F1 back in Turkey for first time in almost a decade, but the 2020 grand prix is unlikely to bear much resemblance to 2011 — and not just because polesitter Lance Stroll would’ve been 12 years old last time out.
For one, the cars have changed substantially. Much faster, with more power and more downforce, the expected lap times ahead of the weekend were for somewhere in the vicinity of five seconds quicker, taking into account Pirelli conservatively brought its hardest compounds to Istanbul.
But the most significant change is the track itself. The circuit has been completely resurfaced in anticipation of F1’s return, but the decision was made so late — the race was only confirmed in August, after all — that works finished just 10 days before the on-track action commenced.
Lance Stroll has claimed his maiden Formula One pole position for the Racing Point team in a thrilling wet-weather qualifying session at the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul.
The 22-year-old Canadian staked his claim in enthralling fashion. Heavy rain stretched the session to more than two hours, and even as the weather cleared the standing water combined with the oily bitumen of the freshly laid Istanbul Park circuit to make the track extremely slippery and hard to judge from the cockpit.
Stroll is the first non-Mercedes driver to start from pole this season, with championship leader Lewis Hamilton and title contender Valtteri Bottas starting sixth and ninth respectively in a car that struggled in the conditions.
Lance Stroll will be the first non-Mercedes driver to start from pole this season after a perfectly judged performance in an extraordinary two-hour qualifying marathon for the Turkish Grand Prix.
In treacherously wet and slippery conditions the Canadian was flawless under pressure to beat Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen by 0.29s.
Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas qualified sixth and ninth respectively.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen completed a practice clean sweep at the Turkish Grand Prix in a soaking wet FP3 in Istanbul.
The Red Bull Racing driver’s best effort was a 1m48.48s, enough to be 0.945s quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and 1.5s ahead of teammate Alex Albon, but times meant little at the end of the barely representative hour of running that featured precious few flying laps.
Drizzle had set in at Istanbul Park 40 minutes before the start of final practice and intensified as the session progressed, turning conditions treacherous.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen consolidated his place at the top of the time sheet in a greasy afternoon practice session at the Turkish Grand Prix.
The Dutchman topped FP1 earlier in the day when the freshly laid tarmac was treacherously slippery, but with more rubber laid into the Istanbul Park circuit he was able to lower the bar to a more representative 1m28.330s.
He was 0.4s quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and almost 0.6s quicker than Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas, the last title challenger still in contention to overhaul championship leader Lewis Hamilton, who was a further 0.3s adrift in fourth.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen was quickest in Formula 1’s return to Turkey in a shockingly slippery first practice at Istanbul Park.
The Dutchman took his Red Bull Racing car to the top of the time sheet in the final minutes of the morning session, his 1m35.077s a quarter of a second faster than teammate Alex Albon and 0.4s quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Lewis Hamilton, aiming to seal his seventh title this weekend, finished in 15th after completing only three laps, while his only title challenger, teammate Valtteri Bottas, finished ninth with four tours.
Continue reading on RACERI preview the upcoming Turkish Grand Prix.
The Vietnamese Grand Prix is off the F1 calendar, but the sport still hopes to return to normality with its 2021 schedule.
Racing Point CEO and team principal Otmar Szafnauer discusses his team’s impressive season and the impact Sebastian Vettel will have on Aston Martin in 2021, and we consider Lewis Hamilton’s short and long-term future with the BBC’s chief F1® writer, Andrew Benson.
F1 returns to Intercity Istanbul Park Total Landscaping. Lance Stroll needs a hug. The US election becomes the second most important thing to see some court action.
Episode 18 presented by spokes.com.au features Suzuki’s MotoGP™ World Championship leader Joan Mir, as he joins us to talk about his title chances and why this season has been so unpredictable, while we preview the final three races of 2020 with MotoGP™ pit lane TV reporter, Simon Crafar.
No team has reigned over Formula One for as long as Mercedes, but all empires come to an end eventually.
I review the action from the 2020 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix with Ted Kravitz from Sky Sports.
Lewis Hamilton will definitely leave Mercedes, Daniil Kvyat is delisted from the stock exchange and Valtteri Bottas becomes Ferrari’s fastest driver of the season.
Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two to earn his team a seventh consecutive drivers championship and put himself on the cusp of his own septuple of titles, but he needed a considerable slice of luck to get the job done.
Championship leader Hamilton was arguably the less impressive Mercedes driver this weekend. Bottas had not only got pole, but the Finn’s perfect getaway ensured he was best place to lead what was a largely processional race to the flag at his own pace. Hamilton, on the other hand, dropped to third off the line behind Verstappen and struggled early in the race to make an impression on the Dutchman.
But from lap two the Bottas’s race began unravelling. Running over some debris on track that damaged his floor and became lodged among his bargeboards, the race momentum shifted dramatically in Hamilton’s favour, who needed no second asking to assemble the broken pieces of Bottas’s race into a ninth victory of his own.
Mercedes has won a record-breaking seventh consecutive constructors championship with a Lewis Hamilton-led one-two finish in Imola at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
The German marque’s undefeated run since 2014 beats Ferrari’s previous record of six straight titles between 1999 and 2004.
Mercedes is also guaranteed a seventh straight drivers title, with only Valtteri Bottas in mathematical contention to catch points leader Hamilton with four rounds remaining.
Mercedes has won an unprecedented seventh consecutive constructors championship with a Lewis Hamilton-led one-two victory at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola.
Continue reading on RACERFormula One’s first two-day weekend takes place at one motor racing’s great venues: Imola, the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, where an interesting race awaits.
The format change to expunge Friday practice from the schedule fulfils two aims. The first is to reduce the logistical burden of road travel between Portugal and Italy for back-to-back weekends, particularly with the background of COVID-19 restrictions.
The second reason has potentially far-reach consequences — the evaluation of the viability of a shortened format to ease the burden of individual races in exchange for cramming more events into a season.