F1 teams and Pirelli had no warning of "painted" Shanghai track surface

Motorsport.com— With F1 teams having done a lot of pre-event work in the simulator based on information from both Pirelli and the FIA, they were caught out when they arrived at the circuit on Wednesday by the visibly different track surface. While drivers said it looked like the track had been "painted", it emerged that it was actually a liquid bitumen surface treatment that had been applied last year to help reduce the degradation of the old asphalt. With the circuit having been used since, elements of this...

Motorsport.com—Shanghai F1 grass fire mystery remains; emergency team on standby. The FIA began a detailed probe on Friday night after two separate fires on the same area of grass inside Turn 7 disrupted running on the opening day of track action. First practice for the Chinese Grand Prix on Friday morning had to be red-flagged after a blaze erupted on the grass before the same section later caught fire at the end of the first session of sprint qualifying. While there was no red flag this time, because session running had already ended, it did trigger a delay to the start of...

Autosport—Shanghai F1 grass fire mystery remains; emergency team on standby. The FIA began a detailed probe on Friday night after two separate fires on the same area of grass inside Turn 7 disrupted running on the opening day of track action. First practice for the Chinese Grand Prix on Friday morning had to be red-flagged after a blaze erupted on the grass before the same section later caught fire at the end of the first session of sprint qualifying. While there was no red flag this time, because session running had already ended, it did trigger a delay to the start of...

DutchNews.nl—Train travellers warned of delays due to track maintenance. Train users will face several problems in the coming days as essential track maintenance takes place to coincide with the May school closures. Between Monday and Wednesday there are no NS trains to and from Zwolle and commuters using Amsterdam’s main railway station will also experience cancellations and delays. There are no services between Amsterdam Centraal Station and Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena because of work on the tracks and points, and this will also affect services to and from Utrecht....