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  • Hungary hat-trick for Hamilton? 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix

    image courtesy of Pirelli Motorsports

    As 2020 hits its third race on the bounce, Lewis Hamilton looks to claim his third consecutive victory at the Hungaroring as F1 heads to the Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

    A 21 minute drive from the city centre of Budapest, the 4.3 kilometre Hungaoring circuit prepares to host its 35th Formula One Grand Prix, and it is an eagerly awaited one.

    With rain expected on race day, the acclimatised Red Bull to this downforce orientated track will have a strong chance of taking victory at a venue where, surprisingly, the pole sitter has failed to win the race on 19 occasions.

    The last wet race was a dire one for current world champion Lewis Hamilton, who was one of many to succumb to the treacherous penultimate corner of Turn 16 in Hockenheim last year, albeit he was ill for much of the weekend. He did, however, put in a stunning performance in qualifying in Austria in extremely wet conditions, asserting the dominance that could well be about to take him to his seventh World Championship.

    To take another step towards it this weekend though, he will no doubt face stern competition from team mate Valteri Bottas, winner of the first race in Austria, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who impressed with a podium finish at the Styrian Grand Prix.

    This also promises to be a competitive weekend between McLaren, Renault and Racing Point, who have all seemed to take an early incentive in the midfield battle –  McLaren enjoying the most success thus far. After a fastest lap point in each of the first two races as well as a podium finish with Lando Norris, this relatively short track, coupled with the downforce element, will show us whether the McLaren has definitive pace in the corners. It will also be a display of whether they could again challenge for the podium. Carlos Sainz qualified an exquisite third in the wet in Styria, and will be sensing an opportunity this weekend.

    We are still yet to learn the outcome of the protest Renault filed against Racing Point after the second Grand Prix in Austria, but with two cars that seem closely matched should hopefully come some heated competition.

    Ferrari’s lack of pace is expected to be slightly mitigated at a track that requires less power, which may also come as a relief to their customer teams Haas and Alfa Romeo, both of whom were also strugglers over the two weeks in Spielberg. Ferrari are anticipated to be bring some upgrades so as to try to figure out what exactly is going wrong with, not only their Power Unit, but their Chassis as well. What would of course help their cause is avoiding contact on the first lap this time.

    The last time anyone won this race two seasons running was Hamilton himself – in 2012 and 2013. And with rain forecast on Sunday and a potentially thrilling race in store, the six time world champion looks to build on that record, and close the gap to team mate Valtteri Bottas at the head of the championship.

  • F2 Hungary preview: rookie leaders prepare for battle in Budapest

    F2 Hungary preview: rookie leaders prepare for battle in Budapest

    FIA Formula 2 takes to Budapest’s Hungaroring this weekend for round three of the 2020 championship.

    While the opening round of the season was dominated by returning drivers Callum Ilott and Guanyu Zhou, last weekend was the turn of F2’s rookies. Robert Shwartzman and Christian Lundgaard took their first victories in the series to assume the lead of championship from Ilott, while Yuki Tsunoda, Dan Ticktum and Marcus Armstrong all impressed with podium finishes.

    When F2 arrives in Hungary these rookies will be aiming to build on that momentum and take charge of the championship. Expect to see Shwartzman come out of the gates strong as he tries to make up for retiring from last weekend’s sprint race, while Tsunoda will be hungry to reclaim the feature race win that was taken from him by a team radio failure in Austria.

    Robert Shwartzman, Prema (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

    Mick Schumacher will also be one to watch this weekend. Not only will he come to Hungary with confidence from having won there in F2 last year, but he’s also on a much-improved run of form this time around.

    In both rounds at the Red Bull Ring, Schumacher showed he had the pace to come away with at least a podium finish, if not a win. However, a spell of bad luck—including his fire extinguisher going off in his cockpit while running third last Sunday—means he’s currently lagging behind his title rivals, and will be pushing even harder this weekend to catch up.

    And he won’t be the only one. Zhou will also be looking ahead to the Hungaroring weekend as a chance to get his championship campaign back on track. The Renault junior will be sorely disappointed after leading both feature races in Austria but coming away with only one podium, and will need to lay down a marker this weekend to avoid the title fight slipping away from him.

    Guanyu Zhou, UNI-Virtuosi (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

    Further back, the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend will also provide a much-needed reset for some of the drivers still yet to score any points.

    Chief among these will be Hitech’s Luca Ghiotto. Used to being a title protagonist, Ghiotto’s best finish so far has been tenth in the second Austria sprint race, with an array of incidents and technical issues helping to keep him away from the points.

    Also in need of a breakthrough soon is Jehan Daruvala. At the start of the season the Red Bull-backed driver talked up his goal of vying for an F1 seat with Alpha Tauri next year, but so far he’s had a mixed start to the season and is currently only P17 in the standings.

    Daruvala has been solid in qualifying this year, starting both feature races well inside the top ten, but scruffy performances on race day mean he’s yet to convert any of those starts into points. With his Carlin teammate and fellow Red Bull junior Tsunoda already fighting for wins and podiums, Daruvala will need to tidy up his racecraft this weekend and make good on his pace if he wants to avoid losing Red Bull’s focus.

  • F3 Hungary preview: Piastri looking in his mirrors as rivals close in

    F3 Hungary preview: Piastri looking in his mirrors as rivals close in

    FIA Formula 3 returns this weekend, heading to the Hungaroring in Budapest for the third round of the season.

    The 2020 championship got off to an excellent start at the Red Bull Ring double header, with four first-time winners in each of the four races creating a tight battle at the top of the drivers’ standings.

    Renault junior and Prema driver Oscar Piastri still leads the championship with 44 points after the opening two rounds. However, he hasn’t finished on the podium since his win in the opening race of the campaign, and in each of the two sprint races so far he’s struggled to make progress through the reverse grid field.

    Oscar Piastri, Prema (Carl Bingham, LAT Images / FIA F3 Championship)

    Meanwhile, his teammates Frederik Vesti and Logan Sargeant have closed up behind him and are only one good result away from taking the title lead.

    In Hungary, Vesti needs to capitalise on the momentum of his feature race win last weekend and take the fight to Piastri again. Sargeant meanwhile must take the pace that’s yielded two second place finishes so far and battle to the top step of the podium this time.

    But it’s not just his fellow Premas that Piastri will have to watch out for in Budapest. David Beckmann is sitting just behind them in the standings after a double podium in Spielberg last weekend, and the Trident team generally has emerged as Prema’s nearest rival.

    Beckmann and Lirim Zendelli both have the pace to be genuine threats for victory this weekend, while Olli Caldwell showed no qualms about battling with Piastri at the Red Bull Ring last time out.

    Frederik Vesti, Prema (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

    While the battle rages for the lead of the championship, there are a couple of drivers further back who will be looking to reset their own campaigns as we move on to Hungary.

    Sebastian Fernandez would have been hoping for a lot more than six points and 13th in the standings after storming to the first pole of the season in Austria. His only top ten finish came with ninth place in the second Spielberg sprint race, although this was largely gifted to him by Jake Hughes and Liam Lawson crashing out in the final laps—prior to that, Fernandez had dropped down the order after running wide while battling with Zendelli for eighth.

    As for Hughes, he will also be glad to finally see the back of the Red Bull Ring. His collision with Lawson last Sunday capped off a troubled start to the year—after a technical problem left him 28th in the season opener, Hughes’ best result is half a point for tenth in the red-flagged second feature race.

    The good news for both Hughes and Fernandez is that while neither came away from Austria with the points they expected, both showed that their form this season is a lot higher than their championship standings suggest. Given a clean weekend, both drivers have the potential to trouble the frontrunners for victory at the Hungaroring.

    Sebastian
    Fernandez, ART (Dan Istitene / Formula 1 via Getty Images)
  • Hamilton wins Styrian Grand Prix as Ferrari implode again

    Hamilton wins Styrian Grand Prix as Ferrari implode again

    An excellent drive from Lewis Hamilton saw him take a dominant victory at the Styrian Grand Prix, while Ferrari scored no points after Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel collided on the first lap.

    Hamilton grabbed a superb pole position in a treacherous wet qualifying on Saturday and got off to a good start, getting clear of second-placed Max Verstappen, who battled hard in the first sector with the McLaren of Carlos Sainz.

    Into Turn 3, Leclerc dived down the inside of multiple drivers in the midfield, but the space into the apex tightened up and Leclerc mounted his team mate’s rear wing, having bounced up off the sausage kerb on the inside. Vettel retired from the race after losing his rear wing while Leclerc’s race was ultimately ended by the subsequent excessive floor damage.

    George Russell’s great work in qualifying for Williams was undone when he ventured into the gravel following a battle with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen.

    Valtteri Bottas managed to get past Sainz in the opening stint of the Grand Prix, before Alex Albon followed suit with a routine move into Turn 4. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton’s consistent lap times were seeing him slowly pull away from Verstappen.

    2020 Styrian Grand Prix, Sunday – LAT Images

    A slow stop for Sainz would then push him further down the midfield pack, compounding what had been a challenging start for McLaren, with Lando Norris battling away with the Racing Point of Sergio Perez.

    The Renaults of Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon also battled hard in the opening exchanges, with Ocon eventually having to relinquish the position to his McLaren-bound team mate after a tense battle as they were chasing Ricciardo’s future team-mate Carlos Sainz for fifth.

    Ocon would then retire with a terminal issue, while Kimi Raikkonen and Kevin Magnussen gave us a couple of really good battles, with the Finn eventually coming out on top in the Alfa Romeo.

    Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen pitted almost in tandem with each other, both re-joining in front of Verstappen’s team mate Alex Albon, demoralisingly for the Thai-British driver.

    Perez and Norris then went long in the first stint, along with Valtteri Bottas, all hoping their strategies would win them their respective battles. As Perez re-joined, he pulled off an absolutely exceptional move on Carlos Sainz round the outside of Turn 6, and set off in pursuit of his team mate Lance Stroll. After a close encounter with the Canadian, he squeezed past him and breezed past the Renault of Daniel Ricciardo, who continued to frustrate Stroll.

    After an intense battle into Turn 4 with Verstappen, Bottas eventually got past a steely Verstappen, with the Dutchman scoring his first points of the season in third following an early non-finish last week.

    2020 Styrian Grand Prix, Sunday – LAT Images

    Perez, during all this, had caught up to Albon in the other Red Bull but very nearly recreated the incident between Hamilton and Albon last week, making contact with the Red Bull, but not spinning him. Unfortunately for Perez however, the contact cost him his front wing.

    This would prove disastrous for the Mexican. Lando Norris had been allowed past his team mate Sainz and set the fastest lap of the race, and set after the squabbling Stroll and Ricciardo.

    After Hamilton had crossed the line to claim an imperious win, a frustrated Stroll dived down the inside of Ricciardo and that sent both of them off the track, allowing the resurgent Norris, who started ninth, to pass them both into turn four, jinking between the Renault and the Racing Point.

    Perez, meanwhile, was crawling to the chequered flag after his front wing had all but fallen off following his contact with Albon, and Norris brilliantly snuck past him into the final corner. It was then a photo-finish between Perez, Stroll and Ricciardo to the line. Perez just held onto seventh place, while Ricciardo had to settle for eighth behind Stroll having once been running in fifth.

    After making another stop, Sainz smashed the fastest lap record set by Raikkonen in 2018 with a 1:05.6, and he would take the fastest lap point in ninth.

    It was a resurgent Hamilton after a tough weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix last time out, but his 85th career win at the Styrian Grand Prix puts him right back into championship contention, and six wins behind the all-time 91 race win record set by Michael Schumacher.

     

    [Featured image – LAT Images]

  • F2 Styria: Lundgaard beats Ticktum to dominant sprint race win

    F2 Styria: Lundgaard beats Ticktum to dominant sprint race win

    Christian Lundgaard took victory in the Styria sprint race, taking the lead early and going on to command throughout.

    Lundgaard started the race in third behind reverse polesitter Dan Ticktum and ART teammate Marcus Armstrong, but passed Armstrong for second at the start. He stuck with Ticktum through the opening few laps and on lap 4 passed the DAMS on the inside of Turn 3 to take the lead.

    Once in front, Lundgaard continued pushing and opened up a two second gap over Ticktum by lap 8—this increased by another second by lap 12. Ticktum responded in the middle phase of the race to take a few tenths out of Lundgaard, but a series of lock ups allowed the gap to open back up to 3.2s by lap 22.

    Lundgaard began to ease off towards the end of the race as his tyres degraded, but by this point Ticktum’s own tyres were also running out of grip and the DAMS was unable to close the gap. By the chequered flag Lundgaard took the win with 2.3s in hand over Ticktum, as well as two extra points for setting the fastest lap earlier in the race.

    Dan Ticktum, DAMS (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

    Armstrong was unable to keep up with Lundgaard and Ticktum up front, and on lap 12 he was passed for third by Mick Schumacher into Turn 3. However, Armstrong regained the position two laps later when Schumacher’s fire extinguisher went off in his cockpit, forcing the German to retire. Armstrong held on to the position until the end of the race to take his second podium of the season.

    UNI-Virtuosi ran a quiet race behind the top three. Guanyu Zhou passed teammate Callum Ilott at the start and was promoted to fourth after Schumacher’s retirement.

    In the final laps Ilott closed up to the back of Zhou and looked to have the pace on his tyres to pass his teammate. But the pair caught up with Armstrong on the last lap which gave Zhou DRS to defend and keep Ilott behind in fifth.

    Jack Aitken finished sixth ahead of Sean Gelael, while Nikita Mazepin picked up his first point of the season in eighth. Saturday’s feature race protagonists Robert Shwartzman and Yuki Tsunoda both retired, the Prema spinning out at the start and the Carlin stopping with a clutch issue.

    At the end of round 2, Shwartzman holds a narrow five-point lead in the drivers’ championship over Lundgaard and Ilott, who are level on 43 points. Ticktum is fourth and Armstrong fifth.

    In the teams’ standings, ART maintain their lead with 77 points, seven ahead of UNI-Virtuosi and 15 ahead of Prema.

    Formula 2 returns next weekend in support of the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix.

    Marcus Armstrong, ART (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)
  • F3 Styria: Pourchaire wins sprint race after leaders collide

    F3 Styria: Pourchaire wins sprint race after leaders collide

    Theo Pourchaire took his first Formula 3 win in the Red Bull Ring sprint race after longtime leaders Liam Lawson and Jake Hughes collided in the closing laps.

    Pourchaire had started the race on the front row of the reverse grid behind polesitter Hughes. The Frenchman jumped into the lead at Turn 1 as Hughes was slow off the line, but was soon caught by Hughes and Lawson and demoted down to third.

    Hughes and Lawson then continued to swap the lead throughout the race, passing each other every few laps through Turns 3 and 4. While the win looked set to be decided between the two of them, Pourchaire came under pressure for third from the Prema of Logan Sargeant.

    But on lap 21 Hughes and Lawson collided with each other on the outside of Turn 4 and both retired with suspension damage. This gifted first back to Pourchaire with Sargeant and David Beckmann elevated to the podium. The safety car was deployed to recover Hughes’ and Lawson’s stricken cars, and with only four laps remaining the race ended under caution and the order was frozen with Pourchaire taking the victory.

    David Beckmann, Trident (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

    Beckmann’s podium, his second of the weekend, led another triple points haul for Trident. He and Lirim Zendelli both got past Oscar Piastri at the start, while Olli Caldwell moved past Richard Verschoor to run fifth.

    However, Beckmann had more pace than his teammates and by lap 8 was ahead of both Zendelli and Caldwell to put him in place for the podium behind Sargeant. Caldwell and Zendelli were unable to keep up with Beckmann in the latter half of the race, with Caldwell eventually finishing sixth behind Verschoor and Piastri, and Zendelli taking the final point in tenth.

    Max Fewtrell made progress from 14th on the grid and rose to seventh by the flag. Saturday’s feature race winner Frederik Vesti finished eighth, and Sebastian Fernandez took ninth ahead of Zendelli.

    After the second round of the championship, Piastri still holds the lead in the drivers’ standings with 44 points, ahead of Prema teammates Vesti and Sargeant. Beckmann’s double podium moves him up to fourth, while Liam Lawson drops from second after last weekend down to seventh.

    Prema maintains the lead of the teams’ championship with 115.5 points, ahead of Trident (67.5) and Hitech (30).

    Formula 3 returns next week in support of the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix.

    Logan Sargeant, Prema (Joe Portlock, LAT Images / FIA F3 Championship)
  • F2 Styria: Shwartzman wins feature race after pit stop problem for Tsunoda

    F2 Styria: Shwartzman wins feature race after pit stop problem for Tsunoda

    Prema’s Robert Shwartzman took his first Formula 2 win in the Styria feature race, taking advantage of a team radio problem for longtime race leader Yuki Tsunoda.

    With the track drenched the race began after a lengthy delay with four laps behind the safety car. When the safety car pulled into the pits and the race began in earnest, polesitter Tsunoda got away from the pack cleanly and commanded the race in its early phase, building a gap over Guanyu Zhou with each lap. After two laps of racing the Carlin driver was 1.6s ahead, which increased to 5.5s by lap 21 as Zhou’s wet tyres started to overheat.

    Zhou pitted on lap 21 along with Shwartzman. But when Carlin called Tsunoda in to cover the UNI-Virtuosi, he was unable to hear the message over team radio and stayed out for another three laps. All the while, Tsunoda’s pace compared to Zhou on the fresher tyres continued to drop off.

    Tsunoda eventually came in on lap 26 after seeing the team’s pit board, but lost so much time on his older tyres that he lost the lead to Zhou and rejoined the track in a net third position.

    Yuki Tsunoda, Carlin (Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

    Meanwhile, Shwartzman had been making progress through the field after initially losing a position to Christian Lundgaard on the second racing lap. On lap 14 he passed Luca Ghiotto for sixth, then took fifth from Jack Aitken on the following lap. When Lundgaard had a slow pit stop on lap 21, Shwartzman moved into fourth behind Tsunoda, Zhou and Callum Ilott.

    Shwartzman demoted Ilott off the podium after both drivers had made their respective stops, and on fresher tyres he started reeling in Zhou with a series of fastest laps. On lap 27 Shwartzman passed Zhou for the lead of the race and began building up a gap as Tsunoda rejoined them after his own stop.

    In the closing laps Zhou began to struggle with overheating tyres again and Tsunoda passed him for second on lap 30. With much younger tyres, Tsunoda then started eating into Shwartzman’s gap out front, reducing it by over two seconds across the next three laps.

    Guanyu Zhou, UNI-Virtuosi (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

    But although he closed in to within half a second of Shwartzman, Tsunoda’s pace wasn’t enough to complete a move on the Prema in the final laps and Shwartzman held on to the victory. However, Tsunoda was able to earn another two points for setting the fastest lap.

    Zhou continued to struggle and dropped back from the two leaders. He came under threat from Mick Schumacher in the closing laps, who had taken fourth from Ilott after starting ninth on the grid, but managed to defend his place on the podium and finish third.

    Schumacher and Ilott finished fourth and fifth respectively, with Lundgaard and Marcus Armstrong behind them. Dan Ticktum finished eighth and took pole for Sunday’s reverse grid, and Aitken and Sean Gelael closed out the top ten.

  • F3 Styria: Vesti sees off Trident challenge in red-flagged feature race

    F3 Styria: Vesti sees off Trident challenge in red-flagged feature race

    Frederik Vesti saw off a challenge from the Trident trio to take Prema’s second consecutive feature race win, albeit with half points awarded as the race was red-flagged due to torrential rain.

    Vesti held on to his pole position off the line, while the order behind him changed. Trident’s David Beckmann had a poor start from second, allowing teammate Lirim Zendelli and championship leader Oscar Piastri to challenge him into the first corner. Zendelli got through for second, although Beckmann was able to hold third ahead of Piastri.

    The third Trident of Olli Caldwell also enjoyed a good start, rising from ninth on the grid to challenge Piastri for fourth, while Logan Sargeant slipped back from third to run behind Caldwell and Richard Verschoor.

    David Beckmann, Trident (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

    The first interruption came at the end of lap 4 when Aleksandr Smolyar spun off at the final corner, prompting a Virtual Safety Car. After three laps of resumed racing, a full safety car was then deployed when Clement Novalak picked up a puncture from a collision and retired.

    The race resumed again on lap 13, but was almost immediately halted again when Roman Stanek spun off  and Sebastian Fernandez was hit from behind on the straight and ended up beached beside the track. The safety car was redeployed, then followed shortly by the red flag.

    After waiting to see if the conditions improved, the race was finally abandoned as the time to run it elapsed and Vesti was declared the winner. Zendelli and Beckmann took their first FIA F3 podiums in second and third, while Caldwell managed to pass Piastri to score his first points in fourth.

    Piastri finished fifth ahead of Verschoor, and Sargeant was classified seventh. Liam Lawson was eighth, Theo Pourchaire ninth, and Jakes Hughes closed out the top ten having climbed from P16 on the grid.

    Lirim Zendelli, Trident (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

  • Alonso returns to F1 with Renault

    (Image courtesy of Fernando Alonso Instagram)

    When Fernando Alonso announced in 2018 that he would be stepping away from Formula 1, very few of thought he would return. With the current status-quo as it is with the last few years dominated by Mercedes with only Red Bull and Ferrari able to hold a candle to them, and Alonso growing evidently tired of being in a lackluster McLaren, it was perhaps understandable that many of us didn’t believe these rumours of the two-time champion returning to F1 with the team that took him to those two world championships, Renault.

    But sure enough, it was confirmed by Renault that Alonso would make his F1 comeback next year partnering up with Esteban Ocon and replacing the McLaren-bound Daniel Ricciardo. The former Red Bull driver signed a two-year deal with the French automotive manufacturer which was estimated to be in the region of nearly €25 million per year. But the promise of a car being able to challenge for podiums in the coming years wasn’t convincing enough for Ricciardo, and he will now take the seat of Carlos Sainz who is off to Ferrari to replace four-time champion Sebastian Vettel.

    Alonso claimed he would not return to F1 unless he had a race winning car, and in a post on Instagram, he seems to be pinning all his hopes on the upcoming revolutionary 2022 regulations which will close the gap between the top three teams. With the teams having agreed to continue using their current cars for 2021, Renault certainly don’t look like a frontrunning team right now.

    The experience of Alonso will undoubtedly play a part in developing their 2022 car but even so, time isn’t on his side. He will be turning 41 in 2022 which means at the very most, he has at most three years if Michael Schumacher’s three-year tenure in his comeback with Mercedes is anything to go by. Will he still be at the top of his game? Even if by some miracle, Renault are consistent front runners and he’s challenging for podiums, wins and maybe even the championship, would Fernando still be capable?

    Then there’s the question of Renault’s academy drivers. With Esteban Ocon being out of F1 for 18 months prior to the Austrian Grand Prix and having only raced two full seasons prior with Force India as well as a couple of races with the Manor team in 2016, he’s far from being able to lead a team just yet so that undoubtedly factored in when finding who could take Ricciardo’s seat. However there’s still questions to be asked about where this leads the two probable F1 graduates in Renault’s academy right now.

    These two drivers are Formula 2 racers Guanyu Zhou and Christian Lundgaard. Zhou is entering his second season of F2, prior to his first season , he hadn’t been that impressive in the junior formula, although was runner-up in Italian F4 in 2015. He had been on the Ferrari driver academy before joining Renault’s for 2019, and despite his time in European F3 not being indicative of being potential F1 material, he stepped it up when it mattered.

    Zhou scored five podiums and a pole position on his way to seventh overall, and began the 2020 season with a pole at the Red Bull Ring, and was set for his first win before his Virtuosi F2 car let him down. Plus you have to think that Zhou is also a marketing goldmine for a manufacturer like Renault, since he would be the first Chinese driver and China is always a market that brands want to sell in so it would make sense from a marketing standpoint.

    Then we have Lundgaard, who won two F4 championships in 2017, finished runner-up in Formula Renault EuroCup and took a race win last year in FIA Formula 3 with ART Grand Prix. He’s now in F2 with ART and scored a fourth and fifth in his first F2 races. He has had a rapid rise through the lower ranks and undoubtedly has the ability, but perhaps it may have been too early and he could be in prime position to be in the Renault F1 drive after Alonso retires for good.

    Since we are talking about Renault juniors, it would be an insult if we didn’t talk about the driver who was perhaps in the best position for that seat alongside Ocon.

    Lundgaard may have remained in F3 for a title charge in 2020, but that ART F2 drive had already been paid for by Renault so he was promoted into the seat that most likely would have been occupied by 2018 GP3 champion Anthoine Hubert.

    Having won two sprint races last season in F2 at Monaco and Paul Ricard with BWT Arden, but tragedy struck at Spa-Francorchamps when Hubert was fatally injured. I would have put a lot of money on Hubert being champion in F2 this year had he been in that ART seat, considering the past two champions George Russell and Nyck De Vries raced with ART as well.

    (Image taken from F1 2020 Game Play)

    Nevertheless, it’s the return of Fernando Alonso with Renault for 2021. I can definitely imagine a few more iconic moments from him, especially in the Drive to Survive season focusing on the 2021 season, the combination of Fernando and Cyril Abiteboul is going to make for some interesting moments for us, that’s for sure.

  • Mugello added to F1 schedule

    Formula One have announced that along with the current eight Grand Prix in Europe on the revised schedule, they will be making the trip to the Mugello circuit for what will be the inaugural Tuscan Grand Prix on September 13th, the week after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

    If you are a fan of MotoGP, you will be very familiar with this circuit, as it plays host to the Italian MotoGP. The circuit itself is owned by Ferrari, whose 1000th Grand Prix will now take place at their own circuit but whether or not they can win is another matter completely.

    So for those of you unfamiliar with Mugello, here is all you need to know for when the F1 circus shows up in Tuscany on September 13th.

    In anticipation of the news, I prerecorded an onboard lap at Mugello on Project CARS 2. Please ignore my terrible driving and my usage of the driving line, we can’t all be David Tonizza.

    You start off with a very long and wide front straight with a bit of a dip before turn one San Donato, a long open hairpin that immediately sets you up for a quick left right section dubbed Luco and Poggio Secco. That second part really tightens up on exit which opens up possibility for a lot of errors.

    A short run to Materassi which requires a lot of corner speed, then Borgo San Lorenzo will set you up to continue the momentum. Next up is probably one of the most amazing sequences of corners in motorsport, one that will look incredible in F1 cars.

    The run from turns six to nine involves a lot of elevation change, Casanova will be right on the limit for these F1 cars before setting up for Savelli, which feeds into the two Arrabbiata corners, two steep uphill, tight and almost flat out corners that I genuinely am having difficulty thinking of a comparable alternative on the traditional F1 schedule.

    This leads to a quick right left section with Scarperia and Palagio and then another long sweeper at Correntaio which has a bit of downhill camber. Then a quick flick through Biondetti before one final long sweeper at Bucine which will catch out a lot of drivers trying to get the best run into their qualifying lap.

    An absolute beast of a circuit which is unlike most F1 circuits, a real old school track that I know the drivers will really enjoy it. If I had to think of a comparable circuit, I would liken Mugello to Suzuka due to their shared characteristics of high speed cornering, elevation change and rapid change of direction.

    Of course along with the announcement is also the confirmed September 27th slot for the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi, which probably resulted in many collective groans throughout the F1 community but Mugello more than makes up for it. There may be other additions to the schedule that were not on the original draft of the 2020 F1 season calendar, including former San Marino Grand Prix venue Imola, and even the Algarve circuit in Portugal, both of which are very similar in terms of elevation change and long sweeping corners to Mugello.

    If there’s one group of people I feel sorry for in this landmark announcement, it’s Codemasters. I get the feeling that Mugello will not be possible to create in game for 2020 but I hope that this circuit along with many other potential circuits to host a Grand Prix this season are included in the next F1 game next year.

    Let’s hope the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix lives up to the hype.