London: The first European race of the Formula One season provided a boost for Ferrari and Fernando Alonso, with Lotus and Kimi Raikkonen also smiling, but left plenty of other former champions feeling the pain. While Red Bull retained their lead in both championships, they struggled with similar tyre problems to others in Barcelona on Sunday with triple champion Sebastian Vettel finishing off the podium with his lead over Raikkonen cut to four points.
The Circuit de Catalunya, used for two of the three pre-season tests and host of the fifth race of the year, had been seen as a key track in the season after rounds in Asia and the Middle East. All teams brought upgrades to Spain, with former champions McLaren and Williams needing a bigger boost than most after a troubled start and Mercedes eager to show they could be quick on Sunday as well as Saturday.
In the end, the song remained pretty much the same. Ferrari and Lotus proved easy on the tyres and highly competitive, Force India stayed solidly in the points while Red Bull went slightly off the boil.
Pirelli, already in the spotlight after some alarming previous failures that saw treads strip away from the tyres, took more flak for sowing confusion with some 77 pitstops made over the 66 laps. They vowed to take another look at both the compounds and structures, although nothing can be done for at least another two races....
10:22 PM, May 13, 2013
Barcelona: Fernando Alonso won the Spanish Grand Prix by nearly 10 seconds in a dominant performance in front of his jubilant home fans on Sunday to close the gap on championship leader Sebastian Vettel and get right back in the Formula One title race. Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen finished second for the third straight race, with Alonso's Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa in third spot as most drivers chose a four-stop...
07:20 PM, May 12, 2013
Barcelona: Formula One championship leader Sebastian Vettel posted the fastest time ahead of archrival Fernando Alonso in the second practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday. Alonso had the best time in the rain-affected first session, where Vettel drove more cautiously, but the Spaniard finished .017 seconds behind the German as sunshine bathed the Circuit de Catalunya for most of the afternoon's run. Vettel clocked 1 minute, 22.808...
07:26 PM, May 10, 2013
Barcelona, Spain: Ferrari teammates Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa posted the fastest times in the first practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday. After light rainfall early on, the track started to dry out midway through and times started tumbling towards the end of the session. Alonso clocked 1 minute, 25.252 seconds, making him 0.203 seconds quicker than Massa, who slowed down when he clipped a kerb late...
03:26 PM, May 10, 2013
Barcelona: Fernando Alonso is hoping to close the gap on championship leader Sebastian Vettel at the Spanish Grand Prix. He says "until we are 75 or 80 points behind, we should be optimistic" about challenging for the Formula One title. The two-time champion trails Vettel by 30 points after just four races going into this weekend's event. But the Spaniard feels for the first time in years that Ferrari has...
10:57 PM, May 09, 2013
London: Ferrari's Fernando Alonso needs to make the most of home advantage when Formula One's European season starts up in Barcelona on Sunday. The Spaniard has ground to make up on Red Bull's triple champion Sebastian Vettel after four races in Asia and the Middle East. "If I was to score our overall performance, I would only give it a six out of 10," Ferrari chief designer Nikolas Tombazis told...
08:21 PM, May 08, 2013
Maranello: Ferrari are pleased with their car but ruing mishaps which have limited their success in the first four Formula One races. Fernando Alonso's performances are emblematic of the team's mixed success. He won the Chinese Grand Prix and finished second in Australia but a collision forced him to retire in Malaysia and mechanical problems led to an eighth-place finish in Bahrain. The team's chief designer, Nikolas Tombazis, rates their...
06:17 PM, May 07, 2013
The rear wing problem that wrecked Fernando Alonso's hopes of winning in Bahrain last weekend was due to a rare component failure within the DRS system, Ferrari said after an investigation. "It's the first problem of its kind on this system seen on the three years during which it has been used," the Italian team said on their website. "The failure is not something that causes concern for the long...
04:33 PM, Apr 24, 2013
Sakhir: Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso recovered from a spin on Saturday to post the fastest lap in the third and final Formula One practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Looking for his second consecutive victory after ending a 12-race drought in China last weekend, Alonso completed a lap in 1:33.247 to finish 0.101 head of three-time defending F1 champion Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber was third fastest,...
02:55 PM, Apr 20, 2013
Sakhir, Bahrain: Having ended a 12-race drought with a dominant victory in China, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso is quickly emerging as the most likely candidate to end the dominance of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel. The two-time Formula One champion has the chance to overtake Vettel in the drivers' championship with a win on Sunday at the Bahrain Grand Prix, a race that has drawn the ire of rights groups who complain...
10:46 PM, Apr 18, 2013
Manama: Mark Webber left the big question unanswered at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Thursday: Who paid for his dinner with Fernando Alonso? Ferrari's Alonso, the race winner in China last Sunday, set the ball rolling earlier in the week when he posted a picture on Twitter of himself and Webber dining together in Dubai. Alonso then deleted the image but Webber had copied and 'retweeted' it. Formula One's conspiracy...
10:24 PM, Apr 18, 2013
Manama: Formula One's most controversial race, the Bahrain Grand Prix with its simmering backdrop of teargas and petrol bombs, might just give Mark Webber something to celebrate on Sunday. Red Bull's Australian has had a pretty thin time of it recently but Sunday's race, in a tiny Gulf kingdom troubled by civil unrest since a 2011 uprising, will be the 200th grand prix of his career. The 36-year-old has been...
08:48 PM, Apr 17, 2013
Shanghai: Fernando Alonso has "no illusions" about his prospects in the Formula One championship despite ending a 12-race drought with a commanding victory at the Chinese Grand Prix. The dozen races without a win was the Ferrari driver's longest barren period since his winless 2009 season, and represented a sharp change of fortunes after a Did-Not-Finish result at the previous race in Malaysia. "It couldn't have gone better than this...
04:37 PM, Apr 15, 2013
Shanghai: Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has taken pole position for the Formula One Chinese Grand Prix. Hamilton's best time on Saturday at the Shanghai International Circuit was 1 minute, 34.484 seconds, qualifying a quarter of a second ahead of Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso will start third in Sunday's race. A cat-and-mouse qualifying session saw all runners restrict their time on the track to preserve their tires for the...
12:44 PM, Apr 13, 2013
Shanghai: Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa have set the two fastest times in Saturday's pre-qualifying practice session at the Formula One Chinese Grand Prix. Alonso was the quickest around the Shanghai International Circuit with a time of 1 minute, 35.391 seconds - more than six tenths of a second faster than his teammate. Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton was third fastest, though there were concerns for the team with teammate and...
09:56 AM, Apr 13, 2013
Shanghai: Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso responded sarcastically to the qualifying edge currently enjoyed by team-mate Felipe Massa, saying he can't sleep and is losing his hair. Massa has qualified ahead of Alonso in the past four races - the first two this season and the last two last year - and if he does it again this weekend in the Chinese Grand Prix it will be the first time in...
09:46 AM, Apr 12, 2013
Shanghai: Mercedes pair Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton set the fastest times in Friday's opening practice session for the Formula One Chinese Grand Prix. Rosberg, who won here last year for his sole F1 victory, set a time of 1 minute, 36.717 seconds around the Shanghai International Circuit, putting him almost half a second ahead of teammate Hamilton, who is the only two-time winner of this grand prix. Red Bull...
09:19 AM, Apr 12, 2013
Felipe Massa finished fifth, while Fernando Alonso crashed out of the race on Sunday at Sepang. ...
09:28 AM, Mar 25, 2013
