This will be a launch/first day of testing combination party. I apologize for not getting to it until now, I was too comfortable to wake up this morning and had to immediately take off to class and FINALLY I can look at my laptop.

WOO ANOTHER CAR! May I also point you to the poll on the right, please vote for your favorite car so far. I suppose you can use knowledge from testing today to choose. Winning car will receive a cupcake from me. Somehow.

Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna with the Williams-Renault RW34. photo credit: Williams F1's Facebook page

So our final known launch date has arrived, as well as the first day of testing. Obviously Williams launched their car before testing started. It looks weird to see AT&T nowhere on the car. They’ve also gone with the stepped beak nose.

Onto testing!

We’ll start with the Williams: Maldonado completed 25 laps in the car, its first run after the team had to cancel a straight line run last week. The team chose to go with short runs today to run system checks, as they switched engines for this season. Williams used Cosworth engines last year.  » Continue reading “Williams Unveil Their 2012 Challenger Before Sending It Out On Track, Where Raikkonen Was Fast”

Williams left out the most important information that is relevant to our interests: who is the other driver and/or why is it not Rubens Barrichello?

In the meantime, Pastor Maldonado is confirmed for another year, which I guess means Venezuela either doesn’t care about the money or Williams doesn’t care about the money (or both).

Valtteri Bottas is confirmed as a third driver again this season, and he will regularly drive in Friday practices. On a side note, doesn’t he seriously look like Andy Richter? By the way, he’s 22. Seriously.

This news is as exciting as their performance this year.

Says Maldonado, “I am delighted to be able to continue with Williams into my second season and I will give my very best to help the team as we push to return to the front of the grid.”

Says Frank Williams, “Pastor has proven this year that he is not only quick but also that he is able to maintain a consistent and strong race pace. Pastor has been responsible for all of our forays into Q3 in 2011 and his race at Monaco was outstanding.”

Pastor has also been responsible for all your grid penalties, so…there’s that. Congratulations, maybe your engine supplier change will help you out.

Photo from Flickr user Globovision.

Well, maybe with no Kimi isn’t true. There were rumors going around that his deal with Williams may not work because he wants to own shares of the team. Who knows.

Since the world of Formula 1 is still on Kimi watch, let’s look at the current news with the drivers, starting of course with the man he’d possibly replace.

Rubens Barrichello absolutely insists that his home race in Brazil this weekend will not be his last. He remains positive about his future as a driver, despite signs pointing to Williams replacing him.

Of course, Rubens kind of just emits positive energy, but looking back to 2008 definitely shows this isn’t the most uncertainty he’s ever faced. Before Honda pulled out of the sport, it was rumored that they were going to replace him with Bruno Senna. Ultimately the team was sold, and lucky for Rubens, Ross Brawn chose to keep the lineup as it was. It was one of Rubens’ strongest seasons, albeit the car was amazing.

Rubens is also very positive about the team’s performance next season, even though there’s the possibility of them not keeping him. He thinks they have the leadership and motivation now to do better than this year.

In the other Williams car, there’s a bit of a bigger problem.

Pastor Maldonado came along with a ridiculously nice sponsorship deal for Williams with PDVSA, a Venezuelan government owned oil company. Autosport revealed that the deal could be worth up to nearly £30 MILLION next year alone.

Turns out though, the Venezuelan Congress should have approved this deal, as they have to approve something like this in the legislature. So far it seems this never happened, and congress must now investigate the details of the deal. This could put the entire thing into jeopardy.

Congressman Carlos Ramos has been the only one to really speak to the media about this. Williams has remained silent and will not comment. Ramos says he has asked the team for details of the contract and information on the amount of money they received this year.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I would imagine the only reason Maldonado is with this team is because of this money.

Photo from Flickr user nic_r.

A perfect picture summary of the day's events.

Bruno Senna’s worst GP2 nightmare came to Formula 1 today when a dog was spotted on track. Thankfully for Senna, who lost his front wing hitting a dog in Istanbul a few years ago, practice was suspended until the dog was off the track.

He said it’s definitely a problem that he saw the dog at the entrance to the paddock, and nobody did anything until it was a legitimate problem.

Lewis Hamilton was fastest in the first session, although later he was given a 3 grid spot penalty for setting his fastest lap while yellow flags were still waving near the site of Pastor Maldonado’s car, stopped because of engine troubles. Sergio Perez also received the same penalty for also setting his fastest lap while the yellow flag was out.

Hamilton fully accepts the penalty as his fault, as he had DRS enabled through there. Of course he has nobody to blame but himself, I love that he said “it was only me driving.” Sad he has to say that because DUH.

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were second and third fastest, with Jenson Button and the two Mercedes drivers behind them over a second.

Besides dogs and penalties, the word of the weekend is dust. Please note that it is highly recommended to leave dust out of your F1 drinking games this weekend, for you will need your stomach pumped before the race even starts.

Sebastian Vettel thinks the track will be better by the time of the race as the cars clear the track, but the off line will be extremely dusty. Of course then, if a car goes off into a dusty part of the track, coming back on the racing line means dust is brought back on.

For the afternoon session, Felipe Massa was the fastest car on track. Pastor Maldonado again had issues, this time going off into the gravel. A red flag occurred thanks to Jerome D’Ambrosio putting his Virgin into a wall, and not a wandering dog this time around.

The Mercedes cars of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher did horribly compared to the first session, finishing 19th and 21st respectively.

Vettel was once again second, followed by Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, and Mark Webber.

And on top of everything, the Metallica concert that coincides with race weekend was postponed due to “technical issues,” causing some people to get angry and start beating up on equipment. Sounds like for the most part everything has settled down though. There were also reports of fans waiting over 2 hours for a bus to come show up again to take them from the circuit after practice sessions were done.

Photo from Flickr user ccho.

Kimi at the 2009 Singapore Grand Prix

The Formula 1 rumor mill this weekend is most excellent, isn’t it? (Although I think the creation of an east coast Grand Prix was more a matter of “when” and not “if” ever.)

After being spotted at the Williams HQ a couple weeks back, Kimi Raikkonen was supposedly back at in Grove  to get fitted for a seat. According to Finnish news, he’s also started intense training to get himself back in shape for Formula 1, as training for rallying would not require the same type of training (for instance, F1 requires much more out of the neck muscles). He also may already have some sponsors.

Supposedly, a deal for 2012 could be announced at next weekend’s Indian Grand Prix.

Kimi Raikkonen moved to the World Rally Championship after the 2009 Formula 1 season to make way for Fernando Alonso at Ferrari. He’s also dabbled in NASCAR, but ultimately has only raced once. He was the 2007 Formula 1 world champion.

If he does in fact go to the Williams team, he will likely be taking Rubens Barrichello’s seat. Pastor Maldonado has sponsorship money from the Venezuelan government so he’s not going anywhere just yet.

Also in seat taking news is the man who Maldonado replaced at Williams: Nico Hulkenberg. Hulkenberg, currently a reserve driver for Force India, is rumored to be taking the seat of Adrian Sutil next season. According to a couple sources, this is already a done deal, for 1 year with an option for 2013. Vijay Mallya has said previously that there will be no news of a 2012 driver lineup for his team until December. Then again Mallya said Force India wasn’t for sale, and days later the Indian conglomerate group Sahara bought a 42.5 percent stake in the team, so who knows.

Photo from Flickr user Aural Asia

Sebastian Vettel getting out of the car, photo from Infiniti Global

Well this hasn’t happened before…nope…definitely not 9 other times this season alone.

Sebastian Vettel took his 10th pole of the season, and second of his career at Monza this morning. This is the first time a Red Bull Racing car has been on pole at the Italian Grand Prix.

Let’s start off in Q1, which looked to be going as planned..until Pastor Maldonado lost it coming through Parabolica and took off his car’s nose. The damage wasn’t too bad, as the team was able to send him back out, and he made it into Q2.

Timo Glock also nearly lost it, but also avoided a crash, although being in a Virgin car, he wasn’t ever going to be making it into Q2.

The usual drivers were knocked out with the rotating seventh spot going to Jaime Alguersuari.

Q2 looked to be the same: goodbye to the midpack teams: Saubers, Force Indias, Williams, and the Buemi half of Toro Rosso. It was close though, Bruno Senna just barely made it into the tenth position. The difference between his time and Paul di Resta’s time? Six thousandths of a second.

Sadly, Lotus Renault held Bruno Senna in the pits for the entirety of the Q3 session, so he will be starting tenth tomorrow. The last 2 minutes of the session looked like they were going to be crazy. All the cars were somewhat bunched up on the track, which looked like it was going to make the last run across the finish line rather hectic.

Instead, McLaren brought their drivers into the pits, as already on top Sebastian Vettel improved his time. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button will start second and third respectively, with Vettel’s teammate Mark Webber down in 5th (or 10th if he yet again has an awful start).

Ferrari, at their “home event,” did manage to do slightly better than hoped. Fernando Alonso will start fourth, Massa will start sixth.

Other bits before the entire grid for tomorrow:

- Vitaly Petrov will be using an all black helmet this weekend in remembrance of those who died in a plane crash in Russia on Wednesday.

- Lotus Renault used one of their curfew breaking days on Thursday night to get all the upgrades on their cars.

- The FIA has told the teams to stay within Pirelli’s camber recommendations (or I guess now that’s requirements) or there is a chance they could be disqualified from the race.

- Williams has been fined 5,000 euros for “breaching tire regulations.” Tires not meant for Friday practice were put on Rubens Barrichello’s car yesterday.

And now the grid below the cut!
» Continue reading “Sebastian Vettel On Pole for the Italian Grand Prix”

Surprise rain! Just kidding.

Q1 started out rather crazy. Michael Schumacher, as mentioned 382759 times now, is celebrating 20 years…by starting at the back of the grid tomorrow. Suddenly, one of the rear wheels just completely came off his car. Somebody’s in trouble in the Mercedes garage…

Jenson Button said conditions were worse than the Montreal race. But of course, then it started drying out….and then raining again. Button was able to set the fastest time at just over 2 minutes before the rain started up for the billionth time of the day.

The slowest of the slow (minus Timo Glock) should be excluded from the race according to the 107% rule, but of course they’ll probably use the “it was raining we couldn’t do it” excuse and be in the race. What’s the point of having the 107% rule if you never use it?

Heikki Kovalainen made it into Q2, knocking out a struggling Paul di Resta, except that the cameras decided to focus on the slow cars going to the pits instead. Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock were also knocked out. The two HRT cars and Jerome D’Ambrosio did not set a time fast enough for the 107% rule, but like I said, will probably start in the back anyway.

Q2 went on in a typical fashion for the wet, until Adrian Sutil lost control of his car on the wet paint of the curb just out of Eau Rouge. The session was red flagged soon after to get his car off the track and clear up the debris.

The best part of Spa is that it dries out in some parts while it’s still wet in others. Towards the end of Q2, faster times were finally being set. It got a bit chaotic, with Lewis Hamilton nearly bumping Pastor Maldonado and yet still getting fastest time of the session before Alonso went faster. Maldonado and Hamilton ended up actually hitting AFTER their laps were finished.

Jenson Button was knocked out, surprisingly only finishing 13th. Also knocked out in Q2: Sebastien Buemi, Kamui Kobayashi, Rubens Barrichello, Adrian Sutil, NASCAR Maldonado, and Heikki Kovalainen.

Teams went out on their soft slicks, and Felipe Massa went off track into gravel rather quickly. The dry line allowed the cars to use dry tires, and it didn’t rain again, despite dark clouds hanging overhead.

Times kept getting quicker and quicker as the track dried out. Lewis Hamilton looked to be taking the first non-Red Bull pole of the season, and as the SPEED announcers cheered that on, Vettel stole it from right under his nose by HALF a second.

Felipe Massa actually qualified ahead of Fernando Alonso. Bruno Senna will start P7 in his first race for Lotus Renault. He outqualifies teammate Vitaly Petrov, who will start 10th.

Grid with qualifying times under the cut. It’s entirely possible that Maldonado and possibly Hamilton judging by how much the stewards love him may have some kind of grid penalties later.

UPDATE: Pastor Maldonado has been given a 5 grid spot penalty for his actions. Lewis Hamilton was simply reprimanded, as it should be. All cars will be racing tomorrow.

» Continue reading “Belgian Grand Prix Qualifying Recap”

I figure this is a good article to have every Monday post-race. There’s always something after a race. Someone’s mad at someone else, someone’s mad at something that happened, Jarno Trulli is ranting in his newspaper column…

BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION
This time around I will agree with Trulli, unlike his previous complaints regarding everyone finishing the European Grand Prix. Yes, once again, it’s the silly blown diffuser argument. He says, “Even our engine guys couldn’t figure out what was allowed.” That is somewhat problematic.

It was fascinating though, considering Christian Horner and Martin Whitmarsh were the only two to really talk incessantly about the issue. Horner’s Red Bull Racing team is one of three teams using Renault engines, and Whitmarsh’s McLaren team is one of three using Mercedes engines.

But whatever. It’s done, hopefully.

ORDER ME SOME WHINE
Mark Webber says it was unnecessary for the team to tell him to maintain the gap to teammate Sebastian Vettel, rather than fight him for position. Webber argues that if Alonso failed to finish, they’d be fighting for P1. Christian Horner takes the “what if you idiots crash into each other like you did last year, huh?” route. Honestly, I can’t blame him after the McLaren drivers bumped each other last month.

Team orders are legal, but Horner claimed he would never take a part of them after last year’s use by Ferrari. Mark, you should just probably do what your team asks. I just want to slap both of them.

Oh, Horner hopes that Webber will still be signing a one year contract extension for next season. I would go elsewhere and let them give that seat to some newbie who gets it that he’s second fiddle to Mr. Vettel.

OTHER BITS
Williams says they are looking to keep both Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado for next season. It will be Barrichello’s 20th Formula 1 season.

Lotus Renault is working on rear exhausts for the German Grand Prix, as they feel their current forward facing ones are not helping them out. Cool concept, but they’ve really fallen back lately. The whole diffuser thing most likely did not help them either.

Ferrari are claiming that their first win of the season will lead them to not “getting carried away.” Well, that’s good to know, as it was just one win. On the less snarky side of things, I will be nice and say it’s good to see some team making improvements to the car rather than hurting it (see above.)

Red Bull is now 8 for 8 this season, taking all pole positions so far. Sebastian Vettel has taken all but one, when his teammate Mark Webber had the first spot for the Spanish Grand Prix in Catalunya. Vettel now has 22 poles in his career, and he’s not even 24 years old yet.

Since this is the first time I’m writing about qualifying here, I want to explain how it works. The first session, Q1, is 20 minutes long. All 24 cars on the grid are trying to get into the top 17 spots in order to advance. Positions 18-24 are decided after this session. Q2 is 15 minutes long, and only the top 10 cars move on from here. Q3 is the final session, 10 minutes long, and the entire grid is decided at this point, unless there are some grid penalties that will change it.

This season, the 107% rule has been reintroduced. All cars must complete a lap within 107% of the top car’s lap in Q1. The slowest cars on the track have broken this many times, and can petition in order to race. So far, drivers that have completely missed out have been allowed to race, making me question why they even bother having the rule.

On to qualifying: Q1 was typical as usual: the slowest 3 teams plus Jaime Alguesuari of Toro Rosso failed to make it through to the next round. Heikki Kovalainen of Team Lotus looked like he was going to make it out for once, but as usual that was only my dream.

» Continue reading “European Grand Prix Qualifying: Vettel Wasn’t Done Yet”