may have shelved his holiday plans but for the rest of the Formula 1 family school is officially out for the summer.
How F1 drivers will be entertaining themselves during the three-week break before the European Grand Prix in on 23 August is a mind-boggling prospect - luckily The Mole has some answers.
Sun, sea and sand are all out for and , who are keeping the adrenalin pumping by participating in other sporting contests.
Button is taking part in the on 2 August for his chosen charity the .
Read the rest of this entry
McLaren really know how to spoil a special moment with their matter-of-fact radio messages after a win.
With any other team we hear some emotive congratulatory words from an engineer or a team boss.
But after , all we heard on TV that was broadcast of radio communication was a few words of heartfelt but understated thanks from his engineer, followed by an instruction to "go to yellow Golf 8 and standard procedures". Party on!
Read the rest of this entry
of the season for at the - but the double world champion was actually only the seventh fastest man on pure pace in qualifying on Saturday.
The top 10 in qualifying are not allowed to refuel before the race, so they have to go into the final session with enough fuel to see them through to their first pit stops in the race. And the more fuel you carry, the slower your car is over one lap in qualifying.
That means that , it is possible to work out not only who was actually the fastest, but also when the various drivers are likely to stop for the first time.
Here at the , that information leads to the following fuel-corrected grid:
Read the rest of this entry
When you are the new boy in Formula 1, a word of advice from a double world champion is probably just the tonic on your debut race weekend.
Toro Rosso's is to become in Hungary this weekend the youngest ever grand prix driver - at the age of 19 years and 125 days - and on Thursday morning Renault's Fernando Alonso paid him an impromptu visit.
may be relieved to see another Spaniard join him on the grid, but the 2005 and 2006 world champion also dispensed some pearls of wisdom for the Barcelona-born debutant.
Read the rest of this entry
The topsy-turvy 2009 Formula 1 season means the biblical prophecy "" has come to pass for some drivers.
The pacesetting has catapulted from last season's place in the standings for Honda into a 21-point lead at the top of the drivers' tree.
But fate has not been so kind to former champions Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.
, world champion in 2005 and 2006, is ninth in the table, followed in 10th by 2008 champion Hamilton and his predecessor Raikkonen.
Read the rest of this entry
Brawn
, but I've been through the race lap times and done the numbers on this, and the Brazilian has his good friend and countryman Felipe Massa to blame for missing out on second place.
Barrichello came out of his first stop behind Massa, whose soft tyres had gone. In the 10 laps Rubens was stuck there, he never bettered a one minute 37.2 seconds lap. His target time was a 1.34.7 - Barrichello was losing two and a half seconds per lap!
In total, 25 seconds were lost in the second stint. After his third stop, Rubens was 15 seconds behind Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and 10 behind Massa. So even allowing for some time lost Barrichello would have finished second behind Webber, if only he'd been able to get past the Ferrari in those 10 laps.
Read the rest of this entry
looks in an incredibly strong position to take his maiden Formula 1 victory in Sunday's German Grand Prix.
Not only did the Australian set pole position - but he was also comfortably fastest when the is taken into account.
The top 10 drivers in qualifying are not allowed to refuel before the race, so their grid positions are influenced by how much fuel they choose to put in their cars, and therefore when they will make their first pit stops in the race.
So the fuel-adjusted grid for the this weekend, with predicted first pit stop laps, looks like this:
Read the rest of this entry
Formula 1 drivers are bracing themselves for the end-of-season game of musical chairs and, if the rumours are to believed, one driver could find himself squeezed out of a race seat come Monday morning.
The marked man in question is .
In his second season in the sport, the 30-year-old has collected just two points and, to make matters worse, he's been out-performed by rookie team-mate .
Read the rest of this entry
Manor Grand Prix are one of three new teams hoping to "do a " and make a name for themselves in Formula 1 next season.
The team have a successful history racing in the junior single-seater categories and helped nurture the careers of future world champions and .
The Mole got the inside track from Manor technical director at the on how the F1 project is progressing.
Read the rest of this entry
The Mole welcomes ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ F1 pit-lane reporter Lee McKenzie back on to the blog, to discuss her experiences at the Goodwood Festival of Speed over the weekend.
What a special weekend the is. It has become an institution in the British motorsport calendar since it was founded by in 1993 and this year's event, which took place over the weekend, continued the tradition.
The Festival features hundreds of cars - some of the most expensive, the fastest, the most memorable and the strangest in the world. That also goes for bikes, and in some cases drivers, too!
Goodwood is much more than just an event. It is a complete celebration of all things motorsport and I absolutely love it. Nowhere else in the world can the public get so close to the cars and, of course, the drivers.
There are no motorhomes or closed-off paddocks, and not many places for them to hide. And the Drivers' Club, which is where they head for food and drinks, really was a who's who last weekend.
Read the rest of this entry
