F1 2011

Thursday 10 PM Sky Sports 2, there is a tribute programme for Dan Wheldon.

I trust BBC can come up with one too. 

Great race, well done Lewis, Fernando and Jensen.

Congrats Hamilton, tough luck for Vettel.

He's made enough of his own luck to destroy his team mate and the rest of the field this year! He probably would have walked this one too but good to see hang around and watch the rest of the race. The guy never stops gathering data and is the most committed and thorough driver out there - other drivers would have just disappeared from the circuit. 

I hope Kimi is taking a lesson from this if he's still thinking over the coming back next season as this is the level of commitment he's now up against. 

I'm not sure Kimi's so bothered about winning anything....Otherwise why join Williams? He's hardly Schumacher-esque in his team application...

As for Vettel, bizarre how everything fell into place for him at this race last year, since when he's been walking on water. Yesterday it went wrong for him on the very first lap.Perhaps Karma is being felt?

Congrats to Button on a consistently fine showing throughout the season. No grandstanding, just getting on with it and no major whinging.

Hope it works out better for him next season.

steve

If anyone fancies seeing what Ron does with his old cars, here's a taster

Here's more: http://www.mclaren.com/page/th...d-of-unit-2--gallery Tony

So Raikkonen is back in F1 but with, Renault ( sorry there is only 1 Lotus team), 2 year deal.

Not sure what happens to Petrov and/or Senna, in that team.

Average age of modern F1 drivers is increasing , with Raikkonen and De La Rosa, more,if Rubens hangs on.

My buddy at Enstone says shopfloor chat is Petrov out,  performance went south, to many mistakes show he is pushing his ability envelope & he can't translate in-car issues into tech speak. 

Re Only 1 Lotus.  

They are re-branding the F1 team to "Caterham F1 Team" for 2012.

It would be great if Red Bull could furnish Vettel, Webber, Button, Alonso and Hamilton with identically tuned engines and fine tuning of the chassis to suit the individual drivers' needs and let them race for 30 laps.

The Red Bull was another astonishing vehicle engineered by Adrian Newey - the guy is a genius.  His knowledge/ application makes all the difference - the drivers can study stats, study circuits, etc, etc but at the end of the day if they don't have the car it doesn't count for much unless there's a rain storm, someone's back tyre fails on the second corner, etc, etc....

I was more than a tad suspicious that Webber was able to set fastest laps at will, AFTER Vettel's gearbox was on the verge of letting go.  Through most of the season Webber was driving a dumper truck in comparison.  His in car comments at the very end were more than a little muted.  Made me think that maybe someone has an on/ off switch - default position off when Vettel is doing good.  Call me a cynic....

Peter

Well, mathematically (especially under the current points system), it makes more sense to have one driver consistently ahead of the other and ideally winning(!), rather than mixing it between two, if you want to try and win the driver's championship.

Ferrari have used this factor for years and I guess any other team could too.

Red Bull only just got Driver's championship last year after being suspected of ('slightly') favouring one over the other but having both drivers win. Ferrari only just lost it while doing similar but with fewer wins. Clearly this year, the No.2 drivers have been less competitive within both teams.

Mclaren 'shares' the wins between their two drivers. Hence they're unlikely to win the drivers championship in seasons where there are a number of competitive cars and other teams have one driver winning. If one of the drivers self destructs, this allows the other to pull ahead of course.

I don't think Webber has the talent to be an F1 champion. In the scheme of things, I think he's a makeweight.

Also, Rubens really ought to pack it in. He's never going to win another race and should make way for one of the newcomers.

steve