2012 season

Kimi knew what he was doing but Seb got the job done

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  2012– Kimi knew what he was doing but Seb got the job done Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) and Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) – these three world champions led the championship standings coming into Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2012,round 18 out of 20. Vettel was the defending champion, driving for the favoured … Read more

#F1 Features: What went wrong with McLaren 2012? Part II

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Brought to you by TheJudge13 reporter Adam Macdonald …continued from Part I looking at how the house of cards all fell down for McLaren in 2012. 2012 – The wheels all fell off Hamilton reiterated to the associated press throughout the winter how he “was in a better place now.”  A pole position at Melbourne showed this with … Read more

Alonso will not drive in Jerez, Valencia street circuit falls into ruin

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Follow thejudge13: Why not follow thejudge13 by email. Click on the button at the top right of the page to receive an email when (and only when) a new article hits the interweb.

I have now put 2 RSS feeds at the bottom of the right hand bar for those of you who know how to use them for updates.

Testing: An interesting development from Ferrari. They have announced today Alonso will not take part in the first pre-season testing in Jerez. Massa will get the first 3 days, and De La Rosa will drive on the Friday. The explanation from Ferrari for giving De la Rosa some track time is, “it will allow both the team and the driver to work specifically on looking at the correlation between the virtual and the real experience. The work of assembling the new car goes on: yesterday the engine was fired up for the first time.”

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Drivers of 2012, Ferrari get biggest FOM payout,Raikkonen like Lauda?, #BOTTAS and F1 social media, Turkey 2013, Kamui in GP2, Bernie back in team ownership, Kimi goes snowmobile racing

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Silverstone Media Awards: Many thejudge13 readers are outside the UK (65%) and I’ve had a few enquiries as to whether they are eligible to vote. The answer is yes and all you need to do is leave your name and an email address to vote on Silverstone’s website – the links are below.

Last years winner was a polish blog called F1 talks. (Link)

If you enjoy thejudge13 site, please take the 2 minutes to vote for it. I am committed to an advert free site, because all these pop ups drive me crazy but I do want to develop the site and an award like this will help me in two ways. I am looking to syndicate articles to International publications (mostly local media) where they have no local F1 knowledge and rely on Reuters news feeds to educate their readers.

Of course I would be paid for this syndication but the funds received will go towards taking thejudge13 onward and upward. One of the things I am looking at is a podcast for 2013. Much of the current media produced F1 audio/visual material is quite starchy and I believe there is room for a weekly discussion programme of a more relaxed nature – with regular expert fans and guests.

I am presently talking to a well know F1 media individual about this, but there will be a cost attached. Getting sponsorship is easier when you’ve won an award. So please take a couple of minutes to help thejudge13 in turn help you get even more from F1 in 2013.

31 people by last night have clicked through on the link previously provided, so here’s how Silverstone tell you to vote.

Fans can cast their votes now via Silverstone Circuit’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/SilverstoneCircuits. Voting closes 12:00hrs on 11 December, 2012. To vote from a mobile visit http://www.silverstone.co.uk/silverstone-media-awards-2012/

Ferrari ask FIA for clarification: 11:00 GMT just received this tweet – “Ferrari asked, in a letter, a clarification from the FIA ​​about the overtaking of VET/VER during the 4th round of the Brazilian Grand Prix”. It was in Italian, my best translation efforts.

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Interlagos: Race review

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Predictable unpredictability

I have no intention of producing a detailed lap by lap, stop by stop report – the BBC and others have the resources to do that better than I do. Yet what has happened to F1 in the past few years? 6 of the last 8 WDC’s have been decided on the last race of the season.

This is the antithesis of what preceded when I almost stopped watching the sport after the borefest of Ferrari dominance from 1999-2005. Madmax Moseley changed something, and it was definitely for the better. My guess it was the beginning of engine restrictions in 2005 and then everything flowed from there.

@F1photographer was mocking those of us who have spent all week checking out weather forecast reports – because 1 hour before the race it was sunny. Having searched for and studied websites I didn’t know existed like some saddo trying to glean 3-4 day forecasts for the weekend, I didn’t take kindly to the picture man’s sneers. For example, The Brazilian ‘National Institute for space research’ is a most interesting proposition and a great read for those who suffer the ignominy of insomnia.

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