F1 news LIVE: Mercedes hold secret test for new upgrades ahead of Spanish Grand Prix

Formula One has reduced the current season from 23 races to 22 after opting against replacing the cancelled Russian Grand Prix.

The Sochi race, which was originally scheduled to take place on 25 September, was pulled from the calendar in late February following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

F1 bosses subsequently cancelled its contract with the Russian Grand Prix, which had been due to move to Igora Drive, 40 miles north of St Petersburg, from next year.

Reports initially suggested this year’s round-17 gap could be filled by a return to Qatar – which hosted its first grand prix last year – or a second race in Singapore. But organisers have confirmed the schedule will be shortened.

McLaren are another team that has been testing new upgrades ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.

Andreas Seidl confirmed the team have made their first major changes of the season to their MCL36 car.

McLaren have not had the start to the season they were hoping for with the team currently fourth in the constructors’ standings, 111 points behind leaders Ferrari, while Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo are seventh and 11th respectively in the drivers’ standings.

“We are bringing some upgrades to the car for the weekend,” Seidl said in his official race preview. “I know it’s been an extremely busy week or so for many of the teams making changes ahead of Barcelona, so it’s going to continue to be a tight fight for points.

“We performed well at this track in pre-season testing, so it will be interesting to see how our car will perform with the upgrades we’ve made since then. Hopefully we can have some good battles and get both cars back into the fight for good points.”

Mercedes reportedly used one of their filming days yesterday to test upgrades to their W13 car in France with George Russell behind the wheel. Toto Wolff and co. have struggled to solve the porpoising issues that have hampered the team’s start to the season but they will have benefitted from an additional 100km of testing ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

A report in Italy claimed that Mercedes had seen progress during those trials, with a new rear wing configuration and an updated power unit allowing for an improvement in straight-line speed. Russell had previously labelled the car a “killer to drive”, with the British driver already trailing championship leader Charles Leclerc by 55 points, while Lewis Hamilton is even further adrift.

Fernando Alonso has hit out at the new race directors in Formula One, suggesting that the two-person replacement for Michael Masi has not had the desired effects.

Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas are due to split the role this season, with the former overseeing the five races so far and the latter stepping in for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Masi was removed from the role after criticism of his handling of the season finale, where Max Verstappen was allowed to pass Lewis Hamilton in contentious fashion to claim the last race and the championship itself.

An overhaul to the race directors’ approach and the team around them was revealed by the FIA ahead of the season but, when asked about criticism of the Miami Grand Prix track surface, Alonso played down the fact that there are issues to solve there and instead suggested that “all the drivers” have far bigger concerns over race authority to worry about.

“We have to give Miami time. The weekend was very good overall for F1, with the expectation and the guests that were there – it shows the growth of popularity in the United States,” the Alpine man said, per Spanish media.

“I give it good marks, although I’m sure there are things to improve and tweak after the experience of the first race. That happens at all circuits.

“Probably the most worrying thing is the race direction and the stewards. With all the changes that have taken place, they haven’t adapted too well and it’s a concern for all the drivers right now.”

Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes team have taken part in a secret test as they scramble to return to the front of the Formula One pack.

Hamilton has been cast a distant 68 points adrift of championship leader Charles Leclerc ahead of the sixth round of the season in Spain on Sunday.

Mercedes are expected to bring a number of new parts to Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya in the hope of combating their ‘porpoising’ woes which have all but put an end to Hamilton’s bid for a record eighth title.

And it is understood that Hamilton’s team-mate George Russell drove the revamped Mercedes at a behind-closed-doors test on Wednesday.

F1 teams are allocated two filming days each season, with Mercedes electing to use their second of the year at Circuit Paul Ricard in southern France.

Russell, who is 23 points ahead of Hamilton in the championship standings, completed the permitted 62 miles of running – equivalent to a third of a race distance.

McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo admits that the Miami Grand Prix was made even tougher by the team’s decision to cut back on the amount of drink his car could hold in order to save weight.

The 32-year-old clearly showed the effects of a hectic afternoon in the Florida humidity and he compared racing in the Miami heat to similar races in Singapore and Malaysia.

“Yeah, it’s got that heat factor to it,” Ricciardo told to Autosport. “It’s tough as well, because I mean, everyone’s obviously fighting for that last bit of weight.

“We don’t have the luxury of putting three litres in the drink system. So we have a little bit, and it’s never enough fluid. Naturally, you’re gonna get dehydrated. And yeah, this heat was was pretty real.

“They’re [Singapore and Malaysia] the tough ones, obviously. I mean, everyone obviously worked hard today, it is hot, drivers, mechanics, everyone’s feeling the heat.”

At the end of the race, Ricciardo thought that he had made the points but was told he finished 11th prior to getting a time penalty for going off the track in a battle with Kevin Magnussen which sent him down to 13th.

“Actually when I crossed the line, I honestly thought I was 10th,” he said. “It’s hard to know, obviously [there are] battles and cars going off here and there. But I was kind of doing a calculation in my head thinking that enough cars had kind of gone off, or I passed, to be somewhere inside the points.

“But yeah, we came up short. So I don’t think there were any ‘what could have beens’ today. We were just not quick enough.

“We were just hanging on. And I think when everyone’s in a tow, we’re still lacking a bit on the straights. I think obviously a little bit of a drag and stuff.”

Fernando Alonso has suggested Lewis Hamilton’s struggles are par for the course when it comes to Formula One, stating the car and team behind it are defining factors as much as the driver.

While Hamilton has been a regular challenger for the championship since the days he and Alonso were teammates near the start of his career, this season has been a disappointment for the Brit as Mercedes struggle to make the new design work.

He sits sixth in the drivers’ standings after five races, while Mercedes are third in the constructors’ table, some way off the pace set by Ferrari and Red Bull.

“This is the nature of the sport. Sometimes you have a better car, sometimes you have not such a good car and you still need to fight and make some progress,” Alonso told BBC Sport. “This year we see that the driver is very important in F1 but not crucial.

“Lewis is driving as good as he has been the last eight years. He was dominating the sport and breaking all the records and 100-and-something pole positions.

“And now he is doing a mega lap – as he said in Australia or somewhere like that – and he is one second behind. So, yeah – welcome [to our world].”

More than one Formula One team will this weekend take the opportunity to give a rookie driver a taste of the action at the highest level, with Nyck de Vries set to be behind the wheel for Williams in the first free practice session at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Regulations state teams must provide two opportunities during the 2022 season for rookies, with 27-year-old De Vries therefore set for his first taste of an F1 race weekend.

The reserve driver for Mercedes has taken part in end-of-season testing for the team, but this will be his first opportunity to be involved during the campaign.

De Vries is the reigning Formula E champion and has won two of the eight races in that category so far this season.

He will be taking over Alex Albon’s seat for Williams in FP1, after they opted against using their own test driver Roy Nissany.

“I’m obviously very thankful and grateful for the opportunity to run in an FP1 session and kind of get to know the team, but also to kind of get myself out there during a Formula 1 weekend,” de Vries told Motorsport.

“I haven’t really thought about real targets. It’s only a one-hour session and you get like three runs on two different [tyre] compounds, which are both at the extreme end of the spectrum.

“So it will be a very interesting, exciting challenge. But I’m looking forward to the experience and hopefully I can do well. From a kind of expectations point of view, I don’t really know what to expect!”

Lewis Hamilton believes it will be a “good mission” for Formula One to find the sport’s next American star.

The sport’s popularity in the US continues to boom after the first-ever Miami Grand Prix – one of two American races this season with the United States GP set for Texas in October.

But there is not a single American driver on the grid in 2022, something which Hamilton feels may be a result of athletes choosing other sports.

“It doesn’t really surprise me. I think it’s perhaps more a cultural thing. You know, here in the States it’s the NFL, NBA. It’s NASCAR, IndyCar,” he said.

“In my 16 years of coming over here it’s been such a slow build, trying to bring awareness of the sport. Unfortunately, the Americans have to wake up at odd times in order to watch a Grand Prix.”

The USA has not had a F1 world champion since Mario Andretti claimed the title way back in 1978.

Formula 1’s new race directors have been praised for a “very good start” to the 2022 season after the removal of Michael Masi.

Masi, who had been lead race director since 2019, lost the role after his part in the controversial ending to the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that allowed Max Verstappen to win his maiden world title.

The Australian was replaced by a two-pronged team of Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas, assisted by the vastly-experienced Herbie Blash.

The refreshing of the race direction team came as part of wider changes, with team principals no longer afforded as direct access to the race director during the race.

Andreas Seidl, team principal at McLaren, has been pleased with the start that Wittich, who has served as race director at each of the first five races, in particular has made.