Tag: Williams

2019 Azerbaijan GP report | The return of Bottas 2.0

Posted on by James Mackenzie
Apparently Azerbaijan used up its quota of carnage on Friday and Saturday.
Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton after the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Image credit: Steve Etherington

Valtteri Bottas took his second win of the season and the championship lead after an impressive performance at a surprisingly uneventful 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

After an impressive start to the season with a dominant victory at Melbourne (albeit with Lewis Hamilton having suffered floor damage), the supposed rebirth of Bottas in 2019 as much more than just a ‘wingman’ had seemed to stutter. He was nowhere in Bahrain and, after taking pole in China, was beaten off the line by Hamilton and never really threatened for the remainder of the race. But the Finn was near enough flawless in Baku, grabbing what looked an unlikely pole position, holding his own in the first few corners and then not putting a foot wrong on his way to victory and the lead of the championship.

Hamilton will have regrets though. He had been the stronger Mercedes driver through the practice sessions and the earlier parts of qualifying. He produced an excellent first lap in Q3 but on the second runs, after Mercedes had successfully thrown Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel a dummy, they got their timings a bit wrong. Both drivers were at the back of a queue of drivers trying to get space for their runs. Hamilton was worst affected, losing a lot of tyre temperature which caused him to lose three tenths in the first sector and he couldn’t quite claw that back through the rest of the lap. He got the better start on Sunday but, as he put it, was “a little bit too kind”, giving his teammate a lot of space as they ran wheel-to-wheel. From there, despite following closely throughout, he never really got another chance.

You get the sense that the world champion still feels pretty comfortable that he has Bottas covered. Or maybe it’s just that he genuinely gets on with the Finn and is enjoying an honest fight after all the psychological warfare with Nico Rosberg. Either way, Bottas 2.0 still has a long way to go. He should have been leading the championship at this point last year too but for a dramatic puncture. The European season was where Hamilton started to pull away and he is infamously strong in the latter part of the year, as the tension builds. Maintaining the fight will be far from easy for Bottas but, if Ferrari continue to falter, hopefully he can do so for the sake of a competitive championship. Speaking of which…

Are Ferrari Actually Fast?

Another race and another missed opportunity for the Scuderia. At what point though do we actually start to question the speed of the car? In Bahrain, they were clearly quickest, certainly in the hands of Charles Leclerc. In China, Mercedes regained the upper hand. Through practice in Azerbaijan, they were miles ahead – over a second in Practice 3 – and it looked like we might have another season where certain tracks are more suited to each of the two leading teams and a title battle that would swing to and fro.

Image credit: Getty Images

But it all unravelled after Leclerc’s crash in qualifying and here we are with a record-breaking fourth consecutive 1-2 finish from the start of the season for Mercedes. How much of that is down to the ongoing operational issues that have hindered Ferrari over the past few years and how much of it is just a lack of pace? Qualifying would appear to be down to the former but then Vettel didn’t really look like threatening the Mercedes at any point during the race. Or is it just those Mercedes sandbags out in force again? At least it meant they didn’t have to deal with team orders…

Barcelona will be key. People were referring to the race in Azerbaijan as a must-win for the red cars; Barcelona is far more of one in this writer’s opinion. Testing at Barcelona was what had fans, pundits and the media alike convinced that Ferrari were the team to beat this year. If they get comfortably beaten there too, that could be it. Last year, Mercedes had built a wild animal of a car but learnt how to tame it. This year, it seems they are the ones with the more consistent machine and Ferrari have built the wild animal…but have no ringmaster to do the taming.

What Happened to the Baku Mayhem?

Well, it all happened too early really. A Chuckle Brothers-esque start to the weekend saw a loose manhole cover thankfully not cause any harm to George Russell but cause a lot of damage to his car a few minutes in. Then the rescue truck that came to pick up the Williams promptly crashed into a bridge and proceeded to leak hydraulic fluid on the car. Talk about insult to injury. Practice 1 was cancelled as they checked the bridge and 300 manhole covers around the circuit.

Saturday was all about Turn 8. First Robert Kubica and then, more dramatically, Leclerc’s Ferrari ended up in the barriers there, each causing long delays whilst it was repaired. But sadly, in terms of a spectacle at least, Sunday passed mostly without incident. Except for Daniel Ricciardo bizarrely reversing into his former teammate, Daniil Kvyat, after the Australian had outbraked himself in an overtaking attempt and forced them both down an escape road.

Another Draining Weekend for Williams

Yes, that’s a drain pun. No, I’m not sorry.

If people thought things couldn’t get worse for the Williams team, they were proven thoroughly wrong by the weekend’s events in Baku. First there was the drain cover incident, destroying the floor of Russell’s car and damaging the chassis severely enough that it had to be replaced. Claire Williams put the damage in the hundreds of thousands and stated she would be “taking it up with race control”.

Image credit: AFP via Getty Images

And then Kubica binned the sister car in Q1 on Saturday. Some feared Williams wouldn’t have the spare parts to rebuild another car after having to use the spare chassis for Russell, but fortunately they did and at least both cars were able to compete on Sunday. Not without one more kick in the teeth though. Kubica received a drive-through penalty for ‘pit lane irregularities’, with the team apparently confused as to what they had done wrong. It transpired that, with this being their first pit lane start since the race times shifted to 10 past the hour, Williams hadn’t clocked (no pun intended this time) that you’re supposed to bring the car to the exit 20 minutes before the race start time as opposed to 20 minutes before the hour…

It feels that Williams could, and should, be learning from McLaren. In coming to the realisation that their way of working was outdated and to then basically strip everything apart and rebuild from scratch. Zak Brown has done that for the more recent of the two British former champions and they are now pushing on and regaining dignity and competitiveness, with a solid double-points finish in Baku. But as things stand, it appears that Williams are too proud. And if they’re not careful, that could be their downfall.

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 60 Seconds

Answering the Burning Questions

Will there be more team orders at Ferrari? Leclerc’s crash removed that specific elephant from the room.

Can either Ferrari or Red Bull’s upgrades take them to the front? It looked like that could be the case for Ferrari on Friday but by Sunday normal service seems to have resumed.

Will Azerbaijan keep up its so far 100% record of producing highly dramatic races? No.

Will any of the midfield teams stake a claim for being best of the rest? Racing Point and McLaren had strong races but overall it’s still certainly in the balance.

Let’s act like we know what’s going on in testing, pt. 1

Posted on by James Mackenzie

Every F1 publication will at this point deliver the usual caveat of pre-season testing times being unreliable, misleading and generally useless for forming opinions…and then proceed to do so anyway. In this post, I will attempt to stick to things that we can hopefully establish from this first week of 2019 F1 testing.

(And then maybe make some wild, sweeping statements and predictions at the end if I feel like it.)

McLaren’s Reliability Has Improved

I think that is fair to say. McLaren have spent the pre-season tests of the last few years in varying levels of crisis. Infamously so with Honda, completing only 425 laps in 2017 and 380 in 2015 whilst generally blowing up every time they left the garage. Fernando Alonso covered almost as many miles on foot as he did in the MP4-30. And then even with Renault last year things weren’t much better. A wheel fell off after literally 6 laps… Whilst things had then started to look more promising to the outside world, the team knew that their times were flattering to deceive and that their lofty aims of returning to the podium were not to be realised. And that maybe it hadn’t been Honda’s fault all along…

Lando Norris at 2019 F1 testing.
Image credit: DPA Picture Alliance

But this year things have been going far more smoothly. They have been quietly getting on with things – under the radar, running through programs without the need to chuck on the softest tyres and jump up higher in the timings than is representative – and have finished the week without any major dramas, solidly in the midfield when it comes to laps completed.

The team abandoned development on last year’s car early on in order to focus on this year’s and thus have far more stable foundations to build from than some of the other teams. The paddock has apparently been impressed by some of their aero ideas. Zak Brown has realistic aims of a ‘step forward’ and it’s looking like that may well have been achieved.

Alfa Romeo Have Improved Massively Since Last Year

Whilst the steady improvement of the Alfa Romeo Sauber was clear to see through last season, the difference between this and last year’s testing times is quite something.

They are very nearly five seconds better off. In cars that were supposed to be around a couple of seconds slower after these regulation changes, remember? Admittedly, the track had been resurfaced last year and conditions were far colder, hence the improvement from all teams, but the Alfa has clearly taken the biggest step. Having been scraping together pennies just a couple of years ago, the team now has enough of a budget to make one-off Valentine’s Day liveries and hire a former world champion. It will be interesting to see where they can push on to from here.

I get the impression Ferrari have somewhat shunned Haas as their little sister team in favour of Alfa Romeo and you wonder if that might have a similar adverse effect on the American team as it is a positive one on the Italians. Haas were the surprise package of 2018 and many in the paddock were suspicious of their relationship with Ferrari. But with those at Maranello now less reliant on them, will they revert to the also-rans that joined the sport in 2016?

Teams Have Gone In Different Directions With the New Front Wings

The main aim of the new regulations was to aid cars in following each other closely and to help produce better wheel-to-wheel racing. But also to potentially mix up the pack a bit. And whilst the effectiveness of the former is certainly still up for debate, the latter appears to have worked. The teams have gone with visibly different approaches.

The Mercedes front wing is the only to have its endplates angled inwards. They and Ferrari have gone in highly different directions, which is often the case, and time will tell which of them has got it right. For the moment, with Ferrari and Alfa Romeo performing very well at the first test, it is looking more likely to be their philosophy that is the way to go. If that is the case, then will Mercedes (and some of the others) concede defeat and attempt to fit a Ferrari-style wing to their car? History has often proven that just whacking on someone else’s car part isn’t very effective…

Williams Are Somewhat in Trouble

This once legendary team are struggling. They were reduced to a day and a half of shakedown drives as they tried to get to know their new car. Whilst British rookie George Russell appeared excited just to be part of it all, Robert Kubica, who has been there and done it with established teams in the past, appeared visibly frustrated already. And that coming from a man who has finally achieved his incredible goal of returning to the sport after suffering life-changing injuries eight years ago. There are rumours circulating of unrest within the team and questions being asked of Paddy Lowe – the man brought in from all-conquering Mercedes to restore the plucky British team to their once-obligatory place near the front of the grid.

I will say that the times laid down by Russell and Kubica were really not bad considering how far behind the others they started this week. I hope there is more to come from the car as it would be a real waste of a promising, young Brit (and reigning F2 champion) and a walking fairy-tale to be circulating at the back of the field, slowing down for blue flags all year.

And Finally, a couple of Wild Predictions

Because, why not?

  • The Alonso Curse to take full effect and McLaren to dominate the championship, wrapping up both titles by Hungary.
  • Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly to get into a full-blown fistfight that gets Gasly demoted back to Toro Rosso and Daniil Kvyat reinstated to Red Bull, who then proceeds to wipe the floor with Max and reduce Helmut Marko to a quivering mess.

See you for week two!

Launch season kicks off! (Kind of…)

Posted on by James Mackenzie

So, here we go. The new season is getting tantalisingly ever closer and half the teams have now broken cover!

Except they kinda haven’t…

The launches of Haas and Williams only ever claimed to be livery launches but the others will be giving as little away as possible too. The giant, new front wings are hard to miss but beyond that, teams will be showing the world exactly the angles of the car they desire, to ensure they hide any clever loopholes or strokes of genius they’ll later be introducing. So, there’s not a huge amount to garner from these launches…but I’ll give it a quick go at summarising and at least talk about how pretty (or not, or familiar) the new liveries are.

 Rich Energy HAAS F1 Team

Haas began proceedings with the online stream of their livery launch. Their new title sponsorship with Rich Energy (a supposed energy drink that seemingly nobody has ever found a can of in real life) brought about a new colour scheme for the American team.

Whilst a not particularly subtle nod to the legendary JPS Lotus, it’s still a pretty nice black and gold number. But personally I’d have preferred a bit more of the gold and you wonder whether it may end up just looking like a less bright Renault. It has also now come to light that Rich Energy are being sued by ATB Sales – a British company that owns Whyte Bikes and their undeniably almost identical logo – so we’ll have to wait and see what the future holds for both the company and the livery…

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

Then came Toro Rosso with an actual car! But they decided a new car and a new livery would be a bit too much so basically Ctrl-C-Ctrl-V’d last year’s livery. In fairness, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ definitely applies here. Since morphing to the lighter shade of blue at the start of 2017, the Toro Rosso has been one of the best-looking cars on the grid. Certainly combined with James Key’s design expertise, which has made them all very neat and well-packaged.

This is their first venture without Key since his move to McLaren but they appear to have followed the same design philosophy. The team confirmed he will not be directly replaced, mostly thanks to an even closer technical alliance with Red Bull now that they are sharing Honda engines. The rear packaging in particular appears to be bordering on size zero and will apparently be a carbon copy of that of their big brother.

ROKiT Williams Racing

There was some excitement around what livery Williams would adopt having lost Martini, and their iconic livery, at the end of 2018. The team actually bothered to rent somewhere out for their launch, which is something of a rarity these days, but the response to the new livery was…mixed, shall we say?

Less kind reviews compared it to a tube of toothpaste, a generic livery from a computer game without any official licences or a dodgy attempt at using that spray can on MS Paint. Following the classy Martini livery, whether we were all tired of it or not, was always likely to be tricky but they could probably have done better. Especially with Claire Williams stating they spent such a long time on the livery. The exposed carbon parts are quite a nice touch though. And hey, the last car looked nice but was a truck when it came to the track. If this one is an improvement on that front, I’m sure they won’t really care what people on the internet think of its appearance.

Renault F1 Team

Renault followed suit with both the Haas ‘you get a livery but not the actual car’ approach and the Toro Rosso ‘it looks pretty, let’s keep it as it is’ one. There is a little more yellow than on last year’s RS18 and it arguably accentuates the shape of the car better but that’s about it really.

The profile shots show a noticeably higher rake. Very much the Red Bull approach of recent years, who have arguably had the best chassis on the grid, so you wonder if Mr. Ricciardo knows something that we don’t… Maybe he’s pulled a Lewis-to-Mercedes and we’ll be talking about the first Australian champion since 1980 in a couple of years. Or maybe it’s just high rake. Time will tell.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport

Amazing what a difference a halo can make, huh? Last year’s championship-winning machine was far from an eyesore, but the big, black halo lumped on top certainly was. For whatever reason, Mercedes appeared to put less effort into incorporating the halo than the rest of the grid. Maybe they were too busy focusing on being unbeatable. Either way, this year they have addressed that with some silver paint and it makes a surprisingly big difference. Along with the usual striking splashes of Petronas aquamarine, there is the nice touch of a flock of Mercedes stars towards the back. This is a beautiful car. A true Silver Arrow.

According to James Allison, they have “worked hard on the suspension and aerodynamic characteristics to deliver a car that will be much kinder to its tyres”. That has probably been their Achilles’ heel in the last couple of years so if they succeed, it will be hard work for the rest of the field.

As much as they will undoubtedly be expanded upon in the coming weeks, it’s interesting to see the varying base approaches the teams have adopted for the new front wing regulations. And we are yet to see the supposedly ‘radical’ designs McLaren and Alfa Romeo have in store. I’m an armchair aerodynamicist at best but the main change is that these new front wings will struggle to create ‘outwash’, where air is directed outside the wheels. As has been stated by many a technical director in the past, the front wing is the first part of the car to hit the air and thus is very important. So. we could yet find that someone has had their own brilliant Brawn-double-diffuser moment come Melbourne.

Mostly, these launches have made me long for the days of the massively over the top ones of the late 90s and early 00s. Popstars, lasers, more popstars, celebrities, an Airbus… They had it all. But there are still five to go…and the Spice Girls have reunited… Pretty sure there’s someone in the paddock with a connection there…