‘We had to pit or we were going to catch fire’

In brief

Ocon avoided car fire by retiring from British GP

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon potentially spared his team a large damage bill by retiring in the pits on lap 10 of the British Grand Prix.

“It was a frustrating race. We had a hydraulic leak, so we had to box the car otherwise we are going to catch fire,” he said. “Had a decent start, but that was it from there. Unfortunately.”

Ocon added there “is always some positives” to take away from a weekend like that. “There’s always things that we can carry forward. Hopefully we come back stronger in the next two before the break, and there is some some great stuff coming on the car so big hopes for us.”

Formula E reveals full rookie practice line-up

An additional practice session will take place at this weekend’s Rome E-Prix for ‘rookie’ drivers, functioning in much the same way that Formula E’s annual rookie test does.

The full line-up was unveiled on Monday, and includes several high-profile racing figures. Two-times World Touring Car Cup title winner Yann Ehrlacher will drive for DS Penske, former Formula 1 driver Daniil Kvyat will take part for NIO 333, reigning DTM champion Sheldon van der Linde is in action for Jaguar, Nissan have called up their simulator driver Luca Ghiotto and Yifei Ye will be driving for Porsche. He normally races one of their Hypercars in the World Endurance Championship.

F1 Academy driver gets 0.3s penalty

The F1 Academy action at Monza last weekend was full of collisions and penalties, and none stranger than the 0.3 seconds that was added to Amna Al Qubaisi’s race time following the finish of race three.

It cost her third place to Nerea Marti, but Al Qubaisi had actually taken third from Marti during the race via an off-track moment, and a subsequent Safety Car period that ran all the way to the chequered flag denied Al Qubaisi the chance to give back the place.

A five-second penalty would be the most commonly seen penalty for such a pass, but that would have dropped Al Qubaisi to ninth given the closeness of the pack behind the Safety Car. The stewards therefore deemed an unprecedented 0.3s penalty to be the most appropriate way to return Marti to the podium.

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A noteworthy management change at Alpine: Bruno Famin has been made vice president for Alpine Motorsports including F1, WEC and other series. He will report to CEO Laurent Rossi, and team principal Otmar Szafnauer will report to Famin. #F1 #WEC pic.twitter.com/C78auVZkNM

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Had a grin on my face all weekend @SilverstoneUK @F1 driving my fathers 1960 Cooper T53 he won the F1 Championship for the 2nd time. #SilverstoneGP #f1 #cooper #jackbrabham #brabham pic.twitter.com/fzGZKzthPP

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DRS is dumb

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Watching the Sky and C4 F1 gridwalks… Everyone’s talking about the Brundle-Delevingne snub, and no one seems to have noticed that the “random gentleman” that went unrecognised by @therealdcf1 was, in fact, 3-time GP winner and former DC rival @frentzen_hh #BritishGP #F1

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• 30 years ago today Alain Prost won the British Grand Prix after team mate Damon Hill retired with engine failure while leading