Sunday 25 October 2015

Get inside Ferrari with Shell's new innovation

We all know that in this day and age of social media and online apps that F1 hasn't exactly been up to speed with this new era. So it was nice to come across something really cool from Shell a couple of weeks ago and i was so impressed, i thought it was worth sharing with everyone else

Go to http://scuderiaferrariuncovered.shell.com/ and you'll be given the opportunity to step into the heart of the Ferrari garage which is beautifully recaptured with some great imagery and sounds. Now whilst that is all nice and shiny, the fact is we've seen some gimmicks like this before which really you spend a couple of minutes on and then that's it.


But this is where this new website really comes into its own. There is so much to discover! From video clips to informative snippets along with audio and pictures, there is plenty for F1 fans new and old alike to check now. It's exactly the sort of thing we need to see more in this online age


I don't want to give too much away as to what's there but i can ensure there's plenty to do and spend a bit of time on. Hardcore F1 fans will still find it interesting but i think this is a particularly cool tool for those who are perhaps just getting into the sport as there is a good factual foundation to go along with the flashy technology. So do give it a look, it's a good innovation from Ferrari and Shell and it is great to see something like this being done for the fans

http://scuderiaferrariuncovered.shell.com/



Tuesday 12 March 2013

F1 2013: More of the same

 A new season of Formula 1 is almost upon us. Here's some brief thoughts on what could happen in Australia and beyond...

The car launches, testing and quotes get people chatting again but there is nothing like the anticipation of those five red lights going out at Albert Park for the season to really begin. Normally I like to post before the first race of the year and talk about the changes that have occurred in terms of the rules but there's not a lot to discuss as most things remain unchanged. It should mean more of the same in terms of the competitiveness between the teams. Testing doesn't give away too much and the main things to take from it were probably the fact that understanding the tyres will be vital again

A key change for 2013 is the rules regarding the Drag Reduction System (DRS). The use of the device in practice and qualifying is now only allowed in the designated zones. However there will now be two zones at most tracks this season to encourage teams to gear their cars higher to ensure overtaking is still feasible. You can see the location of the DRS zones for 2013 on AMuS. I'm a bit disappointed to see these changes as i don't think the risk was that big when the usage of the device was unlimited. And the placement and length of the zones had been better at most tracks. Having two zones will change this dynamic but it will depend on the length of the zones and whether there will be separate detection points for the tracks where zones are placed on consecutive straights. Hopefully the zones will be slightly shorter and then we can have the pack being kept closer together with the extra opportunities to use the DRS in a race. Time will tell.

Two zones means that there shouldn't be a major alteration in a team's potential in qualifying but the demise of HRT will make Q1 more pressurised. The last three seasons has seen seven cars exit after Q1 and six of them have usually been the 'new' teams. This season we will have six exit and only four of them will be predictable in Caterham and Marussia. So there will be more of a squeeze in whether you need to utilise the option tyres and of course this could ultimately be key to your race strategy, especially in the early part of the season when tyre degradation can be a big issue.

As for the championship itself you have to expect that Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso will be scrapping it out again. Jenson Button is certainly capable of mounting a challenge if he can get into the groove with his revised car and tyres. And it will be fascinating to see how Sergio Perez does at McLaren. A great young talent but a man who hasn't scored a world championship point since September. Lotus seem to have a very consistent car again so should be more good results achievable for Kimi Raikkonen although i think the title might be a step too far. I really hope Roman Grosjean can remind people how good he is and recapture that early 2012 form. Nico Hulkenberg takes up a new challenge in the graphite Sauber and it could be a tough baptism of fire for Esteban Gutierrez.

The Williams drivers have been bullish about the speed of their new car. I certainly felt they didn't make the most of their package in 2012. In Pastor Maldonado they have someone who has the raw speed to get the car in amongst the front runners and there will be plenty of eyes on Valtteri Bottas as the Finn goes out to prove that he is more than a Twitter hashtag. Force India stopped development of their car towards the end of last season and actually found gains as they concentrated on getting the best out of what they had. With the big rule changes looming in 2014 it will be a big decision for teams in the midfield particularly as to what resources they throw at their current cars as the season enters its latter stages. Force India have got a solid driver pairing in Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil and they'll be hoping to benefit from that with a lot of rookies elsewhere. The stakes are rising at Toro Rosso with Daniel Ricciardo already stating he not only wants to beat Jean-Eric Vergne but destroy him. Charming! The Caterham/Marussia battle may be another 'pointless' one but hopefully they can move in the right direction and that one of them at least can have the glory of a first point.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Land of the Rising Seb


The latest chapter of the 2012 season saw controversy, first lap drama, home delight for one driver and a championship that has become even tighter with just 5 races to go…

Vettel and Red Bull heap the pressure on in title battle: It’s amazing how the championship can turn in only a couple of races. The current points system probably make gaps seem bigger than they really are but Vettel’s back to back wins have seen him surge to within 4 points of Fernando Alonso. However the biggest worry for Ferrari has to be that Red Bull have found some pace, both in qualifying and the race. Both Red Bull drivers were on it in qualifying although Vettel can count himself a tad fortunate that he only got a reprimand for impeding Alonso at the end of Q3. However that does mean that one more reprimand this season will mean a 10 place grid penalty so he has to be careful. It’s now unlikely that consistent points finishes will get the job done for Alonso and I feel he’s going to need a big result somewhere, be it a victory or a problematic race for Vettel. One advantage for the Spaniard is that he still has two fresh engines left for the remaining races, whereas Vettel and Raikkonen only have one left and Hamilton has none.




Raikkonen and Hamilton remain firmly in the hunt and there’s enough races left for them to overcome the margin to Alonso. McLaren have shown great pace at most venues recently to challenge for the podium. Lotus haven’t quite threatened the leaders as much in recent races. They have staggered their development across the year and are introducing a lot of updates (including a Coanda style exhaust system) in Korea so that could be a crucial weekend in terms of how realistic Raikkonen’s chances will be of a second title.

Grosjean under siege after another collision: It was sad to see Romain Grosjean get himself into another tangle on Sunday. It was a clumsy collision with Mark Webber into turn 2 rather than anything malicious and his subsequent lacklustre race and demeanour afterwards was of a man who is starting to feel things mount up on him. However I disagree with the likes of Johnny Herbert and Martin Brundle who suggested afterwards that there was nothing that the Frenchman can do to turn things around. It’s also frustrating to see the media constantly referring to him having been involved in 8 incidents at the start of races this season when most of those haven’t been his sole responsibility. Grosjean clearly has great speed and ability but has been too eager and aggressive at times this season to make up positions. Especially in the current era of Formula 1 when overtaking is much more plausible. Strangely, team mate Raikkonen hasn’t been as spectacular but has shown his race craft and experience to rack up the points and be the only driver to complete every lap of every race so far in 2012.

Grosjean has to learn pretty quickly but he can do it and we have to remember that he remains pretty inexperienced. Sebastian Vettel came in for plenty of criticism during 2010 (including from me which I feel embarrassed about on reflection) and Lewis Hamilton has bounced back from an error strewn 2011 to drive a season full of clean battles.  I also felt Webber lost out unfairly afterwards as the safety car came in too soon. Once it is deployed it is meant to wait for the cars to form up in a train and Webber wasn’t given any chance to do so and lost a bit of time in the process.






That wasn’t the only drama of the start in Suzuka as Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen made contact, pitching the championship leader into a race ending spin. I must admit I needed to watch this incident back quite a few times to determine what exactly happened. For me, Raikkonen did nothing wrong. He always had part of his car alongside the Ferrari and was entitled to hold his position. Either Alonso thought he had left enough space or was trying to be aggressive and force the Lotus to back off. It’s not the first time the Spaniard has had an incident like this recently. At Monza on the approach to turn 2 he squeezed Paul di Resta onto the grass but no damage was done to either car. I think the verdict on the Suzuka contact is that it was a racing incident but it would have been interesting had Raikkonen been the victim whether the stewards would have investigated Alonso for forcing another car off the track.

Kobayashi delights home crowd: It’s always a great moment when a driver finishes on the podium at their home race but it really was a special moment to see Kamui Kobayashi delight the fanatical fans at Suzuka with third place. The Sauber driver managed to navigate through a yellow flag zone to put himself on the second row of the grid and a great start saw him right behind Sebastian Vettel at the restart. It looked like he wasn’t paying much attention as Vettel streaked clear by the time the green flags were out again. However watching back some onboard footage after the race revealed that Kobayashi was paying attention and when Vettel put his foot down, so did he. However the Sauber appeared to be in the wrong gear, one that was too low, and Kobayashi immediately hit the rev limiter and had to upshift a couple of times to get some momentum. Thankfully that would be the trickiest moment of the afternoon and despite some late pressure from Jenson Button it was mission accomplished for Kobayashi. 

Felipe Massa did even better with a vital second place for his confidence. The Brazilian made a good start then brilliantly swerved around the chaos in front. Not making Q3 gave Massa the advantage of starting on a fresh set of options and this allowed him to run longer in the first stint and he really made the most of this to get the jump on Button and Kobayashi. After that he was untroubled for the rest of the race. The question now is what role they will have in the next shuffle of the 2013 drivers market. Nico Hulkenberg has been linked with Ferrari and Sauber. I’d be surprised if he went to Ferrari. Not because he isn’t good enough, in fact I rate him very highly. But Ferrari seem to want a 1 year deal so they can be open to any new options in 2014 and if this is the case then surely Massa is the obvious choice, especially after his improved performances in the last few races.

Esteban Gutierrez has the backing of Telmex behind him in his bid to get a race seat. Kobayashi has the experience within the team and with Perez leaving this could be useful but it seems that he is unable to bring in much financial support from Japanese companies. I think we could see some changes amongst the teams at the back as well with the likes of Narain Karthikeyan and Vitaly Petrov looking vulnerable.

15 down, 5 to go: Next up on the calendar is Korea. I personally think it’s a great track. The long straights in sector 1 create exciting battles and makes the opening lap a thrilling prospect! Sector 2 has a couple of high speed direction changes before the final sector which is twisty and partly surrounded by concrete walls. The super soft and soft compounds should add to the fun as well. Then it’s off to India where the organisers claim the issue of dust has been solved and the kerbs that broke Felipe Massa’s suspension twice in 2011 have also been lowered. Abu Dhabi is a tough track on gearboxes and there seems to have been a plague of problems with them already this season so watch out for issues there.

Then it’s time to head back to the USA for the first time since 2007 as Austin joins the F1 scene. Rumours of the garages being too small at the circuit have been dismissed and Charlie Whiting has hailed the facilities as absolutely first class. From driving the track on the new Formula One game I can tell you that it has a lot of corners, a long straight in the middle and a massive uphill gradient into turn 1 which will make the start quite challenging. And then it’s Brazil to end the season on November 25 where hopefully both championships will still be up for grabs. The drivers title looks like it could well come down to the race at Interlagos. Red Bull look good in the constructors but certainly not out of reach. Another intriguing battle could be for fifth place with Sauber closing in on Mercedes. Caterham will also be desperate to get a twelfth place finish or better to retake tenth in the championship from Marussia.

There’s only a quarter of the season left and it’s all going to happen in the next 7 weeks so make sure you enjoy it. I sense it’s going to be one of the most dramatic of recent years.




Monday 23 July 2012

Alonso seizes the initiative in title battle

Firstly i have to apologise for the silence on here recently - more important things have taken up my time and meant 'F1 on the Web' has unfortunately been halted as well as thoughts on the recent races. 


Anyway back to F1 matters and here's some thoughts on the latest action and in particular the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim...


Alonso does the business again: There can be little doubt that Fernando Alonso is in the form of his life. From daring overtakes on the tight streets of Valencia to slithering his way to wet weather pole positions at Silverstone and Hockenheim the Spaniard has been the driver of the year so far and his controlled victory in Germany as he withstood pressure from Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button was another impressive display.  The Ferrari driver has built himself a good buffer of 40 points at the halfway stage of the championship but don't think this championship is ending to a early climax. Red Bull have clearly gained ground in the development race recently and although we await to see how they are affected when the inevitable clarification is issued over their engine mapping, you can be assured that Mr Vettel, Webber and Newey will not be giving up easily

Vettel pays the penalty: For a man used to winning, it's been a frustrating period for Sebastian Vettel. Pole position in Montreal was only converted into a 4th place and then an alternator failure robbed what looked like an almost certain victory. His team mate Mark Webber then won the British Grand Prix. I felt he was overdriving a bit at Hockeneheim. A very aggressive start was followed by various off track moments, most of which were not really punished due to the plentiful run off areas at the Hockenheimring. He was also overtaken by a backmarker during the race. Lewis Hamilton was well down after a early puncture and found himself amongst the leaders. I'm wasn't really sure what to make of it all. It was strange to see a lapped car attacking the leaders and i felt Lewis should have just stayed out of it. However what he did was not against the rules and it wasn't like he blocked Vettel once he was past as he pulled away on fresher tyres.

Then we had the controversy on the penultimate lap between Vettel and Button. It was pretty clear for me, Vettel made an early decision to use the run off area to complete the overtake and that was clearly illegal. He didn't even try to stay on the track after the corner at all to even try and go alongside Button or wait to be squeezed wide (which might have given him more of a defence in the stewards room). The only issue i had was the penalty handed down. The German was penalised 20 seconds (the equivalent of getting a drive through penalty during the race). The stewards have the power to give an alternative penalty if they feel it would be more appropriate and i feel this was such a case. 5 second penalties have been used before at the 2010 European Grand Prix for several cars which exceeded the safety car delta time but gained very little. A 5 second penalty for Fernando Alonso was also one of the proposed penalties at the World Motor Sport Council hearing into Ferrari's team orders at the 2010 German Grand Prix as a way of swapping the position of the Spaniard and Felipe Massa.

Now i'll admit that it is a bit artificial sometimes to start handing out a customised penalty and slotting cars back into a position on the classification which would have been a likely finishing position without knowing how things would have exactly unfolded. However i feel in a situation like this so late in the race it would have been the best option. Another reason is the fact that in Hockenheim it costs a driver 10.8 seconds to drive through the pitlane without stopping which is only 54% of the time Vettel had added to his race time. What surprised me is that Derek Warwick recently brought the issue up of the various pitlanes on the F1 calendar having different lengths and time loss and how a 20 second penalty for every track wasn't the fairest way of doing things. Yet who was the driver steward yesterday? Derek Warwick!

So Vettel deserved a penalty but perhaps a slightly more lenient one. However he put himself at risk by doing what he did and it cost him some important points. Hopefully after a weekend which seen many warnings from the FIA about exceeding track limits we will now see some consistency with this issue. In my opinion Lewis Hamilton should have been penalised in Bahrain for passing Nico Rosberg off the track and we've had examples of people getting away with it in the past such as Kimi Raikkonen at the start of the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix which was pretty ridiculous. We may well see some revisions in the 2013 sporting regulations over penalties and how they are handed out.

Midfield battle hots up: We've seen Sauber, Force India and Williams all have more opportunities to make an impression near the front this year and it's making the constructors championship more fascinating than usual. It was Force India with the advantage at the start in Germany but Sauber seem to have the quicker car and made good progress. Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez pitted later than their rivals which cost them through the pit windows but made use of the overtaking opportunities at the Hockenheimring to fight through to an excellent 4th and 6th place finish respectively. There were many great battles between the Sauber and Force India drivers throughout the race, very hard but fair and it was good to see

It hasn't been so smooth between Perez and Pastor Maldonado. The South American drivers battled for the GP2 title in 2010 with Maldonado coming out on top. In Monaco, Maldonado strangely cut across Perez on an out lap in FP3, hitting the Mexican's left front wheel. Perez was furious and the fact that that corner of the car had a failure in Q1 probably didn't improve his mood. There was also a last lap incident between the pair in Valencia that was unseen on the world feed. Maldonado was trying to complete the race without a front wing after hitting Lewis Hamilton. He ran deep into turn 2 and in coming back onto the racing line compromised Perez who was coming through which allowed Jenson Button to overtake the Sauber. Then Maldonado got loose at Silverstone and Perez was the unfortunate victim again. Williams haven't made the most of their car so far this year and now Sauber look good for 6th place in the championship

Wednesday 30 May 2012

Vergne runs out of rubber

After a Q2 crash out of the tunnel on Saturday and losing positions in the first corner mayhem, Jean-Eric Vergne found himself languishing down the order and even behind the Marussia cars. So Toro Rosso took a risk and brought him in very early on lap 17 for prime tyres with the plan being to run to the end. His midfield rivals stayed out for a further 12 laps, giving the Frenchman a massive undercut and he would eventually find himself 7th. Then it all went a bit mad for him in the final 15 laps. Anyone who follows me on Twitter might have seen me making the point that i heard Vergne shouting on the radio (on the excellent pit channel) about damage. A look at the timing screen showed me he had lost 4 seconds in the middle sector and with yellow flags out i presumed he had clouted the wall somewhere and that the team just put on some intermediates as they had nothing to lose.

 Turns out the 'damage' was simply tyre wear - the primes had fallen off the cliff after 53 laps and the one stop strategy was going to be unfeasible. So sorry for any confusion on that on Sunday for any of you on Twitter. Vergne had a 10 second gap on his nearest challenger in the laps before he started to fall away so you have to wonder whether a more conservative approach was needed once he had got track position. The big question is whether 10 laps with a bit of extra care for the sacrifice of a second for each of them would have been enough to get the extra tyre life he needed to hold on to the finish. Just having track position was enough on Sunday, as shown by the train of cars in the top 6 in the closing stages. At least Toro Rosso were bold enough to try something different and it nearly paid off for them.

Monday 14 May 2012

Maldonado takes incredible first win


Pastor Maldonado became the 5th different winner in 5 races in a season which is becoming increasingly strange and difficult to comprehend...

Maldonado seizes his chance: It's so unusual to have a driver starting on pole position when they've never even qualified on the front 3 rows of the grid before and so for Pastor Maldonado to build on that and execute the race he did was very impressive. I commented after Malaysia that I felt the Williams looked a really good car and also seem to have good tyre management but the question marks were the drivers. Could they deliver the goods? Maldonado has always had the speed but putting a clean weekend together has been his downfall. Yesterday really was a huge breakthrough for the Venezuelan in that regard.

Having been overtaken by Fernando Alonso at the start, the key phase of the race was the second round of pitstops. Maldonado was 1.5 seconds behind the Ferrari when he pitted on lap 24. His out lap was truly remarkable as it was over 2 seconds quicker than what any other driver managed after their respective second stops. This does includes the pitlane time but whilst Maldonado did have a quick stop, the vast chunk of that time came from on the track itself. He must have been able to get the tyres switched on immediately and made full use of a clear track. Alonso lost some time behind Charles Pic and not pitting to cover Maldonado seem a strange decision to me as it handed the Williams the lead on a plate but I think even if the Ferrari had pitted a lap earlier, Maldonado would have still taken the lead as his out lap was so good.

A word too for the race winning engineer Xevi Pujolar. He always comes across so cool and calm on the radio and let's be honest, that can't have always been easy when Maldonado was enduring some troubles in his rookie season. The Spaniard really monitored the race well and never panicked, even when Alonso closed in during the final stint. He knew as long as his driver looked after the tyres and stayed smooth and consistent that it would be too difficult for Alonso to overtake on the circuit and the plan paid off as it was the Ferrari which struggled with tyre wear more on the closing stages.

Unfortunate Hamilton shows resolve: Lewis Hamilton always seems to be in the headlines for one reason or another and Saturday night would prove to be the case again, albeit he was not at fault for his exclusion from qualifying. A team member made a mistake with the refuelling process and that meant Hamilton had less fuel than required. When he stopped on his in lap after turn 8 he had 1.3 litres of fuel in the car. To get back to Parc Ferme would probably have needed another litre but the problem is that the FIA need a minimum of 1 litre after the session for a sample which is checked for legality. Without stopping, Hamilton would have technically failed scrutineering so whilst his penalty seem harsh, it was the right decision and does  follow a precedent set from Germany last year when Sebastien Buemi was excluded from qualifying for illegal fuel

It was a real shame for Hamilton who had soared to pole position by half a second. With a lack of fresh tyres, it was always going to be difficult to make up ground so to get 8th on Sunday (beating his team mate in the process) was a great effort. He made a 2 stop strategy work, including a final stint of 30 laps and was even pressurising Nico Rosberg on the last lap. McLaren will still rue their Saturday error as a win would have been a likely outcome without it. With hindsight, they should have told Hamilton to abort his final effort and he would have started 6th but it would have been a tough call in the heat of the moment.

Raikkonen comes close to glory again: This was a strange afternoon for Lotus. Third and fourth was a very good result and a solid follow up to Bahrain yet it seemed to be dampened slightly due to a lot of expectation that they would come through for the win before the race began. Kimi Raikkonen's strategy was a bit different as he went for 2 stints on the option tyre before running prime stints of 21 and 18 laps respectively. This is unusual as degradation tends to decrease as the race goes on but the likely reason for Raikkonen staying out was that Maldonado and Alonso were behind him. With little pressure on his third place i'm guessing that Lotus left him out there just to back them up for a bit. Of course, making up the time of a pitstop seem unlikely in the final stint but Raikkonen nearly managed it. He finished just 0.7 seconds behind the Ferrari. On reflection, Lotus pitted him one lap too late. Had they pulled him in a lap earlier when Alonso was preparing to pass down the main straight anyway, we might have seen an almighty scrap for second place on the final lap. A tough one to have foreseen but that extra lap in his third stint ended up costing the Finn 2 vital seconds

Vettel recovers well on tough day: A difficult day for Red Bull who had to change the front wings on both cars during the race. Sebastian Vettel also received a drive through penalty for failing to slow down under yellow flags. Christian Horner said after the race that he believed the reason for the penalty was because the German had his DRS activated through the yellow flag zone. Jenson Button radioed in when this happened to say that "Vettel is using DRS in yellow flag zones" I've taken another look at the situation and Button deactivated his DRS as soon as he arrived at the yellow flags. The McLaren's sector time was actually a tenth quicker than the Red Bull. Indeed Vettel was outpaced by about 4 cars in that first sector on that lap so it appears the use of DRS alone was the reason for the penalty. That seems harsh as he would have opened it 500 metres before the corner and could still have taken caution even with the wing open. Of course, there is a chance that the drivers have been told in a briefing that they shouldn't use DRS under yellow flags. A big message has been sent out with those penalties being awarded. Last year in Barcelona, 4 drivers got away with a reprimand for failing to slow for yellow flags but all the drivers will now have to be extra careful after yesterday's precedent. Vettel recovered well with some nice overtakes and looking at how the race panned out, his various troubles really only cost him one position. He still leads the championship.

Senna endures difficult weekend: It was a tough few days for Bruno Senna. After some struggles with long runs on Friday, the Brazilian spun into the gravel at the end of Q1. Then his race was over early after Michael Schumacher ploughed into the back of his car at turn 1. The German was given a deserved 5 place grid drop for Monaco in 2 weeks. Senna is in a difficult situation right now. He's glad of the seat at Williams after being dropped by Lotus. However he only has a one year deal whilst Pastor Maldonado is likely secure in the team for another 3 years thanks to a big sponsorship deal with PDVSA. Senna has to give his car over to young Finn Valtteri Bottas for most FP1's this season (though he won't have to in Monaco and Canada). The Williams reserve driver has been making his stake for a race seat with some eye catching times and no incidents of note. It may only be practice running but it is clear that Bottas is a big talent and this could leave Senna squeezed out again unless he can make his own impression and continue to bring the support he has brought to Williams from Brazil.

Thursday 26 April 2012

Vettel back on top in Bahrain

It was a strange Grand Prix weekend as Formula One dealt with many things: From security and 'invisible' cars to tyre wear and even the odd drop of rain in the desert. Sebastian Vettel took the lead in the world championship with a flawless victory...

Vettel back on top: Whilst Red Bull had made changes to their car for the weekend, it was still a surprise to see their fortunes turn so rapidly between Shanghai and Sakhir. Especially in qualifying where Sebastian Vettel roared back from his Q2 exit in China to take pole position. I found the video comparison between the laps of Vettel and Nico Rosberg fascinating, especially the last corner. The Mercedes entered turn 14 with a slender advantage but then hit the inside kerb hard. I thought at the time it may have cost him about a tenth but to see Vettel end up 0.399 ahead having been behind going into the corner is quite a surprise looking back and just highlighted how critical hooking up a flying lap is

 

In the race, it was Lotus posing the main threat to the reigning world champion. Kimi Raikkonen surged through the field to go from 11th to 2nd in the first half of the race. I was surprised to see the team be so conservative in qualifying with keeping tyres for the race but it really seem to be a big benefit come race day. Should Raikkonen have won? Well he certainly lost time with an early mistake that allowed Felipe Massa to overtake him and he also suffered minor damage to his front wing when battling with his former team mate. Then there was the situation when he closed on team mate Romain Grosjean. The Finn was on the radio telling the team he had to get past if they wanted the possibility of a win. The team opted not to use team orders. Raikkonen only lost a couple of seconds before passing Grosjean and pitted at the end of the lap in which he took the position so his tyres were fading which may explain the time loss. Overall, his progress could have been a touch quicker which would have given a couple more laps to attack Vettel in the second stint but the German did stabilise the gap after Raikkonen had come close. I think that, all in all, Lotus won't be too annoyed about things and will not be ruing a potential missed opportunity

Rosberg on the defensive: The main talking point after the race was Nico Rosberg's aggressive defence against Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. I think on the Alonso incident that Rosberg was ok in what he did. He was ahead exiting turn 3. He made his one defensive move early and made his intention clear and Alonso never had a part of his car alongside. Hard but ok in my opinion.

The Hamilton incident was a bit more complex. First of all we didn't get a clear shot of whether Hamilton had part of his car alongside Rosberg's before he left the circuit. If he did, then Rosberg was in the wrong as he would have forced Hamilton off and not left him the space he would have been entitled to. However the stewards felt that Hamilton wasn't close enough for Rosberg's defence to be deemed illegal. So what of Hamilton? He went completely off the track and completed an overtake on the Mercedes. He gained an advantage by leaving the limits of the track. This wasn't like cutting a corner but we have seen drivers penalised for situations like this before (Mark Webber in Singapore 2009) but also seen them get away with it (Kimi Raikkonen in Belgium 2009). It did feel a bit strange to see no penalty given to either party. It seems the stewards decided that penalising either driver would be overly harsh but surely at least one of them committed an offence of some sort? I suppose the answer may be that Rosberg was over aggressive in his defence but as Hamilton overtook anyway it is best not to add a penalty as the McLaren didn't miss out on the position. Certainly debatable but anyway the result was unchanged and the focus now moves to Europe

At the back: It didn't get much attention, nor did it matter too much but there was a fun duel between the HRT drivers at the tail end of the field on race day. Pedro de la Rosa opted for the 3 stop strategy which was in line with most of the field but Narain Karthikeyan went for a very attacking 4 stop strategy. This meant the pendulum would swing between the pair throughout the race as they tried to gain the upper hand but the Spaniard would ultimately come out on top. However, Karthikeyan was chasing him hard in the closing laps on fresher tyres and would finish just 0.596 of a second behind so an interesting little battle there even if there was no points at stake. HRT are missing the Mugello test to concentrate on moving into their new headquarters in Madrid. Hopefully they and Marussia can now make progress after their major changes during the winter. Caterham made it into Q2 in Bahrain with Heikki Kovalainen. It was mainly down to a big performance difference in the soft and medium compounds on the Sakhir circuit but hopefully they can get in amongst the midfield. Qualifying has been very exciting in Q2 and Q3 and if Caterham can make some gains then it would add some spice to Q1 and some pressure to the top teams trying to conserve tyres through that segment of the session.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Hamilton fortunate to escape Shanghai penalty

Lap 54 of the Chinese Grand Prix and Sebastian Vettel is under pressure as he comes under attack from Lewis Hamilton who is on fresher tyres. Down the back straight the McLaren makes the move on the inside before holding a defensive line into the final corner. Vettel looks for the slipstream as they proceed onto the pit straight and it's the following seconds i want to look back on:

Hamilton comes out of the final corner on the right hand side



Hamilton then makes a deliberate turn to the left to the middle of the track to prevent Vettel from getting a tow but he follows the path of the McLaren



Hamilton then pulls back over to the right hand side, Vettel follows but then decides to go to the left



As Vettel goes to the racing line, Hamilton drifts across to the middle of the track and holds the position into Turn 1



The big issue for me here is the second move back towards the pitwall. That was really pushing the limits of the 'one move' rule. You are meant to leave a car width and technically Hamilton did leave a car width between him and the pitwall but you can see that the white line is closer so if the car width is being measured between the McLaren and the white line which defines the limit of the track then Hamilton was breaking the rule. It's not a clear cut issue and the way the stewards interpret it is key. At the very least, the 2008 world champion should have been receiving a reprimand.

I feel Hamilton is very fortunate to avoid a penalty for this as it was no worse than what he did when defending against Fernando Alonso in Sepang last year and he received a 20 second time penalty for that. It only cost him one position that day but a 20 second penalty on Sunday would have resulted in him dropping from 3rd to 13th. Perhaps the stewards felt that would have been too harsh but there was nothing from the FIA about the incident being looked at after the race so perhaps it wasn't even reviewed by the stewards.

I've been impressed by Hamilton so far this season. He may not be in 100% attack mode but he has produced good laps in every Q3 so far and produced tidy race performances, resulting in three podium finishes. His racecraft seem to be in good shape and he has learnt a lot from the woes of 2011 but perhaps his trait of weaving is something he still has to eradicate from his driving

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Alonso and Perez star in Malaysia mayhem

It was a strange old race in Sepang as many top names faltered and new heroes grasped their opportunities...

- What more can you say about Fernando Alonso? Another superb victory to add to his CV. Calmness at the start before some great opportunistic moves and excellent pitstops allowed him to move up to 4th at the restart. A superb overtake on Mark Webber followed and he then passed Sergio Perez to take the lead. In the final stint he kept this cool and used his KERS strategically to hold off the Sauber. He needed added composure as his team had no telemetry available on the pitwall so the Spaniard had to relay details of fuel levels etc on the radio.

Ferrari were conducting a Q+A session on their Twitter account earlier and there was some interesting answers. They denied that they would have a new car in Spain and also ruled out abandoning the pull rod front suspension system for a push rod version. They said the main problems with the car is low speed traction and end of straight speed. There was also a fascinating answer to a question about whether the team had ever tried to sign Ayrton Senna to which the answer was an emphatic yes and also the revelation that the Brazilian had visited Maranello just a few days before his accident at Imola

- This may seem a strange statement but I'm glad that Sergio Perez was disappointed on missing out on a win on Sunday. Yes there was great delight and rightly so as he became the first Mexican in four decades to finish on the podium and Sauber secured 18 massive points. However Perez is an ambitious young man and will see this as the first of many podiums on his way to the top. His pitstop after just 1 lap helped him progress, though the times were pretty close to begin with between the intermediate and wet tyres. With Jean-Eric Vergne staying out on inters until the safety car, it just showed how big a spread there was in a strategy that would be viable in the chaotic conditions.

The opportunities for Perez to take the lead are well documented. There was a chance to pit before Alonso as Daniel Ricciardo was starting to light up the timing screen but you can understand Sauber being cautious at that stage. They really should have pitted him next time around though as even though rain was still a threat, the 25 lap old inters wouldn't have dealt with any significant rain and the slicks were clearly much faster. Despite this, Perez soon caught the Ferrari again. The question is whether the Mexican would have passed without his off track moment. Many feel he would have cruised by but i don't think it would have been that simple. The combination of a track still damp offline, a Sauber that was slow in a straight line and the risk factor of throwing away a maiden podium would have meant no foregone conclusion to the battle. Perez was definitely going for it though despite some of the ridiculous suggestions going around. I also think the talk that he could be driving for Ferrari in China is rubbish but i still reckon he's the favourite to be the team mate of Fernando Alonso in 2013.

- I think this has been an excellent start to 2012 for Lewis Hamilton. Two excellent pole position laps may not have been converted into wins but finishing third whilst some of his main rivals were tripping over other cars was a good result. So far it's been a case of Hamilton going back to his early career form of consistency and solid points scoring. The form of the McLaren suggests a win is not far away.

- For the first time on Sunday I felt we seen Bruno Senna emerge on the Formula One scene. I've been unconvinced by him in his spells with HRT and Renault but this was a tremendous drive. An opening lap spin left him at the back and he remained there until the restart. From then he worked his way up seventeen places to score eight points for Williams. Some great overtakes and good strategy contributing to his charge through the field. There must be a great buzz in the team at the minute as they clearly have a quick car which also seems to treat the tyre's gently. You do wonder what the likes of Sutil or Raikkonen could have done had they joined over the winter but Senna stepped up to the plate and delivered on Sunday and both he and Pastor Maldonado need to produce this regularly. Maldonado again retired on the final lap after an engine failure. The Venezuelan had good pace but a mistake in Q2 harmed his qualifying session and then missing his pit box during the race and having to exit and pit again the next lap cost him even more time. It's his inability to put a whole weekend together which is currently hindering him

- Sebastian Vettel has been getting quite a bit of criticism in the aftermath of his incident with Narain Karthikeyan and subsequent comments about the Indian after the race. I have to say that i am siding with the Red Bull driver on this. Yes he could have left a bit more margin but i can understand why he pushed on as he wanted to stay on the dry line and clearly fancied the prospect of chasing down Hamilton for third. Karthikeyan had made a mistake on the corner before and ran wide and as Vettel came alongside the HRT moved to the right. In my opinion it is up to the backmarkers to get out of the way of the leaders and the Indian could have done more to avoid a collision. The stewards clearly agreed as they gave him a 20 second time penalty after the race. Vettel clearly had a few harsh words and gestures for Karthikeyan which isn't what you want to see but you can understand his frustration at losing a possible 12 points over such an unfortunate incident

Another issue for Vettel during the race was a radio failure. Several times over the past few seasons this has happened though it seems the rainfall may have contributed on Sunday as Mark Webber's malfunctioned as well. This meant important information had to be delivered on the pitboard which may well have resulted in the delay in making the optimal switch to dry tyres late in the race. It's become a bit of a flaw of the Red Bull car. Races where it has failed include Hungary 2010, Abu Dhabi 2010 and China 2011. I always found that Abu Dhabi failure intriguing as Vettel radioed in during the final stages to say he couldn't hear the team which is interesting as there was the potential for last lap team orders at Red Bull to give Webber the title if the cars were in a particular order so that could have scuppered a potential switch. Anyway it hardly matters now. Last years failure in China was an inconvenience though as the varying strategies between the teams made the order unclear and Vettel found himself unsure of the optimum time to make his stops. Amongst the bid to improve the aerodynamics and car handling perhaps Red Bull should look to make their radio system more reliable.

- A second red flag in four years led to more delays for the race in Malaysia. These can happen and i can put up with it myself but when you know that a downpour is a regular occurrence late in the afternoon in Sepang then it is a bit silly to run the race so late. People are paying hundreds and hundreds of pounds to attend and to risk the running of the event with a factor that is well known is not acceptable, even if you want to get some more TV viewers in Europe

Monday 19 March 2012

Button wins exciting 2012 opener

It was a real mix of surprise and excitement in Melbourne as some unexpected faces got themselves high up the grid on Saturday to set up a fascinating Sunday. Jenson Button got his season off to the best possible start in a race full of talking points...

Button edges McLaren duel: Having played second fiddle to Red Bull in numerous qualifying sessions for the past two seasons, McLaren found themselves with the quickest car on Saturday and Lewis Hamilton edged Jenson Button for pole. However it was the 2009 world champion who got the better traction on the dirty side of the grid. Changing up to 2nd gear too early made it closer than it should have been but Button had the inside line to take the lead. Button surged away on the opening lap and would do the same later on at the safety car restart in a controlled and precise drive to victory. Hamilton's race centred around the two pitstop phases. On lap 16 he wanted to pit but Button had already picked that lap to make his stop and the two cars were too close to come in on the same lap. Hamilton was two seconds slower on lap 16 and on his in lap he lost another second to his team mate. He then came out behind Sergio Perez which cost him a further four seconds. Mark Webber said over the winter that the small details like getting the first pitstop before your team mate were crucial to success and this example at McLaren showed how true that can be

Lap 15: Button - 3.500 - Hamilton - 7.782 - Vettel
Lap 22: Button - 11.416 - Hamilton - 1.326 - Vettel

Red Bull recover but Mercedes finish pointless: You know Red Bull have been dominant in recent times when fifth and sixth is deemed a poor qualifying result. Mark Webber had no KERS in Q3 whilst Sebastian Vettel lacked experience on low fuel after a trip to the gravel trap in final practice. Both men drove excellent races though. Vettel made a good start and then superbly overtook Nico Rosberg on the outside of turn 9. After Michael Schumacher retired he got onto Hamilton's tail after his struggles around the first pitstops as discussed above. Then we had the safety car just after Hamilton stopped for a second time. Vettel was able to pit under the safety car. Both cars would have needed to stick to the delta time until the final corner but then Vettel was able to make a normal pitstop. So that helped Vettel as it stopped Hamilton from making use of his fresh tyres and it did seem like the German still had some pace on his current tyres as he did not react to Button pitting like he did at the end of the first stint. He may also have been more aggressive in staying as close as possible to the delta time without exceeding it. Meanwhile Webber survived first corner contact to recover to fourth and his pace was strong, similar to his team mate's and pressuring Hamilton to the chequered flag. A good sign for him



Mercedes seem to be building to a result throughout the weekend but it turned out to be a missed opportunity. Michael Schumacher ran a solid third early on though his focus was more on defending from Vettel than attacking Hamilton. A gearbox issue ended his chances of a podium. The team believe the German may have contributed to the problem with too much locking of the rears whilst downshifting. Nico Rosberg was suffering with tyre degradation, particularly on the left rear. He found himself seventh in the closing stages behind the one stopping Sergio Perez. The pair would collide at turn 11, giving the Mercedes a puncture. Unfortunately there is no clear footage of the incident yet. What we do know is that both of them think it is the other person at fault for the contact! Perez also accused Rosberg of failing to slow down under yellow flags a few corners earlier and said his last lap move was crazy. Rosberg really should have picked up some good points this weekend, not a good performance from him. The 'F-Duct' on the car wasn't much use in the race as it is only activated when using the DRS but it had a clear benefit in qualifying as the following data shows:

Ricciardo 287.2 - 303.0 - 308.3 - 308.6
Schumacher 287.1 - 306.9 - 308.8 - 313.4
Vergne 286.1 - 303.3 - 306.6 - 309.2
Grosjean 286.0 - 300.2 - 309.0 - 310.2
Button 286.0 - 299.8 - 308.1 - 310.7
Rosberg 285.9 - 302.8 - 310.1 - 313.2
Hamilton 284.1 - 300.9 - 307.7 - 314.0
Senna 283.9 - 299.5 - 305.5 - 308.0
Vettel 283.8 - 298.0 - 303.1 - 303.7
Maldonado 283.4 - 299.2 - 305.9 - 308.1

The figures are the speed recorded at the end of each sector and then in the speed trap. All these points are when the car is accelerating in seventh gear so when drag is at its highest point. The Mercedes is able to run higher gear ratios to be one of the fastest in the speed trap and yet is able to maintain high speed as it accelerates by dumping more drag than other cars. This makes them more competitive in qualifying trim and they could be even more of a threat in Malaysia next week which has three long 'full throttle' sections

Spicy midfield battle ends in last lap mayhem: "The field looks closer this year" is often a cliche rolled out before the beginning of the season by broadcasters and journalists looking to build the year ahead up. However it really did look that way pre-season and the weekend proved it as several teams fought it out for some important points. It was heartache at Williams as Pastor Maldonado crashed out on the final lap. Both car and driver have speed. The FW34 looked very impressive through the high speed chicane but Maldonado needs to cut the errors out if he wants to build on the potential that is there. It was a dreadful weekend for Ferrari as they failed to make Q3 on Saturday. Fernando Alonso drove another incredible race to underline his world class status as a racing driver but Felipe Massa struggled with the balance of the car and high rear tyre wear. Even Rob Smedley sounded downbeat as the Ferrari ran near the back before retiring after a collision with Bruno Senna. One positive for Ferrari was their pitstops - their five trips into the pitlane were the five fastest times of all the teams

The Toro Rosso drivers had a few adventures around Albert Park but showed good speed. Daniel Ricciardo impressed me in chasing down the back of the train of cars fighting for points at the end and managing to move through to grab two points on the line. The Australian became the 319th driver in F1 history to record a points finish. Jean-Eric Vergne will have been annoyed i'm sure to get pipped to tenth by Paul di Resta but it was still a positive opening to his F1 career. Force India didn't have great pace which will concern them (Although they struggled in Melbourne last year before showing better form) but good work from the pitwall to encourage Di Resta to keep pushing 5 laps from the end despite having dropped back. The cars in front were starting to hold each other up and he caught them on the final lap before some smart thinking from the Scot in saving some KERS for the final corner allowed him to push past Vergne to grab a point



It was an up and down weekend at Lotus. Romain Grosjean was a sensational third on Saturday but Kimi Raikkonen was the shock victim of Q1. The Finn had been delayed in starting his final run and crossed the line to start a flying lap with 1:26 on the clock. A mistake at turn 12 saw him back off and prepare for another attempt but there wasn't enough time left. In the race it all went wrong for Grosjean. He hit the limiter at the start which dropped him to sixth and then contact with Maldonado put him out. I'm 50/50 on that incident, Maldonado did go too deep and i can understand why Grosjean tried to hang it out on the outside as the Williams had made the lunge very late into the corner giving him little time to line up the switchback. He should have just gave it up earlier but that's easy to say with hindsight. Racing incident in my opinion but Grosjean is entitled to feel unfortunate. Raikkonen said he wanted to return to F1 for some wheel to wheel racing and he certainly got plenty of it as he got involved in various tussles. A good drive to seventh for him but afterwards he and his engineer were both in agreement that this was not really what was expected so it seems Lotus have their eyes set on taking on challenging the front running teams. The 2007 world champion also provoked some laughter by getting upset with receiving blue flags but it turned out he was rightly confused as a glitch in the system meant various drivers including race winner Button were getting blue flag warnings on their steering wheel

I touched on Perez and his race earlier. The only other thing to add is that he suffered front wing damage at the start and wanted to change to a new one at his first scheduled pitstop but his engineer decided it was better just to adjust the angle and keep the pitstop shorter. Kobayashi also had to cope with damage in the form of a rear wing end plate. He made some good passes and after a busy first stint in traffic produced very consistent lap times.

At the back...: HRT struggled for reliability after no testing and failed to get inside the 107% mark with either car. In theory Malaysia will be even more challenging for a poor car but if they can get their DRS fixed and get more running in practice they should be able to make the gains to at least get to race next Sunday. Caterham didn't get close to making Q2 and then had more problems in the race. Heikki Kovalainen had no KERS in the race and also managed to pick up a five place grid penalty for Sepang shortly before retiring. You can see why the Finn got the penalty (Overtaking Vettel and Button before SC Line 1) at 12:10 in this video. Vitaly Petrov was unhappy with the balance of his car. The Russian said he was getting oversteer on his opening stint with the prime tyres before suffering with understeer when he changed to the options. Marussia had good reliability despite no testing and Timo Glock finished whilst Charles Pic had to stop near the end as the car was overheating. Glock said he had pushed the car hard over the kerbs to give it a full workout but the German, who turned 30 on race day, was also in some pain after a long brake pedal meant he was over stretching his leg in order to slow the car down.

BBC v Sky becomes a reality: For UK F1 fans this was a new era as live coverage of all the sessions was not available on free-to-air TV. I don't want to analyse the coverage too much as it is still early days for Sky. I enjoyed what they did but there was room for improvement. That's to be expected though, they need to be given time to develop and gel. My one big disappointment was the severe lack of post race analysis, the hour of coverage after the race was limp and faded away with little substance. Meanwhile the BBC did an excellent job of covering the main incidents after their highlights programme, something which had been lacking at times in 2011 from them. However they did not show a forum afterwards despite promising to do so for non-live races and something which presenter Jake Humphrey had made a big deal of on numerous occasions on Twitter. Sky got an average of 874,000 for the race itself with a peak of 1.02m. BBC got an average of 2.73m with a peak of 3.28m. Overall a combined loss of about 1 million viewers from previous years but we'll have to see how things unfold when the European races come around. A great feature on Sky interactive was the new pitlane channel from FOM. There was lots of radio transmissions played throughout the race and it provided some excellent insight. You can listen to what was played out on this video

Now attention turns to Malaysia. Heat, humidity and the potential for heavy rain can make this Grand Prix a big challenge. Pirelli will bring the medium and hard tyres for this weekend, a conservative choice after last years high tyre wear in Sepang. Quite a different circuit to Melbourne so it will be interesting to see if we get any changes in form. It should be another great weekend of F1 and it is only 4 days away


Images courtesy of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula One Team and Sahara Force India Formula One Team