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FIA investigate conflict of interest between F1 team leader & FOM official

December 06, 2023, 01:24:47 PM by John S
Views: 111 | Comments: 3

There's plenty of smoke, seemingly eminating from a Team Principals meeting, but is there really a fire?

Merc F1 (Toto) & Susie Wolff are both highly indignant and have issued strong rebuttals, however did FIA really get a choice about investigating claims published in a BusinessF1 magazine article ( see web page link below, go to pages 10/11 of digital issue).

Oh yeah it's also another thing to add to the increasing pile of unrest between FIA & Liberty.

The FIA announced on Tuesday night that they were looking into allegations “of information of a confidential nature being passed to an F1 team principal from a member of FOM personnel” following a report from BusinessF1 magazine that focused on Wolff and his wife Susie.

The report claimed that Susie, in her capacity as F1 managing director shared information with her husband – something she has since denied – and that Wolff let something slip during a recent team principal meeting.

The credibility of BusinessF1 magazine has often been questioned, leading many to wonder why the FIA had decided to launch such an investigation but a source familiar with the situation has now told PlanetF1.com that, while the media report was part of the reason the FIA opened the investigation, it was also initiated due to multiple team principals raising complaints.

The same source also alleges that both F1 and Mercedes were sent legal letters from the FIA’s compliance officers at the same time the media statement was sent out. Mercedes, however, has denied this claim and says they have received no such letter.

Selected paras courtesy Sam Cooper, PlanetF1.com, Today.

https://businessf1magazine.com/december-2023-free-digital-issue/

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Is 24 too many?

December 03, 2023, 10:58:11 PM by Andy B
Views: 566 | Comments: 9

2024 will have 24 races and with crews having burnout with 22 races have the FIA and Liberty gone too far?
Its not the drivers who it affects the most but the crews who are being asked to stay away from home and families for longer periods and more often so can it be maintained?
The Planet F1 article below states that maybe crews should be restricted from the number of races they can attend and if this is the case how will that affect the team on race weekends and if extra staff are required their budget.
I thought 22 was too many let alone 24 it seems to me they want more to earn more so its not about taking F1 to the masses it's about a bigger bank balance!

https://www.planetf1.com/news/unwell-f1-staff-brutal-expanding-calendar

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Top Story of the 2023 Season?

December 01, 2023, 08:13:56 PM by Jericoke
Views: 771 | Comments: 6

What happened (or didn't happen) that made you really happy (or really angry?)

A few 'top stories':

Utter dominance of Max Verstappen and the RB19. The nature of the sport doesn't let us know if the magic was Max or the car, or the synthesis of the two, but we've never seen anything like it.

Lagging performance of Sergio Perez. If the RB19 was such a great car, why wasn't Sergio the run away #2 driver?

Surprise performance of Alonso/Aston Martin. Aston Martin is a mid pack team from a long line of mid pack teams. A strong start to the season made us realize they're serious about getting better in the sport. And then they tanked the back half of the season, so who knows what's going on? While we hoped Alonso would do a great job, I was surprised by his early performance, and his display of skill throughout the season. Both Alonso and the team exceeded expectations. (And then, like Perez, Stroll seemed to under perform next to his championship winning teammate)

Musical Chairs at Alpha Tauri. Wait, not a surprise at all. Good job by Yuki though.

McLaren gaining performance over the season. A great team with 2 solid drivers. They've got a bright future that I certainly wasn't expecting.

Ferrari turning the corner? Few teams in sports have the eternal hope of Ferrari the last 15 years. With a new team leader, it wasn't clear if it would be business as usual (i.e., a lot of mistakes) or just a step backwards as Vasseur slows things down in order to fix them. Instead I feel like they got their feet under them. There were still mistakes, but I feel like they're learning from them, instead of just being careless. I feel like there's something to build on. 2 strong drivers who seem to be strong in different ways (LeClerc with a natural driving talent and Sainz with an innate understanding of racing strategy)

Mercedes. They're in a weird limbo. They finished second place, meaning that over the course of the season, they were better than anyone but Red Bull, which is good, but it felt like they're making mistakes and the team isn't running nearly as well as they did in their championship years. Are they going to continue to decline? Tread water at 'pretty good' or are they learning lessons and ready to actually move forward?

Andretti/Cadillac. Personally, I really really want to see Andretti back in F1 (not so plussed about GM, but I'm a Blue Oval Girl... also annoyed Ford is going with RBR). I find it frustrating that F1 remains insular. Lawrence Stroll complained about his welcome to the sport, Haas complained about his welcome to the sport. Surely those two would realize that treating the new guys like sh*t isn't good for the sport, and standing in the way of racing royalty isn't going to win any fans. With F1 ascendant in the USA, having the Andretti name show up every race is a license to print money. They're not taking money from anyone else, they're bringing new money in.

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How Max's talent misled Red Bull in F1 battle with Merc in 2020

November 30, 2023, 11:10:39 AM by John S
Views: 733 | Comments: 0

Found this article explaining that Max's super ability to handle extreme on-the-edge pointy car led RBR down wrong path to challenge Merc in the covid hit season of 2020.

Yeah I know it's from a Red Bull source but it does seem to indicate Max is a rather special talent in an F1 car. So maybe it's not just the perfect Newey inspired cars as Lewis and a good few pundits are claiming.

Think you'll find it worth the read anyway.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/how-verstappens-talent-misled-red-bull-in-f1-battle-with-mercedes/

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Most Beautiful F1 Cars

November 27, 2023, 06:01:35 AM by lkjohnson1950
Views: 1234 | Comments: 3

Here are one man's choices for best looking F1 cars. What do you think? Agree, disagree, why?

https://www.carthrottle.com/news/10-most-beautiful-cars-ever-race-f1

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2023 Abu Dhabi Heroes and Zeroes

November 26, 2023, 04:47:15 PM by Jericoke
Views: 1329 | Comments: 8

Heroes

Max/Newey. We watched a special combination of man and machine this year. It was great as an enthusiast, but dull as a fan. I hope we don't see a repeat any time soon. At the same time, hard to count as anything but 'hero'.

Charles LeClerc. He had a good race, heads up moment to try and gain a spot in the constructor's championship by backing up George Russell to finish 5 seconds behind a penalized Perez. It didn't work, but shows that he's thinking. Given how much the drivers seemed to push strategy, from Ferrari, but also a few other times, maybe it's time to ban pit wall strategy, let the drivers call the shots.

Sergio Perez. Never seen the runner up in the WDC so maligned, but he had a great race after another poor qualifying.

George Russell. Solid race, kept his head and did what he had to do to get Mercedes 2nd place in the WCC.

Beyond that... It's hard to give anyone a designation of 'hero' or 'zero'. I don't think anyone drove poorly. Certainly Perez's penalty for hitting Norris was earned, but it could have been called a racing incident and I wouldn't have been angry about it. It's a fine line to penalize anyone who makes a mistake taking a risk, there won't be anyone taking a risk if you're too harsh, but then it's bumper cars if you're too lenient. Most cars/drivers ended up in their natural position we've seen evolve over the season.

It's been interesting seeing Williams/Haas become very good at qualifying, but still drop down during the race. Alpine and Aston Martin continue to be Jekyll and Hyde. Mercedes puts in solid if not spectacular efforts. Tsunoda flirted with being a hero, but wasn't really there in the end. Ricciardo certainly wasn't the 'second coming' a lot of people talked him up to be either.

The race itself was a vanilla affair. There were some fights, some passing, some strategy, even some stakes. In the greater scheme of things, it was an 'interesting' race (I feel the 2023 rule set really works on that count), but nothing memorable.

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2023 GG Results

November 26, 2023, 02:52:10 PM by Dare
Views: 1440 | Comments: 6

Well another GG year has passed and the winner is

Greener 340

John S 307

Luke Warmwater 301

Congratulations to Greener for the win and John
and Luke's 2nd and 3rd. Thanks for everyone
that played our little game and have a nice winter

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