Turkish GP: Webber claims third consecutive pole

May 30 '10

Mark Webber claimed his third consecutive pole position and made it seven pole positions from seven attempts for Red Bull at Istanbul Park circuit at yesterday's qualifying session for the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton secured second position making it a McLaren front row start for the first time this season. Sebastian Vettel who topped the first two sessions of qualifying will start the race from second row of the grid in third position after suffering a suspected brake failure.

In Q1

@Jamesallenonf1



As usual, the three new teams failed to make it out of Q1. Jarno Trulli in the Lotus was the quickest of the six cars, beating team mate Heikki Kovalainen by three tenths of a second.

When the three new teams fail to make the progress beyond Q1, there is always a room for one of the drivers from the established teams to join them and this time it was Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi who struggled for pace even though he was running Force India?s F-duct on his car. He failed to make it past Q1 for the second time this season.

At the end of Q1, Vettel was almost a half second faster than Webber who was followed by Button, Petrov, Rosberg, Hamilton, Schumacher, Kubica, Alonso Sutil and Massa 11th.

Drivers eliminated in Q1

18. Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1m 28.958s
19. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1m 30.237s
20. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1m 30.519s
21. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m 30.744s
22. Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 1m 31.266s
23. Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1m 31.989s
24. Karun Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 1m 32.060s


In Q2

@Jamesallenonf1



Fernando Alonso had a disappointing elimination from Q2 on the eve of Ferrari's 800th grand prix start. According to iTV, "The Spaniard was already struggling for speed when he dropped his right-rear wheel onto a white line in the braking area for turn 12. The lap ruined, he had time for one more, but could not improve. He will start the race from 12th."

He said afterwards, ??I pushed very hard in that lap. Anyway I was slower than my fastest lap. I knew it was not enough. I don?t think that moment cost me a place in Q3. I did three laps in mainly in the same time and I think the pace was not there.?

Kamui Kobayashi forced his Sauber C29 out of Q2 for the third time this season. Adrian Sutil who missed out whole of the final practice session could only manage 11th fastest time.

Drivers eliminated in Q2

11. Adrian Sutil Germany Force India-Mercedes 1m 27.525s
12. Fernando Alonso Spain Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 27.612s
13. Pedro de la Rosa Spain BMW Sauber-Ferrari 1m 27.879s
14. Sebastien Buemi Switzerland Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 28.273s
15. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Williams-Cosworth 1m 28.392s
16. Jaime Alguersuari Spain Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 28.540s
17. Nico Hulkenberg Germany Williams-Cosworth 1m 28.841s


In Q3

@Jamesallenonf1



Webber was the man to beat in Q3 as he set the fastest time on the drivers? first runs. He improved on his time on his final run and was unbeatable to pole. According to iTV, "Red Bull tested its F-duct during Friday practice but opted not to use it in qualifying, low-drag rear wing endplates instead being flown out to Istanbul and fitted to Webber?s car just prior to qualifying."

Michael Schumacher spun off at turn 8 on his final lap and ended the session in the gravel. Despite this, he ended up ahead of his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg. They line up fifth and sixth.

Ferrari had a disappointing day as Massa, three times a winner at this track, could only manage eighth fastest time while Alonso was eliminated in Q2.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali spoke to BBC, ?For sure the performance in qualifying was not up to our standard. We don?t know why and we need to understand. For sure we were expecting much more performance.?

Top ten drivers in Q3

1. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m 26.295s
2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m 26.433s
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m 26.760s
4 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m 26.781s
5. Michael Schumacher Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 26.857s
6. Nico Rosberg Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 26.952s
7. Robert Kubica Renault-Renault 1m 27.039s
8. Felipe Massa Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 27.082s
9. Vitaly Petrov Renault-Renault 1m 27.430s
10. Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber-Ferrari 1m 28.122s


Images(C) Daylife, YallaF1

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/F1InsightAFormula1Blog/~3/ufRfvjg7JzU/turkish-gp-webber-claims-third.html

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Richard Petty and Investors Take Control of RPM From George Gillett Jr.

Filed under: A.J. Allmendinger, Petty Enterprises, Sprint Cup, NASCAR

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) -- Richard Petty will once again run his race team and participate in day-to-day operations as chairman of the new ownership group that was announced Monday.

The assets of Richard Petty Motorsports have been sold from George Gillett Jr. to an investment group that consists of Petty, Medallion Financial Corp. and DGP Investments.

"Today is a great day for me, my family, our fans and our wonderful sponsors," Petty said in a statement that listed 10 partners that "have supported me through thick and thin and I thank them from the bottom of my heart."

RPM will field cars for AJ Allmendinger and Marcos Ambrose in 2011.

The transfer of assets has been in the works for several weeks because of Gillett's ongoing financial problems. Debt-laden English soccer club Liverpool recently was sold despite the objection of Gillett and business partner Tom Hicks. And a U.S. hedge fund is suing Gillett over what the firm says is more than $117 million in debt he racked up investing in Liverpool.

 

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Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/11/29/richard-petty-and-investors-take-control-of-rpm-from-george-gill/

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Your questions answered - Brazilian Grand Prix

Do I think Red Bull should have allowed Mark Webber to win in Brazil instead of Sebastian Vettel? Do I think Mercedes and Renault will benefit from such a tight battle this season? Do I agree with Bernie Ecclestone's comment that Lotus are the only new team to have contributed this season? Do I think heads should roll at McLaren? Who do I think has been the best driver in the bottom five teams? And the big question - who is going to win the title?

Watch my answers below.

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IF YOU ARE OUTSIDE THE UK, CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/murraywalker/2010/11/your_questions_answered_-_braz.html

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F1: Pirelli wraps up five-day Bahrain test

Pirelli wraps up five-day Bahrain test By Pablo Elizalde Sunday, December 26th 2010, 17:49 GMT Pirelli has completed the final test of the year following a five-day session at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain. In total, the Pirelli testing team completed nearly 3,000 kilometers, with Pedro de la Rosa and Romain Grosjean in charge of driving duties. Related posts:

1. F1: Pirelli completes wet test at Ricard Pirelli completes wet test at Ricard Thursday, November 11th 2010,...
2. F1: Pirelli encouraged by test progress Pirelli encouraged by test progress By Glenn Freeman Thursday, September...
3. F1: Pirelli completes two-day Jerez test Pirelli completes two-day Jerez test By Pablo Elizalde Thursday, September...

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Source: http://doxcar.com/f1-pirelli-wraps-up-five-day-bahrain-test/

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Could F1 2011 be even better?

The final grand prix of the season in Abu Dhabi summed up why the 2010 season will go down in Formula 1 history as a classic year.

There were super-fast Red Bulls, world champion drivers in the thick of the action, strategic errors, raw emotion and a final twist in an epic tale as Sebastian Vettel won his first world title.

Before the race was run, the sun-soaked paddock was buzzing with talk of "the greatest season ever" and debate about the highlight of the season swelled.

In fact, as the dust settles on Abu Dhabi, the teams' attentions are already turning to 2011 - all the teams and most of the race drivers get their first run on next year's new Pirelli tyres at the Yas Marina track at the weekend.

With just 118 days to go until the cars and drivers return to the desert in Bahrain to rejoin battle, expectations are already building that 2011 could be another classic year, matching events this season.

As BBC pundit Eddie Jordan exclaimed on Sunday: "We have five world champions competing next year, what are we in for?!"

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Jordan is right to be excited.

The men who defined this season remain in situ - Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button at McLaren, Fernando Alonso at Ferrari, and Vettel and Mark Webber at Red Bull.

All of them know they have things to improve in 2010 - particularly the number of errors they have made. And the long winter will give each of the 24 drivers on the grid time to analyse and agonise over crucial mistakes and frittered points that ultimately defined their seasons.

"Every one of us made too many errors and that is why we found ourselves in a position with five guys fighting it out," reflected Button, who saw his title defence end in Brazil.

Though he was the first to bow out, Button had the cleanest season of all the five contenders but found himself let down by a lack of pace - particularly in qualifying - as he got to grips with a McLaren in his first season with the team.

Alonso will rue his uncharacteristic errors in Australia and China, his crash in Monaco and, most of all, the fatal call from Ferrari to bring him in early for fresh tyres in Abu Dhabi.

Hamilton will reflect on his ill-judged passing moves in Monza and Singapore, which effectively ended his hopes, while Webber will relive his frightening somersault in Valencia and his costly crash in Korea.

Vettel, too, made more than his fair share of errors. He must take the blame for crashes with his team-mate Webber in Turkey and an unwitting Button in Spa, while his attempt to go around the outside of Webber at the start in Silverstone earned him a puncture.

For Red Bull, though, one of the biggest areas of focus will be the poor early-season reliability, from spark plugs to wheel nuts, that prevented Vettel bursting into an early lead.

When Red Bull adviser Dr Helmut Marko was asked on Sunday what his next goal was after his team captured both championships, he said they intended to cut out the errors so they could win the titles sooner.

All the top teams will be adding grease to their usually slick operations over the winter at the same time as building their cars to a set of regulations that have been tweaked again.

Gone will be the double-diffusers which caused so much controversy at the start of 2009, as well as the F-duct that McLaren pioneered at the start of 2010, forcing everyone else to follow suit.

Blown diffusers - 2010's other defining technical tweak - will stay to an extent, though.

In come those Pirelli tyres, while Kers energy storage and power-boost systems return after a year away. There will also be a new technical trick in the form of moveable rear wings, an attempt to solve F1's perennial problem even in a season as great as this - the difficulty of overtaking.

The success of the teams' research into the effects of these changes will shape next year's title chase - and it is by no means a given that this year's big three will be the ones who get it most right.

There have been concerned whispers that the efforts of waging a season-long campaign have diverted attention away from 2011 development programmes at Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren.

The strain of winning the 2009 championships certainly drained Brawn Grand Prix, which had a debilitating effect on them this season in their new guise as Mercedes.

However, with no championship to fight for, teams such as Mercedes and Renault, who stopped developing their 2010 car in September so they concentrate on next season, could make it a five-way battle for honours next year.

"It has been a special year," mused McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh. "Can there be more?

"We have to keep the focus on brave, fantastic drivers in great machinery; an even-handed regulator, stability and clear rules that are administered properly.

"We can't guarantee it but there is no reason the championship next year can't be as good - or even better."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sarahholt/2010/11/could_f1_2011_be_even_better.html

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Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon Part of Hendrick Crew Chief Swap

Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Crew Chiefs, Sprint Cup, Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR

Hendrick Motorsports may have won its fifth-straight championship just last Sunday, but it took only a matter of days for the organization to make some of its biggest changes in years.

"This will improve us as an organization, across the board," team owner Rick Hendrick (right) said Tuesday.

Save for champion Jimmie Johnson, each of the three other drivers in the Hendrick stable will have new crew chiefs for the 2011 season.

Steve Letarte, the crew chief on Jeff Gordon's No. 24 since the end of the 2005 season, will now oversee Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 team. Meanwhile, Gordon will now have Alan Gustafson managing his team in Daytona.

Gustafson leaves the No. 5 team and driver Mark Martin, who will now have Lance McGrew in his ear for the 2011 season. McGrew has spent part of 2009 and all of 2010 as Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief.

 

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Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/11/23/earnhardt-gordon-part-of-major-hendrick-crew-chief-swap/

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Pressure mounts on Webber most of all

Mark Webber, typically, cut to the chase when weighing up what could be the weekend of his life with a colleague.

"It's simple, mate," he said. "Put it on pole, then disappear!"

As long as Fernando Alonso, the championship leader, finishes third or worse behind the Australian in Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it would be that simple.

Webber would be champion, with no need for a last-lap shuffle from team-mate Sebastian Vettel, and Red Bull would have completed a deserved double entirely in keeping with chief technical officer Adrian Newey's magnificent RB6 design.

But little in this switchback season has been straightforward - particularly at Red Bull, where Vettel could have wrapped up the title some races ago had he had greater reliability.

Instead, he and his older team-mate find themselves chasing Alonso who, remember, was 47 points off the lead following the British Grand Prix in July.

"All the pressure is on Red Bull this weekend," according to one team manager with recent championship success. "And the biggest load is on Webber.

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"He's not a young driver and you don't get many chances like this. Vettel will have many more days to challenge for the title. The team clearly back him."

"As for Fernando, he's been there already - twice."

Webber's outburst about his team's lack of driver equality before the last race in Brazil was interpreted by many as evidence that he's feeling the heat.

And those same observers viewed his quiet, reserved performance here in front of the world's media alongside his three rivals as another display of nerves.

Contrast his demeanour with Vettel's front row smiles, they were saying last night.

Consider Alonso's matter-of-fact handling of any barbed team orders related probing and Hamilton's back row cheeriness: "The guys in front of me have everything to lose, so for me I'm going to be flat out as always."

Hamilton's role could be a significant curve-ball if he can repeat his pole-winning lap of last year. But let's stay with Webber for the moment.

A one-time Jaguar official who worked with the Australian at the team and still works within Formula 1 gave me an interesting slant on his comments in Brazil.

"Mark seems to need to rev himself up, needs to feel he's got to fight something," my source said.

"He's a strong character and a good driver but for some reason he doesn't always show it unless he's gets himself wound up."

Will Webber keep his nerve in Abu Dhabi? Photo: Getty Images

His race-winning performance at Silverstone was a case in point. Vettel got the only new, surviving front wing off Webber's car before qualifying.

The Aussie got the hump. But he also got the victory - fast and furious to the end.
That was in the middle of his purple patch which continued until the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August, when he was second to Hamilton.

Webber has not been on pole since then, and has not won a race since Hungary, the grand prix before Spa. He has been out-qualified by his team-mate at the last five events.

He lost valuable points by crashing in Korea, where he also lost the lead in the championship - which he had held for the longest period of anyone this season - to the driver he rates the strongest on the grid, Alonso.

So it is easy to see why so many in the F1 paddock believe Webber faces the greatest challenge of all the contenders this weekend to fulfil an ambition that's been losing momentum at the wrong time.

Essentially, it's now or never.

Even Webber admitted on Thursday that age is against him to enjoy more opportunities like this.

Indeed, one leading driver manager even suggested to me that, whatever happened this weekend, Webber's position at Red Bull was untenable.

"If he's champion, he should get out at the top. If he doesn't win the title, then why would he want to be in a team where he feels his team-mate is being treated differently?" he said.

By contrast, the Alonso Fan Club nodded sagely at the Spaniard's cool fatalism yesterday.

"I will not have anything to be disappointed about in 2010," Alonso said.

"This first year of the relationship we are fighting for the world championship in the last race against two Red Bulls who are dominating by far in terms of speed so overall I don't think it matters on Sunday."

Um, really?

Make no mistake, Alonso and Ferrari will be going all out to win the title on Sunday, however much they make out it would be an unexpected bonus.

But this chance has been as much to do with Red Bull's fallibility as Ferrari's remarkable recovery from a desperate mid-season slump which was threatening to turn the screw on team principal Stefano Domenicali.

If anybody can drive to a title-winning script on Sunday to join a select club including previous three time winners like Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda and Sir Jackie Stewart, it is Alonso.

He is the man in front, with the experience of his 2005 and 2006 triumphs, seemingly able to work out the points as effortlessly as the strategy.

Above all, he knows that his rivals all have to beat him on the track to have a chance of the 2010 championship, whereas he could do the job even if he failed to finish through a mistake or a breakdown.

Vettel, who must have nightmares about that engine failure when leading in Korea, has appeared like a man who will be driving more in hope than expectation of coming first or second to have any chance of becoming F1's youngest champion.

The prospect of waving through Webber has not fazed him because both of them know their first priority is getting ahead, and staying ahead of Alonso before any switch comes into the equation.

And that is where Lewis Hamilton fits in.

He accepts that he is clearly the outsider of the four contenders; 24 points off the lead, he's all but written off his chances

But if the McLaren performs like last year - extra straight-line speed from the F-duct instead of last year's Kers power boost - on Abu Dhabi's two big straights, the 2008 champion could be the joker in the championship pack.

Hamilton gave a hint of what might be in the offing with his pace in second practice, especially in the final sector where he was supreme.

Another McLaren pole position backed up by race reliability, and those carefully prepared championship permutations at Red Bull and Ferrari will be crucial props in a juggling act which could keep us guessing until the final lap of the final race of this momentous season.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jonathanlegard/2010/11/webber-feeling-the-pressure.html

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