Hamilton and Leclerc at risk of DQ over plank wear

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are both at risk of being disqualified from the United States Grand Prix due to excessive wear of their cars’ floor planks. The Mercedes driver had finished a close second to Max Verstappen while Leclerc committed …

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are both at risk of being disqualified from the United States Grand Prix due to excessive wear of their cars’ floor planks.

The Mercedes driver had finished a close second to Max Verstappen while Leclerc committed to a one-stop strategy and faded from pole position to finish sixth, but the pair could lose those results after failing post-race technical checks.

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FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer carried out a physical floor and a plank wear inspection, and noted that the skids in the middle of the plank — that is located in the center of the floor under the car — was not in compliance with the technical regulations on both cars.

The matter has been referred to the stewards, with disqualification the usual penalty for a breach of technical regulations.

Should both cars be disqualified, multiple drivers would be promoted including Logan Sargeant from 12th to 10th for his first point in Formula 1.

Both Haas and Aston cars to start USGP from pit lane

Haas and Aston Martin have confirmed both teams will start both cars from the pit lane for today’s United States Grand Prix in order to change setups. Both teams have brought upgrade packages to Circuit of The Americas but Aston Martin’s Fernando …

Haas and Aston Martin have confirmed both teams will start both cars from the pit lane for today’s United States Grand Prix in order to change setups.

Both teams have brought upgrade packages to Circuit of The Americas but Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were eliminated in Q1 on Friday. While Haas fared better, with Kevin Magnussen qualifying 14th and Nico Hulkenberg 16th, both drivers struggled in race trim and slipped backwards in the sprint on Saturday.

Now with a picture of how the heavily updated Haas is behaving, the team has decided to make significant setup changes to both cars to learn more about the developments across a full race distance, rather than repeat Saturday’s issues.

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The same decision has been taken by Aston Martin, but the team will split approaches with Alonso reverting to the Qatar specification of car and Stroll staying with the new spec but making setup changes to ensure both are similarly configured for comparison.

Deputy technical director Eric Blandin says some initial simulation errors were to blame for the team struggling from the start of the weekend.

“In FP1 we [were hindered] because of a mistake on the sim,” Blandin said. “We put too much blanking on the front brakes so they effectively caught fire, that’s why we couldn’t run more than two laps with Lance in the morning and that really put us in the back foot for the whole weekend.

“In FP1 we couldn’t really optimize the setup of the car with the new package. As a consequence, I think the car is far from its optimum setup [for the race] with the new package.

“So we will start both cars from the pit lane, and we are effectively changing the setup. We think there is a lot more performance to come from the car, but we took the pragmatic approach to start both cars with, one with the Qatar spec, and one with the new package.”

The result is Daniel Ricciardo will be promoted to 14th on the grid ahead of Williams pair Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant in 15th and 16th respectively.

Verstappen tops sole USGP practice from Leclerc and Hamilton

Max Verstappen led the sole practice session at the Circuit of The Americas ahead of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton heading into qualifying this afternoon for the United States Grand Prix. The sprint weekend format meant the single hour of free …

Max Verstappen led the sole practice session at the Circuit of The Americas ahead of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton heading into qualifying this afternoon for the United States Grand Prix.

The sprint weekend format meant the single hour of free practice was busy on track, with teams attempting to cram a usual weekend’s 180 minutes of practice into a single session.

All three tire compounds featured over the 60 minutes, but it wasn’t until the final 10 minutes that most drivers switched to soft rubber for qualifying simulation laps just a few hours out from the grid-setting session.

Newly crowned world champion Verstappen rocketed immediately to top spot with a best lap of 1m35.912s. Leclerc came close to matching the time with a lap that began with the fastest first sector of the day, but he lost touch over the final two splits to end up 0.156s off the pace.

Hamilton made it three different constructors in the top three at 0.281s adrift. The Briton was fastest in the middle sector, which is dominated by the long back straight, but shipped time to the leader through the slower corners of the final split.

Sergio Perez was 0.3s slower than teammate Verstappen to finish the session fourth.

The Haas team had a heartening opening session at its home grand prix, with Kevin Magnussen taking his heavily upgraded VF-23 to fifth and 0.56s off the pace. Teammate Nico Hulkenberg was 0.2s further back in ninth.

Sandwiched between them were George Russell, Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz.

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Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10 as the lowest-placed driver within a second of the leader, his best lap clocking in at 0.793s down.

American rookie Logan Sargeant finished 11th ahead of Esteban Ocon and AlphaTauri duo Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo.

Lando Norris was the best-placed McLaren in 15th, but neither he nor teammate Oscar Piastri, who finished 19th, used the soft tire in the session. Instead the team’s session highlight was Piastri’s spectacular save from near disaster at Turns 8 and 9 during his medium tire run.

The Australian clipped the tall orange apex curb on the inside of Turn 8, which send him sliding out of control over the curbs at the exit of Turn 9. His car slipped onto the grass, where six big snaps threatened to send him spinning into the barriers, but Piastri managed to keep hold of his machine to rejoin the circuit unscathed.

Alfa Romeo teammates Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas finished 16th and 17th.

Fernando Alonso ranked 18th after both he and Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll suffered brake overheating problems after completing just five laps apiece, just over 10 minutes into the session. Mechanics frantically worked on the front discs and calipers, with the team explaining that both cars were experiencing extremely high front temperatures.

Alonso lost around 25 minutes in pit lane before being sent back out, but Stroll was unable to rejoin, with his left-front corner requiring additional work. It leaves the Canadian last in the order and on the back foot on a weekend comprising only this practice session before qualifying later today.

Las Vegas expecting ticket sales boost from USGP

The organizers of the Las Vegas Grand Prix expect to see an increase in ticket sales off the back of this weekend’s United States Grand Prix in Austin. Circuit of The Americas welcomed 440,000 people in 2022 and is looking at a similar figure this …

The organizers of the Las Vegas Grand Prix expect to see an increase in ticket sales off the back of this weekend’s United States Grand Prix in Austin.

Circuit of The Americas welcomed 440,000 people in 2022 and is looking at a similar figure this year, but chairman Bobby Epstein recently admitted to RACER he felt it had been a little slower in selling out due to interest in the inaugural race on the new Las Vegas circuit. For Las Vegas Grand Prix CEO Renee Wilm, each event has a unique selling point but she believes the interest created by Austin’s USGP will lead to further ticket sales for next month’s race.

“I do think there’s a symbiotic effect,” Wilm told RACER. “When you look at the U.S. races, all three are so different. Miami, you have East Coast, you have the glamour, the Latin America theme. Austin, heartland of America, like a big carnival fair mentality, fun cowboy boots. And then you look at Las Vegas, pinnacle of glamour and speed. When you look at all three of those together we’re really, I think, firing on all cylinders here in America.

“So I do think that there will be some additional boost coming out of Austin and it always re-ignites American interest. And we are seeing by and large, the demographics for our buyers and Vegas are largely North America, which I think will probably change going forward.

“The European fan base, I think was a little skeptical of what Vegas would be like in year one. So they’ve hung back in terms of the ticket buying, and we’re seeing most of our demand very strongly out of North America.”

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While Wilm insists interest in the race has “absolutely” remained at a high level, she also says it’s not just ticket prices that can influence people committing to attend the race.

“Hotel rates are still pretty high, which I do think is having a little bit of an impact … I think some people are probably waiting to see if those rates adjust before they they decide where they’re going to stay,” she said. “But, significant interest.

“There’s been a boxing match ended, there are some concerts that are being added for that weekend — our partners are fully aware there’s going to be a lot of people in town who may not have a ticket to sit (at the) track, but they want to be part of what is going to be an epic weekend of Las Vegas.”

Technical updates: United States Grand Prix

Haas, AlphaTauri, Aston Martin and Mercedes all have notable upgrade packages at the United States Grand Prix despite the sprint weekend format. There’s only one practice session for all teams to analyze any new parts, but that hasn’t stopped a …

Haas, AlphaTauri, Aston Martin and Mercedes all have notable upgrade packages at the United States Grand Prix despite the sprint weekend format.

There’s only one practice session for all teams to analyze any new parts, but that hasn’t stopped a whole new car concept being brought by Haas at the start of a tripleheader of race weekends, with the list of updated items consisting of front brake ducts, the floor body, floor edge, sidepod inlets, the engine cover and cooling louvers.

While not as clear visually, AlphaTauri has a similar number of modifications this weekend, with the majority focusing around the floor via a revised floor body, floor edge and floor fences. There’s also a change to the engine cover — with the central bodywork exit tweaks improving cooling — and the rear brake ducts. Perhaps the most notable change from AlphaTauri though relates to the chassis itself, with the team submitting revised surfaces local to the inboard front suspension.

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Aston Martin broke the curfew overnight as it worked on upgrades that include changes to the floor edge in conjunction with the engine cover, diffuser and beam wing to produce increased loading on the floor as an overall package.

As has been the main focal point for most teams during the season, the floor is the only area Mercedes has modified as it tries to understand the direction it is taking for next season. The floor body has a raised leading edge that improves flow to the rear of the car and increases rear downforce, while that is balanced by changes to the forward floor edge flap that is designed to improve forward floor load.

The only other new part submitted for the USGP is a floor edge modification at Alfa Romeo — a continuation of the major upgrade package it brought to Singapore — while Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Alpine and Williams have no updates this weekend.

Perez dismisses retirement as ‘the easy route’

Sergio Perez says retiring from Formula 1 would be “the easy route” out of his current struggles at Red Bull and that he will fulfill his contract with the team next year. Rumors surfaced ahead of the United States Grand Prix that Perez was …

Sergio Perez says retiring from Formula 1 would be “the easy route” out of his current struggles at Red Bull and that he will fulfill his contract with the team next year.

Rumors surfaced ahead of the United States Grand Prix that Perez was preparing to announce his retirement in Mexico next week following a tough run of form since finishing second to Max Verstappen in Monza. Perez said the claims are completely false and that he is relishing the challenge of trying to turn results around.

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“There’s nothing I can do, I’m fully focused on my job,” Perez said. “That really sums up my season: a guy says something about me and all of a sudden it becomes true. But I have a contract for next year and I have no reason to not fulfill that contract. I’m going to give my very best to it, I’ve done a commitment but it will not be my final contract in Formula 1.

“It’s not ideal when you go through a difficult period of your career. But I just love the challenge of getting back at it. The easiest thing would be to just walk out of it. But that’s not me, that’s not who I am and I will not give up.

“I have zero doubts about being back to my best level and that is my only target that I have in mind. I don’t even think about retirement or anything like that because that’s just the easy route.”

Asked if he will be with Red Bull in 2024, Perez insisted “100%,” saying he feels he has the full support of the team.

“I’m with Red Bull and I want to stay with Red Bull,” he said. “But obviously it has to work out for both sides… I have a contract and conversations with the team as well. There is no reason for me not to fulfill that contract.”

Perez puts his recent struggles down to setup issues that then spiraled as he searched for a more comfortable configuration.

“I think the last two races in particular, we were just lost,” he said. “I think we are back at it. I had very good days with my engineers, I had the full support of the team and now it’s time to really pull it back.

“Basically, it was important for us to understand where it went so wrong. And once you go into these fast weekends, for example with the sprint event in Qatar, if you don’t have a good set-up, you can easily get lost. And it’s what happened to us. We just got really lost in Qatar.

“But this is how this sport is: you have a good weekend, a bad weekend. We haven’t really been able to get consistency through the year, but there are still five races where things can change for us.

“We cannot have this sort of gap (to Verstappen in future). I think, basically, to go back to the first six races or so and we were fighting with Max. That’s the target, to get back to that level of comfort with the car. My issues have been real and we’ve been struggling with the car a bit and hopefully next year can be a different story, but also these next five races.”

Andretti bid won’t affect USGP interest, says COTA’s Epstein

Circuit of The Americas chairman Bobby Epstein wants to see Andretti join the Formula 1 grid but doesn’t believe it will have an impact on interest around the United States Grand Prix. Andretti Cadillac’s application was approved by the FIA, …

Circuit of The Americas chairman Bobby Epstein wants to see Andretti join the Formula 1 grid but doesn’t believe it will have an impact on interest around the United States Grand Prix.

Andretti Cadillac’s application was approved by the FIA, allowing the team to move onto the next stage of the process with Formula One Management (FOM) to try and discuss commercial terms. As much of the focus has been on the financial impact of adding a new team, race promoters are likely to be asked their opinions on expansion and Epstein says it is only likely to make a major impact on the USGP if Andretti is in a position to win races.

“It doesn’t (change much),” Epstein told RACER. “I’m interested in what sells tickets and a winning U.S. team would help sell tickets. Otherwise, I hope it happens simply because Mario Andretti was very good to us and has been a very good friend of the track. So it’s one on a personal level that I hope it happens, rather than necessarily on a business level.”

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Epstein says the Austin F1 venue doesn’t need Andretti in the sense that the huge fan base that already exists has connected with the current set of teams and drivers regardless of nationality.

“No, you don’t (need an American team). A winning American driver would be fantastic. In the absence of that … I think the rest of it is just some nice to have,” he said. “It doesn’t move the needle for us.”

Michael and Mario Andretti are expected to be present at COTA for part of the United States Grand Prix weekend, but RACER understands no direct discussions with FOM are currently planned.

Mercedes has ‘clear idea’ of where to find 2024 improvements

Mercedes has “a very clear idea” of what it needs to fix with its 2024 Formula 1 car to be competitive against Red Bull next season and the team has been buoyed by the work being made toward achieving it, according to technical director James …

Red Bull’s domination over the past two seasons has come at a time where Mercedes has struggled under new technical regulations, changing its car concept mid-season. Currently second in the constructors’ championship, Mercedes faces competition from Ferrari and more recently McLaren this year, but Allison says the focus on 2024 has enabled the team to identify exactly what it needs to do in order to provide a clear step forward.

“I feel like all of us have got a pretty clear-sighted view of what we want to do with the car,” Allison said. “This championship, while we haven’t made the really impressive progress that say McLaren have, we have nevertheless been charting a path through the season that gives us a very clear idea of what we need to put right. That makes next year very exciting to look forward to — and this period of the year extremely enjoyable.

“Over the years, most of the good cars that I’ve been lucky enough to be around when they’ve happened, the driver gets in it and doesn’t exactly say ‘spend your bonus’ but they more or less do. And unlocking potential is not really something that takes very long if the car is well-born. That will be the aim with this one.”

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As part of its work for next year’s car, Mercedes will introduce an upgraded floor at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix. While Allison says the new floor is likely to have some impact on current performance, it is more focused on longer-term goals.

“We’re bringing a modified floor … and hopefully it will give us a bit of lap time. But it is mostly a useful thing because it’s a bellwether for whether we’re on the right track,” he said. “In lap time terms, it will be small. Useful but don’t expect us to have leapt past Max (Verstappen).”

Racing on TV, October 20-22

All times Eastern; live broadcasts unless noted. Friday, October 20 COTA practice 1 9:15-10:00am COTA practice 1 1:25-2:30pm COTA practice 1 1:25-2:30pm COTA practice 2 2:55-3:35pm COTA qualifying 4:55-6:00pm COTA qualifying 4:55-6:00pm Homestead …

All times Eastern; live broadcasts unless noted.

Friday, October 20

	COTA practice 1	9:15-10:00am
	COTA practice 1	1:25-2:30pm
	COTA practice 1	1:25-2:30pm
	COTA practice 2	2:55-3:35pm
	COTA qualifying	4:55-6:00pm
	COTA qualifying	4:55-6:00pm
	Homestead practice/ qualifying	6:00-7:30pm
	COTA qualifying	6:30-7:10pm
	Indianapolis	7:00-8:30pm (D)
	Indianapolis	8:30- 10:30pm (D)

Saturday, October 21

	Homestead practice/ qualifying	9:00-11:00am
	COTA race 1	10:45-11:20am
	Homestead	11:30am- 12:00pm pre-race 12:00-2:00pm race
	COTA sprint shootout	1:25-2:30pm
	COTA sprint shootout	1:25-2:30pm
	COTA race 1	2:10pm
	Homestead	2:30-3:00pm pre-race 3:00-6:00pm race
	COTA race 2	4:30-5:00pm
	COTA sprint	5:55-6:30pm
	COTA sprint	5:55-6:30pm

Sunday, October 22

	COTA race 2	10:50am
	Road Atlanta	10:30- 11:30am (D)
	COTA race 3	10:40-11:30am
	Road Atlanta	11:30am- 1:30pm (D)
	Australia	1:00-3:30pm (SDD)
	USGP	1:30-3:00pm pre-race 3:00-5:00pm race
	USGP	1:30-3:00pm pre-race 3:00-6:00pm race
	Homestead	2:00-2:30pm pre-race 2:30-6:00pm race
	Indianapolis	2:00-3:30pm (D)

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
SpeedSport1.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.
All NTT IndyCar Series stream live on Peacock Premium.

Haas to introduce new car concept at USGP

Haas is planning to change the concept of its car at the United States Grand Prix next month as it looks to turnaround its frustrating race pace form. Qualifying has often seen Haas enjoying competitive sessions in the midfield, with Nico Hulkenberg …

Haas is planning to change the concept of its car at the United States Grand Prix next month as it looks to turnaround its frustrating race pace form.

Qualifying has often seen Haas enjoying competitive sessions in the midfield, with Nico Hulkenberg making multiple Q3 appearances this season. But the team has not scored a point since Kevin Magnussen’s 10th place in Miami, and team principal Guenther Steiner says the decision has been made to follow the now widely adopted Red Bull design direction, which will result in the car changing “quite a bit,”

“The concept of the car will change, going in that direction,” Steiner said. “You know you’re limited with the chassis and a few other things, but we’re trying to go to that common downwash shape like everybody else has got.

“The radiators and stuff like this, we cannot change them now — just haven’t got time. Your chassis you can change, but it wouldn’t work out. I don’t think it’s down to Ferrari — their electronic boxes are there, but I wouldn’t blame Ferrari for that one.

“Some of the stuff obviously we need to go close to them (Red Bull) — we could have put it somewhere else if we wanted, but we put it very similar. That concept we are running now asked for the side impact structure to be where it is. I think we got out whatever we could to go to a downwash options — we cannot push it any further.”

Steiner says the decision to make the change was made in July, and driven by the fact the team was struggling to find other gains with its existing car.

“That was our biggest problem with the concept we have now: we couldn’t find any more performance. We developed the whole year and there was nothing there anymore and at some stage you need to decide, ‘We need to do something different here, we cannot keep banging our head against the wall.’

“McLaren changed the system like this and they found something. At some stage you need to say, ‘Hey, we need to change concept, we need to face reality.’”

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The new car won’t be ready until the USGP at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas in October, but Steiner says that the information Haas will get can still then inform next year’s design.

“We’ll always be careful and we cannot be sure as our development time was not long, but you have to take risks,” he said. “Looking to ’24, that is worthwhile to take a risk, and say, ‘Hey, we should have kept it in the wind tunnel to develop it’ (but) let’s do it, find out what it gives, and then at least next year we’re in a better place.”