Calm Montmelo or how to make the tyres slightly thinner 🏎🚦🇪🇸

It is time to speak about Montmelo, my dear friends. Many people think that race in Barcelona is usually one of the most boring ones as it is hard to overtake here. Many drivers on the contrary think that it is one of the best circuits to check if the car's good enough as it has all the types of turns and straights. Anyways, Formula 1 is never boring, am I right?

1. One-two for Mercedes from the first line: predictable or not?

Valtteri loses the start - this is the first thing I wrote down in the race notes. Well, he lost the start but the car was so unbelievably good, softs and mediums worked just great and Seb possibly made a tactical mistake, so both Lewis and Valtteri could finish where they started. Moreover, not only Valtteri overcame Seb during his first pit-stop but Seb made the podium impossible for himself after changing from medium to the medium.

2. Crash-boy Roman

The start of the race is usually the trickiest thing in all the races but this time it was unusually tricky as Roman lost the car after Kevin's move and hit Pierre and Nico, so both became the victims of this misfortune. All three drivers were immediately out whilst others were to follow the safety car. Both Brandon and Sergey pitted under the SC but without any specific changes to their strategy as they had to pit secondly later anyways.

3. DNF time

The race wasn't specifically epic in terms of crashes and fights but it was epic in terms of how many cars were out for some reason. Unfortunately one of leaders Kimi became a victim of an engine fail twice this weekend, so he couldn't end the race. Another one who had great moments against Fernando in the beginning of the race, Esteban became a victim of right rear problem which cost him a few places on the grid firstly but also an engine problem later which made him to retire. Stoffel penalized with five seconds after the wrong move in the beginning also couldn't see the chequered flag. The last one to suffer DNF was Brendon as he stopped one lap before the finish without an obvious reason. It was added to his misfortune whilst FP3 where he crashed the car completely and couldn't even take part in quali.

4. Podium with killed wing

The one who had a tiny crash but managed not only to finish the race but to finish it on the podium was Max who pushed so much that hit his front wing and lost a part of it. He commented on the podium later that it didn't look nice but it was drivable anyways.

Max wasn't the only youngster impressed public in this race. Charles not only managed to bring points to the team, to show amazing performance in quali entering Q2 but also push and compete against Fernando and others on track. That was really amazing.

5. Spain is orangy-yellow

Fernando as the real homie not only brought the Spanish flag to take it out on the cooling lap but also showed his respect towards another Spaniard Carlos who did the same. Talking about surprises, another great one was both Haases in Q3 and for me, of course, the starting line of the grid for Mercedes.

Unfortunately there were negative moments as Lance ended up in a wall in all pre-race sessions including quali. Dani, Roman and Checo also ended up crashed each once during FP1 and FP2 whilst Kubica made his come back to F1 and managed to safely finish his FP.

Talking about tactics, it was all pretty obvious: supersofts didn't show any speed difference comparing to softs so almost the whole grid except few drivers decided to start the race on yellow tyres to later change onto the white ones. By the way, Pirelli made the tyres thinner as Mercedes asked to do it as asphalt in Barcelona was changed recently to the new one. The time records were beaten faster than you can imagine as the new track coverage in May made it possible. Rain didn't come to Montmelo, so the race was pretty calm. Probably that is all that I should have mention in the racing blog.

Thanks for reading and until Monaco!

The team comes first... Is it? 🥇❤️🏎

It's never too late to jump on track under the safety car, innit? Hellooo, I missed you so much! My racing blogs are back so am I. Here's my first post in a while on the best race in the season I believe but who knows? Enjoy!

1. Crucial puncture for Valtteri and unexpected win for Lewis

Am I happy? Well, it is hard to say. As you might know I am a huge Mercedes fan and I wasn't quite into first three races this season so I didn't see all Lewis' losses. This race gave me hope from the very beginning firstly because I knew it is a motor track, secondly because I knew it is a crazy track. The whole race was a mess and when the last safety car stayed on track after absolutely unexpected crush for Roman (which I am honestly sad about since he had tough times in quali with his gearbox) and Valtteri managed to pit not only changing the tyres to ultrasofts but also coming in front of Seb you can imagine how happy I was. Later on everything happened in a perfect way - Seb blocked his front rears and lost 3 places not to Valtteri only but to Lewis and Kimi so we expected a one-two for Mercedes. But lady luck decided in other way. Some kind of debris and the puncture. This. Was. Crucial.

Lewis was lost during the interview and right after that he went to Valtteri to say that he had the amazing race. So the champ was late to the podium. The team comes first.

2. Red Bulls on fire

The team comes first but probably not for everyone. Red Bull lost huge points and possible podium because of how stupid their pilots was. I am sure you have seen the crush in details already. It was an amazing fight where one overtook another for a few times in this race.  In my opinion (I might be totally wrong) the blame is 50% on each. Dani saw that Max changes his way constantly and he should have understand that he would keep doing this not to let him in front so why speeding so much? Max also knew that Dani would fight so he should have left the space just in case Dani is irresponsible for a moment. What happened - happened. Both drivers went to Milton Keynes to apologize for the team. Smart decision from Christian.

3. Safety car leads the race

Apart from two main dramas in this race (I mean Valtteri puncture and Red Bull clash) we also had a few collisions called safety car. The start of the race was predictable. I mean - it is Baku, the most epic track of the season. The first ones to prove it were Kimi and Esteban. French ended in the wall whilst Finn on the podium. This is amazing how Kimi managed not only bring the damaged car to the pits, come back under the safety car but to climb on top and even beat Seb. Amazing job. Alonso was as good as Kimi in bringing car to the pits after becoming a part of a sandwich alongside Sergey (unfortunately retired) and Carlos but not so good in climbing on top.

4. Not to mention

Not to mention the driver of the day - Charles who brought his first career points to Zauber and was just great. He was congratulated by his mate Pierre who also had a great start making it to P7 in the first laps after having a little accident with Marcus. Marcus finished P13 and was the last one not to retire as Nico joined the company from mentioned above. Also not to mention Checo who got his second podium in Baku after overtaking Seb in the very end and Carlos showing a nice drive after overtaking both Red Bulls in the beginning.

5. What have you expected?

Overall after quite a calm qualifying with Seb on pole I expected anything but what happened. Before the start I knew just one thing - as Kimi was so fast but didn't make it to the pole after his mistake in Q3 Lewis need to win the start but he didn't. The times were lower than last year because of the season and all the teams struggled to find the temperature window. Winds and dust caused many mistakes, we saw a few wall-crushes in FPs and almost a clash between Pierre and Brendon in Q1 when the last one struggled a puncture. The weekend was interesting enough to write more but I'll stop.

Baku is always great and it is still a big dream of mine to write this blog from Azerbaijan GP paddock which I am sure I will do one day! Thank you for your attention and stay with me. Until Spain in two weeks :)

Lewis on his knees while Ferrari on its worse again 🏎🏁🙌🏻

First of all let me appologise for the totally messed up schedule since the time difference is huge and physically I wasn't there while mentally I was.

Suzuka weekend was an interesting one. And, yes, I hope you have missed my blogs since I couldn't update you with Sepang one (it will go live just after this one). So let's get right into what happened in Japan.

1. Lewis on his knees

Let me take a moment to appreciate gratitude shown by Lewis after the race. Here I am not only talking about his words that he owns everything to the team as they were meticulous but mainly his after race actions. Yes, he just fell on his knees in front of his car and bowed his head. This moment became even more emotional since we've heard the team's radio at the very end of the race when Lewis' racing engineer said: "I think that was engine".

Yes, Lewis got some real problems at the very end of the race where he had an amazing start and a few good restarts (SC and VSC). Max who had such an amazing start with a few good moves as well could even overtake three-time World Champion if he had a few more laps. Red Bull number 33 definitely had better pace, I mean he had been regaining about 2 seconds from each of his final laps. Well, that is not a surprise since Mercedes has installed the fourth engine in Spa (X races ago) to keep burning the same amount of oil for more races than Ferrari.

By the way, Lewis added one more pole to his career statistics and finally made it on Suzuka (since it was the only track in current calendar where he had no poles yet). As well as he set a new track record here (1.27.319) which wasn't beaten since 2006 (Schumacher, yes) I bet. So Mercedes was lucky enough to bring their car back to life (they were even faster on softs than everyone on supersofts in FP3) and to get some really good points on the tracks no one expect them to while Ferrari were loosing more and more.

2. Ferrari on its worse

On the contrary, Ferrari problems became kind of a surprise for everyone. Third time in row. Who expected Seb not to fight against Lewis in all three asian races. After struggling almost the whole weekend and being fast just on Friday while everyone expected that the higher temperature must work better for the red cars Seb had to retire in the very beginning of the race having technical problems.

The sequence of misfortune for both Ferraris kept going after Kimi crushed in FP3 causing second red flags in a row and got the gearbox change and 5-position grid penalty. He also couldn't make a good start and even lost a few positions being out in a "spoon" turn at the beginning but at the end of the day managed to finish P5 still. Though it does't make sense at all since Ferrari is not fighting for Constructors Cup anymore being so far from Mercedes (145 points) and he is not an opponent for Lewis nor on the grid nor in the Championship.

Sadly for Seb the time when everyone expected problems for Mercedes became the time when Ferrari became the one to struggle the most.

3. Valtteri is back?

Yes, that is THE question. As Mercedes got their pace back (finally) at Suzuka being so weak in Singapore and Sepang (here I mean the condition and not the race points) and made the updates work (at least a few of them) Valtteri is still struggling to make it closer to his teammate. After Malaysia Valtteri had to admit that all the races after the summer break weren't his best time. Having such problems pilots usually start complaining about the car, the updates, the tyres, the team and whatever but Valtteri admitted that it was just his fault as his piloting style is not that much suitable for Mercedes and he needs to change it. Wow.

As Mercedes was back on top of FPs Valtteri managed not only to set the best time in FP3 (and in the race too) but to crush his car causing more red flags on Suzuka and got the 5-place grid penalty as well. So qualifying P2 and starting P7 Valtteri almost overtook Daniel at the very end of the race which smiley Australian described as "we were almost holding hands". But it wasn't a double podium for Mercedes while it was for Red Bull.

Although, Lewis again asked the team to put him in front of Valtteri as it was a few times throughout this season and Valtteri showed himself as a perfect team player nevertheless it was too obvious for everyone else. Here I must shortly mention close situation in Force India where Checo was not happy with Esteban in front and asked the team about overtaking. As he received the negative answer he claimed that youngster was too slow and had to pick up his pace. Just saying.

4. Bulls are getting stronger

From race to race we can see how Red Bulls climb higher. Firstly Christian Horner claimed that they are going to become closer to Ferrari at the end of the season but in fact they are closer to Mercedes now and better than Ferrari (no offends to any Ferrari fans). Double podium in Malaysia and double podium in Japan and we are getting used to see on the podium not just Daniel but Max as well - as a winner at Sepang and as a challenger to Lewis at Suzuka.

As Max was challenging Lewis and Daniel was challenged by Valtteri the team was happy enough with second race without DNFs for them and with Renault engine itself. Thanks God.

5. Carlos says goodbye to Toro Rosso while Jolyon says goodbye to Formula 1

While the main team becoming more and more stable Red Bull youth team Toro Rosso keeps undergoing some huge changes. After Daniil was replaced by debutant French driver Pierre at Sepang for both Malaysia and Japan another emotional announcement came by. Carlos who was about to go on loan to Renault next season is leaving the team right before Austin which means both Pierre and Daniil are to race in the United States. It also means that Jolyon is not staying in Formula 1 anymore as there is no any place in other teams (except William short list which Jolyon is not in).

Both these situations are emotional enough. Unfortunately the last race for their teams didn't end up well for both pilots as Carlos crushed his car twice this weekend: firstly in FP1 causing red flags and getting 20-position grid penalty and secondly in the race causing yellow flags and safety car and had to retire and Jolyon got 20-position grid penalty and finished just P12 not gaining any points. Farewell to Jolyon and good luck to Carlos and his new team in Austin.

6. What's more 

What is more about this weekend is that we saw very diverse rain conditions from normal on slicks to rainy on wets on Friday and back to normal on slicks on Saturday. As the whole FP2 was too rainy we saw just five pilots showing times on wets with HUGE aquaplaning for brave Esteban and Lance but many different boats on the pit-lane :)

We also were unfortunate enough to see Fernando going to the back of the grid at Honda home track getting 35-position penalty in front of amazing Japanese crowd. We were also unfortunate to see how Pierre, Lance, Marcus and Pascal were denied a chance to show better times and were out in Q3 after Roman crushed and caused red flags.

Still, we were fortunate to see Esteban making a great move and pretending to grab a podium for a while driving P3 after starting P6 which was amazing for the youngster. Marcus' crush, more yellow flags, virtual safety car, tough fight in the middle of the grid between Felipe, Kevin, Roman, Nico and Pierre, Nico's retirement because of the stuck DRS and Lance's retirement because of understear problems, curbs and edginess pushed hard - that what was the race about out of the Mercedes-Ferrari fight ruined by Red Bulls.

I hope you enjoyed this race as well as this blog. And, yes, Lewis might become a champion in Austin but let's talk about this later!

I will see you in my old-new blogpost on Sepang coming by. Stay tuned :)

Lewis leading the championship on the Ferrari land 🏎❤️🇮🇹

Sorry to disappoint a huge Tifosi crowd but Mercedes not only got a one-two at Monza but made it to the top of the championship with Lewis putting Seb down with three points now.

What an amazing race, first of all. I honestly thought that Monza might be boring in case there was not much to do for the teams who had less power than Mercedes and even less to do for those who could not compete with Ferrari as well. But after quali I definitely changed my mind - if you haven't seen it, then go and watch because that was the thing that made this race so unpredictable and interesting at the same time. Not to mention all the grid penalties, a ton of them. They truly messed up the starting grid. 

1. Epic wet quali

Note: this part of the blog was pre-written on Saturday while the feelings were fresher.

 Okay. Just let me breathe normally cause the quali was E-P-I-C. Let's start with the fact that four hours instead of just one were worth seeing Lewis beating all-time record and getting his 69th pole. It was also worth seeing AMAZING Lance and Esteban, and of course Max who unfortunately couldn't start where he finished. Well, have you ever expected a grid like this? I mean, yes, in Monza.

The whole Saturday wasn't that well for everyone as long as we only had 16 minutes in FP3 and the quali was stopped after less than five minutes when Roman crushed after HUGE aquaplaning. It was dangerous to go on track - it was true but fans and TV and everything demanded quali to take place at the right time. Sadly for Roman who started the race P20 as he didn't make it to 107% and also got a few more positions on the grid because of the penalty.

After the track was cleaned of debris we had 2,5 hours of expectation before the action would be back. And guess what? Since Q1 was restarted from 13:31 everyone was switching from wets to inters and back to wets during the whole quali and that was interesting. Who expected both Williams to be in Q3 and be so fast? Who expected Red Bull to almost claim the pole or even one-two in Q3. I mean WHO EXPECTED LANCE P4 AND ESTEBAN P5? Here I really feel sorry for Max and Dani not to start from their positions but SO HAPPY for youngsters to start P2 and P3, especially Lance to be the youngest ever on the front row! 

By the way, sorry those who love red cars but Ferrari sucked at Q3 and there's no explanation why both drivers couldn't manage their cars, tyres and speed. I mean even McLaren with all their problems made it to Q3 with one car (Stoffel) claiming that Fernando could knock his teammate out but did not. 

2. Lewis dominating on Ferrari land

Alright. Lewis? Again? Yes! Record breaking, fast, confident and now leading the championship Lewis Hamilton made it at Monza! In front of huge Tifosi crowd with all those red flags everywhere. 

He has not only beaten Michael Schumacher's (yes, Ferrari pilot) all-time pole record but claimed a great victory leading almost the whole race and making a great start as well while everyone else was struggling (his teammate Valtteri even lost a few positions at the very beginning). And now he is leading in the championship before seven most diverse races of the year. Champ? I hope so.

3. Almost retired Max and brilliant Daniel 

As I already mentioned we got lots of grid penalties that time. Can you imagine that eight of twenty drivers were thrown to the back of the grid while Lewis was the only one to start the race from where he was qualified. So, both Red Bulls became victims of those penalties and both started from the back. But guess who finished almost on the podium? Yes, it was Dani and we kind of got used to such go-throughs from Australian. Driver of the day (from P16 to P4) with those amazing overtakes.

Being that happy for Daniel I remember the moment when my heart almost stopped. It happened when Max got a puncture after their contact with Felipe and had to pit and start his race from the very back again. Thanks God he did not retire and even finished P10 after two pit-stops and driving the car with Renault engine. 

Max was quite not a gentleman in that race as he squeezed Kevin out of the track fighting for the 10th closer to the end and crushed into Roman at the very beginning of the race damaging both Haas and his own front wings.

4. Youngsters under pressure 

My excitement had no borders on Saturday as Esteban and Lance claimed those amazing results in rainy quali and got P3 and P2 on the starting grid. Align all this excitement I already knew how much pressure they both would have. Especially Lance starting from the first row next to Lewis. 

Unfortunately they both couldn't manage the faster cars behind and both lost their positions finishing P6 and P7. Lance even was attacked by his own teammate on the last lap but Felipe stopped at the right time as there was a chance to be overtaken by Checo who was right behind them all. 

5. Karma in progress

Another fight "on the edge" happened in the very middle of the grid while Jolyon had to cut the chicane and gained a place in front of Fernando who was so unhappy with that fact on his team radio that he kept saying that the penalty was ridiculous and only after hearing that Jolyon had retired he was satisfied saying "karma". 

Although, Fernando himself had to retire on strategic purpose as well as Sauber's Marcus did. Among those who had retired as well was Fernando's teammate Stoffel who had "no power" (normal Alonso quote).

Then we saw Lewis and Valtteri standing next to Seb in front of huge Tifosi crowd. Here Lewis said a volcanic thing that "Mersedes' power is better that Ferrari's" and that was so true but so risky. At the same time Seb explained that something didn't work in the car the biggest part of the race so he wasn't pushing too hard. I can go on remembering those things for ages but let's just sum it all up here.

What did we see this weekend? Breathtaking classic Monza race (no safety car for 6th time in a row here), unpredictable rainy quali, LOTS of grid penalties and a totally messed up starting line, huge speed over 250 km/h, some ordinary problems like Sainz' engine and Magnussen's broken suspension on Friday. Interesting weather conditions. Not proven Force India's team orders (in case of no need) aaaaand total Mercedes' domination on Ferrari land.

That is all from Monza. Just seven more races left and Singapore's next, Have a great week and don't miss a thing!

Lewis joining the "winning 200th GP club" while Max competing in number of retirements 🏆💪🏻😵

Cheers to all Formula 1 fans as the holiday break is finally over and we are warming up before the very end of the season in Spa. Spa is amazing. Spa is unbelievable. Spa is everything Formula 1 needs: fast corners, speed straights, areas with critical G force level, engine power, aerodynamics and downforce - all in one. People say this track is where engine matters the most but its not just about what's inside the car but about its chassis as well. So the weekend promised Mercedes to be in front of everyone else in case they are much better in power this season but unpredictability is still what we love in this sport.

From the very first free practice wasn’t that clear who gonna dominate here in Spa that time so Mercedes had to push harder not to loose "their" track to Ferraris. And what was the most surprising that it wasn’t Seb who was "flying" the whole weekend but Kimi who has just signed the new contract with Scuderia and was able to focus on JUST driving now (not that he didn’t before).

As Seb lost all the FPs to his teammate he was still able to make it to the front row of the starting grid because of Kimi's mistake (as it was clearly claimed). Seb admitted that he probably wouldn’t be able to start the race from P2 if Kimi compiled his best lap in Q3. 

So Seb not only lost his first part of the weekend to Kimi but also the race to his principal rival - Lewis being too active at the restart and not able to attack after pushing too close before Eau Rouge. Well, Seb still has 7 points before Monza next week but it doesn’t seem too promising for him.

1. Lewis dominating in his 200th Grand Prix

Weekend at Spa was very special for Lewis in many terms. First of all, his 200th F1 career Grand Prix and his 200th race start on Sunday. Secondly, his 68th pole which means he has equaled Michael Schumacher. Thirdly, new Spa track record - 1.42.553 sec.  And the last but not the least being able to join the "winning 200th GP club" alongside Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg. Good job and just 7 points left to start climbing over in the championship again.

2. Valtteri losing the podium in his championship fight

While Lewis was definitely shining the whole weekend being voted the driver of the day, his teammate Valtteri wasn’t doing that well from the very first FP finishing P5 and loosing two positions in the race because of the fatal mistake he made just after restart letting not just Kimi in front but Daniel to finish on the podium as well.

Although Valtteri admitted that he still IS in the champions fight as long as eight more races are left in this season. Promising for his fans but barely real as long as the team claimed the possibility of team strategy in the end of the championship.

3. Max losing his patience next to Fernando

Not only Mercedes and Ferarri have divided into two parts when one teammate is happier than the other. Red Bull suffered as well since Max' car had to be retired in the very beginning of the race in front of 80 thousand fans from his homwland wearing orange. 

Sadly it became the 6th retirement for Max this season and as he claimed he is now competing against Fernando (who probably declined finishing the race pointing on "engine problems" that were not found) in terms of retirements. The bad luck continues as long as Max is sure that not too many races like this left for him to quit the team.

4. Force India's on fire

The sensational highlight of the weekend was definitely the double crush between two Force Indias both times provoked by one and only Checo Perez. Firstly he decided to overtake Esteban squeezing the frenchman into the wall and secondly he didn’t let him to attack before Eau Rouge so both of them might be retired after the possible crush (thanks, God, it didn’t happen). Fortunately the biggest damage for Esteban was his broken front wing changed under safety car. At the same time Checo suffered from the puncture of the right rear and ended up retiring from P17. 

Team management finally commented on the situation making it clear that it was the last time the team let both drivers to race. Now they are about to listen to the team orders and if not - there might be further actions. It is probably what we have waited for so long from Force India.

4. Daniel a.k.a the king of restarts

The safety car provoked by the actions of two "pink panthers" pissed off Lewis being caught between SC and Seb (who still had the chance to work on his tyres behind Lewis). Lewis was so unhappy with the ACTUAL safety car on track in case it was too slow for him. 

After the race Mercedes' boss Totto Wolff commented on this incident as a lucky one to help to change the damaged tyres on Lewis' car and win the race. The same SC gave the chance to Daniel a.k.a the king of restarts to give his best to finish on the podium for the 6th time this season. Incredible result from Australian.

5. Best of others

Alongside this huge fight in the front there also were some interesting breakthroughs from the middle of the grid. Not to mention Felipe who had quite an unfortunate weekend crushing his car way too much on Friday, failing the quali and getting the 5-place penalty for speeding under yellow flags on Saturday but still finishing P8 from P16 on Sunday. 

Kind of the same it was for Roman struggling with the brakes (from P11 to P7) and for Daniil having some technical problems, plus, being penalized (5 positions on the grid) blame on Toro Rosso (from P19 to P12). Really good job for Renault with Nico finishing P6 and Jolyon being still good after getting the 5-place penalty as well. And, of course, Stoffel: 60-place pen on the grid but still finishing P14 in front of some others (I mean driving on Honda engine). 

Misfortune caught not only retired Max and Fernando (with no power as usually) but also Pascal who had to retire after a few laps and Kevin whose Haas had really good pace this weekend but the team couldn’t manage tyre situation and had to extra pit under the safety car in the wrong time.

This whole weekend was quite interesting in terms of diversity of what happened: red flags after Massa's crush on Friday, raining session with two drivers to try it on the track (Danny and Fernando), inters in the beginning of Saturday, track record beaten multiple times again, best race lap from Seb -1.46.577 sec., special helmets from Max (orange one) and Felipe, lots of gearbox penalties (Marcus, Pascal, Jolyon, Daniil, Stoffel), speeding under yellow flags penalties (Felipe and Kimi) and one "tyre" penalty (10.000$ for not giving back Lance's tyres after 40 minutes of FP), contract extensions (Kimi, Seb until 2020 and Stoffel) and looooots of different tyre strategies.

Bad times for Williams, huge improvement for Renault, kind of a promising end of the season for McLaren - that's what we saw. Lots of contracts for the next year to be signed, interesting fight for the title between Seb and Lewis, records to be beaten and hearts to be on fire - that's what awaits us in less than a week at Monza. Stay tuned!

P.S.: Just wanna let you know how much I missed writing those race blogs :)

Birthday blog: the most important life choice 🖤🏁😳

Better late than never. Here we go. My birthday blog or what was the most important of what happened to me last year.

I haven't been thinking a lot. My choice was clear. The most important and life-changing thing was my choice to work in motorsport. 

It isn't a long story. It isn't too romantic but I wanna share. So in March 2017 I've been working for the sports department in Russian information agency called R-Sport. That time I was chosen to cover Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix in Sochi having the advantage of three foreign languages.

In the end of April I came to Sochi and felt dumb. It was super hot (I prefer cold and rainy weather). The whole area was strange but nice. We went to the circuit on Wednesday to explore and on Thursday for the media day. Firstly I didn't like the whole Formula 1 thing. It was too unknown and too fancy. My four days there led me from hating the Paddock thing to absolutely loving it. I met so many amazing people from drivers to journalists who seemed strangers to me at first but became a kind of a family at the end. That moment I realized: F1 is an independent, maybe strange but amazing world. 

Valtteri won for the first time in his life. I was happy for Mercedes but sad for Lewis finishing P4 and for Danny being out. I stood in the Paddock watching the teams packing and I felt like a very important part of my life is leaving me alone. That evening was frustrating. Later some more important things happened. Football cheated on me but I don't feel like telling this story here. 

I came back to Moscow, lost my job (not the best point of my life either) and decided to watch Spanish GP. Just in case. That moment was absolutely fatal. I loved loved loved F1. Since that GP I started watching every single one, decided on starting this blog and writing for motorsport media. It all worked and I couldn't be happier.

I am sure I have so many future opportunities like working full time and becoming a proper motorsport journalist in Paddock. It all awaits me in my closest future and, yes, now I can tell. I AM IN LOVE WITH MOTORSPORT AND I LIKE IT ❤️

Onboard nightmare: FIA confirms "halo" for 2018 🏎💔✋🏻

Hello there. Are you a person who loves changes or you'd better stay more conservative? If it's new it's not necessarily bad - I used to say being quite conservative in many cases. Not in this one. 

On July, 19th FIA confirmed we are going to have Halo protection system for the championship 2018. Here's the part of the statement: "Following the unanimous agreement of the Strategy Group, in July 2016, to introduce additional frontal protection for Formula One and the repeated support from the drivers, the FIA confirms the introduction of the Halo for 2018. With the support of the teams, certain features of its design will be further enhanced."

Well, I really do think it looks ugly and I am not the only one. I really do think that most of the people somehow connected to F1 are 100% supporting opened cockpits and this "old" way of racing. But if everyone's against than who decides? Why the decision comes despite the total disapproval? Too many rhetorical questions in my mind. Let me shortly go through the options, its pros and cons and leave you to think about for a while (as long as we all have nothing to do but to accept).

Options:

I've been surthing through the internet after I read those terrific news in my twitter and found an interesting poll on motorsport.com. The options there were: accept Halo, accept shield, leave everything as it is, go back to aeroscreen, make cockpits closed and look for other options. So I tried to analyze  shortly what do I personally think of every option. 

For me aeroscreen and shield are quite alike as long as they have the same purpose in different form. Their pros and cons are also a lot alike: making it difficult to see through (blame on glares), getting easily dirty in bad weather conditions, probably some kind of aerodynamics thing (not an expert in this) and so on. Since I haven't been watching F1 for a long time I don't really know a lot about aeroscreen. But I do know about the shield since it has been tested in Silverstone last week and Seb defined it as inconvenient. It is not what I'd like to see but looks 100% better than Halo - that's for sure.

Closed cockpits WILL BE definitely a disaster as long as we know Formula 1 as a championship with opened wheels and opened cockpits. It might just ruin the whole spirit of this amazing sport. Looking for other options is still leading us to cockpit changes which I do feel are not going to be easy acceptable for a long time. Leaving everything as it is is probably THE BEST way which is not happening after that statement.

Talking about Halo, here I will try to give you some pros and obvious cons. 

Pros:

The only real pro which I personally see is the protection from big debris or strong impacts during the accident. That is true. I am not such a big expert but probably it doesn't influence aerodynamics as much as other tested protection systems do so doesn't make worst changes. I cannot come up with more pros but probably they exist.

Cons:

It is ugly. Onboard view is going to be kind of a nightmare. It does not protect from small debris. It has nothing to do with the wind and the downhill power on pilot (especially corners) which is good and bad at the same time. Probably it makes it way more difficult to see through. It also makes it more difficult to exit the car in some particular situations (accidents). 

Well, I can go on for ages. Unfortunately it is the fact now and we can only hope that F1 teams have the power to change the situation (since there we no accidents LATELY which showed that we need this kind of a system). 

The only point to add is the Lewis's words from 2016 he addressed to Halo possibility: "I hope that's not what they bring out, I really do. But if it is, ultimately it's the drivers' protection so we should have a choice individually - I should be able to decide whether to put that on my car. It wouldn't be something I'd choose. I like it the way it is now - when I get in the car I know there's a certain risk. Safety is a very important issue for sure, but there are risks that we take and you have to decide how much of a risk you are going to take. I'd rather drive without it and risk it." Thanks, Lewis!

I am confused, I am embarrassed and I am frustrated. I am also sure you feel the same right now but I'd love to let me know what you think on Halo in any of my social media or e-mail. This blogpost is not a statement but more of a discussion I wrote being emotionally punched by FIA. Thanks for reading though!

Last lap drama in Silverstone: Mercedes beats Ferrari 🏎😳🏁

Oh my God! First of all, congratulations to all Mercedes and especially Lewis fans - that was absolutely amazing. I could be only happier if Max would finally get the podium but we got what we got. Silverstone is by far my favorite track in F1 championship which is making me even sadder on the fact that GP-2019 is going to be the last one due to financial struggles (should I write a post on this?). Here we got the fastest corners where it reaches over 5.2G downhill power (if I am not mistaken in its name). 

And yes, this weekend we got the new track record from Lewis - 1.30.621. Amazing Lewis! Leading from the very beginning of the race and being on top during the whole distance was absolutely stunning. The only wrong moment (in my opinion) was the accident after Valtteri pitted and Lewis refused to let him in front to gain pace for both of them but said "I will drive him with me". I would be probably crazy if they lost their leadership because of what Lewis did but all ended up really well. 

1. From sinner to hero

As you probably remember Friday before the British Grand Prix was dedicated to the amazing F1 show in the center of London. All teams participated except one driver - one and only Lewis Hamilton. Yes, the pilot who has most love in GB decided to keep focusing on the upcoming race and title fight which meant that he took a few days off and skipped the event. Critics never ended. Lewis got a BILLION questions during the press-conference on why he didn't come to the event. The talks were all about him and his fans treatment. 

If you ask me what I really do think on that I'd say he has the right. He is one of the most famous drivers and he does a lot (sometimes not in front of the cameras), so it was his decision which he has the right to. 

Anyways he became kind of a sinner to everyone but I don't think he lost fans love. What happened next you should remember. Pole position (67th in his career and 5th in Silverstone which means he has equaled Jim Clark and is about to beat the record completing the same result next year), race win, new track record, new quali time record (1.26.600) and crowd surfing while two Finns patiently waiting in the press-conference :) Hero? I must say yes.

2. Mercedes got lucky enough

Let me begin from the very end of the race. What was that? I mean that tyre-drama two laps before finish. That was absolutely epic. Post-race reports keep saying Kimi and Seb had different type of tyre-issues but that looked really crazy. Pirelli started the investigation and I must say it is highly interesting to know what happened and brought such bad luck to both Ferrari drivers and lots of very good luck to Mercedes.

Being honest, I did not believe that Valtteri had a chance for the podium being almost three seconds behind two laps before finish, starting P9 after his five-place penalty (he qualified P4 which was strange since he was leading FP's whole Friday). Unless this absolutely unexpected problem happened and Kimi lost his pace immediately. I am pretty surprised that he still drove himself to the podium struggling so much.

Ferrari confirmed that those tyre-issues caught them by surprise. But what is most strange about that all is that the SAME problem with the SAME wheel had happened not only to both Ferrraris but also to Red Bull's Max. We saw Kimi quite frustrated on the podium, not the most emotional man was definitely sad about finishing third and not at least second (should we talk about the possible win here? Probably not). His teammate and the championship leader (1 point over Lewis - not a lot) Seb was even more unlucky having a puncture and urgently pitting which led to finishing P7 - not good for him at all.

3. Pit-stop lost for Verstappen

Talking about Max, I am pretty sure that he lost the podium during his first pit-stop. Yes, he probably could stay longer when all those happened to Seb and Kimi and still have a chance for the podium. But I do really believe that he could have the momentum if his first pit-stop would be one second faster. Yes, maybe it was that one second when he lost his position. Of course the team and Max himself explained that there was real need in this and they could not do better. But I still think they could. 

As long as Max did a great start and was defending so strongly against Seb before his pit-stop he surely had a chance. By the way, Christian Horner keeps confirming that both his drivers are about to stay in Red Bull for the next season - reminding you all "just in case" as he said.

4. Amazing honey-badger

Another Red Bull driver on the contrary had a lot of fun overtaking cars as he claimed. Starting P19 having gearbox five-place penalty and super frustrated quali (not even finishing Q1 blame on some technical problems the car had) Daniel finished the race P5. He could even start the race P20 if retired Alonso didn't get more penalty positions on the grid - I mean 30.  

Well, what Daniel did was kind of obvious for me because Red Bull definitely has a better car than many other teams so Daniel was about to fight against Force India, Williams, Renault, etc.- it is not easy but it is way easier comparing to what Valtteri did fighting against Red Bull and Ferrari. Anyways, Daniel finished P5 which is cool and was voted the driver of the day which I do feel is great cause my heart was choosing between him and Valtterri that time. 

5. Sainz vs Kvyat - to be continued

Toro Rosso got lots of bad luck this weekend and their drivers are the only ones to blame. Who crushed in this race again, do you have any guess? Absolutely yes! Daniil and Carlos, ladies and gentlemen. Two teammates who cannot stop fighting against each other. Even situation between Force India's Esteban and Checo became way smoother since they crushed in Baku. 

What I really DO think is that they both are kind of wrong (I mean a little bit embarrassing, of course). Anyways, Daniil keeps saying it wasn’t his fault and Carlos had hit him. Carlos keeps saying it WAS Daniil's fault as long as he crushed into him. In my Spielberg post I wrote: "they'd better behave smarter". Unfortunately they do not read my blog.

6. McLaren on top

Fernando made it possible, probably not in Q3 or the race where he had to retire again due to engine issue. He made it possible at least in Q1 pitting at the very end and being one second away not starting the fast lap on slicks at all but he DID it! Round of applause and lots of screenshots!

Talking about Q1 it definitely was quite chaotic as long as the start of the session was rainy enough to go for green tyres and the end of Q1 was all about changing into slicks and improve the time. By the way, the interesting fact of QUALI which I feel like mentioning here was Kimi. He showed the better time than Seb - that was a good kind of answer to the criticism he got from team management lately. 

7. One lap less - Palmer off

This time we got 51 laps instead of 52 and the reason to that kind of change was Joylion who got a technical problem which didn't let him not only finish the race but even start it. Probably that didn’t make a lot of difference as long as three cars had to pit one more time at the very end. Rumors about Joylion being close to replacing by Kubica, Sainz, Alonso or whoever keep surrounding him and this situation did not help at all.

The finish itself was quite not that predictable as long as we got Hulkenberg P6 and Massa only P10 instead of what we used to see from Williams lately. Grosjean finishing P13 was quite unhappy with the fact that his incident with Lewis took no further action "in case that Lewis is fighting for the title" as he claimed.

Silverstone forecast promised the rain to mix the fight but it ended up not happening which probably was OK for most of the grid. Race itself showed us so much and made the fight for the title waaay more interesting since Lewis is just one point behind Seb and twenty three above Valtteri.

Personally I can't wait till we see the next half of the season since Hungary 'cause literally EVERYTHING can happen here! See you in less than two weeks, amazing F1 lovers.

Mixed feelings in Spielberg: Valtteri drives himself into the champions race 🇫🇮🚀🏁

Greetings to all Formula 1 lovers, I just wanted you to know how much I missed writing racing blogs. Quite a lot happened, nah? But we don’t have too much time to think as long as Silverstone's coming up this week (literally in 4 days). So lets go right into what happened in Spielberg.

Overall the race itself was better than personally I expected it to be. It has even raised some new questions and put some new struggles in front of the pilots, teams and fans.

1. We are NOT playing bowling, man

A little bit epic start of the race - that is what happened actually. Probably I am not the only one who is still trying to figure out what has happened in the middle of the grid when Daniil hit Fernando (trying to overtake or as he claimed sliding as long as his wheels were locked) and then they also hit poor Max whose race was over after he couldn't manage a proper start struggling with his grid. Alonso would say on the radio: "They cannot play bowling". Fernando was frustrated as he had the chance not to struggle with technical problems for the first time in God knows how many races and was out as well as was Max. 

The fact that Daniil got 2 points (making it up to 7 in general as well as his teammate Carlos) makes it more possible that there WAS an actual mistake in his actions. So the blame is on him in some case but the team commented this situation as "normal racing accident". Anyways it doesn’t help the people who left the race as well as it doesn’t help the strange situation in Toro Rosso. Let me clarify what I am actually talking of. 

2. Sainz against Toro Rosso in "media war"

If you are a F1 follower you probably have heard about Carlos' situatuion evolving the whole weekend. Spaniard literally claimed that it is unlikely for him to stay at Toro Rosso for the next year and he is 100% aimed to go to the main team (where both drivers have lasting contracts until no one is going to leave the team for the better - here I mean Max and the rumors about him replacing Kimi in Ferrari). If not - Carlos is about to leave. The reaction of both Toro Rosso and Red Bull head management was quite expectable as long as Dr. Helmut Marco, Christian Horner and Franz Tost made it clear that the team program gave EVERYTHING to Carlos. He also has an activated contract for the next season already. After that Carlos became smarter and explained the misunderstanding of his words. But still the start to the "media war" has been given.

The only thing I feel like adding is that both Kvyat and Sainz haven't shown anything tremendous this season and they both keep failing a lot in the races so they'd better to be more patient not to be fired from Formula 1 team at all.

3. Bottas drives himself into the champions race

Following the development of the race I feel like the most important thing was the fact that Valtteri held the leadership throughout almost the whole race and didn't let Ferrari to overtake him even at the very end when it was quite dangerous for him with Seb in DRS-zone. A few same situations happened in the middle of the grid (where Lewis as well tried to fight it out to the podium against Daniel) but it was just a question of bigger points for middle-teams. 

Valtteri was voted the driver of the day which I think (not as a Mercedes fan but as a neutral author) is quite justly. Valtteri's not only drove himself to the second career win here in Austria (4th win in 4 races by Mercedes at Red Bull Ring) but also to the champions race where he is 15 points behind Lewis and 35 points behind Seb now. Actually it is not that bad since it was just the 9th race of the season and so many things are still possible to happen. 

4. Pole jump-start

All the talks about the Valtteri's jump-start from the pole position were ridiculous. The motorsport rules have nothing about the times when drivers should react after the lights were off. I mean there's nothing fixed, so maybe 0,2 sec is too little but definitely not too early anyways. So what are people talking about now?

As a big Lewis fan I was also quite disappointed after he got five place gearbox penalty this weekend which made almost obvious he wasn’t about to win but could have fought for better points comparing to Seb. Suddenly after the race itself 1/3 of my sympathies went to Valtteri remembering how amazing he is as a person and as a driver. 

By the way, the last thing we can still hope is Mercedes being patient in this championship race and not depriving Valtteri the chance of getting the title. Well, here I need to mention that I LOVES Lewis' after-race reaction (especially considering his inappropriate request in Baku).

5. Red Bull struggle: Max retired for the 5th time in 7 races while Daniel collecting the trophies

The most controversial feelings (as well as Valtteri win and Lewis "loss" for Mercedes) caused me "win" and loss of Red Bull drivers. Seeing Max retiring almost every race is painful not because he is a cute boy from Netherlands but because he IS a really good and fast driver. He is the one of those who has this potential to fight for podiums and wins (especially considering the fact that Red Bull has a nice car with probably not the best engine this year). 

You probably can tell how frustrated Dr. Marco was since Max is considered as his favorite driver and most of the time the retirement is NOT pilot's fault but technical stuff. Red Bull keeps gaining points thanks to Daniel. He (after brake problem retirement in Sochi which was 4th race of the year) keeps finishing on podiums and even won the whole thing in Baku. There must be a lot of mixed emotions inside the team in that case. I just hope they will solve the problem if team really wants to keep Max for the next season.

6. Tyres on the limit

Being honest it was my first race where I saw tyres working on their limit (and yes, I've seen not that many GPs). Before the race I thought it was going to be two pit-stops race (not the biggest expert in this, sorry). 

At the end of the race I saw that Lewis was pushing literally everything from his Ultra Softs and Valtteri was doing the same with his Super Softs. I cannot tell that this race has been a race of "tyre strategy" in general. Probably. The only fenomenal fact F1 experts we mostly talking about was Lewis making it on SS in quali so he had a different strategy. Here I should mention that he had this 5-place pen on the grid so he knew he wasn’t fighting for the speed at this point but for the consistancy. 

Actually in the end I was pretty sure someone would go for the second pit (I mean leaders) but it was too dangerous so we got what we got. Looking at the tyre strategy graphics I was only impressed how different was Felipe's decision as long as the whole grid used almost the same strategy in different variants.

7. No rain despite the expectations in Spielberg 

I mean the rain happened just after the race. However, the forecast before the race showed 50% chance of rain. In that case some of the drivers were probably kind of hoping on the wet track to help them slide into bigger points while others were absolutely against this possibility as long as it might have ruined their better results. 

Anyways, it didn't end up raining so far we saw some AMAZING times. Michael Schumacher's record from 2004 was beaten numerous times and Lewis was the fastest man on Sunday even though he didn't drive himself to the podium. Remember the new record, everyone: 1.07.411!

Some other race moments I would love to mention to end up my blogpost are the emotions: Seb being honestly frustrated with his second place. Valtteri refusing drinking from Daniel's shoe and asking him: "are you laughing?" Kimi being in a conflict with Ferrari management and saying he IS doing everything he can. Lewis calling his  result  mediocre but being nice to what Valtteri did. I bud really liked all this honesty we saw.

We haven't seen anything extraordinary from Force India drivers that time even after them talking a lot on each other (which I am going to write the next post on). We saw good pace and good result from Roman and Haas (Kevin retired unfortunately) as long as they kept struggling the grid thing throughout the weekend. We saw some driver skills proofs from Felipe and Lance finishing in top-10 since Williams managed to qualify in the 1st segment. Not to mention yellow flags in the end of Q3 which helped Valtteri to get the pole position and made it impossible for Lewis, Max, Seb and others to improve.

Not a bad race, guys. I can't wait to see what will happened in GB. See you very soon!