F1 news LIVE: Las Vegas Grand Prix details emerge as Daniel Ricciardo rejected ‘stratospheric’ Red Bull offer

Mercedes are looking to bring a new rear wing to boost their performance at the Australian Grand Prix.

After languishing behind the Red Bulls and Ferraris, the Silver Arrows are yet to unlock the W13’s performance.

Auto Motor und Sport state Mercedes have pinpointed the main deficit is down to drag and they will introduce an upgraded rear wing to breach the gap to their rivals in straight-line speed – with Red Bull up to 11kmh quicker on the straights, with Ferrari 15 to 20kmh faster in turns five to nine and 15.

“We assumed the bouncing would be less in Jeddah because the track is flatter,” a Mercedes engineer told Auto Motor und Sport.

“We were wrong about that. We still don’t fully understand what factors trigger the phenomenon. It’s a constant learning process.”

Christian Horner admits he is ‘concerned’ about Red Bull’s engine despite victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The 2022 F1 season sees Red Bull with their own engine department, Red Bull Powertrain Division, taking over running of the power units from Honda.

“We have now also found a completely different solution to the one originally envisaged,” Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko told Autorevue ahead of the season opener. “The engines will be manufactured in Japan until 2025, we will not touch them at all.”

Honda left Formula 1 but continue to produce, assemble and support the engine that they designed, with Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda all experiencing issues across a range of teams so far, which is a nagging doubt for Horner as they head to Australia.

“Of course, we’re concerned about it but I think first we have to understand what it is,” Horner said.

“I think once all the strip-down has been done and we understand what the issue is then, hopefully, fixes can be put in place.”

Lewis Hamilton has revealed he is “struggling mentally and emotionally” and said it is a “constant effort to keep going” amid a challenging start to the new Formula One season.

The seven-time F1 world champion, who finished 10th at last Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, made the admission via a post on his Instagram story on Thursday.

“It has been such a tough year already with everything that is happening around us,” said the 37-year-old. “Hard some days to stay positive.

“I have struggled mentally and emotionally for a long time, to keep going is a constant effort but we have to keep fighting. We have so much to do and to achieve.”

Verstappen’s late engine failure at Sakhir means Leclerc currently enjoys a 20-point advantage over the Dutchman, with Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari separating them in the standings.

Formula 1 has undergone its biggest regulation change in a generation, shaking up the grid order as all ten teams have been forced to design their new machinery from scratch.

Haas team principal Günther Steiner says “there is interest” in the Formula 1 team from potential new sponsors, after the outfit cancelled its previous agreement with Russian fertiliser firm UralKali over the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Their pre-season went far from swimmingly, though, with the UralKali deal cancelled while the team was testing in Barcelona after the sponsor’s oligarch owner Dmitry Mazepin attended a one-to-one meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin on the day his violent assault on Ukraine began.

Steiner insists that, while Haas’ short-term financial future is secure, sponsors are interested in securing a long-term deal which could help the team increase investment.

Volkswagen Group will make an announcement about its plans to enter Formula 1 from 2026 next week, according to a report from Business Insider.

The German car manufacturer has been weighing up a move to enter Formula 1 over the past few years and its representatives attended a roundtable meeting at the Austrian Grand Prix last year in order to discuss plans for the next generation of F1 engines with the FIA, current teams and management.

Formula 1 has homologated its engines this year, meaning that each manufacturer’s design cannot be altered from now until the end of the current agreement in 2026, when a new era of engine design will begin. Each new era brings with it interest from external parties and the growth of Formula 1’s popularity internationally, thanks in no small part to the success of the behind-the-scenes Netflix series Drive to Survive, appears to have caught the attention of Volkswagen.

Daniel Ricciardo rejected a “stratospheric” Red Bull offer, according to Christian Horner.

After Max Verstappen’s arrival in 2016, Ricciardo made the bold call to join struggling Renault for 2019, despite Red Bull keen to retain him.

“Daniel could see Max in the ascendancy and he didn’t want to become the second driver,” Horner told The Weekend Australian, while detailing Ricciardo rejected offers “that were stratospheric”.

“His timing was spectacularly bad because obviously, he had doubts about the Honda engine and then [Honda] went on to prove there it was a competitive power unit and a race-winning package. Daniel is a great driver and we were sad when he decided to leave the team here.

“And, you know it’s unfortunately not worked out for him the way he would have liked.

“He’s great natural abilities, a big personality. Of course, now he’s got a competitive team-mate as well. It’s given him a hard time and you know, that’s tough for him.’’

Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin says the team needs to “regroup” ahead of the Australian Grand Prix next weekend, after a dreadful start to the 2022 season which has seen the team drop down the grid order.

The Brackley-based squad have won the constructors’ championship every season since 2014, but have started this year way off the pace of front-runners Ferrari and Red Bull, who look set to battle for both titles as things stand.

Having struggled with bouncing at high speeds and slow speeds through corners throughout pre-season testing, Mercedes have failed to find solutions to their problems at the opening two rounds of the season in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

F1 officially announced its return to Sin City for the first time since 1982, in an event which will become the third United States-based race on the calendar from November 2023 onwards.

Cars will speed along Las Vegas’ notorious Strip at speeds of up to 212mph, and the 6.12km track will see drivers roar past landmarks such as the Bellagio Fountains and Caesars Palace for an event expected to attract 170,000 fans.

The inaugural race does not yet have a confirmed a date, but will begin at 10pm on a Saturday night, with Thanksgiving weekend in November considered the most likely slot to be chosen in an effort draw as big an American audience as possible.

That means the start time would be 6am on Sunday for fans in the UK and 7am for other parts of Europe, where Formula’s 1 biggest and most loyal fanbase is located.

The Saudi Arabian minister for sports says his government will give Formula 1 and its stakeholders “whatever they want” in order to return to the country to race again in future.

Formula 1 first raced in Saudi Arabia last December and did so again last weekend, against a backdrop of human rights abuses in the country and the bombing of a state-owned oil facility just ten kilometres from the Jeddah street circuit where the grand prix was held.