https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/36...-week-assessed

The crazy week analyzed.

Proposed calendar of (first?) 8 races

https://www.formula1.com/content/dam...9col/image.jpg

https://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id...ce-chase-carey

A driver testing positive for the coronavirus would not automatically see a race cancelled once Formula One gets back underway next month, the sport's CEO, Chase Carey, said.

Just a little less than a month to go. Now we just need to see what happens between now and then. Just look forward to seeing some racing. :tup:

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14...nen--alfa-boss

Charles Leclerc's ex-Formula 1 team manager says the Ferrari driver has a mix of characteristics from world champions Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen.

Leclerc made his F1 debut with Sauber in 2018 before being promoted into a race seat with Ferrari after just one year.

The Monegasque youngster starred throughout last year, winning two races and finishing fourth in the drivers' standings ahead of four-time world champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

Leclerc was rewarded with a new long-term contract at Ferrari, keeping him at the team until the end of 2024.

Long-serving Sauber team manager Beat Zehnder worked with Leclerc through the 2018 season and immediately felt aware he was dealing with a special talent.

"It was a very good season, it was a very interesting season working again with a young kid," Zehnder told Autosport in an interview for a series celebrating 50 years of Sauber in motorsport.

"We've done this before, but for the first time in a long time, we had a newcomer, a very special driver with a very special attitude.

"I've never seen a driver like Charles before, and it was again very rewarding for all the work we had, for all the difficult times we had, to work with a kid again.

"I've always said that for me, from his speed, he's Kimi Raikkonen, and from his working attitude, he's probably Michael [Schumacher].

"Give him a good car, and he's going to be world champion, definitely."

Zehnder has been part of Sauber's motorsport programme since 1987, working with Schumacher in the early part of his career when he raced sports cars before making his F1 debut.

Zehnder and Raikkonen first met in 2000 when the young Finn was preparing for his rookie F1 season with Sauber in 2001, before linking back up in 2019 upon Raikkonen's return to Hinwil, with the team rebranded as Alfa Romeo Racing.

Leclerc's potential was also recognised by experienced Sauber team-mate Marcus Ericsson, who was not surprised to see the 22-year-old fare so well against Vettel at Ferrari.

"I could tell straightaway that this guy is special, this is a special talent," Ericsson told Autosport.

"When I saw him joining Ferrari and going up against Vettel, I knew he was going to be super-competitive - but maybe not that he was going to be as good as he was, only in his first year with Ferrari.

"I could tell that he is a very, very special driver and talent. He's definitely helped me to show what kind of driver I am.

"I think especially when he went on and the way he drove last year with Ferrari, [that] has also helped me I think in a way."

Saw this earlier this morning. :tup: The first race is going to be interesting to say the least.

Been raining for several days straight in the English midlands. McLaren ran their test laps in the very wet today.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/15...says-ricciardo

Renault's Daniel Ricciardo expects "driver egos" to come to the fore when Formula 1 racing resumes in Austria next month.

The Australian, who has the advantage of having conducted a test day at the Red Bull Ring with a two-year-old car this week, says the drivers will all be trying to show who has returned in the best form at the opener in Austria on 5 July.

Although the test was a useful boost Ricciardo, he expects rivals who have not had the chance to drive during the break to catch up by race day.

"We're going to get plenty of practice, so the race weekend will go as normal," he said in an F1 podcast. "We're going to get plenty of seat time before race day.

"But the lights are going to go out and for sure we're all going to be showing everyone, 'I trained harder in my quarantine,' or 'I'm less rusty than you are.' I'm sure some driver egos will get in the way.

"Or everyone will be really cautious, 'this feels foreign!' I think it's going to be pretty exciting. We don't really know how many races we're going to get this year, so you're probably going to get the mentality of let's make this one count."

Ricciardo, who announced his move to McLaren for 2021 during the delays to the current season, says the test with the RS18 was useful, especially in terms of getting his body used to driving after a break of over three months.

Drivers that I am excited to watch and hope win:

- Daniel Ricciardo
- Carlos Sainz
- Charles Leclerc
- Lando Norris

Driver drama that I have been craving:

- Max Verstappen vs. Everybody

Well, Charles Leclerc, anyway. ;-)

I agree - lots of great talent, young and old, on the grid. And Max VerCrashin' makes it interesting...

He would have won Bahrain had his car not let him down (MGU-K, I think) last year. But if you've never seen him in F2, this masterclass of passing is worth the next 5-1/2 minutes of your life to check out (sorry, I cannot embed as the video is property of Formula 1 and they don't allow that option).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh2wAbEJ7c4

:tiphat:

I like the comment that says you know you're good when your F2 race is showing on the Formula One channel lol

I expect fully Vettel will stick his nose and attitude where it doesnt belong. Ferrari have a nice potential management problem soon lol :)

Via SKY F1 -

Mercedes hope for car updates for Austria
The Silver Arrows head into the new season as favourites, and technical director James Allison says the team are aiming to provide Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas with an upgraded car in Austria, compared to what looked to be fastest at pre-season testing back in February.

"We haven't yet had a single race but actually quite a lot of time has passed since we launched this car," Allison said in a Petronas social media video. "If you imagine where the launch car was and the car that would have gone to Australia, that was frozen around about Christmas. So there was the whole of January, February, March, all making the car quicker in the wind tunnel and also the design compartments.

"And so we've got quite a lot of ideas about how to make it quicker, and quite a lot of those ideas were already in train and through the design office before we shut down nine weeks ago.

"So our challenge now is to ensure that quarter of a year of development can get off the drawing boards and onto the car as swiftly as possible. We hope to have a chunk of that for the first race in Austria, and the season that follows will of course take as much as the development as fast as we can get it onto the car in turn."