F1 Fanatic round-up: 4/4/2010

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It’s race day in Malaysia! Join us for the race live blog starting one hour before the Grand Prix. Here’s today’s round-up:

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Whitmarsh admits McLaren got it wrong (Autosport)

“The weather radar has been pretty reliable here. It predicted that it would pass through and we thought it would be dry by the end of the session. If you send a car out to do a banker, there is a risk. These cars are not easy to drive and we believed, as it turned out wrongly, that it was going to be dry and we didn’t therefore believe that the risk, as we saw it, of a banker was the right approach. That was wrong. By the time we sensed it was time to get out, we’d put our drivers in a difficult situation. There was a lot going on and they had too much to do in difficult conditions. [But] in fairness we got out ahead of the two Ferraris, ahead of [Michael ] Schumacher, ahead of [Nico] Rosberg.”

Malasyain GP – Conference 3 (FIA)

Sebastian Vettel was asked about his wheel failure in Melbourne and had this to say: “Initially it felt like a braking failure, so that’s what we said straight after the race but it turned out not to be anywhere linked to the brakes, so the brakes were working fine, so Brembo did a good job. Sorry for the call on Sunday afternoon last week. But it turned out to be a problem with the?óÔé¼?ª basically we lost the ability to transmit power or torque to the wheel. Accelerating is not a big issue because the wheels just get quicker, but as you know, we have brakes everywhere, on every single wheel on the car and to stop the car, you rely on every single brake you have, so on all four wheels, to work and on the left front, as I said, we lost the ability to transmit torque. When I was hitting the brakes, down to turn 13, all the brakes worked but the left front wheel kept on running, so that in the end I was kind of braking on three wheels, which, when you set your reference point, doesn’t really work, so that was the failure.”

Comment of the day

Einar AI makes the case that part of the reason Michael Schumacher’s performances haven’t looked so good is because people have underestimated how good his team mate is:

I was always a big Nico Rosberg fan – the guy just didn’t happen to have a right car for the past four seasons. The only time when the car and the conditions may have allowed him to really win a race was Singapore 2009 – and he unfortunately screwed up on the white line.

Now that Mercedes provided him with the third-fourth fastest car on the grid i think he started to really deliver. To be honest, if you consider that Mercedes are clearly slower than Red Bull and Ferrari, and lacking in pace (due to f-duct) to McLaren, Rosberg should be finishing each race in roughly seventh. So far he’s been fifth in both races.

I think, in fact, our tendency to overlook Rosberg as a competitive driver was due to his mid-grid consistency. His successions of fifth-sixth-seventh places in a Williams spoke of a decent driver at the wheel – albeit not a particularly exciting one. He’s never quite had the flair of Hamilton, the uncompromising skill of Alonso, and even the occasional brilliance of Massa. Rosberg was Nick Heidfeld-esque driver. Calm and consistent; but never outstandingly brilliant.
Einar AI

F1: How Bernie Ecclestone ruined a good cup of Illy (On the limit)

“Due to Malaysia’s distance, we watch qualifying at breakfast. We roust ourselves from out of the duvet and make a nice cup of Illy coffee, ready to settle into the couch for a few hours. Queue up the DVR, and… darkness. Failure. Nothing but ether. No qualifying. No Malaysia. So, a torturous day of avoiding Twitter and every other motorsport website that we frequent. We can hold out, with some difficulty. But we can’t help blaming Bernie Ecclestone for failing to develop an American Grand Prix, giving the sport exposure beyond tiny niche cable networks. And we call him out for keeping tight control over media content, ignoring the new technologies that could grow the sport in North America (helping us to avoid 4am DVR failure).”

Happy birthday!

happy birthday to d_omin!

On this day in F1

Niki Lauda scored his first Grand Prix victory since returning to F1 from retirement on this day in 1982. He started second on the grid at Long Beach alongside Andrea de Cesaris, and passed the Alfa Romeo driver when he hesitated in traffic early in the race.

Can Michael Schumacher mimic Lauda’s feat in Sepang today?

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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11 comments on “F1 Fanatic round-up: 4/4/2010”

  1. Niki Lauda scored his first Grand Prix victory since returning to F1 from retirement on this day in 1982.

    Michael Schumacher scored his first Grand Prix victory since returning to F1 from retirement on this day in 2010.

    :) Wont it be funny fact?

  2. Stefano Dimenacalli’s rain analogy:
    “If water is on the track, it is wet!!!”
    Classic.

    1. It’s on par with Murray’s “it’s raining and the track is wet”

    2. I thought that came from Bernie (the quote that is, not the water) :)

  3. Great Race today – come on Seb !!!

    For all the music fans that like to collect the end sequence music – today it was Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen, then a song I dont know , then By The Way by the Red Hot Chilli’s !

    Anyone know the missing song ?

    Yesterday qualifying was Let It Rain by Cheryl Cole

  4. I can totally relate to the DVR failure. I check and double and triple check my DVR before going to bed the night before any F1 event. Fortunately mine hasn’t failed me yet.

  5. my recording failed today. becasue BBC2 overlapped briefly with BBC1. As the f1 was momentarily on both channels, sky couldn’t record 2 programs at the same time! annoying!!!

  6. I had set my DVR to record up to 10am and to record the second half from 10am so I only lost a few seconds

    (We really need an italics or bold feature here)

  7. I agree with Einar AI, Nico is a very good driver ,even I think the same class as Hamilton as both of them took different route to F1.But do remember that celebration between him & Hamilton at the race in Australia in 2008.
    He is just as capable to beat Hamilton as anybody else does.

  8. Thank you for picking up the quote from my blog. Enjoy reading the f1fanatic.

  9. I’ve been warming to Martin Whitmarsh of late as he appears for now at least to be slightly less cagey than Ron Dennis. Shame he felt the need to have a little pop at his drivers though…

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