Paddy Driver

Bottas failed to win a race in 2018 while Hamilton equalled a personal-best 11 victories on his way to a fifth title. Mercedes asked Bottas to give up one victory, in Russia, to aid Hamilton’s title push and he also lost another likely win in Azerbaijan because of a late puncture. Wolff has defended Bottas’s record this season given the number-two role he was forced into by circumstance ...

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Latifi had a development role with Force India this season that involved three days of testing with the team and some Friday practice running. The Canadian, who finished ninth in F2 after struggling to adapt to the new car, will have an enhanced role with Williams. His switch to the team was expected following Force India's reincarnation as a new entry backed by a consortium led by Lance ...

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Hamilton won his fifth Formula 1 world championship this season, beating Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel to the crown with a commanding performance in the second half of the season to equal Juan Manuel Fangio's tally of titles. He won 11 of 21 races - equalling his personal-best season haul from 2014 - during a campaign in which Hamilton and his Mercedes team faced their sternest challenge from ...

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Ocon has lost his Racing Point Force India seat to Lance Stroll as part of the changes triggered by Stroll's father Lawrence leading the consortium that rescued the team. Efforts by long-time backer Mercedes to place Ocon at other F1 teams including Renault, McLaren and Williams all failed, with Williams's announcement of Robert Kubica as its second 2019 driver on Thursday closing the final ...

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As reported by Motorsport.com, the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix winner will partner George Russell at Williams in 2019 and end an absence from the F1 grid of more than eight years. Kubica has not raced in F1 since the 2010 season finale, having suffered severe injuries to his right arm in a rally crash in early '11. Securing a 2019 drive means Kubica completes a stunning comeback from the ...

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Sauber has not previously had a defined junior operation but has established close ties to Ferrari, having handed Charles Leclerc his Formula 1 debut this season. Charouz entered Formula 2 in 2018, having moved over from the Formula V8 3.5 series, and next year will participate in Formula 3, which replaces GP3 on the Formula 1 support bill. Charouz also competes in ADAC and Italian Formula 4 ...

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Ericsson was announced as Sauber's reserve when Antonio Giovinazzi was confirmed as a race driver last month, but he has subsequently landed an IndyCar seat with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. There are eight clashes between the F1 and IndyCar schedules in 2019, and other weekends where it would make little sense for Ericsson to travel to a grand prix just be on standby. However, he would be ...

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The gathering had been widely expected to focus on the drivers’ misgivings about the current generation of Pirelli tyres. The sensitivity of the compounds has resulted in a tendency for races to be dictated by tyre management, narrowing strategic choices and forcing drivers to run slower than they would prefer. But in the event, the meeting – held immediately after the ...

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Fittipaldi was in talks to test for Haas earlier this year before suffering a crash in the build-up to the Spa World Endurance Championship round that left him with a broken leg. The Brazilian, 22, has now been confirmed as Haas's official test driver for 2019 and will begin that relationship by taking part in the opening day of the Pirelli tyre test after this year's Abu Dhabi Grand ...

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An increased reliance on tyre management, plus an ever-widening gulf between the top three teams and the rest of the field, has prompted drivers to get together and work out if they need to step in to try to improve things. Daniel Ricciardo said that while the latest tyres allowed drivers to push harder in certain circumstances, the need to look after rubber to minimise pitstops meant that ...

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Hamilton wants to help aspiring racing drivers who are taken out of school in pursuit of a career as a driver and then have little to fall back on if they do not succeed. The Mercedes driver said he is aware of the impression F1 stars can make on young children because he sees the same "sparkle" in the eyes of those he encounters as he had as a youngster meeting David Coulthard and Mika ...

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Magnussen escaped sanction for a clash with Charles Leclerc at the Japanese Grand Prix when he was defending against the Sauber. But FIA F1 race director Charlie Whiting later revised his opinion and said on reflection the Haas driver had moved across too late. Magnussen said he also now accepted he had been in the wrong. But he argued that current mirror positions mean he could not have ...

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Hamilton and Alonso endured an intense season as McLaren teammates in 2007, with their sometimes fractious relationship creating internal friction at the outfit. They are viewed as the team leading drivers of their generation but Alonso's career path with Renault and Ferrari after McLaren meant the pair would never enjoy a season-long fight for the title again. Hamilton says the fact that ...

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Leigh, who came into the event with a healthy points lead having won two of the opening three races of the season, took a controversial victory in the first race of the day at Paul Ricard. Polesitter Leigh was locked in a tense wheel-to-wheel fight with Frederik Rasmussen in the second half of the race, with Leigh forcing Rasmussen off the track at the Turn 11 hairpin on the penultimate lap of ...

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The subject was discussed in the Friday drivers’ briefing ahead of the United States Grand Prix in the context of a discussion over Kevin Magnussen’s controversial defensive move on Charles Leclerc in the Japanese GP. It was acknowledged that the current mirrors have limited rear visibility, with one concern that it is difficult to judge closing speeds of a following car - particularly when ...

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Pierre Gasly gave F1's camera glasses their first race weekend trial in Monaco before Romain Grosjean wore them for an installation lap on Friday in Canada. The arms of the glasses contained electronics that made them bulky and meant they fitted poorly inside a helmet and were painful to wear. Motorsport.com has learned that F1 wanted to move away from this to satisfy the FIA's safety ...

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In a note sent to teams by F1 race director Charlie Whiting on Saturday morning, he warned that any driver whose car runs completely off track on the exit of the downhill left-hander at Turn 19 in qualifying will have his laptime deleted. Furthermore, any consistent abuse of the run-off area there in the race would risk the driver being reported to the stewards. Whiting wrote: "If a driver ...

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Blistering occurs when part of a tyre overheats, causing rubber to soften and break apart in chunks, and although it is not a new phenomenon in F1 it has been problematic at several races this season. F1 tyre supplier Pirelli introduced softer compounds for this season as well as debuting the new hypersoft tyre, and Bottas is hopeful that some of the experiments it has undertaken in its 2019 ...

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Edwards, who had been ill for some time, passed away at the age of 75 exactly five years after his son Sean was killed in an accident at Queensland Raceway. Modestly successful as a driver, Edwards was best known for his ability to attract and exploit sponsorship - earning huge sums via commissions. He helped to define the art of sourcing funding for motorsport, even writing a book about the ...

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The FIA has been experimenting with additional or longer zones this year for the drag-reduction system in a bid to improve overtaking.  However, it opted not to extend the start-finish DRS zone because of the aggressive entry to the first corner, and considered DRS inappropriate for the high-speed, left-hand 130R after drivers’ complaints at Silverstone.  Drivers could use DRS through ... ...

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The Frenchman is currently without a race seat for next year due to the imminent arrival of Lance Stroll at the Silverstone outfit, and his last remaining option is Williams. Retaining his links with Force India would at least allow him to stay in touch with developments, although he could also perform a similar role with the works Mercedes team. "Hopefully he'll find something else," said ... ...

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Both Red Bull Racing and both Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers were already known to be taking new elements, with the Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen  moving back to Renault's Spec B. The five drivers will line up in the order that the new elements were first used on track, something that triggered a rush to the end of the pitlane at the start of FP1 today. The race was won by Lando Norris ... ...

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Ocon is currently facing a year on the F1 sidelines after a planned move to Renault fell through at the last second, and other teams said they were not interested in him because of his close links to Mercedes. The Frenchman's plight has been viewed as a bad thing for F1, with more and more drivers having their careers decided by the major car makers. Read Also: Why third cars are ... ...

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Hamilton lost a lot of time to second-placed Max Verstappen and other cars behind as he tried to work his way past Romain Grosjean and Sergey Sirotkin, who were battling for position. Haas driver Grosjean eventually received a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags. Hamilton's teammate Valtteri Bottas also had trouble with backmarkers, as he couldn't get close enough to Renault's Nico ... ...

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