Four races, four winners, four constructors. That’s the 2012 Formula 1 season heading in the Spanish Grand Prix. And though lots of hand-wringing is starting to emerge regarding whether tires and their management are playing too large a role in making the field as competitive as it is, there can be little doubt that a year like this is more exciting than a beginning-to-end championship run by a single car. You don’t hear the NFL or NASCAR, perhaps the two most successful spectator sp...

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Photo: Lotus F1 Team. China was a tough Grand Prix for Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus). After qualifying P4 and running as high as 2nd late in the race an excursion into the marbles and tire degradation saw him plummet to 14th by the checkered flag. Teammate Romain Grosjean helped carry the team flag, coming in 6th after starting in P10 on the grid. Despite the tough race in China, Raikkonen's woes can't hold a candle to Michael Schumacher at Mercedes, who has 1 point and 2 DNFs to...

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Fernado Alonso and Ferrari won the race, with Alonso taking over the championship points lead in the process. But as improbable as this might have seemed prior to the start of the season, the ascension of Sauber, with Sergio Perez having finished second and both he and Kamui Kobayashi in the Top 10 after two events, is no less so. Perez started ninth in the Sauber C31-Ferrari, and was one of two drivers who changed tires from intermediate to rains after Lap 1. When the rain became too heavy and...

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Free at last! Let those racecars run! The winter was short, and even shorter what with personnel moves, technical adjustments, and shifting teams. Testing helped break the ice. But there’s nothing like actual points competition. And the season starts in Australia with a classic the-more-things-change the-more-they-stay-the-same setup. On the change side, Red Bull Racing – for which two-time consecutive champion Sebastian Vettel ran the table in 2011 -- is relegated to Row 3 of the s...

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RUSSIAN GREEN: Caterham confirmed Vitaly Petrov as its second driver for 2012, joining Heikki Kovalainen and replacing Jarno Trulli. Petrov’s debut in Caterham’s CT01 will take place at the second pre-season test Feb. 21-24 at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya. Trulli’s departure leaves Formula 1 without an Italian driver for the first time since the 1960s. The switch to Petrov was ascribed largely the greater sponsorship he could bring to the team. BRAWNY MERC: Mercedes&...

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Photo: Mathieu Bitton TESTING: The first round of testing for the 2012 season will take place in Jerez, Spain, Feb. 7-10. EX-LOTUS: Caterham , last year’s Team Lotus, has targeted scoring points as its goal for 2012. The team’s best performance in 2012 was 13th, which it hit three times, but the addition of KERS on the new Renault-powered CT01 vehicle has sparked optimism. Even at 13th, Lotus showed the most development of the three teams that debuted in 2010, easily besting HRT ...

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Well, that's a wrap. The last race of the season didn't go entirely to script (my version: Sebastian Vettel leading from start to finish to close the year in much the way he ran it), but in so doing served as the second consecutive reminder of how thin the margin of even Vettel's dominating performance was. He didn't repeat Abu Dhabi's DNF, but a gimpy gearbox detected on Lap 16 forced him from the lead on Lap 30 and left his point average over the last two events at 9. Project that over the cou...

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The Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi was a good reminder as the 2011 season winds down of exactly how fine the line between champion and also-ran can be in Formula 1. Practice sessions saw the continued ascent of McLaren whose cars consistently ran better than Red Bull. Lewis Hamilton in particular had always been very fast at Abu Dhabi and this continued to be the case, with the assembled well-heeled masses given good reason to believe that Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull's stranglehold on ...

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The inaugural Grand Prix of India took place on the brand new Buddh circuit, which ended up being the second-fastset course of 2011, after Monza. The newly finished track, however, added extra menace to the high speeds. Large amounts of dust on the dirving circuit caused several offs during practice and qualifying and at least a handful during the race itself. But new, dusty course or no, one thing remained the same, Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) won the pole, his 13th, leaving ...

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Photo: Getty Images for Red Bull Racing And that's a championship! Barring a racing scandal of the highest order, Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) will be crowned Formula One World Drivers' Champion following the 2011 season finale in Brazil, becoming the youngest two-time champion ever. Going into race weekend in Japan the only combination of events that could have kept Vettel from wrapping up the title were a Jenson Button (McLaren) win and Vettel finishing entirely out of the ponts. The first ...

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