👮👮Haas Not Showing Up With Cars?

Good morning. After a long wait and some much needed rest for the teams, we are back racing in F1. This time we have a double header starting with the Dutch GP at Zandvoort and Monza the following week.

With big talk from the teams about post-break racing and major championship points up for grabs, you won’t want to miss what’s coming.

Soak up the last rays of sunshine while you enjoy the races.

-Jake Williamson

🏎 GP preview

• 14 banked and complex corners

• 72 laps

• 306.648 km

• 2 sweeping DRS zones

Undulating is probably the best word to describe this track. I stole the word choice directly from formula 1, but it is such a fitting descriptor. This track is like no other track on the circuit. Yes, other circuits have banked turns and long sweeping DRS zones, but this track could have been designed by Disney engineers with how rolly polly it is.

The serpentine pavement gives this track a quality of speed and cornering that not many other tracks can create. With the exception of NASCAR perhaps with their incredible bank angles. You see, by banking turns like an old school hot wheels track, you create an immense amount of compression for the F1 cars. These cars love a bit of compression. It means drivers can carry more speed and still have grip throughout the circuit.

The tradeoff here is reduced passing opportunities. With long sweeping and/or banked turns, there won’t be as many opportunities to pass on another. The DRS zones help with this.

So qualifying will be key this weekend.

My prediction?

P1 - Verstappen

P2 - Hamilton

P3- Piastri

🌎 Testing Wars in 2025

It takes a lot to get F1 teams to work toward a shared goal. In fact, F1 teams are like a large blended family wedding. You can’t sit Aunt Edna next to Mark because their distant relatives fought over water rights in 1827 and Jenna won’t even look in Stephen’s direction so they need to be seated as far apart as possible.

These organizations are competitors after all. They generally place nice to each other, but they are ultimately always going to look out for their team first.

However, the teams have seemingly agreed on one thing and have made a case to the FIA to make some rule changes ahead of 2025. This effort has everything to do with testing cars.

Current Rule

Under current regulations, teams can run an unrestricted amount of test days in what are called “previous cars”.

These are classified as complying with the “technical regulations of any of the three calendar years falling immediately prior to the calendar year preceding the year of the championship.”

So, the teams can run cars from 2022 as much as they want. This is important because this is the first year that the current ground effect cars came to be. This also means that next year, teams will be able to run 2023 cars to their heart’s desire.

Why is this important?

Simple, the field is getting more and more competitive and the teams are running closer together. 2024 has been the most interesting and dynamic F1 season since before 2022 because the teams behind Red Bull are catching up.

So, teams must put more effort into setting up their cars perfectly for every race weekend to wring as much performance out of the machines. With unlimited testing of previous cars and the ground effect cars from 2022 being fair game, a team could test machines that are similar to the current cars to dial in set ups.

In fact, some teams are considering spinning up dedicated previous car testing departments with their own staff.

The proposal

After getting word of these massive testing operations, many teams are suggesting rule changes to level the testing playing field to avoid an all out testing battle between teams in 2025.

The current suggestions are a ban on any running at tracks coming up on the calendar for 60 days prior to them taking place, a restriction to just four days of running (or 1000 kilometres total) for drivers competing in the current championship, with a potential likely limit of 20 days in total allowed for TPC tests for the season.

These rule changes would make testing time a bit more precious and would ward off any major test programs that well funded teams could prop up. A team like Red Bull would still be able to put Max in a previous car to figure out their curb riding issues, but that effort would come at a cost because of the suggested 20 day total TPC tests and the 4 day limit on current championship competitors.

The verdict

No final decisions are likely to be made until September or October but these rules seem to have the support of the paddock and will likely be implemented with minimal change.

As for the impact, this keeps much of the testing of current championship contenders on the track over the GP weekend which is what fans want to see. They don’t want to see races being decided before the TV cameras even get switched on.

🚀Headline Sprint

🎊Lawson gets a seat at RB 2025: Red Bull motorsport advisor and notorious big mouth, Helmut Marko, has said that a decision will come out in September but Liam Lawson will “definitely be in one of our cars next year”. Lawson last raced full time in 2023 but was sidelined as a RB reserve driver for 2024. According to RB, Lawson’s contract makes a decision on his future all but required before the end of the year.

🏎️Antonelli taking a testing spot from Hamilton: F1 teams are required to field upstart drivers in at least 2 free practice sessions throughout a season. Mercedes is set to use one of their slots for Kimi Antonelli at the Italian GP next week. Antonelli, who is potentially occupying a Merc seat alongside Russell in 2025, is set to participate in the first free practice session next weekend.

🛞 Bono gets a promotion

Peter “Bono” Bonnington is staying with Mercedes and getting a promotion to boot. After 12 years of working with the seven time World Champion, Lewis Hamilton, Bono has been promoted to head of race engineering at Mercedes after much speculation surrounding a potential move to Ferrari.

You know how F1 goes. If you aren’t reading hard hitting facts, you’re reading convoluted rumors. Bono moving to Ferrari has long been rumored after Hamilton announced his plans to drive for the Maranello team.

It’s important to know that Bono would never have been able to follow Hamilton to Ferrari due to the “anti-poaching” clause in Hamilton’s contract. This clause explicitly prevents Hamilton from taking Mercedes team members with him when he leaves. There were probably ways to get around the legal docs here but it is unlikely Bono intended to leave at all.

Peter Bonnington has had a lengthy career that dates back to Jenson Button/Honda that eventually became Brawn GP. That type of tenure doesn’t come accidentally. Bono clearly wants to see Mercedes return to form event without Lewis.

Mercedes have stated that Bono will remain a race engineer for one of the 2025 driver’s but his role will be expanded as he heads up the pit wall department.

🏎 Haas in hot water with Uralkali

The former major sponsor for Haas F1, Uralkali, has demanded that assets be seized if Haas fails to pay up.

Context

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past two years, then let’s catch you up. Russia invaded Ukraine and the world lost their minds at the idea of a world superpower invading a small country in the name of annexation. Regardless of your beliefs, this action by Russia led to the Western world shutting the door on banking, resources, and participation on the world stage.

One small story in this global story came in the form of Haas cutting ties with their big name sponsor Uralkali and the driver who came with it, Nikita Mazepin.

 Court Order

Haas ended up cutting ties with the Russian company along with its driver which left Uralkali without close to 12 million euros as part of their second year contribution to the team. In response, Uralkali found a Swiss arbitrator to put forth a ruling on their predicament.

So, on June 12th, 2024 the arbitrator ruled that Haas owed the 12 million euro to their former sponsor. An order that has been ignored for close to 2 months.

In a statement Uralkali said, "The arbitral ruling was issued June 12th with immediate effect and has been ignored by Haas.  Haas has had over two months to implement the ruling, and, as was reported previously, Uralkali reached out to Haas’ representatives with options about how to make payment and where to send the race car, without ever receiving a substantive answer.

"There are not now and never have been any sanctions issues preventing Haas from fulfilling its obligations. Nevertheless, they have gone unfulfilled.”

Haas gets visited

Uralkali requested that Dutch authorities seize the cars and equipment from the team after the Dutch GP if the money is not transferred.

Dutch Bailiffs showed up to the paddock on the Thursday ahead of the weekend in an effort to take an inventory of Haas equipment as well as the race car that Uralkali says it’s owed.

Haas has issued a concise statement about their level of participation. "Haas has been working with its lawyers to ensure that the payment complies with all relevant US, EU, UK and Swiss sanctions laws and regulations.

"We will continue to work with Uralkali in the coming days to definitively resolve this matter."

💨 Hot Laps

Georgie Russell knew he was light going into Spa weekend…Should have eaten a big steak for lunch.

Hamilton gets Vettel’s old race engineer after Sebastian gives Ferrari his blessing.

Will Hamilton break the Zandvoort curse? He has never won here so let’s see what the Brit can do!

FIA has clarified that the new asymmetric braking ban is not do to Red Bull or any other team using this technology.

George Russell’s title fight for 2025 in full effect as the Silver Arrows start to show their form.

🛞Marbles

Random links from the authors not always car related

✅A second chance at life - a German biotech company is charging $200k and a subscription to freeze your body until you can be reanimated.

✅Travel Rested - How to get better sleep while you’re travelling.

✅Tech - AI has helped show us that Elephants in Africa have names for each other.

✅Check this - Crows in France have been trained to tidy up cigarette butts. How about you pick up after yourself instead of getting a bird to do it?

🤯Brain Food

How long did Formula stay away from Zadvoort before returning in 2020?

📖Answer

35 years 😥

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