Formula 1 – Post Australia Team Power Rankings

Not a lot changed amongst the top three teams after the Australian Grand Prix. While Lotus struck first blood, Ferrari had a strong team showing with Alonso and a resurgent Felipe Massa. Red Bull also performed well during the course of the weekend with tire struggles hampering their ability to take advantage of their 1-2 start. Williams had a primarily disappointing weekend. While Valtteri Bottas finished his first ever Formula 1 race, Pastor Maldonado looked like a rookie and complained all weekend about how the car was junk. Marussia surprised…

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Formula 1 – Successful Debut for Rookies

It was a weekend filled with chaos for the newest class of rookies to join the Formula 1 championship. This weekend had pretty much everything! Dry running during Friday practice, torrential rain and an interrupted qualifying session on Saturday, finish qualifying and then start your first round of the championship on Sunday in tricky conditions. At the end of the day however, all five rookies kept the car on the island and finished their first ever grand prix. Both Valtteri Bottas and Jules Bianchi showed a lot of promise as…

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Formula 1 – FP2 Notes; Vettel Sweeps Practice

Sebastian Vettel stormed to P1 in both practice sessions from Albert Park as the 2013 Formula 1 season kicks off. Vettel’s Red Bull was the class of the field as he and the team picked up where they left off at the end of last season. There was a lot of interesting data collected as the super soft tire compound took center stage. The new Pirelli rubber was due to be faster by approximately a second, but suffered an extremely short life with times dropping almost immediately. The real surprise…

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Formula 1 – Another Beautiful Letdown?

Mercedes-Benz AMG is riding the wave of momentum into Australia for the Formula 1 opener. After topping the time sheets over the final two days of testing last week, expectations for the team are beginning to change. Mercedes were originally set to just survive the 2013 season with Lewis Hamilton making the switch over from McLaren. The interesting thing about it is the top teams now believe Mercedes could be the favorite as we are just a week out from Australia. The question is will 2013 be beautiful letdown sequel…

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Episode 178 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadA little delayed this week, but Episode 178 of the OpenPaddock.net Podcast is now available for your aural pleasure. Dr. Patterson and Mr. Whitesell cover the sobriety spectrum as Doug is stuck recording the show late night at the shop drinking potentially decaffeinated black tea while Mike enjoys a growler full of a fine local IPA. Mr. Neely is recovering from the plague and Mr. Shaw wonders why the hell he ever joined this sorry band of misfit motorsports fans! On this week’s show,…

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Formula 1 – Preseason Driver Power Rankings

After showing you how I feel the teams stack up for the start of 2013, I now give you all 22 drivers in the preseason driver power rankings. Please note that during the season we will only give the top 10 ranked drivers as it is frankly a pain the ass to do this for 22 drivers. Especially when we will forget half of them exist in about two weeks’ time! I will give a full update during the three week summer break and will have a full roundup at…

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Rally – VW Ready for Mexico Altitude

The World Rally Championship visits Mexico this weekend with many teams taking part in recce today. Mexico proves a tricky challenge not only for the drivers, but the engineers as well. For those who are new to the WRC, Rally Mexico pushes the teams to altitudes they do not experience anywhere else on the schedule. This has a major impact on the engine and how it performs. The official WRC page put up a great story here that detail how Volkswagen prepared for the tricky altitude conditions. “On the one…

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Formula 1 – Razia Out and Bianchi In at Marussia

One day after being ruled out of a seat at Force India, Jules Bianchi has landed a seat with Marussia with two testing days left until the 2013 season kicks off. Bianchi who had been reserve driver with Force India will take the race seat of Luiz Razia. A terrible and gut wrenching afternoon for Razia after his sponsor failed to deliver payment to the team. Bianchi will be set to test the Marussia over the final two days of the last preseason test. While heartbreaking for Razia, this is…

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Formula 1 – Ferrari Downplay Pace

Ferrari has looked pretty good so far during pre-season testing. At a minimum they look a lot better than a year ago. I found it really funny that a lot of fans on the forums have been rather critical of Stefano Domenicali and Ferrari for playing down their pace heading into Australia. The Italian squad firmly believes they will not be the fastest car for 2013 season opener. While it is hard to judge pace during testing, Fernando Alonso and Ferrari set one of the fastest times at the last…

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