RaceFans Round-up: Softer tyres will improve racing

In brief

Softer tyres will improve racing – Ocon

With Pirelli bringing its softest range of tyre compounds to Melbourne for this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix rather than the mid-range it used last year, Ocon expects the race to be more exciting for it.

“It was interesting to test the new softer compounds here compared to last year,” Ocon said.

“I think it goes in the right direction. It should be a more interesting race with that side of things. It’s a very low-degradation circuit and it could make some more interesting strategies in general. Last year we could do the whole race with one tyre and it should be different this year.”

Sauber pit problems caused by redesign

Sauber’s pit stop problems which affected Valtteri Bottas in Bahrain and Zhou Guanyu in Saudi Arabia were due to a redesign of the team’s wheel components.

“We redesigned all the components from the hub, nuts, everything, in order to improve our pit stop and we changed also the equipment,” said team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi.

“We found that there is an issue with the design of a part and we are redesigning the part but of course this takes time also for the production and everything.”

Bahrain holding company takes over McLaren Group

Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat has taken full control of the McLaren Group, which owns the road car business and has a majority stake in McLaren Racing. The latter competes in Formula 1, IndyCar, Formula E and Extreme E.

Brown extends McLaren contract

McLaren has also confirmed Zak Brown will remain as the CEO of McLaren Racing until at least 2030, after signing a new contract with the team. He joined the team in 2016 and became CEO two years later.

Set-up changes behind Prema’s speed – Antonelli

Mercedes junior driver and Prema F2 racer Andrea Kimi Antonelli says that major changes in the set-up of his car are behind the improvement in the team’s performance. Antonelli secured a front row start for tomorrow’s feature race in qualifying yesterday, following the team’s disappointing start to the season in Bahrain last month.

“In Bahrain, it was my first weekend and so obviously I was not driving very well,” Antonelli explained. “But I was still quite happy with all the experience that I made…