So the next race is upon us. One topic that's still hot is Red Bull's flexible front wing. You will remember that it has already been an issue last year and that the FIA has introduced tougher tests on the rigidity of the front wing, yet Red Bull still manages to build a very flexible wing and the others seem unable to replicate that. It's apparently a big advantage that gives Red Bull 0.5s per lap or maybe even more. Here's a picture of the Red Bull in action, notice that the front wing bends towards the edges so that it almost touches the track:
I'm not saying this to start trouble... But people complain about NASCAR being "lame" and "boring" because of left turns. I watch F1, NASCAR (all three levels), and IndyCar and I'd say that right now IndyCar is getting to be my favorite due to the competition (The same guy leading every lap of the last 3 races? How is that racing? And I know that there was actually racing behind him, but at least challenge the guy in the lead past the first turn of the race.), the variety of courses (ovals, road courses, and street circuits) and the return of multiple engine manufacturers (Honda, Lotus, and Chevy next year, with talk of Toyota and Mercedes coming back as well).
Don't get me wrong. I think it's great what Vettel and Red Bull are doing. I'm just not going to pay all that much attention once he takes the lead. It's boring as hell and not much fun when you realize the guy you root for has no chance.
As Mercedes fan, I know what you're talking about. Thankfully, I also really like Seb, so his performance is some sort of consolidation when the Mercedes cars are trailing the field once again.
In several ways you have great points and I agree with your statements.. I would add that NASCAR is also becoming very dull with the tandem thing and with so many neutralizations and restarts since most of the race becomes meaningless.. Hey,you can pretty much watch the last few laps and won't miss much.. It might be exciting but 490 of the 500 laps add little to the end result.. I'll try to watch more Indy, haven't watch that much since they brougth back the CART renegades. I agree with you that the variety of circuits gives this category an edge over F1 and NASCAR. Getting back to F1, Vettel looks so dominant that is scary... and the only team that can be somewhat close is McLaren, although Renault looked very good at the beginning of the Malasya race. Hopefully Ferrari and Mercedes can get their acts together although it would be great to see either Sauber, ToroRosso or ForceIndia bunnyhop over one of them... And would we see Williams get back to its historical greatness or are they condemned to be just another mediocre team?
Since the Chinese GP is only days away, let's have a quick recap of the last race, first, the results: Code: [B]PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS The Malaysian Grand Prix Sepang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 56 laps; 310.408km; Weather: Dry. Classified: Pos Driver Team Time[/B] 1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h37:39.832 2. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 3.261 3. Heidfeld Renault + 25.075 4. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 26.384 5. Massa Ferrari + 36.958 6. Alonso Ferrari + 57.248 * 7. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 1:07.239 8. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 1:09.957 * 9. Schumacher Mercedes + 1:24.896 10. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1:31.563 11. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1:41.379 12. Rosberg Mercedes + 1 lap 13. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap 14. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap 15. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault + 1 lap 16. Glock Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps 17. Petrov Renault + 4 laps * 20s time penalty [B]Fastest lap: [/B]Webber, 1:40.571 [B] Not classified/retirements: Driver Team On lap[/B] Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 47 D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 43 Trulli Lotus-Renault 32 Perez Sauber-Ferrari 24 Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 23 Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 15 Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 9 [B] World Championship standings, round 2: Drivers: Constructors: [/B] 1. Sebastian Vettel 50 1. Red Bull/Renault 72 2. Jenson Button 26 2. McLaren/Mercedes 48 3. Lewis Hamilton 22 3. Ferrari 36 4. Mark Webber 22 4. Renault 30 5. Fernando Alonso 20 5. Toro Rosso/Ferrari 4 6. Felipe Massa 16 6. Sauber/Ferrari 4 7. Nick Heidfeld 15 7. Force India/Mercedes 4 8. Vitaly Petrov 15 8. Mercedes 2 9. Kamui Kobayashi 6 10. Sebastien Buemi 4 11. Adrian Sutil 2 12. Michael Schumacher 2 13. Paul di Resta 2 And my updated rankings: --------------------- –1. Red Bull --------------------- –2. McLaren –3. Lotus-Renault –4. Ferrari --------------------- ˆ5. Sauber ˇ6. Mercedes ˆ7. Force India ˇ8. Williams ˇ9. Toro Rosso --------------------- –10. Team Lotus –11. Virgin --------------------- –12. HRT --------------------- As you can see, I introduced another tier in order to separate Red Bull from the rest as the race has shown just how dominant Red Bull is. Vettel din't even have to push the car at any point and Webber almost snatched fourth place despite a horrible start and not having a working KERS at all (Vettel had it for parts of the race). Although it is kinda interesting that in the first two races, Vettel seems to completely dominate Webber, we'll have to see how that continues. McLaren is clearly in second place ATM, but they still have to look into their rear mirror. Their main advantage over Ferrari and Lotus-Renault is their qualifying speed. In the race, they were actually all quite similar in terms of speed. I still have Lotus-Renault in front of Ferrari, simply because so far, they've done a better job. But ultimately, I think that the Ferrari is the quicker car, so this might change soon. Once they have all the kinks ironed out, Ferrari should be ahead. Then I have Sauber pass Mercedes. I do think that Mercedes has the faster car, but Sauber is a lot easier on the tires, giving them an advantage of 1 pit stop per race so far and that's enough to pass Mercedes for the moment. Eventually I'm sure Mercedes will be back in front of Sauber (and I hope in the mix up front), the potential seems to be there, but the problems are so huge at the moment (cooling mainly, but also the movable rear wing) that it will take at least until the Turkish GP for Mercedes to make any headway. Another surprise this last weekend was Force India with very solid performances both in qualifying and during the race, well done. Williams and Toro Rosso were both pretty disappointing. Especially within the Williams team there was upheaval after the race and they did announce that there will be consequences in terms of personnel. At the back, nothing much has happened, although Virgin really seems to be in a bad shape and they might have to fight it out with HRT should they not improve.
It is amazing how dominating is Vettel so far... This is his time advantage over his closest competitors after two races: Button :00:58 Webber 0:01:05 Alonso 0:01:09* Hamilton 0:01:12* Massa 0:02:02 Kobayashi 0:02:24** Basically, if the F1 Season was one continuous circuit, he would have lapped every one by the third week.. * Assuming no 20 second bogus FIA penalty. ** Assuming no disqualification in Australia.
^ I try not to think about it. To see them in this state for this long is horrific. ....meanwhile, phrase of the season so far, "fall off a cliff"!
Holy shit! What a drive by Webber. Hey, if I can't take any pleasure out of Alonso's run this year, at least I can root for this guy. Absolutely stunning run on this part. Wow. Also, f**k Hamilton.
Code: [B]PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS The Chinese Grand Prix Shanghai International Circuit, China; 56 laps; 305.066km; Weather: Sunny. Classified: Pos Driver Team Time[/B] 1. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1h36:58.226 2. Vettel Red Bull-Renault + 5.198 3. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 7.555 4. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 10.000 5. Rosberg Mercedes + 13.448 6. Massa Ferrari + 15.840 7. Alonso Ferrari + 30.622 8. Schumacher Mercedes + 31.206 9. Petrov Renault + 57.404 10. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 1:03.273 11. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1:08.757 12. Heidfeld Renault + 1:12.739 13. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 1:30.189 14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1:30.671 15. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap 16. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault + 1 lap 17. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap 18. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap 19. Trulli Lotus-Renault + 1 lap 20. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps 21. Glock Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps 22. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth + 2 laps 23. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth + 2 laps [B]Fastest lap:[/B] Webber, 1:38.993 [B]Not classified/retirements: Driver Team On lap[/B] Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 12 [B]World Championship standings, round 3: Drivers: Constructors: [/B] 1. Vettel 68 1. Red Bull-Renault 105 2. Hamilton 47 2. McLaren-Mercedes 85 3. Button 38 3. Ferrari 50 4. Webber 37 4. Renault 32 5. Alonso 26 5. Mercedes 16 6. Massa 24 6. Sauber-Ferrari 7 7. Petrov 17 7. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 4 8. Heidfeld 15 8. Force India-Mercedes 4 9. Rosberg 10 10. Kobayashi 7 11. Schumacher 6 12. Buemi 4 13. Di Resta 2 14. Sutil 2 First a couple of comments regarding the race. I was delighted to see Rosberg lead a race (on merit) after the disastrous first two races for Mercedes. I would have never thought that Mercedes could come back the way they did within just a week. Had it not been for Mercedes miscalculating the fuel load, Rosberg would have had a great chance to win the race, but unfortunately he had to settle with 5th place because of it. Hopefully there will be other opportunities like this in future races... McLaren obviously had a tremendous weekend, especially Hamilton, the made the right choices and had a great package over all. Red Bull still has the fastest car by a mile, but in this race, they once again had reliability issues (this time with Vettel rather than Webber) plus they were on the wrong strategy. But Vetter still managed to finish second while Webber had a perfect run from 18 to 3. So even though Red Bull was beaten, this should really scare all the other teams. Should Red Bull finally get their KERS under control, they'll be virtually impossible to beat. Ferrari and Renault both had terrible weekends. In Renault's case, the team was of course unfortunate in qualifying where Petrov's retirement caused him not to be able to compete in Q3 while at the same time ruining Heidfeld's chances to even reach Q3. In the race, they also went for the wrong strategy and at least Nick was unlucky with traffic as well. In Ferrari#s case however, I don't think the strategy mattered that much really...The Ferrari simply had problems with the hard compound. Now for my ranking: --------------------- –1. Red Bull --------------------- –2. McLaren ˆ3. Ferrari ˆ4. Mercedes ˇ5. Lotus-Renault --------------------- ˇ6. Sauber –7. Force India –8. Williams –9. Toro Rosso --------------------- –10. Team Lotus --------------------- –11. Virgin –12. HRT --------------------- As I described above, Red Bull are still in a class of their own. Behind them, it's really close. In China, Mercedes was on par with McLaren. I still have McLaren in second place for obvious reasons and Ferrari up in third, which might sound surprising given their weak race and their problems with the prime tyres. However, from the facts that I could gather, the main reason that Mercedes was so fast was the rather cold weather. They still have heating issues, but in China, they were of no concern. They now have three weeks to fix these issues (which will be a very difficult task), but for now I still have them behind Ferrari, because heating will be a problem on most tracks. Renault is down in 5th place, but still in the second tier. I think that this pretty much reflects the real potential of the team. In the last two races, they mostly benefitted from the horrible form Mercedes was in and the mediocre Ferrari. But I think that this is now changing. Although the China GP is of course not the best way to judge the team for the reasons I have given above. Behind them, nothing much has changed. Sauber is still the best of the rest, Force India is still surprisingly fast, Williams is surprisingly slow and Toro Rosso is just its usual self. In the back, again nothing significantly has changed, but I decided to put Virgin into a tier with HRT rather than Team Lotus, since that's closer to where they are.
I'll give credit where credit is due. That was a race rather than a parade. Now, need more like that. In other news, F1 returns to the United States in 2012.. http://www.formula1unitedstates.com/formula1.html Track layout (to be run counter-clockwise): Lots of elevation change, too. (Second most on F1 tour, IIRC)
Excellent take as usual Benztown... I think this has been one of the best races I've seen in the last few years in terms of parity... McLaren and Mercedes looked closer to Redbull and if it weren't for their dismal qualifying issues Lotus-Renault could have been up there too... Red Bull still looks like the team to beat but they need to solve their problems with the KERS system or McLaren will beat them in the ultrafast circuits (They still have the best aerodynamic package so in curvy circuits they should dominate easily). Ferrari was a little disapointing but they have 3 weeks to work on their issues and usually they're very good at adjusting during the course of the season, so I wouldn't count them out yet.
While Tilke has probably done more bad than good in designing race tracks, this one doesn't look too bad...also, I really do like elevation changes, but I think it could have been employed to better use, at least at first glance. One thing that's so cool about the tracks in Spa or Interlagos are sloped high speed corners...well, corner 2 might be a candidate...I guess we'll have to wait and see.
That launch off the green flag is nearly straight uphill. Going to make for a heck of an interesting 1st corner of the race.
Well, we certainly could see a lot of accidents there, since the drivers won't be able to see the 1st corner.
My thoughts on China... -Bloody fabulous drive by Hamilton, one of his best, and thank you Pirelli for the tyres! -I loved Web's comments in the post-race interviews. What a slip up! Haha....actually saying it was good somebody finally beat Vettel, then to catch what he was saying. That was gold. -Though joking, Webber's comment about not even bothering with Qualifying so to avoid using the option tyre was rather interesting. -Some good comedy relief with Brundle and Coulthard trying to pronounce the names of the Chinese trophy presenters. I'm quite pleased with DC as well so far and he's got some witty comments.
Very entertaining race yesterday... Vettel is still heads and shoulder ahead of everyone.. For me the key is that he does not have to endure any challenges from his closer rivals... He qualifies first, has a great start and in 5 or 6 laps his lead is almost too much.... Alonso had a great race and for a moment (just a moment) it looked like he would get close enough to Vettel, then he faded away and had to concede the second place to Webber... Kobayashi was the start of the day driving from 23rd all the way into the points... Schumi and the Williams were major Disapointments today.. Other than that, I think that the playing field is set and we won't see too many changes in the next few races.... 1. RBR ---------------- 2. McLaren 3. Ferrari ---------------- 4. Mercedes 5. Renault ---------------- 6. Sauber 7. Toro Rosso 8. Force India 9. Williams ---------------- 10. Lotus 11. Virgin 12. HRT
I'll post my thoughts on the Turkish GP shortly, but in the meantime, here's some cool stuff: I have found the web page of Darren Heath, a photographer with some stunning F1 pictures. Here's a link to his Turkey gallery...really great, check it out: http://www.darrenheath.com/season/2011/turkey-2011/image-gallery Next we have the Mercedes GP team talking aerodynamics: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQN6S3RdV0A"]YouTube - The team talks about aerodynamics[/ame] And a very interesting video of the Lotus Renault car in the wet, showing the airflow from the exhaust: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT2P2fhRFQA"]YouTube - Lotus Renault F1 2011 RARE VIDEO[/ame]
Before the Monaco GP gets under way, here are the results of the last GPs: Code: [B]PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS The Turkish Grand Prix Istanbul, Turkey; 58 laps; 309.396km; Weather: Sunny. Classified: Pos Driver Team Time[/B] 1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h30:17.558 2. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 8.807 3. Alonso Ferrari + 10.075 4. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 40.232 5. Rosberg Mercedes + 47.539 6. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 59.431 7. Heidfeld Renault + 1:00.857 8. Petrov Renault + 1:08.168 9. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1:09.300 10. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 1:18.000 11. Massa Ferrari + 1:19.800 12. Schumacher Mercedes + 1:25.400 13. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap 14. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap 15. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap 16. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap 17. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap 18. Trulli Lotus-Renault + 1 lap 19. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault + 2 laps 20. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps 21. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth + 3 laps 22. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth + 5 laps [B]Fastest lap:[/B] Webber, 1:29.703 [B]Not classified/retirements: Driver Team On lap[/B] Di Resta Force India-Mercedes 45 Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1 [B]World Championship standings, round 4: Drivers: Constructors: [/B] 1. Vettel 93 1. Red Bull-Renault 148 2. Hamilton 59 2. McLaren-Mercedes 105 3. Webber 55 3. Ferrari 65 4. Button 46 4. Renault 42 5. Alonso 41 5. Mercedes 26 6. Massa 24 6. Sauber-Ferrari 8 7. Petrov 21 7. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 6 8. Heidfeld 21 8. Force India-Mercedes 4 9. Rosberg 20 10. Kobayashi 8 11. Buemi 6 12. Schumacher 6 13. Sutil 2 14. Di Resta 2 Code: [B]PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS[/B] [B]The Spanish Grand Prix Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain; 66 laps; 307.104km; Weather: Sunny. Classified: Pos Driver Team Time[/B] 1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h39:03.301 2. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 0.630 3. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 35.697 4. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 47.966 5. Alonso Ferrari + 1 lap 6. Schumacher Mercedes + 1 lap 7. Rosberg Mercedes + 1 lap 8. Heidfeld Renault + 1 lap 9. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap 10. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap 11. Petrov Renault + 1 lap 12. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap 13. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap 14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap 15. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap 16. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 2 laps 17. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 2 laps 18. Trulli Lotus-Renault + 2 laps 19. Glock Virgin-Cosworth + 3 laps 20. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 3 laps 21. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth + 4 laps [B]Fastest lap:[/B] Alonso, 1:26.727 [B]Not classified/retirements: Driver Team On lap[/B] Massa Ferrari 60 Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 49 Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 29 [B]World Championship standings, round 5: Drivers: Constructors: [/B] 1. Vettel 118 1. Red Bull-Renault 185 2. Hamilton 77 2. McLaren-Mercedes 138 3. Webber 67 3. Ferrari 75 4. Button 61 4. Renault 46 5. Alonso 51 5. Mercedes 40 6. Rosberg 26 6. Sauber-Ferrari 11 7. Heidfeld 25 7. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 6 8. Massa 24 8. Force India-Mercedes 4 9. Petrov 21 10. Schumacher 14 11. Kobayashi 9 12. Buemi 6 13. Sutil 2 14. Di Resta 2 15. Perez 2 And my ranking: --------------------- –1. Red Bull –2. McLaren --------------------- –3. Ferrari –4. Mercedes –5. Lotus-Renault --------------------- –6. Sauber –7. Force India ˆ8. Toro Rosso ˇ9. Williams --------------------- –10. Team Lotus --------------------- –11. Virgin –12. HRT --------------------- As you can see, the field seems to have stabilized. McLaren has gotten closer to Red Bull and the midfield teams (Sauber, Toro Rosso, Force India, and Williams) are still in constant flux, but there isn't as much movement as there was at the beginning of the season. Ferrari has also been very impressive on the soft tyres, but Alonso pretty much lost a lap on hard tyres in Barcelona. It will be interesting to see how Ferrari does in Monaco where Pirelli brings the Soft and Super-Soft compounds. Also worth mentioning was Nick Heidfeld's run in Spain from last to eighth and if he had had one more lap, he would have caught both MGPs.