The Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive

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2010-04-03T18:00:00.000+01:00

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2010 Malaysian Grand Prix (Sepang, Round 3, April 2nd - 4th)

2010-04-02T20:00:00.009+01:00

Of all the circuits designed by Hermann Tilke, Sepang probably stands out as his finest attempt - although there is no stand out corners on the track (the sweeps from turns 5-8 are still very nice), it is a good design as a whole. Malaysia has actually given the Formula 1 community some very good races over the years - the race in 2001 is a good example - however this has been driven more about the possibility of monsoon conditions that any other aspect. If anything, last year's event at Sepang is a classic example of how it can all go wrong as the race was halted after only 31 laps due to excessive rain. For this race, the organisers have brought the race forward by one hour; however early weather reports that the same weather conditions may also arrive one hour earlier.

With the first two events out of the way, Fernando Alonso is leading the Championship chase, just ahead of Felipe Massa and Jenson Button, but Sebastian Vettel has been the real star of the season openers and could have easily won both of the first two races had he not suffered car failures. This is Lotus' home race, so expect them to put out all the stops to make their presence felt.

For the first session on Friday morning, Malaysian reserve driver Fairuz Fauzy took to the Lotus seat in place of Heikki Kovalainen, while Paul di Resta drove the Force India in place of Antonio Liuzzi. Fauzy ran around 6 seconds off the pace for the returning team; however he suffered a half-spin through turn twelve 40 minutes into the session - thankfully no damage was done to his green and yellow machine, but his car appears very nervous through some of the faster exits. There were also slight offs for Mark Webber, Pedro de la Rosa and Felipe Massa during the session. Red Bull continue to have reliability issues as Webber is parked early on with an overheating engine and Vettel suffers from brake problems. Red Bull's sister team - Toro Rosso - also appeared to have difficulties as an electronic problem brought an early end to Jaime Alguersuari's morning session; although he was able to get his car to beginning of the pitlane, rather than park it out on track. There were also mechanical problems for the experienced Michael Schumacher (hydraulics) and rookies Vitaly Petrov (fuel leak) and Lucas di Grassi (temperature issues), however all three drivers still managed to get some mileage in. The session was topped by the McLaren of with Lewis Hamilton with team mate Button in third, sandwiching the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg.
The second Friday session saw both Liuzzi and Kovalainen back in their respective seats as Fauzy and di Resta finish their runs for the Malaysian event and while di Resta will replace Liuzzi on Friday morning in China, it is yet unclear when Fauzy will be in the Lotus seat again. Spins and off track excursions dominated second practice as much as it had the morning session with Kamui Kobayashi, Adrian Sutil, Alguersuari (twice), Sebastien Buemi, Timo Glock and Bruno Senna all losing sight of the road at one point or another. Unreliability once again reaped havoc with Red Bull as Webber suffered from a gearbox problem early in the session that caused his number 6 machine to grind to a halt and Vettel having power steering difficulties; however the young German was able to continue for the rest of practice. It was a session that also saw very heavy tyre wear - especially on the left rear as hard and fast right hand turns stressed the rubber - as many of the principle runners did long stints, with the fast times all being set early on. At the top of the timing list once again was Hamilton, but this time Vettel and Rosberg claimed the next two spots. Button and Schumacher completed the top five with times around half-a-second slower than the 2008 World Champion.

Heavy rain was expected throughout the third session on Saturday morning and it prompted many drivers to hit the track early on to get laps in - especially Mark Webber, whose poor reliability issues during Friday, severely hampered his practice runs. The session became an exercise in fast lap swapping between Webber, Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso and Schumacher; with the McLaren and Ferrari pilots clearly having an advantage over their team mates, although the gap between the Mercedes duo remained very close throughout the sixty minutes.
Webber took fastest lap ahead of Hamilton and Vettel, but the German Red Bull driver was the victim of a bizarre incident thirty minutes in as a piece of tape wrapped itself around the suspension on his left front and caused some damage to the wishbones. Vettel was not the only driver to have drama's though as both Petrov and Alguersuari vaulted their respective machines over kerbs and gravel and Heikki Kovalainen damaged his front wing after he went wide entering the back straight.

While the practices may have stayed relatively dry, qualifying reminded the Formula 1 paddock just how changeable the Malaysian weather front can be. Dark clouds formed and the rain came very quickly, yet while many in the field poured out onto the track, a few of the leading runners stayed in and it cost them. By the time Alonso, Hamilton and Massa went out on track, it was far too wet to set a fast time and all three qualified 19th, 20th and 21st respectively. Jenson Button in the second McLaren put in a time good enough for second qualifying, but spun it into the gravel at turn 1, thereby finishing his day early - 17th position for the reigning champion. There were spins aplenty in the wet conditions; primarily from Hamilton, Petrov (twice), both Ferrari's, Buemi, Liuzzi and Senna. Precipitation continued during Qualifying 2, although not as drastic as the first period; however offs for Timo Glock and Jaime Alguersuari saw them drop out. Regen-meister, Michael Schumacher planted his car on the bubble in tenth position and for the first time this season, both Williams and Force India's made it into the final qualifying session.
All the remaining cars went straight out for the final part of qualifying, but another large shower halted the clock with seven-and-a-half minutes remaining - the red flag emerging for the first time in 2010. As the session restarted, both Webber and Rosberg go on track on intermediate tyres; however it took several laps for the lighter rubber to fall into a good operating window - all the while the full wet tyres drove for one good lap before trailing off in the final sector. The strategy worked perfectly as they secure the first two slots on the grid with Webber approximately 1.3 seconds ahead of the younger Mercedes driver; their respective team mates of Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher qualified 3rd and 8th. Sutil and Hulkenberg qualified their cars in 4th and 5th places respectively, thereby ensuring that four of top 5 qualifiers were German - a first in Formula 1.

Come Sunday afternoon, the race started dry although worries of a downpour abounded; however none of this mattered to Pedro de la Rosa as an engine failure scuppered his Grand Prix before the Spaniard had even made it to the grid. With the Sauber cleared from the circuit, the lights counted down and a charging Vettel swept into the race lead at the first corner ahead of Webber and Rosberg. The lead Mercedes driver fell to third place; however there were gains behind the front three as Kubica jumped to 4th and the Hamilton / Massa pair vaulted to 12th and 13th respectively from their lowly starting positions.
During the early laps, Hamilton continued to busy himself by charging through the the field in sublime fashion, unlike Virgin's Timo Glock who managed to take himself out of the Grand Prix by sliding into the side Trulli - the Lotus driver lucky to continue. Young Vitaly Petrov also found himself in the wars battled hard with both Toro Rosso cars and Hamilton - the latter battle became one of the prime moments of controversy during the race as once past the Russian, Hamilton weaved four times across the face of the circuit to try and break the tow to the Renault. It garnered the McLaren driver a warning from the stewards, but nothing else; however the incident successfully managed to reopen the many discussions about weaving and deliberate blocking. An early pitstop from the reigning champion saw him jump a number of places once the stops are completed - his fresher tyres allowing him to jump from 14th to 7th eventually, but come the end of the 190-miles, Button's 47 lap stint of Sepang hurt his tyres very badly and left him with an eighth place finish as Massa sliced by on fresher tyres with 12 remaining. Hamilton pitted his McLaren mid-way through the race and edged out his team mate into turn 1 by a aggressive wheel and registered the fastest pitstop in the process - the McLaren mechanics turning over the 2008 World Champion in 3.5 seconds and sending him out on another fruitless chase after Sutil.
There were early retirements for Schumacher (loose left rear wheel), Kobayashi (engine) and Liuzzi (throttle) and they were joined by Petrov (lap 34 - gearbox) and Fernando Alonso, whose engine exploded spectacularly with two laps remaining. Alonso had driven the entire Grand Prix with a faulty downshift and his mechanical calamity promoted Nico Hulkenberg to tenth for his first points scoring race, while fellow German Adrian Sutil registered his best finish since Monza last season with 5th place - his first points of the 2010 season. There were improved performances from the Toro Rosso duo as Alguersuari secured his first Formula 1 score with a solid 9th place (and a supreme overtaking move around the outside of Hulkenberg on lap 31) and Buemi, who came home in 11th.
Up front though, the Grand Prix was an easily controlled race from the Red Bull's of Vettel and Webber as they serenely marched to a dominant victory - so much so, they barely appear on screen for the entire broadcast. There were also good performances too from Rosberg and Kubica - both of whom silently assumed 3rd and 4th place finishes. Amongst the new teams, both HRT finished the race with Di Grassi and Trulli also seeing the chequered flag - unfortunately for the Virgin, their fuel management nightmare appeared for the first time and he had to run some 15 seconds off of the pace in the final laps.
The 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix eventually stayed dry throughout - much to the surprise of all involved, but still managed to be solid race with lots of overtaking, yet one can't help but think the quality of the event was aided by a topsy-turvy qualifying result. However outside of the big teams, there was still a lot of overtaking and action - particularly from Williams, Toro Rosso and Petrov, so maybe all is not lost yet.
Race Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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 Sepang, Malaysian Grand Prix (Round 3, April 4th) 
1 VETTEL Red Bull 2 WEBBER Red Bull +4.8s3 ROSBERG Mercedes +13.5s4 KUBICA Renault +18.5s5 SUTIL Force India +21.0s6 HAMILTON McLaren +23.4s7 MASSA Ferrari +27.0s8 BUTTON McLaren +37.9s9 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +70.6s10 HULKENBERG Williams +73.3s11 BUEMI Toro Rosso +78.9s12 BARRICHELLO Williams +1 lap13 ALONSO Ferrari +2 laps14 DI GRASSI Virgin +3 laps15 CHANDHOK HRT +3 laps16 SENNA HRT +4 laps17 TRULLI Lotus +5 lapsR KOVALAINEN Lotus +10 lapsR PETROV Renault +24 lapsR LIUZZI Force India +44 lapsR SCHUMACHER Mercedes +47 lapsR KOBAYASHI Sauber +48 lapsR GLOCK Virgin +54 lapsDNS DE LA ROSA Sauber +56 laps
Sepang, Qualifying (April 3rd) 
3rd Session1 WEBBER Red Bull 1m49.327s2 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m50.673s3 VETTEL Red Bull 1m50.789s4 SUTIL Force India 1m50.914s5 HULKENBERG Williams 1m51.001s6 KUBICA Renault 1m51.051s7 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m51.511s8 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m51.717s9 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m51.767s10 LIUZZI Force India 1m52.254s2nd Session11 PETROV Renault 1m48.760s12 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m48.771s13 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m49.207s14 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m49.464s15 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m52.270s16 GLOCK Virgin 1m52.520s17 BUTTON McLaren no time1st Session18 TRULLI Lotus 1m52.884s19 ALONSO Ferrari 1m53.044s20 HAMILTON McLaren 1m53.050s21 MASSA Ferrari 1m53.283s22 CHANDHOK HRT 1m56.299s23 SENNA HRT 1m57.269s24 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m59.977s

  Sepang, 3rd Free Practice (April 3rd)
1 WEBBER Red Bull 1m33.542s 2 HAMILTON McLaren 1m33.559s3 VETTEL Red Bull 1m33.587s4 ALONSO Ferrari 1m33.751s5 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m33.992s6 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m34.090s7 BUTTON McLaren 1m34.113s8 MASSA Ferrari 1m34.174s9 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m34.540s10 KUBICA Renault 1m34.549s11 SUTIL Force India 1m34.623s12 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m34.673s13 HULKENBERG Williams 1m34.882s14 LIUZZI Force India 1m34.957s15 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m35.026s16 PETROV Renault 1m35.076s17 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m35.477s18 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m36.404s19 GLOCK Virgin 1m37.299s20 TRULLI Lotus 1m37.369s21 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m38.161s22 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m38.783s23 SENNA HRT 1m39.868s24 CHANDHOK HRT 1m39.895s

  Sepang, 2nd Free Practice (April 2nd)
1 HAMILTON McLaren 1m34.175s2 VETTEL Red Bull 1m34.441s3 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m34.443s4 BUTTON McLaren 1m34.538s5 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m34.674s6 KUBICA Renault 1m35.148s7 ALONSO Ferrari 1m35.581s8 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m35.660s9 PETROV Renault 1m35.872s10 SUTIL Force India 1m35.957s11 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m36.018s12 LIUZZI Force India 1m36.221s13 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m36.325s14 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m36.325s15 MASSA Ferrari 1m36.602s16 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m36.813s17 HULKENBERG Williams 1m37.415s18 TRULLI Lotus 1m38.454s19 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m38.530s20 WEBBER Red Bull 1m38.786s21 GLOCK Virgin 1m39.061s22 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m39.158s23 CHANDHOK HRT 1m41.084s24 SENNA HRT 1m41.481s

Sepang, 1st Free Practice (April 2nd)
1 HAMILTON McLaren 1m34.921s2 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m35.106s3 BUTTON McLaren 1m35.207s4 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m35.225s5 KUBICA Renault 1m35.402s6 WEBBER Red Bull 1m35.479s7 SUTIL Force India 1m35.955s8 ALONSO Ferrari 1m35.959s9 VETTEL Red Bull 1m36.043s10 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m36.100s11 MASSA Ferrari 1m36.451s12 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m36.503s13 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m36.645s14 PETROV Renault 1m36.712s15 DI RESTA Force India 1m36.891s16 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m36.899s17 HULKENBERG Williams 1m37.802s18 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m38.278s19 TRULLI Lotus 1m39.460s20 GLOCK Virgin 1m39.755s21 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m40.159s22 FAUZY Lotus 1m40.721s23 SENNA HRT 1m41.832s24 CHANDHOK HRT 1m41.966s

Driver	Team	Points
1. Felipe Massa	Ferrari	39
2. Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	37
3. Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing	37
4. Jenson Button	McLaren	35
5. Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	35
6. Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	31
7. Robert Kubica	Renault	30
8. Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing	24
9. Adrian Sutil	Force India	10
10. Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	9
11. Antonio Liuzzi	Force India	8
12. Rubens Barrichello	Williams	5
13. Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso	2
14. Nico Hulkenberg	Williams	1

Constructor Team	Points
1. Ferrari	76
2. McLaren	66
3. Red Bull Racing	61
4. Mercedes GP	44
5. Renault	30
6. Force India	18
7. Williams	6
8. Toro Rosso	2

The Possible Return of Michelin

2010-04-01T16:30:00.001+01:00

They may have been the favourites all along to replace Bridgestone as Formula 1's new tyre supplier, but it appears that French rubber manufacturer Michelin are close to doing a deal for 2011 onwards; however they may not be the sport's sole supplier as originally indicated.

When Michelin originally left Formula in 2006, it almost felt as if they were forced out. The then FIA president, Max Mosley demanded that there had to be only one tyre supplier in Formula 1 and following the shocking farce of the 2005 US Grand Prix at Indianapolis, it was always going to be Bridgestone that had the sweet spot. What was clear about the 2005 season was that Michelin had easily mastered the rules of one set of tyres for an entire race (as it was for that season), whilst Bridgestone struggled badly with long term graining.

There is really very little point on Michelin being the sole tyre supplier for the sport - they are by their nature a competitive company and will be eager to display their wares against other entities. With Bridgestone having no other suppliers to compete against since the end of 2006, it would be interesting to see how much of the tyre regulations in recent years were drafted in order to keep reporters, commentators and fans alike talking about their product, because the current tyre regulations do very little to actually benefit the sport in any way. It should therefore be very interesting to see what other suppliers (if any) throw their hat into the ring.

Sometimes Wonderful Things Happen

2010-04-01T16:15:00.000+01:00

Regardless of the level of competition, motorsport is for the most part a dangerous and cut throat industry that has left many talented drivers on the sidelines, but occasionally a story emerges that displays a human and more considered side. Stories such as the emergence of Brawn from the ashes of Honda in Formula 1 at the beginning of 2009 and Sarah Fisher giving her seat to Graham Rahal for two races at St Petersburg and Barber Motorsports are two such examples of positive tales from motor racing, but they are a rarity in a sport awash with money and questionable ethics.

Prior to last year's Indianapolis 500, former -Williams F1 test driver, Bruno Junqueira was asked to give up his spot on the grid for team mate Alex Tagliani following a mechanical failure on Tagliani's All Sport Conquest Racing machine. Realising that Tagliani was bringing a majority of sponsorship to the struggling outfit, Junqueira stood aside and Tagliani drove a solid race to finish in 11th place. Regardless of how much respect Tagliani commands and how well he performed, it was still a decision met with some derision. Since the 2009 event, things have been rather quiet for Junqueira who has not driven in any competition since he was replaced at Conquest Racing.
However with his new FAZZT Racing squad, former team mate Alex Tagliani has confirmed that he will be running a second car for this year's 500 mile race and that Junqueira will be in the driving seat. It is unclear at this time what sponsorship that the 33-year-old Brazilian will be bringing - or even if he will be bringing any - but it marks one of the rare times a truly positive story emerges from a motor racing paddock.

Junqueira does have a rather good competition record in motor racing - after losing out on a Williams F1 seat to current World Champion, Jenson Button in 2000, Junqueira went on to win the 2000 Formula 3000 Championship before going to the US with Chip Ganassi and taking 5th place at the 2001 Indy 500 and a pole position at the following year's event. He finished 2nd place in the Champ Car World Series (formerly CART) three seasons in a row - from 2002 to 2004 - to three different drivers; however since his last Champ Car success, his fortunes have suffered a downward turn as his career has been hampered by injury or poor seats. Junqueira broke his back at the 2005 Indianapolis 500 in a frightening accident with AJ Foyt IV.

Mark Webber Drives Sepang International Circuit

2010-03-31T00:30:00.000+01:00

This weekend marks the 12th Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit and to mark the occasion, here's a lap from Mark Webber in the Red Bull simulator. Doubtless Webber will want a better result than the 9th place he picked up in Melbourne and will probably be doing his best to avoid Lewis Hamilton as well.
Another certainty for Sepang will be Sebastian Vettel's determination to reach the chequered flag following mechanical issues at the first two events - both while leading. An additional retirement this weekend will only add to the young German's frustration.

John Andretti at the 2010 Indy 500

2010-03-29T19:54:00.005+01:00

Word was released earlier on today that NASCAR Sprint Cup driver, John Andretti is to drive a fifth Andretti Autosport car at this year's Indianapolis 500. There were also rumours that the seat could go to either JR Hildebrand or Franck Montagny pending sponsorship, but it appears the cousin of team boss Michael Andretti has got there first.
Should he qualify, Andretti - who is 47 years-old - will be competing in his eleventh Indy 500 following his début at the famous race in 1988. He drove mainly Lola machinery for various team owners until 1994, before he left for what was then the NASCAR Winston Cup. Andretti returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as an Indycar driver in 2007 with Panther Racing and also drove for Marty Roth and Richard Petty Motorsports in the two 500-mile races since then.
Andretti has a best qualifying position of 7th in the 1991 Indy 500 and a best finish of 5th at the same event, however the likelihood of the veteran repeating that performance is rather slim.

There is still no confirmation as to who will be the main backer for the fifth Andretti Autosport car, but whether this year's entry will carry any NASCAR related sponsorship. The Indy Racing League has struggled somewhat in recent years with attendance and TV numbers; however it is thought these numbers have reached plateau and with a new CEO and title sponsor, the series may see a slow upswing in these figures.

2010 Australian Grand Prix (Melbourne, Round 2, March 26th-28th)

2010-03-28T13:30:00.002+01:00

Although the Australian Grand Prix only became part of the Formula 1 World Championship in 1985, it actually stands as one of the oldest races on the calendar with its inception at Phillip Island in 1928 for the "100 mile Road Race". Since then, it has taken in many venues, such as Bathurst's Mount Panorama circuit, Warwick Farm, Sandown Park, Lakeside Raceway and Calder Park before settling on the streets of Adelaide and inclusion in the World Championship.

For eleven years, Adelaide finished the season, before the Grand Prix venue moved to its current location of Albert Park in 1996 and it has been the season opener for a majority of the years since that time. Of course, 1996 was not the first year the Grand Prix cars ran at Albert Park - Formula 1 cars débuted at the circuit on November 23rd 1953 for a non-Championship race won by Doug Whiteford in Talbot-Lago car, while Sterling Moss won the second Melbourne event in 1956, before a break of 40 years saw various Grand Prix machinery compete elsewhere in the country. For the most part, Melbourne has produced some excellent Grand Prix and following the slightly doddery start to the 2010 season in Sakhir, Melbourne restored the faith by producing some stellar action.

Before the weekend even got going, contentions were in full swing as it transpired that the new Virgin team may have designed a fuel tank that is too small to complete a race distance at a fat track, thereby necessitating a redesigned tank (and potentially other elements); while McLaren, Mercedes and two other squads have had to slightly close the gap around their starter motor and rear diffuser. Meanwhile eyebrows (and questions) were raised about Red Bull's "adjustable" ride height system - as yet unproven, of course.
On track, Force India's reserve driver, Paul di Resta ran in Adrian Sutil's car in free practice 1 to get some laps and experience; however the seat was relinquished for the later sessions - di Resta will occasionally swap seats with the two regular drivers throughout the season. Of the nine rookies that are in Melbourne, only Bruno Senna has previously competed at the circuit as the young Brazilian raced Formula 3 machinery on the Australian tarmac in 2006.
During the opening session itself, Kamui Kobayashi had a silly accident through the fast turn 11/12 chicane; as he took the entry too tight and fast and forcefully removed sections of his front wing and caused a red flag to emerge. It was not long before the session gets going again and when the young Japanese driver went back out, his front wing collapsed after only a few corners bringing out another red flag of the session. A poor practice session for Sauber got worse as Pedro de la Rosa stopped on circuit with mechanical problems. There were spins from Vitaly Petrov and the two Lotus cars, while Heikki Kovalainen pulled off track at the very end of the session with mechanical problems. At the top end of the results, fast laps from Robert Kubica (Renault), Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) and Jenson Button (McLaren) saw them take First Practice honours at the end of the first ninety minutes.

As the second session commenced, light rain began to fall on the Melbourne track prompting most of the cars to go on circuit and get some times on the board - especially the two McLaren's who spend the early part of the session swapping fastest laps as the rain fizzles out. Unfortunately the HRT driver Karun Chandhok suffered a driveshaft failure only meters after exiting the pitlane, ending his session early on - it would not be all bad for the Indian driver as he picked up many more miles during the weekend. Following a period of heavy running, the rain begins to come down heavily again, but this time the track clears as most of the drivers head back to the pits. Once again, the moisture softens and a few cars go out on track, but are significantly slower that the times already posted. Adrian Sutil returned to his car after di Resta's morning run. The track was somewhat drier by the end of the session, as a few drivers put in faster times - by the end of Friday practice, the lists were topped by Lewis Hamilton and Button (McLaren), with Mark Webber (Red Bull, Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) not far behind. Following the Friday evening sessions, Hamilton was pulled over by police for "over-exuberant" driving in his Mercedes sports car; to say that it was quite silly would be an understatement - whether it harms his attitude over the weekend remains to be seen.

A much cooler Saturday greeted the field for Saturday morning practice as Webber took the fastest time in his Red Bull Racing machine. Vettel also ran fast on circuit, as did Schumacher, Hamilton and Alonso - the five drivers swapped fastest laps throughout the session. For the two-time world Champion, Alonso struggled with heavy traffic - at one point baulked by the HRT of Bruno Senna. Unfortunately for the Brazilian driver, his engine cut out shortly afterward and his car ground to a halt on the exit of turn two. It went from bad to worse for the Spanish squad as Senna's team mate Karun Chandhok, retired quietly in the pits - his car motionless with a hydraulic problem.
As the afternoon drifted onward, the opening qualifying session saw much traffic with all twenty-four cars on circuit - something noted on team radio by Williams driver Rubens Barrichello. Unsurprisingly, all six new cars were knocked out and were joined by Petrov; however the session saw a big improvement for HRT as Senna and Chandhok lined up less than six seconds slower than the leading drivers and well within 107% of the fastest time. In the second part of the session, Lewis Hamilton was a surprise drop-out as he placed his car 11th on the grid - it appears the McLaren pilot was struggling badly with a poor balance and probably poor concentration too - while the much fancied Nico Hulkenberg qualified a disappointing 15th. Both of their team mates made it into the final part of qualifying.
The final session of qualifying saw Red Bull cars grab the front row, as Sebastien Vettel that took pole over Australian native Mark Webber. Button secured 4th place inbetween the two Ferrari's and just ahead of the Mercedes duo of Rosberg and Schumacher.

If you though the Bahrain Grand Prix was a little dull, then the Australian Grand Prix could not have been more different. From the second the lights went out until the moment the chequered flag dropped, the second race of 2010 was all action. As expected, the weather played its part for a very short period as the rain teemed down only minutes prior to the formation lap, necessitating intermediate wet tyres for all the drivers, except for the Lotus of Jarno Trulli - the Italian did not even make it to the grid as a hydraulic failure ended his race before it even started.
When the Grand Prix did start, Vettel romped into the lead, but a feisty looking Robert Kubica jumped ahead some of the frontrunners and into fourth place - partially because of an excellent start, but also because Button, Schumacher and Alonso clashed at turn 1 leaving the the Ferrari driver at the back of the field and Schumacher needing a new front wing. The damage inflicted on the 7-time world champion was nothing compared to the destruction inflicted by Kobayashi on Hulkenberg and Buemi at turn 3 - the Sauber driver lost his front wing entering turn 6 and ploughed into the side of his two hapless victims. Not even half a lap had been completed and the safety car was already touring the circuit. As the Mercedes sportscar pulled in, four laps were in the books and the track had began to dry out significantly - it was not long before the McLaren's were struggling on their inters changed to the soft tyres on the seventh and eighth laps respectively. Hamilton had gotten by Button prior to his stop, but it was the current Champion that emerged ahead of the two from the pitlane and instantly began to set fastest laps - within one tour, the rest of the field begins to change rubber as well. Australian native, Mark Webber was the last stopper and it dropped him a few spots behind race leader Vettel; however he didn't lose quite as many places as Petrov - the Russian driver lost traction in his Renault entering turn 3 and buried his machine in the gravel to retire from his second Grand Prix.
By this stage Button had progressed to second place - behind Vettel, but ahead of Kubica, Rosberg and Massa; however an under pressure Massa went wide at the first turn and dropped places to both Hamilton and Webber, but reclaimed his those two spots at turn 3 as the McLaren and Red Bull drivers tangle in the middle of the corner - the Red Bull coming off the worse of the two. This opened the door for the second Ferrari, as a hard charging Alonso had already moved up to eighth position by lap 15 and was setting fastest times. He reeled in the battling threesome with aplomb and now his attention turned to his 2007 team mate. It was clear at this point that the rear tyres on Massa's and Rosberg's respective sets were graining badly and this enabled Hamilton to get by the Brazilian into turn 1 - a brave move perfectly executed, but not quite as sublime as his move around Rosberg. Hamilton made quick work of the German to power around the outside of him through the fast turn 11/12 chicane.

On lap 26 and down at turn 13, the dust became airborne, the gravel shook violently and a backward drifting car grasped the attention of the grandstand and television viewers - Sebastian Vettel was out - break failure. For the second consecutive race, a Red Bull failure would hand the race to someone else - on this occasion, the lead was gifted to Jenson Button. Kubica slotted up to second place and was busy absorbing pressure from Hamilton; however behind the McLaren driver, others began to pit and Hamilton's team react by bringing the Englishman in on lap 34 - a move that would eventually stifle his race. Both Webber and Rosberg changed tyres also, but Hamilton had the jump on both - unfortunately they rejoined the race some over 35 seconds behind Button with only 20 laps remaining; although whereas it was unlikely for Button to get caught, the Renault of Robert Kubica and both Ferrari's were within catching distance on their old tyres.
Soon the laps fell away like the rubber from the leading four and Hamilton and Webber closed on the Kubica / Massa / Alonso battle by over 1 second per lap. With less than ten laps left on the counter, Button possessed a 17 second lead on Kubica with Massa not far behind the Pole - Alonso still in fourth had both Hamilton and Webber in his mirrors; however a stalemate ensued as Hamilton with scuffed rubber entered Alonso's dirty air. The 2008 World Champion tried a number of moves on his former team mate - unsuccessfully - but when an attempt in turn turn 13 on lap 56 doesn't quite come together, the McLaren pilot is rammed from the back by Webber. Both kept going, but Lewis lost a spot while Webber pitted for a new wing and dropped to ninth.
With nothing left, Button cruised to his second consecutive Australian Grand Prix victory and the eight of his Formula 1 career. A marvellous race that was the antithesis of the procession around Sakhir from two weeks ago and easily one of the stand out races from the last few seasons - fantastic stuff. A note of congratulations to for the HRT team, as their driver Karun Chandhok made it to the end of the race, albeit 5 laps adrift of the winner, but everyone has to start somewhere.
Come Thursday, the teams will be in Sepang for the twelfth Malaysian Grand Prix and the third race of 2010, but will it live up to this?
Race Rating: 4.5 out of 5

--------
Melbourne, Australian Grand Prix (Round 2, March 28th)
1 BUTTON McLaren
2 KUBICA Renault +12.0s
3 MASSA Ferrari +14.4s
4 ALONSO Ferrari +16.3s
5 ROSBERG Mercedes +16.6s
6 HAMILTON McLaren +29.8s
7 LIUZZI Force

India

+59.8s
8 BARRICHELLO Williams +60.5s
9 WEBBER Red Bull +67.3s
10 SCHUMACHER Mercedes +69.3s
11 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +71.3s
12 DE LA ROSA Sauber +74.0s
13 KOVALAINEN Lotus +2 laps
14 CHANDHOK HRT +5 laps
R. GLOCK Virgin +17 laps
R. DI GRASSI Virgin +32 laps
R. VETTEL Red Bull +33 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +49 laps
R. PETROV Renault +49 laps
R. SENNA HRT +54 laps
R. BUEMI Toro Rosso +58 laps
R. HULKENBERG Williams +58 laps
R. KOBAYASHI Sauber +58 laps
R. TRULLI Lotus +58 laps

Melbourne, Qualifying (March 27th)
3rd Session
1 VETTEL Red Bull 1m23.919s

2 WEBBER Red Bull 1m24.035s

3 ALONSO Ferrari 1m24.111s

4 BUTTON McLaren 1m24.675s

5 MASSA Ferrari 1m24.837s
6 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m24.884s

7 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m24.927s

8 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m25.217s

9 KUBICA Renault 1m25.372s

10 SUTIL Force India 1m26.036s

2nd Session

11 HAMILTON McLaren 1m25.184s

12 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m25.638s

13 LIUZZI Force India 1m25.743s

14 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m25.747s

15 HULKENBERG Williams 1m25.748s

16 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m25.777s

17 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m26.089s
1st Session
18 PETROV Renault 1m26.471s

19 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m28.797s

20 TRULLI Lotus 1m29.111s

21 GLOCK Virgin 1m29.592s

22 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m30.185s

23 SENNA HRT 1m30.526s

24 CHANDHOK HRT 1m30.613s

Melbourne, 3rd Free Practice (March 27th)
1 WEBBER Red Bull 1m24.719s
2 ALONSO Ferrari 1m24.929s
3 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m24.963s
4 VETTEL Red Bull 1m25.122s
5 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m25.366s
6 BUTTON McLaren 1m25.399s
7 HAMILTON McLaren 1m25.505s
8 SUTIL Force India 1m25.525s
9 MASSA Ferrari 1m25.549s
10 LIUZZI Force India 1m25.782s
11 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m25.852s
12 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m26.104s
13 KUBICA Renault 1m26.184s
14 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m26.275s
15 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m26.368s
16 PETROV Renault 1m26.661s
17 HULKENBERG Williams 1m26.804s
18 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m26.818s
19 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m29.539s
20 TRULLI Lotus 1m29.800s
21 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m30.800s
22 GLOCK Virgin 1m31.114s
23 CHANDHOK HRT 1m34.334s
24 SENNA HRT 1m36.649s

Melbourne, 2nd Free Practice (March 26th)

1 HAMILTON McLaren 1m25.801s

2 BUTTON McLaren 1m26.076s

3 WEBBER Red Bull 1m26.248s

4 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m26.511s

5 PETROV Renault 1m26.732s

6 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m26.832s

7 SUTIL Force India 1m26.834s

8 LIUZZI Force India 1m26.835s

9 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m26.904s

10 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m26.956s

11 KUBICA Renault 1m27.108s

12 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m27.108s

13 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m27.455s

14 HULKENBERG Williams 1m27.545s

15 ALONSO Ferrari 1m29.025s

16 VETTEL Red Bull 1m29.134s

17 MASSA Ferrari 1m29.591s

18 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m29.860s

19 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m30.510s

20 TRULLI Lotus 1m30.695s

21 GLOCK Virgin 1m32.117s

22 DI GRASSI Virgin no time

23 CHANDHOK HRT no time

24 SENNA HRT no time

Melbourne, 1st Free Practice (March 26th)

1 KUBICA Renault 1m26.927s
2 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m27.126s
3 BUTTON McLaren 1m27.482s
4 MASSA Ferrari 1m27.511s
5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m27.686s
6 ALONSO Ferrari 1m27.747s
7 HAMILTON McLaren 1m27.793s
8 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m28.014s
9 PETROV Renault 1m28.114s
10 LIUZZI Force India 1m28.192s
11 DI RESTA Force India 1m28.537s
12 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m28.550s
13 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m28.572s
14 WEBBER Red Bull 1m28.683s
15 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m29.465s
16 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m29.712s
17 HULKENBERG Williams 1m30.249s
18 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m31.588s
19 TRULLI Lotus 1m31.652s
20 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m31.654s
21 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m32.831s
22 SENNA HRT 1m33.401s
23 CHANDHOK HRT 1m34.251s
24 GLOCK Virgin 1m34.925s

Mark Webber to Mentor Mitch Evans

2010-03-27T01:04:00.007Z

Fifteen year-old Mitch Evans - who has been featured on this site competing in the New Zealand Toyota Racing Series - has just secured a mentor in the shape of Red Bull racing driver, Mark Webber. Evans - who is looking to make his move to Europe within the next two years - caught the eye of many with his exploits in the New Zealand based series, where he won a number of the events and took the title by three points over A1GP refugee Earl Bamber - an impressive feat.

Should the teenager make the transition, he will be yet another driver from down under to join the Red Bull Racing squad - a team that already contains Daniel Ricciardo (Australia) and Brendon Hartley (New Zealand). Evans is currently competing in the Australian Formula 3 Championship with Team BRM, where he has taken three wins from his first three events. In 2008, he claimed the Formula Ford Manfield Winter Series and last year, he took second overall in the Australian Formula Ford Championship.
Evans' new mentor also owns shares in the GP3 team MW Arden with Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner, so if Evans does make the jump to European Formula racing, a clear path of progression is set to be cleared for him. With the Australian Grand Prix happening this weekend, this is a very positive move for not just Red Bull, but also for the sport as a whole.

Leigh

Was Refuelling Banned Too Soon?

2010-03-24T00:30:00.000Z

Some weeks ago, I wrote a rather positive post about the banning of refuelling - and it is something that I am still rather positive about; however even I am also happy to concede that alterations could have been made to the regulation to aid good racing.
At this stage it has already been determined that the controversial double-diffuser, that was introduced in 2009 by Brawn, Williams and the now defunct Toyota squad, is to be banned in an effort to reduce the downforce the cars produce to supposed 2009 levels, but whether can be feasibly achieved is an unknown at this stage. Since the Overtaking Working Group's suggestions for new aerodynamic regulation during 2008, the engineers and designers have worked tirelessly to grab much of that back - there were rumours during the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend that downforce levels were already closing in on the numbers produced two seasons ago. The removal of the double-diffuser will hopefully take those aerodynamic figures down somewhat, but it raises another question - has the refuelling ban come a year too early?

In hindsight, the refuelling ban twinned with the ejection of double-diffusers would have made much more sense; however the series is now left with one year of cars that are unable to pass on track while unable to extract the most from strategy. Races could potentially be decided by how teams treat their tyres, yet for their final season in the sport, Bridgestone have produced what appear to be their most reliable rubber yet, thereby making variations in tyre strategy rather limited as well.
The refuelling ban was not going to be the only answer to the question of dull races though. As stated many times by many people, as long as the dirty air from the front wing and undertray is prevalent, then passing is always going to be incredibly difficult (here's my contribution). We are not looking for easy passing manoeuvres - it's simply not fun to watch when there's no challenge - but the car's at least need to be able to attempt a pass and getting designers to easily give up on aerodynamic downforce will be no easy task.

Leigh

Mark Webber Drives the Streets of Albert Park, Melbourne

2010-03-23T21:00:00.001Z

The first practice for the 2010 Australian Grand Prix gets going very early on Friday morning (approximately 1.30am) with the second practice following later at 5.30am. Despite two solid points finishes in Bahrain last week, Red Bull will be hoping for more from the second Grand Prix of the season - and we, the viewers, will also be expecting something a little dicier. So in preparation for his home race, Australian Mark Webber gives a drivers eye view of the Melbourne circuit from the Red Bull simulator and I'm sure he'll be hoping to bag the perfect lap and race at the Australian event.

This weekend also sees the second Indycar race of the season on the streets of St Petersburg, Florida. Mark Webber's fellow Aussie, Will Power will be looking to add to his Sao Paolo success in his Verizon Penske machine and has a great opportunity to do so on another tough street event.

Leigh

Following the Storm

2010-03-22T22:00:00.001Z

Following last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, Formula 1 received a rather large amount of criticism from the fans, teams, drivers and media alike for what was quite a dull main event. While many relevant points have been made regarding how the new rules may have stifled overtaking, the sport must stop short of knee jerk reactions by introducing new regulations that may only produce contrived racing conditions beyond sensible reason.
In January, Bernie Ecclestone commented that shortcuts could be introduced to Formula 1 in order to spice up the racing (I wrote about his suggestion here); possibly because he foresaw that there may be processions during the season. Some sections of the media and fandom wrote off shortcuts as nonsense sprouted by an out of touch money hog, while others went into an epileptic fervour when confronted by the suggestion. Regardless of their ultimate intention, Ecclestone's comments were made, people reacted and the quote was quickly forgotten when pre-season testing commenced two weeks later. Headlines were written and Formula 1 was in the news once more during the January lull; however it is doubtful that many thought the shortcuts story would return - yet like the Olympic medals idea that Bernie has been peddling occasionally, it came back like a bad rash. However, there was a method to the medals idea and as far as Bernie may be concerned, it eventually gave him the result that was wanted.

For those that don't remember, the medals idea was initially suggested by Ecclestone just prior to the 1989 Hungarian Grand Prix and is thought to have been a move against the then Formula 1 points system of 9-6-4-3-2-1 from first place to sixth respectively. Crucially only the eleven best results counted towards the championship standings and the 1988 title was won by Ayrton Senna, despite Senna scoring eleven points less than team mate and rival Alain Prost. Whatever the machinations that Ecclestone employs, it had the desired effect and from 1991, all results counted and the points for a win rounded up to 10. The moment the chequered flag dropped in Bahrain, stories of shortcuts and other controversial ideas reappeared in the media, but rather than take them literally, this may well be a push to get the sport to move quickly to try to fix the overtaking problem. Give an extreme proposition and those on the inside may come up with more amicable solutions...
Apart from shortcuts, another idea that has cropped up since the end of the Bahrain race is that of two mandatory pitstops per car. Although this might sound like an intriguing idea on paper, it is more than conceivable that this enforced strategy will produce racing that is just as boring in practice as the current regulations. When such strategic restraints are placed upon the teams, it is highly likely that they may end up pitting their drivers within one or two laps of eachother - in essence, the rulemakers may end up replacing one stalemate with another. Considering that one of the potential results of removing refuelling would be to also shake up tyre strategy, enforcing such specific strategies on teams could in turn make every race utterly predictable in every way and it is this very end game that Formula 1 must avoid at all costs.
There was also the notion the Bridgestone should bring ultra-soft tyres that would easily fall apart seems utterly daft and completely pointless and may surely only incur bad press for the Japanese company. In motor racing circles, Bridgestone ooze excellence, whether it be in Formula 1 and its related feeder formulae or in the US under its Firestone/Firehawk branding and it is not and entity that prides itself on producing sub-standard material because the sports own regulations are faulty.

These suggestions, comments and ideas ultimately ignore the main issue of top flight motor racing; namely aerodynamics. All of the fancy quirks and minor rule changes pale into insignificance when compared to the power of a cars' aerodynamic wake. For so many years, drivers have been rather vocal about the dirty air of the car in front preventing passing, yet it is the one element that the FIA have struggled to contain and it looks like the issue may continue to elude them for some time - despite the banning of the controversial double-diffuser from 2011.
On James Allen's blog last week, he received "a note" from former Williams and Toyota aerodynamacist Frank Dernie about the aero problem and while Dernie made some valid points about the reduction of aerodynamic downforce not making it easier to pass (as seen with the exclusion of the skirts in 1982), the consideration of the dirty air that the wings create was largely ignored, but how can this issue seriously be address? The racing manufacturer, Swift may have a partial answer with their 2012 IRL chassis proposal.
In December 2007, Swift Engineering announced that the new Formula Nippon chassis would contain an element called the "mushroom buster" - essentially taking the under-wing concept also seen in the GP2/05 and the Toyota Atlantics series up until recently a step further. Swift's chief designer Chris Norris commented in the manufacturer's proposal that "...whatever our final (...) concept design, Swift will incorporate its new pioneering technology to improve passing..."
The term "mushroom buster" is in reference to the shape of the aerodynamic wake that a car produces. Norris claims the 'busters' will "...sweep up the wake behind the leading car without harming the handling of the following car. We have already effectively utilised Mushroom Busters in our Formula Nippon car design, the 017.n and believe we can take this technology much further..." It is a theory that Formula 1 may need to consider as the current route of aerodynamics of the cars appears to lead the quality of racing further and further down a dark alleyway.

The poor perception of the Bahrain event was not helped by some sub-standard TV direction. While there may not have been much overtaking up front, there were still a solid number of moves for position below the top 10; mainly from Renault's Robert Kubica and Adrian Sutil of Force India. Both these drivers spun from their mid-pack positions at the first corner and fell to the rear of the field and for much of the rest of the race, the duo picked up places by either forcing their way through on track or by nabbing positions during the pitstops. Unfortunately viewers rarely ever saw it, because - for obvious reasons - the TV direction was to the front of the field for that was where the real "action" was. If anything, the refuelling may be a blessing in disguise for Formula 1, for it has exposed how little on track passing there actually is in the series - this time it will not be masked by pitlane "action".

Of course, this could all be academic - should the Australian Grand Prix be a good race, then the Bahrain race will be put down to it just being a singular poor event and like the 1999 Spanish Grand Prix and 2005 Hungarian Grand Prix will be consigned to the history books as epic blips on the map. With all the talk from the organisers and rule-makers of Formula 1 about spicing up the spectacle, you would think they could draft regulations that will allow for some sort of competition and overtaking; thereby actually providing a spectacle.

Leigh

Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger: 15 Years On

2010-03-21T10:22:00.000Z

Today Ayrton Senna would have been 50 years old. This is a piece that I wrote for his 15th anniversary - I felt it was apt then and still feel that it is apt now.
------

It feels so long ago, yet it still haunts. Today is the fifteenth anniversary of Ayrton Senna's Death - a day that virtually transformed the face of motorsport forever. It was a weekend that also claimed the life of the Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger during Saturday qualifying for the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix and left Rubens Barrichello hospitalised following a severe Friday practice crash.

It's odd that their deaths actually feel like they happened longer ago. Formula 1 (and motor sport in general) has changed beyond recognition in the past 15 years - it had too. The safety of drivers, fans and mechanics have become paramount and the days of 180 mph corners lined only with concrete walls are gone.
Where once the drivers were fairly exposed, they are now cocooned in their cockpits; where mechanics once wore shorts and t-shirts whilst hanging around the pitlane, they now all wear fire protective attire and for better or for worse where fans once could get relatively close to the action and leave messages on the track for drivers and teams (dead or alive), they are now sat behind distant fences watching sporting royalty from afar.

There will always be people who watch motor racing for the thrill of seeing a big accident, but even then everyone wants the driver to jump out and walk away - how cruel that in the apace of twenty-four hours, the motor racing world received two very real warnings as to why it should never be so complacent.

----------
Ayrton Senna "The Whole Story" (by Christopher Hilton)
A few days ago I mumbled on about how Franz Ferdinand's new album felt like a cheap biography - there would be an excellent opening section that would inform the reader/listener about the subject's youth, determination and ultimate motivation. The next chapters would tell of the struggles as well as the success' and eventually the next section would dwell on the peaks before the inevitable epilogue.
The very best biographies will weave stories continuously throughout a book, while some lamentable efforts slot into a recession of stop/start storytelling that relies specifically on blow-by-blow, date-by-date entries. It is possible that it's just me, but biographies are a lot less fun when they steer away from the subject as a person and instead follow a path of results and short quotations.

While Ayrton Senna: the Whole Story is not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, it does fall ever so slightly into statistical storytelling during the latter half of Senna's career rather than regaling the reader with tales of Senna's powerful personality. While this in itself isn't too bad, it means that closeness of the subject is lost. After a time, it begins to read a little like a memo and as a result detaches itself from the reader somewhat.
Inevitably, the tragic weekend of Imola 1994 is covered in great depth, covering, not just the many accidents of the meeting, but also the feelings of around the paddock over the course of the four days and it is in these chapters that Christopher Hilton excels. The book covers Senna's near obsession with religion with a deft hand and avoids any temptation to be overzealous in favour of subtlety.

Although I already admired and knew a great deal about the man, many of the interviews show a much greater insight into Senna and reveal the passion and intelligence through which his mind worked. To be honest, I don't think any words that I can come up would ever truly describe Senna, but hopefully this two-part interview with Steve Rider in February 1990 can delve ever so slightly into his person.

May the 1st, 1994 is a date that is burned deep into my head. I remember getting up on Sunday morning and I remember the picture of Roland Ratzenberger on the back of the Sunday World (killed the previous day in Qualifying - followed by imagining the spluttering morons claiming the motor racing was a disgrace and should be banned - let's not forget the gobshites that chose to speak following Richard Hammond's Top Gear accident). There was the start-line accident between Pedro Lamy and JJ Lehto and fifteen-minutes later, the accident.

I remember my Dad and I used to go for drives to the Curragh on occasional Sunday's as soon as the race was over - but I recollect that on this particular Sunday, we didn't watch the rest of the race. A time later my Dad turned on the radio in the car and it was the death of Senna that governed the conversation of the weekend sports show (Ireland doesn't have weekends - it has 48-hour long Sundays). I also remember another neighbour coming out that evening playfully announcing that "...your mate got in the head, just like that guy yesterday..."

This year will be the 15th anniversary of Senna's death; however this book did not remind of his death - in fact, it reminded me of a wonderfully passionate life. I often look at modern musicians and racing drivers and so many look devoid of passion for they are more often than not PR controlled - in order to offend no one, you must show no passion.
There is a moment, a facial expression and a feeling that is frozen time time. I had the same feeling when I stayed up all night listening to reports of Princess Diana's death (although I am no royalist, it was such news) and that feeling emerged again when I learned of Joe Strummer's death, but nothing burns quite like that accident.
I will never forget that day as long as I live.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Current reading:
Simon Armitage "Gig"

Leigh

Autódromo de Benguela, Angola

2010-03-21T02:15:00.004Z

Apart from insomnia and vitamin deficiency, one of the odd side effects of racing simulations - such as the Grand Prix series and rFactor - is the curiosity triggered by foreign and unknown tracks.
Through game communities and websites, a "driver" can play with and explore many circuits from the world over that will never find it itself on any international racing calendar.

Many of these unknown tracks tend to represent minor or local racing leagues with drivers that rarely penetrate outside of their respective boundaries and the Autódromo de Benguela on the Praia Morena beach in Angola is just such a circuit.

Originally, touring cars and club class machinery ran around the town of Benguela, but it was in May 1972 that the 4km long permanent circuit was opened; however as with much of the African continent, various economic and political problems had kept the arena virtually abandoned for the most part over the next nearly 30 years.
It was a great loss considering the layout possesses some truly fantastic corners - in particular the nearly flat turns 4-5 section and difficult last two corners are stand outs, followed by a very long straight for overtaking.

Initially the circuit was designed for the Springbok Sportscar Series which was popular in some African territories throughout the 1960's, but even that dried up once many European competitors - turned off by fear and the threat of violence - stopped coming in later years. While Kyalami in South Africa held Formula 1 events right up until the early 1993, it wasn't until 2001 that the circuit reappeared on the international calendar as it hosted the inaugural Motorcycle Grand Prix of Benguela.
Unfortunately, since Angola is not part of the African Motorcycle Union, the Benguela circuit could run any officially sanctioned events, meaning that any races that did take part were most likely organised by the competitors themselves. As of 2004, the circuit no longer appears to be operational; although the area around the track and nearby towns are continuing to develop at a rapid pace. Now the Ombaka National Football Stadium sits in the town where the course once stood supreme - it is unfortunate that Benguela Raceway will not be part Angola's future development, but the political and economic difficulties that the country continues to endure may keep motor racing away from Angola for many years to come.

Leigh

2010 Bahrain Grand Prix (Sakhir, Round 1, March 12th-14th)

2010-03-14T14:00:00.006Z

The first practice sessions of 2010 gave very little away in terms of how the teams will run in the race; however it did give the teams the opportunity to run on the extended circuit - something already covered here).
It appeared as if most of the teams were trying out heavy runs to see how they will go in the race, except for HRT who just seemed happy to get their car running for the first time. Unfortunately for the new Spanish team, Bruno Senna only managed three laps in the morning and not a whole lot more during the second session and was way off the front running pace - his HRT machine looking massively unstable through the faster sweeps.

The teams that everyone expected to be fast - Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes - did not disappoint and there were signs of Force India tagging onto the back of that group. At the back end of the field, the teams that were expected to be off the pace - Lotus, Virgin and the aforementioned HRT - were indeed quite off the pace. An unretired Michael Schumacher seemed to be struggling with his new Mercedes car if the reports from the pits are to be believed, although his new team mate, Nico Rosberg, found his car much more comfortable.
There were also a couple of wheel problems over the first couple of days of running. On Friday afternoon, a wheel nut from Bruno Senna's car came free at the end of second practice, thereby stopping his session and Timo Glock's Virgin Racing machine lost his front right wheel during Saturday morning, leaving him trundling around the circuit on three wheels.

Come qualifying, Sebastian Vettel secured the first pole of the season only just 1/10th of a second ahead of Felipe Massa and a further 4/10th's of a second in front of Fernando Alonso - a key early victory for the Brazilian driver in his first back since his horrific injury in Hungary last season. Congratulations to Timo Glock for being the first if the new teams and an even greater heads up must be given to Karun Chandhok whose first ever laps in the HRT machine was during today's qualifying session - I cannot remember the last time I saw such a cool driver as Chandhok, when facing the possibility of not racing.

On Sunday, the reshaped circuit decreed that the race came in at 49 laps and of the top 10, it was Adrian Sutil who looked like he might spring a surprise as he started from 10th place with the harder tyres; unfortunately contact from his team mate Antonio Liuzzi spun the young German down to back of the field. The Renault of Robert Kubica also spun exiting turn 1 where he joined Sutil. Both Sutil and Kubica showed very good pace during the race, so to be handicapped so early in the event made sure that points would not be coming their way. An interesting return to racing for the 7-time World Champion Michael Schumacher as he finished in 6th place, behind Rosberg; however the returnee still managed to get to the line ahead of the defending champion Jenson Button.
For the new teams, it was a mixed series of results as both Lotus cars managed to finish the race - an excellent result in itself - made even better by Kovalainen beating Buemi by the flag. Chandhok retired following contact with the barrier on lap 2, while both Virgin's and the second HRT of Senna retired with mechanical problems.

Another shame for the race was Vettel dropping back with a cracked exhaust - a failure that nullified the battle at the front, as the Ferrari duo of Massa and Alonso appeared to settle into engine saving mode once the Red Bull was out of the way. Alonso stretched his legs and won the Grand Prix by quite a large margin ahead of his team mate, with Lewis Hamilton in third place - Vettel eventually finished in fourth place. It was quite noticeable during Alonso's slow down lap that his fist was out and he was waving his hands in celebration - to no one. There were absolutely no grandstands or general admission areas in the middle of the track and apart from a few marshals, there was absolutely no one around - it was a very eerie sight.

All in all, it was not a great race, but then again Bahrain has rarely produced stunning Grand Prix. It also doesn't help that it is very hard to tell any of the corners apart in the middle of the desert track and it only makes me want the Australian Grand Prix to come around quicker. The next race takes place in Melbourne in two weeks time. It should be interesting to see if Ferrari and Red Bull can continue their Bahrain pace. My thanks to ICON, Kartographie Huber and Hot Maps for supplying the extremely detailed map of the Sakhir circuit above - their website should anyone want a swift look around can be found at hot-map.com.
ICON Website
Kartographie Huber Website
Race Rating: 2 out of 5

Sakhir, Bahrain Grand Prix (Round 1, March 14th)

1. ALONSO Ferrari 49 Laps

2. MASSA Ferrari +16.0s

3. HAMILTON McLaren +23.1s

4. VETTEL Red Bull +38.7s

5. ROSBERG Mercedes +40.2s

6. SCHUMACHER Mercedes +44.1s

7. BUTTON McLaren +45.2s

8. WEBBER Red Bull +46.3s

9. LIUZZI Force India +53.0s

10. BARRICHELLO Williams +62.4s

11. KUBICA Renault +69.0s

12. SUTIL Force India +82.9s

13. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +92.6s

14. HULKENBERG Williams +1 lap

15. KOVALAINEN Lotus +2 laps

16. BUEMI Toro Rosso +3 laps

17. TRULLI Lotus +3 laps

R. DE LA ROSA Sauber +21 laps

R. SENNA HRT +32 laps

R. GLOCK Virgin +33 laps

R. PETROV Renault +36 laps

R. KOBAYASHI Sauber +38 laps

R. DI GRASSI Virgin +47 laps

R. CHANDHOK HRT +48 laps

Sakhir, Qualifying (March 13th)
3rd Session
1 VETTEL Red Bull 1m54.101s
2 MASSA Ferrari 1m54.242s
3 ALONSO Ferrari 1m54.608s
4 HAMILTON McLaren 1m55.217s
5 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m55.241s
6 WEBBER Red Bull 1m55.284s
7 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m55.524s
8 BUTTON McLaren 1m55.672s
9 KUBICA Renault 1m55.885s
10 SUTIL Force India 1m56.309s
2nd Session

11 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m55.330s

12 LIUZZI Force India 1m55.653s

13 HULKENBERG Williams 1m55.857s

14 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m56.237s

15 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m56.265s

16 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m56.270s

17 PETROV Renault 1m56.619s

1st Session
18 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m57.071s
19 GLOCK Virgin 1m59.728s
20 TRULLI Lotus 1m59.852s
21 KOVALAINEN Lotus 2m00.313s
22 DI GRASSI Virgin 2m00.587s
23 SENNA HRT 2m03.240s
24 CHANDHOK HRT 2m04.904s

Sakhir, 3rd Free Practice (March 13th)
1 ALONSO Ferrari 1m54.099s
2 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m54.368s
3 WEBBER Red Bull 1m54.500s
4 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m54.533s
5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m54.646s
6 MASSA Ferrari 1m54.739s
7 BUTTON McLaren 1m55.000s
8 KUBICA Renault 1m55.331s
9 LIUZZI Force India 1m55.432s
10 HULKENBERG Williams 1m55.461s
11 SUTIL Force India 1m55.521s
12 HAMILTON McLaren 1m55.860s
13 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m56.063s
14 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m56.259s
15 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m56.295s
16 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m56.504s
17 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m56.530s
18 PETROV Renault 1m56.811s
19 GLOCK Virgin 1m59.173s
20 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m59.789s
21 TRULLI Lotus 2m01.259s
22 SENNA HRT 2m04.001s
23 DI GRASSI Virgin no time
24 CHANDHOK HRT no time

Sakhir, 2nd Free Practice (March 12th)
1 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m55.409s
2 HAMILTON McLaren 1m55.854s
3 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m55.903s
4 BUTTON McLaren 1m56.076s
5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m56.459s
6 HULKENBERG Williams 1m56.501s
7 MASSA Ferrari 1m56.555s
8 PETROV Renault 1m56.750s
9 ALONSO Ferrari 1m57.140s
10 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m57.255s
11 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m57.352s
12 SUTIL Force India 1m57.361s
13 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m57.452s
14 LIUZZI Force India 1m57.833s
15 KUBICA Renault 1m58.155s
16 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m59.799s
17 WEBBER Red Bull 2m00.444s
18 KOVALAINEN Lotus 2m00.873s
19 TRULLI Lotus 2m00.990s
20 GLOCK Virgin 2m02.037s
21 DI GRASSI Virgin 2m02.188s
22 SENNA HRT 2m06.968s
23 BUEMI Toro Rosso no time
24 CHANDHOK HRT no time

Sakhir, 1st Free Practice (March 12th)
1 SUTIL Force India 1m56.583s
2 ALONSO Ferrari 1m56.766s
3 KUBICA Renault 1m57.041s
4 MASSA Ferrari 1m57.055s
5 BUTTON McLaren 1m57.068s
6 HAMILTON McLaren 1m57.163s
7 LIUZZI Force India 1m57.194s
8 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m57.199s
9 WEBBER Red Bull 1m57.255s
10 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m57.662s
11 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m57.722s
12 HULKENBERG Williams 1m57.894s
13 VETTEL Red Bull 1m57.943s
14 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m58.399s
15 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m58.782s
16 PETROV Renault 1m58.880s
17 DE LA ROSA Sauber 2m00.250s
18 KOBAYASHI Sauber 2m01.388s
19 GLOCK Virgin 2m03.680s
20 KOVALAINEN Lotus 2m03.848s
21 TRULLI Lotus 2m03.970s
22 DI GRASSI Virgin no time
23 SENNA HRT no time
24 CHANDHOK HRT no time

Sir Stirling Moss (**Updated)

2010-03-13T00:10:00.000Z

(March 8th, 2010)
Just a quick note to offer my best wishes to former Formula 1 racing driver, Sir Stirling Moss, who had a heavy fall down a lift shaft over the weekend. Although the legendary driver suffered two broken ankles and other injuries, he is thought to be in good spirits. All the best Stirling and get well soon.

(March 12th, 2010)
"A Message from Sir Stirling Moss"

Leigh

Fuelled to the Finish (***Updated)

2010-03-11T23:30:00.000Z

A funny thing happened during during the 2009 Japanese Grand Prix at the wonderful Suzuka circuit. Just before his first stop, Rubens Barrichello was following Kimi Raikkonen and gaining some ground, when he contacted race engineer Jock Clear on the team radio and asked "...do I try to pass him?" Clear responded only a moment later with "...don't bother, we'll just get him in the pits..." and it irritated me greatly, because as a viewer, I felt robbed of a potential battle. It was obvious too that Barrichello wasn't even attempting a move - he was simply sitting tight to the gearbox of Raikkonen and it annoyed the hell out of me.
To such a degree in fact that I heartily rejoiced when the FIA banned race refuelling from this season onwards. Bar the necessary tyre stops, drivers will now be on a straight run to the flag from the lights and for the most part, that can be a good thing.

The 1992 and 1993 seasons had been years of utter dominance by the Williams team, with easy titles for Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost - both secured very early in the season. When refuelling was reintroduced into Formula 1 to "spice up the show" following an 11-year ban on safety grounds, it in one foul swoop reduced what little overtaking there was and transferred it to the pitlane and while it is wonderful to see the pitlane mechanics work feverishly and do their level best, I was dismayed to see that it became the entire focus of each Grand Prix, thereby making the rest of the event seemingly irrelevant. Overtaking on track became a secondary concern as long as your pitting strategy was quicker.
Some fans saw this was the case and were irritated and may have even been turned off by it; others loved the strategy side that had been introduced - but when Clear uttered those words to Barrichello, it was the first time that it clearly stated in a broadcast and everyone heard it.

Some fans will lament the loss of strategy, but strategic thinking will most certainly still exist in Formula 1, as tyres and car set-up take on a whole new significance. Beforehand, a driver set his car to cope with (amongst other things) the differing weight distribution between the first lap and the one-third distance, which essentially cast a vaguely similar car weight throughout a stint. In other words, what car set-up worked after the start would still be somewhat relevant at about 60-75 miles, when everyone inevitably piled in to the pitlane. Now a driver and team will need to calculate the difference in the car between the start of the race and its weight at 190 miles (the approximate length of a Grand Prix).
Tyres will have to be chosen carefully as different car weights will affect tyres in different ways and a drivers that are tough on tyres during the early laps may have to make extra stops to compensate for excessive tyre wear or simply be more prudent when he drives. Some drivers may even factor higher tyre wear into their strategies in a different manner, by deliberately being more aggressive and taking advantage of much shorter stops for faster tyres, although such a strategy would indeed be a risky one.
While things may not change a large amount this season from Bridgestone's point of view, whatever company that enters the Formula 1 fray as sole tyre supplier from 2011 may choose (be told) to create a series of tyre constructions to fit these particular strategic frames.
A fine aerodynamic balance will also be extra important - a balance that suits a heavy car at the start of a race may be completely undrivable by the end of the event; whereas a car that is good in a 'light mode' may potentially fall backwards during the early stages when a car is extremely heavy.

This may also kick the engine manufacturer's into gear too. An engine that is kinder with fuel consumption whilst still maintaining optimum speed and lower revs might drive the engine manufacturer's into reconfiguring their designs and changing how they view power technology. With a rumoured new formula being introduced for 2013, the engine builder's may be looking at this regulation closely as it could potentially define what comes next in Formula 1 and motor racing circles. A simple little rule to help bring back on track overtaking could be the catalyst to change how designers and engine manufacturer's think of the sort forever.
As it stands, conservation sells and rules that drive companies to garner more mileage from engines while maintaining optimum speeds may well be the future - not because it's good for the environment, but because it sells and right now, "green sells cars."

For the record, Barrichello could not get by Raikkonen during the stops. His inability to jump the Finn put him behind the slower Nico Rosberg and Nick Heidfeld, which resulted in a seventh place finish - only one place ahead of Championship rival and team mate Jenson Button - while Raikkonen took fourth place. Button did not secure the title until the next race in Brazil, but it was here that Barrichello finally lost it.
Next year Barrichello, like everyone else, has no choice - if he wants that next position, he has to take it on the track... just like everyone else.

Leigh

Mark Webber Drives Bahrain International Raceway

2010-03-10T07:00:00.000Z

The first practice of the 2010 Formula 1 Season starts at 7am on Friday morning and the Red Bull Racing team have been nice enough to release this video of Mark Webber driving a lap of the updated Sakhir circuit in the teams' simulator. It is an interesting little video, but it did an awful lot to get me excited about the upcoming weekend.
With the Indy Racing League race in Brazil on Sunday night, I can safely say that I may not be leaving the house at any stage

Leigh

Carl Edwards: The Crazy Notion of On Track Payback (***Updated)

2010-03-09T20:00:00.000Z

(**Original post, March 8th 2010)
Last night at Atlanta Motor Speedway, rather than show itself to be one of the top-tier racing series' in the world, NASCAR displayed tactics that were more in common with a poorly rehearsed circus act. With three laps to go, the great white elephant in the room was the Roush Fenway Racing pilot Carl Edwards, as he quite deliberately bumped the Penske Racing machine of Brad Keselowski, sending the then 6th place driver into the air. Keselowski's number 12 machine flipped over and hit the concrete retaining wall hard - just missing the catch fencing in the process.
Quite frankly any driver that feels the need to resort to such puerile and volatile actions is surely a rogue entity and shoddy competitor to boot and no excuse could possibly be made the cover such reckless actions; regardless of crimes Keselowski may have committed against Edwards earlier in the race.

Now some twenty hours after the event and I still cannot fathom the stupidity of Carl Edwards. A large number of incidents in the recent past is never a reason for such dangerous behaviour and "fans" that have the nerve to defend such actions need to take a long hard look at both themselves and the sport. This is not wrestling; people can get hurt.
If NASCAR truly wants to be taken seriously outside of the US, it needs to eradicate these "payback" chops with immediate effect, less they find themselves with a real disaster (and possibly blood) on their hands. Shame too on the reporting from FOX, as the presentation crew egg on these childish actions with unabashed glee.

Has the sport travelled so far down the wrong road since the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001 that these moronic tendencies are now actively encouraged rather than being properly monitored and kept in check?
To wantonly inflict damage and danger with such abandon, because of some pointless feud borders on the absurd and ridiculous, but worse than that - much worse than that - it will eventually result in the deaths of spectators and/or drivers if this sort of behaviour is left unchecked and that is something that even NASCAR would struggle to recover from.

(**Update, March 9th 2010)

This afternoon, Carl Edwards was handed a three-race probation by NASCAR officials. They have now killed any appreciation I may have had for the series. If they believe that Edwards' irresponsible tactics deserve only a three-race probation, then NASCAR deserves everything that may eventually come to them. As a fan of motor racing, I can only utter disgust at this decision.

Leigh

The 2010 Formula 1 World Championship Grid

2010-03-04T20:00:00.001Z

Well, pre-season testing is completed and all the teams have unveiled their cars and, of course, it has been confirmed that the USF1 squad will not make it to Bahrain for first practice in nine days or for the rest of the season - I cannot wait for that book to be written.
The final driver for the 2010 Formula 1 grid was unveiled earlier on today as Karun Chandhok was announced as the second HRT driver - on a separate note, I can barely tell the new Lotus and HRT apart as both are an odd shade of green with touches of yellow.

Other than that, the Mercedes Petronas' initial launch was the 2009 car with an updated livery with the 2010 machine first displayed at the second test test in Jerez. The Toro Rosso team is the official "junior" team of Red Bull Racing and as such share reserve drivers, while for some bizarre reason (and against popular consensus), I find the Renault R30 to be very, very sexy. Virgin F1 and Force India have launched their cars exclusively online with both running for the first time at Jerez.

McLaren Mercedes MP4-25
1. Jenson Button
2. Lewis Hamilton
Reserve: Gary Paffett

Mercedes Petronas MGP-W01
3. Michael Schumacher
4. Nico Rosberg

Red Bull Racing RB6
5. Sebastian Vettel
6. Mark Webber
Reserves: Brendon Hartley and Daniel Ricciardo

Scuderia Ferrari F10
7. Felipe Massa
8. Fernando Alonso
Reserves: Luca Badoer, Giancarlo Fisichella and Marc Gene

Williams F1 FW32
9. Rubens Barrichello
10. Nico Hulkenberg
Reserve: Valtteri Bottas

Renault F1 R30
11. Robert Kubica
12. Vitaly Petrov
Reserves: Jan Charouz, Jerome d'Ambrosio and Ho-Pin Tung

Force India F1 VJM03
14. Adrian Sutil
15. Vitantonio Luizzi

Scuderia Toro Rosso STR5
16. Sebastien Buemi
17. Jaime Alguersuari
Reserves: Brandon Hartley and Daniel Ricciardo

Lotus F1 Racing
18. Jarno Trulli
19. Heikki Kovalainen
Reserve: Fairuz Fauzy

HRT-Cosworth
20. Karun Chandhok
21. Bruno Senna

BMW Sauber F1 C29
22. Pedro de la Rosa
23. Kamui Kobayashi

Virgin Racing VR-01
24. Timo Glock
25. Lucas di Grassi
Reserves: Andy Soucek and Luiz Razia

Does Formula 1 Need Thirteen Teams?

2010-03-04T07:00:00.000Z

The final list for the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship was announced yesterday evening and unsurprisingly both USF1 and Stefan GP were omitted from the final form. In recent week, there have been a number of voices in the sport questioning whether Stefan GP would pick up USF1's place on the grid should the American outfit not make it with some suggesting that anything less than a full field would be a failure... but why? Formula 1 has operated with either 10 or 11 teams since the 1996 season, so there is little reason to see why it is suddenly so necessary for the series to possess a full field - surely the series would be stronger with eleven solid teams rather than add one or two struggling squads for the sake of it.

Stefan GP did apply for an entry to Formula 1 last summer, but failed to make the grade then, so one wonders what could have possibly changed now? Apparently the team has sourced further backing from the Serbian government and has acquired cars from the now defunct Toyota F1 team; however the team has yet to show if they will be able to make it to the beginning of next season, let alone be competitive for this one.
For a sport that is supposed to be the elite, there cannot be no-hoper's wandering around the back of the pack more than six seconds off the pace. Virgin and Lotus - with testing - already look very far behind the field and Formula 1 would surely lose a touch of prestige should an even weaker team grace the sport. The sport should not revert to the days of the late 1980's or early '90's when dreadful teams would routinely try to pre-qualify with cars that were often over 10 seconds per lap slower than the leaders and if that means leaving the last slot free for potential teams to take in 2011, then so be it.

Would the addition of Stefan GP have been beneficial for Formula 1? I don't think so and for those that don't remember, one should just search on YouTube for Forti Ford, Pacific or Larousse to garner an indication of embarrassingly bad some of those teams were.
Does Formula 1 need to add more teams to the list of failed runners? Probably not.
Eight days to first practice in Bahrain.

Leigh

Interview: Daniel Ricciardo (2009 British F3 Champion and Red Bull F1 Reserve)

2010-03-01T07:00:00.001Z

Last year, 20-year-old racing driver, Daniel Ricciardo won the British Formula 3 Championship with Carlin Motorsport in convincing style with two races to spare at the marvellous Portimao circuit in Portugal.

It wasn't the only high point of the year for the young Australian, as 2009 also saw Ricciardo make his début in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series and take part in the Formula 1 rookie tests at the beginning of December in Jerez. From the outside, it seemed to be a year where things really came together for the Red Bull backed driver, but I think that maybe it's best that he explains it himself.

As well as the aforementioned F3 title, the Formula Renault 3.5 start and the F1 test, you also took part in the famous Macau Grand Prix in November and were announced as the joint reserve driver for the Red Bull Racing Team (with Brendon Hartley). Would you consider 2009 to have been a bit of a good year..?
2009 was a great year for me! A lot more happened than I expected and it was all positive so it was a year I will remember.

For 2010, you will be competing in the Formula Renault 3.5 Championship for Tech 1 Racing - how much of a step up from F3 is the Renault Series and was something like GP2 ever on the radar for the year?
World Series by Renault (WSR) is another level up in terms of car size, power, experience levels, competition, pit stops, etc. In terms of driving style there isn't a huge difference from F3. The car is a little slower to react in the low speed corners due to its weight and size so the technique can be a little different here, otherwise the rest is very similar. As far as I know GP2 wasn't on the radar for me. It wasn't discussed.

The first Formula Renault 3.5 race does not take place until mid-April. With so little going on during the winter months, how do you keep yourself occupied?
Lots of training and preparation including fitness camps in the Alps, F1 simulator at Red Bull, mountain biking and some Guitar Hero!

The Alps and Guitar Hero!! Sounds like sheer hell... In November, you were very quick at the prestigious Macau Grand Prix, but unfortunately had a bit of a tough time in the two races themselves (finishing 6th in race 1 and a suffering a DNF in race 2) - is there a feeling of unfinished business there or are you tempted to just move on to whatever project comes next?
Macau is an unbelievable event and I would love to return there this year. It was a little disappointing to end my weekend the way it did, considering it started very well. But this is Macau and I would say that it was my experience in the street circuit environment which let me down in the end. I have moved on and learnt from this, but would love another chance.

Now that you are the Red Bull Racing Team's joint third driver, what are your roles at the team and will you find yourself having to attend more of the race weekends?
Yep, I will be going to quite a few of the races this season. I will attend the driver briefings, sit in with the engineer and driver after sessions and try to get involved and learn as much as possible without being a pain in the ass.
[laughs]

Your rookie test in Jerez in December appeared to go well - in fact you clocked up the overall fastest time over the course of the three days, but that seems to be a very short amount of testing for any young driver. How much can a driver really learn and absorb in such a short time?
Jerez was great. I surprised myself that's for sure. I guess when you have good people surrounding you with Red Bull and Roger Cleary (team mate Mark Webber's physio) this helps a lot and made the test more easy and comfortable for me. It is a lot to take in and absorb in only three days but I am young and was able to soak up most of the information that the team was giving me.

There are some pretty big differences between an F3 and an F1 car - how do you prepare for that both physically and mentally?
As my training program was pretty good during my F3 season, I didn't want to alter this too much before the F1 test as it would of perhaps been a shock to my body. So I kept the base of my training the same, but increased the intensities bit by bit leading up to the test [and] focused a bit more on my neck as well. Then mentally there is not much you can do but enjoy the experience and not get your head wondering about too many things. Once I was in the car with the helmet on, driving was all I was focused on.

With the majority of rookies at the Jerez test coming from the European fold, was there competition between all the drivers to get the fastest lap or was it all about learning the new car and team?
I think the majority of us were just thrilled to be a part of it so the times weren't the first thing on our mind. It was a big learning curve for all of us and a huge experience so there was plenty of stuff to be focused on rather than the times, but I'm not saying that ending the test P1 wasn't a good thing. That was the icing on the cake.

It is a long way from Perth where you grew up to Red Bull's Milton Keynes base - how did you go from winning State and National Karting championships to the Red Bull Junior Squad?
It still spins me out thinking it wasn't so long ago I was there in Perth racing at my local track. I raced karts till I was 16, then I did some Formula Ford to learn about open wheel driving and then competed in Formula BMW Asia in 2006 as my first season in cars. This was a great year to learn at an overseas level and prepared me well for Europe which is where I went in 2007 doing Italian Formula Renault. At the end of the 2007 season I received an email from Red Bull (Austria) saying they would like me to be part of there junior driver test in Estoril and potentially be on there junior driver program for the 2008 season. The test went very well, I was the fastest and this was the start of my career with Red Bull.

According to your profile from your website, Mark Webber is listed as one of your favourite drivers - what is it like to find yourself in the team with someone that you have looked up to for some time?
Its pretty cool I can tell you. Mark is a great guy and its quite surreal that I will be working in the same atmosphere as him. I will try to learn what I can from Mark as he is very knowledgeable and has been in F1 for nearly ten years so I will for sure learn a lot being around him.

Do you have any advice for young drivers that are trying to come through the ranks of motor racing?
You have to be 100% sure that this is what you want to do. You need full commitment as there are so many other young kids out there who want to be in your place. Work hard and if someone is getting an advantage on you, then you must be willing to work harder. You have to make some sacrifices and block out some things you enjoy, but keep looking at the big picture and the light at the end of the tunnel.

How difficult it is to raise the necessary finances at the junior level to be competitive?
It is very difficult. Motor racing is the most expensive sport in the world and I can tell you now that my dad would have preferred tennis or something! Coming from Australia its not the biggest motorsport country in the world and its hard to get some solid backing to help out the old man, but I am grateful for the ones we have found along the way and there support is a huge help. Unless you have good sponsors behind you it is very hard to be competitive or even compete at a European level.

What are your goals for 2010 both inside and outside of racing?
In terms of racing this year I want to be in the title hunt for WSR and be consistently fighting for podiums. For Formula 1 I want to learn everything possible in order to be prepared for any opportunity that may arise in the near future. Outside of racing I want to keep increasing my fitness and get to the next level with that. Other than this I just want to enjoy life and hopefully see more of my family and friends.

Thanks again to Red Bull Racing junior driver, Daniel Ricciardo.

Leigh

The Story of USF1, Campos-Meta and Stefan GP

2010-03-01T03:00:00.000Z

Words can no longer describe the utter mess involving these three squads, so here's an episode of Fawlty Tower's instead...

Leigh

Formula 1 Testing (Barcelona, February 25th-28th)

2010-02-28T17:00:00.006Z

This week saw the final Formula 1 tests until of the year until the rookie sessions in December and it is in these tests that a slightly clearer picture is painted by the teams. While fuel weights are still an unknown, a perception is created by how long the stints are and the length of these runs say more about where a team actually is, rather than the times that are being registered.
There have lots of long runs from the top teams and short, difficult stints from Virgin and Renault. Lotus have appeared off the pace, but are making long runs work. Other than that, nothing can really be gleamed from the last few weeks. However, the value of this test has also been heightened due to the bad weather at tests over the last few weeks - one thing that may definitely not happen at Bahrain in two weeks is rain.

These are the cars that the teams will take to the flyaway races for the opening six weeks of the season, so any pace shown in Barcelona may well be shown for the first four races - right now, the only real question mark is over Campos-Meta (should they actually show up) and who knows what the hell is happening with Stefan GP (if anything is happening at all).
Props to Team Lotus' Mike Gascoyne and others, whose tweets (whether they be from Gascoyne himself or not) has given some indication of what is going on. Bear in mind though, that the teams could also be bullshitting all of us - they like to do that, dontcha know? Bring on Bahrain...

Barcelona, February 25th

1 WEBBER Red Bull 1m21.487s (109)

2 HULKENBERG Williams 1m22.407s (82)

3 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m22.514s (107)

4 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m23.144s (73)

5 BUTTON McLaren 1m23.452s (101)

6 LIUZZI Force India 1m24.064s (65)

7 ALONSO Ferrari 1m24.170s (74)

8 PETROV Renault 1m24.173s (74)

9 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m24.869s (111)

10 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m27.057s (31)

11 FAUZY Lotus 1m28.002s (76)

Barcelona, February 26th

1 HULKENBERG Williams 1m20.614s (99)

2 ALONSO Ferrari 1m20.637s (133)

3 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m20.973s (114)

4 LIUZZI Force India 1m21.056s (90)

5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m21.258s (125)

6 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m21.571s (104)

7 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m21.689s (85)

8 HAMILTON McLaren 1m22.152s (93)

9 KUBICA Renault 1m24.912s (53)

10 TRULLI Lotus 1m25.524s (70)

11 GLOCK Virgin 1m25.942s (52)

Barcelona, February 27th

1 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m20.686s (128)

2 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m21.413s (106)

3 BUTTON McLaren 1m21.450s (105)

4 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m21.975s (101)

5 MASSA Ferrari 1m22.344s (115)

6 PETROV Renault 1m22.523s (68)

7 SUTIL Force India 1m22.606s (61)

8 VETTEL Red Bull 1m23.123s (51)

9 TRULLI Lotus 1m25.059s (102)

10 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m26.216s (105)

11 GLOCK Virgin 1m26.305s (31)

Barcelona, February 28th

1 HAMILTON McLaren 1m20.472s (134)

2 WEBBER Red Bull 1m20.496s (59)

3 MASSA Ferrari 1m20.539s (105)

4 SUTIL Force India 1m20.611s (99)

5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m20.667s (76)

6 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m20.745s (122)

7 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m20.870s (83)

8 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m20.911s (67)

9 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m22.135s (87)

10 KUBICA Renault 1m23.175s (106)

11 KOVALAINEN Lotus 1m25.251s (65)

12 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m26.160s (47)

Leigh

Selling Yourself

2010-02-25T06:00:00.002Z

There has been much comment in recent days about the hiring of pay drivers in the mainly US-based Indy Racing League. Ridebuyers have been in motor racing since day one - even Formula 1 has had plenty of pay drivers over the years; however the circumstances of many of those ridebuyers changed dramatically over the years. Unfortunately as has been stated on this site on numerous occasions, whenever economies are struggling, the number of pay drivers in the market increases as sponsorship begins to become harder to find; however the situation now is not quite as acute as many commentators would have us believe.
Over the years, we have started to see drivers get more savvy with sponsorship deals and how they sell themselves and many have utilised new social media devices to drive such endeavours. The ridebuyers as they existed in years gone past for the most part no longer exist as they days of Giovanni Lavaggi, Jean-Denis Deletraz and others have thankfully faded into the background. A number of so-called ridebuyers now, often bring a modicum of talent to the table too.

For weeks there has been much made that Graham Rahal has not secured a full time ride for the upcoming season and while that is to a degree a little disturbing, I cannot help but point the finger of blame at Rahal himself. Product activation is not something that we witness as much in Europe, as more subtle means of sponsorship and advertising exist here; however my exposure to CART and the IRL over a long period of time has opened me up a little to how product activation exists in the US and compared to other drivers, Rahal has never appeared that interested pushing his partners in the same way that Danica Patrick (for example) has.
While it is disappointing that Rahal is not yet in a confirmed seat for 2010, it must not be forgotten that he was offered the Dale Coyne drive for the season - while certainly not the glamour or success of Ganassi or Penske, it would certainly keep him in view of the teams; whereas he risks the possibility of obscurity should he sit rideless this season.

With this in mind, the issue with so few North American drivers in the IRL raises a pretty big question - are the likes of Tracy, Rahal, Rice, et al unwilling to go for and activate sponsorship due to an in-built sense of entitlement? If one were to talk about ridebuyers in a literal sense, then the likes of Patrick and also Sarah Fisher would also come under that bracket; with Patrick's seat is heavily backed by GoDaddy and Fisher's own team receiving much funding from Dollar General.
However, the thing that separates Fisher and Patrick from the likes of Milka Duno and Marty Roth is that the former duo are actually good drivers, but as well as that, they are good drivers that gone some distance to finance their drives. It is an attitude that Rahal could learn an awful lot from.

The issue of ride buying has certainly come to a head in recent days with a number of frustrated tweets and comments from former CART Champion Paul Tracy. On the basis of what has been emerging from the Tracy twitter camp in the last couple of days, if I were a sponsor, I would probably be walking very far away at this time. Company's tend not to want to be linked to controversies of any nature and some of Tracy's stinging Twitter comments have been vitriolic at the least. Examples such as:

"4 drivers from this continent at the first test . i think there is 3 wins for all of them put together . as guys like rahal , rice and me get to stay home and watch . if thats what you fans want ... enjoy"
"If you want a shit sandwich , don't expect it to not taste shitty .. If u want good racing tell them u want the good drivers !!"

And followers than rallied the IRL driver to calm down were met with:

"i have 1 win at indy follower, and 32 wins in cart 25 poles a championship . how many u got from the couch"

Much of Tracy's comments in recent days seem to have to do with the hiring of ex-Formula 1 driver Takuma Sato and IndyLights graduates Ana Beatriz and Mario Romancini by IRL teams. It may just be my racing head talking here, but if I had to choose two drivers from Tracy, Sato, Beatriz and Romancini, the favoured team would instantly be Sato and Romancini. While I think Beatriz is a very capable driver, she needs a little more time following a difficult 2009 season; however she may surprise everyone at the first race in Brazil in two-and-a-half weeks time. Sato and Romancini on the other hand have more than shown themselves to be very good, exciting drivers that are deserving of an opportunity.
One thing is for certain - Paul Tracy's Twitter account exists on a public plain and while many can understand the Canadian driver's frustration, he must also take responsibility for what he commits to a public domain or find that it is his irresponsibility that finishes his racing career earlier than he may like.
On the other hand at the age of 41, maybe team owners and sponsors are simply more interested in looking at younger blood. The massage to Tracy should not be what can the IRL do for him, but is he going to help himself?

Finesse Behind the Wheel

2010-02-22T07:00:00.002Z

When it comes to behind the wheel skill, I resolutely believe that the drivers of the World Rally Championship are the absolute best drivers in competition on the planet. Contesting a championship that runs on snow, ice, gravel, asphalt, cliff-side, mud, through thick forests, villages and towns and a number of other hazards (such as roadside fans) - the WRC challenges driving skill in ways that no other series dares.

While many of the WRC drivers may lack some of the technical finesse and all-round prowess of the Formula 1 circuit and the super-high speed nature of the Indy Racing League, the WRC drivers do make up for the deficit with sheer balls to wall skill.
Enjoy as Ford Focus driver and twice WRC Champion, Marcus Gronholm takes to the SS10 during last week's Rally of Sweden in the opening round of the 2010 Season. The next rally - in Mexico - takes place in two weeks from the 5th to the 7th of March.
Marcus Gronholm - 2010 WRC Rally of Sweden, Spacial Stage 10 "Sagen" (Day 2)

Leigh

Simpler Times

2010-02-21T17:20:00.002Z

A few laps from the Formula 1 Grand Prix game on the SNES way back when. Notice how tight chicanes are taken at 260 kph...

Leigh

A Little Bit of History

2010-02-21T07:00:00.008Z

Nearly half-a-century before Formula 1 had been conceived, the first ever official Grand Prix took place around he city and estates of Le Mans in 1906, near the Sarthe River. Although there had been some races and minor events prior to this, the 1906 French Grand Prix signified the first time the spirit of high speed competition was sanctioned by an Automobile club - namely the l'Automobile Club de France. The race beginning on June 25th and finishing a day later started a tradition that is still going over a century later, but now in the form of a famous annual 24 hour Sportscar event on a much shorter 8.5 mile course.
The 1906 event became a testing ground for names that are still highly recognisable in motor sports as the event saw competition between the great rivals of FIAT, Mercedes and Renault - a competition that still takes place in 2010, as those three famous marquee am to do battle in the Formula 1 World Championship.

It seems strange that even way back at the very beginnings of the 20th Century, the cars were able to just touch the 100 mile-per-hour mark as they traversed the 64 mile course. The Grand Prix taking place over the course of two days, consisted of 12 laps with two stints of six laps on either day, giving the first great race a total distance of just over 769 miles.
Hungarian amateur driver, Ferenc Szisz won the race in his Renault AK from Felice Nazzaro's FIAT by 32 minutes with Albert Clement coming home third in his Clement-Bayard machine a further 3 minutes behind the second place man. Only two of the three Mercedes entrants finished the event, albeit 4 hours behind the victorious Szisz, while the third retired nearing the end of the first day.

The victory by Szisz has led to a rather sparse list of racing drivers from Hungary since his victory, with many potential drivers either killed in the wars that took place in Europe thereafter or bound by the communist régime during the second half of the twentieth Century. In 1987, that run seemed as if it might end as Csaba Kesjar tested for the German Formula 1 team, Zakspeed; but unfortunately Kesjar was killed less than a year later in a Formula 3 race at the Norisring circuit in Germany when his brakes failed, pitching his car hard into a tyre wall. The 26-year-old died instantly.
Thereafter the drought continued until 2003, when Zsolt Baumgartner replaced the injured Ralph Firman in the Jordan following a very serious accident - ironically enough, this occurred during the practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Baumgartner competed in the following race as well at Monza, but was replaced by Firman when he was fit enough to return. However the Hungarian was not yet finished with Formula 1 and during the winter he signed a full season deal with the struggling Minardi team for 2004.

As expected, Minardi struggled for results during a hard season as the team lived on the verge of collapse, but despite all the troubles with reliability, money and a general lack of pace, Zsolt Baumgartner scored his and Minardi's only point of the season when he brought the car home in 8th place at the US Grand Prix; having only just missed out on a point at both Canada and Monaco.
Unfortunately at the end of the 2004 season, Minardi dropped the young Hungarian driver - his Formula 1 career seemingly over at the tender age of 23. Admittedly, it was unlikely that Minardi were going to hold on to Baumgartner on the basis of his talents and despite all his best intentions, the money and sponsorship that he brought to the team ran out and Baumgartner was on the sidelines once more. At this stage, the Minardi team were in their death roes and only remained in Formula 1 for one more season, before finally being bought out by Red Bull Racing and renamed Scuderia Toro Rosso.
Baumgartner's career has floundered since and he was named as a test driver for Paul Stoddart's Minardi Team USA team in the Champ Car Series for 2007; however he never took part in any tests and parted with the team soon thereafter. Following the reunification between Champ Car and the Indy Racing League in 2008, Keith Wiggins bought out the remaining shares in Minardi and the team became HVM Racing.
The 28-year-old's website does not look like it has been updated since 2005 (it's hard to tell as it is in Hungarian), so it is conceivable that he is out of motor racing altogether now and with few drivers from that territory coming through the lower ranks of junior racing, it appears that it may be a long time before we see a Hungarian national on the Formula 1 grid again.

Leigh

Formula 1 Testing (Jerez, February 17th-20th)

2010-02-20T17:00:00.005Z

For the third week of testing, the biggest news this week was the return of the Lotus team to Formula 1.  It may be questionable as to how much (or little) Lotus actually have in common with the original marquee as led by the late Colin Chapman, but with Mike Gascoyne as technical chief, the team may be able to get off to a better start than the other new squads - despite a shorter run in time.
And in a week where Virgin F1 continue to have on track reliability issues, Campos appear to have been saved with a buyout (and a name change soon), but still no testing and USF1 look to have finally collapsed - indeed the team have officially requested the FIA to miss the first four races - it was indeed Lotus that seem to shine the brightest of the new four.  Although Jarno Trulli's times in the Lotus machine may not have been starting, it was good to see the team complete some uninterrupted race distance runs during the week as Lotus clocked up more miles since Wednesday than Virgin F1 have in two full sessions.

The only worry for the Lotus team was caused by an accident in the wet by the Finn Heikki Kovaleinnen on Thursday afternoon as he buried the front of his car into a tyre barrier.  Although there was not any major damage, it did finish the test early for the team as, like Virgin seven days previous, they did not have any spares.  Normally this would have been a disaster, but the weather was so wet on Thursday, it meant that very little in the way of meaningful running was done.

Kudos though for both Lotus and the Force India squads for giving their third driver's time in the car on the first day as Fairuz Fauzy and Paul Di Resta took to the seat for Lotus and Force India respectively.  At a point when the race driver's are trying to get as much seat time as possible in order to ready themselves for the new season, this was an excellent move by both teams to give miles to what may be their future first team drivers.  If anything, it also sparked rumours as to who they may eventually replace.  While I don't know an awful lot about Fauzy, it seems nearly certain that Di Resta will eventually find himself in a race seat at some stage in the next two years.
In a test that was constantly hampered by wet weather, with the only dry spells occurring during the final two days, many teams took this week to concentrate on pit stops which may become absolutely vital this season.   With refuelling banned, many teams are getting stops in at just over 3 seconds, although there a rumblings that Williams and Ferrari may be able to dip underneath that magic number.
Meanwhile, everyone else appeared to be getting on with long runs as the shakedowns have been done.  With reliability issues discovered and cured (for now), the teams are getting on with how they may fair in the races with a heavy car and how they can potentially modify their machines to help get better times.  There is still three weeks before the first race begins and already the development battle between the squads is well under way.
Next week, it's off to Barcelona for the final four days, before the teams pack up their gear and head to the Middle-East for the first Grand Prix of the year in Bahrain.

Jerez, February 17th
VETTEL      Red Bull     1m22.593s (103)
HAMILTON    McLaren      1m23.017s (72)
MASSA       Ferrari      1m23.204s (72)
BUEMI       Toro Rosso   1m23.322s (79)
DE LA ROSA  Sauber       1m23.367s (77)
SCHUMACHER  Mercedes     1m23.803s (111)
SUTIL       Force India  1m24.272s (28)
DI RESTA    Force India  1m25.088s (76)
PETROV      Renault      1m26.237s (59)
BARRICHELLO Williams     1m27.320s (109)
FAUZY       Lotus        1m31.848s (76)
GLOCK       Virgin       1m32.417s (10)

Jerez, February 18th
BARRICHELLO Williams     1m27.145s (98)
PETROV      Renault      1m27.828s (56)
VETTEL      Red Bull     1m28.162s (71)
ROSBERG     Mercedes     1m28.515s (71)
MASSA       Ferrari      1m28.879s (92)
DE LA ROSA  Sauber       1m29.691s (8)
DI RESTA    Force India  1m30.344s (33)
GLOCK       Virgin       1m30.476s (72)
LIUZZI      Force India  1m30.666s (24)
HAMILTON    McLaren      1m30.979s (57)
BUEMI       Toro Rosso   1m32.678s (57)
KOVALAINEN  Lotus        1m33.554s (30)

Jerez, February 19th
WEBBER      Red Bull     1m19.299s (115)
ALONSO      Ferrari      1m20.115s (132)
BUTTON      McLaren      1m20.394s (101)
HULKENBERG  Williams     1m21.432s (138)
SCHUMACHER  Mercedes     1m21.437s (79)
KUBICA      Renault      1m21.916s (100)
SUTIL       Force India  1m21.939s (69)
KOBAYASHI   Sauber       1m22.228s (28)
ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso   1m22.564s (120)
DI GRASSI   Virgin       1m23.504s (34)
KOVALAINEN  Lotus        1m23.521s (68)

Jerez, February 20th
BUTTON      McLaren      1m18.871s  (108)
KUBICA      Renault      1m19.114s  (117)
KOBAYASHI   Sauber       1m19.188s (117)
LIUZZI      Force  India  1m19.650s (80)
ROSBERG      Mercedes     1m20.061s  (130)
ALONSO       Ferrari      1m20.436s (137)
ALGUERSUARI  Toro Rosso   1m21.053s (139)
WEBBER       Red Bull     1m21.194s (87)
HULKENBERG   Williams     1m21.919s (137)
GLOCK       Virgin       1m22.433s (28)
TRULLI      Lotus        1m23.470s (141)


Leigh

The Collapse of USF1

2010-02-19T00:05:00.002Z

For the last couple of days, whispers of USF1's imminent demise have become full blown chatter as stories of rumours of the team's primary backer, Chad Hurley (of You Tube), has walked away from the project. Also thought to have left is USF1's Business and Development Executive, Brian Bonner.
After so much speculation in recent weeks, this may indeed be the final nail in the coffin for the fledgling team - and shocking that they may not even make their shakedown test, let alone their first Grand Prix. It really is a situation only comparable to the dreadful Mastercard Lola effort of 1997, that left Formula 1 after only one qualifying session.

We must remember of course, that this has yet to be confirmed, but with so many pointers in the wrong direction, it's hard to see how they can pull this out of the bag. For a long time, I was optimistic; however even that has now been washed away.
In amongst all the clatter of unpaid staff, unpaid bills and suppliers, there are suspicions that the car itself may not even be finished and that a bare tub and nose cone currently sit in the factory. There has been no crash testing, no spares and now apparently no team. My thoughts go out to the mechanics and other personnel who have lost or are about to lose their jobs and to Jose-Maria Lopez, who has now lost his début drive. Like Vincenzo Sospiri in 1997 with Lola, his chance may never come around again.
This may go down in the history of motorsport as one of the most horribly mismanaged teams to ever think of getting into the sport, because it sure as hell looks as if they may not compete and may have added even greater damage to Formula 1's profile in the United States.
As soon as more comes out, I'll update this.

Leigh

The Concept of a New Chassis, Part 2

2010-02-18T02:00:00.001Z

Just over a week ago, I posted a piece on the Indy Racing League's new potential chassis designs for the 2012 season onwards. In the time since then, the Delta Wing LLC and Lola Technologies have launched drawings of their concepts to the general public and the reaction has been somewhat divided. Once again, I must point out that I am not an aerodynamicist, nor a mechanical engineer, therefore one must rely on the information given by the companies themselves with regards to the cars feasibility.

To recap, the first two constructors, Dallara and Swift launched their concepts prior to last week's post; however my opinion has not changed. While Dallara have served the IRL well in the last ten years, the launch was poor - three drawings of pretty cars with no details did not sell it to me at all. As a fan, I would like to know something about the concept, why they believe it will work and how they think it will fit into a motor racing world that will change beyond recognition due to increasing environmental and economic concerns - these are two issues that will not go away and Dallara have barely attempted to acknowledge them.
Swift did not delve too much into the economics of their car theory; although they did state that it would be much cheaper than the current Dallara that is in use, which right now is vitally important to the salvation of the series - it can be somewhat difficult to have a Championship if no one is around to take part. One of the great distractions about the Swift theory is that it would have fluid images on the car that would display car position, sponsors and throttle/brake usage on the sidepod and airbox. Quite frankly these options are irrelevant and add very little to the car (besides, will you be busy checking it out as it passes by you at 230 miles-per-hour?) Reiterating what I pointed out last week, it should be about:

Safety,
Good Racing and;
Economy.

Flashy elements often distract, but mostly deliver little. How about we focus on how the car races, shall we - that is surely the most important point. Swift's PDF about their 2012 concept can be downloaded from here; it is definitely worth at least a look.

I rushed home last week to (just) miss the launch of the Delta Wing Project and I must admit that I didn't think I was going to looking at pictures of an updated Batmobile and Homer Simpson's Supercar. Well maybe that's a little harsh, but while I believe the aesthetics of the machinery involved is largely unimportant, there also needs to be some semblance of beauty with these cars, otherwise they become difficult to watch.
Of course, overtime people would get used to the Delta Wing concept, but it also seemed like a step too far too soon; however I would love to see this idea re-emerge a few years down the line with more thoughts towards its appearance.
As for the mechanics of the concept itself, the Delta Wing is an interesting prospect. A design premise with interchangeable parts is an intriguing idea and definitely a first and is something that I would love to see explored. From my limited knowledge, the downforce looks as if it may generated by the compressed air inside the sidepods and the undertray. Although the car may appear to have a tiny turn-in capability, it could potentially lean in slightly like a motorbike, but it just looks as if it could struggle around the low speed corners; but until a finished unit is out testing, we may not know for sure. One thing is known though - the chassis is to be decided in May and the Delta Wing concept may not be ready for track testing until July or August leaving a potential quandary there.
The Delta Wing wins in terms of economics and environment concerns though. With all aerodynamic grip coming from the sidepods and undertray, the Delta Wing will not need as powerful an engine as drag will have been heavily eliminated. The designer, Ben Bowlby, informed the audience that the weight of the machine is less than half of the current car and talks of an engine with an output of 300BHP at 6,500RPM to achieve around 225-235 miles-per-hour. If his theory is correct, that would be a fantastic achievement that could revolutionise single seater motor racing across the globe; however there are many doubters about his power/weight ratio and speeds claim. Should his claim be correct though, it would also highly reduce fuel consumption as much of what is needed now would simply be unnecessary.

Last of the four to be released was Lola, which revealed itself to the world earlier on this week. In one sense, they same criticism that was levelled at Dallara can be aimed at Lola in that some pictures have been released that show a lot, but say very little. There are however minor bits of detail and their release did include a computer graphic showing airflow around and under the car, but no information as to what this does or doesn't do - that simply isn't good enough.
On the plus side, Lola's concept also introduced the idea of partially sharing chassis designs the IRL's junior series, the IndyLights; whereby the IndyLights and IRL would different in several sections of the car. Other than that, i cannot think of anything else to say about the machine.
There is bound to be an awful lot of discussion about these concepts and even more so when a decision is announced in May just prior to the Indy 500. I await with baited breath to see what will be chosen.

Leigh

An Open Letter to Randy Bernard

2010-02-14T21:01:00.001Z

Last week, IRL blogging stalwart, Pressdog, encouraged his readers to write a letter to the new IRL CEO Randy Bernard as a way of getting fans of the sport to air their views and get their opinions across and I thought I would do the same.

So in my own lamentable style:

Dear Randy,

I hope this finds you well.
Although the Indycar Series is primarily based in the United States, I felt that it might be in someway beneficial to garner the thoughts of a racing fan not based in the US - currently I am based in London, United Kingdom.

As a fan of motor racing, I appreciate good, clean, but hard racing. My jaw drops whenever cars are racing side-by-side at less than one foot apart at 230 miles per hour on an oval or when the drivers are to-ing and fro-ing on a road or street circuit. How the drivers handle the speed of an oval, the sweeps of a road course and the tight funnel-like features of street racing is the appeal and I am often in awe when they don't crash those fast and heavy machines, because that is where the skill lies. In fact, if anything, there is an awful lot of grace to how these cars are handled.

My biggest gripe about the series is that every car out there is the same in every way and often my mind drifts back to the extra competitive nature that numerous engine manufacturers brought in years gone by. It brought an extra dimension to the series and was another battle to be fought. Just like fans have favourite drivers and favourite teams, fans also had favourite engine company's to support - whether they be a Honda guy, a Ford fan or a Toyota follower, we all had our favourites. The sounds of those different machines were often as exciting as the soundbites from drivers and teams and could even tell a story or two.

I have been to oval races before when the old CART series visited the UK some years ago. I was captivated by the speed, but was also astounded that the drivers themselves were approachable and fan-friendly. They had a wonderful attitude and sold the series to fans, not through marketing, but by being genuine.
Unfortunately being based where I am, there is little chance of me going to a race at the moment, but I never miss them on TV. It is an exciting series and I am glad to be a fan; however the series should not be complacent. It has made great strides in the last couple of years following the merge with Champ Car, but it need to keep on building and keep on moving forward. I find it difficult to believe that there is such a small fanbase for a series like this in the US, especially one with such a vibrant history.

Lastly, I would like to welcome you and congratulate you on your new position as CEO of the IZOD Indycar Series. Here's wishing both you and the IRL a bright and successful future.

All the best,
Leigh O'Gorman
The Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive Centre

Should anyone else want to contribute to this, according Mr Pressdog, there are five simple rules:

1) Be polite. Pretend you are talking to Randy in person, and he knows your name. Not only is this good manners, it's the only way to have even a remote chance that he will take you seriously.

2) Looking for ideas on what to say? Here ya go. Choose a few of these:
What do you like/dislike most about IndyCar racing?
What advantages does IndyCar have on NASCAR and vice-versa?
What makes or prevents you from going to races?
Why do you watch on TV or what prevents you from watching?
What's the biggest competitor (in all forms, not just racing) for the time and attention you give IndyCar?
When friends ask why they should watch an IndyCar race, what's your answer?
If you were CEO, you're first two moves would be ...?
Biggest opportunities and threats to the league.
3) Keep it as short as possible. Randy has things going on. He can't plow through 1000 five-pagers.

4) Please, please, please don't flash back to 1994. Let's not re-fight The Split, OK? Life is too short.

5) Anonymous letters are for cowards.If you can't sign your real name to it, don't send it.

An enthusiastic Bernard was a guest on Trackside on Thursday night with Curt Cavin and was heard to asking fans to get in touch - he may regret that soon... In the meantime, e-mails and whatnot can be directed to the Indycar website, while letters can be posted to:

Randy Bernard
CEO, Izod IndyCar Series
4790 W 16th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46222

Now go forth and write!!

Formula 1 Testing (Jerez, February 10th-13th)

2010-02-13T23:53:00.000Z

The second test got under way on Wednesday and saw the first runs for the Force India and Virgin F1 teams, the latter of which should raise an eyebrow for a few reasons. Firstly, the new Virgin machine is the first F1 car to run that was developed by Nick Wirth using just Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD - i.e., the car was designed purely on computer) and are also the first of the new teams to hit the track in any sort of competitive manner, with Lotus not joining until the Barcelona test next week. Campos Meta-1 and USF1 will be skipping all tests and will (hopefully) be joining the rest of the grid in Bahrain in three-and-a-half weeks. Lastly, the Virgin team will be giving an F1 début to Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi, who has spent quite a time in GP2 and other racing formulae and has finally made the jump to the top level just when it looked like he had lost out on Formula 1 for good.

Unfortunately for this test, the weather forecast was not optimistic and come Wednesday, a wet and miserable outlook descended upon the Jerez circuit. With rain over most of the four days (and especially heavy on Friday), very little dry running was done and little in the way of mileage was clocked up. Of all the teams to lose out, it was Virgin who suffered the most as Timo Glock suffered a front wing failure early on Wednesday morning and spare parts did not arrive until the following afternoon, by which time the circuit was a wash out. Most of the Friday running was also hampered by heavy rain, with only today's running being relatively dry for any amount of time.
Glock's front wing collapse eerily brought back memories of the failure that would end up causing Roland Ratzenberger's fatal accident at Imola 1994 - another Wirth designed car. Alas when the team finally did get some good running in on Saturday, the times posted appeared to be relatively good. However, we should all know by now that testing times mean nothing... right??

Jerez, February 10th
1 ROSBERG      Mercedes    1m20.927s (57)
2 BUEMI        Toro Rosso  1m21.031s (84)
3 HULKENBERG   Williams    1m22.243s (118)
4 ALONSO       Ferrari     1m22.895s (88)
5 KOBAYASHI    Sauber      1m23.287s (55)
6 BUTTON      McLaren     1m24.947s (68)
7 LIUZZI       Force India 1m24.968s (71)
8 PETROV       Renault     1m25.440s (27)
9 WEBBER       Red Bull    1m26.502s (50)
10 GLOCK       Virgin      1m38.734s (5)

Jerez, February 11th

1 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m19.950s (103)

2 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m20.026s (121)

3 BUTTON McLaren 1m20.618s (83)

4 HULKENBERG Williams 1m20.629s (67)

5 LIUZZI Force India 1m20.754s (80)

6 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m21.083s (124)

7 ALONSO Ferrari 1m21.424s (129)

8 KUBICA Renault 1m22.003s (103)

9 WEBBER Red Bull 1m22.043s (99)

10 GLOCK Virgin 1m29.964s (11)

Jerez, February 12th

1 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m19.919s (76)

2 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m20.736s (58)

3 SUTIL Force India 1m21.428s (48)

4 MASSA Ferrari 1m21.603s (72)

5 VETTEL Red Bull 1m21.783s (59)

6 PETROV Renault 1m22.000s (68)

7 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m22.820s (53)

8 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m23.217s (120)

9 HAMILTON McLaren 1m23.985s (68)

10 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m37.107s (8

Jerez, February 13th

1 HAMILTON McLaren 1m19.583s (113)

2 SUTIL Force India 1m20.180s (83)

3 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m20.341s (90)

4 KUBICA Renault 1m20.358s (85)

5 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m20.613s (83)

6 VETTEL Red Bull 1m21.203s (89)

7 MASSA Ferrari 1m21.485s (160)

8 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m22.134s (105)

9 DI GRASSI Virgin 1m22.912s (63)

10 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m24.072s (98)

Leigh

Reshaping Silverstone

2010-02-13T03:14:00.008Z

It was confirmed earlier that this year's Formula 1 British Grand Prix will take place on the revised MotoGP circuit. The track had initially lost the 2010 race to Donington Park; however when that deal fell through due to financial issues, Silverstone picked up the contract for the next 10 years, with an option on further seven years thereafter.

When Silverstone was replaced on the Grand Prix calendar, the BRDC picked up the MotoGP race instead, but had to make modifications to the circuit to accommodate the new style of racing and as luck would have it, rather than resurface some of the old sections, the Grand Prix will simply adopt the new layout.
The new section will comprise of a right/left sweep at Abbey as opposed a tight left-hand bend; thereby veering off in the opposite direction from before. From there, the new section follows an arrowhead-type that turns sharply left on the far side of Becketts, before joining the straight on the National Circuit. The new stretch rejoins the old Grand Prix layout at club corner before turning off on to Woodcote corner.

Admittedly at first glance, it does not look like the most endearing of changes and it is heartbreaking that the Grand Prix will lose Bridge corner - surely one of the finest corners in Formula 1; however something that will be gained is an extra vantage point at Becketts.
The grandstand on the inside of the complex will now be able to get a clear view of the new sections too, making that area a potentially excellent viewing spot. How the new section in terms of racing, we will have to wait until July to find out.

Leigh

The Concept of a new Chassis

2010-02-09T21:44:00.007Z

Last year, the Indy Racing League set a new time period for the next IRL chassis design. The current chassis designed by Dallara in 2000 has, bar some minor tweaks, remained largely unchanged over the years. Originally it was assumed that Dallara may deliver an evolution of the current car, but in the time since a group of team owners announced a concept chassis called the Delta Wing - a concept that is to be officially unveiled tomorrow at a Chicago car show.

While there will not be a multi-chassis combination competing in the IRL in the near future, it does raise the bar in terms of competition amongst potential clients for the position of sole chassis supplier.

One thing that does seem to have been overlooked by many commentators is that although the new car will launch in 2012, it should not be designed with 2012 in mind. If this car is to run for a possible five or six seasons, it needs to be designed with 2015 to 2018 in mind. Like the new engine proposals (which may be unveiled later this year) it will need to be configured so that it will fall in line with environmental and power considerations of the future for the simple reason that this is what engine manufacturers and the likes are looking at. No one wants to build a car for 2012, because by the following January it could be considered to be conceptually outdated and its relevance may begin to sink quickly thereafter.

In the wake of all this talk about new cars, I could not help but notice that a proportion of writers have suddenly become experts on the designs of these cars with many happy to state that they have preferences for certain concepts because "...they look nice and fast..." or alternatively "...they look like an Indy car..." and it is train of thought that I simply cannot fathom.
Unless a whole host of bloggers, journalists and other commentators have become aerodynamacists overnight and can decipher the aerodynamic numbers and mechanical grip elements of cars that have yet to be built - let alone raced - then surely what a chassis looks like is quite irrelevant. Pretty cars do not always make for good racing and for all we know the ugly third concept design by Dallara as revealed last week could be the best racer of the lot and this is before any of the concepts have even been formally examined with regards to any sort of safety implementations.
This is crazy and it brings me to my biggest quip.

There seems to be a few in the racing community that appear to be more concerned about where sponsors are placed as opposed to how the cars race and ultimately that is completely the wrong way to approach any potential chassis design. If anything, this should be about:

Safety
Good racing
Economy / Sponsorship

I will repeat this one last time - safety must come first; not only for the drivers, but more importantly the fans and the marshals. If the chosen chassis is slick, but inherently dangerous, then the League is just asking for bouts of litigation and bankruptcy should fatal accidents occur - this is not the 1970's anymore and fatalities and serious injuries, while still a risk, must not be option open to possibility.
On the other hand, if they bring out a car that cannot race well and produces boring events, then regardless of how much sponsorship space a car has, the sidepods will be hard to sell, because fewer people may end up watching. However, if a chassis is chosen that allows exiting and competitive racing where drivers can get close without the risk of losing their lives, their feet or the front end in an aerodynamic wake, then people may be more aroused about the product and may be more inclined to buy in. More eyeballs may make marketing the series and obtaining sponsorship a little easier regardless of how cars look.

Taking all of that into consideration for moment, I must admit that the Italian company have been rather clever here. By revealing three concept drawings, Dallara have got an increasingly desperate fanbase talking about the cars, the IRL and most importantly their place in the series - but it's only three drawings. No details have been released, there are no numbers, no thoughts, no ideas, just drawings of pretty cars. If I were to draw a machine that looks vaguely like an Indycar and submit it to the series bosses, do I then tout my squiggle as a potential 2012 chassis??
Like any other company in their position, Dallara were clever enough to throw out three seemingly random car concepts to position themselves one week ahead on the unveiling of the Delta Wing - thing is, when Dallara let their drawings "slip" not many were considering potential offerings from Swift Technologies or Lola cars. I wonder if Lola will unveil their 2010 Formula 1 car that was turned down? Of course, I could never really be that cynical, but the timing is certainly rather odd.

While it is wonderful that lots of people are talking about this issue, the reality is that apart from the light nuggets of information given to us by Swift Technologies, we - as fans - simply don't know what we are talking about in terms of Indycar design. We are not aerodynamacists, so why are we even thinking about which concept car will work best? Unfortunately absolutely none of us know for sure which company may win out in the end; thus for now, the chatter is mainly about which is the prettiest drawing, but for now they are only drawings.
On a lighter note though, for the first time in a long time and despite some recent wobbles, the Indy Racing League feels as if it is moving along as opposed to bumbling around in the dark. Let's hope progress can be maintained and that the series will be let to grow and breathe. In the meantime, the Delta Wing will be unveiled tomorrow at an auto show in Chicago and I - as with many other IRL fans - wait with baited breath to see what the Delta Wing can produce. In the absence of Formula 1 in the United States, whatever the league bosses choose will dictate the future of single seater racing in the US for years to come.

Leigh

Reflections of the 1999 CART World Series

2010-02-08T06:00:00.001Z

The 1999 CART World Series is being retrospectively detailed from November 2009 onwards. This section is to reflect and study the races, ideas and incidents of the time with a distant eye as it may offer a viewpoint of a season not hampered by driver support and emotion. It will also be a form of ongoing research into the histories of motor-racing.
Reflections of the 1999 CART World Series will updated as times goes on and may take several months to cover.

CART Grand Prix of Miami (Round 1; March 21st 1999)
CART Grand Prix of Motegi (Round 2; April 9th 1999)
CART Grand Prix of Long Beach (Round 3; April 18th 1999)
CART Grand Prix of Nazareth (Round 4; May 2nd 1999)
CART Grand Prix of Rio (Round 5; May 15th 1999)
CART Grand Prix of Madison (Round 6; May 29th 1999)
CART Grand Prix of Milwaukee (Round 7; June 6th 1999)
CART Grand Prix of Portland (Round 8 - new!!)
CART Grand Prix of Cleveland (Round 9)
CART Grand Prix of Road America (Round 10)
CART Grand Prix of Toronto (Round 11)
CART Grand Prix of Michigan (Round 12)
CART Grand Prix of Detroit (Round 13)
CART Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio (Round 14)
CART Grand Prix of Chicago (Round 15)
CART Grand Prix of Vancouver (Round 16)
CART Grand Prix of Laguna Seca (Round 17)
CART Grand Prix of Houston (Round 18)
CART Grand Prix of Surfer's Paradise (Round 19)
CART Grand Prix of Fontana (Round 20)

A Great Save

2010-02-07T23:34:00.005Z

Firstly, I must admit that I have never really followed NASCAR or any of its affiliated series'. For many reasons, it is a form of racing that has never really sold well outside of the United States, especially in European territories where much of the love is garnered towards single-seaters.

Recently, though, much attention has been heaped on Danica Patrick's upcoming début in stock cars, as se took part in an ARCA race yesterday at Daytona Speedway - with many already suggesting that she will move from the Indy Racing League to NASCAR permanently within the next two or three years and while Patrick is a very good driver, she has never quite showcased herself as a champion (yet).

Following the ARCA event - won by veteran racer Bobby Gerhart - my compliments must go to Patrick for an absolutely fantastic save during yesterday evening's race. Former Renault Formula 1 driver, Nelson Piquet Jr got a bit of wobble when in the midst of a three-way sandwich and nudged Patrick into a spin. Patrick got the wheels straightened mid-spin and directed her JR Motorsports car down onto apron and into the pit lane area. The Wisconsin native went on to finish in 6th place, whereas Piquet Jr was classified second from bottom.

Danica Patrick save at Daytona (February 6th, 2010)

Leigh

The Return of GP2 Asia

2010-02-05T00:03:00.004Z

A short one here - the 2009/10 GP2 Asia series following a three month break between Rounds 1 and 2. Davide Valsecchi leads the series after the first two races in Abu Dhabi near the end of 2009 with a 10 point lead ahead of German youngster Christian Vietoris.

To be honest, it is questionable exactly how worthy this series is in its current form. Consisting of just four rounds at two race circuits, it does not exactly present a school of diversity and questions have been raised about the strength of quality in the field.
Indeed, while there may be a small number of stand-out drivers that will make it to the main series, the GP2 Asia grid appears to be made up of some rather below par talent - although that could be overly harsh on my part.

Anyway, they are back in Abu Dhabi (again) this weekend, before the series splits to Bahrain for races on February 26/27 and March 13/14. Charles Pic is on pole for tomorrow's Feature Race, while Valsecchi starts 3rd and Vietoris is in 10th position. iSport International driver, Oliver Turvey splits Pic and Valsecchi with a time that puts him in 2nd.
You can tune into Eurosport to pick up footage (although I'm sure it will be streamed somewhere on the net), but seeing as how the race is at the Yas Marina circuit, you may need to prepare one self for a rather processional race indeed.

Leigh

Formula 1 Testing (Valencia, February 1st-3rd)

2010-02-03T20:56:00.003Z

The first Formula 1 test of 2010 started on Monday and finished a few hours ago and although the times mean absolutely nothing, it can be an interesting insight to the pre-season action. Very little really happens at these tests - you have no idea what amount of fuel anyone has, no idea if they happen to be running a tyre/strategy test or if teams are trying varying aerodynamic set-ups.
These sessions have been rather interesting for a few simple reasons:

the return of Michael Schumacher
the return of Felipe Massa
Jenson Button's first steps in a McLaren (against Lewis Hamilton) and;
Alonso's first laps in the Ferrari.

If one were to take the test times as absolute truth, the Ferrari are looking very good with their F10 machine; however there could also be an element of posturing in the laptimes. Both Massa and Alonso were the only drivers to register laps faster than 1'12" during the three days and although they did some medium long runs, their runs were nowhere near as long as the likes of Robert Kubica, who seemed to put in near race distance stints.
One noteworthy thing about the final days test - Fernando Alonso's Ferrari début attracted approximately 36,400 fans to the track. That number is higher than the attendances at a couple of Grand Prix last year; it's something that really puts into perspective the lack of popularity of Formula 1 in the Middle East compared to its European base.

I must thank Autosport for their live timing/tweeting coverage from trackside - it was quite excellent and very informative and a step forward with regards to how to treat fans of the sport. I didn't bother with this last year, but for those that are interested, here are the times from the last three days.

Valencia, February 1st
1 MASSA Ferrari 1m12.574s (102)
2 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m12.784s (74)
3 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m12.944s (40)
4 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m13.543s (39)
5 PAFFETT McLaren 1m13.846s (86)
6 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m14.449s (75)
7 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m14.762s (18)
8 KUBICA Renault 1m15.000s (68)

Valencia, February 2nd
1 MASSA Ferrari 1m11.722s (124)
2 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m12.056s (96)
3 HAMILTON McLaren 1m12.256s (108)
4 KUBICA Renault 1m12.426s (119)
5 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m12.899s (119)
6 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m13.377s (102)
7 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m13.823s (107)

Valencia, February 3rd

1. ALONSO Ferrari 1m11.470s (127)

2. DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m12.094s (80)

3. SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m12.438s (82)

4. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso 1m12.576s (97)

5. BUTTON McLaren 1m12.951s (82)

6. PETROV Renault 1m13.097s (75)

7. HULKENBERG Williams 1m13.669s (126)

Leigh

The Sao Paulo Indy 300

2010-02-01T19:56:00.004Z

The 2010 IZOD Indy Racing League kicks off in Sao Paulo on Sunday March 14th with series' first visit to Brazil. In a way, it's a surprise that it has taken this long, especially considering that sheer amount of drivers and sponsors in the series that originate from the South American country.

Although not the widest of venues (street circuits rarely are), it is encouraging to see the two fairly lengthy straights to aid overtaking, as well as some technical features. After watching the video (below) of the track layout, it was also interesting to note how much it reminded me of the Toronto street circuit that the IRL will visit during the summer. Obviously, comparison's can only truly be made when the Brazilian race weekend gets under way, but it should be interesting to see exactly how this works.
Alas, we shall only find out for sure how good (or bad) the circuit is when the cars run on it. Until then, forward March (as it were).

Leigh

The Anthony Hamilton F1 Academy

2010-01-31T21:00:00.001Z

There have been many complaints from teams and drivers during the past few seasons regarding the lack of testing in Formula 1 - not just in consideration of whether or not the regulation truly reduces a team's costs significantly when compared to the intense research and development that goes on in the sport, but also with regards to how young driver prepare for the highest level of motorsport.

One of the unintended consequences of the testing ban is a situation whereby young drivers are simply not getting the necessary miles in order to acclimatise to top level machinery and it is starting to catch them out. Indeed Romain Grosjean and Jaime Alguersuari are very recent examples of this rule going wrong - although Alguersuari has been resigned to the Toro Rosso team for the 2010; however his performances need to drastically improve if he is to keep his seat. Grosjean on the other hand may have seen his career grind to a permanent halt after just seven races as he struggled to make the transition from GP2 to Formula 1 during the middle of last season.
It is a catch-22 of sorts for the teams - they are looking for the new young driver that may reinvigorate a squad and deliver results; however with team bosses unwilling to risk untried youth, the average driver age in Formula 1 is rising as some pilots (not mentioning names) end up staying long past their sell by date.

In light of this, a very interesting little story cropped up on Thursday night. Anthony Hamilton - father and manager of 2008 World Champion, Lewis Hamilton - is putting plans in place to set up his own independent F1 Testing Academy. This new venture - called the GP Prep Drivers Academy - will lease out 2009-spec Formula 1 cars with crew and equipment; although costs are still being determined at this stage. It is believed a deal may already be in place for two McLaren Mercedes units and that talks are taking place with other teams, however this has yet to be officially confirmed. Discussions are also taking place with various circuits in the UK and the project may commence around March/April.
This project is hot on the heels of an announcement by McLaren that they have signed 14-year-old double German Junior Kart Champion Nyck de Vries; the youngster is to be personally managed Anthony Hamilton and the Hamilton Management Group.

If approved by the FIA, the GP Prep Drivers Academy may result in pilots gaining the necessary miles to obtain a superlicence and should hopefully remove the barrier that a lack of testing has brought in recent years. It has not gone unnoticed that Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari will be taking part in his first ever Formula 1 test on Wednesday, despite having made his Grand Prix début last August.

Leigh

The Ideal Formula 1 Calender

2010-01-30T23:56:00.006Z

An interesting post on Triple League Racing regarding an ideal Formula 1 schedule got me thinking seriously - where would I have the races run and in what order. It's taken me about three days, but based on there being 19 potential World Championship races in a season with one non-championship Grand Prix mid-season, here goes the F1 and Motorsports Archive Centre's considered race schedule (with links):

Monaco Grand Prix (Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo)
Belgian Grand Prix (Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Spa)
Dutch Grand Prix (Circuit Park Zandvoort)
Central European Grand Prix (Hockenheimring, Baden-Wurttemberg / A-1 Ring, Zeltweg)
San Marino Grand Prix (Autódromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Imola)
Canadian Grand Prix (Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal)
US Grand Prix (Indianapolis Motor Speedway)
Mexican Grand Prix (Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Mexico City)
***The Race of Champions Non-Championship Event (Gesamtstrecke, Nurburg)***
Britain Grand Prix (Silverstone Circuit, Northamptonshire)
French Grand Prix (Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans)
Spanish Grand Prix (Circuito de Jerez)
Portuguese Grand Prix (Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, Portimao)
Italian Grand Prix (Autodromo Nazionale, Monza)
Bahrain Grand Prix (Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir)
Chinese Grand Prix (Guia Circuit, Macau)
Japanese Grand Prix (Suzuka International Racing Course)
Australia Grand Prix (Adelaide Street Circuit)
Argentine Grand Prix (Autódromo Juan y Oscar Gálvez, Buenos Aires)
Brazilian Grand Prix (Autódromo José Carlos Pace, Interlagos)

I'm going to do something a little different by starting off with a short European leg, then running a triple-tier North/Central American schedule, before heading back to Europe for the bulk of the European season. The final six Grand Prix would consist of the lone Middle Eastern Grand Prix at Bahrain, then onto stints at the legendary Macau and Suzuka tracks, before a long overdue return to the streets of Adelaide in Southern Australia. My season would finish with a quick one-two to the reinstated Argentine Grand Prix with the season-closer at Interlagos.
There are several things that need to be pointed out though:

Hermanos Rodriguez Circuit, Adelaide and Buenos Aires (1970's fast layout please) have been out of use for a very long time and would need to be reinstated to their former layout (with modern safety specs) to make the grade. The classic Zandvoort has long since been nullified - this too would have to be brought back to original specification to be deemed "worthy".
Could someone please reinstate Hockenheimring's long straights please? They always provided the most overtaking for the entire season.
No South African Grand Prix - to be honest, I was never a fan of Kyalami,but upon its Grand Prix return in 1992, it had truly been butchered. So, no thanks.
No Hungarian Grand Prix - there's never been a whole lot of love for the Hungaroring. It's a tough, technical little circuit, but the racing there is for the most part drab and still born.
No Turkish Grand Prix (or Abu Dhabi, or Malaysian for that matter) - simple really. One superb corner does not make a great race track and quite simply that's what these tracks have got. For the other sections of the the respective tracks are just not good enough and have a habit of repeatedly producing processions.
Considering the economic pressures of holding a Grand Prix, I would consider alternating the Central European Grand Prix between the Hockenheimring in Germany and Austria's A-1 Ring.
A three week holiday would commence after the Mexican event, that would be broken with a non-championship event at the old Nurburgring circuit. The World Championship would begin again a week later at Silverstone.

If I can think of anything else to add, then I will add it at a later date.

Leigh

The New IRL CEO; Randy Bernard

2010-01-30T17:36:00.004Z

With the resignation of Tony George as CEO of the Indy Racing League, the series was facing something of a peculiar future - with a title sponsor deal with IZOD signed late last year and with reportedly high investment coming from Apex Brazil as well as additional cars from Sarah Fisher Racing and Alex Tagliani's FAZZT team, things were looking decidedly up.
George's subsequent suspension of his Vision Racing team - through lack of sponsorship - was another dent that the IRL simply didn't need. However, those that are proclaiming this to be the end of the road for the IRL my well be putting far too much emphasis on George himself. As influential as he was, Tony George was not the series.

Randy Bernard, 43 tomorrow, takes over the position of CEO that George left vacant. It has been cited over the last couple of days that he has never been to an Indycar race and a number of fans have thrown their typing hands in the air in disgust as a result.
However, there is more than enough scope to believe that this is an incredibly shrewd decision by the IRL. That Bernard has no previous attachments to the sport may be incredibly beneficial as he can (in theory) view the IRL in a very different light than Tony George. He will not be swayed by those that desperate to hold on to the 1960's or 70's, nor will he alienate them either - the truth is Bernard will need to shape the sport for the future and one cannot do that without recognising the achievements and mistakes of the past; however history should never steer the future with such vigour.
With the Professional Bull Riders Association, he has built a sport with a large following from essentially nothing, so he has nothing to prove when it comes to marketing and business acumen. He has proven that he knows how to grow niche sports and with that in mind, those inside the sport need to give him room to operate efficiently.

George's deep relationship with the IRL, Vision Racing and the Indianapolis Motorspeedway itself often meant that decisions were not made in good light and with him being so entrenched in many different elements, it often appeared that couldn't see the bigger picture. Let us not forget that Tony George did an awful lot for the sport that was positive - mainly with regards to safety; however there were a lot of negative aspects as well, yet while all of his achievements must be recognised, his errors must be sufficiently noted so that they are not repeated once again.
It has been stated here before that the last the last CART / IRL split lasted 14 years and it may take just that long for the rifts to fully heal. This series will not cure itself overnight and it would be a ridiculous notion to think that it ever could, but it is taking the right steps - even if they are just baby steps.

Leigh

Releasing the Car

2010-01-27T22:04:00.005Z

New car launches have a habit of being spectacles - albeit boring ones. Admittedly, I have never been to one, but I have sat through numerous films and clip reels of unveiling's over the years and have often found the dry PR speeches deeply dull. Tales about a company's past, present and future sitting idly alongside comments on marketing strategies all too often remind me of the university lectures that I slept through for years.

With this in mind, there is a level of intrigue with plans by both Ferrari and McLaren to stream their launches live via their website - not that I wish to sit through a marketing conference, but am curious as to how they intend to make these in any watchable. Toyota tried streaming their launch two or three seasons ago in all its uncut glory and....... it....... dragged........... onnnnnnnnnn.......
Ten or fifteen years ago, the likes of McLaren and Jordan would organise massive stage shows with the Spice Girls or some other cultural act to unveil their charger - thankfully those days have passed for they reeked of old cheese, but if the teams really want to make streaming their launches work, they seriously need to cut the jabber and dead air that presides over these events.

Ferrari launch tomorrow morning at 9am with McLaren on Friday morning (at 11am, I think), with Renault and BMW Sauber unveiling on Sunday evening. Toro Rosso and Williams pull off the covers on Monday trackside at Valencia with the rest of the grid following in the weeks thereafter.

Leigh

Reshaping the Bahrain Grand Prix circuit

2010-01-25T20:52:00.007Z

The 2010 Formula 1 Grand Prix season will kick off in March 14th in Bahrain; however it emerged today that there has been some significant changes to the layout for the Grand Prix in Sakhir.

Although no actual changes are taking place to the circuit itself, the Grand Prix will now utilise the endurance version of the track as opposed to its original Grand Prix layout - adding an extra 0.8km to the length of a lap for the Formula 1 cars.

The endurance circuit, which measures 6.3km and has 24 corners, should technically reduce the number of race laps from 57 to around 48 or 49 to make the race up to the required 190 mile distance.
Whereas the old Formula 1 layout turns veers to the right at turn six, the longer version continues to off to the left, leading to series of slow speed corners before rejoining the original Grand Prix circuit to finish the lap - this will make the middle sector about on-minute long in the current cars. It also makes Sakhir the second longest circuit on the calendar, with only Spa-Francorchamps having a higher round distance.

Interestingly, with the rules stipulating that the cars cannot refuel mid-race next season, the extra distance and additional slow to medium speed turns may put extra pressure on the drivers to not use up too much fuel in the race - those that run higher revs on these added sections, may find themselves in difficulty near the end of a Grand Prix.
On a separate note, I did not realise until this evening that the Sakhir circuit also has a six turn oval - if you look in between the start/finish straight and the back straight (from the endurance layout), these sections are linked by long turns at either end making what is a 1.25 mile oval. It also contains a drag strip and according to some sources, at least one palm tree.
So, there you go.

Leigh

Musical Chairs (Update)

2010-01-24T11:55:00.000Z

With only seven weeks to go before the start of the 2010 Formula 1 season, the last set of racing seats look ready to fill up with another two positions taken up in the last few days. Since the beginning of the week, Spanish veteran Pedro De La Rosa finds himself back with a competitive drive as he will lead the BMW Sauber team for the next couple of years. Although De La Rosa has never been the fastest or most exciting of drivers, his technical knowledge and prowess are apparently highly rated and it appears that he may act as a lead for the young Kamui Kobayashi in the same way that Rubens Barrichello may well be a technical mentor for Nico Hulkenberg at Williams.

Sadly though, De La Rosa's new drive leaves German pilot Nick Heidfeld out of a drive and with time getting short, it begs the question as to where Heidfeld may end up. Although he may not be the most exciting driver on the grid, Heidfeld has at least been known to steady with his machinery and consistently brings home good results - a shown with his record 41 consecutive race finishes that stretched from Spain 2007 to Singapore 2009. Something that Heidfeld has struggled with appears to be his lack of a killer instinct - significantly, he has had 167 race starts without a victory; the most points scored without a win and he has achieved the most podiums without taking a Grand Prix (shared with Stefan Johansson) - and as he approaches his 33rd birthday, these statistics will continue to hang over his career.
However the most important factor for many of the remaining seats is money and significant cash may be the one thing that Heidfeld cannot bring to the table and what potential seats are left may be quite dependent on delivery of sponsorship Euros.

Probably the most highly rated drive available is the second seat at Renault to partner the Polish driver, Robert Kubica. Heidfeld and Kubica have been teammates at Sauber since 2006 and had formed something of a steady partnership in the three-and-a-half seasons since then, but with Renault having pulled their backing from the squad, the team are in need of money and that puts talented youngster Vitaly Petrov in pole position for that seat. The 24-year-old Russian finished 2nd in the 2009 GP2 Series behind Nico Hulkenberg and is reported to have large backing should it be required. After four years in the main junior category, Petrov will determined to show that he has the quality to make it at the top level and a seat at Renault team may be his best opportunity. From Renault's perspective, they already have a proven race winner in Robert Kubica and with the first Russian Grand Prix since 1914 in the offing within the next two-to-three seasons, Renault may be looking to entice Russian backers into the sport by fielding a native driver.

Spanish squad Campos-Meta are still currently without a lead driver to partner the Brazilian rookie, Bruno Senna. As far as anyone has been led to believe, Campos-Meta remain the one team that is closest to collapse; although there is no doubt that all thirteen squads will be on the grid for 2010, it is questionable as to whether they will last this season, let alone make it to next year.
Meanwhile there have been reports over the last few weeks that USGPE may be about to sign former GP2 driver Jose Maria Lopez. Apparently the Argentine driver is weighed down with cash and it is something that the new American team may need in abundance and while it would be beneficial for the squad to have some sort of financial security in the short term, Lopez's record of results does not stand out as being spectacular in any way. One win and a few podiums with DAMS and Super Nova in 2005 and 2006 is not the kind of form that earns driver's Formula 1 seats on merit and with that in mind, USGPE may need a driver of Heidfeld's quality to lead the team during the early years; however this raises some important issues for the German:

no offence to either Campos-Meta or USGPE, but at 33 does Heidfeld really need to spend the last years of his career trundling around at back of the grid at every race?
does he want to commit himself to a team that may struggle for mid-season improvements and may possibly not be there at all for 2011?

The USGPE team currently have backing from You Tube founder and CEO, Chad Hurley, but it remains to be seen how that relationship develops, if indeed it even lasts. Much like with short-sighted record companies in the music industry, FOM has gone out of their way to remove any semblance of Formula 1 footage from You Tube over the last few years and although many inside the sport have repeatedly requested that the commercial entity take a more welcoming approach to newer forms of media, it is a stance that generated something of a rift between the commercial side and sites like You Tube. Should FOM not take a more welcoming approach now that the video channel is involved with one of its teams, them You Tube may eventually decide to not bother with Formula 1 anymore and that would be a grave mistake.
Meanwhile, even with Hurley's backing, Heidfeld would probably have to take a massive pay cut in the same way that Barrichello excepted one at Brawn last year; however with the likes of Campos-Meta looking rocky and the other new teams full up, USGPE could be Nick Heidfeld's last chance.

Especially so now that the Italian Toro Rosso team yesterday confirmed that youngster Jaime Alguersuari to stay on for 2010 to partner Sebastien Buemi. The Italian squad do find themselves in a difficult situation due to their driver's vast inexperience - no matter what way it is painted, Buemi has only just turned 21 and Alguersuari is 19-years-old. The pair are still very, very inexperienced, but unlike the Barrichello/Hulkenberg pairing, it is questionable as to what exactly they could learn off eachother technical and it must be remembered that their 2009 season, while occasionally very fast, was also littered with unnecessary incidents and accidents. No doubt there is sponsorship involved somewhere along the line, but it is difficult to see Toro Rosso pull themselves up from the lower midfield when they have no one to lead them within the team - if anyone on the grid needed a driver like Heidfeld, it would be Toro Rosso.

Apart from that, should any of the current teams collapse, Stefan GP appears ready to go for the 2011 season and although they are putting their car together, there has been no talk of drivers yet - but then again, why would they? For now, dear old Quick Nick may have to wait and hope for the best and wish that something emerges soon - it would be a great shame to see his career end like this.

Leigh
January 23rd, 2010

(**Update**)
Rumours floating around this morning from Autobild.de that Nick Heidfeld may take a step down and join Mercedes as their test and reserve driver for 2010. It may be announced at the unveiling of the new Mercedes F1 car this week.
January 24th, 2010

Driven (2001); A Right Piece of Shit

2010-01-24T08:45:00.003Z

Throughout the latter half of the 1990's, there had been lots of talk about a Formula 1 based film being made. This raised a number of eyebrows at the time, for it is well known that movies about sports tend to lack, well... everything.
Eventually word began to spill out that it was a Sylvester Stallone project and that Burt Reynolds might be involved and everyone in the Formula 1 world - whether that be fans or those in the sport - breathed a sigh of relief when word came out that it was not happening. However, those that were sanctioning the mainly US-based CART series at the time were not so quick to dismiss the idea.

Once one gets past the media frenzy that is any sport's outer shell, they may discover people who are just doing their everyday jobs without glory, glamour and sex. You don't see many films about sports for the same reason you don't see many films about film-making; the behind-the-scenes work is for the most part a very dry experience of people going about their daily business without much sparkle and fanfare.

Try to hype up the background and you may find yourself in an empty shell wrapped up in social tinsel - I know a lot of engineers and none of them do a good Hollywood strut!! Add to that, a growing number of sportspeople tend tend to be very, very dull following years of PR training that often excises personality in favour of clean-living sobriety. To try and make all these factors "sexy" often doesn't work and the result are a bunch of characters that would never exist in real life.

Given some of the people involved in making the movie, it's probably no surprise that Driven is a piece of fucking shit that should never have seen the light of day. For the casual film fan, the script and production is so incredibly shoddy that it makes watching the feature a laborious effort; for enthusiasts of motor-racing, the mechanics of the machines and the director's quests for the most overblown, obscene and frankly impossible crashes make Driven a horrific and embarrassing experience.
The film goes one further by creating some of the most dreadful special effects anyone could possibly imagine; however even that foreknowledge doesn't prepare the viewer for the way the director randomly appears to swap from bad CGI to real footage - it is made even more apparent due to the horribly cartoonish nature of the graphics. One only needs to see the truly awful street-chase scene to get a sense of just how awful this film actually is.
In short, this film is very bad, but to witness the "highlights" of Stallone's epic misadventure, click on the You Tube link below and enjoy the horror of bad film making. It must also be remembered that for a number of the cast, this was a career killer.

Leigh

No Double-Diffusers from 2011 Onwards

2010-01-22T20:55:00.004Z

I have always been a firm believer that there is scientific equation that should technically calculate the amount of aerodynamic downforce necessary when taking into account things like speed, mechanical downforce and so forth and for all intents and purposes, the answer to that equation should be "1". In other words the aerodynamic grip required should not outstrip what is necessary for the cars to corner.

Considering the numbers of differing elements involved, regulating such a technical regulation may prove to be impossible. For example, every circuit would need specific calculations to determine highest straight line speed over downforce dependent low speed corners; then add the fact that every team has designed a different car and that multiple engine manufacturers occupy the series and you quickly end up with a situation where every single team would need individual downforce limitations. After all of that, you turn up on track and it's raining - suddenly all the figures are completely useless. For all its worth, it is a set of aerodynamic regulations that might work in a spec series; however a circuit will always provide an unknown quantity.
It is also possible that what I just spewed is total bollocks.

One thing is absolutely certain though and that is the Formula 1 cars have far, far too much aerodynamic downforce on their cars right now, but thankfully they will lose at least some of that for next season. Although proposed some weeks ago, the banning of the controversial double-diffuser by the FIA for 2011 onwards was officially passed today and while that is excellent news, it is - of course - far too late for the cars to be redesigned to accommodate the restructured rules; all of which begs the question, why wasn't this decided upon months ago?
When one considers that original set of regulations suggested by the Overtaking Working Group in 2008, nothing referenced the possibility of the double-diffuser. After all, it was all just a known loop hole that Brawn, Williams and Toyota exploited and as such the original technical regulations minus the double-diffuser already existed. Of course, all of this has been complicated with the banning of mid-race refuelling and the introduction of narrow tyres; however these are also factors that were decided upon a very long time ago.

The moment the double-diffuser was deemed legal by the FIA, all the other teams started bolting it on - some with better results than others - and the status quo was once again reached whereby cars could not get close to eachother in turbulent air and also had so much downforce that they rarely veered off of the clean racing line - they simply had too much grip for the speed they were travelling.
Sadly what this does mean is that fans of the sport must now endure another season whether overtaking is at a minimum, which is an absolute shame considering the 2011 contains possibly the strongest driving and team field in the history of Grand Prix racing.
On the other hand, it's not like fans actually matter, now is it?

Leigh

Shortcutting Formula 1

2010-01-18T00:50:00.004Z

It was reported during the week that Formula 1 commercial maestro Bernie Ecclestone mused about spicing up races by placing short-cuts at various points at circuits that could be used a number of times during a Grand Prix. Naturally this was picked up by a number of media sources and some fans reacted by going a little bit apeshit about their sport being ruined.
But surely, this is obvious bullshit..? In reality, does anyone really believe that shortcuts would ever be introduced into Formula 1. Quite apart from it being one of the most ridiculous suggestions to have ever dropped from Bernie's mouth, it would go a hell of a long way to appease fair weather fans while killing the enthusiasm for "proper" motor-racing fanatics. So, would it happen?

The chances are... no. Quite simply, there is next to nothing happening in Formula 1 at the moment. For all intents and purposes, Bernie put out a press release (any quote - it really doesn't matter what) that got newspapers and other other media talking about the sport again. Come the end of January, cars start to get unveiled (McLaren is the first up on January 25th) and the initial shakedown tests will begin and this piece of "news" will quickly sink away like it was always meant to.
By the way for 2011, the cars will be getting eight tyres and the year after that fuel will be replaced by the leftover fumes of Welsh dragons as Michael Schumacher prepares to run for the presidency of Germany. I could be bullshitting you though...

Leigh

2010 Toyota Racing Series (Round 1, Race 3)

2010-01-17T05:00:00.009Z

Like many other junior formula's that exist currently in motor racing, the Toyota Racing Series employs a Sprint race to follow its earlier feature event and like many other sprint races, the grid line-up in their finishing positions from the previous run, but with the top six reversed. With that in mind Earl Bamber and Andrew Waite lead the field ahead of Lucas Foresti, Daniel Jilesen, Mitch Evans and feature race victor Sten Pentus.

The lights go out to start the 12 lap sprint race and Waite jumps straight into the lead as Bamber gets a bad start again, while behind them Jilesen squeezes Evans off onto the grass before the first turn - the you New Zealander gets back on track, but drops to 8th place.
Foresti has enough speed to get by Bamber into 2nd place, just as the stewards rule that Waite jumped the start, thereby handing the race leader a 5 second penalty. All Foresti has to do from here is stay close and the victory is his whether he passes Waite or not.

As the laps tick by, challenges are offered, by all asunder, but it is not until the 5th tour that a move is completed as Evans, Jamie McNee and Alastair Wootten go three-wide into the first corner - the de facto overtaking place for the weekend at Teretonga Park. Evans goes down the inside of Wootten and makes the pass stick, but in a brilliant piece of opportunistic racing McNee gets by both of them and into 6th. By the start of lap 8, McNee has already set his sights on Sten Pentus, but cannot get a move on the Estonian, who is now determined to finish the weekend with the Championship lead.

Behind this group, Wootten falls into the clutches of Stefan Webling, who once again is trundling around in 9th place. A quick battle between the two leaves Wootten with a broken front wing, thereby compounding a poor weekend for the Dart International driver. He trails around for a lap, but is black flagged and made to retire.
Up front and nearing the end of the race, Waite still leads, but the all the cars down to seventh place are within 4 seconds of him - his inability to pull out a lead could see him fall well back in the final standings. As the cars cross the line, second place Foresti celebrates the victory despite being second on the road - he knows he has done enough.
This race definitely had a lot less going on than the previous event, as it consisted of a number of challenges, but little actual passing. Not the finest victory Foresti will ever take - he had to just sit behind Waite, while Bamber never looked like challenging him at any stage.

Following Andrew Waite's 5 second penalty for a jump start, the young New Zealand driver falls down to seventh place, thereby promoting everyone from Foresti to Evans up one position.
So after Round 1, Sten Pentus leaves Teretonga Park with the series lead ahead of Evans and Jilesen, but can the Estonian maintain his run of results for the rest of the season.

Sten Pentus (196 points)
Mitch Evans (187)
Daniel Jilesen (180)
Lucas Foresti (178)
Earl Bamber (157)
Andrew Waite (145)

Race Quality: 2.5 out of 5
Source Quality: B+ (TV Rip, but lots of compression)
(February 2010)

2010 Toyota Racing Series (Round 1, Race 2)

2010-01-17T03:00:00.004Z

After picking up a solid victory in the opening race of the season, 15-year-old Mitch Evans looks to notch up a second success and is helped greatly by starting on pole. Once again Sten Pentus starts from 2nd place with Daniel Jilesen, Earl Bamber, Andrew Waite and Lucas Foresti occupying the positions behind.

As the lights go out Evans begins the 16 lap race well and quickly pulls out a gap on Pentus who maintains his second position. The action takes place behind the leaders though as a three way battle for third place sees the experienced Bamber drop behind Waite, who looks to pressure for the next position. It doesn't last long for Waite as Bamber forces his way through and retakes his 4th place - behind these three, Foresti sits patiently as Waite begins to fall in his clutches. Unfortunately it looks as if Foresti once again has his car set up for the turns as every time he gets onto the start/finish straight, Waite pulls away from the Brazilian.

Webling - the only retiree from the first race - takes the fast turn 1 with far too much gusto and nearly loses the back end on the first part of the exit. An excellent save amidst a flurry of hands in the cockpit inside his Triple X Motorsport machine. Webling isn't the only driver to nearly lose it as on the 5th lap, race leader Mitch Evans get the entry into the second part of Castrol completely wrong and puts his left-side set of wheels off onto the dirt. Pentus is not quite close enough to take advantage of the error, but Evans now has clean his tyres off as well as facing more pressure from behind.
Nathan Morcom in the ETEC Motorsport machine spins it a lap later and loses the engine momentarily. It takes a moment for nerves to gather themselves and the New Zealand driver turns his car around and gets back on track. It is odd that there have been three spins in two laps - despite that trickiness of the cars, the conditions are absolutely perfect with dry, hot conditions for the whole weekend therefore making these errors stand out a little more.

Half way through the race and down near the back Jamie McNee goes around the outside of Webling through turn 1 - an excellent move for 9th place, but he's not the only one to try as Bamber attempts a similar move on Waite. A determined effort, but it is not enough and Waite holds station for the moment.

As the race tails off into its final laps, gaps appear between the cars as drivers between to settle into a steady pace, but on the twelfth lap, Evans appears to concentration again as for the second time in the race he goes wide and puts wheels on the grass - luckily Pentus is again not close enough to take the lead.

However, Evans luck runs out at the end of lap 15 as his engine cuts out on the exit of the final corner and this time Pentus does take the lead. Evans gets back up to speed, but Pentus has too much of an advantage and Evans too little time to make a difference.

The victory goes to the Estonian driver in a race that started well, but dried up in the second half of the even; however even Pentus must realise that he lucked into this victory following a number of errors by the young Evans. For the next event, the top six finishers in this race swap around giving 6th place Bamber the pole position and Pentus 6th place on the grid.

Race Quality: 3.5 out of 5

Source Quality: B+ (TV Rip, but lots of compression)

(February 2010)

2010 Toyota Racing Series (Round 1, Race 1)

2010-01-16T03:00:00.008Z

Teretonga Park is apparently the southern most racing circuit in the world. The circuit, primarily used for tin-tops and junior formula races, can be found in the south-west regions of New Zealand and it is at this circuit that the Toyota Racing Series begins its 2010 campaign.

These 1.8 litre 200BHP machines just fall short of Formula 3 in terms of power output; however any drive stability gained by lesser power is lost thanks to less efficient aerodynamics, thereby making these cars slide a little more through corners.
Since the end of the 2008-09 season, the reigning champion Mitch Cunningham (brother of IndyLights pilot, Wade) has found things a little tough going in the New Zealand Porsche GT3 Cup and although there were rumours that the former IndyLights driver may return to the series, it has yet to come to fruition. Another exponent of the Toyota Racing Series is Australian driver Brendon Hartley, who is now the reserve driver for the F1 Red Bull Racing Team.
With Cunningham absent, the series welcomes three drivers that may become contenders for the title - 2009 Australian Formula Ford Runner-up, Mitch Evans; Formula Renault 3.5 pilot, Sten Pentus and Formula 3 driver Lucas Foresti - the latter is managed by former Formula 1 and CART legend, Roberto Moreno - who is taking part in the series in order to keep himself "race-fit" for the upcoming season.
An odd inclusion on the grid is the former A1GP driver, Earl Bamber, whose career appears to have ground somewhat to a halt since the collapse of the World Cup of Racing in 2009. Rejoining the Toyota Racing Series may be seen as a step backwards for the experienced racer.

For the first of the three races of weekend, 15-year-old Evans lines up on pole in a field of just 11 cars; although the field is only separated by just over a second. The Estonian Pentus sits in second place, with Daniel Jilesen and Andrew Waite just behind, while Bamber and Foresti occupy the third row of the grid.
The cars form up on the grid, but when the lights go out it is Pentus who jumps ahead of the pack following a poor getaway by the young Evans - there are no changes behind the front two though, as the pack fall into a single-file formation around the very fast first corner. It's not all easy going though as Bamber begins to push the Brazilian Foresti hard for 5th place - Bamber isn't the only former-A1GP man on his team, as a number of Team New Zealand mechanics have also dropped back to work on his Triple X Motorsport car.

The race at the front changes dramatically on the sixth lap as Pentus overcooks his number 20 Giles Motorsports machine in the last corner and goes far too wide - Evans sees an opportunity to grab the lead and he takes it with an assured dive.
As the first race goes on, Foresti pulls away from Bamber and latches on to the back of Waite; however while Foresti is easily the more stable of the two cars through the corners, Waite continuously pulls away on the start/finish straight. Not far ahead of them, another battle is developing between Jilesen and Pentus - Jilesen has had a very quiet event up on to this point, too far ahead of Waite to be worried by him, but not close enough to Pentus to properly challenge; however the New Zealand driver has only a couple of laps to challenge the second-place driver.

Just as the last lap gets under way, the car driven by Stefan Webling begins to wobble violently on the straight as his right-rear tyres shreds up. Webling, who was in 9th position, pulls off to the left and vacates his stricken machine.
While the race ends poorly for Webling, Evans gets his dream start to the 2010 Toyota Racing Series campaign with an easy win - once the youngster has passed Pentus, there were no challenges to worry him. Pentus and Jilesen file home in 2nd and 3rd places, completing a 1-2-3 finish for the Giles Motorsports team - an absolutely dominant performance during which no other team owner got even close.
This was very far from the most exciting race I had ever seen. Although Teretonga Park is wonderful circuit, the racing on this occasion was somewhat flat - hopefully the second and third races will provide more action.

Race Quality: 2 out of 5
Source Quality: B+ (TV Rip, but lots of compression)
(February 2010)

Flavio Briatore's Ban Overturned

2010-01-05T14:32:00.006Z

It would appear that the lifetime FIA-motorsports ban of former-Renault boss, Flavio Briatore, has been overturned. His ban was initiated following Nelson Piquet Jr's deliberate crash during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, which led to team leader Fernando Alonso jumping from 15th place to 1st position when the safety car emerged - from there, Alonso went on to win the race.
Briatore also managed many current Formula 1 drivers, as well as a number of young pilots and was also ordered to cease all managerial activities.

The Italian argued at a tribunal in Paris that the ban was excessive and that then FIA president Max Mosley was unduly biased against Briatore. At the original trial in November of 2009 in front of the World Motorsports Council, Briatore refused to defend himself and was found guilty of cheating.
There will be many quotes and thoughts from various folk throughout the day.

Leigh

The Wonder of Appearances

2009-12-31T16:33:00.005Z

A long time ago (the late-90's I think), I frequented an IRC site for a short period where all sorts of bored computer nerds pretended to be all sorts of real-life "interesting" people.
Being young and foolish I got fooled a couple of times, but not in any way that did any damage and in any case, it was often forgotten fairly quickly. Bored people on the internet often do boring things whilst under the impression that they are clever and this is just one of those instances.

This afternoon, a little piece turned up on Twitter about Sauber announcing that their second driver will be announced next week... ahem.
Anyhoo, the Peter Sauber Twitter site is apparently a fake and although Nick Heidfeld is far and away the favourite to partner Kamui Kobayashi next year, there has been no confirmation of the seat as of yet from official sources and no information as to when it will be announced either.

Leigh

The Best Television Moment of the Year...

2009-12-31T10:46:00.001Z

...is without doubt the great Michael Schumacher's appearance as "The Stig" on BBC's Top Gear show earlier on this year. Filmed in June, this of course all happened prior to Felipe Massa's injury which has since gone on to reignite Michael Schumacher's return to Formula 1 for the 2010 season with Mercedes.

For those that don't know, Top Gear is a motoring show that is shown in the UK and the Stig is an anonymous driver (thought often to be an ex-F1 driver) that tests many of the car on the show. For this episode, only Schumacher was allowed to publicly test the Ferrari FXX and so took up the character for the show. Once unveiled, Schumacher gives a brief interview as well as a plug for Bacardi's anti-drink and drive campaign.

(*Update - here's the actual lap from the Ferrari FXX as driven by Michael Schumacher)

Leigh

The Black Prince "Paris Peripherique"

2009-12-29T15:38:00.004Z

"The Black Prince" tries for a record run around the Peripherique of Paris. Shot in 1989, this 35km jaunt around the ring of the city is completed in just over 11 minutes at an average speeds on 192kph, but was eventually beaten a few years later. However the new record was set at night with little traffic on the road. This drive on a Kawasaki ZXR750, is somewhat jaw-dropping and is - obviously - massively dangerous. It is stupid, reckless and mindless in the most obscene way imaginable.
Unfortunately the first half of this jaunt isn't online yet and it isn't in English, but you don't need to understand it - you just need to watch it.

Leigh

The Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive

Moving to Wordpress

2010 Malaysian Grand Prix (Sepang, Round 3, April 2nd - 4th)

The Possible Return of Michelin

Sometimes Wonderful Things Happen

Mark Webber Drives Sepang International Circuit

John Andretti at the 2010 Indy 500

2010 Australian Grand Prix (Melbourne, Round 2, March 26th-28th)

Mark Webber to Mentor Mitch Evans

Was Refuelling Banned Too Soon?

Mark Webber Drives the Streets of Albert Park, Melbourne

Following the Storm

Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger: 15 Years On

Autódromo de Benguela, Angola

2010 Bahrain Grand Prix (Sakhir, Round 1, March 12th-14th)

Sir Stirling Moss (**Updated)

Fuelled to the Finish (***Updated)

Mark Webber Drives Bahrain International Raceway

Carl Edwards: The Crazy Notion of On Track Payback (***Updated)

The 2010 Formula 1 World Championship Grid

Does Formula 1 Need Thirteen Teams?

Interview: Daniel Ricciardo (2009 British F3 Champion and Red Bull F1 Reserve)

The Story of USF1, Campos-Meta and Stefan GP

Formula 1 Testing (Barcelona, February 25th-28th)

Selling Yourself

Finesse Behind the Wheel

Simpler Times

A Little Bit of History

Formula 1 Testing (Jerez, February 17th-20th)

The Collapse of USF1

The Concept of a New Chassis, Part 2

An Open Letter to Randy Bernard

Formula 1 Testing (Jerez, February 10th-13th)

Reshaping Silverstone

The Concept of a new Chassis

Reflections of the 1999 CART World Series

A Great Save

The Return of GP2 Asia

Formula 1 Testing (Valencia, February 1st-3rd)

The Sao Paulo Indy 300

The Anthony Hamilton F1 Academy

The Ideal Formula 1 Calender

The New IRL CEO; Randy Bernard

Releasing the Car

Reshaping the Bahrain Grand Prix circuit

Musical Chairs (**Update**)

Driven (2001); A Right Piece of Shit

No Double-Diffusers from 2011 Onwards

Shortcutting Formula 1

2010 Toyota Racing Series (Round 1, Race 3)

2010 Toyota Racing Series (Round 1, Race 2)

2010 Toyota Racing Series (Round 1, Race 1)

Flavio Briatore's Ban Overturned

The Wonder of Appearances

The Best Television Moment of the Year...

The Black Prince "Paris Peripherique"

Musical Chairs (Update)