UPDATED 09:47 GMT – A Daily Round up of Formula One news, inside whispers, opinion and comment. Today,
LdM: Vettel was contacted on advice of Schumacher
Berger: Renault have only themselves to blame
The Emperor’s MP4-30’s new clothes
LdM: Vettel was contacted on advice of Schumacher
To use a Hollywood analogy, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel are the Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker of German Motorsports. The seven times world champion began mentoring Vettel whilst he was with the Benetton F1 team and Multi21 best displays how much the young Luke Sebastian learned from Schumi, including the dirty tricks.
When Felipe Massa had his accident in Hungary 2009, Ferrari tried to bring back Schumacher, but the German had not yet recovered enough from a spine-injury he’d suffered after an accident in a Bike race, which shall be a warning to all you kids out there: Buy cars, they don’t fall over,
Not being able to secure the services of Big Schu, he gave Ferrari the advice instead to keep an eye on the other German, who had earlier that year scored Red Bulls maiden victory, after doing the same for Toro Rosso a year before.
Dominicali wanted him at all costs,” Monsignore Luca di Montezemolo recalls in an interview with Italy’s La Republica and talks about his first meeting with Seb in 2011. He accompanied me to my home in Bologna. He brought a box of Swiss chocolates and appeared a bit socially inept. He was already a world champion back then. But he left a good impression on all of us.”
The ousted former Ferrari boss claims the decision to hire the German to be his and dismisses the myth that a certain Spaniard left voluntarily. “When Marchione and I saw that Alonso got more and more bitter and continually mistrusted the team, we decided it was time for a change. Vettel definitely earns less than Alonso had demanded for an extension of his contract, and he helped Arrivabene build a new, better spirit within the team.”
Hint Luca: That new spirit came about as soon as you and Fernando were out. 😉
Berger: Renault have only themselves to blame
Gerhard Berger was the boss at Toro Rosso when the team was still running Maranello-built engines and the Red Bull little sister outfit became the only customer Ferrari team ever to win a Grand Prix.
Currently, Formula One fans will see the ‘Junior Bulls’ from Faenza – mostly on fire.
According to the Austrian the problem is French and surprisingly goes by the name of Renault. “I’m not surprised. They have an outdated factory and Mercedes invests three times more money into engine development. Renault is hopelessly out-gunned.”
According to German media speculation, the Renaults have been turned down so far by now that they are carrying a 100 horsepower deficit to Mercedes, yet the French power units still spontaneously morph into an external combustion engine if anyone looks at them cross-eyed.
Danny Ricciardo, who scored his first three wins last year, will already be using the fourth and last allotted unit in Barcelona, which means that he might start collecting Grid penalties as early as Monaco, and mind you, Renault hasn’t introduced a single improvement yet.
The Emperor’s MP4-30’s new clothes
If you do something silly these days, you can be sure it is all over the interwebs in a matter of hours. That’s all jolly well if you are an attractive young lady and accidentally show the world which packaging your future children’s first drink comes in – we won’t complain about that 😉
But if you are a multi-million dollar operation that makes an ‘unfortunate’ design decision, you’ll get mocked mercilessly.
Let’s not be adding any gold to that livery ok @McLarenF1? 😉 https://t.co/Ts1wOtd6JW
— Lotus F1 Team (@Lotus_F1Team) May 6, 2015
.@McLarenF1 vs the other backmarker @HRTF1Team pic.twitter.com/MtE5dgcY2t
— Matt Somerfield (@SomersF1) May 6, 2015
Hunt says ‘bullshit’
Love you guys.
You’re cold moffer fuffers.
Hey judge, your header date is wrong. Must still be sleepy when you posted this haha! Refreshed a couple of times earlier to confirm my net was working
Yeah, corrected that. Note to self: Drink a coffee before posting News…
Ditto here! I didn’t notice that you posted the news instead of judge. All good!
Luca should really go and do politics. Nice to claim the fame and turn around the knife in Alonso’s back, while portraiing Vettel as a kid, socially inept and unable to negotiate.
@verstappen said Luca should really go and do (edit…MORE) politics.
Correction in brackets for you 🙂
Hey Mr Hippo, nothing to do with your offering of today’s DNC, but am curious as to the greater appreciation of Mr ToadFrog’s self flagellating role, (which doesn’t seem to have raised too many eyebrows here. Puzzle 🙂 !
Given the coverage of Japan 2015, the aftermath and the plainly self gratifying bull$hit the FIA indulged in with their whitewash, this gig he’s w@anked himself into at the UN should surely be ringing alarms?
I’ve no idea who this Moon fellow is (am not even interested in learning more of him), BUT, surely he has advisers to guide him? Yet somehow the failing of the FIA guided by Mr ToadFrog has gotten right by him.
And will Vettel go on to mentor Mick Jr?
And so on and so forth…
I can see where this is going – endless German domination!!!!!
I believe he already is his mentor
Yes, and Patron to ADAC F4 and to the German Carting Championship. What does a Patron do? Hand out trophies? Give pep talks? Contribute monies?
What does any role model really do…?
Roll 😂
“”And then he has strongly helped Arrivabene, who is a man with great personality, to impose a new, better, and more positive mood.”……..
Good job those comments on Alonso by LdM weren’t about certain other drivers, the internet would have broken from the amount of stories about it. Just have to look at the pages that get written when an ex racing driver just makes a passing comment on certain current drivers 😉
Have you looked at Spanish websites or Spanish-speaking websites?
Just saying… 😉
I love the Spanish coverage, it’s amazing. To hell with impartiality 😀
A little math equation…
(Hippo+Berger=Statements)(Renault) = Priceless.
Actually I find Berger hits the proverbial nail straight on the head:
“They have an outdated factory and Mercedes invests three times more money into engine development. Renault is hopelessly out-gunned.”
Since the Singapore 2008 cheat win and its aftermath in 2009, Renault had been investing less and less into its F1 operation. During engine equalization, it worked alright. But this was a recipe for disaster in the context of a new engine formula, with poorly understood experimental technology. Even last year with 4 customers Renault was banging the “lack of funds” drum, publicly complaining of late payments from customers and inability to finance their operation. The situation has been exacerbated since losing 50% of their customers, meaning significantly less development funds.
Right now I’m hearing from Red Bull (and their Toro Rosso minions) all the right noises to drop Renault. At which point Renault will find itself with no chassis on which to bolt their engines, and pushed out of F1 (definitely NOT “withdrawing” from F1).
Their only option then to stay in F1 would be to take over Toro Rosso, which the Styrian Spice Boys seem only all too happy to offload, but even that seems little likely as it would require a change of heart from Renault HQ (Carlos Ghosn is notorious for disliking Renault’s F1 involvement) and SIGNIFICANT financial commitment to make the chassis + engine work, a long term and high risk endeavor. Once Red Bull withdraws from financing Toro Rosso, I just don’t see Renault picking up the tab and sinking cash into both chassis & engine development… And for what? For a team that has never made it into the front of the midfield pack? With no other clients, and with all the extra negative publicity it would bring when Renault engines keep overheating, or Toro Rosso chassis takes over the green monster (aka Caterham) design spirit…
http://thejudge13.com/2015/03/02/voice-of-the-f1-fans-renault-looking-to-become-constructors-really/
And then, and then, Where, oh Where, will they find a PU that’s not peeyou?
That’s the question, really.
RB will never get a Merc or a Ferrari PU, and Spice Boy Horner lamented of as much. Honda is still developing, and I suspect McLaren would have something to say on the prospects of an Infinity Red Bull Racing Honda (with no Honda badges and no recognition, but a lot of crap thrown at ye). A Cosworth is dead in the water to begin with.
So two possibilities… Either the Styrian Spice Boys really are at it and building their very own “Styrian jackhammer”. This is our Judge’s preferred theory:
http://thejudge13.com/2015/03/25/red-bull-a-step-closer-to-building-engines/
Or Audi is well and truly on its way to F1, taking the state of the art RB facilities from Mateschitz’ sticky hands. This said, given development time necessary for these PUs the earliest I can see an Audi entry would be 2017 (and even that only if they take their decision tomorrow at 6 am), but likelier would be a 2018 entry. Which means that at the very least for 2016 this is not a viable route for RB.
If I were a betting man, I’d be investing in popcorn for when the Styrian jackhammer starts popping up and down the grid… Or, short of that, for a 3rd iteration of the delightfully smelling French fondue courtesy of Renault…
If renault leaves red bull (or the other way around ) they won’t be having that infinity sign on their car. infinity is Nissan and Nissan owns renault…
@bruznic
“infinity is Nissan and Nissan owns renault…”
Not quite. Carlos Ghosn is CEO of both Nissan and Renault, and it’s more like a partnership than outright ownership (of either one over the other). Renault have been pissed at Infinity getting so much exposure from Red Bull whereas Renault were getting none (until 2014, that is), yet even Renault and Ghosn couldn’t do anything about that.
And Renault wants to revive it’s alpine trademark in le mans. So maybe they are looking for an easy way out.
Denise McCluggage dead
http://autoweek.com/article/car-life/denise-mccluggage-1927-2015
Pretty remarkable lady, though I can imagine a lot of people out there saying ‘errr, who?’
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/remembering-denise-mccluggage-the-racer-writer-118368712662.html
I realise this doesn’t directly relate to today’s News, but I thought it worth sharing for those who have missed it. I’ve no idea whether this is how it is playing out at VW/Audi/Porsche et al, but I think it’s a well-argued piece…
http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/6500/why-would-audi-want-to-enter-f1/?_ga=1.172566435.1285543238.1429879471