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Canadian GP: Vettel fastest in second practice as tyre degrade

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June 11 '10

Sebastian Vettel topped the time sheets for Red Bull at the second practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso set the second fastest time for Ferrari after managing only 7th in the morning session. His team mate Felipe Massa finished a strong fifth after setting 12th fastest time in the first practice session.

Mercedes showed superb pace as Nico Rosberg set the third fastest time, while Michael Schumacher was second in the morning session.

Some drivers improved their lap times on the super-soft tyres, but had trouble making the super-soft tyres last. Most of the drivers struggled with the super-soft tyres, which seemed to grain a lot faster. Comments on F1Fanatic suggest that the option tyres were graining too badly.

[f1fanatic_co_uk:]
Just under five minutes to go. Slow-mo shows lots of graining on Vettel's front-left tyre. #F1

[Comment From ADELAIDE F1ADELAIDE F1: ]
Excellent slow-mo on Webber's car shows massive graining... bits even flying off in chunks.

[Comment From PeterPeter: ]
look at ham he has massive graining and is about 10sec per lap slower for the last couple of laps...

[@adamcooperf1:]
Hamilton on team radio about his option tyre graining: "I'm about to crash this car!"

The tyres available for the weekend are medium (prime) and super-soft (option). Because of serious tyre graining, qualifying and race could be bit more interesting, with the top ten qualifiers having to start the race with the same set of tyres which they qualified on.

McLaren reserve driver Gary Paffet observed, ?With all the tyre graining issues people are having, we might see our first two-stop race of the season on Sunday.?

Once again Heikki Kovalainen in the Lotus was the fastest of the new team drivers in 19th and Hispania?s Karun Chandhok continued his impressive run to finish 20th, ahead of his team mate Bruno Senna and the Virgins of Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi. Jarno Trulli could only manage to complete 11 laps due to electrical problems on his Lotus.

Canadian Grand Prix free practice 2 times

1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m 16.877s
2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 16.963s
3. Nico Rosberg Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 17.151s
4. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m 17.273s
5. Felipe Massa Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 17.401s
6. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m 17.415s
7. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m 17.522s
8. Robert Kubica Renault-Renault 1m 17.529s
9. Michael Schumacher Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 17.688s
10. Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1m 17.903s
11. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m 17.903s
12. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m 18.385s
13. Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1m 18.447s
14. Vitaly Petrov Renault-Renault 1m 18.582s
15. Pedro de la Rosa BMW Sauber-Ferrari 1m 18.658s
16. Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber-Ferrari 1m 19.142s
17. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 19.168s
18. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 19.274s
19. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1m 19.969s
20. Karun Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 1m 20.879s
21. Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 1m 21.097s
22. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1m 21.346s
23. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m 21.488s
24. Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1m 21.577s


Image(C) f1aldia

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/F1InsightAFormula1Blog/~3/tPXTeAxQbXk/canadian-gp-vettel-fastest-in-second.html

Carroll Shelby Tony Shelly Jo Siffert Andre Simon Rob Slotemaker

Lotus v Lotus

I'll make this as simple as possible.

There will be two teams bearing the Lotus name in Formula 1 next year.

One, following Wednesday's announcement of Lotus Cars' decision to sponsor and eventually buy into what was the Renault team, will be called Lotus Renault. That team will be part-owned by Lotus Cars but their F1 cars will be called Renaults and will use Renault engines.

The other will be called Team Lotus. This one has nothing to do with Lotus Cars (any more - but we'll come back to that in a moment) but their F1 car will be called a Lotus. They will also use, er, Renault engines.

Both teams, it transpires, plan to run their cars in variations of a black and gold livery. This is an attempt to hark back to the historic John Player Special livery made famous by the original Team Lotus in the 1970s and 1980s through great drivers such as Emerson Fittipaldi, Mario Andretti, Ronnie Peterson, Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna, and era-defining cars like the Lotus 72 and 79.

It's a commentator's - and journalist's - nightmare and one can only begin to imagine the confusion it will create for those watching.

So what on earth is going on?

The story starts in 2009, when Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes obtained a multi-year licence from Lotus Cars to use the Lotus name in F1, having persuaded the Malaysian-owned company that an involvement in grand prix racing would be a valuable promotional tool.

Lotus Racing were one of three new teams in F1 in 2010, the others being Virgin and Hispania. All three spent the year close to the back of the grid, but Lotus did establish themselves as convincingly the most competitive.

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In the course of the year, though, Group Lotus's approach to F1 changed, as part of a hugely ambitious refocusing of the company's future plans by chief executive officer Dany Bahar, who formerly worked in the commercial arms of Red Bull F1 and Ferrari.

Bahar, it transpires, was never keen on Lotus granting the licence to Fernandes, and it has become clear through 2010 why - he wanted to take the brand into F1 himself, but in a different way, through an involvement with an established team.

At the Paris Motor Show in October, Bahar announced plans for five new road-car models, expanding Lotus's range by nearly 200%, and has since said Lotus will enter IndyCar racing in the US and race at Le Mans. And now comes a major sponsorship deal with what used to be the Renault F1 team which will, at an undefined point in the future, morph into Lotus part-owning that team.

Fernandes, meanwhile, struck a deal in September to buy the rights to the Team Lotus name from David Hunt, brother of 1976 world champion James. Hunt had bought them when the original Team Lotus collapsed in 1994 after racing in F1 since 1958, during which time it had established itself as one of the sport's most iconic names.

Fernandes' success in buying the name - exclusively revealed by BBC Sport - marked the point at which what had until then been a private dispute between him and Lotus Cars - which is owned by the Malaysian company Proton - broke out into the open.

Following Fernandes's acquisition of the Team Lotus name, Group Lotus claimed that it owned all the rights to the Lotus name - a point of view robustly disputed by Hunt, who points out that Proton have several times tried to buy the Team Lotus name from him without ever being able to conclude a deal.

The dispute got so heated that former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir bin Mohamad stepped in to mediate, but he succeeded only in stopping the ping-pong of press releases. The dispute is now going to the High Court - and it is unlikely to be resolved until next year.

Lotus Cars CEO Dany Bahar and Hollywood actress Sharon Stone at the Paris Motor Show

Bahar (left) launches a new Lotus car with the help of actress Sharon Stone. Photo: Getty

But the disagreement over the ownership of Team Lotus is only one of two ongoing legal cases between Lotus Cars and Fernandes. In the other, Fernandes is suing Lotus Cars for breach of contract over its withdrawal of the licence to use the Lotus name in F1.

That, too, is not expected to be resolved until some time next year.

Both sides, then, have got themselves into a bit of a pickle.

Lotus Cars has struck a deal to promote its brand in F1 through a team that is knocking on the door of breaking into the top three - and which, in Robert Kubica, has one of the finest drivers on the grid.

But it is doing so with a car that is called a Renault - and there is no way out of that one.

Lotus and the team's majority shareholder, the private investment group Genii Capital, cannot change the constructor name assigned to their team because if they do so without the permission of all the other teams they will lose the millions the team earns through Renault's historic achievements in F1, which date back to their entry in 1977.

And guess which team would not agree?

Fernandes, meanwhile, faces the prospect of his team giving free publicity to a company with which he is in two separate legal disputes. And even if he changed the name of the team to something else, his cars would still be called Lotuses.

It is an unsatisfactory situation for all involved - the efforts of both parties will be diluted by a dispute that, for those watching, will create only confusion.

Fernandes is understood to be increasingly confident that he will win the court case over the Team Lotus name. Lotus Cars, for its part, appears not to be overly concerned about the existence of a second team diluting its brand. Their view is that only one of the teams is affiliated with Lotus, and the other one is providing free advertising for it.

In the meantime, questions hang in the air.

Is the end game for Fernandes to sell the Team Lotus brand to Lotus Cars if he succeeds in establishing that he owns it? Can Lotus - and its parent company Proton - sustain such an ambitious programme? And so on.

In the murk, only one thing seems clear - this is only the latest stage in a story that will rumble on for some time to come.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/12/lotus_v_lotus.html

Jan Flinterman Ron Flockhart Myron Fohr Gregor Foitek George Follmer

Turkish GP: Vettel fastest in final practice ahead of qualifying

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May 30 '10

Sebastian Vettel was the fastest man on track yesterday for the final practice session ahead of qualifying for the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix. Some of his key rivals faced problems while others had off-track excursions, notably at turn 8.

Nico Rosberg was one among the late improvers. He claimed a strong second while spending much of the time at the bottom end of top ten.

Lewis Hamilton who finished third, had a lurid spin at turn eight. Via iTV, "Mid-way through the session the former champion ran wide over the kerb at the second of the sweeping corner?s three apexs and spun backwards into the gravel, having to be pushed out by marshals so he could recover to the pits.

On his return to the McLaren garage it emerged the spin had shredded his hard compound tyres while also doing minor damage to the MP4-25?s floor and area around the diffuser.

His team got him out for the final six minutes for a final run on the soft-tyres, however, and his best lap eventually wound up 0.310s slower than Vettel?s last-gasp flyer."

Mark Webber faced a throttle response problem, but nonetheless finished fourth. According to iTV, " A throttle linkage problem struck on his RB6 almost immediately after he left the pit lane for the first time, meaning he had to crawl around the 3.3-mile lap back to the garage."

Adrian Sutil managed just one lap before returning back to pits due to a hydraulic problem on his Force India.

Turkish Grand Prix free practice 3 times

1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m 27.086s
2. Nico Rosberg Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 27.359s
3. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m 27.396s
4. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m 27.553s
5. Robert Kubica Renault-Renault 1m 27.784s
6. Fernando Alonso Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 27.861s
7. Michael Schumacher Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 27.879s
8. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m 27.963s
9. Felipe Massa Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 27.969s
10. Vitaly Petrov Renault-Renault 1m 28.344s
11. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 28.610s
12. Pedro de la Rosa BMW Sauber-Ferrari 1m 28.652s
13. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 28.734s
14. Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber-Ferrari 1m 29.036s
15. Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1m 29.044s
16. Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1m 29.211s
17 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m 29.305s
18. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1m 30.618s
19. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1m 30.884s
20. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m 31.341s
21. Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1m 32.180s
22. Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 1m 32.230s
23. Karun Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 1m 32.762s
24. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes no time


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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/F1InsightAFormula1Blog/~3/siRkUQ3H4Fo/turkish-gp-vettel-fastest-in-final.html

Ernst Loof Henri Louveau John Love

Watch Bahrain F1 Grand Prix Live on Star Sports ? Time in India, Hongkong, Malaysia and Singapore

Fernando Alonso clocked the fastest time in Q3 on Saturday at the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix. However, it was Sebastian Vettel who will take the pole position on Sunday at Sakhir, Bahrain. Sebastian Vettel dedicated his pole position to Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. Fernando Alonso will start from the 3rd position on the grid. Star Sports, which [...]

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Giorgio Francia Don Freeland HeinzHarald Frentzen Paul Frere Patrick Friesacher