Monaco GP Report - Righting a wrong

It was the Monaco Grand Prix in the here and now. But, throughout, many minds were on that two years ago.

Daniel Ricciardo got his Monaco redemption, two years on
Photo: Octane Photography

Then Daniel Ricciardo dominated the Monaco weekend, but lost the win due to Red Bull botching a pitstop. This time he dominated if anything to a greater extent - topping every single practice and qualifying session. Again he led the race. Again though he met problems - this time with his engine. But this time he overcame them to win. In more than one sense he righted a wrong.

To begin with the race was typical Monaco. The poleman Ricciardo led from the line and looking untroubled. Then after the round of what was predicted to be the solitary stops all among the frontrunners stayed in the same order. And track position is ten tenths of the law here.

But another thing typical of Monaco is that it can bite. Things, somehow, happen here. Ricciardo knows this better than most.

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Williams' Unexpected Reveal Shocks Sauber

Sauber is on pole position - to launch 2017's first Formula 1 car. The strange part is that two relatively unknown drivers (Ericsson and Wehrlein) will unveil the new looking Formula 1 car. Given the excitement around the new look, couldn't Formula 1 (read: Liberty Media) get some of their superstar drivers to do so?

But this pole position works well for Sauber. It is a PR masterstroke. This unveil might garner them more publicity than the previous two seasons put together. As for McLaren, they almost clinched pole! Their agency might have just leaked their livery images on social media.

PS: Williams' unexpected reveal on Autosport/Motorsport was after this podcast was recorded and published.

Nico Rosberg wants to go back to being friends with Lewis Hamilton. Is it easier for him to say so now that he's beaten him? Either way, we think Rosberg-Hamilton could be the Rocky Balboa-Apollo Creed of Formula 1.

And in this week's episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast, we dissect Juan Pablo Montoya's comment on 'weak' European drivers, the engine fire-up by teams, Kimi Raikkonen's karaoke skills and new bar and Fernando Alonso's really cool emojis.

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Let's Bring Juan Pablo Montoya Back To Formula 1

Is this Formula 1's busiest 'off-season' yet? There's been an overdose of stories in this period: from Mercedes hiring Valtteri Bottas as Nico Rosberg's replacement, Formula 1's sale and Bernie Ecclestone being forcibly replaced to Juan Pablo Montoya's Race of Champions victory on debut and Sebastian Vettel's single-handled efforts winning Germany their 7th Race of Champion Nations Cup! (PS: we love the Juan 'juan' ROC jokes!)

In this week's episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast, we tell you why Formula 1 would never go the Race of Champions way, even if it is a fun format. We also decode why Max Verstappen might never participate in the ROC.

Pascal Wehrlein's crash was heart-stopping! Does it worry Monisha (Kaltenborn) about her budgets for 2017? And did anyone notice the fan seated next to Wehrlein? Through the entire crash, this fan was on his (or her) phone shooting content! We'd love to see the fan's footage. If you've not seen this picture yet, go over to our Facebook page.

Finally, Formula 1's sale saw the unthinkable but the long overdue happen - Bernie Ecclestone's dismissal. Much like Formula 1 hopes to benefit by bringing Ross Brawn back, we're sure the sport can benefit much by bringing back the uber talented and mercurial Juan Pablo Montoya. Tune in!

(Season 2017, Episode 04)

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Nico Hulkenberg Gets Funny On The Inside Line

Nico Hulkenberg debuts on the Inside Line F1 Podcast! In the off-season, we will bring to you a few Formula 1 drivers talking about their favourite radio messages and jokes from the sport.

After Nico Rosberg and David Coulthard's successful interviews on the Inside Line F1 Podcast, we now have the famous 'Hulk'. In this week's episode, Hulkenberg tells us his funniest radio message, how he found Juan Pablo Montoya funny in Austria in 2001 and his struggles in trying to remember his favourite Formula 1 joke.

Apart from the Hulkenberg special, we talk about Mercedes' overdrive to find Nico Rosberg's replacement and cashing in on the positive PR around it. Strangely enough, 'overtaking' was not added as a skill in their much-publicised advert for a Formula 1 driver. Get the hint?

If Fernando Alonso doesn't fill the vacant cockpit, does it indicate a decline in Bernie Ecclestone's control over the sport? And in no way is Valtteri Bottas a brave choice, Mr. Wolff. Let's hope that all the powers combine bring to us a Hamilton-Alonso pairing in 2017!

And finally, remember to subscribe to us on iTunes or Audio Boom as we bring to you Sergio 'Checo' Perez next week.

Tune in!

(Season 2016, Episode 43)

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Will Hamilton Still Back Verstappen's Aggressive Moves?

Max Verstappen pulled off a 'Verstappen' on Lewis Hamilton at Suzuka. This made us wonder, will Lewis Hamilton still back Max Verstappen's aggressive moves? The Hamilton vs. Verstappen battle was our highlight moment!

The FIA had a chat with Verstappen and told him that they're 'watching' him. Well, if not for Verstappen, who have the FIA been watching all of 2016? This lad has had our eyes glued on him. Maybe, Baby Vettel is now THE Vettel for Red Bull Racing.

The Rosberg vs. Hamilton battle - we're hoping for at least one on-track battle between the two title rivals before this year's championship is concluded. However, it seems that Hamilton is hell bent on picking battles on and off track. We discuss the various avoidable episodes for the Lewis Hamilton camp from the last week. By the way, some of it reminded us of the prank played on Juan Pablo Montoya in 2004.

Will Nico Rosberg be a worthy Formula 1 champion? That's the latest debate on social media and while we're not taking sides, we do add our perspectives from this season. At the same time, we should be thankful that we've a fight on our hands (and on the telly) as we witness the 2016 Drivers' Championship being fought tooth-and-nail between two team-mates, driving for a team that's been very fair and just in their approach towards both contenders. On that note, THANK YOU and CONGRATULATIONS, Mercedes!

Mercedes to Formula E? We tell you why they're eyeing another single-seater championship and if Red Bull and Ferrari could follow suit too. Are Mercedes too bored of dominating Formula 1 and now have their sights on Formula E? Also, if Formula E's prowess grows in the coming years, will Formula 1 lose its relevance? And could Formula 1 go all-electric to remain relevant? The next few years will define the future of this category of racing.

Ferrari and McLaren - two of Formula 1's most-iconic teams seem unable to find an answer to their struggles. As for Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel, is the 'Michael Schumacher' dream going to remain a dream after all? And it seems that curse of the 'Number 2' got to Vettel in Suzuka, after all. Would a 16th and 18th place finish at Suzuka please Honda? Well, so long as Fernando Alonso didn't compare their Formula 1 engine to a GP2 engine!

We tell you why Nico Hulkenberg should hedge his bets and go off to Renault and how GP3 is trying all it can to make sure their drivers are Formula 1 ready from 2017 onwards. The one line we had fun reading in this episode was 'Jan wonders if his son will have a contract come Jan'! And finally, we scoop out some inside information to tell you why the revolutionary 'car-to-television' interview was deferred from Malaysia to Japan.

Tune in!

New Grand Prix Times article: Montoya and F1 – did it have to end that way?

Photo: Octane Photography

The rather exclusive list of multiple Indy 500 winners was added to recently by a certain Juan Pablo Montoya. And in so doing he set a record all of his own, of the biggest gap - some 15 years - between two triumphs in that event.

And the gap tells us something, as it includes a spell in F1, that lasted a mere five-and-a-half seasons, and arguably a time of F1 rebound too. Following Montoya's recent Indy 500 win I look back to his time in F1 and ask why he had to leave so soon? It was to F1's great loss. And the explanation lies both with Montoya himself and with the sport more widely.

You can have a read here: http://www.grandprixtimes.com/news/display/10365

The previous of the penultimate round

What is it, in years in which the drivers' title race goes to the wire, with penultimate rounds?

The thought occurred to me before the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix just passed - that distinguished by Nico Rosberg abruptly reminding the hordes of doubters that he's not surrendering in the world championship battle - that it all seemed a bit familiar. That next-to-last rounds have a knack of this. Confounding expectations; shifting momentum almost onto its head.

If Nico Rosberg's win in Brazil seemed a bit familiar, you had
some good reasons for thinking so
Photo: Octane Photography

And I was fairly relieved to discover subsequently that I wasn't imagining things, as after a think I was able to come up with a fairly extensive previous for this sort of thing. If it seemed familiar, that's because it was.

The penultimate round from history that the Interlagos race really put me in mind of was that from 20 years ago, that one held in Japan in Suzuka. And in teeming rain. Then Damon Hill played the Nico Rosberg role, coming into the race still with a mathematical title chance but as far as plenty were concerned as something of an interloper. The other guy - in this case one Michael Schumacher - was the one by consensus cruising to the honours, and then as now the closeness on points at this late stage from many perspectives owed to peculiarity. Subtract unreliability and conspiracies regarding collisions and trips down escape roads and add instead Schumi being disqualified from two races and banned from two more. Each of which Hill took maximum points from.

Looking back: 2002 - F1 goes bad

Whatever you think about F1 now - indeed whatever you think about F1 for as long as the sport continues to exist - you can likely be thankful that it wasn't 2002. Then we had an F1 in crisis, one that was wrestling with itself. The sport perhaps wasn't quite dying, but it was certainly experiencing unpleasant symptoms of illness, and increasingly was staring at its deformed self in the mirror with rather a lot of disgust. As the year progressed more and more felt that radical and immediate surgery was not only desirable but essential to ensure F1’s renewed health.

The sport had faced crises before of course, but unlike those, such as in 1955 and 1994, this wasn't about safety. It was about the sport simply not delivering. No one wanted to watch the 'show' that it was serving up; reflecting this viewing numbers both at the track and on TV dwindled.

Dominant Michael Schumacher won the title as he liked
Credit: Mathieu Felten / CC

In 2002 the sport endured a year of soporific races wherein the Ferraris were simply on another level, particularly so that of its lead driver Michael Schumacher. The potency Ferrari 'dream team' of this era, with the great Schumi backed by Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne, engine man Paolo Martinelli and others, is well-documented. This was right in the middle of its scarcely credible run of five drivers' and constructors' championship doubles, and perhaps appropriately it was by far the most crushing among those. There were 17 races in 2002, and Ferrari won 15 of them. Only in five races at most did even a token challenge to the red cars last beyond a few laps, quite literally. Moreover, for Schumacher the 17 rounds divided up as 11 won, five second places and a single third place - a day on which his front wing was knocked off at the first corner thus sending him to the back. Never once did he fail to finish, nor indeed did he fail to finish on the podium. And his record could have been even more towering: of those five second places he probably would have won in Monaco had passing been remotely possible there, and the remaining instances of being a runner-up were to his stable mate Rubens Barrichello and at least some of them appeared rather ceded.

Again, single car domination in F1 was nothing new by 2002. We'd seen similar, most notably in 1988 with the McLaren MP4-4s sweeping the board. But then at least we had the intrigue of the two drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost facing off; now Schumi was on an intra-team pedestal. And moreover even with its domination, and with two drivers' and three constructors' title in the preceding three years, to ensure that it was Schumacher that prevailed with the drivers' title Ferrari managed races from the pit wall with a caution and micro-management that often entered the realms of the absurd. As a result the two red cars routinely cruised around at the front apparently at half throttle, its drivers under strict orders from their masters. Even the mathematical tying up of the drivers' title altered little, as focus then switched onto ensuring Rubens Barrichello's second place in the table, meaning we had the same again expect with Rubinho ahead and Schumi sitting dutifully behind. Almost nothing was left to chance; it’s no exaggeration to say that in 2002 one knew far in advance with almost complete certainty how a Grand Prix would unfold.

Famous Five: Qualifying specials

2013 in F1 has been the year of the panic it seems. The year in which the fare has been unspeakable apparently, making a mockery of the sport, and completely at odds with (drum roll for the cliché) 'what F1 is about'. Much of this has been attributed to the gumball Pirelli tyres, and one particular charge laid against it all is the disparity between the one lap speed of the Mercedes (claiming four pole positions in a row) and its more meagre race day results, wherein its inability to look after its tyres has often, to varying degrees, resulted in a slide down the order when it really matters.

Perhaps at some level it reflects a generation brought up on the refuelling era and little overtaking, wherein the order set in qualifying would go a long way to dictating the order come the end of the race. Or else perhaps it reflects that in recent times, with parc ferme after qualifying, 'feed in' from qualifying to the race has been much more direct than was once the case.

But nothing is new in F1. Nor is 'what F1 is about' nearly as pure or as simple as the anti-Pirelli brigade often imply. The phenomenon Mercedes has been experiencing recently is not unheard of: there are plenty of examples from history of those with a much stronger qualifying than race-day knack, and for a variety of reasons. Here are five examples.

Chris Amon, 1968
Mention the name of Chris Amon to a historically-minded F1 fan and the response you'd get probably is 'the best F1 driver never to win a Grand Prix'. Or else - in a related fashion - mention of his legendary ill-luck. The tags sell Amon short however. This is partly because his talent is such that he should be remembered as being an excellent driver, regardless of the lack of wins. And it also sells him short as there was a season that, with the odd card or two falling his way, the championship could have been his. That year was 1968.

Chris Amon, some years later
Credit: Lothar Spurzem / CC

The world championship was made up of 12 rounds that year, and eight times Amon in his Ferrari qualified on the front row. He led, or was well-placed, virtually everywhere it seemed. But it translated to only three finishes in the points, of which just one was on the podium, totalling but ten points at the season's end. This left him a distant tenth in the drivers' standings.

How did this happen? Well, it was down to a variety of things: unrelated reliability, the odd freak occurrence, and even the weather conspired against Amon on occasion. But, as was the story for Amon's F1 career more broadly it all could be filed under a peculiar concentration of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

As 1968 dawned there was little doubt that the Lotus 49s with their Ford Cosworth DFV V8 engines were going to be the ones to beat. This was bad news for Ferrari, whose V12 unit was left breathless by the Cosworth. Worse for Ferrari and Amon, Ford had decided to make the Cosworth unit available for sale to other F1 teams, meaning it wasn't just the Lotus leaving the Ferrari on the straights. Fortunately though the Ferrari 312 did have one thing going for it: its chassis was an excellent one. 'Funny, really, when you think that Ferraris usually have lots of power and lousy chassis' mused Amon later.

Retro F1: the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix

Today was witness to my second ever Retro F1 event. Retro F1 is where I watch a classic F1 race in full on YouTube, tweet updates as I go and have some Twitter chat (using the hashtag #retrof1) with like-minded people!

The race in question was the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, from the 2003 season.

If you want to watch the race in full the first part is here. And you can read through the chat on Twitter here. Highlights of the updates and chat is below:

Righty-ho, I'm clicking play now. Off we go.

We're clearly getting the Australian coverage, we'll be getting the James Allen/Martin Brundle partnership in the commentary.

A little bit of scene setting. This is round 3 of the 2003 season. In 2002 Ferrari dominated, but have struggled in first two races of 2003, and McLaren have won both. Kimi Raikkonen leads the table on 16 points, David Coulthard is second on 10, then Schumi and others are on 8.

@SartoMutiny Kimi looks about eight years old.

That's because he is, I think.