In the round-up: Narain Karthikeyan will drive Vitantonio Liuzzi’s car in the first practice session in Korea.
Links
Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:
“HRT will run Narain Karthikeyan in first practice in Korea again in place of Vitantonio Liuzzi. Still no word on who he’ll replace in India.”
Worthy of a World Champion? (MotorSport)
“I do not want to see Vettel driving like this in years to come. He doesn’t need to. I believe that Michael Schumacher’s quite exceptional achievements as a Grand Prix driver will always be tainted by his occasionally forcing others off the road.”
Pitstop set up adjustments during the race (ScarbsF1)
“In the 2011 [Japanese] Grand Prix Felipe Massa was reporting understeer and his race engineer Rob Smedley radioed ‘Ok, we will do that rear wing thing’. At Massa’s subsequent pitstop, the rear wing gurney was removed. Reducing rear downforce to balance the car.”
Adrian Sutil: "I was always stuck behind another car" (Force India)
“I think we could gave scored points with let’s say a cleaner race, and definitely without the safety car.”
David Coulthard: Sebastian Vettel is a worthy double champion (The Daily Telegraph)
“Let’s not forget that Michael [Schumacher] was clearly the number one driver at Ferrari; everything was geared towards him. Often his team mates simply drove for him. Whatever people may say about Red Bull and their perceived favouritism towards [Sebastian] Vettel, not many would question that the Australian receives equal treatment and equal opportunity.”
Whitmarsh: Rethink needed over mirrors (Autosport)
“By comparison to the old school of 20 years ago, they are big. But in terms of vibration, probably we don’t do enough.”
Your mission: Win this competition and investigate how wobbly those wing mirrors are…
“It was a blessing to be forced onto twitter. Thank you for all the memories you have reminded me of already! I look forward to sharing more.”
Yas Marina Circuit via Twitter
“Just over 4,000 tickets left for the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix. Spread the word to friends and family so they don’t miss out! http://t.co/BVRuJS4X”
Lucas di Grassi Pirelli Formula 1 Test Barcelona (YouTube)
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Comment of the day
Takeshi Nakamura spotted himself in the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix qualifying pictures gallery:
“Vamos beber” is Portguese, and means “let’s drink!” in English.
I’m in this photo. The guy with the bottle is me!
Last weekend was very fantastic!
Takeshi Nakamura
From the forum
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- Going to the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne
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Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to F1abw!
On this day in F1
Gerhard Berger scored his maiden F1 victory in the Mexican Grand Prix 25 years ago today.
Check back on F1 Fanatic later today for a feature on this race.
Mach1 (@mach1)
12th October 2011, 0:14
Like the helmet cam in Lucas di Grassis test run- makes it mcuh more fun to watch….and I can see whats in the wing mirrors too, don’t seem to vibrate too badly at all….hmmmm
Becken Lima (@becken-lima)
12th October 2011, 0:52
I think Lewis is not the only who, sometimes, can´t see another driver in his blind spot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwwy6qVDl2A&t=0m56s
BasCB (@bascb)
12th October 2011, 8:44
Especially the eye level camera is really nice, to get a feeling of what the driver is actually seeing and looking at.
Cacarella (@cacarella)
12th October 2011, 0:37
I’m not sure I like that Whitmarsh wants to make this a ‘teams’ issue considering only one of his drivers seems to have a problem with the mirrors, let alone the rest of the field. Haven’t the dimensions of the mirrors remained pretty much unchanged for several years now? I don’t think they’re any different to the ones on Lewis’ 2008 title winning MP4/23.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
12th October 2011, 1:20
I think the dimensions and the mountings of the mirrors were change ahead of last year’s Chinese Grand Prix. Teams were treating them as aerodynamics aids first, and rear-view mirrors second. The FIA changed the regulations to fix the mirrors to the survival cell when teams had been placing them out on the vertical fins in front of the sidepods.
hawkii (@hawkii)
12th October 2011, 8:37
Well both his drivers did have issues with mirrors, Hamilton couldn’t see Massa and Button couldn’t be seen by Vettel ;)
Fixy (@)
12th October 2011, 18:27
Seriously, Button didn’t see Hamilton in Canada.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
12th October 2011, 1:25
I think that’s a mistake – the teams know comparatively little about Korea, given last year’s washout. Liuzzi will need just as much track time as Daniel Ricciardo. More, since he’s the more-exerienced driver.
BasCB (@bascb)
12th October 2011, 8:46
Guess its Ricciardo (Red Bull) paying more for the seat.
icemangrins (@icemangrins)
12th October 2011, 2:38
The insight about the rear wing gurney flap is great. Never knew it was holding together with the help of a tape :-)
Maksutov (@maksutov)
12th October 2011, 3:29
Why does he bother. I dont see what satisfaction he gets out of driving and finishing last.
Prisoner Monkeys (@prisoner-monkeys)
12th October 2011, 4:52
It’s to get him reacquainted with the car ahead of the Indian Grand Prix.
BasCB (@bascb)
12th October 2011, 8:48
Exactly, looks like HRT and Narains sponsors want to get as good a chance of a solid race performance once they get to India as is possible.
It makes a lot of sense to me.
Becken Lima (@becken-lima)
12th October 2011, 4:09
Having fun with Photoshop and Bernie’s Japanese puppet:
LINK: http://bit.ly/qbDGPq
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
12th October 2011, 13:30
@becken-lima Oh how very cynical of you! ;)
GeeMac (@geemac)
12th October 2011, 8:34
I didn’t realise it was only 4 weeks until the Abu Dhabi GP…keep an eye out for me in the stands!
BasCB (@bascb)
12th October 2011, 8:48
Hope to see you on some of the pictures as well!
Cacarella (@cacarella)
12th October 2011, 13:28
If you run naked onto the track you’d get spotted for sure! (and arrested), but I’m not condoning that type of behavior.
BasCB (@bascb)
12th October 2011, 8:49
Happy birthday to F1abw, enjoy a nice day.
smifaye (@)
12th October 2011, 10:39
Those helmet cam and eye level cams are amazing. I really hope we see something like that in F1 soon as it makes you far more involved. They did something like that for the GP2 race at Monza and that went down really well.
I know people have said it before but FOM really need to come up with better race feeds as these static cameras are becoming more and more old fashioned.
SempreGilles (@sempregilles)
12th October 2011, 10:58
I don’t disagree that Vettel is a worthy WDC, but this is (as we’ve seen, “Maintain the gap”) only true when it suits. Although most of it is ofcourse down to Webbers (lack of) form.
Neusalz (@dpod)
12th October 2011, 13:25
Agreed. Although I think the car was “built around” Vettel, I still believe Mark should at least bagged a couple wins.
Dev (@dev)
12th October 2011, 12:12
yawn
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
12th October 2011, 13:28
@dev At least Ricciardo can put his feet up for the practice sessions.
Neusalz (@dpod)
12th October 2011, 13:28
I definitely agree with the Vettel article. I have seen him do questionable moves under pressure many times in the past, I hope thats just a bit of panicking instead of intentional moves.