Montezemolo wants improvement from Ferrari

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Montezemolo expects Ferrari to improve but doesn’t expect a big change in China.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Montezemolo: “I have every faith in our people” (Ferrari)

“I hope we see some improvement, especially in qualifying and to see us be competitive as we were yesterday in the race. But I reckon that will be difficult as I don’t think Ferrari can turn it around in the space of a week.”

RBR ‘wary’ of Ferrari and McLaren (Autosport)

“Ferrari looked to be having a very strong race in Malaysia so we need to focus on optimising our own performance. We have managed to win the two opening grands prix of the season, which is a tremendous start, and we will look to try and build on this form as we head to China next week.”

Pirelli in the firing line over ‘rubber bullets’ (Daily Telegraph)

Paul di Resta: “Rubber is not the softest material and if it got you in the right place, it could hurt. It happened quite a few times over the weekend and as you go into the corner, the rubber runs across the tyre and flicks up.”

Force India on Twitter

Nico Hulkenberg is off to Bengaluru tomorrow for the big Force India announcement.”

Via the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app

Q&A – Red Bull’s Helmut Marko (F1)

“At the start Nick Heidfeld outperformed Lewis for second place, so probably their plan to take the lead into the first corner vanished. On top of that we knew that Hamilton had used one extra set of option tyres already in qualifying. He had one set less than Sebastian – he only had one set of prime and we had two, so the advantage was on our side.”

Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.

Comment of the day

Jelle van der Meer gets a calculator out to come up with some more stats and facts:

Vettel’s scored his 12th win in 64 races an impressive win ratio of 18.8% however he is only ranked 11th, from the active drivers Lewis is 9th with 19.2% and Michael is 4th with 33.6%. Absolute record holder is Fangio with an amazing 45.1% win ratio this next to his 68.6% podium ratio.

Vettel’s 17th pole in 64 races puts him ahead of Michael with pole ratio, however Vettel’s 26.6% ratio makes him 5th,Michael is 6th with 25.1% and Lewis is 7th with 24.7%. And who else than Fangio is 1st with 54.9% – still can’t believe Fangio was not voted best World Champion ever.
Jelle van der Meer

From the forum

Hare has a cunning plan for how teams can keep their radio messages secret.

Site updates

Some changes were made to the site yesterday in an effort to the slow page loading problem some users have experienced. If you had the problem before, please let me know by email whether you have noticed any change.

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Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Amy and Ben Thomas!

On this day in F1

The Argentinian Grand Prix was won 30 years ago today by Nelson Piquet. It was the last time the race was run on the long, high-speed version of the Oscar Galvez circuit:

See the cars heading off on the first lap of the hugely fast circuit plus Andrea de Cesaris running true to form in the video below:

Image © Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo

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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48 comments on “Montezemolo wants improvement from Ferrari”

  1. Happy Birthday Amy and Ben Thomas, if you see this!

    That circuit looked pretty good. it’s a shame true high-speed circuits have been shunned over the past ten years, even Austin is going to have slow, boring fiddly bits.

    1. Yes, happy birthday to both of you.

      I’m a little bummed that Austin is gonna have those things. With Texas being famous for BIG, it would’ve been great if they’d engineered the circuit to be F1s fastest.

      1. I agree with that, and a happy birthday to the two of you.

    2. The thing in that video is the spectator who has to move from one place to another to watch the GP as in those days there wasn’t any giant screen.

      1. I know! How things have changed. I would be very apprehensive about being there these days, coul dbe very dangerous.

      2. You gotta come to Argentina. From th Grandstands you can watch half the racetrack (the whole main straight, the first esse, the whole backstraight and the Ascari corners) without binoculars

    3. the difference is that the Argie’s track is still alive and kicking. And it’s being renovated.

      Unlike fast Hockenheim, fast Kyalami, etc…

  2. Is it difficult to make tyres that don’t have as much marbles?

    The track condition looked atrocious

    This not only poses a risk for drivers and cars, it makes overtaking difficult outside the racing line.

    Why can’t they be more like Bridgestones where the rubber is transferred onto the track rather than disintegrating

    1. As you say, the Bridgestones used to make much smaller marbles. Malaysia was like the old days :D

  3. Ahaha, that video is amusing purely because it took De Cesaris two attempts to spin round in the correct direction!

    1. Like I do most times in F1 2010 :P

  4. Looks like Kubica is improving!

    http://autosport.aeiou.pt/gen.pl?p=stories&op=view&fokey=as.stories/95786

    Here is the google translation (It sort of makes sense)

    Are always positive news coming out of Pietre Ligure, where Robert Kubica continues to recover from a violent accident to February 6. Within a week the Polish hopes to walk, since the fracture in his right leg is almost consolidated, concentrating on the recovery of the wrist and right elbow. Homecoming is scheduled for later this month, but there is not a reliable predictor for their return to the slopes.

    1. Wishes & prayers are to him from all the F1 fans down here.

      1. Dont speak for me, sure I want him to get better but that doesnt mean you can just say everyone wants that.

        1. SORRY my bad, I still haven’t meet any person in this blog who don’t want him to get well. So this time I am changing my line, & if possible Keith delete my last post.

          ” Wishes & Prayers are for him from me ONLY”

  5. Good lord.

    I didn’t even think of what di Resta brings up.

    1. It’s an important point though. The track was littered with marbles even on the straights!

    2. I did wonder actually as the sidepods of some cars had rubbery smears on. But surely no part of the driver is actually exposed?

      1. their hands when they steer tight corners.

  6. Keith, regarding site updates, I’m still having trouble loading pages without multiple refreshes using any and all iOS browsers available.

      1. Same for me.

        1. I’m in the Netherlands and cannot get through to the site with IE or Chrome, only Firefox, refresh and hope the “wrong” adverts don’t try to load…

          1. Sorry, running WinXP.

        2. Matt Pepprell
          12th April 2011, 11:21

          Even on the designed for mobile version of F1 Fanatic? If so, that sucks for you. Its fine on my Windows Phone 7, and Firefox (N900).

          Perhaps your browser is not configured correctly?

          — Matt

  7. Force Indias big announcement is that they are going to start paying their bills.

  8. Hi Keith,
    I sent you an email a good few weeks ago about my bday but I didn’t get a shoutout today. :(

    1. Happy Birthday, PieLighter!!!!

    2. Happy Birthday!!

    3. Happy birthday PieLighter!

    4. That username definitely warrants a mention – happy birthday!

      1. Happy Birthday PieLighter

    5. this shall not come to pass! happy bday all.

    6. Happy Birthday!

      I wonder if mine will get a mention on Saturday…

    7. Happy Birthday to you and your brother PieChucker :P

  9. I still have same problem using Safari 5.0.4 in a MAC OS X 10.6.7 :

    I cannot load the page. It just appear the menu bar, and in some occasions, the publicity banners.

    I cleared my browser cache as recommended but nothing happens.

    1. On OSX you can use Firefox with no problems. I’ve yet to find a browser for iPad that works though as they all seem to use the same engine as Safari (and probably Chrome as well). I wish there were an iPad version of Firefox.

    2. yeah it hangs a lot.. have to refresh quite a few times..

    3. jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
      12th April 2011, 7:36

      I have the same OSX, Chrome and Safari don’t work but Firefox does

      1. Thanks all, but I already use Firefox to visit this site, the only way to read and write comments. :-)

  10. whats the forceindia announcement ?

    1. Not sure but they have Hulkenberg in India & they say it will be something special.

    2. Intriguing!

      I like the Hulk, pretty disappointed to not see more of him this year.

      Maybe it’s something to do with who gets first run on the track?

  11. It’s funny that history is so quickly forgotten. Ferrari was hugely unsuccessful for 20 years or so, and now they’re in a bit of a slump they are immediately acting as if it is strange.
    Same with back markers. They have always been part of F1 history yet now people act as if they are a waste of grid space.
    And of course tires. Last year they were crying about the tires lasting to long. Now we have degrading tires, which means that there are marbles, and now the marbles are a problem.
    All that while history is for me one of the things that makes F1 worthwhile to watch. If someone would start a new racing series with for example the 2013 F1 regulations I probably wouldn’t watch it because it has no history at all. Same with Superleague Formula. Fast cars, good racing, yet very little people watch it compared to F1.

    1. yeah shame about superleague its good.

      i went to brands to see qualifying for it last year. was a good cheap day out. Tho qualy was hard to follow. Tho i had worked a night shift and then rode straight to the track, so was pretty tired by that point lol

    2. Hear hear. Spot on. Watch some of the classic races and the back markers are driving around slower than I would be in my road car :)

  12. In response to Jelle van der Meer’s COTD, I think I know the answer, back in the 1950’s, when F1 had just started, there were only 6 races in a year and if you finished you got 5th or something like that, it’s very easy to rack up a high percentage of success, whereas Schumi is reaching his 300th race quite soon, meaning each pole is only worth 0.33333%, and he’s not been on pole for even 100 races yet. Fangio might be the best in terms of percentages, but Schumi is the best in terms of numbers.

    As for Senna, well, he won it cause he was a brilliant driver, and quite rightly so… It’s a sad thing for me that I never saw Senna’s races cause I was born in ’95

    1. Yeh it pains me a little that when I was 4 it was 1990, I probably wouldn’t remember much now but I’m sure I could have had followed what was going on! Though really I have to ask, as an 8 year old could I have handled something like Senna dying?

      As to your first paragraph, I agree. Paul di Resta currently has 100% of races finishing in the points whereas the guy with the greatest percentage of podiums is actually Luigi Fagioli (who? I hear you cry) but he only competed in 7 races. I know it’s extreme but it illustrates the point.

Comments are closed.