Welcome to Thursday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
Jack Doohan’s future at Alpine is in doubt again – is it too soon to judge whether or not he deserves to keep his seat?
I have been rooting for Jack and he has shown himself to be competent, but not much more. His best flashes of speed just put him near Gasly while Bearman has been far out-performing Ocon who Gasly was in a dead even heat with during their time together.
So, forgetting Briatore for a moment, is there really any good argument for Alpine keeping Doohan over Colapinto? Besides, Doohan will be fine. He’s handsome. Has a famous last name. And can/will have a long career as a WEC, IndyCar, Formula E, etc… driver. Hardly the end of the world (a dream life for myself and 99.9% of the world).
Red Bull managing director Oliver Mitzlaff: 'I am convinced that he will continue the long journey he has taken with Red Bull so far. Max will also drive for us in 2026.'
'Ms Rao will provide advice to the FIA President on a range of issues including regulatory and commercial matters related to the seven FIA world championships. She will commence her role on 1st May 2025.'
'Under the new format, the previous 45-minute opening phase of the first session will be trimmed to 40 minutes. In the second phase, when the 27-car field was previously split into two 10-minute groups to allow for less congestion while drivers perform qualifying simulations on Firestone’s faster alternate tyres, the 10-minutes per segment has been extended to 12 minutes apiece.'
'It’s something that the Miami Grand Prix believes sets its race apart. In a sport and a circuit still dominated by males — there hasn’t been a woman behind the wheel for a Formula 1 race since 1992 — it will be difficult this weekend to find an element of the event that isn’t overseen by a woman.'
'Thanks to RaceWatch, FIA officials now only manually review 5% of (track limits) cases that truly require attention. The system: Flags infractions within one second; Reduces manual oversight by 95%, and saves over 1,000 hours of review time annually.'
'It's a trend of the year. I think last year we had really good qualifying results, and we tended to move rearwards in the races. And this year we've been really good in the races.'
Jonathan Wheatley on his favourite F1 memory: 'I think it has to be the championship win (for Michael Schumacher) in Adelaide in 1994 because it was a season where you felt you were under siege, you were embattled and the explosion of joy at the end of it and the partying afterwards, in that era, in that city, in that town... unbelievable. That for me will always stick with me.'
'Today, we announce that we've reached the end of the road working on WRC. After releasing EA Sports WRC in 2023, the 2024 season, including the recently released Hard Chargers Content pack, will be our last expansion.'
I wonder how many times Max & Red Bull’s senior/upper management need to convince everyone?
The truth simply is that nothing will change unless something drastic happens & in any case, realistically after next season at the very least.
The temporary Ferrari driving suit design looks great, even if the relatively marginal livery tweaks don’t.
Red Bull managing director Oliver Mitzlaff: ‘I am convinced that he will continue the long journey he has taken with Red Bull so far. Max will also drive for us in 2026.’
This kind of comments doesn’t give me the vibe that Max stays … He stays when the car can compete otherwise he stops or looks further.
@macleod Good point, but I still prefer to believe relevant parties over third parties over matters directly concerning a given party or person, especially as lying in public wouldn’t serve anyone within the relevant party.
Why Miami? Is US that important? I mean, for me it’s just one race, one of the worst, it has nothing special in it, nothing to celebrate, and everybody is trying to make a hit.
I feel within 10 years we will have forgotten it. Both Miami and Vegas. And we will remember these awkward pre-GP stuff with embarrassment, ‘why did we do that?’
The thing I don’t like about it is if you at that image from 94′ at the top of this article. (I might be biased because I love the shape of the B194) but I know which is the Williams, Benetton & Ferrari at a glance.
In twenty years time, won’t people look back watching races from this era of F1 and have to figure who’s in the pink, and is Gasly the one promoting a Marvel film?
I know it’s money, but’s all a bit messy. The tie-ins are rarely connected. When McLaren ‘celebrate’ Gulf, we all associate that livery with Porsche and Le Mans, yes, McLaren ran TAG / Porsche engines but the links are very tenuous. Ferrari have an ‘identity’ that is worth a lot (they’re the red cars). But these ‘special’ liveries seem a bit happy meal free toy.
I wonder how much it would cost to get Ferrari to change their livery to being ‘Wallace & Gromit’ themed for the British GP? Everyone has a price / ‘celebrate the release of’.
@picasso-19d-ftw I know you might intend it as a joke but, ahead of last year’s Las Vegas GP, US immigration officials did hold Tsunoda under custody for questioning for around 3 hours with the possible threat that he would be refused entry and be deported from the USA. As an aside, it seems that, despite requests for an explanation from those officials, no explanation has been forthcoming for why he was detained.
The US has always had these issues. I think it was Kubica in his BMW days that had to use a different engineer at Indianapolis because his usual engineer Ahmadi wasn’t given a visa, for no discernable reason other than that he had a name that scared the US Americans.
On the topic of EA WRC:
“For now, we are pausing development plans on future rally titles.”
That’s got to be hard for the dev team. Especially when the original plan would have been to continuously work with the aquired WRC license. I hope they’re able to find roles to work in.
And if it is the end of Codemasters’ rally game making, that would mean the end to their WRC Rally series.
aka the Dirt Rally series.
aka the Dirt series.
aka the Colin McRae Dirt series.
aka the Colin McRae Rally series.
bull mello (@bullmello)
1st May 2025, 2:20
Sad day…
GeeMac (@geemac)
1st May 2025, 5:31
RIP Roland and Ayrton.
MacLeod (@macleod)
1st May 2025, 7:44
Indeed a black weekend may they rest in peace.
Jere (@jerejj)
1st May 2025, 6:32
I wonder how many times Max & Red Bull’s senior/upper management need to convince everyone?
The truth simply is that nothing will change unless something drastic happens & in any case, realistically after next season at the very least.
The temporary Ferrari driving suit design looks great, even if the relatively marginal livery tweaks don’t.
MacLeod (@macleod)
1st May 2025, 7:46
This kind of comments doesn’t give me the vibe that Max stays … He stays when the car can compete otherwise he stops or looks further.
Jere (@jerejj)
1st May 2025, 18:49
@macleod Good point, but I still prefer to believe relevant parties over third parties over matters directly concerning a given party or person, especially as lying in public wouldn’t serve anyone within the relevant party.
Jere (@jerejj)
1st May 2025, 18:48
I don’t know how I ended up typing ‘least’ instead of ‘earliest’
Diez Cilindros (@diezcilindros)
1st May 2025, 6:39
I still don’t get the special livery fever.
Why Miami? Is US that important? I mean, for me it’s just one race, one of the worst, it has nothing special in it, nothing to celebrate, and everybody is trying to make a hit.
I feel within 10 years we will have forgotten it. Both Miami and Vegas. And we will remember these awkward pre-GP stuff with embarrassment, ‘why did we do that?’
MichaelN
1st May 2025, 9:04
It makes the US Americans feel special, and it puts the sponsors on every news site. It’s a win for everyone.
And it only costs an afternoon of design work and some stickers.
It’s a small price to pay for the more than a billion USD the teams collectively get from Liberty.
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
1st May 2025, 9:15
Probably some money involved as is always the case with these things.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
1st May 2025, 10:48
The thing I don’t like about it is if you at that image from 94′ at the top of this article. (I might be biased because I love the shape of the B194) but I know which is the Williams, Benetton & Ferrari at a glance.
In twenty years time, won’t people look back watching races from this era of F1 and have to figure who’s in the pink, and is Gasly the one promoting a Marvel film?
I know it’s money, but’s all a bit messy. The tie-ins are rarely connected. When McLaren ‘celebrate’ Gulf, we all associate that livery with Porsche and Le Mans, yes, McLaren ran TAG / Porsche engines but the links are very tenuous. Ferrari have an ‘identity’ that is worth a lot (they’re the red cars). But these ‘special’ liveries seem a bit happy meal free toy.
I wonder how much it would cost to get Ferrari to change their livery to being ‘Wallace & Gromit’ themed for the British GP? Everyone has a price / ‘celebrate the release of’.
Picasso 1.9D FTW (@picasso-19d-ftw)
1st May 2025, 8:37
With F1 in the US this weekend, expect a system named RaceWatch to incur the wrath of the regime’s anti-DEI purge.
anon
1st May 2025, 9:15
@picasso-19d-ftw I know you might intend it as a joke but, ahead of last year’s Las Vegas GP, US immigration officials did hold Tsunoda under custody for questioning for around 3 hours with the possible threat that he would be refused entry and be deported from the USA. As an aside, it seems that, despite requests for an explanation from those officials, no explanation has been forthcoming for why he was detained.
S Arkazam
1st May 2025, 10:35
They shared this though as the reason to stop him.
MichaelN
1st May 2025, 10:01
The US has always had these issues. I think it was Kubica in his BMW days that had to use a different engineer at Indianapolis because his usual engineer Ahmadi wasn’t given a visa, for no discernable reason other than that he had a name that scared the US Americans.
CryptidBadger (@ninjabadger)
1st May 2025, 10:49
On the topic of EA WRC:
“For now, we are pausing development plans on future rally titles.”
That’s got to be hard for the dev team. Especially when the original plan would have been to continuously work with the aquired WRC license. I hope they’re able to find roles to work in.
And if it is the end of Codemasters’ rally game making, that would mean the end to their WRC Rally series.
aka the Dirt Rally series.
aka the Dirt series.
aka the Colin McRae Dirt series.
aka the Colin McRae Rally series.