America’s Esterson set for FIA F3 debut at Silverstone

Max Esterson, a standout in American sim racing who went on to win the British Formula Ford Festival last October, will make his FIA Formula 3 debut at this weekend’s British Grand Prix, driving for Carlin. Esterson is in his third full year of car …

Esterson is in his third full year of car racing and competing in the GB3 Championship in the UK, basing himself in London after moving from New York City to pursue a career in single-seaters after having previously been one of the top five iRacing drivers in the U.S. As a result, he has had backing from iRacing as he became the first American to win the Formula Ford Festival main event in 2022, and represented the Team USA Scholarship there a year earlier.

After finishing seventh in the GB3 Championship last year, the 20-year-old — who is also supported by Chip Ganassi Racing — has remained in the series this season but moved to Fortec Motorsport, and will now get the opportunity to race in F3 as he replaces his countryman Hunter Yeany at Carlin for both Silverstone and Hungary.

“After the challenging year I’ve been having so far in the British F3 / GB3 Championship, it would be an understatement to say I’m excited to be making my debut in the big leagues of FIA Formula 3, even if it’s a little earlier in the year than expected,” Esterson said.

“It’s also great to be starting at Silverstone, the Formula 1 track I know best, and great to have the deep and broad experience of a team like Rodin Carlin behind me. It will still be a steep learning curve and big challenge to step in cold to what is probably the single most competitive series in the world.

“Although I’m hoping to be competitive, the regular runners are some of the best in the world and have thousands of miles in the FIA F3 car. For me, the first time I drive Carlin’s car will be on Friday morning in the sole 45-minute free practice session.

“Of course in the back of my head I’m dreaming of challenging at the front, but given the circumstances, those with more experience tell me it will be a great accomplishment to make it into the top half. Either way, I’ll be pushing my hardest and learning as much as I can over the weekend.”

Williams to mark 800 races with Silverstone livery

Williams has become the third team to announce a special livery at the British Grand Prix, with the team starting its 800th race celebrations at its home event. Silverstone was originally due to be Williams’ 800th race based on its interpretation of …

Williams has become the third team to announce a special livery at the British Grand Prix, with the team starting its 800th race celebrations at its home event.

Silverstone was originally due to be Williams’ 800th race based on its interpretation of the numbers, but the cancellation of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix has pushed that milestone back to the following race in Hungary. Williams will mark the occasion at both events but has a special livery for Silverstone given its proximity to its Grove headquarters, that features the British flag on the rear of the car.

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There is also the original Frank Williams Racing Cars logo on the inside of the flag, and ‘Est. 1977’ to mark the year of its first race. The special design will only be used at Silverstone, with other activations planned for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

As well as Williams, McLaren has already unveiled a chrome livery in collaboration with Google, and Aston Martin has a new partnership with Valvoline that will see red and blue additions to the edge of the engine cover as well as Valvoline logos on the front wing and barge boards.

Racing on TV, July 7-9

All times Eastern; live broadcasts unless noted. Friday, July 7 British GP practice 1 7:25-8:30am British GP practice 1 7:25-8:30am British GP practice 2 10:55am- 12:00pm British GP practice 2 10:55am- 12:00pm Mid-Ohio qualifying 4:00-5:30pm …

All times Eastern; live broadcasts unless noted.

Friday, July 7

	British GP practice 1	7:25-8:30am
	British GP practice 1	7:25-8:30am
	British GP practice 2	10:55am- 12:00pm
	British GP practice 2	10:55am- 12:00pm
	Mid-Ohio qualifying	4:00-5:30pm
	Mid-Ohio	6:00-8:00pm

Saturday, July 8

	British GP practice 3	6:25-7:30am
	British GP practice 3	6:25-7:30am
	British GP qualifying	9:55-11:00am
	British GP qualifying	9:55-11:00am
	CTMP Race 1	11:40am- 12:25pm
	Mid-Ohio	12:30-1:30pm pre-race 1:30-4:00pm race
	CTMP qualifying	12:40-1:55pm
	Southwick	1:00-3:00pm
	Road America TA	1:30pm
	CTMP	4:00-6:00pm
	Atlanta qualifying	4:00-5:30pm
	Atlanta qualifying	5:30-7:00pm
	Atlanta	7:30-8:00pm pre-race 8:00-11:00pm race

Sunday, July 9

	Monza – start	6:00-7:30am
	British GP	8:30- 9:55am pre-race 9:55am- 12:00pm race
	British GP	8:30- 9:55am pre-race 9:55am- 12:00pm race
	CTMP Race 2	9:30-10:15am
	Monza – finish	11:30am- 1:00pm
	Watkins Glen	11:30am- 1:30pm (D)
	CTMP	12:00-3:00pm
	Road America TA2	1:30pm
	Atlanta	6:30-7:00pm pre-race 7:00-10:30pm race

Key: SDD: Same day delay; D = delayed; R = Repeat/Replay

A variety of motor racing is available for streaming on demand at the following sites:

MAVTV.com

MotorTrendOnDemand.com

SRO-america.com
SCCA.com
Ferrari Challenge
The Trans Am Series airs in 60-minute highlight shows in primetime on the MAVTV Network. For those wishing to tune in live, the entire lineup of SpeedTour events will stream for free on the SpeedTour TV YouTube page. SpeedTour TV will also air non-stop activity on Saturday and Sunday (SVRA, IGT and Trans Am). You can also watch all Trans Am event activity on the Trans Am YouTube page and Facebook page.

F1 to test rain guards at Silverstone

The FIA will carry out a test of a proposed solution to reduce spray from Formula 1 cars and improve the chances of racing in heavily wet conditions following the British Grand Prix. As Pirelli is carrying out a tire test with Red Bull, Haas and …

The FIA will carry out a test of a proposed solution to reduce spray from Formula 1 cars and improve the chances of racing in heavily wet conditions following the British Grand Prix.

As Pirelli is carrying out a tire test with Red Bull, Haas and Williams for two days at Silverstone, the wet weather test will take place on Thursday after the British race, with Mercedes and McLaren taking part. FIA’s aerodynamic team has put together a design for bolt-on wheel covering designed to prevent spray being thrown into the air and creating visibility issues that regularly leads to races being red-flagged.

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After a meeting of the F1 Commission in November last year led to studies into wheel arches that could be added to cars to try and reduce spray, the FIA offered the initial design to teams to play around with and provide feedback. It is an iteration designed Mercedes that will be tested next week at Silverstone.

The preliminary test of the initial concept of the mudguard-style devices is to gauge if the FIA is heading in the right direction with the idea, and Mercedes will run them while the McLaren provides a comparable reference of a current generation car without the devices in the same conditions. Alongside the effectiveness of the wheel arches, any impact on changing tires in a pit stop scenario is also set to be assessed.

While not included in this first version, the governing body is also exploring the potential to add lights to the front and rear of the wet weather package to aid visibility both for a following driver and a lead driver looking in their mirrors.

The intention is for a solution that addresses severely wet conditions – such as those seen in Suzuka last season, or at the infamous two-lap race at Spa in 2021 – and would allow racing to take place. With the FIA targeting a standard design that all teams would have to run, the concept is designed to address conditions that are so wet that teams would fit the package before the race and never remove them until afterwards. Or, if the weather deteriorated, race control would red flag a race for the guards to be fitted.

McLaren goes back to Chrome for British Grand Prix

McLaren has unveiled a special Google Chrome livery for the British Grand Prix this weekend that celebrates its last world championship victories. In a throwback to the chrome designs that McLaren ran from 2007 to 2014, the team’s current livery has …

McLaren has unveiled a special Google Chrome livery for the British Grand Prix this weekend that celebrates its last world championship victories.

In a throwback to the chrome designs that McLaren ran from 2007 to 2014, the team’s current livery has been updated with significant chrome additions alongside the papaya sections. McLaren’s last world title came in 2008 — the same year Google Chrome was launched — and is celebrated as part of its 60th anniversary at its home race at Silverstone.

“It’s no secret that racing fans love McLaren’s classic chrome livery,” McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said. “Google Chrome wanted to bring back elements of this iconic livery to celebrate our team’s history at the British Grand Prix, and we’re excited to be able to give our fans what they want.

“I’m sure this livery will bring back great memories for many of our fans, and I can’t wait to see it out on track at our home race.”

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Brown says McLaren could have gone further with the design but a combination of rules and its current brand image played a part in combining the two.

“We want to keep our papaya identity. It’s very important for us that we give a nod to the past, but very much look forward to the future. There’s also so many times you can change the livery into extremes, so what we did in Monaco a couple of years ago, you’re only really allowed to do a couple of times, and then to kind of have variations of your base scheme, you can do a little bit more often.

“I think the rules aside, it was important to us — we’re really trying to build our association with papaya much like Ferrari’s red and Mercedes have their color identity, we get a lot of feedback from the fans who really like the papaya. That’s why we went with the combination.”

Lando Norris says the livery is a special one for him as it reflects the period that helped him fall in love with Formula 1 as a kid, and that he has tried to get Brown to integrate the chrome colors over a number of years.

“Probably over 1300 days or something since I joined McLaren!” Norris said. “2018, it was one of the first things I probably said to (Brown). I’m pretty sure from what I remember it was when he showed me the livery that we were going to have for 2019, and he asked me, ‘What would you change on the car?” and I was like: ‘The whole thing!’

“Just because for me, walking down the boulevard, as much as I would like the white and bright orange — that livery was amazing — I think just there’s no other car nowadays that is like the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes that we had back then. And that’s what I grew up watching, that’s what I fell in love with in many ways. I feel like I can say it, it inspired me to be a Formula 1 driver.

“Before that I was more into MotoGP, motorbikes, motocross, quad biking… That’s what I loved to begin with and I didn’t really know much about racing. Then I got into watching some Formula 1 and it was Lewis (Hamilton) versus Fernando (Alonso) even though they were in the same team, and that’s what I really fell in love with.

“Kind of getting to relive that — I’d say every year I’ve been pestering him a little bit to want to go back a little bit in that direction. I know it’s only for one race but it’s kind of cool to relive a little bit of what got me into Formula 1 in some ways, also knowing that it’s a very historic part of McLaren. They were very successful then, it’s when Lewis won his first world championship and things like that. So it’s very special.”

Mercedes set for larger upgrade after Austria

Mercedes plans to introduce a more significant upgrade to its 2023 Formula 1 car at the British Grand Prix, as it is seeing better correlation from its factory to on-track performance. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell scored a double podium in …

Mercedes plans to introduce a more significant upgrade to its 2023 Formula 1 car at the British Grand Prix, as it is seeing better correlation from its factory to on-track performance.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell scored a double podium in Spain before Hamilton was again fighting for second place in Canada on a track the team didn’t expect to suit its W14. With four rounds to go before the summer break — the first being a sprint event in Austria — team principal Toto Wolff says the following race at Silverstone will see another, more significant revision.

“We are bringing a larger one to Silverstone and we should have another one before [summer break] shutdown,” Wolff said. “It’s just that the learnings have accelerated a lot since we changed some of the conceptual architecture. There should be decent steps coming in the next four races.

“I think we are understanding better the simulations and they now correlate what we are seeing on track — and that is better, because it has been a problem for the last one and half years. We are seeing good performance gains that are coming in the tunnel. We are seeing a better understanding of what the car needs in order to go fast, what the setup needs to look like, so in general the steps are getting bigger now. We are making good inroads.”

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Wolff says his team’s performance in Montreal was particularly encouraging given the track characteristics, but he still believes there is a strong advantage being held by Red Bull and Max Verstappen at most venues.

“For us, we didn’t expect to perform in Canada because of how the car’s DNA is at the moment. So it’s encouraging to be not so far away, but one must not forget Max is cruising at the front. Maybe ‘cruising’ is the wrong word, but Max is having an easier time — there is margin. So there’s quite a gap to catch up.

“I think that the margin is still too big to really think that Max is under pressure. I don’t know how much it was this race — was it 0.2s per lap or so? Still it is far off.”