F1Minute - Bitesize Formula One News

Lewis Hamilton was fastest in first practice around the streets of Monte Carlo, but it wasn’t really about who could set the best lap time. Thursday’s sessions were all about who could keep their car out of the barriers, and a surprising number failed to do so.

The FIA have a habit of making decisions and then changing their minds, and this weekend has given them the opportunity to do so not once, but twice. Firstly, after ongoing discussions with the drivers, the governing body have gone back on their plan to implement the ban on visor tear-off strips.

It was a series of unpredictable events that saw Verstappen take his debut victory in his first race for Red Bull in Spain. On the first lap, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg took each other out of the race to end Mercedes’ run of victories. Polesitter Hamilton had lost the lead in the first corner but Rosberg closed the gap when his teammate tried to pass, ending with them both in the gravel.

There were several surprises in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix, starting with the fact that Felipe Massa dropped out in Q1, aborting his second flying lap and settling for 19th on the grid. Q2 was slightly more predictable.

Free Practice 1 in Spain was led by Sebastian Vettel, with Kimi Räikkönen close behind him. Mercedes were a little slower but were concentrating on a harder compound of tyre and completing more laps than everyone else.

The FIA announced earlier in the year that they would be tightening up on the sporting regulations that state drivers should not discard their visor tear off strips either out on track or in the pit lane. However, the ruling was pushed back to come into force at the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend, and has now been delayed for another fortnight.

After the shock announcement by Red Bull that they were switching two drivers between the main team and sister team Toro Rosso, the practicalities are beginning to become apparent. One of the main issues is that both Daniil Kvyat and Max Verstappen will have to use each other’s tyre selections in Spain as the decisions were made such a long time ago.

Renault have been saving up their engine upgrade tokens in the hopes of giving their cars a mid-season boost. Now they’ve revealed they will be giving Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen new power units ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix – a notoriously hard race on engines – with the units set to be first run in the two-day Barcelona test after Spain.

Daniil Kvyat may have thought the sanction for his double Vettel crash on the first lap of the Russian Grand Prix was a ten second stop/go penalty, but the Red Bull driver is facing an even harsher sentence. The team have confirmed they are swapping Kvyat for Max Verstappen, promoting the young Dutch driver up from Toro Rosso and effectively demoting Kvyat to the B team.

Nico Rosberg secured an easy victory in Russia, winning from pole position as teammate Lewis Hamilton had it all to do from tenth. Early chaos allowed Lewis to move up the field, and he fought his way back to second place but late stage water leak issues stopped him challenging his teammate for the win. Kimi Räikkönen ended up third for the final podium position.