This review is a bit late because I haven't actually watched the race. With the youtube highlights and in particular the onboard ones, the Toro Rosso battle and the Williams battles were fantastic to watch but completely missed from the TV footage. However, the last lap drama involving both Renaults, Kimi's Alfa Romeo and Norris' McLaren is the kind of last lap battling you want to see.
How the teams fared
Now that Lewis is getting into his stride and understanding his car and the tyres better, he is going to be almost unstoppable for the rest of the year, it's hard to see how Bottas can get close.
Vettel had a miserable weekend, a poor qualifying and a poor getaway from the lights meant he was miles away from his teammate, Leclerc, who had a pretty strong weekend.
Gasly continues to struggle, only finishing in the points thanks to Ricciardo's double penalty. Verstappen continues to be my driver of the year.
It was a welcome sight to see both McLaren's having such strong pace in qualifying and converting them to good race finishes, despite Norris' hydraulic issue.
The Renaults showed good race pace and their engine seems to have made a good step. It will be a good fight between them and McLaren for the rest of the year. Hulkenberg is getting mauled in qualifying head-to-head with Ricciardo, though it's competitive between the two in the races. But it's Daniel's flair and all or nothing attacks that makes him stand out.
Alfa returned to form after a few races in the doldrums, with Kimi finishing in the points, whilst Giovinazzi beat Kimi in qualifying but hampered race strategy as a result.
Poor old Haas. They need to understand how to get these Pirelli's to work quick otherwise we'll all be subjected to more of Grosjean's moaning.
Racing Point dropped the ball a bit when Perez went off at turn 1 on lap 1 and gained an advantage and there could have been much better communication to make sure he gave back the spots he had gained. Stroll had a reasonably good race, but it's his poor qualifying that is his own undoing, failing yet again to make it out of Q1.
As we mentioned above, both Toro Rosso and Williams team-mate battles were some of the highlights of the race even though they were at the back of the field. Russell and Kvyat are both doing really good jobs at the moment.
The 1999 season would prove to be the most successful season for Jordan in its 15 year Formula One history. Riding off the high of their first win and 1-2 finish in Spa the previous year, the team would see Frentzen win two Grand Prix and pose a credible threat for the title up to the final few races, finishing third in the Drivers' Championship and third in the Constructors' Championship.
This was also to be 1996 World Champion's Damon Hill's final season in Formula One. Having never got to grips with the grooved tyres introduced in 1998, Damon struggled to match the impressive Frentzen, who himself was looking to prove himself after a difficult couple of years at Williams.
Hot Wheels produced the Jordan 199 car and it was a pretty reasonable attempt. I'm not a big fan of the yellow that they chose, but the shape is generally not bad, good proportions, nothing sticks out as particularly wrong. Score: 7/10
Though Minichamps never released this car as a stand alone nor with a driver figure, we have to settle for the car as part of the twin set with the EJ10 as part of the 10 year anniversary of Jordan series. The shape is very similar to the Hot Wheels, but on closer inspection, this car has a better finish and slightly better detailing. Score: 7/10
The Ixo car shape is not bad, looking very similar to the Hot Wheels car. This car is based on the Italian GP with the super skinny rear wing and sidepod flip ups. It's a shame that the decals feel a little slap-dash, the front wing support is yellow instead of black, and the rear wing just seems a bit rushed. The winglet just in front of the sidepod is also on the small side. Looking at some of the decal conversions that have been done, it really lifts this model, but the manufacturer applied decals leave a bit to be desired. Score: 6/10
This Tameo model is also based on the race winning car from the Italian Grand Prix. This is another excellent car from Tameo. A great shape, and nice details in the cockpit, the t-cam, the transparent flip on the front wing end plate and a nice skinny rear wing assembly.
The third Stewart saw a new car design philosophy that appeared to copy much of the successful McLaren's of Adrian Newey. Johnny Herbert was brought in as the second driver alongside Rubens Barrichello. The car was competitive, though fragile in terms of reliability, with the highlight of the year being a first and third place finish at the Nurburgring, with Herbert claiming the teams first and only win in F1.
However it was Barrichello who was usually the more competitive, claiming further podium finishes and a pole position, and could have had more but for reliability issues. The team finished a credible 4th place in the Constructors' Championship.
Hot Wheels produced the Stewart car. Again I like the treatment of the wings, though it looks quite plasticy in white. The fins just in front of the sidepod lack definition, as does the rollover bar and the sidepod flip up winglet. It's not my favourite Hot Wheels car of the 1999 batch to be honest, but it could be worse, it's not that bad really. Score: 6/10
I am pretty certain this is from the same mould as the Hot Wheels car, so the differences lay primarily in the finish, the wheels and the driver and helmet. Whilst I prefer the Hot wheels tyre and rims, I prefer this clean and smooth looking helmet. Score: 6/10
This is the European GP, with the high exhaust exits that were all the rage in 1999. This is an excellent version of the Stewart, in my opinion one of the nicest cars on the grid that year. It's a shame they reverted to a straightened sidepod opening, as the angled one looked much more aggressive. This was of course the race in which Stewart won their only Grand Prix, albeit Herbert's green number 17 rather than Barrichello's. The model has some great detailing, like the rivet marks on the exhaust, the blue steering wheel, nicely sculpted mirrors and rollover bar, just a masterclass in modelling from Tameo here.
Popular Italian, Alex Zanardi returned to F1 for the first time since 1994. He had been in America winning the Cart Championship in between his F1 stints, but coming back to the sport with narrow-tracked cars and grooved tyres, the Italian struggled to match the speed of Ralf Schumacher in the sister car. Zanardi would return to America after this season, where he would lose his legs in a horrifying crash. But his determination and mental strength has been shown since, becoming a double paralympic gold medalist and even testing a modified 2006 BMWSauber F1 car.
Ralf Schumacher was able to extract much more consistent pace out of the car and earned himself three podium finishes including a 2nd placed finish at Monza. It's been said that Frank Williams had always kicked himself for not getting Michael Schumacher in his car and didn't want to miss out on an opportunity of missing out on another superstar, but whilst Ralf was quick, he was not in the same league as Michael.
This would be the final season of Williams running Supertec developed Renault engines with a works deal with BMW looming for 2000.
Hot Wheels began making some cars for 1999, and overlapped with Minichamps for the Williams FW21, so that direct comparisons can be made. As a basic shape goes, this is not a bad model, it's a bit bulky and lacks details and finesse, but I've seen much worse budget cars. I like the detail of the rear wing and the separated elements on both front and rear wings. The sidepod is a little basic and flat, but overall it's really not bad. Williams had ditched running the yellow trim on their wheel rims, though Minichamps did the same on their showcar, but they are here on the Hot Wheels car. Score: 6/10
Onto the Minichamps version and the first thing I noticed was the driver is facing down into the cockpit, not paying any attention to what is ahead of him. But I really like this model, I quite liked the FW21 for being quite a trimmed model, making the FW20 look rather bulky in comparison. The nose is much pointier, the sidepods are small and sculpted, the rollover bar is much sleeker and the rear end is looking quite small, and with no main bargeboards and a shorter wheelbase to other 1999 cars, it really looks good from the outside. I really think Minichamps have done the car justice, and I can accept for now that there is no high-end model of this car available, this model satisfies me at least.
Minichamps 430990098
Williams used the FW21 for various tests through 1999 and 2000. The Michelin test car came had a few variations, but Minichamps have given us this one, with Jorg Muller at the wheel. There was also a nice BMW testing livery as well, but there is only a 2000 showcar rather than the test livery released by Minichamps. Nevertheless, it was nice to get a testing livery. Score: 7/10
The 1999 Benetton tried some new radical technology, a front torque transfer system and twin clutch gearbox, but these proved troublesome. But the car was heavy and the aerodynamics were not as sophisticated as its rivals and the car was disappointing compared to its predecessors. The team managed 16 points, with Fisichella's 2nd place in Canada the highlight of the year. Fisichella was in contention for the win at the crazy European Grand Prix but spun out of the lead. Wurz only scored two points finishes in a disappointing season.
The Benetton is another long 1999 car, only just fitting in the old Minichamps box. The model is the standard Minichamps, with good proportions and simple details. With there being no alternative models of this car in this scale, this is a reasonable car to have in your collection, but it's not a particularly popular model, trading for cheap prices and not many being actually bought/sold. Score: 7/10
After a disappointing 1998 campaign, the new Prost AP02 Peugeot was more competitive. Trulli managed a podium finish at the European GP, but Panis' season was more disappointing with only two sixth placed finishes, though there were promising qualifying performances, but strategic errors and bad luck hampered good results.
It's perhaps telling that both drivers left the team at the end of the year, looking for a better team more suited to their obvious talents, with Panis taking a test driver role at McLaren and Trulli heading for Jordan.
The car features unique front sidepod design with flaps on the top, however this design never caught on and was dropped on the AP03.
At the time, I thought the Prost was one of the longest F1 cars and I wondered whether there was quite enough space to fit it in the old smaller Minichamps box. Obviously it did, but Minichamps had to make longer boxes from 2010 onwards.
Minichamps 400990119
At the end of 1999, Jenson Button tested for McLaren and Prost before taking up a race seat at Williams for 2000. This car was updated for a 2017 release in a limited edition run of just 648. The updates are on the colour which is metallic blue now, and sharper sponsors, though there are no barcodes, but a blank space for you to apply your own tobacco decals. Score: 7/10
Jean Alesi was joined by Pedro Diniz for the 1999 season, but the team suffered from poor gearbox reliability and meant that the car rarely finished even though it was fairly competitive. In the end the team scored 5 sixth placed finishes to finish the year in 8th place.
Diniz was lucky to walk away unharmed after being flipped at the European Grand Prix at the first corner, which saw the Sauber's rollover bar fail and leaving the Diniz's head exposed and the car came to a rest upside down, presumably resting on Diniz's helmet. For a moment, the world held their breath and feared the worst. Thankfully he was OK and the marshalls were able to get him out the car quickly.
The 1999 Sauber was quite a small but long car, certainly compared to its predecessor, and Minichamps have done a good job on this relatively simple shaped car. The Petronas logos on the top of the sidepod are nicely done, as is the chrome front wing supports. I miss the days when Sauber ran different headrest and mirror colours for their drivers as a way to tell them apart, with Alesi running red and Diniz running yellow. Score: 7/10
Arrows made their own engines, based on the Hart engines whom they had purchased, but the car was disappointing and unreliable. Only at the first race in Australia did it show any pace, with De La Rosa scoring a point in 6th place on his debut, with Takagi behind in 7th.
The team joined Minardi with a point to show for their efforts at the end of the year, with only the more competitive but unreliable debutante BAR team not scoring behind them.
At the beginning of the year, Nigerian prince Malik Ado Ibrahim bought a share in the team and t-minus logos appeared on the car for his global brand. But it turned out this venture did not take off and the team received no money at all. The prince had disappeared before the season was out and his payment on investing on the team did not materialise by the September deadline.
This is the show car, the 1998 car with the launch livery. Personally I loved the shape of the Arrows A19, and in all black it was a pretty car, so forgive me for indulging in seeing it in this post. But I did like the t-minus mirrored logo on the sidepod, with the countdown to something that never happened.
Minichamps 430990015
The A20 looks very similar to the A19, with little money to develop it, and even Brian Hart left the team before the end of the year due to a lack of resources to develop the engine properly. Takagi didn't know English too well and he too left the team at the end of the year. The model itself is a reasonable representation of the car. Score: 7/10
Minardi wanted to signify a new era for the team with the new chassis numbering, the M01. Luca Badoer returns to the team, having previously driven for them in 1995, and was joined by Ferrari test driver, Marc Gene in his rookie season.
The car remained near the rear of the grid, frequently battling with the Arrows team. Badoer damaged his wrist at a test session crash and was replaced for one race by Stephane Sarrazin but span out of the race.
At the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, Badoer was running in fourth place in his Minardi when his gearbox failed with 13 laps to go and the Italian reduced to tears at the side of his car. But teammate Gene secured sixth place to secure Minardi's first point for four years.
The team equaled Arrows' points haul at the end of the year, but lost out on countback meaning they finished 10th in the Constructors' Championship, one place ahead of the more competitive and better funded debutantes, BAR. I still find it funny that BAR said they could win and didn't score a point when Minardi did!
This car was the first Formula 1 car that Fernando Alonso drove before joining the team in 2001.
For some reason, Minichamps didn't have the rights for Luca Badoer's name on the cardboard inlay, but they were able to reproduce his helmet with no issues. I wasn't particularly keen on the silver liveries that Minardi went for in 1998 and 1999, I much prefer the yellow black and white of the 1997 car or the yellow on their 2000 car. To the model itself and it's another pretty accurate model from Minichamps, I like how they have added the extra padding on the headrest behind the drivers helmet. Not much to complain about on this car. Score: 7/10
This is based on Marc Gene's point scoring car at the European GP. I hadn't notice before that they changed the nose on this car mid-season, it was a lot shorter and had the front wing supports angle forwards as it drops to the front wing. Another stunning model from Tameo, Score 9/10
The team initially intended to field their cars in different liveries to promote their two brands. The FIA banned this concept, so they ended up with the famous zip design, with one car on one side and the other livery on the other side.
It was the debut year for the British American Racing Team where they arrogantly promised to win a Grand Prix during their first year (which of course they did not). They also benefited from a partnership with Reynard Motorsports who built their cars. But Jacques Villeneuve failed to get to the end of a Grand Prix until Belgium in August. They finished the season with no points, despite some good drives from Villeneuve in particular.
Zonta was in his first season in Formula 1 in the second seat, but an injury led to him being sidelined for three races. Mika Salo, who had impressed in previous years but failed to land a drive in 1999, deputised and duly gave the team their best result of the year, a 7th place just outside the points. This would not be the last time we see Mika Salo in 1999.
At that year's Belgian Grand Prix weekend, both Zonta and Villeneuve had massive accidents at Eau Rouge during qualifying but both drivers competed in the race.
The car ran with a testing livery before it launched its two car livery concept and I personally quite liked this livery. Again it was good of Minichamps to give us this edition.
Minichamps 430990022
The eventual livery that ran the season was a mess. Anyway, model itself is pretty reasonable, with the awful livery nicely reproduced and it even has the different colour rims on each side of the car. Another solid effort from Minichamps. Score 7/10
This Tameo version is based on the Monaco GP. The car shape is better defined and has much more detail than the Minichamps car. I also think the decals are better than what you get on the Minichamps version too.
One thing I never noticed before was the diffuser sidewalls are painted in silver, so I had to look back at images and sure enough it was silver. Score 9/10
Before I feature the World Champion from twenty years ago, I thought I would take a pause and look at the whole field for the 1999 season in 1/43 models.
Background
After pulling out of F1 in 1992, Honda were flirting with the idea of making a full works team comeback, and there is a prototype of the RC101B around 1995/1996.
In 1998 Honda set up the HRD team (Honda Racing Development) for the purposes of evaluating its entry into F1 with its own team in 2000. The car called RA099 had its first shake down on the 15th December 1998 in Vairano, Italy. Designed by Harvey Postlethwaite and built by Dallara, the RA099 would be a test car prior to coming back to the sport after over a 30 year absence as a full constructor. The test times were looking promising however designer Dr. Postlethwaite suffered a heart attack and lost his life at a test in Jerez, and the programme was shut down.
Honda came back as an engine supplier in 2000, and it wouldn't be until 2007 when they would return as a constructor once more. In 2015, Honda returned once more as an engine supplier to McLaren in the turbo/hybrid era which did not go well and now the Honda power units power Red Bull and Toro Rosso cars.
Minichamps produced this test car in a large square gift box, which I personally never had room to store let alone display. Anyway, I'm not aware of any other models in 1/43 scale of this car, but it was nice of Minichamps to produce this one, with Jos Verstappen at the wheel. This car is typical of the Minichamps standard of cars during that time, good proportions, fairly reasonable detail, not too much to complain about considering their prices at the time. Score 7/10
In this update, I want to look at the front wing, the nose cone and the monocoque area (the bit between the nose and the cockpit).
GP4 1995 Mod
As previous mentioned, the front wing is pretty generic. The endplate is reasonably done. The front wing has three elements, and it has the two vanes underneath. It's pretty basic and not particularly accurate.
The nose is quite smooth, but the tip is quite low poly and basic compared to the monocoque region.
Real Racing 3
The Real Racing 3 front wing is a generic two element which doesn't really look anything like the real car. The bottom frong wing actually extends the full length of the end plate. The end plate is nicely done though.
Thankfully the nose is pretty nice along with the monocoque region. There's a lack of bargeboards on this car.
F1 2017
The front wing is the correct 3 elements and has the vanes underneath, two larger ones and one smaller one. Though there are some nice curves to the upper front wing elements, but the inboard section (bits by the nose cone) are almost flat on the real car. The outboard section should be more flat rather than tapered from front view.
The nose is nice and the monocoque seemed a bit thin and skinny to me. However, I think it captures the essence of the front endbetter than the RR3 car. If you notice on the nose, there's a concentration of polygon lines on the side, because the sidewall of the nose tapers in. That's why from some angles, the nose looks more curvy than it actually is from the top and front view.
So taking all these things into account I tried to incorporate these lessons into my car. Sorry for the screenshot with the black and you can't quite see it, but my gripes with the F1 2017 car has been improved upon in my version and more than halving the poly count. The bit of red you can see on the front wing is the underside of the front wing poking through, so I will fix that.
Onto the nose, and I have taken a slightly different approach to the nose tip. I've tried to take on some of the subtleties of the F1 2017 nose. I'm pretty happy with the basic shape.
F1 2017
WIP
Here is a comparison from front view. On the Codies car, there is virtually no gap between the two upper front wing elements. You can see on my model, how by the nose, there is very little front wing to see, but there is much more visible by the endplate. The contours of the trailing edge of the upper most element is much closer to the real car.
GP4 1995 mod
On my original model, you can see the nose tapers out from the top of the nose cone to the joining with the monocoque, where it is pretty much straight and parallel around the suspension before continuing to widen out for the cockpit. Back then I struggled to get the nose looking quite right from all angles, and having now come back it, it's because I assume from top down the top edge and the bottom edges were identical, with the side of the nose and monocoque being flat. But it's not on this car.
RR3
You can see how the bottom front wing extends the length of the endplate from this angle. You can also see that out of all of the models shown here, the RR3 is much wider than the others. If you look at the front of the cockpit, you can see an increase in concentration of polygons used to make the curved cockpit smoother. That's a trick I've been missing for my 90's cars, as I've always tried to make do with the number of polygons used around the monocoque.
F1 2017
The Codemasters car from the top view looks pretty straight forward and is essentially the same as the RR3 car but with more polygons used.
WIP
For my car, I tried to use a similar contour to the F1 2017 car, but making it a little thicker, but only marginally so. The front wing vanes are pretty much exactly the same as the Codies car, but the smaller barge board has much more of a curve. I tried to give it a little curve when I made my original car, but I made it a little more pronounced on this one.
I wanted to do a quick comparison between my original attempt, the F1 2017 car and the Real Racing 3 models with their wireframes and just talk very quickly about the differences. I also include some shots of the car I have started, taking lessons from what has come before.
GP4 1995 mod
So this is a little cringy for me looking back at one of my first works, but I suppose I have to look at the positive and think how I have improved from way back when. This is very low poly, very basic, and there are many elements that are simply not joined together. The nose is very basic and in fact it's just very generic. I couldn't quite marry up the top down view of the contours with the front view where the nose seems to be more shapely, but I'll focus on that in another post. The front wing has three elements and that is about all in its resemblance to the real car. The suspension is from Nick Ovey's Jordan, so it was an awful lot better than what I could have done at the time. The sidepod opening was reasonable enough, it's the most high poly part of the car. The rollover bar is pretty basic, and Tony who had mapped it had smoothed out some of the detail I had initially tried to incorporate (badly!). The rear wing isn't too bad, but the diffuser region is completely generic.
Codemasters F1 2017
As you can see, there are lots of polygons being used in this model and some of the detail is really nice. I've scaled it down to GP4 size, so that I can compare my version against this very detailed car.
Real Racing 3
By comparison, you can see immediately that there is a lot less polygons used in this model.
WIP
So after a couple of days, I was able to get most of the main chassis completed. I would normally spent a bit of time trying to line things up against photos, spend ages looking at different angles trying to get the proportions right and the right level of smoothness. Because I have the other two cars in Zmodeler as a reference, it was quite straight forward to wrap my own work around the existing ones. I could also see how the professional modders manage their normals on tricky parts, like the cockpit area and sidepod opening. As I said in my opening post, the polygon structure will be very similar to the Real Racing version, but the contours will follow the F1 2017 model more closely.
GP4 1995 Mod
As you can see, the original car had a very basic and generic rear end.
Codemasters F1 2017
From this angle you can see the level of detail placed on the rear of the rear of the car on the Codemasters car.
Real Racing 3
The rear racing 3 car doesn't have a rear wheel hub, is missing part of the rear winglet and bargeboards. The treatment of the rear of the sidepod is quite different, so I will have to look at some reference shots to compare which is the better solution. However, the car does have some nice detail at the rear of the car, around the suspension and gearbox area.
WIP
I've made a start at the rear of the car, the hump at the rear of the engine cover may get tweaked as it wasn't the smoothest join I've ever done. Having looked at some photos, the bottom of the rear of the sidepod is quite smooth, so I've slightly gone my own way with that one. The key thing at this stage is to get the main shape as close to the real thing as possible, keeping an eye on proportions, checking as many angles as possible, because once you start adding details, it is much harder to change the whole shape after that. You can see how I try and make sure the majority of my polygons face the same way, though it's not perfect. I kind of treat it like stroking a furry cat. I hope you can see my slightly more efficient use of polygons and that the structure is very similar to the RR3 car, but that the shape is closer to the F1 2017 car.
When I started out making cars for the 1995 mod, I was simply looking to bring some simple updates to the existing CTDP cars that were very basic. So the cars towards the rear end of the field were pretty much an updated version of the CTDP cars, whilst a few of the cars near the front of the grid were created from scratch.
The Ferrari that I shaped for the 1995 mod for GP4 was one of the first scratch cars I ever made, and admittedly it wasn't great. It bore a reasonable enough resemblance, but I had no modelling experience other than starting out with somebody else's car and moving things around and took it from there. Tony took the car to map and he almost remodelled it to make the polygons line up and the normals look much better. One of the things he took out were the diamond shaped vents on the top of the sidepods. If I remember correctly, the car was painted by Ross Hunter.
Anyway, the car has existed a long time and has been converted into other games.
I've been playing the mobile game called Real Racing 3 for a few years now and when I saw this car pop up, I just had to buy it - it was one of my first really fast cars in my garage. Thanks to the guys at gamemodels.ru I was able to have a look at the model in Zmodeler.
The car itself is quite a low poly shape, these cars are supposed to run on mobile devices. The car is pretty accurate, with nice detail in the cockpit and the rear suspension area. It does miss some rear winglets, the front wing is a bit strange and it is missing the bargeboards, but by and large this is a nice car and easily convertable into GP4 without too much editing or scaling.
The car was also featured in F1 2017 of the Codemasters range and subsequent releases. The car is a high-poly work of art and GP4 would not be able to handle the polygon count if you were to put it straight into the game. Having said that, I have noticed a few bits that I think could be improved, but I'll mention them in subsequent posts.
So it got me thinking, can I use these two cars as references and update my car or rather recreate it from scratch. The time consuming thing with my 1994 cars is that I'm trying to put lots of detail in there. For this I needed to step back a little bit and do a simpler car, we'll call it the 412T2 Lite for GP4. So I aim to use a similar polygon structure and level of detail on the chassis and rear end from the low-poly RR3 car, and then use the Codies car for reference for wings, suspension and bargeboards.
Having done a very similar cockpit for the 1994 412T1, I aim to add some detail into the cockpit so that the onboard shots will look nice.
The Canadian Grand Prix can sometimes produce an exciting race, it usually has a good atmosphere, there's always some wildlife to avoid and it's nice for the teams to do a bit of extra curricular activities in building boats out of spare parts.
Qualifying
There were a few spins and crashes in practice, but Kevin Magnussen's crash in qualifying was spectacular, having hit the wall of champions which speared him into the opposite barrier, ruining many a qualifying runs of rivals behind him. I remember back in the day Ken Tyrrell would never send both his cars out at the same time for that reason, but back then they had two separate hour-long qualifying sessions and 12 laps in each. Anyway, it was Vettel who was back in form in qualifying, using his superior straight line speed to take pole position. The red/blue indicator on F1's side-by-side video clearly shows Mercedes are quick in braking and the corners whilst Ferrari are quick on the straights.
Stars and Strugglers
Daniel Ricciardo shone in qualifying finishing in fourth and beating Pierre Gasly and Valterri Bottas. A potentially epic scrap for position with team-mate in Hulkenberg didn't materialise (probably wisely) in the race, and the team earned their first double points finish this weekend and both of them beat Gasly in a fair battle. A fiesty defence from Ricciardo against Bottas was nice to see. Good job.
Whilst both McLaren's made it into Q3, Norris' car had a strange wheel hub failure and Sainz did not have the pace to finish in the points. Norris did have some nice dicing with fellow sim racer, Verstappen.
Lance Stroll put in a good race at his home race, finishing in the points. He still needs to find a way of getting out of Q1 though.
Daniel Kvyat continues to lead the team, earning another point in his current good run of form.
Both Haas cars were scuppered by Magnussen's qualifying crash, and never really recovered in the, with one of the highlights being Steiner giving Magnussen a right telling off over the radio, radio gold! He even finished behind Williams. Another moment was when Grosjean had to discard some Toro Rosso front wing from his cockpit. Haas need to get on top of these 'Kinder Surprise' tyres.
Hamilton made a rare mistake that damaged his car against the barrier in practice, but did well to make a race of it. Bottas hadn't really shown up this weekend, having been strong in Montreal in the past, he was completely forgotten about this weekend, so Hamilton has extended his championship lead by more than a win's worth, having won 5 out of 7 Grand Prix so far. He has 7 victories in Canada now.
Vettel's Meltdown
So that's all the normal stuff out the way, now to the real drama. For a change, we had some good racing at the front, well I say 'racing', but a competitive procession at the front. Hamilton looked to have the stronger pace in the race and was running close behind the Ferrari all race, but where it matters along the long straights, Ferrari could pull out enough to neutralize any DRS advantage. But Hamilton harried, hoping to force Vettel into a mistake, and a mistake was made, running wide in the turn 5/6 chicane. When he rejoined and collected the car from another slide, Hamilton had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. There is no controversy in Vettel making a mistake, we've seen them all too often, running wide near the end of the 2011 Grand Prix allowing Button through to take victory, crashing out of his home race from a commanding lead in 2018 German GP, and most recently spinning in Bahrain 2019 when racing Hamilton. It's really sad, but in what was a welcome return to form for the German and his team, Vettel's mistake lost them the race.
Vettel received a penalty for rejoining the race in an unsafe manner, crowding Hamilton off the track, or in this case, towards a barrier. Hamilton had to take action to avoid a collision.
Vettel's antics after the race provided gripping drama, as one might have expected from his constant defence on the radio in car. He stopped in the pit lane rather than in parc ferme and went to his hospitality. A FIA official had to go and get him and as he passed through the Mercedes garage (because why not) he received a huge cheer from the crowd, and then he removed the first place board from Hamilton's car and placed it in the empty space where his car should have been. Totally awkward silence in the cooling down room, awkwardly being dragged to the top step by Hamilton during the anthem, and walking off on Brundle's interview halfway through was utterly brilliant to watch. With rumours Vettel might retire coming up recently, there were times in his comments when he sounded like he was done with F1 - be it because of this penalty, or the realisation he can't beat Hamilton. Whatever, his almighty strop had more drama than any of the preceding 6 races combined.
I don't think any driver, with Hamilton admitting as much afterwards, would have done anything different to Vettel's manner of rejoining the track. You're in the lead but you've made a mistake, you're trying not to crash and you want to do all that is sportingly possible to keep that lead by keeping momentum and making your car as wide as possible. Vettel kept his foot on the accelerator to keep the momentum, and had a moment when he rejoined the tarmac. He also didn't turn left but simply let the car veer to the right hand side of the track. So I totally understand the uproar against the penalty.
However, the rules are written, whether they should be there or not is a different question, but the rule clearly states that he should have given Hamilton more space (as Hamilton quoted numerous times afterwards) and Vettel should have received a penalty, and he received the smallest penalty available, a 5-second penalty. Verstappen received a similar penalty in Japan 2018, with Verstappen's rejoining very deliberate, and Kimi's avoiding action cost him much more at that time. But we've seen Vettel crowd out Leclerc a number of times this season, including when he had run wide at the start of the 2019 Spanish GP and both Ferrari's had to fend off rivals around turn 3. But this was not penalized, with first lap incidents usually getting the benefit of the doubt. But the rules are there and the stewards had to punish him, harsh as it is.
It's also the responsibility of the car behind to avoid contact, which Hamilton did well to avoid contact with Vettel and the wall.
The rules were applied correctly, but in pure racing terms it should be classed as this unwritten, ambiguous term of 'racing incident' and let bygones be bygones. The rule was put in place for blatantly driving a competitor off the track, which I think the incident with Verstappen in Japan was more clear cut. I don't think this was a blatant attempt to take Hamilton out, but an attempt to rejoin without losing too much momentum to keep the lead. The stewards have applied the rules to the letter of the law, so the gripe should be at the wording of the rules themselves.
In the highly professional world of Formula 1, we need to see mistakes being made, and we love a bit of released emotions, it brings unpredictability and drama, the exact things we are lacking this season. It shouldn't be artificial like many other racing series trying to induce some excitement. Vettel's reaction has caused lots of conversations and a social media outcry, things that will draw eyes to the sport. But for the second race in a row, the finishing order on track did not reflect the actual race results.
Incredibly, 1998 was the last season McLaren have won a Constructors' Championship. Considering they had the best car in 1999 and arguably 2007, 2008 and 2012, for a team that has been so used to running at the front end, it has a poor conversion rate for titles (since the early 90s).
The 1998 F1 Season saw a host of new technical regulations aimed at slowing the cars down that saw most prominently narrow track cars and grooved tyres. It provided new designer, Adrian Newey, with an opportunity to shine, and the car was nearly a second quicker than anyone else in qualifying at the first two races. After winning four of the first six Grand Prix, Schumacher and Ferrari began to fight back, albeit too late to meaningfully challenge for the Championship, though he did manage to keep the fight alive till the final race. Hakkinen won eight Grand Prix, to his team-mate's one victory, to deservedly take his first Drivers' World Championship, and the team the Constructors' World Championship.
For me this is an iconic car, but there's also not many models of this car as you will see below, just one offering from McLaren (in various boxes) and a couple from Tameo.
I wasn't a fan of the change to narrow track cars for 1998, I'm not sure anyone was, but I think the prettiest car of that year was this McLaren, designed of course by Adrian Newey. Minichamps have created a nice model. The thing that bugs me is the red on the nose, there's way too much of it. I can kind of forgive the airbox that looks like it's just stuck on as though they forgot about it until it was too late. It's a shame, because the rest of the model is quite nice.
Minichamps 402989901
The twin car set, that comes with Hakkinen's MP4/14 car, features exactly the same car as the standard model above, so there's not much more to be said.
Minichamps 436980008
Several years later, the car was announced to be released in the World Champions Collection, I was looking forward to the car being updated, but I was disappointed to find that it is the same model, not a single thing has been changed as far as I can tell.
Minichamps
The model comes in other packaging, the team version with tobacco sponsorship factory applied. Score: 7/10
You can get this car in McLaren's papaya orange which the team ran in pre-season testing and the race edition is based on the Japanese GP where Hakkinen sealed the championship from Schumacher. This is a fabulous model from Tameo, it really captures the essence of the car for me, the shape is perfect, the beauty is in the simplicity and elegance of the shapes, and the details are nicely done too. Score: 10/10
