Lewis Hamilton dominated the inaugural Russian Grand Prix at Sochi after Nico Rosberg blew his chances on the first lap. The German fought back to second place, showing just how strong the Mercedes is at the moment. The victory gave Mercedes its first Constructors’ Championship in Formula 1. It was a slightly unsettling event with Jules Bianchi’s accident in Japan hanging over the paddock and something of a pantomime on Sunday involving kings, presidents and dancing Cossacks, everything taking place in a theme park that used to be an Olympic facility.
In GP+ this week…
– We analyse Bianchi’s accident in Japan
– We look at the idea of canopies for F1 cars
– We remember previous attempts to host a Russian GP
– We remember Andrea de Cesaris
– Our columnists look at the hysteria post-Suzuka
– The Hack writes of Ronnie Peterson
– Peter Nygaard captures the new circuit in Sochi
GP+ is an electronic magazine. It is published in PDF format so you can download it and keep it forever. It is a magazine that gets right to the heart of the F1 business, telling it as we see it and not pulling punches. It is also the fastest magazine in the sport, a 90-page publication arriving just a few hours after the race. We’re not pretending to be there in the F1 Paddock. We are there at every race and we get to the people that matter. We are also passionate about the history of the sport and love to share it with our readers.
GP+ is also an amazing bargain. You get 22 issues for £29.99, covering the entire 2014 Formula 1 season.
For more information, go to http://www.grandprixplus.com.
joeblogsf1 
Sounds like an interesting issue.
I’d certainly buy this issue as a trial to see if I want to get the annual subscription (next year), but, at this point in the year, I’m not going to buy the whole year.
Why no individual issue pricing?
because of the administration involved
because nobody has written a decent simple enough sales program, I’d say.
okay, even simple is a bother. But i like to think the analogy is you know you want a nice wheel and all you have is a block of wood and a chisel. The idea is perfection. Knowing what Pi is, is the insight. Not every objective has such a elegant goal solution, but you must seek as elegant a goal solution against which to test. Thinking what pressure to apply to each blow, is how one atomizes the system in production, for how deep you cut redefines the radius, and so on…
Joe, I’d write you one, if I got my company a “fulfillment” credit on the invoice. When I do even simple things, the documentation is good enough I get indemnity insurance for any consequential loss. (and I know what is a “good” policy, also; these have to be negotiated clause by clause) Not only the documentation, but testing gets you the coverage. And the testing has to be documented, too. I think there’s a malaise with open source culture, and this also stems from the philosophy of chaining tools, that ambition exceeds ability “because i can just use X,Y, or Z”… probably just found by a search on github or sourceforge. (Although “UNIX philosophy” of chaining simple tools with text input and output is essentially good, systems comprised of complex subsystems present a very leaky potential.) This leads to indemnity chaining, or at least that’s my explanation for passing the buck, and a singular but powerful reason to control and simplify. (The open source philosophy is that of many eyes will spot the vulnerabilities, but that has lead to sclerotic hierarchies of a different kind.) Anyhow, I’d be very happy to, just on that basis. I know you could cobble something together really quickly, but I think anything that handles money is best done in more of a plod. Which makes that too expensive for most. Which is why I’d do that with a different logic. When you write “general purpose” software, oh, anyone will say that “write once, run anywhere” is yet another fallacy, so bespoke has the real advantage of not needing disclaimers. Not in the same way. It’s closer to why people pay ten times the price for a “workstation” rather than a computer of possibly faster speed, or buy a nVidia Quadro rather than a GeForce, when the far cheaper gamer part may run so much faster even. Testing matters, as does the guarantee, and third party guarantees are invaluable in software. I’d do this one just to keep my contacts oiled, since too much work lately is rather less formal.
Joe,
How do you guys strike on a headline so quickly? And was the Stars and Stripes flying at Sochi?
Many thanks.
Michael
Yes, the flag was flying
Joe, love the mag and your blog. have noticed the quality of the photos not quite so high res in the last few magazines. i understand you need to keep the file size to reasonable limits but do you think there could also be an option for a high res version of the GP+ so we can really enjoy all the beautiful Peter Nygaard pics.
thanks
We have been having a problem with software. We are looking at solutions
“…one could not help but wonder whether the sport was perhaps being used to try to make Putin look good…” Well I’ve never wondered. Best wishes to all the well intentioned Russian fans, officials and marshals but this was always a political exercise by Putin. What the hell was he doing in the ‘cool down’ room… apart from being seen on telly and looking bored?
Never could have been Tractors Hail New Model Russia, could it?
(sorry, i spent rather too long reading about tractors and the NEP, once..)
couldn’t be there, despite had well set plans until a few months ago. It was a strange race, but it looked very good on TV. I enjoyed the smooth tarmac.
(I wasn’t going to blank viewing in some protest, I wanted to see, best i am able. I am however stepping back for a bit, for lots of reasons. I think i really did enjoy watching today, so that’s good, I hope. I’m off commenting more because the whole scene got fuggy foggy and too much. There’s only one important wish I have right now. Let all be well.)
At the time of writing, the events of Sunday had not sunk into my confused and worried mind. I apologize unreservedly for any offense I may have caused, by what was in retrospect a ill thought through comment.
Nice looking cover!
Great to see you making an appearance on Sky UK this weekend Joe. An honest opinion of ADC there.
Also good to see you shamelessly advertising GP+ via the hat.
Ah which bit of coverage was this on? I missed it 😦
From memory I think it was in the warmup to qualifying, they were talking about ADC and asked Joe for his thoughts. Bit of an over the shoulder interview if you know what I mean!
Thought for the day on line-ups for 2015:
McLaren – Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean (courtesy of his old boss/manager Eric Boullier)
Lotus – Kevin Magnussen and Pastor Maldonado (if they need his money) or Charles Pic.
First time to my knowledge of grid personell and drivers being formed up to listen to Russian national anthem before the race, doesn’t happen anywhere else does it? And interesting tv image of Putin & Co lined up like the politburo watching the race. Great race, demanding circuit, well done Russia!
Weren’t they formed up for a moment of silence for Jules Bianchi? Seems to be what Bianchi father has said.
I believe they were formed up for the National Anthem and was told that the same will now happen at every race. We will have to see if this really happens or whether it was just for Russia.
Great issue again Joe, with another great helping of common sense.
I realize that news travels slowly to deepest Sussex, but someone should tell The Hack that drivers now start the race on the tyres they used in Q2…..but that small quibble aside I really enjoy Mike’s stories of the way it was.
With so much mediocrity around GP + stands pretty much alone as the voice of the true racers amongst the accredited media. More power to you!
Dear HR. How kind of you to draw gentle attention to my unforgiveable ignorance of the current regs. Normally I am able to count on the skills of GP+’s mighty sub-editing department (that would be Mr Tremayne) to winkle out such slips.
Alas, while he managed to catch several other foolish mistakes that I had made in the original text of my latest column, Mr T did not spot this one. That’s not surprising when you think how tired and jet-lagged he must have been by the time he struggled into Sochi.
In future I shall either have to try harder or concentrate on raking my memory for yarns about the good old days when the rules were written on the back of a fag packet.
For younger readers and the guardians of Politically Correct cyberspace , I hasten to explain that ‘fag’ is a slang word for an old-fashioned nicotine-delivery device called a cigarette, not an insulting term for gentlemen who are light on their feet.
Frankly Mike, apart from the frequent deaths, The Good Old Days really were that imho….what I see and hear today, is almost satire at times. A prime example is all the rubbish spouted everywhere about poor Jules Bianchi’s crash and how it could have been stopped. Not much sense these days, just an unreal attitude to life and safety.
Mike, I should greatly like it if you would, please, rake your memory, for more of your yarns. GP+ has, dint my being usefully busy again, become a planned big catch up read, for my off – season. (I can sit then whole days, phone off, luxuriating, and re-evaluating so much) I don’t read it for news, or to be contemporary. (Actually, I hold back my subscription later each year, because I have a funny thing about not wanting to be influenced so directly by Joe, as I already am! I worry over a subconscious link that’d bias my comments here, which is always meant as my humble tribute to a great job by you all.) I confess, when my endorphin receptors are thus saturated, by confrontation with many unread issues, I start skipping to your articles, to load up! BTW, is GP+ going to go many more years being the biggest non secret in racing writing, that still isn’t getting sales much wanted by fans, as above? You guys occupy a portion of my brain which i swear has developed a new ganglion dedicated to figuring out how to bust you a explosion of circulation 🙂 very best from me ~ j
Hi Joe – as an GP+ subscriber I understand the need for special content (which is of course what we pay for!) but I think it would be great if you could publicly publish your ‘On the Grid’ article from this month.
I know you have touched on this in the blog already, but it is a fantastic piece that if nothing else, I would like to direct my virtual friends to when they parade themselves as ‘Wikipedia Professors’! In all seriousness though, it absolutely hits the nail on the head, and I think more people need to see it.
Keep up the good work (DT and PN too), professional and knowledgeable publications are very much appreciated.
I agree, with the importance of putting important writing into the public sphere, freely.
I argue constantly that this is, in general, a beneficial aspect of marketing GP+ sales, but when there is a situation, as we have today, where coverage is dominated by the lowest of the low, in terms of circulation, I am without any doubt whatsoever, that the action Martin proposes, is the right act, in every way.
I was about to comment that it will be a travesty if JT does get to be UN road safety ambassador, considering his methods in constructing the opportunity.
However then I thought about the methods used by prominent F1 figures and decided that maybe F1 is just a lost cause in terms of morality.
Yet in the opposite direction there is an appropriate amount of hand wringing and soul searching about track safety after Japan. I can recall a time in my youth, when the race would have continued and cars threaded their way through burning wreckage on each lap, there was no possibility of stopping until the end of the race. So some values have changed for the better while on other levels they have deteriorated.
If one were to FMEA each corner of he Japan race, the probability of a double or sequential accident at that particular corner would be quite high, if it rains again next year and stupidity again sets the start time to coincide with the known approaching weather front, then the likelihood of a double off at the same point will be just as high.
At any venue, any “static track contact lessening factor*” ie water, coolant, oil on the track, is likely to lead to multiple “offs” which will very likely go in the same direction thus possibly re-create a car/removal vehicle collision opportunity. So I think I am tying to say this was not a freak accident, the circumstances could occur in any race.
[*Tyres are considered to be in static contact with the track unless skidding or sliding, think of a tank or other caterpillar tracked vehicle)
After Joe’s previous post I looked in vain each time the camera swooped past the flags of all(?) nations, but could never see a USA flag, maybe it was further round.
Putin was much in evidence and apparently did not mind Lewis ignoring him until the last minute in the prep room.
I also was puzzled by Hamilton ignoring Putin.
Me too – can confirm that the flag was firmly on top, as was the Union Jack. So thumbs up in that respect.
I thought i glimpsed it…
i reckon the camera angle had it just so it was there..
but, seriously, it’s not like photographing the flags was anyone’s priority…
hmm, Ham “meeting” Putin, lol, I think that must have just been very surreal, coming all tired out of the car!
Boring race,made more boring by constant interruptions during the race, to show Bernie and Putin pressing the flesh. I’ve been a fan of Nico Rosberg since he entered F1, but it appears to me that the fallout from the way Mercedes handled the early season incident with Hamilton, and he’s now making silly mistakes. it’s now just a cake walk to the championship for Hamilton in the best car,which is a shame and will devalue his second title. What a season it could have been with the likes of Richardo, Bottas, or Alonso to name but a few, in the other Mercedes.
On a different subject. It would seem that Buttons time at McLaren is probably over, and I would not be surprised if he announced his retirement soon, judging by his demeanor over the weekend. I think that maybe the death of his dad this year, and the events of last week, have caused him to question his future. I think Williams made a big mistake in re-signing Massa who is clearly at the end of his career, and Button would have been the perfect fit alongside Bottas.I hope I’m wrong, because he would be a huge loss to F1, not just as a driver but as a thoroughly nice bloke, and a great ambassador for the sport.
I hope Jensen is back on the grid next year – it would take a lot of the interest out of F1 for me if he wasn’t
Sorry Jenson.
I am happy to disagree with you on a few points:
The race was not boring, it evoked memories of the days of a single tyre for the whole race. Back then stopping for new tyres would almost certainly cost the race. The driver most skilled at conserving the tyres whilst remaining at or re-gaining the front at the end was usually the winner. Those who dashed off into the distance usually fell off the black bit later on, as their tyres went to jelly or the canvas appeared. Then we had proper gravel traps and once off, you stayed off. This skill made the greats.
Jens may just hang on, he is now driving properly and the car is much better. His father’s death obviously affected his driving to a greater degree than he expected. I think he was suffering from depression for many weeks by his demeanour in interviews, but recent performance has upped his value to the team, lets not forget his is a known established Honda driver.
No, I think it is Alonso who will retire. (You heard it here first, just my gut feeling)
Massa I agree is not a shining light in the Williams and has been thoroughly trounced by Bottas. Maybe we can have a Massa interview by his mate DT sometime soon, to see what his side of the story is.
Nice one, rpaco. I loved the tire compound, this weekend.
Sorry for missing test. It should read ‘but it appears to me that the fallout from the way Mercedes handled the early season incident with Hamilton,has destroyed Nico’s confidence, and he’s now making silly mistakes’.
Off topic, Joe, for your info, check this link from Spanish media, you can see video of Jean Todd avoiding shacking hands with Alonso, mistake or something to worry about?
http://www.elconfidencial.com/deportes/formula-1/2014-10-12/alonso-terminara-la-temporada-en-ferrari-sin-expectativas-y-en-tierra-de-nadie_236704/
Soooorryyyy, after checking in other forums seems that Alonso and Todd were talking for quite a long time before the handshaking so that’s why they didn’t shake hands again… conspiranoics everywhere 😀
an outstretched hand is an outstretched hand…
Todt due diligence, then on to the next..total blindness.
Who wants to see Fernando, wherever he ends up, battling with Lewis for a drivers championship?
Lauda did it in a Mclaren..
perhaps todt caught a glimpse of the media brawl in the background?
That’ll be the ‘hysteria’ of anyone who suggests it wasn’t a good idea to have a tractor in the run-off area of a 140mph corner in increasingly heavy rain when most of the field were on worn inters then. I’m happy to
be in the hysterics camp. As is Alain Prost it seems.
You are.
It shouldn’t have been a 140mph corner with double waved yellows. Slow down, be prepared to stop.
What did Bianchi see and what was he told? Do we know all this yet? Maybe we’ll never know. But yeah, of course he should have slowed down. The problem is he didn’t and hit a tractor at 100mph. But of course there are no flaws in the decision making process (or indeed the procedures) that led to that set of circumstances occuring. Shit happens. Nothing to see here. Move on to the next race.
If you have better solutions to the questions of safety then send them in to the FIA. You will be hard-pressed to find any serious reporter in f1 who think that the safety was not as good as it could have been. There is a balance that must be struck between safety and stopping people complaining because the rte are too many safety cars. How many times do you read people complaining about safety cars being used too much? All the time.
Correct, it’s all about judgment calls. In this instant the judgment was incorrect but no one is talking about that. The first thing I said when I saw the position that Sutil’s car was in, and that a tractor was attending it, was ‘safety car’. I know my opinion counts for nothing as I don’t have a paddock pass but other more credible voices have been saying similar things (Prost, and Berger for two). As you know Joe, a driver was almost decapitated 20 years ago in a similar incident in almost exactly the same spot. Other drivers, not just Bianchi didn’t slow down enough according to Charlie, so they could have experienced a similar fate. I do have a better solution. If a car needs removing with a tractor on the outside of a quick corner with limited run-off, get the safety car out. Pretty simple really. And yes, I will make that suggestion to the FIA. This idea that there is no debate to be had and that Bianchi is mostly to blame for his predicament are assertions I simply find odd.
In your opinion. I think the calls made were fine.
Fair enough. I think it’s best to say we simply strongly disagree. Let’s see what the FIA and the experts come up with.
Very enjoyable read as usual. One question though, was the quality of the graphics a bit low this issue (that is, not the content, but rather then encoding). The pictures seemed a bit blurred with the characteristics of looking like too much compression.
Good to get more background on de Cesaris – I started watching F1 when he was driving and regularly referred to by Murray as de Crasheris, so nice to read a more rounded view of the man, although the circumstances of it are very sad.
Yes I agree. We are looking into that
Your photos are still all clearly captioned by Peter, but only in the metadata, not with a readable/print caption. They can be read only in a professional PDF editor.
So much of these little things could be covered by hiring a smart intern. Why not? Some parents pay handsomely to get their kids a internship that has a real value. (Others are crazy, my buddy’s daughter was paid $7K/pcm during her internship… yes it shocked me… a blink before I remember sat in seance helping her Stanford application…) But you have a very real opportunity for someone, and I think a very real need to get some admin burden off your shoulders.
GP+ should be mega. I have paid my sub every year since I found it, but there’s a element of protest, ever so slightly, in how tardy I am to pay my dues. Because you leave so much business on the table. And so much benefit to yourself, and that means I think proportionately the more for all you work with, which would lead into real positive feedback, that I want very much, and would grow a entire new level of production. I don’t need the job, but I feel I am challenging you, because it is a small sacrifice (challenges are not for pocket or living money, in my world) to raise the game in what you care for. Between you & I, and anyone who follows my comments in minutiae (it is at least a integer number!), I have been reconstructing myself over a few years, backdrop some quite unusual setbacks.. but there was a time, before, when I burned out precisely because I could get nothing to run at the pace of what I could observe needed to be changed, and as a result of that impedance mismatch, I was labeled a Cassandra. I have no such predictions of woe, but being stuck, at any level, is a woe, and I think my personal crisis left me stuck at a level far higher than what was around me, leaving me no orientation to get back. I see a real parallel, in that, here. I think the magazine is straining at the anchors of lifestyle business, and deserves to take on the mantle of power and importance it is imbued with.
Is it possible to buy individual issues of GP+, or is it necessary to subscribe for the full season?
It is sold by the calendar year. Jan-Dec
Thanks! Looks like a good Christmas gift in that case. 🙂
“It is sold by the calendar year. Jan-Dec”
And worth every penny!
Seriously, it is by far the best and most enjoyable F1 publication there is IMHO.