Tag Archives: mercedes

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.

Lewis-Hamilton-F1GPMonaco2015

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

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 →

2015 F1 Grand Prix of China — Qualifying results

Mercedes roars back in China: Hamilton seizes Pole, Rosberg 2nd; Vettel strong again for Ferrari to grab 3rd on the grid

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton reasserted their authority in China on Saturday, with the English reigning World Champion and points leader laying down a blistering qualifying lap for Pole for Sunday’s race that no other challenger could match. After Ferrari’s Malaysian upset two weeks ago that saw the Mercedes brain trust ruing tire strategy and questioning their overall performance the Silver Arrows were back to their untouchable ways, with Nico Rosberg a mere four one-hundredths behind Hamilton but nearly .8 ahead of previous Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel’s Prancing Horse. While fans and pundits had hoped Ferrari’s impressively improved form heralded the beginning of a true two-team battle for the Constructors’ Championship it seems more likely now that Malaysia was the exception not the rule.

The two Mercedes-powered Williams of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas struggled with handling at times but not flat out pace and claimed P4 and P5 respectively. That split the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, who also appeared to have a hard time holding on to his car, away from his faster teammate and left the Finn settling for 6th on the grid. Daniel Ricciardo had a good run for troubled Red Bull, taking a strong P7. But as if to reinforce the RB-11’s vulnerabilities, his teammate Daniil Kvyat was plagued by rear brake and ERS issues and was out in Q2. The young Russian will start a lowly P12. Romain Grosjean had a strong performance for Lotus with a P8, again showing that the team has the pace to compete for points if not quite the reliability or consistency from their drivers (Pastor Maldonado was out in Q2 at P11). The two Saubers of Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson continued to show that they had inherited the title of “little team that could” from scuffling Force India and rounded out the Top 10 with P9 and P10 respectively.

Despite showing significant improvement over the each of the first three race weekends, the McLarens of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso still could not make it out of Q1. They will start at the back of the field in P17 and 18 ahead of only the two hapless Manor-Marussia cars.

Top 10 Qualifiers here:

Pos No Name Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Laps
1 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:38.285 1:36.423 1:35.782 12
2 6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:38.496 1:36.747 1:35.824 12
3 5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:37.502 1:36.957 1:36.687 17
4 19 Felipe Massa Williams 1:38.433 1:37.357 1:36.954 15
5 77 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:38.014 1:37.763 1:37.143 15
6 7 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:37.790 1:37.109 1:37.232 17
7 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:38.534 1:37.939 1:37.540 18
8 8 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:38.209 1:38.063 1:37.905 20
9 12 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:38.521 1:38.017 1:38.067 16
10 9 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:38.941 1:38.127 1:38.158 15

 

Complete qualifying results available at Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race is another overnighter here on the East Coast and airs live on NBCSN at 2AM. Let’s see if anyone has anything for Hamilton and Mercedes. I tend to doubt it.

What we’re watching – C’était un Rendezvous

snapshot
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 →