Mercedes Formula 1 driver Valtteri Bottas says he initially felt pain in his right knee following the “nasty” second impact in his Mexican Grand Prix qualifying crash. Bottas crashed at the final corner on his last run in Q3 after running wide and sliding into the concrete wall, where he sustained relatively little damage until
Formula 1
Charles Leclerc emerged on top of a late shootout on a drying track to head a Ferrari 1-2 in final practice for Formula 1’s Mexican Grand Prix. Leclerc edged team-mate Sebastian Vettel by 0.027s as Valtteri Bottas lapped just over a tenth of a second off the pace in the lead Mercedes. The session started
Renault Formula 1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul says increasingly complex regulations could lead to a “wild west” where teams protest each other based on speculation. Abiteboul says there should be a code of conduct to stop that happening, especially now that a third set of regulations – financial – will join technical and sporting from
Red Bull Formula 1 driver Alex Albon has lamented the “frustrating mistake” that led to his crash in Friday practice at the Mexican Grand Prix. Albon clipped the outside kerb entering the Turn 7 left-hander on a flying lap early in the second free practice session, and lost control of his car – which went
Charles Leclerc will be more careful at the start of the Mexican Grand Prix following the “useless” risk that caused his clash with Max Verstappen in Formula 1’s previous race. Ferrari driver Leclerc was overtaken by Verstappen at the start in Japan and Leclerc ran wide into Turn 2 as he fought back and hit
Lewis Hamilton has outlined in detail how he has tried to become more environmentally friendly and how he hopes to encourage Formula 1 and others to do the same. The five-time world champion recently wrote an impassioned series of posts on his Instagram page in which he said the state of the planet left him
Charles Leclerc thinks questions about the legality of Ferrari’s Formula 1 engines are an attempt to “destabilise” his team – which he insists is not worried about the situation. Amid Ferrari’s current F1 power advantage, Autosport revealed that a number of its rivals had written to the FIA seeking clarification about the legality of some
The latest edition of The Autosport Podcast delves into Lewis Hamilton’s suggestion that Mercedes has “no hope” of challenging Ferrari on the straights in Formula 1’s Mexican Grand Prix. In our preview to the race, Scott Mitchell, Jack Benyon and Edd Straw discuss whether Ferrari should again be expected to set the pace in qualifying
Renault has had both its cars disqualified from Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix for using an illegal driver aid. Following a protest lodged by the Racing Point team, the FIA stewards held a teleconference hearing on Wednesday to evaluate whether a brake bias adjustment system used by Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg in Suzuka was
Renault says the “subjectivity” of determining a driver aid and “variability” of penalties in related cases will inform whether it appeals its disqualification from Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix. After the Suzuka race, Racing Point protested Renault and claimed its rival used a pre-set lap distance-dependent brake bias adjustment system that was in violation of
Formula 1 will broadcast the Mexican Grand Prix weekend on entertainment platform Twitch as part of an attempt to attract new audiences. All sessions from this weekend’s Mexico City event will be shown free of charge in six countries – Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden – on Twitch’s main twitch.tv website and mobile
The 2018 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winner Tom Gamble drove a Formula 1 car for the first time at Silverstone on Tuesday as part of his prize. Gamble, 17, has spent the 2019 season competing in the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe series for the WRT squad in an Audi R8 LMS. Although Aston Martin
After three increasingly Ferrari dominated years, the 2003 Formula 1 season was blown open as Michelin runners McLaren and Williams made it a three-way fight with Renault not far behind. But just as either Williams’s Juan Pablo Montoya or McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen seemed poised to halt Michael Schumacher’s run of titles, a tyre controversy erupted
Carlos Sainz Jr believes he and the McLaren Formula 1 team are now more than just ‘best of the rest’ in the 2019 season. Sainz is now sixth in the drivers’ championship, helped by Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon – his closest pursuers – splitting their seasons between frontrunner Red Bull and midfield Toro Rosso.
McLaren believes the decision to make concept changes to its 2020 Formula 1 car will not risk throwing away the progress it has made during the current campaign. The team is on course to end the 2019 season as the fourth-best team after it finished sixth in 2018. Part of its progress has come from
Formula 1’s strict rules mean that livery variety is increasingly rare in the modern era. But there have been times in F1 history in which a team has been able to run a one-off or rare livery thanks to the likes of sponsor agreements, a consensus from all teams to allow a different design or
Pascal Wehrlein says he is open to the possibility of a Formula 1 return with the Campos Racing-linked entity that recently stated it is targeting a 2021 grid spot. Wehrlein, who is now a Mahindra Racing driver in Formula E, last raced in F1 in 2017 after spending two seasons competing for Manor and Sauber
Lewis Hamilton wants less drag and more power from the 2020 Mercedes Formula 1 car, admitting “it’s not been a great year” for engine development by his team. Engine superiority was a cornerstone of the start of Mercedes’ dominant run in the current F1 era, but its advantage has steadily been eroded and Ferrari is
Jean Alesi’s Formula 1 career was one of unfulfilled promise – the talent some expected to challenge Ayrton Senna ultimately winning just one grand prix. How different could that have been had Alesi ended up at the ultimately dominant Williams team in the early 1990s rather than at the troubled Ferrari? While still making his
While Formula 1 quickly ruled out last weekend’s truncated two-day Japanese Grand Prix schedule being adopted permanently, it was clear many drivers would be keen for such a timetable revamp. The arrival of super typhoon Hagibis led to F1 calling off Saturday running at Suzuka early on the Friday – which made the opening day’s
Max Verstappen reckons Red Bull-Honda will only get podium finishes at best in the remainder of the 2019 Formula 1 season and cannot see further chances to win grands prix. Verstappen has won the upcoming Mexican GP for the last two years. But after a strong mid-season run – in which Verstappen won in Austria
McLaren’s underdog star Carlos Sainz Jr has got between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen at the top of Autosport readers’ Formula 1 driver rankings after the Japanese Grand Prix. Sainz’s strong performances at the head of the midfield have made him one of the heroes of the 2019 F1 season – and that’s reflected in
Sebastian Vettel says Ferrari needs to work “better” rather than harder if it is to make the step required to end Mercedes’ Formula 1 championship domination. Mercedes sealed its sixth consecutive constructors’ championship in last weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, and Lewis Hamilton is on course to give it a sixth straight drivers’ title too. Vettel
Formula 1 looks set to abandon attempts to trial different race weekend formats in 2020, after teams failed to get behind the idea of reverse grids experiments earlier this week. The championship’s owner Liberty Media has been evaluating ways to spice up the show, and was hoping to test out three reverse grid qualifying races
Formula 1 tests are always a peak time of interest and intrigue, and they’ve also featured some unexpected driver and team link-ups over the years. Those often tantalising partnerships have not always led to a permanent deal for a variety of reasons – and some of them were maybe never as ‘real’ as they seemed.
The McLaren Formula 1 team’s sponsorship deal with Brazilian oil company Petrobras looks set to be brought to an official end within a matter of days, Autosport has learned. Petrobras, which is 64% owned by the Brazilian government through direct and indirect means, announced last year that it would be tying up with McLaren from
Ayrton Senna will be honoured by an official Formula 1 fan festival in his home town of Sao Paulo in early November, a week before the Brazilian Grand Prix. The festival will include demonstration runs, and Senna’s countrymen Emerson Fittipaldi and Felipe Massa will both drive examples of his old F1 cars on the streets
Gunther Steiner says Haas is resigned to a difficult end to the 2019 Formula 1 season and is now focused on preventing a repeat of its struggles next year. Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen – who spun in qualifying – again struggled to get their tyres to work at last weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix and
A number of Ferrari’s Formula 1 rivals have written to the FIA for clarity over the legality of design aspects they believe are behind the Italian team’s engine advantage. Autosport understands that Ferrari’s competitors are seeking clarification over whether they are clear to pursue similar concepts themselves or if the ideas fall foul of the
Mercedes finally responded to Ferrari’s post-summer break Formula 1 supremacy at the Japanese Grand Prix with some major car updates. While Ferrari maintained its edge in qualifying, tardy starts from Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc handed the lead to Valtteri Bottas – whose dominant victory by 13.343 seconds demonstrated that the new parts have made