Hello F1 fans! Welcome to my post about the Brazilian Grand Prix. It was a great race with a result that nobody really expected. Nico Rosberg was in this race coming off a win in Mexico with outstanding pace, which Hamilton just couldn’t match. He beat him fair and square.

Hamilton honored Ayrton Senna by using his helmet design for the race

Alosno enjoying the nice weather during qualifying

Fernando Alonso has had a really frustrating season this year. After his car broke down in qualifying, instead of getting a ride to the pits, he sunbathed!

Rosberg beat Hamilton to pole by less than a tenth of a second! Sebastian Vettel was closer than usual to Mercedes only 4 tenths of a second off Hamilton’s time. Valtteri Bottas did well to qualify fourth, in front of Kimi Raikkonen in fifth. Rosberg aced the start with Hamilton doing similar. They were wheel to wheel in the first corner with Rosberg coming out on top. Hamilton stayed close to Rosberg for the first part of the race, but then his tyers wore out which made him slow down. Hamilton said that he should change his strategy for the race. The Mercedes team didm’t want to because of the pace from Vettel. Mercedes ended up changing their strategy because tyre wear was worse than they thought. Vettel continued to push hard until his soft tyres stared to wear out, slowing him down. Like the Mercedes team, Vettel was on a 3 stop strategy.

Hamilton came out almost 2 seconds behind Rosberg after his final pit stop. This was his last chance to pass Rosberg with 20 laps to go. Farther behind, there was also action. Max Vesstappen, one of the rising stars of f1 made a great pass on Sergio Perez at the first corner. I think he could be a future world champion.

https://youtu.be/v5meeEP4yRc

Here is another great video you should watch:

Hamilton was running out of time and laps. He lowered his aggression and fell back, handing Rosberg the victory. Vettel came third, showing great speed throughout the race. He was closer than usual to the Mercedes. His teammate Kimi Raikkonen finished fifth behind Valtteri Bottas who finished fourth.

I hope you enjoyed my post! I have another very special post coming on Sunday. A youtube video!

Fact of the day: After the race in Brazil, Nico Rosberg became the second most experienced German F1 driver ever! Only behind Michael Schumacher.

Hello F1 fans! Next week is the special Brazillian Grand Prix! This is just a post about the track and interesting facts about it.

LENGTH: 4.3 km

FIRST YEAR HELD: 1972                                              

LAPS IN 1 RACE: 71

DRIVER WITH MOST WINS: Alain Prost

TEAM WITH MOST WINS: Mclaren

                                       2 EXCITING RACES TO REMEMBER

1. HAMILTON WINS FIRST WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
   I have already did a post about the. If you want to see it click on the link to the post. https://kidslovef1.com/2015/10/04/flashback-fridays-2008-brazilian-grand-prix/                                                                                                  This was the final race of the 2008 season. Lewis Hamilton had 94 points and his rival Felipe Massa was on 87 points. It looked like Hamilton would win. Massa still had a chance, If Hamilton finished sixth or worse he would be world champion. Massa qualified on pole position and Hamilton qualified fourth. It was a dramatic race, with lots of changeable conditions. With 3 laps to go, Hamilton was passed by Sebastian Vettel and dropped to sixth. Not good enough to win the championship. For the next few laps, it looked like Felipe Massa (leading the race) would win the championship. However, fate chose Hamilton as the world champion. On the last corner, Timo Glock who was on the wrong tyers started going slowly, promoting Hamilton to fifth! Enough to win the championship!
2. SENNA WINS HOME RACE FOR THE FIRST TIME

Ayrton Senna had won many Races in his career as a raving driver. But he had never won this home grand prix in Brazil. He had tried many times, but never succeeded. This year, Senna was determined to win. He got pole position and built a big lead over the two Williams cars of Nigel Mansell and Ricardo Patrase. It looked like he would win. With only a handful of laps to go, Disaster struck.Senna’s gear box got jammed in 6th gear. Do you know how hard it is to drive a car in a gear that high? He had to fight the steering wheel so he could keep the car on track. This is why Senna was the greatest. He just didn’t want to stop. In the end, not only did he win the race, but he accomplished one of his greatest drives.

I hope you enjoyed my post.

Hello f1 fans! Welcome to my post about the Mexican Grand Prix. It was last held in 1992. That year, Nigel Mansell was victorious. He would go on to win his only championship in that dominant year.

Nigel Mansell leading into the first corner.

It starts of with a long 1.3 km straight. They reach speeds of up to 360 kph! That is followed by a chicane of 2 and then 3. There is another long straight. This a another D.R.S activation zone. This is followed by a tight twisty section of turn 4, 5 and 6. There is a short straight before you go through the fast bends of turns 7 to 11. A slightly bent straight takes you to the slow street circuit style stadium section. The final corner, named the Mansell corner is shaped like a c. It is very hard to get a good exit off the corner. Imagine going wheel to wheel in that corner! The cars have a very low downforce set up. This makes the cars go faster in the corners but slower on the straights. The track has a high altitude. Because of this, the air is thinner and the drivers reach speeds almost as fast as Monza!

Nico Rosberg again beat Lewis Hamilton to pole position. That was his 4th pole position in a row. He converted none of the previous 3 into a win. Sebastian Vettel qualified 3rd ( the seventh time he had done that this season.) He was followed by Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo. At the start of the race, Rosberg had a better start than Hamilton and led into the first corner. Behind them, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo collided in the first corner leaving Vettel with a puncture.

Rosberg pulled away from Hamilton, opening a 2 second gap. Behind, there was an incident involving Kimi Raikkonen and Valterri Bottas. This was just like the incident in Russia when Raikkonen took out Bottas on the final lap of the race. I guess Bottas got his revenge.

https://youtu.be/S9XFhom9pXk?t=21

Trying to make up ground after the the puncture he had on the first lap, Sebastian Vettel crashed after a mistake. This track was one of the lower grip circuits on the calendar. I think he carried too much speed into the corner.

https://youtu.be/qpeWXlT-Khw

This caused the safety car to come out. Now Rosberg would have to do all his hard work all over again. When the race restarted, he opened up a small gap. However, Hamilton then started to gain on him. A mistake from Hamilton sealed the victory for Rosberg. Hamilton went wide at the stadium section and lost about half a second. In the end, Rosberg won the race with Hamilton backing him up. Valteri Bottas of Williams finished third despite his incident with Raikkonen. The Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat did well to finish 4th and 5th. Congratulations to Sergio Perez for finishing in 8th place in front of his home crowd. It is hard to compete with that kind of pressure.

I hope you enjoyed my post and my next one will be on Sunday. My special ‘Season Update’ post!

Fact of the day: The stadium section of the track is also a baseball stadium!

Hey guys! Earlier today I started a new youtube channel!

Hello F1 fans! Welcome to my post! This is a new post series. It is like a season update. I will write one of these posts every three weeks on Sundays.

HAMILTON’S THIRD WOLD CHAMPIONSHIP WITHIN REACH:

After his win at the Russian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton is 73 points ahead of Nico Rosberg. In my opinion, Rosberg was the better driver all weekend. Although, he retired early in the race with a throttle problem. This promoted Sebastian Vettel to second place in the championship after finishing runner- up to Hamilton at the Russian Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton won the Russian Grand Prix by over 12 seconds

WHO DESERVES TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP?/ HOW WAS LUCK A BIG FACTOR?

Luck certainly played a part in the championship battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. Last year, luck was on Rosberg’s side. Hamilton still managed to come out on top that year. However, Hamilton has been the luckier of the two this year. There have only been a few races where it all comes together for Rosberg and he wins the race. Most of the races he won were races where it didn’t come together for Hamilton. Rosberg’s never beat him in a wheel to wheel battle. For example, the Monaco Grand Prix. Hamilton was dominant and it looked like he would be the winner. However, with 7 laps to go, the safety car came out, so his team decided he would pit. There was a miscalculation on the stop and he slipped to third. As you know, it was in Monaco a circuit where it is almost impossible to pass. Don’t get me wrong, Rosberg is a pretty good driver. Hamilton just seems to be the racier of the two. He is more aggressive than Rosberg.

https://youtu.be/_WmYpNl7fMI

Hamilton crushed after losing race in closing stages

WHERE DOES RED BULL GO NEXT?

The owner of Red Bull Racing Dietrich Mateschitz, has threatened to pull his team out if Formula One if they are not supplied with competitive engines. There relationship with their current supplier, Renault has deteriorated. Renault has struggled with the new hybrid era that started in 2014 after 4 straight constructor’s championships. Negotiations with with Mercedes have failed. To sour things up for Red Bull, Mercedes agreed to supply the Manor Marussia team with engines for 2016. Ferrari have offered them the 2015 spec engines. The only other option would be Honda engines. All of the teams are scared of Red Bull, because the have such a good chassis that if you gave them competitive engines, they would be dominant.

Team principal Christian Horner with Vettel. Together they won 4 straight championships.

Adrian Newey, a boffin who designs cutting edge chassis for the Red Bull team

 I hope you enjoyed my post. Look forward to my next “season update post in three weeks. It would be awesome if you could leave some comments on what questions I should write about for my next season update post. See you next Friday for my Flashback Friday post!

Fact of the day: With his win in Russia, Lewis Hamilton surpassed Ayrton Senna’s record of 41 wins. Now he is tied with Sebasitan Vettel for third most wins, only behind Alan Prost and Michael Schumacher.

Make your opinion count and vote on my poll “Who Is The Greatest F1 Driver?’

https://kidslovef1.com/2015/08/20/who-is-the-greatest-f1-driver/

Michael Schumacher

Alan Prost

Ayrton Senna

Hello F1 fans! Welcome to my Flashback Fridays Post! In case you don’t know Flashback Fridays is a special post which I write about great F1 races from the past. Today I will Be writing about the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Coming in to the race, young Lewis Hamilton (23 at the time) had 94 points, 7 ahead of championship rival Felipe Massa who had 87 points. If Massa won the race and Hamilton finished sixth or worse, he would be world champion. However, there was a possibility that there would be a tie in points between them. If that happens, Massa would be world champion, because he had more wins.

In qualifying, Massa claimed Pole Position while Hamilton qualified fourth. Before the race, the track was slightly damp. Then, before the race heavy rain hit. This made most of the teams change to wet weather tyres.

Out of the first corner, the top 5 was Massa, Trulli, Raikkonen, Hamilton and then Kovilainen. Alonso and Vettel soon got past Kovilainen to claim fifth and sixth.

An accident, which caused David Coulthard and Nelson Piquet jr. to retire from the race deployed the safety car. Soon the track started to dry. The teams were thinking about switching to dry weather tyres. The first person to do this was Giancarlo Fisichella an lap 2. On the fifth lap, the race resumed as the safety car pulled in. Next was Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button pitted two laps later. Soon most of the front runners would do the same. By lap 15, Massa was leading Vettel, followed by Fisichella and then Hamilton. 3 laps later, Hamilton would pass Fisichella, promoting him to third place.

About 10 laps later, Vettel pitted, regoining in sixth behind Timo Glock. Massa pitted on lap 38 with Hamilton and Alonso doing the same two laps later. Kimi Raikkonen, on lap 43 pitted from the lead, giving it back to Felipe Massa. Vettel stopped for fuel on lap 51, so he would have enough to finish the race. Race leader Massa had just under a 10 second lead over second place Fernando Alonso. Vettel, in fifth was bearing down on Hamilton in fourth.

With 8 laps to go, it stated to rain. One of the first of the drivers to react was Nick Hifeld a lap later. Timo Glock decided to stay on dry weather Tyres. ( A decision that would be controversial.)  Alonso and Raikkonen pitted soon after. Hamilton and Vettel went into the pits on the same lap. On lap 69 out of 71 it started to rain harder. Hamilton ran wide and Vettel seized the opportunity to pass him for fourth. It looked like it was over and Massa would win the title. However, Glock’s decision to stay on dry tyres backfired and was based by Hamilton for fifth on the last corner!

Imagine what it would be like to be a Massa fan at that moment! On the bright side, imagine being a Hamilton fan and witnessing that shock at the final corner. Hamilton did enough to win the championship by one point. Truly amazing.

I hope you enjoyed my post and my next one will be on Monday for the upcoming Russian Grand Prix.

Fact of the day: When he was the world champion then, he was the youngest world champion in Formula 1. That was until Sebastian Vettel broke that record in 2010. The youngest driver to enter a race is Max Vestappen at 17 years old (now 18).

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Hello F1 fans! Welcome to my post about the Italian Grand Prix. This track has never failed to deliver a great race filled with excitement.

Coming into the race, Nico Rosberg had problems with his new engine. He had to use the old one that had already done five races. (About 1500 kilometers) This would come back to haunt him later in the race. Ferrari looked strong, coming in with upgraded engines for the track with the highest average speed on the calendar.

Lewis Hamilton during practice

Qualifying was exciting with the two Ferraris beating Rosberg to take second and third on the grid. (with Hamilton on pole) Surprisingly, it was Kimi Raikkonen who was on the front row with Hamilton! Not Vettel. As you know, if a Ferrari does well at Monza the crowd goes wild!  For this race it was an all Williams third row with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa on fifth and sixth.  It built up to a great race.

Fan waving Ferrari flag during qualifying     Forza Ferrari!

Finally, the race was here. As the race started, Kimi Raikkonen (starting on the front row) did not even move! He dropped down to last place. Nico Rosberg was the big loser of the start. After Raikkonen had stalled he lost speed and dropped to sixth. There was loads of chaos into the first chicane, with many cars having to cut it to avoid contact.

At Monza it is always tight into the first corner

https://youtu.be/jCvnvUPmMQk

Vettel was aggressive on the start, trying to pass Hamilton at the first corner. However, after the first lap Vettel could not stay with Hamilton and allowed him to pull away. Meanwhile, Raikkonen had made 8 places by the third lap and was back in twelfth. Rosberg was the first of the front runners to pit, attempting to undercut the two Williams that passed him at the start. Shortly after, Massa pitted on lap 22 followed by Hamilton and Vettel on lap 26. By this time of the race, Hamilton had a 10 second lead over Vettel!  However, 10 laps later Vettel had to worry about what was going on behind him. Rosberg was within five seconds of him.

Mercedes would now regret using the older engine for Rosberg’s car. With 3 laps to go, his engine blew up. That meant Vettel would comfortably finish in second. More than 20 seconds up the road, Lewis Hamilton had a sudden scare. The team was telling him to go flat out for the last 3 laps! They did not tell him what the problem was. They just told him to execute it. After the end of the race, it was revealed that Hamilton’s tyre pressures were 0.3 psi lower than the lowest level allowed. The reason they wanted him to push hard is because if he got a 25 second penalty, he would have a lead over 25 seconds and would still get the win.

In the end Hamilton won, followed by Vettel and then Massa just holding off Bottas for third place. I hope you enjoyed my post and my next post will be on Monday.

Fact of the day: Monza is the most used track in F1

Hello F1 fans! I have made a new Poll! Vote now to make your opinion count! You can suggest poll ideas you want me to do by leaving a comment. I am looking forward to see who you vote for!

Hello F1 fans! Welcome to another post! Today I will be writing about the rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alan Prost. A rivalry that changed the sport forever. If you haven’t read the first part of this post, click on the link to it. https://kidslovef1.com/2015/07/12/senna-and-prost-a-once-in-a-lifetime-rivalry-part-1/

We left off when Prost won the world championship in 1989. There was a controversial maneuver that Senna tried to make on Prost.

It looked like Prost turned into him on purpose. He knew that if Senna did not finish the race, he would have been world champion. That is exactly what happened.

For the 1990 season things were different. Prost had moved to Ferrari. Senna’s new teammate was Gerhard Berger. However, they still remained the two dominant drivers. Senna won six races and Prost won five. Again the championship was so close. For a third year in a row, the championship would be decided at the Japanese Grand Prix. Senna won pole position for the race. He later complained that the pole position should be on the should have been on the left side instead of the right.

The left side of that track is the racing line. It is where the cars usually drive. The other part is rarely used and doesn’t have as much grip. Senna asked for the pole position to be on the left so he would start better. However, the race officials did not agree. So the pole position remained on the right side.

As you can see, Prost got off to a better start than Senna because the pole position was on the dirty side of the track. Prost left a small gap at the first corner and Senna went for it. Prost immediately closed the door on him and they crashed. I thing both the drivers were at fault. If I were Senna, I would have not wen’t for the gap because Prost would have shut the door. I think Prost should have given him a little more space. It looked like he made no effort to do that.

In the end Senna was world champion because Prost did not finish.

There is a lot of information about their rivalry. To much information to fit into one post. Even two! I will not be able to do a post next week because I will be out of town. I will make my next post in two weeks. Bye!

Fact of the day: Ayrton Senna Has the second most pole positions of all time: 65. Almost twice as many as Prost.

Hello F1 fans! This post is about the dramatic race in Hungary that happened yesterday. It was by far the best the best race of the season so far. It was also a very emotional race. The first race since F1 driver Jules Bianchi died from injures from the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton was looking for his fifth ever win in Hungary. It is known to be one of his favorite circuits. Coming into the race, Red Bull looked very competitive.

It was a Mercedes frond row, with Hamilton and Rosberg. On the second row was Sebastian Vettel for Ferrari and Daniel Ricciardo for Red Bull. At the start of the race Vettel made a fantastic start, passing Hamilton and Rosberg for the lead. Kimi Raikkonen also made a good start, passing both Mercedes. By the first corner the Ferrari’s were first and second, leading the two Mercedes in third and fourth.

https://youtu.be/N2bhOhlcYjE?t=16s

The drama did not end there. Lewis Hamilton missed the chicane on lap one and dropped to tenth. Determined to win his fifth Hungarian Grand Prix, he recovered to fifth place fifteen laps into the race. Daniel Ricciardo recovered to fourth place after a bad start. The order stayed the same until lap 42 when Nico Hulkenberg’s front wing failed at turn one and he crashed into the wall. This caused the safety car to come out.

I am a Vettel fan. So when the safety car came out, I was worried he would get passed by Nico Rosberg. Raikkkonen, Vettel’s team-mate was in second-place when the safety car came out but  he had problems with the hybrid system. I knew he would be passed quickly. That is exactly what happened. He soon retired from the race. This was the top 4 with 6 laps to go: Vettel was first for Ferrari, Rosberg for Mercedes was in second. Then the 2 Red Bulls (who were surprisingly competitive) of Daniel Riccciardo and Daniil Kvyat.

Going into turn one, Daniel Riccciardo tried to pass Nico Rosberg. On turn two, Rosberg ran wide and damaged Ricciardo’s front wing. Rosberg also got a puncture in one of his tyres. He would finish eighth. It was clearly Rosberg’s fault because he did not give him enough space.

https://youtu.be/vfD6jhbAKdg

In the end Vettel won the race and was followed by Kvyat and Ricciardo. Vettel detected his win to Jules Bianchi, who had died because of a Crash last October in Japan. He matched the number of wins that Ayrton Senna had: 41. Red Bull had their best result of the year after a terrible first half of the season.

This concludes my post about a truly great race. Bye!

Fact of the day: With that victory, Vettel had the most points ever scored in Forrmula One. Mainly because over the years the points system has changed.