In the round-up: The president of Saudi Arabia’s Automobile and Motorcycle Federation says he is keen to see Formula 1 teams eventually move to the kingdom
In brief
Saudi motorsport chief keen to attract F1 teams to Saudi Arabia
The president of Saudi Arabia’s Automobile and Motorcycle Federation says he is keen to see Formula 1 teams eventually move to the kingdom.Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al Faisal, president of SAMF said the Saudi government was keen to “create a hub” for motorsport in the nation over the coming decades. Asked by Motor Sport if he envisioned an F1 team possibly moving its base to the nation, Prince Khalid said “this is what we are hoping for and this is what we are working for. Hopefully we can bring one of the big manufacturers.
“We have a 20-year programme that hopefully will launch at the end of 2023, early 2024. Our aim is not just to host international events, we want to be involved more. We want to have engineers, we want to have mechanics, we want to build cars, we want to be creative.
“We really want to have a champion, a driver that can compete in the championship for Formula 1, who can compete in MotoGP. We are investing a lot in infrastructures, in building tracks in Saudi Arabia. We want to build academies so we can be more involved – Saudi teams with Saudi drivers or other drivers to race in Saudi teams. It’s still a long way ahead but hopefully by 2030, 2035, 2040 we can achieve our goals.”
Australian GP qualifying moved earlier to avoid glare
Outgoing Australian Grand Prix CEO Andrew Westacott says moving the start time of the qualifying session at the Albert Park circuit to an hour earlier was prompted by a request from the FIA.
Since moving to a ‘twilight’ race time of 5pm in 2009, qualifying for the race in Melbourne has also been held at 5pm on Saturday. However this season, qualifying will instead begin at 4pm. Westacott told the Herald Sun the governing body informed organisers they wanted the session moved earlier.
“The reason is because there has been some glare issues during qualifying,” Westacott explained. “And so feedback via the FIA was that they wanted to make it earlier. We are finalising that at the moment but it’s likely to be earlier just to make sure there is ideal lighting from the sun as opposed to it being too low in the western sky.”
Pre-season IndyCar test set for Thermal Club
An open IndyCar test involving all full-time drivers has been set for Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd of February at the Thermal Club in California.
The resort will host the test around a combination of the venue’s North and South Palm configurations. All drivers set to compete across the IndyCar season are expected to participate across the two-day test. Earlier this week, Robert Shwartzmann was fastest in a private test for four drivers at Sebring.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Even with Cadillac, Andretti still faces some big hurdles (Reuters)
"One senior team source told Reuters that the chances of Andretti being accepted remained 'highly unlikely' and a 'strong majority' of current competitors were very opposed to any expansion."
Steiner explains inspiration behind upcoming book (Speedcafe)
"Hopefully people enjoy it. This is not what I’m going to do in the rest of my life – being an author – but it’s one of these projects I normally do. I get inspired and then, ‘Let’s do it,’ you know, ‘Let’s try it.’If it isn’t good, nobody will buy it, and nobody gets hurt, basically."
Mika Hakkinen: “Very difficult” for Ricciardo to revive F1 career (Top Gear)
"So if you have a sabbatical and you want to come back, how can you prove you can be better? How can you prove you are a faster driver than ever? There’s a young generation, rookies coming to Formula 1: can you prove ‘I’m quicker than them’?"
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Comment of the day
Do all new teams need to show they’re able to be competitive from the beginning to be given entry into Formula 1? No, believes @sham…
There hasn’t been a new team in recent F1 history that has jumped in and been competitive immediately. Haas came closest with minor points.
It takes time and investment, lots of both.
I’d rather slow cars on track, proving F1 can attract people, drivers in slow cars impressing and moving up, talented engineers in the sport, etc, etc.
Blocking new teams because they’re slow is no different to preventing lower league teams in the FA cup – how are they ever going to prove if they can do it with all the obstacles in place?
It’s lunacy, and it needs to stop.
Sham
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Raginginferno, Akshay.It and Mole!
Mark (@blueruck)
7th January 2023, 1:08
LOL – I won’t say never, but that attack on the refinery during the last race is going to be front & center. An attack like that isn’t going to happen in the UK in the next 50 years. So why would a team leave?
S
7th January 2023, 1:14
Why do the teams do anything?
Money.
And I wouldn’t be so sure about the UK not being ‘attacked’ in the next 50 years either.
S
7th January 2023, 1:11
CotD is spot on.
Success may be extremely difficult, but entry and participation shouldn’t be.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
7th January 2023, 12:24
… At least as long as they’re in the 107% performance-wise the rest shouldn’t be a problem indeed.
stefano (@alfa145)
7th January 2023, 1:19
do they really want to pull a PR stunt? do that with a woman driver
some racing fan
7th January 2023, 1:28
I’m gonna be the guy to make a comment on the headline- because everyone else is smart enough to not take that seriously.
If that ever happens, I will never watch a second of F1 ever, ever again. And I think I speak for everyone when I say that. Those Saudis involved in organizing motorsport there are menaces.
S
7th January 2023, 5:41
You certainly don’t.
Not even close.
some racing fan
7th January 2023, 8:07
If that happens, and you or anyone else watches that, you all ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I personally would never watch a sport that sells itself out to a bloodthirsty, totalitarian government that still employs medieval execution methods.
Jeffrey Powell
7th January 2023, 8:40
I totally understand how you feel ,what I hope is that now with six races on the other side of the pond the next few years will see new and maybe the odd existing teams moving to the U.S. At least they are half way to being civilised we will just have to hold our tongues and try to be understanding of their youthful exuberance.
S
7th January 2023, 9:49
You watch F1 now, don’t you….?
Brought to you by Aramco….
I wouldn’t be. We are all entitled to our own opinions, values and beliefs.
But thanks for imposing your personal view of the world on others. Sounds a bit like what your enemy does, doesn’t it…
Now, if only there was a bit more respect for others.
Jason (@jasonj)
7th January 2023, 7:06
I’ll speak for myself, thanks. But unless they throw crazy money, no tax, cheap materials at new teams, I don’t see a big move by any of the established teams into the region. A great new team could lure engineers over, it isn’t that far fetched, Ferrari lures designers and engineers regularly, so if enough perceived value can be created, with a healthy dose of cash incentives, some talent may just take the challenge.
Short Circuit (@jjohn)
7th January 2023, 8:30
How dare you! 😪
Just out of interest which “post medieval” methods of execution do you prefer or condone?
Mayrton
7th January 2023, 11:38
Textbook racism
Fred Fedurch
8th January 2023, 14:08
Are your Caps Lock and Shift keys broken? If you’re going to play the racism card it must be done in the most woke way possible. All caps with a minimum of 3 exclamation marks (extra emphasis when using bold/italic fonts). Copy and paste this —> RACISM!!! for any future posts you wish to make.
Mayrton
9th January 2023, 11:43
Hahaha
Mayrton
7th January 2023, 11:42
This might be a good thing. In 20 years they might be the world leader when it comes to all motorsports. Why should the UK hold a monopoly position? It is time all becomes way less UK centric to ensure and enable more inclusion. If you realise non UK drivers still get treated unfairly, it is about time we change that. This might help. It could have been Spain or India, but it turns out Saudi has the ambition.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
7th January 2023, 18:44
In what way do non UK drivers get treated unfairly? You seem to hold some bias against the UK for some reason. Judging by this comment.
The only thing the Saudi’s have going for them really is money. Do you really think the regime there is going to allow a modernisation of society that much?
Ankita
9th January 2023, 15:25
Just look at the driver ratings UK drivers get in British media. It is normal. Spanish media overrate ALO and SAI and French media does the same for OCO and GAS. The imbalance, however, is that the UK controls F1, so their preference for its own drivers is more obvious.
Jere (@jerejj)
7th January 2023, 6:43
If Saudis want more involvement, they should buy the entire series.
The qualifying start time was 16:00 last season too.
The difference is that last season’s AusGP occurred entirely after Australia’s clock-change weekend, so sunset time was 18:02, while this year, the equivalent time is 19:14, leading to a more desirable full three-hour window without bringing the start time forward.
Like with the races, all daylight qualifying (& Sprints) should also commence at least three hours before sunset to minimize issues, but in Baku, still unnecessarily close at 17:00 & 17:30, respectively, with sunset times of 19:32 & 33.
Sprint start time is usually 1h30min later than the race, so the same should apply to all such events wholly consistently (the same with COTA).
While qualifying time on Friday is for maximizing European TV viewers on a standard workday, things on race location should still come first in priority order.
Häkkinen has seemingly forgotten that Hulkenberg became a full-time driver again after three seasons (unusual for drivers without previous success in F1), so Ricciardo (& Mick) can equally return after only a single season away from being a full-time driver.
Simon
7th January 2023, 16:23
Thus endeth the overanalyses for today 🥱
Jere (@jerejj)
7th January 2023, 21:40
@Simon What overanalyses?
Ipsom
7th January 2023, 7:31
Seems like it’s wrong to have aspirations these days
T
7th January 2023, 15:08
aspirations are fine, they just need to be rooted in some semblance of reality that’s all
Mayrton
9th January 2023, 11:45
And where on earth do they live up to that criteria I wonder. For every criticism on the Saudi system I can come up with a point of attention on any other system or nation.
Jeffrey Powell
7th January 2023, 8:59
‘EVEN WITH CADILLAC’ !!!. Are they serious, I have woken up during the night in a cold sweat and then remembered my dream of a huge pink F1. Limousine with the old cast of Dallas as crew winning the Captain Sanders , Wall Street inaugural GP. speed limited to 15mph. at each bend. Has Andretti lost his mind or is just me?.
Zulu134
7th January 2023, 9:55
There is no chance an established team is going to try and move 800 people, plus rebuild all their facilities in a country that has little indigenous expertise and relies totally on expats (not to mention all the human rights issues). There is more of a chance of Ferrari moving to the UK (for which there is a strong argument they should given the level of F1 expertise in the country, including access to subcontractors) than Saudi putting itself at the center of anything motorsports related.
petebaldwin (@)
7th January 2023, 10:43
I look forward to comparing F1’s reaction to Andretti’s plans vs F1’s reaction when a Saudi team is announced. Somehow I imagine it might be a little different….
S
7th January 2023, 11:27
Not so sure it would be.
In both cases, it’s the FIA asking for openness and the other two parts of FOM doing the opposite.
Johnny
7th January 2023, 14:44
Why don’t they just buy F1 and all of it’s teams and make them work from there. I mean they’ve got the money and nothing else to do with it other than get more money and oppress women.
Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
7th January 2023, 14:48
“FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem says motorsport’s governing body will launch a process to find possible new teams to join the Formula 1 grid.”
Days Later
“Saudi motorsport chief keen to attract F1 teams to Saudi Arabia”
Coincidence – that’s not for me to decide.
GeeMac (@geemac)
9th January 2023, 5:23
@ahxshades Mohammed Ben Sulayem is Emirati…not Saudi. What you have implied would be like the UK government saying one day it wanted to get Tech companies to move their HQ’s to the UK and Google announcing the following day that it was moving its HQ to Ireland.
grat
7th January 2023, 22:34
It should be remembered that the 4 teams that were admitted for the 2010 season were all brought in under the belief that a budget cap was imminent, and they would be able to compete, for points, for $40 million a year. Obviously, that never happened, and all 4 teams folded– USF1 before they even got to the grid.
So really, Haas is the only “serious” new team in the past 2 decades (other than Toyota, who blew in, spent half a billion dollars and then blew out again), and they’ve done alright– circumstances have prevented them from competing at the level they’d like, but they did finish their 3rd season in 5th place.
Duncan Idaho (@didaho)
9th January 2023, 1:45
The only carbon capture scheme that’s working.
New slogan: F1, putting the auto in autocrat.
It’s nice though, MBS gets a lot of bad press for a relatively short list of crimes against humanity (compared with the full pantheon of historical villains), poor guy needs a break.
GeeMac (@geemac)
9th January 2023, 5:24
As a resident of the Middle East region, all I say to you naysayers above is don’t right this idea off just yet. If this region puts its mind to something it succeeds more often than not.