So now the F1 bandwagon is now well and truely experiencing the Summer break, this gives every F1 fan to step back and reflect on the big talking points through the first half of this exciting season.
One question that will arise during the 3 weeks we have off is the determining factors on to which how Ferrari and Mclaren have managed to catch up with RedBull. There are many reasons why people think RedBull are in a crisis, after the truely monumental start to the season Seb Vettel had, winning 6 of the first 8 races and finishing 2nd in the other 2 people were already looking forward to 2012.
However the domination came to an exceptionally abrupt halt come the Silverstone weekend. The Weekend was surrounded by the Controversy over the Hot blown diffusers, the very device many teams had adopted and a key success to the downforce of the RedBull car. The device was banned for the entire weekend and this was all the incentive Ferrari needed to strike! Alonso with a carefully but magnificently well thought out race managed to jump both RedBull's to win that weekend.
One factor that shouldnt be overlooked was however was the Weather. The past 3 races have either been played out in rainy and mixed conditions or in the case of the Nurburgring very very cold temperatures. This highlights perhaps the RedBull car's weakness compared to the McLaren and Ferrari, that would be getting heat into the tyres in a very short amount of time. This was highlighted in its most prominent fashion at the Hungaroring where the wet conditions forced cars to start on the intermediate tyres, both Vettel and Webber were swamped at the start as they struggled to get any heat into the tyres meaning no grip. This therefore poses the question, are the RedBull's too kind on their tyres?
If this is the case Christian Horner must definately be worried for the next race in Spa. The weather has always played a major part in the results of the races and it is always traditionally cold. This means that McLaren and Ferrari must be rubbing their hands as we speak at the prospect of another unpredictable race. Alonso in particular who has been the clear form man in the past 4 races has still not given up on the 2011 WDC and if anyone can chuck the form guide up in the air your money has to be him, with a special Monza package coming for the Italian Gp he looks set to carry on podium or even win success.
That leaves McLaren, In Hungary they were dominant, leading 1-2 before Hamilton made a mess of the turn 6 and 7 chicane, span and coincidently forced Paul Di Resta off the track trying to Recover. This meant a Drive- through penalty came his way coupled with a dodgy decision on tyres when it started raining again, However in the later stages of the race he fought back to a valiant 4th. Jenson went on to win in his 200th Gp mastering the changing conditions and got his season back on track after 2 retirements.
With Mercedes Power and a cracker of a DRS device they look set for a very strong result in Monza, and Spa a real driver's circuit must be wetting the apetite of Hamilton in particular.
But for us F1 fans the results have turned into a waiting game, as the F1 summer break is enforced it leaves us to ponder the thought of the WDC definately heating up when the F1 Circus rolls up to the damp Spa - Francorchamps circuit.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Monday, 25 July 2011
RedBull despair at the Nurburgring
As an avid Formula 1 fan for over 14 years, i plan to over the coming weeks, give a unique perspective and overview of every race that goes by in the 2011 F1 season.
What better weekend to start with than here at the Nurburgring.
Coming into the weekend after a strong race at Silverstone, Ferrari were very optimistic of another very strong result here, after being very quiet over the hot blown diffuser row and introducing numerous new upgrades. McLaren too felt a strong result could be achieved at the Nurburgring, with Jenson fired up after a pitstop mistake forced him to retire at his home race, and Lewis after recent criticism of his beahviour on track was looking to put his critics to bed with a strong drive as ever.
As ever, the Eiffel mountains provided "interesting" weather conditions for the drivers to deal with, as track temperatures barely managed to top 20 degrees and rain threatening at every opportunity. Flashbacks of 2007 and even 1999 were evident.
Practice Sessions provided enough evidence that the Redbull dominance was far from convincing, with both Alonso and Hamilton making the most of the mixed conditions to push both Webber and Vettel at the top of the timing. Qualifying too was to be a lottery with the weather clearly in indecision, and it was to to be the driver who could confidently get heat into the tyres that would maximise his chances. Throughout the weekend Vettel had been looking less confident and seemingly couldnt get the car dialled into the slippery conditions. This became more evident as he could only put his RedBull 3rd on the grid, however a resurgant Webber adamant to prove his speed provided a cracking lap to put himself on pole wringing the neck of his RedBull. However the suprise would be McLaren and in particular Lewis driving to what he said was one of the best qualifying laps of his career, super confident as always he pushed the boundaries his McLaren could achieve matching Webber in the last of the late brakers enabling him to put his car 2nd on the grid while his teammate had a torrid time qualifying 7th 1.1 seconds off.
Come Race day Rain was expected but although it threatened, it never materialised meaning a dry but very slippery track surface awaited. Come the start Webber made a dire start from pole position allowing Lewis to get the jump on him, while Vettel had his hands full with the Ferrari's losing a position to Alonso demoting him to 4th place. Button's weekend went from bad to worse as he dropped to 10th from the start, finding himself tucked up behind Petrov's Renault.
The order stabilised with Hamilton leading from Webber and then Alonso, then on lap 10 the ever Consistent Vettel made a serious error dipping a wheel on the wet Astro Turf leading into turn 10, leading him to spin and drop11 seconds to the leaders.
At the front, the top 3 were covered by a mere 3 seconds leading up to the first 3 stops. Webber became the first guy to blink attempting the ever important undercut on new tyres while Hamilton and Alonso stayed out. Webber rejoined behind Sutil, quickly blasting past him and fast catching his team mate Vettel who he quickly dispachted. Lewis and Fernando pitted in unison coming out directly in the firing line of Webber attacking Massa into turn 1. Massa pitted for the first time dropping him to 8th place just ahead of the recovering Vettel.
The battle continued to rage upfront, with Webber holding off Alonso and Hamilton. Massa and Vettel bth started to climb back through the field passing both Kobayashi and Petrov on track, and Sutil and Button during the pit stop phase. The order remained static until the 2nd pit stop phase where Button had to retire due to an hydraulics failure, allowing Sutil some breathing space.
Up front Alonso managed to leapfrog Hamilton in the pit stops however due to the McLaren driver having more confidence on the new tyres due to stopping earlier he then re passed Alonso come turn 2, as Alonso felt his way around the first lap on new rubber. Track conditions began to evolve favouring the fresh hard tyres, this became evident as Lewis pitted for his 3rd and final stop blinking first of the top 3. Webber and Alonso stayed out trying to maximise the soft tyres as the fuel loads dropped. However the hard tyres were so much faster as Lewis started lighting up the timing screens. Alonso blinked next leaving Webber out alone, however both could not maximise the soft tyre advantage and stayed out too long enabling Hamilton to leap frog both to lead. This proved enough for 1st place as Webber and Alonso had no reply on the hard tyres.
Massa and Vettel's battle went to the pitstops as both pitted together on the penultimate lap, however Vettel managed to jump Massa due to a sticky rear wheel nut on the Ferrari allowing Vettel to capture 4th.
On another note the ever Consistent Heidfield had a day to forget making contact with Paul Di Resta on the first lap dropping both down to the back of the field. He was to get penalised for that incident before getting squeezed off the track by Buemi's STR sending Heidfield litteraly flying into the gravel trap. Buemi would be later given a 5 place grid penalty for the incident after the race for the Hungarian Gp.
This weekend leads to lots of questions going into Hungary. Will the McLarens carry the performance to Budapest? or did the slippery track conditions favour the McLaren car? Can Vettel stamp his dominance back on the Championship with a dominant weekend? Or was the Ferrari and McLaren pace a true sign theyre catching up? Will the promised improved pace of the Mercedes Gp car ever be fulfilled? Furthermore can Webber finally clinch his maiden 2011 F1 win after a string of 4 consecutive 3rd place finishes?
Going into the Budapest weekend Christian Horner has a lot of head scratching to do, as Webber and Vettel voice their opinions on improvements for the car. All this means is that the championship is far from over, and once again questions hang over the head of Vettel's ability to fight through the pack when hes not leading from the front. He still leads Hamilton by 82 and Alonso 86 points respectively, but it seems the tide is very slowly changing in favour of the 2 challengers.
Driver of the day had to be Lewis Hamilton or Adrian Sutil with a fantastic 6th place.
Villain of the day had to be Sebastian Buemi.
What better weekend to start with than here at the Nurburgring.
Coming into the weekend after a strong race at Silverstone, Ferrari were very optimistic of another very strong result here, after being very quiet over the hot blown diffuser row and introducing numerous new upgrades. McLaren too felt a strong result could be achieved at the Nurburgring, with Jenson fired up after a pitstop mistake forced him to retire at his home race, and Lewis after recent criticism of his beahviour on track was looking to put his critics to bed with a strong drive as ever.
As ever, the Eiffel mountains provided "interesting" weather conditions for the drivers to deal with, as track temperatures barely managed to top 20 degrees and rain threatening at every opportunity. Flashbacks of 2007 and even 1999 were evident.
Practice Sessions provided enough evidence that the Redbull dominance was far from convincing, with both Alonso and Hamilton making the most of the mixed conditions to push both Webber and Vettel at the top of the timing. Qualifying too was to be a lottery with the weather clearly in indecision, and it was to to be the driver who could confidently get heat into the tyres that would maximise his chances. Throughout the weekend Vettel had been looking less confident and seemingly couldnt get the car dialled into the slippery conditions. This became more evident as he could only put his RedBull 3rd on the grid, however a resurgant Webber adamant to prove his speed provided a cracking lap to put himself on pole wringing the neck of his RedBull. However the suprise would be McLaren and in particular Lewis driving to what he said was one of the best qualifying laps of his career, super confident as always he pushed the boundaries his McLaren could achieve matching Webber in the last of the late brakers enabling him to put his car 2nd on the grid while his teammate had a torrid time qualifying 7th 1.1 seconds off.
Come Race day Rain was expected but although it threatened, it never materialised meaning a dry but very slippery track surface awaited. Come the start Webber made a dire start from pole position allowing Lewis to get the jump on him, while Vettel had his hands full with the Ferrari's losing a position to Alonso demoting him to 4th place. Button's weekend went from bad to worse as he dropped to 10th from the start, finding himself tucked up behind Petrov's Renault.
The order stabilised with Hamilton leading from Webber and then Alonso, then on lap 10 the ever Consistent Vettel made a serious error dipping a wheel on the wet Astro Turf leading into turn 10, leading him to spin and drop11 seconds to the leaders.
At the front, the top 3 were covered by a mere 3 seconds leading up to the first 3 stops. Webber became the first guy to blink attempting the ever important undercut on new tyres while Hamilton and Alonso stayed out. Webber rejoined behind Sutil, quickly blasting past him and fast catching his team mate Vettel who he quickly dispachted. Lewis and Fernando pitted in unison coming out directly in the firing line of Webber attacking Massa into turn 1. Massa pitted for the first time dropping him to 8th place just ahead of the recovering Vettel.
The battle continued to rage upfront, with Webber holding off Alonso and Hamilton. Massa and Vettel bth started to climb back through the field passing both Kobayashi and Petrov on track, and Sutil and Button during the pit stop phase. The order remained static until the 2nd pit stop phase where Button had to retire due to an hydraulics failure, allowing Sutil some breathing space.
Up front Alonso managed to leapfrog Hamilton in the pit stops however due to the McLaren driver having more confidence on the new tyres due to stopping earlier he then re passed Alonso come turn 2, as Alonso felt his way around the first lap on new rubber. Track conditions began to evolve favouring the fresh hard tyres, this became evident as Lewis pitted for his 3rd and final stop blinking first of the top 3. Webber and Alonso stayed out trying to maximise the soft tyres as the fuel loads dropped. However the hard tyres were so much faster as Lewis started lighting up the timing screens. Alonso blinked next leaving Webber out alone, however both could not maximise the soft tyre advantage and stayed out too long enabling Hamilton to leap frog both to lead. This proved enough for 1st place as Webber and Alonso had no reply on the hard tyres.
Massa and Vettel's battle went to the pitstops as both pitted together on the penultimate lap, however Vettel managed to jump Massa due to a sticky rear wheel nut on the Ferrari allowing Vettel to capture 4th.
On another note the ever Consistent Heidfield had a day to forget making contact with Paul Di Resta on the first lap dropping both down to the back of the field. He was to get penalised for that incident before getting squeezed off the track by Buemi's STR sending Heidfield litteraly flying into the gravel trap. Buemi would be later given a 5 place grid penalty for the incident after the race for the Hungarian Gp.
This weekend leads to lots of questions going into Hungary. Will the McLarens carry the performance to Budapest? or did the slippery track conditions favour the McLaren car? Can Vettel stamp his dominance back on the Championship with a dominant weekend? Or was the Ferrari and McLaren pace a true sign theyre catching up? Will the promised improved pace of the Mercedes Gp car ever be fulfilled? Furthermore can Webber finally clinch his maiden 2011 F1 win after a string of 4 consecutive 3rd place finishes?
Going into the Budapest weekend Christian Horner has a lot of head scratching to do, as Webber and Vettel voice their opinions on improvements for the car. All this means is that the championship is far from over, and once again questions hang over the head of Vettel's ability to fight through the pack when hes not leading from the front. He still leads Hamilton by 82 and Alonso 86 points respectively, but it seems the tide is very slowly changing in favour of the 2 challengers.
Driver of the day had to be Lewis Hamilton or Adrian Sutil with a fantastic 6th place.
Villain of the day had to be Sebastian Buemi.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)