May 2021

According to Portuguese publication A Bola, Cristiano Ronaldo did not return to Turin with the rest of the Juventus squad after this weekend’s devastating 3-0 defeat to AC Milan. It’s reported that the all-time great was not in attendance for the recovery session and instead joined club president Andrea Agnelli on a visit to the headquarters of Ferrari, in Maranello. Ferrari have shared an image on social media of Ronaldo alongside their Formula One drivers, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, who were both handed signed No.7 shirts from the Portuguese icon. Whilst some supporters may be unhappy at the visit, it’s worth noting that Juventus’ ruling Agnelli family also hold a stake in Ferrari. The fact Agnelli was alongside Ronaldo is a clear sign that the 36-year-old had permission to visit Ferrari in a brilliant PR move for both of the Agnelli family’s historic sports teams. ESPN actually report that Ronaldo was given a new Ferrari road car.

Daniil Kvyat will make a return to an F1 car this week at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for a testing session with Pirelli driving an Alpine. The Russian driver, who was let go by AlphaTauri at the end of 2020 and replaced by Yuki Tsunoda, will conduct a testing session in the R.S. 18 for Pirelli from tomorrow in his current role as back up driver to Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon. He previously tested for Ferrari back in 2018 after he was dropped from the then Toro Rosso team. Kvyat has recently also spoke of his desire to return to racing, saying that while he has various options on the table he remains committed to finding a way to return to Formula 1.

Alex Albon will be at the wheel of the Red Bull mule car for Tuesday and Wednesday’s tyre testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Albon has remained signed to Red Bull as a reserve driver for 2021, having lost his race seat for this season. Also taking part in DTM with Red Bull backing, Albon last drove an F1 car for a filming day with the RB15 ahead of the season start. Pirelli are carrying out 25 days of tyre testing for the 18 inch tyres ahead of their introduction in 2022, with Red Bull and Alpine carrying out three of those days this week in Barcelona. Red Bull will carry out the test on Tuesday and Wednesday, with Albon, before Alpine take over for Thursday with their reserve driver Daniil Kvyat at the wheel. Pirelli decide on the testing programme for such days, with teams not made aware of the details of the tyre compounds they are testing. All information gathered is shared amongst all the teams, with nine of the ten teams taking part in this tyre testing over the course of the year. Only Williams have, so far, been unable to provide a mule car for testing purposes.

Haas driver Nikita Mazepin has revealed his decision to kneel on the grid during the pre-race ceremony at the Spanish Grand Prix was to honour the Russian Victory Day. The momentary pause ahead of the race for drivers to optionally kneel was brought in last season after Lewis Hamilton campaigned for equality in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and the death of George Floyd in America. Ahead of this season, the ethos of the moment was changed to focus on the three pillars of F1’s Environment, Social and Corporate Governance [ESG] platform, #weraceasone, which are: sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and community. As this now allows drivers to mark the moment however they deem appropriate, Mazepin exercised his right to pay respect to Russia’s Victory Day which celebrates the end of the Second World War, which coincided with race day in Spain. Mazepin, who had not taken a knee this season prior to Sunday, explained: “In Russia, May 9 is the anniversary of winning the war and I just felt the need to take respect for my nation. “There were over 25 million people that died in the war, and my grandfather and grandmother were also fighting, so it was also respect for them.” Mazepin trailed home 19th and last of the classified finishers in the race, blaming balance issues in his underdeveloped Haas VF-21 for his lack of pace. Commenting on his race, Mazepin added: “It was very difficult. The balance shift was very strange. “We struggled a lot with mid-corner under-rotation in qualifying and then it went to extreme oversteer on all the sets we used in the race. “We need to analyse why the shift was so big, maybe it was the wind. Now we need to come back stronger for Monaco.”

Ferrari is performing much better this season than in 2020. Where the Italian team had to deal with a lot of disappointments last year, this season’s performance is positive again. According to Mattio Binotto, Carlo Vanzini is too critical for the team though. The Sky Italia commentator regularly states that Ferrari still doesn’t have a championship worthy car at their disposal. The Ferrari team boss, however, doesn’t understand the criticism as much. “It doesn’t do honour to the team, because I think it’s a team performance”, he told Formule1.nl. “Last year we were still lapped here, so the progression is clear. But I think we have to acknowledge the team’s effort here. This is a team effort, not just from the drivers.” According to the commentator Charles Leclerc would be ready to join Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in the battle for the world championship, but Ferrari refuses to provide him with a good car. In Barcelona, Leclerc was keen to compete with Valtteri Bottas, but failed. “Charles is great in a one-on-one duel. He had a good start and kept Bottas behind him. But we knew our race was not with him,” Binotto said. Hamilton is currently top of the world championship standings with 94 points, 14 points more than number two Verstappen. Bottas, Lando Norris and Leclerc complete the top five.

Jenson Button has suggested that, on raw talent alone, Max Verstappen edges Lewis Hamilton and it is the seven-time world champion’s extra experience that is giving him the advantage in the title race at the moment. Round four of the Formula 1 season went the Briton’s way at the weekend as a supreme drive coupled with fine tyre strategy from Mercedes eventually ousted Verstappen in his Red Bull in the closing stages of the race. Indeed, Hamilton is now 14 points clear in the Drivers’ standings with both actually enjoying their best-ever starts to a campaign, underlining just how ferocious the title fight is going to be this year. And, for 2009 champion Jenson Button, a man who partnered Lewis Hamilton between 2010 and 2012 at McLaren as his teammate, it’s the extra experience his compatriot has that is helping him keep the naturally more talented Verstappen at arm’s length right now. “Max is immensely talented. If you look at pure ability, Verstappen is probably the most talented of all the drivers,” Button said to Sky Sports F1 in their build-up show to Sunday’s race. “I know a lot of people won’t agree with me, but this is just my opinion. “The most complete driver, if you include experience and the way you approach races, is Hamilton. But if you only look at talent, you end up with Verstappen.” Certainly, it’s a big claim from the former McLaren and Williams driver, but this isn’t to suggest he is saying Hamilton isn’t talented. Clearly, Button feels that Max perhaps has the extra raw speed at the moment, but Hamilton is the complete package and that’s why he’s leading the standings right now – we’ll have to see how far Max’s talent can carry him this season as the fight for the title continues in a fortnight’s time in Monaco.

Red Bull’s new rear wing is perfectly legal, according to team boss Christian Horner. In Barcelona, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton referred to a new “bendy wing” on the Red Bull that supposedly gave Max Verstappen a straight-line advantage. Red Bull’s Horner suspects the idea might have been planted in the world championship leader’s head by his boss, Toto Wolff. “It’s something that Toto pointed out to me already,” Horner is quoted by the Dutch portal racingnews365. “I doubt it was Lewis’s opinion – it might have been inspired by someone else.” At any rate, Horner insists the allegedly ‘bendy’ wing is in fact fully legal. “The cars are of course subject to various inspections and the flexibility of the wings is also checked,” he said. “There are all kinds of tests that a part like that has to pass. “The FIA is completely satisfied with our car and it has passed all of the various rigorous testing,” he added.

Race director, Michael Masi has admitted that a radio call from a team boss during a race is a rarity, while the broadcasting of the message is a new innovation from F1. Whether he will take to social media to vent his anger and frustration remains to be seen, but on Sunday afternoon Tot Wolff joined that happy band of fans critical of Nikita Mazepin’s every move. Of course, the Austrian had good reason to be frustrated with the Russian, for, as is his wont, the Haas driver was holding up Lewis Hamilton despite repeated blue flags. “Michael, blue flags!” cried Wolff over the radio. “Michael this guy makes us lose the position.” The Russian subsequently moved aside, finishing the race two laps down on the leader. While it is not unusual to hear team bosses over the radio, broadcasting of their calls to race control is. “To be fair, I very rarely hear from Toto on the race control radio,” admitted race director, Michael Masi after the race. Indeed radio calls to race control are not usually broadcast, but this weekend F1 and the FIA have agreed to the innovation in a bid to allow fans even greater access to what is going on. “It actually came about through a discussion at the F1 Commission meeting last year,” explained Masi. “So viewers could hear a part of the broadcast – the communications between the pit wall and the teams – which is the regular part of what we do operationally. “The F1 Group through their broadcasts, has been doing some trials in the background and seeing what that looks like,” he added. “And all the teams were advised, and this weekend’s the first time it’s gone live to air.” Hands up all those who’d like to hear more of Guenther Steiner’s radio calls.

Red Bull did not have any strategic options to win the Spanish Grand Prix because they weren’t quick enough, Max Verstappen believes. Despite taking the lead of yesterday’s race at the start, and heading the field for 54 laps, Verstappen said it was inevitable Lewis Hamilton would find a way past him to win as they were “too slow”.“That’s how you sum it up,” he said in yesterday’s FIA press conference following the race. “There’s not much else to really discuss. “I tried everything to manage it as good as I could, looking after tyres and stuff, but it’s just not enough when behind you they are just pushing you at [that] rate. You see there’s clearly a bit more pace.” Verstappen came under pressure from Hamilton at the end of the first stint. The Red Bull driver pre-empted Mercedes’ pit call for Hamilton by coming in himself without alerting his team. However Hamilton made his second pit stop before Verstappen, and was able to catch and pass him to win. “You try to keep up with it and do the best possible strategy you can, but even if I think we had gone, let’s say, for that earlier second stop, I don’t think I would have caught Lewis up after that,” said Verstappen. “On the mediums I think I was just a bit slower. For Lewis to be that close on a track like this, all the time within a second, sometimes having DRS, it just shows that there was not much I could do out there to make a difference. “Of course you always want more. I think that always needs to be the aim. I think that we shouldn’t be happy with a second place at the moment, but nevertheless, we tried everything.”Red Bull began the season promisingly in Bahrain where Verstappen beat the Mercedes pair to pole position. Since then he says it’s become clear their rivals have a stronger package on race day. “It looks good when you are leading for so long in the race but you have to also look to all the things that are happening throughout the race. And I think, overall, we were just lacking a little bit of pace in the race. “It has been like this a little bit so far this season where it seems like qualifying, we are quite competitive and in the race struggling a little bit more.”

Lewis Hamilton says he wants to seal a new contract with Mercedes before Formula’s 1 summer break. The 36-year-old left it until last winter to sign his current one-year deal with the world champions. He said after winning Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix: “We don’t want to rush anything but I think we have to be sensible and start conversations. “They’re very complex, so hopefully soon we can start, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the actual job.” The delay in his contract talks last year was not planned. He and team boss Toto Wolff wanted to wait until after Hamilton had clinched a record-equalling seventh title. But when they scheduled talks over the final three races in the Middle East, Hamilton contracted coronavirus. The season ended only two weeks before Christmas, and then Wolff himself caught Covid-19 in the new year. Hamilton said the lateness of the talks had been difficult for both of them. “We never want to be in the position that we were in in January, in February,” he said. “It ruined my whole winter and I’m sure it wasn’t helpful for Toto’s, in terms of being out to be off and relaxed, so it felt like we didn’t really have much of a break.” Hamilton’s win in Spain was his third in four races this year and gave him a 14-point championship lead over his main rival, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Hamilton emphasised that he did not want talks to detract from his campaign for a record eighth championship. “We still have 19 races to do,” he said, “but it would be great to get something in place before the break so then we could, again, be in that break and have a clear picture of the future.” F1 has three weeks off between the Hungarian Grand Prix on 1 August and the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of that month. The season then has an intense second part, with 12 races scheduled to be crammed in between the last weekend in August and mid-December, although some are in doubt because of the pandemic. A week ago at the Portuguese Grand Prix, Wolff also indicated he wanted to get on with sorting a new contract with Hamilton. “We learned our lessons that we wouldn’t leave it to the Christmas holidays,” Wolff said. “We are in a very good place and our relationship is growing stronger every year and it’s about time to really give it a little nudge and start to speak and this is what we are going to do soon.” Assuming Hamilton stays at Mercedes, Wolff has to choose between his current team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Williams driver George Russell for the second seat. Russell is a strong candidate after outperforming Bottas when he stood in for Hamilton at the Sakhir Grand Prix last December, but it remains to be seen whether Wolff wants to risk upheaval given the harmonious relationship between Hamilton and Bottas. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon is a long-time Mercedes protege and is also out of contract at the end of the year, but the Frenchman is considered an outside bet for the seat.

has admitted he deliberately defied team orders after being told not to hold up Sir Lewis Hamilton in the Spanish Grand Prix. On lap 53, Bottas was told over the team radio to let Hamilton pass him seamlessly for second place as the seven-time World Champion chased down race leader Max Verstappen. Hamilton had made a second pit-stop 11 laps earlier to give himself fresher tyres for an attack on the Red Bull towards the end of the race, having been unable to overtake Verstappen when they were on the same strategy. But rather than pulling off the racing line to allow his Mercedes team-mate through without hindrance, the Finn made the move difficult for Hamilton who, in the end, had to execute what looked to be a proper overtaking manoeuvre to get by. Having said at the start of the season that he would be more single-minded this year, putting his own interests as a driver first, Bottas was sticking to that mindset when interviewed afterwards – and it remains to be seen how it influences his future in the team. Asked if he had let Hamilton pass at the first opportunity, Bottas, who went on to make it a hat-trick of third-place finishes in four races this year, told Sky F1: “No, I definitely could have let him by earlier. “But I was doing my own race, so there is always a moment to calculate things and I was trying to get Charles [Leclerc] out of the pit window so I could stop again and try and go for an extra point [with the fastest lap of the race]. “So the main thing in my mind was my own race. “There wasn’t that much [talk over the team radio]. They told me not to hold him up too much but, like I said, I was also doing my race. I’m not here to let people by…I’m here to race.” Bottas was never in the fight with Hamilton, who eventually passed Verstappen for the win on lap 60, after being overtaken in the opening exchanges by Leclerc’s Ferrari – which he says “compromised” his race thereafter. “What made it more tricky was I lost a place to Charles at lap one. He chose a better line through Turn 3,” said the 31-year-old. “That compromised the race a bit. It’s a bit of a shame but I’m pleased to make it to the podium.”