Seb whines, Gentleman Jenson bitchslaps him.

“It’s shit,”  said Vettel when asked in Sepang today.  “I think we have to [change it]. I was on the pit wall during the race. It’s better than in a bar! That’s my opinion. I think for the fans it’s not good. I think F1 has to be spectacular, and the sound is one of the most important things."

Later when speaking in German Vettel said that he would rather have a V12, and that batteries are for mobile phone, and not F1 cars.
(via Adam Cooper)

Be that as it may,  we suspect if the Red Bull RB110 was at the pointy end of the field, Seb would not be throwing toys out of his Newey designed pram.    Of course it's no help the whole Red Bull team have been engaging in toy tossing for the past two weeks.

Enter "gentleman" Jenson who did not complain once last season when his Mclaren was,  well, shit:

"Go and race something else if you’re not happy,” said Jenson. “As drivers we don’t have an opinion where the cars are in terms of sound and feel. When you’ve crossed the finish line first and you’ve won a Grand Prix, you don’t care what it sounds or what it feels like. You’ve beaten the best in the world, and that’s what you care about.”

Ouch!

At least Alonso was clever and media savvy:

"If I say now that I think the show was bad (in Melbourne), then I will be accused of being frustrated because I didn't win".

Button and Kobayashi on the front row at Spa

Photo: David Morecambe

For Button it was the first pole position in over three years, since Monaco in 2009. For Kamui Kobayashi it was almost historic, only the second time a Japanese drive qualified on the front row (the first was Takoma Sato at the European GP at the Nürburgring in 2004 driving for BAR Honda) while the last time a Sauber was on the front row was in 1999 at Magny Cours driven by Jean Alesi. I believe it's also the first time a team led by a woman is on the front row of a Grand Prix, cool.

Mclaren Funnies

This is pretty funny but some could be tempted, after their recent performances, to think Mclaren might have lost focus a bit...

What Jenson Button really said to his crew...

Humor FTW!
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2 accidents, 2 flat tires, 5 pit stops, 1 penalty FTW!

OK, OK... here it is. Seriously if these GPs keep having so much action I'll have to stop making these, too much work, this one is close to ten minutes!

As the Canadian GP was so long (and we got so soaked in the stands) I'll keep the comments short:

Great race, tainted a bit in my view by the safety car start. It was barely raining as the race started and the excuse that teams were not familiar with the Pirelli rains was just sad. Hey, If AxisCG could go out in the rain, never having driven on Yokohama wets, you mean to tell me the worl's best drivers in the world's most sophisticated cars cannot handle it...pppft.
It was a completely unfair advantage to Vettel and Red Bull. Lame

Button, crowd favorite, nice to the Jense the Gent (or anyone for that matter) get such a great win. Yeah he had some luck but the trick was to keep your cool and Button was an icicle in Montreal. Fantastic race.

Vettel, well, he chocked didn't he? it was just one mistake but a costly one. Inevitably people might question how Vettel handles pressure on track.

Hamilton: don't want to dwell too much, but he drove yet another brainless race with too many people afterwards falling all over themselves to find excuses for the dolt. His bump into Webber was the stuff of first year rookies and the collision with Button completely illogical given the conditions and the racing line (check out the last lap pass Massa made on Kobayashi on the outside of the kink, he made it, but he never made turn 1, same thing would have happened to Hamilton). Yawn.

Alonso: penalyfed by the SC start, Ferrari blew it when they came in for inters seconds before a downpour. Collision with Button was just one of those things, Alonso gave him some room, Button could not turn in any tighter. Racing incident.

Schumacher: the magic was back but the car was not. Respect for Webber, another true gent, who said in a post race interview that he passed "grandpa" because "he does not have the car I do"... You're the man @aussiegrit !

Kobayashi: he's crashed a lot less than Hamilton of late. Has gotten to a point where people know he's going to go for anything vaguely possible, just ask Massa who conceded turn 1 to Kamui. That is a fantastic card for him if he's smart about it.

Feel free to discuss... clip after the jump

Chinese GP practice

(photo: David Morecambe)

Results look awfully familiars, don't they? Aside from the oppressing smog cloud shrouding the Shanghai circuit and the complete lack of human beings on the stands, I found two tidbits of interest in this clip of Jenson Button's car:

Mclaren are running grills on the brake ducts, something I don't remember noticing before. Presumably, this is to keep that rolled up Pirelli rubber everyone seems to be (at least publicly) in denial about, out of the rotors.

Also from the relative ride height of the tea tray vs the sidepods, one might assume Mclaren it trying out Red Bull's raked set up.



font class="pre">

Pos  Driver                Team                   Time                Laps
1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m37.688s            34
2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m37.854s  + 0.166  22
3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m37.935s  + 0.247  31
4.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m37.943s  + 0.255  34
5.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m38.105s  + 0.417  29
6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m38.507s  + 0.819  36
7.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1m38.735s  + 1.047  35
8.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault                1m38.805s  + 1.117  26
9.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault                1m38.859s  + 1.171  31
10.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m39.327s  + 1.639  33
11.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m39.538s  + 1.850  33
12.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth      1m39.667s  + 1.979  37
13.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m39.771s  + 2.083  18
14.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m39.779s  + 2.091  17
15.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m39.828s  + 2.140  25
16.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1m39.925s  + 2.237  32
17.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m39.953s  + 2.265  30
18.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault          1m40.476s  + 2.788  30
19.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault          1m41.482s  + 3.794  32
20.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m42.902s  + 5.214  25
21.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth           1m43.850s  + 6.162   3
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth        1m44.008s  + 6.320  35
23.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth        1m44.747s  + 7.059  12

All Timing Unofficial

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Jenson Button smokes Mt. Panorama

In one of those ultimately meaningless but still awesome events, Mclaren ran their F1 car on the famed Bathurst/Mt. Panorama track today.
What makes this cool is it gives a tangible measure of a Formula 1 cars performance: presumably driving well within himself, Jenson Button pulled off an unofficial 1:48 sec lap. Compare that with the already blistering fast qualifying times for the V8 Supercars driving 11/10th and tuned specifically for the track, they group about the 2:07 mark. Now that's impressive.

I'm sure a nice polished video will be released soon, in the meantime, youtube offers some fan clips (after the jump) and a news report





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Numbers

I love it when readers help out. The galactically named Zarniwoop put together some interesting statistics which you are free to interpret as you wish....

                             HAM  BUT  VET  WEB  ALO

Wins                          3    2    5    4    5
Poles                         1    0   10    5    2
Fault incidents               2    0    4    3    1
Non-fault incidents           3    2    4    0    0
DNF                           3    2    3    2    1
Maintained pos quali->race    4    4    4    3    3
Improved pos quali->race     11   12    4    5   10
Worse pos quali->race         4    3   11   11    6
Fast laps                     5    1    3    3    5
Points                      240  214  256  242  252

Check these out full screen, I did a good job in Monaco if I don't say so myself :)
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Matador! Alonso and Ferrari Dominate Monza.

Race win, pole and fast lap: Fernando Alonso showed why he gets paid the big bucks this week end but if anyone had any doubts about Formula being a team sport, today's race should change your mind.

Ferrari had the measure of Mclaren on speed but it was strategy that played the key role. Alonso and his engineers did well to bide their time, pressuring Button but saving tires just enough for a quick in lap. On lap 37 Ferrari's crew made what has to be the pit stop of the year, 8/10th faster than Mclaren's one lap earlier, allowing Fernando to come out just ahead of Jenson.

Over at Red Bull, Vettel's crew gambled on what seems like an insane strategy gamble, going 52 of 53 laps on the soft tires. It worked.

Now team orders, many wondered why teams fight for every single point, Alonso who seemed to be out of the running for the championship after Spa is now third, one point ahead of Jenson Button. Red Bull probably used team orders today and ended up salvaging precious championship points for Webber who had a lousy start, 4th to 9th on the first lap.

Yesterday we wondered if Lewis Hamilton would choose to defend his championship lead or try to win it on the first lap. Ironically, interviewed before the race in a segment about Sebastian Vettel's supposed immaturity, he opined the German is still young and has some learning to do before he can be champion... I'll leave it at that.

The Italian Grand Prix
Autodromo di Monza, Italy;
53 laps; 306.720km;
Weather: Sunny.

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                       Time
1.  Alonso        Ferrari                    1h16:24.572
2.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +     2.938
3.  Massa         Ferrari                    +     4.223
4.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +    28.193
5.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +    29.942
6.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    31.276
7.  Hulkenberg    Williams-Cosworth          +    32.812
8.  Kubica        Renault                    +    34.028
9.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +    44.948
10.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +  1:04.200
11.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +   1:05.00
12.  Liuzzi        Force India-Mercedes       +  1:06.100
13.  Petrov        Renault                    +  1:18.900
14.  De la Rosa    Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
15.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap
16.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap
17.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +    2 laps
18.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Cosworth             +    2 laps
19.  Di Grassi     Virgin-Cosworth            +    2 laps
20.  Yamamoto      HRT-Cosworth               +    2 laps

Fastest lap: Alonso, 1:24.139

World Championship standings, round 14:               

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
1.  Webber       187        1.  Red Bull-Renault          350
2.  Hamilton     182        2.  McLaren-Mercedes          347
3.  Alonso       166        3.  Ferrari                   290
4.  Button       165        4.  Mercedes                  158
5.  Vettel       163        5.  Renault                   127
6.  Massa        124        6.  Force India-Mercedes       58
7.  Rosberg      112        7.  Williams-Cosworth          47
8.  Kubica       108        8.  Sauber-Ferrari             27
9.  Schumacher    46        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari         10
10.  Sutil         45      
11.  Barrichello   31      
12.  Kobayashi     21      
13.  Petrov        19      
14.  Hulkenberg    16      
15.  Liuzzi        13      
16.  Buemi          7      
17.  De la Rosa     6      
18.  Alguersuari    3      
     

Necessary Accident?

Vettel was punished for "Causing an unecessary accident" , I imagine the race stewards, which included Nigel Mansell again, must have come to the conclusion that Barrichello slamming into Alonso was a "Necessary accident"?



Indeed, Barrichello was out of the race but certainly the FIA is known to give penalties to be served in future races, witness Schumacher. Perhaps these penalties depend on who is being hit and who is doing the hitting.

No question about it, Vettel made a driving mistake but looking at the long onboard replay, it does not look as close as it does from trackside shots. It was an unforced error but were the stewards correct in inflicting the drive through?






The perennial problem with Formula 1, the inconsistent application of penalties. Let's review a few notable incidents this season, I'm sure I forgot a few, but can we find a pattern?

- Webber hit Hamilton in Melbourne; no penalty
- Hamilton released in the path of Vettel in China: no penalty
- Button went unnecessarily slow behind the SC in China - no sanction.
- Barrichello tosses his steering wheel in the path of other cars in Monaco; no sanction
- Schumacher safety car move in Monaco; 20second penalty
- Schumacher vs Barrichello in Hungary : 10 grid spot penalty
- Vettel let too much space in Hungary behind the SC: Drive through
- Kubica hit Sutil in the pits at Hungary - 10 second penalty.
- Trulli hit Di Grassi under yellow in qualifying Spa; No penalty
- Vettel lost control of hit car and hit someone; DT-penalty
- Barrichello brakes too late and hit Alonso; No Penalty

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"You pulled a Mark Webber!..."

Contrived? Check. Silly? Check but Button's line about Webber is just priceless. The guy has great comedic potential if that racing thing doesn't work out for him. Oh and Hamilton cheats at slot cars too.... grin.



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Formula 1 Kumbaya

(Getty)

Love broke out all over Formula 1 yesterday! It broke out in the Red Bull camp where the PR made the two drivers pose for a totally sincere looking picture and proclaimed the Turkish affair over.
Meanwhile, Mclaren made sure everyone knew Jenson loves Lewis and Lewis really really loves Mclaren. Touching, no? Never mind Hamilton was obviously unhappy about something after the race he won in Turkey...it could not have had anything to do with paranoid thoughts about the team not keeping Button behind him, could it? Naaah.

And the RedBull boys, all behind them? " A line drawn" as dutifully reported by all outlets privy to the official press release?
Fuji 2007...now what were the names of the two drivers involved in messing up that RedBull double podium? Oh yeah, move along, nothing to see here, it's all fixed, love is in the air!


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Tale of Two Passes

Pretty rare to see two almost identical situations play out. You can read this a number of ways: Button was too nice, Hamilton was too hard, Schumacher shows his teeth, Vettel let himself be pushed off the track, Hamilton pushed him off the track. Or you can just chalk it up to just the way things happen during races. For sure Schumacher showed he still "has it". For sure Hamilton cements his reputation as a "hard" racer. Not surprisingly both passed drivers complained some after the race, borderline sad, Button's comment that Schumacher should not have passed him there.

Dull dull race, except perhaps for the final laps, it was like watching an endurance race. Alonso gained the most from the week end, he's now only three points down from Button and a full eighteen points up on his biggest threat in Monaco next week, Hamilton. Lewis finds himself tied with Massa who was leading the championship not long ago and who, like the Mclaren driver, needs to figure something out quickly.

Anyway, for comic relief, there is always Rob Smedley's "Felipe, baby...." moment...










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Jenson Button in a V8 Supercar

Grand Prix build up has started, this was just on Australian TV. Jenson Button and fellow Vodafone sponsored driver Jamie Whincup swapped cars. Unlike Juan Pablo Montoya, I can't see Button ending up on ovals...

Listening to his answers about who's the better driver, him or Hamilton, does Jenson have that killer instinct or is he the Hugh Grant of motorsport?



In Australia and want try a V8 Supercar? Check out the V8 SuperChallenge at Calder Park.


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Tiff has some fun with Jenson Button

In case you did not know 5th gear is not dead, it just moved to the web. Check out this fun segment with Tiff "Noodles" Needell, Vicky Butler-Henderson and a fairly relaxed Jenson Button. OK, he did get a little dark when Tiff, asked who was going to win the 2010 championship says, without hesitation: Lewis Hamilton!





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Mclaren MP4-25: Team Britain's Weapon Against Stupid Questions

Wow, Mclaren may have already won the 2010 coolest looking car war, never mind the rest. From a first quick look, like the Ferrari, long wheelbase and an extremely "empty" rear diffuser area. Mclaren, differently from Ferrari have their exhaust up and over towards the back, one of the most recognizable characteristics of the MP4-25 along with the 2009 style dorsal fin. The look to have chosen a Toyota style rear wing with no central support and notice the interesting scoop like structure under the nose.

As far as the presentation, I cannot believe some of the questions asked, I understand that the intramural rivalry between the two British world champions will be for low hanging fruit for journalists but, c'mon you tell me if this is the kind of question to ask at a launch... note that many questions were along that line and I thought both drivers handled themselves very well under the barrage.


(© Mclaren)


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2009 Formula 1 Highlights

The FIA really stepped up it's game this year and I must say, for once eclipsed the efforts of fan produced clips which in the past have put the big boys to shame.

Next season may be the beginning of the austerity and cost saving era in Formula 1 but this year's clip, shown at the FIA gala in Monaco, clearly had to cost more than a warehouse full of USF1 carbon fiber toasters!





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F1 light: Don't be rude to the boss' daughter

I mean why would you be rude to Tamara Ecclestone to begin with...even is she wasn't Bernie's daughter?

From the Daily Mail:

"'I don't think Jenson Button deserves to be the world F1 champion,' said Tamara, at the opening of Mayfair members' club The Red Room.

'He has been in it such a long time and never really came close to winning a championship. Suddenly the car is good and he's won the championship. He only won six races and they were all at the beginning of the season.

'If they'd all had the same car, then Jenson Button definitely wouldn't have won this season. Lewis Hamilton is a better driver and he's a nicer person.'

The animosity towards Button allegedly stems from a trackside interview that Miss Ecclestone conducted with Button as part of her job with Sky Sports.

Tamara said: 'He was just answering his phone in the middle of the interview and I was like: "Dude, I'm sitting here, what are you doing?"'

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Why Kamui Kobayashi may be the most important man in F1

Without a doubt Kamui Kobayashi's has had the most exciting debut in Formula 1 for a long, long time. How was that for complete refusal to be intimidated combined with impressive consistency?

After his first F1 race in Brazil, Kamui had been pidgenholed by a lot of media who talked about his, open your book of clichés, "kamikaze" move on Nakajima usually without mentioning Mark Webber had made precisely the same move on Kimi Raikkonen (what, he gets no "Crocodile Dundee" comments?).

Button slammed him for daring not to let him through without a fight ("he moved in the braking zone, GP2 stuff") and irony of ironies in the very next race, the two had another date on track....

Entertainment value aside, even David Couthard had to admit that based on his two race performance Kobayashi had earned a place in F1 for next season. Compare that with the debut of the much touted Roman Grojean or Jaime Alguersauri or even, one step up , Sebastian Buemi not to mention Piquet Jr. last year.

A viable Japanese contender would be huge for Formula 1, huge for attracting new sources of sponsorship at a time when F1 is not even sure where it will get its tires from after next season.

Go Kamui!

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In his Own Words

Button commented his attempt to make the pass on Webber in the final lap at Abu Dhabi. Webber did a great job with weak brakes keeping the Brawn behind but I guess we'll never know what happened to Button when he got on the inside, right before the cameras cut away. I was sure he had gotten the Red Bull...





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