Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/05/16/2897349/this-week-in-auto-racing-may-17.html
Michael Andretti Keith Andrews Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella M·rio de Ara˙jo Cabral
Thursday, May 16, 2013
BMW announces 2014 335i and 335i xDrive Performance Edition
BMW Canada has announced plans to offer the 2014 335i and 335i xDrive Performance Edition.Adri·n Campos John Cannon Eitel Cantoni Bill Cantrell Ivan Capelli
Marussia Virgin Racing Launch Their 2011 Car
Marussia Virgin Racing have launched their car to take on the 2011 world championship in a lavish London ceremony. The Marussia name now preceeds Virgin following a major tie up with the Russian sportscar manufacturer and the team at the end of 2010. �It has led to the new car being designated as the MVR-02. [...]
Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/marussia-virgin-racing-launch-their-2011-car/
Chris Bristow Peter Broeker Tony Brooks Alan Brown Walt Brown
2013 Peugeot 2008 priced from 12,995 GBP
Peugeot UK has announced pricing details for the 2008 crossover which starts from 12,995 GBP.Cliff Allison Fernando Alonso Giovanna Amati George Amick Red Amick
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Pirelli bring tyre changes forward to Canada | 2013 Spanish Grand Prix
Pirelli will introduced revised tyres in time for the Canadian Grand Prix, F1's official tyre supplier has announced. 
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/f1fanatic/~3/dMykkhEB8vY/
Eddie Cheever Andrea Chiesa Ettore Chimeri Louis Chiron Joie Chitwood
Ferrari Launch Their 2011 Car The F150
Ferrari have become the first team to launch their 2011 Formula One car – named the F150. Thw F150 name comes from the fact it is 150 years since Italian unification, the flag bearer for the nation decided it was important to increase exposure of the major event in the country’s long history. �The cars [...]
Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/ferrari-launch-their-2011-car-the-f150/
Eddie Cheever Andrea Chiesa Ettore Chimeri Louis Chiron Joie Chitwood
Journalists shocked at Korea award
 Scarecrows adorn the entrance to a barren Korean International Circuit |
Source: http://blogs.espnf1.com/paperroundf1/archives/2010/12/journalists_shocked_at_korea_a.php
David Brabham Gary Brabham Jack BrabhamÜ Bill Brack Ernesto Brambilla
Infinity hybrid sports car on sale by 2016 - report
Infiniti will have on sale in 2016 a hybrid sports car, based on recent reports.Peter Collins Bernard Collomb Alberto Colombo Erik Comas Franco Comotti
Porsche 996 modified by OK-Chiptuning
OK-Chiptuning has released a tuning program for the Porsche 996 inspired by the 1991 German movie Manta, Manta.Bill Aston Richard Attwood Manny Ayulo Luca Badoer Giancarlo Baghetti
Renault Sport considering an electric vehicle - report
Renault has been a big supporter of electric vehicles and a new report is indicating Renault Sport is considering a high-performance EV.Joie Chitwood Bob Christie Johnny Claes David Clapham Jim ClarkÜ
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Lamborghini Aventador works as Bologna airport vehicle
A Lamborghini Aventador will be part of the Aeroporto di Bologna vehicle fleet until May 19th.Rene Arnoux Peter Arundell Alberto Ascari Peter Ashdown Ian Ashley
MOTOGP: Heated Title Fight Heads To France
Marc Marquez, Dani Pedrosa, and Jorge Lorenzo will resume their evolving MotoGP World Championship title fight in Le Mans this weekend.
Source: http://moto-racing.speedtv.com/article/motogp-heated-title-fight-heads-to-france/
Jean Alesi Jaime Alguersuari Philippe Alliot Cliff Allison Fernando Alonso
Ferrari Launch Their 2011 Car The F150
Ferrari have become the first team to launch their 2011 Formula One car – named the F150. Thw F150 name comes from the fact it is 150 years since Italian unification, the flag bearer for the nation decided it was important to increase exposure of the major event in the country’s long history. �The cars [...]
Source: http://f1fanatics.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/ferrari-launch-their-2011-car-the-f150/
Jim ClarkÜ Kevin Cogan Peter Collins Bernard Collomb Alberto Colombo
Time running out for Alonso
As Sebastian Vettel headed down the pit lane after winning the Indian Grand Prix, team-mate Mark Webber's Red Bull behind gave him a couple of little nudges as they headed to their correct parking places.
"I switched off the car," Vettel said. "I was told to park the car under the podium and I couldn't remember where it was from last year and Mark gave me a little bit of a push."
He added that he thought it was his "only mistake" of the day, which sounds about right.
The victory was his fourth in a row, a new achievement for the German despite his domination on the way to the world championship last year, and he has now led every racing lap since Lewis Hamilton's McLaren retired from the lead of the Singapore Grand Prix four races ago.
It also moves Vettel to one win short of the tally of Sir Jackie Stewart. At this rate, Vettel will not only pass the Scot's number of victories before the end of the year but join him as a three-time world champion as well.
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Vettel is still only 13 points ahead of his only remaining realistic rival, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, which is less than a driver earns for a third place, but it is the scale of Red Bull's current superiority that has led many to suspect the battle is already effectively over.
Vettel was fastest in every practice session in India and took yet another pole position. After the German's crushing wins in Japan and Korea, the only surprise at the Buddh International Circuit was that Red Bull's margin over the rest of the field was smaller than expected in qualifying.
In the race, though, Vettel was completely untouchable.
In the first 20 laps, he was not that much faster than team-mate Mark Webber in second place, and the Australian was being pretty much matched by Alonso.
But then Vettel cut loose, suddenly lapping 0.5 seconds faster than before. Team boss Christian Horner admitted that, not sure about tyre wear, Vettel had simply been measuring his pace in the opening third of the race.
Ferrari and McLaren both appeared to be in better shape after the single pit stops, more comfortable on the 'hard' tyre than the 'soft', but even then it was clear Vettel was in total control.
For the dispassionate observer wanting to see close racing, Red Bull's current form may be depressing, but it is hard not to admire what they have achieved this season.
For the first time in two years, they started the championship without a dominant car, and although they had strong race pace they were struggling to qualify at the front - the position from which they used to crush their opposition in 2011.
But they have worked away diligently at a series of upgrades aimed at allowing them to run the car as they did last year, and the breakthrough came in Singapore.
Further modifications came on stream in Japan and Korea and now Red Bull have a car that on pure pace is out of reach of their rivals.
It is the qualifying pace that is the key - start at the front and you can run in clear air, dictate the pace of the race, and are not affected by the turbulence of other cars. In this position, Vettel is close to unbeatable.
The start of the season, when there were seven different winners in seven races, seems a very long time ago.
Red Bull are a brilliant team, managed without compromise by Christian Horner and led by a genius designer in Adrian Newey, working in perfect harmony with a great driver. In many ways, it is similar to the way Lotus boss Colin Chapman and Jim Clark dominated the mid-1960s.
How they have done it, BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson has expanded on in his column. For now, the problem for their rivals is what to do about it.
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Alonso was as impressive in India as he has been all season, aggressive and inch perfect in the opening laps as he fought past both McLaren drivers, and relentless in his pursuit of Webber for second place.
The fact that the Spaniard passed the Australian was down to a degree of luck, it has to be said. Webber's Kers power-boost system was working only intermittently, and crucially he got held up behind some backmarkers, allowing Alonso to close to within one second - which meant he was within the margin that allows use of the DRS overtaking aid.
Once there, it took only two laps for Alonso to pass Webber, who without Kers, was defenceless on the long straight against a Ferrari with better straight-line speed anyway, and also employing Kers and DRS.
Nevertheless, to even keep the Red Bulls honest was quite an achievement by Alonso - no-one else was even close.
If there is such a thing as a driver 'deserving' the world title more than another, most people in F1 would say Alonso has been the stand-out competitor of the year.
As Lewis Hamilton put it in India: "Fernando unfortunately doesn't have as quick a car as Sebastian; it's nothing to do with his driving skills, that's for sure."
F1, though, is not purely a drivers' championship - he has to have a car, and at the moment Alonso is fighting an unequal battle with inferior equipment.
And in any case, Alonso himself would undoubtedly say that the driver who ends the season with the most points is the deserving champion.
Red Bull are now virtually certain to clinch a third consecutive constructors' title - indeed they seem likely to do so in Abu Dhabi next weekend.
For all Vettel's recent domination, though, in purely mathematical terms the drivers' championship remains wide open.
Thirteen points sounds a decent amount but the margin between Vettel and Alonso is, in F1's old scoring system abandoned only at the end of 2009, the equivalent of less than four points.
One retirement by Vettel, or a marginal improvement in the performance of Ferrari in the final three races, could tip the balance back in Alonso's favour. Time, though, is running out.
Alonso said on Sunday that the team did have improvements due in the next three races, and there was a hint in some of the other things he said over the weekend that the team expect them to amount to something more substantial than Ferrari have introduced for a while.
McLaren sporting director Sam Michael said on Sunday evening: "The performance can swing from one track to the other by a couple of tenths, and that's all there is in it at the moment - 0.2-0.3secs in terms of qualifying.
"And if you can have that performance, from the front row you have a better chance. So even if no-one upgraded their cars there would still be a reasonable chance that people could have a go at them.
"If Ferrari have a competitive car, then obviously Alonso can still do it."
In the context of the overpowering brilliance of Red Bull, though, that is a big if.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/10/time_running_out_for_alonso_in.html
Adri·n Campos John Cannon Eitel Cantoni Bill Cantrell Ivan Capelli
Hamilton saga nearing endgame
Only Lewis Hamilton truly knows where he wants to drive next season - and perhaps not even he does just yet. But the signs are that the saga that has been occupying Formula 1 for months is nearing its endgame.
Hamilton has two competing offers on the table for his future - one to stay at McLaren and one to move to Mercedes.
The word at the Singapore Grand Prix - for what it's worth - was that he is leaning towards staying where he is; one McLaren insider even suggested that a deal could be inked within days.
At the same time, there may be a complication. There are suggestions that earlier this year Hamilton signed something with Mercedes - a letter of intent, a memorandum of understanding, perhaps - that he would need to get out of before he could commit to McLaren. His current team have heard talk of this, too. Hamilton's management deny this.
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The conventional wisdom is that Mercedes are offering Hamilton more money and that the deal is sweetened further by greater freedom over personal sponsorship deals. Those are highly restricted at McLaren because of the team's breadth of marketing tie-ups.
But BBC Sport understands it is not quite as simple as that.
For one thing, some sources say the figures quoted for the Mercedes offer in the media so far - of �60m over three years - are significantly larger than what is actually on the table.
Of course, in theory, as one of the largest car companies in the world, Mercedes can afford to pay almost any figure it wants.
But the board's commitment to Formula 1 has been in question all year. While it is understood that the company has now reached an agreement with the sport's commercial rights holders defining the financial terms under which they have committed for the next few years, F1 is not a money-no-object exercise for them.
McLaren believe their offer to Hamilton is broadly similar to Mercedes', and that in terms of total remuneration he could actually end up earning more money if he stays where is.
How so? Well, it seems the headline salary figures may not differ that much - although I understand Mercedes' offer is larger.
Mercedes offer greater freedom in terms of new sponsorship deals with which Hamilton can top up his income, and out of which his management group - music industry mogul Simon Fuller's XIX - would take a cut that some sources say is as great as 50%, a figure XIX say is wildly exaggerated.
McLaren, by contrast, have strict rules around their driver contracts - they do not allow any personal sponsorship deal that clashes with any brand owned by a company on their car.
So deals with mobile, fashion, household products, perfumes, oil and so on are all out. Jenson Button is allowed to have his deal to endorse shampoo because it was signed before McLaren had GlaxoSmithKline as a partner.
McLaren, I'm told, have loosened some of their restrictions in an attempt to give Hamilton more freedom.
And in their favour is that all contracts contain clauses that define bonuses for success; in McLaren's case for wins and championships. These amount to significant amounts of money and on current form Hamilton would earn more in bonuses with McLaren than with Mercedes.
Financially, it is in XIX's interests for Hamilton to move to Mercedes - that is where they will earn most money.
But that may not be the case for Hamilton, which of course begs the question of whether the driver and his management group actually have conflicting interests.
While Hamilton has steadfastly refused to discuss his future with the media, he has been consistent in one thing. As he put it at the Italian Grand Prix earlier this month: "I want to win."
He knows exactly how good he is and it rankles with him that he has so far won only one world title.
In which case, the last few races will have given him pause for thought.
McLaren started this season with the fastest car in F1, the first time they have done that since at least 2008 and arguably 2005.
But Hamilton's title bid was hampered by a series of early season operational problems that prevented him winning until the seventh race of the season in Canada. Was it during this period that he signed that "something" with Mercedes?
After a slight mid-season wobble through the European and British Grands Prix in late June and early July, though, McLaren have come on strongly.
Upgrades introduced at the German Grand Prix gave them a big step forward, making the McLaren once again the fastest car.
Progress was disguised in Hockenheim by a wet qualifying session, which allowed Alonso to take the pole position from which he controlled the race.
Even then, though, with Hamilton out of the reckoning after an early puncture, Button ran the Spaniard close.
Since then, it has been all McLaren. Hamilton won from pole in Hungary and Italy; Button the same in Belgium. Then in Singapore Hamilton lost an almost certain victory, also from pole, with a gearbox failure.
Meanwhile, Mercedes have floundered. And while rival teams agreed that a big upgrade to the silver cars in Singapore did move them forward a little, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher only just scraped into the top 10 in qualifying and were anonymous in the race until Schumacher's embarrassing crash with Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne.
Undoubtedly, Mercedes will have given Hamilton the hard sell.
They'll have pointed out that they have won the world title more recently than McLaren - in their previous guise of Brawn in 2009.
They'll have said they are a true works team backed by a huge car company, whereas McLaren are from next year paying for their "customer" Mercedes engines.
They'll have argued that, in team boss Ross Brawn, Mercedes have the architect of the most dominant dynasty in F1 history - the Ferrari team of the early 2000s - who is determined to do it again. Triple world champion Niki Lauda, who is expected to be given a senior management role at the Mercedes team, has also been involved in trying to persuade Hamilton to join the team.
And they'll have said Hamilton has relative commercial freedom with them to make as much money as he wants.
What they won't have said is that the 2009 world title came about in rather exceptional circumstances and that at no other time has the team looked remotely like consistently challenging the best - whether as BAR, Honda or Mercedes.
And they won't have said that McLaren - for all Hamilton's frustrations over the cars he has had since 2009 and the mistakes that have been made in 2012 - have a winning record over the past 30 years that is the envy of every team in F1.
Of course, the past does not define the future, but the future is built on the past.
It's possible that the near future of F1 is one of Mercedes hegemony, but it would be a hell of a gamble to take for a man who professes he just "wants to win".
If the latest indications about his mind-set are correct, perhaps that is what Hamilton has now realised.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/hamilton_saga_nearing_endgame.html
Karl Gunther Bechem Jean Behra Derek Bell Stefan Bellof Paul Belmondo
Hamilton's tough decision
Since BBC Sport chief analyst Eddie Jordan reported on this website last week that Lewis Hamilton was on the verge of switching to Mercedes from McLaren next year, Formula 1 has been awash with speculation about the 2008 world champion's future.
McLaren did their best at last weekend's Italian Grand Prix to dismiss the story - team boss Martin Whitmarsh even joked: "Any sentence that begins, 'Eddie Jordan understands' is immediately questionable, isn't it?"
But it was noticeable that not only did McLaren not deny the story was true, they said very little to suggest Hamilton was staying with them.
From Whitmarsh, it was: "Lewis and his management have made their position clear to us", "my understanding is we're talking to him" and "I'm pretty convinced we will have a very good, competitive driving line-up next year."
None of which translates as "Hamilton is staying".
Hamilton was triumphant at Monza, but how many more races will he win with McLaren? Photo: Getty
As for the doubts cast on the veracity of the story, the source is strong and credible, and the core information - that Hamilton has agreed terms on a contract with Mercedes for next year - is based in fact.
That does not necessarily mean Hamilton will move but it does mean he is thinking about it seriously. And you can make what you will of his downbeat behaviour throughout the Monza weekend - even after he won the race.
In the paddock, the general view was that a move would be a mistake - but it is a much more complicated decision than that.
Firstly, McLaren have undoubtedly been more competitive than Mercedes in the last three years. Between them, Hamilton and team-mate Jenson Button have won 16 races since the start of 2010; Mercedes only one, with Nico Rosberg in China this season.
Over an extended period, McLaren have a winning pedigree beyond that of any other team. Only Ferrari have won more grands prix, and they have been in F1 for 16 years longer.
Hamilton, who has been nurtured by the team since he was 13, says: "I want to win." On pure performance, there's only one choice, right?
In F1, things are rarely that simple.
Yes, McLaren usually have a good car, but until this year it had been a long time since they had unquestionably the best.
It was close with Ferrari in 2007-8, although hindsight would suggest now that the McLaren was probably not quite as good then. In which case, you probably have to go back to 2005 to find the last time McLaren had conclusively the fastest car in F1.
This is known to have irked Hamilton in 2010-11, and played some part in the cocktail of issues that led to his difficult season last year, when his frustration at the car's inability to compete for the title and problems with his family and his girlfriend led to what he admitted was his worst season in the sport.
That all changed this season. The McLaren is again setting the pace. But a series of operational problems in the opening races badly affected Hamilton, costing him 40 points. Add those points to his current total and he would be leading Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, not trailing him by a win and a fourth place.
Hamilton has done well to disguise his disappointment publicly, but it was around this time that his management started approaching McLaren's rivals about job opportunities.
On top of that, McLaren are entering an uncertain period. For the first time next year, they will have to pay for their Mercedes engines - that's in the region of eight million euros they cannot spend on the performance of the car unless they find it from other sources.
Tied in with this is the question of salary. McLaren have made it clear they cannot afford Hamilton at any price. The word is they have offered him a cut in money for next season, on the basis that they cannot afford anything more. This might be offset by other compromises, such as over PR appearances, flights and so on.
Already on about half of what Alonso earns at Ferrari, one can imagine how that has gone down with Hamilton - especially as McLaren's portfolio of sponsors makes it very difficult for a driver to do personal deals elsewhere to top up his earnings. That's because almost anywhere he looks there's a clash with a company that has links with McLaren.
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Meanwhile, Mercedes are by definition a "works" team with factory engines, have the might of an automotive giant behind them. They can pay Hamilton a lot more than his current salary - believed to be about �13m - if they want to. And at Mercedes there is also a lot more freedom for a driver to do personal sponsorship deals.
The funding for Mercedes' F1 team comes entirely from external sponsors - and the budget is reputedly significantly less than enjoyed by Red Bull and Ferrari. But it is underwritten by the parent company so even if there is a sponsorship shortfall it doesn't affect the team.
Performance-wise, the team that is now Mercedes actually won the world title more recently than McLaren, when they were Brawn in 2009. Ironically, the man who won it was Button. His success - and what he interpreted as the team's ambivalence about him staying - led to him moving to McLaren.
Admittedly, Brawn's success in 2009 was tainted by the row over double-diffusers that clouded that season. Once everyone had them, the car was no longer as competitive as it had been.
Mercedes have certainly been under-performing since then, but that can at least partly be explained by the fact that Brawn, facing serious financial problems, slashed their staff by 40% in 2009. As Mercedes, they have been slowly building levels up again.
The pressure on the team to up their game is massive - hence the huge investment in terms of staffing and resources in the last 18 months or so.
And while they are a long way behind McLaren this season, they are on an upward trend, even if it is significantly slower than either the team or the Mercedes board would like.
Equally, few in F1 would disagree that Hamilton is one of the three best drivers in the world, alongside Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. Mercedes don't have any of them.
It's impossible to know how much faster the car would go in their hands than it has done so far in those of Rosberg and Michael Schumacher. Some might argue not at all. But, that's not how Hamilton, who raced and beat Rosberg in their formative years, will look at it.
Add all that up, and the decision doesn't seem so easy after all.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/hamiltons_tough_decision.html
Ian Burgess Luciano Burti Roberto Bussinello Jenson Button Tommy Byrne
Monday, May 13, 2013
Nissan developing a hybrid race car for Le Mans - report
The Audi R18 e-Tron quattro could be getting a hybrid competitor at next year's 24 Hours of Le Mans as a new report is indicating Nissan is developing a hybrid race car.Lorenzo Bandini Henry Banks Fabrizio Barbazza John Barber Skip Barber
Smooth Button masters F1's greatest test
At the circuit widely regarded as the greatest test of a racing driver in the world, Jenson Button took a victory in the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday that was probably the most dominant this season.
Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, who finished second to Button after an impressive performance of his own, had an even bigger margin of superiority in Valencia but he was unable to make it count because his car failed.
Button had no such trouble. He stamped his authority on the weekend from the start of qualifying and never looked back, as all hell broke loose behind his McLaren.
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The frightening first-corner pile-up helped him in that it took out a potential threat in world championship leader Fernando Alonso's Ferrari. The Spaniard was up to third place from fifth on the grid before being assaulted by the flying Lotus of Romain Grosjean, who had collided with the other McLaren of Lewis Hamilton.
But before the race Alonso had entertained no prospect of battling for victory, and while he would almost certainly have finished on the podium, there is no reason to believe he would have troubled Button.
The Englishman also comfortably saw off in the opening laps the challenge of Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen, hotly tipped before the weekend.
Raikkonen was left to battle entertainingly with rivals including Vettel and Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher, on whom the Finn pulled an astoundingly brave pass into the 180mph swerves of Eau Rouge which was almost a carbon copy of Red Bull driver Mark Webber's move on Alonso last year.
Button, meanwhile, was serene out front, never looking under the remotest threat.
For Button, this was a far cry from the struggles he has encountered in what has not overall been one of his better seasons.
A strong start included a dominant victory in the opening race in Australia and second place in China.
But after that he tailed off badly, struggling with this year's big Formula 1 quandary - getting the temperamental Pirelli tyres into the right operating window.
The 32-year-old had a sequence of weak races and even at other times has generally been firmly in Hamilton's shade.
Those struggles were ultimately solved by some head-scratching on set-up at McLaren, but they were undoubtedly influenced by Button's smooth, unflustered driving style.
Button's weakness - one of which he is well aware - is that he struggles when the car is not to his liking. Unlike Alonso and Hamilton, he finds it difficult to adapt his style to different circumstances.
The flip side of that is that when he gets the car's balance right, he is close to unbeatable. It is a similar situation to that of two former McLaren drivers - Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
Senna, like Hamilton, was usually faster, but when Prost, whose style was similar to Button's, got his car in the sweet spot he was matchless.
"I obviously have a style where it's quite difficult to find a car that works for me in qualifying," Button said on Saturday, "but when it does we can get pole position."
Perhaps an elegant style that does not upset the car or over-work the tyres was exactly what was needed through the demanding corners of Spa's challenging middle sector.
That was McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe's view, certainly.
"It could well be," Lowe said, "because it's made up of these longer flowing corners rather than the short, stop-start ones. So that may well be something he can work with well, just tucking it all up and smooth lines."
Was this the secret to Button's performance in qualifying, when he was a remarkable 0.8 seconds quicker than team-mate Lewis Hamilton?
In a well-publicised series of tweets after qualifying, Hamilton blamed this on the team's collective decision - with which he agreed when it was made - to run his car on a set-up with higher downforce.
This is a perfectly valid decision at Spa -it was a route that Raikkonen also took - and in pure lap time the two differing approaches should balance themselves out. But for them to do so, the driver with the higher downforce set-up has to make up in the middle sector the time he has lost on the straights.
As the McLaren telemetry of which Hamilton so unwisely tweeted a picture on race morning proved, however, that was not the case. Hamilton was not fast enough through sector two - indeed his time through there on his final qualifying lap was 0.3secs slower than his best in the session.
Hamilton tweeted a photo of the McLaren telemetry, prompting a rebuke from his team.
That was the real reason why he was slower than Button in Spa qualifying - not the fact he was down on straight-line speed, which was always going to be the case once he went with the set-up he did.
It's worth pointing out in this context that Hamilton was also significantly slower than Button in final practice - a fact that led him to take the gamble on the different set-up.
How Hamilton would have fared in the race will never be known, because of the accident with Grosjean.
It was a scary moment - Grosjean's flying Lotus narrowly missed Alonso's head - and the incident underlined once again why F1 bosses are so keen to introduce some kind of more effective driver head protection in the future.
From the point of view of a disinterested observer, the only plus point of the accident, which also took out the two impressive Saubers, was that it has narrowed Alonso's lead in the championship. Vettel is now within a race victory of the Spaniard.
Despite this, to his immense credit, Alonso was a picture of measured calm after the race.
Invited to criticise Grosjean, he refused. Although, being the wise owl he is, he not only had at his fingertips the statistics of Grosjean's first-lap crashes this season, but slipped them into his answer.
"I am not angry [at Grosjean]," he said. "No-one did this on purpose, they were fighting, two aggressive drivers on the start, Lewis and Romain and this time it was us in the wrong place at the wrong time and we were hit.
"It's true also that in 12 races, Romain had seven crashes at the start, so..."
It was, Alonso pointed out, a good opportunity for governing body the FIA to make a point about driving standards this season, which Williams's Pastor Maldonado has also seemed to be waging a campaign to lower.
It was an opportunity the stewards did not decline.
Grosjean will now watch next weekend's Italian Grand Prix from the sidelines after being given a one-race suspension, the first time a driver has been banned since Michael Schumacher in 1994. Maldonado has a 10-place grid penalty for jumping the start and causing his own, independent, accident.
Earlier this year, triple world champion Jackie Stewart, who is an advisor to Lotus, offered to sit down with Grosjean and give him some advice about the way he approached his races.
Stewart is famous not only for his campaign for safety in F1 but also for his impeccable driving standards during his career. He has helped many drivers in his time, but Grosjean turned him down.
On Sunday evening, I was contacted by an old friend, the two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 and former IndyCar champion Gil de Ferran, who was involved in F1 a few years ago as a senior figure in the Honda team.
That coaching, De Ferran said, "seems like a great idea".
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/smooth_button_masters_f1_great.html
Keith Andrews Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella M·rio de Ara˙jo Cabral Frank Armi
350 Lamborghinis in 13 minutes at firm's anniversary tour [video]
YouTube user Shmee150 has managed to grab on camera all 350 Lamborghinis which are part of the company's 50th anniversary tour.
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