars, one car can manage a “serious” difference. Or are you saying that you can achieve it very easily and that it isn’t a serious infringement?
How is 20 seconds valid for an infringement that most people didn’t even notice, but Sainz has a 50% discount penalty for something involving collision at speed?
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
11th May 2024, 16:14
I presume like most pitlane speeding incidents, it was only for a fraction of a second. Usually this happens when they brake too late for the pitlane marker and don’t get below the limit before they cross it. They would lose that 10km/hr or whatever it was in like a tenth of a second or less, so competitors probably wouldn’t be able to notice.
MacLeod (@macleod)
13th May 2024, 7:58
Lewis didn’t press the pitlimiter (not good enough to engage it) and the rest did. Even a 0.2 km/h is allready a penaulty so 10.7 km/h too fast is een dead-on penaulty even faster then 5km/h so double.
There is a reason why they all brake so hard for the pitline ask Sainz a few race ago.
Mayrton
11th May 2024, 10:39
The bias is not Spanish, it is everything non-British. Has been like that forever and I think nowadays it actually has become less and less. It has largely to do with the nr of UK employees in the sport and the dominance of UK media in coverage of the sport. Over time both have reduced, hence the slight progress being made.
Wrt the dominance thing.. we’ve seen that for decades. Schumacher, Vettel, Lewis and now Max indeed. It always triggers attempts to change the playing field, using all means, including having promotors say these things.
DMC
11th May 2024, 12:43
This is no great suprise, If we are all being honest it’s the DNA of formula 1, build the best car and get the perceived best driver driving it.The thing is with f1 fans is we see a few decent races or even the odd championship and we seem to watch all the dross in the hope that things will change. I think a lot of young people now see through the bs and marketing and think this is not entertaining.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
11th May 2024, 14:29
so apparently being from a country makes you an authority ? How about lets start fining stewards who suck at their job.
Tom Baker
11th May 2024, 15:51
Dear me, it’s all sounding like this year’s Eurovision!
Speaking of which, I hear the chavvy Dutch fellow has been disqualified.
Dutch chavs…. now you’d never see those at a F1 weekend !
Nurse!!!!!
erik
12th May 2024, 12:16
And this comment can only be made by a toxic, nationalitisc, looking-down-on-other-people brit. Well done for conforming the stereotype.
Tom Baker
12th May 2024, 16:28
And of course your comment is none of those things, darling!
Nurse, Erik needs his raw nerve pills!
dan
12th May 2024, 17:10
Tom spot on he is exactly them same things he just made a name without the “je” on the end he is really Erikje who use to talk Hamilton down every race in Ham dominant yrs so yeah he is doing the same things he accuses you of
dan
12th May 2024, 17:11
Go on Erikje the mask has slipped
Moshambles (@moshambles)
11th May 2024, 16:54
I think every decision in the history of F1 can be traced back to anti-Spanish bias