F1

The Sauber-run squad is sixth in the F1 world constructors’ championship this year but has failed to score any points in the past four races, after the team picked up points in seven of the opening nine rounds.

In that run of poor results both Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu have been blighted by mechanical problems, with the Finn forced out of the British Grand Prix with a gearbox issue and the Hungarian GP with a fuel system failure, while his teammate retired from the French GP with power unit trouble.

Zhou’s rookie campaign also took a hit in his huge crash at the start of the British GP, when he was flipped over after colliding with George Russell and was sent tumbling over the tyre barrier.

Despite the team’s reliability woes and, at times, misfortune it has still comprehensively outscored its 2021 total points haul when it finished ninth in the constructors’ standings.

As a result, team chief Vasseur feels the squad has made considerable performance gains under the new F1 technical regulations and with its new driver line-up of Bottas and Zhou, but has been held back by its unreliability.

“I think we did a step forward. We did a good step in terms of pure performance, due to the different factors,” Vasseur said.

“As always, it’s never one thing. I think the Ferrari engine did a step forward. We did the same job on the chassis side also. And I think that Valtteri and Zhou are performing. Altogether, it’s a good step.

“Now, in terms of results, we had also some issues in terms of reliability. This cost us a fortune in terms of points, some events we were in very good shape, like Jeddah or Silverstone, and on some occasions with Zhou also.

Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo C42

Photo by: Antonin Vincent / DPPI

“This is a real shame for us, and for the championship. But it is like it is, and we just have to fix it for the second part of the season.”

Even through the missed opportunities due to crashes and mechanical problems, Vasseur still feels Alfa Romeo are meeting his expectations in the leading part of the midfield battle.

“I think nobody knew what would be the outcome of the first qualy on the first test day,” he said. “We were all a bit surprised with the situation, because it was a completely new car with no reference.

“We all developed on our own sides, and we were all completely blind. But no. Surprised is not the right word, because I knew that we made a big effort for 2022, and I was expecting something like this. It’s a good feeling.”

Alfa Romeo has a 17-point advantage over nearest rivals and fellow Ferrari power unit customers Haas, while AlphaTauri is 24 points back on the Swiss squad with nine rounds to go.

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F1 said on Thursday that it was monitoring the situation after Russia commenced a major military assault on Ukraine on Thursday morning after months of building tensions.

It has been reported that UEFA plans to strip St Petersburg of the Champions League final in June in reaction to the invasion, and has put F1’s plans for the grand prix in Sochi in the spotlight.

Four-time F1 world champion Vettel is a GPDA director and has been one of the grid’s most vocal figures on social matters and human rights in recent years.

While Vettel said he could not speak on behalf of the GPDA as the drivers had not discussed the issue, he revealed his own mind was already made up and he would not race in Russia.

“In my personal opinion, obviously I woke up again after this morning’s news, shocked,” Vettel said.

“I think it’s horrible to see what is happening. Obviously if you look at the calendar, we have a race scheduled in Russia.

“For myself, my own opinion is I should not go, I will not go. I think it’s wrong to race in that country. I’m sorry for the people, innocent people who are losing their lives, getting killed for stupid reasons under a very strange and mad leadership.

“I’m sure it’s something we will talk about, but as I said as GPDA, we haven’t come together year.”

Vettel added that “my decision is already made” on the matter.

Alpine driver Fernando Alonso said he thought that Formula 1 would ultimately “do the best thing”, while Ferrari ’s Charles Leclerc backed F1 to “take a decision and have more information than we do”.

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen added: “When a country is at war, it is not right to race there.”

The Russian Grand Prix is scheduled for 25 September.

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AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly led the pack out of the pits when the first four-hour session of the three-day event got underway at 10am local time, the Frenchman’s car adorned with an enormous aerodynamic-load measuring rake.

Most of the cars made early forays with rakes attached, although not Haas, which missed all the opening session due to freight delays meaning its VF-22 could not be readied in time.

After the heavily-revised Mercedes W13 was revealed in the full-grid promotion shots F1 organised ahead of the track running starting, there was plenty of attention being paid to Lewis Hamilton’s opening laps running the car and its near non-existent sidepods.

He established the early first place benchmark at 1m41.502s on the C2 hard compound, but that time was quickly worked down as the field reached representative times at the end of the opening half an hour.

At Red Bull, Sergio Perez was aboard the RB18 and he took over from Hamilton at the head of the times with a 1m38.953s.

A few minutes later at the opening session’s forty-minute mark, Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou moved ahead on a 1m35.953s set on the C3 medium rubber.

But as the opening hour drew to a close, Leclerc put in a 1m35.953s on the soft C4 rubber, the second softest of the five compounds Pirelli will use in 2022.

After a lull in action over the next hour, Leclerc, by then switched to the yellow-walled C3s, went quicker again to post a 1m34.531s, which stood as the session’s best to the close at 2pm local time.

Hamilton jumped up the order to sit second, 1.834s off Leclerc’s time, also on the C3s a few minutes after the Ferrari driver had posted the best time.

But the world champion was shuffled down the order over the second half of the session to end up fifth quickest.

He was beaten by Williams’ Alex Albon , who’s 1m30.070s was 0.539s behind Leclerc – the returning racer having to pit and get out of the FW44 as his seat was getting too hot at the end of the opening hour.

Sebastian Vettel was third for Aston Martin ahead of Perez, with Vettel one of a number of drivers locking up heavily at the double left of Turns 9/10 ahead of the Sakhir track’s back straight.

Hamilton was followed by Alpine’s Esteban Ocon , with Zhou, who stopped at the pitlane entrance and climbed out of his Alfa with just over 90 minutes remaining, although once his car had been returned to the Alfa garage he was soon able to rejoin the action.

Lando Norris finished eighth for McLaren – the Briton making an unexpectedly early start to his Bahrain running as Daniel Ricciardo , who was slated to run first, felt unwell and it was decided to get Norris in the MCL36 instead.

Gasly finished with the slowest lap of the first session, 3.357s off the pace on the C2 rubber.

At Haas, which is aiming to get out on track for the afternoon/evening session, new re-signing Kevin Magnussen was spotted having a tour of the garage as he prepares to rejoin the American squad in a shock move back to F1 following Nikita Mazepin’s exit.

The porpoising effect that dominated proceedings at the Barcelona test was again on display, with the Mercedes and Ferrari cars suffering particularly badly on their push laps – the impacts with the ground audible on the cars’ onboard cameras.

Three teams – Mercedes, Ferrari and Alfa – were running with stiffening strakes on their cars’ rear floors to try and minimise the porpoising.

This was something Mercedes tried at the end of Barcelona testing when it set that event’s best laptimes, although it is not thought to be a permanent solution.

Red Bull turned in the most laps during the morning, with Perez completing 70 tours aboard the RB18 compared to 64 for Leclerc.

Meanwhile, Hamilton delivered 62 tours as Mercedes worked to correlate its headline-grabbing design changes with its own simulations.

Notwithstanding the absent Haas, it was Norris and McLaren who ran for the fewest laps as the Brit crossed the line just 21 times.

Vettel was also comparatively low on track time as the Aston Martin ran for 39 laps to trail Ocon on 42, with Gasly chalked 44 tours.

Gasly led AlphaTauri to the largest points haul in the team’s history last year as it finished sixth in the championship on 142 points, giving the Italian squad hope of breaking into the top five in 2022.

But the team has instead slipped back through the competitive midfield, leaving it with just 27 points to show for the opening 13 races, 57 less than it had at the same point last year.

It has failed to score any points since Gasly finished fifth in Azerbaijan in the middle of June, causing it to drop to eighth in the championship, only ahead of Aston Martin and Williams .

Gasly is currently in his fourth full season at Faenza, and is embracing more of a leadership role as he tries to help bring the team forward through its struggles, particularly against the closer midfield pack this year.

“I believe that in this kind of moment, as a leader, you’ve got to unite and keep everybody united, working towards the same goal,” Gasly told Motosport.com.

“This is not easy, because we’re all humans and people want work versus reward. At the moment, we are all working hard, but we are not getting the reward for that effort that we are producing.

“I do believe there are still chances and signs that we can get good results. But objectively, it’s clearly harder than last year, especially I would say in a more competitive midfield.

“Now there are no teams at the back like Williams or Haas. It’s all a midfield from the fourth team to the last one.

“It just means that if you go a bit on the back foot, last year where you would still be close to the top 10, now you are paying the price a bit more.”

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Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri AT03

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Gasly’s run to fifth in Baku marked AlphaTauri’s best result of the season after the AT03 car proved competitive throughout the weekend, pointing to the capabilities of the AT03 car when the track layout and circuit conditions play to its strengths.

“The situation feels a little bit like 2018 when I joined the team,” Gasly said. “We had this sort of very specific race where things [worked]. I have in mind like Bahrain, Bahrain with that P4, it was kind of the same issue as Baku [this year] with the P5.

“We have some very small glimpses of very amazing performance, but on very particular tracks and in specific conditions.

“For the rest, I would say quite a lot of bad luck or like incidents that affected our end result. This is always frustrating.

“When you’re working towards one goal in mind, and that’s what you want more than anything else, and you see that things are not coming altogether, it’s not always easy to deal with it.”

AlphaTauri took a more conservative approach to its upgrade plan than many of its midfield rivals, delaying the introduction of its first major package until the French Grand Prix towards the end of July.

But the update failed to offer a noticeable step forward, leaving both Gasly and team-mate Yuki Tsunoda still trying to understand and unlock its potential heading into the second half of the season.

In 2019 Formula 1 announced plans to have a net-zero carbon footprint by 2030, covering areas including logistics, the use of renewable fuels and reducing waste.

Renewable fuels are part of the new-for-2026 power unit regulations, which will streamline F1’s hybrid engine designs. The sport is also aiming to make grands prix sustainable by 2025 by banning single-use plastics being eliminated and re-use or recycle waste, among other initiatives.

Vettel stressed that as impressive as F1’s efficient hybrid engines are, it should put more emphasis on its footprint as a spectator sport in the wake of its expansion to 24 races per year, which are all well attended as the sport has become more popular than ever.

He thinks that F1 should reinvest some of its revenue into its current promoters to help them come up with greener solutions to help reduce the footprint of its spectators.

Speaking at a summit hosted by World eX, an esports championship promoting zero-emission mobility and clean energy, Vettel said: “Any type of event that attracts a big crowd has to live up to the responsibilities that come with our times.

“Obviously we attract big crowds in Formula 1. I think that the sport got more popular in recent years with a new fan bases, especially in North America, making the sport bigger and grow.

“But with that there’s more people that need to get to the track, that need to be managed when they are at the track. So yes, there’s a lot that can be done, similar to other big events.

“Obviously, how people get to the event, public transport is not just a big topic in general but also coming and going from events, so there’s lots of things I think we can do.

“In the end we need to take some of the sort of turnover or money that Formula 1 in particular makes and try and reinvest to the promoters and give them the chance to decide for a better, greener, cleaner solution when it comes to handling crowds and dealing with the event.”

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR22

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Vettel, who announced his retirement from F1 after the 2022 season last month, spoke out earlier against how little road relevance the current hybrid engines have due to their expense and complexity, an issue that is set to be at least partially addressed by the 2026 changes.

Even if motorsports events are arguably no more polluting than other mass spectator events, the sport is coming under further scrutiny from politicians and activists alike.

Vettel argued Formula 1 can counter any existential questions posed by the outside world by reconnecting with developing sustainable technologies that are beneficial to society as a whole.

“Ultimately it doesn’t make a big difference whether we are driving cars, or having a music concert or doing other things, looking at the big crowd and the footprint of the crowd itself,” he added.

“But it comes back to the question of relevance. And if we don’t find a way to really help shifting change, and contribute to the fact that everybody benefits from what we’re doing for fun, and the innovation in engineering that comes with it, then I think very soon the question will come up: ‘Okay, what is the point?’

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“We get the point, because we love it, we are motorsport enthusiasts, and you don’t need to explain it to us. But if you zoom out and speak to a crowd that has nothing to do with motorsports, very rightly, I think these questions will come up in the future.

“So it is up to us to be ahead to be a lap ahead and not get lapped, so to say, with the enormous power that we have.

“We’re spending a lot of money in motorsport but with that comes a lot of innovation and engineering and power that can be channelled in a better direction, so that everybody even outside of motorsport one day benefits, whether then the answer is electric, or hydrogen or something else.”