2021 Formula 2 champion Piastri came into McLaren this season following a protracted transfer saga involving Alpine, with the battle between the two teams indicative of how much was expected of the Australian rookie. Piastri’s debut season was starting to be overshadowed by an underperforming car until a comprehensive summer upgrade package gave McLaren’s MCL60 […]
Alpine owners Renault want to see the team achieve success sooner rather later, despite the stated 100-race plan that Szafnauer and his colleagues had put in place. It’s no secret that Enstone fell back during the Lotus/Genii period, and even in the early days of Renault’s second spell of ownership there was not enough investment. […]
“Feet on the ground.” A phrase repeatedly uttered by Aki Ajo, team boss and owner of Ajo Motorsport, during our interview with him in his office at the British Grand Prix. Ajo, a Finnish former racer, has run an ultra-successful outfit in the lightweight and intermediate class championships in the MotoGP paddock, overseeing the development […]
Hulkenberg has started 193 F1 races – not including the 2013 Melbourne, 2015 Spa and 2020 Silverstone races he failed to start – with a best result of fourth. He achieved that result three times for what was then called Force India and Sauber between 2012 and 2016, but had several other podium near misses. […]
The Maranello squad has endured a difficult 2023 campaign where its hopes of challenging for the championship quickly evaporated off the back of race struggles with its SF-23 car. But, under new team boss Vasseur, the squad has made a number of infrastructure changes and car tweaks that appear to have helped turn things around […]
However, despite some clearly more prescriptive regulations, there were distinct differences between each machine, with the sidepods, in particular, offering a wide variety of design solutions. Now, a year and a half into this regulatory era, we have started to see a wholesale shift towards one of these concepts – the downwash solution – as […]
Ricciardo’s three-year McLaren contract was ended one year early last winter after the Australian struggled to get on with the team’s F1 cars. In the difficult-to-handle McLaren, Ricciardo was consistently behind team-mate Lando Norris during his two seasons in Woking, despite taking a shock win at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix. Ricciardo was then snapped […]
Szafnauer departed the team after last month’s Belgian Grand Prix as part of wholesale changes at the Enstone outfit, with long-time sporting director Alan Permane also leaving. The news followed the departure of Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, who was moved aside by Renault CEO Luca de Meo to a position away from the F1 programme. […]
On the one hand, they want to produce a car that feels real and challenging to the hardcore sim-racers, but if they do that too well then it risks alienating the casual gamer who just wants to jump in and have some immediate fun. It’s a balancing act that the official F1 games have had to tread […]
Honda continues to languish in second-to-last in the constructors’ standings ahead of only Yamaha, after both marques combined to score just three points from the recent British Grand Prix weekend. Read more: The forgotten trooper of Honda’s MotoGP misery HRC has scored a victory in 2023 courtesy of Alex Rins at the Americas GP, but […]