Let it sink in: Eddie Jordan was actually right.

And so were the first reports, for the most part. Lewis Hamilton will drive for Mercedes next year, but Schumacher has not announced his retirement, and from the looks of it doesn’t even want to retire.

Sergio Perez has already signed with McLaren to replace Hamilton, leaving an open seat at Sauber for next season.

Additionally, Jaime Alguersuari tweeted a few days ago that we will find out where he’s driving soon, which could possibly be that Sauber seat. Peter Sauber reportedly has said he will seek out Schumacher for the team if he’s available.

Welcome, silly season.

The FIA has confirmed the 2013 calendar, although the Grand Prix of America set to run in New Jersey next summer remains provisional.

A calendar was released last week during the Singapore Grand Prix, but some slight changes have been made. The Korean and Japanese Grands Prix have switched spots. The German Grand Prix’s weekend was changed, as was the Belgian race.

2013 Calendar

03/17 – Grand Prix of Australia
03/24 – Grand Prix of Malaysia
04/14 – Grand Prix of China
04/21 – Grand Prix of Bahrain
05/12 – Grand Prix of Spain
05/26 – Grand Prix of Monaco
06/09 – Grand Prix of Canada
06/16 – Grand Prix of America *
06/30 – Grand Prix of Great Britain
07/14 – Grand Prix of Germany
07/28 – Grand Prix of Hungary
08/25 – Grand Prix of Belgium
09/08 – Grand Prix of Italy
09/22 – Grand Prix of Singapore
10/06 – Grand Prix of Korea
10/13 – Grand Prix of Japan
10/27 – Grand Prix of India
11/03 – Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi
11/17 – Grand Prix of USA
11/24 – Grand Prix of Brazil

WordPress is a jerk.

So let’s see, what has gone on in the past week? First if you missed Sebastian Vettel on Letterman…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsc_62uNcKI

Definitely haven’t been trying to upload that for a week! Warning: if you can’t stand David Letterman, don’t even press play. His absolute obsession with Indy (as in the track) just ruins it.

- Some former drivers participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans this past weekend. It’s the first time in years I haven’t watched the entire thing but I was feeling rather apathetic towards it considering the lack of Peugeot. The usual ex-F1 suspects participated, with a few new faces. Sebastien Buemi, and Kazuki Nakajima, Karun Chandhok all made their first ever appearances at Le Mans. Things did not go too well for Buemi or Nakajima, as Toyota’s debut lead to neither car finishing. Chandhok’s team placed 6th overall.

For Anthony Davidson, it was quite a weekend. His Toyota prototype went flying through the air and landed him in the hospital with two broken vertebrae. Things were better for Giancarlo Fisichella, who brought his team home to a first place finish in their GT class.

- Michael Schumacher is being touted as the next winner of a race, which would be the snorefest that is Valencia, according to Paul Hembery from Pirelli. Kind of a weird thing for him to suggest given Schumacher’s criticisms of the tires so far this season.

- Lotus F1 are hoping to finish the season fourth in constructors points. Romain Grosjean is pretty close to victory that he’s appearing in my dreams as my roommate.

- Sauber is also hoping a win isn’t too far off, given Sergio Perez has had two podium appearances so far this season.

- There’s a new round of calls for cost cutting measures, which should come as no surprise. The FIA is hoping measures can be set in place for next season, but time is running out.

Tomorrow I think I’ll touch on how obnoxious it is to hear blase journalists and people like Alain Prost say the unpredictability and close racing is bad. GET. OVER. IT. Sorry we don’t all get to travel to Monaco and get paid for it. Jeez.

First of all, the two drivers involved in yesterday’s antics in practice ended up dead last on the grid. Pastor Maldonado and Sergio Perez ended up starting P23 and P24 respectively after gearbox changes.

Mark Webber managed to win from pole today in Monaco, as the rain everyone kept talking about never happened during the race.

One driver, Jean-Eric Vergne, did attempt the gamble on intermediates at the end of the race, which led to him falling out of the points positions.

The first corner of the first lap was chaotic, with Romain Grosjean spinning out and causing a safety car to be brought out so his car could be removed from the track. It was the only time the safety car was needed all race.

Maldonado made his win in Spain look like a total fluke this weekend as he hit the wall on the first lap, taking himself out of the race before it even started.

Kamui Kobayashi and Pedro de la Rosa both had to retire after being involved in these incidents. De la Rosa’s wing was taken out in Maldonado’s crash, and Kobayashi went airborne in the Grosjean incident, and later had to retire because of suspension damage.

Michael Schumacher was also involved in the Romain Grosjean incident, but was able to continue on until problems with fuel pressure took him out of the race.

Jenson Button and McLaren’s woes continued. Button could not get around Heikki Kovalainen’s Caterham. Button eventually had to retire towards the end of the race after a spin in his attempts to pass the Finn.

Kovalainen was almost in the points, but lost a few places after an incident with Sergio Perez, who also had a horrible day. Perez impeded Kimi Raikkonen on his way to the pits, causing Raikkonen to lose a position. Perez was given a drive through penalty for the late turn towards the pits.

Sebastian Vettel led the race for a good amount of time as he started on the soft tire. Red Bull were hoping for rain, which never came, but Vettel was able to maintain fourth place.

Lewis Hamilton didn’t enjoy himself much either, after complaining something hit his head near the pit boards, and also whining about not being kept up to date about drivers pitting. Both Fernando Alonso and Vettel were able to come back out of the pits ahead of Hamilton.

Webber makes an unprecedented sixth different winner in as many races. He is also one of the few drivers to win at Monaco from pole. This is however, the second win for Red Bull this season, so they easily have the lead in the Constructor’s Championship now.

Next race is in Montreal, which means I won’t fall asleep towards the end. Although I didn’t miss much of anything, it seems. Webber was able to hold on to his lead, despite having a train of cars behind him. Nico Rosberg was also on the podium once again, joined by Alonso.

Results after the cut: » Continue reading “Mark Webber Wins Monaco GP, Becomes Sixth Different Winner This Season”

Let me just say there’s nothing like waking up and finding out the Pastor Maldonado of last season is back and purposely crashing into people.

Maldonado hit Sergio Perez, barely giving him any room, during final practice. Maldonado eventually also just crashed out of the practice session. He has a ten grid spot penalty for the race, joining Michael Schumacher’s five spot for his incident last race.

So, not surprising that not even 5 minutes into Q1, Sergio Perez crashed out of qualifying. Perez looked completely unable to steer his car.

Drivers had to switch onto the supersoft tires, as the usual cars who qualify in the top ten were way down the charts, not even meeting the 107% rule! But all was well in the end, unless you were in a McLaren.

Knocked out in Q1: Heikki Kovalainen, Vitaly Petrov, Timo Glock, Pedro de la Rosa, Charles Pic, Narain Karthikeyan, Sergio Perez

Many cars started off on the supersofts for Q2. Jean-Eric Vergne lost his car and took off his front wing, knocking it under the front of his car. He limped his car back to the pits, probably ruining many a fast lap for cars that had to pass him.

With under 3 minutes left, Felipe Massa pulled off a time under 1 minute, 15 seconds, finally dethroning Nico Rosberg’s time. With that time, it was the first Q3 appearance of Massa this season. Finally.

Kimi Raikkonen barely squeaked through to Q3, but Jenson Button failed to make it out of Q2. Button joins the Force Indias, Toro Rossos, Kamui Kobayashi, and Bruno Senna. That’s two races in a row where Button has failed to get out of Q2.

Knocked out in Q2: Nico Hulkenberg, Kamui Kobayashi, Jenson Button, Bruno Senna, Paul di Resta, Daniel Ricciardo, Jean-Eric Vergne

During Q3, more cars posted times in the 1:14 range. All cars were out on track for the last 90 seconds.

Mark Webber looked to be taking pole, and then Michael Schumacher went fastest.

…And while he held up a finger to indicate his number one status, and his engineer said pole position!…you’ve got that five grid spot penalty.

So, Schumacher will start sixth, and Mark Webber is actually on pole. That makes two races in a row where the driver who actually qualifies for first doesn’t start first. You are all terrible people.

Starting grid with two current grid penalties (hopefully no more come along):
01. Mark Webber, Red Bull
02. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
03. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren
04. Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1
05. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari
06. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes
07. Felipe Massa, Ferrari
08. Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1
09. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
10. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India (was not in Q3, starts P10 because of Maldonado’s penalty)
» Continue reading “Mark Webber On Pole Because Grid Penalties Are Awesome!”

Nico Rosberg has finally managed to take pole position after many seasons of coming so close and yet never getting there. Because of Lewis Hamilton’s gearbox switch penalty, the first row will be all Mercedes, with Michael Schumacher starting second. Hamilton will now start seventh, behind Mark Webber and his teammate, Jenson Button.

It’s the first pole position for Mercedes since 1955.

Sauber once again had a strong showing, and Kamui Kobayashi will start third. Sergio Perez will start in the eighth spot.

It was not a good qualifying session for Sebastian Vettel, who could not make it out of Q2. For some reason, this surprises everyone to the point of obnoxiousness. If it’s so hard for you to tell one season from another, perhaps you should find other ways to amuse yourself on ocassion.

Times in Q2 were incredibly close together, making it quite obvious there was going to have to be at least one big name knocked out. Both Williams and both Force India cars were also out after this session.

HRT was well within the 107% rule for once, although Pedro de la Rosa was reprimanded for blocking, as was Williams driver Pastor Maldonado.

Race begins at 3am, I am going back to sleep. Full grid follows!
1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
2. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes
3. Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber
4. Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1
5. Jenson Button, McLaren
6. Mark Webber, Red Bull
7. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren
8. Sergio Perez, Sauber
9. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari
10. Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1
» Continue reading “Nico Rosberg Takes Pole For Mercedes In China”

Williams chairman Adam Parr will be leaving the team effective this Friday. Frank Williams, obvious founder of a team named Williams, had said Parr would be his natural successor.

Parr will be replaced by Nick Rose. It is not immediately known what Parr will do next but he did say he wants to spend more time with his family.

There is speculation that Ecclestone wanted Parr out as part of the creation of a new Concorde Agreement. Parr is a business man with no background in racing. Most would probably not consider that a problem, considering Parr’s ridiculously awesome work to get such backing out of Venezuela.

But it doesn’t seem to make sense considering the team’s good showing so far this season, which is why the speculation kind of makes sense…I suppose we may never know.

 

Sauber is hoping their podium finish will attract financial backing. The team does not have much backing, which also leads to many, many jokes about money saving measures. (I have to give it up to I believe it was redbullf1spy for tweeting “does Sauber make Perez pay for his own tires?” regarding the way Perez can make the things last.)

Pat Fry, technical chief at Ferrari, says the win on Sunday does not ease up the work the team still has with the F2012. There are still big gains that need to be made on the car before they can consider themselves to be championship contenders.

Bruno Senna feels like pressure has been lifted after his excellent finish at Sepang. Who could blame him? If it wasn’t for Sergio Perez’s fantastic drive, I think more people would be talking about him. But of course, that’s silly of me to expect since there’s still a legion of fools out there who think he’s just in F1 because of his name.

Note: he has skill that actually does not just come from having an uncle named Ayrton Senna.

Join me tomorrow if something exciting happens, as I have to report to jury duty, and actually if anyone involved in Formula 1 even sneezes, it’d be far more exciting.

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”

HRT will once again miss the first race of the season after failing to post Q1 qualifying times within the 107% rule.

HRT asked the stewards to consider letting them race, and the stewards denied the request.

The 107% time, that is 107% of the fastest time in Q1, was 1:32.214. Pedro de la Rosa’s fastest lap was 1:33.495, well over a second off the pace. Charles Pic of Marussia’s fastest lap was 1:31.670.

The two HRTs managed a time within the 107% time for their fastest laps in the third practice session. Neither set a time in the first, and only Narain Karthikeyan set one in the second session. That time isn’t even worth mentioning.

While I feel bad for the team having such issues, I do not feel bad for them not being able to race. This isn’t Le Mans where slow cars are to be expected as challenges to get around, since those cars are competing for victory. With HRT it’s like just trying to make sure nothing breaks. It’s dangerous to have them out there off the pace like that, especially considering how many offs there have been during practice.

They need more time to get it together and figure out what is wrong with their cars, and it shouldn’t be while everyone else is trying to race. The stewards made the right choice.

Also, Sergio Perez will start 22nd after the gearbox was changed in his car. Already.

2004 called, and Michael Schumacher was fastest overall in Friday’s afternoon practice session.

It of course rained between the first and second sessions. Some drivers went out while it was wet, on wet tires, but once again it came down to the last 30 minutes.

Mercedes powered teams made a strong showing, first with both Force India drivers. Nico Hulkenberg had the second fastest time overall, and while Paul di Resta was on top at one point, he finished sixth.

Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi also had a strong showing, despite the fact both almost pushed it too far in the wet. Kobayashi had an amazing save when he started to lose control around the final corner as time ran out. Perez was third fastest, and Kobayashi fifth fastest.

The two were separated by Fernando Alonso. Felipe Massa managed seventh overall, and also managed to not spin out.

Heikki Kovalainen, besides becoming an Angry Grassmowing Bird at one point, finished a surprising eighth overall, outpacing the Red Bull drivers.

Pedro de la Rosa was able to complete one whole lap!

Other things that have happened:

- The FIA is looking to get rid of the ugly noses on the cars next season. The rules in 2014 would actually kill them off, but apparently we are all a bunch of people with fine aesthetic taste and they want to please us.

- Teams want the FIA to police the RRA, or Resource Restriction Agreement. Actually, all teams except Red Bull and Toro Rosso signed the letter; previously Christian Horner has said he doesn’t think the RRA is the way to control costs. The letter asks the FIA to make teams follow the agreement through the sporting regulations.

- Pedro de la Rosa is confirmed as the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers Association, acronyms are so fun at 9am on a Friday) chairman. Rubens Barrichello was previously chair. Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa will continue to hold their roles as directors.

Red Bull Racing unveiled their car this morning, the RB8. The back-to-back champions are aiming for a third win with their updated car.

The car looks pretty similar to last year’s car, as does the McLaren. The only clear changes are to the nose and to the exhaust, obviously, to meet the new 2012 regulations.

The longer this goes on, the more I hate the nose. Two bad we have two more cars to cover… » Continue reading “Triple Launch Monday Unveils Red Bull, Toro Rosso, And Sauber Cars”