Track Torque: Hamilton victorious … and a look ahead to Le Mans

THIS past weekend we saw a very good race between Ferrari and Mercedes despite Sebastien Vettel giving away his advantage to Lewis Hamilton, thus allowing the Mercedes to finally lead the Ferrari home by five seconds at the chequered flag.

Vettel took the lead on the opening lap and held it until the first set of pit stops.

At the stop Ferrari made the cardinal error of putting on super soft tyres which committed Vettel to an extra early stop and lost him the race, although it was very close.

In third place Valtteri Bottas, who was on a single stop strategy, did a fantastic job to bring his Williams home on the podium after a very good drive.

Next down the road was Max Verstappen in a very hard-charging Red Bull, but similar to Ferrari, they had decided to pit Verstappen and Ricciardo twice.

The Red Bull pit crew also made a mistake changing Ricciardo’s tyres, holding him back in the pits for some time.

So, after lying third and fourth, they ended up in fourth and seventh places respectively.

Nico Rosberg and Kimi Raikkonen had difficult races, with Rosberg clashing with his teammate on the first lap, which set him back.

He later had mechanical problems and a slowly deflating rear tyre.

They were lucky to finish fifth and sixth just ahead of Daniel Riccardo in seventh.

The two Force-Indias took eighth and tenth places (Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez) while Carlos Sainz was ninth in the only Toro Rosso to finish in the points.

Russian team mate Daniil Kvyat was twelfth behind Fernando Alonso and the only McLaren Honda to finish.

This weekend the Grand Prix circus moves to Eastern Europe at the Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan, next to the Caspian Sea.

It is the debut race at the brand new state of the art circuit.

I think we can expect Ferrari to carry on with its hard push after a new turbo charger has given them more power and vigour!

Also, we should see Red Bull, with Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, keeping Mercedes and Ferrari honest! Verstappen could even spring another surprise.

Racing takes place on Saturday (qualifying) at 2pm and the race proper on Sunday at 3pm.

Please check television stations as there may be changes to allow for the start of the Le Mans 24 Hour race.

Le Mans starts this Saturday at 3pm South African time and finishes at the same time on Sunday.

Favourites for a win must be the 2-litre turbo charged V4 petrol engine Porsche Hybrids.

Porsche have won Le Mans 17 times and are out to make it eighteen this weekend.

Toyota have followed Porsche’s route of a small turbo charged petrol hybrid and will this year run a 2.4-l V6 engine after previously using normally aspirated engines of almost double that size.

The Toyotas, although third quickest cars at the recent test weekend, are getting better all the time and could well be a force to be reckoned with at the French track.

Audi won its early Le Mans races with petrol engines and then switched to diesels with a long string of successes.

The successful formula here is the diesel’s superior economy even during racing conditions.

To equalise performance somewhat the diesel engine cars have had to reduce their fuel tank capacities in order to make them pit more often.

An Audi-diesel victory however is quite on the cards as the latest car is not only economical but also very quick as it set the fastest time in testing just ahead of a very well driven (Mark Webber) Porsche.

It should be a ding-dong race with reliability the ruler!

All three of the top contenders are hybrids and their engine power together with the electrical power from storage batteries combined to give the cars each more than 1000 horsepower.

They all cannot exceed a particular designated fuel consumption.

The race will be shown live on DStv from the start at 3pm.

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