I´m having a glass of strawberry flavoured sparkling wine and thinking about the upcoming British Grand Prix. This weekend there has been more talking about technical details related to teams making best use of hot exhaust gases directed into cars´diffusers in order to generate more downforce than concentrating on pure racing! And the rule change by FIA just before the British GP as the FIA claimed that exhaust blowing should be cut to just 10 percent while off the throttle... But on the other hand Mercedes engines are enjoying a greater percentage due to realiability issues. But this is about all that I understand of the matter! So many rule changes so rapidly... It´s hard to know what´s going on, no matter how closely you follow the F1 world. Like Webber said at the post-qualifying press conference, most fans can´t understand even 0.1 percent of these technical details... Which I absolutely agree and I won´t even try to analyse the effect of these technical rule changes! I´m a Sebastian Vettel fan from the bottom of my heart and I wish all the success for him no matter engine mapping clampdown, exhaust gases directed to the diffuser or other things that a simple person like myself can´t absolutely comprehend!
About the qualifying session then. First of all, I have to say I was very delighted indeed to see the extremely talented Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo to make his F1 debut! Though making your debut at the wheel of Hispania isn´t the best possible starting point. I mean even for a very gifted guy like Ricciardo it´s extremely difficult to convince others of your talent when the car isn´t even near a competitive one! But at least it makes you humble when starting with a team that is so far away from the top teams... It reminds you of the fact that nothing can be taken for granted in Formula 1 and it takes more than just talent to succeed! It surely would have been easier to show your talent at the wheel of Toro Rosso for example... But I wish all the best for Ricciardo for tomorrow´s race and I´m sure he´s one of the guys that we´re definitely going to hear more of in the future!
A mixed session like Mark Webber told after the qualifying! We saw some light rain like we usually do when going to Silverstone... The Lotus driver Heikki Kovalainen made his way to the Q2 which was a heart-warming surprise indeed. His closest rivals weren´t able to improve their laptimes at the end of Q1 thanks to the rain but no matter what the circumstances were, Heikki deserved his place in the Q2! It´s kind of funny how it seems that driving a less competitive car has made him a better driver! Hope Heikki would score some points tomorrow :)
In spite of all the fuss on the off-throttle diffuser ban it was another front row lock-out for Red Bull Racing! Mark Webber snatched the pole position while his team-mate Vettel qualified 2nd! Alonso in his Ferrari got the 3rd spot on the grid and his team-mate qualified 4th. What was quite disappointing was to see Hamilton as far as on the 10th place! McLaren seemed to be in some sort of difficulties although Button got himself the 5th place. But Maldonado in Williams and Di Resta in Force India instead were able to grab the best spots on the grid this season by finishing 6th and 7th! But will there be anybody who will be able to undermine Vettel´s domination tomorrow? Webber has obviously found more speed in the last few races. It will surely undermine the harmony within the Red Bull team if Webber is able to beat his team-mate... We´ll see!
While waiting eagerly for the race tomorrow I´ll tell you the latest turns concerning my upcoming trip to Germany to watch the Race of Champions in December. Two weeks ago when I wrote a blog post last time, there had just been an announcement that the ROC wasn´t going to be held in Frankfurt like previously confirmed. Now they finally have a new venue for the ROC and it´s going to be held in Dusseldorf! After all the setbacks I was happy to hear this! I was at a summer cottage when I read the news of the new venue but thanks to Facebook I was informed quickly that Dusseldorf is situated only about 200 km away from Frankfurt where I´m going to be flying on December 1... So now it seems all these changes won´t be a catastrophy for me! I´ll take a train from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf on Saturday to watch Nations Cup and I´ll spend a night there before coming back to Frankfurt on Sunday and flying home on Monday... Still over 4 months to wait but after my summer holiday is over, this will be the number one thing to look forward to!!
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