[Race] The GROAT - Round 1 - 2015 CotA vs 1967 Monza vs 2008 Marina Bay

[crmalcolm]

2015 CotA
While the rain had stopped by race time, the track was still wet and slippery; all drivers opted to start on intermediate tyres. Hamilton got away better at the start, entering the first corner alongside pole-sitter Rosberg, and, by forcing the German wide, took the lead exiting the first turn. Getting off track saw Rosberg lose additional positions, running fifth behind Hamilton, Kvyat, Ricciardo and Pérez. Further back, a collision involved Alonso, Massa, the two Sauber cars of Ericsson and Nasr as well as Bottas, who made a pit stop after the first lap, as did Nasr, who was the first to fit slick tyres, as the track was starting to dry. Will Stevens was touched from behind by teammate Alexander Rossi, breaking his rear wing and forcing him to retire. Having started from the back of the grid, Carlos Sainz profited from the incidents and had moved up to tenth by the end of the first lap. While Rosberg soon took back fourth from Pérez, Hamilton, in front, came under pressure from Kvyat, with the Red Bull drivers running fast in the damp conditions. With Kvyat just half a second behind the championship leader, a virtual safety car period was declared on lap five to clear the debris from the first corner incident. On lap 7, Valtteri Bottas retired with a damper failure caused by the turn one contact. When the virtual safety car ended on lap 8, Rosberg made an immediate move on Ricciardo to move into third, overtaking Kvyat for second on the same lap. Romain Grosjean became another victim of the accident on lap one when he came into the pit lane for a second time on lap 12 and retired. By that point, Sebastian Vettel had moved up into sixth place from thirteenth on the grid. Up front, Kvyat went wide while trying to overtake Rosberg, allowing teammate Ricciardo through into third; Ricciardo in turn made a successful manoeuvre on Rosberg to move up into second.

A battle for the lead developed between Hamilton and Ricciardo, until the Australian moved around Hamilton on lap 15. With the grip of the intermediate tyres deteriorating, there were many overtaking manoeuvres on track. Rosberg unsuccessfully tried to overtake teammate Hamilton for second on lap 16, while Verstappen took sixth place from Vettel one lap later, only to run wide and lose the position again. On lap 18, Rosberg moved ahead of Hamilton, who was the first of the front runners to change tyres at the end of the lap, going for a dry compound. The other frontrunners followed suit over the next couple of laps. Following the pit stops, Ricciardo led from Rosberg, Kvyat and Hamilton. The two Mercedes drivers moved ahead of their respective Red Bull rivals on laps 22 and 23, while Vettel, now in fifth, closed on the leading quartet. On lap 24, he reached Kvyat and overtook him for fourth, while Rosberg extended his lead to Ricciardo to nine seconds by lap 25. Hamilton took second place from Ricciardo one lap later. At the same time, Kimi Räikkönen was forced to retire. So had Massa on lap 24, suffering the same problem that had forced his teammate to stop.

On lap 27, Marcus Ericsson's Sauber came to a halt on track, bringing out the proper safety car. At this halfway point of the race, the order stood as: Rosberg, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Kvyat, Verstappen, as Vettel used the safety car period for a tyre change, moving him back into sixth. When the safety car pulled into pit lane at the end of lap 32, Vettel was back in fifth after Verstappen had also made a pit stop for new tyres. The German moved ahead into fourth at Kvyat's expense into turn one at the restart and went on to overtake the other Red Bull of Ricciardo some turns later. However, Ricciardo fought back to regain the place in the next corner. Vettel was able to make the move stick going into turn one on the subsequent lap. Meanwhile, Kvyat was further demoted when Verstappen moved ahead into fifth, followed by Hülkenberg. On lap 35, Verstappen overtook the second Red Bull of Ricciardo to move into fourth. When Nico Hülkenberg attempted to do the same one lap later, he and Ricciardo collided, forcing the German to retire. Ricciardo was able to continue, but was overtaken by his teammate, with Jenson Button behind in seventh place. When another virtual safety car period was declared to clear Hülkenberg's car, Rosberg decided to pit, moving him back to fourth behind Hamilton, Vettel and Verstappen. By lap 40, when the safety car period was over, Rosberg was up into third at the expense of Verstappen, while Alonso moved up several places into sixth, with teammate Button in fifth. Running on newer tyres, Rosberg was able to overtake Vettel on lap 42.

One lap later, Kvyat suffered a heavy impact at the penultimate corner, causing another safety car period. Both Hamilton and Vettel used this to change tyres again, as did Button on lap 45. The safety car came back in at the end of lap 46, with the order being: Rosberg, Hamilton, Verstappen, Vettel, Alonso, Pérez, Button and Maldonado. At the restart, Verstappen tried to move past Hamilton but failed and was in turn overtaken by Vettel. On lap 48, Rosberg lost the lead to Hamilton after sliding off track due to wheelspin in his rear tyres. The German later declared that his mistake was caused by a strong gust of wind. Hamilton soon opened up a gap to his teammate, while Button moved up into sixth ahead of Alonso on lap 50, but lost the position again to Sainz before the end of the race. His teammate Alonso had been running fifth, but a loss of power from his engine moved him down the order to eventually finish eleventh. In the closing laps, Vettel edged closer to Rosberg in second, but was unable to overtake. This meant that Hamilton, who crossed the line as race winner, also took his third career championship title, with both Vettel and Rosberg now too far behind.


1967 Monza
Sunday dawned bright and warm, although the full power of the sun was being blocked by hazy clouds, leaving the stands to fill to capacity before the start. The start was rather rushed ahead of the race, with the drivers' briefing skipped entirely, as the cars got ready to start on the dummy grid. However, the field would not go from the proper grid, as the officials showed the wrong flag to signal the field to move off from the dummy grid.

Indeed, the officials failed to raise the green flag to tell the pole sitter, Jim Clark, to pull forward before the 30 second mark, so there was some confusion as to what was happening. An official finally showed a green flag to Clark as the thirty second countdown ended, with the Scot crawling forward as expected. However, just as the official withdrew, the starter unfurled the Italian tricolour to signal the start, with the front row still only halfway to the grid.

Immediately, Jack Brabham dropped the clutch and roared away as soon as he saw the tricolour flutter, a smoking start that left tyre marks from the dummy grid all the way past the proper grid. Dan Gurney was another quick reactor, swinging past Bruce McLaren, while Chris Amon had to take avoiding action to miss Clark as the Scot got caught between procedure and pressure behind. Almost the entire field was on its way to Curva Grande before the starter started waving the tricolour properly, almost as if to complete the farcical start.

However, the on-track action was far from farcical, as Gurney pulled an excellent pass on Brabham through the Lesmo bends to take the lead. The New Yorker continued to lead from Brabham, Graham Hill and Clark, with McLaren, Jackie Stewart, Denny Hulme and Amon chasing hard. Under FIA rules the jump start should have been a disqualification, but as the entire field had done so, there was little chance of that fate occurring.

The man on the move during the opening stages would be Clark, with the Scot taking Hill and Brabham on lap two, the latter move also allowing his teammate to take the Australian. Clark then endured a one lap dogfight with Gurney for the lead, the two darting across the circuit on the run to Parabolica to complete lap three, with the Scot ahead. Gurney, however, was determined to keep with him and so opted to run in the Lotus' wake to try and unsettle him, as the leading pair blasted away from the rest.

Elsewhere, Hulme had had a strong opening phase of the race to take McLaren and Stewart, before joining Hill and Brabham in joining the breakaway group trying to catch the leaders. Brabham opted to let his New Zealand based teammate through on lap four, a move that ultimately put Hulme into third as Gurney failed to appear. The New Yorker had had a connecting rod fail due to a lose bolt, leaving the Weslake engine starved of oil which was being dumped along the sweeping surface of the Monza circuit.

The demise of Gurney left Clark with a one second lead over teammate Hill, who was now beginning to come under attack from Hulme. Brabham was tagging onto the back of his teammate, but already losing time, while Stewart was bridging the gap between the top four and the next four, heading a group containing McLaren, Amon, John Surtees and Jochen Rindt. There would then a be a distinct gap when Surtees pitted to have a rear tyre checked after sliding wide at Lesmo, as Clark eased off his pace after detecting a handling problem.

Hulme managed to take the two Lotuses once Clark's pace dropped, Hill falling on lap nine with the Scot following on lap ten, although Clark fought back to lead into lap eleven. Yet, all was not well in the #20 Lotus, and when Clark finally ran down through the options of the cause, the Scot could be seen leaning out of his cockpit and glancing at the right rear. A lap later and Clark was in for a change, with Hulme, Hill and Brabham having already got through on the run to Parabolica.

It would be a lap before Clark reappeared, tagging onto the back of the leading trio, with the battle for fourth between Amon, McLaren, Surtees and Rindt ferocious enough to cost them time compared to the leaders. When the leaders came up to lap the first of the backmarkers, those being Jo Bonnier, Guy Ligier and Jacky Ickx, Brabham used the sudden lack of space to take the lead. Hulme led on the following lap before Hill darted around the back of Ickx to lead, while Clark was back already climbing through the order by tagging onto the leaders.

Once the backmarkers dried up, Clark began to get involved in the leading battle, getting himself between Hulme and Brabham on lap 21. Two laps later and the Scot was drafting past teammate Hill, but this move allowed Hulme to pull into his slipstream and therefore take the lead. Brabham's pace then began to fall when the throttle jammed and caused the engine revs to jump too high, reducing power output, while Clark tried to break away by setting a new lap record of 1:28.5.

As Clark began to physically move up the field by taking Jo Siffert and Mike Spence, just as Hill charged past Hulme to retake the lead on lap 28. The latest move was, however, a symptom of an issue for the New Zealander's Repco engine, as his pace deteriorated soon after. Hulme would pull out of the race two laps later with a broken head gasket, leaving Hill with a huge lead over Brabham, while also just tagging onto the back of Clark.

At half distance Clark and Hill drafted past Giancarlo Baghetti in the third of the Lotus 49s, meaning they were in number order across the line. Clark's pace was towing Hill around Monza at record pace, with the Englishman's lead over Brabham growing by two seconds a lap as a result. Baghetti's pace also picked up as his temporary teammates went past, the Italian tagging onto the back of the Brits for a few laps to get on the verge of the points.

Elsewhere, mechanical fatigue was beginning to bite, with Stewart going out of the race, his engine giving up the ghost in a cloud of smoke, just as he had overtaken Ickx. McLaren was next, his BRM V12 destroying its connecting rods through Lesmo, while Amon lost a lap with suspected suspension damage, although nothing of note could be found. The latter two casualties put Clark in with a shout of a podium, while the third placed brawl was suddenly cut down to a tense stalemate between Surtees and Rindt.

More retirements were confirmed in the following laps, with one of the Lotuses joining the list when Baghetti suffered a connecting rod failure. The Lotus garage was therefore filled with anxious faces for the rest of the race as they did not know what the other engines were doing, although the mood in there was nothing compared to the Cooper-Maserati efforts.

Siffert had just lapped Ickx through the entry into Lesmo, when the left rear began to deflate, going completely flat as the Swiss racer accelerated through the second corner. The Cooper-Maserati was thrown into the guard rail and spun back across the track, and only lightening quick reactions by the rookie Ickx kept the works car out of trouble. Rindt, meanwhile, had just fallen to Clark as the Scot decided to go all or nothing for the win.

It was at this point where Hill began to ease off, leaving Clark to chase after Surtees and Brabham, just as the Honda began to close onto the back of the Brabham-Repco. The following laps therefore became a tense wait in the garages and stands as the gaps slowly closed up, with Brabham's pace continuing to drop and Clark pushing on. Just before the kickoff of that fight, Amon came into the pits for a second time for repairs to a shock absorber, although another lap long delay left the only Ferrari entered at the back of the field.

On lap 59, the entire picture of the race changed, all sparked when the second Lotus-Ford Cosworth expired at the start of the lap. Hill was just coming into Parabolica when his engine began pouring white smoke out the back, putting him out of the race, just as Clark got onto the exhaust pipes of Surtees. The Scot passed the Honda just as Hill came to a stop in the Lotus garage, with Brabham now the only man between Clark and the lead.

When Brabham did finally get round to take the lead on the lap chart, Clark was right in his wake, with the two going into Curva Grande side-by-side. A huge cheer from the Team Lotus supporters indicated that Clark was in the lead, and when the leading trio came through to complete the lap it was indeed Clark at the front of the field. It would be four laps before Clark got away from the Australian, a feat that allowed Surtees to finally pass the defending World Champion for second.

Onto the final lap and Clark's lead suddenly collapsed from 3.3 seconds to just 1.5 seconds, and as the leading trio went into Curva Grande, the Cosworth engine cut out. The Scot was thrown into a slide that allowed Surtees and Brabham to sneak by, although as the Lotus was in the middle of the track, the Englishman and the Australian had to dodge either-side. The rest of the lap would see Surtees and Brabham enter a 180 mph knife fight through to Parabolica, as Clark limped home to try and secure third.

The decisive move would be into the final corner, with Surtees taking the racing line through Parabolica, while Brabham dived on the brakes down the inside. Unfortunately for the Australian, the move meant he hit the cement dust, laid down to clear up after Hill's engine failure, while still on the brakes, and so slithered out wide and let Surtees sweep back through. They then came nose-to-tail onto the start.finish straight, but just as the Australian pulled out of the slipstream, the chequered flag fluttered and ended the race.

The result was declared a few moments later, with the crowd flooding onto the circuit just in time to mob Clark as he crawled home. Victory went to Surtees by just 0.2 seconds, with Brabham and an exhausted Scot completing the podium, the latter's performance ultimately putting Clark into the realm of F1's legends. Rindt ended the race down in fourth ahead of Spence, while Ickx had a quiet race to complete the points, a couple of laps ahead of the final finisher Amon.


2008 Marina Bay
The race began at 20:00 SST. During the warm-up lap, Piquet spun out at Turn 23, but immediately recovered and took his position on the grid. At the start, Massa, championship rival Hamilton and Räikkönen all got through the first sequence of corners safely and retained their positions. Kubica and Kovalainen made contact at Turn 3, causing Kovalainen to lose two places to Vettel and Glock. Heidfeld and Alonso cut the first corner but they did not receive any penalty. Massa began to edge away from Hamilton, who in turn was pulling away from Räikkönen. Jarno Trulli had begun the race on a heavy fuel load, and soon was holding up a number of cars with Williams's Nico Rosberg immediately behind him. It was not until the seventh lap that Rosberg finally passed Trulli's Toyota, and soon Nakajima and Alonso got through as well.

After ten laps, Massa had built up a lead of over three seconds to Hamilton and Räikkönen was a further seven seconds behind Hamilton. On lap twelve, Alonso was the first driver who came into the pits. He switched his super-soft tyres for the soft compound tyres and rejoined at the back of the field. Two laps later, teammate Piquet lost control of his car and hit the wall at Turn 17, blaming his hard tyres for the accident. This resulted in the first safety car period of the race. The two Red Bull cars and Rubens Barrichello managed to come into the pits before it was closed. With very little fuel left, Rosberg and Kubica had no choice but to pit despite the pit lane being closed. Barrichello's Honda then had a mechanical failure and became the second retirement of the race. After all the cars were behind the safety car, the pit lane was opened and nearly all the drivers pitted.

In the pits, Ferrari prematurely released Massa with the fuel hose still attached to the car. The Brazilian was also released into the path of Adrian Sutil, who narrowly avoided the Ferrari. Massa went the full length of the pitlane before stopping just before the exit. Massa rejoined at the back of the field after the Ferrari mechanics ran down the pitlane and removed the hose from the car. Cars who had either pitted before the safety car or were on one stop strategies were now in front. Rosberg now led from Trulli, Fisichella, Kubica, Alonso, Webber, Coulthard and Hamilton.

Rosberg started to pull away from the heavily fuelled Trulli and Fisichella's Force India, who held up most of the field behind him. In the next few laps, Felipe Massa was given a drive through penalty for an unsafe release from the pits while Rosberg and Kubica were given 10 second stop-go penalties for refuelling when the pitlane was closed. The Ferrari driver served his penalty and rejoined the track still in last place. Kubica came into the pits from fourth and dropped behind Massa. After building a lead of over fifteen seconds to Trulli, Rosberg served his penalty a lap later but only lost three positions. He rejoined the circuit in fourth behind Alonso and Jarno Trulli took over the lead.

A lap later, Fisichella came in from second to make his only pit stop, moving Alonso and Rosberg into second and third. Trulli led the race for four more laps before making his only stop of the night, handing the lead to Alonso. He soon pulled away from Rosberg who pitted from second on lap 41, rejoining in seventh. Alonso made his final stop a lap later but still rejoined in the lead, just ahead of second and third placed Coulthard and Hamilton. Coulthard lost momentum and the McLaren overtook the Red Bull at turn seven. At the end of the lap, both cars pitted and Coulthard nearly left with his fuel hose attached.

After 45 laps, Alonso led Timo Glock by just over six seconds and Rosberg by a further eleven seconds in third. The Toyota driver pitted two laps later, rejoining in fifth. Four laps later, Trulli began to slow down and soon retired after a mechanical failure. On the same lap, Räikkönen made his second and final stop of the race and rejoined in fifth. A lap later, Massa spun at Turn 18 and lightly tapped the tyre wall without sustaining much damage. Moments later, Sutil fell victim to the same corner and damaged his front suspension, becoming the fifth retirement of the night. The incident brought out the second safety car period of the race.

The safety car withdrew from the circuit with nine laps remaining and Alonso pulled away from Rosberg and Hamilton. Glock, Räikkönen, Vettel, Heidfeld and Coulthard (ultimately, claiming points for the final time) were in the remaining points positions. Rosberg was coming under pressure from Hamilton, who was looking to capitalize on Massa's incidents. With four laps remaining, Räikkönen bounced off the kerbs at the Turn 10 chicane and crashed into the barriers while chasing Glock, promoting Nakajima into the points. Alonso maintained his lead over Rosberg and took his first win for Renault since his return to the team. Rosberg held on to second and Hamilton settled for third. Massa finished in 13th place and the points difference between himself and Hamilton increased to seven points and McLaren took over the lead in the Constructors' Championship. With teammate Räikkönen failing to finish, this was the first time the Ferrari team had failed to score any points in a race since the 2006 Australian Grand Prix. Räikkönen recorded his tenth fastest lap of the season during the race, tying his own record that he shared with Michael Schumacher. Heidfeld broke Schumacher's record, being classified for the 25th consecutive race.

[chillibowl]

dont like the inclusion of the 2008 race...which is fine because i can express my dissatisfaction by not voting for it!