Fun F1

One thing is clear from the Chinese GP – as soon as the “top” teams sort out their new diffusers completely, Brawn GP won’t be a championship contender. It’s a big call I know, but to see how quick some of the teams were with their new diffuser designs straight out of the box, it just shows the Brawn will have to pump a lot of money into R&D to have any chance of staying in the championship.

Sebastian Vettel – Can’t say enough good things about this guy. What a magnificent pole and an even better victory!

Sebastien Buemi – Apart from almost taking Sebastian Vettel out of the race, Buemi was brilliant! It’s so great to see so much talent in F1 at the same time!

Mark Webber – It’s sad but here in Australia when Webber qualifys well you usually hear comments like “that’s good, but will he finish the race?”. Thankfully he finished the race this time and was unfortunate to not be closer to Vettel. Great job both in quali as usual and great to see him follow it up with a good race.

Red Bull Racing – Thankfully the cars held together. I have to say that again – thankfully the cars held together!! RBR looks very good in pre-season testing. If they can get their cars reliable and sort out a nice diffuser solution they really could have a shot at the championship.

Jenson Button – Solid job. Possibly took it easy to be “safe”?

Rubens Barrichello – Really needs to beat Button one of these days if he doesn’t want to relive his Ferrari days as the designated “number 2″.

Fernando Alonso – Unbelievable qualifying effort regardless of fuel loads. Not sure whether Renault could have managed the pitstops better though. I mean look at the position Force India managed to get Adrian Sutil in by pitting early during the safety car… Still, at least there’s a lot of potential for the future.

Adrian Sutil – So close to grabbing some serious points! It was like Monaco 2008 all over again. Heartbreaking

Lewis Hamilton – You have to give it to Lewis – he always seems to get the maximum out of the car. The results don’t reflect it, but without his spins off the track could he have been on the podium? Which step I wonder…

McLaren – Can someone confirm McLaren had a new diffuser and were running KERS? If so they could be a threat very soon…

Ferrari – Come on Ferrari, you shouldn’t be last of these points and you definitely shouldn’t be last in the race (or thereabouts). With that said I don’t think the panic surrounding Ferrari is justified. During the race they’ve been in some good positions on the track and often have quite good pace. Just get on top of that reliability and make sure Massa gets into Q3!!

I have mixed feelings about the Malaysian Grand Prix. It started off great and was building up to be fantastic with people running different strategies. The rain came, the excitement stayed high, yet the finish was a bit of an anti-climax.

Jenson Button – Did a great job to hold everything together and take the win.

Rubens Barrichello – I dunno… I wish they would have put Bruno Senna in the car this year

Nick Heidfeld – Didn’t really drive a race worthy of 2nd place, but hey, sometimes the cards just fall like that and today was his day

Timo Glock – Timo seemed very happy in the wet and did seem to have everything under control. He’s starting to impress me this guy

KERS – The KERS teams suffered quite a bit in the wet. However I’m actually confident with enough experience they’ll be able to sort out the balance of the cars. Then, when they have learnt how to set it up properly they might actually have an advantage..

Red Bull Racing – If these guys work out a new diffuser, watch out! Very impressive once again.

Williams – Seem really strong in qualifying but don’t know what’s happening in the race? Brawn GP and Toyota are leaving them for dead in the races.

Lewis Hamilton – Seemed to make the most of his equipment but the McLaren is still an extremly lacking car.

Ferrari – I put Ferrari as the last point on this list because they deserve to be after sending Kimi Raikkonen out on monsoon tyres on a virtually dry track. Insane. As for Massa, not much better..

Yes, we’re back for 2009! But unlike Brawn GP, we didn’t manage to have our challenger (new web site) ready for the first round of the championship!

Thankfully Brawn GP got their act together and did an absolutely amazing job to not only make it to the grid but to dominate the race weekend.

Key points:

• Brawn GP, Williams and Toyota really have to take advantage of having an advantage in terms of their diffuser while they can because as soon as the other teams come up with a solution their cars will no doubt be quicker than all these 3 teams.
• Ferrari were very strong despite the end result. If they come up with a new diffuser (or the “diffuser 3″ teams get their one banned) they’ll be very strong indeed.
• Lewis Hamilton showed some nice pace during the race but in the end it was just luck that gave him Third. Fernando Alonso meanwhile didn’t show anything special but I expect him to bring Renault up higher in the next few races.
• Where did the pace from BMW Sauber suddenly come from!? They showed nothing all weekend then were quite competitive on Sunday. Good recovery.
• Rubens Barrichello was a bit wild during the Grand Prix. I guess he was just excited having a fast car again – no real reason to penalise him or anything
• Sebastian Vettel – Given the lack of pace the Red Bull Racing machines seemed to have earlier in the weekend, he had some great pace. Shame the car will be hard to put a revised diffuser on even with the genius of Adrian Newey behind it.
• KERS – I think the jury is still out on this one. We really need some on screen telemetry showing us when drivers are using it during the race. They showed when it’s charging up in practice, but if we could see side-by-side indications during race when the button is pressed that would be fantastic
• New aero regulations – Hard to tell whether it was KERS or the new aero that helped some drivers slingshot past others, but the combination of rules seems to be very promising.

There are heaps more points that could be touched on, but all up these first few rounds are going to be a bit “random” in terms of results as the new regulations pan out and everyone gets used to them. But what a great start to the season. A lot of new names up there and you have the feeling that going into the next round anyone could win the race (ok, maybe that would require the Brawn cars to retire but hey… )

Just wanted to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

We look forward to seeing you in 2009 with a brand new-look web site (and new social features)!

All the best,

FF1

What an AMAZING race!

On most race weekends 5th place would be a walk in the park for Lewis Hamilton but somehow in Brazil we were treated to every twist, turn and drama possible! I find it amazing that the World Championship so often comes down to the last race, let alone the last corner!

Lewis Hamilton – Congratulations to Lewis on his first Formula One Drivers World Championship! He almost let it slip away again, not really through any fault of his own, but managed to wrestle it back. He’s not the mosts loved driver but he’s certainly one of the fastest men in F1 so thoroughly deserves the championship

Felipe Massa – Poor Felipe. While he probably doesn’t have the outright pace and talent of Lewis, he managed his season better and ended up with more wins. Very respectable. Felipe certainly is a different driver this year. He’s finally stepped out of his “number 2 upbringing” at Ferrari.

I keep thinking back to how Felipe’s engine blew a few laps from the end of the Hungarian Grand Prix – a Grand Prix he absolutely dominated. That was where the championship was lost along with the pit lane blunder in Singapore.

Unfortunately for Felipe, and with all due respect to him, I have a feeling this might have been his only shot at a drivers world title…

Felipe Massa’s family and some Ferrari crew – I felt SO bad for them seeing they thought they’d won the Championship only to discover Lewis passed Timo Glock in the last corners… It would have been great to see Brazil erupt like they did when Ayrton Senna did the impossible in the 1993 Brazilian Grand Prix. At least they had a perfect qualifying to celebrate over the weekend I guess…

Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel – It’s such a shame these guys didn’t have the car they needed to be in the championship hunt in the start of the season. They’ve been nothing short of brilliant in the 2nd half of the year (and on occassion in the first half).

Robert Kubica – I mention Robert here because he’s another driver who it would have been nice to see in the championship race. However while Renault and Toro Rosso have improved throughout the season, BMW have gone backward.

Giancarlo Fisichella – Fantastic decision to switch to dry tyres early on! It doesn’t often pay off for those people who brave the conditions first, but it’s nice to see when it does pay off. A special shout-out to Kaushal who wanted us to cover Force India in our post-race comments! And a big hi to all our Indian readers too!

Timo Glock – I don’t think Timo will be on Felipe Massa’s Christmas card list this year   To be fair though, even though Timo was terrible on the last 2 laps, his decision to stay out on dry tyres in the wet was the only reason he leapfrogged the other drivers anyway. So all up another good points race for the Toyota driver

Heikki Kovalianen – I really wonder whether McLaren develop the car completely around Lewis because I didn’t think Heikki was that bad… but maybe he is… Anyway, Heikki cost McLaren the constructors title with his under-par performances throughout the year.

Kimi Raikkonen – Did a very solid job to finish 3rd. Probably could have taken Alonso, but needed to minimise the risk to give Massa a chance at the title. Great team spirit from the FInn.

David Coulthard – I remember when David first came in to Williams to replace Ayrton Senna. He was an exciting young talent. While he did well after moving to McLaren he really got moulded into the classic “number 2″, in many ways like Felipe Massa has been in previous years.

It’s a shame David never got to have a good shot at the title like Felipe did this year, but he seems to have had a good time in F1 with his share of gorgeous girlfriends, casinos, hotels, lucky escapes (both on track and from a private jet crash)… so David, we wish you all the best and thank you for the exciting times