OVER 4-MILLION F1 FANS ATTENDED RACES IN 2018

F1 Media
21 December, 2018




Formula 1 have released figures relating to live attendance at the 21 Grand Prix races that made up the 2018 world championship calendar, with over 4-million people passing through the turnstiles during the course of the season.

Press Release:

Once again, Formula 1 is pleased to publish spectator attendance figures for the 2018 season, based on data supplied by all the race promoters.

Over four million spectators (4,093,305) attended at least one of the 21 Grands Prix on the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship calendar, with an average attendance of almost 200,000 per weekend (194,919).

Seven Grands Prix, a third of all events, attracted crowds of over 200,000: Great Britain (340,000), Mexico (334,946), Australia (295,000), USA (263,160), Singapore (263,000), Belgium (250,000) and Hungary (210,000). The average attendance per race weekend was up over the 2017 figures by 2.7%, while four events saw an increase of over 10%: Azerbaijan (+31.6%), Austria (+27.6%), Japan (+20.4%) and Canada (+11.4%.)

Isolating the Sunday figures, overall attendance was 1,702,959. On average, 81,093 spectators applauded the skills of Lewis Hamilton and the other 19 drivers this year. Once again, it was Silverstone that led the way, where 140,500 spectators watched Sebastian Vettel win, while 135,407 celebrated Hamilton take his fifth world Championship title at the Mexican Grand Prix.

The USA Grand Prix drew an estimated crowd of 111,580 on race day with six tracks posting a double figure increase over the previous year: Azerbaijan (+29.1%)*, Austria (+25.2%)*, Bahrain (+22.1%)*, Canada (+21.4), Japan (+19.1%) and Hungary (+10.1%).

The two races added to the calendar in 2018, France and Germany, drew a total crowd of 315,000 – 150,000 at Le Castellet and 165,000 at Hockenheim, more than making up for the 110,604 lost with the disappearance of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

According for the adjustments made to certain 2017 attendance figures subsequent to the release of last year’s attendance results and the increase from 20 to 21 to the total number of events, the overall increase in attendance from 2017 to 2018 is 7.83% in absolute terms.

Sean Bratches, Managing Director, Commercial Operations, Formula 1 said: “With nearly 200,000 spectators at each Grand Prix, and more than 80,000 packing the grandstands for Sunday’s races across the season, it demonstrates that these big numbers compare favourably with other major sporting events, thus confirming a trend for growth.”

“We are particularly pleased with the results and research carried out through the season regarding satisfaction levels of spectators, as they prove that our efforts to engage fans are working well. The whole show of a Grand Prix weekend – the Formula 1 race, all the support series and the activities around the track – constitutes a great experience for the fans, as the attendance and research figures confirm.”

“We strongly believe that Formula 1 has great potential which still hasn’t been fully exploited and we are fully committed to improving the fan experience in the future.”

The 81,093 spectators for each Sunday raceday is almost double the number of those who watched the Bundesliga (average per match 44,657) and the Champions League (av. 46,630) in their 2017/18 season.

Formula 1 race days had a better average attendance even when compared to the NFL, which registered an average game crowd of 67,405 in 2017/18, and the most important sports event this year, the Football World Cup in Russia, which averaged 47,371 per game with a peak of 78,011 for the final in Moscow.

In conjunction with Netfluential, over 50,000 spectators were canvassed in 2018, before and after they had attended a Grand Prix. Over one hundred in-depth interviews were carried out and over three hundred comments were received via a special app. A large amount of data was exhaustively analysed by Formula 1’s Research Department looking at satisfaction levels of spectators who attended a Grand Prix.

In 15 of the 16 events where the research took place, 70% of the spectators judged the experience ‘very enjoyable,’ with a peak of 90% at the British Grand Prix and 85% in Austria. These two races, along with those in Belgium, Hungary and Italy produced the sharpest increase in spectator satisfaction, rising between 4 to 14% compared to last year.

The research also confirmed that an average of 65% (+3% compared to 2017) of the spectators felt that the experience provided during a race weekend was ‘very or quite good value for money’. The race at the Red Bull Ring showed the biggest increase over last year in terms of value for money, with an increase of 25%, while for Monza it was up significantly, by 11%, and at Spa-Francorchamps it increased by 8%.

* Race day attendance extrapolated from total weekend attendance figures.

JUST WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG FOR MCLAREN?

By: Alan Paterson

One of my favourite teams is somewhat in the doldrums at the moment, so what’s gone wrong? Let’s try and break it down, but first a bit of background. OK, a lot of background!

Any errors are mine and mine only, mainly down to poor research or a hazy memory, probably both.

Way back in 1995, McLaren agreed a deal with Mercedes-Benz, who back then were an engine supplier only, for engines. Over time Mercedes-Benz’s involvement meant a 40% stake in the team by 2011 and over the next few years McLaren were very much a front-running team and one of MB’s prime partners, almost to the point of being a works team, much like Red Bull when Renault didn’t have a team of their own.

Honda had their own team after taking over the BAR team in September 2005, continuing with Lucky Strike sponsorship at the time. The car wasn’t fantastic but was developed as the season went on and started to become more competitive later in the season and Jenson Button won his first race at the Hungarian Grand Prix despite starting the race in 14th.

Rules outlawing tobacco sponsorship stopped the BAT money train but in what would become a rather fortuitous appointment, ex Ferrari Technical Director Ross Brawn was recruited as team Principal in November 2007.

The Honda ‘Earth’ car again performed poorly in 2008, only getting on the Podium once in the hands of Rubens Barrichello at a wet British GP when he changed to Wet tyres at just the right time. Honda switched development to the 2009 car by mid-season, knowing that a fundamental change in regulations was coming.

Then the Global Economic Crisis happened and Motorsport activities from many manufacturers around the world were curtailed by falling car sales and rising budgets. Honda, apparently spending $300-million a season on the F1 program, which by now had 700 staff, decided it couldn’t continue and axed it’s F1 program, stating falling global sales as the reason and gave little to no notice in November 2008.

“But what does all this have to do with McLaren?” I hear you ask. I’m coming to that, don’t worry.

Now, McLaren during this time were still headed by Ron Dennis who bought the McLaren racing team, originally founded by New Zealand racing driver Bruce McLaren way back in 1963.

In 1981, Ron Dennis’s Project Four Racing and the McLaren team merged and knowing the history of the McLaren name, that was the name that was kept, although every car since has had the designation MP, for McLaren Project until the MP4- naming protocol was dropped for the return of Honda power in 2015. Ron quickly bought out all the original shareholders and had full control of the team by 1982.

This was some of McLaren’s most successful periods with both John Barnard who created the first Carbon Fibre chassis in 1980 and Adrian Newey from 1997 to 2005 designing some of the most iconic and successful F1 cars ever with engine partners Porsche (branded as TAG. Yes that TAG in the back of the Red Bull as a TAG-Heuer, although now two separate companies), Mercedes-Benz and Honda.

Many believe the first signs of McLaren’s impending fall started here when Ron wouldn’t consider giving Adrian Newey a shareholding in the team and, some say, tried to low-ball him when the next contract was due. Many of Ron’s quirks regarding his fastidious nature and demand for perfection frustrated Newey as well who once proclaimed Grey was Ron’s favourite colour.

Newey then signed up with Red Bull in 2006 and has been there ever since, winning multiple Constructors championships and guiding Sebastian Vettel to four Drivers championships in a row, from 2010 through 2014.

Honda withdrew from F1 at the end of 1992 and McLaren had some success after signing with Ford for 1993 with Ayrton Senna, but paired him with Michael Andretti, who, putting it politely, had a somewhat less successful season.

McLaren flirted with a Lamborghini V12 for 1994 but eventually partnered with Peugeot. McLaren fans don’t like talking about the 1994 season. Then in 1995 they signed a deal for a Mercedes-Benz branded Ilmor engine.

By this time Ron Dennis and his long time business partner and friend Mansour Ojjeh (Boss of TAG) both owned considerable stakes in the team along with the Bahraini Sovereign Wealth fund Mumtalakat but they fell out after nearly 30 years of friendship, mainly over control of McLaren.

Rumours of Ron’s wife having ‘meetings’ with Ojjeh were, of course, never confirmed by anyone I’ve read or heard from so remain just that, rumour. Ron and his wife Lisa divorced soon after and Lisa Dennis and Ojjeh are apparently still good friends afterwards as well which upset Ron even further.

The main issue though was around the 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix. Being that the team was partially owned by Mumtalakat, the Bahraini Sovereign Wealth fund, the discussions of the Bahrain Grand Peix being cancelled due to civil unrest (put down roughly, swiftly and without much care for anyone getting hurt by the Bahraini Royal Family and the Army & Police), there was apparently a vote on whether McLaren should race and Ojjeh and the Mumtalakat representatives voted yes but Dennis voted no, one of the few times Dennis and Ojjeh voted differently.

The GP eventually went ahead without issue but Ojjeh and Mumtalakat were upset at the seeming lack of support and endorsement of the Bahrain GP from Ron himself, causing friction between the main shareholders.

Around this time Ojjeh started to suffer from a deteriorating lung disease which ended up with him getting a double Lung transplant in late 2013. It’s again rumoured that while Ojjeh was recovering from this major surgery, and possibly even while he was still in hospital, Dennis attempted to take full control over McLaren after courting Chinese investors for many months under the guise of investment which eventually ended up being an attempted takeover.

This incensed Ojjeh even more and the two fell out for good and rarely talked except in board meetings. This was the beginning of the end for Ron & McLaren.

A few years before this Dennis stepped down as head of the McLaren F1 team to pay more attention to the fledgeling Road car department and Martin Whitmarsh became Team Principal in 2009. McLaren didn’t do as well as they’ve historically done while Whitmarsh was in charge although Lewis Hamilton was in mathematical contention for the 2010 WDC, being only 24 points behind Fernando Alonso going into the last race.


Whitmarsh was ousted by Dennis, despite being recommended by him, at the end of 2013 and Dennis became head of the F1 team again. Whitmarsh and Ojjeh were good friends which annoyed Ojjeh even more.

There was, of course a huge scandal regarding Nigel Stepney, his good friend and McLaren designer Mike Coughlan and leaked Ferrari plans being supplied by the former to the latter but rather than go through the whole sorry tale, you should click here to read this excellent article about it here>>>

Whitmarsh does have a bigger role to play in the McLaren saga though. After Honda withdrew they agreed to sell the whole team to Ross Brawn, by then Team Principal for a nominal fee, such was the respect Honda had for him, creating Brawn GP. But they had no engine! Brawn, being well known and respected around the Paddock for many years, was desperate for an Engine, any Engine!

Whitmarsh, who by now was also head of the Formula One Teams Association offered to facilitate a deal between Mercedes Benz and Brawn GP and a deal was duly signed a few weeks later. No one, except perhaps some at Honda/Brawn GP knew what was about to happen and the car had to be redesigned to accept the new MB Engine.

Of course as we all know, the BGP001 was far ahead of the field thanks to the millions spent on development by Honda since the middle of 2008 prior to their withdrawal and a loophole in the rules being identified by an unknown Honda Engineer in Japan which allowed a ‘double Diffuser’ at the rear of the car, massively increasing downforce but with little drag, something missed by everyone other than Williams and Toyota.

The MB engine being one of the most powerful certainly helped though and the car was streets ahead of the rest of the field, lapping as much as a second faster in the first pre-season test.

Towards the end of 2009, despite teams with more money catching them Jenson Button won the World Drivers championship for Brawn GP, one of the biggest underdog stories in F1 history. Mercedes were paying attention though and it was announced in November 2009 that Mercedes Benz in partnership with Aabar investments purchased a controlling 75.1% share in Brawn GP and a factory Mercedes team was back in F1 for the first time since 1955. This could perhaps be seen as McLaren playing a part in their own downfall, but should be seen as Whitmarsh putting the sport first, as he should as head of FOTA.

So, rather a lot of backstory about Honda, McLaren and Mercedes Benz.

McLaren continued with MB power as a customer team until 2015 when they announced that with the new Hybrid engine regulations and being unhappy at paying for their Engines as customer team, they entered into a ten-year deal with Honda who were returning to F1 again as an engine supplier. Ron had been quoted as saying ‘You can’t win in F1 as a customer team’ which was somewhat true.

Designing a car around an engine was much better than designing a car and then having to change it to make the engine work. Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button were signed when apparently Ron Dennis wanted McLaren Young Driver Kevin Magnussen as Alonso’s partner and Ojjeh wanted Button.

Ojjeh won. As it happened though Magnussen raced in the first GP of the season when Alonso suffered a concussion during pre-season testing in Barcelona but was yet another wedge between Ojjeh and Dennis.

The Honda relationship started out, for want of a better word, as disastrous. The car was woefully unreliable in pre-season testing and at the opening Australian Grand Prix Button’s car was lapped twice and finished last in what was the cars longest uninterrupted running time so far.

The team were given multiple grid penalties for replacing components throughout the season including a 105 place grid penalty at Spa! The car had gradual improvements as time went on but was never troubling the top teams. A similar story with slightly improved results was the case in 2016.

This seemed to stem from McLaren’s insistence on as small an engine as possible, the so called ‘size zero’ engine demand governed by aerodynamics which prompted the layout that Honda ran with for the first two years with the Turbo and MGU-H in the V of the Engine.

Honda said they could make Mercedes levels of power with this layout but proved to cause packaging problems and prevented major changes to the size of the MGU-H which, according to the regulations, could supply an unlimited amount of power back into the engine, something Mercedes managed to great effect.

Vibrations and issues with oil tank design causing oil starvation were also apparent and eventually were overcome, but the ‘flawed’ engine layout remained and thanks to the Engine Homologation regulations couldn’t be fixed until the end of the season.

A further attempt to redesign the engine layout while keeping the ‘size zero’ approach brought improvements, but again the layout prevented major improvements in power and drivability. Eventually, after two years of frustration of teeth McLaren agreed with Honda’s requests and allowed a larger engine and to design the car around this for the start of 2017.

This then allowed Honda to facilitate an almost completely new engine design, matching Mercedes in splitting the Turbocharger and Compressor with a shaft running up the middle of the V linking the two with a much larger MGU-H at the compressor end taking power from, and able to supply power to, the shaft connecting the turbocharger and compressor.

This was fundamentally different to a standard road car turbocharger and compressor arrangement where the shaft is measured in centimetres as they’re often part of the same housing.

Ron Dennis was finally ousted by Ojjeh and Mumtalakat at the end of 2016 and despite Dennis even going to court the decision to remove him from the race team stuck and he resigned his position and sold his remaining shares soon after.

Eric Boullier and Zak Brown were hired, Boullier as Team Principal and Brown as head of Marketing. Brown eventually took over as the head of the F1 team midway through 2017, something some found unusual as he has no F1 knowledge or history at all.

He was a professional race driver though and actually won a Formula Ford race at Donington Park and came 2nd in the GT2 category at the renowned Daytona 24 Hour race in 1998, 2nd in the 12h of Sebring and 3rd at Road Atlanta in a factory Porsche 911.

It was then that he created United Autosports, mainly focussed on Endurance racing which the team enjoyed success, including running McLaren MP4-12C’s in the Blancpain Endurance Series in 2012.

In September 2017 it was announced in what was at the time the biggest known secret in the F1 Paddock that Honda and McLaren were to split, less than three years into a ten year agreement. McLaren orchestrated an agreement with Toro Rosso and Renault to swap their Honda engines for the Renault Engines being run by Toro Rosso and Honda would make Toro Rosso their default factory team, the first time they’d had full factory support in their history.

McLaren’s troubles didn’t seem to end there though. Even with Renault power the car underperformed compared to where they were supposed to be, if you believed Brown and Boullier’s talk all through 2017 that McLaren had the best Chassis on the grid.

Alonso scraped a 5th place finish at the Australian Grand Prix thanks to five DNF’s and various other cars with teething troubles and mechanical issues. More top ten finishes for Alonso and Vandoorne occurred but the car was still well behind fellow Renault runners Red Bull and the works Renault team, their only true benchmarks.

The car was low on downforce, high on drag and the Renault engine was, by now, no more powerful than the Honda that McLaren rejected, now in the back of the Toro Rosso and still well behind the Mercedes and Ferrari engines.

On ‘power’ tracks like Canada and Azerbaijan the car was very slow on the straights and at the most recent French GP at Paul Ricard the car was well off the pace with Alonso retiring and Vandoorne finishing a lap down.

The team then admitted that they were experiencing a very poor correlation between the wind tunnel testing and results on the track leaving them grasping at straws and conducting aero testing at every track in the practice sessions rather than dialling the car into the track as normally happens.

Toro Rosso’s partner team Red Bull, having run with Renault Power for many years, and now having ‘inside’ information about the Honda powerplant, then signed an agreement with Honda to become their works partner for the 2019 and 2020 seasons with new and apparently cheaper engine regulations expected to be announced soon for the 2021 season.

Then, on the 4th of July 2018 McLaren announced that Eric Boullier had resigned (despite saying only a few days earlier he has no intention of resigning), seemingly taking the blame for McLaren’s poor performance.

Andrea Stella, who was previously Alonso’s Race Engineer when they were both at Ferrari, was promoted from Head of Race Operations to Performance Director and a new Sporting Director role has been created for Gil de Ferran, ex-Champ Car (the forerunner to Indycar) champion in 2000 and 2001. Simon Roberts, Chief Operating Office of McLaren Racing will now oversee Production, Engineering and Logistics.

I’m still not 100% convinced that Zak Brown, someone with oodles of commercial experience but no engineering experience at all is the right person to lead them, but time will tell.

So where did it all go wrong?

This part is my opinion rather than mostly fact above. Anyway, where I believe McLaren made a mistake is believing what was essentially a brand new ICE, MGU-H, MGU-K and battery store for the 2017 season would be reliable and powerful straight away.

It was at the start of it’s development cycle whereas Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault had anything from 3 to 5 years of development time to ascertain the optimal setup, fine tune it and make it powerful and reliable. All without being publicly criticised by Eric Boullier, Zak Brown and an wildly popular but angry Spaniard on international TV every two weeks.

Honda came in a year earlier than planned on McLaren’s suggestion, were handicapped by McLaren’s demands and the ridiculous and ill-thought out ‘Token’ system limiting upgrades throughout the 2015 season meant Honda were permanently on the back foot until at least the back end of 2016. McLaren expected too much, and now, I suspect, they’ll watch the Red Bull AND the Toro Rosso beat them with the engine they used to have. And be an estimated £100-million down a season for the privilege.

Also in the latest McLaren company filings is a few surprising pieces of information but the main one is that McLaren have sold a number of their historic cars rumoured to be in part to pay of Ron Dennis’s pay off form the board for his shares and you can find out what’s been sold here>>>

The filings also show that the McLaren Group has seen it’s total revenue fall by 3% to £871-million and a £1.3-million profit in 2016 turned into a £66-million pre-tax loss for 2017. Of course this is only my conjecture, but I’d imagine a lot of that is down to cancelling the Honda deal, paying Alonso themselves when it’s believed Honda paid him directly for 2015, ’16 and ’17 and paying for engines from Renault.

McLaren were talking all through 2017 that they had one of the best chassis on the grid and certainly times, when Alonso got fastest lap at the Hungarian GP after stopping for fresh tyres, seemed to confirm this and they constantly threw Honda under the bus claiming if they had Mercedes power they’d be winning races.

I was a huge McLaren fan, still am to a certain extent, but their demise has pained me greatly recently. They need fundamental change, a full root and branch cull and re-energisation from new staff, but I can’t see it happening while the board and owners are too worried about saving face and boasting when they need to take a cold, hard look at themselves.

Indeed Williams struggles haven’t made anywhere near the waves McLaren’s have, I suspect because Williams know they are struggling and freely admit it. Being humble goes a long way.

WHAT IF F1 POINTS SYSTEM WAS DIFFERENT…

Source: Dr. Symanski

Murray Walker always says that F1 is IF backwards. So what if drivers were scored all the way to 20th place? What if we could somehow erase the DNFs from the season?

One of the problems with the current scoring system is that only half the starting grid can get points. Whilst this is far superior and preferable to the older system where only 6 cars would score, it does make it difficult to compare drivers in the mid-field and lower. Especially when sometimes one of the cars would just occasionally limp into the points!

Why not score all positions?

The scoring system does reward top place finishes disproportionally higher than the midfield, so any reworking of the points system should follow the same. This is fairly easily achieved by doubling the number of points, stretching this out to all places, and then interpolating the gaps missed.

Next is working through their finishing position and reallocating points. Retired and Disqualified both score zero. Then we have the next problem of a higher number of points making comparison difficult! A problem easily solved by normalising back to the leader’s total. What we result with is the graph below:

Lewis is the leader, so no points changes and Vettel would still be second, but Bottas is now third.

Next, we look at DNFs, and this is definitely pseudo-analysis! Because for absolute simplicity no assumption that if a driver did finish he’d be taking points away from another driver is made. Using the standard points system again, rather than the extended, this is just simply to find out what if they scored in every race?

In this analysis we simply take both Retirements and Disqualifications as the same; they didn’t complete the race. Total up the points they got from completed races, take the average number of points from those races, and then multiply by the number of races in a season. For example, Lewis didn’t complete one race, but with this analysis, he now gets a little bit more points to cover his DNF.

Looking further down and Perez would ahead of Hulkenberg. The new finishing orders would be:

First four position and no change, but Ricciardo would now be fifth. You can see how his DNFs significantly affected his points total as he was the poorest finisher at only 13 races, with Hulkenberg managing one better. Alonso and Ocon would both overtake Perez, a three-place improvement.

In conclusion, this is definitely an “IF” analysis, but it does serve to show rankings of some of the drivers. Leaders are still leading, those catching up at the rear still straggling. But in the midfield, there’s a couple of surprises where a driver does outperform their teammate with this extended scoring system.

DNFs have a huge impact on the number of points a driver can accumulate if the car is generally fast enough to score points. Care should be taken when looking at this to rate drivers because a higher finisher would put downward pressure on the point totals for other drivers.

MCLAREN PAYING HIGH PRICE FOR BAD DECISIONS

By: Paul Valesco

It is no secret that McLaren’s decision to ditch Honda works Formula 1 engines for Renault customer units cost the Woking outfit $100-million, but the reality is that the team did not reach the heights they expected and one wonders if the change to Renault has been a total failure.

McLaren Group chairman Bahrain’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa, boss of Mumtalakat investment fund which is the majority and controlling shareholder of the Woking organisation, told BBC of the Honda split, “It was an expensive decision” but added it was “in the long-term interests of the company.”

McLaren are going through the worst patch in their history. Performance is woeful, not even Fernando Alonso could do much with the MCL33 – probably the worst car ever built at Woking.

Preseason talk by members of the team who were bullish in predicting they could take on Red Bull with Renault power is now laughable. They believed their own calculations and claimed they had the best chassis in F1 last year! Broken calculator?

Since taking over team chief Zak Brown has not delivered on the sponsorship front which was meant to be his forte. The change to Renault engines (and success) would mean more sponsors it was trumpeted, wrong again.

On the management front, several heads rolled. Brown sent blameless Eric Boullier packing in July to be replaced by (pal?) Gil de Ferran, whose F1 experience is limited but had hovered in the background since the team’s foray to the Indy 500 last year. The intent now clear to all.

In retrospect, the Brazilian made no difference whatsoever to the team’s performance on track but then tech is not his domain, his role was supposed to “help” their drivers but his input made no difference to Stoffel Vandoorne’s form, while it is highly unlikely Alonso would be tapping into him for advice regarding F1.

What he has done for highly hyped rookie Lando Norris and will do for new boy Carlos Sainz remains to be seen.

Facts are, by coincidence or not, McLaren have gone backwards since De Ferran took over the role that Boullier once occupied. The team scored 44 points in the first nine races of the season with the Frenchman in the hot seat. Since his departure, under his successor, they have scored only 18 points.

The team finished sixth in this year’s championship mostly due to Alonso’s gutsy efforts. The Spaniard hauled in 50 points of the 62 points they scored this season.

With a lesser mortal in the car McLaren would have been lucky to score 20 or 25 all season. Without the ‘Fernando-factor’ they would have been ninth and only better than Williams, another once mega-force now reduced to a bottom-feeder in the Formula 1 bog.

Next year, thanks to McLaren, Honda will power the four Red Bull cars (Toro Rosso included) and only time will tell if they will be able to win races with the Japanese manufacturer.

The first year of the Toro Rosso-Honda was not entirely convincing on track in a season which was essentially test-lab for next year’s effort. But can Honda build a package to help Red Bull challenge the dominance of Mercedes or at least match Ferrari? We can only know in February…

As much as everyone at Red Bull are super motivated by the change, predictions of grandeur prevail, there is a smug confidence within the camp suggesting they know something we don’t.

But we have heard and seen this all before, not long ago, when so much was expected of the second coming of McLaren-Honda – we know how that ended.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Khalifa is wary of the possibility that Honda and Red Bull co-operative will succeed but is adamant his organisation and the Japanese company were in a failed partnership which could not be salvaged.

He explained, “On the one hand, frustrating. On the other, we are committed to this. The way we were heading, the change was bound to come. Tremendous respect for Honda but the relationship wasn’t working and so we had a civilised discussion and we decided to part ways.”

“We will see this through. Frustrating, because we are racers at heart, but you just have to power through,” added Sheikh Khalifa could learn from the Toyota F1 disaster a decade ago, which proved that throwing mega-money at a grossly mismanaged team does not buy success, instead it burns a serious hole in the pocket.

Big Question: Are McLaren paying a high price for bad decisions?

LAWRENCE STROLL: HOPEFULLY WE CAN FIGHT FOR THIRD PLACE

Source: Reuters

Force India can become a profitable Formula 1 team fighting for a place in the top three in the championship, according to new owner Lawrence Stroll.

The Canadian billionaire, who rescued the British-based team from administration in August, told the New York Times in an interview that he saw Force India as a good business opportunity as opposed to a whim to provide his son with a competitive Formula 1 package.

Stroll’s 20-year-old son Lance was confirmed on Friday as one of the drivers and the takeover has been seen as a move to provide him with a more competitive seat than he had at struggling Williams.

“I’m not in this for ego. I’m not in this to lose money. I’m in this for the long term, as I have been with every other business I’ve owned, be it Tommy Hilfiger, Michael Kors or whoever,” said Stroll senior.

The Montreal-based Canadian, who made his fortune by investing in global fashion brands, bought the Mont Tremblant circuit in Quebec 18 years ago and has been closely involved in his son’s career.

His Force India consortium includes Canadian entrepreneur Andre Desmarais, Jonathan Dudman, John Idol, telecoms investor John McCaw Jr, Michael de Picciotto and Stroll’s business partner Silas Chou.

Stroll said in the interview, carried out at the season’s penultimate race in Brazil in early November, that he had looked at the numbers and assessed where the sport was going under U.S.-based owners Liberty Media.

Stroll Senior: No reason we shouldn’t have high expectations, to hopefully be fighting for that third place

“It’s no secret there’s going to be some sort of a budget cap and better cash distribution to the smaller teams,” said Stroll.

“That is still to be clarified how well that works out, but there are all the right rumblings, and I’ve had enough conversations with (F1 chairman) Chase (Carey) to understand that is the direction they want and need to take the business. For me, that spells financial opportunity, and looking at 2021 onwards, a profitable business opportunity.”

Liberty has said it wants a more sustainable sport with a fairer distribution of revenues and a budget cap to ensure a more level playing field.

“With the right funding, the right leadership, the right motivation, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have high expectations and be able to punch even higher above our weight, to hopefully be fighting for that third place,” said Stroll.

Force India finished fourth overall in 2016 and 2017, the best of the rest in a sport dominated by Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

They ended up seventh this year, with the season finishing in Abu Dhabi last weekend, after starting again from scratch following the takeover. Stroll junior will partner Sergio Perez in the 2019 lineup.

MARKO: USELESS NEW FRONT WING COST US €15-MILLION

Next year’s revised Formula 1 front wing regulations have cost Red Bull €15-million to develop according to the team’s consultant Helmut Marko who is very bullish about next year’s prospects with Honda powering Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly.

Next year’s front wing changes are meant to reduce the turbulence behind the current generation F1 cars in an effort to improve close racing and overtaking, but not everyone is convinced it will work and it comes at a hefty price tag according to Marko.

He explained to Auto Motor und Sport, “We plan to complete the car early like last year, but now came the useless regulation change to the front wing, which costs us around €15-million.”

“But it is a waste as far as limiting downforce is concerned, we are already more or less at the current level and the overtaking problem remains, it had no effect. We should not talk about budget caps when we make such decisions.”

While Red Bull technical boss Adrian Newey and his team work hard on next year’s RB15, Marko is adamant that Honda are also ticking all the boxes ahead of the new era for the team.

“We are targeting the title,” decalred Marko. “The Honda engine already has more horsepower than the Renault, and what’s coming should be enough so that we can race on our own at the front.”

Big talk from the Doc in the aftermath of yet another underwhelming season by Honda. Sure they improved but by how much is the question?

Newey traditionally delivers handy race cars which have punched above their weight despite the power deficit, now Honda need to deliver on two fronts, namely power and reliability, if they seek to take on Mercedes and Ferrari, while beating Renault should be a given, on paper that is.

Renault is now a thing of the past for the energy drinks team but despite the animosity and open bickering that prevailed in the last five years between management, the parting of ways appears to have been cordial.

“We parted on good terms. On Saturday we had a farewell party in Abu Dhabi,” added Marko.

Source: Paul Valesco

Lewis Hamilton crashed a Yamaha-R1 motorcycle

Five-time Formula 1 World Championship Lewis Hamilton crashed a Yamaha-R1 motorcycle he was riding anonymously at Jerez on Friday, the Mercedes driver was not hurt and continued riding after the incident.

According to Gazzetta dello Sport, Hamilton was riding a Yamaha-R1 wearing a black suit and black helmet, accompanied by a group of trusted friends, during a motorcycle track test day at the MotoGP venue in southern Spain

Without fanfare or special privileges, Hamilton went out on track followed by Superbike rider and instructor Alex Lowes on one of the most powerful versions of the bike, which recently enjoyed success at Brno.

Hamilton is said to have suffered a crash through turn five, a fast right-hander onto the back straight which wrecked the Yamaha, but this did not deter the Mercedes F1 driver who arranged another mount and was continued to ride during the scheduled 20-minute open track stints for the riders.

It was noted that Hamilton got no special favours and was seen wrapping tyres in tyre warmers, cleaning the bike and his helmet between his sessions on track.

Hamilton’s love for motorcycles is well known, he is brand ambassador for MV Augusta, and has said of his two-wheel passion, “I love bikes – I don’t really ride too much off-track, I tend to ride my MV Agusta bikes around.”

“The sense of freedom you get is amazing when it’s just you and the bike. But racing one would be a whole different proposition,” added the Briton.

Despite a minor spill five-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton has revealed on Twitter that he had a great time riding ‘incognito’ during a motorcycle test day at Jerez and reaffirmed his respect and admiration for the two-wheel brigade.

The Mercedes F1 driver did sessions on track as part of the daily track schedule, riding a Yamaha YZF-R1 with World Superbike riders Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark in his slipstream.

Hamilton wrote on Instagram, “Good morning! Woke up feeling great today. Miss riding the superbike already. FYI I’ve always loved two wheels more than four.

“Always wanted a motorbike since I was a kid however I am super grateful my dad got me a kart. But current new love is out on track on my bike.

“I have the highest regard and respect for these motorbike riders. It’s a much different discipline however, require some of the same basics such as time, patience, fearlessness, focus, agility and risk taking – all of which make a sport exciting.

“And yes, I’d love to race bikes, but these guys are on another level so I think I’ll just enjoy riding and testing the limits on track.”

“Valentino Rossi I need to come to the ranch asap,” wrote Hamilton inclosing, with reference to the MotoGP legend’s VR46-MotoRanch in Tavulli

To which Rossi replied, “Hamilton is a big bikes fan. He follows the races and is always texting me. He exaggerates a bit, as he praises bike riders saying we are the ones taking real risks. He has to come to the ranch one day.”

While Lowes, who shadowed the F1 World Champion on track at Jerez, added, “Very quick and impressive. Top bloke and genuine 2 wheel fan.”

ALONSO A MCLAREN LEGEND ?

2 December, 2018 

By: Paul Velasco

As many readers of this site may know, I always had a soft spot McLaren, you could put me among their fans who are disgruntled by the manner in which this once mighty team has fallen, reducing it to the back of the grid embarrassment, something unthinkable in the team’s glorious heyday.

For me growing up with the sport it was easy to admire the Ron Dennis led McLaren team, here was the mechanic who made his mark in Formula 2 with his Project 4 operation.

The story after that is well told: he progressed to Formula 1 taking over the underperforming Teddy Mayer led, Marlboro backed operation in the late seventies.

Under Dennis, the team rose from what were near ashes to become the incredible force it was in the eighties and nineties – a truly remarkable story, with so many distinguished drivers winning races and titles for the team. Not to mention the spawning and establishing of a sportscar manufacturer with huge potential.

So the point of this tale: this morning when reading an interview with Carlos Sainz I was piqued by the following question put to the Spaniard by the McLaren media office or whoever conducted the Q&A:

You’re following in the footsteps of Hunt, Senna, Prost, Häkkinen, Alonso… what does this mean to you?

Reading the names of a few of the McLaren greats and finding Alonso in there, triggered my annoyance.

Call me pedantic, but when you are writing history, from a team’s perspective (in this case McLaren) it is wise to be very careful, because what is presented as ‘fact’ lives on the internet indefinitely thus incorrect associations such as this can distort how history is perceived not only now but also in the future.

Before wielding the hammer at the Alonso-McLaren myth, with regards to Fernando I am in the camp that regards him as one of the greats of his era, a true fighter, gutsy and with a fire in the belly that I admire in drivers. We have celebrated his accomplishments in many, many posts on this site.

His boss Zak Brown summed up the Spaniard as a “racing monster” and I buy into that theory. Enormous plaudits for the young guy for what he did at Renault in 2005 and 2006, inspiring Spain with his success. His Ferrari adventure was amazing but cruelly no titles for his efforts in red.

In other words big respect and admiration for him, but as a McLaren fan… Alonso is NOT one of the great McLaren drivers and should be not be mentioned as one, in fact, stats show (and this is what they will be looking at in 50 years or more from now) compared to what he achieved with Renault and Ferrari, he seriously underachieved at Woking.

In 94 starts with the team, he scored 241 points at an average of 2.56 points per race, winning only four times. His average at Ferrari was 12.4 points per race, and with Renault 4.46 per geepee.

In terms of average points scored by McLaren drivers, he is 17th on the list, tied with Pedro de la Rosa!

Of the 20 drivers that have won grands prix for the team, he is 13th on the list with his four triumphs in the team’s colours.

Furthermore, the most damning aspect of his time at Woking is what he cost the team, using simple maths with official figures freely available on the web, the ballpark figure is outright staggering.

Let’s start with the $100-million fine that McLaren received after that tumultuous 2007 season when he partnered rookie Lewis Hamilton. For those who forgot about ‘Spygate’ or ‘Stepneygate’.

As Reuters reported at the time: “Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso expects McLaren to continue backing his title push despite his role in providing key evidence against the team in a spying controversy.”

It was a bitter period for all concerned, Fernando left at the end of that season back to the sanctuary of Renault run by mentor Flavio Briatore at the time.

Fast forward a decade, Fernando returns to McLaren (unbelievably) coaxed back to the team by Dennis himself, on a mega-bucks deal said to be worth $40-million per year, which will have netted him a cool $160-million to date.

But the greatest cost to the team was the loss of Honda, orchestrated by Alonso whose moaning about the Japanese manufacturer captured headlines until inevitably ‘poof’ went the deal at a cost of a reported $75-million per year to the McLaren coffers.

When a Sheikh states publically that the Honda deal “was expensive” believe me, it was damn expensive!

After trashing Honda, Alonso convinced Zak, and his noobs, that Renault power was the solution to get them winning again at $15-million per season for the ‘privilege’ of being a customer team.

So doing some simple maths on a napkin, I calculate that the bill McLaren has footed and will foot until 2020 for Alonso’s shenanigans amounts to over a staggering billion dollars plus.

More simple maths: every point he scored for the team cost them over $2-million…

For the sake of comparison, consider that in five years with Mercedes, Hamilton bagged 2105 points at an average of 17.69 in 119 starts with the team, which works out at a cost of $71,000 per point scored by the Briton.

To end the rant of a disgruntled fan watching McLaren history being tampered with by a media release that distorts reality in a subtle way and at the same time does a severe injustice to the team’s true great drivers.

So when Media Guy (or whoever) was asking the question to young Carlos, it should have gone like this:

You’re following in the footsteps of Fittipaldi, Hunt, Lauda, Senna, Prost, Berger, Häkkinen, Button, Hamilton, Coulthard, Raikkonen, … what does this mean to you?

There is absolutely no place among those McLaren greats for Alonso, the legend that he is, and I also believe there was no reason he should be feted and celebrated as the team did ad nauseam since his departure was announced months ago.

My McLaren would have allowed him to walk away into the distance with no special livery or big fuss, just as they did with their real greats in the past.

If anything Fernando deserved that type of hyped-up farewell and thank you tribute from Renault, after all he is their first and only F1 world champion as a works team, his great legacy lies there.