F1 Legends - Nigel Mansell

I can't believe I haven't posted this earlier! Well.. here it is.

F1.COM: Maldonado to race for Lotus alongside Grosjean in 2014

Lotus have signed Pastor Maldonado for the 2014 season, it was announced on Friday. Maldonado, who leaves Williams after three seasons with the British team, replaces the Ferrari-bound Kimi Raikkonen.

With Lotus also retaining Romain Grosjean after his strong 2013 campaign, Maldonado’s confirmation effectively ends Nico Hulkenberg’s chances of moving to the Enstone-based squad from Sauber.

“It is a fantastic opportunity for me to join Lotus F1 Team for 2014,” said Maldonado. “It’s no secret that I have wanted a change of scene to help push on with my Formula One career and Lotus F1 Team offered the very best opportunity for me to be competitive next season. The regulations and cars will change significantly so it is a very good time for a fresh start. I can’t wait to be racing in black and gold.”

Maldonado, the 2010 GP2 Series champion, made his F1 debut with Williams in 2011 and went on to become the first Venezuelan to win a Grand Prix with his 2012 victory in Spain. This year he has scored just a single point on his way to 18th place in the drivers’ championship.

Grosjean’s re-signing with Lotus means the Frenchman goes into this third successive season of F1 competition with the team, having scored 132 points - including six podium finishes - in 2013, placing him seventh in the drivers’ championship.

“I am very happy to have official confirmation that I will be continuing to drive for Lotus F1 Team next season,” said Grosjean. “This past year has been tremendously satisfying for me. We have worked well together, and I know everyone at Enstone is motivated to continue the fight for every last point available. I am very excited about next year’s car and I cannot wait to get out on track for pre-season testing before heading to Australia for the first race of the season.”

Commenting on Lotus’s 2014 driver line-up, team principal Eric Boullier said: “It is with great pleasure that we can formally confirm that Romain Grosjean will continue with Lotus F1 Team next season. He has really made the most of his tremendous talent over the latter part of the 2013 season and will be a fantastic asset to our 2014 challenge.

“Romain will be joined by Pastor Maldonado; a driver I have known since he drove for me at DAMS in the 2005 World Series by Renault season. It is clear that Pastor has pace and potential - demonstrated by his 2010 GP2 Series title success and then through strong races throughout his career at Williams F1 Team - and we are convinced that we will be able to provide the correct environment to enable him to flourish regularly on track.

“We have been working on our new car in alignment with the new regulations for over two years and we are confident that we have a very good solution to all the challenges ahead. With Romain and Pastor I believe Lotus F1 Team will be able to cause quite a few surprises next year.”

(Source f1.com)

Seconds From Death: The Death Of Ayrton Senna (Full)

I found another Ayrton Senna documentary from National Geografic!

Race of Champions 2012 - Individuals

Do you watch the race of champions every year? I do! If you missed it last year then here is the second day with the individual races. You can spot several F1 drivers in this video ;)

The season is over but F1-4-LIFE isn't!

First of all I would like to thank everybody who have read this blog and liked the Facebook-page. There are over 1100 F1-4-LIFErs on Facebook already! We have become a nice big family and we are still growing.

Now when there isn't any Formula One until March it is very hard to go on. I know.. it is terrible.

I usually watch old GP's or F1 documentaries to ease the pain.

I have a whole bunch right here for you to watch and I'm going to post more every time I find something interesting. Just click on documentaries or video above.

If you know good videos on YouTube that I don't have here then please post them to the F1 4 LIFE Facebook-page. Post them on the wall or send them with a private message. I will post some of them here for everybody to see.

I like the idea that everybody could come here and browse trough good F1 material from the video and documentary sections.

Other things that I usually do when I miss Formula One: read F1 related books and magazines or play the newest F1 game on Playstation3! I bought this in Dubai before the Abu Dhabi GP. I guess I forgot to mention that when I was writing from Dubai.

 

I also ordered Diddy Kong racing to my Nintendo DS lite.

When I'm sitting on an airplane the funnest way to pass the time is to play racing games on GameBoy or Nintendo DS. My favorite is Mario Kart of course! One of the best games in the world.

What would you like to see or read about before the 2014 season starts?

Share your ideas and suggestions on the facebook-page or here.

You can also write me an email regarding anything to f14lifeblog@gmail.com

2013 Driver's press conference from Brazil before the GP weekend

The drivers press conference before the Brazilian GP weekend.

If you missed it and need a dose of F1 just click on play ;)

Tooned 50: The Grand Finale

The last Tooned 50 with all the legends alive in the same episode. Enjoy!

A must see F1 animation!

 

 

Saw a great video this morning. Check this out! This is just beautiful stuff..

Comparing the 2013 race results between teammates

Earlier I compared qualifying results between teammates and promised to do a similar one with race results after the last race. OK let's do this!

So this time the driver gets a point even though his teammate retires the race. It doesn't matter if it's a mistake made by the driver or if it has something to do with the car. If a driver doesn't start the race a point doesn't count.

I shall mark the better driver in red.

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel & Mark Webber

18 - 1

(Vettel retired in the British GP)

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso - Felipe Massa

17 - 2

(Alonso retired in the Malaysian GP)

McLaren

Jenson Button - Sergio Perez

13 - 6

Lotus

Kimi Räikkönen - Romain Grosjean

(Räikkönen retired 2 races and did not participate in the last 2)

11 - 6

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg - Lewis Hamilton

9 - 10

(Rosberg retired 3 times and Hamilton only once)

Sauber

Nico Hülkenberg - Esteban Gutierrez

14 - 4

(Hülkenberg did not start the first race and retired once)

Force India

Paul di Resta - Adrian Sutil

11 - 8

(di Resta retired 6 times and Sutil 5 times)

Williams

Pastor Maldonado - Valtteri Bottas

11 - 8

(Bottas still got more points and was higher up in the championship standings)

Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne - Daniel Ricciardo

8 - 11

(Vergne retired 6 times and Ricciardo 4 times)

Caterham

Charles Pic - Giedo van der Garde

12 - 7

(Both of the drivers retired 4 times)

Marussia

Jules Bianchi - Max Chilton

14 - 5

(Bianchi retired 3 times)

I hope you found this interesting!

More F1 for you tomorrow!

Alain Prost Interview about Raikkonen and Alonso at Ferrari in 2014

Here is an interesting interview with Alain Prost talking about two champions in the same team.

He clearly has experience when we talk about this topic because he has been teammates with Lauda, Rosberg, Senna, Mansell...

After this we also get some words from Damon Hill.

Kimi Räikkönen Karting in 1998

Next season this man will drive for Ferrari but here in this video Kimi Räikkönen is just a karting driver. The video is from 1998 and it's in Finnish. He's talking about what it is like to be a pro karting driver. He also says that he might be in Formula One some day.

Funny that he is driving on a track that I have also driven on when I was a junior kart driver. The track is in Espoo, Finland where he used to live.

2013 Brazilian Grand Prix review

Mark Webber enjoying his last moments in his Red Bull

The season ended yestarday with Red Bull's 1-2-finish with Sebastian Vettel 1st and Mark Webber 2nd. Fernando Alonso managed finally to bring his Ferrari to the podium by taking 3rd place. He said that if Felipe Massa would have been behind him he would have let him pass and give him one last Ferrari podium.

In my opinion Alonso seemed very sad and emotional on the podium. He's friends Mark Webber and Felipe Massa were both leaving him in a way or another. Webber is leaving the sport and Massa is leaving Ferrari to Williams.

Mark Webber on the other hand was happy and started celebrating right after the finish. He even took his helmet and gloves of and drove around in his Red Bull for the last time. It is very rare to see a drivers face when they are driving. Can't remember a similar situation.

I remember when Häkkinen won for the last time. He took his seat belt of and almost stood in his car when it was moving slowly. At the press conference he said "hasta la vista".

Mark tripped and fell on the podium when he was chasing Alonso but he smiled the whole time. That is how I will remember him, just smiling and having fun on the podium. It's almost emotional for me as well when I think about it.

Mark was a driver that amazed me right from the start. In his first GP he overtook the very experienced Mika Salo in his Toyota with a Minardi and took 5th place. Mark celebrated like he had won the race because the Minardi's were always the last ones to cross the finish line. It was also his home GP so that was even better for him.

All the best wishes to Mark Webber. He was a great driver and a character we will miss in F1 who always spoke his mind and didn't care what others said.

Thank you Mark Webber for entertaining us all these years!

It was also the last race for Felipe Massa at Ferrari. It didn't end very well when he got a drive through penalty for a very stupid reason. Everybody were crossing that white line all the time and he was the only one who got a penalty for it.

If you don't know what I am talking about then he got a penalty for crossing the white line before the pit lane.

It was also Pastor Maldonado's last race with Williams. The result wasn't that good for him either. I don't know what was wrong with him. Going of the track, caused a small collision and spinning etc. Let's see were he ends up next year. Some say that it will be Lotus now if Nico Hülkenbeg is going to rejoin Force India.

Valtteri Bottas was driving pretty good again but lost a wheel when he was overtaking Lewis Hamilton. They were on different laps but anyways if Bottas had more speed then why stay behind?

Hamilton also got a puncture and a penalty for causing the collision which ruined his race. He was close to a podium finish.

Lotus driver Romain Grosjean had bad luck when his Renault engine failed which is pretty rare nowadays.

The other Lotus driver Heikki Kovalainen had an awful start again. They had changed his bottom of the car before qualifying which effected his performance. You can clearly see that he was fast in the practice sessions but couldn't match the same kind of times in qualifying.

He blamed himself again just like the last GP but Lotus confirmed that they had made some changes on his car that weren't good. So Lotus didn't deserve more than 4th place in the constructors championship when Ferrari took third and Mercedes took second place.

Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel had already won the championships but made their victory even stronger by winning the last race with a 1-2 like I said earlier.

Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa performed a little show for the crowd by making some donuts in front of the main grandstands. Is this going to be a habit in the future?

Now it's time to compare guesses with results starting with guesses:

Pole position: Mark Webber, Red Bull - WRONG. It was the other Red Bull again (Sebastian Vettel)

Race:

1. Mark Webber, Red Bull - WRONG. I really hoped for a "movie finish" but it never happened.
2. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull - WRONG. These drivers were both up there but the order was reversed.
3. Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber - WRONG. Hulkenberg was 8th. This is the most wrong I have ever had.

Fastest lap: Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull - WRONG. I got the pole and fastest lap mixed up. Webber was fastest of the race.

Surprise: Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa will shine at this GP. <----- they did but unfortunately they had nothing to show for it.

I would also like to thank all my readers for a great season!

I have posted something for you every day ever since I started and I will continue doing that. I promise!

The driver's championship final standings of the 2013 season

1	Sebastian Vettel	German	Red Bull Racing-Renault	397
2	Fernando Alonso	Spanish	Ferrari	242
3	Mark Webber	Australian	Red Bull Racing-Renault	199
4	Lewis Hamilton	British	Mercedes	189
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Finnish	Lotus-Renault	183
6	Nico Rosberg	German	Mercedes	171
7	Romain Grosjean	French	Lotus-Renault	132
8	Felipe Massa	Brazilian	Ferrari	112
9	Jenson Button	British	McLaren-Mercedes	73
10	Nico Hulkenberg	German	Sauber-Ferrari	51
11	Sergio Perez	Mexican	McLaren-Mercedes	49
12	Paul di Resta	British	Force India-Mercedes	48
13	Adrian Sutil	German	Force India-Mercedes	29
14	Daniel Ricciardo	Australian	STR-Ferrari	20
15	Jean-Eric Vergne	French	STR-Ferrari	13
16	Esteban Gutierrez	Mexican	Sauber-Ferrari	6
17	Valtteri Bottas	Finnish	Williams-Renault	4
18	Pastor Maldonado	Venezuelan	Williams-Renault	1
19	Jules Bianchi	French	Marussia-Cosworth	0
20	Charles Pic	French	Caterham-Renault	0
21	Heikki Kovalainen	Finnish	Lotus-Renault	0
22	Giedo van der Garde	Dutch	Caterham-Renault	0
23	Max Chilton	British	Marussia-Cosworth	0

The constructors championship final standings of the 2013 season

1	Red Bull Racing-Renault	596
2	Mercedes	360
3	Ferrari	354
4	Lotus-Renault	315
5	McLaren-Mercedes	122
6	Force India-Mercedes	77
7	Sauber-Ferrari	57
8	STR-Ferrari	33
9	Williams-Renault	5
10	Marussia-Cosworth	0
11	Caterham-Renault	0