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F1 2021

Well, following last weekend's snooze-a-thon, keep those dirndl pyjamas and edelweiss-patterned slippers close at hand; we're going nowhere.

Formula 1 Airways is stuck over Austria in a holding pattern tighter than Christian Horner's lederhosen.

We can pray for a higher tide of excitement next weekend, but the schedule is as unchanging as canal-water. In the UK:

Fri 2 July
FP1 - 10:30
FP2 - 14:00

Sat 3 July
FP3 - 11:00
Qual - 14:00

Sun 4 July
Race - 14:00

I may need to hit the :beer: a bit earlier.

:)
 

Senna producer granted rights to Bernie Ecclestone F1 docuseries. Manish Pandey, the producer of Senna, has been granted the rights to write and direct a new docuseries on the life and career of ex-Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. The eight-part series called Lucky! will be produced by Pandey’s company Jiva Maya after completing extensive filming with Ecclestone at his home in Switzerland through lockdown.​

Ecclestone, 90, started out as a racing driver before becoming a team owner and ultimately going on to be F1’s ringmaster for over four decades, overseeing its evolution into the global series and commercial giant it is today. Pandey wrote the BAFTA award-winning documentary on Ayrton Senna that was released in 2010, and more recently wrote and directed Heroes, a documentary film produced by Motorsport Network.

“This is the first time I've trusted anyone to tell my story and the story of Formula 1, and Manish is the only storyteller and director who I believe can bring these to the screen,” Ecclestone said. “And he isn't just a great storyteller he's also a great fan. He's been watching Formula 1 since he could walk and his knowledge of the world and its 'movers and shakers' is encyclopaedic and his passion unsurpassed." The docuseries is set to include Ecclestone “revealing his life story and the story of the birth, growth and phenomenal success of Formula 1”, enjoying “unprecedented archive from Formula 1 Management. Bernie has been able to reflect, not just on his days as one of the greatest sporting impresarios of all time, but also on his life,” said Pandey. “In his 90 years, he has travelled the world and met everyone who is anyone, yet he remains incredibly personable and immensely funny. It is a joy to tell his extraordinary story, in full, for the first time."

F1 CEO and president Stefano Domenicali added: "Formula 1 is a truly global sport with over 70 years of history created by Bernie that has a huge part of making the sport what it is. With half a billion global fans, and races in 23 countries, the interest and excitement around Formula 1 is huge and there will be eager anticipation for the series that will take the viewers on a journey into the life of one of sport's most interesting characters."

[So this will be the truth according to Bernie, I'm sure others will have a very different version of this "history", but one thing is for sure if Bernie is involved it will be interesting. I'll watch it for sure]
 
I bet there’s plenty of details of Bernie’s story which will only emerge once he’s in the ground and people who know the truth are no longer scared to speak about it openly.

Mind you, I’m sure the officially sanctioned version via Manish Pandey will be a great tale too.
 

Teams get clarity over Sprint Qualifying parc fermé rules​

The full rules for this year's sprint qualifying trials are set to be issued to teams following a meeting that took place at the Red Bull Ring on Thursday. Formula 1 will experiment with the new format for the first time at this month's British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Drivers will qualify for the 100km race on Friday afternoon and take part in the short 100km sprint qualifying event on Saturday. But there remained a couple of concerns over the parc fermé regulations as the hands-off period for teams will start a day earlier, or before qualifying on Friday.

Several teams routinely conduct on Friday evening an operation called clutch shimming that extends the life of a clutch for the remainder of the weekends. But if certain teams - namely Alpine, McLaren, Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo - cannot conduct the task due to parc fermé rules, they could be forced to forego the Saturday FP2 session in order to reduce mileage.
Other teams that use clutches that have a longer lifespan would therefore hold an advantage. But in Thursday's meeting it was agreed that there would be no exemption for clutch shimming during parc fermé, but a team will be allowed to fit a new clutch if it can present data to the FIA that indicates excessive wear. It was also be obligated to hand over its old clutch to the governing body to prove that the change was necessary.

A second point of concern for teams was the ability to change a car's underside plank before qualifying in order to avoid a penalty for excessive wear. But the FIA has stood by its initial parc fermé rule, meaning teams will not be able to change the plank after Friday's qualifying.

Finally, F1 boss Ross Brawn revealed that sprint qualifying winners will be officially credited with pole position in F1's historical statistics. The initial plan was to consider the driver who was fastest in Friday's qualifying session as the official pole winner. "I probably have to correct something I've said before because initially we thought it would still be the Friday qualifying," Brawn said when queried on the issue this week. "But, in fact, after discussions with the FIA, they feel pole position is the guy in front of the grid for the grand prix. So it's the person who finishes a sprint in first place, it's the one who is on the front of the grid and has pole position for the race, the grand prix, on a Sunday. And that's what we'll count statistically towards the number of poles, because it is the sprint qualifying. That's one of the reasons the FIA want it covered that way, so that we can ensure that the race is the race, the grand prix is the grand prix. And we don't cannibalise the grand prix."
 

Verstappen opens Austrian GP weekend on top​

Formula 1 championship leader Max Verstappen maintained his strong form as he topped opening practice for the Austrian Grand Prix. Formula 1 has stayed on for back-to-back events at the Red Bull Ring, marking the 26th grand prix in the calendar year since the venue kick-started the delayed 2020 season. In a deviation from last weekend’s Styrian Grand Prix Pirelli has gone one step softer with its tyre nominations, with the C3s, C4s and C5s in use. Verstappen, who heads Lewis Hamilton by 18 points, clocked a time of 1:05.143s to finish 0.266s clear of the field up front, as Red Bull goes in search of a fifth straight win, and Verstappen a clean sweep of the current triple-header.

Ferrari emerged as Verstappen’s nearest rival, with Charles Leclerc second, and Carlos Sainz third. Hamilton finished the session in seventh spot, half a second behind his title rival, having been one of several drivers to lock up heavily into Turn 1. Valtteri Bottas was fourth, having also shot wide at the first corner, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen, who classified an impressive sixth. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Lando Norris rounded out the top 10.

Revised rear tyres trialled
Drivers spent part of the session trialling unmarked tyres as part of Pirelli’s efforts to address any issues arising from its Baku failures. The test sets, effectively a C4 compound, feature a revised rear construction, and they will also be available during Friday’s second session. It will be determined in the coming days whether the revised constructions will be introduced from the British Grand Prix onwards.

Stroll suffers pair of spins
Aston Martin’s data gathering on those tyres was scuppered slightly as Lance Stroll spun wildly exiting Turn 6, wrecking the set. It was a scruffy session for Stroll as the Canadian suffered a second spin exiting the final corner as he prepared for a hot lap. Stroll nonetheless finished the session in 13th place, two spots ahead of Aston Martin team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

Trio of testers in action
Three test drivers were afforded the opportunity to get behind the wheel of Formula 1 machinery during the session – with a grand prix weekend debut for Alpine’s Guanyu Zhou. Zhou, the Formula 2 championship leader, finished in 14th position, three spots behind team-mate Esteban Ocon. Alfa Romeo’s back-up reserve Callum Ilott had his second outing of the campaign, classifying in 16th place, while Williams tester Roy Nissany was 18th.

2021 Austrian Grand Prix first practice result​

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
133Max VerstappenRed Bull-Honda1’05.14335
216Charles LeclercFerrari1’05.4090.26632
355Carlos Sainz JnrFerrari1’05.4310.28832
477Valtteri BottasMercedes1’05.4450.30229
522Yuki TsunodaAlphaTauri-Honda1’05.4740.33134
67Kimi RaikkonenAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’05.5860.44327
744Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’05.7090.56630
811Sergio PerezRed Bull-Honda1’05.7260.58329
910Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Honda1’05.7260.58335
104Lando NorrisMcLaren-Mercedes1’05.8800.73726
1131Esteban OconAlpine-Renault1’05.9800.83729
123Daniel RicciardoMcLaren-Mercedes1’06.1811.03829
1318Lance StrollAston Martin-Mercedes1’06.2031.06028
1437Guanyu ZhouAlpine-Renault1’06.4141.27128
155Sebastian VettelAston Martin-Mercedes1’06.4441.30127
1698Callum IlottAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’06.5641.42123
1747Mick SchumacherHaas-Ferrari1’06.5831.44028
1845Roy NissanyWilliams-Mercedes1’06.6831.54033
196Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes1’06.9781.83534
209Nikita MazepinHaas-Ferrari1’07.3162.17329
 

Honda dismisses theories about F1 engine performance gains​

Honda has dismissed theories that an apparent step forward in performance with its second Formula 1 power unit is the result of upgrades or because it can run its engine harder. The Japanese manufacturer has helped Red Bull take wins in the last four grands prix, but it has been particularly strong since the French GP when Honda introduced its second power unit of the season. The step forward has prompted intrigue about whether or not Honda found extra horsepower through making reliability changes to the engine. There were also suggestions that the Honda edge was the result of it being able to run the power unit in a more aggressive mode, after being held back earlier in the campaign because of concerns about possible failures.

However, speaking at the Austrian Grand Prix, Honda F1 technical director Toyoharu Tanabe denied that there had been any change to the engine specification, nor that it was running its power unit in a more aggressive manner. Asked about the rumours of a 15bhp jump with the second specification unit, Tanabe said: “I'm very happy if it is true, but it's not true. Under current regulations, any performance update is not allowed to apply during the season. As a result, our second PU is the same as first PU in terms of specification and the performance.” Tanabe said that if Honda had made any tweaks to its power unit to improve reliability, which could have helped lift performance, then other teams would have been notified about it by the FIA. “Under current PU regulations, we need to submit any changes,” he said. “[You are] only allowed to change for reliability or cost reason or logistics, and then we need to submit very detailed [information] to the FIA first, and the FIA approve those changes. The FIA distributes all documents to the other PU manufacturers, so we need to have approval from the other PU manufacturers to change any single parts specification. Why are we doing such a very detailed investigation is that a long time ago some teams, they improve their performance to make a change to improve the reliability. So we are very careful to change the performance. It is not possible to improve the performance during the season. That is my answer to that suspicion.”

Tanabe says that any progress that others have seen from the Honda engine is recent races is simply the result of it better deploying its energy management systems to maximise lap time. “We have been learning gradually how to use the PU,” he explained. “We improve our weakness, and then we push our strengths. As a result, the base specification, the performance, is the same, but trackside performance I believe we have been improving.” Although rival Mercedes has pointed out several times the edge that Red Bull and Honda has on the straights, Tanabe does not think that Honda’s power unit is the benchmark in F1. “We keep analysing our position, compared to the other PU manufacturers. This analysis includes the chassis performance as well, because if you have a good car, with less downforce, sometimes you see a good engine power performance. So, it's a little bit difficult to judge,” he said. "The current result shows us that still, we are not number one. But as I said, we cannot improve the pure performance, like ICE performance. Then, we are working very hard on how to use the PU efficiently at the track. So, we want to use current hardware more efficient with team engineer.”
 
That corner graphic is really interesting, it overlaid the braking and acceleration of 2 drivers, for turn 3 it just showed Bottas gains 0.16 of a second over hamilton at just that corner :confused:

I have to say I'm surprised at that. I'd be interested to know if that was just one time or an average over a few laps.

Here comes the rain
 

Hamilton bounces back by topping FP2 in Austria​

Lewis Hamilton has topped the second practice session ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, with Valtteri Bottas completing a Mercedes one-two. Max Verstappen rounded out the top three and was just 0.217 seconds behind his title rival. The session saw plenty of surprises on the leaderboard, with the midfield turned upside down. In this session, each team had to complete at least 12 timed laps on the Pirelli prototype tyre which they hope to introduce in a couple of weeks time following the tyre failures during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Pirelli requested these test tyre laps to ran under low fuel levels, medium fuel levels and a full tank.
poster

The hour-long event saw plenty of different drivers challenge for the top five places. With the track being short, very little time separated the field. The race simulations took place in the final 20 minutes in very light rain conditions. Christian Horner suggested that Mercedes had increased their engine modes for their fastest run in the qualifying simulations, but it looks as if Mercedes have either made performance gains during the week, or the track conditions better suit them. The conditions were cooler than last week, and the Pirelli tyres are a step softer. Four of the top five cars were running with a Mercedes engine as Aston Martin filled P4 and P5.

Busy start
With the Pirelli laps to complete and three drivers starting their first session of the weekend, the track became busy very quickly. There was also a threat of rain at the start of the session, which Carlos Sainz raised on the Ferrari radio. After the first flurry of laps, Verstappen led the way with a 1:05.773 using the test tyre. Under the medium tyre for this weekend, Bottas went fastest by 0.107 seconds. At this point, AlphaTauri looked strong again around the Red Bull Ring with both drivers inside the top five.

Midfield upside down
Ferrari looked strong in the early part of the session whilst their McLaren rivals could only just climb into the top 15. However, this performance wasn't sustained as other drivers posted their laps. McLaren never troubled the top of the timesheets either. As the works Ferrari struggled, the Alfa Romeo customer team looked stronger. Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi sat comfortably inside the top 10 after the first 20 minutes which the Italian driver was able to sustain. After 25 minutes, Verstappen and Perez sat at the top of the timesheets. Furthers surprises were found in the Aston Martin garage. On the soft tyres, Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll were also able to move up into the top five. Perez, who also ran on the soft tyres, was slower. The AlphaTauri drivers also look to continue their impressive qualifying pace in the Styrian Grand Prix, with both Tsunoda and Gasly inside the top 10.

Mercedes take it up a gear
Bottas was the first driver on the soft tyres for the qualifying simulations. He went fastest by almost half a second. Both Verstappen and Hamilton completed their soft tyre qualifying run within a few seconds of each other. Hamilton came out on top by 0.217 seconds over his rival, though Verstappen ran wide. More raindrops fell in the second half of the session. It didn't trouble the slick tyre running, though drivers reported a slippy circuit. Verstappen's engineer explained how these conditions could be replicated during Sunday's Grand Prix. The session was completed with drivers running their race simulations.

Results (Classification):
  1. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes – 1:04.523
  2. Valtteri Bottas Mercedes +0.189
  3. Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing +0.217
  4. Lance Stroll Aston Martin +0.616
  5. Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin +0.745
  6. Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +0.833
  7. Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri +0.856
  8. Fernando Alonso Alpine +0.870
  9. Lando Norris McLaren +0.943
  10. Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo +0.988
  11. Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing +0.993
  12. Esteban Ocon Alpine +1.004
  13. Carlos Sainz Scuderia Ferrari +1.097
  14. Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo +1.101
  15. Daniel Ricciardo McLaren +1.175
  16. Charles Leclerc Scuderia Ferrari +1.185
  17. George Russell Williams Racing +1.296
  18. Mick Schumacher Haas +1.388
  19. Nicholas Latifi Williams Racing +1.491
  20. Nikita Mazepin Haas +1.650
 
It looks like Hammy's signed a two-year contract with Mercedes.

www.formula1.com

BREAKING: Hamilton signs new two-year deal to race on with Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes will continue their immensely successful partnership in Formula 1 beyond this season, with the reigning seven-time world champion signing a two-year contract that will keep him in F1 with the Silver Arrows until at least the end of 2023.
www.formula1.com www.formula1.com
 
Limejuice said:
It looks like Hammy's signed a two-year contract with Mercedes.

www.formula1.com

BREAKING: Hamilton signs new two-year deal to race on with Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes will continue their immensely successful partnership in Formula 1 beyond this season, with the reigning seven-time world champion signing a two-year contract that will keep him in F1 with the Silver Arrows until at least the end of 2023.
www.formula1.com www.formula1.com
Click to expand...
In other words, they've shown him the data for next seasons car under the new rules and he reckons it's going to be dominant again, much like when he first moved to them from McLaren.
 
I guess it’s a decision that will get made after summer break once a clearer picture in the constructors is made. If Perez keeps getting top 3 then they might be forced into making a change. I personally don’t think bottas is good enough for the Mercedes. I’d welcome a change.
 

FP3: Verstappen 0.5s clear of Mercedes duo in final practice​

Formula 1 championship leader Max Verstappen set the pace in final practice at the Austrian Grand Prix, finishing over half a second clear of the Mercedes duo. Verstappen produced a 1m04.591s to end FP3 0.538s quicker than the fastest Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, while his title rival Lewis Hamilton was over six tenths behind having had a lap time deleted for a track limits breach
Hamilton’s best lap would have put him second had it stood, though he still would have been 0.4s adrift of Verstappen’s benchmark.

The seven-time world champion has committed to a new two-year extension with Mercedes that will see him continue in F1 until at least the end of 2023 in a deal that was announced on Saturday morning. Verstappen’s pace will give Red Bull huge confidence heading into qualifying at Spielberg, with Mercedes appearing to be on the back foot in the forthcoming battle for pole position

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was just six-tenths down in a strong fifth, while Antonio Giovinazzi posted an eye-catching time on the soft tyre to put his Alfa Romeo fifth. Carlos Sainz was sixth-fastest for Ferrari, ahead of Sergio Perez’s Red Bull, the Alpine of Fernando Alonso and his Scuderia teammate Charles Leclerc. Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel completed the top-10 order for Aston Martin ahead of his teammate Lance Stroll, while Yuki Tsunoda ensured that 12 drivers finished within a second of Verstappen.

Austrian Grand Prix final practice times​

1. Max Verstappen [Red Bull] 1:04.591

2. Valtteri Bottas [Mercedes] +0.538s

3. Lewis Hamilton [Mercedes] +0.686s

4. Pierre Gasly [AlphaTauri] +0.689s

5. Antonio Giovinazzi [Alfa Romeo] +0.754s

6. Carlos Sainz [Ferrari] +0.756s

7. Sergio Perez [Red Bull] +0.805s

8. Fernando Alonso [Alpine] +0.843s

9. Charles Leclerc [Ferrari] +0.893s

10. Sebastian Vettel [Aston Martin] +0.951s

11. Lance Stroll [Aston Martin] +0.955s

12. Yuki Tsunoda [AlphaTauri] +0.970s

13. Esteban Ocon [Alpine] +1.083s

14. George Russell [Williams] +1.103s

15. Lando Norris [McLaren] +1.109s

16. Daniel Ricciardo [McLaren] +1.134s

17. Kimi Raikkonen [Alfa Romeo] +1.156s

18. Mick Schumacher [Haas] +1.487s

19. Nicholas Latifi [Williams] +1.514s

20. Nikita Mazepin [Haas] +1.698s
 
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