WILL Davison admits that he can’t take much credit avoiding disaster in his spectacular 200km/h double-spin across the top of Mount Panorama during Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour practice.
The back end of his Team WRT Audi snapped around at 203km/h as he came through the fearsome McPhillamy Park curve, remarkably completing two neat spins and staying off the walls before Davison continued on his way across Skyline.
“I’ll claim 50 per cent of control in that second pirouette, but the first one nothing.” Davison joked.
“It was quite nervous the way it was set up and it snapped on me pretty quick. My initial thoughts were this is not good, there’d not many good outcomes when you’re going backwards here.”
“I was on and off the brakes, steering it how I could and I thought halfway around the second one ‘oh my gosh, I’m not even going to hit the grass, this is going to go well.’”
With no television coverage or big screens in operation on the Friday, only the spectators at the top of the Mountain were treated to the sight of the red and black Audi spinning like a top.
Not even the crew were aware of what had actually happened — but their jaws dropped once they downloaded the on-board video from the car.
“I got straight on the radio, thinking they’d seen it on the TV screens, and said ‘I’ve had a pretty big spin, I’m going to bring it in because the tyres will be flat-spotted,’” Davison explained.
“They’d not seen it and were asking if I’d hit anything or been in the grass. I said no, and they said the tyres are fine, there’s not a mark on them!
“Then one of the boys downloaded the vision out of the car and everyone realised it was a pretty big moment.”
Davison is sharing the Belgian-run Audi with veteran sports car racers Mathias Lauda, Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana, his co-drivers trying to get up to speed with a new car while reacquainting themselves with Mount Panorama.
“I was a little bit more timid across the top (after the spins) just until we understand the car,” Davison said.
“We made some pretty significant changes based on making it more comfortable, especially for the other guys who haven’t driven it much.
“We’re not too bad but I’m not at one with the car yet. Hopefully we’ll do a reasonable number today and for us, it’s just about not making mistakes and getting a result that way.”
Red Bull has been left scratching its head, wondering if there was, once again, anything that could have been done to prevent the loss.
Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo has enjoyed his best weekend of the year with one of his favourite stretches of the F1 calendar next up.
Here’s what we learnt from the Spanish Grand Prix.
Stream Every Practice, Qualifier & Race of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship™ Live & On-Demand on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >
Hamilton makes HUGE comeback to win
2:56
RICCIARDO MAY HAVE JUST TURNED THE CORNER
Daniel Ricciardo won’t be getting carried away with a sixth-place finish, but it may be just the thing to jump-start his 2021 season.
It’s been a slow start to life at McLaren for the Australian, who hasn’t felt at home in his MCL35M on his way to finishes of seventh, sixth and ninth at the first three races.
His teammate Lando Norris finished higher at each of the first three events, including at Imola where McLaren ordered Ricciardo to let him past.
But the Circuit de Catalunya — where pre-season testing occurs — gave Ricciardo a timely sense of familiarity, which he took full advantage of.
With a more level playing field, given he has already driven for McLaren at the track, Ricciardo comfortably outqualified Norris by nearly four-tenths, before finishing two spots ahead on Sunday.
Capping off the turnaround was the fact McLaren issued team orders to Norris to allow Ricciardo to pass.
While it’s far too early to suggest that Ricciardo has gained the upper hand in the McLaren garage, Norris is entering a challenging month against his teammate with races at Monaco and Azerbaijan next.
There’s plenty of good feeling for Ricciardo at the two street circuits, where he claimed wins for Red Bull in 2018 and 2017 respectively.
Norris, meanwhile, has only raced one Grand Prix at each track, both coming back in 2019 due to cancellations last year.
Ricciardo is understandably champing at the bit to get back to Monaco to build on the forward momentum he created in Spain.
“Firstly I’m excited to go there. It’s been two years,” Ricciardo said. “It’s a track that you don’t get the privilege of driving, first of all, and to miss it for a year, I just can’t wait to go there.”
It’s likely to too premature to expect podium finishes at the next two races but, suddenly, the world is looking brighter for Ricciardo.
de Pasquale and Waters shine at the Bend
2:45
BOTTAS UNDER PRESSURE DESPITE ‘BULLSH*T’ RUMOUR
Valtteri Bottas rubbished last week’s reports that Mercedes is growing impatient with his performances, and could be set to replace him mid-season with George Russell.
“I know that I’m not going to be replaced in the middle of the season,” Bottas said before the Spanish Grand Prix in response to the report. “As a team, we don’t do that.
“I have a contract for this year and I believe there’s only one team that does that kind of thing in F1 and we’re not that.
“So no pressure from my side. I know how things are and there’s always bullsh*t around. That’s part of the sport.”
His confidence aside, there’s no ignoring that Bottas is well off the pace in 2021 — perhaps the furthest off the pace he has ever been to Hamilton.
The Finn hasn’t beaten Verstappen or Hamilton in a race once this year, but what’s most alarming is just how far behind he has finished.
Outside of his DNF at Imola, Bottas hasn’t come within 25 seconds of the race-winner this season.
He’s already 47 points behind Hamilton after just four races.
Bottas may be certain he will be able to drive out the rest of his contract — which ends this year — but the likelihood of Mercedes renewing it is becoming slim.
RED BULL ITS OWN WORST ENEMY
Hamilton said before the Spanish Grand Prix that Red Bull was “making a lot of mistakes” to give him the upper hand in the drivers’ championship.
Those comments were reinforced over the weekend when Mercedes was simply too clever for its rivals once again.
Hamilton was beaten off the line and trailed Verstappen for the majority of the race.
That was until a slick Mercedes outfit gave its lead driver the best chance of taking the spot back by pitting him twice for fresh tyres.
The second stop came on Lap 43 when Hamilton was just half a second off the lead.
Had Red Bull pitted Verstappen on Lap 44, he may have still come out narrowly ahead of Hamilton, and the pair could have both duelled on fresh tyres until the end.
But Red Bull froze and chose to keep out the Dutchman, who said he became a “sitting duck” as he was powerless to stop Hamilton from passing him with six laps to spare.
Hamilton claims 100th career pole!
0:57
Team boss Christian Horner said after the race that he doesn’t “think” there was anything Red Bull could have done to stop Hamilton.
In hindsight, however, it’s hard to argue against that at least attempting to cover off the second stop immediately would have given Verstappen a better chance.
Another option — if Red Bull felt it was struggling for pace — would have been to give up track position and stop Verstappen first, forcing Mercedes to weigh up staying out on a one-stop.
Not helping Red Bull’s case was the fact that Verstappen’s first stop was slow by a couple of seconds, which may have been the difference between comfortably covering off a second Hamilton pit stop and feeling the need to risk a one-stop strategy.
Earlier in the season, Verstappen was on course for victory in Bahrain but breached track limits to effectively hand Hamilton the race.
In Portugal, he had a pole lap, and fastest lap of the race — worth a championship point — both rubbed out for the same violation.
Once everything is added together, it becomes clear that Verstappen isn’t just competing against Hamilton this year.
Heimgartner clinches race 9!
1:26
FERRARI QUIETLY IMPROVING
Ferrari is still miles away from where a team of its resources should be, but it appears set to seize control of the midfield battle.
Charles Leclerc was miles ahead of Ferrari’s direct rivals in 2021, McLaren, whose drivers came home in sixth and eighth.
Leclerc was fourth, nearly 20 seconds ahead of Ricciardo, who managed to hold up Ferrari’s faster Carlos Sainz in seventh.
The result pulled Ferrari to just five points shy of McLaren in the constructors’ championship — but there’s little doubt who had the faster package in Spain.
Understandably, Leclerc, who has finished fourth twice and sixth twice this season, was ecstatic after the race.
“We were incredibly competitive compared to our main competitors,” Leclerc told Sky Sports F1.
“I think we were the standout for the race today so it was good, the feeling of the car was amazing.”
In a major warning to Ferrari’s rivals, Leclerc said the team’s overall package is improving.
“We have more power, we have more downforce and grip. Especially in the race it seems to help a lot because last year the balance during the race was very difficult, whenever you put high fuel you feel the weaknesses of the car a lot more,” he said.
“Last year we were struggling with that. This year it just feels a lot better.”
Red Bull’s Verstappen was swift off the line, taking the race lead from Hamilton who trailed for the vast majority of the race at Circuit de Catalunya.
But a bold two-stop strategy by Mercedes paid dividends for the world champion, who made up more than 22 seconds to Verstappen to take back the race lead with just six laps remaining.
Hamilton held on for the win to open up a 14-point lead in the drivers’ championship — but the greatest benefit he took from the race may not have been the win at all.
Stream Every Practice, Qualifier & Race of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship™ Live & On-Demand on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >
The Briton had the rare opportunity to closely trail his title rival for most of the race — an experience which he said was informative.
“It was actually a really good day,” Hamilton said. “I learned a lot about Max today and perhaps more than all the other races probably put together.”
Hamilton wasn’t prepared to give much away, however, when asked to elaborate on what he had learnt.
“Not particularly, no,” a laughing Hamilton said when asked if he would like to expand on his point.
“It was just… when you’re with people on track… you get to see different things and you can follow closely.
“Obviously I was following relatively closely and I learned a lot about his car and learned a lot about how he uses it. So that was a good race in that respect.”
Verstappen remained content with his second-place finish, saying that he was ultimately a “sitting duck” on a one-stop strategy.
“It was more or less what you can see coming,” he told Sky F1. “Personally, I’m not too disappointed because I tried everything I could but we were just too slow.
“After the first stop when we were both on the mediums I could see he was a lot faster. To be all the time within 1.2 seconds around here is almost impossible, so I was just trying to keep my tyres alive.
“Then he pitted so I knew it was over. Of course that doesn’t go through in my mind, I’m still doing the best I can to try and bring it to the end in the best possible way, but I knew that as soon as they pitted that second time he would come back at me a bit like Hungary. There is not much you can do.”
Daniel Ricciardo finally has reason to smile in the 2021 F1 season after recording his strongest race weekend for McLaren at the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Australian claimed his joint-best finish of the year, holding off the faster Ferrari of Carlos Sainz to finish the race — won by Lewis Hamilton — in sixth.
While Ricciardo is still aiming for bigger things at McLaren, his impressive drive allowed him to flip the script on his teammate Lando Norris, who had been mounting pressure on the 31-year-old.
Stream Every Practice, Qualifier & Race of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship™ Live & On-Demand on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >
Norris outdrove Ricciardo at each of the opening three races, including at Imola where team orders were applied.
Leading into Sunday’s race at Circuit de Catalunya, Ricciardo admitted to experiencing some teething issues at McLaren, saying he was locking his brakes and sometimes losing the rear.
But on Sunday, the shoe was on the other foot as McLaren asked Norris to let Ricciardo pass before the Briton finished the race in eighth.
Ricciardo was comfortably stronger in qualifying too, going almost four-tenths faster than Norris.
Hamilton claims 100th career pole!
0:57
While McLaren didn’t have the pace to challenge for a podium in Spain, Ricciardo’s tune changed after the race as his season turned a corner.
“It was a better weekend,” Ricciardo told Sky Sports. “It was personally a better weekend for sure. It is definitely a step in the right direction, it is progress.”
He added: “I’m still learning, it sounds crazy to say that but still learning how to be better with this car. The race was good. We do the race five more times a day and I think six is the best we can finish.
Get all the latest F1 news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!
“Every car ahead was faster, and even Carlos (Sainz) behind was faster. So getting him at the start was critical and that allowed me to finish sixth. The team executed a good two stops. We changed the plan later in the race and it was the right call.
“I’m happier … it was a smoother weekend, and definitely the best one of the year so far.”
Ricciardo said he’s eager to get to the next race on May 23 in Monaco, where F1 hasn’t raced since 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Firstly I’m excited to go there. It’s been two years,” he said.
“It’s a track that you don’t get the privilege of driving, first of all, and to miss it for a year, I just can’t wait to go there.
“And then we’ll figure it out after that, and it will just be a joy and a pleasure to turn a wheel around there again.”
