Q: Do you think that Andretti Global could be willing to get into a bidding war with Hitech for the Alpine team? Andretti was told that is their only way into F1 is to buy an existing team.
Frank, Mooresville, NC
CM: I would be surprised if there wasn’t at least a question asked, but with the investment that Andretti has already put into trying to become its own entrant, I don’t know how that would align with the Enstone setup. It won’t be as simple as buying a team out of nowhere given the plans they had put in place, but I’m sure they’d be interested being able to purchase a spot on the grid that way if the price is right.
Hitech’s team principal Ollie Oakes is set to become the new Alpine team principal, and that could lead to him trying to help his investors get involved, too. On top of that, Alpine likely using a Mercedes power unit in 2026 could be seen as a way of increasing the value of the team if it becomes more competitive, so it might be that Renault isn’t all that interested in a sale quite yet.
Q: Well, I missed ordering tickets for the Canadian GP for the second year in a row. The website had a “Hunger Games” approach to ordering the tickets. You go into the queue for a grandstand and hope you get your tickets.
This is very discouraging to a traditional F1 fan who has attended races since 1980. Does FIA/Liberty Media realize that the high ticket prices will not hold?
Steve Selasky, Rockford, MI
CM: Ticket sales are a tricky topic Steve, but I’ll defend both the FIA and Liberty here. The FIA has absolutely nothing to do with it — they’re just the governing body who police the sport and say whether tracks are safe or not to race on. It would be like blaming the referee at a football game for the price of tickets.
Liberty also doesn’t have a direct say on ticket prices. It negotiates a race hosting fee with a race promoter — in Canada that promoter is Octane Racing Group — that is set over a multi-year period as part of the race agreement, and then the promoter sets the ticket prices based on costs, supply and demand, and what they want to make out of ticket sales.
Where Liberty is a little more connected, is that when negotiating the next contract the promoter might start saying it can’t pay the same fee if it is struggling to sell tickets at a price that works. But for now, attendances continue to rise, so the demand is there for tickets.
For Montreal next year, there are a number of grandstands still available, and lots of GA at around $260 (USD) for the three days, which I know isn’t cheap but I do think is pretty good value given that’s three full days of action at that price, and under $90 per day.
Q: There was a comment on TV during Friday practice in Belgium regarding aero upgrades for Mercedes, including the halo. It got me thinking: How standardized is the halo? Beyond the presumed dimensional and strength requirements, is there an aerodynamic envelope that teams can work within and exploit? Does the halo design vary throughout the year for many teams, like other aero areas? And how influential is it to the overall airflow?
Mark T, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
CM: The structure of the halo is standardized, in terms of the actual titanium device having to be manufactured by one of the FIA-approved suppliers, and withstand crash tests both standalone and once attached to the chassis.
But teams are allowed to add aerodynamic fairings, which are mainly on the very front but also the cockpit sides. These are exactly as you suggest — to help with airflow, and in particular the way the air gets into the cooling intakes above the cockpit or down the side of the engine cover.
It’s not an area that’s going to prove crucial to downforce levels, but it really can impact the car’s cooling efficiency if the airflow is not controlled correctly. That means it is usually developed and updated in conjunction with other changes, as it’s all part of the overall flow structure over the car. For example, updated sidepods for performance are often delivered in partnership with a tweaked engine cover, and that will mean the airflow to the engine cover also needs addressing from the halo, so the fairings will also be updated.
Q: Among the many excuses that F1 gave to Andretti for not accepting its worthy team entry was “the need for any new team to take a compulsory [customer] power unit supply, potentially over a period of several seasons, would be damaging to the prestige and standing of the championship.” That was always complete codswallop, as it would only have been for two seasons, allowing them to bed the team in before taking the works GM supply, and would have mitigated another of F1’s concerns by helping them to be more competitive in the long run.
Now Alpine is considering doing something far worse: ditching its own works Renault engine permanently, and taking a supply of customer Mercedes instead. In the face of Andretti’s rejection, this outcome would be particularly hard to swallow.
If this happens, what could the fallout be? Clearly F1 wouldn’t be happy, and they couldn’t prevent it, but is there some action they could take against a team “damaging their prestige and standing”? It’s hard to see any way that Andretti could benefit, unfortunately, although I hope they make a noise about it.
Rob MacDonald, Chippenham, UK
CM: I’ve spoken to F1 about this and they haven’t been overly unhappy about it so far, because it’s a move that only impacts Alpine and no other teams in the wider sport. It actually strengthens Mercedes, which is set to gain a customer back after losing Aston Martin to Honda.
From the impression I got, F1 is confident in the commitments of Audi and Honda. But it must be said that Renault has been struggling to be competitive for over a decade, and it pulling out actually adds to the argument that F1 made against Andretti, because it would be left without a power unit supplier now too (and someone else would be forced to give one to a new team if its entry had been accepted).
It certainly won’t hurt the chances of coming in in 2028, though, if GM does commit as a manufacturer. That still sounds like it isn’t guaranteed, but if it does, then it would even out the loss of Renault, so that would look good from a PR standpoint. But with Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, Honda and Audi all supplying power units, the sport’s still in good shape on that front.
And as referenced in an earlier answer, if Alpine is then set up for a sale in future, that could become a way for Andretti to get onto the grid if the numbers make sense. That’s a big if, though.
Q: It looks like Red Bull is feeling the pressure in the last few months. At this point, even Max seems to feel the strain of carrying Checo on his back, along with the consistent improvement of McLaren and Mercedes. In light of Checo’s contract extension, is there any possibility of Red Bull sending him down to RB to salvage the championship if results keep trending like they have in the last four races? You would think Yuki Tsunoda or Daniel Ricciardo could get similar results, at minimum, to Checo with better equipment. I also noted Russell’s DQ profited McLaren with another point towards the Red Bull gap.
JG, Tennessee
CM: Honestly, JG, if I was answering this 24 hours ago I’d have said I thought there was every chance Checo would be dropped completely from Red Bull and Daniel promoted. For some reason, Christian Horner doesn’t appear to be willing to consider Yuki as a replacement, but Daniel would have been a safe pair of hands, and remains a Horner ally like Perez is. Plus he gets on well with Max, so it wouldn’t overly rock the boat.
Every conversation I’d had at Red Bull and with other sources suggested it was likely to happen, but on Monday a review meeting before the summer break saw Red Bull opt to stick with Perez.
Daniel’s performance level is an unknown, so there’s a chance you get nothing better than you’ve had from Perez recently (you can read more about the reasons for sticking with him here) but at the same time, it looks like Liam Lawson is set for a promotion to RB next year regardless. And if you do that, then Ricciardo is out, and you never know if he would have been back to something like his best in a Red Bull race seat.
Red Bull could have promoted Daniel in place of Checo, given him until the end of the season and if he didn’t perform then you choose between Liam (if he showed up well) or Yuki for 2025. But as you can see, none of those decisions provide any certainty of success or long-term planning. And it could have been expensive, as I’ve heard conflicting reports over whether there were clauses that could have been activated to replace Perez without penalty.
I generally feel that Red Bull cares far more about the drivers’ championship and keeping Verstappen happy than making a change to defend its constructors’ position, but it does feel inevitable now that McLaren will soon overtake it unless Perez’s form turns around dramatically. It could be that changes come in the winter instead if not.
THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, July 27, 2016
Q: A question that has not been discussed in full. Due to the rash amounts of concussions coming to the fore lately, have the helmet designers overlooked something? Were the drivers of old tougher, or did they just drive through the problem? Dario and Dale Jr. don’t give up easily, so their problems must have been tough.
Don Betsworth, Torrance, CA
ROBIN MILLER: Interesting question. I have lunch every week with Pancho Carter, Lee Kunzman, Bill Vukovich, Bubby Jones, Merle Bettenhausen and Gary Irvin, and we were trying add up all our concussions the other day. We surmised that nobody knew much about concussions, or paid much attention, back in the ’60s and ’70s, and they weren’t given a second thought. Think about all the guys who got KO’d in an Indy car but were back behind the wheel in a back-up car after a night’s sleep. Not sure it was bravado as much as it was the urgency not to miss a race.
Today’s helmet makers and car manufacturers have made amazing advances, and a driver is safer than ever before. But a vicious hit like Dario took at Houston, compiled with his other high-speed licks, put out the stop sign and although he didn’t want to quit he made a wise decision. And I guess in Earnhardt’s case it doesn’t have to be a big hit for him to be concussed. But times have certainly changed.