Vettel is just so dominate right now, got the title basically sewn up right now and the others are battling for 2nd which is turning out to be a close race at least.

McLaren took a big step backwards this week though and need to find something for the British GP in 2 weeks.

You never know what you are going to get with a GP, the last one was one of the best races i have ever seen and this one was one of the worse.

Vettel's domination isnt fun to watch generally.

Yeah that race was a bit of a snooze

Generally having someone this dominant isn't good for the sport, I fear we may be going down the route of the early 2000s when Schumacher and Ferrari were so dominant, at least Webber does seem vulnerable and isn't always 2nd the way Rubens allways seemed to be back in those years.

We Had great title races in 06,07,08,10 and with only Buttons title being sewn up early but even he began to wobble in the 2nd half I don't see Vettel doing that.

One solution might be to shoot Adrian Newey, or force him to work for Lotus!

Thought that was a great race earlier, had a lot of incidents and good racing, although the team orders at the end sort of ruined that.

Webber would of got Vettel I think on that last lap if he hadn't been told not to which is a shame.

Alonso drove a great race though and deserved that win, Hamilton did well to get up the field early but going into fuel saving mode cost him a podium spot and almost 4th as well.

Shame Button had that pitstop error which ended his hopes of points

One of the best British GPs I've ever seen though

apparently Webber ignored those orders, or so he says.....


team orders are against the rules aren't they.

You're allowed team orders this season, I believe. Webber did look like he could have taken Seb if he'd wanted to at the end there though.

Yeah Team Orders were inlawed again this year as the FIA said they just have no way of policing the issue effectively so decided it was back in.

Webber said he ignored them but I think he meant he ignored them originally and got close to Vettel when he was told to maintain the 7 second or so gap they had between each other.

I believe he could of got Vettel but it took Christian Horner at the 5th attempt to finally get him to back off on the final lap.

Oh good, at least a few F1 fans here, won't be long now, though we need a closer season than last which was just a procession behind Vettel, looks like all the driver lineups are set, I pasted this from BBC F1

Red Bull
Engines: Renault
1. Sebastian Vettel (Has contract)
2. Mark Webber (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Sebastien Buemi

McLaren
Engines: Mercedes
3. Jenson Button (Has contract)
4. Lewis Hamilton (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Gary Paffett

Ferrari
Engines: Ferrari
5. Fernando Alonso (Has contract)
6. Felipe Massa (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
TBC

Mercedes
Engines: Mercedes
7. Michael Schumacher (Has contract)
8. Nico Rosberg (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
TBC

Lotus
Engines: Renault
9. Kimi Raikkonen (Has contract)
10. Romain Grosjean (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Jerome D’Ambrosio

Force India
Engines: Mercedes
11. Paul di Resta (Has contract)
12. Nico Hulkenberg (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Jules Bianchi

Sauber
Engines: Ferrari
14. Kamui Kobayashi (Has contract)
15. Sergio Perez (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Esteban Gutierrez

Toro Rosso
Engines: Ferrari
16. Daniel Ricciardo (Has contract)
17. Jean-Eric Vergne (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Sebastien Buemi

Williams
Engines: Renault
18. Pastor Maldonado (Has contract)
19. Bruno Senna (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Valtteri Bottas

Caterham
Engines: Renault
20. Heikki Kovalainen (Has contract)
21. Vitaly Petrov (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Giedo van der Garde

HRT
Engines: Cosworth
22. Narain Karthikeyan (Has contract)
23. Pedro de la Rosa (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
Dani Clos

Marussia
Engines: Cosworth
24. Timo Glock (Has contract)
25. Charles Pic (Has contract)
Test and reserve drivers
TBC


Two drivers there that I never heard of before, Vergen and Pic. I'm a huge Jenson Button fan, always have been, I tend to follow a particular driver rather than a team, so it's OK for me to hate Lewis, who can be a real cry-baby and I dont like him. they call it a team sport, but it isn't, coz all drivers want to make their team mates look hopeless if they can, and are only in it 100% for themself, though I think Jenson and Lewis have a better relationship than most of the others. Lot of 2011 drivers dropped off, Sutil being the most obvious one, though he probably shouldnt have attacked somebody from Renault in the neck with a glass in a nightclub, and of course Kimi is back in F1, so he will add some excitement as he's a bit of a daredevil. And theres one new race, in Texas, though how many times are F1 going to keep going back to the USA before they accept that nobody there is interested in F1, especially in the south where NASCAR is bigger even than football. So, hope somebody will be around to talk some F1 from March when it starts. Thanks.

James

Really looking forward to this season of F1. Hopefully Vettel suffers a bit with the car changes and comes back to the pack so we can get a proper scrap for the title.

I'll be supporting Force India fully this year - I'm blatantly biased towards any Scottish drivers so DiResta is my favourite, but when I went to Spa for the race last year I got my picture taken with Hulkenberg so its great to see him with a drive this year as well.

Hate Vettel.

Hoping for a big season for Lewis. He just needs to cool his jets a little and channel his frustration into a good, clean performance. I do think the stewards have something against him though. Would like to see Button do as well, but as the number two driver.

Why do you hate him? I've always found him quite likeable, almost an anti-Schumacher.

I like Vettel, though I'm a huge Jenson fan I think Vettel is incredible and it wouldn't surprise me if he got close to emulating Schumachers title wins by the end of his career. I think F1 has a problem though if Vettel and Red Bull run away with it again in 2012, McLaren and Ferrari really have to close the gap, Ferrari are imo handicapped having Massa who is so overshadowed by Alonso, even with team orders not being banned anymore Massa still never seems to be in a position to help out Alonso and take big points off his rivals the way the two McLaren driver do and also Webber, Massa didnt have a single top 4 finish in 2011, wheras I think Alonso was either on the podium or finished 4th about 15 times, so that team is a 1 man band really. I dont agree with you though ToffeeYankee about Hamilton and the stewards, thats what I mean about his being a baby and always making excuses. I can actually see him moving to Red Bull in 2013, maybe in a straight swop with Webber moving to McLaren.

Can't see Past Vettel again this year but hopefully it is a lot closer this time around, Lewis needs a good start to get himself set for the rest of the season, stop worrying about fighting with Massa etc and focus on what happening at the top of the grid.

Would like to see Schumacher have a better year, he had a good 2nd half of the season and would like to see him maybe squeeze out 1 more victory, he has it in him I think just needs to qualify better.

Should be a good season and the way Sky are building it up with the potential stuff we could have available for our viewing pleasure its gonna be great

I like to think that Button can be the man to beat, though it depends on McLaren putting him in a position to do so, on driving talent alone I think he can compete with Vettel but thats often not enough. Also be interested to see how Kimi does now that he is back in F1. Don't really have a problem with Sky having some of the coverage though a lot of F1 fans seem to be up in arms that Sky have been invited in, but even the races they dont carry live the BBC will have a 2 hours highlights programme just a few hours after the race so its no great loss, though I dont have Sky myself. First race just 24 hours away now, the McLarens and Schumacher have been the quickest in practice, really looking forward to it.

Here'e the grid for the race

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport...lts/9705368.stm

fantasic QF for McLaren, first time for many years we had both cars on the front row, what a disaster for Ferrari who aren't even Top 10, and even bigger shock was the Red Bulls being 5th and 6th though wouldn't surprise me to see Vettel get on the podium still, but looks like all the talk of a much improved McLaren was true, though its too soon to really know for sure. Grosjean for Lotus 3rd on the grid was exceptional, though Kimi his team mate looks like he needs time to hook things up. I think I quite like the new BBC commentator Ben Edwards, especially since we still have DC in the commentators box who IMO is the best of the lot, I even prefered DC to Brundle who has gone off to work for rupert the bear and Sky. I even think I prefer the highlighs for races that aren't live, there's too much talk in F1 on TV, they have a 3 and a half hour show for a 2 hour race, all people really want to see is the action on the track, well I know I do, so maybe extended highlights will be more interesting than when they show it live, Skys live show tomorrow starts at 4.30am and doesn't finish till 9.00am, thats 4 and a half hours to show a race that lasts maybe an hour and 45 minutes, anyone who can listen to Steve Rider for all that time deserves a medal LOL Anyway, great job McLaren, BUTTON to WIN!!!

Surprised there hasn't been any discussion yet

Enjoyed the race a lot, that last lap seemed to be the best last lap ever with positions changing right up till the finish line.

Button just dominated from the start, got a bit worried when the safety car brought the pack back together but he pulled away again instantly and it was never in doubt.

Gonna be an interesting season if McLaren can maintain that pace.

Loved the Sky coverage and it seems almost everybody else did, the stuff available was just incredible.

Gonna be a great season if that race is anything to go by

Great race, and if it wasn't for the safety car it would have been an even better result.

Not sure the trend of McLaren holding off Red Bull will continue very long though; the Red Bull team have a major difference maker in their team, and it isn't Vettel, outstanding as he is. It's only a matter of time until Adrian Newey comes up with something to put Red Bull back in the driving seat, not so much a matter of if as when.

I just got to watch the race there, had it taped.

Was very happy to see Button win & yes the last lap was tremendous, so exciting. Would really like if McLaren continued this success but Red Bull will be back challenging strongly in Malaysia & onwards Im sure.

Like Leemarlin87 said I too really enjoyed Sy's coverage of the race & qualifying. Like watching golf on sky you always know they'll do a professional & efficient job.

Looking forward to next weekend now.

Obviously being a huge Button fan ever since he drove for BAR/Honda I was delighted with this, he drove a perfect race and I think the key to his whole year is QF because I dont see him giving up the lead to the Red Bulls if he can get his nose ahead of Vettel on the grid, he's easily his match as a driver IMO. This looks the best McLaren car for quite a few years, and has done so all through pre season testing. I was disappointed with Hamilton's normal babyish sulking though I dont know why because whenever he gets beaten he makes it so obvious what a bad loser and an idiot he is, sorry but I really dont like him even if he is Buttons teammate, Button is a real team player, Hamilton is the exact opposite. I loved it that Kimi drove a great race too. It was pretty exciting stuff, Button really knows how to look after his tyres and pace himself, it wouldnt surprise me already to see a Button v Vettel showdown all year. Malaysia will be a lot different as temperatures will be higher and so tyre strategy will be more of a challenge, anyway keep it up, just FANTASTIC JENSON!!!!

Another good race yesterday

Alonso winning was a surprise in itself but could we have been talking of a an even bigger one? Whilst it was brilliant to see Perez finish 2nd he should have won that race, the pace he had over the Ferrari in the last 30 or so laps was amazing he was was taking over half a second a lap out of Alonsos lead.

I really hope that wasn't team orders that told him not to pass, he made that mistake with 6 or so laps to go which cost him 5 seconds and ended the charge somewhat but the lap before hand he got the message that said, don't lose these points which reading between the lines said don't overtake our engine suppliers car as they are struggling and coming under pressure back home.

Still a Great race that had a lot of drama, gotta love the rain, Hamilton needs to start converting these poles into race wins, 2 3rd places is a decent start to the season but you've got to feel with 2 poles in the first 2 races he would feel a bit disappointed not have a least 1 race win.

What is surprising most is the start Vettel has had, OK he was unlucky when he got a puncture, though it was his own fault imo, but even if he hadnt he looked so much slower than McLAren and even the Merc's and Ferrari, I think the Sauber 2nd place was fantastic for them, theyre a great little team, but it was a fluke helped by the rain and stragegy, they really aren't in the same league as about 5 other teams but I love to see them doing well. Kimi to me is the biggeststory so far, he's going to get on the podium a few times for sure, hes an amazing driver, if him and Kubica were together at Lotus Renault they would be up there in the constructors Top 3 IMO.

So it looks like what many view as a great season is going to end in controversy after the FIA 'bottled' over Vettel's illegal overtaking in the final race, which should have seen Alonso as world champion.

As it happens I deeply dislike Alonso, and hate Ferrari, but there's no doubt that he should be the champion. What is the point of having rules if the FIA ignore them when it's inconvenient for them?

Nothing really can surprise me any more with F1, it's as corrupt as any other sport in the world, yet another nail in the coffin as far as I'm concerned, I stopped taking the sport seriously years ago. I watched highlights occasionally this year, but haven't watched a live race in years. This sort of behaviour by the ruling body is the main reason.

You've lost me Gal, what exactly have the FIA bottled? They came out and clarified that Vettel's pass was after going past a green flag that wasn't visible on the video footage. Are you saying they just flat-out lied? As Ferrari have also come out and said the issue is over, i'm struggling to see how this is an indicator or corruption...

I also take it that you think Vettel should be demoted the 20 seconds for an illegal pass, while overlooking the fact that the race finished behind the safety car, so the 20 second punishment is ludicrously harsh as all the cars were bunched up for the finish.

I don't like Ferrari, Red Bull, Alonso or Vettel so I don't have a dog in this particular hunt, but i'm confused as to why you think this decision is so wrong.

Also, by not watching the full races this year you have missed out on probably one of the most exciting seasons for race action in living memory. F1 has been amazing to watch this season, and the final race of the season was brilliant.

[/QUOTE] Are you saying they just flat-out lied?[QUOTE]

It wouldn't be the first time, and I think they probably have lied, and if they are already prepared to lie and take the three wise monkey approach, then what's the point of Ferrari protesting?

Maybe I am being overly cynical, I have to hole my hand up to being that on occasion, but F1's track record on corruption and dodgy behaviour definitely contributes to that cynicism.

No doubt this winter F1 will again mess about with the rules and regulations, it seems to be compulsive behaviour with them, the really don't understand the 'if it's not broke don't fix it' approach. The problem is of course that they've fixed what wasn't broken so many times the patient died years ago, time to scrap F1 and start afresh. Far too much money invested for that to happen of course, so it won't happen, it's like the banks, no matter how much they screw up they are deemed 'too big to fail'.

so as I have for the last several summers, I'll find something better to do with my time in the summer, like watching baseball; and bitching endlessly about Selig who would fit wonderfully well alongside the poison dwarf! :lol:

heh :lol: The cynic in me is trying to agree with you, but i'm shouting him down at the moment. In truth I would find it easier to be cynical if the decision had gone in favour of Ferrari in a dubious manner, as they are the established old-guard in F1 and have a bit of history in getting appeals to help them out after races as well...

To be fair, with me F1 were in a lose-lose situation. My first reaction on reading that they were contemplating an appeal, under pressure from Alonso, was #### them, not again!

Then I saw the video, and frankly Vettel doesn't have a leg to stand on. The yellow signs aren't 2d, they flash glaringly, as are the green ones, if he'd passed a green one before overtaking it would have been evident even if it was 'off camera'.

I am actually surprised that F1 are ducking the issue, as you say Hatter, historically F1 has bent over backwards to facilitate Ferrari, so long term this is a hopeful sign.

Well the season is underway, Just

get up early for qualifying and 1st its delayed, finally get 1 session in before another delay and now suspended till tomorrow or tonight for us

so its qualifying 2nd half at midnight, with the race starting at 6am Sunday morning

Gonna be an interesting season, how will Lewis do in Mercedes? testing was ok and hopefully he can lead them forward a bit more after a few stuttering years to say the least.

The title though will be between the 2 Red Bulls and Alonso again I think, Would like to see Alonso regain the title again after 7 years.

Just hope its a close tightly contested season

Glad to see this thread, Lee.

F1 is one of the few sports that I’ve ever cared about outside of the big-4 US sports.

I don’t really have a ‘team’ as such….or at least not in the same way as with the Mets and Isles etc…though the driver I have kind of adopted as my guy to root for the last couple years is Kimi Raikkonen, who drives for Renault F1, mainly because of his refreshing ‘couldn’t-give-a-rat’s-ass-about-anything-but-winning’ attitude; all he wants to do is have fun driving cars as fast as he possibly can, and winning. When he only finishes second, it's like a disaster as far as he's concerned, which I like in athletes. When he got bored with F1 and won the championship with Ferrari, he quit and he went rallying, and started throwing himself around the side of mountains in a rally car. He's apparently a really reclusive guy, and he wouldn’t even give a single interview or get out of bed in the morning for any media event - unless he was contractually forced to do so by Renault, and you never get a straight answer out of him even when he does, he just sort of mumbles something back at the reporter and looks bored the entire interview and wishing he was somewhere else, in fact he barely looks half-awake most of the time, which I think is hilarious, and a pretty cool attitude in these days of celebrities falling over each other trying to grab the next headline and get their faces on the cover of whatever. And what a phenomenal driver he is. The reason he’s such a great driver I think is that, like true ‘greats’ in any team sport, he’s so good that he alone makes the whole team (and in his case the car) look a lot better than it actually is. You saw the same thing with Alonso last year at Ferrari, Massa couldn’t get that car to do a thing last year, but Alonso almost won the championship in it. Unfortunately Kimi’s team mate at Renault (Grosjean) is an idiot, and he’s as much likely to hit a wall, or drive into his own pit crew, or take out a couple of guys by rear-ending them, as he is to finish a race and score points, so with Grosjean on the grid the first lap of a GP these days is always like Dick Dastardly and Muttley in Wacky Races, I was surprised Renault kept him on for another year actually. Last year Kimi ended up 3rd in the championship with 207 points, he finished every race, the only driver to do so, with no retirements…whilst Grosjean, in the other Renault, scored less than half the points Kimi did.

So, for me it's Kimi!



There looks to be ton of new drivers this year on the grid, who I know nothing about at all…I never heard of Bianchi, Chilton, van der Garde, Bottas, Gutierrez, that’s 25% of the grid is newbies, which is possibly going to cause problems on some circuits if they turn out to be mostly back-markers with no experience at staying out of trouble.

And yes, too bad the qualifying for the first race this weekend in Australia has been rained off, and been put back 24 hours to tomorrow. Like you I can’t really see beyond a 4th straight Vettel-Red Bull World Championship to be honest, unless they have missed a step and Ferrari or McLaren or Mercedes have moved forward significantly. Be interesting to watch Lewis Hamilton at his new team, he doesn't strike me as the most patient person, if he's finishing off the podium or out of the points for long he's going to snap. Maybe Kimi and Renault will be the shock team-to-beat, they were the most improved team last year by a mile, even won a race.

We were meant to be getting a GP here this year, well, Weehawken, NJ anyway, but the circuit isn’t ready, so it’s probably going to be 2014. Don’t know if it will last though, no other USA grand prix has survived for very long, US sports fans tend to prefer racing where everyone just drives around in circles for a few hundred laps, which does nothing for me. At least all the F1 races these days are covered on TV over here, by NBC Sports, there was a time that F1 was impossible to watch in the USA unless you could piggy-back onto one of the Canadian networks. The TV viewer figures/ratings will be the final arbiter of whether or not it continues over here, if there’s no significant TV audience, and so advertisers/sponsors pull out, Bernie Ecclestone will just pull the plug like he does on anything that doesn’t guarantee him a big fat pay day.

Bring back Watkins Glen!

Who did he play for? :D

Funny how one or two days after my slightly worrying 'Kimi-man-love' outburst, the guys goes and wins the damn race. That sort of thing never happens to me normally. And he clearly won it on merit, usually you only beat Red Bull if you inherit the lead when they have some sort of technical problem. No reason to think Lotus and Kimi can't go on and win more races.

MM - Have you seen the numerous funny clips on YouTube from Kimi's interviews? There are some absolutely brilliant ones, most involve him treating the interview with utter distain or they end up unbroadcastable on TV.

A particular favourite of mine is an interviewer (Brundle from memory) asking him if he saw on the presentation on grid by Pele, his response means I wont link it on here.

In terms of this season i'll be happy if anyone other than Vettel wins the Championship.

I had a £5EW bet on Sergio Perez to win the campionship at 20/1? I know nothing about F1, but was given the tip my a friend whos sort of into the F1. any1 fancy him, or have i wasted a £10a?

Wasted your money I'm afraid

The Mclaren had a very poor weekend, you can't always judge on just 1 race of course, but it dosn't look good and even when they get competitive it will be tough to overhaul the Red Bulls. Ferraris, Lotus and even Mercedes look stronger then them.

Throw in the fact he is still relatively new to the sport and this is his 1st year in a top car and a clear NO2 in the team I don't see him getting close to the title.

He could get lucky and win a race down the road, but his championship prospects are liekly to see him finishing between say 7th-9th.

Sorry

Thanks for the heads up. Never mind. Sums up by betting skills of late. :rolleyes:

McLaren are in for a torrid time, the car looks pretty slow and hard to handle. Perez is a good young driver but you'd have been better putting money on the Houston Astros to win the World Series!

Yes Alex, I try to read up on Kimi as much as I can, which is 100% online really as there are no F1 publications or F1TV shows in the USA, that I can find anyway...it's all NASCAR.

Last year was hilarious as Kimi even gets so irritated that he's swearing at his team over the radio, basically telling them to leave him alone and let him get on with it.

OK it's only 1 race and 1 win, but I can see Kimi winning more races in that Lotus, he was quick all pre-season testing, and the ease with which he won on Sunday reminded me of the ease with which Vettel often wins, he was flat out quicker, and most importantly the Lotus seems to ride on those tyres and get better wear out of them than any other team.

Next race is right here, Malaysia this weekend, with almost no break for the teams/drivers.

Ugly stuff from McLaren so far. When the rumour goes around that they were considering getting last year's car back you know they are a long way from competitive! Rumour got shot down, but might take a while for them to win a race this year.

Great to see Kimi win and was a decent race to watch. As an utterly biased Paul DiResta supporter, it was nice to see both the Force India cars finishing well.

Agreed, Force India are a very likeable outfit.

I was surprised that McLaren didn't grab DiResta to replace Hamilton, and they went for Perez instead. Equally I thought he might go to Lotus, but Lotus have this unfathomable liking for Grosjean, though to be fair he has been warned that any more 'James Bond Driving School' antics, and this will be his last year with the team.

It's only a matter of time before DiResta gets a drive with one of the big 3 or 4 teams, maybe Ferrari will offer him a seat when Massa's contract is up this year, though this persistent rumour won't go away that Vettel is headed for Ferrari, which would surprise most of us even more as it's almost certain that Alonso has some #1 Driver clause in his Ferrari contract, and there's no way Vettel is ever going to play second-fiddle to anyone, at least not until he has 9 or 10 Championships under his belt!

DiResta was just getting outshone by hulkenberg at the end of last season which meant he missed the driver shuffle at the big teams. I think he'd make an excellent number 2 driver at any of the big teams - maybe not the fastest driver there is, but a very steady/consistent sort.