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Wednesday, November 09 2022
Piastri gets first McLaren test; Red Bull accuses FIA of ‘violations' in cost cap drama: F1 Pit Talk

Few drivers yet to drive a modern Formula 1 car have had their movements as heavily scrutinised as Oscar Piastri, whose sensational disruption to this year’s driver market as one of the biggest stories of the season.

The Melburnian will move to McLaren next season as Daniel Ricciardo’s replacement, but the timing of his switch from Alpine has been the subject of much speculation given the needle between the two teams and the controversy around his intended split.

But a French magazine has spotted Piastri in a private test for McLaren — albeit with some notable differences to tests set up for other drivers.

Is it a sign that the frosty situation between Piastri, McLaren and Alpine has begun to thaw?

Elsewhere, Red Bull Racing won’t let the cost cap drama fade quietly, with Helmut Marko making some thinly veiled accusations of the FIA for Mercedes appearing to have an inside line into the governing body’s processes.

And Sebastian Vettel is preparing for his final F1 race next weekend with a charitable act for a cause close to his heart.

PIASTRI REPORTEDLY IN FIRST McLAREN TEST

Oscar Piastri has got his first taste of McLaren machinery ahead of his 2023 switch to the British team, according to French media reports.

France’s Auto Hebdo has reported that the Australian took part in a private two-day test with McLaren at Circuit Paul Ricard, which hosted this year’s French Grand Prix.

He was suited in McLaren overalls without sponsor logos.

Piastri defected from the Alpine junior academy to replace Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren for 2023, a move the Australian said he forewarned the French team about.

However, Alpine said it was blindsided by his decision and took the matter to the FIA’s Contract Recognition Board, claiming that it had sole right to the 21-year-old’s services.

The CRB found unanimously in McLaren’s favour, revealing Alpine had no legal hold on Piastri for next season.

But its contract with the Melburnian for 2022 is still valid, and the French marque has given no indication that it will release him early to join its chief rival for fourth in the championship.

Piastri has reportedly been stood down from simulator duties during the countdown to 1 January but is still the team’s official reserve driver.

But Auto Hebdo’s report suggests that a deal may have been struck between the two constructors to allow Piastri to undertake some work for Woking ahead of time.

Jack Doohan is Piastri’s logical successor to the reserve role, having substituted Esteban Ocon during FP1 in Mexico City two weeks ago and having completed significant mileage in a year-old Alpine car during the year.

RED BULL HINTS AT FIA LEAK AFTER COST CAP FRACAS

Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko thinks Mercedes could have been tipped off by the FIA about his team breaking the cost cap in 2021.

News of Red Bull Racing’s overspend broke more than a week before the FIA finalised and published last year’s team accounts.

Red Bull Racing was found to have breached the cap by £1.8 million (A$3.2 million).

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was on the front foot demanding harsh penalties for Red Bull Racing, which powered Max Verstappen to a slender title victory over Lewis Hamilton last season.

Speaking to German broadcaster RTL, Marko said he was suspicious of Mercedes’s early confidence that the Austrian team had broken the cap when the team itself hadn’t yet been told it was in breach by the FIA.

“Information came out beforehand that we didn‘t have, that only one team actually had,” he said. “There’s a lot of politics involved of course.

“It‘s strange. A Mercedes employee switched to the FIA, processed these documents for the cost cap at Mercedes and was then responsible for the review at the FIA.”

The Mercedes employee Marko is referring to is Shaila-Ann Rao, who was a Mercedes general counsel and special adviser until June this year, when she took up the position of interim secretary general for motorsport at the FIA.

“In our opinion there is definitely a compliance violation or at least an indication of compliance violations,” Marko said. “The whole thing doesn‘t make a good impression.”

Wolff, who claimed Red Bull Racing’s breach had been an open secret in the paddock, said the news getting out ahead of time was likely due to how open the teams had been with each other in the process of interpreting the rules.

“This is a big process that is taking place between all the CFOs and the auditors,” he said. “It’s teams sitting together, it’s teams talking about interpretations.

“This is a whole thing that takes many, many months in the various groups, and then it just needs one ignition — somebody talks to the media about it — and then it flares up like this.”

The FIA has denied any member of its staff has acted improperly, saying in a statement in October when this rumour first surfaced that “any suggestion that FIA personnel have disclosed sensitive information is … baseless”.

VETTEL’S CHARITABLE FINAL ACT

Sebastian Vettel will raise money for environmental projects by auctioning space on his final Formula 1 helmet.

Vettel is offering fans the chance to bid to have their photo appear on his Abu Dhabi Grand Prix helmet to “start the final lap together” in his last Formula 1 race.

The current bid for a spot on his helmet is €90, or around $140.

Vettel is retiring from Formula 1 at the end of the year after more than 15 seasons in the sport, during which time he amassed four championships and 122 podiums, including 53 victories.

His career will end at Yas Marina, the scene of arguably his most famous victory in 2010, when he won his maiden world championship.

Four drivers went into the last race of the season in contention for the title. Vettel was ranked third, 15 points behind Fernando Alonso.

 

But the German scored a comfortable victory from pole position while Alonso’s race — and that of Vettel’s Red Bull Racing teammate, Mark Webber, who was ahead of him in the standings — was cruelled by a poor strategy call that left him languishing seventh.

The points turnaround delivered Vettel a four-point championship victory, with Webber third in the final count.

Anyone wanting to bid for a spot on Vettel’s final Formula 1 helmet can do so on his website.

‘EIGHT-TIME CHAMPION’ HAMILTON MADE AN HONORARY BRAZILIAN

Lewis Hamilton has been granted his honorary Brazilian citizenship in a special sitting of the country’s lower house on Monday.

Hamilton was made a citizen earlier in the year after winning the Brazilian Grand Prix for a third time 2021 after an epic two-day comeback from the back of the grid.

Hamilton had been excluded from qualifying for using a broken rear wing and started the Saturday sprint from last. He overtook 14 cars and finished fourth but then served a five-place penalty for an engine change, putting him 10th on the grid for the grand prix.

His race-day recovery put him in a fraught duel with Max Verstappen, with the Dutchman controversially running him off the track in a desperate defensive move, but Hamilton eventually swept past to record a dominant 10-second victory.

He stopped on the cool-down lap to collect a Brazilian flag, which he unfurled as he drove back to pit lane and held aloft on the podium in scenes reminiscent of the home victories of his idol, Ayrton Senna.

It was the first of Hamilton’s three wins in a row to put him level on points with Verstappen for the final race of the year.

In a ceremony convened to formally grant him his citizenship, Hamilton was praised for having a “Brazilian heart” and affinity with the Brazilian people and also for his social and environmental activism.

“It is honestly the greatest honour for me to be here receiving and accepting this citizenship,” he told the rapturous chamber. “I really do feel like now I’m one of you finally, so thank you.

“Knowing you guys were cheering me on the way [in 2021], it was one of the most special moments of my entire life.”

Hamilton dedicated the honour to Senna, who he said inspired him to become a grand prix driver.

“When I was five years old I saw Ayrton race for the first time, and that was the moment I knew that I wanted to be a world champion just like him,” he said.

The session was otherwise notable for chamber president Arthur Lira identifying Hamilton as an eight-time world champion in a reference to the controversial conclusion to last year’s campaign.

It’s unclear whether Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing will boycott the nation of Brazil in response.

GASLY RISKS RACE BAN BEFORE ALPINE SWITCH

Pierre Gasly is perilously close to being suspended after reaching 10 penalty points at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

An F1 driver can collect a maximum of 11 points in a 12-month period without repercussion, but a 12th point will result in an automatic one-race ban.

Gasly was given his 10th point along with a five-second penalty for passing Lance Stroll off track for 15th place.

Just one week earlier in Austin he was handed two points for driving too slowly behind the safety car.

Points expire one year after they were collected, but Gasly isn’t due to lose any more points until next May, seven rounds into the new season and nine races from now.

The Frenchman was furious in Mexico to learn that he’d picked up extra points, particularly given the drivers had discussed the penalty system with the race director on Friday of that weekend.

“[The stewards] seem to be quite harsh lately,” he said, per Autosport. “I don‘t feel like I’ve been that dangerous over the last 12 months, and it would be a shame to get a race ban for slowing down a bit too much behind the safety car and a couple of track limits this year.”

The penalty system was introduced after Romain Grosjean triggered several crashes in 2012 and 2013, for which he was branded a “first-lap nutcase” by Mark Webber.

He was banned from a race in 2012, and the penalty points system was introduced in 2014 to create a formalised process to punish reckless driving.

But penalty points are increasingly dished out for minor racing offences or even just for exceeding track limits. While Gasly is a robust and aggressive driver, it would be difficult to argue that he’s dangerous or reckless.

More than half the grid has four or more points. Only Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have clean sheets.

Given the AlphaTauri driver has racked up 10 points in just 15 races, the odds would seem stacked against him to avoid a ban before next May.

Collecting his 12th penalty point in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix would see him miss his debut race for Alpine next season.

SKY SPORTS BOYCOTT TO END AFTER VERSTAPPEN SPAT

Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing will end their Sky Sports boycott this weekend following their media strike in Mexico.

Last round Verstappen and his team snubbed interviews with all Sky Group broadcasters — Sky Sports UK, Sky Sport Italia and Sky Sport Deutschland — following “disrespectful” remarks by pundit Ted Kravitz at the preceding race in the United States.

Kravitz had said that Hamilton had been “robbed” of an eighth championship, albeit in the context of the United States Grand Prix playing out as a movie script.

But Red Bull Racing said this was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back, having complained to Sky Sports UK several times about what it perceived to be Hamilton bias.

“It‘s been a constant kind of digging, being disrespectful, especially one particular person,“ Verstappen said in Mexico. ”And at one point it is enough, I don’t accept it.

“You keep disrespecting me and at one point I‘m not tolerating it anymore. So that’s why I decided to stop answering.”

Sky Sports UK is the de facto worldwide broadcaster, being retransmitted to Australia, Canada, the United States and Ireland and used widely by F1 itself for highlights and other online content. Sky Sports and its sister Italian and German stations were able to take interviews conducted by F1 staff instead.

ESPN has reported that Sky Sports F1 chief Billy McGinty travelled to Red Bull Racing’s Milton Keynes base earlier this week to clear the air and that the team has confirmed that it will stick by its original plan to resume interviews with the Sky Group broadcasters this weekend in Brazil.

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