Hungarian GP: Qualifying

Friday practice at the Hungarian Grand Prix track was in cooler-than-normal temperatures. So perhaps that explained why Friday's practice sessions (FP1 & FP2) had been dominated by Hamilton - whose McLaren favours cooler temperatures. However by the Qualifying session on Saturday, it was warmer albeit windy.

First Qualifying session Q1 saw Buemi, Kovalainen, Trulli, Glock, Liuzzi, Ricciardo, D'Ambrosio drop out. Unfortunately, Buemi carries over a 5-place grid penalty from the German Grand Prix and so will start the race in 23th place.

In Q2, McLaren's Hamilton set a time 0.843seconds off the super-softs' time of Ferrari's Alonso, on the harder compound tyres. Positions 11th - 17th were filled by Di Resta, Petrov, Kobayashi, Heidfeld, Barrichello, Alguersuari, Maldonado - leaving Alonso, Button, Webber, Vettel, Massa, Hamilton, Rosberg, Schumacher, Sutil and Perez to fight for the Top 10 positions.

Perez makes it into Q3

By Q3, track temperature dropped slightly and Lewis went out to set a lap on his first set of super-soft tyres. Hamilton was on provisional pole position after the first runs but Vettel set a time of 1min19:815 and 'found' 0.163seconds to qualify ahead of Hamilton. 

Top 10 are Vettel, Hamilton, Button, Massa, Alonso, Webber, Rosberg, Sutil, Schumacher, Perez (who didn't set a lap in Q3).

British GP: Race Summary

Tyre choice was a difficult decision to make at the start of the British Grand Prix at the revamped Silverstone track. Rain was pelting the track with 45minutes to race start but it was finally decided that Intermediates were the best tyres to be on. 

 

Highlights

Hamilton who started in 10th position, made up several places by the end of the first lap of the race, including overtaking his team-mate early in the race. Schumacher served a Stop-Go penalty for a collision with Kobayashi. There was a tasty DOUBLE overtake by McLaren drivers on both Ferrari drivers within a few minutes of each other. Vettel lost first place after bad pit stop by his engineers and Alonso pounced on 1st place and never let it go.

Alonso eventually won the British Grand Prix. Hamilton hung onto 4th place right up to the last corner, despite having been told to conserve fuel and being challenged by Massa (the gap between them was 0.024seconds!). Webber was told to 'maintain position' in final lap when he was closing up to his team-mate Vettel. What an exciting race!!!

Not a happy (Australian) bunny

Alguersuari continue his good form and scores another point this race. F1 rookie Ricciardo also finishes his first Formula 1 race and improves on his starting position (albeit by virtue of 5 drivers developing problems and not finishing). Perez did well to finish in 7th place from a qualifying position of 12th.

The other Ozzie's happy to bring his HRT car home in one piece

Errors

McLaren's botched pit stop for Button meant the lollilop was lifted before his right front tyre was fitted (McLaren was later fined for this error). Both Team Lotus cars developed problems and didn't finish the race. Kobayashi's Sauber overheated and was forced to retire. The final DNF at the British Grand Prix was Sebastian Buemi whose tyre was punctured after clipping Paul Di Resta's front wing.

Top 10: Alonso, Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Massa, Rosberg, Perez, Heidfeld, Schumacher, Alguersuari.

Podium Photo by @atmoorehead

Canada GP Race Summary: The Tale of Two Races (and Two Winners)

Rain was forecasted for Sunday afternoon at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit so the race started behind the Safety car and all drivers were on extreme wet tyres.

Once the Safety car withdrew and real racing began, the first casualty of the race was (unsurprisingly) Lewis Hamilton who tried to overtake his team-mate along the pit straight, but had a collision when Jenson Button swerved to the left suddenly. Hamilton suffered rear-puncture and some suspension damage and was forced to retire. Button later explained that although he looked in this mirrors, he didn't realise his team-mate was there.

By lap 25, the rain was too heavy to continue racing due to lack of visibility and the race was red-flagged. At this point the Top 3 were VET, KOB, MAS. If the race had been called off at this point, half-points would have been awarded. Vettel would have won and have 155.5 WDC points. However the cars stayed on the grid and waited for the rain to stop.

At race re-start, there were more collisions and the second top team casualty was Alonso who tangled with Button and got beached on a kerb. With 20 laps to go, a dry line was appearing on the track and dry tyres were coming into their own. Button's 2-lap-old tyres were at the perfect operating mode to catch the drivers in front of him and he set the fastest lap of the race with 1min16.956. On the penultimate lap, watched by his team-mate in the hospitality area, he closed the gap to race leader Vettel and pressured him into making an error. Button pounced on the opportunity and took the lead and kept it till the waving chequered flag.

Kobayashi who had been running 6th was overtaken on the finishing line by a DRS-enabled Ferrari driven by Massa. Top 10: Button, Vettel, Webber, Schumacher, Petrov, Massa, Kobayashi, Alguersuari (first point scoring position this season), Barrichello and Buemi.

No penalties were awarded after the race so the results stays. Button celebrates his 'best career' win and his first win since Chinese Grand Prix last year. The 'second' winner of this race is now second place in the standings. Vettel 161, Button 101, Webber 94, Hamilton 85, Alonso 69

Chinese GP: Qualifying

Qualifying for the Chinese GP was an interesting affair with lots of 'surprises' - not least the McLaren race suits*. Q1 casualties were the likely bunch of Hispanias, Virgins, Team-Lotus and .....a Red Bull? Mark Webber's car had been plagued with technical problems with KERS and just didn't have the pace on the day to get out of Q3. This meant both Williams' and Saubers (and 3 F1 rookies) made it past Q1.

Q2 also threw up some anomalies with Heidfeld, Sutil and Schumacher being outshined by their 'less experienced' team-mates. Renault's Petrov developed problems with his gear-box in Q2 and the session was red-flagged (stopped) with 2mins 2sec remaining.
This could have inadvertently ruined his team-mate's (Heidfeld's) Qualifying session as he hadn't set a time by then. The session resumed with Perez first out of the pits and several other drivers raring to get a good lap in before the end of Q2. However Heidfeld needn't have bothered because his best time was only enough to move him from 17th to 16th. Drivers who failed to progress into Q3 were SUT(11), PER(12), KOB(13), SCH(14), BARR(15), HEI(16) and MAL(17).

With Petrov's car out of action, it was left to 9 drivers in Q3 to populate the top 9 positions on the starting grid for tomorrow's race.

Welcome back, Formula 1

133 days have passed since we packed up in Abu Dhabi on 14th November 2010. In case you have been stuck in a cave somewhere, here are 133 things that have happened in F1 during the 'unusually and unbearably long' off-season period, which thankfully ends on 27th March 2011 in Australia. Enjoy!

Cars

1. McLaren launches MP4-26 in Berlin on 4th February 2011

2. Ferrari’s F150* makes it debut in Italy

3. Renault F1 (Fernando Alonso and Flavio Briatore’s old team) is now called Lotus-Renault and the new car is R31

4. Team Lotus retains its name (for now, pending the High Court hearing to decide whether or not both Lotus entries – Fernandes’ Team Lotus and Lotus Renault GP, formerly Renault F1 – should be permitted to use these names), and their car is T128

5. Virgin racing has new co-sponsor and is now called MarussiaVirgin Racing, 2011 car is the MVR-02

6. Force India’s team-name remains the same, but the new F1 car is called VJM04


7. Williams' new offering is the FW33


8. RB7 is the Red Bull 2011 car


9. Hispania Racing have returned in 2011 with the F111


10. Sauber finally get rid of 'BMW' and their car is called the C30


11. Mercedes GP's "MGP W02" easily wins the trophy for the longest F1 car name


12. Toro-Rosso return in 2011 with the STR6


Rule Changes


13. Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) makes a re-appearance this season


14. Adjustable rear-wings are now allowed