Sebastian Vettel secured the first place in an incident strewn European GP held in Spain. The McLaren duo, Hamilton and Button came in 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Midway through the race, there was a devastating crash involving the Red Bull of Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen of Lotus. Heikki, decided to block Webber from overtaking but he did it in a strange manner, according to Webber who could not stop his car from smacking the back of the Lotus. The crash sent Webber's car to eject up into the air before somersaulting and landing on the roof. The car skidded a while righting itself up again before crashing heavily to the tire barrier. It was a sickening crash. Fortunately, Webber was able to walk away from the crash with only minor bumps on him.
After this incident, the safety car was brought in. Hamilton was astride the safety car when it came into the track and decided to test his luck and sped away instead of following the back of the safety car. Hamilton was in 2nd place after the safety car period was over.
Hamilton's luck didn't hold since he was deemed by the stewards to be slightly behind the safety car when it came out and should have followed it. So a penalty was given to him. Amazingly, he was back in second place after the he took the drive through penalty due to a combination of a short pit area and the third placed driver being slow and holding up traffic behind him.
This made ex-world champion Ferrari's Fernando Alonso mad with anger. He can be heard whining in the cockpit radio about the unfairness of it all. He was just behind Hamilton when the safety car came out but ended up in 9th place when it went back in. And to add salt to his bruised self, two slower cars overtook him in the later stages of the race despite pleas from his team to concentrate on racing.
Sometimes luck do play a part and one should just take it in the chin and concentrate on the next race. But not Ferrari or Fernando. They are bringing up conspiracy theories that claims stewards are favoring Hamilton in some manner. It doesn't help either that Lewis seems to end up in headlines concerning rules and guidelines of F1 - e.g. racing in pitlane and the dramatic out-of-fuel qualification in the last race - so drivers may get frustrated with the all the non-race attention he gets.
But the bottom line is, Lewis seems to be the only driver who consistently spices up the F1 races. His overtaking moves, his glamorous friend and his unexpected controversial situations makes the F1 an interesting and watchable fare.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Le Mans 24 hrs 2010 - Audi sweeps the podium
Despite last years winner, Peugeot, dominating the qualifying for the race with their immense speed advantage, Audi emerged total winners of this years Le Mans 24 hrs race.
Audi bet their reliability and team discipline will win the race for them and that's what happened. Still, the complete podium sweep was totally unexpected and the Audi team was justly ecstatic with their win this year.
All the four Peugeot cars did not finish due to various problems.
In the GT2 class, the Porsche of Felbermayr-Proton team took the first place from Ferrari.
McLaren 1-2 in Canada!!
Amazing feat by the McLaren team, they have managed two consecutive 1-2 finish, this time in Canada. The third place went to a much improved Ferrari driven by Fernando Alonso.
Lewis Hamilton started from pole for McLaren but the lead changed hands when drivers had to pit to change their tyres. The Canadian Grand Prix was very demanding and many of them had to change tyres at least twice.
Hamilton was in his element again, overtaking Fernando Alonso after Lewis lost his
lead in the pits and then overtaking the race leader Mark Webber later.
Schumacher had a good start, gaining five places after the first corner but raced too aggressively causing him to lose to lose his place. He eventually finished outside the points in 11th.
Jenson Button the second McLaren driver had a quieter day and managed to overtake Fernando Alonso later in the race to finish 2nd.
Overall a fantastic result for McLaren. Their team drivers are leading the Driver's points and Constructors points at this stage of the race season.
Lewis Hamilton started from pole for McLaren but the lead changed hands when drivers had to pit to change their tyres. The Canadian Grand Prix was very demanding and many of them had to change tyres at least twice.
Hamilton was in his element again, overtaking Fernando Alonso after Lewis lost his
lead in the pits and then overtaking the race leader Mark Webber later.
Schumacher had a good start, gaining five places after the first corner but raced too aggressively causing him to lose to lose his place. He eventually finished outside the points in 11th.
Jenson Button the second McLaren driver had a quieter day and managed to overtake Fernando Alonso later in the race to finish 2nd.
Overall a fantastic result for McLaren. Their team drivers are leading the Driver's points and Constructors points at this stage of the race season.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
McLaren 1-2 in Turkey!
McLaren achieved another 1-2 finish in this year's Formula 1 season. They were fortunate because of an amazing incident involving the 2 leading red bull cars. Their cars collided when Vettel tried to overtake Mark Webber.
After that incident McLaren was gifted the first two places in the race with Mark Webber managing to replace his broken front wing in a pit stop and then coming out ahead of 4th placed Michael Schumacher.
McLaren's Jenson Button then attempted to take over the 1st place from his team mate Lewis Hamilton but the surprised Hamilton managed to get it back in the next corner.
After the race, there were no expression of joy or ecstasy of winning by Hamilton, and he preferred to speak to the third placed Mark Webber instead of button in the winners waiting room. The driver rivalries of both leading teams should juice up the F1 race this year.
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