Monday 28th September 2015

Motorsport on Monday: 28/09/2015

Lewis's record victory; BTCC goes down to the wire; British GP woes

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Get up early to watch the Japanese Grand Prix? Good - you'll have not seen the Mercedes-AMGs come first and second, Lewis Hamilton leading from the first lap after a well-timed bit of understeer forced teammate Nico to back out of it and lose a handful of places. You'll have barely seen a pit-stop either, and certainly not seen Lewis's serene driving that saw him build up a 19-second lead as he equalled Ayrton Senna's 41 GP victories.

Kvyat most entertaining in rather dull race

All very strange, mused Niki Lauda. Although both he and Toto Wolff said that it had nothing to do with Mercedes' decision not to supply engines to Red Bull Racing. Nope, nothing. "Bernie is not upset with us about the engine, that's for sure," said Niki, undoubtedly with a cherubic look of feigned innocence. "There was some good fighting in the midfield and this is where the camera was on," added Toto. Of course.

Although he does have a point there. Had the cameras given the airtime to the Mercedes that they deserved, we would have missed Daniil Kvyat's brilliant move on Marcus Ericsson, for one; Red Bull's one-issue subject this year has been Renault's lack of power, which meant he couldn't do him on the straights - didn't stop opportunistic brilliance following Kimi through at the chicane when he was lapping Eriksson though. No points in it, but just reward for a guy who had a huge crash on Saturday and then stayed up as long as he could on Saturday night in the garage helping the guys virtually rebuild his car.

Two time World Champion being overtaken by a 17-year old

McLaren mixes up
Mistake of the weekend was McLaren's engineers accidentally installing a GP2 Honda in Fernando Alonso's car. "Embarrassing, very embarrassing," he said over the radio. He even cried in frustration, as the Alonso polemics we know and love were targeted on Honda in its home race on the track it owns.

He didn't even give a clear answer on whether he would stick out his three-year contract with the team, simply saying that "next year is where we are looking for and my intention is to stay and win".

Which wasn't good enough for Ron. "I'm not going to condone those sort of things," he said. "It doesn't show the professionalism I would like all our driver to show. His remarks to the technical staff were not a particularly constructive way to communicate with everybody."

Not a very happy boy!

Ron also made an exceptionally good point about why McLaren is going through such pain with Honda: "You're not going to win a world championship if you have a second-string engine. It's just not going to happen." By second-string, he means being a customer team, which is exactly what's stopped Red Bull getting Mercedes engines.

Yes, for now, we can replace second string with second-rate (or GP2, as Alonso said), but the full might of Honda's factory effort is still focused solely on McLaren: when they come good, this sole focus will pay dividends. When they do. If they do.

BTCC's headliner
The British Touring Car Championship has a proper headliner lined up for Brands Hatch on October 11: Gordon Shedden is on 325 points after a strong set of results at Silverstone, but Jason Plato isn't far behind on 302 (despite losing his lead) and Colin Turkington's well-timed race 3 victory leaves him in the fight on 293 points. Even Matt Neal isn't that far behind on 288 points, although he's clearly chosen to play the team role and support Shedden, given his stoic defence against a storming Mat Jackson in race 3.

Colin Turkington taking the chequered flag

With 20 points for a win but 17, 15, 12, 11 and 10 to 1 for the top 15, there's still plenty up for grabs at Brands - 68 in fact, when you chuck in bonus points for fastest laps and laps led during a race. And that's before you add in success ballast and the fact one of the races must use Dunlop's soft tyre - but the teams have to choose which one before qualifying...

They're frustrating at times, but the rules are well thought out and well placed to give us headline-grabbing curtain-closers like this that still reward the best, most consistent driver. And, you'll note, no mention at all of double points final races that robbed Juan Pablo Montoya of the 2015 IndyCar title. I'm sure you wouldn't, but don't even think about it, Alan Gow...

Will cost £16 million to host British GP

British GP under threat?
Worrying noises from Silverstone that it doesn't have enough money to host the British Grand Prix and needs an investor. It's already the most expensive Grand Prix in the world to attend but, without the government funding of other circuits, the rising cost of hosting the GP - £16 million this year, says the Telegraph, and rising by five per cent a year as part of Bernie's escalator clause - is starting to bite. The circuit already pays its host fees in arrears and needs a credit note from its bankers to satisfy the FIA.

There's a risk this letter may not be forthcoming as costs rise and Silverstone reaches the limit of what it can make from the race. The solution? Someone who wants to buy a trophy asset, said MD Patrick Allen - someone who wants to run it profitably but can also inject a lot of cash up front. Any takers?

[Photos: LAT]

[TrackTwit]

Poor old Alonso, he is being forced to drive an F1 car that is slower than the others, for only £30m per year excluding sponsorship and endorsements. He must be so upset! I will send a box of tissues asap.