Kimi Raikkönnen will leave Lotus for Ferrari in 2014/15. It’s the second time that the finn will drive for Ferrari. He drove for them from 2007-2009. In these years he got 9 GP wins and 1 world championhsip in 2007. He then was replaced by Feranando Alonso in 2010, who’s also he’s new teammte for the next season. Yesterday evening Felipe Massa announced that he will leave Ferrari at the end of 2013, no news on his future plans yet.
Now it’s of course interesting to see who’s going to drive for Lotus, i hope it’s going to be Nico Hülkenberg, who showed great performances in the last couple of years in F1. But who will replace him at Sauber? Well most likley it’s going to be Sergey Sirotkin, who’s only 17 years old and for me not ready for an F1 full time cockpit.
I really can’t wait to see how the F1 2014 season is going to unfold, with Raikkönnen now in a team that has the money to produce a winning car.
Author: David van den Boom, Twitter: (@David__VDB)
Now i have been following this series since the season finale of tthe 2007 season, were Ekström and Spengler were battling for the title.
That’s were i was starting to begin my interese for the DTM and watched the full 2008 season and i watched the other season afterwards.
So yeah you can call me a longtime DTM fan, who even visited the Nürburgring race there since 2010.
Don’t forget this is my opinion, i’m sure there are some people who disagree. Please share your opinion in the comment section.
So now i’m going to say what’s wrong with the DTM nowadays and why it’s going in the wrong diretcion.
1. Stupid rules/decisions
Some of the stewards nowadays for example in F1 or GP2 are really wrong with their penalty desicions.
But the DTM stewards are actually the best in making stupid and just wrong decisions. For example, Spengler this year at the Lausitzring, were he showed the middle finger to Ekström, after they had hard side by side contact racing at the last lap of the last corner.
So Spengler just expressed his anger to Ekström and Ekström was making fun of him afterwards in a interview.
But of course the DMSB (organisation of the DTM) overreacted and gave Spengler 10,000 euro fine for giving Ekström the middle finger.
20 years ago, even 10 years ago were the ”new” DTM started they wouldn’t do anything about it and say that’s OK.
And of course the ridiculous blue flag rules at the Norisring this year.
Rockenfeller and Paffet had newer, better tires than the others ahead of them, for some reason the ITR (Race Control) said that it would be ok if you give the others who are ahead of Rockenfeller and Paffet blue flags so Rockenfeller and Paffet don’t damage their new tires, and get held up.
They were all even on the same lap???
So of course you as a motorsport fan would think, why the f*** would do that???
Not even the race control from F1 would be pathetic enough to think about something like this.
And of course the thing with the water bottle and Ekström and i won’t say much about it, because that’s really over the top.
Ekström didnt gained an advantage, the team didn’t gained advantage. But they outcast the Parc Ferme rules and got DSQ’d.
And then saying afterwards that there’s no race winner and Wickens stays 2nd. You would just think like this….
2. Why globalise it?
DTM- Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters/ German Touring Car Championship.
So you would think like the BTCC their racing only on circuits on their own country, namely Germany and everybody would be happy.
But no here comes the DMSB again and says that you should globalise the hell out of it.
Going to Moscow and then to Shanghai next year, doing the US-DTM in 2015.
Guys, guys why the hell are you doing that when it’s still called DTM???
If manufactures want to showcase their roadcars on race circuits on all over the world then you can go to the WTCC.
I mean look at BMW in the DTM, do you really think BMW came back just because everybody wanted that and there were new rules coming in 2012?
No, because they hope that the DTM becomes a 2nd WTCC, just even more expensive and with less cars on the grid than the original WTCC.
So BMW is making pressure on the DMSB to compete in countries were nobody gives a s*** about the DTM anyway (China, Russia, USA etc).
And you know that the Super GT (much better) will have the same rules as the DTM in 2014.
So of course the DMSB is hoping that Nissan, Honda and Lexus (actually Toyota) will come with cars that can be raced in Europe.
And guess what? Yep, of course all three manufactures didn’t give a f*** about the DTM,
Nissan will built the next generation GT-R, Lexus will bring the LFA and Honda will bring the next-gen NSX and you couldn’t race those cars against M3’s, RS5’s or C-Classes forget it.
I just don’t hope that the GT500 cars are going to have DRS and option tires and all this crap, because as you can see in the latest race of the Super GT 2013 season, they don’t need it at all!!!!
3. Trying to be the F1 of Touring Cars
So these are Touring cars, you wouldn’t expect much of aerodynamics and more looking like the roadcars as you can see in WTCC and
BTCC or V8 Supercars, those are real Touring cars and deserve that name.
But in the DTM… just look at the comparison between a road M3 E92 Coupe and a M3 Coupe DTM.
And you call that a touring car?
I don’t think so, it looks more like a prototype.
Despite the looks of those DTM cars, all other parts have nothing to do with the roadcars what you don’t call a touring car.
And because of the aerodynamics of the cars, the DMSB was finding it a good idea to bring DRS and option tires to the DTM.
So well the DRS doesn’t really bring anything despite Hockenheim and Spielberg, in all the other the races the DRS system didn’t showed any advantage for the driver behind his opponnent.
Those cars are just to slow, so the DRS system can work how it should work, it works in F1, but not here.
And the option tires…… as I was never a fan from the Pirelli tires in F1 and how carefull the F1 drivers had to drive on them to keep them alive, my opinion on the option tires in the DTM is pretty much the same.
You don’t need this in a touring car series, oh wait, why am i even calling this a touring car series?
4. How the DTM should be
– merge together with the dying ADAC Procar and doing the same rules as the ones used in the WTCC
– make two sprint races on Sunday, not just one long race, like it’s now
– no DRS, no option tires, no pitstops
– racing only in Germany, we have enough tracks were the DTM doesn’t race
– how the calendar should be:
1. Hockenheimring
2. Euro Speedway
3. Norisring
4. Oschersleben
5. Sachsenring
6. Nürburgring
7. Berlin-Tempelhof (same weekend with the Formula E)
8. Sachsenring
9. Bilster Berg (when stands are build, so maybe 2015?)
10. Hockenheimring
– teams from WTCC/BTCC can also race in the DTM and the other way
At the start of the GP Lewis Hamilton was leading into Turn 1. Vettel tried to hold of Grosjean on the outside of the track.
Rosberg meanwhile, who started from 4th position had contact with Massa’s frontwing at Turn 5.
Rosberg had to go wide and settled for 12th postion, then he overtoke some cars bringing him to 7th but then he retired 10 laps before the end of the race due a engine failure.
Hamilton was leading ahead of Vettel and Grosjean until the first pitstops came around the laps 9-13.
Vettel already had to defend his 2nd position against Grosjean and surprisingly struggled with the handling of the car.
After Vettel made his first pitstop, he came back behind McLaren driver Jenson Button, who held him off for 33 laps, what was a quite amazing perfomance from the brit.
So Vettel held up Grosjean, and some laps later Alonso was becoming faster, so it became a four way battle for 2nd.
Vettel finally got past Button for 2nd and Grosjean was also trying to pass Button, but with contact resulted to a penalty after the race. After Grosjeans 2nd pitstop, he was behind Massa.
Grosjean was much faster than the Ferrari driver and tried a brave outside move into the blind Turn 5 corner, which was succesfull but illegal. He had all four wheels off the track and he was over the line, so he gained an advantage over Massa.
The frenchman got a drive through penalty and later made his third pitstop, he ended up in 6th position.
His teammate Raikönnen however had a fantastic strategy and despite the hot weather there he managed his tires very well and made only two pitstops.
So he came up to 2nd, but Vettel was close behind him and tried a ”Grosjean move” on the outside of Turn 5.
But Raikkönnen defended and kept his 2nd place until the end. Webber had a great race, coming from 10th on the grid after his bad luck in Qualifying to 4th in the race.
Hamilton controlled his lead and won the Hungarian GP after 70 laps. It was his first GP win of the season and the third for Mercedes AMG Petronas.
Sutil had a horrible 100th GP, he had problems starting his car again at his first pitstop and had to retire.
Williams meanwhile scored their first points of the season with Maldonado finishing 10th.
Teammate Bottas had to retire after an engine failure.
The next race of the Formula 1 World Championship is on the 25th of August for the Belgium GP at Spa-Francorchamps.
Today was announced that F1 will comeback to the Red Bull Ring (A1 Ring back then) at the 6th of July 2014.
But the agency of Spielberg (there were the Red Bull Ring is located on) have to give the official okay.
The Austrian GP should have already comeback this year, but Ecclestone disagreed.
Ecclestone disagreed because the Red Bull Ring wouldn’t have enough Hotel rooms.
But now he agreed with Dr. Helmut Marko and Dietrich Mateschitz who are behind this ”Austrian GP comeback”.
F1 was driving the current layout from 1997-2003, called A1-Ring, but they also drove the old layout, called Österreichring from 1970-1987.
But it’s still uncertain who will pay the Grand Prix tax, which are Millions of euros.
But finally a classy track comes new to the F1 calender, but also with the new New Jersey GP starting next year, it would be hard for the teams to race 22 GP’s in a year.
So i won’t be surprised if some of the current GP’s will go away from the calender (please the Korean GP!!!)
They uploaded three trailers at their official Youtube channel and showed two hotlaps, the Lotus E20 at the Nürburgring and the Mclaren MP4-28 at Silverstone.
But the third trailer was the most interesting one, the classics trailer.
They announced that they will bring overall 4 classic tracks (Estoril, Jerez, Imola and Brands Hatch) and 10 historic cars, 5 cars each for the 80’s and the 90’s including 17 driver legends with commentary from commentator legend Murray Walker (!).
The 80’s cars and tracks will be in the stantard edition, but when you also want to play the 90’s cars and tracks, you will have to buy the classic edition.
Codemasters didn’t mentioned if the boxed version of the classic edition will be only for pre order and then later available as DLC, as it was in GRID 2 were you could choose between one free DLC car pack for the pre ordered version of the game.
The classic edition can be not bought in the boxed version, when you buy F1 2013 on PC/Steam.
You will have to download it as additional content to the stantard F1 2013.
The classic cars are also playable in online and local multiplayer.
You will also have the chance to play the historic cars on the new tracks and the 2013 cars on the classic tracks.
Codemasters said that the historic cars are going to be much harder to drive than the current ones.
The physics of the 2013 cars and the A.I. have been improved.
The Williams-Renault FW148 from the F1 1992 season, driven by Nigel Mansell and Ricardo Patrese.
People that were able to play the Preview version of F1 2013 at Press day said that the handling system is similar to the 2011 version.
Codemasters didn’t said anything about the penalty system, what was the most discussed point at F1 2012.
Honestly, i’m not that excited, I want to see more info about the game, especially the penalty sytem, menu system etc.
So I won’t pre order it for now, too risky.
The game will come out for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, F1 2013 won’t come for the next-gen consoles (Xbox One, PS4) and the realese date will most likely come at the end of September.
