Articles seem to indicate he could be able to move directly to a new team with no leave required.
So, depart RBR at the end of this season, join Ferrari for 25, get ingrained & start working on the '26 car, real promise shown by '27. So, I guess your timing still makes sense.

 

 

Exactly. Newey can joint his new team roughly a year from now. By then, the new team is already working on designing the 2026 car.

 

2 comments.

1. Based on how W Series (and other female only series) has fared in the past, I'd venture to guess that F1 Academy is not income, but an expense.
2. Where is the section for bribes?

 

^ #2
Included in Other Income or 'Sponsorships', just probably in really small print

 

Are you telling me that F1 Academy was created for money laundering?

 

+1

1) When Newey started at March (later rebranded as Leyton House) he was the lead for a total of five engineers who designed the March 881. The days of a single designer were gone by the mid-70's, probably the last single engineer/designer of a F1 car was Derek Gardner (Tyrrell). Here is Newey talking about the number of personnel involved with the car design/fabrication.

2) Totally agree on the chief designer being a overall manager, Aldo Costa (who designed many Ferrari F1 cars and the majority of the WDC/WCC Mercedes Benz F1 cars) has talked about that in his interviews.



The whole Newey leaving is probably alot due to his relationship with Horner and not just 2024, Horner's 2023 interview talking about how RBR could function without Newey prompted a "BS" tweet from Newey's wife.

 

I know it won't happen but.... I was hoping that Max and Newey would join Alonso and Honda for a supergroup.

Oh well, I'm just hoping that they're competitive right off the bat so Alonso can show us what's up.

 

Initial rumors were that Newey would join Aston Martin, then Ferrari. But now the rumors have cooled, and it looks like he might not even continue in F1.

 

https://www.grandprix.com/news/us-co...by-may-21.html

Now the US House Judiciary Committee has FOM and Liberty in its sights. This is getting really juicy now.

 

Ferrari conducting a tire spray test for the FIA at Maranello yesterday.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/959128729177401

 

^ I saw a pic of those F1 cars with the fenders on Instagram

 

So the FIA green lights Andretti's application but FOM, owned by Liberty and based in Colorado does not agree. My understanding is that FOM is at the whim and mercy of the current team owners' desires. How is the US Congress going to tackle that proposition when all the teams save one (Haas) are foreign? Lotta bluster it seems but when ya got pitbull Jimmy Jordan on your Committee, I guess noise is to be expected.

 

It's a bipartisan letter, same with the previous letter from two weeks ago,

How/why can the US Congress tackle this? Liberty is an US company. There are three races in the US. Liberty/F1 owns the Las Vegas race. The US is the biggest market for Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, McLaren, Audi. The committee can make them all very uncomfortable and look very stupid. At a minimum, if they get dragged into a hearing on live tv, it will be very bad publicity for the auto manufacturers/teams, and could turn US customers away from these brands. At worst, F1 could be deemed in violation of the Sherman Act and forced to leave the US market if they don't comply.

 

https://www.grandprix.com/news/albon...extension.html

Albon signs extension with Williams. I hoped that he would return to Red Bull.

 

I don't think he wants to put himself through that meat grinder again.

 

Probably bc it was the only viable seat available. His search coincided with Sainz's which hasn't been determined obviously and I imagine all seats potentially open next season revolve around what he does first.

 

you'll understand.

 

As long as the old man in the wheelchair can be his race engineer.

 

what a snoozer of a race, despite Norris's chase at the end

 

I almost fell asleep, but the narrowing gap in the last 10 laps woke me up.

 

I don't know what race you guys were watching but there was a lot of battles and not just at the front that made for a good race IMO.

 

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...HF4mX3scPjZjz9

 

They need to run this in Brazil too.

 

Makes more sense in Brazil than Monaco IMO.
Could've run it at Imola as well.

 

The only way to do this right is to use the Marlboro red and white chevron. Obviously without the Marlboro logo. They already kind of did it last year at Indy with orange/white, so nothing's stopping them from doing it again.

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...bal-rcna153201

More saber rattling.

Three weeks ago, the House Judiciary Committee asked F1/Liberty/FOM to produce evidence about why Andretti-Cadillac was denied entry. That request had a due date of May 21. Looks like the date has come without any response from F1. The Senate is now getting involved with a letter asking the DOJ and FTC to investigate F1.

Very telling that F1 has been super quiet since the HJC letter back on May 1. Looks like F1 has battened down the hatches.

 

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/4...ef-pat-symonds

Interesting Andretti hiring Symonds especially since he's been employed by F1 as CTO. Seems like a conflict of interest, since he's so involved with knowing so much about the current cars and rules.

 

He resigned from FOM, so no conflict. Once the non-compete expires, he's free to do whatever he wants.

 

Yup. I seem to recall other instances where people leave FOM and go work for the teams.

It would be interesting if he had first hand knowledge of F1 collusion between the teams and Liberty to block Andretti. But that's doubtful if he only worked on the technical rules side. However, he could testify regarding Liberty/F1 claiming that Andretti does not have the technical know how to design and build a "competitive" car.

 

Conflict of interest goes far beyond the NDA and non-compete period, some of the other F1 teams will probably complain about the COI due to Symonds insider knowledge of their cars and also the aerodynamic test modelling that F1 did for the 2026 rules as well as being part of the group who created the rules.

Can you name one? I can't think of a single person who went from FOM back to a F1 team, other motorsports yes but not F1 teams. It tends to be a exclusive one way street as Ross Brawn, Stefano Domenicali, Gary Anderson, and others have joined F1 sporting organizations but not gone back to a F1 team.

 

You might be right. Can't recall at the top of my mind.

 

That's not a conflict of interest. When a prosecutor in his career realizes he knows all the tricks and courts becomes a defense attorney and uses that knowledge to his client's advantage there is no conflict. Symonds is doing the same thing.

 

Symonds himself isn't conflicted, as he didn't work for both entities at the same time. Had he been working for a team, designing a car, while simultaneously writing the rules, that's a conflict. I might agree that it could provide an unfair advantage over other teams, but even then, all teams know and adhere to the same rules. I think this is really just semantics here where I took issue with "conflict of interest".

 

A far better analogy would be making the laws for the court then becoming a defense attorney hence that what Symonds has done. Symonds was in charge of 2022 and 2026 FIA technical rules. In addition he was in charge of the aerodynamic modelling CFD and wind tunnel which give him great technical insight to the 2026 rules. He also had access to the current cars and their detailed drawings to ensure compliance to the current rules. To say all that knowledge leaves his mind when he changes positions is naive at best, Symonds is a good guy but also involved in crashgate so I'd imagine more than a few are not happy with this potential conflict of interest. The prosecutor to defense attorney transition would be more akin to leaving one F1 team for another, not creating the rules and knowing why the rules were created.

See above. Symonds worked on 2026 rules and has crafted those rules from the technical analysis he and other engineers at FIA were privy to. That could potentially give him great knowledge to which he could potentially apply to another team since he knows the rules and potential loopholes.

FWIW I also agree it's semantics. I've been on several technical/engineering committees were I've had to sign NDA, residuals clauses and non-compete agreements. Most of it pertains to not gaining any advantage for the me/company from work on those committees and/or companies. Some of those agreements are fairly strict (Microsoft and Qualcom are among the worst to have dealt with), in terms of time limits and non-competes. One of the worst technical companies to break those rules is RAMBUS memory company and their involvement on the JEDEC committee, resulted in many antitrust suits and eventually FTC antitrust case.

 

Yeah, really interesting if Symonds has seen all the team's designs that could result in clear advantages for Andretti. However, since the Andretti car is most likely coming in 2026 at the earliest, I don't think it's that controversial, since gardening leaves are usually one year.

It's funny that no one from F1 or the 10 teams have commented on this concern, since they probably all have a gag order.

 

https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/wh...very/10614089/



Aston Martin's wheel fairings are yellow, so that shouldn't be a visual issue. So is it more psychological where the drivers don't want the hassle to reacclimatize to a different color? Seems like a poor excuse.

 

That still isn't an example of a conflict.

 

Sheesh, the gap between P1 and P16 in Q1 was less than 4 tenths


 

Best podium celebration I've seen in awhile.