After an eventful 2 week layoff that included the resignation of long time Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali, the boys of F1 qualified today in Shanghai. Would the shake up at Maranello lead to better results by the Prancing Horse? Or would Mercedes continue its early-season dominance?
The new formula gave us the most exciting race of the 2014 season in Bahrain. Come with me blow the fold to find out how it all shook out in the desert night…
Would Mercedes still be the team to beat in Week 3 for the newly designated night race at Sakhir circuit? Find out below the fold…
Would there be rain in Kuala Lampur to shake up the field and what went down at Sepang? Come with me below the fold to find out…
Qualifying for the second Formula 1 race of the season was earlier today so come with me below the fold to see who starts where in tomorrow’s Grand Prix after the drivers had to power through typically torrential conditions in Kuala Lampur…
Above: Massa rammed by Kobayashi in turn 1, lap 1 (Photo from the excellent antfrench F1 blog)
Figuring you’ve all had the chance to properly watch the Oz Grand Prix, results of the exciting and unpredictable 2014 season opener are now below the fold…
Wet & wild Qualifying Down Under for the first race of the 2014 season and the first test in anger for the new equipment. See how the boys did in Melbourne below the fold…
…from the new Red Bull #2 and some guy named Vettel (h/t Michael):
So the cars are heavier but have less fuel and produce more torque with 2 KERS-type devices and also have an 8-speed gearbox. The engines are a throaty V6 Turbo rather than that old familiar high-pitched screech of the normally aspirated V8. Revs are also capped at 15k instead of 18k, the DRS slot is 20mm wider for better overtaking, the front wing is smaller so less downforce and the tire compounds from Pirelli have also been changed (and will hopefully be less prone to catastrophic delamination).
As with any major change in F1 — and these are fairly huge — there is a massive amount of grumbling up and down the paddock and from fans, with special vitriol reserved for the new safety-mandated lower noses (“Ugly!”) and the loss of the screaming engine note we’ve come to know and love (“It doesn’t sound like Formula 1!”). But with everyone starting from a clean sheet of paper it should shake up the field and perhaps limit Red Bull’s easy dominance of the last few years. In fact, it looks as if Mercedes has the jump on its competitors with many more testing hours than anyone else. Reliability will be a major issue, especially as regards overheating, and so will fuel management because there is still no refueling in F1 despite the reduced capacity. Therefore, tactics and excellence in engineering may outshine the individual brilliance of the drivers. But the cars themselves seem at this early stage to need to be “driven” more with throttle application coming off the corners particularly important as they are quite squirmy, so in the end the pilot will probably still have a great percentage of the responsibility for his team’s success.
While Red Bull and especially their fellow Renault-engined team Lotus seem to be particularly behind the 8-ball, it is never a good idea to make judgements this early in the season. If any team has the monetary, technical and driver resources to dramatically improve as the season progresses, it’s Adrian Newey, Sebastian Vettel and their very commited energy drink company. The truth will out after the summer break when the technical improvements really come into play. With these radical new regulations it will be fascinating to see if Red Bull and Vettel can again outpace the field as the season wears on or if it will finally be a different constructor and driver’s time to shine for the first time in 4 years.
Qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix has already happened overnight (more on that later) and the race will air at approximately 2AM EST Sunday on NBCSports here in the States.
…occurred relatively early in last month’s Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, the inaugural race of the new Tudor United Sports Car Championship. And both drivers, Memo Gidley in the Gainsco Corvette Prototype and Matteo Malucelli in the Risi Competizione Ferrari, survived.
Truly, we are living in a golden age of race car safety. Yes, things can always be improved. But just 15 years ago one of these drivers probably would have perished. The fact that neither did is testament to the efforts of motorsports as a whole and to safety pioneers like Sid Watkins and Jackie Stewart. Every driver should say a word of thanks to those persistent crusaders for the ever-improving safety of their road going cars but especially if they are weekend racers, semi-pro or professional.
Tomorrow — Saturday, January the 25th — is the unofficial official start of big time motorsports in the New Year with the 52nd running of the 24-Hours at Daytona. It will also inaugurate the new IMSA Tudor United SportsCar Championship after a merger between the two formerly competing US road racing leagues, the American LeMans Series and Grand-Am. Daytona’s unique hybrid banked oval/infield road course (aka “Roval) will be the first test of professional and gentlemen drivers across the newly reorganized 4 classifications (in descending order of technical and performance level): Prototype (P); Prototype Challenge (PC); GT Le Mans (GTLM); and GT Daytona (GTD). As you can tell by these names if you’re familiar with the class structures of the old series, there seems to be an uneasy merger between the exacting specifications of the French organization which controls Le Mans, the ACO, and the more free wheeling Grand-Am regulations. It should be interesting to see how the tension between these two visions for sports car racing play out as this first United SportsCar Championship season evolves and the different cultures are integrated.
Delta Wing Racing’s New Coupe
Nonetheless, familiar top competitors will still be players in the new league with teams such as Chip Ganassi, Wayne Taylor, Bob Stallings’ Gainsco, Michael Shank, Starworks and Action Express. And world-reknowned sports car pilots will still be driving for them, such as the great Scott Pruett, Alex Gurney, Ollie Gavin, Antonio Garcia and superstar-in-the-making Jordan Taylor to name but a few. And of course many of the world’s high-performance automotive leaders will be competing, like Corvette, Ferrari, BMW, Porsche, Mazda, as well as expanded programs by Astin Martin, Audi and SRT Viper.
But the most important factor to get the new series off to a good start and hopefully capture the interest of an even greater portion of the American public will be the racing down there in Daytona tomorrow afternoon. The grueling 24-hours kicks off at 2pm Eastern and can be viewed pretty much continuously, albeit only across multiple platforms that may or not be available on your cable or satellite provider.
Here is the broadcast and Internet schedule for tomorrow’s 24-Hours at Daytona (via Auto Week)– let’s hope for good weather and an exciting and safe race for all!
Saturday, Jan. 25
2-4 p.m. ET on Fox
4-9 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 2
Overnight (Jan. 25-26)
9 p.m.-7 a.m. ET on IMSA.com (includes live images, in-car cameras and announcers)
Sunday, Jan. 26
7 a.m.-3 p.m. on Fox Sports 1