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Editor’s note

2014 F1 Winter Testing (09:57)

Korea FP1 and FP2 (10:09)

Sauber engine announcement (10:16)

Renault break silence and an agreement with Milton Keynes (11:20)

Bahrain twilight race (11:51)

Shambolic announcements and back tracking from the FIA (12:26)

Mmm. Ecclestone and TJ13 (12:29)

Part 2: Inside Race Control (13:17)

Vettel’s popularity grows (15:09)

Lauda Watch (15:54)

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Editor’s note

Okay we’ll all a bit Seb’d and Bulled out, so its time to move on – of course until something else outrageous comes from HQ MK.

Seriously, I wrote yesterday that there was a death pall in the paddock, and it really appears this way.  It could be we are in for a long hall to the end of the season where nobody is getting upset with their team and requiring public tweaking of their bodily members. No complaints about the tyres and even Di Resta is being nice about his co-employees from Silverstone.

This is all very much NOT F1. However, we’ll press on.

For those of you who enjoyed the Formula1.com article from last year on Stewarding, I’ll publish part II today. For those who feel this is pointless, skip it and read on. It takes about 2 minutes to reproduce and won’t prevent us from bringing you the news and gossip as it happens.

We’ve  an interesting piece coming from our man in Mexico in the next week and of course we have a race/procession – who knows this weekend.

At least Pirelli have provided us with tyres this year with a larger pace differential, so we should see different strategies for the race. The fans favourite Scottish driver will most likely doing what Scots do well, saving cash wherever they can and using less tyres than the rest of the field.

So up, up and away………

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2014 F1 Winter Testing

The winter F1 testing schedule has now been confirmed. There had been concerns that Jerez may be dropped from the schedule, following the teams and Pirelli complaining about sections of the track breaking up.

Assurances have been given these problems have been rectified. Further, the first 4 days testing undertaken by the teams is mostly a shakedown of the car to test all the bits actually work.

This was demonstrated by Lewis this year, when on his first 10 lap stint for his new team, the was a failure causing him to plough into a barrier and sit out the rest of the day.

Alonso didn’t even bother turning up in Jerez in 2013, he left the shakedown work to his worthy Ferrari assistant drivers.

Barcelona has been dropped from the schedule and Bahrain now has the 2^nd and 3^rd tests. The weather in Barcelona was terrible this year, and one morning at 7am during the middle test, I had to clear ice from my car.

Jerez is many hundreds of miles south – just an hour from Gibraltor, and the early afternoon temperatures can easily get to mid 20c.

The Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi and Dubai’s Autodrome had been suggested as venues for the Middle Eastern tests, yet Martin Whitmarsh claims Bahrain is the better option.

“The idea is that you get into some temperature testing and, if you look at the Middle East, Abu Dhabi is not a good circuit for testing, and Dubai is a bit Mickey Mouse, The best circuit for testing out there is Bahrain, so that is why we are going there.”

At the FIA Press Conference, Force India Team Manager Andy Stevenson also believes the right decision regarding Bahrain has been made.

“As far as a pre-season test venue for the new power units, I couldn’t think of a better place to go, The temperatures aren’t going to be that hot – they will probably be 22c or 23c at that time of year and it is actually a very good way of bringing the crews up to speed and ready for a hard season. I think the dates that are scheduled are pretty good.”

So, if you want to get the first sights and sounds of the new V6 Turbo era, get booking now. Hotel’s will escalate in price, yet the entrance fee to the circuit is between 10 and 20 euros each day for 8 hours where you can walk the circuit and compare the cars cornering, engine sounds, and get a lot closer to the action than on a typical F1 race weekend.

TJ13 hears that a number of teams had raised concerns over the substantial incremental cost of travelling to and from Bahrain instead of Barcelona. Yet Mr. E has assured them that his friends – the Al Khalifa’s – will be picking up the tab…which will also be first class (maybe business class for some)…….. all the way…. in its entirety.

Jerez:                 28-31st January

Bahrain:              19-22nd February

Bahrain               27th February – 2nd March

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Korea FP1 and FP2

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the Korean Grand Prix weekend so far during the second free practice session today, running on Pirelli’s P Zero Red supersoft tyre. This has been nominated alongside the P Zero White medium compound: exactly the same combination as used in Singapore two weeks ago.

Hamilton completed a clean sweep of both sessions at the Yeongam circuit, going fastest in the morning as well on the P Zero White as he worked towards a race set-up. But it was his time in the afternoon, 1m38.673s, which proved to be quicker than anybody else could manage all day. Hamilton set his fastest time halfway through the afternoon session, with Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel going second-quickest, also on the supersoft compound.

Both sessions were held in warm and dry weather with ambient temperatures peaking at 24 degrees centigrade. However, more mixed conditions are predicted for the rest of the weekend, which could lead to a wet race on Sunday.

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “The teams have quite a lot of data on the medium and supersoft already from Singapore, but this circuit is a completely different proposition. The lateral energy loadings in particular are much higher, which makes the process of reading the wear and degradation rates accurately on differing fuel loads absolutely essential when it comes to formulating a strategy.

The track was very ‘green’ at the start of free practice this morning but this is what we expected and it got quicker as more rubber was laid down. Despite the slippery surface the teams didn’t encounter much graining and there were no big surprises generally speaking, which allowed everybody to get on with their programmes as anticipated.

We’re seeing a time difference of about a second between the two compounds at the moment, although we would expect this to come down a bit tomorrow. So there is plenty of scope to formulate some interesting strategies, but the big question mark will be surrounding the weather and safety cars.

Some uncertain weather is expected over the remainder of the weekend and Korea also has quite a high safety car probability, which can obviously change the complexion of the race. Under these variable circumstances, it’s always best to have as much information under your belt as possible, which is why the work done in free practice is so important.”

FP1

1. Hamiton          1m39.630s       Medium Used
2. Vettel               1m39.667s       Medium Used
3. Rosberg           1m39.816s       Medium Used

FP2

1. Hamilton         1m38.673s       Supersoft New
2. Vettel               1m38.781s       Supersoft New
3. Rosberg           1m38.797s       Supersoft New

	Supersoft	Medium
kms driven	1,785	4,458
sets used overall	22	44
highest number of laps	21	26

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Sauber engine announcement

No big surprise here, but now we know the good news that all Formula 1 teams have an engine for 2014.

Today the Sauber F1 Team and Scuderia Ferrari announce they are extending their current technical partnership, which is for the supply of the complete powertrain, including engine, gearbox and ERS in a multi-year agreement.

The current partnership is entering the fifth year of a strong relationship that has produced four podiums in 2012.

Monisha Kaltenborn, explains: “We are pleased to extend our technical partnership with Ferrari taking Sauber into the new era of engines that starts in 2014. Ferrari has been a long standing partner of the team, first from 1997 to 2005 and then again from 2010 onwards. We are proud to extend our relationship with such a prestigious and renowned brand and look forward to entering the 2014 season with a strong and reliable partner like Ferrari.”(SauberF1.com)

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Renault break silence and an agreement with Milton Keynes

Apparently powering the driver and the team to 3 (almost 4) suceesive F1` world titles has not been a source of europhoria for Renault the car manufacturer and their Sporting division.

In the close season 2012-13 there were statements issued from Renault to this effect, one such example to Autocar by Carlos Tavares. “We are frustrated by the lack of recognition we get for beating the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes. It is true that I think we deserve better.”

Much of the deductive media reasoning for this has suggested this is primarily due to the branding of the team from Milton Keynes as “Infiniti Red Bull Renault”.

Yet behind the scenes, the French engine manufacturer is highly frustrated because the development of the RB6-7-8-9 (especially the latter versions) has relied heavily on an evolutionary design approach from Newey of the aerodynamics around the rear of the car, in particular, the diffuser.

Renault have worked tirelessly and used a highly technical approach to delivery exactly what Newey needs to make his aero concept work. This includes flows of very hot and consistent exhaust gases used to seal the diffuser and suck the car onto the circuit.

Yet Renault have been unable to explain that their input has not merely been in the form of powering the car. Of course we’ve all heard of engine maps and have a broad understanding that tinkering with the timing of the firing of the engine can help with the aerodynamics somewhat.

Further, to enable Newey to evolve the car year on year there has been an agreement between Milton Keynes and Renault that they will keep quiet over the kind of contribution they have been delivering, for fear that other engine suppliers would catch on.

However, this silence over the past week has been broken. Renault have briefed a number of F1 writers and websites with stories similar to the last post here on TJ13.

As much as I respect Michael Schmidt for his connections and F1 experience how on earth would he know the following. “In the split second required for gear changes, at least in lower gears, the four-cylinder mode can be engaged in small intervals of 50 milliseconds”; or even, “that the engine is phasing at this time three cylinders on the inner bank and one on the outer bank in the four-cylinder mode”.

Vettel in a gleeful rebuttal of the accusations that the team had used a traction control system in Singapore felt that this kind of boffin like knowledge inside Renault could not be observed or copied by the others.

“We are pretty proud of the system we have because other people will never figure out how we have done it. Constantly we try to improve the car, that is part of the homework we try to do.

We were playing around quite a lot in practice [in Singapore] and the first time it worked was in the race. I’m quite confident because other people will never figure out how we do it.”

Little did Sebastian know but Renault Sport was already briefing over their clever engine management configurations – so the rest of the teams don’t need to ‘figure out how we do it’. More importantly, Vettel’s royal ‘we’ will now be interpreted to include significant contribution from Renault – and not exclusively Newey.

Milton Keynes are miffed, but they understand that with the championships all but but won and the other teams now focusing almost entirely on 2014 car development, this Renault revelation will not allow a loss of competitive advantage this year.

Then of course for 2014, much of this engine configuration information will obsolete as the streams of perfectly configured exhaust gases delivered so expertly by Renault, will be useless for Newey’s RB10 design.

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Bahrain twilight race

The Bahrain Grand Prix will join its regional sister nation Abu Dhabi in running their F1 event and race in the twilight.

Bahrain has hosted 9 Formula 1 events, all of which have been run at 3pm local time to avoid the midday heat. However, in 2014 the event in April will be pushed back and Martin Whitmarsh confirms, “I think they are going to call it a twilight race. I’ve seen pictures of all the floodlights on it, so for their 10th anniversary they’ve got floodlights.”

David Ward has raised concerns over the continuing relationship between F1 and Bahrain, and so the political football that is the Bahrain GP may not yet be assured of even hosting a race in 2014, depending on the outcome of the FIA presidential elections.

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Shambolic announcements and back tracking from the FIA

The FIA was written to the various team principals to assure them they have no intention of implementing a single fuel supplier for Formula One.

In a statement following the framework agreement signed with FOM, the FIA had said that the subsequent “Concorde Agreement’ governing the sport would give it responsibility for conducting tenders for tyres and fuel”. This new procedure would facilitate, “appointing single suppliers in the tyre and fuel categories, for the FIA F1 World Championship”.

Of course this led to a certain amount of uproar as the teams as they use different fuel suppliers and derive a significant amount of income through their sponsorship and promotion of the brands.

Oil companies such as “ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, Petronas and PDVSA, amongst others are all presently supplying the sport with a huge amount of income.

The FIA have backtracked quickly/explained the situation stating that in fact, “Fuel was mentioned purely for illustrative purposes. There are no plans at present to have a fuel tender.”

Martin Whitmarsh was highly surprised by the suggestion that the FIA would be implementing a single fuel supplier for F1 stating, “We knew nothing about it until it emerged [last week]. Some of us spoke to the FIA about it and the FIA stated that they wanted to make it clear that on any single supply issue they wanted to control the process.”

Whitmarsh astutely points out, “Look at the post-tobacco era and probably one of the biggest sectors of investors into the sport is the petro-chemical industry, You wouldn’t want to jeopardise that, so commercially it doesn’t make sense [to have a sole supplier]. And technically it doesn’t either”.

Rather generously Whitmarsh suggests that rather than this being a complete and utter balls up by people who have little insight into how F1 operates, “I think it was just one of those little scare wobbles that the sport throws into itself occasionally.”

On another related matter, it has been reported widely that the Pirelli sole supplier arrangement has been agreed by the FIA. Pirelli have commercial agreements with all the teams and with FOM for the next 5 years, yet the FIA are not clear on this.

All that has been issued from the Place de Concorde is a tacit agreement for Pirelli to continue through a “transition period” before any eventual tender process is instigated.

Paul Hembery told assembled reporters in Korea that the Italian manufacturer is “working on five years.”

To outsiders this appears chaos for a multi-billion dollar global sport, yet Hembery amusingly reminds us, “Bear in mind that when we came into the sport [in 2011] it [the contract] wasn’t signed until February of the year in which we started racing”.

The situation is clear yet some would say ‘as mud’ as the cars go testing for 2014 in a mere 16 weeks.

“There’s meetings still going on,” Pirelli’s commercial director explains, “Unfortunately. When you’ve got lots of different groups involved and lots of different lawyers there’s lots of details but the principles are all working.”

Though Pirelli are not in the least concerned, “There might be more anxiety from the other people’s point of view because we could walk away,”

The theory that the last minute deal brings power to those awarding the contract is not necessarily true. If the FIA refuse Pirelli’s request and offer merely a 1 year transitional arrangement for 2014 prior to the new tendering process beginning, we could see the Italian tyre manufacturer withdraw during and F1 weekend – and the cars on the grid with just shiny metal rims for grip.

Tyres may yet AGAIN be a big story in 2014.

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Mmm. Ecclestone and TJ13

Back in the early days, commentators on TJ13 played games trying to guess who was behind TJ13. Someone even suggested that I was Mr. Bernard Charles Eclestone and maybe this was because back in September 2012, we predicted the race calendar for 2014 to contain just 19 races.

Following the Richter scale 9 predictions days after the Hungarian GP, there were those doubters over the truth in the most unlikely story that Kimi was to return to Ferrari. Shortly following the Ferrari announcement, TJ13 suggested Massa may be on his way to Toro Rosso.

Mr. E is known to be actively assisting Massa to find a drive for the 2014 season. He tells Bild today, “I’m a big fan of Felipe’s. I think he’s a fast driver; just terribly unlucky. But with his situation, I can’t do anything.”

The mainstream media have all reported tales of possibilities for the Brazilian driver in 2014 with Lotus, Williams, Sauber and perhaps even Force India.

Today, Mr. E suggest, “I think he could even go to Toro Rosso. It’s a better team than many people think. The only problem is that they have young drivers. What I can say is that Formula One needs a driver from Brazil.”

Remember, you heard it here first 😉 – and maybe one day I’ll tell you why.

Oh and by the way, Bernie needs something to keep him connected to F1 when he’s ousted – so why not TJ13? 😎

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Part 2: Inside Race Control

(from Formula1.com who reprinted the article from AUTO) This is a 1500 word article and is not original TJ13 content.

TJ13 note: Having asked questions of the stewards since TJ13 launched, this is an opportunity to hear from the other side.

In the past the weight of race-affecting decisions was regularly handed to a group who all too often had little or no experience of racing at a high level and, unsurprisingly, confidence in the process on the part of drivers and teams was occasionally in short supply. But that changed in 2010 when the FIA began regularly to bring in a number of former and current racers to the Stewards’ Room to add a driver’s perspective to proceedings. One of the first called up was eight-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen. The Dane made his stewarding debut at the 2010 Australian Grand Prix, has officiated three times since and says it’s a role he takes very seriously.

“I take it as a big responsibility, because I just don’t want to make a mistake,” he says. “I want to have all the facts in front of me in a very short time and make the right decision. And this is the pressure of being in that room. You need to gather all the information possible in as short a time as possible and make the right decision in a short space of time too.”

Audi sports car star and two-times Le Mans winner Allan McNish agrees, admitting that his first event, the Monaco Grand Prix in 2011, was a daunting experience.

“It was quite a baptism of fire, because while I’d spoken to Tom [Kristensen] and Alex Wurz about how it works, when you get there you realise that there’s a huge responsibility not just on your shoulders but on all the stewards’ shoulders,” says the former Toyota F1 driver.

The decisions you make can effectively turn a race weekend or a season, if you’re working at an end-of-year race as Tom did in Brazil. In that respect, you have to be very professional about it, you also have to be aware of the part you can potentially play in proceedings.”

In Kristensen’s view the role of drivers’ representative on the stewards’ panel is just that. “I feel that in some ways it’s my job to be there almost as the lawyer for the driver,” he says. “But nowadays there is so much information at hand – all the onboard, the real-time data, radio transmissions – that while you can quite easily justify an action, the question is: does that justification match the data. Sometimes the answer is no.”

According to Connelly, the addition of drivers of the calibre of Kristensen and McNish has had a profound effect on how judgements are made at Grands Prix.

“This has been in my view one of the most revolutionary and outstanding initiatives taken in the sport for years,” he says emphatically. “It brings a depth of experience and knowledge to the Stewards’ Room that is irreplaceable. The drivers take it seriously too. They are constructive and they are, in some cases, tougher than the toughest stewards I’ve ever worked with.”

Race director Whiting agrees, adding that it is the intuition of an experienced driver that often makes the difference to how situations are read.

“They have a common sense approach to incidents that helps the process enormously,” he says. “Guys like Tom Kristensen will be able to look at an incident and immediately say, ‘I understand why he did that’. That speed of analysis is invaluable to the other guys in the room. The input from people like Tom, Allan McNish, Mika Salo… all of them, is fantastic. It also adds credibility to decisions in the eyes of the drivers.”

McNish agrees that, for F1 drivers, having a peer in the judgement mix has made the handing down of penalties a more believable process.

“I do think driver involvement has given a little bit of extra credibility to the process,” he says. “It’s a face and a name that the other drivers know. It’s someone who has lived their experience and it’s someone the drivers can speak to in a slightly different way. Unless you’ve experienced going through Eau Rouge at 175mph, experienced the g build-up on the steering wheel, the reaction of the car going up and over the top of Raidillon, then it’s very hard to understand what happens when an incident occurs in that environment.”

If that makes the whole process sound relentlessly positive – as if the business of Grand Prix stewarding is now a warm and fuzzy endeavour warmly embraced by drivers and teams alike – then it isn’t. Whiting admits that drivers are still often dismayed by what they see as inconsistency in the penalties handed out and frequently ask for cut-and-dried sanctions for particular crimes.

“At the drivers’ briefing in Korea, for example, they were calling for a one-size fits all, five-grid place penalty for impeding,” he says. “My answer to that is ‘no problem, it’s very simple for us to do that’. It would take the choice out of the stewards’ hands and would be similar to the mandatory five-place penalty for a gearbox change – end of… But, you have to be careful what you wish for, because while you might feel justice has been done on one occasion, the same rule will inevitably bite you on the backside on another day and you might not be so happy with a harshly defined rule then.”

There is also a feeling in some quarters that the sport is becoming increasingly litigious, with teams demanding investigation of even the most minor hampering of their drivers’ progress. But Connelly is sanguine about the teams’ zealous pursuit of justice, saying that, by and large, the current rules have fed into the situation.

“It has become more legal, though I wouldn’t call it that – I think the teams are just being more precise. Five years ago a lot of the alleged impeding incidents you wouldn’t even bother investigating. But those were pre the current qualifying format and the current tyre regulations. Under the current regulations some of those impeding incidents have the potential to cause enormous damage to a team’s quest for points.

If you’ve used your last set of more advantageous tyres but the lap has been compromised then it could have a big say in how your race goes,” he adds. “For example, at one race this year, Nico Hulkenberg was forced to use another set of tyres because of a relatively minor impeding incident, but that cost him a set of tyres. That meant he started the race with one less set than the people that caused him to use that set. Is that fair? There are always new aspects of the sport to consider.”

And that extends to improving the stewarding process, as Connelly acknowledges.

“There’s always room for improvement. I don’t think the system will ever be perfect because we’re all human beings,” he says. “But we are striving for improvement all the time. We’re getting very good feedback from some of the teams, very constructive feedback and that’s really helpful. We also now have an internal communication that goes from each set of race stewards to all the stewards in the championship after each race, and that goes into all the decisions and why they were taken. That’s very helpful and, again, a lot of good ideas come out of that.”

Currently those ideas include the possibility of introducing a points system on superlicences so that instances of bad behaviour would build cumulatively, leading to an eventual ban.

“We’ve discussed it only once so far, but we’ll discuss again the possibility of introducing a system whereby if you are penalised three times for causing a collision then you get a one-race ban,” says Whiting. “I know president Todt is keen on introducing a points-based system, whereby you might incur a certain number of points for a certain offence, and then if you reach a certain total you would lose your licence for a race. That makes sense on paper but I think it would need a lot of discussion to get right.”

Kristensen, meanwhile, believes there is scope for a new sanction, a penalty less severe than a drive-through.

“I think it would be good to have something that’s a little bit less severe than a drive-through,” he says. “Sometimes a drive-through can be very harsh and definitely spoil someone’s whole race, especially if they’re going for points, unless you’re running at the very front. Perhaps there could be a penalty in which you’re held for a slightly longer time at a pit stop.”

The future of how F1 racing rules on the split-second decisions that can make or break a race is open to question. But just as F1 racing itself has morphed, over the past three decades, from a championship built more on the pursuit of excellence than on its achievement, into a technological powerhouse defined by an obsessive focus on perfection, so the Stewards’ Room has developed from a coterie of knowledgeable fans gathered around a couple of TV sets, into a group of highly informed experts operating at the cutting edge of technology.

The ultimate point of all that technology is straightforward, however, as Kristensen concludes:

“When the chequered flag is shown, the score should be on the board, everybody should understand exactly why it is that way and everybody should leave feeling the right result has been achieved.”

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Vettel’s popularity grows

Sorry folks… I’m tired of writing it as much as you may be bored of reading it. Yet…..

It appears that Sebastian Vettel cares not a jot about the repeated wrath of the fans which is thrust in his face each time he takes to the podium. Further, Vettel’s attitude would seem to suggests that he cares not a jot about anyone’s opinion of him at all; and the irritation of the fans is now spreading throughout the paddock.

In an attempt to explain his dominance in the RB9 during the Singapore GP, Vettel commented to Martin Brundle on the podium, ‘Whilst there’s a lot of people hanging their b***s in the pool on Fridays, we’re still working very hard and pushing very hard so that we have a strong race.’

Call me naïve, but the repercussions from slagging off the rest of the Formula 1 competitors were always going to grave.

Two of F1’s ‘nice guys’ in the public mind have spoken out against Vettel’s arrogance and suggest he does nothing but in fact encourage the jeers.

Rosberg states, “Sebastian brings the boos on himself. He talks about my b***s that I hang in the pool and then the boos come.” Indignantly Nico retorts, “My guys are working hard day and night. He couldn’t know if his boys work harder. We give it full throttle.

His comments are aloof and were almost his undoing during qualifying [in Singapore]. I almost stole pole from him and if I had I would have laughed. Sebastian should think less about my b***s and more about himself. With comments like that he is running the risk of losing the respect of his fellow drivers.”

A slightly more politically correct Jenson Button also criticises Vettel’s outburst. “It is incorrect and wrong of him to say that,’ said Button speaking ahead of this weekend’s Korean Grand Prix. ‘We are obviously not doing a good enough job to beat Red Bull and no one is at the moment but that doesn’t mean we are not working hard. Every team is working as hard as Red Bull.”

Jenson suggests Sebastian may yet rue his cocky attitude when the wheel of F1 fortune turns as eventually one day it will. ‘The problem is that being at the front, winning races and championships comes to an end, it always does for everyone. It could turn around as soon as next year, so it is unfair to every individual working in every single team for him to say they are not trying or working hard enough.”

Marc Surer, that famous ex F1 driver, now SKY pundit believes he knows how Sebastian can turn his popularity fortunes around. “He would finally get rid of the perception that he can only win in a Red Bull, and the boos would fall silent.”

Mmm. Glad I don’t watch F1 on German TV… then again…

So, where are we up to? Sebastian has now managed to upset the F1 fans…. the drivers and by implication…. all the male pit and factory crews and team bosses elsewhere in F1. Come to think of it he’s probably upset the female team employees even more… and also those of a trans-gender persuasion.  

Who next?

Surely not the Queen!

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Lauda Watch

In a remarkable turn of events, Niki Lauda is admitting, in a highly unusual moment and most self deprecating manner, that it may not have been himself who is responsible for the turn around of the Mercedes team’s fortunes.

Then again, Lauda feels it necessary to put the boot in somewhere, so he blames Schumacher – suggesting in the end Schuey was merely a ‘has been’.

“It was the right decision to sign Lewis. He woke the team up. And he can push the other driver in a way Michael couldn’t anymore.

Hamilton with Rosberg was the most important part of turning Mercedes around. Lewis is such a natural talent and he complements Nico so well with his (Rosberg’s) attention to every technical detail. It is the best driver lineup there is — not even Alonso and Raikkonen will be as good”, crows Lauda

Challenging his view, the Bild reporter ask 3 time Austrian world champion what would really have happened if Schumacher had stayed. Niki is dismissive of this notion and reports, “Not much.

After a certain time you need a whole new motivation for a team, and a new top driver can do that.

Reminiscent of Sebastian recent attempts to make friends and influence people – those particularly who have worked for the Mercedes team for sometime – Lauda marches on to claim some limelight for himself. “I said from the beginning, ‘Forget this RRA-system — we need new and better people if we want to beat Red Bull’”.

Lauda admits there was tension following the arrival of McLaren’s Paddy Lowe, but “we have clarified it .Paddy came to us earlier than we expected, but he is now responsible for the technical side. The collaboration between him and Ross works.

Ross is the team boss, Paddy [is in charge of] the technical side. Our results this year have shown we made the right decisions.”

It’s Friday… and I’m feeling fine…..

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