BORTOLETO HANDED FIVE-PLACE GRID PENALTY FOR HIS COLLISION WITH STROLL

Following his ambitious move at the start at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Kick Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto has been handed a five-place grid penalty for next weekend's Qatar round.

Kick Sauber Bortoleto looked overly optimistic at the start, braking much later than his rivals as he approached the first coner. Braking late, he locked up and seemed to collide with the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll who sent the Alpine of Pierre Gasly into a spin.

While the Brazilian limped round for two laps, the damage on his car was too great and he pulled into the pits to retire for the second straight race.

The stewards investigated the matter and elected to hand out a five-place grid penalty to Bortoleto who will serve it at next weekend's Qatar Grand Prix.

„The Stewards reviewed positioning/marshalling system data and video evidence. The driver of Car 5 braked extremely late and as a result collided with Car 18.

„Even though this was a Lap 1 Turn 1 incident, mitigating circumstances do not exist and hence the standard 10 second penalty would have applied however as Car 5 retired, the penalty is converted into a grid penalty for the next Race in which the driver participates, in accordance with our guidelines," read the FIA's statement.

Reflecting on his unfortunate mistake at the start of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Bortoleto admitted that he "misjudged the braking point by a few metres."

“First of all, I would like to apologise to Lance [Stroll]. It was my fault – I had a strong launch and went for a move on the inside of the Williams, but by the time I committed, I misjudged the braking point by a few meters and it was already too late to slow the car down properly.

"I went in a bit long, had no angle to make the corner, and ended up hitting him. It’s a shame, because the weekend seemed promising until qualifying, and then the mistake on lap one ruined both our races.

"I just need to put everything together now for the remaining two races of the season – clean laps, clean weekends – because not finishing these last two races meant losing track experience I should have been gaining. I’ll learn from this, reset, and make sure to come back to the performance levels I've shown before as we come to Doha next week.”

- Balazs Szabo

SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX 2025 | LONGEST STINT

 

MATTIA BINOTTO MEME 😂

 

AUDI ANNOUNCE FORMER FERRARI CHIEF BINOTTO AS NEW F1 BOSS AS SEIDI DEPARTS

 Audi have announced former Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto is returning to Grand Prix racing as the new leader of their Formula 1 project.

Earlier this year German car maker Audi took full ownership of the Sauber team, which will be run under the Audi banner from 2026, with an all-new power unit currently being developed in-house in Germany.

Binotto, 54, will assume leadership of the operation on August 1, as Chief Operating and Chief Technical Officer based at the Sauber factory in Hinwil, Switzerland, and will report directly to the board of directors.

As part of the restructure, former McLaren Team Principal Andreas Seidl – who joined Sauber in January 2023 and was CEO of the Audi team – is leaving, along with Audi executive Oliver Hoffmann, who was overseeing the project.

Binotto was Chief Technical Officer at Ferrari until being promoted to Team Principal in 2019. He left Maranello in 2022 after three years in the job, and having been with the Scuderia since the mid-1990s.

As part of the restructure, Andreas Seidl is leaving the project

“I am delighted that we have been able to recruit Mattia Binotto for our ambitious Formula 1 project,“ said Audi CEO Gernot Dollner.

“With his extensive experience of more than 25 years in Formula 1, he will undoubtedly be able to make a decisive contribution for Audi.“

Explaining the restructure, Dollner added: “Our aim is to bring the entire Formula 1 project up to F1 speed by means of clear management structures, defined responsibilities, reduced interfaces, and efficient decision-making processes. For this purpose, the team must be able to act independently and quickly.

“I would like to thank Oliver and Andreas for their important work in establishing our entry into Formula 1 and their commitment in preparing it,“ he said.

Kick Sauber will be rebranded as the Audi works team from the 2026 season

The first driver confirmed to be part of Audi’s new F1 project is Nico Hulkenberg, who will make the switch to Kick Sauber from Haas at the end of the season in what the German described as an “interesting” and “very exciting” move.

“It’s really a white piece of paper [for the 2026 regulation changes], and on one side I think that’s good,” said Hulkenberg, whose team mate for 2025 and beyond has yet to be confirmed by the operation.

“It’s not a new team but it’s going to be labelled a new team because probably all the know-how and advantage that current teams have, it’s wiped away a little bit, and it’s more a level playing field, [or] starting playing field for everyone.

“I think that offers a good opportunity to be competitive straight away, but expectations are always to be successful as quickly as possible.”

Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas and Chinese racer Zhou Guanyu have represented the Hinwil team since 2022, but the futures of both drivers are unknown beyond the end of the current campaign.

- F1.com

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FERRARI TOP OF TESTING BUT RED BULL TEAM TO BEAT

Reuters 

 Charles Leclerc kept Ferrari top of the timesheets for the second day running, even if champions Red Bull still looked the team to beat, as Formula One wrapped up pre-season testing in Bahrain on Friday.

Leclerc set the final day's best lap of one minute and 30.322 seconds on the fastest C5 tyres with Mercedes' George Russell a mere 0.046 slower on the C4 tyres.

Sauber's Guanyu Zhou was third fastest, also on the C4s, with Red Bull's triple champion Max Verstappen fourth and 0.433 off the pace.

The Dutch driver, who won a record 19 races last year, was using the slower C3 tyres that will be used in next week's season-opener at Sakhir, however.

"Overall it was very good today. We focused on the long running to get more of an understanding of the car and it was good to see the performance of the car was very strong," said Verstappen.

"We made the plan to not focus on pure lap time and tried different compounds, so I am happy with the laps that we did today."

F1 KICK SAUBER | C44

WLOLFF SAYS WOULD-BE NEW F1 TEAMS SHOULD BUY AN EXISTING ONE

Reuters 

Formula One has 11 teams at Silverstone this weekend, one of them the creation of Brad Pitt and Hollywood moviemakers, but in reality the existing 10 remain resistant to expanding their numbers.

Several would-be newcomers are seeking to become an 11th or 12th team but that would bring with it a dilution of revenues for the rest.

Most of the 10 also believe the $200 million fee to be shared out among them as compensation is set too low given recent valuations.

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