MorrisF1

Rosberg got the lead before the first corner, but quick thinking enabled Vettel to almost immediately take it back. Boringly, Vettel made a sizeable gap with relative ease, followed by Rosberg and then Alonso, who had a great start. For a while Button, Hulkenberg, Perez and Raikkonen were 8-12, but, for reasons that radio coverage did not make apparent, Hulkenberg slipped down to around 14th. After others had made their first stop, and he had not, Di Resta was up to 3rd, which is rather impressive. Must say that 23 laps or so in the race was not the most exciting. About halfway through the safety car was deployed after Ricciardo crashed into the barriers. This cut the sizeable gaps between Vettel (leading), Rosberg and Alonso. Just about everybody ended up pitting, which slightly surprised me, as the safety car was some laps after the first pit stop, and probably too early for a two stop strategy. Some cars (Button, I think) got really held up in the pits because...

Apologies for the slight delay to this article. It wasn’t planned to be later than usual. Although Vettel got a rather boring pole there was more of interest than expected in Q3, and the grid is nicely setup. It’s worth considering that there’s a very small run (the shortest in F1, I think) to the first corner, which may hinder Alonso and other quick starters. Q1 was a standard affair, with the pointless teams joined by Di Resta (who it seems is making a habit of this) and Maldonado. Di Resta, unusually, didn’t blame his team. I suspect this is because the driver market is in full swing and now is not the time to whine. Q2 had an exciting climax, as the track rubbered in and got substantially faster (a factor we’d see heavily affect the end of Q3 as well). Raikkonen, injured with a bad back, left the stage here, and Hulkenberg was nudged down into eleventh when his teammate surprisingly got the seventh fastest time. Vergne, Perez, Sutil and Bottas also failed to mak...

The tyres will be supersoft and medium, and with the heat it’s possible that Lotus, being softer on tyres, will benefit (a pit stop is a very long 29 seconds, putting a premium on fewer stops). Cheers to https://twitter.com/theWPTformula for that thought. However, there’s some very surprising news to discuss first. Namely that McLaren apparently want Alonso next year (replacing Perez). Alonso is contracted to Ferrari, but F1 contracts are like the rules of piracy; they’re more like guidelines than actual rules. It would be quite astonishing if next season saw Raikkonen rejoin Ferrari *and* Alonso leave that team to rejoin McLaren. I wonder if Perez would jump to Ferrari, or if Massa might get a reprieve. Hulkenberg and Di Resta haven’t signed anything yet either (Hulkenberg is thought likely to go to Lotus). http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula-one/24171278 Since the story first broke it’s emerged that (at the time of writing, anyway) Whitmarsh isn’t actually speaking...

So, the big news is that Massa has left Ferrari and Raikkonen has returned to his old team. The move seems odd to me in several ways. For a start, Ferrari has operated a number one driver system (whereby one driver is clearly the team leader to maximise the opportunity for winning the Drivers’ title) for as long as I can remember. Raikkonen is not a number two driver (he, along with Alonso, is one of the best drivers on the grid). The contract is for a single year, with an option to extend it to 2015. Now, that could be so that any problems with Alonso can be axed after a single season, but why bother? Why not take on Hulkenberg or Di Resta, have them be a solid number two to Alonso, and when the Spaniard retires there’ll be a smoother transition. Besides which, even if it works out between Alonso and Raikkonen, they’ll retire at about the same time. Much easier to have a driver stay on when the number one leaves, I feel. In 2012 there was much murmuring of a replaceme...

Irony: getting a tip right (and even a green weekend) on the first race for ages you barely watch. First profitable weekend since Silverstone, and although (discounting the non-tipped Grosjean lay) the profit margin’s only 10% of one stake, I won’t complain. As Kermit the Frog once said, it’s not easy being green. Been a shade off-colour/sleepy today. Nothing serious but I couldn’t really give the race my attention. However, both Red Bulls got on the podium, so that’s rather splendid. Hulkenberg did well to retain fifth, ahead of Rosberg’s Mercedes. The Sauber driver is certainly doing his career prospects no harm at all with a performance like that, after a very solid qualifying. If/when the driver markets come up I might back him for the Ferrari seat, contingent upon the odds. Ricciardo had a solid seventh, one place down on his starting slot, and Grosjean rose slightly from thirteenth to eighth. Mercedes had a lacklustre result, with Rosberg sixth and Hamilton s...

Well, that qualifying session was unpredictable, entertaining and, at times, dramatic. It was also yet another red tip, which is irksome. I’ll explain what surprised me (and what didn’t) below. Q1 was pretty much standard fare. The four pointless cars went out, and Gutierrez and Bottas both failed to escape into Q2. Q2 was as tight as I’d expected, but I got a few things wrong. For a start, Maldonado never seemed to have a realistic prospect of reaching Q3. I was also slightly surprised both Lotuses failed to make the top 10 (I’d taken the few pounds available for Grosjean to not make it at 1.4 so overall my qualifying result was flat, but I’m a bit irked with myself for not tipping it at 1.75). It was also very surprising that Hamilton’s run of pole positions came to an end with twelfth. One suspects he must’ve damaged the car when he went rallying at the Parabolica. Force India also had a bad performance, both cars leaving the stage in Q2 (I reckon Sutil’s impeding of Hami...

As mentioned before, the tyres for this weekend are medium and hard In P1 Hamilton topped the timesheets, ahead of Alonso, Rosberg and Vettel. Raikkonen was fifth, followed by Perez, Button, Webber, Maldonado and Vergne. The times were pretty close together as is usual at Monza (as Gary Anderson said) because 70% of the lap is full throttle. In P1 commentary Alan McNish opined that Red Bull and Ferrari should be good around Monza. Di Resta and Anderson also reckoned that Force India should punch above their weight at the circuit. P2 had Vettel fastest, followed by Webber. Raikkonen and Grosjean, with differing wheelbases, managed to set an identical time. Fifth was Alonso, then Hamilton, Rosberg, Massa, Button and Perez. Vettel was half a second down the road in P2, but qualifying should be pretty close. Lap times are about 0.4s faster on the medium compound, but the second lap can be faster than the first because a little bit less grip can increase speed on t...

Apologies for this thread being a bit late (normally I try and put them up on Monday/Tuesday). Shockingly, this is because I was so busy concentrating on doing some actual work that I forgot. Ahem. The tyre compounds for Monza will be medium and hard, the same combination we saw at Spa. The tyres played relatively little role in differentiating the teams there. Monza’s a very high speed circuit, with minimal downforce (teams with money often have a Monza-specific setup/rear wing). It’s comparable to Canada, or Spa if you go for the low downforce setup (you can go either way in Belgium due to the contrasting sector types). The circuit’s pretty much a collection of straights with tiny kinks masquerading as corners. Traditionally, it hasn’t been a Red Bull-friendly circuit, but it would be an error of judgement to write off the processional victors of Spa. We can’t go by last year (they suffered a rare double retirement), but in 2011 Vettel won and in 2010 he got on the...