Monthly Archives: November 2012

HRT has taken the unusual step of confirming on its website that the team is up for sale and that negotiations are ongoing.

Thesan Capital, who bought the team only last season and has since moved it to Madrid, has been looking for investment for some time.

The statement said: “The current owners of HRT Formula 1 Team, TC II S.a.rl., would like to confirm that they are currently in talks with a number of groups interested in buying the team. HRT Formula 1 Team’s current management hopes to conclude the sale in the upcoming weeks and, with it, enable the team to continue progressing and become a reference in modern-day Formula 1 after the important achievements already accomplished in this 2012 season. HRT Formula 1 Team hopes to communicate the name of its new owner in the upcoming weeks.

“We believe the moment to let new investors come through for HRT Formula 1 Team has arrived. We’re very proud of the work done by the entire team and of the excellent sporting evolution achieved but the time has come for the team to continue growing with new financial backing. We’re convinced that the sporting potential of the team is huge and that the presence of new investors can give it a big boost.”

Pedro de la Rosa has a contract for 2013, but the second seat reamins up for grabs.

Something familiar about that helmet… Cheever in the F60 today

Italian F3 racer Eddie Cheever had his first F1 experience at the wheel of a Ferrari F60 at Vallelunga today.

Also driving the 2010 car was the 19-year-old Cheever’s series rival Riccardo Agostini, and EuroSeries F3 champion Daniel Juncadella.

Cheever’s test, arranged by the Italian sporting authority ACI, came some 35 years after his famous father had a run in a Ferrari 312T2.

“At the beginning I was a bit nervous, this is a once in a lifetime experience,” said Cheever. “I hope this can happen more than once actually, but doing it once is already quite a lot for a driver. The initial excitement being gone I started to understand better the car and I managed to express my driving in the best way.”

Agostini noted: “It has certainly been a positive experience and I am quite happy about how things went. The approach to the Ferrari has been very good and I found myself at ease with engineers and with their work method.”

Pastor Maldonado insists that he could have finished as high as second in Abu Dhabi, had he not been hampered by a KERS problem.

The Venezuelan, who also survived a brush with Mark Webber that sent the Aussie into a spin, eventually finished fifth. It was his first top six finish in F1 other than his Barcelona victory.

“We had a problem with the KERS after the safety car,” he told this blog. “The pace was fantastic, but without KERS, it was impossible. Apart from that you have two DRS zones, so it was impossible to fight without it. But I recovered the race and I managed to open the gap against Kobayashi.

“I was quite worried about that, because there was another safety car, and I thought I would get passed by everyone. But I managed to open the gap again and do a very strong pace in the last stint, even without the KERS and with some small gearbox problem.

“I’m very disappointed, we missed a good podium because the car was so competitive. It was an easy second for us, because Fernando was already behind us and our pace was much stronger than Ferrari, for sure.”

Regarding the clash with Webber, he said: “He closed my line. I was on the inside of the corner, and maybe if he stayed on the outside he would get the position from me. But he tried to close my line. I’m disappointed for him because he was doing quite a good race, and maybe he didn’t look for me on the inside.”

Cyril Abiteboul, who became CEO of Caterham F1 in September, has been promoted to the role of team principal.

The former Renault man replaces team founder Tony Fernandes, who is focussing on the Caterham Group and his other businesses.

Fernandes said: “The strategy for the establishment and growth of Caterham Group has now reached the stage where we can step back from the day to day running of the F1 team in favour of Cyril who will be able to dedicate himself full time to the role and work closely with Riad [Asmat] to help take our automotive interests into the next stage of their growth.

“[Cyril] has extensive experience in F1, he is extremely well respected and he shares our vision for what we want our team to achieve. He takes over during a season when we have not yet fulfilled our potential, but at a time when we have everything in place to help us do so. One day we will earn our seat at the top table of Formula 1, and he is the right person to take us there.”

Cyril Abiteboul added: “We have big challenges ahead of us but the shareholders are committed and behind us to help us take significant steps forward over the coming years, and one day challenge for the highest honours in F1.”

Christian Horner says that Red Bull Racing has to go to the penultimate race Austin in aggressive mode in order to secure the World Championship for Sebastian Vettel

From his pit lane start Vettel managed to charge into third place in Abu Dhabi, just behind his title rival. Horner admits he was relieved to lose only three points to Fernando Alonso, having feared that the damage might have been a lot worse.

“We know how consistent Fernando has been this year,” said Horner after the Abu Dhabi race. “And it was entirely predictable that starting sixth on the grid he was going to be on the podium.

“And so you had mentally got an image of him taking between 15 and 25 points out of us today, so to limit that damage to only three and finish behind him is a remarkable recovery. A great drive by Sebastian. Anybody that doubted that he’s a racer, I think he’s showed world class today.”

Although he remains cautious regarding Vettel’s title prospects Horner concedes that the constructors’ title is almost in the bag.

“There’s 50 available, we go in plus 10,” he said of Vettel’s prospects in Austin. “The constructors’ is looking great, hopefully we can score five points over the next two races, but with the drivers as we’ve seen this weekend when you’re on the edge, things can go wrong.

“We can’t take anything for granted, we’ve got to go to Austin and attack the weekend. It’s a new track for everybody, and we’ve got to go there and get a good result.”

Lotus F1 boss Eric Boullier says that Kimi Raikkonen’s victory in Abu Dhabi shows that the team is now capable of competing with major rivals, despite it having limited resources relative to the established frontrunners.

In addition the result won’t hurt the team’s chances of finding crucial extra funding.

“It means that during the season we can keep fighting and keep being efficient in the development race,” said Boullier. “It’s good to see that our car today was matching the pace and being fastest on track, or nearly the fastest one. And it’s it good to see what we produce as a team. We can do it and we can compete with the big boys. That’s clearly a very good source of motivation and belief in the future.

“In the strategy we want to be a top team, I always said this. And to be a top team you have to keep pushing and keep gaining more results, more resources and obviously more sponsors to make sure we can establish ourselves.”

Asked by this writer about the importance of Kimi’s current third place in the championship, he said: “To be two races before the end of the season and having Kimi in third position is obviously great. It’s good for us, it’s good for Kimi, it’s good for F1.”

Boullier conceded that it was good to get the first win out of the way having missed some chances earlier in the season.

“When we you look back at the season we could say we were that close to do it, let’s do it next year. I have to say it’s a good relief to say it’s done!”

He didn’t rule out another win this season.

“For sure we will push to get the big points. We will push to get into the top five, and if there is an opportunity, we will take it.”

After a season punctuated by unreliability and mistakes Lewis Hamilton says that McLaren didn’t do a good enough job to win the 2012 World Championship

In Abu Dhabi Hamilton dropped out of the lead with a mechanical issue for the second time in five races.

“It’s not the easiest, because I’ve been doing my best this year,” said Hamilton. “It’s been a tough one, we’ve just had lots and lots of problems. Too many problems to be able to have won. We’ve not done a good enough job collectively to have won the championship.

“In actual fact this weekend we had the pace to get a one-two. I’m not really sure what Jenson was struggling with this weekend, but we had the strength in the car, the ability – the car was there this weekend. I think in the last four or five races we’ve had something fail on the car, even if we’ve finished the race, so it’s been a bit unfortunate.”

Hamilton said he was really happy with the performance of both the car and himself in Abu Dhabi.

“It wasn’t faultless, I did have a very wide moment at one stage. My brakes weren’t very well up to temperature, so I locked up into Turn 8. But after that it was going really well and the car was just a dream to drive at the time. I was cruising really, and I was pulling away.

“We had some kind of fuel issue where the car just stopped and died on me. But it was still a good weekend for me, I really enjoyed it. At the time it felt fantastic in the car, it’s a shame we couldn’t continue because I felt we were in with a good shot of a win. Nevertheless we have a couple of other opportunities.”

Hamilton remains positive about the last two races in the USA and Brazil: “We hadn’t brought any upgrades, we’ve hopefully got some upgrades coming to the next race. The guys have been working very hard. I really hope the car performs great in the next two races, so we can get back up there at the front and maybe finish a race up at the front for the very last time.

“It was a close one today, but I’m still very happy with the job I did. I couldn’t have done any more.”

Fernando Alonso kept his title challenge on track with a superb second place in Abu Dhabi, having started only sixth on the grid.

The Spaniard insisted that he wasn’t disappointed to have gained only three points on his title rival. Sebastian Vettel seemingly faced such an uphill struggle, and yet the German ultimately finished third, and remains 10 points clear.

“To be honest we were concentrating on our race,” said Alonso. “Our simulations we had gave us the possibility to finish fifth or sixth, so we were not very optimistic with today’s race, and despite what Sebastian was doing in the race we were taking eight, 10 points maximum in our simulations. So we concentrated on our race.

“He did a very good race, and he was able to use the performance in some of the parts of the race when he was in clean air, plus the safety cars that I think put the group all together. So at the end I think this is nothing we can do, we just need to concentrate on our race and if we finish in front of Sebastian in the next two races then maybe we have a chance. So that’s our concentration now.”

In the closing laps Alonso pulled away from the Vettel/Button battle and put pressure on leader Kimi Raikkonen.

“There was no more concerns about the tyres because obviously doing one stop you never know how the tyres will finish the race. And also after the last safety car we saw Sebastian with the soft, and the first three of us, we were with the prime, so we didn’t know how much a threat was Sebastian for fight until the last lap.

“So after they lost a little bit of time, Jenson and Sebastian, and we didn’t care anymore about the tyres, I pushed 150% for eight laps and I tried to catch Kimi but it was never enough to be within one second for the DRS to be even closer. So at the end we didn’t have the pace to win but fantastic race anyway.

“We didn’t have the pace this weekend in any practice, in qualifying seventh and ninth and then today we were fighting for a victory – surprising again. This is thanks to a perfect car for the race, a perfect start, perfect strategy, perfect pitstops so everything perfect Sunday for us, maximising what we have in hands.”

Alonso said that the latest update package had made a difference.

“I think it helped for sure because when we tested it on Friday, they gave us some performance but we are talking very few hundredths of advantage that for sure when you have a gap to close that is a couple of tenths, when you bring hundredths and your opponents bring also some new parts, I think more or less you are in the same position.

“So, we need to keep working and in Maranello they work day and night very hard to bring new parts. Here in the track, mechanics work 24 hours and we are doing our maximum and we sure that hopefully it will be enough.”

It was somehow appropriate that the first win of Kimi Raikkonen’s comeback season with Lotus came on the third anniversary of his final race for Ferrari in 2009.

Raikkonen jumped ahead of Pastor Maldonado and Mark Webber at the start, and gained the lead when Lewis Hamilton stopped on lap 20. The Finn holds a solid third place in the World Championship with two races to go.

“I’m very happy for the team,” said Raikkonen. “We have had hard times lately, and hopefully it gives some belief for the people.

“For everybody, hopefully it gives a bit more support and hope that things will turn around and be even better than it’s been this year. So, great thing for the team itself, for the guys and, I mean of course I’m happy myself, but if I win it’s great, if I don’t I will try again and it’s not the end of the life.

“We’ve been close few times but now I said that even the last race I think we had the speed to even win the race, but if you don’t start in the front, we see what can happen.

“We knew the start would be a really big key, and I got a really good start so I think with the McLaren we didn’t have the speed, at least in the beginning of the race – but then we have to finish the race to win. I mean after that we were pretty good. Just the safety cars made us a little bit trickier today.”

Kimi said the good start was crucial to his race.

“I think we’ve had some very good starts before, but compared to the others, today was a pretty normal start on our scale. I managed to pass Mark and Maldonado before I changed into second gear.

“I’d had a very good start on the warm-up lap so I knew this was going to be good. That was our aim, to try to make a good start and we managed to do it, so it was key for our win today.”

Regarding recent exhaust updates he said: “It brings some pace, helps our straight line speed. So in average we gain some advantage but it’s exactly the same car we have in Korea. So we see how much even this year in all the races some circuits suits better for one team and the next one is not so good for you.

“We had good speed last race as I’ve already said. We made some mistakes in qualifying and paid the price in the race. So now we put all together like we should have done quite a few times this year but for one reason or another we haven’t. But at least we’ve got one win so we’ll keep try to push still and see what we can do in the next race.”

The FIA Stewards did not punish Sebastian Vettel for stopping on track after qualifying because they believed Red Bull and Renault’s assertion that carrying on could have led to problems such as engine damage.

However the force majeure issue was a moot point as only 0.850 of the required litre for the fuel sample was left in the tank, so he was penalised for that instead – a little like getting Al Capone for tax evasion…

The Renault engineers had spotted dropping fuel pressure and, according to sources, the message to stop was passed to Vettel’s engineer after some 15 seconds.

After hearing the argument and seeing the data the stewards accepted as force majeure that the drop in fuel pressure could have caused problems as the last dregs of fuel went through the system.

However rivals teams are somewhat sceptical about that, and given the fact that cars are routinely run dry in testing without any concerns, it would seem to be an unusual argument.

The team also insisted that it believed that sufficient fuel was still in the car, but the FIA rules are simple – if it can’t be pumped out for any reason it doesn’t matter whether it’s there or not.

Even if he had stopped a few corners earlier and had a more than a litre in the tank the FIA would have decreed that he would not have had enough on board to get back to the pits under his own power and still have enough for the sample.

Such samples are taken at random, so there is a good possibility that had Vettel driven back and drawn attention to himself the FIA might never have discovered that he had so little in the tank.

One team told me today that they have a plan in place and if they are running low they would simply get the car back to the pits and argue about the sample size later, if indeed it comes under scrutiny at all.

That begs the question to what degree the decision to stop Vettel was influenced by concerns about the sample size, rather than any genuine technical worries – did the Renault engineer panic about the sample and flag it up as a reason to stop, thinking he was doing the right thing? And did it all happen so quickly that the team did not have time to think it through?

In other words had the team rolled the dice and not told him to stop, Vettel might still be starting from third…