Sunday, November 16, 2014

2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix preview

Wow! The season's last race is almost here. A little while ago we were all waiting for the season to start and now it's almost over! Time flies when we are having fun. That means when we are watching F1 every other weekend.

I was supposed to go to Abu Dhabi again this year but didn't get good tickets in time. I also didn't get any cheap flights from Finland. Should have bought the tickets months before! The two other times I have been there I have also reserved in the last minute. This time I wasn't that lucky. It would have been nice to visit Dubai as well. I love that city!

Not much to say so I will talk about the same things as last year:

The Yas Marina track has hosted the Abu Dhabi GP 5 times in it's history so it's quite new. The facilities are one of the best in the world at least for me as a spectator. It is the only GP that has daylight and dark in the same race.

In 2010 Sebastian Vettel won his first world championship when Alonso couldn't get pass Vitaly Petrov. It was one of the most moving moments of Vettel's career when he cried on the podium.

After winning his first championship in 2010.


In 2011 he had already won the championship when the Formula One circus returned to Abu Dhabi. That race he retired right after the start and the whole crowd in Abu Dhabi cheered. The sound was quite loud, trust me, I was there.

In 2012 Sebastian started from the back of the grid but managed to get 3rd place. Alonso was second and Kimi Räikkönen took the maiden victory for the new Team Lotus. Everybody remembers the classic radio conversations between Kimi and Alan Permane(?)

Here is a video with the radio conversations:

They made t-shirts of Kimi's comments.

Last year Sebastian Vettel had already secured his championship before Abu Dhabi. This year the story is different. It is between two friends, teammates and almost brothers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton is leading the championship but when Bernie Ecclestone came up with the most stupid rule in F1 history (double points in the last race) Nico Rosberg has good chances of becoming world champion. Nobody can say who will win. In my opinion Hamilton deserves to be champion even if Rosberg would win it all.

Now let's see my predictions:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Race:

  1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
  2. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
  3. Valtteri Bottas, Williams

Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Surprise: Kimi Räikkönen. Leave him alone he knows what he's doing!


Post your own predictions to our F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE!





The rules:

POINTS:  1st - 3  2nd - 5  3rd - 10 

HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun. 

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick! like the Mercedes. 

THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW & MH. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway. We may also come up with some other prize if it helps. 

That's it for today and if you want to send me feedback then email me: f14lifeblog@gmail.com