[Iceman]

Red Bull have revealed that Hollywood legend Tom Cruise recently tried out one of their Formula One cars in a specially organised test in the United States. Cruise took a break from his current film project, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, to get behind the wheel at the Willow Springs circuit in California.

Cruise’s instructor for the seven-hour session was Formula One veteran David Coulthard. They began by lapping the track together in a road car before Coulthard helped Cruise familiarise himself with the F1 machine, which was supported by a 12-person crew flown in from Red Bull’s UK factory.

After a total of 24 laps, with time out between track stints to compare his telemetry to Coulthard’s, Cruise cut his initial lap time by an impressive 11 seconds and reached a top speed of 181 mph, just 4 mph short of Coulthard.

"Tom's the real deal,” Coulthard told Red Bull’s website. “I was surprised that he picked it up so quickly and is such an accomplished driver. His recall was incredible considering how complicated driving an F1 car is. He's a guy who really pushes the envelope in real life. This day was not green screened. He thoroughly impressed me."

Cruise, a long-time motorsport fan, has driven several competition cars over the years, but this was his first F1 experience. Formula One returns to his homeland next year with a race at the all-new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

[Iceman]

Bruno Senna will make his Formula One race return in Belgium this weekend, replacing Nick Heidfeld to partner Vitaly Petrov at Renault. It will be Senna’s first Grand Prix start since his final appearance for HRT in Abu Dhabi last November.

Renault drafted Heidfeld in at the start of their 2011 campaign as stand-in for the injured Robert Kubica. His future with the team now looks uncertain and further details are expected to be confirmed on Thursday.

Senna completed a full rookie F1 season with HRT in 2010 before joining Renault as a reserve driver at the start of this year. The Brazilian recently made a Friday practice appearance for the team in Hungary and will appear in Thursday’s FIA press conference at Spa on Thursday afternoon.

His prospects of a full-time race drive with Renault are likely to depend not only on the team’s negotiations with Heidfeld - who could be facing the end of his F1 career should he lose the seat - but also on their plans for their other reserve driver, Frenchman Romain Grosjean.

Grosjean is on the verge of wrapping up the 2011 GP2 championship and has previous F1 experience with Renault, having made seven appearances for the team in 2009 following Nelson Piquet’s departure in the wake of the Singapore ‘crashgate’ scandal.

[Iceman]

have a feeling Senna will cause loads of crashes.

[Iceman]

Michael Schumacher celebrated the 20th anniversary of his Formula One debut by dominating the first practice session at Spa on Friday morning, with team mate Nico Rosberg backing him up less than half a second behind.

But… the two Mercedes drivers were the only ones to venture out at the start of the 90-minute session, while the track was dry. They lapped in 1m 54.355s and 1m 54.829s respectively. Then, surprise, surprise, it rained.

For a while it was torrential, then the sun came out and gradually the track began to dry again. But not before Bruno Senna, talking over Nick Heidfeld’s ride at Renault, and Force India’s Paul di Resta spun exiting Turn Nine and hit the tyre wall in separate accidents. The Scot’s incident came late in the session, momentarily bringing out the red flag and giving the track more time to dry out.

As the session resumed with a few minutes left, the times started tumbling again. McLaren’s Jenson Button had been ‘fastest’ on the wet track with 2m 09.682s before Di Resta’s spin, but when running resumed he cut down to 2m 02.740s to take third overall behind the Mercedes.

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel was fourth on 2m 03.752s, then came McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, whose 2m 04.301s had been the initial post-di Resta pacesetter, and Adrian Sutil who was up there all morning with Force India before ending the session with 2m 04.663s.

Felipe Massa was seventh for Ferrari on 2m 04.728s. Rubens Barrichello was an encouraging eighth for Williams on 2m 05.391s, then came Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari on 2m 06.583s and Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi on 2m 06.886s. Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso recorded 2m 07.055s and Sauber’s Sergio Perez 2m 07.481s, before Lotus’s Jarno Trulli headed Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi and Williams’ Pastor Maldonado on 2m 08.233s, 2m 08.239s and 2m 08.918s respectively.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber, an early wet-road pacesetter, ended up 16th on 2m 09.792s after failing to get a good lap on the drying track, then came a group comprising Virgin’s Timo Glock, HRT’s Tonio Liuzzi and Virgin’s Jerome D’Ambrosio on 2m 12.278s, 2m 12.389s and 2m 12.772s respectively.

Di Resta lapped his Force India in 2m 13.058s before his off, which left him 20th from Karun Chandhok on 2m 13.090s, the Indian standing in at Lotus for Heikki Kovalainen. Vitaly Petrov was 22nd on 2m 13.601s in the lead Renault from team mate Senna, whose 2m 14.340s before his spin had been fractionally faster than the Russian’s best time to that point. At the back, Daniel Ricciardo was 24th for HRT on 2m 14.933s.

[Iceman]

Q: (Alexey Popov - VGTRK) Question to all five drivers - except Michael. It’s just about you! Can you remember, gentlemen, your first race with Michael, when you first saw him on TV or maybe as a spectator? And secondly, will you try to be more respectful than usual with him on Sunday?
BS: Well, the first time I saw Michael racing was Spa in 1991, on his debut in Formula One. I remember it pretty clearly when he had a really…
MS: How old were you??
BS: Um, eight?
Jd’A: How old are you?
BS: 27. Not that young any more. So I saw a great performance in qualifying but unfortunately he had a bit of a failure on his car up Eau Rouge, which denied him a good result but obviously he showed that he had great potential to fulfil in the following steps of his career.

Q: And will you show him respect?
BS: We’re racing aren’t we, so if it’s close racing or more distant, we will have to see, but we are fighting for every inch of the track and it’s a great privilege for me to be racing with him and hopefully he will be in a good position to be fighting for points.
Jd’A: Well, it wasn’t the best weekend actually. I was in the paddock at Imola in ’94 on Saturday and that was my first weekend in Formula One. Obviously, Michael was driving there.
BS: Will you show him any respect?
Jd’A: Well, I will really make sure he doesn’t lose… try not to lose a tenth when there’s a blue flag situation. I will really try hard on this weekend for him.
SB: For me, ’91 is a long time ago. I was a bit small, so I can’t really remember. I think the first races I really remember were ’94, ’95 when he was driving for Benetton.
VP: As you know, I started to watch Formula One very, very late because I was in my town to be honest, I never saw racing – I was racing myself but I never even knew what Formula One was, so I think I started to watch when Michael was battling with Alonso, at this time. And when I heard that he would stop racing, I was a little bit, you know… I said why? Because I wanted to race with him.
SV: I think Michael asked me to have some respect, so I’m not sure. I think the first time I was in touch with Michael was 1991 or 1992, probably as a toy car in kindergarten. I remember the first time I went to Hockenheim with my father to see free practice. We went all the way down to the first chicane. It was raining like crazy and Michael had this yellow Benetton at the time. To see a Formula One car and then to see Michael passing… he was probably just on an install lap, nothing spectacular but it was really very special. Unfortunately, nobody else went out because it was raining so hard. There was only a couple of cars but that was the first time that I remember. Obviously, after that there were a lot of races… when I was go-karting, Michael was sort of all the kids’ hero. When we had this race in Kerpen at the end of the season, he handed over the trophies and it was very special to see him, to meet him, to shake his hand and to get our trophies presented Fthe past and to see today that we are racing against each other in Formula One is quite crazy. Obviously, I have a lot of respect. It’s very special to me. As I said, he was the hero of my childhood. I can’t give you too much credit now, but I think he’s an OK driver.

its so emotional.

[Iceman]

Q: Michael Schumacher celebrates his 20th year in Formula One this weekend. You started to race in 2007 - can you imagine still being around in 2027?
SV: Gee, that’s light years from now - and no, right now I cannot imagine it. Sure at the moment I don’t want to be anywhere else, but 2027 is a number hard to imagine still being around. Congratulations to Michael. He’s not only been around for 20 years, he’s also achieved more than anybody else. I don’t think that there will be anyone beating his seven titles and I am almost sure that there will be nobody beating his 20 years, because it’s a bl**dy long time to be around that long.

Good now seb when you win number 6 **** off.

[Legend killer]

Michael really has not done as bad as people would like to make out. Granted his qualifying pace is extremly slow and he is always quite far behind in Rosberg but in terms of race pace he is still very fast and is often quicker than Rosberg. If he could just improve qualifying i could easily see him getting a few poduim finishes

[Iceman]

Originally Posted by Legend killer

Michael really has not done as bad as people would like to make out. Granted his qualifying pace is extremly slow and he is always quite far behind in Rosberg but in terms of race pace he is still very fast and is often quicker than Rosberg. If he could just improve qualifying i could easily see him getting a few poduim finishes

Definitely, he has such great starts he's always gaining 2-3 places.... and lets look at it like this, the man walked bak into the sport and became a top 10 driver instantly.

[Iceman]

Schumi finished 11th there, only 2 tenths behind tenth placed man Sebastian Vettel.

[Legend killer]

I really hope they fix the Mercedes up next year with Ross at the helm and Schui the greatest ever driver they really should have a much better car

[Iceman]

Yeah something really isnt clicking right at the moment.

[Legend killer]

Don't think Schui will be making G3 today has not looked good at all in the practise sessions i expect Webber to get poll

[Iceman]

Depends on the rain, expect him to finish Q3 10th if he makes it.

[Iceman]

Heidfeld taking legal action against the team

[Legend killer]

Eoin very good point about the rain in all honesty i would say other than Button Schu is the best driver in the rain

[Iceman]

Yeah, he always was. I just dont think the car is competitive enough but with no DRS its gonna be a close race (hopefully).

Also I remember Vettel's first ever win in the rain and though 'wow he's always gonna be brilliant when its wet' but he's just fell off when its rained.

[Legend killer]

I love Eddie Jordan lol easily the funniest presenter

[Iceman]

yeah but he hasnt a notion of what he's on about LOL he does add something funny to the show though.

[Iceman]

Ross Brawn saying Merc will try and have a drier set up in Qualifying.

[Iceman]

Schumacher out on the first lap. **** ****

[Iceman]

they never put the wheel on

[Iceman]

OUT
Dir
Tru
Glo
Dam
Liu
Ric
Msc

[Iceman]

Senna makes top 10

[Iceman]

Session Red Flagged Sutil crashed out.

[Iceman]

Hamilton made contact with maldonado.