Pushing The Limits

 After taking his 100th pole on Saturday, Lewis Hamilton started the race with Red Bull's Max Verstappen next to him. Starting on the back foot, Hamilton lost the race lead on Lap 1. Verstappen led the majority of the race, keeping his Mercedes rival outside DRS range. Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is known for being a hard track to overtake on. By taking the lead in turn 1 Max Verstappen and RedBull had the upper hand. Pitting on lap 24/66, Verstappen committed to a one-stop strategy. In a smart and strategic move, Mercedes and Hamilton switched to a two-stop strategy. In a very Ferrari-esq fashion, a confused RedBull didn't cover Mercedes' pitstop. This effectively gifted Mercedes and Hamilton with the win.  On fresher tyres, the 7-time world champion had a huge task ahead of him. To reclaim the lead he had to close a 22-second gap in roughly 24 laps. Losing some time to his teammate Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton soon caught up to Verstappen. The silver arrow swooped past

It is no secret that the start of the 2020 F1 season for Ferrari has been disastrous. The team is lacking pace and can barely match up to Racing point let alone Mercedes and RedBull. Ferrari has been the challenger or No.2 team in the Mercedes dominant hybrid era.  However, the question remains as to why Ferrari have not been able to match up to the likes of Mercedes and RedBull in the past. Even with multiple world champions in their team like Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, the team have not been able to return to form. Ferrari's main problem seems to be its tendency to lean towards one driver and its poor communication. They seem to have been stumbling in places where they really shouldn't, making rookies mistakes. The most recent example I can think of is Canada 2019 where Ferrari allegedly forgot to tell Leclerc about his teammate's 5-second penalty. Lets not even get started on how bad the tyre strategies have been.  Mercedes, on the other han

 Day 2 of Formula One pre-season testing at Barcelona, Spain saw Mercedes pull out a weird new system. Mercedes' technical director James Allison called referred to this system as "DAS" or "Dual Axis Steering"  The DAS works on the toe angle of the car. As explained briefly by motorsport magazine "Toe is the angle that the wheels sit in relation to dead ahead when the steering is straight. If the front of the wheels are pointing out then this is known as toe out, the opposite and they are toed in".   Engineers in F1 tweak the angle to counteract oversteer and understeer.  So what Mercedes's DAS does is that it varies the toe angle between zero toe and negative toe. On the straights the angle becomes zero, reducing drag and giving a slight speed boost. This system is not automatic. It is activated with a button on the steering wheel. The message "marker" is displayed on the dash everytime the system is activated.  The system allows

After Sebastian Vettel's Canadian GP win was stripped by an unfair and unnecessary penalty, numerous people have spoken out about what seems like F1's slow death.    After 5 long years of dominance, Mercedes are showing absolutely no signs of slowing down (quite literally). The issue is that, this long and strong run of Mercedes comes at a time when the playing field between teams is more uneven than before. The sport is becoming incredibly easy to predict, so much so that my non-f1 watching parents can tell who takes pole Saturday and who wins on Sunday. The gap between Mercedes is absolutely alarming. Despite rule changes, Ferrari and RedBull haven’t been able to catch up. There are so many on-track battles fans have been waiting to see, however with Mercedes cruising 30 seconds clear of everyone else, this doesn't seem likely.  It's one thing for a team to dominate and win five consecutive championships, but winning an average of three out of eve

2021 is set to witness one of the biggest rule changes in F1. The FIA has planned a new breed of futuristic cars and plenty of "behind the scene" changes. The aim of this larger than life change is to make the sport fairer and more competitive. Instead of quick fixes, this time the changes will be at the grassroot level in terms of a more equal pay structure for teams to prevent team size and money from being the decisive factor in success.  However, if a cost cap like this one is introduced, a lot of bigger teams might protest since most of their staff would have to be laid off.                              RedBull has said that if such a situation does arise then the extra staff would be put to work on other projects. With the WEC also making a grand rule change in 2020 with its hypercar-based LMP1 replacement category, the idea is that the team could start a program based on the Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercar that Red Bull technologies played a big part in desig

A surge in his form saw Mick Schumacher win 5 races in a row giving him a 49-point lead over his nearest rival, Dan Ticktum. However, a first-lap collision in the first race at the Hockenheimring meant that he had to avoid dropping further 15 points to Ticktum in race two, which he managed to do by securing a 2nd place finish.  Schumacher's title win comes after a 12th place finish in his rookie season. The son of the 7-time world champions was incredibly delighted and was "really greatful" for the championship. With all the attention and media surrounding him at all times, his team has played an important role in keeping his grounded and focused.  “It’s hard to describe in words.  I feel really grateful for what I’m able to live in this moment, to live this dream. We do what we love, so to also perform well in it is the best feeling you can get.  I have the team behind me, and people I can go to for relaxing.  This was key for me coping with the a