Alvin's Formula One Blog

This article is written by Andrew Davies and published on PlanetF1.com. It is re-produced here in its entirety. For the original article, click  here . Red Bull got the wake-up call, Kimi Raikkonen got the points and the win, but it was Adrian Sutil who got the glory... Star of the Race Adrian Sutil, Force India, 7th Whoever took the ultimate decision to hire Adrian Sutil must have been in line for a few cheeky Kingfishers after the result in Melbourne. It was the story of the race. Raikkonen did well, but described his race wins as one of his easiest. Staring at the telemetry in the closing stages to see what kind of impression Alonso was making on Raikkonen, the data did seem to bear that out. Kimi seemed able to respond to a fast lap from Alonso almost at will. Starting from P12 Sutil made his medium tyres last and was not fazed by having a triple World Champion behind him. Around Lap 14 he was putting in 1:33.7s while Perez, on the same compound, was only just managing 1:...

WOW! That's what I can say about the first race of this season in Melbourne last weekend. I mean, the Melbourne race is usually good as it is the first race, the temperatures are quite high and the track hard on the tires (due to it being half a public road and half unused track). But this race was even more interesting as the use of the supersoft tires and the different ways each car treats its tires made for a very exciting race to watch. WOW! From an F1 PR point-of-view it was perhaps good that the opening race wasn't won by Vettel or Red Bull, because that would be a familiar story to the casual viewer who needs luring back. Lotus blooms To be honest, I did not expect Lotus to win....at all. Sorry Lotus fans. Congratulations to Lotus and Raikkonen, it was a masterclass of strategy, driving and car design. Raikkonen drove a measured race that balanced aggression with intelligence (he does know what he is doing after all). According to him it was "easy...

Friday practice came and went. After 4 months of waiting, it was gone in a flash. FP1 didn't really show us much again as the medium tires held up well in the hot temperatures (which is good). Lewis was 4th fastest in the Mercedes, not too far away from Vettel. As expected, after all that sandbagging in testing, red Bull unleashed their power in both practice session and topped the timesheets with Vettel leading the way on both. FP2 was where the supersofts came out as the teams needed to understand how they're going to attack qualifying with those. And how to go for a longer first stint with full fuel. Lewis set the 8th fastest time although his running was hampered by a crash that ruined his attempts. For a full report on FP1 click here . For full FP1 times, click here . For a full report on FP1 click here . For full FP1 times, click here . Now what worries me more is not Mercedes' reliability as Rosberg had to stop just before the end of FP2 with a gearbox prob...

By plane of course. That would be the literal answer to the question of how teams will approach Melbourne. But we're being literal in another sense. How they will approach the race weekend. How they will consider their strategies. How they will setup everything they need in order to get the best results. How would they do it? Beats me, I don't have access to the pits. But I know who does. James Allen does. And Mark Gillan does. Who's Mark Gillan ? That guy who used to work with Williams F1. And McLaren. And Jaguar/Red Bull. And Toyota. So he knows a bit of what he is saying. Just a bit mind you. And he is advising James Allen now. So James knows what is talking about too. James Allen is one of the most experienced and insightful broadcasters and journalists working in Formula 1 today. He is currently the F1 correspondent for BBC Radio 5 Live and is the network’s lead F1 commentator. He is also F1 correspondent for the Financial Times and presents the on-site coverag...

I'm the fastest!! Ok, winter testing is over. It came and went so quickly like it never came. Just 12 days to iron out the kinks and make the design work, plus understand new tires. the weather didn't help much with 2 days of rain and cold but the last 2 days was better with dry and sunny conditions. So now, we're all pumped for the first race, I'm especially looking forward to the first Friday session in Melbourne as so far most of the top teams especially red Bull has not shown their hand. But sooner or later they will have to and Friday in Melbourne will be it. Again, it is difficult to see who will be fast come race day in Melbourne. Testing times are compromised due to different teams running different fuel loads, different settings, different tires. Even though we may speculate that they are running about the same things, the weather changes affects the running as each team might have been running equal setups but at different times of the day, hence dif...

How the f@#k should I know? Now that we have finally confirmed the driver lineups for 2013 and finished off the winter testing (which by the way, has not given any clear indication of who will be strong come Melbourne), we can proceed to salivate at the thought of what mayhem and surprises waits for us in Melbourne in about a week and a half from now. So as a sort of follow up to my posting about the final lineups this year, here is another interesting and somewhat related article written by Keith over at F1Fanatic with regards to which team has the best driver lineup in 2013. This is of course what we fans want to see, read and argue about. With Lewis Hamilton’s headline-grabbing move to Mercedes and an influx of five new drivers, the F1 field has had a shake-up this year. Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus and Toro Rosso head into the new season with unchanged driver line-ups, while three of their rivals have all-new squads. But which team has the best blend of speed, consistency...