RaceFans Round-up:

In brief

Piastri “keeping Norris on his toes” – Brown

Brown took the decision to drop Daniel Ricciardo from McLaren’s line up with a year left to run on his contract. He says his replacement, Oscar Piastri, has proved much stronger alongside Lando Norris.

“Lando hadn’t been challenged by his team mate in the last couple of years on a regular basis,” Brown told Track Limits. “But I think Oscar’s keeping Lando on his toes.

“I think the benefit is they like a very similar race car so we’re getting constant, consistent feedback from the two. The last thing you want is have two drivers that one says they have understeer, the other says they have oversteer and then kind of what do you do? So I think we’re benefiting from having two very fast drivers that are very technical.”

Brown added a note of praise for Ricciardo, saying it’s “great to see Daniel doing so well at AlphaTauri because he’s a great, great guy.”

“He won me my first race,” Brown added, “I’ll always have a soft spot for him.”

Drugovich “like another race driver”

Last year’s Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich will not graduate to F1 next year but Aston Martin are highly impressed by the job he’s done for them as a test and simulator driver this year. That included making two appearances for them in practice sessions, fulfilling an FIA requirement, the last of which came in Abu Dhabi.

“For us to have a driver ready to step in is very important,” said the team’s performance director Tom McCullough. “The work he’s doing for us now in the simulator is very impressive.

“He is a very strong simulator driver with a great work ethic so we’re getting value from that already. When he drove the car again on Friday [in Abu Dhabi], the data he’s getting us is cracking data. The regulations are forcing us to run the FP1 driver, he is a great one to put in because it’s just like having another race driver, nearly.”