2012 Formula One

[Mr Ree]

As much as I didnt want to see Seb get 3 on the trot, I would far prefer that to the sulking Spaniard taking his third.

The reality is that unless we have a Seb/Fred DNF in India, with Kimi and Hammy in 1st/2nd, its going to be a 2 horse race for the title.

Im hoping for the latter as there is nothing quite like going into the final race with 4 people still in with a shot of winning.

Still a huge amount of driver uncertaintly for next year, in this age of needing to bring 10 million+ to a team to even be considered for a seat, irrespective of the fact youre a great driver who got to the top on talent alone...

Its looking like Massa is going to keep his seat, Hulkenburg is going to Sauber, with Jules Bianchi moving up from reserve driver to main driver for SFI.

Jaime Alguesuari should be in a seat either in SFI or Sauber but nothings confirmed yet.

Maldonado has a 5 year deal at Williams but even he isnt convinced he will still be there next year so has been looking around to see what else might be on offer. But I feel it will be him and Bottas for next year.

Petrov and Heikki are thought to be looking at the exit sign at Caterham, and I imagine Karthikeyan gone from HRT too, so there is still going to be alot of fighting for spots when the music stops.

Marrusia would be wise to hang onto Glock, and have either Pic, or Max Chilton in the second seat.

STR will stick with Ricciardo and Vergne.

I wonder how many gp2 drivers are frantically trying to raise the capital to oust one of the regular F1 drivers from their seat? Lots, I expect.

[.:O4AGTZ:.]

Yeah Hulkneberg at Sauber is pretty much confirmed. I heard the other seat is most likely going to their current reserve driver (cant remember his name).

FI seat should be filled by Algesuari, he needs a comeback. Not that he has done a bad job doing some commentary this season! Thats a great thing about the F1 commentary, its so informative, especially in practice and qualifying when people are tweeting asking about what the new updates people are running are supposed to do. One of them always has an answer.

[Mr Ree]

Yeah Hulkneberg at Sauber is pretty much confirmed. I heard the other seat is most likely going to their current reserve driver (cant remember his name).

FI seat should be filled by Algesuari, he needs a comeback. Not that he has done a bad job doing some commentary this season! Thats a great thing about the F1 commentary, its so informative, especially in practice and qualifying when people are tweeting asking about what the new updates people are running are supposed to do. One of them always has an answer.

Esteban Guiterrez is the reserve driver for Suaber, and with the announcement that the large telmex financial backing is staying with the team, even after Perez leaves, the odds are he will get the seat.

Alguesuari definitely deserves another bite of the cherry, as he was only ousted due to an unrealistic expectation from Dr Marko, and a disagreement with him this time last year when Jaime semi-impeded Vettel in an FP session(if thats even possible when you're on a flying lap youself? lol). He is far too young, talented, and intelligent to be thrown on the scrap heap just yet.

RBR =Vettel and Webber(confirmed)
Ferrari =Alonso and Massa(unconfirmed but expected)
MacLaren =Button and Perez(confirmed)
Lotus =Raikkonen and Grosjean(both unconfirmed but expected)
Mercedes =Rosberg and Hamilton(confirmed)
Sauber =Hulkenburg and Gutierrez(both unconfirmed but expected)
SaharaFI =Di Resta and Alguesuari(both unconfirmed but expected)
Williams =Maldonado and Bottas(unconfirmed but expected)
STR =Ricciardo and Vergne(unconfirmed but expected)
Caterham=??? and ??? (Neither Heikki or Petrov bring big $ so...)
Marussia =??? and ??? (Will Glocks experience help keep his seat, now that Pic is starting to get closer to him?)
HRT =De La Rosa and ??? (Will Tata offer enough to keep Narain in?)

Still alot of movement to come, due to the seat selling going on, and I think it will be a huge loss to the sport if Kobayahsi is shown the door, but they dont call it the piranha club for nothing.

It makes it very ominous for the like of Mitch Evans trying to raise 2.5 million for a shot at GP2, when by the time he starts knocking on F1's door, he will need to raise atleast 4 times that to even be considered for a seat. Lets hope we have well and truly emerged from the global recession by then so sponsor dollars might be more plentiful again.

[2jayzgte]

Korean GP to = 1 way traffic no one was touching Vettel in this one..

Back to the drawing board Ferrari and Alonso at this rate I gotta say RBR look nie on untouchable.

Exactly what I didnt want to happen! Last year was fairly boring, watching Vettel take the lead at the first corner and from then on the rest was history. I cant see it being anyone else than Vettel to take out the championship unfortunately.

Well Alonso said they have a better car but he has a better team I think thats a ????? at best Ferrari are there but at this stage I don't think they have enough to over haul RBR it'll be more like Alonso taking a opportunity if Vettel slips up.

[.:O4AGTZ:.]

RBR =Vettel and Webber(confirmed)
Ferrari =Alonso and Massa(unconfirmed but expected)
MacLaren =Button and Perez(confirmed)
Lotus =Raikkonen and Grosjean(both unconfirmed but expected)
Mercedes =Rosberg and Hamilton(confirmed)
Sauber =Hulkenburg and Gutierrez(both unconfirmed but expected)
SaharaFI =Di Resta and Alguesuari(both unconfirmed but expected)
Williams =Maldonado and Bottas(unconfirmed but expected)
STR =Ricciardo and Vergne(unconfirmed but expected)
Caterham=??? and ??? (Neither Heikki or Petrov bring big $ so...)
Marussia =??? and ??? (Will Glocks experience help keep his seat, now that Pic is starting to get closer to him?)
HRT =De La Rosa and ??? (Will Tata offer enough to keep Narain in?)

Still alot of movement to come, due to the seat selling going on, and I think it will be a huge loss to the sport if Kobayahsi is shown the door, but they dont call it the piranha club for nothing.

It makes it very ominous for the like of Mitch Evans trying to raise 2.5 million for a shot at GP2, when by the time he starts knocking on F1's door, he will need to raise atleast 4 times that to even be considered for a seat. Lets hope we have well and truly emerged from the global recession by then so sponsor dollars might be more plentiful again.

Loosing Kobayashi would be terrible. Nothing worse than a talented driver loosing out for nothing personal. You line ups look pretty spot on for what is expected. Except im pretty sure Raikonnens deal is over 2 years anyway so he is confirmed for next year (if he doesnt throw his toys). Caterham, Marussia and HRT are difficult ones. You cant imagine teams that lowly being filled with talent next year, well I cant imagine them affording talent to be honest.

[Rona]

Petrov brings a fair bit of Russian coin with him by the way so don't write him off. Grosjean has Total behind him and is managed by Eric Bouiller the Team Principle so he'd have to be a lot worse and cause even more trouble then he has to be dropped.

Thought I'd spam my pics from the Japanese GP in here enjoy:

Link to my FB album from the GP Weekend, first few photos aren't the best eventually I managed to get the camera off my brother and take some:p.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151178673479223.472717.749044222&type=1&l=ce51e59bdd

[Mr Ree]

Nice pics, and I bet it was awesome at Suzuka, watching them come over that crest at Dunlop before going into the first Degner

P.S Petrov has lost his Russian backing over the past few weeks, so things arent very rosy there. Giedo Van de Garde will probably be sitting in his seat come next year unfortunately

[Rona]

Certainly was awesome, only got to sit there on the Friday during practice when we were free to roam the track. Saturday/Sunday was reserved seating and we were in the middle of Turn 1/2 which was spectacular to watch from as pretty much 99% of the action during the race happened there. Could see from the start line through the camera up to around turn 5/6 so plenty of track to look at.

Now I need to start saving so I can do it again sometime. Suzuka was very spectator friendly as is the Japanese culture. You could mark out a spot in the shade under the stands with a tarp to recover in during the downtime lol.

[Mr Ree]

Good stuff, mate. Must have been a great time, thats for sure

Im hoping to go to Melbourne next year, just to hear the 18k rpm V8's on their swansong, but nothings confirmed yet...

In other news...Felipe Massa has just been confirmed at Ferrari for 2013, so expect all the other gaps to be filled over the next 2 weeks or so.

[Rona]

V8s sound good but OMG Schumacher's Ferrari that was circulating in the demo laps with the V10 in it was another league. Wasn't even being driven that hard and it was night and day on the V8 note.

[Mr Ree]

Agreed, the F1 V10 era will never be matched by any motorsport engine. What with putting out 950hp at 21,500rpm, thats simply impressive in any mans language.

I often watch old races from my almost 20 year collection and grin from ear to ear while listening to the scream of those banshee donks.

The MacLaren's engines that were built by illmor through the late 90's/early 2000's actually sounded possessed by Satan himself...seriously!!

[2jayzgte]

^^^^^^^^

Makes you wonder why Ferrari never made a V-10 screamer no they left that to Lexus/Toyota and what a screamer it is.

[Mr Ree]

I think the reason (and I could be extremely wide of the mark) is that V10's have always been associated with extremely exotic, high performance cars, so maybe they decided it didnt fit the Toyota branding philosophy.

But then along came the LFA and shit got real

[Rona]

I still toss up between the 94/95 Ferrari V12 that Alesi piloted and the V10s for best engine note. I probably account for half the views on these 2 vids lol. Shifts were so much more brutal back then which I think adds to the noise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YluCEXKneyg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1InrgZiv30

[2jayzgte]

Awesome first lap tussle Button Hamilton and Alonso inchs apart at warp speed no swapping of paint true pro drivers it makes me wonder why the next generation can't race like the above.

Grosjean Kobayashi and co take note.

[Mr Revhead]

Why is it nearly always Webbers, and Webbers alone, KERS system that packs up? Is there a difference in the cooling to allow room for him being a larger driver?

[Mr Ree]

Without being too much ofa conspiracy theorist, do you think its possible RBR were trying to 'control' Mark?

He was gaining on Seb at the time his KERS stopped working so thats easier than them telling him to back off (even though they say they dont emply team orders )

[.:O4AGTZ:.]

Ive always had my suspicions about RBR. They seem too far ahead at times and yeah, Webbers KERS always seems to 'fail'.

Happy that Kimi is confirmed for next year, if Lotus can make some improvements over the break then I can see him on the top spot at least once next year. Looking forward to the next race, Lotus should hopefully be strong there with the high track temps. Just have to hope for some qualifying pace. Bad choice by Kimi to change his setup for qualifying in India, but I guess those things happen.

[Mr Ree]

To be honest, I cant see the Lotus being any faster in Abu Dhabi than India, as ambient and track temps are pretty much identical.
I would like to see Kimi take a win before years end, but being realistic, unless its from a weather related opportunity (read: Brazil) the cars pace just isnt there at the moment.

The RBR is the car to beat at the moment, and now they have sorted their 1 lap pace, its pretty easy to control the race (and more crucially the tyre temps) while running at the front.
Thats been the key to this year, make a break at the start, so DRS cant be used on you, and youre set.

Next year is going to be much of the same, with very little regulation changes to upset the apple cart, so I wouldnt be surprised to see RBR take a fourth in a row.

But then 2014 is when EVERYTHING changes...

[.:O4AGTZ:.]

Yeah there may have been different teams winning each race for half the season, but the fact is that they are pretty much lead from start to finish by one driver, so on a per race basis, there is nothing interesting happening for the top spot.

Not sure about Lotus pace, Kimi was mixing it with MClaren and RBR until he changed his set up. It COULD happen. Qualifiying is definately key. Theme this year, as above, is that if you lead at the first corner, you pretty much lead at the flag!