Mercedes F1 team carries its domination over the times at the Italian GP. It had 1,2’s in all the sessions, including the qualifications’ session. The best time, and pole position were Hamilton‘s, dominant in all the qualifying session (Q1, Q2 & Q3). He did a flying last lap, beating all drivers to the pole, with a 1:21.135, leading his team mate by almost half a second.
Hamilton has the pole, yet, he will start with potentially flat-spotted tires, Mercedes will ask to change them, they may present danger on the driver himself and on the race. Ferrari locked the second row in the starting grid, Vettel (1:21.972) beat Raikkonen (1:22.065) for the third place, and the drivers will start on softer, faster tires, but will have shorter first stints. Vettel may have his 3rd place revoked, because he may have gone off track in the parabolica curve. Velteri Bottas was 5th, and Ricciardo 6th. Verstappen who was criticized for his driving style, by the race director Charlie Whiting, the F1 drivers, and even the GP2 drivers, did only achieve 7th place on the grid doing a 1:22.411. Haas, who put a driver in Q3 for the first time ever, had only the 10th position, Gutierrez had it, Grosjean will be having a 5-places grid penalty for changing his gearbox.
Esteban Ocon, who had electronic problems in the free practice on Friday, did not score a time today, and will start last, still not clear, if from the grid, or from the pits. His team mate, Pascal Wehrlein scored the 14th time, but will start from the 13th spot on the grid, due to Grosjean’s Penalty.
Both Force India drivers are behind William’s driver, Bottas, 5th on the grid. Sergio Perez was 8th and Hulkenberg 9th. To everyone big surprise Massa was out of Q2. He said that he did not get the grip he needed from his tires.
Mclaren will be having a quite difficult race with both drivers out of qualifying in Q2.
The F1Belgian Grand Prix ended with a win for Mercedes , Nico Rosberg, who started from pole, carried on until the last lap, managing the advantage he had on his direct chaser, on the second march of the podium, Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo and to the big surprise of everyone Louis Hamilton closed the last march. It was a pretty thrilling race, with a Ferrari crash at the start with Verstappen, a virtual Safety car, a huge crash by Kevin Magnussen, a safety car and red flag.
The Race first stage : Penalties served, Hamilton sat on the last line with Fernando Alonso, before them was Gutierrez for Haas F1 who was serving a 10-places grid penalty and Marcus Ericsson who preferred to start from the pits. Pole was for Roseberg, next to him Verstappen and in the second line, the two Ferrari Horses ready to prance at any moment. Red lights gone off, Ferrari did an amazing start, until getting to the La Source virage, this is where all went funny : Vettel closed on Raikkonen who was pushing with Verstappen. It resulted in Vettel losing control over his car, waited for the field to clear to go again racing, Raikkonen sustained a puncture and front wing damage and Verstappen lost a chunk from his front wing. At the first lap, right after the Les Combes straight, Manor driver, Pascal Werlhein cleaned Jenson Button off the track, and carried him from behind, the two drivers quit. Carlos Sainz suffered a car puncture and tire explosion which ended his race. It all turned to the favor of Williams, Force India’s Hulkenberg, and Hamilton who grabbed a few places. At the end of the first lap, Roseberg was in the lead, then Hulkenberg and Ricciardo. Hamilton was 15th. The race carried on being eventful, until the 9th lap, where Magnussen lost control over his car in Radillion Eau Rouge, went in all directions and hit the tire wall. The crash was due to loss of control over the back of the car. Charlie, the race director ordered a safety car right away, but it lead to a 17 minutes red flag, until the tire wall was fixed. teams took their chance for change of race strategy, fixing damage on the cars.
Race Restart : The race restart was behind the safety car, who existed at the 11th lap. The drivers made use of fresher tires, and especially the long straights for impressive overtakes. Raikkonen and Verstappen touched once again, the Dutchman could have taken Ice Man into pieces while defending his place. Having an aggressive defense strategy and waiting for his opponent to go in a direction or another so that he makes his mind. Alonso, 3rd after the restart, had to undergo overtakes one after the other, to finish the race in the 7th place, 1 minute behind the lead. Hamilton, carried his way, but did not achieve more than the third place, the gap in the championship was reduced by 10 points, and Roseberg is second just by 9 points. Force India did a nice race in general, finishing 4th and 5th, advantage to Hulkenberg over Perez, they scored precious points and getting to the 4th place in the constructors championship.
Hamilton did the fastest lap of the race, cars being full on fuel, and tires being more used, he did a 1:51.583. Despite having a one stop strategy, Verstappen finished off the points, the last point was grabbed by Felipe Massa for Williams.
At the end of the race this is the final standing :
1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:44:51
2. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, + 14.113
3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, + 27.634
4. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, + 35.907
5. Sergio Perez, Force India, + 40.660
6. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, + 45.394
7. Fernando Alonso, McLaren, + 59.445
8. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, + 60.151
9. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, + 61.109
10. Felipe Massa, Williams, + 65.873
11. Max Verstappen, Red Bull, +71.138
12. Esteban Gutierrez, Haas, +73.877
13. Romain Grosjean, Haas, +76.474
14. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, +87.097
15. Jolyon Palmer, Renault, +93.165
16. Esteban Ocon, Manor, + 1 lap
17. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, + 1 lap
As for the championship standing after the race (just the first 10 places) :
The summer holidays are over for the F1 drivers and it is back to business. The first of the sessions was dominated by Nico Roseberg for Mercedes, doing 1:48.348, putting Louis Hamiltion 0,73 seconds behind him and third was Ferrari‘s Driver, Raikkonen 0,8 seconds behind the leader. Mercedes F1 GP was the only team to ever use the softest tyre, the super soft. Ferrari came with a more aggressive tyres strategy.
Mercedes is gambling on Hamilton’s power unit, since they gave him a new Turbo and MGU-H (a motor-generator unit that recovers energy from the turbo) units, giving him a 15 place grid penalty, and they may resort to using a 7th turbo and MGU-H units which will give him another 15 place grid penalty, thus starting plain last.
Ferrari was 3rd and 5th on the first practice session, running on the soft tyres, which was refreshing for the Scuderia to be close to the Mercedes Team. The two Ferrari drivers were divided by the Force india Sergio Perez. Red Bull drivers were 6th and 7th. Max Verstappen had a tough moment with a huge oversteer in the Fagnes chicane.
It was hard for Alonso, the McLaren–Honda driver, who wasn’t able to set a time, due to engine-related problems. Honda came up with upgrades to its power units and it seems not to work.
Manor introduced a new driver to the field, it is the Frenchman, Esteban Ocon, in replacement of the Indonesian, Rio Haryanto, after problems with the sponsorship. Ocon is Renault’s reserve driver and is under contract with Mercedes team. Ocon finished the first practice session 15th fastest, his best time was 1:51.787, he was +3 seconds off the lead, but he was better than his team mate, Pascal Wehrlein who did 1:52.837 and finished the session 19th.
The practice session was run with protective halos by some drivers, like Nico Roseberg (Mercedes), Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull), Carlos Sainz (Torro Rosso) and Nico Hulkenberg (Force India). Tests are still being made to make sure the protective halos do not affect pilots visibility.
which follows are the official results of the first practice session :
For the second practice session done later this afternoon, Max Verstappen came first 1:48:085 dollowed by his team mate, Daniel Ricciardo 1:48:341 (+0.256) and the third was Nico Hulkenberg doing a 1:48:657 (0.572 off the lead). Verstappen promised more to come from his car, as tomorrow will be hotter. Hamilton focused more on the long runs, doing only 13th time.
It did not go well for the Ferrari drivers, Kimi Raikkonen said that the car will behave better tomorrow, Vettel faced many traffic problems, it seemed like he was stuck in traffic all day, and he had problems making his tyres last longer, which was crucial for all the drivers. Ferrari ended the session in 4th place for Seb Vettel and 7th Place for Raikkonen.
Hamilton wasn’t the only one to carry penalties, Fernando Alonso had his fair share too, with a 35 grid place penalties, due to engine change, for the FP1 failure. The Spaniard should make his start from the Netherlands maybe, Marcus Ericsson, Sauber driver, will serve a 10 place grid penalty for changing his engine.
It wasn’t the best day for massa, who qualified tyre pressure by a joke, the car wasn’t behaving, despite introducing a new chassis to his car, he said also that there is a lot of work to do, to compensate the deficit.
The FIA placed sensors in the track for drivers who will cross the track limits, in turns 4 in Radillion Eau Rouge and turn 12 Pouhon. The final results for the FP2 are the following :
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