As the biggest number of visitors to this site comes from United Kingdom I believe that the British Grand Prix is the race of the season that most regular or ocassional readers may actually go to. For those who plan to go and want to show up in their favourite team colours, here are the links to 2009 F1 teams merchandise:

Brawn GP

Brawn GP is probably the most popular team when it comes to merchandise these days. One of the reasons may be that the team is new and nobody has any caps or shirts from previous seasons . But their popularity also has something to do with the team’s performances … The latest addition to their products range is the Jenson Button flag.

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Jenson Button won the 2009 Turkish Grand Prix, his 6th win this season. Red Bull drivers took over the rest of the podium – Mark Webber finished 2nd, Sebastian Vettel 3rd. Toyota returned to the points with Trulli 4th and Glock 8th. Robert Kubica scored his first 2 points of the season for 7th place. The three times Turkish GP winner Felipe Massa could only manage 6th this year.

2009 Turkish GP race result:

1. J. Button – Brawn GP – 1:26:24.848
2. M. Webber – Red Bull + 6.714
3. S. Vettel – Red Bull + 7.461
4. J. Trulli – Toyota + 27.843
5. N. Rosberg – Williams + 31.539
6. F. Massa – Ferrari + 39.996
7. R. Kubica – BMW Sauber + 46.247
8. T. Glock – Toyota + 46.959

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This is getting ridiculous. First March Engineering (co-founded by Max Mosley 40 years ago) announced it has lodged the entry to 2010 F1 championship. Then Franz Hilmer, who bought the assets of Super Aguri team last year, filed his entry as Brabham Grand Prix, a news that came as a surprise to the Brabham family. And now Litespeed came out saying that they are using Lotus name for their potential 2010 F1 entry.

Some people behind some of these projects may have genuine Formula One plans. And yes, it would be nice to have these historic names back in Formula One. But, unfortunately, considering the circumstances, all this does not seem to be about bringing the old and long gone outfits back to F1. This looks to be more about piling up the pressure on the FOTA teams.

The message seems to be obvious – if the big names of today decide to go, F1 can continue with the big names of yesterday…

FIA released the post qualifying weights short while ago. It looks like Jenson Button will pit 2 laps later than Vettel and a lap later than Barrichello. Webber may stop on the same lap as Button. The lightest among the top 10 is Fernando Alonso, likely to stop on about lap 13.

Sebastian Vettel – 649.5 kg
Jenson Button – 655.5 kg
Rubens Barrichello – 652.5 kg
Mark Webber – 656.0 kg
Jarno Trulli – 652.0 kg
Kimi Räikkönen – 658.0 kg
Felipe Massa – 654.0 kg
Fernando Alonso – 644.5 kg
Nico Rosberg – 660.0 kg
Robert Kubica – 664.0 kg
Nick Heidfeld – 681.5 kg*
Kazuki Nakajima – 680.4 kg*
Timo Glock – 689.0 kg*
Heikki Kovalainen – 665.0 kg*
Adrian Sutil – 668.5 kg*
Lewis Hamilton – 696.5 kg*
Nelson Piquet – 689.6 kg*
Sébastien Buemi – 686.5 kg*
Giancarlo Fisichella – 688.5 kg*
Sébastien Bourdais – 701.0 kg*

* declared weight (cars eliminated in Q1 and Q2)

Sebastian Vettel will start the Turkish Grand Prix from the pole position. Next to him on the front row will be the championship leader Jenson Button. Their team mates will form the row 2 – Rubens Barrichello P3 and Mark Webber P4. It will interesting to see what are the fuel levels of Brawns and Red Bulls.

The only KERS cars in top ten are Ferraris – P6 Raikkonen and P7 Massa.

2009 Turkish Grand Prix qualifying result:

1. S. Vettel – 1:28.316
2. J. Button – 1:28.421
3. R. Barrichello – 1:28.579
4. M. Webber – 1:28.613
5. J. Trulli – 1:28.666
6. K. Raikkonen – 1:28.815
7. F. Massa – 1:28.858
8. F. Alonso – 1:29.075
9. N. Rosberg – 1:29.191
10. R. Kubica – 1:29.357

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The final practice for the Turkish GP is over. Felipe Massa was the fastest man on the track, the only one in 1:27s. Toyota cars seem to be doing much better than 2 weeks ago in Monaco – Trulli was second, just ahead of his team mate Timo Glock. Robert Kubica’s 5th best time may be a sign that the new aero package (and diffuser) is working for BMW Sauber. Brawn and Williams look competitive too however pace of McLarens does not seem to be as competitive as Friday times might have suggested. But … this was still only practice, qualifying starts in less than 2 hours …

Turkish GP Saturday free practice times:

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Force India has confirmed lodging an unconditional entry for 2010 Formula One championship. Force India joined Williams and jumped the FOTA ship. Here is the statement from the team:

“While the Force India team is broadly in agreement with the FOTA objectives, commercial obligations have demanded that Force India review its conditional entry jointly submitted by FOTA on deadline day.

“This has been done today with full transparency between all parties. The details of the team’s position will be discussed between Dr. Vijay Mallya and FOTA vice-chairman John Howett tomorrow. No further comment will be made until those discussions have taken place.”

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The Turkish GP weekend has started with Friday practice. Nico Rosberg was the fastest driver in the first session ahead of Hamilton, Trulli, Vettel, Massa and Nakajima. The session was red flagged for a while when the green carpet (astroturf) ripped away by cars going wide had to be fixed.

Heikki Kovalainen posted the fastest time of the afternoon session. Fernando Alonso climbed to second place on his final lap jumping ahead of Robert Kubica. Sebastian Vettel only stopped his car after only four laps (technical issues) but still ended up 5th fastest in this session. It was a tricky sessions with lots of spins (Hamilton, Nakajima). Most of the drivers experienced problems with the soft tyres.

2009 Turkish GP Friday practice 1 times:

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It is Turkish GP weekend and time to get back to our prediction game. Here is round 7 – Turkish GP.

As usual you can wait till the last moment before the qualifying or make your prediction right away to make sure you do not miss the round (and change your prediction later if you feel like doing that). But do remember, the deadline is the start of the Saturday qualifying session ! So, make your prediction for the pole position, fastest lap and top eight finishers in the comments below this post. The results of round 7 will be published on Monday after the race.

Istanbul Park - A Felipe Massa territory

After rather quiet F1 week the racing is about to return. The fifth Turkish F1 Grand Prix is on this weekend. The inaugural race in 2005 was won by Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren that time). But from then on it was all about Felipe Massa who went on to win the Istanbul Park race in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Following Ferrari’s recent return to form there is every chance that the monopoly the current Ferrari drivers have on the Turkish GP wins may continue.

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Puma Motorsport website still offers fans chance to go behind the scenes at Formula One through their cool consumer initiative called Fan Reports. I tweeted about this a week or so ago but forgot to mention it here on the site. The idea is that PUMA will take a fan to different races this year, including Silverstone, Interlagos and Monza, and provide them with a paddock pass, as well as access to one of the PUMA sponsored teams. All you need to do is go to their website, sign up and then put forward your argument as to why you should be chosen. As a recent lucky winner of great prize in different competition I can only recommend everybody to try your luck. You never know …

Those who would like to own some bits and pieces of real Formula One cars may head to Toyota online store and check out their F1 parts sale. The items start from about EUR200 for wheel rims or break disks to EUR5000 for engine cover with underfloor & rearwing.

Not much has been happening in F1 since the deadline day last Friday, not much that has been made public. The most interesting probably is the ever growing list of new teams that submitted their 2010 entries.

Campos Meta, US F1 Team, Prodrive and Lola announced their entry submissions before the deadline. Over the weekend news came out Austria that Alex Wurz lodged F1 entry with a new Team Superfund. The latest team believed to have submitted the entry is March (competed in F1 between 1970 – 1993). Some sources say that Litespeed is also among the potential new entrants. The only thing on Litespeed website however is their few weeks old press release stating their intention to apply for their place on 2010 F1 grid.

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