Vettel unhappy with 'messy' Friday

Sebastian Vettel's title defense got off to a slow start in Australia on Friday with the Red Bull racer admitting he "wasn't happy" with his RB8

The German struggled during first practice, finishing outside the top ten, while the afternoon did not see much improvement as heavy rain prior to the start left the track very wet.

And although Vettel was one of the busiest runners in Practice Two with 19 laps, he ended the first day of the season down in 10th place, three seconds off the pace.

"This morning it wasn't very good, I wasn't happy at all in the car," said the 24-year-old.

"This afternoon I think it was a bit better. Obviously with the conditions it was difficult to get a lot of running. It was more or less the same for all of us, but with the little time we had in the afternoon it was quite okay.

"It's up to us to find the balance and understand the car a little bit more and learn a little bit more about the car in these conditions on this circuit, and hopefully go a lot quicker tomorrow.

"Tomorrow the target is to make it into Q3, and then we go from there."

The German admitted he is concerned that his "messy" Friday will have an impact on the rest of his weekend as a limited number of tyres on Saturday means he cannot just run at will.

"You can't re-invent the wheel, even though you had a messy Friday due to conditions it doesn't mean that on Saturday you just run the whole hour, you don't have enough tyres for that, and obviously it's about preparing for qualifying mostly.

"You can't do everything in one hour, so as I said the most important thing now is to make a step overnight, learn a bit more about the car - the laps in the end were important to understand a bit more - and then we go from there."

Source: Planet-F1

Räikkönen will not continue with super rally

Räikkönen had to stop the race on Friday on the 3rd stage after his Citroën-car hit a technical problem

Räikkönen's car appeared to have an electrical error which resulted in a fire under the hood. After extinguishing the fire Räikkönen discovered that the car was so badly damaged that he couldn't continue the rally on Friday.

Räikkönen's team tried to fix the car like crazy during the 75-minute break in service park. According to information MTV3 has they got the car fixed, however Räikkönen decided not to continue the rally. The organizers already informed on Friday that Räikkönen would continue with super rally. Had he continued he would have got a time penalty of about 15 minutes.

Petter Solberg has also retired from the rally. Solberg's race ended when the wheel suspension broke during the opening stage.

Source: MTV3
Courtesy: Nicole

Alonso: Friday's times don't mean much

Fernando Alonso is not putting too much stock in Friday's lap times, insisting that Red Bull are still the favourites to take pole in Valencia

The double World Champ, who has never finished on the podium at the Valencia street circuit, set the pace on Friday afternoon, clocking a 1:37.968.

And although he was quickest by two-tenths ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, the Ferrari driver insists it's too early to say how his 150° Italia will perform as the weekend progresses.

"Overall, a positive start to this Valencia weekend, my second home race," said the Spaniard.

"We got through all our planned programme, working mainly on tyres, where the chief element at this grand prix is the first appearance of the Medium.

"It was important that we were able to do so many laps, because on a circuit like this one, getting a lot of kilometres under your belt helps you gain confidence in the car, looking for the limits and thereby improving performance.

"The track characteristics are well suited to our car, but it is too early to say where we are compared to the others.

"Already, in the past, we have gone well on the first day only to see ourselves losing out by a second in qualifying, therefore I don't even want to consider today's time sheet.

"In FP1 and FP2 you try so many things and the track changes very quickly - even more so on a street circuit like this one - so it is really impossible to make predictions."

The one prediction he is making is that Red Bull, despite the new ban on changing engine mapping after qualifying and ahead of Sunday's race, will still be the team to beat in qualifying.

However, he reckons Ferrari can put up a challenge of their own.

"The car seems to handle well, therefore we can tackle qualifying with confidence, aware that we are up against very strong rivals: it's not by chance that Red Bull have always taken pole in the first seven races of the year and clearly they are still the favourites.

"Overtaking here will be easier than in Monaco, but grid position will nevertheless be important."

Source: Planet-F1

Racing roundup: NASCAR awaits Kimi

WEEKEND HEADLINES:

1. Matt Kenseth off to great NASCAR start

2. Kimi’s NASCAR debut coming Friday

3. Rain stops Indy practice; Canadian results

Kimi Räikkönen to make NASCAR debut

Almost lost in the shuffle of the weekend’s racing, and still only getting a 15-second mention here or a brief mention there, is the fact that Kimi Räikkönen will be making his NASCAR debut this Friday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway in a NASCAR Camping World Series pickup truck race.

That’s right. You did not read that incorrectly.

Kimi Räikkönen, the 2007 World Driving Champion, will race a truck for Kyle Busch’s team at Charlotte on Friday night and, if you’re interested, you can watch him either acquit himself as you would expect an F1 champion to do, or else make a fool of himself.

It could go either way.

Kyle Busch has been quoted as saying that he’s honoured Räikkönen chose his team for his NASCAR debut and that the ex-F1 star was "adamant" about running his first race at Charlotte.

I suppose it makes sense. If you’ve never done this sort of thing before – as was the case with another ex-F1 champ, our own Jacques Villeneuve – then the truck series is a good entry point. The trucks are built for safety and don’t go as fast as the Nationwide or Sprint Cup racing cars.

And since next weekend is the All-Star Weekend in Charlotte,, why shouldn’t a star take centre stage Friday night while all the other stars of NASCAR are also in town for their race Saturday.

I suggest Räikkönen will probably keep a low profile and drive to survive. If he makes it to the finish without crashing – a trick whenever the trucks race – he’ll consider it a success and start plotting a career change.

If he doesn’t finish, and doesn’t enjoy himself (as in, he’s piled up or winds up in one), it’s quite possible he’ll chalk it up to experience and move on back to Europe.

Whichever, it will be fun to watch. The truck race can be seen on SPEED Friday night at 8 o’clock.

Source: Auto Racing Blog
Courtesy: luieluv

In pictures: Pirelli tyre testing at Yas Marina

Test F1 - Abu Dhabi / Pirelli - 19/11

Source: NextgenAuto

[Photos] Friday in Korea

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