Beglian GP Friday FP2: A Complete Washout

Team Marussia F1 are celebrating their 50th grand prix entry and what better to do it than take the first place in the second session of Free practice. No, you're not reading this wrong. Charles Pic was some of the few drivers who actually went out and did some running on the extremely wet Spa Francorchamps track.

Over the course of the complete 90 minutes of the session, not even a single competitive time was set. Drivers went out in the dying minutes of the session to trundle around and do some practice starts.

The weather forecast seems to indicate a dry spell on Saturday, with a strong chance of rain again during Sunday's race. This will put huge pressure on the teams to figure out their car handling and setup during the crucial Free practice 3 session tomorrow.

Here are the top 5 standings from the FP2 session.

1. Charles Pic Marussia 02:49.354
2. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 02:49.750
3. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 02:50.497
4. Paul di Resta Force India 02:51.333
5. Pastor Maldonado Williams 02:51.660

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Robert Kubica Return: Alonso is very uncertain

Robert Kubica is still in recovery mode after his horrific crash back in 2011 in a rally car, which almost took his life and left him hospitalized for weeks.

His good friend, Fernando Alonso meanwhile is quite uncertain if Kubica will ever be able to return to a full time ride in Formula 1.

"It’s very hard to say whether Robert will return to 100 percent fitness and be able to race again in Formula 1,"

Alonso also said that he keeps regular contact with his friend, and how Robert tells him he misses the life of F1. It is interesting to note that before Kubica's crash, he was widely tipped to replace Massa for the second Ferrari seat, which would have made him team-mates to Fernando Alonso. 

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Rubens Barrichello: "Returning back to F1 still a possibility"

Rubens Barrichello is refusing to let go of any hopes of returning to F1 in the future, particularly with his former team Williams F1.

Rubens said...

"I think there is still a way back, I'm not using IndyCar as a last resort,"

Barrichello added that Williams F1 needs him back to tame their young (and careless) drivers. He of course was pointing towards the fiery Pastor Maldonado, who's been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. 

Barrichello also added that driving the Williams this season would have been a lot more fun than the previous years and that he always knew this year's challenger would been far much better and be able to give results. He said his heart bleeds to think he could have done so much better and it's a shame he was dropped at the end of 2011. 

Barrichello is currently racing in IndyCar with KV racing and sits in 15th position in the championship with a total of 164 points. 

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Lewis Hamilton 'very close' to a new McLaren contract

Lewis Hamilton is 'very close' to a new McLaren contract that could see him cement his position with the team on a long-term contract. That is the story surfacing from the world of F1 while we wait for the Belgian GP on September 2012.

Lewis Hamilton is currently in his 6th season in Formula 1 when he joined back in 2007 with the McLaren Mercedes team.

Managing Director of McLaren Jonathan Neale meanwhile claims that Hamilton and McLaren are currently in serious negotiations about a future contract and we might hear some news in the coming days. Here's what he had to say...

“We are closer and of course we are in dialogue, For obvious reasons I can't speculate more at the moment. We are working very hard to find a common ground.”

It is however unclear if an official public announcement will be made in the current summer break.

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Rush Movie release expected in September 2013

Rush, the movie about Former F1 champion Niki Lauda and his fight with fellow racing driver James Hunt in the 1976 Formula 1 championship season, is expected to hit the cinemas in September 2013.

The movie is directed by Ron Howard, and will try to cover the incidents leading to Niki Lauda's fiery crash that almost took his life and James Hunt subsequently winning the title.

The character of James Hunt is being played by Australian star Chris Hemsworth (known for Thor), while Lauda is being played by Daniel Bruhl (Inglorious Basterds). The movie is being filmed in various locations including UK, Austria as well as Germany.

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Jenson Button's restaurant 'Victus' shuts down

It's the Formula 1 summer break, and the news from the F1 world is slightly on the 'thin' side.

However, in some non-racing related news, the 2009 F1 champ Jenson Button's restaurant has to be shut down after almost an year since it was opened up.

Button co-owned the restaurant named as 'Victus', with his partner and former F1 driver Richard Goddard. Sadly, due to undisclosed reasons, the restaurant is to be closed for business.

Here's the reason given by Mr. Richard Goddard...

“Unfortunately the business was launched in an economy which then continued to slide and just hasn’t stopped, with people simply not having the disposable income needed to spend in restaurants.”

Meanwhile, Jenson Button is currently spending his F1 break in Philippines, with his girlfriend Jessica Michibata.

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HRT boss says the car is at half of it's potential

HRT boss Luis Perez-Sala while talking about the first half of the season remarked that their 2012 challenger is probably at 50% of it's true potential, and more performance could be extracted particularly from the aerodynamics side.

"I'd say we're at 50 per cent of its potential and we can still extract another 50 per cent, mainly in aerodynamics."

It must be remembered that HRT missed the pre-season testing completely and were also not able to qualify for the first race of the season in Australia. It has been a tough season for them ever since, and they have so far scored no points in the constructors championship at all.

However, the HRT team boss is optimistic about a point scoring position and says that new updates planned for the Singapore GP might improve their pace.

It is interesting to note that their direct competitors, Marussia F1 have also not been able to score a single point in the championship thus far.

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"We don't want to rush into a decision regarding Schumacher" - Ross Brawn

Mercedes F1 team will be not be rushed into a decision regarding Schumacher's contract for 2013, according to team principal Ross Brawn.

Ross Brawn says that it's a really important matter for everyone involved and will be decided when the time is right. He added, "I don't want to increase speculation by commenting on where we are."

Michael Schumacher returned to the sport in 2010, and now his contract runs out at the end of 2012. So far, no decision has made and Schumacher himself has been pretty quite about it.

So far this season, Schumacher's luck hasn't been so good, with him only scoring 29 points compared to team-mate Rosberg's 77, and the latter even winning a race.

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Ferrari not a good option right now for Vettel - Jackie Stewart

If Vettel chooses to switch teams and move from Red Bull to Ferrari at the end of this season, it would be a big mistake, according to 3 times F1 world champion Sir Jackie Stewart.

"I wouldn't do that at this time", said Sir Jackie, mentioning that Alonso is way too strong at the moment and has 100 % backing of the whole team. Two young world champions at Ferrari would just not work.

Interestingly, Sebastian Vettel's contract at Red Bull ends at the end of the 2014, while Alonso has signed up for a long term deal which could see him continue to drive a scarlet Ferrari until the end of 2016. So for Vettel to move to Ferrari, he will have to break his current contract and that's not always a good thing for an F1 driver,

Sir Jackie Stewart is also of the opinion that Vettel should stick with Red Bull and only think of moving to another team if he has a really bad year with them. So far, Vettel is 3rd in the championship, with a total of 42 points behind the leader, Fernando Alonso.

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