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2016 German Grand Prix race recap: so-so racing, great questions

We can summarize the 2016 German Grand Prix in one sentence: Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver Lewis Hamilton started second on the grid, passed pole-sitter and teammate Nico Rosberg before the first corner, and dominate to the finish. In fact, Hamilton turned his engine power output down on Lap 3 and still took the checkered flag seven seconds ahead of Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo. Ricciardo's teammate Max Verstappen crossed the line another six seconds back. Rosberg fell to fourth at the first corner and couldn't find the pace to reel in the Red Bulls. His questionable pass on Verstappen didn't help when the stewards penalized Rosberg five seconds; the overtake reminded us of Rosberg's move on teammate Hamilton in Austria. That penalty turned into eight seconds when the Mercedes-AMG Petronas stopwatch didn't work in the pits. Ferrari pilots Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen finished fifth and sixth. Those six drivers all started in the top six, too. Behind them, on Lap 28 of the 67-lap race the next four drivers were Valtteri Bottas in the Williams, Nico Hulkenberg in the Force India, and Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso in McLarens. Low fuel and old tires put the kibosh on Alonso's pace just four laps from the finish, allowing Force India's Sergio Perez to pass, rounding out the top ten. The issues up for debate during the four-week break are far more interesting than the weekend's race. As bad as Ferrari's day might have been – and we'll get to that – Rosberg probably took the biggest hit, losing the race before the first corner for the second weekend in a row and falling 19 points behind Hamilton. Rosberg won the first four races of the season, then the teammates tripped over one another in Spain. Hamilton's won six of the seven races since Spain, Rosberg's best result in that time is a second-place in Hungary. Hamilton turned his engine down on Lap 3 (!) because he's used his entire season's allotment of five turbochargers and five MGU-Ks. Those early-season gremlins now have him on edge of grid penalties. Unless Hamilton's momentum cools off in August, however, that reliability danger might be the only dent in his armor. Rosberg, who once led the Championship by 43 points, will surely drown in his thoughts – and maybe schnapps – over the summer break. Whatever the Italian word for "meditation" is, there'll be a lot of it at Ferrari during the F1 summer break.

Top horsepower-per-dollar cars in 2017

Bang for the buck. That quasi-scientific statistic is bandied about by motor heads everywhere from classrooms to barrooms, though the truth of the matter is that it's exceedingly complex to measure. A fair performance-per-dollar index would include something like cross-referencing MSRP (Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price) with point-to-point times on a track or driving route, which is obviously hard to do comprehensively. But, for the sheer joy of talking about cars and playing with a big spreadsheet, there's always the horsepower-per-dollar index, which is more straightforward, albeit hilariously flawed. There are vagaries even with this simple formula, of course: MSRP for vehicles can change at a moment's notice, to say nothing of the bottom-line shifting that happens with local deals or showroom negotiation. For this list we're running with the straight MSRP wherever possible, and as recently reported as we can get it. All the vehicles on this list are 2017 models, and all trims are reported where the lowest price and differing power levels intersect. Some choices were made for personal preference and some for sanity, avoiding things like all 48 trim levels of the Ford Transit, all with the same horsepower). If this list were a simple top ten, or even a top fifty, you'd be bored to tears with all the red, white and blue that is represented. Following perfectly with conventional wisdom, American cars really do lead the world where hp/$ is concerned. So, for the sake of variety (and the sheer joy of seeing a minivan 'win' one round of this thing) I've sorted out some top five and bottom five lists for broad power categories. Let's dive in. Less Than 100 Horsepower Okay, okay, this is hardly a category we'll grant you. But we've often tried to click off all the sub-100-hp cars on sale in the US, and making this list gave us an excuse. It also illustrates that none of these smallish vehicles bring cheap horsepower to the table - for that you'll need a motorcycle. The segment-leading Chevy Spark (above) asks just over $139 for each hp, and that Smart Fortwo Electric Drive has hp on sale for about the same price as its very distant family cousin, the Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG (insert your favorite Smart joke here... we know you want to).

2015 Monaco F1 Grand Prix race recap [spoilers]

Lewis Hamilton came to Monaco with a new three-year deal with Mercedes-AMG Petronas and a vow to not let anything, including any "mistakes" by teammate Nico Rosberg, stand in the way of his best qualifying effort. Mercedes reportedly made it rain with a 100-million-pound deal, and Hamilton made it rain right back with his first pole position at Monaco. Rosberg did make a mistake but this time it was behind Hamilton, which meant he stuffed-up the qualifying attempts of rival drivers like Sebastian Vettel. So Rosberg starts second, 0.342 behind Hamilton but 0.449 ahead of Vettel in the Ferrari. Daniel Ricciardo thinks he should have been third, but a communication error with his engineers left him in the wrong engine setting for his final hot lap, so by the very first corner he'd lost the time he would have needed to get higher than fourth on the grid. The second Infiniti Red Bull Racing of Daniil Kvyat slots in behind him, ahead of the second Ferrari of Kimi "Not A Very Happy Day" Raikkonen, who just can't get it going lately. Sergio Perez did for the Sahara Force India what the car can't do on its own, which is grab a top-ten qualifying spot. Toro Rosso rookie Carlos Sainz had qualified eighth but missed a call to the weigh bridge, so he's been slapped into the pit lane. Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus inherits his eighth place, ahead of rookie Max Verstappen in the second Toro Rosso, and Jenson Button in the McLaren. Button only got up there because of two penalties: for Sainz, and Romain Grosjean who had qualified 11th but took a penalty for a gearbox change. Want to know how hard it is to do better on race day than in qualifying at Monaco? Even the never-say-die Fernando Alonso said, "Monte Carlo is a train of cars on Sunday, the race finishes on Saturday afternoon." Well obviously, he didn't take Max Verstappen's seek-and-destroy tactics into account. The young Dutchman had made passing look like a real option in Monaco, getting past Maldonado at St. Devote on Lap 7 after a bit of argy-bargy on Lap 6, then taking advantage of blue flags to slink past teammate Carlos Sainz and Williams driver Valtteri Bottas while hiding in Sebastian Vettel's slipstream. He tried the same move on Romain Grosjean on Lap 65, but Grosjean locked him out. Verstappen lined up the Lotus driver over the following laps, then looked like he slipped to the inside at St.