Radio silence for helping drivers

"The driver must drive the car alone and unaided." So says Article 20.1 of F1's sporting regulations as the FIA clamp down on radio communication between team and driver that help's with the performance of the car and driver.

Mercedes are a fine example of this, often you can hear them talking to Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg telling them where they could be braking later, where the advantage of their team mate is coming from on track. The perception is that the wider public are now viewing these once great gladiators in control of viciously fast machinery as mere puppets under the pit walls control.

In a way I guess that might not be too far from the truth, although not one I fully agree with. The full message sent to the teams on Wednesday night from FIA reported in autosport reads like this: "In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 20.1 of the F1 sporting regulations are respected at all times FIA intends to rigorously enforce this regulation with immediate effect. Therefore, no radio conversation from pit to driver may include any information that is related to the performance of the car or driver."

I think the intent of what the FIA are trying to do makes sense. They want the driver to be the star and for the public to see that he is the one in control and not attached to strings from the garage. I'm all in favour of the driver being given more control and can understand a sense of frustration when you hear a communication which helps a driver out and therefore erodes an advantage of another not through that drivers talent but from an engineer sitting by telemetry traces on a computer.

To my mind though it's just another case of Formula 1's current obsession with self improvement where it's not needed. As I've written before there is nothing wrong with the product, what’s wrong is the division of money to teams, about teams struggling for survival when there's no need for that to be the case, the fact that Formula 1 hasn't embraced social media and has no idea how to promote itself even with the major opportunity of a brave new world of regulations this year which no one knows about other than it's not as noisy. 

I'm sure there are some drivers who appreciate the radio help from the team, but equally I'm sure there's some drivers who just wish to be left alone. Perhaps it is a bit unfair when you're a driver who can cope with the complexities of the sport on your own and are able to manage all aspects but then that advantage is cancelled out because you're team mate or main rival has an engineer who is guiding them along.

To me it more emphasises the team element of the sport which unfortunately is so often overlooked. The radio transmissions add to the television coverage, and with this ban I'm sure we'll hear a lot less of the goings on of the drivers and the insight that brings. For instance you're able to learn how some teams operate, or which drivers request more information. How often do you hear Fernando Alonso looking for advice for instance compared to the Mercedes pair? It lets you realise sometimes who are the ones that need help, who want it, who don’t and who will get it anyway.

When does a communication become help anyway? How will that be defined? Thankfully the team will still be able to advise on pit strategy so we shouldn't lose classics like Hamilton's engineer Pete Bonnington saying it's 'hammer time' when it's time to push. Rob Smedley on the radio to Felipe Massa was always fun in the Ferrari days, but was often helping him and that kind of thing might be lost.

Still after all that, it's not going to effect anything radically and I hope in general there's still plenty of chatter broadcast, probably involving a lot of code words from teams that mean what they now cannot say. I do think it is just another case of F1 getting a thought in it's head and running with it for better or worse. We'll lose an aspect of team and driver and how they operate but maybe we'll gain from drivers being thought of as the real stars and in control of their machines again.

However as they’re the ones sitting in the car I always thought they were the ones in control and just utilising everything they could to drive them quicker. I think most people thought that anyway as at the end of the day when you're in a wheel to wheel fight no amount of advice is going to help a driver then and there. The new regulation comes into force at the next race in Singapore.

Hamilton wins after Rosberg cracks

Lewis Hamilton put all the drama of the last few weeks behind him to record his sixth victory of the year and close the gap to his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg down to 22 points. If he wins the next four races with Rosberg second he’ll retake the championship lead by the end of the USA Grand Prix. If only life was that simple.

The way this season is going we can expect plenty more ups and downs before the end, today Lewis’ race encapsulated just how tough it’s going to be but also gave a marker of just how much recent events has altered the mind sets of Mercedes two drivers; Hamilton has renewed confidence and feels the team is behind him while Rosberg appeared defensive all weekend and made another critical error which might have cost him the win.

First of all though Hamilton had awesome speed all weekend finally getting back to pole position, his first since the Spanish Grand Prix all the way back in May. It was a fantastic lap that really demonstrated to Rosberg just what he has to contend with in the final six races. Despite all the mind games and the dramas going on behind the scenes and often in front of the cameras Rosberg is up against the fastest driver in Formula 1, and it’s going to take all his tactical nous to hold him off.

Lewis may have got the top grid slot but as seems to be the way for him, he rarely gets a straight forward win. His launch system wasn’t working properly and he got bogged down at the start allowing not only Rosberg to charge ahead but Kevin Magnussen who got a great start from fifth was second while Felipe Massa jumped into third.

It didn’t look comfortable at first for the 44 Mercedes, he wasn’t immediately on to the pack of Massa nor did it look like it was going to be an easy pass on the Brazilian, the Williams is extremely quick on the straight. But whatever problems he had were cured and within a few laps both Massa and Hamilton got ahead of the over performing Magnussen.

There was a lot of hype before the start of the weekend that Williams might well have the pace to compete for the win but a terrible start from Valtteri Bottas in third dropped him down the field, and despite only lapping a few tenths away from Silver Arrow pace Massa was never really in contention.

It didn’t stop Lewis having to make quite the move on his 2008 title rival. On lap nine Rosberg had failed to make too much of an advantage while Lewis was stuck and even went off at the first chicane. Perhaps this encouraged Lewis, the very next lap he had his DRS open, Massa defended the inside line into the first chicane but always last of the late brakers the Mercedes swept around the outside into turn one and held the inside for turn two, he was through and now the charge began.

He slowly but surely trimmed down Rosberg’s advantage, lap after lap with barely an intermission the gap was cut. Rosberg hadn’t looked on Hamilton’s pace all weekend and now it was being firmly shown. Being the lead driver Rosberg had first call on pit strategy. This race is a one stop most of the time and so it proved for almost all the runners today. Lewis pitted a lap after Rosberg on lap 25 with just 28 to run, he exited the pit lane not far behind.

His engineer came on the radio advising to hang back around two seconds and save the tyres for an attack at the end of the race. Lewis doesn’t do hanging back if he can avoid it so it wasn’t so much of a surprise to see him immediately set the fastest lap of the race. From nearing two seconds after the stops, in less than two laps it was under a second. It was ‘hammertime’ for Hamilton and he was closing and in DRS range, the move was surely about to be made.

But then was this the moment Rosberg cracked? The pressure must have told a little bit, Hamilton was catching him relentlessly, was Rosberg ready after all the outrage of a fortnight ago to go wheel to wheel with his championship rival once more? Approaching the first chicane on lap 29 he made the same mistake he had earlier in the race, briefly locking up before taking to the escape road. It was enough to allow Hamilton into the lead and from then on he wasn’t challenged.

Lewis rolled off the laps to take a resounding win and lay down a marker to Rosberg that he’s coming for him. Rosberg finished three seconds down and although annoyed with himself for the mistake didn’t look too down with the end result. He knows there will still be weekends when he’s quicker and he also knows how unlikely it is Mercedes will finish 1-2 for the next four races, especially when you factor in engine penalties that many teams are bound to need to take.

But this race victory was something both would have desperately wanted after the Spa antics to show the other just who is in control. Well Lewis certainly showed who was in command this weekend but for the championship Nico remains the man with the best cards. After the disciplinary action Mercedes took against him after Spa, the mistake this weekend and Lewis looking mentally stronger than he’s ever been, could it be Rosberg’s about to cave?

The battles for points in another action filled race

Behind the Mercedes duo Massa maintained his third place to the finish completely untroubled. In many ways he was the star of the race but apart from the early laps wasn’t really involved in much of the action. He calmly ran his race and for once this year managed to stay out of trouble and finally claim the podium he deserved with a brilliant performance in front of the Ferrari public who still have a lot of affection for their former driver. A nice way to celebrate being re-signed.

His Williams team mate Bottas finished fourth with a far more eventful race. Starting third he briefly dropped out of the top 10 and a bit like Hamilton in the opening couple of laps looked like he was a bit stuck. But soon the beautiful Martini liveried Williams was going wheel to wheel with half the field to fight his way up the order.

He used the DRS on the start finish straight to his advantage, utilising his straight line speed but he was braking brilliantly into the first chicane and took many drivers including Kimi Raikkonen, Jenson Button, Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso, Kevin Magnussen and Sebastian Vettel with sublime moves which were made to look deftly simple.

He made a lot of progress in his first stint but after his pit stop he dropped back behind many of them and had to fight to get back ahead. This time his move against Magnussen was not as simple, they both braked late into the first chicane, Bottas alongside the McLaren driver but Magnussen was on the inside line. It’s such a tight corner and very narrow Bottas was always going to back out or crash. He backed out and went over the kerbs.

The stewards thought Magnussen should have left more room and subsequently added five seconds to his finishing time. It was a harsh penalty and to my mind unjustified. What happened to the leniency that the stewards were showing? Derrick Warwick was the driver steward and he does seem to come down hard a lot of the time, but I don’t think Magnussen could have done anything different, he was defending his position, even Bottas said after the race it shouldn’t have been a penalty.

But there you go, another lesson for Magnussen on the fickleness of steward decisions and his second consecutive penalty, both arguably a bit harsh although the incident in Spa was deserved. Whatever though, he's getting more impressive as the season goes on.

Bottas got the job done later and finished fourth while Magnussen held on for seventh which became tenth. Sergio Perez and Jenson Button had some of the best side by side action of the season as they exchanged places back and forth finishing seventh and eighth after Magnussen’s penalty.

Perez in particular overshadowed his Force India team mate Nico Hulkenberg again. Hulkenberg was anonymous all weekend and is in great danger of his career being kept in the midfield which would be sad indeed. Kimi was ninth after a fairly solitary race in which he just seemed to be passed. 

Meanwhile his Ferrari team mate Alonso had been mixing it with these guys before retiring on lap 28 with an energy recovery issue. It was his first retirement of the year and coming at Monza, Ferrari’s home race, it was at the worst moment possible. It had been another fine performance from the Spaniard but the car, as always when it’s Alonso, was the problem.

In fifth and sixth were the two Red Bull’s. Just when you think Vettel is getting the edge on Daniel Ricciardo, up pops the Australian at the end of the race just to remind you he is the man at Red Bull. Vettel out qualified him for the fourth time in five races but yet again was behind at the finish. Vettel had been quicker all weekend but he was the first driver to stop for tyres on lap 18, Ricciardo stopped eight laps later. His fresher rubber catapulted him up the order and he put some slick moves on the lower top 10 finishers to rise up the order to put him in the top half.

Once he was ahead of Magnussen he went after Vettel who defended fairly aggressively but was in no shape to hold him back. Ricciardo got through and shot off into the distance. It says something brilliant about a driver who seems off the pace all weekend that he can make it work when it counts.

Daniil Kvyat survived a scare when challenging Kimi as his brakes went two laps from home. He managed to make the flag in 11^th after starting 21^st because of an engine penalty. His Toro Rosso team mate Jean-Eric Vergne finished two places behind him after starting nine places in front. When you’ve lost your drive and you want to show yourself off that’s not the best way to do it.

Kamui Kobayashi finished ahead of Jules Bianchi for Caterham. After messing Kamui around he rewards them with a top drive but don’t be surprised if he’s not there in Singapore, especially as team politics and undelivered money seems to be throwing this team into turmoil.

Disturbing rumours from Monza

Other financially struggling teams Sauber and Lotus both had miserable weekends which will only compound their current problems. The latest rumours emerging from the paddock suggest that there will only be eight teams in 2015 each with three cars as Formula 1’s unfair dividing of the money continues to cause problems.

Unfortunately the TV money is locked in until 2020 and F1 teams generally only think of themselves so any who receive more money won’t want to give up that advantage. For once though I’d like the teams to think of the sport first rather than themselves because as will have been mentioned before if there are only eight teams how long till one or two of them go bust because they’re not performing. Then how many cars will you get each team to run? 

Two car teams is Formula 1, a fair division of monies making teams sustainable should be the desired aim. Bernie Ecclestone should be thinking of distributing the money much more fairly rather than giving him and FOM the vast majority of it as there is enough money in F1 whereby each team could survive easily.

Anyway onto Singapore where I expect all 11 teams to be running, Rosberg is traditionally pretty good under the city lights, he nearly won for Williams a few years ago. He doesn’t have to as he’s plenty in hand but he’d like to beat Hamilton there, if anything just to stop the momentum building against him. As for Lewis, well he proved today he knows how to tackle his championship deficit and that is to attack. 

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Italian Grand Prix Forecast

The Italian Grand Prix is the fastest race of the year, and I’ve a feeling not many Formula 1 fans can wait to see Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton charging towards the first corner at over 220mph to see what happens next in this thrilling title battle.

Monza is also the shortest race of the year because having the foot hard on the throttle for most of it speeds things up. It has no real corners apart from the two Lesmo's and the Parabolica, this year gravelless with tarmac replacing the run-off area which has made some drivers mourn the loss of what is a challenging corner. Now, as with so many other tracks the punishment for making a mistake is sadly lacking.

So with long straights and other than the aforementioned corners, slow corners this is really a track about power, with the drivers having to hustle the cars through the chicanes and the kerbs which can make a difference, but generally it's a track where a driver can't steal too much of an advantage.

There’s the usual two DRS zones, one on the start finish straight and one between turns 7 and 8. Pirelli are bringing their medium and hard compound rubber, I would have thought a one or two stop strategy would be the way forward, but tyre wear can be quite high, although a lot of the time manageable for just the one pit visit.

Of course those compounds won’t be used if it’s raining which looks a distinct possibility at the moment for at least one of the three days. Friday looks cloudy, Saturday could see rain for qualifying, while race day appears sunny for now. Mercedes would probably like it to be dry just to make it more likely there won’t be any unfortunate incidents.

There’s been huge amounts written on the rights and wrongs of what happened at the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago when Rosberg made an attempt to pass Hamilton at Les Combes that was never going to come off. The resultant damage of one puncture for Hamilton (and later retirement) and damaged front wing for Rosberg cost the team an almost certain 1-2 and left the Mercedes bosses full of anger and Rosberg with an enhanced championship advantage.

In no uncertain terms they blamed Rosberg for the collision, Hamilton then claimed to the press that Rosberg had said he'd not avoided the collision deliberately to 'prove a point' after a team briefing immediately after the race something which Rosberg denied at the time. Of course the press exploded with Rosberg being rather unfairly labelled a great many things.

Last Friday the Mercedes drivers were summoned to the factory where statements were hurriedly issued confirming that Rosberg regretted his actions and had apologised to Lewis and the team. Lewis on his side said that mistakes had been made on both sides and they would be able to work together in the future. The team said Rosberg had been sanctioned (rumoured to be a six figure sum of money) and that they would now move on with the drivers still free to race.

I do feel that Rosberg has been slightly hard done by. It was a clumsy move but I still think that Lewis could have left slightly more room. There's been a few times this season when the silver cars have been fighting where Lewis has rather robustly shut the door, only avoiding contact because Rosberg backed out. In a way it's understandable that Rosberg left the nose in to show he won't be shoved out of the way all the time. It could have been done better, like when there might have been a bigger chance for the move to have come off, but what's done is done.

Still if Rosberg wanted to prove a point it's not worked out too badly. Hamilton has said, admittedly before last Friday's statements, that he wasn't sure if he could trust racing alongside Rosberg anymore. Not what you want to hear as a racing driver as I'm sure you want to be respected for your skills but Nico might enjoy the thought that Lewis might hesitate when fighting him thereby making life a little easier. Having said that, I don't think that thought will last long, Lewis won't give up the fight so easily and when it comes down to it they both know that Hamilton has the edge in wheel to wheel combat and he always will.

He'll be on a  mission to finally put one over on Nico this weekend. A clean weekend where he can let his driving do the talking and get his title mission back on track. It'll start in qualifying where he'll be desperate to be back on pole position for the first time since Spain, six races ago. Then in the race he'll blast off into the distance leaving Nico trailing as Lewis thinks he should. It's just unfortunate that Nico seems to have been underestimated for such a long time, even now when he leads the world championship, I think it'll be a close one between these two.

Whether it's a fight for victory is very much open to debate in my opinion. In the last forecast I wrote that many others had written that Belgium would be a major chance for the Williams team to battle for the top spot. I always thought that was slightly optimistic, but on this one I think not. Powered by Mercedes, Williams often have the highest straight line speeds of anyone, as I've said there's a lack of any real corners to challenge the teams aerodynamic deficiency, so I would be surprised to not see at least one of them on the front row. Actually no, let's predict a Williams front row lock out providing it doesn't rain as H2O is not their friend.

Who'll be on top? On current form you'd have to say Valtteri Bottas, but remember it was Felipe Massa who scored their pole position earlier in the season in Austria. Massa particularly will really want to get on the podium this weekend after seeing his team mate on the rostrum four times out of the last five races. But if I was going for a winner I'd have to say Bottas. But wouldn't it be brilliant to see Massa score a win in Italy after his eight years of Ferrari service. I'm sure the crowd would appreciate that, especially as the likelihood is that Ferrari will be nowhere this weekend.

The Scuderia Team Principal Marco Mattiacci has made no secret that their home race is going to be a difficult weekend. This can be attributed to the power deficit Ferrari have to Mercedes. Still, they were expecting to struggle at Spa too but got a relatively competitive fourth and seventh out of Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso.

Obviously it isn’t the results Ferrari would usually like but it gives a little optimism for the weekend ahead. Having said that I think fourth at Monza would be very impressive, in general I think if they can get some decent points from the lower half of the top 10, they should be happy. It was nice to see Kimi finally shine a bit brighter last time out, hopefully he can continue that form, while Alonso had some tremendous battles, once again he’s always a driver to look out for.

I would think Red Bull will be the best non-Mercedes powered team this weekend. Running with the down on power Renault, they showed surprising speed on a power track like Spa. They did run with a miniscule rear wing but still were just about holding their own through the corners thanks to possibly the best chassis on the grid.

Daniel Ricciardo won his third Grand Prix of the year last time out adding yet more superlatives to what has been a brilliant year of racing for the Australian. He proved the better driver on race day over his four time champion team mate Sebastian Vettel despite being out qualified. 

Vettel seems to be able to extract his qualifying pace again in this car but too often his race day speed has not materialised. So far off the pace of Ricciardo and also damaging the tyres more was Vettel that he’s been given another new chassis this weekend in the hope of improved form. However, I don’t expect either Red Bull driver to feature on the podium this weekend no matter how small the rear wing, but if one were to appear I think we know who that would be.

Of course we’d like to see this race be more than just a Mercedes power unit fest, but Force India and McLaren could find themselves a bit further up the grid. Jenson Button would dearly love to have the car to show what he can do as he fights to stay on the grid. I think it’s a bit unfair of McLaren to be so publicly courting other drivers. Button is a good driver, if you build the car around him and give him exactly what he needs then he'll get you wins even if a title would be slightly optimistic.

Unfortunately for him it looks like they want a driver who’ll be able to be flat out whatever the cars circumstance. Kevin Magnussen was impressive at Spa but got handed a rather harsh penalty for being too aggressive. I'm sure he'll go all out to make up for it this weekend.

Toro Rosso grabbed a couple of points in Belgium curtesy of Daniil Kvyat. I’m sure he’s capable of doing that again but Jean-Eric Vergne needs to start beating him more regularly if he wants to stay on the grid next year. Sauber have been looking a bit more hopeful recently but it’s unlikely they’ll be points scoring. Kamui Kobayashi looks set to return to Caterham after the team failed to sell his seat to the highest bidder.

So, drivers fighting to stay on the grid, now and for next year, battles in the midfield, battles to take an opportunistic victory and the continuing and increasingly bitter inter team fight for championship glory. The Italian Grand Prix looks set to be unmissable.

all photo's taken from autosport.com