In the round-up: Valtteri Bottas says that development speed is “one of the weaknesses” of his Alfa Romeo team
In letter
Bottas – Slow upgrade production a ‘weakness’ of Alfa Romeo
Valtteri Bottas says that improving how quickly Alfa Romeo produce upgrades for their car is a “high priority” for the team.
Alfa Romeo currently sixth in the constructors’ championship on 52 points, but have only scored a single point in the last eight races after scoring 51 over the first nine. Bottas admits the team have been unable to maintain the development pace of some of their fellow midfield teams.
“I think the rivals – like for example, McLaren and Alpine – they have made more development than us and they’ve had more constant upgrades than us,” said Bottas. “We still have some things to come, I think it’s probably maybe Austin or Japan, some things, but I guess that’s going to be more or less it.
“I think we were one of the very few teams in the beginning of the year who were at the weight limits. I think many teams were overweight, but as they’ve come down now, so maybe that has made an effect as well. We know one of our weaknesses is the production speed, which is a high priority for the team for the future. We’re definitely aware of that.”
No grid expansions for Formula 2, F3 – Michel
Formula 2 and FIA F3 CEO Bruno Michel says he does not believe either series will look at increasing their grid sizes beyond their current level.
Formula 2 currently has 22 cars on its grid, while the FIA Formula 3 championship races with 30 cars in each of its rounds. Asked if he would be open to adding more teams to the series should Andretti seek to set up junior teams, Michel said sees no need to expand the grids further.
“I don’t think it would be good for the championships to add new teams,” Michel said. “There are always changes of teams, teams that want to stop, and in that case we can find new shareholders for the teams. It happened many times in the past, with GP2 and F2 and it will continue.
“I think 30 cars in F3 and 22 cars in F2 is a very good figure. I’ve got many requests from teams that would like to join both F2 and F3, but I’m always saying the same thing. We always need to be sure that we have more drivers than seats, because if we have fewer drivers than the seats, then the teams are in trouble. I think having 30 cars in F3 is already a fantastic achievement and I don’t want to increase that at all. And 22 cars in F2, we had in the past 26 cars, then we went down to 20 cars and now I think 22 cars is a very good number and I’m not planning to adopt a new team.”
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Motor racing links of interest:
Les derniers obstacles à l’arrivée de Pierre Gasly chez Alpine sont levés (L’Equipe – French))
L’Equipe report that the last obstacles that would prevent Pierre Gasly from departing AlphaTauri to join Alpine have been cleared.
FIA’s own-goal in Colton Herta case risks undoing all F1’s hard work wooing the US market (Mirror)
“It’s impossible to predict how he would stack up against the current crop of F1 drivers, but it’s hard to see him being noticeably off the pace. And by turning away an American driver, AlphaTauri and the sport as a whole may well miss out on lucrative commercial opportunities from US businesses that may want to invest in the driver flying the flag for the States.”
Astrology with some F1 Champion influence: Amaury Cordeel on his F2 helmet (Formula 2)
“It’s the first time I’ve had the star sign on it for this year and some nice little things on it like my father’s name at the heart of it because he does a lot for me in the sport. My logo, c’est la vie, it wasn’t added a long way back, some more little things, I was thinking about star signs and sometimes I read about it, seeing how I react to things, I searched it and I liked the logo of it on the internet. I thought it was cool to put it on my own design.”
Neuville explains why WRC is more of a driver’s championship than Formula 1 (Stuff NZ)
“WRC is one of the rare drivers’ championships still left. Formula 1 is the best example this year, if you don’t have a good car, you can’t win. In WRC it’s different, if you’re a good driver and have a car that’s not as good as the others, you can still win.”
Louis Foster: ‘The goal is to be in IndyCar in 2024’ (Motorsport UK)
“I shifted my goal and my dream to race in IndyCar came from quite a young age, in GB3. The main reason for coming over here is the ladder system, with the ‘Road to Indy’. Nobody else is offering what they offer, This year I won over $600,000, and that sort of money is invaluable to me now with the step up to Indy Lights for next year.”
French F4 rounds 16-17: Valencia (French F4 via YouTube)
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Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday to Ukk, Texagf1, Kerbbi and Nzumbu!
On this day in motorsport
Giancarlo Minardi, Imola, 2021
- Born today in 1947: Gian Carlo Minardi, founder of the team which raced in F1 from 1985 to 2005, was bought by Red Bull and is now AlphaTauri
