Hamilton wins F1 Melbourne season opener

Lewis Hamilton wins F1 Melbourne Season Opener

As expected Mercedes dominated in the 2015 season opener at Melbourne and defending champion Lewis Hamilton lead his teammate Nico Rosberg into a 1-2 finish in the Melbourne F1 Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel marked his Ferrari stint with a podium finish whereas teammate Kimi Raikkonen was done with due to a tyre not fit properly.

The 2015 F1 Grand Prix season opener had a lot of drama even before the engines were revved. Giedo van der Garde had filed a case against Sauber claiming that he had a contract with Sauber for racing in the 2015 season. Sauber denied that. However, in the court Sauber couldn't defend it. However, not to be undone, Sauber did not sign on the papers for the dutchman Garde to get the FIA Super license to be eligible to drive in the race. Finally they decided to continue discussing for an out of court settlement and Sauber raced with its nominated 2015 drivers, and out of those two drivers Felipe Nasr finished in 5th position. It finished the points drought of Sauber as it had gone blank in 2014.

Felipe Massa of Williams finished in 4th position. He had voiced his opinion about Ferrari being strong this year and he was proved right. His teammate Valtteri Bottas couldn't race due to a back injury during qualifying.

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull was 6th followed by Nico Hulkenberg of Force India in 7th. It was a very credible finish for Hulkenberg as Force India had hardly three days of testing due to funds constraints. Sahara group, one of the co-owners of Force India is in dire financial conditions. The owner of the Sahara group Subrata Roy is in jail since last year and has been unable to furnish the record bail amount of 10,000 crores of rupees which is slightly more than one and half billion dollars. Vijay Mallya, the other co-owner and face of Force India, himself is being hounded by the various banks as his Kingfisher airlines have sunk reportedly due to financial mis-management and the banks have lost around billion dollars lent to Kingfisher Airlines.

Marcus Ericsson of Sauber came in 8th to score 4 points. Carl Sainz of Toro Rosso was 9th with 2 points followed by Sergio Perez of Force India in the 10th and last points paying position.

Jenson Button of McLaren was finished 11th and out of points paying position. It was atleast good for the McLaren using the Honda engine that Button could atleast drive an entire race distance and the resulting feedback can help improve the team. The other McLaren was driven by Kevin Magnussen who failed to put in a lap. McLaren's high profile signing of Fernando Alonso had made an even bigger controversy when Alonso hit the wall during testing and appeared to have passed out. There were rumours that Alonso got an electrical shock and hit the wall at a medium speed. Later Alonso was advised to sit out the Australian Grand Prix. Unfortunately, his replacement the reserve driver Kevin Magnussen's car along with Daniil Kvyat's car couldn't start and only 15 cars started the race.

Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado were involved in accidents and couldn't last long. Verstappen, the 17 year old driver of Toro Rosso also retired.

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

Rosberg leads Mercedes 1-2 in Spanish Grand Prix

Rosberg leads Mercedes 1-2 in Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying

Nico Rosberg bags his second back to back pole in Spanish Grand Prix 2013

Nico Rosberg locked up the all Mercedes front row in Spanish Grand Prix 2013 qualifying with Lewis Hamilton qualifying second. Rosberg was faster than Lewis in all the three sectors.

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel of Redbull will start on third while Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus will start on 4th and in the second row alongside Vettel.

Fernando Alonso of Ferrari and his teammate Felipe Massa are on row three having qualified on 5th and 6th.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus will start on 7th followed by Mark Webber of Red Bull at 8th. Much was expected of Mark Webber after his not so good showing in the previous two Grand Prix. Many had expected that Mark Webber will come out stronger in his battle with Vettel but it seems Webber is unable to match up to him.

Sergio Perez of McLaren qualified on 9th and Paul di Resta of Force India is 10th.
Paul di Resta of Force India could manage to set the 10th fastest time in the Q2 and qualify for Q3. His teammate, Adrian Sutil was about 0.3 seconds slower and finished in 13th. Jenson Button of McLaren finished in 14th and to make matters worse his younger teammate Sergio Perez was about half a second faster than him and finished at 7th position in Q2. After Perez and Button were elbowing each other in the previous Bahrain Grand Prix, this huge mismatch in qualifying should come as a loss of face for Button.

Raikkonen was impeded by Sauber’s rookie paid driver Gutierrez. The result of the investigation will be known after the qualifying.

The Toro Rosso cars made a move upwards as none of their drivers got out in Q1. However, they just couldn’t make to the Q3. Both Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne finished in 11th and 12th positions.


Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber qualified in 15th and 16th positions.

Williams made the headlines, albeit for the wrong reasons as both its drivers got eliminated in Q1. Charles Pic of Caterham came up 22nd and last among the drivers. Both the Marussia cars of Jules Bianchi at 20th and Max Chilton at 21st qualified ahead of him. Van der Garde managed to beat his team mate as well as both the Marussia cars and qualified at 19th.

Pastor Maldonado at 18th again got outqualified by his rookie teammate Valeri Bottas who finished at 17th. Both the Willams drivers had driven identical 9 laps in Q1. It must be a strange feeling for Pastor Maldonado as last year at this venue he was on Pole position and had won the race.

We will notify the final grid positions after the investigation of the stewards.

Raikkonen wins Australian Grand Prix 2013

Raikkonen wins Australian Grand Prix

Raikkonen wins first race of 2013. in a topsy turvy race, where fortunes constantly fluctuated with changing weather conditions.

There were many drivers who led the race from time to time, however, it was Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus who go the first race win of the year under his belt with a two stop strategy. The Redbulls at the end didn't have the race pace to win despite showing impressive pace in the F1 Australian Grand Prix qualifying.

There were four retirements in the race. Rosberg who had led the race for sometime was one of them when his car failed in 26 laps. Maldonado of Williams too retired in lap no. 24. Ricciardo of Toro Rosso retired in lap 40. Nico Hulkenberg, the new Sauber recruit failed to start the race due to a fuel pump problem. He must be feeling bad as his replacement in Force India, Adrian Sutil led the race for sometime when other cars had pitted.

The Final standings in Australian Grand Prix are as follows:

1. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus
2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull
4. Felipe Masa Ferrari
5. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
6. Mark Webber Red Bull
7. Adrian Sutil Force India
8. Paul di Resta Force India
9. Jenson Button McLaren
10. Romain Grosjean Lotus
11. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso
12. Sergio Perez McLaren
13. Gutierrez Sauber
14. Valeri Bottas Williams
15. Bianchi Marussia
16. Charles Pic Caterham
17. Max Chilton Marussia
18. van der Garde Caterham

Retirements in Australian Grand Prix

Daniel Ricciardo
Nico Rosberg
Pastor Maldonado
Nico Hulkenberg

Vettel leads Redbull to 1-2 in Indian Grand Prix Qualifying

Vettel leads RedBull 1-2 in Indian Grand Prix 2012

Sebastian Vettel continued with his dominant run and scored the pole position which was barely 0.044 seconds than his team mate Mark Webber.

The second row is occupied by the McLaren drivers lead by Lewis Hamilton.

The third row now belongs to Ferrari drivers lead by Fernando Alonso.
Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus was seventh followed by Sergio Perez of Sauber. Amul would be very happy sponsoring the Sauber team. Pastor Maldonado of Williams was 9th followed by Nico Rosberg who didn’t choose to make a run in Q3.

Michael Schumacher was the big casualty as he could not qualify for the Q3 and was only 14th fastest with a time of 1:26.574. He was more than half a second slower than his team mate Nico Rosberg. We are not sure why there was a such a big gap between the two. In the last few grand prix races it was Michael who was generally faster than Nico Rosberg. We hope tomorrow will be better for Michael Schumacher as this will be his last Indian Grand Prix.

A late run from Pastor Maldonado resulted in him going to the top spot in Q1. The Williams team gave a strong performance in the Indian Grand Prix.

Heikki Kovalainen breached his Caterham in the dying minutes of Q1. He was eliminated in the Q1 along with Jean-Eric Vergne 1:27.525, Vitaly Petrov 1:28.756, Timo Glock 1:29.613, Pedro de la Rosa (1:30.592), Narain Karthikeyan (1:30.593) and Charles Pic (1:30:662). The 107% time was 1:32.071 and hence all drivers qualified and we will see a full grid tomorrow.

Narain Karthikeyan excelled in the Indian Grand Prix and was just one thousandth of a second slower than his team mate. He qualified at P23 followed by Charles Pic of Marussia.

Qualifying results of Indian Grand Prix 2012

1. Sebastian Vettel Redbull
2. Mark Webber Redbull
3. Lewis Hamilton McLaren
4. Jenson Button McLaren
5. Fernando Alonso Ferrari
6. Felipe Massa Ferrari
7. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus
8. Sergio Perez Sauber
9. Pastor Maldonado Williams
10. Nico Rosberg Mercedes
11. Romain Grosjean Lotus
12. Nico Hulkenberg Force India
13. Bruno Senna Williams
14. Michael Schumacher Mercedes
15. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso
16. Paul di Resta Force India
17. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber
18. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso
19. Vitaly Petrov Caterham
20. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham
21. Timo Glock Marussia
22. Pedro de la Rosa HRT
23. Narain Karthikeyan HRT
24. Charles Pic Marussia

First Lady Principal of Formula One

Formula One gets its First Woman Team Principal

Monisha Kaltenborn, an Indian by birth, is the first Lady to be a Principal of a Formula One team. In the high technology, motor racing battlefield, assuming the role of principal is not an easy job, especially when the Principal is not just for show.

Monisha Kaltenborn, 41,  has been given one third of the stake by its owner Peter Sauber.

A Sauber team statement said "we decided a long time ago that Monisha would take over from me, but we left the timing open. Now is a good time for both of us, so this is the right moment to pass on the baton. After all, there have been a number of races that I haven't been able to attend - most recently the Japanese Grand Prix, where the team put in an excellent performance."

The statement further added "I am in no doubt that Monisha has all the necessary skills to be an outstanding team principal, and I am equally certain she will ensure that the values underpinning the company live on. That is very important to me."

This is a significant event and the way she has quietly transformed the Sauber team is for all to see, as its young and erratic drivers have been in more podium positions than the Mercedes drivers in this season. Fernando Alonso, recently said about Michael Schumacher's competitiveness by saying that if Michael Schumacher had been driving Sauber's car, then he would have won three races by now. It is sad that Michael Schumacher and Sauber could not agree on a partnership next year else Schumacher would have been wining races for them.

Monisha Kaltenborn being an Indian by birth had first joined Sauber in 2000 and to run their legal department and had weaved her way upto the role of CEO in 2010. She immediately connected with sponsors in India before the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in 2011 and companies like Amul went on to sponsor them for other races as well. She will have a massive impact on Formula 1 in the years to come. All the best Manisha! India is proud of you.

F1 Drivers Championship 2012 after Bahrain

Sebastian Vettel is now leading the F1 2012 Championship after Bahrain Grand Prix.

There is not much difference between the top 5 drivers, so that championship is wide open.
Michael Schumacher who has been in the first two rows in qualifying in Australia, Malaysia and China has only 2 points to his name after Bahrain. It again reinforces the fact that the proof of the pudding is in eating ie. finishing the race in points scoring positions in F1.

The interesting thing is at the bottom of the table. Timo Glock and Charles Pic of Marussia are 19th and 20th at the moment due to their higher finish. Marussia finished in 14th and 15th position in Australia where as the best place finish of Caterham was 16th and 18th in Malaysia. So Marussia is now in the 10th position. If non of them last three teams ie. Marussia, Caterham or HRT finish in the points and if Caterham and HRT doesn't finish above 14th position, then Marussia will get the 10th position. That is vital because only the top 10 teams get money for the championship. That is many millions of dollars for the 10th placed team and it makes a huge difference to them.

Position	Driver	Team	Points
1	Sebastian Vettel	Redbull	53
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	49
3	Mark Webber	Redbull	43
4	Jenson Button	McLaren	43
5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	43
6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	35
7	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	34
8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	23
9	Sergio Perez	Sauber	22
10	Paul di Resta	Force India	15
11	Bruno Senna	Williams	14
12	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	9
13	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR	4
14	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	4
15	Daniel Ricciardo	STR	2
16	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	2
17	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	2
18	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	2
19	Timo Glock	Marussia	0
20	Charles Pic	Marussia	0
21	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	0
22	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	0
23	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT	0
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT	0