Yes, you read it.

With the way he has been performing since last year, I won’t be surprised if Ferrari decides to pull the plug on Massa at the end of the 2012 F1 season.

It has been rumored that Felipe Massa could be on the way out of Ferrari. And with talks about his replacement getting more and more interesting, it looks like Massa’s exit is all but certain.

In case you didn’t know, I’m referring to Sergio Perez and with rumors of a pending move to Ferrari refusing to die down, Perez says he wants a title-winning car within “two or three” years.

The 22-year-old has been the talk of Formula One since the Malaysian Grand Prix where he finished second in the tricky wet conditions, losing out to Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Perez’s brilliant performance coupled with Felipe Massa’s dismal outing immediately had the rumour-mill saying he could replace the Brazilian at Ferrari. And that he could even do it during the course of this season.

The rumours have been downplayed by all with Perez saying that he intends seeing out this season with Sauber. That, however, doesn’t he doesn’t want a join a Championship-winning team in the not-too-distant future.

“In the future my goal is to be in a big team and to be…”

Read More » Lookit’ here, Felipe Massa’s replacement is here

That’s despite missing out on winning two races already.

The 2012 F1 season is now two races old and Lewis Hamilton hasn’t won a race yet. He concedes he’s missed out on some vital points already this season but is confident he’s in the Championship fight.

Despite starting the first two rounds of the Championship on pole position, Lewis Hamilton has yet to claim a grand prix victory, finishing third in both events. The Brit was undone by his teammate Jenson Button in Australia before Sebastian Vettel also got the better of him.

It was more of the same in Malaysia where the rain and pitstops issues did not help his cause, allowing Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez to surge ahead.

“I should have 50 points, but I don’t,” Hamilton said. “Yeah, we would love to have 20 points more, but at least we’ve had consistency and we’re there in the fight.”

“We should be proud of ourselves. The team have done a fantastic job to get us where we are,” he added. “We’ve been the quickest in qualifying in both races, so there are many positives to take, rather than looking at the negatives.”

“So I’m massively excited ahead of the next two races and I’m going to go and prepare the best way I can. The main thing is I need to pick up my race pace. I spoke to Fernando and Sergio afterwards and they had lots of understeer whereas I had lots of oversteer.”

“Maybe I’m setting the car up too aggressively, so I might make…”

Read More » Lewis Hamilton remains confident this F1 season

Looks like Fernando Alonso is back in the title picture.

In case you didn’t know, Fernando Alonso came up with a surprise win during the second grand prix of the 2012 F1 season. Yes, Ferrari finally got one but as far as Jenson Button is concerned, he’s not worried at all.

Jenson Button has all but written off Fernando Alonso’s title challenge, saying his deficit to the Ferrari driver is “not the worry.” Fernando Alonso claimed a surprise victory ahead of Sergio Perez in Sunday’s Malaysian GP as the wet conditions detracted from the Ferrari F2012′s weak points.

His win put Fernando Alonso at the top of the Drivers’ standings, five points ahead of Lewis Hamilton and a further five in front of Jenson Button. However, the McLaren driver, who finished outside the points in Sepang after colliding with an HRT, reckons it’s the man in second and the off-the-pace Red Bulls who are his biggest threat and not Alonso.

“Even after such a bad race – and that’s hopefully my bad race for the year gone – I’m still only 10 points off the lead, and that’s Alonso in a Ferrari. That’s not the worry,” Button said.

“I’m also only five points behind Lewis, who is the guy in a competitive car, so (it’s) still not bad considering the day I had. Lewis is definitely my main rival, and you have to say the Red Bulls as well.”

“Those are the guys I still think are the main ones at this point…”

Read More » Jenson Button is not afraid of Fernando Alonso

Looks like he’s determined to win this one after missing out on the top of the podium in Melbourne.

Yes, Lewis Hamilton set the pace in Malaysia for the second grand prix of the 2012 F1 season in what proved to be very standard first practice, lacking in both drama and excitement.

The McLaren driver had a brief tussle with Sebastian Vettel for the P1 slot midway through the session with duo swapping places four times.

But, in the end, it was Lewis Hamilton who was quickest with a 1:38.021, which put him half a second ahead of the reigning World Champion.

Nico Rosberg was third quickest with Michael Schumacher fourth as Mercedes put their innovative DRS-activated F-duct to good use on the long Sepang straights. However, the duo were still eight-tenths adrift of Hamilton’s best.

Romain Grosjean continued his impressive run with Lotus as he claimed fifth place ahead of Mark Webbber and his more illustrious team-mate Kimi Raikkonen while Paul di Resta was eighth.

Jenson Button was in ninth place after an oil leak meant he was not able to see out the session, completing just 15 laps.

It was another worrying session for Ferrari with Felipe Massa 13th, 1.875s off the pace, and Fernando Alonso down in 15th place. The Spaniard spent a good part of the session in the pits and only set a lap time in the latter half of practice.

HRT were again at the very back of the pack, over seven seconds off…

Read More » Lewis Hamilton looking good heading to Malaysian GP

Talk about a confidence boost.

Fernando Alonso says Ferrari should not expect a sudden leap to the front of the field in Malaysia and could in fact finish even worse than they did in Australia this 2012 F1 season.

Ferrari had a disappointing start to their campaign with neither Fernando Alonso nor his team-mate Felipe Massa making it into the final top-ten shoot-out in qualifying. And although they showed better race-pace on the Sunday in Melbourne, they were still nowhere near fighting for a podium finish with Alonso down in fifth place. Massa failed to finish after crashing out.

Alonso has warned that the problem last time out was not the track, it was Ferrari‘s lack of competitiveness, which he expects will continue in Malaysia.

“I don’t think the change of circuit will make much difference to us. We have tested at Jerez, Barcelona and then we went to Australia and I think, for all teams, the cars here are pretty much identical to the first race, so there will not be any surprises here,” he said.

“We will try and adapt the car to the circuit. In pure performance, we are not as competitive as we would like, but in the race anything can happen: if you make a good start and have a good pit stop strategy you can put yourself in a decent place.”

“We will try and do the same again and score as many points as possible even if we cannot expect any miracles here. In Australia no one thought we could finish fifth as there were many people quicker than us, but in the race, with events that happened…”

Read More » Alonso doesn’t expect Ferrari to do good in Malaysia

Yes, it was all Jenson Button in Melbourne.

The 2012 F1 season started in style as the first race of the year got everything, from Michael Schumacher showing how fast he can still be before retiring to Fernando Alonso blazing past everybody before coming just a little bit short for a podium finish.

Of course, there’s Jenson Button, who took the lead from his teammate Lewis Hamilton as soon as the five red lights went off, dominating most of the afternoon at Albert Park in Melbourne.

The 32-year-old started second on the grid next to Lewis Hamilton, but he beat his teammate into the first corner and then settled back and controlled the race after that. He finished 2.1s ahead of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel with Hamilton claiming the final podium position.

Button couldn’t be any happier, claiming that the win is a result of hard work. He believes what you put in during preseason testing is what you get during the season and as far as McLaren is concerned, their strong start in Australia is the product of their very strong winter.

”Every win means a lot. As a team, the win shows how important the winter is. We’ve had a strong winter and yesterday we showed that in qualifying,” he said. ”It’s nice to come away with…”

Read More » Jenson Button wins the first race of the 2012 F1 Season

And as far as Lewis Hamilton is concerned, he doesn’t like it one bit.

Lewis Hamilton says the Melbourne paddock is still in the dark about the possible pecking order after rain affected the running in Melbourne heading towards the start of the 2012 F1 season.

With almost no wet running at all during pre-season testing, Formula One arrived at the Albert Park circuit on Friday where umbrellas and wet weather tyres were the order of the day. This limited the amount of track time the drivers had as many opted at the start of the second session to wait in their garages while the change from intermediates to slicks later in the session again resulted in a period of silence.

It also resulted in a rather unusual looking timesheet with McLaren, who held the 1-2 at the end of Practice One, near the bottom at the end of the second session with Lewis Hamilton P16, 4.069s off the pace and one position lower than his teammate.

The Brit, though, is not at all fazed by the slow start.

“I think tomorrow we’ll definitely get a better understanding of just how quick people are,” Lewis Hamilton said. “I think people generally usually go through the same programme in terms of what fuel to use and tyre runs through P3.”

“So we’ll get a better understanding of it and it’s going to be…

Read More » Wet start to the 2012 F1 Season in Melbourne?

How about that.

Looks like we’re in for one interesting start to the 2012 F1 season folks. Especially after Michael Schumacher turned back time Friday and ended up with the fastest time in practice. But despite rolling back the years and bagging the first practice P1 of his comeback, Schumacher has urged caution.

Entering the third season of his F1 comeback, the seven-time World Champ proved to be the one to beat at a drying Albert Park circuit on Friday afternoon. Crossing the line with a 1:29.183, Michael Schumacher jumped to the front of the timesheets, 0.109s ahead of fellow German Nico Hulkenberg. It was the 43-year-old’s first time at finishing a practice day at the top of the standings since his return, however, he was quick to dispel any talk of it being a sign of things to come.

“Today was a nice start into a hopefully exciting season, and certainly two promising sessions for us,” he said. “However, I would not go so far as to speak about being confident, as the weather conditions were too mixed to gain a clear picture. We know what Friday sessions are for and don’t know what fuel loads others were running.”

“On the other hand, it is good to see that we were competitive in different circumstances today and that the car provides good handling – I just feel it.”

Schumacher, though, was not the only member of the Mercedes team…

Read More » F1 Season is about to start and Schumacher is fastest?

After two straight world championships, I don’t think people will question how passionate he is in Formula One.

It is no secret that two-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel will once again try to win the drivers’ championship and life the title for the third straight year this 2012 F1 season.

How does Sebastian Vettel stay motivated? The defending world champion believes that if he lost his incredible passion for F1 he would no longer be able to succeed in the sport but concedes that there is less room for drivers to show their passion than in the past.

In years gone by, it was not uncommon for tensions between drivers to result in heated verbal and even physical confrontations. However, with corporate responsibilities now front and centre for drivers, Vettel feels that they are forced to keep their emotions in check, which can lead to a blander appearance.

“I watched Senna,” the Red Bull driver told The Guardian of last year’s documentary about the legendary Brazilian driver. “And it was very inspiring to me. Maybe the film doesn’t show you the entire story, the complete truth, but it was very inspirational to see the background and compare it to today. The driver briefings had lots of emotion.”

“It’s different now. I’m not speaking badly of that time but if you compare racing then and now, 20 years later, then it’s much more professional today. Now there’s less room for… Yes, maybe passion. I think we still have characters but…”

Read More » Vettel reckons passion is the key to winning in F1

At least he’s confident right?

Lewis Hamilton feels McLaren are “relatively strong compared to the others” as the opening race of the 2012 F1 season approaches.

Unlike in 2011 when the team stuttered through pre-season, Lewis Hamilton and teammate Jenson Button have been racking up the mileage during the 10 testing days to date. Hamilton says he is upbeat about their chances ahead of the Australian Grand Prix as the team are in much better shape than at the same stage last year.

“I think the car’s strong – stronger than it was last year at this point,” he is quoted as saying by Autosport. “With the fuel loads that we’ve been running, I think we are relatively strong compared to the others, but I’m not necessarily saying we’re the fastest. We’ll find out when we get to Melbourne.”

“But I definitely feel we have a competitive car and we’ll be fighting for a podium finish, for sure.” He added: “If you look at last year, we arrived in Melbourne and finished second in that race, and we had less than half the mileage anyone else had from testing.”

“We’re now up there with them and we’ve definitely done a similar amount of mileage to everyone else, and put good enough mileage on the car to understand where the car wants to be.”

This is despite the rumors that Lewis Hamilton could leave…

Read More » Lewis Hamilton to push for podium in Australian GP