02 August 2022
Get the lowdown on what's new in Formula One, go back-to-basics with exclusive #F1 Insights by our guest writers, and get tips from industry experts from the Formula One fraternity.
Get the lowdown on what's new in Formula One, go back-to-basics with exclusive #F1 Insights by our guest writers, and get tips from industry experts from the Formula One fraternity.
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Posted on 2 August 2022
We may not be wild about sipping champagne from a shoe but we surely can celebrate the adrenaline-fuelled race weekend with a round of drinks. Singapore boasts an exciting nightlife scene, with some of the best bars in Asia just a stone’s throw away from the Circuit Park. Skip the classics and go for something uniquely Singaporean – with alluring interiors and even more intriguing ingredients, check out these must-try cocktails that will get your heart racing faster than you can say ‘pit-stop’.
SINGAPORE SLING
You can’t leave the island without trying our most famous cocktail, the Singapore Sling. Widely regarded as the national drink, the Singapore Sling was concocted by Raffles Hotel’s then-bartender Mr Ngiam Tong Boon in 1915. This gin-based cocktail contains pineapple juice, lime juice, curaçao, Bénédictine, grenadine and cherry liqueur.
Long Bar, #02-01, Raffles Arcade, 328 North Bridge Rd
MADAME PRESIDENT
Image credit: Jigger and Pony
Recognised as Asia’s Best Bar in 2020 and the ninth best in the world, Jigger and Pony presents classic concoctions and fresh cocktail twists in the heart of the central business district. Take your pick from many standout drinks, but we say go for the one with the highest honour, Madame President with Monkey 47 Gin, kaffir dry vermouth, orchid and bitter melon liqueur and a Campari lollipop.
Jigger and Pony, 165 Tanjong Pagar Rd
MR BEAN
Get ready for an adventure with every innovative drink at the award-winning Jekyll & Hyde, one of Singapore’s pioneer cocktail bars since 2013. Don’t be surprised by intriguing additions – bacon, peanut butter, bananas and exotic spices – as you take your pick of a signature cocktail. Try the Mr Bean, a cocktail with Singapore’s popular tau huay soy bean pudding, butterscotch liqueur, Frangelico and vodka.
Jekyll & Hyde, 74 Neil Road
DEVIL IN THE DETAILS
Image credit: The Secret Mermaid
The devil is in the details at The Secret Mermaid, a tasting room and cocktail bar with a focus on presenting the largest menu of American craft spirits in Singapore. Try the Devil In The Details cocktail at this speakeasy, a rum infused beverage with white dragonfruit, pink dragonfruit, lime and lavender bitters.
The Secret Mermaid, 10 Collyer Quay, B1-09, Ocean Financial Centre
We strive for accuracy, but during these uncertain times, we recommend you visit bars’ websites to verify opening hours and for the latest information before heading out.
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Posted on 1 July 2022
Think you’ve covered all the attractions that Singapore has to offer? Think again. Set aside your guidebook and squeeze in any of these ten unique local experiences for a memorable Grand Prix weekend.
1. Challenge your friends to kart racing
Can’t get enough of motor racing? Challenge your friends and family to a fun kart race at KF1 or The Karting Arena’s electric go karts. Experience the thrilling twists and turns on the race track and see if you have got what it takes to come out as champion. Height and age restrictions apply.
2. Explore a military bunker or tour an old cemetery
Go nine-metres deep under Fort Canning Hill and venture into the Battlebox, a World War 2 secret Command Centre built in the 1930s. Join the guided tour through the twisting passages and gain an insight into Singapore’s wartime history. History buffs can also explore Singapore’s largest Chinese cemetery, Bukit Brown. This century-old cemetery houses the resting places of many Chinese pioneers who made significant contributions in Singapore’s rich history. Choose to walk self-guided or join a guided tour for an insight into their stories, the tomb designs and uncover secrets that lie within.
3. Go on an island-hopping adventure
Did you know Singapore has 64 islands that surround the mainland? Hop on a ferry and explore the islands in the Southern and Northeastern part of Singapore. Visit sacred sites on Kusu Island, go fishing or have a picnic on St John’s Island, swim in the beach paradise of Lazarus Island or go snorkelling at the Sisters’ Island Marine Park. If you’d like more adventure, book a kayaking expedition through the mangroves of rustic Pulau Ubin. Once there, don’t miss hiking through the Chek Jawa wetlands, a treasure trove of Singapore’s biodiversity.
4. Try your hand at pottery in an 80-year old dragon kiln
Explore Singapore’s oldest surviving brick-built kiln at Thow Kwang Pottery Jungle. Originally built for the mass production of latex cups, water jars and flower pots, the kiln now serves as a platform for artists, potters and members of the public to gain a deeper appreciation of the disappearing art of wood-firing. Go on a guided dragon kiln tour or try your hand at making a wood-fired piece in a pottery workshop.
5. Discover Instagrammable spots for the perfect #OOTD
Take out your smartphones and explore the most picture-perfect spots in Singapore. Spot the street art in Chinatown, Little India and Kampung Glam, photograph the colourful heritage shophouses in Joo Chiat and Katong, admire the magnificent Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay or head to the Fort Canning Park where you can walk back in time to the 14th century at the historical Sang Nila Utama Garden or snap an #OOTD at the Park’s iconic spiral staircase. Prefer an aerial view? Make a pit stop at one of the many rooftop bars in Singapore.
6. Visit Singapore’s more eclectic museums
Check out vintage toys at MINT Museum of Toys, gain an insight into Peranakan culture at heritage spaces the NUS Baba House or The Intan, step through a giant camera-shaped building into the Vintage Camera Museum, view dinosaur fossils at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, explore the world's largest display of contemporary design at the Red Dot Design Museum or why not catch a glimpse of Buddha’s tooth at the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum.
7. Travel the world on a scent journey
Go on a scent discovery with a Master Perfumer at local perfumery Sifr Aromatics. Gain an insight into different perfume-making techniques on a scent journey across continents right in the heart of the Kampung Glam ethnic district. After your experience, go for a stroll and check out the boutiques at Haji Lane or fuel up at any of the restaurants or trendy cafes nearby.
8. Go round island on a bicycle
Rent a bicycle and see Singapore from a new perspective. Whizz through the numerous Park Connector Networks and be treated with spectacular sea views, idyllic parks and charming suburbs along the way. Whether you are a novice or an expert, there’s a cycling trail to appease everyone. Go for the scenic Mandai loop circuit which starts in the heart of the city and passes the old Singapore Grand Prix track at Old Upper Thomson Road. Seasoned cyclists can consider the 36-kilometre Coast-to-Coast trail which cuts across the island and covers some of the best parks and natures reserves in Singapore.
9. Go on a hiking trail through a nature reserve
As a city in a garden, there are abundant green spots on the island. Hike through the four nature reserves, discover Singapore’s rich flora and fauna or relax in one of more than 300 parks across the island.
Get closer to nature along the 10-kilometre Southern Ridges, which is also one of the best trails in Singapore for stunning views of the city, harbour and Southern Islands. Or hike a former railway line, the 24-kilometre Rail Corridor from the North to South of Singapore passing through lush green landscapes and heritage structures.
10. Fill your tummy with Singaporean delicacies at any hour
Join a local guide on a food tour of Singapore’s local cuisine, or plan ahead and go self-guided. From exploring the hawker culture – a UNESCO pick for its Intangible Cultural Heritage – to dining at a Michelin-star restaurant, there’s a culinary experience to appease every gastronome whatever the hour. Be sure to savour Singapore’s famous local delicacies like chicken rice, nasi briyani, nasi lemak, kaya toast, buah keluak stew and many more – the options are endless even after dark. Vegan and vegetarian options are also available.
We strive for accuracy, but during these uncertain times, we recommend you visit the attractions’ websites to verify opening hours and for the latest information before heading out. For more details, visit: https://www.visitsingapore.com
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Posted on 2 June 2022
There’s no doubt about it: Formula 1’s thrilling new era with its futuristic cars has already been a massive success with closer racing – across the first seven rounds – with a largely shuffled grid, Red Bull and Ferrari stoush upfront, and hyper-competitive midfield. Where will we be come the return of F1’s original night race, in Singapore, on September 30 to October 2?
The answer is, trackside and on the edge of our seats, as F1’s top guns take on Marina Bay in vastly more challenging cars – with no room for error, just one tiny lapse in concentration sending them straight to the scene of the accident. Add in cockpit temperatures of up to 60 degrees Celsius at racing speeds, and you have the world’s best racers on the absolute limit.
Will Red Bull Racing, though, get its first Singapore victory since 2013, given Sergio Pérez’s win at tight and twisty Monaco in May?
But, what’s different about these new cars? They use what’s known as ground effect aerodynamics (under the car) that pulls it closer to the track for higher cornering speeds, but also directs the air skyward as it leaves the rear wing to allow the pursuing car to close up, make a move and overtake.
That was the theory, but it’s no surprise we’ve seen success on-track with the project overseen by Formula 1’s esteemed managing director of motorsports, Ross Brawn – the mastermind behind Michael Schumacher’s titles at Benetton and Ferrari, and Mercedes’ recent dominance (2014-2020).
What are the new cars like to drive, though?
“At the end of the day it’s still a Formula One car and a lot of things are still the same on the system side and the way you set-up the car,” says Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen, who returned to the grid in 2022 after a year out.
“But, the new era cars drive a little differently, the tyres are different, and the way the car produces downforce comes from different places.”
As Magnussen says, the new cars are on different Pirelli tyres, with the sport switching from 13-inch wheels (that have featured in F1 since the 1960s) to more road-relevant low-profile 18-inch rubber.
The development work done by Pirelli was exhaustive, with more than 10,000 hours of indoor testing, and over 5000 of simulation. It also created more than 70 virtual prototypes and 30 physical ones, with 4267 laps driven, equating to 20,000 kilometres: half the earth’s circumference.
Given the huge technical challenge, most teams have opted to retain drivers for consistent feedback, though not all have, with the Silver Arrows opting to bring in highly rated young gun George Russell alongside Sir Lewis Hamilton. And he’s already proven quite the revelation, outpacing his illustrious teammate.
Russell replaced Flying Finn Valtteri Bottas, who’s now at Alfa Romeo Racing, alongside 2022’s sole rookie, Zhou Guanyu as China’s first ever F1 race driver. Over at Williams, Alex Albon has returned to the grid, after a season out as Red Bull reserve, pairing Nicholas Latifi. The Canadian is one of four drivers yet to race in Singapore, along with Zhou, Mick Schumacher who drives for Haas, and Yuki Tsunoda at AlphaTauri.
There’s much to look forward to, with races galore before the sport flies out to the hot nights and bright lights of the Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2022. Bring it on!
The Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2022 will be held from September 30-October 2, with more information at singaporegp.sg
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Posted on 6 August 2021
Singapore Grand Prix past and present: How are they similar?
The Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix may have held its inaugural race back in 2008, but did you know that as a motor race, the Singapore Grand Prix actually has a rich heritage?
Yes, the engines were revved and the chequered flag was waved on this island as far back as 1961!
Image credit: National Archives of Singapore
Unlike its modern counterpart, however, the Singapore Grand Prix was not a Formula 1 race and had both car and motorcycle categories. The event was also held in the day on a circuit located at the Upper Thomson Road area.
From 1961 to 1974, 13 editions of the old grand prix were held, before it was discontinued due to safety concerns.
Despite the contrasting eras and technical differences between the old event and the new Singapore Grand Prix, however, both share essential similarities.
Image credit: National Archives of Singapore
Street Circuits
Both the old and current Singapore Grand Prix run on very challenging street circuits.
At 4.8km long, the old circuit ran clockwise along the old and new Upper Thomson Roads. The racetrack, which had around 13 turns, was known to have some notorious features, such as the treacherous Circus Hairpin and the dangerous Devil’s Bend. Cars were also known to lift off the ground when taking a right turn at high speed along the Thomson Mile!
Image credit: National Archives of Singapore(Left) and Formula 1(Right)
In contrast, the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix’s Marina Bay Street Circuit is longer at 5.063km. It has the most turns (23) and is just one of a few circuits in F1 that runs anti-clockwise. Threading the barriers under the lights of the racetrack, cars would reach speeds of up to 325km/h.
Image credit: National Archives of Singapore(Left)
While the Marina Bay Street Circuit does not possess the same notoriety as the old Upper Thomson Circuit, it is no less challenging for drivers. With ambient humidity at over 80 percent and cockpit temperatures reaching as high as 60 degrees Celsius, drivers are known to lose up to 3kg in body fluids during the race. The F1 night race also has a 100 percent record for the appearance of the Safety Car.
Boosting the local economy
Regardless of its era, the Singapore Grand Prix boosts Singapore’s economy through tourism.
The old Singapore Grand Prix was created as part of a government initiated tourism campaign called “Visit Singapore – The Orient Year”. The campaign sought to encourage tourists to visit the island through various events, including the race.
As it turned out, Singapore experienced a record year for tourism in 1961, with over 100,000 tourists coming here, thanks to the success of the old Singapore Grand Prix. These visitors also gave the local economy a vital leg up by spending an estimated M$79.5 million during their time here.
Image credit: National Archives of Singapore(Left)
Similarly, the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix is part of a larger campaign to give the Republic an added buzz in attracting visitors from overseas. The race, with its unique mix of lifestyle, sport and entertainment, has generated an average of $150 million in tourism receipts annually. That is more than $1.5 billion in earnings since its inception in 2008!
Furthermore, the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix has also generated good opportunities for local businesses with more than 90 percent of race-related works sub-contracted to Singapore-based companies. Our entertainment, hospitality and education sectors have also been significant beneficiaries.
High attendance rates
People have flocked to the Singapore Grand Prix, be it old or new.
Back in 1961, the first edition of the old Singapore Grand Prix saw more than 120,000 spectators attending the event over the 16 to 17 September race weekend. In fact, the attendance was so overwhelming on the second day that the police had to halt ticket sales at the main entrances an hour after the race had begun.
Image credit: National Archives of Singapore(Left)
Compared to the past, the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix is a much more orderly affair, but its attendance figures are pretty mind-boggling. The average attendance at each edition of the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix stands at over 250,000. In fact, the most recent race held in 2019 set the second highest attendance record in its history, drawing 268,000 to the Marina Bay Street Circuit!
Both raised Singapore’s profile on the world map
The old Singapore Grand Prix’s success led it to become an internationally renowned event. It frequently attracted the participation of top drivers from the region.
International recognition was also given to races at the event. In 1966, its main car race received a listing on the world motor-racing calendar in 1966, although it was still not part of the world championship.
International audiences were also drawn to the grand prix. A half-hour film of the 1972 edition of the event was televised across Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and West Germany. The actual race itself was telecast live across Asian, Australia, and New Zealand in 1973.
Image credit: National Archives of Singapore
As part of the Formula 1 calendar, the Singapore Grand Prix of today hosts the pinnacle of world motorsport. The race is a well-known global event that is broadcast live to almost every country on the planet and is watched by millions around the world. In addition, it is also well-covered online, as well as popularly followed on social media. Over the years, the event has attracted a global audience of more than 930 million.
Every edition of the race has seen more than 250,000 attendees at the event’s Circuit Park over the three-day race weekend.
It is a pretty safe bet to say that while not everyone has the geographical inclination to know where exactly Singapore is on the world map, most will at the very least know of the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix also known as the F1 night race.
Whenever the race rolls around into town, the Republic dazzles as a grand prix related festival of parties, concerts, conferences, and exhibitions is held, making it shine on the world map.
Regardless of the era, it is undeniable that the Singapore Grand Prix has the ability to give Singapore and the world a special buzz of excitement. Sparks fly whenever it is held and our place on the world map glows brighter than ever.
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Posted on 30 November 2015
By Adam Cooper
Monaco GP
The Monaco GP was enlivened when Mercedes made a pit call that turned the race on its head. Acommunication mix-up between leader Lewis Hamilton and pit wall saw the World Champion pit fortyres under a late safety car, when his main rivals stayed out. It resulted in the man who haddominated the day tumbling down to third behind teammate Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel. Therace concluded with a dramatic eight-lap sprint to the line during which Lewis was unable to makeany progress. Rosberg thus won his third straight Monaco GP, an impressive achievement – althougheven the race winner admitted that fortune had smiled on him, and this was Hamilton's race.
Hungarian GP
Sebastian Vettel scored a memorable victory in the Hungarian GP on a day when the stars appearedto align. A sport that had faced criticism for a lack of entertainment provided a memorableafternoon on a weekend when everyone was remembering Jules Bianchi. The drivers joined togetherwith the Frenchman's family on the grid to honour him with a minute's silence, then donned theirhelmets and went out and put on a superb display that showcased F1 at its best. The race hadcollisions, penalties and even some genuine overtaking moves, and in the end the usually dominantMercedes team could manage only sixth and eighth places. A win for Ferrari – the team that hadmentored Bianchi for so many years and for whom he was due to drive in the future – was the bestpossible outcome. Vettel was quick to dedicate the victory to the driver who would likely one dayhave been his teammate.
Singapore GP
Against expectations Mercedes struggled to find pace on the Marina Bay circuit, the only time ithappened all season. Remarkably Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg lined up only fifth and sixth,while Sebastian Vettel took pole for Ferrari ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen and DaniilKvyat. The stage was set for a fascinating race – could Mercedes find speed on Sunday night? In theend it didn't happen, and Vettel headed Ricciardo home after an exciting race. Rosberg finishedfourth and Hamilton had a rare retirement, ironically on a day when he was struggling anyway.
United States GP
Lewis Hamilton joined the elite group of F1 drivers who have won three or more WorldChampionships as he secured the 2015 title with a superb victory over Mercedes teammate NicoRosberg in Austin. Matching Ayrton Senna's three titles was a huge ambition achieved for Hamilton.Against the odds after three days of rain we were treated a fabulously entertaining race that beganon a wet track that ultimately dried, and allowed the drivers to race to the flag on slick tyres.For much of the race the Mercedes guys were in a fight not just with each other, but firstly withDaniel Ricciardo and Dany Kvyat, and later Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton's title was not secured untilthe final lap, for if Vettel had managed to pass Rosberg and claimed second, the battle would havegone to the next race in Mexico.
Mexican GP
The World Championship was over by the time the Mexican GP rolled around, but nevertheless muchanticipation surrounded the return to a venue last used by F1 in 1986. The track and been rebuilt,as had the pit and paddock area, while the big talking point was the unique section through theformer baseball stadium, where fans had a great view. And the fans were the story of the weekend asthey showed unbridled support for F1 in general, and local hero Sergio Perez in particular. NicoRosberg bounced back from recent disappointments to score the first of three season-endingvictories.
Driver of the Year: Lewis Hamilton
His season might not have finished the way it started but it would be unfair to deny LewisHamilton this honour. Having finally won his second title in 2014 Hamilton was more relaxed thisyear. He made a point of having fun and keeping busy away from the F1 paddock, and that also helpedhis state of mind. Until the last third of the season he had the edge on his teammate inqualifying, and put in some great race performances. He made no significant mistakes, and the onlydownside perhaps was his regular questioning of team strategy. A special mention must go however toMax Verstappen, surely one of the most spectacular rookies F1 has seen since Lewis himself.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including a biography of60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 30 November 2015
By Adam Cooper
Once again the Mercedes strategy was a major topic of conversation in the Abu Dhabi GP, as radiotraffic made it clear that Lewis Hamilton was questioning the calls from the pit wall. This timethe drivers did not follow identical strategies as Hamilton was left out for longer in the middlestint, with the objective of giving him fresher tyres at the end of the race. Lewis clearly enjoyedthe time he spent in the lead after Nico Rosberg pitted, because at one stage he asked the team ifhe could stay out and not make that second stop – but it was made crystal clear that such a ploywould not have worked. After his pitted he closed the gap in the final stint, but he did not havethe pace with which to catch his team mate.
Two drivers with widely differing levels of experience found themselves on the receiving end ofpenalties in Abu Dhabi. Fernando Alonso was involved in a first corner tangle with Pastor Maldonadowhich saw the Venezuelan driver retire, and which led to the former World Champion earning both adrive through penalty and two points on his licence. Meanwhile Max Verstappen picked up a 5-secondtime penalty and a penalty point when he went off track while fighting with Jenson Button, andlater received 20s and two more points for ignoring yellow flags.
One of the most spectacular incidents of the Abu Dhabi GP occurred in the pitlane when ValtteriBottas left after his stop and struck the rear of Jenson Button's car as the Englishman was turninginto his pit. Bottas broke his front wing and had to return for a replacement, while Button's stopwas longer than it should have been. Inevitably Bottas also picked up a 5-second penalty for anunsafe release. The team's Rob Smedley claimed that the timing of his release had been right, butthat Bottas has seen Button too late.
Sunday was a day of mixed emotions for Romain Grosjean as he marked his last race with the teamhe's spent his entire F1 career with, under the Renault and Lotus names. Things didn’t go well forhim in qualifying after an issue in Q2 left him stranded in 15th, and then he dropped back to 18thwith a gearbox penalty. However it all came together in the race and he worked his way into ninthplace by the flag. He now embarks on a new career with Haas.
There was much happening off track in Abu Dhabi, with a particular focus on the future ofRenault. The company's planned takeover had yet to be formally confirmed and a decision on thefuture is due from the top management in Paris this week. Renault is also set to be announced asRed Bull Racing's engine partner for 2016. Meanwhile there was much debate about the relationshipbetween Ferrari and the new Haas team as Mercedes sought clarification from the FIA Stewards onexactly what teams can and can't share in terms of wind tunnel data and personnel.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including a biography of60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 29 November 2015
By Adam Cooper
The World Championship may have been decided some weeks ago but there's still a lot at stake forthe two Mercedes drivers. Nico Rosberg will start from pole for the sixth race in a row having onceagain outpaced Lewis Hamilton, and he'll be gunning for a third consecutive win with which to endthe season. Intriguingly Nico has also got a much higher mileage engine than his team mate, as theygot out of synch when the German had a problem in Monza. As engines get older they lose a littlepower and of course potentially face reliability problems, so Nico will have his fingers crossed onSunday. Lewis of course will be determined to turn the tide and finish his year with a victory. Thefirst lap will be interesting!
<> Sergio Perez has been one of the stars of the Abu Dhabi GP weekend thus far, andthe Force India driver will be aiming to earn his second podium of the season. He was third fastestin Q1, Q2 and on the first runs in Q3, but when it mattered on the final runs he was pipped by KimiRaikkonen. Nevertheless his eventual fourth place was a pretty good outcome, and Perez will behoping to benefit from any trouble ahead come Sunday. His team mate Nico Hulkenberg will startseventh.Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel will have his work cut out in the race after he found himselfstranded in a lowly 16th place. There appeared to some confusion in Q1 as the team felt he had doneenough to make it into Q2, and he abandoned his final run, only to find out that he had fallenshort. Ferrari clearly has a good package here, and the race might have been a lot more interestinghad Vettel been at the front, but his progress through the field will be worth watching. Meanwhilehis team mate Kimi Raikkonen had one of his best sessions of the year as he secured third. Can heput the pressure on Mercedes, as he did in Bahrain?
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including a biography of60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 17 November 2015
By Kate Walker
Verstappen on Perez for P9
After the Brazilian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton complained that Interlagos offered driversnowhere to overtake. But during the race, Max Verstappen proved the world champion wrong on morethan one occasion.
Following the first round of stops, the Toro Rosso driver pulled off an impressive - andunexpected - overtake through the Senna S-es, passing Sergio Perez on the outside of Turn One andleaving the Force India driver so surprised that he left the door open for Romain Grosjean to slippast into Turn Three.
Two passes in two corners. But you can’t overtake in Interlagos, can you Lewis?
Maldonado gets Ericsson into a spin
According to the infamous website, it’s been 70-some days since Pastor Maldonado last crashed.But the Lotus driver came close in Brazil on Sunday, spinning the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson andearning a five-second time penalty in the process.
As the pair were heading into Turn One approximately half-way through the race, the Venezuelanracer managed to tag the left-rear wheel of the Sauber, sending Ericsson into a spin from whichboth drivers were able to recover.
Maldonado may have made it ten weeks without crashing, but on Sunday afternoon the Lotus driverwas once again penalised for causing a collision. Ah, semantics!
Verstappen on Maldonado for the last point
Between them, Max Verstappen and Pastor Maldonado were responsible for seemingly half the dramaat the Brazilian Grand Prix - most of it in Turn One.
In the final minutes of Sunday’s race, Toro Rosso’s junior superstar slipped neatly past theLotus driver in the entry to the SennaS-es, moving into the final points-paying position in theprocess.
Had Pastor not lost five seconds in the pits for his Ericsson clash, Maldonado would have beenfurther up the road and could have escaped the clutches of the Flying Dutchman. Food for thought,perhaps?
Ricciardo’s rapid recovery
After power unit penalties dropped him from ninth on the grid to 19th, Daniel Ricciardo made themost of a bad situation with an excellent recovery not reflected in his 12th-place finish inBrazil.
A good start put Ricciardo up to P14 by the end of the first lap, and a third-lap pitstop sawthe indefatigable Australian running a different strategy.
Initially backed up by the Manors, Ricciardo passed first Will Stevens then Alexander Rossibefore losing time when the rest of the field made their first stops. A slick pass on Sergio Perezinto Turn One boosted morale, as did a late move on Felipe Nasr.
McLaren get both cars to the finish
Over the course of the past year, the once-great McLaren have been forced to manage theirexpectations as they and engine partners Honda attempt to make the most of a challenging powerunit.
In the 18 races run so far in 2015, the team has seen two DNSes, four double-retirements, andfour races in which “only” one driver retired. Just once this year have both Jenson Button andFernando Alonso finished in the points.
But both drivers saw the chequered flag on Sunday, the eighth time this year the team hasmanaged such a feat. Baby steps...
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 15 November 2015
By Kate Walker
The drama of mixed conditions
Over the course of the Sao Paulo race weekend the Formula One™ circus has been treated to acombination of sunshine, strong winds, and colossal thunderstorms. On Friday night, gusts of windsent paddock furniture flying and heavy rainfall led to treacherous conditions on the road.
Current forecasts for Sunday show little sign of rain during the race, but with overnight stormsforecast and scattered showers throughout the morning, track conditions are likely to be mixed andtyre strategy key. The perfect conditions to overturn expectations...
Interlagos gets a facelift
For years Bernie Ecclestone has been on a campaign to modernise facilities at the older FormulaOne™ circuits on the calendar. Interlagos is the latest track to accede to his demands with aUSD$80 million upgrade to the paddock, garages, and team hospitality suites that began immediatelyafter the 2014 race ended.
Despite a year of work Interlagos remains something of a building site, although the biggerhospitality suites have been well-received by the teams. Next on the list is a new pit buildingwith spacious garages, scheduled to be completed by the 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix.
The track itself - thankfully! - will not be modified.
HAM v ROS (again!)
While the championship battle ended in Austin, the internecine battle at Mercedes is still goingstrong, with Nico Rosberg delivering his best performances when the title pressure disappeared.
Since Lewis Hamilton secured the 2015 drivers' championship in Austin the Briton has failed tosecure pole, while Rosberg has started the past four races from the front. Despite track positionadvantage, the German racer has only converted one pole into a win, losing out to Hamilton ontrack.
With the Briton joining Rosberg on the front row, expect sparks to fly from the minutes thelights go out.
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 2 November 2015
By Adam Cooper
Hamilton ignores order to pit
Lewis Hamilton stoked a little controversy in Mexico when he refused to come into the pits for atyre change when told to by his team. He clearly didn't understand why he was being told to come inwhen he was comfortable with the car, but it was a precautionary stop, to give both Mercedes freshrubber for the last part of the race.
Team boss Toto Wolff said: "Do I want to have a robot in the car? No. I want the best racingdriver. That's how it is. He questions things, and we saw that with Vettel. It's no problem as longas the team keeps the overview. No issue at all for me."
A terrible day for Ferrari
Ferrari has had a great 2015 season, and Sebastian Vettel has usually been the only man mixingit with the Mercedes drivers. But in Mexico, it all went wrong. Vettel suffered a puncture on thefirst lap, and dropped to the back.
Trying to make up ground he spun, and then later he crashed out, triggering the safety car.Meanwhile team mate Kimi Raikkonen also crashed out. "A good lesson for us," said team bossMaurizio Arrivabene as he reflected on the highs and lows of sport.
Bottas v Raikkonen: Part 2!
On the last lap of the Russian GP Valtteri Bottas was pitched into the wall after being hit byKimi Raikkonen. The Finns met again in Mexico, but this time it was Kimi who came off worse as hewas left with broken suspension after Bottas tried a passing move that didn't quite come off.
Raikkonen was penalised last time, but this time the stewards saw it as a racing incident. "Iguess he feels better about it now," joked Raikkonen as he referred to their previousencounter...
Another terrible weekend for McLaren and Honda
The McLaren drivers knew from the start of the weekend that they would be starting from the backof the grid as a result of engine change penalties, although in the end Kimi Raikkonen also hadissues and split the two Honda-powered cars. Jenson Button didn't even participate in qualifyingafter problems on Saturday morning.
Alas Fernando Alonso lasted just a lap in the race - the team had earlier found a problem andknew he wouldn't get far, but it was either that or not start. Button made it to the flag, but in alowly 14th place.
Perez's Mexican Wave
As the local hero Sergio Perez was the focus of much attention in the build-up to the race andover the course of the weekend, and his third place in the recent Russian GP had stoked up someexcitement. Given that he is known to be kind on tyres it looked like this would be a good race forhim on a day when tyre wear was something of an unknown after limited practice.
He took a gamble on doing one stop but it was spoiled when a safety car allowed others to pit inthe last part of the race, so he had to fight people on new tyres, he finished eighth, behind teammate Nico Hulkenberg, but the fans were still happy.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including a biography of60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 1 November 2015
By Adam Cooper
A 'new' circuit
The Mexico City track has a history that stretches back to the first World Championship race in1963, but this weekend's event is the first since Nigel Mansell won for Williams in 1992.
The venue has been completely rebuilt, and while much of the basic shape has been retained, thecorners have all been re-profiled. The signature Peraltada final corner has long gone, and has beenreplaced by a twisty section through an old baseball stadium which provides fans with sensationalviewing opportunities.
The main straight is one of the longest of the season, and is sure to provide some overtakingaction, especially on the first lap.
High altitude
Mexico City is 2000m above sea level, and the thinner air has massive implications for the carsand engines. In essence it means that the wings generate a lot less downforce than they do at othertracks.
So teams are running big 'Monaco' wings, but they generate 'Monza' downforce. That also meansless drag on the straights, which is always handy, but the big problem is a lack of grip throughthe many twisty sections. The high speeds put a premium on brakes – and the air makes cooling themdifficult.
Finally power unit cooling is a major issue, and turbos spin faster to generate the same power,and are thus potentially more fragile.
Hamilton v Rosberg
Nico Rosberg took his fourth straight pole in Mexico on Saturday, and having lost out to LewisHamilton in each of the last three races, he's determined to make amends. In Austin Rosberg feltaggrieved after Hamilton edged him wide at the first corner, just a couple of races after a similarincident in Japan.
Both times Rosberg was forced to give his rival space, but with the two World Championshiptitles now decided, will the gloves be off in the fight between the Mercedes rivals? The start andthe run to the first corner could be crucial.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including a biography of60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 26 October 2015
By BobConstanduros
Hamilton versus Rosberg, T1
Nico Rosberg was clearly not a happy man at the end of a cracking US Grand Prix at COTA. He –and his Mercedes bosses – felt that Lewis Hamilton’s move up the inside of his teammate at thefirst corner was just too hard.
“Once things have calmed down we’ll talk about it,” said team principal Toto Wolf after therace. (After all, they had a double World Championship to celebrate first).
Hamilton had clearly forced his pole-winning teammate off the track at the first corner as hecame charging up the inside, but wasn’t too inclined to turn in immediately, even though othersproved the grip was there. In the end, it was Rosberg’s mistake eight laps from home which cost himvictory but Hamilton’s move still hurt.
Red Bull versus Mercedes
For the first twenty laps or so, we had a fantastic Mercedes versus Red Bull battle in Austin.The track was still damp, all the players were on intermediates and after the Mercedes pair hadcome together at the first corner, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg book-ended the Red Bulls – whereDaniil Kvyat led teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
The first virtual safety car kept them together, but Rosberg swooped past the two Red Bulls whowere still able to hold on to them, and for a lap or two Hamilton pulled out ahead before thequartet came together again.
Ricciardo made a fantastic move on Hamilton to lead (see separate story) but a few laps laterthey began to pit for slicks and first Rosberg overtook Ricciardo and then Hamilton and theMercedes superiority told again. For a while, though, Red Bull proved they could take the fight toMercedes, in the right conditions.
Daniel in the lion’s den
Daniel Ricciardo predicted that on a wet track he could be a front runner, and on lap 15 heproved it. It was a brave moved around the outside of Lewis Hamilton and that doesn’t happen veryoften. What’s more, he then pulled away!
The Mercedes driver had led from Turn One but first Daniil Kvyat had challenged him and thenRicciardo came through. “To see the Mercs not getting away from us was awesome,” said Daniel. “Iwas enjoying that. In the lead we were quite quick for a few laps and it felt like old times.”
But then the track dried out, they changed onto slicks and the Red Bulls were overwhelmed. Asingle point for tenth place was scant reward.
Raikkonen and Verstappen
One has just turned 18, the other has just turned twice that but the young pretender MaxVerstappen and the old master Kimi Raikkonen found themselves together on the track and it turnedout to be brilliant stuff.
It was as the track was drying, around lap 15. Kimi was pushing Max for seventh place and whenthe Finn made a move, the Dutchman gave him little space. “He’s pushing me off the circuit all thetime,” complained Raikkonen. “If that’s legal, I’ll do it to him next time.”
As it was, Kimi had his own moment and hit the barrier which ultimately resulted in retirement.His young rival nearly scored his first podium, demoted by Sebastian Vettel nine laps fromhome.
Sainz from the back of the grid
For the second race running Carlos Sainz was allowed to race having crashed and not set acompetitive time in qualifying. On this occasion, it was during qualifying, before he had set acompetitive lap time and in the treacherous conditions he went off the circuit and into thebarrier, damaging both front corners. He would start 20th.
But in the race he was magic. He was up to 11th on lap one, in sixth before a pit stop on lap19, then running seventh for a while before a late charge overtaking Jenson Button three laps fromhome for sixth place again.
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix since the race began.He has worked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 25 October 2015
By BobConstanduros
A ‘boat’ being paddled by Sauber mechanics, Toro Rosso drivers playing skittles with Red Bullcans, Nico Rosberg playing football with Niki Lauda, Force India’s Mexican wave – it can only bebored team members waiting for some action as the rain continues to lash COTA at Austin, Texas.
Lotus challenged Mercedes to football, Max Verstappen made a fishing rod (complete with fish),Force India found a mini-skip to play with in the pit lane and Williams formed a rowing team. Bestof all, Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat re-enacted a Russian dance they’d learned – but it didn’tstop the rain!
Watch what the teams were up to here.
How wet is wet?
Only one session had been rain-affected in the previous three Grands Prix at Circuit of theAmericas, but so far every one this weekend has been affected. FP2 was cancelled, qualifyingdelayed five times by 30 minutes before it was ultimately postponed to Sunday morning – all thanksto the effects of Hurricane Patricia over Mexico.
The circuit drains well but maybe not with this amount of water. There are small streams acrossthe circuit which affect a car’s stability and the effect of spray would be massive. In the end,all of qualifying was deferred to Sunday morning – just as it was in Japan in 2010 when a typhoonsoaked Suzuka.
Stars in the wet
Some drivers excel in the wet and Lewis Hamilton’s fastest time in FP3 on Saturday morning was asuperb lap. Sebastian Vettel, however, wasn’t far behind but few people would have expected NicoHulkenberg to be up there in third place.
Similarly, Williams hasn’t been fantastic in the rain so Valtteri Bottas’s fourth fastest timewas pretty good although it did look quite an effort. Carlos Sainz set a fine fifth fastest timebut then had problems with his energy recovery system while teammate Max Verstappen suffered amisfire and was last.
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix since the race began.He has worked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 10 October 2015
By James Allen
1. Lots of uncertainty
There are many question marks going into Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix about race strategy for the 53lap race. With so little practice running due to accidents and rain delays, no one has a clearpicture of whether the soft and supersoft tyres will require a one or two stop race tomorrow. Inthe Singapore Grand Prix Mercedes struggled with this tyre combination, but here they have adominant position as the temperatures are much colder, which suits their car. This is one of thetoughest tracks on the calendar for fuel consumption and drivers will have to lift off throttle forup to five seconds per lap to be sure of making it to the finish on the 100kg fuel limit.
2. Driver to look out for
A driver to look out for is the 2015 Le Mans 24 hours race winner Nico Hulkenberg in the ForceIndia. The car has been very competitive this weekend and he qualified 6th ahead of teammate SergioPerez in 7th. The Mercedes engine in the back of the Force India car is the class of the field herein fuel efficiency as well as performance. He will have to lift off throttle less than the Ferrarisahead of him and he may be able to beat Kimi Raikkonen to the chequered flag.
3. Waiting for Carlos
Everyone is waiting to see whether Carlos Sainz will be able to race for Toro Rosso after sufferinga huge accident in Qualifying. The 21 year old Spaniard hit the barriers at Turn 13 in FreePractice 3 on Saturday morning, after losing control under braking at 320km/h. Worryingly his carwent underneath the TecPro barriers, which had to be lifted off him before he could be extricatedand taken to hospital. He's being kept in overnight for observation, but never lost consciousnessin the accident, so the doctors may well let him race. The mechanics will be able to build up a carfor him should he be given the green light by doctors.
Leading Formula One™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is a contributing writer forSingapore GP Pte Ltd
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Posted on 28 September 2015
By Kate Walker
Most races end with the chequered flag. The 2015 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit was overby the end of the first lap.
Nico Rosberg started from pole, but had been overtaken by Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton byTurn Two. The latter had the inside line as the pair approached the corner, and Rosberg foundhimself with nowhere to go but off track as Hamilton held his line and made it past for the lead.Rosberg’s brief foray outside the white lines saw the German driver back in fourth place asHamilton sailed off into the lead, opening up a 2.5s gap to second-placed Sebastian Vettel by theend of the first lap.
For Rosberg, the Japanese race was about making up lost ground, and he was eventually able torecover third place from Valtteri Bottas after the first pit stop period with a well-timed overtakejust as the team had radioed to ask their German driver to push the Finn into destroying hisrubber. Rosberg then fought his way past Vettel during the second round of stops to finish insecond place, 18.9 seconds behind Hamilton.
But Rosberg was far from the only man on track whose day was defined by the first lap. Contactbetween Daniel Ricciardo and Felipe Massa off the start saw both men suffer punctures. Limpingslowly back to the pits, Massa found himself lapped when the race was only just beginning, andthere was little the Williams driver could do to recover from such a shocking start.
Ricciardo was able to make a better recovery, but the popular Australian finished two placesbehind Red Bull teammate Daniil Kvyat, whose qualifying crash had led to the Russian startingSunday’s race from the pit lane.
It was an embarrassing day for McLaren, who managed to get both cars to the finish at Honda’shome circuit, but without any points. Fernando Alonso spent the afternoon venting his frustrationswith the Honda power unit over the radio, calling it “GP2 standard” after saying it was“embarrassing, very embarrassing” in a move some viewed as an attempt to force an early releasefrom his contract with the team.
Nico Hulkenberg was one of the big winners of the day, finishing an impressive sixth behind theMercedes and Ferrari driver pairings and Bottas, despite both his part in the first lap chaos and athree-place grid penalty incurred for his part in the collision with Massa during the last race inSingapore. Hulkenberg delivered a considered performance, and was to finish ahead of teammateSergio Perez, who had started two rows further up yet finished outside of the points when it provedimpossible to recover from a run off track triggered by his own teammate.
Perhaps the hairiest moment of the Japanese Grand Prix came about thanks to Manor’s Wil Stevens,who span at 130R and filled the track with tyre smoke. Invisible through the fug, Alexander Rossiemerged a hair’s breadth away from his teammate, and narrowly avoided a collision.
An amusing characteristic of the Japanese race was the back- to midfield battles between theHonda-powered McLarens and the Renault-powered Red Bulls and Toro Rossos. As the also-rans of thehybrid era, none of the three teams were able to take the fight to those cars using Mercedes orFerrari power around Suzuka, and the internal battles were a painful reminder of the disparity inpower on the current grid.
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 26 September 2015
By Kate Walker
After a rain-soaked Friday in Japan, Saturday at Suzuka Circuit dawned bright and sunny. Withthe conditions normalised, Mercedes were back on top of the timesheets in FP3 after seeming tostruggle in the two Friday sessions.
Nico Rosberg had the advantage over teammate Lewis Hamilton going into the afternoon’squalifying session, but the three-tenths that split the two left neither man truly dominant.
Mercedes’ Singapore struggles have increased the pressure on the championship leaders in Suzuka,as the team’s once seemingly unassailable lead is now looking vulnerable. After the Singapore GrandPrix, Marina Bay Street Circuit victor Sebastian Vettel asserted that all was still to play for inthe drivers’ championship, and a fifth Japanese win for the Ferrari driver could keep alive a titlefight most observers thought was already on life support.
Originally designed to be a test track, Suzuka circuit’s rollercoaster nature plays into thehands of a strong power unit, while the variety of corners on offer makes for a technicallychallenging track. Aerodynamic efficiency is rewarded, and tyres are punished. While the W06 is anexcellent all-rounder, recent rubber struggles mean that the Japanese Grand Prix is unlikely to bea walkover for the team.
In dry conditions it was the driver pairings from Mercedes, Williams, and Ferrari who wereconsistently quick, and presuming that weather conditions hold for Sunday’s race the status quolooks set to continue. Rosberg’s pole position was largely unchallenged thanks to the red flagsbrought out by Daniil Kvyat’s last minute crash in Q3, when other challengers were on their finalflying laps, and the German driver should be able to keep the competition behind him if he is ableto make a clean getaway from the grid.
Sebastian Vettel was sandwiched between the two Williams drivers at the end of Q3, but thequadruple champion’s racecraft - and mastery of Suzuka - is such that both Valtteri Bottas andFelipe Massa will find it a challenge to keep the Ferrari in their wing mirrors for the full 53laps.
Despite strong showings during Friday’s practice sessions, neither Red Bull nor Toro Rosso wereable to capitalise on their wet weather pace. Red Bull’s on-track efforts could yet be halved,given the damage caused to Kvyat’s car in the final minutes of Q3. At the time of writing it wasnot yet clear whether the chassis would be fit to race, or how extensive any rebuild would be.
McLaren haven’t been able to pull any magic rabbits out of their crash helmets for Honda’s homerace, and both Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button failed to make it through the dropout phases ofqualifying. But after the disastrous double DNFs of Singapore, getting both cars to the chequeredflag would represent a victory of sorts for the team.
Podium prediction: (1) Nico Rosberg, (2) Lewis Hamilton, (3) Sebastian Vettel
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 21 September 2015
By James Allen
The Singapore Grand Prix is how a Hollywood director would imagine an F1 street race, with itsdramatic floodlit race track and 21st century skyline, but there was to be no movie-style endingfor Lewis Hamilton, looking to emulate his idol Ayrton Senna’s 41 career victories.
Instead the World championship leader retired from the race with technical failure for the firsttime this season (the first time for 25 races in fact) and Sebastian Vettel moved into third placein the all time winners’ list, ahead of Senna, with his fourth victory at Marina Bay.
Vettel was the driver of the weekend, with a stunning performance in qualifying backed up by acontrolled drive in the race with a much improved Ferrari. He did two qualifying laps good enoughfor pole position on Saturday and controlled Sunday’s race from the start, even surviving twoSafety Car periods, both of which reduced his lead from around five seconds to nothing.
However the upside of the Safety Cars was that it deprived Daniel Ricciardo of the chance toattack Vettel on race strategy around the pit stops. The timing was such that the Safety Carsoffered the drivers a chance to make a stop 12 seconds quicker than at racing speeds. Ricciardo andRed Bull had been stronger at the end of the first stint and were certainly lining up an‘undercut’, where you pit before the car ahead and then use the performance of the new tyres on thefirst lap to jump that car when it stops.
Ricciardo believed that there was a chance to do something, but the reality was that it was along shot as Vettel had better pace in the Ferrari, even if the Red Bull could look after its tyresa little longer.
The first Safety Car was triggered when Felipe Massa and Nico Hulkenberg clashed at Turn 1 onlap 12, and then the second because a man entered the track between Turns 13 and 14 and walkedalong the straight.
But on both occasions Vettel was able to pull away again from Ricciardo and eventually won by1.4s seconds, thereby equalling Michael Schumacher’s record of three wins in his first seasondriving for Ferrari.
The eighth edition of F1’s Night Race, attracted an average of 86,970 spectators daily,with 260,912 spectators at the Marina Bay Street Circuit over the three-day weekend andit was certainly one of the most unpredictable races of the season.
Results wise it was a real outlier in this year’s championship, as it was the first time thatneither Mercedes driver appeared on the podium or in the Top three in qualifying.
Although they still enjoy a comfortable lead in both the drivers’ and teams’ worldchampionships, Mercedes will be concerned that they have suffered problems with the engine for thesecond race in succession; Rosberg’s latest development engine let him down in Monza whileHamilton’s Singapore woes were caused by a cheap component on a multi million dollar engine - aclamp failed on a turbo hose.
Having qualified a career best fourth, Daniil Kvyat was unlucky twice in the race; first when hehad pitted just before the first Safety Car, so lost positions to the two Mercedes drivers.
Then at his second stop he lost eight seconds with a sticking wheel nut and dropped behindValtteri Bottas. So he ended up in 6th place.
There was also a strong cameo performance from Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen, who battled his waythrough the field having stalled on the parade lap to finish 8th, ahead of his team mate CarlosSainz.
Leading Formula One™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is a contributing writer forSingapore GP Pte Ltd
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Posted on 11 September 2015
By James Allen
This year marks the eighth running of the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina BayCircuit and there is a lot to discuss and to get excited about this year.
For a start, the circuit has been modified around the Anderson Bridge area, between Turns 11 and13. These changes have been made to fit in with the development of a new Singapore arts, cultureand lifestyle precinct, but it’s given the organisers a chance to improve the track features eitherside of the unique bridge.
The changes mean that Turn 11 will be slightly tighter and after passing through a smoother lefthand kink at Turn 12, the cars will pass over the left lane of the Anderson Bridge into a widerTurn 13 hairpin, which could encourage overtaking.
Whoever wins in Singapore this year will deserve it; winning this race is never easy.
On the face of it, qualifying is very important on a street track, where overtaking is hard. Andin the seven races to date, five of them have been won by the pole sitter.
But in fact. the Singapore Grand Prix is one of the most difficult challenges for F1 teams anddrivers. There are a number of reasons for this; the track has a long lap with 23 corners in fivekilometres and therefore, to cover the required distance of 61 laps takes up to two hours, makes itthe longest race of the year.
Then there is the statistical likelihood of a Safety Car being deployed, as the Race Directorhas to take care to slow the field down when corner marshals are retrieving a crashed car or debrison the track. So far there has been at least one Safety Car at every Singapore Grand Prix, makingit a 100% likelihood.
But no-one knows when an incident is likely to occur that might trigger it. If it comes out justafter your driver has made a pit stop it can turn the race on it’s head and hand an advantage toyour rivals, who effectively get to make a stop for free.
Making a pit stop at racing speeds loses around 24 seconds, so it’s a huge advantage to stopwhen the field is lapping slowly behind the Safety Car.
Lewis Hamilton won the race last season for the second time in his career, but he had to workhard for it after precisely that scenario came about. His Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg,meanwhile, retired from the race early on. As they were in a tight championship battle, this handedan advantage to Hamilton.
He leads the Drivers’ standing this year by 53 points going into the Singapore Grand Prix, sothis race is a must win for Rosberg if he is to keep his title hopes alive. Mercedes has been thedominant team again this season with pole position at every race and nine wins from 12 races, butthey tend to have less of an advantage on tracks where Pirelli’s soft and supersoft tyres are used.So they are the favourites, but there are strong reasons for keeping an eye on theircompetitors.
The other previous winners of the race are Sebastian Vettel, who has three wins and FernandoAlonso, who has two.
Of those drivers, only Vettel is a contender for the victory this season in the Ferrari. He hasalready won two races, including Hungary, which has several track characteristics in common withMarina Bay. Alonso and his McLaren Honda team have had a wretched season with an underperformingand unreliable package. But he finished fifth in Hungary and the team has hopes of their season’sbest result at Marina Bay.
The track is a leveller when it comes to engine power, as the circuit does not have the kind oflong straights that favour the more powerful engines. So another team that has been looking forwardto the Singapore Grand Prix is Red Bull Racing.
They achieved a season-best result of second and third in Hungary and if they are to win a racein 2015, then this is probably their best chance. Red Bull’s sister team Toro Rosso is also poweredby Renault and with two exciting young rookie drivers Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz and a nimblechassis, they are also likely to be among the points scorers at Marina Bay.
In contrast, the circuit is not expected to suit the Williams Mercedes cars, which tend toperform better on the high speed tracks.
The race is one of the most popular of the season for everyone who works in F1. F1’s originalnight race, the artificial light makes F1 cars look fantastic and the organisers always put on aspectacular show, from concerts by international superstars through to the huge firework display asthe winning car crosses the line.
We can’t wait to get the weekend started!
Leading Formula One™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is a contributing writer forSingapore GP Pte Ltd
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Posted on 7 September 2015
One of the sport’s true greats, 1980 Formula 1 World Champion Alan Jones has always told it likeit is. Stewart Bell caught up with the Australian, who was the FIA driver steward in Singapore lastyear, to chat about his experience.
Q: What were your impressions about the FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX, and the racing underlights?
Alan Jones (AJ): “Well, I was very impressed, indeed, on both counts. I thought theorganisation was very good, and the atmosphere was fantastic. It made for a great race, I was veryimpressed overall.”
Q: You’ve been a FIA driver steward quite a few times now. What’s that gig like from yourperspective, and what was it like in Singapore last year?
AJ: “As an FIA driver steward, you just want everything to go really smoothly – and to beable to get into the circuit and get comfortable. I wanted for nothing, and I thought the amenitieswere really good.”
Q: Last year, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton won – and in terms of incidents on-track, other than asafety car to clear debris from Sergio Pérez’s shattered front wing, it was fairly calm wasn’tit?
AJ: “That’s right, and we like that as stewards…”
Q: What do you think about the Singapore track layout? It’s certainly a huge challenge forthe drivers in the heat and humidity…
AJ: “You’re right, it is a challenge for the drivers. It’s quite narrow in places, butthey’ve altered turns 11 to 13 for this year’s race. It’s a bit like Monaco, where you’ve reallygot to have 101 per cent concentration. You can’t allow the car to drift out too wide, or make anymistakes under brakes, because instead of going out onto asphalt or gravel, you’re going to hit awall.”
Q: What did you think about Singapore as a host city?
AJ: “I love the sub-tropical climate they’ve got, it’s just a great place. A lot of myfriends have actually chosen to live there, because they go to Europe quite a bit and it’s only oneflight from there.”
Q: What did you get up to in Singapore when you weren’t working?
AJ: “I had some fun while I was there, but not a great deal. When practise or the racefinishes, we don’t just pack our bags and go. You’ve got to hang around for a while and make surethere’s no protests, and all of the technicalities are in order – and particularly after the race,we are there two or three hours afterwards. So by the time all that finishes, you’re just lookingfor a bed rather than a table.”
Q: What do you think other races can learn from Singapore?
AJ: “I think the biggest thing is the lighting, because with the Abu Dhabis of the world– and other places that have permanent circuits – they can put their lights up and they stay up.But, the impressive part about Singapore is the way in which they do their lighting on a temporarybasis.”
Q: What are your thoughts on the F1 season so far? Obviously Lewis will be hard to catch,with a decent gap back to teammate Nico Rosberg.
AJ: “It will be hard to catch Lewis, but not impossible. He’s on top of his game at themoment and everything is going his way. But, it’s a funny old game, Formula One, it can turn aroundand bite you on the bum as quick as anything.”
Q: Have you been impressed with Ferrari’s form this year?
AJ: “I have, and I’ve been disappointed in the lack of form from other teams. The thingthat always seems to amaze me about F1 is when Michael Schumacher was winning everything, everyonewas complaining it was boring. And before that – you had Williams winning everything, and everyonewas again complaining it was boring. I thought that when you spent millions and millions of dollarsa year, and you employed hundreds of people – that was the whole idea. I thought you were meant todevelop a car that could win. Mercedes deserves full-credit. It has gotten the run on everybody –and rather than everyone moaning and groaning about it, they should pull their fingers out and tryand catch them.”
Q: Singapore will be another great chance for Ferrari, Red Bull and Williams to close up tothe Mercedes duo. What are your predictions for this year’s race – and for fellow Australian, RedBull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo?
AJ: “Singapore is not really a horsepower circuit as such, so I think they’ll go reallywell there. Daniel likes the circuit. And the Red Bull chassis is probably as good, if not betterthan any other chassis out there. On mechanical grip, it’s really good. So he’s got a greatchance.”
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Posted on 7 September 2015
By Adam Cooper
Lewis Hamilton scored a dominant victory in the Italian GP – and then survived a post-raceinvestigation by the FIA after he was reported for apparently having tyre pressures that were belowthe minimum requirement set by Pirelli.
Hamilton won comfortably from Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, and his title challenge was given afurther boost when an engine failure saw team mate Nico Rosberg drop out of third place in theclosing laps. Hamilton now has a 53-point lead in the championship as we head to Singapore.
While Hamilton's celebrations began on the podium an FIA investigation continued, and over twohours after the race it was announced that the result stands and no action was being taken.
Tyre pressures have been a major talking point this weekend after the problems in Spa, andPirelli made it clear that teams had to respect its mandated minimums for safety reasons. Unusuallythe pressures of the top four cars were measured at the last minute on the grid. While the Ferrariswere above the limit, one of Hamilton's tyres was 0.3psi below the limit, and one of team mate NicoRosberg's was 1.1psi below.
The FIA stewards, who this weekend included former F1 and Indycar driver Danny Sullivan,eventually concluded that the tyre pressures were in fact legal “when they were fitted to the car.”In other words Pirelli had measured legal pressures which then dropped in the final few minutesbefore the FIA check, possibly as a result of temperatures dropping when the tyre blankets wereunplugged.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said: “We were exactly on the minimum pressures like we shouldhave been when the tyres were put on the car. I don't know where the discrepancy came from, but itwas not procedural and it was not a mistake done by the team in order to gain an advantage.
“Always being called to the stewards you are nervous after such a victory, having lost Nico'scar two laps to the end. So I'm a little bit relieved after that now.”
The race itself was a demonstration run for Hamilton. He made a perfect start from poleposition, while behind him main rival Kimi Raikkonen barely moved at and dropped right to the back.Rosberg lost a little momentum getting by the tardy Ferrari and fell as low as sixth.
Hamilton gradually built up a lead on Vettel and waited unto everyone else had come in beforemaking his stop and resuming with an even bigger lead, eventually winning by 25 seconds.
“The race was fantastic,” he said. “I got a good start. I think we all probably got a difficultstart and managed to hold ground. Sebastian was really fair into turn one and after that it wasreally just chipping away, looking after the tyres, trying to look after the tyres whilst chippingaway… trying to take time away, increase the time, the gap behind.
“I was generally able to control it really after that. I felt comfortable. The car balance Ireally got perfect for the race. Perhaps not so much for qualifying but perfect for the race. Thelast few laps I was told to push and I’m thinking I’ve got quite a big gap already, so, for me, Iwas a little taken aback by it, but nonetheless I still managed to pull it out and do what theyasked me to do.”
Vettel was happy enough with second place on his first race for Ferrari in front of the tifosi,and he got a rousing reception from the fans.
“To sum it up, it’s fairly simple, it’s the best second place I ever had. The emotions on thepodium is incredible. If we take this away from the calendar for any shitty money reasons I thinkyou are basically ripping our hearts out. We are here, we are racing and this makes it so much moreworthwhile. It’s what we’re here for. You stand on the grid, you look to the left, you look to theright, people are just happy to be part of it and it makes our day. So, simple as that. It’sincredible.”
After his bad start Rosberg worked his way into third, jumping both Williams drivers with anearly first stop. However with less than three laps remaining his engine failed and he was forcedto pull off at the second chicane with flames licking at the rear of the car. This was an enginethat was designed to run for five races but was put back in for a sixth after a problem with a newunit yesterday.
The Williams drivers had a close battle for much of the race, and in the end Massa just beatValtteri Bottas to the line to claim the final podium spot. After his terrible start Kimi Raikkonendrove a strong race to get up to fifth. Force India had a solid day as Sergio Perez and NicoHulkenberg took sixth and seventh, while Daniel Ricciardo drove from the back to eighth aftertaking engine penalties in qualifying. The final points went to Marcus Ericsson and DaniilKvyat.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including a biography of60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 6 September 2015
By Adam Cooper
It was a familiar story at Monza today as Lewis Hamilton secured pole position for the ItalianGP, but the twist is that his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg is down in fourth place.
To the delight of the local fans the two Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel willstart in second and third places, between the two Silver Arrows. That opens up some interestingpossibilities for the race, and means that one-two result for Mercedes is far from clear cut.
Once again the final grid will reflect a raft of engine penalties, with both McLarens, Red Bullsand Toro Rossos all affected, and dropping to the back.
After a thunderstorm and heavy rain in the early morning the sun returned and the track was dryboth FP3 and qualifying. The final session was notable for an engine problem for Rosberg. Mercedesbrought a development engine spec here – having used up its tokens – and the German was forced toswitch back to his older spec Spa engine for qualifying, putting him at an immediate disadvantagerelative to his team mate, who was in any case on great form all weekend.
From the start of the session it was evident that Hamilton still had an edge, but that theFerraris were very much in the mix with Rosberg. Indeed in Q2 Vettel and Raikkonen split the Mercdrivers, and kept Rosberg down in fourth.
In the session that mattered Hamilton made no mistakes as he secured pole. Vettel crossed theline after his last run in second, but Raikkonen was just behind him and went a little faster toclaim second place.
“It's always a great feeling getting pole,” said Hamilton. “I think I've had a couple of poleshere. Last year was not such an easy getaway, but it didn’t' mean I couldn't win the race. It's along run down to Turn One, these guys [Ferrari] are good off the line, so we'll try to do our besttomorrow. Our race pace has tended to be quite strong so I hope that we see that tomorrow.”
His title rival Rosberg could have a difficult time from fourth place, and he knows he may haveto work hard to beat the Ferraris.
“We had to go back to an engine that's done six races now,” said Rosberg. “And every kilometreyou lose a little bit of power, especially in Monza which is the absolute power track, where youneed a good engine. It's very disappointing to have to happen exactly here, and it's a very bigcompromise then. That's the reason why I'm fourth today, which makes tomorrow tough. Also I will bea bit slower than I could in the race as well. That's not ideal, and it's going to be difficultagainst those Ferraris.”
The fascinating thing of course is that Mercedes has not made good starts recently, and the longrun to Turn One could give the Ferraris a real chance. Drivers are still adjusting to the new startprocedure rules that we saw in Spa.
“Hopefully we'll make a normal start and go from there and see what we can do,” said Kimi. “Iexpect it to be not an easy race, but I think usually we more confident for the race than forqualifying.”
Williams clearly as the third fastest car here as Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas took fifthand sixth places. Force India had been expected to offer a stiff challenge, but in the end SergioPerez had to settle for seventh, while Nico Hulkenberg had a loss of power in Q3 and dropped toninth. The Force Indias are split by Romain Grosjean in eighth, while Marcus Ericsson starts 10thfor Sauber.
Pastor Maldonado was the fastest driver not to make Q3, and the Venezuelan will start in 11th,ahead of Felipe Nasr. The other drivers to make Q2 were Carlos Sainz, Dany Kvyat and DanielRicciardo, all of whom have penalties, and drop back.
Those penalties for others mean that the Manors of Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi move up to13th and 14th places. Immediately behind them are the McLarens of Jenson Button and FernandoAlonso, who have five and 10-place penalties respectively. After taking multiple engine elementchanges the Toro Rossos and Red Bulls will fill up the last two rows of the grid.
The most spectacular incident in qualifying occurred when Max Verstappen's engine cover brokeand flew off, seemingly after the mechanics failed to secure it was the Dutchman left the pitsfollowing late engine dramas.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including a biography of60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 3 September 2015
By Cheryl Tay
Formula One drivers require a lot of strength and cardiovascular fitness to overcome all theG-force that they have to endure over a two-hour race. Going up to speeds as fast as 320km/h,drivers’ heart rates also can hit as high as 200bpm.
“I train very hard and aim to average approximately 10 hours a week. This is primarilycardiovascular in nature, which helps to keep my weight down. Strength and conditioning is alsoincluded,” McLaren driver Jenson Button previously said in an online interview.
In another interview, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said, “The races are 45 minutes to twohours, so you have to keep your cardio and endurance up. For a race driver, we train to a specificlevel. We have so much G-force going through your body from corner to corner. On the braking, youare pulling up to 6 Gs, which is six times your body weight. Your lower back takes huge compressiontoo, so in order to keep that strength you have to have a strong core and do a lot of running soyou don't fatigue in the race.”
Besides a strong neck and core, F1 drivers also need upper body strength to manoeuvre the carand lower body strength to manage the braking forces when entering the corners at high speeds. Theneck is the most important, thus drivers have a custom machine that builds their neck musclestoo.
In addition, drivers have to put up with high temperatures up to 50˚C and 90% humidity levels,losing easily two to three litres of water through perspiration in one race. Hence, drivers requireextremely high level of physical and mental fitness.
F1 drivers have a very comprehensive workout regime, consisting of core work, high intensityinterval training, strength training and endurance training. They spend a lot of time in the gym,doing intensive cardio like running and cycling outdoors, as well as a lot of time in thesimulators.
What are some of the exercises in the gym that are specific to F1 drivers?
1) Weights training
F1 drivers have to remain lean so that they can fit into the cockpit. Hence, they lift lighterweights for higher repetitions to retain lean muscle instead of bulk. Some examples of weightstraining they do include back squats, deadlifts, bench press, shoulder press and rows. These can bedone with barbells or dumbbells.
Doing these also help drivers to improve their explosive power while building lean muscle mass.When executing these exercises and handling weights, form is very important so make sure youpractise good techniques.
2) Bodyweight exercises
Drivers have to learn how to support their own body weight, thus exercises like pull-ups,push-ups and core work are important. Pull-ups help them to improve their grip, which is essentialwhen they have to clutch the steering wheel for two hours at high concentration.
Core stability is needed too, as their spine takes a lot of compression during the race. Coreexercises that they do include V-sits, sit-ups, planks and more. They also work with the Swissball, doing deficit push-ups and also balancing on it with one foot.
3) Functional training
Besides having the strength, drivers need to have the agility and also condition themselves tobe able to bear high heart rates. Using equipment like the sledgehammer, large tyres andkettlebells, drivers work out their entire body with functional exercises by applying the strengththey have. For example, they use the sledgehammer to smash the tyre as hard as they can, flip largetyres or drive kettlebell swings with their hips.
Check out Singapore GP’s Rev Up Singapore! Fit For Racing series to get a sneak peek into therigorous training regime of a Formula One™ driver here.
Cheryl Tay is one of the fewfemale motoring journalists in Singapore. Passionate about cars and motorsports, she hasrubbed shoulders with world champion drivers and other key personalities of the motoringworld.
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Posted on 24 August 2015
By BobConstanduros
It can’t be said that the Belgian Grand Prix was the greatest race of the year, but as expected,it was a longer-legged type of race where there was overtaking thanks to DRS rather than thedo-or-die attempts seen more recently in Hungary. But the somewhat changed hierarchy seen inqualifying was maintained in the race; eight different teams scored points with only Mercedes andWilliams having two cars in points-scoring positions and a wide variety of cars scoring.
One thing hadn’t changed during the summer break: the dominance of the Mercedes team, and to alesser extent, their engines. The chassis were clearly well-suited to both the faster sections ofthe circuit and the slower, twistier more technical middle sector. No one could really touch them;they looked after their engines, performed well on both types of Pirelli tyres and werereliable.
Lewis Hamilton had feared that he might be challenged by another car up the long Kemmel straightto Les Combes, and he was absolutely right. While Nico Rosberg didn’t get the vital clutch biteright in the new start procedure, Lewis did and produced an almost perfect start, only bettered bySergio Perez from the second row.
And going up the hill to Les Combes – with DRS disabled on the first two laps – the Force Indiadriver was able to get a tow and get past Hamilton to lead briefly into Les Combes until theMercedes driver outbraked the Mexican into the righthander and then Lewis was home and dry.
It took Rosberg a while to thread through those who had overtaken him, but once he was in secondplace, he was able to keep his teammate honest with consistent pressure, even if he never reallygot close to him. They traded fastest laps, the gap opened and closed but Hamilton was always incontrol. It was another one-two for Mercedes but another win from pole for the English driver.
The margin to the rest was a pretty massive 35s but by then the Mercedes’ closest challenger haddropped out. Sebastian Vettel had taken a gamble with a one-stop strategy – not even Pirelli hadcome up with that one – but it transpired that 29 laps on one set of tyres was just too much andwhile he was just two laps from being a hero and making the tyres last, a puncture meant thatinstead he was reduced to retirement and a twelfth place.
Instead it was left to Kimi Raikkonen to score points for the Scuderia. But his tale of theweekend illustrated just how fragile the Ferrari is, with a poor qualifying followed up with agearbox change. But seventh place was a long way from the top step of the podium seen most recentlyin Hungary.
Instead, it was left to Lotus to fill the final place on the podium. Just like Force India, theyhad looked competitive throughout the weekend – they share the Mercedes engine, of course, as doWilliams. Perez dropped away to fifth – teammate Hulkenberg hadn’t even started – so that Grosjeancame through to finished a fine third and put Lotus on the podium for the first time for sinceAustin 2013, 31 races ago.
All three customer Mercedes teams had been competitive throughout the weekend, and surely one ofthem was going to fill the runner-up spot to the works team, and it was Lotus who filled theposition. Given that there was a threat to have an injunction placed on the team by former testdriver Charles Pic, this was a welcome and well-deserved result.
Red Bull Racing had looked competitive throughout the weekend – the twisty middle sector istheir strong point – but Ricciardo was out with a mechanical problem after 19 laps. Daniil Kvyatdid look strong in the closing stages – when you get the aggressors and the defenders – and he camethrough well to fourth place ahead of Perez.
Williams were perhaps disappointing as well as making a fundamental mistake when they fitted twodifferent types of tyre in a pit stop and suffered a drive-through penalty for Valtteri Bottas as aresult. But Massa finished sixth, Bottas ninth and they score more points than Raikkonen got forseventh place, so they cut the gap to Ferrari in the Constructors championship by a fraction.
Verstappen and Ericsson were the final points scorers, but in the case of the former, there wasstill unreliability as teammate Carlos Sainz was in trouble right from the start, like Hulkenberg.And he might have been better placed, although there was a lot of pressure on him at his home race– his Belgian mother was in the garage this weekend.
In a way, then, it was a race to be expected: lots of variety but no real challenger to theMercedes steam-roller. That could well be the same at Monza but may well change when thechampionship comes to Singapore for its scramble around the streets in September. Now that is adifferent kind of race!
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix since the race began.He has worked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 23 August 2015
By BobConstanduros
After its three week break, Formula One has moved from its shortest permanent circuit to itslongest and perhaps expecting a somewhat less frenetic race than that experienced in Hungary threeweeks ago. The frustration of trying to overtake where it’s only just possible made for a thrillingevent before the break; Spa is a longer legged, wide open traditional circuit where overtaking iseasier.
Spa is many drivers’ favourite circuit. It is seven kilometres long and has two distinctcharacters: the very fast first and third sectors where 340kph was spotted during practice (byyoung Max Verstappen, no less) and a twisty middle sector. Therefore you can find some carsexcelling on the straights (probably those with poorer downforce) and others going quickly in themiddle sector, where handling and downforce are so important.
But then there is the possibility of the whole field being shaken up by the modifications thathave been introduced since the mid-season break. Spa is followed two weeks later by another highspeed track, Monza, so if teams develop something for Spa, it can also be of benefit in Italy. Theyare constantly developing the cars anyway and the fact that engineers and mechanics are not allowedin their team bases during the break doesn’t stop a raft of improvements appearing afterwards.
So how much was the grid shaken up in Belgium? The answer is not much. Sure, there were teamsthat had brought modifications and indeed, had been bringing mods for several races beforehand, butif anything, there were some real surprises here, that those teams that were expected to improvedidn’t.
So at the head of the field were still the two Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton having taken theupper hand from Nico Rosberg. The Finn had a rotten time on Friday – amazingly the weather stayedexcellent for at least four days – when he first of all had an engine problem and then an explodedPirelli rear tyre at over 300kph, thankfully not hitting anything. But in each session he was stillquickest.
But then Hamilton sorted out his car to take the upper hand on Saturday and to pip his teammateby some 04.s for his 48th career pole position – Mercedes one-two again.
Ferrari might have been expected to be next, but four time Belgian Grand Prix winner KimiRaikkonen stopped out on the circuit with a mechanical problem and will start well back, andSebastian Vettel just didn’t improve in Q3 as others did and will start in the lower part of thetop ten.
So bouncing back up to the front after disappointing recent races is Ferrari’s championshiprivals Williams with Valtteri Bottas in third and Felipe Massa seventh. It took them a while toshow this form – as it often does – but this is a circuit that suits them – provided it doesn’train.
Both Lotus and Force India (the latter in particular) benefitted from their Mercedes engineswhere power is so necessary. Perez set several fastest sector times although Hulkenberg wasdisappointingly far back in 11th. Lotus’s Romain Grosjean would be penalised five places for a newgearbox but qualifying fourth although teammate Maldonado was in eight, in spite of a practiceaccident.
No surprise that last year’s winner Daniel Ricciardo was in sixth place where Red Bull Racinghave done so well, but their power deficit was costly; Sainz had the next Renault engine in tenthahead of Kvyat in 12th and Verstappen 15th.
But all is not lost for any of them. New start procedures could provide a fascinating getawaytomorrow; it limits the amount of help gained from engineers on the bite point of the clutch, andthe weather is due to break too. So Belgium could still provide some surprises as it frequentlydoes. It’s just that it won’t be anything like Hungary – or Singapore!
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix since the race began.He has worked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 1 August 2015
By Formula One™ photographer, Mark Sutton.
With 30 years of experience under his belt and having shot for the Singapore GP since theinaugural night race, here are his top photography tips.
Shooting at a Formula One race is a great experience and I would like to share a few tips to tryand make your experience the best it can be for each day of the Grand Prix weekend. There aredifferent ways to try and get closer or shoot something you hadn't really thought about. It’s afour-day event so here's a brief list of the things that could possibly change the way you work orplan to photograph over the weekend bearing these moments in mind or planning ahead. Sutton Imageshas 4 photographers at every Grand Prix and we plan every session and day.
Thursday
For those of you lucky enough to get the Thursday Pit Lane Experience ticket, Thursday is agreat day to get closer to the cars, track and maybe some drivers who could be walking the circuitor just about to head out their from the pit lane. It’s a fantastic opportunity to get you to shootsome detail images of the cars in the garage, the wings or bodywork in the pit lane, and a FormulaOne car could be heading down to the FIA checks and scales, so just be prepared.
Out on the track, you can normally shoot the last corner, start-finish line and first few corners,so utilise those opportunities to take some images.
Increase your ISO setting from your normal 100/200 in daylight to 800/1000 ISO. This will offer youmore depth of field or shutterspeed if needed although there are no cars moving, shooting atanything above 1/60th or 1/25th of a second will give you more depth of focus and a sharpersubject. You can even shoot the podium, a general view of the pit lane or mechanics working hardinto the night.
Friday
Friday sees the cars on track for Practice in both daylight and night. Shooting in daylight offersdifferent options for shutter speeds and showing the scenery and buildings of Singapore, so utilisethose aspects and where possible get a seat high in the grandstands to shoot above the fences orlook for gaps in the fences. The Formula One cars are on track for 1.5 hours in each practicesession. Plan ahead and even recee the positions the week before, when access is easier; if youjust turn up and it doesn't work then it’s a wasted session.
Saturday
Saturday is the second day of car action and also the support races will be having races, so noteverything is Formula One. These cars are a little slower and easier to capture as you pan withthem going past or coming towards you, so utilise every opportunity of track action to move angleson the track.
Lowering the shutter speeds give you a blur type image and also can get rid of the fences andbackground in the image, focus on the ground where you think the car is coming and then practicebefore any cars arrive by shooting a few frames, check them on the back of the camera. Once thecars start make your motion as smooth as possible. You can even practice on road cars or people onthe streets; start at 1/125, then lower each stop to offer some amazing effects, 1/60th,1/30th andeven 1/15th or lower for some serious blur. Experiment – you will be surprised by your skill!
Race Day - Sunday
Highlight and buzz of the weekend, I'm guessing your seats are reserved, but either way you will beenjoying one of the best races of the season. In the afternoon there are still some support racesto shoot in order to gain some more experience. Then there is the drivers’ parade as the FormulaOne drivers generally cruise around the circuit waving – be sure to have your camera ready. Shortlyafter the grid starts with the grid girls parading the flags, team preparations and then the carsdo warm-up laps.
The start offers the best chance to get the action and group images of the cars. Have yourshutter speed high at between 1/500 to 1/1000th of a second, push the ISO to 1000 or maximum of1600 to gain that shutter speed – it will freeze the action and capture everything, utilise theauto focus system to follow the leading. You just never know there could be a crash or incidentright in front of you so always be ready.
Then its the final lap and the winning driver crosses the line to win the Singapore Grand Prix,he waves on his slow-down lap and who knows, maybe even does doughnuts on your corner withsmoke!
The action then proceeds to the podium to celebrate victory. This is when the fireworks andcelebrations begin all around the circuit, not just at the podium. Shooting fireworks is quiteeasy; wait until the first one goes as they will get better, then focus your lens towards them andreduce the shutter speed to 1/15/20/30th of a second or slower. It’s better on a tripod and you canthen let the shutter speed go longer – 1/2/5 seconds open at F8/11 exposure. I hope you will enjoythe whole experience and the Singapore Grand Prix even more with these tips, you will be buzzinglike me!
Sutton Images Poster shop has over 4.5 million images in its archive from 1960 to 2015 andOne Million Images online to browse and find the driver, team, year and circuit you like. Nowestablished as the world’s largest Independent image agency, we will be covering our 55th year inFormula One and bringing you further amazing features in the future.
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Posted on 27 July 2015
By Kate Walker
As a race, the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix could not have been better timed. With only one roundin the seven week gap between Silverstone and Spa, Formula One was relying on the Hungaroring todeliver the sort of thriller that would keep the fans talking throughout the summer break.
The Hungaroring delivered in spades.
From Ferrari’s surprise victory to Mercedes’ day of horrors, the Hungarian Grand Prix was anabsolute classic. For the first time since the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix, no Mercedes driverappeared on the podium. Instead, Sebastian Vettel claimed his second career win for Ferrari,flanked by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat, the latter man celebrating his firstpodium finish in the sport.
The 69-lap race - cut short by a lap after Felipe Massa was found to be out of position on theoriginal start - was a battle of skills and wills, and the Budapest circuit was the scene of anumber of heroic fightbacks, several of which came courtesy of championship leader LewisHamilton.
Both Mercedes drivers were left choking on the dust of the Ferraris at the second start, and intrying to defend against his teammate Hamilton ran wide and dropped from first to tenth over thecourse of the first lap. The Briton later had to pit for a new nose cone after contact withRicciardo, in an incident that also saw the Mercedes driver issued with a drive-through penalty.Despite running around at the back of the pack with fewer than 20 laps remaining, Hamilton was ableto claw his way back up through the field to cross the line in sixth.
Thanks to late race drama for Nico Rosberg, Hamilton’s bad day at the office actually saw theBriton extend his championship lead, a vital psychological victory as the F1 circus heads off forits summer break. Rosberg was defending against Ricciardo for second place when contact between thepair left the German with a dramatic puncture. After limping back to the pits on his rims, Rosberg- who had been on course for a podium finish - collected only four points for eighth.
But the action at the front of the pack was only part of the story. Retirements for Sergio Perezand Nico Hulkenberg have hurt Force India in the constructors’ championship, and are likely to dentconfidence in the team’s new car, while Pastor Maldonado’s three separate in-race penalties shouldprove uncomfortable food for thought during the forthcoming break.
F1’s summer shutdown means that the Hungarian Grand Prix can often prove to be a vital turningpoint in the psychological battle for the championship. With the Mercedes pair still favourites forthe drivers’ title, the fact that Hamilton’s very bad day at the office still saw the Briton extendhis championship lead will affect Rosberg’s confidence at a time when there is no chance to respondon track. How he handles it will be the making or breaking of his championship challenge in thecoming months: Rosberg can choose to use his Budapest disappointment as the motivation for afightback, or he can let it get to his head. The choice is Nico’s, and Nico’s alone.
When the F1 circus moves on to Singapore’s Marina Bay Street Circuit in two months’ time thereare lessons learned this weekend in Hungary that will prove useful. While the Hungaroring is anover-sized go-kart track and Singapore a street circuit, the low speed corners and low powercircuit configuration make similar demands on the cars.
As a consequence, the Singapore Grand Prix represents another opportunity for both Red Bull andMcLaren to pick up valuable points in the constructors’ championship after the power hungry tracksof Spa-Francorchamps and Monza, the next two rounds on the calendar.
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 26 July 2015
By Kate Walker
It would take a brave soul to bet against a Mercedes win at the Hungarian Grand Prix followingthe team’s dominance of the weekend thus far, with Lewis Hamilton topping the timesheets at allthree practice and qualifying sessions and Nico Rosberg joining his teammate on the front row.
But Formula One is no stranger to the unexpected, and the Hungaroring has historically thrown upa few surprising grands prix. Sunday’s race is expected to run in cooler temperatures than thoseseen throughout the weekend thus far, and a significant drop in track temperatures will certainlyhave an impact on the podium.
If the track stays in the low- to mid-50s seen in practice and qualifying, Ferrari will be inwith a chance of taking the fight to Mercedes in the race. But falling track temperatures willdiminish whatever advantage the Scuderia can eke out of their car’s gentle touch on the rubber,playing into the hands of the still dominant Silver Arrows.
One team to watch on Sunday will be Red Bull, with Daniel Ricciardo qualifying in fourth andwithin a whisker of Sebastian Vettel, while teammate Daniil Kvyat lines up in seventh place,splitting the Williams driver pairing.
While Red Bull must wait until the Russian Grand Prix for an upgraded power unit, the weekend’spractice sessions showed the Milton Keynes racers to have decent pace on long runs. Ricciardo wonin Hungary last year, and will be fighting hard to challenge for a podium and capitalise on hisqualifying result at a circuit he knows well.
Even the beleaguered McLaren look to be increasingly competitive, despite the Woking racers’issues in qualifying.
In the practice sessions both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso were able to set times thatplaced the pair squarely in the upper mid-field, and it looked as though Honda’s work on the energyrecovery systems was finally beginning to bear fruit. But both drivers were out of qualifying earlywith power unit problems, and there is more work to be done on the reliability front beforepractice pace will produce precious points.
That the Hungaroring is not a power-hungry circuit works to both Red Bull’s and McLaren’sadvantage - the deficiencies of both the Honda and Renault power units are hardly secret - and anyimprovement shown in Budapest is unlikely to be replicated at either Spa or Monza. But at thefollowing grand prix in Singapore, where low speed driveability is key - and the opportunities forenergy recovery virtually limitless - both McLaren and Red Bull can capitalise on the progress madesince Silverstone.
The hot temperatures and high humidity in Hungary this weekend have been reminiscent of highnoon at Marina Bay, and one challenge for the teams here is familiar to fans of the Singapore race:ensuring that the power units are sufficiently cooled to be able to operate at peak efficiency.Deficiencies in the Hungarian heat will only be amplified when the F1 circus jets off to theoriginal night race.
Podium prediction: (1) Lewis Hamilton, (2) Sebastian Vettel, (3) Nico Rosberg
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 6 July 2015
By Kate Walker
There are races of attrition, and then there’s the 2015 British Grand Prix, which saw one driverfail to start and six fail to finish. But for the 13 men who made it to the end of Sunday’s race atSilverstone Circuit it was a dramatic afternoon.
Lewis Hamilton may have won the race from pole, but it was no procession. Mercedes’ front rowlockout was rendered irrelevant by the poor starts from Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg, withFelipe Massa slipping between the Silver Arrows pair to claim the lead of the British Grand Prix assoon as the lights went out. That was the first turning point.
Valtteri Bottas followed his teammate through the gap between the Mercedes pair, but the Finnwas unable to secure second place before Hamilton found the grip he’d been missing on the start andfought off the Williams driver, who found himself ahead of Rosberg in the first few corners.
First lap chaos further back in the pack put Jenson Button, Romain Grosjean, and PastorMaldonado out of the race and brought out the Safety Car as debris was cleared.
It was on the restart that the second turning point of the race took place, with Hamilton tryinghis luck with a move on Massa, but running wide in the process and handing second place to Bottas,who immediately began gaining on his teammate before pushing the team to give him permission topass the Brazilian for the lead.
Bottas may well live to regret the British Grand Prix, as it only served to strengthen theargument against him replacing Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari. That Bottas has thus far been unable toblow Massa out of the water has had the Scuderia wondering about the wisdom of replacing one Finnwith another, and Sunday afternoon will not have helped his case.
Despite lapping faster than the leader for much of the first phase of the race, Bottas wasunable to get past after multiple attempts, and eventually crossed the line in fifth, 26.355s downon Massa. The FW37 tends to struggle in the wet, and Rosberg made short work of passing firstBottas and then Massa when the rain started to fall.
When the Williams pair left the pits after moving to the intermediate tyres, there was eightseconds between them. Eight laps later, the gap had more than trebled when they crossed the finishline. Add to that sizeable gap Bottas’ premature eagerness to switch to inters the instant thefirst light sprinkling of rain fell, and Ferrari’s doubts begin to look well-founded.
Making the right tyre call was crucial to success on Sunday, and the timing of the switch tointers had a massive impact on each man’s race. Raikkonen made the move too early, and was forcedto use two sets in 14 laps, while Vettel - who followed Hamilton into the pits on lap 43 - was ableto turn the strategic decision into a podium finish.
Silverstone was made more dramatic by the rain this week, a factor unlikely to contribute to theoutcome of the Singapore Grand Prix in September. The Marina Bay race has been a dry event sinceits maiden outing in 2008, and it is the abrasive and sometimes bumpy track surface plus closewalls that offer the best chance of shaking up the order at the original F1 night race.
With the midpoint of the 2015 season now fast approaching, few would bet against theMercedes-powered cars collecting the majority of points on offer in Singapore. It isn’t simply thatthe Brackley power unit is the best on offer: torque and low-speed driveability are vital at MarinaBay, and Mercedes can offer their customers both in spades. But the track is also one that rewardsboth bravery and precision, and Daniil Kvyat and Max Verstappen will both be men to watch.
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 5 July 2015
By KateWalker
As the 2015 season approaches the halfway mark, it looks as though Lewis Hamilton and NicoRosberg will keep the title fight alive a little longer.
The Mercedes drivers continue to dominate the season, and Hamilton’s British Grand Prix pole atSilverstone is the 46th of the Briton’s career, putting him third on the all-time list behindMichael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.
While Hamilton has improved his Saturday performances this season, collecting eight poles fromnine races, but Rosberg has improved his race pace and continues to put pressure on the defendingchampion when the points are handed out on Sundays.
That pressure looks set to continue during tomorrow’s race. Hamilton may have claimed pole witha brilliant first run in the final stage of qualifying, but it was Rosberg who looked to be morecomfortable in the car earlier in the weekend. The German will be hoping for a repeat of hisAustrian Grand Prix success, although his struggles with degradation on the front left tyre willmake it hard to keep pace with Hamilton in the second and third sectors if the Briton holds thelead off the start.
Lining up behind the Mercedes pair are the driver pairings from Williams and Ferrari, withFelipe Massa ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen besting Sebastian Vettel for the secondtime this season. The intra-team battles promise some early excitement before the order levels outaround the first round of stops, but the one-second qualifying gap between the Silver Arrows andtheir rivals is ominous for the race itself, with Mercedes widely believed to have more performancein hand.
Tyres will prove crucial to the outcome of tomorrow’s race. Fans might remember the 2013 BritishGrand Prix, dubbed the year of the “terror tyres” when delamination after delamination led toPirelli changing the construction of their rubber for the rest of the season. While this year’styres are more durable, as a track Silverstone is one of the toughest challenges on the calendar,thanks to the extreme levels of lateral loading caused by the high-speed corners.
Pit stop strategy will also play its part, with teams choosing between one- or two-stopstrategies for the 52-lap race. England has been enjoying a heatwave this week, but the upwardsshift in temperatures has not been high enough to have much of an impact on the tyres’ behaviour inpractice or qualifying, and it is unlikely that the heat will dictate strategy and outcome inSilverstone as previously happened in Malaysia.
What should keep things exciting in the middle of the pack is the variable levels of grip andbalance shown over the course of the weekend. Strong performances in one session were no guaranteeof similar pace in another, and several of the drivers were heard complaining that the handling oftheir car varied from corner to corner. Add to that the changing wind direction and speeds seenover the past two years and the result will be skittish handling that could shake up the order.
Barring any major upsets in the form of reliability issues or accidents, however, the BritishGrand Prix is unlikely to surprise. Mercedes will claim two of the spots on the podium, and thelegendary two-tenths per lap a Silverstone crowd brings to a British racer should see Hamilton onthe top step with Rosberg just behind.
For Jenson Button and Will Stevens, the other two Britons on the grid, simply seeing thechequered flag will be a result, while to finish on the same lap as the winner would be a realachievement.
Podium prediction: (1) Lewis Hamilton, (2) Nico Rosberg, (3) ValtteriBottas
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010season. Currently F1 writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appearedin the Financial Times, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.Share To
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Posted on 25 June 2015
By Adam Cooper
Mercedes topped both days of F1 testing in Austria this week as nine teams took part in thesecond and final in-season test of 2015, following a similar exercise after the Spanish GP lastmonth.
As at Barcelona the Manor F1 team opted not to take part, in order to save money. But for theother nine teams it was a welcome chance to catch their breath and get some vital development anddata gathering work done, away from the pressure of a race weekend.
Thus lots of new parts and aero packages were tried out, and somecars were seen running curious measurement devices. In addition Pirelli had some R&D work to dofor 2016, and three teams – Mercedes, Ferrari and Toro Rosso – devoted some of their track time tohelping the Italian company. As ever the final best testing times were not a definitive guide ofcourse, as teams had different programmes to run.
Under current FIA rules one day at each test has to be reserved for a rookie, or morespecifically a driver who has started fewer than five races in the past two years.
The first day was very much about the rookies, with only two full-time race drivers – MaxVerstappen and Romain Grosjean – in action. On Wednesday there were more familiar faces on track,with Nico Rosberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas, Felipe Nasr and Fernando Alonso all takingpart. The only teams not to run a regular race driver over the two days were Force India andFerrari.
Tuesday was badly disrupted by rain, to the extent that a red flag was out for much of themorning. The teams eventually agreed to a two-hour extension to make up for lost time, and theaction thus ran until 8pm. The green track meant that times were still a little off when it wasdry, so the nine drivers in action on Wednesday were all faster than the quickest time set onTuesday, although not by a huge margin.
Two Mercedes proteges topped the times on Tuesday, with DTM racerand F1 reserve driver Pascal Wehrlein at the head of the order in the works car, and GP3 manEsteban Ocon taking second spot on what was his second outing with Mercedes-supported Force India.The latter team was running its new B-spec bodywork in full for the first time, the packageincluding a new nose with two 'nostrils,' which was only seen briefly.
Ferrari Driver Academy member and GP3 racer Antonio Fuoco made his first F1 appearance, and hegot off to a bad start when he went off at Turn One and damaged the car. However, later on theItalian managed to get some good laps in, and he was fourth overall for the day, between Verstappenand Grosjean.
Red Bull-backed GP2 driver Pierre Gasly got some more time in the RB10, while Ferrari protegeand fellow GP2 racer Raffaele Marciello, who has already done some FP1 sessions for Sauber thisyear, gained more miles with the Swiss team.
Having dominated the GP2 season thus far Stoffel Vandoorne was givena chance to log some miles with McLaren. After the team's appalling Austrian GP weekend the car ranreliably, and the Belgian was able to complete 77 laps free of mechanical dramas. Meanwhile SusieWolff had another outing for Williams ahead of her planned FP1 session with the car at the nextrace in Silverstone.
Test Day 2
On Wednesday Rosberg took over from Wehrlein and topped the times for Mercedes after enjoying atwo-day break since winning Sunday's race.
Ferrari third driver Esteban Gutierrez was given a run in theSF15-T, having already driven it at the Barcelona test. The Mexican finished the day in secondspot, after running a programme that focussed on tyres and aero work. He survived a brief trip intothe gravel.
Bottas was third for Williams, while BMW DTM racer Marcus Wittmann – handed a surprise chance byRed Bull to try the Toro Rosso – did a solid job to be fourth fastest.
“This has been an amazing experience for me,” he noted. “I was surprised at the power of thecar; if I compare it to DTM, it’s got quite a lot more power! I enjoyed the whole day, which wastrouble free, so I was able to do a lot of laps. I’m happy with my day, I hope the team istoo.”
Mercedes man Wehrlein transferred across to the Force India forWednesday, and was fifth fastest for the day, while regular Lotus FP1 driver Jolyon Palmer did somemore laps in the E23.
McLaren had another productive day as Alonso completed 104 laps, again without major dramas. TheSpaniard was able to try the full kit of latest updates after his crash in the Austrian race meantthat they were not all available for Vandoorne on Tuesday. He set a quicker time than eitherRicciardo or Nasr, who were at the bottom of Wednesday's order.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com,he has also written several books, including a biography of 60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 22 June 2015
By BobConstanduros
Photo credit: LAT Photographic
It’s a strange thing, but sometimes in racing you get the feeling that a driver just isn’tcomfortable in a race or at a circuit, just isn’t on it. I had that feeling with Lewis Hamiltonfrom fairly early in the Austrian Grand Prix weekend. He was making too many mistakes. Some youforgive as just finding the limits, but they seemed to keep coming, culminating with the ratherembarrassing situation when the fastest two in qualifying – he and Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg –ended up parked in the countryside at the end of qualifying. If that happened in Singapore, they’dhave two very damaged cars.
As it is, the Red Bull Ring is quite forgiving. Not too many cars were damaged during a varietyof incidents during the three days, even though it was what the drivers called ‘old school.’ It isthe third shortest circuit in terms of distance – just – and the shortest in the championship interms of lap time but that seems to promote very interesting racing and it produces a verychallenging circuit.
So how we enjoyed watching the drivers trying to tame this tricky circuit. They were running widehere and there and so it continued into the race, not the least with the second corner incidentwith Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari underneath Fernando Alonso’s McLaren. The Spaniard’s team maintainsthat Raikkonen lost control; the stewards felt that no driver was at fault and no penalty wasapplied.
That no one was hurt was fortunate; it was a near miss for Formula One again and we should bethankful. As Nico Rosberg pointed out, incidents like that are to be learned from. It wasunfortunate that Lewis couldn’t find an opinion about what could be learned from such anincident.
Rosberg utterly deserved this victory; he was on top of his teammate all weekend, even when he madethe mistake at the end of qualifying which cost him pole position. But a demon start corrected thatand he never looked back. He didn’t even need the five second penalty Lewis earned for crossing thepit exit line – which he later denied. Film evidence decreed otherwise.
Once again, Williams and Ferrari squabbled over the final podium place with Ferrari providingadept at shooting themselves in the foot. Having condemned Raikkonen to a lowly grid position andhis subsequent accident with former teammate Alonso, they cost teammate Vettel the final podiumposition with a wheel problem at their only pit stop.
For the third race out of the eight so far, Williams found themselves fighting a rearguardaction to keep a Ferrari behind them, although it wasn’t quite as tight for Felipe Massa as it hasbeen for Valtteri Bottas elsewhere. It was a defensive race rather than an attacking one forWilliams but they keep racking up points and cut the deficit to Ferrari by 13 points.
There were reasonable performances from Hulkenberg at Force India and Maldonado at Lotus whocontinues to entertain, and even Nasr at Sauber who should have been rewarded, but Red Bull Racingat their home Grand Prix were sadly not in the hunt; only one of their four really looked remotelycompetitive, with Max Verstappen picking up eighth.
They’re going to have a miserable time for the rest of the season, picking up penalties on aregular occasions as they’ve already exceeded the number of power unit elements available, butthat’s nothing compared to McLaren’s performance. People are beginning to run out of patience withthe McLaren-Honda combo; they had a head start without having to run an engine in the previousformula and yet approaching half distance in the championship, they don’t even look like finishingraces. If anything, things are getting worse, not better and the penalties are going to keep comingthere, too.
As predicted, there were quite a few retirements and a slightly unexpected result but one thatshowed that thankfully, this sport isn’t predictable. It wasn’t a great Grand Prix but it had itsmoments, that’s for sure.
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix since the race began.He has worked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 21 June 2015
By BobConstanduros
It was extraordinary to see both Mercedes off the circuit at the end of qualifying for theAustrian Grand Prix on Saturday afternoon. This writer has never seen that in Formula One certainlynot on a dry track. Would they have the same problems in the race itself, was surely the questionto be asked? We had seen lots of drivers off at turns one and eight and nine in practice and here,at the end of Q3, were the two Mercedes parked, one at the start of the lap, one at the end. Butthey were still on the front row of the grid.
The usual four hours of pre-qualifying practice left a number of unanswered questions. Driversseemed to have a massive amount of trouble turning into the penultimate corner, which compromisedthe next corner onto the main straight, and often, they would go off at turn one too. It’s rare tosee drivers having quite so many problems with just one corner – and it didn’t seem to get anybetter.
Lewis Hamilton was one of those afflicted – almost every driver seemed to have trouble with thatcorner if the truth were told – but he never managed to set a fastest time in either of Friday’ssessions which is rare. Teammate Nico Rosberg seemed marginally happier and although SebastianVettel was quickest on Friday afternoon, he also had a transmission problem plus unrelated gearboxtrouble which might compromise his prospects.
Kimi Raikkonen was another of those to suffer at turn eight, while Williams were slow to showtheir hand, having occupied the front row last year. Pastor Maldonado was a promising fourth in theafternoon session, while McLaren’s disasters seemed to get worse.
On Saturday morning, many drivers had failed to set a time when the rain began to fall halfwaythrough the session after a McLaren-induced red flag. Vettel was quickest again while Hamiltondidn’t even try to experience the wet circuit at the end of the session. So qualifying – on a wetor dry track – was eager awaited. If it remained wet, it was would be a real challenge.
Qualifying started on a damp track with the times progressively tumbling, but the really bigsurprise was the elimination of Kimi Raikkonen with a mechanical problem – allegedly – at the endof Q1, which would see him take no further part. Strangely, Maldonado was one of the casualties ona now dry track for Q2, along with Sainz and Ricciardo, while no one really seemed able tochallenge the Mercedes in Q3.
Lewis Hamilton said it was one of the worst qualifying he’s had this year, and yet he stillended up on pole. Nico Rosberg might have deposed him, but he still had problems on his final lapas he was hunting Lewis’s lap time and might just have beaten him but for the late spin. SebastianVettel was their nearest challenger, while the Williamses sandwiched Nico Hulkenberg’s Force Indiain fifth place.
But even on this track where Williams were on the front row last year, no one seemed able tochallenge the Mercedes. Having said that, two sheepish Mercedes drivers seemed quite capable ofwrecking their own race and Ferrari seem to have struck reliability problems. On a slippery trackwhich is encouraging driver errors, we might just see a different winner for the race itself.Someone only has to push Mercedes and mistakes may be made.
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix since the race began.He has worked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 8 June 2015
By James Allen
Neither his team mate Nico Rosberg nor a nasty head wind on the main straight could slow LewisHamilton’s progress as he strode to his fourth win of the season and his fourth in Canada.
It was his fourth win of the season and the 37th of his F1 career. He is now justfour wins short of equaling his great idol Ayrton Senna.
The world champion was under scrutiny after gifting the win in Monaco two weeks ago to Rosberg,closing the points gap between the pair to just 10 points.
After a slightly shaky start on Friday with a mistake over the kerbs and a crash in the rain, hewas able to control the qualifying session when it mattered and then from the start there was onlyever going to be one winner.
If Hamilton had to concern himself with managing fuel consumption, as the lead car facing into ahead wind, Rosberg had to be concerned with the brakes; following in Hamilton’s wheel tracks meantthat the temperatures were high, even if his fuel consumption was helped by being in Hamilton’sslip stream.
The pressure was less than it might have been as Ferrari suffered a series of own goals thisweekend which meant that they failed to finish on the podium for the first time this season.
Sebastian Vettel lost ground in qualifying after a problem with the energy recovery system,which was compounded by a penalty for passing under red flags during a practice session. So thefour times champion started in 18th place on the grid. But he made a superb recovery tofinish fifth.
Meanwhile Kimi Raikkonen qualified third but spun at the hairpin on his first lap out of thepits. This opened a small window of opportunity to Williams and they took it, immediately bringingValtteri Bottas in for his stop, which put him back out on circuit ahead of Raikkonen.
The Ferrari driver later tried a tactical switch onto super soft tyres for an attacking finalstint, but Bottas had it covered and held on to get his first podium of 2015.
The Williams team is now challenging Ferrari on raw pace, afterstarting the season a little way behind. This is positive news for the battle at the front of thegrid, even if the evidence from this weekend is that Mercedes still has an advantage overall.
The next two races, in Austria and Silverstone, should suit Williams; they were on pole positionin Austria last year and Bottas raced strongly to podiums in both venues. There is every reason tobelieve that they can repeat that this year, which puts pressure on Ferrari for those events.
It was a good day for Pastor Maldonado, who finally got his first points of 2015 in7th place for Lotus, but a bad day for Daniel Ricciardo, who won this race last year.The Australian failed to score points for the first time this season.
Leading Formula One™commentator and journalist, James Allen is a contributing writer for Singapore GP Pte LtdShare To
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Posted on 7 June 2015
By James Allen
I’m really not going back to Monaco. I’ve moved on. I don’t even have to think about it, Icouldn’t care less about it. I can’t do anything about the past so there’s honestly no point inthinking about it. I’m thinking about this race, I’m excited” - LewisHamilton
How appropriate that Lewis Hamilton should score his 44th career pole positiondriving car number 44, a number he chose due to it’s happy memories from karting. He took acommanding pole position on the Montreal track where he scored his first pole and win eight yearsago. It is Hamilton’s sixth pole in seven races this year and his fourth on this track.
Hamilton arrived in Montreal under a cloud after losing the Monaco Grand Prix in a public andhumiliating way due to an unforced strategy error by him and his team in the closing stages of therace.
He needed a strong response here; a repeat of what happened here in Montreal 12 months ago,where he made a mistake in qualifying, would have been quite devastating mentally for the 30 yearold. But he held his nerve despite a difficult weekend with limited track time and several issueson track to take pole by over 3/10ths of a second from his team mate Nico Rosberg.
Kimi Raikkonen starts a season best 3rd on the grid for Ferrari while his team mateSebastian Vettel not only had problems with his turbo which put him 16th on the grid, healso had problems with the FIA Stewards, who wanted to know why he overtook another car thismorning under Red Flag conditions during Free Practice 3.
This has been a strange weekend for the teams and drivers, as the practice sessions have beencut short by rain and red flags, meaning that no one has particularly good information about howthe tyres will perform in the race.
Ferrari looked very fast in the limited race preparation running we saw on Friday and if thatcarries through in the race, then they can challenge the Mercedes drivers for the race win.
Strategy will be vital; the supersoft tyres are only 7/10ths of a second faster than the softsand they have higher degradation. but no-one has an accurate picture of what that degradation isuntil the race is more than 10 laps old.
So it will be a race where teams will be reacting to situations and making decisions on thatbasis.
The other factor here is the Safety Car, 11 of the past 17 races have been hit with at least oneSafety Car and sometimes four in one race! A bold option for Ferrari and Raikkonen would be to do aone-stop strategy and take the benefit of the Safety Car is deployed. But Ferrari have only one carat the front of the grid, after Sebastian Vettel’s problems and so they may choose to be morereactive to Mercedes than offensive in their thinking.
Lotus has been much more competitive here this weekend with the Mercedes engine cars occupyingseven of the top ten grid slots and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas is always fast here. He will bebattling with Lotus to challenge for the podium should anything occur to the Mercedes cars andRaikkonen.
There are a lot of penalties this weekend, making the grid calculation tricky and we will sedrivers taking penalties into the race; as they won’t be able to move back sufficient places on thegrid to make up for their engine penalties, we will see drivers like Verstappen serving timepenalties in the race.
Leading Formula One™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is acontributing writer for Singapore GP Pte LtdShare To
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Posted on 25 May 2015
By BobConstanduros
How could that happen? Lewis Hamilton was leading the Monaco Grand Prix by 25s with 14 laps togo when Max Verstappen had a big accident at the first corner, Ste Devote. Lewis stayed out for alap under first a virtual safety car and then a proper one, but then 1) saw his Mercedes AMGPetronas team readying pit equipment in the pit lane on a giant screen, and then 2) was called intothe pits for a change of tyre.
The rest of the world called Why? Why come into the pits when the safety car is out for anaccident which even the efficient Monaco marshals are going to take a few minutes to clear? Whyshould you need new tyres when it’s massively difficult to overtake around the 3.340 kilometercircuit? Remember Nigel Mansell trying to overtake Ayrton Senna? It’s virtually impossible, howevermuch quicker you are.
But having seen the pit crew getting ready, and having been told to come in, Lewis duly did so,took on tyres, rejoined third and consequently lost the Monaco Grand Prix. It wasn’t his fault butif he had followed his instincts, he probably would have stayed out on circuit and won a race thatwas his.
He had set a fantastic pole lap, had driven a brilliant race and done all he had to do to win.But the closing stages, with the field controlled by the safety car, resulted in a real thriller,particularly as the Red Bull cars battled for position.
It was a typical Monaco Grand Prix: initial excitement but with a quiet midfield period – myco-commentator let out a massive yawn – followed by a thrilling denouement. It’s what happens inGrands Prix, particularly if the tyres give up their grip. But then you have to be able to overtakeand that’s not easy around the streets of Monte Carlo – easier at Singapore.
It is a fascinating Grand Prix but it does have its boring bits. You’re trying to analyse what’sgoing on, who is where, while these drivers are flinging these cars around the circuit. Battles arecoming and going. You get some star performances while others are disappointing.
One of the star performances had been 17-year old Toro Rosso driver Max Verstappen, the onlydriver in the field who had never raced anything at Monaco before. Everyone else had racedsomething. But he did a brilliant job, quietly working away at his performance – although secondfastest in the first practice was scarcely working quietly. It was a tremendous performance.
He qualified tenth as well, never over-extending himself as confidence often promotes, althoughhe did back the car into the wall at the final corner. In the race, he was in and out of the topten and right on the tail of Romain Grosjean for tenth place when he ran into the back of theFrenchman under braking for Ste Devote, the first corner. It resulted in a pretty heavy impact fromwhich the Dutch youngster emerged unscathed and for which he receives a penalty of five grid placesin the next Grand Prix. But once again, he had made his mark.
At the other end of the scale was the Williams team, so promising in so many races, but here inlots of trouble with a failure to warm Pirelli’s new compound supersoft tyres. They qualified12th and 16th and ended up 14th and 15th. One suspectedthat they just couldn’t wait to leave Monaco.
But this typifies a street circuit such as Monaco or Singapore. There is always an unknown,something waiting around a blind corner, a difference from the status quo, something to stop anyonefrom yawning – whatever the time of the race. It’s why drivers love street circuits, it givescompetitors a chance to win points where perhaps they wouldn’t on conventional circuits. Lewisprobably wouldn’t agree this evening but then Nico will. It will be marked as an amazing race, andMercedes AMG Petronas will still be happy that they won. It doesn’t get more bittersweet thanthat.
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Singapore Grand Prix since the race began. He hasworked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 24 May 2015
By BobConstanduros
Lewis Hamilton scored his first pole position at Monaco on Saturday afternoon with a time somethree tenths quicker than his teammate, Nico Rosberg, who has been on pole and won for the last twoMonaco Grands Prix. Almost as usual, Sebastian Vettel was in the mix in third place for Ferrari,maintaining the record of the first three in almost every race so far this year.
The weekend started – on Thursday as usual – with just one useful free practice session as theafternoon was virtually rained off. Therefore teams had no experience of the new compound supersoftPirelli tyre and with cool temperatures in the morning, there were a number of teams that were intyre trouble, unable to get any temperature into the tyres.
The only drama befell Roberto Merhi who wiped off the nose of his Manor against the armco whenhe lost control under braking for the chicane. Hero of the morning was Max Verstappen, the youngToro Rosso driver who, at 17, was making his debut at the circuit and set an astonishing secondfastest time.
There was a bit more drama on Saturday morning when Kimi Raikkonen swiped the rear of hisFerrari against the Ste Devote Armco but teammate Sebastian Vettel set an amazing fastest time –his first fastest time in a free practice session for Ferrari. Verstappen had a brief incident atthe final corner, but the Ferrari versus Mercedes battle lines had been set and we were in for afascinating and hectic qualifying session.
So qualifying might have been a bit of a mystery for some runners and indeed, losing ValtteriBottas in Q1 was a surprise, even if the Williamses were lacking downforce and tyre temperature. Inthe end, his teammate Felipe Massa wasn’t that much further ahead, but the top ten did include onesurprise in Sergio Perez, even if he equalled his previous best at Monaco with seventh on a singleset of tyres.
But Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel all seemed to regularly be ahead of the field. Rosberg lost alittle confidence when he went straight on at Ste Devote at the end of Q2, but his record of twowins from two poles in the last two races here is hard to beat. However, Hamilton won from third onthe grid in 2008, which would at least give hope to Sebastian Vettel, who was another winner frompole in 2011.
So pole is an advantage: there have been nine winners from pole in the last ten years. But asany driver will tell you, anything can happen at Monaco – and usually does. The incidences ofsafety cars are regular: there have been eight in the last ten years and a total of 17 deployments.There were drops of rain at the end of qualifying: rain has affected two of the last ten races. Aregular, normal Monaco Grand Prix just doesn’t exist.
So while the man on pole has a massive advantage, he still has to get the tactics right andmanage the competition behind him. Almost certainly the drivers will start on supersofts – that’swhat they qualified on – but then change to mediums if they can get sufficient heat into the tyres.A one stop has been the main strategy in the past and there’s little reason why that should change,but rain, safety cars etc all have their influence.
Who’s going to win? In some ways the most difficult and the most easy prediction of the year:pole position is a big advantage, but then anything can happen. There are some slow cars to belapped, difficult tactics, a brush with the wall, slippery surface. But go with the pole man andyou can’t go far wrong.
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Singapore Grand Prix since the race began. He hasworked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 20 May 2015
By Adam Cooper
Last week the FIA outlined a raft of measures designed to improve the show in 2017 and beyond,and the ideas have given both fans and F1 insiders plenty to think about.
The plans emerged from the F1 Strategy Group, which is compromised of Jean Todt, BernieEcclestone and representatives of Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren, Williams and Force India(the team that finished “best of the rest” in 2014). The engine manufacturers were also invited toattend this particular meeting.
The Strategy Group votes through ideas which are then passed on to the F1 Commission – whichincludes the other four teams plus representatives of sponsors and race promoters – and from therethey go to the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) for final approval. The next WMSC meeting is inMexico on July 10, so there is still a long way to go before everything proposed last week isratified. In the meantime there will be a lot of debate...
Free choice of dry tyre compounds
One major change for 2016 has gathered support. Teams will be able to make their ownchoice from Pirelli's four compounds – although for logistical reasons the decision will be madesome weeks in advance so that the Italian company can build and transport the tyres to theraces.
There will be some safety restrictions – for example extreme choices such as supersofts athigh-speed Monza will not be allowed – but it adds an interesting element to the mix. Will itimpact the 2016 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix? Probably not given that supersoft and soft areentirely logical choices, but you never know...
The main thrust of the meeting was to find ways to improve the spectacle from 2017 onwards, andproduce faster lap times. And the basic idea is to have the fastest F1 cars ever. For years we'vebeen in a situation where at many tracks lap records date back to 2004, before speeds were reinedin, and there's a feeling that the current cars are too slow, especially in race trim.
Reintroduction of refuelling
The headline-grabbing change that emerged from the discussions was the return of refuelling forthe first time since 2009. That is a surprise given that it was stopped both for safety reasons andto save costs, as teams had to ship equipment around the world at huge expense. The feeling in themeeting was that it was an easy way to make cars faster simply because they will be lighter formuch of the race. In addition there's a view that refuelling adds to the TV spectacle.
Is it a wise choice? On balance probably not, given that a lot of fans feel that wesee more overtaking now than when drivers were able to use fuel strategy to jump a rival. The costimplications are also somewhat hazy, and even Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted that it's not100% yet. Safety is also a concern – Singapore fans will remember Felipe Massa departing the pitsin 2008 with fuel hose still attached.
Faster cars in 2017
The FIA says that it wants a “five to six seconds drop in lap times through aerodynamicrules evolution, wider tyres and reduction of car weight.”
As well as refuelling engines will be higher revving and produce more noise, and cars will have“more aggressive looks.”
The intention is that the basic engine regulations will not change in order to give themanufacturers some stability, and to help tempt other manufacturers in – specifically VW/Audi.However, clearly there will be some tinkering in order to address the high revs and more noiserequirements. It remains to be seen whether the overall fuel allowance for the race, now 100kgs,remains the same – officially the FIA says only that there will still be a “maximum” fuelallowance, although the likelihood is that it won't change.
Additional measures discussed
The FIA says that it is also considering “a global reflection on race weekend format,” and thatit wants “measures to make starts only activated by the driver without any outside assistance,”which would add an extra element of driver skill to one of the key parts of the race weekend.
In addition to the technical measures outlined above, the FIA says that it looked at thesustainability of the sport – and although not outlined in detail that includes proposals for thebig teams to run third cars, and ultimately supply customer cars, should any of the strugglingmidfield teams face a financial collapse.
Team insiders have indicated that nothing was done to help the smaller team address the costissues. Instead the push for third cars and customer cars – which would help the likes of McLaren,who would like to see Honda get extra track mileage – suggests that their plight has been largelyoverlooked.
The FIA statement read: “This constructive meeting between the FIA, FOM and the Teams hasallowed paving the way for the future of the championship. All parties agreed to work together withan intention to firm up these proposals and submit them to the approval of the F1 Commission andthe World Motor Sport Council of the FIA as soon as possible for implementation.”
The Strategy Group plans certainly have some interesting elements, but remember that they stillhave to be finalised and vote upon, and they are sure to stir some debate – Monaco is likely to bebusy both on and off track...
Born in 1965, Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early dayshe covered a variety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years inJapan. He then focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributorto Autosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including a biography of 60sracer Piers Courage. His blog can be found at www.adamcooperF1.com.
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Posted on 12 May 2015
By Kate Walker
When Nico Rosberg took the chequered flag at the Circuit de Catalunya on Sunday, securing hisfirst victory of the season, it looked as though the 2015 title-fight was finally underway, aresurgent Rosberg ensuring that Lewis Hamilton would not sleepwalk his way to a third title withlittle opposition.
But the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix result showed just how strong Mercedes are relative to theopposition - including Ferrari, who were supposed to be the team keeping the Silver Arrows on theirtoes this season.
Far from reducing Mercedes’ on-track advantage over the course of the three-week break sinceBahrain, Ferrari have fallen back from the championship leaders on both race and qualifyingpace.
Sebastian Vettel flattered the Ferrari to deceive when an excellent start saw the German driverpass Hamilton in the opening seconds of the race. The Briton lost significant time in the Ferrari’sdirty air and degrading his rubber in the process. But when the Mercedes pit wall put the defendingworld champion on a three-stop strategy Hamilton was able to get ahead of Vettel and open up asizeable gap that only increased until the chequered flag.
Vettel’s great start made it more challenging for Mercedes to secure the 1-2 finish the teamhoped for, but when all was said and done there were 45 seconds - around half a lap - between thevictorious Rosberg and the third-placed Ferrari when the chequered flag fell.
Despite retirements for Fernando Alonso and Pastor Maldonado both McLaren and Lotus appear tohave improved since the last round in Bahrain. McLaren may be several months away from challengingfor significant points, but the team’s rate of progress since pre-season testing has beenimpressive, and no one in the sport expects the team’s current run of sub-par form to last theseason.
As for Lotus, the move to Mercedes power has given the team a significant leg up since 2014.Regular retirements so far this season have disguised the Enstone racers’ potential, but before hisretirement an attacking Maldonado was one of the most active men of the race, overtaking themid-field with apparent ease as he fought his way up through the pack in the opening stint.
The Spanish Grand Prix is supposed to be a bellwether race for Formula One, the first chance todetermine whether the assumptions made about the relative form of the cars during the first fourraces prove to be correct. The biggest change to the received wisdom that resulted from Sunday’srace was reduced confidence in Ferrari’s ability to mount a serious challenge to Mercedes in thetitle fight.
But the Circuit de Catalunya bears no comparison to the twistystreets of the Marina Bay Circuit, which is a far trickier prospect for a driver to master. Insteadof Barcelona’s sweep of fast corners, the close walls and tight bends of Singapore reward acombination of precision and bravery. The Spanish Grand Prix measures a car’s aerodynamicconfiguration, while Singapore’s night race is the measure of a driver’s abilities.
There is little to suggest that either Mercedes driver will fail to perform well at any circuiton the calendar, so strong is the car. But teams like Toro Rosso - who surprised with a third-rowlock-out in qualifying before falling back in the race - will find it hard to repeat the feat whenthe Singapore round takes place in September. Marina Bay is a circuit where torque and driveabilityat low speeds pay dividends, a factor that should play into the hands of the Mercedes-poweredteams.
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season.Currently F1 writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in theFinancial Times, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.Share To
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Posted on 10 May 2015
By Kate Walker
On Sunday afternoon, the Circuit de Catalunya will become the nextbattleground in Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton’s fight for Silver Arrows supremacy in the 2015title fight. It was the German who claimed pole position for the first time this year, withMercedes securing three front row lock-outs in the first five races.
Despite hopes that the ever-improving Ferrari would be in a position to challenge the Mercedespair for pole, in the end Sebastian Vettel was 0.8s down on Rosberg, while teammate Kimi Raikkonenwas nearly two seconds off the pole time of 1m24.681s.
But Saturday’s times do not mean that the Spanish Grand Prix will be a Mercedes-led procession.With both Hamilton and Rosberg aware of the growing red threat behind, neither driver is likely tomake any rash moves at the start. Instead, it will be in the pits that the leading pair will jostlefor position, and it will be up to the Mercedes pit wall to determine whether the first choice ofpit stop strategy goes to the race leader or the championship leader.
Sunday’s warm weather should also set the scene for a tense strategic battle between the fasterMercedes and the light-on-its-tyres Ferrari. Vettel’s Malaysian victory pointed to the starkdifference in rubber use between the red and silver cars, and while Barcelona is cooler than Sepangthe track is expected to reach temperatures just shy of 50℃ during the grand prix. In the closinglaps, Vettel will represent a real threat to the Mercedes pair.
It will be a disappointing afternoon for those Spanish fans hopingto support Fernando Alonso. Neither he nor McLaren teammate Jenson Button were able to qualify inthe top ten, and despite the team’s gradual improvement this season it will take a brave choice ofstrategy to put either man firmly in a points-paying position.
An impressive qualifying performance from Toro Rosso should offer some succour to those lookingfor a local hero - the team’s third row lock-out sees Spanish rookie Carlos Sainz lining up infifth place, and if STR can avoid a repeat of Bahrain’s double retirements the Faenza racers are ina strong position to increase their points haul.
All eyes will be on the Renault-powered cars during the 66 laps of Sunday’s grand prix. Theengine manufacturer has made reliability-based improvements to their power unit since the last racein Bahrain, and while the cars have fared well in practice and qualifying sessions it remains to beseen whether the Red Bulls and Toro Rossos will make the chequered flag.
Another one to watch will be Wiliams’ Valtteri Bottas, who joins Vettel on the second row andshould be a force to be reckoned with on Sunday providing the Finn gets a good start off the line.Working against Bottas, however, is the fact that he is starting on the dirty side of the grid.Saturday’s GP2 race saw those in even-numbered grid slots losing position when the lights went out,and after a series of difficult starts Bottas is vulnerable to falling back into the hands of theToro Rosso pair and Raikkonen.
With slim chance of a Safety Car in Barcelona - only three grands prix have seen them in thepast decade - it will take driver error or mechanical failure to cost Mercedes the win. ButHamilton will be starting on the slower side of the grid, giving Vettel an early chance to getahead of the championship leader and Rosberg the possibility of breathing a little easier.
Podium prediction: (1) Nico Rosberg, (2) Sebastian Vettel, (3) LewisHamilton
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season.Currently F1 writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in theFinancial Times, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 23 April 2015
By Adam Cooper
The first four Grands Prix of the 2015 season have provided plenty of entertainment, and it'sclear that we will enjoy a fantastic battle between Mercedes and Ferrari as the year progresses.However, one thing we have yet to see in action is an interesting addition to this year'sFédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Sporting Regulations – the Virtual Safety Car, orVSC.
The VSC does exactly what it says on the tin. Instead of the familiar Mercedes being dispatchedfrom the pit lane all drivers are obliged to slow and run to a minimum speed mandated by the FIA,using the screens on their steering wheels to make sure that they comply. The general idea is thatthe VSC proves an element of safety while keeping the flow of the race going.
The VSC was introduced as a direct result of Jules Bianchi's crash at last year's Japanese GP.Quite rightly the FIA and the teams took a long look at the accident and as part of thenever-ending quest to improve safety. One of the key issues was the role of the Safety Car, whichwas not deployed when Adrian Sutil's car went off the road and a tractor was dispatched to removehis Sauber.
A thorough investigation, which involved a panel of experts such as Ross Brawn, agreed that racecontrol had followed normal procedures. In other words double waved yellow flags should haveprovided drivers with sufficient warning to slow down.
Meanwhile the VSC emerged from the discussions as an extra toolthat race control can use to slow the field down in certain circumstances. At the same time plansfor standing starts after normal safety car periods, which had been seen as a way to improve theshow for fans, were dropped. Teams had concerns about the practicalities of having all the carsstop on the grid and conduct a fresh start partway through the race. The VSC however receivedunanimous support, and after experiments in practice sessions at the end of last season it wasadded to the 2015 regulations.
Those regulations make it clear when it will be used: “The VSC procedure may be initiated toneutralise a race upon the order of the clerk of the course. It will normally be used when doublewaved yellow flags are needed on any section of track and competitors or officials may be indanger, but the circumstances are not such as to warrant use of the safety car itself.”
The bottom line is that race control has the flexibility to use it as and when circumstancesdemand, and usually it will be when it looks like an incident can be dealt with in a couple oflaps, so there's less reason to introduce a normal safety car.
Race director Charlie Whiting explains: “It will be used when a double waved yellow flag isnecessary, and that's normally when you have a vehicle or marshals on or beside the track. I thinkwe would use a safety car when we would want to control the speed below what the virtual safety carreference lap will be. Or wet conditions would be a classic example of when you would use thesafety car.”
So how does it work? The words of the actual regulations are the best way to summarise theprocedure:
“When the order is given to initiate the VSC procedure a message 'VSC DEPLOYED' will bedisplayed on the official messaging system and all FIA light panels will display 'VSC.'
“No car may be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically or in a manner which could be deemedpotentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person at any time whilst the VSC procedure isin use. This will apply whether any such car is being driven on the track, the pit entry or the pitlane.
“No car may enter the pits whilst the VSC procedure is in use unless it is for the purposeof changing tyres.
“All competing cars must reduce speed and stay above the minimum time set by the FIA ECU atleast once in each marshalling sector (a marshalling sector is defined as the section of trackbetween each of the FIA light panels). All cars must also be above this minimum time when the FIAlight panels change to green.
“When the clerk of the course decides it is safe to end the VSC procedure the message 'VSCENDING' will be displayed on the official messaging system and, at any time between 10 and 15seconds later, 'VSC' on the FIA light panels will change to green and drivers may continue racingimmediately. After 30 seconds the green lights will be extinguished.”
Whiting explains: “The computer will randomly generate a number between 10 and 15 and then itwill decide when to go green. It will be 'VSC ENDING', and then from that point any time between 10seconds and 15 seconds everything will go green. And the drivers have to be positive at thegreen.”
Staying above the minimum time is absolutely essential, and the stewards have a range ofpenalties they can use, namely a five second time penalty, 10 second time penalty, drive throughpenalty, and 10 second stop and go penalty. Meanwhile no overtaking is allowed during the VSC, butthe rules allow for the following exceptions:
“a) When entering the pits a driver may pass another car remaining on the track after he hasreached the first safety car line.
“b) When leaving the pits a driver may overtake, or be overtaken by, another car on thetrack before he reaches the second safety car line.
“c) Whilst in the pit entry, pit lane or pit exit a driver may overtake another car which isalso in one of these three areas.
“d) If any car slows with an obvious problem.”
As noted, the VSC has yet to be deployed, and it will be fascinating to see how things unfoldwhen it is used. Will it be used in Singapore? Quite possibly, given how often we have seen theregular safety car in use over the years...
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including abiography of 60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 20 April 2015
By James Allen
Lewis Hamilton held Ferrari at bay in Bahrain to take his third win of the 2015 season and moveinto a clear points lead, but there were many talking points after the race.
Kimi Raikkonen’s second place, was one; the Finn qualified fourth,passed Nico Rosberg for third at the start then lost the place again.
His strategy team to put him on the medium compound tyre for the middle stint of the race, whichmeant he was on a different plan from Sebastian Vettel and Rosberg ahead of him and it set him upfor the second place finish; his first podium since 2013.
Raikkonen stayed out longer than Rosberg and Vettel before the first pit stop and then, as theyworked on managing the second set of soft tyres through the middle stint, he not only matched theirpace, but was faster at times.
This meant that when we went onto the soft tyre for the final stint, when the car was lighter,having burned off most of the fuel; he had tremendous pace and came through to pass Rosberg forsecond place.
Significantly, after just four races, Hamilton has now opened up a 27 point lead over Rosberg,more than the equivalent of a race victory (25 points) and Vettel lost ground, having made threeunforced errors in this race all of which led to him running off track. The final one also damagedthe front wing and he had to make and unscheduled pit stop, dropping to fifth behind the Williamsof Valtteri Bottas.
This result therefore gives Hamilton a good cushion to defend and means that the others willhave to push harder and take more risks to catch him. It also means that he can afford to have aretirement in an upcoming race without losing the championship lead.
With Raikkonen taking points away from Rosberg today, the signs are that Ferrari drivers willinterfere with the in-house title battle at Mercedes
After a solid start, Hamilton controlled the race effortlessly from the front, the only blip inan otherwise regulation race coming from of a slow first pit stop that briefly saw the championdrop back toward the chasing pack. He soon restored order though and eventually took the chequeredflag 3.3s ahead of Raikkonen after backing off on the final laps with a minor concern on thebrakes.
Rosberg and Raikkonen, meanwhile, tussled mightily in the closing laps, Rosberg pushed hard todefend but more serious brake issues for him led to the German running wide two laps from homeletting Raikkonen through.
Bahrain is one of the hardest circuits of the season on brakes, due to four large stops on everylap from high to low speed. Singapore is also quite difficult on brakes, but more because they areconstantly in use and therefore they never get a chance to cool down.
Engineers say that with these heavier hybrid turbo cars and with the size of brake discspossible with the current 13 inch wheels, we are now close to the limit of what the brakes cantake.
Another talking point was the explosion of the Renault engine inthe back of Daniel Ricciardo’s car as he crossed the finish line, a spectacular curtain of whitesmoke shrouding the pit straight. It adds another misery to a painful opening phase of the seasonfor the French manufacturer which has lost engines with alarming frequency in the opening fourrounds.
Next stop Spain in three weeks time and with Hamilton on this kind of form it will takesomething special to beat him.
Leading Formula One™ commentator and journalist, James Allenis a contributing writer for Singapore GP Pte LtdShare To
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Posted on 19 April 2015
By James Allen
If qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix wassomething of a breakthough for Lewis Hamilton, with his first pole position at the Sakhir circuitand his fourth in a row this season, it was an even bigger breakthrough for Sebastian Vettel andFerrari who split the Mercedes on the grid on a dry track for the first time and who now look amajor threat for the race. Vettel’s front row start in Malaysia was achieved in wet conditions.
This is the same grid line up, with Nico Rosberg in third place, as in Malaysia; a race whichVettel went on to win. Mercedes thought they had a performance margin over the Ferraris and so farthey are learning that this may no longer be the case.
Friday’s free practice session showed that the Ferraris were slightly faster than the Mercedeson the long runs, especially on the soft compound Pirelli tyre, which is likely to be the favouredrace tyre for tomorrow as it is substantially faster than the medium on this track in theseconditions. It is one of the tyres that Pirelli brought to last year’s Singapore Grand Prix andwhich featured prominently in the race. It will do so again tomorrow in Bahrain and most of thecars will spend most of the race on it.
Indeed, saving a new set of these soft tyres for tomorrow’s race was considered so importanthere, both Ferraris and both Mercedes did it. However thinking ahead to the race rather thanfocusing on qualifying cost Rosberg, by his own admission.
“It was poor management, really poor management, especially because Sebastian is in front of me.I’m largely responsible for that,” said Nico Rosberg.
He became so distracted by thinking about the race that he underestimated the speed of Vettel’sFerrari, which managed to do a lap 2/10ths of a second faster than his Mercedes when it came to thedecisive final runs in qualifying.
Rosberg is beginning to look a beaten man after again failing to match team mate Hamilton’s skyhigh standards. Rosberg had twice previously beaten Hamilton here to the pole, but today his pacewas well short; the margin between the two Silver Arrows drivers was 6/10ths of a second, one ofthe largest margins in their three seasons together.
It appears that Hamilton is growing in confidence, but also the fact that this is his fourthpole in the first four races – a feat only managed once before in Formula One, by Vettel in 2011 –shows that he has found true consistency too.
The 57 lap race will be a tense strategic one, with Ferrari and Mercedes closely matched in thefight for the podium positions, the two Williams cars likely to be racing against each other. Thisis the first time this season that Valtteri Bottas has outqualified his team mate Felipe Massa, asign that he is recovered from his back injury sustained in Melbourne at the opening round.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz and Lotus’Romain Grosjean fighting out the other points positions.
Meanwhile Jenson Button can only curse his luck after his McLaren Honda broke down again – hestarts last on the grid. There is some encouragement for the team, however, with Fernando Alonsomanaging to make the cut for the second part of qualifying for the first time this season.
My prediction is for Lewis Hamilton to win a close fight with Vettel.
Leading FormulaOne™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is a contributing writer for Singapore GP Pte LtdShare To
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Posted on 13 April 2015
By Adam Cooper
Lewis Hamilton led home Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg in the Chinese GP, but there was sometension in the camp after the German felt that Lewis had tried to compromise his race.
Rosberg felt that Hamilton had deliberately run slower than he was capable of in order to keephis main title rival under pressure from Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel – to the point where Nico couldhave found himself pushed down to third place at the pit stops. In the end that didn't happen, butRosberg made his frustration clear. After the management and drivers discussed the situation in adebrief team boss Toto Wolff insisted that the air had been cleared.
Nevertheless the day provided an intriguing new chapter in the Hamilton v Rosberg story, and itreflected the fact that Ferrari is keeping Mercedes on its toes.
The Mercedes drivers slotted into first and second at the start, but it soon became apparentthat Vettel had good pace, and could more or less stay in touch with Rosberg.
The Ferraris had been expected to do a longer opening stint, but infact Seb was the first to stop. He was around 4s behind Nico when he came in on lap 12 and put onmore soft tyres in the search for a little more performance. Mercedes reacted by pitting Hamiltonon the next lap, and Rosberg the lap after that. The team had planned to go to the medium primetyre, believing it would last longer, but the plan was changed and both drivers went for anotherset of the options. In effect the team had discovered that the soft tyres lasted better thanexpected.
It was in the middle stint that Rosberg felt that Hamilton should get a move on as he foundVettel looming large in his mirrors – and close enough to be a threat at the next pit stops. Vettelagain came in early, pitting on lap 30 and putting on the primes that he had to use for the thirdand final stint. Again Rosberg came in a lap later, and when he emerged Vettel was almost on histail – having nearly done enough to claim second.
Meanwhile in the final laps before his stop Hamilton lifted his pace considerably, and heemerged with an extended lead. Was he showing what he had in reserve all along – or just using upthe tyres having carefully nursed them having been unsure how they would behave? Rosberg thoughtthe former, but Lewis and the team insisted it was the latter...
“I wasn’t controlling his race, I was controlling my own race,” Hamilton said. “But, great race,I’m really happy. Definitely going into the race we thought it would be a lot closer and we knewthe Ferraris were very, very good with their long run pace and also looking after their tyres. So,today the real goal was to manage the tyres. And, as I said, my goal was to look after my car. Ihad no real threat from Nico through the whole race.”
Lewis stayed comfortably ahead in the final stint, and then thefinish became an anti-climax after Max Verstappen's Toro Rosso broke down and stopped on the pitstraight. The last three laps were run under the safety car, so the field closed up.
Behind the Mercedes duo Vettel earned third place and his third podium of the year, while agreat first lap that saw him pass both Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas allowed Kimi Raikkonen toclaim fourth. Before the safety car the Finn had been just a couple of seconds behind his teammate. Indicating that he is finding his form.
Williams clearly could not match the pace of the Ferraris, and Massa and Bottas were well behindin fifth and sixth before the safety car closed the field up. Romain Grosjean had a straightforwardrace for Lotus and logged his first points since Monaco last year with seventh place.
Sauber again showed good form as both Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson made it into the points ineighth and 10th, split by the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo. The Aussie had startedseventh but he dropped as low as 17th at the start when he bogged down badly off theline.
Sergio Perez finished 11th for Force India, while Fernando Alonso was 12thas McLaren managed to get both cars to the finish line. However it was not a straightforward racefor Jenson Button as the Briton had a collision with Pastor Maldonado. He was lucky to get goingagain, but after finishing 13th he was demoted to 14th by a penalty.Maldonado meanwhile had a wild race that saw him miss the turn at the pit entry and have to beretrieved by marshals. Later he also had a spin, which is why he found himself battling with theMcLarens.
Verstappen was the unluckiest man of the day. The rookie made some great passes in the fraughtmidfield battle and was heading for an excellent eighth when the Renault V6 failed on him. Asimilar problem had earlier stopped RBR's Daniil Kvyat on what was a frustrating day forRenault.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including abiography of 60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 30 March 2015
By Adam Cooper
Lewis Hamilton continued his strong start to the 2015 season bybeating Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg to pole in China, although in the end it was a close runthing, and the Briton had to rely on his first run in Q3 to secure the top spot. It was his thirdconsecutive pole in Shanghai, and it puts him in the perfect position to win the race from thefront on Sunday.
The Mercedes duo had sufficient speed to sail through Q1 without resorting to the option tyres –the only drivers to do so. In Q2 Hamilton was comfortably ahead with a time of 1m36.423s, and heimproved that with a great lap of 1m35.782s at the start of Q3. He was almost 0.3s clear of Rosbergafter the first runs.
The stage was set for a great climax to the session, and things got interesting when Lewisfailed to improve on his earlier time, seemingly opening the door for his team mate to snatch pole.However in the end, Nico just missed out by just 0.042s, much to his frustration.
“The lap was good,” said Nico. “But very annoying, because four hundredths is neverperfect.”
Ferrari was expected to push Mercedes hard, but in the end the margin to third placed SebastianVettel was over 0.9s. Nevertheless Vettel is well placed to take advantage of any problemsahead.
“I would love to be a bit closer,” he said. “But you have to be realistic.”
His team mate Kimi Raikkonen didn't get a good final lap in, and rather than backing up his teammate he slipped to sixth. He was beaten by the Williams pair, with Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottastaking fourth and fifth and showing that they will be mixing it with the Ferrari duo come therace.
Behind the top three teams, Daniel Ricciardo led the chase with seventh for Red Bull, and afterthe session the smile was back on his face. Romain Grosjean starts eighth for Lotus, while Saubergot both cars into Q3, with Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson taking ninth and 10th.
Pastor Maldonado just failed to get into Q3, by just 0.007s, and thus the Venezuelan starts in11th as the first driver with a free choice of tyres for the race. It was a bad sessionfor Daniil Kyvat, and after struggling with brake troubles earlier in the day he could manage only12th . Against expectations neither of the Toro Rossos made it through. Max Verstappenlocked up on his final run but the teenager still starts ahead of team mate Carlos Sainz as thepair line up in 13th and 14th, ahead of the Force India of Sergio Perez.
Those who failed to make it out of Q1 were led by Nico Hulkenberg in 16th. TheMcLaren Hondas had shown signs of progress during the weekend, but when it counted neither JensonButton nor Fernando Alonso made it through, with the Briton beating his team mate by just0.004s.
Despite losing FP3 to problems Alonso remains upbeat, noting on Twitter: “Fantastic work of thewhole team to get the car ready for the Qualy! Again, big progress on the car from Malaysia.” BothMarussias ran a respectable number of laps during the weekend and both also made the 107% cut, withWill Stevens ahead of Roberto Merhi.
So what kind of race can we expect tomorrow? Tyres are not as bigan issue as they usually are here, but nevertheless they will still be the key factor.
It remains to be seen whether Ferrari can use the car's ability to nurse its tyres to goodstrategic effect, but we may well see the Italian team focus on soft tyres while Mercedes runslonger the medium, and that could be an advantage.a
“It should be a bit closer tomorrow,” said Ferrari technical director James Allison.
Williams won't make life easy for Ferrari however, while behind there will no doubt be a lot ofaction down the field at a track that always seems to generate excitement.
Adam Cooper has been a motor racing journalist for 30 years. In his early days, he covered avariety of categories, including the WEC and IndyCars, and he also spent two years in Japan. Hethen focussed on F1, and has been to every Grand Prix since 1994. A regular contributor toAutosport, Autoweek and www.motorsport.com, he has also written several books, including abiography of 60s racer Piers Courage.
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Posted on 30 March 2015
By James Allen
This was a fantastic race withan unexpected outcome, as Sebastian Vettel breathed life into the 2015 Formula One championshipwith a superb victory for Ferrari in Sepang, as Mercedes were outperformed for the first time inover a year.
Lewis Hamilton maintained the lead in the Drivers’ Championship with second place here whileNico Rosberg dropped behind Vettel into third in the championship with a third place finish.
It was his fourth win in Malaysia, his first since 2013 and the first for Ferrari for 35 races.More importantly for him, it put him in the same company as his childhood idol Michael Schumacheras a Ferrari race winner.
This was a victory built on all of Vettel’s guile and as well as tactical brilliance from theFerrari strategy team.
They had done their homework in Friday practice and knew that the Ferrari was better able tolook after its tyres in the intense heat of Sepang – the track temperature hit 62 degrees at onepoint, far hotter than any reading we have seen over the years in the Singapore Grand Prix.
Hamilton, in contrast, paid the price for limited running on Friday due to technical problemswith his car. He did not have the balance he needed, nor the data about the relative merits of thehard and medium cars.
So when a Safety Car was deployed on Lap 4 due to the spin for Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson, theytook the gamble of staying out with Vettel, while most of the field including race leader LewisHamilton, pitted.
The reason why so many cars pitted is that they had a pre-race plan to do three pit stops, whichmeant that the first pit stop would be around lap 10. So, reasoning that the Safety Car was likelyto stay out for three to four laps, that would take them to Lap 8 and it would make no sense to dotwo more laps then pit. So the appearance of the Safety Car meant that they needed to pit there andthen.
However Ferrari felt that the laps under the Safety Car would help them to reach their goal ofstopping only twice. So it proved. After the Safety Car period ended on Lap 7, Vettel pushed hardand opened a gap of almost 10 seconds on Hamilton, who had come out in 6th place afterhis pit stop and who was now on the Hard compound tyres.
This was a crucial phase of the race, as Vettel basically maintained that lead to the finish (hewon by 8 seconds) and Hamilton could not reduce it enough to challenge.
Mercedes had problems with balance and looking after its tyres up to the summer of 2013 andsince it found a solution, has not suffered like this. So it will be disconcerting for them to havebeen beaten like this by Ferrari.
Will it happen again in China? Unlikely. The cooler conditions of Shanghai are likely to meanthat Mercedes regains the advantage. The Silver Arrows car is around 0.8s to 1 second faster thanthe Ferrari, but the advantage was cut here due to the tyre situation and the heat.
What about Singapore later this year? Will Mercedes struggle there too? They have plenty of timeto get on top of their tyre problems, but then again Ferrari is making rapid development progressand Vettel is something of a Singapore specialist, so it should be a similarly engaging battle inSeptember at Marina Bay Circuit.
Other key talking points were the success of Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen, who scored his firstpoints today in 7th place, one position below where he started on the grid. He becomesthe youngest points scorer in the history of Formula 1.
Even sweeter was the fact that he finished ahead of the cars from Red Bull Racing, Toro Rosso’sbetter resourced sister team, which uses the same Renault engine as the Italianoutfit.
Leading Formula One™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is a contributingwriter for Singapore GP Pte LtdShare To
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Posted on 28 March 2015
By James Allen
Lewis Hamilton did not have the cleanest of weekends prior toqualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix, spending more time in the garage with technical problemson Friday than on the race track, but starting from pole position he is likely to control the raceas he did in the opening round in Melbourne two weeks ago.
His Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg is in danger of becoming the bridesmaid again this season ifhe cannot overcome Hamilton in tomorrow’s race. He was downbeat after qualifying, admitting onceagain that Hamilton had driven better.
The two Silver Arrows failed to lock out the front row for the first time in ten races, asSebastian Vettel took advantage of the wet conditions in the final part of qualifying to split theMercedes, with a well-judged lap.
Both Rosberg and Vettel will have a few chances tomorrow to attack Hamilton. The start is alwayscritical here; after the second longest run to the first corner on the calendar (600m), we have thedistinctive first corner which turns right and then pinches back to the left and always results ina big change of field order.
If Hamilton retains the lead there, then Vettel is unlikely to have the race pace in the Ferrarito stay with the pole sitter, but Rosberg does and strategy could offer some possibilities. He cantake a different plan from Hamilton and look to challenge him at the end on fresher tyres. In 2013he was on target to do just that but was ordered to stay behind. This time there will be no teamorders.
Both Mercedes drivers have saved all their hard compound tyres inqualifying, in anticipation of a three stop strategy using three sets of hard tyres after theopening stint on medium compound tyres. Rosberg may try something different to make a late raceattack.
Like the Singapore Grand Prix, the intense heat and humidity of Malaysia pushes the cars anddrivers to the limit. They will lose up to four litres of body fluid during the ninety minuterace.
We have seen high tyre degradation in practice, due to the heat and the high-energy corners.Also the heavy rain that fell during qualifying is likely to have washed all the tyre runner offthe race track.
Ferrari has looked good once again, with Kimi Raikkonen’s lap times in Friday practiceindicating that the scarlet cars are the ‘best of the rest’ after the Mercedes. Williams appearedto struggle in race simulations on Friday, so Felipe Massa starting 7th and ValtteriBottas in 9th may struggle.
Max Verstappen did a fantastic job to qualify behind the two Red Bull cars in sixth place foronly his second Grand Prix start at the age of 17.
Fernando Alonso made his F1 comeback after a concussion in a testing accident last month and thelack of track time hurt him, as he was 18th in the McLaren Honda behind team mate JensonButton.
But both drivers feel that the car and engine package is improving rapidly and it will beinteresting to see where they are by the time we get to the Singapore Grand Prix in September.
My prediction is for Lewis Hamilton to lead a Mercedes 1-2 with Sebastian Vettel in thirdplace.
Leading Formula One™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is acontributing writer for Singapore GP Pte Ltd
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Posted on 16 March 2015
By BobConstanduros
As everin motor sport, there are a lot of dissatisfied teams and drivers leaving Australia after the firstGrand Prix of the season with a feeling of ‘if only.’ That feeling doesn’t extend to the MercedesAMG Petronas team which finished in a resounding one-two, Lewis Hamilton ahead of Nico Rosberg, sothat they already have an extraordinary 28 point lead in the Constructors championship.
But many other teams will have that feeling of a job half done – even if they scored goodpoints. That is typical of this stage of the season, and yet the reliability and operationalproblems that afflicted some teams here in a relatively cool Melbourne belie the thousands ofkilometres, pit stop practice and scrupulous preparation that so many teams tackled pre-season.
Extraordinarily, teams seemed to have more problems than they did a year ago when theregulations were new and extremely stringent. Put basically, Manor failed to get a car on the gridat all following their late commitment to the championship, McLaren and Red Bull Racing both lost acar during the warm-up laps and Williams were unable to run Valtteri Bottas at all after the Finnsuffered a soft tissue back injury during qualifying. It should be pointed out that this wasn’t asa result of an accident.
So 15 cars started the Grand Prix and both Lotuses were out by the end of lap one. KimiRaikkonen and rookie Max Verstappen both retired, leaving just 11 cars to finish. The last timethere were eleven finishers or less was at Melbourne in 2008 – when Lewis Hamilton led home eightat the chequered flag. Only a cloudburst in Singapore is likely to result in fewer finishers!
Mercedes completely lived up to expectations which had been formulated during testing, practiceand qualifying. They had set fastest time in all three with remarkable reliability; there were oneor two minor glitches along the way, but otherwise the cars seemed totally dominant, ready to leadthe way into the season and beyond, which is just what has happened.
On thebasis of qualifying and the opening race of the season, Ferrari and Williams are looking like thenearest challengers. Williams won the opening battle with third fastest time for Felipe Massa inqualifying but he was overtaken by Sebastian Vettel in the first (and only, for many) pit stop, theformer World Champion claiming his first podium for Ferrari.
Neither of their teammates saw the chequered flag. Bottas never started his Williams, while KimiRaikkonen’s two stop strategy was looking good until a problem with the left rear wheel in hissecond pit stop caused the team to tell him to pull off and out of the race. He had been lucky toescape a first corner incident which saw him contact Pastor Maldonado.
Red Bull Racing were never really in the hunt. Daniil Kvyat pulled off during the warm-up lapsand Daniel Ricciardo struggled throughout, finishing behind rookie Felipe Nasr who had a superbstart, made contact with Kimi Raikkonen but survived to finished a fantastic fifth. With MarcusEricsson in eighth place, Sauber’s nightmare weekend turned into a dream one as they left Australiathird in the Constuctors’ championship. Considering they hadn’t even taken part in the first freepractice session on Friday due to court appearances, this was an incredible result.
Of the others, Toro Rosso might have hoped for more but rookie Carlos Sainz suffered a poor pitstop which cost him 30s and relegated him to ninth while teammate Max Verstappen retired having runsixth. There were cheap points this weekend; only McLaren failed to score.
In two weekends, we shall be in the heat of Malaysia, already a dress rehearsal for Singaporebut without the proximity of concrete walls. The reliability problems could reappear in that toughenvironment, but it wasn’t just reliability. There were only 17 pit stops, but five teams lost timeduring those stops, including Ferrari (twice) who, like Toro Rosso, lost a car soon after.
It was an extraordinary start to the season, scarcely one that was expected. The gremlins willbe ironed out, but in two weeks? It looks unlikely but certainly things can only get better - foreveryone else but Mercedes who couldn’t have had a better start. For how long will that continue,one wonders?
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Singapore Grand Prix since the race began. He hasworked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 14 March 2015
By BobConstanduros
Mercedes AMG Petronas driver Lewis Hamilton claimed a stunning pole position in the firstFormula One™ qualifying session of the year in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon. In plummetingtemperatures, the English driver blitzed the opposition - even his own teammate Nico Rosberg - byhalf a second. It was a remarkable performance by Hamilton for his third pole position since 2008when he also won the race.
Rosberg had a couple of small problems on his way to second on the grid – his best position inthe Australian Grand Prix and one place better than last year when he won the race itself. It’shard to see anyone beating the Mercedes pair on performance in the race, although reliability coulddictate otherwise.
Best of the rest was always going to be in contention, and after problems for Valtteri Bottas,it was his Williams-Mercedes teammate Felipe Massa who claimed the eventual third spot ahead of thetwo Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.
The three free practice sessions had seen Mercedes fastest in each, Rosberg in both sessions onFriday and Hamilton on Saturday which reinforced their position as favourites for the season whichthey retain. The question remained: who would be their nearest challenger?
Williams have always been considered to be that challenger but Ferrari have looked very strongboth in testing and at Melbourne. Raikkonen is much happier this year with a car that he finds muchmore comfortable than last year’s, particularly now that James Allison is Ferrari’s technicaldirector – it was Allison who was in charge at Lotus when Raikkonen had such a good 2013 season.Vettel has settled in quickly at Ferrari and the pair make a formidable team.
Williams are in the mix but their old rivals of Ferrari will make things difficult for them.Felipe Massa missed most of Friday afternoon in Melbourne with a water leak but Valtteri Bottaslooked competitive on a day when they are never trying to set times. The two young drivers atScuderia Toro Rosso – Carlos Sainz and 17-year old Max Verstappen – looked very competitive too buta mistake by Verstappen meant that only Sainz made it into the top ten in qualifying.
At the other end of the scale, the two days of practice and qualifying were a nightmare forseveral teams. Red Bull Racing suffered an engine problem with Daniel Ricciardo on Friday and thenboth drivers had a troubled Saturday free practice session. Daniel, however, kept local hopes alivewith seventh on the grid, but new teammate Daniil Kvyat didn’t get into the top ten shoot-out.
McLaren’s race debut was similarly troubled, with Fernando Alonso’ssubstitute Kevin Magnussen crashing out on Friday and neither he nor Jenson Button doing many lapsas the team continued to struggle with the new Honda engine. Neither made it further than Q1, theirworst qualifying for many years. They start at the back of the grid.
There were off-circuit problems for Sauber who had done so much mileage in pre-season testingbut at least they fought back strongly once they did get on track, something which the Manor teamnever managed as they continued to prepare their cars for their season debut.
Massa would say that ‘Mercedes is in a category of its own.’ Rosberg admitted that he didn’t getit together in qualifying, but that he would have a chance of beating his teammate at the start andon tyre performance – he’s more sensitive than his teammate. Best of the rest will also behard-fought but perhaps the battle has come down to Ferrari and Williams, with Daniel Ricciardomore an outsider now for Red Bull Racing. The new Lotus-Mercedes combination could also surprise,Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado starting ninth and tenth. The first Grand Prix of the year isalways fascinating. This one will be no different.
Bob Constanduros is the on-circuit commentator at most Grands Prix worldwide. After a careerin motor sport journalism dating back to the late sixties, he was officially asked to provideEnglish language commentary at Grands Prix in the mid-eighties and hasn’t missed a Grand Prix since1985, totalling over 550 Grands Prix. Despite his Greek name, he was born in England and livesthere, not far from the Goodwood circuit where he saw his first motor sport in the fifties. He hastaken an interest and worked in all forms of motor sport from karting through rallying to sportsand touring cars, and has commentated at every Singapore Grand Prix since the race began. He hasworked in all forms of media, and still works for the FIA and FOM as well as individual racepromoters.
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Posted on 11 March 2015
By Formula One™ photographer, Mark Sutton.
I took my first photo in 1983 while still at college, photographing Ayrton Senna in Formula 3.My brother, Keith Sutton, was Senna’s PR representative and photographer. I then joined Keith in1985 and we set up Sutton Photographic in Towcester, only 5 miles from Silverstone and the heart ofthe motorsport industry, where many F1 teams and engine companies are based.
In my three decades of photographing Formula One, I have covered over 400 Grands Prix and haveseen some impressive designs. Here is a collection of some amazing cars from 1961 to presentday.
1. 1961 Shark Nose Ferrari 156 Phil Hill Champion
1961 World Champion Phil Hill driving the amazing Shark Nose Ferrari 156, which was the start ofnew car designs. Ferrari destroyed all their cars after each year, just in case anyone tried tocopy them if they were sold.
2. 1962 Lotus 25, the first Fully Stressed Monocoque Champion X2
This revolutionary car won 14 races during its amazing career and two World Championships forJim Clark. It was three times more rigid than other cars – its cornering and stability was truly anamazing concept for its time.
3. 1969 Lotus 49 first Aero Wing Spanish GP
The Lotus 49 seen here at the Spanish Grand Prix driven by Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt. Theseaerodynamic wings were to increase downforce, but after both drivers crashed, they were banned andnew rules were introduced which still stand today.
4. 1976 Tea Pot Ligier JS5 car
The 70’s saw the cars becoming more curved and aero dynamic, so the larger air-box design byGerard Ducarouge was copped by all the teams - it gave Jacques Laffite three podiums and a poleposition for the Ligier Team, but was banned after this year and the height reduced.
5. 1977 six-wheel Tyrrell P34
This revolutionary design by Derek Gardner saw twin 10-inch wheels on the front, when launchedto the media it drew a huge gasp, but went on to prove successful and gained a one-two victory atthe Swedish Grand Prix in 1977. The front wheel design gave added grip on corners.
6. 1978 Brabham BT46 Fan Car banded after winning the Swedish GP
The Brabham BT46car designed by Gordon Murray did one race - the Spanish Grand Prix - and wonit, then Bernie Ecclestone withdrew the car after the design was originally said to cool theengine, but it was found to be adding downforce through its fan and then nicknamed by the media asthe ‘fan car’.
7. 1988 McLaren MP4-4 wins 15 out 16 races domination
The most successful car of all time, the McLaren MP4-4 with the Honda V6 engine won 15 of the 16races in 1988, with Ayrton Senna winning the championship and also claiming all but one polepositions. The car was designed by Steve Nichols with assistance from GordonMurray.
8. 1990 Tyrrell 019 Anhedral front wing
This new concept called the Anhedral front wing allowed air to flow under the car, offering moredownforce. The revolutionary design for Tyrrell designer Dr Harvey Postlethwaite set a new trendfor the future with Jean Alesi finishing 2nd in Monaco.
9. 1991 Jordan 191 curved front and rear wings
Jordan’s first car design, the 191, was originally called 911, but was later renamed as this wasPorsche’s famous car number. New designer Gary Anderson used curves for the front and rear wingdesigns, and although it didn’t win a race, a now famous driver made a sensational debut. In thehands of Michael Schumacher, the car qualified a sensational 7th in his first ever race.
10. 1997 X-Wings, Tyrrell 025 Monaco
Tyrrell designer Dr Harvey Postlethwaite, although in a small team, used his skills inaerodynamics to introduce amazing new designs. The X-wings as they were known were added to offeradditional stability at low-down force tracks like Monaco, was copied by all the teams who saw thebenefits, but later banded for safety reasons.
11. 2001 New Aero wings on Arrows A22 & Jordan EJ11 both banded
Street circuits always offer teams the chance to introduce new aero designs and in 2001 it wasboth Arrows and Jordan who shocked the paddock in practice with these two new designs that tookaero downforce to their limit. Both designs were banned after only one session, so a lot of moneywas spent for no gains.
12. 2009 Brawn BGP 001 win at first year competing with evolutionary doublediffuser
The Brawn BGP 001 was the revelation of the season - in testing in Spain it was over 1.5 secondsquicker than another car, and it had the double deck diffuser which only three teams (Brawn, Toyotaand Williams) had at the beginning of the season. This allowed Jenson Button to win the first fiveraces in a row (it clinched fifth place in Singapore) and complete the championship in Brazil. Thedesign work and whole concept was paid for by Honda, but they pulled out of F1, and Ross Brawnbought the team for one pound and added the Mercedes-Benz engine to clinch the amazing design andconcept. After 2009, the design was banned.
13. 2014 Mercedes AMG F1 W05
The best car of last year the Mercedes AMG W05 with the amazing Mercedes V6 Turbo engine whichhad been developed for over two years. The technical and aero department run by Paddy Lowe producedthe double championship winning car, pushing every boundary of design.
Sutton ImagesPostershop has over 4.5 million images in its archive from 1960 to 2015 and One Million Images online tobrowse and find the driver, team, year and circuit you like. Now established as the world’s largestIndependent image agency, we will be covering our 55th year in Formula One and bringing you furtheramazing features in the future.
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Posted on 2 March 2015
By Marc Priestly (@f1elvis)
So pre-season testing comes to an end for 2015. Next time we see the current crop of cars oncircuit will be in Free Practice 1 in Melbourne, Australia.
What have we learnt from the twelve days of testing?
Mercedes appeared to pick up exactly where they left off in 2014 at the first test in Jerez.Their new car, the W06, managed an impressive 157 laps on the very first day in the hands of NicoRosberg, while most others were dealing with early teething troubles. As the days went by, the lapcount continued to rise and only in days 11 and 12 did they fit Pirelli’s yellow marked softtyres for flat out qualifying runs. The result was a lap time by Rosberg that knocked nearly 2.5secs off Hamilton’s 2014 pole position time around the same circuit and one that no one elsegot close to, despite trying on the faster, red striped super-softs. An ominous sign.
In 2014 Mercedes had an enormous advantage and the only kink in the armour was the occasionalreliability issue that allowed Red Bull to snatch their three wins of the campaign. There’snothing to suggest anything different this time around and whilst reliability seemed good, theyshowed they’re not quite perfect with a major failure on the car’s energy recoverysystem on one afternoon.
If we can predict the two top spots to be fought out between Rosberg and Hamilton, the remainingpodium place is looking like being a hard earned reward. Whilst the chasing pack might not looklikely to reign the Silver Arrows in, there are signs that at least Ferrari may have joinedWilliams and Red Bull Racing in that tight group.
The famous Italian team’s undergone something of a makeover during theoff-season, bringing in Sebastian Vettel to replace Fernando Alonso and making a raft of changes inmanagement and the technical team. The new car, the SF15-T, looks to have made some big stepsforward in design and should suit both Raikkonen and Vettel, both of whom like a strong, grippy,front end, something the 2014 car was unable to provide.
Williams again seem to have reliability and good pace and currently look like shading the‘best of the rest’ moniker. Their transformation from struggling midfielders in 2013 toregular podium contenders should be complete after learning from a number of operational mistakeslast year.
Red Bull still have a significant barrier between them and further title success. Renault. TheFrench company’s second generation power unit, although showing clear improvements, is stilllooking like the weaker of the three established manufactures involved and might hold the team backthis year again. The RB11, as with each of its predecessors, is an advanced car with some cleveraerodynamic touches, but if the power deficit’s as big as many in the paddock think,it’ll be difficult at some of the power hungry tracks. Somewhere like the tight and twistyMarina Bay circuit of the Singapore GP could present a rare opportunity for RBR to shine under thelights.
Perhaps the biggest unknown is stillthe new McLaren Honda package. The team had a heavily troubled pre-season, managing only a smallfraction of the laps of most of their competitors. Their plight does however resemble the sameperiod last year for many of the teams, who were all running the new turbo powered hybrid cars forthe very first time. Whilst we haven’t seen much in terms of race preparation and certainlynot pace over the three tests, it does leave the team with perhaps the biggest scope forimprovement as the season unfolds. There’s much hope that the relatively‘radical’ packaging of the brand new Honda power unit into the McLaren chassis couldhold great potential as soon as the team are able to unlock it. It’s worth noting the hugechunks of lap time that leading teams have found in twelve months, largely by learning tounderstand and better utilise the new hybrid technology.
Lotus will hope to take a leap forward after switching from Renault to Mercedes power, but stilllook unlikely to challenge at the front, meaning the second half of the field, buoyed bySauber’s improved Ferrari power unit and a much improved Toro Rosso, could be incrediblytight. An unpredictable race like Singapore’s night race, could give any one of these teams achance for a result much higher than their regular positions, much like Jean-Eric Vergne’sbrilliant 6th place at last year’s event.
Unofficial Sunday testing times (source: Formula1.com)
Marc Priestley spent almost ten years as a race mechanic and member of the pitstop crew atthe McLaren Formula One Team, working with an esteemed list of drivers including Mika Hakkinen,David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. After an instrumental rolehelping the team to World Championship success, Marc’s now switched tothe media side of the sport he loves and shares his insight and expertise through a number ofglobal television networks and other outlets.
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Posted on 26 February 2015
By Kate Walker
Of all the incoming 2015 Formula One regulations, the one that drew the most attention over thewinter was the introduction of a points system through which up and coming young drivers would beable to qualify for a superlicence for 2016 and beyond, formalising the route to Formula One™.
With a sliding scale of points given for winning various junior categories - but excludingother, equally popular, series - much was made of the fact that many of the current crop of driverswould not have qualified for a superlicence had the system been in place when they made theirdebut.
When asked for his take on the newregulations, Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen - the sport’s youngest debutant and a man who has spentmuch of the past six months defending his age - was pragmatic. “We have to see,” he said. “If youlook at [the new regulations], some drivers who are big champions couldn’t have started theircareer if it was implemented back then. So we have to just wait and see if it’s a good thing.”
The new system is a concern to some current test and reserve drivers, who will be getting aFormula One™ seat time this season, but do not qualify for a superlicence next year, such asMercedes’ test driver and DTM racer Pascal Wehrlein, and Williams’ test driver Susie Wolff.
"This side of things Mercedes has discussed with the FIA (Fédération Internationale del’Automobile)," Wehrlein told reporters in Barcelona. "For this season I have the superlicencebecause I achieved it last year, so for this season it wouldn't be a problem [to race]. But for2016 we have a new points system so let's see. I've done already so much testing this year itshouldn't be a problem to race next year in Formula One."
The FIA has acknowledged the need for flexibility as the new system is adjusted to, with RaceDirector Charlie Whiting saying “I would look at each of the driver’s records and assess whetherthey should get a licence based on the ‘exception’ rule - we will have to look at each applicationon a case-by-case basis.”
The exception rule to which Whiting refers allows superlicences to be given to drivers who are“judged by the FIA to have consistently demonstrated outstanding ability in single-seater formulacars, but with no opportunity to qualify under [the conditions]. In this case the Formule One™ teamconcerned must show that the applicant has driven at least 300 km in a current Formula One carconsistently at racing speeds, over a maximum period of two days, completed not more than 90 daysprior to the application and certified by the ASN of the country in which the test took place.”
To ensure that young drivers are prepared for Formula One™ when they secure a race seat, the FIAhas also ruled that teams must give over two days of testing time to a racing driver who hascompeted in two (or fewer!) grands prix.
For teams, this presents a minor risk.In-season testing is limited to two two-day outings, while pre-season test takes place over threefour-day weeks. While there are exceptions for promotional reasons, those sixteen days are the onlytime Formula One™ teams are allowed to run their cars outside of a race weekend, and any damage tothe car represents valuable time lost.
But young driver tests can also represent value. Smaller teams can sell their seats to youngdrivers interested in gaining Formula One™ experience, while bigger outfits interested inevaluating several young talents can pay a smaller team to run someone under consideration.
As the longest and most physical race on the calendar, Singapore is the grand prix forwhich drivers require the most preparation. In addition to the close walls and night-timeconditions, the heat and humidity take their toll.
But Verstappen is eager to get his first taste of the Marina Bay Street Circuit this September.“I’ve watched the Singapore GP a lot on TV. I’m looking forward to it - it looks a very cool track,and I think night races are special anyway. It’s a street circuit, and normally a street circuitsuits me, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 24 February 2015
By Marc Priestly (@f1elvis)
With the 2015 season almost upon us, let’s take a closer look at a couple of the sporting regulation changes and revisions for this season.
ARTICLE 42) SUSPENDING A RACE
Instead of all cars forming back up on the starting grid, as was previously the case, this year the drivers would head straight back to the pitlane, forming a queue, until being led back out behind the safety car when the circuit or conditions are safe to do so.
The change makes the whole process easier for the teams as they don’t need to move large amounts of equipment out onto the circuit like they do at the beginning of each Grand Prix and in theory should reduce the time it would take to get the race back under way, minimising disruption for everyone.Marc Priestley spent almost ten years as a race mechanic and member of the pitstop crew at the McLaren Formula One Team, working with an esteemed list of drivers including Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. After an instrumental role helping the team to World Championship success, Marc’s now switched to the media side of the sport he loves and shares his insight and expertise through a number of global television networks and other outlets.
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Posted on 23 February 2015
By KateWalker
Over the course of four days’ testing in Barcelona - the second of Formula One’s threepre-season outings - a clearer picture of form began to emerge, although all has yet to berevealed.
While Mercedes have yet to set a headline-grabbingtime over the course of eight days of testing, the defending world champions appear to havemaintained - potentially extended - their lead. The W06 has not been without teething problems, butthose have largely been confined to parts fatigue that is only to be expected after the number ofmiles logged in both Barcelona and Jerez.
Not only are Mercedes well advanced in their test programme, thanks to their ability to startconducting long runs and race simulations from the first day of winter testing at the start ofFebruary, but when comparisons are made across tyre compounds and stint length, the Silver Arrowslook to have consistent race pace with little drop-off in speed over extended runs, while NicoRosberg’s best time on the medium compound in Barcelona was little short of ominous.
The other teams who look to have made good strides over the winter are Ferrari, Lotus, and RedBull.
Red Bull’s 2014 season saw a solid car hampered by theRenault power unit, and a problematic Jerez test with little running was followed by four days ofstrong performance in Barcelona, with the team completing long runs, race simulations, and workingon in-race procedures for drivers and crew at the Circuit de Catalunya. Just how much of theirpower deficit Renault have made up over the winter remains to be seen, but the Milton Keynes racerscertainly look competitive.
After a week of setting fastest laps in Jerez, theFerrari power unit didn’t dominate the headlines in Barcelona. But the team showed consistent paceon longer runs, and reliability was strong, with no on-track breakdowns. The team’s only red flagcame about thanks to Sebastian Vettel spinning on cold tyres in the early morning, and both he andKimi Raikkonen praised the SF15-T’s handling in their media briefings.
It was Lotus - newly equipped with the Mercedes powerunit - who claimed most of the top times in Barcelona, an impressive achievement for a team whoelected to miss the first week of testing. While such decisions often prove disadvantageous, bothRomain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado found the E23 to be much improved on its predecessor, withboth men setting the pace on each of their three days in the car. The Enstone racers’ abominable2014 should soon be little more than memory.
Having been best of the rest at the end of last season, Williams are a real dark horse headingto Melbourne. The car is certainly reliable, and both Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa have saidit’s even better than the FW36. Like Mercedes, WIlliams focussed on long runs and reliability overoutright pace, and it is unlikely the team will show their hand until the F1 circus reaches AlbertPark.
Where the rest of the teams might be is much harder todiscern. Force India remain an unknown quantity, as they have yet to run with a 2015 car or powerunit. McLaren are also a matter of mystery, as while the MP4-30 looks to have the potential to be acontender, the team are still getting to grips with the Honda power unit and its effectiveintegration. Rumours abound that the challenge is proving to be rather greater than it appears tothe outside world.
Which leaves Sauber and Toro Rosso. Both teams run the ‘other’ customer engine for Ferrari andRenault respectively, and much of their performance this season will depend on just how muchprogress each engine manufacturer made over the winter.
The STR10 looked to be largely reliable in Barcelona, although the team did lose track time tocomponent failure and driver error, something that is par for the course when running two rookiesin testing. As for Sauber, who need to make up for the worst year in the team’s history, the Swissracers did lose track time to fixing mechanical gremlins as they appeared, but demonstratedreasonable pace and consistency when out on track.
2015 Formula One™ Pre-Season Test 2 (Barcelona) – Fastest times of the week
Kate Walker has been covering Formula One since the start of the 2010 season. Currently F1writer for ESPN, motorsport.com, and GP Week, her articles have also appeared in the FinancialTimes, Grand Prix+, and in the official Formula One™ race programmes.
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Posted on 23 February 2015
By Marc Priestly (@f1elvis)
ARTICLE 34) PRE-RACE PARC FERMÉ
Parc Fermé’s certainly nothing new to Formula One, it describes the area or period of time wherethe cars are secured and available for technical checks by the FIA and stewards. Under parc ferméconditions, teams are only permitted to carry out very limited and restricted tasks specificallylaid out under Article 34 of F1’s Sporting Regulations. By forcing teams to provide a copy of theircar’s set-up sheet to the FIA before qualifying, it gives a blueprint, by which all parts,measurements and settings must concur at any time the car’s checked whilst in parc fermé.
Despite the provisional 2015 regulations extending parc fermé to come into forceat the beginning of FP3 on a Saturday morning, the final, ratified, 2015 rules stipulate that acar’s deemed to be under parc fermé conditions from the moment it leaves pit lane for the firsttime during qualifying, until the start of the race on Sunday.This means that whilst teams can use practice sessions to experiment, learn and fine-tune thecar’s set up, by the time they head into qualifying they need to be clear about the direction theyand their drivers want to take and have any changes completed. It can be a really tough decision,given the need to prepare a car to deliver the ultimate, flat out single lap on Saturday afternoonto get the best grid position, particularly crucial around a circuit like Marina Bay, yet withoutmaking any mechanical changes, also deliver the consistency and tyre preservation required over atough and very long, 61-lap Singapore Grand Prix.
The pre-race parc fermé rules were introduced a fewyears ago, partly to prevent teams from dramatically modifying the cars between qualifying and therace in an attempt to help reduce costs, but also to ensure team personnel are not working allnight long and get at least a minimum amount of rest. To facilitate this, all cars need to befitted with an approved cover and ready to be ‘sealed’ by the FIA no more than three and a halfhours after qualifying’s finished. No work can be carried out on the cars after this point untilthe seals are removed by the FIA the following morning, or in the case of Singapore’s unique nightrace, the afternoon, five hours before the beginning of the formation lap. Even once the seals andcovers are off, the same parc fermé restrictions on what can be done apply.From the point of view of the mechanics and their workload, this is one of the best rules to beintroduced to Formula One…ever.
Marc Priestley spent almost ten years as a race mechanic and member of the pitstop crew atthe McLaren Formula One Team, working with an esteemed list of drivers including Mika Hakkinen,David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. After an instrumental rolehelping the team to World Championship success, Marc’s now switched to the media side of the sporthe loves and shares his insight and expertise through a number of global television networks andother outlets.
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Posted on 16 February 2015
By James Allen
One of the more contentious issues in all sports is the way refereeing decisions are made andthe penalties that are handed out to competitors during, or after, an event.
In football there is still a frustrating refusal to use video evidence to help the referee makethe correct decision (unlike rugby and cricket for example). But this controversy does generate alot of coverage and engagement from fans.
In Formula 1 we have no such problems with videoevidence, as there are multiple camera angles of everything that happens on the race track and inthe pit lane, and these are all available in real time and as replays to the FIA Race Stewards, whoare the referees in F1.
But still there are some contentious moments and decisions, with drivers awarded time penaltiesduring and after the race for a variety of driving infringements. Establishing who is at fault in acollision is not easy, which is why the fourth steward is always an ex-driver, who can input thedrivers’ point of view to the ruling. This has led to a more consistent decision makingprocess.
Last season the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) introduced a points accumulatorsystem, like one the road, where a driver is required to miss a race if he reaches 12 points in aseason. In total 10 drivers accumulated points, with Marcus Ericsson and Pastor Maldonado bothreaching the total of five.
For the 2015 season there are a range of penalties that can be awarded by the stewards, whichcould well come into play at the Singapore GP, as the fast and furious nature of the race oftenleads to drivers overdoing it.
Last year saw the successful introduction of a five second stop and go penalty, which can beserved just before a driver takes a pit stop; the stewards also have a tougher 10-second versionwhich they can impose.
As with last year’s process, if the penalty is awarded late in the race, when the driver has nofurther scheduled pit stop to make, then 30 seconds will be added to his race time (for the 10second stop/go).
This is quite a tough sanction and would, for example, have moved a driver who finished 5th atMarina Bay last season down to 14th place and out of the points.
We are likely to see this new penalty inaction soon, as the FIA and the teams continue to be very vigilant on the dangers of the “unsaferelease” from pit stops, where a car is sent on its way by mechanics after a pit stop, into thepath of another car. This season an “unsafe release” will attract the 10-second stop/go penalty.Also if a driver accumulates three reprimands during a season, this will translate to a 10 secstop/go (as long as two of them were for driving infringements).
This level of sanction is likely to drop all but the front running cars out of the points. AMercedes, with its performance advantage, could suffer a penalty like that and still score points,but it would certainly cost a victory and possibly a podium.
But for most cars challenging outside the podium places it would mean no points. It isparticularly damaging at a race track where overtaking is difficult or where there is littleprospect of a safety car to bunch the field up again.
The stewards can also impose a drive through penalty, where a driver must past through the pitlane without stopping. This typically takes 20 seconds, so drops him down the field and is more ofa penalty than a stop/go, as he may not take a pit stop on the same visit.
They can also impose a grid position penalty at the next race, or a ban from the next race inextreme circumstances.
Leading Formula One™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is a contributing writer forSingapore GP Pte Ltd
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Posted on 12 February 2015
By Marc Priestly (@f1elvis)
Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton on the scales after qualifying at the 2014 FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE AIRLINES SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX. © LAT Photographic
Let’s take a closer look at one section of the latest tech regulations – the minimum weight of a Formula One™ car for the 2015 season.
ARTICLE 4: WEIGHT
4.1 Minimum weight: The weight of the car, without fuel, must not be less than 702kg at all times during the Event.
The 702kg minimum weight has been increased by 10kg over the 2014 limit and applies to any car taking part in an F1 World Championship event. The stewards have the right to randomly check any participant at any point throughout a Grand Prix weekend at their discretion.
F1 teams have to ‘scrutineer’ their cars, or have them inspected, checked and measured by the FIA stewards before they can take part in any event. This generally takes place on a Thursday inside the teams’ garages and once the scrutineers are satisfied that the cars comply with their list of technical and safety requirements, it’s given an FIA sticker to show its compliance. From this point onwards the car must continue to adhere to all regulations during the weekend.
The weight of the car is something the teams will very carefully and accurately calculate to be as light as possible for performance reasons, whilst remaining legal at all times. The regulations stipulate that the 702kg must include the weight of the complete car on dry tyres, including the driver, but not to include the weight of any fuel inside the car’s fuel cell. The FIA stewards can insist that a team completely drains the car of fuel before it is weighed on the FIA’s technical scales.
The fact that the car’s minimum weight has to include the weight of the driver is the key reason for last year’s discussion and resulting regulation change in this area for 2015.
When Formula One introduced the all-new turbo hybrid power units for 2014, with all of their technical sophistication and advanced, pioneering systems, the additional equipment, including turbos, motor-generator units and batteries, added significant weight to the cars.
The minimum weight regulations at the time failed to increase accordingly and this meant that some teams began to struggle to meet the 691kg limit, as it was, and suffered a performance disadvantage as a result. This in turn placed a premium on smaller, or more significantly, lighter drivers.
A number of concerns began being raised when it was discovered that teams and drivers were searching for improved lap time by shaving weight, not from the car itself, but from the man in the driving seat to get as close as they could to the minimum weight requirement of 691kg.
McLaren mechanics push the MP4-25 into the Scrutineering garage (2010). © LAT Photographic
The physical nature of the Marina Bay Street Circuit, combined with Singapore’s tropical climate, can mean that drivers lose up to 3kg in body weight through perspiration alone. If a driver already had to shed weight to become as light as possible, this could potentially cause a dangerous situation.
The other concern was that with the regulations as they were, some highly experienced, or talented drivers, may be overlooked by teams for future drives because they were slightly larger than some others and we might lose them from the sport.
As a result and very sensibly, Formula One’s governing body, with the consent of the teams, has elected to raise the minimum weight limit of the car and driver by 10kg for 2015 to 702kg, leveling the playing field for drivers of all stature.
Marc Priestley spent almost ten years as a race mechanic and member of the pitstop crew at the McLaren Formula One Team, working with an esteemed list of drivers including Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. After an instrumental role helping the team to World Championship success, Marc’s now switched to the media side of the sport he loves and shares his insight and expertise through a number of global television networks and other outlets.
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Posted on 11 February 2015
By James Allen
One of the most complicated aspects of Formula 1 isthe system for regulating the way teams use their engines, or power units as they are called.
They are called that because there is more to it than a simple internal combustion engine (ICE).In fact that ICE is just one of six components of the power unit, along with the motor generatorunit-kinetic (MGU-K), which harvests energy when the car is braking, the motor generator unit-heat(MGU-H), which harvests heat energy from the turbo, the battery or “energy store”, the turbochargerand the control electronics
This is the second year in which teams are using new V6 turbo hybrid power units and for 2015,the sport’s rule-makers have gone for minor tweaks to the regulations, rather than wholesalechanges.
The governing body is keen to pursue efficiency and at the same time to keep costs undercontrol, so each Formula 1 driver will be restricted to just four power units – down from five lastyear – for use during the season that lasts 20 races.
That means reliability will be even more crucial than last year, as each power unit will nowneed to be used for five Grands Prix, rather than four. That means each unit will need to cover anextra 305km this season.
For the 2015 FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE AIRLINES SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX, which is Round 14 of thechampionship, one would imagine that it would come towards the end of the life of the third powerunit. However teams like to have a fresh unit for the high demand Spa and Monza circuits, whichprecede Singapore, so the Singapore unit could be either the third or fourth unit. Planning theschedule is a vital part of the preparation for the season.
Each power unit comprises six separate parts and each driver may only use four of each of thoseparts during a season. They can mix them up, but not use a fifth component.
Should a driver exceed their allocation of four power units or use more than one of the sixparts, a grid or time penalty will be imposed.
The first time a fifth part is used, a ten-place grid penalty will be awarded and a five-placepenalty will be awarded for the first time any of the remaining five parts is used.
The first time a sixth part is used, a ten-place grid penalty is awarded and so on.
Use of additional part | Penalty |
First time a fifth part is used | Ten-place grid penalty |
First time any of the remaining five parts used | Five-place grid penalty |
First time a sixth part is used | Ten-place grid penalty and so on |
Last year, Sebastian Vettel had to start from the pit lane in Austin, Texas, because he wasforced to use a complete new power unit. That heavy penalty has been dropped for 2015; this year,should a team replace the whole unit it will no longer result in a pit-lane start. Instead, theywill be penalised for each part change as above.
Also new for 2015 is the rule that drivers cannot carry over a penalty if their grid position issuch that the full penalty cannot be applied.
Instead, the remainder of the punishment will be applied in the form of a time penalty duringthe race itself.
For one to five grid places untaken will result in the driver entering the pit lane, stopping athis pit for at least five seconds before they have their car serviced. They then re-join therace.
If they do not need to stop again, five seconds will be added to the race time.
For six to ten places untaken, the time penalty will be 10 seconds. For 11-20 a drive-throughpenalty, where a driver must pass through the pits without stopping, will be applied
More than 20 grid places untaken will mean a 10-second time penalty.
Grid places untaken | Penalty |
For 1 to 5 grid places untaken | Driver has to serve a five-second stop-go-penalty. If they do not need to stop again, five seconds will be added to the race time. |
For 6 to 10 grid places untaken | Time penalty of 10 seconds. |
For 11 to 20 grid places untaken | Drive-through penalty. |
More than 20 grid places untaken | Time penalty of 10 seconds. |
It is quite complex for fans to follow, but it is the only fair way to manage the situation,because these issues are sure to arise this season. It’s particularly tough for Honda, which is newto the F1 hybrid turbos this year. Whereas Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault had five power units tolast a 19 race championship last year, Honda has to go straight in on the same terms as the otherswith four units to last 20 races.
Although the engine note may sound the same as last year – perhaps a little louder – themanufacturers have been able to make quite a few changes to the engines and this has resulted insome big power gains. There is talk of up to 50 or 60 more horsepower, which pushes them up around900hp. The FIA have this year allowed manufacturers to upgrade 48% of their power unit using atoken system which allocates a value to power unit components.
The Power units are homologated, which means that an example unit is held by the FIA and themanufacturers are not allowed to make any performance changes to it during the season.
But going into the new season the manufacturers can use 32 tokens – so make 32 changes – withoutpenalty. To put that into context, there are 66 potential components, which make up the powerunit.
Renault have admitted that they have already usedthe bulk of their tokens in a bid to catch Mercedes, with the latter – who are reigning worldchampions and have a power advantage – understood to be saving a few of theirs until later in theseason to maximise development opportunities.
As a new manufacturer, Honda was initially told that it would not be allowed to use “tokens”during the season, but the FIA relented and decided that they will be allowed an average of whatthe others have left as the season starts. So if Mercedes had six, Renault two and Ferrari four,then Honda would be allowed four as an average of the others’ remaining tokens.
Tokens are likely to have all been used up by the Singapore Grand Prix, so the power units willbe at their most potent for the night race!
Leading Formula One ™ commentator and journalist, James Allen is a contributingwriter for Singapore GP Pte Ltd
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Posted on 5 February 2015
By James Allen
Winter Formula One™ testing is a notoriously unreliable barometer of how the Formula One™ teamswill perform during the season, especially the first test with the new cars. This week, the carsran for the first time in Jerez, Spain at a four day test, the first of three such sessions beforethe first Grand Prix on March 15 in Melbourne.
Typically, the teams are bedding in their new technology, hoping first to make the cars reliableand then push to develop their performance in the later tests.
Does the fact that Ferrari set the fastest time on three of the four days in the Jerez test thisweek mean that the Scuderia is about to bounce back into the winners’ circle in Australia and takeits second win in Singapore later this year, to add to its 2010 triumph at Marina Bay?
Unlikely.
Mercedes won 16 of the 19 rounds last season with the most dominant car since the 1980s and thesigns are that it will pick up where it left off last season. On day one in Jerez, Nico Rosbergcovered 157 laps and the team was even able to practice pit stops, which is a task normallyreserved for later in the month when the cars have more proven reliability. They are no doubt stillthe team to beat.
But Ferrari fans take heart; the chassis and engine have definitely improved. Both KimiRaikkonen and three-time Singapore GP winner Sebastian Vettel found it a responsive car to drive.It’s too early to say by how it has closed on Mercedes, because no one has done any flat-outrunning yet. But don’t expect Ferrari to struggle like it did last year.
Some sources in Italy suggest that Ferrari has gained as much as 80horsepower (hp) on itsengine. That’s about 10% of the overall power, an impressive figure. But they were believed to bearound 60-70hp down on the Mercedes last year and Mercedes will have made gains of at least 50hp.So the gap closed would be small, if those figures are broadly accurate.
Williams ended 2014 strongly and are likely to start 2015 in the same way, with Felipe Massareporting that the new car feels really good, based on his running this week. Williams has theMercedes power unit, which has been improved, like the others. They lacked aerodynamic performancein lower speed corners, which is why they weren’t as strong at Marina Bay as they were at Monza orSuzuka, for example.
Red Bull needs to bounce back this year from a disappointing 2014, where their sequence of threeconsecutive Singapore GP wins was broken by Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton winning Marina Bay and goingon to clinch the world title. The main culprit was the Renault engine, which was well down onpower. That has been improved and so has the car, but the Jerez test showed little as they had lotsof niggling reliability issues. They will hope for more meaningful running in the two Barcelonatests later this month.
McLaren has moved away from Mercedes to Honda power for this season in a new partnership, whichbrings back memories of McLaren’s glory years with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. As they have a newengine in its first season, Honda are basically where Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault were this timelast season. They managed only 6 laps each on the first two days, for 2010 Singapore Grand Prixwinner Fernando Alonso as well as Jenson Button reminiscent of Red Bull’s struggles last February.Things can only get better.
Sauber has benefitted from Ferrari’s boost in engine power. The small Swiss outfit failed toscore a single point last season, so regaining respectability is their number one aim for thisseason. The two new drivers, Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson, both set good lap times, high up thetime sheets, but the big teams will still be faster when the stopwatch comes out for real at thefirst race.
Another team looking for respectability after a disaster in 2014 is Lotus. They went from heroesin 2013 to zeroes last season, but they’ve switched from Renault to Mercedes engines and have donea lot of work on the chassis, which Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado found unpredictable in itshandling. They missed the first day’s testing in Jerez, but managed to rack up some miles from Day2 onwards.
Toro Rosso spent the four days in Jerez bedding in its two new rookie drivers; 17-year old MaxVerstappen and 20-year old Carlos Sainz Jr, son of the former rally champion Carlos Sainz.
Since Verstappen was hired, making him the youngest F1 driver in history, the governingfederation has changed the licensing rule, imposing a minimum age of 18 from 2016 onwards. So hewill be the only ever 17-year old Formula One™ driver.
Why no mention of Force India? Because they weren’t in Jerez and haven’t launched the new caryet. They have said that they will test in Barcelona, so we’ll see what comes out there.
2015 Formula One™ Pre-Season Test 1 (Jerez) – Fastest times of the week