MOTORSPORT: New race a no-win for Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo has slipped to fifth in the Formula 1 World Championship chase, while race winner Nico Rosberg has stretched his lead over Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton after the new grand prix at Baku in former Soviet republic, Azerbaijan.

Ricciardo started P2 on the front row of the grid, after a penalty that relegated Mexican driver Sergio Perez, but retaining that position in his Red Bull RB12 or challenging Rosberg was always unlikely.

The longest main straight of the season, on the street circuit that in some other ways was rather like Monaco, did not suit the RB12’s Renault power unit like it did the Mercedes and Ferraris.

Ricciardo’s problems were compounded by tyre degradation in the hot conditions.

He finished seventh, with teenage teammate Max Verstappen on his tail.

"At the start we put ourselves in a good position and the aim was to get [pole-position qualifier] Nico,” Ricciardo said.

“We managed to hold second and I felt pretty good in the first few laps, especially as I could see Seb [Vettel, Ferrari] wasn’t catching me.

“After lap three we started to slide the rear and there was no way of controlling it. I went from being very optimistic about our race to being uncertain.

“I don't think we had the wrong strategy. One stop would have been ideal, but we had to adapt and were forced into a two-stop race,” the Aussie lamented.

“We need to understand why [our performance fell away] because we usually perform well in hot races, like Singapore. Today was a bit unexpected,” Ricciardo stated.

Chaos had been anticipated through the circuit’s narrow sections after lots of incidents through practice, qualifying and in the GP2 support race, but the 51 laps of the 6km track proved rather processional.

The safety car never left the pit lane. Nor was there even a virtual safety car.

Interest was always going to be in Hamilton trying to come through the field from 10th on the grid, but his charge was slowed by his Merc switching to the wrong power settings – a problem he couldn’t solve, to his great frustration, through getting advice from his pit wall crew because of the clamps on radio communications now.

“Today would have added to the spectacle if I had full power because I would have been more in the race, fighting with the guys ahead of me… maybe the rule needs to be looked at because this was a technical issue [not guidance],” Hamilton said.

Eventually the Briton hit on the right mode and finished fifth, but almost a minute behind Rosberg, who was unchallenged on the way to his fifth win of the season.

Having narrowed Rosberg’s early-season 43-point lead to nine points by winning the previous two races, Hamilton now finds himself 24 points behind again – but 13 races remain, the next in Austria.

Hamilton recorded the highest top speed not only of the weekend but the season – 364.4km/h at the start-finish line.

Mercedes has won seven of the eight GPs so far and has a huge lead in the constructors’ championship over Ferrari, with Red Bull a comfortable third ahead of Mercedes-powered Williams and Force India.

Vettel was second in Baku for the third time this season. It was his fifth podium. Kimi Raikkonen was more competitive but was overtaken by Perez in the closing stages and had a five-second penalty awaiting him anyway.

As evidence that Mercedes is still a street ahead of its opposition, the margin between Rosberg and Vettel was 16.696sec, with another 7.861sec to Perez. The youngster has now been on the podium twice in the past three races and, with Ricciardo staying at Red Bull for the next two years, is coming back into calculations as a potential replacement for Raikkonen at Ferrari next season or in 2018.

Not only does Perez have speed but excellent tyre management skills. The Mexican came on the scene as a Ferrari protégé but the connection looked to have been severed when he went to McLaren (then Mercedes powered) for a season that went sour.

Formula 1 World Championship driver standings after eight of 21 rounds: 1. Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 141 points; 2. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, Mercedes) 117; 3. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Ferrari) 96; 4. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Ferrari) 81;
5. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 78; 6. Max Verstappen (Netherlands, Red Bull-Renault) 54; 7. Valtteri Bottas (Finland, Williams-Mercedes) 52; 8. Sergio Perez (Mexico, Force India-Mercedes) 39; 9. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Williams-Mercedes) 38; 10. Daniil Kvyat (Russia, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 22; 11. Romain Grosjean (France, Haas-Ferrari) 22; 12. Nico Hulkenberg (Germany, Force India-Mercedes) 20; 13. Fernando Alonso (Spain, McLaren-Honda) 18; 14. Carlos Sainz Junior (Spain, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 18; 15. Kevin Magnussen (Denmark, Renault) 6; 16. Jenson Button (GB, McLaren-Honda) 5; 17. Stoffel Vandoorne (Belgium, McLaren-Honda) 1.

F1 constructor standings: 1. Mercedes 258 points; 2. Ferrari 177; 3. Red Bull-Renault 140; 4. Williams-Mercedes 90; 5. Force India-Mercedes 59; 6. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 32; 7.  McLaren 24; 8. Haas-Ferrari 22; 9. Renault 6.

Aussie Joey puts a gap on new Schuey
Australian Joey Mawson is 20 points ahead of Michael Schumacher’s son Mick (202-182pts) at the midpoint of the German Formula 4 Championship.

Mawson (20) won two of the three races at the Oschersleben circuit at the weekend to increase his advantage over the 17-year-old Schumacher. The Sydneysider, who drives for Dutch-owned team Van Amersfoort Racing, has won four races at that track now this season – as well as one at Sachsenring.

Schumacher was with the same team last season but has switched to Italian-based Prema Powerteam this year.

Mawson said Saturday’s race win was “perfect”, while that on Sunday (in a race in which the safety car unusually did not come out) was “mega, but tough – because Mick really got into his stride around the halfway mark”.

“I had to take some action, and quick, to ensure that the gap didn’t get any smaller,” Mawson said.

The top 10 drivers were reversed on the grid for the final race of the weekend and Mawson, starting 10th, was involved in a crash that forced him to retire while Schumacher also failed to score points.

That race was won by an 18-year-old German, Kim-Luis Schramm, driving for the team of Michael Schumacher’s brother Ralf. It’s called US Racing, an acronym formed from the first letter of the surnames of partners Gerhard Ungar and Schumacher.

Rally comeback proves a Smart move
A local driver competing for the first time in 18 months won Rally Queensland – the third round of the Australian Rally Championship – while Indian Guarav Gill and his Australian co-driver Glenn Macneall won the Asia-Pacific round in the rain-disrupted event on the Sunshine Coast.

Ryan Smart and co-driver John Allen won only one stage of the ARC round but were in the top three on every other stage in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX.

They finished more than a minute ahead of the Super 2000 Toyota Corolla of Canberra’s Harry Bates and his co-driver, John McCarthy.

Bates now leads the ARC, while the previous leader and multiple national champion, Victorian Simon Evans, rolled his Subaru Impreza WRX on Sunday morning.

West Australian Tom Wilde was third for the weekend in a Subaru. Factory Group N Subaru driver, Molly Taylor, was fourth.

Smart said that, having sat out of the sport for 18 months, he “wanted to come out and have some fun and see if I still had some pace”.

The Lancer had brake issues in the early stages and Smart’s crew changed a diff on Saturday night. Only eight tyres were used on the car for the event.

Meanwhile, Gill had a lead of almost 2 minutes over young German teammate Fabian Kreim in the Asia-Pacific round when the last four stages were cancelled because of safety concerns in the wet weather.

“The conditions were so harsh,” said Gill, who had won all 13 stages completed.

He and Kreim, who is only in his first season of gravel rallying, drive a pair of Skoda Fabia R5s for Team MRF,

New Zealand Michael Young was third in his Subaru Impreza and Coffs Harbour driver Nathan Quinn fourth in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX after a boost issue on Saturday and a blown driveshaft on Sunday’s first stage.

The next round of the Asia-Pacific series is at Zhangye in western China, near the Mongolian border.