Lewis Hamilton drove one of the best races of his career this weekend at the Nurburgring to take his 16th career win, and first time at the Ring. After qualifying second on Saturday with a stunning lap to split the Red Bulls, he took the lead from polesitter Webber in the first corner to lead the race after the first lap. Alonso, who qualified 4th, jumped Vettel’s Red Bull to take 3rd shortly after, and the 3 top cars from 3 different teams put on a great show battling each other throughout the race.
At the first stops, Webber undercut Hamilton to take the lead, while Alonso rejoined once again in 3rd place. The top 3 maintained a gap of only 3 seconds between each other during this stint. The second set of stops saw some amazing driving from Hamilton. Webber had pitted first to attempt to undercut Hamilton, which almost succeeded. Hamilton pitted a lap later, and came out right ahead of Webber. With cold tires on the McLaren, Hamilton defended Webber’s passing attempt brilliantly to stay ahead. The roles were reversed when Alonso pitted the next lap, coming out in the lead, but in this case Hamilton was able to take advantage and passed Alonso on the outside of turn 2.
By the 3rd and final stops, Hamilton had a sizable lead from the 2, and even though he switched to the slower hard tires, was able to lap faster than the used softs of Alonso and Webber, and was able to maintain the lead for the win. Webber, who gambled on staying out for a few more laps, ended up 3rd behind Alonso when that strategy backfired.
On the last lap, Massa and Vettel, who have been fighting for 4th, pitted together where a slow Ferrari pitstop gave Vettel a spot, who ended up 4th with Massa trailing in 5th. A consistent drive from Adrian Sutil gave Force India a season best 6th place finish.
Once again, F1 delivered yet another intense fist clenching race from start to finish. Next weekend the F1 circus arrives in Hungary, where we hope to see McLaren and Ferarri beat the Bulls again to knock down Vettel’s commanding lead in the 2011 championship.
Laps: 60 Circuit length: 5.148 km (3.199 mi) Race length: 308.863 km (191.919 mi) 2009 Winner: Mark Webber - Red Bull-Renault - 1h 36m 43.310s 2009 Pole Sitter: Mark Webber - Red Bull-Renault - 1:32.230 2009 Fastest Lap: Fernando Alonso - Renault - 1:33.365
Round 10 of the 2010 FIA F1 World Championship is upon us this weekend, and the F1 circus is bringing a host of changes (technically, undoing some changes) to the race. Hosted at the GP-Strecke section of the Nürburgring, both Ferrari and McLaren will be trying hard to stop the runaway success of Sebastian Vettel in his Red Bull-Renault. With Vettel leading Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso by 92 points (and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton/Jenson Button pairing by 95), Vettel can comfortably DNF the next 3 races and still be in a sizable gap to the other lead drivers.
FIA has reverted back to the Valencia spec rules in regards to the off throttle blown diffuser, so we should see the teams claw back some much needed rear downforce on their cars. The McLaren MP4-26 lost a lot of ground with the Silverstone off throttle blown diffuser rules 2 weeks ago, with the change back to Valencia spec rules we should see a close fight with Red Bull at the top. Ferrari’s on the other hand, won the last race with their updated 150 Italia, so expect another strong challenge for the win from the Scuderia. Suffice to say, it should be a great battle between the top 3 teams this weekend.
Also in the cards, Mercedes-Benz will be unveiling the 2013 C63 Coupe Black Series this weekend, we’ll bring you all the news on AMG’s latest supercar as soon as we get the scoop!
Not something you expect to see when you’re at the beach in the Dominican Republic, but Red Bull is not known to put on stuff we all expect! If you recall, this is from the same guys that brought us the F1 car on ice to celebrate the return of the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Texas state capital Austin will host Formula One’s return to the United States in 2012, the sport’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone announced on Tuesday.
The 33-year-old Australian went wire-to-wire for the second
straight race to capture the 68th Monaco Grand Prix and cap Red Bull
Racing’s impressive 1-2 finish on the city streets of the
Mediterranean principality yesterday.
Formula One celebrated its 60th birthday on Thursday with Fernando Alonso’s red Ferrari fittingly fastest in practice for the showcase Monaco Grand Prix.
Formula One teams have agreed to ban from 2011 the so-called ‘F-duct’ pioneered controversially by McLaren this season to give Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button a straight-line speed advantage.
Qualifying for next weekend’s Monaco Formula One Grand Prix will go ahead as scheduled, despite calls for a change of format for safety reasons, McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh said on Sunday.
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