F1 Insiders Est. 2012
Brought to you in partnership with Dr James Beck of IntelligentF1. And so to China, where the headline times from practice show Mercedes looking good in FP1 and Ferrari in FP2. But the real story is that the soft tyres are fragile. We talking about more than 0.5s per lap degradation – it’s like it … Read more
Being Number One is brought to you by TJ13 Courtroom Reporter & Crime Analyst: Adam Macdonald People in F1 land have been focussing on the now “undisputed” no.1 at Red Bull and what this means for F1 as a whole. However, it is forgotten that this is the case in many of the other teams as well, … Read more
Brought to you by TheJudge13 ‘on track correspondent’: James Parker Heat, humidity and tyre degradation are the three things that look set to dominate tomorrow’s proceedings for the Malaysia Grand Prix. In what was a hugely intriguing Qualifying session today, which saw RedBull struggle, the unpredictable nature of the famous Malaysian weather once again struck … Read more
Victims of Circumstance is brought to you by TJ13 Courtroom Reporter & Crime Analyst: Adam Macdonald In what was an eventful first race of the season, The Victims of Circumstance article makes a fairly low key debut. With only 4 drivers not finishing the Grand Prix and no major incidents to speak of, it makes for a … Read more
Race Reviews are brought to you by our on track reporter James Parker Kimi Put’s Out Red Bull’s Barbeque The start of the 2013 Formula 1 season began in scintillating style. Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen, took the chequered flag for his 20th victory in the sport ahead of the chasing Fernando Alonso and a “struggling” … Read more
Top times of the day Pos Driver Team Tine Diff Laps 1 Vettel Red Bull 1’25.908 33 2 Webber Red Bull 1’26.172 0.264 31 3 Rosberg Mercedes 1’26.322 0.414 26 4 Raikkonen Lotus 1’26.361 0.453 38 5 Grosjean Lotus 1’26.680 0.772 32 6 Alonso Ferrari 1’26.748 0.840 35 7 Hamilton Mercedes 1’26.772 0.864 … Read more
Force India – FINALLY
Ask the ‘Children of Israel’ who followed Moses what it’s like to miss the boat. 40 years of wandering in the wilderness allegedly – one of the official ‘longest waits’ in history. Well I feel as though I’ve aged 40 yeaqrs whilst writing and speculating about what the hell is going on at Force India – and I think there’s more to come yet.
| Barcelon pre-season test 1: Day 3 | |||||
| Driver | Car | Best time | Laps | Diff | T |
| 1. Fernando Alonso | Ferrari F138 | 1’21.875 | 97 | S | |
| 2. Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber C32 | 1’22.160 | 91 | 0.285 | S |
| 3. Romain Grosjean | Lotus E21 | 1’22.188 | 119 | 0.313 | S |
| 4. Nico Rosberg | Mercedes W04 | 1’22.611 | 108 | 0.736 | M |
| 5. Pastor Maldonado | Williams FW35 | 1’22.675 | 79 | 0.800 | S |
| 6. Valtteri Bottas | Williams FW35 | 1’22.826 | 68 | 0.951 | S |
| 7. Jenson Button | McLaren MP4-28 | 1’22.840 | 71 | 0.965 | H |
| 8. Adrian Sutil | Force India VJM06 | 1’22.877 | 78 | 1.002 | S |
| 9. Mark Webber | Red Bull RB9 | 1’23.024 | 108 | 1.149 | M |
| 10. Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso STR8 | 1’23.366 | 106 | 1.491 | S |
| 11. Max Chilton | Marussia MR02 | 1’25.690 | 58 | 3.815 | S |
| 12. Giedo VD Garde | Caterham CT03 | 1’26.177 | 93 | 4.302 | S |
Not big on testing times, but Jenson on the hard tyre looks good. Sutil may be a little disappointing but its been a while and Caterham bottom of the pile again. TJ13 believes and stated for some time Marussia will overtake Caterham in 2013 and those colours are still nailed to the mast.
Tony F is AWOL and has apparently just spent £70m on 2 footballers for QPR (acquisition fee and wages over the life of their contracts). His tweets are mostly Air Asia and QPR related too.
Red Bull
I don’t know what this tells us about the team but Red Bull tweeted today, “Most obvious sign of changeover from Seb to Mark? Car’s parked on other side of the garage today… “.
TJ13 announcement
We have 2 new recruits for the TJ13 team who will be bringing you ‘On this day’ once a week each. I am working with Samora Michael from Keyna and Kevin Russell – who I’m sorry I don’t have his global location yet (and he is currently enjoying a holiday) – on how to do the research and present us with our multi media review of F1 history.
Anyone who wishes to try their hand at this, please contact me at thejudge13@hotmail.co.uk
Sutil returns
The team getting a reputation for being somewhat dithery and making 11th hour decisions is back at the top of TJ13’s news roundup. It was announced today that Adrian Sutil will drive the force India car Tue-Thur in Barcelona with Jules Bianchi taking the wheel on Friday.
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thejudge13 archive: Here’s an article I wrote after trawling the southern US media prior to the inaugural Austin GP. To this date, I have not heard this reported anywhere else, yet you would think the sale of nearly 10% of F1 for $900m to the pensioners of North America might be of Interest to someone (LINK).
Marrusia – missed media opportunity: If you look on Marussiaf1team.com today, you’ll see a Christmas wish from Timo and John says, “”We are very proud of what we achieved in 2012 and we take away so many highlights, all of which point towards a development path we can have great confidence in. Thank you for sharing some fantastic experiences with us. Wishing you the very best of Christmases.”
No announcement of Timo’s partner for 2013, yet over the weekend, there have been some rumours emanating from Russian reporters. Joe Saward has some interesting insights on the Marussia car company today, “Marussia is a funny company. It took over a controlling interest in the Virgin F1 team around a year ago, but since then there has been virtually no word about the progress of the Marussia road cars”.
