Tag: daniel ricciardo

F1 2016: Chinese GP Free Practice 1 Report – Rosberg Quickest

Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg topped the first free practice session ahead of Sunday’s Chinese grand prix.

The session stumbled into life as cars trickled out onto the Shanghai International circuit which was holding a track temperature of 33 degrees Celcius. Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg set the quickest time of the session, a 1:38:037, on the yellow walled soft tyre. Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton followed in second one and a half tenths adrift.

The Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo, and sister Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen rounded out the top five positions. Fernando Alonso was back in the McLaren for the first free practice session and ended the session twelfth overall. Alonso has not yet been given the all clear to race for the remainder of the weekend and is expected to undergo his second medical check-up of the weekend fifteen minutes after the conclusion of the first practice session.

The one and a half hour session was marred by two red flag periods brought about first by the Williams of Felipe Massa and secondly by the Renault of Kevin Magnussen. The first red flag was shown as a result of gravel on the circuit caused by the left-rear tyre on Massa’s car letting go. Peculiarly, once the track re-opened Massa ventured back out only to experience the same delamination on the left-rear tyre. There is no word as yet to the cause of the delamination however.

The second red flag was a bit lengthier and required a bit more clean-up as the left-rear tyre on Kevin Magnussen’s Renault let go halfway down the back strait. On the face of it the two incidents for Massa and Magnussen don’t seem to be related. It was the McLaren teams opinion that Magnussen’s issue might have been caused by debris on the circuit.

The tyre compouds available this weekend are the medium (white), soft (yellow), and supersoft (red).

April 15, 2016
F1 2016: Bahrain GP Race Report – Desert Success for Rosberg

For nine years the Bahrain grand prix was run under the hot desert sun. For nearly a decade it wasn’t a race marked as one to look forward to and it almost always produced the most lacklustre racing of a season. But it would only take pushing back the starting time a few hours and a few thousand floodlight to ignite the Bahrain Gp into a spectacle of note. And in 2016 it delivered once more.

As if to emphasise its transformation the drama started before a lap could be turned in anger. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was forced into retirement on the formation lap. While Ferrari has stopped short of calling it an engine failure the plumes of smoke pouring from the rear of the car say otherwise. In Australia it was Raikkonen who retired with a turbo failure and there too Ferrari went out of its way to assure that there is no reliability concern. But even though its only two races into the season they’re developing a bit of an uncomfortable and undesirable habit of only getting one car to the chequered flag.

Lewis Hamilton was sitting pretty in pole position with teammate Nico Rosberg alongside on the front row of the grid but it wasn’t to last very long for the Brit. Hamilton struggled to get off the line and ended up tangling with the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and dropped down to seventh.

From fourth place Raikkonen made a poor start and dropped behind a pair of fast starting Williams’ and the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo. However, the Finn followed with some tenacious overtaking got himself into second place. By this stage the leading Mercedes of Rosberg was already eleven seconds up the road. The 2007 champion maintained a comparable pace with the Mercedes and even managed to reduce the gap to three seconds through strategy and occasional superior pace. But the number 7 Ferrari was never close enough to challenge for the lead of the race.

As Hamilton recovered to third with some damage to the right-side barge board Rosberg wrapped up his fifth win in a row. For years we’ve been calling for Rosberg to step up his game and make it a championship battle worth watching and he’s done it now. There is still an incredibly long season ahead but Rosberg has started 2016 in the way that he’s needed to, in a way that will give Hamilton a lot to think about.

With the top three positions established the rest of the points paying positions was an intense fight right to the chequered flag. The availability of three tyre compounds once again added a dynamism to the racing as drivers opted for strategies than ran the gamut of possibilities. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth thanks an early stop and rolling the dice by running the final stint on the medium tyres.

As the race strategy engineer for the Haas F1 team Ruth Buscombe once again worked a brilliant strategy for Romain Grosjean. The Frenchman ran most of the race on the supersoft compound which allowed him to scythe through the field. He ran as high as fourth at one stage and ultimately finished fifth in what is turning out to be a fairytale debut for the American team.

Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen finished sixth ahead of Daniil Kvyat in seventh who recovered from starting fifteenth on the grid. After a difficult tyre strategy Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas finished eighth and ninth for Williams. Driver of the day belong the final points scorer Stoffel Vandoorne. The 24-year-old Belgian driver stood in for Fernando Alonso who is recovering from fractured ribs sustained in the Australian Gp crash. The difficulty of having to deal with the complexity of a 2016 F1 car, to understand the Pirelli tyres, and to fight with seasoned F1 drivers, must not be underestimated. Vandoorne put all of his talents on display and blitzed his F1 debut.

The 2016 hasn’t begun to hit its stride and already an immense battle is brewing up and down the field. Roll on China.

(All images courtesy of Pirelli Motorsport)

April 4, 2016
F1 2016: Bahrain GP Preview – Bahrain Battle Between Merc & Ferrari

Formula 1 has long been known as a sport that is both complicated and the technical supreme of motorized sport. This and the allure of speed and victory and glamour is what draw millions of fans to it. But recently the sport, which celebrates more than six decades of existence, has been anything but glorious.

Of late all of what makes Formula 1 great has been overwhelmed and buried under the awkward mess of the new qualifying format. The elimination style qualifying format was universally slammed by all who tuned into the farcical hour that would determine the starting grid.

The qualifying change was an idea cooked up by Jean Todt’s FIA, F1’s governing body. It put the choice of the ill-conceived elimination-style quali or a reversed starting grid before the teams. Rather than choose the preposterous idea of a reversed grid they opted for the lesser of two evils and so elimination-style quali came to pass. Subsequent to scorching criticism a reversion to the previous quali session was called for. However, F1’s strategy group has decided to give the new format another chance in Bahrain. It’s difficult to imagine that the new format will suddenly transform unenthusiastic opinion it’s currently viewed with.

The qualifying debacle has, unfortunately, dominated headlines for the last two weeks. It’s nearly made us forget that as the opening round of the 2016 season the Oz Gp was a compelling race. The choice of three tyre compounds in the race worked well and produced several different strategies up and down the field which is an exciting precursor for the rest of the season. And although Mercedes were eventual victors with a 1-2 finish they were pushed to the limit of what they could produce.

As Formula 1 tracks go the Albert Park circuit is unique. Its street-style layout is not a definitive barometer for car performance and it’s difficult to overtake on. As the second round of the season Bahrain’s Sakhir International circuit presents a bigger test on performance and more chances for overtaking. “The last corner flows quite well and if you can get close for DRS you can get a good run [to overtake] into Turn 1,” said Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo. “If you don’t get it into Turn 1, then there’s Turn 4 or the middle sectors where it’s easy to make mistakes. There’s probably four places you can pass on the track which is pretty good.”

As you might expect tyre strategy will play its role in determining what the final result on Sunday will be. The medium, soft, and supersoft Pirelli tyres are the choices available to drivers. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen has opted for three sets of medium tyres each while Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg has taken only one set of the medium compound. It indicates that Ferrari hasn’t ruled out an alternative strategy of a long stint on the medium tyre should conditions be suitable. In 2013 Kimi Raikkonen pulled off a two stop strategy to finish second for Lotus.

The Finn has a record of seven podiums at the Desert track and despite being inches away from winning the grand prix in 2015 has never stood on the top step of the podium here. As the Sakhir International circuit is clearly a venue where Raikkonen excels the 2007 champion may not be a bad bet for the spoils this weekend.

The Bahrain grand prix exploded into life on account of its transformation into a night race. In 2014 it produced an exhilarating wheel-to-wheel battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. In this race it was Hamilton who emerged a memorable victor. In 2016, it could produce a battle between Mercedes and Ferrari that you do not want to miss.

March 31, 2016
F1 Australian GP FP2: Hamilton fastest, Rosberg crashes

The Mercedes F1 team suffered pretty mixed fortunes in another practice session dominated by unpredictable wet weather conditions. Lewis Hamilton finished on top of the time sheets once again in FP2 ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, while his team mate Nico Rosberg suffered a crash into the barriers at turn 6 during a very wet session.

The wet weather put a real damper on FP2, with conditions only improving ever so marginally during the session. While we got to see some slick running during the first free practice session, drivers were not able to run on anything better than Pirelli’s intermediate rubber during FP2.

Most teams preferred a cautionary approach with seven drivers failing to set a time and three not venturing on to the track at all for any FP2 running. Nico Rosberg’s turn 7 crash early on in the session caused extensive damage to the front wing of his W07. Rosberg was forced to abandon his Mercedes track side for fear of causing further damage to the car. Team Principal Toto Wolff confirmed that Rosberg had been running one of the team’s new S-duct noses. Mercedes does have spares for later in the weekend but sent Hamilton out with an old spec wing so as not to risk losing another one.

With Rosberg forced out of FP2, team mate Hamilton was left to head up the field. He posted a time of 1:38.841. The time was nearly 10 seconds slower than his top time posted for FP1. It was good enough though to finish nearly half a second clear of Nico Hulkenberg in his Force India. Force India are looking impressive – Sergio Perez had set the fastest first and second sectors before losing the rear of his car in Turn 12. There was potential for him to better Hamilton’s time but as conditions worsened his chances of taking a time at the top were quickly snuffed.

Kimi Raikkonen was third quickest for Ferrari, followed by Daniel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz. The McLaren duo of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button followed in sixth and seventh places.

Sebastian Vettel – who had not completed a timed lap in FP1 despite being the first driver out on track – set the eight fastest time with Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat rounding out the top 10.

Esteban Gutierrez ended the FP2 session 11th in the Haas and Pascal Wherlein finished 12th fastest ahead of Romain Grosjean, Rio Haryanto and Rosberg. The remaining seven drivers chose not to set times and Marcus Ericsson, Felipe Nasr and Max Verstappen opted to remain in the dry comfort of their pit garages.

The weather for tomorrow is currently still rainy at times but more favourable than Friday conditions.

Photo Credits: FP2 Screenshots from Sky F1.

March 18, 2016
F1 2016: Australian GP Free Practice 1 – Hamilton Tops Wet/Dry Session

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton topped the first free practice session for the 2016 Australian grand prix.

The 2016 season got underway as Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel ventured out onto track with the full wet Pirelli tyres fitted to his car. Overnight rain and a consistent drizzle in the morning had ensured a wet start to the first practice session.

The track seemed to dry quickly with a blustery wind but just as driver were getting into their stride on the yellow-walled soft tyres the rain appeared once more. So it continued throughout the session which was difficult to classify either wet or dry.

Lewis Hamilton set the quickest time of the session with a 1:30:364. The Red Bull duo of Dannil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo were second and third as the chequered flag dropped to signal the end of the session. Rather embarrassingly, Ricciardo dropped the Red Bull into the gravel at the end of the session. Given the slippery conditions and the fact that Ricciardo was on slicks means we can give him the benefit of the doubt.

Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen rounded out the top five. The 18 year old Verstappen had earlier spun his Ferrari-powered car but, luckily, didnt sustain any damage. Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, and Sergio Perez rounded out the top ten.

The changeable weather conditions mean that the first free practice session of the season didnt represent anything as to how the rest of the weekend may pan out.

March 18, 2016
F1 2016: Australian GP Preview – F1 season of possibility

The question at the forefront of everything is can Ferrari take the fight to Mercedes. All indications are that the Italian team has made strides since last year and has closed the gap to Mercedes. All that remains to be seen is how close they can get.

As F1 2016 gets under way this season will be longest in the sport’s history with 21 races. Germany’s Hockenheim makes a return to the calendar and Azerbaijan hosts its first ever race on the Baku City streets. The confirmation of the US grand prix gives the teams an added bonus. The F1 sporting regulation state that one engine must be used for four race weekends. As the US Gp makes it 21 races the teams will be given a fifth engine thanks to the wording of the rule.

When the change to the qualifying format was announced it left many perplexed. The quali format hadn’t been a bad one so why fix something that isn’t broken? But, let’s give it chance and see how it pans out.

The one hour session will still consist of three parts. Q1 will be 16 minutes, after the first seven the slowest car is eliminated. Thereafter, the slowest car is eliminated every 90 seconds. Seven drivers will be eliminated while 15 advance to Q2.

Q2 will be a 15 minute session with the slowest driver eliminated after 6 minutes. Likewise, every 90 seconds will see the slowest car eliminated. Seven drivers will be eliminated in this session with eight advancing to Q3. The Q3 session will run for fourteen minutes with the slowest driver eliminated after five minutes. The slowest driver will continue to be eliminated every 90 seconds. Two drivers will remain in the final 90 seconds of the session to shoot it out for pole position.

An interesting aspect of this style of qualifying will be that the quickest cars will no longer be able to rely on getting through to the second part of qualifying on the harder of their tyre selection. It’s sure to throw the cat amongst the pigeons when there is rain about, and if it’s a lap longer than 1 minute 30 seconds. And let’s be honest anything that adds a bit of drama and intrigue is never a bad thing. What the new format has in its favour is that it takes the excitement from the final ten minutes of the session and spreads it throughout the entire hour.

The Albert Park circuit is a well known one. But there are many unknowns at the first race of the season. A new qualifying format, new tyre regulations, more driver freedom on strategy calls, to name a few. The clampdown on radio communication from the pitwall carries its own connotation, especially where the start of the race is concerned. Drivers are not allowed any feedback during the formation lap and are only being allowed to use one clutch at the start. This combined with Albert Park’s tight turn one could result in dramatic start to the grand prix. And all of this has the potential to combine into an explosive season-opening race.

Mercedes has chosen to play up Ferrari’s performance so far. Choosing to send both Nico Rosberg and Niki Lauda into the press with statements of Ferrari being a great threat. It could just be some clever psychological play by the champions. Or it could be real and we could in for a F1 season to be remembered. One way or the other the more than 100 day wait is finally over.

March 16, 2016

F1 2016 Pre-Season Test 1 Day 1: Vettel Tops the Timesheets

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel finished the first day of the first pre-season test of 2016 on top of the time sheets ahead of defending champion Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W07 Hybrid.

The German set his best time of 1:24.939 on the medium compound tyres just before lunch to take the top spot for the day. For the rest of the day it was testing as usual for Ferrari which seen Vettel rack up 69 laps.

A few doors up the paddock, Lewis Hamilton racked up an astonishing 156 laps on the day. That’s 698km, which is just a little over two race lengths. “It’s good to be back. It really had felt like a while – but now it feels like home already,” said Hamilton. He finished second fastest on the day with a 1:25.409.

Daniel Ricciardo finished third fastest clocking up 87 laps on the day after a bit of a slow start. This, in contrast to the previous season’s testing, seems like a big improvement from the team. “First impressions are positive but it’s still too early to say much more. We had a good day and I’m ready for more,” said Ricciardo at the end of the day’s running.

Valtteri Bottas ended his day 4th fastest for Williams completing 80 laps. Bottas’ first impression of the car was that he feels many of the issues they’ve had last year have been fixed but he thinks its too early to say where they are in relation to the other teams.

“Valtteri has been complimentary about aspects of the FW38 which is good start,” said the Chief and Test Support Engineer Rob Nelson.

“We are just building up our run lengths and doing our due diligence on reliability, and as the test goes on we’ll feed in more and more performance items. Overall it is a reasonable start to pre-season testing for us.

Mexican Alfonso Celis was in the VJM09 for Force India. He finished 5th fastest with 58 laps to his name. Not far off his pace was Jenson Button in the McLaren MP4-31 finishing 6th fastest with 84 laps on the board. Button’s best time of 1:26.735 came courtesy of a late run on the soft compound tyres.

Carlos Sainz was out for Toro Rosso today. The team chose not to have a big reveal in the pits and instead just emerged from the pits when the green flag dropped for the start of the day. Sainz finished 7th fastest with 55 laps under his belt. His session was cut short when the team saw something strange in the gearbox oil system. The team decided to stop their session as a precaution.

Sauber, who ran an updated livery but a 2015 car, had Marcus Ericsson at the wheel of the C34. He placed 8th fastest on the day ahead of Manor driver Pascal Wehrlein. Wehrlein, on his first outing for the new look Manor team, clocked up 54 laps.

New comers Haas F1 had a good start to their debut test until a front wing failure brought out the red flags. The team say that they have a fix for the wing and will have a replacement by Tuesday. The wing failure put Grosjean out for most of the day. He did, however, emerge from the pits with an hour left in the session to complete a few laps.

Jolyon Palmer was 11th fastest for Renaul in the R.S.16. He had limited running owing to software issued on the car.

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari SF16-H	1:24.939	–	69
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:25.409	+0.470	156
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:26.044	+1.105	87
4	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:26.091	+1.152	80
5	Alfonso Celis	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:26.298	+1.359	58
6	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:26.735	+1.796	84
7	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:27.180	+2.241	55
8	Marcus Ericcson	Sauber-Ferrari C34	1:27.555	+2.616	88
9	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor Racing-Ferrari MRT05	1:28.292	+3.353	54
10	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:28.399	+3.460	31
11	Jolyon Palmer	Renault R.S.16	1:29.356	+4.417	37

Photo Credit: Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1, Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula 1

February 22, 2016

Red Bull Racing’s 2016 F1 Challenger – the RB12

Red Bull released the first images of its 2016 Formula One title challenger, the RB12, ahead of debuting the car on track at the opening day of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The team released studio photos via its various media channels moments before the RB12 hit the track with Daniel Ricciardo at the wheel. Three-time race winner Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat will race the RB12 this year.

Following very troubled 2015 season, the team will be hoping that the TAG Heuer-badged Renault powered RB12 will have what it takes to return to its former glory once again. The team claimed four successive titles between 2010 and 2013 but quickly fell behind when the F1 introduced V6 power units in 2014. The 2015 F1 season held only two podiums for the team and saw them finishing fourth in the constructor standings.

A late decision to stick with Renault power – albeit under the guise of new Red Bull partner Tag Heuer – after approaching the three other engine suppliers looking to switch for 2016, has the team on a back foot ahead of the start of the season.

Team boss Christian Horner: “Obviously the late engine decision last year was a challenge but we found a solution in time and the whole team has worked incredibly hard to recover over the winter.

“Therefore, we’re looking to build on the significant progress we made in the second half of 2015 and to carry that momentum into the early races of this season.

“My hopes for this season are that we genuinely make progress from where we were last year; that we get our heads down and we really develop the car well and hopefully with some performance coming on the power unit side as well, that will allow us to get closer to some of our immediate rivals.”

According to chief technical officer Adrian Newey development on the RB12 was focussed around developing a cohesive package for all the parts. “I’m often asked what area of the car I’m most pleased with, but with the stable regulations we have at the moment it’s difficult to find any major new areas to exploit,” Newey said of the RB12.

“Therefore, what we’ve really tried to concentrate on with this car is getting a cohesive package for all the parts – the suspension, the chassis dynamics, aerodynamics – that they all work together in harmony.

“I think we’ve managed to build on the lessons of last year and all the indications from our simulations suggest that this year’s chassis should be strong.”

Chief engineering officer Rob Marshall hopes that the RB12 can win some races this year: “With the RB12, we are optimistic that we have made some good gains, but the difficulty is the wind tunnel and CFD numbers we’re seeing are our numbers and unless you can see everyone else’s numbers you don’t know where you are. We are happy that we are going in the right direction from our own point of view, but we won’t know until Melbourne.

“As far as this car is concerned, I hope we can win some races. That might sound farfetched after last year, where we struggled at the beginning of the year, but I hope this year we can make a bit of a step power-wise and that will level the playing field a bit.”

RB12 Photo Credits: Red Bull Racing

February 22, 2016
Pirelli Wet Weather Test Report

Pirelli concluded their two day wet weather tyre test at the Paul Ricard Circuit in the south of France to develop the 2016 Wet tyres.

More than 650 laps were completed and a total of 2 326km driven between 5 drivers and three teams. The circuit was chosen because of its very sophisticated variable sprinkler system which uses recycled rain water to simulate various wet weather conditions. This allowed the drivers to try out different tyre compounds.

The test was run over two days with Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren participating in the test. Pirelli had extended the invite to all the teams where the cars from the 2015 season were used. No additional testing of components was allowed.

Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel drove for Ferrari on Monday and Tuesday respectively while McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne drove for both the days. Daniel Ricciardo tested for Red Bull on day one with Daniil Kvyat testing on day 2.

Over the two days, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was the fastest and completed the most laps(134) from all the runners.

The development of the tyres continues at Pirelli’s headquarters in Milan by analyzing the telemetry from the teams and comparing that with its own data.

Pictures by courtesy Pirelli

January 26, 2016
F1 2015: Abu Dhabi Qualifying Report – Rosberg Storms To Pole

Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg has secured his sixth straight pole position ahead of the 2015 Abu Dhabi grand prix.

The first session of the qualifying hour was highlighted by miscalculation of Sebastian Vettel’s side of the Ferrari garage. It meant that the German missed out on advancing to the next stage of the session and will, as it stands, start Sunday’s race in sixteenth position.

There were problems too for Romain Grosjean who parked his Lotus on the side of the track. The Frenchman will start in fifteenth. McLaren’s Fernando Alonso potential to advance beyond the top sixteen was scuppered by a puncture which leaves the Spaniard in seventeenth on the grid.

In the battle for qualifying honours between the Toro Rosso drivers Carlos Sainz has bested his highly-rated teammate Max Verstappen. Sainz will line up tenth while Verstappen will be in eleventh.

The final session of the qualifying hour was an expected duel between the Mercedes drivers upon which Rosberg’s stunning lap was enough to secure pole position by nearly four tenths of a second over Lewis Hamilton. Kimi Raikkonen salvaged the day for Ferrari and will start Sunday’s race in third. The stand-out performance of the session was unquestionably the Force India driver Sergio Perez. The Mexican threatened third place on the grid but ultimately had to settle for starting a still impressive fourth.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo will start fifth and share the third of the grid with Williams’ Valtteri Bottas (6th). Nico Hulkenberg is seventh in the other Force India while Felipe Massa is eighth in the second Williams. Russian driver Daniil Kvyat is ninth with Carlos Sainz completing the top ten in his Toro Rosso.

November 28, 2015