And the winner (looser?) is ...

Nice topic thrown into the air by the nice Sidepodcast people for the first off-season Thursday – Which are your worst three circuits, and what would you do to fix them?

It is not easy to pick only three worst circuits as there are quite a few not so good ones that come to mind – Bahrain, Shanghai, Barcelona, Valencia, Monaco, Hungary, Singapore, Abu Dhabi. Plus add Turkey that has a good track but no one in Turkey cares …

Anyway, here are my top three worst tracks:

(more…)

We had a rather rare opportunity to see team mates battle it out last weekend in Turkey – Vettel attacking Webber, Button pulling a move on Hamilton. I believe that for majority of the viewers these overtaking attempts were not exactly expected. We became used to the fact that once the race settles the team mates keep the status-quo. Alonso following slower Massa in Australia earlier this season is one example.

(more…)

Here are the results of Turkish GP round of our prediction game. Perhaps not surprisingly we did not have any correct predictions for fastest lap (Petrov). Surprisingly there weren’t that many correct predictions for Webber’s pole either. There was only one prediction with Kobayashi in top ten. The highest score of this round belongs to Mellor1 (22).

(more…)

2010 Turkish GP Podium

Lewis Hamilton won his first race of 2010 season ahead of his team mate Jenson Button. Mark Webber finished 3rd after he dropped from the lead following the crash with Sebastian Vettel. (At least this time Webber finished the race, unlike the Fuji race few years back). Mercedes drivers Schumacher and Rosbrg took P4 and P5, Kubica P6, Alonso and Massa P 7 and P8 for Ferrari. Adrian Sutil scored yet more points for Force India while Kamui Kobayashi collected the maiden point for Sauber this year. Fastest lap went to Vitaly Petrov.

(more…)

Third pole in a row for Mark Webber

Red Bull keeps the monopoly on pole positions this year. Mark Webber will start from pole position for the third time in a row. Lewis Hamilton managed to split the Red Bulls and will line up next to Webber on the front row. Vettel qualified 3rd, ahead of Button. Michael Schumacher will start from P5 after spinning out at Turn 8 on his final run.

2010 Turkish GP Qualifying result:

1. Webber – Red Bull – 1:26.295
2. Hamilton – McLaren – 1:26.433
3. Vettel – Red Bull – 1:26.760
4. Button – McLaren – 1:26.781
5. Schumacher – Mercedes – 1:26.857
6. Rosberg – Mercedes – 1:26.952
7. Kubica – Renault – 1:27.039
8. Massa – Ferrari – 1:27.082
9. Petrov – Renault – 1:27.430
10. Kobayashi – Sauber – 1:28.122

(more…)

Nico Rosberg - The second fastest in Saturday practice

Sebastian Vettel was fastest in the final practice session, ahead of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. Several drivers (including Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton) had difficulties to keep their cars on track at the mighty Turn 8. It will be interesting to see the tyre strategies in qualifying as not all drivers improved their times after switching to softer compounds …

2010 Turkish GP – Saturday Practice

1. Vettel – Red Bull – 1:27.086
2. Rosberg – Mercedes – 1:27.359 +0.273
3. Hamilton – McLaren – 1:27.396 +0.310
4. Webber – Red Bull – 1:27.553 +0.467
5. Kubica – Renault – 1:27.784 +0.698
6. Alonso – Ferrari – 1:27.861 +0.775
7. Schumacher – Mercedes – 1:27.879 +0.793
8. Button – McLaren – 1:27.963 +0.877

(more…)

Ferrari is running a special livery this weekend in Turkey to celebrate their 800th F1 Grand Prix race. The “800th Grand Prix” logo appears where until recently the controversial bar code used to be. Here is the picture (click on the image to enlarge):

Special Ferrari livery for Turkish GP to celebrate 800th F1 race

(more…)

Heikki Kovalainen moved Lotus closer to the midfield

Turkish GP weekend has started with the Friday practice. Lewis Hamilton was the quickest in the morning practice about a second ahead of his team mate Jenson Button. Sakon Yamamoto who replaced Bruno Senna in HRT for FP1 was the slowest one. Lucas do Grassi using the new Virgin chassis for the first time finished the session half a second ahead of Timo Glock. Ferrari and Red Bull clearly focused on things other than fast laps.

(more…)

The 2010 F1 season continues with round 7 – Turkish GP. It is time to start thinking about the predictions for the Istanbul Park race …

(more…)

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

(more…)

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

(more…)