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.
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]
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.
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.
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.
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.
DAN IS THE MAN!
It’s always special when we can bring you a pictorial update of an Aussie winning a Formula 1 Grand Prix. It’s been a while between drinks, but let’s hope we see a lot more of young Daniel on the top step.
Can’t get enough of F1 cars racing around Monaco? This video from the 1980 Monaco Grand Prix should help you out. Even as far back as 34 years ago there were complaints the pits were too small for motorsport’s biggest show in town. And still the drivers can’t wait to turn up, pose, race and win.
[via Motor Sport Retro]
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.
Here’s your pictorial fix from the Spanish Grand Prix. You’ll get to see all sorts of things after the break, so long as all sorts of things are quality Formula 1 photos from the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last weekend. There’s over 90 images so take your time and be sure to enjoy them all.
“It was twenty years ago today,” as The Beatles lyric goes, and if you want to find tributes for Ayrton Senna today you don’t have to look too hard. Here, though, is a video from 1 May 1994 showing how BBC television reported on Senna’s death, including some words from legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker.
Last year Adrian Newey, designer of the Williams FW16 Senna was driving, said: “What happened that day, what caused the accident, still haunts me to this day.”
A failure in the steering column is thought to be the most likely cause of the accident. Although, Newey added: “There is no doubt it [the steering column] was cracked. Equally, all the data, all the circuit cameras, the on-board camera from Michael Schumacher’s car that was following, none of that appears to be consistent with a steering-column failure.”
Unsurprisingly, the events of Senna’s death have attracted incredible scrutiny. The Williams F1 team was held to account with Newey and Patrick Head brought before Italian courts to answer charges of manslaughter. The focus of the trial centred around the failure of the steering column in Senna’s car.
While both men were originally acquitted in 1997, Head was later found guilty in a 2007 retrial. Head avoided a penalty due to the statute of limitations being passed.
It’s okay everyone, we didn’t forget you and your love of quality Formula 1 pictures. Life just got in the way for a bit. Finally, we now bring you our selection of photos from the 2014 Chinese Grand Prix. Once again Lewis Hamilton came up trumps. He’s making a habit of this winning lark it seems and we eagerly anticipate the sport’s return to Europe to see if any of the teams can catch Mercedes.