Singapore GP 2013: Race Reaction

Over the past few seasons, the Singapore Grand Prix has been dominated by Sebastian Vettel and today was no different. At the end of the long and punishing two hour race Vettel secured his third successive win and was the 33rd time he had seen the chequered flag first, surpassing Alonso's tally. 
  From looking at the 32.627 second lead Vettel had when he passed the chequered flag, it seemed as though he had been controlling and dominating the race, and he had. Apart from the start of the race where he was challenged by Nico Rosberg, nobody could get near him. It looked as though Rosberg would be leading the race after a better start than Vettel, but he ran wide which allowed Vettel to regain the lead almost as quickly as he lost it. 
  Vettel continued to dominate the race, and by lap 21 he was ahead of Rosberg by 8.838 seconds. Even the introduction of the safety car at lap 25 wasn't going to ruin Vettel's day as when it returned to the pits he re-built an even bigger lead, allowing them to also make a free pit stop, and after around 30 seconds in the pits he still led the race. 
   However it wasn't smiles all round in the Red Bull camp. Webber looked set for a fourth place finish until around lap 59 of the 61 lap race. Over the team radio we heard that Webber was nursing a problem, which came to a climax on the last lap of the race when his Red Bull starting emitting flames. It was later confirmed that it was a water pressure problem which ended Webber's race. Luckily Fernando Alonso was on hand to give him a lift back to the pits, which only brought more bad luck for Webber. Rules were broken: Webber went onto the track without permission and Alonso illegally picked Webber up on the way back to the pits. Both drivers received a reprimand for their actions, but Webber's day went from bad to worse when the accumulation of his three reprimands means that he will suffer a 10 place grid penalty at the next race in Korea. Personally I think Alonso giving a lift to Webber was a nice sight for fans to see, and yes Mercedes had to take 'evading action' to avoid crashing into the pair, but it isn't something we see at every race and it was a nice touch to end the race. 
   Speaking of Alonso, he was a strong contender for driver of the day for me. He made a trademark storming start to the race and made the tyres last from lap 25 to the end of the race and still managed to get the Ferrari on the podium in 2nd place. The fact that the Ferrari could be considered less competitive than other cars around it such as the Mercedes and Lotus yet is still able to be dragged into the podium places by Alonso just shows what an amazing job Alonso is doing. It's not as though he has just done it at this race either, he has been consistently out performing the Ferrari, pushing it to the absolute limit and is doing everything he can to keep the championship alive. If he can't beat Vettel, he is doing the next best thing and secured 2nd today like he did in Monza a few weeks ago. 
   The Singapore GP kept up it's 100% record of using a safety car during the race after Daniel Ricciardo locked up and hit the barriers on lap 25. Romain Grosjean joined him in retirement after a problem with air consumption on lap 34. The final retirement of the day came from the unlucky Paul Di Resta, who on lap 56 ran into the barriers to retire for the third consecutive race. Up until that point he was another contender for driver of the day because of the way he had battled up the field from 17th place, and was in a steady 7th I think before the incident. A pressured man at the moment, but still a hugely talented driver worthy of a top drive in my own opinion, he is just having a bad spell at the wrong time at the moment. His pass on Gutierrez on lap 50 demonstrated some of the great over-taking he is capable of and yes points today would have taken some of the pressure off him.
  I thought I was dreaming when Button was running in 3rd on lap 51 and with 10 laps to go, scoring their first podium of the season was McLaren's aim. To be honest they had nothing to lose with trying to get the podium, with them being miles off 4th in the Constructor's Championship and with a lead over Force India. It was great to see Button up there and it would have been amazing if the tyres could have held on, but Raikkonen, Webber, Hamilton, Rosberg and Massa all managed to pass the poor McLaren, which had done the same amount of laps as Fernando Alonso who was in 2nd position. It ended up that Button and Perez finished in 7th and 8th after Webber's problem and this secured a steady amount of points for the team. The search for a podium continues for them and I really do hope they can achieve it this season, after the tough season that they've had. 
  The driver of the day for me was Kimi Raikkonen. After suffering from a back problem and qualifying outside the top ten, nobody expected him to be on the podium. He battled through the field though, got the strategy right and gave Lotus something to smile about. Lotus will definitely miss him next season, and Ferrari will hopefully be glad that they've got him.
   So from the Singapore Grand Prix Vettel has extended his championship lead to 60 points, McLaren's search for a podium finish continues and Mark Webber's last Singapore GP ends in a penalty after a lift from Alonso. Who will be able to challenge Vettel when F1 arrives in Korea and just how long will it be until he secures the championship?
     

F1 Team Review 2013: Red Bull

It is a case of so far, so good for Red Bull this season. They are currently leading both of the championships by a considerable margin and getting ready to go into the final fly-away races to claim their fourth successive Constructor's and Driver's title.
   At the beginning of the season, it was just naturally assumed that Red Bull would be right up there and the team to beat this season. With all the focus on Lewis Hamilton's move to Mercedes, Red Bull were just able to get on with their business and start yet another season with number 1 and 2 on their cars.
   Everything appeared to be well in the Red Bull camp, like a well oiled machine. When they arrived at Malaysia for the second race of the season they had left Melbourne with a 3rd for Vettel and a 6th for Webber. The team were tested after the 'Multi-21' incident during the Malaysian Grand Prix, which saw Vettel ignore team orders and overtake Webber to win the race. The brilliant 1-2 achieved by the team was overlooked by the event and it confirmed the fragile relationship between the two drivers.
  However, the team and drivers moved on from the incident and once again we have experienced why the team have dominated the championships over the past three seasons. The car was once again very competitive, and after 12 races, Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel have won 6 of them. In addition, Webber and Vettel combined have achieved a further 7 podiums, excluding the race wins. As a result this has left Red Bull in first place in the Constructor's Championship with 352 points. This is 92 points better than after the same 12 races last season and their nearest contender Ferrari trails by a massive 104 points.
   Both drivers also have more points than at the same point last season. Vettel currently has 222 points as opposed to 140 after 12 races last season and Mark Webber is ten points better off than last season with 130 points so far. This leaves Sebastian Vettel leading the Driver's Championship and the favourite to go on and claim his fourth successive title. Webber is clearly out of the championship battle, sitting in 5th place 92 points off the lead, but he is still scoring a decent amount of points even though he is yet to win a race this season.
  I still strongly believe that Vettel had secured his fourth title in Hungary, with 8 races remaining, but whilst it is still mathematically possible, Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen will be pushing Vettel hard. The problem is trying to reduce Sebastian's points lead, which he appears to be extending after every race. Currently Vettel leads the championship from Alonso who is 53 points adrift. There is a huge task ahead to try and reduce and eliminate the lead, as even if Vettel didn't race for the next two, he would still lead the championship.
  Another problem with trying to reduce Vettel's lead is that we are now heading into the fly-away races, which are strong circuits for Vettel and Red Bull. Last season, Vettel went on to win the next four races in Singapore, Japan, Korea and India. Then he scored two more podiums with a 3rd and 2nd in Abu Dhabi and USA and finalised his campaign with a 6th place after seemingly being out on the first lap after incidents.
 Retirements are one way of reducing Vettel's lead, but the problem here is that the Red Bull is generally a reliable car. Each driver has only had one retirement each so far this season and even when it seems like Red Bull have a problem, they always manage to finish the race. Just look back to Italy, when Red Bull claimed they had a whole host of problems, yet they still managed to win the race by over 5 seconds.
  Red Bull have also shown that they are not a team to rest on their laurels. They are consistently bringing upgrades to their car and have a seemingly continuous development rate on the car. Even if they are small upgrades, they pay extreme attention to detail and this means that they are always improving, making beating them much harder.
  When Vettel qualifies on pole, he is an extremely difficult man to beat. He often goes on to dominate the race like in Italy and in other races this season. This is a combination of a great racing driver, but also the way Red Bull set up their car. They program it to run at the front and aim to build a gap so they are not in DRS range and then manage the race from there. They often give master classes on how to win races, with Italy being a prime example.
  Even when Vettel doesn't qualify on pole, if he starts on the front row you can put money on the fact that he is likely to lead the race after the first lap. This is shown by the fact that he has only been on pole 4 times this season, but has won 6 of the races.
  Red Bull are typically renowned for winning races that require high down-force and are not usually known for having the highest top speed. However this season, especially at the lower down-force tracks, we've seen that Red Bull have significantly improved in this area. In Monza especially they have a much higher top speed and this just illustrates how hard the team work in order to develop and improve the car. This improvement in speed means that they are now much closer to Mercedes in terms of qualifying pace and this now helps them to win more races. 
 The dominance of Red Bull is becoming the norm in the formula one world, and instead of being praised for their hard work and effort, I feel as though they are being criticised for running away with races and creating 'boring' races. Admittedly there were parts of this theory I subscribed to before, but now I'm starting to believe that it should be up to other teams to take the fight to Red Bull. Yes, Red Bull may have a bigger budget but I still don't think it is impossible to win a championship if you are another team. Red Bull shouldn't be criticised for what they are doing, they are simply illustrating the team-work and cutting edge knowledge to be currently, the pinnacle of the sport. This should be encouraged amongst the other teams and the blame should not fall with a team who, at the end of the day, are just doing their job. Admittedly, very well.
 
Red Bull may be on their way to their fourth successive titles, and with their strongest part of the season coming up in the fly-away races, is there any team or driver that could challenge and reduce the championship leads they have?

Belgium GP 2013: FP1 & FP2

This weekend, the world of Formula One visits one of the most iconic and oldest tracks in its history. Although it has been changed since motor racing first visited the circuit in 1925, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is still a favourite racing circuit for both drivers and fans.

  I particularly love the high speed, flowing corners of the track and it is one of my favourite tracks to watch to watch Formula One drivers attack each corner and fly down the straights. Although I've never personally been to the track, it is one which I would love to visit in the future, especially to see Eau Rouge in its full glory.

  Whilst I am watching coverage of the F1 weekend, I do not usually write posts relating to them specifically. Most of my previous posts have focused on drivers or rumours or the overall performance of a team so this weekend I thought that it was time to try something different. I've decided to write posts both regarding Free Practice 1 & 2, which took place today (Friday) and I will be writing another post on Sunday afternoon giving my race reaction. What better place than the Belgium GP to start my posts regarding a race weekend?!

  

I decided to watch the Sky Sports F1 coverage of Free Practice 1 and 2 and found immediately that there was a lot of focus on Mark Webber's replacement. As of yet Red Bull have not announced who has inherited the race seat and so even after the F1 summer break, this topic is still being constantly brought up. With no new developments in the story aside from a few rumours that Daniel Ricciardo has already signed the contract, it seems as though Sky have gone far enough with the story now. Granted, FP1 this morning was damp so there was not a lot of action on the track to discuss, but I think there should be less focus on this now. Apart from this and the annoying advertisement breaks throughout the programme, I enjoyed FP1 this morning.

  It was good to see the cars back on the track for the 90 minute session albeit with the intermediate tyres on in the damp conditions. Damp conditions unsurprisingly caught some drivers out, as they explored the limits of the race track and we saw a lot of lock ups and run offs at the bus stop chicane, from Raikkonen to Bottas to Gutierrez to Vettel. 

  Alongside these excursions, teams were also testing new development parts for their cars. Most notably, Lotus and Sauber were testing their own versions of the 'double drs' system, which when operated dumps drag and can gain up to 3 tenths of a second per lap. Lotus had already trialled this system last season, but it has yet to feature in any of the races, either last season or during this one. 

  Red Bull had also made changes to their nose cone on the car, as it is slightly flatter than previous versions of the part and Ferrari had also made changes to their brake ducts alongside Lotus. Ferrari had also been running two rear wings, one with lower downforce on Massa's car and one with higher downforce on Alonso's car.

   With around 45 minutes to go, Mark Webber was the first to put slick tyres onto his Red Bull, which was interesting to see as each driver had a dilemma. In some parts the track was dry and therefore needed the slick tyres, however around the pit lane the track was still clearly too damp for the slick tyres. In the dry section of the track, sector 2, Webber set a time of 50.8 seconds with 40 minutes to go, which was 4 seconds off Jenson Button's 46.6 he set in the same sector during qualifying in 2012 which gave him his first pole position for McLaren. 

  At 24 minutes to go, Alonso and Perez were swapping the quickest times at the top of the board, after most runners had also put on a set of slick tyres. Compared to a 2:00.500 set by Button at the beginning of the session, Perez' 1:55.518 illustrated that the track was drying out and drivers were finding their confidence. 

  However, with around 19 minutes left of the session, the rain started to fall again and so it was hard for drivers to get in any quicker times. At the end of the session the top ten looked like this:

1. Alonso 1:55.198
2. Di Resta +0.026
3. Sutil +0.175

4. Perez

5. Rosberg

6. Vettel

7. Gutierrez

8. Hulkenberg

9. Ricciardo

10. Bottas

With the damp conditions and limited running during FP1 it is impossible to know if this data is representative of what the cars are actually capable of. It will depend on the weather during qualifying and the race, and at this early part of the weekend I wouldn't look too much into the times. 

FP2 gave us totally different weather conditions. Instead of a damp track and the threat of rain, it was sunny and dry at the circuit and this meant that the teams and drivers were able to complete more running. This weekend the tyres available are the hard and medium compounds, and we saw both of these being run during the session. 

   There was a busy start to the session, with most cars getting out on track to make up for the limited running in the first session and with this we also saw some more development parts on the cars.

  McLaren were running a new rear wing n plate on their car, Mercedes had a new rear wing and Lotus had taken off their 'double drs' system, which they ran earlier in FP1. 

  With 30 minutes gone of the session, Webber had set the fastest time of 1:49.390, considerably faster than in FP1. Red Bull were looking competitive during the session, and finished with Vettel topping the session with a 1:49.331 and Mark Webber close behind. The only downside of the session as far as they were concerned was that Vettel suffered from a right rear puncture near the end of the session, which signalled the end of his session. 

  Caterham driver Van Der Garde suffered from a setback at the end of the session after crashing into the barriers after turn 14 after losing the rear of the car which brought out yellow flags and the end of his session.

The top ten at the end of FP2 were:

1. Vettel

2. Webber

3. Grosjean

4. Massa

5. Vergne

6. Raikkonen

7. Alonso

8. Perez

9. Rosberg

10. Di Resta

With the Friday sessions now over, the drivers have one session left tomorrow before qualifying. As usual the Red Bulls seem competitive, in both racing and qualifying pace. Lewis Hamilton has had a few set up issues and has not been entirely happy within the car, but it would be foolish to write him off for pole position just yet. He always seems to get it right for Saturday. 

I still think it is too early to see the improvements that Ferrari and McLaren have been trying to make and we will get a better idea of that tomorrow perhaps after FP3. My prediction however as it stands now is that it will be Red Bull and Mercedes going head to head for pole position.

Predictions:

Pole: Hamilton

Win: Hamilton 

The F1 Rumour Mill: Mark Webber's Replacement

When Mark Webber announced that he would be leaving the world of Formula One and his racing seat at the triple world champions Red Bull Racing, it sent the media into overdrive. Since then, everybody has wondered who will replace the Aussie and at the time this blog was published, it had still not been confirmed.

   At first Red Bull confirmed that the two drivers in the running for the vacant seat were former world champion Kimi Raikkonen and Daniel Ricciardo: a driver in Red Bull's sister team Toro Rosso, which is designed to allow young talent showcase their skills in order to determine whether or not they have the potential to graduate into the Red Bull team. This is commonly known as the Red Bull Young Driver's Program and it is one which Ricciardo has been part of for both the 2012 and currently the 2013 season. 

   The idea is once the drivers have proved themselves they are promoted into the Red Bull racing team, which then allows them to race arguably one of the best, if not the best racing car on the grid. However, this scheme has not been the most successful, with Sebastian Vettel being the only graduate that has progressed to the main team and so Red Bull are keen to show that their program works.
   We saw at the end of the 2011 season that Torro Rosso are relentless in their driver selections. They firmly believe that if a driver has not graduated within two seasons of racing with them that it is then time to bring in new drivers, which then aim for the same target as the previous drivers. This is exactly what happened to Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari and so the pressure is on the two current drivers Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne to perform. With this being their second season within the team, you get the feeling that this is their chance to perform and show that they have the ability.
   Mark Webber's announcement has now added even more pressure to the two drivers, especially Ricciardo, as not only the media, but fans and those involved at Red Bull are watching the drivers much more closely. The pressure is certainly huge, but Ricciardo has proved that he can perform,  regularly qualifying in the top 10 in recent GP's, such as in Britain and Hungary. 

  Unfortunately because of the current pace of the Torro Rosso he and his team mate tend to go backwards during the race, but he regularly finishes races and is hardly ever involved in on track incidents and accidents. It is clear to see that the young man behind the wheel has the potential and you can see why Red Bull are considering him for the vacant seat.
   In comparison, Kimi Raikkonen, with 20 GP wins under his belt and with experience of 187 races, is the other candidate for the Red Bull seat.
  Since his return to the sport in 2012 he has impressed many pundits and Formula One enthusiasts as he has not appeared to have lost any of his race craft during his time away spent rallying. He is notoriously known for his speed on track and his lack of words off track, and the fact that he just gets on with the job in hand is perhaps one reason why Red Bull are considering him for the seat.
  A win in Melbourne at the beginning of the current season and consistently impressive race results means that he is currently in the title hunt, and Sebastian Vettel's closest contender.
  Raikkonen has also provided the first win for his team Lotus in many years and so clearly they will not want him to leave and the possibility of finding a replacement must daunt them. Would a move to Red Bull really be good for Raikkonen?

  Red Bull will also need to acknowledge that Vettel needs to be considered. Vettel himself has said that he will get a say in who partners him from next year and therefore he will have a big influence on the situation. During the time that Vettel and Webber have been team mates it is clear to see that they are not the best of friends, which is not expected. The infamous event at the Malaysian GP this season involving 'Multi 21' illustrated how strained their working relationship is. Obviously both drivers have mutual respect for each other, but the team will not want to have these situations arise again with the new team mate. 

  This poses the question of can two world champions operate within the same team realistically? If so, Red Bull will need to successfully manage the two drivers in order for it to work and possibly will need to let the two drivers race each other. 

   Both drivers in question can bring different things to the team, Raikkonen with experience and Riccairdo with young talent and the willingness to learn, amongst other factors. If Red Bull are looking for a long term solution and a chance to prove that their Young Driver's scheme works, it is the perfect opportunity to give Daniel Ricciardo his chance in the spotlight. 

 One thing is for certain though, it is bound to be another summer full of speculation and rumours, and not only regarding Red Bull but the other teams around them as well.