#perez hits the wall and daniels engine fails

[haas-been]

for my mental health i need the chaos of germany 2019 to happen again soon

[vro0m]

vro0m’s rewatch - 140/310

2014 Hungarian GP

Aww guys there's no build up again :( I'm always torn between less content but also faster race to watch tbh lol

Oh ho ho, so, they were expecting an extremely hot afternoon but 40mn before the race there was a total downpour and the track is now drying out, but the next shower is supposed to hit about 20mn after the start. It might be dramatic. 

It's Nico on pole again. Alonso is fifth, Daniel is fourth, LEWIS STARTS FROM THE PITLANE?! Oh fucking hell, what now. All I get from Wikipedia is that he and Maldonado both failed to set a time in Q1?! But for some reason Maldonado starts 20th and he starts from the pitlane? WHY. Oh seriously. You know what he truly is unlucky overall. Throughout his career there's so many seasons when he struggles with reliability and car issues that only affect him and not his teammate? That's basically the only reason why Jenson beat him tbh. Anyway. I'll look into it more once I've seen the race, I don't wanna spoil myself with the result. Rosberg starts along Seb, followed by Valtteri and Daniel. 

Formation lap. 

Kvyat is unable to leave the grid. He says he has no engine. He's being pushed away back to the pitlane. 

And they're racing! 

It's a bit of a slow start for Bottas but he stays ahead while Seb and Valtteri are wheel to wheel into turn one. The spray is unbelievable. Valtteri is ahead. Massa is somehow P4. P3 as he overtakes Seb. Yellow flags… oh no. Come on. I knew it. You knew it. We all knew it. Lewis is off. He's joining back but ffs. I was just talking about his bad luck, I can't believe this shit. Bono asks if he has any damage. "My front left… hit the wall i think. Just check my wing and everything. My brake just gave up!" Bono answers "OK copy that Lewis, so brakes are cold, brakes are cold." He indeed didn't get a warm up lap given he started from the pitlane so. Yep. They are cold. They think Lewis does have damage on his wing. Well. Let's see what he can do in 69 laps with that then. I'm so frustrated. I have so much stuff to say season-wise I'm drafting my season review in my head already. Nico sets the fastest lap 4 seconds ahead of Valtteri. Meanwhile Lewis is catching the back of the pack. He's complaining of vibration. He's P17 already though. And they're announcing the rain. Seb is closing on Valtteri. Lewis is shown struggling with grip still. But he's up in P15. Brundle says his lap times are starting to match the lead and his engineers have to talk him into staying into that race. And Nico just went wide as well. Lewis in P14. He overtakes Raikkonen for P13 after losing a part of his front wing on the track. Oh and that's a crash, Ericsson is out, yellow flags, safety car? Safety car. Three cars dive into the pits immediately. Ricciardo, Jenson, Lewis, Gutierrez and Perez race each other in the pit exit, it's chaos. Are these people on slicks?! Ted says there's no sign of the rain and they have to react to the track. Mmh yeah. Some of them are on inters still though, like Jenson. Hopefully we don't get more crashes from these decisions. Nico pits, Valtteri pits, Seb pits. 

It's lap 10, and the standings are in shambles. Let's see. It's Daniel (softs), Jenson (inters), Massa and Nico (softs), Magnussen (inters), and then Vergne, Seb, Alonso, Hulkenberg, Perez, Valtteri, and Gutierrez (all on softs). Damn that did not go very well for Valtteri, did it? Lewis is P13 at the moment. Safety car in this lap. Rosberg's car is smoking ominously? Oh and here ya go. That's another crash before they could even go again. It's Grosjean. So the safety car does not come in. Nico is told to not use the brakes at the moment. That… does not sound good. Safety car in this lap, again. Here we go. Jenson overtakes Daniel for the lead. His engineer tells him the rain is looking less likely so they have to push. Someone went off, but no crash. And Lewis is suddenly up in P9! He attacks Seb but it's too risky there. Nico attacks Magnussen for P4 but can't make it yet and JEV gets level with them now and he's ahead of Rosberg! That's Nico P6, and Lewis P8, a Seb sandwich! And Jenson unfortunately has to pit, the inters were a bad decision. Yellow flags again? Nico and JEV are side by side and just behind Alonso ooof oh did they touch? Nico went wide and brushed JEV's front right, he's still behind. Now Seb is looking at an opportunity to overtake him. The yellow flags are for Hulkenberg who's stopped somewhere. That's another DNF for this race. Ohh he went wide and collided with his team-mate Perez in the process. The fastest lap is constantly changing. Massa, Alonso, Ricciardo… and Maldonado collided with Bianchi and spun. They're both in the pits. There's a DRS train forming behind JEV now, who's losing time over Alonso. They need to overtake him. 

It's lap 20. Lewis is told his front left brake is looking hot. He's been following Seb very closely for a while, that's why. Now Seb goes deep but Lewis still can't do it because the track is still too wet aside from the racing line. And Brundle is right : what's more surprising is that Nico can't seem to overtake JEV. AND THAT'S ANOTHER BIG CRASH fuck. It's Perez, right into the pit wall. Safety car is back out. It's a bit scary. We can see his hands moving but right after the crash his head bows down. The Force India mechanics take off their gloves. Both their cars are out. There's debris all over the pit straight, that might take a while. Perez is out. He seems OK. Ted says he crashed right behind the wall where the Redbull and Mercedes crew are seated and that it gave them quite a shock. We're expecting another wave of pit stops then. What a bad race this is. Daniel pits, Massa pits, Valtteri pits (on mediums, weirdly, Crofty says it might be a gamble from Williams to try and keep him out a very long time). Rosberg : "Tell Charlie he needs to check if people were lifting on the straight past the accident. They seemed to be going flat out past the accident, especially the Toro Rosso in front of me, he just went flat-out." Bono tells Lewis it's critical to go past Seb and JEV. No mention of Nico who's in-between them lmao. And Kobayashi has stopped. Safety car in this lap, AGAIN. Keep in mind that behind Lewis is now Daniel on fresh tyres. And just as I write that, Lewis asks if someone behind him is on new tyres. He's gonna love the answer. 

On lap 30 Nico finally makes a move on JEV while Lewis attacks Seb but neither of them succeed. So we have Alonso in the lead, 3 seconds ahead of JEV, then Nico, then Seb, then Lewis, then Daniel. That's a lot of RedBull cars there. JEV locks up twice. Ted says if Valtteri and Daniel only stop once more, it'll be around lap 50. And then he's interrupted by a comm to Daniel that says that when these cars ahead pit they'll need to be quick, so save the tyres. Ted says "yeah I was just getting to that" because the cars ahead will need to pit around lap 35 so they'll have to stop again around lap 55, he thinks. And so Valtteri and Daniel will have a 20 and then a 22 lap stint "which is perfect". Let me remind you that Valtteri is currently P12 though. Let's see how that works out. The Mercedes mechanics are readying themselves, Nico is called in. "So box box box but do the opposite to Vergne,” he's said. And so he comes in because JEV doesn't. And oh! That's Seb, spinning the exact same way Perez did but he doesn't hit the wall and manages to keep driving. And that's a slow stop for Rosberg, 4.9… so that's Alonso, JEV, Lewis now, with Seb down in– Wow the replays of Seb saving that car are pretty fucking amazing. Look at that.

Unbelievable. 

So as I was saying, Seb down in P8, and then he pits so he goes down further, and Rosberg down in P12. And Lewis attacks JEV from the outside and then switches to the inside in the next corner and JEV locks up so Lewis switches sides again to keep the inside line but it's still not enough. Beautiful though. But he goes around the outside again and THAT'S IT let's go! 

As a note, both Perez and Seb spun as they set wheels on a certain piece of wet AstroTurf that apparently Charlie was talking about in the build up that we don't have access to. I wonder if he said positive or negative things about it. 

And Redbull tells Seb he's going to the end on these tyres (the mediums I imagine?). Mmmh. I mean. That's 35 laps. It seems like a lot. Lewis says the left side of his seat is heating up. That… Does not sound good. Now Lewis is closing very fast on Alonso but Daniel is not giving up, he's 1.9 seconds behind him and presumably, if Ted was right, he will only stop once more while they have to stop twice. Rosberg's engineer says Lewis is in front and safe if he boxes now. He answers "So what do I do? Push like crazy?" and the answer is clear "affirm, affirm, go strat 4, keep pushing". Lewis is told one more lap. Meanwhile Rosberg overtakes Valtteri for P8. It's tense. Oh plot twist. Lewis says he can do 1 or 2 laps at this pace. Bono tells him to go for it. He stays out. Alonso comes in though. We're right in the window Ted predicted. Lewis is in the lead then.

He pits on lap 40. It's not a great one, 4.4. He's out on the mediums… Alonso is ahead… but he’s ahead of Nico, in P5. They intend to keep him out to the end now. I'm doubtful. Alonso is on the softs, and the Italian radio comms are back. Raikkonen pits. That puts Lewis in P4, 3.6 seconds behind Alonso. Daniel is now in the lead but he reports PU problems. On lap 44, Brundle suddenly says "Hamilton can win this race." And Crofty answers "... Yeah?" like "Are you only now realising that?" However Nico is currently faster than him on the mediums. Crofty says if he does win, it'll be a first as no one has ever won a race starting from the pitlane. Massa pits from P3, which puts Lewis back on the podium. He's however still complaining about his seat heating up, and Rosberg is less than a second behind now. And as Brundle predicts, they tell him he’s on the softs and has one more stop to do so he's not to hold him up. But Nico doesn't close. And yeah. Here's what I was worried about. "I can't imagine these tyres lasting another 20 laps," he says on the radio. "So the options did an equivalent of 24 laps albeit from damp conditions so wear shouldn't be an issue," Bono reassures him. Nico is getting close again. 

It's lap 50. Nico : "Why isn't he not letting me through?" Because you're too far away? Bono tells Lewis to let him past this lap, on the main straight. "He can't," whispers Brundle. "He's gonna lose too much time to do that." Yes, because Nico is too fucking far and should do his job instead of whining. He's 0.7 away. What the fuck do you want Lewis to do. 0.9 now. And as I thought, Crofty reports Lewis answers he'll let him through if he gets closer. On the transcript I see what he said is, precisely : "I'm not slowing down for Nico. If he can get close and overtake, then he can overtake." Nico complains again : "Why is he not letting me through?" And his engineer answers that Lewis has been given the message. Nico is over a second behind now, so… I get what Lewis is saying tbh. Why would he lose that much time when he's possibly set to win the race after he's struggled so much lately. 

Crofty sets a bit of context that we've missed from the build up. Mercedes has been apologising to Lewis for fucking him over during quali, apparently. They've had failures in quali that weren't his fault and his side is sympathetic to him at the moment. That's kinda surprising to me but I’m glad.

Daniel also complains of his tyres. If he pits it’s gonna be a huge fight at the end with him on fresher tyres, Brundle points out. So it reasserts that Lewis shouldn't slow down for Nico, in his point of view. He is 1.3 behind now. And Ricciardo pits indeed, he's out in 4th place. Mercedes has stopped asking for Lewis to move over. He's now saving his tyres the best he can, but his pace is getting worse. Nico pits, out in P7. That's gonna get messy at the end… Lewis is now closing fast on Alonso which makes total sense given Daniel is on fresh tyres 2.2 seconds behind him. I'm not optimistic. 

It's lap 60. Valtteri pits. Rosberg overtakes Raikkonen for P5. Lewis is 1.3 seconds away from Alonso now but Ricciardo is under a second away from him. Terrifying. Now it's 1 and 0.6. Rosberg overtakes Massa for P4. And the gaps at the front are 0.9 and 0.5. 

0.6 and 0.5

0.4 and 0.6

Rosberg sets the fastest lap. 

0.35 and 0.45

AND ALONSO JUST CUT THE CHICANE! That brings the gap back to 0.7, he clearly gained an advantage! Lewis thinks the same : "Fernando gained an advantage," he says, calmly. "We saw it," says Bono. 

0.25 and 0.5, but Lewis locks up, 0.4 and 0.3

0.34 and 0.36

This is insane! And Nico sets another fastest lap behind them, he's still 16 seconds away but he's gaining – brace yourselves – TWO AND A HALF seconds a lap. Damn. 

0.35 and 0.28

Oh here we go, Daniel attacks Lewis BUT BE LOCKS UP AND GOES WIDE holy shit that was close. Nico is 13 seconds away now. Lewis has lost some time over Alonso : 0.7 and 0.43. Nico 12 seconds away. Only 5 laps to go!!! 

0.35 & 0.41 & 11.78

Lewis locks up. 0.5 & 0.24 & 11.55. How is he even attacking and defending at the same time this is unbelievable. 0.54 & 0.59 & 10.1. Bono says "use the revs, shift beyond the tone, use the revs." I have no idea what it means except they're doing everything and pushing the car as far as they can. 

4 laps to go. 0.399 & 0.411 & 8.303. LEWIS SLOWS DOWN! 0.52 & 0.17 RICCIARDO ATTACKS AND HE'S AHEAD FUCK what happened?! 

So now that's Daniel 0.44 behind Daniel, and Lewis 0.75 behind him, with Nico 5.61 away. 

3 laps to go. AND DANIEL OVERTAKES ALONSO FOR THE LEAD! Man with this pace it's really a wonder Lewis kept him behind for so long. He's flying away now, he's already over a second away from Alonso in a couple of corners! Phew. Incredible. Meanwhile Lewis attacks Alonso!!! But he can't do it yet and Rosberg is now only 2.3 seconds down! 

2 laps to go! Ricciardo is 3.3 seconds in the lead already! Lewis is just 0.3 behind and Rosberg 1.8. The DRS isn't enough! 0.2. He's looking, he's looking, where is the opportunity? 0.3, and 1.1 to Nico… 

Fffffuck 

Final lap !!! 0.511 & 0.489 NOOO NICO IS CLOSING FUCK OFF DUDE GO AWAY AAAAAAH LEWIS PUSHED HIM OFF THE TRACK 0.6 & 0.22, 0.7 & 0.5, 0.6 & 0.7…

IT'S THE END OF THE RACE! 

RICCIARDO WINS, ALONSO P2, LEWIS P3

Oooooh myyyy gooodddd

I can't believe this suspense my whole body is tense holy fuck

Lewis goes straight into Parc Fermé and straight inside while Alonso and Ricciardo celebrate with their team. What's going on. Was he tired of getting toasted by his seat? 

For some reason we can faintly hear some French woman talking while we watch the cool down room moment. Lewis congratulates Daniel.

Alonso also congratulates Daniel. Alonso and Lewis don't even look at each other lol. The French woman is saying "Sécurité ? Sécurité !" Weirdly, Daniel gets some foam bricks out of his racing suit?!

Oh, Lewis isn't happy. Brundle says he's had a crazy afternoon. Lewis answers "it's been a pretty crazy weekend". He's not in the mood to talk it seems. Brundle reminds him that after quali he was already saying he'd be 30 points behind Nico who he thought would win and then, here he is, on the podium. He thanks the team for their pitstops and the good strategy and he says he's tried his best. "The car has been fantastic… when it's going," he says with a smile. He says they've lost a lot of points because they could have had a much better weekend (that's not helping anyone, Lewis) but they have a lot of strengths to look forward to in the future. Brundle lists the issues he's had that he's been nursing that had some impact too. He says at the beginning obviously it was his mistake, he thanks the lord for not damaging the car, "one of your finest ever drives?" Brundle asks and that's such a stupid question. "Erm, don't think so," he says. Brundle says it was looking pretty good from where they were standing. Bro he just told you about this big mistake he made wtf are you on about. Like of course it's incredibly impressive he went from pitlane to P3 but like. Tonedeaf. 

Toto thinks that's a race they should have won. He says they were unlucky with the safety car but that's racing, Nico should've won but the first few cars were already ahead when they pitted and that screwed him, Valtteri, and Seb (obvi he doesn't put it like that). When asked if Lewis should've let him pass to complete his strategy he says it's a tricky question and they will have to review it and not make quick judgements. Ted says he lost about 8 seconds being stuck behind and he finishes just a couple of seconds down. But Toto says they're fighting for the championship, so it's not an easy call and so you have to look at all the pros and cons and what the alternative would have been before you talk about consequences. He smiles. Ted asks if there's some element of Lewis having bad luck lately which, as Toto said himself, was the team's fault, in his decision not to press Lewis to let Nico ahead. Toto rubs his nose. In a way less PR tone he says "yeah it probably did play a role" and he smiles widely. We hear all the radio messages one after the other. 

Nico looks PISSED. He says the race was really going well until the first safety car came out at the worst possible moment for him and that really hurt his race. He thinks the strategy wasn't the right thing to do, but that's easy to say in hindsight. The last lap was exciting though. But he's "very very annoyed" that he wasn't able to make it happen. He says it was obviously going to be difficult but Lewis made a mistake in turn 1 which gave him a small chance but it didn't work out. Of course she asks him about the radio drama. He makes a face. He claims he didn't want Lewis to let him through but it was the team that informed him that he would. (I see no such message on the radio transcript but of course they're not all there. They did tell Lewis not to hold him back but did he? Nico wasn't close enough to overtake…) He says he doesn't know what happened then and they need to discuss it. Because journalists are shit stirrers at heart she asks if that's maybe because he wasn't close enough, because Lewis basically said "when he catches me up I will". He repeats, "I don't know we need to speak about it internally". Lmao I'm sorry but he wipes his face exactly like a 3 year old child.

I work with them, believe in my expertise. The absolute lack of fine motor skills that make you basically slap yourself in the face. Unmistakable. He says it's okay, he's still ahead in the WDC going into the break. 

The journalists are weirdly unanimously defending Lewis’ track war crimes (pushing Nico off the track). 

I've found a video of Lewis’ quali. His car caught on fucking fire. Bono tells him to stop where he can see a marshal and Lewis says he's in the pitlane. So Bono frantically tells him to stop where he is as there are marshals with fire extinguishers behind him. Lewis says the car won't stop. He does manage to stop it. Bono tells him to go to P0 "marshals just behind you, jump out, jump out!"

That’s all, see you next time!

[formula365]

A thing of the past - Bahrain GP review

In 1973, the Formula 1 season closed with the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. The title had already been decided in favour of Jackie Stewart, who had secretly decided to retire at the end of the season, and leave the mantle of leading driver of Tyrrell to his teammate, François Cevert. Stewart would leave at the peak of his powers, with 100 GPs to his name, tired of seeing friends die on track. It had been a dark era for the sport, and there had been an impact on his and his wife’s mental health. It had taken too much of a toll for them to bear it any longer.

As fate would have it, they were in for another sad ending. On the Saturday practice session, Cevert lost control of his car in the Esses, hit the barrier on one side and was sent careening towards the barrier on the other side at an 90 degree angle. The second impact ripped the barrier from the ground; Cevert was killed instantly, from injuries caused by the barrier that was meant to save his life.

A lot has changed since those days, and Stewart was one of the men who most contributed to that. After retirement, he lead a campaign for improved safety in both tracks and cars. It took time for safety to arrive at today’s standards, but F1 can now boast an incredibly positive record. Despite some big shunts, only one driver lost his life in the past 25 years. People like Stewart, Charlie Whiting and Dr. Sid Watkins were instrumental in achieving this remarkable record, and the changes they campaigned for have saved many drivers. 

Romain Grosjean added his name to that list yesterday. As the replays of his accident hit our screens, and the carcass of his survival cell became visible in the wreckage, it was clear that the barrier had given in. His head would have gone straight into the upper section of the barrier, at a speed of over 200km/h; just like his countryman 47 years ago, the car headed to the barrier at close to an 90 degree angle. Had it not been for the halo, the last great measure championed by Whiting before his untimely death, Grosjean would surely not have survived.

But for all that was impressive in how the car, the marshals and the medical car protected and ultimately rescued the driver, there are questions to be asked, particularly about the barrier. Improvements in barrier technology were one of the most important steps towards driver safety; accidents like the one that killed Cevert showed the importance of improving the design and build of the barriers to ensure that they could sustain heavy impacts without breaking apart. Barriers that were supposed to save lives were taking them instead.

Which is why we have to question what happened to Grosjean’s car. The similarities between Grosjean’s and Cevert’s crashes are inescapable, and in both cases the barriers failed to do their job. Yes, the halo saved Grosjean’s life, but the main point should be the fact that the halo should not have been necessary at all. If the barrier had fulfilled its purpose of absorbing the impact and throwing the car back out, the halo would have played no part in this crash at all.

To make matters worse, the way the fail structures of the car are meant to work, once the survival cell was stuck in the guard-rail, the back of the car had nowhere to go and, as it’s meant to do, it split from the monocoque. The violence of the impact and the fact the chassis was wedged between sections of the barrier probably led to the break happening further back in the car structure than it should. (I am in no means an expert in this, so take this sentence with several grains of salt) This, in turn, led to a fuel line rupturing, which led to the fire. The barrier failure not only caused the accident to be more serious than it should have been, it also caused a fire that made the driver escape harder and more dangerous than it should have been.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to diss on the FIA, when their relentless pursuit of safety has significantly contributed to saving many drivers’ lives. Grosjean’s survival was not a matter of luck, or a miracle, as many have said; it was the product of decades of work and science by those in charge of the sport. If news of tragedy are now rare in motorsports, we owe it to them. There is also no way to entirely remove the danger factor off these sports: every time a driver straps themselves to a cockpit, there is always a possibility that it will be their last time.

But certain elements of danger should be a thing of the past, and what happened to Grosjean is definitely one of them. There will certainly be a thorough investigation into the crash and the causes of this failure will come to light. If the past is any indication, the FIA will learn new lessons and will implement new measures to ensure that barriers will be improved and will continue to do their job. Most importantly, I am certain they will ensure that barriers will not endanger drivers’ lives rather than save them.

The comments made by Ross Brawn after the race were very encouraging. Instead of the usual platitudes about what a great job they have done to protect drivers, he talked about the things that did go wrong. It shows that the willingness to admit problems and study solutions has not gone away and that there will be a continued resolve towards protecting the stars of the show.

We should rejoice that Grosjean survived with only minor injuries what was quite possibly the scariest accident of the past 25 years. Witnessing a car burst into flames was something that we thought belonged to the distant past and brought home the stark reality of the risks these super humans take for our entertainment. But we should also not allow such an incredible escape to blind us to glaring problems that led to this big scare in the first place. There were other times in the past in which we were lulled into a sense of false security by miraculous escapes. Let’s not repeat that mistake.

Talking points

•  When the race eventually got underway, it significantly helped to clear the fight for third in the constructors’ championship. What little hopes Renault and Ferrari still had were ended, and Racing Point lost a bag full of points when the chequered flag was in the horizon. Perez had another masterful race, taking third place early on and controlling Albon from a distance. His engine giving up the ghost was a cruel moment for the team, with the despair etched on Otmar Szafnauer’s face and body language in the pit wall.

•  The major beneficiaries of Perez’ misfortune were McLaren, who leapfrogged Racing Point and are now 17 points clear in third. Even without that retirement, they would have still outscored the pink panthers, but this has made them overwhelming favourites in this particular battle. As mentioned in an earlier review, they continue to maximise their results even when they don’t have the fastest car. That ability to get the job done even when the odds are against them is an excellent sign for the team’s future.

•  And Sainz’s race was enormous. P5, coming from P15 on the grid? Bwoah.

•  Daniel Ricciardo, who will replace him at McLaren, left his teammate in the dust once again. The first time he was stuck behind Ocon he asked to be let by on the radio, as he was clearly faster; the team obliged and he quickly left his teammate behind. Later on, after a round of pit stops, he found himself behind Ocon again but this time passed without the assistance of the pit wall. The Frenchman is not a bad driver, but the Aussie’s superb form is making him look vulgar.

•  Albon inherited a spot on the podium, and, after his big crash on FP2, the champagne must have tasted sweet indeed, but it was not lost on anyone how he lost the battle to Perez, the one driver vying for his seat, while driving superior machinery. Nevertheless, it is a moment that can give him a boost of confidence for the final two races and allow him to relieve some of the pressure.

•  When asked after the race about the potential for drivers refusing to drive after witnessing such a terrible accident, Verstappen said that if he was a team boss he would fire them on the spot. The Dutchman’s alpha male attitude is beginning to grate a lot of people the wrong way, especially when his words have such a negative connotation in terms of mental health. It was heartening, though, to see a few of the drivers of the 2019 F2 grid were quick to denounce his words, having lived through something even worse than Grosjean’s crash. There is a different mentality in the new generation of drivers coming through, making Verstappen’s attitude look more and more out of place in today’s motorsports.

•  Pierre Gasly drove another masterclass, this time in terms of tyre management. He was struggling by the end and was saved by the late safety car, but would have nevertheless (quite probably) finished P8 on a one-stop strategy in one of the most tyre abrasive tracks on the calendar. It was risky, but with Perez’ failure at the end, it proved to be a good roll of the dice by AlphaTauri.

•  At the front, nothing new. Hamilton controlled the pace from start to finish, keeping Verstappen at bay and always responding when the Red Bull driver pushed that little bit harder. In the end, the Dutchman had nine of the ten fastest laps of the race, but it was still no match for Hamilton’s consistency over a grand prix distance. Try as he might, his car is no match for the W11 and that is robbing us of a mighty fight between arguably the two best drivers on the grid.

•  Dr. Ian Roberts deserves all the plaudits he is getting, and then some, for the way he ran towards the flames to help Grosjean escape the wreckage. With protective equipment that is far less safe than the drivers’, he still dared to run towards the fire. Enormous bravery.

•  A different type of bravery was shown by the Haas team members, who still had a car running in the race and carried on with their jobs. Even knowing that Grosjean was ok, it must have been difficult to continue their work after that enormous scare. But carry on they did; a special bow to them for that as well.

•  To cap off another miserable weekend in terms of safety, a marshal crossed the track with a fire extinguisher in his hands right in front of Lando Norris’ car. He was trying to reach Perez’ stricken Racing Point, and the safety car had been deployed, so the speed of the cars had been significantly reduced, but this is a risk that simply should not be taken. An eerily similar situation killed Tom Pryce in 1977. And once again, Michael Masi shrugged it off by saying that, while not ideal, we should not castrate (his words, not mine) anyone for trying to help put out a fire. Non-chalant, flippant, callous. I miss Charlie Whiting.

[f1]

Verstappen leads Sainz and Alonso in first Canadian Grand Prix practice | 2022 Canadian Grand Prix first practice

Max Verstappen set the pace to start the Canadian Grand Prix weekend fastest of all in the opening practice session. The championship leader’s best time of a 1’15.138 was a quarter of a second quicker than the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jnr, with Fernando Alonso third fastest for Alpine. After a severe thunderstorm soaked the circuit on Thursday evening, bright sunshine over Montreal had fully dried out the circuit by the time cars ventured out onto the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for the first time since 2019. Air temperature sat at 25C for the start of the weekend, while track temperature was in the mid-40s. Drivers were quick to get out on the circuit and get laps in to re-familiarise themselves with a track none of them had driven at since 2019. The Red Bulls of Verstappen and Sergio Perez set the early pace on the medium tyre, Verstappen breaking into the 1’15s. Alexander Albon became the first driver of the weekend to miss the final chicane and taking to the escape road as outlined by race director Niels Wittich. Albon was soon followed by Mick Schumacher, who also misjudged his braking point into the tricky final turn. Esteban Ocon went off into the tarmac run off at turns eight and nine with a smoking right front brake. Ocon reported his brakes had failed and slowly recovered back to the pits, where his engineer informed him that a paper towel appeared to be caught in his brakes, the likely culprit for his failure. Ocon was able to rejoin the track after less than 20 minutes in the pits. Sainz ventured out on the soft tyres and jumped from ninth to the top of the times, two tenths faster than Perez on the same tyres. After Verstappen abandoned one of his runs due to one of his tyres lifting through the corners, he eventually returned to the circuit and displaced Sainz to go quickest, two-and-a-half tenths faster than the Ferrari. Yuki Tsunoda earned the honour of being the first driver to hit a wall around the circuit when he kissed the concrete on the exit of turn nine. Fortunately, he did not appear to have done too much damage to his AlphaTauri and he was able to continue. Sainz and Fernando Alonso narrowly avoided a close encounter with the local wildlife when a groundhog ran across the track on the run to turn three. Fortunately for all three, the cars avoided contact with the critter. Teams appeared to focus on longer, higher fuel runs in the latter part of the session, meaning there were few improvements in the times in the final minutes. Verstappen therefore ended practice on top, with Sainz’s best effort taking second, the fastest of the two Ferraris. Alonso was third fastest in the Alpine, with Perez fourth and Charles Leclerc only fifth, half a second off Verstappen’s best. George Russell put Mercedes sixth, with Lance Stroll, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo completing the top ten. 2022 Canadian Grand Prix first practice result Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free 2022 Canadian Grand Prix [catlist id=42446 numberposts=5]Browse all 2022 Canadian Grand Prix articles via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net

[caveartfair]

$78 Million Bacon Lot Fails to Sell at Christie’s—and the 9 Other Biggest News Stories This Week

Catch up on the latest art news with our rundown of the 10 stories you need to know this week.

01  Frieze Week auctions wrapped up on Friday with a solid sale at Phillips and the surprise flop of a Francis Bacon painting that had been estimated to sell at around £60 million ($78 million) at Christie’s.

(Artsy)

Thursday’s sales at Sotheby’s, which kicked off the Frieze Week auctions, were mixed. Its contemporary sale, the house’s highest-ever Frieze Week sale to date, brought in £50.3 million, including buyer’s premium. Two lots were withdrawn, but over 88% of the remaining lots sold and the night had several pleasant surprises, including a record for Josef Albers at auction and a near-record for British artist David Hockney. The contemporary sale was preceded by the house’s “In Context” sale of Italian post-war artists’ works, in which nearly a third of lots failed to find buyers, and which brought in £18.4 million, with fees. At Phillips, 34 out of 36, or 94% of lots, sold, for a total haul of £23,924,000 or $31,579,680, including buyer’s fees. The results showed the potential of a well-priced, well-planned sale; the total was up 34% from the same sale a year ago. Christie’s most ambitious lot of the night, Bacon’s Study of Red Pope (1971) met with silence when offered for £58 million and failed to find a buyer. Christie’s total for the post-war and contemporary sale, including fees, was £99.5 million on 54 lots sold (out of a total of 65 offered). The house’s Thinking Italian sale made £32.1 million on 25 lots sold, out of a total of 31.

02  Frieze London and Frieze Masters opened to VIPs and solid sales on Wednesday.

(Artsy)

The 15th edition of Frieze London and the sixth edition of Frieze Masters met with solid, but not frenzied, sales. Although the former traditionally focuses on art made after 2000, and the latter on art made anytime before, this year the temporal boundaries softened. Much of the work on display across the two fairs—which together welcomed some 300 galleries—reflected critical dialogues and market trends that have increasingly blurred the distinction between “old” and “new.” Hauser & Wirth’s museum-esque “Bronze Age c. 3500 BC – AD 2017” was a prime example (and one of the best booths at the fair). Artists from or in dialogue with Tate Modern’s current show “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” were also present across both fairs. The museum exhibition has brought “a lot of attention to artists and to ideas that maybe weren’t at the forefront here,” said gallerist Jack Shainman, who showed at Frieze London for the first time this year.

03  The Louvre has refused to show a sculpture by Dutch sculptor Joep van Lieshout, citing concerns that the work is too sexually explicit.

(via the New York Times and The Art Newspaper and Dezeen)

Attributed to Atelier Van Lieshout, which Joep founded in 1995, Domestikator (2015) was slated to go on view October 19th in the Musée du Louvre’s Tuileries Gardens. The 40-foot tall sculpture, “whose outline depicts copulation,” the New York Times wrote, provoked concern from the Louvre’s director, Jean-Luc Martinez. “It risks being misunderstood by visitors to the gardens,” Martinez relayed in a letter to the art fair FIAC, which had organized for the sculpture to be a part of its public art program in the Tuileries. But the design of the work is hardly a surprise: The piece has been on view at Ruhrtriennale art festival in Bochum, Germany, for six weeks each year for the past three years. While there, Domestikator, part of Lieshout’s ongoing “CryptoFuturism” series, served as a structure that viewers could enter and climb inside. The work is meant to provoke thoughts on how humans attempt to domesticate the world around them, while surveying the landscape. (The piece was taken down in Bochum on Wednesday, as was previously scheduled). “The censored artwork is a liveable architectural sculpture, 12 metres in height, with a humouristic and provocative representation of the domestication of human beings in the world,” the Carpenters Workshop Gallery, which represents Atelier Van Lieshout, said in a statement. Johan Simons, artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale, critiqued the Louvre’s decision in a statement, noting that Domestikator could and should provoke a range of responses, but that “one has to have the chance to see it” for there to be any dialogue. “A museum should be an open place for communication. The task of the museum and the press is to explain the work,” van Lieshout told the Times. The artist’s work has been exhibited in numerous museums including London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. His decades-long practice frequently involves irreverent large-scale works that play with taboos—including Wombhouse (2004), which invited viewers to experience and touch mock human organs.

04  David Geffen’s $150 million gift toward the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new building broke records, becoming the largest donation for construction of an American museum ever recorded.

(via the Los Angeles Times)

Prior to Geffen’s pledge, which was announced Wednesday, LACMA had raised $300 million out of a goal of $650 million toward the construction of a new, Peter Zumthor-designed building, to occupy the site of the institution’s current home. Museum director Michael Govan has spent over three years fundraising for the highly anticipated project. While billionaires like Eli Broad and Alice Walton have spent similar or greater amounts on museums in the past, Geffen’s donation is remarkable because it goes towards a public institution, rather than a private one to house his own collection (though LACMA’s new building will be named the David Geffen Galleries, and he didn’t rule out bequeathing part of his art collection to the museum). The major gift to the Los Angeles museum comes as another cultural institution bearing Geffen’s name has stalled. Lincoln Center’s planned revamp of David Geffen Hall, backed by a $100 million pledge by the billionaire entertainment mogul in 2015, was halted by new leadership this week after additional funds needed for the $500 million structure could not be secured.

05  An Auguste Renoir painting was stolen from a French auction house in a brazen theft.

(via Deutsche Welle</a>)

On Saturday, a thief entered an auction house west of Paris, removed Renoir’s Portrait d’une jeune fille blonde from its wall display, and exited without being seen. Set to sell at auction on Sunday, the five-by-four-inch canvas by the renowned 19th-century Impressionist painter was estimated to fetch between €25,000 and €30,000 (roughly $29,000 and $35,000). The Yvelines police department have yet to identify the culprit, but are reviewing security imagery in pursuit of the perpetrator, reported Deutsche Welle.

06  Cultural institutions across Puerto Rico have begun to reopen and aid in relief efforts following Hurricane Maria.

(via The Art Newspaper)

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20th, just a few weeks after Hurricane Irma battered the island in early September, leaving residents and museums grappling with back-to-back destructive storms. While several museums in San Juan and elsewhere have reopened, the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR) opted to stay closed because of nightly blackouts and communication challenges (only 5 percent of the island currently has reliable power). “As soon as everything comes back, we will be here for our public,” interim director Marta Mavel Perez told The Art Newspaper via a cell phone (landlines remain down). Staff continue to work at the museum, with the MAPR planning to launch online fundraising efforts and work with the Smithsonian, of which the MAPR is an affiliate, to safeguard the island’s collections and to send conservators to Washington, D.C., for training. While much of Puerto Rico was devastated by the storm, institutional art collections were largely unharmed, according to The Art Newspaper.

07  A plaque outside Canada’s newly opened Holocaust Memorial omitted any reference to Jews, sparking outrage and then its removal.

(via the New York Times)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau inaugurated the Daniel Libeskind-designed National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa last week. But while a plaque outside the memorial recognized the “millions of men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust” and the survivors who made their way to Canada, it did not include any direct mention of anti-Semitism or Jews. Fierce criticism of the plaque from both inside and outside Canada quickly mounted. The Times noted that reporting by Canadian media “suggested that the omission had been unintentional” and that the plaque was removed, with a new one expected to be unveiled. In his speech inaugurating at the monument, Prime Minister Trudeau did specifically discuss anti-Semitism, affirming Canada’s commitment to “fight anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and discrimination in all its forms.”

08  A 45-foot-tall statue of a nude woman may be coming to Washington, D.C.’s National Mall in November.

(via the Washington Post)

The towering 16,000-pound steel statue, R-Evolution (2015), created by artist Marco Cochrane, would stand facing the White House near the Washington Monument as part of the third annual Catharsis on the Mall festival. If permitting efforts are successful, the work would remain on view at the mall for four months following the free festival’s run from November 10th to 12th. Cochrane created the statue, which the Post described as “depicting a strong woman feeling confident in her body,” for Burning Man in 2015. To transport the sculpture from Cochrane’s studio outside San Francisco, organizers are raising more than $100,000 and have recruited a team of engineers to assemble and inspect the piece. “We need to show women just being in their bodies, just being humans, as an antidote for the constant sexualization of the woman’s body, the constant dehumanization,” Cochrane has said. A spokesman for the National Park Service told the Post the agency is reviewing permits and added it’s possible that the agency will allow it to remain through winter, with organizers pushing for March.

09  The $37.7 million sale of a rare Song dynasty bowl has broken the world record for Chinese ceramics.  

(via Reuters)

The Sotheby’s auction of the 900-year-old porcelain bowl in Hong Kong on Tuesday lasted 20 minutes before selling to an anonymous bidder (making it one of only four rare Ru ware works in private hands). The five-inch bowl used to wash brushes came from the revered kilns of China’s Henan province during the Northern Song dynasty, which spanned from 960 to 1127. The Ruzhou kiln only operated for a short two-decade stint and produced signature wares with an “intense blue-green glaze and ‘ice crackle pattern,’” Reuters reported. The bowl, which previously belonged to the Chang Foundation in Taiwan’s Hongxi Museum, broke the record set by a 2014 Hong Kong sale of a 500-year-old imperial cup. Sotheby’s Asia deputy chairman Nicolas Chow told Reuters that the “influx of mainland Chinese buyers” over the last 20 years has “really driven the price today.” According to ceramic expert Regina Krahl, the small wash bowl is also one of at most six Ru ware items to appear at an auction since 1940.

10  Two allegedly stolen Henri Matisse cut-outs, together worth $4.5 million, are at the core of a heated and complex ownership lawsuit.

(via The Art Newspaper)

A French court is set to rule on the origins and owner of the two works in a case brought against the artist’s grandson, Georges Matisse, by the Hong Kong-based company Rozven. The pieces were consigned to Sotheby’s by an unknown seller in 2008, but the auction house pulled the works after receiving a letter from Georges claiming ownership on behalf of the family. The Matisse heir claims the pair of works are two of hundreds that went missing while in storage. Rozven claims it purchased the works from art dealer Jérôme Le Blay, who in turn said he purchased them from Josette Lefebvre, an heir to an art supply and storage company. But Matisse expert Wanda de Guebriant, who was contacted by Sotheby’s at the time of the consignment, expressed skepticism that the chain of custody could be legitimate. Following the letter and withdrawal from auction, Rozven sued Georges Matisse. A court dismissed the case in 2010 due to the company’s continued anonymity and its refusal to “justify” the work’s provenance. However, Rozven appealed the ruling, seeking €2 million in damages from Georges Matisse. An appellate decision is expected this month.

—Artsy Editors

Cover Image courtesy of Christie's Images LTD. 2017.  

from Artsy News

[bluemoon21-blog]

#F1 #AzerbaijanGP: Max Verstappen quickest in practice before crashing – REPORT

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is fastest before crashing during practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton only 10th.

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Max Verstappen remained at the top of the timesheets for the second practice session in a row at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as the Baku street circuit proved a tricky track to master in the low evening sun.

The second session was much closer than the first, with the top four cars split by just 0.127s. But the notable absence of championship leaders Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton from those positions underlined just how difficult it was to hook up a perfect lap.

Once again, Red Bull did not appear to lose out on the long straight in sector three where the team had feared the power deficit of its Renault engine would be a burden. Verstappen held a 0.100s lead over the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas in second, who in turn had a slender margin of 0.011s over the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo in third.

However, Verstappen’s near perfect day was soured in the final 30 seconds of the session as he lost the rear of his Red Bull at the apex of Turn 1 and slammed into the barrier. The collision bent the rear axle on his car, no doubt destroying his practice gearbox in the process. Fortunately the team will be able to fit his race gearbox overnight without incurring a penalty.

Kimi Raikkonen was the fastest of the two Ferraris, 0.127s off Verstappen and 0.126s ahead of teammate Vettel, who struggled to get the most from his super-soft tyres around the six kilometre track.

Hamilton was left in tenth position, 1.163s off Verstappen, after failing to set a fast lap on the super-soft tyres for the second session in a row. The lack of grip between the softest compound available this weekend and the smooth Baku surface was clear to see, but Hamilton will be left thumbing through the book of racing driver excuses after being outpaced by Lance Stroll, Sergio Perez, Daniil Kvyat and Esteban Ocon.

Further proof of the circuit’s lack of grip came midway through the session when Jolyon Palmer hit the barriers at Turn 9. The incident was very similar to Sergio Perez’s mistake in first practice and once again resulted in a red flag and a suspended session as the marshals cleared his car from the narrowest section of track on the F1 calendar.

Turns 8, 9 and 10 skirt the walls of Baku’s old city and the braking point for the initial left hander caught a number of drivers out. Most were able to take to the run off area next to a rather ironically placed opticians and avoid damage, but at one stage Felipe Massa followed Vettel into the narrow patch of tarmac, creating a queue of reversing F1 cars trying to rejoin the track.

Massa ended up 11th at the end of the session ahead of Fernando Alonso, who may have taken some pleasure from finishing 12th had it not been for a gearbox failure with 30 minutes remaining. As he came down the hill from the entrance to the old city, a puff of smoke came from the right bank of his McLaren and the familiar sound of a mechanical failure resonated in the co…

MORE: Azerbaijan GP: Max Verstappen quickest in second practice before crashing – BBC Sport

from #F1 #AzerbaijanGP: Max Verstappen quickest in practice before crashing – REPORT

[f1stuff]

Kimi Raikkonen set the pace for Ferrari in the opening practice session for the Russian Grand Prix on Friday.

The Finn used Pirelli's supersoft tyres to post a 1m36.074s, outpacing Valtteri Bottas by 0.045s as Ferrari enjoyed another strong start following its victory in Bahrain.

Lewis Hamilton finished down in third, over sixth tenths of a second off the pace, after going off track several times during the 90 minutes of running.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen finished fourth ahead of championship leader Sebastian Vettel, who also had a less-than-perfect session as he ruined his flying laps on supersofts.

Daniel Ricciardo was sixth in the second Red Bull. He was followed by Sergio Perez in the Force India, and Williams drivers Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll.

On a day with clear skies and 34 degrees Celsius on track, it was Bottas who registered the first time of the session at the 10-minute mark following installation laps from all drivers.

Local hero Sergey Sirotkin had his first practice outing of the year with Renault - the Russian replacing Nico Hulkenberg alongside Jolyon Palmer - but his session was over before it's really begun as he stopped on track right as he started his out-lap.

Despite attempts from Renault to help Sirotkin on the radio to get the car restarted, the Russian driver had to be pushed off the track by the marshals and would not return for the rest of the session.

As the track was cleared, Hamilton moved to the top of the times with a 1m39.558s in his first run on soft tyres, over three tenths ahead of Bottas.

Vettel posted his first time of the day nearly 25 minutes into the session, the Ferrari driver going quickest with a 1m38.709s.

Vettel didn't last long on top, however, as Bottas used the supersoft tyres to outpace the German by over 1.3 seconds with a 1m36.998s. The Ferrari driver stayed on track and improved his best to reduce that gap to around seven tenths.

Before the 30-minute mark, Hamilton moved into second in the supersoft-shod Mercedes - six tenths behind his teammate - but Bottas went even quicker on the fourth lap of his run to set a new benchmark of 1m36.119s.

Hamilton also improved, but fell 0.562s short of his teammate's best.

First Ricciardo, and later Bottas fell victim to the slippery track surface, both running off track. Hamilton had a bigger scare, however, as he became the first driver to hit the newly-installed speed bumps at Turn 2 after overshooting the braking point.

As the 40-minute cut-off arrived, only the Mercedes drivers and Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz had completed a lap with the supersofts, the rest of the field having only run with the softs.

After some 15 minutes without any action on track, Kevin Magnussen broke the silence in the Haas, the Dane followed by several of his rivals.

With 30 minutes to go, Perez jumped up to third place in the Force India thanks to a run with supersofts, as Raikkonen went quickest with a 1m36.074s, the Finn also using the red-marked tyres.

The session was red-flagged with 25 minutes to go after Esteban Ocon lost the engine cover of his Force India under braking for Turn 2. The action resumed just a couple of minutes later after the debris was cleared.

Vettel was one of the first drivers to leave the pits as the action resumed, the German starting his first lap on supersofts. A mistake on his first flying lap at Turn 13 meant he failed to improve, however, despite setting the quickest time in the middle sector.

His second attempt did not go to plan either, the Ferrari driver spinning at Turn 16 after running too aggressively over the kerbs. The German managed to keep the car off the wall and rejoined the track after a quick stop in the pits.

Moments later it was Hamilton who went off at Turn 13, also avoiding the wall.

Verstappen improved late in the session to move up to fourth, the Red Bull driver jumping Vettel with a run on supersofts.

Stoffel Vandoorne's day came to an early finish when he reported "no power" a few minutes before the chequered flag.