Marussia

Heikki 2013 chances slim, Perez burns his bridges, Mercedes abandon Coanda, Luca relinquishes political ambition

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Editor’s note: Thank you for the many kind words about my rehab. I am on less hallucinogenic tablets now and am raring to go for the seasons finale.

In line with recent habit of identifying far flung thejudge13 readers, I want to say Hello to those of you from Malaysia. Say hello in the comments – we’re glad of your support.

 Heikki on 2013: thejudge13 reported yesterday that Heikki may be struggling for a drive in 2013. Having had a chat with someone who knows more than me, I revealed the analysis of Kovaleinen’s performance against his team-mate which was not great – and this in part is what teams do look at.

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Austin GP Review

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In no particular order, here are the post race threads to be gathered together…

The track and the race: Hat’s off to Mr. Tilke, it seems like he’s finally getting to grips with how to design a track. The topography makes the circuit visually really interesting and the combination of the 3 sectors made for an excellent race. “Turn 2 to turn 9 is probably the best sector I’ve driven in F1”, commented Jenson.

The race itself was tremendous with battles up and down the grid. There were concerns about overtaking but this was clearly not a problem, in fact at times we were back to the same old problem of the FOM TV director not really sure what to show.

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Alguesuari to get nod from Force India, Renault: Renault blame RB over fuel, Nicole up’s the pressure on Lewis, India voted 2nd worst race of the year

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FIA to stamp out bad language: La Stampa reports the FIA are looking at sanctions for this behaviour. This follows the podium misdemeanours on Sunday and the revelations that teams use bad language in radio transmissions to prevent FOM TV transmitting them – thus keeping them secret.

The paper doesn’t tell us what is proposed, but its likely to be fines rather than grid penalties or points deductions.

Bahrain strips opposition of nationality: The Bahraini authorities today stripped 31 opposition figures of their Bahraini nationality in a move described by Amnesty International as “frightening and chilling”.

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Lauda poking around Brackley, Expect double overtakes with 2 DRS zones, Alosno persists with denials, Marrusia in finaicial crisis, Alguesuari gets desperate, Sunsets Stats & Kimi too

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Lauda – what exactly is his job?: In a Q&A with Auto Motor und Sport, Niki explains his contribution to Mercedes. When asked how Mercedes can find 1.5s to match Red Bull when the drinks company spends 100m euro more he tells us, “We now have to analyze carefully whether the money factor plays a role, and if so what. I can say it but not yet, because I still go to school. This is part of the inventory.”

Remember Lauda said a couple of weeks ago that money had been wasted so far at Mercedes F1, and they needed to deliver more for less. Mmm.

Niki was asked how he could bring Mercedes to success. “The first part of this task is to take stock. I find myself just in the learning phase. That’s why I’m already some time been in the factory in Brackley and I will continue to do so regularly. It is important for me, along with Ross Brawn introduced to every aspect of the team, the car and the tools in the factory to be. Every time I go to Brackley, I get it. I need to understand the context of the processes, and then with my logic, direct access, which I, in common with Ross find a solution.”

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Chequered Flag and Podium Politics, Ferrari policy of a No.2 statistically irrational, Ferrari upgrades ‘no revolution’

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With many of the F1 personnel heading inter-continental, news yesterday and today is a little slow. But here we go anyway.

Ferrari admit they’re in trouble: Marc Gene at a publicity event for Shell Motorsport in Madrid today says the team have a number of upgrades for the Indian GP. He has been testing them in the simulator but is uncertain as to their effectiveness. He admits they will not know whether the upgrades work or not until they try them out on track on Friday. The most troubling comment was, “In India we will take a number of improvements to the cars, but they will not be a revolution, but we hope to help”. (as.com) Playing down the upcoming Indian GP Gene adds,  “Each of the next four races will be important but not decisive in itself.”

The problem Ferrari face is their recent lap times relative to Red Bull. In Singapore and Japan, their best time for the weekend was around 1% slower than Red Bulls, and although they closed this to 0.3% in Korea the kind of upgrades Gene is talking about will at best close the gap and of course Red Bull will not be standing still. To win in India, Alonso most likely needs to qualify on the front row and with the weather set fair this will be a huge ask.

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Lauda to sack Brackley personnel, Nascar mother of all pile ups, Lola closes doors, Tooned will be ‘racey’

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After battling with F1 and global finance until gone midnight on “Ecclestone to load a mountain of debt on F1“, then the day so far has been spent with lawyers – so we’ll start with a News Links post and see if I’ve got enough time and energy for an in depth article later. (Anything in wite on this page is a URL link to the original or pic or video).

Quick thanks to someone on German site MotorsportTotal.com who posted a link to thejudge13 and we’ve had over 50 new German visitors today from their site. Great work.

  1. Last week I did a couple of articles on Niki Lauda, suggesting there may be fireworks at Merceds F1 now he’s the big boss (a position he couldn’t help refering to on TV at the weekend I noticed). Niki’s inability to “suffer fools gladly” is legendary. So today, our favourite German publication Bilde has the following, “Schumi’s car builders are fired”. (I always put the link to prove the source, but be careful with any translation software – particularly verb tenses). Anyway Christian Danner RTL expert pundit and ex F1 driver of note (I’ll come back to this) says today that Niki Lauda needs to fire the designers of this years car. He suggests that after 9 months the car is performing like a Torro Rosso and heads must roll. He urges Niki the hatchetman on, “He is responsible to make the next decision. And the next decisions will be primarily personnel decisions”. RTL commentator Danner, a little bit like Mr. J Herbert for SKY, drove in Formula 1 over 4 years. 2 of those he was not classified with any points and had a career best P4 in USA 1989 when he also had his best season scoring a total of 4 points. WATCH OUT ROSS

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