I realized this weekend that the 2008 Australian GP was the 10th Formula 1 race I went to. As I am getting ready for my 11th in about 1 month time this may be a good opportunity to recap the events that happened at the races I went to:

2004 Chinese Grand Prix
- Jacques Villeneuve returned to F1 with Renault
- In a taxi on the way to track I opened the China Daily paper I found in the hotel room. And there it was, small article announcing that Ford is leaving F1 at the end of the season. Jaguar is left looking for new owner, Jordan and Minardi start wondering what engines will they use…
- Rubens Barrichello wins his last Formula 1 race (this is true at the time of writing).

2005 Malaysian Grand Prix
- Takuma Sato got sick and Anthony Davidson raced for BAR-Honda instead
- Both BAR-Honda drivers, Button and Davidson, famously retired on lap 2 after engine failures
- Jacques Villeneuve spun off in front of me in Turn 1 and beached the car in gravel
- Jarno Trulli scored first ever podium for Toyota

2005 Chinese Grand Prix
- in the hotel room I read Red Bull is buying Minardi
- this race turned out to be the last race for Minardi, Jordan, Sauber and BAR in their former selves
- this was also last race for Barrichello in Ferrari and probably last Formula 1 race for Narain Karthikeyan
- Michael Schumacher colided with Christijan Albers… on the warm up lap …
- Juan Pablo Montoya colided with a loose manhole cover
- Narain Karthikeyan crashed heavily just after the banked corner leading to the long back straight

2006 Malaysian Grand Prix
- First 1-2 finish for Renault since they took the team over from Benneton

2006 German Grand Prix
- Jacques Villeneuve again crashed out in front of me in what turned out to be his last Formula 1 race, I saw the last of the former F1 champ in Formula 1
- some of my photos here

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F1Wolf

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As expected we have the third fin on the block, better said above the engine block .

Scuderia Toro Rosso revealed today in Barcelona their new car - STR03. Judge for yourself but I only see 3 differences between STR03 and RB4:

- Ferrari engine instead of Renault
- different paint job
- different guy driving the car

But no, this is not a customer car

More photos inside the article.

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F1Wolf

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After just missing out in Melbourne, Robert Kubica scored the maiden pole position for himself and the BMW Sauber team this time in Bahrain. Felipe Massa will start alongside him from P2. Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen occupy the second row. Besides the top 3 teams also Toyota (Trulli), Williams (Rosberg), Honda (Button) and Renault (Alonso) made it to Q3. Takuma Sato crashed during P1 causing yellow and red flags.

The Qualifying Results:

1. R. Kubica - BMW Sauber - 1:33.096
2. F. Massa - Ferrari - 1:33.123
3. L. Hamilton - McLaren - 1:33.292
4. K. Räikkönen - Ferrari - 1:33.418
5. H. Kovalainen - McLaren - 1:33.488
6. N. Heidfeld - BMW Sauber - 1:33.737
7. J. Trulli - Toyota - 1:33.994
8. N. Rosberg - Williams - 1:34.015
9. J. Button - Honda - 1:35.057
10. F. Alonso - Renault - 1:35.115

More photos in the article
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F1Wolf

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The sun was too strong and unfortunately I was facing it most of the time, so taking good pictures from my position today was quite tough. Here is the initial collection showing all 22 Formula 1 drivers on their first outing in 2008 Formula 1 season:

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And it has started ! The engines fired up this morning in Melbourne, the new season is officially here !

I overslept a bit and arrived about half hour late to the track. And the first thing I saw, my first Formula 1 picture of the 2008 season is the blown engine of David Coulthard . As this was the first photo, the quality is not too good, it took me a while to get used to the very bright sun … More photos from Melbourne coming up later …

The weather during first practice session was very hot, the air temperature was 37 degrees. Surprisingly the track temperature was only about 40 … Most of the cars ran on the harder tyres saving the soft ones for later.

The drivers may say that the removal of driver aids does not make much difference to them, but the difference is very obvious on the track. The cars slide in the corners, many drivers were loosing their rears. I haven’t seen that many off the track excursions an any of the races I went to in past few years …

The cars do sound better, the ugly traction control cracking sounds are gone .

The second practice brought some surprising names higher up the order - Webber, Coulthard, Fisichella. This however has to be taken with caution. The teams were experimenting with tyres, running longer runs, carrying heavier fuel. So far I am not any smarter than I was yesterday. Ferrari and McLaren are clearly quick. Toyta seems to be quicker than people thought. Button is higher than perhaps expected. Red Bull, Williams, Renault, BMW all strong as predicted. But for clear indication of the form at the start of the 2008 seasn we have to wait till tomorrow’s qualifying …

From the reports from the pit lane during the session, it looks like the softer tyres deteriorated very quickly in todays conditions. But one has to remember that the actual race will start at 3:30pm - that is the time today’s sessions ended. By that time the temperatures were already much cooler.

Here are the Friday times from Melbourne:

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The lucky winner of the 2007 F1 Photobook lucky draw is the F1 Wolf email subscriber sunilctw. Congratulations ! I will be getting in touch once the new lot of books arrives.

F1Wolf

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The Part 1 of the Walk Around The Singapore Formula 1 Track finished at the Turn 15. You can check the location on this map from f1Singapore.com.

Right after the cars take the right Turn 15 the short stretch of the Raffles Avenue will open up in front of them, here is the view:

The Raffles Avenue then bends slightly to the left - Turn 16. The photo below is a bit distorted as I hade to zoom the picture from a bit of distance, otherwise I would likely end up being hit by a bus

The structure you can see in the background is the Seating Gallery.

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I went to Singapore last weekend for a short weekend break. One of the reasons I picked Singapore as a destination was to check out the place and the future F1 street circuit. I downloaded and printed out this circuit map from f1Singapore.com, took my camera and started walking.

I took off at point nearest to my hotel, this intersection:

If you look at the track map, these are the turns 8 and 15, this is the part of the track that drivers will pass twice. Photo is taken from the hotel room window with the everpresent trees blocking the perfect view.

The track runs anticlockwise, and exactly in the oposite direction of the normal Singapore traffic.

This where my walk started - Turn 8.

If you look at the map, somewhere here is a location of proposed seating area, I have not figured out yet where will the organizers find a room for one at this spot.

This is what it looks like between Turn 8 and Turn 9, when the cars pass the Singapore Recreation Club:

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The response to the 2007 Formula 1 Photobook has been much better than I expected. I will be doing the lucky draw for 1 lucky winner tomorrow so you have one more day to enter the competition. Everybody who ordered the book either through comments or email or in person and at the same time is a subscriber to F1Wolf by email will be in the hat.

I want to thank Shaun of The Biker Place and Keith of F1Fanatic for mentioning this book on their blogs !

F1Wolf

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This year I went a bit photo crazy. Few F1 races, new Nikkon and result is over 2000 photos on my hard disk. You can see some of them in the Race Photos galleries here, some I selected and made available for download in high resolution. Then I found the Blurb website and realized that it is very easy today to turn photos into a book. And that is what I have done. I selected 120 photos from my 2007 Formula 1 collection and arranged them into a 50 pages hardcover book.

I did it mainly for myself and for friends but it is available for anybody who might be interested.

This book is printed to order, piece by piece, but still at reasonable cost for a hardcover (otherwise I would not have printed it ). The format is 10 x 8 inch (25 x 20 cm) and the book includes:

1) Photos of all the teams and drivers - always 4 small and one large photo - examples you can see attached. Only guy missing is Winkelhock. Sorry, I did not go to Nurburgring and missed his 5 minutes of fame.
2) Extra photos of the top 4 drivers - Raikkonen, Hamilton, Alonso and Massa
3) Cockpit close ups
4) Few “did not finish” cars
5) Photos of Barrichello’s colour changing helmet in 3 different colors
6) Photos of several drivers out of their cars
7) Few paddock and pit lane faces
8 ) Several photos from the pit lane
9) Few photos of cars after the race

Front cover features Kimi Raikkonen, back cover shows Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton
(more pictures inside the post)

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F1Wolf

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