After a short break for the drivers and long for the fans, Formula One is back at our lives. The action returns to one of the most thrilling circuits on the calendar, at Spa in Belgium. Everyone is looking forward to watch a battle between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton for the drivers’ championship.
This weekend F1 returns from its summer break to race at Spa-Francorchamps and one of the hot topics is sure to be whether teams and drivers have made the right choice of tyres for the weekend or whether some might get caught out.
Formula 1 will host an eSports series in 2017 in a partnership with Codemasters, the developer of its official F1 game to find a virtual ‘World Champion’.
Today James tackles readers’ burning questions about the maximum number of races F1 can stage in a season, Kimi Raikkonen’s role at Ferrari, F1 driver fitness, new F1 teams and possible driver moves for 2019.
In this latest instalment of the mid season Q&A with James Allen we tackle questions about Renault F1’s future line up, which tracks in the second half of the season will best suit Mercedes or Ferrari, whether Pirelli and F1 should stick with tyres that degrade for ‘the show’ and the future F1 calendar.
“In the current climate (and realistically in the near future) is it possible for a non works team to win the championship? Was Ron Dennis right about this? Should Red Bull push for a Honda team up or really push to get the VW group involved? What would encourage more manufacturers to get involved in F1?”
Williams’ 2017 F1 season hasn’t gone as smoothly as the outfit would have liked, with its fourth place battle against Force India all but lost and fifth place now at risk.
Over this week James is answering fans’ burning questions on F1, while the sport takes a summer break. We’ve had a big response already with lots of questions on the Mercedes vs Ferrari battle, the future of Fernando Alonso, the F1 calendar, young drivers, TV paywalls, F1 rules
Williams' season has been much of a muchness. The FW40 is an average car, slightly inconsistent, and being piloted by a driver who was unwanted last September, and a rookie whose Formula 1 graduation has perhaps come too early in his career.
Force India has been dubbed the ‘best pound-for-pound outfit in Formula 1′ as it looks for consecutive fourth place constructors’ championship finishes this season, and a possible fight with Red Bull for third in 2018.
I will be the first to admit that I thought Red Bull would be fighting for this year’s world championship, but it hasn’t happened. The car isn’t fast enough and it’s also not been reliable enough.
F1 is on summer shutdown until the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa on August 27, but the chatter continues around the in season test at the Hungaroring last week and in particular Robert Kubica’s performance in the Renault.
Nobuharu Matsushita said that his test with Sauber was “at another level” but the Honda development driver will not drive again for the Formula 1 team, as Ferrari will develop its Academy drivers with the Swiss outfit from 2018.
Bounced between backmarker teams, overlooked in the midfield, Pascal Wehrlein has not had the easiest progression in his F1 career. But, if recent reports about the Sauber team are to be believed, the German could already be about to drop off the grid entirely in this year’s round of contract negotiations.
At last count, the Renault Formula One team had more drivers on its 2018 shopping list than it knew what to do with. Nico Hülkenberg is contracted to stay and was initially set to partner Fernando Alonso, if the team didn’t promote Sergey Sirotkin or Oliver Rowland instead; then there was talk of poaching Esteban
The headlines from the second in season F1 test at Budapest were grabbed by the F1 return of Robert Kubica, seven years on from his last Grand Prix. But perhaps the story with the greatest significance for the future of F1 is the 17 year old who ended the day in second place, Lando Norris.