Watch highlights of the final race of the 2012 season where Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel had an incredible drive after crashing at the start of the race with major damage to his RB8. Vettel didn’t win the race but he did finish high enough to ensure that he had more points than Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
In the same race we also said goodbye to one of the best drivers in formula 1, Michael Schumcher. This was his final race of his F1 career. #KeepFightingMichael
The penultimate round of the Formula 1 World Championship brings us to the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace in Sao Paulo, Brazil for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Usually the final Grand Prix of the season, but this year things are a bit different. But that doesn’t matter. No matter where on the calendar you put the Brazilian Grand Prix, you are guaranteed unpredictability in the race. We don’t even have to remember that far back either. Who can forget the 2012 race where Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso fought to the bitter end to just narrowly loose out to Red Bulls Sebastian Vettel for the Drivers World Championship.
The drivers title for 2014 is still wide open. Either one of the Mercedes drivers could win it. Love it or hate it, the double points rule at the final race of the season does make things very unpredictable. But at the same time it casts a shadow over the drivers title if the driver who wins it, wins because of the double points in the final race. Will it be a deserved title or not?
Lower down the order, the rest of the teams are still fighting for position for the Constructors Championship. Red Bull look to have second place all sewn up. The battle for third between Ferrari and Williams is still ongoing. The slow and twisty nature of the Sao Paulo track will suit the Ferrari’s more than the Williams. Ferrari on the other hand need both their drivers to finish in strong positions. Williams will make the best out of the situation. Ferrari need to weary of McLaren who are just 49 points adrift.
This week times will not be as late as they were for the American Grand Prix, but we can expect early evening times for the people in Europe and Africa, with early morning times for the folks over in the eastern regions of the world.
Here are your broadcast times for this weekends Brazilian Grand Prix(All times are GMT+2):
Free Practice 1: 14:00
Free Practice 2: 18:00
Free Practice 3: 15:00
Qualifying: 18:00
Race: 18:00
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton finished on top of the time sheets in the first practice session for the United States Grand Prix.
Hamilton finished on top with a time of 1:39.941. His team mate Nico Rosberg finished the session 0.292s slower than his team mate in P2 with a 1:40.233. McLaren’s Jenson Button was the little surprise of the session finishing in P3 with a 1:40.319, just 0.378s off Hamilton’s pace.
Daniil Kvyat in his Toro Rosso ended his session in P4 with a 1:40.887 while Kevin Magnussen in the other McLaren finished off the session in P5 with a 1:40.987.
The session was rather quiet with a few spins and some drivers getting caught out at turn 19 by running wide or getting too late on the brakes and locking up.
It was a rather anonymous session for Red Bull and Ferrari. Daniel Ricciardo had to cut his session short after the team found and issue with his engine. Sebastian Vettel had a fair amount of running out on track but struggled with the rear grip on his RB10. Vettel ended the session in P7 while Ricciardo could only manage P17 after 5 laps.
The two Ferrari drivers trailed new wings and evaluated new parts for the first part of the session. Fernando Alonso seemed to struggle with the rear of the car while Kimi Raikkonen just seemed out of sorts on track.
McLaren’s pace does look very promising for now. If they can keep up the pace we could be in for a very exciting qualifying session.
At the end of the session, a virtual safety car was trailed. Cars are given a delta time to stick to. This delta time has to be followed. At the end of the session/race two cars will be chosen at random and the data from their ECU’s analysed to determine if the driver did, in fact, adhere to the delta time.
Fernando Alonso says he has a “very ambitious plan” for his future in Formula One as rumours about where he will race season continue to swirl around in the F1 rumour mill.
Alonso has driven for Ferrari since 2010 but former president Luca di Montezemolo revealed after the Russian Grand Prix that the Spanish driver will leave the team at the end of the season. Meanwhile, Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel announced that he will be leaving Red Bull and is expected to be joining Ferrari to fill Alonso’s seat.
Despite being constantly bombarded by the media (and fellow drivers like Felipe Massa) about his plans, Alonso is yet to confirm where he will be going next year.
“I know, yes. More or less,” he said when questioned about whether he knows where he will be moving to next season.
“I have a very ambitious plan in my head for my future.
“I think that this is the best thing for Ferrari as well. If that happens people will be very, very excited – as I am.
“I am extremely happy and all the things in the last two or three months follow exactly the plan that I had.”
Alonso is currently in 6th place in the F1 Drivers’ World Championship and has only made it to the podium twice so far this season.
Judging by the harmonious blend of NASCAR and beer the Americans have a pretty good idea on how to spend most of their weekends. More recently they struck on another golden combination by bringing the world’s premier racing serious to the lone star state of Texas.
Dubbed the Circuit of the Americas, or COTA, Formula 1’s return to the US was celebrated with a rowdy return in 2012. This circuit too was designed by Herman Tilke but unlike his other occasionally tedious attempts at modern circuit design COTA has been lauded by drivers and fans. “Hand on heart, this is probably the date on the calendar I look forward to the most,” says Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. “The Circuit of The Americas, in my opinion, is the best of the new breed of circuits. The nature of the corners is interesting. It’s also a very busy track where you don’t get much respite. The first sector is very special and that first turn, blind up the big hill is like nothing else in Formula 1. It’s also a good example of the excitement a late apex can create: you can have a really good lunge there. They’ve done a very good job.”
A storm is brewing towards the back of the Formula 1 grid as two teams in particular are having a difficult time in coping with the new turbo-charged-money-pit-era of the sport. It has led to the announcement that neither Caterham nor the Marussia team will be taking part in Texas this weekend. The great hopes once held for Caterham now lay in shards as administrators Smith and Williamson, who now own the team, set out to look for a possible buyer. Its debut in 2010 and the following season for Caterham seemed to suggest a lot of potential. They were the team most likely to be snapping at the heels of the mid-field and possibly score a point or two, such was their progression. However, in the last two seasons the team seems to have hit a brick wall and was overtaken by main rivals Marussia. Caterham’s absence, with permission from Bernie Ecclestone, will also include the team missing the Brazilian GP. At Marussia financial woes have meant that team cannot run either.
This should make for an interesting qualifying session. Along with the four cars already missing from the line-up Red Bull has already announced that Sebastian Vettel will not take part in the qualifying session. Vettel has chosen not partake as he will incur a ten-place grid penalty for using a sixth power unit, one more than is allotted for a season.
Not that long ago the announcement that Formula 1 would transform to hybrid, turbo-charged cars for 2014 was met with serious speculation as to the cost involved. Several teams, some of the big-wigs too, had genuine fears about the financial implication of such an imposing transformation. With two teams not making the trip to Texas or Brazil; a few others like Lotus and Sauber are in quite a fight to keep their head above water; and with Vettel missing in action from quali you have to wonder if those who pushed for the comprehensive rule changes are still as boisterously confident as before.
Formula 1 is a sport of extremes and over on the other side of the grid Mercedes is making merry and raking in the prize money. The circuit in Austin, Texas isn’t as power-hungry as Russia’s Sochi track but this will do little to eat into the colossal competitive advantage that Mercedes wields.
America – the land of opportunity so goes the famous saying. With three consecutive victories Lewis Hamilton has been making the most of his
and now sits seventeen points clear of teammate Nico Rosberg. What can Rosberg do to break the ominous momentum of his champion teammate, more importantly; does he have the mental fortitude to beat an extremely confident and ridiculously comfortable Lewis Hamilton on an equal playing-field? There isn’t a doubt that Rosberg is a quick driver with some savvy skills. As this championship draws to a climax he’ll need to call on all of it to prove that he has what it takes to be the 2014 world champion. How deep can Nico Rosberg truly dig?
It’s been a rather eventful three weeks in the lead up to Round 17 of the Formula 1 World Championship. We’ve seen two teams exit the sport with very little chance of either team returning. To add insult to injury there are threats that there are more teams that may fold and exit the sport. It has truly been a sad few weeks.
As sad as these past events are, the show must go on. The F1 circus returns to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin Texas for the United States Grand Prix. This is only the third time the track has hosted the US GP and every year it gets bigger and better.
With Mercedes winning the Constructors Championship at the Russian Grand Prix, and with Red Bull in a comfortable second, the battle between Williams and Ferrari for third is all to play for. There is just 28 points between the two teams and we can be certain that both teams will be pushing for strong points finishes in the final three races.
With the Constructors Championship decided. It just leaves the Drivers Championship. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton took victory at the inaugural Russian Grand Prix and extended his championship lead by 17 points. There is still everything to play for between the two Mercedes drivers, although some believe that Hamilton does have the upper hand.
With the race in the central part of North America we can expect rather late times for this weekend. Below are the TV broadcast times for the 2014 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix(All times are GMT+2)
Free Practice 1: Friday 17:00
Free Practice 2: Friday 21:00
Free Practice 3: Saturday 17:00
Qualifying: Saturday 20:00
Race: Sunday 22:00
You can follow us on Twitter (@F1_Madness) for live commentary on all the sessions for the US GP.
Former Ferrari President, Luca Di Montezemolo confirmed last night that Fernando Alonso will be leaving the Maranello based team at the end of the season.
Speaking on a television show yesterday, Di Monetzemolo told Italian media that Alonso is leaving for two reasons. “One, he wants another environment. Two, because he is an age when he cannot wait to win again,” he said.
Di Montezemolo also revealed that Alonso asked him to release him from his contract during the summer break as he believed Ferrari will be unable to provide him a race winning car in the near future.
His role as Ferrari Chairman came to an end this week after it was announced that Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne would take over the role as Ferrari Chairman.
It’s no secret that Alonso wants to leave Ferrari at the end of the season. The Spaniard has remained tight lipped about his future in F1 with the strongest rumors saying that he may have a drive with McLaren next year. The other rumor is that he will take a year off and work on a deal with to drive for Mercedes in 2016.
Alonso dropped a few hints at the at the Russian Grand Prix saying that he does not think that he will be in a Mercedes powered car in 2015. He also added that he thinks that there isn’t a big risk that he wont be in F1 next season.
We are yet to hear anything from Alonso or Ferrari at this point. Alonso has said that once the announcement on his future is made it will be “obvious”. Lets wait and see, Fernando.
Photo Credit: Suderia Ferrari Formula 1
The most exciting thing about the first ever Russian Grand Prix was … nothing. If truth be told the only moment that induced any sort of eyebrow-raising was a 60 meter lock-up by Nico Rosberg as he tried to steal the lead of the race from Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Other than Rosberg’s rather frantic attempt at getting ahead, the Sochi Autodrom turned out to be a bit of damp squib. The layout, once again designed by Hermann Tilke, provided a technical challenge to drivers when it came to stringing a perfect lap together but as far as the track surface is concerned it most definitely did not want to play ball with Formula 1. Pirelli had the difficult task of predicting what the track surface would offer up and based their decision on how other new tracks had performed. While keeping this in mind it is difficult to blame the Italian tyre manufacturer for bringing tyres to Russia which are almost literally bulletproof.
So indestructible were the Pirelli’s that Nico Rosberg, forced to pit on lap 1 with severely flat-spotted tyres, was able to run a 52 lap stint on one set of tyres. It wasn’t a gigantic risk nor was Rosberg, at any point, required to tip-toe around and nurse his tyres. No, he was able to push and for most of the stint set a pace comparable, and sometimes even quicker, than the race leader.
We commend thee Pirelli for producing the world’s first everlasting F1 tyre. But we implore you to chalk this up to a frightening one-off incident that should never again be repeated.
Saturday’s qualifying certainly provided more entertainment as Williams’ star Finn Valtteri Bottas nearly snatched pole position from Lewis Hamilton’s grasp. It wasn’t to be for the Williams driver but he put himself in the best position possible to fight for a podium finish.
The early part of the race and the Finn’s pace suggested that he could perhaps have a go at the leading Mercedes. But this too fizzled out towards the middle part of race as Hamilton started steadily building the gap to the Williams. Bottas eventually finished third and set the fastest lap of the race.
Jenson Button followed through on the pace McLaren had promised in the free practice sessions with a fine fourth place finish. It was a lonely drive for the Brit who ran as high as third during the opening stint of the race. The second McLaren of Kevin Magnussen recovering from a five place grid penalty induced by a gearbox change,
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso finished an uninspired sixth and remained as coy as ever as to his future in the sport. Many have already plopped the
Spaniard into a McLaren seat for 2015 but Sky’s Ted Kravitz hinted, post-race, that the double champ could be off to Lotus.
Daniel Ricciardo did his level best to get past the Ferrari of Alonso but ultimately could do nothing about it and finished ahead of teammate Sebastian Vettel in seventh.
Kimi Raikkonen spent most of the 53 laps embroiled in scrap with the two Toro Rosso drivers but eventually got the better of them and finished a distant ninth. Sergio Perez nearly cut it too close on fuel consumption but held on to bring the Force India home in tenth.
Felipe Massa attempted an aggressive two-stop strategy but never quite recovered from a technical issue in qualifying; the Brazilian finished eleventh.Only Caterham’s Kamui Kobayashi and Marussia’s Max Chilton failed to see the chequered flag. As a sign of respect to Jules Bianchi the Marussia team chose to run only one car this weekend.
The Russian Grand Prix most probably didn’t even register a blip on the thrill meter. But it did give us another bit of insight into the title fight. Now that Mercedes has been crowned worthy Constructor’s champions it leaves a straight-up fight for the driver’s crown. Rosberg’s crack at snatching the lead was a tad anxious. Still the German has not beaten Hamilton on a level playing field. We’ve talked a lot about the psychological battle between these two. Is it now finally starting to tell on Nico Rosberg?
Lewis Hamilton set a dominant pace during the final practice session at the Sochi Autodrom ahead of this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix.
Hamilton’s time of 1:38.726 was comfortably faster than the rest of the pack, despite a spin at the penultimate corner which saw him destroy his tyres and unable to complete his lap. At the time he had over a second advantage over his rivals and was on course to improve his own lap time.
Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas did improve and Rosberg ended the session 0.29s down on his team mate’s time.
Daniel Ricciardo finished the session in fourth spot for Red Bull, followed by Felipe Massa and Daniil Kvyat.
Kimi Raikkonen finished the session ahead of his Ferrari team mate Fernando Alonso. The two were 7th and 8th respectively. Jean-Éric Vergne and Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top 10.
Jenson Button finished in 11th place, unable to match the awesome pace McLaren had showed during the Friday practice sessions. He repeatedly complained about balance saying that it was “just aweful”.
His McLaren team mate, Kevin Magnussen had himself a bit of trouble on track. His gear box failed and the Danish driver found himself doing some scary stunt driving to keep his car out of the wall. He managed to do that but the gearbox change will mean a 5 place grid penalty for him.
Pastor Maldonado did not set a time due to an ERS problem.
Top times for the session are below. Please join us on Twitter, @F1_Madness for live commentary and chat during this afternoon’s qualifying session.
Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton finished the first two practice session at Russia’s Sochi Autodrom on top of the timing sheets.
For the first time in its illustrious history Formula 1 commenced an official F1 race weekend in Russia. The circuit, 5.8 km in length and designed by Herman Tilke, was praised by several drivers. “It’s got a really nice flow to it, it’s not too bumpy, the corners are challenging – if you can get the lines just perfect you can put together really nice sectors,” said Lewis Hamilton.
The new track surface also delivered a substantial amount of grip considering that it has never before been used. Set in the undoubtedly inspiring setting of the Olympic Park is providing some challenge for the drivers. “It is more technical and difficult than it looked on paper,” said Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. “It seemed quite hard to get the lap together and has quite a few off camber corners, which isn’t always fun for a driver, but it does make it challenging.”
Spain’s Robert Merhi ran in the first of today’s two free practice sessions for Caterham. Elsewhere, Russia’s Sergey Sirotkin made his debut for the Sauber team in place of Esteban Gutierrez. Sirotkin finished the session only four tenths off the sister car of Adrian Sutil.
According to Daniel Ricciardo the Red Bull team are bracing for a difficult weekend. The Australian’s car broke down during the closing stages of the second free practice session. The three-time grand prix winner described that the weekend would be an exercise in “damage limitation.”
Reports from the McLaren garage were decidedly more upbeat. A closer analysis of the long-run simulations in free practice two revealed that Jenson Button’s laptimes were comparable to that of the Mercedes drivers. JB was especially heartened by the pace he was able to deliver on Friday.
“We were very quick from the word go on the prime tyre. On the option tyre and with low fuel I didn’t really have the balance, so hopefully we can improve that tomorrow.,” said Button. “We are obviously behind the Mercedes, but we have a chance to fight everyone else this weekend.”
