Hamilton wins as Rosberg's dream up in flames

Hamilton wins as Nico’s dream in smoke

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes wont the Italian F1 Grand Prix 2015 race from pole while his teammate Nico Rosberg’s car went up in smoke.

Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari who started third finished in second position and Felipe Massa of Williams came third. Valtteri Bottas of Williams was 4th.

Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari started second on the grid and it was expected that he may snatch the race lead from Hamilton. However, fortune doesn’t seem to favour Kimi. His car stalled when the race started and he dropped to 18th position. He then had to fight through the field and finished in 5th position.

Vettel was 25 seconds behind Hamilton. And that may play a role as the Mercedes cars of Hamilton and Rosberg are being investigated for alleged tyre pressure problem. However, Mercedes has said that the tyre pressure was verified by the Pirelli engineer. The guidelines by the tyre supplier Pirelli states that teams must race with tyre pressures of 19.5psi or above. Lewis Hamilton’s left rear tyre was 0.3 psi lower than the suggested 19.5psi and Nico Rosberg’s left rear tyre was 1.1 psi lower. Normally in F1, the measurements are pretty accurate unlike the tyre pressure instruments that we use for our consumer cars. So it is indeed a surprise.

In lap 49, Mercedes gave a coded message to Hamilton “Start mode three, we need to pull the gap. Don’t ask questions, just pull the gap”. So Lewis Hamilton immediately upped his pace. At the end Lewis Hamilton has 25.042 seconds lead over Sebastian Vettel. Even if the stewards slap a 25 seconds time penalty on Hamilton, still he will win the race. Edit: The stewards decided that there would not be any penalty due to the lower tyre pressure on Lewis Hamilton's car.

Sergio Perez of Force India finished in sixth. His teammate Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was hit in the opening lap and somehow managed to survive and finish in 7th. However, he was lapped once. Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull was 8th. He was followed by Marcus Ericsson of Sauber in 9th. Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull was 10th to grab the last point.


There were a few retirements in the race.
Pastor Maldonado of Lotus hit the kerbs hard in the first lap and retired his car. His teammate Romain Grosjean was hit from the back and had to also retire the car. Fernando Alonso of McLaren too had a DNF due to an unknown technical issue in lap 50. Nico Rosberg’s car was up in flames a lap later when he was running in third position.



Lewis Hamilton’s championship lead over his teammate Nico Rosberg is now 53 points and it seems Hamilton will easily cruise to the title.

Results of Italian F1 Grand Prix 2015

Schumacher says Pirelli tyres is like driving on raw eggs

Tyre War continues


We had earlier talked about the tyre wars which started with Michael Schumacher criticising Pirelli tyres for its high degradation.
http://www.arjunaubacha.blogspot.in/2012/05/politics-around-pirelli-tyres.html

Pirelli had hit back at Michael casting aspersions on his driving ability. Many players then jumped into the fray.

Now Michael Schumacher is not taking it lying down. He has continued from where he had left earlier. While speaking to CNN, Michael Schumacher said

Tyre Wars: McLaren supports Schumacher

The Politics around the Pirelli tyres is not going to die down soon.
Michael Schumacher, the seven time Formula One champion had kicked up a storm when he had expressed his displeasure about the high degradation of the Pirelli tyres after the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix. Pirelli Motorsport director hit back at him casting aspersions on his ability to drive. Further details of that can be found in our previous article:
http://www.arjunaubacha.blogspot.in/2012/05/politics-around-pirelli-tyres.html

Now, Martin Whitemarsh, Principal of McLaren team has lent his voice to the debate and has agreed to Michael Schumacher's expressed views that the tyres have become a decisive factor in the races. He said "These tyres are very, very challenging. If you are in the sweet spot, you are in great shape. If not, your are in for a pretty tough time, and it gave both of our drivers a tough time. We were clearly too hard on the tyres. They were going away very quickly, and both drivers really struggled."

With the Spanish Grand Prix round the corner and Pirelli allocating the hard and the soft compounds where the degradation between the two compounds is higher, it is going to be pretty interesting to watch how each team copes up with it.

Clearly the last word on the subject has not been spoken.

Politics around Pirelli tyres

Politics is the second name of F1.

Now it has been triggered by Michael Schumacher's comments about tyres.

Michael Schumacher expressed his displeasure regarding the heavy degradation of Pirelli tyres after the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Schumacher was quoted as saying "I had to drive at a pace to manage the tyres to finish with tyres left over. We should question whether that should be the case. It is unsatisfying and not what a Formula 1 event should be."

He further added that "If 80 or 90% complain, maybe Pirelli should think about it."

However, the director of Pirelli  Motorsports Mr. Paul Hembery hit back at Michael Schumacher. Rather than denying Michael's opinion that high tyre degradation is not good for Formula 1, he choose to discredit Michael Schumacher by saying "Formula one has always been a meritocracy - in the end the best engineers and drivers will always succeed."

Since Michael Schumacher hasn't been in the Podium since he has made his come back, Paul Hembery is suggesting that Michael is not good and his opinion doesn't count.

Latching on to the situation is Nico Rosberg. This young german teammate of Michael Schumacher, has always tried to attack or show Michael in a less then positive light, albeit in a subtle manner.

Rosberg in an interview to Autosport responded by saying "No. It's just a very different game. We have seen already this year that when you go from one condition to another, one racetrack to another, on temperature to another... different cars are better on tyres, so there's a very big engineering challenge to understand why, to adapt and to try and be the one to understand the tyres best..."

In the first two races of the season Michael Schumacher was much faster that Rosberg but unfortunately could not score many points. In China, Rosberg won and Michael who as running second had to retire due to his wheel not secured during the tyre change. So Rosberg is trying to say that he is better and Michael is not able to adapt.

In a highly competitive environment like F1, Michael Schumacher has won 7 world titles and doesn't suffer from any inferiority complex, unlike his team mate who only won his first race after participating in more than 100 races.

In the latest turn of events, Mark Webber has jumped to defend Pirelli tyres. It may be noted that the performance of Mark Webber of Redbull in the previous season was abysmal. In this year, in the first three Formula 1 races, he did better than his teammate Sebastian Vettel. Vettel bounced back to score a victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Also, with Redbull cars doing well in the hot weather of Bahrain than the previous cold and wet races, it is normal that they don't want to say anything bad against Pirelli.

We haven't heard the last of this different kind of war over tyres. We will keep you updated as and when the various protagonists decide to fire....