A Daily Round up of Formula One news, inside whispers, opinion and comment. Today,
Devastating Review for Sergio Perez
No rush for Manor to establish new base
Verstappen injured in Red Bull soap box derby
The Grosjean Clan is expanding
Devastating Review for Sergio Perez
Not many people in F1 circles will know who Peter Mücke is. Quite a few drivers, however, will. Christian Klien, Sergio Perez, Markus Winkelhock, Robert Kubica, Susie Wolff, David Coulthard, Ralf Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Sebastian Buemi, Sam Bird, Roberto Merhi and Pascal Wehrlein. All these people have made it at least to a test driver role in F1 and they have all driven for Mücke Motorsport in Formula-BMW, Formula 3 or DTM (Wolff, Schumacher, Coulthard).
In an Interview with Motorsport-Total Mücke recalls working with some of these drivers. Kubica, Vettel and Perez were running in Formula-BMW for his team, but only the German and the Pole made it to Mücke’s Formula Three team afterwards. As an explanation Mücke provides a comparison between Vettel and Perez and the best he had to say about the Mexican was that he “is something else”.
“Sergio has shown back then that he has talent,” Mücke explains. “But his whole approach was entirely unprofessional. I’ve rarely had such a slacker in my team.” In addition to off-track escapades, he obviously wasn’t the most tidy person. “His apartment in Berlin looked like a bombing site,” his former team boss remembers. “he did everything a young driver mustn’t do. Team boss veteran Mücke sees Carlos Slim and his fat wallet as the main reason for that. “Telmex delivered money without end. He didn’t need to think about anything. He knew his career would go on anyway, and that was the key. He would never have made it to F1 without the money. On his talent alone [without the proper approach] his career would have been over after that one year in Formula-BMW.
On the other end of the extremes scale the German names Sebastian Vettel who won 18 out of 20 races for Mücke Motorsport in the 2004 Formula-BMW season. “The difference with Sebastian started early in the morning. If the team starts working a 8 o’clock in the morning, many drivers show up at 08:05 still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. I never had to worry about something like that with Sebastian. He was up at six, jogged for half an hour, got his brain and body going and was waiting at the door when work started. That was the difference between him and many other drivers.”
No rush for Manor to establish new base
Currently the Manor GP team is operating from two different bases in Dinnington and Silverstone, but according to Graeme Lowdon they are in no rush to find a proper new base. The team’s previous factory has been sold to Haas F1 as part of the process to rebuild the team in the off-season.
“It should be getting closer,” sporting director Lowdon told Autosport. “It is narrowed down to a smaller number of places.
“We have a couple of commercial guys working on that pretty much full-time.
“That would be a nice milestone but we obviously want to get the right place.”
However, the Brit say there’s no rush to relocate. “There is nothing imminent on that – these things normally take a while to get sorted,” he explains further.
“If there was a desperate rush we would be capable of going a little bit quicker but it’s a question of getting the right infrastructure in place while we can.
“So it makes sense to get other things in place at this stage.”
Verstappen injured in Red Bull soap box derby
It’s been a recent tradition for Red Bull and Toro Rosso drivers to appear in some of the whackier promotional events of the fizzy drinks company. After his second title Vettel appeared in a soap box race in Germany sporting a Super-Mario getup and this time it was young Max’s turn to star in a derby in Valkenburg, Netherlands.
And just like in his first demo run in the real car, he wrecked it and picked up a slight back injury, but is already cleared for participation in the Monaco GP.
Had a great day at #RBZKR Great fun to drive that soapbox down! Blue knees now 😜 #geeftjevleugels @redbullNED pic.twitter.com/HeL5bDWYRB
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) May 16, 2015
The Grosjean Clan is expanding
Romain Grosjean has become a father to a son for the second time, and Mr. Palmer tries to seize the opportunity.
Congrats @RGrosjean on baby number 2! If you fancy taking some paternity leave I'll be happy to cover for a bit!
— Jolyon Palmer (@JolyonPalmer) May 18, 2015
I am surprised that there is still no news on Hamilton’s new contract. So i guess Hamiton to Ferrari and Bottas to Mercedes may become a reality.
Dude, where did you see Hamilton in any of the articles?
He didn’t see him anywhere, and that’s the point. Hamilton’s contract was reported to be announced before Monaco and we’re still waiting
Not actually true, they said more information will be given during the race weekend, not before…
You’ve read my mind. I would expect something tomorrow at the latest, otherwise things will start getting really suspicious, auspicious and Tifosicious
Would this help ……
https://mobile.twitter.com/autosport/status/600949228173660161?s=08
Yes but Toto def had the last laughhttp://kidselectriccars.co.uk/images/Silver-Pedal-Kids-F1-Race-Car.png
http://kidselectriccars.co.uk/images/Silver-Pedal-Kids-F1-Race-Car.png
Here’s the news that you were waiting to hear….
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/24181/9847182/lewis-hamiltons-new-mercedes-contract-agreed-sky-sources
It always bafled myself as to why teams expose their drivers to stupid events during the race season. Yep,I understand the commercial side,sponsor needs and photo opportunities but given the wage the drivers are paid and given the investment the team has made in their star driver,why push them down a hill in a car that’s got no brakes?who did the risk assessment or thought it was a great idea?..Muppet’s!!
Guess they haven’t learnt anything from Kubica’s rally crash….
I don’t think verstappen has an enormous wage…
I would have thought that being in the Netherlands would more than likely mitigated any risk of excessive speed being generated, therefore I wouldnt have supposed that a full complements of brakes would have been required 🙂
Ah..good point, maybe they held it while the world was tilting
The Red Bull soapbox carts do have brakes.
I must be losing it,sorry guys and gals…I really didn’t mean to put H+S or risk assessment in here..it must be an age thing😱
Who was the numpty who sent him out with a set of full wets on a dry track?
What I find surprising is that people in general bemoan that drivers are not allowed to do things outside of F1 but when they do and hurt themselves (I presume) a different group of fans bemoans that the team has allowed their drivers to do things that could hurt them… a bit of a contradiction if you ask me.
I personally love the fact that Force India allows Nico Hulkenberg to compete in Le Mans. More teams should allow their drivers to race outside F1. That would also be a way to make F1 drivers hero’s again. If F1 drivers can prove they are not only the fastest in a formula car but also in different categories the drivers will be seen as hero’s and truly the fastest drivers on the planet again.
Grosjean could just as easily have put his back out whilst in the act of creating Grosjean2.0
PS Not that I’m speaking from experience – I always limber-up first : )
So Hamilton’s contract extension just confirmed…All that speculation about it being suspicious and how he is gonna be replaced by Bottas. Lol. Just lol.
…that’s the way Toto obviously felt was best to deal with an intransigent Lewis – by revealing Bottas or Alonso would be considered as replacements
Pretty much standard in F1, threaten to talk to other drivers to force a contract to be signed or driver into walking into the arms of another team or out of the sport entirely. Don’t know why everybody got so over excited about it, he’d either sign for Mercedes or move teams. I’m more interested in what’s going on between the teams, Bernie/CVC and the FIA over the regulations and the other big issues. Rome is burning and all the main players haven’t noticed.
Lewis Hamilton: Mercedes driver signs new deal with team
http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/32812577
@Judge/Hippo
More rumours about BMW formally rejecting anything to do with F1. But also not denying a Garage 56 LMP1 project for 2017, as a prelude to a full WEC program. Any inside information?
Until F1 ditches Ecclestone who wants to alter the rules of the playing field every 5 minutes… No manufacturer is going to commit to the 2 year multi hundred million currency programme required to enter F1 – and then have the ground taken from underneath their feet.
F1 needs a proper 5 year plan which it can demonstrate to possible entrants that it will not sway from.
The headless chickens at present have way too much control… so the sport is unattractive to anyone – even the billionaire wannabes have dried up.
Carlos Slim understands a full blown customer car programme will render Force India worthless. Why buy a team for 2-300 million when it may be possible to acquire a car – good to go – just recruit some race weekend crew, a few fabrication staff and some PR people.
Toro Rosso, Sauber and Lotus become equally affected by this.