Valtteri Bottas Tag

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Dashing the Christmas wishes of many drivers, Mercedes has announced that it will not name a successor to Nico Rosberg’s vacated seat till 2017. After newly crowned Rosberg announced his retirement, Mercedes has been in desperate straits to name his replacement ahead of the largest technical changes the sport has seen in 20 years. Much to their chagrin, top drivers Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel are under ironclad contracts with McLaren-Honda and Ferrari. Recently retired veterans like Jenson Button and Felipe Massa are not viable optionsRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Reports are starting to emerge that Valtteri Bottas is Mercedes main target as a replacement for recently retired world champion Nico Rosberg. In any other year this would be a slam dunk move, as Mercedes boss Toto Wolff manages Bottas and would gladly give a large discount to Williams on their Mercedes engines for the next season. Wolff has already made an offer as such, roughly $10 million off for Williams engine package for 2017, but Williams has said no. They did so because this isRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Mercedes technical director Paddy Lowe is on the verge of a shock move to Williams Martini Racing for 2017. Negotiations between Lowe and Williams have been rumored for some time, but a deal has not yet been announced. Lowe would replace Williams current technical director Pat Symonds who is ready for retirement after a career of much success and scandal, most notably crashgate in 2008, which crucially hurt recently retired Williams driver Felipe Massa’s championship bid that year. If Lowe goes he will be the second leadingRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor After much speculation Williams has finally announced that European F3 Champion Lance Stroll will join Valtteri Bottas for the 2017 Formula One season, replacing retiring veteran Felipe Massa. Stroll, who turned 18 last Saturday, has followed in the path of Max Verstappen, by showing incredible promise in the junior series. In further assistance to Williams and its battle to stay at the sharp end of the grid is Lawrence Stroll, his billionaire father, an investor and fashion magnate in their native Canada, who also happens toRead More

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen set the fastest time of final practice for the Mexican Grand Prix, finishing nine hundredths of a second ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, with Daniel Ricciardo third in the second Red Bull. In a messy final 10 minutes of the session traffic disrupted the qualifying simulations of a number of drivers but Verstappen found space enough to set a supersoft tyre time of 1:19.137 with eight minutes left on the clock. Ricciardo might have eclipsed that but the Australian hit heavy traffic in the finalRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The Formula 1 season is already hitting the summer months and thus speculation has begun for 2017, with Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen once again at the center of attention. The 2007 F1 champion has enjoyed a solid season thus far, scoring three podiums in eight starts, but he and teammate Sebastian Vettel are still searching for the Scuderia’s first victory of 2016. However, an expiring contract has many believing the Italian manufacturer will move away from the Finn and look the direction of current Force IndiaRead More

Lewis Hamilton’s dominance of the Grand Prix of Europe timesheets continued as the Mercedes driver set the fastest time of final practice at the Baku Street Circuit, eclipsing team-mate Nico Rosberg by just over two tenths of a second. The defending champion’s march to the top of the FP3 timesheet wasn’t without issue, however. The Briton struggled for a clean lap in the final minutes of the session and was forced to back out of a first flyer when he made a mistake at Turn 1 and ran wide. TheRead More

Lewis Hamilton took his fifth career Canadian Grand Prix win to close the gap to championship-leading Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg to just nine points as the German finished fifth. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel managed to take the lead at the start but could not make a two-stop strategy work and he finished second ahead of a hard-charging Valtteri Bottas who scored Williams’ first podium finish of the season. Hamilton began the race from pole position but when the lights went out he bogged down slightly, as did fellow front-row starter Rosberg,Read More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor From worst to first, Williams Martini Racing has turned around its biggest Achilles heel – their pitstop work. After several disastrous stops in 2014 and 2015 cost the team potential shots at victory, Rob Smedley knew something needed to change. The performance chief of the Grove based outfit put together an internal working group with the goal not only of abolishing mistakes in pitlane, but to become the best on the grid. After the first five races of 2016, the fruit of this endeavor has seenRead More

Lewis Hamilton claimed his third pole position of the season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, finishing three tenths of a second ahead of championship leader Nico Rosberg as Red Bull Racing claimed row two on the grid ahead of Ferrari. Hamilton’s first flying lap of the final Q3 segment was marred by a big lock up into Turn 10 and the mistake left Hamilton with a time of 1:23. 277. Rosberg easily eclipsed that with his first lap, setting a clean-lap benchmark of 1:22.475. Hamilton’s early Q3 error also ledRead More