A festival of F1 in London - the first ever Race Week

F1 fans who're likely to be in or near London in the week before this year's British Grand Prix may be interested in Race Week. This is a brand new sporting festival for this year, which is taking place on Thursday 3rd July 2014, day and evening, at the Royal Artillery Gardens which is a six acre open site in central London.

Charles Pic and a Lotus were in London
recently to launch Race Week

It'll be an action-packed day, and a real treat for any F1 fan. This unique celebration of all things F1 will include:

• Appearances by F1 stars and their cars;
• F1 cars performing high adrenaline stunts for the attending crowds including doughnuts and burn outs;
• Over 50 historic F1 cars including some of the world's rarest such as Ayrton Senna's 1984 Toleman and Michael Schumacher's 1992 Benetton in which he won his first ever Grand Prix; 
• F1 simulators, as used by the teams, in which Race Week attendees can try to beat the times set by F1 drivers;
• F1 memorabilia shopping and a luxury shopping village;
• F1 driver autograph session including driver Q&A sessions; 
• The F1 driver's cricket match (last played in 1974 with James Hunt and Niki Lauda among others);
• Grand Prix Ball, the annual black tie spectacular attended by the stars of F1 - all in support of The Prince's Trust;
• Black Ball Race Forum – an F1 business forum (in partnership with Sports Pro); 
• Post British Grand Prix drivers' party; and
• Invitation to young Londoners to learn about apprenticeships in F1.

So plenty going on in other words for the F1 aficionado...

Jonny Dodge, CEO of Race Week, said:

'We're really looking forward to launching the Race Week festival in London. The UK is often called the spiritual home of F1 and so it's about time an event took place where race fans and committed petrol heads can come together and enjoy some of the glamour, excitement and sophistication of F1. And, of course, we are delighted to be supporting the Prince's Trust as part of the Grand Prix Ball'.

You can find out more about the Race Week festival at http://www.raceweeklondon.com. Tickets are £40 and can be purchased on the website too via this link: http://raceweeklondon.com/purchase-tickets/.

You can also follow Race Week London 2014 on Twitter at @raceweeklondon.

And for tickets to the Grand Prix Ball on Thursday 3rd July visit: http://www.gpball.co.uk.

And here's a video of Charles Pic launching Race Week recently:

My Top Ten Drivers of 2013: The Rest...

Here are my views on those F1 drivers from 2013 who didn't make my top 10 ranking that I published a few days ago.

My top 10 drivers of 2013 can be read here.

There were two drivers that came closest to pipping Paul di Resta for tenth place in the 2013 ranking: Felipe Massa and Daniel Ricciardo.

Felipe Massa is yet another in the F1 fraternity who must feel like 12 months ago may as well be another age. It's terribly easy to forget now, but rewind back to when we had but two races down in this campaign and Felipe looked close to the top of his game, or at least much closer than he had for years. Then he'd just qualified ahead of his haughty stable mate Fernando Alonso four times on the spin (including from the previous year) - some of the overexcited talked of him 'getting under Alonso's skin'.

Photo: Octane Photography

All a long time ago, as I said. The Felipe feelgood factor unravelled fairly quickly, as is often his way given as F1 drivers go he's always seemed particularly vulnerable to 'letting his chin drop', to use the British parlance. And where it really started to go wrong for him was a Monaco weekend wherein he crashed spectacularly in practice (forcing him to sit out qualifying) and then managed to do close to identical in the race. This was the start of a dark cloud passing over his campaign under which errors were frequent, and he crashed in the next two rounds - qualifying in Canada and practice in Silverstone - both of which compromised him, and then in Germany he spun out of the race early on. Sure enough, come Monza Ferrari had informed him that after eight years driving for the Scuderia he would have to seek alternative employers next year.

To a large extent 2013 seemed merely a continuation of what had come before for Massa. Again he scored fewer than half of Alonso's points total; again there were errors; again he seemed to never be quicker than Alonso on a race day; again even when he was about as quick there would be spells in races wherein his pace would taper off unfathomably. However, after his departure was confirmed there was a mini-upturn, him looking roughly as quick as Alonso in Monza, Japan and Abu Dhabi as well as running ahead of the Spaniard for much of the way in each race. His run to fourth in India was good too. And his quali match up with his team mate was more than respectable, being 11-8 to Alonso. Furthermore Felipe's not giving up on the sport, as he's struck a deal to race a Williams next year. How he fares in a new environment, and away from Alonso's long shadow, will be fascinating to watch.

Daniel Ricciardo however is journeying in the opposite direction: doing enough with midfielders Toro Rosso to be selected to join the big league in a Red Bull for 2014. The move was accompanied by a certain amount of cynicism - Red Bull is just signing a rabbit that won't threaten Seb was the gist - but don't be caught thinking that the cynics have a monopoly on wisdom; there are reasons to think that the big team selected Ricciardo for all of the right reasons.

Further thoughts on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Who goes where?
On the subject of silly season, this year's version still has a way to go. We're now firmly ensconced in November and only four teams - Ferrari, Mercedes and the two Red Bull collectives - have confirmed their driving line up for 2014. Many of those remaining haven't even confirmed a single member of their duo.

You'd have thought that Nico Hulkenberg
will now be confirmed at Lotus
Photo: Octane Photography

Much of the blockage apparently is due to waiting for the Lotus-Quantum-Hulkenberg situation to resolve itself. The Quantum Motorsports consortium is looking to buy a 35% stake in the team that would greatly ease Lotus's financial situation, and would in turn allow it to sign Nico Hulkenberg for next year (if it didn't come off it was thought that the team would instead go for Pastor Maldonado and his £30m annual wedge of PDVSA money). Over the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend Quantum chief Mansoor Ijaz said the deal was now virtually done, and that he supports the recruitment of Hulk, so there'd now be something seriously wrong if the rapid German doesn't end up there. And it should, you'd have thought, create a knock-on impact of a few other pieces falling into place elsewhere in this particular puzzle in short order. The resurgent Romain Grosjean is expected to fill the other Lotus seat.

Next up, McLaren which is most likely to retain its current line up, but its delay in confirming as much suggests it still hasn't given up on recruiting Fernando Alonso for next year (which would really put the cat among the pigeons). Murmurs persist that the team isn't too thrilled with Sergio Perez, and may even at Checo's expense fast track its young prodigy and FR3.5 champion Kevin Magnussen - whom Woking considers an excellent long-term prospect - into a race seat for next year (a few say that Alonso-Magnussen is the plan for 2015). And Perez dropping out of McLaren, with his Mexican commercial possibilities, presumably will create a ripple further along this particular game of musical chairs.

Spa Qualifying: Order out of chaos

Spa and rain go together - that we know. Spa and entertainment go together also. So to take it rationally Spa plus rain should equal a double dosage of entertainment. And that indeed is usually the way of it. It was very much so today.

Today's was the sort of action-packed wet-to-dry qualifying session that Spa seems to have provided who knows how many times before. But even among these, or among qualifying sessions seen anywhere anytime, it is hard genuinely to cite one as dramatic, as nerve-shredding, with as many twists.

Lewis Hamilton eventually left them trailing
Photo: Octane Photography

But somehow at the end of it all the haphazard session provided a rather un-haphazard result by recent standards. Lewis Hamilton seized his fourth pole position on the bounce, and with Sebastian Vettel next up it is the third time in a row that those two have shared the front row in that order. But you know what they say: don't judge a book by its cover.

Only Harold Pinter it seems does dramatic timing as well as Spa's micro-climate. Having stayed away all day, though never seeming far away, rain arrived minutes before the red light went out for the qualifying session's start. This gave us one of those sessions in Q1 that we know so well, wherein the track gradually dried, and drivers could be at the top of the times only to be in the drop zone before anyone knew it. In the end, the big names survived, but there were still upsets. The unlikely figure of Giedo van der Garde, as well as the two Marussia pilots, were those with the chutzpah to try slick tyres near the end, and all were rewarded with rare progress from Q1. The reward was particularly great in van der Garde's case as he ended up placed P3 in the first session, which furthermore set him up for a fine P14 on the starting grid. That will no doubt please the Dutch hordes who are in attendance at Spa to follow him. And it all meant that the two Toro Rossos and the two Williams, along with Chrlaes Pic and Esteban Guiterrez, left the stage early.

Bahrain GP Report: Vettel wins a race of one

We really never seem to learn, do we? Red Bull, particularly that driven by Sebastian Vettel, simply cannot be disregarded. The combination must always be factored into any F1 equation, unless you're certain that they've all actually left the circuit and are on their way back to Milton Keynes. And rather like the antagonist of a horror film, it has a tendency to suddenly burst into shot for the kill at the precise point that you think it's finally killed off. There has been much agonising over the Red Bull team this year, many talking about it being not quite ruling the roost as it once did, some having it in a state of meltdown. And yet Sebastian Vettel won the Bahrain Grand Prix at a cruise today, and Red Bull is bossing both championship tables after four rounds. Whatever problems it may have they must be nice ones to have.

All of a sudden, from existing in a season that had looked like it would give the established order a bit of a shake, we all seem to still be exactly where we have been for a good while: scratching our heads on how exactly the Vettel-Red Bull combo can be usurped. And the next race, but three weeks away, starts the European season at which point the major plot lines of the year tend to be set. Many at rivals teams will be feeling right now a little like they've received a firm slap across the face.

Sebastian Vettel - bouncing back to win
Credit: Morio / CC

Today's race was in effect a race of one. But few expected that Seb would be the one that was cruising to victory. Alonso's Ferrari would get the jump at the start they said, and the Ferrari has better race pace. As does Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus, coming up from eighth, and indeed Kimi may be able to do a two-stopper thus jumping much traffic. But today is just the latest reminder that Vettel when at the sharp end is always a contender, and so it proved. Alonso did indeed get ahead of Seb at the start, but Seb at turn four gave his first indication that he wasn't willing to cede to convention by decisively sweeping past Alonso. And then two laps later he scythed past surprise pole man Nico Rosberg in similar style to lead, and was never seen again. All the while he showed both a pace and an ability to sustain it over a stint that no one else could get near.

Further thoughts on the Chinese Grand Prix

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be
I reckon I must have been watching the wrong race last Sunday. I saw one that, while it wasn't necessarily a classic, was perfectly diverting, at the front was fought among the best F1 drivers in the best cars, contained plenty of overtakes as well as nine lead changes, included a range of divergent strategies playing themselves out, had an exciting finish as a freshly-booted Sebastian Vettel sought to chase down a podium finish at an astonishing rate, and provided a highly worthy winner. Pretty close to what the modern formula is designed to create in other words. And yet, to hear some of the reaction expressed online and elsewhere, what I actually saw was an hour and a half that made a mockery of the sport. Perhaps I'd put the wrong TV channel on by mistake.

The Pirellis once again
were on everyone's lips
Credit: Rich Jones / CC

Regular readers of this site (hello to both of you...) may be aware by now that I don't have much truck for the ongoing 'tyred and emotional' complaints regarding the Pirelli tyres. This is mainly on the grounds that what we have now is much preferable to what we had before. In pre-Pirelli times, when tyres hardly wore out, what would occur most of the time was we'd have qualifying and a resultant grid order, then in the race a first lap shake out and then...precisely nothing would happen. Anyone who watched the 'classic' Chinese Grand Prix of 2008 shown on TV in its entirety last week witnessed a quintessential example of this norm stretched out over a soporific ninety minutes. And this tyre formula signed off appropriately, with the farcical sight of a world championship being decided as a contender, Fernando Alonso, sat behind a plainly slower car for fully 40 laps, not passing or even having the remotest possibility of doing so (short of the guy ahead binning it). And this is Alonso, one of the sport's most tigerish performers in the normal run of things, let alone when a title's at stake. What we had absolutely was nothing to do with motor racing in my view. Therefore, the talk eulogising F1's mythical 'good old days' is absurd. And while some splutter that the limited lifespan of the Pirellis is engineered for 'the show', the show must be considered as well as the technical exercise. Without wishing to be facetious, if no one is prepared to watch the show then there is no F1, as no one would invest money in it.

F1 2013 Season Preview: Caterham - The honeymoon is over

Things are changing for Caterham. In F1 as in anything else, people begin to notice when promises exceed delivery on a persistent basis. Excuses wear thin after a while. Awkward questions start to get asked. That's where the Caterham is at now. For this team, the honeymoon is over.

Credit: Alex Comerford / CC

Of course, it wasn't always this way. For a lot of the team's existence its image was akin to that of a cuddly toy. It was by far the most convincing of the three outfits that arrived in the sport for the start of the 2010 season. It received much kudos for rising from scratch in a matter of months before its race debut. Team Principal Tony Fernandes was a refreshingly open and engaging figure in the paddock. It even for a time ran with the evocative Lotus name, and was based near the famous old team's Hethel headquarters. Its cars weren't on the pace of the midfield, or even close to it, but that would come with time, right?

But now, as the team enters season number four of its existence, the tide of perception is turning. For all of Caterham's smart media management and bold proclamations that the corner was about to be turned, that it was about to make the seismic step into the pack and into points-scoring positions, somehow it still seems barely further forward from where it's always been. There might have been progress relative to the cars ahead over time, but if there has been it is glacial. The gap to F1's peleton still seems gaping, and by Tony Fernandes's own standards set in advance this represents failure (indeed, Mike Gascoyne said that if it hadn't joined the midfield by 2012 then the team will have 'cocked it up').

My Top Ten Drivers of 2012: The Rest...

Here are my views on those F1 drivers from 2012 who didn't make my top 10 ranking I published a few days ago.

My top 10 drivers of 2012 can be read here.

From about seventh place downwards in my ranking a number of drivers were in close contention with each other. Those who came particularly close to making the top 10 (in no particular order) were Sergio Perez, Michael Schumacher, Pastor Maldonado and Paul Di Resta.

Credit: Morio / CC

Sergio Perez is perhaps the most glaring omission from the final cut, given his season featured three memorable podium runs in Malaysia, Montreal and Monza. There he showed astounding confidence and verve and found pace to sail through the field like he was operating with different laws of physics to anyone else, and further he gets his big break for 2013 with a move to McLaren. But Sergio's problem is that an F1 season lasts 20 races, and aside from the three races mentioned there wasn't a great deal to write home about. There was one good race (Hockenheim), a couple more in which he was unlucky to start at the back (Melbourne and Monaco) and three more where first lap contact put him to the back (Spain) or wiped him out altogether (Spa and Brazil). But in the remaining races you'd hardly know that he was there.

And worse, in the latter part of the year and with a signed McLaren contract in his pocket he threw errors into the mix too. He binned it in Suzuka (trying to pass Lewis Hamilton - the guy he's replacing next year - no less) then making what looked avoidable contact with other cars in each of the next four races. Rumour has the top brass at Sauber believing that Perez is inconsistent, and that the C31 was a better car than he tended to make it look. And what about those podium runs themselves: how much of those were down to Perez's driving and how much down to the peculiar magic touch of the C31 on the Pirelli tyres if voodoo-like factors aligned? Next year, in the McLaren glare, we'll start to get answers to some of these questions. Of course, it's a fantastic opportunity and he is young and has time to improve. But at the very least all at McLaren would be forgiven for having some doubts about its new charge. Indeed, some recent comments from Martin Whitmarsh seem to betray as much.

This year we finally witnessed the swansong of the great Michael Schumacher. Debates about the wisdom of his comeback will continue to rage no doubt, but this year Schumi continued his year-on-year improvement since his return in 2010, and for the most part drove more than respectably. The qualifying gap between him and Rosberg was closed for the first time, and he was often the more convincing in races too, particularly in the year's mid-part when the lemon-like characteristics of the W03 became obvious. The main problem Schumi had was that intangible quality called luck. The opening round in Melbourne summed up his season: he qualified fourth (ahead of his team mate) and was running strongly in third...then his hydraulics went. In no fewer than six of the first seven rounds something impeded or stopped Schumi through little fault of his, and over the piece there were five mechanical retirements for him (compared to Rosberg's big fat zero). Without the bad luck it would have been fascinating to see if he could have beaten Rosberg's points total.

F1 2012 Season Preview: Marussia - Moving in the right direction or a false dawn?

This year should represent something of a clean slate for Marussia. Much changed in mid-2011, with their previous unorthodox approach tempered, and there are signs that they're beginning to move in the right direction. But, despite all of this, preparations for the start of the 2012 season have not gone to plan.

Credit: Alex Comerford / CC

The team entered the sport in 2010 as a collaboration between F3 Euroseries squad Manor Motorsport and Wirth Research. Prior to their debut the team distinguished themselves mainly via a couple of avenues: one is they acquired the name Virgin Racing after the Virgin Group acquired the title sponsorship rights, the other is they raised a lot of eyebrows by stating that the car would be designed without use of wind tunnels, instead using only CFD computer simulations of airflow.

Times have been difficult since. Their debut year was tricky enough (and contained an egregious error by the team, where they had to admit that their fuel tank was too small for the car to last a race distance without swingeing fuel-saving). And, worse, 2011 represented a step backwards from that, falling even further behind the pace as well as further behind the progress of Lotus who'd entered the sport at the same time as they.