Sorry for not posting for so long, I got caught up in Petit Le Mans and being ridiculously sick thanks to weather bouncing between hot and cold so quickly.

So what have we missed? The usual. “We’re gonna be great at Suzuka!” says Red Bull. “We need to do better!” says every team that isn’t Red Bull.

But the big thing said today? Technically it was said last Sunday, by Rob Smedley.

Rob Smedley, credit: pcw/Flickr

“Hold Hamilton as much as we can. Destroy his race as much as we can. Come on, boy…”

It can be heard in the official Formula1.com highlights video from Singapore. It’s not apparent when exactly it’s from, but one could certainly guess it could have been said right around the time the two collided on track.

So what should be done about it, if anything? Hamilton received a drive through penalty, and Massa finished poorly. I’ve heard people say Ferrari or Massa should be fined or penalized for it. I’ve seen others say it’s just normal radio chatter. I agree.

Had Massa literally destroyed Hamilton’s race, then yes, maybe this would be worth talking about.

In any case, it’s kind of hilarious to hear precious little Rob Smedley say such mean things when I will never forget, “Felipe baby, stay cool!”

First and foremost, let’s look at who has to pay up for errors at Singapore!

Renault was fined 7,500 Euros for a communication failure under the safety car. The team told Bruno Senna that he was behind Sergio Perez. He was indeed behind Perez on track, but in actuality Senna was a lap down from the Sauber driver. When Senna went in for the overtake after the safety car, he collided with Perez.

Team Lotus was fined 10,000 Euros for the unsafe release of Heikki Kovalainen in the pit lane. Kovalainen nearly collided with race winner Sebastian Vettel.

Michael Schumacher received a slap on the wrist for his accident, which saw him go slightly airborne as he ran into the back of Sergio Perez’s car. Despite everyone running into poor Sergio, he finished the race and appeared NOT to lash out at anyone…unlike a certain Brazilian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJfg-vjEgA

Felipe Massa interrupted an interview Lewis Hamilton was doing by slapping and pulling on his rival’s arm while saying “well done, good job.” You can hear Lewis tell him “don’t touch me.” Massa now claims that he is “over it.” Note that his boss, team principal Stefano Domenicali, said in an interview that he believed the contact between Hamilton and Massa during the race was just a racing incident.

Next month’s Indian Grand Prix comes with a slightly ridiculous tax issues. There is some confusion on whether or not drivers will be taxed on their income, but it looks like India wants a seventy percent corporation tax on 1/19 on each team’s turnover. Organizers have claimed they would pay customs and taxes for the teams, but that has yet to be seen. The 70% tax is absolutely insane, though. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but let’s say it’s $19 million (seems way low), 1/19 is a million, and 70% is 700,000. That is just a bit ridiculous for these teams towards the back of the grid. There’s talk of boycotting the event, and I’d completely understand. India, that’s a bit greedy for an event you’ve yet to even hold.

Additionally, a couple weeks ago some press members and others related to the sport were having issues getting visas for visiting India. Journalists need journalist visas, and they cost more than the tourist visas, and for god’s sake, the director of communications for the FIA is unhappy. If things continue like this, this race is going to have the plug pulled on it faster than you can say Istanbul Park.

This article is in German but it is a collection of ugly Formula 1 cars in celebration that rule changes next year will bring us another wave of ugly cars. Hopefully this time around, the cars that are ugly due to their 1970s dates will not be back. There are some hideous things in here.

One point at October 9th’s Japanese Grand Prix is all Sebastian Vettel needs to secure his second consecutive world championship. Vettel had no problem driving away to victory at the Singapore Grand Prix today, sometimes increasing the gap to second place by over a second per lap…until a safety car.

The Singapore GP has never been run without a safety car period, and it looked to be inevitable after a fight for position between Nico Rosberg and Sergio Perez. Rosberg passed Perez, and his teammate Michael Schumacher was right on the back of the Sauber, before getting slightly airborne and crashing into a wall.

Vettel was able to take off again after the safety car period ended, and cruised away. He only came somewhat close to losing his lead while passing through some traffic, where his gap to second place Jenson Button dropped to under 4 seconds. Vettel lapped all the way up to 7th place before the finish.

Of course, he also came somewhat close to losing everything when he was nearly hit by Heikki Kovalainen in the pit lane.

Lewis Hamilton managed to finish fifth, despite many pit stops and a drive through penalty for a collision with Felipe Massa. Hamilton damaged his front wing and punctured one of Massa’s tires. Massa managed to finish 9th.

Mark Webber finished third after yet another horrible start. He had not one, but two awesome passes on Fernando Alonso. This is the first time at Marina Bay that Alonso has not finished on the podium, instead coming in fourth.

Force India had an excellent race with both cars finishing in the points. Paul di Resta finished 6th and Adrian Sutil in 8th.

Jaime Alguersuari put his car into a wall with two laps remaining. It was an awkward spot, which would have required a safety car had it not been towards the end.

Also managing to retire before the end: Timo Glock, who managed to pull his car off to one of the side roads, and Jarno Trulli, who had an engine failure.

Poor Lotus Renault has not had the best of times recently. The Team Lotus car of Heikki Kovalainen managed to split their drivers, with Bruno Senna finishing 15th and Vitaly Petrov finishing 17th. Earlier this season, LRGP was on the podium, hell, I am still waiting to remove Nick Heidfeld’s name from tenth place in the championship points, and Petrov still has 34 himself.

Final thoughts: The Massa-Hamilton verbal battle is going to continue now, since Hamilton went in to pass Massa yesterday during qualifying. The incident today definitely won’t help that, plus the fact that Hamilton managed to finish four places ahead of the Brazilian.  Well turns out it’s gotten physical. Massa shoved Hamilton while Hamilton was doing an interview and had been asked if he could see Massa’s point, according to Will Buxton.

Suzuka is going to totally be another Red Bull-dominating race as the track completely suits their cars. It would have to take a collision for Vettel to not secure the championship in two weeks. Also it is going to be an amazing weekend of racing, with the Bathurst 1000 taking place in Australia before the Japanese Grand Prix.

Final results under the cut.

» Continue reading “One More Point! Vettel Cruises To Another Victory at Singapore”

Final Practice: Mark Webber was quickest in the final practice session.

Q1: As usual, it’s twenty minutes of cars going around a track while Lotus, Virgin, and HRT go slow and don’t make it to Q2. However, instead of a Williams, Sauber, or Toro Rosso taking 17th spot, one of the Renaults, which hasn’t been faring so well at this track, was knocked out.

knocked out: Vitaly Petrov, Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli, Timo Glock, Jerome D’Ambrosio, Daniel Ricciardo, Vitantonio Liuzzi (not starting 29th)

Q2: For the second day in a row, Kamui Kobayashi sent his car flying through the air…this time right into a wall, bringing out a red flag.

Towards the end of the session, things got a bit hairy for a couple drivers. While in 8th, with a couple minutes left, Lewis Hamilton had a rear puncture and would not be able to go back out. Lucky for him, the Force India drivers simply took 9th and 10th positions, with Paul di Resta knocking out Sergio Perez from the 10th spot at the last second.

knocked out: Sergio Perez, Rubens Barrichello, Pastor Maldonado, Sebastian Buemi, Bruno Senna, Jaime Alguersuari, Kamui Kobayashi

Q3: Once again, Sebastian Vettel is on pole this season. Red Bull Racing locked out the front row, with Mark Webber starting second tomorrow. The second row will be all McLaren with Jenson Button starting 3rd, and Lewis Hamilton starting 4th. And the third row is row Ferrari, with Alonso starting 5th, and Massa starting 6th.

Nico Rosberg will start 7th, and the cars starting 8th-10th didn’t even run in the session. Michael Schumacher started on a lap and didn’t complete it. The Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta did not run at all, as the teams effectively used all their tires.

If tomorrow’s race finished just like the grid, Sebastian Vettel will be world champion once again. Should be a good time tomorrow.

Friday’s first practice session at the Marina Bay Street Circuit had a long delay, thanks to loose plastic curbing along the track. The session ended up being cut down to an hour, as crews worked to fix the loose curbs around a couple turns. Problems continued into the second practice session,

The race organizers will be working overnight to fix curbing overnight, and the plan is as follows:

Turns 3 and 7: Curbing removed, a white line will be painted instead. Drivers will be instructed not to cross it.

Turns 10 and 13: Curbing will be fixed and will hopefully provide no further issues.

Turn 14: Curbing removed entirely.

Onto the practice itself! Lewis Hamilton topped the time charts in the first session, 1:48.599. Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, and Jenson Button were the next four quickest in the session. Beyond the issues with the curbs, Heikki Kovalainen’s car caught on fire. This time he did not put it out himself, sadly.

Mark Webber busted his front wing on Timo Glock’s car as he tried to pass the slower driver around the track.

Sebastian Vettel was the quickest driver in the second practice session, completing a lap around the track in 1:47.375, almost three-quarters of a second over teammate Mark Webber, who finished fifth. This time around, Vettel was the one who found Timo Glock to be in the way, but managed to not damage anything.

Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, and Felipe Massa took spots 2, 3, and 4, respectively.

Vitantonio Liuzzi, who sat out the first session for Narain Karthikeyan, finished last, and still has to start 29th on Sunday.

Both Sebastien Buemi and Michael Schumacher got cozy with the walls around the track, although Schumacher escaped any damage. Buemi managed to destroy his suspension. His teammate, Jaime Alguersuari, had to sit out most of the session with a mechanical problem. Toro Rosso did not have a very good day, as they “broke curfew” when Franz Tost showed up too early in the afternoon. Seriously. Instead of the usual overnight hours, curfew is 9am-3pm in Singapore.

Kamui Kobayashi took his Sauber flying, to round out the eventful day for everyone.

Marina Bay Street Circuit

Last year’s winner: Fernando Alonso

All times eastern
Friday, September 23
First practice session: 6am
Second practice session: 9:30am, live on SPEED

Saturday, September 24
Third practice session: 7am
Qualifying session: 10am, live on SPEED

Sunday, September 25
Race: 8am, pre-race show on SPEED begins at 7:30am
race reshown at 3pm

First and third practice sessions can be streamed live on speedTV.com
This is one of my favorite races due to the fact that the teams try to stay on European time despite being in Asia, which should be apparent by the later times for everything but the race. Thanks to geography and that choice to have a night race, this race still takes place at the typical time of a European race. Thank you for being so kind to us as to not make every race in Asia between 1 and 4am, Bernie.

This is the only night race on the Formula 1 calendar, as it enters its fourth appearance. Fernando Alonso won the first race in 2008, although it was quite the reputation ruiner.

The big story for this weekend: depending on where Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton finish this Sunday, Sebastian Vettel will become the youngest double world champion in the history of Formula 1. Both Alonso and Hamilton have had nothing but praise for Vettel recently, and both vow to make things difficult for him this weekend.

The DRS zone: Just one this time around, with the detection zone located at turn 4. The activation zone will be after turn 5, going into the longest straight of the track.

Tires for the weekend: Pirelli will supply the teams with soft and supersoft compounds for the race.

Weather: Hot and humid, there is a chance for rain, but it is unlikely to affect the race since it takes place at night.

Surprise guest host Former driver steward for the weekend: Heinz-Harald Frentzen, former Sauber/Williams/Jordan/Prost/Arrows driver. He was a steward for last year’s European Grand Prix. Apparently he’s well favored to come in at street circuits.

Other news: Kimi Raikkonen’s name is back on everyone’s tongues. The Finn has been talking to Williams, creating quite the speculation stir around the paddock. Time will tell if anything becomes of it, but Rubens Barrichello’s seat is not safe for next season at this point in time.

There are reports that Red Bull Racing broke the Resource Restriction Agreement, or RRA, last year. The RRA sets regulations for the team’s budget, and under the agreement, this would have required someone to sign off on it. Christian Horner has said it is false, and that people “will throw stones” at those who have had success.

Touche.