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27th March 2018

BTCC Media Day – The Class of 2018 is unveiled at Donington Park

All eyes were on Donington Park as the 2018 British Touring Car Championship was launched with the annual Media Day event.

All the teams and drivers convened on the Leicestershire circuit as the cars were revealed and completed a four hour test session in the afternoon.

It was a wet start to the day as the cars were revealed in the pit lane, and with some teams taking on new cars and liveries, it promised for quite the spectacle.

Subaru were first to show off their 2018 challenger by virtue of drivers champion Ash Sutton. The Levorg was wheeled out alongisde Sutton’s team mates Jason Plato and Josh Price.

2017 champion Ash Sutton with his Subaru Levorg.

Tom Ingram’s Speedworks team were next, with their Toyota Avensis promising so much for the Independents champion, finishing third overall last season. Many are tipping him as a dark horse for this season’s title, and his car looked ready to go.

The BMW team were next, with 2017 runner up Colin Turkington and Rob Collard unveiling their BMW’s before Andrew Jordan rolled out his Pirtek backed BMW, which sported a Red Bull-esque matte finish.

One of the most hotly anticipated cars to be seen was Rob Austin’s Duo Racing Alfa Romeo Gulietta. The fan favourite walked out with his new car with the historic name returning to the BTCC grid. It will be sure to invoke the days of Gabriele Tarquini of the 90’s for some.

Rob Austin with his Alfa Romeo Gulietta.

Halfords Yuasa Racing were next, with their brand new Honda Civic Type-R’s. Matt Neal returns with a new face next to him. Ex-Porsche Supercup driver Dan Cammish replaces Gordon Shedden for 2018.

It was Wix Racing with Euortech’s turn next, with Jack Goff and Brett Smith unveiling their newly liveried yellow and black Honda Civics. Simpson Racing are also running under the Eurotech banner with Matt Simpson’s Civic being wheeled out too.

A team which promises a lot this season is the Shredded Wheat with Gallagher outfit. With Tom Chilton joining from Power Maxed Racing, James Cole coming from Subaru, and 2016 runner up Sam Torfoff returning to the sport in a Gard-X sponsored car. They’ve changed up the Focus ST to the new RS.

Tom Chilton and James Cole with the Shredded Wheat Ford Focus RS being wheeled out.

Ciceley Motorsport were next up, with Adam Morgan returning in his Mercedes A-Class. 2017 race winner Aiden Moffat remains with Laser Tools Racing. Meanwhile Ciceley added a third entry to their roster this season, with former Ginetta GT4 champion Tom Olliphant running a green A-Class.

Tom Olliphant’s green Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes A-Class.

BTC Norlin were next up, with Chris Smiley sticking with the team and 2011 Independents Champion James Nash replacing the retired Dave Newsham. The team have changed from the Chevrolet Cruze, to the Honda Civic for this season.

Stephen Jelley’s Team Parker Racing have moved from a Ford Focus ST to a new BMW for this season. Sporting a fresh red, white and blue livery, the team will be hoping for big things this season.

Stephen Jelley’s new BMW, having used a Focus last season.

Power Maxed Racing went next, with new title sponsor TAG. The Vauxhall Astras will be driven by 2017 Jack Sears Champion Senna Proctor, and 2015 Jack Sears Champion Josh Cook, who moves from the Triple Eight team.

Senna Proctor with the Power Maxed Astra.

Team HARD unleashed their four very different Volkswagen Passat CC’s too. With four cars and three new drivers, only Jake Hill remains from last season. In come Bobby Thompson, Michael Caine, and 2017 Renault Clio Cup champion Mike Bushell.

AmD Tuning were last up, with their two Audi’s being joined by the Triple Eight MG’s, which AmD have bought out. In the Audis were Ollie Jackson and series newcomer Sam Smelt. While in the MG’s were returning driver Tom Boardman, and former Shredded Wheat driver Rory Butcher.

With the cars all unveiled and the grid complete, all eyes now turn to the season opener at Brands Hatch on April 7 and 8.

27th March 201827th March 2018

Australian Grand Prix – Driver Ratings

My opinion of Driver Rating’s for the 2018 Australian Grand Prix in result
order.

Sebastian Vettel – 8

Sometimes you make your own luck, staying out longer than others certainly
paid off and with high chances of a safety car at the compact track, a win
was always a possibility. The German was out-qualified by his teammate on
Saturday but kept Hamilton behind him.

Lewis Hamilton – 8

It looked good for the reigning World Champion on Saturday, an amazing lap
by the Brit, he was a whopping 0.6 seconds quicker than anyone else, which
is a lifetime in the sport. He can’t be blamed for the error resulting in
Vettel taking the lead. He may have had the pace but a silly mistake cost
him in sector 2 which also cost him a possible chance at the end.

Kimi Raikkonen – 8

The Finn looked like he had adapted well to the 2018 car, with consistent
speed throughout the opening weekend. He managed to out-qualify his
teammate too. He must have felt a bit hard done by with the bottom step of
the podium, but you can never tell by his facial expressions, can you?!

Daniel Ricciardo – 7

Daniel did well to recover from his silly mistake of not slowing down
under red flags in practice. He seemed to lack the outright speed of
teammate Verstappen but luck may have been on his side to enable him to
finish so high up. He performed one of the few overtakes on track with his
trademark lunge early on.

Fernando Alonso – 8

It was nice to see Alonso back at the top end of the field, although not
competing for wins just yet. The Mclaren doesn’t seem to be the finished
article, the more they work on it the more tools it gives Alonso, who is
regarded as one of the best on the grid. We saw a very good race from the
Spaniard, after starting 11th after an average qualifying. Frustrated
Verstappen late on with his speed.

Max Verstappen – 6

A weekend to take a deep breath and forget about for Max, it was a what
could have been weekend for the Dutchman, Errors cost him a front row
start in qualifying and a spin in the race damaged his tyres and dropped
him places on Sunday. You could say he overdrove the car, he has the out
and out speed as we all know.

Nico Hulkenberg – 7

One of the most consistent drivers on the grid in modern Formula 1, again
delivered points for his team. Quiet throughout the weekend but knuckled
down and got on with it. Things look promising for him this year with a
better car at his hands.

Valtteri Bottas – 5

The pressure was already piled on his young shoulders, he certainly didn’t
do himself any favours. His error in Q3 resulted in a penalty and heavy
work for the team. He struggled to make his way through the field and
didn’t pick up a single place at the start. Only a points scorer due to
others misfortune.

Stoffel Vandoorne – 6

Stoffel has one of the best teammates, much like Bottas with whom he can
easily be compared too. He was within two tenths on Saturday but didn’t
take advantage of the virtual safety car hence why finished further down
the field. Solid weekend for him but nothing to shout about.

Carlos Sainz – 6

Carlos is a great talent to have on your team, so much so he is on a
technical ‘loan deal’ from Red Bull. He was battling with his idle Alonso
for the majority of the early stages of the race after a poor start. He
ran wide which gave Alonso the place and he never really recovered
thereafter.

Sergio Perez – 6

Perez was on the cusp of points for the majority of the race, a veteran in
his eighth season in the sport, comfortably out-qualified his teammate but
not much action on Sunday. A track which might not suit his car well, so
watch out for future races.

Estaban Ocon – 5

The Frenchman struggled to get into his groove in Australia, he didn’t
really seem with it. A relatively new car which might be a bit difficult
to instantly get to grips with. Completed the race, more miles for him to
understand the car.

Charles Leclerc – 7

A strong performance by the highly rated Ferrari academy driver. Looked
confident with what he had available after many spins in testing.

Lance Stroll – 5

In his second season for the historic team, the pressure is on the
Canadian. He did well in qualifying with P14, separating the Force India
drivers. A poor race though, with lacklustre pace from him resulting in a
quiet and dull afternoon.

Brendan Hartley – 4

We saw Honda’s true pace in Australia which still doesn’t seem to be great
but the gap is closer than ever, which resulted in the Kiwi dropping out
at the first stage of qualifying. A heavy lock-up at turn 1 ruined his
race as he had to pit. Finished a lap down.

Romain Grosjean – 7

Heartbreak for Romain, a failure with the wheel gun brought an
unexpectedly early end to his race when solid points were possible. He
turned the whole race on his head where he parked his car.

Kevin Magnussen – 9

Heartbreak again! The same issue albeit on the rear tyre for him, great
start to jump Verstappen, taking advantage of him being boxed in on the
inside of turn 1. He kept his cool as he followed, points should come
next round.

Pierre Gasly – 4

The Frenchman had a weekend to forget, a poor qualifying resulted in him
starting last due to two mistakes on his fast laps. He had to retire the
car with mechanical issues. Great raw talent, just hope his car doesn’t
overshadow that.

Marcus Ericcson – 5

Quiet weekend, retired with car failure, out-qualified his teammate, but
with his many years behind the wheel, you’d expect him to be more than a
tenth ahead of his rookie teammate.

Sergey Sirotkin – 4

It may have been overheating that resulted in the Russian’s failure to
finish, but it looks concerning for him. 0.5 off his teammate and P19 on
Saturday. Did Williams make the right choice picking him over Kubica?

The driver of the Weekend Award

No outstanding performances which resulted in a perfect 10, but the driver
of the weekend goes to Kevin Magnussen. Out-qualified his teammate and
frustrated a fast Red Bull. Could have walked away with no points but Haas
does look like they have the fourth best car with one of, if not smallest
overall team.

26th March 2018

Prentice’s Picks: F1 curtain-raiser in Australia poses more questions than answers

The Australian Grand Prix failed to give observers much of a concrete answer as to this year’s exact running order despite Sebastian Vettel’s second successive win at Albert Park.

Yes, Lewis Hamilton had a clear pace advantage in qualifying and wasn’t uncomfortable in the race, but the Red Bulls were hamstrung while it is understood that Ferrari haven’t unlocked the full potential of their new car design just yet.

Unlike last year, Ferrari won when they weren’t the fastest, something Hamilton did on multiple occasions last season. However, the Scuderia were not without a huge slice of luck.

The Virtual Safety deployed midway through the race to recover the stricken Haas duo (more on them later) of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean slowed the race down as drivers were not to exceed a certain speed.

That meant that the impact of a pitstop lessened significantly. Where it would have cost Vettel 25 seconds to pit at normal racing speeds, at VSC speeds the cost was 11 seconds.

Vettel was 12 seconds clear of Hamilton. Ferrari had judged the maths perfectly, and a software glitch confused Mercedes.

Since then, there have been calls to ban pitting under the VSC.

This is not the first time that the VSC has changed the game during a race, if not quite to this extent.

Other beneficiaries include Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso, both of whom had not pitted and as a result made net gains. Ricciardo was fourth, with Alonso fifth.

The VSC adds a potential variable to a sport that is currently desperately lacking in those at present. It turned what was fast becoming a predictable race into one that had a battle for the lead…..until Hamilton was restricted by the lack of spare Power Unit elements and had to turn the wick down.

It was a case of what might have been for Haas in Melbourne, as the team emerged as early contenders for best of the rest but ended up plum last in the Constructors’ are two catastrophic pitstops.

Glenn Dunbar/LAT Images/Haas F1 Media
Haas were desperately unlucky to score nothing in Melbourne

Magnussen was fourth, just a second clear of teammate Grosjean as the two promised much for a team intent on building upon a solid first two seasons in the sport.

Grosjean commiserated and rallied the pit-crew member with what appeared to be the faulty wheelgun, and should Haas maintain their pace this will not hurt as much as it should.

Their task in staying fourth will get harder as the season wears on.

Watch out…..Fernando has his mojo back.
Steven Tee/LAT Images/McLaren Media

McLaren secured a double-points finish despite running nowhere near full wick because of (you guessed it) reliability worries from testing.

Due to the late switch to Renault Power Units, there’s still more to come from their chassis too, and in Fernando Alonso they have a man on the front foot.

It has not been difficult to notice a change in the Spaniard’s demeanour, encapsulated perfectly in his “speak up, don’t lose energy” and “now we can fight” messages on Sunday.

It’s good to have him back.

26th March 2018

Missed chance: F1’s overtaking problem

For a long time now F1 has had issues with strung out fields, cars unable to follow and as a result a lack of overtaking. This year’s Australian GP had a mere five on-track passes after the initial start, equalling last year’s official race total. Clearly, the problem is a big one and could be even worse this year than 2017, according to some drivers.

Lewis Hamilton struggled for the latter half of the race to get near Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen was unable to pass Kevin Magnussen despite being considerably faster and home hero Daniel Ricciardo was stuck behind Kimi Raikkonen for the majority of the race. In addition to this, there were problems throughout the mid-field with Esteban Ocon saying that he was unable to capitalise on his strong race pace because he couldn’t get close enough to the cars in front, a view echoed up and down the paddock.

Sure, Melbourne has never been a good track for overtaking, there have always been problems so the rest of the season should be at least a slightly different story but with F1 having had such a hard time of it, it’s easy to forget that some series have got overtaking sorted.

Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.
Sunday 25 March 2018.
Lance Stroll, Williams FW41 Mercedes.
Photo: Glenn Dunbar/Williams
ref: Digital Image _X4I9667

One of these such series is IndyCar which, thanks to their new universal aero kit, had no less than 366 overtakes in their first race at St Petersburg, a street track. The aero kit was introduced at the start of the 2018 season with a view to make the racing as close as possible by simplifying the aerodynamics, thus reducing the turbulent air produced by the cars, meaning that the cars can follow each other in close quarters without problems. As a result, they have incredibly close and unpredictable races that deliver action, right up until the very end.

IndyCar legend Mario Andretti singled this out as the area where F1 loses out to other single seater series the most; more mechanical grip, more weight and more aero all increase the turbulent air left behind by the cars and decrease the overtaking.

Now, let’s get one thing straight, F1 will never introduce a universal aero kit, end of. The teams would never agree to it and it goes against the development race that F1 is; aero development has become such an integral part of the sport that Liberty Media would surely never dream of getting rid of it.

So, if a universal aero kit isn’t the answer, then what is?

There’s no ‘quick-fix’ to the matter, if there was it would’ve been found, utilised and we wouldn’t be having this debate but there are things that F1 could’ve and probably should’ve put in place to prevent the problem from becoming this large.

The 2017 aero-orientated regulation change was surely a huge opportunity for this; F1 had the chance to massively improve the racing but no, they opted instead to make the cars look better and go faster – worsening the overtaking problems. Now it’s all well and good breaking all the lap records and all however, speed doesn’t equate to close racing and that was clearly an oversight in last year’s regulation change.

While IndyCar and other series like it can’t offer a perfect solution to F1, they can provide some sort of inspiration and direction for Liberty to take the sport. 366 overtakes isn’t something that’s going to happen in F1 anytime soon but they can do a bit better than 5.

Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.
Sunday 25 March 2018.
Lance Stroll, Williams FW41 Mercedes, leads Esteban Ocon, Force India VJM11 Mercedes, Brendon Hartley, Toro Rosso STR13 Honda, Marcus Ericsson, Sauber C37 Ferrari, Charles Leclerc, Sauber C37 Ferrari, and Sergey Sirotkin, Williams FW41 Mercedes.
Photo: Glenn Dunbar/Williams
ref: Digital Image _X4I9161

It’s going to take some addressing but just think how much better it would be to have proper racing back in F1, who wouldn’t want that?

26th March 2018

F1 2018: Force India Rues “Difficult” Australian Grand Prix

It is probably fair to say that Force India were one of, if not the, most underwhelming team over the course of the weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. The signs were perhaps there during testing to suggest that this year might be something of a struggle for the Silverstone-based team, but for an outfit that has been F1’s resident giant-killer for the last few years, to not even get one car into the points in Melbourne was a massive disappointment.

For the last two years Force India has been ‘best of the rest’ in the championship, finishing fourth in the WCC behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, and in 2017 they scored points in every race bar Monaco.

In Australia this year, though, both Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon were knocked out in Q2, with the former ultimately finishing the race P11, just over one second behind a nauseous Carlos Sainz, and the latter P12. They would have finished even lower than that had the wheels not literally come off midfield rivals Haas’ race.

A major upgrade package was introduced ready for free practice on Friday, with technical director Andy Green saying that the front wing was the only part of the car that had not been changed.

Sergio Perez (MEX) Sahara Force India F1 VJM11.
Australian Grand Prix, Sunday 25th March 2018. Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.

As such, Sergio Perez is hoping for better things to come in the upcoming races. “We still need to move on and keep improving, but I believe we will soon be in a position to battle for points,” he said. “Hopefully our improvements will [begin to] come as early as Bahrain. It’s a race where you can overtake and strategy plays a bigger part compared to Melbourne.’

Esteban Ocon, too, highlighted the nature of the Albert Park track as one of the main hindrances to the team’s chances during the race. “It was very difficult to overtake,” he said, “and even though I managed to jump ahead of Lance [Stroll] on the first lap, everyone quickly spread out until the safety car. I had a fight with [Valtteri] Bottas for a while and after the safety car restart I was close to making a move on Sergio. We certainly had better race pace compared to our qualifying pace, but we are just missing some performance to be up there in the top ten at the moment.”

Deputy team principle Bob Fernley believes the key to Force India’s success in the rest of 2018 will lie in the team’s ability to out-develop its rivals. “It’s early days in the season,” he said, “and with twenty races to go there will be plenty of opportunities to develop this car and show our strengths… We’re on a learning curve with the developments we introduced this weekend and there’s more in the pipeline for Bahrain.”

25th March 2018

What goes around comes around

Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel are in party mode, after an unexpected victory in the first race of the 2018 season in Melbourne.

The German driver, qualified third, behind his team-mate and the 2017 world champion, Lewis Hamilton. The Italians took a risk and split the strategy between the drivers, Kimi Raikkonen pitted on lap 21, switched from ultrasofts to softs, Mercedes called Lewis Hamilton into the pits right after Kimi’s stop. Sebastian Vettel, remained on track for some extra laps, on the 25^th lap Kevin Magnussen pitted from the fourth position, a few meters after Kevin re-joined the track, forced to step aside and park his car due to an error during the pit-stop.

A couple of laps later, Romain Grosjean pitted for a fresh set of supersofts tyres, but he copied his team-mate exact footsteps, Romain parked his car and retired from the race, for the same reason as Kevin Magnussen, loose wheels, after the pit-stop. The wheels on both cars were not being placed correctly before the nuts were tightened.

The only difference between Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, retirement, was the Grosjean’s car could not be easily recovered, hence the VSC deployed followed by a safety car.

During the VSC period, Sebastian Vettel pitted, that gave him a 10 second advantage over Lewis Hamilton. The German, re-join ahead of the Mercedes and he was leading the race. Hamilton pushed hard, after the SC, to catch and pass Vettel, the British champion was very close to Vettel’s Ferrari, but a small driving error cost him time and he also lost pace in the final laps of the race.

Sebastian Vettel celebrated a second consecutive victory in Australia and started the 2018 year with the same way he did in 2017.

A poor strategy, cost the chance to Red Bull to be competitive and score a podium in Australia. Both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen started the race on supersofts, Verstappen and Ricciardo qualified fourth and eighth respectively. A three place grid penalty was given to Daniel Ricciardo for failing to slow down for a red flag, during free practice.

The Dutch, was not quick enough to challenge the two Ferraris in the opening lap, at turn one on the tenth lap, Max spun his Red Bull and lost places. He was unable to recover, as he was also facing unbalance issues caused by the damaged floor on his car.

Daniel Ricciardo wanted to finish on the podium in his home race, after the retirement of the two Haas, the Australian was fourth behind Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn, had to defend his position as Daniel was on his tail for most of the time in the final laps of the Grand Prix.

At the end, Ricciardo finished fourth and Max Verstappen sixth, behind Fernando Alonso.

Double point finish for McLaren

For the first time since 2014, McLaren scored points in Melbourne. The fifth place that Alonso took matched his best ever result in three years with Honda power. McLaren, couldn’t imagine a better start, Alonso and Vandoorne scored 12 points combined in the opening race of the 2018 season.

Furthermore, Fernando Alonso had the pace to hold back a Red Bull and he finished ahead of Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes.

The outcome of the race affected by the VSC and Haas retirements, personally I was impressed with the pace the American team showed in the first laps of the Grand Prix and I would like to see them racing until the chequered flag.

It is still too early to judge, but I will take the risk to say that Asia will play a key role in the championship. If Ferrari has learnt from their mistakes, this year will be very interesting till the final chequered flag.

23rd March 201823rd March 2018

PitCrew HQ 2018 F1 Predictions

Here at the PitCrew HQ we have been busy studying and following all the latest F1 news. And each member has predicted which drivers will be in the top 5 after Abu Dhabi. And here is what we came up with.

As you can see our predictions. Lewis Hamilton is our overall favourite. Also everyone picked different predictions barring 2 people who picked the same. Do you agree with our crew. Who would be your top 5?

22nd March 2018

WSBK Thailand: The ‘Destination Of Speed’ Awaits

Four weeks after the sensational opening round at Philip Island, the World Superbike paddock sets up shop this weekend at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand.

Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Ducati) scored a brilliant double last time out in Australia, and will be looking to increase his lead at the top of the championship. History has not been kind to the factory-supported Ducati team. In the previous three years that World Superbikes has been visiting the Buriram track, no rider aboard a Panigale machine has stood on the top step of the podium. The best result by any Ducati rider here is second place, achieved by Melandri’s teammate, Chaz Davies, in 2017. Davies will be looking to bounce back after a disappointing round in Australia, and reassert himself as the team’s number one. Davies has a good record here. Despite never having yet claimed victory, the 31-year old has finished on the podium twice here (second place in 2015 and third place in 2016).

Aruba.it Ducati will also be facing competition from their privateer counterparts. Xavi Fores (Barni Racing Ducati) was the standout independent rider from the opening round last month. The Spaniard threw the form book out of the proverbial window during the second race, to claim a remarkable third place finish just behind Melandri and Jonathan Rea (KRT) . At the Thai circuit we could see Fores feature prominently again, as the track suits the strengths of the Panigale 1199 as well as the ‘no holds barred’ style of its rider.

By their own admission the all-conquering Kawasaki Racing Team were disappointed to leave Phillip Island with two second place finishes. Despite starting the opening race from pole position, tyre trouble denied Tom Sykes. Jonathan Rea was beaten to the line in the thrilling drag race in race two. KRT have every reason to expect success this weekend. Since the World Superbike Championship first visited Thailand in 2015, the green and black machines have held an exclusive monopoly at the track with victory in all six previous races. Rea standing on the top step of the podium a staggering five times, with Sykes securing his victory in 2016.

Red Bull Honda looking to back up their strong performance from Australia. Leon Camier returned from the opening round with a solid haul of points for the team – underlining how far the team has improved since last season. The British rider defied all expectation, taking a brace of sixth place finishes. Most notably, in race 2 the Honda rider finished under 3 seconds shy of the winner. It was a challenging weekend for his teammate, Jake Gagne. The American had never before ridden the Phillip Island circuit, and the objectives were to simply learn the course, not crash and fight for points if possible. The rookie ticked all three boxes. It will be the case of “same again” this weekend as, having arrived from MotoAmerica, the 26-year old has never raced at the Buriram venue before.

Gagne is one of five riders who will be racing a superbike around the Buriram circuit for the first time this weekend. The other four being: Loris Baz (Gulf Althea BMW), Yonny Hernandez (Team Pedercini Racing), PJ Jacobsen (TripleM Honda World Superbike Team) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (Puccetti Kawasaki).

The Pata Yamaha team will be looking to improve upon their solid, if unspectacular, showing in round one. In the build up to the season much had been made of the growing rivalry between the two Yamaha riders, Alex Lowes (Great Britain) and Michael Van der Mark (Netherlands). If you include qualifying performances into consideration, Lowes arrives in Thailand with a 3-0 lead over his team-mate, having out scored his teammate in both races last time out. The Buriram circuit has not been a happy hunting ground for the team, with a best result of fourth last year for Lowes, being the highlight. Straight line speed is critical at this track, something the team spent a considerable amount of time working on during the winter tests.

Qualifying: Saturday, March 24th, 1330 Local Time (0630 GMT)

Race 1: Saturday, March 24th, 1600 Local Time (0900 GMT)

Race 2: Sunday, March 25th, 1600 Local Time (1000 BST)

22nd March 2018

Australian GP: Formula One has entered a new world, but that may not mean new challengers just yet.

In Formula One, the prize may remain the same and contenders look like remaining the same as the 2018 season draws upon us.

Those aspects aside however, and the sport has taken a very different direction.

We have a new logo, a halo, no grid girls but grid kids, races at ten past the hour and who knows, maybe some Honda reliability?

We all know that you can never take testing times seriously, but even by recent standards this winter, snow and all, offered remarkably few clues as to this year’s world order.

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes remain favourites this year. Monte Carlo, Monaco.
Saturday 27 May 2017.
World Copyright: Zak Mauger/LAT Images
ref: Digital Image _54I6817
Hamilton was well within his rights to react angrily to Vettel.

Tentative forecasts suggest that the big three teams of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull are very close together, but all six of their drivers have kept their cards close to their chests and have instead lavished praise on their competitors. Oddly, that’s probably the way their employers like it.

And if you are going to use the Australian Grand Prix to look for the running order for the rest of the season, you may even end up being disappointed there too.

While Mercedes won three curtain-raisers in a row between 2014-16, Melbourne has gained something of a reputation for throwing up a surprise result.

Vettel may have won in Australia last year, but he took only one win during his dominance of the sport 2010-13 Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.
Sunday 26 March 2017.
World Copyright: Zak Mauger/LAT Images
ref: Digital Image _56I1907

Indeed, Sebastian Vettel won only one Australian Grand Prix during his four-year dominance of the sport at the start of the decade.

The battle to be best of the rest is similarly unclear.

Early suggestions are that it’s between four teams; Renault, Haas, McLaren and Force India.

If Toto Wolff is right, Haas will be the ones picking up the pieces should the top six come to blows, and the American team seemed to show good pace in the winter as they bid to improve on two successive eighth place finishes in their first two seasons.

McLaren and Fernando Alonso are desperate for a return to form after three awful Honda years
Steven Tee/LAT Images/McLaren Media

McLaren had been struggling until the final day when they finally showed something like their true pace, while Renault threatened early and went about their business quietly thereafter after hitting small technical gremlins.

McLaren are hopeful that their switch from Honda to Renault Power Units in the close season will give them around a second in pace, after three torrid years with Honda. Ironically, Honda look to have finally started to get their own act together with Toro Rosso.

All of that is helpful with only three of each of the Power Unit elements allocated for 2018.

Not all of these questions will be answered at the first race in Australia. In fact, the evidence gathering only starts now.

21st March 2018

Martin Triumphs as Bastianini Falls – Moto3 GP of Qatar

For the first race of the 2018 Moto3 World Championship, there was an air of familiarity about the first six laps. The 2013 season saw three in a league of their own: Luis Salom, Alex Rins and eventual series champion, Maverick Vinales. That season all three were on KTMs, the dominant package at the time, and shared all bar one of the wins of 2013 between them (Alex Marquez won the Japanese Grand Prix when both Rins and Salom crashed). This year, the three riders who have shown themselves to be a step ahead of the rest of the field are Jorge Martin, Aron Canet and Enea Bastianini, all on Honda machines.

This weekend, Martin looked almost in a class of his own, with only Bastianini regularly challenging him, but The Beast qualified down in tenth, and with Canet down in seventh on the grid, it looked like Gresini Racing’s Martin would have a chance to break from the group early on in Sunday’s eighteen lap race. This is what he tried to do – by the time Bastianini arrived at the head of the chasing group, in second place, Martin was already 1.5 seconds in the lead, and to make things more difficult, Bastianini would have to negotiate Canet at the same time as closing the race leader. Nonetheless, within two laps, the chasing pair had caught Jorge, and Bastianini hit the front at the beginning of lap five, breaking Martin’s leadership for the first time in the race. Entering lap six, though, and the two Spaniards re-passed Enea, and in his ambition to stick with Martin, the Italian crashed out of the race at turn six, losing the rear initially, which sent him a little offline, and then folding the front. La Bestia was unable to re-join, and so leaves the first race of the season already way off the pace in the championship.

Canet and Martin continued their private battle for the lead, and throughout the race made it increasingly more exclusive, stretching out a gap of nearly seven seconds to the chasing pack by the end of the race.

The younger of the two, Canet, made a very curious race, almost never leading, despite failing to detach himself from his compatriot’s rear tyre from the moment he gained contact. Canet would sit up at the end of the straight every lap, roll off the throttle so as to not pass Martin, and not show his hand. The one time when Aron did take over the leadership of the race, it was due to a mistake from Jorge, who ran wide at turn one, but after one lap the Gresini Honda had re-passed the Estrella Galicia Marc VDS version.

Canet was clearly waiting for the final lap, to slipstream Martin to the line, and there is a question mark over whether Canet was failing to pass his fellow Spaniard by the line on purpose to try to trick last year’s Valencia race winner into a false sense of security. Either way, the plan for Canet did not work, as Martin edged the victory by 0.023 seconds to deny Canet’s slipstream attempts. Perhaps Canet’s race was ruined by the Honda, which seems to give very little slipstream to the rider behind – this seemed visible in the race, and also through practice.

It was not just the battle for the front that was very unusual for Moto3 – the battle for the final spot on the podium was distinctly unpopulated, with only six riders fighting for third for most of the race. The six were Lorenzo Dalla Porta, polesitter Niccolo Antonelli, Gabriel Rodrigo, Jakub Kornfeil, Ayumu Sasaki and Marco Bezzecchi, but were then joined by John McPhee, Kaito Toba and Fabio Di Giannantonio in the final laps. The fight was fierce, and it was inevitable that at least one of the riders would unfortunately not make the finish. John McPhee was the victim, clipping Sasaki’s Honda in the penultimate corner, taking him out of the race.

Marco Bezzecchi also had an undeserved crash earlier in the lap at the dreaded turn six, where he folded the front. Fortunately for the big Italian, though, he was able to remount and took two points for fourteenth on his debut for the Pruestl GP team.

Lorenzo Dalla Porta won out in the battle for the podium, beating home compatriot Nicco Antonelli in the run to the line by 0.045 seconds on the 2016 Moto3 Junior World Champion’s debut for the Leopard Racing Honda team, a welcome gift after the disaster of Bastianini.

As implied it was Niccolo Antonelli who was the first of the non-podium finishers to cross the line – a positive result on his SIC58 Squadra Corse debut, and one he will hope to build from in the future.

Gabriel Rodrigo was the first KTM home in fifth, which shows the continuation of 2017’s trend of Honda dominating the lightweight class.

Fabio Di Giannantonio fought back well from a poor qualifying and underwhelming start to take sixth place, 0.030 seconds ahead of Honda Team Asia’s Kaito Toba, who sort of arrived in the battle for the podium from nowhere, but nonetheless fought well to take what is by far his career best finish.

Toba beat home fellow Japanese Ayumu Sasaki who finished seventh, ahead of the KTM of Jakub Kornfeil, who made a return to the top ten after a couple of difficult seasons with the Sepang International Circuit team.

The top ten was rounded out by another KTM (although that is still only three Austrian bikes inside the top 10 compared to seven Hondas), this time belonging to Andrea Migno, who made a decent debut for the Angel Nieto Team, finishing under one second away from the podium. He was followed sensation Jaume Masia.

2017 Red Bull Rookies Champion Kazuki Masaki took home three points on his Grand Prix debut and finished only 8.829 seconds off the win. As previously mentioned, Bezzecchi finished fourteenth, with Marcos Ramirez taking the final point in fifteenth place.

Dennis Foggia ended his full time Grand Prix debut 0.069 seconds off the final point, but will be disappointed to be 26 seconds off the win, nonetheless. Tony Arbolino was a further 6.5 seconds back of Foggia, with Nakarin Atiratphuvapat and Makar Yurchenko rounding out the nineteen finishers.

That leaves seven riders unclassified: John McPhee, rookie Alonso Lopez, Livio Loi, Nicolo Bulega who is still struggling with his ankle injury from last season, the aforementioned Bastianini, Philipp Oettl and Darryn Binder, who made contact with the German.

Whilst the opening round of the 2018 Moto3 season was by no means a classic, it perhaps did show the pattern the season will follow: three riders a step ahead of the rest of the field fighting for the championship. For sure, the other riders will be fighting also at the front of the races, but it will be Jorge Martin, Aron Canet and Enea Bastianini who will fight for the world title, and their battle will continue in Argentina in three weeks’ time.