Red Bull home run

Last weekend Red Bull Racing and Milton Keynes council came together to create a celebratory event in the teams home turf of MK to celebrate a very successful year in Formula 1.

This season Red Bull were comfortably at the top from start to finish, Sebastian Vettel claimed the most poles in a season (15) and won the majority of the races and was a feature on the podium regularly, with only one retirement in Abu Dhabi due to a puncture.
Mark Webber picked up a handful of podiums himself and not forgetting the last race of the season where he won in Brazil joining Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso to be the only drivers to beat Vettel on the top step.
In Korea Red Bull Racing clinched the Constructors title and the race before Sebastian Vettel won the drivers championship in Japan. 
So... not much to celebrate then eh!

The event also showcased talented stunt bike rider Chris Pfeiffer and David Coulthard driving in a Red Bull NASCAR as well as both Formula 1 cars, drivers and the team.

Being one of roughly 66,000 fans/spectators i can say both myself and my family had an amazing day out. For me, i got lucky and happened to be in the rights places at the right time (and waiting over two hours outside the make-shift garage to see Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber along with Adrian Newey, Christian Horner, DC and Jake Humphrey!)

Thank you to Milton Keynes and to RBR for a fantastic show run, to help with the off season blues!!

It's official

The least shocking announcement on who'd have a drive at Sahara Force India next season has now officially been confirmed.

Nico Hulkenberg and Paul Di Resta will pair up next season while Adrian Sutil is out of a contract.
Paul Di Resta, who won 'Autosport Rookie of the year 2011' made a lasting impression during his debut Formula 1 season at the team. He repeatedly out-qualified his now ex teammate Adrian Sutil and managed to score a decent amount of points for the team. His calm and collective approach to the media, always offering an in depth analysis during interviews and generally being fan-friendly has made his fan base increase while his obvious talent has shone to the team who are keeping him for the 2012 season. Let's hope next year is even better for him.

Nico Hulkenberg made his debut in 2010 for Williams, and like Di Resta he gained a solid fan base that would support him from then on, even during the 2011 season while he's been a reserve driver for Force India.
His amazing first pole position in Brazil 2010 showed us just a glimpse of his racing talent, something which hopefully the Force India will help shine and he can now start to show the Motorsport world what the Hulk has been holding back while being out for this past season.  

Now there is only two seats left that need to be filled on the grid, although it's unknown if Ruben Barrichello will be staying at Williams there's a possibility that now redundant Adrian Sutil could replace the Brazilian.
HRT could now change it's plans and opt for Jaime Alguersuari in the teams bid to be completely Spanish. 
We'll have to patiently wait and see!

In with the new

It was announced a few hours ago that Lotus Renault isn't the only one making bold moves in their driver line up.
Toro Rosso have signed TWO new drivers Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne who was Renault 3.5 runner up and Australian Daniel Ricciardo who's most recently been racing for HRT in a deal cut by Red Bull; both being Red Bull young drivers.

The upside? My last post talking about fresh talent on the grid, seems to be turning around. Daniel Ricciardo race from Silverstone onwards this past season for HRT, an uncompetitive team that helped him get experience under his belt. It's been rumoured for a while that he might have replaced one of the former Toro Rosso drivers and Red Bull have pushed for him to be in Formula 1.
Jean-Eric Vergne set his 2011 sights on becoming champion in the Renault 3.5 season, he showed Red Bull he was fast but only managed runner up, in a tense battle to the end with Robert Wickens, a championship he could taste and then fell at the last hurdle. He also tested on Fridays with Scuderia Toro Rosso which was a promising sign.

The downside? We lose two very talented and passionate drivers. This is the cut throat world of F1 - your position is never safe. This has been proved throughout the whole season where Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari have pushed each other and motivated each other in an attempt to come out on top, the better driver, the driver who most deserves his seat with STR. The battle so closely fought helped Toro Rosso develop as a team with more positive results and higher grid finishes. 
I did believe that one of them would stay at the team and help continue this positive growth but now seeing as they've signed two rookies, this may be doubtful. 
I hope to see both Buemi and Alguersuari stay positive and continue racing in F1 sometime soon, talent shouldn't be wasted, there could be a surprise for us yet.

Good luck to them both and i hope they both have very successful seasons and most of all enjoy the racing!

Sh-sh-sh-shake up!

So i know i'm late on the news front but i've been away for the weekend (post coming soon) but the fight for the remaining Lotus Renault seat has being signed.

After weeks, or even months of speculation of who was going to be sat in a Lotus next year has come to a close. Kimi Raikkonen won't be the only newbie at the team as LRGP have officially done the deal with GP2 winner Romain Grosjean. A slightly shocking surprise for Vitaly Petrov who had a contract for 2012 but turns out it was on a 2011 race seat with a 2012 option.
While it's great news for Grosjean who get's to make a go of Formula 1 again, Petrov is now out of a seat along with Bruno Senna, who has reportedly said he'd be happy with a reserve role. The lack of seats and ever growing young talent means It's got to the point where the young guns are now happy for reserve roles whereas the verging on retiring drivers are still keeping seats?!

I can't help but think it's time for a lot more fresh faces in Formula 1, not just for a single season and then for another rookie to be snapped up, i mean for more drivers to enter F1 and stay, build a solid fan base and grow within the sport, to watch them climb the ranks to the top. We've recently seen Sebastian Vettel grow overt he past few years to become World Champion and now once the older drivers have moved on we need to see new young Sebastian's arising.

A rumour, which i will reiterate  is just a rumour at the moment, is that Kamui Kobayashi could be replaced by Jules Bianchi, whom is on the Ferrari young driver programme, like Sergio Perez, so it would make sense for him to make his debut with the Sauber team, however this is one move i am unsure of. I'm a big fan of Kobayashi's driving style, he's showed us he has got determination, he's proved he can have an agressive driving style if he needs to, he's won the hearts of many and it would be sad to see him out of a seat, he's one of the promising drivers that you know is just going to get better and better and if i'm honest i think this year he's learnt a lot more with having Perez as a team mate, someone whose evenly matched and to me, i think they make a great team.
On the other hand i've been following Jules Bianchi's career for about two years now, i get excited when i see him race, he's talented and someday he will end up winning in a Ferrari, races and even Championships. He wouldn't be on the Ferrari young driver programme if they didn't believe in him so if he did go to Sauber a part of me would be very happy but the other would be sad that Kamui wasn't there.

Familiar faces.

When it was announced months ago that for the 2012 season onwards was no longer going to be solely on the BBC and that they'd only be showing 10 races live, the news of Formula 1 shift to Sky Sports was sketchy, fans were unaware of what this Sky deal consisted of and in recent months, slowly but surely the pieces are being put together and we now have a clearer understanding of what awaits us next year. 

At first, i was sceptical, but now i feel more positive that Sky will up BBC's game and put everything in to bringing us closer to the Grand Prix weekend. 
The only downside is that people who can't afford or don't want Sky Sports or the HD package that they will be unable to watch every race live, instead will be watching it delayed on the BBC with limited coverage - a bit like taking a step back when we should all be taking a step forward. 
If you do have Sky Sports, then the channel will be included, the same goes if you are a Sky HD subscriber.

So, after the brilliant 'banter' at the Autosport Awards between the BBC and Sky, Sky announced their official team line up and well it looks very familiar...

Say hello to Sky Sports F1's familiar faces...

(From left-right) Anthony Davidson, David Croft, Nathalie Pinkham, Martin Brundle, Simon Lazenby, Georgie Thompson and Ted Kravitz.

Yep, that right, it's the BBC team, apart from Jake Humphrey, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan. 

For the Commentary throughout every Grand Prix weekend Martin Brundle, like this year for the BBC, will lead Sky's comms during qualifying and the race along with co-commentator David Croft. Joining Crofty for practise sessions is ex-Formula 1 driver Anthony Davidson. Ant and Crofty, who have commentated for the past three years together for BBC 5live are joining forces again to bring us top notch commentating (nice to see you both sticking together.)
Down in the pitlane is Nathalie Pinkham and Ted kravitz who will continue to get the inside knowledge of what's going on during all the sessions.
Ted Kravitz will also present a Tv magazine show on Sky F1 with Steve Rider.
The main presenter will be Sky Sports own, Georgie Thompson and Simon Lazemby. 

It has to be said, well done Sky for giving us a near perfect line up of presenters and commentators! 

So with Sky feeling like a home from home, next year doesn't look too bad after all, i just hope this positive hype of making it bigger and better get's put into practise.

What are your thoughts? Do you like the line up? Will you be watching Sky if you can? Or sticking to BBC?

Autosport Awards 2011

If you didn't watch the Autosports award on Sunday evening then watch then you should really watch Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel's speeches, the are both A* comedians...

Jenson Button collecting Best British Driver award 2011 (watch this one first)

Sebastian Vettel collecting International Driver of the year

Sebastian Vettel : Winner of the racing driver that can talk the longest and make witty jokes in his second language.

This was definitely the most entertaining part of the evening. The most touching was the Dan Wheldon piece with his dad and Dario Franchitti who both said a little bit on Dan.

Highlights of who won what:

Done deal.

At an odd time of the evening it was confirmed that Pastor Maldonado will keep his seat at Williams. Let's hope he's learnt from this year, improved and will return next season with a more experienced head.

There's still no indication as to who his teammate will be but let's cross our fingers for it to be Rubens Barrichello again.

Other news:

If you didn't already know then this weekend is the Race Of Champions (ROC) held in Dusseldorf, Germany. 

The name is self-explanatory - it's a series or races in various cars, teams are split into 'Team GB', 'Team Germany' etc these teams are made up of champions (race drivers, rally drivers, x-fighters) such as Sebastian Vettel, Romain Grosjean, Vitaly Petrov, Michael Schumacher, Sebastien Ogier, Travis Pastrana and last years winner Filipe Albuquerque, and many more. On Saturday they compete for the nation's and Sunday individually for the driver Champion of Champions.

It's just what everyone needs a week after the Formula 1 season has finished!!

If you live in the UK then coverage starts live at 6pm tonight on MotorsTV and tomorrow at 1pm.
You can also follow it live on Twitter ... @MotorsTV  and  @RaceOfChampions


[Don't forget you can also follow me on Twitter @MaddyyF1]