snkpkp

thinking about going to the Singapore GP this year.....how r they gonna do the lights? just street lights? There as some sharp corners in SG....track

pinguhk

just saw the race, Massa car span off did not look like traction control at all.
Looked like the car just whated to spen round & round

pinguhk

O BMW rocks now, keepup the good work

JetBlack5OC

I bet the lighting will be done by the American company Musco.

They just did the opening round of MotoGP in Qatar.

BetterMakeWay

Yes i agree. Massa's spun had nothing to do with lack of TC. He did that solely on driver error, and many commentators argued the fact that at this level such driver error should never happen. I mean he is regarded as a top driver at a top team.

Compleatley agree with you for the rest of the comment. His mental is strong as long as he runs on 1st position the whole race. If anything happens that may jeopardize his position he becomes very unstable. (see Massa overtaking----very very very hard).

PS: On the bmw perfomance i dunno what's more astonishing the 2nd an 6th finish or the fastest lap record of Heidfeld. That's very important and speaks alot of the BMW F1.08 performance.

MiamiPhill

From BBC Motorsport:



Schumacher fourth in bike debut

Schumacher has no desire to make a serious switch to motorbikes
Seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher finished fourth in his first competitive motorbike race.

The 39-year-old, who was third in qualifying, recorded the second-fastest lap in the minor series event at the Misano circuit in Italy.

He was blocked in at the first corner and slipped down to 10th place but battled back through the field to finish just outside the podium places.

Schumacher rode a 990cc KTM Super Duke in the 10-lap KTM Trophy race.

"At the start I was a bit too careful, I didn't begin well and I was well behind. Then I found my way and started overtaking and it was great," he said.

Asked afterwards if he was considering making a career in MotoGP or Superbikes, he added: "There'll be no second career on motorbikes, this is just a hobby."

The German has tested a Ducati MotoGP bike since retiring from F1 in 2006 but has expressed no desire to make a serious switch to two wheels.

Schumacher, who is an adviser and occasional test driver for the Ferrari F1 team, said before Sunday's race: "I'm having fun. Where do I want to go with this? Wherever I feel like.

"There's no definite plan, this is just for enjoyment, no one is obliging me to do it. Maybe I will stop here."

Mrs Shumi cannot be happy with this development...

pinguhk

Looks like Schumacher can drive any thing fast.
I like to see him doing some rallying.

JetBlack5OC

Good, because there is no way in hell he could hang with Rossi and the boys.

MiamiPhill

From Formula1.com



The Bahrain Grand Prix Preview - a BMW Sauber breakthrough?

BMW Sauber do not want to commit themselves to any hierarchical order at the moment, to quote technical director Willy Rampf, but there is absolutely no doubt that they head into this weekend?s Bahrain Grand Prix at Sakhir determined to keep up their good work and to do everything that they can to challenge the dominance of Ferrari and McLaren.

Can they do it? The performance of the BMW Sauber F1.08 in Australia and Malaysia suggests that they will at worst be able to keep up the pressure on their rivals.

"Our bottom line after the first batch of overseas races looks pretty good: we're very happy with our two second places in Melbourne and Sepang, our first fastest race lap in Malaysia and 19 points in the championship," team boss Mario Theissen said this week. "So, after a brief pit stop back home, we will be heading for Bahrain well motivated. We aim to keep up the same level of performance as we've shown so far."

Ferrari are feeling very confident once again, following Kimi Raikkonen?s dominant victory in Sepang. ?We showed there what we are really capable of,? said team principal Stefano Domenicali. ?We believe that our title challenge is now well and truly launched.?

Ferrari may have an advantage, together with Toyota, having tested here previously this year. McLaren, meanwhile, insist that not testing here will not disadvantage them.

"Of course we would have liked to test in Bahrain but we do have to prioritise where we spend our time,? says their Formula One CEO Martin Whitmarsh. ?Over the winter we have improved the aerodynamic efficiency of the car and cooling generally so it?s not currently one of our vulnerable points. We have good data from running at the Bahrain track in previous years so we are confident it will not prove too much of a disadvantage."

Championship leader Lewis Hamilton loves the place: "Bahrain is a really cool circuit; it is quite different to any other because you are literally driving round the desert. There are no trees or buildings as you are driving round, just desert. I really like the track, there are a lot of opportunities to overtake, for example Turns One, Four, Seven, and 10. With all the straights you can do a lot of slipstreaming and then make sure you get good exits. So in terms of racing it is a very good track.

?The layout is a great design, starting off with a very long straight, then down to a very tight first gear corner and then you accelerate through a slight kink before going up another long straight. It is a curvy circuit with lots of kinks and gradient changes that are quite large in some areas. Also the wind plays a big part, bringing sand on to the track that means any part that is off line is very slippery. It is very hot in Bahrain, as in Australia and Malaysia, so it is ideal that these three are together at the beginning as they are all very physically demanding and you can prepare for them all at one time.

"I love the Bahrain race, it is one of the ones I really look forward too, like Monaco and Spa. I have a lot of good memories of the track; last year I had a fantastic race. It was great fun and I took my third podium in Formula 1 and took the joint lead of the World Championship, it was a bit unreal. The best memory is from 2004: I recovered from a disastrous qualifying in F3, and I ended up in 23rd. I worked my way back up the grid to win the race. That was one of the most emotional races I had been involved in up to that point."

Elsewhere, Red Bull and Toyota are seeking to continue their improved performance, Renault are looking for more on a track where the R25 and R26 models were previously victorious, and Williams are desperate to put the nightmare of Sepang behind them and run back at the head of the midfield as they did in Australia.

Like the Circuit du Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Sepang is very tough on brakes, with some heavy braking at the end of the high-speed straights, and the effect of wind and sand blown on to the track as a result can lead to sudden changes in grip levels. It is also tough on engines. All teams take precautions against the ingress of sand, and because of the way that the four long straights are each followed by tight corners, the engine?s load profile is in the medium range with two thirds of a lap run under full throttle.

In the 2008 drivers? championship chase, Hamilton leads with 14 points from Raikkonen and Nick Heidfeld on 11 and Heikki Kovalainen on 10, while the constructors? table sees McLaren on 24, BMW Sauber on 19 and Ferrari on 11.

JetBlack5OC

Lewis Hamilton walks away from 130mph crash during practice in Bahrain

4th April 2008

Lewis Hamilton suffered his second major shunt of a Formula One weekend on Friday as he prepared for this Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.

With just over nine minutes of the second practice session at the Sakhir circuit remaining, Hamilton slammed his McLaren sideways into a tyre wall.

The current world championship leader appeared to lose traction coming out of a series of swift turns, which led to him locking up and sliding across a run-off area into the barrier.

Several marshals behind the tyre wall ducked for cover as the 23-year-old impacted with considerable force.

After a few moments to compose himself, Hamilton emerged from his badly-damaged car before taking a look at the rear, suggesting that is where his problem lay.

The young Briton was then taken back to the McLaren garage on the back of a motorbike, while his car was craned onto the back of a truck and returned to the pits for repairs.

Fortunately Hamilton appeared unharmed, unlike at last year's European Grand Prix at the Nurburging when he ploughed nose first into a tyre wall in qualifying, suffering severely bruised ribs.

Hamilton still ended the session with the fourth-quickest time, albeit almost 1.5 seconds down on man of the day Felipe Massa.

Massa certainly appeared as if he was trying to prove his worth at Ferrari by posting the fastest time in both sessions.

Massa has come under fire of late following the opening two races in Australia and Malaysia from which he has emerged pointless.

Although an engine failure accounted for Massa in Melbourne, that was only after he had spun off the track at the first corner and was later involved in a shunt with Red Bull's David Coulthard.

Then 12 days ago in Sepang, the Brazilian suffered a loss of concentration that saw him spin out of the race whilst holding onto a comfortable second place.

Massa knows the pressure is mounting on his shoulders, and that he cannot afford similar mistakes this weekend at the Sakhir circuit.

He did not put a wheel wrong over the three practice hours, with his best lap time a one minute 31.240 seconds, a second quicker than his pole position lap of a year ago.

This is undoubtedly a track Massa loves as he was a pole-to-flag winner last season, and there is every prospect he could repeat the feat.

World champion team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was almost a second down, with Heikki Kovalainen third in his McLaren, just edging Hamilton into fourth.

Massa's pace was such that only the remaining six drivers in the top 10 were within two seconds.

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica posted the fifth-best lap, followed by Nico Rosberg for Williams, David Coulthard in his Red Bull, the second Williams of Kazuki Nakajima, Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais and the Renault of Nelson Piquet.

Jenson Button was 11th in his Honda, with Super Aguri's Anthony Davidson bringing up the rear over four seconds down.