2013 Singapore Grand Prix Review

I would have to say that the heros of Singapore were Räikkönen and Alonso. A super start from Alonso and a great consistent race from Räikkönen.

It seemed that Vettel was unbeatable with his Red Bull, Alonso was the best of the rest and Räikkönen got the best possible result with the Lotus.

I already said on the F1 4 LIFE Facebook page that I must give some respect to Räikkönen for finishing third even though he had back pains, no KERS, a car that can't win races, started from 13th place and gets no money from driving. I can't wait to see what kind of results he can get with a Ferrari.

Statistically Räikkönen was more successful than Alonso at Ferrari but let's see what happens next year.

The race was a big disappointment for Grosjean. I really hoped that he could get some good results finally. Lotus could be happy though when Räikkönen saved the situation with the podium.

The other disappointment was Mark Webber's retirement. He had driven well but what can you do if the car doesn't last till the end. Funny how it always happens to Webber and not Vettel. What is he doing wrong or is the reason something else? Who knows?

Let's take a look at my guesses and the actual results. Here are my guesses:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton

The Top 3 on Sunday

1. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
2. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari
3. Felipe Massa, Ferrari

Fastest lap: Kimi Räikkönen, Lotus

Surprise: Felipe Massa, Ferrari

And then the actual results:

Pole position: Sebastian Vettel

The Top 3 on Sunday

1. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
2. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari
3. Kimi Räikkönen, Lotus

Fastest lap: Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull

The surprise was supposed to be Massa and he did surprise by being faster than Alonso in qualifying. The real surprise was probably Räikkönen. I know he is a superb driver but I had no clue that he would be on the podium.

The TOP3 was 2 right out of 3. I said that Kimi would do the fastest lap but instead he was third. I had too much fate in Hamilton and Massa so you could say that they let me down. I hope that Massa will drive in a good team next year because at this point it could be even possible that he doesn't get a F1 seat at all.

2013 Singapore Grand Prix Preview

Singapore

This weekend will be interesting on so many levels! A lot has happened after the Italian Grand Prix. Kimi has signed with Ferrari, Massa is leaving and stated that he will not help Alonso anymore, Luca di Montezemolo on the otherhand said that he will. Who knows what will happen.

The Singapore GP is legendary even though it is one of the newer tracks. It was the first night grand prix and it is also known for the "crashgate" scandal.

Nelson Piquet Jr. crashes into the wall on purpose.

Crashgate was perpetrated by the Renault F1 team who ordered Nelson Piquet, Jr. to crash deliberately during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, in order to gain an advantage for Fernando Alonso who was his teammate at the time.

On 28 September 2008, on the 14th lap of the Singapore race, Piquet crashed into the circuit wall at turn 17, necessitating a safety car deployment. This allowed Alonso to make an early pitstop and subsequently gain the advantage to win the race after starting 15th on the grid. Piquet described his crash at the time as a simple mistake.

After being dropped by the Renault team following the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, Piquet alleged that he had been asked by the team to deliberately crash to improve the race situation for Alonso, sparking an investigation of Renault F1 for race fixing by the FIA. After the investigation, Renault F1 were charged with conspiracy on September 4th, and were to answer the charge on September 21st 2009.

Flavio Briatore and Nelson Piquet Jr.

On September 16th Renault stated that they would not contest the charges, and announced that the team's managing director, Flavio Briatore, and it's executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, had left the team.

On September 21st it was announced that the Renault F1 team had been handed a disqualification from Formula One, which was suspended for two years pending any further comparable rule infringements. Briatore was suspended from all Formula One events and FIA-sanctioned events indefinitely, whilst Symonds received a five-year ban. Their bans were subsequently overturned by a French court, although they both agreed not to work in Formula One or FIA-sanctioned events for a specified time as part of a later settlement reached with the FIA.

Last year the Singapore Grand Prix was the race were I knew that Vettel is going to be the champion again in 2012 and it seems that he will be in 2013 as well. Let's hope next year will be more interesting.

This year the "drama" might just spice up the grid a bit. Massa doesn't care about helping Alonso anymore, Hulkenberg and a few others are really trying to show their skills to keep their F1 seats or to get a better ones.

Lotus is checking out Massa at the moment and there he has one more reason to show everybody that he is still fast. The media had just asked him "Are you faster than Alonso?" He laughed and said "YES". I hope Massa will step up this weekend and show the world that he is still a super driver.

And now what I think will happen this weekend:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton

The Top 3 on Sunday

1. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull
2. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari
3. Felipe Massa, Ferrari

Fastest lap: Kimi Räikkönen, Lotus

Surprise: Felipe Massa, Ferrari

Flavio Briatore's big mouth

Flavio Briatore has been opening his mouth to the media again. For example he is saying that Alonso has no reason to switch teams.
-Didn't Alonso just say that he needs a car like the others (Red Bull)?! To me that's a big reason. Alonso is a racing driver and he wants to win! He isn't winning with Ferrari at the moment.

Then he said that Alonso has a contract with Ferrari so it's impossible to break that.
-Tell that to Kimi Räikkönen! Santander paid Ferrari in the end of 2009 to kick Kimi out of the team so that Alonso could drive for them. Did he forget this? And Briatore is not the best person to talk about rules when he is the one usually breaking them. If you want an example then the "crashgate" incident in 2008 is probably a good one.

Briatore also said that Ferrari and Alonso are a winning combination and that he could drive as anybody's teammate.
-When is the last time Ferrari won anything? He is also third in the points which is worse than last year. Even Lotus and Mercedes are better than Ferrari at the moment.

And if Alonso could drive as anybody's teammate then why did he demand that they kick Kimi out instead of Massa in 2009? It was obvious for a lot of people that Alonso wanted the better one to leave. And what about 2007 when Alonso had problems with Hamilton? Briatore is talking so much gibberish that I am starting to think he is senile. Maybe Alonso should talk for himself and not this guy.

Briatore also said that Alonso is the new Senna.
-I understand that he probably meant that Alonso is good but comparing him to Senna? Why? There is not so much same about them. In my opinion Alonso is more like Prost than Senna.

Earlier Briatore said that if he had a team with one bad driver he would get an even worse driver to be his number two man in the team.
-This is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard in the Formula One circles. Why would anybody want a bad driver to have an even worse teammate? That makes no sense!
If it was up to me then I would get a better driver and let the first driver to be the number two man.

Briatore is a very weird and crazy individual but that's probably why we enjoy seeing him so much.
He is very entertaining and unfortunately that's the only thing he is right now.. just entertaining and nothing else.

In my opinion it was a good penalty to ban him from this sport (after "crashgate") but still in a weird way I miss him. He was so many years a part of this sport that it feels like something is missing.

Sometimes you just have to except the truth that times change and there is nothing you can do about it anymore.

F1 rumors are always a part of the summer break

Every year when the summer break starts the rumors can be heard everywhere.
So what are the biggest rumors this summer?

Before the summer break everybody were talking about Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Räikkönen fighting for the Red Bull seat which was very realistic. Red Bull even said that they are the only choices.

Now the rumors are far from realistic but maybe some of them have a little bit truth in them. Let's begin.

This year I have heard that Kimi has been connected to Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus. It would be stupid to even say any other teams cause Kimi wouldn't be interested. So they are saying that Lotus has money issues, Red Bull is not sure if they want two champions in the same team and Ferrari wants Kimi back but he doesn't like Luca di Montezemolo that much anymore. Some even say that Kimi already has a contract with Ferrari.

The Ferrari news came this week and every day I have heard something new about this. The situation right know looks like this:

• Ferrari got angry with Alonso when he criticized the car/team. Just like Prost did in the early 90's.
• Alonso's manager has been talking to Red Bull. 
• Ferrari has also heard that Alonso has in fact talked with Red Bull several times in 2008 and 2009 and Red Bull refused to take him. I can talk more about that later.
• Alonso's motivation is not the same as last year because he wants a car like Red Bull. He actually said that the best birthday present would be "to have a car like the other drivers".
• 2010 and 2012 could have been easy for Alonso when he had such a big lead in the points but he somehow lost it all even though it look like a sure thing. Ferrari isn't happy.
• Kimi on the other hand is the driver who was the underdog but still won the drivers world championship in 2007. In fact Alonso was the man that Kimi won that year and now they have the "loser" driving for them.
• Ferrari never wanted to get rid of Kimi in 2009. I mean why would they kick out Kimi in the middle of the contract who won a championship for them instead of Felipe Massa? Santander and Alonso wanted Kimi out of the team cause he was a bigger threat and still is.
• Now the Ferrari team is realizing that Alonso not winning championships is not worth it even though Santander is paying for it all.
• Alonso had an agreement with Ferrari over 10 years ago when he drove for Minardi that some day he would drive for them (Ferrari). They had planned how and what would happen before that. Alonso didn't do what they asked him to and got a deal with Renault and then with McLaren. Ferrari felt backstabbed and now they think that Alonso is not a team player.
• The rumors also say that Massa is going to leave and he is being replaced by Hulkenberg, Kobayashi or Kovalainen.

That was everything I remember hearing this week about Ferrari. Almost everything is probably bulls**t but there can still be a bit truth in the mix.

The Red Bull and Alonso news started when his manager went to see them (like I said earlier). I also mentioned earlier that Alonso had talked to Red Bull already in 2008 about the 2009 season. He asked for a lot of money and promised to make them a winning team. They refused to pay him and got Vettel from Toro Rosso instead. Then they became competitive without Alonso and he gave them a new offer. Less money and he wants to switch teams in the middle of the 2009 season. They refused again.

Alonso is famous of arguing with his teams so maybe Red Bull didn't want him because of that?

• When Alonso was about to leave Renault he accused them of sabotage cause he made a deal with McLaren.
• At McLaren he said that they made him the number two driver and that the rookie Hamilton was number one. He also sabotaged Hamilton's qualifying on purpose in Hungary.
• Then he went back to Renault and at the same time looked for other F1 seats.
• Let's not forget the "crashgate" incident which ruined the career of Nelson Piquet jr. The argument was: did Alonso know about it or not? Alonso denied everything and his bosses Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds took the blame. See a video about it from this link.

The stupidest rumor yet was when Lewis Hamilton's father Anthony was talking to someone at Red Bull. Then people started saying that Hamilton is switching from Mercedes to Red Bull. Later I heard that Lewis was going to Ferrari.. Apparently he had said that every driver wants to drive for Ferrari at least ones. Hamilton's father had also been to Maranello??

Let's just stop before this gets to much out of hand shall we...