Rosberg wins Spanish Grand Prix from Pole

As was expected, Nico Rosberg of Mercedes won the Spanish Grand Prix after starting from Pole position. It is extremely difficult to overtake in Spanish Grand Prix. So the pole position virtually assures the winner unless there is a problem with reliability of the car the driver has a momentary lapse of concentration. Neither of which occurred in Barcelona and Rosberg raced to victory. His teammate and F1 Championship leader Lewis Hamilton finished second. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari finished third.

Lewis Hamilton’s only chance of overtaking Nico Rosberg was at the start of the race. However, Hamilton had too much wheel spin and not only he couldn’t challenge Rosberg, but also Sebastian Vettel overtook him. At that moment the thought of race victory perhaps overtook him. Whatever dreams of race victory he might have had, completely vanished when he had a tardy first pitstop. His mechanic couldn’t remove his left rear wheel nut and he had to stop for 5.2seconds. That was more than double the time Ferrari took for Vettel’s first pit stop. Sebastian Vettel had a 2.3 second pitstop. In comparison Rosberg’s pitstop was 2.5 seconds long. Mercedes put Hamilton in a 3 pit stop strategy and it helped him to overtake Sebastian Vettel.

Nico Rosberg finished 17.5 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Sebastian Vettel was a further 15 seconds behind Hamilton. It must have hurt Ferrari that its other driver Kimi Raikkonen couldn’t finish in fourth. Valtteri Bottas drove a strong race and Kimi couldn’t overtake him. Valtteri Bottas finished 12 seconds behind Vettel and Kimi was another 10 seconds behind Bottas. Felipe Massa finished another 8 seconds behind Kimi in 6th position. All other drivers were lapped atleast one lap.

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull finished seventh and was lapped once. Romain Grosjean of Lotus was P8 followed by Carlos Sainz in P9 and Daniil Kvyat in P10.

Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso finished in 11th and outside the points paying positions. He was followed by Felipe Nasr of Sauber in 12th.

Sergio Perez of Force India was 13th and was followed by Marcus Ericsson of Sauber in 14th. Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was 15th and was followed by McLaren’s Jenson Button in 16th.

The two Manor Marussia racing cars of Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi came in last at 17th and 18th positions.

The Spanish crowd favourite Fernando Alonso retired in lap 26 due to brake failure. Infact during a pitstop he couldn’t stop at his mark and the jack flew after getting hit. Fortunately nothing major happened. One wonders if the double world champion did the right thing to make this move to McLaren. Some even doubt whether he will win a race again.

It was again a bad day in office for Pastor Maldonado. He was driving aggressively and was P7 at one point of time. However, he had a collision with his teammate and his rear wing was damaged. The resulting pitstop was a big setback and he couldn’t recover from it and had to retire on lap 45.

F1 Championship Race 2015

After the Spanish Grand Prix, the following is the F1 2015 Championship Race

Sl. No. Driver                         Team              Points

1.         Lewis Hamilton          Mercedes       111

2.         Nico Rosberg              Mercedes       91

3.         Sebastian Vettel         Ferrari            80

4.         Kimi Raikkonen         Ferrari            52

5.         Valtteri Bottas            Williams        42

6.         Felipe Massas             Williams        39

7.         Daniel Ricciardo        Red Bull         25

8.         Romain Grosjean       Lotus              16

9.         Felipe Nasr                Sauber            14

10.       Carlos Sainz              Toro Rosso     8

11.       Max Verstappen        Toro Rosso     6

12.       Nico Hulkenberg       Force India     6

13.       Sergio Perez              Force India     5

14.       Marcus Ericsson        Sauber            5

15.       Daniil Kvyat              Red Bull         5

16.       Fernando Alonso       McLaren         0

17.       Jenson Button            McLaren         0

18.       Roberto Merhi           Marussia         0

19.       Will Stevens              Marussia         0

20.       Pastor Maldonado     Lotus               0

Finally Rosberg beats Hamilton to Pole in Spain

Nico Rosberg finally managed to beat Lewis Hamilton and score the first pole in this season in the Spanish Grand Prix 2015. Nico Rosberg scored a time of 1m 24.681 to Hamilton’s 1m 24.948 seconds. It was a convincing gap between the two. They ran on medium tyres.

In the top ten shootout in Q3 of the qualifying, the drivers generally go for two runs. Hamilton as well as Nico Rosberg set their top times in the first run. In the second run Hamilton couldn’t try and beat the provisional pole set by Rosberg and had to settle for second. Sebastian Vettel of Ferarri came in third behind the two Mercedes cars after he set a time of 1m 25.458. His teammate Kimi Raikkonen could only score a P7.


Valtteri Bottas of Williams came in P4 with a time of 1m 25.694. He was followed by Carlos Sainz Jr of Toro Rosso with a time of 1m 26.136. As a rookie and that too a Spanish, it must be a great feeling for Sainz beating the favourite Spaniard Fernando Alonso in Spain.

Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso came in P6 with a time of 1m 26. 249 seconds. Kimi Raikkonen whose contract with Ferrari expires end of this season is expected to do well and beat his teammate. However, he could only set a time of 1m 26.414 for P7.

Danil Kvyat of Red Bull was P8 as he came in at 1m 26.629. He was followed by Felipe Massa of Williams at 1m 26.757 and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull with a time of 1m 26. 770.

Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado of Lotus will start tomorrow at 11th and 12th positions respectively in the race tomorrow. The Lotus duo were followed by the McLaren drivers who were lead by Fernando Alonso in 13th and Jenson Button in 14th.

Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson of Sauber will start in 15th and 16th positions. The Force India duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez will start in 17th and 18th positions. Their times are about 3.5 seconds behind the pole timing and it shows how low they have fallen primarily due to the lack of funds. It would be pertinent to mention that one of the promoters of Force India, Subroto Roy is in jail for nearly a year as his company has not been able to furnish a bail bond of 1 billion dollars. The other promoter of Force India and its principal Dr. Vijay Mallya is also in deep financial trouble. Mallya’s Kingfisher airlines went bankrupt and Mallya is also been hounded by banks to recover the money. So it shows that even a midfield team in F1 can’t sustain just based on their performance.

The last placed drivers are as expectedly from Manor racing. Will Stevens again out qualified his teammate Roberto Merhi. Will Stevens scored 1m 31.200 vs 1m 32.038 of his teammate. Both of them will start in 19th and 20th position.

Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying Results:

Lewis Hamilton scores second Sakhir Win amid drama

Lewis Hamilton sped from pole without any incident but was fortunate to win the race as Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari was only 3.3 seconds behind him with faster soft tyres and Hamilton was facing problems with his brake. Nico Rosberg of Mercedes came third and was followed by Valtteri Bottas of Williams in fourth and Sebastian Vettel of Ferarri in fifth.

Ferrari made an interesting call to put Raikkonen on medium tyres after the first stint whereas Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg of Mercedes and Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari chose to shod soft tyres again during the first pit stop. So this leading trio had medium tyres at the end and Raikkonen had the faster soft tyres in the last stint. Sebastian Vettel unfortunately ran wide in lap 35 and had to change the nose of his car. This pushed him down the order.

It was not all happy speeding away from pole for Hamilton. The Mercedes team did a tardy pit stop and this resulted in Lewis Hamilton just emerging ahead of his team-mate Nico Rosberg’s car and the distance separating the two would not be more than even a feet. At that time Rosberg was in battle with Sebastian Vettel.

Fortunately there were not incidents and Lewis Hamilton could resume his race lead and then soon create a gap between him and others. However, on the penultimate lap both the Mercedes cars faced brake problems. So Kimi Raikkonen could overtake Nico Rosberg and finish second. He was barely 3.3 seconds behind Hamilton and if there was perhaps even one more lap to go then Kimi would have overtaken Lewis Hamilton. So Mercedes needs to remain on their toes, else suddenly Ferrari can just snatch away wins like they did in Malaysia.

There are some people who felt that Mercedes purposefully slowed their cars down during the second stint, so that the gap between Mercedes and others doesn’t appear very big. There have been calls from other teams, especially by Red Bull to bring in a regulation and take away the advantage of Mercedes. In the strictest sense, F1 is not a sport as the drivers within a team can only race each other if they are allowed to by their teams. Now the call to penalise the leading team because others are not competitive is clearly against free competition. However, F1 is also not an equal opportunity sport for all teams. The top teams negotiate with CVC the rights holder and Bernie Ecclestone and get a major portion of the revenues. The lower ranked teams get less. Add to that the money power of the top teams like Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes and one can easily know that the independent teams find it very difficult to spend money and compete. Red Bull had dominated F1 for four consecutive years and for the first time last year they lost the title to Mercedes. And since this year they are not in the pace, immediately they are calling to change the rules and throttle Mercedes. Such is the politics in F1. If this results in fans moving away from the sport, then it won’t come as a surprise.

Vettel’s former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull finished sixth. This is a better than expected result for the Red Bull team especially since they finished higher then their sister team Toro Rosso which has way less resources than Red Bull. Both the Toro Rosso’s didn’t finish. However, Ricciardo’s Renault engine died while he crossed the finish line and won’t be usable later. Romain Grosjean of Lotus is having a much better luck than last year and he finished in seventh and was followed by Sergio Perez’s Force India.

Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull came in ninth with two points. Felipe Massa of Williams was 10th. Massa had to start from the pitlane as his car stalled. He however could muscle his way through and atleast salvage one point.

The drivers from 8th onwards were lapped.

It was another bad day for McLaren team as Jenson Button couldn’t even drive the race as there was an electrical problem with his engine recovery system. Fortunately the other car driven by Alonso could run the full race distance and finished in 11th. However, they are still slow and need much more development to be competitive.

Rookie Felipe Nasr of Sauber came in 12th followed by Nico Hulkenberg of Force India. Marcus Ericsson of Sauber was 14th and was followed by Pastor Maldonado of Lotus in 15th.

Will Stevens of Manor racing came in 16th and was lapped twice. His team-mate Roberto Merhi was three laps down.

Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari had the distinction of scoring the fastest lap of the race with a 1m 36.311s in the lap 42 denying Lewis Hamilton having the distinction of Pole, win and fastest lap.

Hamilton beats Rosberg for Mercedes 1-2 in Shanghai

Mercedes came back to familiar race results with Lewis Hamilton winning the Chinese Grand Prix at Shangai and Nico Rosberg finishing in 2nd position. Sebastian Vettel of Redbull came in third behind the two Mercedes drivers.

Sebastian Vettel’s Malaysia win had shocked the F1 world, and Mercedes would be breathing easy now after this win in China. However, the victory by Mercedes was not one-sided as it was in Australia. Sebastian Vettel was not far behind and there was danger of Nico Rosberg losing the second place to him. The Mercedes team even urged Lewis Hamilton to quicken his pace, as he was cruising at a steady pace instead of the full pace that his machine was capable off. Mercedes even told Lewis Hamilton that if he did not increase his pace then may be forced to allow Nico Rosberg to the pits before Lewis Hamilton. It is an accepted fact that the leading driver of the team gets the first chance to pit before his team-mate. Infact Rosberg’s tyres were bad so he finally got a chance to pit before Hamilton, but Lewis Hamilton took the chance to quicken his pace and score a fastest lap.

Ferrari’s pace was not good in the medium tyres which they took in the last stint. They were a match to the Mercedes in the soft tyres. The race finished with the safety car as the youngest driver on the grid, Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso had to stop his smoking car on the pit straight and surprisingly it couldn’t be removed in time. This definitely impacted the race results as the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen was charging fast and could have snatched the third spot from team-mate Sebastian Vettel, as Kimi had fresh tyres on his car and the gap between the cars had dropped to only 1.3 seconds. When a car is within one second of the preceding car, it can deploy the DRS in the designated DRS zone and overtake. Kimi, a good friend of Vettel might be cursing his luck.

The Williams cars of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas came in fifth and sixth confirming that they have fallen behind Ferrari as well. Last year Williams were just behind Mercedes and were dreaming of a race victory, especially in Brazil where Felipe Massa was leading.

Romain Grosjean, the original bad boy of 2013, finished in seventh and got the first points for Lotus. 2014 was a forgettable year for Lotus with their team principal moving to McLaren and Kimi moving to Ferrari. They had financial trouble as well. This year after moving to Mercedes engines from Renault engines, they are having a better time.

Felipe Nasr of Sauber finished in eighth ahead of Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull. Ricciardo had a dreadful start to the Chinese F1 Grand Prix as he accidentally hit the auto stall during the start. He somehow held his nerves and showed a gritty performance to finish in points in 9th place. He must be happy that Verstappen of sister car Toro Rosso, who was scheduled to finish in eighth had to retire with a smoking Renault engine. Despite the much higher budget of Red bull, the sister cars of Toro Rosso are doing better.

Marcus Ericsson must be very happy moving to Sauber as he finished in points by claiming the 10th and last points paying position. He was one lap down. Sergio Perez of Force India came in 11th.

Jenson Button made a mistake and hit Pastor Maldonado’s Lotus car from behind. Button accepted his fault and was penalised with 5 seconds. So he finished in 14th and his team-mate Fernando Alonso finished in 12th. Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso was 13th.

It must be a very sad day for Fernando Alonso, who left Ferrari to join McLaren, as Ferrari is doing well this year and the Ferrari cars lapped the McLaren of Alonso.

Both the Marussia cars managed to finish the race and would be very happy with the reliability. They couldn’t race in the season opener at Melbourne. In Malaysia they only ran one car. At Shanghai in the Chinese F1 Grand Prix, Will Stevens lead his team-mate Roberto Merhi for a 15th and 16th position finish.

Retirements in Chinese F1 Grand Prix

Max Verstappen                Toro Rosso
Pastor Maldonado             Lotus
Daniil Kvyat                     Red Bull
Nico Hulkenberg              Force India

Vettel surprises Mercedes to score first victory

Vettel surprises Mercedes to score first victory in Malaysian F1 Grand Prix

In a major upset, Sebastian Vettel who started second on the grid, took the benefit of safety car and score his first win for Mercedes. It was also the first win for Ferrari in the new engine era since 2013.

Lewis Hamilton, the pole sitter finished in second followed by Nico Rosberg in third. Though Lewis Hamilton started on pole, Marcus Ericsson caused the Safety car deployment as early as the 4th lap and the Mercedes cars choose to get into the pits but Vettel continued to race. After the pitstop, the Mercedes cars joined in the middle of the car packs following the safety car. So it took a lot of time for Lewis Hamilton to overtake the other cars and by that time Vettel had built a lead of over 9 seconds and the tyres of Mercedes had worn out. So Sebastian Vettel's two stop strategy won over the three stopping Mercedes cars.

To prove that Ferrari's resurgence is not a fluke, Kimi Raikkonen who had to contend with the P11 in qualifying due to rain, drove a good race to finish fourth. This result is really good because he even had a puncture due to coming in contact with Felipe Nasr.

Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa of Williams finished in 5th an 6th.

Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso wrote his name in the record books as the youngest points scorer in Formula 1 history. He is only 17 years of age and many people had expressed grave concerns for allowing him to race. His teammate Carlos Sainz came in 8th.

Interestingly, the two Red Bull cars of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat rounded up the points scoring positions.

The cars from 8th onwards were lapped.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus came in 11th. Felipe Nasr of Sauber was 12th. They were followed by the Force India cars of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg. Roberto Merhi of Manor came in 15th and last position, three laps behind the race leader. Manor racing was allowed to race by the Stewards, however, Will Stevens couldn't participate due to a fuel pump problem.

Did Not Finish in Malaysian F1 Grand Prix

Pastor Maldonado
Jenson Button
Fernando Alonso
Marcus Ericsson

Did Not Start:

Will Stevens - due to fuel pump issue

Hamilton beats Vettel to Pole in Wet Malaysia

Lewis Hamilton beats Vettel to Pole in wet Malaysia

The Qualifying for the F1 Grand Prix in Malaysia started on a wet note and as a result the cars were more closer to each other. Ferrari surprised others by its pace and Sebastian Vettel pushed Nico Rosberg to third place as Lewis Hamilton took the pole for the second time this season.

Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes scored a 1m:49.834 seconds to secure the pole position and beat Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari by 0.074 seconds. Vettel scored 1m 49.908. Nico Rosberg's Mercedes came third with a time of 1m 50.299 seconds. After the previous race Nico Rosberg had joked that he wants Ferrari to be closer, as he wanted someone to take away points from Lewis Hamilton. However, it appears that Sebastian Vettel may take away points from Nico Rosberg in the race tomorrow.

The Rain Gods came down at full force at the middle of the Q2 completely spoiling the plans of various teams. It all boiled down to whether the cars were able to get clear path infront of them to score a good time or not. Unfortunately, Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari didn't not get it and was stuck behind a Sauber and hence could only score P11 and not qualify for the top ten shoot out.

The Red Bull cars of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat qualified at 4th and 5th with times of 1m: 51.541s and 1m: 51.951 seconds.

They were followed by the youngest driver on the grid Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso at 6th. Felipe Massa of Williams was 7th at 1m: 52.473 seconds. Romain Grosjean of Lotus was 8th.

Valtteri Bottas of Williams was declared fit to race in this race and he clocked a qualifying time of 1m: 53.179 to qualify at 9th position. Marcus Ericsson of Sauber was 10th at 153.261 seconds.

Kimi Raikkonen will start tomorrow at 11th, followed by Pastor Maldonado of Lotus at 12. The 13th and 14th positions were taken by the two Force India cars of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez.

Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso and Felipe Nasr of Sauber were 15th and 16th. Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso of McLaren qualified last at 17th and 18th positions.

The Two Manor Racing cars of finished outside the 107% qualifying time of 1:46.217 and can race if they are allowed by the Stewards. One of them, Will Stevens had set a time in the FP2 on friday which was better than the 107% time. Stevens didn't race today due to a fuel pressure problem. We will soon know the verdict of the stewards.

Hamilton wins F1 Melbourne season opener

Lewis Hamilton wins F1 Melbourne Season Opener

As expected Mercedes dominated in the 2015 season opener at Melbourne and defending champion Lewis Hamilton lead his teammate Nico Rosberg into a 1-2 finish in the Melbourne F1 Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel marked his Ferrari stint with a podium finish whereas teammate Kimi Raikkonen was done with due to a tyre not fit properly.

The 2015 F1 Grand Prix season opener had a lot of drama even before the engines were revved. Giedo van der Garde had filed a case against Sauber claiming that he had a contract with Sauber for racing in the 2015 season. Sauber denied that. However, in the court Sauber couldn't defend it. However, not to be undone, Sauber did not sign on the papers for the dutchman Garde to get the FIA Super license to be eligible to drive in the race. Finally they decided to continue discussing for an out of court settlement and Sauber raced with its nominated 2015 drivers, and out of those two drivers Felipe Nasr finished in 5th position. It finished the points drought of Sauber as it had gone blank in 2014.

Felipe Massa of Williams finished in 4th position. He had voiced his opinion about Ferrari being strong this year and he was proved right. His teammate Valtteri Bottas couldn't race due to a back injury during qualifying.

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull was 6th followed by Nico Hulkenberg of Force India in 7th. It was a very credible finish for Hulkenberg as Force India had hardly three days of testing due to funds constraints. Sahara group, one of the co-owners of Force India is in dire financial conditions. The owner of the Sahara group Subrata Roy is in jail since last year and has been unable to furnish the record bail amount of 10,000 crores of rupees which is slightly more than one and half billion dollars. Vijay Mallya, the other co-owner and face of Force India, himself is being hounded by the various banks as his Kingfisher airlines have sunk reportedly due to financial mis-management and the banks have lost around billion dollars lent to Kingfisher Airlines.

Marcus Ericsson of Sauber came in 8th to score 4 points. Carl Sainz of Toro Rosso was 9th with 2 points followed by Sergio Perez of Force India in the 10th and last points paying position.

Jenson Button of McLaren was finished 11th and out of points paying position. It was atleast good for the McLaren using the Honda engine that Button could atleast drive an entire race distance and the resulting feedback can help improve the team. The other McLaren was driven by Kevin Magnussen who failed to put in a lap. McLaren's high profile signing of Fernando Alonso had made an even bigger controversy when Alonso hit the wall during testing and appeared to have passed out. There were rumours that Alonso got an electrical shock and hit the wall at a medium speed. Later Alonso was advised to sit out the Australian Grand Prix. Unfortunately, his replacement the reserve driver Kevin Magnussen's car along with Daniil Kvyat's car couldn't start and only 15 cars started the race.

Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado were involved in accidents and couldn't last long. Verstappen, the 17 year old driver of Toro Rosso also retired.