L&T Motorsport Season Review

Also in this issue

Contents F1 Season Review Australia Malaysia China Bahrain Spain Monaco Canada Austria Great Britain Hungary Belgium Italy Singapore Japan Russia United States Mexico Brazil Abu Dhabi

BTCC Season Review Brands Hatch Indy Donington Park Thruxton Oulton Park Croft Snetterton Knockhill Rockingham Silverstone Brands Hatch GP

GP2 Season Review Sakhir Barcelona Monte Carlo Spielberg Silverstone Budapest Spa-Francorchamps Monza Sochi Sakhir Yas Marina

GP3 Season Review Barcelona Spielberg Silverstone Budapest Spa-Francorchamps Monza Sochi Sakhir Yas Marina

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2015 F1 Season Review Round 1 - Australia Even before the 2015 season kicked off in Melbourne, Australia there was controversy. McLaren returnee Fernando Alonso was forced to miss the first race after suffering concussion in a mysterious testing crash. Dane, Kevin Magnussen, who had lost his seat at the end of the previous year, was called up late to replace the double World Champion. Sauber was another team with a driver predicament, 2014 reserve driver Giedo van der Garde took the Swiss team to court over a contract dispute which had seen him not promoted to race for the new season. Sauber had already signed Marcus Ericsson and Brazilian rookie Felipe Nasr. The dispute was settled when van der Garde opted to forgo his drive but the team missed practice session and much negative publicity was placed on team principal Monisha Kaltenborn for bringing the sport into disrepute.

Manor Marussia rose from the ashes after entering administration and missing the final three races of the previous season. They arrived in Melbourne with modified versions of their 2014 car but with no testing behind them. Neither of their drivers, Will Stevens or Roberto Merhi set a time in the practice sessions and did not participate in qualifying.

Qualifying World Champion Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying to take pole position, with team mate Nico Rosberg completing an all Silver Arrows front row. Felipe Massa lined up third for Williams. His team mate Valtteri Bottas suffered an injury to his back in qualifying and could not race. Leaving the grid three cars short.

Race Both Kevin Magnussen and Daniil Kvyat failed to make it to the grid which meant only 15 cars started the race.

Hamilton led away but in the first corner a tangle involving Kimi Räikkönen, Felipe Nasr and Pastor Maldonado, resulted in the Lotus crashing out at turn two and bringing out the safety car. After the disaster of 2014, things didn’t get any better for Lotus when Romain Grosjean lost power and retired at the end of the first lap. Hamilton led until lap 25 when he came in for tyres but soon regained first position when Rosberg came in soon afterwards. Four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel was going well in his first race for Ferrari and took third place from Felipe Massa after their pitstops.

A solid debut for 17-year-old Max Verstappen came to an end when his engine failed on lap 34. The next retiree was the Finn Kimi Räikkönen on lap 42, a pit stop blunder by the Ferrari mechanics meant the former World Champion left his box with a loose left rear tyre.

Hamilton began his title defence in the best way possible, he took his 34th Grand Prix win ahead of Rosberg and Vettel a very happy third on his Ferrari debut. Massa hung on to fourth with his compatriot Felipe Nasr coming home fifth in his first Grand Prix. Ricciardo and Hülkenberg were sixth and seventh with the Swede Marcus Ericsson in eighth, the first ever points finish for him and securing a double points finish for Sauber after their calamitous week and a pointless 2014. Carlos Sainz made it two rookies in the points in ninth with Sergio Pérez rounding out the top 10. Jenson Button brought his seriously underpowered McLaren Honda home 11th and last, but satisfied with the knowledge that the car had lasted the distance.

For Mercedes, they had carried over the euphoria over to the new season with what appeared to be the same performance advantage. While at Red Bull the seeds of a fall out were starting to sow with Renault. Ferrari had made a great improvement but still a way behind the two Silver Arrows upfront as sarcastically pointed out by Vettel to Nico Rosberg in the press conference.

“You finished 30 seconds ahead of us and you hope it’s going to be closer? So you hope to slow down?”

Vettel’s words were to prove

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prophetic for round two in Malaysia.

Round 2 - Malaysia Formula One arrived in Malaysia two weeks later under a cloud. The sport was facing fierce criticism amid fears that 2015 would be even more one-sided than 2014 had been. Red Bull’s Christian Horner was calling for the FIA to apply rule changes that would level the competition. The former champions were in the midst of their own arguments with Renault about their underpowered engine and unreliability, even at round two their future in the sport was subject to debate.

Bernie Ecclestone also was coming under fire following the news that the German Grand Prix had been dropped from the calendar for financial reasons, while the future of the Italian Grand Prix remained under threat.

Fernando Alonso returned to racing for his race as a McLaren driver since 2007. While Valtteri Bottas was fit enough to return following his Melbourne injury.

Qualifying Rain affected the later stages of qualifying but that didn’t faze Lewis Hamilton who took his second pole position in a row. Somewhat surprisingly in second place, it was not Rosberg but Vettel in the Ferrari. Nico started third. Undoubted star of qualifying though was the sensational Max Verstappen, sixth in the Toro Rosso.

Both Manor Marussia cars took to the track this time but Will Stevens had a fuel system problem in qualifying and could not participate in the race. Team mate Roberto Merhi did so however for the first time in the young Spaniard’s career.

Race Hamilton got away well at the start and Vettel just managed to hold off Rosberg. It wasn’t a clean start for everyone as Pastor Maldonado picked up a puncture and headed for the pits after contact with Bottas. 12 months after Räikkönen had been assaulted by Magnussen early on, the Finn suffered the same fate to another rookie, this time the assailant was Brazilian new boy Felipe Nasr.

After Sauber’s fine day in Australia things were starting to look bleaker for the Swiss team as Marcus Ericsson spun into retirement on lap four, bringing out the safety car. All but seven of the remaining cars, including Hamilton and Rosberg pitted, but crucially Vettel stayed out and took the lead. Predictably both Mercedes’ quickly dispatched of Hülkenberg in the Force India but more surprisingly struggled to catch Vettel until the German came into the pits on lap 18. On fresher tyres the Ferrari quickly caught the Mercedes drivers, he disposed of Rosberg on lap 22 before Hamilton pitted again on lap 24.

Further down the field it was not a happy return for Alonso, he was running ninth until engine failure caused his retirement before half-distance. Team mate Button didn’t fare much better, retiring on lap 40 with turbo failure.

The Red Bull’s were also having a day to forget as Ricciardo suffered front-wing damage and both himself and team mate Daniil Kvyat were running outside the points and showing signs of brake wear. Worse was to come for the Russian as he was punted into a spin by Hülkenberg, dropping back to 13th. Both Force India drivers incurred the wrath of the steward’s when Sergio Pérez sent Romain Grosjean’s Lotus into a big spin on lap 31.

A ten-second penalty was given to both of Vijay Mallya’s drivers.

Oblivious to it all, Vettel found himself back in the lead following the final round of the stops, with neither of the Mercedes’ able to make inroads into the Germans lead. The former Champion went on to take a sensational win, ahead of Hamilton in second and Rosberg third. In just his second race for the famous Italian team, Vettel returned to glory, Ferrari had also ended a victory drought of nearly two years. The Ferrari’s and the Mercedes monopolised the top four positons as Räikkönen’s magnificent recovery drive was rewarded with fourth place. The Williams finished a worrying minute behind the winner, with Bottas fifth and Massa sixth, while Max Verstappen made history becoming the youngest ever points scorer in seventh. Sainz, Kvyat and

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Ricciardo completed the top ten. After all the negativity in Australia, Malaysia put Formula One back into the limelight.

Round 3 - China After the surprise victory for Vettel and Ferrari in Malaysia, the question on everyone’s lips was whether Ferrari could maintain that performance and challenge for the championship. The realistic answer for the Chinese Grand Prix was unlikely given the high temperatures of Sepang not been a factor in Shanghai, Vettel’s party piece of Ferrari’s lower tyre degradation would not pay such dividends.

Qualifying Certainly in qualifying it looked as if Mercedes had responded to the wake-up call with Hamilton on pole for the third consecutive race. Rosberg completed an all Silver front row. Sebastian Vettel was third but nearly a second adrift of Hamilton. For the first time in 2015 it was a full grid as both Manor Marussia’s started the race.

Race The big winner at the start was Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen who passed both the Williams’ and jumped from seventh to fourth. Lewis Hamilton was retained his lead over his team mate Rosberg who kept Vettel behind him in third. There were no casualties on the first lap but Carlos Sainz spun on lap two and fell down. The first retirement of the race was Nico Hülkenberg, continuing Force India’s depressing start to the season, pulling off on lap 10 with a gearbox problem.

Ferrari attempted a different strategy to what they had adopted in Malaysia when Sebastian Vettel pitted on lap 13. His hopes of undercutting the Mercedes were dashed when the German team reacted quickly and brought Rosberg in to ensure Vettel could not leap-frog him.

Red Bull’s poor start to the season continued, after Kvyat had suffered engine problems in qualifying, gremlins within his Renault power unit surfaced again and he was forced to retire on lap 17.

At the front both Mercedes were first and second, with Ferrari’s third and fourth. But Rosberg begun to get impatient and complained to the team over the radio that Hamilton’s pace was too slow and that he was backing him into the Ferrari’s and increasing his own tyre wear. Once Hamilton upped his speed he had left Rosberg behind who dropped to 10 seconds behind as the field began to spread out more in the second half of the race.

The main action was by the season’s revelation, the youngster Max Verstappen. Some brave overtaking manoeuvres including a late dive down the inside of Marcus Ericsson created exciting viewing. His fascinating drive came to a sad end with transmission failure on lap 52. The marshals made a comical hash of getting his car through the barrier and broke the front wing.

F1’s bad boy Pastor Maldonado had a lively day, he was running in seventh looking set for his first point’s finish of the season. But on lap 33 he missed the entrance of the pit lane which cost him time, before losing even more with a spin. Then on lap 48 he had a collision with Jenson Button’s McLaren, the stewards blamed Button for the incident but it damaged Maldonado’s car and the Venezuelan’s afternoon finally came to an end with brake failure.

The top three placings on the grid held their positions as Hamilton made it two wins out of three, with Rosberg second and Vettel third. Räikkönen and the two Williams were, fourth, fifth and sixth, this time with Massa ahead of Bottas. Romain Grosjean came home seventh to score the first points of 2015 for Lotus, while Felipe Nasr was in the points again in eighth.

Daniel Ricciardo was a disappointing ninth and Marcus Ericsson made it another double points finish for Sauber.

After three races, Lewis Hamilton led the World Championship with 68

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points, 13 more than Vettel in second and a further four more than Rosberg.

Round 4 - Bahrain Qualifying Lewis Hamilton led the way in all three sections of qualifying to take his fourth consecutive pole position of the 2015 season, Nico Rosberg was narrowly beaten by Sebastian Vettel for second position. The top ten was completed by Kimi Raikkonen, Valtteri Bottas, Felipe Massa, Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenberg, Carlos Sainz Jr and Romain Grosjean in that order.

Race Jenson Button didn’t start the race as the problems that took him out of qualifying the previous day resurfaced as the car was prepared for the grid. Problems also occurred for Massa as his Williams stalled on the start line before the formation lap so he had to start from pitlane.

At the start, Hamilton kept his lead but Rosberg was passed by Raikkonen after he unsuccessfully tried to pass Vettlel for second. He wasn’t behing for long however as he passed Raikkonen on lap four and Vettel on lap nine.

Pitstops began on lap 11 and Vettel was the first of the lead group to pit on lap 14 and, although he lost eight seconds to Hamilton, he was able to undercut Rosberg to retake second place. Raikkonen took a set of the medium tires instead of the softs taken by the top three to try and extend his middle stint.

Ferrari once again got Vettel past Rosberg after the second set of pitstops but Vettel ran wide a lap later which required a wing replacement. As Raikkonen equipped the soft tires he was fifteen seconds down on the Mercedes pair with 14 laps to go.

Through a combination of traffic and overheating brakes, Raikkonen was able to catch Rosberg with three laps to go and made the pass on lap 56 when the Mercedes outbraked himself into turn one.

At the flag, Hamilton held on for the win, followed by Raikkonen and Rosberg. The top ten were completed by: Vallteri Bottas, Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Romain Grosjean, Sergio Perez, Daniil Kvyat and Felipe Massa.

Round 5 - Spain Qualifying Lewis Hamilton once again topped the times in Q1, however, he was not able to repeat this leading to Nico Rosberg taking his first pole position of the 2015 season. Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz Jr, Max Verstappen, Kimi Raikkonen, Daniil Kvyat, Felipe Massa and Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the top 10.

Race Hamilton had a bad start where he was passed by Sebastian Vettel and then had to defend from Valtteri Bottas, which allowed Rosberg to extend a small advantage. As Rosberg continued to pull away, Hamilton said it was

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‘impossible’ to pass Vettel on track so he was switched to a three stop strategy. His first stop was marred by a wheel nut issue which meant he lost further time to Rosberg.

The lead stayed the same until lap 46 when Rosberg pitted for the second time where he was passed by Hamilton on the warmer tyres, this was short lived though as Hamilton had to make his final pit stop on lap 51 but a 19 second gap was too much for him to close in the last 14 laps.

This allowed Rosberg to take his first victory of the season in a comfortable fashion.

The top ten were completed by Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa, Daniel Ricciardo, Romain Grosjean, Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat.

Round 6 - Monaco Qualifying

After Rosberg’s Spanish win Hamilton had it to fight back for in Monaco. With Nico Rosberg aiming to win his third consecutive Monaco Grand Prix, Hamilton was determined to steal the top step from his teammate. He made the best start to that attempt by putting the car on pole, three tenths ahead of his teammate. Sebastian Vettel kept up his ‘best of the rest’ by putting it third, whilst teammate Räikkönen was down in sixth having been beaten by the two Red Bull drivers. With engine power being a small factor in the street-circuit race, McLaren and Red Bull were looking to score good points here. Jenson Button took McLaren’s best start of the season only just missing out on Q3. He started tenth after Carlos Sainz was demoted of his eighth position and had to start from the pit lane after failing to go to the weightbridge during Q1.

Race

It was Hamilton’s race to loose and it looked like nothing could stop him as the race drew to its close and he was still in the lead. But an incident between Verstappen and Grosjean saw the virtual safety car deployed as the young Dutchman’s car was removed from the track. Mercedes and Hamilton took the risk to pit for a fresh set of the supersoft tyres, only to find that the pit stop gap they believed they had in advantage wasn’t there. Hamilton returned to the race behind both Rosberg and the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel dropping from first to third in a matter of corners. The calculation error was later blamed on the fact that the virtual safety car changed to the real safety car, meaning that drivers did not have to match the beeps regulating their pace as Hamilton pit. It’s still not clear whether the decision fell to Hamilton or the team, but the team took the wrap for the mistake that saw Hamilton loose the race.

With eight laps left and the fresher, faster tyres on Hamilton found it impossible to overtake Vettel in front with the limited overtaking chances around the street circuit. Without being able to challenge Rosberg, the German took his third consecutive Monaco Grand Prix win and his second race win in a row. Sebastian Vettel split the Mercedes duo to take the second stop, leaving Hamilton to rue his final pit stop and complete the podium.

The beginning of the race saw a tight start as Alonso collided with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and sending the German into the barriers losing his front wing. He managed to continue but Alonso was given a five-second stop/go penalty for the incident. After what could have been a better qualifying for the Spaniard (but his car stopped just after the start of Q2) the McLaren driver was looking for a much better race. But it wasn’t to be as

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just after his pit stop the Spaniard pulled up his car as Ste Devote with a gearbox issue.

Alonso’s teammate had a much better race as he scored the first points in the season for the Woking-team, finishing in eighth position. After just missing out on a Q3 qualifying session Button managed to hold his position through the first few laps. It looked to be a brilliant result for McLaren as Alonso was racing in the position just behind his teammate, but his gearbox failure brought an end to the British team’s hopes of scoring their first double points of the season.

The other team looking to do well thanks to the lesser dependency on engine power was Red Bull. They made a much better finish to the race than McLaren, scoring fourth and fifth with Kvyat taking the best finish of his career just missing out on the podium. Ricciardo had been let passed by his teammate just after the safety car period as he had fresher tyres and a better opportunity to challenge Hamilton for the final podium step. On the final lap, when Ricciardo hadn’t made the move, the Australian kept up the team’s agreement and let his younger teammate back passed to retake the position that was rightfully his.

The safety car was brought out when Max Verstappen went into the back of Romain Grosjean’s Lotus at Ste Devote. The Dutchman had been doing well following close behind Vettel’s Ferrari and using his blue flag advantage to pass cars for positions. He was doing incredible well and it was a very clever tactic to easily gain track position, but when Grosjean was warned of what the Dutchman was doing his progress was stalled. It is unclear as to whether Grosjean broke early going into the first corner but Verstappen went into the back of the Lotus, going over the back wheel and careering straight into the barriers at Ste Devote. He was fine and got out of the car annoyed at how his race ended.

Round 7 - Canada Qualifying Rosberg wanted to keep his winning streak running but it looked like Hamilton was back on form in Canada.

Clearly feeling like he was owed a race win he was on a mission to make sure nothing happened to make that not happen. With the events of the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix in everyone’s minds Ricciardo was hoping for a repeat performance as Mercedes hoped the reliability issues from last year weren’t going to show again. With the power deficit though there was nothing Ricciardo could do, having to settle for ninth, 1.7 seconds off pole sitter Hamilton. Vettel ended up eighteenth after a suspected MGU-H issue saw him not make it out of Q1 and subsequent penalties he incurred. Rosberg was behind his teammate but a safe three tenths, with Räikkönen taking the position of Ferrari in third.

Race Taking his fourth Canadian Grand Prix victory, Hamilton extended his advantage over his teammate in the Championship fight to a twelve-point lead. He was 2.2 seconds ahead on his teammate as the chequered flag dropped on one of the less eventful races of the season. Holding the lead from the front, Hamilton added British All-Time Lap Leader to his list of achievements, passing previous record holder Nigel Mansell’s impressive number of 2089 laps before his first pit. Both Silver Arrows had their issues to contend with, Rosberg with brake issues and Hamilton needed to fuel save. Although the gap came within a second Rosberg never made the pass, leaving Hamilton fairly unchallenged to convert his 44th career pole into the race victory.

Williams’s Valtteri Bottas completed the podium, making it the first time a Ferrari driver had not stood on the podium during the 2015 season. Räikkönen had a comfortable advantage, having held onto his third place from the start. It was just after his stop that he lost the rear of the car going through the hairpin at the end of lap 28, stating that it was the exact issue that had plagued his 2014 Canadian Grand Prix. With Vettel’s poor show in

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qualifying and Räikkönen’s issue with the energy store kicking in during the race this was a small cause for concern for the Prancing Horse.

Even with the issues Vettel suffered on Saturday he still managed to make an impressive performance through the field from eighteenth to fifth. He managed to gain five places from the start but was then stuck behind Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson trying to get twelfth. After struggling to pass the Williams of Felipe Massa as well Ferrari called the German in for an early pit stop. The tactic would have potentially worked well had the leftrear wheel not have got stuck, costing the German an extra five seconds and seeing him return to the field at the back with it all to do again.

Felipe Massa ended up sixth, just ahead of Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado who had his best finish since the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Hulkenberg, Kvyat and Grosjean completed the top ten to claim the final handful of points.

The day did not go Ricciardo’s way as he finished thirteenth, a long way away from his first F1 win he secured at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit last year. He was disappointed not to have ended in the points but the Renault’s power deficiency makes tracks like this one hard on the Red Bull cars. Red Bull were looking forward to tracks like Hungary and Singapore which were the most likely to give them another shot at good points, just like Monaco had.

The situation did not go McLaren’s way as, alike Red Bull, they had a heavy power deficit at the Canadian track. With such long straights they were sitting ducks to be overtaken at a stupidly alarming rate, with Alonso losing two places to the Toro Rosso cars down the main straight. The weekend gave them another double retirement as Jenson Button barely got started in the race. He had had to sit out of Qualifying the day before due to engine problems that saw him starting at the back. With a drive-through penalty for not being able to take all of his grid drops after fitting a new engine for the weekend and starting at the back Button was looking at an uphill struggle. But the pain didn’t last long as persistent engine problems saw the British driver back in the pits only a short distance into the race.

The power struggles of the Honda engine finally got the better of Alonso as he snapped in the car after being asked to stop pushing and save fuel. He exclaimed at his race engineer: “I don’t want to! I don’t want! Already I have big problems now. Driving with this, looking like an amateur.

So I race and then I concentrate on fuel.” Sadly, for McLaren fans Alonso’s ‘racing’ consisted of being passed by the field on every straight, the only cars not to demote the Spaniard were the Manor’s using last year’s poor performing Ferrari engines, the very same Alonso was using last year. Alonso’s race came to an early end with a power loss seeing the Spaniard pull up next to his teammate in the pits.

Round 8 - Austria Race Deep in the picturesque Austrian mountains, we returned to the Red Bull Ring for the second year. The Austrian team hoped for better luck at their home race, than they’d had the previous year, where they had suffered a DNF for their 4-time world champion Vettel and a disappointing 8th for his new team-mate Ricciardo. But instead it was the Mercedes team boss, Toto Wolff, who enjoyed the taste of victory at home. With Nico Rosberg taking his third win of the year, ahead of championship leading team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Whilst Hamilton qualified on pole, Rosberg managed to snatch the lead into Turn 1. But as the pack made their way into Turn 2, Räikkönen suffered a massive wheel spin and collected the McLaren of Alonso, sending them crashing into the barriers in a terrifying manner. With the McLaren mounting the Ferrari, narrowly missing Räikkönen’s helmet.

The safety car swung into action neutralising the race before it really ever got underway. It wasn’t long before Alonso’s team-mate joined him back in the paddock, with Button’s car suffering electrical issues, another exhausting weekend for the former World Champions. The race also saw more reliability based retirements from Stevens, Sainz and Grosjean.

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Fresh from his Le Mans victory just one week earlier, Hulkenberg put in an excellent performance, showing no sign of slowing down to finish the race in sixth. Whilst the two Williams were the second in the team results, with Massa taking his first podium of the season in third just ahead of the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, with Bottas in fifth.

Pit stops were anything but smooth in this race. Hamilton managing to close the gap to his team mate before his stop, wiped out any gain, by crossing the white line too early on his exit, taking a 5 second time penalty for his troubles. Whilst Sebastian Vettel has a disastrous 13 second stop, due to an issue with the wheel nut on his rear right tyre and rejoined behind Felipe Massa in fourth. Rookie Carlos Sainz also caught the attention of the stewards, he was penalised for speeding in the pit lane before his retirement.

Maldonado almost had a moment, as he tried to take Verstappen on the start/finish straight, losing the back end.

But he managed to snatch seventh place eventually as the Toro Rosso locked up into Turn 1 on the penultimate lap. Perez recovered well from a torrid qualifying performance to gift his team their second double points winning result of the year. Red Bull scored the last remaining point, suffering again from the home race curse.

Despite some vibration issues in the final laps, Rosberg crossed the line to take the victory and close the championship gap to ten points. After his win in 2014, he remains the only driver to have won at the Spielberg circuit.

Round 9 - Great Britain Race A sell-out British crowd were out in force to cheer on the reigning world champion, Lewis Hamilton, at a circuit regarded by many as the home of Formula 1. They weren’t disappointed as the home crowd hero, drove a hardfought race, to take his second consecutive home victory. Despite qualifying on pole, his poor getaway saw a surprising charge from the two Williams to take the lead ahead of the two Mercedes. A war between the two Wolff camps of Mercedes’ Toto and his wife and Williams development driver Susie. Felipe Massa storming from third on the grid, it was a thrilling start for all, to see a new contender take on the mighty Mercedes.

Further down the grid there were inter-team casualties, a touch with Daniel Ricciardo send Grosjean into his team mate, resulting in both Lotus cars having to retire on the first lap. Similarly, this played down to the two McLarens as Alonso turned to avoid the incident, he collided with his team mate, bringing an early curtain to Button’s home race. Following the safety car, Hamilton charged to retake the lead, but ran wide, he had to bide his time. Team orders soon came into force at Williams as they were keen to avoid any unnecessary battles and bring home both cars ahead of the Mercedes.

The typical British weather played a part in the result of the race, with rain and pitstop strategies allowing Hamilton to expertly judge the impending changes and pit early to overtake the two Williams after all stops had taken place. By the time the rain came, Rosberg managed to jump Massa and begin his charge to his team-mate.

But Lewis’ strategy was marked perfectly and his change to inters established a lead to Rosberg and gave him the win.

After the promise from the start, Williams slipped further to allow Vettel to take the final podium spot, having to settle for fourth and fifth respectively, ahead of Red Bull’s Kyvat. Following a strong performance in Austria, Force India took seventh and ninth, split by Räikkönen, boosting them in the midfield points tally. Tenth position saw Alonso finally clinching his first point of the season, a much needed boost for the

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Spaniard, although a million miles from where they strive and deserve to be.

Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a euphoric reception from his fans on the podium, stretching his championship lead further.

Round 10 - Hungary Race The Hungarian GP began as a sombre affair, normally a stage of elation, with many former world champions claiming their first victory at the twisty circuit. Damon Hill, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button respectively.

The events of the week cast a dark shadow over proceedings, following the loss of a bright and talented young driver, who arguably could have also been a future world champion - Jules Bianchi. The motorsport community joined together to pay tribute to his infectious smile and pure racing talent.

From such subdued and touching moment on the grid, burst a race that proved to be the most exciting and action-packed of the 2015 season. A race to make Jules proud.

Following a poor start from championship leader Hamilton who later ran off the track at the chicane leaving him lagging behind in tenth. Vettel shot from third in the grid, to secure P1 as the pack headed into turn one.

Controlling the race in typical Vettel style from start-to-finish as chaos ensued behind him.

From a spectacular front wing failure similar to that of Raikkonen’s on Friday, Nico Hulkenburg was launched into the tyre wall, debris scattered across the racing line brought out the safety car, closing up the field to allow for an exciting end to the race.

Poor tyre strategy for Mercedes meant that Rosberg couldn’t capitalise on the safety car period, opting for medium tyres which left him finishing in eighth.

On paper many races seem uneventful, with pole positions leading to podiums, Hungary was no such race. The podium acted as a showcase for Helmut Marko and his remarkable ability to nurture young driver talent, with the top 4 all part of the Red Bull family. After a tough start to the season for Red Bull, their 2nd and 3rd places were a welcome reward, following their torrid relationship with Renault this year. With Kyvat securing his first podium in F1.

Max Verstappen, managed his best finish of the season so far in 4th.

With Fernando Alonso finishing in an impressive 5th place, in an underpowered McLaren, his teammate finishing in the points also, bringing the struggling team, a much needed boost heading into the summer break.

But the day belonged to Vettel & Ferrari, who dedicated the win to Jules, the rising Ferrari star, who cruelly would have been in line for the 2016 seat alongside him.

Round 11 - Belgium Race In unusually dry conditions for Spa, we saw Hulkenberg face power problems from the offset, causing another formation lap for the 2nd race in a row. Similar problems plaguing Sainz, who then started from the pit lane,

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before retiring the car later on.

With the new start procedures we were poised for an exciting start, Hamilton recovered well, with Perez having a flying start fighting Lewis for P1 in the 1st lap, whilst Rosberg struggled back in 5th. Interestingly the new start suited Alonso perfectly who shot forward from the back to P12, his best start since 2004.

Bottas tried an amusing mixed strategy in tyres, when he left the pits with 3 medium tyres and one soft tyre. The mechanic’s mistake cost him dearly, as a drive-through penalty left him rejoining in 11th.

The race had some excellent overtakes from the young Red Bull academy drivers, with Verstappen performing a confident and brave overtake on Nasr at Blanchimont. One to definitely be remembered. With fresh tyres, Kyvat took both Massa & Perez in the closing stages in some bold moves that proved just why he scored that Red Bull seat.

There were more engine woes as both Maldonado (Lap 2) and Ricciardo (Lap 21) had power failures, Ricciardo bringing out the VSC made Hamilton nervous as he felt Rosberg who was now in P2 gaining on him. Vettel behind in 3rd was fending off stiff competition from a steaming Grosjean who was converting a brilliant qualifying session into a good haul of points, the elusive podium was in his grasp.

With just 2 laps left, Vettel’s right rear tyre blew, his one stop strategy in tatters as he fell way behind to finish in P12.

Promoting Grosjean up into P3, his first podium finish since US GP in 2013.

The race ended with both Mercedes scoring maximum points for the team, a relaxed Hamilton extending his championship lead further, praising the team for a faultless performance. Whilst Rosberg was happy to finish in P2 after a disappointing start. But Grosjean’s celebration with his team stole the show. The smiling frenchman later admitting he had tears in his eyes as he crossed the line. A stark contrast to the driver who was often renowned as the “first lap nutcase”.

As we move on to Monza, the Pirelli tyre saga rolls on. With many drivers airing their concerns in the Drivers Briefing following Rosberg’s tyre failure in Friday practice, namely Vettel, who after the race was quick to use his razor sharp tongue and choice words about the Pirelli tyres and the danger surrounding them. Telling BBC’s Lee McKenzie “Things like that are not allowed - if that happens 200 metres earlier, I am not standing here right now”.

Round 12 - Italy Race At the race start, the man on the forefront of Ferrari’s home race campaign, Raikkonen struggled with a terrible start as he stalled on the grid, leaving him stranded as the rest of the pack steamed away around him.

Championship leader Hamilton maintained the lead into the first corner ahead of Vettel. Whilst Rosberg managed to avoid the stranded Ferrari, but lost places to the two Williams. Further back in the field both Lotus drivers were caught up in incidents causing them both to retire by Lap 2, a devastating blow to the struggling team whose future remains uncertain. Button managed to charge ahead from his P15 position, but was impeded

by Sainz at the 2nd chicane, Sainz was later handed a 5 second penalty, pushing him to the back of the field.

All eyes were on the battle for third, as 3 Mercedes power trains of Massa, Bottas and Rosberg, fought it out to chase the final podium spot, as second placed Vettel pulled a gap of ten seconds ahead. Rosberg’s title chances

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hanging in the balance as Hamilton pulled clear 12 seconds ahead of Vettel, easing himself towards another full haul of points.

The star of the race, was without a doubt Raikkonen, who after suffering on the grid managed to fight his way back up through the field to finish in P5. A stellar performance in front of the dedicated Tifosi, cheers rang out with every overtake.

The underpowered McLarens struggled towards the back, Button giving his all in battles against the Renault powered Toro Rossos, ultimately their engines could not compete, even with the addition of DRS. A poignant reminder of comments made by Honda boss on how their engines were “much better” than Renault. As Alonso attempted an overtake on his team mate, it was clear how he lacked in power, the power finally giving out, he returned to the pitlane billowing with smoke. His frustration was clear, following a heated press conference on Saturday, it is clear to see the McLaren Honda relationship is fractured.

As the race entered the later stage, there was trouble brewing at Mercedes. Cryptic messages broadcast to Hamilton were forcing him to push out his lead, Hamilton stretched his lead to 25 seconds, the worry was clear on the faces in the garage, was it to cover themselves for an extra pit stop?

Disaster stuck as Rosberg’s engine gave out on the closing stages, his title hopes in tatters as the 3rd place slipped through his grasp.

Massa and Bottas fought it out right to the chequered flag for Rosberg’s former place on the podium. A thrilling end to a fairly subdued race.

Controversy followed Hamilton onto the podium as his 1st place was in jeopardy, as turned out the stewards were launching an investigation into legality of his & Rosberg’s tyre pressures, reporting the left-rear pressure was 0.3psi too low. After a nail-biting period, the stewards then chose to take no further action, stating “the tyres were significantly below the maximum permitted tyre blanket temperature” was the reason for the drop in pressure.

Round 13 - Singapore Race As the lights went out in Singapore, the track lit up as Vettel powered from his pole position, managing to pull a 3 second gap to P2 Ricciardo by lap 2, showing a glimmer of the dominance we had become accustomed to in 2013. Verstappen suffered as he stalled on the grid, leaving him a full lap down, his race seemingly over. Into turn 1 they were 3 abreast as Hulkenberg, Perez and Alonso had a close shave, all keen to make places that were lost in qualifying.

Vettel continued to control the race comfortably stretching a 5.2 second gap to his former teammate by lap 7.

All the action was focussed on those who were fighting just shy of the tail end of the points as Alonso, Sainz and Grosjean battled for 11th. The battle continued in the pits, Grosjean pitting earlier left him out on track, as Sainz was delayed, allowing Alonso to maintain his lead as they exited the pits into Grosjean’s path. The Alonso-Grosjean battle goes into the next few corners, before DRS allowed Grosjean to sweep past.

The first safety car appeared as Massa & Hulkenburg collided after the pit exit, sending Hulkenburg flying into

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the wall, the stewards awarding him a 3 place grid penalty for Japan. At the restart Vettel’s advantage to Ricciardo eliminated, he backs off to ensure a 2 stop strategy.

As Massa retires with gearbox problems, the championship leader running in 4th, alerts over the radio to a loss of power. But continues running at a much slower pace, allowing his teammate behind to glide past, with others following suit, he drops to 9th. The panic is clear across the radio, as they attempt to manage the situation.

Eventually Hamilton pits to take his first DNF of the season. It’s Rosberg & Vettel’s chance to close the gap.

Not-so surprisingly, Alonso's McLaren retires soon after with a gearbox issue.

Lap 37 takes a bizarre turn as a man is seen casually walking down the side of the track, prompting the 2nd safety car period. Finally, as the race restarts there is drama as Button and Maldonado collide, the McLaren’s front wing obliterated he is forced to pit, losing their last chance at points. His race is truly over, when he is called to retire to save the gearbox from the same issue as Alonso.

Another double retirement for the 4th time this season.

The Toro Rossos have a blinding race, showcasing their talent and young determination once more as they fight their way up the points. Verstappen making his way from the back to 8th, whilst Sainz recovers from his earlier gearbox hiccup that seems to be a recurring problem for most of the field in this race. As the race closes, Verstappen falls victim to team orders, being asked repeatedly to let his team mate through, simply shouting “NO!”, he maintains the position. An interesting choice of tactics in the Red Bull junior team, arguably echoing the infamous 'Multi 21'.

Sebastian Vettel flies across the line, ahead of Ricciardo and Raikkonen, to take his first pole-to-win victory for the Ferrari team, a dominant weekend moves him third in the all-time race win table. He is now only 8 points behind Rosberg in the 2015 championship standings, who’s 4th place closes the gap from Hamilton to 41 points.

Round 14 – Japan Race A stark contrast from the usual rain-filled setting at the Suzuka Circuit, the sun shone brightly, offering up a difficult strategy choice for the teams who had limited dry running over the course of the weekend.

Straight off the line, Rosberg managed to marginally maintain his lead, whilst Hamilton was on a charge having the perfect start from P2, side by side through the first corner. Vettel took third place Bottas, whilst Hamilton squeezed Rosberg to the edge of the track, he had to bail out and dropped down to a disappointing 4th position.

Whilst the leaders had their own battle, there was drama in the first corner as Perez went straight on into the dirt, Riccardo and Massa squeezed each other, both suffering from punctures dropping them down to the back of the grid.

By Lap 5 Hamilton was back to his winning ways, stretching a 3-sec gap on Vettel, extending to 4.2 by Lap 7.

Whilst his nearest championship rival Rosberg was instructed to hold off on his chase of Bottas as engine temperature was causing damage. By the time he’s ready to push, Williams strategically bring Bottas in for tyres on Lap 11, allowing him to maintain his lead once Rosberg exits his own pit stop. On new tyres, Rosberg benefits from Bottas’ slight moment and slips ahead to take third.

Hamilton’s stop is uneventful and he continues to lead the pack, flying around the track, the 3rd championship getting ever closer.

In the rest of the pack there is an interesting scrap between Alonso and Verstappen, Alonso giving a good fight to maintain the final points position, but as they enter Lap 26 the youngster glides past the Honda. Frustration roars as Alonso echoes Button’s recent radio messages in previous races to the struggle in the McLaren camp.

He screams down the radio "GP2 engine. GP2. Aaaaargh!" But at Honda’s home race, his comparisons to the

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lower series is a particularly low blow. Following media comments earlier this week, is this the beginning of the end for Alonso? There’s a tough time ahead for McLaren.

Rosberg’s Mercedes power evident, he manages to hop Vettel who exits the pits. The pit stops are seemingly drama-free for all teams in this race, proving Mercedes pace against the Ferrari.

Grosjean is making up for disappointment in previous races as he challenges Bottas, for some valuable points, but he takes a little excursion into the grass. Perez recovered from his first lap drama to sit nicely in 9th place.

Whilst his teammate has gained on his grid penalty to sit in an impressive 6th.

Lap 45 has a spin and a near miss for the Manor team as Stevens pushes a little too hard, trying to claw back his lost time from a 5-sec penalty for speeding in the pitlane.

As we entered the closing stages of the race we had our first retirement, as Nasr pits, but is officially classified, only 5th race in history to have full classification.

Hamilton crosses the line, in a faultless performance, to take his elusive 41st victory, equalling Senna’s victory tally and stretching his lead to 48 points ahead of Rosberg and 59 to Vettel, with 5 races left.

The championship is all but wrapped up, but as Singapore proved, anything could happen.

Round 15 – Russia Qualifying Sochi holds the Grand Prix for only the second time this year. Rosberg goes fastest in qualifying with 1:37.113, speeding away with pole position, and Hamilton 0.320 off his team mate. Behind is Bottas, Vettel, Raikkonen, Hulkenberg, Perez, Grosjean, Verstappen and Ricciardo.

Race It started with a fight between the two Mercedes drivers with Nico pushing ahead through the first corner and Lewis coming back fighting around the second, but Rosberg seems to grab it. Further down the track a collision between Hulkenberg and Ericsson forces Verstappen and Grosjean off the track and to an early pitstop.

Rosberg takes advantage of the safety car and speeds away while the Finns battle it out behind and Bottas manages to get the upper hand and leaves Raikkonen far behind. It's only until lap 8 that Nico manages to maintain his lead, complaining of a problem with the throttle pedal, he runs wide at turn 2 and Hamilton grabs his chance. Unfortunately, that's it for Rosberg as he slows down and is passed by Bottas and the Ferrari's. He pits, gets out of the car and it's all over for him.

Further down the grid, Massa is up to P8 and Maldonado powers past Button, as does Sainz who has gained a lot from starting at the back. Hamilton breezes ahead of Bottas who breezes ahead of Raikkonen. Lap 13 Grosjean loses control of the back of his car and crashes into the barrier, the crash is bad but the Frenchman is fine.

Raikkonen goes off track during a battle between the two Ferrari's and has to give the position up to Vettel who starts to put pressure on the Williams ahead. Alonso is warned by his team about cutting the apex at turn 16, while on lap 26 Sainz receives a five second time penalty for crossing the line at the pit lane. Vettel pushes

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towards Bottas whose tyres can't take it. He pits and comes out in 11th place making Sebastian second and Kimi third. The German pits three laps later and comes out still ahead of Bottas and quickly makes it back to P2.

Sainz's impressive driving comes to an end during lap 47 due to a break failure. Next goes Ricciardo two laps later. The main fight is for P3, which Perez has but Raikkonen and Bottas are hot on his heels. They both manage to overtake him on the last lap. At turn 5, Kimi tries a go over Bottas but they make contact and it sends Bottas car out of the race. Raikkonen nurses his car to the finish line for fifth place.

Hamilton wins, Vettel second, Perez third, then Massa, Kvyat, Nasr, Maldonado, Raikkonen is in eight due to a penalty for the crash, followed by Button, and Verstappen last in the points.

Round 16 - USA Qualifying Wet, wet, wet. Hailed the 'best race of the season' by fans, it was a thrilling and slippery weekend at Austin.

With drivers spinning and feeling uncertain when and whether to change their tyres. Qualifying 3 did not go ahead due to the weather, therefore pole was decided on the cut short (again due to the weather) Q2 with Rosberg first, followed by Hamilton, Ricciardo, Kvyat, Perez, Hulkenberg, Massa, Verstappen, Alonso, Bottas.

Race Immediate tyres seemed to be the choice of the day due to the very wet conditions. The race starts fighting, with Hamilton running Rosberg wide and claiming P1 with Kyvat hot on his heels. Bottas and Nasar are the first drivers brave enough to risk changing their tyres to the slicks but it seems to be a bad move, Bottas rapidly loses positions and Nasar changes back to intermediates quickly.

The two Saubers collide which results in the Virtual Safety Car being deployed. Kyvat manages to briefly get ahead of Hamilton but he can't hold on to the position. Once the Virtual Safety Car ends, Rosberg takes advantage and speeds past Ricciardo who questions whether his move was legal. Rosberg goes on to overtake the other Red Bull.

Grosjean retires lap 13 due to many car problems including his rear brakes. While Kyvat tries to overtake Rosberg and fails but Nico runs wide and Ricciardo takes advantage, landing him in second position. He then goes on to pass Hamilton and becomes race leader. With the track becoming dryer, most drivers pit to change to the slicks. Hamilton goes first and rejoins only in eighth place whilst Ricciardo manages to maintain first after his tyre change. Meanwhile, Raikkonen hits the barriers but he somehow manages to get his car started again, but his car only lasts until lap 27. Unfortunately, there is a problem for Massa, too, and he has to retire his car - a disappointing double retirement for Williams.

Ricciardo is still leading the Grand Prix and manages to put 10 seconds of distance between himself and Rosberg. It doesn't seem to be Hamilton's race so far, lagging behind in third position and under threat from Vettel and Kyvat charging from behind. Ericsson loses power on track and a safety car is deployed. Hamilton takes advantage of this and clinches fastest lap of the race and gets back to his comfortable, familiar position at the front.

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Kyvat loses control on lap 43 and skids, colliding with the barrier almost head on. This means another safety car and therefore Hamilton's lead under threat from Rosberg who manages to get ahead but he can't hold on to the position for long and is back behind Lewis, who is on much fresher tyres, by the end of the lap. There are many changes in positions between the two drivers and it seems to be very much a two car race, unable to tell who would claim victory. It isn't until lap 48 it becomes clear. Button manages to pass both his teammate and Sainz for fifth position, and Vettel sneaks to third, but Rosberg's tyres let him down and Hamilton manages to get and maintain the upper hand. With a three second lead on Rosberg, Lewis crosses the finish line first and gets a first place finish and his third world championship. Rosberg finishes second, then Vettel, Perez, Sainz, Button, Maldonado, Nasr, Ricciardo, Alonso. In 11th is Rossi, a reasonable finish for his first Grand Prix.

Round 17 - Mexico And so it occurred that F1 returned to the mighty Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez for the first time since 1992.

In the aftermath of Hamilton securing his coveted third title at the previous round in Texas one might have assumed that his bitter rival and team-mate would be a little flat. Happily, Nico Rosberg is made of sterner stuff.

Almost 2/10ths quicker than Lewis in Q3.

Race He was able to maintain the advantage through turn one and, other than during the pitstop phase, was never headed. A well timed reminder of his capabilities indeed.

That’s not to say that the new champion ever let him out of his sight - whether or not he was feeling the effects of post Texas celebrations Lewis kept the pressure up on Nico without ever really looking like he could take him.

Late on there was an attempt to get the team to agree to a different tyre strategy to Nico. In an earlier era, he would’ve just stayed out and gambled on his Pirellis holding out. Of course in these data driven and safety conscious times the term ‘instruction’ was used during one pit to car exchange and he duly complied.

Soon afterwards a safety car period ensued - due to Vettel finally crashing out after a very bad day at the office and one can only imagine what the ever demanding Lewis thought about that.

Once the yellow flags had been put away and Bernd Maylander finally headed to the pits Rosberg rebuilt his advantage over Hamilton and maintained it until the chequered flag.

Further down the field Vettel's first lap clash with Ricciardo resulted in a puncture that forced him into the pits to change tyres prior to a wild spin on lap 18. His eventual (and first in 2015) DNF occurred after spearing off into the barriers on lap 52.

Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen clashed again - hopefully there is not a trend developing here - but only the younger Finn

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survived on his way to a well-deserved 3rd place. Bottas could also be thankful for the ever slippery Williams when dealing with the impressive, but sadly for him, Renault powered Kvyat who had managed to avoid the earlier clash between Ricciardo and Vettel.

Perhaps the biggest winner on the day was Mexico City itself. With a local hero to support and arguably the best podium backdrop ever, Monza included, the City of 20m souls embraced F1 like no venue before. A pleasant contrast to certain other locations on the current F1 schedule.

Round 18 - Brazil After yet another Mercedes front row lockout Nico Rosberg continued his post title defeat renaissance with a totally dominant display at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

Race

Senna inspired headwear or not, at a track he’s never won at Lewis Hamilton was once again completely outgunned by his German team-mate. One tense moment heading into the first turn and a later missed apex aside, Nico had Lewis in his pocket all weekend.

Behind the Mercedes stalemate, (Toto Wolff once again refused to split strategies between the two sides of the garage), the rest of the field also struggled to deliver much in the way of real excitement - sad to say at such an evocative venue. Those much vaunted rulebook changes can’t come quick enough based on what the Sao Paolo crowd and millions watching on TV had to endure on 15th November.

Ferrari at least dabbled with alternative tyre tactics between their cars but still ran out a distant 3rd (Vettel) and 4th (Raikkonen). Kimi did at least manage to avoid hitting Bottas this time out though.

A race long duel between Hulkenberg and Kvyat went the way of the Force India driver but Felipe Massa would fall foul of tyre temperature regulations and end up being disqualified from what was already a disappointing run to 8th.

His loss was Enstones gain - both the Lotus drivers scoring points once Felipe had been excluded. Another fine drive by Grosjean included a masterful pass on a distracted Perez and was rewarded with 8th. Meanwhile Maldonado somehow managed to pick up a point despite incurring a time penalty after flipping Ericsson around during one of his customary, clumsy takeover attempts.

Further back, depressingly so at a track where all parties have had so many great days in previous seasons, the Mclaren boys battled all day long to secure a less than glorious 15th and 16th with just the delayed Ericsson and the ever woeful Manors behind them.

And then there was Max. Mighty, mighty Max. Two breathtaking overtakes at the Senna S’ on Perez and Nasr meant he probably deserved more than the single point an inherited 10th place brought but at least he reached the finish. His fellow star rookie Sainz didn’t even get to the end of the first lap after grinding to a halt and would register the days only DNF.

Round 19 - Abu Dhabi However ostentatious the setting and many of the spectators appear to be Abu Dhabi has quickly established itself as a perfect GP finale venue. These night races look great on television - however diminished that

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audience is due to pay TV deals - and the track does lend itself to an element of overtaking and scope for proper wheel to wheel action.

A predictable grid, (other than Vettel failing to get out of Q1), left us with an all silver front row. Hopefully the team would allow a decent end of term battle between pole man Rosberg and a newly crowned champion still, apparently, getting used to subtle changes made to the W06 since he secured the title in Texas.

Race With two tyre stops seemingly the way to go a great start by Nico (on super-softs like most of the grid) saw him build up a healthy lead during the first phase - infact Lewis had a sluggish getaway and had to keep a wary eye on both Kimi and an in-form Perez into the first corner.

All seemed set for a no-drama, Toto Wolff friendly demonstration run even beyond the first tyre stop phase.

However, graining on his first set of prime soft tyres reduced Nicos lead over Lewis from seven seconds to almost zero prior to a stop for another set of softs - on lap 32.

This left Lewis in front with a handy 15 second lead and, with overtones of earlier races, it wasn’t too long before he started asking about staying out on his own first set of softs. If that was to have been an option, on reflection, he later accepted that he should have backed off a bit once Nico had pitted in order to preserve his entertainment sapping Pirellis.

After toying with the idea of switching to super-softs for the final stint Hamilton stuck with a second set of softs. He would eventually close to within 9 seconds of a team-mate who has undoubtedly sent a message to the whole paddock, and #TeamLH in particular, that he remains a threat and will come back fighting in 2016.

Meanwhile Alonso capped a wretched 2015 with a first corner incident involving Ericsson and, for once, a totally innocent Maldonado. A drive through penalty hardly improved his mood and Fernandos comments during and after the race only reduced the odds against some type of sabbatical or a change of career for the ever controversial Spaniard.

Spirited end of season performances abounded further down the field though with Kvyat, Ricciardo, Button, Sainz and Verstappen all starring. Jenson, in particular, provided perhaps the most entertaining moment whilst refusing to give way to Max. The Rookie of the Year would go on to receive a time penalty for his track boundary stretching attempts to pass the experienced Brit of course.

However, in a year dominated by one team on track and by engine politics off it, it was fitting that it was these two natural born racers, at opposite ends of their F1 careers, who were the ones who provided the final moment of magic before F1 enters its long winter hibernation.

Roll on Melbourne!

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2015 BTCC Season Review Brands Hatch(Indy) - BTCC Rounds 1-3 The Indy Circuit at Brands Hatch is now the traditional venue for the opening rounds of the British Touring Car Championship and with 32 cars lining up on the grid, excitement was at fever pitch by the time that April 3rd came around.

The major stories of the winter included a number of high profile driver changes. The 2014 champion, Colin Turkington and runner up Jason Plato both made the move to Team BMR, triple world champion Andy Priaulx returned to the championship with West Surrey Racing and Triple Eight Racing featured and entirely new line up, Jack Goff and 2013 champion Andrew Jordan now piloting the MG’s.

Priaulx made an instant impact in the BMW as he took the first pole of the season.

Unfortunately, his glory would be short lived as, despite having the raw pace, Priaulx struggled to get the car away from the line which allowed team-mate Rob Collard through into the lead.

It was the BMW stalwart who ended up taking the first victory of the season, a victory the brought a memorable celebration with his son Ricky, who had just won in the MSA Formula race. A good start to the season for the Collard family!

Race two brought with it all of the things that we love about the BTCC. Jason Plato took the early lead and he pulled away from the chasing pack with apparent ease but it was behind him where the action was happening.

Collard was running on the soft rubber for race two, the tyres specifically designed to give good early pace but then to fade with often dramatic consequences, and Gordon Shedden made a very late lunge down into Paddock Hill bend which forced the race one winner wide, dropping him several places down the order.

With the race apparently sewn up, Plato made a hugely uncharacteristic error, running wide at Paddock Hill and getting himself beached in the gravel. With the title fight expected to be as close as ever, would this mistake come back to haunt the two-time champion?

The battle that had been raging for second place between Shedden and Priaulx now became that much more important as the two were now fighting for the victory. Paintwork was exchanged repeatedly as they jostled for space but it was Shedden who came out on top, claiming victory by just 0.04 of a second.

One of the season’s more controversial moments came before race three as Rob Austin admitted that he had deliberately looked into the bowl and grabbed his own number for the reverse grid draw, putting himself on pole. After this the draw was completed again by Series Coordinator Alan Gow who, somewhat coincidently, also drew Austin’s number.

The race was a lot calmed than the frenetic race two. Matt Neal wasting little time in getting past Austin and ‘Sherman’ while race one winner Collard continued his weekend’s downwards spiral, exiting into the gravel at Paddock on lap one.

Shedden also suffered from a bit of bad luck in race two, a misfiring engine causing him to retire the car early on.

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Neal however managed to cling on to his lead, despite being put under pressure from Goff in the closing stages of the race, to make it a memorable day for the Yuasa Honda Team Dynamics garage.

Donington Park - BTCC Rounds 4-6 The opening round of the 2015 British Touring Car Championship had featured all of the close racing and bumper bashing that we love about the sport and Donington provided us with more of the same.

Gordon Shedden backed up the Yuasa Honda’s Brands Hatch performance by taking pole position for round four of the championship with Jason Plato lining up alongside him.

Plato made a great getaway and took the lead as the field headed into turn one. If the two-time champion felt any nerves after throwing away the lead from a similar position at Brands then he did not show it, taking a routine victory.

Shedden was on pole once again for race two, having set the quickest lap in the previous race. Another sloppy start from the Scotsman meant that one of the Team BMRR cars got the better of him into turn one again, this time it was the number one car of Colin Turkington though.

The reigning champion was quickly making himself at home in the front wheel drive Volkswagen Passat CC and proved that he would be no number two driver to Plato in the championship hunt by taking a victory as easy as that of Plato’s in race one.

The race for second provided us with plenty of entertainment throughout but the place eventually went to Matt Neal who just about held off the Mercedes of Adam Morgan who made a return to the BTCC podium after taking his maiden podium in last year’s season finale.

Race three was the race of the day by a long way.

The reverse grid promoted Josh Cook to the front of the grid for the first time in his BTCC career and boy did he want to stay at the front.

Rob Collard made a start typical of the West Surrey Racing BMW, snatching the lead away from Cook. The Power Maxed Racing driver was having none of it though, forcing a move of his own into the final chicane at the end of lap one.

Further back, Aron Smith, who was third in the championship before Donington, was flying in the ballast free VW and was helped when an incident involving Sam Tordoff and Jack Goff brought out the safety car, bunching the pack back up.

Smith, who was now in third, made a better restart than Collard, putting him right on the tail of Cook.

After a series of failed attempts, Smith finally managed to get alongside Cook as they headed down towards the Craner Curves. It was suddenly looking good for the Irishman to make it three wins from three for Team BMR until he cut across the front of Cook a fraction of a second to soon, causing both drivers to take a hair raising trip across the grass. When re-joining, his car still wildly out of control, Smith was lucky not to wipe out any of the other leaders.

The two were now well down the order as they tried to regroup and go again which left championship leader Matt Neal to pick up the pieces and take a second reverse grid victory of the season.

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Thruxton - BTCC Rounds 7-9 The podium top step was shared at Thruxton by Gordon Shedden, Jason Plato and Adam Morgan who took his maiden outright victory on the tarmac!

Shedden continued to show his hunger for the title early in the season as he headed home a Honda one-two in opening race as he continued to show the pace of the new 'Type R' Honda Civic at the fastest circuit in the country. The Scotsman got the jump by the pole-sitting VW of Team BMR’s Aron Smith and never looked back as he extended the gap from the chasing pack lap after lap, maintaining the lead until the chequered flag. Matt Neal also flew by the slow-starting Smith and despite coming under race-long pressure he was eventually able to secure a hard-earned second place finish. Morgan claimed another head turning podium ahead of Plato, after Plato had worked his way through from sixth on the grid.

Honda, who had now taken eight of the last nine race wins at Thruxton covering three types of Civic including 2014's tourer saw their dominant reign come to an end in race two when Plato came out on top in a duel with West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard in his BMW. Plato’s VW initially lost out to the rear-wheel drive BMW but the Wiley old fox as he calls himself quickly made up for the start and re-took the lead at the end of lap two.

The pair couldn’t be separated for the duration of the race with Collard hounding the stealth black machine ahead of him for every fiercely fought lap. Plato showed how to defend with a spectacle of defensive driving and he held on to take the win to see him moved on to 90 career victories in the series. Shedden completed the podium positions to continue to more valuable championship points which would prove vital in the seasons climax.

Morgan then secured a stellar second BTCC career victory with a flawless drive in the final race which was his first out-right as his first had been awarded previously in the steward’s room! Starting from pole position the WIX Racing Mercedes immediately extended his lead and was more than three seconds ahead by the half way point in the race and despite having to hold his nerve after a brief safety car period the young Lancastrian was again able to peg back the field following the restart to take the victory.

Andrew Jordan in his MG maintained his championship challenge taking second place finish behind Morgan although still without a victory after 9 races in 2015, his consistency has allowed him to still be there or there abouts in the title challenge with the Honda's and VW's, while Sam Tordoff scored his first podium in his West Surrey Racing BMW and Turkington experienced a relatively low-key weekend in Hampshire, but the Ulsterman still bagged solid points haul in every race.

The Honda's took more vital points in the final race with Shedden and Neal finishing in fifth and sixth respectively which leaves the championship poised with five former champions at the top of the standing as Shedden leads Turkington by eight points, with Neal, Plato and Jordan completing the top 5!

Oulton Park(Island) - BTCC Rounds 10-12 Team BMR’s Jason Plato took two wins and the championship lead away from Oulton Park whilst Sam Tordoff claimed victory in the final race at the Cheshire circuit.

The scenic circuit just outside Chester is my favourite of the season and was basked in glorious sunshine throughout race day as Plato continued from his qualifying dominance on Saturday into race day. Starting from

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pole position the VW CC driver shot off the line in the opening race and hardly looked back although having his nemesis Matt Neal behind him, Plato eased to victory. As the race saw the green lights it was Team IHG Rewards Club’s Andy Priaulx who made the best getaway and looked like he could take the lead away from Plato as the pack of cars roared down to Old Hall for the first time. Priaulx seemed purely focussed on Plato ahead but left the door open for Neal’s Honda to shoot back past the BMW on the run down to Cascades. With the rear-wheel drive BMW 125i M Sport being slower to get heat into its tyres it meant it would take Priaulx nearly three laps to find its race pace and once he did although pressuring Neal he was able to hold his nerve to defend the place perfectly around Island Circuit.

Plato then produced a similar performance in the second contest and continued to dominate around the 2.2-mile circuit, this time with the race-long pressure coming from Neal's team mate in the Honda of Gordon Shedden.

The Type R touched the VW CC on a couple of occasions whilst tussling for top spot, most memorably at the Island Hairpin, but Shedden couldn’t quite make a move to take the lead. The Scotsman made one last attempt on the final corner of the final lap, but would see his efforts miss out by just 0.093s over the line. Plato’s victory in race 2 was the first time in the 2015 season that a driver had taken the victory with maximum success ballast on board to show how far the development of the VW CC had come. Andy Jordan in his MG6 continued to add the points at a consistent rate and race two proved no exception. The 2013 BTCC champion kept Plato and Shedden honest throughout to claim another podium for the manufacturer squad, whilst Neal’s Honda followed in the order after seeing off challenges from three BMWs. In the final race Adam Morgan took the reverse grid draw but after jumping the start suffered a drive through penalty which ended his challenge for victory. It was Matt Neal that would inherit the lead as he passed Sam Tordoff as Morgan entered the pits. Tordoff was hungry for his first victory in the BMW, reeling Neal in and tucked his car down the inside of the Honda at Lodge before making the move stick at Old Hall on lap nine. One lap later and Jordan produced a similar move on Neal, this time though the pair touched on a number of occasions before the Honda man eventually succumbed. Neal regained his composure to complete the podium ahead of team-mate Shedden, who had himself fallen into the clutches of Plato. Oulton left the championship with Plato now leading Shedden by just three points with Neal a further five points in arrears with Jordan only 13 points off Plato.

Reigning champion Turkington dropped to fifth in the standings.

Croft - BTCC Rounds 13-15 Croft provided the fans with its usual thrills ‘n’ spills, with the 30-strong field going doorhandle-to-doorhandle over three 15-lap races that yielded victories and a dominating weekend for the BMW team with the trio of Rob Collard, Yorkshire’s own Sam Tordoff and Andy Priaulx – the triple World Touring Car Champion taking the victories and making a welcome return to the top step of the BTCC rostrum for the first time in 13 years.

Having yielded a massive crowd, the Yorkshire circuit provided some spectacular racing and also two highprofile touring car debuts as for Nicolas Hamilton, the brother of now three-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton he made history becoming the first registered disabled driver to compete in the championship – and local ace Max Coates, who works at Croft as an instructor. Driving an AmDTuning.com-run Audi S3 Saloon, Hamilton scored a best result of 22nd, whilst Coates mastered a top 20 finish behind the wheel of the second Support Our Paras Racing Infiniti Q50.

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The BMW's lined up 1st, 2nd and 4th on the grid with Tordoff starting on pole, Priaulx second and Collard 4 th and the trio were soon in the top three spot as Collard made his trademark rocket start to shoot past the Honda of Shedden who had started third.

Jason Plato who had suffered a dismal qualifying by his standards had opted to start from the pit lane in order to focus on setting a quick lap time for optimum grid position in race two.

Priaulx though without a victory since Knockhill in 2002 in the BTCC had eyes on the prize and wrestled the lead from his younger team mate before the trio celebrated a podium lock out for West Surrey Racing as Collard came home a little way back in third.

Plato's qualifying gamble in the first race paid off as he was soon into second place in the second race as he pulled a move on Priaulx and without ballast was able to see the race home behind Tordoff who would take the race victory and make it a double for WSR. The excitement was served up between Collard and Shedden who battled for fourth position with Collard coming out on top at the chequered flag.

In race three Collard and Shedden were at it again in an early battle for the lead with Shedden pulling one of the moves of the season but with the soft tyre option was unable to see it through. Collard, with his aggression re-took the lead and then Priaulx took second place at the final hair pin from Shedden to make it a triple and fantastic day for West Surrey Racing as the season got to the half way point.

Gordon Shedden now re-took the championship lead ahead of Plato by 10 points, with Neal a further 12 back. Sam Tordoff broke into the top 4 ahead of Turkington and Jordan.

Snetterton - BTCC Rounds 16-18 Colin Turkington became the first driver to take a second pole position of the season after Saturdays qualifying session as he headed a Team BMR top 3 lock out with Aron Smith and Jason Plato starting just behind in the first race of the weekend.

Despite seeing a return to the championship for the Motorbase team of Matt Jackson and new 2015 team mate James Cole in their pair of Montune powered Ford Focus' there return was a quite one as the BMR trio backed up the qualifying success in Sunday’s opener with a podium lockout as Turkington led home the same pairing after he made a steady getaway but immediately had to fend off a passing attempt by Smith, as Plato looked on closely from behind. The trio settled down over the opening few laps with Smith and the ballast-laden Plato seemingly unable to keep pace with Turkington. While the gap remained fairly slim throughout the contest the Ulsterman would continue unopposed thereafter to take the chequered flag. MG’s Andrew Jordan, West Surrey Racing’s Andy Priaulx and Honda’s Matt Neal completed the top six while the championship leader Gordon Shedden endured a challenging encounter down in fourteenth which would continue throughout the day as things got worse for the Scotsman as he saw his championship lead disintegrate with two non-finishes in the following races.

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Turkington also won the second race as he kept away from the drama in the chasing pack to secure his third triumph of the 2015 campaign. The 33-year-old powered his his VW CC off the line and led commandingly into Riches for the first time. Adam Morgan in his Mercedes got the jump by the slow-starting BMW of Sam Tordoff, and Priaulx also jumped by his WSR team-mate before the end of the first lap. Having been punted out of race one Rob Collard’s disastrous day continued as he was fired off into the barrier in race two, and there were several other incidents that saw the likes of Shedden, Aron Smith and Matt Neal all forced into retirement.

One of my highlights of the season has to though be the impressive Jack Goff who won the final reverse-grid race. Goff made a great getaway from pole position and immediately set about extending a gap to the chasing pack although carrying the soft tyre, Goff was able to string a series of strong laps together until mid-distance.

Despite the performance in his tyres naturally tailing off towards the finish he was able to absorb the pressure from Plato’s challenge and take the win much to the delight of massive following of fans awaiting the rising star in the paddock.

As the sun set over Snetterton it was Jason Plato who lead the standings by 16 points from team-mate Colin Turkington. Honda’s Gordon Shedden has slipped to third after his difficult weekend whilst West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff remains fourth.

Jack Goff said: “I made my best start of the year, and what a time to do it! That’s the strongest the car has felt all season, and it was a great race. I could see Jason in my mirrors and was thinking ‘of all the people to have behind me, it would be him!’ It’s finally happened though – I had a little wobble on the last lap where I just switched off for a split second but I managed to hold it together. It’s so good to get the first win for the team this year. Andy and I have both been working really hard, and I’m happy to finally make it to the top step.”

Knockhill - BTCC Rounds 19-21 It's the annual visit north of the border to the undulating Knockhill. Buoyant from the pace shown at Snetterton, Mat Jackson and Motorbase fancied their chances of pole but ended up in third. It was a WSR 1-2 at the end of qualifying, Priaulx followed home by Tordoff.

As the lights went out, Jackson was off out in front while the BMW's battled it out amongst themselves. Contact between Tordoff and Collard saw Tordoff drop back into the clutches of the front runners with their soft shod tyres.

Jackson with a clean track and soft tyres put his head down and got fastest lap of the race and with that pole position for race 2. However, after setting this pace, he soon lost tyre performance and the BMW duo of Priaulx and Collard soon caught up and filled his mirrors with their WSR BMW's. While Jackson was fending off Priaulx, Collard made a move on Priaulx when he was forced wide by Jackson and 2 laps later overtook Jackson for the lead. Jackson held on for the second step of the podium fending off a determined Priaulx.

Tordoff after his early contact soon made his way through after some epic racing between both Hondas and an excellent outing by Rob Austin and his Audi. The top ten were completed by Jordan, Morgan and Turkington in his Team BMR VW CC. There was one of the shortest safety car periods of the season as it was sent out so debris could be cleared from the track after earlier contacts.

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Championship leader going into the race, Plato, decided to drop back and start at the back of the grid and make the most of the ruling about setting fastest lap in race 1 for his starting position in race 2. This tactic resulted in Plato finishing down in 23rd, but set the eighth fastest lap so starts P8 in race 2.

Jackson made another great start for race 2 and everybody made it through Duffus Dip without incident.

Shedden didn't waste time getting onto the bumper of Jackson's Motorbase Ford and took the lead at Clark's on lap 5 and disappeared into the distance. Second place was contested between Jackson and very keen Austin in his Audi. This meant that Collard could also join in and making it a 3-way fight.

This battle raged on until the safety car came out as Stewart Lines's Toyota was helpless at the hairpin. Jackson and Austin made contact just before the safety car came out at the hairpin which resulted in the bodywork on the Ford rubbing on the tyre.

Shedden again disappeared once the safety car came in and the attention was back on the battle for 2nd between Jackson and Austin. Unfortunately for Austin and his Audi, he went wide at the chicane allowing Collard, Jordan and Priaulx to pass him and ended up sixth at the flag.Collard went on the hunt for Jackson and took 2nd place from the Ford man two laps from the end. Plato ended up 7th, Matt Neal, Aiden Moffat and Adam Morgan completed the top 10. Both Turkington and Tordoff suffered setbacks for their challenge on the championship. Turkinghton retired after contact with Priaulx, while Tordoff ended up five laps down after pitting with damage.

The top ten were reversed. This meant Adam Morgan on pole with Aiden Moffat alongside him. The first part of the race looked like it was going to be a Mercedes 1-2. However, Morgan picked up some debris allowing Matt Neal to close and ultimately take the lead on the penultimate lap and managed to hold off the challenges of Morgan to get the win.

Championship leader, Plato, was holding off the advances of Priaulx in his WSR BMW. Lap 15 Priaulx made his move and set off after Moffat and the last step on the podium. On the final lap Priaulx made his move, although a bit on the robust side, and got 3rd. However, the officials deemed the move was indeed robust and overturned the result and gave Priaulx a 3.5 second penalty meaning Moffat got his first podium. Rob Austin finished an excellent weekend in fifth ahead of Team BMR's Plato.

A race long battle between Jordan, race 2 winner Shedden and Jackson ended up with Jordan ahead in this scrap. Martin Depper in his Eurotech Racing Civic finished off the top ten.

Rockingham - BTCC Rounds 22-24 Mat Jackson secured pole at Rockingham, setting a new lap record on the way too. Just 0.0050s behind Jackson was Team BMR's Aron Smith and Gordon Shedden was third in his Honda after a red-flagged had stopped the session. Due to a qualifying infringement, Shedden was given a four place grid penalty which means he will

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now start seventh. Triple Eight Racing's Jack Goff will line up in P3 ahead of Tom Ingram. Plato moves upto fifth. Aiden Moffat also gains and starts P6. Knockhill race 2 winner Shedden now lines up 7th. Matt Neal starts just behind his team-mate. Turkington qualified ninth and Jordan completed the top ten.

Pole sitter Jackson in his Motorbase Ford made a good start and held on for his first win of the season. Behind Jackson, Honda's Gordon Shedden moved swiftly through the field and ended up on the second step of the podium. There was trouble for Jason Plato in his Team BMR VW. Plato suffered damage after contact and had to pit for repairs and ended up 2 laps down. Aron Smith held onto third despite the attention and advances of Triple 8 MG Jack Goff. Goff and Neal had a great battle swapping places but Goff fought back and held off Neal. Speedworks Tom Ingram came home in fifth.

The second MG of Jordan made good progress to end up sixth and Team BMR's Turkington following him in seventh. Matt Neal suffered a puncture on the final lap and wound up eighth. Morgan in his Mercedes and Tordoff in his BMW completed the top 10.

Shedden made a great start from pole. Jackson passed Morgan's Mercedes and was up to second. The last lap proved to be dramatic. Josh Cook had made some steady progress and was up to fourth from 14th! Morgan defended well, but Cook in his Chevrolet Cruze made his move at the Brook chicane and went round the outside of Morgan. Matt Neal ended in fifth after making progress. He passed Austin, Turkington and Goff to claim his fifth place by lap 11. Rob Austin was having another great outing and finished ahead of Plato and his VW. Plato had to pull of some stunning moves on his way to seventh, in one move he overtook both Tordoff and Turkington at Deene! Fellow Team BMR stable mate Turkington finished eighth, MG's Goff ninth and rounding out the top ten was Tom Ingram.

Tom Ingram starts on pole thanks to the reversed grid. Jack Goff was overtaken by Team BMR duo of Plato and Turkington before being spun and dropping down to last place. Another one in trouble and being spun round was Derek Palmer Jnr. He was helped by Dan Welch. Lap four and Plato managed to get passed Ingram only for Tom to re-pass and manage to get a small gap over Plato.

The race was interrupted twice by the safety car firstly by Hunter Abbott helping Mike Bushell into the gravel.

Lap 12 and again Plato made a move for the lead yet Ingram was having none of this and re-passed him much to the cheer from the huge crowd that were enjoying this battle. It wasn't until lap 14 that Plato made the move stick just before the second safety came out to clear fluids from Dan Welch's expired Proton. Hunter Abbott had a huge lock up on the final lap and hit the rear of Moffat eliminating them both.

Plato held on for the win, folllowed home by Tom Ingram. Turkington finished third in his Team BMR VW ahead of Matt Neal in his Honda. WSR's Tordoff finished fifth Aron Smith sixth. Rob Austin having an excellent race finishing seventh and championship leader Shedden eighth. Jordan in his MG and Josh Cook finish off the top 10.

Silverstone - BTCC Rounds 25-27

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This took place at the home of British Motorsport, Silverstone. Once again Mat Jackson and his Motorbase Ford take another pole position for race 1. Behind Jackson, the remaining positions kept on changing. Sheddon finally got second and Andrew Jordan was pushed into fourth place at the last gasp by WSR's Sam Tordoff.

Matt Neal and Jason Plato couldnt find a top time. Plato ending up tenth and Neal 11th. Andy Priaulx though starts from the back of the grid as he received the third strike on his licence at Knockhill.

It was a lights-to-flag victory for Motorbase Performance's Mat Jackson. Jordan, Shedden and Tordoff all battled it behind Jackson's Ford Focus. Jordan and his soft-tyred MG 6 was able to pass Shedden on the second lap and held it until the flag despite Shedden coming back at him. Dave Newsham finished fourth in what was his best race of the season and keeping both VW CC's of Turkington and Smith behind him. The remaining top ten was made up of Collard, Neal, Ingram and Tordoff. Ingram got the better of the soft shod BMW towards the end as the soft tyres were based their best.

Plato retired from the race with a puncture on the penultimate lap after having a great battle with Collard in his BMW. Goff, Abbott and Priaulx all concentrated on getting good lap times for race two and therefore were giving up track position to do this.

Again Jackson starting from pole position in his Ford Focus. This time he led Priaulx as the lights went out and held out until lap eight. Priaulx dived in at Becketts and took the lead. There was talk of a penalty as it looked like Priaulx had put all four wheels off the circuit to make the move but this never materialised. Jackson was on the boot-lid of the BMW until lap 15 when a puncture forced him to change and he finally ended up 27th. With Jackson pitting for his new tyres, this moved Jack Goff and Aron Smith up to podium positions despite contact at the end of the Wellington straight on lap six.

Honda's Gordon Shedden finished fourth to help with his champioship bid. He was helped though when MG's Jordan suffered a puncture on the last lap. Jordan limped home in 19th. Matt Neal followed team mate Shedden finishing fifth ahead of Tordoff, Plato, Turkington, Collard and a career-best finish for James Cole in tenth place. Even though Plato finished behind Shedden, he made a decisive move on his team mate and fellow championship rival Turkington by going round the outside of him at Brooklands.

Due to the reverse grid, James Cole found himself on pole position. Collard in his rear-wheeled BMW took the lead from Cole at the start. Cole in his Motorbase Ford ran wide and Turkington was able to pass. Ingram and Moffat made contact before the safety car came out after Welch was tapped into a spin and Abbott had nowhere to go and heavy contact was made, causing huge damage to his Audi.

Once racing was under way again, WSR team mates Tordoff and Collard had the slightest of contacts. Plato tapped Cole and into fourth he went, but the unfortunate Cole was pushed wide and lost lots of places. The other WSR of Priaulx made contact with Triple 8's Jack Goff that meant the MG had to pit. The BMW was then given a black flag and a drive through penalty for exceeding track limits.

In the midst of the chaos, Turkington went on to win and stay within a chance of the title. WSR claimed the other podium places with Collard and Tordoff. Plato held on to fourth while fifth and sixth went to the Honda's of Shedden and Neal.

Jackson was seventh, Morgan eighth, pole sitter Cole finished ninth and the top ten rounded out with Moffat.

It is all to play for at the final weekend.

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Brands Hatch (Grand Prix) – BTCC Rounds 28-30 Four drivers went into finals weekend at Brands Hatch with a chance of taking the championship. Although Matt Neal and Colin Turkington had an outside chance of snatching the title, the fight was really between Gordon Shedden’s Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Type R and Jason Plato’s Team BMR Volkswagen Passat CC. As had become the norm over the closing rounds of the season, it was the Motorbase Ford Focusof Matt Jackson who took pole position for the first explosive round of the weekend. Despite the race being a fairly simple affair for the Motorbase driver, Jackson taking a lights to flag victory along with the fastest lap, a slow start from Shedden had allowed Turkington through and had put Plato right on his tail.

After a brief safety car period caused by an incident involving Newsham up at Druids, Plato made his move on Shedden. Plato clearly bumped into the rear of the Type R to create a gap to make the move possible and this move was the subject of much conversation aster the race. Plato claimed the Shedden had been braking in odd places and far too early while Shedden maintained that he was defending his position in the same way that any other driver would have done.

Another gripe for both Plato and Team BMR was the performance of his team mate Aron Smith. The Irishman was running at the front and ignored calls from the team to back up the pack to allow Plato to catch up and gain vital points. Smith elected to go for the glory himself and team boss Warren Scott, while clearly biting his tongue, said that he felt the radio communication had been lost in translation.

Race two was equally exciting. Jackson once again took a lights to flag victory but the race was a disaster for Shedden. Early contact meant that the title contender would finish way down in 19th and out of the points. This meant that race three would require a truly heroic performance if he was to reclaim his crown.

Ingram and Adam Morgan joined Jackson on the podium and, despite Smith allowing Plato through in this race, he was once again the topic of discussion in the post-race interviews. Plato claimed that his team mate had not had his radio turned on for the first half of the race before making the astonishing statement that Smith should lose his drive for 2016 based on his performance. Going into the final race of the season things were nicely poised. The reverse grid draw had seen Matt Neal placed on pole just ahead of Plato while Shedden would be starting from 19th place.

The stage was set. An iconic venue, check! Two drivers who will stop at nothing to win, check! A clearly divided crowd, check and double check! The atmosphere in the stands was truly something special in the build up to this race with fans cheering for their favourite gladiator as they exited the pits on their journey to the grid.

Opposing fans stood side by side in gleeful anticipation. Could Plato finally win his third title or would Shedden become a multiple champion and overcome his 19th place grid slot.

The joker in the pack was Matt Neal. Plato’s biggest rival was starting from pole and could really mix things up if things went to plan.

As the field stormed into Paddock Hill bend for the first time, this plan was swept off the table. Neal had made a great getaway but spent too much time looking in his mirrors and ran wide on the exit, allowing Plato to take the lead which sent his vast army of fans into a frenzy.

An incident between Tom Ingram and Jake Hill at Druids caused an early safety car, instantly bringing tension back to the stands.

A series of botched restarts followed as first Stewart Lines and then Dave Newsham ended up in the gravel at Clearways.

When the race finally got going properly, so did Shedden. The 2012 champion stormed though the pack with some incredible passing manoeuvres, his progress was so good that, despite only having had three uninterrupted laps of racing, he was on the edge of the top ten by lap ten.

His was into the top ten was blocked by the Team BMR car of Aron Smith. The driver was far from being in Plato’s good books and he won’t have been any more popular after only managing to hold back the flying Scotsman for a lap.

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On lap 13 Shedden made the pass that, if Plato didn’t have the fastest lap, would win the title. Shedden put everything on the line by running side by side with Rob Collard along Brabham Straight before braking so late that his brakes glowed red, passing Collard on the outside of Paddock Hill bend. Brave doesn’t quite cover it!

Shedden then wasted no time in closing the gap on Adam Morgan and, with three laps left, he made a more conventional move, sliding up the inside of Morgan into paddock.

Plato still held the lead but there was nothing he could do to stop the title from slipping through his fingers as Neal pulled to one side, allowing his team mate though to cement the title.

As Plato crossed the line, the Shedden fans in the crowd held their collective breath as they waited for their man to cross the line and reclaim the British Touring Car Championship title. Moments later, the Kent venue erupted into a roar, a roar that signalled the end of the 2015 championship and the end of one of the greatest drives in BTCC history, from 19th to fourth.

On the champions podium a short while later, Shedden was presented with the famous trophy and a bottle of champagne which was quickly poured all over him.

Bring on 2016!

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2015 GP2 Season Review Round 1 - Sakhir Qualifying The 2015 GP2 series kicked off in the scorching heat of Bahrain, and with 2014 Champion, Jolyon Palmer out of the series, this cleared the way for last year’s runner-up Stoffel Vandoorne.

The Belgian got the perfect start under the lights, qualifying on pole ahead of ART teammate Nobuharu Matsushita, with last year’s GP3 champion, Alex Lynn taking a very impressive third.

Feature Race

On Saturday, the feature race really showcased Vandoorne’s credentials for the title. The Belgian got a strong start, whilst his teammate bogged down and was quickly swallowed up by the chasing pack.

Behind the Belgian a snake emerged, and when Arthur Pic made a move to pass the squabbling Nato and Marciello, they touched forcing all three into the wall and collecting the innocent Pierre Gasly in the process.

This brought out a safety car, which was not in Vandoorne’s plans.

The safety car period allowed those on soft tyres to pit, leaving Vandoorne and Matsushita vulnerable to attack.

It was American, Alexander Rossi who benefited the most when the leaders pitted, moving him up into the lead and Vandoorne 20 seconds adrift with 10 laps remaining. But the Belgian wasn’t finished. On his fresh tyres he carved through the field, and when he caught the struggling Rossi, he re-took the lead to go on and take the chequered flag. Rossi fell to third as Matsushita stole second, making it a one-two for ART. Brit Jordan King had an impressive race finishing 4th on his GP2 debut, with fellow rookie Robert Visou coming home 5th.

Sprint Race The Sunday morning Sprint Race saw a great performance by Indonesian driver, Rio Haryanto.

Starting from 7th, he stormed through the field early on, taking advantage of slow starters and performing some great manoeuvres on Evans and Leal. Stoffel Vandoorne kept up his tenacity from Saturday, staying close behind the Campos racing driver, with Rossi close in his slipstream.

As the race went on, tyres became a factor, but Haryanto kept a cool head, using all of his experience to keep Vandoorne at bay. Rossi looked set for third once more, but the American’s poor luck continued, as a fast charging Berthon cut through the field on fresh rubber, stealing the podioum on the last lap.

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So it was Vandoorne who continued where he left off from last year, leading the championship by 10pts ahead of Haryanto. Rossi had a mixed weekend, but left Bahrain in third place with debutant Brit Jordan King impressing in 5th. Next stop, Barcelona.

Round 2 - Barcelona Qualifying There was no time for a siesta in Barcelona, as Stoffel Vandoorne continued to dominate the pack, securing a record sixth consecutive pole position in Barcelona. Alex Lynn impressed once again to qualifying second and fellow Brit and debutant Nick Yelloly took 8th position on the grid.

Feature Race Saturday saw soaring temperatures, making strategies a coin toss, with the top three of Vandoorne, Lynn and Gasly all preferring the soft tyre, with those behind on the hard.

Vandoorne got away well and held off an early challenge from Lynn. The young Brit was then overtaken by teammate Gasly into the next corner.

On lap six the top two decided to pit, with Lynn holding on for one more lap. The three then had to begin slicing through the field to make the strategy work.

With New Zealander Mitch Evans now in the lead and Rossi second, the Belgian had to keep on the charge. On lap 26 Evans pitted, followed by Rossi on lap 27, but the lead was lost as both Vandoorne and Gasly drove by.

Evans and Rossi were on a charge and began hunting down the leading pair. With four laps remaining, Evans dove up the inside of Rossi, who once again lost a position in the vital closing laps. The race however, was Vandoorne’s and he held off the challenge to take his second feature win of the season. Evans took second ahead of a frustrated Rossi in third.

Sprint Race Sunday saw more drama in the Sprint Race and a maiden victory for a young British talent.

Before the race even began, Evans stopped on his outlap, followed by Pic stopping in his grid slot and Matsushita stalling behind him. This meant another installation lap and a 5 second penalty for Pic. One cool head however, was that of Alex Lynn, who stormed forward from fourth to overtake Marciello and teammate Gasly, putting him on the exhaust of leader Nato.

An incident between Rene Binder and AndrĂŠ Negrao caused athe first Virtual Safety Car of the season, but this did not hinder Lynn, who on lap six, stormed past Nato to take the lead.

Vandoorne swiftly followed, but Lynn was equal to the Belgian’s attack.

Lynn went on to take his maiden GP2 win a full two seconds clear of Vandoorne. His teammate Gasly was a further six seconds adrift.

But it was Vandoorne who left Barcelona with an increased lead on his rivals after round two, leading Haryanto by a huge 86 pts. Rossi was closing in on the Indonesian driver in third, whilst Lynn improved his points haul to 25 for the season. On to Monaco.

Round 3 - Monte Carlo Qualifying

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GP2 qualifying in Monaco is always a bit different. The split group system is not totally fair and is even less so when rain is a factor, as was the case this year. Raffaele Marciello was flamboyant and creative as he topped a wet Group A, but the drying track meant that Alexander Rossi’s Group B time was a whole 3s quicker and he was relegated to second. Further victims of the lottery weather were Pierre Gasly, Alex Lynn and Mitch Evans in 12th, 17th and 18th respectively.

Feature Race Stoffel Vandoorne may have been making his first feature race start from off the front since August 2014, but that didn’t stop him from continuing his season-long feature race domination.

If his wins in Bahrain and Spain were expected, this one was equally unexpected after rain in qualifying left him down in fourth on the grid. Had it happened anywhere else then Vandoorne would still have been the favourite for the race but this is Monaco – you can’t win from fourth in Monaco. Clearly Vandoorne didn’t get the message.

After two chaotic aborted starts, he eased into third at Turn 1 as Alexander Rossi lost the lead to the super-soft shod Trident of Raffaele Marciello. The Ferrari protégé’s victory plan – gain that all important track position at the start and build a lead before pitting – seemed to be working as he quickly built a gap in the early laps, but his aggression and his full tank of fuel overworked his tyres and he began to suffer with degradation. Rossi and Vandoorne caught him by lap 4, and were clearly being held up by him by lap 7.

Marciello pitted on lap 9, releasing Rossi and Vandoorne to build a lead with their more durable soft tyres. Their races were going smoothly until a virtual safety-car was called for a collision between Mitch Evans and Nick Yelloly at the Nouvelle Chicane on lap 20. While it was prudent to capitalise on the mid race delay and pit for super-softs, it meant completing half the race distance on tyres that had barely lasted ten laps for the drivers who started on them.

The gamble paid off for two reasons. The first was that Rossi and Vandoorne (the latter now ahead after a quicker pitstop) showed why they were 2015’s most consistent performers by looking after their tyres perfectly, albeit helped by their decreased fuel loads. They were so smooth that neither driver suffered heavily with degradation and they were unthreatened from behind. Vandoorne was particularly strong eventually extending his advantage over Rossi to 6.2s.

The second reason was that Arthur Pic, who’s less aggressive approach with his super soft tyres at the start made him a likely threat later in the race, lost a place to Julian Leal’s unsafe release during the pitstops and was then brilliantly ambushed by the super-soft shod Sergio Canamasas at Sainte Devote. Although Leal received a ten second time penalty, dropping him from third to sixth, Pic was unable to find a way past Canamasas and ended the race fourth.

Sergey Sirotkin, Richie Stanaway (recovering nicely from a qualifying crash that left him 14th on the grid), Marciello, Jordan King and Yelloly rounded out the points while the two DAMS drivers and Campos’ Rio Haryanto were notable absentees. Alex Lynn, who struggled for pace all weekend could only finish 13th, one place ahead of Pierre Gasly, who jumped the first aborted start and had to start from the pitlane. Haryanto, at this stage second in the championship – was 16th after starting 23rd.

Sprint Race

After the surprise result of Friday, Saturday’s sprint race produced a more conventional Monaco race as Status GP’s Richie Stanaway scored a lights-to-flag victory. It was his and the team’s first in GP2.

The even side of the grid continued to be the place to start from as Stanaway led into Saint Devote from second on the grid, with Sergey Sirotkin slotting into third from fourth on the grid. The duo sandwiched Rafaelle Mariciello and held their positions until the chequered flag, giving Sirotkin his maiden GP2 podium.

There was typical Monaco chaos behind with multiple first lap incidents throughout the field. The most spectacular was, perhaps unsurprisingly, between Johnny Cecotto Jr. and Zoel Amberg who tangled on the run up to Massenet and ended the race in the barriers. Haryanto’s difficult weekend was completed by a race ending incident at the hairpin, where he was pushed wide by Norman Nato. Vandoorne’s other championship rival

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Alexander Rossi couldn’t keep it clean either, and was lucky to escape with just cosmetic damage after rearending Pic at Saint Devote.

A virtual safety car was called while the first lap casualties were removed from the circuit but it did nothing to deter Stanaway who by lap 15 had built a comfortable 3s lead over Marciello which he held until the end of the race. In those early laps the only on track action was provided by Sergio Canamasas who, on lap 7, replicated his feature race overtake to take fourth off Julian Leal. This time the move was even more impressive as the MP Motorsport driver braked from impossibly far back, just making the corner. It is this bravery which frequently gets Canamasas into trouble, but at a place like Monaco it is a welcome contrast to the natural conservatism enforced by the proximity of the walls.

The race did liven up in the closing laps though as a train of cars formed behind tenth placed Pierre Gasly.

Racing Engineering’s Jordan King spent much of the race trying to pressure the Red Bull junior into a mistake but showed his inexperience when he hit the rear of the DAMS car as they made their way down the hill to the Nouvelle Chicane. The contact launched King into the air and he slid into retirement down the escape road, although Gasly was able to continue.

Twenty-two seconds up the road Vandoorne had a clean race and took the final point for 8th, one second behind Rossi. That meant Vandoorne left Monaco with a comfortable 44-point championship over Rossi, as Haryanto and Mitch Evans - who did not even start the race as his car shut down on the way to grid – fell back with pointless weekends.

Round 4 - Spielberg Qualifying It was back to normal in Austria as Stoffel Vandoorne recorded his fourth pole of the season, and a GP2 record breaking seventh pole overall. He may have continued his statistical dominance but he was pushed hard by his rivals – the top 17 drivers were separated by just 0.856s – and it was Sergey Sirotkin who sat on pole after the first runs. Vandoorne was ultimately able to string a lap together when it counted though, and took pole by 0.089s from his teammate, Nobuharu Matsushita.

Feature Race Vandoorne’s peerless march to the title continued in the first race of the weekend as he recorded feature race win number four. Other drivers might have got close in qualifying but no one could touch him on the Saturday and he won by 11.788s.

Vandoorne held the lead off the line from the fast starting Sergey Sirotkin who jumped up from 4th. The Rapax driver was righting the wrongs from qualifying, where he failed to turn his strong practice and early qualifying pace into a front row start, and he relegated Matsushita and Pierre Gasly into Turn 1.

It looked like it would be an easy race for Vandoorne and it was firmly under his control as he peeled into the pits to swap his super-softs for mediums at the end of lap 7. But then a slow tyre change on the left-rear allowed Sirotkin and Matsushita – who both pitted on lap 8 – to emerge from the pitlane in front of him.

With his victory suddenly in jeopardy there was a brief period of excitement as he attempted to wrestle back control of the race. It was a measure of his superiority on the day that it was really no contest. He easily passed Matsushita – who perhaps didn’t resist him as much as he would have if they were not teammates – and retook the net lead of the race from Sirotkin into Turn 1 on lap 10.

His only task now was to stay within a pitstop of the medium compound runners ahead of him so that he could retake the lead when they pitted later in the race. The lead runner of that group of cars could still pose a threat late in the race on fresh super-soft tyres. In this case it was Pierre Gasly, although his DAMS teammate Alex Lynn – who had struggled in qualifying and started ninth – was much quicker and looking for a way by.

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As was often the case in 2015, Gasly did himself no favours by fighting Lynn. He was not quick enough to challenge for the podium himself after damaging his front wing with contact on lap 1 and fought his teammate only for pride, a fight that he rightly lost after such a poor race.

After finally clearing Gasly, a frustrated Lynn came out of the pits in the middle of a battle between the ever consistent Alexander Rossi and Matsushita. However, he kept calm and made good use of his fresher tyres, passing Rossi on lap 37 and Matsushita two laps later to take third.

Gasly’s fortunes only got worse as he fell to 13th after his own stop – a disappointing result after such a strong qualifying – where he was joined by fellow top ten qualifier Raffaele Marciello, who ruined his race with a huge lock-up at the start.

Matsushita did well to hold on to Lynn after being overtaken by him and finished just half a second behind in 4th. Rossi, who had stressed his tyres more on his climb from 12th on the grid, lost 5th late on to Artem Markelov, who led the other lower points finishers Rio Haryanto, Nick Yelloly, Arthur Pic and Mitch Evans.

Sprint Race As was becoming the standard 2015 sprint race result, a lower points feature race finisher won the race ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne. This time, and for the second time this season, it was Rio Haryanto, who put his disappointing Monaco weekend behind, with victory.

The pole sitting Nick Yelloly bogged down off the line, but Haryanto’s run from second into the lead still wasn’t easy as he had to fend off the fast starting Alexander Rossi into Turn 1. He comfortably led out of the first corner as Rossi and Yelloly – who was sandwiched between them as he attempted to recover from his slow start – made contact, releasing Artem Markelov into second place. Rossi would recover to 8th place, but for Yelloly, who didn’t have anywhere to go in the first corner squeeze, the race was over.

Haryanto appeared to lack the out-right pace of some of the drivers behind and Markelov stalked him for half of the race, never lifting the pressure until he attempted to pass the Campos car at Turn 3. In reality the move was never on; Markelov braked simply too late and slid off into the gravel, tapping Haryanto as he went. This created further pace problems for Haryanto, who now had a damaged front wing to contend with.

Haryanto would probably have been concerned to learn that his new pursuer was Vandoorne, who had made his obligatory good start from 8th on the grid. The ART driver appeared to have better pace than Haryanto, who’s damaged car wasn’t even quick enough to put a lap on Alex Lynn, who had taken the shine off his weekend by stalling at the start.

Haryanto was smart though – focusing his attention on finding speed in Turn 9 and Turn 2 – and managed to prevent Vandoorne from attacking him in the DRS zones. All this allowed Vandoorne’s ART teammate Nobuharu Matsushita to catch up, but he too couldn’t use the DRS zones effectively and finished the race in third place, 0.5s down on Vandoorne and 0.9s behind Haryanto.

Sergey Sirotkin and Mitch Evans were a lonely fourth and fifth ahead of Pierre Gasly, Jordan King and Rossi.

Round 5 - Silverstone Qualifying Sergey Sirotkin managed to score pole at Silverstone. He beat the main championship contender Stoffel Vandoorne by two tenths of a second with Alex Rossi, Arthur Pic and Pierre Gasly completing the top 5.

Feature Race After Sergey Sirotkin beat Stoffel Vandoorne to pole. It was thought we would have a new winner of the feature race, Unfortunately Sirotkin had a bad start off the line letting Richie Stanaway take the lead with Matsushita also overtaking his team mate Vandoorne. Alexander Rossi and Nobuharu Matsushita went wide at Turn 1 which allowed Sirotkin to gain back 2 places he lost from the start.

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After Artem Markelov and Nathanael Berthon collided, the safety car came out whilst the cars were moved from the track. This made the pack bunch up again for a few laps giving Sirotkin another opportunity to show off his overtaking skills taking another place this time from Richie Stanaway.

Lap 6 was when the first pit stops happened for the boys on soft tyres, Nick Yelloly and Jordan King.

Matsushita also pitted but was forced to retire after electrical problems.

After these pits and with cars on fresher tyres Stanaway struggled for pace and grip going wide at turn 14 letting Rossi through. The lap after Vandoorne performed the same move forcing Stanaway to pit. 2 laps later Sirotkin and Rossi pitted with Rossi hoping to overtake the Russian on the pit exit but Sirotkin kept his lead with both cars emerging from the pits just ahead of Jordan King. This was not the main battle on the track, A few cars back DAMS driver, Pierre Gasly, emerged from the pits just behind current championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne after a battle with Arthur Pic on lap 21. This was a chance for Gasly to show his skill and he did.

With 7 laps of the race remaining Stanaway had suspension failure which limited his opportunity for points. In Front of him was a battle between Vandoorne, Yelloly, Gasly, Alex Lynn, Oliver Rowland, Pic and Raffaele Marciello. The last few laps had the most action of a battle between all the drivers in an attempt for a podium position.

In the end the podium consisted if Sirotkin, Rossi and Vandoorne. With a tight battle between Gasly and Lynn who pushed until the end of the line with Gasly P4 and Lynn P5 which was a great improvement from his qualifying of P12. Pic attempted to overtake King in the last corner but couldn't make it which after a touch forced King into a spin which he was unable to get going again from ending his race. Another battle into the last corner between Yelloly and Rowland saw Rowland steal P9 on his GP2 debut. Although both boys gained a place in the last corner after the race they were both handed penalties. Pic was handed a drive through penalty converted to a 20 second penalty after his collision with King. This dropped him from P6 to P14.

Rowland was handed a 5 second penalty after leaving the track at turn 9 several times. This only dropped him one place but now means in the final classification Marciello will be 6th ahead of Yelloly.

Sprint Race Rio Haryanto made it to reverse pole for the Sunday sprint race after finishing P8 in Saturday's feature race.

Haryanto made a good getaway from pole. Alex Lynn also made a good start but gave his team mate, Pierre Gasly, just enough room on the outside of turn 1 but got ahead again into turn 2. After starting from P2 Nick Yelloly made a disappointing start dropping to P5 after being overtaken at Brookland by Alexander Rossi. Rossi then overtook Lynn on lap 2 but had 4 wheels off track which gave him a 5 second penalty.

Rio Haryanto had sped off ahead after setting a streak of fastest laps. With all eyes behind on the battle between Yelloly and Lynn while Sergey Sirotkin waited for one of them to make a mistake behind. This came on Lap 15 when Yelloly's tyres were losing grip giving Sirotkin the chance to pass. Yelloly then took the place back a few laps later after taking the inside at Woodcote corner before pulling off the same move on Lynn in the last lap.

Vandoorne and Rowland were also having their own battle behind fighting for the final point when Vandoornes tyres gave up, Rowland took the opportunity for P8. Haryanto finished P1 with a 2 second lead over Marciello.

Pierre Gasly finished the podium position with his team mate Alex Lynn finishing P6 after a podium in the Austrian feature race. With Vandoorne finishing without points, this meant Rossi was able to close Vandoorne's lead to 65 points. DAMS also managed to close in on Campos with the points difference just 6 points ahead of the next round in Hungary.

Round 6 - Budapest Qualifying

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Alex Lynn took his maiden GP2 pole at the Hungaroring beating Stoffel Vandoorne by just 0.019 seconds.

Arthur Pic completed the top 3. Lynn managed to score pole when both the DAMS cars were sent out in the gap between the first and second runs leaving a free track for Lynn and Gasly to put fastest laps in.

Feature Race Alex Lynn managed to convert his pole into his first win after some wheel spin off the line he had a strong lead for all of the race. His teammate Pierre Gasly got a good start off the line moving himself from fifth to second before he had reached the first corner. After a safety car from an incident between Rene Binder and Sergio Canamasas, pit stops started with Stoffel Vandoorne coming in shortly followed by Leal. This gave the race lead Lynn as well as Gasly, Marciello and Sirotkin the chance to pull away from the other cars. But the main story of the race would be whether Lynn had a strong enough lead to leave the pits infront of Vandoorne.

After Lynn pitted on Lap 23 he emerged behind Pic but swiftly overtook him and Alex Rossi as he had the advantage of fresh rubber. 2 laps later he then overtook Rio Haryanto essentially giving the lead of the race after Vandoorne's 5 second penalty. Winning through a time penalty wasn't enough for Alex Lynn who then overtook Vandoorne to pull ahead in the race. With Vandoorne on older tyres he had no chance of holding the car of soft tyres back. Haryanto was looking for a way past Vandoorne through the final laps but it was Gasly who made his way past both of them to make it a DAMS 1-2. Vandoorne finished P5 behind Sirotkin who removed Rio Haryanto's front wing on the second to last corner in a collision.

Although Vandoorne wasn't on the podium he still had a 75-point lead in the championship.

Sprint Race Nobuharu Matushita made a good start from pole position while his team mate, Stoffel Vandoorne and Sergey Sirotkin got a run on the inside of turn 1. Vandoorne made it into P2 but Sirotkin was held up by Raffaele Marciello but made the move into the second corner. Most of the cars behind had been shaken out of place by the start with Sergio Canamasas making 10th place from last on the grid.

The top three were trading fastest laps but on lap 9 Vandoorne was complaining of graining on his tyres and was unable to match Matushita's pace. Tyre management would be what determined the final order of the race. This however didn't stop Rio Haryanto who was pushing Marciello for almost all of the race. Haryanto had the faster car but Marciello was holding his place in the tight corners of the Hungaroing.

Racing Engineering seemed to struggle with tyre management as Alex Rossi was forced to come in for new tyres on Lap 20 after losing places. Jordan King also lost what looked to be a solid P7 due to his tyres on the same lap.

At the checkered flag it was Matushita who lead with a two second lead over Vandoorne. Sirotkin was third after Vandoorne managed to hold off his last lap fight.

Marciello came out on top in the battle between Haryanto and him for fourth. While Pierre Gasly dropped from fifth to eighth on the last lap.

Round 7 - Spa-Francorchamps Qualifying Stoffel Vandoorne stormed to pole closely followed by WSR leader and rookie Oliver Rowland with Sergey Sirotkin completing the top 3. This was Vandoorne's fourth pole of the season at his home race.

Feature Race Stoffel Vandoorne impressed infront of his home crowd after winning the feature race. The Belgian had an almost flawless race, after being slow off the line and letting Sergey Sirotkin take the lead but after he went wide at La Source, Vandoorne once again claimed the lead. Which caused Oliver Rowland and Nobuharu Matushita to collide behind with Rowland limping back to the pits with a puncture.

All the drama ahead let Alexander Rossi pass up to P2 followed by Sergey Sirotkin. Ahead of Mitch Evans, Alex Lynn and Jordan King into Eau Rouge, King and Lynn were running side by side but it was King who came out on top into Les Combes.

Lap 5 saw Daniel De Jong with the pace but not the space to pass Pierre Gasly. The pair touched sending De Jong into the barriers at Blanchimont which red flagged the race. Fortunately, Daniel was able to get out of the car with aid of the marshals and repairs were made to the barrier. Whilst the safety car before the red flag was

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out, Vandoorne, Pic, Haryanto and Markelov took a pit stop to change to the soft tyres. However, the other front runner changed to the soft tyres in the pit lane even though it was clear they wouldn't last until the end of the race.

The red flag caused a rethink in strategy for all the teams. Half an hour into the race restart the front men were swapping fastest lap times trying to escape Vandoorne. However, the Belgian was biding his time and waiting for his chance which came 6 laps later with cars pitting again to change from the softs, Vandoorne was handed the lead on lap 21 after Haryanto was called in for a stop go penalty.

As the race continued the leaders were saving their tyres while those who pitted earlier were fighting their way back up to the front. But when the flag dropped it was Vandoorne who took his home race win followed by Pic and Markelov, who had a fantastic race after starting P22 on the grid.

Sprint Race Rossi took his first sprint race win after starting second behind his Racing Engineering teammate Jordan King.

King got a good start but his teammate got an even better start taking the lead from the start. The pair lead Nathanael Berthon and Julian Leal into La Source. Stoffel Vandoorne made a strong start passing Evans, Sirotkin and Markelov into the first corner. Rossi looked more comfortable on track as King was struggling with the Kerbs letting his teammate take the lead. Leal was beginning to struggle after his start meaning that by Lap 10 Vandoorne had put himself back into a podium position but had Mitch Evans right behind him. The pair were soon closing in on Jordan King who was looking at his first podium. As Rossi was just saving his tyres having a fairly uneventful race.

With only 5 laps Arthur Pic put himself in the gravel trap causing a brief safety car period. After being on Vandoorne's tail all race, Evans critically missed the race restart giving the Belgian more space but this was quickly made up after a lock up at into the Bus Stop Chicane. Evans tried make the move into Les Combes forcing Vandoorne defensive but on the next lap he passed stealing the last podium place.

When the flag dropped it was Rossi who lead over the line followed by Jordan King getting his first podium and making it a Racing Engineering 1-2.

Evans completed the podium followed by Vandoorne in P4 and Markelov in P5 bringing in valuable points for the Russian Time team.

Round 8 - Monza Feature Race After securing pole on the Friday, Pierre Gasly made a great start in the weekends feature race, whilst fellow front row starter Vandoorne made another sluggish getaway and was overtaken by Alex Lynn. Further down the grid, Rossi made a storming start, jumping from ninth all the way up to fifth by the end of lap one!

Lap two saw the safety car deployed after Dutch rookie, Meindert Van Buuren's broke down following a collision with the wall at Ascari.

Racing resumed on lap 5 and on lap 6 Vandoorne attempted to get the jump on his rivals by switching to the primes. Race leader, Gasly pitted on lap 8 and emerged behind the Belgian, but his race was soon over after he emerged from the pits with a loose right rear tyre. Sirotkin and Lynn pitted on lap 9 and looked to be in control when they emerged ahead of the championship leader, but Lynn was over eager to pass the Russian race leader and ran too deep into turn one, ending both of their races.

Once all of the stops had been taken, it was Vandoorne who emerged on top, but Rossi was lying in wait and on lap 23, the American pounced to take the lead and eventually the win. Nato took the final podium spot, however a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pitlane saw him relegated to P6 and Mitch Evans promoted to P3 after an incredible drive from 23rd on the grid.

Sprint Race

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Sunday's Sprint race saw a fantastic battle between New Zealander, Mitch Evans and Frenchaman Arthur Pic. Pic made a strong start from second, whilst behind, chaos ensued. Firstly, King and NATO came together in the first chicane and then later at the Curva Grande Visou ran wide and collided with Roggia causing a spin and an early safety car.

The race resumed on lap 3 with the main action taking place at the front. Pic and Evans were battling like gladiators for the win. They went back and forth with fastest lap and it looked like Pic would win, but on the last lap, Evans made a late dive up the inside at Rettifilo! Behind, Vandoorne was circling looking to pick off the Frenchman and he had to defend to the flag, with all three separated by a second at the flag!

Two podiums saw Vandoorne extend his championship lead by 261pts to nearest rival Rossi, while Sirotkin moved up to P3. In the Teams' Championship, ART Grand Prix began to pull away from Racing Engineering by 309pts. Would the titles be secured in Sochi.

Round 9 - Sochi Qualifying The GP2 weekend in Russia proved to be one of the most dramatic of the season. From title battles to big incidents, the race in Sochi had it all.

Friday saw the start of the drama, with a tricky qualifying session in mixed conditions. This time it was Brit Alex Lynn who came out on top ahead of championship leader Vandoorne, with title chaser Rossi behind them in third.

Feature Race And it was Rossi who stole the initiative on Saturday in the feature race. It all started so well for Lynn, who stormed away at the start and looked comfortable throughout. However, Stoffel Vandoorne had a terrible getaway and was quickly swallowed up by Rossi and Pierre Gasly. It was further down the field however, where chaos ensued. Artem Markelov ran wide at Turn 2, clipping the wall before attempting to re-join the track. Out of control, he crashed into the barrier collecting Sergio Canamasas and Marlon Stockinger on the way. Jordan King had also made contact with Stockinger at Turn 2 and crashed into the wall a corner later. The safety car was deployed, but the race was rapidly red flagged.

This saw the pack return to the pitlane while the techpro barrier was fixed and with daylight fading, the race distance was reduced to a total of 15 laps instead of 28. So when the race restarted under the safety car, there was only 12 laps remaining in which to take the mandatory pitstop. The restart saw Lynn once again make a break for it, quickly building a 3 second lead to the rest of the pack. Vandoorne meanwhile was climbing all over the back of Pic and was eventually rewarded, when the Frenchman made a small mistake and went too wide. The Belgian was then into the lead of the race but still had to pit.

But there was more drama to come. Lynn had looked like a sure bet for the win, but the DAMS driver ran too wide at Turn 14 and made contact with the barrier; effectively ending his race, and promoting Rossi into the lead.

Vandoorne finally pitted on lap 12 and re-joining behind the pair of Rossi and Gasly with three laps to go. But, the ART driver made two small mistakes, ending his challenge for the win, but he did secure the fastest lap to give him bonus points.

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But it was American, Rossi, who took the victory and, for the time being, kept his championship title hopes alive.

Sprint Race Vandoorne didn't have to wait too long to secure the Driver's title and although he didn't win the Sunday morning Sprint Race, fourth would prove enough for the McLaren test driver.

The race was once again filled with incident, with two safety car periods and a great three-way squabble for the third and final podium place. New Zealander, Richie Stanaway took the lead at the start and faced race-long pressure from Haryanto and Marciello behind.

The first safety car period was caused when Russian driver, Sergey Sirotkin spun Dean Stoneman into retirement as Rene Binder and Marlon Stockinger came together behind them.

When the race went live again a few laps later it was Pic under pressure, with a queue behind of Gasly, Marciello, Vandoorne and Alexander Rossi. Gasly made a big push to get past the struggling Frenchman, but went wide, hitting the kerb hard and relegating himself to sixth place.

Marciello and Vandoorne eventually found a way past and began fighting for third, but with one eye on the title, Vandoorne was cautious in his approach.

On the penultimate lap, Johnny Cecotto found the wall at turn 3, dropping out of the points and into retirement. This also prompted a safety car which saved Stanaway from an onslaught from the attacking Haryanto, securing him his second win of the season.

But it would be Vandoorne who would leave Sochi the happiest, finally securing the Driver's Title, and well deserved it was too!

Round

10

-

Sakhir

Qualifying Most of the competing drivers had already driven this track this year which probably contributed to the proximity of the top 15, who were all separated by just 0.999s. Although Stoffel Vandoorne led for the majority, there was never a sense of inevitability about this session, even as he stretched his lead in the closing minutes. In a blur of late hot laps Raffaele Marciello and Alex Lynn both came within 0.050s of beating him while Pierre Gasly eclipsed Vandoorne’s 1.39.612 by just 0.040s.

Feature Race Some were actually convinced that the tight qualifying session portended a close race for Stoffel Vandoorne.

That with the championship now won, he might be a less formidable feature race opponent. Those thoughts were quickly extinguished as Vandoorne eased into the lead before Turn 1, never relinquishing it thereafter.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise – on a high degradation track such as Bahrain, a driver and team who have been masters of tyre conservation all season long were always likely to shine. Although second placed Raffaele Marciello, who overtook Pierre Gasly on lap 4, initially pegged the gap at 2 seconds, his propensity for preservation meant that by lap 15, as the first of the medium-to-soft stoppers came in, Vandoorne was beginning to stretch his legs. By lap 22, when he did eventually stop, his lead was up to nine seconds which he extended to 13.5s by the end of the race.

Other experienced drivers excelled in the race too. Alexander Rossi – another 2015 Pirelli guru – was on a charge from 9th on the grid and was up to a net third after the pitstops had all finished. He had pitted from P7 on lap 19 and the timing had been perfect, allowing him to leap frog Rio Haryanto, Gasly, Norman Nato, Nobuharu Matsushita and Marciello despite a slightly delayed stop. His eighth podium of the year seemed assured and yet he only finished 18th.

That was because he was caught out by the lively racing that is so often produced by the Bahrain International Circuit. Perhaps it was his tyre saving aptitude that defeated him as his unexpectedly superior traction coming

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out of Turn 4, on lap 25 saw him make contact with the back of Mitch Evans’ RUSSIAN TIME and lose most of his front wing. Any chance of points was gone as he pitted for repairs.

Rossi was not the only driver undone by the Sakhir shuffling, though, as the order of the top ten changed multiple times throughout the race.

After slipping down to third place, Gasly came under attack from Nato and Matsushita and was passed by both on lap 7. By lap 10 he was also fighting off attacks from Evans although he did manage to catch and repass Nato by their lap 22 pitstops. Their race long duel looked set to continue as they rejoined the race still swapping positions multiple times, but, on lap 26, Nato suffered a puncture on some debris from Rossi’s front wing and Gasly was alone in 6th.

Behind there was a close fight for reverse grid pole between Lynn and Jordan King which eventually saw Lynn come out on top. Meanwhile up ahead, Evans, his tyres now past their best, could do nothing to stop Matsushita from stealing 2nd with two laps to go – the ART 1-2 secured them the teams’ title. On the same lap, Marciello took 4th from Sergey Sirotkin, who had impressively battled up from 14th on the grid, despite losing several positions after outbraking himself at Turn 1 on lap 17.

Haryanto was a lonely 7th after winning an intra-team battle with Arthur Pic during the first stint while the Frenchman had to settle for 10th, which he took from his compatriot, Nathanael Berthon on the penultimate lap.

Sprint Race As was the case in the first race of the weekend, a DAMS driver started on pole but could not convert it into race victory. Instead, it was Mitch Evans who came through from 6th on the grid to record his second victory of the season.

He had an average start but took advantage of Turn 1 contact between Nobuharu Matsushita and Rio Haryanto as they contested second place and found himself in 3rd as several drivers took avoiding action.

Matsushita retired on the spot and Haryanto’s race was ruined by a detached front wing but they were not the only ones to suffer from their scuffle. The biggest loser was Pierre Gasly, who after making a strong start, fell to 11th.

Vandoorne had an even more fortuitous start than Evans, and rose from 8th on the grid to 2nd place, behind Alex Lynn. The fight for victory would have to wait, though, as a lap 1 safety car was deployed following a scary accident between Oliver Rowland and Rene Binder. The Formula Renault 3.5 champion found himself riding up the back of Binder as they exited Turn 4 and became airborne, before landing and sliding off into the barriers.

After the dominance of his performance in the feature race, there was something ominous about Vandoorne tracking Lynn down the start/finish straight on the lap 4 restart, but, to great surprise, Lynn quickly pulled out of DRS range, leaving Vandoorne to worry about Evans behind.

Evans had been close for a number of laps, but finally attempted to pass on lap 7. He first attacked Vandoorne at Turn 1 but could not complete the move so switched back for a run at him into Turn 3. The plan worked and left Vandoorne to hold off an advancing queue including Nathanael Berthon, Arthur Pic, Raffaele Marciello and Artem Markelov.

By lap 12 Evans had caught Lynn and was looking for a way past. He made his first attack a lap later but went deep at Turn 1 and had to slot in behind. He failed to pass at Turn 1 again on the next lap and didn’t seem close enough to attempt a pass as they ran down to Turn 3. However, a brilliant late-breaking manoeuvre put him into the lead, after which he built a comfortable lead.

In contrast Lynn continued to fall back – the DAMS team seem unable to crack the secret of tyre conservation in Sakhir – and found himself in the clutches of Vandoorne by Lap 18, losing out to the champion’s DRS on the start/finish straight. From there Vandoorne rallied and began to catch Evans, but the Kiwi was too far ahead and still won by 1.8s.

The lead battle might have been decided but further back there was plenty of action in the last five laps as tyres began to go off.

Markelov was the big loser, falling from fourth to eighth, while Sergey Sirotkin made himself the star of the race with an outrageous move on the final lap, driving around the outside of Rafaelle Marciello at Turn 12. That put him in fourth, an

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excellent recovery after also losing out in the Turn 1 drama. Gasly had followed him for much of the race but fell to seventh behind Jordan King on Lap 23 as his tyres also went off.

The team seemed to be suffering more with tyre wear than the other front running teams and Lynn slipped from the lead to 17.4s off by the end.

Sirotkin pass revenge for Marciello demoting him yesterday.

Round 11 - Yas Marina Qualifying For the third time in four weekends, Pierre Gasly took pole position for the GP2 feature race. He was quickest after the first round of runs and, despite a strong challenge from Stoffel Vandoorne, maintained his position in the second round. Vandoorne locked up on his first flying lap and had to rely on his next set of tyres in his challenge for pole. He set personal bests in every sector but still wound up 0.097s adrift of Gasly. Mitch Evans continued his strong form with 3rd ahead of Alex Lynn and Raffaele Marciello.

Feature Race If qualifying on pole was becoming a bit of a habit for Gasly, then so too was losing races, as for the last time in his GP2 career, Stoffel Vandoorne took victory in the feature race. It was his seventh win of the season and his eleventh overall, making him the winningest driver in GP2 history.

He took the honour from Pastor Maldonado who dominated feature races during the 2010 season on his way to the title, but what is most impressive about Vandoorne’s achievement is that he did it in half the time it took the Lotus Formula One driver. In two seasons, encompassing 42 starts, Vandoorne matched and surpassed the work of four seasons and 73 starts for Maldonado.

It is that statistic, more than any other, that truly underlines what a flawless GP2 career Vandoorne has had, and, fittingly, he crowned it with one last flawless race. Although Gasly was able to hold the lead beyond the first corner this time, Vandoorne was past him by lap 4, as the extreme degradation of the super soft tyres began to take effect.

Typically, Vandoorne was more on top of it than any other driver and passed Gasly at Turn 7 before Evans demoted him to third with a stunning outbraking manoeuvre at Turn 11 as Gasly’s struggled for grip.

A similar situation was unfolding behind as the drivers who started the race on mediums began to carve their way through the field. They were led by Raffaele Marciello who passed four drivers on lap 5 alone. Gasly was down to 7th by his lap 6 pitstop although he still came out third in the queue of drivers who started the race on super softs, albeit with a 5s time penalty for speeding in the pitlane.

Inevitably, as the super soft runners fought against their cars and their medium shod rivals, there were accidents.

There was light contact between Marciello and Jordan King as they battled to be the leading medium runner but it was the over eager Nicholas Latifi who triggered a virtual safety car period by tripping over the struggling Norman Nato.

This helped most of the soft runners, slowing the progress of the longer running drivers, but was a slight inconvenience to Lynn, who could not pit on lap 6 as did most super soft runners. Instead he had to continue until lap 9, when the VSC period ended.

After his stop Vandoorne lay 14th, Evans 15th and Gasly 16th. Once again the champion was perfectly placed and had a clear track ahead of him to start eating into the 35 second lead of Marciello when the race went green on lap 9.

2015’s other star performer, Alexander Rossi, was electric as the VSC period ended immediately mugging Rio Haryanto for 17th and putting himself in contention for a potential podium place.

As Marciello set about building a lead over the soon to retire Artem Markelov, Vandoorne began to catch the last of the medium tyre starters, dispatching Sean Galael (who later had an embarrassing accident in the pitlane exit), Gustav Malja and Marlon Stockinger with ease.

Marciello was doing everything he could out front, lapping with metronomic consistency in the 1m54s but, by lap 20, Vandoorne’s fresher tyres saw him move to within 30s of the Trident car.

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On lap 24 Nobuharu Matsushita became the first medium runner to stop, temporarily leaving a close battle with Nathanael Berthon and Arthur Pic for what would be 10th place. He was followed in a lap later by Marciello.

That put Vandoorne back into the lead, although the outgoing Ferrari Driver Academy driver’s consistency was rewarded with 2nd place, ahead of Evans.

The top three positions were unchanged thereafter, with Marciello unable to make up much ground on the imperious Vandoorne, who held his 9s lead until the flag. Evans could be less certain of his finishing position as Rossi arrived on a late charge.

He once again demonstrated strong racecraft by embarrassing Gasly at Turn 7 as the Red Bull junior attempted to overtake Malja on lap 21. Gasly, who has this season been weak in racing terms, did not get through the traffic as well as Evans and Vandoorne ahead and lost ground to them. Rossi took full advantage, slicing past both with clinical precision, leaving Gasly to struggle on.

Jordan King was the next best medium/super-soft runner, beating Haryanto into 6th with Lynn a lonely 8th.

Andre Negrao crept into 9th while Berthon, who pitted three laps later than Matsushita, caught and passed him for the final point with two laps to go.

Sprint Race The final GP2 race of 2015 was, unfortunately, cancelled, after an accident on the opening lap caused severe damage to the barriers between Turns 2 and 3. The crash was caused by Gasly, who span his DAMS car coming out of Turn 2. Nato could not avoid hitting him as he rolled backwards across the track and ricocheted off into the barriers, collecting Gelael, Daniel de Jong and Latifi as he went.

Markelov and Sergey Sirotkin were also taken out in the aftermath. Event marshals attempted to repair the barriers for 40 mins before the race was abandoned and the 2015 GP2 season was over.

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2015 GP3 Season Review Round 1 - Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain Just under two months after the Formula 1 season got underway in Melbourne, GP3 fans finally got their first taste of racing action in Spain at the Catalunya Circuit in Barcelona. With 2014 frontrunners Alex Lynn and Dean Stoneman leaving the series, it was the first opportunity for the drivers to state their intent on taking the 2015 GP3 Championship title. With Varhaug, Ghiotto and Ocon leaving the second testing day as the three fastest drivers, they were expected to be setting the pace in their respective cars on the same Barcelona track on the weekend of 8-10 May 2015.

Front runners for the title, at the time of writing, Ghiotto and Ocon found themselves on the front row of the grid post qualifying. Following on from his impressive practice times, Ghiotto qualified on pole with the time of 1.35.469, ahead of Ocon who trailed 0.139 seconds from the pole sitter. Further down the order, debutant Jann Mardenborough, who began his racing career thanks to winning the competition run by the GT Academy, qualified lower down the order in fifteenth and Varhaug who impressed in testing, qualified in ninth place.

Saturday afternoon brought a race in which Esteban Ocon won with a comfortable margin of just over 3 seconds to Luca Ghiotto and 3.5 seconds to Emil Bernstorff. Fresh from his win in the European F3 Championships, Ocon lead before the first corner by overtaking the pole sitter after his poor get away. Having led from the start, Ocon’s eventual 4 second lead was slashed by the safety car when Morris and Boschung made contact at turn 10. Quite the difference in debuts between Morris and race winner Ocon. Jann Mardenborough was a candidate for driver of the day on his debut, he made his way through the grid from P15 to a P4 finish and about 12 seconds behind third placed Bernstorff.

Jann seemingly overtaking for fun through the field. Kirchhöfer, Eriksson and Ceccon finished fifth, sixth and seventh. Fuoco also carved through the field to claim 8th position and a reverse pole for the Sunday Sprint Race.

The sprint race on Sunday saw Kirchhöfer effectively sprint from fourth position at the start to win the Spanish Grand Prix. An amazing start saw him pass second and third placed Ceccon and Eriksson to sit behind pole sitting Antonio Fuoco. The first 30-minute race of the year yielded a great race for Kirchhöfer who took the lead thanks to Fuoco taking his car wide within the first lap. Following this first lap action it seemed like a bog standard race until the penultimate lap when a fight between Fuoco, Bernstorff and Mardenborough created the most excitement in their battle for third place behind Kirchhöfer and Eriksson. Rounding off his impressive debut

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weekend, Jann Mardenborough finished on the podium in third place. He took advantage of the scrapping Bernstorff and Fuoco to get past both and finish with a trophy and the champagne.

Round 2 - Red Bull Ring, Austria After a stunning opening weekend of the season, the second race weekend of the GP3 season took place at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg and it sure was an eventful one. Mardenborough took the honour of being fastest in practice with a time of 1:20:475s, ahead of junior F1 team drivers Fuoco and Ocon. The gap between the top 6 in fact just 0.192s after a single lap around the 4.3km circuit.

Jann Mardenborough was nowhere to be seen though when qualifying rolled round. It was in fact Ghiotto again on pole, sharing the front row with Esteban Ocon who was 0.2 seconds slower than his rival. Ocon just about edged Palou and his ART team mate and Spain Race 2 winner Marvin Kirchofer. Further down the grid, Mardenborough qualified in p.12 and Gomez brought up the rear with a poor lap of 1:21:770, 1.4 seconds off pole for the Campos Racing driver.

Race 1 was quite the event with Ghiotto leading from pole position to end a race affected by the safety car and get his maiden race win in the GP3 series. Completing the 24 lap race distance and thrashing the rest of the field by almost 12 seconds after a poor start as he was jumped by Ocon into turn 1. He regained the lead after on lap 6 after the safety car period, which began thanks to drivers colliding with stalled car Mitchell Gilbert at lights out. Carlin driver Fuoco moved from p.8 up to p.2 in an astonishing drive by him, finishing just ahead of Esteban Ocon and Emil Bernstorff. Another racer who carved through the field was Jann Mardenborough who showed his promise in Spielberg from practice, in the race by gaining 7 positions to finish in the points from his p.12 starting grid spot. Ghiotto was the big winner of the day as he bagged the extra four points on offer for fastest lap and pole position and he moved into the lead of the driver’s championship on 54 points.

Columbian rookie Oscar Tunjo had a hell of a race to storm from p.9 on the grid to finish in first position for Trident, completing a Trident winning weekend, following Ghiotto’s win in race 1. Stealing the lead with 2 laps to go, he overtook Kirchofer to take his first win in his GP3 career. Starting on reverse pole, Boschung held the lead into turn one, but the first lap saw a collision between Carlin team mates Fuoco and Mardenborough, Fuoco ended up worse with his car going airborne and landing on Stuvig’s car, resulting in retirement for them both and Mardenborough to fall down the field.

Celis. Jr and Alex Palou were amongst the first lap retirees. A safety car was required to clean up the collision debris and as the race got underway again it was then that Tunjo began his charge, setting his sights on the race leader Kirchofer after passing all those chasing the lead. The race ended with Tunjo taking the chequered flag, followed

by Kirchofer, Ocon, Ghioto (again getting fastest lap) and Bernstorff.

Ghiotto left Austria in the lead of the championship with 64 points, followed by Ocon on 54 points and Kirchofer with 47.

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Round 3 - Silverstone Circuit, Great Britain Silverstone had a lot to live up to following the eventful and exciting weekend that GP3 endured in Austria.

Championship leader Luca Ghiotto picked up where he left off, his impressive form taking him to the top of the time sheets in Practice 1 for the Trident team with a time of 1:48.555, quickest by some 0.700s margin. Ahead of the tightly packed drivers in behind of Bernstorff, Eriksson, Parry, Kirchofer, Ocon and Palou.

However, a recurring theme in the 2015 season, the quickest in practice could not qualify on pole as Ghiotto could only manage p.6 when it came to qualifying for Race 1. In form Kirchofer took pole position by 0.157s to Emil Bernstorff and 0.197 to Palou. Koiranen GP’s Matt Parry took p.4 at his home race and J. Eriksson rounded out the top 5. Championship challenger Esteban Ocon took p.8 for ART with a lap he was disappointed with of 1:47.648. Race 2 winner was down in the lowly depths of p.15 and the inconsistent Antonio Fuoco qualified even lower in p.21.

Kirchofer took the win following a great race with Emil Bernstorff especially towards the end of the race. The fan favourite’s home racer finished second best to Kirchofer and another home racer Matt Parry rounded off the podium finishers in third place. Kirchofer had that much of a battle on his hands that by lap 10 there were only 2 seconds covering the top three racers and this promoted amazing racing between the three. With Parry and Bernstorff wanting to win in front of their home fans they desperately pulled out all of the stops to try and win the race and get their respective first wins of the season. However, it was not to be and the top three were followed across the line by championship leader Luca Ghiotto, Eriksson, Ocon, Ceccon and Boschung.

Reverse pole meant that the top 8 finishers of Race 1 lined up backwards effectively. Meaning Boschung was on pole, joined by Ceccon, Ocon and Eriksson. Ceccon immediately took the lead going into the first corner and led throughout even though he did come under a fair amount of pressure from Ocon before building a gap of around a second to second place. Race 2 is predominantly a short race and drivers need to find a balance between attacking their rivals and preserving their tyres in order to find the recipe for victory. Matt Parry who had a podium at his home race on the Saturday was on the hunt for another on Sunday and he narrowly missed out with two laps to go when he made a mistake going into Maggots, handing the advantage to his team mate when exiting Becketts by losing the car and going off the track. Eriksson went on to finish fourth, behind Boschung and ahead of Matt Parry. The final point scoring drivers at Silverstone were Bernstorff, Ghiotto and Kirchofer.

Ghiotto still remained in the lead of the championship on 82 points, but only 5 points ahead of second placed Marvin Kirchofer.

Round 4 - Hungaroring, Hungary With the race coming thick and fast in GP3, the races were not disappointing and at the near-halfway mark in the season, a tasty battle for the championship was unfolding with Ghiotto, Kirchofer and Ocon all the battle for victory. Ocon took the first blood of the weekend, even if it was in practice. He demonstrated his pace around

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the Hungaroring by posting the fastest time of 1:34.546, just 0.036s ahead of championship rival Luca Ghiotto.

The intensifying battle between the two was only going to become more entertaining and create a high entertainment factor.

It was Ghiotto though who claimed pole position following this practice session. He outpaced the field with a 1:34.030s time that was 0.036s faster than an impressive Bernstorff who finished second. Ocon, who was fastest in practice could only reach third and lost 2 more points in the championship to Ghiotto thanks to his pole position. With conditions like no other this season so far the racers had to endure 40 degrees Celsius of heat in Hungary in Budapest. It was an interesting session as the times that were being set were being knocked off the top throughout and at one point the top three lining up for race 1 were separated by as little as 0.022s.

Luca Ghiotto’s weekend got progressively stronger when he held position from pole position and finished in first place for another win in the 2015 season to extend his championship lead of Kirchofer and Ocon. He took the 31 points on offer with the win, pole and the fastest lap of the race. Rivals and team mates at ART Ocon and Kirchhofer moved up one place each in the race and Bernstorff dropped down to p.4. The track that was well known for being such a twisty and hard track to conquer and overtake on proved its point when after a few laps of the safety car, the top 6 cars were covered by just three and a half seconds. With the grid so tightly packed together there was action both at the front and at the back. An area of particular focus as at the front when Kirchhofer was being caught by Bernstorff and Parry, the former right on the back of Kirchhofer through to the end from laps 18-19. Ghiotto’s victory meant he further increased his lead over second placed Ocon. Ocon being followed over the line by Kirchhofer, Bernstorff and Parry. A few seconds back were Eriksson, Ceccon and Fuoco to finish in the top 8.

Ceccon, who won his first race in GP3 in Race 2 of the Silverstone weekend won again in Race 2 after starting from p.2 on the grid thanks to the reverse pole. He started alongside Fuoco and immediately overtook him to lead the race to the end from there. Reverse pole also meant that frontrunners Ghiotto and Ocon had to start in p.8 and p.7, trying to make their way through the field as quickly as they could without damaging the tyres too much. Fuoco who had lost his first and then second position wanted to get his position back from Bernstorff who had also got the better of him, ended up colliding with the latter and this promptly ended their race and brought out the safety car. Ocon went on the charge from the end of the safety car period and he moved up to second by lap 8, trailing Ceccon by approximately 1.2 seconds.

The small gap reduced lap by lap until Ocon was on Ceccon’s gearbox but Ceccon kept his nerve and took his second race win of the season. Ceccon finishing ahead of Ocon, Eriksson, Parry, Ghiotto, Kirchhofer, Varhaug and Boschung.

Round 5 - Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps Following on from the mid-season break the gp3 teams arrived in the Arden forest to renew the challenges for the 2015 title. Luca Ghiotto seemed to be on an unstoppable path to the title, having scored 3 of the previous 4 pole positions, a run he managed to extend to 4 out of 5 in spa where having lead practice Ghiotto went on to claim pole position over the ART duo of Ocon and Kirchhofer.

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In race 1 Ghiotto made a slow getaway and dropped behind Ocon, Emil Bernstorff and Kevin Ceccon.

Kirchhofer had been demoted on the grid for blocking Matt Parry in qualifying. The main story of the race however was the use of the virtual safety car for the first time in a GP3 race, it was not used just once however but 3 times and had a huge effect on the outcome of the race.

1After his blistering start Ocon controlled the race even surviving a 2 lap sprint to the flag following the final of the 3 safety cars. However, following the race an investigation into Ocon jumping the third and final restart, unlike in F1 and GP2 the GP3 cars do not have any form of on dash notification of the restart happening and must rely on their team to inform you of the restart, he was given a 5 second penalty that dropped him from the win to second place for the 4th consecutive race in a row. This promoted Emil Bernstorff to the top step of the podium. Luca Ghiotto finished down in 5th place.

In race 2 Luca Ghiotto came out on top in yet another safety car interrupted race beating Ocon into a 5th consecutive 2nd place! The main talking point of the race was the reason behind the first safety car, in a similar fashion to the blow out suffered by Nico Rosberg in F1 practice, pole sitter Alex Bosak suffered a terrifying tire blow out as he came around Blanchimont this pitched his car off the road where he hit the barrier, losing a wheel in the process. This loose wheel bounced back on the track and struck the luckless Matt Parry putting both out on the spot. On the restart the safety car came out again after less than half a lap following another accident in Lec Coombes between Fucco and Kirchhofer. Ghiotto the caught and passed Ocon to record his 3rd win of the season.

Round 6 - Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy The 6th round of the GP3 series took us to the majestic park of Monza, for a high speed chase around Autodromo Nazionale Monza. For the 5th time in 6 races Luca Ghiotto scored pole position and in dominate style as well beating Ocon to pole by a full second! This is the same gap that covered the following 12 drivers.

Part of this can be put down to the drying track following overnight rain, but even still this is an amazing achievement.

In race 1 disaster was narrowly avoided as Ghiotto stalled from pole position being narrowly avoided by all the drivers behind him. The drive of the race has to go to Emil Bernstorff who after having been locked in a frantic battle with Kirchhofer for the first few laps he finally made the move stick and set about chasing the leaders where he managed to catch and pass Ceccon, Parry and Ocon to capture the lead which he held to the flag. For the second race weekend in a row there were post-race penalties handed out as both Parry and Seb Morris were both disqualified for being underweight dropping Parry out of 4th place and Morris out of 10th.

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In race 2 Ghiotto put in a storming drive from the back of the grid through to 3rd place behind Ocon, who has now finished 2nd for the 8th time in a row!! and eventual winner Kirchhofer. From the 3rd lap onwards it looked like Jimmy Eriksson was cruising to victory but on the penultimate lap his car started to succumb to technical gremlins which slowed him and dropped him to 4th at the line, small reward for what was a controlled drive from one of the pre-season title favorites. There were battles happening throughout the race making this one of if not the race of the season.

Round 7 - Sochi Autodrom, Russia For the 7th round of the 2015 GP3 series we moved on to the former Olympic park of Sochi. During opening practice on Friday evening there was controversy as darkness fell during the session. During damp and dark conditions, the main talking point was around the decision to restart the session after a late red flag following Alex Fontana finding the wall after being caught out by the conditions. Only minutes after the end of the session the sun had fully set.

Come Saturday morning Luca Ghiotto was beaten to pole position for what was only the 2nd time this season.

On what was a drying track, track position and timing were always going to reign supreme, and so it was with Ocon claiming pole on what was the final lap of the session. At the start of his final lap he was on provisional pole but this was eclipsed by Ceccon. This looked set to be beaten by Ocon who had set the fastest split time in the first two splits but had a scruffy final sector and only managed to beat Cecon by 0.040 of a second to claim his maiden pole in GP3. Ghiotto could manage no more that 7th position.

Race 1 on Friday even was cancelled following the crash of Carlos Sainz in free practice for F1. They then rescheduled the race for the Sunday morning, meaning both races would take place on the Sunday.

The race 1 win was claimed by Ghiotto for the 4th time this season. In what was another storming drive Ghiotto moved from 7th on the grid to 1st at the line, he was helped by both Ceccon and Tuscher stalling on the grid, following the long run from the start line to turn 2 Ghiotto was up and challenging Bernstorff for second where he made the move stick. Further round the first lap Ghiotto then made it past the pole sitter for the lead. Going from 7th to first in a lap is an impressive feat for any driver. Ghiotto then managed to control the race from there surviving a safety car restart and never looking seriously under threat from Ocon behind even with Ocon securing the bonus points for fastest lap.

In race 2 Erikson made up for the lost win in Monza with victory over Ocon here. Having started from the reverse grid pole Eriksson lead into turn 2 from the fast starting Fuoco, the pair briefly made contact at turn 2 with Eriksson maintain his lead with Fuoco dropping down to third behind Jann Mardenbough. Ocon made it up and past both the Carlin drivers, to claim an 8th successive 2nd place finish!! This combined with a disappointing drive from Ghiotto who made contact with Bernstorff on the opening lap which dropped him down to 9th and

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left him unable to challenge and only finding 1 point for 8th place finish shrunk the championship lead to just 2 points with 2 rounds left.

Round 8 - Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain For the 8th round of the GP3 series the teams arrived in Bahrain for the first time, the round was arranged as a replacement for the canceled German round was added in to the schedule as the penultimate round just a week before the final in Abu Dhabi.

With just a 2-point lead Ghiotto came into this round on the back foot and Ocon was able to capitalize. Having claimed his maiden pole position in the previous round in Russia Ocon showed that his speed was only getting better by claiming pole position for race 1 and the 4 points that go with it to take the lead from Ghiotto for the first time since the opening round of the season. Even with a late charge Ghiotto could not wrestle pole position from Ocon having to settle for 2nd place over half a second behind his title rival.

Kirchhofer managed to grab the lead for the race as Ocon and Ghiotto were both preoccupied fighting between themselves. In an aggressive move Ocon cut across the front of Ghiotto allowing Kirchhofer through to the lead, in a race dominated by tire management Kirchhofer managed his with imperious skill that only seemed to be matched by Bernstorff who didn’t push his tires through the opening laps which allowed him to push during the closing laps to catch and depose first Ghiotto for third and then Ocon for second thus bringing to an end Ocon’s incredible run of 2nd places. With Ocon in 3rd and Ghiotto in 4th Ocon managed to extend his lead to 5 points with just 3 races to go.

In race 2 Ghiotto made what seems to have become one of his trade mark flying starts to jump from 5th to 2nd by the first corner. By the end of the first lap he was then setting up a pass on Celis Jr for the lead which he managed to pull off on the run into the first corner, to take a lead he would not relinquish.

Whilst he didn’t relinquish the lead the race was interrupted by a safety car and subsequent red flag for a major accident between Stuvik and Tuscher. Stuvik ran straight into the back of Tuscher resulting in a huge impact. Upon the restart Ocon made moves past his two team mates to put him up in 2nd and within touching distance of Ghiotto but he was unable to make an impression and ended the race in 2nd for the 10th time this year. By winning the race Ghiotto retook the championship lead heading into the final round of the season.

Round 9 - Yas Marina Circuit, United Arab Emirates As the GP3 teams arrived in Abu Dhabi the title battle was balanced on a knife edge, having regained the championship lead at the previous round for the first time since the opening round in Barcelona Ocon came into the final round 2 points behind Ghiotto.

In qualifying Ocon was able to once again grab pole position and crucially the 4 points that go with it to retake the championship lead by 2 points again. Ghiotto finished qualifying down in 4th place after leading the session after the first round of flying laps.

As has seemed to happen race 1 was shrouded in controversy once again, having claimed pole position Ocon did not make a good start and was being challenged for the lead by Ceccon into the first corner, the two made contact which sent Ocon wide. With the extensive run of provided by the Yas Marina circuit Ocon was able to

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keep his foot down and power back onto the track in the lead, this prompted a stewards’ investigation and subsequent 5 second time penalty was handed out to Ocon. Following a bad start this was the best new Ghiotto could have been hoping for, having dropped from 4th on the grid to 6th in the race. Ocon set about trying to extend his lead to 5 seconds to nullify the penalty however he took too much life out of his tires and was unable to manage this which handed the win to Kirchhofer after Ceccon retired from the race with a mechanical issue.

Ocon dropped back to 4th following the time penalty however he showed exactly what he thought of this by parking in the 1st place spot in park ferme. Ghiotto was not able to mount a serious challenge and finished a distant 5th place. Allowing Ocon to extend his lead in the championship to 6 points.

This set race 2 up as the title decider, and the two title contenders were to start besides each other in 4th and 5th position. In what was a relatively uneventful race the main action happened off of the start when Ocon and Ghiotto made contact into the first turn where they both managed to escape relatively unscathed with Ghiotto losing a winglet off of his front wing but more importantly dropped behind Ocon.

Alex Palou managed to make a good start from pole position and completed a controlled race to claim his and Campos’ first win in GP3, Ocon lead Ghiotto home in 3rd to claim the title with only 1 win to his name (even though he claimed the flag on 2 other occasions but had the wins subsequently taken off of him) against the 5 wins for Ghiotto. Ocon however showed impressive consistency claiming 14 podium and only missing the podium on 4 occasions one of which was the penalty out of first place!

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Credits Editor – Alex Lane Formula One – Alex Booth, Alex MacDonald, Alice Holloway, Jessica Craig, Rebecca Thomas and Sean Fleetwood.

BTCC – Ian Cutting, Sam Hall and Tim Farmer.

GP2 – Daniel Herrick, Megan Mallory and Sophie Akhurst GP3 – Joe Clark and Mark Donaghy.

Contact us: Facebook: L&T Motorsport Twitter: @ltmsport Instagram: @ltmsport YouTube: L&T Motorsport Website: http://ltmsport.weebly.com/ Email: ltmsportinfo@gmail.com

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