Alvin's Formula One Blog

The 2025 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola was a weekend full of emotion, frustration, and ultimately, a flicker of promise for Ferrari fans. While the headlines might not scream victory, those of us who follow every lap, every team radio message, and every strategic call know that Imola revealed something deeper: Ferrari is inching forward — and Lewis Hamilton is proving to be not just a driver, but a critical voice in that journey. Let’s unpack what happened in Italy, why the data shows a glimmer of hope, and how Lewis is already shaping the team’s direction despite obvious growing pains. Recap: A Frustrating Start, a Solid Finish The weekend began with high hopes but quickly turned sobering during qualifying. Both Ferrari drivers, Lewis and Charles Leclerc, struggled to find pace over a single lap. Lewis qualified 12th and Charles just ahead, with the SF-25 looking unpredictable and unresponsive in key sectors. But race day? That was a different story. Lewis pulled off an impressiv...

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.

Sunday 24th May 2009 Star of the Race Jenson Button, BrawnGP, 1st Yeah baby. Button made F1 history on Sunday, not just by winning the fifth race in six starts, though that was impressive enough. Neither was it by sticking his car on pole with a gem of a lap on the heaviest fuel load of the top cars. No, it was driving one of the most exhausting grands prix on the calendar, parking in the wrong place, then sprinting up the start/finish straight to the Grimaldi's royal box (incidentally couldn't quite see the President of the FIA in there...could you?) as though he hadn't even been in the car. In the press conference Raikkonen and Barrichello looked like they'd been put through a Regular Wash on 50C without the spin cycle, while Jenson looked cool. It was an impressive win and yet another race victory where he opened a gap and was able to control the race and adapt his pace to the cars behind him. Five wins from six races is very impressive for ...

Sunday 24th May 2009 Jenson Button goes from strength to strength, while Ferrari finally flex their muscles on the track to justify their off-circuit machismo... We Might As Crown Him The Champ Now... As the PF1 homepage declared in the immediate aftermath of Sunday's race, it is increasingly difficult to believe that Button will not end the season as World Champion. F1 has been turned on its head to the extent that it's difficult just to find a single trenchant reason to suppose he will not succeed Lewis Hamilton. If Bernie had got his way before the campaign and introduced his winner-takes-all system to decide the title then Button could already take the risk of putting his feet up. The five wins Button has claimed from the opening six races of the season is as many as Hamilton secured in the whole of 2008 and only one less than Kimi Raikkonen registered in 2007. Fortunately, Bernie's...

You'd never guessed it but there's a first time for everything. Yesterday's race was the first race in my F1 viewing career that I actually got bored with the race and tuned out halfway. I went into the kitchen with the TV still blaring out the V8 sounds around Monte Carlo, looked out the window and saw pigs flying. The Monaco GP this year started off promising with some overtaking, my favorite was Barrichello's move on Kimi for P2. That was classic and powerful, I was surprised Kimi didn't fight back with his KERS. After that it basically went downhill as the race degraded to a procession. Lewis being stuck behind didn't help either. On top of that, Kovalainnen crashed out so my only hope was Vettel who has car trouble and crashed out too. The BMWs were rubbish, they had no pace at all. I was happy for Force India though as Fisi almost got a point after finishing P9. Well, that's all I have to say about that. See how boring the race was? And to top it all o...

Saturday 23rd May 2009 Lewis Hamilton has taken full responsibility for the mistake that saw him crash out of Q1 for the Monaco GP. The 2008 Monte Carlo winner had looked strong throughout the weekend's practice sessions, finishing in the top seven in all three sessions. But it all came to nought on Saturday afternoon when he lost control of his car at Mirabeau. The ensuing crash into the barriers saw his MP4-24's rear suspension too severely damaged for him to continue, meaning he will start the 78-lap grand prix from 16th place on the grid - and with little hope of bagging any World Championship points. "My race weekend for a win is for sure over," he told the BBC . "I just don't know what I was thinking. I made a mistake. It had been going well all weekend." The Brit took the time to apologise to McLaren for wasting what could have been a golden opportunity to finish on the podium - or...

Saturday 23rd May 2009 Jenson Button reigned supremo around the principality of Monaco as the Brawn GP driver claimed his fourth pole position of the season. After an intensely tight final practice session in the morning, pole position looked as if it could go to any one of seven drivers. But when it came down to the crunch it was Button who proved to be the Monaco Meister as he put his Brawn BGP001 into the P1 slot with a 1:14.902. He edged Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen into second place by just 0.025s as the Ferrari driver put in his best qualifying performance of the season so far. Third place went to Rubens Barrichello with the Brazilian putting an end to Sebastian Vettel's five consecutive top-three grid slots as he relegated the Red Bull racer to fourth place. Felipe Massa qualified in third place ahead of Nico Rosberg and Heikki Kovalainen. Meanwhile, it was an afternoon to forget for Kovalainen's McLaren...

Thursday 21st May 2009 Nico Rosberg returned to the slot he has made his own this season, finishing at the top of the timesheets in Thursday's second practice for the Monaco GP. The German clocked a 1:15.446 to lead the way ahead of the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton, who put in a stellar performance, often holding down the P1 slot himself. Third place went to the Brawn GP of Rubens Barrichello, who outpaced team-mate Jenson Button while Felipe Massa and Sebastian Vettel completed the top six. Report: Sebastien Buemi, the two Force Indias and Nelson Piquet Jr were the early starters as they ventured out almost immediately for their installation laps. Meanwhile Mark Webber was left stuck on the sidelines for at least "twenty minutes, half an hour" due to a vibration coming from the back of his car that his mechanics were furiously working to fix. The Aussie, though, insisted it had nothing to do with the double-...

Thursday 21st May 2009 For the first time this season reigning World Champ Lewis Hamilton sees a chance for winning a grand prix after a stellar performance in Thursday's Monaco practices. After a dismal Spanish GP, which saw Hamilton lack the pace needed to finish in the points never mind on the podium, the Brit came to Monte Carlo hoping for a better result as many predicted that the circuit's slow, twisty design would suit the characteristics of the MP4-24. And that proved to be true during Thursday's opening two practices. The McLaren driver posted the third best time in Practice One and went one better later in the afternoon when he finished in second place, two-tenths slower than pace-setter Nico Rosberg. "It definitely gives me a much better fighting chance for this weekend in terms of getting the car a bit further up - but the others looks very strong," said an upbeat Hamilton. "We ju...

Thursday 21st May 2009 Heikki Kovalainen has downplayed the pace that saw himself and team-mate Lewis Hmailton finish in the top four in Thursday's first practice session in Monaco. McLaren headed to Monte Carlo for this weekend's race, confident that the twisty, slow track would suit the characteristics of their MP4-24. And that proved to be true when, on Thursday morning, Hamilton and Kovalainen finished third and fourth on the timesheets, half a second behind pace-setter Rubens Barrichello. But despite their strong early showing, Kovalainen has warned against getting their hopes too high. "I don't think that we should put too many expectations on any weekend," the Finn told Autosport. "We know the car is still not quick enough, but potentially it could be a bit better here than it was in Barcelona. We have a few upgrades again for the car, so let's see where we are tomorrow and go from...

Thursday 21st May 2009 Ferrari and McLaren joined Brawn GP in fighting for the top honours in the opening practice session for the prestigious Monaco GP, but, as to be expected, it was Brawn who triumphed. Rubens Barrichello, who is determined to join his team-mate Jenson Button in the winner column, clocked the fastest time of the session, a 1:17.189 to beat Ferrari's Felipe Massa by 0.310. Third place went Lewis Hamilton, while his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen was fourth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. Report: With sunny skies overhead and a track temperature of 30'C greeted the drivers as Nick Heidfeld, Giancarlo Fisichella, Seb Buemi, Adrian Sutil and Seb Vettel got proceedings underway. They were followed out of the rather narrow Monaco pit lane by a train of drivers all putting in their installation laps. Buemi ventured out for the first timed lap of the morning and posted a 1:25.201 around the 3.340km circuit. T...

Wednesday 20th May 2009 The Tax Dodgers GP is here again with all the glitz and glamour that yappy small dogs and women with expensive cosmetic surgery can confer. The Monaco GP is basically the South of France GP that's held about half a kilometre over the border. Walk the circuit and be amazed. It's not so much "cycling round your bathroom" as "cycling round the shower tray". Until the demise of traction control it was a pretty useless sort of race. Great for scenery, great for history, but processional in the extreme. You can be between three and four seconds a lap quicker than the car in front and not get past them on the streets of Monaco. In fact many drivers believe that a GP2 car that starts on pole could keep its F1 rivals at bay. (Let alone a GP3 car) What Monaco loses in places to overtake it gains with its punishingly close barriers ready to derange a rear suspense at the slightest hint of oversteer. And now that the ca...