Russia’s first F1 driver Vitaly Petrov has unleashed a broadside against his team, Renault, accusing them of a lack of development, poor race strategy and sloppy pit work. It throws doubt over whether he will continue with the team in 2012. The 27 year old, who has started 37 races with the team, stood on the podium at the first race in Australia and feels that it’s been a downward slide into midfield mediocrity ever since. Renault came out with an highly imaginative front facing exhaust this season, which exited at the front of the sidepods. Although it looked quick More…

The only in-season test of the 2011 season came to an end today at Yas Marina Circuit, Abi Dhabi as the Young Guns switched off the engines after three exciting days. For many of the drivers it was a first taste of F1 power; a couple of them are as young as 18 years of age. For teams it has been a chance to test out ideas for the 2012 car, try out the experimental Pirelli tyres for next year and in some cases, to evaluate some young drivers. For the third day in a row the fastest man was More…

The leading F1 teams are in the thick of an argument at the moment about how much money they should be allowed to spend every year to go racing, with Red Bull out on a limb, taking a different view from other FOTA members about the next phase of the Resource Restriction Agreement. If it all goes wrong, as some predict, this could lead to a new arms race in F1 with Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes able to spend more than McLaren (which no longer has Mercedes factory backing as it did in the last “Arms Race”) and far More…

Fresh faced drivers are getting their chance to drive current F1 cars this week at the Abu Dhabi Young Guns test, with one driver as young as 18 out on track. However Jean Eric Vergne continued to set the headline lap times in the Young Guns test at Abu Dhabi after two days of running. The Frenchman has picked up where Dan Ricciardo left off in last year’s test in the Red Bull, setting the fastest time of the day ahead of Ferrari’s Jules Bianchi, who covered 91 laps today and McLaren’s evergreen Gary Paffett. Vergne only did 43 laps More…

There is a lot going on behind the scenes in Austin, Texas at the moment with threats from all sides that the 2012 Grand Prix might not take place. And this afternoon Susan Combs, who controls the finances for the State of Texas, has confirmed that the recent announcement of a rival race in New Jersey for 2013 is a “concern” and said that the first $25 million the state had earmarked for the project will no longer be available before the first event has taken place. This is significant, because the deal agreed with Combs was that she would More…

This weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was very interesting from the point of view of Race Strategy, with six different strategies in the top ten finishers. Pre race predictions of two stops were the norm, but there was a wide variety of alternatives tried, with Mark Webber doing three stops en route to fourth place and Paul di Resta scoring a points for ninth using a one-stop plan. We also saw McLaren pull off something very audacious at the first stop; they pitted Jenson Button on the same lap as the leader Lewis Hamilton, with only a 12 second window More…

Today and for the next three days the F1 teams will test at Abu Dhabi in what has become the traditional “Young Guns” test. The idea behind it originally was to evaluate young up and coming drivers, who haven’t taken part in Grands Prix, giving them a chance to drive a real F1 car, rather than a simulator. But as ever in F1 some teams have taken it differently. McLaren for example are using the three days to do some serious evaluation work on 2012 technology with 30 year old Gary Paffett leading the way, although Day 1 they ran More…

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was always going to be the acid test for the new concepts introduced this year to promote overtaking; Pirelli short life tyres and DRS. After all it was at this track last year that Fernando Alonso lost the world championship because he couldn’t pass Vitaly Petrov’s Renault after a bad Race Strategy call. For this year’s race the FIA went for a double DRS zone, as it has done a few times this year, on Yas Marina’s two straights. The result was a lot more overtaking and plenty of examples of drivers overtaking in the More…

I’m delighted to announce that the 2011 JA on F1 Yearbook is now available to pre-order. Titled “Vettel Steals the Show”, it is a comprehensive look back on the F1 year, comprising the best posts from this site during the 2011 season, along with extensive new written content and stunning photos from F1′s top photographer Darren Heath. There is a foreword from world championship winning Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner. All books ordered through this site will be personally signed by me. This is the third year we have produced this limited edition book and collectors who already have More…

Lewis Hamilton won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after a close battle with Fernando Alonso, with Jenson Button in third place. It was Alonso’s 73rd podium and his first trophy from this event, so he now has a complete set of trophies from every track he’s raced on in F1. It was Hamilton’s 17th career victory and his third of this season and although he said he felt “fantastic” he was also pretty humble in his post race statements, saying that one win hadn’t necessarily put him back on track, he felt above all “fortunate not to get into any More…

Sebastian Vettel staged a dramatic last minute smash and grab raid on McLaren with a stunning lap to take pole away from Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. It was Vettel’s 14th pole of the season, equalling Nigel Mansell’s record from 1992 and the 29th of his career. McLaren had controlled the pace throughout the weekend, but in the final crucial phase they lost out to Vettel, who strung together a perfect lap, with a stronger Sector 1 and Sector 2. It seemed that the McLaren didn’t perform quite as well as the Red Bull when the temperature came down to More…

The first day of practice at Yas Marina Circuit brought some surprises as both Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso went off track, although both cars were only lightly damaged. It is the fourth time this season that Vettel has crashed in practice, of the three previous occasions in Turkey, Canada and Japan he went on to win only one of them. Alonso meanwhile hit the kerb under braking in the same Turn 1 and went off into the barriers. The McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button set the pace, as Pirelli tried out an experimental soft tyre, with a More…

With two races to go in the 2011 F1 season and Jenson Button ahead of Lewis Hamilton by 38 points, we’re running a competition to predict what the final points position will be between the two McLaren team mates after the final race in Brazil. Hamilton had the edge during the first two thirds of the season then Button got in front at the Belgian Grand Prix and since then his run of podiums and a win in Japan have eased him clear, while Hamilton has been involved in collisions and hasn’t hauled in the points. Hamilton, who has never More…

One of the themes running through the second half of this season has been Lewis Hamilton’s troubled demeanour and the way issues off the track have affected his performances on it. Here in the Yas Marina paddock yesterday Hamilton offered a window in to his troubled soul, confirming many of the things commentators have been saying for months about the effect his private life have had on his professional life. He explains some of how he is feeling. He envies team mate Jenson Button’s protective “bubble” of friends and family and faces the prospect of being beaten by a team More…

Nico Rosberg has extended his contract with Mercedes, for a period that will take him into his 30s. It puts to an end all suggestions that he may join Ferrari as replacement to Felipe Massa any time soon. Rosberg was already under contract for 2012, but the new deal adds a “multi-year” term to that, likely to be three years from 2013 onwards with options. Mercedes statement claims that the 26 year old has demonstrated that “he belongs to the top group of drivers currently racing in Formula One.” Meanwhile Rosberg himself confidently asserts that “To win in a Silver More…

Two JA on F1 readers got the chance to experience a 3 hour in-depth driving session on a real state of the art driving simulator today with coaching from Darren Turner, who has over 10 years experience of F1 simulator design. Turner is an experienced racer and F1 test driver who now runs Base Performance Simulators in Banbury. He has become an expert on F1 simulators in particular. He did the initial development work on the McLaren simulator from 1999 to 2006 and has worked with two other F1 teams developing their simulators. Our two competition winners, Joe Consiglio and More…

Behind the scenes in F1 at the moment there is movement everywhere as things start to click into gear in a process which will ultimately lead to a change of ownership of the sport and a new way of operating it. Today and tomorrow in Munich, Formula 1′s commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone will give evidence in the fraud trial of Gerhard Gribkowsky, a former banker and chairman of F1′s holding company. Clearing up this matter and getting to the bottom of what happened when CVC bought the sport from Gribkwosky’s bank Bayern LB, is crucial to the hopes of CVC, More…

Last season’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix showed how critical Race Strategy is in F1 and how a bad call can cost the World Championship. Following a strategic blunder by the Ferrari team, Fernando Alonso came out of a pit stop behind two slower cars, which he could not then overtake. So this year’s Abu Dhabi race will be the ultimate acid test of the extent to which the DRS wing and Pirelli tyres have improved overtaking opportunities in Formula 1. There are two DRS zones on the circuit and with the long back straight out of the hairpin, overtaking slower More…

Team Lotus has announced that Steve Nielsen will be joining the team as Sporting Director next month. He will perform a similar role to Sam Michael at McLaren and Ron Meadows at Mercedes, overseeing the way the team operates at the race track, liasing with the FIA Race Director, attending stewards meetings and working alongside the engineers to get the most from the package at any given race weekend. He worked most recently at Renault and was offered the job at Team Lotus last Autumn and turned it down, but then things changed at Enstone this season as the new More…

There has been a lot of chatter in the last 24 hours with reference to statements made by Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo yesterday at the Finali Mondiali event at Mugello. Many commentators have read Montezemolo’s line as “Ferrari boss threatens F1 pullout” but it isn’t easy to decode his message here. I’m not sure that he meant to go that far on this occasion and that’s why the notorious Horse Whisperer was deployed on Monday to play down suggestions that Montezemolo was making threats. What is clear is that he was doing something he likes to do from time More…

As motorsport continues to come to terms with the death of Dan Wheldon in an Indycar accident a few weeks ago, this weekend there was a heart warming story of a driver who himself was once caught up in an accident on an oval, lost his legs as a result, but has found a new outlet for his competitive drive. Former Lotus, Jordan and Williams driver Alessandro Zanardi won Sunday’s New York City Marathon’s handcycle division yesterday with a time of 1 hour, 13 minutes and 58 seconds. Zanardi lost his legs in an accident in 2001 and since then More…

“And so it came to pass that in Milton Keynes in the shire of Buckingham, Stewart GP begat Jaguar, which begat Red Bull, which smote everyone into submission. While Tyrrell begat BAR, which begat Honda which begat Brawn which begat Mercedes which chased furiously after the Red Bulls.” Name changes in Formula 1 are as old as the hills; it’s a business and takeovers are an essential part of business life. They aren’t always allowed, as Tom Walkinshaw found when he tried to turn Arrows into TWR, but generally where it’s in most people’s interests to see strong brands with More…

The performance of the Toro Rosso cars at the weekend underlined how much progress the team has made in the second half of the season. But where is the boost coming from and is there a back story to it? Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastian Buemi both qualified in the top ten in India and Alguersuari raced strongly to another points finish. In the last five races the team has scored 29 points, while rivals Sauber in the same period have scored six and Force India 19. Since Suzuka in particular the Toro Rosso has been making huge strides. In Singapore More…

Although this was not a thrilling race, it was an intriguing one from a strategy point of view because of the difference between the two types of tyres each driver had to use. Like many races this year, it didn’t turn out the way pre-race expectations had predicted. In fact it was quite a surprise. At the front, Vettel always had something in hand over Button. Although the McLaren was closer at the start of each stint, the Red Bull had the raw pace to ease away each time into a five second cushion. This was a margin Vettel was More…

Today we announce the winner of the Shell V Power Fan Ambassador programme, which will take them to Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi later this month. We have been looking for a Fan Ambassador to go to Abu Dhabi in November, the week after the F1 Grand Prix and days after the Young Guns test, to have the experience of a lifetime at a Shell V-Power Network of Champions event at Ferrari World, then experience the Yas Marina GP Circuit in a high performance race car. The winner will then report on the trip for the JA on F1 website. More…

We have been running a competition which will give two JA on F1 readers the chance to experience a 3 hour in-depth driving session on a real state of the art driving simulator, with coaching from Darren Turner, who has over 10 years experience of F1 simulator design. Turner is an experienced racer who now runs Base Performance Simulators in Banbury. He has become an expert on F1 simulators. He did the initial development work on the McLaren simulator from 1999 to 2006 and has worked with two other F1 teams developing their simulators. The session with Darren will take More…

It was interesting last night after the Indian Grand Prix to hear McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh suggest that part of the reason for Lewis Hamilton being off form and rather niggly with many people he encounters in F1 at the moment is because he isn’t enjoying being beaten by his team mate, Jenson Button. “Lewis will be feeling under pressure because of the great performances from Jenson at the moment, ” said Whitmarsh. “Lewis, the great, exciting driver that he is, will not like being beaten by Jenson. I don’t want him to enjoy being beaten by his team-mate. I More…

Felipe Massa spoke around 90 minutes after the Indian Grand Prix in which he was penalised with a drive through for colliding with Lewis Hamilton. It was the sixth occasion the pair have collided in a bitter season. Speaking after the race Massa said, “I don’t have anything against him. Zero. If I saw him I would tell him what I’m telling you now. “I don’t understand why I have the penalty. I braked later than him, I was in front and on the grippier part of the circuit and I didn’t see him on the left. So he was More…

Sebastian Vettel made more history today as he won the first Indian Grand Prix, setting a new record for most laps led in a season in the process. The German went past Nigel Mansell’s 692 laps led from the 1992 season. It was his 11th win of the season and the 21st of his career. It was one of Vettel’s most comfortable wins of the season; he won from pole position, led every lap and set the fastest lap. “I’m very proud to be the first winner of the Indian Grand Prix,” said the world champion, “It’s a great country, More…

Sebastian Vettel took his 28th career pole position today equalling the great Juan Manuel Fangio, as Red Bull Racing set a new record for poles in one season with 16. There are still two races to go. Lewis Hamilton went into qualifying knowing that he would have to go three places back on the grid from where he qualified, following an incident in practice where he ignored waved yellow flags, as did Sergio Perez. Vitaly Petrov carried a five place penalty from the previous race. The hard tyres are 2 seconds a lap slower than the softs here, so the More…

Felipe Massa set the pace on Day 1 at the Buddh International Circuit, with Sebastian Vettel second and Fernando Alonso third after three hours of running on the new track. It is a hit with drivers and teams alike, certainly as far as the layout is concerned, even if the facilities behind the scenes aren’t quite there yet. Alonso had an engine failure in first practice, which was halted early on due to a dog on the track. An earlier support race session had to be stopped for the same reason. The track was very dusty in the morning and More…

Several of the top teams have flown out half a dozen mechanics to have on standby in case any of their crew should fall ill during this weekend’s Indian Grand Prix. This unprecedented situation has arisen after stories emanating from the Commonwealth Games, held here in India last year, where many key workers got “Delhi belly” and were incapacitated. With long transit times from Europe, some teams do not want to take the risk that they might have people unable to work or to perform vital functions, such as late night rebuilds or even pit stops. The rules say that More…

The confirmation on Tuesday of the news that there will be a second F1 race in America from 2013 onwards is positive for the sport. Rather than write about this from a purely F1 insiders perspective, I asked a long time JA on F1 reader and poster, Rudy Pyatt, who lives in the area, to give us a local perspective on the news and I have intercut his thoughts with mine. Rudy Pyatt writes: There are three key parts of the potential audience. F1 must win them over, or this event will be Phoenix all over again. The easiest audience More…

This weekend the teams race on the new Buddh International Circuit, located about 50 kilometres south east of New Delhi. The track has similarities in composition of corners to a number of F1 circuits but it has unusual features too. So how will the teams tune the cars in to the circuit and what will the winning race strategy be on Sunday? Here is a comprehensive guide to the considerations the F1 engineers will be looking at when deciding how to attack this weekend’s race. Track characteristics Buddh International – 5.125 kilometres. Race distance – 60 laps = 307.249 kilometres. More…

The social media competition we’ve been running, in conjunction with Shell, to find a Fan Ambassador enters its final phase. We are looking for a Fan Ambassador to go to Abu Dhabi in November, the week after the F1 Grand Prix, to have the experience of a lifetime at a Shell V-Power Network of Champions event at Ferrari World, then experience the Yas Marina GP Circuit and then report on the trip for the JA on F1 website. They will join fans from around the world at this unique event. After an initial phase we selected five finalists, who were More…

We’ve done some great competitions this season, taking the fans closer to the sport of F1 and taking them to Grands Prix and overseas events. But for those fans who dream of getting behind the wheel, here is something a little bit special; we are delighted to offer JA on F1 readers the chance to experience a 3 hour in-depth driving session on a real simulator, with coaching from Darren Turner, who has over 10 years experience of F1 sim development. Turner now runs Base Performance Simulators in Banbury. Turner is an expert on F1 simulators. He did the initial More…

Here is my video of the day a F1 fan drove Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren F1 car at Silverstone. Djorge Simic works in a bank in Serbia, but for one day he got to taste the shattering performance of a 2008 F1 McLaren, the car in which Lewis Hamilton won the 2008 British Grand Prix. Contributing to the video are Mika Hakkinen and Hamilton – “I bet he’s crapping his pants!” says Hamilton when asked how the fan will be feeling moments before the off. Simic was chosen from 17 finalists to win the drive as the top prize in McLaren More…

On Friday evening in the US news began to emerge that there could be a second US Grand Prix from 2013 onwards, with suggestions that a street circuit in New Jersey would be announced as an F1 venue on Tuesday. According to Autoweek, the circuit is believed to have the Manhattan skyline as a back drop and the concept has been developed over several years by Leo Hindery Jr, who is married to the daughter of legendary US motorsports promoter Humpy Wheeler. There are suggestions that the race would be paired in June with Montreal, which is a short distance More…

This week I went along to Silverstone to see something I haven’t seen before; a member of the public driving a Formula 1 car. This extraordinary happening was the final stage of the Drive of a Lifetime programme, which is organised by one of McLaren’s sponsors, Johnnie Walker. Thousands of entries from all over the world were narrowed down to 17 finalists, who came to England for a three day experience, which took in some time at McLaren’s HQ in Woking, a day driving fast cars at Jonathan Palmers’s track in Bedford and then a day in single seaters at More…

In the last 24 hours it appears that a clarification has gone out from the FIA’s Charlie Whiting to all teams regarding exotic engine maps, to the effect that they aren’t allowed after the end of this 2011 season. Many engineers I’ve spoken to are rejoicing, because they feel that at last there is clarity on exhausts having an aerodynamic effect by continuing to blow over aerodynamic surfaces while the car is in corners. The feeling is they can all get on with designing a nice F1 car for next year, without worrying about how engine modes are going to More…

The Korean Grand Prix was a fascinating race from a strategy point of view, with many talking points and there have been lots of questions from fans about whether Mark Webber could have won the race if he hadn’t pitted at the same time as Lewis Hamilton or whether Fernando Alonso could have got on the podium if he’d been released from behind Felipe Massa, as he was in Suzuka. Hopefully the answers are all here. This was one of those races where strategy was always going to be decisive, but where it was vital to be flexible and adaptable. More…

We’ve been running a competition in conjunction with our friends at Shell, to find a Fan Ambassador to go to Abu Dhabi a week after the Grand Prix, to experience the amazing Ferrari World theme park and get a taste of the Yas Marina GP circuit in a racing car literally days after the F1 Grand Prix and the Young Guns F1 test. The winner will take part in the Shell V Power Network of Champions event in November, meet fans from other countries around the world and will get to write and produce content on his or her experience, More…

With the championship settled, teams are using the final races of the season as a test session looking at “carry over” items, which could be used in 2012. Ferrari’s Nicolas Tombaszis said last week that they would be trying out some new parts, including a new front wing. And so it proved in Korea. Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa carried out back to back tests over the weekend, with Alonso taking the wing for the qualifying and race. It featured several Red Bull-esque touches, such as the endplates, the main plane slot and the large top flap, and was considered More…

The accident which killed British racing driver Dan Whedon yesterday in an Indycar race at Las Vegas has raised a number of safety questions, including the wisdom of running 34 open wheel cars on a tight 1.5 mile oval track such as Las Vegas with an average speed of 220mph. But it has also revived discussion about the possible use of canopies to make the drivers safer in the cockpit from flying wheels or debris, as happened with Felipe Massa and Henry Surtees. The FIA Institute has done some work in this area and produced some interesting content in the More…

I was very sorry to hear of the death of Dan Wheldon, the two times Indy 500 winner and IRL series champion. He was killed in an Indycar accident at Las Vegas Speedway. The race was only his third start this season. Wheldon had taken part at Indy this year on a one-off basis and won the race. He was taking part in a challenge organised by the Indycar series to try to win the race in Vegas from 34th and last place on the grid in pursuit of a $5 million prize fund, when he got caught in a More…

Sebastian Vettel may have clinched the 2011 World Championship, but it’s not dented his motivation as he again out raced and out thought his opponents, despite the race not working out the way Red Bull had thought it would in terms of tyre strategy. Pole sitter Lewis Hamilton battled with understeer all race and finished second. It was Vettel’s 10th win of the season, making him the only driver apart from his countryman Michael Schumacher do win 10 or more races in a season. It was the 20th victory of his career and with Mark Webber’s third place it gave More…

Lewis Hamilton rediscovered his form in qualifying for the Korean Grand Prix, breaking the stranglehold Red Bull have enjoyed on pole position since November 2010. It is his 19th career pole position and his first for 27 Grands Prix, stretching back to Canada 2010. Although Red Bull’s tactics showed that they had accepted they were not going to be able to beat McLaren to pole, Vettel nevertheless managed to fight Hamilton and to split the McLarens on the grid. Hamilton was on sensational form, setting a time three tenths of a second faster than team mate Jenson Button and squeezing More…

I’ve got a fantastic competition this weekend for JA on F1 readers around the world; we have four signed Senna movie posters and DVDs of the film, released this week, to give away. All you have to do is predict the time gap between the two McLaren drivers at the finish of Sunday’s Korean Grand Prix and in whose favour. So for example if you think that Jenson Button will finish ahead of Lewis Hamilton by 4 seconds use the comments box below and write “Button by 4 secs”. Or you could predict that one will finish and the other More…

Earlier this year I wrote a post about Force India’s initiative to try to find a driver from India whom they could develop – they call it the “One in a Billion” search. I was reminded of this yesterday when Force India announced the deal with Sahara. There were seven karting trials across India giving 14 to 17 year-olds the chance to show show their talent. The best from each trial, a total of 100 kids, reached the national finals in September. Now ten finalists have been chosen to come over to Silverstone next week for the grand finale. The More…

Force India boss Vijay Mallya today confirmed that he has sold 42.5% of the F1 team to Sahara India Pariwar, described as “a leading promoter and patron of sports in India.” The fee is US$100 million The deal therefore values the team at $235 million (£150 million), a significant uplift on the price Mallya paid to buy the team known as Spyker. It is the same Silverstone based team which was originally known as Jordan, founded by BBC pundit Eddie Jordan. “With this investment both the Sahara India Pariwar and Dr. Mallya will own 42.5% each in the team. The More…

The Japanese Grand Prix was all about race strategy. With tyre wear much more tricky to manage than expected, throughout the field the drivers who succeeded were the ones whose teams got the strategy right, not just on race day but on qualifying day too. There were some pretty contrasting races at the front. Of the top three, Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull had the worst tyre performance and Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari had the best. Alonso was nowhere near as quick as Vettel at the start of each of the stints, but he was always the quickest of the three cars More…

Some say he’s going to win as many titles as Schumacher, others say he’s still improving as a driver, while others say it’s all the car and Vettel cannot overtake. No 24 year old driver has achieved more – two world titles, 19 wins, 27 pole positions. And now Fernando Alonso has challenged him to a contest to see who can be the youngest ever three times world champion – one of them is likely to beat Ayrton Senna’s record of 31 years of age. Alonso has been waiting five years for his third title.. Whatever the hype, the hyperbole More…

Sebastian Vettel became the youngest double world champion in the history of F1 today, the 24 year old finishing third in the race and wrapping up the title with four races still to go. “To win the championship here is fantastic,” said an emotional Vettel. “I’m so thankful to everyone in the team, working day in and day out pushing hard. We found ourselves in a strong position and it’s great to achieve our goals. This year we have always been one step ahead. There is no secret, it’s step by step. The hardest thing is winning after winning, to More…

Our exciting social media competition looking for a Fan Ambassador to join other bloggers from around the world ends at midnight tonight UK time. So now’s the last chance to get your entry in. We are looking for a Fan Ambassador to go to Abu Dhabi in November to have the experience of a lifetime at a Shell V-Power Network of Champions event at Ferrari World- you will be invited to travel business class to Abu Dhabi from London, stay in a 4 star hotel, ride on the fastest rollercoaster in the world and then experience the Yas Marina GP More…

Sebastian Vettel took his 12th pole position of the season, rather unexpectedly, as the pace setter McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton failed to get a final run in Q3 due to a timing error. Jenson Button, who had set the fastest times in all three practice sessions, ended up second by one hundredth of a second, his first front row start since Monaco. Having set the fastest time in the first runs, as he ended his out lap for his second Hamilton was passed by Schumacher and Webber and crossed the line after the chequered flag had fallen. He blamed the two More…

It’s a story that has been running for 12 months and now two Formula 1 teams want to change their names, but the other teams are not going to make it easy for them. Team Lotus wants to change the team name to Caterham F1 Team while the Renault team wants to change the “Lotus” in its name from a title sponsor to the team and chassis name, but both parties may have to wait until the F1 commission next meets in order to do so. The F1 commission normally meets in the first week of December, but Bernie Ecclestone More…

Many F1 drivers and F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone have got behind the efforts of Kamui Kobayashi and others to raise money for victims of the tsunami, which devastated areas of Japan earlier this year leaving over 20,000 people dead or missing. The 80 year old F1 boss has bought 3,000 tickets for this weekend’s race at an average price of 35,000 yen to give to people who have suffered through the disaster. The total bill is almost £1 million. Meanwhile a puppet of Ecclestone has been commissioned for sale to raise money and there are paintings of the five More…

Jenson Button has committed himself to a long term contract at McLaren, ruling out a move any time soon to any of the team’s rivals. McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh describes him as “one of the most capable and respected drivers we’ve ever had.” ‪ Button is in the form of his life at the moment, lying second in the drivers’ world championship, with a chance to become the first F1 team mate to beat Lewis Hamilton in the points standings – he is currently 17 points ahead – and he is thoroughly enjoying his racing. He’s stood on the More…

Ferrari chief designer Nikolas Tombazis has promised a more aggressive car from the Scuderia next season, as it looks to close the gap to the pace setting Red Bull. Over the winter of 2010/11 Ferrari went too conservative under the technical leadership of Aldo Costa, leaving some ideas untested in a generally risk averse strategy. McLaren went the opposite way with initially calamitous consequences, of the kind Costa was trying to avoid, but they changed direction before the first race and got the car on track. However they, like Ferrari, have been playing catch up all year. Meanwhile Red Bull More…

There is an interview with Mark Webber posted on Yahoo News Singapore today, which a JA on F1 reader flagged up to me. There are some interesting comments in it which are worth highlighting, although it appears that Webber belives he has been misquoted on the main one. Webber is quoted as saying that last season, where he lost the title at the final round, was his “last chance” to be world champion, a rare admission for an active racing driver, especially one who is sitting in the fastest car on the grid. He goes on to explain that a More…

The aftermath of the collision between Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa at Singapore shows no signs of abating. Immediately after the race we had Massa attempting to confront the Englishman, who rebuffed him in front of the TV cameras at the track. Then there came the suggestion that the F1 drivers want to meet with FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting in Suzuka this weekend to discuss Hamilton’s overly aggressive driving. Then at the weekend F1.com ran a race edit featuring a radio clip of Massa’s race engineer Rob Smedley urging his driver to,”Hold Hamilton as much as we can. Destroy More…

Pre-event strategy content Suzuka Circuit October 7-9 2011 The Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka is a race at which the Drivers’ World Championship has been clinched on many occasions in the past by greats like Senna, Prost, Schumacher and Hakkinen. And this weekend it is likely to see Sebastian Vettel clinch his second consecutive world title for Red Bull. The Suzuka circuit has a special place in the drivers’ hearts, along with Spa Francorchamps, as it provides a great driving challenge with its high speed corners and the first sector of the lap in particular is special, with a series More…

Next Monday, October 10th, sees the UK launch of the DVD of the award winning F1 documentary film “Senna”. The film has won awards, including an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival and has had great reviews world wide for its portrayal of the tragic icon and his struggles to reach the top of the F1 ladder. Much of its success lies in its crossover appeal – many people with no interest in F1 have been captivated by it and hopefully some of them now take more of an interest in the sport. Britain’s leading film critic, Mark Kermode, More…

There was an article in the Austin Statesman on Friday which caught the eye and suggests that there are some changes imminent in the management and promotion of the US Grand Prix at Austin, which is due to have its inaugural event in 13 months from now. The paper has seen a letter sent by the Texas state comptroller Susan Combs to F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone which deals with a transfer of ownership rights to the US Grand Prix in the promoter contract. It appears that Tavo Hellmund, who struck the deal with Ecclestone for the US GP to More…

JA on F1 is delighted to launch a very exciting new F1 competition in partnership with Shell. We are looking for a Fan Ambassador to go to Abu Dhabi in November, the week after the F1 Grand Prix, to have the experience of a lifetime at a Shell V-Power Network of Champions event at Ferrari World, then experience the Yas Marina GP Circuit and then report on the trip for this website. If you can convince our expert panel of your passion for F1 and performance, you will be invited to travel business class to Abu Dhabi from London, stay More…

Mercedes GP has announced today that both Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa have joined the team, beefing up a technical staff which is already well stocked. This is part of a process in which Mercedes are adding a significant number of people to their team, which was slimmed down in the Brawn GP era of 2009. The signs are clear; Mercedes are going for it. The board has signed off on an expansion plan to take the team up to the limits imposed by the Resource Restriction Agreement and enable Ross Brawn’s team to challenge Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren More…

Today on F1.com there is a transcript of a chat between F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone and Red Bull racing supremo Christian Horner. There are two eye catching quotes in here, the first is Ecclestone’s blunt assessment that championship leader Sebastian Vettel has now grown into the best driver on the F1 grid and is still improving and the second is a swipe at FOTA, which Horner, a FOTA member, seems to endorse. “In my view Sebastian is the best driver on the grid right now…” says Ecclestone, who has always taken a close interest in the young German’s career. More…

Strategy wise, this race didn’t turn out as expected. The key consideration for the strategists on Sunday was thermal degradation of the tyres, especially the rears. This is due to the surface temperature of the tyres being very high, due to braking, traction and very heavy fuel loads at the start. With Singapore being a high fuel consumption track, cars were over 10 kilos heavier at the start than for the average F1 race. Before the race, the talk was of three stop strategies at the front and so it proved for the leading four cars, but the way they More…

For many years Emerson Fittipaldi held the record of the youngest world champion, until the new breed of Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel lowered the bar. Now we need to keep an eye out for Emmo’s grandson Pietro, who has just won NASCAR Limited Late Model series at the age of….15! Racing under a special licence, Fittipaldi minimus has come up through karts and this season entered the Limited Late Model series, a 24 round championship, which is a breeding ground for NASCAR stars of the future. “I’m very proud, not because he is my grandson, but because he’s the first More…

Each driver has just eight engines to see him through the F1 season. All drivers took a new engine for both Spa and Monza, the two great power circuits, but Singapore not being a power circuit, most drivers used a high mileage engine to do this weekend’s qualifying and race. One of the Ferraris was running an engine that had already done one race weekend and the other had a two race old engine, according to Luigi Fraboni, who is head of Ferrari’s engine operations side and formerly the engine engineer for Schumacher and Raikkonen. At this late stage of More…

Engine supplier Renault Sport F1 has been making moves recently with its partners, first a long term deal with Red Bull Racing, essentially its ‘works’ team and now Team Lotus. The deal announced on Sunday in Singapore takes the partnership through to the end of the V8 engine era and also adds in KERS for the first time. This will come along with the gearbox from Red Bull Racing, which the team has been using this year. Although the deal runs to the end of 2013, team boss Tony Fernandes said that his intention is for a longer term deal More…

Sebastian Vettel is just one point away from clinching the world championship after another dominant performance in the Singapore Grand Prix. Only Jenson Button stands in his way, but a single point from any of the remaining five races will do it for him. It was Vettel’s ninth win of the season, he joins Michael Schumacher and Nigel Mansell as the only drivers who have won nine races in an F1 season. It was also the 19th of his career. Amazingly, having led almost 600 laps this year this was the first time this year he has led a race More…

Today’s Singapore Grand Prix should provide a thrilling spectacle on track between the world’s leading drivers but there is also fierce competition in the pitlane between rival teams of mechanics for the fastest pit stops. As you would expect from the team which has raised its game in all areas of late, Red Bull leads the way on the fastest average pit stop across the season, but they have some stiff competition from Mercedes in particular and it is a point of contention for the Red Bull crew, directed by Jonathan Wheatley, that Mercedes has set a faster time this More…

This weekend there has been a lot of confusion in the paddock as a few teams have been caught out by the strange hours at the Singapore circuit and marketing staff have violated the curfew, by coming into the track too early. Red Bull, Mercedes and Virgin all had staff inside the paddock during hours when it was off limits to team personnel, as prescribed by the FIA. The idea of the curfew came in when race teams went down to 47 people per team working on the car. It was to stop those 47 people working all nighters during More…

Many readers will be wanting to know the mathematical situation going into tomorrow’s Singapore Grand Prix with regard to Sebastian Vettel clinching the championship. As I said in my qualifying post, Vettel has been untouchable all weekend in qualifying and race pace and only a misfortune of some kind will rob him of victory tomorrow. He easily has the pace to win. Thanks to Sean Kelly, who goes by the soubriquet of Virtual Statman and is the stats guy for many of the TV companies working in F1, here are the permutations which will clinch it in Singapore. If Vettel More…

Sebastian Vettel set a blistering pace in qualifying today for the Singapore Grand Prix, taking his 11th pole position of the season. Mark Webber was second, with Jenson Button third and Lewis Hamilton fourth. If tomorrow’s race ended like that it would mean that the title race goes on to the Japanese Grand Prix, with Webber still in the hunt. In all likelihood we will see Alonso come up from fifth on the grid as the Ferrari has better performance and stronger tyre life in race conditions. It was Red Bull’s fifth 1-2 grid lockout of the season and Vettel’s More…

The race organisers are putting in an all-night stint with a massive programme of works to remedy problems with the kerbs following the first day of practice in Singapore. The plastic kerbs, in only their fourth year of use, were lifting up with retaining bolts raising out of the ground, due to the forces the cars are putting on them. Tonight most of the kerbs are either being removed or bonded to the ground. The kerbs at turns 3, 5, 10 and 17, for example, are being removed and markings are being painted on the ground. The kerbs are of More…

Kimi Raikkonen is on the verge of signing a deal to return to F1 with Williams. The 2007 world champion has been in discussions with the team for several weeks, following a recent visit to the factory in Grove. Sources suggest that discussions are going the right way and they are now close to a deal. It is understood that the Finn, who will be 32 next month, is keen to get back into F1 competition after two years on the sidelines in rallying. The timing is significant as Williams are on the look out for a bold move to More…

Jean Eric Vergne is a name that is coming up increasingly frequently in F1 circles at the moment. The Frenchman is another of the Red Bull young drivers coming into the F1 orbit and this weekend he’ll be doing a job behind the scenes for them. Speaking to L’Equipe he revealed that this weekend he will be “in the Red Bull simulator at Milton Keynes supporting Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber for the Singapore GP.” Teams send all the data from the track in real time back to their factory bases and after the debriefs the engineers at the factory More…

Ron Dennis was on confident form at the launch of McLaren Automotive Asia in Singapore today. Taking the stage with his local partner, entrepreneur Peter Lim, he said that his vision for McLaren is that within 10 years F1 will be only 10% of McLaren’s turnover and he will make it a company which measures its turnover in the billions of dollars. Among confident predictions of how McLaren will press on into the Asian market, he also confirmed that the USA is going to be McLaren’s leading market at around 42% and that it is likely to start a racing More…

World champion Sebastian Vettel may be on the point of clinching his second consecutive world title, but he said today that he is in no hurry to do it here in Singapore with six races to go. Vettel, 24, can leave Singapore as world champion on Sunday, with the right combination of results for him and his rivals. But he says that he is taking a measured approach to the weekend and is neither keen to close it out here, nor risk averse with the prize in his grasp, “So far we haven’t won anything but we are in a More…

As predicted by a number of JA on F1 readers, following the news of McLaren’s business development relationship with Glaxo Smith Kline last week, today it has been announced that the team will be henceforth be sponsored by Lucozade, one of GSK’s consumer brands. When asked whether there was a branding side to the deal last week a McLaren spokesman yes that there was but that it wasn’t what the deal was mainly about. It was about McLaren lending expertise to GSK in improving its speed and performance as a business. Lucozade will appear on the car and the drivers’ More…

This weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix will be absolutely fascinating from a strategy point of view. Find out how some teams will try to do the race with only one stop, how much effect the Safety Car can have on the outcome and check out a new feature: the League Table of Team’s Pit Stop Performance; there are some surprises here! Contents – The Key Strategy considerations • Track characteristics • Form guide • Weather forecast • Likely tyre performance • Number and likely timing of pit stops • Chance of a safety car • Recent start performance & Pit Stop More…

One of the most striking stats from the JA on F1 Strategy Briefing, supported by UBS, is the start record this season of Mark Webber. The Red Bull driver had lost 20 places on aggregate off the start line and after he lost five places at the start in Spa many readers have posted questions about this recently. So we spoke to Red Bull boss Christian Horner and he gave this explanation, “It’s been a culmination of things really, ” he said. “The Spa thing was more a calculation on the Renault side really, measuring the amount of torque that More…

McLaren has today announced an interesting partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s leading phamaceuticals companies. The deal is all about McLaren applying know how and technology from years of perfecting the racing game to a corporate environment, such as GSK’s business. It’s something I’ve suggested for some time that F1 could usefully do for the outside world. The sport is all about innovating, adapting, overcoming, planning, reacting quickly, making strategic decisions and building a stable base. Pat Symonds once said that the attitude of the top engineers in F1 should be, “I don’t know how to do that, but More…

The decision of reigning F1 champions Red Bull and Renault to extend their deal with for a supply of customer engines for five more years was announced over the Monza weekend, before Sebastian Vettel went out and won a second race in a row on what’s always been considered a “power circuit”. This deal is significant in that it means that not only will the team use the current V8 units with the Renault KERS system for 2012 and 2013, but is committed to the marque for the new generation of fuel efficient V6 1.6 litre turbo engines from 2014 More…

The mystery over where outgoing Williams technical director Sam Michael would end up was resolved today when McLaren announced him as their new Sporting Director. The post has been vacant since Dave Ryan stepped down from the job at the Malaysian Grand Prix of 2009. The role of Sporting Director can mean many things in F1. For some teams it is a kind of glorified team manager role, for others it can been more engineering-led. Usually the Sporting Director is the senior person who is required to know the FIA Sporting Regulations rule book inside out and back to front. More…

Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix was one of the best races of the season from the point of view of wheel to wheel combat. But because of the unique nature of the Monza circuit, it also featured some fascinating decision-making by teams on race strategy, not just in terms of tyre strategy and pit stops, but also in terms of how to set up the cars, particularly wing level and gearing. With top speeds reaching 350km/h, one of the key decisions was how to balance the use of the DRS wing (giving a 6-8km/h speed boost) while not hitting the rev More…

The legendary Monza circuit provided an entertaining race with thrilling battles all the way down the field but which driver impressed you most? Sebastian Vettel Found half a second in the final part of qualifying to take his 10th pole position of the season. Had no answer to Alonso’s lightening quick start and lost the lead. Reclaimed the lead with a sublime move on the Spaniard into the second chicane and then never looked back as he claimed his eighth victory of the season. The German now leads the championship by 112 points and can become the youngest double world More…

Sebastian Vettel is now potentially just one race away from being crowned world champion for the second year in a row and at the age of 24. A win at Singapore would guarantee him the title. He won his eighth race of the season on a track where Red Bull had not been considered one of the favourites, thanks to a bold pass on Fernando Alonso in the early stages of the race. It was Vettel’s 18th career win, his second at this circuit and Red Bull’s first at Monza. Behind him there were intense battles featuring Hamilton, Button, Alonso More…

This morning Team Lotus has confirmed that Jarno Trulli will race for the team again in 2012. Although, as posted yesterday, the team is likely to be racing as Caterham F1 Team next year after reaching a settlement with Group Lotus. The 37 year old Italian starts his 247th Grand Prix today and next year will be his third season with Team Lotus. This has been a difficult year for Trulli, who struggled with the lack of precision in the steering of the Lotus until a new power steering system came on stream in Hungary. This weekend he outqualified team More…

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo made his customary Saturday visit to Monza with a clear message to the tifosi and the team itself. “We had hoped to win in our 60th anniversary year, but the truth is that the car is disappointing,” he told Italian media. “And some circumstances have not favoured us. I’m thinking about the interruption in Monaco, the incident between Alonso and Button in Canada and then the safety car always there.” Montezemolo had said before the start of the season that “Ferrari is condemned to win”, but the only win this year has been at Silverstone, More…

Sebastian Vettel’s rivals are again scratching their heads tonight about where he found half a second in the final part of qualifying after he took his 10th pole position of the season for the Italian Grand Prix, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. It had looked like he would face a closer challenge from the McLarens, but in the end Hamilton and Button couldn’t get close. Hamilton’s final lap started badly and he aborted it. However both McLaren drivers point to the fact that Vettel has chosen to run with quite a short top gear and has the lowest More…

There will shortly be only one Lotus in F1 and it will be the black and gold cars, not the green and yellow. The word this weekend in Monza is that a deal has been struck between the Malaysian owned Team Lotus and Group Lotus, which is a sponsor of the Renault GP team, to end the naming conflict. Tony Fernandes is understood to be on the point of applying to the FIA and FOM to change the name of his team to Caterham F1 Team. Although the details have yet to emerge, it’s likely that, to avoid confusion, the More…

As if the tifosi (Ferrari fans) didn’t have enough to worry about, with F1 ticket prices ranging between €170 and €520 each and serious traffic problems getting in, due to labyrinthine road works, Fernando Alonso’s body language after practice will have made their hearts sink further. “It seems that Red Bull and McLaren and also Mercedes are quite competitive,” he said.”Tomorrow we will need to find something more in the car to be fighting with them. In Belgium we were not as good as we expected. You cannot create a miracle in two weeks. Here so far we struggle with More…

Yesterday Jenson Button said that it was up to McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh as to whether he stayed at McLaren, “If he takes up the option. All he has to do is say yes, and I will say yes because I want to be here next year. It’s up to the team as to when they approach me, but for me I’m the happiest I’ve been with the car.” Today Whitmarsh said categorically that Button will be a McLaren driver next season; “Jenson will be here next year,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “We know that, he knows that. More…

Daniel Morelli, the manager of Polish driver Robert Kubica, has just delivered an upbeat assessment of his condition, saying, “We have no more concern on the final outcome of the recovery.” Pressed to explain what exactly he meant by that, he said that he had “no doubts” that the Pole would recover fully from the nerve damage to his right hand sustained in his rally accident in February. There were some concerns about the range of movement he might have prior to the most recent operation on his right elbow. But having gained full mobility as a result of the More…

It is three years since the F1 teams got together to form FOTA, here at the Italian Grand Prix weekend and this weekend also marks the end of the tenure as Secretary General of Simone Perillo. His role as secretary general is being taken up by an British lawyer, Oliver Weingarten, who has extensive experience as in house counsel at the English Premier League, dealing with clubs and with a wide range of issues such as illegal video streaming. He will be charged with steering FOTA through the next delicate phase of negotiations with the FIA and FOM over the More…

The new sponsors are very much in evidence on the Toro Rosso, with Spanish oil brand Cepsa on the rear wing, joining Falcon Bank and Nova Chemicals, other new sponsors which joined the team earlier this season. All three are owned by Aabar, the Abu Dhabi investment vehicle which is also a shareholder in Daimler and in the Mercedes F1 team. Its chairman Khadem Abdulla Al Qubaisi has been a regular recently at the side of Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost in the paddock and pit lane, promoting speculation that the team was being taken over. However this is not More…

Ralph Lauren and Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay are among the first names on the order book for the new F1 simulator launched yesterday by Ferrari here in Monza. The simulator is essentially the same as the one I drove at Spa(above), which Shell had purchased from Ferrari’s supplier All in Sport, which is run by former Ferrari and Red Bull electronics guru Anton Stipinovitch. I posted on it at length during the Spa weekend. It’s a great tool, with stunning graphics and gives a real sense of how the tyres work and how the downforce comes in at speed and bleeds More…