Luca Baldisserri, Ferrari Sporting Director isn’t happy. He says Ferrari could have easily finished one - two in Turkey if Felipe Massa kept Lewis Hamilton behind him for a couple of more laps. Lewis Hamilton caught and passed Massa on lap 23 in a much lighter car. Later of course Massa re took the position.

I’m not sure Baldisserri really knows how much faster a car is when light on fuel. After watching the pass a few times, Massa didn’t fight to the death over the position, but did keep his line as long as he should have before giving in to Hamilton and his faster car.

After the pass, Lewis Hamilton who was on a 3 stop strategy was 7 laps through his 16 lap session. That meant that he had 22 kilos of fuel left. Felipe Massa was only 4 laps into a 21 lap session and therefor his car had 48 kilos left. That’s 26 kilos more than Lewis Hamilton. That means that Hamilton is just about 9/10ths of a sec per lap faster than Massa. That’s just about a full second and in F1, that’s a lot faster.

Short of blocking Hamilton or maybe taking too many chances, he couldn’t hold Hamilton up. Massa was out to win the grand prix and compromising that position by continually defending against a faster car that in the end would not challenge him for the win is never a good idea.

Felipe Massa has turned his season around after 2 retirements in the first 2 races and up to now, but despite this turnaround (a turnaround where he has been better than Raikkonen over the last 3 races) his performance and results are pushed aside in favor of criticism.

Last 3 races:

Raikkonen

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Unfortunately it is now the end of the line for Super Aguri. After seeking backing from many different sources in the last year, the end of the line has finally come. Today Aguri Suzuki announced the withdrawal from Formula 1 of Super Aguri with immediate affect.

It has been a mammoth effort from Aguri Suzuki to keep his team alive. No stone was left unturned in this effort, but with Honda standing firm on it’s refusal to help, and then banning Super Aguri from the circuit in Turkey, the end was written on the wall.

Here is the statement from Aguri Suzuki

“In order to realize my dream to become an owner of a Formula One Team, I applied for a grid position in the FIA Formula One World Championship in November 2005. Since then, I have participated in the championship for 2 years and 4 months as the Super Aguri F1 Team, but regretfully I must inform you that the team will be ceasing its racing activities as of today.

“The team has competed against the many car manufacturer backed teams and has succeeded in obtaining the first points after only the 22nd race finishing in 9th place overall in the 2007 Constructors’ Championship. However, the breach of contract by the promised partner SS United Oil & Gas Company resulted in the loss of financial backing and immediately put the team into financial difficulties. Also, the change in direction of the environment surrounding the team, in terms of the use of customer chassis, has affected our ability to find partners.

“Meanwhile, with the help of Honda, we have somehow managed to keep the team going, but we find it difficult to establish a way to continue the activities in the future within the environment surrounding F1 and as a result, I have concluded to withdraw from the Championship.

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After dealing with my host Network Solutions and tearing my hair out, it’s time to lighten things up a bit. Man, I need it for sure.

If you haven’t seen this video of Nick Heidfeld showing off the much improved F1.08 to the employees who helped produce it, have a look. Poor old Nick is much better on an F1 track than he is on a road.

Tags: bmw sauber, nick heidfeld

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Vijay Mallya has given his reaction to the words of A1GP promoter Tony Teixeira. An interview with Teixeira hit the media and the clear message he gave Reuters was that Force India should be promoting Indian drivers (such as Karthikeyan) and show more of an attempt at promoting F1 racing through India.

“The Force India thing, although great for India, is a little bit negative in terms of youngsters and getting them to race if you are never going to win a race,” said Teixeira.

“It’s the wrong message. I think (Force India owner) Vijay (Mallya) is trying to set something up which is a long-term plan but it’s not the right message having Force India and non-Indian drivers.”

Being passionate about your country is a great image to portray, but Teixeira is showing his passion for racing and his country on one hand and on the other he is criticizing India’s brand new F1 team at a time when he should be on board. A team that is already putting India on the map along side the technology and scientific community. While Mallya is building an F1 team which seems to be going in the right direction, he is being criticized for not employing Indian drivers thereby not promoting India as a racing nation.

India has begun to flourish in the technology and scientific world of late. Take for example Hyderabad which with it’s rich history, culture and architecture have now added information technology, and the world of science, specifically biotechnology and has put India on the world map in these areas. This has been made possible through the Indian people and a tremendous influence from other countries. The starting point came from already established companies from other parts of the world who located to India after seeing great potential started by some influentially rich Indian people. Bring on Vijay Mally. He is marketing his country the same way India has marketed their tech and scientific industry.

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Are BMW-Sauber and McLaren Mercedes evenly matched? That depends on who you talk to I guess.
4 races down and the drivers championship standings Ferrari, McLaren, and BMW-Sauber look like this

1. Kimi Raikkonen 29
2. Lewis Hamilton 20
3. Robert Kubica 19

5. Nick Heidfeld 16
6. Heikki Kovalainen 14

In Australia Lewis Hamilton dominated with Heikki Kovalainen finishing 5th 18 seconds back of Hamilton and set the fastest lap of the race. Nick Heidfeld finished second 5.4 seconds back of Hamilton and Robert Kubica finished 9th with a retirement.

In Malaysia, Raikkonen was dominant winning the race easily, but second belonged to Robert Kubica 19.5 secs back and quite a bit ahead of Kovalainen who was third and 38.4 secs back. Lewis Hamilton qualified poorly in 9th and finished 5th 46.5 secs back. Nick Heidfeld finished 6th 49.8 secs back of Raikkonen, but set the fastest lap of the race.

On to Bahrain. Again, Ferrari dominated this race with Massa winning and Raikkonen 2nd. 3rd place was Robert Kubica 4.9 secs back of Raikkonen and 4th place to Nick Heidfeld who was 8.4 secs back. Heikki Kovalainen, the best of McLaren once again finished 5th behind both BMW-Saubers a full 26.7 secs back of Raikkonen. We can safely say that Lewis Hamilton didn’t figure in any leader stats in this race.

At the Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton bounced back finishing 3rd behind both Ferraris 4.1 secs back of Kimi Raikkonen, but only 1.5 secs behind Felipe Massa. Unfortunately Kovalainen had a bad crash, but until then was keeping good pace with a fastest lap time of 1:22.453 and was in 6th place at the time of his crash ahead of Nick Heidfeld.
Robert Kubica finished the race in 4th after starting 4th only 5.6 secs back of Raikkonen. Robert Kubica was pushing Hamilton and both cars pitted together and came out the same way. In this race it was pretty clear that as the race progressed BMW-Sauber and McLaren Mercedes were running pretty much the same pace as the gaps didn’t change through to the end.

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Force India revealed their new motor home at the Spanish Grand Prix, and they are in style. The motor home is just oozing glitter and glamor with a huge glass front and state of the art facilities. Reminds me of the one McLaren have. Vijay Mallya really makes a statement with his team and I bet he’s loving every minute of it.

This has got to hurt when Super Aguri look at this and then look at their portable public toilets and rented coffee machine. Ouch!

Now that McLaren are back at the back of the grid, their motor home will be neighbors with Force India.

Tags: force india, force india motorhome, spanish grand prix, vijaya mallya

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The clouds and uncertainty haven’t ever left Super Aguri and their quest to survive keeps on day after day. Will they survive? I don’t know, but I hope so. Among those who want the team to quit the game altogether there are certain players who for their own gain want Super Aguri on the track.

Bring on Honda. Honda are looking a little like the parents who are abandoning their children before they’re old enough and are feeling the heat of these accusations. There may be however, at least a couple of reasons for Honda to want Super Aguri on the grid and they seem pretty reasonable.

One, Honda will have more of a chance of getting some money owed to them back with the team alive rather than in ruins.
Two, Ferrari gains a lot of engine data from the engines they supply to lets say Toro Rosso for example and it really can be a bit of an advantage to be able to do that. What about Honda? Bring in Super Aguri. They run Honda Engines and just as Ferrari, Honda gains potentially valuable data from that source.

Formula 1 itself has at least one reason to want Super Aguri alive and that’s because an 11th team on the grid provides back of the grid competition. Remember that the top 10 teams get travel money and that’s an incentive to get off the back end. No 11th team and no incentive at the back of the grid to keep out of the bottom.
Now, if Super Aguri would go away, F1 may adjust the rules and make it the top 9 teams or something like that, but for now rules are rules and competition for expenses is a big deal.

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It’s beginning to look more and more as if Sebastian Vettel will move from Toro Rosso to parent team Red Bull Racing next year. Vettel has been linked to a possible move to Ferrari if Massa were to be let go, but for now, Red bull appear to have him.

Just recently we found out that Vettel’s contract lasting another 2 years is with Red Bull.

Linked to replace vettel is a Kiwi Brendon Hartley who is currently racing in British F3 with Red Bull sponsorship.

Hartley (’Hartley the hair’ as they call him) tested the new Toro Rosso STR3 in a shakedown last week at Vairano circuit in Italy in what was kept secret until just recently.

Tags: brendan hartley, red bull, sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso

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What’s happening at Force India these days? A lot.

The team is doing far better than anyone thought and there are plenty of signs they are about to progress even quicker. Early this week it was announced that a group of engineers from his Kingfisher Airlines have been recruited to help the team with it’s computational fluid dynamics programs. Basically this will allow them to simulate different aerodynamic ideas without the need for 100 percent reliability on wind tunnels.

In July now, Force India is hoping to introduce their new car to replace the existing VJM01.

Not only that, but it’s almost certain that they will be using Ferrari’s KERS energy-recovery system next year.

This is the future of Force India over the next year and it’s very exciting for the team. All of this on the heals of tremendous testing this week in Barcelona where Giancarlo Fisichella recorded extremely fast times with the new 2009 slicks. Without these tires, Fisichella ran a time of 1min 20.7, 1.5 seconds faster than the last time through Barcelona where he did a 1min 22.3.

Things are looking good for The Force!

Tags: barcelona, force india, Giancarlo Fisichella, VJM01

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It was almost a tear jerker of a moment when Fernando Alonso jumped back into the arms of Flavio Briatore just a few short months ago. Briatore was tooting his horn with a smile on his face saying we have a faster car and now we have our Fernando back. Oh, what a difference now.

The Renault camp for sure isn’t a happy one these days. The car that was suppose to start the road back to success in F1 has so far fallen even shorter than in 2007. Fernando Alonso who was suppose to be able to give front runners some sort of a challenge with the R28 has had to re-learn how to drive from the middle and back of the field. Not only that, but he is driving that car better than it really is. Now we are at the first test session since pre-season and Renault have to come up with something to improve the car and if they haven’t, it may be a long season.

Just to illustrate the difference from 2007 after 3 races to now in 2008 after the first 2 races, the charts below show how poor the start of this season really is.

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