New Caterham Leaked

A day before the official launch of the car via F1 Racing Magazine, the world got it’s first look at the new Caterham F1 car thanks to Twitter. I have to say, it certainly doesn’t look all that fast, but it is still from a bottom third of the grid team I suppose. And the new nose is quite high up and pointy. More to come on new cars as they hit the Interwebs and the circuits.

The new Caterham F1 contender

Brazilian Grand Prix Results and Winter Stories Already!

And so closes the 2011 Formula One season. In Brazil, as is traditional. And as is becoming tradition for this race, the winner came not from pole, but from second on the grid. Mark Webber brought home his first win of the season in a fully Red Bull dominated race. And were it not for Sebastian Vettel’s car having a gearbox problem (or so the team says) Mark would have finished a distant second methinks. But aside from that, the battle for second in the championship came down to this race as well, and with Alonso, Button and Webber all in the hunt, it would be up to those three men to fight it out. As it turns out, it wasn’t much of a fight, as in the second half of the race, the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso became anemic and very uncompetitive against the surging Jenson Button, who flat out destroyed Alonso down the straight with his DRS enabled. From there, the team told him that he could do qualifying paced laps till the end, and he did so to finish third, and in doing so, securing second behind Vettel. Webber, with his win and Alonso’s fourth took third in the final standings, by one point from Alonso. Hamilton finished a distant fifth after his gearbox let go while chasing Felipe Massa. If not for Schumacher having a coming together with Senna and Hamilton’s gearbox letting go, I would have once again called exactly who finished in the top 10. However, because of those two going down or out, the finishing order looked like this:

1. Mark Webber

2. Sebastian Vettel

3. Jenson Button

4. Fernando Alonso

5. Felipe Massa

6. Adrian Sutil

7. Nico Rosberg

8. Paul di Resta

9. Kamui Kobayashi

10. Vitaly Petrov

And so it is on to next season and already there is a lot of intrigue. With the US Grand Prix looking like it is about 100% unlikely to take place and a returning driver in the Ice Man, Kimi Raikkonen taking a spot at Lotus Renault in place of the still injured Robert Kubica, there will be plenty of stories. Plus, coming up in just a few days time, a lot of this current crop of drivers will know whether they will be still be Formula One drivers or not. This includes Vitaly Petrov, Adrian Sutil, Rubens Barrichello and quite a few others. Also, there is now the story emerging that Bernie Ecclestone is saying that Europe is finished in F1 and that there will be only five races to be held there out of the 20 on the calendar in the next few years. WHAT LUNACY! I’m pretty sure I call for Bernie’s head every year, but seriously, can someone please get this senile octogenarian out of a position of power soon!?!

2012 can’t come soon enough. Next up, the Australian Grand Prix in March.

2011 End of Year Driver Lineup

The Run to the First Corner

Mark Webber Celebrating Win

Champagne Flies as Driver’s Celebrate in Brazil

Brazilian Grand Prix Predictions

Well, this is the final race, and much like the rest of the season (15 times now in fact) Sebastian Vettel is sitting on the pole. This is a new record in F1, as Vettel passed the mark set my Nigel Mansell in 1992. Will we see a return to the top step of the podium as well? Chances are no doubt good, as the only thing preventing him from scampering away from the rest of the field last time was bad luck in the first corner. However, I don’t foresee anything ruining Vettel’s race this time out, and he will simply run off into the distance, never to be challenged until the checkered flag flies.

1. Sebastian Vettel

2. Lewis Hamilton

3. Mark Webber

4. Fernando Alonso

5. Jenson Button

6. Michael Schumacher

7. Felipe Massa

8. Nico Rosberg

9. Adrian Sutil

10. Paul di Resta

All the positions on the grid are pretty much as you would expect, with the Red Bulls ahead of the McLarens ahead of the Ferraris, so I don’t think much in the way of movement is going to take place, but Alonso has a good history of moving up from where he starts, and I think he could show some more of that tomorrow.