In my spare time I enjoy watching and sometimes participating in motorsport. Mainly, this tends to be watching F1 (Ferrari for the win; well, not with Alonso, not a fan) and the odd track day with my brother in law.
Sometimes I watch some touring car (BTCC), bikes (Moto GP) an almost anything else you can stick an engine to.
This section contains random articles relating to motorsport
16 Mar 2008
Friday just gone I had the pleasure of going to a track at Silverstone, and on the full GP circuit!! As I’m busy watching the first grand prix of the season I’ll leave it at that.
10 Jun 2007
Rookie star Lewis Hamilton realised the dreams of a lifetime in Montreal on Sunday, storming to his first Formula 1 victory after dishing out a lesson in composure to his more experienced rivals in the most trying of conditions.
The British sensation withstood everything that the afternoon’s action could throw at him to take a fantastic maiden victory in just his sixth F1 race on Canada’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
There were four safety cars periods, the difficulties of driving on an increasingly treacherous track and constant order changes behind him to deal with – but Lewis kept his head throughout to take a flawless win.
The wild race, which featured a horrifying accident for BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica, made fellow championship Fernando Alonso and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen look like the rookies.
But while the established stars faltered, Hamilton added the most important chapter in his F1 story so far and now leads the championship ahead of Alonso by eight points.
Indeed the contrasting fortunes of the two McLaren drivers were settled at the start.
Hamilton was slower away off the line than his team-mate and Alonso looked set to sweep around the outside of the sister MP4-22 going in to turn one.
But in a mistake reminiscent of his one at last month’s Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso out braked himself and was forced to cut across the grass at the turn two hairpin.
Crucially the mistake dropped the double world champion behind the BMW of Nick Heidfeld, allowing Hamilton the opportunity he needed to dictate the race from the front.
And that’s where he would stay, despite all that one of the most chaotic races in recent years served up.
By the end of lap one, the Briton was 1.5 ahead of Heidfeld, with Alonso stuck behind the German.
However rather than climbing all over the back of the BMW, the Spaniard was consistently around two seconds behind it for the opening 10 laps while his team-mate was waltzing away at the front.
No doubt frustrated by his predicament, on lap 15 Alonso made his second mistake at turn one, running across the grass and losing a further two seconds to his team-mate.
The world champion though would surely ensure he wouldn’t make the same mistake for a third time though, right?
Well, amazingly, it wasn’t as just three la
later he slid across the turn one grass again, but this time the mistake was even more costly as it allowed Massa to nip inside the McLaren and nab third place.
But in the next few laps the whole complexion of the race changed.
Hamilton pitted on lap 22 and looked set to continue on his way until his old F3 Euroseries team-mate and friend Adrian Sutil threw a spanner in the works – or rather threw his Spyker hard in to the turn four wall.
The incident brought out the safety car just seconds after Hamilton had rejoined, eroding his comfortable lead.
While Nick Heidfeld remained a threat, he soon didn’t have to worry about Alonso, who along with Nico Rosberg, made his first pit stop when their respective teams wrongly thought the pit lane was still open.
The pair were immediately placed under investigation by race control and were soon handed a 10s stop-go penalty – which they would serve later.
More drama befell Massa and Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella when the pit lane was reopened.
As they made to rejoin the circuit, they jumped a red light at the exit of the pit lane – an infraction that would later see both black-flagged from the race with just 19 la
The next man along, Kubica, did obey the lights, but the Pole was soon the unfortunate passenger in a terrifying accident.
On lap 27, when the race went green, the BMW driver had enormous crash after touching the right-rear wheel of Jarno Trulli’s Toyota while heading towards the hairpin flat-out at 180mph.
The impact launched Kubica’s F1.07 into a massive impact with the concrete wall, before it slewed back across the track, rolled, and finally came to rest against the guardrail on the outside of the hairpin.
The safety car was immediately dispatched once again to allow medics to attend to the Pole and marshals the chance to clear the huge amounts of debris littering the circuit.The accident cast a menacing cloud over the afternoon, but miraculously Kubica was awake and alert when he was taken to the circuit medical centre.
He was airlifted to hospital and the team later confirmed that he was uninjured.
When the race resumed on lap 33, leader Hamilton immediately picked up from where he had left off and left Nick Heidfeld standing when the safety car pulled in to build an immediate three-second advantage.
But the safety car was to make two more appearances still, just to make Lewis’ life a bit more difficult.
The first came on lap 50 after Christijan Albers became the second driver to spread orange carbon fibre debris following an off-track moment.
Then just six la
later Tonio Liuzzi, on course for a healthy haul of points for Toro Rosso, added his name alongside the likes of Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve by ploughing into the infamous wall at the final turn.
But while Liuzzi may not be a champion yet, one man who looks set to be, maybe even this season, is Lewis Hamilton – who after what must have seemed the longest afternoon of his life crossed the line to take a magnificent first F1 victory.
Heidfeld, who had been the McLaren drivers’ closest challenger all afternoon, picked up BMW’s best result since it bought the Sauber team at the end of 2005, with a superb second place.
Undoubtedly the biggest winner from the madness was Alex Wurz who from 19th on the grid ke
his head above the confusion to come home a remarkable third.
The result ended Williams’ two-year podium drought and was the prefect way for the likeable Austrian to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of his F1 debut.
It was also a landmark day for Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen, who despite all the trails and tribulations of his weekend up until Sunday, came through from the back of the field to claim fourth place, his own F1 high so far.
Raikkonen was perha
lucky to end up fifth after a scrap
performance in which he never lived up to his ‘Iceman’ nickname.
The Finn, whose championship challenge is slipping away by the race, touched the back of team-mate Massa at the first turn and then survived queuing behind the Brazilian while pitting under the safety car and several other misadventures.
Raikkonen’s four points were all Ferrari had to show from a weekend in which it once again was unable to challenge the now dominant McLarens.
Then to cap a quite extraordinary afternoon, Takuma Sato pulled off something that you thought you would never witness – a Super Aguri passing a McLaren on merit.
The McLaren was the double world champion of Fernando Alonso, no less, whose nightmare afternoon ended with a demotion to seventh place after the feisty Japanese ace out braked the Spaniard into the final chicane.
The final point went to Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher, who himself was a late victim of the Sato charge.
But the day belonged to super Lewis after what will surely be the first win of many.
Laziness has caught hold once agin, this is an edited report taken from itv
27 May 2007
Fernando Alonso regained the lead of the world championship beating Lewis Hamilton in a 1-2 for the McLaren team.
The silver cars were in a class of their own throughout, routinely lapping a second faster than the opposition and leaving Ferrari’s Felipe Massa trailing home nearly a whole lap behind in third place
Despite some acrobatic and at times heart-stopping driving with an oversteering car, Lewis was unable to get past Alonso
The fact that he looked downbeat after his fifth podium finish in as many F1 starts was a measure of just what an astoundingly good job he has done so far, and how high expectations have been raised
Alonso and Hamilton both got away well from the front row, the Briton crossing over to the right-hand side to cover any challenge from Massa and slotting in behind his team-mate before the first corner
A set of super-soft tyres propelled Nick Heidfeld off the line and the German put a muscular move on Nico Rosberg to grab fifth behind Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault
All 22 cars made it round the first lap but Vitantonio Liuzzi got out of shape at Massenet at the start of lap two and buried his Toro Rosso in the barrier
His MP4-22 had not been handling quite to his liking and a tyre pressure adjustment at the pit stop had not cured the problem
By the time Alonso stopped for the second time on lap 51, he had 11 seconds in hand
It was too much for Hamilton to overcome, particularly since it transpired that he was pitting just two laps later although a leisurely out-lap from Alonso made it a lot closer than it might have otherwise been
In fact, over the next few laps Alonso allowed his lead to dwindle to as little as 0.7s
Did he have a problem? Or having made his statement when he needed to was he simply moderating his pace to ensure no mishaps on the way to the chequered flag?
Alonso relaxed his pace a little and the silver cars held station until the finish
After initially keeping the McLarens in sight, Massa had a lonely afternoon holding down an ever more distant third place
The Brazilian crossed the line one minute and nine seconds behind Alonso
Fisichella also ploughed his own furrow in fourth, but this result beating both BMW Saubers on merit was a morale-booster for the Renault squad, suggesting that the world champion team is gradually regaining lost competitiveness
Robert Kubica parlayed a 45-lap opening stint and a single pit stop into fifth place, leapfrogging his team-mate Heidfeld who ran a less conventional one-stop strategy with a short first stint on super-soft tyres followed by a long run to the flag
Alex Wurz took seventh for Williams, his first points-scoring finish since his return to grand prix racing this year
The Austrian fought a successful rearguard action to keep Kimi Raikkonen at bay throughout the closing stages
Starting from a lowly 16th after his qualifying mishap, Raikkonen made a good start to move up four places but thereafter couldn’t break free of the midfield traffic
Scott Speed took a worthy ninth place for Toro Rosso, capitalising on an excellent getaway and solid pace thereafter
The two Hondas both fell back a place from their grid berths to finish 10th (Rubens Barrichello) and 11th (Jenson Button) after the Japanese team chose an unorthodox two-stop strategy with a short final stint on super-soft tyres
Rosberg’s fine qualifying performance came to nothing as Williams’ strategy backfired and he spent much of the race stuck behind slower cars, ultimately finishing down in 12th
13 May 2007
Felipe Massa denied the Barcelona crowd the result it was looking for by dominating the Spanish Grand Prix from lights to flag for his second consecutive victory – as Lewis Hamilton became Formula 1’s youngest ever championship leader
Massa never looked back after emerging on top from a first-corner skirmish with McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, which sent the home hero scampering across the gravel and down to fourth place – an incident he never recovered from
And while the world champion endured a race-long struggle, his team-mate Hamilton upstaged him for the second race running by scoring another superb second place finish
The result gives the 22-year-old rookie sole possession of the world championship lead after just four grands prix another extraordinary milestone
Polesitter Massa set the tone for his dominant display at the start by coming out on top after going wheel-to-wheel with Alonso going in to the first turn
Both had got away well from the front row, but it was the world champion, no doubt spurred on by his passionate fans, who looked set to take the lead as he tried to brave it round the outside of the Ferrari through turn one
However Massa held firm on the inside of the corner and the pair touched, forcing Alonso across the gravel and nearly into the path of his team-mate Hamilton and Raikkonen as he hurriedly rejoined the track
Alonso’s first corner move was a gamble that totally backfired, leaving him with a damaged car and a mountain to climb
He tried to pass Raikkonen on the outside at turn 10 on the next lap, but was forced to settle into fourth place
The first lap action had not all been at the front, as there was further chaos in the midfield
As Giancarlo Fisichella, Anthony Davidson and Ralf Schumacher battled at turn 10, the following Alex Wurz was unsighted and smashed his Williams into the back of Schumacher’s Toyota shattering his FW29’s front suspension and forcing him in to retirement
The incident also forced the Toyota driver in for an unscheduled stop a double blow for the Japanese squad after Jarno Trulli’s car had developed a fuel pump problem at the end of the formation lap
At the front, Massa rapidly pulled away from Hamilton – who had outdragged Raikkonen at the start – with a succession of fastest laps
He was six seconds clear by the end of lap 10
But his team-mate Raikkonen ?%u20AC%u201C who had been hovering around a second behind Hamilton for the first nine laps suddenly struck electrical problems and slowed
The Finn limped back to the Ferrari garage and into his first retirement of the season a huge blow to his world championship aspirations
Raikkonen’s demise came amid a series of retirements in the opening 10 laps
Red Bull’s Mark Webber (hydraulics) and Trulli had already pulled in to the garage before the right rear tyre on Scott Speed’s Toro Rosso spectacularly blew out on Catalunya’s main straight
Meanwhile up front Massa had pulled out a 9.5s advantage by the time of his first pit stop on lap 19
But for a few nervous moments all that effort looked as though it might have been in vain as an overfill on the fuel caused a flash fire on his Ferrari
Luckily for the Brazilian, however, the conflagration did little damage and he was able to get back on the pace at the start of his second stint
Massa was followed into the pits by the man who started alongside him on the front row, Alonso, but the Spaniard was now already out of the reckoning for a home victory
But he then gambled for a second time by opting to take on the harder compound tyres for the second stint in a bid to claw back lost ground ?%u20AC%u201C a decision that would see him fall further back from the top two and in to the clutches of the chasing pack behind
Within a few laps, the Spaniard was only a couple of seconds ahead of BMW’s Robert Kubica, enjoying by far his best weekend of the season, with Red Bull’s David Coulthard running close behind in fifth
Lewis, as he hinted to ITV Sport following qualifying, did indeed have more fuel on board than both his team-mate and Massa, pulling in for service three laps later than they had
This allowed him to close to within eight seconds of his Ferrari rival, but it proved to be a false dawn as despite the fire, Massa increased his lead further in the race’s second stint
By the time of the final round of stops, Massa – who again was the first of the leading runners to pit – had a virtually insurmountable 19.3s advantage in his pocket
Hamilton ran longer on the fuel, by four laps, and although he used the extra laps on the softer compound to claw back some ground, he still emerged from his second stop 11s adrift
From here Massa managed the gap to the young Briton in the final 20 laps, eventually crossing the line 6.7s ahead of F1’s youngest-ever world championship leader
Alonso’s lacklustre afternoon ended with a distant third, with Kubica picking up a solid five points for fourth after an impressive weekend
He would have had a close race with his BMW team-mate Nick Heidfeld had the German not been waved out of his first pit stop before his right front wheel was properly attached
Heidfeld had to tip-toe back around to the pits for the wheel to be secured, and later retired with gearbox failure
Another driver to star was Coulthard who scored his best result since his podium in last year’s Monaco GP, although the Scot had a nervy final five laps after his RB3 lost a gear
This allowed Nico Rosberg a shot at trying to steal fifth place for Williams, but he ran out of laps and had to settle for sixth
Heikki Kovalainen underlined his growing confidence with seventh and at times was even the fastest driver on the track, but his race was marred by a fuel rig problem that forced both Renaults to make additional stops
Probably the happiest team in the whole paddock was Super Aguri, who at the 22nd attempt finally scored its first F1 point thanks to Takuma Sato
Sato took advantage of a late splash-and-dash fuel stop from Fisichella to take eighth place and no doubt sent his massed ranks of Japanese supporters wild back home
But in contrast to the 140,000 Spaniards in the Barcelona grandstands, their own home hero had not quite delivered the result they had been looking for.
15 Apr 2007
Felipe Massa finally kick-started his 2007 title challenge with victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix, while Lewis Hamilton continued the dream start to his Formula 1 career with another accomplished runner-up finish.
Massa atoned for his schoolboy error in Malaysia with a perfectly judged performance, but he was harried for much of the afternoon by the astounding Hamilton, who edged tantalisingly closer to a maiden win.
The 22-year-old Briton etched his name in the F1 record books by becoming the first driver to finish on the podium in each of his first three grands prix.
Into the bargain, he moved into a three-way tie with Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen for the lead of the world championship.
Although he regained the points lead, Raikkonen was less than satisfied after finishing more than 10 seconds adrift of his winning team-mate in third place.
BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld broke McLaren and Ferrari’s stranglehold on the top quartet of places with another impressive drive to fourth, the highlight of which was a skilful passing manoeuvre on Alonso.
That left the double world champion, who was outperformed by his rookie team-mate all weekend, to settle for fifth.
Massa got away well from pole position, while from the dirty side of the track Hamilton found enough traction to hold second place into the first corner.
From the second row, Alonso outdragged Raikkonen and the Ferrari only just kept the McLaren at bay at turn one.
Alonso carried more momentum through the tight complex and muscled ahead on the approach to turn four to snatch third place
Moments later the safety car was deployed following a melee at turn four which eliminated Jenson Button’s Honda and the Toro Rosso of Scott Speed
At the restart Raikkonen was caught napping, crossing the line a long way behind the top three, who were in nose-to-tail formation
Hamilton feinted to the inside of Massa approaching turn one but thought better of any outlandish move and tucked back into line
These two immediately established a cushion over Alonso, who soon had the fast-closing Raikkonen filling his mirrors
The die was cast for the opening stint, with an increasingly large margin opening up between the Massa/Hamilton and Alonso/Raikkonen battles
Alonso was visibly struggling with the handling of his MP4-22, locking wheels and missing apexes with uncharacteristic frequency â%u20AC" but Raikkonen was never quite able to pounce
As a result, Kimi found himself being chased by Heidfeld’s BMW Sauber, which had remained within surprisingly close range early on and was now closing in on the battle for third
Massa and Hamilton continued to trade fastest laps all the way up to the first pit stops, the Ferrari driver edging away on one lap only for the McLaren man to reel him in again the next
It was an absorbing duel, and such was Hamilton’s relentless focus that it was easy to forget it was but his third F1 start
Lewis was the first of the front-runners to pit and McLaren put both him and Alonso (who took on service three laps later) onto a long middle stint in a bid to turn the tables on Ferrari
The tactic didn’t pay off, as Massa turned up the wick on his scrubbed set of soft-compound tyres while both McLarens struggled for balance
Moreover, Raikkonen leapfrogged Alonso by pitting one lap later than him, which released him to hunt down second-placed Hamilton
With a front wing adjustment at his pit stop having cured his car’s understeer, Massa stretched his lead to 8.3s lap by lap 30, while Hamilton’s focus switched to fending off the other Ferrari of Raikkonen
Meanwhile Alonso’s race had really started to unravel
The Spaniard had his work cut out keeping the flying Heidfeld behind him and finally ceded the place when the BMW driver pulled off an audacious outside pass at turn four on lap 32
A little farther up the road, Raikkonen slowly but steadily whittled away the 5s gap to Hamilton until the pair were tied together by lap 40
But having handicapped him earlier, the long middle stint now worked in Lewis’ favour as he was able to stay out for three more laps on a light fuel load â%u20AC" thus continuing his remarkable record of leading each grand prix he has started
Coupled with a shorter final stop, it was enough to ensure that he retained second place, emerging from the pit lane comfortably in front of Raikkonen
Just as Massa’s lead seemed secure, there was another twist in this constantly fascinating race as it drew towards its climax
Hamilton found his McLaren was handling much better on the harder â%u20AC?%u0153prime’ tyres he had taken on at his final pit stop, now free of the understeer that had bothered him in the middle stages
The Briton began to take substantial chunks out of Massa’s lead with each new lap, cutting it to 6.7s on lap 47 and 4.6s by lap 51
His progress was thwarted a little when Anthony Davidson’s Super Aguri expired in front of him and he had to navigate his way through the murky trail of oil â%u20AC" but even on that lap, he trimmed the deficit by 0.2s
Ultimately, he ran out of laps, and Massa held on to take the chequered flag 2.3s ahead of his now regular sparring partner
When Hamilton put on his late spurt Raikkonen was unable to stay with him, finishing more than 8s in arrears
Alonso’s pace improved in the final stint and he closed back onto Heidfeld’s gearbox, but the German is one of F1’s coolest customers and was never likely to give his pursuer an opening
Robert Kubica could not match team-mate Heidfeld’s pace and almost alone of the 22 drivers, it seemed had a lonely time en route to sixth place and his first points of 2007
By rights, seventh place should have gone to David Coulthard, who drove his best race since scoring Red Bull’s first podium finish in Monaco last year
The Scot’s feisty charge from 21st on the grid was sadly halted by a broken driveshaft shortly after his second pit stop
Team-mate Mark Webber stepped into the breach, but his RB3 fell by the wayside five laps later
The demise of the Red Bulls promoted Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella to the final points-paying positions
The Toyota driver had his hands full in the closing laps staving off his fellow Italian, who despite Renault boss Flavio Briatore’s animated exhortations over the radio was unable to find a way past.
27 Nov 2006
The many twists and turns of the 2006 F1 championship lead to an intriguing end. With the retirement of undoubtedly the greatest driver of the modern age (regardless of his misdemeanours) it would have been poetic justice if he'd gone out in style by winning an 8th title.