Some 30 year old Formula 1 History.
The first round of the 1990 season was the American GP held at Phoenix on 11th March.
The 72 lap race around the 3.798km circuit was won by A Senna driving a McLaren-Honda V10 in 1h 52m 32.829s from 3rd place on the grid. He was joined on the podium by J Alesi driving a Tyrrell-Ford Cosworth V8 from 2nd place and T Boutsen in a Williams-Renault V10 from 5th place. The fastest lap of the race was recorded by G Berger in the other McLaren at 1m 31.050s on lap 34, after a good qualifying and starting from pole, but unfortunately he retired on lap 44 with a clutch problem.
I am sure you are all aware of what is going on, but here is some information regarding Formula 1.
Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the Australian GP was cancelled at the very last minute for the safety of all concerned. The Bahrain, Vietnam Netherlands, Spanish & Azerbaijan races have subsequently been postponed with Monaco being cancelled for the first time since 1954. The August shut-down period has been brought forward from August to March/April and extended from 2 weeks to 3 weeks. Ferrari had already stopped production of all F1 & road cars on Monday 16th March.
This will now free up August to slot in some of the postponed races should the situation improve enough by then. The cancelled races will not be re-scheduled.
As it stands at the present time, the season will start with the Canadian round on 14th June. I think they are hoping for too much as will Canada be ready to open their doors to the world? They put the Easter weekend as the deadline for their decision as did Silverstone which is not until July 19th, after France & Austria, so when is the season likely to start?
Bernie Eclestone suggested cancelling the 2020 Championship and concentrating on the 2021 season, which appears to be the best option as opposed to getting cancellations and postponements one by one.
The new technical regulations set to change in 2021 have now been postponed until 2022.
Coronavirus
The Agnelli family, who control Ferrari and Fiat-Chrysler as well as the Juventus Football Club, made a 10 million euro donation to the Italian Civil Protection Department as well as providing a fleet of cars to the Italian Red Cross & National Association for Public Assistance to assist with the distribution of food & medicine to the sick, elderly & people in need across the country.
Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren & Williams all offered to assist with the production of ventilators, working with Innovate UK & the University College London Hospitals.
Now For Some Brighter News.
Lawrence Stroll with his consortium have increased their stake in Aston Martin-Lagonda from the original 16.7% purchased in January to 25%. The original shares were around £4.00 per share, with the revised price of £2.25 per share.
Pietro Fittipaldi who last year was a test driver with Haas, as well as driving in DTM & the Asian F3 series and Louis Daletraz. He acted as the simulator driver for Haas and drove in the F2 series and from this year he will share the duties of test/reserve drivers for Haas.
I hope that after obeying the Coronovirus rules, and you have kept safe and well.