In the round-up: Brendon Hartley reveals he nearly crashed out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

What they say

The Toro Rosso driver said he was convinced he was going to crash after a gust of wind caught his car.

I had one really close call into turn four today where I had a big oversteer on entry, bit of a gust of wind, and I was pretty sure I was heading into the wall. I must have just made it out within centimetres. That was on the first stint.

Other than that I drove a pretty clean race and Kept my composure. I’m really happy to get my first point but definitely we’ll all be working hard to find a bit more performance for Barcelona.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Links

More motor racing links of interest:

Ferrari’s Marchionne ‘encouraged’ by F1 engine proposals (Reuters)

“The stuff that’s on the table now is potentially workable as a system. The economics are not. I think that’s something that we need to go back to Liberty with.”

Hamilton: Too many distractions in proposed Miami Grand Prix (Sporting Life)

“Oh jeez, it is going to be a hard weekend. I might have to stay out of town. There are a lot of beautiful women (in Miami) and there is going to be so many distractions.”

F1 drivers’ chief Wurz hails ‘change in philosophy’ on overtaking (The Guardian)

“We are very happy that Liberty, with the FIA, have seen that we can’t continue going down the road of creating artificial overtaking with DRS.”

FIA closes F1 qualifying oil burn loophole (Autosport)

“Following numerous discussions on the subject, we wish to clarify that in order to allow the FIA to monitor oil consumption during the qualifying practice session in a precise and timely manner, no oil may be added to the car nor may any auxiliary oil tank (AOT) be activated, i.e. there may be no oil transfer between an AOT and any part of the engine lubrication system.”

Could Leclerc be F1’s next superstar? (Top Gear)

“If it also makes Leclerc sound more Prost than Senna in approach (the Frenchman liked to win as slowly as possible, the Brazilian just liked to win), that’s not strictly accurate. ‘I liked Senna’s philosophy, but I’m also not stupid and sometimes when you need to take points instead of making a dumb move where you are making a massive risk, I know how to calm down and bring the points home.'”

Mercedes-Benz S Class 6.0 S600 Maybach (Auto Trader)

“The car was previously owned by the reigning formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton.”

Trainer admits Raikkonen lost weight over winter (F1 Today)

“‘his winter I managed to get 3.2 kilograms off Kimi. He now weighs just 70kg,’ he told Iltalehti newspaper.”

Omnitude and Williams announce a new partnership (Williams)

“Enterprise middleware technology provider Omnitude will work with the team to explore how blockchain technology could be implemented into numerous aspects of how a Formula One team operates. “

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Snapshot

Fernando Alonso, Toyota, World Endurance Championship, Spa, 2018Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway, Fernando Alonso, Kazuki Nakajima, Toyota, World Endurance Championship, Spa, 2018

Fernando Alonso began life as a World Endurance Championship driver for Toyota in practice at Spa-Francorchamps yesterday.

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On this day in F1

  • Michael Schumacher kept the home hero Fernando Alonso at bay to win the Spanish Grand Prix on this day in 2003
DailyGP