In the round-up: Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko wants Daniel Ricciardo to raise his game.
In brief
Tsunoda impressed Marko more than Ricciardo
While neither Ricciardo nor team mate Yuki Tsunoda has scored a point so far this year, Marko is more encouraged by what he’d seen from the less experienced RB driver.
At least Tsunoda is very good in qualifying,” Marko wrote in his column for Red Bull-owned publication Speed Week. “There’s a lot at stake this season for both Yuki and Daniel. Yuki’s qualifying performance was very good and Ricciardo has to come up with something soon.”
Pass for lead “pretty straightforward” – Verstappen
Max Verstappen said his pass for the lead on Lando Norris last weekend was “pretty straightforward” and his overriding concern was to look after his tyres. Norris moved into the lead by deciding not to join most of his rivals in pitting when the Safety Car came out.
“He didn’t stop, so naturally he was ahead of me,” said Verstappen. “It took a few laps for me to warm up my hard tyres. I didn’t want to take too many risks as well because when you don’t have a lot of grip, it’s easy to make a mistake around here.
“At one point, once the tyres had a bit of grip, I could catch him and pass him. So it was pretty straightforward.”
Prost reunited with his first McLaren
Alain Prost will perform his first demonstration run in the car he started his grand prix career in later this week. The four-times world champion will drive a McLaren M29 in the Historic French Grand Prix, which will take place at the Paul Ricard circuit from April 19th to 21st.
He scored a point on his debut by taking sixth place in the car at the Argentinian Grand Prix in 1980. However Prost became frustrated by a series of suspension failures in the car which caused crashes, and left the team at the end of the year to join Renault.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Ferrari is reported to be courting several members of Red Bull’s technical team in the wake of the controversy surrounding team principal Christian Horner.
Red Bull will Verstappen nicht zwingen (Auto Motor und Sport – German)
‘Marko revealed that Mintzlaff, together with head of sales Franz Watzlawick, had also arranged a meeting with majority owner Chalerm Yoovidhya in Dubai on Sunday after the race. Apparently the Austrian side tried to explain to the Thai again why continuing the collaboration with Christian Horner could have a negative impact on the team and the global energy drinks business.’
‘Horner’s bullish words could now come back to bite him and the Verstappen camp will be even more determined to push through a switch to Mercedes.’
How Alpine developed their car for F1 24 (Xbox)
‘We provide the latest aero release to EA Sports to use in the game. It’s highly confidential material which is entrusted to them, however the model isn’t always exactly the same as the one that goes out on track for the first race of the season.’
Srettha to meet Formula E executives (Bangkok Post)
‘Mr Srettha, also the finance minister, said Thailand would be an ideal venue for the tour following the jump in sales of electric vehicles in recent years.’
Benavides fastest by only three thousandths on first day of Winter Test (Euroformula Open)
‘It was a day of ‘study’ for rookie Fernando Barrichello, flanked by his illustrious father Rubens, and of return to action for Francesco Simonazzi.’
‘Those were all points rival team owner Chip Ganassi made in his defence of Penske’s leadership, and Penske himself dismissed the comparisons of ‘F1 does it this way’ or ‘but NASCAR does it that way’ because IndyCar has a fraction of media rights deals the other series hold, and nothing close to the revenue stream of the other two series.’
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Not sold on Formula E? Dario Franchitti thinks you need to reconsider (Racer)
‘I love internal combustion engines. I’m an old petrolhead and I love the sound of different cars, different engines, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy FE. The level of competition and the types of races that it puts on are bloody good.’
How Formula 1 finally made inroads in America (Vanity Fair)
‘I think there was always going to be a levelling off period because you can’t have that much growth without having a period where it plateaus for a while. I think F1 recognised that too and is happy to consolidate the gains for now. It also so happens that we had a super-dominant Red Bull team last year that won 21 of the 22 races. Without that competitive intrigue, you don’t necessarily convince people to get up early on a Sunday morning to watch a race on the other side of the world.’
Full race: Qatar 1812km (WEC via YouTube)
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
.@ESPN-2 got 920,000 viewers for Saturday’s @F1 race from Saudi Arabia, down 40% from 1.523 million viewers last year, though that event was on the main ESPN channel and held on a Sunday. pic.twitter.com/taJVx2trK4
— Adam Stern (@A_S12) March 12, 2024
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Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Armen, Pabs, Starosta and Aqib!
On this day in motorsport
- 35 years ago today Onyx launched its first Formula 1 car, the Ford-powered ORE1, at the Hippodrome in London. The team scored a podium finish in its first season thanks to Stefan Johansson’s drive to third place at Estoril