Saturday, April 30, 2016

Rosberg scores RussianGP Pole as Hamilton Suffers

Rosberg scores Russian Pole as Hamilton suffers


Nico Rosberg easily raced to the pole in the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi as luckless Lewis Hamilton couldn’t race in Q3 due to power unit problem.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel finished second and 0.706s slower than Rosberg. However, he has changed a gear box unit and it means 5 slot penalty. So Sebastian Vettel drops down to 7th.

Valtteri Bottas of Williams came third. Now he will be promoted to 2nd in the starting line up for tomorrow’s race.

Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari finished in fourth and now will start in third place. Along side Kimi Raikkonen will be his former teammate Felipe Massa of Williams.

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull and Sergio Perez of Force India will start in 5th and 6th places respectively.

Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull, the local lad and favourite of the Russians will start in 8th place after Sebastian Vettel.

Max Verstappen will start in 9th. Lewis Hamilton had qualified for Q3 based on his Q2 timings but couldn’t race in Q3. So he finished 10th. We will wait to see if he drops down further in the starting grid due to any changes to his power unit. In the last race in China, Lewis started from the pit stop and finished in 7th position. However, he was hit by one of the cars. He would be hoping that he doesn’t get involved in any accident which further mars his race.

Hamilton said it is the “same failure as I had last race. I went back out in Q2 at the end to get a better lap and lost the same power as I lost in China. Nothing I can do”.

Lewis Hamilton is 39 points behind Nico Rosberg. So today's car problems adds to his challenges and his hopes of winning this years title may be vanishing.

#RussianGP Qualifying 2016


Sunday, April 17, 2016

Rosberg scores third win on the trot

Chinese Nightmare ends with 7th place for Hamilton


Lewis Hamilton had a nightmarish Chinese Grand Prix 2016. First he had a gearbox change and 5 place penalty added to his qualifying position. Then he had an ERS failure during qualifying and had to start at 22nd position. Though he drove through the field, Felipe Nasr of Sauber hit him and due to the heavy damage he had to be content with the 7 th place finish. Hamilton needed a humongous 5 pitstops to complete his race.

Rosberg continued his winning streak by adding the third race in this years calendar to his kitty. His job was made easier when Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari hit his teammate Kimi Raikkonen. Vettel came second with a massive 37 seconds behind Rosberg. Daniil Kvyat of Redbull scored a podium finish. He was followed by his teammate Daniel Ricciardo in 4th. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari was 5th.

Felipe Massa of Williams was 6th and finished 3 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes.

The Toro Rosso duo of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz finished in 8th and 9th positions. The final points paying position was taken by Valtteri Bottas of Williams.

After scoring points in the first two races, the Haas team didn't score a single point in this race. Esteban Gutierrez finished in 14th and Romain Grosjean on 19th position for the Haas team.

The defending champion Lewis Hamilton is now on the backfoot. His teammate Nico Rosberg has won all the three races this season and has 75 points. Hamilton now has 39 points due to two second place positions and the 7th place in China. Daniel Ricciardo is on 36 points and is followed by Sebastian Vettel in 33 and Kimi Raikkonen in 28. These initial points are pretty valuable and it will now put Hamilton under severe pressure to up his game.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Nico Rosberg wins the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg wins the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix


Nico Rosberg won the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix. Kimi Raikkonen finished in second position as he did last year. Pole sitter Lewis Hamilton finished in Third. 

Lewis Hamilton again started from the pole for the second time this season and again he lost the lead to his teammate Nico Rosberg. In turn 1 Rosberg squeezed in and then Valtteri Bottas of Williams hit Hamilton from behind. Hamilton went down and then showing his characteristic grit moved up by overtaking other drivers. As defending champion this was a case of limiting damage ie reducing the deficit to Nico Rosberg who is leading the race by virtue of his two back to back wins.

Hamilton chose a different strategy than Rosberg. In the first pit stop, Hamilton shifted to medium tyres whereas Rosberg took the softs. As a result the gap between Rosberg and Hamilton grew. In lap 19, Rosberg was 11.3 seconds ahead of Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari, who in turn was 9 seconds ahead of Hamilton.

Disaster stuck Sebastian Vettel in the formation lap and his engine failed. This is his first DNS (Did Not Start) in his Formula 1 career. In the opening lap Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez made contact and Sainz got a puncture. In Lap 10, Jenson Button of McLaren lost the ERS and stopped. In the next lap, Esteban Gutierrez of Haas retired.

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull finished in 4th. Romain Grosjean of Haas finished in 5th. It was the best finish for the Haas team and confirms that they are going to finish in good position in their debut season.

Verstappen of Toro Rosso finished in 6th. He was followed by Felipe Massa in 7th. Massa was 1 lap down. Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull finished in 8th. Valtteri Bottas of Williams finished in 9th. Vandoorne of McLaren finished in 10th  and last points paying position. Vandoorne was drafted in place of Fernando Alonso who was declared medically unfit for the race. 

Magnussen finished in 11th and was followed by Marcus Ericsson in 12th.Wehrlein of Manor was 13th followed by Felipe Nasr in 14th.

It was a bad day for Force India. Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was 15th followed by Sergio Perez in 16th. Haryanto finished in 17th.

Final Results in Bahrain F1 Grand Prix 2016