Tag: Racing Point

2020 70th Anniversary GP report | Verstappen ends the Mercedes dominance

Posted on by James Mackenzie
What a difference a week can make.
Max Verstappen wins the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
Image credit: Motorsport Images

Max Verstappen produced a fantastic drive to take an unexpected win at Silverstone’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.

The Mercedes cars had been dominating the weekend in what has become their customary manner this year, with a comfortable margin of almost a second to the rest of the field during qualifying. But that dominant qualifying session would actually prove to be quite costly.

Red Bull put Verstappen out on the hard tyres in Q2 and he succeeded in progressing with that tyre, meaning that he would start the race on it, whilst Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton had to start on the softer medium tyres. Those tyres rapidly started to degrade and Verstappen was all over the back of the Mercedes by the time they pitted on laps 13 and 14 respectively.

Around 10 laps later, Verstappen was still circulating happily on the hard tyres he had started the race on – in addition to having completed a qualifying lap – and the Silver Arrows were already struggling with blistering on their new, hard tyres. Verstappen wrote off any chance of challenging for the win when speaking to the media on Saturday, but Red Bull suddenly realised they had a genuine chance here.

A slow pit stop saw the Dutchman rejoin narrowly behind Bottas, but he was able to make short work of passing him on the fresher tyres and opened out a small gap. The pair would pit together on lap 32, both fitting the hard tyres and Bottas’s chances of a win looked all but over. Mercedes chose to gamble with their other car, initally considering trying to run Hamilton to the end, but – likely cautious considering last weekend’s tyre blowouts – eventually settled on a long middle stint and a charge to the flag with 11 laps on a fresh set of the hard tyres.

Image credit: Mercedes

The world champion did a good job of preserving the tyres and, once he was on the new set, hunted down and passed Charles Leclerc and Bottas fairly easily. Verstappen was long gone, however, and took the chequered flag for his ninth F1 victory, along with second in the drivers’ standings.

Bottas was visibly frustrated at having ended up behind his teammate, after an excellent pole position the day beforehand, and accused his team of “sleeping”. He will have to come back stronger once again in Spain next weekend, where further high temperatures and punishing corners could see Red Bull in contention once again.

Behind the top three, Leclerc came home an impressive fourth and Alexander Albon produced a much-needed performance, full of excellent overtaking manoeuvres, to finish fifth. The Racing Points followed them in sixth and seventh – Nico Hülkenberg impressing again during his substitute appearances – with Esteban Ocon, Lando Norris and Daniil Kvyat filling the remaining points-paying positions.

Politics on the Track

Leclerc continues to drag this year’s Ferrari into positions it probably has no right to be. In Austria and Hungary, he took unlikely, opportunistic podiums and, today, made a risky one-stop strategy work – against the recommendations of his strategy team – to move up from eighth on the grid to fourth at the finish line.

This is reinforcing the impression he gave last year that he is a true star of the future, but he will need Ferrari to make some significant improvements to the way in which they operate if he is to challenge for titles any time soon.

On the other side of the garage, a messy divorce is playing out in front of the eyes of the world.

Sebastian Vettel spins at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel picked up where he left off last weekend, struggling to extract any performance from the underpowered SF1000. The low-downforce setup which the team decided to pursue at Silverstone doesn’t appear to suit his driving style and he qualified a lowly 12th. On Sunday, he spun at the first corner.

There was still a strong chance of a recovery drive, though, with the possibility of counter-strategies such as the one-stop used successfully by Leclerc. But Ferrari were stubborn and forced him to pit – seemingly to move him out the way of his teammate – which left him in traffic. The rarely outspoken German came over the radio to say, “I’ll hang in there, but you know that you’ve messed up”.

Matters were made worse when he was bizarrely pitted after just 10 laps on the hard, in order to take a set of used mediums for the remaining 19 laps. Conspiracy theories of Ferrari purposely hindering Vettel are abound and this was not helped by Team Principal Mattia Binotto pinning the blame squarely on his driver. Vettel himself looks done with the team and pointedly remained completely silent over the radio after the race had ended.

And Politics off the Track

Friday morning saw the result of Renault’s protest against the Racing Point brake ducts. The ‘Pink Mercedes’ were docked 15 points and fined 400,000 euros for what the stewards described as “using tracing paper to copy a shape/drawing” when it came to their design process.

The matter is complicated by the fact that Racing Point were legally supplied with Mercedes’ 2019 brake ducts last year, before they became a listed part, and can’t really be expected to forget the designs that they have seen. What apparently swung the stewards’ decision was the fact that Racing Point did not use the designs of the rear brake ducts last year as they did not fit with their former high-rake philosophy, but they are now using them after changing to the Mercedes philosophy for this year’s car.

Image credit: Getty Images

Either way, nobody is happy with the result.

Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Williams and Racing Point themselves have all lodged the intention to appeal and Lawrence Stroll issued a strong statement, defending the team and accusing others of “poor sportsmanship”.

Binotto said, “at school there are those who pass and those who copy their homework”, and that they would be seeking clarity over the situation. Frankly, that is pretty rich coming from a team who came to a highly controversial ‘undisclosed agreement’ with the FIA regarding their almost certainly illegal use of engines last season. If Racing Point were ‘copying homework’, then Ferrari just plain cheated on the test.

The 70th Anniversary Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

With softer tyres and higher temperatures, will there be further tyre dramas? Not as much visible drama as last week, but it certainly changed the complexion of the race.

Can Alexander Albon have a clean weekend? Qualifying still wasn’t the best but overall, yes.

Will Sebastian Vettel find some pace after struggling in the midfield last weekend? Not really.

Can Valtteri Bottas put a dent in what is now an ominous gap to his teammate in the standings? Nope.

Surely The Hulk can catch a break and at least get to race this time?! He can! Still no podium, though, obviously.

2020 Styrian GP report | Hamilton returns to form

Posted on by James Mackenzie
A wet weather masterclass from Hamilton on Saturday. (And Sunday wasn’t bad either.)
Lewis Hamilton wins the Styrian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Getty Images

After last week’s chaos, normal service was resumed at the second event around the Spielberg track, in the shape of a Lewis Hamilton domination, a Mercedes 1-2, an impressive Max Verstappen podium and a Ferrari calamity at the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix.

His troubles at the last race led to Hamilton being asked some fairly ridiculous questions as to whether he should focus more on racing than activism. He answered them in emphatic style with one of his very best pole positions – there are 89 of them, remember – and a controlled victory on Sunday. He then doubled down on that response with a black power salute on the podium.

Saturday’s qualifying took place in the wettest conditions for some time and gave the drivers the platform to demonstrate every ounce of their skill and remind any doubters that they are the very best in the world. Hamilton and Verstappen stood out throughout the session, seemingly on another plane to the others. The world champion was not content with that, though, and moved onto another plane again, with a final lap that was 1.2 seconds faster than Verstappen in second; the gap between first and second was larger than the one between second and 10th. Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff described the lap as “out of this world” and former driver Mark Webber tweeted “there’s a F1 category and there’s then a F1-plus category. Lewis is/was in a different league”.

There were also starring performances from Carlos Sainz in third, Esteban Ocon in fifth and George Russell, who dragged his Williams out of Q1 for the first time and came within a tenth of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari for a place in Q3, eventually lining up 11th on the grid.

Sunday was less eventful for the most part but still an entertaining race. Hamilton led from the front whilst teammate Valtteri Bottas steadily worked his way back up to second, eventually passing Verstappen after an excellent duel in the final few laps. There was plenty of midfield action, with Sergio Pérez recovering from 17th on the grid to even challenge Albon for 4th at the end.

A dramatic last lap at the Styrian Grand Prix.
Image credit: Formula 1

In the process, however, he damaged his front wing and fell back into the clutches of Lando Norris, Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo at the final corner, resulting in a three-way photo finish. It was another storming finish from Norris who, after claiming a last-gasp podium seven days earlier, moved up from ninth to fifth in the dying stages after a long first stint. He remains third in the championship and is really coming into his own in his second season of F1.

Further back, things were going from bad to worse to whatever-is-below-that for the Scuderia.

A Horse Far From Prancing

Ferrari rushed through updates, that had originally been intended for the Hungarian Grand Prix next week, in order to have a direct comparison to the previous weekend’s race on the same track. The drivers reported an improvement during Friday’s practice sessions, but the times didn’t appear noticeably better and, whilst the soaking qualifying conditions will have complicated matters, 10th and 14th on the grid was worse than they had managed the week prior.

But still, they had the race on Sunday to try and make up ground and – at the very least – amass some useful data in their recovery efforts…right?

Wrong.

Image credit: Formula 1

A clumsy, overambitious move from Charles Leclerc left him bumping over the kerbs and landing on his teammate, Sebastian Vettel. The German returned to the pits with his rear wing hanging off and retired immediately; Leclerc went back out but only managed a further three laps before the damage – mostly to the floor of the car – was pronounced terminal.

Leclerc was, at least, refreshingly contrite when it came to his culpability for the incident, on what was a far-from-smooth weekend for the Monegasque all round. It began with the news that he had returned home to Monaco for the birthday party of his girlfriend’s sister and not adhered to social distancing whilst there. He may have had two tests before returning to the track but risking everything when the sport has put so much effort into its return, was immature and arrogant. He was very lucky to escape with just a warning.

And yet, that is the least of his worries, considering the position his team is now in. The Italian press have been predictably cutting (whilst romantic, of course) in their appraisal of the effective national team’s current predicament. They must hope that the remaining haul of updates, to be delivered in Budapest, will make a significant difference, or this season looks set to become the biggest embarrassment in their recent history.

The ‘Pink Mercedes’ Under the Microscope

Racing Point are yet to fully delivered on their considerable potential this season, thanks to a retirement at the first race and a scrappy qualifying at the second, but it has become increasingly apparent to the paddock that the pink cars are just as quick as they had feared.

This was demonstrated by Pérez’s charge through the field and then cemented by the fact that he was effectively being held up by the second Red Bull towards the end. As Stroll boisterously pointed out, they have “debatably the second fastest F1 car”.

So, Renault – clearly waiting to enact vengeance after Racing Point protested the French team’s best result in Japan last year – have decided to pull the trigger and lodged a protest over the eligibility of the Racing Point brake ducts.

Image credit: LAT Images

The paddock’s suspicions over the similarities between this year’s Racing Point and last year’s championship-winning Mercedes are well-known. The Silverstone-based team have been steadfast in their assertion that they simply copied the best car of last year and did so within the rules.

The stewards have classed the protest as admissible and impounded the brake ducts, whilst also requesting that Mercedes provide parts from last year’s car, but Racing Point remain resolute and say they “expect the FIA to dismiss the misconceived protest”. This will likely trundle on for a fair while.

The Styrian Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Will we see much difference in pace from anyone since the last race? Nothing particularly noticeable.

Can Ferrari bring some updates in time for this weekend? They did, but they didn’t get much use out of them.

Will there be fewer mechanical issues now that the cobwebs are gone? Yep, just one mechanical failure during the race.

Can Lewis Hamilton claw back some ground on his teammate? He can.

With thunderstorms forecast through the weekend, will we have a wet and wild qualifying and/or race? Not during the race, but the qualifying was emphatically wet and wild.

Launch season continues to kind of kick off

Posted on by James Mackenzie

And on we go with the 2019 car launches!

Alfa Romeo don’t officially unveil their latest effort until the first test tomorrow but have had an on-track shakedown (in a rather fetching Valentine’s Day livery) so that will do for now. Plus, they probably revealed more of their hand with the parts on the car than any other team, and there will be enough to write about during testing as is, so let’s see off the launch season posts with what we have.

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

Red Bull have teased us in the past with a dramatic livery reveal which would turn out to be only for testing. And it was to be no different this year. The online F1 world drew a collective intake of breath at the latest camouflage number, which features some nice origami elements presumably in honour of their new deal with Honda. But Red Bull admitted it was just a one-off again and that was that. Maybe the Honda deal will result in a little white being added to the regular brand colours this season, though, at least.

On the more technical side of things, whilst certainly keeping things under wraps – onlookers noticed differences between the car on track and the one in the reveal photos already – the rear end is as tightly packaged as predicted. Even more so than last year’s. You just hope the Honda power unit deals with that better than it did with McLaren’s…

SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team

Well. Lots of people seem to disagree but personally I actually quite like this livery. The (royal…I think?) blue combining with the pink gives me some warm, fuzzy, nostalgia for the old Brabham BT60B that Damon Hill drove just before they went bust. And I’m glad that they have stuck with BWT and therefore the pink as more colour on the grid is always welcome. The name and logo on the other hand are pretty shocking. If you have to go to a comments section to figure out the dot after ‘Racing’ is a ‘Point’ something’s gone wrong in the marketing department.

A lot of the aero seems to be just glorified 2018 or basic regulation-meeting parts. It wouldn’t make sense for them to ship everything over the Atlantic for the Canadian launch anyhow so, as with most, we’ll see what they really have to offer in Barcelona. The little team that has perennially punched above its weight, now with financial backing? Could be one to keep an eye on.

McLaren F1 Team

Zak Brown has done a lot for McLaren. You can see that sheerly by the long number of sponsors on the black area of the sidepod. The car certainly looks the part too. It is comfortably the best McLaren livery since the chrome ones circa-2010 at least; the papaya orange and ‘vega’ blue now nicely balanced and with some interesting triangular pixelation at the join.

But more importantly, will it perform on track? The design, even at this point, does seem to live up to their radical promises with some pretty aggressive aero, particularly around the bargeboard. They seem to have gone towards the Mercedes school of thinking in some areas – certainly the nose and front wing cape – and Ferrari in others. Clearly, a lot of effort has gone in and, whilst at first some maybe enjoyed McLaren’s struggles, I think the majority would now like to see this once great team fighting back nearer the sharp end of the grid.

Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow

Turns out this year’s Ferrari is red. Blimey. But then actually, some photos have shown it looking a bit orange. It is matte as that apparently saves a few grams on paint and they are pushing the envelope in every possible department. And the Marlb…sorry…Mission Winnow logos are now black, or maybe grey…it’s hard to tell. Either way, they’re not white and that may be a ploy to help Ferrari not be sued by the whole of Australia.

As for as the car itself, I feel like a lot of the pieces you can currently see on the Alfa will end up on the Ferrari if they are a success. The official render shows very little in the way of new design parts so Ferrari are, as they have often done, keeping their cards closest to their chest of all.

Alfa Romeo Racing

So, the Sauber name officially leaves the sport after a quarter of a century. A real shame as the Swiss team have proved to be one of the great survivors. Of course, the team is fundamentally the same as last year but it’s the little things – the tradition of cars being named after Peter Sauber’s wife seems somewhat unlikely to remain. We will also see what livery they have cooked up tomorrow. It will likely remain predominantly white and red. Some green would be nice, though…and it is on both the national flag and the Alfa badge after all.

The car has already been run on track, however. And it is mad. As mentioned above, Alfa Romeo appear to be acting as the guinea pigs for Ferrari; this year’s car having been designed by former Ferrari designer Simone Resta with ‘as little caution as possible’. And we can see some of their experiments already. Front wing flaps that appear unconnected to the endplate, an airbox and nose that both resemble Darth Vader’s helmet and nothing in the way of a shark fin. Watch this space through testing.

That’s it then. Testing starts tomorrow morning and we can all really get our teeth stuck into reading between the lines as to who’s nailed it, who’s blown it and who will make up the midfield, anonymously running in 11th most of the year. And then find out we were all wrong anyway once the season actually starts.

See you all bright and early!