BWT was the title sponsor of Racing Point last year, having worked with the Silverstone-based outfit since 2017.

Its famous pink livery proved to be a standout in the sport, and achieved its most famous moment when Sergio Perez triumphed at the Sakhir Grand Prix last year.

However, Racing Point’s rebranding as Aston Martin, and preference to run a British racing green livery, meant that BWT’s partnership with the team ended.

While there has been no confirmation that BWT will continue its involvement in F1, sources have indicated to Motorsport.com that the company has been looking at two choices to keep its colours in grand prix racing.

One option is to move to Haas, which has been without a title sponsorship since a deal with energy drinks company Rich Energy collapsed midway through 2019.

Although requests to the American-owned team and BWT to comment on the possibility have not been responded to, rumours about the tie-up have accelerated after some intriguing comments in the German media.

With Mick Schumacher making his F1 debut for Haas this year, his uncle Ralf suggested to German publication Express that there could be a new sponsor and new colours for the team.

“A sponsor has just become available,” said Schumacher. “Not that this particular colour comes into play with Mick.”

Ralf Schumacher’s son David (Mick’s cousin) has competed in BWT’s pink colours in the past, during his time with the BWT-Mucke team in Formula 4.

It is understood, however, that Haas may not be BWT’s only option, with sources revealing that the company has held talks with the Williams team too.

Williams is undergoing a revamp under new investors Dorilton Capital, and appeared to run its new FW43B in a plain blue livery at Silverstone on Wednesday.

Despite the early outing for the car, the team is not planning to hold a launch event until March 5. The delay until then before revealing its 2021 challenger could be linked to the finalising of new sponsorship deals.

Williams has declined to comment on the specific of any BWT talks, however.

A team spokesperson said: “Williams Racing is shaping an exciting new brand direction and commercial strategy and this is resulting in significant interest as we begin a new era for the team.

“By their nature these discussions are confidential so as a policy, we do not comment on any specifics or speculation.”

BWT is active in the field of water treatment across a range of business, including drinking water systems, the pharmaceutical industry, heating and air conditioning systems and swimming pools.

The boss and main shareholder is Mercedes boss Toto Wolff’s friend Andreas Weibenbacher with his WAB Group.

The company had originally hoped to get involved in F1 in 2017 as a sponsor at Mercedes, but was only interested in doing so if it could rebrand the whole car pink.

With Mercedes not willing to move away from its silver colours, a deal was instead struck between BWT and Force India for it to be principal sponsor. That then stepped up for BWT to be title sponsor in 2020.

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In a bid to slow cars for this year and to help put less stress through tyres, the FIA has introduced a raft of technical changes to the cars.

The most obvious is a cut back of the floor area ahead of the rear tyres, but tweaks have also been made to the regulations surrounding brake duct designs and diffusers.

The aim was to reduce downforce by 10% overall, with Mercedes revealing recently that its initial work showed the cut back had taken performance back to 2019 levels.

But as progress has been made by teams over the winter, Key believes that chucks of the missing downforce have been clawed back by working on the design areas that are still available.

He believes that, by the early stages of the campaign, most teams will be back to the downforce levels they had in 2020.

“It’s had the effect of halting the rapid progress that’s been going on now with these cars for a long time, and we kind of needed to do that for an extra year of these regs,” explained Key about the new rules.

“But there’s still a lot of development potential around the rest of the car, and to find, in these changes as well.

“So my guess is that as we as we get into the season, most will have recovered everything. Whether it’s phase one [race one spec] or not, it’s difficult to say, but I don’t think probably 100 percent yet.”

Key says that the specification of car McLaren has planned for the first race will still be adrift of last year’s downforce levels, but he thinks there is plenty of scope to find more gains.

“Our launch spec car is some of that, the race one spec car, which is still in definition at the moment, will be a further chunk of it,” he explained.

“So I can’t give you a percentage at the moment in terms of where we are actually going to be at race one. But it will be a percentage, rather than 110 percent, let’s say.”

While the changes to the car are all at the rear, they have had a knock on impact on other areas too.

The reduction of downforce at the back has, for example, affected the aero balance and will force teams to reduce downforce levels produced at the front of the car to help even things out.

“It’s been a real challenge,” added Key. “It’s required fresh thinking because the geometries imposed by the regulations are unique and not something we’ve encountered in the past.

“While the changes take downforce away from the rear, it forces you to take some off the front to rebalance the car, so there’s been a global reduction in downforce.”

But while downforce levels may recover, lap times will still likely be down thanks to the more robust tyres that Pirelli are bringing. Teams expect them to be around one second per lap slower.

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After the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of both the F1 race and the Historic Grand Prix due to be held in Monaco last year, the event organisers have been continuing with preparations for the events this year.

The Automobile Club de Monaco said in January there were no plans to cancel the events again this year in response to speculation, and reaffirmed its commitment to host the F1, Historic Grand Prix and Formula E races over a one-month period.

On Wednesday, the local government in Monaco announced that construction of the street circuit would be starting next Monday.

This will include a repainting of the track markings and installation of the various infrastructure around the track and introducing traffic restrictions to ensure that the circuit can be prepared to host the three races.

Work will begin on 22 February and last seven weeks, ensuring the track is ready in time for the Historic Grand Prix, which runs from 23-25 April.

This will then be followed by the fourth running of the Monaco E-Prix Formula E event, which takes place on 8 May. The F1 Monaco Grand Prix is then scheduled for 20-23 May.

It will be the first time all three events have run in the same year, with the Historic and Formula E events typically alternating sharing duties two weeks out from the F1 race weekend.

2020 was the first year since 1954 that the Monaco Grand Prix had not been held, having traditionally been one of the season highlights on the F1 calendar. This year’s running will mark the first street race for F1 since the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix.

The news comes as a boost for F1 regarding its 2021 schedule, which has already been subject to some changes due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The start of the season has been delayed by one week after the Australian Grand Prix was postponed until November, while the Chinese Grand Prix does not currently feature on the schedule.

Monaco is currently due to host round five of the 2021 season, following events in Bahrain, Emilia Romagna, Portugal and Spain.

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Williams announced earlier this month that it would launch its new car for the coming season on 5 March, but has opted to give it a first on-track test prior to its unveiling.

In a teaser video posted to social media on Wednesday, Williams showed the FW43B car running at Silverstone in damp conditions, making it the second team known to have conducted a shakedown with its 2021 car.

McLaren held a shakedown with its 2021 car at Silverstone on Tuesday after unveiling the MCL35M model one day earlier.

Nicholas Latifi was shown watching teammate George Russell testing the car, with teams limited to just 100km of running under the filming day regulations, or equivalent to 17 laps of the Silverstone circuit.

Although the car was blurred, it appeared to be running in a dark livery, straying away from the white design that was raced with last year. Williams has previously used a navy blue livery through pre-season before launching its race design for the start of the season.

2021 will mark Williams’ first full season under new ownership after the team was acquired by US investment fund Dorilton Capital last August, leading to the departure of the Williams family.

Despite the exit of founder and team principal Sir Frank Williams, the team has opted to maintain his initials in the car name, sticking to the tradition that has been present since it was founded.

Williams is one of three teams that has opted to update their 2020 car nomenclature, adding the ‘B’ designation to the FW43 that raced last year to reflect the freeze in the majority of development under the new rules.

The British squad will enter the new season looking to build on a 2020 campaign that saw it make considerable progress in terms of relative pace, regularly competing with the Haas and Alfa Romeo teams after a year cut adrift in 2019.

Besides Williams’ teaser on Wednesday, Alfa Romeo also began to stir up interest ahead of the launch of its C41 car on 22 February, posting a shadowy image of the chassis with the teaser “not long till we get to meet you.”

But in a repeat from last year, those who turned the brightness up for the image were met with a trolling message that reading: “Trying again?!”

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While the digital only event meant that no photographers could get a close up look at the car itself, McLaren was still taking no chances when it came to hiding bits that it did not want people to see.

Concealment has long been a tradition when F1 teams wheel out their latest challengers, with parts covered up, missing or it being fitted with those bearing little resemblance to the ones that were actually intended for racing.

The MCL35M’s unveiling was no different as it was noticeable how the diffuser area of the car had been properly hidden in the official images revealed the launch.

Luckily for us though, the team used up one of its promotional / filming days at Silverstone on Tuesday – so we got a proper chance to see some of the aspects of the car that were not visible first time out.

Here is what we found out…

Hopes of finding out these design secrets were initially dashed when the images coming out of Silverstone continued to deliberately obscure the relevant parts of the car.

Camera angles of moving images and photos were either strictly from the front or side. Or the video view deliberately blocked out close-ups from specific areas of the car as it left the pitlane.

But, luck was on our side in the end, as footage released by the team later on allowed us to capture sight of the key areas of interest – especially those that revolve around the new aero rules for 2021.

These changes are aimed at reducing downforce by approximately 10 percent and include a diagonal section of the floor cut out ahead of the rear tyres, with fully enclosed holes in the outer 100mm of the floor outlawed.

Furthermore, 40mm has been taken off the bottom half of the rear brake duct winglets and 50mm lopped off the bottom of the diffuser strakes.

Upon inspection of the MCL35M that took to the track at Silverstone, we can see it had a different bargeboard cluster, sidepod deflector array and a new floor.

The deflector array bears more of a resemblance with the one used by the team in the latter half of 2020 (below) but the forward most element now has just a small stay reaching down to the floor’s axehead (red arrow).

Here, another set of flow conditioning vanes have been sited. Meanwhile, the central bridging panel (blue) has been exchanged for a trio of slats similar to the ones already installed in the lower portion of the array.

It’s also worth noting how some small alterations have been made to the shape of the wing mirrors and their stalks (black arrow), which is indicative of design changes to the bargeboard elements below which must shadow them for legality purposes.

There appear to be other subtle changes to the bargeboards too, but we’ll have to wait for the car to roll out in testing to analyse those in full.

McLaren made subtle changes to the MCL35M’s bargeboard area.

Moving to the rear of the car, the new diagonal cut-out is present in the floor as required by the regulations. This is a feature where McLaren were the first to test in the real world when it trialled a solution at the Belgian GP.

However, it’s another feature that’s been on and off the car during the course of 2020 that’s actually of key interest.

The Silverstone spec MCL35M had the raised L-shaped bodywork ahead of the rear tyre that was first tested all the way back at the first race of the season, at the Austrian GP.

The floor’s trailing edge was curtailed by F1’s 2021 regulations.

This style of additional flap ahead of the rear tyre is likely to be a feature that’s used up and down the grid as teams look for ways to recover the performance lost by having the various slots and fully enclosed holes in the floor this year.  

Haas also trialled a similar solution in combination with a floor that had been trimmed back in Abu Dhabi, whereas Ferrari tried several different solutions mainly focused on the edge of the floor throughout the course of the season. 

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Red Bull has won races in six of the seven seasons since Mercedes replaced it as F1’s benchmark team at the start of the turbo hybrid era, but since Ricciardo left to join Renault at the end of 2018, only Verstappen has continued to take victories.

In the two seasons since Ricciardo’s departure, Alex Albon’s pair of podiums represent the only times Red Bull’s other driver has managed to finish in the top three out of 38 races in that span, with both Albon and predecessor Pierre Gasly enduring a significant pace gap to Verstappen during their respective brief time as his teammate.

Perez, a 10-season F1 veteran and race winner following his 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix triumph, has been brought on board to try and ensure Red Bull has two cars regularly threatening or beating the Mercedes drivers in 2021.

Red Bull has lost results in the last two seasons when Mercedes was able to successfully use the strategic advantage of two cars fighting one rival.

Horner acknowledges that Perez will have a tough time matching Verstappen immediately in 2021 thanks to the limited pre-season testing time available this year (three days), but has revealed his expectations of Red Bull’s new line-up – which features a driver not promoted from its junior programme for the first time since 2007.

“It’ll be very difficult to get himself up to speed in just one test, straightaway,” Horner said in an exclusive interview for this week’s Autosport magazine.

“But he has the benefit of a lot of experience and, of course, we are expecting him to be close to Max and challenging – in a way that we had with Daniel Ricardo and Max for three seasons.

“So, hopefully, Sergio can play a real, really important role for the team in getting both cars, on a consistent basis, near to the Mercedes.”

When asked how he thought Verstappen was progressing after nearly five full years racing for Red Bull since his shock promotion ahead of the 2016 Spanish GP, Horner said: “I think Max has done a great job.

“I think he’s matured enormously over the last few years. And I think what he’s extracted from the car in the last couple years has been truly impressive.

“In a car that hasn’t been as good as the Mercedes [and] to have won five races in the last two years with Honda power [as well], I think he’s done a fantastic job.

“And we just as a team need to be able to do that on a more consistent basis over the course of a 23-race season.”

The full interview with Christian Horner is included in this week’s issue of Autosport magazine, which is available in shops and online.

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Vettel has been an avid collector since his success on the track gave him some spending power, and along with a fleet of sportscars he has bought several desirable historic F1 machines, including an Ayrton Senna McLaren and Nigel Mansell’s 1992 world championship-winning Williams.

However, he has now decided to slim down his Swiss-based collection by putting eight cars up for sale via well known dealer Tom Hartley Jr. Two have already been sold, but the rest remain available.

The cars give an intriguing glimpse into the life of a man who carefully guards his privacy.

The models that the German ordered new all have very high-end specs – even by the standards of Ferrari – but his choice of an ostentatious “Vettel” logo on the seat headrests may come as a surprise.

All of the cars have completed very low mileages.

Asked by Motorsport.com Vettel’s spokesperson would only confirm that the sale was happening, and would give no details as to why he has chosen to let go of the cars.

An Aston Martin F1 team spokesperson said that the timing had nothing to do with Vettel’s new employers, noting: “We have no knowledge of Sebastian’s plans with regard to his car collection and have made no stipulations or requests of any kind in connection with it.”

Here’s the full list of cars that Vettel is parting with:

2016 Ferrari LaFerrari (Sold)

One of three Ferraris put up for sale that Vettel ordered new while driving for the Italian team, his LaFerrari was one of the last of the 500 examples made. The high-tech hybrid machine features KERS and an electric motor as well as a 6.3-litre V12. Hardly used by Vettel, who put his surname on the seats and steering wheel but logged just 304 miles, it has already found a new owner.

2004 Ferrari Enzo (Price on application)

The Enzo is the most valuable of the Vettel-owned cars that have yet to sell – and indeed dealer Tom Hartley, who calls it “the very finest example offered for sale anywhere,” has not published the price. Powered by a 6-litre V12 and featuring F1 tech including a semi-automatic transmission, this particular car was originally sold to Germany before Vettel added it to his collection. Given that it has run only 1112 miles it’s apparent that he hardly used it.

1996 Ferrari F50 (Sold)

The F50 is the oldest car that Vettel has put up for sale, and given that he was only eight when the model was launched, it’s probably safe to assume that he had admired it for a long time before he could afford to buy an example. Much of the F50’s ongoing appeal comes from the fact that it uses a 4.7-litre V12 developed from the F1 engine of the early nineties. This car was originally delivered to Denmark, and Vettel bought it soon after joining Ferrari in 2015. Having run only 4312 miles in its 25-year life it was particularly attractive to collectors, and has already sold.

2016 Ferrari F12TDF (£750,000)

Vettel acquired his bright yellow F12TDF in his second year at Ferrari, specifying triple layer paint (‘Giallo triplo strato’) among the many high-end extras, along with a Vettel logo on the seat headrests. The car’s name pays homage to the Tour de France race/rally event, which was won several times by Ferrari. Vettel’s example of the 6.3-litre V12-powerd machine has logged only 738 miles from new – and its service history suggests that it has hardly been used in the last three years.

2015 Ferrari 458 Speciale (£350,000)

The 458 Speciale was the first Ferrari that Vettel ordered from new, and it came with a very special spec that included metallic black with gold fleck paint and a racing stripe, along with his Vettel logo on the headrests of the carbonfibre seats. The 4-5-litre V8-equipped car has completed just 1905 miles since he bought it.

2009 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series (£275,000)

The SL65 is the only car Vettel is selling that he didn’t actually buy – it was a gift from the race organisers for winning the first Abu Dhabi GP for Red Bull in 2009. Powered by a 6-litre V12, only 350 examples were made of the ‘Black Series’ version, which featured major bodywork modifications and extensive use of carbonfibre. In Vettel’s sole ownership it has run just 1752 miles.

2010 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG (£175,000)

Vettel clearly enjoyed seeing the F1 safety car so much that he bought one of his own. The first complete car built by AMG, the SLS was powered by a 6.3-litre V8, and it served as F1’s safety car in 2010-2012. Vettel ordered this example new while a Red Bull driver, and it came with the ultimate spec. It has run just 4305 miles.

2002 BMW Z8 Roadster (£175,000)

Although Vettel was a BMW-backed driver early in his career he bought the two-owner Z8 from the USA in 2015, his first year at Ferrari. After importing it to Switzerland he sent it to BMW Classic for refurbishment, with the project including a switch from US to European spec electronics. Although nearly 20 years old the 5-litre V8-powered car has run only 13,494 miles.

2004 Ferrari Enzo of Sebastian Vettel

Photo by: Tom Hartley Jnr.

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After spending his first two years in F1 racing alongside Carlos Sainz, Norris will now partner Ricciardo at McLaren in 2021 following the Australian’s arrival from Renault.

Ricciardo has joined McLaren on a three-year deal, and is set to offer a boost to the British squad by bringing experience from a race-winning operation at Red Bull, where he scored seven wins between 2014 and 2018.

Norris said he will not know until the new season properly starts just what areas Ricciardo will push him the most him and help him develop, but revealed he is already gleaning pointers from his new team-mate in McLaren’s simulator.

“It’s difficult to me to know just yet, I need to wait until we’re on-track and we do our first shakedown,” Norris said ahead of Tuesday’s running at Silverstone.

“I will already be able to take things away from just doing a few laps learning from him, learning from his feedback. There are things on the simulator already I’ve been able to pick up on.

“In terms of how and where he’s going to push me more than ever, it’s difficult to know until we get into the proper pre-season test and we get into the first race, because that’s when everything comes alive a little bit more and people show their true colours.

“I don’t have an exact answer for that just yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be every area where he’s pushing me, and hopefully I’ll be pushing him too. That’s the aim.”

Ricciardo will be the most experienced driver to race for McLaren since Fernando Alonso left the team at the end of 2018, having been on the F1 grid since 2011.

Although Ricciardo is a veteran compared to Norris, who will be in just his third season, the ex-Red Bull driver acknowledged there would be lots he could learn from his younger team-mate about working at McLaren.

“I’m certainly the more experienced in terms of being in F1, this being my 11th season,” Ricciardo said.

“But actually, in terms of McLaren, Lando has the more experience. So for sure there’s some things I can learn from him, particularly within the team itself and kind of integration into the McLaren family.

“Every time you have a new team-mate, it’s a real opportunity to learn something new, whether it’s work ethic, or a driving technique, or both. So I’m always pretty open minded.

“I know every driver has confidence in themselves and their ability, but I am very confident as an individual, but I’m also open minded.

“If there is something that I can take from Lando, and use it to better myself, then, obviously, I’m looking to learn as much as I can.”

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Following his winter switch from Renault, seven-time grand prix winner Ricciardo helped unveil McLaren’s new F1 car for the 2021 season on Monday at its factory in Woking.

McLaren opted to give the MCL35M a maiden run-out at Silverstone on Tuesday, using its filming day allocation for a shakedown to ensure all systems were running as expected.

After seeing team-mate Lando Norris complete a run in the morning, Ricciardo turned his first laps in a McLaren F1 car in the afternoon on a greasy and damp Silverstone track.

Although the test was limited to just 17 laps due to the filming day restrictions, Ricciardo was glad for the opportunity to get back up to speed after the winter.

“It feels longer than two months actually!” Ricciardo said.

“It always takes a little bit to get the confidence up. I think as well in these conditions, it’s greasy, they don’t fill you with a lot of confidence after it being a while since being in a car.

“But no, it’s nice. Everything’s run really smooth, we completed what we had to. Really, that’s all you can ask for. I know the more laps I turn, the more confidence and comfortable I’ll feel with this team.”

The initial shakedown in the MCL35M was all the more important for Ricciardo given the limited amount of pre-season testing in 2021, which has been cut to just three days ahead of the new season.

Ricciardo is set to get one-and-a-half days behind the wheel in Bahrain next month, but is confident the team can get everything ready for the opening race of the season.

“Every little bit helps, getting up to speed with the team, going through all the procedures,” Ricciardo said.

“Really the plan is and the target is to get to Bahrain, Sunday afternoon, be on the grid and for there to be no inch of panic. It’s really just about feeling comfortable and familiar with all the crew.

“We’re going through that, trying to go through scenarios that we would face on a race weekend, and yes, we don’t have the atmosphere around us now, but we can certainly try to replicate it and put a little bit of pressure on ourselves.

“McLaren started on the right foot with the fire-up, that was a day early, and first day of running on-track, everything has been smooth.

“You can’t ask for too much more in this part of the season. So everything is firing on the right cylinders now, and we’re all good.”

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The parklands circuit was set to undergo long-awaited resurfacing and corner profile changes after this year’s race, however some of that work has now been brought forward due to the AGP’s postponement to November.

Phase 1 has already been completed, with pitlane widened by two metres and the pit wall moved to the edge of the road in place of a grass verge – a move that could see the pitlane speed limit lifted.

Phase 2 will now see the layout itself altered, the biggest change coming at the Turn 9/10 complex. What used to be a heavy stop into a tight right-hander will be removed, replaced by a fast, flowing transition to the run along the lake’s north-western edge.

That will effectively make it two sweeping complexes in a row, with the fast right-left followed by the existing left-right for Turns 11/12.

The entry speed to the Turn 11/12 complex will now be higher, which could destabilise cars before the braking zone for Turn 13 and create an overtaking opportunity.

The right-hand Turn 13 will also be re-profiled, with a wider entry and additional camber to make it less of a single-lane through the corner.

Work will begin on the layout changes next Monday and is expected to be completed by July.

Phase 3, a complete resurfacing of the circuit in a more aggressive asphalt, will then take place after this November’s race should it go ahead.

It will be the first significant resurfacing work done since the public roads were prepped in 1995 to host the AGP for the first time the following year.

The renovation of the Melbourne circuit follows years of debate regarding the existing layout.

Drivers and team bosses have long been critical of the layout and its lack of clear-cut overtaking opportunities.

Motorsport.com exclusively revealed back in 2017 that the Australian Grand Prix Corporation had seriously considered ditching the Turn 11/12 complex in favour of a stop corner, but ultimately shelved the plan.

A new deal to host the Australian Grand Prix until 2025 then saw talks of a layout change revived, while the resurfacing work was pencilled in ahead of the 2022 race at the latest.

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