Author Archive for Hugh Podmore

12.30pm Hello and welcome to forumula1.com’s live coverage of the Spanish Grand Prix.

F1 is 62 years old today and the assembled faithful are assured of another classic, as it is literally anyone’s guess who will win this race.  Read more... (2563 words, estimated 10:15 mins reading time)

We are four races into the 2012 F1 season and there have been four different winners, from four different teams. This is an incredible phenomenon, last seen in the early 1980s, and is a tonic after the overarching superiority of Sebastian Vettel in 2011. But who will find some race-winning consistency? Who stands in the best place to carry on their form?  Read more... (601 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

7.45am Hello and welcome to forumula1.com’s live coverage of the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix.

The weather is overcast in Shanghai but there doesn’t look to be much chance of rain. It probably won’t need it to spice it up to be honest, given the grid positions of the top drivers.  Read more... (2224 words, estimated 8:54 mins reading time)

Mexico’s Sergio Perez finished a redoubtable second in yesterday’s Malaysian Grand Prix. He could so nearly have won the whole thing. The latest bloom of the youngster’s flowering talent has made deafening the calls for him to replace the struggling Felipe Massa at Ferrari, and such a move could even come sooner than the end of the season. Here, forumula1.com analyse the pros and cons of putting F1′s newest star into one of its hottest seats.  Read more... (784 words, estimated 3:08 mins reading time)

Lewis Hamilton finished third in yesterday’s Australian Grand Prix, behind his team mate Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel. Button beat him fair and square, a relatively unusual event in the partnership. So what is wrong with McLaren’s boy wonder? Has growing up blunted the edge of his undoubted skill? And is it now time to re-evaluate Lewis Hamilton, the phenomenon? Here, a concerned fan writes to Mr Hamilton…  Read more... (638 words, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

The 2011 season is over. The dust has well and truly settled on Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull’s domination and there are only a few superlatives left in the thesaurus for shell-shocked observers to use about the man – the phenomenon – this season. After all, he and they were the very best this year, by a country mile. Not for them the 2010 infighting and on-track scuffling, nor the politics, nor worries about the car. This year they were on top of their game and the others were left wondering how on earth they would catch them. And that is the premise with which we begin this review – the notion that one team and more specifically one driver were so unbelievably good this season that only praise can be directed at them.  Read more... (4682 words, estimated 18:44 mins reading time)

15.45pm GMT Hello and welcome to forumula1.com’s live coverage of the final race of the 2011 season, the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos.  Read more... (2225 words, estimated 8:54 mins reading time)

12.45pm GMT Hello and welcome to forumula1.com’s live coverage of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The championships are well and truly over and this Yas Marina circuit has a reputation for turgidity, so it is earnestly to be hoped that this is not a procession. In fact, the FIA has overnight extended one of the two DRS zones, in a blatant acknowledgement that overtaking might not be on the agenda.  Read more... (2203 words, estimated 8:49 mins reading time)

Vettel unrelenting as he takes inaugural Indian GP win

Button only credible resistance to the German, taking second

Alonso third; team mate Massa in yet more contact with Lewis Hamilton  Read more... (2270 words, estimated 9:05 mins reading time)

This morning the tragic news came through that Dan Wheldon had been killed in an IndyCar race in Las Vegas yesterday. The popular and talented Englishman was involved in a 15-car pile-up on lap 12 of the race, and succumbed to ‘unsurvivable’ injuries soon after.  Read more... (595 words, estimated 2:23 mins reading time)