In the round-up: Sebastian Vettel says his latest helmet design is a tribute to touring car ace Bernd Schneider.
[dietersinboxpromo]
What they say
Bernd Schneider: A touring car legend. He turned 55, I’ve got number five on the car so I thought it was a good time.
[He’s] a close friend, I think he’s one of the best German drivers in history. He was in Formula 1, but with a really poor car. A shame, I think he had the potential to do a lot more but what he did in touring cars is pretty impressive.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
All the Ferrari-powered drivers apart from Vettel have taken new MGU-Ks. Vettel and @Charles_Leclerc have also taken new energy stores. These are all the second examples of these components, so no penalties. #F1 #GermanGP pic.twitter.com/rLvIQpTK8s
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) July 26, 2019
Spare a thought for our tire men Harvey and Graham – they’ve definitely got the hottest job going 😰#HaasF1 #GermanGP #FP2 pic.twitter.com/f4cA868zY6
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) July 26, 2019
Detoured to @Porsche museum on way to Hockenheim to take in the 917’s 50th anniversary display. Wonderful cars lined up, including 1970/1 LM24 winners, Pink Pig, CanAm and Flat-16 cars, plus tech. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/nS4Qyv048u
— Fritz-Dieter Rencken (@RacingLines) July 24, 2019
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
"Towards the end of the session I lost the car exiting the final corner during a long run and hit the barrier. Fortunately, I wasn’t using my race engine or gearbox, but more importantly I’m really sorry for the boys in the garage and I want to apologise to them as the repairs will make for a long night. "
"I don’t want to make any conclusions yet, but the upgrades didn’t work immediately. I can’t go back to Romain’s (Grosjean) car this weekend, which is a little bit of a bummer, but we also need to learn, and that’s the work I’m doing – we’re continuing the development."
Mercedes kicks off German Grand Prix weekend at Hockenheim (Mercedes)
"We had quite a few new bits on the car, some for performance and some to improve the cooling. So far, it all seems to be in the right direction but there is so much overheating on the tyres today that it is hard to know where we stand."
Again, Dixon leads the way at Mid-Ohio; Pigot second (IndyCar)
"Dixon, who has a track-record five IndyCar race wins at this permanent road course, led Friday’s first practice for the Indy 200. His best lap was 1 minute, 6.0973 seconds."
Beckmann: 'I used to hope for another formation lap' (Formula 3)
"With Robert (Shwarzman), it was not such a friendly rivalry. That one was more like a small Rosberg/Hamilton one. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that we are friends now, but for sure, we are definitely not hating each other. It is good to have these battles in the younger years and Robert is a very tough competitor."
First-ever autonomous race (Roborace via YouTube)
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Comment of the day
Neil doesn’t buy Sebastian Vettel’s explanation for why support for the German Grand Prix has dwindled:
That’s a painfully weak attempt at an excuse.
I suspect the real reason for the reduction in interest is down to a number of things. Obviously, the lack of a driver/team the fans want to support has some impact – Vettel, as well as Rosberg and Hulkenberg, for various reasons never gained the adulation of their home fanbase in anything like the way Schumacher did. And Mercedes don’t even come close to pulling in the same love Ferrari receive in Italy. Then there’s the stuff that doesn’t respect national borders and has an impact everywhere… competition from other sports, other entertainment options.
“My favourite driver got a five-second penalty and I disagreed with it” is the reason a 13-year-old child on the F1 Facebook comments section ‘stops watching F1’. Can’t see it influencing a real fan’s long-term decision-making on whether or not they attend a grand prix.
Neil (@neilosjames)
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Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
27th July 2019, 0:55
History made!
Oh … umm … and maybe this is the first fan comment too! At least on this website anyway.
ColdFly (@)
27th July 2019, 8:39
Can you share a link to the drivers standing, @drycrust?
Phylyp (@phylyp)
27th July 2019, 9:35
1. AI
2. AI
3. AI
4. AI
…
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
27th July 2019, 9:35
not the first first but the first of that championship. why have a cockpit? the other autonomous race cars I remember were open wheeled no roof.
TK (@oeuribe)
27th July 2019, 16:22
Probably they don’t have enough resources to develop their own car. Just got a neat looking option and set up their AI in them?
Duncan Snowden
27th July 2019, 21:45
Back-to-back testing. As I understand it, the first car was basically a proof-of-concept, but with the second generation they want to be able to compare the AI with real drivers in the same car.
maiagus
27th July 2019, 1:12
Small steps on autonomous race but great leaps.
I wish the poeple in charge of it drop the reality show vibes their videos usually show.
The video is six minutes long and “racing” mostly takes 10 seconds.
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
27th July 2019, 7:43
There is no racing involved. It’s just two engineering student projects struggling to slowly stay on track at the same time.
It’s just a starting point for something that will possibly make everyday motoring a little more safer and convenient but that development has been going on for decades in the industry already.
So I’m struggling to see the benefits of this exercise.
I’m not going be interested seeing an automaton race other automatons in a series or even an exhibition race.
TK (@oeuribe)
27th July 2019, 16:26
It is a nice engineering project. Once you remove humans, you can develop vehicles that move at incredible speeds without any worry about hurting anyone. This would lead to faster vehicles, better materials, faster real time data processing from the AI and better trained engineers; to which I’m all up for it.
Also, probably the reason I watch F1 over other racing series is for the role of the team rather than the driver. This would be a team sport with no real head, which I’m all up for it.
JohnH (@johnrkh)
27th July 2019, 2:24
Autonomous racing is totally soulless.
Niefer (@niefer)
27th July 2019, 2:45
I don’t fall for it, but good thing about autonomous racing is that they could really push for tech innovations, besides the most prominent of them.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
27th July 2019, 8:11
@niefer Pretty much the same from me.
I have no interest at all and never would have (unless something like machine guns and rockets were allowed, no one to get hurt after all ;)) but the technology is definitely worth pushing so fair enough.
Richard
27th July 2019, 4:26
If the car crashes, I wonder how that feels…….for the operator who lost his set of wheels
Phylyp (@phylyp)
27th July 2019, 6:25
Good COTD @neilosjames
Jere (@jerejj)
27th July 2019, 7:34
I couldn’t agree with the last paragraph of the COTD. So true.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
27th July 2019, 10:22
The problem with that last paragraph is that it is so true. It actually matters, fans like that though the scenario is unrealistic, if the driver got a penalty that driver doesn’t matter and doesn’t have many fans. Most of f1’s viewership is Lewis and Max Verstappen fans, couple that with 6 UK f1 teams, a big cable deal in the UK, big sponsors coming from Holland, heineken and a new gp to boot.
Big sponsorship and viewership tied together, no wonder fom is bias. fom must feel like f1 might collapse otherwise so fan b oizz are a priority, not actual core audience becuase core audience much like core teams aren’t going anywhere.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
27th July 2019, 10:30
Great job by Gasly, as predicted.
socksolid (@socksolid)
27th July 2019, 14:13
The thing about f1 and its declining success is that many people think it is one or two things when in reality it is lots of things. And some things have actually improved most things have not. Just go back 10 years and look at the quality of the broadcast. I’d be willing to say there is a clear improvement there. F1 also has this big issue that they blame others for their own lack of success. So they say things like today’s young people don’t care about motor racing and cars so they don’t watch f1. It is just defeatist attitude and blaming others for your own fault at failing to make f1 exciting to young fans. It’s like mars or snickers came out and said kids don’t eat candy anymore. Horsefeathers!
If I had to pick one thing I’d say the biggest issue for f1 is that it thinks its job is to provide good show for the car manufacturers and not viewers and fans.