Rosberg Completes Perfect Week

7 days don't come much better than Nico Rosberg's. Get married, watch home country win the World Cup, sign a new multi-year contract with Mercedes, and then win your home Grand Prix in a German car. The F1 fans and a certain Brit would suggest that the race wasn't quite perfect, given the lack of competition opposed to Rosberg's victory, and such was his margin throughout the 90 minute race that he was barely televised at all. Another "gift" as Hamilton put it after another technical failure left him with serious ground to make up, both in Germany and the overall championship fight.

The victory was assured as soon as Hamilton crashed on Saturday, but Rosberg will not complain if they all come like that.

Making Sense of FRIC Suspension Ban and Pirelli Test

Following last weekends British Grand Prix, the teams stayed behind to complete an in season test on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. The main news to come from these days were the banning of FRIC (Front and Rear InterConnected) Suspension, and Pirelli testing a prototype set of 18 Inch wheels on an adapted 2014 Lotus car. This post will try to explain exactly what these are and the affect of Formula 1.

Charles Pic completed 14 laps on the experimental 18" Pirelli wheels.

Best of British

12 months ago, the 2013 British Grand Prix made spectacular viewing for all of the wrong reasons. The Pirelli issues first came to light in a number of high speed and very frightening blow-outs, which nearly saw a driver boycott in later races. It was Lewis Hamilton that suffered the first of these incidents, and it took away his lead and all hopes of winning his home Grand Prix for the second time.

What a difference a year makes.

Hamilton's bad luck struck during the race in 2013, but his weekends fortunes reversed come Sunday in 2014.

Quieter Than a 2014 Formula 1 Engine...

Once again I find myself writing a blog post to apologise for the lack of updates recently. Again, I am not stopping but just taking a short break. Very good reason this time - my lack of it. VERY good reason for that - I am getting married this Saturday! Weddings take quite a lot of planning, and of course the blog was just 1 of many things that has been put to one side to make it happen.

Of course the moment that I don't have the time to write what I feel about Formula 1, the championship erupts with views, developments and intrigue! I found time to gradually do a Monaco write up, but Blogger managed to ruin that for me as well and I had to abandon that post halfway through. Knowing as well I may not have time to write a full report on all incidents, here is the 1 minute summary:

1. Rosberg has done a good job of breaking the Hamilton dominance.
2. I think Rosberg parked deliberately.
3. Hamilton could do with reviewing the safety car periods so far and why he always seems to lose out to Rosberg.
4. Red Bull on the up, fantastic job by Ricciardo.
5. Where are the other teams? Ferrari especially faltering
6. Newey's decision good for Red Bull. "If we can't have him, no one can".
7. Red Bull may rue losing Prodromou to McLaren.
8. What was Raikkonen thinking (Monaco move), or was it payback to Magnussen?
9. Great job by Marussia to score points!
10. Chilton unfortunate but definitely at fault for Canada collision.
11. Perez's fault.

 

12. Pirelli told to make tyres softer? They just can't win...

That's all for now, more in the near future hopefully!

Team Mate Struggles Surface

The first European Grand Prix of 2014 took place last weekend at the Catalunya circuit near Barcelona. The track is not notorious for providing stand out races, but it does highlight the cars aerodynamic strengths and weaknesses. With all of the teams bringing update packages to this Grand Prix following the 3 week break, it was hoped that the advantage enjoyed by Mercedes previously would be reduced. They of course brought updates of their own as they are pushing equally as hard to maintain the gap to the rest of the field.

Excluding the pitstops, Hamilton leads over Rosberg never exceeded 5 seconds.

GP3 2014 Preview

This weekend sees the Formula 1 world championship make its first visit to Europe in Spain. Local hero Fernando Alonso will be hoping to capitalise on the home support that last year propelled him to victory, whilst Pirelli are hoping it doesn't take 4 tyre changes to do so again. GP2 returns to the calendar again having missed China, but we will also see the beginning of the 2014 GP3 championship. The 2014 calendar is shown below.

Daniil Kvyat won the 2013 GP3 championship before his promotion to the Toro Rosso F1 team this year.

Remembering Senna

 

20 years ago to the day, the world lost one if greatest competitors. Formula 1 was still in mourning and shock following the death of Roland Ratzenberger just the day before, the first death at a Grand Prix weekend in 12 years. Safety was greatly improved between the 70's and 80's, where death and injury in the sport went from being common occurrences to rare anomalies. As the cars got faster and more complex over the 80's though, the sport became complacent over the safety of the drivers, and many foresaw the warning signs creeping back to haunt motorsport.