... ddgrr's F1 addiction ...: May 2012

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Poll: Should Lewis Hamilton continue to stay with McLaren?

With a number of costly mistakes by the McLaren crew that led to Lewis Hamilton losing valuable points, do you think Lewis should sign a new contract with McLaren? Should he even factor these things before deciding to sign or not?

Lewis is currently in his last year of contract and is yet to confirm if he will sign again with the team or not. What do you think he should do? Cast your vote and let your opinion be heard by voting in the poll in this blog.

Monday, May 28, 2012

MP4-26 Lewis Hamilton Winner Chinese GP 2011

Minichamps and Spark 1:43 2011 McLaren MP4-26 China GP Lewis Hamilton

2011 Chinese Grand Prix was 1 of only 3 races won by Lewis Hamilton last season. By both McLaren's and Hamilton's standard, last year's performance was below average. This year, Lewis is in his "old" driving form and was able to produce valuable points in every race. Although in my opinion, his current standing should be higher than what it is right now (currently 4th). If only McLaren crew can get it all together and stop making blunders that makes the whole team look stupid compared to other big teams such as Ferrari, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes. Hamilton should be leading the championship.

Nonetheless, 2011 Chinese GP is one of the highlights from last year for Lewis. To commemorate his victory, both Minichamps and Spark created a 1:43 scale of the MP4-26 race version.

Minichamps version:

Spark version:

I did not initially intended to buy 2 versions of the same car let alone for the same race. But for this case, I bought the two. Probably because I wanted to compare for myself the Spark and Minichamps version of this model. Here are a couple of pictures showing the details of both versions.

In my opinion, Minichamps edges Spark for this specific model. But both models has its own share of good and bad points. With that said however, this entry is not to do a review of the 2 models. I just wanted to share the pictures I took from my collection. It is up to you to decide which one you think is better based on the pictures.

It is also worth mentioning that Spark recently released a model for MP4-26 German GP which was also won by Lewis. Minichamps is also planning to release the same race version model. So before I get my hands on those two, i'm better off creating this entry to lessen my backlog. :)

Here is the last set of pictures for these models.

Any collector will tell you to buy both. At the end of the day, whatever you choose should be something that pleases you and your opinion is all that matters. :)

Sunday, May 27, 2012

2012 Monaco GP Result

Ferrari 2011 Fernando Alonso 1:2 Scale Helmet

Then there were 6. 6 different winners in 6 races. This week, we saw Mark Webber winning from pole position to become the 6th driver to win a GP this year. Completing the top 5 were Rosberg, Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton. How I wish it was Lewis taking his first win of the season. I guess we will need to wait for the next race. Hopefully #7 is his lucky number!

With Fernando finishing ahead of Sebastian, that means he now leads the drivers championship with 76 points. Followed by the Red Bull duo who both have 73 points. Then Lewis with 63 across his name. Since Alonso is now leading the championship, and that I do not have a single Webber model, it's a good time to share some pictures of 2011 1/2 scale helmet of Alonso.

I mentioned before I am also a big fan of Ferrari, so this week's result is still satisfying even though Lewis had a dreadful race!

I must say that I really like Alonso's helmet design. Certainly one of the best looking helmet in the current grid. Here are some more photos detailing the design of his helmet.