Ferrari's fast F1 start reduced to late-season flop - MotorSportsTalk

MEXICO CITY (AP) Ferrari began the Formula One season with a furious start. A decade removed from its last season championship, the chase with Mercedes was finally on and Sebastian Vettel was taking the fight to Lewis Hamilton.

Then came a crash in Singapore. A spark plug problem in Japan.

By the final laps of Hamilton’s victory at the U.S. Grand Prix last weekend, Vettel was just a red blur in the Mercedes rear view mirror. Again.

And by finishing second in a race it had to win, Ferrari’s season-opening roar has been reduced to a shrug and pouted lips, all but crushed by Hamilton’s second-half surge of checkered flags.

“There was no real secret other than they were quicker than us,” Vettel said. “Whoever is faster usually has a good chance of winning … We tried to fight. At least that was better than other races when we didn’t have a chance.”

Mathematically, Vettel could still win the title for the Italian team if Hamilton has a three-race collapse of epic proportions, starting this weekend at the Mexican Grand Prix. But Hamilton has scored points in every race this season and hasn’t missed a podium since the race in Hungary back on July 30.

If Hamilton finishes fifth or higher in Mexico City, he will claim his 10th win of the season, his third season championship in four years and his fourth overall, matching the four Vettel won with Red Bull from 2010-2013.

Despite Ferrari’s status as Formula One’s richest and most popular team, it hasn’t won a driver’s championship since Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 or a constructor’s title since 2008. This season’s constructor’s title has already gone to Mercedes, clinched last weekend in Texas despite Vettel and Raikkonen finishing 2-3.

AUSTIN, TX – OCTOBER 22: Top three finishers Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Mercedes GP, Sebastian Vettel of Germany and Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen of Finland and Ferrari and James Allison, Technical Director at Mercedes GP celebrate on the podium during the United States Formula One Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on October 22, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has tried to keep a fighter’s attitude.

“We will continue to fight to the very last corner of the final race,” he said.

This season’s disappointment might hurt more than some previous failures. No one was close to Ferrari in the first two seasons after the hybrid engine change. And this wasn’t the flop of 2016 when Ferrari didn’t win a race after seeing big gains the previous year. This was grabbing the lead by the throat and letting it go.

With a surge in power and technical rules changes the cars, Ferrari began this year believing it had the muscle to trade blows with Mercedes. Vettel landed wins in Australia and Bahrain in the first three races. The high point came on the French Riviera when Vettel captured the jewel of the season by winning the Monaco Grand Prix.

The cracks began in June when Vettel rammed into the back of Hamilton while under a safety during the race in Azerbaijan. The Ferrari then pulled alongside and bumped Hamilton again. The move destroyed any friendly veneer on a rivalry that quickly heated up in Mercedes’ favor.

Vettel’s last win came in Hungary. Hamilton took the season lead for the championship two races later in Italy and then came the Asian collapse that has come to define Ferrari’s season.

In Singapore, Vettel was in pole position and Hamilton started in fifth simply hoping to limit the damage in a race Ferrari was primed to win.

Instead, Vettel undid himself. In a bizarre starting bolt across the track to block Red Bull’s Max Verstappen into the first turn, Vettel instead caused a crash that took out himself, Verstappen and Raikkonen. Hamilton zipped through, won the race and has held the lead in the title chase ever since.

Engine problems had Vettel starting near the back in Malaysia. A brilliant drive to fourth still left him losing more points to winner Hamilton. The crusher came in Japan, when Vettel’s race ended on the first lap because of the spark plug.

AUSTIN, TX – OCTOBER 22: Sergio Marchionne, CEO of FIAT and Chairman of Ferrari talks to the media in the Paddock before the United States Formula One Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on October 22, 2017 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

“The things that have happened in the last three Asia races have really been a collection of the most unfortunate events,” Ferrari President Sergio Marchionne said.

Marchionne said he doesn’t expect team overhaul ahead of 2018.

“We need to win, that’s the most important thing. I don’t think it’s attributable to a single guy,” Marchionne said.

Vettel trails Hamilton by 66 points heading into Mexico and he knows his rival is poised for another title. Vettel seemed resigned to that likelihood in Texas. He briefly held the lead out of the start, but quickly surrendered it when Hamilton made an easy pass on lap six. Instead of blocking Hamilton to at least take the fight to him, he let him go.

“I was a little surprised Sebastian didn’t defend more,” Hamilton said. “I would have.”

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(Editor’s note: This story on the Heart of Racing sports cars shootout for women is one in an occasional Motorsports Talk series focusing on women in racing during March, which is Women’s History Month.)

Heart of Racing driver and team manager Ian James says his daughter, Gabby, isn’t so interested in auto racing. But she is interested (as a New York-based journalist) in writing about the sport’s efforts and growth in gender equality

It’s a topic that also was brought up by James’ wife, Kim.

“They’re always saying, ‘Hey, you manage all these guys, and you help them, so why not a woman?’ ” Ian James told NBC Sports. “And I feel like there are a lot of women that haven’t had a fair crack at it in sports car racing.

“Our whole DNA at Heart of Racing is we give people opportunities in all types of situations where there’s been crew, personnel or drivers. And I felt like we hadn’t really addressed the female driver situation. I felt like there was a void to give somebody a chance to really prove themselves.”

During the offseason, the team took a major step toward remedying that.

*Hannah Grisham at the Heart of Racing shootout (Mike Levitt/LAT)*

Heart of Racing held its first female driver shootout last November at the APEX Motor Club in Phoenix, Arizona, to select two women who will co-drive an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the SRO SprintX Championship.

The season will begin this weekend at Sonoma Raceway with Hannah Grisham and Rianna O’Meara-Hunt behind the wheel. The team also picked a third driver, 17-year-old Annie Rhule, for a 2023 testing program.

The Phoenix audition included 10 finalists who were selected from 130 applicants to the program, which has been fully underwritten by Heart of Racing’s sponsors.

“We didn’t want it to be someone who just comes from a socio-economic background that could afford to do it on their own course,” James said. “We can pick on pure talent. We’re committed to three years to do this and see if we can find the right person. I’m very hopeful.”

So is Grisham, a Southern California native who has been racing since she was 6 in go-karts and since has won championships in Mazda and Miata ladder series. She has several victories in the World Racing League GP2 (an amateur sports car endurance series). The last two years, Grisham has worked as a test driver for the Pirelli tire company (she lives near Pirelli’s U.S. headquarters in Rome, Georgia, and tests about 30 times a year).

Starting with Sonoma during SprintX event weekends (which feature races Saturday and Sunday), she will split the Heart of Racing car with O’Meara-Hunt (a New Zealand native she got to know at the shootout).

“It’s huge; the biggest opportunity I’ve had in this sport,” Grisham, 23, told NBC Sports. “Now it’s up to me to perform how I know I can. But I’m super lucky to be with such an amazing team and have a good teammate. The Heart of Racing has a family vibe and energy to it that’s really amazing. It’s super exciting. It’s hard to put into words.”

Grisham is hopeful that a strong performance eventually could lead to a full-time ride with Heart of Racing. The team has full-time entries in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and won the GTD category of the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona with the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 piloted by James, Darren Turner, Roman DeAngelis and Marco Sorensen.

James said “there’s no guarantee” of placement in an IMSA entry for Grisham and O’Meara-Hunt, but “if they prove themselves, we’ll continue to help them throughout their career and our team. The GT3 program is an obvious home for that. If they get the opportunity and don’t quite make it, we’ll be looking for the next two. The next three years, we’ll cycle through drivers until we find the right one.”

Grisham described the two-day shootout as a friendly but intense environment. After a day of getting acclimated to their cars, drivers qualified on new tires the second day and then did two 25-minute stints to simulate a race.

*Hannah Grisham reviews data with Heart of Racing sports car driver Gray Newell during the team’s shootout last November (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

“Everyone was super nice,” she said. “Once everyone gets in the car, it’s a different level. A different switch gets turned on. Everyone was super nice; everyone was quick. I feel we had an adequate amount of seat time, which is definitely helpful.

“It’s always cool to meet more women in the sport because there’s not too many of us, even though there’s more and more. It’s always cool to meet really talented women, especially there were so many from all over the world.”

IMSA has celebrated female champions and race winners, notably Katherine Legge (who is running GTD full time this season with Sheena Monk for Gradient Racing). The field at Sebring and Daytona also included the Iron Dames Lamborghini (a female-dominated team).

*The Heart of Racing’s female driver shootout drew interested candidates from around the world (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

James believes “a breakout female driver will be competing with the best of them” in the next five years as gender barriers slowly recede in motorsports.

“It’s been a male-dominated sport,” James said. “It’s still a very minute number of women drivers compared to the guys. I’m sure back in the day there were physical hurdles about it that were judged. But now the cars are not very physical to drive, and it’s more about technique and mental strength and stuff like that, and there’s no reason a girl shouldn’t do just as well as a guy. What we’re just trying to achieve is that there isn’t an obvious barrier to saying ‘Hey, I can’t hire a guy or a girl.’ We just want to put girls in front of people and our own program that are legitimate choices going forward for people.”

“There’s been some really good female drivers, but a lot of them just haven’t been able to sustain it, and a lot of that comes from sponsorship. I think (with the shootout), there’s no pressure of raising money and worrying about crash damage. We’ve taken care of all that so they can really focus on the job at hand.”

Funding always has been a hurdle for Grisham, who caught the racing bug from her father, Tom, an off-road driver who raced the Baja 1000 several times.

“I don’t come from a lot of money by any means,” she said. “So since a young age, I’ve always had to find sponsorships and get people to help me, whether it was buying tires, paying for entry fees, paying for the shipment of a car to an actual race. Literally knocking on the doors of people or businesses in my town.

“So yeah, it’s definitely something I’ve always struggled with and held me back because the sport revolves so much around money. So again to get this opportunity is insane.”

*Rianna O’Meara-Hunt was one of two women selected by the Heart of Racing to drive in the SRO SprintX Championship this year (Mike Levitt/LAT).*

Grisham credits racing pioneer Lyn St. James (an Indy 500 veteran and sports car champion) as a role model who has helped propel her career. She initially was hooked by the sights, smells and sounds of racing — but also its competitive fire.

“There’s a zone you get in, that subconscious state of mind when you’re driving,” Grisham said. “It’s like addictive almost. I love it. Also I’m just a very competitive person as I think most race car drivers are.

“For sure I want to stay with the Heart of Racing. Obviously, I’m still getting to know everyone, but it’s a super family vibe. That’s how I grew up in the sport with just my dad and I wrenching on the cars. That’s what I love about this sport is all the amazing people you meet. And I think this is one of the most promising teams in this country. For sure, I want to learn as much as I can from them and hopefully continue. I feel so lucky and grateful to be one of those chosen.”

Ferrari’s fast F1 start reduced to late-season flop

Heart of Racing program aims to elevate new generation of women to star in sports cars