This year all teams have to stand down each of their race drivers at some stage of the season to give an FP1 session to a rookie. Alfa Romeo was in the unusual position of being allowed to count Zhou Guanyu’s debut in Bahrain as an official rookie session for his car. However, Valtteri Bottas […]
Vettel bought Mansell’s famous ‘Red 5’ car back in 2020, but did not get a chance to drive it until recently when he completed a shakedown ahead of the show run at Silverstone. The demonstration saw Vettel complete a handful of laps in the FW14B to mark 30 years since Mansell won the British GP and that year’s […]
Two-time world champion Alonso returned to F1 in 2021 with Alpine after taking two years out of the championship to explore other racing interests in the Le Mans 24 Hours, the Indy 500 and the Dakar Rally. At 40, the Spaniard is the oldest driver on the grid, yet he has been clear in his ambition to […]
Albon was involved in a massive multi-car pile-up at the start, which saw Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu roll into the catchfence after sliding across the run-off inverted. Albon was the other main victim after being tagged from behind by Sebastian Vettel as cars were taking avoiding action. The Anglo-Thai suffered a hard head-on hit with […]
Tsunoda struggled at Red Bull’s sister team AlphaTauri in his 2021 debut season, but the brand continued investing in him by relocating him to Italy closer to the team’s Faenza factory and it extended his stay in F1 for a second season. While Tsunoda has shown some improvement during a sophomore year in which his team has found […]
As technical director Francois-Xavier Demaison said: “We can really call it a new car, because the list of parts we kept is much shorter than the ones we changed.” The overhaul of the wings, floor, sidepods, engine cover, suspension, diffuser and internals was pretty much as extensive as could be, and it is hoped will […]
Rather than seeing the need for anything major to be overhauled on the car, it’s clear that the focus is on steady gains – having both taken note of what its rivals have been up to and delivering optimisations on an already race-winning package. Starting with the mirrors, Ferrari had already made a subtle but meaningful change to […]
Following a dramatic British GP in which Carlos Sainz clinched his maiden F1 win, Max Verstappen had his championship lead trimmed to 34 points as Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez recovered to second place with the Dutch driver down in seventh after sustaining damage. Charles Leclerc also chipped into his own deficit, taking it down […]
The German finally broke his duck by finishing eighth at Silverstone after chasing Max Verstappen to the chequered flag. While the result will put a stop to the previous questioning about when he would score his first points, Steiner says now expectations could be pitched too high. “I think it will give him a little […]
Indeed, a lot of observers were left scratching their heads at some pretty aggressive attack and defence moves, and especially moments where drivers appeared to have been squeezed off the track. There were several examples throughout the afternoon of drivers being on the outside of their rivals but finding themselves left with no room on […]