Posts tagged: Timo Glock

Bahrain 2010 - Free Practice 3 Highlights

Published 13/03/2010 at 09:13 GMT

Saturday got underway in a similar fashion to Friday, relatively quiet, but things soon got going as the drivers tried out their cars in qualifying trim. You can view the full results of the session, but keep reading to relive it step by step.

Session Started:

13/03/2010 at 07:30 GMT

Session Ended:

13/03/2010 at 09:11 GMT

07:30
Good morning. I hope everyone is ready for an F1-filled day.
07:34
Lots and lots of tweeting from teams and drivers. Let's start with @ToroRossoSpy: Seb's oil leak fixed, so he's hoping for more laps this morning.
07:36
From @The_Real_JB: Yesterday went pretty well, tried different fuel loads and compared the two compounds of tyres we have here.. It's good to be back racing!!
07:38
From @H_Kovalainen: Everything ready for 3rd practice. Gonna check my weight with my race kit on before the session to make sure we are in quali trim!!
07:40
From @InsideFerrari: After a long night of work in the garave, everything is ready for P3. It will be a very important session as we will have to prepare Q.
07:40
A great picture from Lotus: http://twitpic.com/189my2
07:42
Some betting info. From @TheVanquish: Alonso & Hamilton joint 3/1 favourites for pole this morning according to Paddypower.com, winning team Ferrari 6/4, McLaren 9/4
07:43
From @CroftyF1: Been studying pit stop practice this morning. The McLaren boys look well drilled. Their pre-season boot camp has worked wonders
07:44
Here are the Mercedes team having a go at a pit stop: http://twitpic.com/1897ps
07:46
@clubforce: Only a couple of runs for Adrian this am - track conditions not ideal and the old F1 cars have dropped oil over the track as well...
07:47
The BBC online coverage should be available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8564532.stm.
07:47
And Autosport Live have started as well: http://live.autosport.com/commentary.php/id/189
07:49
More great stuff from @clubforce: Same programme for tonio too, track is also so long that one run seems to takes an eternity! Baseline then some tyre work too.
07:56
Track temperature - 41. Air temperature - 32. Humidity 12%.
07:57
Chandhok has his helmet on and is talking to an engineer. Good signs!
07:58
A picture from Tony Fernandes: http://tweetphoto.com/14214501
08:00
Green light - two Force Indias out first.
08:02
You can view more info than you'd ever need from McLaren at McLaren.com.
08:02
Chandhok needs to take part in at least three laps to take part in the rest of the weekend.
08:04
From @InsideFerrari: Done the installation lap: all OK for both drivers.
08:09
From @VirginRacing: Timo's done his installation lap. Lucas is in the car looking purposeful.
08:10
From BBC Live - Sarah Holt: Ferrari say that neither Fernando Alonso or Felipe Massa did any qualifying simulation on Friday but both will be keen to get an idea of their true pace on the desert circuit. Michael Schumacher reckons he is still a little rusty when he comes to finding his maximum performance over one lap and was miffed to be out-performed by his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in both early practice sessions.
08:10
Just di Grassi and Hamilton out on track at the moment.
08:12
di Grassi reports a problem with the gearbox on his installation lap.
08:12
Hamilton says: "Car feels good. It's very hot out there."
08:13
Button says: "It would be good to see someone else do a lap first."
08:15
Vettel sets the first lap time of the day - a 1:55.178.
08:15
In the comments, Steven notes: Everyone except HRT has completed an installation lap
08:16
di Grassi on the radio: "I don't have seventh gear... and the gear shift itself is slow, takes half a second. Everything else is good."
08:16
Chandhok says there is still a problem with the hydraulics on his car, won't let him go into first gear.
08:21
Senna has left the garage.
08:21
It's busy out there right now, just five cars still in the pitlane.
08:22
A tyre rolls down the track, potentially off a Virgin car.
08:22
Timo Glock's Virgin is returning to the garage with only three tyres.
08:23
Meanwhile, Alonso goes fastest with a 1:55.105.
08:23
Bruno Senna did really well to spot the wheel and avoid it.
08:24
Massa drops the times with a 1:54.761
08:24
Glock has made it safely back to the garage.
08:26
Technical Delegate Joe Bauer in the Virgin garage, investigating the situation. He doesn't look happy.
08:29
From @rf1paddockpass: Vitaly's reporting a bit too much oversteer at the moment
08:31
Ted reports the wheel gun wasn't doing the wheel nut up tightly enough, all the wheels on di Grassi's car were also loose!
08:31
Fastest sectors:
- S1 - MAS 249 km/h
- S2 - BUT 275 km/h
- S3 - BUT 286 km/h
- Trap - HAM 312 km/h
08:32
Fastest three after half an hour - Massa, Rosberg, Alonso.
08:32
Di Grassi, Senna and Chandhok still to set a time.
08:33
From @VirginRacing: We are going over timo's car with a fine tooth comb now
08:33
McLaren have noted the track is clear and it's a good time to do another run.
08:37
From @Jamesallenonf1: Senna is 40 km/h slower at speed trap on sector 2, which is the new section. That could cause problems in Q1 for the front runners
08:40
From @MyLotusRacing: Heikki reporting on pit comms that car is "feeling better and better. Rear was a bit nervous but last in lap whole thing felt much better"
08:41
And from @rf1paddockpass: Vitaly's heading back out after a set-up change to help the balance
08:41
Track temperature - 45. Air temperature - 32. Humidity 10%.
08:42
Gloves on: http://twitpic.com/18a0pd
08:44
Ted reports Hamilton is out for the rest of the session, problem with the left front wheel.
08:45
From @tonyfernandes: at the pit wall, 16 mins to go for last practise . sitting next to jody our chief race engineer. learning lots . its hot out here in bahrain
08:47
From the McLaren site: "The team are looking into a possible problem with one of Lewis' brake ducts."
08:49
Ted on Lewis: "The aerodynamicist and engineers have already been taking photos of it, and those images will be sent back to Woking immediately to find a fix in time for qualifying. But Lewis is not going to get any running on low fuel and soft tyres ahead of qualifying."
08:51
From @VirginRacing: It doesn't seem to have put timo off! Very pleased to see him under 2 minutes
08:52
Alonso pops up to P1 - 1:54.099
08:56
Holly reports Karun's car still up on the jacks. He won't be out this session, and therefore not the rest of the weekend either.
08:58
Rosberg puts in two purple sectors but dropped time in the last sector to come in second.
09:02
Session over: ALO, ROS, WEB, MSC, VET, MAS, BUT, KUB, LIU, HUL.

Full results coming soon.
09:07
Full results: http://sidepodcast.com/2010/03/13/bahrain-2010-free-practice-3-results/
09:10
Thanks to everyone for joining us. The Factbyte Factbox will return at 10:30 GMT.

All Posts in The Series: Bahrain 2010

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Highlights

Daily: 28th February 2010

Published 28/02/2010 at 00:01 GMT

By Christine Blachford

Yesterday was definitely a day of rest in Sidepodcast Towers, but having said that Mr C just keeps on coding. I was busy trying not to fall asleep all day, whilst some new commenting updates were in the works. I'll leave him to tell you more when the updates go live, but keep your eyes peeled. Meanwhile, here are some of the things we're talking about:

The reason I'm so tired is thanks to the most excellent evening out in London, listening to Joe talking. So far we've heard all good things from the people who went, and I'm hoping we'll have some blog posts and photos to share with you soon. Lou has been posting a couple on her Twitpic account, though, including ones of me looking ever so thoughtful as I kept the comments updated. Turkey Machine has also written a quick post about his evening.
I caught up with a couple of days of testing news yesterday, and posted two F1 Minute episodes. The first talks of Glock at Virgin - he's enjoying being the number one - and the second is about Schumi's predictions - he's changed his mind. I love the idea that Michael might have suddenly realised he said something he shouldn't have.
Whilst we're on the subject of testing, I hope you're keeping an eye on Gavin's summaries after each day, as well as the updates over on Viva F1. Maverick and Gavin both use lots of pretty graphs, and now we're at Barcelona and conclusions can be drawn from what we're seeing out on track, it's worth looking deeper at the statistics. We'll be asking for your predictions soon enough!

That's all for now. Let us know how your weekend is going and what you're up to, and I will see you in the comments.

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Daily

Live: Barcelona Testing - Day Three (February 2010)

Published 27/02/2010 at 07:30 GMT

By Christine Blachford

The third day in Barcelona gets underway and Williams will be coming off the back of good headlines yesterday, thanks to Hülkenberg. Rain is expected to mix up proceedings at the circuit, when teams desperately need a clear day of running on this penultimate pre-season test of 2010.

Up and down the pitlane, plenty of race simulation work was covered yesterday, and that's likely to continue into the weekend. Will anyone run some light and fast qualifying simulations?

On track action begins at 9am CET (8am GMT).

Circuit Information

Track length: 4.655km
Corners: 16
Lap record: 1:21.670 (Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari, 2008)

You'll find Circuit de Catalunya located in the North East corner of Spain.

Drivers and Teams Attending

The following teams and drivers are confirmed for testing on Wednesday

Driver	Team	Chassis
Nico Rosberg	Mercedes Grand Prix	W01
Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing	RB6
Jenson Button	Vodafone McLaren Mercedes	MP4-25
Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro	F10
Kamui Kobayashi	BMW Sauber	C29
Rubens Barrichello	AT&T Williams	FW32
Vitaly Petrov	Renault F1 Team	R30
Adrian Sutil	Force India	VJM03
Sebastien Buemi	Scuderia Toro Rosso	STR5
Timo Glock	Virgin Racing	VR-01
Jarno Trulli	Lotus F1 Racing	T127

Useful Links

All Posts in The Series: 2010 F1 Pre-Season Testing

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Testing

A Sunny Saturday Afternoon in Jerez

Published 21/02/2010 at 14:08 GMT

By Brawn2bwild

New guest writer Brawn2bwild was at the Jerez test yesterday, and on her way home, noticed our call for your stories of F1 events. In this excellent post, she shares her experience of the brand new 2010 cars, close up and first hand.

The hills are alive with the sound of music – or in this case F1 testing – which is music to my ears at least! Although I've been a stalwart fan for more than half my life time, I'm finding this year's off-season harder than usual. For me, 2009 was quite simply fantastic. Having supported the Brackley based team since their inception in '97, as well as JB since his Williams days, I feel that last season was my reward for the years of derision and torment I experienced through the dark (and boring) days of the Ferrari/Schumacher era. Now though the '09 season is sadly over and although Bahrain is in only 21 days it still seems far too far away.

Fortunately I live in the south of Spain at the moment. I chose to live in Seville, not for it’s wonderful culture, great night life or beautiful architecture (though it certainly has all of these) but for it’s proximity to Jerez Circuito de Velocidad.

As I approach the turn off from the motorway I can already see that there is a stream of cars going into the car parks and the police are out directing traffic. I'm beginning to hear snatches of engine noise over my taxi driver’s radio and the sun is (finally) shining - I've definitely made the right choice in coming down here today. As I walk up to the entrance gate with a legion of others, the noise of the cars bounces off the hills and the crowd cheers – Alonso must be on track.

Credit: Brawn2bwild

Based on the angle of his helmet, I reckon he's looking at the crowds in this one.

The Spanish have a reputation for being somewhat laidback and prone to procrastination, especially here in Andalucía. They are not known for their punctuality or customer service either, but if there’s one thing the Spanish do, it’s motorsport! Despite the high volume of Tifosi and other fans, the traffic is flowing, there are no long queues at the ticket booth or gates and gaining entry is a piece of cake. I am a little surprised by how many people are here today as historically Spanish petrol-heads have tended to be of the 2-wheeled variety more than the 4. This is not surprising when, as is the case in Italy, mopeds, scooters and bikes are the preferred mode of transport. But unlike their Latin cousins they don’t have Ferrari.

Now though, on this sunny Saturday afternoon, the car parks are full and there are people everywhere. Even though this is only a test session there is a good atmosphere with packed stands and men, women and children of all ages standing up to wave and cheer for their hero in his brand new shiny red (and sadly white) beast. As I walk up to the nearest fence for a view of the track Alonso obligingly slows down to avoid the Ayrton Senna chicane and instead takes the Alex Criville corner and drives sedately past one of the packed stands, much to the appreciation of the crowd. Standing here I am struck by how varied the crowd is, unlike my previous experiences of motor racing it seems to be roughly 50/50 men and women with all ages and walks of life represented. Next to me some young boys press their faces to the fence for a closer look and a young child is lifted onto his father’s shoulders to enable him to see over the tyre wall.

Credit: Brawn2bwild

The back half of the car doesn't look so bumpy from the side.

I can see now why I've been told that Jerez is a great circuit, from my initial stand point alone, I can see that it has some significant changes in elevation, although it doesn’t look to be as much as Spa. The track itself nestles amongst some small but steep hills, giving many possible view points to the adventurous spectator. Right now there is evidence everywhere of the uncharacteristically wet weather we’ve been having lately, with pools of water and a fair amount of mud lying around. In places the concrete paths connecting different stands have been completely covered over by deep mud slides. But this does not put off the intrepid Alonso fan in his pursuit of the perfect vantage point. Everywhere I look I can see people scrambling over steep muddy embankments in an effort to get to the other side of the track. There are old men with walking sticks and even a guy on crutches battling through the mud.

I also decide to go for a walk about in an attempt to find some interesting camera angles, I realise I don’t even mind messing up my favourite trainers to do so either. I start to climb up and around the track in an anti-clockwise direction and soon wish I had better stamina or was in some way related to Sir Edmund Hillary! It takes a while but I manage to clamber over near to the "Dry Sack Curva" without twisting my ankle or dropping my camera, and find a nice big rock to sit on. It’s pretty hot now the sun is baking down as it should be for this part of the world and my rock is nice and warm. It gives me a great elevated view down onto the turn but over the fence and heads of those in front of me. Unfortunately though there’s not much going on at the moment - only Trulli's Lotus out on track - so I decide to take advantage of the quiet spell and change location again, this time finding a half empty stand quite low down and close to the track at the Angel Nieto and Peluqui corners. I spend quite a bit of time here playing with the settings on my camera and end up taking what I think will turn out to be my favourite photograph of the day. It’s of Jenson going round the corner all slightly out of focus except his front left suspension. I take a lot of photos from here and get to see all of today’s drivers and cars except Glock's Virgin which has not been seen since just after I arrived around midday.

Credit: Brawn2bwild

The Renault is amazingly bright to the naked eye, it's hard to explain just how strange it looks based on photos alone.

The only downside to being here and not in front of a computer screen is that despite the size of the crowd, there are no screens or timing boards up and without an internet capable phone, I've no idea of the times the drivers are getting. I do notice that Lotus and Sauber seem to be putting a lot of laps in while, sadly for the crowds, Alonso’s Ferrari hasn’t been seen much at all since I first got here. Happily for me though, I get some good shots of the Red Bull, Williams and McLaren. I'm excited to see JB putting a lot of laps in but manage to restrain myself from cheering him – I stand out enough here as it is. It turns out he’s been top of the time sheets for much of the day.

Eventually I summon up the energy to return across the wet, sticky mud of the landslide back towards the entrance. I've managed to walk approximately half of the circuit and I've taken photos from 7 different places along the way. I've also met some cool and interesting characters too. There are a few Brits dotted about here and there and the odd German too, I saw a cute little girl in a McLaren race suit and an incredibly old man in a wheelchair halfway up a hill with his Ferrari hat on, a big flag attached to his chair and a huge grin on his face.

Right now though the clouds are starting to come back over and I fear it might rain again (more than likely as I've not brought my umbrella) so it may be time for me to think about how I'm going to get home. I can get a train from Jerez station, only problem is the track is out in the countryside and there’s no bus route out here or taxi rank. I could call a taxi but it’s gonna cost me an arm and a leg as I’d be paying for both directions. What I really need is to hitch a lift. (This is where being a blonde woman in Spain finally pays off) So I head out to the car parks, where there is still a steady stream of people coming and going from the track, and I strike up a conversation with a friendly looking guy walking out with a couple of kids. I'm in luck as he’s going my way and it turns out the children go to a school that I used to teach at. It works out well; his kids get 20 minutes of private English practice while he takes a short detour into the town of Jerez and drops me near the station – result!

As I write this now from the comfort of the train I realise how exhausted I am as with any race track spectators cover a lot of distance to get about. My feet hurt and my shoulders ache from carrying my camera bag but I've done a helluva lot of walking/hiking today! All in all though I'm very happy. I saw some beautiful cars and some eye-watering ones (boy is that Renault bright!). I met some nice people and watched some of my favourite drivers. In some ways it’s helped with my F1 withdrawal problems but I'm also more excited than ever now for the 2010 season. Bahrain can’t come soon enough!

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Live: Jerez Testing - Day Eight (February 2010)

Published 20/02/2010 at 07:40 GMT

By Mr. C.

Today teams will head into their last day of testing at the Jerez track, before everyone decamps and heads for a final four day test in Barcelona next week. Time is rapidly running out for all concerned.

Friday seemed to be red flag day in Jerez, with a total of six stoppages throughout the test causing all manner of delays. Kamui Kobayashi appeared to suffer more than most though, only managing 28 laps, Timo Glock faired little better with just 34. Notably Jarno Trulli will finally see some testing action as he settles into his green and yellow Lotus office.

On track action begins at 9am CET (8am GMT).