singapore grand prix

Singapore grand prix this last weekend.

The circuit used to have a rather notorious corner "turn 10" (why do none of the new circuits have proper names for the corners? I mean, I appreciate they also should have numbers, but giving them names too adds character.), which was essentially a chicane on a corner.

However, in order to make the drivers go around it properly it had really high curves.  The idea behind it was that with it being a street circuit, there was no run off so they wanted to encourage them to take the corner properly.

But, of course, racing drivers being racing drivers, they would always push it to the limit and therefore run over the curbs.  However, they were so high this launched the cars into the air and there were more than a few cars damaged by the subsequent landings.

This year they did away with the chicane element, so it was a normal corner.  This shaved a good 5 seconds off the lap time, but it wasn't enough for the circuit to become a decent length.

The race itself wasn't actually too bad in the beginning and end sections, but it had quite a long middle period where very little happened.  And because it was Singapore it meant it was banging up against the 2 hour limit.  Of course, being Singapore it also had a safety car period after someone hit the wall, so I guess if it hadn't had that it would have been under 2 hours, but every time the race has been run they've had a safety car.

Unfortunately for the championship, Vettel won, making it almost certain that he will win.  He has almost enough margin that he could miss a couple of races and still win.  I mean that in a reliability sense, rather than him taking a holiday - if the car blows up and Alonso wins he would still have a huge margin.

But then, given how reliable all the cars are nowadays that's not very likely.

There was also finally the announcement that Raikkonen will be moving to Ferrari next year, which seems to mean Ferrari will have two number one drivers.  This is very odd for them - they're a team that likes to have a clear number one and a number two.

Rumours therefore flew that Alonso might go to McLaren, but I doubt this, and, interestingly, Ron Dennis was at the race.  Ron was the main part of McLaren that Alonso didn't like.  Plus, given how things are changing next year, it's a bit of a crap shoot - even Adrian Newey at Red Bull might be wrong footed if the Renault engine isn't up to snuff.

Unfortunately the unluckiest man in Formula 1, Mark Webber, had a problem with his car that caused the engine to blow up (wasn't clear if it was engine or gear box) and to cap the weekend he then got a reprimand for running out onto the circuit to get a lift back from Alonso.  It wasn't the lift that was the issue, but the going on to the circuit, but because he's now had 3 reprimands he gets an automatic 10-place grid penalty at the Korean Grand Prix!

It's weird how it's always Mark that has these issues - KERS failures seem to be particularly favourite.