“Our Gucci car in 2027 will be the MOST PHOTOGRAPHED car in the world.”
“We’re going to surprise everyone with the Gucci merchandise we’ve prepared.”
“We’re keeping the car livery and the driver’s race suit under absolute secrecy.” 🤫
(via. @wearetherace)
#Gucci #F1
The pit lane speeding penalty issued to Lewis Hamilton in Hungary has been questioned.
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| Hamilton was hit with yet another penalty in Hungary |
Sky Sports F1 pundit Anthony Davidson has questioned the five-second time penalty issued to Lewis Hamilton for pit-lane speeding at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton was hit with his second penalty in two days - and fourth in the past three race weekends - after the stewards found he had exceeded the 80km/h pit lane speed limit by just 0.1km/h during Sunday’s race at the Hungaroring.
Hamilton finished fourth on the road but the penalty dropped him to fifth behind Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc once it was applied after he crossed the line.
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| Hamilton picked up another penalty in Hungary |
Analysing the incident on the SkyPad, former F1 driver Davidson said he could not see what Hamilton did wrong.
“I’ve looked at this so many times and I can’t work out why he gets a penalty,” Davidson said during Sky Sports F1’s coverage of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
“For me, he slows down sufficiently well. We’ve got this marker board on the left-hand side that stipulates the 80km /h speed limit. I don’t see that [speeding].
“Let’s have a look at the exit. Obviously knew he was under time pressure to get out in that race with Antonelli. Again, for me, it sounds like he releases the pit lane button on the line itself.
“This guy knows what he’s doing when it comes to white lines and when to press the button. Maybe there was just an error when he was a bit too close to the line on the actual speed of the car and they were just pinged by that. Who knows.
“Strange that it only happened that one time. I don’t have enough data here and I can only go by the sound of when he’s pressing that button. For me, it looked totally fine on the way in, and on the way out.”
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| Hamilton finished fourth on the road but was demoted to P5 |
Fellow ex-grand prix driver turned Sky Sports F1 analyst Martin Brundle described the penalty as “harsh”, but acknowledged the rules have to be black-and-white.
“It’s like being a quarter of a kilo underweight. You’re going to feel aggrieved, but the rules are the rules in that respect,” Brundle said.
“Where my alarm bells are going off is in Monaco, where a lot of drivers there were getting this 0.1 [over the speed limit], and then of course we had all the shenanigans after the race.
“They set their pit limiters throughout the weekend, they aim at 59 and a bit if its a 60kp/h limit, or 79 and a bit. They really fine-tune it. We see a lot of penalties on a Friday, a few hungered euros for going over the pit lane speed limit.
“But it’s perceived as a competitive advantage, and when you see how close those lines are with Antonelli for example, if somebody goes ‘0.1’s alright, so 0.3’s alright’ then suddenly you get ahead.
“So there has to be a cut-off point. Whether it’s the width of the car, the weight of the car, the speed of the car in the pit lane.
“It’s painful and it’s harsh but it’s the rules, as long as he was actually doing that speed, which they weren’t in Monaco.”
- Lewis Larkam
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| Adrian Newey has cast his early verdict on the heavily revised AMR26 |
Adrian Newey has delivered his initial verdict on the heavily revised Aston Martin AMR26 that debuted in FP1 at the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix.
All eyes in the paddock centred on Aston Martin on Friday as its revised car made its on-track debut in a bid to transform its underperforming season.
Featuring 16 upgrades that include new rear and front wings, diffuser, and sidepods, Friday’s practice sessions were effectively data-gathering sessions.
A metaphorical spanner in the works came in the form of suspension failure for Lance Stroll in FP1, the team reduced to relying on Fernando Alonso’s data as Stroll did not run in FP2 as a result of the damage.
As much as five seconds adrift of the frontrunners in terms of pace recent races, Alonso ended FP1 just 2.4 seconds away from the leading time, the gap increasing slightly to 2.9 seconds in FP2.
After FP1, Newey gave his initial verdict, calling the results “promising”.
“Very early days in terms of understanding the new package. Provisional results are promising,” he said in the Team Principal’s press conference.
“It’s only part of the package. We will have some more steps in Zandvoort, Monza and Baku, so it is the first part of our planned upgrade. Very short on parts so being careful with it and trying to learn all about it.”
“It’s an evolution in as much as the chassis is the same, the layout’s the same, front suspension’s the same. So, it’s very much an aerodynamic evolution,” Newey added.
“We were very short on time research time prior to launch of the car back in at Barcelona in February.
“So, it’s really been a matter of taking a step back, trying to understand, and go forward with this package.”
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| Aston Martin debuted a heavily revised AMR26 on Friday |
Newey has denied that set goals are attached to the heavily revised car, explaining his rationale of patience.
“I’ve never been a fan of setting goals,” he said.
“Much more a fan of working logically through problems, getting everybody working together, getting a culture together, and then at that point, you end up where you end up.
“What I have found over the years is when you’re not winning, it seems an impossible mountain to climb. When you are winning, sometimes you’re not sure how you got there, because you’re not actually doing anything different, or you don’t feel as if you’re doing anything different.”
Newey confirmed that Aston Martin has yet to determine the cause of Stroll’s suspension failure, though he added vital context about which part failed.
“Everybody is feverishly trying to understand what went wrong and it is only once we have an understanding that we can comment on what we do next.
“The area involved is not what has been changed, so in that sense it was very unexpected.”
Newey is justifiably keeping his cards close to his chest on upgrades to the AMR26, with the stopwatch in qualifying to provide a definitive answer on their impact.
- James Phillips
Aston Martin has brought a staggering SIXTEEN updated parts to the #HungarianGP #F1 #AstonMartin
The FIA is deeply saddened by the passing of Henry Krausz. Henry was made an Honorary Member of the FIA earlier this year having served on the World Motor Sport Council for fourteen years. He had also been a member of the FIA Senate and the Circuit and Safety Commissions, and was the former President of the Federación Dominicana de Automovilismo - FDA. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
- FIA
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| Getty Images |
George Russell’s Belgian Grand Prix ended on the opening lap, but the Mercedes driver said a problem with his own car, rather than the collision that put him in the gravel, was the real cause of his retirement.
Russell started third at Spa-Francorchamps and held the position through the first corner before Lewis Hamilton passed him along the Kemmel Straight. Russell moved to the outside of Hamilton into the braking zone at Les Combes to try to reclaim the place, the pair made contact, and Russell was spun into the gravel and out of the race. Hamilton received a five-second penalty for the collision, but Russell placed no blame on his former Mercedes teammate.
“I just got totally swallowed up down the straight,” Russell told Sky Sports F1. “I lost three positions down the straight down into Turn Five and then the incident was a racing incident.”
“Maybe I could have gone a bit wider, maybe he (Hamilton) could have braked a bit more. The incident shouldn’t have happened if I had the speed down the straight,” Russell added. “Very, very disappointed.”
The collision followed a qualifying session in which Russell had already flagged a lack of power, finishing more than half a second off pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli in fourth. He had spent Thursday’s media day discussing changes to his driving style to try to find lost time in this year’s cars, only to reverse that thinking on Saturday and conclude his technique was not the problem.
“I appreciate everyone is working hard to solve the problem, but I’m stood here [in the TV interview pen] on lap five of the race,” Russell said when asked how Mercedes could get to the bottom of the issue. “It felt like I was in a good position to fight for the lead up to Turn One and then, suddenly, no power and it’s all gone.”
Hamilton, who went on to finish fourth carrying the penalty and separate front-wing damage, echoed Russell’s read on the incident once the race was over.
“Ultimately, sorry for George because that obviously ended his race, but I did think… I do agree that it was a racing incident,” Hamilton said. “It’s not like I went in aggressive and was misplaced or anything like that. I think it was just an unfortunate scenario, which happens in racing. Then I had damage as well, so I carried that through the race. It was a tough one.”
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| Hamilton tagged Russell into a spin on the opening lap Photo by: Getty Images |
Both Lewis Hamilton and his Ferrari team boss, Frederic Vasseur, profoundly disagree with the five-second penalty he received for a collision with George Russell’s Mercedes on the opening lap of the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix.
"I think it's mega harsh," said Vasseur after the race. "If you have a look on the corner, Russell had enough space on the left-hand side, it's not that he was close to the wall.
"I think it's more a racing incident for me and this cost us a lot."
The contact eliminated Hamilton’s former team-mate from the race, but was fundamentally caused by the Mercedes power unit apparently suffering an electrical deployment issue through the first sector, causing Russell to lose position to both Ferraris on the run up the hill towards Les Combes.
Russell then tried to brake ultra-late on the outside line into the corner and looked as if he had reclaimed a place from Hamilton at least, only for the Ferrari’s front-left wheel to clout his sidepod and tip the Mercedes into a spin. At the time, Hamilton explained on the radio that he had "no front end" because he was in the turbulent wake of the car in front, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.
"It was ultimately a difficult weekend," Hamilton said afterwards.
"I take all the responsibility for my incident yesterday [when he crashed in FP3], which then had a knock-on effect of the setup not being right, and then out of place in qualifying. Because I think with the setup right, I would have been probably, I think I could have been fifth or third or second.
"And then, that meant starting further back, and then I was in a position where George obviously looked like he lost power, and then he just swooped around on the outside, and we just sort of had a coming together.
"I got damaged, and then in the race, I did the best I could with the damage that I had, and then also the penalty.
"I think it was a racing incident, so I don't think there should be a penalty for that."
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| Steven Lee/LAT Images via Getty Images |
Hamilton served the penalty at his first only pitstop of the race, during a virtual safety car deployment on lap 20, but he was signalled to go while a mechanic was still attempting to make a front wing adjustment. That consigned Hamilton to fourth place on the road at the chequered flag, with the Briton facing another investigation for an unsafe release.
In fact, 10 seconds is that standard penalty for "causing a collision", but the stewards decided that mitigating circumstances warranted a lesser penalty.
"Approaching Turn 5 on the opening lap, Car 63 [Russell] attempted an overtake around the outside of Car 44 [Hamilton] and had established sufficient overlap to be entitled to racing room. Car 44 remained on the inside," said the stewards’ verdict.
"During the corner, Car 44 experienced understeer and, despite attempting to avoid Car 63 by applying corrective steering, made contact with the right-hand side of Car 63 with its left-front wheel. The stewards determined that Car 63 remained with the available racing room and the the collision was caused by Car 44 being unable to maintain sufficient separation.
"The stewards recognised several mitigating circumstances. Car 44 acknowledged the presence of Car 63, attempted to leave appropriate racing room, and made a genuine attempt to avoid contact. The collision resulted from a loss of front-end grip rather than from an aggressive or deliberate manoeuvre. In addition, the incident occurred on the opening lap, where reduced grip and compressed racing conditions are recognised.
For these reasons, while Car 44 was wholly at fault for the collision, the stewards consider that a five-second time penalty, rather than the standard 10-second time penalty, is the appropriate penalty in accordance with the FIA Penalty Guidelines."
- Stuart Codling and Filip Cleeren
