Ferrari offered me Raikkonen’s race seat before Red Bull demotion

In brief

Ferrari offered me Raikkonen’s race seat before Red Bull demotion – Kvyat

Kvyat raced with Red Bull from 2015 following a single year at Toro Rosso. He finished on the podium in China the following year, but weeks later was demoted back to Toro Rosso. Max Verstappen took his place at the Spanish Grand Prix and scored a sensational win on his debut for the team.

“At the time I had also a proposal to race for Ferrari to replace Kimi at the time,” Kvyat told the Track Limits podcast. “Not many people know about it, but that’s what was going on behind the curtain.

“It was a very difficult situation also for me mentally to go back from being wanted by Ferrari and having seen the contract in front of you. And then you go back to Toro Rosso suddenly.” Kvyat eventually joined Ferrari as a development driver in 2018.

Use GPS to set race order during red flags – Steiner

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner wants the FIA to set the race position order under red flags using GPS positioning data to determine what order cars were in when the race is stopped.

The Australian Grand Prix’s final restart order was reset to the order under the penultimate restart after the race was red flagged before cars had entered sector two. Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg had risen to fourth by that time, but was moved back to eighth for the final Safety Car lap.

“With the technology that we have these days, GPS is accurate enough – we use GPS for the blue flag for example,” Steiner told Sky Sports. “They say it’s not accurate enough for a finishing position yet it’s accurate enough for a blue flag – we need to make our mind up what it is and what it isn’t.

“I really think there needs to be a lot of thinking. We could have frozen everything, via camera and via GPS, at the exact moment when the red flag came out.”

Indy 500 open test rained off

The second day of the Indianapolis 500 open test was called off after persistent rain fell over the speedway yesterday.

Friday was supposed to see a second full day of running, however consistent rain rendered any running impossible. Almost all the 34 entrants took to the track on Thursday’s opening day, with only RC Enerson not participating. Josef Newgarden set the fastest speed over the course of the opening day with an average…