Mark Webber ended Sebastian Vettel’s run of five consecutive pole positions to snatch pole for tomorrow’s Spanish GP at Barcelona. Vettel finished second on the grid while third place on the grid will be filled up by Lewis Hamilton. Red Bull Racing is having a dream run and even though Vettel’s pole run has been broken Red Bull Racing’s run continues for Webber also drives for the same team. Fernando Alonso finished fourth in qualifying today and will line up alongside old nemesis Lewis Hamilton. Incredibly enough Vettel has finished on the front row of the grid for ten successive races so far. Mark Webber’s comeback continues and it should be interesting to see how he fares in the race tomorrow. Normally Barcelona does not aid overtaking but with this year’s artificial aids such as the rapidly degrading Pirelli tyres, the DRS system and KERS that bit about the circuit is most likely to change. All these factors have more or less rendered qualifying slightly meaningless.
Yearly Archives: 2011
Free practice sessions at Barcelona in Spain, the venue for this weekend’s GP, have thrown up Mark Webber and Red Bull Racing as leaders. Mark Webber has had a poor start to his season with a spate of incidents that can be put down to misfortune and has been trailing his team mate Sebastian Vettel. The last to GPs have seen a resurgent Webber demonstrating that he can still fight for the championship and Webber has gone rather well so far at Catalunya. Now to wait for qualifying and the race.
Kimi Raikonnen was bought out of his Ferrari contract at the end of 2009 because the Italian team found the Finn inconsistent and also because they hastened the advent of Fernando Alonso to the team. The phlegmatic Finn who is known to be very greedy went rallying with the Citroen Rally team to have a most unimpressive season in 2010. He did not find a drive for this year in the WRC and has entered with a rented car in a team that is his own creation. He has not been competing in all rounds of the WRC. Raikonnen is now trying out NASCAR racing in the trucks category but says he is yet to make his mind up about what he wants to do in the future. He says he is still open to an F1 comeback. We suspect F1 has already forgotten Raikonnen and has moved on.
To artificially spice up racing the FIA has decided to have two stretches of racing tarmac instead of one for the DRS system to be used. The DRS system means that the drag on the rear wing is reduced by opening a flap and this aids in overtaking. So far only one stretch on the track is open for DRS enabling. But in Canada and Valencia this can be done in two places. The FIA has also said that the DRS cannot be used in the tunnel and at Eau Rouge in Monaco for reasons of safety.
In what appears to be an unending story the new engine formula that is due to kick in from the year 2013 onwards has now found opposition from the engine manufacturers in Formula1. The new engine formula desires to have four cylinder 1.6 litre turbo charged engines. This was a move designed to attract new manufacturers such as Volkswagen and re-entice Honda and Toyota back into F1. However no such thing has happened and does not look like it will either. The existing manufacturers are now saying that moving to this new engine formula will push up costs. Cosworth has expressed apprehensions about losing customers if prices go up. Mercedes Benz too believes that this may not be the best move. Ferrari have been vociferously opposing the move to the new engine formula along with Bernie Ecclestone and the FOM. Renault seems to be the only manufacturer still undecided. Renault’s indecision may mean that it could even quit F1 by the end of next year.
Wheelsunplugged.com has reported that Mahindra and the Gujarat based Atul Auto have expressed interest in acquiring Scooters India Limited, after the Union Government has decided to put it up for sale. We carried a story of the history of this company yesterday. It remains to be seen if the Government can actually sell this sick unit to anybody anytime.
Honda Siel Cars India believes that it will be around July or maybe even August before it can commence full production again. Owing to the after effects of the tsunami that ravaged Japan Honda cut its production by 50% citing the non availability of parts from Japan. Toyota too had done the same but somehow seems to have recovered faster with production ready to go back to normal levels anytime now. This bit of news from Honda would mean that the Brio small car will be launched during the festival season at the earliest.
It seems that along with the Innova the Fortuner will also receive a face lift. Cars Bikes.in is carrying a picture of the face lifted Fortuner with a grille that is now more like the one on the Land Cruiser LC-200 and the Prado. This photo seems to be from Indonesia where in the face lifted Innova was spotted. These changes will make it to the Indian market only in 2012.
Some days ago we brought you the news that trial production of the Mini Xylo may have commenced. Hot on the heels of that bit of information is the news that Indian Autos Blog is carrying. It says that the Mini Xylo (we are sure the final name will be different) will be launched in less than two months time. IAB is also saying that the pricing will be in the INR 5-7 lakh range. If the pricing news is accurate, we think the smaller version of the Xylo will be considered over priced.
This is the news doing the rounds in automobile publications on the net and off it. Bajaj has been saying that it will re-launch the Boxer series with a 150cc engine for starters. As per Rajiv Bajaj’s plan Bajaj will have the Pulsar, Discover and Boxer brands catering to the sports bike enthusiast, the executive commuter and for the rural and load carrying markets respectively. The Boxer is being positioned as the Bharat Bike just like Daimler AG decided that its India range of trucks will be sold as Bharat Benz. Bharat seems to be flavour of the season with Toyota’s India website being called Toyota Bharat.