In the round-up: Lando Norris says the first turn at Zandvoort needs to be changed to increase the chance of overtaking
In brief
Norris calls for Zandvoort to revise turn one
Norris started and finished seven in last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix. Despite the extension to the DRS zone approaching the opening corner, Tarzan, he said “Safety Cars, the VSCs and tyre strategies and people boxing and not boxing” were all that led to changes of position.In order to improve the racing at the track, Norris said “they need to change turn one, it’s quite simple.”
“They need to make turn one a much bigger braking zone, a much tighter corner, and that will provide more opportunities and a longer DRS zone,” Norris explained.
“Turn one is just too short a braking zone. It’s too quick and therefore you just can’t brake past someone or anything. It’s so easy just to defend into one and then come back, close the door and stay ahead. So for me, they need to change turn one.”
Lotterer moves to Andretti in Formula E
Andre Lotterer will partner Jake Dennis at Andretti Autosport in Formula E next season. He has raced for Porsche in the series since 2019 and will continue to represent the brand in sportscars where he will assist in development of its new hypercar.
However the team have replaced him with Antonio Felix da Costa in FE. Lotterer’s Andretti move ties in with the team switching from BMW to Porsche powertrains for 2023.
“I’m excited to be joining Andretti for season nine and the start of the Gen3 era,” said Lotterer. “Working together with Jake will be a great combination to continue to push the team to the front of the field in FE.”
Da Costa was also Lotterer’s replacement when he left DS Techeetah for Porsche three years ago.
Red Bull chasing Herta “doesn’t change a lot” for team’s top junior
F2 sophomore Lawson has had an increased role within Red Bull this year, becoming the team’s reserve driver in addition to AlphaTauri’s, and making his F1 free practice debut with the latter at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Lawson is currently fifth in the F2 standings with three sprint race wins, and came ninth in the series last year after winning his debut race. There are three other Red Bull juniors in F2 who, like Lawson, are aiming to race for AlphaTauri if Pierre Gasly leaves for Alpine.
“At the moment it’s just discussions and from my side it doesn’t change a lot for me,” Lawson said of the Herta rumours. “I’m still focused on delivering the best job in F2 that I can and trying to finish this year strongly.
“It hasn’t been the sort of season we had hoped for. But I guess talk in F1 at the moment is all discussion at the moment, and from from my side I’ll wait to find out what is sort of decided for me, but right now it’s just focusing on F2.”
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Sander Dorsman's Guest Column: There's no place like home (Formula 2)
'Home races don't get much better than that for MP Motorsport. In the sprint race, Clement Novalak claimed his first podium, whilst on Sunday, Felipe Drugovich put one hand on the title with his fifth win of 2022. As the Dutch team reigned triumphant and returned to the top of the teams' championship, we handed guest column duties over to team principal Sander Dorsman.'
Newgarden to ‘go for broke’ in IndyCar finale (Speedcafe)
'Josef Newgarden says he is set to “go for broke” in a bid to win the IndyCar Series at this weekend’s Laguna Seca finale. The Team Penske driver slipped to 20 points back from Will Power after starting the Portland weekend only three in arrears.'
'Another weekend, another set of Ferrari blunders that have become all too common this year. The season had started with them as genuine title contenders — the fastest car, a super-quick driver in Charles Leclerc and early wins to set themselves up as the ones to beat.'
The moving parts around Herta's F1 shot (Racer)
'There’s been plenty of times that I’ve been critical of Red Bull’s approach to drivers, and there have been multiple occasions where Marko has been a little too quick to open his mouth before thinking about how what he’s saying could be taken – most recently with some comments about Sergio Perez’s heritage that he quickly learned were not acceptable. But one thing that is refreshing about the Red Bull advisor is that if you ask him a question, he’ll give you a straight answer.'
Lundqvist puts one hand on Indy Lights title (IndyCar)
'Benjamin Pedersen finished the job Sunday in the Indy Lights Grand Prix of Portland with victory, while Linus Lundqvist still has a bit of work to do to reach his ultimate goal: the title.'
Introducing Monaco Sports Group (Maserati MSG Racing)
'Following the conclusion of season eight, Venturi Grand Prix announces its transition to the Monaco Sports Group with immediate effect. This name change heralds the start of an exciting new era for FE and precedes the team’s title and powertrain partnership with Maserati.'
Barrichello family share F4 podium in Brazil (Formula Scout)
'Fernando Barrichello, son of Rubens, then lost momentum and that allowed Felipe Barrichello Bartz to pass him back. The three, led by Nicolas Giaffone, finished in the same order as they started, making it a family celebration at the podium.'
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
STATEMENT : An update on the condition of Colin White and Mike Brown following the serious incident in the Millers Oils Ginetta GT4 SuperCup at Thruxton on Sunday 28th August.
Ginetta wish Colin and Mike all the best on their roads to recovery. pic.twitter.com/5PcOMTvaWa
— Ginetta (@GinettaCars) September 6, 2022
C² 💛#essereFerrari 🟡 @pumamotorsport @ferraristore pic.twitter.com/CFlDTw8oIo
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) September 6, 2022
https://www.instagram.com/p/CiH6Ssmt3D0/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CiIf8qvuDls/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CiIxAAsuJwd/
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
The FIA’s Formula 3 championship has organised a private test at Magny-Cours for four female racers, as the latest initiative to try to get a woman onto the series’ grid.
Encouraging to see all the efforts being made to encourage more women into all aspects of motorsports. You definitely notice more women in the garages in F1 these days. One day, when they are on a level playing field, these efforts will no longer be necessary. But until that day comes, I applaud what’s being done.
The idea that a woman can’t physically compete with a man in a racing car is utter rubbish. Some of the male racers around the world are tiny. It’s all about determination.
Shimks
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Stephen and F1Sauber!
Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
7th September 2022, 0:11
Tarzan is fine as it is.
Yeah overtaking isn’t easy but it’s not supposed to be because drivers should have to work for it.
And we saw some decent overtakes and some nice battles at Tarzan because the slight banking and how open the corner is allowes cars to run side by side and allows the driver on the outside to get a nice run through the corner.
Making it another slow/tight corner may make overtaking easier but it would lose everythat makes it such a good corner now that promotes side by side racing and makes an outside pass easier than it would be if it were another genetic slow one line corner.
Jay
7th September 2022, 2:17
I disagree that men and women are the same in sports. In 1998 the Williams sisters said they could beat any man outside the top 200. World No. 203 Karsten Braasch took on the Williams sisters. He beat Serena 6-1 and then beat Venus 6-2.
The US womens national soccer team was beaten by a U-15 team in 2017. Kids beat the national womens soccer team..
Auto racing is different than one-on-one sports but at the same time these drivers are peak physical fitness. We’ve all seen the top drivers get out of the car lay down due to the physical fatigue.
I also want to point out that I think a woman could do almost any job in the garage as well as men so that’s not what I’m debating. I’m talking the physical sporting aspect.
I hope a woman proves me wrong but I don’t see it happening.
Miane
7th September 2022, 6:06
I think in motorsports the performance is much more on psychological aspects than physical characteristics, you just need to be fit enough.
MacLeod (@macleod)
7th September 2022, 8:36
In the past there were women driving in the F1 with cars you would have problems and they did well. While Women have the strenght disavantage endurance they will beat most men. (those women who got a child)
Your examples are a bit .. wrong the Williams sister were not that good if they couldn’t beat a men on position 203
But Jimmy Connors v Martina Navratilova was much closer 7-5, 6-2
Football I personally trained a women (16-23 years) team and lets them play a lot against men not the highest ranked team of our club but first the lowest (17th) which they lose.. but they had a idea how football was played and afer a month again to a senior team (11th) they played much beter still losing but in their compition they murder any female team. At the end again played a serious team our 5th team and lost only because of the strenght jumping higher shooting harder they lost marginal.
After that just our A team juniors 16-18 and they won … Meaning with training and lots of development they could beat the youngsters which in the beginning they would beat the women team easy. But the fysic traning prevaled and could handle the boys in the same age caterogy. They became champions 3 years in a row easy.
Without traning with men women can’t ever beat men as humans need something to pull them towards too.
JA
7th September 2022, 19:18
Its not that the Williams sisters aren’t good, its the fact that they play the game as men. It was their superior strength that was the real deal, playing backline tennis, hitting hard. Against any man in the top 1000 they would have lost due to their style of play. Another thing that needs to be taken into account is the developement of tennis. As most sports it has become faster, more physical, people hit harder and reaction times have decreased.
Navratilova would in this day and age have a huge issue just returning balls. And lets not forget that Navratilova could use the double lanes (retracted some though) and Connor only had only serve. So that scoreline is extremely polluted.
anon
7th September 2022, 9:21
Jay, some might point out that there are a few flaws with your examples – for example, you point to the U-15 team beating the USA women’s team, but the original reports from the managers of the U-15 team described it as an informal training session.
The women’s team were not there for a proper game – their main reason for being there was to use the training facilities at that stadium and publicity work with local teams, and the “game” really seems to have been an informal kick about that was more for the photo opportunities and having a bit of fun with the U-15 players. It was also worth noting that the women’s team had a competitive game scheduled for the following week, and seem to have been instructed to take it easy to avoid any risk of getting injured.
Unfortunately, the original story was then distorted by a number of organisations into one that was used to mock and attack the women’s team because it happened to occur at a time when the women’s team were pushing for more equal rates of pay between the men’s and women’s teams.
JF
7th September 2022, 10:48
I think in motorsport the key issue is numbers coming through at the lower stages. I used to race karts in the UK and back in the 90s/early 00s and the ratio was 1 or 2 female drivers to hundreds of male drivers at the highest levels of karting. Even today it’s under 10 female kart drivers to 100s of male drivers at the British Karting Champs – though it is improving. Think how many male drivers you have to have come through karts & lower formula before you get a talent like Hamilton, Verstappen, Schumacher etc…. It’s not like other sports in that you need both a passion for the sport + huge amounts of money to get kids at the level of karting required to develop the skills to move through the ranks. Hopefully W Series will help inspire more young girls to take it up! Abbi Pulling is a good example of a female driver who has competed near the front of any formula she has taken up.
S
7th September 2022, 2:51
It’s no secret that tighter corners and longer braking zones make for better overtaking opportunities. It’s been that way forever, in every motor racing series.
Of course they won’t change the corner, even though it would benefit the circuit and the on-track product greatly. They just finished rebuilding it, and clearly decided they liked it the way it was regardless of the racing it produces.
Still, it’s worth remembering that not all cars race as poorly as F1 cars do. There were several good overtakes there in F2 and F3, and there are usually quite a few in others series that race there too.
As always, F1 simply needs to make better racing cars, and also manage them better for that in a sporting context.
Which also won’t happen.
PeterG
7th September 2022, 3:16
Nothing wrong with the tarzan corner as it is and there was also a decent number of overtakes and some realistic overtaking attempts there.
Was nice seeing cars able to hang on around the outside all the way around which is something that isn’t really possible at the slower/tighter hairpins.
Frankly I’d like to see more corners like tarzan rather than the painfully dull slow/tight mile wide entry flat hairpins that have polluted every modern track over the past 20 years.
Tarzan is a wonderful corner on an amazing race circuit so leave it all alone. Don’t want to have to see yet another wonderfully amazing classic track butchered!
Zandvoort has also already been half butchered already sadly. Modern version is still wonderful as its mostly retained the character of the old one but man the old layout was even more awesome.
jff
7th September 2022, 7:04
I wouldn’t mind moulding Tarzan corner a bit more like turn 1 at Hungary.
The rest of the track is flowing very nicely, but it would be good to have one big breaking zone.
Doing this might even allow them to ditch the DRS, and rely on slipstream and late braking only.
MacLeod (@macleod)
7th September 2022, 8:40
Making the turn much longer but there is no room for that. Otherwise they could move the track a bit making the pitlane much wider.
Nuvolari (@nuvolari)
7th September 2022, 7:41
Imho Lando is wrong, overtaking must not be facilitated, F1 is good when there is a real fight, not easy overtaking.
The DRS is often misused by the FIA (eg Brazil), if overtaking is too easy the DRS area should be reduced, there must be both the possibility of attacking and defending. Neither impossible overtaking (as it was 20 years ago on some tracks) nor motorway overtaking.
At most the Tarzan could widen more at the exit to allow a second trajectory (where often those who try an external overtaking were “stuck” by those who defended themselves).
Regards
Djehxh
8th September 2022, 6:57
Which is why the way drs is used should be changed. Either there should be a system that shuts drs when the cars go alongaide or they should have a certain amount of drs used per race so that it becomes tactical. The way it is now just means a lot of passes are insignificant
Jere (@jerejj)
7th September 2022, 7:52
Easy said than done with somewhat limited surrounding space & besides, I generally prefer high & medium-speed corners over slow-speed ones, even if longer braking zones are better for overtaking.
baasbas
7th September 2022, 8:57
That is not exactly a ‘simple’ change with buildings there and a pit exit as well. And then there is the fact that that corner is definitive for the track. Part of the old track, heritage, yada yada.
If they could change something I’d like to see them go through the adjacent golf course again. But that will never happen. The current track is confined to the space there is now.
Olivier
7th September 2022, 9:26
Why not making the F1 cars smaller, more boxier, instead of altering historic circuits? Apart from overtaking, it would also solve the narrow pit issue at Zandvoort.
Smaller, boxier cars would have a knock-on effect as they will be lighter (because there is less bodywork), consuming less fuel, and be more efficient.
Qeki (@qeki)
7th September 2022, 10:52
No. We don’t want easy passess aided by DRS. Just for a sake of rear wing don’t make changes to the tracks.
Fernando and Felipe huh. I wonder where he got those names from?
Yellow suits Ferrari.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
7th September 2022, 14:08
I don’t really see any need to alter Tarzan as I think the way it is is actually quite good at producing good racing & overtaking because of how both the inside & outside lines are viable options as well as it also been possible for cars to stay side by side all the way around it.