Fab four for Hamilton at Spa

F1 News

Date: 24/August/2013

Lewis Hamilton made its four F1 pole positions in a row after emerging on top of a thrilling qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

Rain showers kept the drivers on their toes until the end, with Force India’s Paul Di Resta holding the advantage until a last-gasp improvement in conditions saw Mark Webber, then Sebastian Vettel and finally Hamilton claim pole.

Hamilton, who took his first Mercedes victory just before the summer break, said: “When I started the lap, I saw on the screen that I was about seventh or eighth and I thought ‘Oh my God’, especially as it was raining more.

“Then I went wide in turn one and my dashboard was really confusing me in terms of whether I was up or down on my previous lap. I pushed quite a lot in the middle sector particularly as I thought I was down three seconds. I was really caning it!

“I can’t remember the last time I crossed the line and had such a good feeling. I was looking for the TV screens and I could see the team was cheering so I couldn’t believe it. It’s just crazy to think that this is my 31st pole and it still feels like it’s the first one. It’s just an incredible feeling and I’m very grateful to be here today.”

The Red Bulls had looked especially strong during free practice, but Hamilton feels he has a fighting chance in the race.

“I think this weekend they’ve both shown incredible pace. But I’m hoping that whatever the conditions tomorrow we can try to fight it out with them. I generally feel we’re quite close.

“I still feel the Red Bull is a little bit ahead of us and that’s why results like this today feel even better, because it feels like we extracted more than what the car can actually do, so I’m really happy with it.”

Vettel starts round eleven of 19 with a 38-point lead over Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen, with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso a further point behind. Raikkonen and Alonso will start eighth and ninth respectively.

Hamilton is nine points behind Alonso in the standings.

Crutchlow shows Yamaha what they’ll be missing

MotoGP News

Date: 24/August/2013

Cal Crutchlow gave Yamaha a taste of what they’ll be missing next season as he snatched his second MotoGP pole at Brno.

Overlooked for full factory status at Yamaha, satellite Tech 3 rider Crutchlow is leaving to join Ducati’s official team at the end of this year.

The Englishman was the only M1 rider in the top four during qualifying in Czech Republic, with Yamaha’s World Champion Jorge Lorenzo 0.442s slower in fifth.

Crutchlow’s first grand prix pole came at Assen earlier this year, when Lorenzo was absent through injury.

Crutchlow said: “It’s nice to take a true pole, because I felt Assen wasn’t with Jorge not able to ride. So to battle and be the top Yamaha today is probably the best thing.

“I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow; hopefully we can aim for the podium, that’s the key in these three races and then go to my home race at Silverstone strong.”

Crutchlow is fifth in the World Championship, with four podiums so far this year. His first rostrum came at Brno last year.

Alvaro Bautista and Marc Marquez will join Crutchlow on the front row, with Marquez’s title rivals Dani Pedrosa and Lorenzo heading row two.

Former rival Symonds ready to lead Williams ‘orchestra’

F1 News

Date: 23/August/2013

Pat Symonds, who spent much of the 1990s battling against Williams, is now the man chosen to help revive the teams flagging F1 fortunes.

Williams appointed Symonds as its Chief Technical Officer once the FIA ‘ban’ imposed on the Englishman as a result of Nelson Piquet Jr’s deliberate accident in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix had expired.

That incident was the low point of Symonds’ otherwise illustrious engineering career, resulting in him leaving the Renault F1 team, with which he had enjoyed World Championship success with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.

“Williams does have that incredible heritage and it’s a heritage I respect a lot,” said Symonds of his new team. “But we can’t live in the past. They were great times, of course they were, but my job now is to make the team today as successful as it was then. It’s quite a challenge but it’s a very enjoyable challenge.”

The task ahead is considerable. Although Williams won a race last season, it was very much a flash in the pan. The team’s last Drivers’ title was with Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 and Pastor Maldonado’s shock Spanish win is the only Williams podium since 2008.

“The fundamentals of the team are there,” said Symonds. “It’s a very well equipped team, it has some very good people in it. An analogy I often use is it’s like being the conductor of an orchestra.

“I think we have some very good instrumentalists in our orchestra. And now we just really need to get them timed together, playing the same tune and bring the success back.

“I think what we need to do at Williams is to look at process and that’s really where my focus will be.”

Symonds also believes that the new 2014 technical rules will make all teams re-examine their established ‘processes’.

“It is huge,” Symonds said of the impact of the regulation changes. “When we have reasonably stable regulations you iterate to those priorities. You also iterate to similar processes.

“Now when the rule book is ripped up and you start again, you really have to think about what processes are important - what’s going to bring you performance.

“And of course while everyone is focused on the powertrain and there are a lot of things to do there - cooling’s a huge challenger, energy management is a huge challenge - but of course we must not forget that it’s a reasonably significant aerodynamic change we’re making to the cars.

“And we never ‘un-invent’ anything, we never forget what we’ve already done. So we’re not dropping any of our technologies in order to bring the new ones in, we’re just adding to the job”

Despite the challenges, Symonds wholly supports the rule changes and hopes they will prove to the outside world the kind of ‘green’ progress that cutting edge motorsport can provide.

“Formula One, I think, is guilty of far too often hiding its light under a bushel and a lot of the very great things we do as engineers in Formula One we like to keep to ourselves and I think it’s time for that to change.

“I think it’s time for the world to know what we are doing with Formula One powertrains in 2014 is really quite advanced. It really is something new, it really is the way of the future and therefore I think we can stop - before it happens - those who may wish to criticise Formula One and motor sport in general for carbon emissions.

“Fossil fuels are here to stay, let’s use them efficiently and I think Formula One is doing that, and I think we should be very proud of what we’re doing and we should tell the world what we’re doing.”