McLaren F1

Boullier upbeat about Honda’s spec 3 PU, Alonso stays level headed and prays for rain clouds

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Fernando Alonso remains level headed following today’s practice sessions in Austria. He was 9th fastest in FP1 and 8th fastest in FP2 with a respectable 1m07.510s lap time which is quicker than Schumacher’s 2003 1m08.337 record set in 2003 but +1.535s slower than today’s fastest from Lewis Hamilton who will (announced this evening – Friday) incur a 5 grid penalty for needing a new gearbox under article 23.5a of the FIA 2017 regulations.

On This Day in F1: 2nd June – The Death of a Legend

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Brought to you by thejudge13 contributor John Myburgh – 1970: The death of a legend A 2.42-mile perimeter road of the old RAF Westhampnett (which started life as an Emergency Landing Ground for the nearby RAF Tangmere during WWII) was being used as a motor racing circuit since the Duke Of Richmond brought motor racing to the area … Read more

Daily News and Comment: Tuesday 16th April 2013

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More tyres and more drivers Having sat his naughty boys down for a little chat following their first lap tete a tete during the race in Shanghai, Bob builder of fast cars has turned his attention to the bigger F1 picture. With the ‘support’ of one Mr. Bernard Charles Ecclestone, the assistant principal of the … Read more

Daily News and Comment: Monday 15th April 2013

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This page will be updated throughout the day Bahrain explosions I am expecting some big differences of opinion amongst us this week on this matter and that is good. Yet let’s respect each other’s opinions because I see here a growing group of people who debate incredibly well and expose most angles of any subject … Read more

Daily News and Comment: Friday 12th April 2013

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This page will be updated later in the day Marussia woes In FP2 Max Chilton managed just 5 laps and stopped the car out on track. On returning to the pits he said, “In turn one I lost all propulsion so for safety reasons we have stopped. But maybe we can go out again”. The … Read more

F1 Forensics: Jenson claims he would have led in Sepang ~ True or False?

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I’m really excited to announce a TJ13 partnership with someone who has a brain the size of the planet and is a real life rocket scientist. Dr. James Beck will be collaborating with TJ13 to provide you with a technical analysis that I don’t believe can be found anywhere else. He has a model that … Read more

F1 Forensics: Slats and Vortex Generators

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F1 Forensics is brought to thejudge13 readers in partnership with SomersF1, Like most of us, Matthew Somerfield has a day job and his is being the manager of a car & van rental company in the Isle of Wight.

His passion is to try and bring us non-techies closer to F1 by bridging the gap between the full blown engineering publications and the simplicity of much that is provided by TV.

Ask Somers anything you want in the comments section. He’s part of the crew now and hang’s out here regularly.

And now over to Somers…

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Just days left for HRT, Post race bits, TV ratings, In depth analysis called for by Luca, Bernie’s days numbered, Vettel and the yellow light

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Following a slightly different type of race review – I did feel I little etherial when writing it – here’s a few bits and pieces of post race stuff to tidy up.

Post race bits and pieces

Alonso: I allude in the ‘epitaph’ in the race review my disappointment with both title contenders for their points scoring efforts after the race. Alonso,  “With a car that is slower than the others we can win a championship, with a car that is the same as the others we can win the championship with some races to go and with a car that is a lot slower than the others we fought until the last race”. If’s, buts and maybe’s don’t cut the mustard and it is not worthy of you Fernando to give us this spiel.

I just listened to that interview again and Alonso actually says, “With a kart that is…”, not quite the Prost reference to a ‘truck’ but not far away.

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Pre Race Review Brazil 2012: Red Bull, “Business as usual” – nonesense.

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Last race decider – again

Here we are again. A championship decider showdown in Interlagos once again. 2007,08 and 09 were the last 3 times the title was decided here because in 2010 the final race was in Abu Dhabi and in 2011 we had Sebastian and Red Bull doing a Michael and Ferrari impression and running away with the titles long before the seasons finale.

Interlagos is like Spa, a place where the weather is highly erratic. Unlike Spa, it is often much more violent and staccato in the way it can punctuate a session and be done in a very short while. A good example of this was qualifying yesterday when before the session it when very dark – rained – and by the end of the session bright sunshine was re-instated.

For all Vetell’s words of assurance that the approach to this weekend is the same as any other, I’m not buying it. Alonso has clearly had nothing to lose for a while and his driving has demonstrated this. We all expected levels of grip for the race Austin to be similar to ice racing, and many expected a huge turn 1 incident with the cars also running on cold tyres. Yet Alonso chose to go around the outside, the most dangerous place to  bring there were cars sliding everywhere.

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