[Mark]

as far i'm a Ferarri fan i don't prefer any of them more, for me a win of any of them is most welcomed.

So i'm gonna be equaly happy to see on of them win again the championship.

Funky, me and DC got you cornerd from all sides. You don't have a way out atm.

Blundell: Hamilton has lost focus

Lewis Hamilton needs to forget his issues with the media and concentrate on racing, according to former driver Mark Blundell.

Originally Posted by eurosport.yahoo.com

Driver-turned-television pundit Blundell reckons that Hamilton needs to refocus ahead of next weekend's British Grand Prix, or face an uphill challenge in the world championship.

Speaking in the wake of Hamilton's second race without points, in the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours, Blundell suggested that the McLaren man needed to take back control of his season and not let outside factors detract from the job in hand.

Hamilton yesterday hit back at sections of the media for misrepresenting his life away from Formula One - amid claims of him dating a string of beauties and enjoying the high-life that the sport has afforded him - but Blundell insists that the Briton should not let interest in his private affairs get the better of him.

"He has let the media side of things get to him," the former Ligier, McLaren, Brabham and Tyrrell driver wrote in an article for the Daily Telegraph. "The key word for Lewis right now is control - controlling the environment inside the cockpit and his feelings and emotions outside it.

"The moment has come for Lewis to press the reset button. The thing [he] does best is driving a racing car. Everything needs to follow from that. At the moment, he seems a little derailed. He needs to get back on track."

After winning in Monaco, Hamilton has seen the lead of the world championship slip away on the back of two non-scores, both resulting from a uncharacteristic error in the pit-lane at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Clashing with title rival Kimi Raikkonen, after not spotting the red stop light controlling their re-entry to the track, not only eliminated both men in Montreal, but also handed Hamilton a ten-place penalty for France, which he compounded with a second error at Magny-Cours on Sunday.

The field now heads for Hamilton's home race, at Silverstone next weekend, where there will be even greater calls on his time away from the track.

"Hamilton's preparation for the British Grand Prix has to be focused on the only area that matters, the track," Blundell continued, "Get that right and everything else takes care of itself.

"Going into his home grand prix on the back of run-ins with the media is not setting the scene for Silverstone in the right way. He needs to go there with a clear head.

"We are approaching the halfway point of the season. It's now about letting his driving and results do the talking for him. Yes, there will always be commercial and media commitments, but that is all part of the game. What he shouldn't be doing is getting emotionally involved. That just takes away from performance."

Blundell also suggested that Hamilton could have scored points in France had he kept his head while in the midst of a charge from 13th on the grid.

With passing difficult at the Magny-Cours circuit, the Briton was having to maximise any opportunity, but ran out of road while attempting to overcome Sebastian Vettel, and cut the chicane.

The McLaren team was initially unaware of the incident, but Blundell claims that Hamilton's own initiative should have told him that it would have been better to hand the place back to the German instead of risking the ensuing penalty.

"If Lewis had backed off and let Vettel go by again that would have been fine," he claimed. "People say the team should have been on the radio telling him to do that, but he is the one driving the car. He can make his own decision about whether the move was justified.

"Maybe the pass on Vettel was the result of over-aggression, [but] this kind of thing is starting to cost him. You can't afford to make mistakes. It is just too competitive out there and dropping points now will really hurt at the end of the year."

Article Here!



Really ? He didn't lost focus he lost Alonso the guy who keep him into the back all the way last season by putting his car up to a perfect set up each race.

So give me a break. The kid has talent, but not yet enough experince to win a championship.

Raikkonen may use ‘free’ engine change at Silverstone

Originally Posted by f1.com

Kimi Raikkonen and his Ferrari engine may have survived to finish Sunday's French Grand Prix, completing a Ferrari one-two behind Felipe Massa, but it could result in an unscheduled engine change, according to team principal Stefano Domenicali.

Raikkonen suffered an exhaust failure around half distance in the 70 lap race which caused fluctuating performance thereafter. Raikkonen was lucky to finish behind Massa, even though he matched his team mate's pace for a while before the engine worsened at the end.

This year, however, Ferrari are lucky in that each driver is allowed one unscheduled engine change without penalty. "I would say it is quite likely that we will have to replace the engine," said Domenicali after the race. "For sure, after such a heavy race from the middle to the end, it's very likely that we have to change it so we need to play the joker that allows us to do it."

However, the team won't know for sure until later in the week. "We will do the analysis later on and tomorrow but there's no rush to do anything more than eventually change it when we go to Silverstone."

Domenicali admitted that it will be hard to find what had caused the issue. "Unfortunately it was not possible to understand the problem and also the other difficulty is that for almost half of the race all the breaking parts were falling apart so it will also be difficult to collect all the pieces in our hands because they're somewhere around the track."

Domenicali then explained what had caused the varying performance. "If you lose the exhaust there's no more performance and then you start to have different parameters on the engine, the temperatures go up, the water pressure comes down. Everything is mixed up, of course. In a way, it was very, very good and very important to finish the race with eight points in that condition."

Domenicali explained that the team felt that they had limited time at the second pit stop in which they could do anything to help the problem. "It had already fallen off. There was the cable of the lamda and we decided not to cut that because we would maybe lose more seconds, and we had Trulli pushing behind so we took that into consideration. I have to say that in terms of strategy, in terms of teamwork everything was done correctly."

How much longer would it have lasted? "The maximum the engine lasts is for two races so maybe I think it's a bit ambitious to have another race in that condition but honestly, I don't know, difficult to say. I don't want to tell lies; I don't know."

Ferrari were able to work on engine settings to compensate. "We were trying to do what we could in order to protect the engine under those conditions and after all the things that were possible to do, just wait until the chequered flag. You could see that there were a lot of switches being moved around."

Domenicali saw the engine's survival as a plus point. "For sure we were very worried, no doubt. It was a long race to finish, maybe we lost a lot of years and a lot of hair but that's part of the game. So I'm extremely happy it lasted. In that condition you never know. It may stop any lap, it's too difficult, it's critical."

Domenicali also paid tribute to Massa, the new world championship leader. "I think that we always said that we were very, very happy extremely happy with our two drivers. It's better not to assume any kind of thinking before the end of the season because if you think that after the first two Grands Prix Felipe had zero points; I recall what was the discussion about him.

"I think that strong drivers in a strong team have to look ahead without being influenced by the negative thinking around. I think he's strong now, and as I said, I think it's the first time for him to be leading the drivers' championship so it's a great award for him but it doesn't change anything on our side. Teamwork is our main target and we said at the beginning that there's no changes in our decisions or strategies."

Article Here!




It came without any warning, but as far that it's a "free" replacing engine rule, it's ok.