Alvin's Formula One Blog

This article is written by Maurice Hamilton and published on ESPNF1.com The Korean Grand Prix is a strange one. It got off to an unusual start when I spent my first night in an Irish bar having Guinness and a hamburger while playing darts with David Croft (then of BBC Radio 5 Live but later having to abandon his West Ham shirt and dress properly following a switch to television and more first-rate commentary with SkySportsF1). This was in Seoul, a buzzy city that reminded us of Tokyo, but with about a million less people on the sidewalks. We should have enjoyed the evening more because it was to seem like our last link with a perfectly civilised country before heading into the back of beyond. Not that you would know it during a three-hour train ride that was not only comfortable and reasonably priced but also had the benefit of Wi-Fi throughout the journey - well, most of it, the tunnels in the vicinity of Seoul causing a few disconnects mid-Tweet. The truth of this journey be...

Didn't I say it would be bonkers ? It was a great race even if a little boring in the middle but not without lots of overtaking. Hulkenberg failed to live up to some bloated expectations, we were expecting him to be overtaken easily at the start but he managed to hold back Alonso for a while. What was worse (or better), he managed to hold back Lewis for a lot of laps. Lewis had to wait for the pitstops just to get ahead. Which says something about the McLaren. It just can't match the Red Bulls and Ferrari on any pace anywhere now. Seems like bye bye championship for Lewis. The constructors has been lost to Red Bull already. Congrats to Red Bull by the way. So now we look forward to a battle royale at the season finale in Abu Dhabi this weekend. A lot can happen and it will be interesting to see how Vettel and Webber handle this race . It is still amazing to see Alonso's signle minded approach and his self belief and confidence. Incredible. If he wins the WDC this year I sal...

The penultimate race of a bonkers season is upon us this weekend. And what a season with ups and downs for everybody and changes of leads for both championships occurring almost at every other race. Right now, the championship is as tight as it can get with 4 drivers reasonably able to snatch the championship at any given moment. Alonso, Webber, Hamilton and Vettel - Button is out as it would be impossible to imagine the 4 others having a DNF this race. Vettel is not looking too either and could be out after this race with 25 point deficit to the top plus his ability to self destruct especially under pressure. I'd put my money on either Alonso or Webber but my personal preference would be Hamilton. I'm not sure how he's gonna do it but McLaren have to get their act together from this race onwards and Hamilton will for sure be wringing that car's neck to the podium. On top of all that, Brazil with it's unique layout and weather will surely present one of the most ex...

The next race in this ever exciting season will be held at Suzuka, Japan this weekend. Suzuka is another of those classic circuits that everyone loves. Everybody likes it because it hasn't been touched by Tilke and it was designed in the 70s. It is very demanding and fun to drive, even on a simulator. This race is important because it will decide the balance of power until the end of the season. Another reason it could be extra exciting is because it might rain . Both races in Japan, either at Suzuka or Fuji has always had the threat of rain and cold weather. But Suzuka this year is predicted to rain on Saturday but not on Sunday, therefore potentially disrupting the usual suspects up front. The final sprint to the championshiop this year is still between 5 drivers and 3 teams, sadly for Massa though. Red Bull and Ferrari stand as favorites up front with McLaren trailing in 3rd, although they will never admit to that. I'm also hoping that is not the case and hoping that they br...

The FIA has published a provisional grid for Sunday's race following the penalties dished out to Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Timo Glock and Sebastien Buemi after qualifying. Pos Driver Team 1. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 3. Robert Kubica Renault 4. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 5. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 6. Felipe Massa Ferrari 7. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 8. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 9. Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 10. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 11. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 12. Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 13. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 14. Nico Rosberg Mercedes * 15. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 16. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari ** 17. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 18. Bruno Senna HRT-Coswort...

Wow, it has been months since I wrote. I can't believe how busy I've been. And the 3 week break didn't help either. Finally, it is over and we are back in business. The first race after the break couldn't be at a better track than Spa-Francorchamps. And the first qualifying session after such a long break couldn't get any better as Spa served up an intense qualifying which looked like a race from Q1. This was of course courtesy of the unpredictable weather in the micro-climate of the Ardennes. Everybody was saying how strong Ferrari would be, how tough it would be for Red Bull and how much of an advantage McLaren have with their f-duct on the long straights of Spa. In the end, it turned out pretty mixed. Q1 was chaos as it rained a bit and a couple of spins plus the crash from Petrov which caused a red flag made sure of that. After the session was restarted, it started to rain so everybody was in rush to set a banker lap as they knew how unpredictable Spa can be. T...

It was supposed to be a great race , with Formula 1 not returning to Hockenheim for the last 2 years. The track looked great and is great to drive as well. The championship is shaping up nicely with Red Bull the strong car at every track but McLaren able to reel them in at every opportunity and Ferrari trying to make a comeback. The last 2 races gave a suspicion that Ferrari got something right but didn't manage to show the potential because of their own mistakes. This race was where they were supposed to show their upgrades had worked. It showed in free practices and Qualifying. The raw pace of the Ferrari was beginning to match Red Bull and leave McLaren in the dust. That set up a nice race where anything can happen and raw pace would be tested to the fullest. Ferrari had the chance to show their comeback strength and claim a win or a 1-2 in glorious fashion. But instead they chose to show us how low they would go just to entertain someone's ego. The team orders they issued, ...

It seems the controversy over the Valencia race has not died down. How can it be extinguished with comments coming out Maranello and Alonso that they were cheated, the race was manipulated and the sort. Alonso even said that a bottle thrown onto the track was the response from angry fans, angry at the cheating done by Lewis Hamilton. There have been loads of commentary and discussions and comments by everybody. The funniest thing so far was that Ferrari in trying to denounce the FIA and McLaren and Lewis Hamilton, has even used comments from their fans on their forums as "proof". Hahahahahahahahaaa.. As for Alonso, I think he still has 2007 stuck in his mind. He needs to grow up and move on. Comments from forumers make sense such as this one: If the race wasn’t ‘manipulated’, how about a penalty (race ban?) for Alonso bringing the sport into disrepute? This is standard procedure in any sport. I also think his comments regarding the ‘justified anger’ of the fans at Valenc...

First of all, apologies for not writing as much as I could. I'm really tied up nowadays with work and my new business venture - P1 Motorsports Hospitality. We are into bringing motorsport fans to attend their favorite F1 or MotoGP events here in Malaysia (and hopefully in other parts of the world soon) in a comfortable setting but more importantly, motorsport focused. No typical tours here. We eat, sleep and breathe motorsports. Well, on to the Valencia GP . It was thought to be another boring featureless race even with all the new upgrades teams brought with them. And going by the performance during FP1, FP2 and FP3, it was still undecided which team had the real advantage. As it turned out, Red Bull who were written off at Valencia still had the advantage. Red Bull secured another qualifying 1-2 with Lewis Hamilton managing to hold on to P3. The race start was really edge of your seat stuff as Hamilton overtook Webber and went straight for Vettel's jugular. Almost had him too...

The Canadian GP is always tiring as on this side of the world, qualifying is at 1am. And the race is at midnight but it's a good thing I'm off on Monday. These few days have been great with the Canadian GP on with Le Mans at the same time and the World Cup in full swing. But this morning after waking up at 1am, groggy and sleepy, I immediately came to my senses as the circuit Gilles Villeneuve came alive with the sounds of the glorious V8. It was an exciting and glorious qualifying session after 2 years missing from the action. The McLarens and Red Bulls were on the pace as expected with Ferrari showing some pace after the disastrous outing in Turkey. I expected them to come back as this race was using the super soft tyres. The action was fast and furious with Lewis taking command of the circuit and taking pole off Webber on his last flying lap which was set with 8 seconds remaining on the clock. It was one of those classic poles as everybody had run out of time and him being...

Well, the Canadian GP at Montreal is back . I'm glad it's back as Montreal is a very nice and fun circuit to drive, even though it looks simple and boring. It's very fast as it has a lot of long straights punctuated by chicanes. Plus the races here is always not processions as there's always something going on up and down the track. And it's raining there now. The Bulls still look good for a strong performance here, as they are everywhere. But at least we can hope for a strong fight from McLaren, whose F-Duct will definitely give them a big advantage as Montreal is just full of straights. Also in their favour is the fact that the Bulls are strong in fast corners but Montreal has not much fast corners. I'm also looking forward to Robert Kubica making some sort of upset here as he has been good at this track. Even though he had a very serious crash here in 2007, he won the race in 2008 (albeit being gifted the race win as the leader at the time retired). Here is ...

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...

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.

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.

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...

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, ...

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...

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?