The Red Bulletin F1 Special - The Styrian Grand Prix 2020 - 02

SATURDAY, 11 JULY, 2020

AN ALMOST INDEPENDENT F1 NEWSPAPER

ACTION HERO! ALEX ALBON BATTLES TO THE TOP

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F1 Spielberg Gallery 03

Bring it on: AlphaTauri ace Pierre Gasly can’t wait to get back in action.

BEFORE THE

STORM

Eye of the tiger: After a technical knockout at the Austrian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen is aiming for a better result in round two in Styria.

The teams used last weekend to get to grips with their new cars and pinpoint any problems. Data was evaluated, new parts were built, areas of weakness were (hopefully) eliminated.

But the chances of a turbulent grand prix are high: the Styrian weather is notoriously unpredictable and no team has tested this year’s cars in the wet. So, before the thunderstorms start, let’s enjoy the picture postcards of Friday practice in Styria.

GETTY IMAGES, REUTERS

WERNER JESSNER

Kicking corona into touch: McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz enjoy a friendly kickabout between races.

Blowing hot and cold: It was more than 30 degrees around the Red Bull Ring on Friday. The forecast predicts rain on Saturday and the sun is due back on Sunday.

04 Pacesetter F1 Spielberg

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11 July, 2020 The Red Bulletin

BULLHORN: MICK DOOHAN

Raising a racing driver is not easy but the five-time MotoGP champion says son Jack is growing up fast in F3

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ringing my son up to be a racing driver isn’t something I intended. I certainly had no interest in revisiting my past or spending the next two decades travelling from race track to racetrack. But now that I am, to be honest, I’m quite enjoying it.

Jack chose to race on four wheels instead of two at a very early age. When he was five, he hurt himself on a dirt bike and since his buddies were racing go-karts, he decided to get into that. He enjoys it and as long as he does, I enjoy it, too.

After he won a few Australian karting titles, he said, ‘If I win another, can you take me to do some racing in Europe?’

Without thinking it through, I said yes. He duly won another Australian title and we made the move to Europe. Considering it’s a different school of karting, he adapted quickly and did quite well.

The following year, he got the chance to move up to F4. I had intended for him to do another year of karting because he’d never driven a car but you’ve got to make the most of every opportunity.

Jack has a good work ethic. He’s always willing to up his game. He’s got some wise heads around him – not mine, clearly – but friends who’ve done well in motorsport, who he can bounce ideas off. He’s pushing himself to do his best and improve himself.

He’s fiery and competitive. The fiery part must come from his mum – a bit of the Latin blood – but the competitive streak comes from me. He’s always been a competitive kid, whether it be rugby union, athletics or karting. He’s not happy to finish second, which is a good trait for a racer.

There’s no substitute for having the desire, persistence and passion to just keep working at it. If he didn’t have that, I’d tell him to pack up and go to university.

I can share some of my experiences but I’m still his father and, if I push too hard, he’ll end up thinking I’m a pain in the arse. At the end of the day, it’s his career and he’s got to push as hard as I did as a young rider trying to make my way. Like all young drivers, he watches lots of videos and documentaries to study race craft but there’s no substitute for being on track, making mistakes and taking those opportunities for yourself.

The karting background helps. All F1 drivers have experience in karting and in Jack’s case, he started at eight and drove until he was

14. Since then, he’s been in cars. This is his third season racing cars and he’s done quite a number of races.

But even with talent, experience and dedication, it’s still extremely difficult to get to F1. There’s a lot of competition and the route to the top isn’t clear.

Whether it’s Formula Renault, your EFOs, your regionals, you can get lost in all those F3 series before you get to the real F3.

You also need to gather 40 Super Licence points before you can even be considered for F1. So it’s not an easy and clear pathway for young drivers.

And the costs have got ridiculous. I don’t understand how it can go from where it was 10 years ago to today. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always been expensive but these days you need more than €1 million to do a season in F3. That means a lot of talented young drivers can’t afford to go beyond F4.

In my opinion, if you want the best drivers to come through, the Formula 2s and 3s should have a cap.

Red Bull Junior Team often take a different path to F1, going into Super Formula and so on. Super Formula cars are extremely competitive and the performance compares well with F1. If you can do well there, you can clearly handle a car. We’ve also seen people like Max Verstappen go straight from F3 to F1.

I think Dr Helmut Marko’s policy of finding another path to a Super Licence and into F1 is the right approach and it seems to have paid dividends for the Red Bull Junior Team.

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MICK DOOHAN

IMPRINT

YANN LEGENDRE (COVER & PORTRAIT)

A lot of talented drivers can’t afford to race beyond Formula 4

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F1 Spielberg Pitstop 05

PITSTOP

ESTEBAN OCON

RENAULT, GETTY IMAGES

JUSTIN HYNES

Renault’s new driver has had to wait a little longer than expected for his racing return, but it was no problem, as it seems the French star slept through most of it!

What was the last thing you watched on Netflix?

That was South Park, Season 22!

What was the first car you owned?

I haven’t actually owned a car: they’ve all been company cars!

What car(s) do you own now?

Hopefully I will get to keep the Megane Trophy R that I’ve got from Renault at the moment. I have a bet with Cyril (Abiteboul) that if I get on the podium this year, the car will be mine!

If you had a time-travelling DeLorean, where would you want it to take you?

I’d love to go back to the ’60s and ’70s. I see so many documentaries from racing back in those days. It was dangerous, but the atmosphere was fantastic and everyone was so cool and chilled.

When did you first realise you wanted to be a racing driver?

The day I sat in a kart as a little kid.

What’s your best race to date?

I have to go back to Formula Renault in 2013. I started eighth in the rain at Circuit Paul Ricard on slicks and I took the win.

That was a tough race, but I won!

Where do you keep your trophies?

My trophies are all stored safely at my parents’ place. It’s a large collection, which is good.

What’s the most extravagant thing you’ve ever bought?

I don’t spend a lot but I bought a big speaker for my dad as a present.

It’s massive.

What’s the one thing you never travel without?

My iPad. It’s very important for movies when I travel, otherwise it feels very long.

If you had your choice of another motorsport series or discipline to compete in, what would it be?

I have nothing against other series, but Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport. It’s where all the drivers want to be.

What was your favourite toy as a child?

I had a tractor with pedals. It was actually a Renault! I used to slide that thing all day. It had solid plastic tyres and I was sliding so much, I wore holes in them.

What’s the coolest hotel you’ve ever stayed in?

It’s definitely the Ritz Carlton in Bahrain. Fantastic hotel, it looks like paradise. I like the track a lot, too.

Your dream holiday destination?

There are lots of places I would love to visit: Seychelles, Bali. For now, I like the South of France – it’s beautiful.

We have mountains, beaches and we can go surfing.

What’s your worst habit?

I have to sleep at least 12 hours a night, which is massive. Fifty per cent of my life is gone but that’s how I’ve been since I was a kid.

You’re ordering take-out, what do you get?

It has to be a cheat meal. A burger or a kebab.

Are you good at any other sports?

When you train so much, you develop good reactions, balance, vision and co-ordination. So I’m good at cycling, mountain biking, tennis and table tennis. I’m not amazing at football but I scored some goals in a match in Mexico a couple of years ago. Basketball – I’m rubbish!

Toughest opponent you’ve come across to date?

I’ve had a lot of good teammates but the most recent, Pérez, was the toughest.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever had?

I’ve been lucky to receive lots of good advice. If I have to name one, it’s ‘put the shoe on the other foot’, meaning ‘try to understand why you’re not agreeing with someone’. I still use that to this day.

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11 July, 2020 The Red Bulletin

BATTLE HARDENED ALEX ALBON’s route to the sharp of the end of the grid has been one of twists and turns – a trend that continues at the start to 2020. But he’s ready for more action and can’t wait to ‘get his elbows out’ Words JUSTIN HYNES

“It has been strange,” he admits. “All this alone time, all this downtime; there’s too much time to sit thinking. I’m quite lucky in that I live with my sisters and brother. We’re a loud household, so it’s not been too quiet.”

Now, however, the brakes are off and the 24-year-old is determind to make it count.

“There’s a desire to hit the ground running because we don’t have that many races. It’s going to be so condensed,” he says. “You’ll just be going from race to race in quick succession, but I think I’ll enjoy that. There will be pressure but it’s not bringing anything different than if we had started in Melbourne.”

Alex didn’t go into the season cold, however. Two weeks before Round 1 he was back at wheel of the RB16 during a team filming day and, prior to that he spent time at the wheel of an F3 car in a private test at Silverstone, with friend and sparring partner, Lando Norris also on track on the same day.

“It’s good to do, because while the simulator is great, you miss the forces. You miss that pure feeling of driving,” he says.

“You do feel up to speed straight away, which I was quite surprised about. But I was worried because I drove the F3 car and that felt quick.

So I was like, ‘if that was quick, what’s the F1 car going to feel like?’ But it was fine and it was nice to get back to the real thing.”

YANN LEGENDRE

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onstruct an obstacle course from the various challenges Alex Albon has faced on his long haul to the top third of the F1 grid and most young hopefuls would probably give up at any one of the hurdles placed in the way.

Budget struggles, well-documented personal setbacks, uncertain seasons in F1 feeder series during which his future was determined, on week-by-week basis, by results... Albon has suffered them all with a quiet, steely resilience that by the end of last year saw him rise from late addition to the Toro Rosso squad to hugely impressive midseason recruit at the senior Red Bull team.

Indeed, so successful was his opening sequence of races for Aston Martin Red Bull Racing that he was awarded a full-season drive with the team for 2020 ahead of the season’s penultimate race in Brazil. After such an arduous journey, it must have felt like the years of toil were at last at an end and that some sense of security was at hand.

But that would have been too easy.

Instead, Albon’s oddly tortuous journey to the top rung took another twist as his first full F1 season was derailed and instead of pulling down his visor on the grid in Melbourne, he found himself on a flight back to the UK.

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F1 Spielberg Quotabull 07

‘I’M NOT THE SAME PERSON ONCE THE HELMET GOES ON’

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11 July, 2020 The Red Bulletin

The extended break also gave Albon an opportunity to review his first season in F1, and he says he’s satisfied with the progress made during a tricky first season in which he arrived for pre-season testing with Scuderia Toro Rosso having never driven an F1 car before and during which he suddenly had to switch teams and embark on an entirely steeper learning curve.

“I was quite happy with my whole stint at Toro Rosso,” he says. “I felt like I was progressing and I was getting a lot more comfortable with the whole dynamic of F1 – and then I got the call up to go to Red Bull.

It was a shock and something I didn’t feel ready for at the time. But once I was with the team, they made me feel really good.

“The first three races went better than I expected,” he adds. “I would say I exceeded

my own expectations but then it’s funny how your goals and expectations shift. At the start I was just happy to be anywhere near a Formula 1 car, but by the end of 2019 it was more like, ‘OK, I want to be closer. I want to be better than where I am.’

“I still want to improve and I think there is scope to be closer; to have more chances of podiums, or even race wins. You always want to be pushing, trying to close the gap.”

While the delicate balance of building performance through qualifying in order to peak in Q3 remains an ongoing quest to “learn what the car really needed to be fast” – a process he says he and his side of the garage examined in depth in the off-season – it was Albon’s tigerish Sunday performances that most caught the eye.

On his Red Bull debut at the Belgian

‘I WANT TO, IMPROVE AND HAVE MORE CHANCES OF RACE WINS’

RED BULL CONTENT POOL, RED BULL RACING, GETTY IMAGES

In the hot seat: In a superb rookie season, Alex Albon quickly got to grips with F1 at Toro Rosso before stepping up to Red Bull Racing.

The Red Bulletin 11 July, 2020

‘I FEEL I HAD COMPLETED THE MOVE ON LEWIS ALREADY’

Albon quickly settled into his seat at Red Bull Racing in mid-2019 and says his targets have now changed. “I want to be up there more. I know what I want to be doing and that’s mixing it up and getting my elbows out.”

F1 Spielberg Quotabull 09

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Grand Prix, he hauled his RB15 from an engine-penalty-related P18 on the grid to fifth, during which he lit up the screens with a brilliant, ballsy move past Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez, taking the Kemmel Straight at full speed with two wheels on the grass.

In Russia, a crash in Q1 forced him to start from the pit lane, but once again he charged through the pack to take fifth.

In Brazil, he showed no fear in powering past four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel during a restart after a Safety Car and battled to what would have been his first F1 podium had he not been bundled off the track by Lewis Hamilton in the final stages.

Ask him if the red mist (albeit positive aggression) descends along with his visor and the Thai driver laughs. “I would say I’m definitely not the same person with a helmet

on! Everyone has their own personality and I’m quite quiet outside of the car, but when you’re in the cockpit, anything is possible.”

With Max Verstappen alongside him in the Red Bull Racing garage that quality will be needed at every turn this year, and ahead of the season former Red Bull star David Coulthard said Albon “is sitting in one of the most difficult seats in Formula 1”.

A

lex is more than aware that his closest rival is also one of the top two or three drivers on the grid, but he insists his job is to rise above the expectations of those who expect him to be beaten by the Dutchman.

“I know my seat is not easy. Anyone can see that, but for me it’s just about how do you overcome it, how do you rise above it, how do you do a better job than other people who’ve gone before you? Firstly it’s that, then it’s about not listening to the media, and after that it’s about knowing your own personal goals.

“You have to not look over your shoulder.

You have to have a close connection with the people who can affect your performance like my race engineer, my data engineer and you have to make sure you stay in your bubble.

Nothing anyone can do outside of that bubble will affect what you’re doing and you can just focus on the only thing that matters – your performance.

“Also, you know, people see [being Max’s team-mate] as a negative, but you can look at the way I look at it, which is that there’s no better way to improve than to be up against one of the best.”

It’s said with the sort of quiet resolution that has characterised Albon’s career to date and leaves you in little doubt that whatever happens during this unusual campaign, the Thai driver will leave nothing on the table.

“I want to be up there more, taking points” he continues. “I think we have a very good car. I can’t say where we’ll be, but I want to be mixing it up and getting my elbows out.”

True to form, his start to the new season was far from easy. A combination of clever strategy and a safety car had set him up to challenge for victory in Spielberg. Elbows out, he slipped past Sergio Pérez for P3 and was soon chasing Lewis Hamilton. He passed the world champion around the outside into Turn Four, but Hamilton clipped his rear right, sending Alex into the gravel.

“The contact with Lewis was so late in the corner that it surprised me.” He says. “I feel I’d completed the move and was thinking about getting Bottas on the next lap.”

He adds: “I wouldn’t say this one hurts more than Brazil but that incident was maybe 50/50 whereas this one isn’t.”

Here’s hoping that Alex Albon’s hard work gets rewarded at the Styrian GP.

10 Bored Game F1 Spielberg

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11 July, 2020 The Red Bulletin

YOUR DRIVER

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S PA

Move back 3 squares.

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is now not only ‘curating’ his Instagram account or buying private islands online during session debriefs, he’s also asking what ‘deg’ means and why he can’t have that steering that goes in and out, too.

3-PLACE GRID DROP Move back two spaces .

IGNORING YELLOW FLAGS!

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START!

RED BULL RING

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causes mass paranoia and uneasy sense of Déjà-vu.

Haven’t we just done this one?

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8

The kids have taken to calling you ‘Mummy/Daddy who lives in Skype’.

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The calendar may be brutal but you’ve been sleeping in your own bed for the past seven months without having to lift anything heavier than a lawnmower. You’re raring to go, you don’t have a hernia and you are experiencing something that might be… enthusiasm?

DOUBLE-HEADER AT THE SAME CIRCUIT

Your idiot broke all t drivers and floors he wings in Austria.

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YOU HAVEN’T SEEN YOUR FAMILY FOR FIVE WEEKS.

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PARTS PANI C

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p py t o haven ’t be see since t your work-m en he 1 9 9 a te s Move 0s . fo r w a rd 1 s q ua re .

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DOE MAKES ABSENCE THE H G E Maybe ROW FON ART D n this ha ot – but you ER?

It turns out you’re quite a bit better at racing than you are at doing a nine yearold’s maths homework. Victory!

D RE

CIRCUIT DE CATALUYNA

BEING AWAY HAS ITS UPSIDES.

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leaving Imola in 2006.

They’ve got a bill for you and an arrest warrant…

€1000 FINE.

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29 YOU WEREN’T PARTICULARLY CAREFUL

SPEEDING IN THE PIT LANE

Triple headers, uncertain destinations, racing until Christmas…

2020 is shaping up to be F1’s mean season. Can you handle the pressure of being at the heart of the action?

Let’s roll the dice and find out…

32

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FREED

from having to do endless sponsor meet and greets, signing sessions and press briefings, your driver is suddenly focused on his job and is bringing an additional 10th of a second in performance. Winning!

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ON AVERAGE, IT’S TWO TENTHS FASTER PER LAP.

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F1 Spielberg Bored Game 11

MONZA

CALENDAR CHAOS!

You’re in Portimao, the race is in Mugello… or is it Sochi?

Move back 3 spaces.

VICTORY! YOU ARE A TRUE CHAMPION.

You have made it to the end of this gruelling campaign in one piece.

It’s now time to take some time to see family and friends and to recharge the batteries. See you back at the factory on December 26!

DOUBLE-HEADERS ARE BRILLIANT.

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Two races – but only one build and one pack-down!

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FINISH!

The Red Bulletin 11 July, 2020

PACE

YOURSELF

INAPPROPRIATE REMARK IN PRESS CONFERENCE!

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22 OE’S NHE R E H T E IN T !

ON DDOCK ter PA ce is bet

SILVERSTONE

ING

like a large parrot being dro wned in a bucket of soapy water – and you’re sharing with him eve ry week from now until Christmas.

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YOU’VE FORGOTTEN HOW A WHEEL GUN WORKS.

FINGER TROU BLE!

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GETTY IMAGES, MOTORSPORT IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK MATT YOUSON

NO GUESTS

also means no motorhomes – and no chefs. Another cardboard sandwich and melted Freddo bar beckons.

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YOUR ROOM-MATE SNORES

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The final stepping stone to Formula 1: Racing on home soil in the RSM Marko F3 Alfa

GERHARD’S

PHOTO ALBUM

Gerhard Berger loves racing in Styria, even if the famed circuit hasn’t always loved him back. Here he looks through a selection of his favourite snapshots

PICTUREDESK.COM, PRESSEFOTOGRAF JOSCHI MAYRHOFER, SALZBURG, MOTORSPORT IMAGES

WERNER JESSNER

12 Photo Album F1 Spielberg

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F1 Spielberg Photo Album 13

1983

Formula 3 – Ralt-Alfa

The old Österreichring track was made for slipstreaming battles: you really had to pick your moment to strike out in front. In 1983 and 1984, I was right up there. In 1984, I scored a hat-trick: pole position, fastest lap, victory.

I had also secured backing from several local sponsors: Raiffeisenbank, the Tyrol tourist board and a record company called Rotorchrome.

1997

Benetton-Renault

A race to forget: I just wasn’t at home on the new A1-Ring and couldn’t find a good set-up. I started from the pits. The only chance I had was that there might be a huge pile-up on the first turn. The pile-up never materialised and I trundled over the finish line in tenth, lapped.

1979

Ford Escort

My first ever car race. Racing driver Franz Convalexius knew I was a good motorcyclist and he handed me the keys to his Ford Escort. He wanted me to either buy it – or wreck it. I’d told my parents I was going to college.

Annoyingly, I won and made it into the papers, at which point my father promptly cut off my allowance.

14 Photo Album F1 Spielberg

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11 July, 2020 The Red Bulletin

2018

BMW M1 Procar

The Legends Parade event at the Red Bull Ring. Most of my touring car races have been in the BMW 635 CSI. I only remember one race in the M1 at the Österreich­ring when I drove the Helmut Marko car in Marlboro livery for the final race of the 1983 season.

1985

Arrows-BMW

The car was a lemon – albeit a robust one – but the 1200bhp BMW engine was a dream and the team was ideal for a young driver. I learned a lot there that came in handy later on in my career. That’s me ahead of Marc Surer in the Brabham-BMW, a car that’s better than mine, on paper at least.

1984

ATS-BMW

This was my F1 debut and I can’t lie, the car drove me, not the other way round.

But I battled away and was even given a really powerful engine that had actually been set aside for Nelson Piquet. Sadly we had constant trouble with the gears, otherwise I could have really made a mark in 1984.

PHILIP PLATZER/CONTENT POOL, PICTUREDESK.COM, MOTORSPORT IMAGES

The Red Bulletin 11 July, 2020

F1 Spielberg Photo Album 15

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1986

1981

Alfasud

The car was a wreck when I bought it and I had to work night and day with some friends to make it into a racing car. The starting lineups in the Alfasud Cup were huge: there could be anywhere up to 90 drivers. This was full-contact racing, and there were very clear national rivalries: the Italians united as one against the French and the rest of the world.

I won at the Österreichring, even though I didn’t have that kind of support.

MOTORSPORT IMAGES, PICTUREDESK.COM, CHRISTOPH ASCHER

Benetton-BMW

No-one could get close to me that year. I took the lead on the second lap and was half a lap ahead of the rest when something went in the battery and I came limping back to the pits. You could have heard a pin drop. And that wasn’t all, the cockpit was so narrow that I had to have injections in my shins to handle the pain.

‘The Benetton-BMW was made for the Österreichring.

We had a 1600bhp engine and the wheels still spun when you accelerated, even in fifth’

16 Three from the Top F1 Spielberg

11 July, 2020 The Red Bulletin

PIERRE GASLY’S…

PODIUM OF PERFECTION

Rouen Cathedral and Muhammad Ali, Japanese cooking, the Brazilian Grand Prix, what connects these with the Nürburgring?

These are a few of Pierre’s favourite things.

TOP 3 TRACKS WE SHOULD RACE AT...

BUT DON’T Imola I’ve always loved this

YOUR TOP 3 RACES OF TE DA TO CAREER second for Brazil 2019 I finished in

my first podium Toro Rosso. It was ish.

F1 and an exciting fin st points in Bahrain 2018 My firly my second on s Formula 1. This wa season with race in my first full ished fourth.

Toro Rosso and I fin nd race for It was also the seco sso.

Honda with Toro Ro won the race Abu Dhabi 2016 I am pionship. ch and sealed the F2

track and a race there would be a fitting tribute to Ayrton Senna and all his achievements in F1.

I think it could be a nice way for us drivers to pay our respects to all the good he has done for our sport. Plus, the track is amazing.

Miami Hopefully F1’s organisers can manage to make a grand prix happen there. I love Miami as a city so it would be great to race there.

Nordschleife It would be amazing to return there to race.

RTING TOP 3 NON-F1 SPOMS A HEROES / TE OF ALL TIME had incredible Muhammad Ali He ’t

TOP 3 THINGS IN YOUR HOUSE Coffee machine

g mindset: “Don skills and an amazin e the days count.” count the days, mak e his personality, Michael Jordan I lov . way he played. GOAT dedication and the d Loved his game an Zinedine Zidaneen I was younger. watching him wh himself.

He was just a show

I LOVE coffee.

Simulator I enjoy playing

3

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TOP 3 CUISINES IN THE WORLD

French I believe French Cuisine is part of the

DNA of worldwide cuisines. I like the fact that it keeps evol ving with time to always strive for better quality, plus we have so many traditional, typical, and classic dishes that are just amazing ... but I might be biased!

Japanese I like the freshness of all the food , I love Japanese food especially when I’m in Japan. It’s another level there.

Italian I’m a big fan of Italian food. It’s som etimes not the healthiest, but it’s fresh and tastes sup er good.

JUSTIN HYNES

the highest cathedra monument in our city. It’s in the world. it was the tallest buiding and for about four years n where spots on either side of tow Panoramas There are twoof the whole city. When I get back you get an amazing view nect. to relax, think and discon home, I love going there d is is the most beautiful an Rue du Gros-Horloge Th ux Vie du ce Pla d leads you to the s famous street in Rouen an wa rc d’A e nn Jea , which is where Marché in the city centre

1.

143 burned at the stake in

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GETTY IMAGES

OUT TOP 3 PLACES TO HANG TY CI IN YOUR HOME ic most beautiful and histor Rouen Cathedral Simply the l in France

and have some fun on it when I’m free to enjoy gaming.

Bed My bed at home is always better than any other! With our lifestyle, I don’t get to sleep there often so I enjoy it when I can.