On tap this week:
- Finnish F1 supremacy gets serious
- Hayley posts career best finish
- F1 seats getting snapped up
- More F1 rubber choices in 2016
- Quote of the Week: Logano doesn't hold back
- Stroll to try Macau
The battle to be the top Finnish driver in Formula One heated up in Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix with countrymen Kimi Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas clashing for the second time in three races.
Twenty-one laps into the Mexican Grand Prix, Räikkönen cut across the challenging Williams driver's bow at the Turn 5 chicane as the pair battled over sixth, but there was not enough room for two cars. Bottas' left front tire hooked Räikkönen's right rear and launched his Ferrari onto two wheels, breaking its suspension.
"Of course I'm not going to back off — I'm fighting for the position," said Bottas, who continued after the incident and finished third.
"I was calculating the risk, I think there was a decent possibility to get through but, hey, it ended up like this. I don't know if there's anything really to speak about. Unlucky that it was us two that collided again."
Bottas' podium combined with Räikkönen's non-finish allowed the Williams driver to leapfrog his compatriot into fourth overall in the points standings, three ahead of the Ferrari driver. There are two races left in the 2015 F1 season, with the next going Nov. 15 in Brazil.
Sunday's accident was almost a reverse carbon copy of the contact between the two during the Oct. 11 race in Russia where Räikkönen made a last lap lunge that ended with Bottas' broken Williams parked on the side of the track. The accident robbed Bottas of a podium finish, while Räikkönen got to the line fifth, before the stewards blamed him for the crash and issued a penalty that dropped him to eighth.
Despite the steward's admonishment, the 2007 world champion said he would do the same thing again and didn't "feel bad about it." Although he said Sunday's accident was "racing in the end," Räikkönen also insinuated it was payback for Sochi.
"To be honest I did not expect a much different end result," Räikkönen said.
"I think I was expecting that it probably might happen after Russia. Has he done it on purpose? I don't know, you can decide yourselves."
Random thoughts
Calgary teen Cameron Hayley continues to impress in his rookie season of NASCAR Camping World Truck Series racing. The ThorSport Racing driver posted a career-best third place finish in Saturday's Kroger 200 at the notoriously tough and tight 0.526-mile Martinsville Speedway, known as the "paperclip." No. 13 Carolina Nut Co. Toyota Tundra ran in the top-3 all day and survived some late contact with another driver to cross the line third.
"It was a good run for this entire ThorSport Racing team, I couldn't be happier with the guys," Hayley said. "The racing got rough at the end, but it's just short-track racing. It was a good day of racing for us."
By the numbers
With the Haas F1 team announcing on Friday that former Sauber driver Esteban Gutiérrez will be in its second race seat next year, the Formula One field for 2016 looks pretty much set, and there won't be many new faces on the grid. As it stands now, only the two seats at the Manor Team are unfilled. It is thought the Mercedes deal with Manor included a seat for 2015 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champion Pascal Wehrlein, while the other may be filled by 2015 GP2 title winner Stoffel Vandoorne, a McLaren prospect. Those two rookies will be joined by 2014 GP2 champ Jolyon Palmer who will make his F1 race debut with Lotus.
Technically speaking
F1 Tire strategy will be taken up a notch in 2016 after Pirelli announced in Mexico City that each team will have the choice of three tire compounds at grands prix next year. The plan is a hybrid of the idea put forward by Force India chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer, who wanted the teams to be able to pick two tire compounds for every grand prix from the four existing Pirelli options — super soft, soft, medium, and hard — with their choices only revealed on Thursdays of race weekends. Pirelli also revealed it will produce a fifth tire option next year that's even more grippy than the super soft.
Quote of the week
"It was just a complete coward move, especially for a championship race car driver and race team. Just a complete coward. I don't have anything else to say. It's a chicken-you-know-what move to completely take out the leader when your race is over."
— NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Joey Logano after being wrecked by Matt Kenseth late in the Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
The last word
Montreal's Lance Stroll will make his debut in the challenging and competitive Macau Grand Prix on Nov. 22 with Theodore Racing, owned by Canadian Teddy Yip. The 62nd annual race on the streets of the Chinese city near Hong Kong has featured some of the world's best talents since it shifted to a Formula 3 event in 1983, including future multiple world champions Mika Häkkinen, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, and Sebastian Vettel. "In Macau there is no room for error on the narrow street track," Stroll said. "I go to Macau excited and wanting success but I am also realistic as there are many drivers fighting for the title who are experienced with Macau's unique challenge."
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Jeff Pappone