Autosport – 18 April 2019

Kevin Turner

Editor

[email protected]

COVER IMAGES

Motorsport Images/Sutton

PIT & PADDOCK

4 Vettel blames media for team order woes

6 Ford eyes hypercar WEC future

8 Tanak takes stake in rally team

10 F1 technical focus

11 Opinion: Edd Straw

14 Opinion: Jack Benyon

15 Feedback: your letters

RACE CENTRE

16 Chinese GP report and analysis

30 Formula E: Jaguar wins in Rome

36 Rossi dominates Long Beach IndyCar

40 World of Sport: MotoGP; Blancpain

Endurance; Formula Renault Eurocup;

Super GT; IMSA; Australian Supercars;

NASCAR Cup; European Le Mans Series;

Formula Regional European

CLUB AUTOSPORT

48 British GT preview: the closest fight yet?

52 BRDC F3 preview: F4 stars rise together

66 Carroll and Howson to GT Cup

68 Team Hard pulls out of VW Cup

71 Opinion: Marcus Pye

72 National reports: Donington Park;

Croft ; Brands Hatch; Mondello Park;

Silverstone; Oulton Park

FINISHING STRAIGHT

78 What’s on this week

80 From the archive: 1931 German GP

82 Pit your wits against our quiz

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NEXT WEEK

25 APRIL

AYRTON SENNA SPECIAL

We look at the Brazilian’s

legacy and best races,

25 years on

18 APRIL 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 3

The 1000th world championship race wasn’t the best event,

but the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend did at least tell us

a few things about how the 2019 season is likely to develop.

First, and most importantly, Ferrari is still struggling to get the

best out of its SF90. Events at Shanghai suggest that Ferrari’s

underwhelming performance in the Australian GP season opener

wasn’t just an anomaly. It would seem that it is now Ferrari that has

a ‘diva’ on its hands, so it will need to work out its idiosyncrasies

quickly, just as Mercedes did with its diffi cult W08 in 2017.

It also looks as though Valtteri Bottas will be a factor in the

championship battle, but Lewis Hamilton once again underlined

that he is favourite. On a weekend when he struggled to fi nd a

balance with the Mercedes and was beaten to pole by Bottas, he

grabbed the lead at the start and never looked like losing. And

remember, Bottas started 2017 and 2018 in good form, only to fall

away in the later stages of the season as Hamilton stepped up a gear.

Red Bull-Honda demonstrated its strategic savvy and Max

Verstappen was again impressive on his way to fourth. He

will surely be waiting for Monaco to see if he can do what

Daniel Ricciardo managed last year and win around the

streets despite a power disadvantage.

Before that, though, are the Azerbaijan and Spanish GPs.

Ferrari appears to have a power advantage, which should put

it in the mix in Baku, and Barcelona is the venue at which it

impressed in pre-season testing. If it doesn’t win one of those

races, then Hamilton’s sixth world title will start edging closer.

Advantage Hamilton

as Ferrari discovers

its own diva?

ETHERINGTON