Wolff: If that’s still the biggest misstep…
Mercedes Motorsport chief Toto Wolff is surprised by the new rule from new Formula 1 race director Niels Wittich. According to him, the successor to the controversial Michael Masi was “respectful, solid and error-free in the first races”, Wolff told the Press Association news agency.
“But is this a fight he has to fight at this stage?” he wonders. “However, if this turns out to be the biggest unfortunate misstep by a race director, I would take it a thousand times over.
Jenson Button becomes a rallycross driver
Jenson Button returns as a full-time driver – in rallycross! The 2009 Formula 1 world champion announced on Tuesday that he will race for the Xite Energy team in the Nitro Rallycross series. The 2022/23 season of Travis Pastrana’s greatly expanded Championship begins on June 18-19 at Lydden Hill in the UK.
You can find more information about this in our rally section.
Binotto: Ferrari working on porpoising
“We are working on it and know that the situation is not yet fully understood,” Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto said of the issue. “It’s not something obvious and can be easily fixed.”
But the Scuderia are still trying to get the problem under control – maybe as early as the next race at Imola. “But we know it’s not fully resolved yet. It’s just hard to master. And there are tracks where we have bigger problems than others.”
Leclerc: I don’t mind porpoising
The porposiing affects almost all Formula 1 teams, even the Ferrari team, which has been quite dominant so far. World Cup leader Charles Leclerc was quite shaken when he won in Melbourne but doesn’t see it as a problem: “I don’t know why, but I’m not particularly sensitive to it”, he said.
“On board it looks quite extreme. Of course I notice, but it doesn’t bother me in terms of performance,” said the Monegasque. Of course, Ferrari needs to work on this problem, “but I wouldn’t have driven faster if it hadn’t been there.”
Calendar changes since 2000
In our photo gallery you can see how much the calendar has changed since 2000 and which races were added and when.
In 2020 we stopped because the schedule got mixed up quite chaotically due to Corona.
The best thing to do would be to take the originally planned 2020 schedule and see how it compares to the current 2022 one. It shows two abandoned races: Vietnam and China, plus Russia, which was actually scheduled for 2022.
In comparison, Saudi Arabia, Imola and Miami are new.
Photo gallery: The evolution of the Formula 1 calendar over the last 20 years
Stopover in Malaysia
Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell stopped over in Malaysia on their return trip from Australia to attend some PR meetings for main sponsor Petronas.
With Malaysia no longer part of the Formula 1 calendar since 2018, a stopover on another trip is currently the only opportunity to show up in the main sponsor’s country.
Vasseur: The qualifying result masked a good race pace
Frédéric Vasseur says Alfa Romeo was as strong in Australia as in previous races. However, the poor qualifying meant you couldn’t really show the pace. Bottas had failed to make Q3 for the first time in 103 races, blaming a smaller rear wing.
“It was a step back in qualifying, I think we missed Q2,” Vasseur told Motorsport-Total.com. “But Q1 was very good. We were 6th and the race pace was excellent. The problem is that we are mainly behind [Lance] Stroll lost too much track time.”
delivery of certificates
Our traditional Melbourne ratings were also released yesterday. The big winner was of course Charles Leclerc who, after his Grand Slam, took first place in our ranking for the third time in a row. The big loser was Sebastian Vettel, who received a 6 from editors and pundit Marc Surer.
There was a real surprise in second place. You can tell who it was read here.
As always, our photo series also contains editors’ notes with justification.
Photo Gallery: Melbourne: The Driving Qualities of Writers
The Masi saga is not over yet
Toto Wolff had already made a name for himself yesterday with his next words to Michael Masi. In an interview with the Press Association, he called the former race director a passive, know-it-all and disrespectful in his dealings with drivers.
I know a lot of you are annoyed by this topic now, but sorry, it’s not our fault 😉
Jewelry ban: Hamilton doesn’t care
Over the weekend, a controversial new rule became an issue. Notes before the Australian event suddenly stated that drivers are not allowed to wear jewelry for safety reasons. This led to heated discussions between the pilots on Friday.
Lewis Hamilton ignored the new command and continued to drive with the jewels anyway – and will continue to do so. “I have no intention of deleting them,” he insists. “I think there are personal things. You should be able to be who you are.”
He also has jewelry – for example in the right ear – which cannot be easily removed. “I should cut it or something. So it’s going to stay,” he clarifies. The consequences of a breach? Still unclear.
© Motorsport Images
good morning
A sunny Tuesday morning and we are back at the start for another ticker day. We have brought a colorful program from Australia and we are going to work some more.
Do it at this point today Norman Fisherman, who warmly welcomes you at this point. Do you have any questions or comments? Then use the contact form or the hashtag #FragMST on Twitter.