Trulli spells out what happened with Hamilton

I’m grateful to Robbie for sending me the link to YouTube where there is an extract of Toyota team radio, which gives a vivid picture of what it he experienced when Lewis Hamilton passed him in the final stages of that Australian GP. Trulli slows down to let him repass, but he doesn’t pass.
Hamilton [...]

Read Full Post »

Scenes around Melbourne the day after the race

I’m sitting in Melbourne airport in the departure lounge waiting for a 1am flight to Kuala Lumpur. I’m not alone, there are plenty of F1 people milling around, rather bleary eyed waiting for the plane. Ferrari are on the flight, along with some French and English journalists, a few photograpers and others. It’s an eight [...]

Read Full Post »

How Rubens’ race was run

Rubens Barrichello had an unbelievable afternoon in Melbourne on Sunday, which deserves a closer look. He started and finished second, but in between it was far from plain sailing, with two collisions, both of which caused bodywork damage. It is one of those, ‘How did he get there?’ races, so I thought I’d go through [...]

Read Full Post »

Brawn march on at the double

I will never forget the feeling I had when I saw this Brawn car for the first time on the Monday morning in Barcelona on the 9th of March. It looked different, the detail on the car was so refined, and it went like stink.
Here was the most dominant F1 car we’ve seen since [...]

Read Full Post »

Behind the scenes on Melbourne raceday

It was Ross Brawn himself who made the connection, when we were talking on Saturday morning about the last team to win on its F1 debut; Wolf in 1977.
“Yeah, I was working for them then,” he grinned.
Ross started out at Williams, but when Sir Frank got involved with Walter Wolf, Ross was seconded to go [...]

Read Full Post »

Pre race update

Great atmosphere in the pits and paddock as the clock runs down towards the start of the race.
There is a general acceptance that the Brawn cars are going to drive away at the front of the field. Their pace over long runs is even more impressive that their qualifying pace. Rubens did a great job [...]

Read Full Post »

Here’s how the race will unfold -update

The fuel weights have been published by the FIA for the first time, under the new rules for this season.
There are some very interesting things here. For a start the Brawn cars are, as we expected, massively quick, given that Jenson Button’s car has 22 laps worth of fuel in it (59 kilos).
Allowing for [...]

Read Full Post »

Melbourne Blog – Day 2

Finally after all the talk the protests and the politics we got some track action today.
It was very weird starting the first session at 12-30pm and the second one at 4-30pm, basically two and a half hours later than normal. I got to the track for 8-45 am and there was hardly anyone here! Many [...]

Read Full Post »

Melbourne blog day 1

It’s been a fairly calm day for the start of the new season. The predicted protest from the teams over the diffuser row has happened and the stewards are looking into it as I write this in the Melbourne press office, with the sun setting outside.
I’ve felt all along that the three cars in question, [...]

Read Full Post »