Welcome everyone to our first podcast of 2012.

Pat Symonds is the only podcast guest we’ve had more than once, and when you listen you’ll realise why. He’s a straight-talking F1 engineer who not only tells it how it is, but also has the ability to explain even the most technical parts of the sport to people who haven’t got an engineering degree (i.e. us).

We hope you enjoy it and do let us know your thoughts on everything we talk about.

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It seems like only a few months ago that we recorded our 2010 Formula 1 season review in our local pub, the Chelsea Ram.

But a full 12 months have passed, and to change things around a bit for this year’s season review we decided to ‘upgrade’ to the Bluebird restaurant. This may just seem like a good excuse to enjoy the food and wine this Chelsea establishment has to offer, but there was more to it than that.

Built in 1923 as the Bluebird Garage for Sir Malcolm Campbell, this Art Deco building was the place where in 2005 David Coulthard introduced Adrian Newey to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. The negotiations that meant Adrian would leave McLaren and join the ranks in Milton Keynes came at a later date, but the seed had been sown. It’s this partnership that has been a major factor in Sebastian Vettel’s two World Championships and so – good food aside – it seemed a fitting place to record our last podcast of 2011.

Our latest issue includes a full season review, taken from this recording, as well as Nigel Roebuck’s top ten drivers and an exclusive interview with 2011 runner-up Jenson Button. Want to know who Jenson thinks is the most aggressive driver on the grid? Look out for the February issue on UK newstands on December 30.

In the meantime, from all of us on the podcast team, a very happy Christmas and thank you for listening. It’s been a great year for the podcasts and we hope you’ve enjoyed them. We’ll be back in the new year with a great guest to kick us off. The first recording will be on January 19 so look out for the podcast soon after that.

At the risk of sounding like a BAFTA Award winner, I would just like to thank Alan Hyde for looking after the sound so brilliantly (it’s not easy making a bunch of smokers sound good) and Nigel Roebuck, Damien Smith and Rob Widdows for providing the content. More of the same in 2012, please…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

With the Formula 1 season over and the spate of interesting stories subsiding, it was a relief to have David Tremayne’s Jenson Button interview land in the Motor Sport office.

He interviewed the 2009 World Champion for our February issue (out on December 30) and Button was remarkably candid about his relationship with team-mate Lewis Hamilton and the other drivers on the grid.

“Lewis is tricky,” Button admitted. “It’s always tough to race your team-mate. Even if the balance of the car is not 100 per cent, the way I like it, Lewis can be very quick. I need a car that is more stable. When the car isn’t right it makes me work very hard as a driver to get the car I want. In that respect Lewis is very strong.

“I’m a straightforward person, I think. I don’t take any sh*t. I know that if something bothers me I have to get it on the table, that’s important. I don’t hold back and I say what things I have to say face-to-face and not through other people. As far as things with Lewis have been concerned, I apologised to him during the break in Canada [after their collision in the Canadian Grand Prix], and in 2010 there was only one time we had words and that was in Turkey. I said something to him as soon as I got out of the car. We resolved those issues immediately, and we moved on.”

Button – who many people are saying drove better this year than he did when he won the championship in 2009 – is adamant that Lewis isn’t the most aggressive driver at the front of the grid. That particular accolade goes to a certain Australian.

“Mark [Webber] doesn’t give you a millimetre more than you need,” Button says about the Red Bull driver. “He’s the toughest nut, and he takes more risks than the others.”

Of course, like many others on the grid, he has a huge amount of respect for Alonso. “He is very intelligent, a real thinker,” he said about the Ferrari driver. “And he’s been around so long and seen so much that beating him is very tough, but he’s fair. He’ll push to the limit, so when you are able to come out on top after a fight with him, you really enjoy it.”

Button has had a stellar year at McLaren and provided he has a car in 2012 that is not only competitive but also suits his driving style, he will remain at the front, challenging for wins.

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It’s not often that you feel sorry for a Formula 1 driver.

But that was the reaction here in the Motor Sport office when we heard that Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne were replacing Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari at Toro Rosso next year. We talked about Buemi and Alguersuari at length in our season review podcast (which will be online next week) and the general consensus was that neither driver had done anything particularly wrong. OK, they hadn’t set the world alight either, but who can in a midfield car nowadays when both drivers are so evenly matched?

“It just shows what a tough world it is in Formula 1, doesn’t it?” said editor Damien Smith at the time. “Two guys who haven’t really done a lot wrong and their F1 careers are in danger of being more or less all over.” Barring a last-minute deal at Williams or HRT their F1 careers are now over, or at the very least on hold.

If the sacking came as a shock to some, so did the admission by Alguersuari that only a week before he had been talking with Helmut Marko and Franz Tost about their future plans for him.

“I am very surprised by the decision,” said the Spaniard. “Just a week after winning the Challenge das Estrelas in Florianópolis I talked with Helmut and Franz and they told me they had plans for me in 2012.

“They did it with enthusiasm and showed me much confidence, they also asked me to be in Madrid on Monday for an event in which they told me to insist on our 2012 project in F1.

“So after talking with Franz and Helmut this morning, I thought of three things: first, I will not judge the situation because if I thought it was a crazy thing to make me debut in 2009 at only 19 years and three months old without having done a kilometre in F1 ever before, today’s news seemed to be a major misunderstanding in the best moment of my sporting life. I will not judge the reasons for the decision because Red Bull have given me everything since I was 15 years old. I’ve been formed with them, and I’ve become a complete F1 driver aged only 21.

“Second, I am not a victim because for seven years I have enjoyed the privilege of being in the best team in the world and with the best means. They brought me here, and with them I won the British F3 Championship at 18 years old and with them I have achieved the best results of a 21-year-old F1 driver in 2011. At the end of March I will turn 22, with 46 GPs contested. They have taken a decision that I respect, but I am left with an enviable amount of training at an emotional and a fitness level.

“Third, there is no drama because I have many plans for the present and the future. The surprise has lasted a couple of hours. I had the necessary talk with my family and I then realised that life is full of opportunities and challenges.

“Back in Spain and reading the headlines, I’ve come to realise that there are almost five million unemployed people in Spain, and we can only give back to this country with confidence and optimism, thinking about fighting and improving every day. And that’s what I’ll do starting tomorrow, I promise that to all the fans and the people who appreciate me.”

I’m struggling to remember the last time an F1 driver came out with such a measured and grown-up statement after being thrown out of a team. For what it’s worth, I would have retained Alguersuari for 2012 and put Vergne in alongside him. What would you have done?

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Kimi Räikkönen’s 2012 team-mate at Lotus has finally been announced.

Bruno Senna, Romain Grosjean and Vitaly Petrov were all in the running, but it’s the Frenchman who has finally taken the spot alongside the 2007 Formula 1 World Champion.

At the end of 2009 Grosjean, who raced alongside Alonso in the latter half of the season, was dropped by Renault in favour of Petrov. In order to get another bite at the F1 apple he went back to GP2 and convincingly won both that title and the GP2 Asia Series.

It didn’t make Grosjean a dead cert to be in a Lotus race seat for 2012. Only a matter of days ago after testing a BMW DTM machine he said that if his F1 dream didn’t come to fruition this time around he would look elsewhere. After all, Petrov still had a contract for 2012.

“It’s difficult to find the right words to describe what I feel,” said a genuinely delighted Grosjean after the announcement. “It’s quite simply fantastic and I can’t wait to be at the start of the Australian Grand Prix in March next year!

“I think that my season in GP2 helped me get the seat as a nominated driver, because what people expected from me was to show that I’d grown up and matured – that at that level I was already capable of being a team leader. The two free practice sessions in the Abu Dhabi and Brazilian Grands Prix were also a kind of live assessment to see if I’d improved, if I was able to cope better with pressure and if I was still as quick. All these factors added to my two GP2 titles with DAMS were certainly major influences that helped me get the drive.”

Of course, the second chance of an F1 career will make for a very happy Christmas in the Grosjean household. But let’s not forget that his team-mate is Räikkönen, a man who made Michael Schumacher look like a team player. Will Grosjean just be a useful number two driver to the Finn? He’s not there because of his deep pockets, that’s for sure.

“I’m beginning to get used to having a World Champion as a team-mate,” said Grosjean. “After Fernando Alonso, now it’s Kimi Räikkönen. But it’s a real stroke of luck as you learn a lot from these people. And as we’ve got the same car, matching their level is proof of the quality of the driver.

“Kimi is a great driver, he’s got nothing to prove anymore and I’m delighted to have the opportunity of working with him. I believe that I too can bring something to the team with my understanding of the Pirelli tyres. He knows the ones in rallying but not those in F1. I think we’ll make a great pair and that speed will be one of the major pluses of the team.”

Only time will tell, but Grosjean is definitely a different driver to when Alonso blew him away in ’09.

With Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg as favourites for the two Force India seats and Pastor Maldonado confirmed at Williams, this now leaves Adrian Sutil, Rubens Barrichello, Senna and Petrov possibly fighting it out for the remaining seat with Williams. Unless, of course, they fancy joining Pedro de la Rosa at HRT…

One would hope that with Maldonado’s Venezuelan petro-dollars already confirmed the Grove-based outfit would opt for talent and/or experience. Senna? I doubt the team would want such little experience, especially if someone of Sutil’s ability is twiddling his thumbs on the sidelines.

It seems such a shame that the likes of Timo Glock, Daniel Ricciardo, Jean-Eric Vergne and all the above aren’t safely in midfield teams. They certainly deserve a proper shot at Formula 1.

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It’s finally been confirmed. Kimi Räikkönen will be returning to the Formula 1 grid in 2012.

The Finn – who has spent two years competing in the World Rally Championship – has secured a two-year deal with the Enstone-based Lotus Renault GP team to become the sixth World Champion on the grid.

After a visit to Williams earlier this year, it was clear that the Finn was interested in a comeback. That deal didn’t come to fruition, but in Brazil Renault team principal Eric Boullier admitted that Räikkönen was on his short list of drivers for next year.

His two seasons in the WRC produced few highlights other than a fifth-place finish in the 2010 Rally of Turkey and two sixth-place finishes this year in the Jordan Rally and Rallye Deutschland.

“My time in the World Rally Championship has been a useful stage in my career as a driver,” said Räikkönen. “But I can’t deny the fact that my hunger for F1 has recently become overwhelming.

“I’m delighted to be coming back to Formula 1 after a two-year break and I’m grateful to Lotus Renault GP for offering me this opportunity. It was an easy choice to return with Lotus Renault GP, as I have been impressed by the scope of the team’s ambition. Now I’m looking forward to playing an important role in pushing the team to the very front of the grid.”

So what do you think? Will Kimi have the speed and determination that Sebastian Vettel has displayed with such devastating effect this year? Because that’s what he is up against. Yes, when he won his championship in 2007 there was serious competition from the McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. However, that was before the Red Bull/Vettel juggernaut had even switched on its engine.

Whatever you think, it’s great news for F1. To have a record six World Champions on the grid can only be good for the sport. On top of that we will once again have the man who maybe doesn’t say much, but when he does it is usually right on the money and invariably hilarious.

It seems Räikkönen really hasn’t changed much since his last Grand Prix in 2009 when in a Lotus Renault GP video he said: “I wouldn’t have come back if I wasn’t motivated. There is always a lot of talk about the motivation, but nobody really knows what I do or what I think apart from myself, so I don’t really care about what people say.” Oh, how we’ve missed those one-liners…

With one seat now taken at Renault, Romain Grosjean, Vitaly Petrov or Bruno Senna will surely fill the second race seat. With Lotus’s form of signing ‘big names’ I’d put my money on Senna. But that’s a different story.

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As the race weekend progressed in Brazil, 2011 World Champion Sebastian Vettel got quicker and quicker. Come the last part of qualifying he was comfortably the fastest man on track and duly took his 15th pole position of the season, breaking Nigel Mansell’s record of 14 in a year.

However, Vettel suffered serious gearbox problems in the race and had to let team-mate Webber through on lap 30. Mark didn’t need asking twice – he made full use of his Red Bull’s superior speed and went on to take his first and only win of 2011.

It was a Red Bull front row lock-out for the seventh time this season in qualifying, with the McLarens of Button and Hamilton on the second row. However, all eyes were on the Ferraris come the start of the race as Alonso managed to squeeze past Hamilton and Massa also made up a place, bumping Rosberg down to seventh.

Vettel got away cleanly from pole and come the end of lap two he was 2.2 seconds ahead of Webber. Things weren’t so easy for Button at the start of the race, though. Jenson struggled to find a good balance on the softer of the two compounds and within five laps Alonso was right on his tail. There he stayed until lap 11 when he pulled off a brilliant move on the McLaren driver round the outside of turn six.

A lap earlier it was Schumacher and Senna creating some action in an otherwise processional start to the race. Senna had qualified an impressive ninth and managed to hold onto the position for the first 10 laps. Schumacher soon started looming in his mirrors, though, and with Senna protecting the inside line into turn one on the 10th lap, Schumacher stayed on the outside.

He cruised past the Renault thanks to the tow down the pit straight, but when he came to turn in Senna was still there and the pair made contact. Halfway through turn one and the two cars banged into each other again resulting in a broken front wing for the Brazilian and a left rear puncture for the German.

Senna was given a drive-through penalty for his part in the altercation, which he duly took on lap 19. Senna could have possibly backed out of the situation, but it seemed a harsh price to pay for what many people called a racing incident.

Soon after all this Vettel was warned about his gearbox problem. He needed to short shift in second and third from now on, but after a few slower laps he was back on the pace. However, it wasn’t to last – the team were back on the radio telling him to slow down again two laps later. It was inevitable that he would have to hand the lead over to Webber.

“I will fall behind,” he told his engineer Guillaume ‘Rocky’ Rocquelin when he was told to slow and take extra care. Whether this was him trying to explain that he would have to yield to Webber if he did slow, or that he was happy to hand the place over wasn’t clear. However, I doubt it was the latter.

The second round of pitstops for the front-runners started on lap 32 when Button dived in for the harder compound. Along with Hamilton, Vettel, Webber and Alonso, Button was on a three-stop strategy. Massa – on a two-stop strategy – stayed out and was soon running in fourth behind Webber, Vettel and Alonso. Button, on fresh tyres, didn’t take long to close the gap and on lap 39 he sailed past the Ferrari in the DRS zone after turn three.

Hamilton also closed the gap to Massa and a lap later was on the back of the Brazilian’s Ferrari. He didn’t manage to get as close as Button, though, and – perhaps considering their on-track relationship this year – the team decided to call Hamilton into the pits. The plan to jump the Ferrari by making use of the fresh rubber sadly didn’t work as a lap later Massa also pitted and emerged just in front.

Just as we were all relishing another battle between them – and the possibility of the sixth time they have made contact this year – Hamilton suddenly slowed. It was his turn to suffer gearbox problems and on lap 47 his 2011 season ended to the sound of mechanical failure and “my gearbox has gone”. It was a sad end to what has been a very difficult year for Lewis.

Come lap 53 and his team-mate was in the pits for his final stop, opting once again for the harder compound. If he was to catch Alonso and overtake him to grab the final podium position Jenson would have push hard in the final laps. This he duly did, and with nine laps left, he got past the Ferrari in the DRS zone. It was by no means an easy pass and it was a fitting end to what has been one of his best years ever in F1.

Vettel was limping on up ahead, but there just wasn’t enough time left for Button to trouble the World Champion and the race finished with Webber comfortably ahead of Vettel and Button another 10 seconds back. The Ferraris of Alonso and Massa came home fourth and fifth (with Massa a good 30 seconds behind his team-mate) and the Force India of Adrian Sutil finished a very impressive sixth.

Webber may not have sounded as excited as he did when he scored his first win at the Nürburgring, simply saying “thanks guys” on the cooling down lap, but it will be a crucial boost going into the winter. He has been comprehensively beaten by Vettel this year and if he wants to get back on the same level as the German, he will need to find that extreme confidence and speed that Vettel has displayed all season.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

In a few weeks we’ll be recording our season review podcast with Nigel Roebuck, Damien Smith and Rob Widdows. We did the same last year in our local, the Chelsea Ram, and it seemed to work very well. There’s nothing like a few pints of beer and four opinionated F1 fans to create some debate!

I remember we spent a good deal of time talking about how good Sebastian Vettel had been in 2010, and I am sure much of the conversation this year will be centered around the man from Heppenhiem. He truly has had a stellar season.

However, it’s not just thanks to Vettel that he has two World Championships already. His team, Red Bull, has played a massive role in his success.

In our latest issue Simon Taylor had lunch with the man at the helm – Christian Horner – and it made for a fascinating read when it landed in the office.

“Seb’s been part of the Red Bull family since he was a 12-year-old karter,” he told Simon over lunch at The Birch in Woburn. “His car control is phenomenal, so he has no inhibitions about the car being ‘on the nose’, being loose at the entry or exit of a corner, which might unnerve other drivers. His ability to carry that off has been accentuated by the Pirelli tyre. It’s all down to the set-up: Mark drives the car in a classic style, whereas Sebastian may be happy to wind on more front wing to chase front-end performance and just deal with a looser rear.

“In 2010 he had a tough year. He was publicly criticised for some of his actions, and unreliability cost him three wins. But he never gave up, and it all came right for him in Abu Dhabi. Once the championship was on his CV that pressure was gone, replaced with a new confidence, and he’s stepped up a level this year. Based on 2011, you have to say Sebastian is currently the best driver in the world. He works harder on his own performance than any other driver in the pitlane. He’ll be in the paddock later than anyone on Friday and Saturday night, even if he has pole, trawling through his data and Mark’s, soaking up information like a sponge. He has the speed, the racecraft, the intelligence and the technical sympathy to understand what the car is doing and what it requires. He can create strategic options and opportunities by the way he drives the car.

“It helps that he is a very nice young man. He’s a wise head on young shoulders, but he has a sense of fun, and he’s humble. He just sees himself as one of the team. He doesn’t have a manager, he’s a shrewd guy who does his own deals. He and his girlfriend live in Switzerland, but he doesn’t bring her to the races, he protects her from the media. He’s got a thing about statistics, likes to tot up the wins, the poles, the fastest laps, the percentages.

“I’m always giving him grief about fastest laps. He’ll be leading comfortably into the last lap, nothing to be gained by taking any risks, and on the timing screens the first sector goes purple [indicating fastest of the day]. Rocky’s telling him to take it easy, stroke it home. Second sector goes purple. As he takes the flag, the third sector goes purple. So he’s got fastest lap. He’s doing all his celebrating on the slowing-down lap, and he comes on the radio: ‘Did I get fastest lap?’ Rocky says, ‘No, you missed it by a tenth.’ ‘I can’t believe that,’ he says, ‘that can’t be right.’ So then Rocky says, ‘Yes, you did get fastest lap. And you’re a bloody idiot.’”

Rocky may think he is a “bloody idiot” sometimes, but there’s no faulting Vettel’s hunger or talent. 2011 will surely be remembered as ‘the year that Vettel blew everyone away’.

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In the January issue of Motor Sport we asked Aston Martin works driver Sam Hancock to get behind the wheel of the Mazda 787B that Johnny Herbert used to win the 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours.

However, at the 2011 Le Mans race Herbert was also given the keys to the rotary-engined machine after the car had been given a full rebuild by Mazda. Here are the videos of the rebuild and an impressively fast ‘display lap’ by Herbert at La Sarthe. Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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On Saturday October 8, Motor Sport hosted a readers’ evening in association with Audi UK at the Audi quattro rooms in West London. Star guests included Le Mans winners Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Audi factory team engineers Howden ‘H’ Haynes and Leena Gade.

The documentary Truth in 24 – that everyone watched at the start of the evening – follows the factory Audi team as they fight through the gruelling race in the knowledge that their car is technically slower that its rival from Peugeot. In one of the most nail-biting Le Mans in recent history, the Audi team works together to overcome its rivals, and it is engineer Howden’s inspired tyre-change decision 23 and half hours into the race that helps the number two car to victory.

After watching the film editor Damien Smith sat down with all four as well as editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck. Here is the recording of the discussion…

To see more images of the event please click here.

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Martin Whitmarsh commented that Lewis Hamilton has been affected by team-mate Jenson Button’s brilliant performance this year. Hamilton has never been outperformed over a season by a team-mate in Formula 1 and there were some who believed the pressure from Button was having an adverse affect on his racing.

Hamilton denied this, saying that it was a “much more personal matter than that”. Whatever the reasons, he answered all his critics in emphatic style in Abu Dhabi by taking a commanding victory over Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button.

Asked if this was the end of his problems Hamilton replied: “I don’t know. It’s early days yet, but hopefully this is the start of something good. I’ve got to keep my mind on the game though.”

This was a very different man to the one that grabbed pole position in Korea only not to celebrate. “I feel fantastic”, he said. “I really feel this was one of my best races – being able to hold off one of the best drivers in the world [Fernando Alonso] for the whole race… it was very tough. I’m really happy to be back up here.” He was clearly very happy indeed. It’s not often you hear such compliments shared between Hamilton and Alonso…

It looked like business as usual for 2011 World Champion Sebastian Vettel as after struggling to find pace in practice, he grabbed pole position on Saturday with an electrifying lap, equalling Nigel Mansell’s record of 16 pole positions in a season.

The German lead away easily from the line and already had a gap of five car lengths come the exit of turn one. Just as we were all settling in for another lights-to-flag victory for Vettel though, disaster struck. At turn two his right rear tyre came off the hub and he spun off, letting the entire field of cars past. Having made it back to the pits he was told to switch the Renault engine off. His race was over thanks to the damage.

Back on track Hamilton was leading Button and Alonso, with Webber in fourth. Button was struggling for pace – admitting afterwards that his speed on the soft tyre just wasn’t good enough – and Alonso made light work of getting past the slower McLaren. The Red Bull of Webber was also looking a lot faster than Button and come the end of lap four, he dived past.

However, with two DRS zones much of the overtaking during the race was in vain. Many cars passed slower ones in the DRS zone at the end of the lap, only to be re-passed in the next DRS zone down the pit straight. This is exactly what happened to Webber and by the middle of lap five, Button was back into second.

By now Vettel was out of his car and looking decidedly unhappy in the Red Bull garage. The fact that he then spent quite some time talking to his engineers about the problem and sitting the rest of the race out on the pit wall gives you some idea of why he has been so dominant this season. Many drivers immediately escape the track after a mechanical failure, or indeed dive into an ice cream, but Vettel’s attention to detail meant that he needed to know exactly what had gone wrong.

Meanwhile the order of the leaders on track had stayed the same. However, on lap 13 Button radioed in to complain about a KERS problem. He managed to get the Kinetic Energy Recovery System back later in the race, but for only two laps at a time before he needed to reboot the system once again. This allowed Webber to close the gap and on lap 15 he was alongside the Brit. Neither driver was giving an inch of road and Webber, having got past the McLaren, was immediately retaken.

Felipe Massa was the first of the front-runners to pit on lap 16, while Hamilton, Alonso and Button all dived in on the following lap. All eyes were on Webber though because he stayed out on track. Could he go fast enough to leap Button? As he started the lap it looked like he would, but by now the tyres were getting to the end of their life and his pace dropped away. This coupled with a slow pit stop meant that Button comfortably resumed third place. Not only that, but Massa had also gone past when the Red Bull was leaving the pits and Webber found himself down in fifth.

By lap 30 he was right on the back of the Ferrari and made a decisive move to get past. However, Massa was having none of it and – perhaps with the worry of a future Ferrari contract in mind – he retook the position.

The gap between Hamilton and Alonso varied from 3.5 seconds to 2.9, and then back up to 3.5 seconds and it looked like the positions were set. That was until Webber pitted for the second time on lap 26 and emerged with the soft compound on again. He was yet to run the harder, and slower, of the two compounds and it was clear he would have to stop again. All eyes were on Red Bull as we wondered whether or not he could really make up enough time on Massa to pit again and emerge in front. Button changed his tyres a lap later, but opted for the two-stop strategy and the harder compound. As did Hamilton and Massa when they pitted on lap 40, 15 from the end.

Alonso was still on track though and was putting in personal best times. If he could build a gap of over 20 seconds to Hamilton, now that the McLaren was on the slower compound, then he could feasibly pit and emerge in the lead. Hamilton was well aware of the threat though and was immediately on the pace. Even if it looked like it might be tight when Alonso finally pitted at the end of lap 43 he was held up by the HRT of Daniel Ricciardo on the pit entry and then had a relatively slow stop. He came out of the pits several seconds behind the McLaren and the small chance he had of grabbing victory was gone.

Attention was turned back to Webber and Massa. The Red Bull driver had had a great stint, posting fastest lap after fastest lap, and it soon became clear that he had done enough to stay in front of the Ferrari when he pitted for the hard compound on second last lap of the race. This was further helped by Massa spinning when he hit some debris from Pastor Maldonado’s car.

Hamilton has now won three races this year and it’s clear that he hasn’t lost any of his amazing natural talent behind the wheel. If Vettel hadn’t had problems then it may have been a different story, but today Hamilton showed just what he can do when he’s given half a chance and his mind’s in the right place.

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For the December issue of Motor Sport we decided that editor Damien Smith needed a break. In order to fill his chair we needed someone who could not only speak authoritatively about the history of the sport, but someone who still had his finger on the pulse of modern Formula 1. Enter three-time World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart.

His enthusiasm for the job was astonishing, and after quite a few hours in the office he left us to formulate the December issue. As you can read in Damien’s website editorial (we didn’t let him get away with not working at all…) Sir Jackie talked us through his perfect dinner party as well as chatting to Nigel Roebuck about his friend and former boss, the late Ken Tyrrell.

Before sitting him down for an audio podcast we also quizzed Jackie on his top five F1 drivers from this year, and of all time. “A list of top drivers for the current season is always a personal one,” he began. “However, five drivers have stood out from the rest for me.

“Sebastian Vettel is the most mature 24-year-old driver that’s ever been in Formula 1. To have achieved what he did last year and this, at 23 and 24 years of age, is incredible.

“This year his pace has been amazing, but I wouldn’t have allowed anybody to get that close to me in Canada or Singapore – like Jenson Button did. Especially when he had such a commanding lead a few laps before.

“I mentioned it to [Red Bull team principal] Christian Horner at the airport when we were leaving Singapore, and he gave me the impression that there was more to it than that. Apparently there were a couple of issues with the car that stopped him from keeping the gap to 10 seconds.”

Attention soon turned to Fernando Alonso, who Jackie described as the driver with “the best tool kit on the grid”. Even though the Ferrari hasn’t been able to match the Red Bull’s pace this year, Alonso has led the team and even helped Felipe Massa perform, according to the Scot. “Ferrari is not as competitive as they should be this year, and therefore Alonso’s had to hold them up.

“Felipe Massa’s done well from time to time, but that’s because he’s had to try and keep up with Alonso. Fernando has brought that speed on. I have a high respect for his driving skills.

“After Alonso I’ve got Jenson Button,” he continued. “He is the neatest of drivers. He’s got less steering angle going into and out of the corners than any other driver. His driving style is also very smooth. When you watch the on-board footage you’re seeing a man driving well within the capacity of the car and not stretching the elastic. He’s much like Prost or Fangio in that respect. To be a really great driver, you’ve got to do that.”

There was much discussion about McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s current form, but Jackie is still convinced that he is one of the fastest drivers on the grid. “Hamilton came into F1 with the best team and car in the world,” he told us as we finished lunch, “and he nearly won the championship. Nobody’s ever done that. Alonso went to Minardi and Ayrton Senna went to Toleman, for example. Lewis was hugely privileged and the next year he did win the championship. I don’t think he drove as well then as in 2007, incidentally.

“Since then I don’t know what’s happened to his driving. He’s still got the speed, but I cannot understand why he makes mistakes so often. None of the great drivers had collisions. The only two people now who have been doing that regularly are Michael Schumacher and Lewis. You can’t have that many collisions and be right.

“Lewis nearly had an accident going out to qualify in Singapore! I could not believe that. There’s no manager, no coach, nobody saying ‘what are you doing?’ And nobody on the horn saying ‘for God’s sake get your head together’.

“I’ve put Hamilton in my top five because of his speed and there was a time when I admired his skills of overtaking. But the attempted pass he made in last year’s Italian Grand Prix, going into the second chicane with Massa… Even a blind man wouldn’t have gone there.

“I could have put Mark Webber ahead of Lewis because I think he is actually a cleaner driver. Whatever’s happening with his starts, I do not know. I don’t know whether it’s him or if it’s a systems problem. He gets the revs right and then you hear them dip. I thought it sounded like a systems failure to me, but I can’t believe that happens every time.”

Jackie soon moved onto his top five drivers of all time which was interesting not just because of who was included, but who wasn’t. To find out more, pick up a copy of the December issue. You won’t be disappointed.

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Marco Simoncelli has died from injuries sustained in an accident on the second lap of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Honda Gresini rider was one of the most exciting future prospects on the MotoGP grid and secured his best finish last time out in Australia, where he finished second behind 2011 Champion Casey Stoner.

Simoncelli was battling hard as per usual when he lost the front of his bike. However, Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards couldn’t avoid him and both hit the young rider. He was taken to the medical centre where he was reported to have severe trauma to the head, neck and chest. The medical staff tried to revive him, but just before 5pm local time he was declared dead.

Simoncelli won the 125cc European championship and after a stint in the world championship 125cc class he progressed to the 250cc championship, which he won in 2008 – taking six victories that season. He moved up to the MotoGP grid in 2010 and has impressed with blistering pace and an attacking mentality.

The news comes as a huge shock to all his fans and to the motor sport world in general. Motor Sport offers its sincere condolences and sympathies to Marco’s family and friends.

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Anyone who thought Sebastian Vettel would ease off after he sealed the 2011 Drivers’ World Championship in Japan were shown on Sunday that he would do nothing of the sort, taking a dominant victory in the Korean Grand Prix.

It was his 10th win of the season and, together with Mark Webber’s third-place finish, was enough to seal the Constructors’ Championship for Red Bull.

It wasn’t as easy for Vettel as it has been in the past though. Lewis Hamilton grabbed pole position on Saturday afternoon, denying the Red Bull drivers of their 16th pole position of the season.

After starting alongside Hamilton on the front row, Vettel made a decisive move on the opening lap to pass the McLaren. The championship may be over, but it seems no one has told the youngest double world champion ever. Make no mistake – the final races of the season will be just as hotly contested as the rest of them.

Once past, Vettel started to pull out a gap to Hamilton, but his work was undone when Petrov took Schumacher out of the race and a safety car was deployed so that the marshals could clear up the debris. Once the safety car pulled in it was once again business as usual for Vettel who built up a big enough lead to mean he only surrendered it during his pitstops.

McLaren have certainly done a great job at closing the performance gap to Red Bull, which was evident when Hamilton put his car on pole. However, the car’s race pace in Korea was still someway off that of the car from Milton Keynes. Hamilton became increasingly aware of this as the Grand Prix unfolded. Not only was he unable to stay in touch with the world champion, but he also had his mirrors full of Mark Webber. Partly to blame for Hamilton’s lack of downforce and therefore speed was his front wing filling up with marbles.

Webber did manage to get past him briefly on lap 34 only for Hamilton to edge back past immediately afterwards with the help of KERS and the DRS. Whatever your views on the technology, you can bet that Hamilton is quite a fan of them at the moment.

In a bid to steal a march on next year’s car Ferrari has admitted that it has already turned its focus onto its 2012 challenger and it is starting to show in the pace of Massa and Alonso at the moment. After qualifying fifth and sixth the pair made a great start, however, it wasn’t long before their pace dropped off. On worn rubber they lost out to Button – who finished fourth in the end – and Rosberg who was putting in a typically strong performance. Massa eventually crossed the line sixth with Alonso 10 seconds down the road in fifth. Ali so may well have been closer to the podium if it wasn’t for being stuck behind his team-mate earlier in the race.

One of the main talking points of the weekend was, unsurprisingly, Lewis Hamilton. Having grabbed pole position on Saturday afternoon, breaking the Red Bull dominance in Q3, he appeared unusually subdued. It was the same after the race, in which he drove brilliantly. The pressure has clearly been building up over the past few months with his team-mate consistently outperforming him and mounting speculation about his personal life and the impact of not having a driver manager. However, he silenced many doubters on Sunday. Let’s hope that the form continues.

As for Vettel and Red Bull, well, it’s quite remarkable what they have both achieved so far in their very short careers. Yes, Red Bull has Adrian Newey’s design genius, but that’s only one reason out of many why they have been so dominant in the last couple of years. What we’re seeing at the moment is more than just a good driver in a competitive car. Many people are already hailing the young German as ‘one of the greats’. I personally think it’s a bit early to put him up there with the likes of Senna, Prost and Fangio, but he’s making a convincing case for it isn’t he?

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Ahead of our December issue – that will be in UK shops on October 28 – we sat down with Sir Jackie Stewart to record a podcast. Why ahead of our December issue? Well, Sir JYS will be the guest editor of the magazine.

We won’t tell you too much about the upcoming content – that will have to wait for a few weeks. However, suffice to say that it should be a cracker.

The podcast went as well as we expected and Sir Jackie’s opinions on modern Formula 1 remain as relevant as ever. We hope you enjoy it and as always, let us know what you think. Don’t forget to watch out for the Decemeber issue at the end of October, it’s not to be missed.

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In the October issue of Motor Sport editor Damien Smith wrote a piece on Rockingham Motor Speedway. Just over ten years ago today it hosted the first-ever Champ Car meeting in the United Kingdom.

It was a strange moment, as Damien reminded us in the article. “As Saturday afternoons go, this is trippy,” he said. “The collective howl of 26 Champ Car engines engulfs all the senses as the multi-coloured missiles sweep off Turn 4. Deep breath, blink, pinch a forearm. Have we been teleported to the American Midwest? No, apparently not. This is Middle England, not the Midwest. And this is really happening.”

Unsurprisingly the 10-year anniversary didn’t pass by unnoticed at the track itself. In order to celebrate, Rockingham organised a demonstration run with a Penske Champ Car ‘similar to that which won the Rockingham 500’ when Gil de Ferran was at the wheel in 2001.

The Penske PC-26 managed to break the 200mph barrier in the run and worked up to an average lap speed of 169mph with ex-Formula 3 racer Gary Ward driving.

Even if you missed it, there’s a video to remind us all of what it was like to have Champ Car at Rockingham. It was certainly a golden two years at the Northamptonshire track, and although I doubt we’ll see another American single-seater series visiting the banked oval any time soon, at least we can sit back and enjoy the video. It really was a Herculean effort to make those two races happen a decade ago.

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“Brilliant,” Sebastian Vettel screamed as he crossed the finish line in Singapore. His drive to yet another victory was indeed brilliant, but not brilliant enough to seal the 2011 Drivers’ Championship, for Jenson Button finished a close second.

The German may not have sealed the title on Sunday, however he only needs to score one point in the last five races to be crowned the youngest ever back-to-back title winner. There are very few people betting against it.

For much of the race it was business as usual for Vettel as he put his car ‘Kinky Kylie’ (it apparently has a good rear end) on pole and then lead from the start. His dominance was immediately clear, as after two laps he was 3.5 seconds ahead of a fast-starting Button from third on the grid. Two laps later the gap was 5.2 seconds, and by lap six, he was 7.6 seconds down the road.
Come his first pitstop and he was over 11 seconds ahead and it seemed the race was all but over. It may well have been, but on lap 30 Michael Schumacher misjudged a pass on Sergio Perez and hit the Sauber hard. The Mercedes flew into the air and buried itself in the barrier. Schumacher emerged unhurt, but the safety car was immediately deployed.

The front-runners all dived into the pits and after three laps the order of cars behind Bernd Maylander in the safety car was Vettel to Jarno Trulli, Tonio Liuzzi, Kamui Kobayashi and then Button. Vettel clearly knew the backmarkers separating him from Button would be much slower and he made a break for it earlier than usual, Button being unable to get past the slower cars until he had crossed the start/finish line. Within a lap of the restart the Red Bull driver had an astonishing nine-second lead.

There was another moment of doubt over the victory when it looked like Button would run to the end of the Grand Prix without stopping again. The McLaren driver is famous for looking after his tyres and it meant Vettel needed a 29-second gap so that he could pit if necessary and come out in front. In the end it wasn’t needed for Button dived in on lap 48 of 61. A lap later Vettel also pitted and emerged, once again, comfortably in the lead.

Despite Button closing the 12-second lead down to 1.7 seconds in the final laps his late charge was one of extreme optimism rather than anything else. As Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said after the race, “I’m pretty sure Seb could have gone much faster in the final stages…” No doubt he could have.

Things didn’t go so smoothly for Lewis Hamilton. The McLaren driver failed to make a second run in Q3 after the team had problems fuelling the car, and after making a great start from fourth on the grid he was squeezed at the first corner and suddenly found himself down in eighth behind Schumacher. He may have spent 27 laps behind the same Mercedes at Monza, but here he used his DRS to good effect and was through on the fourth lap. He was past Schumacher’s team-mate Rosberg on the next lap and proceeded to close the gap to Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa who were running in third, fourth and fifth.

It all went wrong again on lap 12 when he clipped the back of Massa’s Ferrari and damaged his front wing. He pitted two laps later for a new one (Massa’s Ferrari limped back to the pits immediately after the incident with a right-rear puncture) and emerged in 16th position. Things may have looked bleak for the McLaren driver, but it got worse on lap 15 when he was told that he had been issued with a drive-through penalty. Another visit to the pits left him down in 20th. He did recover though and drove a strong race, eventually finishing fifth being third-placed Webber and Alonso in fourth.

So the title stays mathematically open for another race, but Vettel doesn’t look like a man under any pressure at all. He has the fastest car and he is using it to devastating effect. “We just weren’t fast enough to fight for the win today,” admitted Button after the race. They certainly weren’t fast enough to fight for the win and with Vettel on such good form, every driver on the grid will be wondering what they need to do to break the German’s hold on Grand Prix racing at the moment.

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This podcast is a little bit special. On September 16 we took over a small corner of the Drivers’ Mess at the Goodwood Revival and interviewed anyone who was passing.

It just so happened that Eddie Cheever, Arturo Merzario, Martin Brundle, Sir Stirling Moss, Nick Mason, Rauno Aaltonen, Gerhard Berger, Sir Jackie Stewart, Tom Kristensen, Andy Priaulx and Emanuele Pirro passed by when we were there.

As you can imagine, it was an action-packed hour and 20 minutes spent discussing everything from the new BMW DTM machine to why Sir JYS rolled a car, via what Sir Stirling thinks of some of the ‘newer’ cars at the Revival and why Pirro ended up sending a £5000 cheque to Goodwood.

We hope you enjoy it and, as always, let us know what you think about any of the subjects we discuss.

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When we finished our podcast yesterday every member of the team agreed that it was the best yet. We weren’t surprised though because chatting to Murray Walker for an hour was never going to be dull.

We hope you enjoy it and – as always – let us know your thoughts.

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There has been news circulating about a possible merger between the World Rally Championship and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. Manufacturer numbers are down in the WRC – and have been for some time – while IRC entries are booming.

There are more than 120 cars signed up for the IRC Barum Czech Rally on August 26-28, while more than 200,000 people are expected to watch the asphalt action. Not only that, but the IRC has great TV coverage courtesy of Eurosport, which owns the series. If you were Jarmo Mahonen, the WRC Commission president, then a merger would make sense. It obviously does, because he’s the man pushing for it.

However, before I get too cynical about the reasons why, it is worth taking a step back. As some of you may have seen, I’ve been writing a series of articles in the magazine called ‘Motor Racing’s Money Tree’. We’ve broken down all the single-seater championships and then placed them on a tree with Formula 1 in the canopy and Formula Ford down by the roots. We’ve tried to explain how they all fit in together and it seems to have made sense to at least a few people.

The idea was then put forward of doing a similar thing for rallying. But there’s no way you could neatly place the ‘rallying ladder’ on a tree. It would be ‘Motor Racing’s Money Bush’. It is chaos. And that is what Mahonen (below) is keen on trying to address. He wants a system whereby talented youngsters can race in the IRC and then move up easily to the WRC.

It sounds good, but something the IRC is well known for is its atmosphere and, as current Peugeot driver Guy Wilks (below) put it, “character”. Would this be lost if it was taken under the arm of the WRC?

“In the WRC, because of the manufacturer money, there are only so many drivers who are capable of winning a stage, let alone a rally,” Wilks tells me while doing PR for ‘The Go-Kart Rally’. “In the IRC, if you look at the stage winners this year, you have a long list of names.” You do. So far this season, after six rallies, there have been 13 different stage winners. In the WRC, after eight rallies, there have been eight different stage winners.

“I’m really enjoying the IRC because it’s all about the challenge for the driver,” adds Wilks. “The championship has got character and we’ve got a fantastic array of rallies, from the beautiful scenery and countryside in Scotland to the mountain stages in Corsica. There’s also Monte Carlo and even the plains in the Czech Republic.”

On the Monte Carlo Rally the IRC has a stage in the dark up the Col de Turini. It’s a feast for the senses and, for me, it’s what the WRC is lacking – real drama.

“The spectators can get really close to the drivers and the cars; they’re not penned in like in the WRC. Even in the service area for that matter. It’s got a family feel, everybody mixes in and gets involved and that’s reflected in the number of spectators. In Ypres and Barum the service areas are absolutely jam-packed.”

Former FIA president Max Mosley didn’t do a huge amount for the WRC, but now that Jean Todt is in office things may well change. He’s got a history in the series, having been a World Championship navigator from 1973-81, and the fact that he has already sorted a World Endurance Championship for next year can only bode well.

Longer and more challenging stages, fewer remote service areas, tests run at night… Let’s make a WRC round a proper event. Yes, try and create a legitimate ladder system for the sport, but let’s not lose any of the atmosphere that goes with the IRC. The last thing we need is a rallying equivalent of the rather unexciting GP3 championship.

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Welcome to another ‘week in motor sport’. There was plenty to talk about this week and I sat down with features editor Rob Widdows to mull over the Hungarian Grand Prix and the news of new deal with Formula 1, Sky and the BBC.

I am sorry that we’re back to our usual editing quality, but we’re in the process of finding a budget and hope to return to the professional format as soon as possible!

As always, let us know what you think about everything we discuss.

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The 2011 Hungarian Grand Prix marked Jenson Button’s 200th Formula 1 race start. He lined up third on the grid and in the race he drove superbly in mixed conditions. At the scene of his first Grand Prix win in 2006 he crossed the line victorious once again, this time ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in third.

Vettel and Lewis Hamilton had filled the front row in qualifying, but when it became clear that it was going to be a wet start to the race all bets were off. Yes, the Red Bull driver was quick, but so were the McLarens and the Ferraris.

The race started with everyone on intermediate tyres and despite the track being only slightly wet there appeared to be no grip at all. Even Fernando Alonso came off on a couple of occasions and he’s not known for making mistakes.

Vettel led away with Hamilton in second, however, on lap five – when the front-runners were going 28 seconds slower than they had done in qualifying – the German ran wide letting the McLaren driver through.

The racing line soon dried and it was Webber who was the first into the pits on lap 11 to switch to a set of super soft tyres. Jenson Button did the same on the next lap and after he had slithered round part of the lap many were wondering whether Webber and Button had made the right choice. At the end of the lap Vettel and Hamilton also dived in for fresh rubber, but by now Button had been out on the slicks for a lap and, as he does so well in these conditions, had found his confidence and what grip there was. When Vettel emerged from the pits he had his mirrors full of Button’s McLaren and it didn’t take long for Jenson to get by the struggling Red Bull.

Hamilton was in the lead with Button now running comfortably in second place. However, when it looked as though everything had settled down Nick Heidfeld emerged from the pits after stopping for fresh tyres on lap 25 with his car on fire. The Renault driver quickly pulled over by the pit exit and jumped clear, thankfully before the side of the car bizarrely exploded. Luckily the marshals attending the stricken machine were unhurt, but with the car in such a dangerous position it was surely only a matter of time before the safety car was deployed. Webber, Alonso and Hamilton clearly thought the same thing as they all dived into the pits, avoiding the smoking Renault on the exit. Button pitted shortly afterwards on lap 28, but by now it was clear that there wouldn’t be a safety car. Vettel was still out and losing huge amounts of time as his super soft tyres were finished.

The order remained unchanged after the pitstop phase was over, and while Alonso looked worryingly fast for the leaders, they kept a decent gap until Webber pitted once again on lap 40. This time the Red Bull driver opted for the harder of the two compounds, as did Vettel and Button when they pitted on lap 42. But, and this is where it all started to go wrong for Hamilton, the McLaren driver stayed with the super soft rubber. As the order settled down once again the question of whether Hamilton could make it to the end of the 70-lap race started to become the major factor in who was going to win the Hungarian Grand Prix. The harder of the compounds, that all the other front-runners were on, clearly could last the distance, but what of Hamilton?

On lap 47 everything changed. Rain started to fall once again and Lewis spun after catching a wet kerb on the inside of the chicane. As he spun his car back round to rejoin the race Paul di Resta had to make for the grass in order to avoid him. Shortly afterwards we heard that the incident was being investigated by the stewards, one of which was Allan McNish who had also been the driver steward at Monaco earlier in the year. Button was right on the tail of Hamilton now, and if anyone was disappointed after Webber and Vettel were not allowed to race at Silverstone, they certainly got some payback thanks to the McLaren duo.

The pair swapped the lead numerous times over the next lap as with the fresh rain it would be the driver in the lead who got the choice of when they wanted to pit. Hamilton had regained the lead by the pit entry and so he dived in for intermediates, leaving Button to navigate round another slippery lap.

Half the grid was on intermediates by this stage and it looked like the sensible option. However, the rain soon stopped and Hamilton almost immediately started to lose ground, being passed by Alonso on lap 54. That same lap Hamilton, who probably couldn’t imagine his afternoon getting any worse, was told that he had a drive-through penalty because of pushing di Resta off the track.

He pitted first to change back to slicks and then a lap later he served his drive-through. In the space of a few laps Hamilton had gone from the lead of the Grand Prix to sixth, 55 seconds behind Button. He wasn’t done yet though and then passed Massa, who was struggling with shot tyres, and Webber while the pair were negotiating traffic, six laps from the end.

Amazingly Hamilton was extremely calm after the race. “Congratulations to Jenson,” he said after finishing fourth. “He was pushing me hard all race and the best man won today. I need to find Paul (di Resta) and apologise to him because I just didn’t see him.” He went on to complain about radio issues and the fact that the team couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he did finish with “it wasn’t the best call (referring to the choice to pit for intermediates), but that’s racing. The team did a fantastic job and I feel as though I’ve let them down a bit.” It was a very different Hamilton to the man we had seen earlier in the season, furious in post-race interviews.

Jenson Button meanwhile was understandably ecstatic. “What a perfect start to the summer break,” he said on the radio after crossing the line. “Let’s come back and win them all.” I doubt that will happen, but what Button did do on Sunday was prove – once again – that he really is the master of mixed conditions.

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Here we are, another month, another audio podcast!

Nigel Roebuck, Damien Smith, Rob Widdows and myself sat down on Tuesday July 26 to talk about the German Grand Prix, the Formula 1 form book and the future of sportscar racing.

Have a listen and do let us know your thoughts on everything we discuss.

Something you may want to put in your diaries is that on August 24 we will be doing an audio podcast with the great Murray Walker. It’ll be online the next day and should be a cracker. If you want to ask him a question just click here.

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Welcome to another ‘week in motor sport’. This week I talk to Damien Smith and Rob Widdows about the British Grand Prix as well as the contact between Will Power and Dario Franchitti in the Indycar race in Toronto.

There was so much to say about the Grand Prix at Silverstone that we have gone on a bit longer this month, so I’m afraid it is split into two parts.

We were very fortunate to be joined by Emagine Productions this week who filmed and edited the interview. We hope you enjoy it…

Part 1

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Part 2

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The British Grand Prix is fast approaching and this week Damien Smith and I discuss the race and the new pit and paddock complex at Silverstone. We also talk about Williams’ decision to use Renault engines next year and the new partnership between Virgin Racing and McLaren. We also have a brief look at the Imola 6 Hours and the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

As always, let us know what you think about the news.

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Team Lotus reserve driver Karun Chandhok is our latest podcast guest. He talks to Nigel Roebuck, Rob Widdows and Damien Smith about the role of the reserve driver, his contribution to Team Lotus’s ongoing development, the upcoming Indian Grand Prix and meeting his great hero, Alain Prost.

Karun Chandhok with Motor Sport's podcast team

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Another week, and another ‘week in motor sport’! This time I sit down with editor Damien Smith – despite the fact that the magazine is on deadline – and chat about possible driver movements in the McLaren camp, the possibility of the BBC dropping Formula 1, the situation at Citroen in the WRC and Dario Franchitti’s run of form in the IndyCar Series.

We are creating an audio file at the moment so if you don’t want to watch it, just download that on Wednesday 22nd…

As always though – let us know what you think about all the news.

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What a weekend of racing we’ve had! The action-packed Canadian Grand Prix, the unbelievably close Le Mans 24 Hours and of course, the MotoGP round at Silverstone.

This week I’m joined by Damien Smith and Rob Widdows who help me analyse as much racing as possible in 18 minutes!

As always, let us know your thoughts.

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Audi has taken another stunning victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours. The R18 TDI of first-time winners Marcel Fassler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer crossed the line a mere 13.854 seconds ahead of the second-placed Peugeot 908 of Simon Pagenaud, Sébastien Bourdais and Pedro Lamy. The Peugeot of Franck Montagny, Stéphane Sarrazin and Nicolas Minassian took the final step on the podium.

“The three drivers did a fantastic job,” said Audi Sport boss Wolfgang Ullrich after the race. “We were left with our three least experienced drivers [after the two other Audis had accidents] and we gave them the hardest job of all to do: to go really quickly, but not to take any risks. I am very happy with the result and I must congratulate Peugeot because they pushed us to our limits.”

The 79th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours will go down as one of the great battles at La Sarthe in recent years as Audi were left with just one car only seven hours into the race. Neither Audi nor Peugeot looked to have an advantage during the event and it was only in the final three hours that Audi managed to eek out a 25 second gap to the Peugeot of Pagenaud, Bourdais and Lamy.

“The limit of the car is the speed that we’re going to have to go at for the entire 24 hours,” said Peugeot 908 driver Pedro Lamy before the start of this year’s race. He couldn’t have been more accurate and the speed of the Audis and Peugeots was absolutely blistering throughout the 24 hours. Peugeot may not have been able to lap quite as fast as the German cars, but they could crucially do 12 laps before pitting for fuel. The Audis were ever so slightly less economical and had to dive into the pits every 11.

With all three cars from each manufacturer within just over half a second of each other in qualifying we knew we were in for a nail-biting race. However, nothing could prepare us for what happened when Allan McNish tried to scythe his way into the lead after brilliantly moving up from fifth on the grid. Just after the first stops, and with less than an hour of the race run, the Scot came up behind the sister Audi of Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller at the Dunlop Bridge. He dived down the inside on the exit after Bernhard made a mistake and cleared the car, taking the lead. However, just in front of Bernhard’s Audi there was a pack of slower GTE cars, one of which was the Ferrari 458 Italia of Anthony Beltoise, François Jakubowski and Pierre Thiriet. Beltoise didn’t see McNish fly past the number 1 Audi and shut the door, sending McNish flying into the gravel.

Mercifully the new shark fin – which is now mandatory on all LMP cars – did its job and the car didn’t roll, but the speed at which he was going meant that the car flew towards the barrier on the outside of the track and heavily crashed into it. The car flipped over on the Armco and came to rest upside down, just inside the barrier. There was nothing left of the R18 bar the tub and an eerie silence fell over La Sarthe as the crowd waited for McNish to get out. The marshals arrived in a matter of moments, overturned the R18 TDI and thankfully the Scot emerged dazed, but OK. Such was the force of the impact that debris had flown off the car and peppered various photographers perched on the inside of the catch fencing. Amazingly the only injuries were a broken ankle and a broken phone. “I want to find the guy in charge of chassis construction at Audi and give him a big hug as it withstood the impact amazingly,” McNish said once he was released from care.

“It was a massive shock for everyone”, admitted McNish’s team-mate Dindo Capello following the crash. “So many things happened so quickly and our fingers are crossed for him.” Was the Scot being too aggressive? Should Beltoise have seen him and not closed the door? This one will have to go down as a racing incident as McNish may have been cutting through the field quite aggressively, but he was well over to the inside of the turn to give Beltoise as much chance to see him as possible. The Ferrari? McNish was on it so quickly and unexpectedly that there was little chance that Beltoise could have seen him. Indeed the Ferrari driver admitted afterwards that he had no idea the McNish Audi was there.

After over an hour of safety cars while the marshals fixed the barriers, the race was underway again. The battle at the front resumed and the lead seesawed between the Audis and Peugeots. By now we knew that the Peugeots could go a lap longer and the question everyone was asking themselves was whether or not Audi had the speed to make those extra stops. All questions stopped suddenly at 10.40pm. Mike Rockenfeller in the number 1 Audi had just started his fourth stint in the car and came up behind the AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kauffman, Rui Aguas and Michael Waltrip at the kink after Mulsanne. He started flashing his lights and Kauffman moved over to the left of the road. However, as Rockenfeller came up beside the Ferrari, the car inexplicably edged over to the right and clipped the Audi.

Rockenfeller’s car speared straight into the barriers at high speed and came to a halt sometime later, with only the tub of the car remaining intact. It was another terrifying accident, and it was another huge relief when ‘Rocky’ emerged from the car. He was kept in hospital overnight as a precaution, but is OK according to Audi. Kauffman was reportedly pulled from the Ferrari by the ACO after the incident, but it made little difference to the 458 Italia’s result as it subsequently retired with engine problems.

A lengthy safety car period followed as, once again, the marshals had to tend to more broken Armco. It was another long delay and now Audi was down to just one car – the Marcel Fassler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer machine.

Just before midnight 50 of the 56 starters were still running. The six retirements included the two Audis and also both Aston Martins, which expired only three laps into the race. When it became apparent that 007 and 009 were well off the pace in testing, the word from Aston Martin quickly changed to ‘we’re treating Le Mans as a test session’. This was all very well considering how little time the company has had to prepare the all-new, inline six LMP1 car, but little testing was done. “It has been a frustrating week,” confirmed 009 pilot Adrian Fernández. “I’ve only done eight laps all week. It’s a good team, but the engine isn’t very good at the moment. We just haven’t been able to do any running.” Both cars suffered the same problem – a broken water pump driveshaft. Even if the cars had remained intact, they would have made little headway as they were both over 20 seconds off pole and running eight per cent down on power due to the weak inline six.

Following the safety period to clear up the remains of Rockenfeller’s crash the battle at the front continued with renewed vigour. Peugeot still had all three of its works cars in the race and sensed a chance of victory. Several hours passed as the single Audi and Peugeots swapped places over the pitstops with the advantage swaying one way and then the other.

This was shaping up to be an absolutely classic Le Mans 24 Hours as two slightly different strategies went head to head. The 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th hours of the race passed and Audi still held the lead. Peugeot then jumped ahead, but come the 15th and 16th hours, the German car was back in front. Another safety car period to clear up Jan Magnussen’s crash in the GTE Pro class-leading Corvette and Peugeot led once again. The format continued and as the race drew to a close the tension around the circuit mounted.

It looked like the battle would continue in the final three hours much as it had done for the past 21. But, the action wasn’t over at La Sarthe. With just under two hours and 45 minutes left rain arrived and cars started leaving the Tarmac all over the circuit. It wasn’t heavy enough for full wets, but Lotterer wasn’t enjoying the conditions and started to lose time to the second-placed Peugeot with Pagenaud on board. The rain turned out to be no more than a shower though and the race resumed in the same shape as it was before, with the Audi holding a narrow advantage.

Despite all the shaken hands on the grid between the Peugeot and Audi teams, there was no love lost on the track in the final stages as Marc Gene – who was running fourth, four laps down on the leader – drove Lotterer’s Audi off the road. There were cries from the Audi fans, but Peugeot’s reply was simply “well, there weren’t any blue flags…”

The Audi maintained the lead though, despite a dramatic last stop for a dash of fuel and four new tyres. The car emerged only seven seconds in front of the second-placed Peugeot that had also pitted for its final fuel stop. The delight of the entire Audi crew and the three drivers was clear as the car finally took the victory 34 minutes later.

The LMP1 petrol honours went to the Lola B10/60 Coupé-Toyota of Nicolas Prost, Neel Jani and Jeroen Bleekemolen in the end while the LMP2 category was won by the Zytek Z11SN-Nissan of Karim Ojjeh, Tom Kimber-Smith and 20-year-old Olivier Lombard. The Oreca 03-Nissan with Franck Mailleux, Soheil Ayari and Lucas Ordoñez on board took second, while third in class was taken by Christophe Bouchut, Scott Tucker and João Barbosa in the Lola Coupé-HPD.

Special mention must go to Ordoñez who, having won the PlayStation Academy in 2008, piloted the Oreca admirably. Even though he only started racing cars professionally after winning the Gran Turismo/PlayStation competition he kept out of trouble and lapped very well. He justifiably called his first Le Mans 24 Hours “incredible”.

The GTE Pro class was as hotly contested as always and up until 8am it looked like the Corvette C6 ZRI of Oliver Gavin, Jan Mugnussen and Richard Westbrook was set for victory. However, as mentioned earlier, Magnussen lost control of the car when he was passing the slower GTE Am Porsche of Christian Ried. The BMW M3 GT of Augusto Farfus, Jörg Muller and Dirk Werner looked quick in qualifying and in the race, but suffered various problems that dropped them down the order. In a class of high attrition it was the Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1 of Olivier Beretta, Tom Milner and Antonio Garcia that finally emerged victorious ahead of the Ferrari 458 Italia of Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander and the BMW M3 GT of Andy Priaulx, Dirk Müller and Joey Hand.

The GTE Am category was won by the Labre Competition Corvette C6 ZR1 of Patrick Barnhauser, Julien Canal and Gabriele Gardel. The class received some bad press from LMP drivers after quite a few near misses as the faster cars lapped them. In the end, it was a case of staying out of trouble – only four cars were running at the end of the 24 hours. Sadly the CRS Racing Ferrari with amateur drivers Roger Wills, Shaun Lynn and Pierre Ehret at the wheel didn’t finish. Seven hours into the race Lynn lost control of the car at the Ford Chicane. Despite the best efforts of the CRS crew who were shouting directions from behind the barriers, Lynn was unable to restart the car having hit the barrier.

Even though part of this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours was marred by two horrific Audi crashes and several disputes between slower GTE Am crews and the LMP machines, the race will be remembered as an extremely close battle that raged for all 24 hours. Allan McNish openly admits that Le Mans is a 24-hour sprint nowadays and it was certainly that in 2011. It’s a testament to both Peugeot and Audi that all their racers ran with such good reliability considering that both cars are so new. Very big congratulations to Marcel Fassler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer. The trio handled the pressure of being the only Audi in the race with 17 hours to go extremely well and fully deserve the hard fought victory.

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This week Rob Widdows and I discuss the rescheduling of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Nick Wirth’s departure from Virgin Racing and also the driving standards in the British Touring Car Championship.

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