Monday 21st April 2014

Motorsport on Monday: 21/4/14

Hamilton hat trick; Toyota trumps Porsche in WEC; estate wins in BTCC. What a weekend!

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Control C, control V - that's all we're going to need this season to describe the way Formula 1 is playing out, throwing in Rosberg instead of Hamilton on the odd occasion. It was a perfect weekend in China for Mercedes-Benz, scoring a one-two finish yet again.

It's that man Hamilton again

A quick summary: Hamilton dominated from pole, which he set by showing the field a clean pair of Alpinestars-shod heels on Saturday. Nobody could get within half a second of him in the changeable conditions in quali.

Dominance on Saturday led to annihilation on Sunday as Hamilton breezed the win despite some upset with the chequered flag being thrown a lap early, making that the first hat trick of his career.

Rosberg picked up the pieces in second, with Alonso recording his first podium of the year in third, despite a poor start leaving him in sixth on lap one. Has Ferrari got the car sorted and managed to tap into a vein of pace? An eighth place for Kimi suggests it could just be that Fernando is faster than you, iceman.

Hybrid hype
While the action was underway in China, there was another high profile series making its first outing under new 2014 rules - the World Endurance Championship kicked off at Silverstone, with Toyota and Porsche going head-to-head in what should have been a ding-dong of a season opener.

Is it too early to make title predictions?

Except it wasn't. Toyota bagged a one-two finish in inclement conditions - the order decided by different tyre choices early on in the race as the rain fell - showing it means business for the 'big race' in June. The two TS040s were a lap apart, while the leading Porsche 919 Hybrid of Webber, Timo Bernhard and seriously quick youngster Brendon Hartley took third, two laps behind the leader.

Porsche lost its second car to an as yet undisclosed hydraulic problem while the absence of Audis in the finishing order highlighted the four-ringed firm's disastrous weekend, with both cars retiring after crashes caused by driver error. A hint that Audi and its usually unbreakably focused pilots are feeling the pressure, maybe?

The watch doesn't lie
Dodgy conditions meant the race was a battle of survival rather than a flat out blat, but Saturday qualifying times showed that the pace of all three P1 contenders is close.

Audi trails Toyota. Really

Toyota snatched it by a gnat's you know what (0.005 seconds) from Audi, with the 919 just over three tenths back. Such little variance in lap time from three quite different approaches to the new regs suggests, initially, the cars are all well matched. But it begs the question, what has the ACO been doing with the balance of performance between petrol and diesel LMP cars all these years? If it had got it right since the R10 was introduced back in 2006, properly evaluating parity on restrictor, boost and fuel tank limits, we could have had years of inter-fuel rivalry, rather than diesel domination.

Back to the moment, Porsche should be proud of a podium finish for the 919 on its debut, and with a few more developments come Le Mans, the battle should hopefully rage.

And even if it doesn't, watching an LMP1 Porsche hammer through the Porsche Curves from PH's trackside spec will surely be something to cherish, whether it's on the pace or not.

The lap time also tells us that a current sportscar is around 12 seconds a lap slower than a 2013 2.4 V8 Formula 1 car, showing just how ridiculously quick last year's machinery was.

Porsche takes a podium on its debut

Numbers are one thing, but all that goes out of the window when you see an on-board of the Toyota threading its way through Maggotts and Becketts, though. The speed the car carries and the way the chassis changes direction, flat on the throttle through the first left with the car skipping over the bumps, sending sparks flying as it grounds out under compression and a chunk of downforce, is a sight to behold. If PH made rollercoasters...

Panel bashing
The BTCC lads were up to their usual tricks of swapping sponsors logos at the weekend, too, and it was the last lap of the last race of the day at Donington that provided most of the action.

After a good battle with his teammate Matt Neal, Gordon Shedden moved through the field in his Honda Civic Tourer, chasing down front man Colin Turkington. The stage was set for a proper coming together as Shedden sized Turkington up half-way round the lap as the BMW's softer tyres started to wilt.

You can see where this is going...

Launching a man-sized move, Shedden collided with Turkington going into the chicane. Both cars careered through the gravel with Shedden ploughing through the quickest to give the Honda estate its maiden win in BTCC. As a racing incident, it was nicely dealt with, too - no stupid penalties, just a bit of discretion and restraint from the stewards.

From classic tin tops at the Goodwood Revival every year to most weekends during the summer in BTCC, touring cars always deliver on excitement. As they say, rubbing's racing.

 

 

 

 

 

[firebird350]

Er, correct me if I'm wrong but in the Chinese Grand Prix 'wot' I watched Alonso made an explosive start to snatch third place within two hundred yards of the start - and that in spite of a collision with erstwhile team-mate Massa...