Alvin's Formula One Blog

The Singapore Grand Prix is a motor race on the calendar of the FIA Formula One World Championship. The event takes place in Singapore on the Marina Bay Street Circuit and was the inaugural F1 night race and the first street circuit in Asia. Spaniard Fernando Alonso won the first edition of the grand prix, driving for the Renault F1 team. The Singapore Grand Prix will remain on the F1 calendar through at least 2017, after race organizers signed a contract extension with Formula One Management on the eve of the 2012 event. The longest race in the F1 calendar at almost two hours, one of the hardest on brakes, with a 100% record of a safety car, a long slow pit stop and a choice of the softest tyres which cannot do the 308km marathon in one stop, the Singapore Grand Prix is always a strategy challenge. TRACK CHARACTERISTICS Track Length : 5.073 kilometres. Race Distance : 61 laps (309.316 kilometres). Corners : 23 corners in total. Aerodynamic Setup : High downforce. Top Speed :...

CONCLUSIONS FROM THE ITALIAN GP Original article HERE Pressure point, Monza magic, Nico's chances are slipping and more in our Conclusions From The Italian GP. Pressure Point At Spa all the talk was about a right-rear tyre, and at Monza it was all about a left-rear tyre. "No questions, just execute," were the words relayed to Lewis Hamilton. The Mercedes pitwall urged the Championship leader to pull out more of a gap over Sebastian Vettel in the closing stanza of the Italian Grand Prix but were reluctant to give their man a reason for the request. Hamilton duly won by around 25 seconds, but the nature of the messages suggests that Mercedes feared the repercussions of official sanction over a potential breach of the regulations. After the race Mercedes were indeed summoned by the stewards because Hamilton's left-rear tyre pressure was 0.3psi lower than the mandated minimum. Although Hamilton's 40th career victory was briefly at risk, the officials d...

The Autodromo Nazionale Monza is one of the most iconic racetracks on the Formula 1 calendar. It was built in 1922 and has staged more world championship grands prix than any other circuit in the world. Only once, in 1980, has the circuit not been on the F1 calendar. Up until the early ’60s, racing took place on a fearsome six-mile oval. But the death of Wolfgang von Trips and 15 spectators in the 1961 Italian Grand Prix resulted in future races taking place on a shorter road course, with the last true ‘slipstreaming’ battle taking place in 1971, after which chicanes were installed to slow the cars. The track is still the fastest in Formula 1, with today’s cars exceeding 200mph (322km/h) on four occasions around the lap. The average speed is in excess of 150mph (241km/h), so the teams use one-off low-downforce aerodynamic packages to maximise straight-line speed. However, braking stability is important: there are a total of six braking events around the lap and on two occasions t...