MOTORSPORT: Mercedes drivers on notice

Ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix, Mercedes has given its Formula 1 drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton a “final warning” to stop crashing into each other, but it has stopped short of imposing team orders.

While not specifying the “much greater deterrents” it has put in place on the warring pair (who are first and second in the world championship), the message is being interpreted as team principal Toto Wolff being prepared to suspend either of them if deemed responsible for any more collisions between them.

They have come together three times in the past five GPs: with both of them crashing out on the first lap in Spain; banging wheels at the first corner in Canada; and Rosberg limping to the finish in Austria last Sunday after last-lap contact with race victor Hamilton.

A Mercedes team statement this week said: “Our drivers were informed that they remain free to race for the world championship. We believe this is the essence of Formula 1, including between teammates.

“As passionate racers, we want to see them racing, and so do the fans of Formula 1. However, this freedom comes with a duty for our drivers to respect the values of the team. In the past five races there have been three incidents which have cost us over 50 points in the constructors' championship.

“We have therefore strengthened our rules of engagement to include much greater deterrents to contact between our cars

“With these in place, we will trust our drivers to manage the situation between them on track. Their destiny is in their own hands.

“The drivers were also reminded that we may issue instructions during the race to protect against a potential loss of constructors' points, such as we did at this year’s Monaco GP when Nico was instructed to let Lewis pass.

“If the drivers do not honour the revised rules of engagement, we may impose team orders as a solution of last resort.”

The Mercedes drivers have won all but one of the nine GPs so far this season, but Wolff was seen thumping a bench last Sunday as they collided in Austria because, as he said, “it could have ended up in a double DNF [did not finish]”.

Stewards blamed Rosberg for the contact and penalised him 10sec after the race, which did not affect his finishing position.

Rosberg himself has been unapologetic and leads Hamilton by 11 points (153-142) in the world championship. But the British triple world champion could snatch the lead this Sunday at Silverstone, where he has won the past two years, if Rosberg ends the day worse than third in the 10th of the scheduled 21 rounds.

Wolff would not go into details about what action would be taken against the drivers in the event of them coming into contact again, other than to refer to “possible sporting and financial consequences”.

Drawing on a soccer analogy, he said: “If you have a yellow card, will this change your way of tackling or not? You know what happens with a second yellow card. It is a scenario that none of us wants to be in.

“We don’t want to have them go around like puppies, but equally… If the drivers clash three times in five races it is risking our main objective, which is to win the championship [for the third year in a row]”.

“Clean racing is achieveable -- especially considering the skillset of those two,” Wolff stated.

Hamilton (champion the past two seasons after an earlier title with McLaren when it was powered by Mercedes V8 engines) is contracted for another two years, while Rosberg is negotiating an extension of his contract.

Renault to add 130 to its team
Renault, having scored points only once so far this season in its return to F1 as a fully-fledged constructor, plans to add another 130 personnel to its team and is committed to financing it for at least five more years.

In announcing the promotion of Frederic Vasseur from racing director to team principal, Renault Sport Racing president Jerome Stoll said the team wanted to hire 100 more staff at its headquarters at Enstone in Britain and 30 at its engine operation at Viry in France.

“This is not the work of a moment as we are targeting the very best people in their respective fields.

“Next year we are targeting top five in the constructors’ championship. The year after we want to be regularly fighting for podiums. By 2020 we want to be fighting for the championships with the best power unit and best chassis in the sport,” Stoll stated.

Renault’s six points this season came from Kevin Magnussen’s seventh place at the Russian GP. But the team has already turned its development focus to next year’s car.

Apart from the factory team, Renault still supplies its V6 hybrid power units to Red Bull Racing, although those carry TAG-Heuer badges. Next season the French manufacturer will resume engine supplies to Red Bull’s junior team, Toro Rosso, which this year is using Ferrari power.

Colourful team owner Carl Haas dead
Carl Haas, best remembered in Australia for prowling the pits of the Gold Coast Indy with an unlit cigar in his mouth, has died, aged 86.

Haas and late Hollywood star Paul Newman were joint owners of the hugely-successful IndyCar team Newman-Haas, with which Mario Andretti – in the last 12 years of his driving career – and his son Michael were synonymous.

The team also took Nigel Mansell to an IndyCar title in 1993, the year after he won the F1 world championship (and was immediately dumped by the Williams team).

Haas also was the last American F1 team owner before the new, unrelated Haas team from the US this season. That was in the mid-1980s when Haas, along with former McLaren chief Teddy Mayer, fielded a Lola chassis with a Ford engine in which Alan Jones, Australia’s 1980 F1 world champion, drove his final, frustrating GPs.

Haas died, after battling Alzheimer’s Disease, on June 29, but his family only announced his passing yesterday.

His heyday in Indy racing was before the big split of the mid-1990s in the American open-wheeler scene.

Haas remained loyal to Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), rather than the Indy Racing League that retained the ‘crown jewel’ Indianapolis 500.

Sebastien Bourdais, the Frenchman well-known to Australians from his Gold Coast Indy visits and more recently in V8 Supercar endurance races, won four titles in Champ Car, CART’s successor, in 2004-07 with Haas.

The maverick American’s last victory was with late British driver Justin Wilson in 2008.

He was the long-time importer of Lola racing cars and Hewland gearboxes to the US but had been off the racing scene since 2011.

Mario Andretti described him as “a colourful, unforgettable character with a heart of gold”.

IndyCar chips in on refunds for non-race
IndyCar is to pay more than A$1.2m in refunds on 4000 tickets to a race that has fallen through in Boston this year.

The promoter of that failed event, Boston Grand Prix, collapsed with almost US$9m in debts and has not made any refunds to ticketholders.

IndyCar has pledged to contribute US$925,000 towards compensating those who had outlaid almost US$1.7m on tickets.

“We want our fans to know that we share their disappointment that the race won’t take place,” said Mark Miles, chief executive of Hulman & Co, the parent company of IndyCar and owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Boston race has been replaced with one at Watkins Glen.

Ford’s GT success sparks two-year extension
It was in a six-hour race at Watkins Glen, in upstate New York, that Ford (and Australian driver Ryan Briscoe) last weekend notched the second victory in America with the Blue Oval’s new GT, which also won its class (GTE Pro) at Le Mans in France last month.

Briscoe and his British co-driver Richard Westbrook are now chasing a third GTLM success in the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) sports car championship this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (older fans remember it as Mosport) in Ontario, Canada.

They trail Corvette drivers Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner by eight points (159-151) in the GTLM championship standings.

Briscoe, Westbrook and New Zealand’s IndyCar champion Scott Dixon finished third in class at Le Mans.

Joey Hand and Dirk Muller were second at Watkins Glen last weekend. The pair won their class at Le Mans for Ford (a victory Ford’s Australian outpost has yet to acknowledge in an official communications) on the 50th anniversary of the Blue Oval’s famous GT40 win.

On the back of its success this season, Ford has extended its commitment to GT racing for another two years – until the end of 2019.

“We wanted to make sure everyone knows that we are committed to sports car racing with the World Endurance Championship (which includes Le Mans) and IMSA,” said Ford senior executive, Raj Nair.

Tough start for Aussie team in GT Asia
Australia’s Miedecke Stone Motorsport (MSM) has made its debut in the GT Asia series, with a frustrating start at Japan’s Okayama circuit, previously known as Aida when it hosted a couple of F1 races, but now turning its attention to next weekend’s round at Fuji International Speedway.

MSM, run by long-time racer and prominent northern NSW car dealer Andrew Miedecke with New Zealander Matt Stone the technical chief, is campaigning one of two Aston Martin Vantage GT3s it acquired from last year’s GT Asia championship-winning team, Craft-Bamboo Racing.

Its driver pairing is Australian GT points leader Nathan Morcom and Miedecke’s son, George.

“We’ve really had very limited running with this car, and never run them on the Michelin tyre, nor in the kinds of conditions we endured at Okayama,” Andrew Miedecke said.

“Frustratingly we were hampered by what appeared initially to be a balance problem with the dynamics of the chassis, but ultimately it turned out to be a brake balance problem, which Matt Stone and the team were quickly able to resolve.

“Sadly though that highlighted another issue with the braking performance, which ultimately meant the boys were unable to push the car as far as they needed to run with the lead pack.”

Morcom and the younger Miedecke also used the term ‘frustrating’ after the weekend that yielded two 11th-place finishes in a field of 13 cars, although Sydneysider Morcom said it was “a fantastic experience regardless”.

George Miedecke said the field was “super-competitive, but we should have been good enough for a midfield finish”.

“Sadly there was an inherent issue with the car that was affecting both our braking performance and our drive out of corners – two things the Vantage should be strong with,” he said.

MSM is hoping that the longest straight in Asian motorsport at Fuji will suit it much better for the seventh and eighth rounds of the series on July 16-17.

One of the stars of the series is Melbourne’s Jonathan Venter, who won a race at the opening round in Korea in a Bentley Continental.

The two Okayama races were won by another Bentley and an Audi R8.