Carlos Sainz Tag

Lewis Hamilton claimed his third pole position of the season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, finishing three tenths of a second ahead of championship leader Nico Rosberg as Red Bull Racing claimed row two on the grid ahead of Ferrari. Hamilton’s first flying lap of the final Q3 segment was marred by a big lock up into Turn 10 and the mistake left Hamilton with a time of 1:23. 277. Rosberg easily eclipsed that with his first lap, setting a clean-lap benchmark of 1:22.475. Hamilton’s early Q3 error also ledRead More

Nico Rosberg set the fastest lap of second practice for the Spanish Grand, finishing 0.25s ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. In the morning session Ferrari had set the pace as the only team to use the soft tyres, but when Rosberg  bolted on the yellow-banded Pirelli tyres in the afternoon session the Mercedes driver was able to eclipse the Italian squad. The margin though was slight, with Rosberg’s best FP2 time being 1:23.922, just under three thousandths of a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel’s timesheet topper from FP1. Rosberg’s marginRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Nico Rosberg led home a Mercedes one-two finish from Albert Park in what was a madcap start the 2016 season. Despite the typical result of a Mercedes double podium, the circuitous route the race took to its conclusion proved entertaining, terrifying and intense. The plot thickened before the race ever got underway as Daniil Kvyat’s Red Bull succumbed to electrical gremlins by stalling on the way to his grid position. The team ran to remove the car while the rest of the field embarked upon aRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Formula One’s second pre-season test ended the way the first test began; with Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari firmly atop the timesheets. The German slapped a set of Pirelli’s super-softs in the morning session to post the fastest time of the pre-season with a strong 1:22.852 tour of Circuit de Catalunya. With Ferrari the quickest car on five of the eight days of testing, things near the sharp end of the field seem to have tightened between them, Mercedes and Williams. Vettel also ran the haloRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor With the benefit of Ferrari power for 2016, Red Bull’s ambitious junior squad thinks that it can take aim at the podium with its talented young drivers this season. Last season rookie sensations Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz moved the team up a notch in the pecking order and despite some rookie mistakes and bad luck, had some excellent drives, including two 4th place finishes for Verstappen, at Hungary and Austin. Last year’s STR10 marked 10 years since Red Bull bought out lovable F1 backmarkers MinardiRead More