Gold beats Silver to Germany win as Vettel and Lotus fill the podium, Mercedes overcome Hungary heat, Mr Blonde / Goldfinger thrashes the field in Belgium

After the tyre problems at Silverstone, Pirelli gave the teams a different specification of tyre for the German GP only, with a view to 2012 construction and 2013 performance from Hungary onwards.

Whether the tyres could hold on or not was the big question on everyone's mind, along with the relative performance changes for each team.

From practice it seemed that Mercedes could have trouble coping with the heatwave at the Nurburgring, but McLaren appeared to have moved forward and Force India had dropped back.

Sure enough, Lewis Hamilton took pole, but with Nico Rosberg failing to make it past Q2 Mercedes left themselves exposed to a Red Bull dominance.

In the early laps it was all fairly normal (apart from Lewis slipping back and Felipe Massa retiring after a Turn 1 spin) until Mark Webber's pitstop, where a loose wheel hit a cameraman. Stricter regulations were put in place after the incident for the Hungarian GP.

After that, Lotus eventually emerged as Vettel's main challengers, until a "bag some points" moment for Kimi (to stop him falling back like China 2012) left Sebastian clear for his first home win after five attempts with Red Bull. This left the podium the same as Bahrain (2012 and 2013), with Alonso pipping Hamilton to fourth.

Lower down, McLaren had taken their biggest haul of points for quite some time (having ended a 60 odd race points streak with two non-points races), Force India failed to score and Sauber scored a point with Nico Hulkenberg in 10th. Williams failed to score again and Caterham beat Marussia.

Heading to Hungary, Mercedes had seen their German GP win challenge fade very early on, so with the Hungaroring being traditionally difficult to overtake on they needed to get their title challenge back on track with the new tyres.

Qualifying gave Lewis Hamilton his third pole in a row (Mercedes had taken all the dry pole positions and Red Bull the wet ones up to this point), with Vettel and Grosjean just behind.

In the race, the hard work paid off for Mercedes as Lewis held on for his fourth Hungarian GP win - with Kimi and Sebastian completing the podium. A somewhat unfortunate but messy race for Grosjean left him 6th, and Williams finally got a point with Maldonado in 10th (only after a late drop out courtesy of Nico Rosberg's engine).

Going into the Summer break, Vettel had a 38 point lead over Kimi, 39 over Alonso, 48 over Lewis and 67 over Webber - so it appears the top four are the ones fighting for the title.

Some of the big talking points that would dominate the Summer break included Webber's Red Bull seat (who would replace him for 2014) and the 2014 Calendar - which even now hasn't been provisionally confirmed!

However, on F1's return, at Spa Francorchamps, both topics were still rumbling on - but with Shell's involvement as the Belgian GP's title sponsor Greenpeace decided to campaign against their drilling in the Arctic (something Greenpeace think Shell is doing, but I don't know either way).

This wasn't the most amusing story of the weekend - it was in fact Vettel's dyed hair (nicknames given include Mr Blonde) - but it remained to be seen if he could swing the momentum back his way.

Practice suggested Red Bull could dominate the race with both cars, but remember it was only Practice!

But when it came to Qualifying, Spa's microclimate offered a chance for Caterham and Marussia - which they both took - VDG was 3rd, BIA 11th and CHI 16th in Q1 with only the weighbridge preventing Pic from joining them in Q2. After a relatively dry Q2, Q3 started cloudy but quickly turned wet. PDR set the pace, until the track dried very late on. Hamilton was last in the queue, and duly took his fourth consecutive pole position.

His lead over Vettel didn't last long, with the German's car better suited to Sectors 1 and 3 - leaving the compromised Mercedes vulnerable to a Kemmel Straight pass, from which Sebastian never looked back.

McLaren managed to get both cars in the points, but a non-finish for Kimi meant Lotus couldn't do the same. Ricciardo took the final point in 10th from 19th on the grid, but a clash for Maldonado with Di Resta sent the Brit out at Bus Stop and gave the Venezuelan a Stop and Go penalty.

Caterham's Giedo van der Garde had an impressive weekend, holding off the Marussias from start to finish.

With Alonso and Hamilton completing the podium, Vettel now has a 46 point lead with 8 races left - arguably his to lose now! But can Ferrari, Mercedes or Lotus fight back? The tifosi will be keen to see their team win but anyone looking for a tight title fight will want anyone but Vettel to do well.

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2013 British GP: Testing Times for (Pirelli) Tyres

After the tragic events both in and out of Formula 1 (the deaths of Mark Robinson and several drivers since the Canadian GP finished), the teams set up at Silverstone (although Force India are just across the road so it wasn't exactly difficult for them!).

On Thursday it was announced that after months of speculation, Mark Webber would be leaving F1 at the end of 2013 to drive for Porsche in their 2014 World Endurance team. It was later confirmed that Kimi Raikkonen, Jean Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo will all be considered for the Red Bull drive in 2014.

During Friday Practice the weather was again a limiting factor in the amount of laps completed, which meant the 80,000 or so spectators probably felt a bit short changed by the rain. But during the F1 show it did at least give a classic Silverstone setting for a live proposal in the  from a pair of F1 fans!

Moving on to Saturday Practice, over the three sessions Mercedes and Red Bull had set the pace, but Ferrari and Lotus had yet to shine. As for McLaren they still looked to have problems, especially when Sergio Perez suffered the first puncture of the weekend, but Force India and Toro Rosso had both impressed so far. However Williams were not replicating any of Valtteri's Canadian GP qualifying pace.

Then came Qualifying. The usual suspects, being a Williams, Esteban Gutierrez's Sauber, Caterham and Marussia, all fell in Q1. This time it was Pastor Maldonado who made it to Q2, where he joined both McLarens, Massa, Vergne and Hulkenberg in failing to reach Q3.

In the final part of Qualifying it was the usual four at the front (Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel and Webber) but both Paul Di Resta and Daniel Ricciardo shone ahead of Sutil, Grosjean, Raikkonen and Alonso. However it transpired that Di Resta's car was underweight, and he was excluded from Qualifying which meant he had to start from P22.

Finally, Race Day was upon us with the home crowd hoping Lewis Hamilton could convert pole to win, something he hadn't done since announcing his move to Mercedes.

It was all going well for most people, notably apart from Webber (who had a slow start, damaged his wing and ended up in P14 at the end of Lap 1) and Button, who also dropped back on a circuit where his record is relatively poor despite it being his home race. That was at least until Lap 8!

Hamilton had led away from pole with Vettel and Rosberg following within a few seconds, but a rear left puncture coming out of Turn 4 ruined his chances of a home podium. The new order was Vettel, Rosberg and Sutil, who had made good ground and passed Ricciardo in the opening phase. Just two laps later, Felipe Massa had the same puncture and his race was also severely compromised. A few laps later, it was Vergne's turn to have a blowout on Hangar Straight, right in front of the Lotuses of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean.

These three incidents brought out the first Safety Car of the afternoon, and once the race had resumed Vettel scampered off into the distance. Or so it seemed... After a relatively quiet (tyre wise) middle stint (where a number of drivers had somehow got back round to the pits despite tyre damage), Sebastian's car slowed and ground to a halt on the start finish straight, triggering a second Safety Car. This gave Nico Rosberg a "free" pitstop but also helped the likes of Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso, who would later see a close call with Perez, who had another tyre problem, this time on Hangar Straight.

Luckily it was only those four and that Alonso chose the right side of Sergio to overtake and not the left, otherwise it might not have ended well, but a very clear message from all the drivers that the tyres need to be made safer.

The sheer multitude of incidents somewhat overshadowed Nico Rosberg's victory, and left many British fans with a "what if" for Lewis Hamilton that will never be answered.

As the teams head to Germany they will be looking to avoid a repeat of these tyre failures, and will be given a chance to do tyre testing (apart from Mercedes) at the Young Driver Test.

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Round up and 2013 British GP Preview

Since the last post, we have seen a number of events take place. In the non-F1 motorsport category we had the BTCC both at Oulton Park (dry on the whole) and then Croft Circuit (dry to start but got very wet by the end), MotoGP (Lorenzo extended his win streak) and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which tragically saw Allan Simonsen of Denmark die as a result of his injuries sustained in the first 10 minutes of the race. Coincidentally, the Number 2 Audi, driven by former F1 driver Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen of Denmark and Loic Duval won the race with both a dane and a driver named Allan - a fitting tribute to the driver of the #95 Aston Martin.

In F1 news there was also a Mercedes / Pirelli International Tribunal which took place in Paris - but ran over to a second day before the announcement of a ban from the Young Drivers Test and a reprimand. This has apparently led to both Red Bull and Ferrari wanting to take the rules into their own hands and boycott the YDT in order to get more track time with their regular drivers in the 2013 car.

Along with many other teams, Mercedes AMG Petronas is based in the UK and is therefore the British GP is a home race for them - the perfect way to put the past few weeks of test gate behind them!

For the first time in a long time (if ever) there will be tickets available at the circuit for this weekend's race, the reduced British success and ticket prices reducing crowds along with the slightly earlier race date.

Talking of race dates, Sebastian Vettel is yet to win in July, so this could be a chance for him to add to his 2009 win, on 21st June. This has been a very good circuit for Red Bull so expect both Vettel and Mark Webber to be close to or in the Top 3 at least.

Ferrari appear to enjoy winning in odd years at Silverstone (at least in the last 10 years), with their last four wins being in 2003 (Rubens Barrichello after a lunatic ran out onto the track!), 2004 (Michael Schumacher, but this was almost a given in a near perfect first 13 races), 2007 (Kimi Raikkonen) and 2011 (Fernando Alonso).

McLaren will be hoping to put their non-score in Canada behind them for this race, as the more open Silverstone circuit could be better for their car and give a chance to get close to matching or beating Jenson Button's 5th place in China, especially if the weather misbehaves itself like 2012!

Another UK based team under pressure is Williams, who despite taking third place in qualifying with Valtteri Bottas just didn't have the pace to keep him even ahead of the McLarens - they are still looking for their first point of 2013 in what will be an important double header before the Hungarian GP and Summer break - they are celebrating their 600th race this weekend and would dearly love a decent result to mark the occasion.

After two relatively disappointing races for Lotus, they will be looking to get back into the upper half of the points as they were with Kimi Raikkonen for four of the first five races.

Unlike Williams and Lotus, the last two races have been impressive for both Toro Rosso and Force India, both of whom look to beat their best ever points totals* before the end of October at this rate.

*Toro Rosso's best is 41 in 2010, but with 39 in 2008 this would have been 107 on the current system - so the total of 41 is what I am talking about here as 107 would be unlikely without lots of big scores

Canada was a disasterous weekend for Sauber - at the circuit where Robert Kubica won for them (as BMW Sauber) in 2008, Hulkenberg had contact with Van Der Garde in the Caterham and Gutierrez crashed late on and resulted in the previously discussed crane incident.

As for Caterham and Marussia, it seemed to be status quo with Marussia edging ahead before they both head into one of their home races (in the latter's case it is their only home race) - who will come out on top after both recently conducted straight line tests?

All will be revealed this weekend - with FP1 and FP2 coverage being an hour later, but otherwise the rest is virtually the same.

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Formula 1 in 2013 so far

After a two year gap, I have decided that now is the time to resume blogging (even though I'd barely started last time!). A lot has happened in that time: Sebastian Vettel has become a Triple World Champion, Kimi Raikkonen has returned, Michael Schumacher has retired again (collecting just one podium in three years), Fernando Alonso suffered another marginal defeat in 2012 and Lewis Hamilton is no longer with McLaren. And BBC no longer has the UK television coverage to itself, until 2018 at the earliest.

Prior to Winter Testing, the general consensus was that many teams, including Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes, had all made gains by developing their 2012 car, whereas McLaren were confident that their significant changes over the Winter had made a difference.

However, come the first test it was clear that McLaren were struggling and the teams that had evolved their 2012 cars chose the right path.

A few tests later (one was covered on Sky Sports F1) and the teams arrived in Melbourne for the first race of the season.

Red Bull locked out the front row, however Mark Webber had one of his slow starts, leaving the door open for a number of significant drivers to pass him before Turn 1.

On different strategies, Kimi Raikkonen, who duly won, impressed along with Adrian Sutil, on his return after a year away, probably due to the GBH charge brought against him after an incident in China. However Sauber might have been able to score points with Nico Hulkenberg from 11th had the fuel system problem not occurred between qualifying and the race.

The first race indicated that while Red Bull had the outright one lap pace, along with Mercedes, the race pace was severely compromised for the RB9 by extracting 100% in qualifying, whereas Lotus didn't have the speed over a single lap but its E21 appeared to be very kind on its tyres, along with Force India's VJM06, which outpaced McLaren's MP4-28 all weekend. Towards the back, Marussia had comfortably outpaced and outraced Caterham, who had beaten them in their various guises for the last three years. Both teams had new line ups for 2013, with Pic (moving from Marussia) and Van Der Garde in the CT03, as well as Bianchi (a last minute replacement for Luiz Razia, whose sponsorship money failed to materialise) and Chilton in the MR02.

Heading to Kuala Lumpur, Mercedes believed that despite the mechanical problem for Nico Rosberg in Australia, their W04 made them a lot more competitive than 2012, with Lewis Hamilton finishing 5th and Nico keeping up while he was still in the race.

This showed in Malaysia, as Mercedes were clearly the second fastest team there behind Red Bull, where Webber had made an excellent start for a change! In contrast, Fernando Alonso made a good start, but any chance of points disappeared when his front wing fell off at the start of the second lap, leaving him in the gravel trap - the drying track conditions could have given him a decent chance of a podium. On around lap 35, the order was Webber was ahead of Vettel, with the two Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg fighting over 3rd place.

However, any hopes of their driver pairs scrapping until the end were called off after Vettel broke the Multi 21 message given to him to take the lead, where he stayed, and Ross Brawn told the Mercedes drivers to hold station.

This left Vettel on top with 40 points after two races, with Kimi, Fernando and Lewis starting to emerge.

The third race in China was quite different to the first two races: Lewis Hamilton took pole for Mercedes, but the higher tyre wear rate left him vulnerable to Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen. The RB9s of Vettel and Webber were unable to make the podium - Webber's weekend was ruined right from the offset, from the Malaysian GP controversy to a Qualifying breakdown and then a tangle with Vergne in a Toro Rosso left him unable to finish the race. As for McLaren, Jenson Button managed to muscle a fifth place, but Sergio Perez was still outside the points.

Then the F1 circus moved to Bahrain. After a pole position for Nico Rosberg and a broken suspension for Lewis Hamilton (relegating him to 9th after a grid penalty), a 2012 podium repeat and a near podium for Paul Di Resta were the main stories, as lower down the points a McLaren tussle between their drivers, Perez  coming out on top for 6th. At the back, Caterham managed to turn the tables on Marussia after drafting in Heikki Kovalainen for FP1 to help sort the car out.

In Spain, Mercedes took a front row lockout but they soon slipped back with tyre trouble. Fernando Alonso  capitalised to win at home with Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa completing the podium. It proved another disappointing race for McLaren, who barely made the points in 8th and 9th, and Williams who again failed to score, one year on from the 2012 win for Pastor Maldonado.

Appearing to have aced the last sector in Spain, Mercedes were the pre-race favourites in Monaco. It worked for them in qualifying, taking a second consecutive front row lockout and a fourth straight pole position. Sure enough, Nico Rosberg dominated the entire weekend and won in style, but not without the news of a three day Pirelli 1000km tyre test with Mercedes (the International Tribunal meeting takes place tomorrow), but Lewis Hamilton slipped back in the race during a Safety Car period behind the two Red Bulls. McLaren had a stronger showing but Ferrari and Lotus both struggled around the tight street circuit, the latter were lucky to score points after Perez and Raikkonen touched at Nouvelle Chicane.

In addition to the Safety Car periods there was also a Red Flag after Max Chilton sent Pastor Maldonado into the wall at Tabac, wrapping the tyre barrier around his car.

After a number of compromised races, Adrian Sutil returned to the points in an impressive 5th, ahead of Jenson Button in 6th.

The main talking point heading into the Canadian GP weekend was undoubtedly the Pirelli tyre test Mercedes had conducted after the Spanish GP, but rain in qualifying ended the Mercedes pole run by less than a tenth of a second as Vettel took pole for the third year in a row in Canada, and Valtteri Bottas impressed for Williams in third.

In the race, Vettel made a typical getaway and with the lower tyre degradation managed to hold the lead, barring a few laps during pitstops. Bottas fell back outside the points, where McLaren ended up for the first time since the 2009 Abu Dhabi GP. A late crash for Esteban Gutierrez brought out a crane, which ran over and fatally injured Mark Robinson, a Canadian marshal. He became the first F1 death for over 12 years and this overshadowed the weekend where Vettel broke his Canadian GP curse.

After 7 Races, the top 4 order is Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen and Hamilton as it was in 2012. In the constructors, Red Bull lead Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus. Force India are holding McLaren off for 5th place for now.

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