In the round-up: Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur indicated Lewis Hamilton has signed a three-year deal to drive for the team.
In brief
Hamilton signed for three years at Ferrari
Ferrari announced in February that Hamilton will join them on a “multi-year” contract beginning next season. Now Vasseur has signalled how long that covers.
Vasseur told the Financial Times: “He had to make a choice: ‘Where do I have the biggest chance to win the world championship in 2025, ’26, ’27?’ And he said, ‘Ferrari’.”
Hamilton was reported to have wanted a three-year deal from Mercedes when he signed his previous contract with them last year.
Vasseur, who is also believed to be courting ex-Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey, also said he expects Hamilton’s presence will prove “the best way to attract good people” to his team. “We have good people at Ferrari, but I want to reinforce.” He gave the interview before the team announced the departure of chief technical officer Enrico Cardile.
Legge returns for Iowa
IndyCar will have a female driver in its field again this weekend as Katherine Legge returns to Coyne for the double-header event at Iowa. She tested for the team at the track earlier this year.Error-free run needed to beat Palou – O’Ward
Pato O’Ward said it was essential to drive error-free in order to bat reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou to victory at Mid-Ohio last weekend.
“The hard part is to get by the guy,” he explained after the race. “After that, then it turns more into a battle within yourself, just really hitting your marks all the time, not making any mistakes.
“They were so strong on prime [tyres], I knew that he was going to be really putting on the pressure the last stint because it was a new tyre race, it wasn’t [an alternate tyre] race. Yeah, it was good.”
O’Ward said he knew he was going to get by Palou at the beginning of their final stint when he rounded the last corner and saw his rival leaving his pit box. “Coming out of 13, I saw him launching from the box, and then I said, ‘I got his ass’. Yeah, that was it.”
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Silverstone's drive to become the 'global home of motor racing' (Goodwood)
'We unashamedly now want to turn the British Grand Prix weekend into the biggest summer festival, where it's a world-class sporting event by day and a world-class music festival by night, and we're well on the way to that.'
Jerry Bruckheimer and Joseph Kosinski on 'F1' (Deadline)
'Last year, at Silverstone, we had a scene we shot on the grid. I think we had something like nine minutes to shoot a one, or one-and-a-half-page dialogue scene with three actors. It’s like a pitstop. It really brings an intensity and everyone’s leaning forward in a way that maybe you wouldn’t on a normal shoot day on a soundstage, where you’ve got 10 hours to get right.'
A thank you to UK motorsport’s volunteer community (Motorsport)
'We are immensely proud and grateful for the longstanding contribution all our volunteers give to motorsport. Not just on the day, but all the hours that you invest in ensuring that you are appropriately experienced and qualified to support the event. To put it simply, the British Grand Prix would not be possible without your hard work.'
Community leaders to NASCAR: Be more like Lollapalooza (Chicago Sun Times)
''If these massive events are going to come in and use the park, they should be leaving the park in better condition than they found it,' Wales said. For example, Lollapalooza recently donated $500,000 to fix up the park’s tennis courts and add pickleball courts, he added.'
Lamborghini: Hydrogen program 'not an option' for future (Sportscar 365)
'We are a small brand, and this applies also to technology development. We have to focus on what is our priority. We cannot spread our effort on 10,000 different things. We have a clear strategy and hydrogen is not on our priority list.'
FIA Insights - WEC race control explained (FIA via YouTube)
1973: Graham hill creating his own F1 car (BBC via YouTube)
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Comment of the day
The way Carlos Sainz Jnr and his race engineer stayed on top of the changing conditions at Silverstone impressed @T1redmonkey:
Sainz is really good at strategically thinking while he’s in the car and asking the right questions of his engineer, consistently shown this over his career. I said it before but he’s kind of in the wrong era, he’d have been extremely successful in the pre-radio F1 era where drivers had to make more decisions themselves without being spoon fed everything. There’s less chances to show this in modern day F1, but you can still see it paying off for him from time to time.
@T1redmonkey
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Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
10th July 2024, 3:57
F1 movie producers claiming their fake team sponsorship income is bigger than the F1 teams: I guess now with the budget cap in place it probably limits the amount of sponsorship dollars needed. Interesting tidbit nonetheless.
Jay
10th July 2024, 4:34
I think it’s ironic that they talk about how the reported $300million dollar budget is ‘tens of millions of dollars out of whack’. And then, in the same breath, claim ‘we’ve raised more money for our car [through sponsorship] than some Formula 1 teams’.
How do they know how much each F1 team is getting thru sponsorship? The same way people are claiming the movies budget is $300mil. Bonkers.
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
10th July 2024, 6:10
Maybe that’s why they didn’t want Andretti, an eleventh garage was already occupied, generating money, and no on track embarrassment.
Jazz (@jazz)
10th July 2024, 17:50
I think I might be inclined to sail the high seas as far as watching this film’s concerned. Obviously they’re flush with money and won’t be desperate for my cash
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th July 2024, 21:09
As with most movies, it should end up free soon on those websites, the last one I watched, from dreakworks, only took like 3 days after release to appear there.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th July 2024, 21:10
dreamworks*
Jere (@jerejj)
10th July 2024, 6:39
Two years, at the very least in any case, which the ‘multi-year’ term always refers to at the very minimum.
Sean Kelly’s tweet: If only FOM & FIA bothered to avoid them altogether by forming the race calendars slightly differently at parts, or at least minimize their total amount & or only form them from locations within the same continent or thereabouts to minimize interval travel, such as Japan with Australia & China instead of Middle East locations.
A well-put COTD & I can fully share the view.
notagrumpyfan
10th July 2024, 9:57
If only the round-up articles could avoid his tweets altogether ;)
Mike Williams (@mikejtw)
10th July 2024, 8:31
I wonder if Hamilton after his recent success with Mercedes at Silverstone is now regretting his decision to move to Ferrari, especially as they seem to have begun to lose their way yet again!!
Craig
10th July 2024, 9:02
Unlikely. Just because Ferrari’s had a few issues this year doesn’t mean they’ll be terrible next (and it’s not like it’s the first time he or another ‘big name’ has moved to what looked like an underperforming team)
David BR (@david-br)
10th July 2024, 14:20
@mikejtw Had he won a record-setting 8th championship in 2021, I don’t think this would be an issue at all. But since it’s still ‘unfinished business’, maybe the risk feels higher now Mercedes are improving. Depends whether Newey accepts the move to Ferrari: if that happens, Ferrari look in a stronger position. Let’s hope so. With or without Hamilton, Formula 1 needs Ferrari to win some year (likewise McLaren). Just endless reiterations of Red Bull and Mercedes is demoralising.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th July 2024, 21:17
I don’t understand this obsession with the 8th title: 5 titles meant a lot back in the fangio era, when drivers raced for 7 seasons or thereabouts, that’s a high %, but now that drivers can do 20 seasons it’s no longer that much, verstappen should hit the 4th title this season and if he decides to stay till he starts to decline, even without a dominant car, but just with a title contender consistently, I don’t see how he wouldn’t be able to win more than 8.
It’s the same as the race wins, back then there were 7 races a season, then 11, 16 back when schumacher was racing, then they kept increasing and now with 24 we have over 3x the initial amount of races, so this combined with the longer careers 100 wins are easily comparable to 24 back then.
anon
10th July 2024, 21:59
@esploratore1 there were a number of drivers in the 1950s and 1960s who had noticeably longer careers than “7 seasons or thereabouts” – Surtees, Brabham, Trintignant, Amon and Hill, as a few examples, all had careers comfortably exceeding that.
You therefore seem to be choosing to pick the extreme of more recent times against something closer to the mean from historical eras, resulting in a deliberately skewed comparison. Average career lengths have increased over time, but the actual increase is much more modest in reality – it’s gone from an average of about 7 seasons in the 1960s to about 9 seasons today. Average career lengths more or less plateaued around the late 1990s at around 9.5 seasons on average, and in 2024 the figure has actually dipped slightly.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th July 2024, 21:18
I think a title with ferrari, a team that wins very very rarely, would be more impressive than one with mercedes.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
10th July 2024, 9:36
I expected Lewis to have signed a 1-year deal to see if he liked driving for Ferrari first, and to make a decision about his future next year sometime.
I’m expecting him to do well there and if Newey joins that will be awesome.
notagrumpyfan
10th July 2024, 9:59
I doubt he contemplates a driving F1 future after Ferrari.
Whichever way it works out he will leave the sport after 1, 2, or many years I reckon.
David
11th July 2024, 13:12
Lewis moved because Mercedes wouldn’t offer him a multi-year deal. So it’s no surprise that Lewis has a 3-year deal at Ferrari.
This move had nothing to do with his love of the Scuderia and all about stretching out his F1 career with the maximum amount of income possible.
Tristan
10th July 2024, 12:13
Good video of the race control setup for WEC, can one assume it’s the same setup for F1?
Tristan
10th July 2024, 12:34
The Graham Hill archive video was great too! Going to watch some more of that archive f1 footage…
Jere (@jerejj)
10th July 2024, 19:57
Definitely the same as FIA race control room videos & images from F1 also exist on the Internet.
Philip (@philipgb)
10th July 2024, 15:12
It’s going to be interesting to see if after emulating Senna driving for Mclaren and Schumacher winning 7 WDC’s, if Hamilton is now set to emulate another great Alonso by moving teams at exactly the wrong time
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th July 2024, 21:25
Mmm, although alonso came from an underperforming renault when he moved to ferrari, so since he had had issues at mclaren, that would’ve left only red bull, suppose he could’ve seen the signs in 2009 that they were coming good.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th July 2024, 21:25
Even so, not sure they’d have taken vettel + alonso together.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
13th July 2024, 19:39
@philipgb the odds of getting it right are always lower than getting it wrong. Plus, the winning team is usually much harder to join so you have to bet on an upset leading to much lower success odds.
Alonslow
10th July 2024, 17:41
Hamilton contract ends almost perfectly timed to then get Verstappen to Ferrari.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
10th July 2024, 20:59
A 3 year deal means Lewis is going to have to accept 3 years of team orders. “Lewis, Charles is on a different strategy, you can help the team by letting him pass you.”
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th July 2024, 21:31
To be honest, ferrari didn’t look as bad with team orders in recent times, I don’t see that happening much towards either driver.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th July 2024, 21:58
Oh, forgot to say, I agree with that comment of the day, about sainz being more suited to eras where team radios weren’t so prevalent with his strategic thinking.
Michael A.
10th July 2024, 23:56
Sir Lewis Hamilton on a three years contract with Ferrari, quite possible. However, should the Mercedes-Benz team become dominant again in 2025, I would expect Hamilton to be back with M-B as quickly as possible with a real hero’s welcome. Along with that, George Russell will be under team orders, have slow pit stops, different tyre strategies and maybe even a repeat of ‘a foreign substance in the steering column’ preventing gear selection in the Grand Prix.
That will ensure Hamilton gets his ten or more WDCs with consummate ease.