Today one of our fellow humble bloggers received a letter from a Formula 1 team – not just any Formula 1 team but the very group he spends his time blogging about, you see his is a blog devoted to the Red Bull F1 family of Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso. Fantastic! Or so you might think.. read his own words..:
Excitedly I opened it, wondering what was contained inside. My enthusiasm quickly turned to sheer bewilderment when I realised that I had in fact received a letter from Red Bull’s legal people with regards to this blog.
..and the words of Red Bull:
Your use of the domain names and the Bull Logo misrepresents some affiliation between the famous Red Bull brand and the Websites. Potentially, this could confuse members of the public.
Utter stupidity! Confuse the public? How? Perhaps they think there is money being made? It’s a fan blog. Someone writing positive stories about his favourite racing team. I’m sure we’re all fans of the atmosphere Red Bull brought into what had become a stale F1 paddock even if we may not be fans of the team. Personally I respect them a lot but I’m generally indifferent, but that’s irrelevant. I like the things they do elsewhere such as the Red Bull Air Race World Series and sponsorships throughout motorsport. RBR/STR are good teams. But let’s face it there aren’t many Red Bull Racing fan sites out there, so why try to stamp out this one?
Quite rightly he’s decided to close the blog rather than agree to strict terms of operating, and that’s a shame.
Let’s hope sense returns to the legal department on Monday and they reconsider stripping one of their biggest supporters of his freedom to big ’em up.
Qualifying results for the 2009 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, Melbourne
Here are the results for each of the three qualifying sessions, plus the starting order after penalties were applied. I am considering whether to post this for each F1 and IndyCar race this season, time permitting. Let me know what you think, is it better to get this info from the racing news sites?
Format: 3-round knockout losing 5 drivers per round, those 5 are locked in that position barring penalties. Times are deleted and the next round begins. In the final round the drivers carry the fuel they will start the race with. I’ll post each session so you can see the progression.
Penalties Hamilton – gearbox changed after qualifying, drop 5 positions. 15th to 20th. Trulli and Glock – wings found to be flexing illegally, qualifying times deleted, cars may start at the back if the wing is corrected.
Starting Order (new for 2009: weights are declared after qualifying) 1. Button 664.5kg 2. Barrichello 666.5kg 3. Vettel 657kg 4. Kubica 650kg 5. Rosberg 657kg 6. Massa 654kg 7. Raikkonen 655.5kg 8. Webber 662kg 9. Heidfeld 691.5kg 10. Alonso 680.7kg 11. Nakajima 685.3kg 12. Kovalainen 690.6kg 13. Buemi 675.5kg 14. Nelson Piquet 694.1kg 15. Giancarlo Fisichella 689kg 16. Adrian Sutil 684.5kg 17. Sebastien Bourdais 662.5kg 18. Lewis Hamilton 655kg 19. Jarno Trulli 660kg 20. Timo Glock 670kg
The Brawns are exceptionally fast even on a heavier fuel load – will they have the reliability though? What of Vettel up front, surely Kubica will have something to say about that? And I’m still not counting out the Ferraris who are fast on longer runs through a stint. The Toyotas were showing upper-midfield pace so ought to find their way through the field well enough, but I’m not so sure Hamilton will be able to!
Turns 1 and 3 at Albert Park always provides butt-clenching action as we hope nobody crashes or destroys front wings, concerns magnified with this year’s wing regulations. Let’s hope they make some good clean passes!
* * * * FIA Formula 1 World Championship – ING Australian Grand Prix(1/17)
– Albert Park
– Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
– www.formula1.com
– F1.com track map / F1Fanatic’s track guide
– Live timing (Java required, free registration required, worth it)
* WARNING *
In the UK the clocks will change on Sunday morning. At 2am GMT we will jump to 3am British Summer Time (BST). Thus Qualifying and Race start at the same time locally but one hour apart for us.
Preview
Welcome to the slightly delayed preview to the Australian GP!
Circuit
Albert Park is a semi-street track set around a lake in the city of Melbourne. It isn’t a traditional street track, being as it runs through a park and the barriers aren’t always up tight to the racing surface. The racetrack isn’t as bumpy as your average street track – although this year the drivers seem to have found more bumps than usual.
The deceptively fast first corner is always a concern, more so this year with the extended width of the front wings this year. You know how drivers like to win the race at the first corner? Well this is the first corner of the Championship and some of them think they can win the title in the first corner!
Of course this is followed up by a medium/long straight into the tight heavy braking area of turn 3. Some guys who were careful in turn 1 decide turn 3 is the better opportunity, sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. The guys will need to temper their enthusiasm to avoid crashes!
Here are two onboard laps to refamiliarise yourself with the layout, assuming you haven’t already been watching Free Practice!
The first is Jenson Button’s 2006 pole lap described by Martin Brundle, then of ITV:
Here is Kimi Raikkonen’s 2007 pole lap described by David Hobbs of SPEED:
Rule Changes
There are far too many variables to discuss with regards to the new rules and the time for explaining them in long reams of text is over. What we do know is that both Ferraris, both McLarens, both Renaults and Nick Heidfeld of BMW will all be using KERS this weekend. Force India, BrawnGP and Toyota say they are not running KERS, and the remainder are tight-lipped on the subject with speculation that Williams and others may be running it.
If you’ve been away from all the pre-season hype you may be aware of some major changes this year but perhaps not the specifics. Everyone else could probably use a refresher on the eve of the first race and this video is ideal for the purpose:
(7m40s, Inside Track from SidepodcastTV
you may prefer to try the low-res version)
Form
BrawnGP have been running exceptionally well in testing and have carried that into Free Practice. McLaren and Ferrari are stuck in the midfield among suggestions of sandbagging, running heavy to mask their true pace. I’m not sure this is true. Ferrari seem to have good speed over a long run if not over a lap, but they aren’t at the absolute cutting edge of lap time. McLaren appear to be struggling much more.
Williams are also fast however this has happened with Williams over the last few years, they are quick at Albert Park and then have a dire race in Sepang. Let’s hope the latter trend is put to rest this season. Interestingly Toyota and Force India have shown promising form in practice.
What is clear is the grid is very well shaken up and yet very close together, with only 2 seconds separating front to back in Friday FP2. The combination of all the different factors makes it incredibly difficult to predict what will happen on both Saturday and Sunday, something we haven’t been able to say about F1 for a very long time!! I think we’re going to enjoy this season.
UK TV
Q: BBC One will air Qualifying live at 5am GMT Saturday, session begins at 6am. Rerun at 1pm.
R: BBC One will air the Race live at 6am BST Sunday, race starts at 7am. Rerun at 1pm.
H: BBC Three will air 1hr Highlights at 7pm BST Sunday.
US TV
Q: Speed will air Qualifying live at 2am ET, it seems they are jumping straight in to the green flag unless I have my times wrong.
R: Speed will air the Race live at 1:30am ET with the race to start at 2am. Rerun at 4:30pm.
Canada should get coverage on TSN featuring BBC commentary. EDIT – you used to be able to choose Speed but you may want to see this link and check what you can see at the time, although I’m not sure why you’d voluntarily sit through all their ads.
Race Notes
I will again be writing notes during the race for upload straight after the event. I won’t be doing a live blog, it’s more a journal of noteworthy events which is written live, checked for editing and uploaded shortly after the podium ceremony. If you’re sitting here killing time before Qual or Race because of the timezones, you can click here to see notes on previous races.
Live Comments
This season I will also be in the Sidepodcast.com Live Comments for all races and most qualifying sessions. Fire up the Live Commenting Live..Thing at the appointed time and join the appropriate thread at the top of the screen, then just type away! I’ve been keeping up with the comments during the latter end of the off-season, but not a live F1 GP before – it should be fun. You’re welcome to join us as long as you keep the sweary exclamations away.. I think I’ll struggle with that bit.. I may be quiet during races while I concentrate on the Race Notes, however I should be active during qualifying.
I will of course have TwitterFox to hand for those all-important tweets.
Support events
V8 Supercars*, Australian GT, Australian Formula Ford, Aussie Racing Cars, Historic Formula 5000, Mini Challenge, Minardi F1x2 two-seaters, Ultimate Speed Comparison (road car vs V8 Supercar vs 2008 BMW F1 car)
(these events are spread across the weekend)
This blog covers a great many racing series to a greater or lesser degrees, and as regular visitors know this Weekend Preview strand is intended as a ‘broad brush’ to briefly touch on as many races happening in a given weekend as possible.
However, the main focus of the blog is Formula 1. For this reason I have elected to write separate preview posts for each F1 round of this season as well as ‘special events’ such as the Indy 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Australian GP preview follows shortly, in the meantime here is a quick run-down of what else is happening in the world of racing this weekend.
* * * * Feature Event
FIA Formula 1 World Championship – ING Australian Grand Prix(1/17) – Albert Park – Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – www.formula1.com – Track map
I will post a full preview shortly!
Support events: V8 Supercars*, Australian GT, Australian Formula Ford, Aussie Racing Cars, Historic Formula 5000, Mini Challenge, Minardi F1x2 two-seaters, Ultimate Speed Comparison (road car vs V8 Supercar vs 2008 BMW F1 car)
* non-championship races billed as a manufacturer battle between Ford and Holden. This has to be one of the best support race bills of the entire F1 season, and you can add several air displays from the Royal Australian Air Force into the mix too.
Absolutely brilliant that they’ve included the old F5000 cars for this year. I’ve not seem them myself, but hear they’re quite a sight! A packed programme of events as always at Albert Park.
* * * Other Events:
NASCAR Sprint Cup – Goody’s Fast Relief 500(6/36) – Martinsville Speedway – Martinsville, Virginia, United States – www.nascar.com
Another short track for the Cup boys.
UK TV: LIVE on Sky Sports 3 from 7pm BST Sunday. US TV: LIVE on FOX from 1:30pm ET Sunday.
Support races: Camping World Truck Series (Saturday)
Stock Car V8 Brasil – Interlagos(1/12) – Autodromo Carlos Pace – Interlagos, Sao Paulo Brazil – www.stockcar.globo.com
Brazil’s answer to NASCAR? The first race of the season on the F1 track at Interlagos.
* * * * Notes I believe that’s all there is this weekend. You’ll thank me for the F1 split-out in a few weeks when this post gets busy!
I Watch Too Much Racing 