In the round-up: Zhou Guanyu says he is relieved to have finally scored his first points of the season in the penultimate round.
In brief
Zhou relieved to end points drought
Sauber hadn’t scored a point for more than 12 months until Zhou came eighth on Sunday. “It’s been such a difficult season,” he said. “I’m so happy: For myself, a big relief, also for the team.”
“It was just a very intense race. It was clean, we made moves when it matters, very good pace for the whole stint.”
“We got what we deserved for such a long time,” said Zhou, who does not have a drive for 2025. “One more to go for the team. I’m going to enjoy as much as I could and show everyone what I can do before I’m not on the grid again next year and, hopefully I’ll come back.”
McLaren hand Hirakawa F1 practice debut
Toyota WEC racer Ryo Hirakawa will make his debut in an official Formula 1 practice session on Friday when he drives Oscar Piastri’s car in the first practice session. He has tested earlier McLaren cars over the past two seasons.Pato O’Ward, who drove in practice at the Mexican Grand Prix in October, will drive for McLaren again in the post-season test at Yas Marina.
Senna’s former engineer joins IndyCar team
IndyCar team juncos Hollinger has hired the highly experienced engineer David Brown as technical director. His 40 years in motorsport included more than a decade at Williams’ F1 team, during which time he worked with world championships such as Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill.
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Links
FIA president denies personally ordering recent firings of three F1 race stewards (AP)
'We have nearly 300 (stewards) working for us, so what do I do? I have two choices: I empower the heads of the departments, sit with them and then judge them at the end of the year.'
Goethe thrilled with confidence-boosting performance in Losail Feature Race (Formula 2)
'At some point, both were ahead of me but they were fighting quite hard, and I managed to cut back on both of them in the high speed section. It was a bit of a sketchy move, but I couldn’t let that happen. I was able to pull it off in the end and it helped me catch the guys ahead later on.'
'In 10 years you'll see a woman starting an F1 race' (BBC)
'Female participation in motorsport has never gone above 5%, so in the numbers game it's been difficult for women to get to the pinnacle because we simply don't have a big enough talent pool. So first and foremost, we need to get more participation and create those visible role models, because sometimes in life you have to see it to believe it. We are a movement rather than a moment.'
Andretti talks America's new Formula 1 team (CBS via YouTube)
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
In IndyCar we see the caution thrown immediately for debris on ovals, cars are travelling at circa 200mph and striking debris could have catastrophic consequences. Given where this mirror was coupled with the cars doing 200mph, you would have expected the FIA to have acted immediately 🤔 #QatarGP #F1
— Tom Gaymor (@tomgaymor.bsky.social) 2 December 2024 at 17:24
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Comment of the day
Many of our readers were dissatisfied with the FIA’s explanation for the race director’s decision not to neutralise the race so debris could be recovered during the Qatar Grand Prix.
Bottas hitting the debris proves the racing line excuse isn’t valid. As others have said, bring them through the pit lane under SC or VSC and it’s cleared in 1 lap. I don’t understand why the status of the flag varied too.
Bizarre all round. F1 needs a full investigation of stewarding/race direction/penalties to see where improvements can be made. Currently it’s all over the place.
@Oweng
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Riise, Speed Damon, Colm and Rick!
Jere (@jerejj)
3rd December 2024, 6:54
I thought Pato O’Ward would drive again, but as he’s done quite a few practice runnings in the recent past, giving Hirakawa a chance is good for a change, or anyone else, for that matter.
In 10 years? Let’s wait & see, but that’s certainly far from a given.
I see Tom Gaymor’s point & maybe race control will indeed be more hasty with a mere mirror or a small carbon fiber piece in the future, even if one’s already offline, but towards the best or only overtaking place of a given circuit.
On a related note to COTD, stewarding, race direction, & penalties have unfortunately indeed been all over the place for a while.
Also validly, a marshal quickly running to pick up a piece would definitely work if everyone drove through the pit lane under neutralized conditions, if not otherwise, even under VSC.
D
3rd December 2024, 7:24
RE: COTD
It’s been all over the place for many years, even decades. It’s not just the current generation of officials that make poor decisions.
Plenty of people have changed in past 30 years that I followed F1 (FIA presidents, race directors, stewards…) yet there are always mistakes and controversies.
And it’s not only theirs fault. Behaviour of teams and drivers in certain situations is also contributing to this problem.
Complete system is rotten and is in a need for a reset.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
3rd December 2024, 12:58
when systems get to big too fail, they actually can fail. The trick is to keep people believing on the way down.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
3rd December 2024, 13:04
If only Sauber gotten more serious sponsors/partners to field their cars this year. …
So happy for the Zhou family. Best F1 news in forever.
oweng (@oweng)
3rd December 2024, 14:22
Thanks for COTD. One of the key things needed for change is motivation to make it happen. I’d question whether that exists or not. Imagine 2 poor decisions involving the same drivers, one favouring one driver, the second favouring the other. Drivers/teams probably think these things balance out over time so there is no net loss. Even worse they become adept at playing the system to their advantage. But the fans see 2 poor outcomes.
Only the fans probably really want to see radical change. The teams/drivers are probably happy enough to continue as we are.
MichaelN
3rd December 2024, 17:17
And that’s the problem with the FIA picking people from inside the F1 bubble to be stewards, especially the former drivers who are still chummy with the people in charge of teams. The national representative appointed by the host nation can’t do much, and they’re probably thrilled to be on the panel so just go along with the others out of some misplaced sense of deference.
But whatever the details, it’s ultimately the FIA picking these people. So whether or not the F1 teams want this or that, they don’t actually have a say.
frood19 (@frood19)
3rd December 2024, 23:30
I guess the reason they didn’t throw a safety car is because they thought it’d influence the race too much. Terrible reasoning but if, as some suggest, forcing all cars through the pits under a vsc, that would be about as cheap a pitstop as could be made. The relative time loss would be pretty much just the stationary time – people would be up in arms as much as in Monaco and Brazil with the red flag free pitstops.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
4th December 2024, 7:15
all they had to do was post a VSC and have a marshall run out on track when there was enough of a gap.
such a poorly executed race in that respect. Like everyone knew that mirror was going to wreck someone’s race for a very long time, and nothing was really done about it. Just boggles the mind actually.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
6th December 2024, 2:14
Great achievement by sauber to finally score points this year with a terrible car, too bad it’s not bottas, who generally was the better driver.