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

A rare mistake by God of Formula One

A Rare mistake by God of Formula One: Schumacher kisses the barriers

On a wet friday practice, God of Formula One Michael Schumacher spun and hit the barriers in the second practice. Michael Schumacher who had scored a P4 in the first practice, hit the barriers in the second. He conceded that it was his mistake as he was talking with his engineers on the radio while changing some settings and placed the tyre on the white line and the car spun. The car hit the barriers nose first and then the rear hit the barriers.

Michael Schumacher is known to be extremely good in giving feedback about his car while driving. He is reputed to drive as fast as he does even while giving continuos feedback over radio to his engineers. They say he uses half of his brain for driving and the other half for analysing and giving feedback. It is some kind of super human ability. However, in Hockenheim he made a very rare mistake while doing what he effortlessly does all the time.

A rare blip from the God of Formula One.


The weather forecasts suggest that there will be two days of rain followed by a race in dry conditions on sunday. If it is a wet race, then the mercedes will be good.

Michael Schumacher's team mate Nico Rosberg has been hit with a five grid slot penalty as he had to change his gear box.

In the First practice (FP1), Jenson Button was P1 and in the Second Practice (FP2) Pastor Maldonado scored the P1. Hope Maldonado doesn't hit anyone in the race.

Dani Clos of HRT again drove in the FP1 in the place of Narain Karthikeyan and came 24th as predicted with a time of 1:21.740 as against a time of 1:21.138 of Pedro de La Rosa in the FP1. Narain drove in the second practice and came 22nd vis a vis 24 of this team mate Pedro de La Rosa.

On saturday practice, it is to be seen whether the God of Formula One Schumacher kisses the Pole position or not. 

Corruption in F1 Sale

F1 and Corruption

Corruption has to be dealt with using the strongest possible penalties. Unfortunately, in a corruption case in F1 sale, not many companies have come forward to speak against it.

On 27th June, Gerhard Gribkowsky was convicted by a German Court as it was found that he has taken 44 million USD in bribe from Bernie Ecclestone for the sale of F1 and failing to pay tax on that 44 million USD. Gerhard Gribkowsky was the risk manager in Bayern Landesbank and played a key role in the sale of F1 to Bernie Ecclestone's favourite candidate. At this point of time Bernie Ecclestone faces no charges as the case was limited to tax fraud. Bernie Ecclestone was reported to have submitted to the court that he was blackmailed to pay the money. German Chief Prosecutor Christoph Rodler had told the court that "Ecclestone was not a victim of blackmail, rather a co-perpetrator in bribery." He had further said that "Gribkowsky did not receive a consultant fee, rather bribery payments" from Bernie Ecclestone.

Unfortunately, despite this case going on for sometime, the F1 teams didn't speak out against corruption. Now for the first time after the formal conviction of Gerhard Gribkowsky, Daimler group has come strongly spoken out and have demanded a thorough enquiry.

Since Bernie Ecclestone controls the F1 with a very strong hand, he is not likely to agree to a thorough probe into the events surrounding the sale of F1 by Bayern LB. It is reported in a German paper Handelsblatt that Daimler has said "does not tolerate the immoral or corrupt practices of its employees or its business partners." It may so happen that Daimler who owns the Mercedes team may pull out of F1.

Daimler coming out strongly against corruption will also enhance its reputation, especially in the developing countries where the perception is that companies from developed countries blame third world countries like India and China for corruption but themselves do nothing to stop it. It appears finally a company is walking the talk as far as corruption is concerned.

The last word on this issue is yet to be spoken on F1 and corruption...