Surprises At Bahrain GP Practice Session
Adrian Sutil in his Force India posted the quickest time in the Friday practice session.
With limited practice sessions in the run-up to the 2010 Formula One season, the best indicator of form will be the Friday practice sessions.
And what a surprise it was for F1 fans when Adrian Sutil topped the timing sheets after 18 laps on the Bahrain circuit in the morning’s practice session. The Force India driver posted some solid results last year, and he and the team are looking to continue the improvements from 2009.
Sutil’s time of 1:56.583 was just 0.2 of a second quicker than Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, the man all F1 watchers are picking to set the early pace this season.
Robert Kubica in his Renault was third, followed by the second Ferrari driver, Felipe Massa, in fourth spot.
Other hot favourites, the McLaren duo of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, posted the fifth and sixth fastest times respectively, with not much to split the dueling British duo.
And where, you’re probably asking, was Michael Schumacher in his Mercedes? The 40-year-old German posted the 10th fastest time, and he was surprisingly pipped by his teammate Nico Rosberg in eighth.
More results are expected in the second practice session.
Baby Schumi Wants To Make His Mark
Sebastian Vettel was nicknamed Baby Schumi
Sebastian Vettel is the most thrilling young driver in Formula One and, following his second place for Red Bull in last year’s championship, the most intriguing competitor in this season’s potentially riveting battle for the world title.
But Vettel is also, by far, the most relaxed and engaging racer in the notoriously guarded paddock.
“You might think I’d get more attention this year,” the 22-year-old German says in his immaculate English, “but there has actually been less focus on me. This is all because some old German guy decided to come back. He is keeping all the German writers very busy and that’s good for me. I take my hat off to the old guy.”
Vettel waves his beanie in the direction of the Mercedes motorhome where a returning Michael Schumacher offers just one compelling strand in a revitalised racing narrative which resumes this Sunday with the opening race in Bahrain.
“This season we might get lucky and talk about the racing rather than politics or business,” Vettel says. “We’ve got Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull. That’s four teams and eight drivers. At the moment it’s difficult to know who is at the top. One of us will finish first and one of us will finish eighth – with six others between.
“And we have this interesting competition between team-mates. You’ve got two British drivers in a British team – with [Lewis] Hamilton and [Jenson] Button at McLaren. I don’t think it’s going to be easy for Jenson. Lewis is very quick and he has known this team for many years. You can see what he did back in 2007 when Fernando Alonso was at McLaren. So I’m very interested to see McLaren and Ferrari [where Alonso and Felipe Massa have had their moments of strife].
“Obviously in Germany people are more interested in Michael and Nico [Rosberg] and a rivalry between two German drivers. A lot of things could happen in all these teams. So I think the most spectacular combination is me and Mark [Webber] because everyone knows we don’t have a problem. Of course I want to beat him every time, and he wants to beat me, but we get along well.”
Vettel nods in acknowledgement when reminded that he and Webber have had their problems.
Their relationship started badly when, in 2007, Vettel shunted Webber off the track during the Japanese grand prix. Vettel drove then for Toro Rosso and he was chasing Webber who, in turn, was pushing Hamilton hard for the lead in sheeting rain.
Last year there were also some combative battles between Webber and Vettel as the Australian veteran and the German tyro came close to hunting down Button after the British driver looked to have wrapped up the title after winning six out of the first seven races. “You know Mark,” Vettel says of his similarly likeable team‑mate, “he is not afraid of saying what he thinks. So after that crash in Japan he was direct. He was angry and I was angry but, afterwards, I was sorry. We’ve never had a problem since.”
Webber ranted against Vettel’s inexperience in 2007 but the German’s rise as a prodigy can be measured in the number of records he holds. He is the youngest-ever driver to score points in a Formula One race [when aged 19 at the US grand prix in 2007] as well as the youngest-ever to take pole position and reach the podium. He also became the youngest-ever race winner when, just a few months after he turned 21, he was victorious at the Italian grand prix in September 2008.
It has long been an open secret in the pit-lane that Vettel is on course to become the next great star of the sport.
Even more impressively, he appears as entertained as he is gratified by such bold claims.
“All these nice people saying I’m going to be world champion won’t make me any faster,” he says. “You have to believe it yourself.”
Attention might initially gravitate towards Schumacher but Vettel should overshadow the racing great with whom he has been compared since his teenage years. “They used to call me ‘Baby Schumi’. I didn’t like it but I understood.
In Britain, when you had Nigel Mansell, a national icon, the question after him was always the same, ‘Who is the next Nigel Mansell?’ The only one you didn’t get it with was Eddie The Eagle because he was not much good.”
Fame
In the unforgiving paddock Formula One boils down to winning – and making as much money as possible from a corporate enterprise. But, this season, the very human and remarkably gifted Vettel might just transform the cynical perception of an often cold business. “Last year it was different.
No one expected Red Bull to challenge for the title. But now people expect us to be at the top. I like that but I also think it’s important for me to say hi to all the mechanics from those other smaller teams who helped me when I was starting out. Sometimes that gets lost along the way.”
Then, just in case he sounds too noble for his own good, Vettel leans forward intently. “I want to win a lot of races this year – and it would be nice to start in Bahrain. It’s not my favourite track but I finished second there last year. There’s no champagne but the trophies they give out are great. I got a small, silver one last year and now I’d like the really big one.”
Best of all, as Vettel admits, would be a glittering trophy at the end of season which seals his apparent destiny as he becomes only the second German to win the world championship. “I’d love that, but seven other drivers are each planning something different. But I like to think that, this year, I could be good enough.”
Schumacher Puts His Neck On The Line
Recovery from injury at 41 was against the odds but the former champion is no ordinary man.
As if Michael Schumacher did not have enough to think about, he will have mixed feelings over an alteration to the race track on which he will make his Formula One comeback this weekend. A new half-mile loop to the circuit at Bahrain will bring six additional bends, six more places per lap to add strain to neck muscles already due to receive a tough work-out during the course of a 192-mile race, Schumacher’s first since October 2006.
It is true the seven-times champion has gone racing during his three-season absence but the difference between a kart or motorbike and the punishment dealt out by a grand prix car is comparable to that between a punt on the Cam and the Olympic coxless fours.
The irony is that a motorcycle racing accident could threaten one of the most celebrated comebacks in the history of sport. Schumacher says he has received the medical all-clear over damage to the seventh vertebra and a fracture at the base of his skull, roughly the size of a thumbnail but in a place supporting the weight of the skull. The G-forces unique to Formula One will seek out the tiniest weakness in this, the most vulnerable part of a racing driver’s body, particularly for a man of 41, twice as old as some of his rivals.
Dr Riccardo Ceccarelli, from the Italian sports clinic Formula Medicine and formerly of the Toyota Formula One team, explains the potential hazard that Schumacher will face as he embarks on a 19-race season covering more than 7 000 miles of racing and practice. “I know of no other sport that places such big demands on the neck muscles,” says Ceccarelli. “A head and F1 helmet together weigh about 6kg. Add about 4g as experienced when cornering in a grand prix, and the neck has to support 24kg.”
Schumacher will face 16 changes of direction on each lap in Bahrain, the saving grace being that only two of the corners are fast enough to register 4g. But it will be a different story on 4 April in Malaysia where the effect of numerous fourth- and fifth-gear curves at Sepang will be aggravated by intense heat and humidity.
Famous for introducing levels of fitness never dreamed of when he arrived in Formula One in 1991, Schumacher will be as well-prepared as it is possible to be. Having been tempted back by Mercedes Grand Prix, formerly known as Brawn and, before that, Honda and British American Racing (BAR), Schumacher has been fortunate in having access to gym equipment designed specifically for the neck and thought to be unique among F1 teams.
“It’s known as a rehabilitation machine,” says Anthony Davidson, the former test driver with Brawn, Honda and BAR. “It was made in Germany and deals with neck injuries. We took it a step further and used it to build muscles on the neck because that’s the area of a F1 driver’s body that takes the most punishment. When Michael joined, he asked me to bring him up to speed on how it worked. What did he think of it? I don’t know. Michael doesn’t give much away.”
For the full story visit the guardian.co.uk
Hamilton Reveals He Nearly Quit Racing
Lewis Hamilton has spoken of the moment when he considered walking away from Formula One in the aftermath of the Lie-Gate scandal.
The 2008 world champion had been talked into the mistake of lying to the stewards about an overtaking move at the Australian grand prix last year which led to a public apology and headlines about being a cheat.
“It was a feeling of, ‘Shoot, maybe I shouldn’t be in the sport,’ rather than not in my team,” said the McLaren driver. “It was not a desire to leave the team, just stopping racing. For a split second it was, ‘This is too much to take, how do I recover from this?’
“But there was support from my family, team, fans, amazing letters and I thought, ‘You know what? I made a mistake but I am being given a second chance by all these people and their support’.
“Sometimes it is hard to face the music, hard to face people when you know that as soon as you turn your back they are talking about you.
“For a long period of time, for months, I would walk into a room – and I am sure there are some people who walked into the room and they feel cool – but for me I just didn’t feel positive, it was negative energy and I don’t like that.
“Slowly I began to realise that it was not all negative energy and I had a lot of support and respect from people. It made me stronger, a real strong experience.”
With thanks to the Guardian.co.uk
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Hamilton & Button Fear Schumacher
Sir Jackie Stewart reckons Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are living in fear of being “beaten up” by Michael Schumacher in this season’s Formula One world championship.
Seven-time champion Schumacher will be the centre of attention on his return to Formula One at next weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix at the age of 41.
The German’s decision to end his three-year retirement means four world champions will be on the grid this season.
Stewart, Britain’s most successful F1 driver with three titles, said: “It’s fantastic for motor racing that he’s come back because he is now the biggest focus of interest.
“Fernando Alonso driving a Ferrari is going to be tough to beat.
“You’ve got Jenson in there as world champion; you’ve got Lewis, who wants the world championship back.
“To see that occurring with Schumacher back, that’s the extra edge – in my opinion – for them.
“Do they really want to be beaten up by a guy of 41 years, who’s already been out of the sport?
“He’s going to come back and say, ‘I know how to do this, and I certainly know how to thread the needle’.”
Stewart believes Schumacher’s Mercedes team are already playing catch-up to their rivals, with the German manufacturers not taking over Brawn until after this season’s car had been in development.
“Maybe it’ll take him another year to get the car up to speed,” Stewart said.
“It may not be as good a car as Ferrari and McLaren are producing this year.
“Schumacher’s so experienced and he’s so good at co-ordinating people that I think you’ll see the performance improving for him.
“I could see him not being up at the front row to begin with, but you certainly couldn’t count him out.”
With thanks the telegraph.co.uk
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