While Lewis Hamilton and his F1 team appear closer than ever, the Mercedes executive director accepts ‘the way the best ones are calibrated can cause bumps on the way’“Still I Rise” is the motto Lewis Hamilton wears proudly tattooed on his back and emblazoned across his helmet. Inspiration for resilience in adversity adopted from Maya Angelou’s poem via Tupac Shakur that he had good reason to look to last year when, in the wake of consecutive Formula One world championships, an emotional and mental rollercoaster of a season left him ultimately beaten by his team-mate, Nico Rosberg. Worse still, by the close, the title gone, his fractured relationship with his former friend extended to the team. The formidable partnership forged...
With the new regulations 2017 will be a season-long development race, and the Red Bull team looks best-equipped to challenge the dominance of MercedesThey are called testing sessions but the two weeks Formula One is spending in Barcelona this year are proving to be a mighty tease as well. Sandbagging and keeping one’s cards close to one’s chest are long-established elements of the pre-season runs, but this year, with brand-new cars designed to the new regulations, no team want to reveal too much and lose any advantage they may have stolen over the winter. Times – only ever a loose guide before the real business begins – are therefore perhaps less revealing than ever but in the case of the...
New season’s cars not as easy to drive as they look, the verdict is still out on the shark fins while Christian Horner says move to social media is instant successConsensus was reached by F1 drivers regarding what a physical challenge handling the new cars represents. The word “beast” was bandied about with abandon by several and to their credit they were using it positively and revelling in the task of having to properly manhandle their drives around the Circuit de Catalunya.Mechanical grip was up, as was downforce, as had been the plan for the new regulations, and the resultant grip led to cornering speeds and g-force increases that are a new experience for almost all of the current crop...
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...
Changes aim to produce faster cars offering other teams the chance to close the gap on Mercedes but Mark Webber and Patrick Head inject a dose of realityDuring the period of inventive speculation that characterises Formula One’s pre-season before the first test in Barcelona, there has been a sense that the new rules for 2017 really might reinvigorate the competition after three years of dominance by Mercedes.Step forward then on Tuesday Mark Webber, with a reminder of some of the stark realities of the new era – that power, the cornerstone of the German marque’s success, remains paramount. Related: F1 needs brains, not just Brawn, to end Ecclestone-induced malaise | Richard Williams Related: Why F1 must fight to restore the...