Malaysian GP 2013 - Red Bull's Webber fastest practice at sepang

Raikkonen, who took the chequered flag in the season-opening race in Australia five days ago, supervise to gash the Red Bulls at the top of the timesheet at the finish of the opening 90-minute session at the Sepang International Circuit.

Mark Webber appear quickest with a lap of one minute 36.935secs at a track where temperatures are the newest faced by the squad this year at 32 degrees centigrade.

Raikkonen, conversely, had to wait until 30 minutes before the end of the session before choose to set his first timed lap, and was on the rapidity from the word go, but only after Lotus had been required to replace his KERS battery.

But straight away the 33-year-old slotted in following Webber, finishing 0.068secs drifting of the Australian who finished a unsatisfactory sixth in his home race on Sunday.

Webber, who started on the front row in Melbourne flanking world champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel, suffered an ECU malfunction prior to the installation lap that negotiation his start and from which he unsuccessful to sufficiently recover.

The Preview of the Malaysian Grand Prix - 2013

After the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, the second encircling on the 2013 Formula One calendar, the 56-lap Malaysian Grand Prix, is just days left. Here’s a sample of what to imagine.

The Sepang International Circuit, situated just 50 miles from the center of Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, is observe as one of the most imposing race tracks in the world. Designed by renowned track designer Hermann Tilke, Sepang released in 1999 and hosted its first Formula One race the same year.

The 15-turn, 3.44-mile clockwise track is extremely technical, possibly the most technical on the F1 calendar. Sepang has two long back-to-back straights associated by a “hard on the brakes” hairpin at the cavity entrance. The circuit also offers intricate turn combinations, sweeping high-speed corners, and a track girth favorable to overtaking.

Sepang’s Turn 1 is a tapered, constant-radius right-hand “carousel” followed instantly by a tight left-hander that leads onto a long right-hand sweeper. Getting the first two bend right is vital as drivers set up for an exit that allows receiving the power down as rapidly as probable in the run up through the sweeping third turn. The end of the front straight important into this sequence of turns is also an overtaking area.

The Turn 15 hairpin, which sits between the identical, almost equivalent final and front straights, is a significant corner for setting up the run down the front directly. It is common to see brakes locked and flat-spotted rubber here as drivers dive within and endeavor to overtake by late-braking.

F1 Team Race to Stay Back of the Rules

The 2013 Formula 1 season kicked off in Melbourne on 15 March, ending a winter's appeal of rumor about which team has found the biggest ambiguity in the annual update of the rulebook. For the past numerous decades those who write the policy for the world's most admired form of motorsport and those who really do the racing have engaged in an complicated dance to find out how far the rules can be extended and prodded.

In years past, just one or two teams would find the wonderful permutation of car and driver, making it a landslide for those who nail the magic but a repetitive series of victories for fans. In recent years the rule makers have tried to level the playing field, and 2012 saw one of the most aggressive seasons in current reminiscence with seven different drivers from five different teams winning the first seven races.

Like other forms of motorsport, without new rules and regulations the ever growing speed of Formula 1 cars would reach tremendously unsafe levels. So every year the rule makers come out with new limitations and the teams then search for stylish, and often extremely imaginative, engineering solutions that will minimize the effect those new system will have on their cars.

The rules can be tremendously limiting for the engines, transmissions and other interior parts, so aerodynamics are where engineers look to utilize anything the rule makers did not specially ban. The most important rule changes for 2013 are related to the aero, and in exacting closing some loopholes that facilitate some of the most imaginative tricks last season.

Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso prepare for argument

Sebastian Vettel is in a class of his own as the Formula 1 season detonation off today - the only driver on the grid with three world championships now that renowned fellow German Michael Schumacher, who won seven, has leaved for the second and last time.

That statistic does not lie but nor, possibly, does it succeed as the whole truth in the eyes of the vast army of Ferrari fans for whom veteran Spaniard Fernando Alonso is the rocket man in red. Alonso has been runner-up to Vettel double and was in argument until the last lap of the last race in Brazil last year before declining just three points adrift, an annoying denouement to what he says was "by far" the best of his 11 seasons even although he won back-to-back titles in 2005-06.

If that close effect had gone the other way, it would be Alonso with three currently and Vettel with two. In other words, there is not as greatly between them as Vettel's monopoly would suggest, particularly if Ferrari can make a better start in a allegedly better car.

It means F1 has the crucial element of all major sporting contests - a cut-throat competition. Indeed, with three other previous champions in the field - Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen - the sport is likely one of its most aggressive eras. That creates Vettel's hat-trick all the more imposing.

Alonso, Hamilton challenge Vettel for F1 Race Title

The 25-year-old German has won three instantly Formula One world championships and drives for a Red Bull squad that has won 34 races over the past four seasons. Red Bull lagged after Mercedes and Ferrari during the current preseason tests and former world champions Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso both appear suspended to regain the title as the 19-race season heads into Saturday night’s season-opening Grand Prix of Australia.

Hamilton has moved from McLaren to Mercedes while Ferrari has retooled its attempt following Alonso after going five seasons lacking a championship. Here is a look at the Formula One schedule caption into the season in order of predictable finish.

Hamilton, 28, comes over from McLaren to replace seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, who didn’t generate the predictable results when he came out of departure in 2010. Despite a number of changes on the organization and technical sides of the equation, the new W-04 model was the greatest car in winter testing. Rosberg completed ninth in points last year and Schumacher was 13th.

Ferrari has lost the championship in the season culmination three times in the last five years. Alonso gave Ferrari a series of impressive drives in 2012 and finished second for the second time in three years. If Ferrari distribute on its promise to give Alonso, 31, a better car, a fourth designation could be in the offing. Massa force be the best No. 2 driver on the track.

Preview of the Mercedes F1 Race Australia GP - 2013

The 2013 Formula One contest gets happening in Melbourne this week with the first race of the season, the Australian Grand Prix, held at the Albert Park track in the city. For MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS, 2013 sees an exhilarating new driver combination with Lewis Hamilton joining the team to colleague Nico Rosberg at the wheel of the Silver Arrows cars.

The Safety Car has been organize in six of the last ten races in Melbourne - comprised four of the last five Mercedes-Benz power has won four of the past five Australian Grands Prix 60% of Australian Grand Prix winners in the past decade have gone on to befall World Champion.

Nico Rosberg Melbourne is a immense place to kick off the new Formula One season. I actually like the city and the Australian fans at the track are always unbelievable and so supportive. The first Grand Prix is where everyone finds out where they actually are and we can judge how well we have done beside our opposition as the times in winter testing just don't tell the full story.

The weather in Melbourne looks very hot at the moment which is going to be a harsh dispute as we have no experience with the F1 W04 in those conditions. Tyre humiliation will be the biggest concern for everyone so we need to look at that cautiously and do a good job in managing it. I'm really looking onward to next weekend and receiving the season underway.

Hamilton Ready for Mercedes debut in Australian GP

 

The season-opening Rolex Australian Grand Prix takes consign on Sunday, March 17 in Melbourne and will be ex-world champion Hamilton’s first while toggle from McLaren to the Mercedes AMG Petronas players. Hamilton, the 28-year-old F1 racer from Hertfordshire, pinnacle the timesheets on the penultimate day of testing approximately the track de Catalunya in Barcelona.

Mercedes colleague Nico Rosberg then went quickest on the final day of difficult in Spain. The Mercedes F1 W04 finished 5,224 km over the three pre-season test assemblies, with Nico and Lewis totalling 2,640km and 2,584km correspondingly.

Stevenage-born Hamilton said: “There’s still a lot of work in front of us to get to where we desire to be but the team is responsibility a great job. “The dependability, the mileage and the step-by-step development that we have achieved through the three tests are all very hopeful.

“Whilst we’ve been hub on our own presentation, we absolutely haven’t seen the full possible of our contestant yet, so it’s difficult to forecast where we might be.” Rosberg added: “We have attained a lot of mileage and I can feel that the equilibrium of the car is good.

Fernando Alonso can make the difference for Ferrari - 2013

Simple logic would propose that this season the 31-year-old has his best possibility however of attractive the 10th driver to win a title for the Italian glamour team, joining a list of greats that comprise Juan Manuel Fangio, Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher.

Being coronet with the most successful team in the history of the sport, one that has struggle in every contest since the first in 1950 would be a occupation high for a driver who is previously Ferrari's clear number one.

To be a Ferrari favourite you do not have to win the contest for the Maranello team - Gilles Villeneuve and Nigel Mansell never did - but Alonso wants additional than just love and admiration. The Spaniard won three races in 2012 and, beside the odds, finished on the platform 13 times in 20 starts. Despite behind out in the end, Alonso affirmed it a 'dream season' but he feels the best is however to come.

"Last year was the best year of my career and I was very pleased with the recital, but I think this year will be better," he said this week. "We have an improved starting point, and I have educated from some mistakes of last year. I have prepared better. I am enhanced than last year."

Give him the tools and Alonso, twice a defender with Renault in 2005 and 2006, can create the difference. He knows it and so do the teams, who have completed everything they can to provide him a winning machine.