Tag: Formula 1

Episode 181 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast

Doug Patterson

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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIt’s “We love Canada night” on Open Paddock! Hinch and Hargrove mount Canadian invasion in St. Pete. Kevin and Mike2 talk about the IndyCar season opener, the full gambit of Mazda Road to Indy races at St. Pete as well as the SCCA Pro Pirelli World Challenge. Mr. Whitesell leads us through the chaos that was the F1 Malasian GP, and Mr. Shaw closes out the show with all things rally. Sit back, crack open a ice cold Labatt Blue, and enjoy! Oh, and…

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Formula 1 – Ferrari Gamble and Lose

Shaun

In a brief span of a couple laps, Fernando Alonso committed more mistakes than he had all of the 2012 Formula 1 season. It started by shoving Sebastian Vettel which led to a severely damaged front wing. The wing was completely diagonal compared to its usual horizontal position. The wounded wing shot sparks out as it made contact with the quickly drying tarmac. Common sense would say pit and change the wing. This situation was not common sense at all. The fact of the matter was the track was drying…

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Formula 1 – Team Orders; Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Shaun

Following Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix, the world watched as Red Bull Racing suffered yet another implosion in inter team relations. Sebastian Vettel had done the unthinkable; he had passed Mark Webber after being told to hold position on the circuit. Mark Webber was clearly upset as he thought the race was over and had no idea why he was being challenged by Vettel. Almost immediately, fans took to the Twitter stream and the Facebook with comments regarding how dirty a move it had been on the part of Vettel. Mark…

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Formula 1 – Post Australia Team Power Rankings

Shaun

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

Shaun

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 – Grading NBC Sports Network

Shaun

The first race of the 2013 Formula 1 campaign has come to a conclusion. Here in the States, it was the first race of the new NBC Sports Network era. After over a decade of the Fox run Speed TV, NBC won the bidding war last season to host the races. For those not familiar with NBC Sports coverage of the IZOD IndyCar Series, it was a pretty big change in presentation. NBC worked hard to keep the core of the broadcast very similar to what we had on Speed.…

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Formula 1 – FP2 Notes; Vettel Sweeps Practice

Shaun

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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Episode 179 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast

Doug Patterson

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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWith rednecks revving their engines outside Mr. Neely’s hotel room and the soft, but ominous, purring of what sounds like a velociraptor every now and then in the background, we present Episode 179 of the OpenPaddock.net Podcast! Kevin Neely and our photographer Brian McKay report from Day 1 of the IndyCar pre-season open test at a very wet and soggy Barber Motorsports Park. Mike Shaw gives us a recap of this weekend’s WRC Rally Mexico in which Ken Block put in a surprising performance.…

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Formula 1 – Another Beautiful Letdown?

Shaun

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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