ThePitcrewOnline

Category: F1

  • A case for: The Finnish GP

    This weekend would have been the return of the Dutch Grand Prix at the Zandvoort circuit to the F1 calendar, which is only happening because of a certain Max Verstappen. F1 madness has gripped the Netherlands, it only took about five years for a driver to generate enough buzz to get it back on the calendar. But we aren’t talking about that today, instead I’m talking about a country which has had three drivers who have won the Formula One world championship yet have never gotten close to having a Grand Prix in F1’s 70 year history.

    1982 champion Keke Rosberg, 1998 and 1999 champion Mika Häkkinen and the much beloved 2007 champion Kimi Räikkönen all hail from a small country up in Scandinavia, you might have heard of it, Finland! A country that has a rich history of motorsport, mainly through rallying with seven drivers who have won the World Rally Championship, and if you ever saw the piece on Top Gear where James May is given racing lessons by Mika Häkkinen, you’ll realise how seriously the Finns take driving.

    So why may I ask, has Finland never had a Grand Prix? Maybe the Scandinavian countries aren’t warm enough throughout the year, but immediately I can refute that because Sweden had a Grand Prix between 1973 and 1978. Plus it’s not like there isn’t demand! We always hear about the Finns traveling down to the Hungaroring for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Why should they be made to travel upwards of 2,000 kilometres to attend a Grand Prix?

    For this year, construction was completed on a circuit on the Northern Eastern outskirts of Helsinki with the intention of bringing back the Finnish MotoGP. The circuit was called the Kymi Ring, and it hosted an open test shortly after finishing construction with the Grand Prix scheduled for July 12th, but understandably has been postponed in the current circumstances.

    Looking at this video of a virtual lap from the newly-released MotoGP 20 game by Milestone, you can see that the Kymi Ring has some rather unique corners. The fast flowing turn one heading into an uphill hairpin, then a long back-straight before a series of very technical, flowing yet tight corners. Plenty of elevation change too, which is always an amazing characteristic with all the great circuits.

    Whether F1 could have a good race here is another matter, although it wouldn’t be any worse than Yas Marina and Sochi. In any case, there have been discussions to potentially have other top-line racing series at the Kymi Ring other than MotoGP. This includes Karting, Rallycross, Speedway, Motocross, and even top-line circuit car racing such as World Touring Cars, DTM and the World Endurance Championship!

    Those last three in particular should definitely hammer home how serious the Kymi Ring is about being the home of Finnish motorsport. It has gotten the top grades by both the major motorsport governing bodies for motorcycle and car racing, with the FIM giving it a safety grade A for motorcycle racing, and the FIA have granted the circuit and its facilities, grade 1 licence. Thus making it the first and only Nordic circuit to meet the requirements to host an F1 Grand Prix.

    So immediately, this track meets the regulations to host F1, so it would beg the question, why isn’t it already trying? Well, as the answer always seem to be, money. MotoGP got priority over F1 because it cost way less, and it may build up the interest of potential investors but even so, I don’t see any reason why Finland wouldn’t be hugely onboard with getting the F1 circus to go there.

    It just astounds me to think that it has taken so long to have the conversation about a Finnish F1 Grand Prix, particularly as we have got an aging Kimi Räikkönen – still racing in F1 at 40 – who will at some point overtake Rubens Barrichello for most Grand Prix starts when F1 does resume. Lewis Hamilton has Silverstone, Fernando Alonso had Barcelona and Max Verstappen will have Zandvoort, why can’t Kimi have the Kymi Ring? I mean, I doubt he actually cares but what about the adoring fans?

    Like I was saying, the Finns have to make the journey to Budapest if they want to watch Kimi, their other Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas and indeed all the other drivers. Why should they? I’m British, so whether or not the Finns have their own Grand Prix doesn’t effect me hugely, but I think it’s an insult that they have never had one, particularly at the height of Häkkinen’s and Räikkönen’s careers.

    One of Finland’s neighbouring countries is Russia, which already has a Grand Prix at the Sochi Autodrom near the shores of the Black Sea, one of the most southerly points of European Russia. However, there are strong talks of a circuit that has just been completed called Igora Drive, just north of St. Petersburg and not far from the Finnish border potentially taking over the Russian Grand Prix from 2021. This circuit is/was set to host a DTM round this year, and it looks a damn sight better than the current Russian Grand Prix venue.

    If it were me organising the schedule, I’d put Kymi Ring and Igora Drive in successive weeks in late July and early August, probably at the expense of the Hungaroring, sorry Hungarians! With the Finnish F1 Grand Prix being a week or two after the MotoGP but before the WRC Rally Finland round. A month’s worth of racing action for the Finns!

    As I said earlier, I’m British and none of my family are in any way linked to Finland, nor do I have any special affinity with Finland. But I firmly believe that all you Finns out there deserve a Grand Prix, and I hope it does happen. Kiitos!

    Image courtesy of Scuderia Ferrari

  • Driver Spotlight: Arthur Leclerc – Out of his brother’s shadow

    I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that I am a huge Charles Leclerc fan, seeing his ascendency from joining the Ferrari Driver Academy, and winning the GP3 and Formula 2 championships then graduating to Formula 1 with Sauber and now a Grand Prix winner with Ferrari, it has truly been incredible.

    He’s also been proving to be quite handy on the Esports side, racking up both wins in the last two F1 Virtual Grand Prix events, winning the Veloce Versus 1v1 event and also streaming on Twitch with the many other F1 drivers taking to Esports scene, raising money for charity in a set of races called ‘Race for the World’ which he also won.

    However in all but the most recent Virtual GP, there has been a Ferrari being driven by another Leclerc, this being Charles’ younger brother Arthur. For this year, he was picked up by Ferrari to be on their driver academy like his sibling four years prior and it would be easy to assume that there is a bit of nepotism involved, considering other members of the academy include the sons of Michael Schumacher, Jean Alesi and the grandson of Emerson Fittipaldi.

    I thought I’d run you all through why I think Arthur Leclerc could be one to look out for in the future and his recruitment to Ferrari’s young driver programme isn’t merely just because of being Charles’ younger brother.

    Whilst Charles arrived into single seaters in 2014 off the back of major success in the karting scene, Arthur was only just starting out in karts despite only being three years younger than his highly rated brother. Arthur actually managed to win the Kart Racing Academy championship in France, but due to budgetary issues, he was out of racing for the next four years and in that time, Charles made that climb up the ladder and into F1.

    The older Leclerc always had that issue early in his career, they never had a lot of money and if it weren’t for Nicolas Todt, his career would have been over. So it was the same case for younger Leclerc, who only got back into racing because of backing from his uncle, who set up an e-bike company. This helped him seal a place in the relatively low-budget French F4 championship in 2018.

    Despite not racing for four years, it was like Arthur had never been away! He won a reverse-grid race in his first event, held his own in a battle with eventual dominant champion Caio Collet at the Pau circuit, took pole at a very wet Spa-Francorchamps and had it not been for some rotten luck in the final round, would have finished runner-up. That year, he also became a part of the Venturi Formula E team’s junior programme, alongside a selection of drivers from single seaters, karting and Esports.

    For 2019, he stepped up to the German-based ADAC F4 championship and took his first victory at Hockenheim which supported the German Grand Prix, and Charles was there to greet him when he pulled up into parc fermé. Arthur raced for the Sauber Junior Team by Charouz, and even with the single victory he finished third in the championship, behind the highly rated pair of Red Bull junior Dennis Hauger and the champion Théo Pourchaire, one of Leclerc’s teammates.

    That result is mightily impressive considering the level of talent in that field, and the fact he had nowhere near the amount of racing experience of his peers. Despite being three years older than Pourchaire, he had eight years less racing experience, so bearing all that in mind, that makes Leclerc’s results even more impressive.

    Whilst Pourchaire and Hauger are stepping up to the Grand Prix-supporting FIA Formula 3 for this season, Leclerc has gone in another direction and joined up with Prema – the team that his brother won the 2017 FIA Formula 2 championship with – in the Formula Regional European Championship. A lower tier F3 series that races for the most part in Italy.

    Arthur is now 19, the same age Charles was when he won the GP3 championship. The Prema team was very much a dominant force in Formula Regional last season and even with highly rated teammates like Roman Staněk, Oliver Rasmussen and fellow Ferrari junior Gianluca Petecof, I am very confident that Arthur is the favourite for the championship.

    Last time we had an F1 driver called Charles, he also had a racing driver brother called Arthur, I’m referring to the Pic brothers. Charles Pic raced for tailender teams Marussia and Caterham between 2012 and 2013, whilst his brother Arthur Pic got as high as GP2. This time round, Charles Leclerc is in F1 and is one of the top drivers, and with his recruitment to Ferrari’s programme, would it be so absurd to liken the Leclerc brothers to the Márquez brothers in MotoGP?

    Marc and Álex Márquez won a championship apiece in the lower and intermediate classes of Grand Prix motorcycle racing and now they are teammates at the Repsol Honda team that Marc has won all but one MotoGP world championship with since joining them in 2013. Could Arthur join Charles at Ferrari in the next few years? It’s not out of the question! But I won’t get ahead of myself. For the time being, let’s see how Arthur does and see if skill and excellence is in his blood.

    Image courtesy of Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 Team.

  • An introduction to F1 Esports drivers.

    Over the weekend of what should have been the Vietnam Grand Prix, we were treated to some Esports action as we have come to expect. The highlight of the weekend arguably was the second rendition of the F1 Virtual Grand Prix. Following on from the first event which took place over the weekend of the Bahrain Grand Prix, where two of the real-world regular drivers Lando Norris and Nicholas Latifi were joined by other pro drivers and even a golfer, and Olympic cyclist and a member of One Direction.

    However for this event, Norris and Latifi were joined by the likes of Charles Leclerc, Alex Albon, George Russell, Antonio Giovinazzi, and even 2009 world champion Jenson Button. It was held on the Australian GP circuit (since Vietnam was a new addition to the calendar and thus not on the F1 2019 game they were using) and was won rather convincingly by Leclerc, ahead of Renault F2 driver Christian Lundgaard and Russell was P3 in the Williams. Yes, that did happen, though there is equal performance with all the cars.

    However I’d like to bring some spotlight to the race following that, the Pro Exhibition. All of the F1 teams let their Esports racers off of their leash to showcase some of the best in virtual racing, just like they’ve been doing in the F1 Esports Series that has been running since 2017.

    In the inaugural season, 40 drivers went through qualifications and made it to the semi-finals and 20 of them went to compete in the finals held alongside that year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. After the three 25% distance races held across two days, it was then-kitchen manager Brendon Leigh who performed an incredible move on Fabrizio Donoso to seal the first championship ahead of Donoso and Sven Zurner.

    For the 2018 season, all but one of the teams got involved and would pick players who entered through online qualifications and an evaluation process, and they would go on to compete in a full 10-race season held exclusively in London’s Gfinity Esports Arena across three live shows. Drivers would go for individual glory, whilst a prize pot of $200,000 would be distributed among the team’s for their position in the final standings.

    Again, it was Brendon Leigh who would come out on top in a dominant display driving for Mercedes, winning six out of 10 races with the other races being won by Merc teammate Dani Bereznay, Toro Rosso’s Frederik Rasmussen and Sauber’s Salih Saltunç. With it, Merc also won the constructor’s champions.

    For 2019, the team that didn’t want to take part finally caught the Esports bug, Ferrari. This may have been a stroke of genius because as a result, they got first pickings in the Pro Draft, and selected David Tonizza. A driver who failed to get picked by anyone in 2018, but came back and immediately hit the ground running.

    Even with the onslaught of talent around him including the likes of Rasmussen and Bereznay – who had moved to Red Bull and Alfa Romeo respectively – as well as former Renault Junior driver turned Renault Esports driver Jarno Opmeer and the now two-time champion Brendon Leigh, Tonizza was unfazed and racked up three victories from the twelve races to just pip a late-charging Rasmussen to the title in the last race. However, due to Red Bull’s drivers scoring more points than Ferrari’s due to Tonizza’s teammates not scoring any points, Red Bull won the team’s championship and with it, the majority of the now $500,000 prize pot.

    As you can imagine, a lot of gamers want to make their way into the Esports series but it’s only two drivers per team in one race. So three drivers are signed and you’ll see some drivers prioritising more time on some tracks over others to get the best possible result, albeit that does come with its downside. Both 2018 and 2019, Frederik Rasmussen lost out on being runner-up and a shot at the championship respectively because he elected to step down and have his teammates race.

    Then on the flip side of that, former Sauber driver Allert van der Wal was drafted by McLaren Shadow in 2019 but he didn’t compete in any race, at least I don’t remember seeing him. Plus, Red Bull drafted a guy called Nicolas Longuet but he only did the one race at Monza where he managed to finish in the top three!

    The system is flawed but can be worked on, especially now since we have this unprecedented opportunity to polish the rough spots. We now have these proper online races taking place and in the Pro Exhibition, Frederik Rasmussen won from David Tonizza and Haas Esports driver Floris Wijers. We now have another upcoming Pro Exhibition race this weekend on the Shanghai circuit, which will take place before the Virtual Grand Prix race.

    We have so many top-line drivers who can win and be successful in F1 Esports, and I’d love to see a full on championship held every week similar to that of a lot of online League championships, such as Apex Online Racing. As much as I like the idea of the three races in one event, F1 Esports seems a bit safe and lacking behind the FIA Gran Turismo Championships in many departments.

    Nevertheless, I hope you lot feel compelled to watch the F1 team’s Esports drivers tackling the Chinese GP circuit on Sunday potentially before the Virtual Grand Prix Series race.

    Be on the lookout for Formula 1’s own social media channels for how you can watch these races…

    Images taken from actual game play…

  • Autosport International Show Gallery 2020

    Autosport International Show Gallery 2020

    At this years Autosport International Show, there were some pretty iconic cars on display, from all parts of the motorsport world.

    The main feature included Seventy Years of Motorsport, and there were some incredibly beautiful cars on display from Le Mans, World Rally Championship, Indycar, British Touring Car Championship, Formula One and Formula E.

    All were game changers in their own way.

    The decades of the 1950’s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, ’10s are all represented.

    Away from there, there were other amazing displays. The Le Mans Toyota TS050 from 2018, the car that finally gave Toyota the victory that it has craved for decades, with Sébastien Buemi, Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima sharing the driving duties.

    There was a display of Formula One cars as well.

    Below is a group of classic rally cars – Some iconic machinery here, from the seventies, eighties, nineties and two-thousands. Three cars driven by Colin McRae featured as well.

    Well, we hope that you have enjoyed this look back to this year’s Autosport International Show, while we wait for the racing season to re-start.

     

    All photos courtesy of Warren Nel

  • Australian Grand Prix Preview: The start of a new decade in Formula One, but not in happy circumstances

    Australian Grand Prix Preview: The start of a new decade in Formula One, but not in happy circumstances

    Usually joyful and vibrant, the start of a new season in Australia would ordinarily bring a sense of positivity to Formula One fans around the world. This year, however, it is overshadowed by the seemingly omnipotent threat of Coronavirus.

    And, indeed, three members of the paddock – two from Haas and one from McLaren – have already self-isolated after being tested for the illness.

    However, the focus is not all on the doom and gloom side. Melbourne remains as picturesque and atmospheric as ever, and it is ready to play proud first host to what will hopefully be an enthralling season of racing.

    Although, the likelihood of such seems fairly low. Mercedes dominated pre-season testing, and Ferrari looked average at best, with team boss Mattia Binotto playing down any chances of success for the Scuderia this year. Notwithstanding, Mercedes looked a way off Ferrari in Barcelona last year, and ended up dominating the season, so the true performance of the top three teams – including the resurgent Red Bull – remains to be seen.

    Speaking of the former champions, they were given some degree of promise from their outings in testing, with potential championship contender Max Verstappen finding the limits – and falling foul of them – on a few occasions,. They also appeared to leave a few engineers in red scratching their heads as the enigmatic Dutchman looks to challenge Lewis Hamilton for the championship crown.

    The enticing prospect of the fresh and finally integrated Alex Albon is also something we can look forward to, as well as the inter-team battle between Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc at the Maranello outfit. Valtteri Bottas, meanwhile, will have had no shortage of awareness of the effort and quality needed to defeat team-mate Hamilton this season.

    Indeed, it was a positive start to 2019 for the Finn. He won last year at the 5.3-kilometre Albert Park circuit, and would win two of the first four races, but a frustrating barren spell of form would see Hamilton’s irresistible class shine through again.

    It was, interestingly, only the fourth time that the driver starting from second had made to the first corner first at the track, so pole is inherently important there.

    The newly-crowned six time world champion is certainly not resting on his laurels either. He comes into this season feeling ‘on another level’ – a stark proposition for those looking to knock him off his perch.

    As always though, it is not all about the big guns up top. The vast majority of the competitive, intriguing racing came from the mid-pack and, provided the TV directors choose to give them some attention this time, there is a lot of action to look forward to.

    Williams are at least a second quicker than last year, and have a distinct, tenacious habit of overcoming the several adversities they have been faced with in recent years, making them a good fit for a battle that will surely include everyone from McLaren down.

    Well, maybe not everyone.

    Racing Point – or the “Pink Mercedes”, as coined by Carlos Sainz – have copied Mercedes’ chassis design from last year to almost every meticulous detail, and as their resources incrementally rise to impressive extents year on year, they could challenge McLaren and re-take fourth spot in the Constructors’ dogfight – potentially even laying a stake on a top-three involvement as times this season. There would have to be a degree of fortuity however.

    Another team in doubt for the midfield fight is Haas. After numerous problems both on and off track in 2019, the American outfit looked both slow and lacking in longevity, as Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean look to return their cars to points contention, and hopefully return them to the finish line without making contact this year.

    As we say, though, testing is often little to go by, resulting in the discovery of many variables yet to be seen as the season goes on, and it all starts this weekend in Melbourne.

     

    [Featured image – Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool]

  • 2020 Mercedes-AMG Petronas Preview

    2020 Mercedes-AMG Petronas Preview

    Mercedes head into the 2020 season aiming to win their seventh consecutive constructors’ championship, a feat never before achieved in F1’s history. Likewise, Lewis Hamilton is aiming to win his seventh title, which would put him level with Michael Schumacher at the top of the all-time list.

    Hamilton is also on the verge of potentially matching and even surpassing Schumacher’s record of race wins, which currently stands at 91. Hamilton goes into 2020 just seven behind that tally. Given he has won an average of ten races a year since 2014, that is a real possibility.

    Bottas, too, will be hoping to further add to his tally of seven race wins, in what is his fourth year with the team.

    2020 Barcelona Pre-Season Test 2, Day 2 – Wolfgang Wilhelm

    Mercedes’ form in pre-season testing should give them the confidence that they are able to achieve their goals, even though there are potentially a few concerns and question marks to be addressed too.

    They completed 903 laps across the six days of pre-season testing, the most of any team and 59 more than second-placed Ferrari. Bottas also posted the fastest lap of the entire test – a 1m 15.732 set on the third day of the first test.

    Mercedes were also responsible for potentially the biggest headline to come out of pre-season testing when they debuted their new dual-axis steering system, known as DAS. It was noticeably used more in the first week of testing than the second, and it will be interesting come Australia to see in which situation it is used more – long runs or qualifying runs.

    2020 Barcelona Pre-Season Test 2, Day 2 – Wolfgang Wilhelm

    Things were not all good for the Silver Arrows, though.

    Hamilton ground to a halt with an oil pressure problem on the second day of the second test, an issue that meant he completed just 14 laps on that particular day. Bottas also suffered an electrical issue, in the first week.

    Add to that the fact that Mercedes’ customer team Williams had four power unit problems in just six days of testing, and there are a few worries about the reliability of Mercedes’ engine.

    If those problems can be resolved, and considering the stability of the regulations for this year, Mercedes should be in a prime position to begin to realise those dreams of a seventh consecutive championship.

    With the Australian Grand Prix now less than a week away, we don’t have long to wait to find out if that is true.

     

    [Featured image – Wolfgang Wilhelm]

  • 2020 Scuderia Ferrari Season Preview

    2020 Scuderia Ferrari Season Preview

    Last year was a tough season for Scuderia Ferrari, the Italians presented a promising car in Spain, during the pre-season tests, but they failed their fans in the opening races. Three victories and nine pole positions in 21 races, despite the disappointing numbers, it was a dreaming season debut for Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque, took two of the three chequered flags for Ferrari and secured seven pole positions in his first year in the Scuderia.

    Everyone at Maranello, is looking forward to 2020, a year that can crown them world champions almost after twelve years.

    Although..

    “I am not as optimistic as last year” Binotto said.

    “Some of the others are faster than us at the moment, I believe. How much faster is really difficult to judge and I will go through all the data in the next few days but I don’t think we are as fast as them at the moment.”

    Not the most promising statement from Ferrari’s team principal, there is a chance, though, that Binotto is hiding his cards.

    In total, Ferrari’s drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, completed 844 laps. Their main rival, Mercedes, did the most laps during the two pre-season tests, 903 for Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

    Ferrari’s advantage, last year, was the straights, mainly because Scuderia, had one of the most powerful power units. After, the two weeks of testing, turns out that Ferrari lost that advantage, but improved their performance on slow corners.

    Mattia Binotto asked if his team is hiding the true potential of their engine, but the Italian was clear about that.

    “We are not hiding. That is our true performance.

    “It’s difficult to split on the streets what is drag and what is power, but certainly we are down on speed compared to other competitors. That’s affected by one way from the drag and the other from the reliability programme that we have in place.”

    Mercedes, still has the advantage and it looks that they will be unbeatable this season as well. It will be a challenging season for the Scuderia, Reb Bull will be also a strong opponent and the Italians have to prove that are still capable of designing fast cars that can deliver over the season.

     

    Pictures courtesy of Pirelli F1

  • Bottas quickest on final day of pre-season testing

    Bottas quickest on final day of pre-season testing

    Valtteri Bottas finished top of the timesheets on the final day of pre-season testing, setting the second fastest lap time of the entire winter.

    His best time of a 1m 16.196, set on the C5 tyre, put him only +0.073 ahead of Max Verstappen. Verstappen also set his fastest time on the C5 tyres, but his previous best lap – which was set on the medium C3 tyres – still put him a very respectable +0.188 behind Bottas.

    Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo was only +0.007 behind Verstappen, with Charles Leclerc, who completed the most laps of anyone with 177, in fourth.

    Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top five with 90 laps to his name, aiming to bounce back after his engine failure yesterday confined him to the garage for a significant chunk of time.

    Esteban Ocon finished in sixth ahead of four drivers who each completed over 140 laps each: Sergio Perez (153 laps), Carlos Sainz (159 laps), George Russell (143 laps) and Daniil Kvyat (157 laps).

    Romain Grosjean in eleventh was the last driver whose fastest lap fell within a second of Bottas’ time, with Kimi Raikkonen behind in twelfth.

    Kevin Magnussen suffered a clutch-related issue that saw him stuck in his garage for a few hours. The problem was eventually rectified and he emerged on track for the final thirty minutes of running. He completed just 25 laps.

    Alex Albon rounded out the timesheets, +1.607 away from Bottas and with 59 laps to his name.

    The Australian Grand Prix is next on the agenda for the teams with the problem of the coronavirus hanging over everybody’s heads. It is scheduled to take place between the 13th and 15th of March.

     

    [Featured image – LAT Images]

  • Vettel fastest on penultimate day of testing, Hamilton breaks down

    Vettel fastest on penultimate day of testing, Hamilton breaks down

    Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari finished fastest for the first time in pre-season testing this year, as Lewis Hamilton stopped on track due to engine problems.

    Vettel set a 1m 16.841 on the soft tyre in the morning session, a time that would not be bested all day. It is the second quickest overall lap set so far during the five days of testing that have already taken place, and the first time that Ferrari have noticeably moved away from the long runs they had been conducting for much of the previous days.

    Vettel did, however, also bring out a red flag when he ran though the gravel and span.

    Pierre Gasly charged up the standings late on to finish two tenths behind Vettel and just +0.052 ahead of Lance Stroll in P3.

    Fourth-placed Nicholas Latifi completed the most laps of anybody with 158, and also posted Williams’ fastest lap of testing so far.

    McLaren’s Lando Norris finished in fifth with 112 laps to his name, ahead of Max Verstappen, who caused a red flag in the morning when he beached his car in the gravel at Turn 5.

    Bottas nearly suffered a similar fate to Verstappen but managed to continue on his way and finish seventh in front of Ocon, Magnussen, Albon and Ricciardo.

    Antonio Giovinazzi in P12 brought out the day’s first red flag when he crashed at Turn 4, but nonetheless completed 91 laps.

    Lewis Hamilton completed just 14 laps in the afternoon, having taken over from Bottas, before he lost power and ground to a halt at Turn 6. He had suffered a reported oil pressure anomaly and would not return to the track for the rest of the session.

    [Featured image – Scuderia Ferrari Press Office]

  • Kubica fastest on first day of second F1 test

    Kubica fastest on first day of second F1 test

    Robert Kubica has finished fastest on the first day of the second pre-season test, as a late spin from Max Verstappen brought out the red flag and ended the day’s running prematurely.

    Kubica set his time of a 1m 16.942 was set in the morning session on the C5 tyres, the softest available, and was not bested by anyone running in the afternoon.

    Max Verstappen leapfrogged up the timing screens late in the day but closed only to within +0.4 of Kubica’s time and finished in P2. He also suffered a couple of spins , the second of which coincided with Daniil Kvyat coming to a halt at Turn 9 and brought out the red flag, ending the session for the day.

    Sergio Perez continued to highlight Racing Point’s promising pre-season showing and finished third ahead of the AlphaTauri duo of Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly, with Gasly having spent a significant chunk of the morning session confined to the garage for unknown technical reasons. He completed just 25 laps, the least amount of laps of any driver today.

    Alex Albon in P6 also had trouble getting out on track and completed only four more laps than Gasly.

    Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas finished in P7 and P9, sandwiching Lance Stroll and completing 179 laps between them.

    Sebastian Vettel span early on in the morning at Turn 8 and caused the first red flag of the day, but nevertheless put in Ferrari’s best lap of pre-season testing so far – a 1m 18.113 – and came in P10.

    Daniel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz in P10 and P11 were separated by just 0.007, ahead of Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Nicholas Latifi. Latifi caused the day’s second red flag when he stopped at Turn 9 with an engine problem, but the Williams team rectified the problem, allowing Russell to take over in the afternoon.

    Romain Grosjean was the only driver to participate in both the morning and afternoon sessions, and completed 107 laps on his way to P16.

    Rounding out the timesheets were Lando Norris, Kimi Raikkonen and Esteban Ocon.

     

    [Featured image – Mark Thompson/Getty Images]