In the round-up: Alexander Albon expect the Formula 1 field will be even closer than last season.
In brief
‘No tenth team anymore’ – Albon
Albon believes the midfield battle will be tighter than ever heading into the new season this weekend.
Despite Red Bull’s dominance throughout the 2023 season, the field spread between the front and rear of the field was historically low. However, Albon expects it could be even tighter this season.
“To be honest, I don’t think the positions have changed so much,” he said. “I don’t think that the order is going to be so different, but the grouping has tightened up massively. There is not really a P10 team anymore.
“Obviously Red Bull might have a little bit of an advantage and there’s still a top midfield section and a bottom midfield section – but that’s kind of our hunting ground. I think, depending on the circuit and what track suits us or not, we’ll be either in the midfield or a little bit further back. But that’s all to see. I don’t think anyone really knows where we are right now.”
Press conference change suits Verstappen
In 2022 Max Verstappen complained F1’s pre-race media arrangements wasted too much of drivers’ time. He questioned why they were expected to speak to each member of the broadcast media in turn, then attend a group press conference with written media.
“What you see in other sports, when they have a press conference, there are a lot of mics just brought together and actually instead of giving the broadcasters just two questions each, they all have basically six, eight or ten questions just in one go and they can all broadcast it,” he said.
The thrice-champion should therefore approve of the new-look press conference format introduced yesterday ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix. The broadcast media were grouped together in the same way written media have been for decades, sparing drivers the drudgery of repeatedly answering the same questions.
WRC to drop hybrids for new electric class
The FIA has confirmed the World Rally Championship will scrap the hybrid element of its current Rally1 cars from next season.
WRC joined Formula 1 and the World Endurance Championship in having hybrid elements to power units when it introduced the concept in 2022. However, the governing body announced plans to remove the hybrid unit in Rally1 cars from next season.
Instead, the FIA says it plans to introduce a full electric category into the series “at the earliest opportunity” which will “achieve parity of performance with Rally1 cars running on sustainable fuel.”
F1 23 comes to PS+
PlayStation players who subscribe to PS+ will be able to redeem and play F1 23 next week when it becomes one of the service’s four monthly games for March.
All subscribers on any tier of the service can download and play the most recently released official F1 game for as long as they are subscribed to the service, provided they redeem the game between Tuesday 5th March and Monday 1st April.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Ferrari has improved, but Newey has taken a fantastic road (Minardi.it)
‘We come to the first round (of 24 GPs) after having seen the three days of collective tests. Three days from which it was hard to draw a conclusion. It starts again from where we left off: A Red Bull in front of everybody. Adrian Newey has taken a different road from the rest of the pack and if everything goes as it should once again there is little all the others can do, also because he has introduced innovations which will be hard to duplicate in short time.’
The next street style capital? The Formula 1 paddocks (Vogue)
‘These arrivals are also a great way for drivers to represent their merchandise brands to the paparazzi and press, and, therefore, the world. Daniel Ricciardo, an early adopter of the merchandising model among drivers, seizes these moments to show off his latest Enchanté drops. Today he wore a T-shirt that’s already selling out on the website.’
Five women appointed FIA commission leaders in historic WMSC vote (FIA)
‘During the recent World Motor Sport Council, members approved the appointments of Pernilla Solberg (Sweden), Emilia Abel (Belgium), Burcu Cetinkaya (Turkey), and Elise Racette (Canada) as either Commission Presidents or Chairpersons, with Natalie McGloin (UK) re-appointed as Chair of the FIA Disability and Accessibility Commission.’
Rock icon Jon Bon Jovi to be special guest at St. Petersburg (IndyCar)
‘Legendary musician Jon Bon Jovi will be a special guest of Meyer Shank Racing and SiriusXM at the IndyCar Series season opener, the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 9-10, with a variety of activities that include a ride from a fellow legend in the Fastest Seat in Sports.’
‘FIA head of technical – single seater feeder series Corrado Casiraghi: ”On safety, there are a lot of changes. In terms of safety, six years is a very long time. The main focus was definitely on side intrusion protection to the survival cell. That is now much stronger, particularly in the ability to cope with T-bone impacts. We now have a full static test, in which we apply up to 380kN, which is a load approximately equivalent to 40 tonnes, so a proper design effort for the manufacturer. We also deployed a new roll hoop, which is far stronger. Again this partly comes from lessons learned in F1, in particular the experience of (Zhou Guanyu’s 2022 crash at) Silverstone and from many other incidents we have seen in the meantime. We managed to generate a load case that was more challenging, with a higher load on the roll hoop itself.”
EA cutting 5% of workforce (GamesIndustry.biz)
‘In its most recent annual report, the publisher gave its headcount as 13,400 as of the end of March 2023, which would put the job losses around 670 people. The cuts are just one part of the company’s restructuring plan, which also includes closing some offices and sunsetting certain live games, like the previously announced shut down of MLB Tap Sports and F1 Mobile Racing.’
Speed dating with the 2024 F2 grid! (F2 via YouTube)
If you have ever wanted to know what Dennis Hauger’s favourite food is, it is one of the many questions answered in this enlightening video.
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On this day in motorsport
- Born on this day – leap year day – in 1932: American racer Masten Gregory, who raced in F1 and won the 1965 Le Mans 24 Hours in a Ferrari shared with Jochen Rindt and Ed Hugus