F1-Blog

Australia a full runthrough

After having a few hours nap, then watching the GP again as it was repeated, then napping. I thought it about time to do my full race synopsis.

The race for various reasons has to be one of the best in the resent past, and I have had quite a few comments from ‘non F1′ friends and colleges stating that they enjoyed the race, and as a result would take more interest in the rest of the season. So from that front, I have to say well done FIA at forcing the standard engine unit on the F1 world.

The race will obviously be remembered for three reasons. First and foremost, it was the race that Lewis dominated, and made look his own. We saw very little of Hamilton during the race footage, and that was because for the most part he had an easy race. He was challenged a little at the start by Robert Kubicca, but besides that drove a mature, well paced race to take the top step of the podium.

Red Bull RB4 Launch

Red Bull Racing have today unveiled their 2008 car, the RBR4. This car is the first one to be completely overseen by design guru Adrian Newey.

The car was launched at the second day of testing at the Jerez circuit, in Red Bull’s usual low key style. This car continues the look and style of the RB3 car (the first car Newey was involved in), but obviously takes on some of the ‘must have’ features that showed up last season and over the winter. These are thing’s like the bridged front aero and the obviously sculpted rear engine/exhaust setup.

With some luck this car will have a more reliable gearbox than the one on the RB3, as the team struggled with it all season last year.

David Coulthard had the chance to drive the car first, and it suffered a throttle problem in his first lap. However it seemed to be a small temporary glitch, and the car ran a few laps on the track without seeming to have a problem.

European GP

I’m a bit late in posting this, but hey, by now everyone knows what happened.

For those that don’t, here is a brief roundup.

The race started under the warning of rain, Markus Winkelhock was the only one to start on the intermediate tyres, all the rest of the grid started on the dry weather rubber.

Rain came, as predicted, and Winkelhock lead the read by a good margin for a time, however in that time 6 cars came off the road at the first corner (Button, Hamilton, Sutil, Speed, Rosberg and Liuzzi). Kimi Raikkonen attempted to enter the pits, but the car understeered and he missed the pit enterance and had to do another lap in the rain.

The safety car came out, and everyone that had not pitted did so, also Lewis Hamilton stayed in the stranded McLaren, keeping the engine running, as he was considered to be in a dangerous position, was craned back to the track and allowed to rejoin the race, now in last position. The race was then red flagged

Adrian Newey on the RB3

Newey has announced that he is impressed with the work already going on inside the RB design team. So much so that the RB3 will be a merging of the current team's thought's and some of the idea's that he was throwing around inside Mclaren before he left.

I've always been a fan of Newey designed cars, there is always something 'cutting edge' about his cars, always something that has maybe been done, but not to the levels that Newey pushes it (nose on the recent Mclarens for example).

Let's hope he settles in at RBR, he certainly seems to have enough money in the team.