Fernando Alonso, Toyota, Le Mans, 2018

Hartley: Triple-header will be hardest for Alonso

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In the round-up: Brendon Hartley expects Fernando Alonso will find F1’s triple-header than most drivers because he raced at Le Mans the weekend before it began.

What they say

If I speak from my own perspective this was a lot easier because last year I was crossing I don’t know how many time zones, [driving] different cars, there was a lot for me to learn every single weekend. I was pretty overloaded.

From a driver’s point of view I think we’re all pretty prepared for this. I think the only one who maybe will suffer a bit is Fernando because he’s done Le Mans as well. I know how much that takes out of you physically and mentally.

I think the harder thing is for the people in the team: mechanics, catering. The logistics for three weekends in a row. And the distances covered are quite big. I think it puts a lot of strain on everyone. I think in this respect for the drivers its not so bad, we’re prepared for this. I think all of us probably had one or two days off in between each race.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Is Kimi Raikkonen having a poor enough season to justify Ferrari replacing him?

Raikkonen has a head to head advantage over Vettel 4-3 [in races where both finished] and although he is 45 points down in points to Vettel, the two retirements would surely have made the deficit quite a bit smaller.

The point I am trying to make is that Raikkonen is having a good year by anyone’s standards. Yes he has made mistakes but so has Vettel and Vettel’s have been much more costly. No he hasn’t scored any wins, but he is a solid rear gunner for Vettel which is what Ferrari wants.
Lyle

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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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18 comments on “Hartley: Triple-header will be hardest for Alonso”

  1. Gemma St. Ivans
    6th July 2018, 0:30

    I can’t imagine watching F1 without Kimi7. Hopefully he stays around for another year at the Scuderia. He’s having a great season. I love how he answers some of the silly questions he is asked. Viva Kimi!

    1. ColdFly (@)
      6th July 2018, 6:58

      He is great/weird/enigmatic during interviews, but mostly rather bland when racing.

      He’d be a good replacement for Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

  2. I agree about Kimi.
    I too hope he will stick around for another year. Give Leclerc, anther year’s experience and hone his skills.

    The MS article on the Ferrari Youth Brigade was insightful and timely.

    For Haas, congrats on the new sponsorship. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t take the opportunity to add some colour with the logos from Peak and BlueDef. Make Peak Blue like the containers and then BlueDef blue and black for Def.
    more grey does not help.
    Just my 2 pc.

    1. @photozen – Good colourful point. However, the Hass brand colour is grey and allegedly exploiting a grey area in the constructor rules, so consistency is key.

  3. 2019: Renault believes its Formula 1 engine project have less focus and more “confusion” having to fulfil the “eccentric” requests made by McLaren.
    (did McLaren had engineer who knew what to asked?)

  4. According to Will Buxton, Zack Brown has said that it could take McLaren up to 10 years to get back to a championship winning level from here on out…. that’s insane. He also said that there are rumours in the paddock that the firing of Boullier and the two new ‘Fernando-Friendly’ hires were done to appease Alonso…

    Then this morning, according to a Dutch website, McLaren have now canceled their Indy Car plans because of the current problems, while I read yesterday on here that Brown said McLaren still want’s to go into Indy… What is going on there?! McLaren really is in disarray…

    1. ColdFly (@)
      6th July 2018, 9:26

      It was merely a gesture to let Boullier go, and I certainly won’t miss him.
      But ask yourself: what has Zak Brown achieved at McLaren?

      1. I have a feeling there is less disarray at Mac than it appears from the outside. Nobody at all expected things to go as they did with Honda, so they’ve been thrown for a loop. I suggest that had things gone better with Honda they would have been able to confirm more things with the car and wouldn’t be struggling as much now. And now they are just at the start of their project with Renault. So yeah of course they have issues, but I think they have the ability and the resources to change some things up and improve their path. The ten years thing? Surprising to hear it worded that way, but let’s consider them not Championship level while they are a Renault customer, then moving to a better Pu option and that taking time to sort out. I’d say yeah perhaps up to ten years before they utterly dominate, but probably less than that to become competitive again, and certainly we don’t hear Zak saying 10 years, therefore we’re done with F1. If they’ve backed off an a full Indy project and just want to do the 500, that’s probably a good thing, especially after reading the article by @dieterrencken about how they historically don’t do well when they diversify away from F1 too much. They’ll sort themselves out. It takes time. Just ask any team that isn’t Mercedes since 2014.

  5. Excellent round up Keith, really good selection of linked articles, appreciate the curation.

  6. In response to Hartley’s quote: This triple-header (and the travelling in F1, in general) is hard for the drivers as well. In the end, they do as much travelling in a year as the other team members who attend all the races, so I don’t really understand this relatively constant talking of the travelling-task in F1 only really being hard for certain team members even though the amount of travelling is the same who everyone who attends all the races.
    – Keith’s tweet, though.
    – Regarding the COTD: I’m more or less 50-50 on whether Ferrari should keep Kimi beyond this season or not. Yes, the last few years I’ve generally thought that they shouldn’t and instead give it to someone who has more to give, but on the other hand, the COTD has a good point that supports retaining him to a certain extent.

    1. Kid just never had a real job.

  7. Kimi may have beaten Vettel 4-3, but I can’t recall a single weekend bar Australia where he was quicker on pace. In China he beat him only because of Verstappen, Paul Ricard was because Vettel fell to the back at the start, Baku was because of the safety car and Vettel’s mistake into Turn 1 on the restart, and Austria was because of Vettel’s grid penalty. Provided, most of these were because of Vettel’s mistakes, but Kimi simply isn’t as quick, and over the course of a season, that 4-3 will easily become one-sided to Vettel.

    1. Hay Nicolas article about HAM is excellent top drawer perceptive journalism. Breath of fresh air!

  8. Kimi is retirement age. Promote young accademy drivers asap. It is the future and they need to start building it now.

    Can you imagine Ferrari #2 driver that qualifies 4-5 slots higher than Kimi? And is maybe even faster than Vettel?

    They need speed, especially in quali. If they could place atleast one car on the first row things would be a lot different.

    As it is Kimi starts a bit from pole and looses a place or two on the opening lap and then proceedes from there. Where is the action?

    But credit where credit is due. He was great in Austria.

    1. Not even great in austria imo, he was good; had he been great he wouldn’t have made that mistake and would’ve kept verstappen behind, resulting in the last race win of his career.

    2. “Kimi is retirement age”
      What does age have to do with retirement?
      As long as he has the desire and skills he should keep driving. He’s having a decent year – same as Vettel but with fewer critical mistakes.
      If Ferrari lets him go and no other team wants him, it’s time for him to retire.

      “Promote young academy drivers asap”
      That’s what F2 is for. If they are good enough they will make it to F1 when the time is right.
      The push for getting young drivers on the grid currently exists. I don’t see how or why it needs to change.

  9. If that proposed NJ area track is really going to be 1.5 miles long, then those people are insane. No F1 track in history has ever been that short.

Comments are closed.