F1 Fanatic round-up 13/7/2010

Posted on

| Written by

I hope to have the Predictions Championship results up later today but because of the technical problems on Friday it may take some time as I have several hundred manual records to process which could delay the final results. If you only sent your prediction in by email, it will still be counted.

Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

Does Raikkonen have a Mercedes future? (GrandPrix)

“Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug [confirmed] that he recently paid a visit to Kimi Raikkonen.”

New Williams chairman Adam Parr keen to preserve legacy (BBC)

“Costs have gone crazy in the last five years in Formula One. We are getting them under control now, but balancing the books the first job for anyone running a Formula One team.”

Fernandes acquires Team Lotus name (Adam Cooper)

“The return of the Team Lotus name will in effect mean that there are no loose ends and provide a formal link not just with the past but also with Classic Team Lotus, the historic car operation run by Colin Chapman’s son Clive.”

Comment of the day

Here’s a terrific statistic from Bleu:

Because it was 100th safety car deployment for Bernd Mayl?â?ñnder.

2000 AUS, AUT, 2xGER, BEL, ITA, MAL = 7
2001 AUS, MAL, BRA, AUT, GER, BEL = 6/13
2002 2xAUS, 2xAUT, CAN = 5/18
2003 2xAUS, 5xBRA, AUT, 2xGBR, GER =11/29
2004 2xMON, 2xUSA, GBR, 3xBEL = 8/37
2005 ESP, MON, CAN, GBR, BEL, BRA, JPN, 2xCHN = 9/46
2006 4xAUS, RSM, EUR, MON, GBR, 2xCAN, USA, HUN, TUR, BRA = 14/60
2007 BRN, 4xCAN, EUR, ITA, 2xJPN = 9/69
2008 3xAUS, 2xESP, 2xMON, CAN, GER, ITA, BRA = 11/80
2009 2xAUS, MAL, 2xCHN, ESP, BEL, ITA, SIN, JPN, BRA = 11/91
2010 AUS, 2xCHN, 4xMON, EUR, GBR = 9/100
Bleu

From the forum

With the football over, will F1 head to South Africa?

Site updates

I had planned to introduce a post-race “rate the drivers” feature earlier this year but I only ran it for the first time yesterday as it’s taken a while to get the timing right.

It would be easy to stick a poll the second the chequered flag drops. But I thought that would be a crude approach as it’s not always clear in the immediate aftermath of a race exactly what has happened and why.

A good example is Lewis Hamilton’s wheel failure in Spain – it wasn’t clear straight after the race whether that was a simple failure or one caused by over-aggressive driving (it turned out to be the former).

Therefore I wanted to time the “rate the drivers” feature to appear after all the team race reviews had been published. That has meant finding ways to speed up completing these articles.

I’m happy this has now been done, and introducing it for the first race after the half-term driver rankings makes it coincide nicely with the second half of the season. I hope you enjoy the addition to the F1 Fanatic race weekend coverage. Do post any suggestions on how to improve it or anything else below.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Robert!

On this day in F1

And a happy birthday to Jarno Trulli who is 36 today!

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

45 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up 13/7/2010”

  1. Who will be fast in Hockenheim? What’s more important there – downforce, traction, top speed?

    1. Turn one is an absoulte epic fasty, copse like in what the cars do, Redbull strong through their and onto Parabolix, were presumably McLaren will do well if it’s an overtaky race, also Macca should do well at the hair pin. I’d sort of say this is a mix track an it depends on Maccas upgrade for the true order.

      Redbull should get pole though. Not sure they’ll keep it in the race.

      1. hopefully the f1 drivers won’t run wide in turn 1 on purpose to gain an advantage. the DTM drivers do it every lap. tut tut…

        no classic conrners really IMO.

    2. Turn one is brilliant, and is pure RB6 territory. However, the slow corner and long Parabolika straight followed by another hairpin should hand some advantage back to the other frontrunners – but once we enter the stadium section again it should be the RB6 that’s fastest, unless McLaren’s blown diffuser upgrade works properly this time around.
      Sector 1 = ?
      Sector 2 = McLaren / Ferrari
      Sector 3 = Red Bull

  2. raikkonen and rosberg! what a popular coupling that would be!

    1. As much as I am a fan of Kimi, I think he should stay in WRC if he wants to. He seems to be improving, especially on tarmac, and his current demeanour is apparently more cheerful than say, a certain Mr Loeb, who looks miserable regardless of whether he wins or not…

    2. Two young blonde hair, blue eyed white boys in the German team?!

      1. I wonder if thats why his C4 is silver?

      2. One and a half Finns if it ever happens…

  3. Fantastic site Keith, this is now my first stop every day for f1 news and the quality of the discussions from the users of this site is outstanding. So great to have a forum like this where we can all discuss our passion..!!! Keep up the good work..!

    1. Thank you!

  4. James Allen has shed a little more light on the upcoming Senna film from Working Title.

    I’m wary of most motorsport-related forays into the big screen, but this one has definitely gotten my hopes up. If it has a similar emotional punch to that of Antti Kalhola’s Senna tribute, I think I’ll be satisfied.

    1. nice, look forward to seeing that!

  5. So, while scouring the internet, I found out what Juan Pablo Montoya has been doing in NASCAR. Actually, more specifically, I’ve found out what Juan Pablo Montoya’s car has been up to:

    http://cache-04.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2010/07/transformers_nascar__2_.jpg

    It’s a blurry image – there are none better, sorry – but that’s very definately JPM’s #42 NASCAR on location in Chicago for filming TRANSFORMERS 3. Based on some video taken from the location, it seems JPM’s car (as well as Jimmie Johnson’s and Dale Earnhardt Jnr.’s) are a group of Decepticons that get chased through the streets of a Chicago war zone while a group of humans BASE jump from a skyscrape with those special arrow-shaped aerodynamic suits. Or something. Whatever. Hopefully it’s better than REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (although this one actually has a plot, and provided it’s done coherently – ie no large chunks of exposition to link action sequences – so it probably already is … plus, it has Alan Tudyk and no Megan “the Cardboard Box” Fox).

    Now, if only we could get a Formula 1 Transformer …

    1. That F1 transformer would be Mirage and be a Ligier…

      1. Yeah, well, there’s no such thing as Ligier anymore. They became Prost, and then Prost went belly-up. Someone else would have to stand in. Williams, maybe?

        1. The only car I can see as a transformer is the Lotus with it’s boxy sidepods.

        2. Don’t let the lack of having a current team stop that, there’s still the historic race series, correct?

          Although knowing the particular fetishes of the director, it’ll probably be an IndyCar or a NHRA dragster, which would probably explode in an overblown, slow motion way…

    2. Photoshopped image is photoshopped.

      1. Actually, it’s legit.

  6. If Bleu has counted the safety car appearences correctly then that is a quite excellent stat!

    Mr Bleu, on behalf of all F1 anoraks (like myself!) I salute you

  7. I do enjoy the team race reviews but I wonder if there isn’t a better way of doing it.

    I state this because having a seperate article for each team pushes some articles out of the list at the side of the page quite quickly.

    1. I’m a fan of the race reviews, but it’s a bit irritating getting all of them on my feed reader. Is it possible for you to omit only these articles from the rss feed, Keith?

      1. No, sorry. It’s only 12 articles per race.

  8. Thanks!

    I came up with this when someone on the other forum just said that he was getting near 100. I then took an exact count and came up with 98. That was after Monaco this year, then we had one in Valencia and one now at Silverstone.

  9. It’s taken 10 years to get 100 saftey cars, NASCAR would have had that many in the last 10 races :)

    Exaggeration, but you get my point.

  10. Nice work by Bleu, Bernd Mayländer may be one of the good driver of F1 who never had the opportunity to drive a Formula 1 car in his life.

    Kimi in Mercedes is to me unlikely? Cause I don’t want Schumi to quit at the end of the year unless Nico is having a different plan.

  11. According to Autosprint (reported in Autosport) Whiting advised Ferrari immediately to let Kubica past again:

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85258

    They knew it, we knew it, so what on earth was Alonso playing at?

    1. Maybe he thought they still owed him one for Valencia?

      Or actually, the fact that he thought that Valencia was “manipulated” means that he’s simply not thinking straight.

      1. wow, with that in mind Alonso’s punisment wasn’t harsh at all, three warnings which the team choose to ignore.

        The stewards would have had that in mind as well when they handed down the punishment, driver and team has ignored race control. Thats just mad.

    2. “Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said the team did not ask Alonso to let Kubica through because it did not feel the Spaniard has gained an advantage.”

      Ferrari being told is not the same as Alonso being told so lets not get all “what was Alonso playing at?” just yet.

      It seems just as was reported after the race that Ferrari were advised to let Kubica back through, but didn’t give Alonso the order whilst disputing it. If Alonso didn’t let him through because he was told to wait as it was still being argued its completely different from jumping to the conclusion that Alonso himself ignored the advise from Charlie.

      They should have just given the place back of course but Alonse would naturally not do it unless he had to.

      1. Agree with Ads here. Ferrari knowing and Alonso knowing are two different things. Ferrari may not have told him and when he’s busy racing and thinks he’s done nothing wrong and left it to his team then it’s not his fault so much. If Ferrari did tell him then he was an idiot but I’m not sure they did.

        I’d say this was more Ferrari’s fault. They took too long arguing and then Kubica retired. Normally it wouldn’t be such an issue but the retirement was the final nail. They should have just told Alonso immediately and been decisive about it.

        1. HounslowBusGarage
          13th July 2010, 21:45

          Absolutely right, Steph.

          “We told Ferrari three times that in my opinion they should give the position back to Kubica,” Charlie Whiting was quoted as saying by Autosprint magazine.
          “And we told them that immediately, right after the overtaking manoeuvre. On the radio, I suggested to them that if they exchange position again, there would be no need for the stewards to intervene.

          “But they didn’t do that and on the third communication they said that Kubica was by then too far back to let him regain the position.

          “It’s not true at all that the stewards took too long to decide. For us the facts were clear immediately: Alonso had gained an advantage by cutting the track.”

          [quote]Domenicali said that by the time the stewards told them Alonso should let Kubica by, the Pole was already too far behind. [/quote]

          Someone is fibbing.

          1. not necessarily, Charlie Whiting is race director not a steward so his message may well have been sent long before anything from the stewards

        2. Perhaps they were trying to do a Hamilton. Relying on the stewards to take a long time so that when the drive through came he could do it without loosing a place. If so it backfired big time….. if not they were just stupid. Unfortunately there seems to have been quite a bit of stupidity at Ferrari recently, both on and off track.

  12. Hate to spoil things for you Bleu, but you missed out the two safety cars from Singapore 2008. Sorry.

    1. As far as I know, Bernd Maylander was sick that weekend, so it was actually Alexander Wurz behind the wheel then

      1. Oh, Ok then my mistake.

  13. DC writing on Daily Telegraph about Red Bull’s problems as a team…

    can’t find how is that fair if he’s actually a part of the team…

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/redbull/7886133/David-Coulthard-Mark-Webber-airing-his-dirty-laundry-in-public-is-risky-strategy.html

    1. It’s such nonsense to say that there is a lead driver based on the points in the championship. There is nothing between them.

      Besides, Horner claimed that Vettel got the wing because he was fastest in FP3. They can make it happen so that Vettel is fastest in FP3 again.

      Although I doubt that Webber will get fooled into doing long runs in FP3 again then (while Vettel is only doing qualy runs).

      On another occasion it was that Vettel got first choice because he had gotten pole.

      On yet another occassion they gave the preference to Vettel and not Webber (who got pole) because Vettel was leading the race.

      Seriously, the rule is that Vettel gets the preferential treatment and only the reason why this is granted is flexible.

      1. Mark is trying not to show pace so Vettel won’t copy his settings, but Vettel is now onto that and at Silverstone they copied Mark’s Q3 settings even though Vettel posted faster times. Mark’s comment yet again “the other car went my way on settings anyway”. Vettel broke his front wing by being aggressive on the kerbs and so they took Mark’s. Mark has always taken it easy with new lightweight Newey components versus his teammate (Coulthard too) and he expects payback for the time sacrifice. Mark is beating Vettel because he is the faster driver, the chassis weight min increase and the decision by RBR to give Mark some lighter weight componentry than Vettel to equalise distribution has allowed us to see his form. All Vettel has left is the risky kerb banging trick.

    1. HounslowBusGarage
      13th July 2010, 21:38

      Haha!
      Look carefully at this picture. Webber looks as though he’s shaking hands with the bloke behind Vettel, while Vettel’s hands hang loosely and threateningly by his sides.
      “Yeah Aussie? You and who’s army?”
      “Just me, mate. No help necessary.”

  14. Fantastic Articles and pictures
    Great season so far especially with the Senna name back,but I hope Hamilton takes the title again
    After a sucessfull 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa I really hope and pray that F1 Racing comes to RSA again, especially here in Cape Town.
    AYOBA I MORE TIME
    Robert Richards
    Cape Town RSA

  15. Ron Dennis turns into practical joke man, and the BBC are not amused: http://adamcooperf1.com/2010/07/13/bbc-furious-as-ron-dennis-sabotages-eddie-jordan/

Comments are closed.