photo credit: Flickr/Rich Jones

Nico Rosberg got off to an early lead, especially with everyone held up by Michael Schumacher. Thankfully pit stops kept the race from looking like a Schumi train.

However, one of the front wheels on Schumacher’s car was not properly attached and he was soon out of the race after his pit stop.

At the start, Jenson Button zoomed ahead to P3 at the start of the race. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel continued to fall further behind everyone.

Massa had the lead as he hadn’t pitted, so Nico Rosberg once again regained his lead with both McLarens behind him.

Each round of pit stops brought on excitement. Kimi Raikkonen easily won in the first round when he just flew by Daniel Ricciardo on cold tires, and even battled for position with Lewis Hamilton down the pit lane.

Sergio Perez tried to hold off Lewis Hamilton about halfway through the race, but repeatedly locked up his tires and needed to pit.

And then there was a 5 car battle for fifth place…because of Felipe Massa. Mark Webber, bored with everything, attempted a take off with his car and had it up on the back two wheels. Thankfully he did not get flipping.

Leaders kept switching. Jenson. Nico. Lewis. Jenson. Nico. Lewis. And once again there’s a screwed up pit stop, this time for Jenson Button and he joined the Massa train to the vortex of boring.

But while SPEED was in commercials, Massa pitted, or just vanished; not sure, they never said.  (Just kidding, he was down in 14th at the time.)

But that didn’t make the fight for second through ninth any less competitive. If you just looked at the front of this race for anything, you would be incredibly bored. But when the other points positions got moving, they really got moving.

Grosjean, Maldonado, and Perez had a crazy fight that eventually was ruined by Alonso. Or, he just won it all because he’s Alonso…although he was only back there because he went off (which SPEED never showed).

Webber and Hamilton battled for 5th place, but Webber held it. Vettel nabbed second from Raikkonen, and Raikkonen went off, losing third place to Jenson Button with Hamilton right behind him.

AND BASICALLY I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING BECAUSE RAIKKONEN JUST ENDED UP EIGHTH. FROM SECOND.

And someone he just tumbled the hell down to 12th with both Saubers nearly hitting him going by. The team blamed the marbles but that does not make any sense.

Jenson took second place from Sebastian with four laps to go. Vettel ended up losing positions to Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber as well.

Rosberg’s win was the first for Mercedes in forever but obviously they didn’t have a team for a lot of that time, blah blah blah.

Only one car didn’t finish the race, and nobody crashed into each other badly! Hooray!

» Continue reading “Chinese GP Recap: Nico Rosberg Finally Wins A Race”

Photo credit: Flickr/Jose Mª Izquierdo Galiot (and his username is mypoorbrain, which is what I am saying right now)

Just call yourself Orchid F1 already or something and stop it.

Group Lotus, the reason Lotus has its name, is no longer the title sponsor for the team. They will continue to be Lotus F1 but without Lotus.

This is after the great Lotus obnoxious situation of 2011 with a Lotus Renault (this Lotus) and Team Lotus (now Caterham).

The team is owned by Genii Capital, and Gerard Lopez, owner of Genii, says everything is cool because Lotus has acquired some excellent sponsors so they won’t be suffering without Group Lotus’s money.

Great. But can you really use the name now when you’re probably going to remove everything that says Lotus from your cars?

This story contains the word Lotus 12 times.

Lotus is now on the page so much you now hate everything about how much they have confused you.

photo credit: Flickr/Vi Khoa Duong

The car that looked to be struggling came out on top in a race that included nearly an hour wait while it poured down rain. Fernando Alonso won a very exciting race, while teammate Felipe Massa once again is nowhere near a points position…hmm…

It started to rain about 15 minutes before the race started, so teams put their cars onto intermediate tires. Around lap 5, after Romain Grosjean beached his Lotus in gravel, teams started switching to full wets. On the first lap, Michael Schumacher, Romain Grosjean, and Bruno Senna spun.

And once everyone was on wets, there was lightning and thunder, which means safety car on lap 7. Jean-Eric Vergne stayed on the inters, however.

Basically if anything happened, you couldn’t exactly even see it.

Lap 9: once the safety car got boring as hell, it was time to just red flag the race for the time being. And because the Canadian GP was so awesome last year, the FIA decided to ruin all the fun so races can only be 4 hours long.

This race was already bumped up to 4pm local time from 5pm after the 2009 fiasco, and I just don’t get it. Do they not understand tropical climates? Here in Atlanta, especially during the summer, pop up storms are not uncommon…so obviously when you’re 3 degrees north of the equator, they’re more frequent and year round.

This is two times in four years. All it really needs is just to be moved up at least an hour more.

Rant over. I am a cranky person who has to be up until past 7am because of this and I only took a nap for an hour earlier.

So red flag. What’s exciting during a red flag? People in grandstands doing the wave, a bird standing in the grass looking ticked off, ice cream discussions, farmers market jokes after teams set up canopies over the cars.

Finally, it was announced the race would restart at 5:15 with parade laps behind the safety car to get a dry line going.

Pedro de la Rosa received a drive through penalty for team personnel on track right before the restart.

Lap 13: Safety car in, some cars went in to switch to intermediates, including Jenson Button, while Lewis Hamilton stayed out.

Cars on the inters were faster, so cars that stayed on the wets started coming in…but not Sergio Perez, who took the lead as cars swapped positions for a good two laps. Lewis Hamilton pitted, and McLaren royally screwed up the pit stop.

With an HRT in his way, Jenson Button’s front wing was damaged, so the screw up didn’t really matter. And in the end, Fernando Alonso took the lead from Perez.

Jenson Button at the back of the pack started setting fastest laps, maybe looking like he did in Montreal last summer….only several laps later to say he has no grip. Things never really improved for him.

The only thing interesting with cars still on inters was the battle for fourth among Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, and Kimi Raikkonen. Vettel was able to pass Rosberg with DRS, as was Raikkonen on the next lap.

And on lap 24, Fernando Alonso said it’s raining in turn 4. Jenson Button needed to pit for a new set of tires again.  Alonso continued to set fastest laps from the lead.

Rosberg started dropping dramatically down the grid, and eventually pitted when 16th to get new tires.

With the track drying, it started to get iffy for continuing on intermediates, but of course more rain was expected on track. (Note: it never showed up, of course.)

Sergio Perez started to reel in Alonso, setting fastest lap nearly every time around. It was absolutely fantastic, he started lapping a second quicker than Alonso’s Ferrari. And meanwhile in P17, Massa nearly drove Button off track several times.

Toro Rosso put Daniel Ricciardo on medium slicks, while Jenson Button’s engineer said rain was approaching. Ricciardo’s time was quick, which led to Massa being put on the medium tire too…and then on Button’s radio it was time for slicks too.

Can you say strategic nightmare?

On lap 40, Alonso went in for slicks while Perez stayed out. Ricciardo set the fastest lap. Perez went in on lap 41 for hard tires, and came back out just behind Alonso.

On lap 48, Vettel had a puncture, but was close enough to the pit entrance. And what happened? Karthikeyan again has no concept of space for cars faster than him.

On lap 49, Perez was right behind Alonso. And then Perez took a bit of an off and lost all the time he gained, probably thanks to an engineer having to distract him from just going.  It was no problem for Alonso from there.

With two laps to go, Pastor Maldonado continued to have a horrible time trying to finish as his engine overheated. And on the last lap, Vettel is told to pit…and then stay out…and then yell at him to stop because it’s an emergency.

And thankfully the checkered flag flew…2 hours, 48 minutes after the start.

So..I said Sergio was the drive of the day last race, and he sure as hell is the drive of the day this time around. If only his engineer hadn’t come on over the radio!

» Continue reading “Fernando Alonso Wins The Bizarre Grand Prix of Malaysia”

Rear suspension on a Ferrari, (credit: Flickr/evasèe)

Friday night, teams received a note from the FIA saying the reactive ride height system, pioneered by the Lotus team, has been banned for the 2012 season.

This comes just a week after the FIA confirmed the system was good to go.

It’s entirely possible that some teams made a push to get the FIA to ban the system. Ferrari was concerned with the legality last week, before the FIA said the system was fine. Christian Horner of Red Bull said he wasn’t sure about the system’s use. No need to waste anymore time on it then.

No word on why exactly the FIA decided to ban reactive ride height, but if the details come out, this story will be updated.

Just as planned, Bruno Senna was confirmed as Williams’ other driver.

The team also said that Senna will drive February 9th during the first test in Jerez.

In the statement from Williams, Senna says, ”It will be very interesting to drive for a team that my uncle has driven for, particularly as quite a few of the people here actually worked with Ayrton. Hopefully we can bring back some memories and create some great new ones too.”

A Twitter user pointed out that now Bruno will have driven for two teams that his uncle had driven for…kind of. I guess there’s not much of a chance at McLaren with Honda engines though.

In an interview with Autosport, Bruno Senna said it was not all about the sponsorship money he’s bringing in. He says the team put him through rigorous testing to prove his worth.

Bruno, anyone can go out and get sponsors, but of course they want the best driver with those sponsors. But who cares, if that means you over a couple other drivers, that’s enough to even make cynics of pay drivers like me very proud.

And thankfully Autosport asked the question I have seriously been wondering about for weeks: what exactly does your family think about you driving with the team your uncle was with when he died?

Senna said he believes everything happens for a reason, and that his family is nothing but thrilled that he has a drive.

Congratulations, Bruno!

Photo from Flickr user Gregory Moine

Now that it’s out in the open that nothing is wrong with Lotus’s reactive ride height system, every team is most likely going to have something similar this coming season. (I think most of us understand that by every team, HRT is never included, right?)

As previously mentioned, the car balances itself under braking to help maintain stability and keep aerodynamic performance at its best. There were claims that the system was activated by the driver, but in actuality, it is controlled by the torque under braking.

Ferrari has submitted their system to the FIA to check the legality of it, hopefully in time for the system to be fitted to the car before pre-season testing begins.

No word yet on other teams, but it would be safe to assume that most will be adding a system like this by the time the season starts.

Photo from Flickr user Jarod Carruthers.

Numerous times Luca di Montezemolo, president of Ferrari, has been rumored to run for political office. Formula 1 is political enough to give you all the experience you need for some job like that, but it was never true. Recently, di Montezemolo wrote a letter to the Italiafutura group, which read as an announcement of candidacy. It is signed “Luca di Montezemolo, future president of Italy.”

But di Montezemolo denies that’s what it was about, saying he’s with Ferrari.

He took the opportunity though to say Ferrari will be debuting their 2012 car on February 3, so all is not lost apparently.

The president of not-Italy also said Ferrari will be pushing for more testing, because current regulations are restrictive to helping new drivers get a taste for the sport.

Other news:

- Robert Kubica and his rehab doctor Riccardo Ceccarelli have parted ways over a disagreement on the last phase of his post-accident recovery. No idea what the rift was, but it should come as no surprise the doctor, who does not work in driver management, has no idea if Kubica has been in talks with Ferrari.

- A London High Court judge says that Bernie Ecclestone’s payments to Gerhard Gribkowsky are indeed bribes, despite Ecclestone saying he had no choice but to pay up….one of the definitions of “bribe.” This is getting good.

- Jenson Button thinks he can do even better next year than he did this year. While not plotting his second world championship, he is being recognized for his amazing(ly bad) commercial acting talent.

- Kimi Raikkonen will test a 2009 Renault car with GP2 tires next month. Raikkonen doesn’t think he’ll have much of a problem getting back into the F1 swing of things, citing his 9 seasons in the sport before heading to rallying. He says the most difficult thing will be tires, as the manufacturer has changed since he was last racing.

- Bruno Senna was spotted at the Williams factory. Senna’s experience driving for a Renault powered car interests the team as they switch back to Renault engines, and he met with engineers there. Rubens Barrichello has also revisited recently, and has supposedly gained about $5 million in personal sponsorship money.

- There are rumors that Jarno Trulli is not exactly safe over at Caterham. Martin Brundle took to Twitter to say he thinks Vitaly Petrov popping up with the team is entirely possible.

Jaime Alguersuari has recently been linked to the test driver role for Mercedes. The rumors surrounding Alguersuari to HRT are all but crushed after new team principal Luis Perez Sala says that it’s not realistic, as the team has been in talks with several other drivers for weeks now.

- Fernando Alonso and his wife Raquel del Rosario, singer for the Spanish band El Sueno de Morfeo, are splitting up. The two had been married since 2006. In a joint statement they said they will never separate as friends, and would appreciate the media continuing to respect their personal lives at this time.

Photo from Flickr user sBerna.

If you’re not busy in mid-February, you might want to look into a few days in Las Vegas.

The Mandalay Bay Casino and Resort is holding a 3 day long “F1 Comes to Vegas” event February 17-19. On the 18th and 19th, Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean will do some demo runs down the streets of Las Vegas.

Other events include a Lotus car show, autograph sessions, and the chance to ride in a 3 seater F1 car that can hold 2 passengers.

You can purchase tickets and find a whole schedule of events and other information here.

Tickets for the fan village for the demo runs and other activities are $30 for adults, good for one day only. Or for $125, you can buy a VIP ticket for both days that includes the chance to win the ride in the F1 car, champagne brunch both days, and obviously because it’s Vegas, an open bar the whole time.

UPDATE: This article seems to get a lot of visits from Google, and I have not kept up to date with what is going on, as I had no intention to go. From the looks of things on various forums, it’s pretty up in the air and at this point in time I would NOT gamble my time and money on it, unless you REALLY want to go to Vegas.

Lotus says they are not participating in an event. The promoters of this event say the team is announcing something in the coming days. The information that was once on the site related to the Lotus F1 team, including a party with Kimi Raikkonen. This has all vanished from the site.

The event has also moved to the Palms and Rio hotels instead, and now the website claims “The Formula 1 team” which anyone can tell you is not a team.

Avoid.

Photo from Flickr user nhayashida.

Sebastian Vettel doing donuts at the Red Bull Home Run

- HRT is denying claims that they sourcing their 2012 car’s monocoque from rival team Caterham. For their third season, the team says they are building their own car, after using a Dallara supplied car as the base for their first seasons.

The team also says they will be ready for pre-season testing. They have never been ready for it before, and because of the new rules they’ll be required to pass the crash test first to participate.

- Red Bull Racing had a “homecoming parade” in Milton Keynes this weekend called the Red Bull Home Run. The event also included former driver David Coulthard in one of Red Bull’s stock cars from NASCAR. The team held the event, which 60,000 people attended, as a thank you to their fans.

- Kimi Raikkonen hurt his wrist this weekend in a snowmobile crash. Insert vodka joke here. Lotus is downplaying any ill effects, but seriously guys you might want to stop allowing your drivers to race in the off season.

Additionally, Lotus F1 has said they expect it will take a bit of time for Kimi to get up to speed again and will give him all the time he needs.

- Sergio Perez says he did not fully recover from the effects of a concussion after his Monaco crash until the Hungarian Grand Prix two months later. He drove in the first practice session at Montreal but ultimately Pedro de la Rosa stepped in for Sauber that weekend.

- FOTA has somewhat fallen apart. I haven’t previously posted about Red Bull and Ferrari leaving the team association, but Sauber has also joined them in departing. The teams left amid a road block over the RRA, or resource restriction agreement. Toro Rosso may additionally be on the way out.

Autosport has an excellent article detailing Red Bull’s decision with Christian Horner and Adrian Newey.

- Ron Howard is in the midst of shooting his movie Rush, telling the story of the rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt. He says it will make people love Formula 1, and honestly it couldn’t come out at a better time next year. He’s been posting lots of cool pictures on Twitter.

- Speaking of that excellent time next year, the Circuit of the Americas says information is forthcoming about ticket sales. Of course I’ll post here the minute word is out, but if you’d rather get an email, join the mailing list on the circuit’s site.

Photo from Flickr user Pranavian.

Kimi at the 2009 Singapore Grand Prix

Kimi Raikkonen has signed a two year deal with Lotus (Lotus Renault this past season).

He was originally linked with a seat with Williams, but that fell through. It is thought he wanted shares of the team, and Williams did not take too kindly to that.

Raikkonen was world champion in 2007, which means there will be SIX world champions on the grid out of 24 drivers next year.

He left F1 after the 2o09 season to drive in the World Rally Championship. He also did a couple NASCAR races this past year.

On the signing, Kimi said, ”It was an easy choice to return with Lotus Renault GP as I have been impressed by the scope of the team’s ambition. Now I’m looking forward to playing an important role in pushing the team to the very front of the grid.”

The team has yet to confirm if Vitaly Petrov is the other driver for next season, but of course it’s likely that Raikkonen is replacing Bruno Senna at the team.

I am very confused as to how I feel.

Photo from Flickr user Aural Asia.