Posts tagged Sebastian Vettel
Three on the Trot for Webber in Turkey
May 29th
Mark Webber has bagged a qualifying hatrick by claiming pole postion for the Turkish Grand Prix.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing this weekend for the Aussie. On Friday an engine failure in practice was played down by the team but it did mean less time on track for Mark. The during 3rd practice on Saturday Mark had a issue with the throttle system on the RedBull which saw him crawl back to the pits under idle and not record a time.
Vettel was a step ahead of Mark, recording better times during Q1 and Q2 however Sebastian locked a front wheel in the dying stages of Q3 and lost time, as a result he lost time and only narrowly finished in p3 splitting both the Mclarens. Mark had an excellent final run in Q3, lighting up the middle sector purple. He managed to beat Lewis hamilton to pole by more then .1 of a second.
Fernando Alonso had a dreadful day, making a mistake in Q2 and unable to recover he was knocked out and will start tomorrows race from 12th position. It continues a string of bad luck for Fernando who was forced to start from pitlane in Monaco due to a heavy crash in practice. Filepe Massa however was able to get his Ferrari into the top ten and will start from 8th place for the race.
Hamitlon was 2nd and Button 4th, making it an all RedBUll and Mclaren front two rows. Lewis Hamitlon said he believes they are in a good position tomorrow, claiming he felt the McLaren had very good race pace. Lewis noted it was a boot for the team and that he expects their pace to improve further when more ‘bits’ arrive for the car in the coming races. With Lewis Hamilton notoriously quick off the line it will be a made dash to turn1 with the Briton now doubt expecting he can beat Webber through the first turn.
Sebastian Vettel was upset about the front left wheel of his car. He said he locked the front wheel briefly under brakes, which usually wouldn’t be much of an issue, however the wheel for some reason stayed locked up and as a result he ran wide. Vettel spent some time inspecting the car as it was parked in parc’ ferme and was clearly not happy with his Q3 performance. He was quicker then Mark in the earlier session and no doubt was expecting to claim pole in Turkey, let alone be starting from the 2nd row.
The Big shock of the day was Michael Schumacher who bottom out int he high speed left hander and as a result lost control of his Mercedes. Schumacher had to park the car and is now left with enormous flatspots on his tyres. Michael will have to start the race on his damaged tyres, but since he recorded a time earlier in Q3 before his spin, he will start the race from 5th place just ahead of his team mate Nico.
The complete time sheet from all the sessions is below:
1. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:27.500 1:26.818 1:26.295 2. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.667 1:27.013 1:26.433 3. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:27.067 1:26.729 1:26.760 4. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.555 1:27.277 1:26.781 5. Schumacher Mercedes 1:27.756 1:27.438 1:26.857 6. Rosberg Mercedes 1:27.649 1:27.141 1:26.952 7. Kubica Renault 1:27.766 1:27.426 1:27.039 8. Massa Ferrari 1:27.993 1:27.200 1:27.082 9. Petrov Renault 1:27.620 1:27.387 1:27.430 10. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:28.158 1:27.434 1:28.122 11. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:27.951 1:27.525 12. Alonso Ferrari 1:27.857 1:27.612 13. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:28.147 1:27.879 14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:28.534 1:28.273 15. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:28.336 1:28.392 16. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:28.460 1:28.540 17. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:28.227 1:28.841 18. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:28.958 19. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:30.237 20. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:30.519 21. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:30.744 22. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:31.266 23. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:31.989 24. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 1:32.060
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 |
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 and Vettel unveil the RB6
Feb 10th
RedBull released images of it’s new car on Wednesday morning via it’s website, about an hour ahead of the official launch at Jerez where drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were on hand to pull back the covers on what they hope will be a championship winning car in 2010.
Adrian Newey has said the RB6 is a progression of last years car, however it has been designed from the outset with a double diffuser in mind and RedBull believe they will be successful this year with their new interpritation of the rear diffuser.
The RB6 has a scooped-out nose or chasis top, similar to last years car, however it is even more pronounced and dramatic on the RB6.
Last years car made use of the double diffuser part way through the season once they were deamed legal by the FIA, however RedBull were never able to full capitalise on the potential of the diffuser on the RB5 due to other mechanical parts of the car such as it’s rear suspension. Whilst the RB5 was successful and was able to put a huge dent into the lead the Brawns had made early on in the season, the team knows if the car was designed from the outset with a double diffuser in mind, they would have experience their success from the start of the season and could have won the 2009 championship as a result.
The RB6 is out on track today at the hands of Mark Webber. Many teams are treating today as a as a shakedown. RedBull should be out to prove their car is fast however after missing the first round of official tests due to spending some more time developing the car at their factory.
Below is a shot of Webber out on track this morning on his installation laps, this is the first glimpse the world has been able to get of the new dramatic double deck diffuser which was covered up and concealed from the press when the covers were pulled off the car:
Webber in the RB6 showing off the diffuser at Jerez
Webber will also test the car on Thursday before handing it over to 2009 runner-up Sebastian Vettel who will take over for Friday and Saturday.
There will be a lot of interest to see how the 2009 runner’s up compare to the current front runners in testing, the Ferrari F10.
