Tag: Alexander Albon

2020 Portuguese GP report | Hamilton wins to break all-time record

Posted on by James Mackenzie
92 not out.
Image credit: Mercedes-AMG

Lewis Hamilton won an entertaining race as Formula 1 made its first-ever trip to Portimão for the 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix.

All weekend, the drivers and teams struggled to get to grips (no pun intended) with the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the tyres at the newly resurfaced, cold track. It led to an interesting qualifying session – where Hamilton took pole on the theoretically slower, medium compound – and a manic opening few laps.

On their medium tyres, the Mercedes – and Charles Leclerc, starting fourth after another excellent qualifying performance – struggled to produce enough heat on the cold, damp surface as a light drizzle continued to fall. Hamilton, who would later describe himself as “overly cautious”, took it very easy, more than aware that he would be the effective guinea pig for those behind him.

Speaking of those behind him, a good start from Sergio Pérez saw him alongside Max Verstappen at Turn 2 but would also see him facing the wrong way moments later as the Dutchman understeered into the Racing Point and pitched him off the track. The McLarens, meanwhile, were flying. Bottas passed Hamilton for the lead towards the end of the first lap but was then himself passed by Carlos Sainz, up from seventh on the grid and fully utilising the extra heat in his soft tyres. The sister McLaren of Lando Norris was also up to fourth, from eighth on the grid, and – most impressive of all – Kimi Räikkönen had passed no fewer than 11 cars on the opening lap, clearly drawing on his two years of rallying experience.

Carlos Sainz and Valtteri Bottas at the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Image credit: XPB Images

Normality was soon restored once the medium tyres had reached temperature, however, with a top three of Bottas, Hamilton and Verstappen. For a while, the World Champion bided his time, staying around two seconds behind his teammate, but on lap 15 he made his move. Fastest lap followed fastest lap and he was soon within DRS range. It was a simple pass down the start/finish straight and, from there, Hamilton never looked back.

He built a gap of 10 seconds as Mercedes extended the first stint on both cars, before finally pitting the pair on laps 40 and 41. By the chequered flag, car number 44 had extended its lead to over 25 seconds. That is a rarity in this era of taking as little as possible out of the tyres, car and engine, but the chilly Algarve circuit meant it was a necessity to keep temperature in the tyres and, for once, Hamilton’s full potential was revealed. It was a fitting way in which to break Michael Schumacher’s all-time win record. 92 victories – a simply mind-boggling achievement and another step towards matching another Schumacher record with a seventh world title; Hamilton now has a 77-point lead in the standings with five races to go.

Verstappen spent the race in his now trademark, lonely position, unable to keep pace with the superior Mercedes but miles clear of the rest of the field. Behind him, Leclerc was similarly isolated and at least as impressive. The only non-Mercedes driver to start on the medium, the Monegasque had predictably fallen back at the start, but recovered well to fourth and was the last man to remain unlapped by the all-conquering leader.

Sergio Pérez produced an even better recovery after his clash with Verstappen on the opening lap and was running fifth in the closing laps. He would fall back, though, as he struggled on the soft tyres, first being passed by Pierre Gasly, on yet another strong weekend for the Frenchman, and then Sainz.

Esteban Ocon finished in eighth, just ahead of teammate Daniel Ricciardo, beating the Honey Badger for the first time since the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix back at the start of August. And Sebastian Vettel at least claimed his first point since Mugello on another weekend where he was thoroughly outclassed by Leclerc.

All in all, Portimão delivered a great race. The conditions helped in mixing things up somewhat, but there was some great wheel-to-wheel racing throughout the field – first Räikkonen and Sainz and then former teammates Pérez and Ocon running side-by-side for multiple corners. And it will now forever be etched into Formula 1 folklore as the venue for Hamilton’s record-breaking victory.

Clouds Gather Over Albon

Alexander Albon at the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Red Bull management’s relentless defence of Alexander Albon this season noticeably started to slip this weekend, with Team Principal Christian Horner saying that the Thai driver “needed to bounce back with strong weekends from start to finish at Portimão and Imola” to claim a Red Bull seat for next year.

He failed in the first of those two objectives this weekend, unfortunately. Whilst ‘only’ half a second down on Verstappen in qualifying, Albon suffered another poor start and the two-stop strategy he ended up on only made matters worse as he was unable to make progress through the midfield. Being lapped by his teammate topped off another race to forget.

He would appear to be safe in his seat through to the end of 2020, but – whilst there are seemingly tensions between Red Bull and Gasly which reduce one threat to Albon – Horner and Helmut Marko now appear to be open to the idea of hiring from outside the Red Bull driver pool and, with Pérez and Nico Hülkenberg currently unemployed next year, there are some very tempting alternatives.

Grosjean Pulls No Punches

Image credit: XPB Images

With the announcement ahead of the Portuguese Grand Prix that Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen would be let go by the Haas team at the end of 2020, the drivers now have no reason to hold back.

Grosjean has been especially outspoken, stating that he believed the VF-20 was essentially the same car as in pre-season testing and now “the slowest in the paddock”.

“When it gets hot at the end of third practice you get the ride height and then it cools down – and then you start qualifying with a different one and every lap the rear suspension heats up and the rear ride height changes. Normally we’re struggling a little bit but this weekend the magnitude is quite bigger and we’ve got no idea why.”

There are deep-set issues at Haas. They have been going backwards rapidly since 2018 and, whilst becoming a cult hero for his entertaining appearances in Drive to Survive, surely Team Principal Guenther Steiner must be held accountable. We all hope that Gene Haas’s patience with the sport continues and we don’t lose another team, but he will know that changes need to be made to the current system.

The Portuguese Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Who will adjust best to a brand-new circuit to F1? Nobody adjusted especially well to the tricky conditions but, predictably, Mercedes came out as the class of the field.

Can Lewis Hamilton make the all-time win record his own this weekend? He can.

Which of the teams battling for third in the Constructors’ Championship will have the best weekend? It was very even between all three, with McLaren taking marginally more points than Renault and Racing Point.

Will there be any big driver line-up announcements? Not yet, but the rumours are getting more confident.

Surely we’ll get rain at one of these European October/November races? Right?! A bit of drizzle kept things interesting throughout but still no downpour.

2020 Eifel GP report | Hamilton wins in Germany to Match Schumacher record

Posted on by James Mackenzie
Records are there to be broken.
Image credit: LAT Images

It was a historic day, at a fittingly historic circuit, as Lewis Hamilton won the Eifel Grand Prix at the Nürburgring and, in doing so, matched Michael Schumacher‘s all-time record of 91 race wins. The World Champion had to work for this momentous victory, overcoming an in-form teammate, tricky conditions and a safety car.

Valtteri Bottas had taken an impressive pole on Saturday and kept up that gutsy approach on Sunday as, after Hamilton had made the better start and taken the inside line at the first corner, he kept his foot in whilst running well wide and somehow held onto the lead. Hamilton later mentioned how much that had impressed him.

The Finn kept the lead for 13 laps but, as his tyres began to suffer and Hamilton started to exert more pressure, he locked up into the first corner and dropped behind his teammate. The flat spots on his tyres meant he was forced to pit and change to a two-stop strategy. That may well have worked out in his favour, but a VSC after George Russell’s retirement gave Hamilton and Max Verstappen a cheap pit stop and then Bottas’s day went from bad to worse as a suspected MGU-H failure brought about his retirement. A 69-point deficit in the championship standings is now looking fairly insurmountable.

Insurmountable was a word often used about Schumacher’s records, though, and here we are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naerwOj5chM

Once his teammate had retired, Hamilton set about keeping the feisty Dutchman in the Red Bull at arm’s length and opened out a lead of around 10 seconds, whilst looking likely to lap every other car in the process. That was all cancelled out by a safety car on lap 44, however. It was another debatable call where a VSC would probably have sufficed and, once the lapped cars had been allowed to pass and catch back up to the field, Hamilton and Verstappen were at a significant disadvantage. In the freezing conditions, high up in the Eifel mountains, their tyres were now far too cold, having sat behind the safety car for a needless amount of time.

They would just about hang on at the restart – the Mercedes DAS system being thoroughly utilised for the first time – and, from there, Hamilton’s win looked secure. Behind the two frontrunners, Daniel Ricciardo held off the challenge of Sergio Pérez to finally earn that elusive podium for Renault. It has been a long time coming – Renault’s last podium was nine years ago – but Cyril Abiteboul’s trip to the tattoo parlour can now be booked. In all the excitement, the Aussie even forgot to do a ‘shoey’, much to his horror when this was pointed out later on…

Carlos Sainz found himself in fifth on a weekend where he had struggled with the latest aerodynamic updates, whilst teammate Lando Norris returned to his 2019 levels of luck with an engine issue denying him a shot at the podium. He nursed the problem for a long time before the anti-stall kicked in, leaving him powerless and, ultimately, sat in a deckchair.

Further back, Pierre Gasly took an opportunistic sixth ahead of Charles Leclerc, who once again outclassed teammate Sebastian Vettel all weekend. Nico Hülkenberg earned driver of the day in eighth after getting an even later call than he had for his previous substitute role in Silverstone. Lance Stroll seemingly developed a stomach bug and was unable to participate so the Hulk rushed to the Nürburgring just in time for Q1. He unsurprisingly qualified last with absolutely no practice but recovered incredibly well on race day and made yet another great case for a race seat in 2021.

Nico Hülkenberg earned Driver of the Day at the Eifel Grand Prix.
Image credit: Motorsport Images

Romain Grosjean defied a sore finger to score his first points of the season in ninth and Antonio Giovinazzi held off Vettel for the final point, after having been hampered by the timing of the safety car.

Another Tough Day for Albon

Alexander Albon was slightly closer to Verstappen in qualifying – albeit half a second back and behind the Ferrari of Leclerc – and in a decent position to achieve the minimum that Red Bull really want from him. That is, being in fourth so that they can put more pressure on Mercedes in terms of strategy and potentially pick up the pieces from any misfortune out front.

But again, it was not to be.

A lock-up on the first lap led to an early first pit stop and, yet again, it would have to be a recovery drive from there. Having made it back into the top 10, he needlessly cut across in front of sister-teammate Daniil Kvyat; that lost the Russian his front wing and earned Albon a five-second penalty. He was very fortunate to escape without a puncture.

A few laps later he caught the other AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly and, whilst attempting a pass into the first corner, locked-up again, very nearly spearing into the side of the Frenchman and then radioed in saying, “they race me so hard”. Martin Brundle’s retort in commentary of “Welcome to Formula 1” sums it up really.

Alexander Albon and Pierre Gasly battle at the Eifel Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

Albon was forced to retire shortly after as apparently a stone had punctured his radiator. The awkward nature of the radio message conveying to him that he would be retiring, combined with the poor race to that point, has led to some theories that he was retired mid-race out of ’embarrassment’ or to be fired.

Whilst that seems highly unlikely, it is not looking good for the Anglo-Thai driver. With Hülkenberg and Pérez both available next year and persistently proving their worth in tricky circumstances, it seems it is only Helmut Marko’s insistence upon hiring strictly from within the Red Bull driver pool that is keeping him in a job.

How High Can Hamilton Go?

With Hamilton now looking more certain than ever to secure a seventh world title by the end of the year and thus match another Schumacher record, how high can he raise the numbers that will be etched next to his name when he leaves the sport?

The next obvious landmark is 100.

100 poles could well happen this year and 100 wins is starting to seem a certainty at some point next year, considering the level of dominance shown by the Silver Arrows and the lack of evolution between this year’s cars and those of 2021. Some even talk of 10 world titles. But the new regulations in 2022 make anything from then a total unknown at this point and Hamilton is yet to officially sign a contract even for next season.

Wherever the high-tide marks settle, they may well look insurmountable as Schumacher’s did before. But, as the great man himself said, “records are there to be broken”. Maybe it could even be his son, Mick, who breaks them. For now, let’s just enjoy that we are witnessing history being made and great moments like Mick handing over a gift from the Schumacher family to Hamilton to honour his achievement.

The Eifel Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Can Lewis Hamilton match Michael Schumacher’s win record this weekend? He can!

Or can Valtteri Bottas push on after his win in Russia? He certainly pushed on in qualifying, but things gradually unravelled in the race.

Will there be any more stewarding or penalty controversies? Not particularly, other than some debate about the safety car.

Can Alexander Albon have a strong weekend and ease some pressure? Not in the slightest.

Will the cold weather throw up any curveballs? Will we get a wet and wild weekend? The cold weather did spice things up a little. But Friday was too wet to the point of no running and then we only got a few drops of rain on Saturday and Sunday. Until the traditional downpour just after the race, obviously…

2020 Tuscan GP report | Hamilton takes 90th victory amid Mugello chaos

Posted on by James Mackenzie
So, shall we just have all the races in Italy then?..
Lewis Hamilton wins the Tuscan Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton extended his championship lead with a hard-earned victory at the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix, ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas and Alexander Albon, who earned his – and Thailand’s – first ever F1 podium.

Whilst it was Bottas who had looked on top for much of the weekend, Hamilton snatched pole position by a few hundredths of a second on Saturday. He got off the line badly, however, and was easily beaten to the first corner by Bottas. He may well have fallen further back in the pack but for Max Verstappen’s engine issues – the Red Bull driver pulled alongside Hamilton but suddenly lost power and caused those behind him to get off the gas.

Things went from bad to worse for Verstappen as – now back in the midfield – he was caught up in one of two crashes at Turn Two. Pierre Gasly found himself sandwiched between Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean and the now interlocked cars collected the Dutchman with only Räikkönen avoiding the gravel trap. Grosjean somehow escaped back to the circuit, but the race was over for Verstappen – his second successive retirement – and Gasly – from first at Monza to last at Mugello.

Meanwhile, just ahead of that crash, slight contact between Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz had seen the McLaren spin round and collect the hapless Sebastian Vettel. The pair would at least make it back to the pits whilst the safety car had been deployed.

Mugello’s set of crashes was far from over though.

Barely seconds after the safety car had peeled in, there was a massive, multi-car pile-up before most had even crossed the start/finish line. Bottas had not put the pedal to the metal until the last minute – to minimise the slipstream effect for those behind – but confusion reigned behind as drivers saw some in front accelerating. The concertina effect, from drivers realising they had gone too early and braking, led to Antonio Giovinazzi and Sainz slamming into those ahead of them at terrifying speeds.

A massive crash at the Tuscan Grand Prix.
Image credit: LAT Images

Fortunately, nobody was hurt, but Giovinazzi, Sainz, Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi were all out the race. Inevitably, this brought out a red flag.

When the drivers lined up for the restart, there were just 13 cars remaining as Esteban Ocon’s Renault had also been forced into retirement with irreparably damaged brakes which had literally been on fire during the safety car period.

As the lights went out for the second time, the Mercedes switched places again, Hamilton getting into the slipstream of his teammate and completing a crucial move around the outside of Turn One. Behind them, Charles Leclerc had got himself up into an unlikely third but would fall back steadily as the Ferrari’s lack of pace became evident at what was turning into a predictably tainted 1000th race for the Scuderia.

Renault successfully executed an undercut at the first stops to get Daniel Ricciardo past Stroll into third place, whilst Albon had recovered from a poor restart and was back up to fifth, behind the Canadian. As the trio navigated the high-speed Arrabbiata corners, Stroll suffered a left-rear failure and crashed heavily, completing the rare event where all three podium finishers from the previous race fail to complete the next. Once again, the driver escaped unscathed and, once again, the red flag was shown.

No red flag for three years and then suddenly three in the space of seven days.

And so, the drivers lined up for their third start of the day, Bottas knowing he just had to repeat his feat from the original start to all but wrap up the race win. He didn’t manage it, though – possibly hampered by the tyre marbles that now adorned the left side of the circuit – and, in fact, fell behind Ricciardo.

He was soon back ahead but could do nothing to close down his teammate, who rubbed salt into the wound with an unerring fastest lap on the penultimate tour. The world champion is now just one win short of Michael Schumacher’s record and seemed quite overwhelmed by the proposition of matching it. “It just doesn’t seem real,” he said, “it’s ultimately a privilege to be in a position and have such a great team and a car to be able to deliver weekend in, weekend out. But I never thought that I would be here, that’s for sure.”

It was once again so near and yet so far for Ricciardo and Renault as Albon banished memories of his former podium near-misses and passed the Australian around the outside of Turn One to finally claim that elusive trip to the rostrum.

Image credit: Red Bull Racing

Hopefully the amiable 24-year-old can use this as a stepping stone to get his season back on track. We’ve seen how good he can be on a Sunday – two instinctive, brave moves earned him this podium finish – but he must improve in qualifying to help cement his position within the team. Red Bull want their second driver to at least be within the pit window of the Mercedes cars and there are rumours beginning to swirl of them considering Pérez or Nico Hülkenberg for next year.

Pérez himself came home a solid fifth – at his first race since discovering he would be replaced at Racing Point by Vettel in 2021 – ahead of Lando Norris, on a surprisingly uncompetitive weekend for McLaren, and Daniil Kvyat.

The Ferraris did at least salvage a double-points finish at their celebratory weekend, but that is not much of an achievement when only 12 cars reach the chequered flag, one of them being a Williams and the other a wounded Haas. They were, at least spared the ignominy of being passed by George Russell for the final point.

Russell was distraught to have missed out on his first F1 points. He had been running a strong ninth when the final red flag was shown and lost out on the restart, but the team are making progress and Russell’s time will come.

Dissecting That Crash

Post-race, 12 drivers were summoned to the stewards and given warnings for their “inconsistent application of throttle and brake, from the final corner along the pit straight”. But when you punish more than half of the grid, surely the rules have to be looked at too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u900k-obTRs

In the immediate aftermath, Hamilton blamed the incident on the safety car turning its lights off too late. Apparently this is a concern that Mercedes had raised about the restart procedure before the race, given Mugello’s layout, but Bottas claims that “they said basically they’re going to keep doing it because it’s better for the show, I think that was the reply”.

Bottas may well have controlled the pack similarly anyway – it was an approach taken by drivers in the junior formulae – but the fact that the safety car only turned its lights off as it entered the final corner clearly left him with no alternative. Once that was the case, the concertina effect was always likely given the lack of visibility and the astonishing closing speeds in these cars.

The onboard footage from Giovinazzi and Sainz was disturbingly reminiscent of horrific accidents in the past, such as the one that sadly cost Billy Monger his legs, and we were lucky that seemingly the only injury was a bruised hand for the Spaniard. Clearly, none of the drivers are predominantly to blame – here is an excellent step-by-step breakdown of exactly what happened – and, whilst Michael Masi claims that “safety is paramount”, the fact that he refuses even to review the restart procedures has a stench of arrogance.

This absolutely needs to be addressed by the FIA and the GDPA. Whether it be a case of returning to the safety car lights going out earlier or even a mandatory VSC period immediately after the safety car comes in, there must be a better solution than the one we saw at Mugello.

The Tuscan Grand Prix in 90 Seconds (It Needs the Extra 30)

Answering the Burning Questions

How do you follow the last grand prix?! Well, like that, actually.

Will the drivers manage any overtaking around the Mugello track? Quite a bit, yes. The headwind helped make the DRS zone very effective.

Can Mercedes bounce back from their messy weekend? Of course they can.

Can Ferrari produce anything worthy of the occasion on their 1000th race? Of course they can’t.

2020 Spanish GP report | Hamilton stays cool in the Spanish heat

Posted on by James Mackenzie
Another win, another record.
Lewis Hamilton wins the Spanish Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton took a dominant victory at the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix and moved one clear of Michael Schumacher to claim the outright record for the most podiums in F1 history with his 156th visit.

There were hopes in the paddock of another closely fought race, after last week’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix exposed a potential Achilles’ heel for the champions as they struggled with their rear tyres and Max Verstappen snatched an unlikely win. But those hopes were quickly extinguished when Hamilton “pulled the pin”, as Martin Brundle put it, and built a gap of almost ten seconds to the Red Bull in preparation for his first pit stop.

The usual Mercedes 1-2 in qualifying had been broken up by a poor start from Valtteri Bottas, the Finn suffering from a lack of a slipstream on the long run to the first corner and being passed by Verstappen and the opportunistic Lance Stroll. The Finn recovered to third quickly enough but spent the rest of the grand prix failing to get close enough to Verstappen in order to mount a real attack. Even on soft tyres towards the end of the race, he just didn’t seem to have the requisite pace and crossed the line 44 seconds behind his teammate, after making a late stop to claim the fastest lap.

It was a chastening weekend for Bottas, who is seeing his title aspirations crumble once again. “I have no idea what the points difference is,” he said, “but it is way too big and I can see again the championship drifting away. I will always bounce back, but right now I want to be somewhere else other than this.”

During the latest triple-header, the championship has transformed from a two-horse to a three-horse race and he is looking increasingly like the third horse.

Image credit: Mercedes

Hamilton, meanwhile, was imperious throughout – only denied his seventh career ‘grand chelem’ by his teammate’s late dash for the fastest lap and so “in the zone” that he didn’t realise he had passed the chequered flag.

Behind the front three, the Racing Points were ‘best of the rest’. Stroll continues to defy his critics and is really starting to cement his position as more than just a ‘rich boy driving for his dad’s team’; the Canadian took fourth ahead of teammate Sergio Pérez after the Mexican received a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags.

Carlos Sainz completed the top six with a strong drive at his home grand prix, seemingly having solved the overheating issues that have plagued his McLaren recently.

A Little Redemption in Red

Sebastian Vettel made the best of another bizarre Ferrari strategy to salvage seventh, impressively making a set of soft tyres last 36 laps and holding off a train of faster cars towards the end.

The incompetency of the Ferrari strategists has become a running joke at this point and they continued to add fuel to the fire here. A bizarre radio exchange played out for the world to hear as Vettel was ignored, then told to push, then told to go to the end, and finally had to tell his team the sums they needed to do for him.

Image credit: Reuters

The tension between the four-time world champion and his team is palpable and it feels as though both parties are just waiting for the season to be over.

Ferrari may also find themselves in hot water as it has now transpired that Charles Leclerc drove for two laps without his safety harnesses secured after his engine had cut out and spun him at the final chicane on lap 36. A massive lapse in common sense and safety that the FIA may feel the need to make an example of.

Pressure Continues to Increase on Albon

In the break before racing at Spa-Francorchamps last season, despite all the team’s previous reassurances, Pierre Gasly was replaced at Red Bull by Alexander Albon. But, as we head to this year’s Belgian Grand Prix, the team find Albon arguably underperforming as badly as the Frenchman was 12 months ago.

Red Bull are desperate for their second car to get, at least, reasonably close to Verstappen’s pace to aid their strategy options when attempting to outsmart Mercedes. Albon has certainly showed promise at times, but there is surely only so long people can continue to make excuses for him.

The London-born Thai driver is averaging a deficit of over half a second to his teammate in qualifying and, whilst he has often produced great recovery drives on a Sunday, that is still only getting him back into a position that would be the least expected of him.

Alexander Albon at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

This weekend, he did improve his qualifying slightly – if only to sixth on the grid – but was hampered in the race as Red Bull possibly used him as a guinea pig to test out the hard tyre for his teammate out front. That put him back into the many ‘DRS trains’ forming through the midfield and he only managed fight back to eighth place.

The fact is, however, that if he had shown the pace to get past the Racing Points into fourth earlier in the race, Red Bull would likely not have taken the gamble to switch to the hard tyres.

It was apparently Gasly being lapped by Verstappen in Hungary last year that was the final straw for the Red Bull bosses, so one wonders what must have been going through Albon’s head as he moved aside for his teammate here in Spain.

The Spanish Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Will Mercedes experience issues with their tyres again? Nope.

And can Red Bull then challenge for another win? Also nope.

Will Sebastian Vettel leave his Silverstone troubles behind him? To some extent, yes. A rightful driver of the day.

How will Sergio Pérez deal with the strain of driving an F1 car post-virus? He coped fine, seemingly. Even with it being one of the hottest races in years.

Will anyone pull a Maldonado? Again, nope.

2020 British GP report | Hamilton takes home victory despite last-lap puncture

Posted on by James Mackenzie
Who needs four tyres anyway?
Image credit: Getty Images

What had been a fairly processional race suddenly exploded into life – literally, in the case of three drivers’ Pirelli tyres – with a couple of laps remaining at the 2020 British Grand Prix.

The Mercedes pair had led comfortably throughout, despite a couple of early safety cars after crashes for Kevin Magnussen and Daniil Kvyat, but had been pushing each other quite hard on tyres that had done nearly 40 laps. Then Valtteri Bottas suddenly started to fall back and, just as he started lap 50 of 52, his front-left tyre decided it was done for the day.

With an entire lap to do, the Finn fell back down the order and Red Bull decided to pit Max Verstappen – who had been running a lonely race in third place – in an attempt to take the fastest lap. The drama was far from over, however, as Carlos Sainz’s front-left followed suit from fourth place and then – with a little over half a lap remaining – so did race leader Lewis Hamilton’s.

The 30-second gap back to Verstappen was reducing rapidly and it looked briefly as though Hamilton was about to have the win snatched away from him in the most excruciating manner. The world champion managed the situation perfectly, though, and scraped over the line with about five seconds to spare. Neither Bottas nor Sainz would manage to recover into the top ten after pitting, which has a huge impact on the championship standings – Hamilton now has an ominous 30-point lead over his teammate.

Some have questioned Red Bull’s decision to pit Verstappen, arguing that he would have won otherwise, but hindsight is 20/20 and all the tyres were on a knife-edge by the end, so there’s nothing to say the same would not have happened to the Dutchman.

Charles Leclerc profited from the drama to secure an unlikely second podium of the season in the uncompetitive Ferrari. It was an excellent performance, made all the clearer as his four-time world champion teammate, Sebastian Vettel, struggled throughout and eventually managed a single point for 10th.

Pirelli are conducting investigations into the failures – Kvyat’s earlier retirement was eventually proven to be a tyre failure also – ahead of another grand prix at the punishing Silverstone track next week, where temperatures are due to be higher and the tyres were planned to be a step softer.

More Midfield Action

The midfield battle at the British Grand Prix.
Image credit: Motorsport Images

Whilst it was pretty serene out front for the most part, there was plenty of action, once again, in the midfield. The McLarens of Sainz and Lando Norris – sporting a simply excellent special helmet design, produced by six-year-old competition-winner Eva – swapped positions repeatedly with Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and the Racing Point of Lance Stroll. Even Romain Grosjean in the Haas was involved after not pitting during the safety car period and jumping from 14th to 5th. The struggles of the American team continue, but Grosjean was able to hold on to the pack surprisingly well for a good 15 laps. He did, however, produce some controversy with his defensive manoeuvres during that period.

Late jolts to one side at the end of the straight were reminiscent of those performed by Verstappen in his early days – which briefly brought about the ‘Verstappen rule’ banning them – and resulted in complaints over the radio by Sainz and Ricciardo. He received a black-and-white flag as a driving-standards warning but no penalty.

As the chairman of the GPDA, Grosjean should be setting an example. Mark Webber was cutting in his criticism, saying that the Haas driver has a “gross misunderstanding of modern grand prix racing” and is “borderline out of his depth in this category”. Ricciardo said that this “on-the-edge” driving would be raised during the drivers’ briefing ahead of the next race. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that room…

Pressure Continues to Mount on Albon

It was another troubling weekend for Alexander Albon. A fairly big crash during Practice 2 on Friday set the tone as Albon struggled again to get to grips with this year’s very sensitive car and he then missed much of the final practice session with a battery problem. Qualifying went no better as he failed to progress from Q2; an attempt to get through on the medium tyres proved too ambitious and he failed to improve on the soft tyre, leaving him 12th on the grid.

Alexander Albon at the British Grand Prix.
Image credit: LAT Images

Magnussen made an excellent start and was ahead of the Red Bull by the end of the first lap. He made an error into the final chicane, though, and was compromised on the exit, presenting a tempting opportunity to Albon. The Anglo-Thai got himself somewhat alongside the Haas but – realising the gap was closing – tried to back out of the move, left it too late, and pitched Magnussen off into the barriers.

That earned him a five-second penalty and made his job harder still. As has often been the case, he did then produce a decent recovery drive and – once all the late tyre dramas had played out – found himself at least with four points for eighth place.

Tongues are beginning to wag, though, as he gets no closer to Verstappen’s level of performance and continues to make costly errors. Meanwhile, Pierre Gasly – the man he replaced last year – is excelling back in the AlphaTauri and managed to finish ahead of Albon here, with a commendable run to seventh.

The British Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Who will replace Sergio Pérez at Racing Point after his positive test?! Only Nico Hülkenberg!

If it is The Hulk, surely he won’t finally get his podium in the ultimate redemption arc?!?! …No…He didn’t even start the race. The man is cursed.

Can anyone challenge Mercedes? Only Pirelli seemingly.

With a very different layout to the first three grands prix, will any teams suddenly prosper at Silverstone? Renault appeared a bit stronger, but there were no major changes in the pecking order.

Will Alexander Albon have a better weekend with a new race engineer? …Also no… Hopefully he’s not as cursed as The Hulk has proven to be, but it’s starting to look a bit that way.

Red Bull pull the ol’ switcheroo again

Posted on by James Mackenzie

Rule One: The Doctor lies.

I’m not exactly a Doctor Who fan, but I am aware of that as a reference. And it also applies in Formula 1…at least when referring to Dr Helmut Marko.

Less than two weeks ago, Dr Marko ruled out replacing Pierre Gasly mid-season, stating that he would be remaining with the Red Bull team for the rest of 2019. But that is exactly what has happened today. Gasly will be demoted back to Toro Rosso to partner Daniil Kvyat – a man very familiar with that feeling – and replaced by Alexander Albon at Red Bull from the Belgian Grand Prix.

That is a very early promotion for Albon. He is just 12 races into his Formula 1 career and suddenly faces the daunting prospect of switching teams mid-season into a race-winning car and being compared with an in-form Max Verstappen on the other side of the garage. This is a young man who was dropped entirely from the Red Bull programme in 2012 and who only really got his chance this year thanks to Red Bull’s pool of junior prospect drying up.

There is logic behind the decision, however. Gasly has badly underperformed, obviously, and Kvyat is a known quantity to Red Bull management, so why not give the new guy a shot? Albon has been performing well in his debut season and, as the official statement points out, “Red Bull are in the unique position of having four talented Formula 1 drivers under contract who can be rotated between Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso. The team will use the next nine races to evaluate Alex’s performance in order to make an informed decision as to who will drive alongside Max in 2020.”

The four Red Bull drivers.

Red Bull have little to lose. If Albon doesn’t cut it then – being brutally honest – he’s unlikely to be that true star driver. Sink or swim situations are where the ‘generational’ talents thrive – think Verstappen winning his first race for Red Bull or Lewis Hamilton’s rookie season, pitted against the reigning double world champion Fernando Alonso. And if he does well then they have pulled off a master stroke and stand a far better chance of beating Ferrari to second in the Constructors’ Championship this year. That is the main motivator behind this change – it was evident in Christian Horner’s comments after the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Should we feel sorry for Gasly?

He is by all accounts a lovely guy and he was probably unlucky to be thrust into the big team so early, after Daniel Ricciardo‘s shock move to Renault. But Formula 1 is cut-throat; Red Bull Racing particularly so. Perhaps he will recuperate at Toro Rosso and come back stronger – he certainly showed promise last year and, between Kvyat and Robert Kubica, this has already been a year for comebacks. Or he may take it the way Kvyat took his demotion in 2016 and mentally struggle to deal with the setback. Time will tell; I hope it’s the former.

Spare a thought for Kvyat, too, as he can now add ‘passed up for the job’ to his long list of grievances through his Red Bull rollercoaster.

‘Silly season’ has now officially started. Over to you, Mercedes…

2019 Chinese (1000th) GP report | Hamilton wins with ease

Posted on by James Mackenzie
Mercedes domination and Ferrari politics. Not much has changed in 1000 races.
Lewis Hamilton wins F1's 1000th grand prix.
Image credit: Daimler AG

Lewis Hamilton recovered from a tricky start to the weekend at the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix and ultimately took a comfortable win on what was Formula 1’s 1000th grand prix.

Coming into the weekend, most were expecting Ferrari to be on top. It was somewhat in the balance, with the top two teams having had superiority at one race each this year, but the track layout appeared to favour Ferrari. Particularly considering their straight line speed and the Shanghai International Circuit’s 1.2 km back straight. But it was the Mercedes team who seemed to have the edge throughout the weekend.

The Ferraris had two main problems. Firstly, they don’t seem to be able to release their full engine power consistently on a Sunday. Surely if that’s the case on a grey day in April, they are going to struggle at most races. And secondly, they were losing so much to Mercedes on the long, right-hand corner before the straight, that it didn’t matter anyway. There could be fundamental issues with this car.

Between the two drivers of the Silver Arrows, Valtteri Bottas had held a reasonably comfortable margin of around half a second over his world champion teammate through all the practice sessions. But then Lewis Hamilton did what Lewis Hamilton does. He pulled a bunch of speed from nowhere in qualifying to get within a few hundredths of the Finn’s pole time, then nailed the start and never looked back, sailing off into the distance to claim the honour of winning F1’s 1000th race. The Ferraris meanwhile were struggling – not only with speed but also decision-making…

Ferrari Team Orders: Round 3

That’s three team orders given out in the first three races…and not much to show for them. Charles Leclerc has remained magnanimous and toed the company line thus far, but has certainly given the impression that he has a backbone and won’t stand for this in the long run. In Australia, he dutifully stayed behind Sebastian Vettel in the closing stages despite clearly being faster. In Bahrain, he was asked to stay behind for two laps (for a reason I’m unsure of) but the pass presented itself too easily and he was gone. And now in China, he has been asked to move aside, before being sacrificed in an attempt to slow up Bottas.

At the time, the first part of that was pretty understandable – Vettel had been the quicker driver through the weekend and did appear to be stuck behind his teammate. But once freed, he didn’t get away…the Mercedes did. But the second part harked back to the days of Kimi Räikkönen being left on an incomprehensible strategy, purely to cost a Mercedes maybe a couple of tenths. Ferrari waited too long to order Vettel past and his tyres were already damaged from Leclerc’s dirty air, but it doesn’t look like they were ever going to challenge Mercedes this weekend. All they did was cost themselves a 4th place finish.

It could be argued that without these team orders Leclerc would be significantly closer to Hamilton in the title race than Vettel is even with their favouring of him. Either way, these team orders will only matter if Ferrari solve their car issues. And fast.

A Flying McLaren and a Flying Thai

McLaren came back down to earth with a bang here (quite literally in the case of Lando Norris) after their excellent result in Bahrain. They had said that they expected to struggle in Shanghai and so it proved to be with the drivers only managing to qualify 14th and 15th. And then came the torpedo. In fairness, Daniil Kvyat can count himself quite unlucky to receive that penalty. Whilst a little clumsy from the Russian, it looked the type of crash that would normally be filed under ‘first lap racing incident’. Norris was rejoining the track at a pretty sharp angle and left the other McLaren of Carlos Sainz nowhere to go. Add in a bit of understeer from Kvyat and you have an airborne teenager and three damaged cars. Norris did at least utilise the opportunity to continue his reign as F1’s Resident Memelord.

Meanwhile, his former GP2 rival, Alexander Albon, was not long out of the pit lane and possibly wondering if he was set for a tough race fighting his way into the midfield. You could wonder how a rookie would cope mentally with a big crash in Practice 3 that left him out of qualifying and starting from the pit lane. The answer, in this case, was ‘commendably’. The young Thai driver moved slowly but surely through the field and somehow found himself in the points, then impressively holding off Romain Grosjean’s Haas in the final few laps despite being on far older tyres. These are the kind of performances that could have him entering the frame for a future Red Bull drive. And one that could be not too far away considering Pierre Gasly’s current struggles…

An Underwhelming 1000th Grand Prix

The Grand Prix was fairly uneventful beyond the first few laps, but it was the event itself that particularly disappointed. It had been built up for a long time, with a countdown extending back to last season, but in the end it was something of a damp squib.

It’s a shame number 1000 ended up falling in China. The complexities of getting old champions and cars to Shanghai proved too much, so we were left with just Damon Hill driving his father’s Lotus 49B. It also doesn’t help that the country itself has little to no motorsport heritage. Just look at all the empty stands. The promoters claim it was sold out but that’s only due to them closing huge expanses of grandstand. This should have been a massive event. Race 1000 – that’s the milestone. But for all the build up, in reality it amounted to not much more than a few special helmets, some stickers on the cars and the champagne bottles being painted red.

Still, at least people on Reddit made some cool stuff.

The 1000th Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Will Charles Leclerc pick up where he left off after his stunning performance in Bahrain? Not quite. But it’s complicated…

With one dominant race each (in terms of pace anyway), who will come out on top between Mercedes and Ferrari this time? Mercedes, pretty comprehensively.

Can Pierre Gasly get his Red Bull closer to its probably rightful place in the top 6? Well, he did get into the top 6… And claimed the fastest lap. But realistically was still a long way shy of Max Verstappen’s pace.

What happened to Bottas 2.0? Will he reappear here? Inconclusive. Was it Lewis lacking early in the weekend or Bottas 2.0? Either way, we know who ended up with the win.

Who will have the best special one-off helmet design for the 1000th GP? For me, the retro simplicity of Daniel Ricciardo’s Brabham-inspired lid takes it.