Guest Post 47

Pedro Cunha´s Impressions Of The 2016 F1 Season So Far  - Original aqui     

 

This year we have the return of Renault as a Team Constructor, the debut of Haas, and three new drivers: Pascal Wehrlein (DTM World Champion), Rio Haryanto (from the GP2 Series) and Jolyon Palmer (son of former F1 driver Jonathan Palmer).

 

 

 

Romain Grosjean is now at Haas, Esteban Gutierrez is back (he drove for Sauber in 2013 and 2014) and Kevin Magnussen swapped McLaren for Renault

 

 

The season started with a new qualifying system:

Q1
- 16 minutes
- After 7 minutes, slowest driver eliminated
- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag
- 7 drivers eliminated, 15 progress to Q2

Q2
- 15 minutes
- After 6 minutes, slowest driver eliminated
- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag
- 7 drivers eliminated, 8 progress to Q3
Q3
- 14 minutes
- Ater 5 minutes, slowest driver eliminated
- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag
- 2 drivers left in final 1 minute 30 seconds

 In each session, the final elimination will occur at the chequered flag, rather than when the time is up.

 No one liked this sistem, and it was only used in Australia and Bahrain, now are back at the same qualifying system used in 2015 (Q1 with 18 minutes and 22 drivers, Q2 with 15 minutes and 16 drivers, and Q3 with 12 minutes with 10 drivers).

 

Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda remain the engine suppliers and Pirelli continues as a tyre supplier, introducing a new compound ultra-soft, extending the choice to 7 compounds.

 

 

We will have 21 GPs, including 3 new ones: The European Grand Prix will be held in the streets of Baku (Azerbaijan) and the US Grand Prix will be held at the street circuit of New Jersey, whereas the German GP returns to Hockenheim.

 

Austrália

 Hamilton got his pole No. 50 (better only Schumacher (68) and Senna (65)).

 A fabulous start for Ferrari, with Vettel moving himself from 3rd to 1st and Räikkönen from 4th to 2nd, while Hamilton dropped to 6th.

 

On lap 17 a chilling accident (fortunately without major medical consequences) involving Alonso and Gutiérrez forced the race to be interrupted.

 

Mercedes “read” the events well and with only one pit stop (against 2 of Vettel, Raikkonen dropped out on lap 23) managed to get the 5th one-two in a row, as Rosberg claimed his 4th consecutive victory (the 15th of his career).

 

Vettel had to settle for 3rd place, followed by Ricciardo, Massa, Grosjean (excellent starting race for Haas), Hülkenberg, Bottas and the two Toro Rosso drivers Sainz and Verstappen (after a very bitter struggle, with the Dutch strongly criticizing his team as he felt penalized for their tactical options).

In a race with 6 dropouts (Kvyat after the warm-up lap, Alonso, Gutiérrez, Haryanto, Räikkönen and Ericsson), the best rookie was Palmer (11th).

 

Bahrain

Alonso wasn´t allowed to participate (the accident in Australia was not as harmless as previously thought: The Spanish suffered fractures in the ribs and had a pneumothorax), which allowed the debut of Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne.

 

Nico Rosberg equaled the “old” record of Riccardo Patrese (1993): 187th consecutive times in Grand Prix racing. Hamilton took his 2nd pole of the year and the 51st of his career.

 

The desert and the night of Bahrain were terrible for Vettel and Palmer, who dropped out during the warm-up lap(!). Button, Gutierrez and Sainz also had to abandon the race.

 

Hamilton and Bottas got involved in one accident at the beginning of the race, and both suffered damages on their cars. The Finn had to take a “drive through” after being found guilty over the accident.

 

After some quite anarchic laps, we quickly realized that the victory would be Rosberg’s (five in a row).  The 2nd place was for Räikkönen, 3rd for Hamilton, 4th for Ricciardo and 5th for Grosjean (a nice surprise as Haas is a new team), but no one could say that the race was boring; we had a few fights between several drivers and some beautiful driving moments.

 

Verstappen was 6th, Kvyat 7th, the Williams drivers (Massa and Bottas) occupied positions 8 and 9, while the rookie Vandoorne came 10th.

 Reference has to be made to the German Pascal Wehrlein, who made an excellent qualifying (16th) and ended the race in 13th, which is remarkable due to the limitations of his Manor car.

 

China

 Rosberg got Pole, while Hamilton (with lots of problems) took the 22nd(!) qualifying place.

 

For only the 5th time in F1 history all drivers at the start (22) completed the race. This has only happened in Germany in 1961 (15 in 15), United States in 2005 (6 on 6), Italy in 2005 (20 in 20) Spain (European Grand Prix) in 2011 (24 in 24). Although last year in Japan all drivers were classified, in fact just 19 of the 20 pilots finished the race (Nasr was disqualified as he completed the minimum number of laps).

 

A confusing start as the two Ferrari drivers were involved in one accident, same as Grosjean, Hamilton and Ericsson, when only the German did not need to pit.

 

On lap 3 Ricciardo, who was leading the race, had a puncture and the Safety Car entered the track to clean the debris. Several drivers went into the pits. When the race resumed almost all the drivers occupied unlikely positions, with the exception of Rosberg, who led and easily realized he could hardly fail to get his 3rd win of the year and the 6th consecutive, giving Mercedes their podium number 100.

 

For the remaining places we witnessed a race full of fights and overtaking maneuvers, with points for Ferrari (Vettel 2nd and Räikkönen 5th), Red Bull (Kvyat 3rd and Ricciardo 4th), Williams (Massa 6th and Bottas 10th), Toro Rosso (Verstappen 8th and Sainz 9th). Hamilton had to settle for 7th place, after a weekend full of complications.

 

Russia

22 years after the death of Ayrton Senna, we returned to the Russian GP.

 

Another beautiful weekend for Rosberg: pole, and another win (7 in a row) and another on-two for  Mercedes (Hamilton with problems in qualifying started on position 10, but ended up in 2nd).

 

A huge mess at the start with several accidents, which left Hülkenberg, Haryanto and Vettel out (the German was “kicked” twice by Kvyat) and forced the Safety Car to appear, while many drivers had to go to the pits to replace damaged parts on their cars.

 

For the first 6 things were quickly resolved, but the following places have had numerous fights with a lot of good driving moments.

 Räikkönen saved the honor of Ferrari by coming 3rd, Bottas and Massa added 22 more points for Williams, as they were 4th and 5, while McLaren did a nice job with a 6th place for Alonso and a No.10 for Button. Magnussen in 7th achieved the first points of the year for Renault, Grosjean consolidated his good start as he was 8th. Perez was 9th and added 2 more points for Force India.

 

A disastrous day for Red Bull though, with both drivers out of the points (Ricciardo was 11th and Kvyat 15th), as well as Toro Rosso (Verstappen quit and Sainz was 12th).

 

Current Standings:

 

Drivers:
Rosberg (100), Hamilton (57), Räikkönen (43), Ricciardo (36), Vettel (33)

 

Teams:
Mercedes (157), Ferrari (76), Red Bull (57), Williams (51), Haas (22)