The DRS Zone

Tag: ferrari

  • F1 75 Live Event

    Jack Whitehall presented the F1 75 event at the O2 in London. During the event to celebrate 75 years of Formula 1, the teams were unveiling their liveries for the upcoming season.

    The event was opened by MGK, who is famous in the F1 world for snubbing Martin Brundle a couple of years ago on the grid for the Brazilian Grand Prix. That weekend it was also reported that MGK had left the race before it had even reached half distance. For me, it shows how far away from F1 is from fans and what they want. At an event celebrating F1, surely you want people that are fans of F1? MGK doesn’t really strike me as an F1 fan.

    What followed the opening performance was an evening of some cringey uncomfortable interviews and innuendos about Aston Martins Mike Krack. There we’re some lighter moments however when Jack Whitehall asked Gordon Ramsay about the ban on swearing on team radio.

    “These athletes push themselves to the extreme, so sometimes when it comes out, let them be real, let it go. Come on. They’re risking their life every time, traveling over 200 Miles per hour. So, if the s*** hits the fan..”

    Gordon Ramsay

    The latter part of the comment caused Whitehall’s microphone to mysteriously go off and we didn’t hear what else was said.

    The other thing I didn’t like was the booing. With its pandering to drama, F1 has attracted a whole new fan base to the sport and some of them like to boo. Having been a fan of F1 since 98, watching through the Schumacher dominance and controversies, I never heard regular booing until the last 10 years. Obviously, the booing was mainly reserved for Verstappen and Christian Horner, for me real F1 fans have a respect for all drivers for what they do and what some of them have achieved. If you want to boo, go back to the football terraces because it does not belong in F1. Whilst F1 drivers may not be as gladiatorial as some of their predecessors, they still should be respected. I will add to this that the FIA also got booed which did make me laugh, but it serves them right for trying to control everything.

    One thing I did find interesting was a quick shot of Christian and Gerri Horner at the table, with someone sat in-between them.

    Looking at the liveries, they were revealed in championship order starting from 10th onwards. VCARB won the evening for me and Red Bull was the worst. Although I do like the Red Bull livery, it is absolutely the same as it always is. I was expecting more teams to have more unpainted black carbon fibre so they can save a couple of grams in weight, but most cars seemed to be well covered in paint. Here is my rank of best to worst livery of the evening.

    1. VCARB
    2. McLaren
    3. Williams
    4. Ferrari
    5. Mercedes
    6. Aston Martin
    7. Haas
    8. Stake
    9. Alpine
    10. Red Bull

    It was good to see Hamilton in Ferrari red and I am really looking forward to seeing how he does. I hope F1 doesn’t make this an annual event, it’s a bit much really for a livery reveal. We have seen a couple of the new cars showcased from the teams on their preseason filming days, but the majority of the new cars won’t be shown until we get to testing next week.

    Please let me know what you think in the comments.

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  • Should F1 Revise its Point Scoring Positions?

    I was talking to a friend the other day about the point system that is in F1 currently. In this post, we will discuss points for the main race and will ignore the sprint and the point awarded for fastest lap.

    The Current State of Play

    If you don’t know this is the breakdown of the current points scoring positions:

    1st – 256th – 8
    2nd – 187th – 6
    3rd – 158th – 4
    4th – 129th – 2
    5th – 1010th – 1

    Is Anything Changing for 2025?

    In short, no. There was a discussion earlier on in 2024, to increase the points scoring positions from 1st-10th to 1st-12th. However, when it was put to a vote, it was unanimously decided by the F1 Commission to not make any changes.

    What Is My Opinion?

    For 2025 it means that the midfield teams will continue to struggle to make any headway in the championship. Whilst its right to reward success, it’s also right to not reward failure. It’s a hard line to take but let me explain my why I think that way.

    Firstly, I remember watching a Practice Session on Sky and hearing David Croft say he thinks all cars that finish should score points. I don’t agree with this because if all cars finish the race, I do not believe you should reward a driver/ team for finishing dead last. The whole aim of the game in F1 is to push the boundary and try to make your way up that grid. In my opinion if you have point’s all the way down the finishing positions, for me it gives teams less of an incentive to improve and it gives them less of a target to work towards.

    On the flip side however, the reliability of the cars in F1 now, particularly from the top 4 teams is almost bullet proof. I had a quick look through last season’s results and for a large part of the season (save for the odd occasion) the top 8 scoring positions were taken by drivers from Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes. That means 60% of the F1 grid are fighting for 2-point scoring positions. The reliability in F1 now is the highest it has been for as long as I can remember, and this might partially be down to the way the cars are driven these days. It feels that 90% of races these days are more of a time trial than a race, the drivers are more focused on saving tyres and fuel than they are racing. Obviously, technology has also come a long way since I started watching F1 in 1998 when you’d regularly see engines or gearboxes let go, but I also feel this generation of cars are not pushed to the limit of tolerances as often as they used to be.

    The midfield is so tightly packed that I personally think the points positions should be extended out to 12th or 13th, it would give the teams more fruits for their labour without rewarding someone for finishing last 30seconds behind the car in front and it could also lead to some more interesting battles in the middle of the pack. It’s an interesting topic of conversation and I would love to be able to see what others think. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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  • Happy New Year

    A Round Up Of The Gossip

    I hope if you are reading this you had a good Christmas and New Year and took the time to recharge and indulge. Since my last post there has been a few items of gossip worth talking about, so let’s get straight to it.

    Cheerio Checo

    Red Bull confirmed the departure of Sergio Perez from the team with Immediate effect and as expected announced Liam Lawson as his replacement. You must feel for Checo as he comes across as being a nice guy but ultimately you can’t be surprised at his departure given his form last season. F1 is a ruthless sport and Red Bull are known to be one of the more ruthless teams and arguably his results this season, or lack of them, potentially cost RB the Constructors Championship. Red Bull did however shoot themselves in the foot and made it harder by giving him the new contract just before the Canadian GP, I personally think they should have tried to go after Sainz, but I understand that Sainz Snr and Jos Verstappen don’t like each other, shock.

    He is replaced by Liam Lawson, getting the drive over Yuki Tsunoda, despite Tsunoda comfortably beating him in their head-to-head last season. For me the jury is still out on Lawson, I personally don’t think he’s shown anywhere as much as some of the other drivers that have had that second seat, but time will tell, and I may be proved wrong. I can see however, that he will likely cause sparks within the team and will possibly get his collar felt by Helmut Marko and Jos Verstappen.

    One wonders what Tsunoda must be thinking, he has done everything they have asked of him, and he has improved massively since he first entered F1. Unless Lawson fails spectacularly and gets the early axe, I think he will look elsewhere for 2026. Hard to know really where he would go, however. His best options might be Haas or trying for one of the spots with the new Cadillac team.

    What next for Checo? There is a strong possibility that we may not see him as a driver on the grid again. As with Tsunoda, spots for 2026 are already looking slim and unless there are any significant driver swaps/ moves the only real place I could see Checo ending up is either Haas or Cadillac, both teams would certainly benefit from the financial backing he brings.

    Isack Hadjar Takes The Last Seat

    With the promotion of Lawson, the young Frenchman takes the last spot on the grid. Again, for me I don’t really think this is a particularly strong choice. I have seen him in several F2 & F3 races over the last couple of years and whilst he has flashes of brilliance, he does have occasions where he goes missing or makes a lot of mistakes. For example, he had the chance to win the 2024 F2 Championship and stalled on the grid, then he had the audacity on team radio to blame the team! Time will tell and we will see how ruthless RB will be next year if he does not perform.

    Bottas Returns To Mercedes

    Another one to lose his seat at the end of 2024, Bottas is returning to Mercedes to be their reserve driver. Smart move for me, he did well when he was alongside Hamilton and will bring some experience that Antonelli can learn from for next season. He is also in prime position should Antonelli fail to deliver anything but the car back in bits.

    Hamilton Starts At Ferrari

    Finally, as its the start of a new year, that means that Hamilton has officially now joined Ferrari, despite the hoopla that surrounded him in Abu Dhabi he has not left the sport and will be donning the red overalls this season.

    What’s To Come?

    For F1 next up is the fancy multi-team reveal of their 2025 cars/ liveries in London. It’s more likely to be a livery reveal than an actual car launch.

    For me over the next couple of weeks I will be releasing my review and thoughts of 2024 team by team. I will start from the back of the grid and move forward. Looking forward to starting to add more now we are in 2025, evolving and hopefully growing. To stay up to date please subscribe (its free) and drop a like on the post.

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  • Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

    The 2024 Season Comes to a Close

    The final race of the season is complete and whilst it wasn’t a classic, it will be remembered for being the race where McLaren secured their first Constructors Championship since 1998. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were not even born in 1998, and it was the year I started watching the sport. Knowing the cars were carrying more downforce than the Ferrari’s, I was slightly worried they would be mugged down the back straight. Thankfully that didn’t happen, largely in part because of the contact between Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri which gave Norris a good gap that he was able to maintain and extend.

    First Corner Shenanigans

    “Move of a world champion that one”

    Oscar Piastri

    If you’ve got your tin foil hat on, you may buy into the conspiracy theory that the contact between Vestappen and Piastri was and intentional attempt to thwart McLaren from winning the Constructors Championship. The reasoning behind this is due to the “bad blood” between Zak Brown and Christian Horner. I do not buy in to this however it is another example of a typical Verstappen “I am coming through, if you don’t get out the way we will make contact” lunge up the inside. After the race he confirmed that it was his mistake and that he had tried to get out of it but could not. I find this is an odd thing to say considering during the race he thought the penalty was ridiculous. It didn’t really help Piastri who lost more time than Verstappens 10 second penalty and then caused a collision of his own. Still, he managed to fight his way back into the points.

    Leclerc Inspired Drive Not Enough for Ferrari

    Starting at the back of the grid Leclerc had a phenomenal race finishing in 3rd, he managed to avoid the contact at turn 1 and really stepped up to help put his team put McLaren under pressure. I will say however that the Ferrari is clearly much quicker than most of the cars out there so we shouldn’t be surprised that he managed to get on the podium, it’s not the first time we have seen this happen from a driver out of position, Verstappen and Hamilton have done it many times. I can be quite critical of the Ferrari drivers at time, they always have a mistake in them, but neither of them did make any mistakes, unfortunately for them it wasn’t enough.

    A Weekend of Goodbyes and Potential Goodbyes

    It’s not unusual for people to move around in F1, but we seem to have had more after this weekend than in previous seasons. Several goodbyes and not all of them went out on a good note. Colapinto ended his 9-race run with Williams retiring with an engine issue. Bottas ended his disastrous spell at Kick Sauber by putting Perez out of the race and then slamming into Magnussen, who left Haas finishing a lap down in 16th but claiming the fastest lap. Zhou Guanyu didn’t fare much better in 13th. Checo Perez retired after contact with Bottas, at the time of writing remains contracted to Red Bull for next season, but there are strong rumours this was his last race for RB. On a more positive note, Hulkenberg finished 8th in his last drive for Haas and Hamilton drove a great race to finish 4th in his last race for Mercedes.

    A Farewell to Hamilton

    I just wanted to quickly mention Hamilton. Obviously, this weekend was his last race for Mercedes, its forged one of the most memorable partnerships in F1 history with multiple Drivers and Constructors championships. Watching from the outside it feels like the right time and it seems like Hamilton needs a new challenge. Whilst it is a big deal all of the coverage, events and media attention it received this past weekend is ridiculous. After the race he was given a spot alongside the top 3 on the grid, he was supposed to have his own post-race interview that was cancelled. Anyone would think he was retiring from the sport, he’s only leaving Mercedes. A lot of the TV coverage as well particularly after the race was focused on this and I kind of felt it took away from discussing McLarens achievement. If they are like this with him moving to another team, I can’t imagine what they will be like when he actually retires.

    Results

    1stLando Norris11thAlex Albon
    2ndCarlos Sainz12thYuki Tsunoda
    3rfCharles Leclerc13thZhou Guanyu
    4thLewis Hamilton14thLance Stroll
    5thGeorge Russell15thJack Doohan
    6thMax Verstappen16thKevin Magnussen
    7thPierre GaslyDNFLiam Lawson
    8thNico HulkenbergDNFValtteri Bottas
    9thFernando AlonsoDNFFranco Colapinto
    10thOscar PiastriDNFSergio Perez

    What Is Next?

    With the season now finished, attention turns to the post season test, then all eyes will be on 2025 which starts in roughly 90 days. I will post my thoughts on any rumours or gossip circulating in that time. But I also intend to write some team-by-team reviews on how I feel they performed during this season. I will release these during the off season. Hopefully next season the blog can grow and improve.

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  • Handbags at Dusk

    Max vs George

    If this was WWE Teddy Long would be booking a tag team match. In one corner we have Verstappen and Christian Horner, the other Russell and Toto Wolff. If you were not aware after the last race Max spoke to the media about some shenanigans that went down after qualifying and accused Russell of doing his best to get him a grid penalty.

    George has responded this weekend by stating that Max was in the steward’s room swearing and arguing with them about the penalty, he has also suggested that Max has threatened to “put him on his head in a wall”. Obviously, this can’t just stay between the drivers as Horner and Wolff have gotten involved with the latter calling Horner a “little Terrier”.

    Max has hit back calling George a liar, which itself is a significant accusation. I do think to myself, why would the president of the GPDA lie about such things in a very public forum. However, I would like to think that Max would have a bit more about him than to swear at the stewards and make threats to George, at the very least you would assume there was an RB representative on hand to make sure these things didn’t get out of hand.

    Russell has further stoked the fire by suggesting that Max is also a bully within the team and earlier on in the season other teams such as McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin were inundated with RB engineer’s CV’s. He didn’t stop there, however. Referring to Max’s 2021 title win. George suggested if it happened the other way around then Michael Massi the race director at the time would have “feared for his life” from the Verstappens.

    I obviously have no contacts in the sport so I must take what you hear from the media with a pinch of salt, we know they are not always correct in their reporting and any information they get will be second or third hand information. What I do think however is that Max is clearly a tougher person than George, we all know the tough bringing up he had regarding his dad, and we all know the stories about how his dad has acted in the past. So, for me it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Max may have been sterner in his approach to the situation. It’s not the first time we have seen fireworks between drivers, Schumacher marching to the McLaren garage at Spa in 1998 springs to mind. However, threatening to harm another driver on track, if true, is another level.

    For me, instead of joining in the tit for tat. The team principles should be looking to nip this in the bud and not fanning the flames just because they also don’t like each other. Maybe it’s all a show to generate some talking points and get more people to tune in. I do think however that this needs to be dealt with harshly. If it’s true and I were to threaten someone I worked with, I’d be sacked or suspended immediately. They should be thrown into a room to discuss it like adults and get over it.

    Other drivers then chime in on the situation with Lando saying that Max only talks the truth, which would suggest he thinks George is lying. I am unsure who to believe to be honest, they are very different people and if there was a physical altercation I would put my money on Max to come out on top. It will be interested to see what happens in the race if they are close together that’s for sure. Let me know what you think in the comments section.

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