Chinese GP: A worst case scenario at the start!

Drama seems to have been the word describing the Chinese GP weekend. So was the case in today´s race. The start was eventful and dramatic: Red Bull´s Ricciardo stormed to the lead from P2 with Rosberg right at the Australian´s tail. Ferrari´s start was a worst case scenario; Red Bull´s Kvyat took a rocket start and saw space in the inside line going into Turn 1, but Vettel wasn´t prepared for the Russian´s move, which lead to a collision between the Ferrari teammates! Kimi lost his front wing due to the collision and Sebastian´s front wing got some damage, too. Kimi had to pit for a new nose and Sebastian dropped down many positions as well. Sebastian was clearly upset about the collision and felt urgent need to explain the incident on the team radio, saying there was nothing he could have done to avoid the contact. I honestly believe a collision was the last thing that Sebastian would have wanted in the race! Sebastian is extremely hard on himself so I can imagine how he blames himself for the incident.

Starting from the back of the grid wasn´t the only challenge that Hamilton was facing today. The Briton, too was involved in a first corner collision with Sauber´s Nasr and lost his front wing as well. On lap 3 there was more drama. Rosberg was right at Ricciardo´s tail when suddenly Ricciardo´s left-rear tyre exploded! There was debris on the track after the first lap collisions so that was probably the cause for Ricciardo´s puncture. Luckily the puncture happened near the pit entry so it didn´t take too much time to get the car into the pits. But such a shame for Ricciardo, who had had a stunning start to the race! Safety car was deployed as there was so much debris on the track.

Behind the safety car the top five was very surprising (not the lead though): Rosberg was leading, Williams´ Massa 2nd, McLarens´s Alonso 3rd, Manor´s Wehrlein 4th and Haas´ Gutierrez 5th. Sebastian was down in P14 and Kimi even further down in P19 at this stage! When safety car came in Sebastian started aggressively make his way through the field. Margherita´s nose had been changed in the first pit stop, but on lap 11 Sebastian got a new front wing damage; the German forced an overtaking move on Williams´ Bottas but not without a slight contact, which damaged the end plates of Sebastian´s front wing. Sebastian, however, didn´t even notice the damage so it didn´t have too much affect on the runnability of the car.

On lap 16 Rosberg was leading the race with Red Bull´s Kvyat 2nd and Williams´ Massa 3rd. Sebastian had already made his way up to P4. At this point Kimi´s pace didn´t look as promising as I would have wanted it to be; I was wondering if Kimi´s SF16-H had got some damage in the first corner collision with Sebastian after all. But towards the end of the race Kimi´s pace was improving and Kimi´s last stint on the soft tyres was impressive. Red Bull´s Ricciardo had made a great recovery as well and the Australian was flying at the end of the race. It was very refreshing to see Red Bull being so competitive today. Ricciardo actually managed to overtake Hamilton on track, which was a surprising turn indeed. Only a moment later the Australian attacked on Massa and jumped to P4.

Towards the end of the race Kimi got everything out of his car and showed some spectacular overtaking. Kimi´s compatriot Bottas could do nothing but surrender when the Iceman determinedly made his way past the Williams pilot. Soon Kimi smelled Hamilton´s blood and was right at the Briton´s tail. And Kimi made a move on Hamilton and got past! It was an impressive move, although it was obvious that Hamilton´s car wasn´t running perfectly after the first lap collision. Only a moment later the Iceman was targeting Massa. Another awesome overtaking move and Kimi had made his way up to P5! An impressive recovery after the horrifying opening lap!

Nobody was able to prevent Rosberg from winning today. And the German did it dominantly by 40 seconds! Sebastian finished 2nd, which was a staggering achievement considering the start of the race. When Sebastian was congratulated on the team radio for his 2nd place, Sebastian repeated his humble apologies to the team for the collision. I´m sure Sebastian´s joy was overshadowed for his guilt for the collision with Kimi. Nevertheless, Red Bull´s Kvyat finished 3rd and Ricciardo 4th, which was a brilliant result for Red Bull. Kimi finished 5th, Massa 6th and Hamilton 7th. A few laps before the chequered flag Bottas was in P8 but on dying medium tyres the Finn couldn´t prevent the Toro Rosso duo Verstappen and Sainz from overtaking him, so the Finn had to settle for P10 and only one point. This proved that Toro Rosso is a serious contender for Williams this year. I was very happy to see Verstappen finish in P8 today.

Rosberg has had a dream start to the season; 3 wins from 3 races and the maximum of 75 points. Hamilton is still second in the championship standings, 36 points down on his teammate. Ricciardo is 3rd with 36 points, Sebastian 4th with 33 points and Kimi 5th with 28 points. Mercedes has now a 63-point gap over Ferrari in the constructors´ standings. Hamilton has had  problem-filled first three races so I´m sure he will bounce back extremely hard when he has a problem free weekend. There´s definitely more to come from Hamilton, I believe.

I can imagine that there are many thoughts going through Sebastian´s mind at the moment. He seems to feel extremely guilty for the collision with Kimi and he humbly apologised to both the team and Kimi. I sincerely believe that he didn´t do it on purpose. In the pre-podium room there was a heated conversation between Sebastian and Daniil Kvyat. Kvyat was absolutely right; every racing driver would have done the same and taken the risk of choosing the inside line. This is racing: taking risks, challenging your rivals and having heated moments! Sometimes it means a collision with your teammate. But what I appreciate a great deal is that when something like this happens, Sebastian is humble enough to apologise. I´m sure both Sebastian and Kimi are mature enough to discuss the incident, learn from it and put it all behind them.

P.S. There´s another article on the Chinese GP weekend written by me here http://sfcriga.com/chinese-gp-2016-a-worst-case-scenario-at-the-start

Chinese GP / Qualifying: Rosberg conquered pole in a dramatic qualifying!

Before the Chinese GP weekend the FIA officially confirmed that the unpopular elimination-style qualifying format used in Australia and Bahrain will be dropped for the rest of the season, reverting instead to the system used last year.

After the morning´s heavy rain the track was still partly damp when qualifying got underway. Most of the drivers ventured out initially on intermediate tyres. However, the Manor drivers Haryanto and Wehrlein headed out on supersoft tyres. Soon there was drama on track: Wehrlein hit a bump on a wet patch on the pit straight, causing his MR05 to snap sideways and hit the barriers. The session was red flagged for 22 minutes as there was debris on the track. Q1 saw more drama as Mercedes driver Hamilton complained of a down-on-power engine, which prevented the Briton setting a time. As if a 5-place grid penalty for a gear box change hadn´t been enough for Hamilton! The cruel fact is, that Hamilton will start to the race from the back of the grid! The top teams came out not until at the end of the session. The Ferrari teammates Vettel and Räikkönen topped the time sheets in Q1 with Williams´ Bottas third and Rosberg down in sixth. Renault´s Magnussen and Palmer were eliminated in the first session, so were Haas´ Gutierrez and Wehrlein´s teammate Haryanto.

The second segment didn´t lack drama, either. Mercedes´ Rosberg made his first and only run on yellow-marked soft tyres; a strategic gamble that will allow him to start the race on the more durable soft rubber.  Everyone else came out on red-marked super softs. There was more drama at the end of the segment. With 1 minute 17 seconds left in the clock, Force India´s Hulkenberg stopped on track due to losing his left-front wheel. The red flags fell at just the wrong time for  Williams´ Massa, who had to abandon his flying lap and therefore was unable to make it into Q3. McLaren teammates Alonso and Button were also casualties of the red flag incident. Both Sauber drivers and Haas´ Grosjean were also out of Q3. Ironically, Hulkenberg had set a lap time competitive enough to make it among the top ten but due to losing the wheel he was unable to continue in the qualifying. This time I was delighted to see Kimi topping the time sheets with Sebastian second. It was so promising to see Ferrari match Mercedes´ pace so well...

Kimi´s first run in Q3 was brilliant and the Iceman made it on the top. Sebastian, on the other hand, sat out the first runs and made only one attempt at the end of the session. Rosberg, however, got everything together on his second flyer and finished half a second up on Red Bull´s Ricciardo, who sprung a surprise to keep the Ferraris off the front row! There were only 6 hundredths of a second separating Ricciardo and Kimi, who finished third. This time Sebastian got beaten by his Finnish teammate and had to settle for P4. Kimi had been seriously challenging Rosberg in the first two sectors on his second run, but made a mistake at the hair pin, which cost the Finn a few tenths at least. Sebastian´s flying lap wasn´t clean, either. Williams´ Bottas drove an excellent qualifying as well, making it fifth. Red Bull´s Kvyat finished 6th, Force India´s Perez 7th and the Toro Rosso duo Sainz and Verstappen finished 8th and 9th.

Tomorrow´s race will be really interesting especially in terms of the tyre strategy. Will Rosberg be able to make a perfect start on the soft tyres or do his closest rivals on the super softs have an advantage over the current championship leader? The Shanghai circuit is extremely hard on tyres, so the super soft tyres won´t last more than 10 laps maybe... I hope both Kimi and Sebastian will take super starts like in Australia and storm past Ricciardo coming into the first corner! Hamilton mustn´t be written out of the race, either. Although he has to make his way through the pack, we know what this ambitious Briton is capable of. What I would love to see is a red podium with a little touch of blue; 1-2 for Ferrari and Toro Rosso´s Verstappen third ;) ;)

Bahrain GP: Fifth win in-a-row for Rosberg!

Bahrain GP took a dramatic turn even before it actually got started. Suddenly on the warm-up lap smoke started coming from the rear of Sebastian´s SF16-H without any warning! I couldn´t believe my eyes, I didn´t want to believe it was true! Sebastian´s race was over before it even got started :( In the season-opening Australian GP it was Kimi´s car, which got hit by a technical failure and today it was Sebastian´s turn to face a DNF. Reliability seems to be a real issue for Ferrari this season. I can´t even describe my feelings, how heart-rending to see Sebastian being out of the race already before the start!

The start was eventful, too. Kimi had a poor start for some reason and lost instantly many positions. The Williams of Massa and Bottas on the other hand got superb starts and they were challenging the Mercedes duo going into Turn 1! Rosberg got a dream start and took the lead but Bottas in his FW38 was already alongside Hamilton going into the first corner. They ended up colliding, which caused some damage on Hamilton´s car. The Briton lost many positions but was able to continue racing in spite of the collision. The collision was taken under investigation by the stewards a bit later and Bottas was considered to be at fault. The Finnish Williams driver was handed a drive-through penalty, which destroyed the Finn´s race pretty much. So on lap two Rosberg was leading the race, Massa was second and his teammate Bottas third. Kimi was fifth and Hamilton was down in P7.

Kimi was absolutely passionate to make it another podium finish in the darkening night of Bahrain. On lap 6 he was right at Ricciardo´s tail. The Australian went wide and the Iceman used his opportunity and made a dashing overtaking move on the Red Bull pilot. A lap later the Iceman had caught his fellow compatriot Bottas and made another stunning overtaking move! Luckily this time there was no contact between the Finns (we all remember those two collisions between the Finns from last year). Massa in his Williams pitted from P2 for a fresh set of medium tyres, which made Kimi jump to P2. The gap to the race leader Rosberg, however, was already 14 seconds. But Kimi seemed to be in flames on track today -and this time only figuratively, not literally like in Australia! Also Bottas pitted for a fresh set of medium tyres. Williams´ tyre strategy differed clearly from other teams´ strategies.

Kimi pitted on lap 13 and his choice was the yellow-marked soft compound. He rejoined the track right behind Massa and Ricciardo. Again we saw very aggressive and determined Kimi, who made his way first past Massa and then past Ricciardo in an easy-looking way. The Mercedes duo pitted as well: Rosberg had a similar tyre choice to Kimi´s but Hamilton opted for a fresh set of medium tyres. It certainly seemed that there was an interesting race evolving... Kimi made his way past Red Bull´s Kvyat as well and the Iceman took back his second place. Kimi started setting fastest lap times one by one. What a pleasure it was to watch Kimi´s race! There really is something magical about Kimi and Bahrain!

At the same time Grosjean in his Haas was driving a dream race for the newcomer team. The Frenchman was already challenging Ricciardo for P4 and Grosjean made it past the Australian! Haas´ performance was very impressive, they really have some serious pace! After the second pit stops the top three had a similar tyre choice: both Mercedes drivers had the yellow-marked super soft compound, so did Kimi. Rosberg was still leading the race with Kimi second and Hamilton third. There were solid gaps between those three so no real battle for the positions.

Ferrari made the genius choice to call Kimi into the pits before the Mercedes duo for his third and last pit stop. Yellow-marked soft tyres was the Iceman´s choice for the last stint. Immediately after the pit stop Kimi started nailing it with purple sectors. Mercedes reacted immediately by taking Rosberg in for his third pit stop. The German also rejoined the track on the soft compound. Kimi benefitted from the undercut and was just a few seconds behind Rosberg. I could actually imagine how the Iceman was able to smell Rosberg´s blood and wanted to attack on the German! Hamilton pitted a few laps later also for a fresh set of soft tyres. The Briton was already over 10 seconds down on the Iceman though.

Rosberg cruised to victory under the shining lights of Sakhir and made it his fifth victory in-a-row, which is quite impressive. Rosberg has definitely got a dream start to this season and has a convincing lead in the drivers´ championship standings. Kimi continued his Bahrain magic by making it already his 8th podium finish at Sakhir! In spite of the small gap to Rosberg after the last pit stop Kimi was unfortunately unable to take the battle to the German. Hamilton completed the podium. Behind these top three Ricciardo finished 4th and what was even more stunning, Grosjean took 5th for Haas! 6th place in Australia and now 5th in Bahrain shows that Haas have a lot of potential in their car. Verstappen drove to the chequered flag in P6, which made me quite happy, too. Kvyat in his RB12 finished 7th ahead of the Williams duo Massa and Bottas. McLaren´s Vandoorne, who drove his F1 debut today, completed the top ten, which was an absolutely excellent achievement for the young Belgian! Very impressive indeed.

Rosberg has now the maximum 50 points in the championship standings. His teammate Hamilton is second with 33 points and Ricciardo third with 24 points. Kimi and Grosjean share the 4th place with 18 points and Sebastian is in P6 with 15 points. In the constructors´ standings the situation is quite crushing: Mercedes have 83 points to Ferrari´s 33. Ferrari are paying a huge price for their reliability issues, which they definitely can´t afford! And what definitely catches my eye is the fact that the newcomer Haas are in P5 with 18 points, which is utterly impressive.

The F1 circus moves to China in a fortnight. Hopefully Ferrari will be able to fix their reliability issues by the Chinese GP! But no matter what happens in China, technical failures or not, I always keep my fingers crossed for Kimi and Sebastian and hope the very best for them!

Bahrain GP / Qualifying: Hamilton on pole with the fastest ever lap at Sakhir!

I had a very good feeling about the qualifying as Ferrari´s pace had seemed so stunning in the last free practice session on Saturday morning. It had been very close between the Ferrari teammates with Vettel having the upper hand. But what was surprising and impressive was the fact that the Mercedes drivers were 4 tenths of a second down on the Ferrari duo! The Sakhir Circuit has always suited Kimi extremely well so I was confident that this time the Ferrari duo could actually take the battle to Mercedes for real!

Against all odds the qualifying format wasn´t changed after the qualifying farce in Australia. Although the teams were unanimous that the qualifying format needed an immediate change especially in terms of Q3, Ecclestone stated that the new format was given another chance in Bahrain. I was actually eager to see if the new elimination system could turn out more interesting and exciting than it did at the season-opener.

The Ferraris and both Mercedes were the first cars to head out on track as the first session got underway under the artificial lights. Rosberg had been the fastest man on track all weekend and he took the lead after the first runs. Sauber´s Nasr was the first driver to be eliminated in the opening phase. He was soon followed by the Renault duo Palmer and Magnussen. The Dane had a frustrating qualifying because he must start to the race from the pit lane after missing a weight check in FP2. Manor´s rookie driver Pascal Wehrlein drove an excellent qualifying as he was the last driver to be eliminated in Q1, which meant the German qualified 16th whilst his teammate Haryanto had to settle for P21.  At the end of the session Rosberg and Hamilton were topping the time sheets with Ricciardo third and Vettel fourth.

As darkness fell, Räikkönen led the two Mercedes out for Q2. At first we saw a bizarre episode as the clock started ticking but the light at the end of the pit lane was still red. A moment later green flag was out to send the drivers out. After the first runs Hamilton took the lead with Sebastian being 4 tenths down on the Briton. Rosberg and Räikkönen completed the top four. Red Bull´s Kvyat was the first driver to be eliminated in Q2, which must have been a huge disappointment as his teammate Ricciardo had no difficulties to make it in the final session. McLaren´s Alonso hadn´t been granted a permission to take part in the Bahrain GP weekend because of the broken ribs due to his horrifying crash in Australia. Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne had been called to replace the Spaniard. The Belgian´s great F1 debut saw him outqualify his teammate Button! Vandoorne qualified in P12 whilst Button managed to make it only P14. Once again Grosjean in his Haas made an excellent job by making it as high as P9 in the qualifying. The Toro Rosso duo Sainz and Verstappen didn´t even go out and try to improve their lap times in spite of the elimination threat, although there would have been enough time to do so! Sainz qualified 11th and Verstappen 10th. This time Q2 didn´t have a thrilling end like in Australia but with 5 minutes in the clock Hulkenberg was the only driver on track trying to improve his lap time! On the other hand Williams made a strange decision to send both Bottas and Massa out on a fresh set of super soft tyres in the closing stages of Q2 although both of them were already safe from the elimination!

When the last phase got underway, both Ferraris and Silver Arrows rushed out on track on super soft rubber. Hamilton´s first effort was spoiled when he ran wide exiting Turn 15. After the first attempts Rosberg took provisional pole with Sebastian 2nd only a tenth of a second down on his compatriot. Kimi was third and Hamilton fourth. This time we saw a thrilling head-to-head battle for pole going down to the wire! All four went for second runs -the only Q3 runners to do so. Hamilton nailed it with three purple sectors to take pole! Only 77 thousandths of a second separated the Mercedes duo. At the end of the day Sebastian had to settle for P3 and finally his gap to the pole-setter Hamilton turned out to be as much as half a second! Kimi was 4th two tenths off his teammate. Ricciardo put Red Bull fifth, ahead of the Williams of Bottas and Massa.

During the Bahrain GP weekend there have been many rumours about Ferrari having an issue with their turbo charger. An issue which would prevent the Italian-based team to extract the maximum out of their power unit on the straights... Well, it certainly didn´t look like that in FP3 this morning when the Ferrari duo went fastest of all! Kimi did have an issue with the turbo in Australia, which led to the Iceman´s retirement but luckily Ferrari didn´t need to change the whole power unit due to the turbo failure! And I definitely keep my fingers crossed that there won´t be any reliability issues in tomorrow´s  race! And what is more than a rumour, Mercedes seem to have an issue with the race starts. I hope both Sebastian and Kimi will start like they did in Australia and benefit from Mercedes´ issue, what ever it is.

The dark night of Bahrain with dashing sparks flying from the shining-red Ferraris made a memorable impression on me indeed. I´m looking forward to an entertaining race with some Ferrari magic! ;)

Australian GP: Rosberg took victory in a colourful race!

If Red Bull´s Kvyat faced a difficult qualifying yesterday, his race day didn´t turn out much better. The Russian´s RB12 was hit with an electrical failure already on the warm-up lap so his race was over before it even got started. There was a new formation lap before the lights finally went out. Williams´ Bottas had been given a 5-place grid penalty due to a gear box change so the Finn started to the race from P16. What a start it was for the red-suited warriors! Sebastian stormed into the lead from P3 and his teammate Iceman followed him in the first corner as Rosberg tried to prevent Hamilton getting past him. Unbelievable but true, the Ferrari duo had a double lead in the race! This seemed almost too good to be true! Rosberg was third and Verstappen fourth. The Dutchman had taken an impressive start and right from the beginning it seemed that Toro Rosso´s race pace was absolutely convincing. Hamilton had dropped down to P6 due to the first corner incident.

Hamilton was able to overtake Williams´ Massa quite easily and make it P5 in the race. But getting stuck behind Toro Rosso´s super talent Max Verstappen turned out to be another story. It was admirable to watch how this young Dutchman kept the reigning world champion behind him lap after lap! Rosberg was the first top driver to pit on lap 13. The German rejoined the track on the yellow-marked soft tyres in P5. Sebastian pitted a couple of laps later and his strategy differed from Rosberg´s tyre choice: Sebastian opted for another set of red-marked super soft tyres.

Ferrari´s race pace looked stunning and Sebastian even managed to overtake Hamilton on track before the Briton pitted for a new set of medium tyres, which was a surprise choice. Kimi also pitted on the same lap for a fresh set of super soft tyres. Unfortunately Rosberg managed to benefit from the undercut and got ahead of the Iceman.

On lap 18 there was a dramatic collision between Haas´ Gutierrez and McLaren´s Alonso. Alonso hit Gutierrez´s left rear tyre at the braking, which made Gutierrez to spin. Alonso´s car on the other hand first hit the wall and then rolled over several times and ended up on the gravel upside down as a complete wreck! It was a horrific looking accident but against all odds Alonso managed to get out of the car on his own and was unharmed. It´s unbelievable how safe these modern F1 cars are, some years back this could have been a fatal accident! Safety car was deployed and the race was red-flagged due to the massive amount of debris on the track.

Some 20 minutes later the re-start took place behind safety car. Both Sebastian and Kimi continued the race on the super soft tyres whilst Rosberg had switched to the white-marked medium tyres before the re-start. Ferrari had chosen an aggressive strategy to attack on the super softs. Ricciardo in his RB12 and both Toro Rosso drivers had opted for soft tyres. Tyre strategy turned out to have a crucial effect on the race results.

Only a few laps after the re-start the race got another dramatic turn. Kimi drove into the pits reporting about something gone broken in his car. On TV I saw smoke coming out from the rear of Kimi´s SF16-H and a moment later there were big flames coming out of the engine right above Kimi´s head. What a huge disappointment it was! Kimi´s race had started in such a promising way, the Iceman had the podium in his sight already... Hopefully this was an exceptional reliability issue for Ferrari and that it won´t happen again during this season. I´m so gutted for Kimi, everything looked so good!

Verstappen was driving a superb race in P4 until he pitted for the second time on lap 33. The team, however, wasn´t ready for him and the pit stop was delayed. The Dutchman rejoined the track in P11. In the heat of disappointment and frustration we heard very angry Verstappen on the team radio. Sebastian pitted on lap 36 for a fresh set of soft tyres and his pit stop wasn´t perfect, either. The team had difficulties to detach his left front tyre, which cost the German some extra seconds. Sebastian, who had lead the race at the beginning of the race, had to now settle for P4 when rejoining the track.

In the midfield Verstappen had an intense battle with his teammate Sainz and Renault´s Palmer for P9. We heard many heated team radio messages from Max, who considered himself quicker than his teammate and was absolutely frustrated to get stuck behind those two. Once again Max´s driving was very entertaining to watch as he has the passion, devotion and skills what Formula 1 needs! It´s utterly great to see how he takes the races with such passion and strong emotions. I like that a lot! Finally after many intense team radio messages both Sainz and Max managed to get past Palmer and the battle continued between the hungry Toro Rosso teammates. A little later Verstappen even touched his teammate in the heat of the battle, which lead to Verstappen´s spin but he didn´t lose any positions.

15 laps before the chequered flag Hamilton managed to overtake Red Bull´s Ricciardo, whose soft tyres were already completely gone and the Briton made it P2. Ricciardo had no choice but to pit for a fresh set of super soft tyres, which meant an aggressive last stint to his race. Rosberg had a clear lead in the race, Hamilton was 2nd and after Ricciardo´s pit stop Sebastian jumped third. Sebastian started an aggressive hunt and managed to close the gap to Hamilton with his fresher tyres. With two laps to go the German was right at Hamilton´s tail but trying hard to find an opportunity for overtaking Sebastian braked too late and went wide, which meant the battle was over. Rosberg won the season-opening Australian GP with Hamilton second and Sebastian third. Ricciardo finished 4th in front of his home crowd, Massa finished 5th for Williams and Grosjean took superb 6th place for the newcomer Haas! This clearly shows that Haas have a lot of potential in their car and they have done excellent preparation work for their debut season in Formula 1. Hulkenberg finished 7th and Bottas 8th. They both tried hard to get past Grosjean´s Haas at the end of the race but it turned out to be mission impossible. The Toro Rosso duo Sainz and Verstappen completed the top ten.

I strongly believe Sebastian would have won the race if Ferrari had opted for a different tyre strategy. Although no one would have known how Ferrari would have worked on the medium tyres, which the team didn´t test at all in the free practice sessions. And then there was Sebastian´s own mistake when he was trying to make an overtaking move on Hamilton but even without the mistake overtaking Hamilton would have been extremely difficult. But one thing is for sure: Ferrari have definitely taken the battle to Mercedes´ front door!

Watching the podium ceremony made me in a good mood indeed. Sebastian´s ex teammate Mark Webber came to do the podium interviews and when Mark was interviewing Hamilton, Sebastian poured champagne on his former teammate! When Mark came to Sebastian to interview him, he joked that it has been a while since Mark has been on the podium last time. Although P3 must have been a little disappointment for Sebastian after the mega start (as he described it), he definitely hasn´t lost his great sense of humour :D

Already after the first race of the season Mercedes are leading the constructors´ championship with 45 points to Ferrari´s 15. Next round will be Bahrain in a fortnight. After yesterday´s farce in the qualifying the teams have now decided to abandon the new qualifying system and go back to the last year´s one already in Bahrain. Personally I would have preferred a system with running Q1 and Q2 with the new elimination system and Q3 with the old one. Can´t wait what will happen in Bahrain!

Australian GP / Qualifying: 50th career pole for Hamilton under the new system!

Finally the long wait is over and the 2016 F1 season is here at last! I looked forward to the season-opening qualifying with huge interest as the new elimination-style qualifying format was to be introduced. After FP3 I had high hopes of Ferrari being able to challenge the Silver Arrows for pole position as Sebastian had been only 2 tenths of a second down on Hamilton. I was thrilled to get up early in the morning to watch the qualifying live on TV. Oh how I´ve missed these Formula 1 weekends!

As expected, everyone rushed out on the red-marked super softs when Q1 got underway. Everyone wanted to set a competitive lap time as after seven minutes the current slowest car was going to be eliminated. Some drivers seemed to feel more pressure due to the new system than others. Rosberg for example went wide on his first run. After the first seven minutes Hamilton, Räikkönen and Verstappen were the fastest men on track. Manor´s rookie Pascal Wehrlein was the first driver to be eliminated soon followed by his teammate Haryanto. The Haas teammates Gutierrez and Grosjean would have made it into Q2 if only had they been sent out in time! The rules say that under the elimination process you have to set the lap time before the countdown clock halts. Only the final runner is halted by the chequered flag, not by the countdown clock. This caused some misunderstandings in some teams, like Haas and Sauber. Kvyat in his Red Bull was the fifth driver to be eliminated in Q1 and the Russian blamed poor tactics from Red Bull for his surprise exit. Both Sauber drivers were also out of Q2. At the end of the first segment Hamilton, Massa and Alonso were the top three drivers. Kimi was in P5 and Sebastian in P10.

Q2 saw everyone coming out on super softs again. This time the elimination process started after six minutes Renault´s Magnussen being the first driver to be eliminated. Hamilton, Rosberg and Massa were the three fastest at that point. Magnussen was soon followed by his teammate Palmer and the McLaren duo Button and Alonso were also out of the final session. Surprisingly Williams´ Bottas was the fifth driver to be eliminated! What I also found surprising was the fact that the Force India duo Hulkenberg and Perez didn´t even go out and try to improve their lap times and escape from the elimination although there was still time left in the clock. Instead they decided to save a set of tyres for tomorrow´s race. At the end of Q2 Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel were the three fastest. Toro Rosso caught everyone by surprise by getting both cars into the decisive final session!

I was expecting to see an entertaining and thrilling final session but to be honest, Q3 turned out to be quite of an anticlimax. Once again Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel were the top three when the elimination process started after five minutes´ running. Red Bull´s Ricciardo was the first faller in Q3. The Toro Rosso duo performed impressively indeed as Sainz qualified 7th and Verstappen as high as fifth! Toro Rosso outqualified their sister team Red Bull fair and square! The Toro Rosso drivers were split by Williams´ Massa, who qualified 4th. At this point Hamilton had the fastest lap time with Sebastian 2nd, Kimi 3rd and Rosberg down in P4. But when there were still 6 minutes left in the clock, Ferrari decided not to send their drivers out but to save tyres for tomorrow´s race! I would have wanted to see the red-suited drivers challenging the Mercedes duo for the front row grid slots, not to give up like this! What a disappointing and frustrating moment indeed! And there was no shoot out for pole at all as Rosberg was also in the pits when there were 2 minutes in the clock! So Hamilton took his 50th career pole with a 4-tenth margin over his teammate forcing Rosberg once again to settle for P2. Sebastian qualified 3rd 8 tenths down on Hamilton with his teammate Kimi 4th. To be honest, it was quite disappointing to see such clear a margin between Mercedes and Ferrari. The winter tests gave a good reason to believe Ferrari would have closed the gap to Mercedes for real.

So what are my thoughts on the new qualifying system? The first two segments were exciting but Q3 was very much the opposite to what I had been hoping for. Not to go out in the closing stages of the qualifying to fight for better positions but to sit out the final runs and save tyres for the race is not what you expect in the pinnacle of motorsports! Seeing Sebastian walking in the pit lane in jeans when qualifying is still running creates an image I don´t want to see. I want to see him on track at the wheel of his Margherita fighting for pole as I know he has a chance to beat the silver cars! To make this new qualifying format to work, the drivers should be given enough tyres so that they could fight for every position possible and not to concentrate on how many sets of tyres they have left.
I´m sure there will be plenty of talks about this new qualifying system in the coming days and I wouldn´t be surprised to see some changes during the season.

What am I expecting from the race then? I´m eager to see how the new restriction on the team radio communication will effect the race. Hamilton has talked a lot about this change. It´s also interesting to see what kind of a role the tyre choices will play and how well the drivers get the tyres to work. I hope Ferrari are much closer to Mercedes in race pace in spite of the qualifying results. I would really love to see a wheel-banging battle for victory between the red and silver cars. It´s also interesting to see how Toro Rosso´s race pace will turn out. Of course 1-2 for Ferrari with Verstappen third would be nice  ... ;) ;) Can´t wait for tomorrow!

The 2016 season preview

On my previous blog post I wrote there was a surprise on the way. The surprise was this: I had arranged a surprise trip for my husband to Barcelona to watch the second pre-season test session at Circuit de Catalunya! My husband has been watching Formula 1 for over 20 years as well and he has never had a chance to see the F1 cars live. He will turn 40 in May so it was a perfect reason to finally make his dream come true :) He flew to Barcelona with his five friends on Wednesday evening and what a test day they got to witness on Thursday!

On Thursday (March 3rd) it was Kimi´s last test day behind the wheel of the SF16-H. And it turned out to be the most productive day for the Iceman with 136 laps completed that day! It was also the only day when Kimi didn´t face any technical issues as all his previous three testing days had included a few hours´ wait in the pit garage due to a technical failure. Now that all eight test days are over, what kind of conclusions can be drawn of the pecking order? Two things have caught my eye during the winter tests: First of all Mercedes are frighteningly reliable. The Silver Arrows completed the mileage of almost 19 Grands Prix in just eight test days! They had no technical worries in spite of a transmission failure for Hamilton in the second test. The new W07 turned out so bulletproof that Hamilton and Rosberg split the test days not to get physically too tired due to the massive amount of laps they did. Their true pace is still kind of a question mark as they did no running either on the super softs or the new purple-marked ultra soft Pirellis.  Secondly, Ferrari are convincingly fast. The honour of the fastest lap time both on the softs and on the ultra softs fell to Ferrari´s Kimi Räikkönen. Ferrari have made a lot of changes to their power unit. In addition to that they now have a new front suspension as well, which is of the more popular push-rod design. The Italian-based team had some technical issues in their SF16-H and once again they always seemed to hit Kimi´s car. But their pace seems promising indeed. But whether it´s enough to take the fight to Mercedes, we´ll find out in a week... Behind these two it will be tight. Williams will be strong for sure and McLaren have made a significant leap forward from last year. The American-based Haas team made a good first impression proving more reliable than I had expected. I´m convinced once the reliability is there they could be fighting up in the midfield. Toro Rosso also managed to complete a huge amount of mileage and with the Ferrari power unit on their car they have a good chance to get the upper hand on Red Bull... But nothing is certain until the season gets underway. The real pecking order will take a few races to materialise.

One major topic has been the new Halo cockpit device, which Ferrari ran both on Thursday and Friday in the second test. It has provoked differing responses among the drivers. Sebastian Vettel is one of the drivers, who are in favour of the concept. He stated that the aesthetics of such a device are secondary to its purpose. Although he added that "it´s not the picture you are used to seeing for F1". The reigning world champion Hamilton judged the concept strongly and said it should at least be optional for the drivers and that he was willing to accept the risks involved in F1 racing and wouldn´t use such concept in his car. I agree with Sebastian that safety comes first. The Halo device doesn´t look so great but the one used on the SF16-H was just the first prototype developed by the team. Red Bull have also developed their own version of the head protection device, which they will introduce later on during the season. So who knows how the final version will turn out. And the eye adapts to new things pretty quickly. It was kind of same with the stepped noses a few years back: many judged them at first but soon everyone´s eyes adapted to them.

Another topic has been the new elimination-style qualifying format, which will go ahead in Melbourne next week. The 3-session knockout system remains, but instead of a specified number of drivers being eliminated after set time periods, the clock will soon start ticking each session. Q1 will run for 16 minutes and after seven of them the current slowest car will be eliminated. This process will repeat every 90 seconds until 15 cars are left. Q2 will last for 15 minutes and after six the 90-second elimination periods will start again until only eight cars are left. Q3 will see all eight running, but after five minutes six further cars will be eliminated over 90s periods. At the end only two cars will be left fighting head-to-head for pole. The new qualifying format has provoked differing opinions. The drivers were quite satisfied with the old system but the change was introduced to give races an added twist by introducing a situation whereby the top runners might get caught out by circumstance. Only the time will tell, whether this will make qualifying more exciting and spice things up. On paper it looks good but what about in chaotic rain-hit conditions... Qualifying should be about who´s fastest on track whether it´s dry or wet, not about grid based on coincidence and fortune. But let´s not judge it before seeing how it actually works at Melbourne next week, can´t wait!

The most important question in terms of the 2016 season is: Can Hamilton win his third title in-a-row? I have a hunch he can´t and I don´t say this only because I´m not a fan of his. Without any doubt the Briton was in a class of his own almost the entire last season. The success, the sharp edge, however, slipped through his fingers when he secured his world championship in US GP and in the last races of the season he got beaten by his teammate Rosberg. Now the fight starts all over again but is Hamilton running a life style, which enables his 100% concentration on hard training and racing? Hamilton has extremely active social life and it isn´t a secret that he likes to party and that he has done it a lot during the off-season. Psychologically it´s a line drawn in water when success starts to crumble. I believe if you are not 100% committed to Formula 1 and Formula 1 only, you lose your edge and your chance for the championship. To be honest, I wouldn´t mind Hamilton losing his edge as I hope, trust and believe this will be Ferrari´s year!