Formula-1 news

The first day of Abu Dhabi practice saw the four title contenders to the fore, as everybody worked on setting their cars up and getting the best out of Bridgestone’s medium and super-soft tyres for the last time. Hamilton was quickest in what he felt was a much improved McLaren, but Vettel insisted there is more to come from Red Bull. We take a team-by-team look at Friday at Yas Marina

Drivers: 1. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), 1m 39.394s; 2. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), 1m3 9.425s; 3. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), 1m 39.792s

Q: Sebastian, a crucial pole at a crucial time. You have a great chance now of becoming the youngest ever World Champion.
Sebastian Vettel: Yeah, we start from pole, couldn’t be better. I think it was a tough qualifying session. We knew that the conditions would be tricky. At night the temperatures drop a little bit. Yesterday in the afternoon, or the late evening, in the practice we didn’t look too good and we were not 100 per cent happy but I think we made a big step today which allowed us to fight for the pole. I think it was very close with Lewis especially. In the end I think if we would have done two runs it would probably have been the better choice. I was surprised how much the circuit ramped up for us

After all the rain in Belgium on Friday morning and through lunch, it was dry for the second practice session during the afternoon, which was halted for a few minutes with a quarter of an hour to run because spectators were suspected to be in a dangerous area.

Adrian Sutil set the pace throughout for Force India, only to be upstaged right at the end when Fernando Alonso bettered him by 0.125s in the Ferrari. The Spaniard lapped in 1m 49.032s, compared to the German’s 1m 49.157s.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton may have won last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, but the 2009 event was dominated by the accident which befell Ferrari’s Felipe Massa during qualifying. A year on, we look back at the events of the Budapest weekend, which would see Massa ruled out of the rest of the season, and evaluate the Brazilian’s extraordinary return to top-flight racing.

Ahead of qualifying Massa had looked fairly comfortable in his Ferrari, clocking the seventh-fastest time in Saturday’s final practice session, and as qualifying got underway he was equally swift. But during the closing moments of Q2, whilst running eighth, he suddenly speared off the track at Turn Four of the Hungaroring and ploughed straight into a tyre wall.

BMW Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi has been handed a five-place grid penalty for Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix by the Budapest race stewards, after he failed to enter the FIA garage to be weighed during qualifying on Saturday.

During practice and qualifying cars are called in at random to be weighed to ensure that they comply with minimum weight requirements (620kg).

Drivers: 1. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), 1m 18.773s; 2. Mark Webber (Red Bull), 1m 19.184s; 3. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), 1m 19.987s

Q: Sebastian, 100th Grand Prix for Red Bull Racing. A front row lock-out and a commanding performance from yourself in qualifying.
Sebastian Vettel: Yeah, it was a very good day for us. All weekend here we felt very comfortable, from the first practice session onwards with the car. I think we were able to improve it again another bit overnight. I said on the radio to the boys ‘this is your moment.’ Mark and myself

The only really conclusive thing about Friday morning’s opening practice session for the German Grand Prix was how heavily Lewis Hamilton trashed his McLaren after getting caught out in the slippery conditions at Turn Four.

Heavy rain from the start made for a tough morning’s work for everyone. Adrian Sutil was the hero, slamming his Force India round in 1m 25.701s…

Heavy rain five minutes before the start of Saturday morning’s final practice session for the German Grand Prix threw things into disarray for a while, but created a gripping final few minutes after the track had dried out.

A series of rapid-fire laps saw fastest time changing hands by the minute, but in the end it was Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel who claimed the top slot with 1m 15.103s ahead of Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari on 1m 15.387s…

Red Bull’s Mark Webber has drawn a line under the front-wing controversy which flared up during last weekend’s British Grand Prix.

Webber was left frustrated when his team opted to remove the upgraded front wing from his RB6 and hand it over to his team mate Sebastian Vettel ahead of qualifying at Silverstone. Vettel’s own version of the new wing had been damaged during final practice. But after a race debrief at the team’s Milton Keynes factory, the Australian is confident they have now cleared the air.

Sebastian Vettel pushed Red Bull to the fore as the opening practice for this weekend’s British Grand Prix got underway on Friday morning at the new Silverstone circuit.

Proving that lap times in team simulators have not been overly optimistic at 1m 31s, Vettel lapped his RB6 in 1m 32.280s to head late-improving Lewis Hamilton by 0.334s after the 2008 world champion took his revised McLaren round in 1m 32.614s…