Bottas “driving better than I did at Mercedes” despite falling to last place

In brief

Bottas driving ‘better than with Mercedes’

Despite sitting in last place in the drivers’ championship, Sauber driver Bottas believes he is driving at a higher level now than he was as a Mercedes driver alongside Lewis Hamilton.

Asked whether he felt he was still driving at the same level he was before he joined Sauber, Bottas replied: “I feel like yes, especially in qualifying this year, I haven’t felt any signs of being worse.

“If anything, you keep getting better with experience. You gain more consistency, more confidence. You can solve different issues in a different way. You can adapt to the car the more time you spend in the sport. I feel actually I’m driving better than what I did at Mercedes, but obviously it’s not that visible.”

Meyer Shank snag Armstrong

Armstrong raced in his second season of IndyCar in 2024, completing a full season programme for the first time. He scored a single podium finish in Detroit with two further top five finishes to end the year 14th in the drivers’ standings.

“This year I got closer to where I want to be performance wise, including oval racing for the first time, and I’m looking forward to continuing to push up the order with Meyer Shank,” said Armstrong. “We want to be at the front, fighting for wins and I believe we have the recipe to do it.”

Envision keep Buemi and Frijns

Envision Formula E team has announced an unchanged driver line up for the upcoming 2025 season, keeping both Sebastien Buemi and Robin Frijns.

The two combined for five podium finishes over last season with Envision finishing sixth in the teams’ championship. The pair will likely be forced to miss a round next season due to a calendar clash between next season’s Berlin Eprix and the WEC’s Six hours of Sao Paulo.

Links

Drugovich lands IndyCar test with Ganassi (Racer)

''We wanted to test him a year ago and we’re catching up on that. Indirectly, we were introduced to Drugovich last year at Le Mans and were impressed with him up close and personal. We want to get to know him and we think it’s worth doing.''

Christian Ho set to become first Singaporean driver to race in Formula 3 (Straits Times)

''F3 is going to be a whole new ball game with better, faster drivers and while it’s going to get harder from here, I know I can make it. All F3 races will be shown live on TV before the F1 races. I really hope that with more exposure, more Singaporeans as well as local sponsors will be able to catch me in action and support my quest to become the first Singaporean F1 driver.''

AIX sees early return on investment in F2 and F3, but ''F1 is the goal'' (Formula Scout)

''Effectively F1 is the goal, even if it’s by part ownership or part marketing strategy, but that’s a couple of years down the line. Obviously, stepping straight into F1 is not ideal, especially if you’re testing the waters to see from an investor perspective what the yield would be versus what you put in.''

Singapore GP team talk (Williams)

'Join the team as they gather to hear from James Vowles, Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto ahead of the Singapore GP weekend'

Meet China’s first F1 driver and his pet cat Sweetcorn (Straits Times via YouTube)

'As a child, racing fan Zhou would often tune in to Formula 1 races at odd hours with the TV volume turned down as his parents were already asleep. His room was covered with posters of his idol, two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, and the first helmet that Zhou owned was unsurprisingly a replica of the Spaniard’s. Now competing in his third F1 season, the Sauber driver is making the same mark on fans in his home country.'

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Social media

Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:

https://twitter.comm/MercedesAMGF1/status/1836804270659969188

Bit of a squeeze @Carlossainz55? 😅 #SingaporeGP 🇸🇬 #F1 pic.twitter.com/fzBALQUYI9

— Scuderia Ferrari HP (@ScuderiaFerrari) September 19, 2024

Very sparkly, very shiny.. ✨ pic.twitter.com/AAHarXUlX0

— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) September 19, 2024

Ready to unleash the dragon around the Singapore streets 🐉 pic.twitter.com/jzW37tR6ct

— 角田裕毅/Yuki Tsunoda (@yukitsunoda07) September 19, 2024

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Comment of the day

With plenty of talk in the Singapore paddock about McLaren’s rear wing, Christopher Rehn would like to see F1’s rules be more accommodating of such controversial solutions…

I wish they would lower the budget cap further, but let these things slip instead. Allow teams to choose whether to chase smart inventions someone else discovered, or focus on something else. We’ll see cars with different behaviour, some will have a brilliant feature that benefits them in Baku, Spa, and Monza. Others will have a clever suspension trick that makes them unstoppable in Monaco, Hungary, and Singapore.

McLaren found a smart solution that still stays within the requirements of the flex tests. Awesome, hats-off. Let them keep it, let the others chase.
Christopher Rehn

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On this day in motorsport

• Born today in 1975: Future Indianapolis 500 winner and Formula 1 race winner Juan Pablo Montoya