Alexander Albon, Williams, Circuit de Catalunya, 2025

Round-up: Williams sure Spanish GP upgrade worked, Toyota lead Le Mans test and more

RaceFans Round-up

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Welcome to Monday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.

Comment of the day

Last weekend’s Caption Competition winner is Roth Man:

Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Andrea Kimi 
Antonelli, 2025

Hmm, this red painted Mercedes gives me an idea…
Roth Man (@Rdotquestionmark)

Social media and links

Vowles Verdict: Spain (Williams)

'We had the front wing regulation change this weekend and to put it in context we took this opportunity to do a small aerodynamic front wing update and the car we are running here in Barcelona is a faster car than we had in Imola or Miami or races prior to that thanks to that update, which puts into context just how insignificant the aeroelastic element was in terms of the test, certainly on our car. And I think globally the performance order didn't really change much.'

WEC: Toyota tops Le Mans test day (FIA)

'Toyota Gazoo Racing emerged from today’s traditional 24 Hours of Le Mans Test Day with initial bragging rights, as Brendon Hartley put the number eight GR010 Hybrid at the head of the pecking-order'

'It's going to be the most authentic F1 movie ever' – Q&A with ‘F1’ movie star Javier Bardem (F1)

'I'm not a huge racing fan myself, because I barely know how to drive a car, so it's not in my nature.'

UK special investigations team doubles tax haul in crackdown on the rich (Financial Times)

'Nearly half of the money, £652mn, collected by the WMBC in 2023-24 was brought in from a settlement with Bernie Ecclestone, the British business magnate and former motor racing executive, Shah said. However, even without the Ecclestone settlement, the amount collected was £848mn in the 2023-24 tax year, still higher than the £713mn raised in the previous year.'

Grand prix move to downtown Detroit was a mistake. Belle Isle was better - Letters (Detroit Free Press)

'Racing downtown, just for the sake of saying that that they are racing in downtown Detroit and speeding down the riverfront, is not worth making the city such a laughing stock for the poor quality of the race course.'

Hockenheim race two (Euroformula Open via YouTube)

Hockenheim race three (Euroformula Open via YouTube)

Zandvoort race two (Formula Regional Europe via YouTube)

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Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Stevo and Ricardo Marques!

On this day in motorsport

  • 35 years ago today Ayrton Senna put his McLaren on pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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12 comments on “Round-up: Williams sure Spanish GP upgrade worked, Toyota lead Le Mans test and more”

  1. The current Indycar Detroit street circuit is almost as bad as the car park circuits Liberty have dragged F1 to.

    So seems like Indycar are taking away challenging circuits that are popular with fans and drivers because racing in a downtown city streets on a horrible uninspiring, featureless, soul-less car park is apparently so much better.

    Belle-Isle wasn’t the greatest circuit in the world in terms of having an amazing layout or anything but it was one of those old school street circuits that actually provided a real challenge to car and driver with all of the features that street circuits used to have which made them a challenge and made them unique and different to the permanent venues. Same reason that Long Beach is such a cool circuits, It has character, soul and an atmosphere on top of the unique challenges it thrown up in terms of the roads been built for everyday traffic.

  2. Most authentic F1 movie ever? That’s a bold claim. What are the others? Mainly Grand Prix from 66 and Rush. And both were quite authentic, specially Rush which was based on real events. So if F1 (what a stupid title) is going to beat that, it’s going to.be great.

    I’m really excited for that film, even if there’s too.mucj Hollywood in it. Hope it doesn’t disappoint.

    1. Coventry Climax
      9th June 2025, 9:39

      So if F1 (what a stupid title)

      It’s even worse than that, with “F1, the movie” being rather pukeworthy as far as I’m concerned.

      I grew up with american movies and TV seies and all, but I hardly ever watch anyting american anymore. Yes, we have Netflix, and we try things ocasionally, but I always give up on american films and series after some 20 minutes or so, to go find something Scandinavian, British, Spanish or any such.

    2. Coventry Climax
      9th June 2025, 9:49

      It’ll probably be chocful of scenes where they are racing, yeah, seriously racing, yet our hero manages to repeatedly find another couple of inches of pedal travel down through the floor of the car.
      And any such typically american, completely uninspiring, boringly lousy cowdung.
      Then given there’s an actor in the lead role that displays the exact same, smug poutface in whatever role he’s ever played, and the “No thank you” is more than complete for me.

      1. You keep saying ‘American’ but it’s really just Hollywood. They’re in no way the same thing. You can see examples by looking at the recent movies from Hollywood and how they’ve been received, by not just the world, but by regular Americans. American’s don’t seem to agree with Hollywood either. More blame on Hollywood, less on the regular citizens, I beg you. Thank you.

        1. Every other week there’s a movie coming out of Hollywood that grosses over 100 million in the US alone. Many more also make tens of millions. Hollywood productions are still very popular in the US.

          Movies like F1 are for the general audience. F1 afficionados aren’t going to get a documentary that details how the MGU-H works. That’s not the point. These directors have a strong track record, and the movie will probably be good fun.

        2. Coventry Climax
          11th June 2025, 12:14

          I’ll do that once the americans have grown up, show being capable of using more braincells than just the ones that leaked into their ears and that they happened to have smeared from there onto their credit cards, and manage to get a real president again.
          That last task is getting harder by the day.

          Even Reagan was less of a farce and clown, and certainly not as dangerously harmful: The current one is even downright lethal to democracy – by his own admission – , yet americans voted for him and gave him their confidence.
          I’d say that makes for a decent match with the level of hollywood movies sofar.

          1. You do realize that over 75 million of us voted for his opponent yet have to suffer the consequences anyway? Tarring us all like this is ignorant and foolish. There’s no need for such intemperate commentary.

        3. Coventry Climax
          11th June 2025, 12:23

          And no, I said ‘american’ because I meant ‘american’, and not just hollywood.
          Maybe people like Michael Moore are the exception, but it’s still very much a rule to me.

      2. They said they wanted to avoid that, and Hamilton was very insistent on that so I’ve got that hope.

        I hate the hollywoodisation of things, but some of it is great. I loved Days of Thunder for example. Hated the butchering of the original Taxi movie (the one with the 406 which they went on to do with Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah). Ford vs Ferrari is Hollywood and they did a pretty good job IMO, I really liked it. Rush is also Hollywood and it was fantastic.

        1. Coventry Climax
          11th June 2025, 12:27

          Rush is/was Canadian and fantastic.
          The Hollywood Rush was so-so at best.

  3. Nice to see Bernie finally chipping in. I take it all back (OK I didn’t, be good if they had got it all back tho).

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