Verstappen to McLaren rumours intensify as Red Bull react to Silverstone crash – F1 news round-up
Here's all the news you may have missed from Tuesday, July 7.
As the dust continues to settle on the British Grand Prix, we had some major Max Verstappen news come to light.
From the Dutchman to Lewis Hamilton, here’s all the news you may have missed on Tuesday, July 7.
Max Verstappen to McLaren rumours grow
The big news of the day was our report that rumours regarding a possible switch of Verstappen to McLaren are growing.
Multiple paddock sources have suggested to PlanetF1.com that McLaren and Max Verstappen are in the closing stages of a lengthy negotiation for the Dutch driver to swap from Red Bull.
You can read the full report on that here.
Ferrari boss labels Hamilton penalty ‘harsh’
Away from Verstappen, Fred Vasseur remarked that he believed Lewis Hamilton’s false-start penalty was “harsh” as the driver did not move anywhere.
Hamilton was handed a five-second penalty for his wheels moving on the third red light but Vasseur said the movement was so slight, it was not picked up on the sensors.
“From the sensors we don’t see the car moving on the grid but it’s true that on the video you see the sticker on the tyres moving a little bit. It’s not me judging if it’s a false start or not.
“I think it’s a bit harsh when the sensors are not moving.”
You can read more on that here.
FIA president makes engine rule changes proposal
During the British Grand Prix weekend, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem put forward some potential changes we could see to F1 engines in the future.
He raised ideas such as a reintroduction of refuelling as well as an FIA engine available to customer teams.
Read more of what the incumbent FIA president had to say here.
Sainz raises Williams fear
It has not been a fun season for Carlos Sainz whose promise of a competitive Williams car has proven to be far from the truth.
The Spaniard is without a point in the last four races and Sainz said the gap to the front has increased rather than decreased for the Grove team.
“Concerning and frustrating, because it starts to be a bad trend this year that we don’t seem to really find a lot of lap time when the upgrades are coming,” he said.
“We need to have a good sit down now this week, analyse what’s happening, because unfortunately we’ve shed a lot of weight out of the car by now, but the gap to the front is increasing and the gap to the rear of the midfield keeps increasing, so we don’t seem to be finding the lap-by-lap [pace] we expected.”
You can read more from Sainz here.
Red Bull boss says Verstappen ‘right not to be happy’
Verstappen’s reported exit interest stems from an unhappiness with the Red Bull car and team principal Laurent Mekies admitted the Dutchman was right to feel like that.
“He’s right not to be happy,” he said. “It is very unpleasant for drivers to be let down by the car in the high-speed corners in two consecutive races.
“It is also extremely unpleasant for us as a group to send our drivers to the gravel trap, so he’s right to be unhappy.
“I have no doubt that as a team we will put in place what is necessary for that not to happen again, even if we fail to do that today, and we take that as seriously as one can do, and therefore the minimum that Max can feel today is being unhappy.”