In the round-up: Ferrari will decide their upgrades schedule after seeing where they are relative to their rivals at the start of the season.
In brief
Ferrari to observe rivals before deciding upgrades
Ferrari’s technical director of chassis and aerodynamics, Enrico Cardile, says the team will wait to see their relative performance to their rivals before deciding on their upgrade path for the team’s new SF-24.Speaking to media including RaceFans after the launch of the team’s 2024 car, Cardile said Ferrari would react to their rivals in the opening rounds.
“The only thing I can say is that the car in the wind tunnel already progressed and evolved compared to the one presented,” he said. “Then we will decide when it will be better to bring the first updates on-track.
“The first step is to see where we are compared to our competitors. The work in the wind tunnel is progressing, the car is evolving, and putting together the two staff we will decide where to bring the first updates.”
Mercedes unveil Pin’s F1 Academy livery
The 20-year-old, who raced for Prema in the LMP2 class in last year’s World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24 Hours, will compete in the second season of the all-women racing series this year with the support of Mercedes.
“The season ahead is a great opportunity to develop my career and skills in single seaters,” Pin said. “I can’t wait to go racing, discover new tracks and work hard with my team to achieve our goals together.”
Taponen closes out FRMEC season with win
Ferrari junior driver Tuukka Taponen closed out the Formula Regional Middle East Championship season with victory in the final race of the series.
Having clinched the title after Saturday’s first race, Taponen took his fifth win from 15 races in the final race at Dubai ahead of Brando Badoer and Theophile Nael. Championship runner-up Taylor Barnard won the second of the weekend’s three races to cement his position.
Bilinski takes FROC title as Sceats wins NZ GP
Roman Bilinski claimed the Formula Regional Oceania Championship title with a race to space at the Highlands circuit, but it was Liam Sceats who won the season-ending New Zealand Grand Prix.
Bilinski took the title with six victories from the 15 races, clinching the title with third place in the second race of the weekend, won by Bryce Aron. In the final race of the championship – the 27-lap New Zealand Grand Prix – championship runner-up Sceats won ahead of Callum Hedge, with Michael Shin third and Bilinski in fifth.
Slater wins UAE F4 title
Freddie Slater was crowned UAE Formula 4 champion in the final race of the championship despite finishing behind rival and Mumbai Falcons team mate Kean Nakamura-Berta.
Slater, who dominated last year’s Ginetta Junior championship, finished third behind Nakamura-Berta in the final race of the season in Dubai as Rashid Al Dhaheri claimed victory.
Slater will be racing in the Euro4 and Italian F4 series this season.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
The real story behind Senna’s early 90s flirtation with IndyCar and rift with McLaren (F1)
'There was one very good story doing the rounds at that time: that he would take a year out, returning with a Honda-Honda in 1994. And, indeed, a prototype car was commissioned and built by hugely charismatic company president Nobuhiko Kawamoto. But a fortnight later the rumour mill had Ayrton looking at IndyCar, sparking suggestions he would follow Nigel Mansell to the road courses, streets and banked speedways of US racing.'
‘I met Alonso away from TV cameras – this is what he said about current F1 ability’ (Daily Star)
Rachel Brooks: ''We were going between two sites and I was just chatting to him and I just said to him: ‘Do you ever worry there’s going to be a point where you feel like ‘I’m losing my edge, I’m losing my reaction time or my spatial awareness is diminishing’ because he’s in his forties. And he said to me ‘no’.''
Winning feeling contagious for Team Penske drivers (IndyCar)
Josef Newgarden: ''I don't know what it was like pre-my time, but I think the collaboration has never been greater in our team across the board. We're really trying to leverage every person, every position that we have across motorsports to elevate the whole thing. On our side, we won the Indianapolis 500, which had been a thorn for the last three, four years. We go three or four years without finding victory lane, and that's deemed unacceptable.''
Formula 3 gets back on track! (F3 via YouTube)
Clips from the pre-season Formula 3 test in Bahrain.
Annie Nightingale at Silverstone Grand Prix (BBC Archive)
'Annie Nightingale goes behind the scenes of the McLaren-Ford Formula 1 team, as they prepare for the 1971 British Grand Prix at Silverstone. She speaks with McLaren's joint managing director, Phil Kerr and chief designer, Gordon Coppuck, before meeting driver Peter Gethin and his mechanic Ross - who show her how a Formula 1 car is constructed to suit the exact specifications of its driver.'
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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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
I’m ready.
🏎️🎆🏖️🎄🥂📊⚒️🏋️♀️🏊🚴🏓⛷️🎩🧠
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) February 18, 2024
Your support the last few days has been immense!
Grazie mille, Tifosi ❤️ pic.twitter.com/MNWYMdJfHg
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) February 18, 2024
So hyped, so ready pic.twitter.com/wrzfBwQIw6
— Stake F1 Team (@stakef1team) February 18, 2024
Kevin ranks all of our liveries ⬆️⬇️
One didn’t even make the board 😅#HaasF1 pic.twitter.com/Z8J0kJZ7C9
— MoneyGram Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) February 18, 2024
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
This weekend’s Caption Competition winner is EffWunFan!:
As Daniel stood up, he realised they had put his name on Tsunoda’s race overalls…
EffWunFan
Thanks to everyone who came up with caption ideas this week and a special mention to hunocsi, Urvaksh and Rom who all came up with particularly good captions.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Phildick, Looseasagoose and Reginald!
On this day in motorsport
Luis
19th February 2024, 1:08
Well, good luck to the Ferrari chaps.
Perhaps they’re closer to Red Bull before starting to doing their updates.
Be noted that Japan is the deadline, because Red Bull will add the complete “zeropod” package of theirs.
Good luck to everyone else too!
Sign up for this forum never works properly
19th February 2024, 2:55
Translation of Ferrari :
We are waiting to see what other teams have done before we decide what bits to try and copy.
rich (@rich)
19th February 2024, 10:14
“We are checking…”
GmP (@gmp)
19th February 2024, 4:51
That BBC archive video is “special”. The way the driver speaks to her, the way he speaks about the risks. Very entertaining.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th February 2024, 6:08
Nice livery ranking with which I largely agree & I like the little taunt towards VF-21.
Brell-9W
19th February 2024, 6:48
Tuukka Taponen was absolutely dominant in the Middle East FR. It’ll be very interesting to see if he continues to be well ahead when Formula Regional starts in Europe later, or if the likes of Ugo Ugochukwu, James Wharton and Rafael Camara can compete l with him. Last year in F4 UAE Wharton and Taponen were very competitive, only to fall backwards in the European series.
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
19th February 2024, 8:14
He sure was, for context Tuukka collected 255 out of 375 points available.
Current AMG star pupil Kimi Antonelli scored 192 on his 2023 title win.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage (@davedai)
19th February 2024, 12:20
Somewhat overshadowed by Pin’s entry into F1 academy. Juju Noda is taking a “small step” from Euroformula Open to Super Formula.
Leaving the family team to join up with Honda TGM team.
I know she was testing cars at 9 yo, racing Danish F4 at 14 y.o. and won.
Short excursion to US F4 fastest at Road Atlanta . A “loud forthright” disagreement about setup
followed and back home without racing.
W series was a disaster so off to a not terribly successful Euroformula.
At least she’s having a go at real racing. She must have just turned 18 or wouldn’t be able to get licence and race in that series. Think she was about 2 secs off pace in Dec test, but at least she and the team will know by seasons end, if she has any hope of making it.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage (@davedai)
19th February 2024, 12:21
making it in the real world.
sam
19th February 2024, 17:29
The other teams are developing their car as fast as possible. Ferrari is waiting….