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FIA statement regarding cameraman hit by tyre in pitlane

The FIA have issued the following statement regarding FOM Cameraman, Paul Allen, who was hit by a tyre after Mark Webber’s right rear wheel came off in the pit lane on Lap 9 of the German Grand Prix.

“During the German GP, an FOM cameraman in pit lane was struck by a loose wheel. Paul Allen was hit on the left hand side. Remaining conscious, he was treated at the circuit medical centre and then transported by helicopter to Koblenz Hospital. The Briton has been kept there, under observation. Further information from the hospital will be provided as soon as it becomes available.”

From what we understand, Paul Allen is conscious and responding well after suffering a concussion, a few broken ribs and a fractured collar bone.

July 7, 2013
Sebastian Vettel finally wins his home race at the German Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel today finally added his home German Grand Prix to his list of F1 victories.

He did come under pressure from Kimi Raikkonen at the end, but the Iceman just couldn’t reach him in time. Romain Grosjean finished third, with Fernando Alonso a close fourth.

There was plenty of action during the race including a safety car for Jules Bianchi’s Marussia rolling backward across the track after retiring and a cameraman in the pit lane being hit by a flying tyre which had not been properly seated on the Red Bull of Mark Webber.

Full race review to follow. Full final results timesheet below.

Photo: Red Bull Racing

July 7, 2013
F1 2013: Qualifying Report – German GP

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton finished a tenth clear of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel to take pole position for the German grand prix.

Briton Lewis Hamilton has taken his second consecutive pole position and twenty-ninth of his Formula 1 career at the home grand prix for his team, Mercedes.

The biggest casualty of the day was teammate and British grand prix race winner, Nico Rosberg. An initial run in the second part of Saturday’s qualifying appeared to be enough for the German to advance to the top ten shoot-out. However, a late flurry of flying laps in the closing stages of the second session of quali pushed Rosberg down to eleventh and out of contention for the front row of the grid. The German commented that the team had “underestimated the pace of the track.”

Ever dependable Jenson Button managed to drag his McLaren into the top ten and continually impressive Daniel Ricciardo and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg advanced to the final part of qualifying.

The gap between the soft and medium compound tyres this weekend has been anything from one to one and a half seconds – a run for pole, or anywhere near the sharp-end would require the yellow marked tyres, no doubt. However, the medium compound tyres have also proven, through long run stints in qualifying, to have a much better wear rate than their softer counterparts. As ever Ferrari chose to play the long run and focus on race day by choosing to run only the medium compound tyres in the final ten minute session of qualifying. The result was seventh for Felipe Massa and eighth for Fernando Alonso. Barring any incidents in the first corners the Ferrari’s should bring themselves nicely in to play in Sunday’s race.

But Saturday once again belonged to Lewis Hamilton. The 2008 champion pipped championship leader Sebastian Vettel to pole position but a tenth of a second. Former German grand prix winner Mark Webber will start third and Kimi Raikkonen, in the Lotus, fourth.

Romain Grosjean and Daniel Ricciardo will start fifth and sixth ahead of Massa, Alonso and Button.

July 6, 2013
Sebastian Vettel Fastest in FP3 at the Nurburgring

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel took the honour for the fastest time in the final free practice session of the German Grand Prix

Vettel’s time of 1:29.517 on the soft tyres was the fastest of the morning and 0.676s faster than Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, who did a 1:30.193 for P2. Mark Webber in the sister Red Bull finished the session in P3 with a 1:30.211, 0.694s slower than his team mates time. Lewis Hamilton could only manage P7 as he was struggling with over-steer the entire session. The two Ferrari’s of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa finished the session in P4 and P5 respectively.

The session was incident free which allowed all the teams to carry out their final preparations before qualifying.

It looks as though Vettel might take pole position in qualifying later on if his FP3 pace is anything to go by.

Join us at 14:00 (GMT+2) for our live qualifying updates on Twitter.

July 6, 2013
Vettel fastest on softs in Free Practice 2

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time during the second free practice session in Germany beating Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg by two tenths of a second.

Mark Webber who had a very consistent run finished the session in third place and proved to be very quick on the medium tyres. He was followed closely by the two Lotus drivers.

Alonso, who did not manage to set a time in FP1 managed to place his car in 6th ahead of team mate Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton.

Jules Bianchi did not complete the session due to feeling ill.

The Mercedes drivers still seem to have the advantage over a single lap but it’s still early days – we have FP3 and Qualifying tomorrow.

Below are the results for the session.

July 5, 2013
FIA bans tyre swapping at German Grand Prix

The FIA today imposed a ban on all tyre swapping for this weekend’s German Grand Prix. They have also issued strict limits on tyre pressures and cambers for the race.

This follows a request by Pirelli to the FIA, to limit how F1 teams exploit the rubber because according to Pirelli this was a major contributing factor to the blow-outs suffered at the British Grand Prix. Earlier this week, Pirelli openly blamed teams in a statement for the failures at Silverstone.

The FIA has agreed to enforce strict limits on tyre operations this weekend.

Race director Charlie Whiting, who nearly red-flagged the British Grand Prix, issued a note to teams on Friday stating that: “For safety reasons, we have been asked by Pirelli to ensure that the tyres on all cars are run under the conditions listed below.

It will be the responsibility of each team to satisfy the FIA technical delegate that the cars comply with the following requirements at all times.”

The note specified that minimum starting pressures front and rear will be 16psi, the minimum stabilised running front pressure will be 20psi, and at the rear it will be 19psi. The maximum negative camber allowed at the front will be four degrees, and it will be 2.5 degrees at the rear.

Regarding tyre swapping Charlie also added, “Front and rear tyres must be used on the side of the car for which they were originally designated (no swapping from side-to-side.)”. This was another factor which Pirelli stated contributed to the Silverstone failures.

With drivers threatening to boycott the German Grand Prix should further failures be experienced this weekend, we can only hope that the changes Pirelli has made to the tyres for this weekend will ensure that a recurrence of the drama last weekend is not seen at the Nurburgring.

July 5, 2013
2013 German Grand Prix: Free Practice 1 Report

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of 1:31.754 in the first practice session of the German Grand Prix.

His team mate Nico Rosberg, 0.219s slower finished the session in P2. Red Bull’s Mark Webber ended the session in P3 with a 1:32.769. Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso had a very difficult morning as he could not set a time due to electrical issues with his car. On his first lap out, he stopped on track. The Ferrari mechanics worked on his car and managed to get him back out on track but as soon as he went out on track he reported the same problem as before. The mechanics got back to work on his car, but after a while he was out of the car and that was the end of the session for him.

The rest of the practice session was fairly routine as drivers and teams carried out their usual programmes to test new parts.

Join us again for our FP2 coverage at 14:00 on twitter @F1_Madness

July 5, 2013
F1 drivers will boycott German GP if tyre problems persist

Formula One drivers have threatened to boycott the German Grand Prix this weekend if a repeat of the problems at Silverstone are experienced.

Four drivers suffered blown tyres during a dramatic British Grand Prix on Sunday at Silverstone, forcing Pirelli to revert to Kevlar-belted tyres for this weekend’s race at the Nurburgring. They will also be introducing a new tyre for the remainder of the season.

Although Pirelli are confident that bringing back the Kevlar-belted tyres this weekend will ensure that a repeat of the Silverstone fiasco is not suffered, drivers are not fully satisfied and the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, which represents the majority of drivers, said its members wanted to express their “deepest concerns”.

In a statement following a meeting of the GPDA on Thursday evening, a statement was issued stating that should similar problems occur during the German GP weekend, they would withdraw from the event in the interest of safety.

The statement read:

“The drivers of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association wish to express their deepest concerns about the events that took place at Silverstone.

“We trust that the changes made to the tyres will have the desired results and that similar problems will not occur during the German GP weekend.

“We are ready to drive our cars to the limit, as we always do, and as it is expected by our teams, sponsors and fans.

“However, the drivers have decided that, if similar problems should manifest themselves during the German GP, we shall immediately withdraw from the event, as this avoidable problem with the tyres endangers again the lives of drivers, marshals and fans.”

Fernando Alonso spoke earlier on Thursday about the dangerous situation he found himself in behind Sergio Perez who suffered a blow out. “I committed to overtake Sergio on the left,” he said, “I was lucky because maybe if I chose the right, everything would hit my helmet. There are pieces of steel coming at 300kph so it would be like a bullet or a knife.” He added, “Pirelli made some changes. We trust them. We think they solve the problem.”

Pirelli issued a statement on Tuesday blaming the failures on the teams but Jenson Button said following the GPDA meeting that “We followed all of Pirelli’s guidelines – on both cars.”

Pictures have been posted on the Internet showing that tyre swapping was taking place but no further comment has been made about this by the drivers.

July 4, 2013
Nurburgring German Grand Prix Preview Quotes – Pirelli

Preview quotes from Pirelli’s Paul Hembery ahead of the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring this weekend.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director

“Surprisingly, the Nurburgring is one of the circuits that we have the least experience of, having only raced there once before in Formula One, but we’re certain that we have chosen the correct compromise between performance and durability by bringing the medium and soft compounds. These were actually the same compounds that we chose for this track in 2011, but since then the tyres have got softer and faster, so we would expect a quicker race time with an average of three pit stops for most drivers. The Nurburgring is not on the whole an especially demanding circuit for tyres but there are still some distinctive aspects to look out for when it comes to tyre management, such as the kerbing on the chicanes. We are expecting a performance gap of 0.8-1.0 second between the two nominated compounds, which should make the strategy options versatile. For this race only, we will bring Kevlar-belted rear tyres, following the incidents at the British Grand Prix. Even though the 2013 high-performance steel-belted version is completely safe when used correctly, the Kevlar-belted version is easier to manage and as long as there is no system in place which allows us to enforce tyre related specifications, like tyre pressures or camber, the incorrect use of which were contributing factors of the tyre failures in Silverstone, we prefer to bring a less sophisticated tyre. From the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards there will be a completely new range of tyres, combining the characteristics of our 2012 tyres with the increased performance of the 2013 specification.”

July 4, 2013
Nurburgring German Grand Prix Preview Quotes – Lotus F1 Team

Preview Quotes from the Lotus F1 Team ahead of the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus

“I have always enjoyed driving in Germany, but the problem is that luck has never been on my side there and something has always happened to stop me winning. I’ve got four poles to show my speed on German soil, but six retirements at this race haven’t been what I wanted. Obviously in the past both circuits – the Nurburgring and Hockenheim – have not been very kind to me, but I like them both and I have always been very competitive; in terms of pace if not maybe results. I’ve gone very well at the Nurburgring before, just never won. A couple of times I’ve had to stop while leading the race which always sends you home with a bad feeling. Hopefully I can finally get everything right this time. Last year we made the top three in Hockenheim, so let’s wait and see how it goes at the Nurburgring for the first time with this team. It’s pretty good circuit, but probably not as much fun as the old one. It should suit us, but the fact is you need a really good car to be competitive there. Most of all you need good traction out of the corners and a stable car under braking. We’re pretty reasonable in both these areas. We have had our issues with cooler weather and unfortunately it’s not usually that warm at the Nürburgring, but we’ll just see what we get and get on with it.”

Romain Grosjean, Lotus

“The Nurburgring is quite a nice track with a quite a lot to it. There’s a really interesting mix of corners which means you have plenty to think about over the course of a lap; you’re certainly kept busy! The first section relies on mechanical grip and Turn 1 can be interesting at the start of the race if people go too deep into the corner. It can also be a good overtaking opportunity during the race too. After that there are some higher speed corners down to the hairpin – which is another good place you can overtake – then nice high speed stuff for the rest of the lap. You need a well-balanced car so I think we should go pretty well. This will be my first time racing there in Formula 1, but I’ve raced at the track previously in F3 and the GP2 Series. Last time I raced there – 2011 in the GP2 Series – I scored a podium and a win so my most recent memories of the circuit are certainly good.”

Eric Boullier

“There’s nothing about the Nurburgring to cause us any concern so we should be in the hunt again in Germany. We brought plenty of upgrades to Silverstone and we have a lot of data from the weekend so there should be some more pace to extract there. Another positive for the team to take from Silverstone was that all our race pit stops were completed in 2.5 seconds or under. It’s great to see the hard work in this area making improvements, so a big thanks to the pit stop crew – who practice their stops so many times both at the track and at the factory – as well as the design and manufacturing departments for all the equipment and relevant car parts too.”

Alan Permane, Lotus trackside operations director

“The Nurburgring is a good track and one that the drivers really seem to enjoy as it has a real mix of everything. The opening sector is really quite technical, with good traction and a strong front end needed for some of the longer radius low speed turns. Then of course there’s a couple of swooping, medium speed downhill turns towards the hairpin, followed by the high speed kink which – despite the gradient – is taken flat out in 6th or even 7th gear at around 280kph and really pushes the drivers. Next, you have a couple of medium / high speed corners leading onto the long back straight, followed by a tight chicane and the last corner, where a good front end is again required to counter the understeer inducing nature of the turn. In terms of chassis setup there’s a little bit of everything required; good change of direction for the medium speed corners, decent traction and front end for the tricky first sector and good top end speed for the long straights. Having only just been to Silverstone there won’t be anything major (in terms of upgrades), as the crew will be driving straight down to Germany to rebuild the cars without stopping at the factory. That said, we still have a new wing which we haven’t used yet and we still have to try various permutations of the latest upgrades on both cars. If it’s good weather and everything goes to plan, we could unlock quite a bit of speed this weekend.”

July 4, 2013