F1 French GP 2019: Hamilton cruises to victory as Las Vegas eyed for second US race

FIA president Jean Todt unconcerned as 2021 rule change roll out is delayed.

Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel was livid after being stripped of a much-needed win at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

Lewis Hamilton tightened his grip on the Formula One drivers’ championship with an emphatic victory in the French Grand Prix.

Hamilton dominated the race after starting on pole, taking his sixth win in eight races. The five-time champion now leads the standings by 36 points as he chases another world crown.

Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas finished well behind in second, holding off a spirited effort from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on the final lap.

Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari took fifth place, with the German also grabbing the point for fastest lap after a late pit stop for fresh soft tyres. That is scant consolation, with Vettel now a sizeable 76 points behind his rival.

Lewis Hamilton took his sixth win of the season, with team-mate Valtteri Bottas in second and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in third

Las Vegas latest option for second US Grand Prix

Motorsports publication Racer has reported that negotiations are ongoing with the city of Las Vegas to stage a second Grand Prix in the US.

Formula One’s American owners Liberty Media have made no secret of their wish to hold another race in the country, with Austin’s Circuit of The Americas the sole venue currently on the calendar.

Plans to host a race in downtown Miami were made public well before any of the logistics had been confirmed, hampering progress.

Speaking to Racer, Sean Bratches, Formula One’s director of commercial operations, said: “I’d prefer to try and get a deal done first and then announce it. I think that’s probably the right cadence of events to go through in the interest of getting something done and not creating too much speculation.”

F1 gets Snappier

Formula One has extended its content partnership with social media platform Snapchat to include post-race shows with race highlights for the rest of the 2019 season.

The agreement began with the French Grand Prix, with content offered via Snapchat’s Discover page, complementing existing Formula One content around major races.

Dedicated creative user tools also form part of the agreement.

McLaren seek competiveness with new wind tunnel

McLaren’s Woking headquarters will house a newly constructed wind tunnel as the team seeks its first race victory since 2012.

Construction will take approximately two years, with the facility to be shared with the automotive side of the company and other motorsport projects. 

The eight-time constructors’ winners have been using the Toyota facility in Cologne for most of the past decade.

Andreas Seidl, McLaren team principal, said: “The 1.5 seconds we are missing to the top cars or even more depending on the race track is simply aero load.

“One of the big deficits we have clearly is not running our own wind tunnel. So we're very happy that the decision has been made that we install a new wind tunnel in Woking.”

McLaren will be hoping their new tunnel will finally get them back to winning ways

F1 logo dispute resolved

Formula One has bowed to pressure from stationary giant 3M and modified the trademark filing of its logo to put an end to a legal dispute.

One of Liberty Media’s most notable changes since its series acquisition was changing the Formula One logo for the first time 23 years back in 2017.

But the new logo was challenged by 3M, saying its Futuro brand, which sells therapeutic apparel, carried a similar design.

European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) records subsequently showed that 3M registered a pan-European trademark to its logo in June 2017, well before Formula One did for their new one.

The resulting drama could have seen Formula One forced to abandon its own logo, although legal proceedings had been put on hold.

The issue has now been put to bed with Formula One registered the trademark for its new logo on 21st June after deciding to exclude orthopaedic or therapeutic clothing from its trademark filing in order to avoid confusion between the products, prompting 3M to withdraw its legal opposition.

Jean Todt “not worried at all” by 2021 rules delays

International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Jean Todt is not concerned by Formula One’s delay in presenting its 2021 regulations.

The sport’s owners, teams and other leading figures agreed to delay the presentation of the regulations for the 2021 season until October after a meeting in Paris earlier in June.

Draft proposals has been presented before the Canadian Grand Prix, but doubts remained over some of the rules.

The delay had cast doubts on whether the major overhaul – which could see significant changes to Formula One’s financial regulations, governance statutes, as well as sporting and technical rules – would ever be implemented as intended.

But Todt has insisted the delay is no cause for concern, he told Autosport: “I’m not worried at all.

“Very often in F1, I'm worried because nobody agrees.

“For once, we managed to have the ten teams agreeing, the commercial rights holder and the regulator of the championship.

“So, now, we must make sure everybody is working.”

Apparently, in order to secure the delay, the FIA was able to get teams to sign a letter agreeing that the budget cap, reportedly US$175 million, would not be changed. This excludes areas such as driver and top management salaries, as well as marketing expenditure.

Finger pointing

If you say it’s boring, I totally understand it. Don’t point the finger at the drivers – we don’t write the rules. You should put pressure on the people at the top, who should be doing their jobs. They have made bad decisions for many, many years. It is a constant cycle in Formula One, even before I got here, and that is because of the way it was set up by Bernie Ecclestone

Lewis Hamilton on criticisms of the Formula One racing

The Big Picture

The colourful Circuit Paul Ricard was about the most interesting during the 2019 French Grand Prix

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