Source: http://www.metrof1.com/blogs/metrof1/2011/10/simulation-of-the-new-jersey-track.html
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Robert Kubica Hospitalised Following Rally Accident
UPDATE ON KUBICA’s CONDITION: �http://wp.me/p3uiu-11K Renault Lotus F1 driver Robert Kubica has been airlifted to hospital following a car accident while competing on a rally. The incident, described as a high speed accident, left the Pole injured and he had to be airlifted to hospital. �His co-driver Jakub Gerber was uninjured in the incident. While [...]
Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/robert-kubica-hospitalised-following-rally-accident/
Stats, speed and success spur on Vettel
It is an open secret in Formula 1 that Sebastian Vettel, who became the youngest double world champion in history this year, is motivated at least partly by statistics.
The Red Bull driver himself, though, has been a little shy about admitting it so far - but on Wednesday he went as far as he ever has towards acknowledging that, yes, he would not mind having a crack at the all-time records.
Until Vettel's remarkable run of success, particularly this year, Michael Schumacher's landmarks of seven titles, 91 wins and 68 pole positions looked unbeatable.
But Vettel, at the age of 24, already has 20 victories and 27 poles, as well as those two titles. Suddenly, Schumacher's records don't look quite so impregnable after all.
Vettel on his 2011: "Seasons like this don't happen too often... we want to enjoy it." Photo: Getty
"I like statistics," Vettel said, "as in I care about the sport, I know the sport, I know ex-F1 drivers, the big names, and know a little bit the numbers according to the drivers.
"The only thing I like from time to time is to see if my name is somewhere there. I don't really set myself a target of wins and poles, I am not racing for statistics, so I know some numbers, but not all. I love Formula 1, I always did as a small kid and that hasn't changed."
A little later, the mask seemed to slip a little further when someone asked him who was the youngest three-time world champion.
"I don't know," Vettel replied. "Michael is the youngest seven-time world champion."
So that's the ambition?
"That is a long, long way to go," Vettel said. "Obviously we have had two phenomenal seasons and sometimes then you get over-excited and start to talk about those things.
"But really we know how much it takes to win a race, and a whole championship. That really puts things in perspective. It's a long, long way. I don't think you can set the target to say I want to win seven world titles. What Michael achieved in many ways was outstanding."
Vettel was talking at Red Bull Racing's Milton Keynes headquarters, where a news conference on Wednesday morning preceded a private team party in the afternoon.
Vettel - and Red Bull - have every reason to celebrate, after putting together one of the most extraordinary seasons in F1 history.
With 16 races down and three still to go, Vettel has won 10 races, taken 13 pole positions, finished on the podium in every race but one (when he was fourth) and tied up the title in Japan 10 days ago with four races to spare.
But he admitted that it took the most mundane of things for the fact that he was a double world champion to finally sink in properly.
He arrived home in Switzerland on Monday from the Korean Grand Prix to find that his heating had broken. "It was quite cold, so I put the fire on," he said, laughing. "I won't go into details."
Regardless, he said, "I really enjoyed the moment of opening the door, going into the house, knowing what we have achieved. It's those small things that really make you realise what has happened.
"I really like it when nothing is happening, to enjoy the peace, to enjoy time. I didn't do anything special on Monday - just surfing the internet, sleeping, just enjoy the peace and no stress. That's when things really start to sink in.
"It's a nice feeling, because you know all the hours you have spent in the gym, on the race track, it paid off."
Vettel was in a sunny mood on Wednesday - as he so often is. But there was no mistaking the underlying steeliness that is part of what makes him such a formidable competitor.
Anyone who thought his ambition might have been dulled by such towering success so young will need to recalibrate their expectations.
Can you be as dominant next season, he was asked.
"We try," he said. "You never want to come back and do worse than you have done. We set the benchmark very high, and it has been a special season for both sides.
"I had a very good run and the team had a phenomenal run, reliability was great - we've had no technical failures so far. We'll see. We are working hard and we are extremely motivated."
Sebastian Vettel "drove perfectly" all season, according to Ferrari's Fernando Alonso. Photo: Getty
None of their rivals at McLaren and Ferrari are under any illusions that Vettel and Red Bull will be anything other than formidably tough to beat next year.
After a 2010 season in which, as Vettel has admitted himself, a series of mistakes made winning his first world title much more difficult than it should have been, he and the team have moved on to another level.
He did make mistakes this year. One thinks of the half-spin on the last lap in Canada that handed victory to a charging Jenson Button. Or another spin when trying to stay in touch with the leaders in Germany, his least competitive race of the season. Or his couple of crashes in Friday practice sessions.
But none of them badly affected him, and overall he "drove perfectly", as Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, the previous youngest double champion, described it.
Vettel looked at the new form F1 took on this season with deliberately high-wear Pirelli tyres and the DRS overtaking aid, realised what was needed to succeed in races, and ruthlessly used the best car on the grid to crush his rivals.
Race after race, he took pole, used the car's inherent pace advantage to build the lead he needed to protect himself at the first pit stops while taking only what he needed to out of the tyres, and held the cushion for the rest of the race.
This strategy formed the bedrock of his season, and generally worked even on the few occasions when the Red Bull was not the fastest car in the race.
His driving was matched by a team that, operationally as well as in terms of the performance of its car, was in a league of its own.
"After every race, I get a print out of the race results, the championship standings and everything and the first thing I do is rip the championship standings off, because the only thing that matters is what we did on that day," Vettel said.
"If you get beaten, you have to accept it. You shouldn't like it, because then you would be in the wrong sport, but there are other very smart people and other very good drivers, and you never get beaten for no reason.
"This year some of the racing has been close, but if there was a chance to open a gap and benefit from it for the rest of the race we were always in a very strong position and many times used that to go for that.
"But I don't think it's fair to say we had a massive advantage all year long. Seasons like this don't happen too often and that's why we want to enjoy it.
"I am extremely proud and to see my name alongside some of the great names is really special. As much as the first world title, the second one people can't take away from you. Many things in life come and go but this will stay forever."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/10/stats_speed_and_success_spur_o.html
Vettel shines as troubled Hamilton toils
In Singapore
In more ways than one, the Singapore Grand Prix was a microcosm of the 2011 Formula 1 season as a whole.
Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull produced another immaculate weekend, exploiting their blistering pace to take pole position and then quickly extend an advantage in the opening laps that they could then defend for the rest of the race, pacing themselves to their closest 'rivals'.
The victory, the German's ninth of the season, has effectively won him a second consecutive world title. Vettel has been either first or second in all the races bar one, in which he was fourth. To clinch the title, he needs to score only one more point in the remaining five races - and that's only if Jenson Button wins them all.
As he admitted himself with a wry grin after the race: "Obviously, it should not be a problem."
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It has been a quite stunning season from Vettel and his team - almost completely flawless while operating at a level no one else has generally been able to match.
He has won all the races he should have won, as well as the odd one that he perhaps should not. As every single one of his rivals was all too happy to admit this weekend, he fully deserves this title.
Vettel and Red Bull's superiority has had an interesting effect on his rivals.
McLaren's Button and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso have knuckled down, accepted that they generally have not had the car to challenge Vettel, and concentrated on doing the best they can with what they have.
The result is they lie second and third in the championship - ahead of Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber.
By contrast, Button's team-mate Lewis Hamilton seems to be battling inner demons, the exact nature of which perhaps even those closest to him do not understand.
Not for the first time this year, Hamilton wrecked his race with an avoidable collision with a rival. In Singapore, it was Ferrari's Felipe Massa.
Hamilton was trying to make up ground after losing places at the start when he was forced to back out of an attempt to pass Webber, who was slow off the line for the third race in a row.
The move on Massa was never on. Hamilton was on the outside and behind the Ferrari, and he simply made an error of judgment as they turned into the left-hander at Turn Seven.
He clipped the Ferrari's rear wheel with his front wing, and both their races were ruined there and then. Massa's right-rear tyre was punctured, and Hamilton's front wing damaged - and the stewards added insult to injury by giving him a drive-through penalty.
As he battled to climb back through the field from 16th place, Hamilton's frustration at the situation became clear in his communications with his team - again, not for the first time this season.
"Would you please give me some info on how I'm doing," he said, "what I'm racing for?"
Most people interpreted that as effectively saying, "Is it really worth me continuing with this?" Which is a surprising thing, to say the least, to hear from F1's most aggressive, attacking racing driver.
His team responded by reassuring him that he was fighting for a points finish, adding that there would definitely be a safety car that would further aid his cause - correctly as it turned out, although they were not to know it at the time.
Having been told that, Hamilton got his head down and produced what his team principal Martin Whitmarsh was "a great drive".
Whitmarsh added: "He did some of the best overtaking, some fantastic driving, to get back up into the points, so I think he should be given credit for that."
In that, Whitmarsh was absolutely right, but so, too, was he when he said: "He's a driver who wants to overtake in a hurry. Afterwards he'll regret that and maybe he could have waited another few corners."
Whitmarsh initially bristled after the race when he started to be questioned by the media about Hamilton's race, and his season.
When it was pointed out that this was not the first avoidable accident Hamilton had been involved in, and asked how McLaren and Hamilton could prevent such incidents from recurring, he replied: "If you stay in the garage, any accident is avoidable. Any serious questions?"
But as he was pressed on the same issue again and again, he finally admitted that the race "went badly", adding: "Undeniably this has not been a good year for Lewis Hamilton."
Indeed not. On the one hand, he has delivered two of the greatest wins of the season - his victories in China and Germany rank with any of Vettel's.
But the same driver was over-aggressive and incautious in Monaco - a fact Hamilton has admitted himself; collided with his team-mate in Canada; crashed out of the Belgian race after misjudging an overtaking move; and got into two altercations in two days with Massa in Singapore.
The one in the race followed him barging his way past the Ferrari at the start of final qualifying on Saturday, a move that prompted Massa to say: "I think he didn't use his mind. Again."
After their altercation in the TV interview area post-race in Singapore, Massa implied that if Hamilton kept driving this way, he would find it difficult to win any more world championships.
To which Whitmarsh countered: "I think he's wrong. Lewis is still a young guy, he's learning all the time. He'll win races and I'm sure he'll win more world championships."
Hamilton may indeed be young - but he is two and a half years older than Vettel, who is driving with a maturity way beyond his years. And many people in the F1 paddock feel that if Hamilton is to compete with Vettel in the future, he needs a change of approach.
No one wants to see him abandon the aggressive, charging driving style that makes him the most exciting driver in F1.
But there is no doubt he needs to find a better balance than he has done this year - or indeed in any of his seasons in F1 bar perhaps the first one. A better way, too, of coping with the frustration of not having the best car - which is what seems to be at the root of some of his behaviour this year.
Nor is it just Hamilton who has committed costly errors this season. McLaren have racked up a fair few as well.
"None of us are perfect," Whitmarsh said in mitigation. "The team has made some mistakes; we'll make more mistakes. We don't want to, but that's life. We're pretty open and honest about that. We have to try to get better, Lewis has to try to get better as a race driver."
The honesty and openness is admirable. The fact is, though, that Vettel and Red Bull have raised the bar this season to a level beyond their rivals' capabilities.
Such has been their superiority that even a flawless year from Hamilton and McLaren would almost certainly not have prevented Vettel winning the title - although it would have been a lot closer than it has been.
But however quick McLaren's car is in 2012, they are going to find it hard to beat Vettel and Red Bull if they and Hamilton keep performing like this.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/09/vettel_shines_as_troubled_hami.html
BMW F10 M5 has new 0 to 60 mph time of 3.7 seconds
Car & Driver tests the M5 and gets a much healthier acceleration figure than BMW's own underrated 4.4 seconds for the 0 to 100 km/h sprint.
Ferrari F150th Italia is now Ferrari 150� Italia..!
Ferrari have apparently proceeded to a second name tweak for their 2011 F1 challenger, following the controversy surrounding the initial designation of the car back in January. According to the ?Horse Whisperer? column ? an online interface commonly used by Ferrari to share its likes and dislikes with the world ? the new name of the racer will be Ferrari 150� Italia.
?It might seem like a Kafkaesque scenario, but the affair relating to the name of the car with which Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa will tackle this year's Formula 1 World Championship saw its final and decisive episode played out these past few days with the concomitant withdrawal by Ford of the summons. Therefore common sense has prevailed,? wrote the columnist.
The car?s initial name was Ferrari F150, but in mid-February was changed to F150th Italia as a result of the legal proceedings issued by American carmaker Ford to the US District Court in Detroit.
Ford-F150-Pickup
This situation occurred because Ferrari?s car name and logo resembled Ford?s trademark for their line of pick-up trucks, the famous F-150. A couple of days back, Ford announced it has filed a notice with the US court for dismissal of the case, after it had reached an amicable agreement with their Italian counterparts.
In order to avoid the slightest risk of anyone confusing a Formula 1 car with a pick-up truck, for their part, the men from Maranello have decided that the car will lose the F that precedes the number 150 and which stands for Ferrari, as it has done on numerous occasions when it's come to giving a car a code name, be it for the race track or the road- The Horse Whisperer
It appears that this could have caused so much confusion in the minds of the consumer across the Pond that, at the same time as losing the F, the name will be completely Italianised, replacing the English 'th' with the equivalent Italian symbol.
Therefore the name will now read as the Ferrari 150� Italia, which should make it clear even to the thickest of people that the name of the car is a tribute to the anniversary of the unification of our country.
Let's hope the matter is now definitely closed and that we can concentrate on more serious matters, namely ensuring that our car that already seems to be pretty good out of the box, becomes a real winner.
Original article by Ovidiu Panzariu of autoevolution
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