So for the first time since race 5 of the season we have an F1 driver ranking post. While my feelings towards F1 were tempered slightly by the domination of king Vettel and the introduction of DRS it was still generally a good season. Possibly not up there with the last couple but fairly strong. How were the drivers though? Well Hamilton certainly struggled with his style not suiting a DRS / Pirelli tyre world. He made silly mistakes aplenty and looked like a rookie. This is the first season he has been outperformed by a teammate and that saw him slip. Heikki Kovaleinen continues his rise through the rankings. He has worked very well with a teammate not seeming to contribute much and moved Lotus near to the midfield. He deserve a high spot.

1 Sebastien Vettel /
2 Fernando Alonso +1
3 Jenson Button +1
4 Nico Rosberg +1
5 Heikki Kovaleinen +4
6 Lewis Hamilton -4
7 Paul Di Resta +6
8 Kamui Kobayashi -2
9 Sergio Perez +2
10 Mark Webber -2
11 Michael Schumacher +3
12 Bruno Senna RE
13 Felipe Massa -1
14 Adrian Sutil +2
15 Timo Glock +2
16 Vitaly Petrov -7
17 Daniel Ricciardo NE
18 Nick Heidfeld -8
19 Pedro De La Rosa RE
20 Sebastien Buemi -5
21 Jaime Alguersuari -2
22 Rubens Barrichello -4
23 Jarno Trulli -3
24 Tonio Liuzzi +3
25 Pastor Maldonado -2
26 Jerome D’Ambrosio -4
27 Karun Chandhok RE
28 Narain Kathikeyan -4

At the bottom, the two Indian drivers sit at the bottom fairly deservedly based on performances. D’Ambrosio never seemed fully cut out as Di Grassi’s replacement while I still don’t like Maldonado or Liuzzi in F1. Trulli and Barrichello need to realise it is time to retire and the two Toro Rosso drivers must have reached their ends too? Hopefully some old boys can go away and the new generation can come and play. With that being said though, Schumacher is showing the old boys still have some life in them. Curses.

The image might not be the clearest but as I said, hastily put together. The blue line is the current layout, the red markings are my changes.

First turn 1, the corner is too easy to take flat/near flat on turn one. I think the straight should be extended slightly and the corner should be made tighter, thus encouraging moves into the turn as there will be more than one line. This would come at the loss of some run off but lets be honest there is too much of it anyway and it doesn’t punish mistakes.

Round the next bend also taken flat out I think the track should go onto a little loop that already exists on the way down the hill, the end of this loop would give a tightish bend that could be exciting at speed like Koreas last corner. Meanwhile the chicane at the bottom of the hill should disappear as other than nearly decapitating Michael Schumacher it serves no useful purpose other than making the hairpin very dull and impossible to overtake on. Keep the long straight as is at is rocks…

At the end of the straight though remove the chicane (as Nigel Whitmarsh says in the article) and instead have a tight turn that runs nearer the grandstand allowing for more chance at overtaking moves onto the next straight. After that straight have another tight turn followed by a gentler chicane that is currently there, this in turn would make the of camber turn onto the harbour more difficult and could lead to mistakes/passes into the last sector.

The last sector is the best part of the track. While it might not have overtaking chances it is still stunning and exciting to watch the cars go through. That said I think the penultimate corner could be more difficult. A gravel trap on the outside is a must and a tighter entry could also lead to overtaking chances into the last corner.

I designed these changes by looking at where run off areas currently exist, I do not believe any of them would cause to safety issues and that all of them could be done fairly easily and cheaply and would in my mind improve racing by removing three very retarded chicanes.

What do you guys think? How would you improve this circuit?

2010 rankings (after 12 races):
1. Sebastien Vettel /
2. Lewis Hamilton /
3. Robert Kubica +1
4. Mark Webber +6
5. Felipe Massa /
6. Fernando Alonso -3
7. Nico Rosberg -1
8. Kamui Kobayashi +13
9. Adrian Sutil -1
10. Jenson Button -3
11. Rubens Barrichello -2
12. Nico Hulkenberg +1
13. Heikki Kovaleinen -1
14. Vitaly Petrov +5
15. Timo Glock /
16. Jarno Trulli /
17. Jaime Alguersuari -3
18. Sebastien Buemi /
19. Pedro De La Rosa +1
20. Bruno Senna +2
21. Karun Chandhok +3
22. Lucas Di Grassi +1
23. Michael Schumacher -12
24. Vinatonio Liuzzi -7
25. Sakon Yamamoto (just plain rubbish)

So Kobayashi is the biggest winner, Alonso loses out for being whiney and annoying and needing to steal his results and Schumacher drops right down for four dangerous moves in five races. Please note these results are not scientific just based on my observations.

2010 rankings (after three races):
1. Sebastien Vettel
2. Lewis Hamilton
3. Fernando Alonso
4. Robert Kubica
5. Felipe Massa
6. Nico Rosberg
7. Jenson Button
8. Adrian Sutil
9. Rubens Barrichello
10. Mark Webber
11. Michael Schumacher
12. Heikki Kovaleinen
13. Nico Hulkenberg
14. Jaime Alguersuari
15. Timo Glock
16. Jarno Trulli
17. Vinatonio Liuzzi
18. Sebastien Buemi
19. Vitaly Petrov
20. Pedro De La Rosa
21. Kamui Kobayashi
22. Bruno Senna
23. Lucas Di Grassi
24. Karun Chandhok

When I revisit this at the end of the season I can see it changing a lot. That said what do you think? Am I wrong about any of the drivers? I think the top 4 are very close in terms of ability and then theres a little gap.

Tapovan

My aunt wanted a website for her Gite in the south of France. It launched last week and is already near the top of google in searches for the region. Currently I am finalised a gallery and ideas for an online booking system but for now if you are interested in a holiday in a beautiful area in the south of France then take a look and contact them.

The other thing I have been working on is a pet project, being a Formula One fan for the last 12 years and not missing a single race in that time while also playing every F1 game that has come out in that time. I have been a member of a forum for the last 5 years that was a great community but its somewhat fallen into disrepair as the owner lost interest. I therefore wanted to take the theme and improve upon it. I have therefore launched the first version of f1gaming.com.

f1gaming.com

The idea behind the site is to place the latest f1 and f1 game news onto the website on a daily basis with several writers keeping out community updated. In the next couple of months we will be launching a forum on the site and a full database of race results and racing games with reviews and user reviews. For now though the site only has the ability to allow users to sign up and post comments on most news stories with a lot of other parts coming soon.

Other sites I am working on:
A church website
A telecoms and courses website
This Blog
My film news website
Our hosting site

So if you want a website or you have comments about my work let me know… but be prepared to wait for a little while due to my current workload… and the fact I occaisionally don’t want to work in the evenings.