Kimi Raikkonen has plenty of supporters among the passionate Ferrari 'tifosi' as the team's first champion of the post-Schumacher era, and last to date, and his return would a break with Ferrari tradition as much as a blast from the past.
Formula One is feeling a fresh wave of optimism under its new owners, while Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are the two most popular drivers, according to an extensive fan survey released on Friday.
Team by team analysis of Sunday's Russian Grand Prix (listed in championship order):
Lewis Hamilton won in Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and took championship lead.
Ferrari fans had mocked up a picture of Lewis Hamilton as a cry baby ahead of the Italian Grand Prix but the Mercedes driver was not the one shedding tears
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton won his home British Grand Prix for a record sixth time on Sunday to stretch his lead over Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas to 39 points.
Nico Rosberg put his Texas blues behind him on Sunday to win the first Mexican Grand Prix in 23 years and show triple world champion Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton how it feels to finish second.
Nico Rosberg's hopes of a third successive Austrian Grand Prix win took a hit on Saturday when he crashed in final practice and damaged his Mercedes' gearbox, incurring a five-place grid penalty.
Sergio Perez shook off the gear-box change penalty to claim his and Sahara Force India's second podium place of the season with a third-place finish at the European Grand Prix while Nico Hulkenberg took the ninth spot, in Baku, on Sunday.
In a thrilling race with two safety car periods, reigning champion Hamilton went from pole position to the rear of the field before finishing second for Mercedes in a superb fightback. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was third.
Valtteri Bottas seized his first pole position of the Formula One season in Austria on Saturday with Mercedes team mate and world championship leader Lewis Hamilton having to settle for second.
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the French Grand Prix on Saturday with Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas alongside him on the front row.
Lewis Hamilton surpassed Ayrton Senna's career haul of 65 pole positions in Formula One as he edged Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas to secure top spot the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Saturday.
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Saturday ahead of Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg as the Silver Arrows continued to underline their dominance.
The Finn lapped the six-km Baku street circuit in one minute, 40.495 seconds, just 0.059 seconds faster than team mate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton.
The Mercedes driver told reporters he would seek a clarification from race director Charlie Whiting ahead of the next race in Spain.
Unlike the Australian GP, where the majority of drivers carried out only one pit-stop, of Sunday's second race of the season, at Sepang, Malaysia, will see at least two, says Raja Sen.
World championship leader Nico Rosberg ended the opening day of practice for the Formula One Japanese Grand Prix in a strong position after setting the pace in both sessions on Friday.
Sebastian Vettel trimmed Lewis Hamilton's Formula One lead to 17 points with eight races remaining.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc held off Lewis Hamilton to win his first Formula One race on Sunday in the Belgian Formula One Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton took pole position at the Italian Grand Prix for the third year in a row on Saturday with Mercedes team mate and title rival Nico Rosberg joining the Briton on the front row of the grid.
Finland's Valtteri Bottas took his first Formula One pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday with a sizzling lap that ended Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton's bid for a seventh in a row.
Ferrari's new team principal Mattia Binotto said earlier in the year that Vettel, as the team's "champion", would be given priority over Leclerc in certain racing situations, though he later clarified the drivers would be "free to fight".
The Formula One season starts in Australia on March 17 with new regulations, changed lineups, a trio of young rookies fresh from Formula Two and the comeback of Poland's Robert Kubica.
Mick Schumacher made his first track appearance as a fully signed-up Formula One driver on Friday
'I think the team's getting stronger, pushing very hard. I think people are fired up and we are motivated for tomorrow'
Britain's Lewis Hamilton eased his Mercedes to a dominant victory in the German Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday and secured his fourth victory in a row.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Monday
Lewis Hamilton's lap of one minute 25.892 seconds is a track record at the Silverstone circuit.
Formula One leader Lewis Hamilton put Mercedes on pole position for their 200th race at the German Grand Prix on Saturday while engine problems dashed Ferrari's hopes.
The France-Austria-Britain sequence of races poses a fresh logistical challenge for teams hitherto committed only to back-to-back weekends, with the 21-round season hurrying to the halfway point.
The pole was Hamilton's ninth in 10 races this season, the 47th of his career and left the Briton perfectly placed for a fifth career win at the Hungaroring.
World champion Nico Rosberg's retirement announcement on Friday came as a complete surprise even to the man who knows most of Formula One's best-kept secrets, commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene welcomed back the Kimi Raikkonen of old on Sunday.
Ferrari showed impressive pace during pre-season testing and are considered the team most likely to dethrone Mercedes.
On a rainsoaked afternoon that saw the race twice stopped and re-started with the safety car deployed five times, there were also those who felt the sport had erred too far on the side of caution.
Max Verstappen was compared to Formula One greats Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher on Sunday after the Dutch teenager's sensational drive to third place in a wet and chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix. Even father and former racer Jos, the 19-year-old Red Bull driver's biggest fan and fiercest critic, was astonished. "What Max showed here today was really special," he said of a race likely to go down in the sport's annals as one for the ages. In the last 15 laps, after a change to extreme wet tyres, Verstappen passed more than half the starting grid as he went from 16th place to the podium.
Formula One championship leader Sebastian Vettel pumped in a stunning late lap to snatch pole position from team mate Kimi Raikkonen as Ferrari dominated Chinese Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday.
Five-times Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes front-row lockout with a blistering pole position at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Saturday.
The clock is ticking for some of Formula One's big name drivers, with world champions and race winners out of contract at the end of the season and a restless young generation eager to take their places.
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