Formula One

6th February 20186th February 2018

F1 Season Preview: Make or Break

After 2017, there are several drivers and teams facing a critical 2018—one which could have serious implications for their future in F1. Here we’ll look at those who are under the most pressure for 2018, why they have to perform and the potential consequences if they don’t.

Valtteri Bottas

Replacing the out-going world champion with just three months to go until the start of the season was always going to be a challenge. However, the majority of the F1 paddock expected more from Bottas in 2017. While he seemed able to be around the pace of Hamilton in the first half of the season, his form soon deteriorated with Bottas being cast adrift by both Hamilton and Vettel.

As such, Bottas needs to deliver a stunning performance in 2018 to keep his seat for 2019. We’re not just talking about one race though—he needs to consistently be on the pace of Hamilton throughout the season, which is a hard ask for anyone.

If he doesn’t perform as Mercedes expect, either Ricciardo or Ocon will be quick to snap up his seat—leaving Bottas out of a top drive and potentially out of F1 altogether.

Kimi Raikkonen

After years and years of the “will Raikkonen be retained” saga, it seems that Ferrari’s patience for the Finn is waning. Ferrari President Sergio Marchionne has stated that 2018 is Raikkonen’s last chance to rediscover his form—if he doesn’t, he will be replaced.

While he was once a world champion and still is a brilliant driver, Raikkonen’s consistency been missing since he returned to F1 in 2012, and even when he’s at the top of his game he’s still no match for Vettel. He’ll have to pull off a miracle to stand any chance at retaining his seat for 2019.

Should Raikkonen not miraculously rediscover his form, Ferrari have a long line of drivers knocking at their door. They’re unlikely to take Grosjean or Perez but instead either Ricciardo or their very promising youngster, Charles Leclerc. Whoever they chose, Ferrari aren’t short of talented replacements if Kimi isn’t up to scratch.

Sergio Perez

Perez is generally considered to be a midfield driver in a midfield team. He’s undoubtedly talented, but seems to be lacking that extra something that would put him up with the champions. This became more apparent in 2017 when Ocon started consistently beating him throughout the second half of the season.

If, like everyone is anticipating, Ocon takes the next step in 2018, Perez will likely be left far behind and that could seriously compromise his 2019 options. He’s been holding out for a Ferrari drive since who knows when, but with every year that passes, that seems more and more unlikely—if Ferrari wanted him, they’d have taken him by now.

He should be able to keep his seat at Force India for 2019 with his only other serious option being Renault if Sainz were to be called up to Red Bull. Any progression up the grid looks unlikely for the now 28-year-old Mexican.

Romain Grosjean

The successes of 2016 with Haas have long been forgotten for Grosjean, and that supposed Ferrari promotion looks further away than ever. Over 2017, the Frenchman gained a reputation for moaning and was often beaten, quite comprehensively, by teammate Magnussen.

With decent performances becoming distance memories, Grosjean hasn’t been having the best of times of it lately. He needs to rediscover his consistency of the later Lotus years to keep his seat at Haas and remain in F1.

Admittedly, Haas don’t have that many options to replace Grosjean. Ferrari may push them into taking one of their junior drivers but really, Haas need experience and that is one thing Grosjean has going for him. Regardless of that, improvement is needed from the Frenchman in 2018.

Nico Hulkenberg

Hulkenberg has been the nearly-man of F1 for years. He holds the record for the most F1 races without a podium but you’ll struggle to find anyone who doubts his talents. With Renault on the rise, that podium could come in the next year or two. However Hulkenberg has a more pressing issue: Carlos Sainz.

The highly-regarded Red Bull junior driver switched to Renault in the closing races of the 2017 season, with Hulkenberg seeming to have the measure of Sainz. The German has to beat or at least strongly challenge Sainz if he’s to maintain his perceived ranking in the F1 paddock.

His F1 career isn’t on the line in 2018 as he has a long-term Renault deal in place. But he still needs to show that he can go up against Sainz to ensure his fundamental place at Renault in years to come.

Marcus Ericsson

If anyone’s career is on the line in 2018, its Ericsson’s. He controversially kept his Sauber seat, despite Ferrari pushing for Antonio Giovinazzi to get the drive, by virtue of having lots of money from his backers that are mysteriously linked to the team’s owners…

The funds cannot hide the fact that Ericsson hasn’t scored a point in F1 since 2015 while all his teammates have. With F2 champion Leclerc in the other seat for 2018, Ericsson is going to have to massively up his game if he’s to avoid getting shown up by the promising youngster.

Ferrari want Sauber to become their effective ‘B-team’, so Ericsson will likely lose his seat to one of the Ferrari juniors in 2019—and it will be hard for Ericsson to find a seat at another team, even with all his money.

Williams

The season hasn’t even started and Williams are already facing a lot of criticism for hiring Sergey Sirotkin over Robert Kubica, Daniil Kvyat and Pascal Wehrlein with Sirotkin being brandished a ‘pay driver’. This means that for 2018 Williams will have a 19-year old in his second season of F1 and a rookie who’s failed to produce any convincing results in years.

That already sounds like a recipe for disaster—and when you consider the highly competitive nature of the midfield, the outcome doesn’t look good for Williams.

Fifth in the championship isn’t going to happen with McLaren and Renault on the rise and most expect Williams to sink further down the standings. This could put them in danger of losing sponsorship and without a star driver, it’s hard to see who’s going to bring the results in. Maybe basing driver decisions on bank accounts rather than talent wasn’t such a good idea.

McLaren

For McLaren, 2018 will be a test of all that they have said over the last three seasons while they were with Honda. Throughout those years, McLaren claimed to have the best chassis so, on equal footing with Red Bull and Renault, that will be put to the test.

Their last win came in 2012 and last podium in 2014, if there was ever a time that McLaren needed to deliver, for the sake of all involved, it’s in 2018. Alonso may have signed a multi-year deal but he won’t hang around forever, he wants that third title but has interests elsewhere if that fails to materialise in the coming years.

If they’re not winning, or at least on the podium, in 2018 they probably won’t be until the engine regulation change in 2020. It’s paramount that they get the Renault transition right as they need to be frontrunners again—four winless seasons is four too many for a team like McLaren, they better not make it five.

31st January 2018

Opinion: Why grid girls had to go

Grid girls have long been part of F1 and the wider motorsport scene –they’ve been a staple of grids for years with their driver boards and skimpy clothing. However, while acceptable in years gone by, their presence has come under criticism and now F1 has made the controversial, but not unprecedented, move to ban them altogether.

The move has been hinted at before but any suggestion of change hasn’t exactly been met with overwhelming support; when grid boys were used in Monaco in 2015, the reception was not positive with drivers and fans alike somewhat missing the point. It had gone too far the other way; girls can’t just be replaced with all boys – that’s just moving the issue onto something else entirely.

The change has come as part of Liberty Media’s project to drag F1, kicking and screaming albeit, into the 21^st century. Things that have previously been seen as tradition or trademark in F1 are being challenged – the world has changed and F1 is only just starting to. Besides F1, the move will also affect all support races at F1 weekends so F2, GP3 and Porsche Super Cup, amongst others.

It’s not just motorsport where this subject has been addressed; the UK Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) announced that walk-on girls would no longer be used at its events this week. That was met with widespread dismay from darts fans, an online petition was even formed to get the PDC to reserve the decision – but they’ve stood by their choice and reasons behind it.

So, why now?

Slowly but surely, women have started to shift the balance in what is still a male dominated sport with more than ever working as mechanics, engineers or even drivers. As such, having them adorn the grid was always going to become a contentious issue.

Female drivers are becoming more common by the year; last year GP3 racer Tatiana Calderon was often given a grid boy as a substitute but that was hardly a solution. With more and more female racing drivers on the rise, a change has been sitting on the horizon for some time.

Clearly, the days of F1 being all male are long gone yet many of the ideas from those times still remain – what was once acceptable is now not but F1 has been typically slow to respond.

Little change came about on this front during the days of Bernie Ecclestone however with Liberty Media here to stay, changes are slowly but surely being made – this doesn’t mean that they haven’t caused controversy though.

If you even dared look at Twitter today, you would’ve seen a barrage of opinions, some whole-heartedly agreeing with Liberty’s decision while others who couldn’t disagree more.

The case for Liberty’s decision pleads the out-dated and downright unnecessary nature of grid girls. This is 2018, having girls parading around with umbrellas is clearly a redundant practice and some would even go as far to say that their use is degrading. This crowd would say that today’s news was a necessary step in the right direction for women and equality in motorsport, across the board.

Another argument for the banning is that of role models. Boys growing up have the figures of male drivers and team members to look up to whereas girls have a lot less of them, instead they predominantly see the grid girls as the only women in motorsport – if that doesn’t seem wrong, I don’t what does. Coming from someone in that situation, I never understood the use of grid girls, it seemed senseless and it often angered me that the only women had a seemingly meaningless job.

But, of course, for all those agree, there are those who firmly don’t. One of the points that I’ve seen raised time and time again today is that these grid girls were just doing their job and that they weren’t forced to do it – it was completely their choice. If you speak to some of them, they’ll often say that they loved their experience as an F1 grid girl, that they were treated excellently by the teams and had an altogether amazing experience.

Whether you agree or not, the fact still stands that they are going. That then leaves the question of their replacement.

One of the main suggestions is fans; a competition would be run for each race for 20 fans to get the chance to go onto the grid and hold the driver boards. This could be accompanied by VIP tickets or a chance to spend the weekend with the team and to meet the driver allocated to them. This concept would likely appeal to Liberty as it would increase fan engagement and would add a whole other element to the show. Of course, the fans would have to be split 50/50 male/female to avoid any the previous debate and inequalities.

Another suggestion is the use of ‘grid kids’; much like the use of children walking on with players in football matches, this would give the children an unforgettable experience of F1. Again, they, and their families, could be treated as VIPs by their allocated team and driver.

The other main idea is that of mascots. The thinking behind this is that either the drivers or teams design a mascot to use for the season – this could be something to do with the driver, so the Hulk for Nico Hulkenberg, or the teams, so pink panthers for Force India. It’s a quirky idea that might just work.

There’s no going back from the decision made today by Liberty; along with F1, it’ll have effects on the wider motorsport scene with BTCC and MotoGP starting to come under fire for their grid girls.

For me, it feels like a real step forwards for women and equality in motorsport but I know not everyone shares my stance. Whatever your argument, for or against, the lack of grid girls is something that F1 fans will just have to get used to and soon the point of debate will move on, like it always does in F1, to something new.

30th January 201830th January 2018

5 Things To Look Forward To In F1 2018

Pre-season testing for the 2018 F1 season gets underway at the Circuit de Cataluyna on 26th February. With less than a month to go, here are my top five things to look forward to in the coming season.

Charles Leclerc (MCO, PREMA Racing).
Photo: Zak Mauger/FIA Formula 2.
ref: Digital Image _W6I4169

1 – Charles Leclerc

Runaway 2017 F2 champion Charles Leclerc will make his F1 debut at the Australian Grand Prix with the newly rebranded Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team. The Monegasque driver has progressed rapidly through the junior formula and has emerged out the other side with a very impressive CV. He is the first driver since Nico Hulkenberg in 2009 to win the F2 championship, or GP2 as it was when Hulkenberg won, in his rookie year, and only the forth ever after the German, Lewis Hamilton, and Nico Rosberg. Not bad company at all. Add to that a GP3 title, also won in his first year in the series, membership of the Ferrari Driver Academy, and a second place finish at the Macau Grand Prix in 2015, and it’s no wonder that Leclerc is widely tipped to be driving for Ferrari at some point in the near future, possibly as early as 2019 if and when Kimi Raikkonen retires.

2 – Final Year of Live Channel 4 Coverage

Thanks to everyone who watched us this season #C4F1 #F1 pic.twitter.com/cFQlVaqZ5l

— Lee McKenzie (@LeeMcKenzieTV) November 27, 2016

From 2011 to 2015, the rights to F1 television coverage in the UK were jointly held by the Sky Sports and the BBC. The former aired all races live, while the latter broadcast only a few live, with the rest showed via highlights a few hours later. In 2016, Channel 4 took over the BBC’s part of the contract. That same year, it was announced that Sky Sports had signed a deal which will see it solely hold the rights to live F1 coverage from 2019 all the way through to 2024. The only exception is the British Grand Prix, which will continue to be available on a free-to-air channel as yet undisclosed. Despite the deal being made prior to Liberty Media’s takeover of the sport, Management Director Sean Bratches has said that Liberty Media plan to honour it. So it seems that 2018 may well be the last year of free-to-air live coverage in the UK for the foreseeable future.

3 – Return of the French Grand Prix

Having dropped off the calendar in 2008, the French Grand Prix will this year make its return. Magny-Cours was the last circuit to stage the event, but the 2018 race will be held at the Circuit Paul Ricard, also known as Le Castellet, in the south of the country. Several of the circuit’s corners have been modified to accommodate the increased cornering speeds of the new breed of F1 cars, whilst the organisers are also trying to improve the capacity of the access roads for fans travelling to and from the track. The race will take place on 24th June, as part of a triple-header with Silverstone and Hockenheim. With Renault, Romain Grosjean, and Esteban Ocon on the grid, the French fans will surely have a lot to cheer for.

(c)Jake Archibald released under Creative commons 2.0

4 – Introduction of the Halo

One of the most controversial debates in Formula 1 over recent years has been surrounding cockpit head protection. Despite large amounts of backlash from fans and from some of the teams and drivers, 2018 will be the first year that the halo will be used in F1, with F2 doing likewise and other junior formulas set to follow suit in the coming years. Click here to read more about it (shameless plug I know).

5 – McLaren and Renault Team Up

It’s safe to say it’s been a pretty miserable few years for McLaren. Their last podium came in 2014 when Kevin Magnussen finished second at the Australian Grand Prix, and their last win came courtesy of Jenson Button at the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix, and their partnership with Honda was woefully underwhelming in the three years they were together. For many fans it was a case of good riddance when it was announced that for 2018 McLaren would revert to Renault power. Renault had its fair few reliability issues in 2017, not least in Mexico when, over the weekend, four out of the six Renault-powered cars had engine issues, but McLaren have said that they’re pleased with the early data being produced by the car and powertrain, and are cautiously optimistic about what the coming year could bring.

27th January 201828th January 2018

Roborace – Meet the future of motorsport, exclusive Q&A with Bryn Balcombe, Roborace’s Chief Strategy Officer

This year I had the chance to attend the Autosport show in Birmingham, I feel very lucky for that and I would like to thank the organizers for their amazing hospitality. It was a unique experience, I was able to see closely several racing cars and also, I watched a great show hosted by David Croft.

The first day that I went to the show, I was astonished from the variety of cars that were at the show. While I was passing and was taking photos of almost all the cars, I noticed something different, something unique, I saw the Robocar. It was placed on the side of the Autosport’s interview stage, a strange car with no cockpit and a weird design.

Before you read Bryan’s Balcombe exclusive interview, it will be useful to know some of the car’s characteristics.

Robocar. Image by Chief Design Officer Daniel Simon / Roborace Ltd.

The Robocar, designed by the German Daniel Simon, who has previously created vehicles for Tron Legacy and Oblivion, is a fully electric and autonomous car, weights around 1000 kg and has four 300kW motors, one per wheel.

The top speed of the Robocar is about 320kph or 200mph and it also has a 62kWh battery with 550kW power.

Around the car, there are several types of sensors, to allow the car to move safely and fast on the tight Formula E circuits. It has 5 lidars, 18 ultrasonic sensors, 2 optical speed sensors, 6 AI cameras, two radars and GNSS positioning.

Robocar, is currently powered by NVIDIA Drie PX2 which can run up to 24 trillion A.I. operations per second, but it will be upgraded to Pegasus platform and will run 320 trillion operations per second. The current Drive PX2, is connected to Robocar’s sensors and gives the opportunity for 360-degree situational awareness around the car, to give the exact position of the car on the track.

Bryn Balcombe, Roborace’s Chief Strategy Officer, answered my questions regarding the Robocar and the Roborace series. Enjoy!

When and who came with the idea of a fully autonomous and electric car?

“Denis Sverdlov, Roborace’s founder and Alejandro Agag, came up with the idea whilst discussing the future of the automotive industry becoming electric but also connected and autonomous on the way back from the Beijing race in Season 1 of Formula E. Motorsport has always been used to advance road relevant technology. Roborace applies this philosophy to Vehicle Intelligence Technologies, many of which are banned in traditional championships as driver aids.”

What are your expectations from the Robocar, what do you want to achieve with Roborace series?

“Roborace will increase the pace of innovation and development of road relevant hardware and software for Intelligent Vehicles. Ultimately technology will save lives on the road and move society close to Vision Zero. As in all motorsport, Robocar will continue to evolve as technology improves. Within two years of development there have been three significant steps in NVIDIA compute power on the car. So the pace of innovation is much faster than traditional powertrain. We will start to see Software and Cognitive Power becoming as important to performance and safety as Mechanical and Horsepower.”

How many teams will take part in the Roborace championship, how many cars will each team have?

“We are looking at completely new formats of motorsport that are much more relevant to testing driver skills in perception, reasoning and decision making. Basically the smartest driver should win which is why we refer to it as a Championship of Intelligence. This year we are opening up the hardware platform for 3^rd parties to start to develop AI Driver Software. Before they can race Robocar they’ll need to test their software in a simulator and in DevBot, our development vehicle. The development process and AI Driver is much the same as a human. We often refer to Max Verstappen taking 17 yrs before making it to F1 (13 of which he spent driving). The process for AI Drivers should be faster but there are similar logical steps that progress from small scale to full scale cars and from virtual to real cars. For any competition you need at least two competitors. So we’ll have competition formats that include anything from 2 cars upwards.”

How easy will it be presenting to the public a driverless series? Considering that all these years we are used to seeing drivers to battle wheel to wheel and fans are connected emotionally to the drivers and their achievements.

“There is always a driver. In fact, Roborace is focused on being a pure driver’s competition because it intends to use standardised vehicle hardware. The only performance differentiator is the driver skill. In some formats this will be AI Driver software only. In other formats we can allow a human to collaborate with the AI Systems and take executive control over decision making. In these formats you’ll see human collaboration with AI versus pure AI Drivers. We may see the same natural progression we’ve witnessed in chess, where Human/AI Centaurs can outperform AI only systems and AI systems can outperform humans only.”

What are the biggest challenges that Roborace team is facing, and how are they planning to overcome them?

“The pace at which the industry is moving is incredible so we will have constantly evolving competition formats that ensure the AI Drivers remain constantly challenged. In Roborace all evolutions are focused on driver performance whether that’s better eyes, ears, brain size or intelligence. The competition complexity will increase in line with those technical developments.”

What excites you about the Robocar? Is it the future of the commercial cars?

“In the future all vehicles with become intelligent. They will all become aware of their environment. They will all become aware of the surrounding situations. However, there is a fork in the road at that point in how you chose to use that intelligence. Toyota describes the options as Chauffeur and Guardian Angel. The first is an autonomous future where humans no longer need to drive. The second is an assisted/augmented future where humans still drive but their skills and capabilities are enhanced by the AI systems within the car. We know of several high performance OEMs that are considering AI technology as a future Race Trainer. So an AI Lewis Hamilton might be able to act as your real-time driver coach when you take your Project One on a track day. He could even drive you around first as you are learning the track and to set a reference lap time for you to target.”

Nicki Shields had the chance to drive the DevBot at Hong Kong ePrix, from the video it is seen that the Robocar cannot match the human’s times, will it ever be able to do it? What are the difficulties that do not allow it to move faster?

“In Hong Kong we ran using our development vehicle called DevBot rather than Robocar. DevBot is a modified LMP3 race car that allows a human to drive but can also be switched into an autonomous mode. That allows us to run human versus machine competitions. The AI Driver in DevBot was around 10% slower than Nicki. We actually ran a brand new version of our internal development AI Driver which was designed to run using LiDAR sensors only. For safety we imposed VMAX limit and a minimum distance to the barriers lining the street circuit of around 1.5m. Sensor fusion of LiDAR with cameras and Radar will improve perception which ultimately improves confidence so speeds increase and safety margins can be reduced.”

Consider a hypothetical scenario, during a race, two Roboracs are close to each other, how will each react? Will the leading car be able to defend its position, whilst the one from behind will be moving faster for a potential overtake?

“Wheel to wheel racing is a key target for Roborace. Nose to tail processions broken by straight line overtakes are not exciting for the public. AI Drivers will have adhere to similar sporting regulations as human drivers; such as leaving one car width of space for a competitor or staying within track limits. They will also have similar goals as human drivers and will develop similar offensive and defensive tactics to maintain an advantage.”

“The interesting thing is that if there is an incident all the data and decision making processes will be available for immediate review to determine fault. No more waiting for the end of the race for stewards in interview drivers before confirming the result. Sporting penalties can be applied immediately and proportionately.”

Describe Roborace series in a few words or more than a few!

“Roborace is an extreme motorsport and entertainment platform for the future of road relevant technology.”

How many people are working together every day to keep improving the Robocar? Would you like to say a few words about them?

“We’ve built an incredible team full of international talent to bring the project to life. Building a fully autonomous car is probably the most complex interdisciplinary task you could imagine. Collaboration is key.”

When will the Robarace championship be ready to launch?

“As soon as enough, drivers qualify to use Robocar. “

Facebook: Roborace

Twitter: @roborace

Find me on Twitter: @FP_Passion

Pictures courtesy of ROBORACE

22nd January 2018

Opinion Piece: How has Liberty Media’s first year gone?

F1 has completed its first full season under Liberty Media’s ownership, all 20 races have been and gone, the champion has been crowned and everyone’s preparing for the year ahead. Liberty are the new kids on the block, their arrival has been met with a mixed response and they’ve got a lot to learn if they’re to manage the sport successfully.

While critics will argue that Liberty haven’t achieved an awful lot so far, it’s important to remember the unstable mess that they picked from Bernie Ecclestone on the 23^rd January 2017. Bernie’s strategy was to keep F1 on an unstable platform so that no one got too comfortable however, this is the opposite of what is needed for growth and expansion.

The bias within the F1 remains for now, Ferrari still get a disproportionate amount of prize money but that’s unlikely to change as it is part of the Concorde Agreement which was signed in 2013 and runs to 2020. In spite of this, Liberty have made it clear that they intend on scrapping the controversial agreement as soon as possible.

“We have the infamous document called the Concorde Agreement, which is this agreement that comes up every six to eight years – it comes up in 2020 – which defines the financial arrangements with teams,”

“Our goal is to create much more of a long-term partnership, not a partnership that sort of has a point in time that you go out and renegotiate the next eight-year partnership, that there’s a continuum.” – Chase Carey, F1 Chairman

Even with the majority of the inner workings of F1 being locked in contracts, Liberty have started to make changes to the social element of the sport. Almost immediately the strict regulations surrounding social media usage in the paddock were relaxed, allowing teams and drivers to better connect with and involve fans.

The London Live event was an entirely new concept for F1 which brought all the drivers, bar Hamilton, to the centre of London with live music, interviews and an impressive demo run in the old cars. This type of event is going to become more common in the coming years and, with the relaxation of more regulations, can now include the current cars doing demo runs.

Another of Liberty’s changes was to the logo, this was met with swathes of criticism however, the FIA stood by Liberty’s decision so the new logo will be sticking around for 2018 and beyond.

“What we wanted to do was provide a fresh energy to the sport and I think we have a lot of plans for the future, a lot of things we want to do and we thought the logo was a good way to emphasise the excitement, fresh energy and a new day to take the sport to a new place,” – Carey

F1 unveiled their new logo at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

2017 was just the start of Liberty’s new venture, they intend to set up an in-house live streaming service for 2018 however, it will only be available in countries where there isn’t a pre-exiting TV deal that guarantees exclusivity, for example the UK and Sky.

They will also have to tackle the looming engine regulation change, set to come in for 2020. The current hybrid engines have proven to be unpopular with fans, monumentally expensive to teams and have detracted any new manufactures from joining – just look what happened to Honda. The change will be a delicate balancing act to please the current manufactures while attracting new ones and improve the show for the fans.

It’s clear that some fundamental changes need to be made to F1 if it’s to succeed in this modern world. Liberty need to take back control from the manufactures for a start; if Ferrari want to quit, let them – decisions need to be made for the benefit the sport, not one or two manufactures.

Likewise, changes need to be made to the ludicrous engine penalties; capping them at 15 places for 2018 is a start but more needs to be done to stop them ruining races, confusing fans and even deciding the championship.

Even with all that, F1 as a whole needs to be modernised, it needs to attract new fans and it needs to have a bigger, more global reach. F1 was the fastest growing sport on social media in 2017 but it still has a long way to go to have anything like the presence of the NBA, the Premier League, La Liga and such like.

Overall, Liberty Media’s first year in charge has gone as well as it could’ve, the confident manner in which they are talking is promising but there’s still a long way to go and a lot more hurdles to clear before F1 is anywhere near where it should be.

16th January 201816th January 2018

Dan Gurney – 1931 – 2018

Grand Prix 1970 van Nederland voor Formule I wagens , Zandvoort; Dan Gurney , kop
*21 juni 1970

We at The Pit Crew Online join the global motorsport community in marking, and mourning, the passing of the legendary Dan Gurney.

Gurney came of age in the wild mid-century era of motorsport, racing for several teams across several series from 1959 to 1970 before focusing on managing his team, All American Racers. The list of his accomplishments could fill several lifetimes: racing for Scuderia Ferrari, winning at Le Mans, the most successful American driver in Formula One, winning in NASCAR, winning in Indy Car (the first driver to win in all four series), winning in Can-Am, the first to spray champagne from the podium at Le Mans, the first driver to wear a full-face helmet in a Formula One Grand Prix, inventor of the eponymous Gurney Flap and inspiration for the Gurney Bubble, manufacturer, team owner…

The list of names associated with Gurney throughout his storied career is no less luminous on both the driver’s and manufacturer’s side: Jack Brabham, Carroll Shelby, AJ Foyt, Bob Bondurant, Jackie Stewart, Jim Clark, Bruce McLaren, Roger Penske…

The 1967 season in particular stands out in Gurney’s rich career, thanks to the Golden Week of 11 – 18 June. It was on June 11th, 1967 that Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt won at Le Mans, and Gurney established the tradition of spraying champagne from the podium. A scant week later, Gurney won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa in his Eagle Mk 1, the only US-built car to win a Formula One Grand Prix. Beyond this, the car was built by Gurney’s own team, then known as Anglo American Racers. This was the second time of only three in Formula One history that a driver has won a Grand Prix in a car of his own manufacture.

There is so much more one could say about Dan Gurney, and doubtless drivers and motorsport fans alike are recounting their favorite memories around the world in his honor.

Dan Gurney died from complications of pneumonia on 14 January, 2018, in Newport Beach, California. He is survived by his wife, their children, and grandchildren.

The final checkered flag has waved for one of the greats of global motorsport. Godspeed, Dan.

5th January 2018

Latifi takes up Force India third driver role

Force India has signed Canadian F2 racer Nicholas Latifi as its new test and reserve driver for the 2018 F1 season.

Latifi’s role will comprise simulator work as well as participation in young driver tests and “a number of Friday practice sessions” throughout the year.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity,” Latifi said in a statement. “Sahara Force India is a team that has shown constant improvement for the last few years and I’m proud to become a part of one of the success stories of Formula One.

“I am eager to show the team what I can do and help them as they continue to close the gap to the front of the grid.”

Force India team boss Vijay Mallya said of the appointment, “Nicholas joins us off the back of a strong season in F2 and strengthens our driver development programme. He will support our simulator programme and work with the team during a number of Friday practice sessions.”

Mallya added: “We have a long track record of bringing on young talented drivers and Nicholas will learn a huge amount as he gets embedded in the team, and looks forward to a career in Formula One.”

Latifi, who previously held a test driver role at Renault, took one race win and nine podiums to finish fifth in the 2017 F2 Championship.

4th January 20184th January 2018

Interview with Sean Bull – The Man behind the fantasy F1 liveries

One of Sean’s 2018 car designs: The new Sauber with the Alfa Romeo livery and the Halo

We talked with designer Sean Bull about his work in Formula E and his change from casual F1 fan to creator of fictional and real car designs, and show the person who stands behind some of the most popular fantasy F1 liveries.

Most of the F1 community knows it: the feeling weeks before the presentation of the new F1 cars. Especially when a team has a big new sponsor or has changed their engine partner for example, everybody talks about possible livery changes. How would Ferrari look without Santander? Or the new McLaren in an old-school papaya coat? What about Red Bull with the new Aston Martin deal, or Sauber with Alfa Romeo? And most importantly: how will the cars look with the new halo system above the cockpits?

Only a few of the many questions in this year’s pre-season. Thats where the work of Sean Bull begins. A man who not only creates possible designs of real and fictional F1 teams—he also started with a real design for the Dragon Formula E team this season.

The fictional designs are iconic to many people. Thats why the disappointment is often big, when the teams reveal their real cars with a much more conservative livery. Some people might ask why the real teams don’t look as good as popular examples from designers like Sean Bull. Let’s ask the man himself about this and know more about him, his hobby and his job at the same time.

A dream came true: Sean’s livery designs for Dragon Racing in this year’s Formula E season.

1. First of all, congratulations on your first real car livery, the Dragon Racing Formula E cars and their driver suits. They look great. Could you tell us, what was your reaction when you learned that your design had been chosen for the car?

Sean: The Dragon design was months of hard work, working closely with the team’s owner, Jay Penske to design and develop the teams refreshed identity this season after the departure of Faraday last year, going back to the team’s roots of the striking red chrome and a more elegant and flowing design was a pleasure to draw and create, with the car lending itself heavily toward the livery layout. A classic use on subtle pinstriping around the key feature lines and the minimalist American flag motif that adorn the roll hoop and front wing are the result of continued fine tweaking and development.

The decision to split the liveries came quite late and continue what is left of the team’s corporate DNA from last year with the split faraday designs, only presented in a more obvious and dramatic fashion this year, with each car being the mirror imprint of the other, something I wish F1 would be allowed to adopt with such difficulty telling the drivers apart from one another.

The race suits and garage design were also fun aspects to design and create, we went with a range of options before we settled on something more minimal and classy rather than anything too outlandish and obvious, and I believe they look great, with obvious relation between the cars, pits and corporate branding and I’m very proud to have been part of it and am certainly looking forward to working with the team for the rest of the season.

2. Tell us what got you started designing. What inspired you to design car liveries, and is that your full time job now, or is it still a hobby for you?

Sean: I started, as I believe any fan of F1 has, sketching the cars watching the race as a young kid, and it’s from then that it’s always been my passion to be a car designer, so I studied Automotive Design at Coventry university and after gaining an industrial placement in my 3^rd year I continued to work for that company as an Automotive Stylist after graduating in 2016. It was the skills in Photoshop and CAD learnt at university and work that helped me develop a hobby designing fantasy F1 liveries that slowly evolved into designing and creating the real thing for some big race teams around the world. Fortunately, it is still my side hobby and one that I take great passion in, but as I enjoy my main career as a car designer, it makes for a good break and free time relaxation, I’m just lucky enough that the livery work I do for ‘fun’ has given me the opportunity of a “second career”.

Bildergebnis für f1 2018 sean bull design — Another idea from Sean: making the most of the unpopular halo system with driver-specific liveries.

3. Your designs for the upcoming year are everywhere on the web, especially during the winter break. Many are disappointed when the real cars are presented by the teams after the break. In contrast to your designs they are often more simple and less warmly received. Does this reaction make you proud?

Sean: As mentioned, this is what I love to do in my free time, so it’s good to see how my fantasy designs are received by the public, and that’s the difference between mine and the real ones that get presented in February. I’m not tied down to any corporate restrictions, branding guides or sponsor requirements, hence why my designs can be so much more extreme and dramatic compared to the real life counterparts. So I do have sympathy for the team’s actual design departments, especially now knowing the creative restrictions that do apply after working on a few real world commissions.

4. Could you tell us how much time you spend on a typical livery design?

Sean: Usually when just playing around with my F1 designs, it’s anything from ten minutes to an hour. The real time is spent creating my templates and trying to get them as photo-realistic as possible. That’s where the hours and hours of work is spent. With the real-world teams it can be a lengthy process of design and development, or it can be relatively quick if the team love an initial concept and want to go with that. For example, the Dragon designs were five months from initial sketches to the final application, with changes and tweaks being made even as the car was being wrapped. However, in contrast the F2 livery for MP motorsport last year went straight from an initial sketch to the final proposal in a matter of weeks, such was the reaction from the proposed title sponsor the designs were created for!

Also one of Sean’s most popular livery series’: the 2017 McLaren with all the team’s liveries from 1966 onwards. This is the design of the 1968 McLaren M7A.

6. 2017 has been a special year for you, with many successes. What is your next goal? Do you have an ultimate goal, perhaps designing a livery for an F1 team in the near future?

Sean: 2017 has honestly been the best year of my life, both professionally and personally. I was lucky enough to be engaged to my now-fiancée and we are getting married next year, so that was the personal highlight for me!

In terms of professional success, this year has been incredible. I only started in November 2016, so for all this to happen in such a small space of time has been amazing—especially the work with Leclerc, going to see my first F1 race as a guest of his, and the Red Bull work I have done with their North American team this year (I was lucky enough for them to fly me out to LA to meet them and see my GRC liveries in action at the last race of the rear). And to top off the year, the Formula E commissions with Dragon and the contest win with Mahindra have been incredibly well received!

Looking forward to the future, my ultimate goal is of course F1, and to gain a commission with a team there or eventually work as part of the team. I have other aspirations that I hope will be realised in the coming year, but they’re all secret for now!

31st December 20175th January 2018

Welcome to the 2017 PitCrew Motorsport Personality Of The Year Awards

Throughout 2017 there have been stories aplenty. Whether it be the old guard proving that they still have it, or a new generation suggesting they might upset the apple cart, it’s certainly been memorable. Here are eight men that excelled and enthralled in their respective fields, with a poll at the bottom so you can pick your favourite.

Jason Doyle:
After heartbreak in 2016 when the affable Australian looked set to win his first Speedway World Championship before injury robbed him, Doyle simply picked himself up and carried on in 2017. A battle with rookie Patryk Dudek went to the final round in Melbourne, where the 32-year-old took what he felt what was rightfully his.	Jason Doyle became Speedway World Champion in 2017: Image courtest of www.Speedwaygp.com
	Lucas Di Grassi:
2016/2017 FIA Formula E Championship. Lucas Di Grassi (BRA), ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport, Spark-Abt Sportsline, ABT Schaeffler FE02. Photo: Zak Mauger/LAT/Formula E ref: Digital Image _56I7110	The Brazilian’s Formula E victory in the 2016/17 season came against all odds. After Sebasiten Buemi and Renault e.dams’ sensational start it looked a forgone conclusion, but other commitments for Buemi and a sudden loss of form while Di Grassi remained consistent meant the Brazilian stole the championship from the Swiss.
Charles Leclerc:
The new kid on the block in Formula One for 2018, Leclerc has earned a drive at Sauber after dominating Formula 2. At 20, Monaco’s finest looks set to have a long career ahead of him at the pinnacle of motorsport.	Charles Leclerc (MCO, PREMA Racing) Photo: Zak Mauger/FIA Formula 2. ref: Digital Image _J6I1710
	Lewis Hamilton:
Mercedes content pool. Lewis Hamilton is now a certified great after a fourth championship.	There is little to say about Lewis Hamilton that has not already been said. The Briton has not only won his fourth title after a titanic battle with Sebastian Vettel and moved into an elite club of just five to have won more than three World Championships, but also broke the great Michael Schumacher’s pole position record and with 62 is now the closest man to the German’s record of 91.
Marc Marquez:
In the past, Marc Marquez has won his MotoGP titles with varying degrees of difficulty. This year was one of his biggest challenges as Andrea Dovizioso led a rejuvenated Ducati challenged. Eventually the mercurial Spaniard won his fourth World Championship at the final round in Valencia.	MotoGP: Marc Marquez has won four of the five MotoGP Championships he has contested
	Sebastien Ogier:
Sébastien Ogier (F), Julien Ingrassia (F) Volkswagen Polo R WRC (2016) WRC Rally Australia 2016 Photo: Helena El Mokni	Ogier continued his dominance in the World Rally Championship over the last five years with another title in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta. Two wins and nine podiums meant that he beat nearest rival Thierry Neuvile of Belgium by 24 points
Jonny Rea:
It’s been a record-breaking year in the World Superbike series for the man from Northern Ireland. A third straight Championship win would have been enough to see his name on the list, but in doing so he scored 556 points to break a 15-year-old points record that had previously been held by Colin Edwards with 552.
	Ash Sutton:
Ashley Sutton (GBR) Team BMR Subaru Levorg, leading at Oulton Park.	A Baby-faced Assassin in the British Touring Car Championship, Sutton had given fair warning to his rivals of what could happen given the chance during his debut season in 2016 with victory at Croft. Six further wins in 2017 saw the man from Kent dethrone reigning back-to-back champion Gordon Shedden in style in the final round at Brands Hatch.

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31st December 201731st December 2017

The 2017 Mr Penalty award goes to..

It’s almost time to switch off the lights and celebrate the first day of the 2018, but before we close the 2017 chapter, we must first give the crown to the driver who received the most grid drop penalties in 2017.

During the past season, many fans complained about the amount of penalties which were given to the Formula One drivers, some of them were fair, but some others didn’t even make sense. This article, presents all the penalties which were given to the drivers in the 2017 season. Due to the different type of penalties, I decided to give the crown to the driver with the most grid penalties.

Let’s step aside now and let the numbers do the talking.

The first figure shows the number of penalties which applied on every track, the least penalties were given in Malaysia and Singapore, whilst Italy and Belgium set the highest rate of penalties. The award of the most “painful” track goes to Monza (12)!

It’s not difficult to guess which team got the most penalties in 2017 (hint: they were using Honda engines), the interesting point is that despite the wins and the podium finishes Red Bull Racing was penalised 12 times in 20 races. The two title contenders had low penalty percentage, which means that the battle for the title wasn’t affected much from grid position penalties.

The award of the most penalised team goes to McLaren (25).

Now it’s finally the time to announce the big winner. (Hold your breath!!)

Many drivers tried to beat him, to claim the throne, but once again he proved how skilful driver, he is, of course his team and their engine supplier helped him to achieve this victory, but without teamwork you cannot achieve anything.

His closest rivals were Fernando Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo with eight grid drop penalties, whilst Esteban Ocon still doesn’t know how is to lose positions due to penalties, no grid drop penalty for Esteban (a.k.a. Oconsistency).

The award of the Mr.Penalty goes to.. Drums… Stoffel Vandoorne (15)!

At this point, I would like to thank the Pit Crew for giving me the opportunity to freely write articles and express my opinion via our website! I hope you enjoyed most of them, if not all them, and I wish you a happy new year!

See you all next year!

Ps. if you are planning to attend the Autosport Show, in January, let me know and we can meet there!

Twitter @FP_Passion