Alvin's Formula One Blog

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...