Vettel scores 9th Pole at Brazil

Sebastian Vettel takes pole in Brazilian Grand Prix

Sebastain Vettel took the pole position in a wet Brazilian Grand Prix 2013 qualifying with a massive 1.1s lead over his team mate Mark Webber. Vettel scored a 1:26.479 in his first attempt. Vettel is on course for his 9th straight win of the season. Nico Rosberg of Mercedes came second with 0.623 seconds behind Vettel with a time of 1:27.102.

Fernando Alonso or Ferrari came in third with 1:25.539 ahead of Mark Webber of Red Bull who was timed at 1:27.572. Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes, who has been complaining about his wet weather set up came in 5th with time of 1:27.677.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus came in 6th with a timing of 1:27.737 and was followed by Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso with a time of 1:28.052. His teammate Jean-Eric Vergne came in 8th with time of 1:28.081.

Felipe Massa who is driving his last race as a Ferrari driver scored a time of 1:28.109 for a P9 position. He was followed by Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber with a time of 1:29.582 for P10.

Heikki Kovalainen who is driving the last two races for Lotus in the place of Kimi Raikkonen was unlucky to miss out on the top ten shoot out by a mere 0.015 seconds and will start on 11th place on Sunday. Paul di Resta of Force India was 12th followed by Valtteri Bottas of Williams in 13th. The 14th place went to Sergio Perez of McLaren who is driving his last race for the team. Infact Perez smashed against a wall and was still faster than his teammate and former world champion Jenson Button who came in at 15th.

Adrian Sutil of Force India came in at 16th. Sutil has been hinting at a deal with Force India for the next season whereas di Resta who outraced him is hinting at moving away from formula 1 next year. Such is the intrigue in Formula 1.

Pastor Maldonado again was slower than his team mate and wills tart in 17th position. Maldonado has opted out of Williams and there is now lot of bad blood between him and the team.

Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber will start on 18th followed by Charles Pic of Caterham in 19th. Giedo van der Garde of Caterham will start in 20th followed by the Marussia duo of Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton.

It would be an interesting race due to the rains. Lets wait and see if Vettel indeed wins this race for a record breaking 9th win in a row. Will Mark Webber do some magic in his last race of his Formula 1 career?

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

Webber 6th winner in Six races

Mark Webber wins Monaco Grand Prix 2012. Mark Webber who had inherited the Pole after Michael Schumacher dropped down five places due to the penalty for colliding with Bruno Senna in Spanish Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg came in second and Alonso was third.

Michael Schumacher was again distinctly unlucky. He chose to take the outside route and had climbed to 3rd position when he was hit by Romain Grosjean and he dropped back to 8th. After that he was stuck behind the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen for half of the race till Kimi went for a change of tyres. Later Michael complained of some issue and retired leaving millions of his fans disappointed.

Sebastian Vettel lead the race when the race leaders went for tyre change. Vettel was on a different strategy. However, he finished 4th with 1.3 seconds behind Fernando Alonso. Lewis Hamilton finished 5th. Felipe Massa of Ferrari who is rumoured to be on the verge of being dropped by his team was the race leader for a few laps when others went for tire change. He finished at 6th position. Narain Karthikeyan finished the race at 15th position.

Grid Position	Driver	Team	Points	Gap
1	Mark Webber	Redbull	25
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	18	0.6
3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	15	0.9
4	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	12	1.3
5	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	10	4.1
6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	8	6.1
7	Paul de Resta	Force India	6	41.5
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	4	42.5
9	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	2	44.0
10	Bruno Senna	Williams	1	44.5
11	Sergio Perez	Sauber	0	1Lap
12	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	0	1Lap
13	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	0	1Lap
14	Timo Glock	Marussia	0	1Lap
15	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT	0	2Lap
16	Jenson Button	McLaren	Retired	8Lap
	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	Retired	13Lap
	Charles Pic	Marussia	Retired	14Lap
	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	Retired	15Lap
	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	Retired	63Lap
	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	Retired	73Lap
	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT	Retired
	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	Retired
	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	Retired

Politics on Resource Restriction Agreement - II

Politics on Resource Restriction Agreement - II

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Look who is talking of cost reduction!

Earlier we had highlighted the politics in the Resource Restriction Agreement with Red Bull and its sister team Toro Rosso not agreeing to it. http://www.arjunaubacha.blogspot.in/2012/03/politics-on-resource-restriction.html

Now, after the Mugello testing - the first in-season testing in several years - Christian Horner of Red bull has come out strongly against the in-season testing. In an interview to Autosport, Horner has said "any test time you have is useful, but whether it is the right thing for F1 to be testing in season is probably a bigger topic." He says that the the cost of in season testing is high. "If you look at the focus on cost saving, this test hasn't achieved that for any team."

"When you look at the cost of running here, we will have done three times the mileage of a grand prix weekend." Due to widespread demands, Formula 1 rules were tweaked to allow one in season testing from 2012. With Christian Horner's call for scrapping in season testing, many other Formula 1 team chiefs are clearly not amused.

Christian Horner alluding to high cost is to hit at all the other teams who had written a letter to FIA for strict policing of Resource Restriction norms. It is said that Red Bull has spent phenomenal amount of money to develop a winning car and win the F1 championship in the last two years. So this statement of Horner is to take the moral high ground of other teams and weaken the case for imposition of a budget limit for teams.

Clearly, the last word on the Resource Restriction Agreement issue is yet to be heard.