China F1 Predictions

Sunday April 11th will be the third race of the young F1 season, so for this race I thought I'd look at each team and see what the main interest might be for each of them. Let's go in order of how they are doing so far in the Constructor's championship, starting at the back of the grid.

Pretty much anyone can root for whoever is in first place, but rooting for the underdog is always fun too! In the underdog category so far we have plenty from which to choose, like the last three teams that haven't scored any points yet!





10 MANOR  LINK

In the first two races, Manor now has a grand total of one car finishing just one race, so certainly their goal in China is to get both cars not only to run, and to appear in the first round of qualifying, but also to have both cars running at the finish! Just doing that will be a big deal this early in the season, so here's wishing them the best, because we're rooting for them! 

9 LOTUS LINK

If it weren’t for bad luck, Lotus wouldn’t have any luck at all. They have zero points this year, despite having two experienced drivers in Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado. After the first  race with both cars DNF, and Maldonado again not finishing the 2^nd race, they must certainly be able to drive a bit more carefully and get to the finish line. As everyone knows, “To finish first, first you must finish”.In other words, right now they just need to worry about the "finish" part!

8 MCLAREN LINK

McLaren features two time champion Fernando Alonso driving alongside one time champion Jenson Button, so you'd think they'd be up there fighting for first place. You would be wrong! The new partnership with engine supplier Honda has them at the back of the bunch, still working out the bugs of the new engine, and like Manor, they also have a grand total of one car having finished one race so far this year and zero points. With the history and resources of McLaren as one of the top all time F1 teams, surely they will start moving up the standings any day now. Or..... maybe not just yet!

7 FORCE INDIA LINK

Force India seems to have lost some speed over last year, but I imagine they will be improving and moving up from 7^th place. So far Nico Hulkenberg has outscored Sergio Perez, so at least they both have points on the board in 2015, even though Perez only has one!  Still, they are ahead of three other teams!

6 RED BULL LINK

Red Bull Racing last year took three race wins and finished second in the team standings behind Mercedes, but so far this year they are buried smack in the middle of the team points, with even their junior Toro Rosso team ahead of them! Certainly they have two solid drivers, including Daniel Ricciardo who took those three wins last year, so the problem certainly must lie with the car. Before last year the Red Bulls took 4 championships in a row, so things are not looking good so far this year. They just announced a switch in braking systems from their "9 yards and a cloud of brake dust" showing in Malaysia and have put on last year's brakes, so we're likely to see them move up in China I think. For now you can even consider Red Bull as underdogs, but even that is not going to be enough to make me want to try their energy drink!

5 TORO ROSSO LINK

Toro Rosso with their two rookie drivers has snuck up past Red Bull, and now stand only 2 points behind Sauber. Assuming Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr. continue driving like experienced pros (or like their famous driving fathers actually!) despite being 17 and 20 years old, they just might be the surprise of the season and move up another spot! Shoot, as both rookies I’m happy to root for them as underdogs also!

4 SAUBER LINK

Sauber had a terrible 2014 and scored exactly zero points. Zero points! They’ve already passed that mark this year and are likely smiling about being way ahead of last year. Could they be moving up to challenge the top three? Probably impossible, so I think they will be happy to hold on to 4^th just ahead of Toro Rosso and Red Bull. That will be a season long battle worth watching, and compared to last year you could put Sauber in the Underdog category as well.

3 WILLIAMS LINK

Williams retains the awesome Martini colors on their mostly white cars, and with Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas they have two solid drivers. Speaking of solid, they are in a very solid third place, so the main interest is to see if they can gain on Ferrari and keep both drivers healthy and scoring points consistently. Bottas had a minor back injury and missed the entire first race, so like the #2 team, they have already had their fair share of bad luck and have missed some points early. Look for a better result for the rest of the year.

2 FERRARI LINK

Ferrari is the big news story of the year, with Sebastian Vettel winning the last race in Malaysia. The question we all have is if they will continue to challenge Mercedes or was it just a one-time win partly due to Mercedes bad pit stop strategy? Also important to Ferrari is getting better results from driver Kimi Raikkonen, which sounds odd since he finished in a good 4^th, but that was after a poor qualifying spot of 11^th, compounded by some contact and then a flat tire in the opening laps. If Kimi is running with Vettel, and Vettel continues challenging the Mercedes cars, then every race could bring some nail-biting battles at the front! The words “underdog” and “Ferrari” don’t really go together, but after 4 years of Red Bull dominance, followed by a year of Mercedes dominance in 2014, everyone else continues to wear the “underdog” name, even the red cars from Maranello Italy.

1 MERCEDES  LINK

Mercedes had to settle for “only” 2^nd and 3^rd in Malaysia thanks to Ferrari, so they will be recharged and energized to get maximum performance in China this week. With Hamilton holding a 3 point lead over Vettel, and 10 points over team mate Rosberg, we have a very interesting race for the driver’s championship, as well as a 76-52 standings of Mercedes over Ferrari. Between these two top teams we have 7 driver’s titles, so we should see some great battles on track. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that the higher straightaway speed of the Ferrari that we saw in Malaysia could tilt things against Mercedes again in China, which has the longest straight-away of any F1 track. Of course there are some curves and other twisty bits on the track too, so we should be in for a good race.

Here's a quick look at TV times in the US on NBC Sports Channel, and NBC LiveExtra Ap:

 --------------Formula 1 China 2015, all times Eastern--------------------

Thursday, April 9
--10:00 PM F1 Chinese Grand Prix, Practice 1, NBC Sports LiveExtra Ap

Friday, April 10
--2:00 AM F1 Chinese Grand Prix, Practice 2, NBCSN

Saturday, April 11
--12:00 AM F1 Chinese Grand Prix, Practice 3, NBC Sports LiveExtra Ap
--3:00 AM F1 Chinese Grand Prix, Qualifying, NBCSN

Sunday, April 12
--1:30 AM F1, Chinese Grand Prix, Race, NBCSN
--4:00 AM F1 Extra NBCSN

2015 Atlanta International Auto Show

Last week I made my way to Atlanta for their big annual auto show.  I'm considering replacing the long-running champion of NMS, the '97 Ranger, so this was a good chance to check out what's new from most manufacturers. Most of my time was spent going from car to car, taking turns in the driver seat, passenger seat, and inspecting relative comfort, size, etc.  Boring but necessary.  Here's the more fun highlights from the show:

The crowd gathers as the show starts up in the morning.

While Toyota's area generally makes me sleepy just walking by, they did have some items of interest this year.  First was a NASCAR cross-section vehicle, so that was cool to see all the inner-workings of one of those high-power cars.

Toyota powered NASCAR cross-section.

To go along with the whole car cross-section, they had on display a whole power-train.  Yep.  I think we could fit that in a Miata.

Poweeeeeer

While Mazda lost massive points for not having their test drives ready the day I was there, they did have one of their diesel-hybrid LeMans prototype race car on display.  Very cool, but no prices listed.  No new fourth generation (ND) Miatas at the show yet, but I'm sure they'll show up next year as they'll be going on sale soon.

They didn't let me sit in the prototype.

Alfa Romeo turned up with an all new 4C.  I think it looks pretty good, but a bit out of the price range.  I'll stick to my Miata in the two-seater department for now.

Come on Alfa, bring something affordable over to the US!

And this year's biggest loser, Mitsubishi.  They win points for having the best variety of colors, but most people aren't too interested in the tiny Mirage, the out-dated Lancer, and well, no one cares about their SUV.  I almost felt bad for their representative who looked extremely bored.

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After all, as this Miata parked next to me reminds us, "Life's too short to drive a boring car"!

Life's too short to drive a boring car! 

The way home brought me through Greenville to pick up some first generation Miata seats which, after a thorough washing and patch job on the driver seat, will have the foam removed for a cheap pair of race seats for track day.  That extra inch or two of foam should fully get me below the rollbar with a helmet on.

First and second generation seats are interchangeable! Just four bolts.

The rollbar is on order in NC, so next week NMS South travels north to pick up it up and then kick off the huge upgrade weekend.

Planning in advance: left home without the passenger seat to fit the two "new" seats in.

Charity Laps at Virginia International Raceway Report

Leaving pit row at the start/finish heading out on track

Virginia International Raceway VIR LINK is a great racetrack in an out of the way location, smack dab in the center of Virginia just about on the North Carolina border.  A couple of times per year they host charity events where everyday average Joe drivers (that sounds just like me!) can donate to a worthy charity like the Victory Junction folks (free summer camps for kids, a charity started by the Petty family) and drive their street car on the track for fun. No, it's not racing, there is no contact, no Million Dollar Prize for first place, but just good old drivin' fun for a good cause.

If you enjoy driving, driving fast, and driving fast on a track and being safe in a non-competitive event, then this is about as good as it gets in your own car! Enough talking, click on the video and take a lap around VIR in a FIAT 500 Abarth.  You might notice that right in front of me are two BMW Z4s. Keeping in mind that we were not allowed to pass, I never caught up to them. Also worth noting, when new they cost twice as much as my car, but they did NOT go twice as fast or have twice as much fun!!

 

On the right you can see the entry point to VIR, located out in the beautiful countryside of Virginia southeast of Danville.

Here's the video of my first lap:  VIR LAP VIDEO LINK


More photos from VIR available on our Flickr link on the right side of this page.







Any car or motorcycle can join in the fun of charity laps, like this line up of Porsche, Minivan, Mustang, and Miata!

Lamborghini Gallardo on track giving someone a ride-along for charity.  It sounded and looked very fast, which of course it is!

 

We enjoyed watching and listening to it, but then on either this lap or the very next one, it came to a stop out on the track!

If you peek under the guardrail on the right, you can see the Lamborghini Gallardo getting towed off the track due to some issue! 

 

I guess even expensive super-cars can have bad hair days!

 The Petty folks had a couple of their cars for ride-alongs, and of course you couldn't be a great race team without a big car hauler like this one!

Nice MGC-GT with a roll bar or cage on the inside!

Ford Mustang GT 350 always popular! 

 

I think the building in the background is the trackside rooms you can rent that come with their own garages!  Sounds like a nice way to spend the weekend whether you are driving or just watching the action on track from your own balcony on the other side!

Other drivers on track, you can see the attraction of not only some low speed corners here, but a big elevation change at the same time! 

 

I was just trying to get a shot of the cars on this cool part of the track from far away, so don't ask me what's up with the folks hugging at the bottom. They must be just happy to be at VIR! 

While waiting for our group's turn on the track, I was walking around checking out all kinds of cars, and saw this opportunity to shoot the Red FIAT in between a blue and a yellow Mustang in the next row.

 

I mean, can you believe how I parallel parked my little car into this tight parking spot in between two Mustangs????????? 

Other than a Ferrari that I spotted earlier, and one other new FIAT 500, I was thinking we didn't have enough cool Italians, and then all of sudden this nice Alfa Romeo pulled up! 

The exterior and interior all looked to be in great condition, and sure enough he was out on the track later having a great time!

 

Look for a big announcement on June 24th later this year when Alfa is expected to formally reveal the name of their next vehicles to be sold in the US.  

Spotted this Lotus across the parking lot. It would be cool even without the giant wing on the back!

 

There was at least one other Lotus at VIR in the afternoon.  While they don't sell a ton of cars in the US, they have been advertising on NBC during the Formula 1 races this year, so that is a welcome relief from seeing "Jake from Allstate" and a bazillion other ads that air every other minute!

 

 According to the VIR calendar, Friday November 6th will be the next day of charity laps, so make your plans now!