F1 news LIVE: London Grand Prix in Docklands pitched in ambitious plans for new British race

A plan for Formula 1 to stage a London Grand Prix in the east of the capital has been pitched alongside a major redevelopment plan.

The prospect of rejuvenating an area around London Docklands – with a high-speed circuit compared to Circuit Gilles Villenueve in Montreal – has been proposed by environmental group LDN Collective and consultancy firm DAR.

They state that a race could be held there as early as August 2026, with a 3.64-mile route consisting of 22 corners and an average speed of 127mph put forward.

Cars would run along London City Airport and the docks on a circuit full of long straights and chicanes.

The concept of a London Grand Prix, which has been floated previously by former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, has lingered in recent years but it is understood would be in addition to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Button, the 2009 Formula 1 world champion, retired from F1 at the end of 2017 but has kept his toes in competitive motorsport, competing in Super GT, Extreme E and Rallycross.

The 43-year-old is also competing at the 100^th anniversary of Le Mans in June – yet has added three NASCAR meets to his schedule, starting with the Circuit of the Americas later in March.

Button will also race in Chicago in July and Indianapolis in August, driving for Rick Ware Racing in partnership with the Stewart Haas Racing outfit.

Raikkonen, the 2007 F1 world champion, will also drive at COTA for Trackhouse Racing in what will be his second venture into NASCAR.

Horner, the boss at Red Bull, is the sport’s longest serving team principal having been in charge of the current world champions since 2005.

The 49-year-old executive is overseeing Red Bull’s current domination of the sport, having won both world championships at a canter last year and claiming a one-two finish at the 2023 season-opener on Sunday with Max Verstappen, the double world champion, triumphant in Bahrain.

But Ecclestone – who caused controversy last year after stating he would “take a bullet” for Russian president Vladimir Putin – insists Horner should aim for the sport’s top job next.

“If you had to pick anyone today, I’d say he [Horner] would be as good as there is,” 92-year-old Ecclestone said.

Having produced a car similar in design to 2022’s troubled challenger – with a unique “zero-pod” approach – Toto Wolff admitted that he is set to ditch this breed of car after seeing the roughly second-a-lap deficit to Red Bull in Sunday’s grand prix.

“It seems to me that Mercedes went the wrong way in 2022 and refuse to turn around,” Brundle said in his Sky Sports column.

“Even Lewis and Toto were openly expressing their disappointment at certain points of the weekend, and normally they only sing the praises of the teams at Brackley and Brixworth. It must be tense at the team right now, the quality is there, it just needs direction and oxygen to calm heads.”

McLaren’s Lando Norris may already be thinking about a move to Ferrari or Red Bull, Karun Chandhok believes. Norris came home last of the 17th finishers in Bahrain after pitting six times during the course of an issue-plagued race.

It represented a disappointing start to the season for the 23-year-old, tipped as a potential future world champion but yet to achieve a victory in the sport.

Sky Sports’ analyst Chandhok thinks that Norris could be looking at potential destinations that may give him a better chance of fulfilling his ambitions.

“Looking at where they’re [McLaren] at, and we were talking before the season of McLaren locking him in and Zak [Brown] doing an amazing job of contracting him [Norris] in for that four-year period.”

A report published last week by Females in Motorsport revealed women spoke for just 1.54 per cent of the run time in the new season of Drive to Survive on Netflix, totalling six minutes and seven seconds out of more than six-and-a-half hours. Curious, too, when you consider the emphasis throughout Formula 1 on increasing opportunities and visibility for women, despite a woman not competing in the sport since 1976.

Yet look in the paddock or on your screens and women are present. Not enough yet, as Drive to Survive’s inadequate representation infers, but they’re in attendance. Rachel Brookes, heading into her 12^th year as a reporter and presenter for Sky Sports F1, is one such face, refreshingly familiar for all UK fans of the sport.

Swapping duties with Natalie Pinkham and Simon Lazenby, the 48-year-old is a well-respected and trusted voice not just for the viewers at home, but for the drivers in the paddock too. This year, she will be at 19 out of a record 23 races, starting with Saudi Arabia next week. Speaking with passion about a job she adores, Brookes is insistent that F1 is improving when it comes to female representation.

“I have seen it change – there’s a lot more women now working in all sports as well as Formula 1,” she says.

“It’s been really positive. One of the first things Sky did was send me out to cover cricket, they’d never had a women on the boundary edge before doing live match updates but I loved it.”

Here, we take a look at how Aston Martin have made such an improvement in the off-season – and what they could achieve this year:

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon has been branded as ‘not extremely popular’ among F1 drivers because of his behaviour while racing.

He often appears as one of the nicest people in the sport when away from the track, with Sky Sports’ Naomi Schiff saying that “he’s so friendly, always got a smile on his face, always says hello”.

However, she added that “amongst the drivers, he’s not extremely popular and I think that’s because of his on-track behaviours. That helmet comes on and a demon comes out”.

Speaking during the Bahrain Grand Prix race weekend, Schiff was joined by Nico Rosberg, the 2016 World Champion. He said that Ocon “really loves to get his elbows out with his teammates and he’s loved colliding with his teammates in the past”.

Ocon’s new Alpine teammate is fellow Frenchman Pierre Gasly. The two reportedly have a less-than-friendly relationship, and Rosberg is clearly looking forward to seeing them race together.

Mercedes vowed they “won’t panic or make knee-jerk reactions” as they look to recover from their miserable start to the new Formula One season.

Both Hamilton and Russell finished more than 50 seconds behind winner Verstappen, who made an ominous start to his bid for a third successive title and raised further questions as to whether the Silver Arrows – who won a record eight consecutive Constructors’ Championships up until 2021 – can mount a challenge this year.

Hamilton complained before the race that his team were on the “wrong track” and on Wednesday the seven-time world champion said that Mercedes had ignored him over the development of their 2023 car.

With the team now preparing for this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Mercedes on Saturday published an open letter to fans admitting they had been “hurt” by their showing in Bahrain while also issuing a rallying cry to all supporters.

Red Bull special advisor Helmut Marko believes the World Championship is already out of reach for Mercedes after an opening race to forget in Bahrain.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished fifth and seventh respectively but their W14 cars struggled for pace and were nearly a second-a-lap slower than Max Verstappen’s Red Bull in the grand prix.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said over the course of last weekend that the Silver Arrows will have to change their approach already, with their unique ‘zero-pod’ philosophy failing to produce results last year and the early signs not promising this year either.

Marko, who works alongside Christian Horner and chief designer Adrian Newey at Red Bull, dismissed his rival’s prospects in 2023 – adding that in an era of cost cap they cannot just “design two or three different cars.”

“The world championship title is out of reach for Mercedes,” Marko, 79, told French radio station RTL.

“Mercedes does not have one problem with the concept this year, but several. They have not been able to find a solution in the winter.

“It will be difficult: you can’t just design two or three different cars. It will be tricky with the budget cap. A new car doesn’t just work either, because you have to be competitive from the start. They lack the test days and race experience.”