Round 16 - USA 2015 - Qualifying

Greetings Internet, 

The weather in Texas has not been particularly cooperative, rain and lightning has raged in Austin over the past couple of days - FP2 and the first attempt at qualifying were washed out. Which is why, on a Sunday I'm compiling a post about qualifying, after it was postponed due to the inclement weather. Personally I would have sent them out anyway yesterday, and whoever managed to complete a lap without bouncing off the barriers would automatically claim pole. Yet some of the shots of the circuit did look as if the track had been completely inundated with water so, I suppose in the end it was the right call to abandon qualifying - the only difficulty with the decision was that it took so long to accept that the rain wasn't going away and it was only going to get worse.

Which brings us today, where we had a second go at qualifying, and managed to complete two thirds of the session before the rain came back and washed out Q3. I suppose it is easy to look at things from the sofa, and say that the session was curtailed a little too early, and if they really tried - Q3 could have happened. But it always looks more drivable on TV than it probably was in reality - comments online from people at the circuit were saying that the rain was severe, with waterfalls forming in the grandstands. So on reflection, it might have been the right decision to give it up. After all because the qualifying session was relocated to Sunday - if cars ended up in the wall - we might lose cars from the race as they wouldn't be fixed in time for the race.

Q1

The radar was less than optimistic with plenty of rain in the area and heading towards the circuit so the drivers flooded out onto the track hoping to get a lap in before the heavens opened. The circuit was still very wet from showers throughout the day, but a slight break in the rain triggered a flurry of on track activity. For a while it was questionable whether or not this was a qualifying session or a drifting challenge because there were cars getting sideways everywhere. Those painted lines and curbs were taking no prisoners, and a river forming across the track at turn ten was catching everyone out. I recommend more wet qualifying sessions because seeing cars powersliding through the puddles is amazing. The drivers themselves probably didn't see the fun in it all - especially not Carlos Sainz who took a little too much curb at the start of the slalom section and fired the Toro Rosso into the barrier. Hitting thr wall at the one of the few places that run-off is quite limited. Less than 8 minutes into the session and the red flags were out to recover the car and straighten the wall.  No sign of the duct tape the Russians used to repair the same barrier type, but perhaps the tape wasn't quite waterproof enough,

At this stage in the session the usual suspects were at the front Mercedes locking out the top two places ahead of Red Bull and Ferrari... Williams still hoping it would dry out before they could mount a challenge. But the early red flag period lead to some strange timing anomalies towards the end of the field. Several drivers recorded 14 minute lap times, as their laps weren't completed before the red flag and thus they only crossed the timing line once they left the pits to restart the session. The weather was remaining stagnant, but was certainly not drying out when activity got underway.

But with no cars on track, there was not enough activity to stop the river at turn 10 from getting worse. This lead to a plethora of spins from new and experienced drivers alike. Hamilton completing a full 360 degree spin while both Ferrari drivers completed half spins at the same corner. Vettel even bounced off the wall as he was caught out by the standing water. Elsewhere Ericsson completed drift of the session in the final sector powersliding through the long triple apexed corner at the end of the lap. Only Maldonado could boast a longer slide - but he managed that in FP3. 

With more rain forecast for the rest of qualifying, there was a realisation that the positions in Q1 could form the grid, so the intensity ramped up. Ricciardo took provisional pole, dancing the Red Bull on the very edge of control - and as the session drew to a close Rosberg stayed out on track even though he'd safely made it into Q2. A plan that worked out as he pipped Hamilton with his final lap to line up second. Further back there were concerned faces at Ferrari, as Vettel was slipping towards relegation with each completed lap. His car was still in the garage after his brief visit to the wall in the infamous turn 10, but he sneaked through in the final promotion place as Ericsson failed to relegate the German.

Q2

The rainfall that we'd been predicted held off for a little longer, therefore Q2 was still going to start at least. But the weather radar was starting to light up with incoming bands of heavy rain. So once more everyone queued up at the end of the pit lane hoping to set a good time before the weather took over, in places a faint sight of a drying line was starting to form... but it wouldn't last. The geniuses at race control decided to post a message to the teams that no intermediate tyres were to be used...so in a session on the brink of being cancelled for too much rainfall, it seems like a rather odd statement for the stewards to make. No-one was going to try intermediates, if they did the next thing they'd be trying is hospital food after visiting the barrier without any hope of slowing down.

Initially it was Red Bull taking advantage of their high downforce configuration to set the early pace - Ricciardo leading Kvyat, both drivers pushing the limits of adhesion in the difficult conditions. It may have seemed as it they were on the edge of the ultimate pace as more cars started sliding in corners they weren't having struggles in Q1. But again Mercedes found more pace, both Hamilton and Rosberg stripped the front row of the Red Bull occupation inserting themselves as the new team in charge. However the balance of power within the Mercedes team was slightly different - Rosberg leading champion elect Hamilton.

Further back in the relegation zone, the positions were changing lap after lap, because the conditions were so changeable, puddles would shift in the wind and the rain remained unrelenting. For a brief time Alonso put McLaren into Q3, only to be dropped back by Verstappen - Bottas tried to get into the top ten but seemed to be struggling for pace, once more Williams having difficulties in the wet. But those positions seemed cemented as the rain intensified with a few minutes remaining, no-one was able to improve on their current times and returned to the garage

Q3

The final part of qualifying only really featured Mercedes, which is all too often the case this season, however it was a slightly larger and heaver Mercedes that was getting the laps in. The safety car went out for a track inspection, accompanied by jet driers to get rid of some of the surface water. But the rain proved to severe to complete the session, and thus Q3 never happened and the grid was declared on the results from Q2. Leaving Rosberg on pole, Hamilton second and Ricciardo third.

The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners

Even though we only had two thirds of the scheduled qualifying session before the rain ruined the rest of it there were so many strong performances worthy of bonus points. The number of slides, saves and spins was quite high and almost everyone deserves some kind of recognition for the brilliant driving in the difficult conditions. Maldonado didn't even hit anyone or anything in the rain. But not everyone can score points, and due to the shorter session 66% points will be awarded today

• 6.66pts - Daniel Ricciardo - Delivered an epic save en-route to setting the fastest time in Q1 and finished third on the final grid.
• 5.33pts - Nico Rosberg - Out-qualifying a driver who grew up and raced in the wet british weather on a very wet track deserves some points
• 4pts - Sergio Perez- Firth place in the Force India, continuing a run of good form 
• 3.33pts - Nico Hulkenberg - An all Force India third row as Ferrari and Williams fall back for various reasons.
• 2.66pts - Fernando Alonso - Almost got the McLaren into the top ten demonstrating that the chassis might not be all that bad after all
• 2pt - Marcus Ericsson - Gets the top slide award for his extended drift in Q1 across the run-off in the final sector
• 1.33pts - Alex Rossi - Out-qualifies Stevens in difficult conditions, and pulled off a brilliant save through the tricky turn 11.
• 0.66pts - Rain - Would have been more points for the weather, but I can't lie that those two sessions were more entertaining than three dull, dry qualifying phases.

Looking ahead to tomorrow just over an hour from now

We are completely at the mercy of the weather, as more remnants from the powerful Hurricane Patricia lash down in Austin. The current theory is that the race, if it takes place, will start under-safety car until enough water is cleared to start the race. But all this continued running on the wet tyres should set a precident to get the race underway reasonably quickly, as it has been proven that the wet tyres can handle the conditions. However in a race scenario the problem is visibility, with all 20 cars sharing the same section of road, the level of spray and water causes a significant visibility problem. In the early parts of Q1 it was difficult at times to see some of the cars through the wall of spray in the air. I think that this will be the main limiting factor to getting any racing underway, I hope that it does go ahead, and go ahead under full green racing conditions. But at this stage it is difficult to say what the decision will be. 

The weather radar says that rain will remain in the area until after the scheduled start time, so this could be a long evening of delays, red flags and laps under the safety car...

Round 16: USA 2015 - Preview

Greetings Internet, 

Not too many rounds remain in the ongoing saga that is the 2015 world championship, a championship that is all but decided following the events of the Russian GP a fortnight ago. I suppose you are all wondering what happened to the post-race update from that event... well it sort of didn't happen, a combination of increased rehearsals and meetings that week meant that I had no evenings at home with the computer to type out the final verdict on what was a much improved Russian GP. It had intrigue, championship implications - high quality duct-tape barrier repairs and last lap drama. Things you wouldn't expect from a race which was rated the most dull race of 2014, it was also the first live outside broadcast in a long time... blog HQ moved up in the world... ok well 800 metres up the street. But to my defence that is up a very steep hill so plenty of motivation and effort was required to make it that far. Fear not, there will still be points following the Russian GP, and those will be revealed at the end of this post, as they were for the Italian GP - which couldn't be updated because I was in Vienna at the time. Not for an outside broadcast that is, because that would require levels of fanciness that a peasant like me could only dream about. 

Back to the here and now, and in the paddock news, the world seems to have it's eyes firmly planted on Red Bull... especially in the case of many a pit-lane journalist who probably have had more than a few cans of the stuff to stay awake. Renault, their not so best friends have developed a new version of the what is a slightly lacklustre engine. But in order to use the new power unit, the team have to perform an engine change - to swap the old spec machine out and put the new one in. Ideally this wouldn't be a problem... except that Red Bull exceeded their allocation of Renault engines some time ago - one of the many reasons why the Austrian overlord is less than pleased about their French manufacturers performance. Therefore in order to take the new engine for this weekend, Red Bull would be faced with significant grid penalties for the engine change... Ricciardo has already suggested that there would be no point in taking the new engine as the performance gains (if any) wouldn't offset the penalty. This produces a sort of catch 22 situation for Renault, because they want to show that they can improve, but the act of installing the update will prevent any performance showing through on the day points are handed out. There is another reason why Red Bull might want to hold onto their qualifying places, but we'll get to that later. 

In other news, a number of complaints have been raised over the release of the preliminary 2016 season calendar. Mostly due to the placement of the new European GP - set in Azerbaijan... a country not really in Europe... but that's not so much the argument. The issue is that the Baku Street Race clashes with the Le Mans 24hrs - normally that isn't an issue. In fact the Le Mans race has clashed with the Canadian GP for years - but this time the issue has been made more prominent by the achievement of Nico Hulkenberg this season. Nico was able to compete in the Le Mans race... and then won - with a lot of help from the team-mates Earl Bamber and a stellar performance by Nick Tandy. Setting a race on the same date prevents Nico from defending his win, or any other F1 drivers making the transition to the WEC for that event. Some see it as Bernie being a little greedy and keeping all the drivers to himself, and preventing F1 from casting some of its not inconsiderable influence on a 'lesser series'. These conspiracy theories cite the bizarre placement of the European GP - traditionally the European round, previously held at the Nurburgring... or Valencia (shudder) has been placed near the Canadian GP. But not on back-to-back weekends because logistically Canada is a long way to go, when travelling back to Europe. This issue is then exacerbated by placing a flight to the furthest reaches of our continent only a few days after leaving North America. The placement makes no sense. But in the mad, crazed world of F1, nothing really makes sense these days.

The Venue

The calendar moves from Russia to the United States of America - I assume someone back on the FIA planning committee was having a bit of a laugh putting Russia and America next to each other on the schedule. Afterall, we know how friendly those two nations have been in the past - but enough of the past and back to the future... (yes that joke would have made sense if I wrote this post on time...). The USGP will be held once more in Texas - at the Circuit of the Americas. Over the years I have spent many a Thursday (or Friday depending on how lazy the writing process has been) berating another Tilke created abomination in the middle of nowhere with all the character of a soggy cardboard box. This one however, well it's a little bit different - not perfect by any means - but echelons above the likes of Abu-Dhabi, Shanghai and Sochi. But before you all get the idea that I am warming up to the realm of Tilke designed circuits, the chap will likely come in for a good online kicking when it comes to discussion the 'modifications' he has done to the Mexican GP circuit when that makes a return to the calendar next week.

Back to Austin now and the circuit is almost a mix of cheating, and that stereotypical worldview of Texas. Borrowing ideas from other circuits and then super-sizing them as only the Americans can. Turn one is a prime example of this process, Austria has a climb up to a hairpin, and it also has a climb up to it's first corner. However in Texas, they have replaced the idea of a bit of a climb with a colossal mountain of an ascent - if it wasn't for the Texan sun, there would be snowcaps at the top of the first corner, and the frozen shells of cars that didn't quite make the summit lying by the side of the track. Somewhere past the clouds at the summit of Mt' COTA does lie turn one, a huge expanse of tarmac sculpted to encourage a variety of racing lines - the whole field could probably line up side by side at the apex. But what it does do is offer a range of overtaking options, or collision opportunities if you happen to be Pastor Maldonado.

After turn one America super-sizes it once again - this time stealing inspiration from Silverstone's Maggots/Becketts complex - creating a gigantic slalom of corners which winds itself all the way to the far end of the circuit. Forming a high speed, high energy sequence of corners - it's as if the old Silverstone first sector and Suzuka's esses had a child and fed it on steroids. It's massive and artificial but for some reason, we all still think it's brilliant.  Which is exactly the sentiment echoed for this slalom, it is overkill and surrounded by excessively patriotic paintwork across the hectares of tarmac run-off. But it still remains a brilliant section of race track, even though it doesn't feel natural in the same way that Spa or Suzuka feel. More of a guilty pleasure than a state of pure enjoyment that you would get through a traditional circuit that meanders through the contours of the land. Once you've calmed down slightly following the slalom section, the circuit reaches another vast expanse of tarmac masquerading as a hairpin exiting onto the defacto long DRS straight. At the end of the straight... this is when we start to see a few problems, mostly due to another example of the epidemic that is infecting many new circuit designs - cramming as many corners into as little space as possible. If there is one thing that Sochi can be be praised for is not falling into this trap.

First off the trend of 'borrowing' track sections and then enhancing them seems to have shifted into reverse in the final phase of the lap. Their first effort is the stadium section from the Hockenheimring - which didn't translate well into American, as the method of adding more corners didn't work out this time. The reason why the Hockenheim's stadium section works is mostly down to the camber of the corners, as demonstrated by the Sachs Kurve. COTA didn't copy that part of the design and instead crammed a couple of sharp corners into a confined space and that just doesn't have the same impact. So on to plan B, and plan B involves borrowing some inspiration from Turkey's famous, but terribly named, Turn 8. That quadruple-apexed high speed corner we don't visit anymore, for those who don't quite get the reference. This time, bizarrely the Texan's took apexes out of the design and left us with two... three if you squint a bit, but not four. While it falls short of the corner it is trying to emulate, it is still a nice effort and presents an interesting challenge. In the spirit of competition, it probably is worth noting that Sochi delivered a bigger, longer corner than anything Texas has put together... but it wouldn't be like me to stir up rivalries. A lap of the circuit is competed by a deceptive off camber penultimate turn - where track limits will no doubt be abused, and a slightly generic final hairpin... which can be used for any more mad, optimistic last lap lunges... yes Kimi, we're all looking at you right now on that one...

The Delayed Bonus Points Championship Points Winners

For the second time this season the points for the preceding race are to be announced upon the eve of the next. I have come to the conclusion that the once generally ignored Bonus Points Championship probably has lost what little meaning it actually had. Lets face it, none of the title winners have even so much as acknowledged the face they have won something - even if it is something pointless and irrelevant. But sometimes, even in the face of total hopelessness recent events have shown me that you have to plow on ahead. So in light of that slightly stubborn approach to life as we know it - here are the points winners for that race a fortnight ago in Russia. 

• 25pts - Sergio Perez - Yes he lucked into reclaiming the podium but was there in 3rd place on merit before it all kicked off and gets full points
• 18pts - Carlos Sainz - Slammed the car into a wall in FP3, spent the night in hospital and still turned up and competed in the race... until crashing again. But brake failure was at fault after a strong race up until that point
• 15pts - Daniil Kvyat - A strong finish for the local driver on a track where Renault were holding back the Red Bull team
• 12pts - Valtteri Bottas - Fought off the challenge of Raikkonen the first time round and was wiped out on the second attempt 
• 10pts - Kimi Raikkonen - Deserves some points for the first fight he had with Bottas... not the second. And for his brief duel with Vettel. Kimi was in quite the feisty mood.
• 8pts - Nico Rosberg - Easily deserves consolation points for that, a simple mechanical failure ruined a fun race, a potential win and his championship challenge all in the space of a couple of laps
• 6pts - Lewis Hamilton - With Rosberg out of the way, he made that look easy, despite carrying a potentially significant issue with the rear wing, or so we're told.
• 4pts - Russian Marshals - After drawing some criticism during the Sainz crash, they upped their game on Sunday - using the most legendary of all repair mechanisms... duct tape... to fix the wall Grosjean smashed up. And then sprinting onto the track to retrieve Sainz's wing endplate in front of Vettel's Ferrari. 
• 2pts - Romain Grosjean - One of the few people to smash into one of the fancy plastic barriers and not force a lengthy red flag delay for repairs.
• 1pt - Pirelli - Those Russian hats on the podium deserve a bonus point for creativity 

• -1pt - Kimi Raikkonen - What on earth was that... I admire the effort and determination but the execution of the pass was a bit crap to be fair.
• -1pt - Carlos Sainz - If the car is damaged, you can't really expect to keep driving it normally and not expect to end up in the fence - after the first spin for brake issues you might have got the hint.
• -1pt - Mercedes - Unintentionally you robbed us of a potentially exciting race long battle for the win... and muted the overall title fight with one little mechanical issue with the throttle pedal... curses.

The Form Guide 

Back to the business of Austin and the US GP, and this race looks like will be a Mercedes walkover - with Williams running around looking for that final podium place (potentially) This is because Ferrari have opted to take a brand new engine this weekend, and thus will be given the default 10 place grid penalties - placing them on the back foot before the weekend has really got underway. Furthermore the grandiose scale of many of the Circuit of the America's features means that a good engine will always come in handy there - which causes a problem for Red Bull. Whether or not they decide to go for the newer, updated Renault power unit remains to be seen - but like Ferrari, that change would incur a penalty.

However... and it is a big however... the weather looks interesting for the weekend and could leave our form book rather soggy. Heavy rains and thunderstorms are in the area and Texas itself has flood warnings issued across the state - some of that rainfall is bound to affect Austin. So it may be the case that periscopes and life-rafts may be part of the pre-qualifying setup options to handle the incoming storms. A wet qualifying/race scenario is bad for Williams - the damp conditions briefly experienced in good old rainy England confirmed that they still haven't conquered the issues of running in the rain. So with Williams washed out, Ferrari penalised and Red Bull slow - who is left to fight Mercedes.

Rain gives hope to the mid-field teams, Lotus and Force India and possibly even McLaren could capitalise on a bit of damp chaos and steal some points. It may also reduce some of the power deficit experienced by Red Bull and Toro Rosso because a wet track limits the range of usable power to begin with. But, I fear that in the sensitive climate we operate in now, a wet race would lead to lots of driving behind the safety car until every last puddle has cleared before starting again. As for qualifying, there are some folk saying that the rain on Saturday could be so bad it could wash it out completely - or take hours to complete due to several red-flag interruptions. 

Whatever happens this weekend, it seems that the potentially championship deciding race may have a few surprises in store. Hopefully. 

Round 15 - Russia 2015 - Qualifying

Greetings Internet, 

Today has been a strange day in Russia, a destructive one in many respects as well. All of the support race action has been severely curtailed, the GP2 race was cut down to 15 laps after a lengthy barrier repair operation following a series of collisions on the opening lap. The GP3 race was cancelled completely following more significant barrier repairs resulting from a significant accident in the middle of the final practice session. This accident befell Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz at the end of the back 'straight' - Carlos lost the car under braking and slammed into the inside wall before cannoning at an immense speed into the barrier on the outside of the first chicane. The car submarined underneath the techpro barriers doing a significant amount of damage to the armco barriers behind them. It seemed to take a considerable amount of time before any safety officials attended the scene and extract Sainz from the car. Eventually the Toro Rosso driver was recovered and taken to a nearby hospital, scans and assessment have determined that somehow, Carlos sustained no injuries whatsoever, and could even start the race tomorrow. That is a marvelous example of how car safety has improved, because it looked a little scary for a while. 

In other news, the Red Bull situation has developed even further as it appears that Ferrari had now declined to offer Red Bull engines -  so their situation appears to be getting more confusing and more uncertain. The current estimate is that some form of decision will be made towards the end of the month - as to what their options are for next year. None of that mattered on track this afternoon because they were no where near Ferrari or Mercedes, perhaps once more indicating how much of a deficit the Renault engine is creating for the team.

Q1

The first part of the session got underway after an extended delay to cover the repair time to the barrier. It was only 15 minutes before the green light that we were made aware that the session would start on time. With such limited running time in all three practice sessions - venturing into qualifying was certainly a voyage into the unknown. Rainfall, diesel spills and lack of track action had left the circuit in a very low grip state. So cars were getting sideways all over the place, and not to be outdone - Pastor Maldonado slid across the tarmac run-off area in turn.... well I don't know which corner it was as they mostly look the same in the first two sectors. 

Several drivers took to the super-softs straight out of the pits without using the standard tyre compound. With Sainz already out of qualifying due to being in hospital, there were few were only two places in the relegation zone up for grabs. This was good news for McLaren... well at least for Button - because Alonso was facing yet another colossal grid penalty so even with the reduced chance of being relegated - he'd start at the back anyway. At the front ven the front runners were struggling - Rosberg set the initial top time despite sliding through the final corners. Hamilton on the other hand was one second slower, which resulted in an amusing response from Lewis over the team-radio. He was informed of his position, lap time, gap to P1 and various other settings - but Hamilton dialed the conversation back to the key piece of information... that one second deficit. 

As the session progressed it became clear that the faster times would only be set at the very end of Q1 as the track continued to evolve. So with times changing constantly, some interesting names flirted with the relegation zone alongside the two Manor cars. For a while Bottas and Perez were up for relegation - but quickly moved up the field. This dropped Alonso into the bottom four while the other McLaren was safely through into the next round. Fernando's final effort wasn't enough to make it two McLarens in Q2 - but as noted earlier it didn't really matter to Alonso. The other victim of Q1 was Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber along with Stevens and Mehri - as Rossi was back on GP2 duties this weekend

Q2

The second part of qualifying started with Mercedes moving onto the softer compound that they hadn't used in Q1, and while we waited for the first flying laps to be completed the TV camera operators found some scary sights. These were very large pictures of Daniil Kvyat pasted across the side of one of the grandstands - as if the death stare wasn't scary enough a huge picture of that face will create nightmares for years to come. On track however it was a tale of two Nicos - Hulkenberg set the first lap time, but Rosberg smashed that time and claimed that all important top spot. After the defeat in the first part of qualifying, Hamilton found some of the pace he was missing in Q1 to take the Q2 pole. To which Rosberg responded and took the lead away from Lewis - on this basis there was the faint hint that we might see an epic battle for pole when it came to the final part of qualifying. At this point Williams and Ferrari hadn't set a representative time. 

When Ferrari did take to the track, there initial times were a long way off the pace of the leading Mercedes - which put pay to any hints of a Singapore 2.0 race weekend. Bottas was proving to be the lead challenger to the Mercedes team instead of the Ferrari's which is not to be unexpected given the nature of the track and the performances last season. However that wasn't universal within the Williams team - because Felipe Massa was not on the same pace as his Finnish team-mate. For some reason Massa was languishing towards the bottom of the relegation zone - below Button's McLaren and Nasr's Sauber. 

In the final phase of the session, those drivers in relegation were aiming to elevate themselves into Q3 - and it was the Red Bull drivers who were on the cusp of promotion as both Force Indias moved into the top ten. Mercedes power proving to be very useful once more with Grosjean dragging his Lotus into the promotion places again. The only Mercedes powered car in the relegation zone belonged to Pastor Maldonado - and didn't look like it was going to make any progress up the field. That left Ricciardo, Kvyat and Mad Max fighting over the final promotion places - Ricciardo made the first move and moved into the top ten - demoting Kvyat in the process. The Russian attempted to repay the compliment but couldn't find enough pace - once he was confirmed as being relegated we saw images of people leaving the stands. Perhaps the others were waiting for Markelov's contribution to the GP2 event - for both corners he lasted...

Q3 

Onto the final part of qualifying and the nature of the circuit was playing a part in how the drivers attempted the crucial finale. The smooth, low grip tarmac meant that a single warm up lap wasn't quite enough to build heat into the tyres. Only Bottas put his foot down after a single effort - indicating that Williams have a different set up on their cars in contrast to the rest of the field - perhaps that configuration is what proved to be Massa's downfall early on. After a second warm-up lap Ferrari and Mercedes were ready to strike - and again it was Rosberg who had the upper hand over Hamilton as they knocked 8 tenths off Bottas' early lead. The Ferraris on the other hand couldn't knock Valtteri off the provisional third place spot and the second row - Raikkonen losing time running wide at the first of the final sector chicanes. All of the Mercedes/Ferrari powered cars claimed the top seven positions, with Grosjean not taking part in the early runs...

And so on to the final runs and the final challenge for pole position - and given how qualifying had run thus far - there was the prospect of a titanic battle for pole... But that all rather fell apart on Hamilton's fast lap - because Lewis copied Raikkonen's early mistake and ran off the circuit at the stadium section. The bizarre part of it was that he just returned to the pits - no regrouping and trying again he just gave up. Perhaps the tyres were damaged, and due to the number of warm up laps required there wasn't enough time to build up to another quick time. Either way the battle was over and thus so was qualifying... what happened to that battle... so much of an anti-climax

The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners

Here are the points winners from the Russian GP qualifying

10pts - Carlos Sainz - Slams into the wall, gets buried in a barrier - spends the night in hospital and wants to race the next day
8pts - Valtteri Bottas - Again the closest contender to Mercedes defeating the two Ferraris in the process
6pts - Romain Grosjean  - While Maldonado continues to struggle Romain keeps dragging the Lotus into the top 10
5pts - Nico Rosberg - Taking the fight to Hamilton once more and maybe, just maybe there might be a fight on track tomorrow
4pts - Nico Hulkenberg - Another top ten for the Force India driver as best of the non Mercedes/Williams/Ferrari trio
3pts - Sergio Perez - Doubling up on the Force India population in Q3
2pts - Alex Rossi - Well having to step aside to take on his GP2 duties this a win in the feature race is worlds apart from the Manor drive
1pt - Sochi - They planted some grass, well done them...

Looking to Tomorrow

Well last years Russian GP was highly regarded as the most boring race of 2014, but with the chaotic nature of this weekend, who knows - we may be in for something a little different tomorrow

Round 15: Russia 2015 - Preview

Greetings Internet, 

The next round of the calendar brings us to Russia for the second race around the Sochi winter Olympic park - a race which didn't necessarily receive too many plaudits last year. The debut Russian GP was ranked as the most boring race of the 2014 season, so this year's efforts would certainly prefer to show an improvement. The layout was blamed for the most part for the uninspiring events of last season, but the race circumstances didn't help - Rosberg taking himself out of contention on the opening lap... again and thus robbing us of yet another Mercedes battle at the head of the field. So perhaps this season, with a slightly closer battle between the top teams this visit to Russia may be a lot more interesting.

In other news the Red Bull saga continues to rumble on in the background - Ferrari have tentatively offered the engineless teams a deal in which they would be given 2015 specification engines. No real progress has been made because Red Bull were adamant that they would only settle for a full, up-to-date works power unit complete with fuel mixture and operating software... which is not what Ferrari we planning to hand over. Thus we have entered a sort of stalemate situation, which currently leaves both Red Bull and Torro Rosso without an engine supplier for 2016 after the divorce with Renault. If the teams do not secure an engine, or accept a lesser offer - then they will not be on the grid next year. With ongoing issues at Lotus, and Sauber with Force India going to the EU courts complaining about financial distribution within the sport... the grid for 2016 looks rather uncertain. Having escaped the very turbulent relationship Red Bull, Renault have signed a letter of intent to buy the troubled Lotus team - but no real confirmation of how the deal is progressing has been posted.

One team we do know will be on the grid is the new American Haas team making a new foray away from NASCAR into F1. After the Japanese GP Haas made their first driver announcement, which turned into the revealing of what was the worst kept secret in the paddock. Haas unveiled that Romain Grosjean will be jumping ship from Lotus/Renault to the incoming squadron. It seems like a strange move, considering Lotus have a decent car - and with the help of Renault might have a better season next year. While Haas are an unknown quantity who may end up at the back of the grid while they figure things out. There is no news on who might partner Grosjean or who will replace him at Renault/Lotus in 2016 alongside Maldonado. But only time will tell what the future holds for whoever is on the grid next year. If Red Bull do go down, then suddenly they will be four more drivers without a job to take into consideration.

The Venue

People were less than complimentary about Sochi when everyone arrived at the circuit for the first ever race in 2014. Most of the complaints were with the configuration of the track layout rather than the overall concept of the venue - situating a race track in the confines of an Olympic park is a brilliant idea, the Australians have been doing it for a while now in Sydney. The stadiums for the Sochi Winter Games look very nice encircling the circuit and building a dynamic background mural depicting the venue. All of those complaints, well the vast majority of them were aimed specifically at the layout and the areas between the barriers because in a region surrounded by interesting building designs, none of that inspiration soaked through onto the racing surface. The closest comparison would be the former hosts of the European GP - that Valencia street circuit... which deservedly nobody liked either. The problem I have is that even the often villified Spanish port track had a nicely constructed final sector which was a decent redeming feature. Sochi doesn't have that - on paper the wide sweeping arc of turn three was supposed to be this big challenging focal point... turned out to be just a really long corner...

As for the rest of the lap, it starts off with a flat out right handed kink shortly after the start line - leading onto the long DRS straight. A straight where DRS might not have been needed has been given it to make overtaking into turn two even easier than it needs to be. Turn two itself would have been an interesting challenge given the long straight before hand, but this is where the biggest gripe with the circuit design first rears its head. I'm surprised Russia has any tarmac left after the construction of this track, or maybe grass doesn't exist in the vicinity of Sochi - because turn two is simply painted onto the floor on a vast ocean of tarmac. As a result drivers would exploit the track limits to a hideous degree - the opening lap of the GP2 support race was a complete farce with half the field just running off the track because there was no deterrent to not doing so. Apparently tougher measures have been added this time - but in the stewards room, not the track itself. How hard is it to place a simple grass verge to make it less tempting to go off the track. Sochi is by far and away the biggest offender for track limits issues - even Abu Dhabi has grass in places...

Anyway turn two - in whichever format the drivers can be bothered to drive it in - feeds into the very long circle turn. The huge radius of the corner means it is virtually flatout all the way round, but does set up some interesting moves into turn four. Because depending on which line your car can complete the circle turn on determines how well you'll negotiate the following corner. The middle sector of the lap was clearly created through several copy and paste operations in some design software package. I realise that the track had to meander round the Olympic park and show off as many of the stadiums as possible - but this has to be the least interesting set of corners to use. Again with a huge tarmac run-off area problem - you'd have to keep your passport on you and board a flight just to get to the barrier in some corners. Some circuits like Singapore and Abu-Dhabi have too many corners - where as Sochi in this phase has too few. It is just sequence of straights leading into short 90 degree bends - no complex sequences no varied radius corners. With the amount of money that was spent on the Sochi games, surely there must have been some forethought into making the track a little less lazy.

At the end of a series of uneventful corners we come to the back straight - which is virtually a carbon copy of one of the Valencian 'straights' - a couple of gradual curves are added to make things a little interesting. But just like the big circle turn, the interest only really materialises at the end of the sequence because the curve in the track has an influence on selecting braking points for turn 11. The end of the 'straight' edges the cars over to the right hand side of the track, but turn 11 is best approached from the left. Turn 11 itself is the start of a strange and clumsy double chicane - which exists for a purpose I can't quite figure out at this stage. But it does offer overtaking opportunities in a rough sort of way. Suddenly lots of corners are crammed in together. Once the double chicane is over a pair of simple 90 degree corners - (someone had better email Baku, because between Singapore and Russia the world's supply of 90 degree corners has pretty much been depleted) - bring the cars back to the start/finish straight.

The Form Guide

This post was going to be published yesterday, but some folks at EA released a beta version of Star Wars Battlefront... so instead my time involved dying repeatedly, failing to shoot and anything and impersonating Maldonado driving a snowspeeder as I rammed a Tie Fighter... Therefore practice has happened and the data on who is outperforming who it is in... if FP1 is to go by Hulkenberg will be on pole. A diesel spillage curtailed FP1 and rain washed out FP2, so no-one really did too much running and thus we are still in the dark about who will qualify where.

It would be a safe bet to suggest that Mercedes would be out front, but not by as much as we saw in Japan - last season Bottas almost made it onto pole position and Williams in general were very close. This year Ferrari have joined that fight, so Mercedes might not be 100% guaranteed to take the front row this time - another Singapore might be on the cards, as the track is close to a diluted version of the Asian street track. Even though practice has been minimal to none existent again this race like it was in Japan - Force India do look quite competitive and may be looking at a double points finish on Sunday.

Everyone else makes up the mid-field. This will probably not be such a good track for Red Bull and Toro Rosso as it is quite a power circuit with very few long corners - in fact there really is only one long continuous radius high speed cornering event on the entire lap in turn three. Everything else is short sharp corners linked by short straights. This is also bad news for McLaren who also have power issues - Alonso also has yet another grid penalty for a complete power unit change... earning him a 25 place grid deduction, perhaps his engine gave up after he spent the Japanese GP insulting it. Potentially this might open the door for Sauber and Lotus to score some points instead. Alas Manor will have to wait for 2016 and that promise of a new Mercedes engine before they can dream of points...

The last Russian GP wasn't great, it was given a poor rating and wasn't hugely inspiring. But we said that time and time again about Valencia and that unfavoured 'street' track - and in 2012 it delivered a brilliant race. So there is hope that Sochi can shake off the image it created last season and put on a show this time round.... please....