In the round-up: Liam Lawson is eager to experience his first full Formula 1 race weekend after stepping in as a substitute on Saturday at Zandvoort.
In brief
Lawson looking forward to contesting practice at Italian GP
Having been called up last-minute to make his Formula 1 debut in last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix after Daniel Ricciardo was ruled out of action by a crash in practice, Liam Lawson will get to contest every track session this weekend as he substitutes again for the injured AlphaTauri driver.
“In Monza, it’s going to be nice to have the full build-up to the weekend preparation-wise, being able to drive in all the practice sessions. For Zandvoort, I flew in from Japan on Thursday night after racing there the previous weekend,” said Lawson.
“Obviously, you’re always prepared as much as you can be for these things, but it’s so unlikely that you never really expect it to happen, and then it did! The support from the team was amazing. They did everything possible to prepare me as much as possible in the limited time we had. Even during the race, Pierre [Hamelin, race engineer] was super supportive with so much information, basically walking me through it, and that really made my life a lot easier, but obviously, there are always things you can improve on. In the race, we had every condition thrown at us, so that was difficult at the time, but also a good and positive experience, which has helped me get ready for Monza.”
Nissan names its 2024 Formula E line-up
Nissan will retain Sacha Fenestraz for a second season in Formula E next year, and has signed Oliver Rowland to be his team mate.
Fenestraz made his FE debut last summer with Dragon Racing while in the middle of a title-contending Super Formula campaign, then was snapped up by Nissan this year for FE. He claimed a pole position and two fourth places.
Nissan’s motorsport arm Nismo only started running its own FE entry this year, with the team previously being run by DAMS for four seasons. Rowland drove for them in three of those campaigns, and delivered a win and four poles. In 2022 he left for Mahindra and had his lowest-scoring season, despite a pole and a podium, and left that team after half of this season.
“We’ve already enjoyed some fantastic moments together and I’m sure we are going to create some more. Thank you to Nissan and Tommaso Volpe for placing their trust in me,” said Rowland.
Pirelli reveals tyre compounds for Singapore, Japan and Qatar
Pirelli has revealed which tyre compounds will be used for the Singapore, Japanese and Qatar grands prix.
The C3, C4 and C5 tyres have been nominated for Singapore. It will be the seventh time that teams will have the softest possible selection of tyres, with the sixth time being at Monza this weekend.
In Japan and Qatar it will be the opposite, with the hardest compounds, the C1, C2 and C3, being made available to teams. The C1 is a new compound for this year, and although it has been used four times already – most recently at Zandvoort last weekend – there will be a lot to learn in Qatar as the circuit has been resurfaced since F1 last raced there in 2021 with very different cars.
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On this day in motorsport
- 20 years ago today Bruno Junqueira led home team mate Sebastien Bourdais in a one-two finish for Newman-Haas in Denver, cutting Paul Tracy’s Champ Car IndyCar championship lead to 18 points