Mark Lawrenson did such a bad job of predicting the scores this week that I'm not going to bother posting them. He only got one correct winner, and no correct scores.
This, admittedly, is probably because Arsenal and Chelsea both lost, when they've been having good runs so far this season.
27/09/2010
Formula 1 Race Fifteen: Update
Sutil and Hulkenberg both receive 20 second penalties for going off-track in the first lap, gaining an advantage. So Massa now finishes eighth with 4 points, Sutil is ninth with 2 points, and Hulkenberg is tenth with 1 point.
There is a lot of worrying about whether the Korean Grand Prix will go ahead in a few weeks' time. I will be disappointed if it doesn't, and there will be lessons for India to absorb if they want their Delhi track to be completed for 2011.
There is a lot of worrying about whether the Korean Grand Prix will go ahead in a few weeks' time. I will be disappointed if it doesn't, and there will be lessons for India to absorb if they want their Delhi track to be completed for 2011.
Formula 1 Race Fifteen: Update
Sutil and Hulkenberg both receive 20 second penalties for going off-track in the first lap, gaining an advantage. So Massa now finishes eighth with 4 points, Sutil is ninth with 2 points, and Hulkenberg is tenth with 1 point.
26/09/2010
Formula 1 Race Fifteen: Race
Massa, Hulkenberg, Sutil
Starting from the back, Massa overtook quickly, but then took a pit stop at the end of the first lap. Then the safety car came out, and in the midst of most other drivers pitting soon caught up to Hulkenberg and Sutil, who were stuck behind Timo Glock in tenth. And there they stayed until eventually Sutil overtook Glock, then Hulkenberg and Massa also overtook. Unfortunately, this manouvre had Glock scraping over the kerb, and he fell far behind with the loss of speed. Glock retired in lap 52. It was a good finish for Sutil, in eighth.
Alonso and Vettel
This was one of the closest races this season, with these two battling it out for first place with only a second or two between them. They even pitted at the same time, thanks to some good eyes in the Ferrari garage. Red Bull had no time to stop Vettel coming in, and couldn't get him out ahead of Alonso either. But Vettel got into his tyres quicker, and might have managed to get the lead if Kobayashi hadn't smashed into the wall under duress from Schumacher, and then had Senna hit him there, requiring a safety car. In the end, Alonso scraped a victory, which resulted in him getting second place in the championship just behind Webber.
Webber, Button and Hamilton
Webber's start was not great, but he persevered. He pitted with the majority under the first safety car, and fell down to eleventh. But he came back, having overtaken a few cars, because everyone ahead of him had yet to pit. Although he had no chance of going first or second, bad pit stop planning (or sheer desperation) by MacLaren put Hamilton and Button behind him as he went third. Then Hamilton tried an overtake on Webber, but it didn't quite work out. His rear suspension broke, and Hamilton was out of the race. After the finish, Hamilton was lucky to be third in the championship by a single point, followed by Vettel, and Button is fifth.
Other retirements
Kovalainen gets the award for 'most spectacular retirement 2010'. He was spun in a near collision with Buemi, and started spurting oil from the back of his car. For some crazy reason he decided not to pit, then burst into flame going along the home straight. Once he realised he was on fire, he jumped out of the car where a marshal handed him a fire extinguisher for him to put the flames out – with his driver protection, he was probably the safest to do it!
Nick Heidfeld also clashed with Schumacher and retired, which the stewards decided was a normal accident and not deserving of punishment. Trulli retired with a puncture on lap 29.
Kubica
He was forced to take a second pit stop after a puncture, but in a magnificent run towards the end of the race he overtook Schumacher, Petrov, Massa, Hulkenberg and Sutil with his better tyres to finish seventh.
In conclusion – an awesome, tense race. A great consecutive victory for Alonso, and a poor consecutive retirement for Hamilton. The championship is still anyone's game.
To come: Premier League predictions result
Next weekend: More football
Starting from the back, Massa overtook quickly, but then took a pit stop at the end of the first lap. Then the safety car came out, and in the midst of most other drivers pitting soon caught up to Hulkenberg and Sutil, who were stuck behind Timo Glock in tenth. And there they stayed until eventually Sutil overtook Glock, then Hulkenberg and Massa also overtook. Unfortunately, this manouvre had Glock scraping over the kerb, and he fell far behind with the loss of speed. Glock retired in lap 52. It was a good finish for Sutil, in eighth.
Alonso and Vettel
This was one of the closest races this season, with these two battling it out for first place with only a second or two between them. They even pitted at the same time, thanks to some good eyes in the Ferrari garage. Red Bull had no time to stop Vettel coming in, and couldn't get him out ahead of Alonso either. But Vettel got into his tyres quicker, and might have managed to get the lead if Kobayashi hadn't smashed into the wall under duress from Schumacher, and then had Senna hit him there, requiring a safety car. In the end, Alonso scraped a victory, which resulted in him getting second place in the championship just behind Webber.
Webber, Button and Hamilton
Webber's start was not great, but he persevered. He pitted with the majority under the first safety car, and fell down to eleventh. But he came back, having overtaken a few cars, because everyone ahead of him had yet to pit. Although he had no chance of going first or second, bad pit stop planning (or sheer desperation) by MacLaren put Hamilton and Button behind him as he went third. Then Hamilton tried an overtake on Webber, but it didn't quite work out. His rear suspension broke, and Hamilton was out of the race. After the finish, Hamilton was lucky to be third in the championship by a single point, followed by Vettel, and Button is fifth.
Other retirements
Kovalainen gets the award for 'most spectacular retirement 2010'. He was spun in a near collision with Buemi, and started spurting oil from the back of his car. For some crazy reason he decided not to pit, then burst into flame going along the home straight. Once he realised he was on fire, he jumped out of the car where a marshal handed him a fire extinguisher for him to put the flames out – with his driver protection, he was probably the safest to do it!
Nick Heidfeld also clashed with Schumacher and retired, which the stewards decided was a normal accident and not deserving of punishment. Trulli retired with a puncture on lap 29.
Kubica
He was forced to take a second pit stop after a puncture, but in a magnificent run towards the end of the race he overtook Schumacher, Petrov, Massa, Hulkenberg and Sutil with his better tyres to finish seventh.
In conclusion – an awesome, tense race. A great consecutive victory for Alonso, and a poor consecutive retirement for Hamilton. The championship is still anyone's game.
To come: Premier League predictions result
Next weekend: More football
25/09/2010
Formula 1 Race Fifteen: Qualifying
One five-place grid penalty going into qualifying for Nico Hulkenberg of Williams, for changing a gearbox. But he's been doing well during the weekend so far despite the conditions, and it should not hurt him too much. The conditions are bad, with a damp track refusing to dry out thanks to the humid conditions.
Qualifying Round 1: It did not go well for Filipe Massa. His car stopped on track before he could set a time, so he ends up at the back of the track. Red flags went up to stop the session just before half-way. This would be a good time for Ferrari to use a ninth engine on his car, since the penalty will not affect their result.
So it looked like the usual six would be joined by Massa at the back of the grid. Replacing Yamamoto for the weekend, Klien – who hasn't done a qualifying session for four years – still beat his Hispania teammate Senna to come 22nd.
Qualifying Round 2: A problem for Petrov had him spinning and hitting the wall, causing him to break his right-rear suspension. The slipperiness of the track had many drivers spinning or sliding their cars. Poor old Alonso also had a bad session, setting a time but having trouble with his telemetry. But after a short stay in the pits he was out again. And it was Vettel who broke Kimi Raikonnen's 2008 lap record of 1:45:599 by 38 thousandths of a second.
In the end, Schumacher scraped through to Q3 – unusual for him this season – and Jaime Alguersuari got eleventh. Hulkenberg went twelfth, which drops him down to seventeenth.
Qualifying Round 3: Almost everyone went out straight away, and Alonso set an even faster time than Vettel had in the previous round to take provisional pole. With the long length of the laps, they had to fuel as fast as possible, but be careful not to leave too little time to set a lap. And in a crazy final run, Alonso beat Vettel as the Red Bull didn't quite manage to get enough time to beat him. Button got ahead of Webber, and just behind Hamilton. For the record, the fastest lap time at Singapore is now 1:45:390.
Qualifying Round 1: It did not go well for Filipe Massa. His car stopped on track before he could set a time, so he ends up at the back of the track. Red flags went up to stop the session just before half-way. This would be a good time for Ferrari to use a ninth engine on his car, since the penalty will not affect their result.
So it looked like the usual six would be joined by Massa at the back of the grid. Replacing Yamamoto for the weekend, Klien – who hasn't done a qualifying session for four years – still beat his Hispania teammate Senna to come 22nd.
Qualifying Round 2: A problem for Petrov had him spinning and hitting the wall, causing him to break his right-rear suspension. The slipperiness of the track had many drivers spinning or sliding their cars. Poor old Alonso also had a bad session, setting a time but having trouble with his telemetry. But after a short stay in the pits he was out again. And it was Vettel who broke Kimi Raikonnen's 2008 lap record of 1:45:599 by 38 thousandths of a second.
In the end, Schumacher scraped through to Q3 – unusual for him this season – and Jaime Alguersuari got eleventh. Hulkenberg went twelfth, which drops him down to seventeenth.
Qualifying Round 3: Almost everyone went out straight away, and Alonso set an even faster time than Vettel had in the previous round to take provisional pole. With the long length of the laps, they had to fuel as fast as possible, but be careful not to leave too little time to set a lap. And in a crazy final run, Alonso beat Vettel as the Red Bull didn't quite manage to get enough time to beat him. Button got ahead of Webber, and just behind Hamilton. For the record, the fastest lap time at Singapore is now 1:45:390.
24/09/2010
Formula 1 Race Fifteen: Preview
This weekend, there's a change of two drivers: Christian Kline for Sakon Yamamoto (Hispania) and Nick Heidfeld for Pedro De La Rosa (Sauber). Heidfeld has previously raced in F1 – you may recognise the name – and is a permanent replacement. Kline, however, is only a temporary replacement as it appears Yamamoto has food poisoning. Once again, Chandhok is not racing, although it was Sir Jackie Stewart up in the BBC commentary box for practice 1.
Singapore presents a good opportunity for the new teams. With the interesting conditions – and the chance of a safety car – if one team gets twelfth position they can reach 10th in the championship, which is worth a lot of money. And if they get points... even better!
The first practise session started out wet, although it wasn't raining, and the drivers were on intermediates. But towards the end, when the track finally got dry enough – there was no sun to dry the track since Singapore's a night race – the slicks had the drivers going faster. Still, it is going to be a long race, completely unlike Monza (Italy) which is one of the fastest Grand Prix out there. The commentators are predicting a long race - maybe even 2 hours rather than 61 laps if we get a couple of safety cars.
After P1, Webber was the fastest, but second was Schumacher, then Sutil, Vettel and Alguersuari. Only the two Red Bulls are drivers we'd expect to be going quick – Schumacher has never raced here before, and the Force Indias have varied performance. As for Alguersuari, at times this year he's been in danger of going out in the first round of qualifying (and even has, at some races). So it was interesting to look forward to practice two, and see if the traditionally faster cars (Ferrari and MacLaren) can get ahead of these surprises. Otherwise, we're bound to see some unusual results this weekend.
Practice 2 had even faster times as the track was even drier. Karun Chandhok was up with the BBC boys. It was, for the most part, a normal session, although Vettel got well ahead of the practice 2 time he had set last year at Singapore, on the 'slower', harder tyre.
Adrian Sutil got some air time as he took the chicane badly, launching his car in the air and hitting it down rather badly so that his front left wheel was snapped off, causing him to stop just before half-way through P2. As for poor old Fernando Alonso, he turned off the track to a run-off area because he was not quite going to make a corner, tried to reverse his car out onto the track to get back into the session, and then stalled. He had to get out of his car on the track, then began pushing it back by himself before the marshals arrived to take over – bad form marshals! This is especially bad because he had had the fastest time for sector 1, and a personal best for sector 2 on the track.
Despite all of that, however, he did set the fourth-fastest time. The five fastest in practice 2 were the five championship leaders.
Tomorrow: Qualifying!
Singapore presents a good opportunity for the new teams. With the interesting conditions – and the chance of a safety car – if one team gets twelfth position they can reach 10th in the championship, which is worth a lot of money. And if they get points... even better!
The first practise session started out wet, although it wasn't raining, and the drivers were on intermediates. But towards the end, when the track finally got dry enough – there was no sun to dry the track since Singapore's a night race – the slicks had the drivers going faster. Still, it is going to be a long race, completely unlike Monza (Italy) which is one of the fastest Grand Prix out there. The commentators are predicting a long race - maybe even 2 hours rather than 61 laps if we get a couple of safety cars.
After P1, Webber was the fastest, but second was Schumacher, then Sutil, Vettel and Alguersuari. Only the two Red Bulls are drivers we'd expect to be going quick – Schumacher has never raced here before, and the Force Indias have varied performance. As for Alguersuari, at times this year he's been in danger of going out in the first round of qualifying (and even has, at some races). So it was interesting to look forward to practice two, and see if the traditionally faster cars (Ferrari and MacLaren) can get ahead of these surprises. Otherwise, we're bound to see some unusual results this weekend.
Practice 2 had even faster times as the track was even drier. Karun Chandhok was up with the BBC boys. It was, for the most part, a normal session, although Vettel got well ahead of the practice 2 time he had set last year at Singapore, on the 'slower', harder tyre.
Adrian Sutil got some air time as he took the chicane badly, launching his car in the air and hitting it down rather badly so that his front left wheel was snapped off, causing him to stop just before half-way through P2. As for poor old Fernando Alonso, he turned off the track to a run-off area because he was not quite going to make a corner, tried to reverse his car out onto the track to get back into the session, and then stalled. He had to get out of his car on the track, then began pushing it back by himself before the marshals arrived to take over – bad form marshals! This is especially bad because he had had the fastest time for sector 1, and a personal best for sector 2 on the track.
Despite all of that, however, he did set the fourth-fastest time. The five fastest in practice 2 were the five championship leaders.
Tomorrow: Qualifying!
22/09/2010
Mark Lawrenson Predictions: Episode 5
Chelsea are awesome :(
Predictions here
There were no Monday matches this week, but I'm still late - sorry!
Correct predictions are in bold.
Mark's winner prediction success rate: 4/10
Mark's score prediction success rate: 2/10
Chelsea continue their winning stream. Mark Lawrenson is doing badly. Next weekend - F1 from Singapore and Premier League.
Predictions here
There were no Monday matches this week, but I'm still late - sorry!
Correct predictions are in bold.
| Home Team | Away Team | Predicted winner | Predicted score | Actual winner | Actual score |
| Stoke | West Ham | West Ham | 2-0 | Draw | 1-1 |
| Aston Villa | Bolton | Aston Villa | 2-0 | Draw | 1-1 |
| Blackburn | Fulham | Fulham | 2-1 | Draw | 1-1 |
| Everton | Newcastle | Everton | 3-1 | Newcastle | 0-1 |
| Tottenham | Wolverhampton | Tottenham | 2-0 | Tottenham | 3-1 |
| West Brom | Birmingam | Draw | 1-1 | West Brom | 3-1 |
| Sunderland | Arsenal | Draw | 1-1 | Draw | 1-1 |
| Man Utd | Liverpool | Draw | 0-0 | Man Utd | 3-2 |
| Wigan | Man City | Man City | 0-2 | Man City | 0-2 |
| Chelsea | Blackpool | Chelsea | 3-0 | Chelsea | 4-0 |
Mark's score prediction success rate: 2/10
Chelsea continue their winning stream. Mark Lawrenson is doing badly. Next weekend - F1 from Singapore and Premier League.
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