The Montreal Factor

Lewis Hamilton waits in the garage before the Canadian Grand Prix

Good things come to those who wait. For Hamilton, that good thing came in the shape and form of a Grand Prix Gold Cup from the beautiful Sunday race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal. It was a much-needed boost for Hamilton's points in the Championship to stay competitive, a long time coming win for Hamilton to prove to the world that he still got it, and a respectable comeback for the McLaren Team from the many errors they've made in recent races.

The race started well enough with the usual suspects on the front rows - Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton and Webber. Soon after the race started, we are treated with Webber and Rosberg fighting for 4th position with some great wheel to wheel action, and Massa driving like a man who has something to prove. Rumor has it that Ferrari is looking for a new driver to replace Massa, so Massa has a lot riding on his performance in coming races. I am also continuously impressed with Di Resta, he's been doing really well in qualifying and races given the car he has, with a little more time and a better car I could see Di Resta on the podium.

Noticeably missing in the front battles are Button and Raikkonen, they've both fallen off the radar in the last few races. It's definitely odd to see Button struggling so much while Hamilton is competitive from the same McLaren car. Can the car setup really make that much of a difference? Button went from 10th position 16th at the end of the race. With Raikkonen's Lotus, it's hard to decide whether it's car or strategy that ultimately ruins the Ice Man and his comeback, I'm inclined to think both are factors for the time being. Started at 12th spot on the grid, Raikkonen went up 8 positions to 4th and then fell back to 8th right. And yet, Grosjean, also with a Lotus car, went from 7th to 2nd. How long will we have to wait before we see the Ice Man smile a non-smile on the podium?

Nothing like a little pit-stop action to shake up the line up. Right around lap 17, Vettel pitted and then just missed by a hair coming out to have Hamilton over cut, and then Alonso did the same to Hamilton after Hamilton pitted. McLaren's pitstops continue to make me nervous, even though I think the mini-stall at the pitstop was Hamilton's own doing. No matter, Hamilton recovered from that little hiccup at pitstop and eventually passed Alonso in DRS zone in lap 20.

The person who didn't recover and basically had some of the worst luck of the season is Schumacher. Schumacher qualified 9th, but ended up with a faulty DRS wing and had to retire. The mechanics can't even fix it with their gloved-hands at the pit stop. Totally tragic to watch.

For a long while (30 laps!), Hamilton was leading the way with Alonso and Vettel behind. I thought, well, that's how the race would end. Wrong! Lap 50 came around, Hamilton pitted with another nerve-wrecking McLaren pit stop, and stuck to his 2-stop strategy. I was fully expecting Alonso and Vettel to pit since their tyres' been hustling and need some refreshing. A few more laps and neither pitted, it became clear that Alonso and Vettel were both trying to stick it with those tyres until the end of the race. Haven't they learned the lessons from Raikkonen a few races back? It's a ballsy strategy gamble from the teams, and one of these races it may actually work, but Ferrari and Red Bull got it all wrong for this race.

One teams' wrong call is another teams' gain though. Perez and Grosjean both made the 1-stop strategy work for them and started to climb up the positions at the late part of the race. Red Bull realized quickly by lap 60 that Hamilton is catching Vettel and Alonso fast and furious with fresh tyres and they are now defenseless. Red Bull did the only sensible thing a team can do - bringing in Vettel for new tyres at lap 64 in a 70-lap race. Red Bull is hugely lucky that the pit stop at Montreal is one of the shortest run and they were able to slot Vettel back in near the top. Alas, the damage is done and Vettel can only fight back to pass Alonso to take 4th at lap 69.

Meanwhile, Hamilton took his 1st Grand Prix win of this season with a spectacular drive, with Grosjean and Perez taking 2nd and 3rd respectively. The race was completely unpredictable from the beginning until the very end. Amazing!

In case anyone has any doubt on who should win the Best Post-race hair at Montreal, that special title goes to Perez. His hair didn't look like it's been compressed in a hot helmet for 70 laps at all! And as a Canadian, I'm mildly relieved to see the Montreal grid girls outfit. Short red dress (no weird cutout bits!) with white heels is boring but classy! European Grand Prix grid girls, I hope you bring it in the next race on 6/22-6/24 weekend!

Turning Up The Heat In Montreal

This year's Formula 1 World Championship just got a little hotter after Lewis Hamilton took the win for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team at the Canadian Grand Prix.  This is Lewis' first win of the season, making him the seventh different winner so far; an unprecedented situation in Formula 1. 

Sunday's race was a stark contrast to the previous years where rain delays added a whole new meaning to the word patience.  The bright sun and clear skies made the race a hot one, 109° F (43° C) on the track, a 20°+ jump over the qualifying conditions.  The heat took it's toll on the teams, forcing them to jump quickly from the two different choices of tires to maximize their longevity. The race had a great start with no major collisions on the tight "Senna S" turn in the first few seconds and maintained collision free for a majority of the race.

Vettel lead from pole position and developed a large gap over Hamilton and Alonso, signaling his path to secure the race win with a quick first stint overall. Vettel wore out quickly though, and was forced to pit first out of the front runners, costing him the lead to Hamilton and Alonso.

The tire strategy of McLaren helped edge Hamilton to the lead with a two stop strategy that gave him the right amount of rubber to keep him going to the end.  With Alonso and Vettel struggling to keep the pace of Hamilton, Sergio Perez and Roman Grosjean edged past and climbed to the top and made it to the podium.

This was Grosjean's third podium of the season and Perez's second, adding excitement as the two young drivers are making their mark on the sport.  Hailing from Mexico, Sergio is gaining a large following in the Americas and quickly becoming a star.  The Sauber F1 Team driver has named Circuit of The Americas in Austin his home track, and though an American has yet to re-enter the sport, all eyes are on Perez as he will be the home crowd favorite in Austin.

Following the race, Sergio had this to say about his third place finish:

To be honest, starting 15th the last thing you think about is to end up on the podium. We went quite aggressive, the first stint was quite good, the stop very good, and the second stint very, very good.

Though Ferrari and Red Bull failed to put their drivers on the podium, speculations are that the title race will narrow and turn into a three man competition as the teams get in their groove and things start to settle.  Who those three drivers are is largely still speculation but so far, McLaren is the only team to put both drivers in first position. However, Jensen Button's 16th place finish in Monaco and Canada has many wondering why there is so much contrast between him and his teammate Hamilton, not to mention his ninth position in the drivers championship points puts him well behind his teamate in first place.

Mark Webber's win in Monaco and Vettel's pole position on Saturday made it look like the Red Bull team was back and ready to regain their dominance.  However Sunday's race was likely a big disappointment as both Vettel and Webber were unable to stay at the top and secure a podium finish.  Ferrari was also suffering as Alonso was unable to fight off Grosjean and Perez, and Felipe Massa's spinout early in the race cost him any chance of returning to the top.

We're now a third of the way through the Formula 1 season and it's still hard to make serious predictions about the championship.  Like I suggested a while ago, the inaugural F1USGP in Austin may play host to that championship decision, adding to the excitement and grabbing even more attention around the world.  All I know is that I'm looking forward to the next race as we will hopefully get another new winner for the season; who might that driver be? Your guess is as good as mine.

Racing Legend Mario Andretti Joins COTA as Ambassador

Mario Andretti tours COTA in Austin, TX.  All images by Circuit of the Americas © 2012

Early this morning, Circuit of The Americas announced that American racing legend Mario Andretti has joined them as an official ambassador.  Mario's unparalleled experience in motorsports makes him a perfect ambassador for COTA, working with them to promoting Formula 1 and other motorsports in Austin.

Mario visited the circuit a few days ago, for a first hand look at his trip to Austin, check out this short video on his experience at COTA:

Mario Andretti visits Circuit of The Americas from The Austin Grand Prix on Vimeo.

Here's a link to the official release and Dave Doolittle had a chance to learn more in this exclusive Q&A with Mr. Andretti.

Ron Howard Puts F1 Rivalry on Screen

(All images by Ron Howard, via @realRonHoward)

The Nurburgring Nordschleife. A 14.189 mile purpose-built racing circuit just south of Cologne, in West-Central Germany. The clockwise loop, with scenic vistas of the Eifel Mountains and the Nurburg castle, would be a perfectly lovely route for a Sunday drive with your family. The dog. A picnic. Deep sigh.

A picnic in a place where between 1928 and 2010, the sum of 68 racing drivers has been killed conquering its corners.

Picture... Exiting the pits, only a lap into the race (bear in mind, one lap of the North 'Ring is equal to roughly four or five laps of a modern circuit), Austrian world champion driver Niki Lauda worked to get heat into his Ferrari's new slicks, after swapping from grooved wet tires. Even though he led the championship at this point, he was running a disappointing 10th place after a slow, wheel spinning start on the wet track, trailing the race's pole sitter,  Brit James Hunt.

Upshift, upshift, upshift, full throttle. Brake hard, clutch, blip, downshift. Snap snap snap. In 1976, Formula 1 cars weren't the nanometer perfect technologically terrifying examples of humanity's mastery of physics that they are today. They were hungry, wild and unusually angry animals, barely contained within four wheels. Mechanical pet wolverines.

It's more a sweeping kink than an actual corner. In Gran Turismo 5 you can take it flat out. Supposedly, real racing drivers do, too. The difference between a video game, however realistic, and real life, is that you can't get hurt playing with pixels. But the difference between a normal person playing a video game and a racing driver taking a circuit flat out is that the possibility of pain and death don't factor into the racing driver's conscious mind. They just push. Faster than you can go in real life, and probably faster than you can go in your high-def virtual reality.

And then it happens, and there's nothing you can possibly do to prevent it. Heading into the Bergwerk complex, Niki Lauda's Ferrari snapped around, slammed into the Armco crash barrier, and ricocheted back onto the circuit directly into to the path of hard charging Brett Lunger. Both cars exploded into a firestorm.

Niki Lauda was trapped in the flame engulfed 800 degree cockpit for almost a minute.

Other cars encountered the scene, and Lunger, freed from the wreckage of his Surtees-Ford, along with drivers Artuto Merzario, Guy Edwards and Harald Ertl scrambled to save Lauda's life. It would be more than two full minutes before befuddled race marshals would be able to send trauma support. Conscious, but grievously injured, Niki Lauda was transported to a hospital in nearby Adenau to stabilize his condition, then to long-term care in Manheim, where he slipped into a coma for five days.

Scorched lungs. Disfigured body. Shattered psyche. Most people do not survive trauma of this magnitude.

Six weeks later, he was in the cockpit of a new Ferrari, battling his friend James Hunt for the 1976 Formula 1 World Championship, who had closed the gap during his convalescence.

And this is where the story gets interesting...

Have you seen Grand Theft Auto? Yes, it's a movie, too. It came out in 1977, the same year as Star Wars and a year after (spoiler alert) Niki Lauda lost the championship to James Hunt, after lodging the most improbable almost-comeback in the history of motorsports. Roger Corman produced it. Ron "Opie" Howard wrote, directed and starred in it. It's in Netflix's "Watch It Now" list, for the moment at least. You should do that. Watch it now, that is. It's a goofy Saturday afternoon movie with some well executed banter and even better car chases. I'd go so far as to rate it equal to Smokey and the Bandit, also a product of 1977.

In synopsis, it's the story of a starstruck couple, desperately in love, who decide to elope to Vegas. They are pursued cross-country, Kowalski-style, by the father of the would-be bride and the throngs of cards, cads and characters promised a $25,000 bounty for catching them and preventing the unapproved nuptials. It's a chase movie. Simple.

So when Howard announced he was making a movie called Rush about Lauda and Hunt, it made sense within this context of his entire filmography. It's also a chase. Albeit a multi-million, continent spanning opus rather than a homebrew film project by a first time director with a budget smaller than what it probably costs to deliver the uniforms for the catering crew of the second unit for Rush.

Rush will be released next year. It stars The Avengers' Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as Hunt and Daniel Bruhl, probably best known as Zoller from Inglorious Basterds, as Lauda. It will feature actual, period perfect racing cars like the Ferrari 312-T2 and the fantastically bizarre Tyrell p34, driving on the actual Nurburgring. Racing geeks will squeal and get the vapors.

Can you, racing geek, take your significant other to this film, or will you be sneaking to a matinee on a suspiciously long Tuesday lunch break? And can you, non-racing geek, stomach an entire feature film on the subject, knowing full well the horrors preciously foisted upon unsuspecting ticket holders? Driven... cold shudders. Here's a test.  After you finish The Descendents or the second season of Downton Abbey, suggest Senna as your next cinematic couch date. Put the baby to bed, open that $6 bottle of wine you've been hoarding, and prepare to test the waters. Yes, we at The Austin Grand Prix harp on the excellence of this documentary day in and day out. But to introduce someone who might be put off Formula 1 due to its occasion insularity to the real human drama of racing, this is your in. Forget Frankenheimer's Grand Prix; it's nothing more than hardcore car porn disguised as cinema. Senna is more 50 Shades of Grey, or whatever it is my wife is hiding on her Kindle these days. It has depth. And porn.

Did it work? OK. Time for Phase Two. Rewatch A Dangerous Mind, Cinderella Man, Apollo 13, The Paper (so under appreciated, that one), Frost/Nixon, Parenthood, and/or Willow, if you swing that way. Ronnie can tell a compelling story, no? Elicit convincing and utterly human performances from his actors, no? And consider his tutelage. As a boy, he absorbed the humanism of no less than Andy Griffith, and later essentially apprenticed under Spielberg and Lucas (who not only once worked for Carroll Shelby, but also produced several short films on the northern California racing scene in the late 1960s, and has threatened, if you will, to produce and/or direct a film about the Ford vs Ferrari duels of Le Mans). Ron Howard makes some of the best modern Hollywood flicks going. Not all of them are great art, but they are all based in human drama and they are all eminently watchable. Except for those ridiculous Tom Hanks as a geekier version of Indiana Jones fighting an albino masochistic priest, or whatever the hell that was.

At this point, you have the leverage to say, convincingly, "You know, I realize you're maybe not that into Formula 1, but Ron Howard has this movie with that hunk/aweseome dude from The Avengers/Cabin In the Woods/Star Trek, etc. and I think you'd really like it. It's Ron Howard!" If you're swaying a male friend, Rush also stars Olivia Wilde. If you live in Austin or a city that is home to an Alamo Drafthouse, promise a drink or six. If your friend/significant other has no interest in racing whatsoever, lie and tell them it has Neil Peart's best drum solo ever. You can do it.

That was bait. These, however, are the insidious hooks... this story that is too fantastical to be real or even based in reality, these characters that exhibit such awe-inspiring resiliency, or monstrous flaws but who remain sympathetic to our sensibilities... that's how you capture a new F1 fan. Is that Ron Howard's intent? Probably not. He's been nabbed frequently enough by the likes of Will Buxton for fans to realize he's in it for the story, even though he is admittedly a racing fan. He's not an apostle of the Temple of Speed. His intent is to tell a great story and put images on a screen that will, with regard to racing, melt your apathy, heighten your fanaticism, or viscerally engage you to the degree that you become fully invested in the story and its characters, and leave the theater with a changed emotional state. It's the goal of all filmmakers. He hopes. We hope. Beyond that however, as long-time fans of the sport, to know that in 2013 there will be an Oscar contending film about one of our greatest heroes, and one of our greatest anti-heroes (as James Hunt was of equal depth, wit, and spirit, plus he once slept with more than 30 British Airways air hostesses prior to the '76 Japanese Grand Prix, during an epic binge that would have forced Hunter S. Thompson to tap out), it makes us excited to be the Apostles of the Temple of Speed. It's validation beyond the often insular realm we inhabit on Sunday mornings.

Cinema relies on great stories and compelling characters. This particular confluence of story and character is perfect fodder for film. But Formula 1 is rife with great stories and compelling characters. Nuvolari, Clark, Stewart, Prost. There's a depth of color in those characters that I don't think exists in most other walks of life. They blend the devil may care bravado of a rogue with the focused stoicism of a monk. And the battles. The crashes. The passes. The season after season of slugging to finally emerge victorious. It's amazing and perplexing to me that there aren't really any great films about racing. They're either too Hollywood, a la Days of Thunder, to truly capture the essence of the sport, or too up their own arse, as the aforementioned Grand Prix (although it is lovely to look at, and there's James Garner being typically, laconically badass and Lucille Bluth all meee-yow foxy). I'm hopeful that Rush hits the sweet spot between artistry and spectacle, fact and fiction, and moments of honest, raw emotion and fingernail-bending racing scenes. This could be the film that breaks F1 into the modern mainstream by drawing from its almost unbelievable past.

Do us proud, Ron. Better yet, do Niki and James proud. They deserve it.