Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Spanish GP Race Summary: Vettel holds off Hamilton

Spanish GP track Circuit de Catalunya is known to be a VERY difficult place to overtake, and with Fernando Alonso starting in 4th position on Sunday, it seemed impossible that he would gain any places during this race. However by a stroke of good luck and sheer self-belief, Alonso found himself leading the pack by the first corner of this race - to the loud rapturous cheers of his compatriots. Ferrari seemed to have regained some of the race magic that had alluded them so far this season.

Both Red Bull drivers followed Alonso, and Hamilton stayed close to the pair. Biggest loser at the start was Button who fell to 10th place from 5th. Most of the top drivers were on 4-stop strategies so it came as no surprise as Vettel pitted after just 10 laps. 
Ferrari have been accused of 'espionage' as they seem to have found a way to pre-empt and mirror every Red Bull pit-stop, particularly for Webber. This didn't seem to give them much of an advantage though as Alonso finished 5th behind Webber. Jenson Button managed to make the 3-stop strategy work for him and did well to fight his way back up from 10th place and finish on the podium (3rd position).

Hamilton pressured Vettel right to the end, finishing just 0.6seconds behind the Red Bull driver. He would later comment that the RB7 was extremely quick through the high-speed corners and the McLaren's KERS system wasn't enough to catch up with the German.

Michael Schumacher finished ahead of his team-mate for the first time this season and Nick Heidfeld drove brilliantly after starting from the pit-lane to score 4 points.

Top 10 drivers: VET, HAM, BUT, WEB, ALO, SCH, ROS, HEI, PER, KOB.

Just 7 more days till the engines roar back to live at the Monaco Grand Prix.


Image from www.totallycoolpix.com

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Spanish GP: Qualifying Summary

Red Bull continue their Qualifying success but Vettel loses his 100% record, as team-mate Webber topped the timesheets in Q3 on Saturday.
McLaren drivers were 3rd and 4th until they were split by Fernando Alonso (who had qualified 5th in each race so far this season). 
2010 Russian Rookie Petrov qualified 6th for Lotus-Renault (though his team-mate Nick Heidfeld will start from the pitlane after a fire prevented him from participating the Qualifying session on Saturday. Nico Rosberg out-qualifies his F1 veteran team-mate Michael Schumacher again in 7th position, and Schumacher finished in 10th - hampered by KERS problems.
Massa starts in 8th position and will have a Williams close to him on the grid. This is the first time a Williams car has made it to Q3 and it's the first flash of brilliance from rookie Pastor Maldonado. 

Qualifying Order: WEB, VET, HAM, ALO, BUT, PET, ROS, MAS, MAL, SCH.

Monday, May 9, 2011

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....

Turkish GP: Qualifying

Rosberg (Mercedes) edge out McLaren to start in 3rd place on the grid behind Red Bull drivers.

Full report soon....

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

F1 News this week...

McLaren launch their first non-Formula 1 racing car since the McLaren F1, the MP4-12C GT3
http://tinyurl.com/6gng8nu http://trl.cx/bxce6
 
Bahrain has been given an extra month to decide whether to host the postponed F1 race in Sakhir this year
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2011/5/11978.html

AT&T Williams has a Technical Department rearrangement which sees Technical Director, Sam Michael and Chief Aerodynamicist, Jon Tomlinson  leave the team at the end of 2011. They have also appointed Mike Coughlan (the engineer involved in McLaren spy scandal) as their chief engineer
http://www.attwilliams.com/news/view/1765 
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91086

FIA announces the DRS zone in Turkey: it's the same part of the track where the 2 RedBull drivers had a collision last year



Lotus-Renault reserve driver Bruno Senna records demo run at Spa-Francorchamps track in Belgium on phone


Red Bull 2011 Show Run saw Jaime Alguersuari and Mark Webber entertain Italians on the cobbled streets of Turin/Torino

Monday, April 25, 2011

F1 Birthdays in April

Force India driver, Paul di Resta turned 25 on Saturday 16th April
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_di_Resta

Ferrari driver, Felipe Massa (Brazil) turns 30 on Monday 25th April
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_Massa

McLaren Team Principal, Martin Whitmarsh will be 53 on Friday 29th April
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Whitmarsh

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Update: F1/NASCAR swap

Further to #76 on this page http://tiny.cc/l6y6b Mobil1 has released clips of preparation for this NASCAR/F1 swap event due to happen in July 2011.