Alvin's Formula One Blog

Free practice 1 and 2 have been done at the Circuit Of The Americas and here are some pictures of the event. The circuit looks fantastic and the turns will provide a nice challenge for the drivers, although it remains to be seen whether this track will produce an entertaining race or not. It would seem the tyre choice was too conservative, most probably this race will be a 1 stopper.

Grow up Vettel!  Ah yes, Jacques Villeneuve. 1 time F1 world champion who masquerades as an amateur musician and outspoken critic of other drivers. Although, he has set a records of sorts. Jacques Villeneuve won the 1995 CART Championship, the 1995 Indianapolis 500 and the 1997 Formula One World Championship, making him only the third driver after Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi to achieve such a feat. Might be the reason he talks a lot. I mean other drivers talk a lot as well (except Kimi) but this guy has a penchant for saying what he thinks without a care in the world. In a way, sometimes I agree with him as we do need some things to be said and somebody's gotta do the dirty work, right? The latest comment by Jacques is reflecting on our 2 world championship contenders - Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel - specifically Vettel though. He believes that World Champion Seb Vettel still behaves in an immature manner and has a lot of growing up to do....

Well here we are then, Part 3. Seems we still can't call it a season yet as the twist and turns of Abu Dhabi has ensured the battle goes on as far as it can. Which is good for us, so we don't end our season with a few races to go. We do love to end it on the last lap and the last turn if we can, don't we? And here we are then, Austin, Texas. A track that was completed just in time, the tenth track F1 has raced in the United States so far and the first one purpose built for this..err..purpose. And the best part of it is, nobody has any idea how the surface will beat up the tyres. Pirelli were so spooked, they gave the medium and hard tyres for this race and even set aside an extra pair of hard tyres for each team to practice on. So how will we ever decide who will win it? Besides our emotional inner monster raging for a win for our own choice of drivers no matter what the circumstance. I suppose we will have to look at some facts. The Track The good news for ...

As the Austin race gets closer and closer, fans that I've talked to around the world are getting excited as this is a new track and new tracks always brings unknown factors with it. How long is a lap actually going to be? How will the turns and elevation changes affect the tyres? What about the track surface? I guess we'll find out on Friday at Friday Practice 1. So to heighten the senses for this race some more, here is Jenson Button to give a guide on the race and the track. Video courtesy of team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes and McLaren Media.

Did you know that there has been 9 circuits used previously to host the United States GP before Circuit Of The Americas in Austin, Texas? And that all of them were temporary and/or street circuits? And that Circuit Of The Americas in Austin, Texas is the first purpose built F1 track in the USA? The US GP certainly has had a chequered past. It has been to all sorts of circuits in the USA from street tracks to Nascar tracks to a Las Vegas parking lot! That was the most ridiculous place to put an F1 race, a parking lot is for go karts. But they've done it. Since racing in America is and has always been dominated by Nascar which basically means oval racing i.e. racing on oval tracks, some F1 fans have suggested or imagined F1 oval racing. Some people might think oval racing is boring as the drivers just turn left and keep their foot down but some fans think otherwise such as sumedhvidwans (@sumedhvidwans): "Drivers would not complain about traffic. Infact they might w...

The US GP at Austin Texas will only have a single DRS zone as compared to India and Abu Dhabi previously which both had 2 DRS zones. As has been the case at past venues such as Istanbul Park, the sole DRS zone is not on the start/finish straight. For the Texas race, drivers will be able to deploy the rear wing device between Turns 11 and 12, as the second half of the lap begins. This means DRS will come into play after the hairpin at Turn 11. The activation zone is expected to be positioned 650m before the turn 12 hairpin.

The BBC has a series of very interesting articles about the things that's needed to be successful in F1 but presented in a way that is easy to understand. The language used to explain the concepts and how they relate to performance is nicely done for the non technical follower of F1 and even hardcore fans. Formula 1's sleek racing machines look so different to the cars we see every day on the road because their design is dictated by aerodynamics. This is the study of forces and their impact on how objects move through the air. Hundreds of engineers working in the blue ribbon of motorsport are slaves to its principles, and teams spend millions each year chasing its rewards. "Aerodynamics is the start, middle and the end of whether a car is quick," Lotus F1 team technical director James Allison explains. "Generally the car with the best aerodynamics wins the championship." The aerodynamics of an F1 car has two vital jobs on the racetrack - producing down...