Italian GP: Qualifying (Italiano)

Formula Uno ritorna a Monza questa fine settimana, una citta nel nord dall'Italia. Forse la prima gara di secco per un po, cosi le il passo dei piloti e le scelte di gomma avra' un grande ruolo per decidere i risultati. 

 

Italian GP Paddock (foto di @VoxVocis)

Il weekend è iniziato con 'cambergate' e dopo il FIA ha forzata un regola per il camber di gomme di 3.25°, perche RedBull hanno soffrire eccessivamente alla gara scorsa.

Nella prima parte della sessione di qualifiche, Trulli è stato il primo piloto di uscire sulla pista di Monza. I soliti sospetti di RBR, McLaren e Ferrari hanno scambiati il tempo migliore ed è stata una bandiera gialla per "l'escursione" di Pastor Maldonado. I piloti che non passato dal sessione seconda era Alguersuari, Trulli, Kovalainen, Glock, D'Ambrosio, Ricciardo, Liuzzi.

 

Nel Q2, il tempo migliore di 1min22.914 è stata fissato dal pilota Red Bull, Sebastian Vettel (nessuna sorpresa). Di Resta, Sutil, Barrichello, Maldonado, Perez, Buemi, Kobayashi sono i piloti nel posizione 11° al 18°. Di Resta (il pilota di Force India) appena perso il posizione 10° da Bruno Senna, che continua di mostrare buono ritmo di qualifica, dopo la sostituzione di Nick Heidfeld nella squadra di Lotus-Renault.

 

Bruno Senna (foto di RM)

Ferrari è stata la prima squadra fuori nel Q3 e sono arrivato da applausi dei tifosi. Ogni piloti sembrava essere alla cerca di altri piloti per un 'tow'. Ma alle fine, Vettel preso pole position dal Hamilton. Altri piloti nella Top 10 sono Button, Alonso, Webber, Massa, Petrov, Schumacher, Rosberg and Senna.

 

McLaren Pitwall (mcLaren.com/Formula1)

Primi tre piloti per Italian GP (foto di BBC Website)

I tifosi spera un vittoria della Ferrari ed entrambi piloti alla posizione 4° (Alonso) e 6° (Massa) cerchera tutto per non deludere i tifosi adoranti.

German GP: Qualifying

After drab and rainy practice sessions on Friday, Qualifying on Saturday was practically dry. Drivers who dropped out after Q1 were the usual suspects of: Kovalainen, Chandhok (who takes Trulli's place this weekend), Glock, D'Ambrosio, Liuzzi, Ricciardo. Kobayashi was the surprise exit in Q1 as he was edged out by other drivers on soft tyres. HRT driver, Liuzzi incurs a 5-place grid penalty for changing his gear box and so, starts behind rookie team-mate Ricciardo.

Second Qualifying session was dominated by Hamilton who finished with a time of 1min30.998. And these 7 drivers didn't progress to Q3: Heidfeld, Di Resta, Maldonado, Barichello, Perez, Buemi, Alguersuari

The last shoot-out saw an epic effort from McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, swapping second place with Alonso early in the session. Red Bull's Mark Webber eventually took pole with 1min30.079, and Hamilton pushed Vettel into 3rd with a 1min30.134 lap time. The rest of the top ten were Alonso, Massa, Rosberg, Button, Sutil, Petrov and Schumacher.

Top 3 Drivers after Qualifying for German Grand Prix

Rain is expected tomorrow so Nurburgring's swansong is set to be an exciting one.

Amendment: Buemi's qualifying time was later disallowed due to fuel irregularities, and will start at the back of the track. Story courtesy of Autosport.com 

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

Turkish GP Race summary: Vettel reclaim top spot, Ferrari on a charge

Red Bull were back on form after being pipped to top spot by McLaren at the Chinese Grand Prix three weeks ago. Ferrari also found some good pace in Turkish to finish 3rd. McLaren rues pit-stop mistakes and driver errors, but their drivers finished the race in the same positions as they qualified.
Biggest 'winner' was Kobayashi who started the race at the back of the grid, but finished in a point scoring position on Sunday.

Full race report soon....

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