Raikkonen’s replacement to be known within two weeks – Vasseur

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In the round-up: Alfa Romeo team boss Frédéric Vasseur says that the driver market rumours should be decided soon, saying the team has to “move forward.”

In brief

Vasseur: driver news could be “before Monza, after Monza or before Sochi”

Frédéric Vasseur said that the decision on who will replace Kimi Raikkonen at the team will come before the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi.

“I don’t know if it will be next week or the week after,” Vasseur explained, “but I think that now we have almost all the cards in our hands and we have to move forward and to take a decision.

“And in that case, we will be able to do it quickly. I don’t know if it’s before Monza, after Monza or before Sochi.”

Valtteri Bottas is widely expected to be confirmed as Raikkonen’s replacement, freeing up a seat at Mercedes which will be taken by George Russell.

Steiner: teams would “chip in” to compensate Spa ticketholders

Haas team principal Günther Steiner said teams won’t object to money being used to compensate fans who attended the Belgian Grand Prix in some way. Only three laps of the race were run, all behind the Safety Car, before the event was abandoned.

Asked what form compensation should take, Steiner said: “I have no opinion on that because I don’t know the facts and the contracts which are in place and making comments now, maybe we start something which we don’t want to.

“I’m sure Formula 1 will be doing the right thing and if we have to chip in, I think we chip in. That is what we have to do. But what and when it is done, this is not what I’m doing.”

Kimilainen on W Series pole after only three laps in practice

Kimilainen impressed with W Series pole
Emma Kimilainen followed up her masterful win in the wet at Spa with pole position at Zandvoort despite a technical issue limited her running in practice. Kimilainen beat Alice Powell by just seven hundredths of a second, with points leader Jamie Chadwick two tenths further off.

Immediately after the qualifying session Kimilainen said she felt “confused” as a live timing problem delayed her race engineer’s confirmation she had taken pole. “It was a really, really tight fight all the way from the beginning to until the end,” she said.

“My engineer didn’t say anything to me the whole in lap and then right at the end, he was like, ‘oh, I’m so confused, we had a good car and everything, it’s P3. No, no, no, wait, wait. What is it? It’s P1. Which was so good, I was like, ‘wow, I thought I got a good lap’.”

Kimilainen said she was especially pleased to have been fastest, given her lack of earlier running. “I pushed so much in the end, like the last lap and then I did a little mistake in sector three and I was so on the edge and I was just hoping that damn, I will get it.

“When I got it I’m like, yes, because that car felt amazing and they’ve done an amazing job. Since I didn’t do any practice, only three laps because of the technical issue I had in practice. So, yeah, I’m happy.”

Hauger returns to F3 pole at Zandvoort

Formula 3 championship leader Dennis Hauger, who struggled last weekend at Spa, has put himself back to the front of the field by claiming four points for pole position. He beat David Schumacher and Victor Martins to be fastest. Hauger’s closest title rival, Jack Doohan, took fourth place.

Hauger, joined the F1 field in praising the challenges of Zandvoort, particularly its two banked corners.

“There’s so much camber and everything happening is really technical, so you really have to focus forward,” he said. “It’s got quite fast sequences but still technical, it’s really cool to be on the edge around here. It doesn’t forgive you if you make a mistake so you really have to put it all together and that’s what we managed to do in quali. I’m obviously really happy with it.”

Hauger will, as per F3’s current format, start tomorrow’s morning race 12th, pole giving him the lead in Sunday’s higher-points-value race.

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Comment of the day

As a sort of ultimate sporting parents competition hots up between Toto Wolff and Christian Horner as to who can place their driver at Williams or Alfa Romeo, NewVerstappenFan notes that the traditional route out of F1 appears to have looped back on itself.

It seems, there are two ways of advancing your F1 career. Hired by Red Bull, or fired by Red Bull..

Meanwhile Mercedes seems to be learning about this very slowly.
@jureo

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Author information

Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

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8 comments on “Raikkonen’s replacement to be known within two weeks – Vasseur”

  1. Re cotd I really hope the new regs give more drivers a chance, and hopefully new teams join so more drivers get a chance. ATM there’s more deserving drivers than seats.

    I think as f1 runs out of room for innovation they should change the rules more often. Mercedes has been phenomenal in the hybrid era but have also had to contend with less reg changes than previous dominant teams. I think this would work really well in the cost cap era because it would increase the focus on having the best personnel possible and not just more money to throw at problems.

    1. Generally speaking @realnigelmansell, periods of continuity in the regulations allow the field to close up, because diminishing returns for those at the front are dwarfed by the gains the teams further back can make. In the current era this hasn’t happened because the teams are so restricted on what they can develop, so Mercedes have had an advantage baked in since 2014 which has been very hard for other teams to overcome.

      What regulation changes do, though, is allow for the possibility of shaking up the field, though the status quo usually reasserts itself in time. 2009 is a good example – Brawn stole a march on the rest of the field early on, but by the end of the season McLaren and Ferrari were winning races again.

      1. Red bull also, defitely one of the best cars of 2009 overall.

  2. Cry me a river for the ticket holders of SPA…. How about compensation for Melbourne for setting up an entire race track in 2020 and the government giving the green light to race with no spectators, only all the teams to start leaving the country before the race was declared off by F1 management. Yet the rest of the season saw races go ahead with team members testing positive and drivers testing positive and even missing races. it cost tax payers hundreds of millions to set up the race for it to be cancelled because teams started leaving. if the teams are feeling generous all of the sudden then we have 5 million Victorian state tax payers who are still out of pocket hundred of millions for a race that we did not cancel (we were happy to race with no fans)…. Show me the money!

  3. Raikonnen’s “replacement” suddenly known much sooner! He’s tested Covid positive and is replaced for this weekend by Kubica!

    1. You beat me to it.

  4. Not Russell’s future race engineer since he would/will get Bottas’ equivalent taking his garage side.

  5. Kimilainen? susprised the name is not Mika

Comments are closed.