FORMULA 1 - 2014

[MIKA27]

ANALYSIS – F1 2014 THE STORY SO FAR: Lotus

Continuing this series of insights into the progress of the F1 teams after the first four ‘fly-away’ races of the season with a look at a team that was flying high this time last year and ended 2013 as Red Bull’s closest challenger.

This year they have yet to score a single point in 2014 and are having to climb up from the back of the grid – literally – in the opening race.

Lotus

Best result: P11 (Grosjean, Malaysia)

Best grid slot: 10th (Grosjean, China)

Average grid slot: 17th.

Retirements: 4

Constructors Championship: 8th, 0 pts

Drivers’ Championship: Grosjean 0 pts; Maldonado 0 pts

Fastest race lap, gap to pace setter

Australia: +2.288s

Malaysia: +3.158s

Bahrain: +2.423s

China: +2.665s

What’s gone right?

Not much. If a Martian were to come to Earth and study the F1 championship tables after the first four races and compare them to last year, the immediate question would be – what happened to Lotus?

Last season at this stage the team from Enstone had 93 points with one driver lying second in the championship and the team itself lying second in the Constructors’ table.

This year they have yet to get off the mark, with a lowly 11th place the best result to date. The reason for the turnaround is complex, like the background story to the team itself. The Renault power unit is clearly part of the story, but Red Bull uses the same engine and has 57 points to date. So the chassis is part of the story, but it’s not just that either. The team missed the first test of the season in Spain amid rumours of financial problems and with 95 people having been laid off over the winter.

An investment in the team by the mysterious Quantum Motorsports group, which was allowed plenty of media airtime at the end of last season, did not come off and new faces appeared in the management structure. This meant that they took Pastor Maldonado and his PDVSA money as a banker move.

Team principal Eric Boullier found an escape tunnel in the form of a senior role at McLaren. Federico Gastaldi found himself at the helm in Australia and Malaysia as deputy team principal.

On track issues are displayed below, but on the positive side the team got the updated Renault power units in China to align it with the two Red Bull backed teams and this gave a significant boost to performance with Grosjean making it into Q3 for the first time this season. There was a new drive in the MGU-K unit of the ERS system, modifications to the turbo and revised exhaust. Further steps are promised.

With these immature hybrid units, the steps are big; increments of 10-15 horsepower at a time are talked about this year, all under the guise of “reliability” fixes as performance developments are banned.

What’s gone wrong?

Enough hard luck stories to last three seasons. Pre-season testing was a nightmare with only 1,288km covered, a quarter of the target mileage, as the team struggled to get the car to run.

Things didn’t improve when the team started racing, with a troubled Melbourne weekend. They had all kinds of problems with the power units; overheating turbos, mapping, hybrid ERS systems among other issues like brake by wire. The cars covered just 31 laps between them before qualifying in Australia.

There was stuttering progress in Malaysia and Bahrain until a decent step in China. Even the Bahrain test after Round 3 was a disaster with two engine failures and just 162 km covered in two days. No wonder team principal Gerard Lopez has said that, “Our season begins in Barcelona.”

A promising weekend for Grosjean in China ended with a gearbox issue when he was 10th and on course for the first point of the season.

Maldonado, who left Williams to be part of Lotus, has further burnished his “Bad Boy of F1″ badge with a pointless accident with Gutierrez in Bahrain netting him more penalties and points on the new licence system.

Strong points of the team and car

Despite the redundancies and the resignations, there are still plenty of good people at Lotus across the various departments, with two solid experienced operators running things on the race team; Nick Chester on the technical side and Alan Permane on the operational side.

Lotus has made some lovely cars in the last few years, so they didn’t forget how to make a chassis. This one is perhaps not as elegantly engineered as some of its predecessors and the twin tusk nose has as many critics as admirers, but the car has started to show some promise and there is clearly much untapped potential. How much we will hopefully find out through the summer as things calm down on the Renault front and they are able to push to the maximum.

Grosjean was one of the revelations of 2013 and it was heartbreaking to see him lose all career momentum, but the experience will have taught him to appreciate how far he has come and he will be certain to capitalise once the car and power unit gets sorted.

Weak points of the team and the car

Losing Boullier was a major blow, much like technical director James Allison’s defection last year, as much for what it said about the state of the team and its prospects, as for his leadership. Lopez insists that the 2014 budget is ring fenced and that there is no prospect of the team failing, but there are plenty in the F1 paddock who don’t share his optimism.

Clearly they have had significant problems packaging the Renault hybrid power unit in the chassis and getting the systems to work and the resulting loss of time has meant that they are behind on set up work and optimising the chassis. It looked a handful in Bahrain, but with more track time in China started to come together and it was able to keep a McLaren and Toro Rossos behind it comfortably before the gearbox problem hit.

Maldonado continues to be F1′s enigma and time will tell what he makes of his time at Lotus.

Where do they go from here?

The Barcelona GP weekend and the subsequent test should help move things along. There will be chassis updates and fixes as the team makes up for lost time. By Silverstone we should have a clearer idea of how competitive the Lotus package is.

On the bigger picture stuff, we watch with interest. Lotus has a seat on the F1 Strategy Group, which recently voted against any kind of cost cap. It looks set to be a tough year for the teams who are close to the breadline and all the signs are that the big teams have little concern about the plight of the less well off.

Overall Marks out of 10

Lotus – 3/10

Romain Grosjean – 6/10

Pastor Maldonado – 2/10

[MIKA27]

Off Topic: Why You Should Watch… DTM

The German Touring Car Masters – DTM – is a cut above other touring car championships in terms of the sophistication of the machinery and the quality of competitors it attracts.

BMW’s arrival two years ago as a third manufacturer alongside long-time rivals Mercedes and Audi was a shot in the arm for the championship which has spurred the level of competition to new heights.

Having tweaked the formula to improve the on-track action, the DTM is now forming ambitious plans for global expansion. The series will return to China later this year – a major market for Germany’s premium car manufacturers – and is even considering an American championship.

The level of technology and professionalism in the championship is arguably exceeded only by Formula One, and drivers like Paul di Resta have shown it is possible to graduate from it to the sport’s top flight.

That makes the DTM a uniquely important and competitive player in international motorsport. Here’s a few more reasons why you should tune in to this weekend’s opening race at the Hockenheimring.

The quality of the field

The DTM field is an appealing mix of talented juniors drivers and competitors who have already made their mark in other championships.

Among the up-and-coming drivers are Red Bull’s hotly tipped Antonio Felix da Costa, 2011 Formula Renault 3.5 champion Robert Wickens, 2012 European F3 champion Daniel Juncadella and his predecessor of two years earlier, Edoardo Mortara.

Their rivals include a trio of ex-F1 racers, with Paul di Resta returning to the series he won in 2010, Timo Glock beginning his second year in the category following his breakthrough win in last year’s season finale, and Vitaly Petrov making his DTM debut.

Expect series veterans Bruno Spengler and Gary Paffet to feature in the battle for championship honours, along with last year’s runner-up Augusto Farfus and the ever improving Wickens and Christian Vietoris.

The closeness of the field is another major part of DTM’s appeal. Pole position is often decided by mere thousandths of a second. Drivers can go from hero to zero in a short space of time, as demonstrated by Wickens’ failure to get out of Q1 at Oschersleben immediately after his win at the Nurburgring.

Even past champions Timo Scheider and Martin Tomczyk struggled in last last year’s championship, showing just how competitive this melting pot of motorsport stars is.

Rejuvenated races

A fair criticism levelled at the DTM in recent seasons is that its abundance of quality drivers and teams has too often failed to produce good racing. Similarly to the correlation seen in F1 in past decades, chassis bristling with aerodynamic appendages may look impressive but they tend not to create exciting wheel-to-wheel racing.

The DTM’s answer to that has been borrow from the F1 book of gimmicks. These include DRS-enabled rear wings, which fold back when an attacking driver is within two seconds of the another car ahead. Unlike in F1, these can be used at any point on a track, giving a more strategic dimension to the competition.

F1 fans will also be familiar with the DTM’s introduction of different tyre compounds which drivers have to use during each race: the ‘standard’ and slightly faster ‘option’ tyres. Couple this with DTM’s preference for shorter tracks (for instance the 1.4 mile Norisring), results in closely-packed racing.

In an attempt to prevent one manufacturer from holding the upper hand for too long, 2014 will see the controversial introduction of success ballast. This is designed not to penalise successful drivers, but to level out performance between cars.

The winning driver, as well as any drivers from the same manufacturer who finished inside the top ten, will have to carry an extra five kilograms at the next race. Drivers in the same cars which finished outside the top ten will have 2.5kg added.

For a series not famed for its on-track action, qualifying diminished in its importance in 2013, with just three of the eleven races won from pole position. In the season opener at Hockenheim Dirk Werner reached the second step on the podium from last on the grid.

Formula One DNA

Despite the outward differences between the cars the similarities between F1 and the DTM run deep. Particularly the strategic nature of the racing, where a pit stop ‘undercut’ is often the easiest way of gaining track position rather than than overtaking on-track. Rockenfeller used this to good effect at the Nurburgring where he finished fourth in spite of a first corner incident that dropped him to the back of the field.

In a bid to introduce more freedom in this area, the DTM has reduced the number of mandatory pit stops from two to one this year, while maintaining the requirement to use both ‘standard’ and ‘option’ tyres. Drivers may also not used the softer tyres for more than half of the race. As degradation tends not to be a factor with Hankook’s rubber, expect just a single stop for each car at most races.

In 2014 the DTM will adopt a three-part qualifying system nearly identical to that of F1. The “pole shootout” format is now a thing of the past.

Given the quality of the drivers, qualifying in DTM will continue to be a spectacle in 2014, where the driving perfection of a lap needed to poach the higher placings is higher than almost any series, and the difference between advancement and elimination is often little more than thousandths of a second.

Also, impressively for a touring car series, the DTM regularly manages sub-three seconds pit stops for changing all four tyres following its move to mirror the 2010 ban on refuelling in F1. Couple that to segmented qualifying, brilliant drivers, professional teams and strategic racing, and it’s clear the DTM shares more with F1 than more conventional touring car series like the BTCC and WTCC.

Accessible racing

One of the most appealing aspects of the DTM is the lengths the organisers have gone to encourage people to watch. Live streaming via YouTube gives viewers worldwide the choice to watch on a wide selection of devices.

Race and qualifying sessions can also be viewed on demand through the DTM channel, with the entirety of the 2013 season still available to watch.

The coverage itself is also excellent, with quality graphics and reliably good direction. A new commentary team will be in place this year.

In qualifying the unfolding laps are not simply shown versus the fastest lap, but the sectors are displayed as purple (fastest of all), green (personal best) or white (not an improvement), and in the race the highly strategic nature of the races is simply displayed in graphics on the left-hand side, where the number of stops and the tyre compound in use are displayed.

This transforms the viewing experience, making highly strategic racing easy to understand, and is one of a number of areas where F1 can learn from DTM.

DTM cars and drivers of 2014

Here are some of the cars and drivers of the 2014 DTM championship:

Antonio Felix da Costa, BMW M4 DTM, 2014 Maxime Martin, BMW M4 DTM, 2014

Martin Tomcyk, BMW M4 DTM, 2014 Mike Rockenfeller, Audi RS5 DTM, 2014

Mattias Ekstrom, Audi RS5 DTM, 2014 Jamie Green, Audi RS5 DTM, 2014

Paul di Resta, Mercedes C-Coupe AMG DTM, 2014 Daniel Juncadella, Mercedes C-Coupe AMG DTM, 2014

Christian Vietoris, Mercedes C-Coupe AMG DTM, 2014 Miguel Molina, Audi RS5 DTM, 2014

Nico Muller, Audi RS5 DTM, 2014 Edoardo Mortara, Audi RS5 DTM, 2014

Adrien Tambay, Audi RS5 DTM, 2014 Marco Wittmann, BMW M4 DTM, 2014

Vitaly Petrov, Mercedes C-Coupe AMG DTM, 2014

Expanding beyond Germany

Germany’s premier touring car championship famously became a victim of its own success in the mid-nineties when unrestrained spending and a hasty expansion beyond the championship’s homeland saw the championship collapse.

Today’s series has grown more cautiously, but even so four of this year’s ten races will take place outside Germany. Here’s where and when you can catch the DTM in 2014.

14th May: Hockenheimring Germany

18th May: Oschersleben Germany

1st June: Hungaroring Hungary

29th June: Norisring Germany

13th July: Moscow Raceway Russia

3rd August: Red Bull Ring Austria

17th August: Nurburgring Germany

14th September: Lausitzring Germany

28th September: Guangzhou China

19th October: Hockenheimring Germany

[MIKA27]

Ayrton Senna: Battle of the heart and mind

It’s been 20 years since the last driver death in Formula 1. We know this because it was the tragedy of Ayrton Senna’s crash at the San Marino Grand Prix that served as a wake up call for the sport. So much has been said of Senna over the years that it is hard to add any praise or focus on his life that hasn’t already been voiced or implied.

Perhaps one of the more sobering views of Senna is his death and the stark reality that it took this tragic event to usher in real, meaningful efforts for safety in F1. Along with Roland Ratzenberger, Senna’s death that weekend was so galvanizing that the sport has still not fully recovered from the emotional scarring it endured.

That weekend, the specter of Death was hovering over the entire circuit cloaked in black with his scythe. He tried to take Rubens Barrichello and having failed, he turned to Ratzenberger but that wasn’t enough. He wanted the star. He wanted the man who was the most alive and lived life to the fullest. He wanted Senna.

There was fear, trepidation and prophetic comments made that weekend. Many of those words and comments were lost in the wind but on Sunday May 1, 1994, the world was shaken into harsh focus at the Tamburello corner.

When I think of Senna, I’ll be honest and say that I don’t think of his death and the safety this tragedy ushered into the sport. If there is a positive to be found, perhaps the lack of driver fatalities since 1994 is something to be thankful for. Instead, I tend to think of Senna in a different light.

I believe Senna was a man of fierce intelligence and not just one kind of intelligence. He had divergent intelligence that exposed his creative 3rd and 4th dimensional thinking. He could visualize the world around him and see dimensional advantages that other drivers couldn’t.

He also had practical intelligence that allowed him to navigate the political and draconian world of F1, FISA and Jean-Marie Balestre. It allowed him to make deals from karting to the pinnacle of motorsport and he worked the system and possessed the charisma and intelligence to get to the top.

He also possessed technical intelligence that allowed him to recant car measurements such as oil pressure, temperature, fuel loads, RPM’s, shift points, clutch settings and every technical detail the crew wanted to know simply from his photographic memory. His ability to setup a car was uncanny and he had an engineer’s mind.

His mind was a complex, singular machine with multiple kinds of intelligence but his heart would not be outdone.

In his heart, he was a passionate man who did everything at ten tenths. He lived life to its fullest, he relaxed at the maximum rate, he drove with fierce intensity and hunted his prey with vengeance. His heart compelled him to drive beyond what other drivers could or would do in search for victory. His “zone” was much deeper than many others. He didn’t think it so much as he felt it. His heart-felt passion bred intense emotion.

He had immense compassion as well and was always concerned about the safety of other drivers. He took time to coach and teach and had insight he imparted on those he took a liking to. His compassion for others and for life itself was intense. He was a terrific friend to those lucky enough to call him one.

In his head, he knew he participated in a very dangerous sport and when the lights went out, it was all or nothing but in his heart, he also knew that he was driving with other men who had lives and families and it weighed on him. He knew that life was precious and he lived and honored it as such.

This battle between his heart and mind may manifest itself as an internal tempest in some but his faith in God was the bridge that kept the heart and mind at détente. He was comforted by his strong faith and knew he was a man for whom redemption had been imputed to him. His debt had been paid and his life was a gift that he made the absolute most of.

When I think of Senna, I think of the man he was, the legacy he had on not just Formula 1 but also the world. His impact on Brazil, his outreach and charitable heart and yes, his lethal and cunning manner in which he stalked his prey and the intense focus at which he found success. He was not a man without detractors or faults but then who amongst us is?

Senna will always be a singular impact on the world of motor sport but I tend to think it isn’t for the most tragic of reasons so much as for the most inspiring ways in which he lived, loved and inspired all who knew him and the many generations that followed him.

Senna navigated his world where the heart and mind raged and perhaps his greatest ability wasn’t in the car but in his ability to managed his intelligence and his passion in a way that transformed the sport and gave us a tangible example of just how good one man could be behind the wheel of the world’s most advanced form of racing.

Mario Andretti said that great drivers have to be able to get 100% of what the car is capable of giving—I argue that Senna always got 110% of what the car was capable of providing and his heart and mind—and the battle that raged between them tempered by the grace of God—was the reason.

For me, he will long be remembered by his life and not his death.

[MIKA27]

Alain Prost predicts Renault will catch Mercedes in F1 engine fight

Alain Prost thinks the engine battle between Renault and Mercedes could be transformed in a few races, opening up the fight for victories in Formula 1.

Although Renault had a troubled time in pre-season testing and is still playing catch-up against Mercedes, the French car manufacturer has made good progress in recent races.

Prost, who is an ambassador for Renault, believes that the next few weeks will not only help it close up the gap, but could result in Mercedes' dominance in 2014 coming under threat.

"Renault has always accepted the competition and the challenge," Prost told AUTOSPORT about the company's start to the campaign.

"They were a little bit late into the programme, and maybe Mercedes was much in advance. That's part of the game.

"The fact that they [Mercedes] have done the chassis and the engine at the same time, with that level of integration, can make the difference. We need to accept it.

"But the most important thing is to work and make progress as soon as possible. Let's wait and see another two or three races and it could be quite different.

"Renault won the world championship four times [with Red Bull from 2010-2013], and now they are the outsiders, so it's also good for the championship."

As well as planned updates to the Renault engine expected to lift its performance, the French car manufacturer's hopes of success will be boosted by the fact that the next events are taking place on tracks that are not so dependent on power.

Barcelona and Monaco put a premium on downforce, which is an area where Renault's partner Red Bull has excelled so far this season.

[MIKA27]

Romain Grosjean glad he stayed quiet over Lotus F1 team pay issues

Romain Grosjean thought it right that he keep a lid on the Lotus Formula 1 team's 2013 financial difficulties, rather than blowing them into the open like Kimi Raikkonen did.

Speaking after revealing that he had finally been paid by the Enstone-based team, Grosjean confessed that last season's money troubles were a cause for concern at the time.

But he said he preferred to put personal interests to one side in support of the team, rather than going public in a bid to get paid.

That stance was different to Raikkonen, who spoke openly about the issue and then came close to not racing in Abu Dhabi because of his wages dispute.

"It was certainly not the way we wanted things to go," explained Grosjean. "I never opened my mouth in front of the media, because that was my own business, and that was my own personal thing.

"Kimi kind of launched the whole thing.

"It wasn't easy for the guys, and things have not been made right always, but on the other hand everyone stayed together.

"The team spirit has always been there, and even though things were not as good as we would have loved them to be, the results were still there. So everyone was keeping their head down and pushing hard."

A management shake-up at Lotus following the departure of Eric Boullier, allied to a financial restructuring, has left Grosjean convinced the team is in much better shape - even if it is facing some on-track struggles.

"At least we don't have the problems that we could face in the past - which is a good advantage especially in a tough situation," he said.

"We work as hard as we can together and, of course, when you come from two successful years and you get to a more difficult season, it can be quite different.

"But everyone is trying as hard as they can to get the car as good as we can to move forward, and not blame something he shouldn't.

"We are moving forward and staying forward, united, and at the end we are all in the same boat."

[MIKA27]

Lewis Hamilton: restricted Formula 1 practice running bad for fans

Lewis Hamilton believes Formula 1 should do more to ensure cars run on track during practice, instead of sitting in garages to conserve tyres.

Four cars, including the two frontrunning Mercedes, failed to complete a timed lap in the third free practice session during the last grand prix weekend at Shanghai.

Most other cars did fewer than 10 laps across the 90-minute session, with Max Chilton's Marussia clocking the most at just 13 in total.

Hamilton believes the sport should find ways to ensure fans who turn up to the races are seeing more cars on track for more of the time.

He advocated extending the allocation of extra tyres that has been introduced for practice one this year, or freeing up engine mileage.

"I have sympathy for the people watching maybe just one car going round for the first half an hour - I think it can be managed a bit better," Hamilton said.

"When I used to turn on Formula 1 I wanted to see people driving around.

"Now I'm among the drivers, when you come into the garage and don't go out I can just imagine [what that's like for the fans].

"We can't have too much mileage on the engine so you're limited to almost 15 or 16 laps in the one session.

"We almost need a free engine and we'd be bolting around; we'd get 30 or 40 laps at least in each session.

"I think it would be good fun for the fans to see, and good for development."

[mikec]

Definitely tune into the DTM race this weekend if you want some great racing action. Looks like Audi will be the ones to beat again this year if you go by the pre-season testing times. My spy at Mercedes tells me the Merc is still a little off the pace but they are not showing all the cards just yet. Wickens has a real cool livery this season but hard to pickup on TV ( cammo green). Watch this kid this season as he has a lot to prove and can deliver if he stays out of trouble. Most of these guys (DTM) are quite happy staying where they are as the payroll to grief quotient is considerably less in this formula.

[MIKA27]

Ayrton Senna – Imola tragedy still a shock 20 years on for Damon Hill

When Damon Hill casts his mind back 20 years to the Imola weekend that claimed the lives of team mate Ayrton Senna and Austrian Roland Ratzenberger, it is with a sense of almost disbelief.

The passing of time, the success of the award-winning documentary ‘Senna’ in bringing to a new audience the story of arguably the greatest Formula One driver of all time, has changed perspective.

For Hill it has also stirred up old memories. What was once so painfully real, is now something else as the May 1 anniversary approaches.

“The ‘Senna’ film was quite shocking in many ways,” Hill, who went on to become champion with Williams in 1996, told Reuters.

“It was a shock. You are looking at the film and the events that were unfolding and you are finding it quite difficult to believe that you were involved in that event. It seems so far away and so…”

Hill, always one of the more thoughtful drivers, paused as he reached out for the right words to express himself.

“We’ve changed so much,” continued the 53-year-old Briton. “It’s difficult to believe that it was real. And maybe that’s what helps us through with everything, as human beings.

“It was certainly very real at the time. The whole weekend was like a big ramping up, every day there was more and more to this ultimate tragedy of losing the superstar Ayrton Senna.”

Hill’s late father Graham, a double world champion who was killed in a plane crash in 1975, led his shocked Lotus team through the aftermath of Jim Clark’s death in 1968 and the younger Briton had to step up and do the same with Williams in 1994.

It was, said Hill, the biggest test of his resolve in what is still one of the most dangerous of sports even if Senna remains the last driver fatality during an F1 weekend.

“Everyone in F1 asks themselves ‘Why are we doing this?’,” he explained.

“A lot of people say ‘you’re doing it because it’s dangerous and there are bound to be people who get killed doing it, that’s part of the thrill of the sport, the danger.’ Actually, I would argue it’s absolutely not.

“It (Imola) stopped everyone in their tracks, it made everyone in the sport reassess whether or not what they were doing was justifiable, worthwhile, morally defensible.

“What came out of it was changes in safety… the sport itself grew up and how many more lives were saved afterwards because of these safety improvements we’ll never know.”

While triple champion Senna had just joined the team from McLaren, Hill already had a season alongside four-times champion Alain Prost. Winner of three races in 1993 but the clear number two alongside Senna, he became leader by default.

Ahead of Senna in the standings before Imola, Hill went on to finish runner-up in that year’s championship – a single point behind the young Michael Schumacher who celebrated his first title with Benetton.

Just two races after Senna’s death, Hill led his traumatised team to victory in Spain – with David Coulthard making his debut for Williams as the Brazilian’s replacement – and followed it up with wins at Silverstone, Spa, Monza, Estoril and Suzuka.

“We managed to get the win in Barcelona. And then that really sparked off a career for me… up until then I had kind of considered myself to be probably an understudy to people like Ayrton or Nigel (Mansell),” he said.

“But this was not the way you’d choose to be chosen as team leader as such. It was tinged with very mixed emotions.”

There are those who argue that Hill, despite his determination, would not have become world champion had Senna lived. His response is clear.

“I would not disagree with them. I totally would not disagree. Sometimes opportunities come up which are unexpected, what are you supposed to do? Turn them down?” asked the Briton.

“I am sure that a lot of drivers envy my opportunity in the sport and I did get some lucky breaks. But to talk in terms of losing a team mate as a lucky break is perhaps not the right way to express it.

“How long would Ayrton have carried on? We don’t know the answer because he was actually 34,” added Hill. “He might even have decided to call it a day at the end of that championship. It’s difficult to know.”

One thing he has no doubt about, however, is just how much he could have picked up from his team mate.

They had testing, races in Brazil and Japan – with Senna qualifying on pole in both as well as at Imola – and then the Brazilian was gone, mourned by millions at a funeral that brought Latin America’s biggest nation to a standstill.

“I hardly got a chance to learn anything from Ayrton. I just was learning to appreciate quite how good he was, as if I needed to learn that,” said Hill. “It was obvious how good he was.

“But I was always taught never to put anyone on a pedestal. I saw him as a target, someone I could hopefully take some challenge to as Mika (Hakkinen) did when he was with McLaren (in 1993).”

After Imola, with the ageing circuit removed from the calendar in 2006 as Formula One increasingly looked to new frontiers, everything changed.

On his return to the circuit this month to film for Sky television, Hill saw for the first time the statue erected in memory of Senna in a park near the flat-out Tamburello corner where the Brazilian had his fatal crash.

If the place has become something of a shrine, Hill – who finished sixth that fateful day behind winner Schumacher after the race was re-started – had no doubt the real spirit of the man is elsewhere.

“Ayrton is not about Tamburello or Imola,” he said. “Ayrton is about who he was to Brazil.”

http://youtu.be/EFUZuMBPq9o

[MIKA27]

Ayrton Senna – Hamilton and Alonso salute the legend and their inspiration

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso have paid emotional tributes to Ayrton Senna on the 20th anniversary of the death of the maverick Brazilian superstar and three-time world champion.

Senna, widely regarded as the greatest racing driver of all time, died when his car careered off the Imola track in the early stages of the San Marino Grand Prix on May 1, 1994.

He was 34 years old.

It was Formula One’s blackest weekend which also saw Austrian rookie Roland Ratzenberger killed and Senna’s compatriot Rubens Barrichello injured.

“When I was a kid I had all the books, all the videos, he was the driver I looked up to,” said Hamilton, who was just nine at the time of Senna’s death.

“He inspired me to be a driver and on the day of his passing, his death was… it was very difficult for me to show my emotions so I went off to a quiet place and it was very difficult for several days to really… your hero’s gone.”

Senna, the outspoken world champion of 1988, 1990 and 1991, was leading in San Marino on lap seven when his Williams car veered spectacularly off the racing line at 190mph (307km/h) at the Tamburello corner and straight into a concrete wall.

He received emergency treatment at the scene before being airlifted to Bologna hospital where he was later declared dead.

“He was an incredible legend. You like to think that one day you may be recognised as someone that was able to drive similarly to him,” added Hamilton, the 2008 world champion.

Alonso, the 2005 and 2006 world champion, was 12 when Senna was killed and the Spaniard vividly recalls the day of the tragedy.

“On my schoolbooks I didn’t have pictures of girls, obviously I was too young but I had Ayrton there and the same in my room,” said the Ferrari star.

“I had a big poster of Ayrton and even my first go-karts were in the colours of Ayrton’s McLaren because my father also liked him. It was a very sad moment.”

Senna himself admitted that he feared for his safety in the 1994 season after a series of technical changes were made to a sport which had not seen a fatality since Riccardo Paletti was killed at the Canadian Grand Prix 12 years earlier.

“It’s going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I’ll risk saying that we’ll be lucky if something really serious doesn’t happen,” warned Senna in a chilling premonition.

He was proved grimly correct at Imola.

On the Friday of the racing weekend, Barrichello’s Jordan hit a kerb at the Variante Bassa corner at 140 mph (225 km/h), causing the car to barrel-roll and knocking him unconscious.

Barrichello suffered a broken nose and arm. When he regained consciousness at the hospital in Bologna, the first person he saw was Senna.

Worse was to follow in qualifying on the Saturday when Ratzenberger smashed into a concrete wall after his Simtek car failed to negotiate the Villeneuve curva. The Austrian died in hospital from multiple injuries.

Senna’s Williams team refused to take part in the qualifying session with the Brazilian visibly shaken by the death of Ratzenberger.

The race itself started in dramatic circumstances when the cars of JJ Lehto and Pedro Lamy collided on the grid, spewing debris into the grandstands and injuring a number of spectators.

The safety car was summoned to clear the track, fatally cooling the tyres of Senna and the chasing pack as they waited to be released.

Minutes later, the legendary driver suffered the accident which killed him and changed the sport forever.

Professor Sid Watkins, the head of Formula One’s race medical team and a close friend of Senna, had tried to persuade the triple champion not to race.

Ayrton broke down and cried on my shoulder,” Watkins recalled in his memoirs.

“I tried to persuade him not to race the following day, asking “What else do you need to do? You have been world champion three times, you are obviously the quickest driver. Give it up and let’s go fishing,” but Ayrton was insistent, saying, “Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to go on.”

Senna’s death led to a raft of changes to improve safety in the sport.

The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association was reformed, engine capacities were reduced and tethers to help prevent wheels flying off following accidents were introduced.

The HANS device to protect drivers’ heads and necks were made compulsory, run-offs were extended and improved.

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Ayrton Senna – The day a young Brazilian grabbed Formula 1′s attention

While Formula 1 remembers Ayrton Senna on the 20th anniversary of his death at Imola, happier memories of another race 10 years earlier highlight just why the great Brazilian is still so sorely missed.

The 1984 Monaco Grand Prix, held in pouring rain, was when even the sleepiest followers of the sport woke up to just what a talent they had in their midst.

Senna, starting in 13th place in the first street race of his rookie season and in a car that he had failed to qualify two races earlier at Imola, finished second to McLaren’s Alain Prost – his future team mate and rival – for his first F1 podium.

The harder the rain came down, the quicker he went. The Brazilian set the fastest lap and was poised to take the lead when the race was stopped controversially and half points awarded.

Pat Symonds, now technical head at Williams after working with Michael Schumacher at Benetton and Fernando Alonso at Renault, was Senna’s race engineer that day at the unheralded Toleman team and looks back on it as an almost surreal experience.

“It wasn’t exactly on the radar,” the Briton told Reuters. “It wasn’t like ‘Yeah this is coming, we’re going to win one soon’. It was like ‘Wow’. Everything aligned and we very nearly won the race.

“It was very surreal and very mixed emotions afterwards, having achieved something more than either of us had achieved before and yet not got that ultimate prize.

“There was the initial euphoria of getting that second place and then two hours later thinking ‘Well, actually it should have been first place’. That was quite hard to deal with.”

Senna had been a sensation through the junior series, winning Formula Ford championships and 12 out of 17 races in his first year in England in 1981.

In 1982 he had dominated Formula Ford 2000 and then won the British Formula Three title in 1983 after a battle with Martin Brundle and the Macau Grand Prix.

The Brazilian had tested with various teams including Williams and McLaren, the team he would later win his three titles with, before he signed for Toleman, but Monaco was where many people sat up and took notice.

“Probably the first time that I really noticed him was his driving with wets, when he was driving that awful looking car, the Toleman, in Monte Carlo,” McLaren head Ron Dennis told reporters in a recent recollection of their time together.

“If the race had finished, who knows whether Prost would have let Ayrton past but what he was doing was spectacular. And such a rubbish car, too.”

Even Symonds, who had come through Formula Ford and seen for himself how impressive Senna was in the junior ranks, was surprised.

“I knew the guy was good. When he joined the Toleman team I thought we’d done very well. I won’t for one minute pretend to really have anticipated how well we’d done and what an absolute treasure we’d got,” he said.

“Once he started working with us, I think a great sign of a good driver is that you forget they are inexperienced… And that was the case with Ayrton. He was just so at home in Formula One that you forgot he was a rookie.”

Whether Senna would have actually won in Monaco that afternoon had the race gone full distances is one of Formula 1′s many unanswered questions.

Although it emerged afterwards that the Brazilian’s car was damaged, Symonds suspects he might have done.

“Yes, it is true that one of the front rockers was cracked. And we believed that had happened on a trip over the kerbs at the chicane. But no-one will ever know whether the car would have finished or not,” he said.

“In my view, it was a serious crack but it wasn’t just about to fail. No-one will ever know the answer.”

What is certain is that Senna showed that day some of the qualities that would make him such a formidable competitor – complete self-confidence and an amazing ability to absorb information.

Senna left Toleman for Lotus at the end of the year and won his first race in Portugal in 1985.

His brilliance, and failings, would shine through – the win in the wet at Donington Park in 1993 ranks among his greatest – but Monaco was to become a favourite with the Brazilian triumphant six times in total in the principality.

“There were so many drivers who in order to drive a car fast, needed 100 percent of their mental capacity. Ayrton didn’t. He could drive it faster than anyone else and he still had capacity to remember every little detail of every lap,” recalled Symonds.

“We didn’t have data acquisition in those days, we didn’t have real-time telemetry. It was down to the driver. And he was very, very good at describing the car and remembering every little thing that happened.

“He was naturally very competitive, he had this self-belief that wasn’t arrogance. It was true self-belief. Therefore he didn’t have that reverence to the established drivers of the time. He just thought they were there to be beaten.”

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Bahrain jails five for plotting to bomb 2013 F1 race

Five people, including a woman who used a pillow to pretend she was pregnant, were sentenced to five years in jail on Tuesday for plotting to disrupt the 2013 Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix by planting a bomb at the circuit, state news agency BNA said.

It said policewomen foiled the scheme when they searched the woman and found her disguise while she was on a trial run for smuggling a home-made bomb in on the day of the race in April last year.

The agency did not name the five but said they had confessed to the plot. The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) identified the two women as activists Nafisa al-Asfoor, 31, and Rayhana al-Musawi, 38.

It said they were detained during a protest near the circuit and had complained of being tortured.

“Both women have told their families that they were tortured and abused by police during their questioning,” BYSHR said.

Officials were not immediately available for comment about the allegation but authorities have said in the past that torture is not a government policy and prisons have cameras installed to record questioning sessions. Bahrain also says its judiciary is independent.

The Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab kingdom, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, has struggled with unrest since mass pro-democracy protests led by Bahrain’s big Shi’ite community erupted in 2011.

The protests were quelled by the authorities but since then more radical Shi’ites have carried out low-level violence against security forces on an almost daily basis. Recent months have seen a rise in the use of home-made bombs.

The government sees the annual Bahrain Grand Prix as a way to raise Bahrain’s international profile and attract tourists and foreign investment. The opposition uses this event to stage protests and put the spotlight on their demands.

In 2011, when the unrest first broke out as part of the Arab Spring uprisings, the race had to be cancelled. But the event has gone ahead each year since then.

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Formula 1 looking to up the volume of V6 turbo engines

Formula 1 is pushing ahead with efforts to make its new V6 turbo engines louder, in the wake of much criticism and disdain from certain quarters.

After decades of screaming, naturally-aspirated V12s, V10s and V8s, the markedly lower volume of this year’s energy-recovering turbo ‘power units’ was a shock.

“I did not find it exciting,” said former Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya, as he explained to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport why he watched only the first five laps of the recent Chinese Grand Prix on television.

“And I missed the noise,” the Colombian added. “At least on TV. I don’t know how the engines sound in reality, but I think it is definitely not close to the screams of the high-revving V10s from my time.”

Also unhappy is Formula 1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, who recently said Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault will work on making the 1.6 litre ‘power units’ sound better.

The first meeting to discuss potential solutions was in Shanghai, and Italy’s Autosprint reports that more meetings are taking place away from the paddock this week.

“We’re at the beginning of a consultative process,” confirmed Renault’s Rob White.

“I think we need to be realistic about the scope of any action that we might take but of course we’re sensitive to the subject and we’ll certainly participate in any of the studies that might lead to actions being taken,” he added.

Given the fundamental infrastructure of the new engines, with the turbo collecting energy that would otherwise be heard as noise, it has been suggested one of the only things that can be done is a change to the exhaust pipe design.

Autosprint correspondent Alberto Antonini said an Italian company is on the verge of being commissioned to look into possible solutions.

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Kovalainen set to sign as Mercedes F1 test driver

Heikki Kovalainen is poised to return to Formula 1 in a test driver role, according to the major Finnish newspaper Ilta Sanomat.

The report said that the 32-year-old, who was dropped by Caterham at the end of 2012, is set to sign a contract to be a Mercedes test driver.

Last year, Kovalainen looked poised to return to the grid with Caterham in 2014, but late in the season he struggled notably at Lotus when he was drafted in to replace the injured Kimi Raikkonen.

Caterham team owner Tony Fernandes admitted recently that Kovalainen’s Lotus struggle “played a part” in the decision to sign Kamui Kobayashi instead.

Kovalainen is yet to comment on his 2014 plans, but Ilta Sanomat reports that the Mercedes deal has been on the table for some time, with contracts now ready to be signed.

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Argentina targets return to Formula 1 calendar

After hosting the MotoGP this past weekend ,Argentina has now set its sights on returning to Formula 1.

Last held on an ageing circuit in Buenos Aires in 1998, plans to revive the Argentine Grand Prix emerged two years ago.

“We are always open to doing something in Argentina,” Formula 1 Chief Executive Bernie Ecclestone had said. “When we meet some serious people it will happen.”

MotoGP riders raced at the Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo, an overhauled facility which now also hosts Formula Renault and world touring cars.

On the sidelines of the new MotoGP race, Argentine tourism minister Enrique Meyer revealed the government’s ambition to also return to the Formula 1 calendar.

“[Formula 1] is an event we hosted for many years,” he is quoted by France’s L’Equipe. “But at some point, we could not continue for economic reasons.

“Rio Hondo has the features to be registered to receive Formula 1,” said Meyer. “We believe that a country that loves motor sport must have prestigious events.”

L’Equipe said Meyer confirmed that, for the Formula 1 bid, additional investments will be made to improve roads, airports and hotels in the area, in the province of Santiago del Estero.

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'Ratzenberger deserves Imola tribute'

Former Formula One driver Roland Ratzenberger deserved a tribute alongside that of Ayrton Senna at Imola, according to his former team-mate David Brabham.

Ratzenberger was involved in a fatal crash and died on the scene during qualifying at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, a day before three-time F1 champion Senna died during the race.

While there will be a special memorial service for the Austrian, and both he and Senna will be remembered this week at Imola, no formal tribute to Ratzenberger exists at the Italian track.

"I was sad when I heard there was nothing for Roland," Brabham told BBC Sport, adding that a "simple plaque" would suffice.

While many regard Ratzenberger as the 'forgotten man' in F1, Brabham disagrees.

"Would we still be talking about Roland 20 years on if only Roland had died?" Brabham asked.

"The fact he died on the same weekend as Senna means he will always be remembered."

During qualifying at Imola that fateful day, Ratzenberger's front wing was damaged before it broke completely but was lodged under his car. As a result, he was unable to control the car and crashed into a concrete wall.

Recalling the day of the accident, Brabham admitted that he immediately thought his Simtek team-mate had passed away.

"I can't remember how long into the session it was," Brabham said.

"We had done some qualifying runs. I came round Tamburello [curve] and the red flag had come out - actually I think they were yellows at first. I slowed down.

"He'd finished up at the middle of the corner - we ended up going around the outside of the car. When I saw the bits first and saw where the car ended up, I was concerned - that was the fastest part of the circuit. You're doing 300-something kilometres an hour. I looked and immediately thought he was gone - his head position, his visor was up.

"You thought 'that doesn't look good' - then your brain goes into protection mode or something. The next thought I had was I had to get back to the pits to keep the tyres warm which is the most ridiculous thing to think about, but that's what I thought about."

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Bottas: Spanish GP will be key

With several teams expecting upgrades to their cars at the Spanish Grand Prix, Williams driver Valtteri Bottas believes the race at the Circuit de Catalunya will play a decisive role in deciding the outcome of the 2014 season.

Williams are one of the teams that expect a major upgrade to be available in Barcelona, and Bottas is confident that his team will continue their strong start to the season in Catalunya.

"Yes, I think it's going to be an important weekend," the Finn told Autosport.

"It's going to give some direction of how the rest of the season is going to be.

"If we can make some steps forward, it would be really nice, but it is going to be interesting.

"We know it's difficult because everyone will bring more updates, it's just a matter of whose work and whose don't.

"The positive thing is that most of the parts we brought [to China] worked and we saw an improvement, so we are hoping to make an even bigger step in Barcelona."

Even though Williams perhaps haven't scored as many points as their pace warranted, Bottas has finished in the top 10 in all four races so far this season.

Despite the massive upturn in form from the disappointing 2013 season, Bottas added that the Wantage team can continue to improve as the season progresses.

"It's still positive to be consistently in the points but you always want more," he said.

"We just need to keep pushing, keep solving the problems and try again next time."

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Silverstone plans ‘largest ever F1 car parade’

Silverstone intends to host the largest ever parade of Formula One machinery featuring over 100 different cars.

The parade will take place at this year’s Silverstone Classic to mark the 50th grand prix to be held at the British circuit.

Stirling Moss will lead the field comprising cars from seven decades of Formula One racing.

The FIA Masters Historic Formula One and Historic Grand Prix Cars Association pre-1966 and pre-1961 grand prix cars will be among those featuring at the event, plus other cars which will only participate in the parade.

Silverstone is encouraging owners of Formula One cars who would like to participate in the parade to contact them via [email protected].

This year’s Silverstone Classic will take place on the 25th to 27th of July.

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Today in 1994: Barrichello survives horror crash as F1′s darkest weekend begins

Twenty years ago today the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix weekend opened at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, 40 miles north-west of the tiny republic which lent its name to Italy’s second round of the world championship.

As the fiercely partisan Italian crowd flocked to the stands, paddock intrigue was centred on their beloved Ferraris, following the discovery of an illegal traction control device on their cars at the Pacific Grand Prix two weeks earlier.

But F1′s latest political was soon forgotten. What unfolded over the following days was one of the direst weekends in the sport’s history.

The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix weekend would forever be remembered for the deaths of two drivers from opposite ends of the grid: the little-known Austrian racer Roland Ratzenberger, who arrived at the track with a single race start to his name, and Brazil’s heroic three-times world champion Ayrton Senna.

Years of living dangerously

Taken in isolation, each of the five serious crashes which occurred during the weekend of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix were serious enough to force the sport to re-evaluate its safety measures. But the two fatalities deeply shocked a generation of F1 fans who had grown used to seeing drivers survive ferocious accidents.

And it was the death of Senna which shook the sport to its very foundations. On live television, minutes after an explosive start-line crash, the sport’s most famous driver was fatally injured in an accident which appeared to be no worse than similar incidents which some of his fellow drivers had survived.

Until the deaths of Ratzenberger and Senna, the possibility a driver might be killed at the wheel of a Formula One car had come to seem very unlikely. Over a decade had passed since a driver last perished at a race weekend.

Heavy frontal impacts claimed the lives of Gilles Villeneuve and Riccardo Paletti in 1982. Since then cars had been redesigned to better withstand such crashes.

Elio de Angelis died in an accident four years later, but the cause pointed to shortcomings in safety standards at tests. Much the same could be said of the circumstances in which Philippe Streiff was left paralysed after a testing crash at Rio de Janeiro in 1989.

Meanwhile other drivers had survived accidents of appalling ferocity. Not long after Streiff’s accident an inferno consumed Gerhard Berger’s car at Imola, but the marshals swiftly doused the flames and he was back racing within a few weeks.

The rapid attention of Professor Sid Watkins saved Martin Donnelly’s life after a horrendous crash at Jerez in 1990. Senna, who was becoming increasingly preoccupied with safety matters, made an appearance at the scene of the accident where Donnelly had been thrown from his car, still attached to his seat.

Two years later, when Erik Comas hit the barriers hard at Blanchimont in Spa, Senna was one of the first drivers to arrive. He parked up and ran to the scene to tend to Comas, who had been knocked unconscious by his front-right wheel, and switch off his engine as a safety precaution.

Spa was the scene of another crash a year later. Alessandro Zanardi’s Lotus hammered into the Armco barrier at Eau Rouge when his active suspension failed. It was seemingly another indication that F1 cars were tough enough to protect their drivers in the most extreme of accidents.

At the beginning of 1994 two drivers from the top three teams suffered crashes which injured them badly enough to keep them from racing.

Benetton’s JJ Lehto was making his return to racing at Imola after injuring his neck in a testing accident. Meanwhile at Ferrari Jean Alesi was absent from his second race in a row after also sustaining a neck injury.

If these accidents had been taken as signs F1 cars could withstand anything, that illusion was about to be shattered. But before that, the sport was about to get one more warning.

Barrichello

Rubens Barrichello could scarcely have been more pleased with how the 1994 season had started. His fourth place at home in Brazil earned Jordan as many points as they managed during the whole of 1993.

The next time out in Japan he went one better, earning his – and Jordan’s – first ever podium finish in F1. Barrichello held the upper hand over team mate Eddie Irvine too, who had taken himself out of contention by collecting a controversial three-race ban at the opening round.

So it was a beaming Barrichello, full of confidence, who set out on the Imola circuit during the first of two qualifying sessions on Friday. The Jordan 194 felt good underneath him, so much so that heading into the Variante Bassa on his second lap he was travelling 15kph faster than he had the lap before.

The car got off-line and hit a steep kerb. Acting like a ramp, it flung the Jordan shoulder-high. Instinctively, Barrichello raised both hands to cover his face as the car struck the top of a tyre barrier.

From cornering at 223kph the car decelerated with violent force, then hit the ground with its nose and rolled over, coming to a rest on its side. On the pit wall a horrified Eddie Jordan feared his driver had been killed.

Marshals sprinted to the scene and within moments had turned the car the right way up. Barrichello’s head slammed alarmingly against the cockpit side as they did, and concerns for his condition worsened further as it became apparent the right-hand side of the car had been heavily damaged.

Sid Watkins and the medical team arrived on the scene shortly afterwards. They found Barrichello unconscious and struggling to breathe due to blood flowing from a cut on his face. Watkins swiftly inserted an airway and as Barrichello was recovered to the circuit’s medical centre his condition was visibly improving.

The session having been red-flagged, Eddie Jordan arrived at the medical centre to find Senna already at the side of his recovering countryman. As qualifying resumed Senna returned to his Williams garage, pursued by a flock of reporters.

“He’s alright,” said Senna, the first person Barrichello saw after he regained consciousness. “He is shocked of course, but he is alright.”

The sense of shock lingered. Endless slow-motion replays revealed how close Barrichello’s Jordan had come to clearing the tyre wall and reaching the fence which separated the track from the crowd.

The session restarted after a 20-minute delay, and a semblance of normality returned. With Barrichello out for the rest of the weekend that left Jordan represented only by Andrea de Cesaris, who had taken over from Aguri Suzuki as Irvine’s stand-in.

Under the circumstances his team could be forgiven for the lapse which sent him out of the pits with his right-rear wheel loose – it worked free halfway around the lap and bounced down the track.

Barrichello wasn’t the only driver to crash his car at the Variante Bassa that day. Towards the end of the session Olivier Beretta spun backwards into the wall, damaging his Larrousse, but climbed out unhurt.

They were the lucky ones on a weekend where fortune spared few drivers.

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Azerbaijan to host 2016 European Grand Prix

The European Grand Prix will make a return in 2016 according to Azerbaijan's minister of youth and sports, Azad Rahimov, who claims the capital city of Baku will host the event.

A race in the former Soviet republican country has floated around for several years, with a deal nearly coming to fruition in 2012.

However Rahimov says that will now happen in 2016 and a deal has been signed with Bernie Ecclestone.

"We have signed the deal with Bernie Ecclestone and will announce it officially with an event in Baku shortly," he told Inside the Games.

It isn't clear whether the race will be held on the streets of Baku or on a new permanent facility near the city. In 2012 the city hosted the Baku City Challenge on a 1.33-mile street circuit, whilst in the same year it held the finale of the FIA GT Series on a 2.72-mile circuit.

Neither are long enough to host an F1 race, nor do they meet the strict FIA Grade 1 standard required. It's therefore likely a new route with major safety upgrades would be required.

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Renault hope powerunits will be at 100% by Canada

Renault are hopeful that they can deliver a powerunit that is close to 100 per cent power, reliability and efficiency by the seventh round of the championship in Canada.

The engine manufacturer has struggled to match the Mercedes and even the Ferrari engine for outright power, particularly on the long-straights where customer team Red Bull is losing about 22kph compared to the Mercedes works team.

Whilst the Spanish and Monaco Grands Prix aren't power-reliant circuits, head of track operations Remi Taffin says it's important they get the powerunit working at capacity, though he doesn't expect that to happen until at least early-June.

"It's fair to say that coming into Barcelona or Monaco it's not going to be massively power sensitive, but it is going to be massively energy sensitive," he explained.

"In the race it's always going to be important to have the power unit working right.

"At least we have three weeks [between China and Spain] to keep on doing the job, and then maybe ahead of Montreal having something that is very close to 100%."

Renault have taken significant steps forward since Australia when some of its customers were running at between 60-70 per cent power. Asked if they can match Mercedes once the powerunit is running as expected, Taffin said:

"It's very difficult to say, because when we get to the point at which we have the same amount of energy around the lap, it's all about having maximum power. How do you compare power?

You go into the games of drag level and so on, but one thing we can say is that Mercedes is quicker down the straights and quicker round the lap, so I presume that they have got a better engine than us.

"That must be right, but having said that there is more than the V6 and the turbo and the electrical machine to get the most out of the power unit. We can discuss about oil, we can discuss about fuel, so we still have a good work in progress with Total in terms of fuel. Definitely there is more to come."

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McLaren's pace just isn't good enough - Button

McLaren need to take immediate action and bring significant developments to the Spanish Grand Prix if they're to remain in the fight for podiums, warns Jenson Button.

The Briton described their current pace, which saw Button finish 11th in China and team-mate Kevin Magnussen 13th, as "not good enough".

He admits he's confused as to why they've fallen so far back compared to the opening race in Australia when they took a double podium finish.

"China was disappointing for the whole team, when everyone works hard and you have such a bad result it's tough, especially for the guys back in the factory.

Hopefully they can stay positive and keep updating the car because at the moment this isn't good enough.

"We've got some upgrades coming, but we were a lot further behind [in China] than we were in the last race," he said.

"We just aren't quick, I don't think people brought that much so I don't know what we are doing really.

"We can't get the fronts working, they just grain. If we knew the problem with the tyres we could have solved it, so hopefully we will have some more information in Spain."

Racing director Eric Boullier is confident of progress though, recently saying he expects 'massive gains' over the next three to four races.

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Hakkinen: 'Alonso completely dominating Raikkonen'

Kimi Raikkonen must get on terms with Fernando Alonso quickly if he's to remain at Ferrari, fellow Finnish champion Mika Hakkinen has urged.

Hakkinen, who was pivotal in Raikkonen's career at McLaren where he won nine races before becoming champion with Ferrari, admitted that Alonso is completely dominating his fellow countryman this season so far, with 41 points to 11.

"Kimi has problems and they need to be resolved," Hakkinen told Hermes.

"At the moment Alonso is utterly dominating him — the difference is not small.

"There have been four races and I would have expected him to settle in by now. His car is not so catastrophically bad that he can't do anything about Alonso.

"Kimi needs to do something, and he needs to do it very soon."

It's widely known that Raikkonen doesn't like simulators and often refuses to use them. Hakkinen though has urged Raikkonen to consider using the break between China and Spain wisely.

"The simulator is a good tool. You can try out all sorts of setting changes," he added.

"But I don't want to be giving Kimi advice, because I'm assuming that a world champion is already concentrated on solving his problems so that he can beat his team-mate and deliver decent performances."

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Smirnoff added to Force India livery

Force India has added a major new sponsor to the sidepods of its 2014 Formula 1 car.

Last month, the Silverstone based team denied it is set to split with its title sponsor and co-owner Sahara, after the company’s jailed chief Subrata Roy was jailed for failing to pay refunds to investors.

At the same time, the sidepods of the VJM07 were changed from orange to black, and the ‘Sahara’ branding was initially removed before returning in China.

Now, Force India has revealed it will replace the Sahara branding on the sidepods with the word ‘Smirnoff’, confirming a new sponsorship deal with the well-known vodka label.

A team statement said Smirnoff logos will also appear on the rear wing and top of the chassis.

Interestingly, Smirnoff is owned by the British alcohol multinational Diageo, who are bidding for full control of Force India owner Vijay Mallya’s spirits company United Spirits.

Diageo already owns 29 per cent of Mallya’s company.

The Hindustan Times newspaper explained that Diageo has recently been upping its presence in “emerging markets” like India, while Mallya is “burdened with huge debts” at his grounded airline Kingfisher. (GMM)

Press Release:

Smirnoff - the world’s leading premium vodka – is on a mission to bring down the velvet rope around racing via its new partnership with Sahara Force India Formula One Team.

The partnership provides a high-profile, truly global, platform for Smirnoff within one of the world’s most iconic sports enjoyed by millions of fans around the world.

It brings together two brands with a shared ethos to open up access to one of the world’s most elite sports for everyone. The fan-centric alliance will be focussed on helping lovers of the sport get closer to drivers, nearer to top quality race action and further away from exclusivity.

Responsible drinking will lie at the heart of the partnership. Smirnoff will use its position as an official partner of the Sahara Force India Formula One Team to deliver a powerful anti-drink drive message.

Vijay Mallya, Team Principal and Managing Director of Sahara Force India, said: “It’s fantastic to see Smirnoff join the world of Formula One. It’s an iconic, global brand and we welcome them to the Sahara Force India family. As a team we’ve always mixed the highest professionalism on the track with great celebrations away from it and our partnership with Smirnoff reinforces these values. As we continue to make progress on the track, Smirnoff is the ideal brand to help celebrate these moments and open up the sport to new fans.”

Matt Bruhn, Smirnoff Global Brand Director, added: “We love Sahara Force India’s story, as well as its ability to help us communicate about responsibility and top quality performance. This team is shaking up how we perceive racing and giving the establishment a real run for its money. We are thrilled to help them bring fans closer to the action and have lots of fun with this energetic, exciting team along the way.”

The partnership will see Smirnoff branding featured on the VJM07s of Sahara Force India drivers from next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. Logos will appear on the rear wing and top of the chassis, with branding on the sidepods at key races. Drivers’ suits, helmets and team clothing will also carry the famous Smirnoff eyebrow logo.

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Haas 'will talk' with Domenicali

Stefano Domenicali may not be away from the F1 paddock for too long with reports claiming Gene Haas will be talking to him.

Earlier this month, Domenicali walked away from Ferrari after yet another disappointing start to the Championship.

The Italian has been linked to a job in his country's basketball association while now Haas, whose F1 team is expected to debut in 2015, is also in the hunt.

Günther Steiner, the former Red Bull chief technical officer who is now working with Haas, revealed that talks would take place.

"I have no idea what he's doing or if he has something but we will certainly talk to him," Auto Bild quotes Steiner as having said.

However, he's not the only candidate as former Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug is also being touted as a possible candidate.

Steiner refused to rule out either as they are both "good people" who are "very valuable" having been in Formula 1 for many years.

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Vettel: Formula 1 not 100% safe

It’s been 20 years since Formula 1 had a drive death during a race weekend. A lot of the safety innovation and improvements came from this tragic day on May 1, 1994 at Imola when Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger died.

While Ratzenberger’s life may have been saved by the HANS device the drivers now wear, hindsight is always 20/20. If the suspension would have been an inch to the left or right, Senna may still be alive. It’s hard to reverse engineer these moments but it’s perfectly understandable why F1 does…in order to learn and improve.

To those ends, F1 have become much safer than it was in 1994 but 4-time champion Sebasitan Vettel says it still isn’t 100% safe. The New Zealand Herald has the call:

“Formula One is safer today but it is still not completely safe because there is still so much that can happen,” Vettel said.

“you must never feel too safe.”

While there have been no driver deaths, F1 has had its share of race marshal deaths and while driver safety has increased, other areas of F1 could be improved. Most recently at the 2013 Canadian Grand Prix a marshal was killed while retrieving a stalled car by the tractor used to move the car off the circuit.

Senna’s death can certainly be a catalyst for safety change in F1 and like many things in life, it is the stark reality that prompts us to move and make changes to prevent such incidents as Vettel points out:

“Unfortunately it always took accidents and negative events for us to learn the most,” said Vettel.

Unfortunately F1 will never be 100% safe. There is simply too much energy to be dissipated when a car traveling at 150-180mph hits a solid, immovable object or a part flies through the air. The driver’s body takes lethal amounts of g-force trauma and becomes an object of energy dissipation during a crash. Still, the increase in safety has been enormous and while the FIA seems intent on making sustainability their main initiative, I do hope they stay firmly focused on safety too.