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2016 F1 Grand Prix of Canada — Results & aftermath

Hamilton roars back into contention with win in Canada, Rosberg struggles; Vettel a game P2 for Ferrari; Bottas brilliant for Williams in P3

Lewis Hamilton notched a superb win in the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday and it’s now well and truly game on in the Drivers’ Championship. Despite being jumped at the start by the flashing Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, the Mercedes pole-sitter was able to recover from a scuffle with his teammate Nico Rosberg to methodically hunt down Vettel’s blood-red car. And when the Scuderia made the questionable call to pit under a virtual safety car early in the race on Lap 13 and change to the non-mandatory Super Soft tires, Hamilton stayed out and nursed his Ultra-Softs in the cool conditions at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, just as he had babied his Intermediate wet tires in Monte Carlo until the weather cleared. This enabled Hamilton to make it a 1-stop race when he eventually came in for the mandatory Soft Perreli tires and to gain the critical advantage over Vettel on pit strategy. Hamilton then took the race lead on Lap 37 when Vettel made his second stop for the mandatory Softs. And it was a lead that Hamilton would never relinquish no matter how hard Vettel pushed him and let many wondering whether Ferrari had made the right call in pitting from the lead for a 2-stopper. For Mercedes there was no doubt that they had played it perfectly, resulting in Hamilton’s remarkable fifth career victory in Canada. The win also set the Englishman up for another championship run, as he pulled within 9 points of his Mercedes teammate and current points leader, Nico Rosberg.

Pix couretsy GrandPrix247.com

For Rosberg the race was another challenge to his sometimes fragile confidence. He came off a decided second best when Hamilton bashed him off the track as they both pursued Vettel into turn one on the opening lap. Not only did he lose a passel of positions trying to rejoin the race but Rosberg’s Silver Arrow seemed to be down on pace after that incident. It wasn’t until late in the race when he was relentlessly harassing Red Bull’s precocious Max Verstappen that he seemed to find the fire again. But when he overcooked it on the final lap while attempting to pass on aging tires and spun, Rosberg’s fate was sealed with a P5. After winning the first four races of the year in dominant fashion, Rosberg has now scored a grand total of 16 points in the last three contests while his archival Hamilton has scored 50 with two consecutive wins. Of course, the Mercedes drivers took each other out in Spain and one wonders if Rosberg has been effected by that contretemps when many observers pointed the finger of blame at him for that double DNF. One thing is for certain: if the German contender wants to break through for his first F1 Championship and overcome his Mercedes teammate’s supreme confidence and form he is going to need to be mentally tougher when things go poorly for him. Otherwise it looks a lot like he is a very good driver who is prone to wilting when the pressure really ramps up, the kind of pilot who wins races but is never consistent enough to claim the Drivers’ title.

Williams had its best finish of the year when Valtteri Bottas was able to convert his seventh-place start on the grid into a P3 podium finish, also benefitting from running a 1-stop tire strategy. The fast park circuit on Ile Notre-Dame suited the Mercedes-powered Williams much more than the tight confines of Monaco, as did the cooler temps, and Bottas was able to drive both hard and smartly to take his first podium since Mexico last year. But the news wasn’t all good for Williams, as Felipe Massa was forced to retire on Lap 37, the first time this season the little Brazilian has not scored points. Verstappen was able to hold on to P4 after his titanic tilt with Rosberg, making his Red Bull very wide to keep the Mercedes man behind. But teammate Daniel Ricciardo was once again bedeviled by poor pit work, even if it wan’t quite as egregious as the tire-less stop in Monaco that cost him the race. After a overlong stop on Lap 39, Ricciardo was shuffled back and could only manage a P7. In truth, it seemed like Red Bull had lost a step to Ferrari, which showed greater straight line speed all weekend long, so they will probably have to wait for twistier tracks to take advantage of the superior downforce of their RB12 chassis and compete for podiums again.

Kimi Raikkonen never seemed to find the pace his Ferrari teammate unlocked in the SF16-H and finished a desultory P6, though one wonders if he might have fared better had Ferrari split their tire strategy rather than running duplicate 2-stoppers for both drivers. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg made it two good points finishes in a row with a solid P8, while his teammate Sergio Perez took 10th for the game little team. And Carlos Sainz recovered from a big crash in qualifying to put in a tremendous drive and take P9 in his Toro Rosso after starting from way back in 20th, an impressive effort for the young Spaniard.

Top 10 finishers in Canada:

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	70	1:31:05.296	25
2	5	Sebastian Vettel	FERRARI	70	+5.011s	18
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	70	+46.422s	15
4	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	70	+53.020s	12
5	6	Nico Rosberg	MERCEDES	70	+62.093s	10
6	7	Kimi Räikkönen	FERRARI	70	+63.017s	8
7	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	70	+63.634s	6
8	27	Nico Hulkenberg	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	69	+1 lap	4
9	55	Carlos Sainz	TORO ROSSO FERRARI	69	+1 lap	2
10	11	Sergio Perez	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	69	+1 lap	1

Complete race results available at Formula1.com.

The teams have but one week to prepare for the European Grand Prix from the debutante city Baku, Azerbaijan a mere 8,000 miles away from Montreal. Hope to see you then to find out if Hamilton can keep on surging, Rosberg can stop the bleeding or Ferrari can break through for a victory!

2016 F1 Grand Prix of Canada — Qualifying results

Revived Hamilton grabs blistering Pole in Canada, Mercedes teammate Rosberg a whisker behind for P2; Vettel gives max effort for P3 for Ferrari

When the story of the 2016 Formula 1 season is written it could well be that Monaco is the race we point to as the one that changed the momentum inexorably. Coming off of their double DNF in Spain when Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg took each other out, Hamilton dominated in rainy Monte Carlo two weeks ago to take the victory and plant the first real seeds of doubt in Rosberg’s previously supreme confidence. Hamilton carried that momentum over into Saturday qualifying in Montreal, Canada with a blistering lap to take pole for Sunday’s Grand Prix. With the Mercedes engine really getting a chance to stretch its legs on the long straights of the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Hamilton’s laid down an eye-popping 1:12.812 lap time. Still, it was only faster than Rosberg by a scant .062. With Mercedes back to their front row-lockout ways, it sets up for another potentially contetious start to the race, with Hamilton determined to press his new found advantage over his main competitor and Rosberg just as desperate to regain the momentum that seemed so effortless when he won the first four races to start the season.

Making a valiant attempt to keep up with Silver Arrows, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel also broke into the 1:12’s with a stout effort in Q3. Vettel will start P3 and is therefore in a fine position to capitalize if the two Mercedes cannot control their competitive instincts when the lights go out. Ferrari really needs a good result after a string of mediocre races and one-car finishes lately. And Red Bull is definitely nipping at the Prancing Horse’s heels. They showed excellent pace again in qualifying, with the unlucky Daniel Ricciardo rebounding from his Monaco heartbreak to take P4 and his upstart teammate Max Verstappen, who crashed out in the principality, grabbing P5. The Red Bulls are probably even better in race trim so Vettel had better watch his mirrors.

Vettel’s Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen was P6 and the two Mercedes-powered Williams also looked strong, with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa P7 & P8 respectively. Rounding out the Top 10, Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg had a strong run for P9 on the grid and Fernando Alonso was P10 for improving McLaren.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Canadian Grand Prix:

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	Q1	Q2	Q3	LAPS
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:14.121	1:13.076	1:12.812	21
2	6	Nico Rosberg	MERCEDES	1:13.714	1:13.094	1:12.874	19
3	5	Sebastian Vettel	FERRARI	1:13.925	1:13.857	1:12.990	24
4	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:14.030	1:13.540	1:13.166	20
5	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:14.601	1:13.793	1:13.414	24
6	7	Kimi Räikkönen	FERRARI	1:14.477	1:13.849	1:13.579	23
7	77	Valtteri Bottas	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:14.389	1:13.791	1:13.670	20
8	19	Felipe Massa	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:14.815	1:13.864	1:13.769	21
9	27	Nico Hulkenberg	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	1:14.663	1:14.166	1:13.952	23
10	14	Fernando Alonso	MCLAREN HONDA	1:15.026	1:14.260	1:14.338	24

Complete qualifying results available via Fomrula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race starts at a very civilized 2PM Eastern time and is broadcast live on NBC in the States. Hope to see you then to find out which driver can scrape the Wall of Champions on his way to victory and which may have their races undone by it.

2016 F1 Grand Prix of Monaco — Qualifying results

On the biggest stage in the F1 world and after seeing his precocious new teammate Max Verstappen grab a race win in Spain two weeks ago, Daniel Ricciardo showed that both his and Red Bull’s resurgence were no fluke with a strong run for pole in Monaco. Ricciardo beat out the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg by over a tenth while teammate Lewis Hamilton had to scramble for P3 after engine troubles delayed his quail run in Q3. Proving that success can be fleeting, last race’s hero Verstappen put his Red Bull into the always-encroaching walls on this tight street circuit in Q1 and will start from the back of the pack on Sunday. Rosberg is gunning for his unheard of fourth win in a row on the Principality’s streets but it looks like Ricciardo has everything he needs to put an end to that streak come Sunday and grab the win for himself.

Sebastian Vettel was a displeased P4 for Ferrari while Vettel’s teammate Raikkonen could muster no better than P6. Nico Hulkenberg exceeded expectations for beleaguered Force India with an excellent P5 and his stablemate Sergio Perez was not far behind in P8. The two Toro Rosso’s were also split with Carlos Sainz P7 and Daniil Kvyat P9. And Fernando Alonso was fast enough for tenth on the grid in the improving McLaren.

Top 10 qualifiers for the Monaco Grand Prix:

POS.	NO.	DRIVER	TEAM	Q1	Q2	Q3	LAPS
1	3	DANIEL RICCIARDO	RED BULL RACING	1:14.912	1:14.357	1:13.622	21
2	6	NICO ROSBERG	MERCEDES	1:14.873	1:14.043	1:13.791	24
3	44	LEWIS HAMILTON	MERCEDES	1:14.826	1:14.056	1:13.942	21
4	5	SEBASTIAN VETTEL	FERRARI	1:14.610	1:14.318	1:14.552	23
5	27	NICO HULKENBERG	FORCE INDIA	1:15.333	1:14.989	1:14.726	25
6	7	KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN	FERRARI	1:15.499	1:14.789	1:14.732	25
7	55	CARLOS SAINZ	TORO ROSSO	1:15.467	1:14.805	1:14.749	23
8	11	SERGIO PEREZ	FORCE INDIA	1:15.328	1:14.937	1:14.902	28
9	26	DANIIL KVYAT	TORO ROSSO	1:15.384	1:14.794	1:15.273	23
10	14	FERNANDO ALONSO	MCLAREN	1:15.504	1:15.107	1:15.363	26

Complete qualifying relates available via Formula1.com.

Tomorrow’s race coverage begins live at 8:00 AM Eastern on NBC Sports here in the States. Hope to see you then to start the biggest day of the year in motorsports in inimitable Monte Carlo style!

2016 F1 Grand Prix of Spain — Results & aftermath

Red Bull debutante Verstappen becomes youngest ever F1 Grand Prix victor after Mercedes drivers knock each other out on opening lap; Ferrari unable to stop wunderkind’s win, finish P2 & P3

In a race that unfolded more like a Hollywood script than a Formula 1 contest the inexplicable somehow transformed into the inevitable on Sunday at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. Despite another front row lockout from team Mercedes, their two talented drivers let their fierce competitiveness overcome their good sense, destroying the team’s day in an instant. As pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton saw himself passed at the start by his archival Nico Rosberg he desperately tried to regain the lead exiting Turn 3 by swinging sharply across the track and to Rosberg’s inside. But Rosberg, slowed now by being in an incorrect engine mode, appeared to coldly shut any perceived opening by jinking to the right, forcing Hamilton onto the grass and into a spin. The Englishman’s out of control Silver Arrow then came back onto the track, tagging Rosberg in the rear and sending the German points leader, as well as Hamilton, into the gravel trap at Turn 4. In an instant both Mercedes’ team cars were beached, broken and out of the race. The previously peerless team had lost the opportunity for a potentially perfect season, Rosberg saw his winning streak snapped at seven races and Hamilton failed to gain any ground in the Drivers’ Championship. While officially the team refused to apportion blame to either driver after debriefing Nikki Lauda did finger Hamilton for an overly ambitious move. Regardless, the incident would never have happened with a little more patience by Hamilton and a little more respect by Rosberg. In the end it was 43 valuable Manufacturers’ points down the tubes for Team Mercedes before the end of Lap 1.

Pics courtesy GrandPirx247.com

But Mercedes’ misfortune opened the door to something truly remarkable: Max Verstappen’s first Grand Prix win in his maiden drive for the senior Red Bull team. After replacing Daniil Kvyat during the break between Russia and Spain, all eyes were on the Dutch wunderkind as the race weekend progresssed in Barcelona. And come Sunday he didn’t disappoint. With the dominant Mercedes duo cleared from the field of combat before the end of the first lap that put Verstappen in P2 and saw his veteran teammate Daniel Ricciardo leading the race. Very shortly they would be joined by the Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen and that quartet would dual each other in one configuration or another for the rest of the race. As it happened, Red Bull decided to split their strategy, putting Ricciardo on a 3-stopper while electing to have Verstappen only pit for tires twice. Eventually that enabled Verstappen to come out ahead of both Ferraris with Raikkonen his closest pursuer and shuffled Ricciardo back to 4th behind Vettel after the Aussie’s third stop on Lap 45. That’s how they would remain for the rest of the tense race, with Raikkonen hounding Verstappen for the lead and Ricciardo hounding Vettel for the last spot on the podium.

But Verstappen didn’t wilt under the pressure from Raikkonen’s Prancing Horse and the veteran Finn could never find a way past the youngster despite pulling close a few times with the aid of DRS on the start-finish straight. Continue reading →

2016 F1 Grand Prix of Spain — Qualifying results

Mercedes’ Hamilton rebounds with dominant pole in Barcelona, Rosberg second best in qualifying; Ricciardo grabs P3 for surging Red Bull

After a run of tough luck that saw him playing second fiddle to his streaking Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton regained a measure of momentum with a dominant pole in Saturday qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix. Bedeviled by gremlins in his last two quali efforts, Hamilton’s Silver Arrows had no issues as he dusted off his points-leading rival Nico Rosberg by an impressive quarter of a second. But Hamilton must covert his P1 start into victory to begin to claw back an advantage on Rosberg, who has won all four races so far in 2016 and a stunning seven in a row dating to last season. If the defending champ can have a clean run to victory tomorrow he might be able to get back into Rosberg’s head and begin working on undermining the German’s heretofore unflappable confidence just as he has done in the past.

Team Red Bull not only made the biggest news with a huge personnel shakeup during the fortnight between the last race in Russia but also seemed to confirm that their chassis is improving by leaps and bounds. Red Bull made the dramatic move of promoting teen sensation Max Verstappen from their junior Toro Rosso team and demoting the controversial Daniil Kvyat back down to Toro Rosso, from whence he originally came. Perhaps eyeing a future where other powerhouses like Ferrari might come courting the Dutch wunderkind, Red Bull made sure to lock him up in one of their premier seats for the foreseeable future. But coming as it did after Kvyat had two race-altering incidents with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in the prior two contests the timing did seem a bit like a rebuke to the Russian. Regardless, Red Bull were all smiles after seeing Ricciardo grab P3 on the last lap of Q3 with Verstappen also coming in at a very competitive P4 in his first outing in earnest in his hot new ride.

The improved performance of Red Bull’s RB12 spelled bad news for Ferrari, as Kimi Raikkonen was pushed back to P5 and Sebastian Vettel to P6. Continue reading →

2016 F1 Grand Prix of Russia — Results & aftermath

Rosberg reigns supreme in Russia to continue undefeated 2016 start; Hamilton battles back for 2nd; Raikkonen salvages 3rd for Ferrari after Vettel knocked out in first-lap crash

Nico Rosberg continued a flawless start to his 2016 Formula 1 season with his fourth consecutive victory in four races. The Mercedes driver and championship points leader started from pole in Russia and sped away as the lights went out, never to be touched by the chaos that unfolded behind him. No one could challenge his lead the rest of the race and he solidified his status as this year’s driver to beat. Not coincidental to the supremely confident start to his season, Rosberg’s win in Sochi was his seventh victory overall dating to last season, making him only the fourth driver in F1 history to achieve such a feat. The German contender, who is seeking his first-ever Drivers’ title, now has a daunting 43-point lead over his closest pursuer, teammate and archival Lewis Hamilton.

Pictures via GrandPrix247.com

But Hamilton managed a gritty drive of his own after engine troubles in qualifying relegated him to P10 on the starting grid. The current consecutive World Champ clawed his way through the field, exhibiting just enough patience to leaven his usual aggression and fight toward the front, finishing and impressive P2. Again, however, there were some problems with Hamilton’s engine even amidst his impressive comeback run and he was forced to back off his pursuit of Rosberg with a water pressure issue. If Hamilton can get any luck going his way it’s clear that he is still a match for anyone on track, including his teammate. But with as well as Rosberg is driving and how fortune seems to have turned its favor upon him, Hamilton needs for his team to quickly bulletproof his Silver Arrow if he is to pose any real threat going forward and contend for victories on even footing.

Ferrari had yet another frustrating, topsy-turvy day. Their ace, Sebastian Vettel, who qualified P2, received a 5-spot grid penalty for a gearbox change, meaning he had to start back in P7. And being pushed into the midfield cost Vettel dearly when the Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat punted his Ferrari from behind not once but twice as they made their way through the opening corners. Continue reading →

2016 F1 Grand Prix of China — Results & aftermath

Mercedes’ Rosberg scores hat trick in China; Vettel recovers from first lap collision to take P2 for Ferrari, Kvyat P3 for resurgent Red Bull

When people say Formula 1 is a boring form of motor racing it’s probably best to ask if they’ve seen an F1 race in the last three years. The Chinese Grand Prix’s opening lap once again put the lie to such ignorant bloviating, as collisions amongst several contenders scrambled the running order and made the 56-lap contest a desperate struggle for survival much less points. In the end, pole-sitter Nico Rosberg avoided the melee at the start and ran a flawless race, winning by a whopping 37.7 seconds over the damaged field. It was his third straight victory for Mercedes to open the season and his remarkable sixth straight win dating back to last year. That puts the previously much maligned German in the elite company of Sebastian Vettel, Alberto Ascari & Michael Schumacher as the only F1 drivers to achieve such an impressive win streak. It also continued a perfect points haul for Rosberg in 2016, consolidating his early season lead in the quest for his first ever Drivers’ Championship.

Pictures courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Better yet for Rosberg, his arch nemesis and teammate Lewis Hamilton had a nearly disastrous weekend. The reigning champion was not only relegated to the rear of the field due to mechanical issues in qualifying but also saw the team’s decision to start him from the back of the grid rather than the pit lane backfire spectacularly. Hamilton got caught up with the dreaded backmarker scramble and lost his front wing to a collision with Sauber’s Felipe Nasr down into Turn 1. That required a desperate rethink by Hamilton’s strategists to get him back in the points, which eventually led to a mind numbing five pit stops for tires and repairs. In the end, however, Hamilton pulled off an epic drive in a badly damaged Siver Arrows to come home P7, a valuable points haul a long season when a lesser driver may well have settled for early retirement and nothing at all.

Ferrari’s quixotic 2016 continued with good results that still could have been much better. Teammates Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen collided at the start when Red bull’s Daniil Kvyat tried to make an overtaking move inside of Vettel into Turn 1, forcing the two Prancing Horses into each other. Vettel’s car was damaged less so than Raikonnen’s but both Ferraris required premature pit stops for repairs. With determination and excellent strategy after that unfortunate incident, Vettel was able to will himself to an amazing P2, while Raikkonen drove a gritty race of his own for P5. Vettel was contrite towards Raikkonen for his part in the shunt after the race but spared no words of contempt for Kvayt in the podium green room for the Russian’s perceived recklessness.

Despite Vettel’s harsh condemnation of his aggressive driving at the start, Red Bull’s Kvyat unapologetically claimed his opportunistic P3. His teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, who showed impressive pace all weekend, was hobbled by an early puncture after running over debris which hamstrung the Aussie’s overall ambitions of taking the fight to Ferrari. Ricciardo still managed to finish P4 and the combined results showed that the improved Red Bull chassis has the pace to challenge for the podium once again after an off year in 2015.

Williams had an OK result with Felipe Massa taking P6 and Valtteri Bottas coming home P10. But they have got to be concerned about their rivals’ steady improvement to start the year, which appears to be pushing them backwards in the results. In fact, the ostensibly inferior Toro Rossos of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz split the Williams team with a solid P8 and P9 respectively.

All in all it was crazy contest, with Ferrari showing championship challenging pace and Red Bull making remarkable strides to put themselves back into serious contention. But it looks like once again they’ll all be chasing Mercedes for the Championship. Only this year the racing gods seem to smiling on Rosberg rather than Hamilton.

Top 10 finishers from China:

1	NICO ROSBERG	GER	MERCEDES	1:38:53.891	25
2	SEBASTIAN VETTEL	GER	FERRARI	+37.776s	18
3	DANIIL KVYAT	RUS	RED BULL RACING	+45.936s	15
4	DANIEL RICCIARDO	AUS	RED BULL RACING	+52.688s	12
5	KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN	FIN	FERRARI	+65.872s	10
6	FELIPE MASSA	BRA	WILLIAMS	+75.511s	8
7	LEWIS HAMILTON	GBR	MERCEDES	+78.230s	6
8	MAX VERSTAPPEN	NED	TORO ROSSO	+79.268s	4
9	CARLOS SAINZ	ESP	TORO ROSSO	+84.127s	2
10	VALTTERI BOTTAS	FIN	WILLIAMS	+86.192s	1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race weekend is in two weeks, April 29 – May 1 from Sochi, Russia. Hope to see you then!

2016 F1 Grand Prix of China — Qualifying results

Mercedes’ Rosberg continues hot start with pole in China; Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo sneaks into P2; Ferrari start a disappointing 3-4, while Hamilton relegated to the back

Sanity ws restored on Saturday as Formula 1 undid their gimmicky new 2016 qualifying format and went back to the tried and true down-to-the wire knockout qualifying that has served them in such good stead through the years. As a result, fans were once again rewarded with nail-biting tension as the teams rolled the dice and played strategy games right up until the Q3 checkered flag flew.

Coming out on top of all that late scrambling was Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, whose charmed start to the season continued with his first pole of the year. While it looked for most of the last session that Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen might just grab the top spot, Rosberg was able to put in a corker of a last lap at 1:35.4, advancing his ambition to rack up a hat trick of victories in the first three races. Making things even sweeter for the German points leader his teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was already facing a 5-spot grid penalty for a gearbox change, failed to emerge from Q1 with an ERS problem. The current reigning Drivers’ Champion will start from the back on Sunday and will have to pull of a typically furious Lewis Hamilton sort of drive to secure decent points. As well as the prior two years have gone for the Englishman, 2016 has so far been nothing but star crossed.

Ferrari may be once again rueing strategy calls, as they waited until the dying moments to send out their ace Sebastian Vettel for his one and only Q3 lap. But in the tricky damp and windy conditions at the Shanghai Circuit, the German could manage a time only good enough for P4 against the more practiced drivers ahead of him. They included his teammate Raikonnen, who nonetheless must have been disappointed with his P3 after dominating the leaderboard for so much of the final session. Pipping him was Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo with a very fast P2, a mere .5 behind Rosberg, showing that the Red Bull chassis has improved greatly over last year’s pig and is back in the mix for solid points and perhaps at Ferrari’s expense.

Williams’ Valtteri Bottas laid down a strong final lap good enough for P5, Ricciardo’s teammate Daniil Kvyat was P6 and Force India’s Sergio Perez was a solid P7 after a very bad race for the team in Bahrain. However, Perez’s teammate Nico Hulkenberg was undone by a loose wheel nut that caused his tire to come off early in Q3. While Hulkenberg technically finished P10 he was demoted to 13th on the grid for the unsafe release infraction. (That moved Williams’ Felipe Massa into P10.) Rounding out the Top 10, the dueling Toro Rossos of Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen were P8 & P9 respectively.

Top 10 Qualifiers in China:

POS.	NO.	DRIVER	TEAM	Q1	Q2	Q3	LAPS
1	6	NICO ROSBERG	MERCEDES	1:37.669	1:36.240	1:35.402	16
2	3	DANIEL RICCIARDO	RED BULL RACING	1:37.672	1:36.815	1:35.917	13
3	7	KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN	FERRARI	1:37.347	1:36.118	1:35.972	13
4	5	SEBASTIAN VETTEL	FERRARI	1:37.001	1:36.183	1:36.246	10
5	77	VALTTERI BOTTAS	WILLIAMS	1:37.537	1:36.831	1:36.296	13
6	26	DANIIL KVYAT	RED BULL RACING	1:37.719	1:36.948	1:36.399	14
7	11	SERGIO PEREZ	FORCE INDIA	1:38.096	1:37.149	1:36.865	15
8	55	CARLOS SAINZ	TORO ROSSO	1:37.656	1:37.204	1:36.881	15
9	33	MAX VERSTAPPEN	TORO ROSSO	1:38.181	1:37.265	1:37.194	15
10	27	NICO HULKENBERG*	FORCE INDIA	1:38.165	1:37.333		10

*Hulkenberg penalized 3 grid spots for unsafe release after tire came off on track.

Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com

The broadcast for the Chinese Grand Prix begins at the ungodly hour of 2AM Eastern on NBCSports. Unless you plan to load up on NoDoz I suggest you set your DVR and watch it at your leisure. Hamilton fighting his way from the back of the field should be worth the price of admission alone.

Documentary view — Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans

(This article was co-written with tomvox1, who helped fill in the biographical blanks of McQueen’s Hollywood career)

Legendary screen icon Steve McQueen was not only one of his generation’s most interesting and successful actors but he was also a serious motorsports addict. An accomplished racer on both two wheels and four, McQueen began spending lavishly on racing machines just as soon as he started making money as an actor after his discharge from the Marines, where he had even attempted to soup up his squad’s tank. Tearing around Greenwich Village in a wire-spoked 1950s MG, he graduated to ever more exotic fare upon moving to California and hitting the big time with his starring role on the Western TV series, Wanted: Dead or Alive. As well as means, McQueen had exquisite automotive taste and would come to be identified with some of the most remarkable cars of the second half of the 20th Century: the 1958 Porsche Speedster, the stunning Jaguar XK-SS, the 1963 Ferrari 250 Lusso and, perhaps most famously, his personal gunmetal gray 1969 Porsche 911S and the Highland Green ’68 Mustang GT fastback from Bullitt.

Throughout the 1960s, running parallel to his rise as a Hollywood superstar, McQueen honed his craft as an expert racer. While truly gifted on a dirt bike, the King of Cool worked hard to become one of the top amateur sports car drivers in the US. In fact, despite being hampered by a broken foot in a cast, McQueen and co-driver Peter Revson drove their Porsche 908 Spyder prototype to an impressive second overall at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1970, and first in the P2 class. After a gritty and inspired run, McQueen and Revson only missed out on the overall win when Ferrari drafted the great Mario Andretti into their second car as the laps wound down. It was the pinnacle of McQueen’s racing career but it was almost incidental to the real reason for purchasing the 908 in the first place: he was bound and determined to make the greatest racing movie of all time.

And that’s where the excellent documentary, Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans, picks up the story. In exhaustively researched detail, the film, a 2015 Cannes official selection, delves into how McQueen put the full force of his stardom and clout behind making his racing epic for good and for ill. Grabbing hold of a project originally titled “Day of the Champion” but now renamed simply “Le Mans,” his vision was to capture as realistically as possible the thrills he himself was experiencing in the cockpit of a high performance race car. And as the title now suggested, the indispensable backdrop for all of the action would be the greatest race of them all, the world famous 24 Hours of Le Mans. With a cast full of real-life professional road racers and innovative filming techniques, including converting the Sebring Porsche 908 into a 150 mph camera car, the aim was to mix actual race footage with realistic recreations executed at speed by top pros along with McQueen driving a Gulf-liveried Porsche 917 as the movie’s protagonist, Michael Delaney.

But despite the dedication and advanced technology brought to bear for the driving sequences and McQueen’s personal desire to eclipse John Frakenheimer’s 1966 Formula 1 epic, Grand Prix, as the the greatest racing movie of all time, production of Le Mans was star crossed from the get-go. Continue reading →

2016 F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain — Qualifying results

Like an undead zombie, Formula 1’s bewildering new 2016 Qualifying format shambled on for yet another week this Saturday in the lead up to the second race of the season in Bahrain. But however ill-conceived this revision to the previously superlative F1 qualifying format one still has to give credit to team Mercedes and their remarkable duo of drivers for continuing to come out on top. Lewis Hamilton gave maximum effort in the twilight of the Arabian desert, attempting to claw back his alpha status by grabbing an impressive pole at the Sakhir circuit and setting the all-time fastest F1 lap there in the process. It was the English Triple World Champion’s astounding 51st career pole position.

Hamilton’s Silver Arrows teammate and archival, Nico Rosberg, winner of four consecutive GP including this year’s opener in Australia, came up short by a whisker-thin .077 seconds. So Mercedes locked out the front row yet again. It remains to be seen, however, if this almost bulletproof team can resolve their niggling starting issues under the new “no clutch coaching” rules, which nearly proved their Achilles heel in Melbourne when they were overtaken as the lights went out by the two Ferraris. Ferrari are certainly hoping that history repeats, as their two aces, Sebastian Vettel & Kimi Raikkonen, posted very representative times to claim P3 and P4 respectively. It seems evident, at least in the early going of this new season, that the Prancing Horses have made up ground on the factory Mercedes team in terms of straight-line speed. Given the right circumstances they may well harry the champions for wins and more than a punter’s chance for a serious duel for the Constructors’ Title. But what the Sucderia has sacrificed in terms of reliability vis a vis performance to get on near-level terms with this era’s predominant team could well prove to be their undoing, as evinced by Raikkonen’s DNF in the first race & Vettel’s rear axel issues in Friday practice.

Daniel Ricciardo was a very impressive P5 for the improving team Red Bull-Tag Heuer, while Mercedes-powered Team Williams was solid with Valtteri Bottas in P6 and Felipe Massa in P7. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg had a dubious success with P8, which under the current daffy qualifying rules means that he actually has one less set of tires to work with in the race despite making it through to Q3. That left upstart Hass F1’s Romain Grosjean grinning like a Chesire cat in P9 despite being knocked out in Q2. Rounding out the top 10 qualifiers was fiery teenager Max Verstappen for Toro Rosso.

While it wasn’t as dull as the session in Australia, qualifying in Bahrain still wasn’t up to the old standard of excitement that we F1 fans have come to know & love. Continue reading →

Man's Fine Life

The Return of the Well-Rounded Gentleman