Archive for category: F1

We have reached Abu Dhabi, the 21st and final round of the World Championship. The curtain will fall on the season at Yas Marina but it will also inaugurate the 2019 season with the collective tests on Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 where we will see some changes of teams by drivers.

It will be interesting understanding Pirelli’s programme since I still believe the supplier must give us some sporting explanations. We saw a second half of the season constantly characterized by the same problems tied to the lack of difference in performance between the mixes, as well as blistering and graining problems.

We have 20 grands prix behind us and comparing with the 2017 results there are interesting outcomes, even in light of the future.

Mercedes, world constructors’ champion for the fifth straight year, confirmed its positive trend, even if it collected less points (630 against 688 last year). This is more than Ferrari which showed important growth of 31 points, despite Sebastian Vettel who collected 15 points less than 2017. The German driver closed last season in second place with 317 points. The gap is completed by Kimi Raikkonen whose pace speaks of 46 more points (251 against 205).

In an intense and tight championship the new World Champion Lewis Hamilton once again confirmed his excellent qualities by collecting 20 more points (383 against 2017’s 363).

Despite problems of reliability Red Bull also showed positive signs. Ricciardo and Verstappen collected 24 more points. From next year they will have the Honda engine.

If the first three positions were confirmations, behind McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull there was no lack of new developments. A good leap forward by Renault, Haas, McLaren and Sauber which went from sixth, eighth, ninth and tenth place respectively to fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth place in the World Championship. All at the expense of Toro Rosso and Williams.

If behind Red Bull’s satellite team there is a technical explanation (they worked on behalf of Horner’s team to develop the Honda engine for 2019), for Williams the situation seems even more critical even if Robert Kubica’ s return full time beside the young promising Russell really pleased me. This was an intelligent combination. The Polish driver has the culture to help the extremely promising young driver.

Racing Point Force India (ex Force India) deserves a separate discussion. If to the current 48 points we also added the 49 points collected in the first 12 grands prix there would be a great duel with Renault for fourth place. This is a positive result and synonymous with the team that knew how to hold on to its technical level (finishing in fourth place in the previous two seasons) despite the financial problems that led to the change of ownership and loss of points at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Let us jump into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Gian Carlo Minardi

We are coming into the weekend of the Mexican Grand Prix, the nineteenth and third last round of the Formula 1 World Championship and with another match ball for Lewis Hamilton to win his fifth world title.

At Austin Ferrari managed to delay the celebration with Kimi Raikonnen’s win and Sebastian Vettel’s fourth place which was surely an important result for the team from Maranello that reduced the gap slightly from Mercedes on the Constructors’ front. It was a result that revitalized the shares in the team of the Finnish driver who came back to victory after 5 years and 115 races and who will leave Maranello to return to Hinwil.

I do not share the comments about this since I am convinced that the choices made by the team’s management are the right road to return to victory. The results speak on their own with Sebastian Vettel constantly faster than his team mate, even if he was the protagonist of too many errors (9 in 18 grands prix is a very high average for a driver who wants to win the title). At Austin he had overtaken Raikonnen as well, just as he had all season.

At this time Ferrari must recover Vettel the driver in view of both the final three rounds and in consideration for 2019 and the arrival of Charles Leclerc will give him the right stimulus.

Raikonnen was perfect at Austin and I hope to see him with the same determination, which had been lacking in the first part of the season, also in Mexico, Brazil and Abu Dhabi. He has to be the deciding factor to help Ferrari win the constructor’s title.

Gian Carlo Minardi

We continue our trip in time towards the United States Grand Prix and after Gian Carlo Minardi we approached Gabriele Tredozi, the engineer from Brisighella who marked his debut in the Formula 1 World championship wearing the Minardi Team colours beginning in 1988

We wanted to experience once more the emotions of Detroit ’88 and Phoenix ’90 from the technical point of view.

“I remember the Detroit weekend very well. It was my sixth grand prix in Formula 1 and I was the race engineer for the M188 number 23 entrusted that up to Canada was entrusted to Adrian Campos and from Detroit to Pierluigi Martini. That weekend Piero climbed into the car for the first time during free practice and he quickly set excellent times that showed he could be in the first ten places when he closed qualifying in sixteenth place. Bringing the car to the finishing line on debut on a street circuit and disjointed such as that of Detroit in sixth place was an extraordinary result, especially because the M188 had a number of problems,” remembered Tredozi.

The Minardi M188 designed by Caliri, nicknamed the “camel” due to its chronic instability was powered by a Ford 3.5 aspirated V8 and its very short wheelbase and the torsion bar suspension (an absolute innovation at the time) were badly suited for irregular road surfaces.

“This was a very rigid car and certainly not easy to drive, particularly on a street circuit. In August, in view of the grand prix at Monza, we managed however to resolve a large part of the problems thanks to an important intervention with the adoption, amongst other things, of the dynamic dome to increase the flow of air into the engine which let us gain two seconds”.

“This development was then transferred to the M189 that made its debut in Mexico (the third grand prix of the 1989 season, editor’s note), also beginning the following season at Phoenix by taking the front row with Martini, who was beaten only by Berger in the McLaren in the final minutes by only a few tenths of seconds,” continued Tredozi,

The Minardi M189 was surely the best car built at Faenza, both in terms of results with 6 points won (5th and 6th places in Great Britain, 5th place in Portugal and fourth place in qualifying in Spain and 6th place in Australia), as well as its performance at speed.

“The generational leap between the M188 and the M89 was important. The chassis was worked for the first time with a 5 axis numerical machine that exploited CAD-Cam technology instead of by hand, with rear shock absorbers to balance the gear box and great attention paid to the profile of the spoilers. The start of the season was not easy due to water cooling problems, but once we modified the system the efforts were repaid with the fifth and sixth places at Silverstone which were followed by other important results such as the front row at Phoenix 90,” concluded the engineer from the Romagna, “They were two incredible results that made Minardi history, achieved also thanks to Martini’s technical skills”.

The Japanese Grand Prix has gone into the record books with another Mercedes one-two and fifth and sixth places for Ferrari. In between were the two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo.

There was no lack of after effects and twists, like the minor collisions between Verstappen-Raikonnen, Verstappen-Vettel and Magnussen-Leclerc with the Dane who, in trying to avoid being overtaken by the driver from Monte Carlo, moved at the last moment cutting the Sauber driver’s road. “Magnussen can have his license taken away since it is not the first time that he has been the antagonist in these episodes,” was the harsh comment from Gian Carlo Minardi who also accented another argument

“Too many concessions are being made in favour of safety that are detrimental to fairness and this is not good. If we take the examples of the two points of the track where Verstappen collided with the Ferrari drivers, without focussing on who is right or wrong. Until a few years ago the side of the track – that section of asphalt between the two white lines – there was sand which was fatal to anyone who made a mistake,” was the analysis of the manager from Faenza.

“In the first episode Verstappen approached the chicane long but passed through the curb coming back on track and then in the subsequent collision with the Finn, ruining the Raikonnen’s race, when he got a penalty of barely 5”. In the episode with Vettel, the German came out worse when he left the track, however he found asphalt on the escape route thus avoiding the worst.”

“I have the impression that we are hiding behind the factor of safety to allow actions that are not clear and not easily comparable between them that bring the marshals to issue subjective judgments. I believe that when a car exceeds the white line with more than two wheels that the driver must be punished heavily”.

“Otherwise we change the rules and leave the drivers free to fight it out, classifying all collisions as race incidents with no sanctions,” concluded Minardi.

upAfter seven long years Italy will once again have a standard bearer in the F1 World Championship. The long wait was ended by Antonio Giovinazzi who from next season will defend full time the colours of Team Alfa-Romeo-Sauber beside Kimi Raikonnen.

The twenty five year old driver from Apulia will take the take left free by Leclerc (promoted to Ferrari next to Vettel), returning to the team that gave him his debut in 2017 when he raced the Australian and Chinese grands prix in place of the injured Wehrlein.

We spoke on the telephone to Gian Carlo Minardi who is busy is Rome. “I am very happy for Antonio and for all of Italy’s Motorsport which, after seven years, has once again found its fulltime standard bearer in F1. This is a very important step for the project being carried out by ACI, with its roots beginning in karting and then continue in the training categories,” commented the satisfied manager from Faenza, “the pair of Raikonnen-Giovinazzi is exactly right because the team will be able to count on the experience of a master such as the Finn who will give a hand to the young driver to learn and grow. I hope that the student will quickly overtake the master,” concluded Minardi.

At Hinwil Giovinazzi will find not only Raikonnen once again but also Simone Resta whose career began in 1998 in Faenza with the Minardi Team, in his role as Technical Director who will look after the C38 Project.

We are at the door of the Singapore Grand Prix, the fifteenth round (of twenty one) of the world championship and a drivers transfer market surrounded by deep uncertainty. It has been some years since we last saw so many changes of teams (see the retirement of Fernando Alonso, Daniel Ricciardo’s passage from Red Bull to Renault or Force India’s change of ownership which saw the cancellation of its points at the Belgian GP) and, above all, there are still pieces that have to find their places.

At this time Ferrari is tipping the scales with the unknown factor tied to Kimi Raikonnen’s future. Despite many rumours, there has been no denial or official announcement from Maranello, even if what happened with the official account from Garage Italia that belongs to Lapo Elkann is striking when it announced the arrival of Charles Leclerc beside Vettel and which then modified the post’s text.

As long as this point has not been clarified it is difficult to see other movements since Ferrari conditions two teams (Haas enjoys greater autonomy compared to Sauber on the drivers’ front). Sadly Esteban Ocon could pay the price of this game of changes, especially since the arrival of Lawrence Stroll as head of the group that saved Force India (renamed Racing Point Force India) with the great probability of bringing his son Lance into the team (freeing a place at Williams).

The one paying the price for this would be the Frenchman. I hope that a skilled manager such as Toto Wolff would not allow such a mess to happen since, in my modest opinion, we are talking about one of the most interesting emerging drivers who deserves to stay in the Circus. It would be absurd if he were not one of the twenty drivers on the starting grid in 2019.

At the present time Ocon occupies tenth place in the drivers’’ ladder with 45 points, one less than Sergio Perez.

Gian Carlo Minardi