2013 Spanish Grand Prix – Sunday (Photo credit: CaterhamF1)

‘The Week in F1′ will now be posted on a Monday night as now races being held on a Sunday afternoon means I just don’t have time to do my blog posts and get this up and posted and fit in eating a shed load of roast potatoes and cake. 

From news of James Allison’s departure from Lotus, to teams crying about the tyres to Fernando Alonso’s fantastic win in Spain, let’s review the week in Formula 1.

Hamilton says ‘Nothing controls me now’ 

After spending the majority of his career racing for McLaren, Lewis Hamilton says he now feels like his old man now he’s away from the McLaren’s ‘controlled environment’.

Niki Lauda says Mercedes have the best driver pairing

Niki Lauda denied rumours that he had been trying to tempt Sebastian Vettel away from Red Bull and commented that Mercedes already had the best driver pairing.

James Allison leaves Lotus 

On Thursday Lotus broke the news that their Technical Director, James Allison, was to leave the team and would be replaced by Nick Chester. Speculation is rife concerning where he will go, but as no one is willing to confirm anything we’re just going to have to be patient.

Mark Webber says the tyres mean Qualifying is now less important 

Red Bull driver believes that the Pirelli tyres high degradation has made Qualifying less important and turned Saturday into a game of chess.

Alonso scores a home run

The two Ferrari’s looked fantastic on Sunday around the Circuit de Catalunya with Fernando Alonso winning in front of his home crowd for the first time since 2006 back when he was driving for Renault. His team mate Felipe Massa was able to pull off more than just a supporting role and finished in 3rd place.

A miserable day out in Spain for McLaren, Lewis Hamilton and Williams

McLaren’s woes continued as they had a fairly average day out in Spain, though at least they picked up some points. Lewis Hamilton was left confused and frustrated after coming home in 13th place meanwhile teammate Rosberg finished in 6th. Williams’ updates didn’t appear to help the team all that much in terms of performance as they found themselves finishing fairly low down the grid.

Alonso investigated for picking up a flag 

After storming to the win in Spain in front of his home crowd a very happy Alonso slowed down to pick up a Spanish flag from one of the marshalls. The FIA investigated him for this under ‘receiving an object after the end-of-race signal’. Yes, really. Thankfully the Spaniard wasn’t fined.

Red Bull very unhappy with the Pirelli rubber 

Lotus and Ferrari seem to have really got to grips with this years tyres, unfortunately the same can’t be said for Red Bull who are really struggling to manage their tyres. Following the race Sebastian Vettel commented that he was driving at the ‘pace of the tyres, not the pace of the cars’, which should give you some idea of just how much the Milton Keynes based team are struggling to get to grips with the tyres. (Yes, that was intentional)

Pirelli concede that they are struggling to get the balance right 

Following a race which saw a shocking 82 pit stops and the majority of drivers having to pull a four-stop race, drivers and fans were equally confused and frustrated by the tyres. Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Paul Hembery conceded that they were struggling as the ‘cars are certainly pushing a lot harder than in the past’.

Let’s take a peek at what happened last year and a few facts about the track.

Recap

Fernando Alonso topped Free Practice One, Button topped Free Practice Two and Vettel topped the timesheets in Free Practice Three.

Qualifying was the usual deal; a slow start to the sessions and a mad dash towards the end of the session. Lewis Hamilton took pole, however stopped on track on the way back to the pits due to a lack of fuel. He was later disqualified for failing to provide a fuel sample.

Due to Hamilton’s disqualification Pastor Maldonado found himself on pole position as the Race got underway in Spain. The Venezuelan drove his way to his first win in Formula 1 and Williams’ first win since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso finished 2nd in front of his home crowd with Kimi Raikkonen taking the final step on the podium.

Track Facts

• A lap around the Circuit de Catalunya is 4.6km or 2.85 miles

• The drivers will complete 66 laps around the track bringing the total race distance to 307.1km or 190.8 miles.

• Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap around the circuit in 2008 with a time of 1:21.670

• The first Formula 1 race was held at the Circuit de Catalunya in 1991 and a race has been held there every year since

• Fernando Alonso is the only Spanish Formula 1 driver to have won at the Circuit de Catalunya

• There was only one overtake at the 1999 Spanish Grand Prix

Special thank you to Tom who kindly did the majority of the research for me because he was bored!

Who do you think will win the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix?

Circuit of Catalunya (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Spanish Grand Prix Preview comes from Guest Blogger Josh. 

F1 fans will be hoping for a barnstorming Spanish Grand Prix to launch the season’s European leg – but Circuit de Catalunya isn’t a venue known for producing drama.Qualifying is arguably more important here than at any other track, with the eventual winner almost always coming from the front row.

That was the case last year, when pole-sitter Pastor Maldonado ended the Williams team’s seven-year victory drought by taking a shock win. Meanwhile Lewis Hamilton – who topped qualifying only to be sent to the back when his car ran dry of fuel – could only recover to eighth. Even in the era of DRS and KERS, overtaking is rare at the Spanish circuit.

Maldonado earned his spurs that day, but with this year’s Williams proving a difficult beast to tame a repeat victory is highly unlikely. Championship leader Sebastian Vettel is the clear favourite to add to his already overflowing trophy cabinet following a sublime victory last time out in Bahrain, where the Red Bull star built a commanding early lead and cruised to a comfortable win. There was barely a drop of sweat on the German when he stepped from the car.

So who can topple him? Kimi Räikkönen has triumphed twice before in Spain, claiming the top step for McLaren in 2005 and Ferrari in ‘08. The Finn’s Renault-powered E21 has been gentle on its tyres this season – a crucial attribute in modern day F1 – and if he can qualify among the top-five Kimi is a real threat to take a third Spanish triumph.

After a troubled run to eighth in Bahrain, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso badly needs a strong result this weekend. Victory on home turf shouldn’t be ruled out: his 2013 Ferrari is a vastly superior machine to last year’s, in which Alonso finished second to Maldonado, and the Spaniard always gets a lift from his adoring home crowd.

And then there’s Mark Webber. The Aussie has been on the end of some dreadful luck this season, from his wheel making an early escape in China to the infamous ‘Multi 21′ fallout with team-mate Vettel in Malaysia.

But having won this race in 2010 he knows how to get the job done and has the car to do it – all he needs now is some luck. Meanwhile Romain Grosjean (Lotus) and the Mercedes pairing of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg could feature in the podiumscrap, though none look likely to challenge for victory.

It says a lot about their current struggles that McLaren’s drivers have been relegated to a brief mention at the end of this preview. Sergio Perez showed Jenson Button the way home in Bahrain, and the spirited Mexican will be keen to teach his veteran team-mate a few more lessons in Spain. But victory? Not a chance.

So another Vettel win looks to be on the cards, but don’t rule his rivals out. Alonso and Räikkönen have taken a win apiece this season and will be keen to erode the German’s advantage atop the standings in Spain.

I’d like to thank Josh for this insightful preview into the Spanish Grand Prix: Josh writes about all things sport over at Aford Awards, a UK sports trophy supplier. You can find him on Twitter and Google+

When Caterham (then Lotus), Marussia (then Virgin) and HRT joined the sport back in 2010 Bernie Ecclestone introduced prize money for the teams who finished 11th and 12th place to try and help them to develop their cars.

According to Bernie Ecclestone that has been put to an end and the team who finish 11th place will no longer receive $10m prize money, which could have disastrous consequences.

2013 Chinese Grand Prix – Sunday (Photo credit: CaterhamF1)

It’s no secret that Marussia and Caterham are having a tough time financially, with Marussia being forced to let Timo Glock go in order to take on a driver who can bring more sponsorship into the team.

Over the winter break Caterham and Marussia also held talks to discuss merging the two teams to try and ensure they remained in the sport, though no agreement could be reached.

More recently Marussia have lost Lloyds Banking Group as a sponsor who sold their 25% share back to Marussia as they’d failed to see the results they were expecting.

In such a tough financial climate, they surely won’t be the only sponsors who are questioning their return on investment after two and a quarter years.

The $10m prize money they would have been guaranteed is rumoured to be roughly a third of their yearly budget, which could go a long way to helping a team survive. Unless the team who finish 11th place can raise a huge amount of sponsorship to cover the prize money they missed out on, we may see only 10 teams on the grid next year.

James from Grand Prix Merchandise raised a very interesting point in a blog post on Monday where he commented that perhaps this is what Bernie Ecclestone wants.

Bernie has never made it a secret that he ‘never wanted 12’ teams, he only wanted 10. If a team is forced to pull out of the sport, then he’ll have exactly what he wanted, 10 teams.

Bernie will be more than aware of the damage that missing out on the prize fund will cause. He’s also probably more than aware that it could spell the end of the team, so is he doing it on purpose? Perhaps, there are very few people would put it past him.

He claims though that it’s an ‘incentive’ to encourage them to ‘get going and get into the top 10’.

It’s understandable that he wants to push the teams to develop their cars but he should know more than anyone that they need a substantial amount of money to create a competitive car and move up the grid.

Marussia and Caterham are doing the very best they can with the money available to them, it isn’t like they’ve got stacks of money just sitting around and they’re finishing low down the grid on purpose.

While taking their prize money away certainly will spur them on to try to and get even more out of what they’ve got available to them, it means that we may lose a team and that it will become nearly impossible for a new team to break their way into Formula 1 without the backing of a huge company like Red Bull.

It would be a real shame to see either of the teams go as we’ve seen some good performances from them so far this year, especially Marussia’s Jules Bianchi.

Do you think the team who finishes 11th place should still receive their prize money?

During the two years di Resta has been in the sport he’s been beaten and outperformed by his teammate both times; in 2011 Adrian Sutil beat him by 15 points and last year current Sauber driver Nico Hulkenberg beat him by 17 points.

On occasion we’ve seen some brilliant drives from him, with the most stand-out one being his performance in Bahrain a couple of weeks ago where he narrowly missed out on a podium and finished in fourth places. Unfortunately though, he hasn’t been able to consistently reproduce those results and perhaps the car is partly to blame for that.

Fernley said in his interview with Sky that ‘given the right car and package’ di Resta, along with 50% of the grid, would be World Champions, but could we really see di Resta in a Championship winning car anytime soon? Perhaps, it’s all very circumstantial.

At the moment we’re only four races into the season, so the teams have got a long way to go yet and will begin putting major updates on the car in Spain in a couple of weeks time, however this years Force India certainly doesn’t look like a Championship winning car.

To stand any real chance of winning the World Drivers Championship di Resta needs a drive for one of the ‘big boys’, i.e Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus and to get a race seat for one of those teams though he needs to consistently perform well. This doesn’t necessarily mean finishing on the podium or winning races, it means demonstrating that he’s a skilled driver who can consistently get the very best out of his car.

It’s possible that at the end of the season there will be a handful of places available at the front of the grid with only Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel known to be in long-term contracts. There will be a lot of drivers up and down the grid, and don’t forget about test drivers, who will be fighting for a race seat in the biggest teams in Formula 1, so unless di Resta begins performing well consistently he’s going to struggle to get their attention.

At Red Bull and Ferrari it’s clear that they have a number 1 and a number 2 driver and it’s obvious who they are. The same thing will happen to some extent in other teams, it’s just not quite as obvious. If di Resta wants to find himself leading a team and not supporting his teammate in his bid for the Championship he really needs to prove that he can beat his teammate and lead a team.

Come the end of this season di Resta will have completed three full years at Force India, and as I mentioned in a blog post earlier this year, the pressure is really on for him to outperform teammate Adrian Sutil to retain his seat at Force India or move to a better team.

As much as we hate to think about it, Formula 1 is primarily a business, which means that teams decisions are based on money. It’s in their interests to retain a driver who is bringing in plenty of sponsorship, who is continually performing well and can help the team finish as high as possible in the championships to bring home as much prize money as possible. It’s also in their interests to let a driver go if he isn’t performing well enough, unfortunately it’s as simple and ruthless as that.

This year could well be make or break for Paul di Resta if he wants to move forward and end up at a Championship winning team. As I’ve said throughout the article, it’s vital for him to perform better consistently and challenge Sutil.

Your Thoughts

I asked you on Twitter if you thought di Resta had what it takes to become a World Champion, here are your thoughts.

@Gregitfc1 – ‘Not sure, nice guys don’t win and i could see him being next Coulthard’

@rachymacker – ‘honestly no, unless he gets lucky and gets the best car and the right timing. I see him being more of a number 2 like Rubens’

@vinay9112 – ‘He definitely has it in him! and he’s a fast learner and alway’s learns from his mistakes and on his day he can beat the best!’

@f1dave77 – ‘NO ,love him to bits but he’s not aggressive enough. Brilliant team man like DC Etc.wouldn’t see him attacking like PER VET MSC#

Do you think Paul di Resta is a future World Champion? 

Unfortunately there hasn’t been a whole lot of exciting news out there this week, perhaps the most exciting thing was Kubica confirming that he used the Mercedes F1 simulator and Perez admitting that he didn’t apologise to Jenson Button at all.

Pirelli will only make minor changes to the hard tyre

Despite coming under pressure from Red Bull, Pirelli have announced that they will only make minor changes to the hard tyre for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Mercedes will pour half of their efforts into the 2014 car come May

Toto Wolff admitted that by May half of Mercedes workforce will be working on next years car.

FIA to remain with existing telemetry ‘supplier’

Despite having no telemetry for the past four races, the FIA have chosen to remain with their existing ‘supplier’ Riedel, I’m not entirely sure the term ‘supplier’ is the right word mind you.

Is a return to F1 on the cards for Robert Kubica? 

On Sunday Robert Kubica admitted that he had in fact had a little play in the Mercedes F1 simulator but refused to say any more on the matter. In March this year Kubica unsurprisingly said that he’d love to be back in Formula 1 and feels his injuries have healed to a point where he would be able to drive a Formula 1 car around some circuits, such as Barcelona.

Perez didn’t apologise to Button

Following Perez vs Button last weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix it was reported that Sergio Perez, affectionately known as Checo, had apologised to teammate Button about driving too aggressively. However it turns out that Checo didn’t apologise at all because he didn’t think it was necessary, good on you Checo!

Bangkok street circuit approved

Officials in Bangkok have approved the proposed street circuit which may appear on the F1 calendar as soon as 2015 and is also rumoured to be a night race.

Testing to begin in January next year?

In a bid to help the drivers get to grips with the new 1.6l v6 turbos the teams and engine manufacturers are hoping Winter Testing could begin as early as January.

I’ll leave you with this amusing picture I came across courtesy of @Loose_Wheel_Nut

Look closely: it’s not real.

Have a great week everyone, only 13 days to go until the Spanish Grand Prix!

Marussia MR02 (Photo credit: Motorclan)

Earlier this week it was reported that Lloyds Banking Group were selling their 25% share in Marussia F1 after the young team had failed to deliver over the past three years, but what were they expecting? 

Marussia F1 began life in Formula 1 in the form of Virgin Racing and were renamed Marussia F1 at the beginning of the 2012 season after Marussia became a title sponsor.

According to the Telegraph, Lloyds invested £10m in the team back in 2009, the year before they began competiting in Formula 1. Now, after only two full seasons in Formula 1, Lloyds have pulled their sponsorship, what on earth were they expecting in the space of two years?

Who in their right mind would invest money in a brand new Formula 1 team and expect to see huge results in the space of two years? Yes of course you’re going to want to make a return on your investment but taking part in Formula 1 is incredibly costly (surely bankers know things like this) and they aren’t going to start winning races in the space of two years.

Considering what happened to HRT at the end of last year and rumours that Marussia and Caterham were in talks with each other over the winter break, it’s impressive that they’re still in the sport.

It’s not like they’re doing absolutely appallingly, yes they are bottom of the Constructors Championship but you can’t deny how impressive Jules Bianchi has been so far this year. He really is getting the very best out of the car, and finished above both Caterhams and his teammate in Australia, Malaysia and China.

These are the people who are supposed to be looking after our money and they’re spending money investing in a back-marker team and expecting a return in two years, the mind boggles. I’m sure my cat would be able to tell you that expecting a ROI on a back-marker team after two years in the sport was never going to happen. Why not invest in a big team like Red Bull or Ferrari?

Marussia however are playing down the loss of Lloyds as a sponsor and Pitpass reported that the bank sold their 25% stake to Marussia, giving them 92% ownership of the Banbury based team.

What did you think of Lloyds sponsoring Marussia and expecting a return in two years? 

We all know that Formula 1 has been having issued with telemetry and after four races it still hasn’t been fixed, which is nothing short of embarrassing considering the money and technical expertise and knowledge wandering around in the paddock.

Faulty telemetry means that drivers have to rely on team radio and trackside Marshalls to tell them when they can and cannot use DRS, when there’s a yellow flag or they need to move aside for a faster driver. This of course is what resulted in a few of the drivers being called into the Stewards Office for a spanking after the Chinese Grand Prix where some of them used DRS during a yellow flag zone.

The telemetry issues may also mean that the stewards are lacking information, but given the fantastic and extensive TV coverage which shows absolutely everything, surely that can answer a question and help the stewards reach a decision during the race where the majority of incidents are concerned?

Occasionally an incident may not be quite as clear cut as it first appears and may require all drivers involved to visit the stewards for a questioning and a slap on the wrist, which is fair enough and doesn’t happen all that often.

If an incident occurs in the closing laps of the race it’s generally accepted that it will be investigated after the race due to the amount of time it may take the stewards to come to a decision and the fact that the driver simply may not have time or chance to take a drive through penalty by the time a decision has been reached.

However, when an incident occurs at any other point during the race it should be investigated at that time. This means that if a driver receives a penalty, it gives them chance to serve their penalty and recover from it.

Doling out penalties after the race can sometimes affect the drivers next race. Yes the idea of a penalty is so the driver learns not to do it again, but if it’s a stupid mistake that affects their next race surely that’s too harsh?

What do you think about stewards investigating incidents after the race? 

All Eyes on Checo (Photo credit: Michael Elleray)

The young Mexican driver was labelled one to watch and a future World Champion when he first joined the sport driving for Sauber in 2011 thanks to his punchy and aggressive driving style. His start to his career at McLaren has been quiet quiet; perhaps because the car hasn’t quite been there or perhaps because driving for one of the biggest teams in Motorsport is a touch daunting.

Prior to Sunday’s race in Bahrain McLaren Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh told Perez that he needed to stick his elbows out and stop being so nice, which is exactly what he did.

When Perez came up against his teammate the pair became embroiled in an exciting battle for fifth place. Amidst the action, Perez caught his front wing on Buttons right rear tyre, luckily for them both Button didn’t suffer a puncture and they both came away unscathed.

Button didn’t seem to be able to handle the pressure and was heard a couple of times on team radio telling his team to to ask Perez to ‘calm it down’.

Once he got past Button, Perez was then freed up to take on Webber and even managed to catch Alonso off guard and brought the car home in 6th place while teammate Button finished in 10th.

After the race Sky managed to catch hold of Whitmarsh who was cringing as they pressed him about the situation. Button then came to join the squirming and said that Perez shouldn’t have run into him and said that he agreed with the comments he’d made over team radio during the race.

Perez later said that he agreed that he was too aggressive and apologised for running into Button, but why was the blame put on Perez?

Perez managed plenty of other overtaking moves throughout the race without making contact, it was nothing more than a racing incident. Button was defending incredibly hard against a teammate who was obviously faster than him at the point in the race. Perez lost time behind Button and may well have been able to finish slightly higher had he been able to get past earlier in the race.

Whenever you heard Sebastian Vettel or another driver complaining on the radio, everyone jumps on them and brands them childish. If Button was that concerned about the way Perez was driving, surely it would have been easier for him to just let him past and pass him again later on in the race? Not letting him past and complaining suggests that maybe he’s seriously uncomfortable about being beaten by his teammate.

McLaren are a team that are proud of their decision to let their drivers race each other, therefore it’s ultimately Buttons decision to or to not let Perez past.

In my opinion Perez shouldn’t have to apologise for racing and overtaking his teammate. Yes perhaps he could have been more careful, but exactly the same could have been said for Button.

It was a fantastic bit of racing and why can’t it be left at that? Why did someone need to be at blame and make an apology?

Do you think Perez or Button was at fault? Or was it just a fantastic bit of racing that should be left at that?

The Bahrain Grand Prix provided us with an exciting race full of brilliant overtaking, the two McLaren’s fighting each other for position, arguably Paul di Resta’s best performance of his career and disaster for both of the Ferrari boys.

Click here to read the Bahrain Grand Prix: Yay and Nay.