Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
Franco Colapinto may have only started nine races last year but he made an impression on many of our readers:
One of my defining memories of 2024 was repeatedly watching Colapinto on his onboard camera throughout the Baku weekend, specifically at the right-left chicane that follows the super-narrow castle corner. Lap after lap, every time, he would exit the right-hander slightly sideways in a subtle four-wheel drift, steering left throughout the second half of the right-hander. Then, to trigger his turn in to the left-hander, he wouldn’t really move the steering wheel from that position at all. He would just tap the brake, and the weight transfer would grip up those fronts, transitioning from a four-wheel sideways drift into a sharp turn in the opposite direction, without steering input.
It was sublime. And seemingly pretty quick. And he just kept pulling it off. I’ve not seen that consistently done in F1 before. Sadly, I don’t think anyone else noticed it at all.
Alesici
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Nathan and Salut Gilles!
On this day in motorsport
- Born today in 1993: Rio Haryanto, who became the first driver from Indonesia to start a Formula 1 race
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Jere (@jerejj)
22nd January 2025, 6:32
COTD: I certainly didn’t notice him using such a line through those particular corners.
Hearing a female voice in Ocon’s radio comms will definitely sound weird to me at first until I get fully used to her voice, which will happen quickly anyway.
Continuing on the matter, Ronan O’Hare has become Bearman’s race engineer, & these position changes are down to both Mark Slade & Gary Gannon (Aston Martin) having left the team.
Bob C.
22nd January 2025, 9:54
Just out of idle curiosity: does anyone know where Mark Slade went and why (did he retire)? I remember that when Haas hired him, it was presented as a bit of a coup signing (at least in Danish press, which of course was always eager to elevate the significance of any MAG-related news)
BasCB (@bascb)
22nd January 2025, 11:10
Good to hear more female voices throughout the paddock, thanks @jerejj for filling in a few more of the race engineer positions shifting / moving in the teams.
I’ll have to go back and look at what Alesici describes (COTD), that sounds amazing! It’s interesting how sometimes you can see a driver do something a bit special. I hope he does find his way back on the grid and can work on his consistency while maintaining the good stuff.