“Plenty of opportunity” for Williams after passing Alpine

In the round-up: Williams team principal James Vowles says they can make more gains in the second half of the season after their windfall result in Azerbaijan moved them ahead of Alpine to eighth in the championship.

In brief

Vowles eyeing more points for Williams

Vowles praised Alexander Albon and Franco Colapinto for delivering the team’s biggest points haul since he took charge last year.

“It’s not easy doing a one-stop here, pushing the tyres to the absolute limits of life and not making a single mistake and they both did that today admirably,” he said in a video released by the team. “Off to Singapore next, I’m excited to see what we can deliver there and beyond. There is plenty of opportunity left in this championship.”

Vowles said the last three races have shown the progress the team has made with its latest upgrade. “You can now see across Zandvoort, Monza and here we were able to get the car into qualifying three, except this weekend both cars were there.

“In terms of the race itself, we try two different strategies, really, to race Fernando. They are very, very strong, he’s a very clever driver and it was difficult to get ahead of him. I think they had just slightly better degradation than we did relative to Alex, and that’s something we need to look into.

“But the car pace is there or thereabouts. Then towards the end of the race, Franco just doing a brilliant job, staying within just a few seconds of Alex, ready to pick up anything that came our way and, it did in a big way.”

Bahrain to host testing again

Pre-season testing for the 2025 Formula 1 season will take place on 26th-28th of February at Bahrain International Circuit, FOM and the FIA have confirmed.

Verschoor finally keeps win

Having won ‘on-the-road’ twice previously this year only to be disqualified afterwards for technical infringements, Richard Verschoor finally got to keep his feature race victory in last weekend’s Formula 2 round at Baku.

It came on an emotional weekend for the team, whose cars carried black strips on their noses following the death of Trident team principal Maurizio Salvadori’s 32-year-old son Luca in a motorbike racing accident.

I need oval win, admits Palou

Alex Palou won the IndyCar championship for the third time last weekend but admitted it’s about time he won a race on one of the series’ oval races. All of his 11 wins to date have come on road and street courses.

“I know that I need to win,” he said. “I want to win more than anything else at the moment.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be next year, is it going to be in two years? It will come one day.”

Palou believes he has “improved” his form on ovals since entering the series four years ago. “I was leading yesterday in practice [but] I feel like it was all bad in qualifying. There’s something there. I don’t know how to get that from me, as you can see. We’ll get it next year.”

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Links

F1 rival calls for Brussels scrutiny of Liberty Media’s €4bn Moto GP takeover (FT)

‘The leverage that this merger will give the resulting entity in terms of negotiating with broadcasters will be significant and I think the European Commission will look very carefully at this deal.’

Extended highlights – 2024 Six Hours of Fuji (WEC via YouTube)

Toyota was ‘never in the fight’ in nightmare home race (Sportscar 365)

‘I knew that if we didn’t score big points, the championship would be difficult, and I think I wasn’t able to control the pressure of that situation well.’

Power gracious in defeat after belt failure nixes title hopes (Racer)

‘I was just driving down the front stretch there, and I just felt a pop on the lap belt, and like, man, that’s weird. It felt kind of loose in the car and the seat. So came out of turn two, and I was feeling around, and I felt the end of the belt. I’m like, ‘Man, my belt just came off. We’re gonna have to pit.’’

Jan Magnussen to make FF1600 return in Walter Hayes Trophy (Formula Scout)

‘This will mark the second time in recent years the 51-year-old has been attracted back to Formula Ford 1600, having contested the 2021 FFord Festival with Low Dempsey Racing and finished 11th from 24th on the grid in a modern car.’

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