Welcome to Friday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Social media and links
'I know my time will come' - Russell (BBC)
'I wasn't going to just stand and be bullied around. People seem to always back down to him (Verstappen).'
Ecclestone completes sale of £500m private car collection - as Red Bull billionaire Mark Mateschitz (Daily Mail)
'Confirming the change of ownership, Ecclestone said: 'These are unique vehicles. They have written sport history and marked technical milestones. They embody 70 years of F1 history.''
Verstappen.com Racing announces 2025 program. Max: 'Exciting year ahead!' (Verstappen)
'The goal is to be competitive and fight in the top of the field. It is great that we now make it happen for a sim racer to take it up against established racing drivers.'
Hauger 'didn’t expect' dominant start to life in Indy Nxt (Formula Scout)
'Hauger was repeatedly praised the 'pure racing' of Indy Nxt already, describing the on-track experience in more positive terms than his previous home of Formula 2. 'I find it really, really funny and enjoyable out there, so having a good time and it’s going good so far,' he reflected.'
Team announces intention to use sustainable carbon fibre on W16 in 2025 (Mercedes)
'Working closely with the FIA within the scope of the relevant regulations, we aim to demonstrate that sustainable carbon fibre composites can perform to the same technically demanding requirements as traditional materials.'
Frijns to skip Sao Paulo round due to FE clash (Sportscar365)
'As well as Frijns, Toyota drivers Sebastien Buemi and Nyck de Vries, Peugeot duo Jean-Eric Vergne and Stoffel Vandoorne and Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s Norman Nato are all affected by the clash between WEC and Formula E.'
Amaury Cordeel, who started 78 Formula 2 races over the last three years with a best finish of fourth, will take the final seat on the grid for the upcoming season at Rodin following Christian Mansell's unexpected departure from the team earlier this week.
#F2
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— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet.bsky.social) 6 March 2025 at 13:07
Formula 1's official tyre supplier Pirelli will become the exclusive tyre supplier to Moto GP from 2027, replacing Michelin.
F1 owner Liberty Media is in the process of buying Moto GP, though the deal must be cleared by regulators first.
#F1 #MotoGP
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— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet.bsky.social) 6 March 2025 at 10:01
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Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to fahadalam007 and Emma Brooks!
On this day in motorsport
- Born on this day in 1970: Hideki Noda, who started three races for Larrousse in 1994, and whose Juju daughter now races
- 55 years ago today Jack Brabham scored his final F1 win in the season-opening South African Grand Prix at Kyalami, ahead of Denny Hulme and Jackie Stewart, the latter in one of five Marches entered in their first ever race
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I luv chicken
7th March 2025, 1:34
Good Luck to Moto GP. Hope it doesn’t rain, with those Pirellis mounted on the bikes. Make sure the riders insurance is topped up. I’ll pray for them.
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 3:57
MotoGP isn’t on Pirelli tires yet and their motorcycle tires are a whole different ball game. They’re used in multiple FIA series including Moto2 and Moto3. It probably helps that they haven’t been told to make junk tires by the series.
S Arkazam
7th March 2025, 6:12
El Pollo Loco,
Not a smart choice to disagree with I luv chicken.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
7th March 2025, 7:24
Both spitting feathers
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 17:06
He loves me. He says it right in his username.
AlanD
7th March 2025, 13:29
This is a big weakness of F1. When we had two tyre manufacturers and tyre wars, they had a significant impact on performance in a good way and there were definite differences in the way the two behaved on circuits. The current rules and requirements for tyres which degrade and artificial pit stops for compound changes really doesn’t do Pirelli any favours, and people do think that this is representative of Pirelli tyres as a whole.
Doh
7th March 2025, 15:45
Indycars tyres are required to have multiple stops per race too but they’re still a better tyre for racing than the pirelli F1 tyres have ever been. Apparently they don’t make good road tyres either and neither when they produced for wrc
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 17:13
Bridgestone and Michelin are the best. Pirelli has a few good road car tires in their most expensive/extreme road car tires, but they’re now as good as their Michelin and Bridgestone equivalents. I’ve had each of their “premier” tires on my M5. Though I’m basing which is better on the data and community’s reviews.
Michelin and Bridgestone vs Pirelli is like McDonalds + Starbucks vs Chipotle. They’re behemoths with utterly massive market shares and therefore resources like huge R&D departments. Pirelli is like a local chain by comparison.
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 17:14
not as good as*
MichaelN
7th March 2025, 20:16
Along with Continental and Goodyear, they indeed make up the premier names.
What is best is always hard to say. I was recently looking at some all-season tyres to use in winter, and while Michelin’s CrossClimate line is considered to be the benchmark, usually taking the top spot in comprehensive tests, these same tests also show it’s more heavily biased towards performance on snow, whereas the Bridgestone’s Turanza line tends to perform (a bit) better in cold and wet conditions. Given that proper snowdays are very rare for me – less than a handful a year, if that – the Bridgestone would be the better option for winter use for me.
Does it really matter big picture? Probably not a whole lot. You’re unlikely to end up with a poor product with any of these companies. But whatever the case, stay away from cheap ‘budget tyres’. Something as crucial as tyres isn’t something you want to save a bit of money on. It’s not worth it.
MichaelN
7th March 2025, 20:05
The general public probably doesn’t care either way. The F1=Pirelli connection is probably all the thought they’ll ever give the tyres, and that’s what Pirelli is there for. People who are more interested in the sport will know that Pirelli is making fast-degrading tyres for the sake of strategic games in F1.
The real problem is that Pirelli is utterly incapable of solving two problems that have plagued them from the very first iteration of their F1 tyres: awfully narrow operating windows, and – by racing standards – very specific use and pressure requirements to keep the tyres from literally falling apart. Neither of these two things inspire much confidence in their other products, no matter how well Pirelli’s road tyres do on the big German tyre tests.
S
8th March 2025, 5:23
Both of these problems are a direct result of F1’s technical regulations and the target letter. Not Pirelli.
There are physical and chemical limitations at play here, in addition to the ‘necessary’ performance aims imposed on F1’s tyre supplier – which will always be “more” and “with less compromise”.
No other tyre manufacturer is making anything better (or even as good) for this set of circumstances – so there is no comparison to make. It’s guaranteed that Michelin, Bridgestone or anyone else would be in very much the same situation, and making very similar compromises as a result.
As for their respective road going tyres – which are the best tyres? The answer is always going to be a question: “For what?”
It can be as complex choosing tyres for a road car as for a race car – perhaps even more so – but for most people, their answer will be either the cheapest one or the one that other people say is good. And quite often, that’s the wrong one for their specific circumstances.
El Pollo Loco
8th March 2025, 7:28
+1
anon
7th March 2025, 8:14
I luv chicken, as noted by El Pollo Loco, the riders in MotoGP were actually quite happy with Pirelli’s tyres in the past.
Michelin, by comparison, has been criticised by the riders in MotoGP for repeated issues with the tyres for several years now. Handling imbalances have been a constant problem, with Michelin resorting to mandating higher minimum pressures for the tyres, with penalties for the riders if they were under pressure, as a temporary fix.
Basically, the list of complaints that are usually thrown at Pirelli in F1 – tyres being too thermally sensitive, overly high tyre pressures, excessive tyre management and so on – are exactly the same list of complaints being thrown at Michelin in MotoGP.
There was supposed to be a new front tyre coming this year that was meant to improve things, but Michelin suddenly announced that it was being postponed until 2026. It’s a move that has seen them being criticised, as there are complaints that the riders are now having to spend most of the races trying to manage the tyre pressures to try and avoid being penalised.
It’s also seen Michelin resorting to using it’s political power to try to suppress criticism too, with teams receiving “advice” from the governing body to not publicly criticise Michelin – however, they are currently in a public dispute with the Aprilia team over a pre-season testing crash by Jorge Martin anyway. Aprilia have put the blame onto Michelin, questioning why the tyre seemed to not be heating up as expected and asking why they were given tyres manufactured in June last year, with Michelin in turn putting the blame onto Martin.
AlexS
7th March 2025, 19:38
Good point, i remember the criticism to Michelin tires last year a couple of times.
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 3:52
Alonso, not counting loaners to his museum, is probably one of very individuals to ever have a collection of F1 cars anywhere near half the size of Bernie’s monstrous + now former, collection in terms of sheer volume. Being the only driver to have every F1 car he’s ever driven (a stipulation of all his driver contracts going back to 2003 + Stoddart gave him his Minardi) hasn’t hurt. A visit to see Red Bull’s collection of cars, planes, trains, etc. at some point feels like a must.
Max’s team sounds pretty interesting. He’s really gotten into all sides of racing both virtual and real.
S Arkazam
7th March 2025, 6:24
Interestingly ‘virtual racing’ is synonymous to its antonym.
Or for those of you for whom it’s still too early: virtual racing might not be physical, but it’s still real.
An Sionnach
7th March 2025, 13:11
Actual racing in virtual cars?
S Arkazam
7th March 2025, 19:25
I hear some people don’t use cars to race, but horses instead; or just running shoes.
Do you question the competition part or the aim to finish first?
SteveP
7th March 2025, 20:12
Then it’s not virtual.
Virtual: “not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so.”
As per the Virtual Server vs. Real Tinware descriptions common in an IT department.
S Arkazam
8th March 2025, 6:33
Glad you agree there.
Interestingly, in this case the server is not just real, it also exists physically, so there is nothing ‘virtual’ there.
Of course, if called ‘cloud server’, then you are talking about a virtual cloud, or if you are even more pedantic than I: an imaginative cloud (the cloud isn’t even recreated in software).
MacLeod (@macleod)
7th March 2025, 8:03
That would be an great expansion for the Red Bull collection so a good thing to safe racecar history.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
7th March 2025, 8:57
I didn’t know this about Fernando. Did he take receipt of a McLaren-Honda?
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 17:05
Yes. In fact I’ve seen one in person. He loaned it the Petersen Automotive Museum for a while. I think they have a McLaren Renault Alonso car right now.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
7th March 2025, 6:51
No, not Cordeel, not again. It’s time to leave F2, Amaury.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
7th March 2025, 9:05
I know, it seems a bit of a waste, unless something drastic happens and they win every race, they’re never going to ‘graduate’. Verschoor is entering his 5th season this year, again great for him, but for the series, not so much. They’re racking up the superlicense points however, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have more than recent Indy 500 winners.
MichaelN
7th March 2025, 10:57
Not really. F2 only gives points down to 10th in the standings and only counts the last the seasons. Cordeel thus has zero points, and Verschoor only 10 (8th and 9th).
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
7th March 2025, 11:41
I didn’t think of their relatively poor performances contributing comparatively little. Thank you.
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 17:28
Actually, I think it’s the reverse. Great for F2 (they want every last rich kid spending cash they can get), but not so great for him. He’s just wasting more $ to go nowhere. They shouldn’t even let drivers compete in more than three or a maximum of four full seasons. Has any non-pay driver ever made it to F1 after doing more than three F2/GP3/etc. seasons?
Alonslow
7th March 2025, 14:57
Last places in F2 should get relegated to F3
Robbie1
7th March 2025, 14:21
On what planet does a serial liar who, after causing a massive crash couldn’t wait to get out of his car to smack the victim on his head and then goes on a temper tantrum ridiculing said victim, has any right whining about non existent bullies?
Planet UKF1?
Planet British Hypocrisy?
It is disgraceful how the British press treats George “Bully” Russell and what they, just like with serial crasher Lewis, let him get away with.
What’s next: dub him the cleanest and most sincere driver in F1 history?
MichaelN
7th March 2025, 15:41
Russell has his own moments, I suppose. But he’s not wrong that Verstappen’s antics have seen many drivers shy away from fighting him on equal terms. A lot of his supposed ‘comeback races’ are in reality little more than a collection of dull DRS-passes in which the driver being overtaken is more concerned about managing his tyres than losing a position to Verstappen.
Even at the front of the grid we’ve seen plenty of moments where drivers like Norris, Leclerc and others have been more than obliging, even taking to the run-off to avoid Verstappen.
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 17:30
As a huge Williams fan I really wanted to like Russell, but he always came off as overly smug and that incident sealed it for me. I couldn’t like him after that (though I don’t exactly hate him either – he’s too anodyne to hate).
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 17:43
PS – Not sure how one could ever define Lewis as a serial crasher. He’s gotten a light touch on some of his incidents though.
PPS – I’m sympathetic to the bias argument you, but if want to persuade people to the merits of your argument, it’s best not to appear frothing at the mouth. Hyperbole is about as effective as trying to win a girl’s heart by staring at her through her bedroom window while she sleeps.
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 17:45
bias argument, but if you*
An edit feature wound be really, really great.
tielemst
11th March 2025, 14:27
*would. :)
BNK R
7th March 2025, 17:34
Lol anyone would think you are talking about Max not George. Max crashed into plenty of drivers in his early days until they learned to just move out of his way. George has crashed plenty as well, but not on purpose into others to cause them to make way for him.
anon
7th March 2025, 21:17
Robbie1, this sort of nasty xenophobia does not have a place here – if you want to abuse people because you are offended at them not being the same nationality as you, then this is not the sort of site that welcomes that sort of behaviour.
David BR (@david-br)
8th March 2025, 1:15
+100 More than another nationalism this year already to last the rest of the century.
Formula 1 is all about numerous teams all made up of multiple nationalities working together and competing in a global sport. It’s actually one of its endearing aspects.
El Pollo Loco
8th March 2025, 7:39
He’s out of line in how he communicates, but I’m not sure how accusing the British press of nationalistic bias (something I’ve many Brits themselves agree with) amounts to xenophobia. That’s a big leap. Neither is criticizing, where justified or not, two drivers who happen to be British. It’s no different than the very many users here who caustically criticize Max (where it be for his driving behavior or attitude) and they are never accused of xenophobia.
David BR (@david-br)
8th March 2025, 10:58
That’s disingenuous, Max’s Dutch nationality is never an issue in criticisms of his driving or anything else.
The British press is obviously biased, we’ve had this discussion numerous times, but really no more than the Italian or German press, for example. Formula 1 just happens to gravitate to some extent around the UK due to most teams being based there and, perhaps for that reason, currently has a large contingent of British drivers.
The problem is nationalism and xenophobia increasing in general, including now as a result of your (?) incumbent president and his belligerence towards a bunch of other countries, while supporting far right nationalists elsewhere. Formula 1 should be a nationalism-free space, even if some fans support drivers due to the nationality of drivers or teams.
El Pollo Loco
8th March 2025, 20:21
What in your comment negates what I say. You say I’m being disingenuous and then say nothing that contradicts what I said, unless you’re trying to imply he’s being xenophobic by vitriolic about how he views the press coddling those drivers. That’s not xenophobic. He’s not angry because they’re British. He’s angry because he feels it’s hypercritical. Until he says he just a problem with British people period, there’s no reason to think otherwise.
Let’s not think about Agent Orange aka Agent Krasnov. I can only take so much thinking about how his endless treasons. F1 is a small matter compared to them literally feeding Russia with force location and disposition of AFU forces. Though it’s equally disingenuous to bring that up as an influence here considering OP is clearly a rabid Max fan. AFAIK, Max isn’t American and this fellow isn’t Dutch.
El Pollo Loco
8th March 2025, 20:23
hypocritical*
Autocorrect does so many insane things these days. lol, hypercritical. Why would someone be using that?
Drg
7th March 2025, 21:29
Hmmm
Off the meds at the moment Robbie?
Cleanest driver over a 18 year period – serial crasher?
Come on…
David BR (@david-br)
8th March 2025, 1:16
For once they’re actually on about another British driver. Rare moment.
Leo B
8th March 2025, 18:28
Bernie sells his motor collection for £1/2 billion.
All money he would have put straight into F1 had he stayed: New paddocks everywhere, facilities for fans, esp in rainy Spa. Spacious underground parking in silverstone.
Pity he was pushed out.
Ferdi
11th March 2025, 14:14
I agree. He had his fair share of authoritarian behavior for sure, but Liberty is a terrible owner since they do not respect the sport, just the entertainment value and it’s associated revenues. Bernie at least loved the sport. I haven’t seen any evidence Liberty understands the sport. They are very good at building entertainment IP however.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
11th March 2025, 17:37
Surely you’re joking? The idea Ecclestone would have spent his money helping businesses he didn’t own is totally unrealistic.