Tag Archives: Racing

2019 F1 Grand Prix of the United States — Results & aftermath

Bottas victorious in Texas but P2 Hamilton claims sixth Formula 1 Title; Verstappen P3 on bad day for Ferrari

Mercedes’ had another landmark day to punctuate another season full of Silver Arrow excellence. The might German team dominated the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas on Sunday and took a one-two finish deep in the heart of Texas. While their number two driver Valtteri Bottas rode his pole position and a superior two-stop tire strategy to a dominant win, his teammate Lewis Hamilton came home P2, easily earning enough points to clinch his remarkable sixth F1 Drivers’ Championship. With Bottas the only man left with a minute mathematical shot at this year’s title entering the race, Hamilton put it all on the line in Austin. He committed to a risky one-stop strategy and battled a bumpy and windy race track while declining playing it safe to just come home with the bare minimum points to clinch.

Pics courtesy GrandPirx247.com

Instead the English bulldog took it to the limit, even dicing with his Finnish wingman and going so far as to push Bottas off the track on lap 51 of this 57-lap contest in a despaired bid to maintain the lead and ring up another championship with a win. In the end, Hamilton could not hold off Bottas’ fresher Medium tires on the same superlative equipment and the Finn was able to get by on Lap 52 and cruise home to victory. But Hamilton did fend off the best attempts of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull to take P2 at the checkers and ring up a remarkable sixth championship, surpassing the great Juan Manual Fangio of Argentina for second all-time. Hamilton trails only Michael Schumacher’s record seven F1 crowns and knowing his personality and relentless pursuit of excellence it will be uppermost in his mind this offseason to match that seventh title next season, especially with major new rules changes looming in 2021. But for now Lewis Hamilton can bask in the glory of achieving what only one other driver in Formula 1 history has ever done before. And team Mercedes should be well satisfied with both their driver lineup and the continued performance of their engine and chassis that has already secured them their own sixth Constructors’ Championship and their sixth in a row to boot. Continue reading →

2019 F1 Grand Prix of France — Results & aftermath

Hamilton romps to dominant victory in France, Bottas a distant P2; Leclerc P3, Vettel P5 as Ferrari’s hopes dim

Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton was untouchable at Circuit Paul Riccard as he went on to dominate the French Grand Prix from pole and blow away the field for a dominant win on Sunday. On the hunt for his remarkable sixth F1 title the Englishman scored the Grand Slam in this eighth round of the World Championship — pole position, fastest lap, leading all race laps and the win — and aced his nearest competitor, teammate Valtteri Bottas in ostensibly the same equipment, by a whopping 18 seconds to the checkered flag. It was Hamilton’s fourth win on the trot and he has now won six out of the eight contests so far in 2019 and already leads Bottas by 36 Drivers’ points. That’s bad news for anyone hoping that either Bottas or Ferrari would take down the most dominant driver of this new turbo hybrid era, as man and machine once again look to be in perfect harmony and Hamilton is beginning to demoralize his closest rivals.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

With Bottas’s performance fading after a splitting the first four races with his peerless Silver Arrows rival, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel is also showing signs of losing the metal war to Lewis. After a controversial penalty at the Canadian GP stripped him of victory two weeks ago the German four-time champ seemed to be suffering the psychological hangover during a very poor qualifying run on Saturday that saw Vettel related to a P7 start from the grid. While Vettel raced hard and kept it clean he was only able to claw back two positions to come home a rather tepid P5. His younger teammate Charles Leclerc finished where he qualified, P3, an encouraging sign for the Monegasque after some inconsistent quali runs lately. But it was all a bit of cold comfort for the legendary Scuderia from Maranello, who have been outclassed for the most part by mighty Mercedes and have seen potential victories in Bahrain and Canada undone by mechanical reliability and driver error respectively. While the Ferrari camp were still keeping their heads high and talking up their chances for major improvements going forward it’s becoming harder to see that happening because Mercedes, already the dominant car, will hardly be resting on their laurels as the summer moves along.

Further back in the pack, Max Verstappen did his usual fine work to finish ahead of Vettel in P4 but the Red Bull simply doesn’t have the pace to compete for victory unless one of the front running teams has a major mishap. Continue reading →

Horological Mythology: The Osmosis of Cool

In the world of watch collecting, one gets used to heady price tags and watching the those prices rise over the years. It’s logical, despite occasional anomalies like market corrections and bubbles, that desirable things go up in value over time. It equally adds up that in a time when wealth is more concentrated than it has been in decades, those who can afford to pay a lot for something can usually afford to pay a WHOLE LOT for something, and so dealers adjust their prices accordingly, and the rest of us have to pay up to keep up. C’est la vie.

But what in the world accounts for something like the $17.75 million we saw shelled out for Paul Newman’s own Rolex “Paul Newman” ref. 6239 Daytona at auction last week? The most paid for any watch ever. Theories abound, of course. The fact that a normal Rolex “Paul Newman” ref. 6239 Daytona is a somewhat rare and desirable watch in it’s own right is a good starting point. Add to that the sweet story about his wife gifting it to him, and Mr. Newman’s owning and wearing this particular watch throughout an exciting portion of his life (regularly racing cars and frequently seen in public generally being cooler and better looking than the rest of us), thus leading collectors in the 80’s to name the reference the “Paul Newman” in his honour, and we have a pretty solid explanation as to why this watch would be worth more than the “normal” Paul Newman. But a normal “Paul Newman” Daytona goes for about $200,000, so is the one that started it all really worth that much more, solely as an originator of a sect of the watch collecting world? I say no.

Continue reading →

Getting ready for the 2014 Rolex 24-Hours at Daytona

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

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