FIA Tag

By FIA Lewis Hamilton moved closer to a fifth FIA Formula 1 World Championship title with a dominant Japanese Grand Prix win ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Sebastian Vettel battled back to sixth place at the chequered flag after a collision with Verstappen early in the race dropped him to the rear of the field. The result means that Hamilton will carry a 67-point lead over Vettel to the next race, round 18 of 21, in the USA. Hamilton held his advantage at the start,Read More

By FIA Mercedes Lewis Hamilton took his eighth pole position of the season at Suzuka and the 80th of his career, while title rival Sebastian Vettel faces a ninth-place race start after a troubled final segment of qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix. Valtteri Bottas will start alongside Hamilton in the second Mercedes, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen with start at the front of row three, alongside the second Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen. Vettel established an early benchmark in Q1 with a lap of 1:29.049, more than half a second clearRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton made it a clean sweep in practice for the Japanese Grand Prix, taking top spot in FP3 at Suzuka, just over a tenth of a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel, in a session brought to an early end when Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg crashed out. Hulkenberg, sweeping through the Esses on a qualifying run, took much kerb on a track still damp from an earlier rain show and spun. He went into the barriers on the right-hand side of the track, causing substantial damage to the rearRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton beat title rival Sebastian Vettel by more than eight tenths of a second as he continued to light up the timesheets in practice for the Japanese Grand Prix. In the morning session Hamilton had run quickest, eclipsing Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas by just under half a second and in the second session the championship leader repeated the feat, taking top spot 0.461s clear of Bottas. Vettel had been almost a full second off the Briton’s pace in the opening session and though he was able to edgeRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two in the opening practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix finishing half a second clear of team-mate Valtteri Bottas and almost seven tenths of a second ahead of the third-placed Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo. Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen and championship challenger Sebastian Vettel finished the session in fourth and fifth places, but both set their best times using the supersoft Pirelli compound, while Hamilton session-best time of 1:28.691s was delivered on soft tyres. Vettel ended the session just under a second offRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton won the Russian Grand Prix extend his Drivers’ Championship lead over title rival Sebastian Vettel to 50-points, after Mercedes called on race leader Valtteri Bottas to move aside in order to defend against a threat from eventual third-place finisher Vettel. Pole position man Bottas held his advantage at the start and controlled the early phases of the race, with Hamilton coming under strong pressure from third-placed Vettel. Vettel briefly managed to get past Hamilton after the drivers’ single pit stops but when the title leader reclaimedRead More

By FIA Valtteri Bottas claimed the sixth pole position of his career and his first since the Austrian Grand Prix in July beating Mercedes team-mate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton to the front of the Russian Grand Prix grid by 0.145s. Title contender Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, was forced to settle for third place and the second row of the Sochi Autodrom grid, where he will be joined by team-mate Kimi Räikkönen. Both Ferraris were more than half a second off the pace of Bottas. “It feels good,” said Bottas, who tookRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton went quickest in final practice for the Russian Grand Prix, with the Briton breaking the Sochi Autodrom track record to beat team-mate Valtteri Bottas 0.254s. Ferrari, meanwhile, took third and fourth places, with Sebastian Vettel marginally ahead of team-mate Kimi Räikkönen, but the German title contender ended the session six tenths of a second adrift of Hamilton. Vettel set the pace in a quiet opening phase of the hour-long session, with the German claiming P1 with a lap of 1:33.859. However, his spell at the topRead More

By FIA Hamilton, who comes into this weekend carrying a 40-point championship lead over chief rival Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, posted a time of 1:33.584 a third of the way through the session after bolting on a set of hypersoft compound tyres as the field set about qualifying simulations. The Briton’s time saw him finish 0.199s ahead of Bottas. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third fastest at the Sochi Autodrom, with the Dutch driver recording a best time of 1:33.827. That left him just under two hundredths of a secondRead More

By FIA Title contender Vettel and Verstappen both set their times on Pirelli’s hypersoft tyres, while third-placed championship leader Lewis Hamilton largely restricted himself to the hardest of the compounds on offer this weekend, the soft tyre, and finished just 0.330s behind Vettel. Valtteri Bottas matched team-mate Hamilton in mostly running on the soft tyres to finish the session in fourth place half a second off the pace. Daniel Ricciardo took fifth place on the timesheet, though the Red Bull driver spend most of the session in his team’s garageRead More