Another perfect day greeted the Thundering Herd as they approached the grid at Barcalounger.  Reigning Champion Lewis Hamilton, desperate for a win, led the field, but his Mercedes teammate and current points leader Nico Rosberg was right next to him on the grid.  It looked like another Merc one-two was in the offing, particularly since Ferrari had managed to relinquish the second row to Red Bull somehow.  So what happened?  Who's speed reigned supreme?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2016 Grand Prix of Spain!

*LIGHTS OUT:  Hamilton had a flawless start and led his hard-charging teammate into Turn 1, a lead that lasted no longer than that.  Rosberg, on the grippy side of the track, managed to keep his speed higher through the turn and passed the Brit.  And then it happened.  Rosberg, his engine apparently in the wrong power setting, dumped power as it began to harvest power for the batteries.  Hamilton suddenly had a 10mph advantage over the leader and dove to the right.  Rosberg moved that way as well in a legal block, but Hamilton, committed continued onwards... and onto the grass.

Traction totally lost, Hamilton went sideways in an uncontrolled slide.  More importantly, he lost almost no speed in this skid, while Rosberg slowed to make the upcoming turn.

Hamilton's car, completely nonresponsive to anything the driver did, collected Rosberg.  Now both Mercedes were sideways, damaged, and headed for the kittylitter.

The two dominant cars of the 2016 season were out of the race.

*TRYING AGAIN:  After the safety car returned to the pit lane, Red Bull's Smiley Ricciardo led his new teammate, former Toro Rosso driver Embryo Verstappen, a hot-starting Carlos Sainz, Seb Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen back to racing.  Within a few laps, Sainz would be passed by both Vettel and Raikkonen, leaving the race to boil down to Ferrari vs Red Bull.

*STRATEGERY:  Soon enough it became apparent that the two teams were evenly matched.  The Red Bulls led, the Ferraris followed, but neither could really gain an advantage on the other.  With the cars and drivers equal, it was going to be a true Team vs Team race: the guys in the pit lanes were going to make a difference, maybe a race-winning one.  The first round of stops went smoothly, but something small occurred on Lap 24 that changed everything.

*TO THE MANOR BORN:  Rio Rainbow Gate! was Manoring his way around the circuit some handful of seconds slower than the leaders, believing himself to be a true F1 driver instead of one that has a seat by dint of Indonesian national funding.  As he pedaled his way through the lap, Smiley Ricciardo had caught up to him.  The problem was, he couldn't get past.  Turbulence from the Manor kept washing out the Red Bull's grip in the turns, and down the long straights, the Mercedes engine gave the backmarker a 7mph speed advantage.  By the time Rio Rainbow Gate! let Ricciardo past, Embryo Verstappen and Seb Vettel had both taken a second off of the leader.  Now all three were covered by less than two seconds, with Raikkonen a bit further back.

*C-C-C-CHANGES:  At this point, Red Bull made a pit-wall decision, one that had long-reaching consequences for the race: they split the pit stop strategies on the fly.  They moved the leader to a three-stop strategy, counting on fresher tires to allow their man to make up the time lost in the extra stop.  Meanwhile, they kept Embryo Verstappen, in second place, on a two-stop strategy.  The tires needed to pull this off would be slower, but with one fewer stop to make... well.  Ferrari, reacting to Red Bull's move, pitted third-place Seb Vettel early to cover.  The question now became: which strategy would be faster at the finish line?  Two stops or three?

*FOOLED YA:  Vettel only stayed out for eight laps on the soft tires he had put on to mirror Ricciardo.  By pitting early, he managed to undercut the Red Bull driver; by the time Smiley would pit, Vettel had managed to use the pit lane to get past for third.  Ricciardo had gone from the lead to fourth, thanks to a strategy he had no call on.

*ON THE OTHER HAND: Verstappen and Raikkonen, on the two-stop strategies, were now out in front of their teammates... and it quickly became clear that the Ferraris were just a bit quicker than the Red Bulls.  The problem was, as it often is, turbulence.  The Finn couldn't quite get close enough to make a move on the leader, and Vettel was able to keep his Australian rival behind him, though doing so required quite a bit of effort.  And so the four sat, Verstappen - Raikkonen - 10 second gap - Vettel - Ricciardo, for lap after lap.  One error by anybody would allow the others to capitalize instantly... and as the fifth place driver was nearly 40 seconds adrift of Smiley, they were the only ones who would benefit from a mistake.

*IN THE END:  The error ended up being nobody's fault... and made the least amount of difference possible.  Ricciardo picked up some debris and his left-rear tire let go.  He was able to nurse his car around the last third of the track, make the pits, and return to the race still in fourth, but Vettel was no longer in danger.  Ahead of them, Raikkonen had hovered less than a second behind Embryo Verstappen for lap after lap, trying to pressure the youngest driver in F1 history into a mistake or an opening... and being unable to do so.  Verstappen was flawless, never locking a tire, never missing a line through the turns, never giving the Finn the opening he so desperately needed.  When he took the checkered flag, some .600 seconds ahead of the Ferrari driver, he became the first Dutchman to win a F1 race and the youngest driver ever to win (taking that title from Seb Vettel).  Not bad for someone who had never even driven his F1 car before Friday's practice due to being promoted from Toro Rosso a week earlier.

*OH, THAT:  So what of the man Verstappen had traded teams with, Kid Kvyat?  He finished in 10th, but he did something no Toro Rosso driver had ever done: he turned fast lap of the race.  In other bits and pieces of interest, Haas F1's Esteban! finished his first race of the season, ending up in 11th.  Lettuce Grosjean, the other Haas driver, had to retire with brake failure.

*AFTER-ACTION:  The FIA stewards judged the Mercedes accident to be a racing incident, no penalties to be handed out.  And Embryo Verstappen... well:


We'll leave the writeup with that.

Next race is in two weeks, at the spiritual home of Formula 1: MONACO.  See ya then!

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A partly sunny and cool day greeted the F1 Circus as they made their way around the Bolshoi Ice Dome, heading towards the start/finish line of the Sochi Autodrom.  The Mercedes of Nico Rosberg led the field, riding high on a six-race win streak while his teammate and erstwhile main rival for the championship, Lewis Hamilton, was far back in the field.  Would a German finally win in Russia?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2016 Grand Prix of Russia!

*LIGHTS OUT:  We're not going to lie, the race was interesting for a grand total of two turns.  It was in that second turn that the expected demolition derby occurred, sending multiple cars into the pits for replacement parts.  It also ended the race of Rio Rainbow Gate, Nico Hulkenberg, and Ferrari's Seb Vettel.  The German was taken out of the race by counteroffensives from Kid Kyvat, defending his home circuit.  The Red Bull driver hit Vettel once in Turn 2, tipping him into a half-spin, then nailed him a second time a very short time later, knocking the red car into the wall and ending his day.  Vettel then voiced his opinion of the incident on team radio... fortunately, the profanities were bleeped out, protecting ears across the world.  In the melee, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton advanced from 10th on the grid at the start to fifth.  The safety car that was called out lasted for three laps.

*RESTART:  The safety car left the track, and the restart went the way it always does: the leader manages to dash away, leaving the car in second to desperately try to claw back any ground lost to third place.  Meanwhile, Hamilton quickly took fourth, then third place three laps later.  The fight for second place, with the Williams of Valterri Bottas would take much longer.

*FOREGONE CONCLUSION: In fact, it took until Lap 19, at which point Hamilton dropped a nice move on the Finn for second.  However, their squabbling over the position meant that they had no way of challenging the leader... an opening that Nico Rosberg took full advantage of.  After he had stopped for new tires and returned to the race, he had a 12 second lead over his teammate.  While it would drop as low as seven seconds on Lap 35, one never got the sense that Hamilton had the ability to get past Rosberg, let alone catch him... his long-term fight over second place with the similarly-engined Williams made that clear.  Indeed, Hamilton was a distant 25 seconds behind when the race finished, only six seconds clear of a resurgent Kimi Raikkonen in third.  Bottas was fourth, followed by Felipe Not Nasr Massa, his Williams teammate.  A pleasant sight in sixth place was the McLaren of Fernando Alonso, followed by the Renault of Kevin Magnussen... the first points for that team this season.  Haas continued their amazing debut with Lettuce Grosjean finishing in eighth, ahead of the Force India of Sergio Perez, and Jenson Button put the second McLaren in the points as well with its 10th place finish.

*FINAL THOUGHTS:  This race was a dog from beginning to end.  When Vaucaunson's Duck is sending us pictures of his cat ignoring the race, you know it's bad, and it really was.  It's an awful track, filled with boring turns, and we couldn't even count on tire wear to liven it up... a set of super-soft tires could last 25 laps here, out of 52.  Russia is in the rear-view mirror, thankfully, and we'll next be in Spain.  Catalunya isn't much better, but we'll be beginning the European leg of the calendar, which means upgrades.  It'll be a whole new game then.  See you there.

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The sun shone beautifully in the sky as points leader Nico Rosberg brought the Thundering Herd around to the grid at Shanghai International, easily the nicest weather the teams had seen all weekend.  Which is not the unadulterated blessing you may think it is; after all, the cars never ran in sunny conditions in practice, who knows if the teams got their setups right?  Rosberg's main rival, Lewis Hamilton, was starting from last on the grid, deciding not to start from the pit lane.  How would this play out?  And would Ferrari finally make their challenge to the Mercedes domination stick?  THIS is your F1Update! for the 2016 Grand Prix of China!

*LIGHTS OUT:  In Formula 1, you can't always count on a good race, but you can always count on a wild and wooly first lap, and China coughed up a good one today.  Our polesitter had the latest in what's becoming a trend of Mercedes crappy starts, allowing the Red Bull of Smiley Ricciardo to take the lead into Turn 1.  Behind them, all was chaos.  The two Ferraris bounced off each other, aided by the Kid Kvyat's Red Bull making a mad dash up the inside of them.  Kimi Raikkonen went sailing off into the hinterlands as a result, his front wing gone away.  Vettel, on the other hand, continued, but with a damaged front wing that would be replaced at the first pit stop.  Farther back, the Haas of Lettuce Grosjean wound up with nose damage as well.  Even further back... okay, look: we here at F1U! have a belief that if a car that is normally up at the front of the grid is starting from the back for whatever reason, it's better and safer to start them from the pit lane.  That way, they avoid the first corner demolition derby and won't lose too much time in the process.  Lewis Hamilton, however, elected to start from 22nd on the grid, stating that he was going to start passing people at the earliest opportunity and go all-out to catch his teammate.  Instead, he was collected by the Sauber of Felipe Not Massa Nasr, his front wing wound up stuck underneath his Mercedes, and he had to limp around to the pits, the first of an incredible five pitstops on the day for the reigning World Champion.

*AND THEN...: On Lap 3, with DRS enabled, Rosberg swung wide to pass the leader Ricciardo.  As he pulled alongside, the left-rear tire of the Red Bull shredded itself on some carbon fiber debris left behind by one car or another.  He limped back to the pits, but any thoughts of a podium for him were left behind with the tire carcass.  A safety car came out a lap or two later, ostensibly for the clearing of debris (and there was a lot of it around the circuit), but as the Legendary Announce Team put it, it would give the drivers a chance to cool off... we here at F1U! had images of someone pulling out a firehose... and get back to calm and collected racing.  Not that it did much for Seb Vettel's mood: as he dove for the pit lane, he discovered two cars ahead of him, with Nico Hulkenberg's Force India moving slowly in front... certainly to open a gap to his teammate, as the team had decided to "double-stack" them, bringing both cars in at once.  So Vettel, in no mood for such things, passed them in the pit-in.  Not only was it perfectly legal, but Hulkenberg got a five-second time penalty for driving slower than warranted and causing a hazard.  This race had everything!

*WOO.  YAY.  WHEE.:  Until it didn't.  After the restart, which Rosberg handled with aplomb, the race wasn't all that much of a much.  The Mercedes went galloping out over the horizon, barely to be seen again.  At one point in the race, he pitted from the lead... the entire pitstop took just over 24 seconds, including the roll in and the roll out... and still had a 12 second lead when he returned to the track.

*SAILING HOME:  Rosberg made it three-for-three for the season, and six out of the last six, winning by nearly 40 seconds over the second-place Ferrari of Seb Vettel.  Some say that Rosberg is still out on track somewhere, gliding around out of sight of the FOM cameras....  Third and fourth places went to the Red Bulls of Kid Kvyat and Smiley Ricciardo,  45 and 52 seconds behind.  The other Ferrari, that of Kimi Raikkonen was fifth, 65 seconds in arrears.  Lewis Hamilton, who before the race said that he was "perfectly situated" in the championship, finished seventh.  And for the first time, both Haas cars finished the race with Esteban! finishing 14th, Lettuce Grosjean 19th.  No points, but just as important in a way.

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"So, how's that championship working out for you, Lewis?  Lewis?  Where are ya, buddy?" - Nico Rosberg

"Um.  Whoops." - Seb Vettel

"Yeah, take that Sebby!  That'll teach you to mess with a Russian!" - Kid Kvyat

"*grin*" - Smiley Ricciardo

"mrmrmdbsldlsm mmrmrrbrmmlm mrmrlrbrrbbbblrlrbm mrmrmrl." - Kimi Raikkonen

"Damn, I'm good... starting from last place, making five pit stops, and still getting in the points?  I'm mega!  Buy my rap album!" - Lewis Hamilton

"It was fun out there today!" - Esteban!  (note: real quote)

"It was a horrific race." - Lettuce Grosjean (note: real quote)

In two weeks, we find ourselves in Russia.  Dosvydanya and see ya then!

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The desert sun had mostly set on the Sakhir International Circuit as the polesitter Lewis Hamilton led his teammate Nico Rosberg and the rest of the Thundering Herd on the recon lap just before the race start, but all was clearly not right with one of the drivers.  What happened?  Would it affect the second race of the season?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2016 Grand Prix of Bahrain!

*KABLAMMO:  As the field made its way to the grid, it became clear that the Ferrari of Seb Vettel was in some distress, judging from the line of sparks it was emitting.  Soon enough, however, those sparks became a mosquito-killing cloud as the engine completely let go.  He pulled off-circuit, day done before he could even turn a lap.

Last week, it was a fiery turbo failure that ended Kimi Raikkonen's race.  Was this a similar failure, or something more?

*LIGHTS OUT:  Like in Australia, Lewis Hamilton had a terrible start, immediately losing the lead to Nico Rosberg ,then getting run over by the Williams of Valterri Bottas in Turn 1.  He'd end up in sixth place by the end of the first lap, and Bottas would be given a drive-through penalty.  As the lap continued, we saw bodywork and pieces of front wing flying off of a plethora of cars as a half-dozen drivers forgot they weren't driving in NASCAR and "rubbin' is racin'" doesn't work in open-wheel.  Within a few more laps, Jenson Button's McLaren had come to a stop on-track and the Haas of Esteban! was retired in the pits with a brake problem.  To say the least, one of the more frantic starts to a race we've seen in a while.

*LONG DAYS AHEAD:  Up at the front, Nico Rosberg's Mercedes was hitting on all cylinders.  By the time all the front runners had made their first stops, he had an 11 second lead over Kimi Raikkonen and 20 seconds on Hamilton, and looked very much like he'd not be headed... either today or for the rest of the season, if things continued on like this.

*AGGRESSIVE:  Meanwhile, Lettuce Grosjean and Haas had decided to throw the normal operating manual in the trash and gamble on tires.  Able to choose what sort of rubber they would start the race on, everybody expected them to go with the long-running medium compound, outlast the other cars, and advance via making few pitstops than everybody else.  Instead, when the lights went out Lettuce was clad in the same super-soft tires as Hamilton, Rosberg, Raikkonen, and the others up front.  More surprising was that Haas kept him on the super-softs after the first stop.  While this did allow him to pass Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo for fourth place on Lap 25, it didn't seem like the best strategy ever.  Heads must've been shaking up and down the pit lane when Haas pitted a couple of laps later, emerging once again on super-soft rubber.

*MEANWHILE:  Up front, Rosberg had opened his lead to 16 seconds over the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, and nearly 50 seconds over Lewis Hamilton on Lap 30.  While the lead would shrink as the end approached, that was less because Rosberg was being threatened and more because Mercedes told him to reduce stress on his power unit. 

*IN THE END:  The last 20-odd laps were actually fairly dull, a startling contrast to the first 30 or so interesting ones.  Rosberg won the race by nearly 11 seconds, with Raikkonen finishing second.  Third went to Hamilton, a half-minute behind his teammate.  That was still a half-minute ahead of the fourth place finisher, Red Bull's Ricciardo.

*IRON HAAS: After three sets of super-softs, Grosjean finished the race on a set of soft tires.  While the fresh rubber let him begin to close in on Ricciardo for fourth, the faster super-softs allowed Embryo Verstappen's Toro Rosso to make a furious charge at the American car.  If the race went 60 laps, he probably would have caught and passed Lettuce... but the race ended after 57.  Once again, the new team on the grid finished way up in the standings, even improving on their debut race... amazing results.

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"Five in a row, Lewis, five in a row... ties you in 2014, doesn't it?  Why yes, yes it does.  Fancy that!" - Nico Rosberg

"mrmrrblmrrr  mrrlrrlrlrbrl  mrmrmrmrmrblblbl mrmrbrbl." - Kimi Raikkonen

"Sorry, busy snapchatting, what?" - Lewis Hamilton

"*grin*" - Daniel Ricciardo 

"This is the American Dream." - Lettuce Grosjean (note: real quote)

Two weeks from now, China beckons.  We'll see you then!

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The best weather of the race weekend greeted the F1 Circus as they rolled onto the grid for the inaugural race of the new season.  As has been the case for what feels like forever, the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg locked out the first row, with the twin Ferraris of Seb Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen right behind them.  Could someone stop Hamilton, the reigning World Champion, or would he run away with the race and get the year off to a terrifying start?  Or will someone stand up for the fans and dethrone the Brit?  And what of the new team on the grid, America's Haas F1, how would they fare in their first race?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2016 Grand Prix of Australia!

*LIGHTS OUT: In the past, it's been traditional to see the polesitting Mercedes to go stampeding away over the nearest hill, leaving everybody languishing in its dust, save for a grim-faced second Merc desperately trying to remain in contact. Not so today, as the start saw Seb Vettel make a glorious getaway as Hamilton appeared to bog down slightly.  Vettel nipped right between the two Mercs, getting ahead of them both.  Then the other Ferrari took advantage of Rosberg and Hamilton having a little spat in the first turn, moving into second while Hamilton dropped all the way down to sixth as a result.  And, wonders of wonders, neither Ferrari seemed particularly threatened by the Silver Arrows, though they couldn't pull away from them, either.  By Lap 10, Vettel had a three-second gap to the third-place Merc of Rosberg, and nine seconds on Hamilton in fifth.  Good, but nothing like we often saw from the Constructor Champions last year.

*PIT STOPS... OR NOT:  The first of the leaders to come in for new tires was Rosberg, on Lap 13 for soft tires.  The next lap saw race leader Vettel come in for super-softs, exiting the pits just barely ahead of the newly-shod Rosberg.  If you were ever curious what sort of difference tire compounds could make, we saw it here.  While Vettel was on cold tires and Rosberg's were up to temp, the super-softs were almost immediately ready to go; the Mercedes tried gamely, but just could not hang with the Ferrari.  In the space of a few turns, a gap between the two opened and just kept getting wider and wider.  Up ahead was the other Mercedes, now in the lead as Hamilton tried to stay on track on worn tires to strategize his way past the surprising Toro Rosso of Embryo Verstappen (who pitted a few laps earlier).  When Vettel retook the lead, Hamilton pitted.  Meanwhile, the Haas of Lettuce Grosjean had worked its way up to 12th and had to be considering a pit stop soon, while his teammate was only a position or two behind but under threat from the McLaren of Fernando Alonso. 

*RED FLAG: Heading towards the right-hand Turn 3, Alonso had the Haas of Esteban! lined up for a pass.  His plan was to swoop outside the American car, then he'd be in the better position into the left-handed Turn 4.  Easy-peasey!  Just as he began his swoop, Esteban!'s Haas kicked into ERS-charging mode, and the drag on the power-unit slowed the car more than Alonso was expecting.  The McLaren's right-front wheel clipped the left-rear of the Haas, and Alonso was sent into the outside wall at high speed.  Rebounding, the car quickly dug into the gravel trap protecting Turn 3, rolled and got airborne... touching down again just short of the end of the trap.  Of course, it dug in again, flipped end-for-end in mid-air, then ended up leaning up against a wall.

When Alonso slithered out of the inverted McLaren, he was understandably shaken, but mostly unharmed.  Esteban! had a much easier ride, his broken Haas sliding to a sedate halt rightsideup in the middle of the kittylitter.  Considering the amount of debris left behind by the two, it was an easy decision for Race Control to red flag the race.

*PAUSE THAT REFRESHES:  Because of the red flag rules, teams were able to do work on the cars as they sat in the pit lane.  For example, Mercedes reportedly changed Hamilton's nose, repairing some front wing damage suffered at the start.  Everybody put on fresh tires as well, with Ferrari keeping their cars on the Super-Soft, and Rosberg joining Hamilton on Mediums.  This clearly meant that Mercedes intended to no-stop the rest of the way while Ferrari would have to stop at least one more time. Super-Soft tires had zero chance of lasting the rest of the race... or even 20 laps, for that matter.

*...AND WE'RE BACK:  There were no real surprises for the next handful of laps.  No surprises, that is, until Kimi Raikkonen brought his Ferrari into the pit lane, trailing a thin plume of smoke behind him.

Surprisingly, there was no effort from the Ferrari pit crew to put out the fire licking just inches above their driver's head.  It took a safety marshal strolling by with an extinguisher to put it out with a stream of foam.  Very odd.  Some laps later, it was clear that Vettel's tires were going off; he was losing time to the Medium-clad Mercedes.  He switched to the Soft tires, plenty sturdy enough to last to the end of the race... but his pit crew botched the stop.  A three-second stop might have gotten him out of the pits in close contact with Lewis Hamilton (who would have been promoted to second place).  Instead, a screwup on the front-left tire change turned it into a six-second stop and any realistic chance of a race win went out the window.

*THE END:  Which didn't mean that second place was out of reach.  For the rest of the race, Vettel reeled in the Silver Arrow of Hamilton in second place, closing to within one second by Lap 52.  As it turns out, though, the Ferrari pilot had chewed up his tires in the chase.  After catching up, Vettel soon went off into the grass, losing four seconds or so with only one lap to go.  This essentially ended the race; Rosberg led the way, followed some eight seconds later by his teammate.  Vettel was a second or so behind Hamilton, and the Red Bull of Daniel Riccardio was in fourth, 24 seconds behind.  Felipe Not Nasr Massa's Williams was in fifth, almost one minute behind the leader.

*OH, HIM?:  The important question, however, was "Where was the Haas of Lettuce Grosjean?"  He finished the race 12 seconds behind Massa in sixth place.  In doing so, Haas F1 became the first new team to score points in their first race since Toyota in 2002 (also a sixth place finish).  They also became the first American team to score points since Haas-Lola (no relation) in 1986.  He was helped to this finish by making his sole tire change during the Red Flag period, meaning that he didn't actually make a pit stop during the race!  Having said that, this was a legitimate finish for the car... it deserved to be around sixth place or so on pace and driver performance.

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"Four in a row now.  It's becoming routine, ain't it Lewis?" - Nico Rosberg

"Thanks for running me off the road, teammate." - Lewis Hamilton

"Hey, guys, Ferrari's back, we're gonna beat you this year... guys?  Stop arguing with each other and pay attention to me.  Guys?" - Seb Vettel

"Oi, I'm Australian." - Daniel Ricciardo

"For a wonder, I'm not whining for once." - Felipe Not Nasr Massa

"Welcome to F1, Gene!  This is a win for us!" - Lettuce Grosjean (note: real quote)

"When I stopped, I saw a little space to get out of the car and I went out quickly just to make sure my mum, who was watching on television at home, could see that I was okay.  Oh, and AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" - Fernando Alonso (note: mostly real quote)

"Races we have many, but life we have only one.  I thank God we are all okay!" - Esteban!  (note: real quote.  Tweet.  Whatever)

"I hate Australia." - Kid Kvyat.  This is the second year in a row he has had a mechanical failure just before the race.

So that's it from Down Under.  The next race is in two weeks at Bahrain.  We'll see you then!

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Night was falling as the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg led the assembled field to the grid at Yas Marina.  Behind him was world champion Lewis Hamilton, who began complaining about that fact days earlier.  Carrying the hopes and dreams of Italy was the third car on the grid, the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.  The oddball of the bunch sat in fourth position, the Force India of Sergio Perez.  How would these worthies shake out at the end of the day?  There's only one way to find out: THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi!

*OH JEEZ... REALLY?:  When the lights went out, the usual headlong dive for the first turn began.  Polesitter Nico Rosberg easily outpaced his rivals while Hamilton's poor start meant that he had to scramble to keep Raikkonen behind him.  He accomplished this feat, which gave him a grandstand view of Rosberg galloping away.  It wasn't a huge gap, only five seconds by the time first Rosberg, then Hamilton, pitted for new tires on Lap 10 and 11, respectively, but that would prove to be plenty.

*SO MUCH FOR THAT:  The one true important contest remaining in the World Driver's Championship was for fourth.  Williams' Valterri Bottas led Raikkonen by a single point... whichever man finished ahead of the other would take the position.  Bottas and Williams took all the drama out of the duel early.  First Bottas peed the start down the leg of his firesuit, dropping to 10th by the end of the first lap.  Then during his first pit stop, the team released him just as the McLaren of Jenson Button angled into his pit box.  The collision snapped the left side of Bottas's front wing clean off, and for whatever reason the team told him to leave the pits and return instead of stopping and having the mechanics pull him back.  In any case, by the time he got his car around and the nose repaired he had dropped to last place and was never seen again.

*OH... HIM?:  Due to a massive screwup in Quals by Ferrari, Seb Vettel started the race pretty much at the back of the field.  He sure didn't stay there long; by the end of the first lap he was 12th, and then settled into tire conservation mode.  While his rivals began pitting on Lap 9, he didn't make his first stop until 14 laps later, at which point he was in fourth place!  After the stop, he had fallen to 6th, but by babying his tires he managed to work his way back up to fourth, practically without having to pass anybody on track.  Maybe a boring strategy, but an effective one.

*BACK AT THE FRONT: The second stint was much more friendly to Hamilton, allowing him to close the gap to his teammate almost to DRS range.  When Rosberg pitted on Lap 31, the entire race was there for Hamilton to take.  He had been begging for an alternate tire strategy, any tire strategy, that could allow him to take the fight to the other Mercedes, and now he had the chance.  The team left it up to him... and he let the team make the call.  Rosberg would go on to win by over eight seconds, and Hamilton would go on to say that he "You have to rely on the engineers to give you the optimum strategy at that point," but that he "didn't understand it." 

*IN THE END:  The top three places were exactly the way the race began: Rosberg, Hamilton, Raikkonen.  If it hadn't've been for Vettel getting in the way, it would have been the top five places, for Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo, 4th and 5th at the start, ended up 5th and 6th.  Yeah, it was that sort of "race"... and it was essentially the 2015 season in a nutshell.  Only three drivers earned victories this year, Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel (Hamilton 10, Rosberg 6, Vettel 3).  The same three were the only polesitters (Hamilton 11, Rosberg 7, Vettel 1).  The German national anthem was heard during every podium ceremony in 2015.

*SO.:  And thus does the 2015 F1 season come to an end.  We're only 109 days away from the first race of the 2016 season, at Australia... but we'll start seeing the rollouts of the new cars a lot sooner than that.  One of them will be the first design for the new official team of F1U!, HaasF1.  We all hope that they'll be enough to make next year interesting.

Thanks for reading this year, and we'll see you soon enough!

*ALMOST FORGOT:  Noah would be pleased with the final driver's championship standings.

Two by two... two by two.

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Here's what sort of race we had today from São Paulo: we spent the entirety looking at the sky, praying the distant clouds would make their way over the circuit and drop just a little bit of rain.  Anything.  Please.  We beg you.  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil!

We watched the race live.  We've read a bunch of post-race reaction.  We even went back and watched the 15 or so laps we missed when we dozed off (the F1U! team slept neither long nor well last night; by the time the 10am start came around, we'd already been up for four hours and were running on a similar amount of sleep).  We cannot come to any other conclusion but this: the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil was a dud.  The Mercedes of Nico Rosberg led wire to wire except during the pit rotation, and even then he was out of the lead for a total of two laps.  Teammate Lewis Hamilton had nothing for the polesitter, unable to mount a substantial challenge at any time.  This includes the start, where Rosberg simply got off the line better and faster and held a gap into the first turn... no pushing and shoving beween teammates this time around!  The closest we came to a Hamilton challenge to Rosberg's dominance was late in the race.  The reigning Champion cut the lead down as close as 1.3 seconds with something like 10 laps to go.  It was a false image however, as Hamilton had to light his rear tires on fire to accomplish it.  He wound up nearly eight seconds back when the race finished.

Which put paid to the so-called storyline of the race.  In the runup to Brazil, the F1 press was full of Hamilton's desire to win at Interlagos, home of his hero Ayrton Senna.  He's never won in Brazil, though it's the home of arguably his greatest moment, his first world championship.  On and on they went about Hamilton wanting THIS victory.  And he didn't get it.  And nobody really is surprised by this.  Hamilton is a great driver, maybe the best on the grid right now, but he's not so much better that he can will himself to win.  When Hamilton is behind Rosberg, he needs his German teammate to make a mistake.  Sometimes Lewis can force that mistake, often he can't.  This isn't a knock on Hamilton, nor praise for Rosberg.  It's just an observation.  Today, Rosberg didn't make a mistake that Hamilton could exploit.

Rosberg's victory also locked up second place in the driver's championship for him.  Seb Vettel, who finished third in the race, had very little room for error today.  He was 21 points behind his countryman, but with only 50 points left available he had to make sure he kept that gap from growing.  The Mercs were too good today, however, and he should be commended for only being 14 seconds behind Rosberg at the end.  His teammate, Kimi Raikkonen finished in fourth, and how dominant the Mercedes were should be evident by the information that he was the last driver on the lead lap.  That's right, the silver cars lapped the field up to Valterri Bottas's Williams in 5th today.

We also saw the Constructor's Championship pretty much finished up to 5th place today as well.  Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams, Red Bull and Force India are locked in, and how amazing is it that Williams is in third?  Two years ago, they had a grand total of five points, good for 9th place in the constructor's championship.  It's great that the second most successful team in F1 history is back... now if only they could challenge for wins.

If it sounds like we're struggling to find things to talk about regarding the 2015 Grand Prix of Brazil, it's because we are.  This wasn't just a bad race, it was a boring race.  Particularly when compared to the two that came before it, Mexico and the US.  Hopefully the finale in Abu Dhabi will be better, but we have our doubts.  And then the season will, mercifully, be over.

We'll see you in two weeks!

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Here's the thing: we here at F1U! don't particularly want to do our usual update.  Instead, what we're going to do is something a little more free-form, step aside from our usual bullet point format with generalized info about the race as a whole.  We've realized that unless we're going to write 2500 words, there are plenty of better places to get lap-by-lap coverage.  We digress, however... THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Mexico!

We had another Mercedes 1-2, with Nico Rosberg beating his teammate Lewis Hamilton (who did, of course, win the Driver's Championship at the US Grand Prix) rather handily.  Williams' Valterri Bottas took the third step on the podium, followed by the Red Bulls of Kid Kyvat and Daniel Ricciardo.  For the first time since 2006 neither Ferrari finished the race, and more about Seb Vettel's day later.  However, on the whole the race was something of a disappointment.  After Friday and Saturday's sessions, we were expecting to see cars slithering around like "grip" was a four-letter word.  Which it is, but not that sort of four-letter word.  Tails stepping out, slow speed spins, that sort of thing.  Instead, we got very little of that.  The reason for that is fairly obvious: the sun was out and the track surface was some 30°F warmer than it had been on Friday and Saturday.  Warm pavement equals warm tires which means more grip... apparently just enough to keep cars glued to the surface.  As a result, the race ended up much like any other, though the high altitude did limit the usefulness of the DRS.  We saw very few DRS-related passes down the 1.2km long front straight... when you're already down 20% on drag due to a lack of air in the air, losing a bit more doesn't make that much of a difference.

One thing that didn't disappoint were the 115000 Mexican fans that showed up.  From cheering insanely whenever Sergio Perez did anything (and practically having orgasms when he executed a pass at the above turn!) to chanting "Nico Nico Nico Ole Ole Ole!" just before the podium ceremony, they put on a show that was at least as entertaining as the race itself.  It's no stretch to say that, at least for one race, the lunatic fans at Monza were given a run for their money.  If they're always going to act this way, we here at F1U! don't care if the race is humdrum... the fans were incredible.

"Incredible" would be a good way to describe Seb Vettel's day.  Filled with confidence that his Ferrari would be able to hang with the Mercedes, he had a less-than-stellar getaway from the start, was passed by Kid Kvyat almost instantly, then had a run-in with the other Red Bull that resulted in a punctured rear tire.  It took only a short distance for the tire to fail completely, forcing him to finish the rest of the lap at a walking pace.  Once the tire was replaced, he set his cap to make up for the delay.  For a while, all looked fine.  Soon enough it became obvious that the three-time Driver's Champion wasn't so much driving his car as he was over-driving it.  An unforced spin that luckily ended without hitting anything brought frustrated radio calls.  A pitstop that saw the Ferrari put onto the medium tires instead of soft brought another hail of radioed complaints.  Things got so bad that he was lapped by Rosberg and he impeded Hamilton enough for blue flags to be thrown in his direction.  The pit wall had to get involved, telling him to let the Mercedes by... to which he replied "I'm faster than him!"  While perhaps true, he was still a lap down.  His miserable race came to an end some 20 laps early, embedded in the wall on the outside of Turn 7.  He escaped injury, but the Ferrari was toast.  So, too, are his hopes for second in the driver's championship as it was his chief rival who won the race.

Finally, Lewis Hamilton seemed to be in something of a complaining mood during the race.  From disobeying an order to come into the pits for new tires to disagreeing with tire choice, he certainly seemed to be feeling his oats as a new repeat champion.  Or perhaps he realized that he wouldn't be able to pass his teammate on track so trying a very long one-stop strategy was his best shot.  As it was, the team thought his his tires were being worn to the fabric backing, but that wasn't good enough for Hamilton.  "I still think this was the wrong choice," was the call to the pit wall after the tire change in question.  Understandably, the pit wall's response was brusque: "We can discuss it later."  It's almost like he doesn't trust his team...?

The penultimate race of the season is in two weeks at Brazil.  We'll see you then!

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The sky was grey and heavy as the Thundering Herd was led to the Circuit of the Americas' grid by polesitter Nico Rosberg.  If you tilted your head and squinted, you could almost believe it wasn't raining, the first time that had happened this race weekend since early in Friday Practice 1.  The track was still wet however, and the field was on Inters and glad for it.  Would it rain some more?  Would it ever dry out?  THIS is your F1Update! for the 2015 United States Grand Prix!

*TURN 1:  The first turn of any F1 race is usually exciting as 20 cars try to file through a space made for two or three.  When something goes pear-shaped in the midpack, it accordions back through the field like a train derailing.  The one track where this should never occur is the Circuit of the Americas, where Turn 1 looks wide enough to fit the entire field through wheel to wheel.  Except when something intentional occurs.  At the start, polesitter Nico Rosberg was on the outside, nominally the racing line, with his teammate Lewis Hamilton right alongside, and it stayed that way as they ran up to the first turn.  Except Hamilton closed up next to Rosberg and kinda didn't bother to turn all that much, pushing his German teammate to the limits of the track.  At this point, Rosberg had a choice: fight back, possibly damaging both cars but more likely making Hamilton back down, or give up and surrender first place to Hamilton.  He gave up, allowing himself to be shoved into the runoff area and dropping down to fifth place.  At this point, the Legendary Announce Team had something of a disappointing moment, as they made it sound like they believed that Hamilton had lost control, when anybody with a set of eyes could see it was totally intentional.  We here at F1U! rolled our collective eyes and expected to see Hamilton gallop off into the distance, never to be seen again.  Behind the frontrunners, five cars were involved in incidents resulting in debris scattered around the outside of the first turn

*ABOUT THAT GALLOPING:  Did you know this was the first wet race we've had this season?  It was.  Which means this was the first time these cars had any real race time on the Intermediate tires, and we discovered something very interesting.  The Red Bull chassis is very good indeed on Intermediate tires, and the Mercedes... isn't.  Instead of running away and hiding, Hamilton instead found himself in an actual race, with Kid Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo right behind him, and Rosberg not far in arrears in fourth.  A Virtual Safety Car for the Turn 1 debris locked the field for a couple of laps, but the ending of the period saw Rosberg either be incredibly opportunistic (if you're a charitable sort) or a filthy cheater (if you have eyes), jumping past both Red Bulls at the restart.  He was actually alongside Ricciardo when it ended, and he made short work of Kvyat using the momentum from that move.

*CHARGING RED BULL:  On Lap 12, Ricciardo tried twice to get past Rosberg for second.  The first attempt saw him go too deep into Turn 1.  At Turn 2, though, he caught the Merc and set his sights on the lead.  Suddenly, the F1U! crowd actually started to be interested.  A few laps later, for what we believe was the first time this season, someone made an actual and real pass for the lead in a Formula 1 race when Ricciardo got past Hamilton.  It took only a few more laps for Rosberg to dispatch his teammate, who was complaining about his "worn inters."  Then, crucially, Hamilton pitted... for slick tires.

*THAT'S A FIRST: Valterri Bottas and Lettuce Grosjean had shifted to the soft slicks back around Lap 5, and they didn't work... it was still way too wet.  But when Hamilton stopped on Lap 18, the time had come and the other teams knew it. By Lap 20, the entire top 10 had stopped and put on the running shoes, and for the first time this race weekend, we saw F1 cars that were able to stretch their legs.  And by Lap 26, it was Rosberg leading Hamilton... Mercs in front, as usual.  It stayed that way until Lap 36.

*ENDGAME:  On Lap 36, Force India's Nico Hulkenberg got a little over-excited at being in passing position on Ricciardo and stuck his nose where it didn't belong.  One broken suspension later, and we had another Virtual Safety Car period while the recovery vehicles dragged the stricken Force India away.  Rosberg, Kvyat and Ricciardo stopped for new tires, promoting Hamilton into the lead and Ferrari's Seb Vettel to second.

*INTERLUDE: If Hamilton won, Vettel had to finish in second place to keep the driver's championship contest open until Mexico.  Rosberg's only chance was to win.  After the pitting, Hamilton led Vettel, Embryo Verstappen, Rosberg.

*RESTART / RESTOP:  On Lap 40, the racing re-began... and again Rosberg quickly dispatched the driver in front of him, blowing past Verstappen and setting his sights on Vettel.  A couple of laps later, the deed was done and Vettel was in third.  And then the critical moment of the race occurred, when Kvyat lost his car and smacked hard into the steel barriers.  As the incident happened in an awkward location, Berndt Maylander was summoned and a real Safety Car period began.  Now instead of pitting under green, Hamilton and Vettel got to pit under yellow flags.  Returning to the track after their stop, Rosberg led Hamilton and Vettel.  The restart occurred on Lap 46.

*END:  We looked to have a fantastic 10 lap sprint to the finish.  Instead, Rosberg blew a turn just enough to let Hamilton by for the lead... and on his fresh tires, there was no way anyody was going to haul him back in.  Rosberg barely managed to keep Vettel behind him to keep third place... and hand Lewis Hamilton his second consecutive World Driver's Championship, and his third overall.  It was still the best race of the 2015 season by a very long shot.  A wet track makes everything better.

*HAT DRAMA:  Afterwards, Rosberg sat dejectedly in the "podium room," where the top three finishers get to relax for a few minutes before heading out for the podium ceremonies.  Hamilton was there as well, of course, still pumped up on victory emotion.  After getting a hug from Paddy Lowe, the Merc tech director, Lewis grabbed his 1st place ballcap, lobbed the 2nd place cap to Rosberg, and handed the 3rd place cap to Vettel.  However, Rosberg wasn't paying attention, being (understandably) too wrapped up in his own emotions... and this happened.  When they moved out to the podium, Rosberg was booed by the crowd.  We here at F1U! think that Rosberg should have clocked Hamilton upside the head with the cap... we understand Hamilton was high on his victory, but we also think that Lewis was an insensitive berk, too.  Still, congratulations must be given to Hamilton on his third World Driver's Championship... he's moved into very rare company by doing that.

Next week we see the debut of the new circuit in Mexico City!  See you then!!!

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A pretty day greeted the F1 Circus as Nico Rosberg led the field to the grid.  His Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, sat next to him, supremely confident in his lead in the Driver's Championship.  Combined, the two had to outscore their Ferrari rivals by a mere three points to secure the team's second Constructor's Championship.  So would they manage this?  Would Ferrari's Seb Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, champions both, be able to outrace the Silver team?  Or would the Mercedes-powered Williams of Valterri Bottas have something to say about the matter?  THIS is your F1Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Russia!

*LIGHTS OUT... OY!: The start of the race was everything Rosberg could have hoped for.  Not only did he have and keep the advantage going into the big looping third turn, Hamilton pushed a bit too hard and washed away.  The lummoxing Mercedes suddenly was no longer interested in attacking the lead, but was having to defend second from the hard-charging Raikkonen who had gotten past Bottas for third at the start.  But it was all moot very quickly, as Sony Ericsson and Nico Hulkenberg came together in a mess of carbon fiber and tears.  The safety car was called out and the exciting start was put on hold.

*RESTART... OY VEH!:  While under the control of the safety car, race leader Rosberg called in to the pit lane: his gas pedal was sticking, to the point where he actually had to remove his foot completely from the pedal for the throttle to react.  As you can imagine, this did nothing for his overall pace.  Shortly after the restart, he relinquished the lead to Hamilton, then had to watch as the rest of the field went by as he nursed his broken Mercedes to the pit lane, never to be seen again.

*OHFERTHELUVVA...:  Shortly after the Ericsson/Hulkenberg coming-together, the Lotus of Lettuce Grosjean was seen in the pit lane getting a change of tires.  The stop took longer than normal, but things seemed fine for the Frenchman anyway.  Until he lost control, smacked the TecPro barriers with the back of the car, then pinwheeled and smacked the rest of the car into them, just to be completely sure he was out of the race.  The safety car was called out again while the marshals removed the Lotus, cleaned up the pieces, and repaired the barriers with duct tape.  No, we're not kidding.  No, this isn't the usual technique.

*FINALLY... PEACE:  Once the race restarted again, Hamilton and Bottas pull away quickly from the squabbling Ferrari drivers, and everything settled down into something resembling a normal F1 race.  During the various pit rotations, the standings became Hamilton, Vettel, Sergio Perez in the remaining Force India, Bottas, the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo (who would retire with something broken in the suspension), and Raikkonen.

*IVAN DID WHAT???:  Carlos Sainz was in the points, but had a brake problem.  His front brakes had been overheating, despite his best efforts to keep them cool.  Still, everything looked like he'd be okay... until his front-left brake disc exploded in a cloud of black brake dust.  He spun and skidded back first into the wall at Turn 13, the same place he had his wreck in Practice 3.  The impact seemed to be minor, but as he pulled away to limp back to the pits, one of his rear wing's endplates was visibly hanging by a single mounting point and swinging in the breeze.  It took no time at all for it to fall off and end up in the middle of the track.  And then a marshal ran out to collect it...

...right in front of Seb Vettel.  One must wonder which one was more surprised, and which one needed a new firesuit more.  Moments later, Vettel called back to the pits: "We have a very brave Russian running across the track."

*THE END:  As expected, Hamilton's lead held up nicely, leading Vettel across the line by some six seconds.  It was what was going on behind them that was interesting.  Sergio Perez was in third but was on old tires.  Valterri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen were both stalking the Force India driver... and each other.  On the second-to-last lap, Bottas got by the young Mexican driver, followed quickly by the Ferrari; the podium for Force India was clearly gone.  Until, on the final lap, Raikkonen tried an... inopportune... move on his countryman Bottas.  The Williams was sent into the barriers, broken and done.  The Ferrari was injured but still, technically, running, leaving a trail of sparks behind.  Perez went by to reclaim third, and Felipe Not Nasr Massa also went by for fourth.  Raikkonen would finish in fifth, earning just enough points to keep the Constructor's Championship in play... barely.  Until the Stewards came down after the race and gave the Ferrari driver a 30sec time penalty for causing an accident.  This dropped him to eighth and handed the Constructor's Championship to Mercedes for a second time.  Vettel's strong finish, mixed with Rosberg's DNF, moved him into second for the Driver's Championship, which in theory can be clinched at the next race.

Speaking of the next race, we'll be here in two weeks.  And by "here", we mean "Austin, TX", and by "next race", we mean the United States Grand Prix!  We'll see you then!

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A blue sky welcomed the F1 Circus as polesitter Nico Rosberg led the field to the grid, but ominous looking clouds in the horizon echoed the memories of the accident a year ago that eventually took the life of Jules Bianchi.  Rosberg's teammate and Championship rival Lewis Hamilton was next to him in 2nd, with a Williams and a Ferrari on each of the next two rows.  Would Rosberg be able to capitalize on his good fortune and take the championship fight to Hamilton?  Or would Hamilton curbstomp the field?  Or would Seb Vettel take his second win in a row?  THIS is your F1Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Japan.

*START:  The start fell into a category best called "sloppy".  At the front, the two Mercedes drivers got away well enough and went into Turn 1 side-by-side... at which point Hamilton decided to muscle up and start shoving his teammate the the outside of the turn.  At this point, Rosberg had two choices: 1) hold his ground and make his teammate decide whether or not to run into him; or 2) run offtrack, potentially compromising his race, but keeping the car in one piece.  He made his choice, getting pushed into the runoff area and losing a couple of positions in the process.  Further back, Daniel Ricciardo got a marginally better start than Felipe Not Nasr Massa and slid to the center of the front straight to get past him... into an opening that he thought would open up but didn't.  Both drivers suffered punctured tires just past the start/finish line.  It would be very long laps for the pair, and neither would ever factor into the race again.  Sergio Perez, attempting to avoid the kerfluffle, bounced off Carlos Sainz and spun out in Turn 1.  While mostly unscathed, he lost all the time in the world and would actively lobby for a safety car the rest of the race.  By the end of the first lap, Hamilton had a 1.7 second lead on Seb Vettel's Ferrari, and that was the last we'd see of the Silver Arrows.

*NO, REALLY:  According to MercedesF1, their cars were on screen for a total of six minutes during the race.  That total includes the cool-down lap and the start.  At one point the only time we saw Hamilton was during a pit stop, and only after it was over and he pulled out on track.  For one of the front runners, we'll normally get the entire stop, from the final bit of roll into the pitbox to the exit of the box.  There is a theory out there that this is Bernie Ecclestone turning up the pressure on Mercedes in an attempt to force them to provide engines to Red Bull next season.  We here at F1U! believe that there wasn't much reason to actually show the Mercedes this race, since for most of it they were alone and unmolested.

*MCLAREN FRUSTRATION:  Let's face it, thus far this season the McLaren/Honda combination has been a dog and nothing but.  Today, the frustration of the drivers boiled over.  Jenson Button seems more and more likely to retire rather than finish his contract with the team, and Fernando Alonso... well.  After being totally embarrassed by Sony Ericcson, who had screwed up the final corner yet was still able to blow past the Spaniard with contemptuous ease down the front straight, he got on the radio to his pit wall.  "GP2 Engine.  GP2.  ARRGH!"  Though to be fair, we here at F1U! thought Alonso had sneezed, not angrily grunted.  Coming as it did at the circuit Honda owns, with Honda's president in attendance, this was not an off-the-cuff comment by an annoyed driver. 

*WHAT ELSE?:  Honestly?  It'd be difficult to make the rest of this race feel exciting.  Up at the front it shook out rather quickly, farther back it was a case of the lower-midfield squabbling over a point here or there.  If Friend of The Pond Vaucaunson's Duck hadn't been texting us as he watched the race from San Francisco, we may have called it an early night.  Hamilton won by 19 seconds over his teammate, who was three seconds ahead of Ferrari's Seb Vettel.  Behind them, Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas were some 15 seconds behind, and then there was almost a half-minute to the next car.  The two Lotuses were over 73 seconds behind the leader in 7th and 8th, and the two Toro Rossos were 95 seconds and over a full lap behind to round out the top 10. 

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"...and that (snaps fingers) for Singapore!" - Lewis Hamilton

"Next time, we wreck or he backs off.  Oh, who am I kidding, I'll back off again." - Nico Rosberg

"'Two seconds to Nico is plenty, Seb' my butt." - Seb Vettel, after losing second place to a stupid pit call.

"mrmrmrmmmbrlbr mmrmrlrrbrllrlrlr mmmmmmrbrbrbrlr" - Kimi Raikkonen

"What he said." - Valtteri Bottas

"I was a lonely traveler today.  Was there a race going on?" - Nico Hulkenberg, who was alone on track most of the day.

"AIEEEEEEEEEEEE!" - American Alexander Rossi after barely missing teammate Will Stevens car, hidden in a cloud of tire smoke after spinning in 130R.

Sochi Russia in two weeks time.  An announcement may be coming before then, stay tuned!

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A clear night, with no hint of the expected smoke from burning Jakarta forests greeted the F1 Circus as they lined up on the grid... and a scrambled grid it was, with the dominant Mercedes cars on the third row, Ferrari and Red Bull splitting the first two rows between them, and an American in a F1 race for the first time in far too long.  So what happened when the lights went out?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Singapore!

*THE RACE:  The car was red instead of silver, but otherwise the opening stages of the race looked exactly like most of the rest of the season: the polesitter running away and hiding from the very beginning.  Indeed, Ferrari polesitter Seb Vettel opened up a full three seconds' lead over Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo in the very first lap.  While he never opened up the scary huge gap that the Silver Arrows are known for, it was very clear indeed that it was going to take a mistake from Vettel to give anybody else a chance.  And Seb Vettel didn't become a four-time World Driver Champion by making casual mistakes from the lead.

*AT THE BACK:  American Alexander Rossi sat in the 20th slot on the grid, his Manor purring in the way that only a F1 car can.  The culmination of his life's work was about to occur: he was about to participate in a Formula 1 race and become part of a club more exclusive than the number of people ever to go to space.  That he had practically zero chance of winning didn't matter in the least... at the age of 24, he had reached his dream.  When the race began, his teammate Will Stevens, alongside in 19th, had a less-than-stellar start and Rossi immediately passed him and began hunting 18th.

*CONTINUING:  Vettel had opened up a nearly seven second lead when Felipe Massa exited the pits after a disastrous stop.  A problem getting a tire on had taken too many seconds to fix, and the little Brazilian was undoubtedly annoyed.  He would get even moreso in a moment, for as he pulled out onto the circuit Nico Hulkenberg came steaming into view, determined to take the racing line through Turn 3.  Unfortunately, that's exactly where the white Williams was located, and it wasn't like Massa could teleport somewhere else. 

Hulkenberg meshed tires with Massa, launching himself into a short, eventful flight ending in a broken suspension and much shattered carbon fiber as Massa gestured angrily.  A Virtual Safety Car quickly gave way to the appearance of Berndt Maylander in the real Safety Car, wiping away Seb Vettel's lead.

*AND THEN...:  Daniel Ricciardo knew he had been handed a chance he couldn't throw away.  If he wanted to win this race, he would have to glue himself to Vettel's rear wing on the restart and refuse to let him get away.  Then, and only then, could he make a move to take the lead at Turn 1.  While it seemed the Red Bull was still quicker in the turns than the Ferrari, it wasn't enough to overcome the straight-line speed advantage the red cars had over the purple, but Riccardo knew that if he was ahead, he could pretty much prevent Vettel from getting by.  It was only when the Safety Car pulled off and the Ferrari driver somehow faked the Australian out of his firesuit that Ricciardo realized that he needed to pay more attention to the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen in third place than the Ferrari in front of him.  However, he would soon be handed another chance.

*WHAT THE HELL?:  On Lap 37, frantically waving double-yellow flags told the story: be careful, slow way down and be prepared to stop if necessary.  Almost instantly thereafter, the Safety Car came out again.  And what catastrophe had occurred to cause this flurry of safety activity?

A young man had exited an open marshal's gate, jogged across the circuit, and then took to strolling down the track against the flow of traffic.  Fortunately he did not come close to any car, nor did he hurt himself or others.  Last reports were that he was taken into custody and jailed... in Singapore, a place not well-known for its legal leniency.  For some reason, I can't find it in myself to feel sorry for him.

*OH, HIM?  I SUPPOSE...:  Everybody and their mothers were expecting Lewis Hamilton to bring his Mercedes off the mat and make some sort of try for a podium finish.  After all, that's the way its worked of late.  It never happened.  Oh, he showed good pace, equaling or even bettering Vettel at times, but something wasn't clicking.  Or maybe there was a lot of clicking, as Hamilton retired his car early with a throttle problem.

*ENDINGS:  The second restart went no better for Daniel Ricciardo than the first, and was forced to watch from behind as the Ferrari of Seb Vettel swept across the finish line.  Kimi Raikkonen finished third, putting both Ferrari drivers on a podium for the first time in a very long time indeed.  Nico Rosberg, teammate of Lewis Hamilton and championship rival, finished in fourth, a result that caused little harm to Hamilton's chances of a repeat.

*OH, AND...:  American Alexander Rossi finished in 14th position and ahead of his Manor teammate.  Surviving the Singapore Grand Prix, undoubtedly the toughest on the calendar, and beating your teammate in your first ever F1 race?  It's not exactly the top step of the podium, but it's pretty darn good otherwise.

*SELECTED QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"Damn, but I'm good.  How ya like me now, Italy?" - Seb Vettel

"If I had an engine, instead of this stupid Renault thing behind me, I coulda taken him." - Daniel Riccardio

"Mrmrmbemememlbl mrmrlrrbrkrlllmlr brmrlrlrrbrbrbrlrmrr." - Kimi Raikkonen

"Well, the tires sucked, the track sucks, the weather sucks, the lights suck, and Singapore sucks.  But Hamilton didn't finish.  It's been a good weekend." - Nico Rosberg

"wellitwasreallyexcitingandivebeenlookingforwardtothisallmylifeanditwaseverythingicouldhave hopedforreallyandidliketothanktheteamforputtingtogethersuchagreatwelcomeandforfixingmycar
afteriwreckeditinp1andimsoexcitedthatimstillshakingalittlebitholycrapimaf1drivernowhowsthat
forapickuplinenowifonlyihadanattractivehaircutandidgetallthegirlsicouldeverwantandicantstop
talkingpleasedeargodmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopicantbreathe" - American Alexander Rossi

Next up, we head to the Land of the Rising Sun and Suzuka International Circuit!  Should we mention that there's a typhoon coming, just like last year?  Maybe we'll get the Great Suzuka Boat Races again!  See you next week.

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A bright sunny day greeted the F1 Circus as they made their way to the grid, accompanied by the fevered howls of thousands of tifosi.  Would either of the Ferraris be able to deny polesitter Lewis Hamilton's this win?  Would his new engine handle the stress of the fastest circuit on the calendar?  Will there be any pasta jokes in this writeup?  THIS is your F1 Update for the 2015 Grand Prix of Italy!

*THE START... CRINGE!:  The worst thing you can possibly see during a Formula 1 broadcast is a trackworker making the "X" symbol with his arms, indicating that there's been an injury after an accident.  The second worst thing you can possibly see is a car stalled on the grid when the lights go out.  That occurred today, as Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, starting second, apparently forgot how to engage a clutch.  His car sat there like a red chicane as he frantically played with the flappypaddles trying to engage a gear... any gear.  Behind him, Nico Rosberg, starting from fourth, missed him cleanly, but it took a bit of quick dodging on the part of Valtteri Bottas' Williams to not plow at full acceleration into the Finn's backside.  With some wicked shuffling, the entire field got past, but Raikkonen was 20th and last before he started moving.  He hadn't stalled, the revs never dropped... he was like he was a 15 year old being taught how to use a manual gearbox for the first time in the parking lot of a K-Mart (for our British readers, substitute "Tesco's" for K-Mart.  For our other overseas readers, we're afraid you're on your own for this one).

*THE RACE... CRINGE!:  The new spec engine that Mercedes fitted into their cars for this race weekend performed as well as could be expected for Lewis Hamilton.  Teammate Nico Rosberg, if you remember from Quals, was running an old engine because of what turned out to be a coolant leak.  A "legacy part" from the 2015 spec layout failed in the 2016 engine, allowing coolant to get into parts of the power unit you don't want coolant to get into, rendering it useless until it gets thoroughly cleaned.  In any case, that the engine works well is bad news... for everybody that isn't Mercedes.  Hamilton galloped over the horizon and never looked back, turning this from "race" to "farce" very quickly.  By the time the first (and only) round of pitstops concluded, he had a 20 second lead over Seb Vettel, and it would only continue to grow.  See, Mercedes actually told Hamilton before the race not to take it easy on the new power unit... they need data on how it'll run in race conditions, after all.  Where in the closing stages he might dial the power down a touch and coast home, here at Monza that never happened.

*BUT... WHY?:  With some three or four laps remaining and with a 23 second lead, a most curious radio call was heard from the Merc pit wall to Lewis Hamilton: "we need to (increase the) gap, don't ask questions, just execute."  For a wonder, a Formula 1 driver didn't ask questions, at least over the radio: he just drove.  By the time he finished the race, he had over 25 seconds in hand on Vettel's Ferrari, and almost 48 seconds on the Williams pair, Felipe Not Nasr Massa and Valtteri Bottas.  Nobody else was within a minute of the leader when the race finished.

*LUMP GO BOOM:  We used to use this "bullet point" all the time when F1U! was just starting out.  Those first five, maybe six years would see a massive engine failure nearly every race it seemed.  These days though?  Reliable, nearly bulletproof power units mean that "Lump Go Boom" is mainly relegated to the filing cabinet of headlines, rarely seen and practically never used.  That we can dust it off and shine the light of day upon our old friend in a way that makes sense is a lovely moment for us.  And it is exactly what we said when Nico Rosberg's Mercedes belched smoke and rolled to a stop, a desultory fire licking from the exhaust, with two laps left.  That he lost a third-place finish was forgotten when one thought that maybe it had something to do with the imperative Hamilton had been given.  Maybe the team was thinking that something similar could happen to him and it was a race between engine failure and victory.  Either way, the booming of Rosberg's lump was the first mechanical failure of a Mercedes car this season.

*OH.  YEAH?  HEH. :  After the race we found out just what was going on.  Due to the tire failures at Spa-Francopants, the FIA came right out and said that tire manufacturer Pirelli would issue minimum required tire pressures for each race.  Any car found with tires below these levels could be penalized, up to and including exclusion from the event.  Four cars were tested mere minutes before the final recon lap: the Mercs and the Ferraris.  The red cars passed easily.  The two Mercs, however, did not.  While Rosberg's penalty became moot when he killed off all the mosquitoes at Monza, Hamilton's victory was suddenly in serious doubt.  Lower pressure means a softer tire, meaning more grip at the price of more wear.  That only one rear tire was found to be .3psi too low didn't matter: an exclusion was a real possibility.  As it turns out, the Stewards decided that the loss of pressure was caused by the cooling of tire after the heating blankets were removed, and Hamilton was allowed to keep his victory.

*DOMINATING: In the world of F1, a "grand chelem" is the unofficial award for a driver winning the race, leading every lap, and setting fastest lap of the race.  So what is it when a driver is fastest in every session of Practice, every session of Quals, has the fastest lap in the race, wins from pole, and leads every lap to boot?  Whatever it's called, Lewis Hamilton had it. 

Next up, we find ourselves in Singapore in two weeks!  See you then, allegedly!

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Before we get into the F1 stuff, please send good thoughts out to former F1 driver and current IndyCar racer Justin Wilson.  During today's race at Pocono, he was hit in the head by the nosecone of a wrecked car.  Airlifted to a nearby hospital, he is, as of 750pm, "unconscious and unresponsive" with a "traumatic brain injury."  I'm no doctor, but the replays looked bad.  Good luck, Justin...

UPDATE 8/24/15: Justin Wilson died in hospital today.  He leaves behind a wife and two children.

Clear skies at Spa today, an absolutely perfect day to go racing... which means nothing at this huge track in the Ardennes.  Rain can appear with no notice whatsoever here... and has!  Often!  During races, too!  So would anything get in the way of polesitter Lewis Hamilton's march to victory?  Would Seb Vettel and the resurgent Ferrari make a statement during the race?  Or would another team haul themselves up after the month-long summer break?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Belgium.

*RACE... NOT SO FAST!: As the formation lap came to an end, the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg was in some distress, clearly some problem with the power unit somewhere.  Once he came to a halt in his grid spot, the car decided that it had worked hard enough for the day and shut down.  This resulted in an aborted start, everybody went around on a second formation lap while Hulkenberg's car was put out of its misery and rolled away.  Then, as the field approached the grid for the second time, the call went out to Carlos Sainz in his Toro Rosso: "come to the pits, do not take your grid position."  It took some two laps to fix whatever ailed the car, but he eventually did participate... only to retire it on Lap 36.

*RACE:  When the lights officially went out, our polesitter did what he always does: ran away over the horizon, never to be seen again.  Behind him, things were made interesting by Nico Rosberg's less-than-stellar start which saw him shuffled back to around fifth place.  He would eventually make it back up to second, but it took a while.  For the most part, however, this was not a particularly exciting race.  While there was quite a bit of passing, almost all of it was due to the DRS being very effective down the Kemmel Straight.  You'd see the DRS open up and the trailing car would just blow past the car ahead (which is going 190-200mph) like it was someone's Toyota Camry.  That's not to say there were no passes that required effort... local boy Embryo Verstappen pulled off a couple of beauties, though ultimately settling for eighth, while Kid Kyvat earned a lovely fourth in his Red Bull.

*TIRE WHERE?:  Seb Vettel and his Ferrari clearly could not hold pace with the Mercedes duo today, but he was still good enough to have third place pretty much sewn up with just a couple of laps to go.  While under pressure from Lettuce Grosjean in a remarkably resurgent Lotus, a fight between a four-time world champion and someone nicknamed for a leafy green vegetable was only going to end one way.  That is, until the Ferrari's right-rear tire unzipped from outside to in, throwing chunks of rubber and tire carcass high into the now-cloudy skies.  The sidewalls remained more or less intact, which allowed the red car to stay on an even keel.. flashback to Friday's second practice, where Nico Rosberg had a right-rear tire failure due to damage.  In his case, the car wound up on the wheel rim, meaning he was essentially driving on the floor of the car.  This does horrible things to grip levels and sent him careening down the track totally out of control.  Luck alone kept Bad Things from happening in that particular instance.  Back to Sunday, and Vettel still had the ability to steer, just, but not the ability to race.  He fell to 12th, totally out of the points.

*PARTY LIKE IT'S 2013.  THEN CHECK YOUR WALLET LIKE IT'S 2015: Taking his place in third was the aforementioned Lettuce Grosjean's Lotus.  Two laps later, the likable Frenchman had brought the team their first podium finish since Grosjean finished the 2013 US Grand Prix in second place.  Shortly after the team finished celebrating, baliffs moved in on Sunday night and impounded the team's traveling equipment due to an ongoing legal dispute with former driver Charles ToothPic.

*SELECTED QUOTE OF THE RACE:

"We cannot believe just how disinterested we were in covering this race." - the F1U! crew.

Two weeks from now, the Circus reconvenes in the Church of Speed itself: Monza.  See you then.

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A beautiful summer day greeted the assembled masses at the circuit located just outside of Budapest.  A breeze was blowing, the sun was shining, the sky a brilliant blue.  Yet down on the starting grid, a completely different feel was being experienced by the men and women that make up the F1 Circus.  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Hungary!

*JULES:  In the 11 seasons we've been covering Formula 1 for The Pond, the F1U! crew has seen members of the F1 Community participate in two moments of silence.  The first was in 2005, a tribute to the recently-passed Prince Rainier III, the long-time benefactor of the Monaco Grand Prix.  The second was a few months later at Silverstone, just three days after the 7/7 bombings in London.  In the first, the drivers were respectful and well-behaved.  In the second, the drivers were... to be charitable, boorish.  Jenson Button was smiling and laughing, and most of the rest of the F1 bunch were clearly not feelin' it.

But this time was different.  This time it was for one of their own.  Jules Bianchi passed away last weekend, nine months after his terrible crash in Japan last year.  Today, the drivers and teams said goodbye.  The drivers placed their helmets on the ground and formed an incomplete circle... a gap which was filled by Bianchi's parents and family, who placed their son's helmet in the center of the amassed helmets.  The team principles stood just outside the circle, while the rest of the team members stopped their labors on the grid as well.  Understated, yet very very effective.  And then it was past, the drivers decamped for their cars, and we'd like to think that Bianchi's helmet was the last one left.

*START:  Right from the beginning we had signs that this was not going to be the usual race at Hungary.  We don't often have blown starts, for example, but when Williams' Felipe Not Nasr Massa was unable to place his car in his starting box, the amber and green lights started flashing and the field perambulated around the circuit once again.  Massa was given a penalty, the Blundering Herd took its places on the grid once more, and when the red lights finally went out, chaos reigned.  Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo had a miserable start from fourth on the grid, then made contact with the Williams of Valterri Bottas and wound up somewhere near the Carpathians.  His self-removal from the front pack allowed the Ferraris of Seb Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen to just swarm over and around the front-row Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.  By the end of Turn 2, both Ferraris were ahead of both Mercs, with polesitter Hamilton shockingly in fourth.  It would get worse for the reigning World Champion when he dropped a wheel on to the grass outside the Turn 6/7 chicane and went off into the kittylitter.  Though he was able to extract himself, by the time he returned to the racing surface he was in 10th place.  At the end of the first lap, Vettel led his teammate by over a second, and was nearly four seconds up on third-place Nico Rosberg.

*AND THEN:  Things settled down a bit after that.  By Lap 25, Vettel had six seconds in hand over Raikkonen, who was 10 seconds ahead of Rosberg.  Ricciardo and Hamilton were both 30-odd seconds behind the leader, both driving well and quickly.  The fact of the matter was, though, that the Ferraris were looking crazy fast today and seemed unlikely to be caught without external forces coming to play.

*EXTERNAL FORCES: Force India had been having a not-so-great weekend.  They had brought their B-spec car to the Hungaroring, and were expecting big things.  They certainly got them.  On Friday, the rear suspension on Sergio Perez's chassis failed, sending him into a bouncing, tumbling wreck that came to a halt upside down.  During Quals, neither car could make it into Q3.  Earlier in the race Perez was mugged by Pastor Maldonado's Lotus, punting him off-track, airborne, and into a spin.  While he could continue, one could not be faulted for thinking "what else could go wrong?"  And then on Lap 42, Nico Hulkenberg's front wing fell off as he headed down the straight into the braking zone for Turn 1.  While it went right under the front tires, it did not tarry long, emerging from behind the Force India in a shower of carbon fiber shreds.  Hulkenberg speared directly into the tire barrier outside the run-off zone for the first turn, though with much speed scrubbed off... thankfully, the front wing did not keep the brakes from working for long.  Hulkenberg emerged unscathed, though shaken somewhat.  First a virtual safety car was called out while recovery efforts began, then the slumbering Berndt Maylander was awoken and sent out in the real safety car as cleanup of the huge amount of carbon fiber took place.  Indeed, the field was led through the pit lane as the front straight may as well have been covered in razor blades and caltrops.  But the arrival of the safety car meant that Vettel's lead, now up to 25 seconds over third-place Rosberg, was now gone.  However, with Raikkonen between Vettel and Rosberg, it didn't seem like there'd be much chance for a threat, even with a reborn Lewis Hamilton in fourth.

*MORE EXTERNAL FORCES:  Then the radio call came in from the Finnish Ferrari driver... there was a weird sound in the cockpit and he was down on power.  All too soon the reply came back: his MGU-K unit, previously known as KERS, had packed up and gone home.  This would leave the second-place Ferrari down about 150hp.  The stage was now set for an interesting run to the finish.

*NO MORE SAFETY CAR:  Raikkonen's job was now to hold up the silver cars as long as he could.  This wound up being about five seconds in the case of Rosberg, who blew the metaphorical doors off the Ferrari nearly as soon as the race restarted.  Behind them, however, chaos reigned again.  Ricciardo forced his way past Hamilton with the two making contact.  The Red Bull lost some bodywork, the Merc had a front wing so badly damaged that it needed to be replaced, and quickly.  Hamilton would also be given a penalty for sloppy driving for this.  In the meantime, the other Red Bull, driven by Kid Kvyat, also got past Hamilton, while Valterri Bottas took a Toro Rosso wing to the rear tire, leaving him with a slow puncture that got worse just as he tried passing the stricken Hamilton.  While there was no harm done as a result, it got dicey for a moment or two.

*TO THE END:  On Lap 51, both Ricciardo and Kvyat passed Raikkonen, who would retire his car shortly thereafter.  The two Red Bulls then set off after Rosberg, who had a windscreen full of Ferrari ahead of him.  Ricciardo's attempt to pass the Merc cleanly almost worked.  In what the stewards termed a "racing incident", the Red Bull gave Rosberg a flat tire at the cost of a nose.  In one of the stupider things we've ever heard, Rosberg after the race said that he had expected Ricciardo to give him space, despite the two of them fighting for position.  It doesn't work like that, Nico.  Both drivers had to pit for replacements of their damaged parts, and Kvyat moved into second place with five laps to go.  After his nose change, Ricciardo managed to haul himself up to third, while Rosberg had somehow contrived to fall back behind his teammate and rival.

*THE END:  When Seb Vettel finally made it across the finish line, he led Kvyat by five seconds (increased to 15 with the addition of a 10sec penalty), and Ricciardo by 25.  Fourth place was taken by the 17-year-old Toro Rosso driver, Embryo Verstappen.  And in a miracle comparable only to those of Saint Alexander Hergensheimer the Dishwasher, the newly renamed Fernando Alonso brought his McLaren home in fifth place.  Hamilton, Lettuce Grosjean, Rosberg, Jenson Button, and Sony Ericsson rounded out the top 10.

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTE OF THE RACE:

"This hasn't been an easy weekend for anybody in Formula 1... the minute's silence for Jules was very emotional, and it was very tough to get in the cockpit straight afterwards.  But, today, we respected Jules and we respected the sport." - Fernando Alonso (note: real quote)

And now the F1 Horde goes on its mandatory Summer Break.  The next race will be August 23rd, in a little town in the Ardennes Forest.  We'll see you in one month at Spa-Francopants!

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The sky above Silverstone was a clear, clean blue, playfully dotted with little tiny white clouds.  A beautiful summer English day had greeted the Thundering Herd as they pulled onto the grid.  140000 fans roared their approval as Lewis Hamilton took his pole slot, his teammate Nico Rosberg beside him.  Behind them were the two Williams of Felipe Not Nasr Massa and Valterri Bottas, a marvelous performance for the legendary British team.  Arrayed behind them were 15 other cars; Felipe Not Massa Nasr's Sauber was wheeled off, dead before the recon lap began.  It looked to be perfect conditions for a Formula 1 race.  Would the reigning World Champion run off with it, the way he has so many times before?  Or would it be his surging teammate, winner of three of the last four races, that would take the win?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Great Britain!

*LIGHTS OUT... THE HELL?:  As is usual, once the race began both Mercedes jumped off the line, Hamilton leading Rosberg.  We've seen this picture a hundred times: they'll get themselves sorted by the end of the first turn, then it'll be a case of the Silver Arrows rocketing away while everybody else fights for third.  And indeed, that's exactly what occurred... for two car lengths or so.  Felipe Not Nasr Massa got a blinding jump off the line, zipped right between the two Mercs and had a clear lead going into the first turn.  At the same time, Bottas decided he wanted him some of that too and followed the diminutive Brazilian through the same gap.  He wound up only getting past Rosberg, though he did put a scare or two into Hamilton for a few turns.  Behind them, the two Lotuses of Pastor Maldonado and Lettuce Grosjean had a coming together in Turn 1, with Lettuce ending up beached in the kittylitter.  In a desperate attempt to avoid the Lotii, McLaren's HWMNBN dodged to his right, lost the rear of his car, and speared directly into the side of HIS teammate, Jenson Button.  The Brit, who has never had a podium in his home race in 16 tries (not even in his world championship season!), was out on the spot.  HWMNBN had to pit for a broken nose, a change that took nigh on a minute to effect.  Maldonado lasted a few more turns before his damaged Lotus gave up the ghost, and a Berndt Maylander was awoken from his slumber to bring the Safety Car out on track.  Thus, the first lap ended with Massa leading Hamilton, Bottas, and Rosberg.  Incidentally, this was the first time this season that anybody other than a Merc or Ferrari had led a lap.

*LET US RESUME:  When Berndt Maylander returned to his place of eternal slumber, Hamilton was the very picture of "aggressive" behind Massa, who hadn't led the field into a restart since... well, before he took a spring to the helmet in 2009.  As a result, the Merc driver did everything he could to get past the Williams... and more besides.  He locked up a tire, slid off-track, and Valterri Bottas took his Williams into second.  Instead of mounting a furious counterattack, the British driver was forced to defend against HIS teammate, which allowed the two White cars a modicum of breathing space.  So from Lap 3 to Lap 19, we were treated to the mind-boggling sight of the two Williams leading the two ridiculously dominant Mercedes.  Together, these four cars pulled away from the rest of the field, but couldn't get away from each other, less than two seconds covering them.

*TEAM ORDERS:  At one point during this bit of racing, Bottas was clearly the faster of the two Williams.  The team called to both their drivers that there was to be "no racing", and they should work together to get away from the silver cars.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bottas made his case over the radio quite clear: "I have more pace, I have more pace."  Still, he was told to stay back.  A lap or two later, the team reversed course, telling the Finn that if he does pass, it had to be clean.  Pointedly, they didn't tell Massa to let him go.  While Bottas tried to get past Massa, the time had passed: his tires had gone from golden to iron pyrite, or Massa's had come back to life, or something... the Finn could get close, but couldn't quite get past.  Some are saying that Williams, in their attempt to "play fair", actually threw away the race win at this point... if Bottas had been let past, he stood a great chance of being able to gallop away, so the argument goes.  We here at F1U! are less than convinced of this, but it's not impossible.

*THE PITS:  The leader's pitstops began on Lap 19.  Hamilton dove in first, followed by Massa and Rosberg the next lap (resulting in a little duel down the pitlane as the two exited side-by-side) and Bottas on Lap 21.  The fastest stop of the four gave Hamilton the advantage, and once the stops were complete, he had the lead over Massa, who was ahead of his teammate, who in turn was ahead of Rosberg.

*DOLDRUMS:  After this, the race became something a little more familiar.  Hamilton began to open up a lead on the two Williams, peaking around six seconds ahead on Lap 32.  The other three had a couple of seconds between them, though, and it looked like Rosberg was unlikely to be on the podium this race.

*AND THEN IT ALL WENT INTO A COCKED HAT:  Almost from the beginning of the race, a wall of black clouds in the distance had been a reminder that Silverstone was one of the best examples of the concept of "microclimate" anywhere in the world.  Built on top of the highest point in the area, what is happening below it weather-wise often has nothing in common with what's going on on top.  On Lap 32, the rain that had been skulking in the distance decided to come a-callin'.  The back half of the circuit was getting dampened and slippery, while the other end was bone dry... and it was in the slippery parts where Rosberg got past Bottas for third.  A couple of laps later, he pulled the same trick on Massa, just as the rain died out.  However, an ominous call from the Merc pit wall made the F1U! crew giddy with anticipation: "expect more rain in five minutes."

*MEANWHILE:  Behind the action up front, we had an attrition fest.  Cars were dying like flies, with a full seven pushing up the daisies by the end of the race.  With the Manors holding up the final two slots, that left only 11 cars racing for 10 points-paying positions... and HWMNBN'd McLaren was one of them, dueling the Sauber of Sony Ericsson for 10th.

*SPLOOSH:  On Lap 43, Lewis Hamilton came into the pits for a new set of tires.  As he came to a stop in his pit box and the team began to bolt Intermediate tires onto his chassis, the black skies above decided to dump much of the Atlantic Ocean upon Silverstone.  As he regained the circuit, it became obvious just how prescient (or lucky) the choice had been.  Behind him, Seb Vettel's Ferrari came into the pits for Inters as well.  Rosberg pitted a lap later, as did the two Williams, but by then the damage had been done.  Hamilton strengthened his lead, of course, but Vettel leapfrogged both fading Williams for third, a position he'd never had even the remotest chance of gaining before this.

*ANTICLIMAX: And that's how it ended, with Hamilton leading Rosberg leading Vettel, Massa and Bottas.  A bog-standard finish, but an extraordinary race to get to that point, and probably the best of the season to date.

*THE REDEMPTION OF THE SPANIARD:  Somewhere during the rainy part of the race, HWMNBN got his McLaren past Sony Ericsson and into 10th place, the position he held when the race came to an end.  In doing so, he earned his first point for his "new" team, and the team's first point of the season.  Because of this, the F1U! team has decided that He Who Must Not Be Named has been cleansed of his sins and will henceforth be known once again as Fernando Alonso.  In some ways this is a sad moment, as he's held the HWMNBN'd moniker for nigh on eight years; it'll be hard to retrain our fingers to type "Alonso" again.

*SELECTED DRIVERS QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"That was about the best tire call I've ever seen." - Lewis Hamilton

"Only one of the two Mercedes drivers passed anybody on track today." - Nico Rosberg

"I don't know what I'm doing up here, or how it happened.  I'm just glad it did." - Seb Vettel

"It's a damn good thing the pit wall didn't say 'Felipe, Valterri is faster than you, do you understand?'  There would have been blood.  BLOOD, I tell ya." - Felipe Massa

"Oh, there will be harsh words in the race debrief, that's for sure." - Valterri Bottas

"I'm going to have to get my superlicense reprinted!" - Fernando Alonso.

So that's really it from Silverstone.  The next race is in a couple of weeks, at Hungary.  I can barely withhold my joy.  See you then!

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It's 9pm on this Sunday evening of the 2015 Grand Prix of Great Britain.  By this point of the day, either the F1U! is up and posted, or the busy F1U! team is scrivenering away, desperate to get said the update complete and ready for the world to see.  As it is, however, the crew hasn't even finished watching the race.  A combination of factors, including a fever-inducing ick that pretty much turned the entire weekend into an uncomfortable, painful little mess, just ruined every plan there was.  With any luck, we'll finish up the race tonight and we'll have a writeup on Monday.

We apologize for the delay... it's been a while since we missed a Sunday deadline, and, well, crepe.  Particularly this week, of all weeks... the reason for THAT comment will be coming on Wednesday.

Thank you for your patience.

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Right, we here at F1U! Central are up to our necks in getting ready for the new job, so we'll be honest: while we watched today's race from Spielberg, our collective minds were concentrating on other things.  As a result, this is going to be a short one.  With no further ado, THIS is your F1 mini-Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Austria!

*THE RACE:  For all intents and purposes, this race was over when polesitter Lewis Hamilton was beaten off the line by his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg.  Rosberg took the lead into Turn 1 and held it until the ugly accident between Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and the McLaren of HWIOSCTBNA.

Both men walked away from this wreck unscathed, though the Finnish driver probably wished he had a brown racing suit.  A Safety Car was called out, and when the race restarted a handful of laps later, Rosberg got away cleanly from Hamilton and that was all she wrote.  A mid-race five second time penalty for Hamilton for crossing the pit exit safety line put paid to any faint hope he may have had to win the race.  Behind them, Felipe Not Nasr Massa took advantage of a slow pit stop from Seb Vettel to take Williams' second podium in as many races, while his teammate Valtteri Bottas beat out the 2015 24 Hours of LeMans overall winner Nico Hulkenburg for 5th place.

*THE TRACK:  The RedBullRing is proving to be that rare bird: a fast circuit that also manages to be rather dull.  It's no Tilkedrome, true, but with only nine turns and none of them being particularly memorable, it's a track that's just... there.  The hill up to Turn 2 is nice, but it makes no real difference in the grand scheme of things.  However, it's there and it's well-funded so it'll be on the calendar for the foreseeable future.

*NEXT TIME:  We'll be in Jolly Old England for the Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone.  Ironically, it'll be during Independence Day weekend here in the States... we'll see you then!  Thanks for reading this F1 mini-U!

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A beautiful sunny day greeted the assembled masses at Ile Notre-Dame, masses gathered to see the F1 Circus make their way around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve 70 times in pursuit of victory.  Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes was on pole with his teammate Nico Rosberg next to him, but a resurgent Ferrari driven by Kimi Raikkonen lurked just a spot behind.   Which of them got to spray the Molsons?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Canada!

*OH.  RIGHT.  FORGOT.:  The lights went out, the Thundering Herd made its way to the first turn, and there went the two Silver Arrows.  Hamilton and Rosberg began to run away from the rest of the field, with Hamilton staying a scant second or so ahead of his teammate.  And that's how it stayed for the entire first half of the race: Rosberg close but no cigar on Hamilton, while the rest of the field fell farther and farther behind.

*MEANWHILE...:  Due to power unit problems and penalties, Ferrari's Seb Vettel took his place on the starting grid somewhere back around the Hairpin.  Within seven laps of the start, he had worked his way up the field to 13th place, where he found his progress balked by a fight between Sony Ericsson and Felipe Not Nasr Massa.  Judging there'd be no real harm, the team brought him in for a early pit stop.  This would get him free of the fight, and off the pit rotation as well, perhaps allowing him to jump multiple places without struggle.  Unfortunately, the team had problems with his jacks and by the time he made it back onto the track, Vettel was in last place.  Again.  Even Embryo Verstappen, who had to start in Newfoundland, was ahead of him.

*BACK AT THE FRONT...:  After the first pit stops, Rosberg discovered that his car was dealing with the race a smidge better than Hamilton.  The leader was forced to save fuel, lifting and coasting into turns instead of accelerating all the way in.  For his own part, Rosberg was being warned about his brakes.  This is a common problem at Canada... the track is very fast, but with very heavy use of the clampers.  For example, you've got the full-throttle dive to the hairpin where you hit 180mph or more, but then have to slow to sixty or less, then another full-throttle run to the final chicane, where you have to slow right back down again.  That's bad enough, but what occurs is that the upper layers of the carbon brakes actually melt from the heat, then the cooling airflow solidifies it again.  This process is called "glazing," and it reduces the efficiency of the brakes... which means you have to stomp even harder on the brakes, which means they heat up even more, which causes more glazing, which means you need to stomp on the brakes even harder... and so on.  This circuit is the only place we've seen brake discs actually shatter in an explosive way.  Despite all this, Rosberg was able to close up to right around one second behind Hamilton.

*MEANWHILE PTII...:  Vettel was having none of these problems, at least not that we were being made aware of.  Instead, he was working his way back up the field, picking off drivers one after the other.  The only problem he had came from Nico Hulkenberg in seventh, who refused to go down without a fight... and going side-by-side through the final chicane put paid to that, the Force India driver losing control and spinning.  Vettel would eventually finish fifth, a remarkable drive reminiscent of Jenson Button's last-to-first (with six pit stops!) in 2011.

*NO SURPRISES:  Despite getting close, Rosberg couldn't quite bring his Mercedes into attack position on his teammate.  Suddenly there were only five or six laps left, Hamilton was told he was good on fuel, and he began to open the lead up again.  When they finally swept across the finish line, only some 95 minutes after the race started, the reigning world champion was 2.5 seconds ahead of Rosberg.  It took nearly 45 seconds for the third place car, the Williams of Valtteri Bottas, to cross the line.  He was followed a couple seconds later by Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari.

*WILDLIFE:  It isn't Canada without the threat of another Montreal Marmot Massacre.

It was a lot closer than it looks.  Felipe Not Nasr Massa almost wound up with a marmot hood ornament.

*TERROR:  Lewis Hamilton was 47 seconds ahead of Valtteri Bottas in third.  FORTY-SEVEN SECONDS.  It's going to take disaster upon disaster to keep him from dominating the rest of the season.

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"I never felt under pressure out there." - Lewis Hamilton (note: real quote)

"I'll give you 'no pressure', you..." - Nico Rosberg

"We earned this podium.  Even if it's like we were in a different race." - Valterri Bottas

"mrmrmrbmrl rmmrrlrbrbrlr rmrmrrblrbrlllr mrmrmmrmmrmrrrmrmrbbl." - Kimi Raikkonen

"I lost time at the first pit-stop and I am not sure it was totally on me, something went wrong at the back of the car, but the guys have done a super job so far and they shouldn't be blamed if sometimes things go a bit slower." - Seb Vettel (note: real quote.  Translated: I'm throwing the pit crew under the bus.)

The next race is in two weeks at the Red Bull Ring in Austria!  See ya then.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A glorious day broke over the Principality, greeting the twenty stars of the F1 Circus as they formed on the grid.  Would the weather stay that way, or would there be rain?  Would the Silver Arrow of polesitter Lewis Hamilton lead the way to victory?  Could his teammate Nico Rosberg earn his third win on the narrow streets?  Or would someone like Ferrari's Seb Vettel or Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo take the win on the shortest circuit on the Formula 1 calendar?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2015 Grand Prix of Monaco!

*PREDICTABLE:  When the lights went out and the race began, it went exactly the way everybody expected, with Lewis Hamilton handily beating the rest of the field to Turn 1 and pulling away.  Here at F1U! HQ, eyes rolled like billiard balls on a ship in the North Atlantic... we knew what was about to happen.  And we were mostly right.

*AND OFF HE GOES:  While Rosberg, Vettel and a surprising Daniil Kyvat watched in horror, Hamilton went galloping off over the horizon.  By the end of three laps, he was over two seconds ahead of his teammate.  At a circuit like Monaco, this is as close to insurmountable without technical failure or accident as its possible to get.  The race was going to be for second... and even that seemed to have been locked in place as well.  So, third then?  Nope, Vettel looked to have that nailed down, too.  So, Red Bull fighting amongst themselves for fourth, swell, that's something to look forward to.

*SURE ENOUGH:  Occasionally Monaco will cough up a dramatic race... 2014, for example, when Jules Bianchi earned the points that wound up allowing Marussia/Manor to survive to race in 2015, and hostilities between Rosberg and Hamilton became obvious for the first time.  Usually it requires rain, but that wasn't happening this year... and neither was "a dramatic race."  When the first (and only expected) pitstops cycled through, there had been no major changes: Hamilton led Rosberg by ten seconds, and there was no chance that he was going to be caught.  Vettel was about two seconds behind Rosberg, but there was another 10 second gap back to Ricciardo.  We here at F1U! could be excused for occasionally stopping the DVR and flipping over to watch the Indy 500 (and congratulations to former F1 driver Juan Pablo "The Pope" Montoya for his record-breaking win!  He became the driver with the longest gap between Indy 500 victories, 15 years).  By Lap 60, Hamilton held a 19 second lead over his teammate.

*LEARNER'S PERMIT DENIED:  Toro Rosso's Embryo Verstappen was having himself quite the day.  The 17-year-old's first appearance at the Principality was looking to be triumphant, with a great chance to earn points.  He'd worked himself into 11th place and had the Lotus of Lettuce Grosjean in his sights.  After a lap or two of fencing and dicing, he was close enough to make a move.  On Lap 64, he came down the front straight, tailing the Lotus, then as they approached Ste Devote, he slashed to the inside of the Frenchman... just a moment too late.  His front-left suspension turned itself into carbon fiber flinders on Grosjean's right-rear.  The Toro Rosso, suddenly lacking in front-end grip, speared directly into the Tecpro barriers at Turn 1 in as hard an impact as we've seen in some time.  Fortunately, the youngster was unharmed... but the race was completely changed.

*...THE HELL???:  Berndt Maylander, dozing in the front seat of the Safety Car, was woken up and sent on his way.  A number of teams took advantage of the reduced pace of the race to bring their drivers in for a last minute change to the super-soft Option tires, in preparation for a full-blown balls-to-the-wall divebomb run to improve their positions.  Jenson Button, Felipe Not Nasr Massa, Felipe not Massa Nasr, Sergio Perez all came in, as did Daniel Ricciardo in a last-gasp attempt to move onto the podium; he dropped behind his teammate Kyvat in the process.  Mind you, this is on the single track in Formula 1 where it is almost entirely impossible to pass unless you have a ridiculous speed advantage (and sometimes not even then).

*...THE DOUBLE BLOODY HELL???:  All of which made the next occurrence even more confusing.  Lewis Hamilton, who had lead the entire race handily and was able to make his car practically impassable on wide circuits let alone Monaco, brought his car into the pit lane for new tires.  The entire F1U! crew sat there, jaws on the floor, as the team slapped new boots on the Mercedes and set him back out.  He rejoined the race in third place, behind Rosberg and Vettel.  On Lap 70, the race restarted.

*W... T... F...???:  Rosberg immediately ran away from everybody else, building a two second lead in just a single lap.  Hamilton danced and darted around behind the Ferrari of Vettel, but was totally unable to mount a serious challenge.  Meanwhile, Red Bull told Kid Kyvat to let his teammate Ricciardo past; he was on fresh super-soft tires and could potentially make a move on Hamilton for the podium.  Meanwhile, every F1 announcer on the planet tried to make sense of Mercedes' strategy... and couldn't.  A radio call from Hamilton quickly told the story: "I've lost the race, haven't I?"  As it turned out, the answer was yes.  Ricciardo, unable to catch Hamilton, slowed to let his teammate past for fourth, but otherwise the podium remained the same: Hamilton in third, Vettel in second, and Nico Rosberg was the recipient of a gift victory, his third in a row at Monaco.

*AFTER:  Hamilton seemed right on the edge of doing something unseemly after the race.  He pulled his car over at Portier during the cool-down lap and just sat there for a very long time, like he was contemplating switching off and walking to the apartment he keeps that's a short distance from the track.  He then brought his car to the designated podium spot, just in front of the Prince's Box, and ran over his third-place position panel.  Then came the podium ceremony, where his handshake with his teammate was... um... perfunctory at best.  Then he decided not to show up for the post-race team photograph.  In various interviews afterwards, he seemed calm... not "I'm relaxed" calm, but "I'm about to murder you and your family" calm.  Meanwhile, the team apologized to Hamilton for the call, saying that they made a timing mistake.  They believed that they'd be able to bring him in, change the tires, and get him out before Rosberg went by; they were off by about five seconds.  Team Principal Toto Wolff said that it was done to defend against Vettel changing onto the super-softs, but that inadequate timing information made the decision for them.  See, usually timing is confirmed via GPS locating, but the buildings and tunnels of Monaco prevent GPS from being used.  Thus, the team screwed up their calculations.  Why Hamilton didn't object or ignore the instructions, or nobody pointed out that it's nigh-on impossible to pass at Monaco, will forever remain a mystery.

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"What the... really?  Really?  Hahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahaha*snerk*hahahahahaha!" - Nico Rosberg

"Remember Multi 21?  I do." - Seb Vettel

"I'm a champion.  I need to act like one.  After I butcher the pit wall in their sleep." - Lewis Hamilton

The Grand Prix of Canada is the next stop on the European leg of the calendar (wha?) in two weeks... we'll see you there and then!

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