Räikkönen hoped for a little more from Lotus-team's update

Kimi Räikkönen tested the new exhaust system based upon the Coanda-effect for the first time on Friday in Korean Grand Prix -practice. Kimi wasn't completely assured about it's benefits at once.

In theory it should give half a second to the laptimes.

- It was quite a difficult day. It's not easy to get the car to fall in place. Hopefully it goes better on Saturday, Räikkönen said.

Then what about the update-side?

- We will now look at the data we collected and decide if we will continue with it or not. Maybe we expected a bit more from it than it looked like, Kimi estimated.

James Allison let understand that the update-part will be kept in the car this weekend.

- It's still far from the optimum, but we are relatively satisfied with how it worked during practice, Allison assured.

It's difficult to compare, because the feeling in the car on Yeongam track is different when compared for example tohttp://www.ts.fi/moottoriurheilu/f1/400 ... eltaSuzuka with the same machinery.

- This is a completely different track and since I haven't drove with this new system anywhere else, it's completely impossible to evaluate my feelings, Kimi emphasized.

Yeongam is the season's first completely new track for Kimi.

- It's an ok track, although it was surprisingly bumpy on some parts when thinking that it's a new track. We are pretty much the same we always are on Fridays. Hopefully we get the car better for Saturday, because now it looked like we need to get one second more. Then again others surely also improve.

– Laptimes don't matter, what matters is that we get the right impression from these practices for Saturday, Räikkönen reminded.

Turun Sanomat

HEIKKI KULTA

Courtesy: Nicole

Bild am Sonntag: Kimi Räikkönen Interview

Kimi Räikkönen is notorious. He is considered a daredevil on the track, an unrestrained party beast and a talented man of few words. After two years as a rally driver, the world champion from 2007 is once again mixing up formula 1

Bild am Sonntag met the Finn for an interview. He greets us with his now obligatory sunglasses. Excuse me, Mr. Räikkönen, can you take them off maybe? Shruging, answer: "No." Well, then ...

Bild am Sonntag: After 952 days of rest last Sunday, you are finally back on the podium. And then there was instead of champagne only rose water at the awards ceremony. Still disappointed?

Kimi Räikkönen (32): Whatever that was, what we had to drink there for sure it would have tasted better from the top! Hopefully there is real champagne soon for me - and then not again for a second place.

You were two years completely out of Formula 1 and now with Lotus placed 7, 5, 14 and 2. Do you think your comeback is successful?

It's not gone bad. I like what I'm doing, that's enough. I do not care if someone says I do it well or not. However, it is disappointing when you still only get second. After the race in 14th place in China has not gone the way we wanted, we first have to be happy with the result in Bahrain.

Will the second place soon be a first? Do you believe you can be at the top with Lotus?

That's the goal. I do not like second places. This also could have happend in the first three races. The basis is good, and who knows what will happen in the next races.

You are known for excessive partying. What happens when you're first time at the top of the podium?

No plans. I always look on the next day and try to make the most of it. Life can change so quickly ...
You have returned to Formula 1 because you missed the fights. On Sunday you found Sebastian Vettel a hard nut to crack

He was faster. I hope that I will once again come so close to him. Then it's his turn.

Sebastian is also a friend of yours ...

He's a nice guy. With him you can make good jokes. But on the track he is my enemy.

Did you miss anything during your time off other than the battles on the track?

No. I'm only here for racing. The other bullshit I can do without. If you would take away the cars of Formula 1, I would not be here. All the trappings, that fame and stuff, I'm not interested.

You are supposed that you often can’t sleep the night after a race because you are still upset

Believe me, I can sleep anywhere, wherever I want. And whenever I want! This is a job for me, and when I go home I am not taking work with me there. Formula 1 plays no role in my personal life. I have a real life! I think for many people Formula 1 is their live. For me it's not.

Formula 1 is your job, not your passion?

If I did not like it a bit, I probably would not be here. You certainly too, right?

Have you earned enough money in your career, to quit work tomorrow?

It always depends from which perspective you look at it. The work at the moment is fun, so the question does not arise for me.

Why don’t you take your wife Jenni Dahlman with you like many other drivers?

Because it would be boring for her to sit around here all day. The time she can certainly use better.

Source: Bild am Sonntag
Courtesy: miezicat

A clean track

It's a pleasure to follow Sebastien Loeb's driving on the most authentic tarmac roads in Spain. He takes so perfectly advantage of the road and doesn't go through the ditches.

Loeb doesn't have to cut the corners anymore because his trust in the car is so solid. Compared to cutters Loeb takes the corner more slowly but he comes out of them the fastest of all.

That's how the differences are born.

A clean tarmac is a great champion's label.

Jari-Matti Latvala has progressed remarkably on tarmac, but the road behind him is still left with stones and trash when Ford's aggressive Finn cuts the corners with a grin on his face.

Latvala's best pleasure was ruined by the last stage on the dark dusting road.

The insane stage ruined the leading position Latvala had so brilliantly built up and he became the chaser on tarmac. As a chaser you can't put pressure on Loeb. The only advantage is that you get to drive right after Loeb when the road is cleanest.

Kimi Räikkönen didn't this time either experience the season's best tarmac roads. They fixed the car late in the night but Räikkönen decided not to continue.

It pretty much looks like Räikkönen's rally career stops this season. At least he isn't looking for more experience at the moment.

Räikkönen shares premises with Petter Solberg. Even Solberg's rally ended short. Like Räikkönen, Solberg's WRC-rallies seem to come to an end also.

I heard that the negotiations about Solberg going to Volkswagen have ended. Solberg outpriced himself from those markets. I doubt he is interested anymore to continue next year with his own private team, since he has had to pay for the last two rallies from his own pockets.

Turun Sanomat, Salou

HEIKKI KULTA

Courtesy: Nicole

Korean Grand Prix 2011: Vettel: 'Good to be back on track'

After sealing the world championship at the Japanese Grand Prix, singing karaoke and a whirlwind of interviews, Sebastian Vettel is only too glad to get back to business at the Korean Grand Prix...

by Sebastian Vettel, Oct 14, 2011

Hi from Yeongam,

After the last few crazy days and nights it was just nice to be back in the car and out on the track. As much as I enjoyed practice today it was very tough because of the rain. We struggled from time to time and couldn't quite figure out everything we wanted, but luckily it should be dry for the next two days. So it will be interesting to see how today’s findings will help us on Sunday.

Despite the rain I think we had a good first day and we should be at the front alongside McLaren, who really had a great day. They were definitely the best under the circumstances, but let's wait qualifying turns out tomorrow.

I think the biggest challenge in Korea will be deciding which tyres to use. The rain made it hard for us to get a feel for the ‘real’ track so I guess it's a bit like playing the lottery – we'll do what we can and hope for the best. As usual.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Seb

Source: Red Bull

'Suzuka will play to my strengths' - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton believes his attacking driving style will pay dividends at next weekend's Japanese Grand Prix on the high-speed Suzuka circuit.

Hamilton has vowed not to change his approach to racing despite being involved in a string of incidents this year, two of which have resulted in retirements while the others have cost him points. But it is his ability to attack the circuit over a single flying lap that he thinks will really put him in good stead in Japan as he looks to bounce back from another below par result in Singapore last weekend.

"I think Suzuka will play to my strengths: it's a track that really requires you to drive in an attacking way to be able to get a good lap time," he said. "It's an uncompromising place. But that's when the thrill of driving a Formula One car is at its highest; when you know you can't afford a single mistake and where driving on the absolute limit is the only way to get the best time. In that sense, it's a lot like Monaco, and maybe that's why I like the place so much - it's unique."

Hamilton has yet to finish on the podium since Formula One returned from its summer break in August, while Sebastian Vettel has won all three races in the Red Bull. The McLaren driver said he will be wary of Red Bull's pace in Japan but is confident his team can also challenge for victory.

"I think we're headed there in pretty good shape: we know that the Red Bulls will be strong - but we also have a very quick car, and we can make it work on different kinds of circuit," he said. "Suzuka is another reasonably high-downforce track, which should play to our strengths. The weather in Japan in the autumn is always unpredictable - we've seen before that it can be beautifully sunny and hot or extremely cold and wet. I'll take any conditions as long as I can race hard."

Source: ESPNF1

Tomi Tuominen's blog : Rally or track?

The following is based upon completely playful guessing. I don't believe that any person in the world can predict what Kimi Räikkönen will do, since Kimi himself can't predict it either. Räikkönen is a track racer who enjoys life and weaves interesting activity around him based upon his chances. That's what everyone of us would do.

Räikkönen has now his 2nd year in WRC. This year he has less races than in 2010. Other than that his helmet has also been put on American oval tracks and in Peugeot factory team's track tests. I think that the latter of these will bring Räikkönen a job - of course if he wants it himself too. If Räikkönen would go to Peugeot's payroll, then it would remind of incidents that took place 20 years ago. Keke Rosberg was successful with that time's endurance vehicle from Peugeot after his F1-career. That's when our interest for track racing's endurance-races grew remarkably.

Räikkönen has been determined, competitive and a driver who wants to win ever since he sat in his karting car for the first time. The last two years he has been forced to drive in a serie where victory is only a future goal, perhaps only a dream. In LeMans -serie Räikkönen would once again have a chance to fight for victories - there's nothing unclear about that. And when you add Nascar to this it would probably take a couple of years before success would start to become ordinary. In Peugeot's car he wouldn't have to wait even a day for festive success.

The reason why I started guessing in the first place is that I get strangely often questions: "Will Kimi continue in rally, when will he win, will he go to the States, will he go back to F1...?" I can't give any sure answer to these questions but I can guess and of course speculate. That is the traditional frisky hobby in motorsport.

I give my best guesses to two options. Rally and LeMans. If Peugeot offers Räikkönen a deal, then I think that he grabs it. Why wouldn't he? But it doesn't have to mean that he couldn't continue rallying - especially when we are talking about the vehicle of the same concern. This would surely be a hilarious combination. LeMans -serie would give him a chance to drive for victories and be a part of a perfect factory team. Rally again could be his hobby which offers him challenge and where each better position would be a perfect bonus.

A small quiz to the end. How many Finns have been behind Peugeot factory-car's steering wheel during the years? Taking all genres into consideration. Not an easy task.

Source: Blog MTV3
Courtesy: Nicole

Pirelli announce tyre choices

Teams will be able to make use of the hard and soft compound Pirelli tyres at the upcoming British GP at Silverstone

Despite criticism from Ferrari after the Spanish Grand Prix where the hard compound tyres were used for the first time, the Italian manufacturer confirmed they will be sticking with the hard compound tyres in Britain.

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery insists that hard compounds remain the best choice for the Silverstone track.

"There has been a lot of comment in the last few weeks about the choice for Silverstone," explained Hembery.

"Silverstone is one of the hard circuits in the season, it has a very aggressive surface, it has an unknown factor because the surface has been changed due to the new building work, and in terms of the tyre maker's point of view it is probably one of the hardest circuits that we face during the year - together with Istanbul, Malaysia and going forward something like Spa and Monza for the high speeds and then Suzuka.

"Also, being in England, it's very variable in terms of weather. This week they were having 30C, today I believe it's down to about 15C. So again, from a tyre maker's point of view, making a tyre work in that wide variety of conditions is a big challenge, hence the reason that we felt also offering the soft compound would allow us to operate in cooler conditions."

While Ferrari were unhappy with the hard compound tyres in Barcelona, McLaren and Red Bull adapted to them without any trouble. Despite the disparity, Hembery categorically denied suggestions that company would create tyres to favour one team over another.

"The teams have a difference of opinion," he said.

"We have asked their advice but clearly we don't want to favour or penalise one over the other. We have to take a look at the whole field.

"We have 12 teams we look at and feel that we are going to make the right choice for them, and also the right choice for us of course. Our main concern is to make sure that we don't penalise any team. Some people have decided that from Barcelona the hard tyre favours those with high downforce, so we have to be careful that the strategy based on hard tyres is not going to penalise any particular team.

"Equally we don't want to be in the situation where we have five pitstops, so it is a balance we have to find."

Hembery confirmed that medium and soft compounds will be used at the German Grand Prix while softs and super-softs would come into play at the Hungarian GP.

Source: Planet-F1

Massa’s diary - Not long to wait to be on track again

I got back home to Monaco on Monday morning, after a very disappointing weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix. We had hoped to do much better than this in performance terms and also I suffered our first technical failure of the season. We had expected our main rivals to be strong in Barcelona, given the fact our car is not quite as efficient as theirs in terms of aerodynamic downforce. However, what we had not expected was to suffer so much on the new Hard compound tyre that Pirelli had introduced for this race. We had already found life difficult on the original version of the Hard and we had seen that we struggled a bit more than the others on these. Then with these new hards we discovered we were having an even tougher time to get them to work properly and I would say we lost two or two and a half seconds when compared to our lap times on the Soft. You could see the effect clearly in the race. Myself and Fernando were both able to fight at first with him doing better than me as he was actually at the front thanks to his start, while I was fighting with the Mercedes guys, passing them to move up to sixth. But after that, once I fitted the hard tyres, it was almost impossible to drive the car. I ended up losing all the places I had gained, then I had a spin and eventually with a few laps to go, I had to park the car at the side of the track as I could not select any gears. Meanwhile Fernando went from leading the race to being one lap down within the space of about 40 laps which is an unbelievable situation. I would say that in Spain, it looked as though Red Bull and McLaren were the only teams able to exploit the hard tyres properly.

Staying on the subject of tyres, starting with free practice this Thursday at Monaco, we begin a run of three Grands Prix using Pirelli’s Soft and Super Soft and that should work better for us. They will definitely suit the characteristics of our car which is a positive factor. We have seen this year that the biggest factor when it comes to passing another car is the tyres and we will have overtaking this year, even in Monaco, because of that. When a car in front of you is struggling with worn tyres, it will have very poor traction and even in places such as the exit to the chicane after the tunnel, if you don’t have traction, you will lose position before Tabac. I believe degradation will play a significant role on this track.

I enjoy the whole Monaco weekend and it is an important event on the calendar, but when I’m there I don’t walk to the track in the morning thinking about it being the most famous motor race in the world. It’s another race to concentrate on and it has a unique challenge because of the track itself. Nothing compares because even if Singapore comes close, that track is much bigger. So Monaco is just another race where you have to work hard and try to do your best. It’s nice to be home and I’m very lucky as I think I’m one of the few drivers to have two real home races, not just races that take place in the country you come from. Both here and Sao Paolo I actually get to sleep in my own bed in my own home and then have a short trip to the track. It’s another very nice aspect of this weekend, during which I hope we can make up for the disappointment of Spain.

At least we don’t have long to wait to be on track again!

Source: Ferrari.com

Video: Lewis Hamilton and Tony Stewart's Track Challenge

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Driver Lewis Hamilton and NASCAR'S Tony Stewart test each other's course knowledge



Source: OfficialMcLarenVids

Vettel: Pole is still only eight metres on the track...

Despite having commandingly claimed his sixth pole position from the last seven races and the 18th of his F1 career, still Sebastian Vettel is keeping his expectations firmly in-check ahead of Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai

Early-season F1 2011 World Championship leader Sebastian Vettel was refusing to let himself get carried away after fairly demolishing his rivals for pole position ahead of Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix – his third in Shanghai in swift succession and his sixth from the last seven races full-stop – stressing that in reality, it's still only worth 'eight metres on the track tomorrow'.

Despite pacing all three practice sessions around the Shanghai International Circuit – where two years ago he led Red Bull Racing to its breakthrough F1 victory ahead of team-mate Mark Webber – there was still some doubt heading into qualifying as to whether Vettel would ultimately have the legs of the fast-improving McLaren-Mercedes' of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. On only his first run in Q3, he wasted little time in demonstrating that he did.

Laying down a commanding marker a staggering seven tenths of a second clear of Button, Hamilton's sole effort later on would make no indent either, and when the former failed to improve on his second flying lap, Vettel aborted his, safe in the knowledge that the 18th pole of his grand prix career was comfortably in the bag.

“We have done it again, but every single time is tough,” the 23-year-old underlined. “Today wasn't as straightforward as we planned, especially in Q2 – I made a bit of a mistake on the run I did then – but in Q3, I was confident that we would be able to improve quite a lot.

“Obviously, today we did a good job, but it's just eight metres on the track tomorrow. It will be a long race, but I think we can be happy with the car. We did some good long runs on Friday, so we have a reason to feel good, but it's also a threat to feel too good – and I pay attention that doesn't happen.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner similarly hailed his young protégé's performance, pointing out that having canned his second 'flyer' in the top ten shoot-out, Vettel will now have an extra set of soft tyres available to him on race day compared to fellow front row-sitter Button.

“A third consecutive pole for Sebastian and, as he wasn't required to complete his second run in Q3, he was able to conserve his tyres for tomorrow,” reflected the Englishman. “[It was] an excellent performance from him today – a really fantastic first lap. We weren't sure what Lewis' pace was going to be, which is why we ran again – but in the end, it turned out that we didn't need to.”

“An impressive display from Sebastian again,” concurred Cyril Dumont, from RBR engine partner Renault. “What pace – three races and three pole positions – so congratulations to him!”

Source: Crash.net

The oval test spiked up Räikkönen's urges to compete

Kimi Räikkönen tamed quickly his new NASCAR-serie's worktool Toyota Tundra -truck car in his first test on Gresham Motosports Park's short oval track.

Räikkönen drove over 400 laps during two days on a half mile oval and got solid laptimes when compared to previous tests on the track.

The Finn worked with Kyle Busch Motorsports -team and Toyota's engineers. They had scheduled different setup- and tyre-tests in order to get Räikkönen familiarized with this completely different racing car that the European driver didn't know from before.

– It has been great. I came here and didn't have any expectations beforehand because I had nothing to compare it with. I seems like Kyle Busch Motorsports is a top team and it's exciting to work with them. I am waiting to get to race with this car, Räikkönen said in his press release this morning.

- On one hand I'm not amazed at all when knowing Kimi's wide exprecience and his championship-level. Yet on the other hand I'm very happily surprised over what I saw, Ren said.

Turun Sanomat

HEIKKI KULTA

Courtesy: Nicole

Kimi The Cowboy

So now Formula 1 -champion Kimi Räikkönen has then drove his life's first hundred laps on an oval track. From somewhere deep down in Georgia I found out from someone who was there, that the 31-year old rookie had a big smile all the time.

The man loves new challenges and NASCAR pick up -trucks on a 800 meter long oval offers them 110 %. The experience will sink into the subconcious only because there is no recorded telemetry for after-analysis.

My Columbian reporter buddy Diego Mejia uses the headline Kimi The Cowboy in every message he sends concerning this Finnish territorial conquest. NASCAR is afterall the pure yankee rednecks' favorite sport and Räikkönen will seriously get to know what real cowboy-spirit is like.

The test area is a minioval which inclination is in a 12 degree angle. On long 4 km ovals like Daytona those inclinations are about 33 degrees and there you go with a big bang into the wall and make the car go into small pieces.

I know that Räikkönen has planned to drive on those really big ovals and maybe even Sprint Cup this year.

The Italian Max Papis has drove F1 and now NASCAR for the last years. Papis praised in his column in Auto Sprint -magazine that due to Räikkönen's switch even the Italians will get more interested about the leading motorsport serie in USA.

Papis said he switched from the highest Sprint Cup into truck-serie because that way he could switch from an uncompetitive car to a top car in it's own class.

Papis emphasised that truck is the 3rd most famous motorsport-serie in USA when measured by tv-spectators that the serie has about 800.000.

Papis also believes that Räikkönen will get advantage from his rally-background compared to his competitors who switched directly from F1 to these races. In rally you have to improvise very quickly with grips that change from place to place.

Turun Sanomat

HEIKKI KULTA

Courtesy: Nicole

Hamilton: I’m thrilled we’re on the right track

Lewis Hamilton defied all predictions to claim second place on the grid for the season opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. The 2008 world champion gave a customary gritty display to split the Red Bulls and also fire a warning to rivals that McLaren are never to be written off. A couple of weeks ago predictions of doom and gloom for the Woking squad prevailed, today they have shown themselves as contenders.

Eight-tenths off Sebastian [Vettel] is a lot but after the very poor winter testing you had I bet you couldn’t even dream you’d be sitting on the front row for the first grand prix.
Lewis Hamilton: Absolutely. I’m absolutely thrilled to be up here today. The guys back at the factory have done an unbelievable job. Really a massive step this weekend. The car is feeling fantastic. Of course, we still have a lot of work to do but I think we have really got ourselves on the right track and a great foundation for us to build upon. I know the guys back at the factory will keep going but a big thank you to everyone at home. Keep pushing.

A phenomenal effort by the guys to transform what was a difficult car into a front row car?
Lewis: Absolutely fantastic and superb effort from the guys back at the factory. It was a very brave and tough decision for us to kind of pull back from what we had been developing over the winter test and after the last test to decide ‘okay, we are going to come back in another direction’. I think since I have been here we have never ever done that before but the results from the wind tunnel looked good and the guys worked harder than they have ever pushed before to get the components here and the car feels a huge improvement for us and a great stepping stone for us. A great foundation for us to really push on. I know we have got some good things in the pipeline from this base where we are but, of course, the gap. If he didn’t use KERS, that is another half-a-second so that is 1.3 seconds, which is not normal.

You talked about that margin. Are we going to see that margin eroded and how soon do you think you can do that as, obviously, the pace of development is massive?
Lewis: It is, yeah. We, as a team, have good development rate. I think over the years you have seen us come from quite far back and be able to develop a little bit faster than some others. At least we are in the fight and from there we can score good points, continue to work on our reliability and, of course, closing the gap is going to be very tough. It is a big gap still, but the car feels fantastic so I can’t even imagine what he (Vettel) feels like round the corners.

You were shaking your head when we were talking about KERS. Is that because you didn’t use it or were thinking ‘wow, without it’.
Lewis: No, I used it for half my lap and I ran out towards the end of the lap. I didn’t have any more. No, I had probably, like, 40 per cent still left. That is a little bit of time but nothing which would get me close enough to them. That is a staggering lap time they did, so well done to Sebastian but like I said I’ll catch you up.

One week ago you were saying that you had a car that was far from being a winning car and a week later you come up with a very fast car which could be a winning car, so what happened? I don’t understand.
Lewis: Well, I was never saying that the car was bad, it already felt better than last year’s car. It was just lacking downforce. What downforce enables you to do is brake later, to attack the corners faster, to get on the power earlier so in improving your downforce you improve your minimum speed, so you can improve your kilometres per hour through each corner by ten kilometres. That’s a lot of time, because you carry that all the way down the straights. So we’ve improved the rear end of the car which means that I’m able to attack corners a lot more, massively faster in the higher speed corners and so we’ve basically just fixed an area of the car which was lacking and it clearly shows, this weekend, that by fixing that one part, the rest of the car is working quite well around it. But we still have a lot of work to do, but it’s really due to a fantastic job by the guys back at the factory.

Are you surprised by Ferrari’s performance?
Lewis: Yeah, I think they’ve got a great car. I find these tyres very easy to use, and obviously these guys have found them quite easy to use, but I guess some people down the field have not really been able to switch them on how they would like but this is very early, we’re all learning as we go along. At the end of the testing, it was obvious that they (Red Bull) were the fastest, they were the championship winners the previous year, they were the fastest and won the last race, so clearly, rolling into next year, they were going to be the most competitive, so it was no surprise that they were the quickest this weekend. I would have thought that Ferrari would have been a bit closer to us but I think, again, it’s just the tyres. Maybe if they got the tyres working they would be able to close the gap.

Source: YallaF1

The Inside Track with Lewis Hamilton

Source: OfficialMcLarenVids

On Track With SAP - The Crash Helmet (Lewis Hamilton)

Source: OfficialMcLarenVids

F1 Yeongam - Korean GP 2010 - The track explained by Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)

Source: Red Bull

Ecclestone admits 'problems' with new Korea track

Bernie Ecclestone on Sunday sounded defiant amid reports Korea is not ready to welcome Formula One.

Yeongam, about a four hour drive from Seoul, is scheduled to host its inaugural Grand Prix late next month.

Karun Chandhok did the first demonstration laps of the track on Saturday in a Red Bull, admitting that the venue is not yet complete.

Photos showed some buildings and grandstands are half built, fences missing, run-off areas unpaved and the track with only an initial layer of asphalt.

"How can a Grand Prix take place here?" wondered the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, captioning a photo of a construction worker carrying materials against the backdrop of a half-built building.

The newspaper said even a full supply of water and electricity is not yet present.

Additionally, many seats in the main grandstand are not installed, while parking lots are not ready to accommodate cars.

"There are problems," admitted F1 chief executive Ecclestone, "but we assume that the race can take place.

"The circuit is definitely ready, but as for all the buildings, perhaps not," admitted the Briton.

"So we may have to put up some tents," Ecclestone joked.

Source: Motorsport

Belgian GP - Alonso: “a race on track, a race at the factory”

There was a back-to-school atmosphere in the Spa paddock today, as everyone discussed what they had done during the break, but it did not take long for the old routine to resume, starting with Fernando Alonso’s traditional meeting with the media. And the first question went straight to the heart of the matter, could Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s Spanish driver win the World Championship? “I think we improved the car over the last three grands prix, which means we now have a very competitive package,” began the man from Oviedo. “However, we know it will be a very tough competition and that Red Bull will be strong everywhere and McLaren will be strong at certain circuits like this one and Monza. But I think we have the speed to fight for the world championship and as for this weekend, it is nice to know Ferrari has enjoyed great success at this circuit. Therefore there is no reason to be pessimistic, in fact it should be the opposite: we need to be very focussed, believe in ourselves and trust in the work we are doing. Then, hopefully we can continue down the line we saw in Hungary and Hockenheim.”

Apart from optimism and a good track record for the Scuderia here, Fernando explained the changes made to the F10 cars. “We have new aerodynamic improvements on the car, even if with the August break, the factory was not working, but we have these here and more coming for future races.” Asked to evaluate in numbers his chances of being World Champion driver this year, Fernando answered immediately: “Fifty percent. It can go either way. There is a chance that if we do better than the others in these seven remaining races, we win the championship, but if someone does better than us, they will take the title, because we are starting again almost from zero now, with a very small difference between the top drivers. We are basically starting a mini seven week championship. Of course, luck will be a factor, as you always need to be lucky. For example, it could rain for this race and then you need to make the right choice in terms of the decisions you make and when you make them. After that, you also need to bring the most developments to the car, which means that apart from the race on the track there is a race at the factory to make improvements on the car quicker than the other teams.”

Alonso still tipped Red Bull to be favourites this weekend. “I don’t see how they would lose a one second advantage since Hungary, but this race and in fact the next one at Monza, requires special low downforce with small wings for less drag and it will be interesting to see who makes the best job of running this configuration.”

Source: Ferrari.com

Alonso's Blog: I really want to get back on track

The holidays that ended today, just before leaving for Belgium, have been very relaxing. Immediately after the Hungarian Grand Prix, I was in Maranello to work on the simulator and with my engineers, from where I headed for home, via a stop off at Madonna di Campiglio for a presentation of the book about twenty years of the Wrooom event. In the days that followed, I split my time between Switzerland and Spain, trying to avoid any long journeys: we can expect the final part of the season to be quite stressful and I wasn’t keen on the idea of seeing even more hotels and airports.

In fact, the means of transport I used most was the bicycle. Apart from the usual training, I had some fun doing a “mini Vuelta” in the area around Oviedo: along with my best friends, we tackled five stages and it was great fun. Three weeks is more than enough time to unwind, at least after the first few days. I made the most of it to recharge the batteries in preparation for the final part of the season, which I think was the same for everyone: it was much needed, after a particularly hectic month of July.

Now, I really want to get back on track, but in a positive sense, without any feeling of anxiety, but in a very calm way. I am happy that the return to racing means going to two particularly special venues which host the Belgian and Italian Grands Prix. The Belgian track is possibly the most appealing of the entire season, while Monza will be something special for me, given that it will be my race debut as a Ferrari driver in front of the Italian crowd, in addition to the circuit itself having played such an important role in the history of motor sport.

I have a good feeling following on from the positive results obtained in Germany and Hungary. As the saying goes, we have to keep the momentum and that should be our aim in Spa, to ensure we carry on the way we started just before the holidays. The Hockenheim and Budapest results were important not just in terms of the classification in both championships, but also for the confidence it has given us. We have to keep pushing on this way.

Source: Alonso's Blog - Ferrari.com

Shell Trackside Laboratory

Source: Shell