F1 is waiting anxiously to see if new regulations can end what feels like a period of stagnation. Most of all, the sport would like to see Mercedes face stiffer competitionLewis Hamilton looked pretty pleased with life as he spoke at the launch of his new Mercedes Formula One car on Thursday, but it was hard to know whether his relaxed, chatty demeanour was caused by good feelings resulting from a few exploratory laps earlier in the day or by the need to put on a cheerful face for the 50,000 fans tuning in to the Instagram feed from his iPhone, which was propped on a nearby table to provide live monitoring of the press conference. Related: Fernando Alonso reveals...
Mercedes dominated the season with 19 wins from 21 races, while Max Verstappen and Jolyon Palmer enjoyed breakthrough years. Rio Haryanto, less soIn terms of extracting the most from himself, Nico Rosberg. No driver worked harder than the champion in 2016, both with his team and with himself – changing his diet, his sleeping patterns, his gloves, turning his mobile phone off for two weeks and emptying his mind of all distractions. Daniel Ricciardo was also superb and consistent. Everyone knows that Lewis Hamilton is the best driver out there, but apart from those technical setbacks he failed to always get the best from himself, was way off form in Singapore and took a long time to get over his...
The momentum has changed in Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg’s race for the drivers’ title, Ferrari and Vettel get lucky, while safety is again a problem that needs sorting after Sunday’s near-miss on the trackDespite having seen his early-season championship lead of 43 points turned to a 19-point deficit before Spa, then two points after Monza and now an eight-point lead again with his third win on the trot, Nico Rosberg remains absolutely steadfast in his refusal to be drawn into considering whether the title finally has his name on it this year. His weekend, bar biffing the barriers after locking up on ageing tyres in first practice, could not have gone better, his 200th grand prix yielding a first...