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2014 German GP: Post-race press conference

2014 German Grand Prix

The champagne from Nico Rosberg’s fourth win for the year will complement his recent wedding celebrations nicely. You can read what he has to say about that and the German Grand Prix after the break, along with the thoughts of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton.

Before you do, though, here’s the post-race thoughts from a very enthusiastic and positive Daniel Ricciardo who was very happy with his day after that near miss at the first corner.

“That was awesome fun, one of my most enjoyable races I’ve had,” Daniel said. “I mean, not on the first lap, obviously, that was just the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn’t as worse off as Massa and hopefully he is okay.

“I was on the outside and the collision happened, I had to avoid it and went pretty far down the field, I don’t know exactly how far back. From then on I just got on to the radio and said let’s make an amazing recovery and make ourselves proud today. And I think we did that, we fought hard and we didn’t leave anything on the table.

“These are the moments and battles that I personally thrive off and enjoy. Fernando is known to be a tough racer and I thought who better to have a good fight with. I was on the Primes and he was on fresher Options and I gave it the best fight I could and, well.., nearly!”

What a guy!

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Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz

Nico Rosberg wins 2014 German GP

2014 German Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg has capped of a great few days by winning his home grand prix for the first time. He did it in a canter, too, with a 20.7 second margin over Valtteri Bottas in P2. Lewis Hamilton couldn’t quite make it a 1-2 for Mercedes, but should be happy with third after starting the race from P20.

Since the disappointment of his gearbox failure in British Grand Prix Rosberg has signed a lucrative contract extension, got married and seen his country win the World Cup. Not a bad run of results and don’t forget he’s also extended his world championship lead over Hamilton to boot.

Hamilton’s charge through the field might have yielded an even better result had he not suffered front wing damage after making his way past former teammate Jenson Button. In the end he didn’t quite have enough pace to get past Bottas.

Sebastian Vettel finished fourth, ahead of a desperately close late stoush between Fernando Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo. Alonso crossed the line less than a tenth ahead of Ricciardo, having overtaken him just a few laps prior.

Nico Hulkenberg continued his run of points-winning results in every race so far this year with P7. Jenson Button led home his junior teammate Kevin Magnussen. While Sergio Perez rounded out the top 10.

Another spectacular first lap incident ended the race of Felipe Massa after he clipped Magnussen at the first corner, sending both cars off track. Massa’s car flipped before ending on its wheels and the Brazilian emerged unscathed.

Ricciardo had made a clean start off the line but was forced off track to avoid the Massa-Magnussen incident and rejoined the track well down in P15. Clearly, Daniel could have done better than P6 today; he displayed flashes of brilliance at times while charging through the field and especially late when defending against a much quicker Alonso.

Other incidents attracting attention was a fire to Daniil Kvyat’s Toro Rosso and a late race spin at the last corner from Adrian Sutil, which left his Sauber stricken on the main straight. It took some time to move his car off the track and you have to wonder why a Safety Car was not deployed to allow marshalls increased safety while dealing with the car.

We back up again next week for the Hungarian Grand Prix and let’s hope that race offers some of the excitement and close racing we saw at Hockenheim.

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2014 British Grand Prix in pictures

2014 British Grand Prix

Everyone loves a winner, but the British love British winner more than anyone else. Thankfully, for them, Lewis Hamilton came up trumps at Silverstone and gave the likes of David Croft and countless others cause for unabated nationalism.

I’m not sure us Aussies would be as bad if Daniel ever wins in Melbourne.

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2014 British GP: Post-race press conference

2014 British Grand Prix

Here’s the transcript from the post-race press conference at the British Grand Prix. We’ll start with a few words from Daniel Ricciardo who explained a one-stop strategy wasn’t his original plan.

“We chose to restart on the prime,” Daniel said. “It didn’t seem like the best thing to do at first because we were really slow at the restart. Valtteri and Fernando got past me pretty easily and pulled away and I was coming on the radio basically saying ‘let’s see if we can try something a little bit different’ as we didn’t really have the pace as we hoped.

“Once we came in for the option, we just ran and pushed pretty much for the whole stint. I didn’t intend on doing a one-stop when I started on that tyre but laps ticked off and we were still able to keep the pace. The team said ‘do you think you could do another 15–20 laps’ and I was like ‘at the moment, yeah, I think we can’, so we stayed out and just held on at the end. It was awesome.

“I think all three of us had a bit of redemption on our plate today. It was a pretty dismal Saturday for us. I think we’re all pretty happy. This is definitely one of my best podiums this year.”

[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]

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Lewis Hamilton wins 2014 British GP

Lewis Hamilton wins 2014 British Grand Prix

On the weekend Silverstone celebrated its 50th anniversary Lewis Hamilton delighted the home crowd by winning the British Grand Prix. It’s his 27th career win and brings him alongside Sir Jackie Stewart to equal seventh on the all-time list.

In even better news for Lewis he has reduced the championship title race to just four points after teammate Nico Rosberg was forced to retire with gearbox issues. Rosberg led the race up until his Lap 28 retirement. Lewis, though, was only too happy to assume the lead which he held comfortably until the chequered flag.

Valtteri Bottas achieved his best grand prix result by finishing second, improving one step at a time after his third place in Austria. It was an impressive result after starting from P14 and using a one-stop strategy to climb twelve places. Daniel Ricciardo also employed a one-stop tyre strategy to elevate himself from a P8 starting position to finish in third place.

An opening lap crash by Kimi Raikkonen brought out a red flag. Raikkonen ran wide into Turn 5 and when he rejoined the track on Wellington Straight he ran over a bump which caused him to lose control and crash head-on into an armco barrier. The impact spat him back across the track and Felipe Massa, in his 200th grand prix, clipped Raikkonen’s Ferrari while trying to avoid contact.

Both drivers were forced to retire from the race and concerns over Raikkonen’s immediate health were eased when he emerged from his car. He later complained of ankle pain and will be monitored after Ferrari later revealed the impact of the crash was registered at 47G.

Jenson Button finished fourth after also opting for a one-stop strategy. Button was closing in fast on third place as the race drew to an end. Perhaps with another lap or two he may have been able to overtake Ricciardo for P3.

A stoush between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso provided entertainment as they diced wheel-to-wheel. Both drivers got on the radio to complain about poor standards from the other and in the end Vettel came up trumps finishing in P5, Alonso in P6. Although, Vettel will be sour after he started the race on the front row, while Alonso will feel better about his day after starting form a lowly P16.

The top 10 was rounded out by Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg and the Toro Rossos of Daniil Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne.

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2014 Austrian Grand Prix in pictures

2014 Austrian Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg was the first to spray champagne at the revamped Red Bull Ring after he won the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix. It seems fans, teams and anyone connected to the race has been drinking Didi’s kool-aid, because they can’t stop saying how much they love this place. We’ve even assembled our biggest gallery of the year so far to remind you of what went down in Spielberg.

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Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz

2014 Austrian GP: Post-race press conference

2014 Austrian Grand Prix

We’re sorry to Valtteri Bottas that we can’t get a photo of him on the podium, but he’ll have to have a crack at Williams for being so tight with the images they release to the little people like us.

Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo explained a mistake at Turn 1 was responsible for a difficult day.

“It’s never nice going backwards on the first lap,” said Daniel. “Off the line, it was actually one of our better starts this year, although I think Kevin (Magnussen) on the inside got a better one.

“I tried to hang around on the outside, which was the wrong thing to do, because you basically lose too much on the exit. So I then got swamped on the long straight. We already struggle on the long straights as it is, but even more when you get a poor exit. So I was frustrated with myself and I will have to look if maybe I could have cut to the inside and done anything better.

“The last lap move put a little smile on my face, but other than that it wasn’t a great race for us—we’ve got a bit of work to do.”

The full transcript from the first three drivers is available after the break. It was nice to see Mark Webber doing the podium interviews, too. Although, we reckon it would have been better to see him racing in the Nürburgring 24 Hour race instead.

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Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz

Nico Rosberg wins 2014 Austrian GP

2014 Austrian Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg has won his third grand prix of the season after taking out the Austrian Grand Prix overnight. His victory margin of 1.9 seconds over Mercedes AMG teammate Lewis Hamilton sees the German extend his world championship lead to 29 points.

Hamilton started from P9 but put in a sterling opening lap to be fighting for fourth by the second lap. He did have some minor concerns with overheating brakes again, as did Rosberg, but they were still too fast for everyone else.

In third place was Valtteri Bottas for Williams. That’s the Finn’s best result in Formula 1 to date and as you’d expect he was very happy with his day, despite starting the race from P2.

Felipe Massa came home fourth and may have hoped for more after making a clean start from pole position. In the end the Mercedes pair had too much race pace and both were able to get ahead of the Williams duo during routine pit stops.

Fernando Alonso just went about his business as usual for Ferrari and put in another honest and reliable performance to finish fifth. The dual world champion has had an unspectacular year by his standards, but continues to achieve the best results available to him it would seem.

Sergio Perez collected good points for Force India with P6.  Thanks to an alternate tyre strategy he led the race for a while, too, which he would be happy with after starting from P15.

McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen was seventh, his best result since he inherited P2 from Daniel Ricciardo at the Australian Grand Prix in the season’s opening race.

Ricciardo was the sole flickering light on a dirty day for Red Bull at its home track. Daniel finished eighth thanks to a last lap pass on Nico Hulkenberg.

Sadly for Red Bull, though, everything else went pear shaped. Sebastian Vettel momentarily lost power in the opening laps and seemed to be headed for retirement. His car did right itself for some time, but he was called into the pits to retire at around half-race distance.

Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso fared worse, with both cars retiring from the race without making any impact.

After a brief moment of respite from Ricciardo in Canada and Williams locking out the front row for this race, the status quo of a Mercedes one-two result has returned. Crucially, though, Nico Rosberg now enjoys the luxury of championship lead greater than a race win.

Well, that’s until we get to the double points race in Bahrain to end the year.

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2014 Canadian GP: Qualifying report

2014 Canadian Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg’s battle to wrest championship momentum from Lewis Hamilton took another step this morning when he claimed pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Rosberg’s time of 1:14.874 was less than a hundreth of a second quicker than Hamilton’ best lap (1:14.953) and the Mercedes pair enjoyed a gap of almost half a second back to the rest of the field.

Sebastien Vettel (1:15.548) heads the chasing pack after pulling out a great final lap to elevate him ahead of the more fancied Williams duo and into P3. The Mercedes-powered Williams was expected to have the pace on the Montreal layout to claim the lockout the second row, but they have to be content with Valtteri Bottas (1:15.550) in P4, with Felipe Massa (1:15.578) in P5.

For only the second time this year Daniel Ricciardo (1:15.589) has been out qualified by his teammate and he finds himself starting from sixth. Amazingly, just 0.041 seconds separated P3 from P6 and Daniel says he could have gone faster.

“It was a bit scrappy on the final run, we made a couple of adjustments and it didn’t quite work out” he said. “We’ve made progress throughout the weekend and we were not too far off, but it’s disappointing to just miss out. The times were close, but it could have been better. Hopefully we can get a good start tomorrow and see how we go, the strategy will be interesting.”

The top 10 was rounded out by Fernando Alonso (1:15.814), Jean-Eric Vergne (1:16.162), Jenson Button (1:16.182) and Kimi Raikkonen (1:16.214).

The full starting grid, along with the post-quali press conference transcript can be viewed after the break.

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2014 Monaco Grand Prix in pictures

2014 Monaco Grand Prix

Direct from the cashed up streets of Monte Carlo we bring you the best pics we could get our grubby hands on. So, go and get yourself a coffee, sit back and relive the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix.

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2014 Monaco GP: Post-race press conference

2014 Monaco Grand Prix

Here’s the post-race presser from the Monaco Grand Prix. As much as we’d like Lewis and Nico to maintain perspective the media needs to take a chill pill too, with this whole teammate saga they’re trying to manufacture.

While you can’t read body language or tone of voice into this transcript, the two Mercedes drivers seemed to be as cordial as you can expect, despite some very obvious needling from the press.

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Nico Rosberg wins 2014 Monaco GP

Nico Rosberg wins 2014 Monaco GP

Nico Rosberg won his second Monaco Grand Prix in succession overnight with a pole to flag victory that impressed everyone except his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

The Mercedes pair finished one-two yet again and for the most part enjoyed clear air to their inferiors fighting for third place. The form guide remained consistent with Daniel Ricciardo the best of the rest and for the last few laps he was right on Hamilton’s tail but as you night expect on the tight streets of Monte Carlo he was unable to find a way past.

Fernando Alonso managed to somehow find a space between P3 and P5 that meant he barely saw anyone else on track. It’s pretty hard to be unnoticed on this track, but Fernando managed to do that. He’s now gone 20 races without a win, his longest dry spell in the red team.

The so far unflattering return to Ferrari for Kimi Raikkonen looked set for some champagne after he made a banzai start from P6 and found himself in P4 at the first turn and P3 not long after. Alas for the Finn his race went south after the first pit stop when he suffered a puncture and was forced back in almost immediately for new tyres. His next highlight was gently stuffing his car into the tyres at Loews hairpin while attempting to pass Kevin Magnussen. Aside from inconvenience and pride no serious damage was done and he was able to continue on his not so merry way to P12, after a quick stop for a new nose cone.

Sebastian Vettel made a great start, too, and was quickly past Ricciardo, pushing his teammate down to P5. Soon, though, Vettel would be crying into his beer after the engine in his RB10 got hungry for cylinders. It sounded very rough and Vettel’s mood was not helped by seeing how many cars could pass him on a single lap and his race soon came to an inevitable conclusion.

Aside from that the race was a typical Monaco affair. Lots of attrition and the highlight was Jules Bianchi who picked up a couple of points for finishing ninth. He finished eighth on track, but didn’t line up on the grid correctly and was given a five second penalty. No matter, both he and Marussia were overjoyed at earning their first points in Formula 1.

The narrative for the immediate future in Formula 1 is going to be the rift between Rosberg and Hamilton, real or imagined. While understanding how desperate both men are to fight for the championship we’d like to think that both could keep a healthy dose of persepctive and enjoy the position of privilege they are in and find it within themselves to smile from time to time when they don’t get the chocolates.

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