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In what was a busy weekend both in racing and personally, I found time to watch two live races and one recorded race (OK, so this was after the weekend). I also got one done before the weekend started.
It was annoying that my live picks were the most boring races I’ve seen in ages. I hope you fared better.
Formula 1 – R4 – Chinese Grand Prix
Shanghai International Circuit, Jiading, Shanghai, China
Seen live, 14th April
This race sums up the worst tropes of F1: lots of hype, not a lot of action.
The PR machine has been in overdrive about “the 1000th race” for a year. Yet when it came to it there seemed little happening at the track, a small handful of old F1 cars and very few dignitaries. They didn’t even get Bernie. What a waste.
The 1000th? Add the “World Championship for Drivers” since 1950, including those championship-counting Indy 500s and those races run to F2 rules, to the successor “Formula 1 World Championship” from 1981 onwards, then it is the 1000th race. This is not the same as the “1000th F1 race”, which doesn’t include Indy or those F2 races but does include all the non-championship F1 races back to 1948.
The Chinese GP is actually pretty good on a regular basis, Tilkedromes have this reputation of being terrible but Shanghai has been a great track over the years with overtaking and strategy. But not this year. This year was tedious.
Very little happened after lap one. I’ve seen many F1 GPs like this and I thought its type had been banished.
Hamilton passed Bottas at the first corner and ran off to win. To his credit, Bottas stayed within 7 or 8 seconds, the Mercedes pair basically cruising in team formation for the entire race. They even pitted together at the 2nd stops, choreographed beautifully, Bottas arrived just after Hamilton left and didn’t have to wait. This was done to protect against a Safety Car, with Ferrari and Verstappen having stopped already.
Ferrari played the strategy call. Vettel and Leclerc were switched but Leclerc was no faster, so he was put on the long game strategy and Vettel mirrored Mercedes. Running Leclerc long had put him behind Verstappen, he was able to close down the gap but not overtake, so this strategy was a net loss of 1 place. Gasly had a better day, close to Leclerc, the results sheet shows he was miles behind but he pitted near the end to successfully go for the fastest lap bonus point.
Renault won ‘best of the rest’ with Ricciardo. Alexander Albon had a fantastic run from a pitlane start to finish 10th. Kvyat and the two McLarens collided on lap one, two of the three retiring 40 laps later from the damage. I’ve no idea what happened elsewhere. TV direction seemed off par.
The Mercedes pair already have a significant points advantage over the field having finished 1st & 2nd in the first 3 GPs, the first time this has happened since Williams in 1992. This is starting to look a lot less close than pre-season testing suggested.
Next up is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a couple of weeks.
Hamilton (Mercedes)
Bottas (Mercedes)
Vettel (Ferrari)
Verstappen (Red Bull)
Leclerc (Ferrari)
Driver
Team
CHI
TOTAL
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
25
68
Valterri Bottas
Mercedes
18
62
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
12
39
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
15
37
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
10
36
Pierre Gasly
Red Bull
9
13
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo
2
12
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
8
Lando Norris
McLaren
8
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
6
Constructor
PU
CHI
TOTAL
Mercedes
Mercedes
43
130
Ferrari
Ferrari
25
73
Red Bull
Honda
21
52
Alfa Romeo
Ferrari
2
12
Renault
Renault
6
12
Haas
Ferrari
8
McLaren
Renault
8
Racing Point
Mercedes
4
7
Toro Rosso
Honda
1
4
NTT IndyCar – R4 – Grand Prix of Long Beach
Long Beach, California, USA
Seen live, 14th April
This one promised a lot. I thought the hard-to-handle aero package would create a lot of sideways moments and overtakes, maybe some sliding into walls. Didn’t happen.
We don’t have any idiots at the back these days, the ones at street tracks who used to cause a bit of chaos that perhaps wasn’t always welcome, gave the series a bad name for weird accidents, but made it all fun. Those days are mostly gone.
Nobody told the back of the field. Lap 2 Pigot slowed, as everyone braked Ericsson ran into Harvey. We finally saw a car in the flowers at the fountain!
It was then a long green flag run at a race where strategy choices aren’t available. Unlike Barber you don’t get the mix of 2-stoppers versus 3-stoppers. The difference here was between those starting on red soft tyres and black hard tyres, and vice versa later, but it turned out not to make a lot of difference anyway. The reds were durable on the streets.
Rossi and Dixon raced hard into turn one on the original start and again on the restart. Each time the pair pulled a gap on the field.
At about lap 34 of 85, Power overshot turn 1 with dust pouring out of his left front brake duct. He spun it around and continued only losing a few places. Ferrucci had previously stalled in a runoff and the series recovered him under local yellow.
After pit stops, Newgarden was 2nd ahead of Dixon, but Rossi had him covered as well. Looked like he extended his lead in every stint. The battle for second was on between Newgarden, Dixon, Rahal, Hunter-Reay.
On the last lap Dixon made the move on Rahal, who defended stoutly and got a penalty for it. Dixon was awarded 3rd. This caused half of Twitter to erupt in anger at Rahal blocking Dixon and half of Twitter to erupt in anger at the stewards for penalising racing!
Watching live it looked like Rahal made a harsh move but a fair one, he left space for Dixon. I was against the penalty. But on review it became clear Rahal made a second move right and then returned to his racing line. I’m okay with picking one of two lines and sticking to it into the corner, I’m not so okay with weaving. And I also remembered if it had been Michael Schumacher I’d have been all over it, clamouring for a penalty, so I can’t argue otherwise for someone else!
Rossi wins by over 20 seconds, the highest for something like 25 years. With this he moves to 2nd in the points standings.
Newgarden extends his points lead as Dixon drops to 3rd. Hunter-Reay gains a few spots. Rahal is a big points mover into the top ten. Colton Herta the big loser, just 7 points after sliding into the wall and out with steering damage.
Next up is the GP of Indianapolis in a couple of weeks.
Rossi (Andretti)
Newgarden (Penske)
Dixon (Ganassi)
Rahal (Rahal)
Hunter-Reay (Andretti)
Driver
Team
Eng
LB
TOTAL
Josef Newgarden
Penske
Chevy
41
166
Alexander Rossi
Andretti
Honda
54
138
Scott Dixon
Ganassi
Honda
35
133
Takuma Sato
Rahal
Honda
25
116
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Andretti
Honda
30
96
James Hinchcliffe
Schmidt
Honda
22
93
Will Power
Penske
Chevy
27
93
Sebastien Bourdais
Coyne
Honda
19
91
Graham Rahal
Rahal
Honda
32
90
Colton Herta
Harding
Honda
7
88
ABB Formula E – R7 – Rome E-Prix
Rome, Italy
13th April, watched 16th April
Halfway in the season. 6 races done before this one, 6 races to go after this one.
As clean a start as you can manage here and on a damp track, a bit of bumping but okay. Guenther had a huge slide and loses parts of his front wing. At the end of the lap Bird gets hit, car damaged, apparently out for the second race in a row.
Chaos on lap two!
Red Flag. Lopez broadside across the track and Paffett under his car. Lopez hit the kerb and spun by himself and caused a complete track blockage. Luckily for those caught in the melee it was just in front of pit entry, so everyone once released was recovered and the race order restored. Replays showed Sims in the wall as well. And Sam Bird managed to get his car to the pits so it was repaired under the red and restarted last.
On the restart half the field activated Attack Mode, although it didn’t seem to achieve anything. Frijns got alongside Buemi for 4th but couldn’t make the move.
Lopez got a penalty for contact with Bird on lap one. Reliability trouble for Mortara and Massa so we had FCY in which JEV overtook Da Costa as they braked.
Evans passes Lotterer for the lead! Tense move! Very forceful into a chicane, elbowed his way through, got a warning from the race director but only a wag of the finger. Lotterer was fine with it, good hard racing.
Fairly strung out field but the pace was hot, unlike Rome 2018. Everyone pushed all the way, not a lot of energy saving except in the last lap or so, this is what we want to see. I don’t mind a lack of passing when the cars are visibly flat out.
Bird got up to 11th at the end, excellent recovery, great work by team and driver.
Evans (Jaguar)
Lotterer (Techeetah)
Vandoorne (HWA)
Frijns (Envision Virgin)
Buemi (Nissan e.Dams)
Name
Team
Rome
Points
Jerome d’Ambrosio
Mahindra
4
65
Ant Felix da Costa
BMW Andretti
2
64
Andre Lotterer
DS Techeetah
21
62
Mitch Evans
Jaguar
25
61
Lucas di Grassi
Audi Sport
6
58
Robin Frijns
Envision Virgin
12
55
Jean-Eric Vergne
DS Techeetah
54
Sam Bird
Envision Virgin
54
Eduardo Mortara
Venturi
52
Daniel Abt
Audi Sport
44
Team
PU
Rome
Points
DS Techeetah
DS
21
116
Envision Virgin
Audi
12
109
Mahindra
Mahindra
5
102
Audi Sport Abt
Audi
6
102
BMW Andretti
BMW
2
82
Venturi
Venturi
67
Nissan e.dams
Nissan
19
65
Jaguar
Jaguar
25
62
HWA Racelab
Venturi
15
22
NIO
NIO
6
European Le Mans Series – 2017 R4 – Le Castellet
Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet, France
26th August 2017, watched 10th April 2019
18 months behind! This one felt like ticking an item off a list. A shame, I really like the ELMS as a good way to while away an afternoon or evening
This time they used the chicane on the Mistral Straight so the only interesting thing about the track, the super-fast balls-out run into Signes, was lost
ELMS catches you out because when you think things are settled with huge gaps after the first hour – it changes. After three hours the order can be completely different. This catches me out because I tend to put endurance races on in the background while I get other stuff done.
Teams put their rated drivers in at different times. Early you see a Platinum or Gold driver racing away to a healthy lead while a Silver or Bronze driver loses loads of time. At the driver change it switches, the lead teams put in their Bronze driver and the distant cars suddenly get a Platinum at the wheel chasing them down. It converges.
In LMP2 Ben Hanley gave Dragonspeed a huge lead which was lost when Bronze driver Henrik Hedman faced the likes of Nic Minassian and Felipe Albuquerque chasing him. And the same principle applies in LMP3 and GTE. Niki Thiim brought the TF Sport Aston up from last to 2nd. You have to pay attention throughout.
Unfortunately this featureless track is a hard watch, I lost the thread in the middle as my mind drifted and got hold of it again in the last hour.
At least the mountains in the distance look nice.
But will I get the 2017 and 2018 seasons done before the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours?
LMP2:
SMP Racing (Dallara P217) – Isaakyan / Orudzhev;
G-Drive Racing (Oreca 07) – Rojas / Roussel / Minassian;
Graff (Oreca 07) – Guibbert / Petit / Trouillet;
First ELMS win for the SMP Dallara and their young driver pairing. A 4th straight podium for G-Drive.
LMP3:
United Autosports (Ligier JS P3) – Falb / Rayhall;
Inter Europol (Ligier JS P3) – Hippe / Smiechowski;
TF Sport (Aston Martin Vantage) – Hankey / Thiim / Yoluc;
JMW Motorsport (Ferrari 488) – Fannin / Smith / Cocker;
Second straight win for SOR, 4th straight podium for TF.
Next Week
15th to 21st April, Easter Weekend so much quieter than usual.
British GT at Oulton Park on Holiday Monday.
24H Series at Spa.
Super Formula at Suzuka.
British Superbikes at Silverstone (on the National layout).
It might be a good time to catch up on past races but I’ll be using it to start, yes, start, watching Game of Thrones! Now I’ve got Sky I can watch it On Demand so I’ve already downloaded them to the box.
And if it is wet weekend and I can’t get outside I’ll see if I can squeeze in a WEC race or something.
Over the weekend I watched the first three NTT IndyCar Series rounds:
Friday night: St. Petersburg, Florida (airport/street circuit)
Sunday morning: Circuit of the Americas, Texas (road course)
Sunday night (live!): Barber Motorsports Park, Alabama (road course)
NTT IndyCar – R1 – GP of St Petersburg
St Petersburg, Florida
10th March
Power on pole from Newgarden, Rosenqvist, Dixon, Hunter-Reay, Rossi.
Rosenqvist got by Newgarden at turn 1. Ed Jones got up four places in four laps. After a yellow for Hunter-Reay’s engine failure Rosenqvist took the lead from Power! Outstanding move for a series rookie. Highly rated from Formula E, Super Formula, Super GT, Blancpain GT, Formula 3…. the list goes on. He was showing why.
Jones hit the wall hard, seemed to misjudge it but might’ve been a car problem, Leist then clipped him and hit the wall too.
Newgarden got the lead through the pit stops by staying out and gapping the field, Power and Dixon similarly emerged ahead of Rosenqvist, Dixon much later passing Power. Good strategy call well executed.
Decent race but not much more to say. Glad it wasn’t the wreck-fest St Pete can sometimes be. And we already see we have a fantastic rookie field. Rosenqvist lived up to his billing, Herta impressed finishing 8th, Ericsson did well until mechanical problems at halfway.
I really appreciate NBC moving the scoring graphics to a tower on the left of the screen, in line with a lot of other series, but this time with the full driver name. Much better and easier to follow than the horizontal crawl across the top!
I didn’t like their obsession with the 2-seater passenger, interviews before, during and after the ride. Overkill coverage of a gimmick. Just speak to them after.
Newgarden
Dixon
Power
Rosenqvist
Rossi
NTT IndyCar – R2 – IndyCar Classic
Circuit of the Americas
24th March
Power again on pole, from Rossi, Hunter-Reay, Herta, Rosenqvist, Dixon.
IndyCar’s first visit to COTA. They took the IMSA approach of ignoring track limits but it seemed to go into overdrive, the penultimate corner apparently was only advisory. Seemed to make a mockery of the designed length of the run-off. It seemed to work until the major race-changing incident.
Outstanding weekend from Colton Herta, son of Bryan, running for the Harding Steinbrunner team. He passed Hunter-Reay early then ran in the top three all race long. He had earned his 3rd place, before the Safety Car
Hinchcliffe qualified in the back half and made up several places to 12th in the first laps. Rosenqvist went down to 8th.
I felt the race had passing early but was largely uneventful in the second half with some field spread. It always happens at COTA. That tempted leader Power and 2nd-pace Rossi, who were running with Herta, into staying out a lot longer than the others. They needed to get to 17 laps to go, or less, to ensure their soft red tyres would last the final stint. At 16 laps to go the Safety Car came out. They hadn’t stopped yet.
Hinchcliffe and Rosenqvist hit each other in that Turn 19 runoff area, the IndyCar racing line, sending Rosenqvist into pit entry. Safety Car, pits closed.
Yes it sucks that IndyCar closes the pits and prevents the leader coming in when the SC is called, as the leader is entitled to in F1, but equally that’s the risk you take when you stay out and everyone else has pitted. They had equal opportunity to come in beforehand, it was a gamble worth taking and they lost, simple as that.
It got worse for Power. At the pit stop under this Safety Car he couldn’t engage gear. He was out on the spot. Disaster after leading every lap to that point. Rossi was also in and restarted something like 18th.
And that promoted Colton Herta to the lead with 10 laps to go! And he controlled it like a veteran, driving away and holding a gap despite Newgarden and Hunter-Reay slamming the push-to-pass button every lap. He is now IndyCar’s youngest ever winner!
Awful to see a dominant win punished through cruel luck, but that doesn’t detract from Herta’s fantastic performance. He was often fastest at COTA in winter testing, fast all through practice, ran with the leaders all day long. This was no fluke yellow-assist from 10th, he had the speed.
Shoutout to Jack Harvey, 10th in his part-season Meyer Shank Schmidt Peterson entry.
Herta
Newgarden
Hunter-Reay
Rahal
Bourdais
NTT IndyCar – R3 – Grand Prix of Alabama
Barber Motorsports Park
7th April
Sato on pole from Rahal, Dixon, Hinchcliffe, Bourdais, Pigot.
A late green flag at the start held the field, but not Ed Jones who got the mother of all jump starts and cleared half the field! A penalty would see to that.
Ericsson took an early stop, just lap 7 or so. By lap 10 they were trickling in, more and more, right through to lap 19. This was becoming a strategy race, 3 stops versus 2 stops.
It later turned out many had planned for 2 stops but switched when the pace of the 3-stopper became viable. Only Bourdais (lap 29), Pigot and Harvey appeared to be the only ones sticking to a 2-stopper. But Power had made his second stop by then after spinning and flatspotting his tyres, he’d be forced to a 4-stopper.
Herta’s engine was stuttering, some fuel pickup problem which couldn’t be solved.
Reports from Twitter followers at the track were of overtakes everywhere, but TV spent most of their time looking at cars pitting. They had to, they couldn’t miss what might be a crucial stop. I’d have liked to have seen more passes on screen.
There were some great ones! O’Ward and Pagenaud had a great battle for 9th, passing, repassing. O’Ward was on fire all day. And a shout out to Ericsson who got 7th after starting 20th, largely through overtaking although I don’t remember seeing it.
A train of quality drivers running 9th to 15th covered by 3.5 seconds, very close racing.
For a while it looked like Bourdais and Sato were racing each other virtually, Sato had it covered though, he was pushing all the way. Bourdais had really good pace despite saving fuel and tyres which Pigot and Harvey couldn’t maintain.
Eventually the Safety Car came out on lap 56 of 90. Rahal’s car stopped on course with drive problems, he’d already suffered a problem earlier. As everyone rushed to the pits Kanaan nerfed Chilton into the wall. Race Control kept it green until everyone had a chance to come in, a good officiating call.
Strategy was out the window, now it was a flat out run to the flag for the last 25 laps. (It was a long yellow.) And Newgarden made the most of it, restarting 9th and was 4th at the flag!
Sato even cut the chicane, he was pushing so hard to stay ahead of Dixon, but held on for a classy and mostly clean win.
Sato
Dixon
Bourdais
Newgarden (from 16th!)
Rossi
Points Table
50, 40, 35, 32, 30, 28, 26, 24, 22, 20 then subtract 1 for every position.
Bonuses: +1 Pole Position, +1 Led A Lap, +2 Most Laps Led.
Driver
Team
Eng
STP
COTA
ALA
TOTAL
Josef Newgarden
Penske
Chevy
53
40
32
125
Scott Dixon
Ganassi
Honda
40
17
41
98
Takuma Sato
Rahal
Honda
11
26
54
91
Alexander Rossi
Andretti
Honda
31
22
31
84
Colton Herta
Harding
Honda
24
51
6
81
Sebastien Bourdais
Coyne
Honda
6
30
36
72
James Hinchcliffe
Schmidt
Honda
28
14
29
71
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Andretti
Honda
7
35
24
66
Will Power
Penske
Chevy
37
10
19
66
Marco Andretti
Andretti Herta
Honda
17
28
16
61
Look how competitive it is! Everyone’s had at least one mediocre race – except Newgarden hence an early lead.
Dixon had that poor race at COTA but otherwise is up there. Sato may prove a surprise contender. Rossi is threatening. Penske drivers Power and Pagenaud are not having a good early season.
Herta is seriously impressive! The easy favourite rookies were Rosenqvist and Ericsson, but Herta is going to give them a run all year.
There’s no teams championship but there is one for engine manufacturers.
Engine
STP
COTA
ALA
TOTAL
Honda
72
90
96
258
Chevrolet
91
65
54
210
The next race is Long Beach this coming weekend.
Catch-Up
Formula 1 – 2000 German Grand Prix
I’ve discovered by accident that Sky Sports F1 shows classic F1 races on a Wednesday night. The famous race at the old Hockenheim required dropping everything else and watching.
It might’ve been a combination of damp track and skinny wings for the straights but it struck me how much the cars moved around, Coulthard was on opposite lock through the top chicane, just like IndyCars are now. That again proves to me low downforce and high power is the way to go. And oh man I miss those V10s.
I love this race. Schumacher out early. Dry first half, a heavy rain shower over the pits at halfway but it only covered half the track. Do you take wets or stay on dry weather tyres? Usually you’d go wets but Barrichello stayed out and made it work. It was an amazing drive from a great wet weather driver, who had started 18th and passed most of the field before any rain fell. Coulthard tried dries too and couldn’t do it. Hakkinen tried wets and couldn’t do it, despite the pair leading when the rain came. Rubens’ first win, too.
Memorable. One of the best races ever.
Next Week
8th to 14th April
Your viewing options include:
F1 in Shanghai
IndyCar in Long Beach
IMSA in Long Beach
Formula E in Rome
MotoGP at COTA
World Superbike at Assen
ELMS at Paul Ricard
Blancpain GT at Monza
VLN at the Nordschleife
Supercars at Phillip Island
Super GT at Okayama
The first truly busy weekend of 2019 and it won’t be the last!
I’m planning F1 and IndyCar live to bookend Sunday. Hopefully also IMSA Saturday night, but I haven’t seen Sebring yet and won’t get the chance before the weekend. And Formula E is calling but I have things to do so that might be a DVR job. MotoGP will be Quest’s Monday highlights for me.
Secondly, what genius put the ELMS and Blancpain GT season openers and round 2 of VLN all on the same weekend? IMSA at Long Beach is slightly different on another continent, but these three European series, there must be drivers, teams and media who would be paid to work both?
Okay I admit this was a fun race. I really wasn’t expecting it to be this good!
DRS & Overtaking
The addition of a 3rd DRS zone left me assuming it would be filled with simple push-button-to-pass overtakes down the main straight and those did happen, too many times.
But for the most part the strategy worked. The DRS zone at start/finish often brought a following car alongside the car in front leaving the drivers to sort it out at turn 1. If they swapped places, the passed car got DRS on the very next straight, giving an opportunity to get the place back. That worked really well. I like it when the chances are fair. Sometimes he got his place back, sometimes he didn’t, and often the cars were side by side into the next corner.
And that meant the opening 10 laps or so were fantastic! Drivers were able to stay with each other and attack each other yet still leaving it in the hands of the drivers to hit the apex first.
It worked less well when a trailing driver used DRS to get behind a car, then got another DRS activation on the next straight and sailed on past. Although, you could argue the trailing driver was being smarter and using the zones to his advantage, deliberately waiting for the second activation to prevent himself being passed back.
So I concede that DRS can improve the racing. The big caveat? I’d still prefer technical regulations allowing cars to race closely without needing a flappy wing to get them close. There is hope in the 2021 proposals. In the meantime, stick with the consecutive activations so each driver gets a fair use, or better still, simply let anyone in the zone use it.
Team by Team
Charles Leclerc was a revelation. Topped the times all weekend, seemingly laying down an early marker against Sebastian Vettel, yet never in a negative, combative way. Open, friendly, welcoming, taking it all in his stride as if he didn’t feel pressure. Until lap 47. A cylinder failed, initially reported as MGU-H, and he started to panic as he lost a comfortable lead and gradually dropped to 3rd. To be honest he was lucky the car was still running at all and lucky the Safety Car came out with 3 laps to go, which protected his podium finish from Verstappen. He kept his head in the end and brought the car home.
Was it the sign of a championship challenge? Of course not. Not yet. It was simply a good performance in a single weekend. Vettel might yet dominate the rest of the season. It did show Leclerc’s potential, showed he didn’t need time to settle in, showed that Ferrari had made the correct decision on drivers.
Vettel himself was very close to Leclerc on pace but he got boxed in on strategy midrace, falling to 3rd behind Hamilton. He was still quicker though, but when he tried to race his way through, he spun. Ferrari couldn’t believe it. I don’t think anybody could believe that again he spun the car in wheel-to-wheel racing. But it probably wasn’t his fault.
There were severe gusts of wind all day, the pre-race coverage from Sky really showed it, even if the in-race coverage from FOM probably didn’t. As Vettel crossed Hamilton’s car’s airflow and unsettled his own car it wouldn’t surprise me if he also caught one of those strong gusts.
The Mercedes weren’t quite there but had enough to fight the Ferraris in the early laps, Hamilton was close enough to catch Leclerc. Unfortunately the All New 2019 Bottas reverted back to 2018 Bottas and by lap 45 was some 15-20 seconds behind Hamilton.
Red Bull were in no-mans land. Well, Verstappen was. Gasly again mired in the field after another poor qualifying effort. At least he recovered to 8th, but that would’ve been 10th had it not been for Renault.
Renault in the closing stages were running 6th and 7th even though they ran divergent strategies, Ricciardo stayed out long, even leading for a bit, it didn’t work in the end, Hulkenberg who started near the back had got ahead of him. But then both retired on the spot at Turn 1 at the same time! Both with car problems, either mechanical or electrical. I’ve never seen that before, both team cars out in the same place with unrelated problems within seconds of each other. They’ll be back but these points were vital.
Something Lando Norris knows. He had a great day. Fell back early then raced his way through, putting solid moves on the likes of Kimi Raikkonen. 8th became 6th when the Renaults went out. A much better showing of speed for McLaren. Lots of potential at McLaren this year. They aren’t quite with the works team on speed, but they might beat them if they finish more races and are definitely hugely better than last year. Sainz suffered damage early, needed a new wing and ran at the back until retiring late on.
Alexander Albon also impressed with some good speed and overtakes including on Kvyat who’d otherwise done a decent job before being shunted into by Giovanazzi, who didn’t get a penalty for it for some reason.
Alfa Romeo had Raikkonen up there and he fought back after pit stops dropped him down. Giovanazzi as above hit Kvyat, other than that I don’t remember seeing him.
Haas qualified well but Magnussen had no race pace at all and Grosjean had damage by turn 2 of lap 1 after contact.
I didn’t see a lot of Racing Point other than Stroll’s car getting damaged in the contact with Grosjean, sparks everywhere. With a new front wing he still caught and passed the Williams pair but had no hope of more. I don’t think I saw Perez all race, he inherited the final point when the Renaults went out.
Williams again at the back. Kubica started on the mediums (everyone else on softs) yet I noticed he pitted first, perhaps he had a slow puncture? He and Russell raced each other all day. Positively, both cars finished the race and right now mileage and race finishes are the most important thing.
Points
Just the point for Fastest Lap in Melbourne keeps Bottas ahead of Hamilton. Verstappen sits a lucky third. The Ferraris surely retain a speed advantage into the next round at Shanghai and should close the points gap. There’s a very long way to go yet in 2019.
The rest of the field is tight as anything. Early season reliability trouble is having an effect. It has long been a truism of F1 that you can’t throw away points in the early races to poor reliability, they’re worth just as much as the season-closing races.
BAH
TOTAL
Driver
Team
18
44
Valterri Bottas
Mercedes
25
43
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
12
27
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
16 FL
26
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
10
22
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
6
10
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo
8
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
8
8
Lando Norris
McLaren
6
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
4
4
Pierre Gasly
Red Bull
2
Lance Stroll
Racing Point
2
2
Alexander Albon
Toro Rosso
1
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
1
1
Sergio Perez
Racing Point
A lucky break for Mercedes but I think this just gives them a temporary advantage. Ferrari will be quicker at fast, open tracks which make up the bulk of the calendar.
BAH
TOTAL
Constructor
43
87
Mercedes
26
48
Ferrari
16
31
Red Bull Honda
6
10
Alfa Romeo Ferrari
8
Haas Ferrari
8
8
McLaren Renault
6
Renault
1
3
Racing Point Mercedes
2
3
Toro Rosso Honda
Williams Mercedes
Catch-Up
Nothing!
With the previous week off work (watching all that MotoGP), last week I was very busy and never got around to catching up with anything in the evenings. Over the weekend I was getting jobs done and visiting family for Mother’s Day.
Next Week
1st to 7th April
IndyCar is at Barber Motorsports Park. I need to watch the first two rounds and hope to do that by then, next week’s post may be an IndyCar Special. It helps that UK and US are back in sync with DST. Unlike the previous race I can actually get home for it.
This is likely to be the only live race I’ll see this weekend. I’m at an astronomy course on Saturday, then o Sunday I’m probably helping to put up a fence!
Your other viewing options include:
BTCC Brands Hatch on ITV4. I considered actually going to this one but other plans have cropped up, there are plenty of other chances though.
WTCR Marrakesh on both Eurosport and, amazingly enough, the BBC Red Button. Of all the series. Plenty of UK interest with Shedden, Huff and Priaulx.
I usually catch one or two live races per weekend and spend time in the week catching up on other things.
Week 12: 18-24 March 2019
Live
Formula E – R6 – Sanya ePrix
Mostly uneventful by Formula E standards, ’til the crash at the end. The track was fast and flowing yet only seemed have one racing line. Yet from the overhead pictures it was hard to see how they could’ve done a better job with the available space. And the backdrop looked amazing, I’d never heard of Sanya, now I want to go to the beach.
It livened up later, after a slow period there was a little bit of side by side racing especially from those in Attack Mode versus those not using it. Otherwise there wasn’t a lot of overtaking. It was more interesting for who was fast and who wasn’t.
Oliver Rowland set a good early pace in the lead, just as he did in Hong Kong. Later it became clear he was saving power, Jean-Eric Vergne overtook him and opened a gap. This bit was fun, as Rowland tried to hold off a hard-charging pack of 5 others, and succeeded!
There was contact. The BMW Andretti of Sims had steering damage after being squeezed between wall and Lotterer. This put him out on the spot. But the clear up took ages. After several laps under local yellows then a Safety Car, the race got red flagged. It looked like flatbed trucks were available, perhaps none had cranes, so they eventually deployed a tractor which apparently couldn’t be done quickly.
I know this is street racing and in places not accustomed to racing, but this is one area the FIA will need to tighten up.
After the restart there was a clash between Frijns and di Grassi. It looked like Frijns rammed LdG out of the race but on replay you could see Buemi had knocked Frijns out of control. This incident caused the race to end under Full Course Yellow. Just 13 cars finished the attritional race, a lot of cars pulling up with problems.
Buemi crossed the line 6th but was penalised to 8th for causing the collision, di Grassi later tweeting to point out Buemi was 8th anyway when he hit Frijns so didn’t lose anything. Buemi though shouldn’t have been there in the first place, he was penalised to 6th in qualifying, but the stewards took so long to make the decision there wasn’t time to charge the car before pitlane closed for the grid, so he started from pitlane and raced his way through. (Presumably through overtaking I missed…)
An underwhelming end to an underwhelming race. It happens even in Formula E. And perhaps my lack of tea or coffee at 7am added to that sense.
JEV won and dedicated it to Charlie Whiting who we sadly lost in Melbourne. In doing so he jumps into third overall. Rowland 2nd in this race but not yet in the top 10 in points, and I get the sense he’ll move up quickly too. Antonio Felix da Costa finished 3rd and takes the points lead. Bird, di Grassi and Mortara all with no-scores.
And we have tie for the lead of the Teams Points! A no-score for Virgin means the others close up, four teams covered by two points. Outstanding.
Total Points
Sanya
Name
Team
62
15
Ant Felix da Costa
BMW Andretti
61
8
Jerome d’Ambrosio
Mahindra
54
26
Jean-Eric Vergne
DS Techeetah
54
0
Sam Bird
Virgin
52
0
Lucas di Grassi
Audi Sport Abt
52
0
Eduardo Mortara
Venturi
44
10
Daniel Abt
Audi Sport Abt
43
0
Robin Frijns
Virgin
41
12
Andre Lotterer
DS Techeetah
36
6
Pascal Wehrlein
Mahindra
36
2
Mitch Evans
Jaguar
Team Points
Sanya
Team
97
0
Envision Virgin
97
14
Mahindra
96
10
Audi Sport Abt
95
38
DS Techeetah
80
15
BMW Andretti
67
1
Venturi
46
25
Nissan e.dams
37
2
Jaguar
7
0
HWA Racelab
6
0
Nio
Next: Rome ePrix, 13th April.
Catch-Up
MotoGP
I had last week off and spent a lot of it catching up on the rest of the 2018 MotoGP season.
I watched Misano, Aragon, Buriram, Motegi, Phillip Island and Valencia. Not Sepang, which failed to record. It’s not too bad when the races are only 45 minutes, although I did watch some of the excellent BT Sport pre-race as well.
[Yes they got the number of the last race wrong, Valencia is Round 19.]
Misano, San Marino & Rimini GP (Sept.). After the initial skirmishes this was another tremendous battle between Marquez and the two Ducatis. Dovi pulled away and the other two fought – until Lorenzo crashed! The bike folded under him as he tipped it, nothing he could do. That gave Crutchlow 3rd.
Aragon GP (Sept.). This time Lorenzo crashed at the first corner of the race, over the top of the bike, causing enough damage to himself that he’d be out for over a month. That left a fight between Marquez and Dovizioso, again what a fight it was, couldn’t take your eyes off it! Marquez took his 5th win of the year and a sizeable points lead. And a good day for Suzuki too, Iannone getting amongst the fight and Rins 4th.
Buriram, Thailand GP (Oct.). The inaugural Thai GP. Car races I’ve seen at this venue have been rubbish, but not MotoGP. Dovizioso, Marquez and Rossi traded the lead. Pedrosa was working his way up, after some lacklustre races in his final season he looked on for 4th or even a podium, but then he crashed out. Vinales joined the top 3. I’m amazed how it comes to a fight between Marquez and Dovi nearly every race, here diving past each other at the final corner and driving for the line ON THE FINAL LAP. Marquez another win, by inches.
Motegi, Japanese GP (Oct.). Another race, another Dovi vs Marquez battle, this time with Dovi ahead and Crutchlow in close attendance as Marc’s wingman, Cal even ahead for a while to try and pressure Dovi. A little behind, the Suzukis were having fun racing Rossi. Marquez got to the lead. But then… Dovizioso was out! His bike folded over like Lorenzo’s had in Misano. Marquez race winner and Champion. (Crutchlow 2nd, Rins 3rd).
Phillip Island, Australian GP (Oct.). A favourite race for everyone. But Crutchlow was out in free practice and he’d be out the rest of the year. Lorenzo still away. A nasty crash too for Zarco as he touched Marquez’s bike, which also put Marc out with damage. Thankfully both riders were OK. Vinales fell back but he raced through and cleared the pack by a clear margin to score Yamaha’s first win for 2 years! Iannone for Suzuki just beat Dovi. Oh and Bautista, on Lorenzo’s bike, had a sensational race to 4th – why wasn’t he hired for it for 2019?
Sepang, Malaysia GP (Nov.). I didn’t see this one other than the above highlights. Rossi actually led a race again and it looks like by quite a gap – until he fell! That gifted it to Marquez, who took his 9th win of the year. Dovi down in 6th. Rins took 2nd for Suzuki, Zarco 3rd for Tech 3 Yamaha.
Valencian GP (Nov.). A wet race with a red flag interruption when the track got waterlogged. Rins got an early lead. There were a lot of fallers through the first half, Petrucci, Miller, Bautista – and Marc Marquez, who landed on a shoulder he’d dislocated before. Vinales went down too. Dovi, Rossi and Rins were racing closely when the red flag came, rightly so. The race resumed with a grid start, Rins on pole on countback, but he’d lose out to Dovi and Rossi. Then Rossi fell, but he got back up to roll in 13th of just 15 finishers. Oh Lorenzo was there too but never troubled the top ten, still injured. Dovizioso won from Rins, with the KTM of Pol Esparagaro in 3rd!
That was fun. When you watch a race per day you get a much better sense of storylines through the season. Marquez vs Dovi. The improving Suzukis and resurgent Yamahas. But all change for 2019, Lorenzo to Honda alongside Marquez, Petrucci to the works Ducati, Bautista to World Superbike. You’ll have seen Qatar, I’ll be watching that next.
Next Week
Monday 25th to 31st March. I’ll have Sky installed so will be watching the Bahrain GP, plus I’ll be catching up with two IndyCar races and the Qatar MotoGP. Let’s hope I have room for all this in next week’s post.
A comment on some of the races I’ve been watching. A return to an occasional and hopefully now regular series with the Calendars all updated.
I usually catch one or two live races per weekend and spend time in the week catching up on other things. This time I didn’t see anything live – I had other plans – but I did focus on two events. I’ll be catching up with “Super Sebring” WEC & IMSA another time.
Week 11: 11-17 March 2019
Formula E – R5 – Hong Kong ePrix
A lot of cars in a narrow, tight space led to contact and red flags and safety cars. It wasn’t the cleanest race in the world.
At least it was close for the race lead. Bird and Lotterer went flat out all the way. Bird made a lot of stout attacks, Lotterer repelled them with a lot of stout defences. For the most part this was close, hard street racing. Possibly an argument that FE ought to have been a silhouette touring car series so they could have a bit of contact! These two were the class of the field and pulled away from the rest.
Sadly right near the end there was contact between them, which put Lotterer out. He was angry, he was right to be angry. He even dragged the damage car around until it went no further. There was obviously no malice involved, Bird didn’t plan to drive Lotterer out of the race, he just misjudged his braking – or his aim – and his car’s nose punctured Lotterer’s tyre. It was marginal, very marginal. But he took out the race leader and that’s a penalty. Sure enough, though it took several hours, Bird was later penalised enough time to lose the win.
That gave the win to street-specialist Edo Mortara, which leaves him tied with Lucas di Grassi for 3rd in points with the top four covered by 2 points. It also gave the Venturi team their first ever FE win.
Must mention Oliver Rowland who took the lead at the start and was fast until he hit the FCY limiter button accidentally around the tight hairpin, losing him many places.
A heck of a lot else happened, a mix of contact retirements and good old-fashioned reliability problems knocked some out of the race too. Some tight battles at the hairpin. I don’t have space to mention it all.
Attack Mode didn’t seem to do anything at this track, perhaps drivers lost a lot of time activating it.
Next up is a new race in Sanya, China on 23rd March. You’ll have seen it by the time this piece is published.
Highlights are embedded above or you can watch the full race HERE on YouTube.
Points
Car
Name
Team
54
2
Sam Bird
Virgin
53
64
Jerome d’Ambrosio
Mahindra
52
11
Lucas di Grassi
Audi Sport
52
48
Eduardo Mortara
Venturi
47
28
Ant Felix da Costa
BMW Andretti
43
4
Robin Frijns
Virgin
34
66
Daniel Abt
Audi Sport
34
20
Mitch Evans
Jaguar
30
94
Pascal Wehrlein
Mahindra
29
36
Andre Lotterer
DS Techeetah
Formula 1 – R1 – Australian GP
As ever a promising build-up lead to a slightly underwhelming Australian Grand Prix. The track just isn’t very good for close racing with cars this fast. At least it was better than the turgid ‘race’ served up last year. The atmosphere looked as good as ever though and it seems a great relaxed place for a season opener.
Okay it was mostly because Giovanazzi stayed out on worn tyres too long, but passes were made. Like I said in the F1 Preview the middle of the pack is going to be something special this year, especially when we get to more open tracks. Norris in particular had a good debut though not the end result to show for it.
And Kvyat really showed up an underperforming Gasly, who shouldn’t have failed to make it out of Q1 qualifying thus totally screwing up his Sunday, at a track where you can hardly pass.
Bottas really laid down a marker, taking Hamilton at the first corner and going on to dominate the race. There was damage to Hamilton’s floor. But I got the feeling Hamilton, being older and wiser these days, decided to bank the points for 2nd. He still beat Vettel and Verstappen and he knows – he thinks – he can handle Bottas later. I also think this is the case, but I also think Bottas won’t quite be the pushover of last year.
Ricciardo screwed his day by driving on the grass and hitting an access road, very unlucky that was there, he’d probably have got away with it otherwise. I’m sure if he’d held to the edge of the tarmac Perez would’ve given him space but it’s all very tight.
I was surprised how seriously the teams took the new point for Fastest Lap. I thought the drivers would like it and the teams would reign them in, but Mercedes encouraged Bottas to go for it while leading. Interesting!
Summary: Decent first third of the race, then fizzled out as the midfield traffic got in a line and couldn’t race, then it got a bit boring.
On to Bahrain on 31st March. It should be more representative for the rest of the year, both in pace and race-ability of the 2019 cars.
Points
Car
Driver
Team
26
77
Valterri Bottas
Mercedes
18
44
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
15
33
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
12
5
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
10
16
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
8
20
Kevin Magnussen
Haas
6
27
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
4
7
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo
2
18
Lance Stroll
Racing Point
1
26
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
Catch-Up
MotoGP
I’ve been been binge-watching recordings of last year’s MotoGP. I did a terrible job keeping up with it. After Jerez I stopped. I’m not sure why, since it is one of my favourite series. Maybe just overwhelmed with live stuff.
Anyway I made the choice to drop BT TV in favour of Sky (see my previous post), partly because I wasn’t using it to watch MotoGP live any more, which means I need to delete everything on my BT Youview box before Monday 25th March.
Of course after I made that decision the highlights rights got moved. Instead of BT Sport’s excellent highlights on Channel 5, we now get generic Dorna highlights on Quest. I haven’t seen it yet but reports suggest it isn’t as good. I have feelings of regret. However there is talk of a BT Sport deal on Sky coming this summer.
Due to the box filling up – the stupid series link recorded endless hours of free practice and started deleting old stuff and I didn’t notice – I had to go to the YouTube highlights for Le Mans, Mugello and Catalunya.
During this week I watched the following:
Assen, Sachsenring, Brno, Spielberg.
Assen’s Dutch GP (July) was magic, such a great race, really close all the way between Lorenzo and Marquez and then Rossi and Dovizioso rode their way through and Rins got in there too. This lot battling was just outstanding.
Sachsenring’s German GP (July) a bit less interesting, Dovi dropped back leaving Marquez to win with a gap over Rossi and Vinales, a slightly better result for Yamaha this time.
Brno’s Czech GP (August) was all about saving your tyres until the last few laps. That meant a big group circulated together but they weren’t going flat out, although it still looked pretty quick to me. When they pulled the pin it was Dovizioso on the Ducati and Marquez on the Honda, with Lorenzo on Ducati close behind, who made the gap. It would be Dovi, Lorenzo, Marquez to give the red team their second 1-2 of the year, Dovi’s 2nd win.
Spielberg’s Austrian GP (August) had a fun start with a big pack. Marquez pulled into a lead with the Ducatis chasing. This is a power track and the Ducatis have it, but the Honda isn’t far off. The was a duel. Marquez and Lorenzo trading blows with Dovi not able to stay with them. Another outstanding battle! Lorenzo took his 3rd win of the year.
And of course Silverstone (August) was cancelled due to torrential rain and a track that didn’t clear water.
Check out these short highlights videos. They aren’t like the F1 and FE videos, they don’t cover as much on track and the edits are a bit jarring, but if racing is most of all about the people, these clips get that across really well.
Next Week
Monday 18th to Sunday 24th March, I’ll be watching the rest of last year’s MotoGP and the Sanya E-Prix.
My plan is to publish these weekly recaps every Tuesday so you can expect this on the 26th, but they may jump around until I find the right day.
This season preview is dedicated to Charlie Whiting who died in Melbourne just before the race weekend. The ultimate poacher-turned-gamekeeper, a genuine and generous individual who will be missed.
Formula 1 In 2019
I really don’t know how to feel about this year.
On the one hand I’m excited for the competition. During testing I watched Will Buxton’s videos on the F1 YouTube channel, Marc Priestley’s F1 Elvis channel too, I was getting really amped up for season 2019 looking very competitive.
On the other hand I’m disappointed at the loss of free-to-air TV in the UK. Restricting fandom is detrimental to the long-term health of the championship in this country. Okay yes, we still have same-day highlights and live British GP on C4, as well as live radio coverage on BBC Radio 5 Live and the F1 app. But it won’t be the same. Not only will existing fans be priced out but the chance to develop young fans will essentially be restricted to households with Sky Sports F1.
On their side Sky have worked to lower the barrier to entry. The first two races will be simulcast on Sky One. There are offers available for Sky Sports F1 or the Sky Sports package as a whole during March 2019 which run for up to 2 years. I’ve taken one of them and it’ll be installed on the 25th.
And also maybe I’m just a little tired? The season is so long now. 21 races feels like hard work for a fan let alone someone working in it. But that’s a topic for another day.
Questions
There seem to be more questions this year! And that’s a great thing. F1 is dull when it is predictable and I’ve had enough of predictable F1. Maybe that’s why I grew tired.
Let’s look at some storylines for the year ahead. There are a lot of them and that’s why I think 2019 will be a really interesting season.
Long-Term
Liberty are continuing to develop their vision for 2021. This coming season will be when the various strands and threads come together. It’ll be fascinating to see what they come up with.
F1 has a lot of structural problems, not least the vastly unfair payment structure which created the two-tier F1 we have today of manufacturers and B-teams (plus McLaren and Williams) and the loss of so many other teams. The technical regulations will probably get the most media focus but the commercial settlement needs even more work.
And more immediately, how will the new front wings and enormous DRS race. or affect future plans?
Mercedes v Ferrari … v Red Bull?
You have to take testing with a pinch of salt, or a bag of sand, however Ferrari genuinely look like having a serious shot. F1 needs at least two competitive teams every year.
Ferrari have had a quick car for a couple of years, only to throw away title chances during the season with operational errors, driver errors, or simply falling behind in the developmental race. Or simply that Hamilton & Mercedes did a better job and never relented.
Charles Leclerc ought to be a challenge for Sebastian Vettel. Perhaps not at every race in the first year, but most of them. Will he be a help or a headache?
At Mercedes, how does Valterri Bottas rebound from a bad 2018? Another year overrun by Lewis Hamilton will surely see his seat go to Esteban Ocon – unless Hamilton retires and Ocon takes that seat. It didn’t help him that Hamilton in 2018 was at peak form, probably driving better than ever. From no.44’s perspective that bodes well for yet more wins and another title.
What of Red Bull? The Honda looks considerably improved after the work they and Toro Rosso put in last year. I think they’ll be ahead of where they were last year but not quite on terms with the silver and red cars.
If Max Verstappen makes overtakes like nobody else and can be a joy to watch. But if he continues to expect the world to revolve around him he may again lose points and it isn’t an endearing character trait. I expect Pierre Gasly to run him close and might even outscore him if Max gets into scrapes.
Midfield Craziness
It’s hard to call it the midfield now. You have the front three. At the other end the only ‘tailender’ now is Williams. And the other 6 teams are the midfield. You see why some last year called it ‘Class B’.
Last year if you removed Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull from the race you could rarely guess who would “win”. Renault, Haas and Force India / Racing Point all had the edge at different times.
I always pick a Best Of The Rest. Who does the best job behind the leading teams?
My bet is Renault. Serious investment in facilities in 2017 will bear fruit this season, this’ll be the first car developed in the new environment. Then add Daniel Ricciardo alongside Nico Hulkenberg. Nico knows the team, Dan has a point to prove after the Red Bull relationship went sour and will only be encouraged by the team, with the Red Bull / Renault breakdown in relations still very sore.
And of course the works team now has the senior Renault supply, no need to bow to the demands of a faster outfit. At least, that’s unless McLaren leap forward. They’ll definitely be ahead of last year and could ‘win’ Class B in some races. Will they be consistent? I’m not sure, they seem to still struggle tactically and if their pace is the same I still think Renault will emerge ahead for that reason. Carlos Sainz we know, he’ll be on it. How fast can Lando Norris settle in? If the car is fast, will Fernando Alonso step back in by summer?
Sauber has rebranded as Alfa Romeo Racing, though to honour history it should rightly be named Alfa Corse. Names aside, Fred Vasseur is working wonders where others failed. He’s got Ferrari on board and investing, even if it is only branding, but I imagine there’s more to it. Hence the swap with Leclerc to Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen as Alfa lead driver. I expect Alfa Romeo to be right up there challenging Renault and a half-step ahead of most of the rest. They are definitely a team to watch.
Kimi might’ve been in pre-retirement mode in past seasons but he came alive in 2018 and he lives for this breed of high-downforce car, expect the same again. Antonio Giovanazzi was hit or miss in sporadic outings in F1 but is worth watching, it’s interesting the media are talking about others and seemingly not Tonio. If F1 had a Rookie Of The Year I think he’d win it.
Toro Rosso is an interesting one. Fast car last year and more of the same will put them up there. Alex Albon is interesting rookie and the return of Dani Kvyat is incredible, I never thought he’d go near the Red Bull system ever again after last time.
I honestly don’t know where to place the next two.
Haas have potential yet keep making mistakes. Sometimes the team, sometimes the drivers. Often the drivers. They make a quick car – a lot of input from Ferrari, more than any other customer in F1 – but sometimes it looks hard to drive. Maybe the setup window was narrow, maybe that’s why they get into scrapes. If Grosjean and Magnussen can stay off the walls they should go well, but there’s a lot of competition, not scoring points will punish you harshly.
Racing Point (or SportPesa Racing) are obviously a quick outfit and they’ll be getting investment from Stroll Snr. It might not show until 2020, when factory upgrades take effect, but they’ll be able to continue developing the car this year. Sergio Perez arguably the senior driver but as he’s been outgunned financially by the Strolls, will his nose be put out of joint? He won’t be calling the shots. Lance Stroll continues to learn, still makes odd mistakes but he certainly has speed, I’m looking forward to seeing that speed unlocked.
Racing Point had a disruptive 2018 with the ownership change. That’s the only reason I’ve marked them down. I’ve marked them 9th in points but they are just as likely to finish 5th.
And finally Williams. And it will be Williams at the back unless something drastic changes. The car was late but that can be recoverable. Force India sometimes failed to arrive at testing, or ran a year-old car, yet were still competitive when they brought a new one. Williams ran just over half of testing and tailed the field throughout. The saving grace is they looked possibly closer than last year. But that’s no good when everyone else stepped forward as well and you’re 2 seconds off them.
I admire that they haven’t become a B-team the way Racing Point, Alfa, Toro Rosso and Haas are. Unfortunately those links with big-spending teams are why the B-teams are faster than Williams who don’t have the ability to spend to keep up.
In terms of management all is not well. Rumours of ongoing disagreements and emergence of a blame culture means the situation is very much not under control. A successful team is a happy team. A finger-pointing, back-biting team will always fail.
Robert Kubica is the comeback story of F1. To be able to race after suffering those injuries is a testament to his perseverance. I’m intrigued to find out whether he can manage a race distance competitively, something the car problems prevented him from doing in testing, which is a real worry. He’s always been tenacious and this year will be no different.
George Russell is the real deal. Even if he looks like an artificial life form, like Jude Law in the film AI: Artificial Intelligence. Once he adapts to life in F1 he’ll make the car go as fast as it will go. But how fast is that?
My Ranking
Mercedes
Ferrari
Red Bull Honda
Renault
Alfa Romeo
McLaren
Toro Rosso
Haas
Racing Point
Williams
The NTT IndyCar Series will air in the UK exclusively on Sky Sports F1 for 2019 and beyond, in a deal announced just over a week before the first race.
This is exciting news if you get Sky Sports F1. And possibly good news for the series to get in front of more eyeballs. This is not so good if you were watching on BT TV.
I’ll get on to the future in a little while. First some context.
History With Sky
The old IRL had long been aired on Sky Sports. Eurosport aired the rival CART / Champ Car. When the series merged, Sky aired the unified IndyCar Series as a continuation of the IRL deal.
At the time Sky gave IndyCar little promotion and audiences were tiny. But they gave it some attention by providing a London studio which filled in the gaps.
US TV is allowed to take far more advert breaks per hour than British TV. This causes a headache for UK channels when they take live American sport. How do you fill the gaps? This is trickier if the host doesn’t show the action while US TV is away.
Sky Sports provided a studio for Keith Heuwen and a regular guest. Keith, the former 500cc Grand Prix motorbike racer and now MotoGP lead commentator for BT Sport. The guests were often former Indy Lights racer and long-time sportscar driver Johnny Mowlem, or British IndyCar engineer Andy Brown who had worked for teams in F1, CART and IRL with success.
Pre-race would be a discussion in London which joined the US broadcast just before the green flag. We rarely saw the packages from the host broadcast. Mid-race, when they didn’t go to break themselves they’d talk through the action we’d seen and show replays again, always a benefit. It was a good compromise.
Unfortunately it could also be dry which is just a function of the format. I’m never a fan of going to a studio during a live event. It doesn’t matter what it is, it could be racing, football, athletics, whatever. I find it detaches you from the event and sucks the life and atmosphere away. I’d rather see the event I’m tuning in to see and have the remote analysts talk over it. I get the sense I’m missing something when they cut away. Unfortunately it is common practice in UK sports broadcasting.
Sky Sports F1 launched in 2012. There was a bit of cross-pollination with 2 or 3 IndyCar races on the channel, but mostly IndyCar was on Sky Sports 4 and the two didn’t interact very much.
History With BT Sport
IndyCar TV rights outside America were held by ESPN International. ESPN had been trying to get into the UK market for a while and set up their own channel in 2009. IndyCar moved to ESPN UK in 2013. But by Summer 2013, BT, the telecoms giant, set up BT Sport as a big-money rival to Sky Sports with the intention of poaching some of the Premier League rights. They succeeded. BT Sport also purchased ESPN UK and repositioned and rebranded it to focus on American sport.
IndyCar on BT was basic to start with, just taking the raw feed from the US and I’m sure they even showed UK commercials for every US break.
After a while the US broadcaster provided a continuous feed during US ad breaks. This allowed BT Sport to employ their own team in London, again filling in the gaps, but this time with no formal studio. It would be audio only, over the pictures from the US. Perfect! The team included Keith Collantine of RaceFans.net (formerly F1 Fanatic), Ben Evans who commentates for BT on other series such as GT Open, and freelance Tom Gaymor who you will have heard at Eurosport on basically any racing they show. Usually it would be a pair from this three.
It was the best of both worlds. You never lost sight of the action. It settled into a routine whereby if US TV took a break while the race was green BT would stay with it with British commentary, but if the race was under Safety Car BT Sport would take a commercial break. This worked well – especially when the number of yellows decreased significantly in the last couple of years!
Occasionally this too could be dry, especially when they exchanged statistics rather than talked about the racing – the lone race where the BT team covered Road America in its entirety was particularly bad for this. But in general the team illuminated the coverage from a British perspective and kept it moving, even including fans’ comments via Twitter and running Q&As for people new to IndyCar. It was a very positive step.
There was moment when a different production team on the UK side covered Indy. The theory was good, big fanfare and explainers for newbies, but they made the same mistake as Sky with a UK studio. It meant UK fans watching for the first time were denied the pomp and ceremony preceding the race, which are as much part of the Indy 500 as the race itself. Instead we watched an incredibly dry discussion about how Fernando Alonso might do. The usual knowledgeable UK team were sidelined which was very unhelpful in explaining to potential new fans.
That race in 2017 the viewership hit 200,000, some 10 times higher than usual! Again generally IndyCar viewing numbers were terrible, just like with Sky, barely making 30,000 some weeks. There’s no way it should be that low in a country so mad on F1.
Future With Sky Sports F1
Sky Sports F1 has matured since 2012. It found its place and has built a loyal audience of motorsport die-hards willing to pay money to watch racing. So this is a good deal, yes?
Well, I have three concerns. One is promotion. How often do Sky promote the non-F1 series they already have, Formula 2 and GP3 (which will be FIA Formula 3 this year)?
Last year they failed to show a live F2 race, choosing instead to show F1 drivers playing giant Jenga, even though three British F2 drivers would sign to race in F1 this year (Russell, Albon, Norris) and two of them fought for the F2 title. For me this is not forgivable. The future of British talent in F1 was handed to them on a plate and they didn’t take it. Will IndyCar races get pre-empted by a magazine show about F1?
The other concern is those loyal die-hard Formula 1 fans. Judging by internet comments and comments I’ve overheard at racetracks and at Goodwood FoS, many have proven over many years to have a real problem with IndyCar. They jump to conclusions about “just turning left” or being “F1 rejects”, though a lot of IndyCar fans in the US make the second point as well.
It makes no sense to me. IndyCar races are mostly on road and street courses. They are open wheel single seater cars that race at high speed. Oval races often are tactically brilliant while being insanely fast.
Will F1 fans give IndyCar a fair shot? I hope so. It’s a fantastically competitive series. And the depth of talent is higher than ever. The top 5 were always as good as anyone in F1, but now you could extend that to the top 10 or 15. Drop Josef Newgarden or Scott Dixon into a Mercedes with 8 days of testing and they’d run Lewis Hamilton close.
The positives?
If even a portion of these fans can be convinced, there is a ready and waiting audience. 600,000 fans regularly watch Grands Prix on SSF1. Convert even 10% of the audience and you’re already ahead of what BT achieved.
And the Indy 500? Lots of potential there. Could we see 400k? 500k? That would be a record for a UK audience. Will the channel see an uplift in subscriber numbers now F1 is exclusively live?
Costs
This is my third concern and it’s a big one. Sky is very expensive. Even with the deals on offer.
For a full cost analysis of Sky Sports please see Motorsport Broadcasting (the blog is also the source of the viewing figures quoted in this piece). The comparison includes Now TV streaming and the Sky Sports Mobile TV app which is by far the cheapest option.
If you already subscribe to SSF1 this is a win for you.
If you don’t you’ll either have to miss IndyCar – and live F1 – or you’ll have to switch. You will at least have delayed highlights of F1 on Channel 4.
YouTube was another option. Races have been uploaded in full to YouTube within days. I have a smart TV with a YouTube app and this was a great way to catch up on those 2am night races if I forgot to record them on BT.
However in the US there’s a new agreement with streaming and on demand catch up on NBC Sports Gold. It remains to be seen whether the series will continue to upload races to their YouTube channel. I suppose we will find out next week.
Speaking Personally
I have BT fibre broadband and BT TV and will lose IndyCar and F1 in the same year.
I had been resigned to watching F1 with Channel 4’s evening highlights.
To be honest I’d assumed IndyCar would stay on BT Sport and was happy with that because they have MotoGP. Two of the best series in the world justified keeping BT Sport and I got to see some Champions League and Premiership Rugby as well.
Yes I know they have other racing, DTM, GT Open, and so on. But I don’t watch those.
I’ve been an IndyCar fan since 2000 and this year’s series promises so much. SSF1 having live F1 and live IndyCar has me seriously looking at subscribing.
There are deals around which drop the price of Sky significantly, though it is still expensive. I’m trying to justify it to myself. It might mean changing broadband.
I won’t be able to get Sky installed before Round 1 at St. Pete next weekend and probably not before the Australian GP the week after. But to guarantee two of my favourite series for two years… is it worth it?
