Latest F1 news in brief

Mario Andretti entered F1 in 1968 and promptly put his car on pole in his first F1 race (Watkins Glen), shaking the establishment to the core

Stewart: F1 is boring today
Ferrari president insists a budget cap won't work in Formula 1
Wurz: "F1 should make the cars safer and race at 450 km/h"
Pirelli working hard to improve Wet tire
Perez: Ocon replaces 'one of the best'
Pirelli announces Australia, China choices
Video: Nico Rosberg on his road cars

Stewart: F1 is boring today
Formula 1 legend Jackie Stewart reckons that Formula 1 is missing excitement but thinks racing prodigy Max Verstappen could reignite the sport.

Stewart, who is a triple World Champion, said 2016 was a boring a year for Formula 1 fans and the sport lacks the necessary characters to make it enjoyable again.

While praising Verstappen, the Scot also added that Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen are probably the most popular figures in Formula 1 at the moment.

"Other than Verstappen's breakthrough, it was not a very interesting season," Stewart told Swiss newspaper Blick.

"Verstappen reminds me of the first races of Mario Andretti, Jochen Rindt and Francois Cevert. They managed to shake things up."

"Lewis Hamilton is a kind of modern hero, Vettel is a quiet hero. And Raikkonen is perhaps even more popular than those two, although he barely says anything or perhaps he's popular precisely because of it!

"F1 is missing excitement, incidents, failures and accidents. Don't get me wrong, nobody wants to see a driver crash but you want some excitement.

“In my day that was the case, but unfortunately many of my rivals paid the ultimate price for that."

Sergio Marchionne

Ferrari president insists a budget cap won't work in Formula 1
Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne insists a budget cap in Formula 1 wouldn't work, despite Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost's recent comments suggesting it would be easy to police and must happen in the future.

The FIA have tried several times — unsuccessfully — to introduce a cost cap, but the various proposals have come up against strong opposition from the leading teams, although the majority of the smaller outfits back the idea.

Tost recently said costs were becoming "unfeasible" and that every team is spending "way too much money" in pursuit of success.

His suggestion that a budget cap is the way forward isn't shared by Marchionne, who believes Formula 1 will always demand huge development budgets.
"The reality is Formula 1 is an extremely expensive sport," he told The Sun newspaper.

"There are factory teams from Renault to Mercedes, big companies that can concentrate on development in a broader way, and this, for costs, becomes very dangerous.

"I accept the goal of reducing costs but much depends on us and how we adapt to these demands. But I don't believe a budget cap can work."

The Ferrari and Fiat-Chrysler boss says recent moves by the FIA to reduce costs — by limiting development on key areas such as gearboxes, engines and wind tunnel time — hasn't saved Ferrari any money as top teams will always find other areas to spend their money.

"When I look at old reports — ten years and even further back — I deduce that Ferrari has never held back when it comes to spending," he added. "Despite all these interventions by the FIA to try to limit spending, the teams have found other ways to spend.

"This is the old problem for all those who try to impose limits on car development: if areas are left open, spending concentrates in this area.

"If I look at the last four of five years, we haven't saved a euro, we have simply redistributed our spending to other areas.

"In principle it's [a budget cap] very noble but, then, the effect never gives the necessary results."

Alexander Wurz

Wurz: "F1 should make the cars safer and race at 450 km/h"
Grand Prix Drivers' Association chairman Alexander Wurz says increasing driver safety in Formula 1 would allow the sport to make the cars “way faster" and turn up the excitement factor.

The Austrian says that he would want to see a massive increase in downforce and speed down the line, but stresses that can only be made possible if the risk of injury is reduced.

"If I am a visionary for F1, I would make the cars ever safer, but I would than make them way faster," Wurz told Motorsport.com.

"But I talk of way faster, because we can make cars which go 450 [km/h] and have way more downforce. We can then, when the cars are safer, race on the most extreme race tracks, city tracks."

Wurz, who this year lobbied for the 2017 introduction of the Halo cockpit protection before it was ultimately delayed to 2018, believes that a further safety push could allow F1 to do away with a number of current rules and features that make the championship less exciting for its fans.

"We wouldn't need miles of run-off areas, so we wouldn't have the infringements which nobody understands anymore," he continued.

"The sole underlying aspect is that the fan at home needs to sit and think: 'I could never do that. Only the most courageous, talented drivers can do that.'

"Then I don't care about the rest. Because then my [inner] fan is excited. And we've moved so far from excitement.

"And if the cars are not safer, the race director will be forced to look after [the drivers], because he doesn't want to go to jail if something happens – and then we are backed into a dead-end road.

"My opinion is – make the cars safer and go very aggressive with the rest, because then we can, because a human life is less likely at stake. It will always be dangerous, if you drive at these speeds, as we have seen, but we are working against the probability factor."

The GPDA chairman says, however, that if F1 were to adopt this direction for its future, it would need to move away from short-term thinking.

"It's more my long-term vision – which doesn't work with some of the short-term vision people who are also around.

"I'm not sure if I'm right, but that's why we should decide as a group."

Pirelli 2017 rain tires

Pirelli working hard to improve Wet tire
Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery says the manufacturer has been working hard to improve its Wet tire compound, in the wake of public criticism from several drivers.

Sebastian Vettel led renewed complaints over the Wet rubber mid-season, after the British Grand Prix was started behind the Safety Car, claiming drivers could not trust it.

His Ferrari team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, also spoke out following the rain-hit Brazilian Grand Prix, in which he aquaplaned in a straight line, declaring them unfit for purpose.

"They are very vulnerable, easy to aquaplane," said Raikkonen.

"It obviously depends on the circuit and on many other things, but comparing to some years ago, those tires could handle this kind of water with no issues of aquaplaning."

Hembery, speaking in an exclusive interview with GPUpdate.net, explained that Pirelli has put a lot of effort into its 2017-spec Wet tire, though concedes more may need to be done.

"Well, they're much wider, so just to get the water evacuation to [2016] levels, for aquaplaning, has already been a big challenge, which we believe we've achieved," said Hembery.

"It's an area we need to probably still do some work in, based on what's changed over the last period of time, the standing starts and more running behind the Safety Car in the rain."

Asked if the difference between the Intermediates and Wets was too small in 2016, Hembery responded: "If you speak to different people, you get different opinions, if we're honest.

"One thing the drivers have said is they don't want us to touch the Intermediate.

"The main area is to get the performance of the Wet tire improved, the warm-up, which will take it away from working in the dry, so it's likely to be a tire that you want to go off when it dries out.

"But the warm-up of the Wet is the area where we feel we can get the most benefit."

Hembery admitted, however, that 2017's wider profile adds to the challenge.

"Next year we're going to be throwing a lot of water up in the air with the tires – we're going to get 25 per cent more water per tire, which is a lot," Hembery went on to comment.

"When you talk to the drivers, they say the in-car camera is much better than their visibility, so I think sometimes people have to be a little bit more forgiving on the visibility levels."

He added: "There are also very few possibilities for us to go wet-tire testing. All of the circuits are different, while the same circuit, on a day-to-day basis, can also be different.

"There are so many variables to consider in wet-tire technology."

Esteban Ocon

Perez: Ocon replaces 'one of the best'
Sergio Perez says Esteban Ocon is replacing "one of the best" drivers on the grid in Nico Hulkenberg, but reckons the Mercedes youngster will rise to the challenge.

Hulkenberg was Perez's teammate at Force India over the past three seasons, and also raced for the outfit back in 2012, but will make the switch to Renault for 2017.

Ocon, 20, has been signed as Hulkenberg's replacement on a "multi-year deal", having spent half a season at Manor, and previously tested F1 machinery with Force India.

"I think Nico is one of the best ones out there," commented Perez, when asked by GPUpdate.net to assess the impact of Hulkenberg's move to Renault, and Ocon's arrival.

"It was very difficult to beat him through this year and last year.

"It's been very competitive between us in every session and we pushed each other forward quite a lot. I think I learned a lot from him, I don't know if he did [learn] from me."

Force India has set itself a "stretch objective" of third next season, having climbed to fourth in 2016, and Perez is confident that, despite limited experience, Ocon will deliver.

"I have heard a lot of good things about him, so let's see how quick he is, and how quickly he can get on with the new regulations as everyone," he went on to comment.

"The team went for the best possible driver they could get, and everyone is very happy that we have Esteban for next year, so let's hope we can both deliver many points."

Ocon, who beat fellow Mercedes-backed Pascal Wehrlein to the seat, was also praised by Force India COO Otmar Szafnauer, who says the Frenchman has "great potential".

"When you're making decisions, it's always [a case of] the more information you have, the better off you are at making a good decision," Szafnauer told GPUpdate.net.

"We looked at who we'd worked with and decided that Esteban was the best fit, the best potential, willingness to learn and improve, and we're good at improving young drivers.

"I think that very quickly we'll get Esteban up to speed."

Pirelli 2017 F1 tires

Pirelli announces Australia, China choices
Formula 1 tire supplier Pirelli has announced the compounds which will be used during the opening two events of the 2017 season in Australia and China, and has revealed it has homologated a 'back-up' compound.

For the season-opener in Melbourne's Albert Park, Pirelli will bring the Ultra Soft (purple-banding), Super Soft (red) and Soft (yellow) compounds, a step softer compared to the 2016 choices.

One set of either the Super Soft or Softs must be used during the race, with a set of the Ultra Soft tires assigned for Q3.

As in 2016, the Super Soft, Soft and Medium (white-banded) compounds will be available for the second round of the season in Shanghai.

A set of the Soft or Medium tires must be used during the course of the Grand Prix in China, while a set of the Super Softs must be used only in Q3.

The events will be the first with Pirelli's new tires, which will be 25 per cent wider both front and rear compared to the rubber used until the end of 2016.

Pirelli has also revealed that because the 2017 tires feature "entirely new materials and a completely fresh design philosophy", it has added a homologated back-up compound for each step of its range.

The back-up compounds "are formulated using more traditional criteria compared to the new base compounds" and could be introduced later in the season.

Pirelli says the introduction of the back-up compounds could happen in the event that it has "to respond to any particular requirements once the real performance levels of the 2017 cars have been identified".

Pirelli conduced 2017 tire testing with 2015 mule cars, modified to simulate the downforce levels expected in the sport next season.

For the first part of the championship, only the new-generation base compounds have been selected, the Italian company confirmed.

Pirelli's 2017 tire choices so far:

Event	Tire Choices
Australia	Ultra Soft / Super Soft / Soft
China	Super Soft / Soft / Medium

Video: Nico Rosberg on his road cars
Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg talks to BBC Sport about his cars away from the circuit.