Fernando Alonso is fast becoming our favourite driver not going by the name of Mark Webber. His ability to continually put his car in a winning position—see Valencia and Malaysia—when the quality of his machinery has often not been deserving of such results is genuine Spanish grit. He has guts. We like that.
You may or may not share our view on Alonso, but we suspect you’ll enjoy the 100 photos of the European Grand Prix we have assembled on your behalf.
Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen completed a dominant 1-2 rally win for the Citroën World Rally Team in Rally New Zealand on the weekend. There was a minor fight with Ford’s Jarri-Matti Latvala on the opening day, but the rally soon became the plaything of the unstoppable Citroëns.
At least this time Loeb and Hirvonen were able to fight freely for the win. Mostly, after a good battle on day two, the team asked their two drivers to concentrate on the double podium in the closing stages of the event. With that came Loeb’s fifth win of the year and an ever tightening grip on the driver’s championship.
The eight-time world champion now has 145pts, which puts him 38pts clear of Hirvonen, with Solberg 55pts behind the leader. Unsurprisingly, with a 96pt lead over Ford, Citroën appears unbeatable in the manufacturers’ title race.
Speaking after the rally Loeb said he’s looking forward to a well earned rest: “We had to hold out to the end after an exciting two-day battle with Mikko. Once again, conditions were difficult but we managed to secure a one-two finish. I’m very pleased that I can go on holiday now with a comfortable lead in the championship! It’s true that the first half of the season has been fantastic, with five wins out of seven rallies.â€
For his part, Hirvonen is ready to building on a steady opening to his Citroën career: “This is another good result for the team; it concludes the first part of the season, during which I have learned a lot. I am pleased with how the first seven rallies have gone. I have been fighting for the win a regular basis, and that feels good. I now have a fine collection of runner-up spots, so I’ll be going into the second half of the season hoping to claim some wins.â€
The WRC goes into hiatus for all of July and returns for Rally Finland in August.
A lengthy press release from Citroën can be read after the break and is complemented by over 25 pictures from Rally New Zealand. We thank Ateco Automotive for access to the shots.
That’s quite a handy looking podium there, there’s a total of 10 world championships represented. Of course, in all the commotion last night Fernando Alonso’s win at the European Grand Prix makes him the first driver in 2012 to win two races.
Before you start reading the full transcript from the post-race press conferences there’s some housekeeping we need to address.
Stewards did find that Michael Schumacher used his DRS under yellow flag conditions, but telemetry and video evidence showed that he slowed down sufficiently and he has not been penalised; his third place stands.
However, Pastor Maldonado was deemed at fault in his incident with Lewis Hamilton. Maldonado was given a 20 second stop-go penalty which pushed him from P10 to P12. His Williams teammate, Bruno Senna, has moved up one spot and claims the final point.
Sebastian Vettel is still none the wise as to why his car lost power during the race and had this to say: “At the moment it’s not entirely clear what the problem was. I lost acceleration, the engine stalled and I couldn’t do anything; that was it. You can’t change it now.
“Up until that point it was clear we were strong, I was very happy in the car and had the pace. We were very quick today and it felt good. The initial re-start after the safety car was fine, but we’re not sure of the exact problem, we’ll need to look into it.â€
Cyril Dumont from Renault did shed some light into Vettel’s engine woes: “Today was a real disappointment as Sebastian was well ahead and seemed to have the race in his pocket. Then the alternator overheated, stopped supplying electrical power and the engine shut down. We’re not sure exactly why – it could be a number of things – but it’s definitely something we’ll look at when we get back to Viry. Congratulations to Mark though, from almost the back to fourth is a fantastic result.â€
The final finishing positions and drivers’ championship table have been updated in our post-race report to reflect the Maldonado penalty. Now all that’s left for you to do is read over the post-race press release, courtesy of the FIA. As usual, we’ll have a photo gallery from the race up soon.
Fernando Alonso has become a popular, albeit unlikely, winner at tonight’s European Grand Prix in Valencia. The Ferrari man started from P11 in front of a parochial Spanish crowd and made the most of a highly dramatic race that looked for all money as though it was safely in Sebastian Vettel’s pocket.
The race-defining drama took place after an incident between a clumsy Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) and Heikki Kovaleinen (Caterham), which brought out the Safety Car. Vettel, previously enjoying a lead of over 20 seconds, made a clean restart and looked as though he would drive on to an unchallenged victory.
Romain Grosjean had positioned his Lotus nicely in P2 after the restart with Alonso close behind. The dual world champion quickly gave Grosjean a masterclass in restarting from a Safety Car period and turned a half chance into what turned out to be a race winning overtake.
Not long after Alonso moved into P2 he was greeted by the sight of a slowing Red Bull and Vettel was powerless to defend his position, coasting to retirement. It would have been Vettel’s third win in a row at this event. The crowd couldn’t have cared less about that and went wild when Alonso took the lead, he was then able to stay ahead of the mayhem behind him and claim his 29th F1 win.
More chaos ensued with contact between several drivers and fading tyres responsible for sorting out the minor placings.
In the closing stages of the race Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) was in P2 but became vulnerable after his tyres lost their performance. Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) was the first to speed past and Pastor Maldonado (Williams) soon had Hamilton in his sights. Maldonado just needed patience to complete the overtake. Turned out he didn’t have any and the two collided; a clearly agitated Hamilton finished his race in the wall, Maldonado struggled home to P10 without a front wing.
Michael Schumacher (Mercedes AMG) and Mark Webber (Red Bull) were making the most of their fresher tyres and completed late moves on the Force India duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta.
Unbeknown to him at the time, Schumacher finished the race in P3 and Webber, somehow, ended in P4. The Aussie started from P19, remember, and seemed to get his tyre strategy all wrong. In the end his need to come in relatively late for new tyres gave him a pretty tidy points haul.
After the post-race press conference we thought we were celebrating Schumacher’s 155th career podium, his first since China in 2006. However, it has since come to light that Michael may have used his DRS under yellow flag conditions. If so that will most likely push Webber into P3.
It was an amazing race and we won’t be at all surprised if you’re none the wiser as to what happened, even after reading this hastily cobbled together report.
What we do know is that Alonso now leads the drivers’ championship (111pts). Surprisingly, Webber (91pts) finds himself in second, ahead of Hamilton (88pts).
A provisional finishing order from Valencia is listed below, along with updated championship standings.
UPDATE: Schumacher’s third place stands; stewards found he did use his DRS under yellow flag conditions, but Schumacher slowed down sufficiently to make a penalty unwarranted. Maldonado has been given a 20 second penalty, which moves him down to P12, teammate Bruno Senna moves up to P10.
In a year where chaos theory seems to dictate who is winning races, Sebastian Vettel may be on the way to restoring order after putting his Red Bull on pole position at the European Grand Prix in Valencia overnight. His time of 1:38.086 was comfortable faster than Lewis Hamilton in P2 (McLaren, 1:38.410).
Spanish GP winner Pastor Maldonado qualified in P3 (Williams, 1:38.475) and reminded us that chaos theory could be ready to take over again should natural order fail to deliver.
Let’s forget about this weekend for a moment, though, and reflect on the sometimes smarmy, sometimes charming Sebastian Vettel. His pole position here is the 33rd of his career and puts him alongside two of the sports undisputed legends—four-time world champ Alain Prost and dual champion Jim Clark. It’s a bit like seeing the once in a lifetime Michael Schumacher all over again.
Now equal third on the all-time list of pole positions achieved in F1, Vettel has only Ayrton Senna (65) and Schumacher (68) to cross off the list. About to turn 25, Vettel has plenty of time ahead of him yet.
In 37% of races started Vettel has started from P1. That’s just behind Senna (40%) and ahead of Schumacher (23%). As Australians and unapologetic Mark Webber fans we sometimes hate Sebastian Vettel with a passion, but there is no denying he is well on the path to greatness.
Which brings us back to Mark Webber. He had a shocking qualifying effort and will start from P19. He had brake troubles in final practice and then a new and unrelated problem in quali. In his own words: “I had no DRS, which costs about 1.3 second per lap and made it difficult. The car’s put up a big fight today, we only managed to do four laps and three of those were in qualifying,” Webber explained.
“In the first qualifying session we did one lap on the harder tyre and then went out on the soft tyre to try and get through as it was so tight. The lap time actually wasn’t too bad considering we didn’t have DRS, but it doesn’t do anything to help the situation. We have a lot to do tomorrow. We were hoping to fix the DRS for Q2 but we didn’t make the cut; we should be able to fix it for tomorrow.â€
Once again Daniel Ricciardo managed to reach Q2, while teammate Jean-Eric Vergne just missed the cut in Q3. And again, Ricciardo was unable to progress any futher and the Toro Rosso pair will start tonight’s race from P17 and P18.
[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]
It’s taken us a while to get to this video from Drive, which takes us inside the Koenigsegg factory in Angelholm, Sweden. But it has definitely been worth the wait and we’re sure you’ll agree.
While Ron Dennis would probably have heart palpitations that the factory is not fastidiously spotless or organised, we think he’d get off on Christan von Koenigsegg explaining the finer details of carbon fibre production. Not to mention the detailed explanation of how the door hinges work and why they were created.
In fact, if you love cars and don’t come away from this video without a man crush on von Koenisegg then you must sell whatever machinery you love and trade it in for a beige Corolla.
Oh, one more thing, in the video von Koenigsegg makes mention of “the record”. If you need a reminder of what that is all about, click here.
It’s hard to believe that it is 15 years ago since Martin Brundle broadcast his first pre-race grid walk at a Formula One Grand Prix. His debut stroll down the grid took place at the 1997 British GP, when he was working for ITV. A total of 260 races have gone by since then.
Promoted by Brundle’s own twitter feed, here is the footage from that first walk down the Silverstone starting grid.
We bring you another belated Le Mans catch up, this time featuring the doomed Nissan DeltaWing. The car itself ran pretty well, it was the tap from the #7 Toyota TS030 that ultimately ended the DeltaWing’s race.
After crashing into the wall, driver Satoshi Motoyama tried valiantly for an hour and a half to repair the experimental car so that he could drive it back to the pits for a more intensive repair effort. Alas, the DeltaWing was too damaged and had to withdraw.
The sad and somehow lonely video of Motoyama with the wrecked DeltaWing will become one of the lasting memories from the 2012 endurance epic.
Despite the sad ending to his day Motoyama remained positive about his race experience and also about the future of the DeltaWing: “I have had such a great time driving this car and I’ve loved working with Marino, Michael and the entire time. We have really shown what the future of sportscar racing could look like – ultra efficient.
“I really hope I can get the opportunity to drive the car again, because we really do have unfinished business. I am certain the car would have run for a long time if not for the contact.â€
There’s more from Nissan and Highcroft Racing after the break, including a healthy selection of images of the DeltaWing in action.
It’s been a bit remiss of us to not better acknowledge the effort of the JRM Racing team at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. So here is their post-race report.
Heading the driving talent was Australian, and 2009 race winner, David Brabham. The youngest of the Brabham brothers was running in his 18th 24 Hours of Le Mans, but it was JRM’s first race at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Indeed, it was only their third ever endurance race.
Joined by a crew of familiar names, including drivers Karun Chandok and Peter Dumbreck, as well as Nigel Stepney, inside the garage the British team had some healthy pedigree. Even still they were very chuffed indeed to bring home their HPD ARX-03a LMP1 car in sixth place.
Speaking after the chequered flag, Team Principal, James Rumsey, said: “Before the race I said we would be thrilled to finish the race. That was an underestimation—we are absolutely overjoyed. It’s only our third ever event as a team and our first Le Mans so to finish, and to finish well, is almost indescribable.
“The drivers all drove very, very well and came together as a crew. David was invaluable in giving us his experience, Peter did a great job through the night—particularly after the puncture when things could have gone very wrong—and Karun did incredibly well to be so consistent on his first visit here.
“This week has tested everyone—we’ve had a lot of work, lots of late nights and yet everyone has pulled together to achieve this result. I am so proud of everyone and am sure that this is just the start of something very big. Watch this space.”
Well done them, we wish them well for the remainder of the 2012 WEC season and, of course, for Le Mans in 2013.
[Source: JRM Group]
Last week we brought you the early thoughts of the motoring press on the latest version of the Audi RS4. Now it’s the turn of Chris Harris in video form, who has just filed his online review for Drive following the European press launch.
Harris starts by going back to the B5 RS4, then the B7 model, before seeing how the new B8 RS4 sits alongside those that have gone before it. We think he should have included the RS2 Avant as well—the true origin of the RS4—but can understand why he didn’t.
We get presented with a great sense of what the earlier RS4s did well and what they did poorly. Indeed, for a while there, we see Harris performing the role of used car salesman rather well. Similarly, a wide range of feedback is given by Harris on the new car. Again, negative aspects are balanced with positive thoughts. In the true sense of the word, this is a great review.
However, adding further modern day context, Harris brought along a fourth estate to the party. Watch and enjoy!
For more extensive thoughts from Harris on the RS4, check in to PistonHeads.
The Pagani Huayra is beautiful. Not in a classic sense like the Lamborghini Miura, more in the sense of its overall attention to detail. So we applaud Car magazine on the one hand for their video review of the Huayra.
In just a bit over three minutes they have captured the beauty of the Huayra really well. But, while we’re told the twin-turbo V12 powered supercar is a fantastic experience that does have flaws, we’re not told why. I guess they want you to buy the mag for that!
[Source: Car]
The otherwise standard looking Audi A1 is believed to be a cooking new S1 model. Quad exhaust tips give us the first clue that this is a warmed over version of the A1 and those odd looking wheel hubs could also be used for evaluating a quattro all-wheel drive system.
Who knows whether this will be an S1 or even an RS1, but expect it to be based on the extreme A1 quattro. Limited to 333 examples, that car used a 188kW 2.0 litre turbo four nicked from the bigger S3.
Latest speculation suggests the S1 will use a detuned version of that 2.0 litre engine, with a power figure of around 162kW. Although, previous reports have speculated on the development of an all-new 1.6 litre turbo providing around the same power.
We don’t really mind how Audi gets there, just so long as they do!
[Source: WCF]