Spherical eight of Formulation 1 season takes place in Austria this weekend within the beautiful environment of the Styrian hills.
Final day trip in Barcelona, Mercedes had been overwhelmed in a grand prix for the primary time this yr with Lewis Hamilton taking victory.
The Briton’s first grand prix win for Ferrari, mixed with Kimi Antonelli’s retirement late within the race, narrowed the hole on the high of the drivers’ championship to 41 factors.
Earlier than Sunday’s race in Spielberg, BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson solutions your newest questions.
A retrospective podium for Pierre Gasly. Justice? Or a can of worms finest left unopened? – Clive
Formulation 1 has clearly acquired itself in a little bit of a pickle relating to the pit-lane dashing penalties within the Monaco Grand Prix.
The info are that 5 vehicles got penalties for pit-lane dashing when none of them had gone over the restrict.
The size of the pit lane had been mis-measured – it was potential to drive a shorter distance than officers initially realised, by 77 metres.
And because the pit-lane velocity restrict is policed by the point taken to go by a sequence of timing loops over a selected distance, that meant the drivers had been wrongly penalised.
This led to a sequence of occasions that had a dramatic impact on the race outcome.
George Russell was most badly affected by what adopted, having a 3rd place became a twelfth and dropping 15 factors within the course of.
However McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Purple Bull’s Isack Hadjar additionally had their outcomes modified.
Is it justice that Gasly is returned to a 3rd place on the flag that he misplaced as a result of Alpine refused to serve his penalty throughout the race, whereas the opposite drivers’ outcomes are unaddressed?
Ought to the stewards who handled Alpine’s proper of evaluate over the Barcelona weekend have left it at that, and never raised the very apparent questions that adopted on from it?
By way of pure justice, the reply to each these questions is clearly no – there stay a variety of points raised by this example that haven’t correctly been handled.
McLaren and Purple Bull have taken the case to the FIA courtroom of attraction. No date has but been set for that to be heard.
Mercedes have withdrawn their try to get the race outcome reviewed after concluding there was no viable mechanism for restoring Russell to the place he might have completed, and it might not serve anyone to tug all of it on.
As McLaren stated of their assertion about giving discover of intention to attraction: “We imagine this case raises vital questions regarding sporting equity, regulatory consistency and the integrity of competitors.”
The disgrace is that this might all have been averted had the FIA and F1 acted otherwise earlier than the race.
Groups warned the FIA that there was an issue ready to occur with the pit-lane dashing restrict throughout the Monaco weekend.
Officers did look into it, however their preliminary conclusion was that the considerations had been unfounded. That was clearly an error. Had that been correctly addressed on the time, none of this may have occurred.
By way of sporting equity, it is onerous to not conclude that the problem needs to be taken to a full and correct conclusion.
Will Ferrari make Carlo Santi Lewis Hamilton’s everlasting full-time race engineer, or is his position nonetheless thought-about short-term? – Anthony
The connection between Lewis Hamilton and his new race engineer Carlo Santi has began off nicely.
Santi was initially meant to be a stop-gap earlier than Hamilton obtained a brand new full-time engineer, however a Ferrari spokesperson says: “Carlo and Lewis are working fairly nicely collectively and there is not any plan to exchange him.”
Hamilton has discovered a way more passable relationship with Santi than he had with Riccardo Adami final yr, and he is tried to elucidate that with out sounding too unfavourable about his scenario in 2025.
Hamilton stated in Canada, the place he completed second for what was his finest outcome with Ferrari on the time, that Santi was “completely superior and I am actually loving working with him”.
In Monaco he went additional and in contrast the connection with Santi to the one he solid over 12 years at Mercedes with Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington.
“Driver-engineer working collectively could be very, crucial,” Hamilton stated. “Final yr, Adami and I had a extremely good relationship. He is a beautiful man. We labored comparatively nicely collectively.
“Catering to a driver’s wants takes time to be taught.
“While you’re giving an engineer suggestions, their understanding of through-corner steadiness, their understanding of all the weather that contribute to the struggles that you simply’re fighting, you attempt to describe what it’s, the issue you might have, nook by nook, entry, mid and exit the place you dissect it into 5 sections in order for you.
“Having that driver-engineer collab, it is hit or miss typically. With me and Bono, we hit it off from the start. He had an excellent working relationship with Michael (Schumacher). I do really feel like Carlo is like my Italian Bono.
“He is a little bit of an OG. He is an older man that is been across the block and he is very calm. You possibly can hear him on the radio. That is the element that we’re in a position to enter collectively. Our understanding of the engineer facet, it is one thing that is very cool.”
