Stefan Johansson's latest blog: What's next for Max, Mercedes, Ferrari? - MotorSportsTalk

As we prepare for arguably the biggest weekend on the motorsports calendar, with the Monaco Grand Prix, the 100th Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 all in a row this Sunday, we do have to take a look back on some of the bigger stories that have occurred in the last few weeks.

Luckily, Stefan Johansson has checked in with another new installment of his blog, in an interview with Jan Tegler.

And the last Grand Prix two weeks ago in Barcelona, where the Mercedes AMG Petronas teammates crashed into each other on the opening lap, then Max Verstappen took his maiden Grand Prix victory, provided no shortage of story lines.

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Let’s talk the Max factor, first. Johansson was quick to praise Verstappen’s racecraft, but also made the note that the nature of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya can lend itself to surprise race scenarios.

“I think he did a phenomenal job and no doubt, he’s the future of Formula One. But Barcelona is also a track which maybe more than any other track on the calendar lends itself to a scenario like this,” Johansson writes. “Don’t forget, Pastor Maldonado won a race there too under very similar circumstances, when Alonso was chasing him the entire race but could not find a way past.

“The speed difference between the Ferraris and the Red Bulls wasn’t large enough to make passing realistic. As long as Verstappen didn’t make a mistake – and full credit to him for being mistake-free – all he had to do was drive his own race. He didn’t have to fight for the win the way he might have had to at another track. Still, he did a sensational job.”

Johansson added a line that Verstappen’s now former teammate at Scuderia Toro Rosso, Carlos Sainz Jr., got almost no love in the immediate aftermath despite a career day of his own with a sixth place finish.

“On the other hand, Carlos Sainz has gotten almost zero credit and he also did a sensational job. He finished 6th in a car that’s clearly not anywhere near as competitive as the Red Bull. But that’s F1. The media build guys like Verstappen way up. Then if they fail, they bury them just as fast.”

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How Verstappen got in the win situation to begin with came courtesy of the controversial first lap contretemps between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, the Mercedes teammates.

So what did Johansson think of the proceedings?

“I really think it was just a racing incident,” he writes. “A combination of things came together in a fraction of a second, literally. I don’t think there was any intent from either driver to do anything particularly sinister. It was a chain reaction triggered by Rosberg’s lack of power.

“My argument has always been that you race fairly and you should leave at least a car width if someone gets a good run on you. But that’s not the ethic these days. So the nature of racing now means that this can happen. You act on instinct with these rules in place and in this case, I don’t think you can blame one or the other. It was a racing incident.”

Proof, then, that not every incident needs a single person or driver to take the full blame.

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Beyond Red Bull and Mercedes, there is Ferrari, a team near and dear to Johansson’s heart considering he used to race for the Scuderia.

But with results not coming at all – the team won three Grands Prix last year but has got off to a less than perfect start to 2016 – the question is when will Ferrari win again?

Johansson makes the point that good relationships need time to blossom, build, gel and take time.

“When Ferrari was winning everything (1999-2004) they had a dream team that will probably never exist again in Formula One. Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Michael Schumacher – these are some of the best guys ever in F1 and they all made a pact to stick together and drive Ferrari forward through thick and thin. That’s what made them successful,” he writes.

Can Ferrari turn it around? We’ll see starting this weekend in Monaco.

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There are several more great nuggets within Johansson’s latest blog, which you can view in its entirety here.

Previous linkouts to Johansson’s blog on MotorSportsTalk are linked below:

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Additionally, a link to Johansson’s social media channels and #F1TOP3 competition are linked here.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

Stefan Johansson’s latest blog: What’s next for Max, Mercedes, Ferrari?

Hunter Lawrence defends Haiden Deegan after controversial block pass at Detroit

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