First race of the season over!

Jenson Button passed teammate Lewis Hamilton right around the first turn and held on to the race lead from then on.

There were several injuries to cars around the first corner, including Bruno Senna, who was able to continue, and Nico Hulkenberg, who was not. Shortly afterward, his teammate Pastor Maldonado took out Romain Grosjean, who had started so well.

Michael Schumacher lost control of his car and dropped out of the race.

Both Caterhams went out around the same time. Vitaly Petrov stopped on the front straightaway and brought out a safety car. Shortly after, Heikki Kovalainen came in with steering problems.

Hamilton had held on to second until this point, when Sebastian Vettel got in front of him. Hamilton was not able to gain enough time on Vettel even with DRS and KERS.

That was not the end of all the fun.

With ten laps left, Felipe Massa completely screwed up Bruno Senna’s Williams. Senna was somehow able to get his car back out, but Massa’s had to be put in the garage..which took them a bit of time for some reason. Race control is going to investigate the ~incident~ after the race.

On the last lap, Maldonado completely lost it and hit the wall, definitely destroying some other drivers’ points finishes, namely Nico Rosberg, who ended up finishing outside the points paying positions.

Sergio Perez started 22nd, but finished 8th, making him definitely the drive of the day. This time it’d be great if that awesome race isn’t negated.

1. Jenson Button, McLaren
2. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
3. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren
4. Mark Webber, Red Bull
5. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari
6. Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber
7. Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus
8. Sergio Perez, Sauber
9. Daniel Ricciardo, Toro Rosso
10. Paul di Resta, Force India
11. Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso
12. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
13. Pastor Maldonado, Williams
14. Timo Glock, Marussia
15. Charles Pic, Marussia
16. Bruno Senna, Williams
Not classified: Felipe Massa (accident damage), Heikki Kovalainen (steering), Vitaly Petrov, Michael Schumacher, Romain Grosjean (accident damage), Nico Hulkenberg

Both Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher lost control of their cars and slid deep into the gravel during the last 15 minutes of the final practice session before qualifying in two hours.

Lewis Hamilton took fastest lap from Romain Grosjean with just minutes left. At 1:25.681, Hamilton narrowly beat Grosjean’s time by .077 seconds.

Mark Webber was third fastest, with Jenson Button fourth. Rosberg and Schumacher finished fifth and sixth. Vettel still finished seventh.

Grosjean’s teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, only managed 12th spot.

Pedro de la Rosa continued to have no such luck, so it’ll be interesting to see how the 107% rule plays out during qualifying.

Additionally something to watch over the next few hours: Red Bull and Lotus have asked the FIA to reconsider Mercedes’ rear wing as legal. A formal protest could be lodged after qualifying if Charlie Whiting stays firm on the wing being legal.

Interestingly enough, both teams run Renault engines, and the fastest cars so far have been Mercedes powered.

The day has finally arrived. The season is so close you can already hear the engines revving in the distance. A real live car launch is upon us! » Continue reading “McLaren Launch The MP4-27″

Lewis Hamilton became the first driver not named Sebastian Vettel to win the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix earlier today.

While Sebastian Vettel had taken off for his usual lead, he suffered an instantaneous tire puncture around the first corner. The damage was done by the time Vettel was able to make it back to the pits and he had his first retirement of the season. Up until today, he had been the only driver to finish all races.

Fernando Alonso and his Ferrari team worked pit strategy, hoping the Spanish driver could give himself a big window of time to complete a pit stop and come back out in front of Lewis Hamilton. Things didn’t work out for them at this race for a second year in a row, as an HRT led Alonso into the pits. Alonso was able to finish second, and Hamilton’s teammate Jenson Button finished third after battling with Mark Webber all race.

Felipe Massa finished fifth after a good spin, and Nico Rosberg of Mercedes managed to finish sixth. At one point, he was in a podium position, but those hopes quickly faded. He once again finished ahead of Michael Schumacher.

The midpack fight for constructors’ points waged on among Force India, Toro Rosso, and Sauber. It was not a good day for Toro Rosso, and once again not a good race for poor Sebastien Buemi. He retired for the third time in four races after a hydraulics issue. Jaime Alguersuari finished well outside the points in 15th.

Force India fared the best out of the three this race, with Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta finishing 8th and 9th respectively. Kamui Kobayashi grabbed Sauber the last points paying position of 10th, with teammate Sergio Perez right behind him in 11th.

Despite having to start at the back, Rubens Barrichello managed to finish 12th, well ahead of his teammate Pastor Maldonado. Maldonado once again received a penalty, this time for not heeding a blue flag (to let Hamilton pass) in sufficient time. However as a 30 second time penalty added on to his finishing time, it did not affect his 14th place position. Jaime Alguersuari also received one of these penalties, and it too did not change his 15th place finish.

The Renault drivers, with cars unsuited to the slow corners of the Yas Marina track, didn’t fare too badly. Vitaly Petrov, spoiler of Fernando Alonso’s day last year finished in 13th, with Bruno Senna in 16th. Heikki Kovalainen of Lotus, at one point near the points, finished 17th, and once again ahead of his teammate.

There is one race left in two weeks time. It’s hard to believe the season’s almost over. The complete finishing spots results can be found below.

Photo from Flickr user nic_r.
» Continue reading “Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Recap: A Vettel-Less Endeavor, A Hamilton Win”

Sebastian Vettel won his 11th race of the season, also attaining the fastest lap of the race to match his pole position and victory in the first great race in India. It was the first time Vettel has been able to score all three.

Despite all the dust and slow work that almost led to a cancellation, the event was a success, unless your name is Felipe Massa. Massa left Lewis Hamilton no room and the pair collided for the sixth time this season. Six. In seventeen races.

Massa was given a drive through penalty, and shortly afterwards hit a curb and broke his front suspension. No, that’s not a replay from qualifying, where it broke on the right…this time around he needs to break it on the left! And the first shot of Felipe after retiring? Him heading into the stewards’ office to complain about being penalized for closing the door on Hamilton.

Kamui Kobayashi was taken out by contact during the first lap, as was Jarno Trulli’s wing. He was able to continue on, 5 laps down from Vettel at the end, clearly making it worthwhile to have an experienced driver in over Karun Chandhok. Mark Webber again had a fine start, but he was no match for Jenson Button who quickly passed him before DRS was even enabled. Vettel was able to take off and easily cruise his way to a win, of course.

Though Massa-Hamilton was clearly the incident of the race, the fight for points between Toro Rosso and Sauber was a bit less explosive. Both teams are now tied in the constructor’s championship. Toro Rosso more than likely lost out on points when Sebastien Buemi’s engine blew. Jaime Alguersuari finished 8th, and Sergio Perez 10th.

Racing will be back in 2 weeks at Abu Dhabi, only two more races to go this season!

Results follow: » Continue reading “Indian GP Recap: Leave No Front Suspension Unbroken!”

McLaren Mercedes announced (way) earlier today that Jenson Button has re-signed with the team. The 2009 world champion has secured a long term contract with the team, although details on the length and anything really interesting are, of course, unknown. (Reports say the deal is for four years and up to  £50 million.)

Button is currently second in the points and the only person that can prolong Sebastian Vettel’s agony of not being officially the champion yet.

Or, in bizarro dream land, he can be world champion if he wins every race and Sebastian Vettel sleeps through all five. Good luck.

Here is the official news from the team, complete with awkward Lewis Hamilton quotes.

Congratulations, Jenson!

photo from flickr user Gizmo-10

When you’re already celebrating your 200th Grand Prix, at the site of your first win, you might as well really celebrate and get your second win of the season. Jenson Button won the slightly wet, pit stop filled race at the Hungaroring with ease after things did not go so well for his teammate or Sebastian Vettel.

The race started on intermediate tires before drivers began switching to the supersoft tires. Button pitted before Vettel, and all went well for him from then on. He’s known for his smooth driving and tire maintenance for a reason.

Lewis Hamilton made a total of six pit stops compared to Button’s three. Hamilton also had to serve a drive through penalty for his recovery after a spin that put Paul di Resta on the grass in an attempt to avoid an accident. Of course, if you are stuck watching SPEED, this penalty was completely unfair and harsh to David Hobbs, because Hamilton can do no wrong. Moan moan moan. Lewis managed to finish fourth, ahead of Mark Webber.

Lewis’s race was ruined by the second appearance of rain. He was one of several drivers who changed to intermediate tires, and it did not pay off. McLaren has already said it was his decision, so it’ll be interesting to see if that’s really the case tomorrow when five million angry Hamilton stories show up.

Sebastian Vettel finished second thanks to Red Bull keeping him off the inters during the second part of the race. Fernando Alonso finished behind him, despite many off track visits. Teammate Felipe Massa had it worse though, as he clipped the wall with his rear wing after an off.

Nick Heidfeld’s Renault burst into flames right outside the pit lane. I gave Heidfeld’s jump out of the car a 9.5 out of 10.

Neither Team Lotus car finished the race, sadly. At one point, Heikki Kovalainen was ahead of several cars that are typically higher up finishers.

Tire strategy did not pay off for several other drivers, including Nico Rosberg and Kamui Kobayashi. Sergio Perez and Adrian Sutil, who both qualified well, were relegated to midfield finishes thanks to a wild first lap.

The race was filled with pit stops, by last count I believe there were around 90 total. One of the Virgins decided to make it a bit exciting during the second wind of rainfall and slide himself into the pit area for his team.

And now, the summer break is upon us. I expect to only have posts every other day during it, since not much should be going on. When we’re back in session, it’s time to race at Spa, one of my favorite races of the year. Hopefully the next couple of weeks go by fast!

Practice Makes P1′s Star of the Race: Sebastien Buemi! He started 23rd, quickly made his way to 14th, and finished in the points. I think Toro Rosso forgives you now for your repeated grid penalties. At least I would, considering he finished further up in the points than his teammate. And even better, he has no grid penalty for next race…for now.

Practice Makes P1′s Rage Award of the Season goes to….SPEED channel OF COURSE. Here I am thinking the worst is over because Fox races are done. Nope, commercials meant missing the true glory of the car fire. David Hobbs has no idea how to be impartial and it’s absolutely ridiculous. We did not see the podium or the post race interviews because SPEED has to go to NASCAR raceday, a program that takes place HOURS before the actual race and is TWO HOURS long. Guess how long an F1 pre-race show is? Half an hour, AND you don’t even get one before a race shown on Fox. This is the last race for an entire month, and I’m supposed to wait till 6:30pm now to see what happens after the race. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

This has been a rant. Perhaps the summer break will give Hobbs time to nap. These 8am starts must be hard on him.

Race results are below the cut!

» Continue reading “Hungarian Grand Prix Race Recap”

Usually a Formula 1 race is every 2 weeks. Not so this week, as we head straight to the Hungaroring from the Nurburgring.

This should be exciting. Instead, it’s very bittersweet. After this race, it’s 3 weekends of emptiness until the next race weekend. We’ll discuss how you can fill that time when it comes.

Why is that? Well first we need to celebrate more as American fans that we made it through the 4 race block on Fox. I meant to include the Practice Makes P1 Black Flag of the Race Award to them for their ridiculously long commercial breaks that seemed to come every 5 laps this past Sunday. I found myself shouting things at the commercials like, “I hope the FBI gets you Rupert Murdoch!”

Anyway. Onto what’s been going on these past two days, as I was so burnt out from apartment searching yesterday to type. Let’s go by team, starting with Lotus Renault!

LRGP
- Bruno Senna will be taking Nick Heidfeld’s car out for Friday’s first practice session at the Hungaroring. Congrats, Bruno!
- Eric Boullier, team boss, says Romain Grosjean is ready for another shot at F1. Grosjean is currently the GP2 series points leader. Don’t count on him getting a seat with the team anytime soon if Robert Kubica’s recovery continues to go as planned, as Vitaly Petrov is under contract through next season. There is however, always the option of Grosjean replacing Heidfeld after the GP2 series is over if Heidfeld does not deliver.
- Bouiller also says Renault needs to bring their A game.

McLaren
- Lewis Hamilton can’t wait for the race this weekend. This is actually news apparently. You know, I can’t wait for the race this weekend, so color me shocked that someone actually participating it is excited too.

Williams
- Rubens Barrichello’s car will have KERS this weekend after the team experimented with taking it off and seeing how tire wear was affected.
- Both Williams cars will have sparkly new bodywork with weekend to assist with cooling.

Ferrari, Red Bull is faster than you in the pit lane. Do you understand this message?

Not the best race for Sebastian Vettel at home, as he finished outside the top 2 for the first time this season. After an early spin (later copied by Michael Schumacher, it’s a German World Champion thing), he couldn’t get higher than 5th, still behind Felipe Massa.

What an end that was, both drivers pitted for the harder tires for just the very last lap, Massa coming in before Vettel. Red Bull, however, got Vettel back out a second before the Ferrari, helping Vettel finish fourth and still maintain  his huge championship points gap.

The rain that had been predicted never fully happened. It sprinkled at the beginning, but rain tires were never necessary. Most drivers ran on the soft tires until Vitaly Petrov changed to them at lap 41.

Lewis Hamilton won the race on a brilliantly planned change to the hard tires, while also making an incredible pass on Fernando Alonso as he came back out after changing to them. Mark Webber had been leading the race, but he was not able to maintain a large enough gap as the two on new tires had dropped their lap times significantly.

Nick Heidfeld’s home race ended early after a bump off by Sebastien Buemi. I’m afraid I’m going to start calling him Sebastien “The Caboose” Buemi, as he’ll be getting a five grid spot penalty for the collision, after he started this race dead last due to a fuel irregularity.

It was also not a good race for Jenson Button, with his second consecutive DNF. A hydraulics problem took him out of the race.

Hamilton takes third place in the championship standings ahead of Alonso now. We’ll be back next week in Hungary, back on SPEED, which means no more time delayed races!

Practice Makes P1 Star of the Race: Adrian Sutil. Sutil always comes out of nowhere to finish so high. He just stays on it, doesn’t spin, doesn’t make many mistakes, and finishes pretty well into the points. I’d say he had a pretty good home race too, since he finished second highest of the six Germans! Kamui Kobayashi is definitely the P2 Star of the Race, as he finished 9th after starting 17th.

Practice Makes P1 Idiot of the Race: FOX/SPEED Announcers. Seriously? You guys are supposed to be professionals and you hope Sebastian Vettel doesn’t win another race this season just like how 2009 worked out for Jenson Button? If he was Lewis Hamilton, I bet it would be a whole different story. Stay classy.

Click below for the full results.

» Continue reading “German Grand Prix Race Recap”

During Saturday’s practice session before qualifying, the Red Bulls were on top.

While here in the US we’re all burning up, qualifying today took place at the comfortable temperature of 58. The overcast and cool conditions made it useless for less competitive teams to try qualifying on the harder tire. If it rains tomorrow, it won’t even matter if they used up a set of the soft tires that they could end up wanting back.

Q1 was the usual knockout zone for slow cars, battle for the midpack cars, and slight showing of dominance by the top teams. All HRT, Lotus, and Virgin cars start at the back, and Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber joins them, starting P18. Vitantonio Liuzzi will start last, despite qualifying P23, due to a 5 spot penalty for a transmission change.

Q2 featured a Lotus Renault battle, with Vitaly Petrov knocking teammate Nick Heidfeld into the 11th spot as the session finished.

Now the exciting part: the final ten spots that are determined in Q3. At first it seemed like as usual, it would be a 1-2 Red Bull front row, but at the end Lewis Hamilton took P2, and Sebastian Vettel could not beat his time. This is the first non-front row start for Vettel in 14 races. The only drivers who have gone longer with consecutive front row starts? Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill, and Ayrton Senna. Good company.

Mark Webber will start on pole, leading to more “not bad for a number two driver” comments from the peanut gallery. Just so anyone who says this knows, he quite literally is the number two driver…the number two is only all over his car. Despite Hamilton’s fast time, teammate Jenson Button is back in 7th, over a second off Hamilton’s pace.

Sebastian Buemi has been excluded from the qualifying session after the FIA found a “fuel irregularity” with his car. You can read the FIA statement here, but let me warn you that it will make your head hurt. If Toro Rosso does not appeal the decision, Buemi can either start from the back of the grid or from the pit lane.

It looks to be a thrilling race tomorrow, thankfully this is the last FOX time delayed race for the year! Click below for the complete qualifying results.

» Continue reading “German Grand Prix Qualifying Recap”