FORMULA 1

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MCLAREN: IN SPAIN WE’LL LOOK TO BUILD ON THE PERFORMANCE

The Spanish Grand Prix is a staple of the Formula 1 calendar. It was first staged in 1951, at Barcelona’s Pedralbes circuit, and it has been held at the Circuit de Catalunya since 1991.

The track was one of the building projects ahead of the 1992 Olympic Games, at which it staged the road cycling events, and it is renowned for being a good test track. This will be the 29th consecutive Spanish Grand Prix to be staged at the track.

Carlos Sainz: “I’m so excited for my home race. It’s always such a special occasion and I can’t wait to see all the fans in my grandstand, I’m looking forward to seeing it in full papaya!”

“It was a relief to finally get points on the board in Baku. We knew that we had the pace to score those points, but bad luck and events out of my control had prevented it until then. Now the target is to add to that tally in front of my home crowd and throughout the upcoming European season.”

Lando Norris: “I’m looking forward to starting the European season; there a few circuits coming up that I’ve raced at before, including Barcelona. Racing at tracks I know helps me hit the ground running when preparing for the weekend. It only feels like yesterday that we were in Spain for pre-season testing.”

“Heading back to where we first tested the car should give us a good indication of the car’s performance and the areas we need to improve. It’s also good to have the Brand Centre back for the European races, it really adds to the atmosphere in the paddock.”

Andreas Seidl, Team Principal: “I’m delighted to have now started at McLaren and I’ve had a really warm welcome from everyone in the team. During my first few days I’ve been speaking to as many people around the factory as possible and this will continue over coming weeks as I get to know the team.”

“In Spain we’ll look to build on the performance shown in the first few races, however we know the field is extremely tightly-packed. The start of the European season is traditionally where teams bring upgrades, so it’s hard to say where the grid will line up this weekend, but we will continue to focus on developing our package and improving the car in key areas.”

“As always, the objective during the weekend will be ensuring strategy, operations and reliability are as strong as they can be.”

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RENAULT: WE KNOW WE ARE CAPABLE OF MUCH MORE

Renault F1 Team previews the fifth race weekend of the 2019 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the Emirates Spanish Grand Prix.

Drivers Nico Hülkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo share their thoughts on the challenges of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, while Cyril Abiteboul and Chassis Technical Director Nick Chester give the latest on the team and on the 2019 package.

Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal: “The start of the European segment of the 2019 Formula 1 season is an opportunity for us to reset. Overall, it’s been a tough start to the year and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix capped off a run of results that fell short of our expectations.”

“We know we are capable of much more and we need to target clean weekends and races to make the most of our potential. To do so, we have work to do on all sides of our operation; chassis and engine on and off track, and work with the drivers to allow them to reach their respective capacities. We are motivated as ever to strive for more and we aim for a full recovery in competitiveness in Spain.”

Nick Chester, Chassis Technical Director: “Barcelona is a very familiar track for Formula 1 teams with all the pre-season testing conducted there in recent years. It’s a combination of high-speed and low-speed corners and short and long straights, so you get a full range of conditions to see how the car operates.”

“Turns 3 and 10 are very fast nowadays, but there’s also some slow stuff to get right towards the end of the lap in the tighter sector three. We have the harder compounds of tyre available for Spain and we’re going from a circuit with the lowest energy input into the tyres to the highest. We will have to consider car balance and how we protect the tyres.”

Nico Hülkenberg: “We rack up a lot of laps at Barcelona year on year, so it’s a place we are all very familiar with. It’s a layout I like with a lot high-speed corners including Turns 3 and 10, which are especially quick.”

“Barcelona is actually a very physical circuit, and you usually feel the aches in your neck after the race! We had a productive winter test there earlier in the year so we’ll be looking to build on that circuit knowledge and put in a good result throughout the weekend.”

Daniel Ricciardo: “The Spanish Grand Prix is always an exciting time of the year as it’s the first European round of the season. Barcelona is a fun circuit, we all know it very well from all the winter and in-season testing.”

“It’s a circuit I’ve always enjoyed racing at in my career: I won there in Formula Renault 3.5 and in recent years have been on the podium. We’ll be targeting a clean weekend right from the off on Friday and hopefully come away with some points in the bag.”

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VETTEL: I DON’T CARE, I DON’T NEED A LEGACY

With four Formula 1 World Championship title on his mantelpiece, Sebastian Vettel’s name will always be etched among the greats of our sport, but the very private German is not worried about his legacy when he quits the pinnacle of the sport at some point in the future.

During a wide-ranging interview with Sky F1, Martin Brundle asked Vettel how he would be remembered to which he replied, “I don’t care, I don’t need a legacy.”

I think, especially nowadays, the world is moving so fast – I don’t need to be remembered. I’m not sad about it, it’s good to move on. As much as I love tradition, and I’m a traditionalist, I’m against being stuck in a moment, or era. I think it’s good to go on, it’s good to go forward, we have to.”

“I hope that when I’m older, I’m progressive – moving forward and not looking back. I think it’s nice to look back on a career, but it’s not the point of our lives, I guess. It’s much more about looking forward.”

While his legacy may not be important to him at this stage of his life, he did concede, “I never imagined… I don’t think you can even dream that big, to have achieved so much. But as always, it doesn’t stop there, you want more.”

“In this regard, I am greedy, I want more, I want to win with Ferrari, to win the championship.”

From 2010 to 2013, Vettel with Red Bull dominated F1 winning four consecutive F1 titles. In 2015 he moved to Ferrari and since has yet to taste championship winning champagne, while the Reds have not won a championship since they won the constructors’ title in 2008. Kimi Raikkonen was the last driver to win the drivers’ title for the team when he did so in 2007.

Asked if he would swap two of his titles with Red Bull for one with Ferrari, Vettel replied, “Maybe I’m a bad dealer but I wouldn’t because I’m convinced I can win with Ferrari. No need to trade!”

Should he win the title for the Scuderia, he will be the tenth driver to power to victory for the legendary team in F1, “Nine is not a good number, let’s make it 10! It’s something that I want to achieve first. I don’t want to sound selfish or arrogant, but I put a lot of pressure on my shoulders.”

This year that pressure has been dialled up a few notches since 21-year old Charles Leclerc replaced Raikkonen in the team, Vettel acknowledged, “I think it’s normal if you’re in the same car, you’re fighting your team-mate for the same spot on the track every now and then.”

“Obviously it’s up to me to make sure he’s rather behind rather than in front. We are obviously pushing each other and pushing the team, I think that’s the priority. To get Ferrari back to winning ways and then the rest will be sorted out.”

Of his own mistakes, the 31-year old said, “I’m very critical, so I was my first critic and I wasn’t happy with myself. It’s not allowed to happen, simple as that, but it did happen. You have to move on, you can’t guarantee that you’re never going to do a mistake again but, obviously, that’s not the way it should go.”

Unlike the majority of his colleagues in F1, Vettel has shunned social media and explained why, “I just can’t identify with a generation that wants to share everything, at all times. It’s not that I have something to hide, not at all.”

“I think many people are thinking that life of a Formula 1 driver is a lot more exotic than my life is, but I actually like to have a normal life, and I think I qualify as living a normal life. But I don’t have the desire to share.”

“Why? I don’t get the point. Why do you need to tell people what you are doing?” added Vettel who lies third in the championship standings ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend in Barcelona.

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FORMULA 1 TO BURN RUBBER IN CHICAGO

Formula 1 have confirmed that Chicago will host a fan festival on Museum Campus Drive as part of spreading the message in uncharted cities as the sport strives to open new markets f which the USA is of great importance.

Press Release:

Formula 1 today announces the Emirates F1 Chicago Festival will be hosted in the historic and scenic grounds of Soldier Field on Saturday 8 June. The announcement comes following the huge success in Shanghai, marking the 1000th Grand Prix.

The Emirates F1 Chicago Festival is a free event, which allows fans to immerse themselves in the world of F1, bringing the Grand Prix atmosphere to the heart of the city. From F1 driver appearances to a live driving exhibition on Museum Campus Drive, attendees will experience all that F1 has to offer, including the roar of engines, the smell of rubber and the electric atmosphere as the cars tear past.

During the festival, fans of all ages can enjoy the Canadian Grand Prix qualifying broadcast in real time, alongside exciting sponsor activities. In the evening fans will also be able to enjoy exciting appearances by local celebrities and a memorable musical performance from headlining act Judah & the Lion.

In the weeks leading up to the festival, an F1 car donning a unique Chicago-themed wrap will tour the city making stops at iconic locations to be announced, including Wrigley Field’s Gallagher Way, giving locals the opportunity to see the high-tech innovation of an F1 car up-close and personal. After its stop in Chicago, the F1 Festival will make its way to Los Angeles and end the 2019 tour in Brazil.

Sean Bratches, Managing Director of Commercial Operations, Formula 1 said: “Following the huge success of the Shanghai festival, we are excited to be heading to Chicago – a city known to hold the most enthusiastic of sports fans. We are looking forward to taking F1 to the US and immersing fans in the race day atmosphere and showing the Windy City all that F1 has to offer.”

Boutros Boutros, Divisional Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications, Marketing and Brand for Emirates said: “Emirates takes pride in its support of global sports that connect people to what they love. We are delighted to give fans an unforgettable experience and connection to Formula 1 with the Emirates F1 Festival in Chicago, a city which we have been serving since 2014.

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2020 BRAZILIAN GRAND PRIX WILL BE HELD IN RIO

The 2020 Brazilian Grand Prix will be held in Rio de Janeiro, ending a three-decade-long association with Sao Paulo, the country’s President Jair Bolsonaro announced on Wednesday.

“A new motor-racing track is going to be built. The construction will take six to seven months and the Brazil Grand Prix will be held in Rio de Janeiro next year,” Bolsonaro said during a military ceremony in the city.

“There was state assistance (from the local government) in Sao Paulo, with a huge debt. Keeping F1 there was no longer viable, so they turned towards Rio.”

Bolsonaro also signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of the new circuit (pictured above) at the Deodoro military base in the west of the city.

Deodoro was used as a venue for some events at the 2016 Olympics, including equestrian, field hockey and modern pentathlon.

Bolsonaro promised the new track would be built “without public money” and that it would generate up to 7,000 new jobs.

The Brazilian race was held in Rio in 1978, and then from 1981 to 1989, before returning to its original home at the Interlagos circuit the following year.

According to local reports, representatives for F1 owners Liberty Media held talks with local officials in Rio last November over a possible relocation of the race from Sao Paulo.

The estimated value of the concession to build and operate the venue for 35 years is 697-million reais (US$177-million), according to information from Rio’s city hall. It estimates the track will have an economic impact of 626-million reais annually.

Autodromo José Carlos Pace (aka Interlagos) has hosted the Brazilian Grand Prix 36 times, while Autódromo do Rio de Janeiro in Jacarepagua has hosted the Grand Prix ten times.

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SCHECKTER: VILLENEUVE DIDN’T CARE ABOUT THE TIFOSI

Jody Scheckter knew Gilles Villeneuve well, they were teammates at Ferrari and were friends off-track too, it is fitting today 8th of May, 37 years since he died in qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, to recall the legendary Canadian

Scheckter and Villeneuve were teammates at Ferrari in 1979 and 1980, the South African winning the 1979 Formula 1 World Championship title.

“\A decade ago the Scheckter gave an in-depth interview with Motorsport Magazine which to this day provides great insight into Villeneuve who for many was one of the greatest F1 drivers of all times despite a short career of only 67 Grand Prix starts of which he won six.

This is what Jody had to say about his former teammate:

“How good was Gilles? Well, he didn’t win the World Championship. He was capable of it, no question but he was always trying to be the fastest, not worrying about winning the title, and he paid for it.”

“If he wanted to be World Champion and concentrated on that, he would probably have lost this image of being a daredevil. Gilles might have won the title in 1982, and Ferrari was certainly capable. But you never can tell; he was still at that early stage of his career. At one time I was more aggressive, but as you grow older you realise you’ve got to finish races.”

“The way the points work, that’s how you become Champion. Some people never lose that stage. Gilles thought fastest laps were important and, in a way, they were; the press loved it when he put on qualifiers and went quickest.”

“I guess I wasn’t surprised by what happened to his popularity after he died. People liked his image and I suppose if you get killed in the middle of it all, you get bigger, not smaller. But I think it’s gone away a little recently, especially since Jacques has come along. Gilles is getting more forgotten now, and Jacques has achieved more than his father ever did.”

“I signed for Ferrari at the end of 1978 and at the time it wasn’t clear who’d be leaving the team. Carlos Reutemann was driving with Gilles. I met Carlos in France, and I said: I’m going to be number one, because that’s my agreement. If you stay that’s fine with me, we can work together. I think after that meeting he ran away and signed for somebody else! So my team-mate was Gilles.”

“The team orders were simple. Whoever was in front stayed there as long as you weren’t going to lose a place. If you were first and second and the third guy was a long way back you’d stay there, and if you were fifth and sixth and nobody was trying to pass, you would stay there. In other words you didn’t fight when it wasn’t necessary, and we stuck to that.”

“I didn’t really know Gilles at the start of ’79, and in fact I don’t remember the early races. Quite often you get people that come in to F1, and you don’t really notice them until they start to beat you. I suppose the first time I really paid attention was when he beat me in South Africa.

I should have won very easily, but he ended up winning it. It was painful. I went out on dry tyres, and it was slightly wet. It was the right decision, and I was 30 seconds ahead. He started on wets then changed to dries. But my dries went off – the Michelins weren’t very solid – so the car became undriveable at the end.

He caught me up so I went in and put on a new set of tyres and started catching him again, but it was all over by then. It was at that stage that team orders came into being. He then won in Long Beach. So all of a sudden I was under massive pressure; I was the number one, but he’d won two races. This was tough stuff.

However, I always worked very well with Gilles. We had an honest and open reletionship, which was part of our success. There was no bullshit: if he made an adjustment and went quicker, he’d tell me and I would tell him. That’s what kept us in such a good relationship, and was part of us winning the championship.

Ferrari drivers were traditionally always fighting each other, and that’s what the press liked. Part of our skill was to keep working as a team. Gilles had a good relationship with Enzo, and would say it was friendlier than mine. He certainly had a lot of respect for Enzo; I never remember anything other than that.

We spent a lot of time together in Monaco. He liked to dance and he liked girls. He was fun, intelligent and he was a mate. But more than anything, there was mutual respect between us.

But I always felt he didn’t care about the tifosi. I think in his part of Canada they looked down on Italians, and I think he had that attitude. I always used to think it was funny that they liked him so much. Perhaps he was putting it on, and inside he did like them a lot, but outwardly he would make the odd remark…

One story sums him up – he had air-conditioning and a fire so he put both on. He wanted to do photography, and bought thousands of pounds worth of equipment he hardly used. Then he wanted tools, because he used to work as a mechanic. He went to Beta and bought a whole garage full of the best stuff, and never used them!

I then won in Belgium and Monaco, which put me back on track but he was dominant over me was Dijon. I battled like mad, but he was quicker, and I couldn’t really work out why. That was the race where he had the fight with Amoux. I thought what they did was stupid. I told Gilles, and I think he knew it was stupid.

I was the President of the Grand Prix Drivers Association at the time, and Gilles really worked with me. From a safety point of view he was very responsible. I think we both wanted to make it as safe as possible. That didn’t mean to say we were driving carefully; you still drove with aggression. But you felt that if something happened, you wanted to have a chance.

I don’t think he tried to do things that put him in uncalculated danger. I think from that point of view he was a responsible driver. He always had this image of being crazy, and he wasn’t really. He was only crazy when he wanted to be, it was his image.

I always tell the story about driving from Monaco with him. I didn’t want to do it, because I hated to be a passenger. But the whole time he drove perfectly, until we got just outside Modena, and soon the wheels were spinning and he started sliding around and everything. That was the proof of what I felt.

I also remember going with him in his helicopter, and again once we got over Modena he started his tricks again. I stopped that really quickly. I hated flying. He was going down and then up. I said you better stop now or I’ll wring your neck. He knew I meant it.

Zandvoort was really the turning point that year. I messed up the clutch at the start, and dropped to the back. He was at the front, and then his tyre went down, which was pretty spectacular. I went through the field and came second behind Alan Jones, and that really put me into a dominant position.

I had it under control in Monza. What gave me confidence was I knew Gilles was doing these silly things to keep his image up and that gave me comfort. He was testing qualifiers and getting the quickest times, and I was sticking to hard tyres and testing bits of the car I knew would help me in the race.

In qualifying I think that was the biggest gap between us all year, and in the race I was quicker. As soon as Jacques Laffite dropped out, I cut my revs back and sat ahead of Gilles. Only on the last lap did I accelerate away again. Although I trusted him, I didn’t want to take a chance; it was too important a thing to take a chance with!

I think we were professionals. We tried as hard as we could and the one who came out in front, won. There were lots of times when he was faster than I was, and times when I was faster than he was.

We raced hard, and I beat him. I won the Championship because in the races that counted I got out in front, and was in front when it settled down. At that stage there was no point in fighting. There were no circumstances where he had to give up a place to me, so I don’t think it was frustrating for him.

The 1980 car was a disaster. Gilles had very good performances in it. I didn’t. I was more advanced in my career, and found it very difficult racing for tenth place, whereas he just drove. He brought it near the front a few times, which I couldn’t do. I announced my retirement halfway through the year, and felt out of place soon after I did that. The cause wasn’t there, like it had been before. You were retiring, you were last year’s driver.

After I retired there was talk of Gilles starting a team. I don’t think he ever felt tied to Maranello. Gilles would have left Ferrari if he felt he could go where he would win races. From that point of view I don’t think he was particularly sentimental.

There was supposedly a sponsor – a cigarette company – that had masses of money to help him start this team. I think he would have liked his own team, and he was quite excited doing something like that, and the idea was that I was going to be team manager.

I volunteered to look into it, and found out this guy was nobody, a bullshitter basically. I came back to Gilles with the news. If the sponsor was real, it could have happened. Later we had a bit of an argument over something personal, and I didn’t see him for a year.

However, after Didier Pironi overtook him at Imola in 1982 to steal the win, he called and we went to Modena in his helicopter. I suppose a relationship is worth more than one argument; at least that’s what I felt.

We talked a lot. He hated what had happened at Imola. He realised what a good relationship we’d had, and that we never double-crossed each other, and we were very honest and open, and that Pironi hadn’t been that way with him. I don’t think he ever thought that it could ever happen.

Gilles was a really genuine, honest guy, and in fact if he had a weakness he was honest to the point of being naive. He trusted Pironi. It would have affected him badly for quite a while, and I say that because very honest, naive people are shocked when something like that happens to them. Crooks think that’s the way it should happen. If he had not trusted Pironi, could he have avoided that situation? Probably.

I think at Zolder he was under massive pressure to beat Pironi, who had been faster than him in early qualifying. In F1 we all had problems with that sort of situation; I well remember nearly smashing into a TV cameraman at Monaco, because I thought Gilles was quicker than me, but it turned out I had been quicker. You’re trying so hard, you get so aggressive.

I certainly got angry in a racing car a lot of times. You get to the end of practice and are so wound up and wanting to go for it, you do stupid things. I don’t know exactly what happened at Zolder, but it seems to me that’s the most likely reason for the accident. Gilles took a chance that didn’t pay off. He went for a gap that wasn’t there, and he got caught. I’ve done it myself, and got away with it.

That weekend I was in Monaco, and had just had an operation. I got a call from Zolder, I went straight to see his wife, Joanne. My wife went to Belgium with her. A couple of days later we all went on a Canadian Air Force plane to Montreal for the funeral.

I spent a year after he died working on his sponsorship deals, getting all the money I could for his family. I suppose I took it upon myself as my task. I had a cause and negotiated with Ferrari for a massive amount of money and got rather more money than I really should have done, by putting pressure on them.

For a long time I really didn’t keep in touch with Joanne and the family and I had no contact with Jacques until I met him in Monaco when he was doing Formula Three. He was complaining about how difficult everything was and I thought to myself, “You’ll never make it!” The next time I remember seeing him is on TV in America, after he won the Indy 500. I thought, “Boy, that is incredible.” I felt good for him. His father would have been proud.

I think poor Jacques is completely run out on questions about Gilles. It’s nearly become a complex for him, or at least that how it seems from the outside. There’s nothing that really stands out in terms of similarities between them; you wouldn’t know they were father and son. In a way it almost seems that Jacques is trying to do the opposite to his father.

I wouldn’t have thought that Gilles would like Formula One in 1999. He was a racer, and he probably would have got into the grooved tyre argument. But if he had the same spirit he would probably have still made holes in places where there weren’t any…

Scheckter’s recollections are stark, brutally honest and raw, devoid of glorification of Villeneuve, but it is worth remembering what he said at the legend’s funeral, “I’ll miss Gilles for two reasons. First, he was the most genuine man I have ever known. Second, he was the fastest racing driver in the history of motor racing.”

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RENAULT ANNOUNCE STAFF SHUFFLE AMID NEW ARRIVALS

Renault have announced a host of changes to the engineering structure of their Formula 1 team with changes at Enstone and Viry-Châtillon, adding talent head-hunted from Ferrari and Mercedes to boost their arsenal.

Press Release:

Renault Sport Racing is bringing changes to its organisational structures in France and the UK to reinforce its management and strengthen its Technical departments.

Beyond their impact on the 2019 and 2020 seasons, these changes are a significant step towards preparing both organisations to the challenges of the 2021 season and meeting the objectives of the roadmap set in 2016.

In particular:

At Viry-Châtillon, two new management positions have been created: Christophe Mary has been named Director of Engineering and will arrive on August 1st, while Stéphane Rodriguez has been appointed Project and Purchasing Director within the Technical Department. Both will report to the Engine Technical Director, Rémi Taffin.

At Enstone, current Deputy Chief Designer Matt Harman has been appointed Engineering Director within the Technical Department and will report to Chassis Technical Director, Nick Chester.

All three will sit on Renault F1 Team’s Management Board. These reinforcements will allow Nick and Rémi to increase their focus on the performance of the chassis and engine while overseeing the entire technical program with internal and external stakeholders.

Previously, Christophe Mary held technical responsibilities for 14 years at Ferrari F1 and for four years at Mercedes HPE. Most recently, he held the position of Chief Systems and Powertrain Engineer at PSA Motorsport.

Stéphane Rodriguez has held various positions since joining Renault Sport Racing in 2001, from Head of Reliability to Head of Testing. He is currently Project Manager, responsible for the latest generations of V8 engines and hybrid PUs.

Matt Harman joined Renault F1 Team in 2018 as Deputy Chief Designer after 11 years at Mercedes AMG HPP and more than seven years at Mercedes AMG F1 as Head of Powertrain Integration and Transmission design.

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HAMILTON FAVOURITE FOR SPAIN WHERE FERRARI NEED TO BOUNCE BACK

Lewis Hamilton is favourite to win the Spanish Grand Prix for a fourth time, and third in a row, on Sunday and retake the Formula 1 world championship lead from Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas who leads the championship by a single point.

Needless to say, Ferrari have another script in mind for a race seen as something of a litmus test for their title prospects.

Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc dominated pre-season testing at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya amid excited talk of Ferrari ending Mercedes’ five-year stranglehold on the sport.

They return reeling from four successive Mercedes one-two finishes, an unprecedented start to the season by any team, and hoping an engine upgrade — brought forward by two races — will swing things their way.

If Mercedes are again quicker at such a benchmark circuit, where the champions have won four times in the last five years, the writing will be on the wall for Ferrari. They need to step up a gear and start turning things around.

Both teams have been talking up the other’s chances.

“The last four races, on average, we were not quite there so I think we are not the favourites going to Barcelona,” said Vettel, winner with Red Bull in 2011, after finishing third in Azerbaijan.

Team principal Mattia Binotto agreed: “Obviously Mercedes are very strong at the moment. I’m pretty sure they will be very strong as well in Barcelona.”

“Many teams will bring aero package or car developments, so that will be again a different balance compared to what we’ve seen so far in the season,” he added.

Mercedes principal Toto Wolff dismissed Vettel’s portrayal of Ferrari as underdogs for the first race of the European season, “The results seem to paint a relatively clear picture, but the truth is that they’re too flattering. The performance has fluctuated in the first four races.”

“Our opponents were blisteringly quick in winter testing, so the Spanish Grand Prix will be anything but easy,” said the Austrian.

Bottas leads five times F1 world champion Hamilton by a single point, with both men on two wins, by virtue of the Finn’s fastest lap in the Australian season opener.

British bookmakers William Hill have Hamilton as race favourite at 6-4, with Bottas on 9-4 and Vettel and Leclerc priced at 9-2.

Barcelona has also been a happy hunting ground for Red Bull, with Max Verstappen becoming the sport’s youngest winner there in 2016.

“It is always a special one for me,” said the 21-year-old of a track whose future remains uncertain, with talk of Verstappen’s home Dutch circuit Zandvoort taking the slot next year.

“The temperatures will be a bit different (to testing in March) and everyone is bringing new parts to their cars, so it will be interesting to see how competitive we can be.”

Former Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo, now at Renault, has a three-place grid drop as punishment for a bizarre collision with Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat in Baku.

A Brazilian-Austrian flag will be displayed on the podium in tribute to the late triple champion Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger who died at Imola in May 25 years ago. Sunday’s race is the first since the anniversary.

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F1 hopeful Mercedes and Ferrari will join Netflix filming

Formula 1 commercial chief Sean Bratches says he is optimistic that all 10 teams will sign up to be involved in the second series of the documentary programme produced by Netflix.

Netflix shadowed eight of the 10 Formula 1 teams at stages in last year’s championship and produced a 10-episode series, entitled Drive to Survive, charting various aspects of the sport.

It has remained involved this year and in the run-up to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix a second series was rubber-stamped between Formula 1 and Netflix.

As per last year it has been following certain teams and drivers at specific grands prix.

But last season Mercedes and Ferrari were not directly involved in the programme and their presence only came via world feed or paddock videos.

Bratches remains confident that Formula 1’s pacesetting teams can be persuaded to alter their stance for the second series of the documentary.

“It looks like we’re going to have season two and we will make it available to all teams,” Bratches is quoted as telling the Sports Decision Makers Summit.

“We’re optimistic that we will have a full ship this time.

“We’re trying to open this up and be very transparent and inclusionary. Everything we do we’re making it available to all teams.

“Had Mercedes and Ferrari been involved in the Netflix series from the outset, they might have taken a lot of air out of the room for other teams but them not taking part it allowed the other teams to shine.”

Netflix's crew were filming specifically with Robert Kubica and Williams in Australia, and shadowed Renault at the most recent event in Azerbaijan.

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Red Bull and Toro Rosso unveil new European motorhome

Red Bull and Toro Rosso will have a brand new motorhome for the European Formula 1 races, with the former energy station now retired after 14 seasons.

The new structure, which is even larger, will be nicknamed the F1 Holzhaus (F1 Wood House), is based on the design of the Red Bull KTM motorhome, which was used at last year's Austrian Grand Prix, but is much larger to house both Red Bull and Toro Rosso.

The Holzhaus is built from sustainably sourced Austrian timber, can be erected in just two days and taken down in one by a team of 25 crew, uses a natural convection design intended to do away with the need for air conditioning and offers 27 per cent more floor space than the Energy Station for a total of 1,221m2.

"At the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix, Red Bull changed the game with the introduction of its Energy Station," said team boss Christian Horner. "Over the last 14 seasons, the Energy Station has undergone several transformations, moving with the times, first to accommodate two F1 teams after the arrival of Toro Rosso, and then with a series of upgrades to better meet our changing requirements.

"This week, we’re changing the game again with the unveiling of the new Energy Station, better known in Austria as the Holzhaus. It’s a sustainable structure that brings a touch of the Styrian Alps to the F1 paddock, having been designed to meet the current and future needs of ourselves and Toro Rosso. If it sees half as much drama as the old Energy Station, it will be doing well!"

The new motorhome will debut this weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix and will then be transported to Monaco, where it will be consrtucted on a barge and anchored in the Monaco harbour – this has become tradition ever since it outgrew the Monaco paddock.

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Five key talking points as F1 heads to Spanish GP

After trips to Australia, Bahrain, China and Azerbaijan, Formula 1 kick starts its European season in Spain this weekend. Motorsport Week takes a look at the main talking points ahead of the upcoming grand prix in Barcelona.

Will it be as close as pre-season testing?

The Spanish Grand Prix has been an intriguing race in recent years. Mercedes’ first-lap clash in 2016 kicked open the door for Max Verstappen to triumph, in 2017 Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel duelled for the win, while last year qualifying was a close-run affair until the thinner gauged tyres skewered Ferrari in race trim. The outcome of pre-season testing suggested 2019 would be a close-run affair between Ferrari and Mercedes but so far, the latter’s minor pace advantage has been translated into a major points buffer, such has been the efficiency of the Silver Arrows in comparison to the limping horse. Mercedes has a strong Barcelona record – unbeaten in qualifying since 2012 and having taken four from five wins – but Formula 1 could do with Ferrari finally not only unlocking the package it believes it has, but then delivering it on Sunday. It has brought forward the introduction of its second-specification power unit, initially planned for Montreal, so could that make the difference this weekend?

Can Haas avoid another tyre drama?

Haas departed pre-season testing ostensibly atop the midfield and solidified that position in Australia, but since then its fortunes have as-yet-irreversibly turned sour. Kevin Magnussen has raced to lacklustre 13th places with Romain Grosjean a best of 11th, that China result sandwiched by a clash and a brake failure. Haas has pinned its problems down to its use of Pirelli’s notoriously tricky tyres, reckoning it has identified the fault, but fixing it is another matter. In short, Haas’ VF-19 enters the graining phase but does not re-emerge, instead sliding around on too-cold tyres. The high-stress Barcelona circuit should alleviate some concerns – albeit with cooler-than-usual conditions expected – but longer-term it needs to address its problem. “There’s no point saying ‘Oh, it’s not working’,” said boss Guenther Steiner. “Nine teams can get it to work. Who’s better? Who’s worse? We are absolutely the worst one to get it to work. I’m very conscious about that one. It’s very serious.”

Will Williams retain hope for 2019?

Williams’ awful season reached a new low in Azerbaijan. Even on the list of possible worst-case scenarios the team is unlikely to have factored ‘still unwell driver wrecking car on loose drain cover after just two laps’ into the equation. The recovery truck element only enhanced the tragi-comedy. Robert Kubica shunting the other car in Q1 was but another setback. The alarming trend is not only that Williams was late with its recalcitrant car, but that its chasm to the rest has shown no sign of closing through the opening four events. In a relentless development battle Williams would be expected to reduce the gap but in fact is being left behind even more. Williams, as with other teams, will bring updates to its car in Barcelona but the pressure is surely magnified on the Grove-based outfit due to its dire predicament. If the upgrades provide green shoots then it will be of enormous comfort, but if not, all remaining hope for 2019 can surely be placed in the bin.

Is this Barcelona’s swansong?

Barcelona – well, the area around Montmelo – is almost a second home for the Formula 1 paddock but this weekend could be the last Formula 1 race to be held at the circuit. With high-profile discussions surrounding the future of grands prix in Britain, Italy and Mexico dominating talk, Spain’s long-term prospects have slipped under the radar. Indeed, several paddock folk in Azerbaijan were surprised to hear of Spain’s fragility on the calendar. The three-year deal agreed in 2016 expires at the conclusion of this weekend’s race and it is set to relinquish its spot on the schedule to Zandvoort for 2020. The ongoing political situation in the country, accentuated by the unresolved Catalan independence argument, has not helped (the mayor – up for re-election at the end of May – already reduced the circuit’s F1 budget), while the departure of Fernando Alonso is another setback. Barcelona will (probably) still be regarded as an ideal pre-season test venue, but perhaps Formula 1’s visits will from now on be restricted to March and not May.

Can ‘new’ F3 deliver the goods?

After a long, long winter of waiting the new-for-2019 FIA Formula 3 championship begins this weekend – albeit the calendar is such that its next event won’t be until late June’s France round. The series is effectively a merger of European Formula 3 and GP3 though in reality is a rebirth of the Bruno Michel-run category that was launched in 2010, with the new car an evolution of the Pirelli-shod GP3/16. 10 of motorsport’s leading junior teams have signed up and each will field three drivers, resulting in a bumper 30-car grid; whether the quality and quantity can be sustained long-term is another matter entirely. Both GP3 and European F3 trained drivers for the top level but the absence of the latter – particularly from a more open engineering perspective – is a loss for motorsport, while the calendar is undoubtedly regressive, missing previous favourites such as Pau and Norisring. It’s a positive step for FIA streamlining, so let’s hope it delivers the goods in terms of racing quality and driver talent.

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Analysis: What’s behind Ferrari’s fast-tracked engine upgrade

After a clean sweep of Mercedes 1-2s in the opening four rounds of the Formula 1 season, Ferrari has brought forward its engine upgrade to the Spanish Grand Prix.
Originally planned for the Canadian GP in two races’ time, as Edd Straw and Jake Boxall-Legge discuss in our latest video, introducing the package early is Ferrari’s best shot to reverse its fortunes after a disappointing start to the year. 

They also assess the pending developments from Red Bull and Racing Point that are expected to make their debuts this weekend, as well as what the Ferrari aerodynamic department can offer in its bid to build on the team's pre-season testing superiority.

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Spain update a "substantial step" for Racing Point

Racing Point owner Lawrence Stroll says that the Silverstone team's upgrade package in Barcelona this weekend will be a "significant step" - but he stresses that real signs of progress will be seen in 2020.

The team has been compromised thus far in 2019 because the car was designed last year while the then Force India outfit still faced a financial squeeze.

Although Stroll has been investing in the team since he took over last August, it has taken time for the extra resource to pay dividends.

The Barcelona package, which features front wing, bargeboard and suspension modifications, will be an early indication of how the team can now keep up in the development race.

Stroll admits that the early races of the season were compromised by last year's restrictions, and that in currently holding fifth place in the constructors' championship Racing Point is doing better than he had anticipated.

"Understandably the guys were focussed on the '18 car, because they didn't know what '19 held," Stroll told Motorsport.com. "They certainly didn't have excess funds to be focussing on '19, they had to make parts for '18.

"So we anticipated at the beginning that the first four races would be a little more difficult quite honestly than they have been. Our expectations were lower.

"There will be constant upgrades, we're now going to be like a normal team. When we find something that works, we will be manufacturing it as fast as we can – probably not as fast as the big guys, but as fast as we are capable of – and bringing it to the car. So Barcelona is for us a substantial step."

Stroll says that there will be no restrictions on the design of next year's car: "To be honest, the real start will be 2020. We're very shortly going to start on the 2020 car, which is a clean sheet of paper.

"This year will always have to be a bit of compromise versus the original design of the car. We're not redesigning the whole car for 2019, we're working with what we have and bringing upgrades.

"Next year is whole new car. I think it's fair to say that will be the first Racing Point design from scratch, knowing our destiny and future."

Stroll made clear that he wants the team to repeat the fourth place that it last achieved as Force India in 2017.

"There's no question that the competition relatively this year is much, much stronger than it was last year. It's a couple of tenths from seventh to 18th, it certainly wasn't like that last year or the year before.

"But our goal is to try to be fourth, that's what we're aiming and pushing for, and hopefully we'll achieve it."

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Pursuit of Performance: The Formula 1 development race

Just as fast and furious as the battle on track, the race to bring car updates and outdevelop rivals across the course of the season is often where championships are won and lost...

There’s a wistful look in Nick Chester’s eye when he contemplates the idea of a quiet time in the design cycle of a Formula 1 team. “June,” says Renault’s chassis technical director finally.

“It used to happen around June. You would have pretty much finished developing the current car, and you were just beginning to think about the next one. Of course, that was 10-15 years ago. Now, you develop the current car until October but you’ll have started work on the next car back in January. The team is flat out. Permanently.”

There’s a romantic desire to see championships won purely on the skill of the drivers or the brilliance of the initial technical concept but the reality of F1 is that success requires a third element: the speed at which the team can develop through the season and continually reinvent its car.

It’s why F1 factories have become monsters of industrial efficiency, consuming talent and resources at one end and spitting out a never-ending stream of new components at the other. Your top gun driver and genius designer aren’t going anywhere if the factory can’t produce the upgrades in a timely fashion.

This season, given the wafer-thin margins between the teams, the upgrade process is more important than ever. The team that comes out on top in December isn’t going to be the one that’s done the best job thus far: it’s going to be the one that does the best job from now on. At this stage of the season, the development battle off-track is just as fierce as the driving tussle on it.

The Spanish Grand Prix in early May has traditionally been the time to see the first big upgrade of the season. While the car at the first race may be different to the one that tested in the winter, by the time Formula 1 arrives in Europe, having had a couple of months to assimilate data from the pre-season tests, the teams are in a position to begin adding performance to their car. At least, that’s how it used to work. The modern reality is that, while the big updates still happen, updates arrive race by race. Sometimes even day by day.

“I think the idea of the major upgrade has become a bit of a myth,” says Chester. “We used to go down the route of a few big updates each season, each one quite discrete. Now, we tend to bring new items to most races. If we’ve found something that improves the car, we want to get it to track as quickly as possible.

“That this season is a massively tight competition doesn’t really affect the schedule – though it does make it more important than ever to get upgrades on the car as soon as possible. If you were in a position well off the teams in front and well clear of the teams behind, you might consider taking the pressure off, skipping the upgrades for a race and instead you might put a few updates together into a larger package that makes it easier for design and manufacturing at the factory, and that, in turn, might allow you to expend a little bit more effort on the future car. But while the competition is as tight as this, you’ll bang everything through as quickly as you can.”

What constitutes ‘everything’ is a lengthy list. In a recent lecture, McLaren Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Neale estimated that an F1 car consists of 16,000 parts, of which only 10 per cent are carried over year on year. Were the number of updates to be averaged out over the life of the car, Neale revealed it would equate to "an engineering change every 20 minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the moment we release it to the moment we retire it.

It's high-speed research and development". Moreover, Neale argued that the car is in a permanent state of obsolescence – because by the time parts are at a race track, there’s a new generation going into production to replace them.

While Chester and Neale adhere to the theory of constant evolution, incremental change is still sometimes augmented by a larger update, simply because on occasion a sequence of parts needs to go onto the car as one in order to deliver an overall performance gain. Toro Rosso, for instance, has planned larger updates for Barcelona and Silverstone, to supplement what Technical Director Jody Egginton calls ‘rolling development’.

“The major milestones for Toro Rosso will be race five (Spain) and race 10 (Britain) – but in-between there will be something new at nearly every race,” he says. “A key part of our plan for the season has been rolling development. Following the launch, there has been a series of small updates to the floor, the barge boards, the front wing, the brake ducts. Not big changes but lots of them: whenever we find some performance in the wind tunnel we take it to the car.

”Behind that, there’s another stream of development that deals with bigger changes,” he adds. “This will be things we’ve seen in the wind tunnel that look like they’ll bring performance – but they perhaps need to be combined with something else. Those updates will be on and off the wind tunnel model several times before going onto the car as part of a bigger update.”

The areas of the car to which Egginton refers are, not coincidentally, those most affected by the 2019 regulation changes. And while upgrades are, to a certain extent, a response to what a team sees on track, and what they see rivals doing, they will have also formulated a plan to best deploy their resources in-season long before a wheel has turned in anger.

“During the design phase, we try to build in as much flexibility as possible,” says Egginton. “Within that, you have a number of streams: you have parts that are evolving, parts that are frozen for the moment and parts that you don’t yet have a clear view on. This tends to be a theoretical plan with a lot of ‘what-if’ scenarios – but you need to have it at a team like Toro Rosso so the guys in the factory know what they’re going to be doing – because we need to make sure the design and manufacturing capabilities line-up. We can’t afford to have 200 people standing around waiting for someone to dream up a new part.”

“It really depends on which parts you’re making,” he says. “For something like a front wing, it’s a team of designers working flat-out on it for four to six weeks after its come out of the windtunnel. Then it goes into production and they’ll be flat-out as well. However good your resources are, you’re always left thinking: ‘if I had a bit more, I could do it quicker'.

“We try to be a little bit careful about not attempting to do too many things at the same time. There’s always the potential to try to juggle too much and not actually get anything to the track for the target race.”

In this, as in every season, there’s a point at which teams – even teams fighting tooth-and-nail for a title or a good final position in the constructors’ championship – will stop attempting to improve their car. They do it because the returns from improving the current car are outweighed by the need to devote time and energy to the next one. In 2019, with no major technical changes expected for 2020, upgrades will continue to come late into the season because any goodness located for the current car is likely to be transferable to the new.

The elephant in the room, however, is the looming 2021 technical regulation change. “That’s going to be tricky to manage,” cautions Chester. “At some point soon we’ll begin to see some regulations and have to address those. Then we’ll have three cars to worry about!” It looks like there isn’t going to be a quiet period for F1's team factories any time soon.

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FERRARI: WE ARE EXTREMELY UNITED

Ferrari have unleashed a ton of PR spin ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend insisting multiple times on Thursday that the team is “extremely united” amid the trouncing they are currently receiving from  Mercedes a mere four rounds into the 2019 Formula 1 season.

The story of the young gun from Monaco taking on the four-time F1 World Champion is well told, as are the far too many team orders dished out to Leclerc to the benefit of his teammate in the sister car.

Perhaps spurred to diffuse a potentially volatile situation, of the driver hierarchy within the team, the media minders in red have been punting the we-are-one angle as they turn up the firepower for the weekend in Barcelona with a new Power Unit package and a host of aero bits to bolster their package.

Today in Barcelona, Ferrari confirmed again that their “drivers will have their first taste of the new power unit fitted to the SF90 as well as further aerodynamic updates, following on from the first lot of changes introduced in Baku a fortnight ago.”

During the drivers’ press conference in the afternoon at the track, Vettel was asked about the state-of-play at Maranello, to which he replied, “The morale and atmosphere in the team is high. We have further updates here on top of those brought to Baku and I think we can be competitive.”

“I have always thought we have a very strong package, but we have just struggled a bit to put everything together and be quickest.”

A little later Charles Leclerc was reading from the same script when addressing media in the paddock, “We are extremely united and you can feel it in the dynamic of the team. I think, a bit like recent events in the Champions’ League, where a club came back when facing a huge task.”

“In our team too, the will to turn things around after a less than easy start from the results point of view, is there. We will give it our best shot,” added the 21-year-old.

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RENAULT TO USE NEW ENGINE AHEAD OF SCHEDULE FOR SPAIN

Renault have decided to fast-track their next engine update to this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix as they aim to turn around a below-par start to the season, made worse by dismal performance in Baku last time out.

In Barcelona this weekend, there is nowhere to hide for Cyril Abiteboul and his team as they need to reverse the tide and reassert themselves as best of the rest before problems morph into a fully blown crisis.

These are the hard facts regarding their campaign after four races this season:

They are seventh in the constructors’ championship on 12 points, 161 behind leaders Mercedes.

This time last year were two places and 23 points better off, 79 points behind then leaders Ferrari.

In races where at least one car has finished, Renault averaged sixth place after four races last year.

This year, they have never finished on the lead lap and have averaged ninth place.

They have three DNFs with Daniel Ricciardo (2) and Nico Hulkenberg (1).

Renault’s qualifying average is 1.325 seconds down on the pace-setters this year.

With the latest spec PU the French manufacturer have tweaked the ICE in an effort extract more grunt from the package which is well down the pecking order right now, certainly down on Ferrari and Mercedes, and possibly even behind Honda.

The official F1 website report that Ricciardo and Hulkenberg will run the new-spec engines this weekend, with customer team McLaren set to do so as well despite them admitting it will be a challenge.

Meanwhile, team boss Abiteboul, who is fast running out of excuses, said ahead of the weekend in Spain, “The start of the European segment of the 2019 Formula 1 season is an opportunity for us to reset. We know we are capable of much more and we need to target clean weekends and races to make the most of our potential.

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GROSJEAN: IT’S PRETTY MUCH A BRAND NEW CAR

Haas have worked hard since Baku to revitalise a tricky piece of kit and will trial an almost entirely new car during free practice for the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday.

The team have opted to give Romain Grosjean a run with the new package first as the team do back-to-back evaluations to the upgrade during free practice in Barcelona tomorrow. Kevin Magnussen will run with the older spec car.

Grosjean told reporters on Thursday, “I’m pretty excited. It’s good to be back in Europe and it’s good to have the first big upgrade on the car. It’s a circuit where we have been testing on, and testing went very well.

“We’re hoping that the performance comes back to us and that we can understand a bit more about what has been happening recently. It’s pretty much a brand new car, even the mirrors have been modified. So it’s a big update. We’re hoping it works well.”

Haas team chief Guenther Steiner explained the reasoning behond running the two cars in different specs, “We will run one car on the old spec and one on the new spec, so we have something to compare. If with the new spec we’ve got issues, at least we can compare it.

“If you put two cars on the new spec and you have got an issue – is it the tyres or the new spec? So we’ve got one and one and then we can convert the second car on Friday night if everything goes to plan.”

“We’ve got all the parts. We consciously wanted to have a back-to-back [so as not] confuse us more with the tyre issue,” added Steiner with reference to an issue between the American team and Pirelli, the tyre company blaming the VF19 chassis for the incompatibility with their tyres.

But Steiner pulled no punches earlier in the week when he said, “We shouldn’t be talking always about if the tyre works or not. It’s interesting but, no, that’s not Formula 1. Did you get the tyre to work? Yes – then I’m fast. Oh, my tyre didn’t work, then I’m slow.”

“We spend millions and millions to develop these cars and then they are out of the [tyre] window and really cannot get going,” lamented the Haas team chief.

Nevertheless, the goal with the upgrade was to resolve the problem their drivers have of not getting heat into the tyres so that they can optimise the grip when the tyres are in the ideal operating window which the Haas cannot seem to find.

Grosjean will be looking to make up for last year’s race when he spun and crashed spectacularly through Turn 3 on the opening lap, his race and that of Pierre Gasly (Toro Rosso) and Nico Hulkenberg (Renault).

MIKA: What's the bet he f**ks up yet again and takes a few people out?  

I seriously believe this will be Romains last season at HAAS.

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VETTEL: I DON’T THINK THE ‘SILVER BULLET’ EXISTS

After preseason testing Ferrari had convinced all that they had the quickest package for their drivers Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc but the first four races of the season have proved everyone wrong as Mercedes have dominated with a quartet of one-two finishes.

The Scuderia are on the back-foot as they arrive in Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix weekend hoping that they rediscover that early season pace by bringing forward their updates in both the aero and engine departments.

Sebastian Vettel told reporters on Thursday, “We hope to improve the car. We introduced some bits in Baku already last race and another set of new parts here. Obviously, we want to make the car faster here and there.”

“I think we were reasonably quick but not quick enough overall to put the cars on the front row at every event. We’re lacking a little bit, but I think overall the package is promising. We know that we have a strong car; we’ve struggled a bit to put it together.”

While the team seek performance on-track, they are also managing a potentially explosive situation as Vettel faces a stern challenge from young teammate Charles Leclerc.

But according to Vettel, “The spirit is good, the team is in good shape, so we’re looking forward to come here. We’re confident about the parts we’ve brought here, we are introducing a new engine as well, so we’ve got some stuff that we think should help us to be stronger than the last races.”

“And as I said, the spirit is good. Comparing to previous years, at this point last year we were in a better place, we had won some races and overall we’d been more competitive, but nevertheless I think the spirit is as good or better than last year.”

While Mercedes have dominated early on with near perfect displays, Ferrari have slipped up with some dubious strategy calls from the pit wall not helped by a lack of firepower for their drivers when it matters.

Although strong in phases, the SF90 has also suffered with marked drops in pace during the late stages of races. Although the team insists the package is right up there with Mercedes, they clearly are still hunting for that sweetspot which until now has proved to be finicky if not elusive

Asked if believed his team could find the pace they enjoyed three months ago, Vettel replied, “The honest answer is we don’t know entirely. Obviously, the car was really good in testing. We arrived in Australia and we struggled a little bit to feel the same.”

“I think the first four races for us have been a little bit up-and-down. There were stretches where the cars felt really good and other parts where the car hasn’t – but deep down we know that the car is strong. So, we are trying to put the bits together and trying to understand.”

“We haven’t found the silver bullet – but in the last ten years I never found the silver bullet so I don’t think it exists. It’s really getting down to the detail, trying to understand more and more, trying to understand the conditions that we face, and trying to obviously improve and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“This weekend will be interesting for us because obviously we had such a good feeling and it’s not so long ago. I’m pretty sure I remember how the car felt and it will be interesting to see how it behaves the next couple of days.”

“But I’m quite confident if we can get to that level then we should be very competitive. As I said, on top of that, we have some new stuff, so let’s see. I can’t give an exact answer.”

Vettel is third in the championship standings albeit 35 points adrift of the leader Valtteri Bottas, but the gap does not appear to concern the German, “At this point of the year, it doesn’t really matter by how much. I think it’s quite straightforward, we need to start scoring more points.”

“The later we start doing that, the worse it looks. The sooner, the better. It’s pretty straightforward to be honest,” added the 31-year-old ahead of his 231st Grand Prix weekend.

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HAMILTON: TEAM ORDERS AND TOUCHING WON’T HAPPEN AGAIN

Given how dominant the two Mercedes cars have been in Formula 1  this season, it seems the only thing that could stop the Silver Arrows at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix would be another outbreak of infighting they experienced not too long ago.

Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton have swept the top two spots at the first four races of the year, and Mercedes has also won the Spanish Grand Prix in all but one of the last five seasons. The only time it didn’t happen during that span was in 2016, when Hamilton and then-teammate Nico Rosberg collided on the opening lap on the Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit – one of several incidents during a season-long feud between the two.

Bottas now looks like the only real threat to Hamilton winning a sixth F1 title, as he leads his British teammate by one point after the two earned two wins each so far. Hamilton, though, said the two are determined to avoid another flare-up of in-house rivalry and have agreed to not put the team at risk.

“There are things that happen in the background that you won’t know and I don’t really feel this is the place to talk about it,” Hamilton said Thursday at the Mercedes motorhome. “But what is really important is that we have pulled together as a team.

“We’ve discussed it and hopefully rectified it. … As for what happened before [with Rosberg], an individual just continued to go down that route. But that is not we have here. We have a great energy with the team, the respect is there. We have an agreed rule set so that we do finish the race one-two.”

Even so, Hamilton said if Bottas wanted to overtake him, he would have to earn it, “Yes. It is going to be close and tight, and there is always tension when you want to beat someone else. We will not be touching, that’s for sure. But in terms of giving up positions, that will not happen again.”

And at age 34, Hamilton said his maturity is also helping create more harmony within the team, “Naturally it is three years later so I have grown a lot since then.”

“I am a lot stronger person standalone outside the car, as well as inside the car. I am much better at knowing how to manage personal relationships, and understanding how to work with people. I think I am a much better team player than I have ever been in my career.”

Hamilton won here in 2014 and the past two years, while Rosberg took it in 2015. Ferrari may have to break that streak, though, if it wants to get involved in the title race. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel is already 35 points behind in the standings but is hoping a new engine could help close the gap.

The Ferraris were the fastest cars at preseason testing on this same track in the winter, only to see Mercedes jump ahead once the real racing began.

“I know we are behind, but at this point of the year it doesn’t matter by how much. It’s quite straight forward: we need to start scoring more points,” Vettel said. “The latter we start doing that the worse it looks.”

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SCHUMACHER: I APPRECIATE WHAT MY DAD DID EVERY DAY MORE

Formula 2 rookie Mick Schumacher says he appreciates more with every race just how great a driver his father Michael was.

The 20-year-old German is preparing for his third F2 weekend at the Circuit de Catalunya, the track where his seven times Formula One world champion father won a record six Spanish Grands Prix.

“It’s never easy and what he has done is extraordinary,” Schumacher told reporters on Thursday. “I appreciate it every day more.”

The youngster, a member of the Ferrari academy and last year’s European F3 champion, looks destined to graduate to Formula One and tested the Italian team’s car in April.

Team principal Mattia Binotto said then he could see similarities with Michael.

Schumacher senior, who has not been seen since he suffered head injuries in a 2013 skiing accident, was famed for attention to detail.

Mick, whose uncle Ralf was also a multiple Grand Prix winner and is now helping 17-year-old son David in junior series, indicated he was just as meticulous.

Also like his father, who suffered from motion sickness in simulators, he steers clear of the modern trend of virtual racing.

“I don’t do any sim at home or whatever,” he said. “If I do, it’s with the team which is a proper preparation for me. Data, everything, all the key points I need to be prepared.

“At home I basically just go through it, through my notes, and try and take everything so I am in a good place to arrive here for practice and be ready.

“I prefer going training, on the bike and to the gym, which is for me also very good on the mental side,” added the German. “I don’t have the feeling I need to do online racing.”

Mick, who is ninth in the F2 standings with a best result of fifth so far, said he loved to probe his limits and those of the car.

“If you find that sweet spot and are able to repeat it every time, honestly that is one of the best feelings,” he said. “If you get that feeling, it’s addictive.”

Asked what he did to unwind on days off, Schumacher said he watched old racing videos to see what he could learn about strategy and technique. And if he had a day free of all commitments, he would take the dog for a walk.

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AUTODROMO AYRTON SENNA TO HOST BRAZILIAN GRAND PRIX IN RIO

Rio de Janeiro is building a Formula 1 track to replace Autodromo José Carlos Pace (aka Interlagos) as the host the Brazilian Grand Prix and the new venue it is likely to be named after the late Ayrton Senna.

While most media (including this website) reported that the Rio race will happen in 2020, there is a snag, namely that Interlagos has a contract to the end of that year and only now has the go-ahead been given to proceed with the construction thereof.

Globo report that the new track will be built in Rio de Janeiro on ground ceded by the Army in the Deodoro area and will be named after the Brazilian F1 legend: Autodromo Ayrton Senna.

The announcement was made by Mayor Marcello Crivella, during a ceremony that marked the signing of an agreement to use the site, who also indicated that the Senna name suggestion was made by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

He is on record saying, “I did not choose Rio, I chose Brazil. It was Formula 1 that chose to return to Rio de Janeiro,”

And this week the President declared, “A new motor-racing track is going to be built. The construction will take six to seven months and the Brazil Grand Prix will be held in Rio de Janeiro next year.”

Also present at the signing ceremony was State Governor Wilson Witzel who confirmed that the construction of a new Rio racetrack was essential due to the real threat of F1 ending their long association with Brazil at the end of the contract with São Paulo next year.

Interlagos has become increasingly unsuitable to host races of F1 magnitude as urban sprawl has reached the track perimeters, making access difficult and dangerous as gangs target fans, team personnel and even drivers.

Recent races have done little to promote the image of the country due to fallout from reports of attacks on F1 personnel and the high risk of attending the race weekend as an F1 fan from out of town.

The Globo report adds that in November 2018, Mayor Crivella and Governor Witzel met with F1 CEO Chase Carey who, after a positive meeting, sped up negotiations so as to allow for the construction of the race track to begin.

The Brazilian Grand Prix was held on ten occasions at Autodromo Nelson Piquet in Jacarepaguá, on the western outskirts of Rio, until 1989, as well as Indycar races, before the circuit land was used for the construction of the Olympic Park in 2012.

In recent weeks, Liberty Media sent a letter to Bolsonaro, Crivella and Witzel confirming mutual desire to hold the Brazilian Grand Prix in the coastal city.

On Wednesday, the three signed a term of commitment to trigger the construction of the race track in the Deodoro area where a race in 2020 is supposedly on the President’s agenda, but this appears a tad ambitious as the construction of the venue is unlikely to be completed within a year.

Furthermore, the F1 contract with Interlagos that runs until the end of next year is another stumbling block to overcome, however it would not be inconceivable that the current contract holders strike a deal to transfer next year’s race to the new venue.

However, 2021 looks to be the most realistic and likely time for Rio de Janeiro’s Autodromo Ayrton Senna to host the Brazilian Grand Prix in the near future.

[MIKA27]

Carlos Sainz fears it could be too late to rescue Spanish GP

Carlos Sainz fears it could be too late to rescue the Spanish Grand Prix, which is set to drop off the 2020 Formula 1 calendar.

Motorsport Week understands the race will be replaced by the addition of a Dutch GP at Zandvoort which will be announced next week.

Sainz remains hopeful something can be sorted to keep his home race on the calendar, but believes it's probably too late to make that happen next year.

"Obviously for me it would be a big loss on the calendar – but as far as I know, negotiations are still on-going.

"From me, wishing that all the institutions are going to do their job, they’re going to agree on something. I think it’s in the benefit of Barcelona, of Spain, of Formula 1. I think a Spanish Grand Prix has a lot of history in Formula 1; I think this track has a lot of history in Formula 1, and it would be a shame to lose it.

"So, hopefully they can agree on something. Maybe not next year because it’s too late, hopefully, just agree on something for the future."

Asked if relocating the race to another Spanish venue such as Jerez would be a satisfactory outcome, he added: "What I would like the most is to have Barcelona. I think this city, this track, deserves to be in Formula 1.

"If you could add Jerez, then even better because I [would] have two [races]. But if you don’t get Barcelona, I wouldn’t mind having Jerez back.

"That’s pretty much my order of priorities if you ask me now. But this city and Spain, I think, deserves to be Barcelona on the F1 calendar."

[MIKA27]

Antonio Giovinazzi eyes one-lap pace after getting over ‘lost’ feeling

Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi says improving his one-lap pace is a primary target as he bids to break into the points for the first time in Formula 1.

Giovinazzi explained pre-season that unearthing the final few tenths on Pirelli’s softer rubber was an area he needed to target, and the Italian struggled early in 2019.

Giovinazzi made Q3 for the first time in Azerbaijan and went on to out-qualify Alfa Romeo team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, but a 10-place penalty for taking on fresh engine components left him at the back.

Giovinazzi went on to classify in 12th position in Baku meaning he is still chasing his first top 10 result in race trim in 2019.

“I just need a bit more luck and a clear weekend and I’m sure we can have a better result,” said Giovinazzi ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.

“So far I’m happy with the team and what I’m doing, I need just… this year is quite difficult because the midfield is really tight and you need to put it all together, especially in qualifying.

“And this is what I need to learn more just to put the lap together, and when you start in front the race is a lot easier than when you start in the back.”

Giovinazzi spent almost two years out of single-seater racing after finishing as runner-up in the 2016 GP2 Series.

Giovinazzi had multiple test and practice outings for Ferrari, Haas and Sauber, but did not compete in a grand prix between China 2017 – when he was a late replacement for Pascal Wehrlein – and Australia 2019.

“If they ask you to stop your work for two years and then you come back you feel a little bit strange or lost,” he said.

“This is what I was feeling especially on the first two races but now it’s getting better and there is just coming more natural I would say.

“Until you’re doing just testing or FP1 the stress is not there, as it’s not like your weekend, your car, so it’s completely different.

“When you’re on the race weekend you’re working for you, the pressure is there, so it’s different.”

[MIKA27]

Formula 1 boss Chase Carey hints at loss of two races, addition of Dutch GP in 2020

Formula 1 chairman Chase Carey has hinted that the 2020 calendar will remain at 21 races, but will drop two current venues, meaning along with the already agreed Vietnam GP, another new venue will join the calendar next year.

It's believed the Spanish and German grands prix will face the chop to make way for Vietnam and the return of the Dutch GP, as previously reported by Motorsport Week.

Carey, speaking during a Liberty Media earnings call, said the 2020 calendar was close to being finalised and that along with the addition of two new races, two other venues were close to agreeing new deals – believed to be Silverstone and Monza.

"We’re in the process of finalising our 2020 race calendar, we have agreements in principle on two renewals and are actively engaged on three other renewals," he said. 

"In addition we have already announced our new race in Hanoi where construction has begun on the track and facilities. It will be a street track that is one of the most unique and challenging in the world with 22 corners and a couple of long straightaways. 

“In addition to Hanoi, we also have agreement in principle to add another new circuit to our calendar in 2020.

"We have not finalised the number of races on our calendar, but we expect it to be 21, the same number as 2019. Obviously the math means we will not be able to renew all our current races."

Motorsport Week believes Spain will make way for the Dutch GP, whilst the loss of Germany opens up a very busy period on the calendar and allows other races to be shuffled around to make way for Hanoi, which will take place in April next year.

Carey added that the calendar will likely see further expansion after 2020 as there is still great demand for races from countries around the world.

"We're in the fortunate position of having more demand than supply, but recognise that we need to manage that dynamic in a thoughtful manner.

"We clearly have demand for more than 21 races in 2020, and do expect that number of races in a year will increased slightly after 2020. However we want to make sure that we're maximising the opportunities for the sport and fans, and not rush to decisions.

"And we do believe that a limited expansion of the calendar, and churn, are important for creating a fresh and exciting dynamic for fans and for our ongoing growth."

[MIKA27]

Claire Williams: We’ll never give up on a season

Claire Williams has insisted that Williams will not stop pushing to reduce its deficit in Formula 1 this season, amid suggestions the team should switch focus to 2020.

Williams, currently last in the 2018 standings, has slipped further adrift of the pack this season, regularly qualifying a second behind the rest of the midfield pack.

Williams, as with most teams, has brought upgrades to this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, in its bid to claw back some of its deficit to its opponents.

“Williams in our history has never given up on a season regardless,” said Williams.

“It isn’t about giving up. Clearly we know where we are and it is incredibly difficult to even close up the gap even to P9 but we are coming to every race, we have test parts for every GP to analyse and determine how much they can bring us and over the course of the year we will bring incremental performance so we are not writing anything off.

“This is as much of a season for us as any other season regardless of where we are.”

Robert Kubica commented earlier on Thursday that he feels Williams has got on top of the perceived differences between his car and that driven by team-mate George Russell.

When that was put to Williams, she said: “I still think we’re getting to the bottom of that, I know Robert and his thoughts were the floors were slightly different and we haven’t been able to clearly demonstrate through scans that we’ve done that they are.

“But clearly if a driver tells you he believes one is different to another then we’ve got to get the bottom of it which we are trying to do at the moment.

“The issue or feeling that Robert had around that floor that was on George’s car during the Baku FP1 incident so that has effectively meant it is gone. But the chassis themselves are identical.”

MIKA: Claire needs to get the chop IMHO.