New Grand Prix Times article: Red Bull - ruthless but right

Photo: Octane Photography

But a single race after a fine drive to the podium, as punishment apparently but for two clumsy crashes early in the Russian race, the famously ruthless Red Bull programme strikes again. Daniil Kvyat is out with immediate effect, demoted to the Toro Rosso B team but that part is presumably a stay of execution only. While the young prodigy Max Verstappen as a swap is in the plumb A team drive in Kvyat's stead.

Some have sympathised with Kvyat. Some have said the team's got it plain wrong in its decision. But as I argue in my latest Grand Prix Times article, there's more to this than is being let on. And ultimately it's hard to argue with Red Bull's logic in doing what it's doing.

You can have a read here: http://www.grandprixtimes.com/news/id/11964

Talking about F1's Graham Keilloh talks Red Bull and Mercedes on Radio Woking

You may be aware that I'm a regular guest on Radio Woking on its Saturday afternoon sports show, where I chat about the latest F1 goings-on with their presenter Declan McCarthy.

And I was on the show today, talking mainly about the big news of recent days that Max Verstappen and Daniil Kvyat - following the latter's prangs early in the Russia race - have been swapped by famously ruthless Red Bull with immediate effect. And we also talked about the season so far more generally and in particular the disparity of luck between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, as well as explored the talk of Mercedes conspiracies...

You can have a listen to our chat via the player below:

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Red Bull-sh*t

Red Bull Racing did post-Russia what everyone imagined they would do towards the end of the 2016 Formula 1 Season. They gave wings to Max Verstappen's Formula 1 career while clipping Daniil Kvyat's. The former World Champion team's decision evoked applause from most quarters and shock from a few. Would they have taken a similar decision had Kvyat rammed into a 'less important' driver? What if Verstappen would've committed a similar error?

While we hint of 'favouritism' in Formula 1 (well, it's human nature!), we also point out Bernie Ecclestone and Mercedes's favouritism towards Lewis Hamilton.

We reveal Nico Rosberg's ONLY issue in the recently concluded Russian Grand Prix and how Fernando Alonso is now playing 'sales agent' for the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix organisers.

Lastly, we tell you how the 'right to engine' clause will still unsettle the new regulations Formula 1 announced for 2017-2020.

Tune in!

(Season 2016, Episode 14)

Russian Grand Prix review for Motor Verso - It couldn't happen, but it did...

Really, what are the chances?

Photo: Octane Photography

We know what to associate with F1 in 2016 so far. Everything, somehow, going Nico Rosberg's way. His presumptive closest challengers all having something impede them, often early in proceedings.

And surely this one, round four in Russia, would be the scene of the return to normality? Perhaps even the start of the regression to the mean? Nope. In an extraordinary case of repetition we got loosely the same again in Sochi. The upshot is Nico now has four from four and the rest have a mountain to climb.

I give my take on it all in my latest Motor Verso race review. You can read it here:
http://www.motorverso.com/russian-gp-2016-review/

Do check out the Motor Verso site too; you'll find motoring news, car reviews and features - the team on the site carry out week-long test drives of the latest cars - as well as photos and videos of the machines.

Russian GP Report: Everything's coming up Rosberg - again

That thing we all said couldn't happen, did happen. We couldn't have another weekend in which everything would fall for Nico Rosberg, giving him an open goal in which to drive the ball home with aplomb for victory. But that's what we got. Again. Four wins from four this campaign are his.

Once again it was Nico Rosberg smiling after this one
Photo: Octane Photography

In the Russian Grand Prix today luck didn't turn; things didn't begin to regress to the mean. Yet it would be harsh in the extreme to say that has been the entire story. Yes Nico by his own admission has had the fortune so far in 2016, but that's hardly his fault, plus there is little to say that whatever the distribution of chance thus far Nico is at anything other than the top of his form right now. Fast, flawless, nailing things when it matters, that all continued in the Sochi weekend too. And perhaps to bring emphasis to that it's not all a matter of Goddess Fortune smiling his way, Rosberg set a fine fastest lap of more than a second under the track record on his penultimate tour, long after the important matter of 25 points was framed as coming his way. Now he has a seven up of consecutive wins - only the fourth in history to do so - and probably more important a ton up in points already.

Some four rounds in we still await our straightforward weekend where we get our close fight and measure of the lay of the competitive land between not only the two Mercedes but also between the Mercedes and the Ferrari. In these regards we're not much further forward than where we were in pre-season testing. Yet in the meantime Nico is making all of the hay he can as the sun shines upon him, and going a long way to building a title with it.

No Sochi qualifying report from me...

"A beautiful photo on a beautiful wedding"
by 9eu.it - Own work. Licensed under CC
BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons -
https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:A_beautiful_photo_on_a_beautiful
_wedding.jpg#/media/File:A_beautiful
_photo_on_a_beautiful_wedding.jpg

Hello all. Just thought I'd let you know in case you were looking that I won't be able to do a qualifying report for the Russian Grand Prix this time, as I've been invited to a wedding this Saturday (not my own, I hasten to add) which means I won't be able to watch the session.

I will be back in place for the Sochi race when normal service will resume!

Regards,
Graham

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Why Bernie Ecclestone Backs Donald Trump For President

We love Bernie Ecclestone, we do! F1's CEO loves to make controversial statements and we love to extract our pound of humour from those controversies. In this week's episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast, Mithila and Kunal tell you why Bernie Ecclestone backs Donald Trump for President. And if you're a Hillary Clinton fan, we tell you why he wouldn't back her candidature.

But this episode isn't about Ecclestone alone, we talk about Filipinho Massa's victory over our favourite, Daniel Ricciardo. Massa Jr.'s celebration skills must be applauded - mark of a true champion. Did Felipe hire Max Verstappen's PR agency though to work on his son?

Should we undergo a rule change for 2017? Why is Mercedes resisting it and why is Red Bull Racing for it? Also, what should the rule changes be? We share our perspective and tell you why the teams will always differ in theirs from us fans.

Rio Haryanto seems to be running out of money. Is F1 in BIG trouble if pay drivers run out of money too? Btw, aren't the Indonesian Govt. doing a little too much to fund his race seat? It's a Manor, after all.

In this day and age of super hero movies, it comes as no surprise to us that Super Formula > Formula 1.  And are the new-age 'rocket science' F1 cars no longer attractive for the upcoming drivers too?

Finally, will Lewis Hamilton win his third consecutive Russian Grand Prix OR will Nico Rosberg leave Russia with 100 points? And apart from Vladmir Putin, who else will join the Mercedes drivers on the podium?

Tune in! (Season 2016, Episode 13)

Russian GP Betting Preview - Go for a fastest lap long shot?

Usually after the first three races of an F1 season we have a pretty good sense of the year's likely competitive order, but as we keep pointing out this season so far has hardly been a standard one. This may give additional opportunities to the F1 betting punter ahead of round four this weekend in Russia, and Paddy Power offers a range of odds on the impending Sochi gathering.

The Mercedes pair look worth backing
Photo: Octane Photography

Yet some things look to be fairly clear. As laid out in my Russian Grand Prix preview on this site, the Mercedes drivers are clear favourites for victory in Sochi and for reasons that even are over and above the bare fact that they've won the opening three rounds of this season, as well as the last six of 2015. And you'll get more than double your stake back backing either of its drivers to win again this time, with odds of 6/5 for Lewis Hamilton and 11/8 for Nico Rosberg.

The close odds between the pair reflect too that while Nico has triumphed in all 2016 races thus far there in fact has been little to choose between the two Merc pilots generally other than Lewis's near-monopoly on foul luck. There's also been little to choose between the pair in the previous two Sochi visits, though Lewis has won both of them following something impeding Nico in either Russian race.

Sochi Preview: F1's ugly duckling

There's always one, isn't there? That one F1 round people find particularly hard to love. For a while it was Valencia. Then it was the Mokpo venue in Korea. Now dear reader I give you Sochi in Russia.

The Russian Grand Prix in Sochi divides opinion
By premier.gov.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.
wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36104002

And it has this ugly duckling status for a number of reasons it seems. The race was in many eyes tainted at source, even though Bernie Ecclestone's attempts to get this round onto the F1 calendar stretched back literally decades. A Grand Prix in the Soviet Union to be held on the streets of Moscow appeared on the provisional F1 calendar as long ago as 1983 indeed.

But even by the time that the race finally was penned in to debut in 2014, at that year's Winter Olympics venue of Sochi, plenty thought nevertheless we could wait a little longer. Its very existence was controversial from several months out with unrest in Ukraine and Russia's alleged contribution to it dominating many headlines. Some thought too resultant sanctions would mean the race's money would run out.

A year on too for the second F1 visit as well as Ukraine matters being far from resolved there also was the uneasy background noise of Russia's activity in Syria, including that some of the missiles fired therein weren't landing all that far from the Sochi venue. In both there were concerns more generally about Russia's human rights record and particularly its legislation prohibiting any 'positive mention of homosexuality' in the presence of minors. That Russian President Vladimir Putin has associated himself closely with both F1 visits hardly helped de-couple it all from the event in the minds of onlookers.

Why the mystery of F1's greatest ever hasn't been answered - not even by science

So, that's that settled then. The sport's biggest and most ubiquitous bone of contention. Done. That one of who is the best driver ever, over and above the equipment they had access to. That one we thought near unsolvable given everything. All by a team of academics from the Universities of Sheffield and Bristol, and using statistical analysis.

According to the statistical study,
Juan Manuel Fangio's 
F1's best of all time
By Unknown - Museo Juan Manuel
 Fangio, reimpreso en "La fotografía
en la historia argentina", Tomo I,
Clarín, ISBN 950-782-643-2,
Public Domain, https://commons.
wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=3934090

And when its news release announcing this was published just over a week ago it caused quite the stir. All seemed rather monumental indeed. Underlining the view even the (not necessarily always science-loving) Daily Mail proclaimed in its headline that what we had revealed before us was "the best Formula One driver of all time according to SCIENCE". Yes it actually capitalised the word. It was as if we were getting something irrefutable.

The first few on the study's all-time driver ranking - Juan Manuel Fangio top, followed by Alain Prost, Fernando Alonso, Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart - are hardly hideous. Michael Schumacher appeared low in ninth but when he was considered from before his first retirement in 2006 only he shot up to third, which again looked fair enough (as an aside, a curiosity about the reporting of this study is that there is more than one list floating about, in addition to the pre/post Schumi lists the one presented in the academic paper has Alonso sixth rather than his widely-reported placing of third, and it's not explained by the Schumi shift apparently as the Daily Mail article at least shows Alonso fourth when Schumi from 2006 and before only is considered).

But then it gets patchy. Stirling Moss is but 35th in the ranking (some 12 places behind Marc Surer) while the likes of Niki Lauda, Nigel Mansell, Alberto Ascari, Jochen Rindt and Gilles Villeneuve are simply nowhere to be seen in the top 50. It all gets, um, a little more interesting too as Christian Fittipaldi is in the elevated position of 12th best driver ever while the luminary that is Louis Rosier is placed 19th. And unless this pair were against just about all assessments in fact secret F1 geniuses never given their break in a good car - in addition to the drivers listed above being actually vastly over-rated, again contrary most assessments - it would seem the study has some shortcomings.