Felipe Massa Tag

Sebastian Vettel set the fastest ever lap of the Hungaroring in a Formula One car to top the final practice session ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix. There was trouble for Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo, however, with a hydraulic problem halting the Australian’s progress shortly after the halfway point in the session. Vettel was quick from the off, rapidly getting into his stride in the first half of the session by recording a time of 1:17.790 on the supersoft Pirelli compound. That put him ahead of team-mate Kimi RaikkonenRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor The Azerbaijan Grand Prix had everything this year: crashes, controversy, surprise results and a ton of interesting statistics to process. Chief among them was the fifth win of Daniel Ricciardo’s career. His win from 10th on the grid is the furthest back a driver has won since Fernando Alonso won from 11th in the 2012 European Grand Prix. The last driver who actually won from 10th was Kimi Raikkonen, way back in the 2004 Belgian Grand Prix. With five wins, Ricciardo is tied with Giuseppe Farina,Read More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor The Canadian Grand Prix gave us many new stats last weekend, not least of all was Lewis Hamilton tying his idol Ayrton Senna with 65 pole positions. Lewis is now just three from tying Michael Schumacher for the all time record of 68. Hamilton also won the Canadian Grand Prix for the sixth time since he joined F1 in 2007. One more win in Canada and he will tie Schumacher again, this time for the most wins in Montreal. Schumacher still holds the record for mostRead More

Sebastian Vettel led a Ferrari one-two in final practice for the Canadian Grand Prix with the Drivers’ Championship leader finishing just under three tenths clear of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. Lewis Hamilton was third for Mercedes 0.354s adrift of top spot. The early pace in the session was made by Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo, with the Australian straight into the action in a bid to make up for time lost in FP2 due to an engine issue. However, Vettel was soon in control and on ultrasoft tyres he quickly workedRead More

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel took his second victory of the season in Bahrain as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton recovered from a poor start and a penalty to finish in second place ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas. Hamilton exerted intense pressure in the final stages, chopping deep into a 13-second deficit to Vettel but the German kept a cool head to thread through traffic and take the flag with 6.6 seconds in hand. Had Hamilton not earlier been penalised for holding up Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo during a pit stop, the battle mightRead More

Max Verstappen set the fastest lap of opening practice for the Chinese Grand Prix in a session heavily disrupted by red flags. In damp and cool conditions Verstappen found a gap between two lengthy stoppages to post a best time of 1:50.491 on intermediate tyres, a lap that put him almost 1.6s clear of Williams’ Felipe Massa. The session got under way at the scheduled time but was halted soon after as weather conditions elsewhere in Shanghai made it impossible for the medical helicopter to land at the hospital designatedRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor The fear espoused by many in the build up to the season looks like it may have come true; overtaking has been made significantly more difficult, at least so far. Many voices of reason and experience questioned the move to higher downforce cars, veteran drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa who experienced the high downforce machines of the mid 2000’s said that increased downforce wasn’t the answer. Some of the men who designed the notoriously quick but hard to pass cars of that era likeRead More

Lewis Hamilton took the first pole position of the new Formula One season, edging Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas to take his sixth Australian Grand Prix pole by three tenths of a second. Home favourite Daniel Ricciardo crashed out, however, hitting the wall early in the final part of qualifying. The Red Bull driver is set to start tomorrow’s race in P10. Hamilton set the pace in Q1, claiming top spot 10 minutes into the session with a time of 1:24.191. That was good enough to keepRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor If Formula One’s new cars fail to live up to their considerable hype Ross Brawn is ready to step in and save the day. The new cars are so far fulfilling their design objectives of being far faster and more aggressive looking than their predecessors. They are some of the most attractive cars F1 has had in some time and in Free Practice 2 Lewis Hamilton lapped quicker than Michael Schumacher’s 2004 race lap record and came within one tenth of the outright lap record SebastianRead More

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton again went quickest at the Albert Park Circuit as he beat Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to top spot in the second practice session for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. Hamilton had claimed P1 in the first practice session of the new F1 season, running just over half a second clear of team-mate Valtteri Bottas and the three-time champion’s late afternoon margin over Vettel was similar, with the German being eclipsed by 0.547s. Hamilton’s best time of the session, a lap of 1:23.620 was over four seconds quickerRead More