Speed is the new Black. Wednesday @ 9pm - 10pm (VelocityHD) new
F1 action returns to Gilles Villeneuve circuit in Montreal, but lets catch up on what happened in Monaco just a couple weeks ago. Merc-AMG had problems getting the tires to work, once again, and Hams got bit the worse out of the duo of him and Bottas. Hamilton was in the knockout zone for most of Q2 and on his final lap got stuck behind a yellow flag, as these larger 2017 cars were touching the armco a bit more regularly and the car ahead lost a FR wheel, removing his last chance to get out of the cutoff zone. Ferrari had no problems getting their tires to work and Raikkonen took his first pole in ages, edging out Vettel. Bottas couldn't catch the Ferrari's and qualified 3rd. Jenson did decent during qualy as the streets of Monaco equalizes powerful cars and less powerful cars, but due to the mechanical woes that Fernando took a break from in favor of the Indy 500, Jenson ended up starting from pit lane on Sunday. Kimi got a great start Sunday, keeping Vettel behind until strategy kicked in; the race started off with everyone holding position, which slowed everyone down given how hard it is to pass. The tires available were soft, supersoft and ultrasoft, but only the ultrasofts had enough grip to make the cars' work and only one stop was needed to complete the GP, so the game was how long you'd run on the ultrasofts before switching to the tire you don't like and if you'd beable to use a caution to switch back onto ultrasofts again in a two-stopper. Ferrari pitted Kimi from the lead first, Vettel got space on track and started running qualy laps, pitted, then jumped Kimi by a few car lengths on his return to track. Seb never gave that position back up which left Kimi quite salty (rightfully so, a win was within his grasp) with the team for his provided strategy backfiring on him. Hamilton jumped a few folks on his race start, but the rest he jumped through a well timed first stop after a caution, which helped him finish in 7th for some very minor damage management given Seb got a full 25 points. Ferrari taking a 1-2 in this race helped them jump Merc-AMG in the Constructors' Championship. Ricciardo, who lost this race last year on an absolutely questionable pit-stop, took his strong pace from the weekend to the final podium spot, out edging Bottas who took 4th. Button was pretty fed up with multiple drivers over the course of the afternoon took a pretty optimistic chance at jumping Wehrlein before the tunnel, late in the race; their tires touched and Pascal ended up T-bar first in the barrier, double DNF. The Haas boys both made the points, Verstappen finally finished a Monaco GP, taking 5th, and Carlos Sainz continued his strong racing this year with a 6th place finish. The current Driver's standings are as follows: Vettel, Hamilton (-25), Bottas (-54), Raikonnen (-62), Ricciardo (-77), Verstappen (-84). It should be another exciting weekend in Canada -- the wall of champions beckons!
The Golf R MK7.5 refresh is pushing me about as close as I could be to getting a new vw, but something has me hesitating on upgrading my current daily driver. Could be the price, when I'd really like a E46M3 in my fleet, could be the haldex system not giving me the fun of RWD; can't quite put my finger on it. These should be out in the states within another couple months.
