List of All Articles with Tag '1'

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Seven races into the Formula 1 season and the moment has finally arrived. You can only bypass the trials and tribulations for so long before the tomfoolery of the sport’s most prestigious team must be dissected, head on. It’s time to talk about Ferrari. To say the 2023 campaign thus far has been underwhelming for the Scuderia would be in itself an understatement. Zero wins. Only one podium – in Baku – and even that was from a pole position start. Last time out in Barcelona, Charles Leclerc qualified a dismal 19th, failing to recover to a points-finish on Sunday. Carlos Sainz qualified second but could only manage fourth on raceday. Yet what makes Ferrari’s current infamy in motorsport’s most famous competition more baffling is their display in motorsport’s most famous endurance race. Because, returning to the 24 Hours of Le Mans last weekend for the first time in 50 years, Ferrari turned all predictions upside-down with a shock victory. Spearheaded by British driver James Calado, alongside former F1 star Antonio Giovvinazzi and Italian Alessandro Pier Guidi, Ferrari took their 10th Le Mans win and first in 58 years. It was a thrillingly impressive performance, beating favourites Toyota, in front of a sold-out 300,000 crowd at the centenary event. And what was it based on? Top-notch reliability, a clear-cut strategy throughout and straight-line speed which made the difference over the course of 342 laps. Can Ferrari’s F1 team take note? All the more, Leclerc was present in the garage in Le Mans, alongside F1 boss Fred Vasseur. How they must have both felt, seeing Ferrari’s best moment of 2023 so far play out in an endurance car as opposed to an F1 car. “It feels absolutely amazing, especially having a Ferrari winning,” Leclerc said afterwards. “I was here to support and I’m really happy that Ferrari won. It was an incredible experience.” Rewind a week and Leclerc was not so chirpy. “I don’t have the answer,” he exclaimed after his Q1 exit in Spain. What’s more, after the car returned to the factory in Maranello, a further sense of disconcertment. No obvious problem was identified. For a car which has thrived on Saturdays and struggled on Sundays, this was a discernible step backwards: a sense of direction which has been in motion for 12 months now. Ferrari’s last win in Formula 1 was in Austria, last July. 18 races have come and gone since then, with all but one won by Red Bull. This season, they trail Christian Horner’s team by 187 points already, languishing in fourth place. The point in time when Leclerc was a championship challenger seems a distant memory now. It’s hard to believe how far the Prancing Horse has fallen since his two wins from three to open up the 2022 season. The hope and realisation that the sport’s most famous team – who have not won a drivers’ title in 16 years, their longest-ever drought – were very much back in the top-end running was palpable. However, such potential has fallen off a cliff. No changing of the team principal, with Vasseur replacing the harshly axed Mattia Binotto in the off-season, has altered the stagnation. The Frenchman, too, is at a loss to explain the lack of consistency and progression. “We have 1,000 people [working] on this now and it is very difficult to understand and to fix it because it’s not always the same problem,” Vasseur said in Spain. When the boss is struggling to understand the issues at hand, there is a very tangible problem. Longer-term, you do wonder how long Leclerc’s patience in particular will last. The 25-year-old was linked with Mercedes last month, in a swap deal for Lewis Hamilton which seemed as fanciful then as it does now, with the Brit on the verge of signing a new deal. Leclerc’s anger in 2022 of the situation with his beloved team has now turned almost to an acceptance: an acceptance that ‘something has gone wrong… again… and we don’t how to fix it.’ And ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend, who knows what Ferrari will turn up in Montreal? The media don’t. The tifosi fans don’t. But most concerningly of all, the team don’t either. Read More Ferrari boss unhappy with ‘light’ Red Bull penalty for cost cap breach Ferrari chief orders ‘full investigation’ into Charles Leclerc’s retirement at Bahrain Grand Prix F1 2023 calendar: Every race this season Christian Horner reveals how close Fernando Alonso was to joining Red Bull Christian Horner reveals how close Fernando Alonso was to joining Red Bull

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Mercedes chief Andrew Shovlin admits the team won’t be “nipping at the heels” of Red Bull at the Canadian Grand Prix - with the Montreal circuit offering a “bigger challenge” than last time out in Spain. The Silver Arrows brought highly-anticipated upgrades to the Monaco Grand Prix last month, with their full impact seen at the traditional testing circuit in Barcelona last time out. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished second and third respectively, securing Mercedes’ first double podium of the season. Yet Toto Wolff has moved to downplay suggestions Mercedes can compete with runaway leaders Red Bull and trackside engineering director Shovlin echoed those thoughts when speaking in the team’s debrief video. “The fact is that the update kit works very well around circuits like Barcelona with a lot of high-speed performance,” Shovlin said. “The car itself would have still been okay there because we’ve been better at the fast circuits and the front-limited tracks. We ended up with a really good balance and really good race pace. “Now, where we are going to go next, Montreal, it’s a very different circuit. There are more low-speed corners, quite a lot of straight-line full throttle and we would expect more of a challenge there. “We are not thinking that we are going in nipping at the heels of Red Bull. We are going in there prepared for a battle with Ferrari, Aston Martin, and maybe even Alpine.” Hamilton finished on the podium last year in Canada, behind Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, and Shovlin added that behind Red Bull the performance gap is close with other teams this season. “It will be good fun and we are certainly going to be fighting to find every little bit of performance we can,” he added. “Because the way the grid stacks up now you can be P2 or you can be P10, and there are only a few tenths in it,” he added. “We are looking forward to more exciting racing but certainly we are aware that Canada is likely to be a bigger challenge than the Sunday we just had in Barcelona.” Verstappen currently has a 59-point lead in the championship from Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez and has won the last three races in Miami, Monaco and Barcelona. Read More Lewis Hamilton contract update provided by Mercedes boss Toto Wolff Christian Horner reveals how close Fernando Alonso was to joining Red Bull Lewis Hamilton, an 18-month drought and an eighth world title further away than ever

Hilda Baci caused a sensation last month after cooking non-stop for four days.