With help from his wife Corinna, seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Michael Schumacher has signed a helmet for an upcoming charity auction with the initials ‘MS,’ per a report from the Daily Mail. There are several additional signatures on the helmet, including all of the other living F1 World Champions.
The helmet will be auctioned off to raise funds for Sir Jackie Stewart’s Race Against Dementia charity. Stewart’s wife Helen was diagnosed with the disease in 2014. The organization is aiming to fund a new blood test trial that is currently being developed by the University of Cambridge.
The old-school white helmet, featuring a Royal Stewart tartan band around the top, was worn by the three-time world champion during his racing career. The helmet will be showcased Sunday at the Bahrain Grand Prix where the 85-year-old Stewart will do an exhibition run around the track in his 1973 title-winning Tyrrell 006, while wearing the helmet intended for auction.
Jackie Stewart, Tyrrell 006 Ford
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Stewart told the Daily Mail: “It is wonderful that Michael could sign the helmet in this worthy cause – a disease for which there is no cure. His wife helped him, and it completed the set of every single champion still with us.”
Schumacher, who last raced an F1 car during the 2012 season, ended his career as the winningest driver in the sport’s history until Lewis Hamilton toppled his record a few years later. The German racing legend has been absent from the public eye since a tragic accident in December of 2013 while skiing that left him with a serious head injury.
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Lewis Hamilton cut a hangdog figure after qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix – possibly the most downcast he has looked since qualifying nearly half a second off George Russell, then his team-mate, in Qatar last year.
In Bahrain Hamilton toiled to ninth on the grid, 0.931s slower than Oscar Piastri’s pole position time and nearly six tenths adrift of his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc, who initially qualified third before Russell’s penalty promoted him to second.
“It was pretty straightforward – not much to say,” he told reporters post-qualifying. “I’m just not doing a good enough job on my side so I’ve just got to keep improving – I’m working on it.”
Hamilton had outpaced Leclerc in Q1 with a lap set just before the chequered flag, but in Q2 the order was reversed as Hamilton failed to improve on his first push lap and Leclerc’s second flier was 0.285s faster.
It was in Q3 where the margin really opened up. Hamilton lost his first flying lap to a track-limits infringement after his Ferrari washed wide over the exit kerbs at Turn 13.
While his second and final push lap of 1m30.772s was initially good for fifth, he was subsequently leapfrogged by Leclerc, Pierre Gasly, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz.
“Clearly the car is a lot better than I’m delivering with it,” he told F1TV. “And Charles did a great job with it today, so big apologies to the team for not doing the job.”
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Fadel Senna – AFP – Getty Images
In Japan last weekend Hamilton set tongues wagging by suggesting his car had a “deficit” to his team-mate’s and that “on my side, something is not performing”. He was not specific about what this was, though the belief is that he was alluding to his preference to run his cars lower and stiffer than the SF-25 could go.
It’s understood this issue has been militated by Ferrari’s major floor upgrade this weekend, which included a new ‘throat’ profile as well as revised end fences. Hamilton has certainly ceased suggesting that car rather than driver is to blame.
Nevertheless, Leclerc seems to be able to extract more performance from the SF-25, gravitating towards a set-up which requires a specific driving style but which delivers rewards.
“I’ve gone into a quite extreme direction in the past few weekends in terms of setup,” said Leclerc after qualifying.
“It fits my driving style but also makes it quite – well, very tricky to drive. But it seems that I’m able to extract a bit more out of the car going in that direction so I’ll keep going.
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“Race after race it seems to be better and better so that’s a positive sign for the future. But it makes it very difficult at some parts of qualifying – especially on used tyres it was just all over the place. It was very difficult to put everything together.”
The challenge for Hamilton now is that the team’s priorities will naturally coalesce around the driver who is getting the most performance out of the car as it is, since development must soon pivot towards the 2026 project. He needs to feel his way towards a means of making the SF-25 work for him – even he seems unsure of how to do that.
“I really don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of answers for you guys.”
In this article
Stuart Codling
Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton
Ferrari
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A deflated Max Verstappen says Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying shows he’s just “taking part” in this year’s Formula 1 world championship rather than fighting for the title.
Verstappen finished a lowly seventh in Bahrain qualifying after having already scraped through to Q3 alongside team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, with the Dutchman complaining about a lack of grip and brake issues with his Red Bull RB21 car.
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It’s the result the four-time world champion had already been fearing after warning on Friday that Red Bull was nowhere near McLaren’s pace, with Verstappen eventually shipping 0.582s to polesitter Oscar Piastri.
Speaking to Dutch media after the session, including Motorsport.com, Verstappen sounded pessimistic over his world title chances, just one week after taking a stunning pole-to-flag win in Japan.
“McLaren are not my rivals right now. I am just taking part in this world championship,” Verstappen said. When pressed by Motorsport.com on whether he meant he didn’t see himself competing for the actual title, he replied: “No, I don’t.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
At Japan’s low-degradation Suzuka circuit, Verstappen managed to take pole with a magical qualifying lap, while the McLarens slipped up, and was then in a position to control the race. But on the high-degradation, high-temperature Sakhir track, the four-time world champion feels there is no place for Red Bull to hide its shortcomings.
“If you look at the gap to McLaren I’m not surprised,” he explained. “I already told the team during the winter test here that the gap is half a second, and that proves to be the case, so I was right in that respect. If you look at the entire season, I don’t think we ever really had a chance.
“If others make mistakes, like in Suzuka qualifying, then we can be ahead. In Suzuka passing was impossible, but that’s not always the case.”
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As in Japan, Red Bull turned its car upside down overnight to find more performance, but Verstappen doesn’t feel there is anything else the squad could have done to be higher on the grid: “We have tried everything we could on the car and nothing works, so that’s not the issue. If I had to do qualifying again, then I have no idea what else we could have changed. We tried everything that makes sense at this track.”
Offering his thoughts on moving up in the race, Verstappen said: “Lando [Norris] normally just drives to the front, with the speed they have. Of course, there’s an Alpine [of Pierre Gasly] that could drop back, but other than that it will be tough to move up because our pace is all similar. I will do my best, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough for a podium or sixth.”
Photos from Bahrain GP – Practice & Qualifying
In this article
Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Red Bull Racing
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A deflated Max Verstappen says Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying shows he’s just “taking part” in this year’s Formula 1 world championship rather than fighting for the title.
Verstappen finished a lowly seventh in Bahrain qualifying after having already scraped through to Q3 alongside team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, with the Dutchman complaining about a lack of grip and brake issues with his Red Bull RB21 car.
It’s the result the four-time world champion had already been fearing after warning on Friday that Red Bull was nowhere near McLaren’s pace, with Verstappen eventually shipping 0.582s to polesitter Oscar Piastri.
Speaking to Dutch media after the session, including Autosport, Verstappen sounded pessimistic over his world title chances just one week after taking a stunning pole-to-flag win in Japan.
“McLaren are not my rivals right now. I am just taking part in this world championship,” Verstappen said.
When pressed by Autosport if he means he doesn’t see himself competing for the title, he replied: “No, I don’t.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
At Japan’s low-degradation Suzuka race Verstappen managed to take pole with a magical qualifying lap, while the McLarens slipped up, and was then in a position to control the race. But at the high-degradation, high-temperature Sakhir circuit the four-time world champion feels there is no place to hide for Red Bull and its shortcomings.
“If you look at the gap to McLaren I’m not surprised,” he explained. “I already told the team during the winter test here that the gap is half a second and that proves to be the case, so I was right in that respect. If you look at the entire season, I don’t think we ever really had a chance.
“If others make mistakes, like in Suzuka qualifying, then we can be ahead. In Suzuka passing was impossible, but that’s not always the case.”
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As in Japan, Red Bull turned its car upside down overnight to find more performance, but Verstappen doesn’t feel there is anything else the squad could have done to be higher on the grid.
“We have tried everything we could on the car and nothing works, so that’s not the issue,” he said. “If I had to do qualifying again, then I have no idea what else we could have changed. We tried everything that makes sense at this track.”
Offering his thoughts on moving up in the race, Verstappen said: “Lando [Norris] normally just drives to the front, with the speed they have. Of course, there’s an Alpine [of Pierre Gasly] that could drop back, but other than that it will be tough to move up because our pace is all similar. I will do my best, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough for a podium or sixth.”
In this article
Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Red Bull Racing
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The delta between Oscar Piastri’s first Q3 run and his second sat at 0.392s, which rather demonstrates the progress made possible on a fresh set of tyres. Had Lando Norris improved by the same amount, we’d be talking about how the margin (which would have stood at less than 0.2s) between them could have swung had Norris’ micro-actions at the wheel and on the throttle.
Instead we’ve got a very different pair of laps to analyse, as Norris never even got close to his team-mate’s lap; there was already a significant fluffing of one’s lines as soon as Norris took his position for Turn 1 – and the difference between drivers only grew from there.
Norris feels that the ultimate 0.426s gap between he and Piastri is all down to him: “The car’s amazing, the car’s as good as it has been the whole season, which is strong. But I’ve been off it all weekend, don’t know why, just clueless on track at the minute. I just need a big reset, that’s all.”
Turn 1-2: Norris’ lock up costs almost 0.2s to Piastri
On approaching the braking zone to the opening corner, Norris was actually up by 0.075s – a scant margin, but one that demonstrated that the Briton had gathered a good exit out of the final corner to prepare his lap. But he’d gone too deep into the first corner, which the F1 TV feed picked up and – through its on-screen graphics – estimated that this had cost him about 0.14s in the lap versus Piastri. In truth, when you look at their relative positions on the exit of Turn 2, it’s more like 0.18s; that’s over a third of the time loss to his team-mate across their laps.
At this point, Piastri has shown Norris the way by coming off-throttle sooner and picking it up sooner in the meantime, ensuring that he got the straightline speed on the run out of the opening sequence. Unlike Norris, he doesn’t slide into the corner and overcook the rear tyre surface.
Turn 1 Piastri and Norris comparison
Photo by: Autosport
This stronger burst of pace out of Turn 3 and into Turn 4 brings Piastri’s delta up to around 0.22s, although Norris does manage to stabilise this to some degree through carrying a little more speed into Turn 4. It doesn’t really do him too much good, but it at least allows Norris to ensure the gap doesn’t grow any further.
We can thus assume that half of the gap appears within the first four corners in that case, and Norris at least keeps his deficit to Piastri static through the following downhill corners too.
Turn 8-9-10: Piastri calmer at the wheel, Norris trying to chase lap-time
Norris tries to take a bit more speed into Turn 8, and for a split second that 0.2s deficit immediately puts Norris back on par with his team-mate. But lap time doesn’t come for free, and Norris immediately had to take a more tentative approach when reapplying the throttle.
Ultimately, this ended up costing a further sliver of time; Piastri could get on the throttle sooner, and more smoothly. Norris had to lift and reapply to counteract a snap on the exit of the corner.
At the Turn 9-10 section, Norris again tried to slow the car later and again found himself picking up the throttle later than Piastri. It’s a tricky corner to brake for as the front-left wheel unloads and becomes incredibly prone to locking, so taking it easy into the corner allows the driver to straighten up a little sooner. As such, Piastri is able to wind on the accelerator a little sooner and thus enjoy a bit more speed down the back straight.
As a result of the better exit, Piastri gains another tenth on Norris – the delta between them is now around 0.36-0.37s.
Turn 13: Compounding Norris’ misery
It feels very much as though Norris has given up on the lap by the time he exits Turn 11; the delta on his steering wheel will have likely not made for desirable reading at this point.
Turn 13 Piastri and Norris comparison
Photo by: Autosport
He’s at least reversed the trend and braked earlier for a corner than Piastri, and then gets on the throttle sooner to carry marginally more speed through Turn 12. But it is indeed only very marginal, perhaps worth 0.01s in the long run – and besides, Norris’ approach to Turn 13 largely undoes that.
A criticism of Norris’ efforts across the lap is that he doesn’t seem to be able to time his braking particularly well; for the most part, he’s trying to ride the brakes too late into the corner and then suffers on throttle pick-up – in the instance of Turn 13, he’s onto the brakes way too soon.
On the way into the corner, Norris is tracking at 0.37s behind Piastri. You can then note from the speed trace that he gets off the power sooner than Piastri; although this does allow Norris to pick up a bit more straightline speed on the exit of the corner, Piastri gets a bit more top-end, presumably down to the timing of his upshifts.
As you’d probably infer from Norris’ downbeat post-qualifying snippets to the media, he does appear to be overthinking his approach to McLaren’s MCL39 considerably. He’s put himself into an unhelpful feedback loop: ‘the car doesn’t suit my style, therefore it isn’t natural to me, therefore I will struggle’, a loop that can be broken but only with the sufficient willpower from the driver in question.
Remember Australia, where his main qualifying advantage over Piastri appeared to sit in his tacit acceptance that he couldn’t try to hustle the McLaren through the corners because it wasn’t going to like it? The tables have turned. Norris sees a pace deficit and tries to put the car in places it doesn’t want to be in and, as a result, the gap continues to grow…
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Jake Boxall-Legge
Formula 1
Lando Norris
McLaren
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Pierre Gasly was surprised by his strong qualifying performance in Bahrain, which will see him start tomorrow’s race on the third row of the grid.
The Alpine driver was just 0.3s off the pole position pace, finishing fifth ahead of Lando Norris and Max Verstappen respectively – promoted to fourth on the grid after Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s one-place grid drop penalty.
“If we can be a pain for these top teams once in a while that’d be great,” Gasly joked when speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the session.
“The conditions played well for us and it just shows we’ve got some good potential. I think the window is very narrow and we’ve got some fast guys behind us. Lando and Max can have a little go at each other in the first few laps and leave me out of it – I’m not going to be against that.”
The Frenchman revealed that the team wasn’t expecting to be fighting so far up the grid until his “mental” Q3 lap: “Before qualifying we thought we’d be in the fight for P10 or P9 at best, but you always give it your best shot and I really managed to improve from Q1 to Q3.
“Three tenths off pole is quite mental, it was a very good day for us as a team… now we need those first points.”
Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Gasly reflected on the Enstone-based outfit’s struggles this time last year, noting he’s “very happy” with how the car is feeling.
“12 months ago, we were absolutely nowhere, we were P20 and struggling, so when I see what I could do today with the car, it just makes me very happy and very proud of what the guys have done so far,” he said.
“The car was really impressive, the front grip was very strong… those last few runs we really managed to nail it and it was so special.”
Looking ahead to the race, Gasly said he’ll “fight with what [he] has.” He added, speaking before Antonelli’s penalty had been announced: “Today’s package was good enough to get us to P5 and we’ll try to hold on to it as much as we can.”
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Emily Selleck
Formula 1
Pierre Gasly
Alpine
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Pierre Gasly was surprised by his strong qualifying performance in Bahrain, which will see him start tomorrow’s race on the third row of the grid. The Alpine driver was just 0.3s off the pace, finishing fifth ahead of Lando Norris and Max Verstappen respectively.
“If we can be a pain for these top teams once in a while that’d be great,” Gasly joked when speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the session.
“The conditions played well for us and it just shows we’ve got some good potential,” he continued. “I think the window is very narrow and we’ve got some fast guys behind us. Lando and Max can have a little go at each other in the first few laps and leave me out of it – I’m not going to be against that.”
The Frenchman revealed that the team wasn’t expecting to be fighting so far up the grid until his “mental” Q3 lap. “Before qualifying we thought we’d be in the fight for P10 or P9 at best, but you always give it your best shot and I really managed to improve from Q1 to Q3,” he explained. “Three tenths off pole is quite mental, it was a very good day for us as a team… now we need those first points.”
Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Gasly reflected on the Enstone-based outfit’s struggles this time last year, noting he’s “very happy” with how the car is feeling.
“12 months ago, we were absolutely nowhere, we were P20 and struggling, so when I see what I could do today with the car, it just makes me very happy and very proud of what the guys have done so far,” he said. “The car was really impressive, the front grip was very strong… those last few runs we really managed to nail it and it was so special.”
Looking ahead to the race, Gasly said he’ll “fight with what [he] has.” He added: “Today’s package was good enough to get us to P5 and we’ll try to hold on to it as much as we can.” The Alpine driver will eventually start from fourth following Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s penalty.
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Emily Selleck
Formula 1
Pierre Gasly
Alpine
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Mercedes drivers George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli have received a one-place grid drop each for a Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying infraction.
Russell loses his front-row spot to Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, while Alpine driver Pierre Gasly is promoted to fourth on the grid at Antonelli’s expense.
After Q2 was red-flagged for a crash for Haas driver Esteban Ocon, both Mercedes drivers were sent out into the pitlane before race control had announced a restart time, which is not allowed by the sporting regulations. As such both Mercedes drivers receive a one-place grid drop for Sunday’s grand prix.
In their verdict the FIA race stewards explained that Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin owned up for a mistake interpreting the timing screen’s messages from race control.
“The team representative, Mr Shovlin, in evidence stated that he gave the instruction for the cars to be released, in error, having misinterpreted the message posted on page 3 of the Timing Screen, ‘estimated re-start time’ to be a message advising the actual re-start time,” the verdict read.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“He argued that there was no sporting advantage gained in this case as there was sufficient time remaining (11 minutes) for other teams to perform their run plans. It was also noted that the team’s Sporting Director, [Ron] Meadows, was not present at the event and that normally he would be involved in the release process.
“The FIA Single Seater Sporting Director stated that such a move could be a sporting advantage in that it could enable a team to perform its run plan whereas other teams may not be able to. The Stewards agree with this view particularly where there are only a few minutes remaining in the session.”
Russell and Antonelli received a grid drop rather than a fine to set a precedent and discourage teams from releasing cars into the pitlane early in the future. “The FIA Sporting Director argued that there needed to be a sporting penalty rather than a team fine, otherwise in future teams would release their cars as soon as the estimated re-start time was published. The Stewards agree with this view,” the statement added.
Because the stewards accepted Mercedes made an “unintentional and genuine mistake” the sporting penalty is just a single grid place drop, with the stewards cautioning that repeats could lead to more severe penalties.
Photos from Bahrain GP – Practice & Qualifying
In this article
Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
George Russell
Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Mercedes
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Mercedes drivers George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli have received a one-place grid drop each for a Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying infraction.
Russell loses his front-row spot to Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, while Alpine driver Pierre Gasly is promoted to fourth on the grid at Antonelli’s expense.
After Q2 was red-flagged for a crash for Haas driver Esteban Ocon, both Mercedes drivers were sent out into the pitlane before race control had announced a restart time, which is not allowed under the sporting regulations.
As such both Mercedes drivers receive a one-place grid drop for Sunday’s grand prix.
In their verdict the FIA race stewards explained that Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin owned up for a mistake interpreting the timing screen’s messages from race control.
“The team representative, Mr Shovlin, in evidence stated that he gave the instruction for the cars to be released, in error, having misinterpreted the message posted on page 3 of the Timing Screen, “estimated re-start time” to be a message advising the actual re-start time,” the verdict read.
George Russell, Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Kym Illman – Getty Images
“He argued that there was no sporting advantage gained in this case as there was sufficient time remaining [11 minutes] for other teams to perform their run plans. It was also noted that the team’s Sporting Director, [Ron] Meadows, was not present at the event and that normally he would be involved in the release process.
“The FIA Single Seater Sporting Director stated that such a move could be a sporting advantage in that it could enable a team to perform its run plan whereas other teams may not be able to. The Stewards agree with this view particularly where there are only a few minutes remaining in the session.”
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Russell and Antonelli received a grid drop rather than a fine to set a precedent and discourage teams from releasing cars into the pitlane early in the future. “The FIA Sporting Director argued that there needed to be a sporting penalty rather than a team fine, otherwise in future teams would release their cars as soon as the estimated re-start time was published. The Stewards agree with this view,” the statement added.
Because the stewards accepted Mercedes made an “unintentional and genuine mistake” the sporting penalty is just a single grid place drop, with the stewards cautioning that repeats could lead to more severe penalties.
In this article
Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
George Russell
Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Mercedes
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Lando Norris pinned the blame solely on himself for only qualifying sixth for the Bahrain Grand Prix as he felt he was “just not quick enough”.
Norris saw his team-mate Oscar Piastri finish his impressive Saturday on pole, followed by Mercedes’ George Russell and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Despite finishing at the top of the timesheets alongside his team-mate throughout the practice sessions, Norris made a mistake on Turn 1 on his final Q3 lap and ended up 0.426s off in sixth.
Talking with Sky Sports F1 following Q3, Norris didn’t hide his disappointment at his performance: “I didn’t even go a tenth quicker. I’m just not quick enough.”
On being asked where and why he wasn’t quick enough, he simply pointed to himself.
“Here,” he said. “honestly, no idea. No idea, just not quick enough. It’s just another day. [We will] look into things, see why I was struggling so much today and try again tomorrow.”
He was further asked what he needs to do to pick himself up for tomorrow, he answered: “Nothing. Go to sleep.”
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images
Unlike the current championship leader, Piastri feels confident ahead of his Bahrain campaign.
“I’ve felt confident out there pretty much all weekend,” he said in the post-qualifying interview. “FP1 was an experience, for us all I think, it felt more like a rally car than an F1 car.
“But from then on, I’ve felt really comfortable with the car. FP3 we had good pace. In qualifying, the others caught up a little bit closer than what I wanted but I still delivered the laps when it mattered, which was the most important thing at the end. So very, very happy.”
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When asked how he can make the most of pole position with his main rivals including Norris so far behind him, he said: “Let’s see. I’ve got to get to Turn 1 in first, so let’s see what happens.
“But I’ve felt like I’ve been comfortable all weekend and there’s no better place to start than on pole. I can’t thank the team enough for the car they’ve given me and excited for the race tomorrow.”
In this article
Alex Harrington
Formula 1
Lando Norris
McLaren
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