A second earthquake in the vicinity of Ferrari’s factory led the team to send their staff home yesterday.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Ferrari via Twitter

“After the earthquake, working activity has been suspended for today. All the workers and employees have been allowed to join their families.”

Raikkonen trying Lotus’ patience (Sky)

“It’s now down to Raikkonen either to more fully explain what he needs, to spend time with the engineers, immerse himself in solving the problem – or to just live with it and buckle down to adapting himself. Shrugging his shoulders and saying, “No, that’s no good,” and walking away after the team had worked endless hours trying to give him what he’s asked for, really did not go down well at all.”

Why Kimi is the world’s fastest man (sometimes) (Autocar)

“A friend inside McLaren confirms: ‘During his time with us, you could be absolutely certain by ten o?������clock on a Friday morning in the pit lane whether he would deliver a magical performance in the race, or whether we should pack up the car in the transporter and take it straight back to the factory.'”

Teams praise F1’s unpredictability (Autosport)

Christian Horner: “I think it is remarkable that there have been so many winners. The tyres are a factor and the fact that there are so many strong drivers as well is also a crucial factor.”

Speculation starts early over Hamilton’s future (BBC)

“Horner has always sounded lukewarm about taking on Hamilton, pointing out that it would raise the tension in the team as he and Vettel went toe to toe. But ultimately it’s not his decision – it’s that of Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz, and the marketing value of pitting Hamilton against Vettel would be enormous.”

Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal could be target for disruption (Montreal Gazette)

“The AFEA-UQAM suggests that the C.L.A.S.S.E. (the student federation the faculty belongs to) organize a weekend of disruptions in order to cancel the Formula 1 Grand Prix and its jet-set events of June 8-10 which represent sexist, anti-environmental, elitist and economic values that must be abolished.”

Thanks to Maciek for the tip!

Anonymous warns over another F1 computer attack (Tech Radar)

“We would like to remind anyone considering attending this abominable race, that last time Anonymous found all the spectators’ personal data, including credit card numbers – unencrypted on F1 servers.”

Register for the Manhattan, New York FOTA Fans’ Forum (FOTA)

Register for the FOTA Manhattan Fans?������ Forum on June 11th.

2012 Monaco F1 Jean Eric Vergne Toro Rosso wing (eBay)

A part from Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso for sale on eBay.

F1 Owner Snubs Sovereign Funds (Sky)

“People close to the process tell me that among those being courted as potential cornerstone investors in Formula 1 plc are Eton Park Capital Management, Fidelity Investments, Newton Investment Management, Och-Ziff Capital Management, Soros Fund Management and Tiger Management.”

Exor decided Formula One investment too pricey (Reuters)

“‘We looked at the investment opportunity in Formula One, but we didn’t move forward with it, because the price ahead of the flotation was too high,’ said [chairman and CEO John] Elkann at a shareholders meeting on Tuesday.”

Dario Franchitti’s gain has been F1’s loss (Daily Express)

Jackie Stewart: “What Dario has done is great for British motorsport and Scotland. He is one of the great British drivers and I fear we lost a man from F1 who would have been right up there.”

Can you achieve aerodynamic efficiency with a map? (The Write Formula)

“For example, you could be required to brake at the end of a long straight (low downforce, low drag) into a tight corner (higher downforce) and lift off the throttle, applying the brakes, but the ECU maintains the engine power output. The resultant effect of this is that the aerodynamic configuration now has to work under completely different conditions as the energy output from the exhaust gases are vastly different and far hotter, playing an altered role in the aerodynamic performance of the cars set up.”

The Inside Line – on Caterham?������s Vitaly Petrov (F1)

“I never thought I?������d become a Formula One racing driver. When I was learning to be a racer, I was just concentrating on improving every day and then, when someone showed me F1, I knew that?������s what I wanted to do. I?������m obviously happy I am where I wanted to get to, but there?������s a lot more to come.”

Comment of the day

TimG on whether the path to F1 for junior drivers can be simplified:

The quality of drivers in British, European and Japanese F3 is generally much higher than in F2, despite F2 being a superficially more senior series. There?������s a place for an-F2 style championship (low budget, reasonably quick cars, etc), but it?������s not in the tier immediately below F1. Formula Renault 2.0 is intended as a first slicks and wings series and the jump to the much bigger, more powerful Formula Renault 3.5 is probably too big for many to make which is why so many come via F3 or GP3. There is a good case for rationalising the junior championships into a less dispersed staircase to F1, but it needs to combine a degree of affordability and technical variety (there are currently too many single make championships ?����ǣ Formula Ford, Formula Renault and Formula 3000 all used to be multi-chassis series) to provide a decent variety of experience for potential F1 drivers. Sadly, without a decent selection of high quality customer racing car manufacturers (and Lola having just gone into administration), that?������s going to get increasingly difficult.

TimG

From the forum

Lots of discussion among those planning to go to the 2012 Canadian Grand Prix

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Fation Losha, Remco H, Ted Tofield and Wesley!

No F1 Fanatic birthdays today.

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Alberto Ascari’s attempt to win the Indianapolis 500 60 years ago today ended on the 41st lap when he suffered a broken wheel hub and spun.

The race counted towards the world championship then and Ferrari had sent Ascari, the only non-American in the race.

Troy Ruttman won ahead of Jim Rathmann and Sam Hanks.

Here’s a documentary about that year’s race:

Image ?�?� Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo