McLarens confirmed their strong form from free practice sessions and booked the front row all for themselves. Lewis Hamilton will start the Hungarian GP from pole position for the second time in a row, Heikki Kovalainen will line up next to him.

Felipe Massa blamed traffic on his outlap for the slower pace. But after rather week showing on Friday afternoon and this morning the Ferrari, at least Massa’s, seems to be on the pace. Robert Kubica was only about a tenth slower then Massa. Toyota’s package looks strong in Hungary, both their cars made it to top 10, Glock P5 and Trulli P9. Nelson Piquet was again outqualified by his team mate Alonso, but he made it to Q3 and I suspect he is rather heavily fueled. Mark Webber, te usual member of Q3 club, claimed P8.

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The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is a part of 2009 Formula 1 regulations. and the also the top topic of these days. Forget for a while about its relevance to road car development. Let’s look instead how it may affect the Formula 1 teams. Events of past few days suggest that it may affect F1 significantly.

Several teams face obvious problems. Red Bull had to call the fire brigade and evacuate their Milton Keynes factory after KERS tests resulted in smoke and steam all over the place. Few days ago a BMW Sauber mechanic felt the KERS impact himself. He received electrical shock after touching the KERS testing F1 car during the pit stop in Jerez.Yesterday John Howett, Toyota team president, expressed his doubts that the KERS technology will be ready and safe to use when 2009 season begins. He suggested that most of the teams are struggling with KERS development. There have been even reports of a potentially extremely dangerous by-product of exploded KERS batteries - the arsenic poison.

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F1Wolf

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I do not want to say this was the best race of the season but it sure was entertaining. We could see some serious racing with overtaking up and down the grid, we had a safety car following a crash (luckily without any serious injury), we could see a serious strategy blunder and impressive recovery from it and 2 Brazilians on podium, one of them being Piquet jr. !

McLaren dominated the weekend from Friday but the close fight between Massa and Hamilton in qualifying promised some possibility of a fight for the race win. At the end we had a fight but more thanks to McLaren getting it wrong than Ferrari getting it right. Lewis Hamilton pulled away right from the start and Massa never looked like a serious opposition. Early on even Kovalainen was a threat but after few laps Massa pulled away from him. Not sure why because Heikki was not that much more heavy than Massa. In the meantime Hamilton managed to build a decent lead in front.

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Nick Heidfeld has a new helmet design for the German GP this weekend. He used both - his usual one and the new one on Friday. Here are several pictures of Nick Heidfeld and his Hockenheim helmets.

Photos: © BMW AG

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After some Monaco drizzle we had the first proper wet to extreme wet race this year. It has provided us with all that can be expected - lots of spins, pit stop and strategy dilemas and some surprising faces on the podium.

It is not easy to review this race without missing something. A lot was happening on the track, the commercial breaks on ESPN Star came always in the wrong moment and Steve Slater did again his best to confuse us all with mixing up the driver names and talking bull while important things were happening on the track. How can someone like this guy keep the job with a TV station that broadcasts all over Asia is a mystery to me. But back to racing …

When we look back at the end of the season for the start of the year then Lewis Hamilton’s start to British GP will be high on the list of candidates. Starting from 4th but almost in the lead after few corners. Only very sharp defensive driving from his team mate kept him in second position. I am not sure McLaren pit wall enjoyed those few opening corners watching both their drivers getting way too close for comfort on the wet and slippery track. Both McLarens pulled away with Kimi Raikkonen in 3rd safely behind (safely for McLarens but safely for Kimi too). Hamilton kept pushing and Kovalainen kept defending. But then on lap 4 all of a sudden Kovalainen let Hamilton pass … TV applauded that as a great overtaking maneuvre from Hamilton, to me it looked like team orders in place …

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It has been a bit quiet on the rumour front since the third edition but but still not a total radio silence. And surprise surprise, Sato has been talked about again.

This time not in connection with the “future Honda North America Team” but an existing one - Force India. The rumour has it, as Swiss publication Motorsport Aktuell reports, Force India F1 may be thinking about changing their engine supplier. Some meetings are reported to have taken place in Montreal between Force India and Honda. While Force India have a contract with Ferrari at the moment, the sweetener that allegedly makes Honda deal more attractive is inclusion of Honda’s KERS system in the package. After collapse of Super Aguri Honda currently do not not supply customer engines to another F1 team. The Honda engine / KERS package would come at a discount (the rumoured sum is EUR10 mil a year less than what Force India pays to Ferrari) under condition that Force India would also take care of Honda’s headache and give a race seat to ex-Jordan/Honda, ex-BAR/Honda and ex-Super Aguri/Honda driver Takuma Sato. Sounds to me like pay driver deal on offer … I do not know why but this does not feel like a deal Mallya would do …

The other rumour connects Bruno Senna (currently 2nd in GP2) with BMW Sauber.
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Time for the final part of this miniseries - look at title chances of Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton’s season has begun well. Although not going to Australia as a favourite he took full advantage of Ferrari technical issues and driver errors. First race, first win in a bag. He however had to wait till Monaco for his next win. If the races in Australia and Monaco reminded us about Hamilton’s qualities, the Bahrain and Candian GPs brough back memories of Shanghai and Brazil 2007 … Last year this time Hamilton was yet to finish outside top 3, this year he already has 2 pointless races to his name … But still, he is second in the driver’s standings and only 4 points behind. Not too bad position to be after 7 races knowing that the guy ahead may not have faster car.

Current position: shared 2nd
Points: 38 (4 behind the leader)
Results so far this season: 1 - 5 - 13 - 3 - 2 - 1 - DNF

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All we need is 2 weeks break between races and the rumour floodgates open. Let’s have a look what’s new since the second edition.

Robert Kubica has been doing well and so it comes as no surprise his future has been talked about quite a bit. Few innocent remarks to Italian paper La Stampa created two contradictory rumours. First linking Rosberg with BMW Sauber (as Kubica’s team mate) and then linking Kubica with a move to Ferrari. Sounds interesting but whom would Kubica replace ? Massa is under contract till 2010 and doing well right now (after shaky start to the season). There has been lots of talking about Raikkonen’s retirement but if I am not wrong that is part of the post 2009 future. All I can say about Kubica and Ferrari is that Kubica’s helmet matches the Ferrari colour scheme quite well as the picture above shows .

Fernando Alonso has dismissed the rumours about him signing for Ferrari, so now it is time to link him to BMW Sauber, now also a race winning car. It may help that Robert Kubica does not seem to mind having Alonso as a team mate. The question for me however is if Alonso would be OK with Kubica in the other car. At the moment all that is sure about Alonso’s future is that he has not made any decision on it, at least that is what he says.

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Time for part 3 of this miniseries - Kimi Raikkonen. It would be fair to say that before the start of 2008 season Kimi Raikkonen was probably the hottest candidate for 2008 title. The Ferrari car looked strong during the winter testing, the 2007 title took lots of pressure from his shoulders and all the woes of being in the new team were things of the past. His start to the season was a bit shaky with quite a lot of mistakes in Australia. Two race wins and two podiums from next 4 races put him to the top of the championship standings and well back into the contest. Two races later however he finds himself out of top three …

Current position: 4th
Points: 35 (7 behind the leader)
Results so far this season: 8 - 1 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 9 - DNF

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About 2 weeks ago I asked a question if Robert Kubica has become a serious title contender. It looks like the Montreal race gave us the answer. Kubica’s maiden F1 win has not only broken the 24 race McLaren/Ferrari Formula 1 race wins monopoly but also propelled him to the top of the championship standings after 7 races. Whoever can achieve that amongst the competition from Ferrari and McLaren drivers simply has to be taken seriously …

Current position: 1st
Points: 42 (4 ahead of 2nd and 3rd)
Results so far this season: DNF - 2 - 3 - 4 - 4 - 2 - 1

Although his season has began with DNF Kubica made his intentions quite clear right at the start. After a strong qualifying run in Melbourne he barely missed out on pole position at the Australian GP. The maiden pole position came in Bahrain, the maiden win in Canada. Seven races, six top four finishes, 4 podiums, one win, one pole position. This all in a car that at least for now still is only the 3rd best on the grid … The comparison with Alonso and Renault in their 2005 and 2006 title winning seasons comes to mind …

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