The Great Debate, Hamilton Vs Button

Let’s take Albert Park as reference point. Button started 4th lost track position early in the race due to the turn one tangle, however, he never really starts well when he isn’t on the front row unless he has a serious advantage in terms of car performance. The second half of 2009 was evidence of that. Do any of you recall any daring overtaking manoeuvres, any wheel to wheel action from the reigning world champion? He did, however, make the call to pit and chance the slicks, I think this was luck rather than judgement as he was in a sh*t or bust situation as his inters had dropped off. His options were, take on another set of inters and risk dropping back even further or gamble slicks when the track was still in the inter phase and perhaps stick it in to the unforgiving barriers of Melbourne. Lucky for Button the gamble paid off.

Hamilton, however, climbed up the field from 11th on the grid made some daring passing manoeuvres that made the race exciting. One example of this was the overtaking manoeuvre past Nico Rosberg on the outside of turn 11. We then saw the attack on Webber while at the same time trying to avoid the sloppy driving of the Australian. Hamilton does take risks some times and they don’t always pay off but when they do its amazing to watch and, they do pay off more often than not. If you watch a driver that doesn’t take risks then i’m sorry but its makes for a very dull race distance. When we look back to 2009 Hamilton finished 5th in the drivers title with a seriously uncompetitive car, winning two race’s and denied of victory at Abu Dhabi due to a failed right rear brake disk. For me this made the driver of the championship. When things went wrong at the Brawn camp mid way through the season Button didn’t have an answer and didn’t win a race after the Turkish Grand Prix but his machinery was still ahead in terms of overall down force. In my opinion Button’s fate was in the lap of the gods in Melbourne and they were feeling very generous on Sunday, lets see how he qualifies at Sepang next week. We must remember there are 17 more races left in the season and one Swallow doesn’t make a summer.

Australian Grand Prix

Jenson Button claimed victory at Albert Park, Jenson, the only driver who dared a risky strategy to pit and gamble it all on the slick tyres, a strategy that in the end paid dividends.

With rain affecting the start and a calamity at turn one that saw championship leader Fernando Alonso staring the wrong way down the race track.

For me, the Australian Grand Prix was much more of a demonstration of exactly what we were all promised of this being the greatest season in decades. The Melbourne venue never seems to let us down, with most drivers seeing their debut here you can see why this event has a lasting impression on the drivers.

One of those driver would be the young German Sebastian Vetel who I’m sure would be happy to put this race behind him. Yet again the promising young driver had his victory snatched away due the reliability of his machinery. This is something that I believe is  becoming a trend within the Red Bull team.

Let’s not forget Lewis Hamilton with his charge up the field taking his team-mate Jenson Button early in that race, fighting all the way to 3^rd and challenging Kubica for 2^nd only to be dropped back down the field due to a pit stop that he feels was unnecessary. This could be the beginning of what we all saw during the Senna/Prost era. To top this all off, as Hamilton closed in on the Ferrari of Alonso and managing to get the aero tow, Webber stacks into the rear of Hamilton forcing him into a spin and letting Rosberg passed dropping him down to 6^th.

Schumacher once again left a minimal impact on his F1 comeback, getting tangled up in the turn one mess and needing to return to the pit for a new nose cone effectively dropping him to last on the grid. He did, however, push back up the field only to be help up by 21 year old Jaime Alguersuari for 20 laps.

With all this wheel to wheel action i don’t think that we can talk of boring races, at least not for a week anyway.

Australian Grand Prix Preview

Albert Park is just around the corner now, with many drivers upbeat about the race, sure that the racing will be much better & overtaking will be a definite.

McLarens Lewis Hamilton returns to Albert park a year on from the lie-gate scandal that almost saw him walk away from the sport after admitting that he deliberately misled the race stewards; this he believes made him a better man.

The 2008 world champion looks back to his debut grand prix in 2007 taking pole position on his 1^st F1 outing, along with his 2008 victory, lets not forget a fantastic drive in 2009 coming from dead last to finish in 4^th only to be stripped after the race one the lie-gate saga emerged.

Hamilton is bullish that his McLaren team can improve on his 3^rd place finish at Bahrain, with Albert Park more suited to the characteristics of his McLaren Machinery & believes there is a good chance of victory for the team.

Hamilton said; “Sometimes your car suits it better than others – this circuit should work to the strengths of our car,” he added. “We feel stronger coming in to this race and hopefully we can get more points – for myself and Jenson. We do have a chance of winning this weekend. And hopefully we’ll be able to get that edge.

Sutil

Sutil is one other driver that believes’ the racing spectacle is going to be much better at the Australian circuit, however,  he is also one of the drivers that proved there were overtaking opportunities at Bahrain as he managed to climb to 12^th right back from 21^st, albeit passing new comer teams Virgin, Lotus & HRT. Sutil does believe, however, that the teams at the front of the field in Bahrain may have been driving cautiously and as a result provided us with the uninteresting racing that we are all talking of. This is a pattern that he is not expecting to be repeated in Australia.

Sutil said: “I think every drivers were a bit cautious as it was the first race and we had to go a long distance on the soft tyre and nobody really knew the best way to call it.

“Now we will go to Australia and tweak it a bit more to the limit and start to be a more aggressive.

Fernando

Ferrari Driver & Bahrain winner Fernando Alonso has called upon F1’s rule makers to resist pushing ahead with further rule changes in the wake of a dull 1^st race.

The Spaniard believes some of his rivals were “hot-headed” in their criticism of the grand prix.

“I think that many of us have given some hot headed comments immediately

after the race in Bahrain,” Alonso said on Ferrari’s website.

“It’s true that the race in Sakhir wasn’t especially spectacular – although for us Ferrari it was great and exciting – but it’s too early to talk about changing the rules.

“We have to wait and see different races and check the situation, without being emotional. Something that confuses the fans is changing the rules all the time.”

Diffuser Loophole Now Closed.

The FIA has now closed the loophole of the double diffuser

McLaren, Mercedes GP and at least two other teams have to make modifications to their diffuser prior to the Australian GP. The FIA is clamping down on teams exploiting the grey areas of the device, ironically Mercedes being one of these teams, in their former guise (Brawn) effetely introduced & won the championship with the same device.

This I feel is outrageous, all the development that went on through the winter and the FIA feel that now they should implement an embargo against innovative use of the said device. The FIA constantly talk of cost reductions in F1, all that I can see in this situation is that now these four teams will have to spend unnecessary money now to modify these cars.

I believe it is the FIA that is manufacturing escalated spending in F1. For example, two seasons in a row now all the teams have had to develop a car from scratch. 2009, full technical overhaul of the regulation, 2010, ban on in-race refuelling. This meant that both seasons none of the teams could bring an evolution of their respective cars, spending tens of millions on development of new machinery.

McLaren, Mercedes GP & Renault along with Force India will have to make these modifications prior to attending  Albert park, with the later of those teams holding a significantly smaller budget than the prior three, we will all see who will be hit hardest. This is a team that was just showing real promise in there motor-sport campaign.

The Double Diffuser Drama MKII

The FIA are set to clarify the legality of the double diffuser’s of at least three teams prior to the Australian GP.

I find this absolutely outrageous! With Homologation already clarified of each and every chassis on the grid how can there be any dispute moving into the second race of the season & where does that leave the results of the first race.

The FIA, quite a well resourced organization should have had this clear cut prior to the season getting underway, especially as they are in direct communication with the teams all the way through winter development. Leaving issues until scrutineering pre-race is just stupid, much like the controversy of the McLaren rear wing before Bahrain. The FIA could clearly hold a pre-season meet where all the teams bring their cars for examination in order to elevate any concerns of other teams prior to the racing season kicks off.

McLaren team Principal Martin Whitmarsh said about the situation: “I think Charlie came down and looked at all the cars in that area, but I am not aware that anyone had any action taken against them over it. There were some concerns expressed.

“There is a discussion between all the teams about what we are going to do. There are holes in the diffuser for the starter; the hole in ours is no bigger than the one on the championship winning car last year, also no bigger than it is on four other cars.”

With the FIA in discussion with at least 3 teams including McLaren & Mercedes GP – to sort out the matter. The FIA Believe that these outfits are exploiting the rules with what they are doing – even if they are not strictly going against the regulations.

Clarity is indeed needed.

Bahrain Grand Prix 2010

Fernando Alonso

With the 1^st race of the season over and victory clinched by Ferrari due to the demise of Sebastian Vettel. We had some action further down the grid; however, the racing was very processional and not what we were promised as the best season for decades.

The cars still seem as though they can’t over take, a good example of this was the battle for 4^th with Lewis Hamilton trailing the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg throughout the 1^st stint and only managing to vault him on the 1^st tyre stop.  The F vent in the McLaren seems to do the job of giving a speed advantage on the straights but once in the turbulent air of the car in front there is pretty much nothing they can do to overtake short of the car in front making a mistake.

This problem was also apparent with the Ferrari’s as the engineers on the pit wall were concerned once in the turbulent dirty air of Vettel.

Vettel had his own problems 16 laps from the end of the race, with a faulty spark plug effectively ruining his chance of a race win & podium. The young German looks in good shape to fight for the title in 2010, however, RBR need to take a strong look at their reliability, a major factor that took Vettel out of contention for 2009 title.

Schumacher had a lacklustre return to F1 finishing behind team-mate Nico Rosberg and unable to make much progress up the field.

One team that impressed, albeit the slowest on the grid was Lotus Racing. With virgin looking as though they had the jump on them in terms of race pace, Lotus actually managed to achieve their goal of reaching the chequered flag & watching fellow new boys Virgin & Hispania fall off one by one. Mike Gascoyne can feel proud of the teams achievements in their debut, giving them clear reliability advantage bearing in mind they only had 6 months to design and build a new car from a blank canvas. This positions them well to learn from the 2010 season and come into the 2011 season much stronger.

Bahrain Qualifying

Pole Sitter Sebastian Vettel

Well that was the 1^st qualifying session of 2010 with a mixture of results.

Quickest of the day was German driver Sebastian Vettel as he stormed to pole position with a 1m54.101s, 0.9s clear of Alonso who had held provisional pole for most of the 10 minute session in his Ferrari, one of the few teams that went for two qualifying runs in the final session.

With RBR very much under the radar for most of pre practice the 22 year old German certainly grabbed the bull by the horns and hooked up a perfect lap

Felipe Massa out qualifying team mate Fernando Alonso for 2^nd on the grid was surprise for most as Alonso  looked as though he had the edge on Massa for most for the morning.

One surprise was McLarens qualifying pace, it wasn’t what was anticipated by all you McLaren fans with Hamilton and Button somewhat off the pace and unable to compete for pole position leaving Hamilton on the second row and 4^th on the grid alongside old foe Alonso and Button down in 8^th only just scraping into quail 3. Button looks like he still has some work to do getting up to speed with the MP4-25 as he appeared to experience the kind of troubled qualifying session characteristic of the second half of his 2009 title campaign.

Meanwhile Schumacher had rather a lacklustre return to F1 being the first time he had experienced the shootout qualifying structure of Formula One today.  Starting on the grid a disappointing seventh &  consistently 3 tenths off the pace of team mate Nico Rosberg who lines up on the grid in fifth.

Mark Webber also had a low key approach to the 2010 season with a massive 1.2 seconds off the pace of team mate Vettel and only managing sixth place, with Robert Kubica (Renault) and Adrian Sutil (Force India) no doubt more pleased with their respective ninth & tenth position.

Rubens Barrichello just missed out of Q3 with new his new team Williams being nudged down to eleventh on the grid. The sister William of Nico Hulkenberg dropped half a seconded off Barrichello on his first experience of F1 qualifying, although having proved consistently faster in pre practice Nico lines up thirteenth.

F1’s first Russian Vitaly Petrov will start his maiden F1 voyage from row nine – a position not too dissimilar to those inexperienced Renault drivers have found themselves  in over recent seasons.

The three new comers to  F1 proving to be consistently over five seconds off the pace throughout pre practice meant that, barring major mistakes from others, only one of the established teams cars was in danger of joining the six new comers in Q1 elimination.

That man turned out to be Torro Rosso’s Jaime Algusuari, who slumps down to seventeenth lapping 9 tenths off the pace of team mate Sebastian Buemi.

Virgin can claim the right to brag being the quickest of the new boys positioning themselves well for a season-long battle with Lotus after Timo Glock managed to out qualify F1 veteran Jarno Truli & race winner Heikki Kovalinen.

Behind Lucas di Grassi in the second Virgin in 22^nd The Hispania Racing team finishes the grid.

With Karun Chandhok sitting out of all 3 practice sessions Chandhok effectively used his qualifying as installation laps and a shakedown of the car in front of millions of people instead of behind closed doors as it is traditionally done. Never the less Chandhok performed well completing 7 laps and posting a best time just 1.6 seconds slower than Bruno Senna, who has enjoyed considerably more track time in practice.

Bahrain GP starting grid

1 VETTEL               Red Bull

2 MASSA               Ferrari

3 ALONSO            Ferrari

4 HAMILTON        McLaren

5 ROSBERG           Mercedes

6 WEBBER             Red Bull

7 SCHUMACHER  Mercedes

8 BUTTON             McLaren

9 KUBICA              Renault

10 SUTIL                 Force India

11 BARRICHELLO  Williams

12 LIUZZI                Force India

13 HULKENBERG   Williams

14 DE LA ROSA    Sauber

15 BUEMI               Toro Rosso

16 KOBAYASHI      Sauber

17 PETROV            Renault

18 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso

19 GLOCK              Virgin

20 TRULLI              Lotus

21 KOVALAINEN   Lotus

22 DI GRASSI         Virgin

23 SENNA              HRT

24 CHANDHOK     HRT

McLaren Stalled Rear Wing

McLaren F Vent that stalls the rear wing

I’m not quite sure why the likes of Mike Gascoyne is so upset by the FIA decision to deam the McLaren Rear wing legal. Its clearly an innovative interpretation of the rules.

If as a competitor you would like to compete in a race series where all the teams have the same resources , infrastructure & budget i would suggest A1 Grand Prix Mike.

Formula One is the pinnacle of motor sport for several reasons, innovation, R&D, continuous improvement & investment. We need the type of innovation that a team like McLaren can deliver along with Brawn last year. Look at the innovation of the double deck diffuser from Brawn it was controversial at the time, however, by the end of the season almost all the teams were running it. Add KERS to the mix and what a spectacle of racing this made, all in all the end result 2009 was a great season.

If you take innovation out of F1 you might as well go to watch stock car racing.

Bharain GP Preview

Driver Press Conference

Well, that’s Friday practice over and we are still not 100% clear on the final pecking order of the grid. This i believe is going to go down to the wire at Saturday’s quali. It does, however, show that the top 4  are the likely candidates, I.E McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes & Redbull.

We do have 1 surprise of today’s session with Adrian Suitil showing some real pace in the Force India-Mercedes Benz, a relatively un-sung hero of 2009 in my book, with Giancarlo Fisichella taking pole at Belgium-Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Fisichella Going on to chase down the Ferrrai of word champion Kimi Räikkönen only to be held off by the extra 80 horse powered KERS Ferarri & claiming second in the race and the first point scoring position for Force India .

Both drivers appear very optimistic for their chances of scoring points in 2010 and in my book a dark horse not to be overlooked.