Hamilton and Button testing out the new Mclaren MP4-12C supercar

Ahh yes, the McLaren MP4-12C. What a car if there ever was one. It is the essence of Formula 1 and McLaren rolled into one tight little package. It looks the part too. If I ever had the chance to buy a supercar (and I'm sure I will in the not too distant future), this is the car i would have. And make that in that lovely orange shade please.

Here is a video of the two McLaren f1 drivers putting the MP4-12C through its paces at Goodwood. Makes me wanna cum.

Hamilton and Button testing out the new Mclaren MP4-12C supercar

TURKISH GP 2010

What a race. With everybody expecting a boring race, it turned out otherwise. Quite an entertaining and edge of your seat race I must say.

The start was good and clean. Lewis lost a position to Vettel because he was on the dirty side of the grid, so did Button to Schumacher. I was worried that Button wouldn't have the balls to take back the position and would just sit behind Schumacher for 50 laps but he proved me wrong by taking back the place further down the road.

On the whole, the whole race was worth watching as there were battles up and down the order. The most interesting part was the battle between the Red Bulls and the McLarens. It seems to me that McLaren has caught up with Red Bull on race pace as the four of them were trading fastest lap times and fastest sector times all the time.

I'm happy to note that McLaren have found the pace to close to Red Bull and that their reliability is so much better. Now all they need is to do better in qualifying and to improve their pit work. Lewis could have overtaken Webber in the pits if not for a slow pitstop which put him behind Vettel. Although that didn't matter as the 2 Red Bulls clashed afterwards.

Talking about that clash, it seemed strange that Vettel seems to have run into Webber. He was faster at that point, that's why he could put his car right next to Webber's and there was a left turn coming up, so it didn't make sense for him to run into Webber. Unless, Vettel needed the space to turn left and Webber didn't give any. Webber did say that he was holding the racing line. But according to team principal Horner, it was a bit of both but ultimately both drivers lost their heads at the time.

A shame but a good result for the McLarens. Although to be fair, winning by a gift like this does take the shine away. To be honest, as fast as the McLarens were, they could not challenged the Red Bulls for the win outright. If not for the crash, Lewis would have finished P3 and he admitted as much.

"..winning today doesn't feel quite as good as it sometimes does. That's because it's a little bit different from some of my previous race victories: ideally, the racer in me wants to win by overtaking the guys in front, not by seeing them crash out in front of me. Rather than inheriting a win, it's much nicer to fight your way past your rivals and earn the win the hard way."

I so agree with him on this point. Winning the hard way is always better. You wouldn't hear such humbleness from Alonso.

HOW AN F1 STEERING WHEEL WORKS

After watching the Monaco GP and seeing how Rubens Barichello threw out his steering wheel (which incidentally costs anywhere between USD20,000 to USD40,000), I was also wondering how these things work with all the controls crammed in there.

James Allen has a very good video and some explanation on this here, and here is the Youtube video explaining how it works.

SPANISH GP RACE 2010

Well, there's not much to say about it. The race was not as boring as it was supposed to be with a good start. Surprising no major first turn crash too. The Red Bulls that were so invincible were split by Lewis and he stayed on Mark Webber's tail for the whole race, matching Webber for pace. Even Vettel couldn't really chase the two.

The really crappy part was that in the penultimate lap, Lewis' tyres or rims blew up and he didn't finish the race and lost a load of points. After 64 laps of incredible performance, that kind of incident really deflates your enthusiasm.

Now just looking forward to the next race in Monaco where it could be even more exciting or frustrating depending on how the weather turns out and how the 6 backmarkers spoils the qualifying.

SPANISH GP QUALIFYING 2010

Again it was an electrifying session with the Red Bulls miles ahead of everybody. Sebastian Vettel was a shoe in for pole from his performances in practice, Q1 and Q2. He also did an incredible lap with an incredible time but was ultimately beaten by his teammate Webber. Webber did a 1.19.xxx to beat Vettel, a time which Vettel could not replicate earlier.

The McLarens were also up there with Lewis slotting in P3. It would seem normal but a look at the time difference to Vettel reveals a worrying trend. Lewis was almost a full second behind. The power of the Red Bulls are undeniable. Button is P5 with a slight mistake but Alonso managed to sneak in at P4. Massa meanwhile disappointed with P9. Seems since Alonso arrived at Ferrari, Massa has been relegated to the dust heap and the worst part is he's not even lifting a finger about it.

Mercedes is doing better with their new longer wheelbase car. Schumacher is at P6 while Rosberg P8. It seems that Schumacher is back with his control over the team where he has successfully ordered changes to the car to suit himself at the cost of Rosberg. Rosberg did warn us before this race that Schumi won't stay down for long. Now I see what he meant. Perhaps Rosberg has more to talk about to Barichello now.

The best of the newcomers - Lotus, has improved as they said and it shows. Although they are still about 4 seconds behind the leaders (not much change there), they have pulled away from Virgin by about 1 second, which is a great improvement. They are also closer to the midfield now and maybe they can catch them soon.

But the best of the rest goes to Kamui Kobayashi with his "burger" banzai lap that got him into Q2 and Q3 while his teammate Pedro didn't quite like the taste of burger patties. Kobayashi muscled his car with the new updates and Burger King logos into P6 a couple of times but it shows that it is not ready enough to take on the big boys in Q3 when he finished P10. But perhaps Sauber didn't want to use up tyres in that session and saved them for the race. We'll see.

Whatever it is, the race is gonna be a cracker. And if the weather predictions come true, the it will be even better. The Bulls might have some trouble then and Lewis will overhaul them and the rest of the field will be really messed up. Bring it on.

SPANISH GP 2010 PRACTICE NOTES

Well, the 2 Friday practice are over and it seems that the top teams are still the top teams. McLaren controlled FP1 with Lewis Hamilton setting the fastest time. Red Bull took FP2 with Vettel setting the fastest time. But the most interesting thing is that in both free practice, Michael Schumacher took P3 ahead of Nico Rosberg.

Schumacher seems to improve with the new longer wheelbase car. He said:

"It's not about confidence, it's simply that the car goes where I want it to go and I don't have to wait too long to go to this point.

"The clear trend is there. We have improved certainly, I have more ability to work the car to my needs, that's what it is, that's what I look for. The team has reacted very good, and now we look forward to make the best out of this.

So I'm feeling a lot more confident in what the car is doing to me. Again it sort of confirmed that China, whatever glitch it was, but something didn't work out for whatever reason, and that works back to a more normal situation."

Hmm. Seems that there was something wrong with the car in China. Funny how that didn't affect Rosberg much. But now with this new car, Rosberg is affected as he finished P6 in FP1 and P7 in FP2. So it seems that Mercedes will sacrifice Rosberg to please His High-Cheating-Ness. Good luck Rosberg, I hope Rosberg will still kick Schumachers ass.

Meanwhile, Lotus who promised a 2 second improvement when they came to Spain did improve. They seem to have a 1 second advantage over Virgin and are edging closer to the middle pack. But their gap to the front of the field is still the same 4 seconds since Malaysia. Probably because the top 4 teams have found another 1 to 2 seconds in Barcelona anyway. At least Trulli is happy.

And Ferrari has fully tested a better F-duct at Barcelona and would probably keep it until the race. It doesn't seem to work much or maybe the 2 drivers are quite used to it yet. Whatever it is, Alonso is scared of the Red Bull's pace and he might not be able to catch them if the race is dry.