Felipe Massa

Red Bull: In disarray

by

The debate over how true to real life the next big F1 film will be is beginning to circulate the F1 fans forums. Will ‘Happy Days’ Ron Howard’s account of the life and times of Niki Lauda and James Hunt and their on track battle be believable or a work of fantasy? Well, no one … Read more

F1 Forensics: 2013 UBS Chinese Grand Prix: Friday Practice

by

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

by

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

On Track Review : Malaysia Qualifying 2013

by

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

Race Review – Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia

by

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

Judges Chambers: F1, Social Media and Freedom of Expression

by

The F1 authorities and money men need to grow up and get with the 21st century. Their continued attempts to control the media outlets together with corporate images and messages they attempt to ram down our throats is pitiful.

These offerings conceived by PR companies and advertising agencies are as transparent as the gazillion dollar cathedrals of glass in which they reside.Google+-steel-style-logo-icon

TheJudge13 is partly a social media project as well as a great place to find F1 news and gossip, learn about the technical aspect of the sport and discuss all this with fans as passionate as you from across the worldwide village.

Read more

Pre Season Testing – What Have We Learnt?

by

Barcelona was the last time Formula 1 cars are driven in anger until Albert Park in around 10 days time, and whilst the past week or so was a case of smoke and mirrors (to be expected) there was quite a lot to be learnt once you dug up under the surface. Some teams struggled, whilst others prospered, and it creates a very interesting picture ahead of the first race of the season. So without further ado, let’s grab a spade and see what we can uncover.

Mercedes W04

The stand out performers from the second test had to be Mercedes. Yes I will be the first to admit, I was one of the big detractors over the winter period, criticising their management structure and how they were so drastically reorganising the team so close to the start of the season. But if the past few weeks are to go by, the W04 does seem to be a very competent car indeed. Whether showing front running pace for the majority of testing has shown the team’s hand far too soon is another matter, but when Rosberg went 1.6 seconds faster than his Qualifying time last year in Barcelona, it shows progress has been very good over the winter at Brackley.

Read more

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

by

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.”

Read more

Marussia – miss media opportunity, Grosjean wins ROC and a seat at Lotus, Mercedes knives appear, Sutil legal matters? Horner would’ve dirched Massa, Lewis been to Mercedes, Ex-F1 doctor rants on twitter, Williams and Gillan seperate

by

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.

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”.

Read more

Kamui tweets ‘another season’, Bottas Sponsor speaks out, Rolex replace Hublot, Ferrari Cartoon, Alonso the Samurai, How much f1 drivers earn, McLaren 2012 profits set to decline, Brawn – staff jigsaw complete

by

Bottas Sponsor believes he’s getting value for money : The topic of pay drivers appears to be one I hear discussed all too regularly and maybe part of the reason for this is we are seeing F1 drivers come and go more quickly than in days gone by. I think there are only 11 drivers confirmed for 2013 that started the 2011 season.

But at times its hard to understand why the sponsors behind the drivers are prepared to pay millions of dollars to get their protoges an F1 seat. The man behind the Grove teams latest young star driver is Anders Antti Aarnio-Wihuri, chaiman and majority shareholder of WinPak Ltd.

WinPak area highly succesful international business, established in 1975 and they manufacture and distribute packaging materials and related packaging machines primarily for the packaging of perishable foods, beverages, and for use in health care applications.

Read more