WRC cars in aggressive tarmac trim, the stunning beauty of the Moselle Valley, as far as world class rallying goes, it doesn’t get much better than this.
So strap yourself in and enjoy reliving Thierry Neuville’s maiden WRC victory. There’s some awesome photos in our latest rally installment; we hope you’ll like them.
We could get used to watching Daniel Ricciardo winning Formula 1 Grands Prix. What about you?
With his Belgian Grand Prix victory Daniel has made it two wins in a row, for a career total of three race wins. Mark Webber had nine wins and Sebastian Vettel a very handy 39 wins (one with Toro Rosso).
Those of you quick on your sums will have worked out Red Bull Racing now has 50 grands prix wins in total. Let’s hope Daniel keeps on closing the gap to Sebastian, even if it is a massive mountain to climb.
Oh yeah, there’s a stack of pics for you after the break, too!
Infiniti’s Director of Performance, aka Sebastian Vettel, has become the first Formula 1 driver to complete a flying lap of the Sochi Autodrom Grand Prix circuit.
Forget, for a moment, the debate over whether F1 should be going to Russia; the race will go on. So you may as well jump in the car with Seb and have a look around before the lights go out on 12 October.
Fellow Red Bull ambassador David Coulthard was with Sebastian in Sochi and had this to say: “There are several corners where you could do yourself some serious damage—they’re fast and it’s a street circuit with walls.”
Here’s around four and a half minutes of world class rally action recorded during the weekend’s Rally Germany. The event saw Thierry Neuville notch his first win for himself and his Hyundai team.
We’ll have a photo gallery from the event online in the next few days, until then you ca enjoy this footage from Rallymedia.
We all know thermal imaging cameras in Formula 1 are pretty cool. And that’s just when they show a tyre heating up under load during a corner. Imagine how totally awesome it would be to see an F1 car doing donuts!
Thanks to FLIR Systems we don’t have to wonder anymore. Instead, we can marvel at the pretty lights of the Red Bull RB8 performing its dance for us at a recent demonstration event.
[Source: WTF1]
It’s always great waking up the morning after an Aussie has won a Formula 1 race. One of the pleasures that comes with Daniel Ricciardo’s win at the Belgian Grand Prix is reading the thoughts he gave to the media after the race.
Remarkably, Daniel Ricciardo’s three wins so far this season is only one behind Nico Rosberg’s four victories. And while we do hear a lot from Daniel, of course, the press focused on the contact between Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. That contact not only ruined Hamilton’s race but gave Daniel a small opportunity to win and, thankfully, he was able to rise to the challenge.
[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
Daniel Ricciardo has enhanced his already soaring reputation after he won a dramatic Belgian Grand Prix. It’s Daniel’s third Formula 1 race victory and the first win by an Australian at the admired Spa circuit since Sir Jack Brabham won on the old 14km layout in 1960.
Mercedes was expected to dominate the race but a clumsy move by polesitter Nico Rosberg on Lewis Hamilton, who made a lightning start from P2 to claim the lead, threw the race result wide open. Rosberg clipped Hamilton’s left rear tyre leaving the Briton with a puncture and pouting bottom lip. Rosberg, too, lost momentum when his front wing had to be replaced and opened the door for Ricciardo who was good enough to capitalise on the glimmer of hope that came his way.
Hamilton’s undertray was damaged when he limped back to the pits and proceeded to whinge his way through the grand prix until he finally got his way and the team brought him in to retire with a handful of laps remaining.
Rosberg was able to work his way back to P2, finishing just a few seconds behind Ricciardo, but he wasn’t missed by a loud contingent of race fans who booed him during the post-race podium celebrations. A harsh reaction perhaps, although his own team has Rosberg in its sights. The contact with Hamilton was clearly Rosberg’s, fault but it was much closer to being a racing incident than any deliberate sabotage. Still, the end result saw Rosberg extend his championship lead by 18 points.
Valtteri Bottas drove a relatively quiet race to claim the final podium step, a position he’s made his own in recent times. Kimi Raikkonen showed outstanding pace at times on a track where he was won four times previously and finished P4.
The closing race scrap for positions P5–P8 was breathtaking, with four drivers mixing it wheel-to-wheel and regularly swapping positions. In the end the results fell to Sebastian Vettel, Kevin Magnussen, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso.
Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat rounded out the top 10, not that either were able to attract much camera time. While Andre Lotterer’s F1 debut lasted just one lap.
Ricciardo’s win has cemented his third place position in the drivers’ championship, he’s now only 36 points behind Hamilton, who is 29 points behind Rosberg.
[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
UPDATE: Kevin Magnussen was handed a 20 second post-race penalty from the stewards after forcing Fernando Alonso off track. That pushes Magnussen fro P6 down to P12.
Thierry Neuville has outlasted his competitors at Rally Germany to register his first WRC win and, of course, the first rally victory for Hyundai Motorsport as well. The 26-year-old Belgian was the fourth driver to take the lead on the tarmac roads of the Moselle wine region and the only one not to crash out of contention.
Defending world champion Sebastien Ogier was the first to retire when he careered through a barrier at high speed early in Saturday. He and co-driver Julien Ingrassia were very lucky to escape with no injury.
Ogier’s demise handed a relatively comfortable lead to Jari-Matti Latavala who was chasing his first WRC victory on tarmac. Alas on Sunday morning the Finn lost control on the opening stage and sent his car deep into picturesque vineyards. Kris Meeke was the next to take the lead hoping to post a best possible result for Citroën, but he too crashed out shortly after Latvala.
And so Neuville was the last man standing as it were. Rounding out a great rally for Hyundai was the fact Dani Sordo finished in P2, 40.7 seconds behind his team leader. A 1–2 result is an oustanding way for the Korean manufacturer to post its first WRC victory.
Latvala will rue his missed opportunity to close the gap on Ogier in the championship title race. He is still 44 points behind Ogier but could have cut that gap to as few as 16 points with the win and three bonus points.
None of that will concern Neuville and a beaming Nicloas Gilsoul who will be celebrating their maiden WRC win long into the night.
UPDATE: Hyundai’s official reaction to the win has been added below along with a Day 3 highlights video.
Three-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner André Lotterer will replace Kamui Kobayashi at the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend. At this stage the 32-year-old German has been given one race to impress in Formula 1 and Kobayashi will remain on Caterham’s driving roster.
Lotterer, known for his role with the Audi LMP1 program, has driven a Formula 1 car in the past, although not for some time having previously been the official Jaguar test driver back in 2002.
“I am delighted to be given the opportunity to take part in a Formula One race weekend,” Lotterer said. “I want to thank Caterham F1 Team for this chance. I’m ready for this challenge and I cannot wait to jump in the car and make the most out of the weekend ahead.
“I will need to get settled and used to the car quickly, as the team has worked on a number of updates and we will need to have as much time as possible out on track to optimise the car’s performance.
“I really enjoy racing at the legendary circuit of Spa-Francorchamps, it’s one of my favourite tracks and it’s very close to where I grew up, so this makes the weekend even more special and one to remember.”
It has been rare in recent years for drivers to move into F1 from sports car racing and it could be a difficult weekend for Lotterer at Caterham, a team which has struggled for consistent results so far in 2014.
As well as the key WRC-spec machines at this weekend’s Rally Germany there will be another car attracting headlines. It’s this 997 Porsche 911 GT3 which has been built by Tuthill Porsche.
The Porsche 997 RGT has, as its name suggests, been prepared in accordance with FIA WRC rules for GT cars. Business owner Richard Tuthill will do the driving while former Chris Atkinson co-driver Stéphane Prévot will be calling the notes.
There’s a couple of videos after the break showing the car in action. We wish Richard and Stéphane all the best this weekend. Let’s hope it’s not the last we see of them on the WRC tarmac circuit.
A desperately overjoyed Lewis Hamilton climbs into the Mercedes-Benz simulator and gives us a preview of the much loved Spa-Francorchamps circuit ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Lewis has one Belgian GP winner’s trophy in his cabinet (actually that’s not true, McLaren will have kept it). That win was back in 2010 and he’ll be hoping to add to that with victory on Sunday. As always the race is must watch viewing for any F1 fan.
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
– Ferris Bueller, 17
First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Helmut Marko and Red Bull for all their trust and giving me the chance to make my Formula debut in 2015 with Scuderia Toro Rosso. Ever since I was seven years old, Formula 1 has been my career goal, so this opportunity is truly a dream come true.
– Max Verstappen, 16
Max Verstappen, son of Jos the Boss, and currently just 16 years of age will replace Jean-Eric Vergne at Toro Rosso in 2015. He will be 17 and 167 days old when the Australian Grand Prix is held on 15 March next year, comfortably the eldest boy youngest man to race in Formula 1.
Previously, Jaime Alguersuari held the title of youngest man in F1 when he made his debut at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, aged 19 years and 125 days.
This time last year Verstappen Jr was still racing karts. He graduated to Formula 3 with Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing at the start of this season and scored a podium during his debut race weekend at Silverstone. He’s since added eight victories from his 27 starts to date, included in that haul was a run of six consecutive wins.
All very impressive no doubt, but F1 won’t be an easy step and it will be fascinating to see what the latest Red Bull protege can bring to the sport.
You only have to look at the soon-to-be-discarded Jean-Eric Vergne to see that you don’t get much time to shine.
[Source: Toro Rosso]