The fast road out of the slums: F1 and Motorsport 2019

[Kevin S]

We'd better get our house in order and have a new thread up and running. Should be an interesting year. Will Red Bull be faster with the Honda power and give Max a realistic shot at the top two? How will the rookies, and returning racers, do? Can Williams be that bad twice?

And lots to look for in other series too. Loeb will look to show that he's still the Daddy in six WRC rounds, M-Sport will try to compete on a relative shoe string, and Ogier will attempt to hold off Tanak et al to win the Championship with yet another car.

Alonso's story will run and run, providing some narrative for Indy and the WEC.

And we've got Dakar starting next week in Peru, with the Race of Champions on 19-20 Jan.

[Kevin S]

So the lack of Peugeot's works team at Dakar gives the race a new look. Loeb will still be in a 3008 but with a privateer team. Sainz, Peterhansel and Despres will race for Mini. Al-Attiyah and De Villiers remain with Toyota.

[Kevin S]

Schumacher turns 50 tomorrow - there is a special app and exhibition to his achievements being set up.

Statement of Michael's family:
"We are very happy to celebrate Michael's 50th birthday tomorrow together with you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts that we can do this together. As a gift to him, you and us, Keep Fighting Foundation has created a virtual museum. The Official Michael Schumacher App will be released tomorrow, so that we can review all together Michael's successes. The app is another milestone in our effort to do justice to him and you, his fans, by celebrating his accomplishments. We wish you a lot of fun with it.

Michael can be proud of what he has achieved, and so are we! That's why we remember his successes with the Michael Schumacher Private Collection exhibition in Cologne, by publishing memories in social media and by continuing his charitable work through the Keep Fighting Foundation. We want to remember and celebrate his victories, his records and his jubilation.

You can be sure that he is in the very best of hands and that we are doing everything humanly possible to help him. Please understand if we are following Michael's wishes and keeping such a sensitive subject as health, as it has always been, in privacy. At the same time we say thank you very much for your friendship and wish you a healthy and happy year 2019."

Ferrari: Michael 50’ at Ferrari Museum
The Schumacher exhibition to open on 3 January 2019
The Ferrari Museum is dedicating a special exhibition to Michael Schumacher, which will open on the occasion of his 50th birthday on 3 January 2019 and last for a few months. It is intended both as a celebration and a mark of gratitude to the most successful Prancing Horse driver ever.

Schumacher has a special place in Ferrari's history, which has been marked by his many records. Between 1996 and 2006 the German champion won five consecutive Drivers' titles, from 2000 to 2004, and made a major contribution to the Scuderia’s haul of six Manufacturers' titles over those years.

The Museum’s rooms will look back over the memorable seasons that the seven-time World Champion gifted to all Ferraristi, and that created a legend now bigger than ever in the hearts of all fans.

The exhibition will also show Michael's crucial contribution to the development of extraordinary GT cars in his years at Maranello, as a driver and later as a consultant.

The ‘Michael 50’ exhibition is in collaboration with the Keep Fighting Foundation.

[Sits]

Article about Schumacher father and son, and Damon Hill from the Graun.

[Kevin S]

Dakar stage 1 should be broadcast and available here in about 35 mins:
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/tv/vi...dakar-daily-en

May have to unfollow the Dakar twitter account as it is giving me spoilers!

[Kevin S]

Opening race of the 24H GT Series (not the WEC) is underway with the first race in Dubai live on an official stream here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEz-xBixEG4

Dakar is progressing nicely, Al-Attiyah with a fairly narrow lead over Peterhansel at the moment. Loeb is 5th at +0:12:23. On the bikes, Sunderland is also 5th at +0:13:35 and a 2 min penalty - not sure if that is included in the gap or not.

There are quite a view videos uploaded onto the YouTube channel late each evening - here: https://www.youtube.com/user/dakar/videos

There are some short clips and also daily summary videos for each of the classifications.

This was a bit mad:

[Third rate Leszno]

Terrific footage on Eurosport from the marathon stage, especially the cars ploughing through the fesh-fesh.

Surprised by how well the Nissan and the 'proper' MINIs are going, I felt certain that the dune-filled route would favour the buggies this year.

[Kevin S]

Great drive from Loeb over the dunes yesterday - up to second and keeping the pressure on Al-Attiyah (who leads by a pretty healthy 38 mins still). Some of the bike riders had really heavy falls over that terrain.

The second ePrix of the Formula E season took place on Saturday, and you can watch the highlights or the full race on YouTube.

[Kevin S]

Well, this is an interesting development. F1 eSports (i.e. video games) racer defeats Di Grassi at the ROC in real cars.

https://twitter.com/F1/status/1086718932520701952?s=19

[Third rate Leszno]

The lad who won the eSports WRC title this year had previously competed in the 'real' Junior WRC and done well enough to win a prize drive in two rounds of WRC2 in 2017. While you'd expect an eSports competitor to have lightning fast reactions, there's obviously a read-across to more skills than that.

[Kevin S]

Apparently this Bonito lad has also got himself out on some real tracks in the last year or so, I guess to help himself make the transition from gaming controls to real car controls. As an eSport racer, he will have raced the ROC Mexico circuit hundreds of times in the simulator so would have been worked out the best line that way. I guess it opens up a new potential route for people into motorsport, though as we know picking the line and going fast is not the whole story (otherwise Maldonado would probably have picked up more than one win).

[Kevin S]

As we mentioned before the new year, Bottas is taking an M-Sport Fiesta WRC to Lapland this weekend - here he is at the start of a test run.

https://twitter.com/RallyingUK/status/1087333047828131840

Also it's Monte Carlo this weekend, isn't it?

[Third rate Leszno]

It is indeed the Monte this weekend - precious little time for Loeb to test his new steed after flying back from Peru, but if he adapts to it then we could be in for an epic battle between him, Ogier, Neuville and the Toyotas.

Personally I think Toyota will dominate this season and expect Tanak to win the title, but this isn’t his strongest event and I think the Sebs will be hard to beat.

[Kevin S]

Suninen came unstuck yesterday but the M-Sport crew have done a fine job here:

https://twitter.com/MSportLtd/status/1088681843862528001

Evans keeping his end up so far, though apparently stage 3 this morning has been cancelled because of fans standing in unsafe positions.

[Kevin S]

Looking at the live text updates, this has messed up a few drivers on stage 4 (running now) who had picked studded tyres especially for stage 3.

[Kevin S]

Evidence so far (yes, on the basis of three stages) suggests that

i) Loeb has adjusted rather nicely to Hyundai
ii) Evans and his new Fiesta will be competitive, but any rally podiums and stage wins will be very hard to come by. He should be able to duke it out with the likes of Lappi, Latvala and Meeke though.
iii) Pontus Tidemand is perhaps not cut out for the WRC. Early days yet, but he's posting times comparable to Gus Greensmith in the Fiesta R5...

[Kevin S]

Mind you, Gus Greensmith could be something special. Only 22 years old, a former British Junior Rally champion, and he managed to get a 9th placing in Mexico overall last year despite being in the R5 car. He's apparently going to be given the keys to the WRC car for this year's Rally de Portugal.

[Kevin S]

Tidemand got a bit closer to the rest on stage 5, too. Looks like he might just be playing it a bit safe.

[Kevin S]

Eventful SS7 by the sounds of it. Evans with a fantastic time, though not quite enough for the stage win unfortunately. Ogier takes the lead from Neuville, Loeb up to third after his second stage win. Tanak falls back after a puncture and Meeke has broken another rim. Those two fall down the overall and so Evans is up to sixth at the moment. One more stage to go today.

[Kevin S]

Seems like a good day's racing and tight at the top. Highlights on RBTV at 2100.

[Third rate Leszno]

Mind you, Gus Greensmith could be something special. Only 22 years old, a former British Junior Rally champion, and he managed to get a 9th placing in Mexico overall last year despite being in the R5 car. He's apparently going to be given the keys to the WRC car for this year's Rally de Portugal.

The family business - Crown Oil, familiar to lower league football fans as sponsors of Spotland in Rochdale - has funded Gus through the junior ranks thus far. He's not from the McRae 'win it or bin it' school, he reminds me more of the thoughtful approach of Richard Burns, gradually progressing through each category as he moves up the ladder. He'll need to show flashes of blinding speed more frequently if he's to emulate Burnsie though. I suspect he gets a lot of seat time in testing, which will give him an advantage over less well-funded up and coming drivers, but he's quietly impressive nonetheless.

Loved the night time onboard footage from the two stages last night, properly atmospheric stuff.

[Kevin S]

Nice info, thanks Les!

Drivers starting to drop like flies now. Evans worst hit this morning after a delaminated tyre on SS9 and then this bad accident on SS10. He was comfortably the best-placed of the M-Sport Fiestas too.

https://twitter.com/inforallyes/status/1089107446394695681

https://twitter.com/MSportLtd/status/1089098007457468416

[Third rate Leszno]

Ouch.



Gong to be a good battle for the win tomorrow. Meanwhile Greensmith having a really good, sensible drive - up to 7th o/a and just has to stay on the road tomorrow to win WRC2Pro. Another young Brit, Rhys Yates is having a very good run in 15th, ahead of many more experienced R5 crews.

[Kevin S]

Seeing the helicopter shot of Evans in the highlights made me realise that he probably picked 33 as his car number because from above it can look like EE.

Fascinating battle for the rally win tomorrow. It's so close they will want to push like mad, but Monte has such fine margins for error.

[Kevin S]

Live stream on the IMSA website of Daytona 24
https://imsatv.imsa.com

Alonso is in the #10 crew and had a good stint earlier. However Nasr in #31 has just overtaken them for the race lead.