Strange words to hear but an unlikely Mercedes win…
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Lewis Hamilton made the most of a Mercedes strategy gamble and some good fortune to take his ninth win of the season at the 2019 Russian Grand Prix.
Considering Mercedes are the only team to win in Russia since its debut in 2014 – even the unofficial Grands Prix in 1913 and 1914 were won by Benz, before their merger with Mercedes – it may seem a strange prospect that they were the underdogs this time around. But the characteristics of the front-running cars have changed. Ferrari’s class-leading straight-line speed, combined with the successful aerodynamic upgrade they brought to Singapore, saw them as the class of the field.
Through the Friday practice sessions, it appeared it may be a fight between Ferrari and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull as Mercedes struggled to get on top of their setup. Come qualifying, however, they had made some progress and Hamilton produced a trademark lap to claim a spot on the front row, albeit four tenths shy of Charles Leclerc’s equally impressive pole time.
But pole is something of a poisoned chalice at this track.
The long run down to the first corner – officially Turn Two – gives those behind a slipstream and puts the polesitter in an uncomfortable position. And so it proved to be again as Sebastian Vettel stormed past from third on the grid to take the lead. There was clearly some kind of agreement and the Ferrari drivers and engineers then spent the first phase of the race bickering about who should be in front. (More on that later.)
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Having spent most of the last three races trying to navigate past a slightly slower Ferrari on race day, Mercedes decided to take an alternate strategy and start on harder tyres. As it turned out, this would win them the race.
Shortly after the Ferrari pit stops, Vettel’s MGU-K went bang and the German ground to a halt. This brought out the Virtual Safety Car and played into the Silver Arrows’ hands, allowing Hamiton to take his pit stop and rejoin ahead of Leclerc. Something Mercedes Technical Director James Allison described as “deliciously ironic”.
Immediately after the VSC, a full safety car was called for a George Russell crash, which actually played slightly back into Ferrari’s hands. With Leclerc on harder, older tyres, Ferrari decided to take a gamble of their own and pit him for new softs under the safety car, dropping him behind only Valtteri Bottas and giving him the upper hand for the remaining 20 or so laps.
As it was, Mercedes handled the situation perfectly and just about kept the hungry, young Ferrari driver at arm’s length for the remainder of the race.
Whilst undoubtedly fortunate, Mercedes put themselves in that position strategically and showed their strong race pace on Sunday. Arguably, the narrowly faster car has lost the last three races. But that just shows how fine the margins currently are between the top two teams – with Verstappen forever snapping at their heels – and that is great for Formula 1.
McLaren Best of the Rest
Behind the top two teams, Verstappen came home a fairly lonely fourth and Alexander Albon produced a decent – if also quite fortunate – fightback to finish fifth after what had been a sloppy weekend. One that may prove crucial in his quest for next year’s Red Bull seat.
But it was McLaren who were the stars of the midfield.
Steadily improving throughout the weekend, after initially struggling to get on top of their setup on Friday, the papaya cars found themselves fifth and seventh on the grid – after a penalty had been applied to Verstappen – and with excellent starts converted that to fourth and sixth, Carlos Sainz even challenging Hamilton for third into Turn Two.
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Over the course of the race, the faster cars got past – as did Sergio Pérez when Lando Norris got a bit too involved in fighting a Red Bull – but sixth and eighth on the day takes the team into triple figures in the Constructors’ Championship for the first time since 2014. That’s a real sign of the progress they’ve made and the direction they’re going in.
Fourth in the standings is now looking very likely. And with the deal to return to Mercedes power from 2021 announced this weekend, things are looking promising for a team that has been trying to rebuild what was a true empire of the sport. Just think how many more points they would have this year without those costly Renault enging blow-ups…
The future’s bright, the future’s (papaya) orange.
What Was Going on With the Ferrari Team Orders?
Nobody is coming out and officially saying what deal was agreed within Ferrari regarding the start of the race.
It would appear, though, that Leclerc had agreed to give his teammate the tow to Turn Two to ensure he got ahead of Hamilton and produced a Ferrari one-two. However, it would also appear that if Vettel got past during that sequence that he was due to hand the lead back to Leclerc. Vettel did get past but did not hand the place back and, from there, things started to get a little complicated.
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Vettel made the point that he would have passed Leclerc anyway and that the other Ferrari should get closer before he can pass. He certainly had a point with the latter – he would have left himself in the clutches of a certain Lewis Hamilton had he allowed Leclerc through at any point during that first phase of the race. The former, though, I’m not totally convinced by.
If Leclerc were purely thinking of himself, I think he would have emerged from Turn Two as the leader. He could have moved right to give Hamilton the tow – knowing the Mercedes has less straight-line speed and seeing that he had got away poorly – and then defended the inside line of the corner.
By cutting a deal with both drivers that had some very grey areas, they were always putting themselves in an awkward position. Particularly given the current climate within the team, with it plain to see that there is something of a power struggle going on between the two drivers.
As it was, they were forced to run Vettel long on his first stint and effectively pass the lead to Leclerc in that way. Whilst giving the German fresher tyres and the chance to fight back on track was arguably a decent compromise, it all felt a bit uncomfortable and Vettel didn’t sound too pleased. Sadly, it would prove to be a moot point anyway as his SF90 pulled up next to the crash barriers on lap 26.
As has generally been the case this season, the Ferrari team orders seem to be producing more issues than they are solving. And, with the car now looking likely to be competitive for the remainder of the season, there could be more flashpoints to come to test the inter-team harmony. If Ferrari then convert this current strong form into a title battle next year…expect real fireworks for 2020.
The Russian Grand Prix in 60 Seconds
Answering the Burning Questions
Has that Ferrari upgrade changed the pecking order this season or was Singapore an outlier? It would appear to have legitimately changed the pecking order.
Can Sebastian Vettel push on now having put some demons to rest with a win? Qualifying pace was still lacking but he produced a strong performance on Sunday before team orders and a failed engine got in the way.
Will tensions rise further in the Ferrari camp? Yup.
Will we see the longest winless run for Mercedes in the hybrid era? Nope.
Who will come out on top in the McLaren/Renault fight this weekend? McLaren had the edge and now have a tight grip on fourth in the standings.
Will Valtteri hear from James during the race? Certainly not in the meme sense.
How awkward will the cool down room with Putin be this year? There was no Putin thankfully. But Hamilton did hug a giant Russian doll which was a little odd.
A Singapore Ferrari 1-2…just as everybody predicted…
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Sebastian Vettel completed a hat-trick of victories for Ferrari with an unexpected turn of speed under the lights at the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix. Coming into the weekend, the drivers, the team and their competitors were writing off their chances – even the ever-pessimistic Toto Wolff said early in the weekend he expected Max Verstappen to be their only competitor.
But, from Saturday morning, the red cars showed a sudden improvement after a seemingly very successful aerodynamic upgrade was fitted. Charles Leclerc claimed a stunning pole position, on the ragged edge of adhesion, and in doing so stole it away from his teammate Vettel, who had produced a great first run but failed to improve on his second attempt. Come Sunday, however, it would be Vettel returning the favour in the race as he benefitted from an accidental undercut on his teammate to take the victory.
Behind the two prancing horses out front, Verstappen grabbed what had seemed an unlikely podium thanks to a strategic error from Mercedes dropping Lewis Hamilton from second to fourth. The champion’s teammate, Valtteri Bottas, followed him home in fifth with Alexander Albon just behind.
What could have been a thrilling finale, with the Mercedes closing in on fresher tyres, somewhat petered out thanks to a string of late safety cars which gave the Ferraris the breathing space – certainly in regards to tyre life – they required. However, the sight at each of the numerous restarts of two Ferraris and Verstappen heading into Turn 1 at Singapore probably set off some PTSD in a fair few Ferrari fans…
Behind the big three teams, Lando Norris put his recent run of bad luck behind him to claim ‘best of the rest’ and Pierre Gasly will have quietened some critics with a strong run to eighth place. The last points were collected by Nico Hülkenberg, who completed a decent recovery drive after a somewhat overambitious move on Carlos Sainz on the first lap, and Antonio Giovinazzi.
How Did Vettel End Up Ahead?
Leclerc led away from pole and controlled the first part of the race, as the front-runners crawled round Singapore’s abundance of turns painfully slowly, attempting to conserve their tyres. This slow pace meant the field remained close together though and produced some head-scratching amongst the strategy teams as the gap usually created between the top six and the rest of the field was not there for the leaders to emerge into after their stops.
Hamilton called for an undercut on Leclerc but Mercedes didn’t oblige and so Ferrari pitted Vettel to attempt the undercut on Hamilton himself. It was very effective – as it turned out, arguably, too effective. They expected Vettel to make up a second or two but, even with a pretty average pit stop, he made up well over three seconds and when Leclerc emerged from the pits a lap later, he was narrowly behind his teammate.
The young Monegasque was understandably perplexed and irked. He repeatedly came on to the radio asking what had happened, why it had happened and what was going to happen next. No particularly enlightening answers were forthcoming and, try as he might, he could not fashion even a sniff of an overtake and came home a discontented second.
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Vettel didn’t let the fortunate circumstances dampen his enjoyment of a long-awaited victory and brought out the old one-digit-salute for the first time in over a year. He also likely felt that this was justice for whatever precisely went on during that messy and controversial Italian Q3. Leclerc, after calming down somewhat, did mostly toe the company line and showed maturity in his reaction to missing out on the win through no fault of his own.
Could they have swapped the drivers? Potentially – and apparently that idea was discussed – but Vettel’s excellent out lap put him in the position to inherit the lead. Being told to relinquish a win, after the season he has had and the controversies in Canada and Italy, would surely have crushed him. It was probably the right call.
This will only serve to further increase tensions within the team, though. Imagine if Ferrari had been this competitive earlier in the year…
And How Did Mercedes Get It So Wrong?
We are all used to Mercedes as a no-nonsense, well-oiled machine in the hybrid era but there have been a few slip-ups (no oil pun intended) recently.
Obviously, whilst clearly a chastening weekend for all involved at Mercedes, the German Grand Prix was something of a lottery and they were far from the all only team to be caught out. Here, however, their call to keep Hamilton out seemed clearly foolish to most armchair strategists watching on. The driver’s call to undercut Leclerc would likely have seen him win the race but, once Mercedes had missed their chance to do so, they decided to gamble on going long.
A safety car in the time that Hamilton was still out would most likely have done the job. But this high-risk approach seems to go against the normal Mercedes sensible, efficient ethos – you don’t leave your strategy calls in the lap of the gods, hoping for a miracle. Without that kind of intervention, they were reliant on the out-of-position cars, that hadn’t stopped, holding up the defacto leaders and the world champion’s tyres were always likely to cry ‘enough’ before then.
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And so it was that Mercedes had to bail out of the gamble and awkwardly ask Bottas – who is supposedly in a fight with Hamilton for the title, remember – to slow down dramatically so he didn’t pass his teammate and drag Albon through with him. James Vowles even worked it beautifully for the memers of the world by using his infamous ‘Valtteri, it’s James’ line again…
Any hope the team had of salvaging something from the situation by utilising the fresher tyres was then dashed by that series of late safety cars.
Is this a case of complacency from the Silver Arrows, with the title all but wrapped up halfway through the season? Are they now focusing on a bigger update for the start of next year so as not to reveal their latest secrets to their rivals? Or have they just been a bit unlucky in the last three races? Whatever the true answer, if they don’t win in Russia next weekend, it will be the longest winless run for Mercedes since the start of the hybrid era.
A Rollercoaster for Ricciardo
Daniel Ricciardo seemed in high spirits (not that that’s exactly noteworthy) coming to Singapore off the back of a great fourth place in Monza and he then followed that up by sealing a solid seventh position on the grid. It was not to last though as he was disqualified from the qualifying session for a technical infringement.
Ricciardo and Renault clearly took umbrage with the penalty but had no option other than to except it and move on, even if it was later revealed to be “after he benefitted from an advantage measured at one microsecond [0.000001s] due to a kerb hit that caused his MGU-K to over-rev on his slowest lap of Q1.” Unfortunately, rules are rules. If you give the teams an inch they will take a mile and if you give them a microsecond they will probably find a way to take a second.
So come Sunday, the Aussie unsurprisingly decided to go for it. He was doing an excellent job of carving through the field, if pushing his luck at points, and looked to have put himself in a net points-paying position but a clumsy move on Giovinazzi left him with a puncture and left him back near where he started.
It was a shame to see. Whilst clearly an excellent driver, at points you have to wonder whether Ricciardo earned his reputation for overtaking by ‘licking the stamp and sending it’ to drivers who would rather just get out of the way of what was normally a faster Red Bull.
Either way, the Honey Badger will leave Singapore, reset and come back fighting again in Sochi.
Answering the Burning Questions
Can Sebastian Vettel recover from a crushing weekend in Monza? He can!
Will the Mercedes or Red Bull be the best car around Marina Bay? Or maybe even Ferrari?! It was mostly just great to see such a fight between all three but seemingly the Ferrari did have an unexpected edge.
How will Alexander Albon cope in his first true head-to-head test against Max Verstappen? It was a solid performance on a very difficult and unforgiving track. But he will need to build on it and close the gap further.
Will Verstappen get through the first corner unscathed this weekend? Yes.
Can Renault keep up the momentum from their strong result in Italy? The car had promising speed but a minor technical glitch and a couple of crashes got in their way.
Seven days after Charles Leclerc took his maiden victory, but one that was tarnished by a tragedy on a sad weekend for motorsport, the 21-year-old took about as joyous a victory as you could ask for at the 2019 Italian Grand Prix – a first win for a Ferrari at Monza in nine years, in front of a jubilant Tifosi.
Leclerc claimed pole position on Saturday, amid ridiculous scenes where most drivers failed in their attempt to take their final runs. (More on that later.) He started well enough and held off a challenge from Lewis Hamilton into the first corner. But once his teammate, Sebastian Vettel, had spun on lap 4 and was effectively out of the race, Leclerc was left with the weight of Italian expectation solely on his young shoulders.
Mercedes had the strategic upper hand. They could attempt the ‘undercut’ with Hamilton and run the sister car of Valtteri Bottas long, in something of a pincer movement. And so it transpired. Ferrari reacted to Hamilton’s earlier stop and pitted Leclerc one lap later; a good in-lap and a quick stop ensuring that the Ferrari driver came out ahead but Hamilton then set about a charge, ramping up the pressure whilst he had a tyre advantage.
The world champion fashioned two chances. Leclerc defended robustly, to the very edge of acceptability, as he has done ever since Max Verstappen rudely barged him out of the way in Austria. On lap 23, Hamilton got along side on the run to the second chicane and Leclerc squeezed him in the braking zone, leaving less than a car’s width. He escaped a penalty but was shown the black and white flag for unsportsmanlike behaviour – effectively F1’s equivalent of a yellow card in football. So when, on lap 35, Leclerc locked up at Turn One, cut the chicane and made a late move to defend from Hamilton as they rounded Curva Grande, one could argue he was fortunate not to receive his second yellow. But the stewards did not investigate and Hamilton didn’t get another chance as his tyres began to fade.
Leclerc wasn’t in the clear yet though as the second half of the Mercedes pincer was closing in. Bottas, on tyres that were eight laps younger, had been steadily closing the gap and claimed second place when Hamilton himself locked up into the first corner on lap 42. The Finn couldn’t put up as stern a challenge as his teammate, however, and never truly threatened Leclerc, who held on to take the chequered flag and spark fervent euphoria amongst the partisan home crowd.
He becomes the third driver in recent memory to win on their Ferrari debut in Monza; the other two being Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher – not bad company, eh?
Meanwhile on the Other Side of the Garage…
Another Italian Grand Prix, another costly spin for Vettel. And this one was even more costly -both for his standing in the race and within the team.
He has now been out-qualified seven times in a row by his teammate. Some of those, including this weekend where Leclerc seemingly did his best not to give Vettel a tow, have come with a caveat. But it does seem Leclerc just has a bit more speed at the moment and it feels like he has subtly grabbed hold of Vettel’s number one status and is now refusing to let go, like a feisty young pup with his new favourite toy.
This is the latest in a line of mistakes from Vettel, now lasting well over a year, and this one was particularly amateurish. He spun all by himself whilst entering the Ascari chicane and then rejoined the track in an incredibly dangerous manner, taking out the unfortunate Lance Stroll in the process. He put himself in a position to be T-boned by another car, eight days after a young man was killed in that exact way. That’s shocking from such an experienced driver – a director of the GDPA, no less.
In fact, it was quite an amateurish weekend all round. There was the utter shambles of Q3, where seven of the nine drivers ran out of time before starting their final runs as they all jockeyed for position, determined not to be at the front of the train without a slipstream. There was Stroll rejoining the track in exactly the same manner as Vettel, just after being hit by him, and forcing Pierre Gasly into the gravel. And then a couple of unsafe releases to top it off.
There was also a terrifying F3 crash on Saturday morning which brought into question the presence of ‘sausage kerbs’, with one having launched the car of Alexander Peroni 15 feet into the air. A scary moment, especially with the death of Anthoine Hubert so fresh in minds throughout the paddock, but fortunately Peroni escaped with just a fractured vertebra. It was promptly removed for the rest of the weekend but there must be a better solution for enforcing track limits. I say bring back gravel traps – maybe a relatively thin strip of gravel with tarmac run-offs beyond for safety’s sake.
A Good Weekend for Renault
It has been a trying season for Renault. Expectations were high after the signing of Daniel Ricciardo, with the team claiming they would be aiming to close the gap to the top three teams. But they have produced a mediocre car with poor reliability and found themselves slipping back from where they were last year.
This was a better weekend, however. Renault’s engine has generally been closer to a laughing stock than the class of the field but, for whatever reason, it seemed to work for them at the most power-sensitive track on the calendar. Whether it was the new spec engine which they introduced recently, nailing the setup here in Monza or a combination of the two, the Renault pair were never too far from the front.
Image credit: XPB Images
And there were no slip ups on Sunday. The two yellow cars kept their noses clean, avoided the occasional chaos around them and brought home an invaluable haul of 22 points. This instantly propels them up to a comfortable fifth in the constructors and they can now set about chasing down McLaren and aim to at least reclaim what they see as their rightful position as ‘best of the rest’.
A Quick Word on Penalties
It would appear that the teams, the FIA and FOM have agreed on a new approach when it comes to applying penalties in the wake of the controversy regarding Sebastian Vettel’s win-that-wasn’t in Montreal this year.
We can see from incidents such as those between Leclerc and Verstappen in Austria and then Great Britain that the stewards have decided to be more lenient and let the drivers battle it out on track more. Race Director Michael Masi even came out after the race and explained their decisions – which is very refreshing and one of the things I called for in my post addressing the Vettel penalty.
I’m all for the drivers battling it out – I think we all are. But there was one point I noted from Masi’s explanations. He stated that if Leclerc and Hamilton had made contact, when the former squeezed the latter off the track, it would have been a penalty rather than the black and white flag. This seems problematic – it is almost encouraging contact between drivers. In avoiding a dangerous move by another driver, the ‘victim’ of said move is putting themselves most likely off the track and doing the aggressor a favour at the same time. We are in danger of veering towards the diving issue in football where players are required to produce theatrics in order to force the officials to make the right decision…
The Italian Grand Prix in 60 Seconds
Answering the Burning Questions
Can Ferrari take another win and send the Tifosi wild with a first win in almost 10 years? Yes!
Will Alexander Albon build on his promising Red Bull debut? It was another solid performance but the decision to stay on the outside of Sainz was slightly naive and cost him positions.
Can Sebastian Vettel take the fight to Charles Leclerc and recover some credibility? That would be a pretty resounding no.
The forecast is for rain…could we have another Germany on our hands?.. Sadly not. It rained before and after the race…typical…
Will Max Verstappen bounce back or could we be about to see a string of errors like early 2018? It was a good fight from the back but another somewhat clumsy error at the first corner.
Any more ‘silly season’ twists incoming? Nothing to report.
A poignant weekend with probably the right result.
Image credit: LAT Images
The 2019 Belgian Grand Prix came on a weekend where things were put very much in perspective. On Saturday, shortly after qualifying, F2 driver Anthoine Hubert tragically lost his life following a massive accident at the Raidillon swerves. The Frenchman, who was just 22, suffered a huge 170mph impact from the car of Juan Manuel Correa. Lewis Hamiltonsaw the incident live on TV whilst being interviewed and you can see in his face that he instantly knew it was not good. But these guys are racers. So come Sunday, they race. It’s all they can do.
Charles Leclerc was a childhood friend of Hubert – as were Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon – so it seems fitting that the next day he should take his maiden F1 victory. It was long overdue anyway.
Under such difficult circumstances, it was an incredibly mature performance. Leclerc got away well from pole position and – after a safety car period caused by a Max Verstappen crash – started to open up a gap as his teammate, Sebastian Vettel, struggled with his tyres. After the German pitted early, on lap 15, the race pace of the Mercedes cars became clear and Hamilton started to close on Leclerc. Whilst Ferrari had held a significant advantage over one lap throughout the weekend, their race pace had always looked less convincing. And so proved to be the case.
When the front two pitted, Vettel inherited the lead but was asked to move aside for the younger Ferrari driver. Credit to Ferrari that they have stuck by their mantra of team orders benefitting whichever driver requires them rather than solely their de facto number one. Whilst Vettel’s status as de facto number one is becoming increasingly under threat, he was still to play a crucial role in this race.
He held the rapid Hamilton behind him for around four laps, in which time Leclerc had stretched his advantage over the world champion to nearly seven seconds. It appeared for a few laps that they had reached something of a stalemate but then the Ferrari tyres began to fade fast and Hamilton was suddenly catching by more than a second a lap. Leclerc kept his head, negotiated back-markers, made no mistakes and narrowly held on for a well-deserved victory. Valtteri Bottas, after a fairly anonymous race, completed a sombre podium as Vettel pitted for new tyres to claim the fastest lap along with fourth position.
Monaco’s first-ever race winner immediately dedicated the victory to Hubert. This is a young man that has already experienced so much tragedy in his 21 years: he lost his godfather and mentor, Jules Bianchi, in 2014; his father died a day before the 2017 Baku F2 race; and now long-term friend Hubert. The fact that he won both races a day after such losses shows the way Leclerc sees the world – he just wants to make them proud.
Yesterday, once again, he did so emphatically.
More Mixed Emotions at Red Bull
Image credit: Getty Images
Verstappen’s excellent run of results eventually came to an end with a race start more reminiscent of his early 2018 struggles. After another poor getaway, he went for a gap that was closing quickly and very reliant on Kimi Räikkönen, firstly, knowing he was there and, secondly, being pretty generous. One of those two requirements was not satisfied and the Red Bull pitched the Alfa Romeo up into the air. Verstappen continued but the damage done to his steering saw him go straight into the barriers at Eau Rouge.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the garage, newly-promoted Alexander Albon was having a debut race to remember, for the right reasons. He was forced to start from the back of the grid as Honda trialled a new engine. This meant no ultimate qualifying lap to truly gauge how he was matching up to Verstappen but he appeared to be holding his own through the practice sessions and, on race day, would show why Red Bull have chosen to give him this chance.
After a steady first half of the race, making slower progress through the field than he would have liked, he suddenly came alive on the soft tyres. A cunning move around the outside of Daniel Ricciardo was followed by a piece of sheer bravery as Sergio Pérez forced him onto the grass down the Kemmel Straight at over 200mph on the final lap. He kept his foot in and took sixth place, which would become fifth after Lando Norris’s retirement.
From the back of the grid to fifth in his first race for Red Bull? I imagine he’ll take that. Christian Horner and Dr Helmut Marko will be very pleased with a performance that justifies their latest driver swap, or certainly goes along way to doing so in one race.
And More Bad Luck for the Luckless Lando
What does Lando Norris have to do to catch a break?!
At a weekend where it looked like McLaren were struggling – having never really been inside the top 10 during Friday or Saturday – Norris dealt with the first corner drama perfectly and found himself emerging from it in fifth. He then set about holding onto that position and did so expertly. Many watching – and Norris himself, he admitted after the race – were expecting those behind to close in on him. Especially once Pérez, armed with an in-form Racing Point, were up to sixth. But it never happened.
It was a drive that thoroughly deserved what would have been the best result of Norris’s career so far, but it wasn’t to be. Just one lap from the end, his Renault engine decided it was done for the day and Norris ground to a halt. To add salt to the wound, Leclerc finished the race just behind a gaggle of drivers that, if they had been lapped, would have been classifield below Norris and seen him eighth rather than 11th.
This is just the latest in a run of misfortune that has cost him countless points. A slow pit stop in Hungary; mechanical failures in Germany, France and Canada; a poorly-timed safety car in Britain. But the bad luck will surely end and the potential he has is clear to see. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him up in fifth place again before the end of the season…and this time at the chequered flag.
The Racing Point Update Seems to be On Point
Having somewhat disappointed – or at least been pretty anonymous – this season, the update for Racing Point that hinted at progress in Hungary, showed this weekend that it has certainly pushed them up the pecking order.
Pérez into Q3 and Lance Stroll into Q2 is better than they have generally managed, respectively, this year. And a solid double points finish on Sunday with a deserved sixth place for Pérez, who had to pass a fair few cars on his way, bodes well for the remainder of the season and for the future of what is a team starting afresh since Lawrence Stroll’s buy-out last year.
Answering the Burning Questions
How will Alexander Albon cope with his promotion to Red Bull? Very well, it turns out!
And how will Pierre Gasly do in the Toro Rosso? A solid run to ninth on what was an incredibly hard weekend for him.
Can Ferrari finally win a race? Yes!
Will we find out who gets the Mercedes seat for 2020? (And the Renault one potentially…) Yes and yes. All as expected with Bottas confirmed for Mercedes and Ocon moving to Renault.
Can F1 pick up where it left off with another excellent race? It was another good race, if a very sad weekend for the sport.
The Mercedes juggernaut steams on, crushing all in its path. Coming into this season, the dominance of the Silver Arrows looked under real threat…but then they set a record for consecutive one-two finishes from the start of the season and have entered the summer break with a commanding 150-point lead.
There was one calamitous race in Germany which unfortunately coincided with their celebrations for their 200th GP and 125 years of motorsport. But, nonetheless, they look like they’re heading for a sixth consecutive championship double which will suprass the record they currently share with Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher era.
It was Ferrari who were supposed to be posing the aforementioned threat to Mercedes. But their apparent speed in pre-season testing was not realised come Melbourne and they are still yet to manage a victory, despite coming excruciatingly close in Bahrain, Canada and Austria.
They have shown flashes of speed, particularly at high-speed tracks thanks to the car’s straight-line speed, but their previous strength in slow corners has entirely disappeared. Operational issues and strategic errors also continue to blight the Scuderia and they are now under threat from Red Bull for second in the Constructors’ Championship.
Red Bull and Honda have far exceeded their expectations from the first year of their partnership. Whilst they learnt a fair bit last year through Toro Rosso taking on the Honda engines, Red Bull management still expected something of a learning curve for both parties.
But Honda have delivered a much-improved power unit and, after at first struggling to understand some of the aerodynamic intricacies of this year’s car, Red Bull are now keeping Mercedes very much on their toes at all types of circuit. The future looks very promising.
It has been something of a disastrous season for Renault so far. They have totally failed in their goal of closing the gap to the ‘big three’ teams and have, in fact, fallen further into the clutches of a very competitive midfield. They are even behind a McLaren team who are using their Renault engine.
Things will need to dramatically pick up in the second half of the season or heads will likely roll at the end of the year.
It has been a strange year for the Haas team on a few fronts. On the racing side, they have been very inconsistent; they usually qualify well but, largely due to issues with tyre temperatures, then disappear come race day and now find themselves ninth of 10 teams in the standings. It also hasn’t helped that their drivers keep crashing into each other…
And away from the actual racing, there have been the frankly bizarre dealings with their title sponsor. A company that had already raised many an eyebrow, Rich Energy then acted out a childish soap opera after just a few races, with twists and turns as to who had dumped whom in the partnership, or whether nobody had been dumped at all. It was all very strange and their position even now isn’t clear. Haas have a lot of work to do across the board.
2019 has been exactly the kind of year that McLaren would have been aiming for in their task of rebuilding a once great team. After a few years of calamity and collapse, they seem to finally be getting things back on track.
They have two excellent young drivers, a much-improved atmosphere within the team and, suddenly, they have found themselves comfortably at the front of the midfield. Onwards and upwards for the popular, papaya team.
This was always likely to be something of a transitional year for Racing Point, following Lawrence Stroll’s buy-out of the team midway through 2018, so they will probably be reasonably satisfied to still be in the main fight for the midfield spots.
Whilst they have often been ‘best of the rest’ in past years, the lack of funding, and thus development, as Force India came to an end could have seen them well off the pace this year but they have remained respectable. And they even nearly managed their habitual unlikely podium in Germany with Lance Stroll’s fourth place. They will now aim to build on these foundations into next year and push back up the order.
The 2019 season has been consistent if underwhelming for Alfa Romeo. They came into the season with some impressive testing times and talk of them being dark horses with their radical design ideas; particularly around the front wing.
But it has generally been a story of a Kimi Räikkönen revival picking them up a few solid points at most races, whilst former Ferrari academy driver Antonio Giovinazzi has only picked up the one. Nothing much more to report but still a significant improvement on where the team was as Sauber just a couple of years ago.
The competitiveness of the 2019 midfield has made it hard for teams to stand out but Toro Rosso have definitely improved since last season and an unlikely driver line-up seems to have worked out very well; arguably too well as Alexander Albon now departs to the senior Red Bull team.
A first podium in over a decade is the obvious highlight and, whilst that accounts for a large percentage of their points haul, their position of fifth in the standings does not flatter to deceive.
It is a real shame to see what has become of this once mighty team. The last 15 years have had many ups and downs for Williams but this is surely their lowest point. It’s amazing to think that they were, arguably, the main competitor to Mercedes at the beginning of the hybrid era.
They started this season seconds off the pace – after having missed a fair portion of pre-season testing – and have been at the back ever since. Being the only team with no retirements is commendable, and an update in Hungary seemed to have made something of a difference, but there is still a long way to go.
