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Looking back over the three years of the Russian Grand Prix, you’d think it was a slam dunk that Mercedes will win this weekend. It’s a power hungry circuit that devours the best power units in the business, and in qualifying it’s clear that Mercedes still have the ability to turn up the wick and exploit extra speed for the short duration of one lap. In addition, qualifying is crucial as overtaking is tough and there are relatively few pitstops on a circuit that doesn’t overstretch the tyres. Mercedes have won all three races from pole position and only been beaten in two out of the nine practice sessions held here, and that was down to some slippery track conditions that interrupted their normal running. Valtteri Bottas will no doubt look at that record with some relish, because he has a pretty decent CV here himself. Always qualifying third fastest, indeed promoted to the front row last year thanks to Vettel’s gearbox penalty, he’s finished on the podium once but was in position to do it again in 2015 before an altercation with Raikkonen put paid to that, and he was a solid 4th last year. His current race engineer at Mercedes guided Rosberg to a genuine pole over Lewis here in 2015 and Nico was unfortunate in the race when a throttle problem took him out of the lead and into retirement. Last year the eventual champion made up for that, helped by engine problems for Hamilton in qualifying, so there’ll be some real confidence on that side of the garage particularly after Valtteri delivered pole position in Bahrain a couple of weeks ago. But in order to win his first Grand Prix, he needs to deliver a solid race performance, and so far in the three races we’ve seen this year, there have been hiccups. A slower than ideal first stint in Australia, a spin behind the Safety Car in China and a tough opening stint in Bahrain on over-inflated tyres which melded into a less than satisfactory run on Super Softs in the middle of the race. The level of intensity in the competition between Mercedes and Ferrari this year means any weaknesses will be amplified, errors will be brutally exposed and the Finn has to step up now and show he can deliver at this highest level. Perhaps he can take inspiration from the venue; the site of the Winter Olympics in 2014, the circuit weaves its way between the medal plaza, the figure skating stadium and a building which started life hosting the speed skating but now houses some of the biggest tennis events in the country. Bottas was a talented ice hockey player himself as a youngster, following in the footsteps of his father Rauno who played at a high level, and still enjoys any opportunity to take to the ice. Could it be that some of that high speed hand-eye coordination and proprioception skills that are so useful in motorsport were developed with hockey stick in hand and puck to chase? Wherever his skills came from, he now has to show he can compete with the very best in the world. Talking of which, if we end up with a front row made up of Hamilton and Vettel then the flat-out blast to Turn 2 at the start of the race could provide some real fireworks. Vettel ended up in the wall at Turn 3 last year, and Hamilton saw his team mate lunge and lock up back in 2014, effectively ending the competition there and then. So even if Bottas doesn’t quite make the numbers in qualifying, he could be well placed to pick up the pieces in the race. So yes, I believe he can win in Russia but to do so he’ll need to draw on his Finnish Sisu, that resilience and determination to overcome all odds that his nation is famous for, and which has helped create three F1 World Champions in the past 35 years.
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1. Is this a Mercedes track or a Ferrari track? The Mercedes is slightly longer than the Ferrari which gives it greater stability in the high speed corners but the Ferrari's advantage is in having a quick change of direction. That asset will be valuable here in Bahrain where there are four hairpin style corners in the first half lap. In contrast to China, the layout puts the emphasis on looking after the rear tyres as opposed to the front, and the track temperatures will also be higher which could favour the Italian team, but the wider 2017 tyres are still holding some secrets when it comes to getting the most out of them. In terms of the statistics, Ferrari have one more win, Mercedes have one more pole position as well as the recent run of form having won every race here since 2013. 2. A Vettel venue or a Hamilton one? Hamilton has won twice here and was on pole last year only for it to go wrong when he had contact with the Williams of Valtteri Bottas at the first turn allowing Rosberg to disappear up the road. In 2014 the two Mercedes team mates had one of the best wheel to wheel dices we've seen with the current generation cars, and Hamilton came out on top. But he has been outqualified here by Rosberg in the past and was out of luck with some slow pitstops in 2012 when driving for Mclaren. Vettel won that particular race from pole position for Red Bull and went on to win the following year under pressure from Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus. Seb was in position to win the 2010 race on a longer version of the track until a spark plug failure caused him to drop back. Alonso inherited the win, and that was the last time a Ferrari took victory here. 3. Will the partners deliver? Raikkonen and Bottas have so far been upstaged by their team mates this season, but the opportunity to fight back is definitely available. Kimi has never won here but has a tremendous record of podiums and has finished 2nd in four of the last five races in Bahrain. Bottas goes into his fifth Grand Prix on the Sakhir circuit and has yet to be outqualified by a teammate. Both could do with a strong weekend. 4. Can Red Bull spring another surprise? Third and fourth in China was a superb result for Red Bull, and they almost matched Ferrari's points haul from the event. It was a reminder that the team can never be discounted even when apparently on the back foot, as well as another example of Verstappen's formidable ability in the wet and Ricciardo's maturity in managing a full Grand Prix distance. There's still work to be done by the team on making the package more competitive, but give these guys a sniff of a chance and they will capitalise. 5. Does the timetable of racing into the evening work? This will be the fourth time that the racing has started at sunset and taken us into darkness and it has proved a positive step to delay the action to the end of the day. The circuit looks good under lights, track temperatures are a little bit cooler which helps improve tyre performance, and the crowd gets some great evening entertainment. The downside is that the third practice session on Saturday which normally builds into a fascinating insight to qualifying is in fact less relevant here because of the change in track temperatures. But races with more flexible start times could be more common in the future as Liberty Media aims to create a spectacle out of each event. 6. How will Pascal Wehrlein fare? The promising rookie from last year with Manor is back at Sauber having vacated the seat in Australia and China. Hopefully recovered from injury and ready to go, this will be his opportunity to put all the gossip and chatter behind him and prove that he has what it takes to move up to a top team in the future. To do that, he needs to eclipse Ericsson, but the Swede will be no pushover being firmly settled in the team and having had experience of two races under these revised technical regulations already. Expect some intense rivalry here. 7. What about Alonso? I was going to talk about Alonso's work to promote his abilities in the first two GP of the year, but the news of his going to race in the Indy 500 has upped the level of Alonso promotion to an entirely stratospheric level. I admire his guts; taking on such a challenge should not be underestimated, yet he is prepared to put his reputation on the line and jump in at the deep end. It is a huge story, and he will relish the fact that it keeps him in the headlines as teams begin to think about their driver line up for 2018 and beyond. Mind you, if McLaren can offer him IndyCar and potentially Le Mans in the future, perhaps he'll stay exactly where he is... 8. Any others to keep an eye on? Keep an eye on Renault this weekend. This has been a pretty good track for the Enstone team when they have had a competitive car, and although there is still work to be done, this could see them score their first points of the year. Double podiums in 2012 and 2013 with Kimi and Grosjean under the Lotus banner testify to a good relationship with the track, and Alonso was twice a winner with the team as Renault in the mid Noughties. 9. Who's on a roll? The chances of rain here in Bahrain are somewhat lower than they were in China, but Carlos Sainz will still be buzzing after that decision to go for slick tyres at the start of the race proved to be a good one. As he told Lee McKenzie on our C4 coverage, when he saw that every other driver on the grid had decided on intermediates, there was a moment when he wondered if he'd made a big mistake. But despite a poor start as he struggled for traction, and a later spin when everyone was struggling with cold tyres, he can be proud of having taken a gamble that worked, and for proving it to a doubtful team. That ability to think clearly and successfully under pressure is what all the top teams want from their drivers. 10. What's in store? The term Duel in the Desert was coined for the first championship showdown between Hamilton and Rosberg at the end of 2014 in Abu Dhabi, and yet the best duel we ever saw between them on track was the one here in the same year. Looking at the parity in performance of the Mercedes and Ferrari in China when they were lapping at virtually identical times and yet separated by a frustrating eight seconds, perhaps we can look forward to a new duel, one between differently coloured cars and between the two drivers who share the championship lead. That's what I'm hoping for. The Australian Grand Prix gave Formula One a much needed injection of uncertainty. After 3 years of almost utter dominance, Mercedes were beaten in an absolutely straight fight with Ferrari, and whether some of that was down to errors on the pit wall or not, the simple fact is that Vettel won the season opener and now leads the championship for the first time in 60 races. No matter where your loyalties lie, a battle for the championship between drivers in different teams is the essence of a good Formula One season, and with Red Bull potentially improving as the year unfolds, we could be on for a cracking campaign.
Mind you, coming to China sees Mercedes at one of their best tracks. Nico Rosberg took the team’s first pole position and first win since returning to the sport when he became one of the eight different winners in the early part of 2012. Hamilton was on pole for the team in 2013 but that was before the current power units gave Mercedes such a helping hand, and in the race he was passed by the Ferraris early on and struggled to achieve the same stint length on tyres as some of his rivals. Perhaps we are beginning to see a similar story in 2017, as there’s no doubt that Vettel was able to keep his tyres in good shape in Australia, despite running Hamilton close in the early laps. The statistics certainly favour a Mercedes pole position; they’ve taken the last five here, and Ferrari have only held pole once in China, at the very first event when Rubens Barrichello took the spot as Michael Schumacher spun his chance away at the infamous Turn 1. This corner, which Fernando Alonso says is his favourite corner on the calendar, is an ever-tightening spiral to the right until the last minute when it releases to the left before the track crosses over on itself. It has a massively fast entry but then requires the driver to balance the car on the brakes, using the grip of the car in cornering to wash away the speed, until it is perfectly poised to accelerate out of Turn 2. As Romain Grosjean says ‘It’s a pretty cool corner. It’s such a long corner you can actually make some difference’. It can also define an entire race as we saw at the start of last year’s encounter. Dany Kvyat took the opportunity to dive inside Vettel, who in response clattered into team mate Raikkonen and the ensuing chaos also accounted for damage to Hamilton’s car as he was trying to make up for engine problems in qualifying. I do wonder if the first corner of all the tracks is going to be a little more critical this year. The jury is still out on the level of overtaking we’re going to see, but fundamentally it is likely to be tougher, and track position will be key. The first corner is one of those opportunities to gain or lose but it has to be balanced against the embarrassment of walking away from the car before the end of the first lap. Team bosses don’t approve of that sort of drama. So, there’s plenty to look out for at the top end of the grid, and indeed throughout; will McLaren be knocked out in Q1? (sad to ask, but likely to happen); how will Lance Stroll get on after the disappointments of Melbourne? And is Antonio Giovinazzi going to be so impressive in the Sauber as super-sub that Wehrlein will struggle to get back in? This early stage of the championship is always fascinating; let’s hope that the element of uncertainty persists deep into the season ahead. |
AuthorF1 commentator Ben Edwards sets out some thoughts. Archives
May 2018
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