Tag Archives: new teams

Webber saves the best till last in Monaco qualifying

Mark Webber again shone in qualifying, he produced the fastest lap of the weekend so far in the dying seconds of qualifying to take pole position away form Robert Kubica who had looked untouchable out front.
It means that the Red Bull that had looked nowhere this weekend had managed to pull off pole and third in their quest to take the title before anyone catches them. McLaren will be disappointed their performance in qualifying as they didn’t manage to get near the front row of the grid. Jenson Button was complaining of being blocked but it didn’t look like they had the speed anyway.
Mercedes will be happy to see an improved performance from the car and will be hoping that they can put it to good use in the race tomorrow and score some solid points to ensure that they stay ahead of Renault in the championship. Renault themselves have [...]

Ferrari back to form along with Rosberg

Thursday practice at Monaco shows that the Red Bull isn’t always the fastest way around a race track and that Ferrari did do some work after all. Monaco is an odd track and Ferrari should be concerned even if they can waltz away with the victory here as it’s unlikely to translate elsewhere. Alonso will just be happy to see his name at the top of the times and will be hoping that he can keep it there throughout the whole weekend.
Rosberg also seems to have come back to form, or mastered the new Mercedes as he has put in times that eclipse Michael Schumacher again. Perhaps Spain was a blip, Michael Schumacher will be hoping that it turns around again on Saturday and that it is he and not Rosberg that takes the highest spot on the grid for Mercedes. With it being virtually impossible to overtake in Monaco [...]

Virgin hoping that they’ve finally solved their reliability issues

The Virgin team are confident that they have solved the reliability issues that meant that their car hasn’t run for more than 18 laps or so yet. This means that they have addressed the hydraulic problems that they have had since the launch of the car and the transmission problems that they had at Sakhir.
Virgin impressed at Bahrain by qualifying fastest of all the new teams and then disappointed on race day by not managing to make the first set of stops. The hydraulic issues that put out one of their cars out in Bahrain seems the same as the one that they claimed to have solved after the pre-season testing where they had these issues – it seems that the fix didn’t work and they now have a ‘robust’ solution to the problem, let’s hope that’s true.
They also had transmission issues in Bahrain and these would seem separate from [...]

Looking forward to the Australian GP…

The Australian GP is now less than a week away and with all the main teams having had a week to digest what happened in Bahrain what can we expect from the various players? Will the Ferrari’s run away with the race again? Will the Red Bull have and an answer? Will Michael Schumacher be on the pace? Will the McLaren be fast enough to challenge?
It seems that the Australian GP is a much less predictable track though it does seem to show who’ll win the championship as over the last ten years only twice has the winner not gone on to clinch the title. It seems unlikely that the Ferrari will romp away with the victory this time out as the other teams may have the pace here. The McLaren’s rear wing won’t help them too much but any time counts.
Michael Schumacher should be more on the pace here [...]