New Grand Prix Times article: What did Austria’s kerb-hopping tell us about modern F1 drivers?

The single weekend's gathering of F1 folks in Austria's Spielberg region just passed packed in an astonishing number of distinct pieces of drama, perhaps as many as we'd expect across a whole swathe of a season. One of them looked for a time like it would dominate though, at least until Seb Vettel's tyre went pop and certainly until, you know, that on the final lap.

Photo: Octane Photography

That is, yellow 'baguette' kerbs on the outside of many turns and good for breaking F1 cars if you ran one over them. Drivers it seemed were maddeningly reluctant to twig this seemingly basic premise though, and as a result no fewer than four suspension breakages across Friday and Saturday were witnessed.

Many observers were exasperated at this, concluding 'why don't they just stay off the kerbs?' Simples. Some went further and thought it all said something unflattering about the decadent modern F1 pilot. Not like in the good old days.

In my latest Grand Prix Times article though I argue that the opposite is true. That the kerb-hopping showed F1 drivers' fundamental nature, and one that likely has been the way for decades. One that is gladiatorial. You can have a read here: http://www.grandprixtimes.com/news/id/12386

Ferrari Will Be Forced To Re-Sign Kimi Raikkonen, by Kunal Shah

In the last month, three of Ferrari's strongest prospects to replace Kimi Raikkonen all had their extended contracts with Red Bull Racing confirmed. Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo will be locked with Red Bull Racing till end of 2018 whereas Carlos Sainz Jr. has got a one year extension with Red Bull Racing's sister team, Toro Rosso. This is exactly why I keep saying that Red Bull Racing is Ferrari's Junior Driver Program! They hired Sebastian Vettel from Red Bull Racing a couple of seasons ago.

What If Lewis Hamilton Raced For Red Bull Racing?

Is Kimi Raikkonen long for this Ferrari earth?
Photo: Octane Photography

Ferrari's decision to wait on Kimi Raikkonen might just backfire. They've issued statements that Raikkonen needs to prove that he deserves a seat at Ferrari and that they aren't in a hurry to decide their driver line-up for 2017. Has Ferrari's patience cost them a shot at signing the sport's best racing talent? I would think so.

Ferrari Should've Signed Max Verstappen

Kimi Raikkonen 2.0 hasn't been the same since he moved to Ferrari. The former World Champion has rarely matched his illustrious team-mates and I will use a phrase that's been overused to describe the Finn - 'a shadow of his former self'. Alain Prost's suggestion to Ferrari to stick with Raikkonen for 2017 to maintain stability might hold some might, but it isn't something I would subscribe to if I were Ferrari.

What Makes A McLaren Infographic, by Rybrook Specialist Cars

As McLaren continues to impress with the launch of further Sports Series models, Rybrook the specialist car resource page has taken the chance to admire and celebrate this incredible high performance specialist car by looking at the McLaren DNA. And this of course includes the organisation's founder Bruce McLaren as well as owes much to the iconic and decorated F1 team. It all is below, enjoy...

Courtesy of: Rybrook Specialist Cars

Team orders should remain last resort for Mercedes as driver rivalry takes another turn, by Ewan Marshall

"Brainless" Toto Wolff exclaimed, reacting to yet another chapter in the infamous rivalry between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes chief was clearly incensed by the last lap tangle at the end of a thrilling Austrian Grand Prix which cost the team a certain one-two and six points in the constructors' championship. And rightly so! After all, the fallout could have been much worse had stewards decided to make an example of Rosberg for his robust attempts at defending.

How do you solve a problem like Lewis and Nico?
Photo: Octane Photography

The Hamilton-Rosberg rivalry is at a crossroads like never before, as the season reaches a crucial stage and as pointed out in an earlier article, this is not the first time the duo have clashed on track, nor the last should previous trends continue. The fact that these antics make Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost's time together look tepid will provide much food-for-thought among the Brackley hierarchy

Wolff warned of severe consequences for the pair, including the possible introduction of team orders. Although similar threats have been made in the past, this was the first time it was delivered with venom, by a man running fast out of options to maintain the 'open racing' policy, employed over the last three years.

While it could be business as usual by the time the cars roll out for practice at Silverstone, it appears that the team has lost patience and could be forced into uncharted territory in a bid to stamp out this behaviour once and for all - with the Austrian calling together senior management for crunch talks.

Austrian Grand Prix review for Motor Verso - Living up to your reputation

Well, we did say to expect the unusual in Austria. Though surely F1's weekend Red Bull Ring gathering just past, and not least its last lap crescendo, surpasses even what went before here. And then some.

Photo: Octane Photography

Curiosity was all around in Austria this time, and started early with repeated suspension breakages then a wet-to-dry end to the qualifying session on Saturday which did its bit to set up the jumbled drama. Underlining the curiosity even the cream of the Mercs rising to the top in the race wasn't all that confidently expected. Neither was for the most part that Nico Rosberg would end up ahead of Lewis Hamilton as the laps ticked down towards the race's end. Which is when the real fun started...

I do my best to squeeze the pertinent bits into my latest Motor Verso race review. You can have a read here: http://www.motorverso.com/austrian-gp-2016-review-living-reputation/

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.

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Mercedes, No Team Orders Please!

The 2016 Austrian Grand Prix was the best advertisement for Formula 1 - wheel to wheel action, tyre strategy and a fair share of controversy! Are Mercedes trying to protect Nico Rosberg by blaming the issue on brake-by-wire? As far as we know, brake-by-wire does not affect the steering wheel! And why were Mercedes hell-bent on making Hamilton lose by strategy or slower pitstops? Every time the pressure piles on, Rosberg eventually succumbs. Definitely not the mental make-up of a champion - does Rosberg deserve to be World Champion?

While Mercedes contemplates team orders, we tell you why it's a terrible idea. If Mercedes were to be inspired by Red Bull Racing, they would have demoted Rosberg to Manor and promoted Pascal Wehrlein in his place - a gift for his resilient P10 too! Pirelli gifted Sebastian Vettel a tyre blowout for his birthday. Sure he would have been happier blowing out candles instead. Kimi Raikkonen had some unexpected champagne, funny that he's having his second wedding before his second world championship. Max Verstappen continues to be everyone's favourite (ours too!) sweeping away the Driver of the Day awards.

Jenson Button's P6 would've seemed like victory to McLaren-Honda. The Japanese manufacturer is considering investing in a Formula E program. Is this to hide from their Formula 1 miseries? We tell you more.

Back-to-back races means that the British Grand Prix is coming up this weekend! Is anyone willing to bet against Lewis Hamilton at his home race? We aren't - Hammer Time awaits, we say! Our prediction? Since Formula 1 loves revenge, Nico Rosberg will be booed on the podium - if he makes it there, that is.

Tune in!

(Season 2016, Episode 23)

Silverstone Preview - F1's home gig

Every year at around about this time I experience a creeping sense of conflict. I'm not one driven by patriotism, indeed I'm often downright suspicious of it. And this applies especially to F1, wherein nationalities have never mattered a jot to me. But even I cannot deny that there is something special about the British Grand Prix.

Despite everything, few would claim that there isn't 
something special about the British Grand Prix
Photo: Octane Photography

It can't even be said that the appeal of its hardy host of Silverstone is immediately and universally apparent. In contrast to many 'prestige' F1 circuits which seem to fit quintessentially into their surroundings, Silverstone even all these decades on retains a feel of being rather imposed on a barren, windswept wartime airfield plain. It lacks the postcard scenery and undulations of Spa, the intensity of Monza and certainly the glamour of Monaco. The late Christopher Hilton once noted, possibly harshly, that "people get emotional at Silverstone but not emotional about Silverstone. Even when they're trying to save it, they're doing it because they want the British Grand Prix to survive, not because emotion dictates Silverstone."

Yet still few refute that the Northamptonshire circuit sits right alongside those events mentioned in being part of F1 furniture; some will perhaps even claim that it deserves to be prioritised ahead. And this is for a number of reasons.

Austrian GP Report - Surpassing yourself

So the Red Bull Ring lives up to its reputation. Both for entertainment and for the strange, somehow, occurring. We got that, plenty of that indeed, in the Austrian Grand Prix weekend even before we reached the race's final lap. Yet that last tour threatened to surpass any of the drama - and strangeness - that this track has been the scene of before. Even team order gate of 2002 now has a rival. You suspect the goings-on therein this time will be debated for as long as with about as much fury.

Lewis Hamilton won out, but as in qualifying
there were adventures getting there
Photo: Octane Photography

We can jump straight to the juicy bit. As we entered the final lap today an intra Mercedes tete-a-tete for the win was playing out, with Nico Rosberg ahead of a closing and apparently quicker Lewis Hamilton. As they entered that last lap it appeared though that Nico had just enough of a gap on his team mate to hang on, but on the run out of turn 1 to turn 2, the track's main overtaking point, Lewis took metres out of him, a consequence apparently of Nico clouting a kerb at that same first turn.

Nico covered the inside line and Lewis with the momentum went for the outside, but under braking for that hairpin Nico by appearances simply speared straight on and his hand movements (or lack of them) on his steering wheel told their own story, that he'd made little attempt to make the corner and instead had crudely sought to run Lewis out of road. There was contact between the silver pair and this time the biter was bit as while Nico exited the corner still in front the shower of sparks from his Merc was telltale - his front wing was askew and Lewis passed easily for the win. Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen got by Nico too before the lap was out, leaving the latter an ignominious fourth.

Red Bull Ring Qualifying - Circus act in the Ring

Despite the madcap appearances, it could really have been called in advance. Well, in a broad sense anyway if not in the specifics. Mercedes was meant to dominate at Austria's Red Bull Ring this weekend; really rationally it should have done. But this is a track where, in time-honoured tradition, things are rarely that simple. They weren't that simple for today's qualifying hour. On reflection, they were indeed much less simple even than that.

In a crazy qualifying hour of a crazy weekend, Lewis
Hamilton eventually took the pole
Photo: Octane Photography

A wet but drying final session to set the grid, ensuring that the timing display resembled the whirring display of a fruit machine. One with those known for bravery in such conditions getting well in among the usual front-runners. All the while grid penalties for a few big guns were somewhere at the back of minds, to be factored into calculations. All the while it was borne in mind too that this is Austria...

Some of the what-it-is-about these Spielberg visits can be explained: it's a short lap made up essentially of seven turns which ensures a tight grid, as does that this track, in its layout and altitude, isn't too sensitive to downforce which the normal pace-setters tend to have more of. The tight turns at the end of long straights draw plenty of errors. Sudden arrivals of rain are known here, and one of those before vital Q3 added plenty to today's fun. Yet even with these some matters simply are intangible, almost like there is something - other than precipitation or altitude that is - in the local air.

Inside Line F1 Podcast - Will The Real Lewis Hamilton Please Stand Up

If he has any hopes of winning his third championship on the trot, the real Lewis Hamilton needs to stand up - show us the quick racer he is, minus the distractions (music, movies and Penelope Cruz). Meanwhile Niki Lauda was spotted sharing ice cream with Nico Rosberg, where was Lewis in all of this? Maybe they made Lewis wait in the car!

Hamilton is smartly planning his retirement with Mercedes - he will be building supercars and doing demos, basically becoming the next David Coulthard? With autonomous cars likely to be the biggest threat to Formula 1, guess all drivers need retirement plans (not just Fernando Alonso!).

Apart from hanging out with Lauda, Rosberg has been doing various other things we thought are Hamilton's speciality. This includes hanging out at exotic destinations (Ibiza), posing with private jets for no apparent reason, fanboy moments with Hollywood stars and pissing off Formula 1's sponsors. Hopefully, the next Lewis-inspired move he pulls off is winning a World Championship.

Strange things are happening in Formula One. Hamilton and Rosberg's relationship has never been better, thanks to some dubious bonding in a Monaco swimming pool. The poster boy of capitalism, Bernie Ecclestone, is planning to do away with bonus payments for the big teams. The silly season rumours continue to fly, will Kimi stay or go?

More speed but less races, should we be excited about the 2017 season? Or is it all a marketing hoax? Britain may have voted to Brexit, but when will Formula One get the big Ecc-xit? Mclaren-Honda and Fernando Alonso continue to make a joke of themselves on and off track and we are happy to laugh along. With the 2016 Austrian Grand Prix coming up, we predict that the Red Bull Ring might need to be renamed as Mercedes Ring.

Tune in!

(Season 2016, Episode 22)