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Ferrari fined $100,000 following Germany victory

Mason — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:45:40 +0000

Ferrari have been fined $100,000 following their controversial one-two victory at the German Gran Prix. Ferrari were found to have given team orders following a coded message being sent to race leader Felipe Massa in which a few moments later Massa clearly allowed Alonso to move past him into first place. The message to Massa was “Alonso is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand?”. Once Alonso had passed there was another message to Massa over the team radio “Good lad. Just stick with it now, sorry.” After the race Ferrari bosses stated that it was a driver decision but following a post-race stewards enquiry Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, found that a team order had been made resulting in Ferrari being fined, however the decision does not affect the race result.

Ferrari secure one-two in Germany

Mason — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:17:35 +0000

Ferrari secured a controversial one-two at the German Gran Prix yesterday with Fernando Alonso winning the race. Red Bulls Sebastian Vettel started on pole with Alonso alongside him at the front of the grid, Alonso’s Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa started third on the grid. Vettel was so preoccupied with stopping Alonso move past him at the start of the race that he failed to keep watch on Massa who moved past both drivers into first place on the opening straight. Alonso moved into second place but later moved passed Massa in first place after Massa was instructed to let Alonso pass as he was the quicker driver on the day. The instruction for Massa to let Alonso past came over the team radio, but the F1 rules clearly state that team orders are not allowed to influence the driver race standings.

Schumacher aiming for 2011 success

Mason — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:47:20 +0000

Michael Schumacher has said he will be competing in next year’s Formula One championship as he still wants to win an eighth F1 title. Schumacher stated that he will be driving for Mercedes again next season as he is still aiming to achieve the target he set for himself when he returned to formula one at the beginning of this year. He joined the Mercedes team after their successful championship last year in which Jenson Button was crowned champion. There was a huge level of expectation surrounding Schumacher at the start of this year’s championship, but with seven time world champion currently lying in ninth place there have been rumours that he will not see out his three year contract with Mercedes. Schumacher believes that it will take time for him to regain his best form, especially while driving a car that is somewhat inferior to the Ferrari models he has driven in the past.

McLaren to stand by both drivers

Mason — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:25:05 +0000

The McLaren formula one team will not favour Lewis Hamilton even though the driver is leading the F1 Championship. The team boss stated that there is no way Jenson Button will have given up and that he will be attempting to win in this weekend’s race. Hamilton has scored 86 out of a possible 100 points in the last four races which has resulted in him leading the championship twelve points ahead of Button. Jenson has had two race wins this year and proved how good a driver he can be when he came from fourteenth on the grid at Silverstone to finish fourth.
It seems as though the championship is between two teams at present with red bull continually pressurising McLaren, however there is no doubt that Ferrari will be attempting to put pressure on the leading teams throughout the second half of the season.

Ferrari vow to improve upon poor start

Mason — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:12:56 +0000

Ferrari are vowing to turn around a poor start to the Formula one season. They have not won a race since Fernando Alonso took the chequered flag in Bahrain and are currently 113 points behind McLaren in the team championship. Ferrari failed to score any points for the first time this season in the last race a Silverstone but have said they will continue to develop the new version of the F1 car after dropping the 2009 version which proved to be unsuccessful last season. Team boss Stefano Domenicali has said that they have plenty of time to turn things around with half the season left and they will remain patient in the approach to this weekend’s German Grand Prix.

Aggressive driving not just about overtaking

Mason — Fri, 14 May 2010 11:13:03 +0000

Lewis Hamilton was still making positive noises about his car and world championship chances, despite seeing a second-place finish in Spain disappear with a burst tyre. In the same race, Sebastien Vettel saw the reliability issues that have dogged his season so far reappear with a break problem that meant he had to nurse his car through the final 12 laps.

These issues have made me think whether these problems were purely down to engineering issues, or whether the type of driver could result in more reliability issues. Being an aggressive driver does not just mean making daring overtaking manoeuvres, but simply driving in an aggressive way and causing much more wear and tear on tyres, breaks and suspension. Could this mean that a velvety smooth driver like Jenson Button will always suffer fewer set-backs than Hamilton and Vettel?

Why is Massa under-performing?

Mason — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:57:41 +0000

Following the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, Ferrari are looking into the reasons why Felipe Massa has not been performing as well as expected this season. For the fourth consecutive race, Massa found himself a long way off the pace of his team-mate Fernando Alonso. Obviously, Alonso is one of the quickest drivers in Formula 1 and few expect Massa to outpace his Spanish counterpart, but the gap in lap times between the two drivers has been astonishing.

Ferrari are said to be launching an investigation to try to get to the bottom of any issues that could be leading to this disparity in pace. The team is initially looking into whether the car is underperforming for Massa, but as all members of the Ferrari team are aware that the car has aerodynamic problems (including Alonso) this may not be the problem. The slowness of the Brazilian led to one of the most cheeky and daring moves ever seen in F1 – Alonso overtaking his slower team-mate on the way into the pits in China!

Webber takes the flag in Spain

Mason — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:57:21 +0000

Mark Webber yesterday put in a wonderful drive to take the chequered flag at the Spanish Grand Prix, even though Red Bull did not take their immense superiority in qualifying into the race.

After regularly lapping almost 1 second faster than the rest of the field in qualifying, Red Bull must have been incredibly optimistic going into the race. This optimism looked well-founded early on as the two Red Bull cars held off a charge from Lewis Hamilton in the early laps, but Webber held on from pole to flag to take the victory. Hamilton looked good for second place until a blow-out in the final stages put paid to an impressive second place finish. This meant that the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso managed a second place finish, with Vettel taking the final podium place. The pace of the Red Bull was outlined by the fact that Vettel was forced to nurse his car around the final 12 laps after their reliability problems arose again with a break issue.

Mark Webber claims one of three for the title

Mason — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:39:35 +0000

Red Bull driver has recently claimed that the winners of the 2010 constructor’s championship will come from one of three teams; Ferrari, McLaren and his own Red Bull team. The start of the season has wavered between being incredibly dull and incredibly exciting, with the winners of the first three races coming from each of the three teams that Webber mentioned.

Although it might not be rocket science to make that leap of logic, Webber has refused to move any of the big teams from thereckoning despite reliability issues for Red Bull and Ferrari (Alonso may be forced to use his fourth engine of the year at the next race) and McLaren being slightly off the pace. One thing that is clear from Webber’s remarks is that he is ready to ignore the threat from Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher in his Mercedes. Despite Schumacher showing signs of rustiness in the first couple of races, this is something that is probably more down to the speed of the German car rather than the talent behind the wheel.

New Moto GP Season starts today

Mason — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:51:42 +0000

Well, it’s come around quickly. The new season starts in Qatar today with a typically exciting few months in front of us. With the 18 races being heavily weighted in favor of Europe, with 2 races in Spain and 4 in Italy. However, championship supremo Carmelo Ezpeleta has stated that the organisation are still keen to move more races into Asia – despite the sport not taking off in any great way in China.

Three of last years races took place around the Asia region (Japan, Malaysia and Australia) with crowds at these events proving that there is a market there for Moto GP. “We were in China for four years and there was not any impact,” Ezpeleta explained, “The promoter was just making a race but nothing to impact commercially. The opposite is Malaysia, which is working very well and every year we have more spectators.” Because of this, further venues are being examined to increase the reach of this exhilarating sport.