Category: Formula 1

The Australian Grand Prix will take place at the Albert Park circuit this weekend and Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has revealed that Ollie Bearman will be on hand to jump into Sainz’s car if needed. The F2 driver was called up to the F1 team at the Saudi Arabian GP from Friday’s sessions after Sainz became unwell.

Sainz participated in the Thursday practice sessions despite feeling unwell and he described it as one of his “toughest days in a Formula 1 car”. On Friday morning Ferrari then announced the Spaniard would not race after suffering from appendicitis, which required immediate surgery.

The team then confirmed later in the day that he had safely made it through surgery and the following day Sainz was seen back in the paddock to watch the grand prix.

Will Carlos Sainz race at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix?

Carlos Sainz has flown to Melbourne ahead of this weekend’s grand prix and is expected to drive his Ferrari in the race. Following the race in Jeddah, team boss Vasseur said he “didn’t know” if Sainz would be ready for a potential return this weekend but he was “quite optimistic”, adding: “The recovery so far is amazing, the fact he was able to come today to be with the team is a good sign, and a very good support for us.

Vasseur also told Sky Germany that they are taking the Spaniard’s recovery on a “step by step” basis and that a decision on whether Sainz will compete will be made this week.

On Thursday, the Ferrari driver will undergo a mandatory medical evaluation by the FIA, including an extraction exercise to ensure he is fit to drive at the weekend. The extraction test will require him to unbuckle himself and remove the steering wheel within seven seconds before being given another five seconds to exit the car and put the wheel back in its place.

Ferrari has also told Reuters that the team are “expecting him to drive”.

Oliver Bearman, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Will Ollie Bearman stand in for Carlos Sainz at the Australian Grand Prix?

If the Spaniard is unable to pass the FIA medical test then Bearman will relinquish his Formula 2 role once again, to stand in for Ferrari. The 18-year-old British driver impressed many in Jeddah when he finished seventh, scoring six points in the drivers’ championship.

Bearman is also the reserve driver for Haas, with the new team principal Ayao Komatsu saying that the Brit “deserves a chance next year” but a seat for 2025 was not guaranteed. Bearman said: “I don’t know what else I can do, because I don’t think I’ll be in F1 for the rest of the year.” Before adding: “That is all I can do, keep pushing in F2 and cross my fingers”.

The Essex-born teenager is set to undertake six FP1 sessions for Haas during the 2024 season, starting at the Emilia Romagna GP in May. The test sessions are part of an agreement that is expected to be an evaluation to see if he could join the American team next year. Bearman said he was “looking forward to building up a relationship with them and gaining more miles in the car” and was also hoping “a door can open” for him.

How long does it take to recover from appendicitis?

Sainz suffered from appendicitis just days before the Saudi Arabian GP. The condition is an infection of the appendix which causes it to become inflamed and can cause severe abdominal pain.

If appendicitis is left untreated, the appendix could burst which can result in a severe infection, or in the worst-case scenario, death. The main treatment for the condition is surgery to remove the appendix, which is normally keyhole surgery called a laparoscopy if the appendix hasn’t burst.

The recovery period for an appendicectomy is around two to four weeks but can be longer if the appendix has burst.

The last time an F1 driver suffered appendicitis was in 2022 when Alex Albon was forced to not participate in the Italian Grand Prix. Due to his need for surgery, the British-Thai driver was replaced in his Williams seat by Nyck de Vries.

Alex Albon, Williams FW44

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Albon then returned two weeks later at the following race weekend in Singapore but revealed he was “as fit as can be” and found the race “tough”. Following the end of the season, Albon was asked if he was back to 100% fitness, where he said: “I would say [I need the] winter to get to 100%. We didn’t have the time to train to really get back that fitness, so yes.

“But realistically speaking, Singapore was tough, Japan was 75%, and after Japan, I felt pretty good.”

F1 is a truly global motorsport championship, as a season typically covers five continents within a 10-month period.

This means the paddock is constantly on the move and F1 drivers need to get comfortable with a new time zone at short notice.

Australia is a particularly difficult one as Melbourne – host of the Australian Grand Prix – is 11 hours ahead of the United Kingdom, which is where over 50% of F1 teams are headquartered.

F1 also visits countries like Japan and Mexico who have a time difference of five plus hours to the UK, meaning teams and drivers have certain ways to combat the effects of jet lag.

So, what are these methods and how bad can the jet lag be?

Why do F1 teams need to consider jet lag?

The 2024 F1 season will feature a record-breaking 24 grands prix, so teams will constantly switch between time zones in order to get from one destination to the next.

Some of these circuits also have a significantly different time zone to the other, like Shanghai is 12 hours ahead of Miami yet the two races are separated by just a couple of weeks on the calendar. So, when a person undertakes such heavy travelling like that, it will cause jet lag which is extreme tiredness felt after a long flight.

It is common for everybody in the paddock because F1 has a gruelling schedule and runs to such tight timings. A grand prix weekend, for example, typically goes from Thursday to Sunday meaning teams and drivers do not spend long in one location – especially when the races are on consecutive weekends.

This leaves drivers with minimal time to recover from jet lag, which is not ideal because the impact it could have on athletes is huge, as extreme tiredness can lead to a lack of concentration – an essential skill when driving a racing car at high speeds.

Jet lag can therefore have a negative impact on performance which means it is essential for teams to overcome the possibility of that.

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin F1 Team, on a track run

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

However, it is not just the drivers that need to overcome jet lag – it’s the same for the whole garage. Imagine how difficult it would be to complete a highly pressurised pitstop in less than two seconds while the crew are all suffering from jet lag.

Every member of an F1 team needs to be at peak condition during the race weekend, which is why squads must consider ways in which to overcome jet lag.

How do F1 drivers overcome jet lag?

F1 drivers utilise different methods to combat jet lag because being able to adapt quickly can have hugely beneficial results.

Nico Rosberg is the perfect example of that because the former Mercedes driver sought specialist help to overcome jet lag in his 2016 F1 championship-winning campaign and his methods are widely used among teams and drivers today.

Rosberg told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast in 2018: “If you go to Australia, you start five days before, [shifting your sleep by] one-and-a-half hours, and by the time you get to the last day, you’re seven-and-a-half hours in.

“I would get up at one o’clock in the morning on the last day, or vice versa, whatever, some crazy time of the day. My wife would look at me and say, ‘are you completely nuts now? Have you lost your mind?’

“At 3:30, 4am, I would be out there in Monaco running. Then [I would] take the flight, land and again, when you get there, one-and-a-half hour steps – don’t completely straight away adjust to the time.”

The 2016 world champion described it as “a revolution for my life” as Rosberg finally beat rival Lewis Hamilton to the drivers’ title.

On social media, Carlos Sainz once shared his own jet lag plan when travelling to Australia. It entailed staying awake for the first leg of his journey which was a seven-hour flight to Dubai, because it was late morning in Melbourne yet overnight in Europe. To stop himself from falling asleep Sainz ensured there was a lot of light, while he stayed entertained through films and conversation.

At the stopover in Dubai, again, Sainz tried to get as much exposure to light as he could to stay awake before avoiding sleep in his second flight as well. By doing this, Sainz could go to sleep when it was night time in Melbourne and that would adjust his body clock to race timings.

Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The exposure to light is a crucial step F1 drivers take to adjust their body clocks because it suppresses the production of melatonin, which is a hormone produced by the brain to help somebody sleep.

However, F1 drivers may need to be protected from light as well. So, drivers will even wear sunglasses indoors sometimes because wearing sunglasses at the right point in a day can help to adjust the body clock.

Exercise shortly after waking up, or a light session just before sleep, can also really help in adjusting the body clock, so many drivers will go for a game of golf because its exposure to natural light and it not being too intense is highly beneficial.

Caffeine is another reliable tool to help with jet lag. This is because it is a stimulant that helps a person feel more awake, as it blocks the adenosine receptor which is a substance that promotes sleepiness.

However, F1 teams are still careful in its use of caffeine because too much in one day can cause unwanted side effects like restlessness and an irregular heartbeat. So, caffeine is taken little and often rather than lots at once while it is only consumed during a certain time period due to its long-acting life.

Does F1 do anything to help its teams and drivers cope with jet lag?

The 2024 season has seen F1 approach its calendar differently, as there is now a greater focus on regionalisation. This approach has brought forward the Japanese GP by five months, while Qatar is now the penultimate round in a back-to-back with Abu Dhabi, whereas in 2023 Las Vegas was a weekend before the final race.

Melbourne is one of those venues never part of a double-header because sufficient rest on either side of the grand prix really is needed to reset the body clock, due to how different Australia’s time zone is to several other countries.

So, although F1’s primary reason for regionalising the 2024 calendar was to be more sustainable as part of its efforts to be carbon neutral by 2030, it should also help with the jet lag.

That is especially true because there was much controversy surrounding the scheduling of the inaugural Las Vegas GP.

Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari, 2nd position, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, George Russell, Mercedes-AMG, 3rd position, during the post race press conference

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Despite the American city being 11 hours behind Abu Dhabi, the paddock was still forced to adjust to the time zones very quickly because both events were simply days apart.

It caused much backlash as Max Verstappen said at the time that it is “very tiring” and “doesn’t really make a lot of sense”.

However, F1 has not managed to regionalise the whole calendar as street circuits like Miami and Montreal are still surrounded by grands prix in either Asia or Europe, meaning there are arguably more ways in which the series could help personnel deal with the effects of jet lag.

But, F1 does still enforce a track curfew on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights which potentially helps. This curfew states the time period that teams are not allowed to work on their cars, so that it can help reduce working hours for crew members and ensure they all get enough rest.

However, there are still some exceptions to the curfew because a team can break it twice in a season without incurring a punishment and that is in case of unforeseen circumstances like logistical delays or heavy damage to cars.

Do F1 drivers always travel back home after a race?

With the amount of time between races differing throughout the calendar, F1 drivers sometimes elect not to travel home between rounds. It usually depends on the situation – for example, Nico Hulkenberg stayed in the middle east with his family between the back-to-back Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs rather than returning to Europe.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG, George Russell, Mercedes-AMG, the 2023 drivers line up on the grid

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Sometimes if races are back-to-back drivers might still return home, but that will only be when the two grands prix are in or nearby to Europe. So, that European leg of the F1 calendar from May to September might allow drivers to return home in between races, even if it is for just 24-48 hours.

Meanwhile, F1 drivers will definitely go home if there is a week or two until the next race, like what happened between the 2024 Saudi Arabian and Australian GPs.

Drivers might also be required to visit their team’s factory in between races, so that has a big say as to whether they return home or stay in the location of the grands prix. It is important to consider that drivers do a lot of work away from the circuit, so even if they are not racing, they might still be required to go into the factory or attend a marketing event which further shows how F1 is just constantly on the road.

F1 is a truly global motorsport championship, as a season typically covers five continents within a 10-month period.

This means the paddock is constantly on the move and F1 drivers need to get comfortable with a new time zone at short notice.

Australia is a particularly difficult one as Melbourne – host of the Australian Grand Prix – is 11 hours ahead of the United Kingdom, which is where over 50% of F1 teams are headquartered.

F1 also visits countries like Japan and Mexico who have a time difference of five plus hours to the UK, meaning teams and drivers have certain ways to combat the effects of jet lag.

So, what are these methods and how bad can the jet lag be?

Why do F1 teams need to consider jet lag?

The 2024 F1 season will feature a record-breaking 24 grands prix, so teams will constantly switch between time zones in order to get from one destination to the next.

Some of these circuits also have a significantly different time zone to the other, like Shanghai is 12 hours ahead of Miami yet the two races are separated by just a couple of weeks on the calendar. So, when a person undertakes such heavy travelling like that, it will cause jet lag which is extreme tiredness felt after a long flight.

It is common for everybody in the paddock because F1 has a gruelling schedule and runs to such tight timings. A grand prix weekend, for example, typically goes from Thursday to Sunday meaning teams and drivers do not spend long in one location – especially when the races are on consecutive weekends.

This leaves drivers with minimal time to recover from jet lag, which is not ideal because the impact it could have on athletes is huge, as extreme tiredness can lead to a lack of concentration – an essential skill when driving a racing car at high speeds.

Jet lag can therefore have a negative impact on performance which means it is essential for teams to overcome the possibility of that.

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin F1 Team, on a track run

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

However, it is not just the drivers that need to overcome jet lag – it’s the same for the whole garage. Imagine how difficult it would be to complete a highly pressurised pitstop in less than two seconds while the crew are all suffering from jet lag.

Every member of an F1 team needs to be at peak condition during the race weekend, which is why squads must consider ways in which to overcome jet lag.

How do F1 drivers overcome jet lag?

F1 drivers utilise different methods to combat jet lag because being able to adapt quickly can have hugely beneficial results.

Nico Rosberg is the perfect example of that because the former Mercedes driver sought specialist help to overcome jet lag in his 2016 F1 championship-winning campaign and his methods are widely used among teams and drivers today.

Rosberg told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast in 2018: “If you go to Australia, you start five days before, [shifting your sleep by] one-and-a-half hours, and by the time you get to the last day, you’re seven-and-a-half hours in.

“I would get up at one o’clock in the morning on the last day, or vice versa, whatever, some crazy time of the day. My wife would look at me and say, ‘are you completely nuts now? Have you lost your mind?’

“At 3:30, 4am, I would be out there in Monaco running. Then [I would] take the flight, land and again, when you get there, one-and-a-half hour steps – don’t completely straight away adjust to the time.”

The 2016 world champion described it as “a revolution for my life” as Rosberg finally beat rival Lewis Hamilton to the drivers’ title.

On social media, Carlos Sainz once shared his own jet lag plan when travelling to Australia. It entailed staying awake for the first leg of his journey which was a seven-hour flight to Dubai, because it was late morning in Melbourne yet overnight in Europe. To stop himself from falling asleep Sainz ensured there was a lot of light, while he stayed entertained through films and conversation.

At the stopover in Dubai, again, Sainz tried to get as much exposure to light as he could to stay awake before avoiding sleep in his second flight as well. By doing this, Sainz could go to sleep when it was night time in Melbourne and that would adjust his body clock to race timings.

Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The exposure to light is a crucial step F1 drivers take to adjust their body clocks because it suppresses the production of melatonin, which is a hormone produced by the brain to help somebody sleep.

However, F1 drivers may need to be protected from light as well. So, drivers will even wear sunglasses indoors sometimes because wearing sunglasses at the right point in a day can help to adjust the body clock.

Exercise shortly after waking up, or a light session just before sleep, can also really help in adjusting the body clock, so many drivers will go for a game of golf because its exposure to natural light and it not being too intense is highly beneficial.

Caffeine is another reliable tool to help with jet lag. This is because it is a stimulant that helps a person feel more awake, as it blocks the adenosine receptor which is a substance that promotes sleepiness.

However, F1 teams are still careful in its use of caffeine because too much in one day can cause unwanted side effects like restlessness and an irregular heartbeat. So, caffeine is taken little and often rather than lots at once while it is only consumed during a certain time period due to its long-acting life.

Does F1 do anything to help its teams and drivers cope with jet lag?

The 2024 season has seen F1 approach its calendar differently, as there is now a greater focus on regionalisation. This approach has brought forward the Japanese GP by five months, while Qatar is now the penultimate round in a back-to-back with Abu Dhabi, whereas in 2023 Las Vegas was a weekend before the final race.

Melbourne is one of those venues never part of a double-header because sufficient rest on either side of the grand prix really is needed to reset the body clock, due to how different Australia’s time zone is to several other countries.

So, although F1’s primary reason for regionalising the 2024 calendar was to be more sustainable as part of its efforts to be carbon neutral by 2030, it should also help with the jet lag.

That is especially true because there was much controversy surrounding the scheduling of the inaugural Las Vegas GP.

Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari, 2nd position, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, George Russell, Mercedes-AMG, 3rd position, during the post race press conference

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Despite the American city being 11 hours behind Abu Dhabi, the paddock was still forced to adjust to the time zones very quickly because both events were simply days apart.

It caused much backlash as Max Verstappen said at the time that it is “very tiring” and “doesn’t really make a lot of sense”.

However, F1 has not managed to regionalise the whole calendar as street circuits like Miami and Montreal are still surrounded by grands prix in either Asia or Europe, meaning there are arguably more ways in which the series could help personnel deal with the effects of jet lag.

But, F1 does still enforce a track curfew on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights which potentially helps. This curfew states the time period that teams are not allowed to work on their cars, so that it can help reduce working hours for crew members and ensure they all get enough rest.

However, there are still some exceptions to the curfew because a team can break it twice in a season without incurring a punishment and that is in case of unforeseen circumstances like logistical delays or heavy damage to cars.

Do F1 drivers always travel back home after a race?

With the amount of time between races differing throughout the calendar, F1 drivers sometimes elect not to travel home between rounds. It usually depends on the situation – for example, Nico Hulkenberg stayed in the middle east with his family between the back-to-back Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs rather than returning to Europe.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG, George Russell, Mercedes-AMG, the 2023 drivers line up on the grid

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Sometimes if races are back-to-back drivers might still return home, but that will only be when the two grands prix are in or nearby to Europe. So, that European leg of the F1 calendar from May to September might allow drivers to return home in between races, even if it is for just 24-48 hours.

Meanwhile, F1 drivers will definitely go home if there is a week or two until the next race, like what happened between the 2024 Saudi Arabian and Australian GPs.

Drivers might also be required to visit their team’s factory in between races, so that has a big say as to whether they return home or stay in the location of the grands prix. It is important to consider that drivers do a lot of work away from the circuit, so even if they are not racing, they might still be required to go into the factory or attend a marketing event which further shows how F1 is just constantly on the road.

That’s the challenge Williams team principal James Vowles and chief technical officer Pat Fry have taken on as they try to get the Grove outfit up to speed, on and off the track.

The team made decent progress last season during Vowles’s first year in the job, securing seventh place in the world constructors’ championship.

The FW45 was already built when he arrived, so this year’s car is the first designed and put together on his watch, meanwhile Fry only started work in November and therefore had limited input, so his initial focus was on finding out how the place operated and what areas needed to be improved.

For Vowles, the past winter was a learning exercise, and like Fry has previously detailed, he was alarmed at how late the FW46 came together.

“The chassis was a bag of bits in January,” Vowles said. “You can’t operate that way, it’s a level of stress that the organisation doesn’t need. Instead of focusing on performance, we’ve just been focusing on surviving, and getting the car to the track.

“That’s the cultural element of things. We have a car, and I’m proud we have a car, because it was a tremendous effort. It’s more throughput in a short period of time than I think every team on the grid, but we’ve done it ourselves, and it was structured, and process driven.

“I’m confident we can have something better. None of this is a complaint, it’s more that there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity in our system to do better, and we have to, it’s our responsibility to make sure that this is the last winter and build that we go through like this. It cannot be that way again.”

Vowles had a first hint of problems ahead during 2023 when he watched updates on the FW45 coming through the system as they took longer to reach the track than he would have liked.

James Vowles, Team Principal, Williams Racing

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“Last year, when I came into the team, it was already 20 February, the car was already a physical entity,” he recalled. “What I was able to see was more the updates in the year, which is very lightweight compared to a build.

“A build is 20,000 bits coming together within two weeks. An update is occasionally a large update, but it’s a floor, front wing, rear wing, whatever it may be, and it’s more controlled. There were absolute signs of problems there, but not to the extent of the winter.”

Vowles knew when he moved across from his previous role at Mercedes that Williams did not have the infrastructure of the title-winning team that he’d just left. But what he found was in a worse state than he had anticipated, largely a result of an enforced lack of investment prior to the takeover by current owner Dorilton. Making up for those lean years is not the work of a moment.

“I knew on day two, really, when I walked through the door, how difficult this was going to be,” he said. “Because it doesn’t take long walking around Williams before you realise there’s very little compared to what I was used to. I don’t just mean in terms of facilities and buildings, but also processing data.

“There wasn’t even data on how much a component cost, or on how long it took to make the components. Or how many components were in the system to be built.

“Once you’re missing that raw level of data, it’s very easy to understand how you don’t understand with 20,000 bits where they are in the company, or how they’re going to come together, or how long it will take for them to be built and developed.

“What I didn’t know, though, is how we make up for that. And unfortunately, it’s through humans pushing themselves to the absolute limit and breaking. That’s why we can never go through this ever again.”

Vowles makes a key point here. He’s not highlighting any lack of effort on the part of the staff, but rather the opposite. The people have been tied down by systems and methodologies that haven’t moved with the times, and have had to work even harder to compensate.

Alex Albon, Williams FW46

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“We don’t have a lazy organisation,” he explained. “Far from it. We have an organisation in fact that we’re willing to sleep on the floor in order to get the job done, which doesn’t exist up and down the pitlane – but it doesn’t need to exist up and down the pitlane.

“We have an organisation where there are a number of individuals that have a very good idea in their head what’s required on the car, but it’s not programmatic. It’s not systematic. We don’t have a process behind that.

“So, as the car was being built in the factory, one of my largest concerns was, what have we missed? Because I can’t see physically any construct that allows me to have confidence that we have everything here.”

Vowles makes an interesting observation about how previously the team relied on “contingencies” – for example making some pieces out of metal rather than going through the lengthier composite process, or repurposing parts from the previous year’s car.

He said for the FW46 he put a stop to that: “I wanted to stress the system to the absolute limit to understand where it’s breaking, and how it’s breaking – once. It’s the only winter we’re going to do it.”

Introducing new systems is one thing, but ensuring that people accept changes to the way they do things is a lot harder.

It’s often been said that Williams has a high percentage of long-time employees who hark back to an earlier era and have struggled to accept direction from anyone who wasn’t Frank Williams or Patrick Head, which perhaps explains the revolving door of technical leaders in recent times. Vowles stresses that was already changing even before his arrival.

“I haven’t actually had anyone come see me and say, ‘I’m not doing this, this is wrong. This is where we are,’” he said. “The way of perhaps Williams working in the old ways there was, certainly before I’ve joined, I’m sure, a lot of, ‘This is how we’ve done it, so this is how we are doing it’.

Sparks fly from Alex Albon, Williams FW46

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“I think a lot of that, to the credit of my predecessors, has been moved away. There’s still a little bit of it, but there’s only a little bit of it. It’s more now that you’re pushing people into an area that is completely uncomfortable, completely different to what they’ve known previously.”

The good news is that he has quickly proved to be an inspirational leader, and he seems to have won over the staff. That, in turn, will allow him to drive change in the way the company operates and make life better for all concerned.

“Cultural change, change like this, doesn’t happen in one hour, one day or even a winter,” he added. “It happens typically for a thousand people in about three years. Pat and I think the same way, which is, ‘This is really straightforward, this will make your lives better, and it’s process-driven’.

“For others it now feels more like we’ve put them in a box where, ‘This is all you can do. And this is your narrow field of view’. And that’s not the case whatsoever at all. In fact, it’s more, ‘I want you now thinking differently, I’ve prevented you from spending hours of your life doing something that’s meaningless, and would rather giving you back half your life to start thinking cleverly about how we’re going to move forward’.

“That journey is one of discomfort for many people. So it’s not resistance in any way that is an obvious fight against it. But it’s just the normal resistance you encounter when you’re trying to change your culture.”

Moss, widely regarded as the greatest driver never to win the F1 championship, passed away in April 2020 at the age of 90.

But, amid the lockdown restrictions that were imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic, Moss’s family was unable to arrange any memorial ceremony at the time.

The opportunity to celebrate Moss’s life has now opened up with a congregation of more than 2000 people expected to gather at Westminster Abbey for the occasion.

PLUS: Sir Stirling Moss’ 10 greatest drives

His son Stirling Elliot Moss said: “To be able to do this for my father – a man I admired in just about every way and one whom I still miss very much – is an unimaginable honour.

“I know that I am not alone in either of those sentiments, so it is fitting that this service will celebrate his life and allow so many of those who feel as I do, to be able to pay their respects and come together to remember the astonishing and inspirational man that he was.”

Speakers at the service will include three-time world champion Jackie Stewart, as well as former Autosport editor Simon Taylor.

Moss’s family has also arranged for there to be a display of some of his most famous cars – including the 1955 Mille Miglia-winning Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, which ran with the number ‘722’.

Stirling Moss in his famous 1955 Mille Miglia-winning Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Images

In tribute to that, the family has made 722 tickets available for the wider motorsport community to attend the ceremony. More details can be found here: https://buytickets.at/aubreypeck/1187061

Further car displays will take place at the nearby Royal Automobile Club, including a Mercedes W196 F1 car.

PLUS: Why Moss was ‘Mr Motor Racing’

Moss won 16 world championship grands prix during his F1 career but somehow never managed to win the title. He finished runner-up four times between 1955 and 1961, and was third overall on a further three occasions.

His F1 career was cut short by an accident at Goodwood in 1962 that left him in a coma for a month. Although he managed to make a full recovery, he felt his driving skills never returned to the level that they were before the crash so decided against launching a comeback.

As F1 teams have fully understood the new ground-effect regulations, they have found ways to increase the downforce and better manipulate outwash to improve their performance.

But one of the consequences of this is that it is getting much harder for drivers to follow each other, and that means tyres can overheat quickly if cars start sliding in the dirty air of a rival.

This is believed to have been a contributing factor in why overtaking has become harder, and the field spreads out so quickly in races now, as drivers have to get out of the turbulence of the car in front so they can better manage their tyre temperatures.

Pirelli has been aware of this problem for a while and undertook a great deal of analysis last winter to try to get to the bottom of what was causing the overheating issue – and how it could be addressed.

Tests have taken place with new tyre designs at Barcelona and Jerez, and the next run will take place at Suzuka after next month’s Japanese Grand Prix.

Speaking to Autosport about the improvements planned, Pirelli’s head of F1 and car racing Mario Isola said the focus right now was on a new construction to address the overheating.

Then, once that was finalised, Pirelli would shift attention to a new range of compounds to complement the improvements.

Mario Isola, Racing Manager, Pirelli Motorsport, is interviewed

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“At the moment, we are focused on the construction with a higher level of integrity,” he said. “It will be more robust, with new materials.

“We are testing the new materials also to avoid increasing the weight, because the target is to have the same weight.

“The next test is at Suzuka, where we are taking some of these new compounds. We had also another idea that we tested in Barcelona and Jerez about the tread, which also gave us a good indication on the overheating reduction, as it was more consistent.

“The new construction could help in reducing overheating by making the [tyre] footprint work better, and distributing better the pressure and the temperature.”

While practical work is taking place on track to develop the new range of tyres, Isola said that analysis continued in trying to get to the bottom of why tyre overheating issues have become a factor again with the current ground-effect cars.

He explained: “We started in 2022 with the 18-inch tyres and the general comment [from drivers] was: ‘We can follow each other, there is no problem because we keep the downforce, and we have no overheating or very limited compared to the 13-inches.’

“But then, step-by-step, without changing completely the construction of the compounds, the comments were more on overheating, and how the overheating is increasing.

“What I have said to the teams is you have to help us to understand exactly what is happening, and then it’s our job to develop a compound that is less sensitive to overheating.

“We need to understand if the overheating is coming from the additional performance, so you stress the tyre more, or because the new aero package is causing this loss of downforce when you are in the slipstream.”

Watch: Explained: Mercedes Grabs Resta from Ferrari in F1 Staff Swoop

Resta has been signed as strategic development director and will work directly with technical director James Allison to push forward with car-related projects.

Also joining Mercedes is Enrico Sampo, who is joining as head of performance software applications.

Sampo has been Ferrari’s driver simulator team leader for the past few years, and has vast experience in an area that is now proving critical to F1 car performance ahead of, and during, race weekends.

While both men have signed for Mercedes, their contractual terms mean that they will be unable to join until 2025, with their exact dates of arrival having yet to be decided.

The appointments come at a time when Mercedes has been shoring up its structure for the long term and looking at areas for improvement.

Team principal Toto Wolff and technical director Allison both signed long-term contract extensions last winter, while the team also recently appointed David Nelson as its senior vehicle dynamicist as replacement for performance director Loic Serra, who will be switching to Ferrari.

Simone Resta, Sauber Designer

Photo by: Manuel Goria / Motorsport Images

The movement of Resta and Sampo from Ferrari to Mercedes comes at a time when the Maranello squad has set its sights on key recruitments from the German manufacturer.

As well as Ferrari capturing Lewis Hamilton for 2025, it is also set to secure the services of Mercedes’ driver development director Jerome D’Ambrosio to be the head of its young driver development programme.

Resta’s signing is especially significant for Mercedes because he has vast experience in both F1 and with Ferrari.

The Italian is a long-serving Ferrari man, having most recently been loaned out to Haas as its technical director from 2021 until the start of this year.

His deal was part of an ongoing arrangement between the Italian manufacturer and its American-owned customer team, with Ferrari wanting to capitalise on stronger technical ties between the two organisations, which have worked closely together ever since Haas entered F1 in 2016.

Resta had previously been Ferrari’s chief designer between 2014 and 2018, where he would have worked with Allison, before a short stint as Alfa Romeo technical director.

After returning to Maranello in 2019, he headed up the department responsible for chassis development before his move to Haas.

His exit from Haas had been without explanation as it was unclear why Ferrari had recalled him suddenly, especially with it made clear that he would not be handed a role within Maranello. 

Instead it now appears that the Mercedes development could have been a factor in how things played out.

The team then found it harder to keep up the development of its 2023 machine compared to the steeper curve its rivals were making, and slipped to fifth in the constructors’ standings.

That picture hasn’t changed much over the winter, with Aston Martin seemingly the fifth-fastest team in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

But what has been apparent is that this year’s AMR24 appears capable of going toe to toe with its direct rivals in qualifying, only to fall back in race trim, which is the opposite of last year’s picture.

“In Bahrain, we were definitely faster over one lap, comparing the long-run pace. There is a trend, it seems this year that we are struggling on the long runs, on the race pace,” said Alonso after qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Speaking before the Jeddah race, Aston’s performance director Tom McCullough said the team was still investigating why its balance between qualifying and race pace had shifted, but offered some clues which were later confirmed in the race.

“Historically we’ve tended to race strongly and found qualifying little bit harder. The characteristics of this car, it’s quite a different car for us aerodynamically,” McCullough replied when Autosport asked him about the discrepancy between short- and long-run competitiveness.

“We’re learning how to get the most out of it. We approached this weekend with the strategy of trying to improve the long runs and not really worrying too much about where we qualified, with very much the engineering focus of trying to have a good car looking after its rear tyres in the race, and let’s see how we qualify with it.”

But other than optimising its new package and settling on a ride height compromise between low and high fuel loads, one factor behind Aston’s relatively better qualifying form has been a huge push to improve the efficiency of its drag reduction system after seeing how much Red Bull gains from its design.

With DRS use free in qualifying and both Bahrain and Jeddah’s Corniche circuit having three such zones, any improvements there are hugely beneficial over one lap.

The AMR24 was around 19km/h quicker on the straights with the DRS open in Jeddah, and over 20km/h faster in Bahrain, while last year the difference was somewhere between 12 and 15km/h, bringing it more in line with what the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari are doing.

“The efficiency of the car, the DRS switch, is something we worked really hard on last year as we saw how strong the Red Bull was,” McCullough explained. “A lot of people had a good look at that, trying to come to a solution that when you bang that DRS button, you shed a lot more drag.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“That’s part of the reasons we’ve qualified well, we have a very strong DRS switch. I was looking at the difference between qualifying last year and this year with nearly identical wind direction and wind speed, the difference was quite big. We gained a lot of laptime from that.”

Alonso’s encouraging race result seemed to confirm that despite a track-position race with limited strategic options, Aston’s race oriented set-up choices paid off.

But the true test for the Silverstone squad will be whether it can achieve what it couldn’t do in 2023, and keep up the pace in the off-track development race.

“We went back to a different philosophy with the car this year aerodynamically, to try to give ourselves to that platform to keep developing,” McCullough concluded.

“At the moment, we’re in that phase where we’re able to develop well with our development tools, so it’s about getting those bits on the track as quickly as possible, hoping that development continues.

“That side is looking pretty good, but as I keep saying, it’s a relative game. We want to just keep chipping away, improving the car and getting closer to the front of the grid.”