Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Paul Ricard, 2019

Vettel doesn’t see a “strong need” for a London Grand Prix

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Sebastian Vettel says he isn’t convinced Britain needs a race in London as well as Silverstone.

What they say

Vettel was asked if he would like to see F1 racing in London:

I don’t think there’s a strong need to go into the cities. Personally I don’t think there would be any more people in the city than here because this is great. We have every year that I can remember more than 100,000 fans each weekend. I think that’s great.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Is Verstappen’s unwillingness to compromise a weakness or a strength?

This is what I don’t like about him. Does he ever back down?

He ruined the race of Sainz in Bahrain by not backing off. Almost ran into the back of Hamilton at Monaco. He ruined his and races of many others in early part of last season by not backing off. He expected Ocon to back off and cut him sharply after being overtaken on the straight in Brazil last year and threw away a win. When he doesn’t back off most of the time why does he expects other drivers to let him through?

Verstappen is a fantastic new generation driver but I doubt he will ever be a clean driver.
@Amg44

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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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30 comments on “Vettel doesn’t see a “strong need” for a London Grand Prix”

  1. That’s a nice gesture to Charlie’s family by the FIA. FIA? or FOM?

  2. Is the reason for Lando cracking up at the PC something to do with the subsequent tweet of him beaching a McLaren?

    1. No, it was Danny Ric asking about his pubes…

    2. No, it was the question Ricciardo asked him during the PC.

      https://www.instagram.com/p/BzyF_X-AUBT/

      1. Ha ha ha, that’s nuts! Typical Ricciardo :)

        And Hamilton doing his best to be professional and answer the question like he’s not surrounded by teenaged schoolboys. :)

        Thanks @riptide and JC

      2. So, Ricciardo seems to have a real fixation… some days ago he was admiring McLaren’s “package”, and now he goes asking these questions of Lando.

        Hmmm… ಠ_ಠ

        1. Electroball76
          12th July 2019, 9:46

          Perhaps Dan dreams of replacing Carlos next season?

  3. on COTD, maybe VER is taking too seriously that thing about Senna: he would put the opponent on the position to let him thru or to crash (I think Brundle told that).
    And I agree with COTD that by now that aggressiveness didnt pay out much.
    Most of the cases VER lost position.
    I think VER is the most likely to cause a major accident and spend the next two GPs in an apologetic mode.

    1. He’s third in WDC, ahead of both Ferraris… So, I guess, it’s working out just fine for him.

  4. “It is more that I find it funny, actually, that in a way people ask for a show, for emotions, characters… then they get a bit of it and people throw themselves on it and criticise it.”

    I think they want interesting drivers with emotions and not men getting close to middle age acting like petulant children. I know I will miss him when he move on, but I think it is time.

  5. On the BBC piece:

    But what we are doing now looks like over-policing. And calling things dangerous that are not dangerous just for the sake of leading somebody into a penalty and all this.

    E-x-a-c-t-l-y-! This, and absolutely this!
    As I said several days before, ultimately he got punished because HAM had to brake, as if the pedal was supposed to be protected under a breakable glass station.

    On COTD:
    For the better or worse he is this way. He won great races that way and lost stupidly the same way. But IMO, racing needs drivers like him, as of other styles as well. Eventually when he gets wiser, he’ll approach things differently. But I’d honestly prefer he and Magnussen clashed more often, so he could be on the receiving side of his racecraft. I mean, watching Rosberg’s payback on Senna at Brands Hatch was really funny, and in a way, educative. Even stubborn as he was, Senna matured eventually and got more complete diminishing his shenanigans. Why can’t VER?

    1. @niefer, I suppose that, with Senna, it depends on whether you ask somebody near the front of the grid or somebody near the rear of the grid, because the attitude that Senna had towards those who were in the middle or back of the grid didn’t really seem to change much.

      It’s part of the reason why, when there was the clash between Irvine and Senna at the Japanese GP, where Senna went on to punch Irvine after their post race argument, public opinion generally was against Senna as most saw it as a sign that the darker aspects of his character never went away, he just got better at disguising them.

      1. Fair point, anon!

  6. Going a little off the topic, read somewhere Hamilton making comment about clashing of British GP with Wimbledon and CWC. It really sucks as there are 6 channels in India showing CWC and 2 covering Wimbledon while F1 has been dropped from listed programs. This happens way too often in India with Football and cricket getting priority with multiple sports channels covering the stupid sports while motorsports getting culled.

    1. No F1 even on SS Select? Damn.

      Hotstar, baby. 1k for a year. Worth it even as a backup (e.g. when travelling).

      1. Nope, unfortunately all Star sports channels have listed for Sunday noon onwards is CWC and last 2 are for Wimbledon(finals I presume). I will end up streaming it on Hotstar as that the best way watch it since F1 TV is not an option here. Only listing for F1 I found afterwards was at 00:00 hrs on Monday for a repeat telecast and highlights afterwards with no full repeat telecast.

        1. Good you’ve got Hotstar covering you, although I miss the absence of FP on it.

    2. That’s not cricket! Ok…sometimes it is.

    3. the clash is a real problem for fans of multiple sports. if you factor in the tour de france as well, there is a lot of sport competing for our attention (personally I am interested in all 4 events – what to do??)

      i’m a bit surprised they didn’t have a double-header with austria – then it would have been clashing with the tour de france only. there were no CWC games last sunday and wimbledon traditionally has a rest day on the middle sunday (which it did this year because there were few rain delays in the first week).

      in an era of very dull races and a waning tv audience, all efforts should have gone into avoiding this clash. these other events are in the calendar many months in advance, so F1 could schedule accordingly. the fact england got the final of the cricket has had an extra knock on effect, which is that Sky have allowed the game to be shown on terrestrial telly, which just so happens to be channel 4. it will get bumped to another channel when the GP starts (more 4, for those in the UK), but I expect many people to switch with it, such is the rarity of england doing well in world cup cricket.

      1. @frood19 But then we would’ve had another triple-header. Furthermore, it’s impossible to have an entirely clash-free schedule with other events, categories, etc., due to the number of events (even when only taking into account all the FIA-sanctioned categories, and series’) there are all around the world combined with the number of weekends available. Nothing one can do with it, especially if no one else would be willing to make sacrifices since it isn’t solely F1’s responsibility to avoid potential clashes. People always act as if weekend clashes would be 100% F1’s fault. I couldn’t care less, though, as F1 is and will always be my #1 priority.

        1. @jerejj true, the clashes are not solely the fault of F1. i think this weekend’s clashes are more relevant to a UK audience, particularly so given the loss of free-to-air coverage apart from this weekend – so I appreciate it’s probably not that big a deal to the rest of the world.

          triple-headers are kind of inevitable given when the season starts and the inclusion of the 4 week summer break. i think a triple-header involving the british GP is surely the easiest one, given most of the teams are based in the UK.

          1. @frood19 Avoiding a triple-header and maintaining the 4-week gap, or a gap of three race-free weekends isn’t really an inevitability, though, as the seasons can always be started a little earlier if necessary, and, therefore, spread out the races at the beginning so that the season overall would be a bit less condensed if necessary. Furthermore, a triple-header involving three venues from mainland-Europe would actually be (and would’ve been last year) easier than the one involving the British GP along with two continental-venues logistically.

      2. @frood19 Additionally, F1 race events are set for given dates months in advance as well, so again, not solely F1’s responsibility to do a favor for others. Should everyone want to avoid weekend clashes as much as possible then all parties should be required to make sacrifices, not just F1.

        1. I think the point is that F1 needs the favour…
          They are the ones who will lose viewers to the cricket and tennis, not the other way round.

  7. Regarding COTD, this is the same accusation many of us levelled at Verstappen in the early parts of both 2017 and 2018 but were silenced when he delivered absolutely smashing performances later on. I’m not his biggest fan, but I think every driver’s different nuanced driving style should be respected, encouraged and indeed savoured, for we don’t see many aggressive drivers getting top drives in the best cars. I for one am very happy that Verstappen doesn’t back down because there are enough drivers who do.

    1. @major-dev – well argued, +1 to this.

  8. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    12th July 2019, 7:34

    Agree with COTD. Verstappen’s manner of driving resulted in an awful start to last year. He’s taken 3 stupid risks at least this year. One with Sainz in Bahrain, Hamilton in Monaco and Leclerc in Austria. In all 3, he was very lucky that they ended in do damege at all. 2 were so near the end of the race that he could have seriously ruined his result. In Monaco it was pointless anyway as he would have likely lost as many positions staying behind Hamilton as getting ahead at that stage as there was barely any time left for him to pull away.

    Verstappen is extremely good, but if he keeps taking these risks, I can see many of them resulting in having similar a outcome to the incidents he had at the start of last year. I think he needs to back off far more often. It is better not gaining a position than risking a puncture. He got himself a puncture in Italy one year by trying too hard with Hamilton. He just needs to calm down. He looks like he’s been doing fine this year just because he hadn’t had one turn out badly yet, but he’s had several very lucky escapes.

  9. Who would directly ask something like that, LOL? A bit inappropriate and childish of him. Perhaps, Lando’s off-track excursion in that yellow Mclaren road-car was a consequence of him still being too much into the thought of what Dan said to him, i.e., distracted driving.

    Regarding the COTD: The incident in Bahrain was more or less 50-50, while the Brazil incident again was the fault of the driver who got penalized for it by the Stewards. Ocon should’ve backed off at T1, and then maximize his corner-exit speed onto the next straight to try the pass into T4 instead, which would’ve been the less risky option.

  10. Here’s an idea for track limits (sorry, watching FP2 and was already on here) – why not have a small strip of grass at the track edge, with a grippy tarmac run off behind the grass? Sainz ran wide and was forced to bail out, but did so safely. Best of both worlds.

    Would be a simple adjustment to most tracks…

Comments are closed.