Formula One 2011 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Paul Di Resta

Paul Di Resta was the test driver for Force India in the 2010 and won the German DTM series at the same time. He made his race debut at the 2011 Australian Grand Prix and was succesful in scoring his first point at this race as well.

Answer: Team Lotus

Lotus Racing became Team Lotus, although to add the the confusion, they also changed their engine supplier to Renault. They retained their driver line up of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen.

The Renault team secured Lotus cars as their title sponsor, becoming Lotus Renault GP.

At one point, both teams were due to run on a black and gold livery, however, Team Lotus decided to retain the green and gold livery they had used in the 2010 season.

Answer: Bahrain

Whilst there was political unrest in several countries in 2011, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi were the only two (of those listed) that were scheduled to hold Grands Prix. Bahrain at the beginning and Abu Dhabi at the end.

Whilst the 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix was canceled on 21 February, the FIA indicated they were prepared to reschedule the race later in the season if possible.

Answer: Nick Heidfeld

Robert Kubica drove in the Ronde di Andora rally in February 2011. Unfortunately, he crashed the Skoda he was driving and needed to have emergency surgery. It quickly became apparent that Robert would not be available for the start of the 2011 season, and whilst it was rumoured that Kimi Raikkonen would fill in, Renault signed Nick Heidfeld instead.

Answer: False

The rule for 2011 was that in the first qualifying session, all cars should be within 107% of the fastest time. Therefore, if the fastest time was 1:30 exactly, and if the slowest car could not achieve a time of 1:36.300, they would not be allowed to race (unless there were exceptional circumstances and all the other teams agreed).

In Australia 2011, the Marussia Virgin Racing team met the 107% rule, however, HRT F1 did not, and therefore did not participate in the race on Sunday.

Answer: Drag Reduction System

The Drag Reduction System (DRS) was available to all drivers in qualifying. In a race, however, it could only be used in specified parts of the track and then only when a driver was within distance behind the driver in front.

The idea was to try and create an opportunity for a driver to pass an opponent without the pass being guaranteed. Naturally, it has caused some controversy with some fans who believe it makes racing artificial.

Answer: Sauber

Great drives from Sauber drivers Kamui Kobayashi and rookie Sergio Perez saw them cross the finishing line in 8th and 7th place respectively. Perez's drive was particularly impressive as he only pitted for fresh tyres once, the least of any driver.

Unfortunately, a manufacturing defect meant the rear wing of the car did not comply with the technical regulations.

Answer: Petrov

Vitaly Petrov qualified in sixth place for the Grand Prix a significant improvement on his more experienced team-mate, who could only qualify in 18th place. The first Russian in Formula One achieved third place in the race behind winner Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.

Answer: Jenson Button

The Red Bull pit crew were out for Sebastian Vettel, who had come into the pit lane behind Jenson Button. Jenson afterwards commented that he was looking down and accidentally turned into the wrong area. This mistake allowed Vettel to get out ahead of Button at this stage of the race.

Answer: 18th

Mark Webber's car had been experiencing problems with KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), however, the team felt that he could still move into the second part of qualifying just by using the harder (slower) tyre. Unfortunately they were wrong. However, by qualifying so far back they had saved more sets of the faster tyre. Mark was able to use these to his advantage in the race.