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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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Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz

2014 German GP: Qualifying report

2014 German Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg will start tonight’s German Grand Prix from pole position after his teammate Lewis Hamilton crashed out due to a brake failure in Q1. In his first lap of Q3 Rosberg laid down a marker (1:16.540) that nobody could match. It’s his fourth pole in the last five races.

In the first serious hit out since the teams ditched the FRIC suspension the order we have come to expect in 2014 remained largely in tact. Perhaps we’re not used to seeing both Williams drivers in the top three, but their form has been on the improve in recent times and seeing Valtteri Bottas (1:16.759) almost challenge for pole was not a total surprise, nor was seeing Felipe Massa (1:17.078) in the frame as well.

In P4 was Kevin Magnussen (1:17.214) who claims McLaren has benefitted from the recent suspension changes. Once again Daniel Ricciardo (1:17.273) has qualified ahead of Sebastian Vettel (1:17.577) and the Red Bull pair will start from P5 and P6 respectively.

“It wasn’t too bad today, we would like to be further forward than fifth, but the lap I did was pretty good,” Ricciardo said. “I made quite an improvement in Q3 from Q2 so I can’t really argue with the lap I did, but as a team we are still a bit off.

“We know the Mercedes is strong, but the Williams was also continually showing their pace today and the McLaren with Kevin was good, so we have to keep working but we did what we could.

“I think the race will be close between the top eight tomorrow and it will be a battle for the final podium spot.”

The top 10 was rounded out by Fernando Alonso (1:17.649), Daniil Kvyat (1:17.965), Nico Hulkenberg (1:18.014) and Sergio Perez (1:18.035).

The major drama from qualifying was Hamilton’s crash in Q1. He is okay, although he was a bit shaken and has bruised knees after making heavy contact with the tyre barrier. Immediately afterwards Lewis claimed a brake failure caused him to lose control. Mercedes later confirmed a front right disc failed.

Mercedes has changed the discs on Lewis’ car and will now most likely start the race from the pit lane.

Nico Rosberg explained in the press conference he knew he could not be affected by the same problem as he runs different brake components to Lewis. Which is an interesting discussion point on its own.

Rosberg will be hoping to cap-off a great start to his home grand prix with a win, something made that little bit easier by Hamilton’s woes. Perhaps, things are just going to go Nico’s way this year.

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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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Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz Red Bull Racing

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 British GP: Qualifying report

2014 British Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg will start from pole position after a topsy turvy qualifying at the British Grand Prix. It’s the German’s fourth pole for the year and once again he was lucky to gain a big advantage over his key championship rival and teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Rain was present throughout all three qualifying sessions which meant the times were a bit all over the place. Both Ferrari drivers and both Williams drivers missed progression to Q2, which will add extra spice to the race as they try to charge past slower cars.

But it was the final session which held the main drama. All drivers except Sebastian Vettel set times in the early part of Q3 with the results seeing Lewis Hamilton (1:39.232) on provisional pole ahead of Rosberg.

Midway through the session rain became heavy in parts of the track and drivers sat it out in pit lane waiting as late as they dare before reemerging for a last gasp effort.

Hamilton and Rosberg crossed the line to start their final laps with moments to spare, the provisional pole sitter ahead of his teammate. Rosberg desperate to push for P1 was right on Hamilton’s tail. The first two sectors were slow for Rosberg, but he kept pushing. In the final sector he made up significant time and landed pole position (1:35.766) with a time more than three seconds faster than Hamilton’s who had aborted his final lap.

Other drivers to benefit from pushing right until the end were Vettel (1:37.386) and Jenson Button (1:38.200). Nico Hulkenberg (1:38.329) was the first of the late runners to show there was time to be made up in the final sector and briefly held provisional pole.

In the wash up Hamilton finished in P6 and looked bitterly disappointed with that outcome as he emerged from his car after quali.

Daniel Ricciardo was in P4 after the first round of laps early in the session but chose not to set another lap and he will line up from P8 on the grid. It’s fair to say Daniel was surprised at how much faster his opponents could go.

“I didn’t expect it to go quicker at the end of the session there, as the rain kept coming,” Ricciardo said. “We really thought the track wouldn’t get quicker, Vettel only went out as he didn’t have a time at that point. We have to learn from it I guess – I’m gobsmacked how much faster the circuit got, it must dry a lot quicker here than I thought. We’ll move forwards from there tomorrow.”

The final grid, which has been affected with a number of penalties, can be seen after the break along with the full text from the post-qualifying press conference.

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Mercedes v Volkswagen: Four-cylinder warfare

Mercedes-Benz A45 AMG engine

Mercedes-Benz has returned serve to Volkswagen in the increasingly public battle for four-cylinder supremacy.

Recent concepts from Volkswagen and Audi have shown the Volkswagen Group is looking to push beyond the 300kW (400hp) mark with a revised version of its familiar EA888 2.0 litre.

Jochen Martin Schmid, AMG Powertrain Development engineer, has boldly stated Mercedes will win this battle.

“We cannot, and will not, let them get ahead of us,” Schmid declared. “If that means the start of a new power war for four-cylinder cars, then it’s the start of a new power war for four-cylinder cars.”

Schmid gets specific, too, saying the 2.0 litre used in the A45 AMG has more development potential.

“Theirs is based on the EA888, right? That’s a pretty old engine now and ours is a completely new concept with room for development,” he said.

The cause of these power games can be traced back to Volkswagen’s recruitment of Friedrich Eichler, the man who oversaw the introduction of AMG’s first four-cylinder engine, used in the A45. With 265kW/450Nm it currently holds rank as the world’s most powerful production-based four-cylinder engine.

Despite Schmid’s dismissal of the EA888 engine, Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, Audi Chief Technical Officer, is showing faith in his product.

“For production, we have to change the cylinder-head, because in the EA888 it has the exhaust manifold in the cylinder-head now,” Hackenberg explained when talking about the 309kW/450Nm TT quattro sport concept. “With this engine and its output, it produces too much heat in the head to keep it like that, so we have to change it.

“But, apart from swapping in some stronger parts, it can still be made within our production system.”

The net result of all this is the fact it’s looking like the A45 AMG Black Series, or whatever Mercedes has up its sleeve, will have to push beyond 310kW (415hp) if it’s going to win this war.

You know, it’s not all that long ago we used to salivate over the 309kW/430Nm 4.2 litre V8 in the B7 RS4. And soon we’ll be having that sort of power in a Golf-sized hatch. Keep fighting Mercedes and Volkswagen, keep fighting!

[Source: motoring.com.au | Thanks to John for the tip]

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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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Mercedes-Benz Motorsports Video

Good luck at Le Mans this weekend Mark

Peter Dumbreck flips at Le Mans

Let’s hope it goes better than last time.

That’s Peter Dumbreck flipping his Mercedes CLR during the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans. Mark Webber was in the same team and famously suffered the same fate during qualifying. Mark flipped his car again during the morning warm-up session. His car was withdrawn and he did not start the race.

This weekend, with Porsche, is Mark’s first return to competition at Le Mans since his DNS in 1999.

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