nick01

ugh go back to the v8 please!

Edit: I am excited about the rest of the changes however.

Hoovey689

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Hoovey689

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Lewis Hamilton came to Monaco with a new three-year deal with Mercedes-AMG Petronas and a vow to not let anything, including any "mistakes" by teammate Nico Rosberg, stand in the way of his best qualifying effort. Mercedes reportedly made it rain with a 100-million-pound deal, and Hamilton made it rain right back with his first pole position at Monaco.

Rosberg did make a mistake but this time it was behind Hamilton, which meant he stuffed-up the qualifying attempts of rival drivers like Sebastian Vettel. So Rosberg starts second, 0.342 behind Hamilton but 0.449 ahead of Vettel in the Ferrari. Daniel Ricciardo thinks he should have been third, but a communication error with his engineers left him in the wrong engine setting for his final hot lap, so by the very first corner he'd lost the time he would have needed to get higher than fourth on the grid. The second Infiniti Red Bull Racing of Daniil Kvyat slots in behind him, ahead of the second Ferrari of Kimi "Not A Very Happy Day" Räikkönen, who just can't get it going lately.

Sergio Perez did for the Sahara Force India what the car can't do on its own, which is grab a top-ten qualifying spot. Toro Rosso rookie Carlos Sainz had qualified eighth but missed a call to the weigh bridge, so he's been slapped into the pit lane. Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus inherits his eighth place, ahead of rookie Max Verstappen in the second Toro Rosso, and Jenson Button in the McLaren. Button only got up there because of two penalties: for Sainz, and Romain Grosjean who had qualified 11th but took a penalty for a gearbox change.

Want to know how hard it is to do better on race day than in qualifying at Monaco? Even the never-say-die Fernando Alonso said, "Monte Carlo is a train of cars on Sunday, the race finishes on Saturday afternoon." Well obviously, he didn't take Max Verstappen's seek-and-destroy tactics into account.


The young Dutchman had made passing look like a real option in Monaco, getting past Maldonado at St. Devote on Lap 7 after a bit of argy-bargy on Lap 6, then taking advantage of blue flags to slink past teammate Carlos Sainz and Williams driver Valtteri Bottas while hiding in Sebastian Vettel's slipstream. He tried the same move on Romain Grosjean on Lap 65, but Grosjean locked him out. Verstappen lined up the Lotus driver over the following laps, then looked like he slipped to the inside at St. Devote in attempt to make a pass, but Grosjean braked earlier than usual and Verstappen's left front hit Grosjean's right rear. Verstappen lost his left front wheel and went straight into the barriers at high speed, but was all right.

The barrier and the car, however, weren't. That brought out the safety car on Lap 68, and that changed the entire race.

Lewis Hamilton had been leading the race comfortably until then, enjoying a 21-second lead on teammate Rosberg in second and rival Vettel in third. A bunch of team miscommunication and overthinking led to Mercedes believing Vettel might come in and pit for super soft tires, so Mercedes brought Hamilton in for a new set, thinking he had time for the stop... until he came out of the pits behind Rosberg and Vettel, neither of whom pitted.

When racing resumed on Lap 71 of 78, there was no way Hamilton was going to get around Vettel and Rosberg, even with fresh tires. He radioed his team to say, "I've lost this race, haven't I?" No one wanted to admit it, but the answer was yes. After owning the day and managing brake overheating issues early in the race, the same kind of strategy mistake that Mercedes made with Rosberg in Malaysia this time bit Hamilton, and the Brit had to settle for third. It's a terrible way to lose a race, and Hamilton was expectedly downbeat on the podium, but unexpectedly gracious in defeat, congratulating Rosberg and Vettel and refusing to blame the team, saying, "We win and lose together."


It was Rosberg's third win in a row in Monaco, a feat not achieved since Ayrton Senna did it more than 20 years ago. For Vettel, it was the third time that he has started third on the grid in the principality and finished second on the podium.

Fourth, fifth, and sixth places also got switched up after the Safety Car left the track. Kvyat, Räikkönen, and Ricciardo were in those spots, but Ricciardo had pitted for new tires during the slow-down. Attacking Räikkönen as soon as racing resumed, the Aussie slipped his left front wheel under Räikkönen's rear right at Mirabeau, and when Räikkönen turned in he got punted off the racing line and then passed. He complained to his team, but the stewards decided to take no action. The team ordered Kvyat to let Ricciardo through to attack the front three, but when they realized that wasn't possible Ricciardo gave the position back. The order of those three spots at the flag was Kyvat, Ricciardo, and Räikkönen.

Perez and Button finished seventh and eighth, the two of them together in that order since at least Lap 31. Force India will be happy for the result, and Monaco gave McLaren its first points for the season, ending a drought that has already made 2015 the worst opening to a campaign since the original McLaren outfit was formed in 1966. Sauber driver Felipe Nasr and Toro Rosso driver Sainz took the last two points-paying positions, after a race where they were either trying to defend or heed blue flags.


Rosberg's win cuts Hamilton's lead at the head of the Driver's Championship standings to ten points, 126 to 116. Vettel isn't far away with 98 points. Mercedes isn't hurt by throwing away three points, with 242 points at the lead of the Constructor's Championship, ahead of Ferrari with 158 points and Williams with 81 points.

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Hoovey689

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As of Saturday afternoon in Montreal, Canada, it was all about the number four. Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes-AMG Petronas on pole position for the fourth time at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, and now his tally of pole positions matches his race number: 44.

Nico Rosberg lines up beside him, which is the fourth time that particular one-two combo has occurred this season. Ferrari spent three engine development tokens to try and close the gap to Mercedes, Kimi Raikkonen making the most of it with third position on the gird. His teammate Sebastian Vettel got the worst of it, however, when the MGU-K unit failed during Q1, leaving him 160 horsepower down and out at the first hurdle.

Valtteri Bottas put a revitalized Williams on the grid at fourth, ahead of a Lotus lockout of the third row with Romain Grosjean leading the way in fifth, Pastor Maldonado just beside. Nico Hulkenberg got the first Sahara Force India into seventh – the team is still waiting on the upgraded B car that should be available for Austria – ahead of Daniil Kvyat in the first Infiniti Red Bull Racing and a "pissed off" Daniel Ricciardo in the second Red Bull. Sergio Perez made it two Force Indias in the top ten, a welcome result from a team performing below expectations of late.

When the lights went out, at the very front it was much ado about not that much at all. Hamilton got away clean and stabbed across the track to close the door for Rosberg, giving Raikkonen a chance to take the inside line into Turn 1 in an attempt to clear Rosberg for second place. That didn't happen, leaving the two Mercedes' to run in grid position for the entire race. It wasn't boring – Rosberg stayed close, rubber-banding the time gap to the leader from a little more than one second to just under four seconds, and Montreal is famous for race-rearranging safety cars and on-track incidents.

But none of those occurred, so Hamilton crossed the line 2.285 seconds ahead of Rosberg after 70 laps to earn his fourth victory in Canada and the first-ever victory for the Brackley, UK-based Mercedes team.


Valtteri Bottas drove his Williams to third position, the first podium place for the team this year and a welcome salve to heal the team's wounds from a poor showing in Monaco. That placing came courtesy of being in the right place at the right time, which was not far behind Raikkonen when the Ferrari driver spun at the hairpin on Lap 28 after his first pit stop. It looked like a repeat of last year, and Kimi again put the issue down to an engine setting that affects throttle mapping. We're not sure who did what or who should have done what, but the result of that move moved Raikkonen into fourth at the finish when he couldn't catch the Williams ahead, even after pitting for a new set of super-softs to help the chase.

Behind him came Sebastian Vettel, cursed throughout the weekend but touched by luck and a few cars on the way to a fifth-place finish. The German lined up on the grid in 18th after taking a few penalties, then coursed through the field in a Ferrari that is clearly faster than it was a couple of weeks ago. He did have his moments, like when he tried to make a hasty pass on Fernando Alonso in a clearly inferior McLaren at the final chicane and had to use the runoff, and another wacky chicane moment with Nico Hulkenberg that saw both cars diverging to the runoffs on either side of the track, but he showed what the new Ferrari engine can do with the drive of the day.

Felipe Massa crossed the line in sixth after his own drive through the ranks, the Brazilian having started in 17th, just ahead of Vettel, due to engine turbo woes in qualifying. He drove a clean race, had a brilliant bit of side-by-side cornering with Sauber's Marcus Ericsson in the opening stint, and did his part to show that Williams can still make some noise in the Constructor's Championship fight.

Pastor Maldonado, who we don't normally get to talk about at this end of the race, finished in seventh and delivered some much-needed and much-deserved points to Lotus. In spite of all the cars swapping places in the thick part of the top ten, the Venezuelan kept it fast and fair, his biggest incident coming when Vettel passed him at the chicane and he took the escape road. We'd like to see more of this guy.


Hulkenberg flattered his Force India with an eighth-place finish, ahead of Daniil Kvyat in the Red Bull in ninth. Romain Grosjean brought the second Lotus home in tenth, a lucky result considering he had a moment that reminded us of 2012 Grosjean: he misjudged his pass on a Manor just before the final chicane and pulled over – into the slowest car in the race – earning an immediate puncture as he shredded the Manor's front wing. Then he made it worse by protesting that Manor driver Roberto Mehri "hit me!" The stewards saw it differently, giving him a five-second time penalty at the end of the race and two points on his superlicense.

Hamilton's win puts him 17 points clear of his teammate, with 151 points compared to Rosberg's 134. Vettel is the only other driver in triple digits with 108 points. Mercedes walked off with another maximum haul in the Constructor's race and is now at 285 points, followed by Ferrari with 180 and Williams with 104.

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Hoovey689

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It's called the Red Bull Ring, guests are welcomed by a statue of a leaping bull, and dominating its layout demands powerful cars that can run it hard. Perhaps all that aggression is what led both Mercedes-AMG Petronas cars to run off the track in the final qualifying session on their final hot laps, a little too aggressive on the charge. Lewis Hamilton was first into the gravel at Turn 1 when he lost his car under braking, but he was still fast enough to get pole ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg, who spun at Turn 8. Rosberg started second.

Or perhaps it wasn't the red bull but the scarlet horse that caused The Silver Arrows to muck it up: Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel had Mercedes' attention all weekend, and he'd line up in third just 0.355 off Hamilton's time. Williams truly rediscovered its power, Felipe Massa going fourth fastest, teammate Valtteri Bottas in sixth. Between them was newly-minted Le Mans winner Nico Hülkenberg, yet again – can we say that enough? – pulling the still-not-updated Force India to fifth place on the grid.

Max Verstappen led the Renault-powered top-ten duo in his Toro Rosso in seventh, Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver Daniil Kvyat behind him in eighth. Kvyat, however, would start down the order because of a ten-place grid penalty for needing a fifth Renault engine. After that it's back to Mercedes Ferrari power, Felipe Nasr in the Sauber in ninth, Romain Grosjean in with Mercedes power in the Lotus in tenth – but fellow Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado actually started in tenth because of Kvyat's demotion.

Before we get to the race, can we take a moment to talk about the shenanigans and gaudy penalties? Kimi Räikkönen waved the Ferrari flag in Canada after a season that's been full of "We didn't get it right this time," and we thought he was back. But no. In Austria the refrain returned, the Finn kicked out of Q1 after another miscommunication with the team – he qualified 18th. If the scenario plays to form, we'll now wait for team boss Mauricio Arrivabene to issue a clarification that suggests Räikkönen missed a step.

Daniel Ricciardo parachutes ten spots back for the same reason as his teammate Kvyat, needing a fifth Renault power unit, dropping him to 18th on the grid and forcing him into a five-second time penalty when he comes in to pit.

McLaren will one day laugh at its wretched start to the season, and right now they'll hope Austria was the low point: 25-spot grid penalties for both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso because of multiple power unit and gearbox changes. As F1.com put it, that's "an all-world champion back row." Then Alonso had to serve a drive-through penalty in the first three laps, and Button had to serve a ten-second stop-go penalty.

Räikkönen came out the big winner, moving four spots up the order after the penalties were factored in. Yet he was one of the biggest losers when the race began: the Finn got loose in Turn 3 on the first lap then speared to the left as he was trying to recover and drove into Fernando Alonso in the McLaren, who had juked to the left while trying to avoid the Ferrari. Wheel-to-wheel contact yanked the McLaren up onto the Ferrari and both cars slid down the guardrail locked together. The drivers, thankfully, were both fine. And Alonso didn't have to serve his drive-through penalty.

After a six-lap Safety Car period and 64 laps of racing we found out who the other big winner was: Nico Rosberg. In the 11 years the German has been part of the F1 troupe, we still haven't got a bead on him. His talent and work ethic are beyond question, but we never know which mental state he's going to bring to a race weekend. He decided to bring his champion's psychology to Austria, capitalizing on Lewis Hamilton's clutch issue at the start to take the lead into Turn 1 and keep it to the end of the race. His only misstep was an overly hot pit entrance for his one stop, which he made up for with a fastest lap upon emerging with new tires to keep his race lead safe. Crossing the line nearly nine seconds ahead of Hamilton was the kind of performance we expect to see from the Brit, but which we hope to see from Rosberg more often.

As for Hamilton, he couldn't get closer than 3.5 seconds to Rosberg on track, then squashed any chance of victory when he crossed the white line out of the pits and got hit with a five-second penalty added to his final time.


Both Williams drivers graduated one position from the grid to the checkered flag, Massa taking advantage of a poor Ferrari pit stop to leapfrog Vettel and claim third place. Vettel was hard on the Brazilian's gearbox for the final five laps but couldn't get by under braking and couldn't force the skillfully defensive Massa into a mistake. Behind them came Bottas, going from sixth to fifth after having to pass Nico Hülkenberg in the Force India twice – once in the first stint and once after his pit stop. Hülkenberg, in sixth, still put in a strong showing in a car lagging behind its rivals and secured vital points for Force India.

By bringing his Lotus home in seventh, Pastor Maldonado scored a points finish in two consecutive races for the first time since November 2012. Having spent a few years earning several nicknames involving the word "crash," and narrowly avoiding a couple of those in his late-race battles with Max Verstasppen, this could just maybe be the return of dormant form for the Venezuelan.

Verstappen finally overcame a long run of poor reliability and one rookie mistake to earn his second points finish of the season with an eighth-place finish. Although less consistent than teammate Carlos Sainz, Jr., the Dutchman has more points – ten for him, nine for the Spaniard.

Sergio Perez got the second Force India to the finish in ninth, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo dragging his Red Bull home in tenth. Want to know how bad things are for Red Bull this year? Force India has outscored the formerly all-conquering team in the last two races, and the much smaller team is now just 24 points behind the well-funded outfit. Red Bull is doing battle with the midfielders in the Constructor's Championship right now, since Williams in third place is 74 points ahead of it.

Rosberg's victory gets him to within ten points of Hamilton in the Driver's Championship, 159 points for the German, 169 points for the Brit. Vettel is in third place with 120 points. In the teams' race, Mercedes scored its fifth one-two out of eight races, stretching its lead out to 328 points, Ferrari in second with 192 points, Williams with 129 points.

Most of the teams will hang around in Austria for an in-season test, and then pack up for the British Grand Prix in two weeks, where Hamilton will be hoping to re-establish his previous form in front of his home crowd.


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Hoovey689

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In front of his home crowd, Lewis Hamilton actually had to work for pole position at the British Formula One Grand Prix. The World Champion couldn't get on top of the setup for his Mercedes-AMG Petronas on Friday, lapping behind teammate Nico Rosberg and the two Ferraris. Come Saturday, after a few alterations and a whole lot of wing to clamp down on understeer, Hamilton returned to his regular program at the front, taking pole position by just over a tenth of a second from his teammate.

Williams, thought to be headed for another stretch in the weeds a few races ago, showed its best strength all year. The Grove team got both cars on the second row and in front of the Ferraris, Felipe Massa qualifying ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas, but they were eight and nine tenths behind the Mercedes'. Kimi Räikkönen out-qualified Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel for the second time this year, and only the first time in a straight-up battle with two healthy cars. But more than a second behind the two cars at the front, and with two nearly-impossible-to-pass Williams' in front, neither the Finn nor the German is happy with where they are.

Daniil Kvyat claimed seventh, his side of the garage at Infiniti Red Bull Racing having got through the weekend to that point without a single complaint about their Renault power unit. Carlos Sainz, Jr. put a single Toro Rosso inside the top ten in eighth position, ahead of Nico Hülkenberg who did the same for Sahara Force India by slotting in ninth.

The second Infiniti Red Bull driven by Daniel Ricciardo did have an unspecified engine complaint – his car kept "bleeding power" on the straights – but even so he managed to qualify tenth with his second-fastest lap. The stewards deleted his best lap because he ran three centimeters outside the track limits at Copse, an infraction that stung a few other drivers as well. Up in front, what would sting the Mercedes-AMG Petronas drivers the most was the start.


That's when a dearth of grip struck both Hamilton and Rosberg, allowing Massa and Bottas to slide right up the middle between them and take the first two places. The leapfrogging was so surprising that it looked like the Mercedes drivers were giving the Williams drivers a head start. They diced through the first corners, Hamilton sliding past Bottas into second place halfway through the lap.

And then the safety car reported for duty. Back in the pack, Daniel Ricciardo tried to slide under the Romain Grosjean into Turn 2, catching Grosjean by surprise. The Frenchman jinked to the left and into his teammate Pastor Maldonado, who then bumped into Fernando Alonso in the McLaren, who then slid around back-end first and plowed into Jenson Button, whose engine shut off instantly on impact. Grosjean, Maldonado, and Button got sent packing from the race. Alonso had to hit the pits for a new nose.

After two laps behind the Safety Car, Hamilton tried to blast his way around Massa around the outside when racing resumed but instead ran off the track and let Bottas through again, relegating himself to third. Silverstone is a fast track, but passing in dry weather is a challenge, meaning the Mercedes-powered Williams' had their way, going faster than the Mercs behind.


We'll never know how much faster they could have been, though. Bottas, in the second Williams, was faster than his teammate Massa in the lead, but Williams told him not to race Massa. For eight laps Bottas stalked Massa, clearly faster, asking if he could pass and being told "No." On Lap 11 the team told him he could pass on the back straight but his window had closed, and he stayed in second place.

This kept up until Hamilton pitted on Lap 19, then came out in clear air. Massa pitted a lap later and fell victim to Hammer Time – the Mercedes driver had ripped off fast laps and took the lead while the Williams got new tires. When Bottas pitted, he narrowly managed to stay in front of Rosberg in spite of both of them rolling down the pit lane next to one another.

Rosberg trailed Bottas for 14 laps, but as the track got slick and Bottas dallied with his engineer about coming in for intermediate tires, the German closed the gap. On Lap 38, with the Williams and the Mercedes sliding around the wet parts of the circuit, Rosberg got around Bottas on the inside of Maggots and made it stick, taking third place. Three laps later, Rosberg, suddenly flying, passed Massa at The Loop and nabbed second, eating away at Hamilton's lead by as much as a second per sector.

Then came Lap 43. The second part of the rain shower arrived and everyone's radar seemed to be on the wrong setting except for Hamilton's. He made the call to come in for intermediates when everyone thought that was the wrong thing to do. In actuality, it was the move of the race, one Hamilton later referred to as, "The best call of my career." The worst of the rain hit just as he had got his rubber boots up to temperature, and then behind him everyone else had to pit for intermediates while he took off. No one got close to him for the final nine laps and he took the win, and an excellent one at that. Rosberg finished second.

Sebastian Vettel crossed the line in third for the surprise of the day. The Ferrari driver, in fifth place on Lap 42, pitted on Lap 43 behind Hamilton and a lap ahead of the two Williams drivers. Williams stacked both cars in the pits on Lap 44, after they'd spent an extra lap sliding around Silverstone, and when they left pit lane they'd lost the place to Vettel – an extra heaping of shame on top of their calls early in the race, which were never convincingly explained. That put Massa in fourth at the finish, Bottas in fifth.

Sixth went to Daniil Kvyat, the Russian in with a shout for a fight at third place when the rains came, but he spun on his out lap on new, cold intermediate tires. Although he's done a decent job under the hot lights of a first year in one of the sport's top teams, he's not distinguished himself yet. A podium would have done that, but even so, he showed he had the pace in the dry to challenge the Ferraris, something he and Red Bull will be happy about.

Seventh belonged to Nico Hülkenberg, in sixth just before the rains came. The updated Force India could hold the key to the team's climb up the standings, Sergio Perez coming in ninth. Those eight points earned put space between Force India and the teams behind, and maintained the gap to Red Bull.

In between those two came Kimi Räikkönen in eighth. The Finn made the right call to go to intermediates but he made it four laps too early, on Lap 39, when he was in fifth place. By the time the real showers came, the dry track had chewed up his tires and he had to pit again, dropping him back.

Fernando Alonso in the McLaren took the last points-paying position. Yes, you read that correctly. Seven retirements left 13 cars in the field, and the Honda power unit lasted long enough, forcefully enough, to keep Alonso ahead of two Manor Marussias and a Sauber. That gives the team five points for the year. A year after Ron Dennis said he wouldn't sell branding rights on the car at a discount, this weekend the team admitted that the poor performance this season is hurting their sales pitches.


Hamilton's win gives him three British Grand Prix victories, one behind Nigel Mansell and two behind Jim Clark. He also broke Jackie Stewart's 45-year-old record of leading 17 consecutive grand prix, and Mercedes getting two drivers on the podium for the ninth consecutive race tied Ferrari's 62-year-old record from 1953, when Alberto Ascari and Mike Hawhtorne were regulars on the steps. Hamilton puts more padding into his Driver's Championship lead, with 194 points to Rosberg's 177. Vettel is the only other driver in triple digits, with 135. It's the sixth time in this year's nine races that we've seen the same trio on the podium.

In the Constructor's Championship it's more of the same, Mercedes pulling out its gap to 371 points to Ferrari's 211. Even with the snafu's Williams did well for itself, scoring more than Ferrari on the day and getting to 151 points.

With the German Grand Prix cancelled, the next race is in three weeks in Hungary. We'll see you then.

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/07/06/r...iming/#image-1

DaveGS4

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What a great race in Hungary last weekend!

My wife shared this cool infographic site with me

http://formula1.ferrari.com/en/infor...arian-gp-2015/

Scroll down with your mouse to control, very neat

mmarshall

Agreed....that's an interesting graphic-display.

It's a shame Michael Schumacker is still out with those serious injuries. He may be out permanently.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Very nice info graph. Ferrari and Red Bull are probably stoked. Let's see if they can use this win as a catalyst for the remaining 9 races. Cannot wait for Singapore Grand Prix on 9/20!!