Australian Grand Prix Tag

Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the first practice session of the new Formula One campaign, finishing more than half a second clear of new team-mate Valtteri Bottas at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. The three-time world champion ended the session at Melbourne’s Albert Park Circuit with a best time of 1:24.220, set on ultrasoft tyres, to beat Bottas, who moved to Mercedes from Williams at the start of this year, by 0.583 seconds. Apart from the Mercedes pairing, no other driver ran with the purple-banded Pirelli tyres during the sessionRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief With a long off-season in the books and the official Formula 1 season starting in just days, Sergio Perez is ready to go. The 27-year-old Mexican enters his seventh season (fourth with Sahara Force India) and believes that Australia is the perfect location for everything to kick off. “The first race of the year is always good fun,” said Perez. “We’ve had a long winter to recharge the batteries, but now I just want to go racing again. Australia is the best place to start theRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Following a strong preseason, Daniel Ricciardo has tabbed Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel as likely contenders to dethrone Mercedes. The Red Bull Racing driver told La Gazzetta dello Sport that he is hoping the pace shown by his former teammate’s Italian squad is legitimate. “From the first test day, Ferrari made a very good impression,” Ricciardo said. “I hope they keep it up because it would be nice if someone could fight Mercedes. They’ve improved a little of everything and they also seem to be very goodRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor According to a report from the BBC, McLaren has contacted Mercedes about an engine supply deal. Which means it is already looking at other partners after numerous failures in preseason testing with current supplier Honda. Despite an improvement to sixth in the constructor’s championship in 2016, and an optimistic re-branding in the off season, McLaren is set to begin the new season at the back of the pack. Honda which maintained it could find a fix for the problems encountered during testing and have it ready in timeRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Force India has traded in its traditional silver and black livery for a vivid matte pink, courtesy of the team’s new sponsor Best Water Technology. BWT as they are known, are a water treatment and technology firm based in upper Austria. The company is one of Europe’s major players in the water market. Their pink colors and giant blue logo now feature proudly on the sidepods of the VJM10 in a decidedly retro style. The drivers, Sergio Perez and newcomer Esteban Ocon will also feature pinkRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor It was all thumbs up for Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari today. The four time champ looked absolutely unassailable as he set the fastest time of testing so far and completed a day high 156 laps. His 1:19.024 on ultra softs bested the Mercedes duo on the same tires by three tenths of a second and Felipe Massa’s Williams by four tenths. So confident was Vettel that he visibly slowed on the final straight for most of his fast laps, an ominious sign for their challengers that theRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor After revealing the findings from Fernando Alonso’s massive crash in the season opening Australian Grand Prix, the FIA has announced its intention to introduce a system of biometric testing to further understand future crash data in order to make the sport safer. The findings show that when Alonso’s McLaren made intial contact with the Haas of Esteban Gutierrez he was traveling at 305 kph, and once the front suspension collapsed the ensuing impact with the wall hit a peak of 45G’s. The barrel rolling that followedRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor The letter worked! Just hours after all 11 teams unanimously signed a letter demanding the old qualifying system of 2006-2015 be reinstated, it has been reinstated! Miraculously Bernie Ecclestone, Jean Todt and the FIA went down without a fight this time and agreed to terms the teams, drivers and fans have been calling for since qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix on March 19th. Once rubber stamped by the Strategy Group, the F1 Commission and lastly the World Motorsport Council, the return to the tried and true qualifyingRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Fernando Alonso has not been cleared to race at the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend. The two-time champ has been sidelined by FIA doctors after the scary crash he had with Haas F1’s Esteban Gutierrez in the season opening Australian Grand Prix. The announcement does not come as a shock as Alonso withstood over 40G’s in one of the most violent crashes in recent memory. Alonso has further revealed that he has a broken rib and a lung issue called a pneumothorax, where air gets trappedRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Despite their incredibly successful start to the season, Haas F1 Team plans to end development of the VF-16 sooner rather than later and switch their focus to the 2017 car. After becoming the first team to score points on debut since Toyota, Gene Haas is eager to allocate most of the new outfits resources into preparing for next season’s massive regulation changes which aim to bring faster cars, wider tires and the halo device. Other than some updates we have been working on, we are pretty much done withRead More