Month: July 2014

Maybe it wasn´t Nico´s best race of the season, perhaps it wasn´t the most fought for the German but it surely is a seriously important statistic on F1 history on the writing.  He became the first German driver to win on home soil with a German made engine, how about that?!

This weekend´s race was marked by the desicion from the FIA to ban FRIC systems (Front-Rear Interconnected Suspension System) which several teams had developed in the fight for a few extra tenths. The results are difficult to read, who benefited from this is the big question, even though tha Mercedes did not seem so far from the rest of the field in previous races..

Hamilton had a hard time in qualifying, yet again, with brake failure in the first session with an added 5 grid penalty that put him in 20th at the start turning this weekend into an uphill for the British driver.  Still he managed to do a lot of overtaking and battled his way up to third to barely miss out on second with the fast straight Williams of Valtteri Bottas who seem to calmly keep the right lines to maintain his 2nd place and his impressive third podium finish in a row.

While the podium is important, comparing overall performances, I would say Daniel Ricciardo from Red Bull made Alonso wake up and gave a real fight even though with clear tire disadvantage and managed to finish 6th after getting caught on that first lap collission and rejoining 15th, remarkable race from the Aussie. Several drivers fought hard, mexican Sergio Perez fought hard, and also Vettel and Alonso gave another show as well as they fought for 4th.

First lap saw Massa give a little room to team mate Bottas on the inside but when he moved sharply to the inside he failed to notice Kevin Magnussen´s MacLaren was there and they collided with Massa´s right rear touching Magnussen´s left front flipping the Williams out of the race.  So another DNF for Massa that really seems more than missfortunate for the Brazilian while Magnussen managed to finish 9th.

Much was said about the desicion from the stewards about displaying only yellow flags when Sutil´s Sauber spinned into a stall at the main straight  entrance completely acrross and sideways and the cars were able to go for almost two laps before the Marshalls were able to move it out of the way.  Everyone expected a Safety Car that was never released, in my opinion, to the detriment of a more exciting finish but mainly on safety grounds. Marshalls ran from the exiting point on a blind spot for the drivers, totally dangerous and completely unnecessary. Even Hamilton pitted for fresh tires inmediately as a Safety was inminent coming out in sixth and fighting his way back, could have worked for him but in the end the Safety was not released.

Next stop is the Hungaroring in Budapest next weekend, July 27th.  Full results from the race at Hockenheim are as follows:

1. Nico Rosberg
2. Valterri Bottas
3. Lewis Hamilton
4. Sebastian Vettel
5. Fernando Alonso
6. Daniel Ricciardo
7. Nico Hulkenberg
8. Jenson Button
9. Kevin Magnussen
10. Sergio Perez
11. Kimi Raikkonen
12. Pastor Maldonado
13. Jean-Eric Vergne
14. Esteban Gutierrez
15. Jules Bianchi
16. Kamui Kobayashi
17. Max Chilton
18. Marcus Ericcson
19. Adrian Sutil (DNF-Mechanical)
20. Daniil Kvyat (DNF-Fire-Mechanical)
21. Romain Grosjean (DNF-Mechanical)
22. Felipe Massa (DNF-Accident)

Lewis Hamilton managed a fantastic victory in home soil at the Silverstone Grand Prix.  After a tiny but costly bad call on the qualifying session that left him on the 6th grid spot, Hamilton recovered well to 2nd place by the 4th lap of the 52 lap race to hunt down team mate Nico Rosberg.  He pushed hard and it seemed clear the gap was minimizing towards that 1st position while there was a lot of action behind him in the fight of the last podium position between no less than six drivers including Vettel, Alonso, Bottas, Ricciardo, Button and Magnussen.

Rosberg lost the gap to Hamilton while his tires were running out earlier than his team mate and while coming towards a Marussia to be lapped perhaps the gear change que made provoked the gearbox to let up so he had to park the Mercedes.  Hamilton was catching up pretty fast and perhaps the pressure had something to do with it.  It´s clear the Mercedes is faster than the rest, clearly faster, to the point that by the time Roseberg had to abandon, Hamilton had a time advantage of more than 40 seconds to third place Valtteri Bottas in the Williams Martini.  Still, some reliability issues are still haunting the Mercedes drivers and today was the German´s turn which means the advantage he had over Hamilton was reduced to 4 points.  We are still yet to see a close fight between these two excellent drivers in the silver arrows.

Williams on the other hand suffered in qualifying with the rain and started way back in the field and then Massa had no way to avoid spinning Raikkönen in the Ferrari after he ran wide and then lost control coming back to the racetrack.  Still, it was really impressive the way Massa avoided a collision which could have been totally more serious for the Iceman and himself.  On the other hand, Bottas entertained us all with impressive maneuvers with the other Williams while he made up ground passing car after car and all the good names of the sport on them, this young driver has really made an impression on the grid this year.  We only hope they can bring the fight to the Mercedes but yet have to riddle out the qualifying. Bottas ended 2nd overall today in his second podium in F1 and a consecutive one after Austria.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo, holding on to his tires, grabbed 3rd place in style with the Red Bull beating local Jenson Button with the McLaren by less than a second to the checkered flag.  Strategy paid off for Ricciardo, a nice complement by the team, I guess, after they weren´t ready to send him out again for a second lap in the final session of qualifying yesterday since they thought conditions wouldn´t improve, which they did… Button was left podium-less once again at his home Grand Prix but left the fans satisfied with the McLaren being probably under paced compared to other teams at the moment.  Fifth went to Vettel who had a pretty enjoyable brush with Ferrari´s Fernando Alonso, and I mean enjoyable for the audience because from the constant waning from both drivers, especially Alonso, on the radio, it seems they are there to drive and the sport is not fun anymore…. well, at least we (the fans and viewers) get excited… And I don´t mean by this to offend any Alonso or Ferrari fans, on the contrary, what Alonso did with the Ferrari coming from 13th, with the 5 second sanction imposed, managing tires and all, it was a remarkable work… for the people who race, the way he managed his racing lines understanding he didn´t have a good top speed to defend or attack it was simply brilliant, but his comments on the radio and after the race that Vettel was going off the track, even using DRS… I think they just express his frustration of the moment.  Kevin Magnussen finished 7th behind the Spaniard, consolidating another good driver by the rookie that brought the second McLaren home with some good points to the championship which keep them in the fight for the 3rd place in the Constructor´s Championship 16 points behind Ferrari, 13 to Williams and 1 to Force India.

Apart from that, Lotus´ Pastor Maldonado somehow managed to finish 50 laps of the 52, after being airborne for a moment after a collision with Sauber´s Esteban Gutiérrez which looked like payback to many of us, and which was also sanctioned by the FIA with 3 grid positions for the Mexican.  Next race will be held at Rosberg´s home Grand Prix, Germany at Hockenheim on July 20th.