Kimi Raikkonen Tag

Nico Rosberg took a comfortable Japanese Grand Prix victory to extend his championship lead over arch-rival Lewis Hamilton with the defending champion’s race being compromised by a poor start that left him eighth after the first corner. The Briton recovered to finish third behind Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen but Rosberg now leads his Mercedes team-mate by 33 points with four races to go. At the start of the race Rosberg made a clean getaway, but Hamilton’s start was dreadful. He bogged down badly and was immediately overrun by rivals.Read More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Kimi Raikkonen’s hopes to challenge Mercedes and deliver Ferrari’s first win of the season have taken a hit as he will drop from third on the Japanese Grand Prix grid to eighth place as a result of an unscheduled gearbox change. The 36-year-old Finn showed surprising pace in qualifying to take third place, bettering teammate Sebastian Vettel who ended up fourth but had a three-place grid penalty for causing a collision in Malaysia last weekend. However, Ferrari had to change Raikkonen’s gearbox ahead of the race,Read More

Nico Rosberg beat title rival Lewis Hamilton by the tiny margin of 0.013s to secure pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix. Third and fourth places were secured by Ferrari, with Kimi Raikkonen ahead of Sebastian Vettel, while Red Bull Racing qualified just behind with Max Verstappen fifth ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. Vettel though will drop to seventh on the grid due to a three-place penalty incurred last weekend in Malaysia. Rosberg set the early pace in Q1, setting a time of 1:31.858. That was good enough to eclipse HamiltonRead More

Nico Rosberg edged team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just seven hundredths of a second to take top in the second free practice of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend at Suzuka. Rosberg’s best time of the session was 1:32.250. After Ferrari ended the first practice session more than a second off the pace set by Rosberg, there was encouragement for the Italian squad, as Kimi Raikkonen got to within four tenths of Rosberg’s time at the end of the afternoon’s performance runs. In the morning it had been two-by-two, with Mercedes followedRead More

Daniel Ricciardo led team-mate Max Verstappen to the flag to take Red Bull Racing’s first one-two finish since the Brazilian Grand Prix of 2013, as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was forced out by engine failure while comfortably in the lead. After a dramatic start in which front-row starter Nico Rosberg was pitched into a spin by Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton looked to have the race firmly under control. But on lap 41, disaster struck when the defending champion’s power unity failed. Ricciardo inherited the lead and 25 laps later the AustralianRead More

After losing the championship lead to Nico Rosberg in Singapore two weeks ago, Lewis Hamilton today took the title fight to the German with a blistering qualifying lap at the Sepang Circuit that earned his eighth pole of the season for tomorrow’s Malaysian Grand Prix. The Briton posted a final Q3 time of 1:32.850 and while Rosberg improved enough on his final lap to claim P2, he could not compete with Hamilton’s pace and ended up four tenths of a second behind his team-mate. Red Bull Racing locked out rowRead More

Formula One World Championship leader Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of opening practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix in a session that was red-flagged when Kevin Magnussen’s Renault caught fire in the pit lane. Magnussen had just two installation laps on the board when returned to the garage with a suspected fuel leak. As his car was wheeled back into the car he was suddenly told to jump out as flames burst from the airbox behind his head. The fire was quickly brought under control but fuel continued toRead More

Nico Rosberg once again took control of the F1 Drivers’ Championship standings as he sealed his eighth win of the 2016 season just half a second clear of Red Bull’s Daniel Riccirado who almost overhauled the German in the final stages of the race. Lewis Hamilton was third. The race got off to a dramatic start as a hard charging Nico Hulkenberg powered forward from eighth on the grid. Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz was also trying to get ahead, however, and as the Spaniard moved across the pair collided. HulkenbergRead More

Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg claimed top spot in final practice for the Singapore Grand Prix, beating Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen by just five hundredths of a second. After spending the bulk of the session in P1 with a lap set on supersoft tyres Rosberg was the first to make the switch to the quicker ultrasoft tyres, with 18 minutes left on the clock. He quickly lowered his own benchmark by over a second from 1:45.544 to 1:44.352, a gain more than tallying with Pirelli’s Friday assessment of there being 0.9sRead More

After crashing out of the first practice session in Singapore, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg recovered to post the quickest time of the second 90-minute session. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was forced out of the session with a hydraulics problem. In the opening session both Mercedes drivers had sampled the ultrasoft tyres early on and went on to set their fastest laps on the soft tyre, before Rosberg crashed out with 15 minutes remaining in the session. However in his repaired Mercedes Rosberg fared better on the purple-banded Pirelli rubber in the lateRead More