In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton suggests Red Bull could have won multiple championships with the floor bib device which they have changed following discussions with the FIA.
In brief
Red Bull could have won titles with bib – Hamilton
Hamilton said it was unclear how long Red Bull have used the device for, or how significant its impact might have been.
“The name of our sport is all about innovation, Red Bull have been the leaders and they have innovated,” Hamilton told Sky. “Ultimately, all the teams look at the rules and they try and find how to massage those rules and get the most out of it, even if it’s just over the edge a little bit.
“It just needs to continue to evolve and be better policed. But at the end of the day, they just did the better job. God knows how long they’ve had that and they’ve been winning championships – maybe that stops now. I don’t think that’s the one thing that’s going to stop them. But I think everyone else, we’ve got to continue to be innovators and leading rather than trying to catch up.”
When asked about the situation regarding his team’s bib device Max Verstappen said he was “not really worried” and “from my side, nothing changes.”
Loss of Renault engine “sad situation” – Ocon
Despite departing Alpine at the conclusion of the 2024 season, Esteban Ocon says he is “sad” that Renault will cease as a power unit supplier in 2026.“As a driver for the team, it’s difficult to comment about this, he said. “But as a French fan of the sport and as a French driver, everything I can say is that it’s a sad situation. It’s very sad for French motorsport. But there’s nothing more I can say.”
Crawford to run Young Drivers Test
Aston Martin have confirmed that junior driver Jak Crawford will participate for the team in the post-season Young Drivers Test at Abu Dhabi.
Crawford has been part of the team’s driver development programme since February and drove a Formula 1 for the first time – a 2022 AMR22 – at the Red Bull Ring earlier this year.
He will drive the team’s 2024 car after the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in the Young Drivers Test.
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On the road with Perez, Mexico’s F1 megastar (GQ)
''It’s how the sport is. You have one, two bad races, a lot of negative talk about you and so on. But it’s also something in the culture of the team as well—with Red Bull. The surrounding talk, the contract talks and so on. It’s just part of the game.''
How Taylor Swift’s F1 concert helped save the United States Grand Prix (Athletic)
Bobby Epstein: ''We got a much younger audience starting to watch and pay attention to that, because of Taylor, Justin Timberlake (the 2018 headliner), and Ed Sheeran (2022). You start looking at some of those, and that’s who was paying attention to those artists, with Instagram and things that people post on, it very quickly reaches that demographic and that generation.''
Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the physics of Formula 1 racing (StarTalk via YouTube)
Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explores the physics at the heart of Formula 1.
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Comment of the day
With news that the FIA are scrapping the fastest lap bonus point from next season, Adam is one of few who does not seem happy at the move…
I’m evidently in the minority but I’d rather they kept it, and just opened it up outside the top 10. That one point could be valuable to teams lower down taking a risk on a soft tyre run at the end beyond the value for the championship contenders. I also rather like the driver that got the fastest lap of the race stat to actually grant something beyond just the stat.
Getting rid of it now seems more directly in answer to Lando Norris being deprived of one point, which seems silly given they must have known teams, or drivers, could use it tactically to deprive others – such is the nature of a ‘won’ point.
Adam
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Jamiefranklinf1, Alex De Brito and Dan!
Edvaldo
18th October 2024, 0:06
They most likely did.
MacLeod (@macleod)
18th October 2024, 14:29
It’s strange that Red Bull had problems with Qualifying 2022 &2023 but had a great Racing pace with this system they should be fastest in both Qualifying and race pace….
w0o0dy
18th October 2024, 18:34
Except that all teams have a system that does something like that just maybe not as easy to use… But the system wasn’t easily usable between sessions and no evidence was found or provided that indicates that they changed the height between sessions…. So it’s just another Attempt to destabilize RedBull. Meanwhile we know for a fact that McLaren have won races with their exceptionally flexible wings and nobody makes nearly as much fuss about that. F1 seems to be nothing but hypocrisy these days.
Grapmg
18th October 2024, 22:06
Yup when Fernando took the FLP from Max in Austria no problem. Now it’s Lando and suddenly a big fuss and the FLP is dropped.
Nick T.
18th October 2024, 0:33
Gasp. Horror.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
18th October 2024, 2:47
Of course it’s Red Bull’s fault Hamilton was put on tires that don’t favor late braking, and his team has been ignoring him and shooting him down the whole time in terms of design and strategy. Would have nothing to do with Toto and Liberty wanting to appeal to a new demographic, after all the politicking through COVID. Has nothing to do with market dynamics or money, I am sure.
… smells like smoked, salty fish to me.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
18th October 2024, 2:52
Hamilton’s appeal however has nothing to do with complaining, and everything to do with being more like Red Bull, in terms of innovation and spirit. I suspect however, that hes not only the rest of the grid to face in terms of that battle, and hopefully everything to gain at Ferrari.
Jane (@janedone)
18th October 2024, 4:17
It sounds like you read the healine, react to it and decided to write a diatribe, rather than reading the quote and seeing the context in how it was said.
Also disappointed in the clickbait title. Race Fans shouldn’t be like Autosport.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
18th October 2024, 5:50
Omg I’m so glad it didn’t happen like COTD suggests…
notagrumpyfan
18th October 2024, 8:36
The CotD makes a very good point though in that (again) FIA makes a knee jerk decision based on a single event which was known and widely discussed by everyone ever since its introduction.
The FLAP has always existed en will continue to exist.
Awarding a point for it doesn’t seem very pure, but it’s not a big thing either (I’m more concerned about half points after two laps behind a SC).
Red Andy (@red-andy)
18th October 2024, 10:51
The rules now say you have to have at least two laps of green flag running in order to award points.
Not sure how “knee-jerk” this decision is, obviously there was a bit of heat after Singapore but presumably there have been discussions about this within the FIA for a while.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th October 2024, 6:50
Regarding the COTD, I couldn’t disagree more with the part about FLAP point being available for all positions & in that regard, I fully agree with the two who responded in the original article.
However, I share the view in the latter paragraph, given similar tactics have already happened before, especially in 2021 when both Red Bull Racing & Mercedes used their second driver to take the bonus point away from a rival championship contender in Britain & Mexico, respectively, so if FIA were ever going to remove the FLAP point again, they should’ve done so after that season rather than three seasons belatedly.
Asanator
18th October 2024, 17:23
Using 2nd drivers is very different to using 2nd teams though.
Cranberry
18th October 2024, 7:03
FLAP moved to the pages of history, may it never ever be resurrected!
DRS, and it’s 2026 steroided-up version, should be next!
Mayrton
18th October 2024, 7:13
Maybe.. and maybe Mercedes won 8 with all kinds of cleverness combined with political lobbying. I guess life ain’t fair.
SteveP
18th October 2024, 8:57
Scraping the bottom of the barrel on the deflection?
The story relates to something RBR have definitely done, and admit. The Mercedes run of form was just legal innovation – even DAS, which was only ruled out because others whinged it would cost too much to develop their own version.
I do note that the misquote of LH in the headline does slant the story somewhat toward an accusatory rather than speculative view, possibly in hope of generating more comments.
Mayrton
18th October 2024, 10:27
Well there was a bit more going on than ambitious innovation and DAS. Flex wings, pit stop restrictions, tire lobby, misuse of the engine regulations and the like.
As always. The sites lives to talk down anything RedBull.
CheeseBucket
18th October 2024, 17:54
Aww. Sounds like you need a good cry.
Coventry Climax
18th October 2024, 10:42
RF might succeed in generating more comments, but they also do quite fine making LH a less agreeable person.
w0o0dy
18th October 2024, 18:38
Wrong… RedBull have admitted there is a system on the car that allows the night of the bib to be changed more easily. Nowhere and never have they admitted to using it between qualifying and the race.
MichaelN
18th October 2024, 8:51
Astrophysicist and F1? That should be fun, considering astrophysics is notorious for not having a clue how their own field of study actually works. Which is fine, we’ve only known about other galaxies for about a century, but still amusing.
Hamilton’s comments are right; it’s no use to complain, it’s much better to lead with new and even more clever designs.
SteveP
18th October 2024, 9:02
Brian May :)
Coventry Climax
18th October 2024, 10:50
Haha, there’s quite a few teams that, every once in a while, seem to have no clue about how their own cars work too. Actually, they sometimes don’t even seem to have a clue as to which field of study they should pay attention to most.
On the other hand, and in general, it seems rather pointless to study that of which you already know exactly how it works.
MichaelN
18th October 2024, 12:57
Very true, but astrophysics has a sort of general appeal to the wider world that isn’t common in most other fields. Coupled with today’s media landscape, it creates a whole bunch of silliness with celebrity led “pop science” touting grand new theories and discoveries seemingly every other week. Even though a simple “we don’t know” would be much more honest.
More to the point of F1, it is indeed interesting to see how often teams are seemingly unaware of how their own cars actually work as a complete package, making the effect of “upgrades” all but impossible to predict. It’s a humbling experience, I suppose.
Grapmg
18th October 2024, 9:01
MB has been disqualified 3 times since 2021 for an illegal car. Red Bull zero. Maybe Lewis should look at his own WDCs before he makes these accusations.
Ajaxn
18th October 2024, 10:06
You make the case. Why hasn’t RB been disqualified already?
We had the recent rule updates for Asymmetric breaking, just as RB’s car starts underperforming but nothing officially connecting them to those rule changes. No fines, no slap on the wrist.
Now we have this cheat come to light. It makes you wonder what exactly has Aston Martin signed up for?
How could the scrutineers have missed this?
Mayrton
18th October 2024, 10:29
Similar to the rant about domination of RedBull. That one was hilarious and testimony of little reflection.
Craig
18th October 2024, 11:36
Or we could ask why Red Bull’s known cheating have been openly ignored.
MichaelN
18th October 2024, 12:59
Two of those were from unexpected wear (USA 2023 and Belgium 2024). I don’t recall the third.
Either way, those are hardly nefarious schemes.
Ajaxn
18th October 2024, 10:00
For you guys trash-talking Hamilton, and not allowing for how this all works.
The interviewer asks, ‘What do you think of the RB’s controversial BIB system?’
Drivers “blah blah blah”
We hear or see “Blah”, without the question.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
18th October 2024, 12:39
Turns out I was right – Red Bull’s fall from grace was reminiscent of Ferrari’s fall when the FIA slowed them down.
It turns out they’d been slowed down by the FIA.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th October 2024, 13:01
That now looks very likely: no penalty because evidently they made a deal with the team where they had to change the illegal component and suddenly lost a lot of performance.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th October 2024, 13:01
As the only one on the site, I fully agree with COTD!
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th October 2024, 13:02
I think it’d have been intriguing to see the fastest lap battle that would generate for drivers who had nothing to lose, as they were already 11th with no realistic chance to pass or worse.
Michael Quinn
18th October 2024, 23:30
Completely unlike the time Mercedes won a Championship with the illegal DAS device which for some reason I’ll never understand they were allowed to use for half a season even though it was banned for everyone else.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
19th October 2024, 2:15
This is completely wrong. Mercedes had DAS for a whole season, it was legal, other teams were allowed to use it but hadn’t developed it. It was then banned the following season.
Nick T.
19th October 2024, 4:07
lol. You have an interesting memory of DAS, Mr. Quinn Medicine Man.