This Week in Motorsport

Formula Fun!
Formula One World Championships
Round 2
Malaysian Grand Prix
Sunday, 29 March 2015

Sweet fancy Moses, somebody beat Mercedes! Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull (Renault) won three grands prix in 2014, the only non-Mercedes A.M.G. pilot to win a race, but—& this is not to take anything away from him—each victory came in a grand prix where one or both of the Mercedes "Silver Arrows" was hamstrung by a mechanical gremlin or a crash. This year at the Sepang International Circuit, quadruple World Champion Sebastian Vettel ('10, '11, '12, & '13) of Ferrari became the first man since the new turbo/electric hybrid era of F1 began in March 2014 to defeat both Mercedes pilots, reigning double World Champion Lewis Hamilton ('08 & '14) & Nico Rosberg, straight up in a fair fight. Neither Mercedes crashed, neither fell prey to a gremlin, Vettel's Ferrari bested them on pace & strategy. Wow!

The grid was at least full: nineteen cars started the Malaysian Grand Prix. Both Manor (Ferrari) cars had taken part in free practice & qualifying, but rookie Will Stevens' car was knocked out before the race by a mechanical fault. Pastor Maldonado of Lotus (Mercedes) retired with mechanical troubles, his second D.N.F. of the young season; neither McLaren (Honda) finished the race, a step back perhaps from '09 World Champion Jenson Button's eleventh place finish in Australia. Interestingly, both Toro Rossos (Renault)—Max Verstappen & Carlos Sainz Jr.—finished ahead of both Red Bulls (Renault)—Ricciardo & Daniil Kyvat—even though Red Bull are quadruple winners of the Constructor's Championship ('10, '11, '12, & '13) with fifty race victories while Toro Rosso, the acknowledged Red Bull "junior team" have a grand total of one race victory in the team's nine-year history. Triple race winner Ricciardo is the senior man at age twenty-four, both Kyvat & Sainz are twenty, & Verstappen is only seventeen years-old. Fifteen out of the nineteen starters finished, a normal rate of attrition in the brave new world of turbochargers & hybrid electrical propulsion.

Vettel's win has the potential to change everything. His Ferrari stablemate '07 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen finished fourth, a fantastic recovery after an early tire puncture that dropped him to the bottom of the running order. If the Ferraris can truly challenge the Mercedes, the stultifying race-for-third that the sport was in 2014 might not be repeated this year. I was disappointed by Vettel's departure from Red Bull, & I still nurse a visceral disdain for Ferrari, but at this point I welcome anyone who is able to challenge the overwhelming technical supremacy of Mercedes. I'm trying not to count my chickens before they're hatched, but after a moribund 2014 Formula One might just be fun again.

1st Place: Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari
2nd Place: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
3rd Place: Nico Rosberg, Mercedes

Indy Rock
IndyCar Series
Round 1
Grand Prix of Saint Petersburg
Sunday, 29 March 2015

The debut of the 2015 IndyCar season brought the oft-delayed introduction of the long-promised "aero kits." Unlike F1, in which every team is a "constructor," designing & building its own chassis, every team in IndyCar racing uses the same chassis, the Dallara DW12, now in its fourth year of competition. For many years prior to the DW12's debut in 2012, Indy cars used not only a common chassis, Dallara's IR-05, but also a common engine, supplied by Honda. The DW12 has always been powered by at least two different engine, from Honda & Chevrolet (with brief participation by a dramatically underpowered third engine supplied by Lotus in '12); from the beginning, it was promised that eventually differentiated "aero kits," aerodynamic bodywork, would be introduced. This was delayed for several years due to cost concerns, & eventually the wide-open aero kit proposal was scaled back to just two, from engine suppliers Chevy & Honda, but at long last the IndyCar field is no longer comprised of racecars that are identical except for the Chevrolet "bowtie" or Honda "H" logo decals stuck to their engine covers. There are aesthetic pluses & minuses to both suppliers' aero kits, but the big takeaway is that the cars now produce an estimated twenty-five per cent (25%) greater downforce, allowing them to be driven with greater precision & control, resulting in better racing.

The four Team Penske (Chevrolet) entries dominated qualifying, starting in positions one, two, three, & four, with reigning Series Champion Will Power starting from the pole. Power dominated the race, being passed only during pit stops by his Penske teammates triple Indy 500 winner Hélio Castroneves ('01, '02, '09) & 2000 Indy 500 winner (& grand prix-winning F1 pilot) Juan Pablo Montoya. Power passed Castroneves on a post-yellow-flag restart to retake the lead. Power made a dramatic attempt to pass Montoya in the dying laps, but came up just short, Power's front right wing making light contact with Montoya's rear left corner, ripping a few pieces of the new aero kit off Power's car. Montoya & Power finished ten seconds ahead of the third-placed Tony Kanaan of Ganassi (Chevrolet), which is a big gap in the ultra-competitive IndyCar field. The other two Penskes, of Castroneves & Simon Pagenaud, finished fourth & fifth. The highest place Honda-powered finisher was '13 Series Champion & '14 Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti, in seventh.

To my admittedly biased eyes, the drive of the day belong to Jack Hawksworth of Foyt (Honda). "Captain Jack" (A.K.A. "the Hawk") showed amazing speed on the Star Mazda & Indy Lights rungs of the IndyCar "ladder," & flashes of brilliance last year, his rookie year in IndyCar, driving for Herta Autosport. This year he is partnering F1 veteran Takuma Sato at Foyt Racing, the team owned by "Big Tex," quadruple Indy 500 winner ('61, '64, '67, & '77) & '67 Le Mans winner A. J. Foyt. Hawksworth started twenty-first out of twenty-four cars & early in the grand prix had to make an emergency pit stop to replace a damaged front wing, placing him on an out-of-sequence, "alternate" fuel strategy from the majority of the field. This strategy saw him inherit the race lead when the leaders pitted for fuel, but then fall back when he himself had to refuel. Methodically, Hawksworth worked his way up the field, passing Graham Rahal of Rahal (Honda), Marco Andretti of Andretti (Honda), & Luca Filippi of Carpenter (Chevrolet) in the closing laps to finish eighth. Passing is not easy on the tight, concrete-barrier-lined streets of St. Pete, & o how I wish the "E.S.P.N. on A.B.C." television coverage had taken a moment to look away from Montoya & Power at the front to check in on Hawksworth's midfield charge! Alas! Good on you, Jack.

1st Place: Juan Pablo Montoya, Penske (Chevrolet)
2nd Place: Will Power, Penske (Chevrolet)
3rd Place: Tony Kanaan, Ganassi (Chevrolet)