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News Round Up Part 1 :
FIA to disable use of DRS under yellow flag situations during F1 races : Formula 1 drivers will no longer have the ability to use DRS under yellow flag conditions from now on, after the FIA acted to clear up the controversy around Michael Schumacher's final lap in Valencia. Schumacher had to see the stewards after finishing on the podium in the European Grand Prix, when Red Bull Racing claimed he had used DRS after yellow flags had been shown. The stewards decided not to take action, however, because they judged that Schumacher had slowed down for the warning signals - even if he had used DRS for a short period of time before turning it off. With that situation prompting discussion among drivers - especially after Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa were punished for using DRS under yellow flags at the Spanish Grand Prix - FIA race director Charlie Whiting agreed to look into the matter over the Silverstone weekend. It is understood that Whiting informed the drivers before the race about how behaviour under yellow flags would be treated by stewards going forward. He informed them that from now on, drivers would primarily have to 'demonstrate' that they slowed down sufficiently - with the use of KERS or DRS of secondary importance. However, to limit the possibility of any confusion about the use of DRS in such a situation, the FIA said from now on it would disable the use of the overtaking aid whenever there was a yellow warning flag displayed in the DRS zone at each race. The new ban on the use DRS during yellow flag periods was implemented for the first time at the British Grand Prix in the wake of the collision between Pastor Maldonado and Sergio Perez. Before that ruling was laid down, Schumacher had said that he was always under the impression that as long as drivers slowed down for yellow flags then there should not be a problem. "There are two basics to this one [yellow flags and DRS] and people seem to mix them up," he said. "There is no rule that says if you use DRS in a yellow zone that you automatically will be penalised. Depending on when it happens, you can prove that where the accident is you go slow and you significantly reduce your speed. Whether you use DRS or don't use DRS, that is another story. "But obviously if you use DRS from points A to point B, and you use 100% DRS, then it is likely that you have not slowed down and therefore you get a penalty." British Grand Prix 2012: Silverstone just about keeps its head above the flood waters : “In the mind we want to go faster, higher, stronger, and it’s exactly the same mind as Formula One, going faster and better" .There are certainly areas in which Formula One has shown other sports how it is done but this weekend was probably not one of them. There were no feelings of “faster, higher, stronger” in the minds of the thousands of fans who sat all day in stationary traffic on Friday. Nor the 30,000 who were “strongly advised” to skip qualifying on Saturday as British Grand Prix organisers desperately scrambled to extricate themselves from their muddy predicament. In many respects, Silverstone deserves praise for the way in which it recovered from that dreadful start. A full house numbering somewhere in the region of 125,000 was present and correct to see Red Bull’s Mark Webber triumph yesterday; the park and ride system worked smoothly by all accounts; the traffic was just about tolerable; no one drowned. But the fact is that when the rain fell in such copious quantities on Thursday night and Friday morning, Silverstone was just not equipped to cope. The campsites flooded, campervans were turned away, the traffic management system went down the drain. Unlike the rainwater. This is a place, remember, which was meant to have had its warning back in 2000 when the site turned into a quagmire and a furious Ecclestone labelled it a “country fair masquerading as a world-class event”. It seems that not all the lessons were learned. While £40 million has been ploughed into giving Silverstone a facelift, with a spanking new pits and paddock complex and a new section of track, the event is still not weatherproof. Not many open-air events are, of course. The Silverstone experience was by no means an isolated case in a summer which has seen the weather wreak havoc across the country. It does not have a retractable roof like the one deployed over Wimbledon’s Centre Court on Sunday before Andy Murray turned on his own waterworks. But it can still do better. Richard Phillips, Silverstone’s managing director, promised that it would. “There is plenty to reflect upon,” he said, his bloodshot eyes betraying the sleepless nights he has endured since Friday. “We need to put more roadways in, we need to sort out the campsites, we have learned that the park and ride has been a massive success and we can build on that" .Phillips, who was close to tears on Friday night, once again thanked fans for their patience and understanding. “You could hit them with sticks, our fans,” he said. “They are so loyal. So resourceful. I was speaking to one lady today who was stuck in traffic on Friday and she was telling me how good her experience today had been. I mean, we sold £40,000 worth of tickets to next year’s race on Friday.” Indeed, the unstinting support shown by fans is one reason not to get too worked up by this. Silverstone has character, it has life, even if it is a little damp around the edges. More fans turn up for practice on a Friday at this frankly fairly unattractive airfield in Northamptonshire than they manage during an entire race weekend at many tracks abroad. Better a rustic experience than a soulless one. And the sight of thousands of them pouring on to a sun-drenched track at the end to watch the podium celebrations was impressive. But that does not mean that people paying upwards of £300 a ticket should have to sit in traffic for 10 hours. As Neil England, the chairman of Silverstone’s owners, the British Racing Drivers’ Club, said on Friday night, to let it happen again would be “criminal”. Teams and drivers were largely supportive on Sunday. “It’s a shame that we’ve had this after 2000,” Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn said. “I’m sure the group will look at it and see if they can or will improve the situation for the future. But all sorts of events have been cancelled this summer. Lots of music festivals have had to be cancelled so it is very difficult. “I think the fans have been fantastic, which is one of the reasons we like racing here. It is a great place to race.” That it is. Silverstone just about escaped a bullet this weekend, regaining the initiative and putting on a decent race before heavy rain began to fall again last night. But as the fans streamed away, and the campers waded through mud to pack up their tents, the roof of that spanking new media centre started leaking on to the rows of laptops below. There is still work to be done. Silverstone won't cut capacity : Circuit boss promises infrastructure upgrades to cope with future dire weather . Silverstone chiefs won't consider cutting the capacity for the British Grand Prix in wake of the problems experienced at this year's event and have instead vowed to improve the venue's infrastructure to ensure there is no repeat of the traffic chaos in future. The heavy and persistent rain that hit Northamptonshire venue on Thursday and throughout the opening practice day on Friday played havoc with Silverstone's crowd arrival measures as waterlogged campsites and car parks caused major delays getting fans onto the site and triggered miles of traffic jams on the A43 bypass, which is the main access road for the circuit. With some fans already unable to get into the circuit in time to see Friday's practice sessions, later that evening Silverstone advised ticket holders with passes for the public car parks for Saturday's qualifying day to stay away completely so that organisers could repair the ground in order to accommodate the expected 125,000 crowd on race day.Reflecting on the weekend's events on Sky Sports News the day after what ultimately proved a dry race on Monday in front of a near capacity crowd, Silverstone's Managing Director Richard Phillips insisted the Saturday stay-away plea had ultimately been critical to getting fans into the event on Sunday at all."The decisions we had to make were very tough," he said. "But if we hadn't of made then yesterday wouldn't have gone ahead and that would have been catastrophic for the fans for the event and for the business." Silverstone had increased its capacity for this year's race following the construction of new grandstands but asked if a consequence of the subsequent problems at the start of the weekend could prompt a rethink for 2013, Phillips replied: "No. We've maintained the capacity, we've increased it a bit recently, but basically we've managed the capacity over the last few years. "In the future we'd love to be able to increase the capacity but as this weekend's proven there's got to be some good background grounds in place to be able to do that." With the official Silverstone campsite, car parks and footpaths reduced to quagmires as the weekend progressed, fans camping into Sunday were advised to delay their exit from the venue until Monday to ease traffic congestion at the end of the race. Speaking to Sky Sports News, fans on the campsites raised the issues of drainage and improved communication as areas for Silverstone to improve upon and Phillips confirmed organisers were aware of the areas that needed attention. "There is plenty to reflect upon," he was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph. "We need to put more roadways in, we need to sort out the campsites, we have learned that the park and ride has been a massive success and we can build on that." However, he added that success in circuit owner the British Racing Drivers' Club attempts to source external additional investment was key to further improvements. "It (the weekend) makes it very important (to find new investment) but we have to get the right one," he added. "The interest is there, these are very expensive places to run and having someone come in with some extra cash would be fantastic. It would enable us to do better things. "We were in exclusivity with one particular party and that didn't work out, but the other people who were there prior to that are still there." Sebastian Vettel says first stint cost him dear during British Grand Prix : Sebastian Vettel said the ground lost in his first stint in the British Grand Prix was just too much to recover once he got up to third place. The world champion spent the opening laps behind Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa's battle for third. Although he jumped both his rivals in the first pitstops, Vettel could not catch Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso afterwards. He said his Red Bull had not been comfortable on the soft tyres used for the first stint. "It didn't perform very well," he said of the tyre. "I was struggling a lot. I was in traffic, which doesn't help, but I really couldn't go any faster than the guys in front. "In clean air I think we could've done the pace of the leaders at that time, but like that it was difficult. "We lost too much in the beginning and then we kept closing until the end but it wasn't enough." Vettel praised his team for getting him ahead of Schumacher and Massa at the earliest opportunity. "The start was not so good, I lost a little bit and then I got stuck behind Michael. It was a good strategy to come back - we decided to pit early and then use the momentum and came out ahead. So that was a good call," he said. "All in all, I would be a bit happier if I would have won. But nevertheless I think it is a great result for the team." With Webber first and Vettel third, Silverstone marked the first time this year that Red Bull got both cars on the podium. Many rivals had tipped the champion team to start dominating after Vettel's form in Valencia prior to his alternator failure, but despite Webber underlining Red Bull's potential with his win in Britain, Vettel said he had no sense of a definitive pattern forming. "It's extremely different to years before," he said. "A lot of things might still happen. Obviously it will be key not to retire and make sure you always score points. We think there's still a long way to go." Maldonado fined, reprimanded for Perez incident during the British GP : Pastor Maldonado was handed a 10,000 Euro fine and given a reprimand by the race stewards for his part in a collision with Sergio Perez during the British Grand Prix. Perez was left furious after the coming-together - urging the FIA to teach Maldonado a lesson following a spate of crashes so far this season. But after a detailed look at the incident on Sunday, the stewards elected to fine the Williams driver instead. A statement issued by the stewards said Maldonado was guilty of causing a collision, and because of the serious nature of the incident it was decided he would be hit with two penalties. Maldonado said the crash with Perez had not been deliberate, and that he had simply lost control of the car on the entry to the corner. "I think it was unlucky this time because I lost the car on the entry to the corner, right on the apex with the front and then the rear," he sayd. "It was before I got to the kerb, and it was after I came out of the pits with DRS open. I did the braking on DRS, and I even braked before my normal braking point, and the reason [for the accident is] I think because the angle I had on the inside of the corner was not enough for the tyre conditions." McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh insists 'worrying about the car will not make it go faster' after Silverstone failure : McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh is adamant morale is not an issue within his organisation following a wretched weekend at the British Grand Prix. Despite overwhelming support at Silverstone for home heroes Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, the McLaren duo trailed in eighth and 10th behind Red Bull's Mark Webber. Disappointingly for Whitmarsh, his team has now slumped to fourth in the constructors' championship behind Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus, a position the Woking-based marque are unaccustomed to. Hamilton and Button were hopelessly off the pace, leaving them 37 and 79 points adrift in the championship standings respectively, with Fernando Alonso's lead cut to 13 by Webber. It is hard to believe just over four weeks ago McLaren were celebrating a Hamilton victory in Montreal that edged him back in front in the title race. Now, according to Button, they were only the sixth quickest team at Silverstone having also fallen behind Williams and Sauber in terms of pace. "It's tough, but we've been through all sorts of highs and lows as a team, and we're resilient enough," said Whitmarsh. "But the drivers know, and we know, we need to work on the car, make it better, understand the tyres. Those are the things that are part of our job. "So we'll be pushing hard. I don't think we need to build morale, everyone is going to be pretty focused to try and achieve that. "At this time I'm not seriously worried. Being worried doesn't make the car go quicker. Of course I'm disappointed, but there's no magic." Whitmarsh has vowed a more visible upgrade package will be on the cars for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim on July 22, notably pertaining to the top body at the rear. However, he can offer no promises as to its performance, adding: "Anyone who makes predictions this season is very rash. "Everyone knows this team is strong and committed to winning, and the drivers and team will be giving it their all. We'll see what we can do when we get to Germany. "It's a decent upgrade, although I'm sure no-one is going to stand still and wait for us. You have to do a good job. "We've been flat out as we always are. We're trying to pull them (the upgrades) through as quick as we can." For Whitmarsh, the Pirelli tyres continue to remain a mystery, as witnessed with Hamilton on Sunday. He used two sets of the same hard compound, each reacting differently. "It is very tricky to go from being so strong in the first stint on one set of prime (hard tyres), then about 15 minutes later you put them on again and they feel different," said Whitmarsh. "They responded differently, yet we set the same pressures and temperatures, so we have to understand them better because if you can get them working you can be a second up, as we've seen." Kind Regards Shaky-Schumi |
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latest news
The Spanish rider Maria de Villota , the Marussia Team, is no longer under sedation and give significant signs of improvement in her physical condition eight days after the accident in which she has remained involved while trying to Duxford, and when he lost his eye Right. This was announced by a team known Marussia, in which it is stated that the doctors, after receiving permission from family members of de Villota, "I am very happy because in the last days the recovery of the patient has made significant progress." The pilot after the accident had undergone two surgeries to reduce the fracture to the skull shows a violent impact suffered from his car. "From last Saturday - they know the doctors - the team of Addenbrooke's Hospital has begun to gradually reduce the level of sedation of Maria, who last Sunday was awake and could talk to his family. From that moment on There were small but progressive improvements, which are significant. This has been moved from intensive care unit. " |
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Do not expect, and demand the 2nd series!
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Ferrari team has the best driver and this cancels the gap with the best car, the red bull ... my fear,as italian ferrari fans, is about the team (Domenicali engineer in the first place...
 ) that is often lost in convoluted and risky decisions!!anyway could be decisive internal rivalries between Webber and vettel, and the next 2 gp could say many things about this...
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iceman wrote:This year only 3 drivers can compete for the world title: Alonso,Webber and Vettel. But if Kimi can win the next race,I think he can run for the big crown too. Go Kimi! you're right but i see the motivations of alonso and ferrari's team one step over...and i hope  
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This year only 3 drivers can compete for the world title: Alonso,Webber and Vettel. But if Kimi can win the next race,I think he can run for the big crown too. Go Kimi!
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Hamilton completes Olympic Torch run
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton had little chance to sleep in on Monday following his Silverstone weekend. At 6.30am, Hamilton was greeted by cheering fans as he started Day 52 of the official Olympic Torch Relay, part of the build-up to the 2012 Olympic Games in London. There was originally talk of Hamilton carrying the Torch through his home town of Stevenage, but with that part of the route scheduled for the Sunday of the British Grand Prix, the English driver instead ran Monday’s opening leg through Luton town centre, 16 miles west. “Incredible experience carrying the Olympic Torch today,” said Hamilton via Twitter. “So proud to be British. Big thanks to those who got up so early to support me this morning.” Hamilton wasn’t the only member of the paddock to be part of the Torch Relay. On Sunday morning, Caterham team principal Tony Fernandes ran a leg in Huntingdon before heading to Silverstone, where International Olympic Committee President, Jacques Rogge, was a guest. |
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I'm not a fan of Mark Webber! But the bosses of the Red Bull - I'd be willing to bet on it! Is still early to say who will be the champion! But Mark deserves the victory of most of all! All the " old people " have already visited the Champions!
Vettel - 2 Alonso - 2 Hamilton-1 Button -1 Räikkönen-1 About Schumacher, I generally keep quiet! To replace them is talented young people! And I'm afraid of the Mark may not be able to! My driver is not already become a champion! So I'll worry about Webber!!!! 
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Sakon Yamamoto 9th July 1982
(Former driver of Super Aguri,Spyker & HRT) [hidden link - please register] Happy Birthday to your 30th anniversary
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shaky-schumi wrote:It was so close to have the victory in hands .......but again the wrong strategy of tyres for Alonso Perfect summary Shaky, Only I would to add that the television production has been fantastic. Many aerial cameras throughout the circuit that have gotten viewing angles that were perfect to me. Normally broadcasts of Formula 1 are quite good, but today has been excellent. ETV, learn a little of what is to manage the cameras. |
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