F1 World Championship 2010 Thread

[Subject Delta]

Starting to look, once again, as if Red Bull have an unbeatable advantage here, however things will be tight between McLaren and Ferrari.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

FP3 result:

[MightyJordan]

Button, what's going on? :no:

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Felipe Massa: 'I think it's the engine!'

... no ****, Felipe.

Q1 red flagged.

[ahmz]

Great pole position by Alonso! Take that Red Bull! :p

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Qualifying result:

[ViZioN]

Hamilton and Button 3rd and 4th. Not too bad at all.

[DreadBoat89]

what a qualifying session that was!

[Antaris Veteran]

Race should be good, McLaren have been good off the line recently, and both Alonso and Vettel have a tendancy to aggresively swerve off the line. Can't wait...

[StealMySoda]

Great qualifying. Can't wait for tomorrow.

[Subject Delta]

Pretty good save that for McLaren, whilst it is clear Vettel messed up both of his laps, the fact that McLaren are far closer to RBR and Ferrari than anyone thought they would be is encouraging for them, and their long run pace looks pretty strong. Should be a pretty interesting race tomorrow.

[ahmz]

Absolutely superb drive by Alonso! Vettel too! I was watching the live timing and they were trading punches lapping within one tenth of each other for the last 15 or so laps.

Great come back drive by Kubica too. Singapore definitely sorted the men from the boys.

[san.W10]

Kamikaze Webber does it again! :angry:

this race was really looooong. :sleep:

[Antaris Veteran]

As much as I am a McLaren fan, I can't, as a fan, blame Webber for anything, both drivers were flying and it was just that thing that happened. Massively disapointing, but thats racing. Good drive by Alonso and Vettel, it would have been good of they crossed the line neck and neck...

[ahmz]

Surely Hamilton should have known Webber was not going to give up the inside line, he just needed to give him more room and he would have had the line for the next right hander, he needs to learn from these small mistakes. Unfortunate racing incident but exciting stuff!

[deuz]

Kamikaze Webber does it again! :angry:

this race was really looooong. :sleep:

Kubica overtook sutil on the same turn quite a few laps later, whilst keep the outside line. Where as hamilton didn't so eh. I was partial till i saw kubicas lap. yea sure kamakaze...keep raging :p

[san.W10]

Hamilton not focusing on title anymore

Lewis Hamilton says he is not thinking specifically about the championship anymore following his retirement from the Singapore GP.

The McLaren driver suffered his second retirement in two races after he made contact with Mark Webber when trying to overtake the Australian.

His retirement left him 20 points behind Webber with four races to go.

Hamilton admitted the gap to Webber was quite big, and said he will try to enjoy the rest of the races without looking at the standings.

"There are still four races to go. I'm 20 points behind Mark, and that's a reasonable gap, but it's not an insurmountable one," he said. "I guess I'll just have to keep my head down and hope for the best.

"I'm not going to think specifically about the world championship right now, I'm just going to try to enjoy the rest of the season - and whatever happens happens. But I'll keep fighting to the end, because it's the only way I know."

The British driver said he was unsure about what had happened with Webber, but believed it was a racing incident.

"I'm still not exactly sure what happened with Mark and me," said Hamilton. "But, telling it from my point of view, I saw that he'd made a mistake, and had got caught up with the backmarkers, so I was in position to slipstream him. I was on the outside going into Turn Seven, and he was in my blind-spot, just behind me.

"I thought I'd got sufficiently past him, though. I braked, turned in, and tried to leave enough room for him on the inside ? and the next thing I knew I'd got clipped, my tyre was blown, and that was it. But, as the saying goes, I guess that's motor racing."

Team-mate Jenson Button, fourth today, was satisfied with the result, despite the gap to Webber increasing to 25 points.

"It's a circuit where we knew they'd be competitive, and probably one that was going to be difficult for us, so I go to Japan pretty happy," Button said.

"We've got a good upgrade for Suzuka: we'll have something that we tried to put on the car this weekend but couldn't ? for reliability reasons. Coupled with our planned-for-Suzuka upgrade, it should hopefully be a bit of a double-whammy.

"My championship hopes were dented a little bit by Mark [Webber] finishing ahead of me, but the points gap to the front is just a race victory away. It shows there's still everything to play for ? one bad race can cost you a lot of points."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87004

Sutil handed 20-second penalty

Adrian Sutil has lost his eighth-place finish at the Singapore Grand Prix following a penalty.

The Force India driver had finished in eighth position in the Marina Bay race, but was given a 20-second penalty afterwards, as the stewards deemed he had gained an advantage for going around the outside of Turn 7 on the opening lap of the race.

The penalty moved Sutil down to 10th position.

Eighth place goes to Williams' driver Nico Hulkenberg, while Felipe Massa moves up to ninth.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87012

[ahmz]

Re-revised Championship Points... Sutil back on 47 points after Hulkenberg was also given a 20 second penalty.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Decent race today. Well done by Alonso, bit of a shame that Mr. Vettel's car didn't suffer from any malfunction though.

Rejects of the race: Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. Both of their collisions with other drivers could have been avoided, both drivers threw away points.

Bring on Suzuka - the track there should suit the McLaren and the Ferrari more than the RBR.

[ahmz]

Bring on Suzuka - the track there should suit the McLaren and the Ferrari more than the RBR.

Hmm, I don't know about that. RBR should really kill it in the first sector, but Ferrari is looking stronger and stronger on every type of track, so who knows. I think Mclaren are out of it..

[enigma-penguin Veteran]

Good race last night, few notable (because some aren't honourable) mentions;

1) What the hell Bruno senna, dear god just hand your seat over to Karun Chandok.

2) Kovalainen, AWESOME fire and lolworthy that he got a placing out of that...

3) Digrassi, fails to let leading cars pass again.. some of the backmarkers need to learn to obey blue flags (not the first time it's happened either) **

4) Hamilton, he shut the door too early and didnt give the driver on the inside line enough space **

5) Webber, Good strategy (which I can't believe actually worked) and a bad incident, that if this wasn't racing he should have dropped back... **

6) Kubica did some awesome driving at the end there to retake positions, sure it was fresh tyres.. still well done

7) MSC involved in quite a few incidents this race... what the hell man

**these three are the same incident, most of the blame goes to Di Grassi for holding up two faster cars

As for the rest it was pretty bog standard, still enjoyable to watch.

For those that didn't see webbers tyre after:

For those who want to just blame Webber:

He cut in to the inside line forcing a driver off the track when along side; no offense to the Hamilton fans, but that's most of the reason he didn't walk away form that corner and Kubica did.

[Buio]

He cut in to the inside line forcing a driver off the track when along side; no offense to the Hamilton fans, but that's most of the reason he didn't walk away form that corner and Kubica did.

There is also the factor of Webber braking late and not being able to hold the inside corner without sliding out. Basically he was half a car behind, yet stuck his car on the inside overshooting the corner. I believe that even if Hamilton had given him more room, Webber would still had hit him, just a bit further out.

[enigma-penguin Veteran]

Then he would have been at fault, but we'll never know :p

[san.W10]

Porsche ready to evaluate F1 return

Porsche is to seriously evaluate a return to Formula 1, its new chairman Matthias Mueller has revealed at the Paris Motor Show on Friday.

Speaking to AUTOSPORT's sister publication Autocar, Mueller said he expected his company's motorsport activities - which encompasses Porsche and Audi through its tie-up with the Volkswagen Group - to include both top-level sportscars and F1 in the near future.

He made it clear that he expected either Porsche or Audi to have an LMP1 car in the future - while the other brand would then enter F1.

Audi has competed in the Le Mans prototype class since 1999 and is working on a new car - the R18 - for 2011. Porsche ended its factory sportscar programme in 1998 - though it did produce the LMP2 RS Spyder for customer teams from 2005 onwards - and would be the logical choice for a return to F1 for the first time since 1991.

"With LMP1, there are two classes and two brands - Audi and Porsche. We do not like to both go into LMP1 [against each other]; that is not so funny," Mueller told Autocar's website.

"So therefore we have to discuss whether it makes better sense for one of the [two] brands to go into LMP1, and the other brand into F1. So we will have a round-table to discuss the pros and cons."

Porsche's entry to F1 would most likely be as an engine supplier, rather than having a whole team. It would also make most sense for the company to enter the sport in 2013, when all-new engine regulations are set to be introduced.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87103

[Subject Delta]

Lewis couldn't see webber, which meant he was far enough ahead for him to believe he'd made the pass stick. The onus is on the guy behind not to take you out, webber had the option of lifting and he chose to just aggressively steam into the breaking area and take his opponent out. And it's not the first time either, he did it to Fisichella at the 2005 Malaysian GP