Monaco and Nürburgring: A look back at two motorsport classics on a single weekend
- This is what happened: Weekend results and facts
- News from the Mercedes-AMG Motorsport teams
- Three questions for Robert Wickens
- Social media news: What’s new online?
This is what happened: Weekend’s results & facts
- F1: Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton finish fourth and seventh in the Monaco Grand Prix
- ADAC Zurich 24-hour race: Yelmer Buurman, Adam Christodoulou, Maro Engel and Manuel Metzger come fifth in a Mercedes-AMG GT3
- Australian Endurance Championship: Peter Hackett and Dominic Storey take second place
News snippets
Stat Attack – Monaco: In no other race on the calendar is qualifying quite as important as on the meandering street circuit of Monte Carlo. Qualification for the 75th running of the Grand Prix de Monaco was correspondingly hard-fought and ultimately settled by the tightest of margins, as Valtteri missed out on pole by just 0.045 seconds. “It could have been a completely different Sunday with those extra five hundredths,” said Valtteri, who finished fourth in the race, just short of a maiden Monaco podium. In fact, the Finn was only two thousandths off P2 in qualifying – equivalent to nine centimetres on the 3.337 km street circuit in the Principality. The battle for fractions of a second continued on Sunday afternoon, as the Silver Arrows pit crews performed two of the three fastest stops of the race (2.61 and 2.65 seconds).
Happy Birthday: On the Monday following the Monaco Grand Prix, former DTM star and long-serving safety car driver Bernd Mayländer celebrated his 46th birthday. The day before, however, it was business as usual, with Bernd leading the field for a ten-minute spell during the 78-lap race. Bernd’s dearest wish was fulfilled as everyone involved emerged unscathed from the incident. On a side-note, Lewis Hamilton took the wheel of the safety car on Thursday to chauffeur-drive the winner of a charity auction around the track.
45th ADAC Zurich 24-hour race: The winners of the 2016 race, Mercedes-AMG Team BLACK FALCON with the number 1 on their bonnet, came fifth this year in a rain-affected grandstand finish as the best-placed Mercedes-AMG GT3.
- Results for the Mercedes-AMG GT3 contingent: P5, P9, P13, P14 and P23
- Total km driven by the number 1 car: 158 laps = 3,291.14 kilometres
- Total km driven by all Mercedes-AMG GT3s: 19,872.44 kilometres = halfway around the equator
- 20 different manufacturers represented
- 160 contestants, including 600 from 35 other countries
- The world’s biggest and toughest car race watched by more than 205,000 fans
Podium in the Australian Endurance Championship: The recent race weekend at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit produced some gratifying results for Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing, with no fewer than three Mercedes-AMG GT3s finishing in the Top Ten of the Australian Endurance Championship season opener. Having started from pole position, the Australian duo of Peter Hackett and Dominic Storey (car number 63) driving for Team Eggleston Motorsport came home in second place at the end of the 103-lap race. Mark Griffith and Jake Camilleri (both AUS) of the Hogs Breath Café / Griffith Corporation team secured fifth place in the number 19 Mercedes AMG GT3, while the number 8 pairing of Tony D’Alberto and Max Twigg (both AUS, WA Waste Management Services / Scott Taylor Motorsport) came tenth.
Top Ten placements in the Pirelli World Challenge: In the Grand Prix event at Lime Rock Park as part of the American Pirelli World Challenge, Ryan Dalziel (GBR) and team-mate Daniel Moral (CAN) scored points in both SprintX series races. Driving the number 2 Mercedes-AMG GT3 entered by CRP Racing, they took P6 in the first race and P9 in the second. Timothy Pappas (USA) and Jeroen Bleekemolen (NED) shared the cockpit of the number 54 Mercedes-AMG GT3, finishing 13th both times in the general classification, third and fourth respectively in their own class.
P4 in the British GT Championship: On the fourth weekend of the 2017 campaign at Snetterton Motor Racing Circuit in Norfolk, England, local favourites Lee Mowle and Ryan Ratcliffe added to their haul of championship points. The AmDtuning.com with Cobra Exhausts pairing in their number 30 Mercedes-AMG GT3 finished fourth in Race 1 and eighth in Race 2. The second Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the field also achieved two Top Ten placements: Richard Neary and Martin Short (both GBR) in the number 88 car entered by ABBA with Rollcentre Racing finished eighth and ninth.
Impressive charge through the field in the International GT Open: Having started from P22 on the grid, the Brazilian duo of Marcelo Hahn and Allam Khodair came home inside the Top Ten twice at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. In the first race, the Drivex School pairing in their number 16 Mercedes-GT3 battled their way through to tenth place overall and to third in the ProAm class. Race 2 was hit by a sudden downpour which caused chaos on the track, but Hahn and Kodair came through safely to finish eighth in the general classification. Antonio Coimbra and Luis Silva (both POR) driving the number 99 Mercedes-AMG GT3 secured second place in the AM classification and P17 in the general both times. The next fixture on the calendar is the Circuit Paul Ricard on the weekend of 10th – 11th June.
Three questions for Robert Wickens
Rob, after a difficult season opener at Hockenheim, you returned to form at the Lausitzring with two podium finishes. Did you feel under pressure going into the second weekend?
Robert Wickens: No, not really. Clearly, Hockenheim was a weekend to forget. But from a team perspective and as regards preparation, we did a lot of things right. It was just a weekend where we couldn’t catch a break. It was just one thing after another. But our approach to the Lausitzring was the same, and this time it paid off.
Next stop, Budapest. In which areas do you still have to improve?
Robert Wickens: It’s all about further improving the car. At Hockenheim, it was very fast right from the word go. But because of the pre-season test at Hockenheim, we were also in a different situation. The Lausitzring, by contrast, was new for everyone. The challenge this time was getting to understand the tyres on a different track. But there too, I was happy with my car from the very beginning. Consequently, I feel confident that we will also have a good car in Budapest. Hopefully, we’ll be able to turn in a good qualifying performance, because that’s so important in the DTM. A good qualifying result made life easier for me at the Lausitzring. But it’s equally important to have a good understanding of the tyres. That’s another area in which we need to improve. You can never have too much knowledge of the tyres. Every driver would prefer to be starting from the front of the grid rather than pitting on the first lap. But we do a good job in terms of getting performance and lap time out of the tyres. At the Lausitzring, we were middling in this respect – behind Audi, but ahead of BMW. So we have some catching up to do on Audi. It was also apparent at Audi, though, that not everyone can manage the tyres as skilfully as Eki and Mike. Their stop on Lap 1 in Sunday’s race worked out well for them. When Jamie tried something similar on Saturday, it was less successful.
Starting with Budapest, your car will be sporting a new paint job. The combination of VfB Stuttgart and Rob Wickens seems to have worked out well at the Lausitzring. You made two podium appearances, and VfB were promoted to the Bundesliga. Are you still looking forward to your new Mercedes me livery?
Robert Wickens: It was a lot of fun having the VfB logo on the car. The response of the fans was also amazing. But essentially, everything looks exactly the same from inside the cockpit. For me, all that matters is getting the results right.
Social Media News
#F1Carpool: Monaco is always a busy place on a race weekend. We hitched a Formula 1-style ride through the streets of the principality in Valtteri Bottas’s AMG big beast!
#DriverGuide: Local residents Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas tell us about their favourite activities and places to go in the breathtaking principality of Monte Carlo.
#Review: Two podiums and oodles of top-notch motorsport action: Robert Wickens looks back on a splendid weekend at the Motorsport Festival Lausitzring.
Source : Mercedes.com
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