F1 Gossip: Red Bull reveals when it will introduce first 2022 upgrade

Connor McDonagh's picture
7 Feb 2022
Liam Lawson (NZ), Red Bull Racing

In the latest Formula 1 gossip, Helmut Marko has revealed when Red Bull plans to introduce its first upgrade, while team boss Christian Horner has served his punishment for his ‘rogue marshal’ comment in Qatar last year.

- Helmut Marko says Red Bull will introduce an upgrade for the first race in Bahrain (SPORT1)

- Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has also served his punishment for his ‘rogue marshal’ comment at the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix. (Motorsport Week)

- Horner hopes race director Michael Masi will have better support around him to make decisions after the controversial end to the 2021 season.

Horner told Sky Sports: "The new President [Mohammed Ben Sulayem] has put a key focus on this and I think there's a big drive to make sure that the Race Director has better support.

"The tools that we [the teams] have at our disposal are far in advance of that of Michael and his team, so I think there's been a lot of focus on that over the winter.

"I think you'll see that role better supported, which will hopefully enable decisions to be easier and swifter, but I think we also need to look at the regulations to simplify some of those as well."

- Williams driver Nicholas Latifi says the events of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix are now behind him after he was the cause of the late, controversial Safety Car which swung the title in Max Verstappen’s favour.

"I already feel it is behind me," Latifi told Sky Sports. "It was a tricky few days with everything going on afterwards but I mean, it's part of the sport.

"It was kind of what I was expecting to happen as I mentioned in the post but I'm past it now and for sure, I guess once the season picks up and gives something more important for people to talk about and focus on [it will be forgotten].

"But it's long in the past for me now."

- Red Bull’s Jonathan Wheatley says Pierre Gasly is ready again to make the step up to the senior team.

"We learned a huge amount of things from Alex; we learned how to help support a younger driver who's having a difficult time," Wheatley told podcaster Jack Threlfall.

"Same with Pierre before that. Look at the confidence Pierre has got again, now he's back in a slightly smaller team! I think, honestly, Pierre is ready to make the next step up now."

- Daniel Ricciardo believes 2021 was the year he enjoyed the most ‘growth’ as an F1 driver after struggling with McLaren. (SpeedCafe)

“I think already moving from Red Bull to Renault I went through some, call it personal growth. But I think this year, probably two factors made it the biggest year for that.

“One was the challenges I faced with the car, and trying to obviously gel with that, and then I think the other one was obviously being away from home.” 

- Felipe Massa and Timo Glock are teaming up for the opening round of the Brazilian Stock Car Pro Series. 

- Aston Martin has fired up its AMR22 ahead of the new season.