Journalists shocked at Korea award


Scarecrows adorn the entrance to a barren Korean International Circuit © Getty Images
Two leading Formula One journalists have expressed their surprise at Korea being named the best grand prix promoter of the season at the FIA’s annual prize gala in Monaco last Friday. The Korean Grand Prix received the Race Promoters' Trophy despite the event taking place at an incomplete facility with few race fans in attendance and team members and media staying at disparagingly dubbed 'love hotels'. "Korea. Korea? KOREA??!! I must have been somewhere else," said Times correspondent Kevin Eason on Twitter. Daily Mirror journalist Byron Young added, "The Korean GP, complete with event and flight chaos, shoddy hotels and things I won't mention, won the race promotors’ trophy. Why?"

Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/12/journalists_shocked_at_korea_a.php

Jimmy Daywalt JeanDenis Deletraz Patrick Depailler Pedro Diniz Duke Dinsmore

Cadillac Escalade

Well for the past week ive been at my sisters helping her out a little, baby sitting the kids and everything, she called me the other night to let me know it would be late before she got home cuz she was at walmart, so i asked her to grab me a model, any kind, i was gonna give her money for it and everything, but she wouldnt take the money but she got me the revell escalade! its my first truck ever, i droped it to the ground on the kit supplied daytons even tho i had 24 inch after market rims, i thought the kit rims didnt look tooo bad, so i used them, since its dropped all the way i had to cut the wheel wells, and i also had to cut some of the interior up a little, at first i tryed to melt the plastic on the door panels so i could reshape it to fit perfectly, worked great on one side, but melted the other side in half, i have another set at my house (i think, unless i gave it away, i had it from a friend giving me the kit without the body) so i hope its still there so i can use it instead of the screwed up but fixable door panels, ill only be using half of each door panel because the rims are so far up in there it wont fit with seats and door panels, so ill be using the front and second row section of them, i customized the front bumper a little, ive aded a completely custom sound system in replace of the third row seat, and ive added a few monitors and a custom steering wheel, it will most likely be painted bright red or orange metallic, havent decided, ill have pics up monday!

sorry about the long post everyone, i think it will be worth it once you see pics!

Source: http://cs.scaleautomag.com/SCACS/forums/thread/236765.aspx

Mike Beuttler Birabongse Bhanubandh Lucien Bianchi Gino Bianco Hans Binder

Wurz lands driver mentor role at Williams

Williams has countered suggestions that its 2012 line-up lacks experience by engaging Alex Wurz in the role of driver mentor. The Austrian – who raced for the team in 2007 and worked with Mike Coughlan at McLaren – will start … Continue reading

Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/02/20/wurz-lands-driver-mentor-role-at-williams/

Tony Crook Art Cross Geoff Crossley Chuck Daigh Yannick Dalmas

Karthikeyan Makes Surprise F1 Return With HRT

Narain Karthikeyan has made a surprise return to Formula One after being announced as one of Hispania HRT’s drivers for the 2011 season. The Indian driver was unveiled as the first racer to be working with the Spanish based squad, who look likely to enter into a second season of racing despite on-going financial concerns. [...]

Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/karthikeyan-makes-surprise-f1-return-with-hrt/

Bill Brack Ernesto Brambilla Vittorio Brambilla Toni Branca Gianfranco Brancatelli

Your favourite drivers and teams at the start of the 2012 F1 season | 2012 F1 season preview

This is an original article from F1 Fanatic - The Formula 1 Blog If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic - The Formula 1 Blog it is an infringement of copyright.

With the new season almost upon us it's time to take a fresh look at who F1 Fanatics are supporting in 2012.

This is an original article from F1 Fanatic If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/f1fanatic/~3/eHciEAIBRZE/

Duke Dinsmore Frank Dochnal Jose Dolhem Martin Donnelly Carlo Abate

Reading between the lines in a phoney war

The annual Formula 1 phoney war was in full swing at the second pre-season test at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya this week.

Fernando Alonso was talking down Ferrari's form, Lewis Hamilton was talking up McLaren's - as, intriguingly, was Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel. And the unlikely combination of Kamui Kobayashi and Sauber set the fastest time of the week.

As ever, the headline lap times were a poor guide to the order of the grid that can be expected in Melbourne at the first race in just three weeks' time.

But look behind the fastest laps, and there is usually a way of gleaning at least some sense of form ahead of the season.

Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso's Ferrari could yet to turn out to be a dark horse. Photo: Getty

I'll preface what follows with a major caveat - this has been one of the most difficult tests to read for some time. But here goes.

Red Bull, as ever, looked especially strong. Vettel was fastest of all on the first day of the test, and throughout the four days he and team-mate Mark Webber set consistently formidable-looking times.

On Wednesday afternoon, Vettel and Hamilton set out to do race-distance runs at more or less the same time. Both did 66 laps - the length of the Spanish Grand Prix, which will be held at the track in May.

Vettel did five pit stops; Hamilton four. Discount laps on which they went in and out of the pits and they both managed 55 flying laps. Vettel completed his more than two minutes faster than Hamilton.

If that was repeated in a race, Hamilton would be lapped by the end.

And the pattern was repeated on Thursday with Mark Webber and Jenson Button, although the margin was reduced to about half a minute.

Of course, this is very far from an exact scientific comparison.

They didn't use the same tyres as each other - although they don't necessarily have to in the race either.

We don't know what they were doing with fuel loads - although it would be counter-intuitive to start putting fuel in at pit stops because it would provide the team with data that was never going to be relevant to competition.

And it's an especially confusing situation because only the day before Vettel was saying how impressed he had been with the McLaren's pace on the longer runs.

But there was more - none of it especially happy ready for those hoping for a close season.
On the Wednesday, Vettel's fastest time of all was nearly a second faster than Hamilton's on the same type of tyres. Although both were set on very short runs - suggesting a qualifying-type simulation - that's still potentially meaningless as there is no way of knowing the level of fuel on board at the time.

Nevertheless, if you then look at the lap times both were doing at the start of their race-distance runs, they were about the same margin slower than each driver's fastest laps as you would expect given a full race fuel load.

That suggests that the headline lap times of those two drivers could be a reasonably accurate indicator of form - again worrying for McLaren.

Of course, this is only testing, and teams have updates to put on their cars before the first race - as Button pointed out. And everyone expects McLaren to be a close to challenger at the front come Melbourne. Nevertheless, few are under any illusions about Red Bull's strength.

"You're old enough, Andrew," one senior insider said to me during the test, "to know that Red Bull look very strong. McLaren and Ferrari are a bit behind. Force India look like they have a quick car, too."

He might have added that the new Mercedes looks quite decent as well.

But few teams are as difficult to understand right now as Ferrari - who have not done any race simulations to compare with their main rivals.

The messages coming out of the team have all seemed pretty negative.

There has been a lot of attention put on technical director Pat Fry's remark at the first test in Jerez that Ferrari were "not happy" with their understanding of the car.

Start raking through the time sheets, though, and you begin wonder what's behind all the negativity.

On headline lap times, Alonso was less than 0.3secs behind Vettel. And on both his days he started 10-lap runs with a lap in the region of one minute 24.1 seconds.

If you take 10 laps' worth of fuel off that time, you are left with a lap in the low 1:23sec bracket - again, not far off what Vettel managed. And you can bet the Ferrari was running with more than just 10 laps of fuel anyway; most top teams routinely test with 60-80kg of fuel on board.

In other words, the Ferrari actually looks reasonably fast, and an insider did admit: "The car is not as bad as a lot of people think."

If - and it's a big if - Ferrari can start to extract that potential before the first race of the season, Red Bull might just have a serious fight on their hands. And that's without even considering what McLaren might be able to achieve.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/02/reading_between_the_lines_in_a.html

Jean Alesi Jaime Alguersuari Philippe Alliot Cliff Allison Fernando Alonso

Hamilton decision-making under the microscope


Lewis Hamilton has come in for criticism © Getty Images
Lewis Hamilton’s decision-making ability has come into question after he crashed into the side of Felipe Massa on lap one, causing his early retirement from the Italian Grand Prix. This incident has raised questions about his temperament and ability to bounce back. Kevin Garside of the Daily Telegraph questions how much we should really be expecting from Hamilton. “Perhaps this is how it must be with Hamilton, an instinctive racer compelled to chase the impossible through gaps that don’t exist. He took the best part of an hour to compose himself before walking out into the sun to face the cameras. This was Hamilton’s third DNF of the season but the first of his own making. Occasions like this are perhaps reminders to us not to expect too much. “On the days when Hamilton’s insane alliance of guts, skill and derring-do appear capable of delivering the world it is easy to forget he is only 25, an age when it is all too common for boys to believe themselves men.” Byron Young of the Mirror also pulls no punches about Hamilton’s performance and was heavily critical of the manoeuvre which meant he left the weekend pointless. “To say that his dive down the outside at Della Roggia chicane was optimistic would be generous. Mystifying, definitely, with so much at stake. So often Hamilton has made them stick but yesterday the outcome was all too predictable.”

Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/09/hamilton_decisionmaking_under_1.php

Jaime Alguersuari Philippe Alliot Cliff Allison Fernando Alonso Giovanna Amati