ThePitcrewOnline

Category: Formula One

  • Michael Schumacher

    Michael Schumacher

    When words are not enough…

    By Lukáš Redl

    Feature image courtesy of Scuderia Ferrari…

  • Schumacher Week – Legacy

    Schumacher Week – Legacy

    On July 25th 2004, Michael Schumacher took victory at the Hockenheim circuit in the last of his championship winning cars, the Ferrari F2004. Fifteen years later almost to the day, his 20-year old son Mick drove some demo runs at Hockenheim in that very same car. The crowd were erupting with cheers for Mick, but it was no easy ride to get there.

    Mick began his career in 2008 at the same kart track where his father started. For most of his karting career he went by the pseudonym Mick Bestch, using his mother’s maiden name to avoid media attention.

    In his first three years, Mick committed to the Kerpen Kartchallenge Bambini races. He finished 4th in 2009 and won the following year. With the KSM Racing Team, he moved up to KF3 for 2011, competing in German championships and even finishing third in the Euro Wintercup. He did so again the following year, as well as securing third place finishes in the ADAC Kart Championship and DMV Kart Championship and 7th in the ADAC Kart Masters.

    2013 would be the year that Mick would sneak out of relative anonymity, as he stepped up to compete at a European level. He took part in the CIK-FIA European, WSK Euro Series and WSK Super Master Series KF-Junior championships, and finished third in both the German Junior Kart Championship and the CIK-FIA Super Cup event. With it, the media started picking up that he was in fact Michael’s son.

    In what would be Mick’s last year of karting, he would go by a new pseudonym Mick Junior, and finished runner-up in the Deutsche Junior Kart Meisterschaft, and the CIK-FIA European and World KF-Junior Championships. Tragedy followed in late 2013, as Mick was skiing with his father when Michael had the accident that resulted in the injury that has seen him away from the public ever since.

    Mick has understandably remained very quiet about that fateful day, but he hasn’t let it prevent him from chasing his dream and, after what was predictably an emotionally difficult final year in karting, he would move up to cars for 2015.

    Signing for the Van Amersfoort outfit, Mick would hit the ground running in his first weekend in the opening round of the German ADAC Formula 4 championship with a win in the third race at Oschersleben. He wouldn’t herald much more success that year, with only one further visit to the podium on his way to 10th overall.

    For 2016, Mick moved to Prema PowerTeam and doubled up his commitments with a dual campaign in the German and Italian F4 championships. This is the point where Mick began impressing me. He took five wins in both championships and just missed out on winning both. He ended the year by finishing third in the MRF Challenge Formula 2000 winter series.

    Mick remained with Prema as he stepped up to the FIA F3 European Championship for the following year. The transition didn’t herald immediate success, with only a single podium and a 12th-place finish overall, third of the first-year F3 drivers behind Jehan Daruvala and outright champion Lando Norris.

    So far, it was a career that was promising but hadn’t been hugely stellar. Understandably, he is carrying the burden of being the son of the most successful F1 driver of all time, and most sons of former drivers get grouped in with pay drivers. But 2018 would prove to be Mick’s year.

    Remaining in F3, he began the year under the radar. It would be the second half of the season at the venue where his father had a lot of his career highs though that he would finally find form, Spa-Francorchamps. Earning pole position in the second race but having to retire, he battled team-mates Robert Shwartzman and Marcus Armstrong in race three and finally got that first win.

    That was the start of a great run of form, as he went on to pick up wins at the following rounds at Silverstone and Misano. At the Nürburgring round, Mick joined an illustrious group of racers by picking up all three wins in a single Euro F3 meeting, a group that includes the likes of Max Verstappen, Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll.

    With two further wins at the following round at Red Bull Ring, he overtook long-time series leader Dan Ticktum, a polarising figure who was being hyped up as Red Bull’s next F1 star. Ticktum openly suggested on his social media that there were factors towards Mick’s success, seemingly an accusation of cheating. Nevertheless, Mick sealed the championship, his first in car racing.

    Before his 2019 campaign began, Mick had a choice to make. Prema often houses a lot of Ferrari young drivers, and with the F3 team being powered by Mercedes, Mick had gotten offers from both of his father’s former teams. He ultimately decided to go with Ferrari, the team that his father won five straight championships with, rather than the team he was with for his three-year comeback.

    Scuderia Ferrari Press Office

    On his debut in the Grand Prix-supported Formula 2 championship, he finished 8th in the feature race at Bahrain, meaning he would start on pole for the sprint race, although he was unable to keep his tyres in good condition. However, the week after driving his dad’s 2004 F1 car, he repeated the performance he’d put in in the Bahrain feature race, this time in Hungary, and went on to win the sprint race too.

    He also took part in tests with both Ferrari and Alfa Romeo after the Bahrain Grand Prix, and a seat looks set to open up at Alfa should Ferrari decide to either promote or drop current driver Antonio Giovinazzi from the lease Alfa seat. However, 2020 is a make-or-break year for Schumacher, as he faces stiff competition from his teammate, fellow Ferrari Academy driver and reigning F3 champion Robert Shwartzman.

    I do rate Mick, but if he is outperformed in F2 this year by the highly-rated Shwartzman then that theoretically should be it for him. If he isn’t in championship contention or if the Russian outperforms him, I don’t think Mick should get that seat. But I believe Mick will do well, and hopefully he proves his doubters wrong and that he isn’t just there because of the name.

    Mick has a cousin too, Ralf Schumacher’s son David who is a runner-up in the German Kart Championship, best-placed rookie in German F4 and will be racing this year in the same paddock, albeit in F3 for Charouz.

    The Schumacher legacy lives on. Hopefully Mick does prove this year that he is worthy of a place in F1, and he can forge his own.

    Images courtesy of Scuderia Ferrari

  • IndyCar’s disgrace of an iRace

    There was a lot to be enjoyed in the Esports races on Saturday. Firstly there was the second round of the Formula E Stay At Home Challenge, taking place on rFactor 2 with Studio 397’s own circuit Electric Docks which made for some incredible high speed racing. Then we had the first of a set of rounds that made up a new season of the All-Star Esports Series by The Race where Pros, Sim drivers and Legends all raced at Sepang to contend for their own championships and it even included brands such as Mercedes, BMW, Bentley, Aston Martin, Williams and Venturi officially taking part in it too. Finally, we also saw two races in Veloce’s Not The GP series where Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had some incredible battles on the Hockenheim circuit with some of the top names from the world of Formula 1 Esports and Online Content Creation.

    But we are talking about the final round of the IndyCar iRacing Challenge, racing 70 laps of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. McLaren’s own Lando Norris was participating after making a guest appearance in last week’s race at the Circuit of the Americas, and despite spinning in the middle of the race, he still blitzed the field. This seemingly ruffled a few feathers.

    Norris qualified second for the defacto ‘Indy 175’ to Aussie SuperCars champion Scott McLaughlin and despite never having done oval racing before, he was doing very good. He had put an immense amount of practice in with the help of his former F1 engineer Andrew Jarvis, who left McLaren’s F1 division to a new role in their upcoming IndyCar programme.

    At one point in the race, a caution period had come out and Lando had just pitted so he had the grippiest rubber out of all the leading group so he looked to be in the best position to win. Ahead of him is reigning Indy 500 winner Simon Pagenaud, who in all the previous IndyCar iRacing Challenge events, had won all the oval races and was looking to get a clean sweep.

    Pagenaud and Graham Rahal were fighting for the lead and Norris went low on both of them, there was a noticeable gap between Norris and Rahal, but there is an unfortunate thing that happens in online racing called netcode, where there’s a slight lag in connection and subsequently, it feels like there is a collision when there isn’t. So Rahal unfortunately was netcode hit by Norris even though Norris didn’t do such a thing, and Rahal collided with Pagenaud and it ruined their races. A shame all round because I was looking forward to watching the battle between all these top-level professionals, but that term seems to not apply now, at least to Pagenaud.

    Through I believe Pagenaud’s engineer’s Twitch stream, they seemed to joke about wanting to take out Norris and were badmouthing him as if he actually had done something wrong. But as clear as day in the video I’m going to provide of Lando watching a replay of that Twitch stream after the race, Pagenaud turned in on him heading into the last lap and what seemed to be an all-but-certain victory for Lando was taken from him. Pagenaud even tried to play it off as trying to go to the pits..

    You’ll also hear in that clip, Lando was in an online chat with fellow Team RedLine sim racing drivers Graham Carroll, Bono Huis and Max Verstappen, and it was Max who suggested they settle these incidents with a boxing match. Rather amusing.

    Not only what Pagenaud did, but on the last lap, McLaren’s two other drivers got involved in incidents. Patricio O’Ward tried to overtake Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson heading into the last corner but was way too overly ambitious and desperate, it was never on and it cost Ericsson the victory. So it was left to McLaren’s third driver Oliver Askew to win the race for the team, but it wasn’t to be as the polarising Santino Ferrucci swerved across him on the run to the line, and there to pick up the pieces despite not being anywhere near the front for most of the last few laps, was pole-sitter Scott McLaughlin.

    An absolute mess. Inevitably you’ll hear the “Just a game” argument, both from people like Ferrucci (who has form for doing this in real world racing as well!) who pull a David Perel and say it’s okay to be dirty in the virtual world since nobody gets hurt, and then you have the people who see this as insignificant because it’s some immature boy’s hobby to play video games so what’s the fuss about?

    I love my virtual racing but this has just left a sour taste in my mouth. I’ve lost a lot of respect for Simon Pagenaud, and I didn’t have any for Ferrucci anyway since he was said to have been racist to his then-F2 teammate Arjun Maini back in 2018 and also purposely driving into him on the cooldown lap.

    It’s also been disappointing seeing IndyCar commentator Paul Tracy put on his tin foil hat and claim that Ferrucci’s steering conveniently had been hacked or glitched on the run to the line. It’s not surprising honestly, they love him on the IndyCar coverage.

    This doesn’t ruin Esports and sim racing for me, I’ll always love it but it’s not surprising at all to know that people from outside the virtual racing bubble don’t take this seriously. With all the progress being made by Esports whilst we don’t have real racing, this has been a huge step backwards for both Esports and also IndyCar.

    Image courtesy of IndyCar

  • 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.

  • Michael Schumacher Week – The Return of The King

    After 268 races, 91 wins, and most coveted, seven world championships, Michael Schumacher retired in 2006 as the most decorated Formula One driver in the history of the sport. He had achieved the pinnacle of success, experienced the highest of the highs, and endured the lowest of the lows. Such is the rollercoaster of emotions that is Formula One, but Schumacher had mastered it with a mix of immense talent, fitness and, at times, deviousness.

    He therefore left F1, not just as a winner, but as one of the most intense competitors the world of motor racing has ever seen. He is truly the definition of doing whatever was necessary to win.

    With that being said, it was perhaps easily foreseeable that he would make his return at some stage – and he did.

    Having spent the last 11 years of his first F1 tenure with Ferrari, he worked closely with the team after his retirement, and all eyes were on him making his sensational return with the Scuderia for the start of the new decade in 2010. But Fernando Alonso was chosen as Kimi Raikkonen’s successor, and Schumacher was destined for a greater test.

    Having managed the astonishingly dominant Ferrari team during Schumacher’s spell with them, Ross Brawn would help steer the Brawn team to the most inconceivable championship success in 2009, but a lack of funding meant he needed a buyer to sustain a place on the grid for 2010. Good job then, that Mercedes saw their opportunity to make their own sensational return to Formula One with Brawn at the helm.

    Having maintained a strong relationship with him at Ferrari, Brawn was able to entice Schumacher into the long-term vision of returning Mercedes to past glory.

    And so it was that Schumacher had secured his comeback to the sport he had conquered and mastered before, but was it time to add championship number eight to the tally?

    Before the commencement of the 2010 championship, Schumacher stated his intent not to solely make up the numbers, but to win another championship. Partnered with Mercedes new boy Nico Rosberg, it was an all-German line-up for the German team going into their new époque.

    It was clear that he had not lost his passion for the sport, and his raw desire to win. He was penalised in Monaco in his first year back for audaciously overtaking Fernando Alonso tantalisingly close to the safety car line at the end of the Grand Prix, but he had displayed the wily nature, extravagance and opportunism that had earned him so much success previously.

    He finally earned his first podium since his return at the European Grand Prix in 2012, the same year he set the pole lap in Monte Carlo – although a penalty from the previous race in Spain denied him the front row start.

    The on-track supremacy were not the only factor, however. His racing pre-eminence was also defined by his intelligent and cunning mind games. Nico Rosberg described how Schumacher would wait in the toilet during qualifying before the final run to make the eventual 2016 champion wait and effect his mentality and performance – with age had certainly come an abundance of wisdom.

    These flashes of brilliance were not the only side of Schumacher’s enigmatic character though. The less alluring and more dangerous side came back with him. It was the same brutal nature that saw him wipe out Damon Hill in Adelaide to claim the 1994 crown in his Benetton days, and that saw him try, in many fans’ eyes, try to end Jacques Villeneuve’s race in Jerez in 1997. This particular attempt was futile however, as Schumacher took himself out of the race and left Villeneuve to take the title.

    In many ways, his occasional on-track enmity was as a result of his excellence. His sheer will to win naturally came with an occasionally nasty overtone of jeopardy for those around him, as was discovered by Rubens Barrichello in Hungary when Schumacher very nearly sent him into the wall at speed down the pit straight. Lewis Hamilton was also less than impressed with the German’s antics at the Italian Grand Prix of 2011 – just two examples of Schumacher’s mentality leading him to uncompromising positions, and he overstepped the line on occasion.

    It was evident, though, as he got deeper into his forties, that lapses of concentration and perhaps a drop in physical capacity had crept into his game.

    Barrichello and Hamilton could argue that their incidents with him were a product of such, but more notable incidents of ungainliness come to mind. He misjudged his braking points in Singapore in 2011 and 2012, spectacularly wiping out Sergio Perez and Jean Eric Vergne respectively, and mych the same happened when trying to overtake Bruno Senna in Barcelona in 2012. And a very clumsy incident with Felipe Massa in 2010 affirms what, if he were a rookie, would probably be described as relative ineptitude. But this is a seven-time world champion, and in reality these moments were perhaps signs that the return may have been misjudged and ill-timed.

    He finished ninth, eighth and 13th in the three years he had spent back, and was beaten by team mate Rosberg in all three seasons. He was, however, only an average of 0.2 seconds slower than him in 2010 and 2012, and was actually two tenths quicker in his final season. He had proven that, whilst he did not have the same magic and brilliant race-craft that he had before, he still possessed raw pace.

    But ultimately he did not achieve what he set out to upon his return to the sport. He came back and gave it a go, demonstrating the qualities, some more discerning than others, that had made him the most successful of all time. But it was that unrelenting success in his prime that will be remembered, and not the return.

    Images courtesy of Mercedes AMG / Wolfgang Wilhelm

  • Michael Schumacher – How the Rainmaster was born

    Michael Schumacher – How the Rainmaster was born

    Whilst Michael Schumacher had many incredible races, this is one of my favourites showing his incredible skill in changing conditions.

    It was 1997 and it was the 12th race in the season which was taking place at Spa Francorchamps, Belgium.

    Qualifying for the race had been dominated by Jacques Villeneuve (Williams-Renault) who secured pole position followed by Jean Alesi (Benetton Renault) in 2nd and Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) 3rd on the grid.

    In the morning warm-up the weather conditions were hot and dry and Schumacher only managed 15th place.

    However, about 30 minutes before the start of the race, an unexpected twenty minute heavy downpour changed the race conditions dramatically.
    During the time the cars were assembling on the grid, Schumacher took the opportunity of making some exploratory laps of the track by returning to the pits rather than the grid in both his race car and the spare car, which had been set up for intermediate weather conditions. Schumacher chose to race in the spare car.

    Whilst going to take his place on the grid, Schumacher’s brother, Ralf, who had qualified 6th on the grid, spun and crashed his Jordan at Stavelot, resulting in him starting from the pit lane in the spare car.

    For the first time in Formula 1 history, the race was started behind the safety car.

    Of the front running cars, both the Williams drivers and Alesi started the race on full wet tyres whilst the others were on intermediates. The pack remained behind the safety car for the first three laps and the proper racing began on lap four. Villeneuve was still in front followed by Alesi and Schumacher.

    At the start of lap five, Schumacher made a brave move past Alesi on the inside of the La Source hairpin and then overtook Villeneuve at the Rivage loop to take the lead. By the end of lap five Schumacher had built a lead of 5.8 seconds over Villeneuve. Bear in mind, in real terms it was only the second lap of actual racing. He then continued at a truly unbelievable pace, increasing this to 16.9 seconds by the end of lap six, which in real terms was only lap three. He was truly in a class of his own.

    Fisichella, who was driving for Jordan and had also started on intermediate tyres, was now in 2nd place after Villeneuve made an unexpected pit stop.

    Schumacher was in control of the race and continued to pull away, and by the end of lap 12 his lead had stretched to a full minute. Following a second pit stop, Villeneuve had dropped to 16th.

    The track was drying by this stage in the race and pit stops were taking place for slicks to be fitted to the cars. Schumacher pitted on lap 14 for his slicks and after re-joining the race, he eased his pace and controlled the race. He eventually crossed the finish line some 27 seconds ahead of the 2nd place car of Fisichella, followed by Heinz-Harald Frentzen in his Williams-Renault.

    If Schumacher had continued at his original pace, who knows how far ahead of everybody he would have been.

    Having started from pole, Villeneuve finished his race in 5th, which meant that Schumacher extended his lead over Villeneuve in the Drivers’ Championship to 11 points with 5 races left in the season. Ferrari led Williams by 6 points in the Constructors’ Championship.

    I truly believe that this was one of Michael Schumacher’s best drives and it was at this race that he gained the title ‘the Rainmaster’, which was to stay with him for the remainder of his racing career.

    BK

    Image courtesy of Mercedes Benz AMG F1 Team.

  • Driver Spotlight: James Baldwin – Sim Racing’s All Star | Part One

    I am sure a lot of you have been enjoying the Esports races that have been happening and have been keeping us sane whilst we await the return of real life racing. With the events organised by The Race with their All-Star Esports Battle races and Veloce’s Not The GP series now being joined by their own Pro Series, and not forgetting F1, IndyCar and MotoGP among others organising their own events, we are not short of choice, are we?

    Seeing what has been happening in this trying time has been great, and seeing many notable real-world racers take to the virtual world to keep themselves sharp and us entertained is just great to see. Max Verstappen and Lando Norris have been the leading lights with their large followings, helping show what sim racing can really provide.

    However, as much as this is familiar surroundings for one driver in particular, I know that he will want to get on the real track very soon. He has been participating in these events alongside Verstappen and Norris and in the first race of the Veloce Pro Series, he finished second to Lando. This driver being James Baldwin.

    Like Max and Lando, Baldwin started out racing karts aged eight and won four British karting championships by the age of 15. He attempted a move up into cars in 2015, but only had the money to do a grand total of two races in Formula Ford, so with all that pressure of his family’s money being put into these races, James quite understandably felt that pressure a bit too much. He did those two races and there was no more money, and his racing dream was seemingly over.

    After a while out of the driving seat, James shifted his focus to sim racing and quickly proceeded to pick up where he left off in the success department. Through an event organised by Renault on the game Project CARS 2 in which he won, Baldwin got an invitation to participate in the eRace of Champions, where the winner would be allowed to compete in the main Race of Champions at the venue for the Mexican Grand Prix.

    The Race of Champions is a tournament in which drivers from many different disciplines compete with equal machinery on makeshift circuits in stadiums to find out who is the champion of all champions. In 2018, the organisers opened up an Esports competition in which Italian driver Enzo Bonito won and therefore allowed him to compete in the main event alongside World’s Fastest Gamer winner Rudy van Buren.

    For the 2019 event, Bonito would be joined in the Sim Racing All Stars team by whoever would succeed him as the eROC winner and everyone was expecting him to be joined by two-time F1 Esports champion Brendon Leigh. But in a huge upset, Baldwin defeated Leigh to become eROC champion and he impressed the judges along the way, those judges being nine-times Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, 2001 F1 runner-up David Coulthard and renowned stunt driver Terry Grant.

    He lined up alongside Bonito for the Nation’s Cup competition in the Sim Racing All Star team and also competed for individual glory in the Race of Champions. Whilst his Nation’s Cup teammate grabbed the headlines for defeating Formula E champion Lucas di Grassi and IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, Baldwin was by no means any slouch as he won against local NASCAR hero Rubén García Jr. in one of the heats.

    This would only be the start of a year of ascendency for James Baldwin, otherwise known as Veloce Jaaames. Yes, three A’s, he didn’t fall asleep on his keyboard when he was coming up with that.

    As you can tell by the other part of that username, James is a part of Veloce Esports. The team founded by Formula E champion Jean-Éric Vergne and teammate from his Carlin F3 days Rupert Svendson-Cook, which has really led the charge and pioneered the turn of introducing Esports to a mainstream audience. Their initial focus was on virtual racing before expanding into FPS games and even the car football game Rocket League.

    Back to James now, because 2019 had not even gotten started for him and it was not about to stop. He entered into the Project CARS world championships which were taking place at the Mercedes headquarters in Stuttgart and James ended up winning that. Veloce then entered last minute as a wildcard into the Le Mans Esports Series Super Final which would take place before the 24 hours of Le Mans.

    In an incredible and never-seen-before format, the teams made up of three drivers would – just like in real life – race for 24 straight hours but in nine races on both historical and modern variants of the Le Mans circuit as well as races at Silverstone, Spa and Sebring in a vast variety of car classes ranging from 1960s Le Mans cars, Group C, GTE, LMP cars of varying eras and many more.

    From 11am to 9:30am the following day, all twelve teams would compete in two or three hour enduros to rack up points, and it was one second head start in the final for every point more than the team behind them. Baldwin and his two Veloce stablemates Noah Schmitz and David Kelly overcame a 15-second deficit to somehow win the final 90-minute race and therefore won the whole event and a hefty cash prize! They stood on the Le Mans podium, sprayed champagne whilst all the teams prepared for the start of the real-life 24 hour race and presumably they all went to bed and collapsed from exhaustion.

    Images courtesy of WFG

    AND Veloce Esports

  • 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]