Monthly Archives: September 2011

Lewis and Anthony Hamilton before the start in Italy

Lewis Hamilton admits that he opted not to criticise Michael Schumacher after the Italian GP because he thought it would be better not to court controversy by voicing a negative opinion.

In Monza Lewis carefully avoided questions about Schumacher’s tactics, although his body language made it pretty clear that he was not happy.

Given his occasionally difficult relationship with the press, it’s perhaps not surprising that he took that course.

“I was disappointed that I couldn’t do better in the race,” he said when asked by this blog if he had stayed quiet tried to avoid trouble. “I just kept my mouth shut. It’s done me a lot of good, I’ve been relaxed for the last couple of weeks, I haven’t had too many problems!”

Pressed on whether that was now a deliberate policy, Lewis added: “You [the media] are constantly asking me what lessons I’ve learned, and that was one lesson I was able to apply that day.

“I’m very, very passionate, and I think I’m very open and very blunt with the things that I say, and I’m not scared to say what I feel. But it can be used against me. So I just won’t… And at that time I was able to control myself, and that’s what life is about, being in control.”

Asked how difficult it was to do that, Lewis said: “If someone punches you in the face, how hard is it not to punch back? When you’re at school, unless you’re scared, it’s hard for you to hold back and stay in control.”

Meanwhile Lewis said he wasn’t frustrated that the championship battle is all but over.

“It’s not frustrating at all. It’s sad that the season may be over this weekend for us as a team. We would love to be leading both championships, that’s what we’ve all worked for throughout the year, but that’s not the way it is, and we need to do a better job next year.”

Hamilton also paid a tribute to Sebastian Vettel: “I think he’s driven exceptionally this year. He’s really driven very, very well. He’s finished first or second in all the races apart from one. Massively consistent, massively well controlled, his persona, his attitude, has been very professional. He’s made very few mistakes.”

Fernando Alonso has reiterated that he has given up on the 2011 title, but wants to win more races before the end of the season.

The Spaniard, who won in controversial circumstances in 2008, says that Singapore could be one of his best chances.

“We will try to attack, try to be aggressive with the strategies and the starts, try to win races,” said Alonso. “We know that we cannot fight for the general classification, we know that we cannot fight for the Tour de France, but we want to win individual stages. So we want to win individual races.

“Here in Singapore it’s true it’s one of our best opportunities in the remaining races, because the characteristics of the circuit are similar to Monte Carlo, we were quite competitive there, and we have soft and supersoft tyres, and that is normally the combination that we like most.

“It should be a good weekend us, but a victory is never easy, or is never close enough when we are fighting with Red Bull and McLaren. It’s going to be tough, but hopefully closer than some other races.”

Comparing Singapore with Monaco, Alonso added: “Driving technique, it’s a combination between Monte Carlo and a normal circuit, because Monte Carlo is very extreme, very low speed corners, and the way you drive there is a little bit more crazy in a way.

“Here you need to be for sure very precise and close to the walls, and at the same time there is a little bit of room to take care of the tyres, and a little bit of strategy etc, because it’s a wide circuit, and quite a good street circuit.”

Adrian Sutil says there is no news on his plans for 2012, and the German denies suggestions that he has visited Williams with a view to landing a seat at the Grove team.

“No developments, just rumours,” said Sutil. “I didn’t go there and I have no contact with them.

“I have to see. At the moment it’s difficult to say where is possible. The team is very good here, it’s doing a good performance. I’ve known the team for a long time, so whatever I do, I have to think twice, if it’s a good step. The top teams are closed anyway, the top four. Maybe there’s no reason to change really. I’m just concentrated on my racing and we’ll see where it goes. No plans.”

Force India has indicated that it won’t make a decision until December: “It’s pretty late, not easy, but maybe I have no other chance really! We have to wait.

“I have to be fast, and score some points, and then hopefully it’s enough for them to say yeah, he deserves another year with us or not. I think if I do my races as I can, as good as possible, then I will get a seat.”

Meanwhile Force India is focussed on beating Sauber to sixth place in the championship.

“I think it’s tight, we have to push on. I don’t know whether Sauber is putting some upgrades on the car and trying to improve their performance, but I think we have a better car, especially in qualifying. They are quite strong in the races still, so it all equals out a little bit. We have no reason to relax.”

Colin Kolles has confirmed that Narain Karthikeyan will return to the HRT cockpit for his home race in Delhi.

While that has been the plan all along – the Red Bull/Daniel Ricciardo deal did not include the Indian GP – commercial considerations also had to be addressed.

That issue now appears to have been resolved, and Karthikeyan will drive in FP1 in Singapore in order to get some more mileage.

“It is great to have Narain back in the car as it will give him critical seat time before he drives at the Indian GP,” said Kolles in a team statement. “He is the best driver to come out of the region and is undoubtedly extremely talented as he has proved through his progress this season.”

“Of course it’s a great feeling to be driving on a Grand Prix weekend once again, and on the subject of my home Grand Prix of India, the team had assured me that I’d be driving when I stepped out of my seat after the European GP,” said Karthikeyan.

“The Singapore circuit will definitely be a challenge as it is new to me so I’ll have to get to grips with it fairly quickly.

“Overall, it is a great place to return to race proceedings, and will go a long way to get me back in the rhythm for the Indian GP.”

Sergio Perez appears to have impressed Ferrari on his first test in a Maranello car at Fiorano today, and has probably done his chances of landing a race seat in 2013 – or beyond – no harm at all.

Perez and Ferrari third driver Jules Bianchi both drove the 2009 F60 model today – which is allowed within the confines of the testing agreement – as part of their ongoing relationship with the Ferrari Driver Academy.

Perez completed 46 laps with a best time of 60.650s, while Bianchi did 70 laps, with a best of 60.213s, although not much can be learned from the times as they were running different prgrammes.

“This was a really special day for me,” said Perez. “I want to thank Ferrari for giving me this chance to improve and learn, given the limited number of testing opportunities during the year. Driving a Ferrari was a dream for me and it’s also important for my career, learning with a team like this and experiencing a different approach to the work.”

Regarding talk of a future at Maranello, Perez said: “I think there is room for me to do well where I am and that’s my current target. It’s impossible to say how things will go and my dream is to become World Champion and it would be nice if it could happen with a team like this one. I have got a lot out of this time with the Ferrari Driver Academy. The work on the simulator, the meetings with the engineers are all things that will help me over the rest of the season and in general in the future.”

“We did a lot of laps and once again it was a very useful experience for me,” said Bianchi. “These laps all count a lot towards the future I’d like to have in Formula 1. Now, I’m looking forward to the Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi and it will be very interesting to go from the 2009 car to the 2011 one, as it will be a good opportunity for me to try elements like DRS and KERS for the very first time.”

“Today, we followed two different programmes with Perez and Bianchi,” said Academy head and formerF1 engineer Luca Baldisserri. “Sergio impressed, despite this being his first time at the wheel of a Ferrari. He proved to be aggressive and quick right from the start and was able to adapt to the car in a very short space of time.

“He is very mature for his age, displaying an understanding that goes beyond the time he has spent driving single-seaters. With Bianchi, who has been with us since last year, we used a car fitted with special sensors to study the correlation between the car on track and the simulator: many of his laps were what I’d call ‘interlocutory’ because the main aim of them was to acquire data.”

Suggestions on Twitter yesterday that Sam Michael would be confirmed at McLaren today have been proved accurate as the Williams man is to become Sporting Director of the Woking team.

The team said today: “As Vodafone McLaren Mercedes’ Sporting Director, Sam will join the senior management team in addition to taking specific responsibility for the development and management of the team’s trackside operations. His vast experience and profound understanding of race operations will enhance the team’s on-track capability, adding significantly to its already impressive technical management strength-in-depth.”

“I’m extremely excited to be joining Vodafone McLaren Mercedes,” said Michael. “Being a racer my whole life, I know that McLaren is one of the all-time greats of Formula 1. I already know and respect many of the team’s senior technical management figures, and becoming a member of that excellent working unit was one of the prime attractions of this new position.

“Equally, for some time I’ve closely observed and greatly admired both Lewis and Jenson as grade-one drivers, and therefore regard it as an enormous privilege to be able to work with both of them.

“I’ve spent 11 seasons with WilliamsF1, have many fond memories, and truly wish them all the best. In the near future, however, I will become 100 per cent focused on Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, and will be aiming to ensure that the team’s famous rocket-red victory T-shirts will be seen many times over the coming years.”

Martin Whitmarsh added: “I’m very pleased to welcome Sam as an important senior addition to our race team. He’ll bring a very valuable blend of experience and expertise to our pitwall, and will also enrich the technical management we provide for our drivers.

“I’m certain he’ll work extremely well with our senior technical management team, which I firmly believe will now become the strongest in all of Formula 1.”

Well travelled F1 designer Jorg Zander was spotted with the HRT team at Monza, and the German is believed to have agreed to join the Spanish-owned outfit.

Zander has a busy CV after a series of moves between different teams. After gaining experience in Toyota road cars he first came into the sport working for Keke Rosberg’s DTM team, and he then joined the Toyota Le Mans project, before moving into F1 with the Japanese company.

He then switched to BAR in 2002. He became chief designer at Williams in late 2005, only to leave early the following year to join BMW Sauber in a similar role.

His stay with the Swiss team was again a short one, and he soon returned to the renamed Honda team in the role of deputy technical director, staying until the middle of the Brawn GP season in 2009. More recently has been working on the Audi LMP1 project, and thus he lives close to HRT’s German base.

Zander has previously worked with HRT engineering chief Jacky Eeckelaert.

As announced in July Sergio Perez will drive a two-year-old car at Fiorano this week as part of his involvement with the team’s young driver scheme.

Such running falls outside the testing agreement, and the Mexican will also have two days on the team’s simulator.

He’s widely regarded as a potential replacement for Felipe Massa in 2013, at which point he will have had two years of experience at Sauber. Intriguingly Stefano Domenicali gave Perez a big endorsement at Monza yesterday.

“As you know Sergio is part of our Driver Academy, and I think he is doing a great season,” said Domenicali. “It’s part of the training programme that we give the drivers who are part of the academy. It’s something that is related to his improvement, to his technical skill, to give him some laps with our cars and knowing better that situation.

“I think Sergio has a good chance of having a great career. He has started with a good, humble approach, and I saw him growing very much.”

Jules Bianchi will also drive the F60 on Thursday.

Lewis Hamilton was in a downbeat mood after finishing fourth in Monza, and carefully avoided making any negative comments about Michael Schumacher after the race.

Asked repeatedly by various international TV broadcasters about the battle, Hamilton was keen to avoid the subject, leading to awkward silences that don’t really come across in print.

A selection of the responses that he did give is as follows:

“It doesn’t make any difference. We had a good race and got some good points for the team.

“It was OK. I got past eventually, and I was able to finish ahead. He was faster on the straight even with my DRS.

“It was interesting being behind him, it was a real challenge to get past, but I think I did eventually, didn’t I, or at the pit stops? One of the two. But he was incredibly fast on the straights.”

It’s clear that on this occasion Lewis decided to avoid any controversy and keep his thoughts about the former World Champion’s driving private. While given his sometimes turbulent relationship with the media you might not blame him, he probably didn’t do himself too many favours with his approach today.

Speaking in more general terms about the race, he said: “It’s not a great result to be honest, I started second, and I fell back two places. I’m definitely not happy, but that’s motor racing. I’m happy that I finished and I got some points for the team, so that’s a good step.”

Regarding the safety car restart – which is where Schumacher got ahead – Hamilton admitted he’d made a mistake.

“Michael was on the outside of me, so I was looking at him in my mirrors, and then before I knew it, the guys had gone. I missed an opportunity to slipstream Sebastian, they caught me napping. But once I finally got past, I was able to chase down. I had fun chasing Fernando.”

While saying that he “highly doubted” that Vettel could lose the championship, Lewis said he still wanted to win races this year.

“I’m looking forward to the next couple of races when we go away overseas. It’s going to be exciting. We still have six races left. We’ll continue to push, and I hope that we’re able to at least get a couple more wins for the team.”

Fernando Alonso has acknowledged that the 2011 World Championship battle is over, despite the Ferrari driver still being mathematically in the hunt.

Alonso is now 112 points behind Sebastian Vettel, who needs a 125 point margin over his rivals to secure the title in Singapore with five races to run. Alonso says the job is now to hang on to his second place and go for race wins.

“Yeah, six races to go so obviously the championship is impossible,” said the Spaniard. “Not mathematically but we are no longer in contention, so we try to enjoy every race, we try to go for individual victories, also fighting for second place in the championship. It’s always better to finish second than fifth. I think I’m second today after Mark’s retirement, so I will try to get second place as I did last year.

“Of the races remaining I think Singapore is probably the best one for our car characteristics. In Monaco we were fine, we were second. The car was maybe not very competitive in that part of the year so now that the car is a little bit better, on a street circuit we should maybe perform well. I love the Singapore circuit so the next race will probably be it.”

Once again Ferrari struggled in the final stint on the prime tyre, as Alonso lost a place to Jenson Button and was nearly caught by Lewis Hamilton. However, he played down the issue.

“I think we cannot make a big thing about the medium tyre or our performance with different types of tyres. It’s just something that we need to improve and we need to be competitive with all types of tyres in all conditions. That’s not a particular problem but we were less competitive than Red Bull and McLaren.

“If we made a good start and found ourselves first, leading the race, that was not our real position, so sooner or later, with one tyre, with another tyre, on lap 15 or lap 45, they should overtake us, as they did and that’s the reality. It’s not a problem with one tyre or one pit stop or whatever.”