Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/09/30/1530160/hagan-leads-funny-car-field.html
JeanPierre Beltoise Olivier Beretta Allen Berg Georges Berger
venerdì 30 settembre 2011
Jenson Button: ?I didn?t do much running today??
Jenson Button has a lot of catching up to do after losing most of the second practice session in Singapore. Button locked up and ran wide at Turn 14 early in the session. Although he didn?t hit anything, a gearbox … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2011/09/23/jenson-button-i-didnt-do-much-running-today/
ALMS: Peugeot On Petit Le Mans Pole
Peugeot's Anthony Davidson scores pole for the French team as Audi falls short by just 0.128 seconds; Other class pole-sitters include Luis Diaz (LMP2), Gimmi Bruni (GT) and Rui Aguas (GTE-Am)...?
Source: http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/alms-peugeot-on-petit-le-mans-pole/
Costa and Willis join Mercedes GP
Mercedes GP has further strengthened its technical base by recruiting both Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa. Willis, who recently parted company with HRT, joins as Technology Director on October 17. He is already familiar with the Brackley team from his … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2011/09/30/costa-and-willis-join-mercedes-gp/
Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella Mário de Araújo Cabral Frank Armi
Mallya giving up low-cost airline
Vijay Mallya, the boss of Force India, has been in the news a lot in recent days thanks to his troubled Kingfisher Airlines company, which has debts of $1.5 billion. Mallya has just announced that the airline will exit the low-cost sector and try to make money as a premium airline. Kingfisher, which was launched [...]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/mallya-giving-up-low-cost-airline/
What?s gone wrong for Lewis Hamilton in 2011? | 2011 F1 season
There have been too many gaffes and too few of Hamilton's top-drawer drives in 2011.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/f1fanatic/~3/NmBOOsBgLT4/
Webber reveals his favourite tracks
Mark Webber has revealed that Singapore is one of his favourite circuits in the Formula 1�calendar. Click here for Mark Webber and David Coulthard cycling around Singapore! The Red Bull driver – who finished 3rd at the weekend – believes that the night race ‘always goes down well’. Speaking in his BBC column, he said: [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/Jhpipa98quA/webber-reveals-his-favourite-tracks
Formula 1 and rocket science
There have been some stories in recent days which show that Red Bull has increased its revenues after winning its first World Championship. That is hardly rocket science. Success in F1 pays. Failure is costly. When one looks at the current situation of Williams, which was formerly one of the strongest teams in the business, [...]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/formula-1-and-rocket-science/
Enrico Bertaggia Tony Bettenhausen Mike Beuttler Birabongse Bhanubandh
Vettel underlines title credentials with sublime drive
At Spa-Francorchamps
Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber finished one-two in the Belgian Grand Prix after drives that can compare with many of those that have entered the annals of Formula 1 history from the famous Spa-Francorchamps track.
The two men went into the race on Sunday well aware of their team's concerns that their front tyres could fail.
Red Bull design chief Adrian Newey said it was "one of the scariest races I've been involved in", and the mind boggles as to the bravery of the drivers in that situation.
Spa's high-speed sweeps are arguably the biggest challenge a grand prix driver can face. Although safety has improved immensely at the circuit in the modern age, it remains an old-school race track, on which there are places "you wouldn't want to go off," as Webber put it in his BBC Sport column last week.
The drivers sounded phlegmatic about it after the race, but they were well aware of the potential seriousness of the situation. "We took quite a lot of risk," Vettel said. But, he added, "when there is a chance to win, we go for it".
Of all the many qualities that make grand prix drivers different from ordinary mortals, this has to be one of the most striking.
Call it bravery, call it lack of imagination, but Vettel and Webber went into the race, committed themselves to the 180mph rollercoaster ride through Eau Rouge, having put their lives in the hands of calculations by their engineers about how long their tyres would last.
The height of concern was in the early stages of the race, when the cars were running on tyres that Newey said Pirelli had told them "were very marginal and at five o'clock yesterday they wouldn't say after half a lap or five laps but they were going to fail".
Vettel and Webber's one-two in Belgium continued Red Bull's domination of this year's championship. Photo: Reuters
Red Bull's engineers had calculated that they could be pretty sure Webber's tyres would last two or three laps, and Vettel's five - which is when the two men made their first pit stops.
Red Bull were not the only team to suffer blistering, but theirs was worse than any of their rivals.
The situation caused controversy because they were running their cars with a greater degree of camber - lean away from vertical - on their front tyres than supplier Pirelli recommends.
Pirelli motorsport chief Paul Hembery chose his words carefully after the race, but I understand there were strong words between Pirelli and Newey before the race, and that there may be less tolerance of any team who choose to go beyond Pirelli's advice in the future.
It is yet another example of how Newey pushes every parameter to the limit, an approach that allied with his genius for aerodynamic design, has led him to create so many dominant cars, of which this year's Red Bull RB7 is just the latest in a long line.
With everything that was involved - the bravery, the tyre management, racing and overtaking Fernando Alonso's Ferrari, it has to rank as one of the best of Vettel's 17 victories.
Both Newey and team principal Christian Horner described it as a "mature" drive, and, as Newey pointed out: "Mark's race was every bit as good."
Webber was compromised first by a poor start, caused when his anti-stall kicked in, and then by a radio miscommunication that meant he did not follow his team-mate into the pits under the safety car period that followed Lewis Hamilton's collision with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.
That committed him to a long middle stint on the slower 'medium' tyre, at the beginning of which he showed bravery of a different but no less remarkable kind.
On lap nine, Webber passed Alonso on the outside going into Eau Rouge, pulling alongside on the hill down from La Source, nosing in front, and refusing to concede.
The two men are good friends, and they always race hard but fair, giving each other just enough room in such situations, but this incident was right on the edge.
"That boy must have some balls to do that - on the outside into Eau Rouge," Horner said. "Phenomenal. Pass of the day.
"Fernando was professional and gave him enough room to work with. Mark was always going to brave it out around the outside. I think we all closed our eyes."
Of course, Vettel and Webber's one-two was facilitated by the huge performance advantage of their cars.
Alonso appeared to be in the running for victory until his team chose not to stop under the safety car, but he insisted that was an illusion, saying Red Bull had a pace advantage of "one second per lap, maybe towards the end of the race even more, 1.5 seconds".
This is quite a turnaround after Red Bull failed to win any of the previous three races, where McLaren and Ferrari both showed Red Bull-beating pace.
Newey ascribes this to the "very cool conditions and slightly abnormal races" in Britain, Germany and Hungary.
"Hungary we were actually quite competitive in the dry and in those early laps on the intermediate tyres we suffered," he said.
"Germany it was exceptionally cold and we suffered in [tyre] warm-up. Silverstone we were compromised because we believed we had cold blowing (of the diffuser) allowed but it was taken away on Sunday morning."
This does not bode well for what were admittedly faint hopes that one of Vettel's rivals might have a chance of stopping his relentless march to the championship.
Although Alonso starred in the early stages in Spa, the car closest on pace to the Red Bull would seem still to be the McLaren, judging by Jenson Button's remarkable drive through the field to third place on Sunday, which was full of clinical and elegant overtaking moves.
As Button pointed out, though, McLaren's weekend in Belgium was compromised by the mistakes that have characterised their season, and which they desperately need to cut out.
In Button's case in Belgium, that was a "miscommunication" over how many laps he had left in the second period of qualifying that left him stranded in 13th place.
Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, made another of several mistakes by himself and the team this season which have made it impossible to challenge Vettel.
Without them, he would be in the fight, rather than where is now, which is 113 points behind Vettel with only 175 still available, and his title hopes over.
Alonso, who after his fourth place in Spa is in a marginally better position but still 102 points adrift of Vettel, said he would keep battling until it was mathematically impossible to overhaul Vettel.
But even he, F1's most relentless fighter, admitted Ferrari's hopes were "not in our hands, and Red Bull need to make big, big mistakes, and have big problems if we want to win the championship".
Barring a disaster of catastrophic proportions, then, Vettel will win a second consecutive world title this year, and long before the end of the season.
After performances such as that at Spa on Sunday, and many others this year, he fully deserves it.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/08/vettel_underlines_title_creden.html
giovedì 29 settembre 2011
Send me your questions about F1 2011
Hello all,
I am filming the next entries for this video blog on Monday and that means I need your help.
As you know, we answer a selection of your questions as well as reviewing the last few races and looking forward to the next stage of the year.
So if you have any questions about F1 2011, please do post them below. We will pick a selection of the best and I will answer them here next week.
Thanks,
Murray
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/murraywalker/2011/09/send_me_your_questions_about_f_2.html
Twenty years of Schumacher
At Spa-Francorchamps
For the first time since he started his comeback at the beginning of last season, Michael Schumacher was the centre of attention as the Formula 1 circus rolled into the spectacular Spa-Francorchamps circuit ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.
Twenty years ago this weekend, the man who would go on to become the most successful racing driver of all time made his debut here for the Jordan team, which was also in its first season in the sport.
It did not take long for him to catch the eye - a stunning qualifying performance put him seventh on the grid, several places ahead of his vastly experienced team-mate Andrea de Cesaris. And although he retired after a few hundred yards with a broken driveshaft, Schumacher had made his mark.
By the time of the next race, Benetton had stolen him from under Eddie Jordan's nose - and the legend that culminated in seven world titles and 91 race victories began.
Although it is - as Red Bull's Mark Webber pointed out - only Schumacher's 17th season in F1, on account of the three he missed during his 'retirement', this weekend has partly been set aside to honour his achievements.
His Mercedes team are planning an event on Saturday, while Ferrari, with whom he won five of his seven titles, have promised "a little something to mark the occasion".
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However you count the years, Schumacher's achievement came into sharp perspective when his rivals were asked whether they remembered his debut.
Most of them were too young to have any recollection of it at all, picking a later point in his career as the time they first became aware of him.
Most, though, were more than happy to pay tribute to his remarkable achievements, with the most glowing reference coming from Fernando Alonso, the man who ended Schumacher's run of five consecutive titles in 2005 and then won a memorable mano-a-mano duel between them the following season.
"Michael, I have great respect for him," Alonso said. "He is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, in the history of our sport. There are numbers there it will be impossible to repeat for any one of us.
"It has been a great pleasure to drive with him all these years. I will always remember all the battles with him and for me it was a privilege to drive against Michael Schumacher. It will be something I always remember. Then he decided to stop and come back.
"I'm sure he missed the adrenaline and the F1 show. Now he is in the second part of his career, the car is not competitive, but he is still enjoying [it].
"There are some criticisms about his return and results now, but I don't agree with those.Michael three years ago was watching F1 at home. Now he is doing seventh or ninth but I'm sure he is happy every morning because he is doing what he wants to do."
When Alonso was racing Schumacher before his comeback, the German was the benchmark, so beating him gave the Spaniard's titles the ultimate stamp of credibility.
There are no questions about Alonso's greatness now, standing as he does alongside Lewis Hamilton as the new benchmark against which all drivers are measured.
For Schumacher, though, these are very different times, and the last 18 months or so have been punctuated by ongoing questions about the merit and wisdom of his return.
Last year, he was by and large pasted by team-mate Nico Rosberg - a man who for all his undoubted potential has yet to win a race. This season there have been signs of progress - while the younger German still comfortably has Schumacher's measure in qualifying, the veteran has looked more competitive in the races
It is clear, though, that Schumacher is not the driver he was.
Where once he appeared to dance at will on a limit beyond almost all his rivals, he now appears too often to be searching for that rarefied high wire, usually without success.
But the man who was famous for his willingness to do almost anything to win says he is satisfied with his current lot, scraping around for lower-ranking points as Mercedes battle to catch the top teams, while still insisting he wants to repay the German manufacturer for funding his debut and "return race wins and championships back to them".
His anniversary has given him a chance to reflect on a career that is still remembered for its many controversies as much as it is for his great success.
And in an interview with BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Lee McKenzie, which will be broadcast as part of the race build-up on BBC One on Sunday, he went as far as to admit he had regrets about some of the incidents that in so many minds went beyond the boundaries of respectability.
"Certainly I would do things differently," he said. "After 20 years in F1, you have a few regrets but, quite honestly, if I think it was 20 years, the few spots I have, you have to make mistakes to learn from them - and I think I do learn."
Asked if any of his mistakes stood out, he picked this race in 1998, when he lost a certain victory in the wet after crashing into the back of David Coulthard's McLaren. Once he had made it back to the pits, convinced the Scot had slowed deliberately to take him out, Schumacher charged off to the McLaren garage and had to be restrained from physically assaulting him.
"Maybe I should regret to go for an attack to David after he spoiled my race in 1998," he says. "We had this mysterious misunderstanding, I had a certain reaction, I think it was the first and only time I have been like this, I am normally a very balanced person."
It is perhaps revealing that of all the many incidents in his career, he should choose one for which he was not at fault, rather than his two title-deciding collisions with Williams drivers Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve in 1994 and 1997, or his decision to 'park' his car in Monaco qualifying to prevent Alonso beating him to pole position.
He still refuses to answer questions about the last incident and is resigned to the fact he will always - at least outside Germany - be a man who is more admired than loved.
"Everybody forms his own opinion about any person," he says. "I think I just want to be treated fair, that's the only think I look for. Who likes me or loves me, I'm happy about. Who doesn't, I understand, because you can't be loved by everyone."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/08/schumacher_learns_from_his_mis.html
Fred Agabashian Kurt Ahrens Jr Christijan Albers Michele Alboreto
Campaign launched to save Team Lotus
 |
Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/11/campaign_launched_to_save_team_1.php
Mike Beuttler Birabongse Bhanubandh Lucien Bianchi Gino Bianco
Vettel underlines title credentials with sublime drive
At Spa-Francorchamps
Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber finished one-two in the Belgian Grand Prix after drives that can compare with many of those that have entered the annals of Formula 1 history from the famous Spa-Francorchamps track.
The two men went into the race on Sunday well aware of their team's concerns that their front tyres could fail.
Red Bull design chief Adrian Newey said it was "one of the scariest races I've been involved in", and the mind boggles as to the bravery of the drivers in that situation.
Spa's high-speed sweeps are arguably the biggest challenge a grand prix driver can face. Although safety has improved immensely at the circuit in the modern age, it remains an old-school race track, on which there are places "you wouldn't want to go off," as Webber put it in his BBC Sport column last week.
The drivers sounded phlegmatic about it after the race, but they were well aware of the potential seriousness of the situation. "We took quite a lot of risk," Vettel said. But, he added, "when there is a chance to win, we go for it".
Of all the many qualities that make grand prix drivers different from ordinary mortals, this has to be one of the most striking.
Call it bravery, call it lack of imagination, but Vettel and Webber went into the race, committed themselves to the 180mph rollercoaster ride through Eau Rouge, having put their lives in the hands of calculations by their engineers about how long their tyres would last.
The height of concern was in the early stages of the race, when the cars were running on tyres that Newey said Pirelli had told them "were very marginal and at five o'clock yesterday they wouldn't say after half a lap or five laps but they were going to fail".
Vettel and Webber's one-two in Belgium continued Red Bull's domination of this year's championship. Photo: Reuters
Red Bull's engineers had calculated that they could be pretty sure Webber's tyres would last two or three laps, and Vettel's five - which is when the two men made their first pit stops.
Red Bull were not the only team to suffer blistering, but theirs was worse than any of their rivals.
The situation caused controversy because they were running their cars with a greater degree of camber - lean away from vertical - on their front tyres than supplier Pirelli recommends.
Pirelli motorsport chief Paul Hembery chose his words carefully after the race, but I understand there were strong words between Pirelli and Newey before the race, and that there may be less tolerance of any team who choose to go beyond Pirelli's advice in the future.
It is yet another example of how Newey pushes every parameter to the limit, an approach that allied with his genius for aerodynamic design, has led him to create so many dominant cars, of which this year's Red Bull RB7 is just the latest in a long line.
With everything that was involved - the bravery, the tyre management, racing and overtaking Fernando Alonso's Ferrari, it has to rank as one of the best of Vettel's 17 victories.
Both Newey and team principal Christian Horner described it as a "mature" drive, and, as Newey pointed out: "Mark's race was every bit as good."
Webber was compromised first by a poor start, caused when his anti-stall kicked in, and then by a radio miscommunication that meant he did not follow his team-mate into the pits under the safety car period that followed Lewis Hamilton's collision with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.
That committed him to a long middle stint on the slower 'medium' tyre, at the beginning of which he showed bravery of a different but no less remarkable kind.
On lap nine, Webber passed Alonso on the outside going into Eau Rouge, pulling alongside on the hill down from La Source, nosing in front, and refusing to concede.
The two men are good friends, and they always race hard but fair, giving each other just enough room in such situations, but this incident was right on the edge.
"That boy must have some balls to do that - on the outside into Eau Rouge," Horner said. "Phenomenal. Pass of the day.
"Fernando was professional and gave him enough room to work with. Mark was always going to brave it out around the outside. I think we all closed our eyes."
Of course, Vettel and Webber's one-two was facilitated by the huge performance advantage of their cars.
Alonso appeared to be in the running for victory until his team chose not to stop under the safety car, but he insisted that was an illusion, saying Red Bull had a pace advantage of "one second per lap, maybe towards the end of the race even more, 1.5 seconds".
This is quite a turnaround after Red Bull failed to win any of the previous three races, where McLaren and Ferrari both showed Red Bull-beating pace.
Newey ascribes this to the "very cool conditions and slightly abnormal races" in Britain, Germany and Hungary.
"Hungary we were actually quite competitive in the dry and in those early laps on the intermediate tyres we suffered," he said.
"Germany it was exceptionally cold and we suffered in [tyre] warm-up. Silverstone we were compromised because we believed we had cold blowing (of the diffuser) allowed but it was taken away on Sunday morning."
This does not bode well for what were admittedly faint hopes that one of Vettel's rivals might have a chance of stopping his relentless march to the championship.
Although Alonso starred in the early stages in Spa, the car closest on pace to the Red Bull would seem still to be the McLaren, judging by Jenson Button's remarkable drive through the field to third place on Sunday, which was full of clinical and elegant overtaking moves.
As Button pointed out, though, McLaren's weekend in Belgium was compromised by the mistakes that have characterised their season, and which they desperately need to cut out.
In Button's case in Belgium, that was a "miscommunication" over how many laps he had left in the second period of qualifying that left him stranded in 13th place.
Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, made another of several mistakes by himself and the team this season which have made it impossible to challenge Vettel.
Without them, he would be in the fight, rather than where is now, which is 113 points behind Vettel with only 175 still available, and his title hopes over.
Alonso, who after his fourth place in Spa is in a marginally better position but still 102 points adrift of Vettel, said he would keep battling until it was mathematically impossible to overhaul Vettel.
But even he, F1's most relentless fighter, admitted Ferrari's hopes were "not in our hands, and Red Bull need to make big, big mistakes, and have big problems if we want to win the championship".
Barring a disaster of catastrophic proportions, then, Vettel will win a second consecutive world title this year, and long before the end of the season.
After performances such as that at Spa on Sunday, and many others this year, he fully deserves it.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/08/vettel_underlines_title_creden.html
Conny Andersson Mario Andretti Michael Andretti Keith Andrews
Team Lotus Launch Their 2011 Machine The T128
Team Lotus (the one who raced last year) have become the second team to officially pull the covers off their new 2011 car. The green and yellow liveried machine will start be raced by Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen this season under the name of Team Lotus as the management’s row with Group Lotus, now [...]
Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/team-lotus-launch-their-2011-machine-the-t128/
Kurt Adolff Fred Agabashian Kurt Ahrens Jr Christijan Albers
'69 Chevelle Custom
Hello all. I haven't been here much lately and I apologize for not coming by. My job, 5 kids and online businesses have kept me very, very busy. Again I apologize. I'll try to do better. Some of you know me, for those who don't I'm known as 67impala427.
I am posting progress pics of my '69 Chevelle. This is the first time I've actually done some building since October '09. The kit is the AMT model that's been around forever. I painted the body for this car about 5 years ago. I intended to sell it but never got around to it. I decided to complete the kit to showcase one of the resin hoods that I cast. Those that are familiar with me know that I like 'em low and I like to do a lot of customizing. I started with the chassis. I had to open the rear wheel wells and removed the the ones up front in order to allow for the larger wheel/tire combo. I then revamped the engine bay to give it a cleaner look. I have included pics of the stock and modified versions. Hope you guys like it so far. It's good to be back.
Alex. :chev:
Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/979836.aspx
mercoledì 28 settembre 2011
'The point of no confidence is quite near'
 The wreckage of Jochen Rindt's car at Barcelona |
?Colin. I have been racing F1 for 5 years and I have made one mistake (I rammed Chris Amon in Clermont Ferrand) and I had one accident in Zandvoort due to gear selection failure otherwise I managed to stay out of trouble. This situation changed rapidly since I joined your team. ?Honestly your cars are so quick that we would still be competitive with a few extra pounds used to make the weakest parts stronger, on top of that I think you ought to spend some time checking what your different employes are doing, I sure the wishbones on the F2 car would have looked different. Please give my suggestions some thought, I can only drive a car in which I have some confidence, and I feel the point of no confidence is quite near.?A little more than a year later Rindt's Lotus suffered mechanical breakdown just before braking into one of the corners. He swerved violently to the left and crashed into a poorly-installed barrier, killing him instantly.
Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/09/the_point_of_no_confidence_is.php
Formula 1 and rocket science
There have been some stories in recent days which show that Red Bull has increased its revenues after winning its first World Championship. That is hardly rocket science. Success in F1 pays. Failure is costly. When one looks at the current situation of Williams, which was formerly one of the strongest teams in the business, [...]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/formula-1-and-rocket-science/
Schumacher of old returns to haunt Hamilton
Since Michael Schumacher returned to Formula 1 at the beginning of last season, he has not provided many glimpses of the man who dominated Formula 1 for so long - but that all changed at the Italian Grand Prix.
It is still not clear whether the German legend has the speed he had in his first career, despite two impressive drives in the last race in Belgium and now on Sunday in Monza.
But it was blatantly obvious in Italy that he is as willing as ever to push the boundaries of acceptable behaviour up to and beyond their limits.
Schumacher's driving in defending his position from Lewis Hamilton will split opinions - as BBC Sport's own experts proved.
"In sporting etiquette between racing drivers," David Coulthard said, "that was right on the line and he had one foot over it. He gave Lewis the chop."
But while Coulthard went on to add that he did not feel Schumacher deserved a penalty for his behaviour, chief analyst Eddie Jordan disagreed: "You cannot move twice. It's certainly questionable. If I was a judge I would have to reprimand him."
Schumacher's defence of the position over 21 enthralling - and occasionally heart-stopping - laps was certainly robust.
But there were two incidents in particular for which many will argue he was lucky to get away without a penalty.
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The first was on lap 16, when Hamilton dived down the inside of Curva Grande - taken flat out at 190mph - and Schumacher pushed him on to the grass.
The second was four laps later, when Schumacher appeared to change his trajectory twice while defending from Hamilton out of the second chicane and into the first Lesmo corner.
Article 20.2 of sporting regulations says: "Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as more than one change of direction to defend a position, deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted."
It should be no surprise that Schumacher is prepared to drive like this - after all, he did it so much in his first career that his dubious tactics are remembered just as strongly as his results, which takes some doing when you have won nearly twice as many races as anyone else in F1 history.
What is perhaps more surprising is that he was not punished - particularly for the 'two moves' incident. Although this looked less dramatic, it was probably the one that further exceeded the boundaries of acceptability.
The blocking move into Curva Grande was, as one veteran F1 observer put it on Sunday evening, "a bit naughty but entirely predictable" - and Hamilton was anyway a bit optimistic in trying to go down the inside there from as far back as he was.
Race director Charlie Whiting warned Mercedes about Schumacher's driving - and team principal Ross Brawn was fully aware of how close they were to being penalised. He went repeatedly on to the radio to warn Schumacher to give Hamilton enough room.
Back in Malaysia in April, Hamilton was given a 20-second penalty after the race for changing his line twice while defending his position from Fernando Alonso. Many will look at Schumacher's behaviour in Monza and conclude it was at least as bad, if not significantly worse.
Hamilton himself was clearly unimpressed. "I thought you were only allowed one move!" he said in exasperation over his radio.
After the race, though, he kept his counsel in public. As he had made it clear he wanted to stay out of trouble to try to end the tumultuous run of events that have derailed his season, that is perhaps not a surprise. It remains to be seen whether it stays that way.
Ironically, it was the first of those two incidents that led to Schumacher losing what at the time was third place, a position he found himself in after his customary superb start, and then taking advantage of Hamilton being caught napping at the re-start after the safety car period that was prompted by a first-corner crash involving backmarkers.
In backing off after being forced onto the grass at Curva Grande, Hamilton was overtaken by team-mate Jenson Button, who used his momentum to close rapidly on Schumacher and pass him in a brilliantly audacious move around the outside into Ascari.
Button said his own move on Schumacher was one of the bravest he has ever pulled, but another earlier in the race surely surpassed it - when race-winner Sebastian Vettel passed Alonso for the lead around the outside of the Curva Grande and into the second chicane.
Alonso edged Vettel far enough to the left for the Red Bull to have its left-hand wheels on the grass while flat out in top gear. But Vettel kept his foot hard down, controlled what must have felt like a scary wobble, and nailed the Ferrari down the inside into the chicane.
It puts to bed any unfounded criticisms that Vettel cannot win from behind - and the world champion elect was still a little wide-eyed about it after the race.
"I was on the grass there," he said to Alonso with a smile as they waited to go out on to the podium. "Yeah," the Ferrari driver responded.
It was a heart-in-the-mouth moment, certainly, but was this as bad as Schumacher's chop on Hamilton into the same corner a few laps later?
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Schumacher appeared to turn in early on Hamilton and gave him no room at all, and the McLaren driver had no choice but to take to the grass with at least half of his car. Vettel, by contrast, had the option to back out of the move, but chose not to.
This was almost certainly because - as with team-mate Mark Webber's pass of Alonso into Eau Rouge at the last race in Belgium - he knew Alonso would be hard, but could trust him to leave him just enough survival space.
It was mighty close. "Very hard but fair," was Vettel's post-race verdict
What was particularly impressive about Vettel's decision to commit was that he did not need to - as he himself said, he could easily have waited and got him in one of the zones where he could use his DRS overtaking aid that lap or the next.
Vettel has such a huge championship lead that he does not need to take any risks - and yet his hunger for victories, to stamp his absolute authority on this season that surrendered to him months ago, remains as intense as ever.
This was his eighth win of the year and one of the most impressive, and suitably it brought him to the brink of his second title.
Vettel will be crowned the youngest double champion in history - taking the honour from Alonso, ironically enough - in Singapore if he wins and Alonso does not finish third and Button or Mark Webber do not finish second.
On current form, that is entirely possible, and even if he doesn't do it there, Vettel will certainly tie it up sooner rather than later.
At the age of 24, he has 18 wins to his credit, a second title in the bag, and 25 pole positions. Schumacher's records - 91 wins, 65 poles, seven titles, which seemed unbeatable when he set them - look within reach, unless the other teams can do something about Red Bull's superiority. And perhaps even if they do.
Vettel's remarkable progress prompted superlatives from Coulthard after the race. "Are we witnessing one of the true greats - one of the legends of the sport. It's always difficult to judge when it's so early in someone's career but his results are remarkable."
To truly judge Vettel, he needs to go up against another great - Hamilton or Alonso or perhaps, on current form, Button - in an equal car. But there can no longer be any doubts that he is right up there.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/09/post_2.html
welding truck
i built this truck as a replica of my 1:1 that i drive for work. the cab and chassis are from a snap kit that i had from when i was a kid. the bed and everything in the back are scratch built using sheet plastic and the bottles are made from a sharpie marker cut in half. enjoy
[View:http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/themes/sca/utility/
:550:0][View:http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/themes/sca/utility/
:550:0][View:http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/themes/sca/utility/
:550:0][View:http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/themes/sca/utility/
:550:0][View:http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/themes/sca/utility/
:550:0][View:http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/themes/sca/utility/
:550:0][View:http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/themes/sca/utility/
:550:0]
Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/959454.aspx
Vettel underlines title credentials with sublime drive
At Spa-Francorchamps
Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber finished one-two in the Belgian Grand Prix after drives that can compare with many of those that have entered the annals of Formula 1 history from the famous Spa-Francorchamps track.
The two men went into the race on Sunday well aware of their team's concerns that their front tyres could fail.
Red Bull design chief Adrian Newey said it was "one of the scariest races I've been involved in", and the mind boggles as to the bravery of the drivers in that situation.
Spa's high-speed sweeps are arguably the biggest challenge a grand prix driver can face. Although safety has improved immensely at the circuit in the modern age, it remains an old-school race track, on which there are places "you wouldn't want to go off," as Webber put it in his BBC Sport column last week.
The drivers sounded phlegmatic about it after the race, but they were well aware of the potential seriousness of the situation. "We took quite a lot of risk," Vettel said. But, he added, "when there is a chance to win, we go for it".
Of all the many qualities that make grand prix drivers different from ordinary mortals, this has to be one of the most striking.
Call it bravery, call it lack of imagination, but Vettel and Webber went into the race, committed themselves to the 180mph rollercoaster ride through Eau Rouge, having put their lives in the hands of calculations by their engineers about how long their tyres would last.
The height of concern was in the early stages of the race, when the cars were running on tyres that Newey said Pirelli had told them "were very marginal and at five o'clock yesterday they wouldn't say after half a lap or five laps but they were going to fail".
Vettel and Webber's one-two in Belgium continued Red Bull's domination of this year's championship. Photo: Reuters
Red Bull's engineers had calculated that they could be pretty sure Webber's tyres would last two or three laps, and Vettel's five - which is when the two men made their first pit stops.
Red Bull were not the only team to suffer blistering, but theirs was worse than any of their rivals.
The situation caused controversy because they were running their cars with a greater degree of camber - lean away from vertical - on their front tyres than supplier Pirelli recommends.
Pirelli motorsport chief Paul Hembery chose his words carefully after the race, but I understand there were strong words between Pirelli and Newey before the race, and that there may be less tolerance of any team who choose to go beyond Pirelli's advice in the future.
It is yet another example of how Newey pushes every parameter to the limit, an approach that allied with his genius for aerodynamic design, has led him to create so many dominant cars, of which this year's Red Bull RB7 is just the latest in a long line.
With everything that was involved - the bravery, the tyre management, racing and overtaking Fernando Alonso's Ferrari, it has to rank as one of the best of Vettel's 17 victories.
Both Newey and team principal Christian Horner described it as a "mature" drive, and, as Newey pointed out: "Mark's race was every bit as good."
Webber was compromised first by a poor start, caused when his anti-stall kicked in, and then by a radio miscommunication that meant he did not follow his team-mate into the pits under the safety car period that followed Lewis Hamilton's collision with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.
That committed him to a long middle stint on the slower 'medium' tyre, at the beginning of which he showed bravery of a different but no less remarkable kind.
On lap nine, Webber passed Alonso on the outside going into Eau Rouge, pulling alongside on the hill down from La Source, nosing in front, and refusing to concede.
The two men are good friends, and they always race hard but fair, giving each other just enough room in such situations, but this incident was right on the edge.
"That boy must have some balls to do that - on the outside into Eau Rouge," Horner said. "Phenomenal. Pass of the day.
"Fernando was professional and gave him enough room to work with. Mark was always going to brave it out around the outside. I think we all closed our eyes."
Of course, Vettel and Webber's one-two was facilitated by the huge performance advantage of their cars.
Alonso appeared to be in the running for victory until his team chose not to stop under the safety car, but he insisted that was an illusion, saying Red Bull had a pace advantage of "one second per lap, maybe towards the end of the race even more, 1.5 seconds".
This is quite a turnaround after Red Bull failed to win any of the previous three races, where McLaren and Ferrari both showed Red Bull-beating pace.
Newey ascribes this to the "very cool conditions and slightly abnormal races" in Britain, Germany and Hungary.
"Hungary we were actually quite competitive in the dry and in those early laps on the intermediate tyres we suffered," he said.
"Germany it was exceptionally cold and we suffered in [tyre] warm-up. Silverstone we were compromised because we believed we had cold blowing (of the diffuser) allowed but it was taken away on Sunday morning."
This does not bode well for what were admittedly faint hopes that one of Vettel's rivals might have a chance of stopping his relentless march to the championship.
Although Alonso starred in the early stages in Spa, the car closest on pace to the Red Bull would seem still to be the McLaren, judging by Jenson Button's remarkable drive through the field to third place on Sunday, which was full of clinical and elegant overtaking moves.
As Button pointed out, though, McLaren's weekend in Belgium was compromised by the mistakes that have characterised their season, and which they desperately need to cut out.
In Button's case in Belgium, that was a "miscommunication" over how many laps he had left in the second period of qualifying that left him stranded in 13th place.
Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, made another of several mistakes by himself and the team this season which have made it impossible to challenge Vettel.
Without them, he would be in the fight, rather than where is now, which is 113 points behind Vettel with only 175 still available, and his title hopes over.
Alonso, who after his fourth place in Spa is in a marginally better position but still 102 points adrift of Vettel, said he would keep battling until it was mathematically impossible to overhaul Vettel.
But even he, F1's most relentless fighter, admitted Ferrari's hopes were "not in our hands, and Red Bull need to make big, big mistakes, and have big problems if we want to win the championship".
Barring a disaster of catastrophic proportions, then, Vettel will win a second consecutive world title this year, and long before the end of the season.
After performances such as that at Spa on Sunday, and many others this year, he fully deserves it.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/08/vettel_underlines_title_creden.html
Your F1 questions answered - part III
Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel has headed off for his summer holidays with a healthy championship lead but the world champion is still being criticised because he has only won once in four races.
Is Vettel cracking or is it just a blip; can his rivals at McLaren and Ferrari catch him and is Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone unfairly treated?
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If you are outside the UK, you can watch the video here.
Murray gives his thoughts on the new UK television rights deal here.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/murraywalker/2011/08/your_f1_questions_answered_-_p.html
Kurt Ahrens Jr Christijan Albers Michele Alboreto Jean Alesi
martedì 27 settembre 2011
Martin Brundle 2011 Singapore Grand Prix Gridwalk In Full (Video)
Martin Brundle’s gridwalks have been legendary over the years, here is the latest one from the Singapore Grand Prix at the weekend. Click here for the gridwalk from last year’s Singapore Grand Prix. He chats to Vettel, Hamilton and Button, but is snubbed by Massa! [There is a video that cannot be displayed in this [...]
Skip Barber Paolo Barilla Rubens Barrichello Michael Bartels
Jarno Trulli - classic F1
Jarno Trulli is the latest driver to select his all-time favourite races for BBC Sport's classic Formula 1 series.
It is the 37-year-old Italian's home grand prix this weekend so it seemed appropriate to choose the senior of two Italians on the grid to whet your appetite ahead of the forthcoming action at Monza.
Now in his 15th season in F1, the Lotus driver, like Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher before him, has chosen only races he has competed in - the ones he considers his best drives.
Trulli has slipped off the radar a little since joining newcomers Lotus in 2010, even more so this year. He says power steering problems have stopped him competing with team-mate Heikki Kovalainen until the recent race in Hungary.
Neveretheless, Trulli's list of picks are a reminder that, on his day and when everything is to his liking with the car, he is one of the very fastest drivers in F1.
This is a man who, in the first half of 2004, was able to match his then Renault team-mate Fernando Alonso.
The 2004 Monaco Grand Prix
Trulli's only F1 win to date. He started from pole and led the entire race, soaking up pressure virtually the entire distance, first from Alonso and later from Jenson Button's BAR-Honda.
"I scored my first pole position and my first win in F1, so it stands out in my mind, as it would for any driver," says Trulli.
"It was a very intense race. We went through two safety cars, I was constantly battling with Fernando, so that was a good feeling, but I was always in control of the race.
"I pulled away from Fernando by 16 seconds initially and then, when he was trying to catch me up, we reached the backmarkers. I took it a bit safer and Fernando crashed. He probably went a little bit too far.
"After that, when the second safety car came in, the group was compacted again with only 10 laps to go.
"At that stage, I thought: 'OK, there is no point now to pull away because the race is over because no-one can pass me.' I had the pace but I did just enough to keep my car on track without hitting the walls, because we know very well how tricky Monaco is.
"I will never forget when Ayrton Senna crashed in Monaco in 1988 when he was on the way to the win. That was a lesson. I said to myself, 'Don't do that because you will look stupid.' Especially because Senna had many chances and I only had this chance.
"I had easily the pace to keep Jenson behind and he was never close enough to pass me."
The 2005 Malaysian and Bahrain Grands Prix
After falling out with Renault team principal Flavio Briatore in the second half of 2004, Trulli moved to Toyota for the following season.
He qualified second at the opening race in Australia, where his hopes of a strong finish were dashed by tyre problems, but achieved the same grid position at the next race in Malaysia, where he trailed pole-sitter Alonso throughout to finish second and take Toyota's first F1 podium finish.
In Bahrain, Trulli qualified third behind Alonso and Schumacher. In the race, the Italian followed them closely until Schumacher ran wide and then retired on lap 12, eventually finishing second.
"When I joined Toyota, it was a team with huge potential but it had not delivered," says Trulli. "No-one really expected us to be that competitive from the beginning, so what I was doing was pretty impressive and I still remember the team were over the moon.
"Renault was the car to beat during that season, so I had my satisfaction. I could say: 'OK, if I cannot do it for one team, I can do it for another.' I was driving very well, I was comfortable in the car and we were 0.3secs a lap away from winning."
Trulli and Hamilton, driving for McLaren, were engaged in a race-long scrap for second place behind the dominant winner, Red Bull's Vettel.
With Toyota planning to quit F1 at the end of the season, Trulli knew that the only hope of stopping the move was to win a race.
"This was probably one of my best drives," he says. "Like in 2005, the car was competitive but not competitive enough to beat the fastest car, the Red Bull. On the other hand, it was maybe as competitive as the McLaren. But we had a weak point, we didn't have Kers, so Lewis had quite a big advantage in some places on the track.
"At the same time, I was driving with passion and desperation. I knew what was going on with Toyota and deep in my heart I was really trying to save the team.
"I knew if the team stayed in F1, I would have stayed with them. But if they didn't, it would be very hard for me for the future. So I was very desperate to get the best result on home ground for Toyota.
"I qualified a brilliant second but I knew that I would lose a position at the start because of the Kers cars. But I only lost one position, to Lewis, and I remember it was a head-to-head with Lewis, every lap like a qualifying lap.
"He did a brilliant drive but I never gave up. I was chasing him, trying really hard, and I was almost over the limit every lap.
"At the first pit stop, we stopped on the same lap. But the team was smart enough to give me, I think, one more lap before the next stop, which paid off because on that lap I just made the ground to get ahead of Lewis.
"Then we had a safety car and I thought: 'He's going to get me on the re-start with his Kers.' When he didn't, I realised he did not have the Kers. Then it was a big satisfaction.
"Everything was perfect but, at the same time, I was sad. I knew a second place would not change anything for the team. The only result which might have changed the future was a win. Unfortunately we didn't get it."
The F1 drivers are all asked to pick five races, but Trulli wanted to add his victory in the 1991 karting World Cup to his four choices. It may have been a great win for Trulli but we've had to rule that out on grounds of eligibility.
As regular readers will know, we choose one of these races to highlight in this blog.
This time we have gone for Monaco 2004, certainly the most entertaining of Trulli's picks.
Highlights of that race are embedded below.
Beneath them, to whet your appetites for this weekend's action in Monza, are links to short and extended highlights of Alonso's superb victory for Ferrari in last year's Italian Grand Prix. We have also decided to include extended highlights of the 2009 Japanese GP.
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CLICK HERE FOR SHORT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2010 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX
CLICK HERE FOR EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2010 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX
CLICK HERE FOR EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2009 JAPANESE GRAND PRIX
For those in the UK, a selection of the classic races will also be shown on the red button on digital television - short highlights of Monaco 2004 and Malaysia 2005 as well as extended highlights of Italy 2010.
Satellite and cable viewers will be able to see them from 1500 BST on Wednesday 7 September until 0855 BST on Friday 9 September.
On Freeview, they will be broadcast from 1035-1250 BST on Friday 9 September.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/09/jarno_trulli_-_classic_f1.html
Ferrari 458 Italia Spider
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If there’s anything better than a beautiful, red Ferrari 458 Italia, it’s that same beautiful, red Ferrari with its top stripped off. We received confirmation that Ferrari was planning on producing a Spider version of one of their highly successful new models back in 2009 from none other than Luca di Montezemolo, himself and now the covers have finally been pulled off.
Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the 2012 Ferrari 458 Italia Spider.
The car is scheduled to make its public debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show next month, but the Prancing Horse wanted to release the first salvo of information, together with official photos, well ahead of that. Thank your lucky stars, people.
And now that the Ferrari 458 Italia Spider has officially arrived, the next question that needs to be answered now is when it’s going on sale. Word has it that Europe will get first crack at the Ferrari supercar around spring of 2012 with the US following suit towards the end of 2012.
UPDATE 09/27/2011: Price, Set, Buy! Ferrari has revealed pricing for their luscious 458 Italia Spyder! Sales for the drop top beauty will start in January for the US with prices starting at $257,000. Sales in Europe will begin in October and prices will start at 226,800 euros, or $309,000 at the current exchange rates.
Find out more about the 2012 Ferrari 458 Italia Spider after the jump
Ferrari 458 Italia Spider originally appeared on topspeed.com on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 14:00 EST.
Source: http://www.topspeed.com/cars/ferrari/2012-ferrari-458-italia-spider-ar108140.html
JeanPierre Beltoise Olivier Beretta Allen Berg Georges Berger
2011 Singapore Grand Prix: complete race weekend review | 2011 Singapore Grand Prix
Find all the F1 Fanatic Singapore Grand Prix coverage in one place.
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Zsolt Baumgartner Elie Bayol Don Beauman Karl Gunther Bechem
Force India: Di Resta claims best result yet | 2011 Singapore GP team review
Force India could pass Renault for fifth in the constructors championship.
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