Red Bull Tag

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Victory in the Japanese Grand Prix wasn’t much of a contest for Lewis Hamilton after Sebastian Vettel retired his Ferrari with a spark plug issue, but it nevertheless served up an abundance of fascinating statistics. Chief of which is the incredible nature of Hamilton’s pole lap time and the time in which he finished the Grand Prix the next day. His lap record in qualifying on Saturday of 1:27.31 matches up exactly with the 1 hour 27 minutes and 31 seconds he took to finish theRead More

Lewis Hamilton took his 71st career pole position and his first at Japan’s Suzuka Circuit as he beat Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas by three tenths of a second with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel third. However, title contender Vettel will start alongside championship leader Hamilton on the front row as Bottas is set for a grid penalty due to an unscheduled gearbox change. Hamilton set the pace in Q1, rising to the top of the timesheet around 10 minutes into the session with a lap of 1:29.047 on soft tyres. He wasRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor The Japanese Grand Prix was first held all the way back in 1963 as a sports car race, it did not become an official Formula One Grand Prix until 1976 on and has been held 30 times since. The first two grands prix were at Fuji speedway near Tokyo, including the dramatic 1977 title decider where James Hunt won the World Championship over Niki Lauda. The race then dropped off the calendar for 10 years before it moved to its spiritual home of Suzuka Circuit inRead More

Sebastian Vettel led a Ferrari one-two in second practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix, six tenths clear of team-mate Kimi Räikkönen, as the session was ended early by a heavy crash involving Haas’ Romain Grosjean. Vettel’s performance run on the Pirelli supersoft compound tyres netted a best time of 1:31.261. Team-mate Kimi Räikkönen was second, 0.604 seconds adrift, while Daniel Ricciardo was third for Red Bull Racing, just over two tenths further back. It was a trickier session for championship leader Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas. BothRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Carlos Sainz’s widely reported move from Toro Rosso to Renault is apparently in the form of a “loan” which at least in theory, Red Bull can take back if they need or desire to. With the top Red Bull team filled and Pierre Gasly coming to take his place at Toro Rosso it is likely that Sainz will stay at Renault after 2018, but it is not guarunteed. Should Honda continue to be a disaster in 2018 and Red Bull be forced to take their enginesRead More

Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo went fastest in opening practice for the Singapore Grand Prix ahead of Ferrari but it was announcements off-track that garnered most attention at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. Following months of speculation McLaren and Honda announced that they will end their partnership at the close of the 2017, with the Woking squad then quickly announcing that its power units will be supplied by Renault in 2018. As well as issuing its own statement about the McLaren supply, Renault subsequently announced that it has signed ToroRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Renault may yet come out the big winner through McLaren’s separation from Honda. Doing their best to exploit an enemy’s weakness, they have already poached Carlos Sainz from Toro Rosso and dropped them from their engine supply, but if a report by the usually accurate Auto Motor und Sport proves to be true it’s about to get a lot worse for Red Bull. According to the report, the French manufacturer has informed Red Bull that they are cancelling their order of power units for the 2019 andRead More

Lewis Hamilton powered to a lights-to-flag victory at Silverstone to claim his fifth career British Grand Prix win and equal the record set by F1 legends Jim Clark and Alain Prost. In a remarkable finish to the race, both Kimi Raikkonen and championship leader Sebastian Vettel suffered punctures in the closing laps to allow Valtteri Bottas through to seal a Mercedes one-two. Raikkonen recovered on new tyres to claim the final podium spot. In the final laps Hamilton had held the lead from Raikkonen and Bottas, with Vettel in fourthRead 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