Alvin's Formula One Blog

A home for Lewis and Jensen. After all the ups and downs with Bernie and Donnington, Silverstone is back as the official venue of the British GP. And it will do so for the next ten years with an option to renew for another 7 years, provided Silverstone can afford Bernie's demands. I like Silverstone. Not just because of its rich racing history (it did kick off the current world championship in 1950) but the circuit layout although looks simple, is quite enjoyable to drive. It's fast, flowing and has a 4 apex chicane, kinda like Suzuka. Well, now that Silverstone is safe and will host this year's race, it has been freshened up with a new layout. According to Damon Hill, president of BRDC (British Racing Drivers Club) which owns Silverstone: ‘We think we have produced a racetrack of the future,’. It looks like it has the potential to be a real corker.’ I hope so too. Anyway, with the amount of top teams this year and the drivers challenging for the win, it will be. Have a lo...

Keith of F1Fanatic has as usual come up with an excellent analysis of the current team and drivers pecking order in F1 for this season so far. It seems the indications during winter testing has some accuracy to it although everybody says that we cannot take any times from testing seriously. From winter testing, everybody knows or have guessed that the top 4 teams would be Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes - not necessarily in that order. And they were right, so winter times does have some bearing, it's an indicator. And we have been proven right. So heading to Spain, we have the top 4 teams - Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes - hot on each other's heels with massive development waiting to make an impact. So here are the links to Keith's analysis: The pecking order as the teams ready their Barcelona performance upgrades Jenson Button form guide Lewis Hamilton form guide On the side, it's worth mentioning that although it seems that Button has out qualified...

What a race! Again it has been proven that rain does make a good show even better . And what a confusion at the start as the rain started during the warm up lap. I was and still am confused who started on what tyres and the consequence of that. Finally a McLaren 1-2. They deserved it after all the speed they displayed during practice and qualifying, even though Q3 sucked for them. The win was exceptional because of the 2 different strategies employed by Button and Lewis. Lewis as usual displayed his skill and determination by carving up the field from P6. He chased and overtook everybody on his way to P2. I especially enjoyed his tussle with Schumacher. Schumacher displayed some skill in defending and re-overtaking his position from Lewis but finally it shows how tired he was and how low was his killer instinct when Lewis re-took the position and flew away. Also, worth mentioning was the fact that the Mercedes was no match for the McLaren, a fact demonstrated again when Lewis took Rosb...

To put things in perspective just requires one word - disappointment. It was a disappointment watching McLaren during today's qualifying because as strong as the Red Bulls are, McLaren has so much promise leading both FP1 and FP2 plus topping Q1 and Q2. What happened in Q3? Lewis should have taken pole but was pushed back to 6th. I could understand if it was P2 but P6? "It was quite easy to be up the front. The car started bottoming a lot more in Q3 but I don't know whether that's had anything to do with the balance of the car, but I just had no more time in the car. The car was sliding a lot more. "In Q1 and Q2 the car was even better and I really don't understand what was wrong with the car in Q3 but I wasn't able to get any more time out of it. "That was me on the limit so I don't know where the time is. We have to go and analyse it and try and find it, but I'm sure tomorrow will be a good race." McLaren need to seriously up th...

Lewis Hamilton has said that he is enjoying driving this year and enjoying the car. I agree. look at both his inspired driving at Melbourne and Sepang. Normally I would be devastated when he does not get a good qualifying position but nowadays I just stay cool when it happens. I'm cool because I know the race will be exciting as Lewis will be carving his way through the field and overtaking like mad. And he did it at both races. His driving was incredible, inspiring and full of action. That is the kind of action that I want to see as an F1 fan. But sadly, most races these days are just a procession. A reverse grid would spice things up but not practical to implement. Anyway, lets hope the rest of the season is just as exciting and that Lewis gets a chance to start from pole and blazes his way tom the win more often.

India will be hosting a round of the F1 world championship in 2011 (postponed from 2010 as they had to host some Commonwealth games). That should be an exciting race as it will be in a country of 1.3 billion people who are starting to support F1 and the fact that there is an Indian team and an Indian driver in the mix would stir up interest. What's more important though is the track itself. Would it provide an interesting race and would it be exciting to drive? Well, here is the proposed layout of the new track . It looks simple enough with some interesting elevations but don't expect much as it is another Tilke creation. Hopefully we can download the track to our simulator and give it a go soon. So what do you think?

We have seen during the last 2 race weekends how a top team like McLaren and Ferrari can make mistakes in qualifying and therefore put their drivers in a difficult position. Lewis Hamilton started the race in Melbourne 11th and 20th in Malaysia. After the last 2 races, it is quite obvious that the thing to do during qualifying is to do banker laps everytime a qualifying session starts . Which means that no matter what the radar or technology says, just go out and set the best time possible as soon as possible. Martin Whitmarsh had this to say about their recent qualifying form : "We have learned lessons. The primary one is that in Q1 we are not racing Ferrari or the other big boys, we just need to get through to Q2 and cover the slow cars in those changeable conditions." Exactly. That is why a banker lap needs to be done as soon as the session turns green. This is especially important when it is raining or when the weather is not so good. I hope McLaren learns this lesson w...

The 2010 Malaysian F1 GP is over and what a race . For once, the race at Sepang was exciting and it happened without rain. It was supposed to rain, Friday practice was wet and so was qualifying. In fact, qualifying was so bad that Alonso, Massa and Lewis were relegated to 19th, 20th and 21st. But I knew that Lewis being behind would be good for the race because he'll be carving his way up the field like in Melbourne the week before. I especially enjoyed the start where Lewis jumped as much as 7 cars in the first lap alone, I think it was at the first turn alone. And he kept on overtaking cars, on the inside and outside of turns until he was at one point 2nd, up 18 from 20th. His tyres lasted more than 30 laps before he changed to the soft options. Button on the other hand pitted early, probably another one of his gamble which didn't really pay off. In fact, this race showed that Button is not really world champion material but last year he was helped by the car. He had Massa be...