F1 news LIVE: Sky Sports axe presenters Johnny Herbert and Paul di Resta ahead of 2023 season

Sky Sports have confirmed that they will be axing popular F1 pundit Johnny Herbert, as well as Paul di Resta, from their coverage ahead of the 2023 season.

Former driver Herbert has been a staple of Sky’s coverage since it picked up the rights in 2012 but has been chopped as part of a shake-up.

A Sky spokesperson said: “Johnny has been an integral part of our Formula 1 team since the very first season on Sky Sports in 2012.

“We will miss his humour and big personality and thank him for his energy and enthusiasm over the last 11 years. Everyone wishes him all the best for the future.”

Feature by Kieran Jackson

In a manner typical of his loved-or-loathed eccentricity, Italian motorsport giant Flavio Briatore has a habit of cutting through the noise and, rather starkly, hitting the nail on the head. Never short of an assertive opinion, the former Renault F1 boss was recently speaking to Formula E chairman Alejandro Agag about the all-electric series’ new Gen3 car, which made its competitive debut in Mexico City over the weekend.

Previously unflattering in his assessment of Formula E, upon seeing the fresh model, Briatore seemed converted. “Finally, you have a car which looks like a racecar,” he quipped. Spanish businessman Agag, telling the world’s media at the first race of the 2023 season, interrupted a colleague speaking on stage to tell the tale, with a look of justification writ large over his face.

Formula E’s latest venture – in creating their quickest, lightest and most sustainable car to date – is four years in the making and marks the start of a new era for the sport, in its ninth season, as it looks to take a step up in performance amid motorsport’s worldwide boom predominantly caused by Formula 1’s exponential surge in popularity.

In essence, Briatore’s statement points towards the juggling act which Formula E has grappled with since its inception in 2014. Three years earlier, the single-seater electric concept was signed and sealed between Agag and then-FIA president Jean Todt on a napkin at a dinner in Paris. Now, with the 2023 campaign set to host more races and cities than ever before, one question lingers: can the sporting product match the investment and the idea?

Because beyond any marketing spree, what lures new fans into any sport is the appeal of the action itself. The drama. The racing. Compared to F1 – and other staple racing series’ such as IndyCar and the World Endurance Championship – Formula E has struggled to capture the imagination with its sporting spectacle. It is a point not lost on Jamie Reigle, Formula E’s CEO since 2019. Yet, as anyone in the paddock points out, FE has no interest in riding on the coattails of F1. It is its own entity.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has been directly criticised by a House of Lords peer after failing to respond to a letter raising concerns over Formula 1 races being held in the Gulf region.

In a letter seen by The Independent, Lord Scriven labelled Ben Sulayem “deeply discourteous and unprofessional” after the Emirati executive “completely ignored” a letter in March 2022 about staging events in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, consequent human rights implications and accusations of facilitating sportswashing.

Lord Scriven, in a letter addressed to Ben Sulayem, writes: “Why do you think you can ignore parliamentarians? Do you think that concerns raised over human rights and the policies of the FIA should be above scrutiny?

“We wrote to you in order to raise concerns that are in the public interest, and we expect openness and transparency from the FIA. For the sake of clarity, I still expect to receive a response to our letter.”

F1 chiefs have hit back at FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s claims that a reported £16bn price tag the sport’s commercial rights is “inflated”.

A report in Bloomberg over the weekend suggested the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) – chaired by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman – have tabled an offer over $20bn (£16bn) to F1 owners Liberty Media for the commercial rights of the sport.

Ben Sulayem, head of the sport’s governing body, took to social media to publicise his views, insisting the alleged price tag was “inflated” and any potential buyer needs to “apply common sense… not just a lot of money.”

Now, in the latest example of F1 and the sport’s governing body being at loggerheads, a letter seen by Sky News sent by F1 legal supremo Sacha Woodward Hill and Renee Wilm, chief legal and administrative officer of Liberty Media Corporation, has accused the FIA and its president of “interfering with our [commercial] rights in an unacceptable manner.”

The letter, sent to F1 teams including Ferrari and Mercedes according to the Sky report, states that: “Formula 1 has the exclusive right to exploit the commercial rights in the FIA Formula One World Championship.

“Further, the FIA has given unequivocal undertakings that it will not do anything to prejudice the ownership, management and/or exploitation of those rights. We consider that those comments, made from the FIA president’s official social media account, interfere with those rights in an unacceptable manner.”

The letter goes on to insist that Ben Sulayem had “overstepped the bounds of the FIA’s remit”, adding the notion that “any potential purchaser of the Formula 1 business is required to consult with the FIA is wrong”.

Sky Sports have confirmed that they will be axing popular F1 pundit Johnny Herbert, as well as Paul di Resta, from their coverage ahead of the 2023 season.

Former driver Herbert has been a staple of Sky’s coverage since it picked up the rights in 2012 but has been chopped as part of a shake-up.

A Sky spokesperson said: “Johnny has been an integral part of our Formula 1 team since the very first season on Sky Sports in 2012.

“We will miss his humour and big personality and thank him for his energy and enthusiasm over the last 11 years. Everyone wishes him all the best for the future.”

The 2023 Formula 1 season starts on 5 March in Bahrain – and preparations are well underway ahead of the new campaign.

All 10 teams have had more than two months since the final race of 2022 in Abu Dhabi and are set to reveal their new cars in the next few weeks, with pre-season testing taking place at the Bahrain International Circuit from 23-25 February.

Red Bull will be the first team to reveal their 2023 design next month, in New York City no less, while all eyes will be on Mercedes’ W14 car after their bouncing and porpoising problems in 2022.

Meanwhile, Ferrari will be looking to produce a car capable of race wins once again as they launch their 2023 model, while the likes of McLaren, Alpine and Aston Martin are all striving for improvements this season.

Here are the 2023 car launch dates in chronological order:

Haas – Tuesday 31 January (Livery launch only)

Red Bull – Friday 3 February (New York)

Williams – Monday 6 February (Livery launch, online)

Alfa Romeo – Tuesday 7 February (Zurich)

AlphaTauri – Saturday 11 February (Livery launch, New York)

Aston Martin – Monday 13 February (Silverstone)

McLaren – Monday 13 February (location TBC)

Ferrari – Tuesday 14 February (location TBC)

Mercedes – Wednesday 15 February (Silverstone)

Alpine – Thursday 16 February (London)

Toto Wolff insists his Mercedes team should not be written off ahead of the new Formula 1 season.

Having won eight constructors’ titles in a row from 2014-2021, the Silver Arrows struggled last year with an underperforming car, coming home third in the Championship behind Red Bull and Ferrari.

Despite issues early on in the season with bouncing and porpoising, Mercedes did manage to secure a win in the penultimate race of the season and optimism is high that Wolff’s team can challenge for the title once more in 2023.

“Do not write us off,” Wolff told The Times last week. “In this life, you never stop giving it everything.”

On last year’s car, Wolff added: “We got the physics wrong,. It’s no myth. We misinterpreted some of the regulations. We put too much emphasis on seeking performance in a car that was supposed to run on the ground, very low.

“But you can’t run it so low, because it [the floor of the car] was hitting the ground. So we had to lift it up, which changed things again. It sounds like a trivial explanation, but this is the reality.”

Just Stop Oil protestors caused “an immediate risk of serious harm” to Formula One drivers and race marshals by invading the track during last year’s British Grand Prix, prosecutors have claimed.

A jury at Northampton Crown Court was shown in-car footage of drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon passing three men and two women who were sitting on and being dragged off Silverstone’s Wellington Straight last July.

Video recorded by Lewis Hamilton’s car passing protesters shortly before the track invasion was also shown during the Crown’s opening speech – along with video statements issued by five of six defendants who are on trial.

David Baldwin, 47, Emily Brocklebank, 24, Alasdair Gibson, 22, Louis McKechnie, 22, Bethany Mogie, 40, and Joshua Smith, 29, all deny causing a public nuisance at the Northamptonshire circuit in July last year.

Brocklebank, of Yeadon, Leeds; Gibson, from Aberdeen; Mogie, from St Albans; McKechnie, from Manchester; and Smith, from Lees in Oldham, went on to the race circuit during the protest.

Baldwin, of Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, was found in a car park along with glue, cable ties and a Just Stop Oil banner and is said by the Crown to have been “in it together” with his co-defendants.

Lewis Hamilton said he had bananas thrown at him and was repeatedly called the “n-word” at school.

The seven time Formula One world champion, who was born and educated in Stevenage, detailed the racial abuse in the On Purpose podcast, released on Monday. The 38-year-old, who is preparing for his 17th season in F1, said: “For me, school was the most traumatising and most difficult part of my life.

“I was already being bullied at the age of six. At that particular school I was one of three kids of colour and just bigger, stronger, bullying kids were throwing me around a lot of the time.

“And the constant jabs, the things that are either thrown at you, like bananas, or people that would use the n-word just so relaxed. People calling you half-caste and not knowing where you fit in. That for me was difficult.

“In my (secondary) school there were six or seven black kids out of 1,200 kids and three of us were put outside the headmasters’ office all the time. The headmaster just had it out for us – and particularly me.”

Sky Sports have confirmed that they will be axing popular F1 pundit Johnny Herbert, as well as Paul di Resta, from their coverage ahead of the 2023 season.

Former driver Herbert has been a staple of Sky’s coverage since it picked up the rights in 2012 but has been chopped as part of a shake-up.

A Sky spokesperson said: “Johnny has been an integral part of our Formula 1 team since the very first season on Sky Sports in 2012.

“We will miss his humour and big personality and thank him for his energy and enthusiasm over the last 11 years. Everyone wishes him all the best for the future.”