Welcome to Saturday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
In their third year under team principal James Vowles, Williams are having their best season since 2017 and @Rsp123 reckons he deserves praise:
JV is proving to be an exceptional team manager. Takes it on the chin for the sake of the team when mistakes are made, but spreads the responsibility around the team when things go right. And communicates so clearly with a winning, dorky charm.
I’m sure he has his shortcomings, but I bet they love him at the factory.
@Rsp123
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Julian Castaldi!
On this day in motorsport
- 10 years ago today Nico Rosberg dominated the Spanish Grand Prix.
- Born today in 1975: Future four-times Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves
- Born today in 1977: Nick Heidfeld – 1999 Formula 3000 champion; Took his only F1 pole position in his home race in 2005; Holds record for most second places without a win (eight); 2014 WEC LMP1 (non-hybrid) co-champion
- 55 years ago today Jochen Rindt won a dramatic Monaco Grand Prix after Jack Brabham crashed on the final lap. The race also proved Bruce McLaren’s final F1 race before his untimely death.
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MarkWebber (@markwebber)
10th May 2025, 2:07
I didn’t know that a super licence isn’t enough to race officially at the Nürburgring. I suppose there must be some special security protocols.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
10th May 2025, 2:58
I’d never heard of a ‘Nordschleife A-Permit’. Imagine saying ‘Nein!’ after reading Max’s resume.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
10th May 2025, 5:22
It’s because of the very unique nature of the Nordschleife circuit with it’s length, difficulty to master, some of the protocols in place during races which aren’t used elsewhere as well as the size of the grids and very wide mix of drivers skill/experience levels which take place in them.
What you have done elsewhere is irrelevant. Anyone that wishes to race on the Nordschleife needs to go through the same process to get the required license and if you don’t abide by the protocol (such as speeding in a code 60 zone) you will lose your licence, be forced to sit out the next race and have to reapply and go through the entire process again.
The test it’s involves a class where some of the protocols and procedures are explained as well as certain parts of the circuit been looked at in more detail. You then go out with an experienced Nordschleife driver who will talk you around, you then go out in a car following him around and then do laps on your own.
Once you show you understand the procedures, know how to driver a car and can make it around the circuit without binning it you’ll get a licence but as I said it can be revoked if you do silly things during race meetings.
Doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. It’s a process everyone goes through if they want to race on the ring.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
10th May 2025, 5:31
There’s a bit more about it in this video.
https://youtu.be/lG20NSjYLuU?si=bUypu244g5D_nIaa
And getting it revoked this missing the 24 hours.
https://youtu.be/GkN22glTHLM?si=1CAgjIKaz7RAu3rc
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
10th May 2025, 8:13
@markwebber Le Mans has a similar stance. It will accept people with a fairly low general licence – but insists everyone, no matter what FIA licence they have, also have a simulator test and 10 laps of the actual track before being granted a Le Mans-specific licence (this is less involved than the Nordschleife’s version). Without that licence, it is not possible to participate in race week.
(Also note that none of this excludes anyone from the pre-weekend briefing or 10 laps of night testing, that has to be renewed every year during race week qualifying).
Ferdi
13th May 2025, 6:57
What a racer this Verstappen is. Set the lap record, no press talk, leave. He is the real deal. I hope he will trade in Liberty’s sh.. show circus soon for WEC.
Ferdi
13th May 2025, 6:58
What a racer this Verstappen is. Set the lap record, no press talk, leave. He is the real deal. I hope he will trade in Liberty’s circus soon for WEC.
MichaelN
10th May 2025, 7:28
Daly has written an overly long letter, and his constant use of Roger’s name is a bit grating, but he has an excellent point. I haven’t really followed Indycar since last year’s cheating scandal, but it was always a bit of a struggle to keep track of who is who each weekend.
Like or dislike it, Ferrari with the HP logo is still a Ferrari. Even the recent BIG HP version was still a Ferrari. Whereas in Indycar, they’d just ditch all the red entirely. Not good.
SteveP
10th May 2025, 9:47
Maybe he thinks Penske is like Trump and needs his name repeating at intervals in a document, or he won’t read all the way to the end?
This one fails the Trump test in that it doesn’t have his name in every paragraph.
Gerrit
10th May 2025, 9:51
To bring sponsors into the sport means you have to cut your cloth to suit the width. Is it better but harder to chase one sponsor (with deep pockets) that will cover the whole season or is it better to bring sponsors (not as affluent) into the sport to sponsor a car for one two or three races? Sponsors who may see value for money and possibly increase to a full year sponsorship?
F1 is missing out on many sponsorship deals simply as it does not allow separate sponsorship of individual cars across a single team. Nor does it allow more than a single sponsorship for a series of individual races.
Doe sit really matter that Mclaughin has a different sponsor for the Indy race tomorrow? Not really. Fans will still see the number 3, fans will know he is a Penske driver and the commentators will point him out (and his sponsors) in the telecast. Was a Yardley, West or Marlboro sponsored McLaren take away from the McLaren brand identification? Not at all. People still identified the car as a McLaren. F1 fans don’t have a problem with changes of livery (McLaren gorgeous Gulf livery for Monaco being a prime example, as was a where Red Bull and a pink Racing Bull) on F1 cars, so why would they have a problem with different sponsors?
Just another point of differentiation between the closed and closeted franchise operation that is F1 and the rest of the racing world.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
10th May 2025, 15:06
I disagree and think it does matter.
I watch Indycar regularly and have done for years, I know all the teams and all the drivers and yet I regularly have difficult spotting who’s who from race to race because of how radically different liveries can be and that makes it far harder than it should be to follow races sometimes.
Especially when you have a pack of cars and can’t easily see the numbers it becomes impossible to know who’s who and are having to try and relearn liveries and colours every race, It’s just an unnecessary pain which Indycar absolutely needs to clamp down on.
In contrast with F1 it’s far easier to quickly figure that stuff out because car colours remain the same and I can honestly say that I rarely (If ever) struggle to ID cars/drivers while I am struggling with that more often in Indycar.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
10th May 2025, 15:12
Just to quickly add.
This never used to be a problem until the past couple years. Yes even in the CART heyday you would see liveries change a bit during the season as teams would pick up local sponsors or get a new sponsors for a big race like Indy but outside of very rare exceptions the basic design and colour scheme would remain the same so you were never having to sit down and look at a spotters guide before or during each race.
Gerrit
10th May 2025, 20:16
The fact that Indy car teams do this on a regular basis means that their viewers are not bothered as much as you are. They (as do I) seem to cope with the frequent Scotty Mac sponsors livery changes If you are say are a minor sponsor in F1; what exposure do you get for a small sticker on the cowling? Here is a list of sponsors for each F1 entrant. https://formularapida.net/en/f1-2025-list-of-partners-sponsors-for-each-of-10-teams/ How many did you know? I for one would love to see each sponsor have their own livery even if only once in the 24 event calendar year. Commercially would the sponsors brand exposure be improved in a once a year livery? I would say it would. Would those sponsors pay more accordingly for the greater brand exposure (and increase their tax avoidance by increasing expenditure)? at say their “home” GP?
PeterG
11th May 2025, 14:39
The frequent livery changes has been something i’ve seen a lot of indycar fans complain about for a while now.
I mean on the Indycar sub-reddit discussing Daly’s article basically everyone says they agree with him and many fans newer to to the series have commented saying it was something that made getting into the series and learning teams/drivers much harder than it was compared to other series.
The fact they keep doing it has nothing to do with what fans think about it because lets be honest they would still do it even if they knew that 99% of fans disliked it because the reason they do it money and that is all any team be it in indycar or f1 cares about.
Esmiz (@esmiz)
10th May 2025, 17:12
F1 doesn’t want small sponsors on cars. They don’t want a sponsor who’s a small-town shop, or a brand that’s only sold in one country. They want big names, even if they’re shady, because they add value to the F1 brand overall. It’s not that it’s prohibited, but I think teams are encouraged to have sponsor brands with an international presence, or large-caliber companies precisely for this reason. Furthermore, In F1 the brand recognition of the teams is also important because the teams are brands in themselves. A cap, a jacket, a jersey can sell for much more with your “team colors” than if you didn’t even know what your team colors are.