Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2019 i AUTOSPORT

Seeing the dynamic of power shift within a Formula 1 team is rather like watching the sun rise at dawn. You first become faintly aware of a brightening of the sky as time ticks by, before the new day is suddenly there in all its glory. We’ve been aware for some time that Charles Leclerc would probably, eventually – through the unstoppable passage of time as much as his sheer driving talent – become the main man at Ferrari. But the manner of his first two grand prix victories – fending off Mercedes while his four-time champion team-mate made rookie mistakes and played a subjacent role – has suddenly rendered the new dynamic at Ferrari crystal clear. What’s happening to Sebastian Vettel happens to most drivers eventually. Rather like in…

01 WHY MERCEDES CHOSE BOTTAS Twelve months on from the doomed handshake between Mercedes’ Toto Wolff and Renault’s Cyril Abiteboul that left Esteban Ocon on the Formula 1 sidelines for 2019, the two team bosses have buried their differences and sorted a deal for the French youngster to join the French car manufacturer next season. It is, in part, the future of Ocon that has resulted in Mercedes retaining Valtteri Bottas for 2020, rather than plumping for Ocon. The scenario of Ocon moving to Renault had looked incredibly hard to believe, given that this time last year Wolff was left deeply upset when, following that handshake with Abiteboul that Ocon would be given a seat, things subsequently fell apart. When Daniel Ricciardo suddenly came available, and Abiteboul sensed a chance…

HERE’S AN F1 DRIVER WE MADE EARLIER… Formula 1 teams have always coveted the next big thing; the new Senna, Schumacher or Hamilton who will lead them to the promised land of domination. But the strike rate for those who have attempted what often seems akin to alchemy by ‘growing their own’ has been patchy to the point where successes are few and far between. So how do you bake the perfect Formula 1 driver? It’s important to recognise how high the bar is. Top teams don’t want to produce a mere ‘good’ grand prix driver – there are plenty of those and, in a buyer’s market, they are readily available. This is about finding a gold-standard driver, someone who can not only win races, but do so consistently and…

2019 Sponsors Williams F1 2018 Launches ROKiT Phones brand 2007 ROK floated on US stock market 2004 Co-founds ROK Group with Jean Paul Dejoria 2002 Sells voucher business 1996 Starts developing electronic voucher technology with ROK brand 1992 Starts import-export business 1989 Sells distribution rights back to Yokohama 1979 Leaves Goodyear and acquires European motorsport distribution rights for Yokohama tyres 1978 Tyre engineer for Williams Grand Prix Engineering 1974 Starts working in racing division of Goodyear…

Time to pay I’m writing in response to the letter in your August issue from Jem Bruce, who states F1 races only being shown live on Sky Sports F1 “dampens the enthusiasm of fans unwilling to pay” to watch F1. Fans of other sports such as football, rugby and cricket have had to pay to watch their sport for years – and despite being more popular than F1 none of those sports had their own channel from the outset, like F1, for years. Without Sky, F1 would have disappeared from British TV years ago, and the quality of the service it provides is second to none. The fact that Sky show F2 and F3 races as well during each F1 weekend allows fans to see the future talent racing, while…

YOUR GUIDE TO MELBOURNE As the record breaking 22-race 2020 calendar has been announced, it’s time to start planning which destinations you plan to watch Formula 1 at next year. And where better to start than the first race in Melbourne, Australia. Most fans stay in downtown Melbourne when visiting the grand prix. The circuit is just three miles away from the city centre, meaning it is easily accessible by car and public transport. Melbourne is not only the capital of Victoria but also the region’s largest city. It is known as Australia’s culture capital with TV, film and sport all having a strong base in the city. It’s had an incredibly prosperous past, and is one of the southern hemisphere’s largest economic hubs. The city is easily traversed thanks…

ADRIAN MYERS Ace photographer Adrian travelled to Belgium to capture Red Bull star Max Verstappen for our cover this month STUART CODLING A busy month for Stuart. He interviewed both Robert Kubica (p58) and Frédéric Vasseur (p66), on top of his usual 'Flat Chat' column (p114) JAKE BOXALL-LEGGE This month our techincal editor recalls the last race-winning McLaren, the MP4-27, in our 'Now That Was A Car' feature (p74) PAT SYMONDS Formula 1's chief technical officer delves into the scary world of artificial intelligence in his regular column on page 26…

SHOULD WE RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINES? In 1999, when I was technical director at Benetton, I started a project to apply linear neural networks – the keys to teaching computers to classify information in the same way as a human brain – to investigate the relationship between car set-up and how well the driver rated the handling of the car. In those days, we wrote our own data analysis software and indeed built our own data acquisition systems as there were no proprietary products that approached our requirements. This made it reasonably easy to embed the electronic setup sheet into the header of the downloaded data. I also devised a very precise way of encouraging the drivers to be less subjective in their description using a flow chart that related…

F1 Racing: Yours is quite a captivating story – by becoming title sponsor of Williams you’ve come full circle. So how did you get into Formula 1 in the first place? Jonathan Kendrick: Well I was born in Wolverhampton, which is a strange place… and it had one of the biggest tyre factories in the world. 7000 people worked there, it was amazing [the former Goodyear plant closed in 2015]. And by quirk of fate, the racing division was based there. Every Goodyear race tyre made outside America was made there. I got expelled from school at the age of 15 – I’ve got no qualifications – blagged my way into Goodyear, and a ‘gofer’ job came up in the racing division, reporting to the marketing manager, a brilliant guy…

STABILITY BALL PIKE “This exercise challenges the driver’s shoulder complex and core. It focuses on hinging from the hip. The junction between your upper and lower body is what we call the pivot point. The pike exercise enables the driver to brace and keep the torso fixed and robust. If those muscles are relaxed or not engaging properly, they will start hinging from their lower back – we don’t want that as it creates a poor recruitment pattern of your back muscles and increases the chance of injury. It’s also an amazing exercise for shoulder endurance. This makes the pike an important part of a racing driver’s repertoire of exercises to prepare for competition.” SPIDERMAN EXERCISE “Not only can you feel like a superhero performing this exercise, but it’s great…

Few of Formula 1’s itinerant gin palaces have witnessed such great shifts in fortune (and ownership) as Alfa Romeo’s stately tented hospitality unit, which first saw service in the mid-2000s when BMW owned the Swiss-based team. A rotating cast of characters has inhabited it since then; as F1 Racing ascends the stairs within the light, airy central vestibule, we pass the chair Robert Kubica inhabited when interviewed for his first cover feature over 11 years ago. This afternoon a moderately communicative Kimi Räikkönen is wrapping up an open media session in the same corner and, as the assembled scribblers stagger downstairs wondering if their voice recorders contain anything useable, a contemplative stillness returns once more. Innumerable faces have come and gone but this place was built to last – probably…

CONCEPT The MP4-27 outwardly looked similar to the 2011 car, but McLaren elected to discard the U-shaped sidepods of the previous car in the interests of weight. “I think it was one of those decisions you have to take,” says Paddy Lowe, then McLaren’s technical director. “You have to have a bit of faith in the technical direction. It doesn’t always pay off, and that U-shaped section never really earned its keep on the car. I think it was overweight by about 6kg.” That meant the 2012 car’s sidepods were more conventional, save for the positioning of the exhaust, bringing forth a stronger undercut. Everything else on the MP4-27 was more familiar; Mercedes entered into its 18th year with the team as the engine supplier, Mobil remained as the team’s…

It’s been an eventful summer for you, becoming a father and getting a podium in Germany. How did it feel? It was the first podium in 11 years for the team, so it was a fantastic achievement and we were all very happy – every member of the team. When I crossed the finish line it was a very special feeling. Personally, it wasn’t easy for me to lose my seat in F1 and I thought there was no way back in for me. But since I got the call to return it’s been important to be better mentally prepared. All this work is now paying off and I’m happy with the people and team around me – hopefully we can keep this going. In your year out, how did…

1 Ferrari orders Vettel to help Leclerc win At Spa-Francorchamps the Monegasque national anthem rang out on a Formula 1 podium for the first time in world championship history. But this historic occasion was tinged with solemnity following the death of F2 driver Anthoine Hubert on Saturday, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc confessed he was unable to fully enjoy his maiden F1 victory. “On the one hand a dream I’ve had since I was a child has been realised,” he said, “but on the other it has been a very difficult weekend. I grew up with Anthoine and I want to dedicate my win to him.” This race was significant not only for being Leclerc’s first F1 win – Ferrari’s first all season – but also because the Scuderia threw its…

What’s your favourite part of the track? The circuit in Albert Park is fast and flowing, especially the fast right and left opening corners in front of the grandstands named after Australian legends, Alan Jones and Sir Jack Brabham. And what are the best things to do away from the track? St Kilda Beach is a short tram ride from the city centre and it has a very similar vibe to Brighton. The area is known as a cultural centre that attracts bohemian groups, artists, writers and has a thriving LGBT community. It’s a great change of pace from the city and there are also penguins… What local food or drink would you recommend? Melbourne is the coffee capital of Australia so be sure to check out the local cafes,…

MORE TEAMS? REMEMBER THE LAST TIME… Whether or not the prospect of 24 races appeals, how about more teams? That was the tantalising post-2020 possibility Ross Brawn dropped in casually during an interview with Sky Sports F1 recently. Brawn described the number of entities who have expressed an interest in joining F1 as “surprising”. Is it really? Last time the FIA threw open the gates to new teams it was overwhelmed with pitches for the three (later four) available slots. But let’s not forget mid-2009 was a politically febrile time; I remember doorstepping the late Martin Birrane (on his way out of the toilet in the Le Mans media centre) to gather his thoughts on Lola’s exclusion from the final list, and many of them remain unprintable. None of those…

Monza christens a new Ferrari hero For the podium ceremony at the Italian Grand Prix, I managed to photograph the celebrations from a very special vantage point: the Paddock Club suite that belonged to Mercedes. It’s always a great moment, but that is increased to the power of ten when a Ferrari driver wins their home race. The last time was when Fernando Alonso won nine years ago and I’d forgotten how passionate the tifosi can get. No one can begrudge them victory. It’s a little like a football crowd and the whole race was full of ‘oooh’s’ and ‘aahhh’s’ from the fans when the Mercedes drivers made mistakes at Turn 1. Photographer Steven Tee Where Monza, Italy When 4.46pm, Sunday 8 September 2019 Details Canon EOS-1DX MkII, 31mm lens,…

FROM BAD TO WORSE FOR RICCIARDO “I’ll probably wave at him when I go to lap him next year.” Max Verstappen’s response last year to news of Daniel Ricciardo’s move to Renault was short, succinct – and, unfortunately for the likeable Australian, decidedly prescient. Whatever the sporting wisdom of quitting Red Bull for Renault, there was no doubting that the financial terms of his new agreement were good, reportedly giving the joyful Australian twenty million more reasons to smile. Stepping into a car unlikely to add to his record of seven grand prix victories any time soon, Ricciardo will have had to reset his expectations ahead of this season, although perhaps not to the extent of merely battling for points rather than podiums. Any personal despondency caused by Renault’s difficult…

The art of engineering a Formula 1 car to improve its performance was traditionally a job carried out by a team’s race drivers. From the countless laps of Ferrari’s proving ground at Modena in the 1950s, to the weeks of running in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the season starting in Brazil in the 1980s, those drivers charged with racing a car would take command of fettling it to their liking. As technological sophistication developed through the 1990s, teams needed to dedicate more time to perfecting innovative, complex and often temperamental systems, such as active suspension and semi-automatic gearboxes. Consequently the role of the test driver came to prominence. Teams would be on the lookout for up-and-coming talent who could drive consistently, not make mistakes, and offer intelligent feedback. When…

MAX VERSTAPPEN strides into the room oozing the self-confidence only those in total command of themselves and their surroundings can summon. Yes, he will grant F1 Racing 45 minutes of his time on his busiest grand prix weekend of the season (Spa), and yes he will pose for photographs. But no, he won’t roar like a lion for the purposes of our imagery: “I’m not into that…” Fair enough. You can lead a horse to water... Or should that be a lion to his prey? Probably, because that’s exactly why we’re nestled within the VIP area of Red Bull’s new (and supposedly self-cooling) wood-based Energy Station. It’s time to talk about how Max Verstappen has evolved – from super-fast but ill-tempered wild animal into something far cooler and more calculating.…

Born 26 May 1968, Draveil, France 2017 Team Principal, Sauber/Alfa Romeo F1 Team CEO Sauber Motorsport AG 2016 Team Principal, Renault Sport F1 Team 2015 Wins GP2 with Stoffel Vandoorne, GP3 with Esteban Ocon 2012 Founds Formula E chassis builder Spark Racing Technology 2011 Wins GP3 with Valtteri Bottas 2010 Founds simulator/CFD specialist AOTech, wins GP3 with Esteban Gutiérriez 2009 Wins GP2 with Nico Hülkenberg, F3 Euro Series with Jules Bianchi 2008 Wins F3 Euro Series with Nico Hülkenberg (Jules Bianchi 3rd), GP2 Asia with Romain Grosjean 2007 Wins F3 Euro Series with Romain Grosjean (Nico Hülkenberg 3rd, Kamui Kobayashi 4th) 2006 Wins GP2 with Lewis Hamilton, F3 Euro Series with Paul di Resta (Sebastian Vettel 2nd) 2005 Wins GP2 with Nico Rosberg, F3 Euro Series with Lewis Hamilton 2004…

RACING DRIVERS who are the ‘sons of’ are nothing new. On today’s Formula 1 grid Carlos Sainz, Max Verstappen and Kevin Magnussen have descended from highly successful drivers in their own right. But there is another current F1 racer who is the son of someone who didn’t quite reach the same heights. Toro Rosso rookie Alexander Albon is the progeny of British Touring Car racer Nigel Albon, who did one season piloting a Renault 19 to fifth place in the Privateers Cup in 1994. His best result was 12th at Brands Hatch. A few years later, Albon senior was twice champion of the Asia-Pacific Ferrari 355 Challenge but, perhaps sensibly, focused his efforts on developing the skills of his son Alex in karting. “I was seven when my Dad first…

HAD I BEEN A KID IN THE 1930s, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that my hero would have been Bernd Rosemeyer. He was ferociously quick in the treacherous rear-engined Auto Unions, single-handedly taking on the might of Mercedes, and always, apparently, with high good humour. Spectacular on track, charismatic off it, Rosemeyer had it all. He was killed in January 1938, in a record attempt on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt autobahn. When the Auto Union went out of control, disturbed by crosswinds, it was travelling at 270mph. Reading in childhood about Rosemeyer, I remember being angered that he had died in such an apparently futile way – it seemed absurd that the life of a great grand prix driver, who excelled at such as the Nürburgring, should have been squandered…

1 Leclerc: the new hope for Ferrari A sea of red swamped the start/finish straight in the minutes after the end of the Italian Grand Prix. After nine long years the Monza faithful was finally rewarded when Charles Leclerc crossed the line to record his second straight victory and Ferrari’s first home win since 2010. The mechanics from Maranello climbed the fence next to their pit gantry and pumped their fists into the air. On the opposite side of the track, the tifosi – head-to-toe in scarlet – cheered their approval. Leclerc’s victory from pole position, in front of the partisan crowd, was significant for two reasons. Firstly, it represented the moment he came of age as a grand prix driver, not only because he had to fight for victory…