Motorsport journalist and podcaster
We play our own original game ‘Well Done or Not Well Done’ but immediately forget the rules. Ferrari is no good and we forget to talk about Max Verstappen.
Max Verstappen empathized with title rival Charles Leclerc’s crippling run of engine failures but says that his team has done a better job of improving his car’s reliability.
Verstappen opened the season with two engine failures in the first three rounds and has suffered a variety of more minor technical niggles throughout his campaign, but he’s yet to finish off the podium when he’s seen the flag, collecting five victories and a third place.
Leclerc, on the other hand, has seen his rock-solid early-season reliability melt away, with two engine retirements of his own in the last three weekends as well as a strategy misstep that cost him victory in Monaco.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton says he’s never experienced as much pain while driving in Formula 1 as he did during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, thanks to his Mercedes car’s aggressive bouncing.
All teams have had to deal with either aerodynamic porpoising or their cars bottoming out along Baku’s 1.4-mile straight, but Mercedes suffered most thank to the W13 already being predisposed to the bouncing.
The team clarified during the weekend that in Baku it wasn’t suffering from the same porpoising that afflicted it before the Spanish Grand Prix; instead the car was scraping along the track on the straights because it needs to be run extremely close to the ground to generate performance.
Continue reading on RACERCharles Leclerc has called for Ferrari to ensure its double DNF in Azerbaijan isn’t repeated this season after taking a massive hit to his title campaign.
Leclerc’s power unit blew in a plume of smoke on the front straight on lap 20, forcing his retirement. Teammate Carlos Sainz had stopped with an engine hydraulics leak just 11 laps early, cementing a shocking day at the office for the Italian team.
The double retirement facilitated an easy Red Bull Racing one-two finish with Max Verstappen in the lead, consolidating a 21-point title lead ahead of teammate Sergio Perez. Red Bull Racing also widened its lead over Ferrari in the constructors standings to 80 points.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen has blown open his championship lead with a comfortable victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after both Ferrari drivers retired with mechanical failures.
The race was bubbling into a strategic thriller, with pole-getter Charles Leclerc having made an early pit stop during a virtual safety car on lap 9. The track-wide caution was triggered by Carlos Sainz, whose power unit suffered a hydraulic failure that forced him to park up in the run-off area at Turn 4.
Sergio Perez, having jumped Leclerc for the lead on the first lap, stayed out ahead of teammate Verstappen for a more conventional one-stop strategy that would have squeezed the Monegasque at the end of the race. But the tactics never had a chance to play out, with Leclerc’s power unit popping in the final sector after just 20 laps, forcing him into a costly retirement, his second in three races after the Spanish Grand Prix.
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