F1Weekly Podcast # 1084

Play Podcast: 03-03-25f1weekly1084.mp3

Nasir loved Monza and he loved talking about Monza! He talks about his recent visit to Parco Monza. Motorsports Mondial features Nasir and I attending the Monterey Historic’s at Laguna Seca where we run into Juan Manuel Fangio II, giving us another early classic Interview. Take a listen.

Juan Manuel Fangio II

Born on September 19, 1958. 48 years old. Argentine.
Fangio II began his race career in 1980, starting in South America and moving on to the United States and Europe. In 1989, Fangio II debuted in the IMSA GTP beginning in the AAR, capturing 2nd and 3rd place finishes. In 1990, Fangio II raced all 15 events, winning four, and being ranked 4th among drivers at the end of the year. In 1992, he entered all 13 races on the schedule, winning seven races and the drivers’ championship. In total, Fangio II won 21 races in the IMSA GTP. He also went on to race in the Indy Car series. Fangio II is the nephew of the legendary F1 world champion Juan Manuel Fangio.
The Goodwood Festival Creates a Special Moment in Time

• Being at the Goodwood Festival for the last three days, what are your impressions of the event? You said that you were looking forward to meeting many industry veterans, fans and racers, right?
  “I have been saying this a lot lately, but since my retirement, it has just been a terrific experience to come to an event like Goodwood where there is such a terrific atmosphere. Seeing the happy faces of friends and fans…those with whom I’ve competed over the years…the time we have been able to spend together here…and of course the opportunity to drive a car that I drove during my career. This has been a very rare, very treasured experience for me. If I had been invited to such an event during my racing days, I don’t think I could have fully appreciated it—I was racing every weekend, so I took it for granted. But having left the racing world, the chance to be at Goodwood has filled me with a tremendous amount of emotion.”

Fernando News.

“I’ve had a short pre-season testing as we encountered a few small issues and the weather impacted our running a little over the three days, but it was the same for everyone. I haven’t followed the results of testing because we have just been focussing on our programme during the test. We do have some positives with the new car compared to 2024, but there are still some things that we need to work on and improve as we prepare for Australia. We experimented a little with some mechanical changes during the test but the track conditions were not at their best. It’s only testing and we won’t know how everyone looks until Qualifying in Melbourne.” 

Andy Cowell, CEO & Team Principal at Aston Martin

“Our first few days working with the AMR25 have been busy and productive. The focus has been on learning about this car, the new aero package, checking all the systems, and gathering data from a huge number of experiments and test items. There has been a massive effort from the team on the ground in Bahrain and back at base [in Silverstone] to run the car and crunch all the data which is already helping us paint a picture of where we are.   

Initial feedback from Lance and Fernando suggests we have made progress with the drivability of the car, but we have also discovered areas that could be better and need more focus. It is very early days to be making any judgements on how much progress we have made during the winter and how we compare to our competition. We have been focused on ourselves; we have just kept our heads down to get the data and information we need before the racing begins in a couple of weeks’ time.” 

Lance:

Getting back to work at testing and feeling the new car is always an exciting time of the year. A lot of effort has gone into the AMR25 over the winter to try and improve various car characteristics, so it was nice to get my first feeling for those changes this week. You always learn so much from those first moments in the car and there are some things that feel better, but it is still very early days and difficult to say too much until we get to Melbourne. The final day of running was a bit disrupted because I was feeling unwell. I managed to do 34 laps this afternoon but Fernando took over to finish the session.”