I may be a little late in reporting this but it has been confirmed that 7 time world champion Michael Schumacher will fill in for the recovering Felipe Massa for the remainder of the 2009 season. It was rumored that Fernando Alonso would fill the seat since his team is banned form participating in his home race at Valencia. However with this announcement that puts the kibosh on that possibility. In other good news doctors reported today that Felipe Massa won’t have any long term injuries from his crash in Hungary and is expected to be back in racing form by next season.
The previous weekend was one of ups and downs for Formula 1. Things started off very badly on Saturday when Felipe Massa was knocked unconscious in what some could only describe as a “bizarre” accident. Felipe was rushed to a local hospital and put into a medically induced coma from which he has since awoken and is responsive. However some are reporting that due to sever damage to nerves in his left eye his racing career may be over. Hopefully that won’t be the case. Although if Felipe is unable recover before the next race (Valencia GP) Bernie Ecclestone is hoping that Ferrari may ask Fernando Alonso to take over driving duties. How is this possible? Well the entire Renault team (except drivers) are banned from the next race due to a saftey infraction.
So now for some good news. It looks like Lewis Hamilton is back to old form as he had a dominant performance all weekend and eventually charged his way to his first win of the 2009 season while the current leader Jenson Button and the Brawn GP team suffered a sudden and harsh downturn in performance, only able to muster a 7th place finish for the weekend. Has Brawn GP hit their limit? Can McLaren and Lewis Hamilton turn the season around and become a contender again? Stay tuned! Same F1 time, same F1 channel! I’m so cheesy sometimes…anyway.. Check out the video below for the SPEED discussion on the results.
So Jenson Button and the “underdog” Brawn GP team has been sweeping up all season so far while Ferrari and McLaren where spinning their wheels and not really getting anywhere. It was almost starting to get boring with Brawn GP and Jenson Button dominating the field in almost all the races, but this weekend F1 came back to Turkey AKA Felipe Massa’s playground. Massa has one the Turkish GP the previous three years consecutively. For a moment I genuinely thought that Brawn’s dominance wouldn’t be enough to overcome Massa’s Turkish streak. I was totally wrong…
After Sebasten Vettel made a mistake and went off track in turn 10 on the first lap Jenson took the lead away and that was all she wrote. He remained in the lead for almost the entire race there-after, save for the pit stops. He had both Red Bull F1 cars on his tail but neither Mark Webber nor Vettel had anything for Jenson Button who went on to take his sixth win in seven races.
He now has a 26 point lead over his teammate and points runner up Rubens Barrichello. I’m thinking we should just give Jenson Button the trophy now and call the rest of the season F1 “exhibitions” instead of races!
Check out the vid below for a recap from the SPEED guys. Photo courtesy of BrawnGP.com.
Ok this has to win the award for one of the greatest conversation starters ever. If you go to the Ferrari Store right now you could pick up a 1:1 scale full replica of the F2008 steering wheel. The every same type of wheel held by Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa last season complete with all the buttons and dials that you’d expect from one of the world’s most advanced race cars. There isn’t a cruise control button though…I checked..
The surprizes just keep coming with Formula 1 this year. Just when I was starting to think Brawn GP would be the dominator all season Red Bull Racing gets their driver Sebastien Vettel the pole position and then Vettel and his team mate Mark Webber get RBR a 1-2 finish respectively! This is the second time that Vettel has earned a team its first win. The first time he did it was last year with Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso by doing the same thing with RBR he is the first person to earn maiden wins for two different teams since Jackie Stewart back in the 70s.
The conditions for this race were beyond horrible with a massive down pour that flooded the entire track. So much so that the first 8 laps were under caution until the rain let up. After that all Vettel had to do was make sure he treated the car like a newborn child and nursed it around the track without spinning. While back in his pit box his team had to make sure they knew what tire to give him and at what time. When all was said and done Sebastien crossed the line first and brought home RBR’s maiden victory.
Talk about your upsets! A team that was created from the ashes of the recently deceased Honda F1 teamrises up gains a sponsor in Virgin, dominates qualifying, and then sweeps their first race in a team 1-2 finish! All of this while both Ferrari’s finished outside of the points!
If you’re lost let me attempt to catch you up a bit. In Late 2008 Honda shocked the racing community by annoucing that they were going to pull out of F1 completely. Naturally this shocked everyone and many were hoping for a big sponsor or someone to pull through to save the team.
After months of rumors and heresay former Honda F1 Team Principal Ross Brawn along with a few other members of management and investors bought Honda’s F1 Team assets and formed the “Brawn GP” team. They also announced that they would retain Jenson Button and Rubins Barrichello for their driver line up. They also shook things up by stating that they wouldn’t become another Ferrari customer and instead chose to source their engines from Mercedes.
Fast forward to this past weekend and the little team that could dominates qualifying with Jenson Buttontaking the pole and his teammate Ruben qualifying 2nd right next to him. Come race day the lights go out, Jenson rockets away to an early lead, and that was pretty much all she wrote. Jenson and Ruben spanked the whole field and brought home a 1-2 victory for their team in its first ever race, a feat that was last accomplished in the 70s!
Check out the Speed Rountable for all the news bits I may have missed
A few days ago Ferrari streamed the reveal of their new F60 F1 Racecar on their website. Naturally video and photos are starting to trickle down. Check out this helmet cam vid of Felipe Massa breaking in his brand new toy on a test track in Italy. Stay tuned for more pics and video.
It seems like the 2008 Formula One season ended just yesterday and already Ferrari is preparing to reveal their 2009 race car. Ferrariworld.com will have pictures and video of Felipe Massa driving the new car around their Fiorano test track. It’s all going down on January 12th so set a reminder! We’ll follow up with some of the released pics incase you miss it.
Recently after the 2008 Formula One season ended, F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone announced that he was contemplating getting rid of the points system and incorporating an olympic style medal system. Many feel this idea is madness, others think its a good idea while most don’t understand why he would want to do that in the first place. He had a sitdown with formula1.com and explained why he feels this would be a good move. Its worth the read. If you’ve read it already do you think its a good idea? Feel free to comment.
I know there are a lot of hardcore Ferrari fans who are still dealing with the fact that the 2008 drivers championship went to someone in a sliver car, but things werne’t all bad for the red. Ferrari did manage to win the constructors championship! What better way to celebrate than drop just under $51k USD on an actual 050 Ferrari F1 engine that was used in one of their 2001 cars? Besides buying a complete car this is pretty much the ultimate piece of Ferrari memorabilia! I’d rock it…
Loading ...
