Kubica to test with Williams
Ferrari to make changes after engine failures
LONDON, Oct 3, (RTRS): Polish driver Robert Kubica will test with Williams this month as he chases a Formula One comeback after a sevenyear absence.
The former world champions have yet to finalise their 2018 lineup, with Brazilian veteran Felipe Massa’s place potentially at stake.
While there was no official comment from Williams, media reports on Tuesday said the 32-year-old would have an initial run out at Silverstone after this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.
He will then have a fuller assessment at Budapest’s Hungaroring in a 2014 car, with the team’s British reserve driver Paul di Resta also featuring in the two-day test for comparison.
A well-placed source confirmed to Reuters that the reports were accurate but emphasised it was not a question of a “shoot-out” between the two for the seat.
MOTOR RACING
Kubica partially severed his right forearm in an horrific 2011 crash during a rally that he had entered for fun before the start of the Formula One season, and there are lingering doubts about his arm movement.
The Pole is being assisted in his bid to return to the sport by Germany’s 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg, who started his grand prix career with Williams in 2006 before moving to Mercedes.
He completed 142 laps of the Hungarian Grand Prix circuit in August in a test with Renault.
The French team have opted to replace under-performing Briton Jolyon Palmer with Spaniard Carlos Sainz instead, however.
Meanwhile, US Grand Prix promoter Bobby Epstein is still pushing for his race in Texas to be split from neighbouring Mexico on the Formula One calendar.
The two races are on back-to-back weekends, with Austin’s Circuit of the Americas playing host on Oct 22 before the action shifts to Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Oct 29.
Epstein has long maintained that the scheduling is more geared for Formula One’s convenience, from a standpoint of logistics and saving on freight costs, than in the best interests of fans and sponsors.
Any hopes that the sport’s new owners Liberty Media, who took over in January with a fan-first approach, might change the arrangement were dashed when the pairing was retained on the draft 2018 calendar.
“They came out with their calendar in June...and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. I think it’s going to be that way,” Epstein told Reuters in a telephone interview.
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MILAN: Ferrari will make changes to improve the quality of components after both of the Formula One team’s cars suffered engine failures in Malaysia at the weekend, chairman Sergio Marchionne said on Monday.
Title contender Sebastian Vettel lined up in last place after problems in qualifying while team mate Kimi Raikkonen was set to be on the front row of the grid but was ruled out before the start.
The problems came after both Ferrari drivers had collided and retired at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix two weeks earlier.
“The fact that yesterday both the Ferraris could have beaten everybody is undisputed,” Marchionne told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Rovereto, northern Italy.