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Both RedBulls on front row for Spanish GP
May 9th
Webber claims his second pole of this season
Mark webber got one-up on team mate Vettel during Qualifying by pipping his German teammate to pole by two tenths of a second, Mark was the only man in qualifying to break into the 1’19′s when he set an incredible 1:19.995.
RedBull dominated final practice three on Saturday as well as all 3 periods of Qualifying, finishing 1-2 in every session.
Q1 saw the usual suspects securing the bottom 6 places, however the Lotus’s were showing very impressive pace, Trulli was only 1.5 seconds behind the Williams of Rubins Barichello who according to the team was caught in lap traffic. As a result he was unable to record a quick lap which saw him finish in 18th place and unable to proceed to Q2.
Michaeal Schumacher has had his most positive weekend of the season so far. His car has a new setup that he helped the team develop . The new car suits Michaels driving style very well and he has been faster then Rosberg all weekend. Michael put in some very impressive quali times and was consistently in the top 5 runners. In the end he was edged out of the top 5 qualifiers by Jensen Button. However, starting alongside the reigning world champion on the 3rd row of the grid put Schumacher in a great position to bag a bunch of points tomorrow.
Massa has been a lot slower then his team-mate this weekend. Massa qualified in 9th place just ahead of Kobayashi who put in a brilliant drive in the Sauber to claim the tenth spot. Kobayashi put in a brilliant drive in the dying seconds of Q3 and managed to push the Force india of Adrian Sutil just out of the top 10.
Hometown hero Fernando Alonso has been performing well infront of his fans this weekend. Alonso drove a brilliant lap which drove a thorn between the McLarens of Hamilton and Button. Alosno recorded a 1:20.937 which put him on the second row of the grid next to Lewis Hamilton. Alonso is in a very good position to claim a podium tomorrow infront of his home crowd if he can keep ahead of the McLarens.
The day however belonged to Mark Webber who recorded his second pole of the season and is in a very good position to claim his first win of the season. If Mark can remain ahead of his team mate through the first corner, there is every chance he will remain in front. However Vettel is on a points charge and knows if he wants a crack at the championship he needs to bag every point possible. Lew Hamilton is also a good starter and if Mark doesn’t get away well tomorrow he might very well have Hamilton and Vettel ahead of him before turn1.
The complete qualifying results are below:
| Pos. | # | Driver | Car | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
| 1 | 6 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1?21.412 | 1?20.655 | 1?19.995 |
| 2 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1?21.680 | 1?20.772 | 1?20.101 |
| 3 | 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1?21.723 | 1?21.415 | 1?20.829 |
| 4 | 8 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1?21.957 | 1?21.549 | 1?20.937 |
| 5 | 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1?21.915 | 1?21.168 | 1?20.991 |
| 6 | 3 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1?22.528 | 1?21.557 | 1?21.294 |
| 7 | 11 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 1?22.488 | 1?21.599 | 1?21.353 |
| 8 | 4 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1?22.419 | 1?21.867 | 1?21.408 |
| 9 | 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1?22.564 | 1?21.841 | 1?21.585 |
| 10 | 23 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1?22.577 | 1?21.725 | 1?21.984 |
| 11 | 14 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1?22.628 | 1?21.985 | |
| 12 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber-Ferrari | 1?22.211 | 1?22.026 | |
| 13 | 10 | Nico Hülkenberg | Williams-Cosworth | 1?22.857 | 1?22.131 | |
| 14 | 12 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1?22.976 | 1?22.139 | |
| 15 | 16 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1?22.699 | 1?22.191 | |
| 16 | 17 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1?22.593 | 1?22.207 | |
| 17 | 15 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India-Mercedes | 1?23.084 | 1?22.854 | |
| 18 | 9 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1?23.125 | ||
| 19 | 18 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 1?24.674 | ||
| 20 | 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 1?24.748 | ||
| 21 | 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1?25.475 | ||
| 22 | 25 | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin-Cosworth | 1?25.556 | ||
| 23 | 20 | Karun Chandhok | HRT-Cosworth | 1?26.750 | ||
| 24 | 21 | Bruno Senna | HRT-Cosworth | 1?27.122 |
Button wins Chinese GP in a thrilling McLaren 1-2
Apr 18th
Jensen enjoying his 2nd win of the season. Photo: EPA
Jensen button won a thrilling Chinese Gran Prix and Hamilton provided McLaren with their first 1-2 finish of the season.
The Drama started early when Alonso jumped the start and was later penalised. It wasn’t long before the rain hit and most of the top teams were quick to react by opting to switch to intermediate tyres. This soon proved to be the wrong decision
For Jensen it is his second win of the season and smart strategy in changeable weather conditions again proved to be the key to winning. Button chosing his tyres wisely, opted to stay out on slicks in light rain. It was the right choice, the rain was only short lived for the time being and all those teams who dashed in for inters were quickly forced to pit again to put slicks back on the cars.
This decission was the turning point of the race for many drivers. It was what handed Button the advantage and it was also a decission to change to inters which ruled out the chance of RedBull claiming a podium position. Jensen’s smooth driving style again became crutial in the later stages of the race where he was forced to look after the intermediate tyres to maintain his lead over Hamilton. It was a classy drive and a smart drive from Button.
Nico Rosberg ran wide on slicks later in the race which gifted P1 to Jensen. Had it not been for this incident there was every chanee Nico could have scored his first GrandPrix victory and the first for the ‘modern’ Mercedes team. Nico Rosberg then lost P2 to hamilton in the pit stop, having a slow in lap combined with Lewis doing a few well timed quick laps, the German was relegated to 3rd.
Sebastian and Mark made their way up from P9 and P10 in the later stages of the race, however Vettel was unable to pass Kubica to claim 5th position due to his tyre wear. Tyres were even more of an issue for Mark who lost a place to Petrov in the dying stages due to there being no tread left at all on the intermediate tyres. Mark had to settle for 8th position.
With Jensen now top of the table and Nico Rosberg 2nd in the standings it has thrown the championship predictions out the window. Not many bookmakers predicted the table to look the way it is currently.
“This win is very special” said Button at the post race press conference. Button ‘s win also hands McLaren the lead in the constructors championship and with 11 points now separating him from his team-mate, it has been a very important morale boost for Jensen who many felt would be racing in the shadow of Hamilton at McLaren.
The race Steward had a busy day with several incidents needing investigation. The first obviously was a drive-through for Fernando jumping the start, however it was a scrap between Hamilton and Vettel on the entry then also the exit to the pits which raised most eyebrows. Lewis Hamilton was released from his box, however wheel spin saw him exit into the path of Sebastian Vettel. Both drivers were side by side down the pitlane with Hamilton even running over other teams air gun hoses before finally darting in behind Vettel as they exited the pits.
Further controversy happened in the late stages of the race when Button bunched the pack up eady for a post-safety car restart which nearly caused a mass pile up, forces some driver to take avoiding action onto the grass. The cars were forced to slow so much that no doubt some driver had to engage their clutch. The restart went all bad for Webber who was forced off by Hamilton who ran wide defending his position with Vettel. Under new regulations you can pass on the restart from pitlane entry.
If Bernie wanted to make Formula1 more exciting, then he has succeded by charming the rain gods on a Sunday. Changeable weather conditions during the race proving to be the missing ingredient in the sport.
The final race standings from China are below:
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1h44:42.163 2. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 1.530 3. Rosberg Mercedes + 9.484 4. Alonso Ferrari + 11.869 5. Kubica Renault + 22.213 6. Vettel Red Bull-Renault + 33.310 7. Petrov Renault + 47.600 8. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 52.172 9. Massa Ferrari + 57.796 10. Schumacher Mercedes + 1:01.749 11. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1:02.874 12. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 1:03.665 13. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1:11.416 14. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth + 1 lap 15. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap 16. Senna HRT-Cosworth + 2 laps 17. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth + 4 laps
Vettel pips Webber to take Pole in China
Apr 18th
Sebastian Vettel - Photo: AFP
It was another RedBull 1-2 in qualifying in Malaysia with Sebastian Vettel edging out Webber to snatch pole during the dying seconds of Q3 while Alonso slipped to 3rd on the grid. Mark recorded the fastest lap of the session just as the chequered flag came down, he couldn’t have another shot. Nobody beat his time until Sebastian who had been struggling all weekend with slow sector1 times suddenly put in a purple sector1 time (quickest time of the session) and from there he maintained his pace to take pole and edge out Mark by less then 3/10ths for a second.
The usual suspects were knocked out at the end of Q1, luckily this time Ferrari and McLaren made sure they stayed with the pack. There was nothing unexpected either about Q2, Michael Schumacher only just scrapped in to the top 10 to make it through to Q3, he maneged to go one better in Q3 and qualify 9th on the grid ahead of Adrian Sutil in the Force India.
Mercedes however are very pleased with Nico Rosberg putting his car on the second row of the grid in P4, just one place behind Alonso in the Ferrari and ahead of both the McLarens of Button and Hamilton. This put a very large smile on the faces of the Mercedes team members, it was no doubt a very important occasion for the team finally out-qualifying both of the McLarens. Mercedes tomorrow will be focussed on maintain their grid position and have a strong finish ahead of the McLarens and even a podium for Rosberg who has been consistently quicker then his 7-time world champion team-mate all season.
Massa is P7 behind the Mclarens, followed by Kubica in the Renault who was expecting to have a slightly better result but still happy.
The forecast for Sunday’s race is similar to last years Chinese Grand Prix….Wet. Rain is expected to fall during the day and afternoon but may be clearing towards the end of the race. Sebastian Vettel last year recorded his first win of the season during the rain affected race in China. The season up until then had be dominated by Brawn, but Vettel is a specialist in the wet. So it’s good news for RedBull who seem to dominate int he wet, once again they have locked out the front row but just a reverse in driver order from the last race.
Webber needs to work on his starts, especially in the wet conditions. There is ever chance he will be passed by Fernando Alonso at the first corner if he doesn’t have his wits about him. The RedBull team knows how important it is for Mark to start well and give his team mate a buffer to the Ferrari.
The full result from Q1, Q2 and Q3 are below:
| Pos. | # | Driver | Car | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
| 1 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1?36.317 | 1?35.280 | 1?34.558 |
| 2 | 6 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1?35.978 | 1?35.100 | 1?34.806 |
| 3 | 8 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1?35.987 | 1?35.235 | 1?34.913 |
| 4 | 4 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1?35.952 | 1?35.134 | 1?34.923 |
| 5 | 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1?36.122 | 1?35.443 | 1?34.979 |
| 6 | 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1?35.641 | 1?34.928 | 1?35.034 |
| 7 | 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1?36.076 | 1?35.290 | 1?35.180 |
| 8 | 11 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 1?36.348 | 1?35.550 | 1?35.364 |
| 9 | 3 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1?36.484 | 1?35.715 | 1?35.646 |
| 10 | 14 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1?36.671 | 1?35.665 | 1?35.963 |
| 11 | 9 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1?36.664 | 1?35.748 | |
| 12 | 17 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1?36.618 | 1?36.047 | |
| 13 | 16 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1?36.844 | 1?36.149 | |
| 14 | 12 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1?37.031 | 1?36.311 | |
| 15 | 23 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1?37.044 | 1?36.422 | |
| 16 | 10 | Nico Hülkenberg | Williams-Cosworth | 1?37.049 | 1?36.647 | |
| 17 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber-Ferrari | 1?37.050 | 1?37.020 | |
| 18 | 15 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India-Mercedes | 1?37.161 | ||
| 19 | 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1?39.278 | ||
| 20 | 18 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 1?39.399 | ||
| 21 | 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 1?39.520 | ||
| 22 | 25 | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin-Cosworth | 1?39.783 | ||
| 23 | 21 | Bruno Senna | HRT-Cosworth | 1?40.469 | ||
| 24 | 20 | Karun Chandhok | HRT-Cosworth | 1?40.578 |
Vettel wins in Malaysia while RedBull dominate with a 1-2 Finish
Apr 4th
Sebastian Vettel leading Mark Webber for the RedBull on-Two - Photograph: Mark Thompson/Getty Images
Sebastian Vettel lead from turn 1 at Sepang and never looked back to claim his first win of the season and gave RedBull the 1-2 finish that they so desperately wanted and expected to get earlier then round 3 this year.
Mark Webber was on pole for the race, however he had wheel spin off the line and didn’t fight too hard to cover his line as Vettel passed him into the braking area. Mark had a beter run into turn 2 and fought back a little bit but in the end Vetel had the drive and maintained his lead. From then on it was pretty much a processional race with Vettel, Webber and Rosberg leading the pack for the rest of the afternoon.
“I had a good start and got the tow from Mark, I took the chance I had in Turn 1, said Vettel … We had a magnificent car and the key was to pace yourself. It’s a good result after two races where we didn’t finish where we want to be.”
The rain that was predicted for this race never eventuated. It was the first dry afternoon all weekend and it meant that the conditions for the drivers were extreemely difficult and hot. It also meant there were no safety car periods and teams such as McLaren and Ferrari who were hoping for changeable weather to make their way up the grid weren’t able to make the gains they possibly would have hoped had the rain fallen.
Nico Rosberg had a trouble free race and just had to follow the RedBull procession from start to finish. P3 for Rosberg never really seemed to be under any threat and all he had to do was to steer the car home to claim the final place on the podium.
Hamilton and Mass did a great job climbing up form the back of the grid to finish 6th and 7th and claim some needed points for the team. However it was both their team-mates who provided entertainment in the dying stages of the race.
Button was caught by Alonso at the end and there was a fierce battle for position. Alonso looked to take Button several times but in the end wasn’t able to make up the pace out of the corners due to a problem with the car on the downshift which set Alonso up badly for a quick exit. The final couple of laps however proved disaterous for Alonso as the Ferrari’s engine gave up and blew, forcing Alonso to retire from the race.
Jaime Alguersuari put in a superstar drive and scored points for finishing in ninth place. He had some great on-track battles with Hulkenberg and Petrov. Jamie showed that he has loads of potential and is able to perform very well under pressure.
Lotus are happy with one of their cars finishing the race. Jarno Trulli finished the race in last place for Lotus, but it was a good result for the team to finish the race in front of a home crowd. The result however was upstaged by Hispania Racing (HRT) who managed to get both their cars to the finish to claim 15th and 16th place just ahead of the Lotus.
Massa’s lead in the championship after round3 is just 2 points clear of Sebastian Vettel who is in equal 2nd place int he championship with Alonso, both drivers are on 37 points.
The final race classifications as well as championship standings are below:
Pos Driver Team Gap
1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault
2. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 4.8s
3. Rosberg Mercedes + 13.5s
4. Kubica Renault + 18.5s
5. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 21.0s
6. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 23.4s
7. Massa Ferrari + 27.0s
8. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 37.9s
9. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1m10.6s
10. Hulkenberg Williams + 1m13.3s
11. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1m18.9s
12. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
13. Alonso Ferrari + 2 laps
14. Di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth + 3 laps
15. Chandhok Hispania-Cosworth + 3 laps
16. Senna Hispania-Cosworth + 4 laps
17. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth + 5 laps
Not classified/retirements:
Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 46 laps
Petrov Renault 32 laps
Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 12 laps
Schumacher Mercedes 9 laps
Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 8 laps
Glock Virgin-Cosworth 2 laps
De la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 0 laps
World Championship standings, round 3:
Drivers: Constructors:
1. Massa 39 1. Ferrari 76
2. Vettel 37 2. McLaren-Mercedes 66
3. Alonso 37 3. Red Bull-Renault 61
4. Button 35 4. Mercedes 44
5. Rosberg 35 5. Renault 20
6. Hamilton 31 6. Force India-Mercedes 18
7. Kubica 30 7. Williams-Cosworth 6
8. Webber 24 8. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 2
9. Sutil 10
10. Schumacher 9
11. Liuzzi 8
12. Barrichello 5
13. Alguersuari 2
14. Hulkenberg 1
Webber on pole in a thrilling rain affected Malaysian Qualifying
Apr 3rd
Mark Webber on Pole for Sunday's Malaysian GP - Photo: AFP
A sensational Qualifying session ahead of Sunday’s race saw both Ferrari’s of Alonso and Massa and also the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton failing to make it into Q2 .
Light rain started falling in the early stages of Q1, the teams who put in laps early benefited. Unfortunately for Ferrari, they waited to long into the session to go out on track and by the time their cars were sent out, they were lapping well under the target time. McLaren also had the same problem, however Jensen Button set a good enough time to put him through till Q2, but aquapolaned off the wet track after he set his lap and was unabled to rejoin the track, relegating him to the bottom of Q2 and qualifying in 17th position.
Lewis Hamilton separates both the Ferraris of Alonso in p19 and Massa in p21. This is the worst qualifying result for Ferrari and McLaren all season.
Q2 saw most drivers start on Intermediate tyres. The rain had eased and the track. Adrian Sutil was the early pace setter but was quickly upstaged by Schumacher, Kubica and Hulkenberg. As the track dried it became clear the inters were needed to set good pace. Vettel pitted for inters and as a result he was able to respond with the quickest lap time of the session. Webber finished Q2 in 7th place, after struggling to show similar pace to Vettel, however it was Michael Schumacher who got lucky and only just held on the the final position, closing out the top 10 to go in to Q3.
As the lights went green for Q3, there was a very long line of traffic. Everyone was keen to get out early and set a good time before the rain got even heavier. The rain did get very heavy and the session was red flagged before anybody had a chance to set a time. This meant there would be only just over 7 minutes left in the session when it is restarted.
When the session was finally restarted, the rain had stopped falling, however there was a lot of standing water. Nobody hung around in the pit garage very long, with only 7 mins left, all the remaining 10 cars went out quickly. With the standing water on parts of the track all the cars except for Mark Webber elected to use full wets.
Sutil and Hulkenberg again proved to be quick in the wet with early pace as Mark Webber struggled on his out lap on cold intermediate tyres. However on Marks first flying lap his sectors were suddenly very quick and in no time he posted the quickest time of the session. He stayed out for a second flying lap and bettered his pole time by 1.1 seconds. It was obvious that nobody on full wets was able to break Webbers time, his gamble on inters paid off. Team principal Christian Horner confirmed that the decision to use inters was Webber’s own.
Mark Webber is joined on the front row by Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes and Marks RedBull team mate just behind in P3. RedBull once again dominating the qualifying for the seccond race in a row. However whether or not RedBull’s qualifying performance is able to be translated into a similar finish in the race is yet to be seen this season.
With more rain forecast for tomorrow’s race, it will come done to tyre strategy and cautious and consistent driving to win the race. Many teams will be analysing closely the performance of the inters vs the full wets in the constantly changing Malaysian conditions.
The final Qualifying times from all sessions is below:
| Pos | No | Driver | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
| 1 | 6 | Mark Webber | 01:51.89 | 01:48.21 | 01:49.33 |
| 2 | 4 | Nico Rosberg | 01:52.56 | 01:47.42 | 01:50.67 |
| 3 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | 01:47.63 | 01:46.83 | 01:50.79 |
| 4 | 14 | Adrian Sutil | 01:49.48 | 01:47.09 | 01:50.91 |
| 5 | 10 | Nico Hulkenberg | 01:49.66 | 01:47.35 | 01:51.00 |
| 6 | 11 | Robert Kubica | 01:46.28 | 01:46.95 | 01:51.05 |
| 7 | 9 | Rubens Barrichello | 01:50.30 | 01:48.37 | 01:51.51 |
| 8 | 3 | Michael Schumacher | 01:52.24 | 01:48.40 | 01:51.72 |
| 9 | 23 | Kamui Kobayashi | 01:48.47 | 01:47.79 | 01:51.77 |
| 10 | 15 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | 01:49.92 | 01:48.24 | 01:52.25 |
| 11 | 12 | Vitaly Petrov | 01:47.95 | 01:48.76 | |
| 12 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | 01:47.15 | 01:48.77 | |
| 13 | 16 | Sebastien Buemi | 01:48.95 | 01:49.21 | |
| 14 | 17 | Jaime Alguersuari | 01:48.66 | 01:49.46 | |
| 15 | 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | 01:52.88 | 01:52.27 | |
| 16 | 24 | Timo Glock | 01:52.40 | 01:52.52 | |
| 17 | 1 | Jenson Button | 01:52.21 | no time | |
| 18 | 18 | Jarno Trulli | 01:52.88 | ||
| 19 | 8 | Fernando Alonso | 01:53.04 | ||
| 20 | 2 | Lewis Hamilton | 01:53.05 | ||
| 21 | 7 | Felipe Massa | 01:53.28 | ||
| 22 | 20 | Karun Chandhok | 01:56.30 | ||
| 23 | 21 | Bruno Senna | 01:57.27 | ||
| 24 | 25 | Lucas di Grassi | 01:59.98 |
Melbourne Wrap-up
Mar 31st
Well I have only just got home from Melbourne and only just got back to a reliable internet connection. Apologies for the blog being qute ever since I left for the MelbGP, but the hotel I was staying in didn’t have an internet connection and I was also very pressed for time.
For the entire weekend there was a great atmosphere around Albert Park and the city. The crowd numbers were up on previous years and Melbourne seemed to be very welcoming of the event.
The local media here however made a very big deal out of Lewis Hamilton’s incident outside the track on Friday night. Unless you have been living under a rock, you would know by now that lewis was ‘egged’ on by fans to put on a show for them as he left the circuit in the Mercedes AMG C63. The fans cheered and Lewis gave them what that wanted. The police however didn’t appreciate it and immeediately pulled him over. Under the anti-hoon regulations that victoria has recently brought into place, they can confiscate and impound the cars of drivers caught hooning without any prior offenses. In light of recent media coverage regarding hoon behaviour on Victorian roads and the recent legislations, the Victorian police, really had no choice but to make an example of Leiws and as a result he was dealt the full hand of the law. Maybe if the incident didn’t take place infront of such a large group of fans, then the police might have dealt with the situation slightly differently.
Mercedes however are benefitting from the free publicity for their top of the line c-class. The car that Lewis was driving is now a sort after souvineer for mnay would be buyers. The car will sell to the highest bidder, well above the standard sale price for the vehicle. However in a wise PR move by Mercedes they have vowed to donate every dollar over the standard sale price the car fetches to charity. They have even named the charity as the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. None of this of course has anything to do with the actual action on the track.
Vettel after claiming Pole on Saturday
Qualifying on Saturday was an absolute nail biter and the Melbourne crowd were behind their man Mark Webber through all sessions. It was Sebastian Vettel however who stole the show form Webber in the dying stages of of Q3 and snatching pole, beating the long-standing Albert Park lap record that was set by Michael Schumacer in a Ferrari back in 2004. Vettel recorded an incredible 1:23.919, the record that Michael set up until Vettel’s qualifying lap was a 1:24.125. Both Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso also beat this record in Q3 when they recorded times in the low 1:24’s.
Going in to rhe race on Sunday we had a RedBull one-two on the grid with Ferrari of Alonso in P3. Mark Webber being on the front row next to his team-mate Sebastian Vetttel now has the best chance to date to win his home Gran Prix. However after a poor start he was relegated to 4th place by the first corner.
It ws evident this race was going to be a thriller in stark contrast to the 2010 season opener in Bahrain which has received much critisism as being a very boring event. The rain no doubt played a role in throwing the race wide open however it was smart pit strategy and a gamble by Button to come in early for slicks that proved to win the race for him. The McLarens intermediate tyres were wearing poorley and Button made a last minute decission to dive in for slicks rather staying out for the track to dry a little more and risk losing position on his badly worn inters’.
Button ran off he track in the first sector on the cold slicks and lost a large amount of time as a result, however he recovered to record the fastest 3rd sector of the race so far. His move now proving to be the right one almost all the teams besides the RedBulls all dived in to put on their slicks. RedBull however seemed to be looking after their inter’s very well and Vettel was still able to keep pace with button.
As the race went on, Vettel lost his lead due to another mechanical failure with the car. This time a front wheel failure due to incorrect fitment saw him run off the track under brakes at turn 13 on lap 26 and beach the car in the gravel trap. This handed a very substantial lead to button who went on to claim victory in Melbourne for the 2nd consecutive year.
Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton has a couple of scraps throughout the race and both times Webber ran off the track, the final time, with just 3 laps of the race left to go, Webber understeered into lewis when he failed to pullup due to lack of downforce running in the McLarens dirty air. This was the nail on the coffin for Mark who finished in ninth place. Mark later apologised to Lewis for the incident and no doubt both dirvers now want to put a disapointing race behind them and look forward to this weekend in Malaysia.
An extatic Jensen Button was not expecting to win the AustralianGP again this year, the McLarens went in to this race down on form compared to Ferrari and RedBull, however it goes to prove that smart pit strategy again in variable weatehr conditions will make or break a race for you and sometimes you have to take a gamble to reap the reward. “It’s very special. It’s taken me a little while to be comfortable inside the car, but the team has been fantastic. I don’t know what to say – it’s very difficult to explain. I just feel I’m building in confidence.” Said Jensen.
Robert Kubica did a fantastic job in the Renault, handing the team their first pdium of the season. Robert put in a champion drive and stayed out of trouble to finish in second place behind Jensen. Filipe Massa had a reasonably torouble free run to finish 3rd for Ferrari who maintain a strong early lead on the constructors championship.
Red Bull now look ahead to Malaysia. It is the second consecutive race for the team with a driver on pole position not being able to convert pole into a win or at the very least a podium finish due to mechanical issues in the car.
Webber summed up his feelings after the race by updating his twitter status to read “It can only get better! Felt for our whole team looking forward to KL”
Below are the final results from round2 in Melbourne:
| Pos | Driver | Team | Laps | Time/Retired |
| 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 58 | Winner |
| 2 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 58 | +12.0 secs |
| 3 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 58 | +14.4 secs |
| 4 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 58 | +16.3 secs |
| 5 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes GP | 58 | +16.6 secs |
| 6 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 58 | +29.8 secs |
| 7 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India-Mercedes | 58 | +59.8 secs |
| 8 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 58 | +60.5 secs |
| 9 | Mark Webber | RBR-Renault | 58 | +67.3 secs |
| 10 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes GP | 58 | +69.3 secs |
| 11 | Jaime Alguersuari | STR-Ferrari | 58 | +71.3 secs |
| 12 | Pedro de la Rosa | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | 58 | +74.0 secs |
| 13 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 56 | +2 Laps |
| 14 | Karun Chandhok | HRT-Cosworth | 53 | +5 Laps |
| Ret | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 41 | +17 Laps |
| Ret | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin-Cosworth | 26 | +32 Laps |
| Ret | Sebastian Vettel | RBR-Renault | 25 | +33 Laps |
| Ret | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 9 | +49 Laps |
| Ret | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 9 | +49 Laps |
| Ret | Bruno Senna | HRT-Cosworth | 4 | +54 Laps |
| Ret | Sebastien Buemi | STR-Ferrari | 0 | +58 Laps |
| Ret | Nico Hulkenberg | Williams-Cosworth | 0 | +58 Laps |
| Ret | Kamui Kobayashi | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | 0 | +58 Laps |
| Ret | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 0 | +58 Laps |
What’s in store at Albert Park?
Mar 22nd
With the dramas of the ‘un-eventful’ season opener in Bahrain now yesterdays fish n chips wrapper, we look ahead to the AustralianGP which is now less 6 days away.
Melbourne has traditionally hosted the first round of the season so it will be interesting to see teams turning up to this track and for the first time having a clearer understanding of who the pace setters are heading into the weekend.
Lewis Hamilton has been quoted as saying that “The Red Bull is ridiculously faster than anyone else’s car,”
Downforce in Melbourne is very important with the most important corners being very slow speed yet at the same time there are large sweeping corners on the back straight taken at full throttle.
The reliabilty issues that plauged Sebastian during Bahrain will hopefully not be an issue in Melbourne. Sebastian dropped from a comfortable lead down to 4th place when a faulty spark plug caused issues for him and greatly reduced power. Sebastian will be using that same engine this weekend in Melbourne, however RedBull have made assurances the issue has been rectified and there is nothing wrong with the engine itself. Having siad that, the Renault engine is still down on power and was 10 km/h slower then the McLarens through the speed trap in Bahrain. With the speeds topping 300km/h at Albert Park, this hopefully won’t become an issue for RedBull.
The majority of the grid believe that the best two cars going into this weekend are the RedBulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.
Mark will be under a lot of pressure to perform infront of his home-crowd. He has not had good luck in past seasons in Melbourne however with the local press already touting 2010 as ‘being his year’ at Albert park, there may be much disapointment if he doesn’t atleast claim a podium this weekend and with such a car beneath him, there should be no excuses not to perform.
The weather in Melbourne is always un-predicatable. We have seen the temperature on the race in recent years vary from the low 20′s (celcius) to the low-mid 40 degree temperatures.
The forecast is for a mixed dry and wet weekend. Possible showers on Saturday for Quali and whilst Sunday will start out fine, strong winds could also bring rain in the late afternoon. Temps will be in the mid-high 20′s on Saturday and it will push into 30 degrees celcius for the Sunday, so not a relatively hot weekend.
Melbourne has a very large Italian community and one of the largest Ferrari fan bases we see at any GP outside of Italy.
Fernando Alonso is who many fans have come to cheer on and the Red and Yellow will be out in force cheering for this man.
Whilst Ferrari may not have the aero package the RedBull have, they do have reliability on their side and in a race like Melbounre which always claims casualaties and is always prone to safety car periods, reliabilty may win the day.
Most of the F1 teams are already in Melbourne, many of the dirvers flew in over this past weekend to adjust to the time-zone differnce and the change in timezone will put them in good stead for the malaysian GP the following weekend.
Albert Park is a street circuit only a few Kilometers from Melbournes CBD. The circuit is just over 5.3km’s in length and the lap record set in 2004 by Michael Schumacher of 1:24.125 still stands.
Michael has been a local crowd favourite at Albert Park ever since he won his first AustralianGP for Ferrari in 2000. There will be a very large legion of “schumi fans” out to see their man. We don’t expect him to break that lap record however, the MecredesGP team hasn’t had the pace of the Ferrari, RedBull or even the McLarens so far this season.
Lets go for a lap around Albert Park on-board with Michael Schumacher in 2004. This was his pole setting lap:
Webber shows they have the pace in 2010.
Feb 26th
As stated in an the earlier ‘live’ post I wrote on the morning’s proceedings at Circuit de Catalunya, the dryer weather in Barcelona was a welcome change to the conditions experienced in the Jerez tests and it was a good chance for teams to do some serious dry weather runs.
The day belonged to Mark Webber who set the fastest time of the day with a 1:21.487. He set this pace during the morning sessions and it was a clear warning to competitors the once again the Red Bull team meant business this season.
Webber’s closest competitor was Nico Roseberg in the MercedesGP, who were formally BrawnGP, Red Bulls main rivals in 2009. Rosberg showed fantastic pace in the Merc’, but was still around 1 second slower then Webber’s best time with a 1:22.407.
By Red Bull’s own admition, the RB6 was a bit light on fuel today, but none the less their genuine pace is un-deniable.
The main area of concern for the team however still seems to be the reliability of the Renault engine and the gearbox gremlins. The Renault engine is not as reliable as the power plants by Mercedes and Ferrari. They were plauged with engine trouble last season and already this year during their first test runs at Jerez the car suffered engine trouble and they lost a day of testing.
Webber’s car stopped out on track during the morning runs due to an issue with the Gearbox. When asked about the reliability of certain components in the car during his run at Barcelona, Mark said “to learn about the car sometimes you run parts close to the limit on mileage, which wouldn’t be the case on race weekends.”
He does make a valid point. The team brought new parts and ran them on the car for the first time in Barcelona. Adjustable front wing flaps this year are of many changes to the car that will take a lot of fine tuning and testing to get right.
The dry conditions also gave teams a good chance to look at tyre degradation of the soft and super soft compounds. Webber recorded his fastest lap on the super softs, but fuel loads also played their part and the super softs were not noticeably quicker then the softs.
Mark said that whilst 2009 was a good year for the team in regards to numerous podiums and wins, they plan on 2010 being even better and clearly want to win the next world championship.
He also did not want to get carried away with the teams pace today and made it clear that they still had a lot of work to do and plan on improving parts of the car prior to Bahrain.
“We still have problems, so we are not going on holiday tonight. We have more work to do, and we’re still improving this car.” said Webber.
The tests over the next few days will be the final opportunity for teams to refine their cars prior to the official start of the season in Bahrain.
The next few days should give us a much clearer indication of early season form. The conditions will be much warmer in Bahrain, Australia then Malaysia which are hosting the first 3 rounds, but with most teams now concentrating on practising pit stops, qualifying strategies and the likes, we shouldn’t see any new dramatic bits on the cars now and the times we will see in Barcelona this week should be much more indicative of the times we will see in the first official practice and qualifying of the season in Bahrain.
So early form now seems indicate that 2010 may start in a similar fashion to the way the 2009 season ending with MercGP (Formerly BrawnGP) and Red Bull being the two main front runners. However Ferrari have been very conservative so far in testing and it appears they have a lot more pace then has been reflected in the time sheets.
We very well may see over the weekend, Fernando Alonso impress his home crowd and up-stage Red Bull in the F10. The punters are tipping Alonso to win the Championship this year, whilst Bernie believes that it will be a Red Bull, either way we are now at the pointy end of the testing season and the teams form should now be indicating their race pace for the start of the season.
Below are the times from Day1 at Barcelona:
1. Mark Webber Red Bull 1:21.487 109
2. Nico Hulkenberg Williams 1:22.407 82
3. Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 1:22.514 107
4. Pedro De La Rosa BMW Sauber 1:23.144 73
5. Jenson Button Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 1:23.452 101
6. Tonio Liuzzi Force India 1:24.064 65
7. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:24.170 74
8. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1:24.173 74
9. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso 1:24.869 111
10. Lucas Di Grassi Virgin Racing 1:27.057 31
11. Fairuz Fauzy Lotus 1:28.002 76
UBS Chinese Grand Prix