Mercedes notched its fourth 1-2 finish of this five race old formula one season on Sunday. Lewis Hamilton finished first in Spain after a close finish with his teammate Nico Rosberg who took second. This Mercedes team has been very impressive thus far this year, knocking of Red Bull-Renault, last year’s team to beat. Mercedes has been almost completely mistake free thus far, the only issue coming in the first race of the year in Australia where Lewis Hamilton did not finish due to an engine malfunction. Mercedes’ competitors have a long way to go to compete. While Hamilton and Rosberg were divided by only a second in Spain, the third place car, a Red Bull-Renault machine driven by Daniel Ricciardo was a distant 49 seconds back. Mercedes will look to continue its dominance at the biggest race of the F1 season, Monaco. This storied racetrack is technically very challenging, but Rosberg and Hamilton are no rookies and will be looking to solidify their teams lead in the series standings.
In other racing news, Simon Pagenaud won the first even Grand Prix of Indianapolis. This road race kicked off the month of May leading up to the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500. Pagenaud won thanks to a fuel saving strategy that afforded him more time out on the track. Unlike F1, there has been relative parity in the IndyCar series thus far. Four different teams are represented in the top five spots in points thus far. The real test, however, will come on May 25th when the teams see how their cars fare on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5 mile oval.
Source: The Indianapolis Star
Source: The New York Times
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/automobiles/monday-motorsports-another-mercedes-1-2-finish-in-formula-one.html
I remembered few years ago Ferrari was the dominant player of F1 race. It is amazing to see how teams like Mercedes has came to the top. Intense competition means that F1 race is still one of the most popular auto races in the world.
This year has been very important for the F1; as I explained in one of my blogs, this year the F1 changed many of the limitations and car specifications to make them more fuel efficient, and add more security for the drivers. From the results that you are reporting, it is obvious that Mercedes was the best one at adapting to these new rules, ending with the Redbull monopoly. It would be interesting to follow the different brands to see how the manage to keep making changes to compete against Mercedes.