This year has seen the return of the hallowed Castrol Honda name to World Superbike Racing and today at the Dutch Superbike race1 at Assen, Castrol Honda has taken its first win of 2011 in the hands of Jonathan Rea. The race was keenly contested in the early stages but towards the end Jonathan Rea had pulled away sufficiently from Max Biaggi who finished in second place on the Alitalia Aprilia, comfortably ahead of fellow MotoGP refugee Carlos Checa who started from pole on the sole Althea Ducati. Carlos Checa himself was reasonably ahead of another MotoGP refugee and a new addition to this years Superbike grid, Marco Melandri on the Yamaha. Breaking the string of GP refugees was Michel Fabrizio who rode a good strong race on the only Suzuki on the grid to finish in fifth. The Kawasaki of Tom Sykes raised expectations sky high when he reached P3 during the early part of the race and also went on to set the fastest lap of the race but everything came crashing down when he went rapidly backwards apparently due to a gamble of a soft rear tyre that did not pay off. He finally finished fourteenth behind his team mate Joan Lascorz who had a less spectacular and more steady race to finish eleventh.
Yearly Archives: 2011
Lewis Hamilton overcame personal demons and criticism of the way in which he uses his tyres to move from third position to taking victory. During the race there were enough dramas and there was reason to believe that Hamilton could go as far back as sixth or seventh at the end of the race. However, for once Hamilton kept his cool, preserved his tyres even better the Jenson Button (who is considered to be very kind on his tyres) to finish ahead of Sebastian Vettel and the charging Mark Webber. Hamilton did not flatter to deceive this time.
Sebastian Vettel started on pole while Webber started way behind in P 17. However, by the end of the race Mark Webber had hoisted himself to P3 after coming through the field, while Vettel lost one place to go down to P2. Vettel lost his position at the first turn when both McLarens of Hamilton and Button got ahead of him. He later clawed his first position back but an error in pit stop strategy (he stopped only twice) saw him slip back from P1 to P2. Webber was the story of the day though. He kept his cool and did nothing stupid on his climb to P3 and onto the podium. What makes this feat even more remarkable is the fact that he did not have a properly functioning KERS system. Bravo Mark Webber.
Over the last few years Fernando Alonso has successfully made enemies with a lot of Formula 1 fans. His tantrums at McLaren and currying favour with Ferrari by bringing the Santander Bank sponsorship (this move saw the greedy Kimi Raikonnen lose his place in F1) and to top it all requesting Ferrari to ask team mate Massa out of the way last season have not endeared him to many. In the last two races i.e at Sepang and Shanghai he has finished behind Massa. There is poetic justice perhaps, in this world.
Michael Schumacher salvaged a little pride by moving up from 14th on the grid to finish 8th. At one time he was up to P6 but ultimately fell back to P8. His team mate Nico Rosberg looked like a potential winner at one point but issues of fuel economy saw him move rapidly back from P1 that he held for sometime. Today’s race seems to indicate a small resurgence of sorts in the Mercedes GP form and hopefully they will see victory soon. Nico Rosberg is today considered to the most talented driver on the grid to never have won a race. Both he and Mercedes GP need to break the jinx soon.
Carlos Checa might not have any notable achievements to his credit in MotoGP but he has been going great guns ever since he switched to World Superbikes. This year he is on the Althea Ducati, the one man team which is purportedly getting factory backing. He has been going well on it and now has set the pole position timing at the Superpole at Assen. Reigning World Champion Biaggi on the factory Aprilia could get to only sixth and behind the privateer Aprilia of Noriyuki Haga who qualified in 4th position. The new Kawasaki ZX 10 R has been doing reasonably well in the hands of Tom Sykes who qualified it in P7 while Chris Vermeulen did not make into the Superpole.
Aston Martin in association with the Infiniti group is bringing their entire range of cars except the Cygnet to India. On the top of the heap is the One-77 which comes in at a whopping Rs. 20 crore!!! Their other cars such as the DB7, DB9, DBS, Rapide, Vantage and the Virage will also come here. The Cygnet which is a re-badged Toyota is not being brought in here for it is small car with a huge price tag and therefore it will not have a market.
Autocar India has reported that Lamborghini has decided on Autohangar, dealers of Mercedes Benz in Mumbai, as the first dealers of Lamborghini cars in India. If the news is true than Autohangar joins the list of hallowed dealers such as the Shreyans group.
Mark Webber is showing a surprisingly strong character this season. After having been done in by the KERS system on two race weekends, Webber is taking it all philosophically. He says people have had worse luck than he has been having and that there is no point dwelling on these things too much. He has also not said anything about KERS working on Sebastian Vettel’s car. Is Webber trying to please Helmut Marko? Maybe…..
After Sam Michael has sworn that the problems with the Williams F1 car will be fixed, the team has been working on upgrades to make the car go faster. One of the plans was to have an exhaust blown diffuser by the time of the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul. However, it has now emerged that Williams is working on new front and rear wings and has decided to drop the plan of an exhaust blown diffuser. Hope things work for them, they are too good a team to be languishing in the mid field or at the back.