Costa “stunned” by Ferrari’s Abu Dhabi defeat

F1 Fanatic round-up

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Ferrari technical director Aldo Costa has spoken of the team’s disbelief at losing the 2010 drivers’ championship.

Here’s today’s round-up:

Links

It’s a nightmare for Ferrari boss (The Sun)

Aldo Costa: “When Fernando crossed the line we were all frozen. For five or 10 minutes we stared at the monitor. No one budged, no one took off their helmets. No one spoke as no one wanted to accept the reality.”

Honda’s F1 KERS motor: 60 kW, 21,000 RPM, >7 kg (Green Car Congress)

Technical details on the Kinetic Energy Recovery System Honda designed for F1 in 2009 but did not race.

The Journey’s End – The Brazilian Premiere of ‘Senna” (Spectator)

“The film played, the night passed and Brazilian tears flowed as we knew they would. Emerson Fittipaldi, a man whom I idolised before Ayrton, came up to me, held my hands in his and simply said, ‘Beautiful. I have a dry mouth. Obrigado.'”

My F1 2010 season review (BBC)

Murray Walker on this year’s F1 season.

Auto GP to use F1 points system in 2011 (Auto GP)

“In order to make the racing even closer, the series has decided to revamp its points system adopting the same allocation table of Formula One for Race 1, and changing consequently also the scoring scheme for Race 2.”

Ricciardo content to wait on 2011 news (ITV-F1)

“Of course it is my aim to break into Formula 1 but right now there are no new developments. Dr Helmut Marko just briefed me on the two test days – that was it.”

Patrick Head praises Stoneman after Williams F1 test (Formula Two)

“Dean was calm and unfazed by the step up in speeds and performance over an F2 car, and after the day his comments to the engineers fitted well with those of our race drivers. I hope Dean gets the opportunity to progress to GP2, as I think he has strong talent and is clearly a great competitor. We shall be watching closely.”

Comment of the day

Victor thinks the key to 2010 being a great season was Red Bull’s mistakes:

What 2010 lacked to be called legendary was driver prowess. McLaren and Ferrari only stayed in the battle due to Red Bull making mistakes. Although Hamilton and Alonso showed great skill when the races did not go accordingly to Red Bull’s plans, that skill was not directly utilised against each other. There were no epic battles for podium finishes, because most of the time either Red Bull got them or failed to do so, in which case a McLaren or Ferrari driver used the opportunity and kept Red Bull modest in the title race.
Victor

From the forum

Here’s an interesting question from smifaye: What makes F1 the best motor racing sport?

Happy birthday!

Two birthdays today – happy birthday to Nick and Carlos Santos!

On this day in F1

Happy birthday also to Desire Wilson, who turns 57 today.

The South African remains the only woman to have won a race for Formula 1 cars. She won the second race of the 1980 British F1 championship at Brands Hatch, driving a Wolf WR4.

One of the circuit’s grandstands was later named in honour of her.

Image © Ferrari spa

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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32 comments on “Costa “stunned” by Ferrari’s Abu Dhabi defeat”

  1. still reckon ricciardo’s best bet is to jump into GP2.. own for a year, then jump into an F1 slot.. the wait to see where he will end up is still nerve-racking

    1. Yeah, I agree. Even if the lure of a Toro Rosso drive comes up mid season he should resist the temptation to take it, have a full year of preperation in GP2 and then make the step up in 2012

    2. I’d concur also with a GP2 drive being an interesting proposition for next year, especially since it seems like a good opportunity to get quite a bit of running with basically the same tires – if the redesigned car produces some characteristics close to an F1 car, that could be useful preparation.

  2. A British F1 championship… wow, imagine that today! F1 cars racing around Donington, Oulton Park, Brands Hatch, Snetterton etc. Maybe through in a few street races in London, Newcastle and a night race in Blackpool.

    They could also schedule the races so that they don’t clash with F1 so the big name drivers can take part, and try and emphasise to the car manufacturers the importance of the British market to encourage them to take part.

    OK, so pigs will learn to fly and dodo’s will be resurrected before the British F1 Championship returns… but it would be amazing!

    1. It reminds me of the discussion we had a couple of weeks back about regional F1 championships to help both drivers and constructors to get ready for promotion into the world championship of F1.

      Only it’s probably not going to happen for being to costly. But I would love to have the central european and the british and the Italian champions taking it on with the south american, north american, Asian and Oceanean champions to earn their place in F1 each year.

    2. As you say, pigs might fly. It couldn’t really happen today because the cars are too sophisticated and so cost too much to run.

      British F1 was only made possible by the availability of relatively simple, secondhand cars and the easy availability of the Cosworth DFV engine, which was virtually standard in F1 at the time. It’s possible to run a late 1970s/early 1980s F1 car with a single dedicated mechanic plus extra support at race weekends. Even then, the grid never had any real strength in depth and was either small or had F2 cars making up the numbers.

      I suppose the likes of EuroBOSS and the FIA Thoroughbred GP series (which runs cars from a similar era as British F1 did back in the day) are the modern equivalents.

    3. If I recall the correctly the series actually used cars that were quite a few years old. It wasn’t even as popular or prestigious as GP2 is today.

    4. I used to regularly attend the British F1 Championship, but to be fair it was a lacklustre affair and the last one I watched (at Brands Hatch) had but 6 entries and the winner won by about a lap.

      Very much a ‘B’ team effort with older cars and so so drivers. It just sort of faded away.

  3. no one took off their helmets

    That’s so they can head-butt the glass in the garage I suppose.

    1. Safety first, of course. LOL!!!

  4. Have a nice birthday Nick, Carlos Santos and Desire Wilson as well. I am certain you will enjoy it.

  5. Love Saward or hate him, pretty hard to get the facts wrong on this one:

    http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/bernie-gets-mugged/

  6. It might have been really difficult to believe for Ferrari, all right.

    Still, that’s what happens when you can’t rig the result in your favour, and winning comes down to whether or not you’re competent enough to do the job.

    I swear I’m not laughing. Not at all.

    1. It just shows, how much one can get carried away by living the team spirit and putting on the blinds towards the world.
      Remarks made during the year about the new teams, stewarding in Valencia, Silverstone, their being proud of the win in Hockenheim (why did that Ferrari season review call it “a fantastic result”), they really had the feeling they had it bagged already.

    2. They had the situation clear with 39 laps to go. As soon as Alonso pitted I realised he had lost the WDC.

  7. I’ve just remembered how 2010’s top two would have finished on the 2009 points system:

    Vettel 104
    Alonso 103

    Vettel literally did a Kimi, because if Alonso had finished 5th, then like Hamilton in 2007, he would have become champion. And where did Hamilton finish in 2007 and Alonso in 2010? 7th!

    1. ok I got Alonso’s score wrong, it was 101. So instead of 5th he would have needed 3rd last year.

      However he was only aiming for 4th place in Abu Dhabi after the pitstop fail, due to the changes in the points.

  8. Woohoo I got a mention!

  9. Slightly off topic but I noticed on the link to The Sun story on Alonso that Eccleston got mugged. Hope he is ok.

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3246856/F1-Bernie-Ecclestone-battered-in-200k-mugging.html

  10. Repeat after me:
    Changing the points system does not make the racing closer, it makes the standings closer

    Imagine the 2010 season decided purely on number of wins. Yeh, I thought so. Racing the same, but no 5-way fight with two to go. Improved points system? Improved sticking plaster more like.

  11. Aldo Costa should always remember the Ecclstone mantra,

    “F1 is s show, a happening, if you want to see racing, go to the horses”

    The Abu Dhabi GP was clearly a set-up, a fix from start to finnish. Bernie’s FIA wanted Vettel to be crowned champion, its good for the show, and he was.

    F1 true fans should be more cynical about such anomalous events like the one we had in Abu Dhabi, where two cars from a single team dictate the winner of the race..

    In my opinion Vettel is not a worthy champion. Coming from third in the championship hunt to win and be crowned the youngest ever world champion on the last race of the season is just too much of perfectly framed fairy tale ending for me to swallow..

    The FIA has direct, and importantly active, two way communication with the car’s ECUs during race events. I believe there is something fishy going on, because I can’t see how a car’s performance could fluctuate so much over a season due to mechanical factors alone…

    1. In my opinion Vettel is not a worthy champion. Coming from third in the championship hunt to win and be crowned the youngest ever world champion on the last race of the season is just too much of perfectly framed fairy tale ending for me to swallow..

      Bulls**t. If it weren’t for his mechanical failure in Korea, he would have won all 4 of the last 4 races. Sure he’s had the fastest car and made things harder for himself than they should have been, but when it really counted he made full use of his car. That’s why he’s a worthy champion as far as I’m concerned.

      1. RedBull would have romped away with this seasons championships if theirs and Renault’s reliability had been better. Don’t expect them to be quite so generous next season.

    2. I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re a disgruntled Ferrari fan, but going by this line

      “Coming from third in the championship hunt to win and be crowned the … world champion on the last race of the season is just too much of perfectly framed fairy tale ending for me to swallow”

      Surely, you must believe that Kimi wasn’t a worthy champion in 2007 either then. If you think Kimi wasn’t worthy, that’s just too bad. If you think he was, you’re a hypocrite.

    3. yeah i agree with you…it is posible to rig the cars ECU na position transponder with the FOM lap timing compiter such you increase or decrease the sector miliseconds as desired…for instance during qualification three the redbuls always made sure they shadowed the fastest cars at that time so that when they do their runs the last fastest time would be beaten by remotely adjusting the lap time the red bull was doing upwards by .0000010 of a milisecond….

  12. Does anyone else think that this season has been a little overrated? I seem to remember enjoying 2007 and 2008 much more just because people weren’t that nice to each other – it seemed to have an edge to it.

    Although it was a close run thing, the most memorable moments from the season were mistakes and not exceptional drives.

    1. “Although it was a close run thing, the most memorable moments from the season were mistakes and not exceptional drives.”

      This is true, from both a team and driver perspective.

    2. I’m with you. The racing itself seemed a little lacklustre. I miss the excitement of seeing a lightly fuelled car on a 3 stop strategy having to force its way past a heavier car on a one stopper.

      Not to mention that we won’t see strategies as quirky as Schumi’s 4 stopper in Magny-Cours ever again.

  13. What do you think of an email exchange like this Keith (Pitpass being told to remove F1 logos, or else, … combined with pressure to publish a GP3 boss interview)?
    http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=42659

    Another example of the good work done by FOM to promote our sport?

  14. The name of the official season review dvd has bee revealed: “Sebastian’s coming of age”.

    1. *tha should be “has been revealed.

    2. *that should be “has been revealed”. (sorry for all the typos!)

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