#scuderiacorsa

[michaelfassbenderlondon]

Hopefully it can be fixed for tomorrow 🤞🏻 Src:https://twitter.com/yoursideaof/status/908852400143896577

[michaelfassbenderlondon]

Michael came 4th in his category today.

[stefanjohanssonvaxjo]

STEFAN JOHANSSON TALKS ABOUT THE NEW F1 SEASON AND HIS PARTICIPATION WITH SCUDERIA CORSA & MILLENIUM RACING AND HOW INDYCAR MIGHT BE THE BEST RACING IN THE WORLD.

----- Photo via: www.ferraribeverlyhills.com -----

----- Photo via: www.bar1motorsports.com -----

JT – You’ve been quite busy since our last blog, getting ready for the WEC season-opener at Silverstone with Millennium Racing and working in your new role as Sporting Director with Scuderia Corsa. As things worked out, Kyle Marcelli took your place in the team’s No. 63 GTD Ferrari 458 at the 12 Hours of Sebring. How did that transpire?

SJ – As we mentioned in the last blog, the team decided we should have a fourth driver for Sebring and only one Gold-rated driver. The ratings TUSC uses mean I’m a Silver-rated driver so initially the team turned to me and said, “You can be the Silver.”

But when I arrived at the track Kyle called me and said his team basically hadn’t shown up.

(Marcelli was to drive with the No. 7 Starworks Oreca-Chevrolet FLM09 squad at Sebring but team-owner Peter Baron decided to withdraw the LMPC car shortly before the race due to previous damage at the Rolex 24. Kyle co drove with Stefan at the 2013 Sebring and Petit Le Mans races)

I had a word with my team and told them I was happy to step aside if they would put Kyle in the car. I knew he’d do a great job for them and it’s more important for him to get in the car for his career than it would be for me to do a one-off race in a GT car that I’m not that familiar with anyway.

So that’s what we did and Kyle did a great job all weekend. (Marcelli set the fastest lap in the Ferrari) Now he’s got himself pretty much sorted with the team for the season so that turned out well for him. I was happy to help him because he helped me get the drive with him at BAR1 Motorsports last year.

JT – The race didn’t end well for Scuderia Corsa. The No. 63 fell out of contention, losing several laps due to a technical problem, ultimately finishing 18th. That was particularly unfortunate because the car led the race on several occasions.

SJ – Yeah, we had an electrical issue unfortunately. We were running in the top five all day and we definitely had the pace to bother the leaders. We were saving our powder for the end of the race, resting our Gold drivers so they’d be ready to go in the final couple hours but the problems took any opportunity for a good finish away.

JT – What did you think of Sebring otherwise? Obviously, the race was marred by both poor driving and officiating.

SJ – I don’t think I’ve ever seen worse driving standards in any endurance race. Some of the drivers that were out there have no business competing at that level of racing. Their brain capacity is 100 percent used-up just to drive the car. They have nothing left even to look in their mirrors, adjust switches or do anything except to keep the car on the road. And I’m sure that can’t be fun for them either. They must be miserable out there when they’re not on top of the situation.

The low standard seemed to be particularly prevalent in the PC class. The PC cars are serious race cars – every bit as high level as the P2 cars and even more because they don’t have traction control and other systems that the P2s have to make life easier for the drivers. They’re actually a bit harder to drive but they’re only a little over a second slower.

----- Photo via: www.total911.com -----

JT – On the officiating side, TUSC made several mistakes at Sebring including the now well documented errant penalty on the No. 22 Alex Job Racing GTD Porsche for contact with No. 49 Spirit of Race GTD Ferrari 458.  The series then compounded the mistake by failing to penalize the car which actually made contact with the Ferrari – the No. 912 factory Porsche North America GTLM RSR – the car that went on to win the GTLM class.

SJ – The fact that the officials wouldn’t budge is unbelievable. If you remember last season in IndyCar with Scott’s (Dixon) penalty at Sonoma it’s a similar situation. If there’s even a shred of doubt before you hand out a penalty, why not wait until you can fully evaluate the situation?

You can always assess a penalty later - even after the race – once you’ve had a chance to objectively analyze the facts. But just throwing something out there as a penalty that you can never take back once it has been handed out, it’s simple incompetence.

I can certainly sympathize with the guys in the control tower, it’s a high pressure environment up there, but so it is for the guys at the scoring stand in the pitlane, as well as for the drivers of course. It’s a very stressful job being a steward or race official obviously and having the pressure of dealing with a situation like this one while the race is underway doesn’t make it any easier. I don’t envy them for a second but it doesn’t take away the fact that what happened at Sebring is inexcusable and to some degree unfathomable that it could down the way it did. I have a feeling that ego’s might have got hurt and somehow clouded the judgment a little.

----- Photo via: www.fia.com -----

JT – The official WEC preseason test at Paul Ricard known as “The Prologue” took place last week and the first race at Silverstone Circuit is just a couple weeks away. The season is rapidly approaching for you and Millennium Racing.

SJ – Yes, the team was at the Ricard test and the cars are mega-quick. Everywhere we’ve been testing the cars are fast so I think we’re in good shape engineering-wise. Now we’ve got to get all the drivers together and do the final preparations.

----- Photo via: www.autoblog.com -----

JT – We last spoke prior to the opening of the 2014 F1 season at the Australian Grand Prix. Since then, the Malaysian Grand Prix and the Bahrain Grand Prix has taken place as well. There has been a lot of comment about the season so far from a number of perspectives. What are your thoughts?

SJ – Well, if we talk about Australia first, bearing in mind how the pre season testing went, I was massively surprised and impressed by how many cars finished. Secondly, I was surprised by how close everyone was already. At Malaysia and Bahrain they were even closer again. That underlines again how impressive the engineering in F1 is overall. It’s incredible what all of the teams have achieved in such a short space of time. Some of the teams couldn’t even do three consecutive laps in testing so it’s very impressive how far they’ve come.

On the other hand, if I had commented before Bahrain I would have said the same as everyone else did, that the racing sadly seems to be even more boring than it was before. Then we get an amazing race in Bahrain where there is great passing and fights for position throughout the filed and throughout the race. So in the end, it seems that everything is back to normal, some races will always be boring and some will be absolutely fantastic, like the one in Bahrain. If we talk about the sound of the cars which many people seem to have an issue with, I honestly don’t see it being that much of a problem, it’s a perception based on what people are currently used to and people will very soon get used to this noise level also. If a car is performing and it looks fast whether it’s 140 decibels or 90 decibels, who cares? I really don’t see the issue.

The turbo engines we had back in the 1980s weren’t that noisy but they sure as hell performed and people didn’t seem to dislike them very much. I think it’s just a matter of getting used to the new noise.

I think the bigger issue is how complicated everything has become, particularly the whole fuel flow rule. (In addition to mandating a 100 kilogram fuel capacity limit, the FIA mandates that 2014 F1 cars must regulate fuel-flow at 100 kilograms per hour.) I’ve asked probably ten different current and ex-F1 engineers and designers to try to explain this rule to me. Honestly, I haven’t been able to get an answer that satisfies me from any of them. They say the flow has an impact on the power the engines develop and over what time. Apparently there’s some theory that drivers would lift off on the middle of the straight once they used the maximum power to accelerate out of the corners. It’s clearly obvious that no drivers were consulted on this, why on earth would you lift in the middle of a straight to save fuel if you’ve already used up to much coming out of the corner, it’s absolute nonsense thought up by some engineers who’s looked at whatever theoretical calculation will give them the absolute best fuel economy versus power scenario. Any driver worth his salt knows there are much more effective ways of saving fuel than lifting on a straight before you reach the braking zone.

Besides, everyone has the same size fuel tank (100 kg). If you use too much fuel in the beginning of the race or for that matter at any point in the race, you won’t make it to the end. Isn’t that enough? If you want to use 1,500 horsepower for three laps, that should be your prerogative. You’ll have to back off at the end of the race obviously to save fuel because you’ve used too much earlier on. That’s what we used to do with the turbo cars of the 1980s, that’s what we do in Sportscars, that’s what they do in Indycars. The races do become quite interesting from that point of view.

The FIA talks about the fuel-flow in terms of safety (limiting the power of the engines). We know the drivers can handle more power; in fact I am sure they are all begging for more power. I don’t see the safety aspect of this at all. I don’t understand why they need to complicate things so much. One of the most common complaints from all drivers currently is that all forms of racing have been dumbed down to much with engine restrictors. It used to be very common for any car in any high level of racing to be close to 1000hp, even in race trim. Indycars, Sportscar and of course also F1, now it seems they are all around the 650-800 hp mark, which really takes away a lot of the skill elements from a drivers perspective. I remember actually getting wheelspin and powersliding coming out of turn 2 at Indy in Qualifying, it was awesome!

But again, I don’t see what this whole fuel-flow thing is about. Aside from the fact that teams are having issues with metering the fuel, why is it even necessary? I’m not able to understand why the rule is there and I’m not the only one. Again, I’ve spoken to some highly qualified former F1 chief designers and technical directors, and they’re all shaking their heads just acknowledging that it’s a rule and that’s the way it’s written. That’s the only answer they can give me.

Whether you’re talking about F1, IndyCars or sports cars, you’re always marginal on fuel. You only have so much. At Le Mans you drive on the limit but you drive smart. If you drive smart you can actually get an extra lap out of a tank of fuel. You pick a point to brake at and then coast into the braking area, and all of the other tricks you learn over the years. I’m sure today’s top drivers in F1 would learn how to do that too very quickly, and most of them already do. If someone has chosen to run an engine at, let’s say 1,200 hp, for a period of time then so what? That’s what they chose to do. More power equates to more fuel. You don’t get something for nothing. You burn more fuel to make more power. It should be a choice teams can make, knowing they will have to conserve fuel if they do that.

Normally, you have a fuel number on the wheel. That’s the number you have to stick to. If you go over for a lap or two, you have to back off for a bit to bring your consumption back to that number. There are some very interesting ways to achieve that through the way you are driving. But unfortunately the drivers have nothing to do with that now.

So you keep coming back to the thought, why don’t you just fill the cars with fuel, have them go as quick as they can and may the fastest man win? That’s what I always thought racing was all about.

Also, the fuel mileage these new engines make is 5.3 miles per gallon. They’re about as far away from being “green” as you can be. The whole environmental, green aspect of this is complete nonsense. This is racing – 22 cars competing every fortnight around the world, trying to put on a good show with supposedly brave young men risking their lives to be the fastest man in the world. That’s it, or at least that’s what it should be all about.

JT – Agreed. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that the whole F1 circus travels by air and by sea to these races across the globe. A Boeing 747 burns approximately 25,000 pounds of fuel per hour. The sport is not environmentally efficient in any way. And despite the money spent and effort that has been made to comply with the radically different 2014 rules, it doesn’t appear to have made the competition any better so far. It may not be as good actually. What’s more, the same basic four teams – Mercedes, Red Bull Racing, Ferrari and McLaren - are at the front of the grid.

SJ – Exactly, there has been a tremendous amount spent on this new formula – new engines, hybrid systems and chassis designs – for what? As far as I can see nothing’s really improved.

If anything, the advantage the best-funded teams have is bigger now. Whenever you introduce new rules, obviously the teams with the best resources are going to succeed faster and react quicker to changes or problems than teams with smaller budgets.

I keep saying the same thing over and over - rules stability. That’s the best way to improve racing. The trade-off between the money spent and the performance increased levels out more and more every year you have the same rules. Those are times in Formula One when a team like Jordan [Grand Prix] could actually win a race. The same rules year-in and year-out allowed them to catch up and narrow the gap to the big teams.

In IndyCar now, the rules are very stable and there’s very little that teams are allowed to do. The racing is generally very good and very close. Last year, IndyCar was by far the best racing in the world in my opinion. Theoretically, every team has the ability to win if they have a decent driver. Mike Conway cleaned up at Detroit last year, winning in a Dale Coyne car. Something like that will never happen in F1.

  ----- Photo via: www.autoblog.com -----

JT – Mercedes has been dominant in the first three races. It looked like Red Bull had closed the gap in Malaysia but then slipped back again in Bahrain. Team boss Christian Horner now says Red Bull/Renault main challenge is to achieve the same straight-line speed the Mercedes Powered can achieve.

SJ – One thing I’ve managed to learn from the people I’ve spoken to is that the Red Bull cars are already miles quicker than any other car in the corners. They just don’t have the power they need yet. If Renault solves that problem they’re probably going to be right up there with the Mercedes guys. That’s what competition is about. Sometimes one engine is better than another. Right now it’s evident that you need a Mercedes engine to stay up front, they seem to have a very significant power advantage at the moment, which showed up even more clearly in Bahrain with both the McLaren and Force India cars being very competitive this time.

Bahrain certainly had a very interesting mix of teams upsetting the status quo with both Force India and Williams running upfront most of the race.

JT – You’ve commented previously on the fines and penalties Formula One levies. For 2014, the penalties seem more frequent than ever.

SJ – Yes, there’s a constant handing out of penalties and fines. Like the incident with [Daniel] Ricciardo at Malaysia – surely he was penalized enough by some poor mechanic making a mistake and not securing his left front wheel, costing him a massive amount of time in the pits. (The FIA deemed Ricciardo’s release from his Red Bull pit box with the unsecured wheel “unsafe” and he received a stop-and-go penalty and a 10-grid-spot penalty for the next race, the Bahrain GP)

Apparently no one’s allowed to make a mistake without being punished anymore. Look at Kevin Magnussen - he gets into the back of Kimi [Raikkonen] at the start. (The FIA handed Magnussen a five-second stop-and-go penalty) That was a racing incident, pure and simple. These things happen all the time. Throughout the history of racing you’ll find that in almost every race someone will have contact with someone else in the first couple of laps in a tight corner where everybody’s climbing on top of each other and scrambling for space.

Why the penalty? Magnussen’s race was over anyway. Unfortunately he screwed up Raikkonen’s race as well but that’s racing. If a driver did that on purpose and drove into another car to retaliate or something that’s one thing. But this was a simple mistake, a driver error. The same is true with Ricciardo’s mechanic. He just made a mistake. He wasn’t trying to harm anyone. And Ricciardo… what could he do? It wasn’t even his mistake.

The situation with penalties now is completely over the top. It’s like we’ve talked out about before with all these ex-drivers at every race as “guest stewards”. It’s like these have to justify themselves being there somehow. I guess they don’t feel like they’ve done their job unless they’re handing out useless penalties. They need one guy who goes to all the races doing this job, rather than some of these random ex drivers who really shouldn’t be up there in the first place.

----- Photo via: www.indicarpaddockpass.com -----

JT – The IndyCar season got underway at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg last weekend. What did you think of the race?

SJ – It wasn’t the most exciting race and an unusually uneventful for IndyCar there. It was interesting however because while watching it in the pits on the scoring monitors you could see that every single car in the race was doing the same lap time. They were within three-tenths of each other top to bottom.

The race was all about track position. And when everyone’s doing the same lap times it’s impossible to gain time on your competitors or try to pass. It’s not an easy track to pass on anyway.

JT – Will Power won for Team Penske but caused some controversy with his very slow restart 28 laps from the finish. The field stacked up behind him and the accordion effect of his slowing pace led to cars swerving and an accident between Marco Andretti and Jack Hawksworth.  Power didn’t receive a penalty. What’s your take?

SJ – Well, I give him the benefit of the doubt in that apparently there was some confusion about what they were told regarding restarts in the drivers briefing. But it sure looked to me like he was pulling a bit of a naughty-one on Castro Neves in particular because he was just behind Will.

When you do that of course the whole field has to check up and the accordion-effect typically hits the midfield cars. Everybody has already gotten on the gas and then those following are later and later on the brakes and you see what happens.

Can you imagine if something like that had happened in F1 - the talk that would have been flying? The world media would have been all over it.

----- Photo via: www.scottdixon.com -----

JT – Scott Dixon finished in fourth place for Target Chip Ganassi Racing. I suppose he was somewhat satisfied with the result?

SJ – Yes, it was a weekend of damage control more than anything really. The team wasn’t generally on the pace the whole weekend. They were hanging around in the top six but they were never really hooked up. Scott was never really happy with the car. It was always a bit on the limit the whole time so in the circumstances fourth wasn’t a bad result at the first race of the year.

There was a good buzz in the paddock the whole weekend, and I feel Indycar is gaining some momentum again. Let’s hope they can get the message out to more of the fans that this is maybe the best racing in the world right now.

[stefanjohanssonvaxjo]

 “Certainly, when I joined the Scuderia Corsa program as their Sporting Director, I didn’t know this was what Giacomo had in mind,” said Johansson. “But in all seriousness, I am thrilled to join the team for Sebring. With the way the driver rankings had worked out for the GT-Daytona class, Giacomo asked if I could help out and of course I am happy to. As they showed last season and at Daytona, the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari and its drivers are capable of winning the championship and I am happy to contribute in any way that I can.”

[ferraridoesitagain-blog]

[ferraridoesitagain-blog]