MiniDrivers - 2015 United States Grand Prix

1992 Mexican GP (full race)

I promised this in my preview so here it is!

2015 Mexican Grand Prix preview

Wow! What year is this? The Mexican Grand Prix? I am seriously happy the Formula One circus is returning to Mexico! The last time they hosted a Grand Prix was in 1992 if I remember correctly.

The race in 1992 was all about the two Williams drivers and one other who became a legend through the years. I am of course talking about Nigel Mansell, Riccardo Patrese with Williams and Michael Schumacher with Benetton. Young Schumacher took his maiden podium here. Take a look:

I also found BBC's preview for Mexico that was released earlier this year:

I will post the 1992 race also later on so please check that out if you are interested.

Now let's see my predictions:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Race:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
2. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
3. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari

Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Surprise: Sergio Perez and Felipe Massa might get good results here.

Post your own predictions to our F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE!

The rules:

POINTS:  1st - 3  2nd - 5  3rd - 10 

HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun. 

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick! like the Mercedes. 

THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW, MH and JI. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway. We may also come up with some other prize if it helps. 

That's it for today and if you want to send me feedback then email me: f14lifeblog@gmail.com

FIA press conference schedule - Mexico

Newly-crowned world champion Lewis Hamilton and home hero Sergio Perez will be amongst thew driver facing the press in Mexico City on Thursday, while on Friday Ferrari’s Maurizio Arrivabene and Honda’s Yasuhisa Arai will join other senior team personnel in answering questions from the media. The line-ups in full…


Thursday, October 29, 1100 hours (1700 GMT)
Fernando Alonso (McLaren), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Pastor Maldonado (Lotus), Sergio Perez (Force India), Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso), Will Stevens (Marussia)

Friday, October 30, 1600 hours (2200 GMT)
Yasuhisa Arai (Honda), Maurizio Arrivabene (Ferrari), Robert Fernley (Force India), Claire Williams (Williams), Toto Wolff (Mercedes)

The qualifying and post-race conferences with the top three drivers will take place immediately after the respective sessions.

(source: f1.com)

The Mexican Grand Prix - did you know?

Mexican driver Esteban Gutierrez is rumored to get the second seat of Haas F1 Team for 2016.

Did you know that Sergio Perez will be just the third Mexican driver to start a race on home soil, or that the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is located at over 2,200m above sea level? Ahead of the first race in Mexico City for 23 years, we present some of the more obscure facts and figures about the race...

This year is the 16th occasion that Mexico has featured on the world championship calendar, but the first since 1992. All 15 previous races have been run in Mexico City, at the circuit now known as the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.


Nigel Mansell was the victor in that last race in Mexico, 23 years ago - his second victory in the country. Only two other drivers have won as many races in Mexico - Jim Clark (who won the inaugural race in 1963) and Alain Prost.


Richie Ginther is one of nine other drivers to have won once in Mexico, the American claiming his only - and Honda’s first - Grand Prix victory in 1965. In fact, the Japanese manufacturer has always fared well in Mexico, with Honda-powered cars having taken a record four victories and four pole positions in the country. However, given McLaren’s current form there seems little hope of them adding to that illustrious tally this weekend…
A number of other milestones have taken place in Mexico: Mike Spence, Jackie Oliver and Michael Schumacher scored maiden podium finishes in 1965, 1968 and 1992 respectively; Jo Siffert and Clay Regazzoni captured their first pole positions in 1968 and 1970; and Gerhard Berger claimed his - and Benetton’s - first F1 win in 1986. Berger’s triumph, incidentally, was Pirelli’s first in Mexico, and was achieved on a zero-stop strategy.


The aforementioned Jim Clark is the only driver to have completed a ‘Grand Slam’ (pole position, fastest lap, led every lap, victory) on Mexican soil, doing so in the inaugural event in 1963 in what - at 2h 9m 52.1s - remains the longest race in the country to date. The legendary Scot came close to another slam in 1967, taking pole, fastest lap and the win, but failing to lead from flag to flag.


Speaking of Clark, the Lotus driver was responsible for the biggest margin of victory in Mexican Grand Prix history when in 1963 he beat Jack Brabham by 1m 41.1s. In fact, four of the first six races in Mexico were won by over a minute, which is very unusual. On the flip side, the smallest margin of victory came in 1991 when Riccardo Patrese defeated Williams team mate Mansell by just 1.336s.


The 1968 race was one of those won by over a minute, though it was also notable for the lead changing five times between Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Jo Siffert, with Hill eventually emerging victorious (and claiming his second world title to boot). No other race on Mexican soil has seen P1 switch as many times.
The newly modified circuit runs clockwise and has 17 corners - seven left and ten right - which is three more than the version raced in 1992. The pit straight, meanwhile, is one of the longest in F1, and with the low altitude (and therefore lower drag) brake suppliers Brembo reckon the drivers should hit around 361km/h (224mph) before braking to 101km/h (62.7mph) for Turn 1 - a hefty 4g deceleration.


Located at over 2,200m above sea level, Mexico City is easily the highest altitude venue on the F1 calendar. To put it in perspective, Brazil’s Interlagos - the second-highest race location - is around 800m above sea level.


Guadalajara-born Sergio Perez will be the only ‘local’ driver on the grid for this year’s race, and just the third Mexican driver after Pedro Rodriguez and Moises Solana to start a world championship Grand Prix in his homeland.


Rodriguez - Mexico’s only F1 race winner - finished in fourth place in the 1968 race - the best result for a Mexican on home soil to date. Solana, meanwhile, was notable for having raced with the number 13 in his home race in 1963. The so-called unlucky number wasn’t used again for another 51 years until Lotus’s Pastor Maldonado selected it as his designated race number ahead of the 2014 season.


Finally, looking to the present day, Hamilton took his tenth win of the season in the United States, and thus, with three races to go, remains on course to equal Sebastian Vettel's single-season record of 13 victories, set in 2013. On a related note, the British driver needs to lead for just 23 more kilometres to break through the 3,000km barrier for 2015 - a truly astonishing feat when you consider the next best driver - Sebastian Vettel - has racked up just 866km in the lead.

(source: f1.com)

Rosberg totally mystified by late mistake

Nico Rosberg says he is at a complete loss to explain the error that handed Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton the lead - and ultimately the win and championship victory - in Sunday's 2015 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.

Race leader Rosberg slid off-track at Turn 12 with seven laps to go, handing Hamilton first place and paving the way for the Briton to seal his second title in a row with his tenth win of the season.

"I just got wheelspin," Rosberg explained. "It's never happened to me before, not even in testing. I can't explain it. It's unbelievable. To nearly spin by myself coming off a corner- I don't understand it.

"Obviously that was really, really tough at the time to lose the lead and the win like that. I was feeling really good - it just went wrong. My mistake cost me the win."

Polesitter Rosberg had worked his way back into the lead after slipping to fourth place at the start following contact with Hamilton in Turn 1. Speaking before he had seen a replay of the incident, the German said he believed his team mate had been 'too aggressive' into the uphill right-hander.

"I was ahead mid-corner, and I have a right to the track there," he said. "Lewis was too aggressive, one step too far, and that's not okay."

He also played down the significance of an incident in the post-race podium room, in which he tossed a cap back in Hamilton's direction after the Briton had thrown it onto his lap.

"The cap was nothing, just typical games," Rosberg said.

Rosberg eventually came home in second place after seeing off a late challenge from Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. However, he remains four points behind his compatriot in the standings with three races to go.

(source: f1.com)

Winners and Losers - United States

Sunday in Austin saw triumph for Lewis Hamilton, but frustration for fellow podium finishers Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel, who both came oh-so-close to keeping their title dreams alive. But what about further down the order? We take a team-by-team look at who was on the up and who hit misfortune at the Circuit of The Americas…


Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton, P1
Nico Rosberg, P2

Mercedes were vulnerable on the intermediate tyres in the early laps, once Hamilton had taken the lead in Turn 1 and eased Rosberg wide before they made slight contact. But after the first pits stops Rosberg took charge as the track began to dry and should have won easily but for subsequent safety car interventions.

He controlled the race after the first, but ran wide in Turn 12 after the second and handed victory to Hamilton. As he headed another Mercedes one-two, the latter achieved his goal of outscoring Vettel by nine points, to win his third drivers’ world championship.

There were suggestions afterwards, however, that his tactics in the first corner may have opened a fresh rift with Rosberg, even though the latter lost the win because of his own error.


Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel, P3
Kimi Raikkonen, Retired lap 26, brakes

Ferrari did everything right with Vettel. He was already seventh at the end of the opening lap after starting 13th because of his engine penalty, then climbed quickly to sixth. He then took a set of soft tyres and later tried to make it to the end on a set of mediums. The safety cars stymied that, however, but after a switch to another set of softs he was challenging Rosberg for second place all the way to the flag.

Raikkonen was less impressive and after a fight with Verstappen the Finn went off at the esses on the 20th lap, and had to fight his way out of the gravel and contact with a Rolex advertising hoarding. He retired his damaged SF15-T five laps later with right-front brake temperature problems.


Toro Rosso

Max Verstappen, P4
Carlos Sainz, P7

Verstappen was mighty yet again on his way to fourth place, racing hard with Vettel and overtaking the four-time world champion a couple of times. He made it through with a set of intermediates at the start then two sets of soft slicks, to take a superb fourth.

Sainz started from 20th after crashing in qualifying in the morning, but made amends with a strong drive to sixth on the road. Unfortunately, he dropped to seventh when a five-second penalty was applied for speeding in the pits after the speed limiter had failed, but the double points finish put the team within seven points of Lotus with three races left.


Force India

Sergio Perez, P5
Nico Hulkenberg, Retired lap 36, collision with Ricciardo

Perez was in contention for points all afternoon, though there was a spell when he was really struggling to generate tyre temperature when he fell back. A strong drive took him to fifth, however. Hulkenberg also looked good after a slow start on intermediates turned into a challenging pace on slicks. But on the 36th lap a section of his front wing broke (probably as a result of previous impact in traffic) just as he was trying to overtake Ricciardo. He understeered into the Australian, damaging his own right-front suspension and forcing him into retirement.


McLaren

Jenson Button, P6
Fernando Alonso, P11

McLaren nearly got both cars home in the points. Alonso collided with Bottas in the first corner and lost time in the pits, but made all that up under the safety car and was holding fifth place when his Honda engine began to lose power - possibly due to a fuel sensor problem. By the time he had reset that he had dropped to 10th and Ricciardo took the final point from him just before the finish.

Button, however, made all the right strategic choices, being the first man to stop for slicks to make them work and then calling for a third and final stop which gave him the rubber to take seventh on the road. That became sixth with Sainz’s penalty.


Lotus

Pastor Maldonado, P8
Romain Grosjean, Retired lap 11, brakes

Maldonado drove a relatively subdued race, which included only one brush with Button, to take eighth place, but Grosjean was an early retirement when a damaged duct overheated the rear brakes.


Sauber

Felipe Nasr, P9
Marcus Ericsson, Retired lap 26, electrics

On their 400th Grand Prix weekend, Sauber’s race started badly when Nasr and Ericsson collided, delaying the Brazilian. The Swede was a candidate for points until his C34 quit with electrical failure, while Nasr battled back, making full use of the safety cars, to take two points for ninth.


Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo, P10
Daniil Kvyat, Retired lap 43, accident

For a while Red Bull looked a definite contender for the win, as Kvyat and Ricciardo took the fight to Mercedes in the slippery early going on intermediates. The Australian led from lap 15 to 22, but faded thereafter as the track dried. He also got knocked about a bit, first by Hulkenberg, later by stablemate Sainz. That dropped him back to a 10th place finish on a day when he deserved much more.

Kvyat challenged Hamilton hard early on, but made mistake that cost him time and places before losing control on lap 43 and crashing hard into the inside wall on the approach to Turn 20.


Marussia

Alexander Rossi, P12
Will Stevens, Retired lap 1, accident damage

Rossi inadvertently hit the back of Stevens in the first-corner melee, putting his team mate out. But he made amends by equalling the team’s best result of 2015 with 12th in his home race.


Williams

Felipe Massa, Retired lap 23, damper
Valtteri Bottas, Retired lap 6, damper

Bottas collided with Alonso in the first corner and had to pit for a new nose. He risked switching from intermediates to slicks then, but was in four laps later to revert to intermediates. A lap later he was in again to retire with a recurrence of the damper problem he’d encountered in qualifying that morning.

Massa got held up in the melee too and sustained damage, but he would also retire with damper problems. It was the first time Williams had suffered a double retirement since Brazil in 2012.

(source: f1.com)