Mercedes have won 33 of 39 races since the start of Formula One's hybrid V6 engine era in 2014, so it is difficult to find many faults with the team. If you wanted to point one out, though, it would almost certainly be their starts—especially since about the midway point of the 2015 season. Either Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg have qualified on pole for 37 of those 39 grands prix, but several times at least one of them has suffered a poor start: both drivers last year at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Hungaroring in Hungary, Rosberg at Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps and Suzuka in Japan, Hamilton at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, Italy's Monza and at the first race this year at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia....

"Around £250,000" was the price Jolyon Palmer paid for each of his 13 free-practice appearances over the course of the 2015 Formula One season, according to the Telegraph's Daniel Johnson.  When the British driver was announced as one of Renault's race drivers for 2016 last October, that £3.25 million—in addition to any extra funds he provided to initially join the team, then under the name of Lotus, as a reserve driver and then to secure his promotion to a full-time seat—seemed like money well spent. But come the end of pre-season testing, when Palmer's preparations for his first year as a grand prix driver were frequently interrupted by technical issues, all those FP1 appearances—the experience of d...

"Around £250,000" was the price Jolyon Palmer paid for each of his 13 free-practice appearances over the course of the 2015 Formula One season, according to the Telegraph's Daniel Johnson.  When the British driver was announced as one of Renault's race drivers for 2016 last October, that £3.25 million—in addition to any extra funds he provided to initially join the team, then under the name of Lotus, as a reserve driver and then to secure his promotion to a full-time seat—seemed like money well spent. But come the end of pre-season testing, when Palmer's preparations for his first year as a grand prix driver were frequently interrupted by technical issues, all those FP1 appearances—the experience of d...

NASCAR fined Danica Patrick $20,000 on Thursday after "she walked toward the racing surface to gesture at Kasey Kahne's passing car" following a crash at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.   According to NASCAR's official release, Patrick violated on-track incident procedures and is now on probation for the next four events.  "Patrick emerged from the car and walked toward the waiting ambulance for the mandatory ride to the infield care center, but—though she stayed below the uppermost white stripe delineating the racing surface from the track apron—her path deviated and included an agitated gesture in Kahne's direction," NASCAR.com explained.  Kahne—who was not disciplined—has ...

This should be a happy time in the world of Formula One. The new season just began with an exciting, unpredictable race, and Ferrari appear ready to challenge Mercedes' two-year hegemony. Instead—as is often the case—F1 finds itself mired in controversy. And most of it—as is often the case—is (or was) completely avoidable. First, there was the qualifying debacle in Australia, which could have been averted with a little planning and forethought. Next, the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) issued an open letter blasting the rule-making process and calling for a change to F1's governance structure. Finally, Sky Sports announced that, starting in 2019, no F1 races (except for the British Grand Prix) will be ava...

Nico Rosberg got off to a flying start in his quest for a first world championship with victory at the 2016 Formula One Australian Grand Prix. The German failed to impress over a single lap, but he made the most of the circumstances and a smart strategy to take the chequered flag ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull and Williams man Felipe Massa also opened their accounts for the year, coming home in fourth and fifth, respectively. But while their positions might have been predicted before the start, few would have expected Romain Grosjean to roll home sixth in his Haas. The American team's dream start to life in F1 owed much to a huge accident involving Fernando Alonso and Esteban G...

Jock Clear only started work with Ferrari at the beginning of the year, but the highly experienced engineer has already seen enough to understand why Sebastian Vettel is among the most successful drivers in modern-day Formula One. Vettel's third-place finish at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix means he has claimed 14 podiums in his first 20 races as a Ferrari driver, but Clear has claimed the key to the German's success is not only his on-track performances but also his outstanding communication and motivational skills. An ability to extract the most out of the team around him played an instrumental role in Vettel's four consecutive title triumphs with Red Bull Racing, but his former employers have been unable to hit those heights s...

The first five races of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season are in the books. Six-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, whose No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, featuring a Superman paint scheme last Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, is the only driver with multiple wins. Johnson also passed Hall of Famer and seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt in career wins with his 77th of all time in the Auto Club 400, which Fox Sports television analyst Darrell Waltrip recently attempted to put into perspective. "He hasn't been in the sport all that long, so the amount of time it took him to break Dale Earnhardt's record is remarkable," Waltrip told Fox Sports of Johnson, who took 512 races to score career win No. 77 (Earnhardt earned his 76 over 676 s...

Lewis Hamilton's defence of his Formula One drivers' championship crown didn't get off to the best of starts at the 2016 Australian Grand Prix. Despite a dominant pole the day before, a poor getaway off the line and contact at Turn 1 with team-mate Nico Rosberg left the Brit down in sixth at the end of the first lap. The red flag and a smart strategy call from Mercedes helped him back to second, and for once Hamilton seemed happy to be runner-up. He was smiling as he jumped out of his car in parc ferme, said on the podium that he was "really happy to get the result" and even found time to have a "No. 2 cap" joke with Sebastian Vettel. And this time, Hamilton had good reason to be happy because the outcome for him could have been far worse. ...

Formula One's restrictions on team radio have been increased in the 2016 season, but ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, FIA race director Charlie Whiting reassured the sport's followers that "the juicy content" will still be aired. As Whiting told the official F1 website, that content includes everything "people like to hear"—drivers calling one another "an idiot and all that sort of stuff."  Yet the comments emerging from Max Verstappen's car in the the opening race of the season were far juicier than even Whiting could have envisaged. The teenager had been on course to equal his best-ever finish at Albert Park until a number of questionable decisions by Scuderia Toro Rosso ultimately saw him finish 10th, with Verstappen r...