Lance Stroll, 2017 USGP. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Magnussen from HASS and Stroll from Williams received a 3 grid penalty for blocking during qualifying practice. Magnussen was misinformed by his engineer on Perez coming on a hot lap behind him and blocked him through turns 12 and 13 compromising his session since he had to stop to get a new set of tires that he had reserved for Q3. On the other hand, the Canadian driver from Williams was not informed accurately while he was being instructed on a change of settings on his car and blocked Grosjean from HAAS between turns 19 and 20 to the point the French driver had to exit the track to avoid a collision.
Max Verstappen from Red Bull also received sanction for Technical breach along with Stoffel Vandoorne from McLaren, Nico Hulkenberg from Renault and Brendon Hartley from Toro Rosso.
Hamilton-Vettel at COTA 2017. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Mercedes´Lewis Hamilton took pole at the Circuit Of The Americas with a time of 1:33.108 just two tenths ahead of his Title rival Ferrari´s Sebastian Vettel and a little over 4 tenths of a second ahead of team mate Valteri Bottas. Red Bull´s Daniel Ricciardo achieved a very fast lap to be just 11 hundredths of a second from third place with exactly the same time as Ferrari´s Kimi Raikkonen, Max Verstappen was just less of a tenth behind in 6th place with the sister Red Bull.
Behind the three leading teams that seem to be getting closer and closer all the time, the fight for 7th place was on with Force India´s Esteban Ocon, Renault´s new comer Carlos Sainz, McLaren´s Fernando Alonso and Force India´s Sergio Perez. 0.501 separated these four drivers that completed the top 10 while they were almost a whole second off 6th place..
The conditions were tricky as the track temperature was high and the wind caused several drivers struggled a bit. The race will be tomorrow at 2pm local time.
Viñales followed by Dovizioso, Qatar MotoGP 2017. Copyright @ MotoGP.com
Yamaha newcomer, Maverick Viñales, rode to victory after a very intense race where conditions triggered uncertainty throughout the weekend, forcing the qualifying session to be cancelled and the starting positions for the race be determined according to Free Practice 3 times. The race itself had to be delayed after rain hit the track causing even more uncertainty over grip levels and which tire to pick or to call it in a more adequate way, which tire to gamble on…
The big surprise of the race was not the grip level, it was the pace of French rider Johann Zarco that took the lead with a fast start and kept it for 6 laps until he fell off the race on lap 6 when he came barely off the line under braking. Conditions were anything but easy, the racing line was very narrow and a few riders abandoned due to falls, including Cal Crutchlow who fell once and rejoined and fell again being the first victim of a changing track. The fight at the front was intense, Viñales seemed unable to keep the pace of Zarco, Marc Marquez in the Honda, Andrea Iannone in the Suzuki and Andrea Dovizioso in the Ducati, at least in the first laps when these riders kept the fight for the second position. Zarco fell on lap 6, Dovizioso made his way past these riders to take the lead and held it until lap 14 when a resurgent Viñales came back to the fight, Iannone had a similar fall, loosing the front of his bike after a strong showing when fighting for the lead, Marquez could not keep the pace after Viñales found his and passed him after the mid point of the race along with Valentino Rossi who joined the fight.
The second surprise of the race, I would say, was Aleix Espargaró, the Spaniard riding the Aprilia officially for the first time in MotoGP, coming from 15th on the grid he took on a steady but aggressive pace passing several riders and fighting it out in the end with Dani Pedrosa in the other Repsol Honda receiving the checkered flag in P6. The fight in the front meanwhile was extraordinary, Dovizioso simply did not want to finish 2nd place again in Qatar, he wanted the win and even though the Ducati had more high end speed, the Yamaha looked better on certain other corners, not many, Viñales tried a couple of times, he overtook the Ducati but was overtaken again, very entertaining fight and finally Viñales managed to make the pass and pull out enough ground for it to be impossible for Dovizioso to grab the position back again in the last lap (20th). Rossi completed the podium, happy to have been able to keep his new team mate´s pace in the race, after a not so good testing and practicing. 4th was for Marquez, who lost pace in the end and couldn´t keep up with the fight for the win, 5th was for his team mate Pedrosa and 6th for the impressive Espargaró in the Aprilia.
Weather had its influence in what was a very delightful race to watch, let´s see what happens in Argentina, for the 2nd of the Championship in a couple of weeks. Full results, click here.
Konica Minolta’s No. 10 Cadillac DPi at Sebring Mobil 1 Twelve Hour race. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
The 65th Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida took place March 16th – 18th in the 3.74 mile long bumpy track. Florida hosts the first two races of the WeatherTech SportsCar Challenge which include The 24 Hour Race at Daytona and the 12 Hour Race at Sebring which also make up for two out of four races included in the Tequila Patron Endurance Championship.
As it was the case, without the controversy, Konica Minolta’s Cadillac Dpi-V.R won the prestigious race with the same car from Daytona in the 2nd position, Mustang Sampling Racing’s No. 5. In Daytona, R. Taylor forced his way passed Barbosa’s Cadillac causing him to spin a couple of laps from the end of the race which was deemed as a racing incident by the officials. The story was similar in Sebring but different in the way it ended, Taylor managed to set a 13 second gap with solid pace over Fittipaldi who were the only two cars to finish in the lead lap with 348 laps completed over the course of the race itself. Third place went to Whelen Engineering Racing’s Cadillac No. 31 who had better luck than in Daytona where they finished 6th in the P class 20 laps behind the winners. Fourth place went to the ORECA from JDC-Miller Motorsports with their No. 85 that have done very consistent races without mistakes and with good reliability even though they are lacking the pace of the Cadillacs for sure.
Several teams ran into mechanical problems and lost a lot of time in pits and in some cases had to retire, the Ligier of PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, the two Mazda Dpi, especially No. 70 that had to retire after brake failure and hitting the barriers, the No. 55 lost over 25 laps too. Rebellion Racing’s Oreca also suffered from many mechanical issues and did finish but almost half the distance covered by the first place finisher. Tequila Patron entries had a terrible day as well, with the No. 2 retiring after 47 laps and the No. 22 retiring after completing 158 laps.
Performance Tech Motorsports PC Class winner at Sebring 2017. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
PC class is racing its last season in the series, Daytona saw 5 entries with the Starworks Team presenting 2 cars but for Sebring they presented only one car which reduced the race to 4 vehicles only. In any case, that does not demerit the effort from its competitors, specially the No. 38 from Team Performance Tech Motorsports that won in both races and finished 5th overall at Sebring only 10 laps behind the winner, that’s a reflects really great work from the team and the strong commitment from the drivers. It’s important to mention also that the Starworks No. 8 also did an excellent race finishing 6th overall and only 2 laps behind the No. 38. 3rd place went to BAR 1 Motorsports No. 26, 8 laps further down with the sister car No. 20 completing 302 laps.
Corvette Racing’s No. 3 car, winner GTLM class Twuelve Hour race at Sebring. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
GTLM had 10 entries, 2 Corvettes, 3 Ford GTs, 2 BMW M6s, 2 Porsche 911 RSRs, and 1 Ferrari 488 GTE. How hard was the 12 hour race? 7 cars finished within the same lap! (Just as in Daytona after 24 Hours) This is simply exciting, 5 brands giving it all until the end but only one winner, the No. 3 Corvette C7.R 14 laps behind the overall winner and 4.5 seconds ahead of the No. 66 Ford GT with Risi Competizione’s No. 62 Ferrari another 9 seconds behind. Two cars hit trouble early in the race, the No. 4 Corvette C7.R that only managed to complete 42 laps and the No. 24 BMW M6 that completed 149 laps.
GTD was the most populated category with 21 cars, with the No. 33 Mercedes-AMG GT3 from Riley Motorsports-Team AMG winning 1 lap ahead of the next 7 cars in the class but it was a matter of the leader of the race lapping the rest and receiving the checkered flag just behind the Mercedes, what I’m trying to say is that the difference was really not that big between 1st and 2nd place, not a lap, but the winning Cadillac lapped up to 2nd place and received the flag so the 1st place Mercedes had an extra lap to go before receiving the flag. A very tight race it was indeed, the 2nd place went to Scuderia Corsa’s No. 63 Ferrari 488 GT3 with a nice bounce back in form from their difficult race at Daytona. 3rd Place was for another Mercedes-AMG GT3, SunEnergy 1 Racing’s No. 75, also recovering from a difficult race at Daytona and finishing just over 3 seconds from the Ferrari and barely over one second ahead of Montaplast by Land-Motorsport’s Audi R8 LMS GT3 No. 29. 5th place went to a different manufacturer, No. 48 Paul Miller Racing’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
Lewis has found his “Mojo” again, he’s keeping his cool, driving great and simply behaving like a man on mission, will that be enough? All I know is that he’s doing what he has do do if he is to have a chance at winning this years title with now 12 points behind his team mate in the standings. If we talk about Hamilton doing what he has to do, Rosberg is doing what he has to do too! Without all the reliability problems that Hamilton had, the German driver managed a good margin of points in which circumstances dictated that if he finished the last 4 races in 2nd place, that would be enough for him to consolidate his first World Championship. Many say it’s undeserved but I say that’s racing and he hasn’t finished the job yet, there’s still one more to go and as we could see in Interlagos, anything can happen. In Motor Sports not always the fastest man wins, fastest means more on the limit, which puts you closer to making a mistake and puts your machinery also more prone to failure and even though Hamilton may not win the title, he wont lose any fans for sure. Nico can finish third and still be the World Champion in the last race in Abu Dhabi if Hamilton wins the race.
Brazil has always delivered great racing and the rain has been involved in many, conditions were really difficult for these light machines that rely on down force to achieve the grip they have in the dry, that translates to driving on soap in the rain, even with those drastically radical and efficient tires that vacuum in average over 7 quarts per second at high speed. Many gambled a little bit over realistically coming into the pits for intermediate compound tires which proved to be the right decision for like 5 laps only but the wrong decision for Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson who lost control just as Grosjean did in the warm up lap coming into the main straight. Several cars were victims of that up hill entrance to the main straight, some with terminal results such as Grosjean (Haas), Ericsson (Sauber) and local favorite Massa (Williams) with some others proving to be way luckier with 360 degree spins like Perez (Force India) who finished 4th, Alonso (McLaren) who fell from 7th to 17th and in the last ten laps passed 7 cars to finish 10th. Vettel also had a 360 degree spin and a half there that took him out of the top 10 at the beginning of the race and Rosberg had a radical half spin in which the car somehow found it’s way straight back again.
Apart from that place, the straight that is not actually straight in Brazil took Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen out of balance and that caused the second red flag of the race (the first was deployed after Ericsson’s crash). Just like Grosjean was caught out in the warm up lap, Joylon Palmer (Renault) was caught out in a safety car period in which he did not manage to brake on time and hit the rear of Daniil Kvyat’s Toro Rosso which meant his retirement.
Chaotic race for sure in terms of safety car periods and red flags, several incidents but the highlights will be that eventually the race managed to be finished, and for sure the show of respect from the crowd and the teams as Massa crashed out and walked with a Brazilian flag into the pit lane and to his garage, I don’t think there has been a bigger and more spontaneous show of respect in F1. Who stole the show, Alonso did his part as he seemed to be the only driver in the pit lane smiling at the sight of a wet race but as I said before, being on the limit sometimes does not play in your favor and the spin he had late in the race prevented him from a higher position in the points, I bet he enjoyed it anyway but the real show was put by the youngest driver, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the team usually takes higher risks than their opponents, that’s the Red Bull mentality and it usually pays off but not today, the stop for intermediate tires from 2nd place was a mistake and that forced them to make an additional stop in which Verstappen drove brilliantly without doubt taking advantage of fresher rubber than the ones ahead. They all tried to fend him off but he made it look easy, perhaps except with Perez where he barely escaped unharmed after he went sideways for a second while millimeters separated the two drivers, the one that looked really bad was Vettel, yet again, Verstappen seems to take different approaches towards different drivers, when passing Perez while being on the inside, he did not force him out of the track but he made sure he did when passing Vettel, payback? maybe but if Vettel wants to be taken serious again he will have to stop complaining over the radio and start concentrating on his driving, he had done the same to Alonso before…
Hulkenberg (Force India) would perhaps finished third or fourth but a puncture meant an extra stop and he only managed to recover to 7th, still, great drive for the Renault bound driver for next year. Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso) kept out of trouble with a clean drive to finish 6th behind Vettel. So the top ten ended up like this: 1-Hamilton / 2-Rosberg / 3-Verstappen / 4-Perez / 5-Vettel / 6-Sainz / 7-Hulkenberg / 8-Ricciardo / 9-Nasr / 10-Alonso.
The well anticipated 6 Hours of Shanghai lived to the expectations of the fans of the FIA World Endurance Championship after the race in Fuji that saw strong commitment from Toyota finally pay dividends to achieve the win. If anything else Toyota has been truly unlucky as they have suffered harshly the realities of Motorsports in the worst scenarios, their engine failure in the last lap of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was a heart breaking moment for all, even their competitors. Something is to admire from the Japanese manufacturer and that is their fighting spirit, they have shown strong pace and reliability and that showed again in Shanghai where they put strong pressure on the Porsches all the way through the 6 hours and except for two punctures that forced them into the pits, they could have won it. Porsche was fastest in Qualifying but in race pace with fresh tires they had similar rhythm but on older tires Toyota had stronger pace and they were able to double stint without dropping performance which is how they won in Fuji.
The Constructor’s Championship was won by Porsche after their 1st – 4th place finish positions in Shanghai but the Driver’s Championship is still open thanks to the 2nd-3rd of Toyota finishing ahead of the Championship leader, the No. 2 Porsche. It will go down to Bahrain, 17 points in favor of Lieb/Jani/Dumas over Kobayashi/Conway/Sarrazin with 26 points at play, this means that they would have to get the pole point and win the race and the No. 2 Porsche finish 6th or since there are only 6 cars in the class, have the car not finish the race. Another result would be for them to finish 2nd and the Porsche not finish the race.. Seems a bit difficult but it’s still possible.
Audi on the other hand did not look like themselves at Shanghai, re fueling problems for one car, contact between themselves forced lengthy repairs in pits for the other, Lotterer complaining of lack of pace and grip, it’s an obvious result of the recent announcement that the brand will leave the sport with Bahrain being the last race after 18 years. Fans have been yelling in anger, they simply do not cope with the idea of Audi quitting the sport in such a cold manner but that’s another reality in Motorsports, companies make decisions and sometimes they are strongly influenced by the business people for whom passion does not have representation in the numbers…
In the LMP1 class it was the Bykolles Racing Team who finally managed their first win over the Rebellion Team who faced certain problems and were hunting down the No. 4 car but had a small fire that made them loose more laps in pits. The Championship has been won by the Rebellion Team already but the fight is for the honor now.
LMP2 has been seriously competitive this year with several cars very well matched on pace but with their 4th place finish in Shanghai it was the No. 36 of Signatech Alpine Team that sealed the title. 4 wins and specially the double points and win at Le Mans that gave them the leverage to take the title with one race still remaining in the Championship. The No. 43 of RGR Sport by Morand did not have the best start with Bruno Senna loosing positions after avoiding the incident of the No. 44 Manor on the first lap, this proved to be a big handicap since he simply could not find a way back through the field in the first half of the race but by being constant and having a very good response at the pits, the team managed to finish 3rd in front of their title rival, unfortunately, this didn’t help in them keeping their title hopes alive.. The win went to car No. 26 of G-Drive Racing which consolidated them in the top 3 positions 12 points behind RGR so the fight for the second position is still open between these two teams going to Bahrain. The 2nd place of the race went to Extreme Speed Racing’s No. 30 with extraordinary drives and no mistakes from its three drivers.
In GTE PRO, it was a very good day for the boys of Ford Chip Ganassi Europe making the 1-2 and with ahead of one of the AF Course Ferraris taking away a bunch of points in the Championship which now sets them in second place just 2 points behind the Aston Martin Team while only 12 points separate the Aston, the two Fords and the Ferrari in the fight that will go down to the wire in Bahrain.
GTE AM was won by Aston Martin, ahead of AF Course who lead the Championship with a 25 point advantage with 26 points still in play, so mathematically speaking, it’s still possible for the Aston Martin to fight the title. The fight for the point of the Pole Position will be crucial in Bahrain, if the Ferrari gets pole, that would seal their title but if they don’t it could be a completely different story. Third place in the race went to the KCMG Team in their Porsche which puts them 4th in the standings behind the Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche.
The last race of the Championship will be held on November 19th, it’s a 6 hour race and it will be the last for Audi..
Top three qualifiers in Malaysia. Copyright @ Motogp.com
Andrea Dovizioso achieved an important pole for tomorrow´s race at Malayisia after overcoming difficult conditions on a wet track. The fight was on since the first qualifying where Cal Crutchlow set the pace followed by Loris Baz who had a fall and could only watch as the other riders tried hard to beat his time and advance to the second qualifying with Crutchlow but it was just enough. The second qualifying was similar to the first where the riders tried hard to find the pace to achieve a good starting position for tomorrow and the fastest was Dovizioso with the Ducati that has shown great pace in several races with wet weather. Valentino Rossi took second place with his team mate Jorge Lorenzo in third who somehow finally seemed to overcome all the difficulties he has had with the rain tires this season. Recently crowned champion Marc Marquez had to overcome sickness and missed Free Practice 2 to save energies for today, he qualified 4th and expects to be feeling better for tomorrow´s race. Crutchlow managed to qualify 5th just ahead of Iannone who returns to this grand prix after a back injury. If the conditions continue like this, the race will certainly be interesting where the fight is now for the 2nd place between the Yamaha team mates and Marquez has absolutely nothing to loose… Suzuki riders will be wishing for a dry race where they showed great pace…
Suzuki’s Maverick Viñales beat the 2 minute mark to set a 1:59.947 very close to the best lap of the Circuit set by absent Dani Pedrosa in 2015 of 1:59.053. It was only FP3 though, so times will still drop in a certainly exciting qualifying session later today as the competition is pretty close, 8 riders within a second, 14 within 2 seconds and all within 3 seconds in the 5.543 km track (3.46 miles). After his accident in practice in Phillip Island, Dani Pedrosa will be substituted by Hiroshi Ahoyama in the second Honda, Nicky Hayden did a good job in Australia even if the result did not reflect. Another rider who had problems was Ducati’s Andrea Iannone but he finally returned this weekend from his back injury absence and had absolutely no difficulties in finding his pace back.
The Mexican GP is proving to be very even on the times so far, 3 seconds separate the 22 drivers! As it promises to be a very competitive weekend, its start is certainly a good one for Ferrari as it has shown to be on the pace with the Mercedes. Red Bull hasn’t been as competitive but they are just a few tenths off as well closely matched with Force India and Williams. It’s all to play for as the teams prepare for the second day of action, the third Free Practice and then the Qualifying coming next.
Tire degradation has been a little bit of a mystery as well as the grip in conditions relatively cold on a surface that has been constantly improving according to the drivers. Fans in Mexico have been great, making their support very well noticed and the teams have put an effort to pay back with garments, face painting and even cupcakes made in commemoration of the Day of the Dead festivities.
This will also mark the first opportunity for Nico Rosberg to clinch the Driver’s Title if he wins and Hamilton finishes 10th or higher.. What are the odds of that happening?
The R18 will be the last of an era for Audi in the World Endurance Championship. Copyright @ Wise Racing World
The World Endurance Championship has certainly grown significantly in the last few years, Audi has been a stepping stone for that. The fight with Peugeot, Toyota and more recently Porsche has brought Audi a lot of difficult challenges but at the same time, success. The amount of followers all over the world has increased as well so this becomes a sad day for many as Audi has announced it will not compete beginning next year. Their commitment to the Championship was not just for the sport itself, their commitment is in the development of new technologies for their road cars and they will now shift their focus into the newer series the Formula E Championship which consists of fully electric cars racing all over the world as well.
No further news have been provided as to the drivers, the DTM commitment remains unchanged and the World RX apparently will grow but it has been said that the 300+ employees for the WEC will continue to work for Audi some in their road car development and some in the Formula E championship.
Audi will certainly be missed at the WEC and more so at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
