Formula 1 is to replace 'grid girls' with a new programme called 'grid kids' this season.

F1 bosses plan to use budding racing drivers "to make the pre-race ceremony more relevant and interesting for fans, especially the younger ones".

The sport said last week it would no longer be using female promotional models on the starting grid.

The children used will be competitors in karting or junior categories, chosen by national motorsport authorities.

A joint statement from governing body the FIA and the F1 Group said the choice would be made "on merit or by lottery".

FIA president Jean Todt said: "Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport and the dream of every young racer competing the junior series that make up the FIA's single-seater pyramid, from karting all the way to F1.

"We are therefore delighted to bring that dream a little closer by giving the future champions of our sport the opportunity to stand alongside their heroes on the grid in the build-up to the race start.

"For the wider FIA, this is an excellent initiative that provides additional support to our member (sporting authorities) in their efforts to grow motorsport worldwide through a unique reward they can make available to youngsters participating in their national series."

F1 managing director of commercial operations Sean Bratches said he hoped the opportunity to "stand beside their heroes" would be for the children chosen "an unforgettable experience for them and their families" and "an inspiration to keep driving, training and learning so that they can dream of one day being there themselves".

He added: "What better way to inspire the next generation of Formula 1 heroes?"

Bratches said last week that using 'grid girls' "does not resonate with our brand values and clearly is at odds with modern day societal norms".

The Mercedes Formula 1 team has secured a major new sponsorship deal with clothing brand Tommy Hilfiger, replacing previous partner Hugo Boss.

Last November Hugo Boss announced it was calling time on its F1 sponsorship programme, having been involved with both McLaren and Mercedes for decades, in favour of a move to Formula E.

It subsequently emerged that Mercedes had chosen not to renew the Boss deal to pursue the Tommy Hilfiger opportunity instead, with Hilfiger eager for a return to F1 after previous involvement with Lotus and Ferrari.

That deal has now been completed, and Tommy Hilfiger will provide Mercedes with its new race and travel wear.

It is understood there is scope for lifestyle deals with Lewis Hamilton as well.

The company's logos will also appear in the garage and on the car.

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff said: "It is always exciting to embark on a new partnership, particularly when it touches such a key area of our team's image; I am positive that it will energise our brand and bring a new spin to how we are perceived from this season.

"We are excited to see how Tommy Hilfiger will dress the team this season and to showcase their exciting plans to the fans of Formula 1."

McLaren has announced American-based multinational computer company Dell Technologies as a new sponsor for the 2018 Formula 1 season.

The deal, which was confirmed on Thursday, will see the manufacturer of PCs, computer servers and TVs supply both hardware and software to the F1 team and its Applied Technologies division.

"McLaren is delighted to announce a multi-faceted, long-term partnership with Dell Technologies, the world’s largest privately-controlled technology company," the team's statement read.

"Dell Technologies, which consists of seven global brands – Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, Secureworks, Virtustream and VMware – will bring its deep technology expertise to all McLaren Technology Group companies, including McLaren Racing and McLaren Applied Technologies, as well as benefitting McLaren’s esports programme, World’s Fastest Gamer.

"The partnership will seamlessly integrate Dell Technologies’ wide-ranging platform of solutions into McLaren’s day-to-day operations, including support for design and manufacturing, trackside operations, telemetry, safety-critical ecosystems, storage, esports and simulation, fan engagement and guest experience."

McLaren enters into a new engine supply deal with Renault for this season, after a torrid three-year partnership with Honda.

The Dell deal will be seen as a major boost after the poor results of recent years have threatened its capabilities of attracting new backers.

"First and foremost, we will be using Formula 1 to underpin the expansion of our brand campaign in Europe and Asia," said Dell Technologies in its announcement. "Think of us using it in the same way as we have used the PGA Tour golf events so successfully over the past couple of years.

"Over 400 million people watch Formula 1 each year, most outside of the US, and it contains a high concentration of tech-savvy watchers – which is of particular interest to us!

"As well as featuring the Dell Technologies brand on the McLaren F1 car and drivers, we will also be featuring their use of our technology in our brand campaign."

Liberty Media believes Formula 1's lengthy calendar has space for more racing, and it's interested in as many as 25 Grands Prix per year. The 2018 season will feature 21 races, with France and Germany holding the door for Malaysia on their way back in from the cold. The remaining few slots are hotly contested, with one reserved for the United States, and the others bid for by countries around the globe, such as Portugal, Argentina, and Vietnam.

Denmark, too, has served up its capital city of Copenhagen as a potential street circuit, and Liberty Media responded by ordering up a three-course meal of variations upon the name "Grand Prix of Denmark" from the Danish Patent and Trademark Office in November.

We speculate that Denmark has an untapped motorsport fanbase, centered around homeland heroes, father-and-son Formula 1 drivers Jan and Kevin Magnussen. The former drove for McLaren in the mid-1990s, and now campaigns Corvettes for GM, and the latter drives for Haas F1. A race through Copenhagen could give Danish fans a driver to rally around, cementing the country's long-term interest in the sport.

Elsewhere, the Netherlands are the subject of another Grand Prix trademark filing, as reported by Kompas Advocatuur. The sport applied for the trademark on Jan. 30 of this year with the Benelux Office for Intellectual property.

The venue for the Dutch Grand Prix, last held in 1985, is considered to be a tossup between Circuit Zandvoort, the race's historical site, and TT Circuit Assen, in use today by MotoGP and others. Assen was inspected in January by the FIA's Charlie Whiting, who deemed it near the safety standards of FIA Grade 1 according to Motorsport.

Like Denmark, the Netherlands have their own father-son hero duo, in the form of Jos and Max Verstappen. Jos raced for a variety of F1 teams between 1994 and 2003, scoring two podiums, and Max drives for Red Bull Racing today, with whom he has achieved three Grand Prix wins, stirring up a feverish fanbase of orange-clad Dutch fans that swarm Spa-Francorchamps each year.

Both are near-ideal candidates for Grand Prix venues, but take these trademark filings with a grain of salt, as three U.S. cities—NYC, Vegas, and Miami—have their own associated Grand Prix Of trademarks, despite the limited remaining space on the calendar. As neither Dane nor Dutchman Connor MacLeod said, there can be only one.

Williams has secured a fresh sponsorship boost on the eve of the season, with tech company Acronis joining the Grove-based Formula 1 outfit from Toro Rosso.

Acronis has been involved in Formula 1 with Toro Rosso since 2016, and more recently also announced a partnership with the Renault e.dams team in Formula E.

While it is set to remain a partner of Toro Rosso, albeit in a less high-profile manner, the Singapore-based company has decided that its main push in Formula 1 will now be with Williams.

Rumours of a switch to Williams first surfaced last year when Sergey Sirotkin was linked with the team - with Acronis' CEO being Russian-born Serguei Beloussov.

But the company has denied that its decision to move to Williams was dependent on Sirotkin getting the race seat.

John Zanni, Acronis president, said: "For us it was totally unrelated. It had to do with the technology. That was the basis of our decision.

"The reason we moved to Williams was the scope of the infrastructure that needed to be protected and Williams’ vision to work with us to protect that infrastructure."

Acronis will be working with Williams on innovative data protection solutions, including back-up, disaster recovery and storage, as well as help protect it from potential ransomware attacks.

Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams said: "Technical innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Williams, and with that comes a crucial need to protect our data."

"We are delighted to be partnering with Acronis whose values mirror our own to push technology and innovation.

"We look forward to them helping to deliver practical solutions throughout the coming season to support our racing efforts."

Williams have moved to strengthen their F1 technical team with the appointment of Doug McKiernan as Chief Engineer.

In his new project-focused position, McKiernan will report to the team’s Chief Technical Officer, Paddy Lowe, and will work alongside colleagues in the senior technical team at Williams.

McKiernan began his Formula One career at McLaren in 1999 as an Aerodynamic Analyst. Over his time at McLaren he progressed to Chief Aerodynamicist, Head of Aerodynamics and finally Chief Engineer, before stepping down in 2015.

“Having worked with Doug closely between 2007 and 2012, I am sure that his talent and experience will significantly strengthen our team and we are delighted that he is joining us,” commented Lowe.

“Since returning to Williams last year, it has become clear that in order help move the team forward we need greater engineering resources. We have already started to make excellent progress, with Dirk de Beer our Head of Aerodynamics leading an invigorated aerodynamics team. The addition of Doug to the senior team, supporting our Chief Designer Ed Wood and Dirk in particular, will give us the breadth for more focus on technical strategy, and the optimisation of car architecture across design and aerodynamics.”

Speaking about his new role, McKiernan added: “It is a pleasure to be joining Williams. The team has exciting plans for the future, and it is great to see the work already being done with the aerodynamic and engineering teams to produce the FW41, whilst also looking ahead to future cars as Williams continues its charge to move further forwards on the grid.

“The team already has a strong engineering department, and I hope that I can further add to that to continue driving forward the development of the FW41 and future cars.”

Last Thursday, Williams became the second team to reveal details of their new car, which will hit the track for the first time in Barcelona next week.

This is the first Paddy Lowe-built Williams after his return. Did he say anything about his own ideas, about what he wants to achieve?

I think the most important thing is that we've reworked the concept a bit. When I say “we”, of course that was all established a long while ago, but then it was all being worked through over the past few months, including on the simulator.

As a whole, it is a much more aggressive concept. In many areas for engineers it's always a question of balancing between reliability and speed. And up to a certain point it was reliability that always took priority. But now in certain moments we've gone for a very aggressive approach – not exactly at big cost to reliability... but in some areas we've tried to first and foremost get the maximum out of the car, to then later do what needs to be done to make it reliable as well, as opposed to an approach where the car is extremely reliable, but just slow. There's a been a bit of a shift in ideology.

Renault has elected to hold back on unleashing the full potential of its Formula 1 engine for the start of the season – because it wants to take a zero-risk approach to reliability for the early races.
After a 2017 season that exposed a number of reliability issues for the French car manufacturer, it has spent the winter focusing its efforts on making sure its products are more bulletproof for the season ahead.

With Renault well aware that the three-engine limit means any early-season niggles could prove costly later in the campaign, it instead is taking a more conservative approach to its planning for 2018.

The focus for all its teams will be on ensuring reliability for its Melbourne specification, before delivering decent performance upgrades when the second and third power units come in to play.

[...]

Although longer-life engines and the decision to not risk reliability means there will not be a dramatic leap forward in performance against Mercedes and Ferrari for now, Abiteboul says that he is hoping Renault’s power levels for Australia will be at the same level that it finished last season at.

“Can’t we do this?” he said. “The manufacturers provide the cars themselves but we aren’t going to pay them because they get massive worldwide publicity. It would be a super Formula E, if you like. You can make cars be like an F1 car and the only thing you would miss would be the noise and I do not believe that people could not come up with something to make more or less the old F1 noise. They [Liberty] would need to have the balls to do it today. I think they will have to do it.”