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2015 Chinese Grand Prix shines bright sun on the dark days of racing

Yes, we tuned into the Formula One Grand Prix in Shanghai China to see a race. But we all know we really tuned in to see if Ferrari, or any other team, could make it a competitive race with Mercedes-AMG Petronas. Based on qualifying, things didn't get off the best of starts: Lewis Hamilton made it four-out-of-four at the front, leading all three Free Practice sessions and then taking pole position in his Mercedes. Nico Rosberg is making the most of his time in the simulator, getting closer to Hamilton as the months go by. This time he lined up in second, just 0.042 in arrears. Ferrari did its best to temper expectations after Malaysia. Even though Sebastian Vettel qualified in third, almost a second behind Hamilton, the Scuderia's race pace is still considered a danger. Kimi Raikkonen's final hot lap went sour in Turn 3 and dropped the Finn to sixth place on the grid. In between the Ferraris, Williams is another team desperately working to maintain its advantage, and both of its drivers capitalized on Raikkonen's misfortune. Felipe Massa took fourth, Valtteri Bottas was in fifth. Daniel Ricciardo led the Infiniti Red Bull Racing charge in seventh, ahead of Romain Grosjean in the Lotus earning a spirits-lifting eighth. The two Saubers continue to show how good the Ferrari engine is, with Felipe Nasr taking ninth position and teammate Marcus Ericsson in tenth. Yet when the lights went out, so did the racing, for the most part. At the end of the first lap, because of some excellent moves by Raikkonen on both Williams' and a terrible start by Ricciardo that dropped him to seventeenth, the order was Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, Raikkonen, Massa, Bottas, Grosjean, Nasr, Ericsson, and Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus rounding out the top ten. At the end of the race, the only positions that had changed were the final two: Ricciardo had a laps-long battle with Ericsson, passing, getting repassed, then passing again to take ninth for good, with Ericsson finishing tenth. Maldonado suffered the worst in a battle with Jenson Button in the McLaren, when Button misjudged the entry into Turn 1 for a pass and clouted the back of the Lotus. Button was able to finish but Maldonado had to retire. Yes, there were some decent moments in between, like Bottas getting by Massa at the start, then Raikkonen getting past Massa in the first few corners and the Finn's move on Bottas also letting Massa through.

Geely and Mercedes-Benz invest $780 million to make electric Smart cars

BEIJING/SHANGHAI — Zhejiang Geely and Mercedes-Benz on Wednesday said they would each invest $388.77 million (2.7 billion yuan) in a China-based venture to build "premium and intelligent electrified" vehicles under the Smart brand. The 50:50 venture has received regulatory approval and will be based in the Chinese coastal city of Ningbo, the Chinese and German automakers said in a statement. Like Mercedes-Benz, smart is a Daimler marque. The venture will have manufacturing capacity in China and sales operations in China and Germany, the automakers said. Geely will lead in engineering the cars while Mercedes-Benz will take charge of their overall look, they said. The partners will each have three executives on the board of directors, with Geely's Tong Xiangbei becoming the venture's global chief executive. Geely has expanded rapidly through mergers and acquisitions since buying Sweden's Volvo in 2010 from U.S. parent Ford. In 2018, it built a stake of almost 9.7% in Daimler and set up a ride-hailing venture in China with the Stuttgart-based carmaker. Its latest announcement comes just over a month after China's Great Wall and Germany's BMW formed a venture to build electric Mini-branded cars in China, the world's biggest market for electrified vehicles where demand for smaller EVs is on the rise. Related Video:

Race Recap: 2015 Canadian F1 Grand Prix is better behind the front

As of Saturday afternoon in Montreal, Canada, it was all about the number four. Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes-AMG Petronas on pole position for the fourth time at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, and now his tally of pole positions matches his race number: 44. Nico Rosberg lines up beside him, which is the fourth time that particular one-two combo has occurred this season. Ferrari spent three engine development tokens to try and close the gap to Mercedes, Kimi Raikkonen making the most of it with third position on the gird. His teammate Sebastian Vettel got the worst of it, however, when the MGU-K unit failed during Q1, leaving him 160 horsepower down and out at the first hurdle. Valtteri Bottas put a revitalized Williams on the grid at fourth, ahead of a Lotus lockout of the third row with Romain Grosjean leading the way in fifth, Pastor Maldonado just beside. Nico Hulkenberg got the first Sahara Force India into seventh – the team is still waiting on the upgraded B car that should be available for Austria – ahead of Daniil Kvyat in the first Infiniti Red Bull Racing and a "pissed off" Daniel Ricciardo in the second Red Bull. Sergio Perez made it two Force Indias in the top ten, a welcome result from a team performing below expectations of late. When the lights went out, at the very front it was much ado about not that much at all. Hamilton got away clean and stabbed across the track to close the door for Rosberg, giving Raikkonen a chance to take the inside line into Turn 1 in an attempt to clear Rosberg for second place. That didn't happen, leaving the two Mercedes' to run in grid position for the entire race. It wasn't boring – Rosberg stayed close, rubber-banding the time gap to the leader from a little more than one second to just under four seconds, and Montreal is famous for race-rearranging safety cars and on-track incidents. But none of those occurred, so Hamilton crossed the line 2.285 seconds ahead of Rosberg after 70 laps to earn his fourth victory in Canada and the first-ever victory for the Brackley, UK-based Mercedes team. Valtteri Bottas drove his Williams to third position, the first podium place for the team this year and a welcome salve to heal the team's wounds from a poor showing in Monaco. That placing came courtesy of being in the right place at the right time, which was not far behind Raikkonen when the Ferrari driver spun at the hairpin on Lap 28 after his first pit stop.