The action kicked off in Japan today, with Hamilton leading Free Practice 1. It was bright and sunny, a vast difference to the state of the track this time last year. There were barely any incidents, bar a few wide corners, and we spent most of the session trying to distinguish between the soft and hard tyres with the lovely green stripes.
Free Practice 2 saw much more action, although still few incidents, and several drivers led the timesheets at one stage or another. Timo Glock ended the day as the fastest man, giving Toyota a much needed boost at their home race weekend. Alonso was close behind in second, whilst early pace-setter Hamilton settled for third.
Elsewhere, the Montreal government have said they will meet with Bernie Ecclestone to try and get the Canadian Grand Prix reinstated. Mayor Gerald Tremblay said he wants to understand the economic state of the race first, as the disagreement with Bernie is worth between $10 and $20 million.
That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.
We saw our first Singapore track action today and it was unbelievably beautiful. The lighting seemed to work according to plan, and it was down to the drivers to get to grips with the circuit. Free Practice 1 saw Mark Webber crash into the barriers, and Rubens Barrichello suffer the same fate. Trulli spun round on the main straight, and decided it was safer to travel several car lengths the wrong way and u-turn into the pits, rather than swing round on the straight. The stewards disagreed, though, and after the event reprimanded him and fined him 10,000 Euros.
Hamilton led the first session and much of the second, until Alonso pipped him at the very last moment. FP2 was a quieter affair, with Glock knocking his front wing off against the wall, and a near miss between Bourdais coming out of the pits and Heidfeld on a flying lap. Webber missed a lot of the running but did get some laps in, whilst Fisichella retired halfway through with a gearbox problem.
That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.
Hello and welcome to the second F1 Minute for the 7th September.
A quick update on the FIA investigations into the Belgium Grand Prix results. That’s right, investigations plural. Earlier I mentioned that the stewards were looking into a Hamilton incident, but before that they announced that Glock would receive a 25 second penalty for overtaking under yellow flags. Presumably this was on the last lap with the waved yellows for Raikkonen’s crash. That drops him out of the points and promotes Webber to 8th place.
Hamilton’s investigation was for not handing back the advantage to Raikkonen after cutting across the chicane. The stewards investigated and have now handed Hamilton a post-race drive-through penalty, meaning he is demoted to third. Massa inherits the win, and Heidfeld takes second. This decision is causing a lot of controversy, as Hamilton was fully behind Raikkonen before overtaking him on the straight, but has apparently still been deemed to have taken an advantage. McLaren have lodged an appeal.
There’s plenty of discussion in the comments at Sidepodcast.com, or start afresh and let me know what you think at F1Minute.com.
Today is the 19th August 2008, and you’re listening to F1 Minute.
We’ve heard from Red Bull recently that they are aiming to finish fourth in the constructor’s championship this year, but now it appears they’re not the only ones with such an ambition. After a couple of strong race finishes, Renault have said that fourth is the position they have their eye on as well. Director of Engineering Pat Symonds said: “So the performance in Hungary reinforces the belief that we are moving in the right direction and gives me confidence that we can finish fourth in the championship and end the season with the third fastest car.” Not quite sure of his maths there, but it sounds good to me.
Still with Renault, Piquet is looking to qualify well in Valencia and finish with a good points haul. He reckons that he’s had to learn a lot of new tracks this year, but as everyone else is in the same boat at this circuit, it will level the playing field somewhat.
And away from Renault, just a note that Glock says he is still smiling after his second place finish in Hungary. Three weeks later.
That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.
You’re listening to F1 Minute and today is the 16th August 2008.
If you happen to be anywhere near Rotterdam this weekend, you might be lucky enough to catch sight of an F1 car on the streets. Toyota, Force India and Renault have all taken a break from their Valencian preparation to head to the Netherlands for the Bavaria City Racing festival.
Trulli will be giving the fans a demonstration in his Toyota, whilst Fisichella, Sutil and Renault test driver Yamamoto all take their respective cars on a trip through the streets as well. With team mate Trulli in the Netherlands, Glock has travelled to California to take part in some Historic Automobile Races at Laguna Seca. Nice work if you can get it.
Meanwhile, the F1 news doesn’t stop. Rumour has it that Nelson Piquet is having to wait until September this year before finding out whether he has a race drive for 2009 or not. The Renault driver is one in a long line of people having to wait until Alonso makes his move for next season, before finding out his own future.
That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.
It’s looking likely that Toyota’s line up for next year will still feature both Trulli and Glock, although no official announcement has been made yet. President of Toyota Motorsport John Howett has hinted at such a lineup, well, he’s basically confirmed it: “As we stand here today, we intend to keep both drivers. And I don’t think that’s ever been in any doubt to be honest.”
Whilst we’re on the subject of Toyota, they hosted a meeting at their motorhome in Hungary, for representatives of all the teams to discuss KERS. It looks like more than half of teams want to delay the introduction of the new technology for a year. Four teams voted against the delay, including BMW, Honda and Williams. These are all teams who have invested heavily in the new systems already.
BMW Team Principal, Mario Theissen, says: “There were three aspects discussed in the meeting - two of them openly, which is safety and financial implications. And the other one, underlying the picture, is competitiveness…“
That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.
Hands up everyone who was expecting a boring Hungarian Grand Prix? Yup, me included. This race was anything but, though. Whilst the lack of overtaking did hamper things somewhat, we still ended up with a podium of Kovalainen, Glock and Raikkonen.
Here’s a quick summary of what happened: Hamilton lined up on pole, but Massa got a fantastic start from third and overtook both Kovalainen and Hamilton to take the lead of the race. He pulled away a decent enough lead and retained his position through the pit stops.
During the second stint, Hamilton picked up a puncture, which meant he had to bring forward his pit stop, and take on the soft tyres much earlier than he would have wanted. It looked like nothing could stop Massa from taking victory, but three laps from the end, the Ferrari engine blew up on the home straight, leaving Massa a short but agonising walk back to the garage.
Kovalalainen inherited the win whilst Glock picked up second after a really strong performance. Hamilton finished 5th, and continues to lead the driver’s championship.
That’s it for today, I will be back tomorrow with all the reactions from the race, in another F1 Minute.
Hamilton took an easy pole position at the Hungaroring today, just ahead of team mate Kovalainen. Hamilton also had the jump on Ferrari in the first Free Practice session of the day, leading Massa, and then Glock.
On to qualifying, and the only major incident happened in the first session. Heidfeld was on a hot lap, and stumbled across Bourdais and another car negotiating a corner. It looked like Heidfeld believed he was being held up, and he also ran wide at the final turn, causing some serious fist waving at the Toro Rosso. Heidfeld starts on the grid in 16th. In the second session, Vettel and Button did supremely well to finish 11th and 12th respectively, whilst Rosberg got through to Q2 but couldn’t set a lap time due to hydraulics problems.
Finally the third session had Glock leading the way and then second for a good few minutes, but in the end, common sense ruled. Hamilton leads Kovalainen, Massa and then Kubica.
That’s it for today, enjoy the race, and I will be back with the results tomorrow in another F1 Minute.
This is F1 minute and today is the 22nd July 2008.
All ten teams turned up in Jerez for the first day of testing this morning, and by the afternoon, Vettel was top of the leaderboard. He beat Paffett in the McLaren and Badoer in the Ferrari. The only other racing driver out there was Trulli who finished 7th. The day was not without it’s mishaps though.
BMW were testing out their new KERS, but when a mechanic touched the car, he received an electric shock. He fell to the ground, and later went to the medical centre but was unharmed. BMW were understandably cautious, and Klien didn’t complete any timed laps in the car. The team have also now decided to halt testing the system for now.
Elsewhere today, Toyota have confirmed that Glock will be back in action on Thursday, and Glock himself says: “It was a really hard impact and my back hurt immediately after I got out of the car but now it is fine. Actually, it looked worse on TV than it really was.”
That’s all for today, please join me again tomorrow for another F1 Minute.
You’re listening to F1 Minute for the 21st July 2008.
Following his heavy crash at Hockenheim, yesterday, Timo Glock stayed in hospital overnight for observation but was released today. He is fine, and returns now to rest up ahead of the test at Jerez this week. Toyota general manager Pascal Vasselon has spoken to Timo: “We have already talked to him on the phone. It may not be possible, but he is already thinking that he wants to drive in the test at Jerez. So he is fine.” At the moment, the cause of the crash is still unknown.
Also, following the race yesterday, the stewards announced that Fisichella had been given a 25 second penalty, due to unlapping himself from behind the safety car when he technically wasn’t allowed to. This puts the Force India down from 14th place to 16th.
Finally, after back to back wins from Hamilton, ex-champion Niki Lauda has spoken out, and changed his mind about the Brit: “It was a great race from him in Germany and if If he continues like this, he will be unbeatable.”
That’s it for today, I’ll be back tomorrow with another F1 Minute.