Tag: lewis hamilton

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F1 2024 Season

Catching a flight back to Europe: Imola’s return

Circuit Information

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, also known as the Imola Grand Prix, is the first of two grands prix to be held in Italy. It it held at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari track. This year marks the return of Imola, as last year the race was cancelled due to flooding. The track is made up of 19 corners and one DRS zone,  with a track length of 4.909km. Drivers have to tackle a combination of sharp corners and braking zones within the 63 lap race,, making Imola one of the most technical races of the season.

Image Credit: formula1.com
Weekend Schedule 

After two weekends of sprints, we return to a normal race weekend format. 

Friday: 

  • Free Practice One – 13:30 – 14:30 
  • Free Practice Two – 17:00 – 18:00

Saturday:

  • Free Practice Three – 12:30 – 13:30
  • Qualifying – 16:00 – 17:00

Sunday:

  • Race – 15:00

(All times displayed are the local track times, UK time is an hour behind.)

Fun Facts about Imola
  • On the return of the circuit back in the F1 calendar in 2020, Lewis Hamilton was victorious. He also set a lap record of 1:15.484.
  • Ayrton Senna holds the record for most pole positions at Imola with eight. His record is tied with Michael Schumacher who had eight poles at Suzuka, Japan and Hamilton with eight at Albert Park, Australia.
  • Imola hosts the first European race of the 2024 season, just as it did when it was known as the San Marino Grand Prix between 1981 and 2006. 
  • Despite having been called the San Marino Grand Prix, the circuit is over 100km away from the city and not within San Marino’s own territory. It was named after San Marino nearby due to there already being an Italian Grand Prix held in Monza.
Image Credit: formula1.com
History of Imola

At the wish of Enzo Ferrari, track construction began back in March 1950. Testing was held two years later in October 1952. The Autodromo di Imola held its first racing event a year later in 1953. Following the death of Enzo’s first son, Dino, the track was renamed Autodromo Dino Ferrari in his memory in 1956.

1980 marked the first grand prix held at Imola, taking the place of Monza that year. Nelson Piquet took the first ever win with Brabham. With the return of Monza the following year and the love for the Imola circuit, the 1981 season saw the first San Marino Grand Prix. Following the passing Enzo Ferrari in 1988, the track would be renamed for the last time to Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, commemorating Enzo’s legacy.

The San Marino Grand Prix holds memories for many fans. But most notoriously, the 1994 Imola Grand Prix will be remembered as one of the most tragic weekends in the history of Formula One. In practice, Rubens Barrichello suffered a severe concussion after a collision. On the Saturday, Roland Ratzenberger suffered a fatal collision at Villeneuve Corner. And, on the Sunday, racing legend, Ayrton Senna was hit by debris after coming off the track, resulting in his untimely death.

The last ever San Marino Grand Prix was held in 2006, with Michael Schumacher taking the win. However, the track returned to the F1 calendar in 2020 as the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton taking the inaugural win.

Image Credit
Senna’s Legacy

May 1st 2024 was 30 years since the death of F1 legend, Ayrton Senna. Teams and drivers took the time to pay their respects and celebrate his legacy.

To pay tribute to Senna, Sebastian Vettel will drive Senna’s McLaren MP4/8 at this weekend’s grand prix. The MP4/8 (the car McLaren competed with in the 1993 season) was the last car Senna drove with the team before his move to Williams for 1994.

Senna’s legacy lives on through the celebrations of his success and the inspiration he left behind for this generation of drivers.

Image Credit: senna.com

Written by Chloe.

Featured Image Credit: motorsporttickets.com

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Flashback Friday

Flashback Friday: Canada 2007

The sixth race into Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel’s rookie year saw Ferrari topping the Constructors’ Championship. Ferrari driver, Kimi Raikonnen won the first race of the season while his teammate, Felipe Massa achieved victory in Bahrain and Spain. McLaren had taken P1 in Malaysia and Monaco that year with Fernando Alonso.

Hamilton took pole position with a time of 1:15.707, followed by teammate, Alonso with a time of 1:16.163.  With a front row lockout for McLaren, Hamilton took the lead off the starting line. Alonso ran wide, allowing the BMW Sauber driver of Nick Heidfeld to overtake him.  

Image Credit: Motorsport Images

Jenson Button suffered a gearbox issue, forcing him to retire from the starting grid. On lap nine, the Toro Rosso of Scott Speed retired due to clipping the rear wing of Alexander Wurz’s Williams. 

Alonso had a damaged car, resulting in him running off the track another three times. On lap 15 going into turn one, he fell further away from his teammate and by lap 18 he had fallen to fourth. The pit stop window had opened, Heidfeld pitted on lap 20, promoting Massa up to second after overtaking Alonso. Two laps later, the race leader pitted and was able to re-join in third.

Spyker driver, Adrian Sutil caused a safety car due to crashing at turn four. As the safety car was deployed on lap 22, the pit lane closed. However, Alonso and Nico Rosberg had to pit to refuel. They both received a 10-second penalty. The pit lane reopened and the rest of the grid pitted. Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella would later be disqualified for the mistake of leaving the pit lane while the red light was on.

On lap 26, Robert Kubica hit the back of Jarno Trulli’s Toyota as the race restarted. In the accident the car lost three wheels and suffered major damage to the sidepods. He came out of the incident with a sprained ankle and concussion.

Image Credit: Reddit

The safety car was deployed for the second time. It was then deployed for a third and fourth time due to debris from Christijan Albers’ crash on lap 49 and Tonio Luisi crashing into the wall of champions on lap 55. They both made it a double DNF for Spyker and Toro Rosso. 

Lap 37 saw a thrilling battle between Trulli and Rosberg. As they were going into turn one, they both were able to synchronise their spin off the track without touching each other. That lap also saw Anthony Davidson pit because he claimed a beaver had damaged his front wing, it was in fact a groundhog. David Coulthard, who was driving for Red Bull at the time, had to retire due to a gearbox issue on lap 38. With 16 laps to go, Trulli and Wurz were battling. Trulli tried to pass and his front track rod was clipped, resulting in a crash.

With the chequered flag closing in, Hamilton had miraculously not sustained any damage, despite the amount of retirements and safety cars. The Williams driver, Wurz also had managed to gain 16 places. Takuma Sato, Super Aguri driver was able to overtake the Ferrari of Raikkonen and also overtook Ralf Schumacher. Later, on lap 67 Sato passed Alonso, putting him in P6.

Image Credit: gannett-cdn.com

On 10th June 2007, the chequered flag flew for Hamilton. His first, but certainly not last, victory in his Formula One career. He went on to win a further three races, finishing second overall in his rookie season. He became and remains the most successful rookie to date.

Image Credit: imdb.com

Written by Chloe.

Featured Image Credit: cdn.24.co.za

Categories
F1 2024 Season

The Long Winter Break!

After a long and intense 2023 racing season, many drivers as well as their teams said they were looking forward to a much-needed winter break! With freedom finally on the cards for the drivers, here is what they got up to:

Source: F1.com

Lando Norris

Lando Norris went here, there, and everywhere with holiday snaps from all over the globe, including Bali and Australia! He had time to pay a visit to football club Paris Saint-Germain after heading on a ski trip with friends. He has also been working hard on Team Quadrant, announcing a new group of racers and championships they will be competing in!

Oscar Piastri

Oscar Piasti started the off-season by attending the FIA prize giving evening. He attended an NBA game and celebrated his girlfriend’s 21st birthday before enjoying some down-time after an epic rookie season. 

George Russell

Repeating the viral photo from 2023, George Russell and Fernando Alonso teamed up again to see in the New Year in style! There was also time for a skiing trip with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and family! As well as enjoying some much-needed family time, Russell also caught up with some of his other favourite sports, attending a Manchester United football match!

Source: GPBlog.com

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton’s need for speed and adrenaline saw him indulge in one of his favourite hobbies with a skydiving session, before enjoying some quality time with his dog, Roscoe, when he landed back on the ground.

Charles Leclerc

Charles Leclerc opted for both hot and cold weather over the break as he explored Los Angeles and then went for a wild toboggan ride in the mountains while on a ski trip. He also enjoyed a few rounds of golf before finishing off the winter break by dropped his new EP “DREAMERS”.

Carlos Sainz

Carlos Sainz swapped four wheels for two with some cycling, before celebrating his father’s success at the Dakar Rally. Although a lot of his break was spent in the gym keeping fit, there was also time for a quick ski tri before the season starts!

Sergio Perez

Alongside Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez paid a visit to the Red Bull factory in Milton Keynes to celebrate the team’s remarkable season, he also became and ambassador for NESCAFÉ sharing where he likes to get his caffeine hit!

Source: X.com

Max Verstappen

After his visit to the factory, Max Verstappen spent a quiet Christmas with his family. Verstappen completed a track day with his father then headed on a trip to Amsterdam before getting back into training for the 2024 season.

Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso was in tough competition with Lando Norris for most packed winter break! He started with a skiing trip, then continued to enjoy multiple track days in lots of different vehicles. He continued to support his karting team and became an ambassador for Arcano Partners. He continued to train with a rally cross team before heading to Bahrain for testing.

Lance Stroll

Lance Stroll had a winter mostly away from social media however he did share a clip of him having fun snowboarding in January!

Pierre Gasly 

Pierre Gasly started his winter break in London with some ice skating before joining Yuki Tsunoda for a karting race! Gasly headed out on a ski trip and also did some promotional work with Arsenal football club.

Source: F1.com

Esteban Ocon

Esteban Ocon spent time with one of his childhood heroes, Zinedine Zidane, the legendary footballer who is now an Alpine ambassador. He then celebrated the New Year with good friend Mick Schumacher.

Alex Albon

Alex Albon headed to Thailand for his winter break, spending the downtime with girlfriend and professional golfer Lily Muni He. Albon also headed to LA for some track time and fun!

Logan Sargent

Logan Sargent headed to Dubai for his break, heading into the desert with dune buggies and friends. He has also been spending time in the gym to make sure 2024 is more successful than 2023.

Source: @Alex_Albon

Yuki Tsunoda

Yuki Tsunoda started the break by meeting Jason Statham and then shared a photo of himself, Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull pair Verstappen and Perez during their appearance at the Honda Thanks Day in Japan. Tsunoda dropped a line of merchandise before playing tennis and karting with Gasly.

Daniel Ricciardo 

Daniel Ricciardo spent some of the winter break back home in Australia with friends and family. He headed to a couple of music festivals after enjoying his time at the Honda thanks day.

Valtteri Bottas

One of F1’s most prolific social media users, Valtteri Bottas’ feed has been full of cycling photos from all over the world, along with the occasional helicopter ride! He also enjoyed some down time in Australia and then headed into the mountains for a ski trip.

Source: @Valtteribottas

Zhou Guanyu

Zhou Guanyu took a trip home to China and visited the Shanghai Disneyland Park for a particularly magical winter break. He also adopted a cat and did several magazine photo shoots!

Nico Hulkenberg

Nico Hulkenberg had a quiet family Christmas with his wife and daughter as well as their new puppy Zeus! A lot of time was also spent in the gym preparing for the new season. 

Kevin Magnussen

Magnussen was one of the least active drivers on social media during the off-season but found time to pay tribute to former Haas team boss Guenther Steiner. Having recently welcomed his second child to the world, some family time was probably on the cards for the Magnussen’s.

Whose winter sounded the most fun to you? Leave a comment below!

Written by Cesca.

Categories
Flashback Friday

Flashback Friday: Korea 2010!

The first Korean Grand Prix was held at the Korea International Circuit in Yeongam, South Jeolla, South Korea. It was the seventeenth round of the 2010 championship and Sebastian Vettel was on pole for RedBull.

Source: TheNewYorkTimes.com

The race began behind the safety car but was stopped after three laps because of a large amount of standing water on the circuit. After a 45-minute delay, the race was restarted behind the safety car. The safety car was brought in after thirteen laps and the race began! Vettel maintained his lead going into the first corner, followed closely by Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso. 

On lap 19, Nico Rosberg and Mark Webber collided when Webber spun on the wet track and rebounded into Rosberg, leading to another safety car! The field bunched up together with Vettel retaining the lead. Alonso moved into second where he remained, until a slow pit stop during a third safety car period moved him back to third place. The extreme surface water left on the track resulted in a number of accidents where drivers slid and bumped into one another leading to a giant game of bumper cars!

Source: BBC.com

The race restarted on lap thirty-five, second place Lewis Hamilton ran wide at the first corner, allowing Alonso back into second place. On lap 46 Vettel’s engine failed causing him to retire from the race meaning Alonso took the lead of the race with no issues. He remained at the front of the pack resulting in him winning the first Korean Grand Prix! Hamilton came home in 2nd for McLaren Mercedes and Felipe Massa completed the podium in 3rd. 9 drivers didn’t make it to the end of the race making it one of the most dramatic races in F1 history!

Source: MAXF1.net

Written by Cesca.

Categories
F1 2022 Season

Racism in Racing: What Changes Need to be Made?

It is no secret that motorsport has a severe race issue (no pun intended), but why even with all the awareness and calls for action, do we still see these despicable acts and displays of racism at even the top flights of the sport?

Racism is deeply rooted in motorsport from the confederate roots of NASCAR to the massive diversity issue within F1, but even after almost a century of the existence of both organizations, we have yet to see an evolution in how these issues are handled.

Lewis Hamilton is massively famous for many reasons whether it be his 100+ career win and poles or his 7 world championships or even his outside business ventures, but it is also no secret that he is the only black F1 driver in the sports history.

Source: Autosport.com

In a perfect world, his ethnicity or skin color wouldn’t be an issue to anybody, but we don’t live in a perfect world… unfortunately.

Lewis has been the victim of racist attacks throughout his entire career but for the longest time it was from the fans almost exclusively which, while that is still extremely wrong, it had no bearing on the racing aspect.

That was until recently when former F1 driver and Brazil’s lesser loved stepchild Nelson Piquet sat down for a podcast following the announcement of Lewis gaining dual citizenship to Brazil. In the podcast Piquet called Lewis a derogatory term followed by laughter.

Source: dailystar.co.uk

Now, it does not take a specialist to explain how horrific this was and its implications on the topic of race in motorsport because now it’s not only being alienated by fans, but now also by your fellow competitors both current and former.

This incident happened less than a month after F2 driver Juri Vips was suspended by the Red Bull Driver Academy for saying a racial slur like the one used by Piquet while livestreaming with fellow F2 driver Liam Lawson.

Vips was suspended almost immediately after the incident occurred, but he was able to keep his seat with HiTech and was kept by the Academy despite his heinous remarks.

Source: insider.com

These are just two examples of people with close ties to F1 openly using racial remarks, with one of them even being used to dehumanize a driver who has used his career to make sports more inclusive and facing no real punishment or repercussions for their actions. So, what must change?

One thing that must change is the parties involved have to be held accountable. You can’t just say change has to be made if you hold a position of power, you have to force the changes and put actions into effect that eradicate the issues at hand. Thoughts and prayers can only get an issue so far before actual actions have to be taken and after 70+ years with no change, it’s about time we start to see those actions. Thank you.

Feel free to contribute your opinions and suggestions on what efforts can be made to resolve this issue in motorsport in the comments below.

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F1 2021 season

Sochi 2021 – What Goes Up, Must Come Down

The Sochi Autodrom is not usually a track we would expect to give us such an edge-of-the-seat race, but 2021 has already been full of surprises, and this weekend was no different.

Lewis Hamilton finally took his 100th career win, an incredible feat which we may not see again for many years. Unfortunately, his win was Lando Norris’ loss, the Brit losing the lead of the race with only a few laps remaining after sliding off the track in wet conditions, eventually finishing the race in 7th place. Still, Norris had an excellent weekend, taking his first pole position in wet conditions and leading a considerable amount of the race.

The threat of rain loomed over the circuit throughout the race on Sunday, causing severe shake-ups throughout the grid when drivers chose to pit for intermediate tyres, or to stay out and brave the conditions. A lot of drivers jumped at the first opportunity – a great reaction to the change in conditions awarded Carlos Sainz a well deserved third place. However, his teammate, Charles Leclerc, was not as quick to the pits and unfortunately ended an otherwise flawless race in 15th place.

Max Verstappen, after starting at the back of the grid due to taking a new power unit, was able to take a brilliant 2nd place at Sochi, awarding him 18 points which will be becoming more and more valuable as the season draws to a close. While he may not currently lead the Driver’s Championship, he is now only two points behind championship rival Hamilton, and with seven races remaining will be eager to overtake for the lead.

Race weekend report

McLaren were on the back of the “Monza magic” with the emphatic 1-2 victory for the papaya team and questions were asked if they would do it again in Sochi that weekend, to which Daniel Ricciardo dismissed and spoke about the teams realistic expectations.

The weather throughout the weekend was tricky to judge, a dry Friday meant that FP1 and FP2 were the only dry sessions they would get that weekend and the Mercedes looked very comfortable in both sessions, P1 and P2 for Bottas and Hamilton. On the Friday, it was announced that Verstappen would take up a new power unit, his 4th of the season, meaning he would start from the back of the grid.

The weather forecast had predicted rain for the Saturday sessions and Sochi did not fail to deliver, with torrential rain in the morning meaning Saturday’s FP3 session was cancelled in the hopes that there would be a window for qualifying later that day.

The qualifying session started off wet, tricky conditions, but all of the drivers showed their skill as they raced around the track. Verstappen, the 2 Haas cars and the 2 Alfa Romeos were knocked out in Q1, with Verstappen not setting a time. Leclerc, whose penalty had been announced, Latifi, the 2 Alpha Tauri cars and Sebastian Vettel missed out on Q3, with the German missing out by a small margin.

Pole fight for pole position looked like it was going to Mercedes with Hamilton leading after the first round of laps and with Verstappen out of the mix, it looked like the Silver Arrows would be untroubled. Russell took the gamble to go onto soft tyres to set his flying lap as the track started drying up and the others followed suit, sector times were soon improving. Meanwhile, as he was going to change his for slick tyres, Hamilton hit the wall at the pitlane entry and time was running out. Carlos Sainz went onto pole position briefly before Lando Norris beat his time and took the first pole position of his career and the first for McLaren since Brazil 2012. William’s call to change to slick tyres paid off as Russell completed the shock top 3 in third.

Many thought strategies would play a big part in the race as Mercedes believed it was the right time to change Bottas’ power unit too, in the hope to slow down Verstappen’s progression throughout the race to aid his teammate in the championship. Charles Leclerc, Antonio Giovanazzi and Nicholas Latifi also took penalties to start at the back of the grid.

The race was entertaining from beginning to end as we have seen with most of the races this season. We saw some super impressive overtakes, some great strategies and an even crazier finish to the race. A range of emotions were shared at the end of the race, delight for Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen but heartbreak for Lando Norris and McLaren. Much support was shown to the young Brit by fellow drivers after the race, to which he has responded positively and now looks to put that in the past.

10 things we learned from F1's 2021 Russian Grand Prix

We head to Turkey next, where last year Lewis equalled the record for 7 world championships and the podium included Segio Perez and Sebastian Vettel- we could be in for a treat.

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