F1 Tag

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer PORTLAND, Ore. – Marcus Ericsson has been given the nod to be Alfa Romeo Racing’s reserve driver in Formula One for the Belgian Grand Prix, forgoing IndyCar’s Grand Prix of Portland. With the sudden news coming out of left field, ARROW Schmidt Peterson Motorsports issued a brief statement regarding Ericsson’s absence at Portland. “Following a request from Alfa Romeo Racing of Marcus Ericsson to be on the ground at this weekend’s Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix, ARROW Schmidt Peterson Motorsports has granted Marcus a release fromRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Red Bull Racing are no strangers of making midseason changes to promote a Scuderia Toro Rosso driver. Despite rumors of both teams retaining their drivers for the duration of 2019, that all went out the window Monday with a bombshell announcement. RBR confirmed during the summer break that Alexander Albon has been promoted to the team. This meant Pierre Gasly’s tenure with the team ends after 12 rounds as he’ll head back to STR for the final nine rounds. “Red Bull are in the unique positionRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer This season’s Formula One World Championship has been underwhelming. That is until Sunday’s German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring happened. In an absolute instant classic, Max Verstappen overcame both a terrible standing start and a Lap 26 spin to win his seventh career grand prix victory. Here’s the kicker, it was far from the only highlight as rain and later drying conditions caused tremendous implications on driver’s future gigs from the moment the lights were out to the checkered flag. You had Danil Kvyat, a guyRead More

By FIA Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc went quickest in the second practice session ahead of the German Grand Prix, but Pierre Gasly’s session ended early when the Red Bull driver crashed out in the final corner, heavily damaging his RB15. Leclerc, who was second quickest in the morning behind team-mate Sebastian Vettel, took over at the top in the afternoon, setting a best time of 1:13.449 during his performance run on soft tyres. That lap put him 0.124s ahead of Vettel, with Mercedes Lewis Hamilton Mercedes third and 0.146s behind theRead More

By FIA Sebastian Vettel went quickest in the opening practice session for his home grand prix at the Hockenheimring. The German driver led a Ferrari one-two, edging team-mate Charles Leclerc by 0.255 to set a best time of 1:14.013 as both used soft compound Pirelli tyres to push Mercedes driver and championship leader Lewis Hamilton out to third place. Hamilton, and team-mate Valtteri Bottas, both set their best times on medium compound Pirelli tyres, even though both had spent some time on soft rubber earlier in a session run in highRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer One third of the Formula One season down, and it’s been the Mercedes show in all the first seven races, but it doesn’t mean there’s been a lack of headlines. Such as Ferrari being the only team that’s tried contesting with them, but they’ve either choked during the race or the FIA Race Stewards reprimanded them out of a grand prix victory. Even the battle for “Best of the Rest” has seen some twists and turns people didn’t expect. Although it may be a Silver ArrowRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Four rounds completed and it’s safe to say that Scuderia Ferrari are nowhere near title contenders. Not because they’ve just had rotten luck, but they’ve been out beat when it matters most, the grand prix races. It shows as they only have 99 points in the Constructor’s Championship to Mercedes-AMG F1’s 173 and have swept the first two steps of the podium in every grand prix thus far. Sure, the duo of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc have been fierce in the free practice sessions, butRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer LONG BEACH, California – McLaren could be well on their way to a full-time entry sooner rather than later in the NTT IndyCar Series. Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren, traded the milestone 1000th Formula One grand prix in Shanghai, China, for the always festive Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, the site of the fourth round of the 2019 IndyCar championship. It was there during a media availability he shared some of the vision of the organization’s plans, as well as his thoughts on the one-offRead More

By FIA McLaren’s Carlos Sainz set the fastest lap of pre-season F1 testing so far on a day when Ferrari managed just one afternoon installation lap for Charles Leclerc following a morning crash involving Sebastian Vettel that sidelined the team for most of the day. Sainz recorded the best time of day two of this final pre-season test midway through the morning session. The Spanish driver used the C4 compound Pirelli tyres to a lap of 1:17.144s. As many teams focused on longer runs in the afternoon the time comfortablyRead More

By FIA McLaren rookie Lando Norris went quickest on the opening day of the second F1 pre-season test of 2019, despite twice stopping on track during the session. Norris first brought out the red flag with a little over 90 minutes left in the morning session when his McLaren was halted with what was later reported as a loss of hydraulic pressure. The British driver, who had completed 38 laps to that point, missed the remainder of the morning session but returned to the action after lunch. Late in theRead More