FGL28

We shall see about Alonso. IIRC he is down to one motor. I wonder if he can make it. Japan is tough, Korea is unknown, Brazil is Massa's home town and AbuDabi will be hot and tough on motors. Webber and Hami acted like children. I would have thought Hami would known better.

A.Wayne

Who let the dogs out .. woof ..woof...woof.



Who let the dogs out .. woof.. woof ..woof.



Who let the dogs out ........

woof ..woof ..woof.





Trifecta ,,,,,,,,,Congrats .............................................


Muy Grande ...........................





Alonso holds off Vettel for vital win


By Mark Glendenning Sunday, September 26th 2010, 14:05 GMT

Fernando Alonso has continued Ferrari's late charge for the 2010 world championship with a lights-to-flag victory in the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Spaniard saw off a late challenge from Sebastian Vettel to take the win, with Mark Webber completing the podium in the other Red Bull.

As well as keeping Alonso squarely in the title hunt, the race dealt another blow to the hopes of Lewis Hamilton, who failed to finish for the second race in a row. Team-mate Jenson Button salvaged something for McLaren by finishing fourth.

Alonso's win proved to the relatively straightforward, as although Vettel was never far behind him, nor was he ever really close enough to mount a serious challenge. The pair held their positions after pitting on the same lap, and the it was only on the final lap that Vettel managed to get close enough to think about having a look.

But Alonso managed to keep him at bay; the Spaniard's cause being helped by yellows at the final corners courtesy of Heikki Kovalainen, whose Lotus had burst into flames on the main straight a lap earlier.

Webber's third place owed much to a tyre gamble when the safety car came out on lap three to remove Tonio Liuzzi's stricken Force India from the circuit. The Red Bull pitwall decided to roll the dice and bring Webber in from fifth to change to the harder tyre - the Australian being the only one of the frontrunners to do so.

He returned to the track in 11th and over the laps that followed regained enough ground that he was able to leapfrog the two McLarens in the pits. Hamilton later had a chance to get the place back on a restart when Webber became bogged down behind a lapped Virgin, but the pair made contact that resulted in the Briton's car being sufficiently damaged to put him out of the race. Webber, miraculously, was able to continue unharmed.

Despite being urged to push in the closing laps, Button was unable to get within range of Webber and settled for fourth ahead of Mercedes' Nico Rosberg,

Williams got both of its cars into the points with Rubens Barrichello sixth and Nico Hulkenberg ninth, the pair being split by Renault's Robert Kubica (who spent the final laps making an entertaining recovery from a puncture) and Force India's Adrian Sutil.

Felipe Massa claimed the final point for Ferrari in tenth, the Brazilian having pitted on lap two after starting from the rear of the grid following his problems in qualifying.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS

The Singapore Grand Prix
Singapore, Singapore;
61 laps; 309.087km;
Weather: Dry.

Classified:

Pos Driver Team Time
1. Alonso Ferrari 1h57:53.579.......
2. Vettel Red Bull-Renault + 0.293
3. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 29.141
4. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 30.384
5. Rosberg Mercedes + 49.394
6. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 56.101
7. Kubica Renault + 1:26.559
8. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1:52.416
9. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth + 1:52.791
10. Massa Ferrari + 1:53.297
11. Petrov Renault + 1 lap
12. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
13. Schumacher Mercedes + 1 lap
14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
15. Di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps
16. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth + 3 laps

Fastest lap: Alonso, 1:47.976..............

Not classified/retirements:

Driver Team On lap
Glock Virgin-Cosworth 51
Heidfeld Sauber-Ferrari 35
Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 34
Klien HRT-Cosworth 30
Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 29
Senna HRT-Cosworth 28
Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 26
Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1


Drivers: Constructors:
1. Webber .. 202 .. 1. Red Bull-Renault .... 383
2. Alonso .. 191 ....... 2. McLaren-Mercedes ... 359
3. Hamilton .. 182 ...... 3. Ferrari ... 316
4. Vettel .. 181 ....... 4. Mercedes .... 168
5. Button .. 177 ....... 5. Renault ... 133
6. Massa 125 6. Force India-Mercedes 62
7. Rosberg 122 7. Williams-Cosworth 57
8. Kubica 114 8. Sauber-Ferrari 27
9. Sutil 49 9. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 10
10. Schumacher 46
11. Barrichello 39



Pete, amigos you were right, Ferrari must be regretting their decision...

Flying Finn

Wow, Alonso and Ferrari look real strong. Great drive and I was kinda surprised that RB pitted Vettel same time with Alonso, not a lap or two after him.

Great drive from Kubica and also Rosberg was strong.
Not the most exiting race but concidering it was Singapore, pretty good.

4 more to go, will be real exiting battle!

A.Wayne

Actually Ferrari reacted to RB pitting Vettel not the other way around ....

skl

Actually thought it was a pretty interesting race. Seb was in Fred's mirrors the whole race- one small bobble and he would have been by... and Webber must again be the luckiest guy in racing. Contact and he keeps going on his merry way! What fine will Lewis get for throwing his wheel- I didn't see him replace it as it looked like some corner worker picked it up.
Heiki was pretty brave to stay in the car that long!!! (At least he could get out a little easier than Simona...)

And Suzuka next!!

enduro911

Great job Alonso. He seems to really like that track. The car also looks very compliant. I don't know which if any one piece on the car really helped them to turn the corner but the went from third best car on the grid to second or first very quickly. Good for them.

Again, I'll express my concern that Ferrari are pushing with too little too late. Massa's gearbox incident MAY be Ferrari's excuse to have a look at the engine to see how much wear is on them. If they did remap Alonso's engine to Monza settings, I think that says all the more about his performance today. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if he has to use one more motor before the season's done, in which case he'd need some mistakes or bad luck to catch Webber. But that stuff can happen, right?

Look at Hamilton today. I don't think that's either driver's fault - good call by the overseers. I don't think he's out of it, because with a win and a DNF for Webber he's right back in the thick of things. The problem is that Mclaren seems to have hit a wall in their development, or Red Bull and Ferrari are just doing it better. Mclaren must produce a better car if they have any hope of the constructors championship or either driver has a realistic shot at the driver's title.

BTW, what about 'Ole Bobby K? New tires, yes, but still, I think he could be downright fearsome in the first or second quickest car. Alonso/Bobby for the Scud? I like the idea...

RajDatta

I think Ferrari used a different strategy for their engines. I am sure they are more aware of their engine's health than any of us. I guess, time will tell if they took too many risks with their engines. For now, it is an epic Championship race.
Raj

RajDatta

Agree 100%, they would make a formidable pair. For the other two teams, the teammates are much closer to each other than at Ferrari. Alonso totally outmatches Massa. Massa has not done his job. I know he is on a rebound year but they need him to take points away from the other guys and he is not doing that.
Ferrari was in a similar position at Monaco with Alonso and they played the same strategy. They brought their driver in on the 1st lap to change tires and hoped to leapfrog the competition in case the satefy car came out. Alonso scored a 6th in comparison to Massa, who only scored an 8th.
I think Massa needs a perfect weekend to be good. Anything goes wrong and all of a sudden he is out of it. Doesn't seem to have the ability to dig himself out of a situation.
Ferrari needs to seriously consider pairing Kubica with Alonso. They would make a formidable pair.
Raj

RajDatta

FF, nice to see you acknowledge a good race from Ferrari/Alonso. And as Wayne reported, the Ferrari pit was in response to RedBull. I am surprised Redbull didn't keep him out an extra lap or two and changed their strategy on the fly.
Kubica, did an amazing job. It was like, he never pitted. He did have fresh tires, but most other drivers would not have gotten back to their old position in such a short time.
Rosberg has shown that at this point, he is better than Schumi. It will be interesting to see if Schumi walks away for good at the end of the season.
Raj

rusnak

Webber used to be the hard luck case in F1. I am happy to see him get some glory, and I think at this point, I'm hoping he takes the crown.

I consider myself a Hamilton fan, but that was really really dumb. Geezus, that was rookie dumb. I'm talking racecraft here...preserving points and clawing your way back. That used to be a McLaren specialty, but they need drivers who know when to push and when to hold back. If you ask me, Hamilton, though he was half a car length ahead, should have not trimmed the apex unless he was all the way past. He should have used a wider line. Thus, another dnf.

PPo

In the post race interview, Seb mentioned that they wanted to do exactly that, stay out longer then Ferrari and try to put in some faster laps. However, they where starting to loose pace and the tires where done, so the Vettel was forced to pit due to tire wear. Ferrari reacted to Red Bull... and Vettel admitted he had no extra pace to catch or pass Alonso.

I wonder if Massa gave up after his strategy was ruined by the saftey car. It looked like he turned down the motor and cruised. The difference between Alonso and Massa was much too great to just be driver alone. Regardless of who is better, we know Massa isn't that slow... perhaps they realized points where difficult and decided to save the motor. The performance difference seems suspect.

PPo

I have mixed thoughts about Kubica driving a great race. His performance looked really impressive in the last quarter of the race, but at the end, he only gained one position over his qualifying result. That one position was made up when Hamilton crashed. So really, that was a lot of impressive driving and effort to pretty much be status quo.

If we call Kubica's performance a great drive, we also have to say the same thing about Button. They both produced the same result; one position ahead of thier qualifying spot.

With that said, great racecraft from Kubica, great drive, easily world champion material... can't wait for him to be at Ferrari next year!

A.Wayne

enduro911

I think Button put in another solid performance today, but I'd consider Kubica's drive to be 'great' because of his cutdown tire. In my opinion, there are two real types of skill sets in F1 - having a great car, planning out the perfect race, and then exectuing constitutes one and making the most of any given car at any point in time by collecting points is another. Like any of them or not, whenever Schumacher, Alonso, Button and others won the Driver's Title, during that/those year(s) when things weren't going perfectly well, they were still finding ways to score the maximum number of points. Kubica IMO has been showing us that he has that skill and definitely agree potential WC material.

BTW, am I the only one that thinks this track is hugely overrated? Crown Jewel? Sure, of all the night races F1 runs...

333pg333

Interesting choice of Webber to pit early and put on the harder compound tyres. Guess you'd have to say it sort of worked out best as possible for him.
Well done to Alonsorrari.