In the round-up: Aston Martin say they will avoid bringing significant upgrades to sprint race weekend after the problems they encountered at last year’s United States Grand Prix.
In brief
Aston Martin will avoid upgrade “confusion”
Aston Martin hit trouble when they brought an upgrade package to the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas last year. As it was a sprint race weekend they only had one practice session to validate the changes, but both drivers lost time due to technical problems, leading to both being eliminated in Q1.
Technical director Dan Fallows said they will avoid making the same mistake again this year. “We want to give ourselves the best chance of bringing updates to the car that perform right away,” he told their website. “That involves not just doing your homework before an update makes it to the track, but also making sure you’ve got proper comparisons on the track.
“When we updated both cars for the Canadian Grand Prix last year, we were relying on our deltas at previous races. Whereas if you go to a circuit with one car in one spec and the other in a different spec, it gives you a chance to do a good back-to-back comparison.
“We were very aggressive with our update programme last year. For example, we brought new floors to the sprint weekend in Austin, but this year we are going to be a bit more cautious about sending significant updates to sprint weekends where we can potentially cause ourselves confusion.”
More yellow, less red for third Ferrari
A striking yellow livery has been revealed for the third Ferrari 499P which will race in the World Endurance Championship this year. Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman and Ye Yifei will drive the AF Corse-run car.
More red, less yellow for Palou’s new sponsor
Reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou has the backing of DHL, previously Romain Grosjean’s sponsor at Andretti, for the 2024 season. The long-running IndyCar livery has been reworked for this year.
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Robb says amen to livery deal
Foyt driver Sting Ray Robb has confirmed an unusual new sponsor for the upcoming season – a religious app dedicated to promoting prayer.
Nobels takes F1 Academy seat
ART have confirmed their third F1 Academy driver for the upcoming season. Aurelia Nobels will drive a car sponsored by Puma.
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