Photo courtesy of Jamey Price JameyPricePhoto.com

How did it happen? After all the carnage on Friday, several mistakes on Saturday, and two yellow flag ridden GP2 races, most everyone thought the Baku street course would invite many drivers to take the moped ride of shame from their mangled cars to pit garage, helmets hung low. But no, aside from the occasional local flag flown for cars set to DNF, the race ran clean and green, lap one through fifty-one.

Nico Rosberg won the race, easily, his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, finished in fifth, nearly a minute behind. For a large chunk of the race, Hamilton suffered from a “d-rate” issue, a problem that reduces electric motor output, and indeed total power. This particular fault merely took some fiddling with settings on the steering wheel to fix. But here’s the perplexing bit, the team couldn’t tell Hamilton which settings to change because current FIA rules forbid such topics of discussion over the radio.

Kimi Raikkonen suffered similar troubles in his Ferrari. He bemoaned the FIA’s rules, publically and repeatedly. And I have to agree with him, what purpose do these rules serve? Improving the show? I don’t think so. For the Finn, it’s unclear whether fixing the problem would’ve allowed him to keep Perez over five seconds behind him and stay in third (he received a five-second penalty for crossing the pit-in line without pitting in). Alas, he managed fourth and received 12 points for his efforts, overtaking Ricciardo for fourth in the Driver’s Championship.

Mercedes carried the widest performance gap from its competitors we’ve seen this season. Sebastian Vettel, finished second, but 17-seconds behind. Force India showed major pace in Baku, with Sergio Perez stepping on the podium in third. Hulkenberg botched qualifying and performed so-so in the race, finishing ninth. On the whole though, great day for the Silverstone based team. They scored 17 points, comparing favorably to both Red Bull and Williams, who scored 10 and 9 points, respectively.

Just outside the points, Button finished 11^th for McLaren, Alonso exited the race early with a problem. Among the small teams, Sauber finished well, Felipe Nasr snagged 12^th ahead of top Haas driver, Romain Grosjean.

In many ways, the European Grand Prix was flawed. Held the same weekend as Le Mans, which is poor form. And the street course came with a couple corners with questionable safety standards. But we saw 230 mph top speeds—on a street course! That’s crazy good. And the fact that F1 held a race on a track that eschews the bland trend towards homogenization? That’s crazy better.

-Robin

Race Results

Photo courtesy of Jamey Price, http://jameypricephoto.com/

Baku City street circuit sparked controversy among many of the drivers. The fast street course and fresh pavement also cracked its fair share of carbon fiber, bent a bit of metal, and checked a few egos.

Most notably, Lewis Hamilton’s. The winner of the previous two grands prix suffered through a miserable Saturday. He made mistakes every qualy session. In Q2, a major lock-up with two and a half minutes to spare threatened Hamilton’s ability to even attempt for the top ten. Just in time, the Brit got back on track and pulled off a quick enough lap. Friday, Lewis was the pacesetter, so a pole run is what most expected. Not so, with two minutes and five seconds left, Hamilton turned-in too early, clipped the wall, and ended his day in tenth with a bent right-front corner.

Rosberg, in contrast, stayed clean and on-track. He efficiently and consistently improving his time, and used fewer tires than his teammate to do it. Not only did Rosberg comfortably take pole position, he retained more fresh rubber for the race tomorrow.

The other team to split performance was Force India. Nico Hulkenberg failed to understand his engineer and didn’t push on his final Q2 lap, bailing after a small lock-up early in the run. As a result he starts 12^th. Sergio Perez not only made it to Q3. He pulled off a blistering lap and managed to take outside pole. A gearbox penalty pushes the Mexican back five positions, so he’ll grid seventh. But everyone, including the top team principals, saw his brilliant performance.

And a shout-out to Daniel Ricciardo for putting the Red Bull in P3, he’ll start on the front row courtesy of the Perez penalty. Two takeaways from his performance: One, you just can’t keep the Australian down. Two, Renault has a competitive power plant this year.

Baku will almost certainly be a memorable grand prix, and just may set a new record for most damaged front wings and suspension arms.

-Robin

Photo courtesy of Jamey Price, jameypricephoto.com

Maybe it’s my love of poutine, or the northern air, or even the US friendly time zone, but Montreal always delivers a great Grand Prix. It’s a street course, and a permanent racetrack—sort of, at least. It combines Long straights, memorable corners, with the infamous Wall of Champions. Tire, pit, and race strategy are often novel and different. A wonderful Quebecois twist on the normal, at times even formulaic, racing we see. I’m sure Hamilton agrees; he’s now won five of the ten Canadian Grands Prix he entered. That’s right, in Canada, Hamilton winning carries the same odds as tails on a flipped coin.

Rosberg, however, likely left Montreal without even a quick stop for a smoked meat sandwich. The German once again colliding with his teammate, no damage to the car this time, luckily, but he did bruise his ego. On lap 51, Rosberg suffered a tire puncture. Upon re-entering the race, he couldn’t get past Max Verstappen in fourth place, spinning the car in one final desperate attempt. Rosberg started the season with four wins, but only scored 16 points in the three races since.

Verstappen also stayed ahead of his teammate, as Ricciardo dealt with more nonsensical Red Bull behavior and straight bad luck. Despite qualifying ahead of the Dutchman, Rosberg’s lap-one off track incident caught Ricciardo out and put him behind. Then more shenanigans in the pits dropped him to seventh. With each new race comes a new weight on Ricciardo’s shoulders. Perhaps another team will better suit his driving and help him retain that million dollar smile.

Ferrari qualified well in Canada. Showing their power unit is competitive with Mercedes. And while Vettel lead part of the race, his pace, and perhaps strategy, couldn’t quite keep up with Silver Arrows. With perspective and a bit of hindsight, I hope Ferrari left North America satisfied that their car, team, and driver development are all headed in the right direction.

Finally, a heart felt shout out to Williams, congratulations on a well-deserved podium.

-Robin

For full results, click here

Photo courtesy of Jamey Price, http://www.jameypricephoto.com

Saturday in Montreal brought a touch of rain for, at times, a mildly damp track, which added to the drama, but not the lap time. Here are six highlights:

 

1. Fernando Alonso made it to Q3, if only just. Jenson Button did not. During his last Q2 lap he locked up, which cost some time, but Button blames his P12 on not getting a tow (a draft) from another car. Instead, Alonso got Button’s tow, the Britain claims.

 

2. Ricciardo ahead of Verstappen, for now. Once again Verstappen seemed to have the edge on Ricciardo in qualifying. But, as in Spain, the Australian pulled out a killer time in Q3 to take P4 and it took a brush of the Wall of Champions to do it. Lucky for Ricciardo, it didn’t damage the car.

 

3. Gutierrez edged Grosjean to take P14. Grosjean complained of his car’s balance as “miles off,” which “means you can’t drive the car as you like.” No matter, his fast lap was a quarter of a second longer than his teammate, only good enough for P15. Far from the early form Haas began the season, but more akin to what everyone expected.

 

4. Kvyat bests Sainz by six seconds to start 13^th on the grid. Of course Sainz hit the wall of champions early on in Q2, so never set an actual lap. His lap in Q1 was a 1 min 14. 714 sec, over a tenth quicker than his Russian teammate.

 

5. Mercedes back in front, but by less of a margin than many expected. Hamilton won pole with his first flying lap as Rosberg couldn’t quite match it and suffered a big lock up on his second attempt.

 

6. Pole time last year, Hamilton at 1 min 14.393 sec, this year: 1 min 12.812 sec, that’s 1.6 seconds faster! (1.581 seconds)

 

This is the tightest run for pole we’ve seen in a while. It’s very encouraging to see six tenths of a second cover the top five. Enough so, we may see an honest to goodness fight for the lead in the race. And not just between teammates, either Ferrari or Red Bull could challenge. For full results click here.

 

-Robin

As Jamey Price said, Monaco supersedes Formula 1. The culture and atmosphere is larger than life. The pomp and circumstance is uncanny. And the racing is the most wonderfully absurd. Jim and I watched, loved, and produced an over hour long podcast about Monaco. Jamey Price did better. He Spent five days at the principality and shot amazing photography. Below is but a glimpse at Jamey’s work.

Monaco at night, basically backlit money. What a scene, what a place. In this electric photo, the entire principality is alive, land and sea.

 

After consistently beautiful weather, race day brought heavy rain and the green flag flew with safety car lights flashing.

 

Seven laps later, the Mercedes with doors drove aside and Daniel Ricciardo immediately pulled a gap from second place Nico Rosberg and built a comfortable lead.

 

But as the track dried, the fateful Red Bull pitstop occurred. Hamilton now ahead of Ricciardo, if only just.

 

And Lewis Hamilton carried on to win his 44th Grand Prix, his second at Monaco. Incredible drive, he was happy.

 

Daniel Ricciardo wearing his trademark, entrancing smile…before the race.

 

And his facial expression after the race…man, that’s hard to see.

 

But we end on a happier note. Unrelated to the drama in front, the elated Mexican, celebrates a Monaco podium.

 

Sergio made his father proud. That is bone deep joy he feels for his son, uncontrollable happiness.

 

To see more of Jamey’s pictures goto: http://www.jameypricephoto.com