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F1 will never forget those dark Imola days You always remember where you were during one of history’s turning points. Three decades have now elapsed since Ayrton Senna met his tragic, shocking and still unfathomable end during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Perched on a university housemate’s malodorous bag of hockey goalkeeping gear, I watched it unfold on a 14-inch TV. Viewing footage of Imola 1994 still summons to mind the fug of long-inhabited sports garb, like an incongruous and disconcerting reverse madeleine de Proust. Back in those days the BBC did not deign to broadcast qualifying (Grandstand on 30 April featured horse racing, snooker, and the rugby league Challenge Cup final instead; BBC2 was showing a war movie). So viewers in the UK had been spared the sight…

01 CLIMATE CHANGE? Seb Vettel teases F1 comeback 02 SENIOR SERVICING The real reason McLaren’s new recruit left after three months 02 HOW VETTEL MUDDIED THE TRANSFER MARKET After just over a year away from Formula 1, Sebastian Vettel is starting to sound like someone who’s seriously considering a comeback. Provided you’re willing to suspend some disbelief – which many people are, it seems. “From an age point of view, I feel bloody young with all the guys I’ve raced with still hanging around and signing big contracts, staying around longer – it looks like I could have another 10 years in the sport,” the 36-year old joked during an appearance on The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X. “Of course, the better the car, the better the team, the more exciting…

SHANGHAI TENDS TO BE FULL OF SURPRISES 20 years ago the first-ever Chinese Grand Prix was also notable since it brought a dip for the driver who had dominated the season to that point. Shanghai’s first race was in September, by which time Michael Schumacher had wrapped up the championship after a blistering season with Ferrari in which he won all the races he finished until the Belgian GP, where he settled for second to confirm his seventh title. Schumacher’s first experience of the 3.3-mile track in the Jiading district was promising, despite Anthony Davidson (now Sky Sports F1’s resident expert) setting the pace in both the opening practice sessions as test and third driver for BAR. In final practice Michael was fastest and, in the days of one-lap qualifying,…

CV 2022-present President, Miami Grand Prix 2021-2022 Senior Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer Miami Grand Prix 2013-2021 Executive Vice-President of Business Operations, Kansas City Chiefs 2010-2013 Senior Vice-President of Business Development, San Diego Padres 2007-2011 General Manager, Hall of Fame Racing 2006-2007 Vice-President of Marketing and Business Development, Sports Management Network 2003-2006 Director of Team Administration, Chip Ganassi Racing 2001-2003 Marketing and Operations Assistant, Kansas Speedway GP Racing: On the shelf of your office in Miami are five Formula 1 drivers’ helmets including those of Nigel Mansell, Kimi Räikkönen and James Hunt. Were you always a fan of racing growing up? Tyler Epp: I remember listening to the Indy 500 on the radio as a kid, but it wasn’t until I went to college in North Carolina that a friend…

There are many glass-fronted offices São Paulo district of Pinheiros. But only one has a McLaren MP4/5 – specifically the one Ayrton Senna drove to victory in the 1990 Italian GP – on the 15th floor. This is the home of the Ayrton Senna Institute, where the three-time world champion’s ambition to give Brazilian children better opportunities lives on. “At the beginning of 1994, Ayrton was having a conversation with his sister Viviane,” explains Thiago Fernandes, business development director at Senna Brands. “He asked for her help. He had been giving a lot of money to a lot of different causes, but he wasn’t seeing concrete results or a structural improvement. So he asked Viviane: ‘Please, can help you help me think of something which could help Brazil to improve…

ONE floor below ground, in the crowded pedestrian vestibule connecting London’s Piccadilly Circus with Leicester Square – still bustling with tourists despite the Stygian murk enveloping the capital – lies Zhou Guanyu’s favourite eatery in the city. It tells you much about China’s first Formula 1 racer that this is no exclusive, highfalutin, Michelin-starred establishment but a busy, friendly Szechuan-style diner: Haidilao Hot Pot, a chain with hundreds of branches around the globe. As we’re guided to a quiet back room, it’s clear Zhou is a frequent flyer here. Every member of staff gives him a cheery greeting and he browses the iPad-based menu with a confident sweep of the fingers. “Anyone got any allergies, things they don’t like?” We leave ourselves in his hands on the comestibles front and…

Sauna Sauna is an important thing for me – again, it’s usually a place to relax and wind down after a long day. Especially in Finland, when I’m at home, I go to the sauna every day. I think it’s good for the soul, but it’s also good for the body to get used to the heat. Coffee A great passion for me! I’ve been drinking coffee since I was a teenager – maybe not the best quality coffee back then – but in recent years, with more travelling, I’ve come to appreciate a good cup of coffee even more, but also how it’s made, how it ends up in the cup. I’m part of a coffee roasting company in Finland called Kahiwa Coffee Roasters. I’ve obviously learned a lot…

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PAT SYMONDS On the 30th anniversary of Ayrton Senna’s death, Pat remembers the Senna he first met when they worked together at Toleman in 1984 (p32) ERWIN JAEGGI Erwin, Motorsport.com Holland’s F1 reporter, explains the valuable work that the Ayrton Senna Institute is doing in Brazil (p46) MARK GALLAGHER Mark caught up with Damon Hill in Australia to talk about Hill’s memories of Adelaide 1994 and his 1996 world title (p72) OLEG KARPOV This month Oleg had an exclusive chat with Laurent Mekies, RB’s new team principal, about his first few months in the job (p48)…

MAKING A CASE FOR DIVE INTERVENTION When the latest cars were properly revealed in Bahrain we were able to see what had really been going on in design offices up and down the grid. The replicas and renderings now commonly used for car launches have never fully represented the finished article, partly because Formula 1 is the ultimate ‘Just In Time’ industry with components arriving sometimes just hours before they are needed – and partly because designers don’t want to show their hand until the last minute. One might think this secrecy is misplaced but showing the spark of an idea two weeks before you really need to enables your rivals to gain two weeks in the whole research-design-produce cycle. That could mean a replica of that idea appearing on…

2 November 1983 was a fairly typical winter’s day at Silverstone. The temperature was around 12 degrees in the morning – not warm enough to dry off a track surface wet with overnight drizzle. The light south-east wind was doing little to help, it merely added to the misery of a winter test. And yet in other ways the day was far from typical for this was the day that Ayrton Senna first drove a Toleman, the car he was to race the following season with me as his race engineer. This wasn’t Ayrton’s first taste of Formula 1. In July he had driven Keke Rosberg’s Williams FW08C at Donington Park and, in the autumn, McLaren had given him a run in the MP4/1C – but this was his first…

“YOU SHOULD GO TO ANOTHER TEAM NOW, LEARN SOMETHING NEW, GET MORE EXPERIENCE AND THEN COME BACK TO US” Given Franz Tost’s penchant for dry humour, you wouldn’t know how serious he was suggesting that his then-chief race engineer, Laurent Mekies, should leave – in order to return down the line armed with new knowledge and ideas. And although Tost insists he was joking, Mekies – who had spent 12 years with the Faenza-based outfit from 2002 to 2014 – ended up doing as he was told. “That’s how direct he could be!” Laurent laughs as GP Racing reminds him of the story Tost repeatedly told following the news that Mekies would replace him as team principal. “When at some stage, having spent a number of years together, we were…

MENTION DAMON HILL, ADELAIDE, 1994 AND THE MEMORIES START. Usually with an image of Michael Schumacher’s Benetton B194 on two wheels following a collision with Hill’s Williams FW16B. Those who witnessed it will never forget – and Hill fans will never forgive – a cynical spur-of-the-moment act by Schumacher to win the world championship, eliminating his rival using blunt-force trauma. Hill often gets asked about it but, whatever the emotion at the time, he has long since put that particular incident to rest. Claiming the 1996 drivers’ championship will have helped, but so too the knowledge that it was not the only time Schumacher took his win-at-all-costs approach beyond acceptable limits. Think Jerez ’97, Monaco 2006 and Hungary ’10. “He [Schumacher] was ruthless,” says Hill, who recently visited Adelaide for…

1 Sainz goes marching in The question buzzing around the Albert Park paddock after the Australian Grand Prix was whether Carlos Sainz would still have won, had Max Verstappen not suffered his first retirement in two years? The popular belief was that he would have. Data from practice indicated both Ferraris were able to keep life in their tyres for longer than the opposition. The cooler, autumnal temperatures in Melbourne, combined with the super-smooth track surface meant that graining – where the top of the tyre shreds, rather like a pencil eraser – was more of a factor for the Pirellis than thermal degradation. “We don’t know what Max’s real pace today was,” said Sainz’s team-mate Charles Leclerc, “but I will say that from FP1, we knew pole position and…

Ferrari adds to F1’s sparkle Ferrari Trento has been the official sparkling wine of F1 since 2021, a fact which has caused mild consternation in two areas: first, longtime podium master of ceremonies Bob Constanduros can no longer perform his much-loved call of “champaaaaaaaaaaagne!” Second, there haven’t been that many opportunities for it to be sprayed in celebration of a victory for its unrelated namesake, Scuderia Ferrari. Last year it took until Singapore for Ferrari to break Red Bull’s winning streak. Doing it in race three is hopefully a sign of more variety on the top step. One question: is it OK to drink fizz after an appendectomy? Where Melbourne, Australia When 4:53pm, Sunday 24 March 2024 Details Canon EOS R3 100-500mm lens, 1/2500th @ F6.3 Take it to the…

WHY WILLIAMS PLAYED ITS CARDS RIGHT IN AUSTRALIA Despite all the evidence to the contrary there remains an ever-optimistic group of fans and media who continue to insist that F1 is a sport as opposed to a business. You need only to have followed the online reaction to Williams’ decision to ask Logan Sargeant to step aside in favour of Alex Albon in Melbourne to witness the degree of cognitive dissonance that exists. The moment it became clear the monocoque of Albon’s Williams FW46 was damaged beyond repair, the team had no option other than to ask Sergeant to step aside. Points mean prizes, specifically a share of the chunky prize money which the Formula One Group distributes to the teams each season. In 2023 this amounted to £964 million which,…

Gorianstrasse is a small, dead-end street in Salzburg’s Riedenburg neighbourhood, around halfway between the old city nestling at the foot of the Hohensalzburg fortress and the airport on the western outskirts. There, in a new-build block, Roland Ratzenberger bought a two-storey apartment with beautiful views of Untersberg mountain from the terrace. For 29 years now this has been the home of Roland’s parents. Rudi, his father, soon turns 91, while mother Margit is 86 – but with a memory some much younger people would envy. “Roland was travelling the world as racer, but he always stressed he would have a residence in his hometown. That’s why he bought this apartment. He took it over one week before Imola,” Rudi recalls. And he adds: “Firstly, we were reluctant to move in. Then…

One crumb of comfort Valtteri Bottas can identify as he contemplates an early season blighted by pitstop issues – none of them will be as bad as his worst stop ever, which remains a record in Formula 1. At the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix, when Valtteri was driving for Mercedes, the pit crew was unable to remove his right-front wheel… so it remained in place for another 43 hours, finally parted from the chassis in a surgical procedure back at the factory. To consistently achieve fast stops, where the car is stationary for around two seconds, teams not only practice the procedure itself regularly, they develop bespoke technologies to expedite the process. While ultra-fast stops are desirable – and rewarded with a nice-to-have but somewhat pointless award sponsored by DHL…

MY RELATIONSHIP WITH AYRTON SENNA started brilliantly but took a sudden nose-dive from which it never fully recovered. It remains one of my greatest regrets. The connection began on 2 November 1985. Senna had won pole position for the first Australian GP in Adelaide and completed the post-qualifying press conference. With the championship decided and this being the final race, very few European journalists had made the long trip. I found myself as one of a handful of people accompanying Ayrton as he took a lengthy and pleasant walk back to the Lotus motorhome via the horse racing course that formed the circuit’s hub. It was an ideal opportunity to sound him out about an interview for Life magazine. “No problem,” he said. Having established that we both lived in…

FULL THROTTLE MUSINGS WITH ALEX KALINAUCKAS WILLIAMS: IT’S NOT AS BAD AS IT LOOKS Only hard squinting reveals it. Williams, for the slew of shocking headlines it has endured of late, is actually in a better place with its FW46 compared with last year. Since there’s only really what Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll leaves available points-wise in the ever-compressing pack chasing Red Bull and, assuming none of the other frontrunners hit the trouble he regularly seems to find, you can’t see this in big points swings. Instead, Williams can look to the year-on-year time gains it has made. That will have been of little solace to Logan Sargeant when Alex Albon took over his car in Australia – Alex having smashed his own in a poor practice shunt. Williams was…