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This is my account of the Turkish GP written in real-time as the race unfolded, the first time I’ve tried this. World Champion Sebastian Vettel started on pole position, having qualified 0.4 of a second faster than his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber. This might not seem very much, but a F1 car travels a very long way in 0.4 of a second! A side-by-side display of their qualifying laps on the BBC coverage showed how Vettel was slightly better than Webber in many of the corners, and this made the difference. Vettel is clearly the man to beat!

At the start, Rosberg made a great start from third on the grid to overtake Webber, who then had to defend his position. Schumacher had to come in for an early pit-stop to change his front wing after a coming together with Petrov. Schumacher had done very well in practice, but was disappointed with his qualifying position. Webber made a good move on Rosberg on lap 5, made it stick and moved into second place. There was some great duelling between team-mates Hamilton and Button, but Button retained ahead of Hamilton – maintaining the advantage he gained early on in the race.

Around lap 10 there were a whole raft of pit-stops, during which Hamilton made the jump on Massa, who may have been released dangerously into the path of the McLaren and may get penalised. One of the unwritten rules of F1 is don’t take your team-mate out of the race, but Petrov had a good go at knocking his Renault team-mate Heidfeld into the pit lane – prompting much hand gesticulating! Schumacher’s problems continued with another coming together in the midfield on about lap 16. There was still no sign of a penalty for Massa on lap 20 when he made a classic move on Rosberg, followed by a little later by Button taking Rosberg on the outside of the last corner in an exciting overtake. Massa soon had to make an unplanned pit-stop after locking-up a wheel and flat-spotting the tyre – F1 cars are so finely balanced that a simple mistake like this can mess up race strategy!

Top six after 26 laps: Vettel, Webber, Alonso, Button, Hamilton and Petrov, with Alonso (fastest on the track at that point) closing in on Webber. Indeed, Alonso took Webber on about lap 30 (just over half-distance).

There was a slight lull in the racing, but after a few laps Button passed Alonso. Hamilton had an awful pit-stop when a wheel gun stuck, and they had to hold him back a few seconds for an incoming Massa. Massa later went wide on the awesome turn 8, picked up a lot of tyre debris and it cost him quite a few places. There’s a lot of tyre debris (known as marbles) off the racing line this year, this is because the Pirelli tyres are designed to degrade fairly quickly.

On about lap 46 Paul di Resta came to a halt, but it didn’t require the safety car. Scot Paul di Resta is the third British driver in F1 this year, driving for Force India. As the race moved into the final 10 laps, Webber had the run on Alonso and overtook him. Schumacher has had what the BBC website described as an another ‘underwhelming’ race, languishing in the mid-field. For all his experience, he really should be doing better, as he is continually being out-performed by team-mate Rosberg.

After 58 laps the clear winner is Vettel, followed by team-mate Webber for a 1-2 Red Bull victory, with Alonso third. Hamilton was fourth, Rosberg fifth and Button sixth. A great race, with Vettel supreme again.

It’s just been announced that Sir Henry Cooper has died. I’m not a lover of boxing, but he was a legend, known for a particularly effective left hook, and he floored Muhammed Ali – quite a feat!

Today’s race was one of the best and most exciting for a while. Unpredictable to the last, it was won by Lewis Hamilton for McLaren. Sebastian Vettel came second, with Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber coming third – but that doesn’t tell half the story! You can read the BBC race report here, but I was most amused by Webber’s comments in the press conference afterwards! Now everyone knows there’s no love lost between Vettel and Webber, and today it stepped up a gear (much to Vettel’s surprise and Hamilton’s amusement). Webber made two very telling comments.

First of all, he expressed relief that someone had finally beaten Vettel, whilst at the same time realizing that he probably shouldn’t be saying that about his team-mate: Congratulations to Lewis. It was good that someone finally… Of course, Seb is in the same team, but he has been on a phenomenal run and we are all here together fighting for victories. Shame McLaren won in a way, but also we can’t let Seb get too far away. So it was good day for the racing and good day for us in terms of points for the team. Secondly, he referred to the McLarens as Vodafones, I was looking for more yellow flags, a few more retirements, a couple of Vodafone cars pulled over but nothing, no yellow flags, I had to pass everybody. Hardly a slip of the tongue! Surely a dig at Vettel, who last week mistakenly used the sponsor name to describe the Renaults? What do you think?

No race report for the Malaysian GP as I’m not planning to cover every race. Sebastian Vettel won from pole and had been flying all weekend! Vitaly Petrov, on the other hand, was literally flying – as screenshot shows!

As the replay of this morning’s race is on the television in the background, here’s my post about the season opener. It was another early morning for me, as I was up to watch qualifying yesterday and the clocks moved forward to British Summer Time today. Having said that, the benefit of getting up early was a cooked breakfast on both mornings! As I always say, true fans watch races live whenever possible! It was an interesting and enjoyable race, although not a classic. There were lots of uncertainties, particularly resulting from the rule changes introduced this year.

Red Bull‘s Sebastian Vettel started where he left off in 2010, winning the race from pole after making a flying start off the line. Lewis Hamilton finished second for McLaren, but unfortunately team-mate Jenson Button was down in sixth after being penalised for cutting a corner while overtaking Felipe Massa. Normally he would have just had to give the place back, but Massa’s team-mate Alonso overtook Massa and forced a drive-through penalty for Button, effectively wrecking his race. Russian Vitaly Petrov had a great start and gained his first podium with third for Renault. Scot Paul di Resta finished 10th for Force India on his debut after the two Saubers were disqualified for a technical infringement. This was actually a shame for Sergio Perez who drove an excellent race. Bring on the rest of the season!

I was up early this morning to watch F1 qualifying live from Australia, on the first race weekend of the 2011 season. Mark Webber (in the above screenshot) will be hoping to do well in his home grand prix, but it was his Red Bull team-mate and World Champion Sebastian Vettel who stormed to P1 in a dazzling display! During testing McLaren had looked poor (by their standards), but Lewis Hamilton joins Vettel on the front row of the grid. Mark Webber qualified third, with McLaren’s Jenson Button fourth.

This year could be as exciting as last year, especially with five world champions all racing together this year. In addition, we have three Brits on the grid. It’s also good to have two former drivers in the commentary box for the BBC: Martin Brundle moves over as main commentator, with David Coulthard as his side-kick! Anyway, I better get off to bed as it’s another early start – not least because the clocks go forward an hour tonight!

One of the rivalries in F1 2011 is likely to be between Red Bull F1 team mates Sebastian Vettel (2010 World Champion) and Mark Webber. This is an exclusive video interview with Australian Mark Webber on 2011 F1 testing. Interestingly (as one of the comments points out) it’s telling that he didn’t mention Felipe Massa as a competitor!

You can find a previous post about F1 2011 here!

We are currently in what I call the F1 Winter Famine, when F1 fans the world over are deprived of their beloved sport! Although, behind the scenes, the F1 teams are working frantically to get their cars ready for the 62nd Formula One season. This year there will be twenty rounds, the longest season in F1 history, with the first Indian Grand Prix. Pirelli are taking over from Bridgestone as tyre supplies to all the teams, as Sebastian Vettel seeks to defend his Driver’s Championship and Red Bull Racing their Constructor’s Championship. It’s a good year for Brits, with three drivers on the grid, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton (both McLaren) and Paul di Resta (Force India). Bring it on!

2011 also sees inevitable rule changes, which always help to give a little uncertainty each year. There’s a return to the 107% rule in qualifying (Q1 only) that will prevent very slow drivers taking part in the race. Team orders look set to remain a contentious issue, but the FIA has increased the maximum allowable penalty which racing stewards can issue to teams from $100,000 to $250,000. This follows the 2010 German Grand Prix where Ferrari were fined $100,000 for the use of team orders. It’s very difficult to ban them outright, but any team using coded instructions will be fined because they deceive spectators and would force teams and drivers to lie defend their position. How this will work out in practice has yet to be seen. Team orders have always been a part of the sport, although they often provoke a strong reaction amongst the fans.

There’s some technical rule changes being brought in, such as the maximum height of the diffuser being cut from 175 to 125 millimetres, the exclusion of double diffuser designs in order to reduce aerodynamic downforce and turbulent air, and the banning of exhaust-blown diffusers (which also increase downforce). The F-duct system (originally developed by McLaren, but copied by other teams) has also been banned on safety grounds, because it relied on the driver blocking a gap in the cockpit. As an alternative to the F-duct system, an adjustable rear wing system is being introduced to aid overtaking, but this will only be available under certain conditions and could be dropped if it proves impractical or unmanageable. Several smaller aerodynamic devices introduced for 2010 have been banned in 2011.

The number of wheel tethers will be doubled this year following an increasing number of accidents where wheels have been torn free from their mountings, including the death of Henry Surtees in a Formula Two race at Brands Hatch in 2009. KERS units will be optional for all teams, gearboxes must now last for five races instead of four, and drivers will have one additional gearbox that may be changed without penalty for the purposes of completing an event. Driving standards are being tightened up to prevent overly-aggressive driving, as well as stricter penalties for drivers seeking to gain an advantage by deliberately driving outside the boundaries of the track. A curfew will also be implemented, preventing teams from accessing the circuit between midnight and six o’clock in the morning. This because of safety concerns for over-tired mechanics in the busy pit lane during the race. Look out for more F1 posts during the year!

Note: F1 fans will appreciate the fact that I published this automatically at 1.00 pm on a Sunday!

Update: You can see Mark Webber being interviewed here!

Following on from the sexism row that I wrote about yesterday that is still in the news, I’m surprised that very few people have mentioned today’s offensive and sexist double entendre headline on the front page of today’s Sun! They clearly want her on Page Three! Totally unacceptable and complete hypocrisy! See also here!

Sexism in football has hit the headlines today! But it’s not just a problem in football, and it needs to be challenged whenever and wherever it appears, just like racism and prejudice. Everyone is important and everyone is equal! Sian Massey is a top-class football official on merit, who has worked hard to achieve this.

So along come Sky Sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray suggesting that Massey needed to learn the offside rule! Give me a break! Then they went on to mock West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady‘s claims in a newspaper column that sexism is still prevalent. “See charming Karren Brady this morning complaining about sexism?” Keys said to his colleague. “Yeah. Do me a favour, love.” OK, it was caught off-air, but that simply highlights the problem of an underlying sexism within society, their comments underlining the attitudes Sian Massey has probably had to overcome! As Karren Brady told BBC Radio 5 Live this morning, “What really upsets me is the fact that only females in our industry are judged by their gender and that is categorically wrong.”

I always do my best to challenge sexism, racism or prejudice wherever and whenever I come across them, for these attitudes have no place in our society. What we all need to do is celebrate diversity, and respect what other people, groups and cultures have to offer to make this world a better place. I speak out against racism even if I’m not a victim of it! I speak out against homophobia even though I’m not gay! I speak out against sexism directed at women even though I’m not a woman!

Obviously I don’t speak for women, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be seen as patronising. But I can begin to imagine how women must feel when the media condemns sexism against them and then goes on the explain the off-side rule with handbags and the like (as I was told happened today). In my mind, understanding the off-side rule is simply a basic test of whether someone is really interested in football or not, male or female!

See also: Why Feminism?