Sunday, July 28, 2013

Lewis Hamilton wins F1 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton wins F1 Hungarian Grand Prix


Hamilton registers his first win with Mercedes team as he wins the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix 2013.

Lewis Hamilton started on pole and managed to retain the lead in the rush to the turn 1 where as his team mate Nico Rosberg hurtled back and was one lap down when he retired in lap 66. Hamilton did the first stop for tyre change in lap 10th. He made two further stops to win the Hungarian Grand Prix 2013.

The race was more or less decided when after the first pit stop Hamilton rejoined behind Jenson Button who was on medium tyres and could immediately overtake him. However, Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull similarly joined behind Button after the first pit stop but couldn’t pass him. At one stage the pack of three cars of Button followed by Vettel and Grosjean were trying to fight each other and lost a lot of time. In the end that proved to be crucial.

The race had its moments when different players set the fastest lap times at different times based on the time they changed to new tires. Vettel made a stop in lap 56 and immediately after in lap 60 set a fastest lap time which was nearly a second faster than that of Hamilton in that lap. However, Hamilton continued his composure and won the race easily.

Mark Webber shifted to soft tyres in lap 60 and then set a fastest lap time 1:24.069 in lap 61. However he was more than 20 seconds behind Hamilton and hence didn’t pose any challenge. Soon the challengers realised the inevitability and settled into a rhythm. So Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus finished in 2nd position as he could make his two stop strategy work to perfection. Kimi Raikkonen was followed by Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull in 3rd.

Jenson Button of McLaren was the other driver in two stop strategy and finished in 7th.

Final Standings in F1 Hungarian Grand Prix


1. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
2. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull
4. Mark Webber Red Bull
5. Fernando Alonso Ferrari
6. Romain Grosjean Lotus
7. Jenson Button McLaren
8. Felipe Massa Ferrari
9. Sergio Perez McLaren
10. Pastor Maldonado Williams
11. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber
12. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso
13. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso
14. G. Van der Garde Caterham
15. Charles Pic Marussia
16. Jules Bianchi Marussia
17. Max Chilton Caterham



Retirements in F1 Hungarian Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg Mercedes
Valteri Bottas Willams
Esteban Gutierrez Sauber
Adrian Sutil Force India


Lewis Hamilton was incredibly happy to win the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix as his first victory with Mercedes team.


Saturday, July 27, 2013

Hamilton snatches Pole in Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying

Hamilton snatches Pole in Hungarian F1 Grand Prix Qualifying


In the Final leg of the Qualifying, Lewis Hamilton drove at a scorching pace to snatch the pole position from Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull. Lewis Hamilton scored 1:19.388 vs 1:19.426 of Sebastian Vettel.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus came third in 1:19.595. He was followed by Nico Rosberg in 4th with a time of 1:19.720.
Fernando Alonso of Ferrari came 5th and will start in the 3rd row with Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus on 6th. They were timed at 1:19.791 and 1:19.851.
Felipe Massa of Ferrari scored 1:19.929 to come at P7th and was followed by Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso at 8th with a time of 1:20.641.

Sergio Perez of McLaren came 9th with a time of 1:22.398. He was followed by Mark Webber of Red Bull - who had limped into the Q3 ie. Final leg of qualifying – choosing not to set a time.

We were surprised when Mercedes took P1-2 positions in the first segment of the qualifying Q1 in the F1 Hungary Grand Prix. With Romain Grosjean topping the timesheets in the Practice 3, it was expected that the lotus will give a fight to the Red Bulls. However, Mercedes decided to show its hand in the Q1 in qualifying with Nico Rosberg leading his teammate Lewis Hamilton 1:20.350 to 1:20.363 for P1 and P2 positions.

Mark Webber of Red Bull had an electrical problem and finished at 13th position in the Q1. Paul di Resta of Force India was a surprise dropout in the Q1.

Drivers eliminated in Q1 in Hungarian F1 Grand Prix Qualifying


17. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:21.724
18. Paul di Resta Force India 1:22.043
19. Charles Pic Caterham 1:23.007
20. G. van der Garde Caterham 1:23.333
21. Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:23.787
22. Max Chilton Marussia 1:23.997

In the Q2 it was again P1 and P2 for the Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton with times of 1:19.778 vs 1:19.862. Whereas Sergio Perez could squeeze in to 10th position his team mate Jenson Button was only 13th. Daniel Ricciardo was 7th in Q2, but his teammate Jules Eric Vergne couldn’t make the top ten shoot out as he finished in 14th with times of 1:20.527 vs 1:21.029. Clearly Daniel Ricciardo is making his case stronger for getting the Red Bull seat next year, atleast above Vergne.

Drivers eliminated in Q2 in Hungarian F1 Grand Prix Qualifying

11. Adrian Sutil Force India 1:20.569
12. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber 1:20.580
13. Jenson Button McLaren 1:20.777
14. Jules Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:21.029
15. Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:21.133
16. Valteri Bottas Williams 1:21.219


Sunday, July 7, 2013

Vettel beats Kimi Raikkonen to win German GP

Vettel beats Raikkonen to win German Grand Prix


Sebastian Vettel bounced back from retirement in Silverstone to score a win in Germany to further extend his lead in the Formula 1 championship.

Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were in touching distance of each other. However, Vettel could manage to keep Kimi behind and won the race by just a second. This was the first time Sebastian Vettel won his home race.

Sebastian Vettel was second behind Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes in the starting grid, but made a strong start and grabbed the lead in the first corner. Romain Grosjean of Lotus made some good attempts to grab the lead from Vettel, but couldn’t succeed. However, the tyre explosion saga in Silverstone and the subsequent tyre changes for the German GP had ensured that Red Bull had a good pace here. Vettel managed to hold off both the Lotus cars and Grosjean later finished in the podium in the third place by just managing to hold off Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.

Mark Webber’s luck was not on his side as the Red Bull team made an egregious pitstop error and failed to tighten his right rear wheel when he pitted in lap 9. As a result the right rear wheel came out and hit a cameraman in the pits. The cameraman had bruises and laceartions in the body and is in hospital under observation. This blunder by the Red Bull team ensured that Webber was down by a lap when he again joined the race. However, a safety car caused by the retirement of Marussia car of Jules Bianchi resulted in Mark Webber able to catch up with others. Mark Webber finished in seventh. However, he is being investigated for unsafe release. It is to be seen if Webber will be penalised and demoted or only the team will be penalised.

Lewis Hamilton who was on pole sadly finished on 5th. Luck is not in his side as despite being on pole he has not been able to record race wins. He was also slowed down as his team mate Nico Rosberg held him up despite being on a different strategy. At times your teammate is your worst enemy, especially if he is Nico Rosberg. Lewis Hamilton also couldn’t take the advantage of Safety car like his rivals. In Lap 23 Jules Bianchi retired just after Lewis Hamilton had made his pitstop. Fate can be cruel.

Jenson Button of McLaren who started on 9th position finished on 6th position.
Button’s teammate Sergio Perez finished on 8th position followed by Nico Rosberg of Mercedes in 9th and Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber in 10th.

Unsafe release:
Paul di Resta finished in 11th. Di Resta’s unsafe release in lap 5 will be investigated after the race. He was released when Vergne was there and they managed to avoid each other.

Daniel Ricciardo who had shown much promise in the qualifying finished in 12th. Adrian Sutil of Force India finished in 13th. Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber finished in 14th followed by Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas of Williams in 15th and 16th position. They were followed by perennial backbenchers Charels Pic, Giedo van der Garde and Max Chilton

Retirements in German Grand Prix


Jean Eric Vergne
Jules Bianchi
Felipe Massa

Fastest lap in German Grand Prix

Fernando Alonso of Ferrari had the honour of scoring the fastest lap in the race in lap 51 with a time of 1:33.468








Saturday, July 6, 2013

Lewis Hamilton scores Pole for Mercedes in Germany

Lewis Hamilton scores Pole for Mercedes in Germany


Lewis Hamilton snatches the pole position in Germany for the German team.

It was an interesting formula one qualifying in Germany. In the Q1, only Redbull and Mercedes used medium tyres, and all the other teams had to resort to soft tyres to qualify. The soft tyre is about 1.5 seconds faster than the medium tyres. This shows that Mercedes and Redbull have an edge over others in this circuit.

Eliminations in Q1 in German Grand Prix

The usual suspects were eliminated in the Q1, namely:
Valtteri Bottas and Pastor Maldonado, Charles Pic, Jules Bianchi, Geido Van der Garde, Max Chilton. There was slightly nearly four and half seconds difference between the fastest and the slowest car in Q1.

Sergio Perez was in danger of not qualifying for Q2 as he was down at 18th position before he put together a lap in the dying seconds of Q1 to move into Q2.

Intense drama in Q2 in German Grand Prix 2013

There was lot of drama in the Q2
In the Q2, the Red Bull team kept their drivers in their garage and released them with about five and half minutes remaining what appeared to be for a single run. They appeared to be saving their soft tyres. Vettel and Webber posted identical sector times in S1 and S2 but webber scored a slower S3 and as a result Vettel took P1 position in Q2 ahead of Hamilton and Webber.

Mercedes decided not to run their drivers again as they were initially 1-2. However, in the dying seconds of Q2, Grosjean came ahead of Hamilton and then Alonso scored a provisional P1 to be just inched by his team mate Felipe Massa. Then Ricciardo, Hulkenberg and Jenson Button all pushed through to push out Nico Rosberg out of Q3. Kimi Raikkonen did a flyer to score P2 in Q2 in the last few seconds. The difference between Hamilton was 1:30.152 and Rosberg 1:30.326

Drivers eliminated in Q2 in F1 German Grand Prix 2013


11. Nico Rosberg Mercedes
12. Paul di Resta Force India
13. Sergio Perez McLaren
14. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber
15. Adrian Sutil Force India
16. Jean Eric Vergne Toro Rosso

In Q3, both the Ferrari drivers and Jenson Button of McLaren came out on medium tyres. Perhaps they expect the soft tyre not to last only for a short time so that they will get advantage if they use a medium tyre.

There was a fight for the pole as Vettel went fractionally ahead of Hamilton with a great third sector. However, Hamilton hit back by knocking off 0.2 seconds in the first sector, matching Vettel in the second sector and again besting him in the third sector. So Lewis Hamilton scored 1:29.398 seconds to Sebastian Vettel’s time of 1:29.501 seconds. It was a happy moment for Mercedes as they got the Pole in Germany, their home country. The German fans roared when Lewis Hamilton scored the pole. The blow of Nico Rosberg, a german driver of Mercedes not qualifying for the Q3 was forgotten.

Mark Webber or Red Bull scored P3 with a time of 1:29.608 followed by Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus who scored 1:29.892. Both of them will start in the second row.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus scored P5 with time of 1:29.959 and Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso scored P6 with 1:30.528.

Felipe Massa of Ferrari came ahead of his teammate Fernando Alonso for the 7th and 8th positions with times of 1:31.126 and 1:31.209 respectively.

Jenson Button of McLaren and Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber didn’t register a time. This allows them to choose a tyre ie. both of them can either start with soft tyre or medium tyres.

It is a proud moment for Nico Hulkenberg, another German, to be on P10 as his previous races this year are forgettable.

It would be a very interesting race tomorrow in the F1 German Grand Prix 2013