Alvin's Formula One Blog

This week I'm having a special posting. It's a guest submission by F1 fanatic Luke Rees. He will be talking about the rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg as we head into the Brazilian GP after an exciting US and Mexican GP. Lewis has never won in Brazil surprisingly and that will give him motivation to fight this weekend as a tribute to Senna. This should be good. How Bad Are Things Between Rosberg, Hamilton and Mercedes? Social media is abuzz with the tension between Rosberg and Hamilton following the US Grand Prix and now Rosberg’s revival at the Mexican Grand Prix. Rosberg was frustrated at being clipped in the first corner by Hamilton in Austin, losing out the race with only eight laps to go. Hamilton refused to be called in for a second pit stop during the Mexican Grand Prix.  He chose not to believe his Mercedes team that his tyres were dangerously low, staying out an extra lap while questioning the call and then asking for feedback on the tyres. I...

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 . Jenson Button proved that he is Der Mixed-ConditionsMeister at Interlagos while Felipe had another miserable Brazilian podium. Star of the Race Jenson Button, McLaren, 1st Button showed just who is the better McLaren driver in mixed conditions on Sunday after he stalked Lewis Hamilton over the opening laps and then made the decisive move on Lap 8. He and Hulkenberg were 45 seconds clear of Hamilton and 64 seconds in front of Alonso when the Safety Car came out on Lap 23. Although the Force India driver managed to dispose of his team-mate, it's likely that as the rain came down again Button would have re-established his superiority. Despite winning the last race, McLaren are the big losers of 2013. They had the fastest car - Hamilton scored the most poles of any driver (not even counting Barcelona) - yet they didn't ge...

The week is finally winding down towards Friday where first practice will take place at the final grand prix of this very long season. It is the 20th race of the year and it will decide the winner of the world championship battle this year between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso. The Brazilian GP takes place at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace or better known to F1 fans as the Interlagos circuit. The track is located in the city of São Paulo, renamed after Carlos Pace, a Brazilian Formula One driver who had died in a 1977 plane crash. The circuit is one of a minority of non-oval racing circuits to go in an anti-clockwise direction (Austin, Imola, Istanbul Park, Yas Marina Circuit, Laguna Seca, Singapore, Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, Korea International Circuit, Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, and Miller Motorsports Park being notable others). The circuit is known for its many inclines and formerly bumpy surface, which could take its toll on F1 cars because they ha...

This article is written by Pete Gill and published on PlanetF1.com. It is re-produced here in its entirety. For the original article, click here . Lewis Hamilton's brilliance provides his employers of present and future with uncomfortable questions to answer. Hamilton leaves McLaren as a leading light So that's why Lewis Hamilton is so widely regarded as being the fastest driver in F1 - and why it isn't just McLaren who should mourn his departure to Mercedes. The sport will rival Hamilton himself as the big loser from the transfer if, as seems disconcertingly and increasingly likely, Mercedes prove ill-fitting of his talents and the challenge he seeks turns out to be a dead-end street for his career. But let's not go there just yet, because the sight of Hamilton wringing every last drop of pace out of his MP4-27 as he defeated both Red Bulls around the wonderful Circuit of The Americas was one of the highlights of the season, his pursuit of Vettel an ultra-fast, slow-...

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...

Wednesday 18th March 2009 Former Formula One team boss Eddie Jordan believes Lewis Hamilton would have won last year's World Championship even if this season's new rules had been in place. On Tuesday, motor sport's governing body the FIA changed the way the world drivers' champion will be decided, bringing in a new rule that the title will go to the driver with the most grand prix wins over the course of the season. In the wake of that decision - labelled "good for the sport" by Jordan - many pointed out that had such a scheme had been in use in 2008, Hamilton would have lost out to Felipe Massa, the Brazilian having won six races to Hamilton's five. However, Jordan told talkSPORT radio station on Wednesday that Hamilton would have approached the last race in Brazil much differently had he and Massa gone into it level pegging on five wins each. As it was Hamilton led Massa by seven points at ...

Massa explains the emotions of defeat Lewis Hamilton sent Felipe Massa a bouquet of flowers in the wake of their championship showdown in Brazil last year. The McLaren driver, whose emotions at winning the title were rivalled by those of the defeated home town hero Massa in Sao Paulo , wanted to make a gesture to his opponent after the highly-dramatic events of the last-lap at Interlagos, the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport said. Having celebrated in the cockpit the first victory for a Brazilian driver on home soil since Ayrton Senna, Paulista Massa's joy turned to tear-soaked despair just moments later when his engineer told him Hamilton had moved ahead of Timo Glock in the last corner and therefore won the world championship. "The frustration comes out of me, and the tears. I am crying inside my helmet - because I lost while winning one of the most special races ever, in my home town," Massa told Britain 's Guardian newspaper this we...

Wednesday 21st January 2009 Lewis Hamilton has given a thumbs-up to his first return to the track in two months. Hamilton's outing in testing at Portimao was his first since winning the World Championship, in rather nailbiting style, back in November. One notable difference from last year is that his new charger, the MP4-24, carries the number one on its nose, but for Hamilton the significance of the day was simply getting behind the wheel again. "It was good to be back working with the team - it felt like I'd hardly been away because it was easy to slip back into the routine," Hamilton told Autosport. "It's amazing to think that, while I've been to Woking throughout the winter, I haven't properly driven a Formula One car since the Brazilian Grand Prix two months ago, but everything very quickly felt normal today." It was, though, just a fleeting return to action for Hamilton with ...

First of all, I have to say what a race! The last 2 laps was the most exciting and scariest laps of my whole F1 watching career for as long as I can remember. It's like, after all the planning and all those laps, suddenly Vettel could overtake Lewis and there was nothing Lewis could do about it. I was watching with baited breath and wanted to jump with joy in celebrating Lewis' win but he was in 6th and I was holding my head, thinking to myself how it could have gone wrong again, ready to blame Kubica for his unecessary un-lapping move. Then after Lewis crosses the line and the cameras after showing celebration in the Ferrari garage shifted to show celebration in the McLaren garage. I was dumbfounded, confused. It kind of took away the celebration for me, anti-climax. Though I'm glad Lewis won the title finally after what he went through last year and after what the whole F1 world put him through this year, it was almost like they didn't want him or a black person to wi...

Sunday 2nd November 2008 It was the Championship decider to end all Championship deciders, and though Felipe Massa won the battle, Lewis Hamilton won the war. STAR OF THE RACE Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1st Massa did everything he had to do. He put the car on pole and then dominated a race that he had to win. He was fortunate that the entire field were forced to stop early (having qualified with low fuel) and so the McLarens weren't able to make use of their extra laps of fuel that had put them further down the grid. He was the model of dignity in defeat and your heart went out to him. Though the more deserving driver won, you got the feeling that the nicer guy didn't. Massa's sporting reaction was in complete contrast to the crowd. Before this race I felt pretty well-equipped to argue that F1 crowds were knowledgeable and sporting and showed football crowds up. Not in Brazil. Fair enough, you can boo drivers if ...

Sunday 2nd November 2008 Sometimes words are just not needed... Formula One, Bloody Hell Wow. Just wow, because sometimes commentary is irrelevant and unnecessary. Anyone who watched the 2008 Brazilian GP will never forget it. 'Incredible' is an over-used word but not on this occasion. There Can't Have Been An Ending Like It After approximately 3000 miles of racing, eight months of competition, 900 laps of action, it came down to the penultimate lap and a single point. There can't have been an ending like it in the history of F1 and only a handful of comparable conclusions in the annals of sport. Massa Is A Class Act Both on and off the track, Felipe Massa was a champion in Brazil (an apology is due from those who suggested that he would crack under the weight of pressure and expectation in front of his fanatical home support). "We ought to be proud of our race, we ought to be proud of ourselves,...

Sunday 2nd November 2008 Felipe Massa did everything he could to win the World title but his victory in Brazil wasn't enough to stop Lewis Hamilton from clinching the Drivers' crown in the most exciting finish to any F1 Championship. After a delayed start, the result of a brief deluge moments before the start, the race got underway with Massa leading from pole position while Hamilton slotted into fourth place. That's how it stayed in the opening stint before the drivers pitted for dry tyres with Hamilton then dropping down to sixth place as Massa continued to hang on in front of the chasing Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso. Hamilton gradually elevated himself to fourth place until the closing laps when another period of rain dropped him to fifth place, and then a catastrophic sixth place after he was unsighted by Robert Kubica who unlapped himself in a bizarre incident which the FIA will need to look at...

Wow, the race will be on in another 5 hours and my hearts beating fast. This is gonna be one interesting and exciting race to watch. Too bad I'll have to miss the first hour as I'm working shifts but I'll be back to catch the last part. I'm rooting for Lewis to clinch the world title, of course. He doesn't have to win this race, Massa can have it. At the end of the day, it's the title that matters. I hope this race will be clean without any other driver intervention cos if Massa wins the world title with somebody else's help, it will be tainted as Rubens puts it . And I hope there will be no more FIA interference either as we wouldn't want to wait hours or days to know the outcome. And to make sure, McLaren has spent $7m to make sure Lewis' car is ready for the Brazilian GP. That money achieved just 0.15s improvement over Shanghai. And in the same report, it seems that Nelson Piquet Snr doesn't think Lewis will make it past the first corner becau...

Saturday 1st November 2008 Felipe Massa boosted his chances of winning the World title by qualifying in pole position for Sunday's title showdown in Brazil. The Ferrari driver enters the final race of the season seven points behind Championship leader Lewis Hamilton, which means he has to finish first or second to stand any chance of winning the World title. And the Brazilian boosted his chances of doing that on Saturday when he crossed the line with a 1:12.368 to beat Jarno Trulli and Kimi Raikkonen to pole position. As for Hamilton he qualified P4, which won't be too much of a concern for McLaren as he only needs to finish fifth on Sunday to clinch his first title. Qualifying 1With sunshine at Interlagos and no sign of the forecast showers, the entire session would be run in dry conditions, starting with an ambient of 22C and the track at 39C. Nelson Piquet set the benchmark P1 time in front of his home crowd, a 1:13.308. It was bettered by Timo Glock with a 1:13.023 and then...

If there's one thing that we've learned through the turmoil of the 17 widely differing GPs of 2008 it's... expect the unexpected. Just when you thought you could anticipate what would happen next in F1 - something else happened. It was going to be a Ferrari vs McLaren fight...and then BMW joined in. Lewis Hamilton was making too many mistakes... and then drove the race of his life at Silverstone, Felipe Massa looked a spent force in Germany...and then he drove his heart out in Hungary. Kimi Raikkonen looked on for a shed-load of points after his win in Spain...and then didn't win at all, the Renault team were going to struggle to get on the podium this season...and then won two races, and most exciting of all, Toro Rosso's position looked under threat...and then they won a race...from the front. It's been a season of extraordinary upsets, extraordinary decisions and right now, playing off camera, an extraordinary row between the manufacturers and the FIA over th...

The weather could have a big say on where the World Championship ends up this season as wet conditions are expected in Sao Paulo over the weekend. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Felipe Massa will go head-to-head for the Drivers' Title on Sunday. Hamilton has the edge over local hero Massa as he takes a seven-point lead into the season finale. Massa's task could be even tougher this weekend if the weather gods fail to play along. The Ferraris have struggled to make much of an impact during wet races while Hamilton relishes driving in the rain. Showers are expected during qualifying on Saturday afternoon as well as during the race on Sunday and there are fears the demanding track could break down. The FIA have already given Interlagos the green light, but tests have revealed that heavy rain could cause problems. Race organisers therefore decided to make last-minute adjustments to the track and added grooves to parts of the surface to improve drainage.