Tag Archives: 2006

The drivers title will be decided on Sunday 14th of November

So the F1 circus heads to Abu Dhabi with four men who could win the title and an unbelievable number of mathematical possibilities. Alonso is the only man who can not finish the race and still win – though it’s unlikely that he would. Webber really must win to give himself the best chance to beat Alonso though he really needs the Spaniard to finish fourth or better to deny Vettel the chance of the title and thereby gaining an ally.
Qualifying will pose a unique challenge this weekend too given that a slip up by any of the top three drivers could mean an end to their championship hopes. It seems that Alonso has the advantage of experience in these matters but both Vettel and Webber have shown to be tough contenders this year. With the Red Bull car in such form it seems that the Ferrari man will [...]

On the ’second’ drivers and what a difference a year makes to F1

With the first race of the year now behind us and the first points on the board it seems that Michael Schumacher may be wishing he’s driving a Ferrari this year after all; I’m not sure that he’d want to be up against Alonso though as he struggled to keep pace with Rosberg.
The second set of drivers – by this I mean Massa, Rosberg and Webber though unless he improves will soon include Button – put on an interesting show on Sunday, Rosberg beat Schumacher, Webber was beaten by Vettel and Massa out-qualified Alonso but was beaten down to the first corner.
Nico Rosberg seems to have had the measure of Michael Schumacher all weekend and underlined that by beating him in the race. There is more to this though, firstly Michael Schumacher was some 0.5s off Rosberg’s pace in qualifying but only finished 4s behind him, there are two other [...]

Will Michael Schumacher return to take the title?

Michael Schumacher returns to F1 this season and he wouldn’t do so unless he believed that he had a shot at the title. Mercedes seem to have a car that has shown some good pace in testing if not outstanding though Jenson Button thinks that they may be sandbagging somewhat ahead of the first GP.
So what are his chances this year? Well firstly he’s got to beat Nico Rosberg, on paper it shouldn’t be that hard but Rosberg has shown that he can be quick at Williams so expect him to push Schumacher. I suspect that he’ll be a bit hit and miss through the season which is something Rosberg needs to work on and he’s got the best mentor in the business right next to him.
Outside of his own team the main contenders seem to be Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Now that’s a lot [...]

Renault with a Russian and new colours

Renault have now launched their car and announced the driver to partner Robert Kubica. Vitaly Petrov will pilot the second Renault for 2010, he makes history as the first Russian to enter F1, no mention of the money he could bring though.
The new Renault doesn’t look as sharp as the McLaren or the Ferrari but the 2005/6 cars didn’t either and look what they did. I love the new colour scheme though it does remind me somewhat of Eddie Jordan’s team. It will look good on track, and if their design team has managed to stay insulated from all the happenings at the team over the past 12 months they might produce something – I guess we’ll have to wait until Bahrain to see if they have managed it.
Vitaly Petrov seems an odd choice as the second driver but I guess they couldn’t have done worse than Romain Grosjean. He [...]