Wolff and I are two of the last 'dinosaur' team principals

6th August 2023, 0:016th August 2023, 0:05 | Written by Will Wood

In the round-up: Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says that the characters of his fellow team principals have changed over his time in the sport.

After starting as Red Bull team principal in 2005 during the team’s debut season, Christian Horner says he’s noticed a shift in the kinds of personalities he sees during team principals meetings.

“When I look around the room now, there’s very different personalities,” Horner said on the Unlapped podcast.

“When I first came into the sport, there was Ron Dennis, there was Flavio Briatore, there was Eddie Jordan, there was Jean Todt. There was Bernie Ecclestone running it, there was Max Mosley there, Frank Williams – some really big characters and personalities. Of course now you look around the room – maybe it’s just me getting older – but there’s more managers there and it’s gotten much more technical than the entrepreneurial side.

“So I suppose Toto [Wolff] and myself are perhaps two of the more ‘dinosaur’ type of characters compared to some. Even though I’m still on the younger side of the team principles. But the dynamic and the definition of what a team principal is these days is very different to when I first came into this post.”

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Sargeant is now the only active rookie driver remaining in the field who has yet to score a point in 2023. However, he believes his performances have been improving since Austria.

“I think the last four rounds, from a driving point of view, maybe we don’t have the results to completely show for it, but I think it’s been a really good trend in the right direction,” he said. “So from a personal side, I’m really happy to see that.

“I think I need to clean some things up. I think as a team collectively, we can clean some things up. And that’s what we need to focus on going into the second part of the season. Speaking for myself, if I can take everything I’ve learned, start off on a better foot and just make that next good jump is what I need to do and I’d be happy with that.”

Pirelli’s motorsport director Mario Isola believes the sport can achieve a target of 50% spray reduction in wet weather conditions.

Following concerns raised after last year’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka which ran to only half distance due to heavy wet conditions, the FIA began to pursue work developing mud-guard devices to try and reduce spray from the rear of F1 cars and improve visibility in wet conditions. While initial tests suggested more work is needed, Isola is confident the sport can find a solution to improve visibility.

“Why not?,” Isola said when asked if a 50% spray reduction target was achievable. “A 50% reduction in water spray is quite a lot, but I’m confident that they can find devices able to reduce the spray.

“We were discussing that also in intermediate conditions, you have a problem with visibility. So if they find something that is good for reducing the spray, that could be used also for intermediates or a new tyre or whatever. We need to define it at one direction and go in this direction.”

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Motor racing links of interest:

Three reasons why the Moto GP British Grand Prix will be better than F1 at Silverstone (Telegraph)

'From the eight rounds so far, four different riders have won and 12 different faces have stared out from the rostrum: the second highest tally in the history of the sport. The consequences of progressions with aerodynamics have made life difficult for riders when it comes to overtaking and running in close proximity but MotoGP still steals a march over F1 in this respect. In total, five of the eight Grands Prix have been won by less than Verstappen’s 3.7 second cushion over Lando Norris at Silverstone.'

Remembering Roger Williamson, whose tragic story helped set F1 on path to becoming a safer sport (F1)

Howden Ganley: ''I’m still very angry about it. It’s stuck in my mind as one of the worst things I’ve ever been involved with in all my years of racing. It was so unnecessary. If they had just stopped the race you had all these drivers in Nomex, we would have got him out of the car.''

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Ward Engineering Progress in New Role at Arrow McLaren (McLaren)

McLaren' IndyCar director of trackside engineering Gavin Ward: ''We're like a healthy level of frustrated this year with having lots of pace but maybe not quite the results we hoped for. But I think we look pretty introspectively at that, as well, and think: 'Well, how do we get that better? How do we execute better on race days?' Because I think that's just a little bit. We're just missing a bit, and it's not one thing in specific, but there's a lot of things we do just a little bit better to really get ourselves right at the front.''

Formula E, going green, and that £4bn Tata Group battery factory (City AM)

'When tech folk talk of what’s called “Race to Road” they refer to motorsporting systems that are used in electric race vehicles today that we may see on the road in a decade’s time – the Versace fashion show of the automotive world, if you will. It’s a form of trickle down whereby brands such as TCS, who are parented by Tata Group, are looking to advance technology in sport to use among the masses further down the line.'

US company Haas appears to still indirectly supply Russian arms industry with technology (PBS NewsHour via YouTube)

'American machine tools giant Haas Automation faced allegations in March it sold technology to the Russian arms industry via a former distributor. Haas denied the story and said it halted sales when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. But research shows Haas may still be supplying the Russian arms industry indirectly.'

Spectator Close Calls In Motorsports (KKB via YouTube)

NASCAR YouTuber KKB explores the modern dangers to spectators at motorsport events by examining major incidents in Formula 1, IndyCar and NASCAR.

We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link relating to single-seater motorsport to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it to us via the contact form.

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Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Pleasure to have you @OscarPiastri! 👋

A quick chat and good luck to @marcmarquez93! 🤝#BritishGP 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/tLm3PxElJl

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) August 5, 2023

JUST AWESOME. ❤️ MUCH LOVE! pic.twitter.com/DCrK14tUBA

— 周冠宇 | Zhou Guanyu 🇨🇳 (@ZhouGuanyu24) August 5, 2023

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With Liberty Media admitting set up costs for the Las Vegas Grand Prix have increased, @bernasaurus isn’t too impressed…

“It’s a view that’s a testament to our Super Bowl aspirations for all our grand prix events.”

The qualifier there is the ‘all’ part. You can’t manufacture World Cup finals every week. Or if you do, it won’t last. We’ve talked about how NASCAR having so many races takes the ‘special’ away from each.

$400m is a lot of money, and they’re only doing it because they know they’ll turn a profit. But, we as F1 fans talk lovingly about Spa, Monza etc with their somewhat rudimentary facilities but great atmosphere, challenging racing. Do we need a shiny bauble concrete neon freeway?

Nearly half a billion dollars on something that already feels temporary. You can buy a ticket to watch it in a nearby sports bar for more than $2,000. The market for that is very fickle. Once they’ve done it once, they won’t be back next year.

$400m could buy every F2 drivers’ seat for a season, and F3 – let’s do that and have a ‘on merit’ championship rather than drivers needing funds / backing to compete.

Or jazz up Watkins Glen or Road America with infrastructure for F1 for half the price.

Moving telegraph poles in Vegas doesn’t strike me as the best idea. Bernasaurus

Happy birthday to F1Antics!

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