Ferrari, Albert Park, Melbourne, 2020

Vietnam’s European visa rules change adds to doubt over race

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Vietnam has extended its cancellation on visa-free travel to more European countries due to Coronavirus, presenting further obstacles to the promoters of their scheduled race on April 5th.

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Comment of the day

What should the developers of F1’s forthcoming new line of management games prioritise?

It’ll be interesting to see what they can come up with. Football Manager is so successful because it accurately represents football management – you can have a weaker team but if you pick tactics that suit the strenghts of your players and exploit the weaknesses of your opponent, you’ll win. I’m not sure how you could do this with F1 where so much of the battle is won in the factory….

In most F1/motorsport games, development is over-simplified to a point where you are simply clicking on what you want to upgrade and then waiting. “Upgrade Front Wing – in a few races, your wing goes from 92% to 95%”. You just do this until you have the best car and then win most of the races. How can this be made interesting whilst remaining accurate to real life and simple enough for casual fans?

On the race strategy side, I think Motorsport Manager has nailed it so it’d be interesting to see if they can do anything different or if they just copy and paste ideas from that.
@PeteBaldwin

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On this day in F1

Ayrton Senna, Jean Alesi, Phoenix, 1990
Senna had to pass Alesi twice to secure victory in 1990’s season-opener on the streets of Phoenix
  • 30 years ago today Ayrton Senna won the United States Grand Prix at Phoenix after a superb duel with Jean Alesi, the latter in his ninth grand prix start for Tyrrell

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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20 comments on “Vietnam’s European visa rules change adds to doubt over race”

  1. In case a lot of early races have to be moved to later in the year, could F1 move the summer shutdown earlier in the year? Just continuing on Ben Evans’s thought. Some races could move to August and then have a break in, let’s say, May or June (plus there will already be a 4 week gap in April). Obviously that would make the latter part even more straining, but if there’s a quota to be hit by F1 (minimum No. of races), then they must be already thinking about it…

    1. if there’s a quota to be hit by F1 (minimum No. of races)

      @hunocsi, check this comment by @alianora-la-canta stating that the “minimum number of rounds to count for the World Championship is 8.”
      I recall the comment even made CotD.

      1. @coldfly Thank you! I didn’t think it would be that low for F1 (although I guess that’s a general FIA criteria?).

        1. @hunocsi It’s that low because the limit was formalised in 1981, back when team managers remembered working in the 1960s. Some seasons were at, or close to, the 8-round limit. It was only once the Bernie era (which was in its infancy at that time) began that the figure started to look low.

          It’s also consistent with the requirement the FIA sets for a championship to have international status, so it’s unlikely to be raised just for one series that happens to be highly successful.

  2. Red Bull already questioned legality of Mercedes’ rear brake ducts, and FIA issued a clarification directive. Mercedes now have to make some changes to it, situation is similar to last year’s with their front wing endplates.

    1. pushing the lines, pushing the lines. This is one of the parts of F1 the teams never get enough of – protesting, copying, etc. Yes, F1 is back @hoshino :-)

  3. Many countries are putting similar visa restrictions on countries worst affected by Covid-19. India has also cancelled visa for travellers from those countries along with screening and quarantine for travellers from other countries.
    Just saw MotoGP postponed US gp to end of year due to situation in Texas.

  4. Umm, er, Keith, just because you are “down under” doesn’t mean putting today’s round up under yesterdays round up will have it on top for readers, actually Australia is on top as long as you look at the solar system from the correct angle.

    1. It’s been fixed, but it was.

  5. season 2 has good moments but for those who watch the races, watching highlights is a waste of time and boring. last episode is all about interlagos the race, and to make matters worse they introduce the race in spanish… they don’t introduce paul ricard in Italian do they?

    1. Why would they introduce paul ricard in italian? The track is in France.

      1. @crystakke same question for Interlagos and Spanish, don’t you think?

        1. Yep, indeed @fer-no65, that’s rather odd @peartree, what’s up with that; a race in the biggest Portuguese language country and they use Spanish?

          Would it be worse, or consistency if next year they introduce the Dutch GP in Danish, Spa in Dutch (in Walloon part of Belgium), and the Spanish GP in Portuguese?!

  6. I really don’t get what Brundle wants to see from a Hamilton facing unfair critisizm, getting culled in his ability to express himself and facing the desolution of yet again a race thrown away by awkwardly overthinking, fear to take risks and overestimating ones own importance, oh and a car that “will be a winner next season” for most of his time there.

    Unless Lewis takes a team of people with him who redo the whole operation at Ferrari, they won’t really change. And why not have Hamilton do the winning at Mercedes, have Bottas (or Russel, or Ocon etc) up against him, trying to get ever closer (seemingly a target moving ever forward). Having Red Bull put a season together from the start to make it a battle with Max, and have a super talented Leclerc and a super fast Vettel (with a car that suits him) bring up the hopes of italy and all people “red hearted”.

    1. I fully agree. If Alonso and Vettel have failed to win titles there, Hamilton will most likely meet the same fate. MSC, hyperbolically speaking, took half of Benetton’s operation with him to Ferrari in order to build a winner and something tells me Mercedes has tighter contracts. If I were Hamilton, I wouldn’t bother with it either.

    2. While I agree with the sentiment, Lewis would have won the title in the 2018 Ferrari despite the team’s blunders.

      But the read team and their toxic blinded fanbase honestly don’t deserve him.

      1. RB13 ok I’ll play…no he wouldn’t have if Max or maybe even SV was in the 2018 Mercedes.

        Otherwise…I’ve thought all along LH should not and will not go to Ferrari.

        1. @robbie I think the only case Hamilton could go to Ferrari is if Toto goes too ( Toto played down that but it probably arose when there was some uncertainty about Mercedes team’s future a few months ago).

  7. “To go and do a Michael Schumacher and win a championship with three different teams, that would be impressive.”
    – Michael won with two different teams, though, not three.

  8. I’m a Swedish pass port holder, but resident in Thailand, can I travel to Hanoi?

    Asked many places, but don’t got clear answer anywhere.

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