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: Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Sauber's Mexican rookie Esteban Gutierrez were handed three-place grid penalties at the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday for impeding rivals in qualifying. The sanction was the second for Gutierrez in five races. The 21-year-old took a five-place penalty to last month's Bahrain Grand Prix after crashing into the back of Adrian Sutil's Force India in China. Gutierrez, who has yet to score a point in...
10:44 PM, May 11, 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: 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
Silverstone: Formula One drivers have been promised a properly functioning electronic cockpit warning system for next week's Spanish Grand Prix after problems prevented its use in the first four races of the season. "We've been told they've got an upgrade which is going to Barcelona and then it'll be working from there," former F1 driver and occasional race steward Derek Warwick told Reuters on Wednesday. The telemetry link between race...
12:32 AM, May 02, 2013
Thrissur: The father of a nine year-old boy, who drove a Ferrari F430 recently with his five-year-brother along side, causing widespread outrage, was arrested on Monday and released on bail. Police sources said Mohammed Nisham was arrested by Peramangalam police here, which is investigating the case. He came with the vehicle and was arrested. Since it was a bailable offence, he was granted bail on furnishing two surities of Rs...
07:50 PM, Apr 29, 2013
New Delhi: Charges have been filed against a man who allowed his 9-year-old son to drive his Ferrari, Kerala Police said on Monday. Mohammed Nisham was charged with endangering the life of a child and allowing a minor to drive, said Inspector MV Verghese. Nisham's wife filmed the boy driving the sports car on his ninth birthday two weeks ago, with his 7-year-old brother in the passenger seat. The video...
02:16 PM, Apr 29, 2013
Retired seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher will drive his old Formula One car again next month in a demonstration run around the daunting Nuerburgring Nordschleife track, Mercedes said on Thursday. The German manufacturer said the 44-year-old's drive in a 2011 car around the old 20km track, before the start of a 24-hour race on May 19, would be a 'thank you' to his fans for their years of support. It...
07:18 PM, Apr 25, 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: Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen drove the fastest time in the second practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix, followed by the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel on Friday. Raikkonen, who won the season-opening Australian GP and lay second behind Vettel in the drivers' championship, was 0.03 seconds faster than Webber and 0.12 quicker than Vettel. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was fourth while his teammate Felipe Massa, who topped...
06:56 PM, Apr 19, 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
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
Manama: McLaren new boy Sergio Perez has been told by team boss Martin Whitmarsh to use his elbows and make life harder for Formula One rivals. "I think he's been very polite so far this year, I think he needs to toughen up," Whitmarsh told reporters after the Mexican finished a disappointing 11th in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. "I think he's been generous in allowing people past him....
04:24 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
