F1 fans know when James comes on the radio, there’s gonna be strategy and there’s gonna be people listening to it, understanding the next tactical move from Mercedes.
James Vowles has been widely known in the F1 world as the brains behind the winning strategy of the Mercedes AMG F1 Team. However the 8 Constructors and 7 Drivers Championships didn’t come straight into his career.
Born on the 20th of June, 1979. James took his master’s degree in Motorsport Engineering and Management. The Brit who also fancied himself behind the wheel, with him competing in the Asian Le-Mans series 2022 in the GT class with the Garage59 team.
He started his motorsport journey with British American Racing. Putting in the work through the years, as the team changed its name and progressed up and down the field. In 2009, when Honda exited F1 and this sudden move put Brawn GP on the grid, James was sitting in the Race Strategist chair on the pitwall. His leadership and abilities put out race-winning and eventually championship winning strategies over the season.
So when Mercedes bought out the private team, he found himself on the opportunity that F1 staff hoped for. He along with the pitwall of Ron Meadows, Simon Cole, and Andrew Shovlin made the best of this time and led the Mercedes domination in the Turbo-Hybrid era. His tenure at Mercedes as its Motosport Strategy Director ended early 2023, when he was called up to become the team principal of the Williams F1 team.
A decade ago, round three of the 2012 F1 season saw the teams and drivers arrive at the Shanghai International Circuit. Tensions were high because of the long discussions about Mercedes front wing F duct’s legality, said legality being argued by Mercedes competitor’s.
Source: Maxf1.net
Notably, Hamilton, who at the time was looking to add another championship to his name, was to serve a five place grid penalty for changing the gearbox of his McLaren.
Over the three practice sessions, Mercedes and McLaren showed their speed on track by hosting their cars in the top 3 of all of the sessions. Hamilton topped FP1 and FP3, while seven time world champion Schumacher split the young Brit’s dominance and topped FP2.
Qualifying
When it came to qualifying, it was a different ball game. Red Bull and Mercedes were confident in their car; both leaving it late to do runs in Q1, but both teams were safe with that bold move. The usual suspects were out in Q1 such as Vergne, Kovalainen, Petrov, Glock, De la Rosa and Karthikeyan.
In Q2, probably the most unexpected event at the point during the weekend, was the exit of two time world champion Sebastian Vettel for Red Bull. Both Mercedes, Hamilton and Raikkonen stayed in the pits while others did their final runs in attempt to escape elimination. This eventually dumped Vettel out of Q2, he was joined by Massa, Maldonado, Senna, di Resta and Ricciardo.
The top 10 shootout was full of excitement as it could have been anyone’s pole position for the taking. First to set a lapped time was Rosberg, punching a 1:35.1 on the clock, half a second faster than his team mate Schumacher, Hamilton and Webber. With confidence in his time, he stepped out of the car with two minutes left on the clock; but there was no one who could stop Rosberg from claiming his first pole position in Formula 1. Hamilton ended up P2 but would later drop back to P7 for his gearbox penalty.
Finally, the much anticipated race day came along and Vergne was to start in the pitlane after changes to his car before the race.
Most of the grid started on soft tyres, but starting medium tyres were Massa, Senna and both Toro Rossos. Good starts from the Mercedes pair saw them avoid trouble but Kobayashi and Webber fell backwards in order and found themselves in a tight pickle, with Webber behind Alonso. An early stop by Webber led the others to follow his actions shortly after.
The only retirement of the race came from a mistake in the pitlane by Mercedes when Schumacher went to make his first pitstop. A possible podium finish turned into a nightmare for the German team. With the round of pitstops completed the lead was Rosberg, Button, Hamilton, Webber and Raikkonen.
Webber was the first to pit again for new tyres on Lap 22;Button and Hamilton followed his lead. Raikkonen stopped later and ended up losing many places after the pitstop. By Lap 30, the different strategies were more clear cut: Rosberg, Vettel and Raikkonen were all on two stop strategies while Button, Hamilton and Webber were doing three stops.
After Rosberg’s final stop Button took the lead but would still have to make another stop himself. But when Hamilton, Alonso and Button pitted, it was not smooth sailing for Button as there was an issue with his rear left tyre which delayed his stop giving the lead back to Rosberg. When Massa pitted, it left Raikkonen behind the leading Rosberg but there was a train of cars behind him.
With five laps to go Button, Hamilton and Webber overtook Vettel with their much fresher tyres for 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Nico Rosberg held his own and took good care of his tyres to see himself victorious in F1 for the first time in his career. He was joined by a double McLaren podium in Button and Hamilton.
This week we celebrated the birth of one of F1’s greatest legends, Ayrton Senna (March 21, 1960), therefore, we believed the best way we could honour his legacy was to tell the story of his first F1 win which came in 1985 at the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Brazil’s hero was 25 years of age when he claimed his first of 45 victories during a wet race at the Autódromo do Estoril. He qualified in pole position for the first time in his career, followed by Alain Prost of McLaren and Keke Rosberg of Williams. Other familiar names that were included in the top 10 for qualifying included Niki Laudi (7th), Nigel Mansell (9th) and Nelson Piquet (10th).
Ayrton Senna showed his remarkable skill and left an impression on all of F1’s viewers with a stunning drive in wet weather. The rain would prove to be a challenge for many as Nigel Mansell and Eddie Cheever took heavy hits to their cars during the warm-up meaning they would have to start from the pit lane with their spare cars. Renault driver at the time, Patrick Tambay said “It was survival of the fittest.”
Source: Autoweek.com
With a good start of the line, Senna was very quickly in a world of his own. After 15 laps no one could see him again. His teammate, Elio de Angelis also had an incredible start jumping into second place, fending off Alain Prost who made several attempts to overtake him.
The treacherous conditions meant that many drivers would have difficulty keeping the car on track and this included Prost who was in third place before he lost his car halfway down the pit straight on lap 31. Senna too, struggled at times, at one point sliding off the track, to which he later said he was “lucky to stay on the road.” Niki Lauda had called for the race to be stopped earlier due to the terrible weather, as it was incredibly dangerous for them to drive in.
Before the end of the race, Michele Alboreto and Patrick Tambay would pass di Angelis, leaving him to finish in fourth place. It was a slow puncture that meant di Angelis had to reduce his pace if he wanted to stay on track that left him vulnerable to Tambay’s overtake. Senna was untouchable, a full minute ahead of Alboreto who was the only driver not lapped by Senna. Nigel Mansell made a recovery drive after his difficult start, he finished fifth, ahead of Stefan Bellof who was the last point scorer of the race. The race time limit was reached at two hours due to the tricky conditions that cut the race distance short by two laps.
Source: Ayrton-senna-dasilva.com
Of the 26 cars that started the race, only nine of these were classified. Seven of the 15 cars that did not finish the race were because of the tough weather conditions that caused the cars to spin off the track.
Lotus were joyed at the win and the podium celebrations were full of emotion. But the team still clearly had work to do as it was only their second win in six seasons.
Source: Racefans.net
Nevertheless, this tale will be passed on for years to come as the sensation made his mark in F1 with this maiden win. His memorable career will never be forgotten and the legacy of the Senna name will always remain in F1.
We hope you enjoyed this special #FlashbackFriday, make sure you come back next week for another one. You can follow us on our social media to keep up to date with all the latest happenings in the #F1 community.
The 2014 season was the 65th year of the Formula 1 championship with the opening race held in Melbourne Australia on the 16th of March 2014. First race of the season fans are always excited for racing to commence. Unlike the races today where normally 20 drivers race, during the Australian GP, there were 22 drivers in the running.
Qualifying
Fans who expected some Aussie sunshine during the race weekend where met with a rainy day forecasted for the duration of qualifying. Fan favourite for this race was Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo. There was 6 drivers knocked out from Q1, Grosjean, Ericsson, Gutierrez, Bianchi, Chilton and lastly Maldonado who did not set a time within the 107% requirement.
The next 6 drivers to go during Q2 was Perez, Kobayashi, Sutil, Vettel, Räikkönen, and Button. The last 10 drivers hand out into Q3 with the crowds cheering on for home racer Ricciardo. For a few seconds Ricciardo was on pole before Hamilton secured pole position with the faster lap at 1:44.321. Q3 ended with Bottas, Massa, Kvyat, Hulkenberg, Vergne, Alonso, Magnussen and the top 3, Rosberg, Ricciardo and Hamilton. Bottas had a 5 grid place penalty due to a gearbox change and started 15th, Gutierrez also had 5 grid penalty place due to a gearbox change and started 19th, Grosjean started from the pit lane due to changing his car in parc ferme.
Race
The first few laps were eventful. On the first corner, Kobayashi clipped Massa and both went into the gravel forcing them out of the race. During the third lap, Hamilton had an engine complaint and retired. Vettel had power problems which soon led to his retirement of the race. Rosberg was now in the lead with Ricciardo behind conserving fuel. Bottas came out of turn 10 and hit the wall which broke his rear rim. Two corners later he lost the wheel forcing the safety car to come out. This allowed the race leaders to make an early yet strategic pit stops on the 12th lap of the race.
On lap 20, Ricciardo was given the radio message that he no longer needed to preserve his fuel. Despite having some struggles earlier in the race, Bottas recovered astounding well and gained 5th place . Throughout the race, Ricciardo was putting pressure on Rosberg but started to struggle with 8 laps remaining. This is when McLaren gave radio message to Rookie Magnussen to put pressure on Ricciardo. Ricciardo couldn’t catch up to Rosberg and finished 24 seconds behind the German while Magnussen finished 2 seconds behind Ricciardo in third. The German, Australian and the Danish enjoyed the podium celebrations.
However, the drama for the day did not stop there. The stewards started an investigation into the Ricciardo’s car. Hours later they found that his car exceeded the maximum permitted fuel flow rate and disqualified the Aussie from the race. The official race result consisted of 1st place – Rosberg, 2nd place – Magnussen, and 3rd place – Button, 4th place – Alonso, 5th – Bottas, 6th place – Hulkenberg, 7th place – Räikkönen, 8th place – Vergne, 9th place – Kvyat, and 10th place – Perez. What an amazing season opener!
Source: racefans.netAutoblog.com
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The Fastest Sector 