Against all odds the Belgian GP was driven in dry conditions! But I have to say it was a hugely exciting race also without the weather factor. I knew Vettel on pole was going to take a superb start but I was certainly worried about his front tyres... They were blistered from yesterday´s qualifying and that wasn´t a good sign!
I was absolutely right: Vettel took a wonderful start! Unlike his team-mate Webber who had another lousy start costing him many positions... Mercedes GP´s Nico Rosberg who started 5th on the grid had an unbelievable start and he managed to take the lead from Vettel! The turn 1 was a complete mess, Jenson Button for example lost a part of his rear wing in the middle of it... The Toro Rossos collided with each other which lead to Alguersuari´s early retirement.
Luckily Vettel was able to retake the lead from Rosberg and it wasn´t the only time Vettel overtook his rivals today! Who says that Vettel can´t overtake on the track? Today at least the German ace proved all the sceptics wrong! And before the summer break there was a lot of talking about Vettel cracking under the pressure... No sign of that today (or before...)! I absolutely enjoyed watching Vettel overtaking Alonso in Ferrari and his team-mate Webber, there was no stopping him today!
There clearly was an issue with the tyres. Especially the first stint was extremely short and even the new set of the soft tyres got blistered quite quickly. Alonso had also a similar issue with the tyres and with the option tyres on he was conspicuously slow and lost many positions at the end of the race!
Button´s performance today was absolutely fantastic! Unlike his team-mate Hamilton who hit Kobayashi´s car and crashed into the barriers on lap 13. That caused the safety car to come on the track. Button started 13th on the grid due to the misunderstanding at the qualifying yesterday and the beginning of the race didn´t look so good for him... After the safety car came in he was in spot 11. But Button´s McLaren seemed to work perfectly and he was extremely fast and could catch his rivals easily... Button was able to overtake Alonso easily and managed to snatch the last podium spot at Spa!
In spite of the bad start and a problem with the radio communication Webber finished 2nd today and with Vettel winning his 7th race of the season it was an outstanding 1-2 for Red Bull at Spa :) Despite all the talks that Spa-Francorchamps doesn´t suit Red Bull the RB7 was utterly invincible today! Which obviously means scary things for those trying to catch Vettel... He has a 92-point lead when going to Monza in two weeks! And the 259 points he has at the moment has already exceeded the title-winning points Vettel scored last year and there´re 7 more rounds to go! Absolutely crushing performance!
Though qualifying was a huge disappointment for Schumi he had a very decent race! I mean starting from P24 and finishing 5th is a superb achievement indeed and a nice way to celebrate his 20th anniversary! He had close wheel-to-wheel battle with his team-mate Rosberg and managed to overtake Nico after all... On TV we heard a team radio call to Nico where he was told to save fuel... Team orders or not, both Mercedes GP drivers had an excellent race!
Kimi Räikkönen & Sebastian Vettel
sunnuntai 28. elokuuta 2011
lauantai 27. elokuuta 2011
Belgian GP / Qualifying: Surprises and disappointments at a rain-hit session!
First of all I have to say I´m absolutely delighted that the looong summer break of F1 is finally over! I´ve missed dearly all the F1 action during the four-week break! I knew there was going to be a lot of action at Spa Francorchamps where the weather is always a big question mark!
I guess everybody expected to see an impressive performance from Michael Schumacher who made his F1 debut at Spa exactly 20 years ago! An utterly outstanding achievement indeed! But Schumi´s anniversary weekend got a poor start as he couldn´t set a time at the beginning of Q1 due to a technical failure. So Schumi was out of the quali due to no fault of his own -what a shame! He seemed very competitive in the wet conditions on the ground of what we saw at the free practices. But he´ll be allowed to race in spite of not setting a time within the 107 percent time. So hope he´ll have a good race tomorrow!
Another surprise was that McLaren´s Jenson Button didn´t make it through to Q3! Button himself explained it was a question of some misunderstanding... Which shouldn´t happen at this level! Button would have made it to the Q3 without any doubt if only had he been on the track at the end of the Q2 when the lap times where improving lap by lap as the track turned drier and drier... So Button will be 13th on the grid tomorrow which will make Button´s race a bit more difficult... But if the weather will be mixed like today; I´m sure it´ll favour Button who has been extremely good in mixed conditions.
To be honest, I have to say I didn´t expect ANYTHING from Bruno Senna who replaced Nick Heidfeld at Renault this weekend. And although Senna hit the wall at FP1on Friday, otherwise his performance has been impressive indeed! Today he qualified 7th just ahead of Ferrari´s Alonso while his team-mate Petrov was 10th.
Sebastian Vettel snatched the pole once again! It was the 9th pole for the German ace this season! What can you say, the super talented Red Bull driver seems to be in a class of his own! His performance didn´t seem very strong especially in Q1 but there´s something absolutely astonishing about Vettel... Every time you start thinking that he may not be at his very best today, he manages to set the perfect lap! Hamilton took the 2nd spot and Vettel´s team-mate Webber was 3rd. The second half of the season couldn´t have started any better!!
Lewis Hamilton always seems to be in the limelight when there´s intense action on the track... So was the case today aswell! At the end of Q2 when Hamilton was on his flying lap he passed Maldonado in his Williams not to lose time which lead to the wheels of Hamilton´s car touching those of Maldonado´s Williams. For me it looked very clean incident, Hamilton was just trying to set as fast lap time as possible! But soon after that Maldonado hit Hamilton´s car so that Hamilton´s front wing and side-pod was damaged! Maldonado´s car got some damage aswell. That was absolutely outrageous!! Maldonado had NO REASON to do so! Maldonado has been given a five-place grid penalty for his action, which absolutely isn´t a penalty hard enough if I´m asked! Maldonado did it deliberately so he should be excluded from the race totally. What I don´t understand is why Hamilton was also reprimanded due to the incident...
And why the 107 percent rule breakers are allowed to race tomorrow? Meaning D´Ambrosio, Liuzzi and Ricciardo.. It´s understandable that Schumi is allowed to race as it was a question of a technical failure but as far as these three other drivers are concerned, they were simply unable to set a lap time fast enough! Why does the 107 percent rule even exist when it has absolutely no meaning whatsoever?
I guess everybody expected to see an impressive performance from Michael Schumacher who made his F1 debut at Spa exactly 20 years ago! An utterly outstanding achievement indeed! But Schumi´s anniversary weekend got a poor start as he couldn´t set a time at the beginning of Q1 due to a technical failure. So Schumi was out of the quali due to no fault of his own -what a shame! He seemed very competitive in the wet conditions on the ground of what we saw at the free practices. But he´ll be allowed to race in spite of not setting a time within the 107 percent time. So hope he´ll have a good race tomorrow!
Another surprise was that McLaren´s Jenson Button didn´t make it through to Q3! Button himself explained it was a question of some misunderstanding... Which shouldn´t happen at this level! Button would have made it to the Q3 without any doubt if only had he been on the track at the end of the Q2 when the lap times where improving lap by lap as the track turned drier and drier... So Button will be 13th on the grid tomorrow which will make Button´s race a bit more difficult... But if the weather will be mixed like today; I´m sure it´ll favour Button who has been extremely good in mixed conditions.
To be honest, I have to say I didn´t expect ANYTHING from Bruno Senna who replaced Nick Heidfeld at Renault this weekend. And although Senna hit the wall at FP1on Friday, otherwise his performance has been impressive indeed! Today he qualified 7th just ahead of Ferrari´s Alonso while his team-mate Petrov was 10th.
Sebastian Vettel snatched the pole once again! It was the 9th pole for the German ace this season! What can you say, the super talented Red Bull driver seems to be in a class of his own! His performance didn´t seem very strong especially in Q1 but there´s something absolutely astonishing about Vettel... Every time you start thinking that he may not be at his very best today, he manages to set the perfect lap! Hamilton took the 2nd spot and Vettel´s team-mate Webber was 3rd. The second half of the season couldn´t have started any better!!
Lewis Hamilton always seems to be in the limelight when there´s intense action on the track... So was the case today aswell! At the end of Q2 when Hamilton was on his flying lap he passed Maldonado in his Williams not to lose time which lead to the wheels of Hamilton´s car touching those of Maldonado´s Williams. For me it looked very clean incident, Hamilton was just trying to set as fast lap time as possible! But soon after that Maldonado hit Hamilton´s car so that Hamilton´s front wing and side-pod was damaged! Maldonado´s car got some damage aswell. That was absolutely outrageous!! Maldonado had NO REASON to do so! Maldonado has been given a five-place grid penalty for his action, which absolutely isn´t a penalty hard enough if I´m asked! Maldonado did it deliberately so he should be excluded from the race totally. What I don´t understand is why Hamilton was also reprimanded due to the incident...
And why the 107 percent rule breakers are allowed to race tomorrow? Meaning D´Ambrosio, Liuzzi and Ricciardo.. It´s understandable that Schumi is allowed to race as it was a question of a technical failure but as far as these three other drivers are concerned, they were simply unable to set a lap time fast enough! Why does the 107 percent rule even exist when it has absolutely no meaning whatsoever?
maanantai 22. elokuuta 2011
ADAC Rallye Deutschland: Ogier put an end to Loeb´s winning streak in Germany!
I have been suffering from withdrawal symptoms for not writing a blog post for several weeks! So I´m glad the Rallye Deutschland came to make my day! What were my expectations before the rally got underway? I was convinced that it would be the 9th consecutive victory in Germany for absolutely dominant Loeb who has obviously been in a class of his own for several years... However, I turned out to be wrong!
In terms of the factory Fords, almost everything went wrong since the beginning of the rally... Latvala had a very promising start to the event by making the fastest time on the stage 1 but then the problems hit. Team Ford made the wrong tyre call by choosing the harder compound of tyres because they were expecting the conditions to be dry. Instead it was raining right before the stage 2 and the Ford drivers Latvala and Hirvonen lost a lot of time on the slippery roads. The French Citroen drivers instead had a soft-compound version on their cars and they managed to pull a significant gap to their rivals! And the wrong tyre call was just a beginning of a series of difficulties faced by the factory Fords... Punctures (Latvala alone had four punctures during the rally!) and near-miss situations cost the Finnish Ford drivers dearly!
The real talking point during the weekend, however, was the relationship between the Citroen´s two drivers. Loeb was leading the rally after day one by only a few seconds over his team-mate Ogier and Ogier seemed very tight-lipped and annoyed about something... And it became clear soon that Citroen had given team orders to maintain the positions of their two drivers meaning that Ogier wasn´t allowed to take the lead from his team-mate... Once again I was sooo disappointed! Sports, also motorsports, should be about competing against your rivals including your team-mate! I can´t help thinking about Loeb´s new two-year contract with Citroen if it´s partly based on him being the number one driver in the team... I hope I´m wrong! In my eyes the 7-time world champion Sebastien Loeb is so an outstanding driver that he wouldn´t need to use means like that to secure his position inside the team! Though Ogier is clearly a serious threat...
In addition to all the technical failures Latvala also suffered from some kind of a stomach bug! As if all the technical stuff wouldn´t have been enough...! In spite of the team orders Loeb didn´t win in Germany! He suffered a puncture on Saturday and lost over a minute because of it which enabled Ogier to snatch the lead! So it was the first tarmac-win for Ogier leaving Loeb 2nd! But what was brilliant was the performance of the two MINI drivers! Sordo managed to snatch the last podium spot leaving Hirvonen 4th.
I was satisfied to see Kimi´s performance in Germany -although the man himself stated it would have been a better idea for him to have stayed at home! Kimi had a peculiar problem with his door flapping after he had touched a wall. But he did set some very competitive stage times and I´m sure he would have done much better on the power stage if he hadn´t had another puncture! I´m kind of sad to read that he´ll skip the Rally Australia! I love watching and following WRC but it´s definitely Kimi who brings the extra excitement to the sports...!
In terms of the factory Fords, almost everything went wrong since the beginning of the rally... Latvala had a very promising start to the event by making the fastest time on the stage 1 but then the problems hit. Team Ford made the wrong tyre call by choosing the harder compound of tyres because they were expecting the conditions to be dry. Instead it was raining right before the stage 2 and the Ford drivers Latvala and Hirvonen lost a lot of time on the slippery roads. The French Citroen drivers instead had a soft-compound version on their cars and they managed to pull a significant gap to their rivals! And the wrong tyre call was just a beginning of a series of difficulties faced by the factory Fords... Punctures (Latvala alone had four punctures during the rally!) and near-miss situations cost the Finnish Ford drivers dearly!
The real talking point during the weekend, however, was the relationship between the Citroen´s two drivers. Loeb was leading the rally after day one by only a few seconds over his team-mate Ogier and Ogier seemed very tight-lipped and annoyed about something... And it became clear soon that Citroen had given team orders to maintain the positions of their two drivers meaning that Ogier wasn´t allowed to take the lead from his team-mate... Once again I was sooo disappointed! Sports, also motorsports, should be about competing against your rivals including your team-mate! I can´t help thinking about Loeb´s new two-year contract with Citroen if it´s partly based on him being the number one driver in the team... I hope I´m wrong! In my eyes the 7-time world champion Sebastien Loeb is so an outstanding driver that he wouldn´t need to use means like that to secure his position inside the team! Though Ogier is clearly a serious threat...
In addition to all the technical failures Latvala also suffered from some kind of a stomach bug! As if all the technical stuff wouldn´t have been enough...! In spite of the team orders Loeb didn´t win in Germany! He suffered a puncture on Saturday and lost over a minute because of it which enabled Ogier to snatch the lead! So it was the first tarmac-win for Ogier leaving Loeb 2nd! But what was brilliant was the performance of the two MINI drivers! Sordo managed to snatch the last podium spot leaving Hirvonen 4th.
I was satisfied to see Kimi´s performance in Germany -although the man himself stated it would have been a better idea for him to have stayed at home! Kimi had a peculiar problem with his door flapping after he had touched a wall. But he did set some very competitive stage times and I´m sure he would have done much better on the power stage if he hadn´t had another puncture! I´m kind of sad to read that he´ll skip the Rally Australia! I love watching and following WRC but it´s definitely Kimi who brings the extra excitement to the sports...!
sunnuntai 31. heinäkuuta 2011
Hungarian GP: mistakes made by all top drivers... except Button!
What an epic race in Hungary today! The conditions were very unusual from those we´ve been used to see in Hungary in previous years. The circuit was wet so all the drivers started the race with the intermediate tyres. Vettel got a very decent start keeping both Hamilton and Button behind him. But the German wasn´t able to maintain his lead for long... Hamilton was pushing extremely hard behind the Red Bull driver putting pressure on him. And then it happened on lap 5 at turn 2... Vettel made a mistake and went wide and Hamilton passed him! At that time I was sitting on the sofa screaming my voice off...!
There was no uncertainty about Hamilton´s speed. He pulled off from Vettel immediately after overtaking him and made a clear gap. Vettel seemed to be in difficulties at the beginning of the race, he had hard time to keep the other McLaren driver Button behind him! And the circumstances were tricky, no doubt about it. Vettel wasn´t the only driver to make a mistake! Also Alonso got wide at least a couple of times and Hamilton had a spin aswell which caused a dangerous situation. Paul Di Resta in his Force India was about to crash into Hamilton´s car when he tried to turn his car to get back on the track... Button was able to overtake his team-mate at this stage and after this we saw some very entertaining wheel-to-wheel battle between the two McLaren drivers! They kept it fair which was a pleasure to see!
The light rain started on lap 47 and it caused different decisions made by the teams. Hamilton came to the pits to put the intermediate tyres on like many other drivers did, too. That was a wrong call! Button on the other hand had put the soft tyres on and was leading the race! Hamilton had to change back to the softs after only a few laps and he also got penalised because of the situation with Di Resta earlier on the race so he was given a drive through penalty. Hamilton lost positions due to the penalty but he wasn´t going to give up...! On the closing stages of the race Hamilton was able to overtake Mark Webber and finished the race 4th! Without the mistakes and the penalty he would certainly have fighted for the victory, he showed some unbelievable pace indeed!
Button was the only top driver not to make any clear mistakes today and he had the perfect tactics aswell. He totally deserved to win today. What an awesome way to celebrate his 200th grand prix! Vettel seemed a bit disappointed at the press conference after the race. He clearly wasn´t satisfied with the 2nd place, he thought the win would have been in reach... But in terms of the championship standings it really doesn´t look bad for Vettel. He managed to increase his lead making it up to 85 points! That´s utterly amazing, I would say! Alonso finished 3rd today. The Ferraris didn´t turn out to be as competitive as I thought they would be. At the start both Alonso and Massa had hard time to fight with the Mercedes drivers!
Heidfeld´s retirement was spectacular but scary. His Renault Lotus caught fire on lap 25 just after his pit stop! There was even a small explosion when the officials tried to put down the fire. No wonder Heidfeld tried to get out of his car as soon as possible! More retirements occurred today than we have seen at the previous races this season as also drivers like Schumacher and both Lotus drivers retired due to technical failures.
There was no uncertainty about Hamilton´s speed. He pulled off from Vettel immediately after overtaking him and made a clear gap. Vettel seemed to be in difficulties at the beginning of the race, he had hard time to keep the other McLaren driver Button behind him! And the circumstances were tricky, no doubt about it. Vettel wasn´t the only driver to make a mistake! Also Alonso got wide at least a couple of times and Hamilton had a spin aswell which caused a dangerous situation. Paul Di Resta in his Force India was about to crash into Hamilton´s car when he tried to turn his car to get back on the track... Button was able to overtake his team-mate at this stage and after this we saw some very entertaining wheel-to-wheel battle between the two McLaren drivers! They kept it fair which was a pleasure to see!
The light rain started on lap 47 and it caused different decisions made by the teams. Hamilton came to the pits to put the intermediate tyres on like many other drivers did, too. That was a wrong call! Button on the other hand had put the soft tyres on and was leading the race! Hamilton had to change back to the softs after only a few laps and he also got penalised because of the situation with Di Resta earlier on the race so he was given a drive through penalty. Hamilton lost positions due to the penalty but he wasn´t going to give up...! On the closing stages of the race Hamilton was able to overtake Mark Webber and finished the race 4th! Without the mistakes and the penalty he would certainly have fighted for the victory, he showed some unbelievable pace indeed!
Button was the only top driver not to make any clear mistakes today and he had the perfect tactics aswell. He totally deserved to win today. What an awesome way to celebrate his 200th grand prix! Vettel seemed a bit disappointed at the press conference after the race. He clearly wasn´t satisfied with the 2nd place, he thought the win would have been in reach... But in terms of the championship standings it really doesn´t look bad for Vettel. He managed to increase his lead making it up to 85 points! That´s utterly amazing, I would say! Alonso finished 3rd today. The Ferraris didn´t turn out to be as competitive as I thought they would be. At the start both Alonso and Massa had hard time to fight with the Mercedes drivers!
Heidfeld´s retirement was spectacular but scary. His Renault Lotus caught fire on lap 25 just after his pit stop! There was even a small explosion when the officials tried to put down the fire. No wonder Heidfeld tried to get out of his car as soon as possible! More retirements occurred today than we have seen at the previous races this season as also drivers like Schumacher and both Lotus drivers retired due to technical failures.
Neste Oil Rally Finland
Once again we saw an absolutely thrilling and eventful rally in Finland! This time I couldn´t make it there to watch the event live so I followed the rally both on TV and on the internet. From the Finnish point of view the rally didn´t have a very promising start as Ford´s Mikko Hirvonen crashed to a tree on the very first stage and damaged his car costing him dearly. At the end of the day one Mikko´s position was somewhere far beyond 40 or something! The Frenchmen instead, Loeb and Ogier in their Citroens, had a perfect start to the rally...
Once again tactics played a significant role during the rally. On Thursday both Ogier and Latvala slowed down on purpose not to be the first car on the road on the following day. So it was Loeb who was cleaning the roads again on Saturday. I was so happy to notice that his road position appeared to be no disadvantage for him! Luckily the overnight rain had helped to compact the gravel surface and Loeb was able to make staggering stage times on the first loop of stages! Ogier tried his best to chase his team-mate and Ford´s Jari-Matti Latvala wasn´t far behind, either...
A few words about Hirvonen then. He was like a completely different driver on Friday! I´m not sure if his crash was caused by a technical issue or if it was his own mistake but the driving he showed on Friday was unbelievable! He set the fastest time on almost every stage! And it didn´t take very long for him to be among the top ten... Can´t help thinking if Mikko had won the rally without the unfortunate crash on Thursday...
And it was tactics again at the end of Friday. Now also played by Loeb. He took a 10-second penalty on purpose but his rivals Ogier and Latvala were aware of his act and managed to drop time making Loeb clean the roads again... which Loeb really didn´t seem too happy about! But it turned out that the conditions on Saturday morning weren´t a disadvantage for Loeb after all. I´m sure Ogier would have been able to challenge his team-mate for real without the puncture he suffered on the final day. Latvala also managed to pass Ogier thanks to his improved driving :)
The power stage in Laajavuori was shown on TV and it was epic to watch. The fast Finnish roads are difficult to drive but they suit the Finns for sure! Hirvonen snatched the fastest time on the power stage getting 3 extra points. He finally managed to finish the rally 4th which was an excellent achievement indeed. The second fastest was Latvala in his Ford leaving Ogier 3rd. So it was second win in Finland for the 7-time world champion Loeb!! He completely deserved to win, he was the first car on the road on all three days and he drove flat out all the time! Latvala did a great job, too finishing second but he still needs to improve his driving. On some stages he is terribly fast but on other stages he isn´t that consistent...
Once again tactics played a significant role during the rally. On Thursday both Ogier and Latvala slowed down on purpose not to be the first car on the road on the following day. So it was Loeb who was cleaning the roads again on Saturday. I was so happy to notice that his road position appeared to be no disadvantage for him! Luckily the overnight rain had helped to compact the gravel surface and Loeb was able to make staggering stage times on the first loop of stages! Ogier tried his best to chase his team-mate and Ford´s Jari-Matti Latvala wasn´t far behind, either...
A few words about Hirvonen then. He was like a completely different driver on Friday! I´m not sure if his crash was caused by a technical issue or if it was his own mistake but the driving he showed on Friday was unbelievable! He set the fastest time on almost every stage! And it didn´t take very long for him to be among the top ten... Can´t help thinking if Mikko had won the rally without the unfortunate crash on Thursday...
And it was tactics again at the end of Friday. Now also played by Loeb. He took a 10-second penalty on purpose but his rivals Ogier and Latvala were aware of his act and managed to drop time making Loeb clean the roads again... which Loeb really didn´t seem too happy about! But it turned out that the conditions on Saturday morning weren´t a disadvantage for Loeb after all. I´m sure Ogier would have been able to challenge his team-mate for real without the puncture he suffered on the final day. Latvala also managed to pass Ogier thanks to his improved driving :)
The power stage in Laajavuori was shown on TV and it was epic to watch. The fast Finnish roads are difficult to drive but they suit the Finns for sure! Hirvonen snatched the fastest time on the power stage getting 3 extra points. He finally managed to finish the rally 4th which was an excellent achievement indeed. The second fastest was Latvala in his Ford leaving Ogier 3rd. So it was second win in Finland for the 7-time world champion Loeb!! He completely deserved to win, he was the first car on the road on all three days and he drove flat out all the time! Latvala did a great job, too finishing second but he still needs to improve his driving. On some stages he is terribly fast but on other stages he isn´t that consistent...
lauantai 30. heinäkuuta 2011
Hungarian GP / Qualifying: Vettel back on pole!
Already last weekend in Germany we saw that the three top teams (Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari) were very close to each other and had a very similar race pace. So I knew the battle for the pole position was going to be thrilling in Hungary! And thrilling it was!
No actual surprises in Q2 today. Both Renaults were out of Q3 so they seem to have taken a step backwards. But Perez in his Sauber making his way to Q3 was a positive surprise and it shows the promising potential the Mexican driver has :) His more experienced team-mate Kobayashi instead didn´t make it to Q3.
Hamilton was the only top driver in Q2 to set his fastest lap time on the soft tyres while the others had put the super softs on and his lap time looked frightenly fast indeed being only a tenth slower than Vettel´s set on the super softs! In Q3 it was also Hamilton who seemed to have the pole within his grasp after the first fast laps. The Ferraris seemed very competitive aswell but what was surprising was that it was Massa who was able to set a faster lap time than his team-mate Alonso! This hasn´t happened for a while... The McLarens were extremely strong but no pole for Hamilton after all! Sebastian Vettel came and showed everyone that he hasn´t definitely been cracking under pressure by conquering the pole! Outstanding achievement after the tame German GP last weekend! So it was P2 for Hamilton again and P3 for his team-mate Button leaving Massa 4th, Alonso 5th and Webber (who suffered from some kind of KERS problem I guess...) back at 6th place.
I´m sure it´s going to be intense battle for the victory tomorrow. Hamilton has had some very impressive starts this season so Vettel has to be able to take a perfect start to maintain his lead into the first corner... And the Ferraris, especially Alonso will fight hard to make his way to the lead. And looking from the tyre point of view... Button may be in a good position as it´s him who is very good at nurturing his tyres...
No actual surprises in Q2 today. Both Renaults were out of Q3 so they seem to have taken a step backwards. But Perez in his Sauber making his way to Q3 was a positive surprise and it shows the promising potential the Mexican driver has :) His more experienced team-mate Kobayashi instead didn´t make it to Q3.
Hamilton was the only top driver in Q2 to set his fastest lap time on the soft tyres while the others had put the super softs on and his lap time looked frightenly fast indeed being only a tenth slower than Vettel´s set on the super softs! In Q3 it was also Hamilton who seemed to have the pole within his grasp after the first fast laps. The Ferraris seemed very competitive aswell but what was surprising was that it was Massa who was able to set a faster lap time than his team-mate Alonso! This hasn´t happened for a while... The McLarens were extremely strong but no pole for Hamilton after all! Sebastian Vettel came and showed everyone that he hasn´t definitely been cracking under pressure by conquering the pole! Outstanding achievement after the tame German GP last weekend! So it was P2 for Hamilton again and P3 for his team-mate Button leaving Massa 4th, Alonso 5th and Webber (who suffered from some kind of KERS problem I guess...) back at 6th place.
I´m sure it´s going to be intense battle for the victory tomorrow. Hamilton has had some very impressive starts this season so Vettel has to be able to take a perfect start to maintain his lead into the first corner... And the Ferraris, especially Alonso will fight hard to make his way to the lead. And looking from the tyre point of view... Button may be in a good position as it´s him who is very good at nurturing his tyres...
keskiviikko 27. heinäkuuta 2011
Red Bull Show Run in Helsinki
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| Kimi Räikkönen driving on the streets of Helsinki. |
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| Sebastien Loeb driving a crosskart for the first time in his life! |
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| Kimi & Sebastien waving for the fans. |
It´s actually very difficult to describe my emotions during the exceptional event. On one hand I have to say a part of me was extremely sad seeing flags flown at half mast due to the terrible tradegy taken place in Norway. On the other hand the event was the absolute highlight of my summer which I had looked so much forward to... Personally I really want to say thank you to both Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastien Loeb for taking part in the event!! I completely understand that especially Kimi is no fan of media what so ever but I doubt he can ever understand how much he means to such a huge amount of fans...! For a fan like me it was really a dream come true to see him drive in front of my eyes :) Work for him but ultimate enjoyment and entertainment for me and all the other Kimi fans!!
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| Me getting an autograph from the 7-time rally champion! |
What was more than I could ever have dreamt of was Sebastien Loeb showing up just opposite me giving an autograph to me...!! I have been asked how I felt at that specific moment... Impossible to describe with any English words that I know...! Sebastien Loeb is definitely a man whose autograph I have been dreaming of for a long time! My collection includes autographs from racing drivers like Mika Häkkinen, Michael Schumacher, Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel... And now I have also Loeb´s autograph :) An event like the show run in Helsinki is utterly unique because it brings the drivers close to fans. At WRC rallies or Formula 1 races a normal person like myself doesn´t have any chance to get close to the drivers to be able to ask for an autograph so I´m totally speechless about my experience of standing opposite the 7-time rally world champion... I got such mixed emotions after that I had hard time following the German GP on TV in my hotel room a little later on!
I enjoyed every moment of the 2-hour event and had absolutely the time of my life...! Last but not least... Kimi burning some rubber ;) Thank you Kimi and Sebastien! You may not know but you´ve made thousands of people extremely happy... including me :)
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