F1-Blog

David Coulthard has revealed the news that he has popped the big question to long time girlfriend Karen Minier.

Karen Minier used to be a pit lane reporter on the F1 circuit, and it was revealed in an interview with the Sunday Times that DC popped the question on Friday the 2nd.

We here at F1-Blog wish him and his fiancé the very best for the future.

The Fosters British Grand Prix got off to a bad start for the Brit’s with the qualifying nightmare from Jenson Button and the Honda team on Saturday.  Things went downhill from there for Button.

However the Grand Prix itself was quite interesting from a number of front’s.

Fernando Alonso and his Renault car crushed the opposition yesterday, in a powerful display of dominance, that I cannot see anyone being able to better this year.

What outlines this is the statistics from the race. If you watch the Renault onboard during its run through the fast opening corners  (Cops, Maggots, Becketts and Chapel) the car is very planted, and the drivers barely lift during the whole complex. The high speed stability in the Renault seems faultless, there was no sign of any oversteer or understeer in Fernando’s car.

However onboard with the Ferrari and McLaren cars shows a completely different story. The cars look affected by the direction changes, and the Ferrari’s especially looked to pitch on the central axis of the car substantially more than the Renault, this could be due to the tyre manufacturers being different however.

Then adversely, the Ferrari and McLarens where up to 15kph faster through some of the speed traps on the lap, showing they definitely have the stronger engine package at least in pace, if not in reliability.

If the other teams can work out what is making the Renaults so stable and solid on the chassis/aero front then they may be able to challenge for the race wins, but until then I cannot see the Fernando/Renault package being bettered on any regular basis.

So on to the race recap. The race started with a decent run up the grid for some of the mid/rear pack drivers.

The BMW Sauber cars made up places on the start, however Jaques  Villenueve tangled with Juan Pablo Montoya causing damage to the McLaren drivers sidepod and flooring, ending a front running show for JPM.

Scott Speed then clipped the rear of Ralph Schumacher’s car causing him to careen into Mark Webber ending the race for all three drivers, and causing the pace car to be brought out onto the track so the cars could be recovered.

After the pace car is brought back in on lap three the first three drivers (Fernando, Kimi and Michael)  race amongst themselves, trading fastest times between themselves. At some points the McLaren of Kimi looks to be the fastest car on the track, just not quite quick enough to overtake Fernando. Michael holds onto the two drivers in front of him , but does not seem to have the outright pace to challenge.

Montoya clears the Honda of Barichelo and the BMW Sauber of Heidfeld and starts to make progress towards the second Renault of Fisichela.

Button’s car decides to give up on him, there seems to be a fluid leak at the rear of his Honda. The fluid get’s onto his rear tyres and spins him off. The engine however seems to still be running and Button dig’s his car into the gravel, as the exhaust set’s fire to the fluid leaking.

Alonso set’s fastest laps as his car get’s light on fuel (1.22.114), this increases his lead over Kimi to nearly 3 seconds.

On lap 17 Trulli pit’s for fuel , this is strange as he started from the rear of the grid after an engine change and was expected to run very heavy. 

Lap 18 sees Michael pit in his Ferrari, showing that the Renault was definitely the fastest car in qualifying, Kimi pit’s on lap 19 getting back out ahead of Michael.

Lap 22 sees the leader pit, with a clear lead after setting fastest lap’s in the lead up to the stop.

Heidfeld continues having not yet pitted, setting a blistering pace in the 1.22.8’s showing that the BMW Sauber cars have got genuine pace this weekend. Perhaps the BMW money is starting to show fruition. He pit’s on lap 25, however a mess up in the pit stop loose him 7 seconds and drop him out of the front running, he rejoins in 7th behind Montoya.

Montoya starts to set good times (mid 1.22’s) in his middle stint, showing that even with a damaged car he can be quick when he wants too.

Lap 41 bring Michael back into the pit’s for his second and last stop. Michael comes out of the pit’s and starts to show the Ferrari can have pace when pushed, as he set’s fastest personal times in all of the sectors. Kimi then pits after being slowed behind traffic, and rejoins the race behind Michael. The 7 times world champion proving he has not given up on F1 just yet.

Lap 44 brings the leader Fernando into the pit’s for his last stop, he is stationary for 6.8 seconds and comes back out into the lead of the race, well in front of the rest of the pack.

Fisichella starts to close in on Kimi, and the pit to car radio has Alan Permane telling him that he has 8kph advantage over the Finn, and to get his own back for the Suzuka incident. Fisichella closes to within a second but cannot overtake the Finn.

Alonso takes the chequered flag well  ahead of the Ferrari powered Schumacher, with Kimi holding onto third place.

As I mentioned above, the underlying message the non Renault teams have to take away from this Grand Prix is that the Aero package the Enstone team have on their car is in some ways light years ahead of anything that they can run at the moment. Until they work out how Renault achieve it they will always be on the back foot.

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Well the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA) that is. Jarno Trulli announced that the Canadian driver has quit the organisation in protest to the continued chairmanship of Michael Schumacher.

Jacques Villeneuve has decided that the decision of the GPDA to allow Michael to continue as president after the Monaco incident is not good, and to voice his protest decided to resign from the organisation.

Trulli had this to say, “He left because he has a point of view and is free to do whatever he wants. The GPDA is not there to judge a driver, it is there to assure that all drivers and teams and circuits have got enough safety.”

Missed free practice (or in the UK did not even get chance to see it), or the qualifying? Pop along to EasyNews and download them (Click Here if you have an account).

If you don't have an account then pop along to the EasyNews site (click here) and register for their news service.

You could also use your local news subscription servie if you have one, the group is alt.binaries.formula1

Yeah, it's amazing, Max Moseley with a decent idea! I was as shocked as you.

The unofficial F1 Blog is reporting that he has decided that copying the MotoGP way of doing things is perhaps right. In MotoGP they have an engine size limit (currently 1ltr, but soon to become 800cc), and a fuel allowance limit (27ltrs, soon to become 23ltrs), but besides these two limits the manufacturers are free to do whatever they like, and generate as much horsepower as they can (between 230-270bhp in the modern bikes) they can run traction control, ABS, active suspension whatever.

Max has hinted that he would not regulate how big, and how many cylinders the cars use, he would not even limit horsepower and torque, no he would limit the amount of fuel the cars could use.

Max said “If we are going to have a high-technology Formula One then the research should be devoted to areas which contribute something to society,”

“At the end of homologation period we would like a different engine formula, where the limit on power is not engine capacity but by the amount of energy consumed,” he added.

Wow, perhaps the coffee is finally getting through and he is waking up!

David Coulthard had asked the stewards to look into an incident in the second qualifying session between himself and Juan Pablo.

The stewards have looked into it and it seems that they believe JPM did little wrong. The stewards have released this statement, "The Stewards after hearing the explanation of both drivers, heard from the respective competitors' team managers, considered the data evidence and timesheets produced decided that the matter requires no further action."

So then, it seems that DC was mistaken, and JPM just made a mistake.

Our friends over at F1 Fanatic have some shot's up from today's Silverstone outing.

There are some good shot's of the BMW Sauber display.

Pop along and have a look.

Qualifying for the British GP has finished with some strange and possibly controversial things going on.

First off we have Button back in 19th position, Honda are blaming being called into the weigh bridge for the troubles, apparently they did not have time to get back out and do another fast lap (although it looks like they actually did have just about enough time).

The other Brit in the grid David Coulthard is sat in 11th, not too bad as he out-performed his team mate, but he believes his last fast lap was blocked by Juan Pablo Montoya and we will have to see if the stewards agree.

Kimi Raikonen proved the McLaren does have pace, by setting a stunning out lap, then a brilliant flying lap on tyres that where not treated nicely on the out lap. McLaren may also be running a touch more fuel in Kimi's car than the people around him.

Fernando as usual proved to be calm, collected and above all fast! Michael too looks to be pacey and up for the challenge.

Without a shadow of a doubt though, my shock of the day driver is Rubens Barrichello who sit's in 6th just 6 tenths of a second behind pole, the Honda may just show some pace during the race, this adds a little hope for Jenson.

Times after the jump

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News from Modaco.

BMW Sauber and O2 are launching a special version of the XDA Neo for German customers, the phone will come with a 1Gb SD card, some F1 video's, and F1 game and the BMW engine as a ringtone. 

Not so sure about the paint job myself, but if your a BMW Sauber fan then see if you can get one on ebay (unless you live in Germany).

As a side note it's nice to see all the networks going Windows Mobile crazy, there seems to be a new HTC (the manufacturer of all the Orange, O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone devices) on the market every day. 

ITV-F1 are running an article along similar line to my earlier one about the engine freeze in 2008.

They go further with interviews with Nick Fry from Honda, "The message that we and other manufacturers would convey is that while we have submitted entries for the 2008 championship, there are still no guarantees that we will be there, We are not compelled to be in Formula 1. Most car manufacturers do other things, whether it’s rallying, DTM or whatever. F1 is important to us, but the world will not come to an end if we stop doing it. People need to understand that.”

Toyota are said to be feeling the same way, and have apparetly stated that they will not continue in F1 unless 'certain core values' remain.

Max has said, At the moment [the engines] are all on more or less the same level. Therefore we have to freeze them as quickly as possible. If we give them time, than the people with a lot of money will have the opportunity to pull out a bit of a lead.”

Max, have you forgot that F1 IS A TECHNOLOGY SPORT!, people watch it because it is the cutting edge of car design and performance.

Yes I like the fact that smaller teams compete, but the sport will just stagnate if you take all the ingenuity out of it. You have already band all the 'gadgets' in the sport like ABS etc. Why not introduce someform of legislation that limit's the amount that engine manufacturers can charge smaller teams to use engine or other outsourced parts.

When will the FIA realise that if they ban all of the R&D that goes on inside F1, the manufacturers will pull out and spend the budget elsewhere, Indycart, WRC and Le-Mans all would love for the manufacturers currently in F1 to join their championships.