European Grand Prix Preview

Cut the elevator music, it's time to go racing again. The summer break is over, but thanks to the incident-packed Hungarian Grand Prix, we haven't had four weeks of tumbleweed blowing through the F1 news.

There's little doubt that Renault wouldn't have been facing the ludicrous penalty of a one-race ban had Massa not made connection with Rubens Barrichello's flukily bouncing rear spring on the Saturday of the last GP weekend.

Pit-stops cock-ups happen all the time, but it takes the mind of a Machiavelli to think that Renault might have deliberately sent Alonso back onto the track knowing that he would lose a wheel.

Thankfully common sense has now prevailed and the Renault team are allowed to race in Valencia, but it took an act of blatant stupidity to impose such an inappropriate penalty in the first place. Presumably FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting will now face similar charges for failing to black flag Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari after he drove round with a flailing exhaust chimney at the French GP in 2008.

The excitement at the prospect of seeing Schumi race again, in Massa's stead, was very real while it lasted. Presumably the former World Champion wanted to drive the current machinery to check out whether his 'secretly fractured' neck would stand up to the strain. When various teams - including Williams, who owe him at least one pie in the face - vetoed a ride in an F60 he must have calculated that the risk of failure was too great.

In his place Luca Badoer will face a tough test at a circuit he doesn't know, in one of the few Ferraris he's had little time in. Certainly the car that he'll be presented with on Friday will be a quantum leap forward from the one he drove in pre-season testing.

It wouldn't be a surpise to see Kimi Raikkonen put a whole second between himself and the Massa replacement. Ferrari are in a bit of a dilemma right now. There are stories doing the rounds that Raikkonen is going to be offered a lot of money not to race for them in 2010 so they can bring Alonso on board.

What they can't know is how Felipe Massa will react to his big accident. Williams' Patrick Head is fond of the theory that after drivers have experienced major accidents they are never quite as fast again. Amongst those he cites are Ralf Schumacher who had a big testing accident at Monza while he was with Williams.

It hasn't seem to have deterred Robert Kubica after his titanic shunt in Canada in 2007, but Patrick's seen enough drivers to know what he's talking about. Ferrari will have to make a decision about 2010 before they can know the true state of Massa's recovery.

Back at the World Championship Brawn should have had enough time to analyse the data from Hungary and work out why they weren't fast on a hot track that was supposed to favour them. Button is good on street circuits and if he can nudge his Brawn in front of the two Red Bulls in Valencia and the following race at Spa, which is a track at which he excels, then he can start to feel less nervous.

The good news for Jense is that Mclaren are looking good for back-to-back wins, with Hamilton supremely strong at the Hungaroring and Kovalainen being given the hurry up from the team. Raikkonen is also looking quick and on home soil Alonso rarely disappoints.

So if all that lot are in front of the Brawn GP cars and the Red Bulls, then Button will not be at all worried. If Red Bull are in front, but Brawn are behind, then it's very bad news indeed. Team orders are an easy call for the Brawn team but for Red Bull any intervention is still a long way off.

With a fine win in Hungary and yet more swanky new parts for the McLaren, Lewis Hamilton will be looking to make it two wins on the trot at the European GP. What's more, he and Raikkonen have the advantage of the KERS boost button which they both used to their advantage on the similarly tight confines of Budapest. Ferrari and McLaren may have given up their Championship-winning ambitions, but they'd both like to finish third in the Constructors' title.

Williams will also be looking to join in the fun and demote either the Red Bulls, or more likely the Brawns down the order, while Toyota will be struggling to hold back the tide of Ferrari and McLaren development and retain fourth in the Constructors'.

Both Fisi and Adrian Sutil are good on street circuits and Sutil in particular will be pitching in there for Force India's first points. Surely his luck has to turn sooner or later. After all, Mark Webber's did.

Romain Grosjean will be making his debut for Renault and all eyes will be on him to see if he can close the gap between the two Renauts. This is probably not the race to do it, though. Don't expect an exhilarating overtaking fest from the dock side - sorry, harbourside - circuit of Valencia, but whatever happens, there will be some significant action.

Source : Planet F1

Brawn GP lightest of all

This should be interesting as the Brawns are light but the Red Bulls are not that heavy. The more interesting thing is the McLarens are way heavier but are on row 3 and have KERS. Plus the weather is changeable with a heavy possibility of rain and the first turn is after a long straight with a harpin. Woohoo!

Saturday 11th July 2009

In a surprise revelation, car weights post qualifying have hinted that Brawn GP's rivals have not only caught them, but surpassed them.

Brawn's two drivers, Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button, qualified second and third for Sunday's German GP, a feat that one has come to expect from the duo this season. However, what wasn't expected was how light they are.

Barrichello and Button are the lightest drivers on the grid, weighing in at 647 and 644kgs respectively, whereas pole sitter Mark Webber and his team-mate Sebastian Vettel are both coming in at 661kgs.

Lewis Hamilton, who qualified in fifth place and has already said a podium finish could be on the cards for McLaren, is third lightest of the top ten, with his MP4-24 weighing 654kgs while his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen is carrying 10kgs more fuel.

One of the biggest surprises of qualifying, though, was Adrian Sutil's performance as the German finished the afternoon in seventh place ahead of both Ferraris. And he's heavier than them as well.

Weights
01. Webber Red Bull-Renault 661.0
02. Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 647.0
03. Button Brawn-Mercedes 644.0
04. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 661.0
05. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 654.5
06. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 664.0
07. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 678.5
08. Massa Ferrari 673.5
09. Raikkonen Ferrari 674.0
10. Piquet Renault 676.0
11. Heidfeld BMW-Sauber 681.0*
12. Alonso Renault 668.2*
13. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 683.6*
14. Trulli Toyota 683.7*
15. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 689.6*
16. Kubica BMW-Sauber 673.5*
17. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 674.5*
18. Fisichella Force India-Mercedes 662.5*
19. Glock Toyota 662.3*
20. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 689.5*

Source : Planet F1

Qualy: Webber claims debut pole

Saturday 11th July 2009

What a difference a touch of rain makes to an F1 track, as Germany witnessed the best qualifying session of the season with Mark Webber claiming his first ever pole position.

The rain started to fall lightly at the end of Q1, however, it was in Q2 that the action really started with drivers sliding off the track on their outlaps before returning in full force to the pits for intermediates.

And although the rain stayed away for the final session it was no less exciting as the top five positions all changed after the chequered flag fell with Webber coming out tops with a 1:32.230. It was the Aussie's first ever pole position and a much-deserved one.

Brawn GP was the team that yet again took the fight to Red Bull Racing with Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button finishing second and third, ahead of Sebastian Vettel. This means the top four drivers in the Championship race will also be the top four on the Nurburgring grid.

Lewis Hamilton, who set the pace in the final two practice sessions, had to settle for fifth place ahead of his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen and Force India's Adrian Sutil.

Qualifying 1
Under leaden skies with the temperature down at 14C ambient and the track at 22C, all the teams scurried into the pitlane for the start of the session fearful that the skies might open and rain would become a factor.

As it was, the rain held off in the opening minutes and while the cars - which had all been fuelled up for three or more hot laps - circulated, Sebastian Vettel established the P1 time at 1:33.413 on the medium (prime) tyre.

Button edged this down to 1:32.649, Alonso reduced it to 1:31.834 before Lewis Hamilton seized the advantage with a 1:31.686 on the first of a series of three runs which took the time down to 1:31.473 (all on the super-soft option tyre).

Realising that everyone was going to be using the green-walled super-soft tyres, Vettel joined the gang and re-set P1 at 1:31.430, while Mark Webber went even better with a 1:31.257.

A rejuvenated Fernando Alonso was flying in the early stages and making the most of an updated aero package on his Renault. It looked like he would snatch P1 until he came up against the Toyota of Timo Glock trying to give himself a bit of space in the final corner. Alonso still got P2 but even if Glock wasn't in trouble with the stewards, he was in trouble on the track.

Going into the final three minutes the danger positions were: 13.Nakajima, 14.Sutil, 15.Piquet, 16.Kubica, 17.Button, 18.Fisichella, 19.Glock, 20.Bourdais.

There had been rain drops spotting the camera lenses after five minutes, but with two minutes to go it began to rain steadily, giving those in the drop zone no chance of improving their lap time. And though Kubica and Glock set off with the hope of getting into Q2, their mid-lap times were so far down that they didn't bother completing the lap.

So, out went:
16.Kubica
17.Buemi
18.Fisichella
19.Glock
Bourdais

Glock was the major casualty, but strange to say after their practice form it was more of a surprise to see Fisichella in the bottom five than it was Robert Kubica.

Qualifying 2
If the rush to get out of the pitlane in Q1 was evident, then the scramble to get out of the pits for Q2 was like the M25 on a Friday night. And the race to get track position was intense on the opening tour as the rain started to fall again and conditions worsened.

Lewis Hamilton was on the outside of a three-car battle going into one turn, while ahead of them Kazuki Nakajima showed how bad the conditions were getting by spinning his Williams-Toyota under braking.

Everyone was having fun controlling their cars, none more so than Felipe Massa who lost control of his Ferrari exiting the Michelin kurve and found himself tiptoeing round a cinder track behind the gravel trap at the run-off for the BIT kurve.

At the end of a madcap lap everyone barring Mark Webber came in to the pits for Intermediate tyres, leaving the Red Bull driver to struggle on for a fruitless lap on slick tyres.

Out they all came again on inters, led off by Fernando Alonso who set P1 at 1:43.931. This was then superseded by Lewis Hamilton at 1:42.325 with Adrian Sutil taking P2 and then Kazuki Nakajima taking P2 off him.

Everyone was having moments all over the circuit. Heikki Kovalainen passed the tentative Toyota of Trulli only to put a wheel on the white line at the exit of Turn 4 in the Mercedes Arena and spun his car with a gentle bash on the Armco that thankfully only ruined his lap time.

Nick Heidfeld was sensational in the wet at Silverstone and Spa in 2008 and he grabbed P1 with a 1:42.310, Raikkonen took it off him with a 1:41.730 and then Mark Webber put in an astonishing lap, sending the timing screen purple for three sectors with a 1:38.038.

While all this was happening, and Nakajima and Vettel were having a paint-swapping moment in the pitlane, Rubens Barrichello chose to put on dry tyres. The rain had stopped briefly and Rubens saw a gap. His lap time was sensational. He carved almost four seconds off P1 from a 1:38 to a 1:34.469.

Now the rush was to get out there again with dry tyres on.

Going into the final three minutes the danger positions were: 8.Hamilton, 9. Nakajima, 10.Sutil, 11.Trulli, 12.Piquet, 13.Rosberg, 14.Button, 15.Kovalainen

And just as soon as the cars had their slicks back on then it started to rain again. With just seconds of the session remaining, Button and Hamilton had been relegated to 14th and 15th positions. Sutil grabbed P2, then Nelson Piquet took P2 off him.

Fernando Alonso lost it under braking for the Veedol chicane but kept his car out of the gravel despite dipping his front wing in. At the same time Kimi Raikkonen started to rallycross his Ferrari F60.

Across the line they came and Heikki Kovalainen managed to get his injured car into P6, Button's last gasp attempt brought him P5 and Hamilton came home in P6. It had been the most breathtaking Q2 of the season, if not the most eventful since we moved away from single lap qualifying.

Out went:
11.Heidfeld
12.Alonso
13.Nakajima
14.Trulli
15.Rosberg

For the first time Nelson Piquet Junior had outqualified his team-mate and by a margin of almost seven seconds. Nelsinho just loves the German Grand Prix (he finished in P3 last year). Alonso looked like he had the potential to run in the top five but threw it all away due to his own misjudgement.

Trulli's exit sealed a miserable qualifying for Toyota and the recent upswing of Williams was stopped dead inits tracks.

Qualifying 3
Unlike the previous two sessions when the green light came on, this time nobody came out at all. There was 8.30 left on the clock when Jenson Button's Brawn GP car broke the silence, but seeing few others come out on track, he came straight in again.

Rubens Barrichello set the provisional pole time with a 1:32.797 and Mark Webber slotted in behind before Sebatian Vettel took P2 off him. The track was drying fast and it looked like everyone was going to save their best till last.

After the early laps, the order was: Barrichello, Vettel, Webber, Kovalainen, Raikkonen, Massa, Sutil, Hamilton, Piquet, Button (who hadn't set a time).

Out they came for either one or two final hot laps. Kovalainen consolidated his P4. Lewis Hamilton jumped to P1 with a 1:32.616, Jenson Button couldn't better it and went P2. Rubens Barrichello passed him for P2, then Mark Webber set pole at 1:32.230.

Vettel, Barrichello and Button were all on hot laps behind him. Hamilton was back in his garage. Though Button set the fastest first sector of anyone, he had a moment in his middle sector and lost 0.5 of a second.

Meanwhile Vettel crossed the line to take P2, but despite Jenson's mistake he took it off the German, and then Barrichello crossed the line to put himelf on the front row in P2 relegating Button to P3 and Vettel to P4.

Hamilton ended up 5th and Adrian Sutil a brilliant 7th for Force India - five Mercedes engines in the top 10. It was Mark Webber's first ever pole position and the Aussie is good in both wet and dry conditions boding well for the race tomorrow.

FH

Times
01 M. Webber Red Bull 1:32.230
02 R. Barrichello Brawn GP 1:32.357
03 J. Button Brawn GP 1:32.473
04 S. Vettel Red Bull 1:32.480
05 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:32.616
06 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:33.859
07 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:34.316
08 F. Massa Ferrari 1:34.574
09 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:34.710
10 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:34.803
11 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:42.310
12 F. Alonso Renault 1:42.318
13 K. Nakajima Williams 1:42.500
14 J. Trulli Toyota 1:42.771
15 N. Rosberg Williams 1:42.859
16 R. Kubica BMW 1:32.190
17 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:32.251
18 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:32.402
19 T. Glock Toyota 1:32.423
20 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:33.559

Source : Planet F1

F1 News - Prac One: Red Bull and Brawn resume battle

Friday 10th July 2009

The battle between Red Bull and Brawn GP resumed in Friday's opening practice for the German GP with Mark Webber setting the pace.

The Australian driver, who Jenson Button believes is the favourite to win at the Nurburgring this weekend, clocked a 1:33.082 to outpace Button by 0.381s.

Third place went to Felipe Massa as the Ferrari driver demonstrated the Scuderia's continuously improving pace.

Report: With the track temperature sitting at just 14'C, Sebastian Vettel left the Red Bull garage to put in his installation lap in front of his home crowd. He was soon joined by another German driver as Adrian Sutil ventured out, followed by a train of drivers. Within ten minutes everyone barring Lewis Hamilton and Timo Glock had completed their sighting lap.

Sebastien Buemi set the first lap time of the weekend as a few spots of rain began to fall, a 1:43.315 for the Toro Rosso driver. Giancarlo Fisichella was the next to record a time, going quickest after taking three seconds off Buemi's time. The track action, though, stopped shortly after as the rain came down a little harder.

With the rain abating, drivers ventured out again with Jarno Trulli going quickest with a 1:39.7. Fisichella dropped to second with Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen and Buemi behind him. Rosberg and Kovalainen improved their times with Kimi Raikkonen slotting into third place between the two. Raikkonen continued lapping, taking second place while Trulli lowered the benchmark to a 1:36.1. Kovalainen went second.

Halfway through the session, the top eight were Trulli, Rosberg, Mark Webber, Kovalainen, Raikkonen, Kazuki Nakajima, Nick Heidfeld, Felipe Massa. Raikkonen and Heidfeld almost immediately moved up the order while Sutil, Jenson Button, Seb Bourdais, Rubens Barrichello, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso had yet to set times.

Webber went quickest with a 1:34.4, taking a full second off his time over the course of the next two laps. Rosberg moved up to second place behind him while Sutil impressed with a 1:35.0, which put him third quickest. The German's run, though, came to an end shortly after as he car stopped on the side of the track at the exit of Turn 1.

Vettel went second to give Red Bull the 1-2 but was soon overhauled by Massa, the only driver to get within a second of Webber's P1 time. Alonso moved up to fourth place with Fisichella slotting in behind him and ahead of Robert Kubica, Rosberg and Nelson Piquet.

Vettel, having just improved his time, was the second driver - and the second German - to drop out of the session as the Red Bull racer brought his car to a standstill in almost the exact same place as where Sutil stopped minutes before. The marshals quickly pushed his car out of harm's way.

Force India's impressive run continued with Fisichella moving up to second place with Button also improving as he went P5. Meanwhile, at the back of the pack lay Hamilton, who was 2.5s off the pace with only Buemi slower. Hamilton's fellow Brit, Button, climbed the order to third place, 0.5s off Webber's P1 time before moving up to second on the next lap. Hamilton slot up the timesheets, taking seventh place, while Webber improved his P1 time.

Trulli overhauled Fisichella for third place while his team-mate Timo Glock remained down in 16th place, unable to find the pace needed to challenge at the front in his home grand prix weekend. Raikkonen put in a charge to move up from 17th to fourth place, 0.7s off the pace.

The final few minutes saw a major push from the drivers with Massa going off at the Castrol S chicane before taking third place on the following lap.

The session ended with Webber at the top of the timesheets with a 1:33.082. Button was second ahead of Massa, Trulli, Fisichella and Raikkonen.

Times
01 M. Webber Red Bull 1:33.082 19 laps
02 J. Button Brawn GP 1:33.463 18 laps
03 F. Massa Ferrari 1:33.745 21 laps
04 J. Trulli Toyota 1:33.795 23 laps
05 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:33.839 26 laps
06 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:33.840 23 laps
07 N. Rosberg Williams 1:33.902 26 laps
08 S. Vettel Red Bull 1:33.909 13 laps
09 K. Nakajima Williams 1:33.952 25 laps
10 F. Alonso Renault 1:34.148 16 laps
11 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:34.221 25 laps
12 R. Barrichello Brawn GP 1:34.227 17 laps
13 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:34.483 14 laps
14 R. Kubica BMW 1:34.694 23 laps
15 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:34.738 24 laps
16 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:34.827 27 laps
17 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:34.878 28 laps
18 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:34.893 26 laps
19 T. Glock Toyota 1:34.911 23 laps
20 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:35.092 6 laps

Source : Planet F1

Qualy: Vettel pips the wrong Brawn to pole

Saturday 20th June 2009

Sebastian Vettel claimed pole position for Sunday's British GP beating a BrawnGP driver, but it wasn't the one British fans were hoping for.

Vettel, who had the measure of his rivals for two of the weekend's three practice sessions, put his revised RB5 to good use on Saturday afternoon, taking pole position with a 1:19.509.

That put him ahead of Rubens Barrichello who finished 0.347s behind the German, while Button could only manage sixth place on his home grid. Mark Webber was third for Red Bull, finishing ahead of Jarno Trulli and Kazuki Nakajima.

Meanwhile, a huge accident for Adrian Sutil with 24s left on the clock in Q1 cost Lewis Hamilton any chance of making it through to the next session. He will start P19. Sutil, thankfully, escaped unhurt although his Force India was destroyed.

Qualifying 1
Following showers in the morning, conditions were still cloudy with sunny intervals and the possibility of the odd shower. The track temperature was only 25C with an ambient of 16C.

Adrian Sutil set the first sub 1:21 lap in the heavily revised Force India. His 1:20.860 was soon beaten by Bourdais, 1:20.590 and then steadily whittled down by Jarno Trulli on a three-lap stint - 1:19.915, 1:19.356 and finally 1:18.886.

The Red Bulls cast this aside, first Mark Webber set P1 with a 1:18.763 and then Vettel reduced it to a 1:18.685 before Webber reclaimed it with a 1:18.674.

Both Brawns looked unlikely to depose the Red Bulls but were running in the top ten, while the Mclarens looked ponderously slow.

Coming into the final three minutes of the session and the danger zone was: 11.Kubica, 12.Fisichella, 13.Bourdais, 14.Sutil, 15.Hamilton, 16.Raikkonen, 17.Heidfeld, 18.Massa, 19.Buemi, 20.Kovalainen

As the time ticked down Raikkonen put his Ferrari up into P6, Kovalainen could only manage P17 from the first lap of two, before elevating himself to a precarious P14 on the second. Nick Heidfeld managed to get himself into P12 and Lewis Hamilton was setting a faster time when the session was red-flagged.

Adrian Sutil's Force India had suffered brake failure turning into Abbey and run straight on into the barriers, the car spinning round and hitting backwards. The Force India was a major wreck and with just half a minute left on the clock it meant that no-one could improve their time from that point onward.

Kazuki Nakajima had just managed to set the fastest time with an impressive 1:18.530 and Jenson Button had hauled himself up to 5th, but Lewis Hamilton was stranded down in 19th place. So out went:

16.Fisichella
17.Bourdais
18.Sutil
19.Hamilton
20.Buemi

It was the third time in a row that the World Champion had exited in Q1 and was also a disappointment for the Force India team who had hoped to get at least one, if not both cars into Q2 having shown improved form in practice.

Qualifying2

The track temperature had crept up a degree for Q2 but not enough to suit the Brawns which thrive on warm tarmac.

Felipe Massa steered his Ferrari to the first P1 time of the session at 1:19.257 which was put into context by an early-running Mark Webber and a 1:18.638 set on hard tyres, followed by a superb1:18.209 which meant he wouldn't have to run again.

The time stood up until the very last seconds of the session, but with three minutes left the dropzone looked like this: 8.Glock, 9.Raikkonen, 10.Massa, 11.Button, 12.Kubica, 13.Piquet, 14.Heidfeld, 15.Kovalainen

Nelson Piquet Junior put a wheel on the grass at the exit of Woodcote and ruined a hot lap. Rosberg improved to P4, Kovalainen could only manage P13, Raikkonen jumped to P3 with the fastest first sector of the weekend, Massa could only manage P8, Button posted P7, Rubens improved to P3, Glock moved to P8.

Drivers had been fuelled for at least two hot laps and Button had slipped to P9 before regaining P8 and Alonso's last dash put him into P9. Felipe Massa had slipped to P11, but his subsequent lap was not quicker.

Then, at the very close, Sebastian Vettel showed who the fastest Red Bull runner was with the fastest lap of the GP weekend, a 1:18.119. So out went:
11.Massa
12.Kubica
13.Kovalainen
14.Piquet
15.Heidfeld

Massa will have been disappointed to make his exit, but his time was almost 0.4 shy of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen's time.

Qualifying 3

Only three men had taken pole in 2009 and it looked likely that Mark Webber might make it four as the session kicked off.

Barrichello set provisional pole with a 1:21.417, Vettel easily beat it with a 1:20.863 while Jenson Button slotted into P2 (would this be one of Jenson's last minute rescues). Rubens re-took P1 with a 1:20.536 when he had more heat in his tyres second time round.

Vettel didn't have such a quantum improvement from lap to lap but he was able to reduce the P1 time to 1:20.404. Mark Webber had set a sluggish first lap good enough for only P7, but second time round he scorched to a 1:20.040 taking provisional pole by a massive 0.4 of a second.

So, after the first runs, the order was: Webber, Vettel, Barrichello, Rosberg, Button, Trulli, Alonso, Raikkonen, Glock, Nakajima.

Into the final runs (some one-lap, some two-lap) and Rubens was the first to get into the 1:19s with an exceptionally good 1:19.856, Vettel took P1 off him with a 1:19.509 but it looked likely that Mark Webber would continue his massive advantage. Trulli edged into P4, Rosberg to P5 and then Button re-established himself in P5.

Meanwhile Mark Webber had a disastrous first sector and instead of setting a 25.5 down to the Hangar Straight timing point, he put in a 26.1 - that lap was blown. His second hot lap suffered from his tyres going away and he could only manage a 1:19.868 good enough for P3.

Vettel had improved by 0.9 from lap to lap, Barrichello by 0.8 and Mark by just 0.15 and that was pole lost. At the very last moment Kazuki Nakajima rewarded Williams with a P5 start, demoting Button to P6 and beating his team-mate by 0.15 for a change.

The true picture will only be revealed when the fuel levels are revealed later this afternoon, but right now this looks like Red Bull's race to lose. When he gets it right Barrichello can be a stellar starter and BrawnGP will be hoping for a warmer race day to get their tyres working. There could still be fireworks at the front because Rubens will see it as a major opportunity to pull points back on Jenson Button.

FH

Times
01 S. Vettel Red Bull 1:19.509
02 R. Barrichello Brawn GP 1:19.856
03 M. Webber Red Bull 1:19.868
04 J. Trulli Toyota 1:20.091
05 K. Nakajima Williams 1:20.216
06 J. Button Brawn GP 1:20.289
07 N. Rosberg Williams 1:20.361
08 T. Glock Toyota 1:20.490
09 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:19.010
10 F. Alonso Renault 1:20.741
11 F. Massa Ferrari 1:18.927
12 R. Kubica BMW 1:19.308
13 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:19.353
14 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:19.392
15 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:19.448
16 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:19.802
17 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:19.898
18 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:19.909
19 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:19.917
20 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:20.236

Source : Planet F1

British Grand Prix Preview

Wednesday 17th June 2009

If Simon Gillett, the developer of the Donington Circuit is to be believed, then this is the last British GP at Silverstone for at least the next 17 years. That's the length of the contract he's been given to run the F1 grand prix.

He may not have time on his side or the necessary investment, but what he can rely on is a big audience.

In Turkey at the last round they couldn't attract punters in with a £40 weekend pass and £200 grandstand seats. This weekend Silverstone will be full to bursting with punters paying £180 for a weekend pass alone. Which makes the prospect of taking this grand prix off the calendar a total nonsense. Just as it has been in Canada,

Montreal and Silverstone may not have circuit buildings that look like a Disney-inspired industrial estate, but they do have something far more relevant. Fans.

This weekend they'll be packing out the Northamptonshire circuit in the hope of a Jenson Button victory. However armed with typical British pragmatism they won't mind if he comes in the top three and maintains his championship challenge. Most of them will have despaired of Jenson ever getting into a top class car and this weekend will be more like a celebration of the season so far than a need to see him on the top step of the podium.

The former WWII bomber training base is similar to Turkey in that it has a lot of high speed corners, such as Copse, Becketts and Stowe, but it also has the fiddly Brooklands and Luffield complex making it far more of a compromise on set-up.

As we've seen from wins in Monaco and then Turkey, Brawn can do fiddly and high speed tracks, but can they do high-speed with fiddly? Certainly both BrawnGP drivers have an intimate knowledge of the track, Rubens having competed there since his F3 days and Button competing there since before he could produce any kind of ginger facial offence.

Rubens will be keen to get his starting mechanism sorted out having messed up royally in Istanbul. Hopefully by now he'll have gained a sense of proportion and remembered that he had a dog of a start in Australia, yet blinders in Barcelona and Monaco to balance that out

The Red Bulls will be up there vying for the front row and a Mark Webber win would probably go down almost as well as a Button victory. Webbo's been getting the better of his team mate of late and could even overhaul Vettel in the championship race this weekend.

Toyota should also be a force to contend with, along with the resurgent (though not as surgent as most people expected) Ferrari and BMW teams. It's unlikely to be such a fantastic weekend for the McLaren team and they've been doing their best to dampen down expectations.

Dampening down the circuit might be the best method of securing a Lewis Hamilton podium, but the long-range weather forecast is predicting a dry weekend, with all the rain being stored up for the following weekend's Glastonbury Festival.

Renault are in exactly the same position as McLaren and Fernando Alonso's continued presence in the team is a bit like Button in reverse. All that potential wasted in a below-average car.

F1 fans tend to get engrossed in the sport they love, and all the F1 vs FOTA machinations have tended to obscure the basic fault of motorsport compared to football, or rugby or tennis. My wife asked me why Jenson Button was so good all of a sudden seeing as he'd been in F1 since 2000; "Aah," I replied, "he's only just got a car that's good enough."

"So," she said with the kind of withering clarity I've had to endure for quite some time, "it's not the driver it's the car. How is that a sport?"

I could have given her a very long and complicated answer, but the easiest way out was, "yeah." Had we adopted Max Mosley's Idea-of-the-Year circa 2001 where drivers swap teams each race, then actually we could have more of a sport.

Under that regime the very best drivers would be fighting at the front all season long and we wouldn't have waited nine years to see Jenson Button arrive at his home grand prix leading the World Championship. Given that F1 is reluctant to give up its traditions lightly he better enjoy it while it lasts.

Source : Planet F1

IT'S THE CAR, STUPID!

I'm going to attempt to explain one of the most intriguing and least understood aspects of F1 racing, which some people may understand, some will not and some others don't care. I'm not very technically adept nor have I been watching F1 for 20 years. I am very interested in the goings on in F1 and try my best to read up on any material that I can get my hands on, plus I try to have discussions with like minded people as much as possible.

There have been many arguments lately about drivers and their ability to drive a modern F1 car to the limit and perform seemingly incredible and heroic feats on the track. So much so that fans of certain drivers or teams have become fanatics who cannot see any wrong in their heroes no matter what. They also always see wrong in other drivers and teams and always find excuses to run them down.

I have been following F1 since the Senna days but only started being a fanatic the season before Lewis Hamilton joined i.e. 2006. That's because I was part of a group of people offering F1 simulators for corporate rental. We developed the simulators ourselves and used the official F1 game at the time - F1 Challenge 99-02 with the requisite mods to simulate the current seasons.

A simulator or simulation is different from a game, so F1 Challenge is not the same at F1 2006 on the PS2. With a simulator you have total control over the car i.e. you can change almost all the settings like the real car and the tracks dimensions are actual i.e. they were mapped based on the real tracks. Plus the physics employed were real too, you can't just turn the wheel in a corner and let the car drive itself. You have to continuously adjust to get the perfect line, if not you'll lose vital tenths.

Playing around with this simulator gave me an insight into the intricacies, detail and difficulty of F1 I never realized before. It is so difficult to even improve on 1/1000th of a second if the car setup is not right, your reflexes are not right and the other conditions are not right. But when all the conditions are right, it seems like you are just gliding on water, everything is just smooth. You can telegraph your thoughts to the car and it will almost drive itself and produce a stunning lap time.

It is this "talent" for the driver to be able to dial in into the car that impresses us and makes us look at them as gods. But there are days when even they can't "dial-in" and sometimes the car just doesn't want to cooperate. When the car is designed in such a way that it is difficult to set-up or doesn't flow with the driver's style, it will produce an excuse for fans to ridicule those drivers or teams that they don't support.

I have noticed that these seasonal issues crop up when something changes - either driver or rules change. For example, why is it suddenly that Jenson Button is winning every race in sight when the last 2 years he was sucking exhaust fumes at the back? And why is it that Lewis Hamilton can't even make it into Q2 of qualifying when the last 2 years he was defying the laws of physics to push the car around the track to win? Luck? A bit but I don't think so.

It's the car, stupid! Yes the car. Think Schumacher was a racing god? Sorry to deflate your pride there but it was the car. On our simulator when we want to set the best times on most tracks, we always use the Ferrari F2004. That was the fastest car of that year and maybe the best of the batch in which Schumacher won his 5 world titles.

How can Button win 6 out of 7 races this year so easily and serenely? It's like he's cruising around to victory everytime. The Brawn car had the benefit of 15 months of development as Honda decided to scrap development on the 2008 car and concentrate on this year. They had lots of time to look at the new regulations and think of solutions. It's not just the double diffuser, if it was just that, how come Red Bull were so competitive from day one without a double diffuser?

Plus Brawn had all the resources of Honda to develop the car - a lot of cash, 2 wind tunnels, CFDs, the lot. The car now is powerful (courtesy of the Mercedes engine), aerodynamically almost perfect, technically sound, smooth to drive, easy on the tires and well balanced. With a car like that, any driver on the current grid can become world champion. At least 50% of the equation in winning a race is the car. With the right car even Nelson Piquet Jr could become champion.

So ultimately, all F1 drivers are good, if not they wouldn't be there driving F1 cars. Their main limitation is the car that is available to them. All other issues could be ironed out with the team and resources available.

THE STATE OF MCLAREN

Currently the state of McLaren is not good and it does not look good either for the rest of the season. The car is not performing at low, medium or high downforce tracks, in short it is not performing at all.

The last few races we could see that Lewis is doing everything he can to wring out every inch of performance from the car and Heikki too but somehow when it matters most i.e. during qualifying and the race, it lets them down. The back is so twitchy that on-board footage of Lewis or Heikki driving it looks like a wrestling match between the driver and machine.

I said it weeks ago that McLaren should forget about this season and concentrate on next year. They need to put resources where it matters as this season is too late for them. Brawn GP and Jenson Button has run away with the championship. It's a battle between Brawn and Red Bull. Now even Lewis has admitted it to the world.

And talking about his despair, it is revealed clearly this year that not only does the driver matter but the car is ultra important. Yes Lewis arrived in 2007 at the wheel of a good car and he was lucky but he is also a good driver as he beat a 2 time world champion in the same equipment. The same cannot be said of Nelson Piquet as we can see at Renault this year. That also shows how important the car is as Alonso being the good driver he is, is still unable to match the Brawns or Red Bulls.

This is a good lesson for Lewis and McLaren. I suggest they put their heads down and work on next years' car. Heikki might not survive to next year, so Lewis' teamate might be Rosberg which I prefer. That would be interesting.

As for todays' race, it would be a straigh fight between the Brawns and Red Bulls. I'm rooting for Vettel, hopefully he can pul the cat out from the bag. The Red Bull car is a solid piece of engineering - fast, well balanced and reliable, just the tools one needs to win races. The Brawns are also fast, well balanced and reliable so this should be a good show.

Alvin

Turkish GP: Button Puts His Name In History Books

Sunday 7th June 2009

After his pass on Sebastian Vettel on the opening lap, the Turkish GP may have been a boring race for Jenson Button, but it's one that puts his name in F1's history books.

Button, who overtook Vettel on the exit of Turn 9/10 when the pole-sitter ran wide, strolled to victory at the Istanbul Otodrom, handing him his sixth grand prix win of the season.

And that put Button in F1's history books where he joins the names of Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher in having won six of the first seven races.

Vettel, meanwhile, also lost out to team-mate Mark Webber after opting for a three-stop strategy. But his inability to overtake Button for the lead cost him dearly and he eventually finished 0.7s behind Webber. Jarno Trulli claimed fourth place ahead of Nico Rosberg, whose flying start, saw him leap up from ninth place.

Felipe Massa, Robert Kubica and Timo Glock completed the top eight.

Race Report
As the cars lined up on the sun-drenched grid, the track temperature was up to 49C with an ambient temperature of 32C (up from 28C on Saturday). Though the inside line into Turn 1 had been swept, Jenson Button and Mark Webber were taking no chances and angled their cars towards the outside as they lined up in P2 and P4.

Only Fernando Alonso elected to use the green-walled (option) soft tyres in the opening stint.

When the red lights went out, the potential threat from Rubens Barrichello in P3 evaporated. His Brawn GP bogged down and the rest of the field flooded past him into Turn 1.

Jarno Trulli was very racy off the line and was dicing with Mark Webber throughout the lap. He got past him into Turn 1 but Webber had him back before the end of the opening lap.

Felipe Massa cruised up the inside to get ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen into Turn 1, but lost out to a combative Nico Rosberg later in the lap.

Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso were also dicing on the opening lap. Alonso got past, but Raikkonen's front wing tagged the back of Alonso's tyre in the final chicane giving him aero problems from Lap 1.

However the major mistake happened at the front. Polesitter Sebastian Vettel exited Turns 9/10 and ran wide past the run-off and briefly onto the grass on the left. He didn't lose too much speed but Button was past in an instant and through into P1.

So the order at the end of a hectic opening lap was: 1.Button, 2.Vettel, 3.Webber, 4.Trulli, 5.Rosberg, 6.Massa, 7.Alonso, 8.Kubica, 9.Raikkonen, 10.Nakajima, 11.Kovalainen, 12.Barrichello.

Jenson Button set about opening a gap to Vettel at about 0.3 to 0.4 of a second a lap with a series of fastest laps. By Lap 6 he had a 2.9 lead. Meanwhile his team-mate was stuck behind Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren and the Brazilian was showing no patience in his fight back to the front. On Lap 6 he was looking down the inside of the Finn into Turn 9 but thought better of it. On Lap 7 he overtook the McLaren through the final chicane, but then Kovalainen nailed him going back into Turn 1.

On Lap 8 he decided he was going to try and get past without a sufficient gap and barged into the side of Kovalainen in Turn 9. The Brawn came off worst and immediately relegated him from 12th to 17th. Barrichello hadn't stopped there, though, and five laps later he tried to get through an even smaller gap with the Force India of Adrian Sutil. Coming into the final corner he launched his Brawn the way he had done so successfully (and aggressively) in Australia and lost his front wing endplate.

The resulting damage meant that he had to pit ahead of schedule. He had earlier reported that his Brawn GP car had lost 7th gear, a result, Ross Brawn revealed, of over-torquing the clutch at the start. From that point on Rubens was reduced to the role of unhappy spectator in the GP.

By Lap 12 Button had reduced the Fastest Lap to 1:27.799 and opened up a 5.2 gap to Vettel. The Red Bull driver had to stop two laps earlier than Brawn, so Button was always going to have an edge. When Vettel stopped on Lap 15 Button's lead was around six seconds, but the Red Bull was stopped for just 6.2 seconds indicating a three-stop race.

Vettel was followed in by Trulli on Lap 16, Button and Massa on Lap 17 and Webber and Rosberg on Lap 18. All were on two-stoppers. When the stops had panned out on Lap 21, the order was: 1.Button, 2.Vettel, 3.Webber, 4.Nakajima (not stopped), 5.Rosberg - now ahead of Trulli, 6.Trulli, 7.Glock (not stopped), 8.Massa, 9.Heidfeld (not stopped), 10.Kubica, 11.Alonso.

Fuelled much lighter than the Brawn, Vettel closed in quickly and brought Jenson's 3.9 second lead down to 3.7, 3.2, 2.4 and then 1.6 in subsequent laps. To make his strategy work he needed to get past Button quickly, but although Jenson's lead was down to 0.2 by Lap 25, the Red Bull could not follow in the dirty air and had to stay behind till Vettel's second pit-stop on Lap 28.

Team-mate Mark Webber was on a two-stop strategy and could run at the maximum of the car's potential and so Vettel was now in danger of staying behind Webber after his third and final pit-stop. Though Button had been closed down by Vettel, he was still running faster than Mark Webber and had the race totally under control.

Lewis Hamilton had been fuelled up from 16th on the grid and was losing a lot of time in the four-apex Turn 8. As his 32-lap fuel load ran out he was able to set the fastest final sector time which would only be beaten by another KERS car, Kimi Raikkonen, in the closing stages of the race.

Hamilton enjoyed a bit of wheel-to-wheel action with Nelson Piquet after he emerged from his pit-stop (which Piquet won), but neither Mclaren looked like they were going to get anywhere near the points and didn't.

On Lap 35 the positions were: 1.Button, 18.3 seconds in front of... 2.Webber, who had 8.5 seconds on... 3.Vettel who was 5.9 seconds in front of... 4.Rosberg, who was just 3.5 seconds in front of...5.Trulli, who had 6.9 seconds on 6.Massa. 7, Nakajima, 8.Kubica, 9.Alonso, 10.Glock, 11.Raikkonen.

When the second pit-stops wound out between Laps 40 and 43, Rosberg found himself pitting three laps before Trulli and in that time Trulli was able to take back the 4th place he'd lost early on. The three-stopping Vettel didn't need to come in till Lap 48, but he wasn't able to close the gap and get in front of Webber and crossed the line on Lap 49, 3.7 seconds down in third place. And started to charge.

Despite admonishments from the Red Bull engineers to conserve the car and that "Mark is faster", Vettel was able to set the fastest first sector of the race and closed the gap down to 1.2 seconds, proving all that to be just coded talk for "please slow down and don't try and overtake". The gap came down to 1.6 seconds on Lap 55 but on a similar fuel load the only chance of P2 was if Webber made a mistake, which he didn't.

The only chance of a battle in the closing stages was between Robert Kubica in 7th and Timo Glock in 8th. Glock had run as high as 6th before a very late final stop that saw him hang on to a points paying position. Though he was 0.6 behind Kubica on Lap 49, nine laps later he was in exactly the same position.

Jenson Button cooled off his car in the final laps and did some grandiose swerves down the finishing straight towards his 6th win in the first 7 races; matching Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher. Pole position had never been denied a win in Turkey, but Button and Red Bull's own strategy had seen to that.

The Ferrari's promise from Saturday practice faded away in the race and it was more of the familiar Brawn, Red Bull, Toyota dominance. The team to really step up a gear in Istanbul was Williams who would have had two cars in the points had Kazuki Nakajima not endured a disastrous final pit-stop where a front left wheel trim wouldn't go back on, relegating the Japanese driver to 11th place.

With Rubens Barrichello retiring his Brawn on Lap 48 - their first of the season - Button's win gives him a 26 points lead in the driver's championship and finally one that best reflects his driving superiority this season.

FH

Results
01 J. Button Brawn GP 1:26:24.848
02 M. Webber Red Bull + 6.714
03 S. Vettel Red Bull + 7.461
04 J. Trulli Toyota + 27.843
05 N. Rosberg Williams + 31.539
06 F. Massa Ferrari + 39.996
07 R. Kubica BMW + 46.247
08 T. Glock Toyota + 46.959
09 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 50.246
10 F. Alonso Renault + 1:02.420
11 N. Heidfeld BMW + 1:04.327
12 K. Nakajima Williams + 1:06.376
13 L. Hamilton McLaren + 1:20.454
14 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 1 laps
15 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
16 N. Piquet jr. Renault + 1 laps
17 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 1 laps
18 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
Did not finish
19 R. Barrichello Brawn GP + 11 laps
20 G. Fisichella Force India F1 + 54 laps

Source : Planet F1

TURKISH GP 2009 RESULTS

To be honest, I was expecting a more interesting race than what transpired. Three reasons why I didn't enjoy the race at all.

Number one - which is obvious to people who know me - because McLaren and specifically Lewis Hamilton had no chance at all of scoring any points. And I was right about that, plus the fact that the TV director hardly focused on Lewis or Heikki at all.

Number two is because my other choice of winner - Sebastien Vettel, made a mistake early on in Lap 1 whereby he let Jensen Button overtake him after making a mistake and almost running himself off the track. All that after he stole pole from Button yesterday. The race could have been his but he lost it at the start.

Number three - Jensen Button winning again. As he himself said it, he has become a "right boring bastard". The races nowadays are just that - boring. It reminds me of the Schumacher and Ross Brawn era when Schumacher won 17 out of 18 races. What's the point of watching.

Othe than that, it was good to see at least 1 Brawn car slip to the back and not scoring points when Barichello had his anti-stall kick in at the start and demoting him to 13th then later he just retired. Reason unknown at this time.

All said and done, Red Bull were a serious threat to Brawn GP if only they had not made the little mistakes they did. Imagine if they had Ross on their pitwall.

Alvin.