Sebastian Vettel notched up his second straight title in 2011, after finishing all but two races on the podium. In 16 of these races, the young German had a new helmet design for the race, each with custom paint job and requests form the double world champion. Watch them all here.
Australia
Malaysia
China
Turkey
Spain
Monaco
Canada
Britain
Germany
Belgium
Italy
Singapore
Japan
Korea
Abu Dhabi
Brazil
Three weeks have passed since Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa got a little too close in Singapore, and since then their relationship, both on and off track, have been frosty, to say the least.
Going into the 16th round of the championship, the drivers have been completing two practice sessions at the Korean track, and are now looking to get some good running in the third and final practice session tomorrow. However, things are not as rosy between Felipe Massa, Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, since their collision in Monaco.
The pair have had four incidents together, and it does seem that Massa is attracting Hamilton, like a moth to a flame. In Singapore three weeks ago, Hamilton caused a safety car period, when he mis-judged the speed of Massa in front of him, and crashed into the Ferrari. After the race, Massa went to have a word with Hamilton in the drivers bull-pen, spun him around and gave the Briton a sarcastic thumbs up and said ‘good job, mate. Good job.’
Hamilton at first looked as he wasn´t bothered, but told Massa not to touch him. Two weeks later and Hamilton was coming towards the chicane before the start/finish straight at Suzuka, while Massa, hot on his heels, got close to the McLaren driver. The two clashed, and Massa lost a piece of his end plate of the front wing and after the race Massa called upon the other drivers and the FIA to discuss the dangerous behaviour of Hamilton, however, this move was not made. Between the two races, Japan was only last week, Hamilton have accepted the full responsibility for the collision in Japan, saying he is very, very sorry for what happened in the race, but still states that he did not see Massa in his mirrors.
“It’s easy in the sport, when you are competitive and in the heat of the moment, to say things you don’t mean – whether or not he does mean them,” Hamilton said yesterday of the Japan incident. “Regardless, I have tried to show respect. In the last race, I am very, very sorry for what happened.
“I really didn’t see him. I’ve seen the replay and he was quite far up the outside of me, but out of my mirrors I can’t see a thing [due to vibrations], and I was looking to the right and I didn’t see him. By the time I realised he was on the left it was too late.
“Again, all respect is due, and I hope in the future we can put our guards down and he can be cool with me, as I am cool with him, so I have no problems with him.”
Now that sounds like a decent apology to me, and regardless of Hamilton did see Massa, the latter should still behave better than what he did when he heard about Hamilton´s apology.
“I’ve nothing to say. I’ve seen many mistakes, and not from me,” Massa said. “I’ve tried to speak to him and he didn’t want to, and to be honest I don’t care any more. I’m not going to speak to him. I’ll just carry on doing my job, like always, and look to the future.”
Massa have by far been the most vocal when the talk turns to his and Hamilton´s relationship. But it would fare better with the rest of the world, if Massa were grown up enough to accept what has happened, and stop focusing on the past, but on his immediate future. He is standing with one leg in a Ferrari, even though he is contracted for 2012, and he should remember, at least for his reputation, that he fought a valiant championship in 2008, only losing to Hamilton by a single point. Instead we have a Massa who, like it or not, is fighting for his life in F1. He used to be able to get up very quickly after a defeat, he has not been on the podium at all this season, his stock has dropped dramatically and this is his very last breath to stay at a top team. And that is a right shame. People wish to remember great athletes, not great cry-babies. Moving on…
At the Singapore Grand Prix last week, a furious Felipe Massa was seen confronting Lewis Hamilton for smashing into him during the race, causing Massa´s right rear tyre to puncture and effectively ruin the race for the Ferrari driver. But did Massa do it on purpose?
Massa and Hamilton were driving flat out in Singapore and suddenly they were too close. Hamilton slammed into the rear of the Ferrari, which resulted in Massa needing a pit stop for a new rear tyre and Hamilton also had to pit to get a news front wing. he later received a drive-through penalty and ended the race in fifth place. Massa finished ninth.
After the race, at the drivers bull-pen, Massa came up to Hamilton, spun him around to face him and gave him a sarcastic thumbs-up, while saying ‘good job, mate’. Hamilton responded, saying ‘don´t touch me, mate, don´t touch me’ and soon left the area. However, radio communications between Felipe Massa and his race engineer Rob Smedley reveals that Massa was actually instructed to destroy Hamilton´s race and do whatever he could in order to achieve that.
After a cooling down period, Massa told reporters: “It is important that FIA is looking and penalising him all the time he is going in the car because he cannot think about it”.
The Singapore Grand Prix race edit video from Formula One Management(FOM) reveals some interesting comments at Ferrari. Just before the collision between Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa, Rob Smedley told Massa to hold Hamilton as much as possible. This is a technique well-known and well-used, and basically means you place the car on the track so it´s harder for the driver behind to overtake, while not driving as fast as you can through a corner.
On the radio, Rob Smedley reportedly says: “Hold Hamilton as much as we can. Destroy his race as much as we can.”
Now if this is really what Smedley is saying, this could have catastrophic repercussions for Ferrari, as this is very dangerous and clearly indicates that Ferrari might have a very different agenda than the rest of the teams. However, instead of looking at what have been said, look at what it means. So far no one is commenting on the issue, but it is safe to assume that if the FIA is not responding, the McLaren team is not responding, then there is no wrongdoing. The trouble is, that so many articles have been written, even by the very big sites like Autosport and Autosprint, and they are all leaving the question open, instead of saying what actually happens.
Massa was told to destroy Hamilton´s race. This means, hold him up, get as wide as you can, try to cut him off, in order to allow Alonso in front of you more room to race. Since the radio message can be found on the official F1 website, it´s a little strange the FIA haven´t responded, if they felt Massa did something wrong. He didn´t.
The Singapore Grand Prix 2011 edition could be the one that sealed the deal for Sebastian Vettel´s second straight title, making him the youngest double world champion in history. But instead the race offered some other mayor players to showcase themselves and in the end, we saw some of the closest racing all season.
Granted, there are readers who think that I have lost it now, because the race itself was never as tooth-and-nail as it could have been, I´ll give you that. But the small battles between the drivers, all down the field, were exhilarating to watch and gave us all a chance to see some proper racing.
Ahead of the race, some of the kerbs had some work done to them, one was even removed. The rule book states that a kerb cannot be more than 10 centimetres high and the kerbs in Singapore were exactly that. It meant that the Singapore Sling chicane was dangerous, which is a good thing, because suddenly you have a race jam-packed with 240,000 people watching your every move, all the while you negotiate your way through the streets, lined with concrete walls. And if you fail in your approach into the chicane, you´re done.
Several times did we see drivers almost flying across the chicane, most famously was the crash of Kamui Kobayashi during qualifying on Saturday, but no drivers crashed in the chicane during the race. Pin-point accuracy is needed for that part of the circuit, and this is one place where you really get to see the individual driver styles.
Now Vettel might have gotten a great start, as so many times before this season, but behind him was a power-struggle of massive proportions being played out. Felipe Massa managed to squeeze past Lewis Hamilton, so did Fernando Alonso and coming into the first corner, both Ferrari drivers wanted to be in front of the other. Mark Webber then came and mingled with them, but Button was already up to second. Hamilton and Schumacher had a nice little fight going on and soon after Rosberg was overtaken by the Briton. And so it went. All through the race there was small battles all over.
This is not a race report, but a personal account of how I saw the race. I saw a flawless Vettel completely…no, dominating is the wrong word, it´s too potent. He cruised, is what he did. For some reason he makes it look effortless no matter where he races. Looking at the drivers, the difference in the balance and driving style is evident. Schumacher, who have always been extremely smooth, now suddenly has to counter-steer a lot in the Mercedes, he constantly needs to make small adjustments, while it looks like Vettel is playing an Xbox game. So…velour. Vettel had the chance to, once again, make his first Grand Slam . pole, win, fastest lap and lead every lap – but he graciously conceded fastest ap to Jenson Button. Greatness.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Paul Di Resta up in third place for a large part of the race, Force India´s strategy worked great, and after his late first stop, he didn´t drop down through the field to stat. He had the speed, so did Adrian Sutil, and even though the Force India racers look boxy, they do have good speed.
But alas I need to make a top three of Hot or Not. No way around it.
HOT:
Jenson Button: The Briton did the best he could, and that was good, to make sure Vettel wasn´t crowned champion yesterday, and though no one expects Vettel not to score a single point in the remaining five races, at least we got to see the smoothness driving from Button, securing 18 points. he has emerged as the only McLaren driver, nee the only driver capable of challenging the dominance of Vettel, albeit a little too late. Brilliant to watch, Button will be a powerhouse next year.
Lewis Hamilton: Hamilton started fourth, dropped to seventh and passed Schumacher, then Rosberg and then he and Massa pitted at the same time. They exited at the same time as well, but Hamilton got too aggressive, and smashed into Massa´s right rear tyre. That cost him a new front wing and a drive-through penalty, and sailed down to 18th. At one point he even told the pitwall that there was no reason to race, but was told to keep driving. Sure it has had to be enormously frustrating to start a race smelling the podium, then losing everything because of a fault of your own. Still, Hamilton set some blinding laptimes and managed to claw his way back into striking distance of the top four. He ended in fifth, after three regular pit-stops, one for a new front wing and then the drive-through. His second place on the hot list is for his fight back into the top.
Paul Di Resta: The Scotsman scored his fifth top ten finish of the season, his first in F1, and have really impressed me. Sixth place in Singapore is not only impressive, it´s the best result the Force India team could have hoped for, because the car still needs a little more umph…But if the curve continues this way next season, I expect Force India to sit nicely in fourth place in the standing after a couple of rounds…
NOT:
Michael Schumacher: Schumacher made some good headway in the race, he did lose positions to Hamilton and Rosberg along the way, but made a great overtaking manoeuvre on Kobayashi, made it to fifth and set a fastest lap on lap 29, but then threw it all away when he tried a move on Sergio Perez. An optimistic move saw Schumacher coming too close to the rear of Perez´ car, and the Mercedes was airborne a little while, then slammed into the barriers. A rookie mistake for Schumacher and certainly not something I´d expected from the former seven time world champion. This could easily have been the first podium for Schumacher for years, but he lost it. Not good enough.
Felipe Massa: No. Just….no. I have made my opinions clear on several occasions regarding Massa. Yes he had a puncture caused by Hamilton. Yes he did lose a lot more time than Hamilton, because he couldn´t go around the track as fast as he did. yes he dropped down the field. But he failed to fight back, as so many times before this season. Sorry, but that is a fail.
Lotus Renault: They started on the podium in the first two races in the season, then everything seemed to just fall apart. Sure a point here, two there, it makes a difference, but not enough. Petrov redeemed himself in Canada, scoring fifth, but this is a season to forget for the team. Singapore was the lowest point in two years for the team. They are fifth in the standings, but if Sutil and Di Resta continues to impress us in the last five races, they could drop to sixth. Back to the drawing board, lads.
Felipe Massa have pointed his fingers at McLaren´s Lewis Hamilton as the man who destroyed his race in Singapore on Sunday.
Lewis Hamilton followed Felipe Massa into the pits and exited at the same time, only a few yards separating them. But an over-zealous Hamilton then rear-ended the Brazilian driver, which caused Massa´s car a puncture and Hamilton a new front wing, as well as a drive-through penalty. Hamilton finished fifth, while Massa ended the race in a disappointing ninth place.
After the race, Massa confronted Hamilton in the mixed area, where drivers talk to the media, and demanded an answer. Massa tapped Hamilton on the shoulder, spun him around and offered Hamilton a sarcastic thumb-sup, saying “good job, very good job”.
But Hamilton got angry and shouted: “Don’t touch me, man. Don’t touch me.”
Hamilton quickly left, clearly angry with Massa, and after the rather bizarre gathering of minds, Massa said commented to the press:
“How many races this year he did this? He went in the wrong direction and he paid and he never learned. The FIA is looking for sure for that, because he is doing that so many times.
“I think he is not learning. I tried to speak to him after we waited, but he didn’t listen to me. I called to him two times, but he didn’t listen to me, he went past me. He didn’t even look to me… I called him to speak, but when I saw him go, I said, ‘Very good job, well done. Like that you will win many championships.’”
Hamilton started fourth, dropped to eighth, recovered, collided with Massa, and made five pit-stops, including a drive-through penalty and one extra to fit a new front wing.
Sebastian Vettel came close to the title on Sunday, as he won the Singapore Grand Prix, just 1.7 seconds ahead of Jenson Button.
The German racer have notched up eleven wins of the season and said the race was perfect. No one can really argue with that.
“I am very, very pleased with the result today, the car was fantastic all the way through,” Vettel said afterwards. “When we needed to push, we could pull away quite easily, which helped us. When the safety car came out, it didn’t really fit to our plan as we had a gap of about thirty seconds with thirty laps to go, but nevertheless I had a very good restart. I was a bit lucky that there were some back markers between me and Jenson and I was able to get back into the rhythm straight away. I pulled out a gap and I was quite happy.
All in all it is a fantastic result. I really love this track and I love the challenge here – it’s one of the longest races of the season, but the car was fantastic and engine-wise everything was great. Renault again did a very good job, so we were in a comfortable position for most of the race, which is pretty handy around here because it’s quite a challenge to put all the sectors together, not only in qualifying, but also in the race. I’m very pleased and for the Championship it looks like we have another chance at the next race.”
A couple of drivers were penalised after the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday.
Michael Schumacher received a slap on the wrist for his involvement in the crash between him and Sauber´s Sergio Perez. When trying to overtake the Mexican driver, Schumacher came too close to the Sauber and smashed into the rear of Perez´ car, hurlign the Mercedes over the car and ended the run in the barriers. This caused a safety car period.
And Heikko Kovalainen of Team Lotus, received a penalty of £8,700 for unsafe release. As he pitted, he was released right in the path of race winner Sebastian Vettel. The fine will be picked up by the team, not Kovalainen.
