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  • F1 2016: Bahrain Gp Tyre Strategy

    F1 2016: Bahrain Gp Tyre Strategy

    The introduction of a third available compound by Pirelli has positively added to the spectacle. Here is a look at the different strategies adopted by drivers during the 2016 Bahrain grand prix.

    In Friday’s second free practice session Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen competed a twenty lap run on the medium compound tyres. The stint showed up well in terms of pace and would’ve been considered a good choice for those opting for a two stop race strategy. However, conditions in Sunday’s race were not conducive to competitively running the medium tyre.

    Although Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo ran his final stint on the medium tyre his second stint, on the soft tyre, was the decisive factor in his race. The Williams drivers Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas started the race without any new sets of the soft tyre, thereby compromising how innovative they could be on tyre strategy. Massa ran the longest stint on the medium tyre and though he ran as high as second at the start of the race ultimately finished eighth ahead of teammate Bottas in ninth.

    Haas’ race strategy engineer Ruth Buscombe calleed the most dynamic and aggressive of the race for Romain Grosjean. The Frenchman ran three stints on the supersoft tyre and his final stint on a new set of yellow-walled soft tyres.

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  • 2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Post Race Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Post Race Press Conference

    DRIVERS
    1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)
    2 – Kimi RAIKKONEN (Ferrari)
    3 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    PODIUM INTERVIEWS

    (Conducted by David Coulthard)

    Congratulations, your 16th victory, your fifth in a row. Any man that has done that has won a world championship, so a good day in the office.

    Nico ROSBERG: Oh for sure. It’s been an awesome weekend. The key was really the start. I got a great getaway and from then on I was trying to control the pace. Very, very happy with today; absolutely awesome to get another win.

    Q: Fantastic, we’ll come back to you. I’ll move along to Kimi Raikkonen. Kimi, as was mentioned in the introductions, your fifth second place here, you were second here last year. It’s a good circuit for you. Just lacking that last little bit of pace this afternoon but it bodes well for the season?

    Kimi RAIKKONEN: Yeah, obviously not too bad. I made a bad start and after a few laps we were one straight behind Nico, so it’s pretty difficult to recover from there, but we did what we could and we had pretty good speed. Not enough to win, but we’ll take second today and try to improve from there.

     

    Q: What is it about this circuit that brings out the best in you? You do seem to have a good run here.
    KR: I don’t think there are any special things we do. It seems to be happening here. There’s maybe some circuits that we seem to have all the time bad luck. But I’ll take it, but still we know… it was unfortunate for the team that the other car had an issue. We have some work to be done.

     

    Q: Congratulations on your podium result. Ladies and gentlemen, Lewis Hamilton. Now Lewis, it seemed to me that it all went wrong at the start again. We saw a little hiccup in Melbourne, another little hiccup here, any relation or two separate incidents?
    Lewis HAMILTON: I think two separate incidents, but both equally as painful, perhaps this one today more painful. Nonetheless, we still managed to get back up there and at least get some points. So again, damage limitation. Congratulations to Nico, kind of an easy race for him I assume, but I’m glad that it wasn’t more points and obviously I could have not finished the race so…

     

    Q: Just tell us about that last pit stop. It seemed like you stayed out a bit longer. You were give seconds behind Kimi at one point and then you dropped to more than 12 seconds, so what was the thinking behind that?
    LH: Well, the team was hoping that was potentially a safety car or something. I had so much damage on the car that I couldn’t keep up with Kimi. I was fighting but the rear end was nowhere. I did what I could with it and at the end I was just keeping the tyres in case I get an opportunity with the safety car, but it didn’t come.

     

    Q: We saw you arriving this morning in traditional dress. You obviously love being here in Bahrain.
    LH: I do and as you can see… a big thank you to the fans that came here this weekend. I’ve got some incredible support here. I was trying to enjoy the festivities here and I’ve been so well taken care of, so a big thanks to the Crown Prince and I look forward to coming back next year.

     

    Q: Congratulations. Back to our race winner: what a dream start to this season. Do you want to share a few more thoughts with the race fans out there?
    NR: No, just congratulations to Bahrain really, for staging such an awesome race weekend here. Such a great race track here also, in the desert. It’s been, I think, fantastic for all of you, I’m sure you had a lot of fun and we’ll be back again next year of course.

     

    PRESS CONFERENCE

     

    Q: Nico, obviously the start was key – but also were some strategy decisions and changes, particularly favouring the supersoft tyre in the final third of the race. Can you talk us through the start and particularly those decisions and what it was like from the cockpit?
    NR: Yeah, we’ve been working a lot on the starts. I’m pleased that it worked out so well, it was a really good getaway on the dirty side of the grid and that really made my race in the end. And from then on the car was feeling great and just controlling the pace and playing it safe. That’s what we were trying to do. Also, in case the Safety Car comes and things like that. So we really went for the safest strategy, not the fastest strategy. Just to cover all eventualities.

     

    Q: So you anticipated maybe running supersofts later in the race?
    NR: Anticipated? No. As I say, went for the strategy which was safest, to cover all eventualities like Safety Car or anything else that can happen.

     

    Q: Kimi, just over six seconds behind at the end. If you reflect on where you were coming out of Turn Two on the opening lap, do you think with a cleaner start you might have been able to give Nico a run for his money today?
    KR: It’s not possible to say. Obviously this is the end result and we had pretty okay speed in the race. Obviously bad start, I don’t know exactly what happened, if I had some issue or did some mistake. I just got wheelspin in the end. Obviously got surprised, managed to hold quite a good position after such a bad start, so it was a nice thing in the first two corners, didn’t lose too much. Then managed to pass cars, so that was a key point – but once I was second place I was already one full straight behind Nico so, obviously not an awful lot to do after that – but we managed to catch up little-by-little and I think we did the maximum that we could after that start. Not ideal for the team. We had some issue with the other car before the race even started, so yeah, we have quite a bit of work to be done – but the speed is more or less there and we just need to fix certain things.

     

    Q: Lewis, another recovery drive two weeks after Melbourne. Obviously this one a bit more difficult I imagine because you seemed to have quite a bit of damage on the car. How did that feel to you, trying to make your way through the field? Maybe you could give us a little detail on the start and that first corner with Bottas.
    LH: Yeah, obviously I just lost a lot of performance with the car and I’m not quite sure what happened at Turn One – whoever was on the inside was in my blindspot so I didn’t see them. It was a racing incident – those kind of things happen. After that just trying to manage the tyres, obviously with a lot less rear end and trying to get as many points as possible. I did the best I could with it.

     

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

     

    Q: (Khodr Rawi – motorsport.com) Kimi, are you worried that the latest reliability issues could prevent Ferrari from fighting for the championship?
    KR: I don’t know what happened to the other car. Obviously something went wrong. We had some issue… I had an issue in the last race. Seb had something here. It’s not ideal but, like I said, we have some work to be done and you never want to have a retirement and it’s going to cost points in the drivers’ plus the teams’. It’s an unfortunate part of the game.

     

    Q: (Christopher Joseph – Chicane) Nico, how important is it now, confidence-wise and momentum-wise for you, having won the first two races of the season?
    NR: It’s not something I think about. I’m just taking it race by race and it’s great to win here today, great to win two on the trot and that’s it. Next race – where are we going, China? It is a good moment because we have a good car and I just want to make the most of it.

     

    Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, you have eight podiums here. If you could, would you like to change it to one victory, and how do you rate your record?
    KR: Obviously we always try to do our maximum and this is the end result. There’s no point in wondering if and…  We had some second places, some third places, no win but like today I take second place and go from here and see what happens.

     

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Lewis, had there been a problem at the getaway, at the start, and then when did you realise that Bottas was too late on the brakes and you could be in trouble?
    LH: I don’t really know what was at the start. I don’t think there was any particular real issue. I think it was just not a good getaway by myself and nothing technical or anything like that. Yeah, as I said, it was in a blind spot, I didn’t know if anyone was there, I didn’t know what had happened but I’m glad that I didn’t spin. At least I could keep going. At least I managed to continue and still have some performance left in the car that I could get back into the top three.

     

    Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Nico, how does it feel to win five victories in a row?
    NR: It’s not something that I think about. I haven’t thought about it right in this moment. I’m just thinking about the season, it’s two wins in a row now, good points, that’s where my focus is and that’s it really. Five wins, three wins in a row, it doesn’t make a difference. Sorry.

     

    Q: (Khodr Rawi – motorsport.com) Lewis, did you have to run a more aggressive mode during the race to compensate for the lack of downforce?
    LH: We just run the normal race mode, we don’t have any more… We just did the same as we normally do.

  • 2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Post Qualifying Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Post Qualifying Press Conference

    DRIVERS

    1 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    2 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    3 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)

    TV UNILATERAL

    Q: Lewis, great lap. Under a little bit of pressure after your first run in Q3, but you really hooked it up – fastest ever lap of this circuit?

    Lewis HAMILTON: What a start. It’s obviously not been a smooth-sailing weekend in terms of pace. Nico’s been right on it all weekend and I was just generally struggling to put laps together. Luckily the one lap I did put together was the last lap. That was actually the only lap probably the whole weekend so far. I hope that’s the first of many. The car felt great. It’s quite incredible to think that we are quicker now to the V10 days. It just shows how far technology has come. Lastly, just for my engineers and mechanics who have been biting their nails all weekend and working so hard to get the car to where it is today, a big thank you to everyone here and also at the factory.

    Q: Thank you for that. Coming to you Nico, just a few hundredths of a second between you and Lewis. As he was just saying, you’ve been on it all weekend. The difference?

    Nico ROSBERG: I think Lewis just did a great lap in the end there. My lap felt good and I was actually sure that I was on pole! But that wasn’t the case, so there we go, that’s the way it is. Anyway, you know, at this track, I think it’s one of the tracks where pole counts least, because a lot of things can happen in the race and strategy and everything tomorrow is going to be quite messy maybe even, so there are still a lot of opportunities.

    Q: Thank you for that. Coming to you Sebastian. Only a tenth off in the first run in Q3, but at the end when push came to show it was more like half a second, what is that all about?

    Sebastian VETTEL: I don’t know, you should ask them [Mercedes]! I was very happy with the first attempt and yeah, my second attempt was more or less copy-paste. I thought that there was a little bit, there was, but five hundredths is probably not enough if they improve by half a second. I think very happy today, very happy with the car, the car felt fantastic throughout qualifying, it just kept getting better, which is natural as the circuit gets quicker. But there isn’t one place or anything wrong on the track, where the car doesn’t feel right. It feels good. We know that we are not where we want to be, but step by step I think we are getting there. We know what to do. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow. We’ll push them very hard. Ideally, we’ll do the same thing on the start as we did two weeks ago. I wouldn’t mind! So, yeah, we’ll see. It’s a long race. As Nico touched on, there are a lot of things that can happen here. Last year we saw an interesting race, so let’s see what happens tomorrow night.

    Q: Thank you. Coming back to you again Lewis, on pole. Looking for your third Bahrain victory tomorrow but of course, as Sebastian just referenced, a good start tomorrow, unlike Melbourne, will be important for you?

    LH: It will be, for sure it’s always important to get a good start. It’s a longer run down to Turn One than there was in the last race. Of course it’s something we’ve been trying to improve on, but it’s only been a couple of weeks so whether or mot we’ve made big improvements I highly doubt it, but hopefully it’s better than it was, on my side at least. But yeah, just really happy with that lap. So happy with that lap, because throughout qualifying and practice you go round, do a lap, it wasn’t quite perfect, Nico goes a tenth ahead or whatever it may be, so to finally pull it all together… It was actually even more of a pressured lap as well, because the previous lap I went off, so knowing that I’ve got to improve even more so than I did on the lap before, so yeah, super happy.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: Lewis, you were referencing the speeds there and looking back historically but times were a lot quicker compared just to last year. I wonder if you could put your finger on what that is. It’s a little colder ambient temperature, how much has that contributed? What else do you think is making the cars that much quicker this year?

    LH: Well naturally it’s with the development of the car. It’s definitely a bit of… the tyres seem quite grippy this weekend so maybe a little bit of a step in grip on tyres compared to last year but just, overall, the car is globally, I guess everyone’s cars globally have improved, be it power and downforce. The race is a little bit different. Obviously with different kind of tyre wear, it’s still going to be a real challenge there, but every single lap it’s… you would hope that we would be faster, otherwise we wouldn’t be…

    Q: Nico, I was going to ask you about the strategy choice tomorrow: two stop, three stop etcetera – then in your unilateral answer, you said you thought it was going to get ‘messy’. So do you want to drill down into that a little bit and explain why you think it’s going to get messy?

    NR: I think we are going to see many different strategies and also surprises. People will be surprised if maybe their strategy doesn’t work the way they thought – because we’re going to see graining on the soft tyres because it’s so cold, and that always causes a lot of unexpected things – because if you get graining you lose a lot of time, and you’ll get it in different ways. And then three different tyres, Safety Cars maybe coming into it, it’s going to be all over the place.

    Q: Finally to you Sebastian, this was a strong race for Ferrari last year. You’ve repeatedly said that, obviously, when it comes to the end of quali, you’re giving something away to Mercedes but that you’ve got much closer race pace. So, does that give you a degree of optimism you can get amongst them tomorrow?

    SV: Always. I think, yeah, last year we were very strong in the race. Kimi put a lot of pressure on Nico at the end of the race and managed to get past so I think we can be in good shape tomorrow. Obviously it’s impossible to predict but the car feels good; the car felt good this afternoon with different conditions to the evening. It kept getting better. Some of it, I guess, is the track but also we made little improvements here and there. So, very happy with how the car feels on one lap but also for the race. So, yeah, high on confidence. Whether it’s enough, we’ll see – but we’ll try to give them a hard time.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action/Speedsport magazines) A question to all three. We’ve now had two sessions of the new format. Are they more stressful or less stressful compared to the old Q1, Q2, Q3?

    Lewis?

    LH: Honestly, there’s zero difference to us, I guess, at the front. You go out and position might help a little bit but really doesn’t make any difference. I have not noticed a single difference, personally – you have to go out and get your laps just as you did before.

    Nico, I guess the only difference is that the laps are done earlier on rather than right at the very end, right?

    NR: Yeah, but I think in the end we should just listen to everyone watching in front of the TV and the fans at the racetrack, see what they say and, if they continue to not like it – as I’m sure they won’t – we should change.

    Sebastian?

    SV: Well, naturally with this format everyone has to go out more or less straight away otherwise you get knocked out and then there’s quite a lot of time you spend sitting in the garage and waiting, so obviously for us, running in, let’s say, the top five… but yeah, I think it’s just not right when you have the last four minutes and nothing’s happening. That’s usually when people should be smashing the lap times: not only in Q3 but also Q1 and Q2.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – GloboSport.com) Nico, you were fastest yesterday and today you were 77 thousandths slower. Any reason – nature of competition or did you have any kind of a problem?

    NR: No, all the way through the weekend it’s been going well and even in the end of qualifying it was going well. I got a good lap in, Lewis just did seven-hundredths better. That’s it.

    Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Sorry to slightly move the conversation away from qualifying but to all three of you, and particularly Seb, given your role on the GPDA, Bernie said yesterday that drivers are just saying what their teams tell them to; they shouldn’t have an opinion and I think he used the word ‘windbags’. I just wondered what your response to that was, whether you think it’s valid for you guys to have an opinion and what your response to Bernie is.

    SV: Look, we’re not political, I think if you read the letter, and you read the very end, it says, ‘on behalf of all drivers’. I think Alex, my name and Jenson but, in general, all drivers. So, I don’t read ‘on behalf of all the teams’ – or some of the teams. What I read is ‘on behalf of the drivers’. So that’s it.

    Anything to add? Nico? Lewis? No.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport)  Sebastian, you challenged Mercedes in Melbourne with, let’s say, a riskier strategy, choosing more the softer tyres. Is the supersoft tyre here good enough to do the same, or is that only a tyre for the first stint?

    SV: I think it always depends on how the race goes. I think probably here, more so that Melbourne, you have a couple of options with the strategy – but as I said it largely depends how the race goes. How you start off, where you are after the first corner, the first lap. And then it has to be seen. I think it should be fairly clear which tyre is the preferred one to use and then, I think we all go from there but, as we’ve seen last year, I think Kimi was on a mirrored strategy compared to Nico and Lewis, myself, and it worked out at the end – so there’s always room for doing something different, so let’s see what happens. If we can be smart tomorrow then I hope we will.

    Q: (Christopher Joseph – Chicane) Question for Nico and Lewis. From this point on, how does the process work in terms of considering all of the variables tomorrow? How will you decide your strategy, both individually and how much do you look across the other side of the garage.

    NR: So, the strategy is done by the team. We’re going to discuss it tomorrow morning and we’re going to go for the best possible strategy and then there will be a Plan B in case Plan A doesn’t work out and I’m not even 100 per cent aware yet what we’re going to decide to do – so let’s see for tomorrow morning and then go for it.

    Lewis?

    LH: Yeah, it’s not like we get any options. There’s the optimal, and then there’s sub-optimal and then there’s worse. The team choose the optimal. They do all the simulations and know what’s best. Of course you could ask for something different – but our strategist is incredibly smart, as all strategists in the teams will be, so we just follow in their direction.

    Q: (Ralf Bach – Autobild Motorsport) A question to Sebastian. Do you really believe you can win the championship with Ferrari until 2020 and, if yes, can you tell us why?

    SV: Until what? 2020? Well, it’s a long time. I don’t have a contract that goes to 2020 so that could be the first thing I need to sort out. Yeah, apart from being old at that time, I’ve very confident. I was very impressed when I first went to Maranello and saw the facilities, saw the potential, met the people and nothing has changed. Obviously it has been a very strong year last year which, to some extent, came unexpected – but obviously was very good to boost our motivation – but we know a lot of things have happened, a lot of things are still due to happen that will make us stronger in the future. Naturally some of the stuff happened already and I think this year’s car is a lot better than last year’s car, big step. Other stuff is in the pipeline, still to come – that’s talking about this year but also in general about the future. So once I think everything calms down and we focus and have everything in place then, I think, it will only make us stronger. Currently I think, if you measure on track, we are half a second behind today. Let’s see what the gap is tomorrow. I don’t see any reason why we cannot gain at least half a second or more in the future. To… whoever.

  • Hamilton Given Reprimand for Reversing In the Pitlane

    Hamilton Given Reprimand for Reversing In the Pitlane

    Lewis Hamilton has been given a reprimand following his pit lane incident after qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

    Hamilton who took a pole position with a record setting lap time was summoned to the stewards after qualifying for reversing in the pit lane. This is in breach of Article 28.3 of the FIA Sporting Regulations.

    The stewards decided that a penalty is not necessary and the Briton was given a reprimand and will therefore keep his pole position.

    “A reprimand has been imposed on the driver due to the fact that no clear instruction was given to the driver on where he should park the car after qualifying,” said the stewards in their decision document.

     

    Picture by courtesy Pirelli

  • F1 2016: Bahrain Qualifying Report – Hamilton Wraps Up Pole

    F1 2016: Bahrain Qualifying Report – Hamilton Wraps Up Pole

    Lewis Hamilton wrapped up his second consecutive pole position of the season for the Mercedes F1 team.

    The much maligned qualifying format got underway on the floodlit Sakhir International circuit and claimed its fist victim as Sergio Perez. The Force India driver and his team miscalculated the timing clock which left the Mexican driver towards the back of the grid. Pascal Wehrlein impressed in his Manor F1 car and will start Sunday’s race in 17th place.

    The second session of qualifying saw the red light at the end of the pitlane malfunction prompting a marshal to wave a green flag to set the drivers on their way. Stand-in McLaren driver Stoffel Vandoorne out-qualified teammate Jenson Button and will line up in twelfth position. French driver Romain Grosjean sported a big smile as he will line up the Haas F1 car in ninth place on the grid.

    Lewis Hamilton_Bahrain 2016_QualifyingThe final session of qualifying produced a surprise for Daniel Ricciardo who will start in fifth position ahead of both the Williams drivers. Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner remarked earlier that they would have to deliver something special to come out ahead in the intensely close mid-field battle.

    The first run between both Mercedes and Ferrari team’s drivers saw laptimes split only by a couple of tenths. However, Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton upped the ante for the final run. The reigning champion secured pole position ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg but less than a tenth of a second. Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen will share the second row of the grid as they did in Australia.

    Attention now turns to the start of Sunday’s race and the run down to the all-important first corner. Mercedes will be keen to improve on their starting prowess following the opening round of the season. And with the longer run down to turn one it will have to be inch perfect.

  • Vettel Fastest in Third Bahrain GP Practice

    Vettel Fastest in Third Bahrain GP Practice

    Sebastian Vettel finished fastest of a Ferrari 1-2 in the third practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

    Vettel went 0.040s faster than his team mate Kimi Raikkonen to set a 1:31.683 on the super soft tyres. Raikkonen, who was the fastest for a while after going faster than Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton on the soft tyres, set 1:31.723 on his best lap for the afternoon on the super soft tyres. Although the conditions were not representative of the qualifying session which will take place a little later, it does seem that Ferrari have found some pace after a very scrappy day yesterday.

    The two Mercedes drivers finished 4th and 5th with Rosberg ahead of Hamilton by o.044s. The Williams of Valtteri Bottas finished 5th fastest with Haas’ Romain Grosjean in a very respectable 6th with a 1:32.675 which is 1.399s off Vettel’s time.

    Daniil Kvyat finished 7th fastest for Red Bull ahead of Esteban Gutierrez in the other Haas car in 8th. Rounding out the top 10 were Felipe Massa in 9th and Daniel Ricciardo in 10th.

    After showing some strong pace yesterday during Free Practice 2 and finishing 3rd fastest, Jenson Button could only manage 13th fastest behind the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson in 11th and the Renault of Kevin Magnussen in 12th.

    After suffering with an oil leak at the start of the session Stoffel Vandoorne was able to get out for the final 30mins of the session and finished 0.040s off the pace of Button after posting a very good 1:33.744 on the super softs. It looks like the McLaren favors the cooler evening conditions and we may see them finish higher up in qualifying.

    The Toro Rosso’s of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz finished down in 15th and 16th respetively. In 17th was Felipe Nasr in the Sauber.

    Force India ended their session in 18th and 19th with Nico Hulkenberg head of team-mate Sergio Perez. Jolyon Palmer finished his session down in 20th and picked up a puncture after the chequered flag dropped for the end of the session.

    The two Manor’s of Rio Haryanto and Pascal Wehrlein closed off the order in 21st and 22nd.

    Pos Driver Team Best Time Gap Laps
    1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:31.683 – 22
    2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:31.723 0.040 13
    3 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:32.104 0.421 18
    4 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:32.160 0.477 14
    5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:32.675 0.992 18
    6 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:33.082 1.399 14
    7 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:33.113 1.430 10
    8 Esteban Gutierrez Haas 1:33.337 1.654 14
    9 Felipe Massa Williams 1:33.363 1.680 18
    10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:33.519 1.836 20
    11 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:33.569 1.886 16
    12 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1:33.617 1.934 9
    13 Jenson Button McLaren 1:33.704 2.021 12
    14 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:33.744 2.061 11
    15 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:33.778 2.095 20
    16 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:34.003 2.320 20
    17 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:34.013 2.330 15
    18 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:34.128 2.445 16
    19 Sergio Perez Force India 1:34.281 2.598 15
    20 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:34.424 2.741 9
    21 Rio Haryanto Manor 1:35.546 3.863 15
    22 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 1:35.724 4.041 16
  • Magnussen to Start Bahrain GP Race from the Pit Lane

    Magnussen to Start Bahrain GP Race from the Pit Lane

    Renault’s Kevin Magnussen will start Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix race from the pit lane after failing to stop at a red light for a weight check.

    Magnussen, behind Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat, was given the red light for a weight check. Because the drivers were close together, this caused a bit of confusion. Kvyat stopped when he was not supposed to while Magnussen carried on toward his pit garage. This is in breach of Article 29.1 of the FIA Sporting Regulations.

    “The driver failed to stop for weighing during P2 when signalled to do so by the red traffic light, the car was not returned to the FIA garage and work was undertaken,” a statement from the stewards read.

    “In accordance with Article 29.1 iv) of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations the driver is required to start from the pit lane.”

     

    Picture Credit: Renault Sport Formula 1 Team

  • 2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix: Friday Press Conference

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES:

    Franz TOST (Toro Rosso)

    Dave RYAN (Manor Racing)

    Robert FERNLEY (Force India)

    Claire WILLIAMS (Williams)

    Not in attendance: Monisha KALTENBORN (Sauber)

    Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli)
    PRESS CONFERENCE
    Bob, the car showed some flashes of real speed in pre-season in testing and in Melbourne you had a good result with seventh. How confident are you that you’ll be able to take a step on from the fifth place overall the team achieved last year? ?
    Robert FERNLEY: I wouldn’t say that I was overly confident but optimistic. I think that Toro Rosso have done a good job. Williams are always strong. Red Bull are coming back and the engine’s proving well there. So I think the competition for that third to sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship is going to be very, very challenging this year and very tough and we’ve just got to prove that we’re up for it.

    Talking about Toro Rosso and other teams, in the second half of the race in Melbourne, Romain Grosjean in particular was able to stay ahead of the Force India. Were you surprised at the pace of the Haas and do you think that everybody has closed up behind you, quite tightly?
    RF: I don’t think that necessarily the Melbourne pace was something worrying. Melbourne’s just a very difficult circuit to overtake on and I think the red flag played in the favour very much of Haas. In our case I think it went against us slightly. So I don’t think it was a pace issue particularly, just a circuit-related issue.

    Thanks for that. Franz, coming to you, you got off to a good start in Australia, with a double points finish, and the car clearly has some pace. That obviously puts the team in the spotlight, in many different ways. Does the improvement in the team’s pace make you attractive again for outside investors?
    Franz TOST: I hope so. At Toro Rosso the doors are always open for people who bring money, because we have many ideas how to invest it in a proper way. Of course it’s easier to negotiate with partners if you are successful at the race track. This year, so far, we have a very competitive package. The STR11 shows a good performance; also both drivers are very skilled and very fast. The engine is also good and the team has improved as well and therefore I expect to have a successful season and I hope that we can find additional money.

    That improvement in pace was evident in Melbourne but you might not have got the race result you wanted. Obviously, we all saw what happened with Carlos and with Max in the pit stops. Have you spoken to the drivers in between and how has that been resolved?
    FT: Yeah, we had a very good first part of the race until the red flag. After the red flag we lost the pace. The reason why we called in Carlos was that he had a lot of vibration on the front axle and for safety reasons we wanted to change the tyres. Max then came into the pits and the team didn’t know this and we were too late with the tyre change. Therefore, he came out behind the group of Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Palmer and behind Carlos and then of course there was a little bit of a fight between them. But that’s normal. That’s competition. We discussed everything after the race, we analysed everything and we explained to the drivers what happened. Everything is sorted out and I expect from them a good and competitive race here as well.

    The battle between the drivers looks like it might shape up to be one of the season’s most intense. How do you, in the team’s best interest, manage them, given that they a relatively young partnership?
    FT: You must not forget that both of them are very young. Both of them want to make a career in Formula One and therefore they are fighting for every millimetre. This is what we want to see and therefore why we also have them in the team. At Toro Rosso the philosophy is not to come out with a team order, to say ‘you have to let the other past’. Only if we change the strategy, of the drivers are on a different strategy and if we think it will be an advantage for the team, then of course, but otherwise there are no team orders. We expect discipline from the drivers. What do I mean by discipline? That they respect each other, that they let the other driver the space to survive, that they don’t crash on each other and that they compete on the race track like people want to see it and then we will see who will be the better.

    Dave, welcome back, a couple of questions for you. Your car seemed fairly comfortable running in the lower midfield in Melbourne. What kind of result of results do you expect from the rest of the season, what’s achievable? 
    Dave RYAN: I’d like to think we can run with the pack. We haven’t been able to do that in previous years. If we can do that then we can be in a good position to seize opportunities that come our way. I believe we can score points and we need to score points, and that’s the goal.

    You’re almost six months into your tenure at Manor. When you arrived what did you feel were the things that most urgently needed addressing and now where do you feel the team is at now in terms of personnel, resource and operational stability?
    DR: The team was clearly, or had been, in a very difficult place. They did a fantastic job last year. They were in a bit of a holding pattern really. Most of last year was spent looking forward to getting a package together for this year. Stephen Fitzpatrick, our team owner, did a great job on that front: he secured a terrific engine deal, a great transmission arrangement. After that, it was just a question of putting a good car together, which our guys have done. So, last was a bit of a holding pattern and it was all about getting ready for this year. We’ve got a pretty good package. There are no excuses on the engine front, the driveline, and it’s down to us to show we belong here – and we do. And we’ve managed to change the team considerably. We’ve got a lot of new people. There were a lot of good people anyway. Even from Melbourne to this race it’s developed, it’s changed a lot and we’re going forward and that’s what we need to see.

    And what about your drivers? They are both quite inexperienced. What do you see is the potential from both of them?
    DR: I see huge potential. First of all they’re both young guy, a bit like Franz was saying. I enjoy their enthusiasm. Having youngsters around is very invigorating. They’re both very, very switched on young guys. Quite different personalities but fierce determination in both of them to succeed and I’m sure we’ll see two very good drivers develop during the year.

    OK, thanks. Claire, coming to you, lonely at the front there…
    Claire WILLIAMS: I have no friends!

    Williams have finished third in the past two seasons. This year, do you see it as the same battle again, against Red Bull for that third position, or has there been that step over the winter that will allow you to take the fight to Ferrari and Mercedes?
    CW: I’d like to think so. As you say, we’ve come third in two consecutive seasons now, which is a fantastic achievement for Williams. But we did come into this year knowing and understanding that it was going to be much harder to try to maintain that position, let alone push forward and try to catch the Ferraris and Mercedes, but of course that was the target for the guys back at Grove over the winter period. I think in Melbourne it was far too early to tell really where anybody is on the grid this year, so we’re going to have to give it a few races to see where we are, but of course the target for us as a team is always to make improvements. We’d love to be able to close the gap to Ferrari and Mercedes, but I think we’ve seen in Melbourne that the competition has closed around us. The Force Indias, the Reds Bulls, the Toro Rossos, they are all there. We had a great fight in Melbourne and I expect the rest of the season will be like that, so we have our work cut out if we are to maintain third, let alone push forward.

    One of things you have been working on is the new short nose that is supposed to be arriving. Are we going to see that tested tomorrow? Has it arrived? Is it arriving?
    CW: It is winging its way here as we speak, so I very much hope it will be on the car, it’s going on Felipe’s car tomorrow in P3, and we’ll just have to understand where it is, what performance it’s giving us and then decide whether we run it in qualifying or not.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Kate Walker – motorsport.com) A question for everybody please. We’ve had an awful lot of doom and gloom – and I’ve very over that. Could everybody please tell me one thing that you’re looking forward to about the 2016 season. Something that excites you, that makes you passionate.

    RF: If you look at it from the point of view that probably the first… the manufacturing teams in terms of Mercedes and Ferrari are clearly ahead of the game, I think what’s exciting for me is what Claire’s just hit upon: I think we’ve got four or five teams that are really fighting hard for those third to sixth places. I think that’s going to be an incredible battle through the year. If that was the front of the Formula One field, think how wonderful it would be for the fans.

    Franz?
    FT: We have a very competitive midfield where all the competitors are very close together, we go to Azerbaijan and see a new race, and we have 21 races.

    Claire?
    CW: The same as what everyone else has said: I think the competition this year is going to be phenomenal. I think we’ve had a couple of good years of racing. As I said, Melbourne really demonstrated that it’s going to be a really close fight for everybody this year, up and down the order, which is really exciting. I’m really pleased with what you said about the doom and gloom, because I’m totally over it as well and I think it would be really nice if we recognised the positives of our sport, of which there are so many. I think actually now Formula One, from a strategic perspective, and looking at where we’re moving forwards to into the future to into the future, now coming close to signing off the new power unit regulations – hopefully – in addition to the new 2017 regulations, I think there’s a lot to hopefully look forwards to. I think the driver aids situation, as much as there’s been a lot of talk around that, positive and negative, I think that’s really exciting: the drivers have what they wanted, and that’s to be drivers in the car again and to take control of their cars. For me, to see drivers going out there, having a fight, I think it will be a really exciting season. That’s what I’m looking forward to.

    David, it’s a new role for you…
    DR: Yes, I endorse that. Melbourne showed, or gave every indication of the season to come. For me personally it’s going to be… I’m really looking forward to the season and I’m going to enjoy seeing Manor Racing progress. That’s what I’m looking forward to most.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) A question to Robert Fernley. Bob, there’s been a fair amount of negative coverage about your team owner, team principal Vijay Mallya recently. He’s not here so I need to ask you. Is the team endangered in any way? We hear some stories of $400million dollars being offered in repayment. How does that affect the team?
    RF: You know Dieter, I didn’t see you behind the camera – I thought I’d got away with it for this meeting! Vijay’s issues are well publicised but, like all things, I think there’s been a bit of media over-reaction, especially from India on all of that. It’s something, just to give you an idea of India itself, I’ve been in and out of India for well over 30 years and the only thing I’ve learnt in 30 years is how little I know about India, so I think you’ve just got to let that flow and for Vijay to deal with it. Force India is blessed with a very good technical team and that technical team has progressively moved Force India up the Constructors’ table and I think today we are realising some of the best returns the team has ever had from the payments side of things, even though we complain about the disparity – which is a separate issue. And we also have a very good commercial team. And I think the commercial team is allowing Force India pretty well now to stand on its own feet and, whilst the shareholders are always there to help us – and Vijay’s been the main person in doing that over the last nine years. It’s not a short term, nine years, to be keeping a Formula One team going. I don’t think there’s any concerns for Force India.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) Claire, very brief one to you. You’ve just said you’re signing off the 2017 powertrain regulations and ‘hopefully’ the 2017 aero regulations. Can you elaborate on why you use the word ‘hopefully’? I doubt you normally use words willy-nilly.
    CW: I think I should have applied ‘hopefully’ to both. We have a Strategy Group meeting that’s just been scheduled coming up, and as we all know in Formula One, things are fluid. I said ‘hopefully’ just to temper it. I don’t think you should put too much emphasis on that word.

    …so there is a chance that they may not go through, based on that?
    CW: I doubt it. I think it’s becoming far too late in the day. I think we pushed the date anyway and we need to get these signed off if we’re all to be ready for 2017.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) My second question to all of you. There’s been a lot of noise coming from the GPDA recently and one of their points of concern is that they’re not being heard, particularly when it comes to the governance structure, regulations changing etc. given that two of you people are on the Strategy Group and the other two on the Formula One Commission, have the drivers aired their concerns to you at all as team principals on the various commissions and groups?

    BF: No, I’ve not spoken to any of the drivers on that Dieter. I think the drivers have got a role to play. They do have a meeting every race weekend with Charlie so they do represent their views at that meeting and those are transmitted to us through Charlie, which is the correct way of doing it. I think it’s very difficult to have a member of the GPDA on the F1 Commission. It’s very difficult to represent 22 people with one opinion. We have enough difficulty doing it with six on the Strategy Group, so I’m not sure where that would go. Clearly the voice of the drivers is very, very important and we should be listening to them.

    Claire?
    CW: Yeah, I echo what Bob has said. The drivers are one of the key stakeholders of our sport, as are the teams, the media and our fans and we have to listen to all those stakeholders if we’re to create a sport that’s going to sustain in the long term. I’m pleased that they’ve come out and talked about their concerns. I think now we have to go away and think about them and address them and to see how we can engage them. Personally, in the team we have a constant and open dialogue with both our drivers and they always feedback information. On the converse, I think drivers have been listened to, probably more than they have in recent times, talking about the driver aids and the cars we are producing for them for next year – but as Bob said, it’s difficult to represent such a wide group. And then, how does that potentially fit in to the current governance structure that we have at the moment.

    Dave, your thoughts on this.
    DR: I think the drivers are the great personalities of this sport. I think they should be listened to. I think their opinion is really valued and we should heed what they say. We should certainly take notice, that’s for sure.

    Finally, Franz.
    FT: Our drivers are fortunately young, they are not so involved in all of this political issues. Generally the drivers are here for driving and, regarding the Formula One rules, there are so many parties being involved, it’s unnecessary to bring in another party. Nevertheless, the drivers can come up with ideas – but not after regulations are being defined. Like now, the 2017 regulations. To come now and say ‘this is not good’, it’s too late: because this has been defined. They should do it before. Generally, they should be concentrated to drive. That’s their job.

    Q: (Sanjeev Palar – Fox Sports Asia) The fans are holding their breath to try and understand and then figure out what’s happening with qualifying, so perhaps someone can tell us how is it going to be resolved, are there going to be any more changes that we see this season, and what is the process and opportunity to implement such changes?
    DR: We’re holding our breath as well.
    FT: We’ve discussed this qualifying procedure many times and the reason why this new qualifying came into play is because the organisers wanted to increase the show. Now, we saw in Melbourne that qualifying three ended up in a mess, because during the last four or five minutes  no car was out there, but this was already mentioned before, because the calculation of all the teams showed that at the end, maybe one or two cars would have tyres to go out twice in qualifying three. The new qualifying model itself is not so bad but in qualifying three, the eight cars need to have two sets of tyres so that all the cars are out there. Why? Because qualifying three is the most important part of the qualifying, it’s when pole position is being decided and therefore the cars need to be out on the track and neither the old qualifying… all this would be good, in combination with the new one because then the drivers would be out only at the last one or two minutes and with the new qualifying we know that the last four or five minutes no one is out any more. Therefore, in my opinion, we should go back to the old qualifying when we know that the cars will be on the track and will race for pole position.
    CW: In qualifying, the revised form in Australia came out and we said we would give it a go and if it didn’t work we would revert and come back to the drawing board, and obviously that meeting happened on Sunday and everybody agreed that we would revert back to the 2015 format until we could all come together and decide and actually try and come up with a well considered revised process for qualifying. Unfortunately that obviously has happened in the interim, we’ve had a new vote among strategy group members which then went to the commission. Now we have this hybrid system which we’re running tomorrow. Personally, from a Williams perspective, we would have rather to have gone back to the 2015 format as a holding pattern, to give us time to meet again as a group and to actually have time to go through what a new system could look like rather than kind of go to a hybrid system which might not work again. I think we have to wait anyway and see whether that will work or not tomorrow and then take the time to actually think about it. I think otherwise our fans are just going to look at our sport and go ‘what are they doing?’ You can’t do this in the second race of a championship so it’s really important to us that we get this resolved as quickly as possible but to do it in a well-thought through manner.
    Q: Dave, your drivers were probably disadvantaged in Q1 last time out, it didn’t probably go according to plan. What’s your feeling about it?
    DR: No, it didn’t go according to plan for us in Melbourne. I think the important thing is that the regulations were changed for Melbourne, we did give it a try and it clearly didn’t work for many reasons. But the fans have overwhelming said ‘we didn’t like it’. We did have the meeting on the Sunday morning and we did agree to change it. However, since then circumstances have intervened and we’re now back to what we had in Melbourne, so I guess we’re going to go through it again and just see how it pans out. Maybe we’ll all be a bit better prepared for it this time round and maybe it will be a bit different. So let’s see what happens in qualifying tomorrow and we’ll review it again on Sunday morning.
    Q: Bob, do you think teams will be a bit more comfortable with the process tomorrow and it might go a bit more smoothly than it did in Australia?
    BF: For sure I think teams will be better prepared. There still could be issues with it. From a personal point of view, I would like to have seen the compromise programme come in because I think that actually Q1 and Q2 were quite exciting. Clearly we got it wrong for Q3. I would have liked to have seen a little bit of an adjustment before we stopped everything but we have to go, at the end of the day, with the way the governance system works and we are where we are and let’s see how it goes tomorrow.

    Q: (Sanjeev Palar – Fox Sports Asia) Everyone has expressed their opinion on what they prefer but I think what we’re trying to understand and what we’re trying to convey to the fans is what process happens to decide what the final qualifying system will be for 2016, because it doesn’t seem like we have one. We had one in Australia, then we thought it’s gone all over the place, so what is the actual process to finalise the qualifying system that we’re going to have for this season?
    BF: It has to go through the strategy group and then from the strategy group it has to go through the F1 commission. You need 100 percent of the votes from the teams, the F1 commission, and then if it gets the majority that’s necessary, it will go back to the world council to be put into sanction, so that’s the process. There is no other process.
    DR: I think it’s true to say that once it passes through the strategy group for the Formula One commission, it can’t be changed so it can only be approved or disapproved from that point on, both at the Formula One commission and beyond. We only get what comes through from the strategy group, so that’s the process and then we vote on it and it’s a yes or a no, not a maybe we can do this instead, so that’s the process, it is very clear cut in fact.

  • Rosberg Fastest Again in Bahrain Second Practice

    Rosberg Fastest Again in Bahrain Second Practice

    Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg went faster than his team-mate Lewis Hamilton to take the fastest time of Free Practice 2 for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

    Rosberg set a time of 1:31.001 on the super soft tyre edging out his team mate Hamilton by 0.241s. Hamilton managed a best time of 1:31.242. Rosberg’s time is about 1.6s faster than last years pole position time.

    In a rather surprising turn of pace McLaren’s Jenson Button finished 3rd fastest with a 1:32.281 and 1.281s off the pace. After setting his fastest time, Button quipped, “I found the go faster button. I found it!” over the radio. His time on the super soft tyres put him ahead of Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen who finished 4th fastest.

    The Ferrari pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel finished the session 5th and 6th respectively. Both drivers’ were unable to capitalise on their flying laps due to traffic in the middle sector. Towards the end of the session Vettel came to a stop on the track. It was initially thought that he had a gearbox problem. While waiting for his car to be lifted on to the flat bed truck the rear left wheel could be seen hanging off. Vettel was seen tightening the wheel nut. He later radioed his team informing them that the wheel nut had come loose.

    Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat was 7th fastest with Williams’ Valtteri Bottas in 8th. Kvyat’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo ended his session 9th fastest with Felipe Massa in the other Williams rounding out the top 10 nearly 2 seconds off the pace.

    On his Formula 1 debut, Stoffel Vandoorne ended his second practice session 11th fastest in the McLaren. Haas F1’s Esteban Gutierrez was 12th fastest. His team mate Romain Grosjean suffered a front wing failure at Turn 13 after running over the bumpy apex of the corner. Haas say that because of the vibration of the car the wing was caught on one of the bumps which caused the failure. “It wasn’t a failure – he went over the kerbs and something broke, it touched the kerb with the vibration,” said Haas F1 Team Boss Gunther Steiner.

    Carlos Sainz finished down in 13th with Grosjean 14th fastest. Sergio Perez finished 15th fastest in the Force India ahead of Renault’s Kevin Magnussen. Nico Hulkenberg in the second Force India ended his session in 17th.

    Finishing in 18th was Jolyon Palmer ahead of 19th placed man Pascal Wehrlein in the Manor. The two Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr finished 20th and 21st respectively with Rio Haryanto closing out the grid in 22nd.

    Pos. Driver Team Best Time Gap Laps
    1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:31.001 – 38
    2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:31.242 0.241 32
    3 Jenson Button McLaren 1:32.281 1.280 32
    4 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:32.406 1.405 31
    5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:32.452 1.451 38
    6 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:32.650 1.649 26
    7 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:32.703 1.702 34
    8 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:32.792 1.791 39
    9 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:32.870 1.869 23
    10 Felipe Massa Williams 1:32.873 1.872 36
    11 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:32.999 1.998 30
    12 Esteban Gutierrez Haas 1:33.129 2.128 31
    13 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:33.177 2.176 36
    14 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:33.384 2.383 23
    15 Sergio Perez Force India 1:33.406 2.405 35
    16 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1:33.447 2.446 34
    17 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:33.570 2.569 37
    18 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:33.640 2.639 35
    19 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 1:33.953 2.952 21
    20 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:34.224 3.223 31
    21 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:34.477 3.476 34
    22 Rio Haryanto Manor 1:34.562 3.561 33

     

    Photo by courtesy Pirelli

  • F1 2016: Bahrain Free Practice 1 Report – Rosberg On Top

    F1 2016: Bahrain Free Practice 1 Report – Rosberg On Top

    Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg topped the timing sheets in the first free practice session of the Bahrain grand prix.

    The first ninety minutes of practice for the 2016 Bahrain grand prix took place under natural light as opposed to the rest of the weekend which will be run on the floodlights which line the circuit.

    The first of the three free practice session ran without any major incident save for a few drivers locking up their front tyres as they attempt to find the limit of adhesion. With the news that Fernando Alonso is not medically fit to race this weekend came the debut of Belgian driver Stoffel Vandoorne. The highly rated rookie driver finished the first session in 18th place overall.

    Sergio Perez also stood aside for fellow countryman Alfonso Celis who piloted the Force India for the practice session. The 19 year old Mexican driver was twenty-first on the timing sheets. Nico Rosberg completed twenty-four laps and set the a quickest time overall of 1:32:294 on the yellow-walled soft tyre. Teammate Lewis Hamilton was second quickest with a 1:32:799.

    Ferrari split tyre strategy at the end of the session as Kimi Raikkonen set the third fastest time, a 1:34:128, on the soft tyre while Sebastian Vettel persisted with the medium compound tyre. The German ended the session in eleventh place with a quickest time of 1:35:037.

    Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Ricciardo completed twenty-seven laps and set a quickest time of 1:34:461 which was the fourth fastest time overall. Team principal Christian Horner noted that the team might struggle in qualifying trim this weekend but that they have high hopes for Sunday’s race.