Speaking of Caterham, Kovalainen reckons that Karthikeyan cost him 6 tenths. Whilst it wouldn't have cost him a place, Karthikeyan should definitely be penalised, if he'd held up someone higher up the grid like that they could have lost 5 or 5 places.
Interesting quote here from HRT: Is it just me reading it wrong, or does that imply that they don't expect to have the car properly shaken down and with a chance of qualifying until China?
Katrhikeyan did it all last season as well, ad hardly ever got penalised. I have no idea why the hell he's on the grid in the first place.
If memory serves, last season he was a proper pay driver. Not just someone with lucrative sponsors, but actually paying out of his own pocket to race.
Great stuf from McLaren. Will the qualifying be shown on normal tv chaps? What a con I don't get to see the races.
Thank you. I do love a bit of F1. Shame the BBC sold out and I don't have sky. Take it it's on 5Live? Which is great.
Him bringing Tata to the party doesn't hurt though. Don't understand why Tata don't just sponsor HRT and let them put someone else in the car mind...
HRT are out of the race. http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/aus-document-32.pdf it says: The Stewards received a request from HRT F1 Team to allow car 22 Pedro de la Rosa and car 23 Narain Karthikeyan to take part in the race under exceptional circumstances having failed to set a lap time within 107% in Q1. The Stewards having considered all relevant material decide to not allow both cars to take part in the race in accordance with article 36.1 FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.
Definitely. This can't continue anymore - he needs to go, even if that means bringing in Perez half a season early. Good.
Forgive me if I missed it (so much to read through ) - BUT - how are the various cars looking re-tyres?. 58 laps - how many sets of each are left to the drivers? i didn't keep up with what tyre degradation was like during FP etc. There must be some indication on running with full fuel load? Can anybody make suggestions?
Seven teams made it to Q3. It's great that the teams so close to each other and if this continues, some drivers are going to be shown up by their teammates. Senna should be ashamed of himself.
Rather depressingly for Bruno it looks like Maldonado is considered team leader. Nevertheless he was only 3 tenths off Q3. Kobayashi's probably not best pleased either given his Q2 time was nearly half a second behind his Q1-topper. Wonder if he made a mistake.
He is, it was official from the moment Maldonado was announced as Williams driver with Valteri Bottas as test/reserve driver, long before they announced that Senna was coming in instead of Barrichello.
He was only 3 tenths off Maldonado's time. Hardly enough to be ashamed about. Especially when di Resta was 8/tenths slower than Hulk.
Both HRT drivers have received reprimands. De la Rosa for impeding Kovalainen and Karthikeyan for impeding Alonso, according to Adam Cooper. In a way this was the maximum penalty the stewards could impose. A grid penalty is meaningless if they can't race but a reprimand is caried forward; three reprimands = a five place grid drop.
