Tag Archives: Sebastian Vettel

2015 F1 Grand Prix of Spain — Results & aftermath

Rosberg reigns supreme in Spain, Hamilton forced to settle for hard-fought 2nd; Vettel in the mix for Ferrari with another podium

After being thoroughly dominated by his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in the first four “fly away” races of the 2015 F1 season Nico Rosberg desperately needed to reestablish his bona fides as a championship contender. The question on everyone’s mind as the series returned to European soil this past weekend was a simple one: could he muster the will to throw a scare into Hamilton and truly make a fight of the championship? In Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix the world received an answer. Rosberg emerged form the three-week break refreshed and relaxed and proceeded to do some dominating of his own for a change. Starting from the pole, the sensitive German put his self-doubt and the rest of the field in the rearview mirror, checking out on the first corner of the first lap. With an all around impressive race weekend in which he was undoubtedly the fastest man on the track, Rosberg put Hamilton on the defensive for the first time this season and the victory revivified the prospects for an authentic intra-team battle for the championship. With Monaco coming up in two weeks, the jewel in Formula 1’s crown and a race Monte Carlo resident Rosberg has also won the past two years, it would seem to be game on again for the two Mercedes rivals.

Because of his teammate’s untouchability on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Hamilton’s race came down to damage limitation after a poor start saw him immediately overtaken by Sebastian Vettel Ferrari. Continue reading →

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 — Results & aftermath

In desert thriller Hamilton holds off charging Raikkonen for 4th straight win; Rosberg has late off under fire from Kimi, settles for 3rd

Pictures courtesy GrandPrix247.com

In a thrilling battle between Mercedes and hard charging Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton was able to come home for the win in Bahrain even as his breaks began to fail, his fourth straight victory to start the season and an astounding 10th Grand Prix win from the last 11 races. The laps ran out before Kimi Raikkonen’s onrushing Ferrari could catch Hamilton’s Silver Arrow and the Finnish former champ had to settle for 2nd, albeit his first podium since returning to the Scuderia last year. The Iceman had an excellent race and once again it seemed that the strategists on the pit wall for Ferrari somewhat outsmarted Mercedes. Ferrari split their tire strategy between Sebastian Vettel and Raikkonen, and Kimi was able to do a long, very effective middle stint on the harder medium tires. That enabled him to finish on the softer, faster options and take the fight to the two Mercedes in front who were, like Vettel, both on the harder compound. When Rosberg had brake woes of his own while being hounded by the Iceman on the penultimate lap and went skidding off track, Raikkonen was able to pounce. He wrested 2nd place from the German contender and brought joy to the hearts of all of those who love the famed Prancing Horse of Maranello even if he didn’t have the time to really have a go at Hamilton for the win.

Kimi’s teammate Sebastian Vettel had a bit of a ragged race and struggled to keep his SF15-T securely under him throughout. In the end the German former 4-time World Champion was forced to make an extra pit stop for a new front wing after damaging his original by running wide through gravel and the rumble strips while dicing with a fired up Rosberg. That consigned Vettel to battling it out with Williams’ Valtteri Bottas for the rest of his run and he was unable to pass the talented Finnish up-and-comer. Bottas held on for an excellent 4th for his and Williams’ best placing of the year and Vettel had to settle for what must have seemed a disappointing P5 after making the podium in the first three Grand Prix.

Daniel Ricciardo drove a solid race to boost struggling team Red Bull’s morale and grab a solid 6th place. But characteristic of their season, even that strong points run was not without some bad news, as Ricciardo’s engine expired in rather spectacular fashion while taking the checkered flag. 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 China — Results & aftermath

Hamilton dominates for Mercedes in China leaving Rosberg a disgruntled 2nd; Vettel strong again for Ferrari in 3rd

Pics from GrandPrix247.com

Lewis Hamilton sailed to victory on Sunday after a dominating race weekend in China as Mercedes put the sting of their Malaysia defeat at the hands of Ferrari and Seb Vettel in the rearview mirror. Winning at the Shanghai circuit for a record 4th time, the English points leader and defending World Champion looked miles ahead of the rest of the field: he started from Pole, got away to an aggressive start that put teammate and rival Nico Rosberg decisively behind him and then managed the race from the front for a seemingly effortless win. With Rosberg taking 2nd place about the only thing that did not go according to script for Mercedes were their number two driver’s gripes in the post-race news conference that Hamilton had been deliberately slow and so forced him back into dicing with Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari rather than competing for the win. Truth be told Rosberg’s words sounded like a man desperate to regain an edge after being thoroughly dominated by Hamilton at the end of last season and into the first three races of 2015. It simply doesn’t seem that Rosberg has the pace — or the psychological fortitude after watching last year’s title hopes slip away — to threaten his supremely confident teammate anymore.

Vettel was rather fortunate to grab the last place on the podium because, while he drove a typically strong race, his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen was actually catching him up as the laps wound down. But a Safety Car brought out by hard luck Toro Rosso rookie Max Verstappen’s on-track engine failure on Lap 54 insured that the race would finish under yellow and that Vettel & Raikkonen’s positions were fixed. Nonetheless, it was encouraging to see the Finnish former champion, who had started from 6th on the grid, begin to really get to grips with the performance of his SF15-T, blowing by both Williams early in the race and bringing the fight to Vettel at the end. If Ferrari’s win two weeks ago in Malaysia was probably more of a fortunate victory rather than a true challenge to Mercedes dominance there could at least be the spectacle of a good intra-team rivalry brewing at the Scuderia going forward.

Further back in the top 10, Williams provided more evidence that despite their Mercedes power they have not been able to match Ferrari’s improvements so far this season. Continue reading →

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.

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