In Bahrain it was a case of another race, another unsafe pitstop as Kimi Raikkonen snapped Ferrari mechanic Francesco Cigarini’s leg.
Let’s be clear, this was not the fault of Raikkonen, nor really the Ferrari pit team, in the same way that the Haas crew shouldn’t be held entirely responsible for the strife of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen in Australia.
No, this was almost entirely down to the now normal traffic light system in place in every single F1 garage up and down the pit lane.
The system is red when tyres are off the car, but as soon as all four wheels are on at the end of the stop, it goes green. To a racing driver, that always means “floor it”.
It does not allow for a feel not being attached tightly enough. We’ve seen three such incidents this season alone, while there have been numerous other incidents in recent years.
Before wishing Cigarini well, Raikkonen explained: “I go when the light is green. I don’t see what happens behind. Unfortunately, he got hurt but my job is to go when the light changes.”
Away from the pits and it was another steal of a victory for Sebastian Vettel after a fortunate success last time out in Australia.
Vettel joins three others in winning on their 200th Grand Prix
Mercedes and Valtteri Bottas made their medium tyres last longer while Vettel struggled on soft tyres, after being asked to make them last almost 40 laps.
While Ferrari were faster on pure pace over the weekend, Mercedes’ cunning strategy put Vettel on his back foot and after ten laps of intense pressure, Bottas could not force last year’s runner up into a mistake.
Vettel held on brilliantly, and joined Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher in winning on their 200th Grand Prix outing.
That’s the second time Ferrari have won when they shouldn’t have this season and it is something that they weren’t doing last year.
Despite that, Mercedes still look to have a pace advantage and but for bad luck, Lewis Hamilton would have at least one win from two races this season.
Pierre Gasly was in stunning form all weekend
To round off, an honourable mention should go to Pierre Gasly and Toro Rosso.
Their performance changed the perception around Honda at a power-hungry circuit in one afternoon.
Gasly in particular was in scintillating form throughout the weekend, qualifying sixth as the best of the rest and starting fifth once Lewis Hamilton’s penalty was applied.
After a disappointing start in Melbourne, Red Bull’s junior team delivered on the promise shown in winter testing to cause further confusion in an already congested midfield.
A fantastic Bahrain Grand Prix, one of the best in the modern era as you just couldn’t take your eyes off it!
Driver Ratings for the Grand Prix, in finishing order.
Sebastian Vettel – 10
Exceptional from the four time champion, looking a bit behind in free practice to one to his team mate. This was one of his best wins, not only as a Ferrari driver but probably in his career. Storming pole lap and driving on ice skates for the majority of the Grand Prix. He managed to keep Bottas behind him and win, just! ‘Mamma Mia’
Valterri Bottas – 8
Bottas had a very good weekend, a few more laps and we would have heard the Finnish anthem you would expect. Steady pace by him and managed to out qualify his team mate Hamilton. Sadly, you would have expected Hamilton to have passed Vettel. He could of lined up a move to turn 3 with a better chance. Great performance but lacks a killers instinct.
Lewis Hamilton – 8
A recovery drive that most expected by the reigning World Champion, most highlighted for that stunning treble overtake into Turn 1 with sparks flying in the midnight sky. Kept his nose clean at the start as others collided at the start. Through retirements of others at the front he got on the podium. He could of made Sunday easier but had a very poor Saturday finishing Q3 in 4th. With Ferrari showing great pace all weekend nearly best he could of done.
Pierre Gasly – 10
**DRIVER OF THE DAY**
From a man who qualified last at Australia and an early retirement, a weekend he would want to forget to one he will never forget. Took advantage of retirements to finish so high up, but still best of the rest. His flying lap in qualifying was near perfect. He started on clean side of the grid, passed Ricciardo into Turn 1 and kept the rest at bay. Brilliant. He finished 10 seconds clear of Hulkenberg, Magnussen and Alonso, unexpected pace by Toro Rosso, with a HONDA engine. With Red Bull contracts up in air at the end of the season, Hello Helmut?
Kevin Magnussen – 8
Haas got their tyres on cars with solid times in the pits, a change from a fortnight ago. K-Mag gave the team the reward for their success. Good weekend for him, out qualified team mate Grosjean and on a different strategy to most, got a points finish.
Nico Hulkenburg – 8
Hulkenburg doing a Hulkenburg, a quiet a weekend but nothing out of the ordinary by the German. A points finish which give Renault something to build on after a solid weekend in Melbourne.
Fernando Alonso – 9
The despair of Saturday to the delight of Sunday, the Mclaren team was left red faced in being out qualified by Toro Rosso Honda. Alonso being the racer he is stormed through the field, finishing 7th from an original starting place of 13th. Once more is the car holding him back?
Stoffel Vandoorne – 7
The Belgian scores again, but once more in the shadow of his team mate. Scored in both rounds but only a matter of time before critics come out more about if he is the right man in the seat.
Marcus Ericcson – 9
Points?! The Swede scores points 50 Grand Prix after his last haul in 2015, at the Italian Grand Prix. He tried something different, a one stop, whilst others squabbled holding each other up he kept just chipping away. Pace was horrible due to tyres well past their best at the end but much like Vettel kept it together as a true racer can. Showed his rookie team mate the much improved potential of the Sauber Team with Alfa Romeo backing.
Estaban Ocon – 7
Battling with others throughout the entire race gave the Frenchman the final points of the Bahrain Grand Prix. He got the best of some talented drivers but didn’t manage to assert himself by pulling away.
Carlos Sainz – 6
Carlos was stuck between the majority of the battle for the small points of the race. Force India managed to just managed to get the Spaniard for the last points.
Charles Leclerc – 7
More mileage in the car for Leclerc, and a track that he knows compared to Melbourne. He did in Formula 2 one of the most amazing returns to win last year, and kept on the speed transferring it onto the F1 grid.
Romain Grosjean – 6
A race which will be forgotten for the Frenchman, the highlight of the race was his stupidity at holding his team mate up and nearly causing a collision at turn 2. Restricted pace due to sidepod damage early in the race. Not his day.
Lance Stroll – 6
The Williams driver was nowhere in qualifying, he started 20th, but managed to finish above others. Lance kept his nose clean early on and got the advantage through collisions.
Sergey Sirotkin – 6
The Russian had a quiet race, finished the grand prix. More mileage for the rookie to hopefully build experience for tracks he has been too before later in the season.
Sergio Perez – 6
Being hit from behind at turn 3 on the opening lap ruined any chance of a decent finish for the Mexican. He kept the car going if anyone faltered but after early retirements no one else retired.
Brendon Hartley – 6
The Kiwi is still getting to grips with open wheel racing after racing so long in Endurance racing. A silly error on the opening lap resulted in a penalty which put him on the back foot for the race.
Kimi Raikkonen – 7
The Ferrari driver did well in practice being quicker than his team mate. When it came to qualifying when it mattered he was caught out to P2. Bottas jumped him at the start and never got close to him again, the pit stop error caused a retirement. Best Wishes and speedy recovery for mechanic, Kimi did nothing wrong.
Max Verstappen – 5
Erratic from the Dutchman all weekend, struggled to keep his car on track regardless of the sudden power increase in qualifying resulting in the crash. He was the one most ran wide in practice trying to find the limits. He got past Hamilton well, but there was no need to open up the steering, which resulted in the contact causing a puncture and differential damage. Bad day at the office, I wouldn’t go as far as what Hamilton called him.
Daniel Ricciardo – 8
He looked up for it all weekend but the car when it mattered let him down. Was very close up to the front in qualifying which Red Bull since the beginning of the hybrid era have struggled the most. He managed to retake Gasly after a poor start but an electrical failure ended his day early in a few horrible minutes of the Austrian team.
With the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend ahead questions are beginning to be discussed, more coming to light than others, I’d say the major one is Honda, have Mclaren made another mistake? Heavily power focused in sector 3 at China, we’ll see.
IndyCar got its first oval of the season done at Phoenix and, while Josef Newgarden was the one to take the win, it was rookie Robert Wickens who was once more grabbing headlines and stealing the show with a remarkable second place finish. Alexander Rossi was the big mover of the day, completing over 50 overtakes while Sebastien Bourdais’ race fell apart at the first hurdle.
After qualifying on pole, Bourdais’ race started with trouble after the Frenchman’s Dale Coyne was kept in the pits for the first formation lap to give the team time to restart his car. He joined the track in time to take the start on pole but his team soon reported that they’d lost all telemetry on his car however, that problem was soon negated when he came into the pits and hit one of his pit crew, giving him a drive-thru penalty and dropping him to last. Thankfully, the pit member involved was unharmed.
Another one to be compromised by the first round of pit stops was Rossi who, like Bourdais, hit his pit crew and landed himself a drive-thru penalty, Again, the crew members involved were fine. Rossi didn’t come back into significance until he assisted Will Power into the wall, ending the Penske driver’s race, before fully un-lapping himself under green flag conditions. When Ed Jones hit the wall with 21 laps to go, all the field pitted other than Wickens, James Hinchcliffe and Rossi; this gave the three track position over the fresh tyre runners but high degradation in the latter stages of the race cost all of them at least some positions.
Wickens was leading the race up until those final stops but was unable to defend from Newgarden who was flying on his new Firestones. Before then, Wickens had come to the front after pitting early at the second round of stops and passing teammate Hinchcliffe who’d gotten caught up in traffic. The Canadian dropped to third after the third stops but was propelled into first after Jones crashed out of second and leader Newgarden pitted; the win was not to be for Wickens but second place on his first ever oval race is outstanding achievement.
Josef Newgarden. courtesy of media.gm.com
Newgarden himself was relieved to break his unlucky streak under lights at Phoenix after failing to finish on the podium at any of his previous races here. The reigning champion worked out second after the first round of pit stops, something he attributed to team owner Roger Penske insisting that the team clean the pit boxes thoroughly. The second pit stops didn’t work out in the American’s favour but, with Power out, Newgarden was the first to pit at the next round, allowing him to take the lead. He took the risk to pit again when Jones hit the wall but that paid off when he was able to blast past Hinchcliffe and Rossi on the restart before getting Wickens with just four laps remaining to take his first win of his title defence.
A surprisingly low amount of cautions, despite numerous incidents, meant that once cars were lapped, that was pretty much it for them. This was the case for all the new teams, Carlin, Harding and Juncos, who all struggled for pace at their first oval and all ended up at least a lap behind the leaders. It wasn’t just the rookie teams who struggled, all the rookie drivers, other than the incredible Wickens, were off the pace, with some even ending in the wall. Pietro Fittipaldi and Kyle Kaiser both got too close to the wall while Matheus Leist’s race was ruined when he left the pit box with one wheel not attached.
This race was a large improvement on Phoenix last year for Honda who took positions two through to sixth however, it was still a Chevrolet that took the win, meaning that Penske’s Newgarden now leads the championship, five points ahead of Rossi.
Phoenix marked the first of three races in a row with IndyCar now heading to the streets of Long Beach before going to Barber Motorsports Park in two weeks’ time. IndyCar will not return to an oval until the 102nd running of the Indy 500 at the end of May so it’s street courses all the way until then.
Full race results:
1. Josef Newgarden
2. Robert Wickens (R)
3. Alexander Rossi
4. Scott Dixon
5. Ryan Hunter-Reay
6. James Hinchcliffe
7. Ed Carpenter
8. Tony Kanaan
9. Graham Rahal
10. Simon Pagenaud
11. Takuma Sato
12. Marco Andretti
13. Sebastien Bourdais
14. Spencer Pigot
15. Gabby Chaves
16. Zach Veach (R)
17. Charlie Kimball
18. Max Chilton
19. Matheus Leist (R)
DNF – Ed Jones, Kyle Kasier (R), Will Power, Pietro Fittipaldi (R)
The 2018 Formula 2 championship kicked off in Bahrain this weekend, with a typically dramatic pair of races, giving us an insight into the brand new car and engine introduced this season, and our first chance to see how the 2018 grid stacks up against one another.
In a turn of events that was unsurprising to some, but impressive nonetheless, F3 champion Lando Norris bagged pole position in only his second round of F2. He narrowly beat fellow Brit and reigning GP3 champion George Russell, who edged out DAMS driver Alexander Albon who lined up third on the grid. Albon was only confirmed for the single round in Bahrain in a seemingly last minute deal, but his impressive performance out-qualifying his more experienced teammate by over half a second surely warrants another chance. Albon’s teammate Canadian Nicholas Latifi was not the only experienced driver who had failed to put together a complete lap in Friday qualifying, title favourite and last year’s runner-up Artem Markelov could only do as well as seventeenth.
Markelov’s weekend would only go from bad to worse when he lined up on the grid for the feature race on Saturday only to stall and be forced to start from the pit lane. He wasn’t the only one, with ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi also stalling, the first of several cases which prove that these new F2 cars are not the easiest machinery to get off the line.
Copyright: Zak Mauger/LAT Images
It was a dream start for Lando Norris with some lightning quick reactions to get himself off the line, something which he will take a lot of confidence in given the starts were one of his few weaknesses during his 2017 F3 campaign. By contrast, Russell was slow to get moving and even impeded Prema driver Nyck de Vries who was starting behind him. It was not the start he needed if he wanted to get one back against Norris. Albon also found trouble in getting his car moving, and the two of them lost several places in the opening seconds of the race.
For Norris, from there it was a maturely handled race. His only hitch was a slow pit stop, but he had built himself a comfortable lead, so was able to retain this despite the hiccup. When the inevitable tyre degradation kicked in, as it always does around this track in the searing desert heat, he had enough of a cushion to be able to ease off slightly and bring his Carlin home safely. The dominant fashion in which he controlled the race was very reminiscent of some of current champion Charles Leclerc’s victories from last year.
Behind him was a much more chaotic story. While it was Norris’ race to control, it was Markelov’s show to steal. Despite starting from the very back of the field he used his uncanny ability to manage his tyres to pull off a whole host of his usual opportunistic overtakes. The rest of the grid wouldn’t let him make it look easy however, and some of the newer arrivals proved that they could fight just as hard. There was a thrilling moment when the Russian driver, Maximilian Günther and Jack Aitken attempted to go three wide into turn 1. But it was Markelov who bested them all in the end, fighting through almost the whole field to finish a fantastic third place.
Copyright: Zak Mauger/LAT Images
After his poor start George Russell and ART attempted an undercut to gain some time back, and he did manage to finish in fifth in the end, but the tyre degradation was too great for him to gain any significant time back. This was the drawback of the Mercedes junior driver attempting to stop so early. The Pirelli tyres run in Formula 2 are notoriously high degradation, especially on a track like Bahrain, and therefore usually difficult for rookie drivers to adapt to. It will not have been the result Russell was hoping for, especially after making his championship ambitions abundantly clear.
Carlin, a team returning after a year out in 2017, had one of the best results of the race. Alongside Norris’ win, Sergio Sette Câmara brought home a second place finish for the British team, giving them an impressive one-two on their return to the sport. The Brazilian driver was initially overtaken by de Vries in the early stages of the race, but ultimately managed to gain second place back. Where he really proved his worth was in his end of race scrap with Markelov as he fought to defend his second place from the charging Russian. They fought until the very last lap, but clever and aggressive defending was enough to for Câmara to maintain his position.
Albon managed to recover after his poor start and intermittent DRS problems to a respectable fourth place, followed by Russell, and de Vries in sixth who could not find a way to manage his degrading tyres. Sean Gelael, a much criticised and controversial driver, proved his stock by making a very impressive recovery from only qualifying nineteenth to finish seventh. It was rookie Maximilian Günther who finished in eighth to claim reverse grid pole for Sunday’s sprint race, while Jack Aitken and Ralph Boschung took the last points paying positions.
In Sunday’s sprint race, there was yet more drama at the very beginning of the race. Gelael, with the potential for a solid result from his starting position of P2 stalled on the formation lap and was forced to start from the pit lane. There was just more trouble to come. Upon the race start three cars stalled again, failing to get off the grid entirely and they were pushed to the pit lane where they could join the race, albeit a way behind the pack. Two of the stallers were ART pair George Russell and Jack Aitken, with Haas junior driver Santino Ferrucci also failing to get away. Impressively, the other cars managed to avoid the stationary vehicles and everyone got away unscathed.
Copyright: Zak Mauger/LAT Images
The best start in this race was bagged by Nyck de Vries who was starting from third. He overtook pole sitter Günther to claim the lead of the race, while the young German was also overtaken by Markelov who had a storming start from sixth on the grid, the Carlin pair following him to slot into fourth and fifth.
Everyone’s eyes were on tyre degradation throughout the 23 lap race. All drivers had started on the medium tyres, which in theory have long lasting wear. But ever year Formula 2 comes to Bahrain even the most experienced drivers find it difficult to make them last well. Many had speculated whether any of the drivers would attempt to do what Charles Leclerc did last year in the sprint race but taking an unprecedented pit stop and using his fresher tyres to fight back to claim victory. A pit stop is not mandatory in a sprint race, and at almost any circuit other than Bahrain it would not even be considered during a sprint race. But Leclerc had proven last year that it could have its advantages.
In the end it was Prema who attempted to repeat their exploits of the previous year when they pitted de Vries from the lead on lap nine. He had a sizeable lead of around three seconds, but it was very early in the race to expect him to make his new tyres last until the end. It could be argued that it was not a gamble for the win, but an attempt at damage control, as de Vries is not famed for strong tyre management.
His stop meant that Markelov inherited the lead of the race, Günther moved up into second and Câmara took third. Câmara was under pressure from his teammate Norris for some time, but an engine misfire midway through the race sent the Mclaren reserve driver tumbling back a handful of places, and most likely cost him a potential podium. The best the youngest driver on the grid could do was fourth place.
De Vries was rapid after his switch onto softer tyres, and for a while it looked as though he might be able to recover to the podium. But as the laps wore on, his tyres began to degrade again. He still managed to finish in fifth, which is arguably better than he would have done had he not pitted.
Copyright: Zak Mauger/LAT Images
Ahead of him Markelov once again deployed his tyre management skills to hold a lead over Günther who was being put under pressure from the Carlin pair. The Arden driver was struggling to work out how to best manage his tyres, expected perhaps after he made the switch from Formula 3 where drivers are able to push their tyres a lot harder with a lot less degradation. But he showed great composure in holding off both Câmara and Norris, and by the end of the race he was even able to close the gap to Markelov in front.
Behind the Carlin pair and de Vries in fifth, Luca Ghiotto made a quiet recovery from twelfth to finish sixth, while Ralph Boschung rounded off a solid double points scoring weekend by finishing seventh. Rookie and Honda junior driver Nirei Fukuzumi claimed the last point in eighth place.
Norris leaves Bahrain as championship leader, and it was undoubtedly a dream start for the young Brit, as he certainly seemed to have the edge over many of the other rookies. At the moment it seems as though Markelov, who provided most of the thrills of the weekend, is his closest competitor. This should be expected from a driver entering his fifth season at this level, but that is not to take away from the skill and speed he displayed this weekend. Günther is perhaps a surprise as the second rookie in the standings at the moment, taking the points over higher rated drivers like Russell, Aitken and Haas junior driver Arjun Maini. But his rivals would do well to remember that he was more than capable of taking the fight to Norris on his day during Formula 3 last year.
Bahrain is a difficult track to open the season on, especially for those unused to the Pirelli tyres. And it is clear that teams are still trying to work out how to optimise the performance in these new cars, particularly in terms of start procedure. But after a calendar reshuffle this year, the next challenge Formula 2 faces are the streets of the Baku City Circuit, no mean feat given the utter madness it usually delivers.
The final day then, and even though there were only two stages, we had the prospect of the longest stage of the whole weekend, the monster 55km stage!
The start list looked like this – Mikkelsen, Evans, Sordo, Lappi, Neuville, Tänak, Ogier, Meeke, Loeb.
Sadly, Latvala wouldn’t start. His Toyota was too damaged.
The stage start was slightly delayed, but once started, Andreas launched his car. He’d been battling understeer all weekend and was not able to show the pace that you’d expect from him. He set the benchmark at 34 minutes and 9 seconds. In the end, his time was beaten by several other drivers and our top three was Tanak, Meeke and Neuville. Ogier was fourth fastest and held a lead of 31 seconds over second placed Tanak going into the twelve and final stage.
The powerstage followed a couple of hours later. Who would top the times? Citroen and Toyota had provided the cars most likely since the start of Saturday.
It was Lappi who emerged fastest, with Loeb, Ogier, Meeke and Tanak completing the top five in the stage. Thierry suffered a mechanical problem with his Hyundai’s engine. He was not happy and didn’t even give an interview at the end of the stage.
Summing up the final day and the weekend as a whole.
Ogier had taken victory, thus extending his championship lead over the Belgian to 17 points. He’d been fast out of the blocks on Friday morning, building a lead whilst Thierry, Kris and Jari-Matti all struggled with their cars.
Loeb’s return to Corsica had promised so much and probably left more unanswered questions than before. If he returned to the championship, I believe he’d be right at the front. He’s lost none of his speed.
What of Thierry then? He had a frustrating weekend but finished on the podium. The consistency he craves is there, it’s just that the man he wants to beat is also getting good results.
Next up is Kris. He’d driven well on the whole with a car that wasn’t doing what he wanted and then on Saturday when the car was put back to the settings they used last year he was on the pace we expect from him. Such a shame then that he slid off on the final stage of Saturday and couldn’t get back on the road.
Finally, Jari-Matti. He won this event three years ago, but Toyota just didn’t have the right settings for any of its drivers to show their pace early on, but once they’d got the car where they wanted, we saw Lappi and Tanak both come forwards. Jari-Matti was starting to benefit from these settings when he had his off that led to his retirement. Hopefully this will lead to better things in Germany, the next all tarmac rally.
Looking ahead to the next event, Rally Argentina, later this month, a place that has seen first time winners in recent years. Perhaps we’ll see the Hyundai, Citroen and Toyota teams take the fight to M-Sport?
Let’s hear from the drivers then.
Sébastien Ogier (1st)
“It’s been a really good weekend for us and I am very happy with the performance. We had great pace on Friday and then just had to manage the gap after that.
“It was really satisfying to show this kind of speed – especially after last year where it was a bit more difficult. Now it seems like everything is going in the right direction – we have made some developments and I am feeling better and better in the car.”
Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia win the 2018 Tour de Corse! Photo credit M-Sport WRT
Ott Tänak (2nd)
“Overall it has been a very nice weekend. Corsica has always been the event which I maybe enjoy the least: I have really struggled here in the past. This year I worked really hard to be consistently on the pace. We were never pushing to the maximum but we were always setting a good rhythm. On the penultimate stage, I had a really clean run and I tried to be close to the maximum all the time, and it looked like it paid off. On the Power Stage, I took no risks: I just wanted to make sure we finished in second position, which was very important. For my first time on proper asphalt with Toyota, I’m happy with that.”
2018 FIA World Rally Championship / Round 04, Rallye de France, Tour de Corse 2018 / April 5-8, 2018 // Worldwide Copyright: Toyota Gazoo Racing WRC
Thierry Neuville (3rd)
“It’s good to finish on the podium but there has been a bit of frustration over the weekend. We haven’t been able to match the times of the front-runners, even if we tried really hard. We have to be content with the results we have achieved, securing a podium and important points for the manufacturers’ championship. In general, I am pleased with the final result but in terms of outright performance we were just not on the pace this weekend.”
2018 FIA World Rally Championship Round 04 Rallye de France 05-08 April 2018 Action Day 3 Thierry Neuville, Nicolas Gilsoul, Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC Photographer: Fabien Dufour Worldwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
Hyundai Motorsport
Dani Sordo (4th)
“Our end result is not too bad considering the disappointing weekend we have had in Corsica. We have just not been able to find the speed and performance needed to tackle these roads. It was a similar story today; we have pushed as hard as we can but the times have not been there. Still, fourth place gives us important points for the championship so that’s something positive we can take away. Now we need to work together as a team to get more speed on tarmac for later in the season.”
Andreas Mikkelsen (7th)
“Absolutely not the result we wanted and a very difficult weekend overall. We made some more set-up changes for this morning’s two stages but unfortunately, we couldn’t find the breakthrough that we needed. It has been a challenging rally but we know that we have to do to gain more experience with this car on tarmac. We need more mileage to understand where we can find more performance from ourselves and from the car. We have some time before the next asphalt event in Germany, so we have to put in lots of effort to make the improvements we need. That’s the homework we are taking from this weekend.”
M-Sport Ford WRT
Elfyn Evans (5th)
“It was never going to be an easy weekend for us, but Phil has done an incredible job – jumping in at the last minute and getting us through without incident. We’ve collected some solid points which is what we came here to do. There is still a lot of work to do as far as the championship is concerned, but at least we can go to Argentina in a positive frame of mind and try to push for a strong result.”
Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Esapekka Lappi (6th)
“I think we have learned a lot here both as drivers and as a team. We have been able to find a good setup for the car. Yesterday was really perfect, and the speed was good on the final day as well. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake, which I take full responsibility for. I guess the rear tyres were still a bit cold and I lost the rear a bit and hit a kerb on the outside. We broke part of the rim and the tyre started to come off so we had to stop and change it. After that it was good to win the Power Stage: there was actually more grip than I was expecting, so I just pushed harder and harder.”
Citroen Abu Dhabi WRT
Kris Meeke (9th)
“Obviously, it’s frustrating to have dropped out of contention yesterday when a top three place was clearly within our reach, but we had to get back at it today and I think we have proven our ability to do just that. We are already looking ahead and we’ll be trying and get back on the podium and turn our speed into good results at the next few races.”
Kris Meeke, Paul Nagle – Citroen Racing
Sébastien Loeb (14th)
“It’s a real shame that we went off on Friday. We would have undoubtedly been right in the mix otherwise. In any case, I’m delighted to have been on the pace again this weekend for our second one-off appearance of the season. I prefer to focus on the enjoyment we have had throughout the weekend in the C3 WRC. It is a really formidable car on tarmac and I really enjoyed driving it on these magnificent Corsican roads. It was also very nice to feel all the love and support from the French fans at our home event.”
Final Overall Classification – Tour de Corse
1 S. Ogier J. Ingrassia 3:26:52.7
2 O. Tänak M. Järveoja +36.1
3 T. Neuville N. Gilsoul +1:07.5
4 D. Sordo C. del Barrio +2:02.6
5 E. Evans P. Mills +2:06.1
6 E. Lappi J. Ferm +2:33.5
7 A. Mikkelsen A. Jæger +2:43.4
8 J. Kopecky P. Dresler +10:34.8
9 K. Meeke P. Nagle +10:40.5
10 Y. Bonato B. Boulloud +12:26.0
2018 FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers’ Standings
After round 4
1 S. Ogier 84
2 T. Neuville 67
3 O. Tanak 45
4 A. Mikkelsen 41
5 K. Meeke 36
6 E. Lappi 36
7 J.M Latvala 31
8 D. Sordo 30
9 C. Breen 20
10 E. Evans 18
11 S. Loeb 15
12 H. Paddon 10
2018 FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers’ Standings
Sebastian Vettel secured his second consecutive victory of the season, after a dramatic finish in Bahrain Grand Prix. The German, four time world champion, withstands Bottas pressure on the final ten laps of the race and scored 25 points for Scuderia Ferrari.
Ferrari missed the chance to have two drivers on the podium, because an amateur mistake forced the Finn to stop his car and retire in the pit lane. The left-rear tyre hadn’t changed, Kimi pulled away, injured the leg of one of the mechanics and immediately Ferrari told him to stop his car. It was the second unsafe release from the Italians this weekend.
The mechanic was taken to the hospital, Ferrari confirmed a broken leg, a shinbone and fibula fracture.
Valtteri Bottas had a very good start, he placed his Mercedes between the two Ferraris and was trying to pressure Vettel for the first position. Lewis Hamilton, recovered from ninth place, which he started after a five place grid penalty, and finished third.
The British champion, passed three cars at the same time in one corner, a move that we will surely remember for many years.
Dramatic finale
With 10 laps to go, Bottas was second behind Sebastian Vettel, the gap between the two drivers was about six seconds. The Finn, had fresher set of tyres, he was on medium tyres, whilst Vettel informed by his team to change his strategy and go from two stops to one stop strategy. The German, pitted two laps earlier than the Finn, he was on the softs for 39 laps.
Mercedes assumed that Vettel will pit again, they informed Hamilton that when the German will re-join will be behind him. Ferrari took the risk to let Vettel on the track until the end of the race and Bottas received an order to push as hard as he could for the first place.
The gap between those two was dropping rapidly, Bottas entered DRS rang with two laps to go, he attempted to attack Vettel but he was not close enough.
Lewis Hamilton, was not able to be close to the two drivers, finished third 6.5 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel.
Disaster for Red Bull, a dreaming race for Gasly
Both Red Bull cars retired early in the race, Max Verstappen had an incident with Lewis Hamilton at the exit of Turn 1, after passing him, Max damaged his left-rear wheel, which caused a puncture. The Dutch, managed to go to the pits but retired a few meters after he re-joined the race.
Daniel Ricciardo retired shortly after Verstappen’s puncture, Daniel’s car shuts down at the exiting of Turn 8.
A race to remember for Pierre Gasly, the French finished fourth behind the Ferrari and the two Mercedes. Gasly, resisted Magnussen’s and Hulkenberg’s pressure, he secured a fantastic result for Toro Rosso at their second race with a Honda powered engine.
Second double points finish for McLaren, Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne finished seventh and eighth respectively.
Kevin Magnussen scored the first points for Haas with his fifth position in Bahrain. A good race for Ericsson and Sauber as well, Marcus finished ninth and scored two points for Sauber.
It looks that this season will be different than the others, not only because Ferrari won the first two races, but mainly because the middle teams are looking very competitive. Williams and Force India are not as strong as they used to be, whilst Haas, McLaren and Renault are looking quicker and able to fight between each other for the fourth place in the championship (if not the third!)
Six stages today, and first up was stage five, a long stage at 35km to really wake up the drivers! The start list for each of the stage looked like this – Bouffier, Mikkelsen, Latvala, Sordo, Evans, Lappi, Tänak, Meeke, Neuville, Ogier, Loeb.
As the last car through, Loeb won the stage whilst Kris was happy with the start and end of the stage but lost his rhythm in the middle and had to pick it up. Elfyn lost some more time in the stage with a spin and a stall, caused when he used the handbrake on a corner. This allowed Dani to close on the Welshman, the gap at just three seconds between them! Meantime, Esapekka in his Yaris was really driving brilliantly, just a little off Loeb’s time and making fifth position his!
On to stage six, a shorter stage and the nine-time champion took this one as well. This time it was the Yaris peddled by Tanak who came closest to Loeb. Ogier and Lappi set exactly the same time to go third fastest. Our leader in the M-Sport Fiesta saw his lead open up a little more. His teammate, Elfyn and Dani Sordo were now tied on the same time on the overall leaderboard!
Final stage before the service break, and Ott Tanak took the win, closing the gap further in his pursuit of Kris for the final podium position. Ogier meantime was second fastest and now his lead over Thierry had gone above forty seconds. Elfyn had a scrappy stage, with lots of hesitations and fell behind Dani, into seventh place.
The afternoon stages started with Esapekka winning stage eight, with Loeb picking up another second fastest time. He really was on the pace! Elfyn also had a good stage, closing the gap to Dani in their fight over sixth and seventh! Unfortunately, we lost Jari-Matti in this stage. During service the Toyota team had worked on the balance and made it handle better. Jari-Matti was pushing hard and he lost the rear of the car and hit a tree. He completed the stage but retired afterwards. Kris had also made some changes, returning to last year’s setup that worked so well, and he had a car that responded to him. He used it to good affect closing a little to Thierry ahead.
Stage nine, the penultimate stage was won by Loeb and with Kris setting the fourth fastest time, he drew level on time with Thierry on the overall leaderboard. With the C3 WRC returned to the settings the team used last year, he felt much more at ease with how it responded to him. Elfyn was also on the pace but didn’t take much time out of Dani. The inter-team battle continued with Tanak and Lappi, who were battling over fourth position, with Lappi faster through the stage, but not by much.
The final stage of the day, would see Lappi and Tanak share the fastest time, but the big shock was the exit of Kris who miss heard a stage note and went too far off the road to regain and complete the test. A big shock and one that meant Tanak went from fourth to second with Thierry now in third place, but just one tenth of a second behind. Elfyn also had a good stage, closing a little to Dani again, feeling that the relationship with Phil Mills was starting to gel.
Summing up Saturday.
Whilst there was all that drama behind him, Seb Ogier continued to lead. There were different stage winners, with Loeb taking three more and Toyota teammates Ott and Esapekka sharing the other three between them. The demise of Kris from second overall was a big shame. It shows how little room for error there is in this sport. I do wonder why the team didn’t use the settings from last year from the off.
2018 FIA World Rally Championship / Round 04, Rallye de France, Tour de Corse 2018 / April 5-8, 2018 // (Ott Tanak) Worldwide Copyright: Toyota Gazoo Racing WRC
There are only two stages tomorrow, but the first is the longest stage of the entire weekend, a monster of 55km! Anything can still happen.
“It’s been a long, but good day for us. Whereas yesterday we were just driving flat-out, today has been a bit more difficult as we’ve had to think a bit more about our approach. I tried to keep a good rhythm of course, but at the same time I didn’t want to take too many risks. We still managed to extend our lead on every stage, and I’m really pleased with that.
“There’s still a long way to go with the longest stage of the whole rally to come. We’ve had a good feeling all weekend so I hope to finish like that tomorrow. We won’t push to the maximum as our target is to cross the finish line – but it’s never over until it’s over.”
FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP 2018 -WRC Tour de Corse (FRA) – WRC Seb Ogier, M-Sport Ford 04/04/2018 to 08/04/2018 – PHOTO : @World
Ott Tanak (2nd)
“It will certainly be interesting tomorrow, with 0.1 seconds to the car behind and 10.4 seconds to Esapekka, who has been setting some really good times and seems to be confident. Overall our feeling in the car has been quite nice and the pace has been consistent. I haven’t been pushing to the maximum, just going at a good speed with a good rhythm. Let’s see how the feeling is tomorrow. The first stage is a really long one and I think the rhythm will be important there.”
Thierry Neuville (3rd)
“There is very little to say after another very demanding day. We have pushed as much as we can in every stage – but a bit too much on the edge at times. It’s all we can do to try and defend our podium position. We have struggled with the set-up of the car at times, and some of the roads really didn’t suit our car. Like yesterday, we had to accept certain limitations to what we could achieve. It has been mission impossible to defend second place so all we can hope now is that we can keep third position, and minimise the damage after a difficult weekend so far for Hyundai Motorsport.”
Esapekka Lappi (4th)
“It has obviously been a really positive day. It’s really nice to be fastest over the day. We worked really hard yesterday to try and find a better setup, and today the car felt really good and easy to drive. For me, the times are coming really easily. I didn’t need to push too hard, it just came naturally. Tomorrow it’s good that both of the stages are new for everyone because it’s easier for me when that’s the case. I will just try to continue my pace and then we will see what happens. I will not force myself to do something crazy: I’m already happy with fourth place, although I wouldn’t mind if we can climb one or two more places!”
Hyundai Motorsport
Dani Sordo (5th)
“We made some modifications to the car for today’s stages, which gave us a bit more confidence and a very small improvement on the times. We have done all we can, pushing all the time, but there are still some settings issues that we have yet to resolve. It has been a similar issue for other crews. All we can do is adapt the car to find more front-end grip and aim to improve on tomorrow’s long stage. It might be a bit too late, but we won’t give up without a fight.”
2018 FIA World Rally Championship Round 04 Rallye de France 05-08 April 2018 Action Day 2 Dani Sordo, Carlos Del Barrio, Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC Photographer: Fabien Dufour Worldwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
Andreas Mikkelsen (7th)
“Running seventh on the classification is not where we want or expect to be. We have battled a lot with understeer, which has been made worse on the wider, racing-style stages today. We were able to close in a bit on the cars in front of us during the morning loop, but we don’t want to be relying on others’ misfortune to gain positions. We’d much rather be fighting at the front. I tried to change my driving style in the afternoon, but that didn’t deliver any improvement. It’s important for us to continue trying to improve the car and our pace until the very end of the rally.”
M-Sport Ford WRT
Elfyn Evans (6th)
“We didn’t have the best of mornings, and I felt as though I was a bit too hesitant in places. It wasn’t anything major, but it soon adds up. We made some improvements in the afternoon and I was feeling a lot more comfortable in the car. The relationship with Phil has gelled quite a lot better today too and we’ve seen some promising times which bodes well for tomorrow.”
Retired
Jari-Matti Latvala
“After we made some changes in mid-day service, the car felt fantastic, so thank you to the team for that. It really gave me the confidence to push, but I maybe pushed a little bit too hard, got too sideways on a left-hand corner and hit a tree with the rear of the car. Normally I would not be smiling after going off the road, but I have some reason to be happy: Ott and Esapekka are going really quickly here, while I had been struggling, but then I found the speed. I learned what we had done wrong with the setup and why I was not fast. Hopefully the guys can fix the car so we can restart tomorrow and show that speed.”
Kris Meeke
“We were fighting for second and pushing really hard, absolutely on the limit. Unfortunately, something happened that has never happened before between Paul and me. He got the pace notes a bit mixed up, but that’s rallying. It’s the very first time that this has happened. We’ve gone off several times together in the past when it’s been my fault and not his. Look, we win together and we lose together. I’m sure we’ll bounce back from this very quickly.”
Bryan Bouffier
“I’m disappointed for sure, but this is part of motorsport and we know it can happen. I was happy with my pace as this car is still quite new to me and I have a lot of things still to improve and understand. In this context it was very good to see some good times and I really hope that we can do some more kilometres with this amazing car.”
The day dawned sunny, but there had been rain in the days before, which was going to affect those running further down the standings. Four stages today- doesn’t sound like much, but with a double run of a 49km stage, anything could happen!
The first stage of the day, and the cars would start in championship order- Ogier, Neuville, Mikkelsen, Meeke, Latvala, Tänak, Lappi, Sordo, Loeb, Evans, and also just 2 minutes between the cars, instead of 3 which we see on gravel.
Ogier would make the most of his starting position winning the stage although he was almost certainly on the limit of grip as he nearly spun a few times in the stage. Loeb was his closest challenger, just 9.7 slower than his compatriot. The fastest Toyota was that driven by Ott Tanak who was a further nine seconds back. Of course, last years early rally leader, Kris found with being fourth he would come across dirty and a wet road, finishing 19 seconds down on the early leader. Elfyn also commented on the condition of the road, with the dirt being pulled out.
Stage two saw Ogier extend his lead over Meeke who was now in second place. Sadly, Loeb had gone out just 300 metres after starting. He lost control, running wide on a kink, which sent him sliding over the road onto the right-hand side and into a ditch, which he couldn’t get out of. The reason given – cold tyres. Both Hyundai drivers, Andreas and Thierry were suffering from cars not responding to them. Thierry’s main problem was no grip, whilst Andreas just slid into a ditch and then suffered with a vibration afterwards. Kris was still in second but having trouble with his intercom. Now imagine that you’re relying on details from your co-driver, but then the system that allows you to hear those keeps cutting out. Very frustrating indeed. Jari-Matti was having trouble with confidence under braking in his Yaris.
Seb Ogier, Leader of Tour de Corse. Photo credit M-Sport WRT
All the cars headed back to service at this point. Thierry would want to get his car sorted, whilst Kris would hopefully get his intercom problem fixed as well.
The second run of La Porta – Valle di Rostino, saw Ogier win again and Thierry go second fastest which saw Kris fall behind the Belgian. The Citroen driver was still getting problems with his intercom. During service, Kris had changed his helmet in a hope that would solve the problem but that didn’t help. Meantime, Andreas was still having problems with understeer, dropping 30 seconds to the leader just in this one stage. Jari-Matti was still having trouble with confidence under braking, but his teammate Lappi was in a great position to move up after closing the gap to Dani and Elfyn ahead.
The last stage of the day already and Ogier’s time was very good. However, Thierry then Jari-Matti and finally Esapekka Lappi went faster who leapfrogged both Dani and Elfyn into fifth overall. He was really in the groove through this one. Latvala’s pace was good enough to allow him to pass Andreas for eighth place, but he’ll almost certainly want better from Saturday’s stages.
Summing up Friday
Seb Ogier reigned supreme and has built a lead that he can use to his advantage. The question is, can Thierry or Kris get their problems resolved to allow them to express their pace and challenge the leader?
“We’ve had a great day. It’s always nice to be in the lead, but it’s even nicer to be leading on home soil. The car was very enjoyable to drive today and we’ve had a lot of fun out on the stages.
“We’ve made good progress since last year and in this sport you don’t achieve anything alone – it’s always a team effort. All the energy we’ve put into developing the car over the past year is really starting to pay off. We saw it already in Mexico with a good step forward on gravel, and so far I think we’ve improved on asphalt too which is very positive for the future.
“There’s still two days of rallying to come with a lot of new stages so there will be no time to relax. We’ll take the same approach that we had today into tomorrow and try to stay in a good rhythm. These new sections will be very challenging, but we have to keep pushing.”
Thierry Neuville (2nd)
“It hasn’t been the best of starts to this rally for us, but we know there are some very long stages to come over the weekend so we have to remain positive. In this morning’s loop, we couldn’t find a good feeling with the car. We had no efficiency from the brakes missing some bite. Changes made during lunchtime service were in the right direction and we pushed very hard in the afternoon. Ogier has set a strong pace and we have had to accept we can’t match him so far, but we will keep attacking as best as we can. We are now in second place overall with a small margin to third, so our target is to consolidate our position.”
2018 FIA World Rally Championship Round 04 Rallye de France 05-08 April 2018 Action Day 2 Thierry Neuville, Nicolas Gilsoul, Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC Photographer: Fabien Dufour Worldwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
Kris Meeke (3rd)
“It was a pretty good day for us, I was pleased with my rhythm, even though it wasn’t quite enough to keep pace with the leader. I don’t know to what extent the road became ‘polluted’ as more cars came completed the stages. In any case, I was pleased with my C3 WRC. My intercom was playing up, which was a bit annoying at times. With a couple of totally new stages tomorrow, a lot can still happen but I’m very determined to fight to stay in the podium places.”
Kris Meeke- Photo credit Citroen Racing
Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Ott Tänak (4th)
“This was my first day competing on proper asphalt in this car, and I think we have learned quite a lot today. The general feeling in the car is quite nice. This morning the feeling was already positive: the car was handling well. At lunchtime service we did a couple of changes, and in some areas the feeling was improving and getting better. For tomorrow we have some more ideas of how we would like to improve a bit further to help us in the fight for the podium. We are still quite close to second and third: these places are ours to catch, so we will try our best tomorrow.”
2018 FIA World Rally Championship / Round 04, Rallye de France, Ott Tanak, Tour de Corse 2018 / April 5-8, 2018 // Worldwide Copyright: Toyota Gazoo Racing WRC
Esapekka Lappi (5th)
“The morning and afternoon were quite similar for me today in terms of stage times. We lost quite a bit on the long stage, which is really twisty like a proper Tour de Corse stage. The shorter one is much faster and our car was working really well there. We ended the day with the fastest time, which is always positive. It would be better if we were stronger on the more twisty stages, but we will work on that tomorrow and try to improve the car. The plan will be to try and keep fifth place but there is still a long way to go and anything can happen.”
Jari-Matti Latvala (8th)
“It was good to finish today with a quick time on the last stage, after quite a disappointing morning. I went the wrong way with the setup, so I lacked confidence and I was driving badly. We made changes in service and the car definitely felt better on the braking and the rear was more predictable. I made another change before the final stage, and then the confidence came and I could improve my driving. The setup is now good for the dry conditions that we are expecting for the rest of the rally, so the plan now is to just focus on the driving: to be consistent and maintain that speed we had on the last stage. I think we can have a good fight with the guys who are just in front of us.”
M-Sport Ford WRT
Elfyn Evans (6th)
“We knew it wouldn’t be plain sailing for us today, but I think it’s gone as well as we could have hoped in the circumstances. To be fair, Phil has done a really good job. We’re building that trust, and hopefully we can keep improving as the weekend goes on.
“My notes aren’t the easiest if you don’t know them inside out. Obviously Phil knows them quite well from being a part of our Route Note Crew, but there are little tricks and ways that things have to be read to makes everything flow a hundred percent. If you’re not used to reading them day after day it’s extremely difficult, so he’s done a really good job.
“There are a lot of new sections coming up tomorrow and, honestly, I was finding the going a bit easier in the more familiar sections today. We have to keep going so let’s just give it our best and see what we can do.”
Bryan Bouffier (10th)
“It’s been a good day and I was happy with both of our passes through the short stage. We still had something to find in the long one – and I was finding it difficult to place the car. We’ll discuss everything this evening and hope to show another improvement tomorrow.”
Hyundai Motorsport
Dani Sordo (7th)
“I haven’t been very happy with our stage times today, although there has not been anything particularly wrong with the car. In fact, the handling has been quite good during the day. The opening long stage was quite tricky and initially I didn’t have enough confidence. The second stage was better, although there was some gravel pulled onto the road in places. I tried to push a bit in the afternoon but again the times were not forthcoming. The speed at the front is very fast but we will try to find more pace tomorrow to try and get into a top five position.”
Andreas Mikkelsen (9th)
“Our day was compromised by one spin and a small off in the morning loop, one on each stage, which combined lost us about 50 seconds to the leader. A far from ideal way to start this rally! Still, the car itself performed better than expected, and we found some improvements for the afternoon loop. I drove the car to the limits and kept pushing as much as possible. Now we have found a better feeling since lunchtime service, I hope we can be in better shape tomorrow.”
Tomorrow sees six stages totalling 136km. Loeb will return under super rally 2 rules as well. The crews will travel to the northern part of the island.
IndyCar heads to Phoenix for the second round of the season after it kicked off with a bang in the opening round at St Petersburg. This will be the first oval of the season which means that there will be some driver changes which we’ll come to shortly.
Race 1 at St Petersburg was massively unpredictable, going down to a penultimate lap duel which ended in heartbreak for Robert Wickens after he was assisted into the wall by Alexander Rossi. This lead to Sebastien Bourdais taking his first win since his horror Indy 500 crash, repeating his stellar start to the season that he enjoyed last year. Honda locked out the top 6 while Penske and the rest of the Chevrolet’s seemed at a loss to explain their lack of pace, something that they’ll be hoping to reverse for Phoenix.
The rookies did well over the weekend as a whole; most lacked the final decent finishing result, Wickens and Matheus Leist for example, but they showed credible pace throughout practice and qualifying. However, Phoenix is going to be a whole different kettle of fish because, for the majority of the rookies, it will be their first experience of an oval weekend.
Phoenix was the fourth race of the season last year so is a bit earlier this year, meaning we have even less of an idea of the running order than when we were here last. The last running of Phoenix was won, in dominant fashion, by Simon Pagenaud in what was a Chevrolet whitewash while Honda struggled for pace and were unfortunate enough to have nearly half their runners wiped out in incidents. The main one of those incidents came on the first lap when Mikhail Aleshin, now in LMP1 with SMP, spun mid-corner and took out Marco Andretti, Bourdais, Max Chilton and Graham Rahal. Rossi and Takuma Sato also eliminated themselves in separate incidents to amount to a disaster weekend for Honda.
Ovals have a slightly different format to street courses, there are only two practice sessions for Phoenix and qualifying is done on a solo basis, the race itself will be run over 250 laps.
The driver changes between St Petersburg and Phoenix are as follows… Pietro Fittipaldi will take his first turn in the #19 Dale Coyne after Zachary Claman De Melo started off the season in their pre-agreed car share. Ed Carpenter will take the wheel of the #20 Ed Carpenter Racing car from Jordan King, he will also do this for all the remaining oval rounds. Kyle Kaiser will get his first taste of IndyCar in the solo Juncos car, taking over from Rene Binder who kicked the team’s first season off.
Trying to predict who’s going to be strong this weekend isn’t an easy task but you can be fairly sure that the more experienced oval drivers will be stronger than those who are seeing an oval for the first time. Penske and Chevrolet are expected to make an improvement on their substandard weekend at St Petersburg while Honda will be hoping to avoid a repeat of their awful Phoenix GP last year. Realistically, we won’t have a clue about the race until well, the race but qualifying on Saturday should give some sort of idea about the order, even if it is distorted by mistakes or crashes.
You can catch practice and qualifying on any of IndyCar’s streaming channels while the race itself will be shown on the BT Sport/ESPN channel in the UK. The timings, in UK time, are as follows:
Practice 1 – 10:00pm
Qualifying – 1:00am
Final Practice – 4:00am
Race – 2:30am
Given the rather unreasonable times, there will be no Twitter commentary from us for either qualifying or the race but there will be a race report and various follow up articles as usual.
The Argentinian Termas de Rio Hondo circuit plays host to the second round of the 2018 Moto3 World Championship, after an opener in Qatar which was far from your average lightweight class race.
Moto3 2018: Round 01: Losail, Qatar curtsey of hondanews.eu
One of the main reasons for this was the gap between the leading pair and the chasing pack, which grew from the start and reached nearly seven seconds by the end of the race.
copyright: redbull contentpool
The duo who led the race, and ultimately took the top two spots on the podium, were Jorge Martin and Aron Canet, the Spaniards engaging in the first battle of what could well prove to be another Spanish civil war in the lightweight category. Finally it was Jorge Martin who took the victory, with Canet failing in his attempts to slipstream his compatriot to the line. It was Martin’s second consecutive victory, after coming out on top in the final round of the 2017 season in Valencia, and that put him level with Canet on two career victories. The pair will no doubt be fighting it out at the front again this weekend, but it would be a surprise if they weren’t joined by some other riders.
The prime candidate for a rider who will interrupt Martin and Canet’s private battle is Enea Bastianini, who has looked sharp and confident ever since he left Estrella Galicia for Leopard, and also should have been in the fight for the win three weeks ago but for a crash early in the race whilst sitting in third spot. La Bestia has failed to make the podium in the four times he has previously visited Termas, but that fact fits well with his tradition for subpar beginnings to seasons. Of course, so far this season has not started any better than his previous efforts but the signs are there that Bastianini can fight for victories this season, and after the Qatar result a win might be something of a necessity.
The Beast’s teammate at Leopard, Lorenzo Dalla Porta, took what should have been Enea’s spot on the podium in Qatar with third place, coming out on top in a battle between ten riders. The 2016 Moto3 Junior World Champion will be looking to make it two out of two podiums this weekend, and has the potential to do so. Would such a result paint the Italian out as an outsider for the title?
John McPhee joined Jorge Martin and eventual World Champion Joan Mir on the 2017 Argentinian podium, and in the build up to this weekend’s race has set out his ambitions to take his second Grand Prix victory. Fighting talk is not something we are used to from the Scot, but he seems to have gotten on quite well with the KTM – he certainly made a better switch to it from the Honda than Niccolo Antonelli managed twelve months ago. McPhee will be looking to make up for his crash in Losail at round one where he crashed on the final lap, and so is rightly fired up for the second round of the championship.
It was well covered by many after Qatar that one of the biggest trends from 2018 appears to have transferred itself into 2018, and that is the dominance of Honda over KTM. It is perhaps no surprise, considering the relative size of HRC compared to KTM and also the fact that a lot of KTM’s old Moto3 people who engineered them to so much success in the lightweight class have moved onto the MotoGP or Moto2 projects. Either way, they will not be looking to repeat the baron season they had in 2017, and there are a few riders who will be anticipating an opportunity to take a win this weekend aboard an Austrian bike – the aforementioned McPhee being one of them.
Marco Bezzecchi chasing the pack. copyright hondanews.eu
One of these riders will be one of the standouts from Qatar and he is Marco Bezzecchi. The VR46 Academy rider was in the battle for the podium all race long until a crash at turn six on the final lap ended his charge. He was still able to pick up fourteenth place, but would have been disappointed nonetheless. With that in mind, perhaps Bezzecchi is one to watch for this weekend, especially if it rains (which looks possible), as last year on the Mahindra the tall Italian expressed his prowess on many occasions when the conditions became difficult.
Bezzecchi’s teammate, Jakub Kornfeil, also shone in the race three weeks ago, remaining with Marco in the podium battle until the final lap. It’s certainly fair to say that the Czech rider is getting on better with the KTM than he ever did with the Honda which he rode in the last two seasons, and so could again be one to keep an eye out for this weekend.
Niccolo Antonelli could be another rider to watch out for this weekend. The Italian took pole position in Qatar and seems at home in the SIC58 Squadra Corse. He took fourth position in Losail, but is without a win since the opening round of 2016, and will be keen to change that this weekend considering his good form at the moment. Also, his teammate, Tatsuki Suzuki remains injued from his free practice one crash three weeks ago, so the hopes of the team rest very much with Niccolo this weekend once more.
Nicolo Bulega had a disappointing Qatar which was hampered by his ongoing recovery from the ankle injury he sustained in the Valencia race weekend at the end of last year, which was limiting the mobility of his foot, and was no doubt also still quite painful. Since Qatar, though, Bulega has been to Valentino Rossi’s MotoRanch for the first time in five months, and also went with the rest of the VR46 Riders Academy to Mugello for some training at the home of the Italian Grand Prix. With this in mind, and also considering that the Italian took second on the grid in Termas last year, he could be worth keeping an eye on over the course of the weekend.
If Bulega’s pace is a significant improvement over Qatar, and he is able to run a pace similar to the front runners, that could also benefit Dennis Foggia who, arguably, suffered in Losail due to a lack of track knowledge; and the lack of meaningful data that his more experienced teammate was able to provide perhaps meant that the reigning Moto3 Junior World Champion found himself in a bit of a hole – it is notable that when around other riders in the race he was able to make up positions and finished sixteenth after qualifying twenty-sixth. If Bulega is fast, expect Foggia to become fast too.
Of course, this being Moto3, there are about twenty riders who could be in contention come the final lap on Sunday and the likes of Kaito Toba, who experienced his best weekend of 2017 at Termas and also scored his best finish of his short Grand Prix career three weeks ago; Ayumu Sasaki, who was battling in the top five in Qatar; and Fabio Di Giannantonio are also worth recognising ahead of this weekend. And, of course, the weather is typically South American and therefore very subject to change over the course of the next three days, so whilst there are definitely some favourites ahead of this weekend, the result will remain very much undecided until the chequered flag on Sunday afternoon.
