In the round-up: Alpine consultant Flavio Briatore reveals he promised Renault boss Luca de Meo success for his F1 team within three years.
In brief
Three years to make Alpine winners – Briatore
Briatore, who returned to the Renault-owned team earlier this year, praised the team’s recovery to finish the constructors’ championship in sixth place.
“It’s the result of everybody and I want to congratulate with everybody really because it’s the team spirit, this is what I want,” he said in a video published by the team. “I promised to Luca de Meo to put a winning team in three years, or whatever.”
Alpine became “very, very strong” by the end of the season, he said. “Pierre [Gasly] has done an unbelievable job. And as well Jack [Doohan] was okay, for the first race it was okay.”“We need to stay together strong, have a few more people with experience in the team,” he added. “But the team, I like the team.
“The racing team is changing completely. The pit stops, we are competitive now. Now we have a racing team. This is what I want. We are producing a car, but now we are producing a quick car. And Pierre, I discovered really a super driver.”
Juncadella gets Aston Martin role
Juncadella won the European Formula 3 championship in 2012 but was unable to find a seat further up the single-seater ladder.
DeFrancesco gets second chance in IndyCar
RLL has added Devlin DeFrancesco to its driver line-up for 2025 in a new “multi-year” deal. He completed a single season in the series in 2023 with Andretti Steinbrenner, ending the year 22nd in the standings with a best finish of 12th in Detroit.
DeFrancesco joins long-time driver Graham Rahal and fellow newcomer Louis Foster at the team.
Five F2 seats claimed
Formula 2 teams announced five seats on the 2025 grid have been claimed. Gabriele Mini will race for Prema while fellow Alpine junior Kush Maini moves from Invicta to DAMS. Roman Stanek takes his seat at Invicta.
Williams junior Luke Browning will have his first full season at Hitech while Sami Meguetounif moves up after a single season in Formula 3, to drive for Trident.
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Martin Brundle: 'Verstappen claimed he was fully alongside, but he wasn't. Perhaps Piastri could have left a bit more space, but I doubt he saw the late lunge.'
''We have two different individuals at the moment who have shown a serious interest in buying the collection as a whole. Two very qualified entities.' Entities, eh? 'Countries,' he clarified vaguely.'
F1 24 patch notes (v1.16) (EA)
'Following feedback from the community, an adjustment has been made to add an extra challenge for those playing at the highest difficulty levels. This change results in around a one tenth decrease in lap time for those competing against 110 AI compared to pre-patch performance.'
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Comment of the day
Something was missing from Hugh Bird’s final radio message to Sergio Perez, @David-br reckons:
Surely the final message to Perez should have been “So P1. P0. P45 and you’re good to go.”
@David-br
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to French Steve!
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SPArtacus
10th December 2024, 2:17
RE: COTD
Perez would be a 4x WDC if he wasn’t taking it easy on Max.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 19:20
The sarcasm can’t be read at all! If I hadn’t seen your comments before I’d have thought you were serious!
Johnny
10th December 2024, 4:14
Um… we know how Briatore can manufacture a win out of thin air. Hell, he can probably get Alpine a win next year.
RL
10th December 2024, 5:39
we also know what happened last time in F1 when Flavio was with a young driver whose dad was a world champion
SPArtacus
10th December 2024, 6:21
Oh, give it a rest. Why don’t these people endlessly bring up the same or similar scandals whenever Pat Symonds, Willem Toet, Nigel Stepney, etc. every time they’re mentioned? It’s like if every time Hamilton or Max was brought up someone mentioned lie-gate or Brazil 2021. Get some new material.
notagrumpyfan
10th December 2024, 7:46
I guess because what they did should’ve earned them a lifetime F1 ban.
mrfill (@mrfill)
10th December 2024, 12:44
It did. But the ban got overruled.
David BR (@david-br)
10th December 2024, 15:02
+1 Did and should have been maintained.
SPArtacus
10th December 2024, 18:06
Says every Hamilton fan even though Hamilton doesn’t win the 2008 WDC without him. If irony were made of strawberries, we’d all be enjoying thick strawberry shakes.
David BR (@david-br)
10th December 2024, 18:44
So you’re in favour of a team boss getting a junior driver to crash at an opportune moment for the team’s lead driver? That’s what you think Formula 1, sports and life in general are about?
So what if Hamilton doesn’t win 2008? But the fact is nobody knows how the Singapore GP might have finished without Piquet Jr crashing and equally we have no idea how the subsequent races would have been fought on track.
SteveP
10th December 2024, 19:01
@SPArtacus
So, on the supposition that there was no crash, manufactured or otherwise, you’re absolutely certain that Ferrari wouldn’t screw up on the refuelling and that Mass wouldn’t have made a mistake and pulled away with the hose attached, and dragged the length of the pit lane?
Both Ferrari and Massa, have a solid record for muck ups. Massa has retired, and the court case looks like another mistake, so he’s continuing that career.
SPArtacus
10th December 2024, 19:39
Yeah. That was totally my meaning…
You have a great future in writing social media headlines.
David BR (@david-br)
10th December 2024, 22:29
SPArtacus, so respond to the actual question: should Briatore’s lifetime ban from F1 have been rescinded? Can he now be trusted? His return is not something any of us can change but I don’t see why he has earned back anyone’s trust. And if he hasn’t earned that, why should we forget what happened at Singapore 2008? It’s still potentially relevant.
SteveP
11th December 2024, 19:23
Lol. Tumbleweed…
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 19:23
David, an easy guess is that massa, who was in the lead, would’ve won and that ferrari wouldn’t have had the pit stop hiccup without the pressure of the SC.
SPArtacus
14th December 2024, 3:42
Why should I respond? Your mind is already made up. He shouldn’t have a lifetime ban when others in F1 have been caught brazenly cheating and never got a lifetime ban. But Hamilton fans think of Alonso when they think of Briatore and that makes them see red.
SPArtacus
14th December 2024, 3:45
The funniest part is that even Piquet Jr. admitted that he was the one who originally thought of the idea. Yet your knowledge of the situation is so incomplete you talk about Briatore forcing a junior driver to crash/cheat.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 19:22
That’s true, it would be so odd to see people mention liegate, spygate etc. every time a hamilton article pops up.
MacLeod (@macleod)
10th December 2024, 8:01
Very simple he is going to cheat bribe people ect. that is why he was banned for life.
And no FIA is going to change my mind once a cheater always a cheater…
SteveR (@stever)
10th December 2024, 4:27
You nailed it Flavio!
Jere (@jerejj)
10th December 2024, 6:49
An optimistic target.
Since Max indeed wasn’t fully or even predominantly alongside, he didn’t deserve more space.
I like the COTD-suggested alternative radio message Hugh Bird could’ve given him after stopping the car on trackside.
SteveP
10th December 2024, 8:13
If he was in the right place, right angle, at the right time and had the right speed, he didn’t need more space.
His problem was he was too fast for the space he was in and too straight, so couldn’t make the turn without contact.
Truth be told, I don’t think he had a hope in hell of turning before the outside edge of the track at the speed he was going.
I feel sure if he can get past his rookie mistakes, he may become a great driver.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
10th December 2024, 6:50
That’s what El Plan was missing – the all-important “or whatever.”
notagrumpyfan
10th December 2024, 9:04
Nice early Christmas card by Alpine with Father Christmas.
Mathias
10th December 2024, 12:42
Briatore is really the Trump of f1.
Dex
10th December 2024, 19:36
Why, because his son isn’t named Hunter?
SteveP
11th December 2024, 19:24
People have lost count of the guilty verdicts?
An Sionnach
10th December 2024, 14:45
I’m impressed by what Alpine has done already. With the worst engine. What next?
David BR (@david-br)
10th December 2024, 15:03
Thanks for COTD and also explaining it to any bemused non-UK readers :)
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th December 2024, 19:26
I like the cotd too, I didn’t know that p45 term, pretty fun!