Lewis Hamilton Archives

F1 (Round 18) – 2019 Mexican Grand Prix Results and Highlights

♦ Lewis Hamilton’s win in Mexico still does not confirm his sixth world title, and he will have to wait till the next round in Texas. His closest rival is his team mate, Valtteri Bottas who is now 74 points behind.

♦ Ferrari started off with an unexpected advantage of pole position for Charles Leclerc when Max Verstappen lost his pole position because he ignored warning flags. However, the Italian team again lost that advantage although Sebastian Vettel’s tyre strategy worked out well in the end.

♦ Daniil Kvyat finished 9th overall but was dropped to 11th when the official results came out. The Toro Rosso driver was given a 10-second post-race time penalty for his last lap incident with Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg. The change in position also lost him and his team 2 points.

♦ Alexander Albon put in a good performance in Mexico, rising as high as third in the running, but the 2-stop strategy he had to use prevented him from pursuing the Mercedes-AMG drivers.

♦ The chances of Hamilton winning in Texas are pretty good as he has won 5 races there over the past 7 years. After collecting another world title, he can decide if he wants to move to Ferrari, Formula E, become an actor (he revealed that he was approached to star in Top Gun 2), or try to save the world in other ways.

100 wins — *100 F1 victories for the Mercedes Silver Arrows team*

Next race in Texas on November 3

F1 (Round 11) – The 2019 German Grand Prix Starting Grid

Race starts at 3:10 pm in Germany/9:10 pm in Malaysia

♦ In spite of being ill (believed to be the flu) this weekend, Lewis Hamilton still managed to capture pole position on the starting grid. Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen will be alongside the Mercedes-AMG driver. In the event that he decided he cannot race, reserve driver Esteban Ocon was ready to take over in his place.

♦ The Ferraris should have had a chance at the front row but technical problems in qualifying saw Charles Leclerc getting into tenth spot while Sebastian Vettel will start from the back. Vettel’s car had a turbo failure while Leclerc’s was due to a fuel problem.

♦ Although he has not raced his car in the rain, Renault F1 Team’s Daniel Ricciardo is hoping for a wet track as he thinks it may provide with just a slight edge. He said that he noticed that the car performed well in the wet last year.

♦ As some other circuits have been experiencing, the extremely high cost of hosting a F1 round means they can no longer do so. Hockenheim has hosted F1 rounds since 1970 (though not every year) is likely to have its last race this year for this reason. If so, there will be no German Grand Prix in 2020 (and beyond) since the Nurburgring circuit also stopped being a F1 venue.

F1 – Highlights of the 2019 British Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton’s victory at Silverstone this year is his sixth British GP win, the most of any driver in the race.
Sebastian Vettel rammed into Max Verstappen’s car on lap 37 but the Ferrari driver acknowledged it was his fault and apologized to Verstappen at the end of the race. He was given a 10-second penalty which dropped his finishing position to 15th, and 2 penalty points on his racing licence.
Despite the dramatic incident, Vettel and Verstappen completed the race with the Red Bull driver collecting 10 points for his 5th placing.
Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen – both driving for the American Rich Energy Haas F1 Team – never had a chance to race this weekend as they collided in the first corner and had to retire as the damage was too severe.
The duel between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen received praise as the two drivers showed gentlemanly behavior even as they challenged each other.
Kimi Raikkonen’s 8th placing at the British GP brings him points for a third consecutive race but not without having to work hard. The car still lacks speed on the straights, he said.
Lewis Hamilton revealed that he ‘went easy’ on Valtteri Bottas because they are team mates, even though they compete hard against each other and Bottas certainly would like to win the championship. “When you’re racing with a team-mate it’s on a different level. If I were racing a Ferrari, you take more risks. Still respectful, but you can lean on them a bit more but as team-mates, we sit down at the beginning of the race, we talk about Turn One and how we’re going to respect each other,” Hamilton said at the post-race press conference.