Getty Images Jules Bianchi had another impressive outing for Marussia in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday, missing out on Q2 by just 0.497 seconds.
The French driver had shown good pace in practice before qualifying, and he admitted that he felt at home in Sepang despite it being his first visit to the circuit. This good form continued into qualifying as he finished 19th ahead of teammate Max Chilton and both Caterham drivers.
Bianchi was the last driver to post a time during the dry first qualifying session, and he crossed the line to finish 0.880 seconds ahead of Charles Pic. Perhaps an even greater feat was the gap to Valtteri Bottas. The Williams driver qualified 18th, less than 0.250s ahead of Bianchi despite driving for a team which won a race in 2012.
The only rookie to make it into Q2 was Esteban Gutierrez for Sauber, finishing four-tenths clear of the drop zone. He was eventually caught out by the rain that fell midway through the second session, but he will be happy to start 14th on the grid tomorrow.
However, Jules Bianchi is quickly becoming the stand-out rookie from the class of 2013. If he can continue this good form throughout the season, Marussia will have a fight on their hands to retain him for 2014.
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Today’s GP2 feature race at the Circuit de Monaco got off to a chaotic start as a 14-car pileup ensued in the first corner just after the start of the race. Pole sitter Johnny Cecotto was blamed for the incident and has been kept out of the remainder of the GP2 weekend in Monaco. Cecotto…
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AP
Simon Pagenaud led Carb Day practice with a late flier, tow-assisted, fastest lap of 225.827 mph for Schmidt Hamilton Motorsports. Until that point, Andretti Autosport’s E.J. Viso (225.304) looked set to lead the timesheets as has been the trend this month. Besides Pagenaud’s No. 77 HP entry, Honda has made some strides in the morning…
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AP
During yesterday’s Media Day activities at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Team Penske rookie A.J. Allmendinger (starting fifth) was asked about which race was bigger to him: The Daytona 500, which he has run four times in his Sprint Cup career, or the Indianapolis 500, which he will run for the first time this Sunday. The…
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Hobbs, Matchett take over F1 on NBC Sports Twitter for fan questions
May 24, 2013, 10:00 AM EDT
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Friday is a light day in Monaco with no on-track Formula One activity. That makes it a good day to reflect on a couple insights and observations from our NBC Sports Network F1 analysts, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett. You can see the Monaco Grand Prix live on NBC, at 7:30 a.m. ET on Sunday,…
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Honda’s two North American arms has been in the news with two major announcements this week related to its IndyCar program. On Wednesday, Honda Performance Development officially opened its Indiana Tech Center in Brownsburg, Ind. The facility features a full-scale DIL (Driver-in-the-Loop) Simulator. Construction began in 2012. A DIL Simulator can save racing teams both…
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AP
The Indianapolis 500 has witnessed and endured many things in its 97 years of existence. In more recent times, it has had to sustain itself against a crippling split in open-wheel racing, NASCAR’s evolution from a strictly Southern tradition to a national phenomenon, and perhaps more importantly, a wealth of entertainment options that simply didn’t…
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Rookie Carlos Munoz: Indy’s biggest surprise to date this year
May 24, 2013, 7:00 AM EDT
Reuters
A little more than one month ago, only the most ardent of IndyCar observers had heard of, or really paid attention to, Andretti Autosport Indianapolis 500 rookie Carlos Munoz. Now, mere days before the 97th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the Colombian is probably the month of May’s biggest surprise. Munoz really came…
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F1 flashback: Hakkinen, Button’s Monaco win anniversaries are today
May 24, 2013, 6:00 AM EDT
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Here’s two more Monaco Grand Prix anniversary wins this date: Mika Hakkinen won for McLaren in 1998, and Jenson Button for Brawn in 2009. Both were routs in their championship-winning seasons. Hakkinen’s 1998 win was relatively uneventful, and marked McLaren’s first win at Monaco since Ayrton Senna’s in 1993. A heavy attrition rate promoted Giancarlo…
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The previous track record at Charlotte Motor Speedway was shredded by eight drivers during tonight’s qualifying for the Coca-Cola 600, but it was Denny Hamlin who came away with the pole for Sunday night’s event with a speed of 195.624 miles per hour in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Hamlin earned his first…
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Larry Foyt may be earning praise for his management of the team that bears his father’s name. But he makes sure to keep four-time Indianapolis 500 champion A.J. Foyt 100 percent involved in its direction. “Believe it or not, I hardly make a decision that we [both] don’t go over,” Larry said on Thursday at…
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IndyCar officials announce preliminary details of return to innovation
May 23, 2013, 7:00 PM EDT
Set against a backdrop of the historic cars that have graced Indianapolis Motor Speedway for more than a century, at the IMS Museum, IndyCar’s new leaders described the preliminary plan for innovation to return to the series. The key word here is “preliminary.” Specific details were hard to find in the formal remarks made Thursday…
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The 2012 United States Grand Prix has been awarded the prestigious Sports Event of the Year award at the SportsBusiness Journal/Daily Business Awards, which was held in New York last night. The race was attended by over 265,000 fans, and the atmosphere was complimented by all of the drivers and teams in Austin. The track…
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The pressure on Pirelli may have finally tolled as the Italian tire supplier has openly threatened to walk away from Formula One for the first time. After receiving criticism from many teams and drivers for producing tire compounds that were too aggressive, Pirelli agreed to a revision of their current design in time for next…
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Adrian Sutil has spoken of his delight upon returning to the streets of Monte Carlo following a year out of Formula One. The German driver has enjoyed a good record at the circuit. In 2008, he shocked the F1 establishment by running as high as 4th for Force India, but his race was ruined when…
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Red Bull Racing may be defending a winning streak at Monaco that stretches back to 2010, but their pace in the Thursday practice sessions has failed to suggest that a fourth consecutive win may be on the cards. However, both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber have both downplayed the results, taking the positives out of…
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The streets of Monte Carlo welcome Formula One for its annual event, attracting the rich and famous from all over the globe for the sport’s jewel in the crown: the Monaco Grand Prix. It is the ultimate test of a driver’s talent behind the wheel and his mental agility, requiring 78 laps of near-perfect precision;…
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Reuters
What comes to mind first when you think of the Monaco Grand Prix? Money, perhaps? You can’t really blamed for that thought. Formula One’s stature as a billion-dollar enterprise enables it to fit in perfectly with the sophisticated surroundings of Monte Carlo. Or maybe it’s the massive amount of star power that comes in for…
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Reuters
Ever since its creation in 1929 on the streets of Monte Carlo, the Monaco Grand Prix has rewarded the best of the best. The list of people that have won it multiple times is a veritable galaxy of Formula One stars, past and present: Ayrton Senna, six wins; Graham Hill and Michael Schumacher, five each;…
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Nico Rosberg completed a sweep of Thursday’s two practice sessions for the Monaco Grand Prix. With a little more than an hour remaining in the second 90-minute free practice session, Rosberg dropped in the weekend’s first 1:14 lap with a lap of 1:14.759 around the streets of Monte Carlo. Lewis Hamilton made it a Mercedes…
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AP
Watch coverage of the Monaco Grand Prix throughout the weekend on NBC (Sunday, 7:30 a.m. ET), NBC Sports Network and live streamed on NBC Sports Live Extra. As Thursday’s second free practice session gets going, we look at the compounds Pirelli has brought to Monaco – the two softest compounds of soft (prime) and supersoft…
