Junglebiscuit

Azerbaijan, Baku host of the European Grand Prix 2016, we haven’t had a European Grand Prix since Valencia, Spain in 2012. A brand new street circuit produced which at first glance looks similar to Monaco tight corners, extremely fast straight with a touch of class. Due to the structure of this circuit it was assumed that a safety car would be used at some point. We were wrong.

With Nico Rosberg still leading the championship by 9 points this was a golden opportunity for Lewis to take the lead. Unfortunately a mistake by Lewis in qualifying forced him to start the race in P10 next to an unforgiving Max Verstappen who throughout the weekend attracted unwanted attention from Bottas. Max being naturally an aggressive driver already had aggro from the pesky Williams of Bottas annoying him throughout the weekend already a seeing red– a Red Bull you may say!

Race commences, and a surprisingly good start for most except a few back markers who had a little bit of contact but nothing bad enough to bring out the safety car. The first corner was a squeeze for all but the drivers impressively got round it with caution and of course speed! Lewis kept it clean even with Max next to him and Perez in the Force India having a great start from P7 to P5.

All cars are close together and it’s tight.

Lap 3 we saw a move by Bottas in P9 taking over Kvyat closely followed by Lewis who overtook the Toro Rosso with ease. Could Kvyat have an issue? Or maybe it’s just the Ferrari of Vettel he likes to do the dirty on?

By Lap 5 we have a 3 car battle! Bottas, Max and Lewis both Lewis and Bottas manage to get passed young Max without any drama – Phew! Bottas now in P7 with Lewis in P8. At this point our leader Rosberg is flying ahead. Vettel in P3 overtakes the Red Bull of Ricciardo in P2 with a strange looking Ferrari it seems a large blue plastic bag has gripped to the front of Vettel’s car, lucky for him this doesn’t cause an issue.

The pit stops then start very early; starting with Max and Alonso in the Mclaren, could these drivers be looking for a 1 stop strategy?

At this point you will notice the amount of plastic on the track? Did somebody unload their Sainsbury’s shopping bags somewhere? Kimi on team radio expressed his dissatisfaction with this.

Kvyat who was losing places retires in the pit with suspension issues this answers our question to whether its just Ferrari’s he likes to fight obviously this issue was affecting him.

Lap 10 shows us some surprises! Pascal Wehrlein in the Manor is P8 and holding it although he hasn’t yet pitted he is showing a strong performance. Perez in the Force India is P3 and Max has dropped to P14.

Kimi unfortunately crosses the line to the pit lane from what we can see it looks like he was following the car in front or maybe it was another plastic bag and lost concentration. This was investigated with an outcome of a 5 second penalty which he can choose to take during a pit stop or be added to his time at the end of the race. Bad day for Kimi.

By Lap 15 the top 5 are yet to pit, Lewis in P5 breaks this by pitting complaining about a vibration, this is not a problem and rectifies itself by Lap 21. Perez and Ricciardo pit shortly afterwards, Perez making a good move by coming out in front of Lewis. Perez now P8. We are still waiting for the top 3 to pit.

Lap 18 brings in Ricciardo stalking Kimi in P4. Ricciardo one of the drivers you wouldn’t want to see in your mirrors! Lewis is the fastest man on track stuck in P9 with potential of being held up.

This track has tight corners similar to the wall of champions in Canada, a small glitch and you are in the wall. We saw Nasr in the Sauber clipping the wall sparks flying luckily with no problem.

Lap 21 and we finally see one of the top 3 Vettel who comes back out in P3, while Max pits for the second time maybe this early pit strategy was a bad idea with the tyres lasting longer than predicted.

Rosberg pits the following lap to come out still in P1 there is no competition out there this weekend for him. At this point Lewis is in P5.

Lap 23 and Pascal Wehrlein has a last warning for cutting the corner on turn 8.

Lap 24 Ricciardo finally pits only to come out in P12 he has a big fight ahead, nothing comes easy for Ricciardo.

Lap 27 and Lewis has a problem, he is in the wrong mode. By Lap 31 he is asking the team to give him some suggestions to what to do unfortunately rules state the team cannot do this.  An angry Lewis states he may just change everything but the team strongly advise against this. What is wrong with his car? Was it set up wrong? Lewis is now robbed of being able to improve on his race.

While Lewis is having a nightmare Kimi is told not to hold up Vettel as he is faster. Kimi then stating he better be faster as he doesn’t want to see him right in front of him.

Lap 32 Sainz in the Toro Rosso retires.

By Lap 36 Rosberg is too far ahead that the only way anybody will catch up with him is by either a jet engine, safety car or if Rosberg makes an error.

A few laps later Kimi is going mad “where the f**k are the blue flags?” being held up back markers something he doesn’t need with a 5 second penalty hanging over him.

Lap 41 we saw Pascal Werlain retire, he has no brakes left but a good performance today from the Manor team.

No idea what happened but Lap 43 Lewis is now the fastest on track. Whatever that issue was seems to have shifted, did he turn it off and on again?

Alonso in Mclaren sadly retires at Lap 44 stuck in 4^th gear.

Lewis starts dropping back again at Lap 46 what is going on!

With 5 laps remaining we have had no safety car, Rosberg is in a league of his own and Force India are showing a strong performance.

Final lap brings Perez to take over Kimi in P3. Perez will be on the podium either way with Kimi’s penalty but this moves makes it solid!

Race winner Rosberg who we have barely seen throughout the race he was untouchable his 5^th win in 2016. As always a gracious winner and with a drive like that well deserved.

Azerbaijan was predicted to give us safety car action and a fight through the field from Lewis but due to car issues this was not possible. The championship now stands with Rosberg 24 points in front of Lewis with Vettel quietly sneaking up 21 points behind Lewis.

Austria next Rosberg won here last year, could we see another epic win from the Mercedes driver? We still have plenty of races left this year Mercedes still as dominant as ever but the Ferrari’s are showing improvement.

 

 

 

A review of the 2016 Canadian Grand Prix.

Canada considered possibly one of the best tracks out there, with a surprisingly long history, the wall of champions and the unpredictable weather (who can forget 2011*)!

With Hamilton still recovering from a poor start to the season and his first win only in Monaco two weeks before it was tough to judge who would actually win. It seems in this day and age pole position means very little especially when you have the likes of Risky Rosberg who like Hamilton is a true racer who would take any chance to win; Hamilton’s 2015 dominance has not been seen this year so far.

Let’s not forget Hamilton has won here 4 times already.

The front of the starting Grid consisted of Hamilton in pole, followed closely by Rosberg third held by Vettel and Ricciardo in 4th. You could see the sheer determination of Hamilton on the grid who had already slightly pointed his car towards Rosberg looking to immediately alpha him out. Lights out and a shocker of a start Vettel faster than the speed of light over took both Mercedes leaving them to fight for 2nd leading to Rosberg being forced off the track and fall back down to 8th. Deemed as a racing incident no action by the stewards was taken but I would have loved to see Toto’s initial response.

The race was on Vettel looking to create a huge gap between Hamilton and himself until a little mishap between Vettel and couple of Seagulls and yes this is true it was then Hamilton who had the opportunity to make the time up.

Sad times for Alonso a previous world champion and one of the best drivers out there was caught holding up a pack of angry drivers at lap 9 and button retiring on lap 11. Alonso near completion of the race then querying why they were even pushing at P11 just for one point!! It’s a sad state of affairs for Mclaren these days who have brilliant drivers but just can’t sort out their speed and reliability. No doubt they will rise again someday – I hope.

Prior to race start words of wisdom arose from David Coulthard who stated there will be a safety car in this race, well he was right due to buttons car stranded on the side of the track VSC came out. Ferrari perceived this as a good time for Vettel to take a pit stop could this strategic move be the winning one?

It is possible for a one stop or two stop strategy on this track the Ultra Soft tyres were working a dream for majority of drivers at the start bear in mind that all drivers must use Soft tyres at some point in this race.
This Pit stop lead Vettel to having an attack of the red bulls it was game one, fresh tyres gave him that extra speed and grip.

Lap 21 we sadly saw a retirement from Jolyon Palmer no drama involved.

Lap 25 commenced with the only pit stop to be taken by Hamilton, bringing him back out to 2nd behind Vettel. With Vettel taking an early pit stop could he hold out for the whole race?

At this part of the race you could clearly see Rosberg putting pressure on everybody in front of him, he shouldn’t have been amidst middle markers it looked like this was not to be Rosberg’s day.

Lap 34 involved the 2nd pit stop for Kimi’s Ferrari being rather quiet this race and not making a huge impact pitted first. Vettel in Lap 37 obviously losing time and coming out behind Hamilton. This 2 stop strategy was not going to work for them. Only a Safety car would have brought them back together to fight it out with the speed of Ferrari’s it would have hard to determine who would have won on a head to head battle, unfortunately we were not treated to this in Canada.

Sad times for Williams when Massa retired for the first time this year on lap 52, first retirement this year. Lets not forget this man nearly became World Champion in 2008 he should not be underestimated.

Rosberg’s day became worse when he had a slow puncture running up to lap 51 managing to getting to 4th unfortunately this dropped him back to 7th although this was not stopping him and you would clearly see he fought all the way through the race. Personally I would give him driver of the day. By lap 64 he was giving Mad Max in 4th a run for his money pushing constant pressure on the teenager but unfortunately Rosberg made an error with a only a couple of laps to go losing time and leaving Max to drive without a Mercedes constantly in his mirror. Poor Rosberg, lucky Max.

Hamilton floated to the finish line, quoting the late Muhammed Ali “float like a butterfly, sting like bee” a thoughtful and considerate dedication.

Now 9 points behind Championship leader Rosberg can Hamilton take the lead in Baku! Lets not forget Vettel and Ricciardo are still able to grab the title too. The Ferrari’s and Red Bulls are getting stronger. With 13 races to go anything could happen!

*I would not encourage anybody to try and watch the full coverage of the 2011 Canadian GP, maybe catch the highlights on YouTube if possible – let’s just say I ate all the contents of my fridge waiting for the race to get going.