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Honda's motorsport boss wants to see the manufacturer implement experimental Formula 1 engine parts over this season's remaining grand prix weekends, in preparation for 2019.
The Japanese company introduced an upgraded internal combustion engine back in June and is readying one final engine upgrade before the end of 2018, ahead of supplying the Red Bull works team next year.
Masashi Yamamoto, general manager of Honda's motorsport division, told Motorsport.com his company will be experimenting before the end of this year.
"Towards the end of the season, and as a preparation for next year, there will be opportunity that we can try something on the actual track," he said.
"We want to do that kind of trial and error, using this opportunity in the second half of the season."
Honda has used many components this season across both Toro Rosso drivers, mainly for tactical reasons, so a fresh combustion engine, turbocharger or energy recovery system part will result in a grid penalty.
That means it would be logical to introduce any major upgrade this weekend in Russia, to avoid it being forced to take grid penalties for its home grand prix in Japan next week.
Alternatively, Honda could delay a bigger upgrade further to coincide with Toro Rosso's planned car upgrades for the United States Grand Prix in late October.
While major component changes are the most obvious forms of engine upgrades, the manufacturers can find gains by introducing new ancillary parts, for example in the pursuit of more efficiency or less weight.
Red Bull motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko recently boasted that Honda has unequalled resource in F1.
Although it has struggled to unleash that properly since returning to F1 with McLaren in 2015, Honda's improved reliability and performance with Toro Rosso this year has played a key role in convincing Red Bull it should finally end its fractious relationship with Renault.
Big results have been sparse this season with Toro Rosso but Honda did secure fourth in Bahrain, its best finish since its return.
That result, and the wider confidence Red Bull has in this iteration of Honda, is largely thanks to an overhaul of its management structure.
Yusuke Hasegawa stepped aside at the end of 2017 and his responsibilities were split between Toyoharu Tanabe, Honda's new trackside technical director, and Yasuaki Asaki, who is heading up the Sakura research-and-development programme.
Yamamoto said: "We have changed our organisation for this year and clarified the operation trackside and the development role.
"There are two main buildings. We've strengthened both functions, and have strong leaderships on each side in Tanabe and Asaki.
"So, including our facility, we are in a better form than before."
Racing Point Force India Formula 1 driver Sergio Perez feels he was criticised too harshly for his Singapore clash with Sergey Sirotkin, which he believes “looked worse from the outside”.
Having edged ahead of Sirotkin after following him for many laps, Perez darted to the inside line on approach to the Turn 18 left-hander and clattered into his rival's Williams.
The collision earned the Mexican a drive-through penalty and three penalty points, a sanction Perez described as “fair” in the immediate aftermath of the race.
Asked by Motorsport.com ahead of the next race in Sochi whether he's reviewed the incident since, Perez said: “Yeah, I've obviously seen it, and in my opinion it looks a lot worse from the outside.
“Basically, with these mirrors it's very hard to see behind, so I lost the reference, I thought I already did the move in the first corner [the preceding Turn 17 right-hander].
“I actually was speaking on the radio at that point but then I saw him, and then I just misjudged where he was.
“I was trying to close the door before braking but he was just too close to it. It was just my fault, got a penalty, which I think was right. Nothing to say, really, other than accepting my mistake.”
Perez was roundly admonished for the crash, and the fact he'd been growing audibly frustrated behind Sirotkin for many laps before the incident led to suggestions his move was a deliberate sideswipe.
But FIA race director Charlie Whiting described the claim as “hard to believe”, and when himself asked about such theories, Perez said: “Yeah, I think they're too harsh. Probably the way it looked from the outside.
“I ruined my race, I wouldn't have done it on purpose.”
Perez had repeatedly called for Whiting to look into Sirotkin's defending in the lead-up to the accident, and has stood by the criticism despite noting that the Russian “did a good race”.
“I was complaining to Charlie because he was moving quite a lot on the braking, which is not ideal, you know, you can cause collisions when you're moving under braking.
“But that has nothing to do with the incident, the incident was not his fault, was my fault - but yeah, he was moving a bit too much under braking.”
Sirotkin, for his part, said he has viewed “all the replays of every lap” and seen nothing that could've triggered his rivals complains.
“There wasn't a single time where I moved under braking,” he said.
“It shouldn't be mixed up with - in Singapore, when you approach braking zones, you don't always approach in a straight line, and it's simply a question of at which point you put your car at the angle to brake straight.
“I was honest in my position after the race, claiming that I did nothing wrong. And this is my conclusion still.”
Sirotkin refused to say whether Perez's drive-through was a sufficient penalty, but added: “Really everybody's only noticing the one incident, but they shouldn't forget that we were fighting for many many laps, many corners before on that same lap.
“So there's no need to exaggerate anything – it was a tight, hard fight, but very fair and very precise.”
I kept waiting for an onboard video from Perez, but they never showed it in the broadcast. From almost all exterior angles, it looked deliberate.
One of the YouTube summary videos had an onboard & it looks much less of a deliberate move on the steering wheel.
Racing Point Force India driver Esteban Ocon has admitted Williams is his last shot at a Formula 1 ride for 2019.
Ocon is losing his Force India seat to Lance Stroll, and options to switch to Renault or McLaren both vanished recently as those two teams have since announced their 2019 lineups.
"It's a bit strange how it turned out, because I had options with two big teams, and most drivers can only dream of that. But we will find a solution," Ocon, 22, told the French broadcaster TF1. "Even if I have to miss next season, I am sure that I will return to Formula 1 in 2020."
"I was surprised when Renault signed a contract with Daniel Ricciardo. Renault has explained that it was because I was in the Mercedes program, but I do not agree with (Renault team principal) Cyril Abiteboul. Yes, I'm a Mercedes driver, but if I was in a Renault that wouldn't matter. I'm a little upset that as a sportsman, it's not only your sporting achievements that matter."
Like Renault, Red Bull has ruled out Ocon for Toro Rosso on the basis of his Mercedes links, while Haas F1 Team is expected to keep both of its current drivers -- Kevin Magnussen and Roman Grosjean -- for 2019.
That just leaves Williams, but a better-funded driver is more likely to be selected by that team. Still, Williams is powered by Mercedes and has been closely linked to Toto Wolff.
"I don't know whether I can go to Williams," Ocon said. "We are negotiating and we hope that everything will work out.
"Not having a contract for next season is not a catastrophe, but you never know how things will develop in Formula 1. What I can promise is that next year I will do my best to be back in the championship in 2020."
Haas Formula 1 team principal Gunther Steiner has acknowledged Romain Grosjean will be "on thin ice" in forthcoming grands prix as he risks a one-race ban through accumulated penalty points.
Receiving 12 penalty points within a calendar year triggers a race ban, and Grosjean's two points for ignoring blue flags in the Singapore GP has brought his total up to nine.
One point will expire after the Mexican GP next month and another two after November's Brazilian GP, but he remains at risk for the next four events.
"He should be very careful but I think he knows that," said Steiner. "We are on very thin ice at the moment with that."
The point system was devised by FIA F1 race director Charlie Whiting after Grosjean himself received a one-race ban from the 2012 Italian GP following a series of controversial incidents culminating in the massive start crash in Belgium that year.
Grosjean insisted the situation would not impact how he raced, saying "I'm not here to crash, I'm not here to do anything silly".
"It's F1, and we still need to deliver a good performance," he added.
"So I'll make sure that I don't do anything silly, but I'll still be pushing and racing and doing my job.
"When you look back at the points I got, some you can really explain, some others are more questionable, but there they are."
Grosjean called the penalty he received in Singapore "harsh" given that he was busy with his own battle with Sergey Sirotkin over 14th when leader Lewis Hamilton caught him.
"I'm sorry I blocked Lewis, it looked really bad because Sergey was bloody slow and we couldn't do anything. So we lost a lot of time," said Grosjean, who was also given a five-second time penalty that dropped him from 13th to 15th.
"It was a tricky situation I got caught in. Sergey was six seconds slower than everyone, I couldn't know at the time, so we were fighting and obviously the gap was big.
"I think it was 11 mini sectors before I let Lewis by. It cost a lot of time, but it was just the pace we were doing.
"Getting points there was harsh. I'm here to race, I'm here to get Haas into fourth position in the constructors' championship.
"So I'm just going to do my best for the team and try to avoid doing anything silly."
Asked if he would discuss the Singapore penalty with Whiting, Grosjean said: "I'll see him at the drivers' briefing, see if the drivers are bringing it up.
"Again it was not my intention to block anyone, we don't have any lights on the cars, so the mirrors in the dark, they are dark, the pace we were doing was completely off the pace.
"In the end it didn't change anything for the race. Lewis won and Max [Verstappen] was second. That's the main thing.
"It was not great, it was not ideal, we were fighting on our side, they were fighting on their side. Apparently it was the most exciting part of the race!"
Steiner agreed that the Singapore penalty was harsh given the race situation Grosjean was in.
"We always talk about more racing, but as soon as they start to race we have to stop [for blue flags], because a rule comes out that you are not allowed to race," he said. "We want to have our cake and eat it.
"But ultimately he got the penalty and now he has to be careful.
"Fair or not fair, we couldn't score points anyway, so it doesn't really matter for us. It's just not ideal for Romain's penalty point account."
Russian company Uralkali says it is suing the administrators responsible for finding a new owner for the Force India Formula 1 team.
Uralkali, which is linked to GP3 race winner Nikita Mazepin’s father Dmitry, attempted to buy the team after Force India fell into administration in the summer.
It claims that the administrator has confirmed that the winning bid was “significantly inferior” to its own and Uralkali believes “the highest bid should have been determined as the winner”.
Uralkali states that the administration process contained “misrepresentations and lack of transparency” and “failed to achieve the maximisation of sale proceeds for the benefit of creditors, shareholders and other stakeholders”.
It says it made what it calls “an extremely generous offer to acquire the company`s business, assets and goodwill”, tabling a cash consideration of between £101.5million and £122million.
This would have satisfied creditors, which included engine supplier Mercedes, in full and paid the administrators’ costs, as well as backing a five-year development programme, according to Uralkali.
It also claims more than £40 million would have been left after those payments to distribute to the sole shareholder of Force India, Orange India Holdings Sarl.
This would have been held subject to the terms of the freezing order issued by UK’s High Court in favour of 13 Indian banks.
The administrators entered an exclusivity agreement with the consortium led by Stroll, which eventually bought the assets and re-entered the team as Racing Point Force India.
Uralkali, a global producer of potash fertilizer, says its business rationale for trying to buy Force India was to market the company, as it services 20 of the 21 host countries in F1.
Paul James Ostling, senior independent director and a member of Uralkali’s board for seven years, led its bid for Force India.
He said: “Because of these concerns and the costs of our bid, as well as potential large business revenue losses, Uralkali has no option but to launch these proceedings and seek substantial damages.”
However, a statement from the joint administrators, given to Motorsport.com, noted Uralkali’s release but said it was not aware the claim had been made and defended its own actions.
“No such claim has been received by us or, as far as we are aware, by the Court,” the statement read.
“If a claim is issued it will be defended vigorously.
“We have fulfilled our statutory duties as administrators throughout this process and ultimately achieved a very successful outcome for all stakeholders.
“Any legal action brought against us will be defended vigorously, and we are confident it would be dismissed.”
Williams is becoming the new Minardi. I believe Williams still gets a big chunk of the yearly money distribution because of its status as a historical team. But what happens at the next Concord Agreement? They currently have a bigger budget than Force India, and despite having the same engine as Force India, they are doing much worse.
The team is definitely lost and they need new management. The family needs to get out of the way and get someone that knows what to do. I don't think Claire Williams can get the job done.
I think your both partially correct, Williams definitely has some serious cash flow problems especially with Martini sponsorship leaving and Stroll departing as well.
They're lost but Frank Williams is extremely capable at managing his team, and has so many times in the past when they've fallen on lean times.
Claire is still learning the business and she seems more business savvy than technical which is where the majority of their problems are.
I'll get on my soapbox now.
IMHO
Technically Williams have mostly been adrift since the 1997 due to series of poor technical leadership woes.
In 1996 Adrian Newey wanted the Technical Director role, but Head said no. Newey goes to McLaren, Heads stay on til Frank pushes him aside for Sam Micheal in 2004.
Micheal proved to be less competent than Head, and the team slide further back til he was pushed out in 2011 for Mike Coughlan who is no different and has no improvement in car design
Patrick Symonds is hired in 2013, and here is where it gets interesting. In 2014, he and his staff produce a decent chassis mated to the extremely capable MB powertrain.
3rd place in 2014 and 2015 in WCC, slipped to 5th place in 2016 but he's contract is not renewed at the end of 2016.
Supposedly Claire was the major decision maker in bringing Patty Lowe as TD back from MB (who developed a extremely successful MB car to 3 straight WDC and WCC from 2014-2016).
So far Lowe has been disappointing in developing a decent chassis.
Williams has been a very empirical engineering team, it served them well from their start especially in aerodynamics when they developed their own wind tunnel at Didcot with a moving floor (critical to understanding undercar airflow).
Williams understood skirted F1 cars better than Lotus who invented the technology. This goes on through all their great history of designing solid and fast F1 cars, they've had very good aero facilities but by the 2000's
Computer Computational Flow Dynamics (CFD) had become more prevalent for aero design, windtunnels are still used to verify results but Red Bull, MB, and Ferrari have dramatically increased their CFD capability.
Williams have CFD tools but their staff are marginal compared to MB who supposedly have 100+ aero engineers.
Pat Symonds at least understood their deficiencies (mostly involving trying to get a decent chassis/aero setup that would last a race), he didn't candy-coat their woes and knew their aero capability and was trying to address it.
He was trying to get better baseline chassis aero setup because the drivers said the chassis would change too much over conditions (full, 1/2 full, emply fuel, tires,....)
Bringing back Lowe from MB kinda shows how great Aldo Costa (MB chief designer and former Ferrari chief designer who was pushed aside too). MB has continued with solid chassis's that are continuing to win races and championships
Where Lowe's impact has been minimal at Williams. They shoulda kept Symonds.
FWIW, Nico has a YouTube channel and produces a variety of topics (racing, cars and life in general).
Gotta say, he's enjoying himself and his family ( wife) in post F1 career.
Perhaps that's better than grinding it out on the track 20 weekends a year.
How drivers with engine penalties have grid position determined
I didn't know this as I guess I never thought about it either:
There was a mad dash out of the garages between the five ahead of FP1 in Sochi, as the order they lined up at the end of the pit lane determined their grid position on Sunday, barring any more penalties for other drivers, of course.
Lando Norris, in Alonso’s car, was first out of the blocks, followed by Ricciardo, Verstappen, Gasly and Hartley at the back.
I liked him his first two years at Lotus. Hard working, fast, trying to learn as much as possible according to Eric Boullier (Lotus team principal).
Look at his results 2012-13 compared to Kimi, it shows alot of improvement and future potential.
Then.......not much from 2014-18.
Don't understand what Guenther Steiner (Haas team principal) sees in him.
I didn't know this as I guess I never thought about it either:
There was a mad dash out of the garages between the five ahead of FP1 in Sochi, as the order they lined up at the end of the pit lane determined their grid position on Sunday, barring any more penalties for other drivers, of course.
Lando Norris, in Alonso’s car, was first out of the blocks, followed by Ricciardo, Verstappen, Gasly and Hartley at the back.
Ferrari has introduced one of its biggest updates of the season at the Russian Grand Prix, which includes a radical revamp of its front wing and some 2019 experiments.
As part of its bid to close down the points deficit to Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari has brought in some major changes to its SF71H car.
The biggest change is to the front wing, which is totally new and features a combination of ideas that have been seen on other cars including those from Red Bull and McLaren.
There is a revised footplate design similar to Red Bull's effort, which was tested in the post Hungarian GP test.
Ferrari has added the vertical slot in the endplate that its rival has also put to good use.
One of the most interesting changes made by Ferrari is to the turning vane (above).
While this is viewed as a performance step here, it has also been introduced with an eye on changes to the 2019 rules.
The design is much more aggressive than the approach the team has used up until this point (below) - and it may stay on the car if it delivers good results from practice on Friday.
But Mercedes has not sat back and has taken a leaf out of Ferrari's book with a new rear wing design for this weekend's race in Sochi.
It has copied Ferrari's idea of replacing its single rear-wing pillar with two thinner swan-neck supports.
The change is understood to be more likely related to weight reduction and the management of rear wing stability at high speed, rather than drag reduction.
Mercedes has also opted to mount a downwash winglet between the pillars, which adjusts the trajectory of the exhaust plume and its subsequent interaction with the airflow under the rear wing.
The team has also introduced some changes to its front wing, with a new pair of canards on the inside of the endplate. The main cascade is no longer pushed away from its edge.
The Haas F1 team has asked the FIA for two sets of replacement tyres after they were damaged in an overnight fire in the team's garage in Russia.
The fire is believed to have begun in the control box for a set of tyre blankets, in effect destroying the tyres that the blankets contained and also damaging a second neighbouring set, both of which were allocated to Kevin Magnussen.
The team made a formal request to the FIA to be granted replacement sets this morning.
The fire was spotted by a night security guard and extinguished by guards from various teams before it could spread.
Team boss Gunther Steiner admits that the outfit had a "lucky escape" after the fire was quickly extinguished.
"We don't know what happened yet, because it's all burned," Steiner told Motorsport.com.
"And we cannot jump to a conclusion. I don't want to put any panic on to what actually happened, because we don't know.
"I think one security guard saw it, and then they all worked together to extinguish it.
"A lucky escape, and it's good that they worked together and caught it, because if tyres go on fire they are difficult to extinguish."
One rival team has questioned whether the blankets were turned up overnight, which is not the accepted practice, suggesting that an advantage could be gained by curing the tyres.
The prescriptions from Pirelli which are enforced by the FIA say that tyres can be kept at a "storage" temperature of 60 degrees Celsius, before being heated to 80 degrees for two hours, and then finally boosted to 110 degrees in the last hour before the session.
However, Steiner denies that the blankets were turned up.
"They were not used overnight. They were plugged in, otherwise there would have been no fire, but they were not turned up. They were just on standby.
"Now we'll have to unplug them at night. What they do normally is just come in in the morning and switch them on, everything is cabled up."
The Torpedo is back
Hopefully his head games are in check this time, he's still dating Nelson Piquet's daughter so perhaps she's keeping him inline.
Wonder how Nelson feels about his daughter dating a F1 driver knowing all the babes he got as a driver?
If Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel is not quite in the last-chance saloon at this weekend's Russian Grand Prix, he is on the edge of town riding a prancing horse that has developed a limp.
Forty points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton, Vettel has been beaten in three of the last four races, all of which he could - perhaps should - have won had he and his team put together a perfect weekend.
Instead, the story of Ferrari's 2018 season has been one of not achieving perfection anywhere near often enough.
The result is Hamilton has an increasingly insurmountable-looking advantage in the title race, despite his Mercedes being - for most of the season - only the second fastest car on the grid.
If Vettel does fail to overhaul Hamilton in the remaining six races, it will be 10 years since Ferrari won a world championship title, and the fourth time in that period that a golden opportunity slipped away.
Listen to 5 live F1's discussion on Ferrari's woes and Russian GP Preview
Russian rappers, Putin & Max's big day - Russian GP preview
First, a slow decline
Michael Schumacher at Ferrari
The look of dominance: Michael Schumacher won the drivers' championship five times with Ferrari between 2000 and 2004
It is all so different from the first years of this century, which began with Ferrari in utterly dominant form, as the most ruthlessly successful F1 team ever constructed helped Michael Schumacher deliver five consecutive world titles.
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari's intended replacement as the team's lead driver, benefited from the momentum of that success. Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, the architects of Ferrari's engineering excellence, left at the end of 2006, but the 2007 car was effectively designed on their watch.
In it, the Finn ultimately secured what remains Ferrari's last driver's title, by just one point from McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who tied on points.
Ferrari's car remained absolutely competitive into 2008, by which time Jean Todt had left his position as team boss and handed over to Stefano Domenicali.
This time, Felipe Massa led Ferrari's charge, and the Brazilian missed out only at the last corner of the final race, as Hamilton took the fifth position he needed to clinch the title in a chaotic dry-wet Brazilian Grand Prix.
But by 2009, the momentum of the Brawn-Byrne-Todt-Schumacher years was fading, and the car was uncompetitive, Raikkonen taking only a single victory before being paid to leave the team at the end of the year so he could be replaced by Alonso.
Russian Grand Prix coverage details
Peerless F1 performances: when you know you've nailed it
The Alonso near-misses
Fernando Alonso had a number of near misses but failed to win the F1 title during his five seasons at Ferrari
A look of bewilderment: Fernando Alonso had a number of near misses, but was never given the best car in the field
Much was expected of the combination of Alonso and the sport's most famous, best-resourced team, and the relationship started well. Alonso won on his Ferrari debut at the 2010 season opener in Bahrain, after Vettel's leading Red Bull hit engine problems.
The Ferrari was not as competitive as the Red Bull, and Alonso over-reached in the first half of the season, leading to a couple of high-profile mistakes.
By the British Grand Prix in mid-summer, he was 47 points off the lead, but still declared that he could win the title - and was true to his word as, even without the fastest car, he went on a remarkable run of form that saw him take the championship lead with two races to go.
Only for Ferrari to mess it up.
Alonso needed only to finish fourth in the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi to clinch the title no matter what the results of his rivals - Vettel, his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber and Hamilton.
But Ferrari made a cataclysmic strategic error. Webber was closest to Alonso on points, and when the Australian made an early pit stop after a safety-car period, Ferrari covered him with Alonso - apparently forgetting that Vettel was leading and would win the title if Alonso did not recover to fourth.
Alonso's pit stop left him behind the Renault of Russian journeyman Vitaly Petrov, but the Renault's superior straight-line speed made it impossible to pass on a track where overtaking was all-but impossible in the days before the controversial DRS overtaking aid. Alonso finished an agonising seventh as Vettel sneaked the title from under his nose.
Two years later, Alonso was faced with an arguably even more frustrating situation.
Ferrari's car in 2012 was not competitive - it was only the fourth fastest on average qualifying pace - but Alonso drove the season of his life and was 40 points clear of Webber with 11 of the season's 21 races run, with Vettel a further two points adrift.
But then the hex on Alonso struck again.
At the Belgian Grand Prix, he was taken out at the first corner by Romain Grosjean's Lotus. Three races later, more bad luck. A light touch from the front wing of Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus as they jockeyed for position at the start punctured Alonso's left rear tyre. Another retirement.
The Spaniard was 13 points adrift going into the final race of the season, but when Vettel crashed with Williams' Bruno Senna at the start, Alonso looked like he might prevail after all.
But Vettel's car, while badly damaged, kept going and he drove back through the field to sixth, enough to hold off Alonso, who finished second, by three points.
Alonso's had enough - time for another German champ
Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel had high hopes of giving the Ferrari fans the title they craved when he signed for the Italian team in 2015
The look of love: Four-time champion Vettel has emulating his hero Schumacher very in mind
Alonso's 2013 started well, with two wins in the first five races, but a change in tyre construction following a series of alarming Pirelli failures worked against Ferrari and for Red Bull, and Vettel romped to the title with 13 wins in 19 races.
That was the beginning of the end of Alonso's Ferrari tenure. He lost all faith in the team when its new hybrid engine was uncompetitive at the start of 2014, and the car was not much cop either. Alonso negotiated an exit; Vettel a move to replace him.
As Alonso left to start the ill-fated second relationship with McLaren that is now bringing down the curtain on his F1 career, Vettel saw a chance to earn legendary status by emulating his childhood hero Schumacher and bringing the title back to Maranello after a lengthy drought.
As with Alonso, the relationship started well, with a win in Vettel's second race for Ferrari and three in all in 2015. But tensions started to show in a winless 2016, in which the team did not make the progress towards the front expected of them.
That all changed in 2017. Sergio Marchionne, who had replaced Luca Di Montezemolo as Ferrari president in October 2014, had taken a personal interest in Ferrari's F1 under-performance, and instigated a major restructure of the team's internal operations during 2016.
It had a dramatic effect - from playing catch-up, partly because of an inherent design conservatism, Ferrari went radical and creative, and suddenly they had a car at least as fast as the Mercedes.
For much of 2017, Vettel led the way, only for a late-season run of form from Hamilton and Mercedes, combined with something of an implosion from Ferrari, to unseat him.
Vettel, generally driving beautifully in the first half of the season, had already hurt his chances with a red-mist moment in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, losing what would have been a victory when he was penalised for deliberately driving into Hamilton because he believed - incorrectly - that the Englishman had slammed on his brakes at a safety-car restart.
As the second half of the season started, though, Hamilton and Mercedes stepped things up a gear and, at the same time, Ferrari imploded.
A start-line collision in Singapore, triggered partly by Vettel's over-aggressive defensive swerve across the track, took out both Ferraris and Max Verstappen's Red Bull, and handed victory to Hamilton. And in the two subsequent races in Malaysia and Japan engine problems effectively sealed Ferrari's fate, and Hamilton was champion again.
History repeats itself, only worse
Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari collides with Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes at Monza this year
Vettel's collides with Hamilton at the Italian GP - yeah, that's right, Ferrari's home race
Could Ferrari maintain the promising momentum of 2017 and convert it into an even stronger challenge this year? Initially, the answer was yes.
The new car was even more competitive than the old. Ferrari's design philosophy had been very different from Mercedes' in 2017, but for this year the Italian team took a step towards their rivals with a longer wheelbase - although still not as long as the Anglo-German car - while maintaining their high-downforce, high-rake approach.
The result has been a car that has been the fastest thing on track at all but a handful of race weekends - perhaps only in Australia, Spain, France, Austria and Silverstone has the Mercedes had an advantage; at all other tracks the Ferrari has appeared to have an edge.
But mistakes - each small, but increasingly costly - from driver and team have added up:
Ferrari brought Vettel in too early for his stop in Baku and lost him the lead to Hamilton's team-mate Valtteri Bottas. Vettel then slightly misjudged an overtaking attempt on the Finn at a re-start and a win turned into a fourth place
Vettel crashed with Bottas at the start in France, trying to back out of an overtaking move
As Vettel finished a qualifying lap in Austria, Ferrari failed to warn him of the presence of Renault's Carlos Sainz. Vettel blocked the Spaniard and was given a grid penalty, otherwise he probably would have won the race, which instead fell to Red Bull's Max Verstappen
Ferrari left Vettel trapped behind Raikkonen during the race in Germany despite the Finn being ahead only because of off-set strategy. It cost Vettel time, and increased the pressure on him during a late-race rain shower, in which he crashed out of the lead as Hamilton closed in rapidly
Ferrari chose to have Raikkonen, not Vettel, as the final man in a train of cars in qualifying in Monza. The Finn took pole, fought his team-mate on the first lap, and Vettel then crashed into Hamilton as the Mercedes driver overtook him at the second chicane, and spun to the back
Ferrari's car failed to generate sufficient tyre temperature in qualifying in Singapore, where pole and win had looked a foregone conclusion. Perhaps because of imperfectly managed track position on out laps, perhaps because of a failure to set the car up for cooling track conditions in qualifying, or both. Hamilton's blistering lap might have proved unbeatable, but Vettel should have been at least close.
Without these, Vettel would be something like 30-odd points ahead, and a strong title favourite, rather than 40 behind.
As it is, barring a remarkable turnaround - it looks set to be another lost season for F1's most famous team. And another 12 months before Ferrari get a chance to prove they really do have what it takes to win another world championship.
The FIA is considering switching the Formula 1 qualifying format to four sessions in 2019 in an effort to generate more excitement.
A revised format discussed at the recent Strategy Group meeting would see four cars eliminated in Q1, Q2 and Q3, leaving just eight for a final shoot-out in a new Q4 session.
The general idea is that it would create more uncertainty because the top runners would have to get everything right three times just to get into the final session, increasing the chances of unexpected results.
It could also make it potentially harder for even the faster drivers to gamble on getting into the final session on a harder tyre, because only eight rather than 10 slots would be available.
A further outcome would be that the ninth and 10th qualifiers would have a free choice of tyres, meaning that fewer midfield drivers would face the problem of being committed to the "wrong" tyre for the start.
The plan, first floated by the F1 organisation, will now be discussed further.
"It's more something that's come from F1," said F1 race director Charlie Whiting.
"They've been doing a lot of research among fans, and they feel this is one of the things that the fans would like.
"Slightly shorter [sessions], slightly shorter time between them, four go out in Q1, four, four, leaving eight. I personally think it's quite a nice idea, but that's not my decision."
Whiting said details such as the impact on tyre allocation are yet to be discussed.
"Our next action is to see exactly what would be required tyre wise. I can't honestly remember what Q4 was in length – I think it was 10 minutes – and thus whether or not you could do two runs with two sets of tyres in Q4.
"That's something that needs to be looked at carefully."
The Toro Rosso Formula 1 team has explained the problem that caused Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley to endure high-speed spins that ended in retirements from the Russian Grand Prix.
The two Toro Rosso drivers qualified near the rear of the field after grid penalties, and reverted to an older spec engine ahead of Saturday.
Both drivers lasted just four laps in the race before the pair spun out and returned to the garage in retirement.
Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost says the incident was related to a piston as the brakes reached hot temperatures.
"It was a frustrating Sunday for Toro Rosso as both cars had to retire," said Tost. "For whatever reason we ended up with very hot front brakes and one piston in the calipers got stuck.
"This caused the overheating of the brake fluid and a long pedal. Therefore, we called the drivers to come to the garage.
"Obviously, being in parc ferme conditions, we didn't change anything from yesterday, so we need to investigate further what the reason is."
Gasly took to Twitter after the race to reveal that his spin through the sweeping Turn 4 occurred at 280kph (174mph).
"Since the start of the race I had a really strange feeling with the brake pedal, it went pretty long and got worse very quickly," he said.
"Then, on the third lap at Turn 4, I braked and the pedal went completely flat, so we lost all the front brakes and had to retire the car.
"We need to have a look at the data to see exactly what happened, but it's just a shame to see both cars retire so early in the race."
His teammate Hartley suffered an identical incident on the same lap, having overtaken Gasly earlier in the race before making an early stop as part of a strategy gamble requiring a lengthy second stint.
Hartley said: "I had a good start and passed Pierre before Turn 5, I was attacking the McLaren when the brake pedal went long.
"I reported it on the radio and then made our planned pitstop.
"We were going to try and be a bit cheeky with the strategy and do almost a full race on the softs, we had great tyre life and pace and think it would have worked.
"However, once I left the pits the pedal went completely to the floor, the rears locked and the car spun."
Hartley added he was "excited" for Honda's home race at Suzuka after the new engine specification produced what Tost described as a "big improvement" in performance in Friday's practice sessions.
After team orders decided the Russian Grand Prix in Lewis Hamilton's favour on Sunday, the four-time world champion says he would be willing to return the favour to teammate Valtteri Bottas later in the year. Bottas, however, said he would not be willing to accept it.
Hamilton took his eighth win of the year on Sunday and another step towards a fifth world title, but only after teammate Bottas had been ordered to move out of his way on lap 25. Bottas had started the race from pole position and was on target for his first win of the year when the Mercedes pit wall became concerned about Hamilton's ability to hold off title rival Sebastian Vettel in third place and ordered the swap.
The outcome was unpopular with many fans and Mercedes' Twitter feed was flooded with criticism in the hours after the race.
However, team boss Toto Wolff stood by his decision, pointing out that Hamilton, who was visibly uncomfortable with the situation on the podium, now has a 50-point lead in the championship, meaning he could have the title wrapped up by the Mexican Grand Prix later this month.
In such a scenario, Hamilton said he would be willing to give Bottas a victory in return if he finds himself ahead of the Finn at one of the final two races and is able to let him past.
"I have no problems with that," Hamilton said. "I don't think he needs to do that. I think he has the possibility of winning many more races himself.
"At the end of last year I think he won quite a few."But Bottas, who was sat next to Hamilton in the same press conference, said he did not want to be gifted a victory.
"No, I think it's more fun if we race for it," he said.
When Wolff was asked the same question immediately after the race, he said the team would consider it once the dust had settled.
"You want to control everything -- there a million scenarios we discussed this morning, but we had a different one in the race. I think we have to make a step back after Sochi, fly back home, analyse and say what can we learn from a day like today."
Saw another article that said Bottas had a lot more pace in the car & was running in 'cruise-control'; that getting fastest lap meant nothing after having the win taken away.
09-26-2018, 12:47 PM
wife) in post F1 career. 
