Tag Archives: ferrari

2015 F1 Grand Prix of Monaco — Results & aftermath

Hamilton sees certain win snatched away by team error, Rosberg seizes opportunity for victory in Monte Carlo; Vettel an opportunistic 2nd

In one of the most bizarre endings to a Grand Prix that you will ever see, Lewis Hamilton was denied certain victory on the streets of Monaco when his Mercedes team inexplicably decided to pit for fresh tires under a Virtual Safety Car late in the race. That was brought about by 17-year-old Toro Rosso rookie Max Verstappen’s rash attempt to pass Romain Grosjean with 15 laps to go and the Dutch teenager’s subsequent spectacular shunt into the safety barrier at Sainte Devote. But the F1 stewards quickly switched to an actual Safety Car due to the extent of the damage and the time needed for repairs. That left Hamilton stuck in the pits as his second place teammate Nico Rosberg steamed around on track to obliterate his once-formidable 21-second lead. By the time Hamilton rejoined the race he was behind not only Rosberg but also the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. Despite his fresh super soft tires, passing in Monaco is about as easy as leaving the Casino with all of your money and Hamilton could never find a way by Vettel much less Rosberg. In one moment of major miscalculation, Hamilton not only saw the opportunity for his first-ever Monaco win vanish but also his Championship lead dwindle to a mere 10 points. After the race the normally volatile Englishman was admirably restrained in his public statements regarding the costly miscue but it was clear from his stunned face that he was gutted.

Rosberg for his part realized he had lucked into the win and while he seemed happy for the victory you could tell by his sheepish demeanor that it was not quite the way he wanted his very impressive third consecutive Monaco GP victory and second race win in a row to go down. Vettel, on the other hand, was overjoyed at his rival team’s blunder and was more than happy for Ferrari’s gift wrapped P2. As down as Hamilton was, Vettel was practically giddy.

Lost in all that chaos was team Red Bull’s best performance of the year. On the legendary street circuit where straight line speed is never the deciding factor, their down-on-power Renault engines wound up being very competitive, with an impressive career-best P4 for young Russian Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo driving a spirited and aggressive race to finish P5. Vettel’s Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonnen complained about slower cars impeding him all race long and had to settle for P6, while Force India’s Sergio Perez was more than happy to take 7th place for his best finish of the 2015 season and much-needed points for the team. Jenson Button scored McLaren’s first points of the year with a savvy veteran drive for P8 after teammate Fernando Alonso was forced to retire on Lap 42 with gearbox troubles. Again, the relatively week Honda engines of McLaren saw their disadvantage neutralized on the slow and twisty Monaco circuit but it was still a big boost for the desperate McLaren team. The final points were taken by a storming drive from Sauber’s rookie Felipe Nasr to come home P9 after starting from 14th on the grid and Toro Rosso’s other rookie Carlos Sainz who grabbed 10th with grit and persistence after starting from the pits due to a Qualifying day weighbridge infraction.

Williams had a disastrous weekend and finished out of the points, with Valtteri Bottas at P14 and Felipe Massa P15. The slow, twisty circuit at Monaco definitively proved that what ails Williams this year is not power, which they have in abundance, but downforce, which they sorely lack in relation to their rivals at Ferrari and Red Bull. If they don’t get that rectified it could be a very long second half of the season for last year’s comeback kids.

Top 10 finishers for the Monaco Grand Prix:

POS.	DRIVER	COUNTRY	TEAM	TIME	POINTS
1	NICO ROSBERG	GER	MERCEDES	1:49:18.420	25
2	SEBASTIAN VETTEL	GER	FERRARI	4.486	18
3	LEWIS HAMILTON	GBR	MERCEDES	6.053	15
4	DANIIL KVYAT	RUS	RED BULL	11.965	12
5	DANIEL RICCIARDO	AUS	RED BULL	13.608	10
6	KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN	FIN	FERRARI	14.345	8
7	SERGIO PEREZ	MEX	FORCE INDIA	15.013	6
8	JENSON BUTTON	GBR	MCLAREN	16.063	4
9	FELIPE NASR	BRA	SAUBER	23.626	2
10	CARLOS SAINZ	ESP	TORO ROSSO	25.056	1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next F1 race is in two weeks at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. We’ll see how Lewis Hamilton rebounds from Sunday’s stunning disappointment in Monte Carlo. My money is on the combative Englishman to come out swinging in Canada in an effort regain his once-unstoppable momentum. Hope to see you then when we find out what dramatic turns the championship saga takes next!

2015 F1 Grand Prix of Spain — Qualifying results

The boys of Formula 1 are back after their 3-week layoff for the Spanish Grand Prix. And if it’s Saturday that means it’s 3 rounds of knockout Qualifying to determine who starts from the Pole on Sunday. Would Nico Rosberg finally get the better of his dominating Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton? Or would Ferrari jump the Silver Arrows with their ever-improving performance?

Rosberg serves notice with dominant Pole for Mercedes, Hamilton 2nd fastest; Vettel snags P3 for Ferrari

Pictures from GrandPrix247.com

Nico Rosberg returned from the three-week break after Bahrain refreshed and up for the fight in Barcelona. The German contender and last year’s championship runner-up served notice to his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton that he was not ready to concede this early in the season. He laid down an untouchable lap midway through Q3 that clocked in at a mega fast 1:24.681. And despite having a chance to overtake Rosberg with his typical last lap heroics, Hamilton could not quite manage it this Saturday. He was a mere .267 behind and will settle for P2 on the grid. It remains to be seen if Rosberg can make it happen in a race and with Hamilton winning 3 of the first 4 Grand Prix another victory for the Englishman would be hard to overcome. Still, Rosberg seems even more comfortable than most at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Formula 1’s default test track, and a win could do wonders for his badly shaken confidence, as well as the Championship battle as a whole.

Ferrari had mixed qualifying results in their return to Europe after showing steady improvement in each of the “fly away” races that start the season. Sebastian Vettel was back on form and was able to grab 3rd position barely half a second behind Hamilton. But Kimi Raikkonen, who placed an impressive 2nd in the last Grand Prix in Bahrain, struggled after one of his fresh sets of tires was bizarrely burnt beyond using by the warming blankets and had to settle for P7. That left Williams’ Valtteri Bottas in prime position to capitalize and the young Finn didn’t disappoint, hooking up a fast lap good enough for 4th on the grid. His teammate Felipe Massa was not nearly as quick and ended up a rather inexplicably poor P9, not what the desperate-to-overtake-Ferrari Williams team was looking for at all.

The youthful Torro Rosso duo of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen, whose combined age is only 37, continued to impress in their rookie seasons. Continue reading →

F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain — Qualifying results

Hamilton’s Mercedes still tops the time sheets but Ferrari for real and gaining as Vettel out-qualifies Rosberg again

For a moment during Q2 in Bahrain on Saturday it appeared that Mercedes was sandbagging the field, holding something back only to blow everyone away and again prove their untouchable dominance. But while Lewis Hamilton ‘s Silver Arrow remained the car and driver to beat, claiming his remarkable 4th straight Pole to start the season, Ferrari proved that they are genuinely up for the fight with Sebastian Vettel outpacing Hamilton’s teammate Nico Rosberg to seize 2nd on the grid for Sunday’s race. After last week’s excuse-making whinging during the post race press conference for his second best performance respective to his dominant teammate and rival, Rosberg must’ve been absolutely muttering to himself after Q3. Because not only will he have to deal with Vettel in front of him but he will likely find himself harassed from behind by the other Prancing Horse of Kimi Raikkonen, who took P4 and seems to have found his good form again in this year’s vastly improved model. One thing’s for certain: the opening lap tomorrow should be very interesting at the least and perhaps even completely fraught and frantic as those four blokes jockey for an edge. But somehow I reckon Hamilton will sail away from the mayhem behind him and the others will be left to pick up the positions from second on down. That is if Vettel doesn’t shove the Englishman straight off the track on the front straight.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Williams again showed decent Qualifying pace but it remains to be seen if they can manage their tires well enough in a Grand Prix to return to the podium after their terrific 2014 season. Valtteri Bottas drove an excellent Q3 fast lap to pip teammate Felipe Massa for P5 by less than half a second. Daniel Ricciardo gave Red Bull some hope after teammate Daniil Kvyat was bounced out of Q1 with power plant gremlins. The Aussie ace was able to grab P7 with a gutsy fast lap that was just an eyelash behind Massa. Likewise, Nico Hulkenberg broke through for troubled Force India for the first Top 10 starting position for the team this year: the excellent German driver will start P8 on Sunday. Rookie Carlos Sainz out-qualified his 17-year-old teammate Max Verstappen in P9 and Romain Grosjean grabbed P10 for up-and-down Lotus.

McLaren had a Jekyll and Hyde weekend with Fernando Alonso’s Honda-powered MP4-30 showing dynamic improvement from the beginning of the season to come home P14. But Jenson Button’s car was plagued by electronic issues throughout Friday practice and they bit him again today when he failed to complete a qualifying lap. The English former champion will start dead last and hope he can fight his way through the field and at least finish the race. Finally, Sauber’s Cinderella start may be about to strike midnight, as Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson could do no better than P12 and P13. But that’s Formula 1 — if you’re not improving race to race you’re going backwards.

Top 10 Qualifiers for the Bahrain Grand Prix:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:33.928	1:32.669	1:32.571	16
2	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:34.919	1:33.623	1:32.982	12
3	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:34.398	1:33.878	1:33.129	16
4	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:34.568	1:33.540	1:33.227	15
5	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:34.161	1:33.897	1:33.381	16
6	19	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:34.488	1:33.551	1:33.744	16
7	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:34.691	1:34.403	1:33.832	15
8	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:35.653	1:34.613	1:34.450	15
9	55	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:35.371	1:34.641	1:34.462	18
10	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:35.007	1:34.123	1:34.484	20

Complete Qualifying results available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s day-into-night race in the desert at Bahrain International Circuit begins at a very civilized 11AM here on the East Coast of the US and can be seen live on NBCSN. Ferrari is getting closer to be sure but do they really have the race pace to grab another win over King Lewis & Mercedes and pull the upset like Vettel did in Malaysia? Well worth finding out tomorrow so I hope to see you then!

2015 F1 Grand Prix of Malaysia — Results & aftermath

Vettel roars back to the top step for Ferrari stunning Mercedes; Hamilton a disgruntled 2nd, Rosberg 3rd

Sebastian Vettel stormed to his maiden win with Ferrari at the sultry Sepang circuit on Sunday, earning the first victory for the fabled Scuderia in well over a year. It was also the 4-time former World Champion’s first win since 2013. Using excellent tire strategy calls and the improved Ferrari powerplant, Vettel stunned the heavily favored Mercedes Silver Arrows. Wisely staying out while the Mercedes duo pitted during an early safety car period, the German ace was able to gain both track position and maximum use out of the fast but fragile softer tires, thus enabling him to execute a 2-stop strategy and run the more durable compound effectively to the end of the race.

Pictures via GrandPrix247.com

Converesely, the Silver Arrows were done no favors by their race engineers with a 3-stop strategy that wound up splitting them. Despite the extra stop, the were unable to match Vettel’s ferocious pace at the end of the race. An audibly peeved Hamilton was overtaken for the lead while in the pits by Vettel’s charging Ferrari and had to settle for 2nd over 8.5 seconds back. Rosberg ended up 12.3 seconds adrift in 3rd after an earlier delay in the pits when he was stuck behind his teammate in the queue for service. Ferrari’s surprising ascendency after a dreadful year last season and Vettel’s seeming ability to get the most out of the new chassis from the get go is just what Formula 1 needed to spice up what was predicted to be another championship processional for Mercedes and Hamilton. Now it’s game on and, as the old saying goes, that’s why you run the races.

Vettel’s teammate Kimi Raikkonen, despite a disappointing Q2 exit in Saturday qulaifying and a first lap puncture in the race, nevertheless picked up valuable points with a gritty 4th place finish. Seeing both Ferraris run so well despite some adversity strongly indicates that this year’s model is a serious challenger and at minimum a major threat to Williams’ and Red Bulls’ hopes for 2nd overall in the Constructors’ Championship. Speaking of Williams, they had a relatively poor weekend with mistakes in strategy and tire selection that could well have cost them a better finish. Valtteri Bottas, returning from injury, was able to make an oustanding and gutsy outside pass on his teammate Felipe Massa late in the race and they finished P5 and 6 respectively. Rookies Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were again impressive for a very competive Torro Rosso, finishing P7 and P8. That was ahead of the senior Red Bulls of Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo, whose Renault-powered chassis were again down on power and also struggled with brake overheating issues on the tropical circuit. No doubt Red Bull team manager Christian Horner’s head is about explode seeing his former championship driver back in winning form with another team and, adding insult to injury, getting outperformed by the kids at Torro Rosso .

Of course, all headaches are relative. McLaren had another migraine type of weekend and were forced to retire both cars before the checkered flag with various engine ailments, spoiling Fernando Alonso’s debut with the team and return from concussion after a testing accident. On the plus side, McLaren did seem genuinely faster than they had been in Australia so perhaps all is not lost for 2015… if they can somehow improve the reliability of the Honda powerplants. Also in the glass half-full category, Manor (formerly Marussia) actually managed to start one of their cars on Sunday, proving once again that in motorsport there are many different kinds of victories, some small and some large. But for Vettel and Ferrari, Sunday’s magnificent win in Malaysia was nothing short of massive.

Top 10 finishers for the Malaysian Grand Prix:

Pos Driver Car Gap
1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1h41m05.793s
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 8.569s
3 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 12.310s
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 53.822s
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams/Mercedes 1m10.409s
6 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1m13.586s
7 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso/Renault 1m37.762s
8 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso/Renault 1 Lap
9 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull/Renault 1 Lap
10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1 Lap

Complete results available at Autosport.com.

The next race weekend is on April 10 – 12 in Shanghai, China — hope to see you then.

Motorsport Books — The Limit: Life and Death in Formula One’s Most Dangerous Era by Michael Cannell

The winter interregnum between the major American and European motorsport seasons is the perfect time to wet one’s whistle for the upcoming action by catching up with the best books on racing. Easily qualifying for any serious fan’s motorsports library is Michael Cannell’s 2011 The Limit: Life and Death in Formula One’s Most Dangerous Era, which chronicles the epic battle between Ferrari teammates Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips for the 1961 F1 World Championship. While it relies heavily on the period reportage and essays of the great Robert Daley and those passages may be familiar to anyone who has read his seminal The Cruel Sport and Cars at Speed, Cannell’s volume still stands on its own merits. By focusing on the divergent personalities and biographies of the two friendly rivals and the common motivation that drove them to compete and succeed at the very highest level of the sport, a finely limned portrait emerges of not just the men but also the highly charged era in which they performed. And of course that charge came from the constant and absolutely genuine threat of crippling or fatal injury at every Grand Prix.

Phil Hill, 1960

Phil Hill grew up a frail and insecure boy in Southern California, one who’s low self esteem was reinforced by a domineering father and an admitted incompetence at team sports. He only found his calling when an aunt gave him a Model T Ford to tinker with. As a teenager Hill quickly evolved into a prototypical hot rodder and he began getting paid to race, winning nearly every open sports car competition in California. Wolfgang von Trips was the heir to a noble German family who nearly lost everything during the cataclysm of World War II. When his family mansion near Cologne was occupied by American soldiers after Germany’s capitulation, von Trips became obsessed with the GI’s Jeeps and trucks. Eventually he would acquire a series of ever more powerful Porsches, which he raced with reckless abandon, earning him the nickname “Count von Crash.” Despite his proclivity to overstep the limit, or perhaps because of it, von Trips still managed to attract the attention of the Machiavellian Enzo Ferrari, founder of the greatest marque in motorsports. Hill, having left the oval racing-obsessed US to try his hand at European road racing, also managed to be pulled into Ferrari’s orbit by his early success with the Jaguar team. By the late 1950s both men were driving sports car races for the Prancing Horse and in line for a top-level factory Ferrari drive in Formula 1.

Wolfgang von Trips, 1961

While graduating into the Ferrari F1 team may sound glamorous today, back in the classic era this was mainly achieved by having the drivers currently occupying those seats dying in action. Continue reading →

What we’re watching – C’était un Rendezvous

I thought today I’d dedicate a few lines to my favourite short film of all-time, Claude Lelouche‘s 1976 high-speed masterpiece, C’était un Rendezvous. The film is only 8 minutes and 38 seconds long, but if you love cars like I love cars, it’s one for the best films out there.

The premise of the film is simple. A camera is mounted to the front of a car and the audience is given a front row, drivers point of view as an unknown man takes to the streets of Paris just before dawn, and drives fast (and I mean really fast), through the city streets just as Paris is beginning to stir, to finally reach a street in Montmartre where we find a lovely blond woman waiting for him. Hence the title, “It was a date.” Of course what makes the film exciting isn’t the plot, it’s watching the streets of Paris whiz by at breakneck speed as the anonymous driver handles the car beautifully through every dangerous curve he encounters. It’s 8 and a half minutes of adrenaline, screaming engine, squealing tires, great driving, and beautiful scenery. Here’s a clip, showing the last 2 minutes of the film…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAg9fg_523k

After seeing this movie for the first time, I had all the questions one would expect. Who was driving that car?! What kind of a car was it? Did they block the streets or did they really just go for it, outlaw style? Now we know all of the answers. Continue reading →

Man's Fine Life

The Return of the Well-Rounded Gentleman