In the round-up: Daniel Ricciardo says he’s only just able to fit in the cockpit of his McLaren MCL35M.
What they say
Ricciardo said the width of his hips makes his new McLaren a tight fit:
I do have wide hips. I’m pretty thick-boned, I guess. But I got in.
It was the first mock-up of a seat. The dimensions they had kind of assumed what would be okay for me wasn’t quite okay. But fortunately it was just the seat, it wasn’t the actual keel itself which was too narrow. Since then I have been able to get in a seat and I do fit. But I feel like I’m certainly at the limit.
I think the way they design the cars and the chassis now everything’s trying to be as tight and compact as possible. So really my hips are sometimes the limiting factor. So I just tell them to make sure I’m comfortable and if you think that loses you a tenth of aerodynamics, then I’ll just drive faster on-track.
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Links
More motor racing links of interest:
‘The competition’s fierce. We must hit the ground running,’ says Mahindra’s Dilbagh Gill (Formula E)
“It’s going to be interesting as they’ve resurfaced the track and it will be our first ever night races. Diriyah always knows how to throw a curveball so that, combined with the fact that we always get good racing, sets us in good stead for a thriller of a season-opener.”
“Liberty Media was forced to inject almost £1bn into F1 in April, and, in recent months, has been making ‘incremental’ efforts to appeal to a younger audience online. In Britain, TV rights are cushioned by the remainder of a three-year Sky deal worth £600million, but Chase Carey, F1’s outgoing chief executive, recently confirmed to the Financial Times that he was in ‘active’ talks with Amazon.”
Mike Beuttler – Formula 1’s only known gay male driver (BBC)
“In 1973, Beuttler achieved his best-ever finish, seventh in the Spanish Grand Prix. Overall, he scored five top-10 finishes in his career. But then the UK was plunged into financial turmoil by the 1973 oil crisis, and his team did not have the money to stay in the sport.”
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