Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i AUTOSPORT

I expected to write with some thoughts reflecting on the early races of the new season. By rights, you should be reading this with F1 having just held its first Vietnam Grand Prix. Instead, the first eight grands prix of 2020 have been called off, 2021’s new rules delayed for a year and F1 has brought forward its traditional summer shutdown as the coronavirus crisis takes hold. This F1 season potentially won’t start until June’s Canadian GP, at the earliest. Of course, this is a rapidly escalating situation, so by the time you digest this dispatch from my own isolation bunker – I haven’t (to my knowledge) yet contracted COVID-19 but am working from home following a company directive to stay away from the office – there might well have…

As I was hanging around by the ‘Melbourne Walk’ it was interesting to see the drivers sticking to the footpath rather than walking down the road, keeping the maximum distance between themselves and the spectators. That’s fair enough because they’d been told to keep their distance. Then Esteban Ocon arrived sporting this enormous face mask which made him look like Darth Vader. The photographers had all been chatting and speculating about who, if any, would come in wearing a mask, given the medical advice that they weren’t much use for prophylactic purposes anyway. In the event, only Ocon did so. It had a huge impact on the mood. Photographer Steven Tee Where Melbourne, Australia When 11.27am, Thursday 12 March 2020 Details Canon EOS-1DX MkII, 70-200mm lens, 1/640th @ F3.5…

After shooting from up in the grandstand I headed down to the track itself for what is probably the weirdest start shot I’ve ever done in Australia – and I’ve been to every Australian Grand Prix since 1985. I’m in the middle of the track, looking towards the grid, at the moment the lights would have gone out to signal the start of the race. Instead of 20 F1 cars at maximum acceleration, the vista is one of fork-lift trucks and people in high-vis jackets. It’s quite surreal, but I suppose the consolation is that if the race had actually been taking place, I certainly wouldn’t be standing there… Photographer Steven Tee Where Melbourne, Australia When 4.10pm, Sunday 15 March 2020 Details Canon EOS-1DX MkII, 70-200mm lens, 1/320th @ F5.6…

THE FRENCH CONNECTION French as a first language is far more abundant among current continental-born F1 drivers than it was a few years ago. Pierre Gasly, Romain Grosjean, Charles Leclerc and Esteban Ocon sit at different levels on the F1 pyramid and make up a fifth of the grid, and all are intriguing competitors with varied ambitions for 2020. Leclerc is a proud Monégasque yet his career began on a kart track in the south of France, and the support he generates from French fans at Paul Ricard implies he is their adopted son. He carries the greatest potential of the group with his exploits at Ferrari last year setting him up to be a potential title challenger this season. Twelve months ago, Leclerc was focused on matching and beating…

Formula 1 technology is continuously evolving – by the end of each season only a small percentage of each car will be recognisably the same as it was when it first hit the track. Joining GP Racing this month to track the ongoing development war is Rodi Basso, whose eclectic career includes stints as an engineer with Ferrari and Red Bull, data acquisition and analysis systems for satellites, and the innovation business line of Magnetti Marelli… An aerospace engineer by training, Rodi Basso says he wasn’t really a motorsport fan as such – until his second interview with Ferrari. He’d been working in Washington as a consultant for NASA, designing onboard data analysis for microsatellites, and initially saw Ferrari as a means to an end. “I was attracted by motor…

It was April and the 2015 season already four races old, but Lotus opted to use Brands for a filming day for its 2015 car, the E23. Here Romain Grosjean exits Paddock Hill Bend and starts the run up to Druids, followed by a camera car He’d already won a GP at Brands Hatch – the European race the previous season – but Nigel Mansell’s victory in 1986 means he will always be remembered as the last winner of an F1 race at the circuit. But were the tears of joy or of pain? With Nigel you can never be sure… Two of Scotland’s finest do battle in 1966, as Jim Clark (Lotus 33) is hot on the tail of Jackie Stewart (BRM P261). Stewart started eighth, three places shy…

LUKE SMITH He’s Autosport and Motorsport.com’s new F1 reporter. See p42 for Luke’s investigation into the effects of Netflix’s presence in the paddock MATT YOUSON Well-connected in the Red Bull world, Matt tried to make sense of what’s going on with Scuderia AlphaTauri's two drivers (see p70) JAMES MANN Always on the hunt for unusual cars to photograph, James found a quirky double grand prix winner for us this month (p80) DAMIEN SMITH Aston Martin’s Valkyrie (p30) brings F1’s no-compromise approach to the road. No space for our former editor-in-chief’s kids, though……

I’ve attended lots of press conferences over the years, but I’m there to take pictures rather than pay much attention to what’s being said. This time I wanted to hear every word because I knew it would be the kind of moment you wanted to remember. FIA race director Michael Masi, Australian GP Corporation CEO Andrew Westacott and chairmain Paul Little, and F1 executive chairman Chase Carey held an al fresco press conference to explain their decision to cancel the grand prix. We had three photographers there shooting different angles of what will go down as a pivotal moment in F1 history. Photographer Steven Tee Where Melbourne, Australia When 11.50am, Friday 13 March 2020 Details Canon EOS-1DX MkII, 16-35mm lens, 1/500th @ F5.6…

1 HOW F1 WAS OUTFOXED BY CORONAVIRUS When the World Health Organisation officially upgraded the COVID-19 novel coronavirus outbreak to pandemic status on the eve of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, it was almost inevitable the event would have to be cancelled. It was the most responsible course of action. And yet the decision was delayed amid rancorous scenes behind closed doors – arguments which continued even after McLaren announced its withdrawal on the Thursday of grand prix week. Three teams – Red Bull, Scuderia AlphaTauri and Racing Point – declared themselves determined to carry on while neither the commercial rights holder nor the FIA was prepared to step in and cancel the race, lest they be liable for financial damages. The Australian Grand Prix Corporation, the race promoter, is…

DATA-DRIVEN F1 STILL NEEDS OLD METHODS The pitwall stand is, by any standards, an anachronism in modern F1. In the last couple of teams I have been with I have campaigned to get rid of it and save a considerable amount of freight weight, but to no avail. So why is it so important and what is going on at the pitwall while the cars are running? Strangely, although I still regard it as an anachronism, stationing people at the pitwall has not always been the norm. Indeed, time was when there was no pitwall. It appears the trend started when it became necessary to communicate with the driver and this was, of course, long before the advent of radios in motorsport. The pit signaller would put relevant information on…

What’s the best thing that has happened in F1 since Liberty Media took over? Most casual fans and maybe even many paddock insiders would probably answer the Netflix series Drive to Survive. To the uninitiated, F1 can seem hard to penetrate and it’s not particularly interesting to watch if you don’t know the context or have a deep understanding of the drivers or what goes into running a team. Drive to Survive is part of Liberty’s strategy to attract new fans and it proudly claims that 52% of new F1 fans since it took over the sport are under 35, which is critical to the championship’s long-term health. The great achievement of the first season of Drive to Survive was to enlarge the cast of characters we’re interested in, beyond…

July 2018 Force India goes into administration. Renault is among three teams that raise objections to potential sale to consortium led by Lawrence Stroll. Renault team boss Cyril Abiteboul denies this is an attempt to block the transfer of points and prize money as well as assets, saying Renault simply “wants reassurances” that Force India will not end up becoming a Mercedes B-team. August 2018 In the continued absence of the unanimous approval required from other teams to transfer ownership of Force India, Lawrence Stroll’s consortium starts a new company – Racing Point – and acquires Force India’s assets. The ‘new’ team is allowed enter the championship, starting again from zero points – but only after a last-minute deal on the eve of the Belgian Grand Prix. The move slashes…

WHEN HE SPEAKS OF FRANÇOIS CEVERT, inevitably Jackie Stewart becomes emotional, for this was not only his team-mate, but also the closest friend he ever had in motor racing. The final race of the 1973 season, at Watkins Glen, was to be Stewart’s 100th grand prix, and he had decided months earlier that it would be his last. As it was, he never went to the grid, the perfect symmetry of his career ravaged by a practice accident in which Cevert died. They had driven together since mid-1970, when François replaced Johnny Servoz-Gavin in the Tyrrell team. Cevert’s debut, at Zandvoort, came in one of the March 701s Tyrrell was then running. “Not ideal for your first experience of a grand prix car,” said Stewart. “The 701 was sometimes fast,…

This season’s racing didn’t get underway as expected in Melbourne, but the development war has already begun – and although Mercedes fired the first shots by deploying its innovative dual-axis steering system, its rivals demonstrated that they’re not short of ammunition either. MERCEDES’ DUAL-AXIS STEERING SYSTEM Last year Mercedes was believed to be suffering with the front end towards the end of a stint. And with the DAS system, maybe it has found a way to preserve the tyres better – and even if this means doing one lap more than last season in a stint, when you’re talking about 15-20 laps, even one lap is relevant. You generally set the car up with what we call “toe out”, in which the front wheels don’t quite point directly ahead, but…

AUSTRALIA: WAS IT SUCH A DIFFICULT CALL? Hindsight is indubitably the most precise of all the forensic sciences, and certainly in the wake of the Australian GP’s cancellation there were those who heaped scorn on Formula 1 for persisting until the very last minute. Was it wrong? Or are the wise-after-the-fact brigade simply barking their opinions from atop a wobbly ivory tower constructed from panic-bought economy-grade toilet roll? Questions were already being asked during pre-season testing in Barcelona about the wisdom of carrying on regardless. Not a single media ‘scrum’ went by without the victim being duly interrogated about COVID-19. And the response was uniformly to bat responsibility on to the FIA and F1 itself: “They will look after us,” said Haas team principal Guenther Steiner when asked if he…

Over the course of 24 hours or so in Melbourne everything changed, and the kind of cheery optimism you see in this picture fell into very short supply. Every year fans gather on the ‘Melbourne Walk’ outside the Formula 1 paddock to greet the drivers, but even on the Thursday there was a slightly peculiar atmosphere because the drivers had been advised to avoid physical contact with people. These fans just wanted to talk to someone and I thought it was interesting – and very much in the spirit of F1 fandom – that they were hanging out together even though they all supported different teams and drivers. Photographer Steven Tee Where Melbourne, Australia When 11.23am, Thursday 12 March 2020 Details Canon EOS-1DX MkII, 70mm lens, 1/640th @ F5.6…

Most of my team were able to leave on Saturday, but my flight wasn’t until Sunday night so I thought I’d return to the track and record the scene at the time the race had been due to start. You never know whether you’re going to get in or not around here, given how stringent security is. Having a pass is no guarantee. But it turned out to be fine – the public were staying away. I wanted some shots at the time the grid and the grandstands were going to be full. In this image the crowd would have been on their feet, singing Advance Australia Fair while the drivers stood in front of a grid full of cars. Photographer Steven Tee Where Melbourne, Australia When 3.59pm, Sunday 15…

LEWIS KNOWS ‘THE CODE’ FOR SUCCESS You wouldn’t want to be up against Lewis Hamilton. Listen to him talk about the things that excite him and you start to feel for the competition Here is one of the greats who has reached that phase of his career where he goes into each season and every race sure in the knowledge of how to win. Confident too that he drives for a team which can keep giving him the tool to do the job. Having had almost an hour to gently interrogate him – that is just me, him and 400 rapt executives in a Singapore conference hall – the top reaction came from a delegate who isn’t even an F1 fan. “He’s a bit special, isn’t he? So much calm,…

Until recently it was received wisdom that Formula 1 teams owned by car manufacturers tend to be unsuccessful. Ask anyone who worked for Jaguar, Toyota, Honda and BMW back in the noughties. Big company systems and structures do not sit well in F1. Agility, preparedness to take risks and the relentless pursuit of high performance don’t come naturally. They also lack patience, which is why all four of the above mentioned were here today, gone tomorrow. Interesting that two of the teams, when freed from their corporate shackles, proceeded to win world championships. It took Red Bull five years, but Brawn GP did it in one season post-Honda. Which brings us neatly to Mercedes-Benz, the company which acquired Brawn a decade ago, and is now Formula 1’s dominant team. The…

Renault has reset its horizons this season, having capitulated to the inevitable: its stated aim to be challenging for world championships within five years of re-acquiring ‘Team Enstone’ was unachievable. Had its gameplan panned out, it would have been there or thereabouts right now. Instead it faces two huge and intertwined challenges: building a more competitive car by eliminating persistent flaws in the design process, and convincing its marquee driver signing to stay on as he comes to the end of his contract. “ THERE REALLY IS A CHANGE IN THE WAY WE WORK [NOW],IN THE PAST AT ENSTONE, WHEN WE SAW SOMETHING IN A [RIVAL TEAM’S] CAR, WE JUST TOOK IT AND DIDN’T TRY TO UNDERSTAND IT TOO MUCH ”CYRIL ABITEBOUL Daniel Ricciardo could still slot in at Mercedes,…

TO HELL AND BACK: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY Author Niki Lauda Price £16.99 (hardback) penguin.co.uk Long out of print, Niki Lauda’s remarkable autobiography To Hell And Back has been given a timely re-release following his death last year. Within its pages Lauda describes his career with typical pithiness, pulling no punches when it comes to his horrific accident at the Nürburgring in 1976 and its aftermath. In life he was famous for the direct connection between his brain and his mouth, and this blend of honesty and scabrous plain-speaking is in evidence on every page of this intimate memoir. The McLaren chapters must make particularly difficult reading for former boss Ron Dennis, who doesn’t come out well. Since the book ends with Niki’s racing career, the publishers have commissioned a rather superfluous…