Formula 1 Column

German Grand Prix 2010 - 26/07/10

2010-07-26T19:54:00.001+01:00

Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) - Getty Images

You would be forgiven for believing that Ferrari and Fernando Alonso had reached rock bottom at Silverstone in regards to their 2010 championship campaign, but the events of Hockenheim have shown that Ferrari can snatch acrimony from the jaws of glory all by themselves and without the help of a safety car, the weather or the stewards. It appears that alongside the championship momentum they have inherited from Red Bull, they have also inherited the controversy. Ferrari’s decision to move Felipe Massa over for Fernando Alonso for victory at the German GP may on the one hand be completely understandable, but their execution of the aforementioned swap has landed them in deep water with the fans, media and the authorities. What should have been just cause for celebration amongst the Maranello squad has degraded into a fervent defence of their tactics.

Alonso had been the pacesetter for the most part in practice and qualifying all weekend, confirming the recent and strong return to form by Ferrari. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel only pipped Alonso to pole by 0.002s, with Felipe Massa starting 3rd on the grid albeit half a second behind Alonso. This was a superb result for Ferrari who had targeted this point of the season for a turnaround and their big push towards the championship titles. It was the best qualifying result for the team since the first race in Bahrain back in March. Mark Webber ruined his final qualifying run with a mistake at turn 1, and neither of the McLarens were able to challenge either of the Red Bulls or Ferraris, with Jenson Button just pipping Lewis Hamilton to 5th. Both Williams drivers made the top 10, as did Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica, but Michael Schumacher was unable to reward the home fans with a place in Q3, missing out to teammate Rosberg for 10th place in Q2 by a microscopic amount, his failure to make Q3 more a function of the car’s lack of pace than his own driving.

The start of the race saw Vettel get away poorly and move over in his now customary fashion to discourage Alonso’s Ferrari from taking the inside line at turn 1, but Fernando made it through. Their combined compromised entry into turn 1 allowed Felipe Massa to sweep around the outside and take the lead from 3rd on the grid, with the aid of some turn 1 runoff. Regardless of Vettel and Alonso’s squeeze through the first corner, Massa’s start was excellent. Jenson Button also had a good getaway but as Vettel had to lift to make turn 1 after giving up the optimum line in favour of an attempted block, Button also had to lift considerably not to make contact with Vettel’s rear. This allowed Webber and Hamilton to dive past, thus giving us Massa in the lead, Alonso in 2nd, followed by Vettel, Webber, Hamilton and Button. Schumacher also made a fantastic start, passing both Williams cars and teammate Rosberg. Hamilton made use of the McLaren’s low-downforce set up to get inside Webber on lap 1 into the turn 6 hairpin, hanging him out to dry on the exit where Webber ran wide and succumbed to Lewis.

As Massa held his lead with consistently good laps on the soft tyres throughout the first stint, Alonso stuck with him trading fastest laps, and Vettel stayed reasonably close in 3rd. Vettel was the first of the three to pit on lap 13, and Ferrari brought in Alonso one lap later to cover off the threat. Massa was the last to pit of the 3 and came out on lap 15 just in front of Alonso. As Felipe struggled with the harder tyres, Alonso piled on the pressure as Massa continued to lock up and slide around in corners. On lap 21 as Massa encountered traffic in turn 2, Alonso got a great run down to the hairpin, even using the extra slipstream of a lapped Hispania to inch ahead as they entered the braking zone. The problem was that Massa had the all-important inside line and Alonso had to relent, his half-move at the high speed turn 7 right-hander being the last opportunity for a number of laps. Massa then put the hammer down and pulled out a lead of nearly 4 seconds over Alonso, who appeared to be saving fuel and tyres for a later run at the lead. Sure enough, he upped his pace and began closing in on his teammate, with the gap down to less than a second again by lap 47. Vettel was also drawing closer to the leading pair.

Cue controversy. On lap 48 Massa’s race engineer Rob Smedley made little effort to hide what was an instruction for Felipe to make way for the faster Alonso “OK, so, Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?”. On lap 50 while exiting the turn 6 hairpin, Massa stayed on partial throttle and allowed Alonso to pass before turn 7. Subsequent radio messages and post-race ‘celebrations’ did absolutely nothing to corroborate the Ferrari story that it was Felipe’s own decision, and not a single fan or media representative believed it. Fans of Ferrari will find it hard to justify quite why it had to be done in such an obvious and seemingly amateur fashion. The presence of team orders in F1 is not a shock, there were probably more instances of it at the Turkish GP than at Hockenheim, but Ferrari’s handling of it has brought this upon them.

Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) - Getty Images

In case it wasn’t obvious enough, Alonso went on to win the German GP, continuously setting fastest laps in order to justify later that he was quick enough to be allowed past by Massa, who himself was banging in fast ones to stay ahead of a flying Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton remained ahead of Button for 4th and 5th respectively, with Webber nursing home an oil-guzzling Red Bull in 6th. Button was able to get ahead of Webber by spending more time on the softer tyres before his first stop. Kubica managed more healthy points behind the big boys in 7th and Rosberg beat Schumacher to 8th by dint of running much longer on his soft tyres during the first stint, much as Button did.

A great deal has been said about the injustice meted out to Felipe Massa by his beloved Ferrari team. Considering the fact that the German GP was basically the 1 year anniversary of his near-fatal accident last year at the Hungaroring, that Massa was planning to dedicate any result to the recent passing of a family member, and that he has been off the pace for most of the season, the team’s decision may for some contradict Ferrari’s usual emotional policy of rewarding loyal drivers like Luca Badoer. However, it is completely in keeping with their prioritisation of the better performing, better placed driver who has the most realistic chance of winning the championship.

Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso - Getty Images

As I mentioned in the British GP review last week, Massa and Alonso have found themselves on the same piece of track a few times this year and they were on the way to having a situation to deal with. Alonso’s barge-pass into the Chinese GP pits or his pass of Massa at Silverstone which resulted in a puncture for Felipe will not have been forgotten. All of these incidents were put down to racing between competitive drivers, no further action was taken, no driver complaint aired. So it is not surprising that many question the way in which Ferrari managed the German GP result. It should not be forgotten that in 2007 Felipe Massa was allowed to gift Kimi Raikkonen the win at the end of season Brazilian GP, thus handing Kimi the championship by 1 point ahead of Lewis Hamilton. There are other such occasions that have not created such outrage, incidents far removed from the ridicule of Austria 2002. Those that view Ferrari’s decision at Hockenheim to be more in the league of A1 Ring 2002 rather than Brazil 2007 may be blowing it out of proportion.

Massa leads Alonso in Australia 2010 - Getty Images

You could argue that Fernando Alonso has earned his place as the prioritised driver for 2010 by way of demonstrating his speed over Felipe Massa at just about every event this year, even if Massa has finished ahead of him at Australia, China, Malaysia and Turkey. You could argue that while the championship is still mathematically possible for both drivers, Massa should be given a chance just as Raikkonen was in 2008. However in 2008 Massa and Raikkonen were a lot closer than Alonso and Massa have been this year, and while Felipe has shown much improvement at Hockenheim, Ferrari are under no doubts as to who will provide them with the better opportunity even at this stage. Felipe has himself benefitted from that kind of Ferrari prioritisation in the past, Ferrari loyalty is clearly earned by points.

Regardless of those historic details, Ferrari have been fined $100,000 for breaking the sporting rules regarding team orders and have been referred to the World Motorsports Council for bringing the sport into disrepute. Regardless of F1 reality, everyone will still feel robbed of a last gasp battle for the lead between two high quality F1 drivers, and that Ferrari’s decision went against the purest principles of racing. Christian Horner at Red Bull is taking every opportunity to shift recent negative attention away from his own team’s issues and onto Ferrari, and he will be hoping that the WMSC see fit to dock Ferrari the points gained at Hockenheim, thus rewarding Vettel the victory. If that is indeed the outcome, Ferrari and Stefano Domenicali will be forced to reconsider if an extra 7 points for Alonso were worth all that followed. Alonso may well have been able to find his way past Massa, but we will never know and that is probably the biggest shame of all.

Returning to the championship, and where everyone now stands, the most important things are the facts. It is a fact that Lewis Hamilton and McLaren still lead the drivers’ and constructors’ championship. It is a fact that despite not having the fastest car, both McLaren drivers have gained a good haul of points, possibly more depending on the WMSC outcome. It is a fact that Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber are once again tied on points. It is a fact that Ferrari are now very much back up to winning speed with a car that worked extremely well in all conditions at Hockenheim, and for the time being Fernando Alonso has re-entered the championship battle proper. Finally, it is a fact that Felipe Massa emphatically demonstrated a strong return to form with undoubtedly his performance of the season. A race-winning performance. Not bad for a number 2 driver.

British Grand Prix 2010 - 19/07/10

2010-07-19T19:18:00.000+01:00

As the 2010 season’s momentum once again passes through Red Bull hands like a baton, a pattern is emerging as to how the Milton Keynes squad deliver their victories compared to a seasoned winning outfit like McLaren. When Sebastian Vettel won in Valencia, Mark Webber had a dreadful start and ended up using Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus as a launch pad to a horrific airborne accident. And as Mark Webber strode away to his series-leading third victory of the season at Silverstone, teammate Vettel received a puncture from Hamilton at the start and spent most of the day at the back of the grid, eventually recovering to 7th. The net result is that as Red Bull Racing emerge from the first half of the season with back to back wins, they are neither top of the drivers’ or constructors’ table despite their majority 5 wins this year, compared to McLaren’s 4 victories.

Conversely, McLaren came out of their Turkey-Canada purple patch leading both championships, and even after RBR’s brace, are still on top with Hamilton leading Button by 12 points with Webber a further 5 behind. As the season wears on, it seems McLaren are able to score the 1-2s whereas one Red Bull driver appears to benefit to the great detriment of the other. However, one should not forget this is a new situation to Red Bull and McLaren themselves suffered in a similar fashion during 2007.

The newest chapter of Red Bull controversy found its roots in 3rd Practice as Vettel’s wing developed an issue and the Red Bull management decided to take the one remaining new component they had off Mark Webber’s car and place it on Vettel’s car without Webber’s consent. Their reasoning was that at the time Vettel was leading the intra-team championship, and in that unique situation of having only one specimen of a new front wing, it went to Vettel. This of course did nothing to smooth over the already tense atmosphere of rivalry and alleged favouritism within the Red Bull camp. As Vettel took pole in qualifying, with Webber a tenth or so behind, any illusion of harmony evaporated. That cloud over RBR never quite dissipated throughout the weekend.

Even though the gap to the Negative Energy Duo was huge, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton produced excellent efforts to fill the second row of the grid, the latter suggesting it was the best lap of his career. McLaren had to remove the new blown diffuser exhaust system from their car after they weren’t able to maximise it during practice due to balance and unpredictability issues. Jenson Button found his MP4-25 “undriveable” as he overheated his tyres to a disappointing 14th on the grid at his home GP. Nico Rosberg had a massive eight tenths over teammate Schumacher in Q3, with Sauber’s Pedro De La Rosa netting a superb 9th on the grid, confirming their improvements.

Incredibly, with Vettel and Alonso in P1 and 3 respectively on the clean side of the grid, both got dreadful starts due to clutch gremlins. Vettel tried to close the door on Webber but Mark squeezed through on the inside and a fast-starting Hamilton mugged Alonso, as did Kubica, Rosberg and later on the same lap, Felipe Massa. As Vettel swept through Copse on lap 1, his right rear soft was poked by Hamilton’s front wing endplate, causing a puncture that sent him spearing off through the Maggots and Becketts complex, eventually seeing him fall to the very back of the pack before crawling into the pits for hards at the start of lap 2. Massa and Alonso also had a coming together as Fernando fought to regain some forward momentum after his disastrous launch, condemning Massa to an afternoon at the back of the pack after he too pitted to fix a puncture and took on the harder compound. One can easily forget the number of times Fernando and Felipe have found themselves on the same piece of tarmac this year, a possible situation brewing at Ferrari should not be discounted so readily even if Alonso has comprehensively outperformed Massa so far this year. Felipe should eventually find his feet, as will Ferrari, and then it may well be a different story between these two.

As Hamilton clung to Webber menacingly for the first few laps, with usual suspects Kubica and Rosberg flying high, Button made up a fantastic 6 places on the first lap to run 8th behind Barrichello and Schumacher. With the front two pulling away, Schumacher, Alonso and Barrichello pitted around the lap 12/13 region to the detriment of all involved as Kubica remained ahead after his stop on lap 14 and Rosberg set the fastest lap on the same tour. Button was now also matching the pace of the leaders and making up valuable ground lost in qualifying. After the flurry of stops, Webber had emerged further ahead of Hamilton just before he could put a lap on teammate Vettel, with Rosberg ahead of Kubica and Alonso and Button close behind. Between Hamilton and Rosberg were the long-runners Hulkenburg and Alguersuari.

Lap 17 saw one of the most prominent talking points of the weekend as Alonso hunted down an ailing Kubica and tried a move around the outside of Vale corner for what was 6th place, but Kubica moved across leaving Alonso nowhere to go to avoid contact except across the grass. As Alonso rejoined the track ahead of Kubica and held his position, both got on the radio in preparation for the inevitable. In modern F1 and considering the new Silverstone layout, to actually have caught him at that rate and gotten alongside, Fernando was clearly significantly faster. Letting Robert back past and taking him again would surely not have been such a compromise compared to the eventual drive-through penalty he was handed. Much has been made since of the radio traffic between Ferrari and Race control; opinions, recommendations, technicalities and practicalities all seemingly getting in the way of a degree of common sense. The way things were going for Alonso in 2010, was it worth the risk? While he was genuinely forced across the grass by ruthless and aggressive yet legal defending, even without the unfortunate timing of the subsequent Sutil/De La Rosa safety car interval, a quick swap would have ensured Alonso got past Kubica eventually and still had time to mount a serious attack on Rosberg. Regardless, the punishment handed to Ferrari and Alonso due to Kubica’s retirement shortly after, and considering the fact that Alonso had since passed Alguersuari as well, was understandably hard to swallow for the Maranello boys. Speaking of Rosberg, a classy overtake on Jaime Alguersuari had the unfortunate side effect of slight contact, resulting in a bargeboard piece taking its leave of the Mercedes on the Hangar Straight as Alonso hunted him down.

The end of the aforementioned safety car period that started on lap 28 saw Alonso serve his penalty, promoting Button to 4th and it also brought Sebastian Vettel back into play in the later stages. Webber and Hamilton escaped again at the front, with the Red Bull always appearing to have another gear to engage when necessary, as Rosberg had to first make his way through a number of backmarkers at the restart. Having run full fuel mixture in the early part of the race, Button had to go easy in the closing chapter of the race, therefore unable to mount a significant challenge to Nico’s 3rd place. As the top places appeared to be spoken for and settled, the action started lower down for the smaller points. Lap 32 saw Adrian Sutil pass Michael Schumacher with Vettel’s incredible RB6 demoting Massa a lap later, then dispatching Jaime Alguersuari and Vitaly Petrov shortly after. As Alonso found a way past Sebastien Buemi for 15th place on lap 34, he memorably requested no further radio transmission. Vettel was now in the points having nearly been lapped, and took Hulkenburg for 9th place on lap 38. On lap 40 he took Michael Schumacher as the former champ squeezed him for all he was worth into Brooklands. Ferrari’s forgettable British GP was compounded by a near-crash for Felipe Massa at the exit of Luffield, the Brazilian diving into the pits unexpectedly for new tyres. Alonso had further dramas himself too as a battle with Liuzzi’s Force India saw him get a puncture, pitting one final time on lap 49. Alonso and Massa came home 14th and 15th having set the fastest laps of the race on their final fresh tyre, low-fuel laps.

As the chequered flag loomed, Vettel became increasingly desperate in his pursuit of Adrian Sutil’s 7th-placed Force India. Both Force Indias had put up staunch defences against raging bulls and prancing horses, and Vettel went off-track sending up plumes of dust on lap 50. He rejoined quickly and finally clattered his way past Sutil on the penultimate lap, Adrian himself having had another colourful afternoon swapping parts with various cars. Nico Rosberg’s first podium since China, Jenson Button’s 10 place gain, Rubens Barrichello’s superb drive to 5th and Kobayashi’s excellent 6th were all highly commendable efforts, as was Lewis Hamilton’s ultimately fruitless chase of Webber, but car number 6 (not “number 2”) was the class of the field, serenely leading from start to finish and only using as much pace as was necessary to keep a flat-out Hamilton out of arm’s reach. Webber’s vociferous defence of himself in the media predictably necessitated emergency discussions at Red Bull with both parties now portraying an image of a cooled-down, well-ordered and once again purposeful family. It is quite unfortunate that the team’s well-known brand catchphrase should include the words ‘wings’ and ‘bull’.

Photography by Paul Hitchens

Mid-season Review - On The Verge - 14/07/10

2010-07-14T20:16:00.000+01:00

One driver who could easily have found himself in the top 5 so far in 2010 is Mercedes GP’s Nico Rosberg. This season is without a doubt the most important year in Rosberg’s career so far, his first opportunity with a proven front running outfit, the very team that won last year’s drivers’ and constructors’ world championships. Alongside him at Mercedes is seven times world champion, Michael Schumacher. If ever there was an opportunity to gauge the real potential and talent of an F1 driver, surely this is it for Rosberg. On the whole, Nico has outperformed Schumacher in qualifying and on race day, the only exceptions being the Spanish and Turkish GPs where Michael outqualified Nico and finished ahead in the races. This was attributed mainly to Mercedes bringing a raft of upgrades to the car which allegedly suited Schumacher more than Rosberg, specifically a longer wheelbase. As soon as Mercedes switched back to the short wheelbase for Monaco, Nico outqualified Michael again, though it should be noted that a late-race penalty for Schumacher dropped him out of the points, promoting Nico to 6th. In recent races, Rosberg appears to be rediscovering the scintillating early season form that made the paddock stand up and take notice, notching up another podium at the British GP to go with the 2 earlier podiums in China and Malaysia. However, this was also to be the year that Rosberg finally made the breakthrough as a Formula 1 race winner with arguably his best opportunity being the Chinese GP which he led for a while before falling off the road and gifting the lead to Jenson Button. His pace relative to Button and position on the road could just as easily have seen him come home 1st. Admittedly, Ross Brawn has conceded that his group concentrated much resource on last year’s titles at the expense of the 2010 car, with the development race not flattering Mercedes GP so far this season. As heartening as it is to see Nico find his way back towards the front of the pack, one feels that as McLaren and Red Bull gear up for a fierce championship run-in, that doesn’t leave much space on the top step for Nico Rosberg and Mercedes.

Before the full extent of Red Bull’s advantage became clear in 2010, Fernando Alonso and Ferrari were the title favourites. With Sebastian Vettel’s Bahrain gift, after 1 race there was no reason to believe differently, which is precisely the point at which Alonso’s season picked up downhill speed instead of upwards momentum. Various dramas have included a first corner collision with Button and Schumacher in Melbourne, vehicle expiration in Malaysia after a bad decision on qualifying tyres, drive through penalties in China and Great Britain, catastrophic qualifying in Turkey, a crash in P3 at Monaco which resulted in Fernando sitting out qualifying and issues with traffic in Canada when he had race winning pace and poor safety car luck in Valencia relegating him to the lower points-paying places, as well as suffering yet another ego-crushing late-race move from a driver in a fundamentally slower car, with a revitalised Kamui Kobayashi taking over the mantle from Takuma Sato. The fact that Alonso was still very much in touch with the championship leaders even after the Turkish GP is a reflection of the topsy-turvy nature of this year’s championship and all the different drivers who have found their way to the top of the pile from race to race. The lack of consistency amongst the leaders allowed Fernando’s great pace in races to keep him in touch throughout a number of solid recovery drives, but Valencia and Silverstone saw Ferrari and Alonso fall foul of the stewards and safety car rules, leaving him nearly 50 points behind Hamilton in the standings going into the second half of the season. Fans of Alonso will be desperate to see what was originally billed as a dream combination finally come good and string together a series of faultless weekends in order to bring the double champion and arguably the most complete driver in the sport back into championship contention. One would have believed that teammate Felipe Massa would have been one of the greatest challenges to Alonso in his debut Ferrari year, instead of his own uncharacteristic propensity for errors and questionable decisions in 2010.

At Williams, Rubens Barrichello has predictably outperformed highly rated rookie teammate Nico Hulkenburg, sporting 29 points to the Hulk’s 2 points. The team are undoubtedly disappointed that the car is not capable of podium finishes under normal circumstances, often struggling to even make the top 10 in Barrichello’s hands. Having said that, the last two races in Valencia and Silverstone have seen the never-ending Rubens story pick up 4th and 5th place finishes on days when bigger names have run into trouble. Also predicted was the possibility of Hulkenburg starting to match Rubens on pace in qualifying by mid-season, and there are some small signs of that coming to pass. The Hulk has outqualified Rubens on 3 out of 10 occasions this year, most recently at the European GP. Rubens still definitely has the measure of Hulkenburg in the races as he clearly showed his ability to maximise an opportunity in the last 2 GPs and increasing his points tally by 22 at those two events alone.

On the subject of rookies, Sauber’s Japanese newcomer Kamui Kobayashi has finally begun exhibiting more of the promise seen at the end of 2009 in his two Toyota outings. Qualifying roughly on par with the vastly experienced Pedro De La Rosa, Kobayashi has scored points three times in the last 4 events after a string of 4 consecutive retirements at the start of 2010, most notably running 3rd for a significant period of the European GP ahead of Jenson Button’s McLaren and pulling memorable late race moves on Fernando Alonso and Sebastien Buemi. The vastly improved Sauber package has given both drivers the tools to run competitively, De La Rosa even making Q3 at Silverstone. The securing of technical director James Key from Force India has added to the performance of one of the most disappointing packages at the start of 2010, but Key himself admits that the medium to high-speed nature of Silverstone suited the C29’s characteristics.

Photographs by Paul Hitchens

Mid-season Review - Top 5 - 13/07/10

2010-07-13T15:57:00.000+01:00

1 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)

Throughout the first flyaway phase of the season, Hamilton showed plenty of speed and fighting spirit without the luck required to emerge as a winner in 2010. An unfavourable tyre call and collision with Mark Webber in Australia and a difficult qualifying in Malaysia meant that his scorching progress through the field on both occasions didn’t get him on the podium. A tactical masterstroke by teammate Jenson Button kept him off the top step at China and the Spanish GP saw a certain 2nd place finish snatched away from Lewis in the closing stages thanks to car failure. However, come Turkey and Canada, the McLaren had made up noticeable ground on the dominating Red Bulls. Hamilton won the Turkish GP after forcing the Red Bulls into the now infamous pressure error that left the way clear for Lewis’s first win of 2010. Just as in his debut season of 2007, Hamilton followed up his breakthrough win of this year with a second consecutive victory, and the subsequent lead of the championship. What was more remarkable about his Canadian performance was the fact that it was the sole occasion on which a Red Bull hadn’t started from pole this season. Despite the McLaren appearing visibly slower than the Red Bulls in Valencia and Silverstone, Hamilton bagged a brace of 2nd place finishes to maintain his lead of the world championship. Lewis has shown himself to be arguably the best overtaker in the sport currently, coming out on top during memorable tussles with Button, Alonso, Rosberg and Schumacher. The only blots on his copybook this year consist of the harsh words he’s had for his team during the races and weaving in front of Vitaly Petrov during the Malaysian GP. Hamilton’s ability to consistently finish high up the order and invariably move forward from difficult positions in a race will see him to this year’s World Championship if the Red Bull duo continue to fall over each other and suffer the bad luck that has stopped them from running away with both titles this year.

2 – Robert Kubica (Renault)

Right up until the beginning of the Lewis Hamilton phase of the 2010 World Championship began in Turkey, Robert Kubica was the driver of the season. An unfortunate start to the year in Bahrain masked the true progress and potential of the Renault team, until an inspired drive to 2nd place in Australia’s varying conditions made it clear that F1’s first Pole was back. Kubica followed what appeared to be a one-off result in special circumstances with seven more points finishes, a run that ended with his first retirement of the season in the recent British GP. Those points finishes included a 4th place finish in Malaysia and 3rd place in Monaco. As always, Kubica’s ability on temporary circuits has shone through in 2010, with his Renault being a genuine pole position threat in Monte Carlo and Montreal. To come back from the difficult 2009 that both Renault and Kubica have had and fly out of the traps as they have done in the first half of the season has been magnificent to see, and a timely reminder of the talent at his and Renault’s disposal. Kubica has also demonstrated he has lost none of his fight, often having to employ defensive tactics to maintain an early race advantage. His head-to-heads with Schumacher in Canada and Alonso in Britain will have indicated a significant unwillingness to relent. You get the feeling that he’s gotten the absolute maximum out of his package every weekend, thoroughly putting rookie Petrov, who has actually done reasonably well, in the shade.

3 – Jenson Button (McLaren)

Incredibly, Jenson Button has probably done more for his career, reputation and legacy as a top F1 driver and world champion in the first half of the 2010 season by moving to McLaren and taking on home-grown hero Hamilton than through his efforts for Brawn GP in 2009. Two glittering early season victories in Melbourne and China highlighted Button’s speed, tactical nous and confidence in himself, firmly establishing Jenson as a serious title contender and the biggest intra-team challenge to Hamilton since Alonso. With Jenson’s easy manner warming him to the team, his tenure at McLaren will undoubtedly be longer than the Spaniard’s. Despite the strong start, the unforgettable battle with Hamilton at Turkey, his pass of Alonso to claim 2nd at Canada and a strong recovery drive at Silverstone to bag 4th from 14th on the grid, Lewis is slowly exerting a measure of superiority over Button on sheer performance in qualifying and race results. Button has also shown slightly less aggression in overtaking than Hamilton has, and is starting to find more limiting issues within the car at certain weekends. However, a similar ability to always move forward in races and his proximity to Lewis in the standings means that as upgrades continue to be placed on the MP4-25, Button will always have a shot at victory and subsequently, retaining his driver’s title. More than ever Jenson needs a weekend where he outperforms Hamilton in order to maintain the credibility of his championship bid as a first year McLaren driver.

=4 – Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)

When you think of Sebastian Vettel in 2010, every image of a race-winning, pole-owning, world champion elect outing is accompanied by the memory of a brake failure, engine burst, pointless collision, drama. The incident with Mark Webber at the Turkish GP 3 races ago is still casting a shadow over operations at Red Bull, which undoubtedly affects the drivers. Questionable driving from Vettel on that occasion, as well as a similar jink towards Hamilton in the Chinese GP pitlane and his clumsy pass on Sutil at the recent British GP have all painted the picture of a driver who’s still on the verge of becoming the full article. Despite all of this and despite the fact that the Red Bull RB6 is without a shadow of a doubt the class of the 2010 field, Vettel has produced spectacular laps in qualifying and should really have more than the 2 wins this season to his name. Technical issues have robbed him of wins at Bahrain and Australia where nobody, including Webber, appeared to be on the same racetrack. If at any point this season a modicum of consistency and calm descends upon the Red Bull garage, Vettel is still close enough to the McLaren boys in the standings to deliver the championship that this car, alleged intra-team favouritism and his ability can clinch. Ten races into the season and we’re still waiting for that to happen, but we’ve had glimpses at Malaysia and Valencia of what is possible when a weekend goes to plan, and Seb’s scything late-race recovery drive at Silverstone has shown what’s possible when it doesn’t. The excitement and interest in this year’s title race has undoubtedly been helped by the issues faced by RBR, but however many future titles Vettel amasses, to miss an opportunity like 2010 for Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel would be criminal, even for someone who is close to being painted as the new F1 villain.

=4 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)

On the opposite side of the Red Bull garage sits Mark Webber, at the opposite end of his career to Sebastian Vettel. It is incredibly difficult to separate these two as Webber has had equally glittering moments to Vettel this year, including a string of poles and two stunning wins at Barcelona and Monaco, as well as a controlled drive under difficult conditions for him personally at Silverstone. A very public spat with his teammate and now possibly his team may have earned Webber sympathy and followers, but at this stage of his career and with the opportunity he has to finally claim a major world championship, the outspoken Aussie may do well to get his head down and concentrate on the business of winning. Something he did most admirably at the British GP, but winning against such internal adversity will inevitably take its toll. In contrast to the highs, you always feel Webber’s style of attacking and defending will lead to incident. His collision with Lewis Hamilton in Australia, the horrific airborne episode with Heikki Kovalainen in Valencia and to a much lesser degree with Vettel at Turkey could all have been easily avoided. Valuable points lost on such occasions have allowed Hamilton and Button to creep ahead in the title chase. However, the way Webber is resisting any possible attempts by RBR to engineer Vettel into the lead driver position could help to keep the team honest as every move they make is widely and publicly dissected. Regardless of the immensely superior machinery at his disposal, Webber has followed up his breakthrough year admirably in regards to consistently being at the front and showing himself to be a regular race winner and series leader now he is free of his leg injury. The 2010 world championship is as much of a reality for Webber as it is for Vettel as long as the Red Bull management do not exert their authority too often over the race team’s operations and attempts to keep things equal between the two, although Christian Horner and Adrian Newey’s role in the British GP front wing debacle should not be understated.

Photographs by Paul Hitchens

Turkish Grand Prix 2010 - 12/06/10

2010-06-12T20:48:00.000+01:00

On lap 40 of the Turkish Grand Prix, the 2010 Formula 1 season exploded. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel who were joint-leading the world drivers’ championship and running 1st and 2nd in the race, drew up side by side in their constructors’ championship leading Red Bull Renaults on the approach to turn 12. The race leaders, the championship leaders, the very spearheads and pacesetters of Formula 1 2010, point-to-point, neck and neck, producing one very unexpected victor. But how did things reach that stage?

Having bagged a third successive pole, the Aussie was odds-on favourite to consolidate his position as the man on form. Vettel looked to have something for him right at the end of Q3 but a roll-bar failure meant he only lined up 3rd on the grid, the Red Bulls split by Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren. Jenson Button closed out the second row confirming the pace advantage of the Red Bulls who were flat through turn 8, and the McLarens armed with their effective F-ducts. They were followed by Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, the young German again being pipped by the Old Man. Renault looked to be the 4th fastest team in Turkey all weekend with both cars sandwiching Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. Fernando Alonso again found himself facing a difficult race after making a mistake on what would have been his best lap and lining up 12th as a result, although he didn’t believe he had the pace for Q3. Sauber finally had something to cheer as Kamui Kobayashi made Q3, also Bruno Senna qualified his Hispania ahead of Lucas Di Grassi’s Virgin. After announcing their imminent split with Dallara, this is a major result for a team that has had dominion over the back row for most of the season.

As the lights went out, Vettel turned P3 to P2 by passing Hamilton before turn 1, but crucially Lewis regained the position slipping up the inside out of turn 2, hanging it around the outside for 3 and making it stick. A very important move in the race as it placed the McLaren between the Red Bulls, forcing the pace of the frontrunners to remain hot for the duration of the event. The significance and consequences of that fact would be felt for many days after the race. Michael Schumacher also fashioned a great start for Mercedes, passing Button around the outside of turn 1, but a repeat of Barcelona was avoided for Button as he re-took 4th place from Schumacher before the lap was out. The events of lap 1 clearly demonstrated how difficult it would be for any car to shake the McLarens. Elsewhere, Nico Hulkenburg and Sebastien Buemi came together on the opening lap in keeping with their seasons so far. After Buemi felt the need to make clear to the media that he finished ahead of his teammate in Monaco, 16th place in Turkey will rankle.

The first part of the race consisted of Hamilton very much keeping pace with Webber up front, the straightline speed of the McLaren bringing it into contention by turn 12 despite the time and ground lost in turn 8. Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button running 3rd and 4th also remained in close attention while rapidly dropping the rest of the field. Vettel was the first of the frontrunners to pit as Red Bull brought him in a lap before Webber and Hamilton pitted nose-to-tail at the end of lap 15. They would have departed nose-to-tail as well had Hamilton not had an issue with the left rear, allowing Vettel to nip ahead for 2nd place as the McLaren lost ground. Button stayed out a lap further and was closer to the leading pack as a result after his stop.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who started the season with a great debut victory for the marque celebrating their 800th GP in Turkey, pitted early at the end of lap 11. This allowed him to leapfrog a number of cars ahead of him and put himself in the points after a disastrous qualifying. In a season of 7 races so far to have collided with Button and Schumacher at the start of the Australian GP, to have started towards the back and retired due to a bad tyre call in Malaysian GP qualifying, to have jumped the start in China, to have put the car into the wall in Monaco GP Practice when winning pace was evident, Alonso’s Turkish GP qualifying mishap marks one of the most error-strewn starts to a campaign the double world champ has ever experienced. It is a reflection of the bizarre happenings this year that Alonso is still well in touch with the championship leaders.

The suspense continued to build as Hamilton made advances on Vettel, forcing Vettel in turn to put pressure on Webber up front, exchanging fastest sectors and laps. A sense of anticipation was building unlike anything experienced so far this year, a certainty in the air that something cataclysmic would unfold at the front of the Turkish Grand Prix against a backdrop of possible rain. All the while, fuel consumption at McLaren was an issue as the pace turned out to be hotter than predicted. By lap 39 Mark Webber had been asked to turn down his engine, something he later alluded to in the press conference, while apparently Vettel had managed to eke out his fuel consumption a lap further. This allowed him to run the engine richer for a lap or so longer, thus bringing us to the point of convergence on lap 40. Vettel, having gotten a great run on Webber from turn 8 onwards, looked right then ducked left on approach to turn 12. Webber, as he has done to so many others, squeezed Vettel onto the marbles leaving just enough space for a solitary Red Bull RB6 which Vettel duly filled. Time slows down. Both cars maintain their line for a miniscule moment in time, or was it miniscule? How long was it for? A second? 10 seconds? Vettel moves half a car-length ahead, his rear wheels alongside Webber’s sidepod. Then, eager to elbow his way into a better corner entry, Vettel visibly turned the wheel to the right and drove into Webber’s side. Both were spat off the track, Vettel’s car with terminal damage, Webber requiring a pit stop. McLaren cannot believe their fortune as Hamilton and Button inherit the lead.

The gravity of this event may well be felt strongly throughout the rest of the season and throughout Red Bull Racing as it has highlighted that the much lauded team spirit in RBR isn’t quite the beacon of unity once believed. The extreme sports brand that turned itself into a serious F1 team now has a serious F1 problem. Red Bull motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko openly sided with Vettel, despite his protégé having a penchant for turning right on opponents (see Vettel vs Hamilton in Shanghai pitlane), and Christian Horner has had much smoothing work to do since. Webber had allegedly requested that Vettel back off, but his request was denied due to the close proximity of the McLarens. Neither driver has accepted any blame for the incident 2 weeks on.

That was not the end of the excitement at Istanbul Park as on lap 49 with both McLarens being urged to save fuel and look after their tyres amid a few spots of inconsequential rain, Hamilton was assured by chief engineer Phil Prew that Jenson would not overtake him after he turned down the wick. Hamilton backed off considerably through turn 8 allowing Jenson a strong run at him. He made a move around the outside of turn 12, which became the inside of turn 13 and the subsequent lead of the Turkish GP. Button’s compromised entry into the final corner allowed Hamilton the opportunity to re-pass him into turn 1 where after very light contact, he retook the lead. A demonstration to Red Bull as to how teammates battling for the lead should respect each other’s track position and anticipate a competitor’s whereabouts on the tarmac during such an occurrence. The contrast couldn’t be starker between the two sets of events, however McLaren were not to come out of the Turkish GP smelling of roses amid accusations of fuel saving and tyre management instructions being used as a disguise for team orders. The two McLarens proceeded to follow each other home to record their second one-two of the season, and Hamilton’s first victory of 2010. Lewis’s less-than-ecstatic demeanour after the race and the obvious confusion fuelled rumours of misunderstood team orders. Genuine fuel and tyre concerns remain McLaren’s official explanation for the confusion and backing off.

Behind the fortunate McLarens, Webber managed to hobble back to the pits for new tyres and a replacement front wing, while having enough of a gap back to Schumacher in 4th place to retain the final podium position. Schumacher himself held teammate Rosberg off again to finish just ahead. Behind the Mercedes duo, driver of the season so far Robert Kubica put on another solid show in his Renault ahead of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. Fernando Alonso’s somewhat clumsy pass on Vitaly Petrov in the closing stages promoted him to 8th behind his stable mate, but Petrov needed to pit for new tyres due to a resulting puncture, dropping him out of a well-deserved points finish. Adrian Sutil passed Kamui Kobayashi as well late on, the latter scoring BMW Sauber Ferrari’s first point of the 2010 season.

So who exactly was the aforementioned unexpected victor of the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix? Was it Lewis Hamilton who showed enough pace and tenacity in Turkey and indeed all season to be deserving of the win regardless of the energy drink explosion ahead of him, giving McLaren the lead in the constructors’ championship? Was it Mark Webber, who in light of the ensuing intra-team drama and seeming marginalisation actually came out of the Turkish GP with an extended points lead in the drivers’ championship? Or was it in fact the millions of F1 supporters and fans who witnessed a magnificently tense race which for once actually had a fitting climax with equal measures of gasp-worthy drama and unforgettable side-by-side racing at the very front? One desperately hopes that in future, “fuel-saving”, “tyre management” and the forced reigning-in of F1 drivers’ competitive instincts by nerve-shattered team principals do not rob us of the very things that made the 2010 Turkish GP unforgettable.

Monaco Grand Prix 2010 - 06/06/10

2010-06-06T22:44:00.000+01:00

The right man, at the right place, at the right time. This is Australian, Mark Webber, at Red Bull Racing in 2010 winning the Monaco Grand Prix. No longer Mark Webber, expert qualifier or Mark Webber, most unlucky driver in Formula 1. Back to back pole positions followed by two consecutive crushing victories have elevated Webber to the joint lead of the 2010 F1 drivers’ championship alongside teammate Sebastian Vettel. Despite securing every pole position in 2010, Red Bull racing had managed to hand half of the season’s victories to their competitors, but now finally their two drivers have found their way to the top of the standings, with no sign of a development plateau for the car. It was inevitable that with such pace to burn, eventually the Red Bull crew would get it together and start chalking up wins, and now that the victories are flowing and Webber and Vettel sit atop the table, the chase truly begins.

Webber’s race was certainly not a straightforward lights-to-flag affair, requiring careful management of the lead through a total of four safety car periods. The first safety car summons was for Nico Hulkenburg who lost control of his Williams in the tunnel on lap 1 due to front wing failure, the second was for the other Williams of Rubens Barrichello on lap 31 where a rear failure sent him into the wall coming up to Massenet corner. The third occasion was for a suspected loose drain cover where Barrichello had crashed, and the most memorable was the last approximately 3 laps before the finish for Jarno Trulli’s ill-advised move on an unsuspecting Karun Chandhok into Rascasse, ending up with Trulli’s Lotus sitting atop the HRT. Having passed the incredible Robert Kubica at the start for second place, Vettel never looked like challenging Webber for the lead even with 4 restarts. Kubica had qualified on the front row and his Renault looked sharp all weekend, most believed he would be the first driver to take pole position away from Red Bull in 2010, but it wasn’t to be and he stayed well in touch with Vettel to claim yet another podium in 2010. Another reminder that the explosive Robert Kubica who stormed onto the F1 scene in 2006 is still very much around, and still very much a future champion.

The rise of Webber and Vettel to the top of the charts has not been purely a result of their devastating pace, just as they were handing out points to their rivals earlier in the season, others have conspired to send gifts the other way too. World champion and former championship leader Jenson Button had a very short Monaco GP. After only making it as far as lap 3 he said “I knew after the formation lap that there was a cooling cover left on the left-hand sidepod, where the radiator is. We thought everything was going to be okay, and it would probably have been fine if we hadn’t had a Safety Car”. McLaren’s other Brit, Lewis Hamilton qualified fifth and stayed there all afternoon, being told much to his disliking that he had to look after his brakes from quite early on.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who was probably the only driver who could have challenged Webber for victory on Sunday, had yet another compromised weekend. Alonso went quickest in both Thursday practice sessions, and was quickest in P3 on Saturday when he lost control and crashed his Ferrari into the barriers, writing it off for qualifying. He had to start Sunday’s race from the pitlane, but benefited greatly from the early caution as he used the opportunity to change immediately onto the harder compound for the rest of the race. After dicing with Lotuses, HRTs and Virgins (especially a wild Lucas Di Grassi) and passing most of them at the chicane, showing good pace he was able to leapfrog most at their first stops and run 6th behind Lewis Hamilton when all had settled down.

Alonso was also involved in the race’s biggest talking point on the final lap as the fourth safety car period came to an end. Due to the Trulli-Chandhok sandwich at Rascasse, it was believed that the race would end under safety car conditions, but the news came that the safety car would pull into the pits on the last lap, leaving Webber, Vettel, Kubica and co to cross the line at racing speed. Rule 40.13 of the F1 sporting regulations states that "if the race ends whilst the safety car is deployed it will enter the pitlane at the end of the last lap and the cars will take the chequered flag as normal without overtaking". Alonso was running 6th at this point and Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes 7th, Michael appeared to catch Fernando unawares at Rascasse on the restart and passed him into Anthony Noghes corner to take a provisional 6th place. Cue complaints, stewards’ inquiries and much evidence presented. The track showed a green flag situation and that was Ross Brawn and Mercedes’s defence, but in the end Schumacher was handed a 20 second penalty which dropped him out of the points. Alonso definitely responded on track to Schumacher’s advances but was unable to keep him from passing and nearly lost his left rear on the barriers, so that certainly didn’t help his cause when he claimed his team advised him not to pass Hamilton due to these new safety car rules, and there was clearly a green light displayed. There is undoubtedly a debate there about using the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law, but unfortunately for Mercedes the letter of the law was very clear, but there is something to be said about the difference between a race ending under safety car conditions, and bringing the safety car in on the last lap. The rules have since been clarified, as you would expect.

Ferrari’s other driver, Felipe Massa, had one of his best showings of the season so far, qualifying a respectable 4th on the grid and staying there all race not too far behind Vettel and Kubica, and never really being threatened by Hamilton’s McLaren. Outscoring Alonso again while being slower generally is keeping Felipe within touching distance of the leaders, and if his pace picks up when he is able to get the F10 to his liking, days like this will count. Other interesting intra-team rivalries at Monaco included Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi finally rediscovering a semblance of form as he outqualified Adrian Sutil and made Q3, however Sutil got the better of him in the race as they finished 8th and 9th. There are considerable rumblings regarding the replacement of Liuzzi with Paul Di Resta, given his perceived lack of competitiveness compared to Sutil and the fact that his seat for 2010 owes much to the transfer of Fisichella to Ferrari. It could be though that it’s wishful thinking from the media as opposed to a genuine feeling of dissatisfaction from the team, after all with no in-season testing how wise would it be?

At Mercedes, despite returning to his habit of outqualifying Schumacher albeit by a significantly smaller margin, Nico Rosberg lost out at the start and was not able to find a way past Michael even though he ran longer at the pit stops and set a series of blistering laps. It was all academic as Schumacher’s penalty promoted Rosberg up to 7th place. The early season poise, confidence and precision of execution appears to have temporarily deserted Rosberg, who felt he was capable of pole at Monte Carlo. The team accepted responsibility however for putting both cars on the same piece of tarmac during qualifying, costing both a better grid slot. Annoyingly for Mercedes, rumours persist about favouritism and a change in development direction to suit the returning multiple champion, even though Monaco saw the return of the short wheelbase car. Fans of Schumacher will be pleased to see the old dog returning to his old tricks at the end, regardless of the outcome it’s hard to believe Alonso won’t have taken a dent to his pride. The pace appears to be trickling back and the awareness of opportunity, backed up by tactical genius will undoubtedly see Schumacher on the podium before long. Fans of Formula 1 (not necessarily the same as Fans of Schumacher) will be hoping Nico rediscovers some of his early 2010 sparkle and registers a debut win before too long.

As well as Force India getting both drivers into the points for the first time, Monaco was important for Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi who scored his first point of the year thanks to the 20 second penalty handed to Schumacher. Jaime Alguersuari’s strong performances have put Buemi significantly in the shade at an establishment where there is precious little patience for underperforming drivers.

So finally, after a career that has included such lows as airborne upside-down Mercedes CLR Le Mans cars, a blown engine within an ace of winning the Monaco GP in 2006, a young German in a Toro Rosso wipe him out from behind in Fuji’s 2007 torrential downpour and even a passing tram cutting power to his car as it crossed tramlines at Singapore in 2008, Mark Webber’s luck is coming good. Untouchable at the last two Formula 1 events during a season where every driver and team have experienced peaks and troughs in fortune, the Aussie who began his full professional international career alongside German legend Bernd Schneider is beginning to show his might to another German legend of the future in Sebastian Vettel. With both Red Bull drivers leading the drivers’ championship, and the team leading the constructors’, their superiority over the rest which has been threatened since Bahrain is now a cold reality, wherever you look.

Spanish Grand Prix 2010 - 13/05/10

2010-05-13T18:11:00.000+01:00

A whole winter of rigorous testing, a mini-season of flyaway events, four grands’ prix worth of practice sessions, qualifying and races rife with difficult circumstances and opportunities to display latent qualities. This is what it took for Jenson Button to establish himself as a multiple race-winner and equal to Lewis Hamilton at McLaren. This is how long Nico Rosberg had to toil in order to cement his position as Mercedes front man and serious competition to million-time world champion Michael Schumacher. This was the amount of time required for Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel to distil their incendiary pace and apparently fragile vessel into crushing dominance laced with respectable reliability. Yet, despite two months of tide-stemming battle against prevalent perception, it has taken a single weekend of rain-free happenings in Barcelona to reaffirm the old beliefs.

Schumacher outperformed and outpaced Rosberg all weekend at Mercedes, spending a majority of his race repelling the gentle advances of Button’s McLaren. The inevitable opinions surfaced again, that Mercedes and Ross Brawn have tailored the Mercedes to Schumacher’s preferences at the expense of a previously promising teammate. Rosberg vehemently denied such stories throughout the weekend and claimed the improvements to the car were genuine. Jenson started 5th ahead of Schumacher but due to a costly pit lane episode emerged behind Schumacher and spent the rest of the day there. Various attempts by Button to pass into turn 1 were foiled by the Old Man moving across to the inside, forcing the McLaren to go around the outside. Predictably, whispers emerged that McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton would have continued up the inside and forced his way through at the first possible opportunity, as opposed to the impression one got watching Schumacher remain completely in control of the situation, comfortably keeping Button at bay and finishing 4th ahead of him.

Hamilton, having qualified 3rd behind the dominant Red Bulls and just ahead of home favourite Alonso, had a good start and nearly stole the lead from the Red Bull pair. With no change in position at the very front, the race settled down very quickly as the top four of Webber, Vettel, Lewis and Alonso led the way. Lewis spent an impressive-yet-typical Spanish GP afternoon staying well in touch with Vettel’s Red Bull, even leapfrogging him in the pits as Vettel had more pit lane difficulties. Hamilton’s excellent drive to second place unravelled 2 laps before the end as a wheel rim failure caused deflation of the left front tyre, sending him off at high speed, rewarding Alonso’s Ferrari and Vettel’s ailing Red Bull with the final podium spot.

Sebastian Vettel’s ailing Red Bull. A familiar phrase this year, however it is possible that Red Bull’s continuing reliability headaches were somewhat soothed by the crushing speed they displayed with Mark Webber’s stunning pole position nearly a full second a head of Hamilton in 3rd. Webber and Vettel’s speed was such that despite finishing so far ahead of the second placed Ferrari of Alonso, it was widely believed that Webber had left much in reserve. Vettel for his part managed to maintain thoroughly respectable race pace even after an extra pit stop and the shadow of impending brake failure forced him into cruise mode for the closing stages of the race. A tremendously ominous Red Bull one-three capped a Spanish GP where their early season advantage seemed to have actually grown over the chasing pack, with no hint of an F-Duct or outboard mirrors. What is not to be forgotten though is that five races into the 2010 season, Red Bull drivers are neither first nor second in the drivers’ championship with the team still keen to hand gifts to rival outfits. Mark Webber can clearly lead faultlessly from the front, but surely the team are concerned how most of the issues are occurring on Vettel’s machine. Much like the Brazilian GP last year, Mark’s imperious performance was somewhat sidelined by Hamilton and Vettel’s late race incidents, as well as the considerable airtime dedicated to Schumacher and Button. But make no mistake, this win was far from academic.

The fact that no team is having their season unfold according to plan is terrific news for the championship battle. Button still leads on 70 points with Alonso just 3 behind on 67. Vettel sits third on 60 points with teammate Webber next on 53. The biggest losers have been Hamilton and Rosberg who endured no-scores. Other drives of note include Rubens Barrichello’s run to 9th and Jaime Alguersuari’s eventful journey to 10th and another championship point. Both made spectacular starts, passing multiple cars and then consolidating their positions. Jaime again put another great move on fellow rookie Hulkenburg, but undid much of his good work by taking Karun Chandhok’s front wing with him during a botched lapping manoeuvre. His extra pit stop and subsequent drive-through penalty probably cost him further 2010 glory. There was further confirmation also of the genuine points scoring pedigree of the Force India and Renault in Sutil and Kubica’s hands respectively, as well as Fernando Alonso’s continued advantage over the seemingly baffled Felipe Massa at Ferrari.

So should we relax in the comfortable and familiar knowledge that order has once again been restored to the F1 universe, a place where overtaking doesn’t occur, where races are decided by pit lane blunders, a place where hyped drivers eclipse their teammates even if they are behind, a world where a Newey car can be one second per lap faster than its rivals and still not win the title? A few days in Monte Carlo ought to make these questions a little bit more difficult to answer.

Chinese Grand Prix 2010 - 21/04/10

2010-04-21T20:14:00.000+01:00

You get the feeling that the 2010 Formula 1 season is going to put a number of lingering questions surrounding the sport and its drivers to bed. Is Jenson Button a worthy champion? How good is he? Can he repeat his success in a car that isn’t dominant alongside Lewis Hamilton? How will Michael Schumacher fare against the next generation? Does Nico Rosberg have what it takes given the right machinery? Are Renault a spent force? Is it possible to succeed in F1 with a proper startup operation given enough time?

Just as with the first race of the year in Bahrain, it’s perilously easy to answer all of the above questions at this stage, but certainly the evidence is mounting for each case. Another exceptional tyre call from Button paved the way for his and McLaren’s second win of the season, while teammate Lewis Hamilton again provided the lion’s share of entertainment and ended up a close second behind Button at the flag. Starting 5th and 6th respectively, the McLaren drivers were disappointed with qualifying and yet another Red Bull front row, but in their own signature styles made their way to the front. Button’s decision to stay on slicks during the first rain scare secured him track position behind early leader Rosberg, track position that he never surrendered even after his lead was wiped out by the second NASCAR-inspired safety car period for debris on the circuit. His soft touch on the tyres ensuring the life of his rubber throughout the various treacherous stages of the race, even Jenson managed to overshoot the hairpin before the end of the lap as the rain increased. That set up a nervous finish as Hamilton closed the gap to 1.5s, but Button held on to win his 2nd race for his new team in 4 starts, taking him to a career total of 9 victories and the championship lead.

Lewis’s race was altogether more dramatic as he made a beyond-last minute decision to pit for intermediate tyres on lap 3, cutting across the gravel and painted off-track surfaces to get into the pits, a decision that he himself later described as an error. Within 2 laps the intermediates were destroyed and seeing how well Rosberg, Button, Kubica and Petrov were doing on the slicks, most of the field including Hamilton pitted again to lose the intermediates. Having made it into the pits ahead of polesitter Vettel, who himself had been stacked behind Webber at the first pit stop due to the Aussie passing him into turn 1, Hamilton was released from his pit box as Vettel drew alongside. As the two raced out of the pit lane, Vettel was seen to feint right and push Hamilton close to pit mechanics and equipment, earning both a post-race reprimand from the stewards. Hamilton then passed Barrichello, Webber and Kovalainen before pulling a double pass on Vettel and Sutil when the former didn’t manage to cleanly pass the Force India driver at the end of the back straight. After a memorable exchange with Schumacher that finally bore fruit on lap 17, Hamilton’s post-race comments all but implied that he was unimpressed with the German’s aggressive defending. Following the second safety car period where most were caught off guard by leader Button’s slowing before the restart, Lewis squeezed Webber off track. Further victims of the number 2 McLaren included Schumacher (again), Petrov, Kubica and eventually Rosberg, who was leapfrogged in the pits. Another spirited and impressive Sunday performance, but the cold truth is that Hamilton was outqualified again by Button, as well as beaten on strategy regardless of outright pace. Second place was a great reward for his efforts, and the safety car a great gift from Jaime.

Mercedes managed to produce a second successive podium performance in Shanghai thanks to Rosberg’s fine 4th place on the grid and the decision to remain on slicks during the first period of the race. Nico succeeded in holding off both McLarens at the start and led the race when the Red Bulls pitted for intermediates early on. Showing good pace initially, Rosberg was under no threat from Button, even stretching the gap to 4 seconds before an off-track excursion on lap 20 eliminated his advantage and handed the lead to Button. Post debris car, Rosberg was running about 2sec behind Button until Hamilton got his scent and started hounding him around lap 35. Employing effective switchbacks and imaginative use of the defensive line, Nico put up a stirring defence for his position, forcing Lewis to pit on lap 37 in order to make up time on fresher tyres. Indeed Rosberg emerged from his own pit stop behind Hamilton on lap 39, having made his point to those who accused him of capitulating to Hamilton in Melbourne. Their sparring had allowed Button to stretch his lead and the remainder of Nico’s run to 3rd place was consumed with keeping the charging Ferrari of Alonso at bay, which he did through intelligent prioritising of his tyre life. This was a result to celebrate for Mercedes and Rosberg, even if they were forced to play bridesmaid to yet another 1-2 from a rival team, but one is forced to think what Nico could have achieved without his off-track moment and the intervention of the second safety car. You want to believe that given the opportunity and the machinery, Rosberg will be a race-winner and championship contender, and given the expected development of his car and the impressive performances to date he probably will still mature into just that. It should also be remembered that the eventual winner of the Chinese GP and current world champion had a similar extracurricular moment during the race.

What of Michael Schumacher? Much more pronounced tyre degradation coupled with an early final pit stop meant that he was struggling to stay afloat come the end of the race. Early progress through the changeable conditions and battles with Hamilton showed he had lost none of his racecraft and despite a significant pace differential could make trouble for drivers looking to put a move on him. Sutil and Vettel made their way past after the second safety car, but Felipe Massa found it much harder, actually being forced off the tarmac by his former mentor before eventually making a move stick. Michael’s lack of success was, according to him, dictated by an inability to pace himself and manage the life of the new intermediate tyres. Ross Brawn and Norbert Haug continue to fight his corner, insisting that he hasn’t shown what he’s got yet, that circumstances have not favoured him and that improvements and a return to form are inevitable. Of course, if Schumacher is regularly amongst the frontrunners by midseason, this period will be forgotten, as will the supposed death knells on his comeback. Regardless of perceptions and the unusual circumstances surrounding the last 3 races, Schumacher will not be allowing the press or his rivals to decide when to catalogue his return as a failure and an error of judgement, but that determination and promise of improvement needs to bear fruit sooner rather than later.

Amid denials of engine concerns and farewells to outboard mirrors, Ferrari rendered almost all of their good work from qualifying useless as Alonso jumped the start, rounded the Red Bulls and led into turn 1. Salvaging 4th place from a day where he had to make 5 trips through the pit lane, including a drive through penalty for that start, is a feat to be applauded. Alonso, aided hugely by the second safety car, did well to overtake drivers such as Sutil and Schumacher on a day where he unbelievably found himself staring at Massa’s gearbox again. One of the lasting memories of the 2010 Chinese GP will be that of Alonso sliding down the inside of Massa aggressively on pit entry, forcing Massa to be stacked behind him as Alonso had a new set of inters fitted, thus losing Felipe a number of places in the process. There was never any question of who was the faster Ferrari driver this weekend (or even this season) but clearly Fernando was desperate to not sacrifice any more of 2010 behind Massa, despite most of it being nobody’s fault bar his own. This incident, apart from arguably rescuing the Chinese GP for Fernando, was pure gold for those again looking to fan the flames of an Alonso intra-team dispute. The difference is this time his teammate really doesn’t look to be as much a threat to him as a regular inconvenience. Surely this won’t be the case throughout the rest of the year, but for now Massa’s performances have been far from stellar. We await another incident free Alonso-Ferrari weekend in order to gauge their true position in the current 2010 hierarchy.

Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull again suffered the curse of the 2010 polesitter and had yet another forgettable Sunday. As if being passed by teammate Webber into turn 1 wasn’t bad enough, he was a victim of switching to intermediates early on. Webber’s pass meant that Vettel had to wait behind Mark to be serviced, costing him valuable track position. Later on, Webber hitting one of the air jacks caused further delay to Sebastian’s following pit stop. Bad luck aside, the Red Bulls just didn’t have the pace in those conditions. Vettel looked at one point to be capable of staying with Hamilton on his charge back up through the field, but eventually he had to settle for 6th place with fading tyres, which is not such a bad reward considering all the drama. Webber’s day was even worse, being pushed so wide at the second restart and eventually being passed by Renault’s Vitaly Petrov, eventually coming home 8th. Considering both Red Bulls were on the same strategy as Hamilton, there will be much to think about when comparing the relative pace and finishing position of the aforementioned McLaren driver. How many more front row starts can Vettel afford to let slip through his fingers?

Renault will be thoroughly pleased with yet another demonstration of how much talent and racing nous is still present within their team despite high profile departures. Both Kubica and Petrov secured valuable track position at the start by staying out on slicks, and if not for Alguersuari’s front wing bringing out the safety car, Kubica may well have had another podium finish well clear of Hamilton and Alonso who eventually got by him. Renault’s successful start to the season, Kubica’s continuing run of remarkable performances and Petrov’s first points of the year are a staggering return for a team who had been all but written off. They are a constant beneficiary and thorn in the side of the so-called top teams who continue to find ways of wrecking their own race weekends. It is doubtful that in normal dry conditions they could score so competitively for the rest of the season, but with such strategic guile and Robert’s safe hands, anything is possible. Petrov’s spin undoubtedly cost him further points, but his late pass on Webber will no doubt endear him further to the management.

Elsewhere, Lotus’s Heikki Kovalainen briefly ran as high as sixth in the points and ended up ahead of Hulkenburg’s Williams. Surely the promised upgrades and improvements to the Lotus car will make them an even more respectable outfit worthy of their place on the grid. Hispania also managed to bring both cars home, with Senna 2 laps down on winner Button. Sauber’s season continues to depress as a promising start for De la Rosa was marred by more Ferrari engine trouble and Kobayashi was involved in the first lap carnage. Virgin Racing also have better times to look forward to as both cars retired. Jaime Alguersuari’s weekend promised better after he outqualified the more experienced Buemi yet again, but as Buemi was removed by the spinning Force India of Liuzzi on lap 1, Toro Rosso had to settle for a 13th place finish after decaying tyres and a front wing replacement cost Alguersuari track position. Had he not pitted early with suspected, but subsequently no front wing damage, and had he not made a mess of passing a lapped HRT car this may well have been another points score for the ever-improving young Spaniard.

What is making the 2010 season such a classic year is not solely down to the presence of four world champions, or a packed grid of 24 cars, or even the unpredictable weather affecting results. It is a combination of the above, but more importantly, it is the fact that so many of the top drivers in their various teams are performing at a peak level in their careers and delivering performances throughout the grid that are worthy of mention and notice, whatever obstacle they may encounter. It is as a result of this phenomenon and against this backdrop that drivers such as Schumacher and Massa appear to be disappointing currently.

Malaysian Grand Prix 2010 - 05/04/10

2010-04-05T15:26:00.000+01:00

It has taken until the third race of the 2010 season for the inevitable Red Bull one-two finish, and such is the nature of Formula 1 that the manner in which it was delivered all weekend left the others looking as though they had been on borrowed time for the first 2 events. Of course, it is never as simple as that in F1, just as Red Bull’s 2010 season could not be so quickly written off as being plagued by reliability issues. McLaren and Ferrari will of course win races again this year, but what is clear is that they will have to execute a perfect weekend’s worth of operations to achieve those victories. That kind of weekend begins with correctly reading the weather…

Qualifying in Sepang was rain-affected. Of course it was, how could it not be? Q1 saw many teams go out at the start to register banker laps, among them Red Bull and Mercedes. Ferrari and McLaren decided to go out much later as they believed the rain would ease off and not return, and this mistake at the very start of competitive proceedings for the Malaysian GP would haunt them until the very last laps of the race on Sunday. The rain came again in the latter stages of Q1, the result being that Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa were out of Q1 and would start the race 19th, 20th and 21st respectively. Jenson Button had delivered a lap good enough to see him through to Q2, however one instance of aquaplaning left him beached in the gravel and unable to take up his spot in Q2. The result was 17th on the grid. Despite all of this, the hero of qualifying was Mark Webber who decided to make his final Q3 runs on intermediate tyres, claiming a dominant pole position ahead of an excellent Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel. Adrian Sutil and Nico Hulkenburg also starred in 4th and 5th places after the brief hiatus of a red flag in the final Q3 session.

With the Malaysian GP grid reminiscent of the unforgettable Suzuka 2005, the race itself did not quite measure up to the anticipated excitement, primarily due to the fact that both Ferraris and Button’s McLaren were not able to cut through the field on the early laps in the manner that Lewis Hamilton did, and of course the lack of any rain. Hamilton’s dynamite start and ruthless overtaking saw him make steady progress until his pit stop on lap 30, by which time he had been running 2nd. His meteoric rise through the order was somewhat offset by highly questionable weaving antics on the finishing straight in order to break the tow that Vitaly Petrov’s Renault had on him. He was issued a warning for his behaviour, but at those speeds with those token mirrors and a complete disregard for a gentleman’s agreement between the drivers, Lewis continues to polarise opinion. Luckily there were no Melbourne traffic cops around, and Hamilton continued without penalty.

Another major factor that stopped Sepang 2010 becoming a classic was that up front, barring another failure, there was never any doubt about the eventual victor. Vettel made a great start from 3rd, hugging polesitter Webber’s gearbox and using the associated slip from the sister Red Bull to pass Rosberg’s Merc. Sebastian made great use of Webber’s last minute move to the outside and claimed him down the inside into turn 1. He was unchallenged thereafter, Webber’s attempts to get back at Vettel were hampered by a problematic airgun at his pit stop. Despite briefly being split by Hamilton who ran a very long stint to open the race, the Red Bulls were in control the whole day and finally cashed in on their advantage. With Vettel having firmly thrown his hat back into the championship battle, and the fact that matters outside of his control have stopped him sweeping all 3 of the first grands prix of 2010, the on-form driver of the moment is unquestionably feeling that this must be his year. A victory from a position other than pole, and the mistakes of 2009 seemingly behind him, he could well be right.

The most significant of the early retirements was that of Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes, who after a good start had to park the car on lap 8 with a loose rear wheel. Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi also missed out on another points haul by retiring on lap 12. The other Force India of Adrian Sutil managed to stay out of trouble and score excellent points for 5th place having spent the latter stages of the race fending off a charging Lewis Hamilton, confirming the significant step forward this team have taken. While Hamilton made big inroads into Sutil, he was not able to find a way past in the normal 2010 fashion and crossed the line 6th.

In the other McLaren, Jenson Button had a comparably difficult start to the race being passed by both Massa and Alonso on the first lap. Button pitted very early for fresh tyres, no doubt hoping to score a repeat of last week’s inspirational decision, but despite being alongside Hamilton when the latter emerged from his stop, was not able to stay with him and fell back into the clutches of both Ferraris towards the end of the race. Massa managed to pass Button after many laps of following, demoting him to 8th place. Alonso, however, who had spent the first part of the race stuck behind Massa, then Toro Rossos and now Button, could not make a pass on Button. He had run very long into the race before putting on soft tyres, he then proceeded to set some extremely fast laps while hunting down Button and Massa at roughly 2 seconds per lap. During on-board coverage it became clear that Alonso had lost the use of his Ferrari’s clutch and was having to monster the throttle to get the car to change gear, making those faster laps even more impressive. These problems coloured his whole afternoon and undoubtedly affected his ability to make a move on the STRs, his teammate or Button. Two laps from the end, Alonso finally took a dive at Button into the first corner but went in too deep, allowing Button back past. The result was an overstressed engine and his first Ferrari retirement. While Alonso will feel aggrieved at having lost the possibility of a few points after what he claimed was the best drive of his career, as well as Massa taking the championship lead by coming home 7th and once again fending him off, neither Felipe nor Fernando should have been in that position in the first place.

Other notable drives included a very solid run to 3rd from Nico Rosberg, a trouble-free day for someone who had very little chance of troubling the Red Bulls. Nico’s first podium for Mercedes and another assertive performance over Schumacher will undoubtedly fulfil all his early season hopes. All that is missing now is a victory. Renault’s Robert Kubica once again took full advantage of a great qualifying and the issues of others to score a 4th place finish, not to mention getting past Sutil and Hulkenburg on the first lap. He later told Polish TV that he had to employ extreme measures to stop his engine from cooking for the last quarter of the race. Along with his 2nd place for BMW in Brazil last year, this is a very impressive patch in Kubica’s career. One of the most standout drives of the day though has to go to arguably F1’s most improved driver so far in 2010, Jaime Alguersuari. His qualifying form and race pace have started to match the much more experienced STR driver Buemi, and his supreme overtaking of Nico Hulkenburg around the outside helped elevate him into 9th place and his first career F1 points. This, coupled with last week’s battle with Michael Schumacher, promises much for the future of the sport’s youngest ever driver. Hulkenburg himself finished 10th for his first F1 points and a much better weekend than in either Bahrain or Australia, undoubtedly more to come from him also.

Under the new points system, Massa now leads with 39 points having not yet won a race, with Alonso and Vettel on 37. Button and Rosberg sit on 35, Hamilton on 31 and Kubica on 30. As far as the championship is concerned, we could not have asked for a better start. Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull have all had a day in the sun, and days to forget. With Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari hoping to close the qualifying gap to Red Bull, hopefully things will only get closer as the season wears on. As a side note, under last year’s points system, the championship would currently show Massa 16, Alonso 15, Vettel 15, Rosberg 14, Button 13, Kubica 13 and Hamilton 12. Not a great difference, but then at this stage of the season it’s more about being in touch, and with seven drivers very much in touch one hopes that boredom would be a fading worry for this year’s championship.

Australian Grand Prix 2010 - 30/03/10

2010-03-30T23:33:00.000+01:00

Triumph. Triumph over adversity, indecision and inclemency. Triumph over rain, Bahrain. Triumph over difficult beginnings. Triumph for Jenson Button and Formula 1, that was the story of the Australian Grand Prix 2010. The spiritual season-opener delivered all that Sakhir did not; excitement, unpredictability and specifically, frequent overtaking. Everywhere you looked, there was a story, whether it was Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull denying him yet another straightforward victory, the three-star world champion sandwich at turn 1 on the first lap, a stirring charge through the field by Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, or even the assured drive of a man once again on the rise, Robert Kubica.

Qualifying had seen Red Bull lock out the front row, with Vettel claiming his 2nd pole in a row. Home favourite Mark Webber, having not had a smooth run through the second sector on his flying lap, lined up second just ahead of Alonso who had put in an excellent performance. The rest were a quite significant amount behind, most notably Lewis Hamilton who had no excuse apart from a lack of pace and eventually fuel for qualifying 11th, over half a second behind McLaren teammate Button. Rosberg again got the better of Schumacher while making it clear to the media he was unhappy and capable of much better. Rubens Barrichello, Robert Kubica and Adrian Sutil all put in quality laps to overshadow their stable mates and make Q3. Elsewhere, Lotus appeared to have moved ahead of Virgin as the fastest of the new teams, with Sauber looking more and more like pre-season’s biggest sponsor hunters.

Colder temperatures than expected during qualifying in Melbourne turned out to be an occasion of portent, with all teams having to start the race on intermediate tyres. The rain was not expected to last with a dry line forming early on, but of course it would have its effect on the race outcome. Vettel got away from pole cleanly, but the best start was Felipe Massa’s vaulting him past Button, Alonso and Webber into 2nd place. Alonso himself had a diabolical start from 3rd, leaving him surrounded by turn 1. The resulting collision as he turned in on Button caused him to spin, clatter into Schumacher and leave him facing the wrong way. While Fernando sat there for a few painful seconds as the whole field went by, Robert Kubica had gone from 9th to 4th by avoiding the carnage ahead, whereas Schumacher had to pit for a new wing.

The first lap also saw a horrifying crash lead to the season’s first safety car as Kamui Kobayashi’s front wing came off, got caught under his front wheels and sent him careering into the wall. His subsequent rebound threw him back on track and into Sebastien Buemi and Nico Hulkenburg whose races were done on the spot. The sleek new Mercedes SLS safety car pulled in at the end of lap 4, leaving Vettel to resume his lead from Massa, Webber, Kubica, Rosberg, Button, Hamilton, Sutil, Barrichello and De La Rosa. By lap 6 it was clear Jenson was uncomfortable with his car, and he was passed by an on-fire Hamilton, leading to Button pitting at the end of lap 6 for slicks. He then proceeded to go off the road at turn 3, making his decision look premature and losing him a hatful of seconds. However, as soon as he collected himself, Button confirmed his masterstroke and started to set blistering sector times, signalling the need for the rest of the grid to also run slicks which they started doing by the finish of lap 9.

Webber, who had passed a struggling Massa for 2nd, pitted later than most and lost considerable track position as a result. He rejoined 5th, and after a short trip across the grass once again ended up behind Massa who himself had a slow tyre stop due to pit lane traffic. By this point, Button had scythed his way through the field on his warmer slicks using his knowledge of where the grip lay. He now ran 2nd behind Vettel but ahead of Kubica and Rosberg. Come lap 16, Fernando Alonso had fought his way through the pack and was once again running 8th and in the points, but Michael Schumacher had gotten caught up behind Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso. Lap 16 also saw both Webber and Hamilton pass Massa, then as Hamilton tried to pass Webber on the approach to turn 3, both ran wide and allowed the Ferraris of Massa and Alonso through. This wouldn’t be the last time Lewis and Mark would cause trouble for each other.

The on-track action and intrigue was fast banishing the memories of Bahrain two weeks previous, and even more so when Hamilton passed Massa on lap 22 and Webber got the better of Alonso as the Spaniard got offline between turns 3 and 4 losing a lot of grip and traction. As if there wasn’t enough to keep track of at the front, the biggest shock (or was it?) of the afternoon came as leader Vettel was pitched off the track with suspected wheel/brake failure. The resulting yellow flags had stopped Nico Rosberg from reclaiming the 4th place he’d just lost to the charging Hamilton. All of this left last year’s winner, Button, well ahead of Kubica who himself had maintained position after a superb first part of the race. Hamilton soon caught him and Webber once again dispatched Massa. Alonso had closed up to Massa as well but the threat of imminent team orders did not materialise, and Alonso failed to find a way past for the rest of the afternoon despite once again clearly having the legs on his teammate.

Another major turning point in the race came when Webber, Rosberg and Hamilton pitted again for fresh tyres between laps 31 and 35, dropping them considerably back from the fight for second place. Cue Webber joining behind Rosberg and passing him quickly, then Hamilton going off on a still greasy track and letting Webber through but taking him straight back, followed by both drivers trading fastest laps as they closed by almost 2 seconds per lap on the Ferraris. Inevitably they caught the train again, and the visibly difficult Ferraris which were lifting midway through corners due to chronic understeer, were expected to be easy meat for Hamilton and co. What happened next was an untimely reminder of the difficulties faced by the drivers who tried to pass slower cars in Bahrain. In Alonso’s wake, neither Lewis nor Mark could make any further headway and their pace was reduced to that of the Ferraris with their knackered tyres. This in turn led to the faster degradation of Hamilton’s fresher tyres, especially after the punishment meted out to them over the preceding laps.

When Lewis finally had a sizeable run at Alonso down to turn 13 and had gotten alongside, Alonso kept the inside covered. As Hamilton was pushed wide, Webber took a dive up the inside, hit the McLaren’s rear and both ended up in the sandpit. Rosberg, who had been keeping a very close watching brief, was extremely close to getting past Alonso himself immediately after the incident at turn 13 and showed that had Webber and Hamilton not made contact, the latter may well have slid past Alonso into turn 14. As it was though, Alonso’s masterful defending of position ensured 4th place after such a miserable start, with Hamilton and Webber finishing 6th and 9th respectively. Throughout all of this unfolding drama, world champion Button calmly maintained his lead and preserved his 50+ lap old tyres to come through 12 seconds ahead of the Robert Kubica’s 2nd placed Renault, who himself had withstood pressure from McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes drivers to claim a memorable podium finish and provide further evidence of his pace and good results on temporary circuits, such as Monaco and Montreal.

It’s great for the championship to have the lesser-rated members of the major partnerships get one over on their illustrious rivals so early on. Felipe Massa has cause to be very proud of his 3rd place performance, very much making up for the loss of position to Alonso at Bahrain’s first corner. However, his noticeable lack of pace compared to Alonso during the race in Bahrain when both had passed Vettel, and the gap to him in Melbourne qualifying will not be lost on the returning Brazilian. Similarly at McLaren, this result is a tremendous boost for a team looking to make it back to the front of the grid and a world champion who very few people gave a chance of standing up to Hamilton. Jenson’s early call for slick tyres and his reputed ability to nurse them made the race for him and stood in stark contrast to Hamilton’s barracking of his team for bringing him in a second time. Suddenly Jenson does not look like the awkward new boy trying to infiltrate a tight circle of friends.

Over at Mercedes, Nico Rosberg did a much better job of supplanting Michael Schumacher as the lead driver in the team by once again scoring solid points, even if he never looked a podium threat at any stage despite running 3rd during the early part of the race. Schumacher crawled into 10th place and the points having finally passed Alguersuari (twice) and then Pedro de la Rosa. However much you consider his time away and his age or the new regulations, 10th place is never going to be an acceptable result for Schumacher, a driver for whom satisfactory was often unsatisfactory.

But what of Red Bull, their well supported Aussie hero and their champion-in-waiting? Their blatant speed advantage has not delivered a victory or even a podium. Vettel cannot be faulted, having not put a foot wrong since the opening day of the season, but Webber’s two qualifying hiccups and latest difficult race day performances can only be attributed to himself. This team is starting to drown in a myriad of missed opportunities, be it Webber’s chance to open up some sort of lead on his superstar teammate who has had nothing but heartbreaking, victory-shattering car dramas or the team as a whole failing to capitalise on a clear early season head start. You expect Vettel will sorely miss the possible 50 points when McLaren and Ferrari start to close the gap as the season progresses into Europe.

Red Bull’s aforementioned rivals will be grateful for the victories handed to them on days where their cars were incapable of winning on pace alone. Possibly of greater importance, F1 has earned temporary respite from the acidic criticism levelled at the sport’s new regulations and the dearth of overtaking opportunities with a scintillating spectacle. Of the new teams, Lotus have also earned themselves a shred more credibility by having a solid Heikki Kovalainen bring home his car 13th, achieving another full race distance for the fledgling squad, just as Karun Chandhok brought home his Hispania Racing Team car 5 laps down but in one piece. Triumph.

Australian GP 2010 Preview - 26/03/10

2010-03-26T11:24:00.000Z

Ferrari and Red Bull

The most impressive speed at the opening round of the 2010 F1 season in Bahrain two weeks ago was displayed by Red Bull Renault and Ferrari. RBR’s Sebastian Vettel appeared to have the outright pace advantage with Fernando Alonso very close by. Both teams will of course be hoping that the two week break since the first race will not have been enough for the chasing pack to develop their cars enough to be a big threat to their early season dominion.

With pole and race win going to Vettel and Alonso respectively, for RBR’s Mark Webber and to a lesser degree, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa this weekend will be vital for establishing their own championship credentials. Webber’s poor qualifying in Bahrain condemned him to an afternoon of gearbox chasing, and while Massa made a popular comeback straight to the sharp end of the results with 2nd place, he certainly won’t be keen to have Alonso pull another first corner move on him. As far as Massa will be concerned, the comeback race is over and the injury doubts are dispelled, the championship battle and the competition have begun. Webber will also be aching to use such a rare car advantage to capitalise on what could be the best chance he’ll ever have to win his home race. Alonso and Vettel were considered pre-season favourites for the championship, therefore their teammates will be doing everything to turn the tide as early as possible. Another eclipsing performance from either Vettel or Alonso will see momentum will start to build in their favour.

McLaren and Mercedes

While pre-season testing suggested that Mercedes GP and McLaren weren’t quite up to Ferrari’s pace, qualifying over a second behind Vettel’s Red Bull at Bahrain came as a shock. Both teams were undoubtedly hoping to be close enough to capitalise on any slips but only Hamilton was able to take advantage of Vettel’s demise. The new regulations ensured that neither Rosberg, Button nor Schumacher were able to make great progress from their starting positions, placing an even higher premium on qualifying performance.

Much was made, needlessly so, of the gap between Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher on his return. Michael’s race pace and consistency were all that could be expected of him given his time away and the new regs, and his one lap pace will continue to improve. The best is yet to come. For Rosberg, every single opportunity to gain from Schumacher’s so-called “rustiness” must be taken with both hands. So far he’s only benefitted from the comparisons, therefore another qualifying and race victory over Schumi will be his main aim this weekend. An overall race win or pole position may still just be out of reach for the Mercedes car without others running into trouble.

At McLaren, regardless of the playing-down, Hamilton has definitely taken first blood in the intra-team Brit world champ fight. Jenson will be annoyed at having qualified the better part of half a second behind Lewis at Bahrain and then getting stuck behind Schumacher and Webber while Lewis made the podium. He too will be keen to reverse any mounting inertia that Hamilton may establish by another strong result over Button this weekend. It was evident from halfway through 2009 that Jenson needed to step up during qualifying, and this year’s regulations may consign Button to many tough races if his one lap pace remains shy of Hamilton’s. As a team, McLaren will be pushing fiercely to close the early-season gap to Red Bull and Ferrari before the new points system pulls them out of reach, while maintaining any advantage over Merc GP.

Williams and Force India

Another season, another Williams car that won’t trouble the podium? Frank and Patrick will be hoping not. Barrichello managed to just squeeze into the points at Bahrain while Hulkenburg had a torrid debut, spinning on lap 3 then battling past all the newcomers for no reward. Nico will undoubtedly get closer and closer to Rubens as the season progresses, but the team are in danger of falling behind not only Force India, but also Renault unless major development strides are made. With the overtaking situation apparently gloomy and the top 4 teams looking good for maintaining their stranglehold on the better points with such good quality driver line-ups, Williams may well be thankful for the extended points system this year.

For Force India, this is new territory. With a car that looks to be points-capable throughout the season, costly errors and pointless incidents absolutely must be eliminated. Williams, Renault and Sauber will undoubtedly improve as the season wears on, so these early opportunities for scoring good points and making use of advantageous tyre strategies such as Sutil’s in Bahrain must be followed through. Force India themselves showed great development potential in 2009, putting the onus firmly on Sutil and Liuzzi to make use of a great starting position in 2010. The team will surely be looking to have both cars in the top 10 in Australia.

Renault, Sauber and Toro Rosso

Renault may well have surprised a few people with the pace of their car in Bahrain. Kubica made Q3 and was looking good for a fruitful day before coming together with Sutil on lap 1. Petrov’s race was cut short by reliability gremlins, but the team are confident that regular points scores are a real possibility. One feels that with Kubica leading the team in fine form, the occasional podium may not be out of the question. The target must again be Q3 and a top 8 finish for Renault in Australia.

Sauber were probably Bahrain’s biggest disappointment having shone in pre-season testing. Both Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi were struck down in the race with terminal problems, but their pace was far from what was promised. Having introduced their own F-duct system, their aim will be to get nearer the top 10. However the F-Duct system on the McLaren certainly didn’t help them in the overtaking stakes on the evidence of Bahrain, so Sauber may well have to look closely at what comes next. Expect another midfield performance barring any major race incidents or safety cars.

Toro Rosso may also have cause to be disappointed with their Bahrain showing, with Alguersuari being the only one to join the new teams dumped out of qualifying at the first hurdle. Being their first year as a proper constructor, they will probably find it hard going, but much of the Faenza staff will have been in this position before. With Jaime’s pace edging closer to that of Buemi’s with experience, they will expect to stay well clear of the new teams in the races and hopefully give Sauber and Williams cause for concern. Staying out of trouble will be a major priority.

Lotus, Virgin and HRT

The arrival and relative performances of these three new teams to F1 in 2010 has produced some genuine back-of-the-grid interest. Certainly the personalities behind Virgin Racing and the heritage surrounding Lotus F1 have helped gain them support and a following, or at the very least some airtime. Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok will of course bring the might of their respective nations’ support and interest to HRT.

Lotus were the only one of the new teams to get their cars to the finish (pretty much) first time out with Kovalainen winning the new team battle at Sakhir. However, it was Timo Glock’s Virgin Cosworth that probably had the edge on pace. Hispania of course had to use qualifying and the practice sessions of the Bahrain GP as a televised shakedown, and the race as a (short) testing exercise. As we progress race by race, expect the gaps between these new teams to decrease and the fight to become more intense. The aim of all these teams without question is to finish the Australian GP and gain invaluable mileage and data, or possibly even a Toro Rosso-shaped scalp.

Notable Absentees: Nick Heidfeld 22/03/10

2010-03-22T23:15:00.000Z

The 2010 season is the first in which Nick Heidfeld does not have a Formula 1 race seat since entering the top flight ten years ago with Alain Prost’s team. Heidfeld’s decade in F1 ended last year with the withdrawal of BMW Motorsport, leaving Quick Nick to chase fruitlessly after drives at Mercedes and McLaren amongst others. Eventually, for this season he ended up as reserve driver for Mercedes GP, and one can’t help but feel Heidfeld’s time in a top F1 race seat is over.

Nick Heidfeld entered F1 on the back of impressive campaigns in the lower formulae. F1’s then main feeder series was F3000, albeit much more indirectly than GP2 is now. Heidfeld narrowly missed out on becoming a rookie F3000 champion in 1998, losing out in the end to a hungrier and more experienced Juan Pablo Montoya. Having already tested a McLaren F1 car the year before that through becoming the 1997 German F3 champion, Heidfeld was taken on as McLaren F1 test driver in ’98. In his second year of F3000, Nick won the championship convincingly. While the calibre of competition in that year may have been questionable, with only Franck Montagny, Alex Yoong, Enrique Bernoldi, Justin Wilson and Stephane Sarrazin ever making it to an F1 race seat for any period of time, you can only beat what is in front of you. Or not in front of you, as the case was in 1999 for Heidfeld and the series-leading West Competition outfit.

In his early F1 career while driving for Sauber between 2001 and 2003, Heidfeld had Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen as teammates, both of whom have gone on to achieve much in F1. Despite coming out on top against both of those Ferrari-bound men, his long term stock never rose the way Massa’s and Raikkonen’s did. A spell at Williams-BMW in 2005 saw Heidfeld record his first pole position at the Nurburgring, and in a memorable race where Raikkonen’s McLaren fell apart on the last lap and most of the big names had some off-track drama, Nick held it together to finish 2nd. This immediately after another great showing at Monaco, where he also finished 2nd. Despite these memorable results, he finished behind Williams teammate Mark Webber in the final 2005 standings, his chance at a front-running Williams car coming a year too late. However, Heidfeld had done enough to impress head of BMW Motorsport Mario Theissen.

The defining period of Nick Heidfeld’s Formula 1 career was undoubtedly his four years as a BMW Sauber driver alongside Robert Kubica. After seeing off the challenge of Jacques Villeneuve in the sister BMW, the impressive late season debut by new-boy Kubica in 2006 once again cast the spotlight on someone other than Nick. His response to the hype and excitement around yet another wunderkind teammate was Heidfeld’s greatest triumph, his best ever season. In 2007 when all eyes were on McLaren, Alonso, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Ferrari and spygate, Heidfeld scored points in 14 out of 17 races, finishing a career-best 5th in the championship. Most notably, eclipsing his highly-rated teammate Kubica 61 points to 39, but again finishing no higher than 2nd in a race. The following season saw BMW-Sauber produce a car far more to Kubica’s liking, and in a season where the team finally had a championship challenging, race-winning car, it was his teammate who took a memorable first win for the Munich-Hinwil outfit in Canada. Heidfeld was, of course, 2nd. Nick managed four podiums to Kubica’s seven, and finished 15 points adrift of his teammate at the completion of the season.

Finally, in 2009 when BMW-Sauber were genuinely expected to be a serious title prospect, the KERS-powered ball was dramatically dropped. Often off the pace, both Heidfeld and Kubica struggled to get anything out of the ’09 package. While development of the car did lead to better late-season form, the decision had already been made to withdraw from F1, leaving Heidfeld out of a job. Despite such an uncompetitive machine, Heidfeld did record yet another 2nd place finish in the monsoon conditions of Sepang. Those oft-quoted Heidfeld adjectives came to mind; Solid, dependable, reliable, consistent. It’s no wonder Heidfeld holds the record for most consecutive finishes in F1 races. With such a record, how was it that Heidfeld was unable to find a seat on the 2010 grid, whereas Kubica (who Heidfeld beat again) was able to land the lead driver position at Renault? Was it due to Heidfeld’s other records, that of the driver with the most F1 championship points without a win, the most 2nd places without a win, the most podiums without a win?

Every F1 team wants to believe that given the right car, their driver can win races, even if they are the 11th fastest team on the grid. Does his lack of a winner’s trophy make Heidfeld any less worthy of a 2010 seat than Heikki Kovalainen or Jarno Trulli? Did a career built on reliability and results, and a good record against illustrious teammates, not even earn him a place at a Sauber or Force India? Ever since his first foray into F1, Heidfeld will feel that the limelight was always reserved for his contemporaries, whether it was Montoya and his tie up with Williams and Chip Ganassi, Raikkonen getting the McLaren drive he felt belonged to him, Kubica receiving the plaudits at BMW or Schumacher, Rosberg, Vettel and even Hulkenburg being the more celebrated Germans.

I doubt we’ve seen the last of Nick Heidfeld in an F1 race seat, but maybe we’ve already seen the best that he has to offer in a car that could, and should have made him a winner. Yes we remember the move around the outside of Fernando Alonso’s McLaren at Bahrain in 2007, and yes we remember Nick was the first driver in 31 years to take an F1 car to the Nordschleife. But as it stands, a driver who showed much early promise and clearly justified his place in F1, may be remembered more for what he did not achieve.

Notable Absentees: Kimi Raikkonen 20/03/10

2010-03-20T11:42:00.000Z

In 2009 it became clear very early on that Kimi Raikkonen was not going to see out the full term of his Ferrari contract. Despite neither Kimi nor Felipe Massa starting the season particularly well, the perception had always been that Raikkonen lacked commitment and ambition having already achieved world champion status. What had never been in doubt was the talent at Kimi’s disposal, and however much you had read that on his day Raikkonen was unbeatable, those occurrences became few and far between.

In his last year at Ferrari, Raikkonen did record his customary victorious performance at Spa Francorchamps, albeit after a race-long battle with Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella. This was an indication of how troubled the 2009 Ferrari F60 was, but Kimi and the team’s sole win of the season came among a short string of impressive results. Being partnered with Badoer, then Fisichella, seemed to spur Raikkonen on to squeeze the best out of a bad car in the last third of the year but it was never going to be enough to keep Alonso from usurping his seat. It was also not enough to guarantee him a drive anywhere else for 2010. There was interest in him from Mercedes GP and more obviously McLaren, but Kimi’s attempts to keep himself in a seat for 2010 seemed somewhat obligatory instead of voluntary. Reports of unreasonable wage demands and low-responsibility contracts inevitably resulted in Raikkonen being left standing when the music stopped.

Should F1 have done more to try and keep one of its most recent and well-supported champions in a seat for 2010? Surely in a year where every top team seems to have a world champion incumbent or at least a serious challenger, Raikkonen could only have added to the hype and the spectacle? This raises the question of where he could have gone, having spurned opportunities to sign for Mercedes and McLaren. Undoubtedly the return of Michael Schumacher is a bigger draw than a former world champion who seems borderline uninterested, so realistically the only other teams that could offer Kimi a tilt at race wins would be Williams and Renault, neither of which would have been able or prepared to pay what Kimi’s management were asking. Not even close.

With his heart turning towards more extreme forms of motorsport able to provide greater thrills than finishing anywhere below 1st in an F1 race, Kimi Raikkonen became a World Rally Championship driver in 2010. After Juan Pablo Montoya’s exit from F1 in 2006, Kimi’s is probably the greatest loss to the sport in recent years. While he may not have been a modern F1 driver in the commercial sense of the word, unsuitable for the demands of many teams, ironically Raikkonen had great personality specifically in his widely perceived lack of it. Without question one of the fastest, most gifted and cleanest drivers throughout the years, when Raikkonen got it right in 2007 he did it his way. While the McLaren duo of Hamilton and Alonso depleted each other, Raikkonen wrapped up the title with win after win.

Depending on who you talk to, Raikkonen should probably already be a 3-time world champion instead of that solitary title in 2007. A late change in tyre rules in 2003 swung the championship away from him and McLaren towards Schumacher and Ferrari. Furthermore, in 2005 Raikkonen and McLaren had the fastest car on the grid, but early season reliability woes allowed Fernando Alonso and Renault to amass an unassailable points advantage despite the fact that Raikkonen scored as many wins that year as the eventual champion. No F1 fan will ever forget what was arguably the greatest victory in modern F1, a last lap pass on Giancarlo Fisichella for the lead at the mighty racing temple that is Suzuka in 2005, having started 17th on the grid. Here’s to the future return of another great F1 champion, who completed his slow descent out of the limelight after being thrust into it so suddenly.

Bahrain Grand Prix 2010 - 15/03/10

2010-03-15T13:34:00.000Z

The first race of a Formula 1 season is usually very exciting due to regulation changes. Usually. It’s not enough to just label a season as the most exciting prospect in recent memory, you have to cite reasons for such billing. The opportunity to see two-time world champion Fernando Alonso in a potentially championship winning team would allow us to witness again what a supreme driver can do in a supreme car. Add to that the chance to finally compare champions like Button and Hamilton to each other, and more importantly to the legendary benchmark that is Michael Schumacher. The lack of refuelling for 2010 means that a driver’s ability to effectively manage pace, tyre life as well as other systems will be of particular significance and reduce the need for multiple pit stops. Pre-season testing suggested that many cars would be close together on pace with a few surprises, and the new teams well out of the equation. So exactly how much of the above was really expected to create a scintillating spectacle of overtaking and high drama?

With a few small exceptions, qualifying ensured that the fastest drivers in the fastest cars were ahead of the slightly-less faster drivers in similar or slower machines. Without KERS-tastic rockets, a more traditional F1 start meant no big surprises on the run down to turn 1. Sebastian Vettel got away well from pole while Alonso hung around the outside of Massa in turn 1, giving him the inside and 2nd place for turn 2. Rosberg passed Hamilton for 4th shortly after Lewis was given the squeeze by Massa leading up to turn 3. Mark Webber’s Red Bull emitted thick plumes of smoke from the back resulting in Schumacher passing him for 6th. Webber’s race would have been further compromised had Robert Kubica and Adrian Sutil not touched and spun, probably as a result of reduced visibility.

Vettel generally extended the gap to Alonso, while Fernando did the same to Massa. Not a great deal else happened up front until the pit stops around lap 14 to 16. In previous years, due to a lighter fuel load at the end of a stint, it had been more effective for cars to pit later than those around them. Conversely, this year the earlier stoppers have the advantage due to an ever-decreasing fuel load and fresh tyres at the start of a stint. With some slick pit work, the McLaren team had Hamilton stationary for just 4.5 seconds and therefore he jumped Nico Rosberg who stopped a lap later, for 4th. Similarly, Jenson Button who had been following Schumacher and Webber at a conservative distance managed to jump Webber for 7th in the pits. Mark will be rueing another weekend where Vettel’s performance hinted at the chasm between their destinies as Red Bull drivers, having had his average qualifying and bad start compounded by being held up by Schumacher, then Button jumping him in the stops. Button himself later lamented not pushing harder on his softer tyres having tried too hard to preserve them leading up to his pit stop.

On the harder tyres, the Ferraris and especially Alonso, seemed to have more for Vettel. At one stage Alonso took nearly a second out of Vettel after a gentle reeling, but due to the high track temperatures, tyre wear and dirty air, Alonso was staying out of Vettel’s slipstream to preserve his machinery. It was as if he rebounded off a protective field around the leading car and fell into Massa’s grasp briefly, a worrying omen for 2010. On lap 30 it became obvious that Vettel’s Red Bull was ailing having shed a piece of exhaust, and consequently power, at an alarming rate. He was summarily swallowed up by Alonso, then Massa. While there were laps where Alonso closed on the leading Red Bull, and despite Fernando stating he was preparing and preserving his car for an all-out attack on Vettel in the last 10 laps, he had to admit it would have been “Difficult” to catch and pass the incredible German. Subsequently, Lewis Hamilton also passed the slowing Red Bull after a period of great pace that saw him leave Rosberg’s Mercedes behind. According to Rosberg, Vettel’s Red Bull had such good levels of downforce that he couldn’t make any time on him in the closing stages through the new twisty middle sector of the Sakhir track. Rosberg had no doubt taken some significant life out of his tyres catching Vettel.

So it was that Fernando Alonso, like Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, endeared himself to the Tifosi and his new team by closing out his debut GP for Ferrari with some very fast laps, stretching the gap to Massa into double figures. Unlike Raikkonen though, Alonso didn’t need a wake up call from his crew on the radio to prevent him falling asleep in the lead. Massa himself claimed he was asked to look after his car, reporting high temperatures. Hamilton completed the podium with Vettel holding off Rosberg for 4th. Would it not be damning for the current crop of drivers and teams to have Michael Schumacher, 41 years old and 3 years away from racing, to step back in and waltz to the front of the pack? A sixth place finish for Schumi is a more than acceptable and worthy return given what he is up against, the nature of the regulations and competition ensuring he didn’t get any higher (or lower) than 6th place once the stops were done. He will only get better and closer to Rosberg and the rest.

The new teams had the kind of day that you would expect, the experienced drivers staying out of trouble for the most part in young and fragile cars, while mechanical gremlins claimed a good proportion of the newcomers. Glock was probably the fastest of the new teams’ drivers, but Lotus managed to get both Trulli and Kovalainen to the finish. Nico Hulkenburg and Vitaly Petrov had a predictably hard time, but at least Petrov had a great start to run 11th early on and Kubica proved the Renault does have decent pace. Rubens Barrichello brought his late-stopping Williams home in 10th place for a point, just behind Liuzzi who had a solid run in a Force India that will be a thorn in the side of any misfiring top team. Sauber will justifiably be disappointed in how the season has opened for them, their pace from testing promised much but delivered little, both Kobayashi and De La Rosa retiring from the race having never threatened the points scorers. Jaime Alguersuari showed that he was closer to Buemi at Toro Rosso than last year, and that will undoubtedly be an interesting story to follow as the season wears on.

And interesting stories appear to be the main theme of the 2010 season opener, not thrilling on-track action. The level of excitement and satisfaction viewers derived from Sunday’s opening GP will be directly proportionate to what their expectations were. As mentioned previously, opening races are usually exciting, but more often than not that is a result of them being held at Albert Park. Last time Bahrain played host to the inaugural race of the season in 2006, Fernando Alonso came out of his second pit stop mere centimetres ahead of Michael Schumacher and held on through turn 1 to secure first place and a subsequent victory. That was it, a flash of excitement in the closing stages of, Rosberg’s debut aside, an otherwise mostly unremarkable race at the front. The worry is that this year, without the introduction of a mandatory second pit stop or more variation in the tyre compounds, the flash of excitement will occur only at the start leaving viewers praying for rain and failures. Expect a few changes to have been set in motion by the time we reach Australia in a fortnight’s time.

2010 Season Preview (Part 3) - 15/03/10

2010-03-15T11:09:00.001Z

Toro Rosso

This is the first season where Scuderia Toro Rosso can be considered a proper constructor, no longer using the same chassis as Red Bull Racing. Naturally their 2010 offering can be seen to be an evolution of last year’s Adrian Newey design, but how much longer will Dietrich Mateschitz be able to justify the expense of the second team? Much of that will be down to how Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari build on their 2009 campaigns. If either of those two prove capable of breaking into the points and performing above the other midfield runners, thereby staking a claim to a Red Bull Racing seat alongside Vettel for next year, the Toro Rosso project will still hold relevance. As for this season, a strong Ferrari engine will hopefully hold its own against the Cosworth teams who may experience some teething troubles with their package early on, allowing STR to break free.

Buemi started 2009 strongly, and ended the year with flashes of promise while not quite shining throughout. This year he will have to pick up where the last one left off, minus collisions with teammates, minus decorating vital parts of the track with debris and ruining qualifying for championship challengers. Buemi could be one of the rare breed of F1 drivers who never quite excelled in lower formulae, but on his day can outperform the car. A consistent run of results at that level will see him prolong his career. Alguersuari on the other hand was the youngest ever winner of the British F3 title and the youngest ever driver of an F1 car. Thrown in at the deep end, last year’s Japanese GP saw him sink a little beneath the surface with multiple big shunts. A winter break and a proper pre-season testing opportunity should allow Alguersuari to demonstrate the talent he has this year compared to his teammate.

Lotus

Norfolk’s finest make a return to F1 in 2010 sixteen years after pulling out, but this is definitely no longer Colin Chapman’s team. Tony Fernandes, Air Asia supremo, is the force behind this return and has already shown us glimpses of what to expect by taking jibes about “Proton F1” in his stride, as well as publicly accepting a wager with Virgin’s Richard Branson where the losing team owner will dress up as a female flight attendant. This sense of humour may well come in useful as Lotus have struggled to get their car ready in time for pre-season testing and will undoubtedly play catch-up from day one. Mike Gascoyne will be leading the technical effort and will be hoping to repeat his former successes with start-up operations and low budget racing. The T127 will be running a Cosworth engine, yet there will be question marks surrounding overall reliability and performance. Lotus will be hoping to snap at the heels of midfield regulars at best.

As for the driver line-up, of the new teams Lotus clearly have the most desirable pairing in Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen. Both have driven for huge teams and won one race apiece, both are considered experienced and without a doubt a major catch for a new team. Neither Trulli nor Kovalainen have demonstrated the consistency to challenge for a title or even maintain top form for any sustained period of time, but Mike Gascoyne retains faith in the drivers he has previously worked with. He will be hoping the sporadic flashes of brilliance from both drivers over their careers so far can be melded into a productive series of results for a team whose name and heritage attract as much support as it does pressure.

Virgin

Having successfully backed the right horse for his first foray into F1 in 2009, Richard Branson and his Virgin empire have transferred their backing from Brawn GP to what was Manor GP for 2010, creating Virgin Racing. To assume that Branson and co are bringing huge funding to the table is a mistake though, as Virgin are clearly more interested in succeeding on a budget. To that end, the use of a windtunnel has been completely forsaken by Virgin racing and chief designer, Nick Wirth. Virgin are focusing purely on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for the design and development of their cars. This is a first for F1 and Virgin will be hoping that their progress will justify the 100% CFD route, casting doubt on the need for 24 hour windtunnel usage by the established F1 teams.

The driving duties fall to Toyota refugee Timo Glock and multiple GP2 race winner Lucas di Grassi. Glock’s quality and drive are unquestioned, having impressed in just about every formula he’s participated in. The chance to be team leader and de facto #1 at a team is of course appealing, but this is clearly a step backwards for Glock who was a genuine podium challenger over the last two years. Di Grassi is the unknown quantity despite race wins and championship tilts in GP2 as well as spending time as Renault F1 test driver. Di Grassi finished second in the GP2 championship to Timo Glock in 2007, where Glock already looked the better driver if a little more prone to incidents. The Toyota F1 experience will no doubt mean that Glock will comfortably outperform Di Grassi this year. One just hopes that when the Virgin drivers radio the pits citing technical issues they are not redirected to a Mumbai call centre where they are promised an engineer will be sent out a week on Wednesday.

Hispania

Campos Meta 1, now Hispania Racing Team, could not have left it later to arrive on the 2010 grid. Dallara chassis and Cosworth engine, a complete lack of testing for the drivers and the team mean that they are almost guaranteed to be the weakest of the new teams, at least initially. Jose Ramon Carabante’s purchase of the squad helped place HRT on the grid in place of USF1. Team principal of HRT, Colin Kolles, will undoubtedly bring some much needed F1 experience to the outfit having progressed beyond the days of being labelled ‘Chavski’ at Midland F1.

Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok renew a driving partnership first conceived at GP2 championship winning team i-Sport in 2008. Neither Senna nor Chandhok won the GP2 title, but Senna did come very close eventually being pipped by Giorgio Pantano, the only GP2 champion not to make it into F1 after being crowned. The return of the Senna name to F1, stirring as it is, is far more low key than the Brawn GP 2009 deal that never happened. It is a given that Bruno will have many fans and well-wishers throughout the season, but this is the stage that his career has fired him towards. It is also the stage where final judgement will be passed on his merits as a driver with a famous name. As for Chandhok, one really wonders how much preparation he has had for the Bahrain opener. Will Vijay Mallya be keeping a close eye on his progress as a future replacement for Liuzzi at Force India? Neither driver will be short of support, but the rest of the F1 fraternity will not welcome a team whose very first run of the car will be during first practice at Sakhir.

2010 Season Preview (Part 2) - 27/02/10

2010-02-27T14:46:00.000Z

Renault

With Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds and Fernando Alonso all having left Renault during the last year for obvious reasons, it is impossible to believe that those giants of past Renault success will not be sorely missed. The implications of Crashgate on corporate sponsorship are also evident in this year’s Renault livery. The team will be hoping that the lack of KERS complications and compromises will make for a season far better than 2009’s sole podium and devastating scandal was able to provide.

The capture of Robert Kubica is a major positive for Renault, and should be celebrated by fans of the team as tremendously positive. No longer shackled by his perceived lack of title and winning ambition from BMW-Sauber, coupled with a team that knows how to win championships, Kubica is expected to mature and flourish into a proper team leader. The speed is not in doubt, one hopes Renault can provide the rest despite all of the above legacies. Whether Kubica will stay at Renault if it proves a difficult year is another matter. The second Renault belongs to Vitaly Petrov, the first Russian F1 driver in history. While Petrov is bringing finance to the team, Renault have been quick to suggest it is a fraction of the seasonal budget for the team. Petrov was the 2009 GP2 runner up, but Romain Grosjean and Nelson Piquet Jr have already shown that GP2 success does not immediately translate to F1 success.

Williams

Williams F1 have passed through another short period of manufacturer engine supply to team up with Cosworth again for 2010, Toyota’s withdrawal from F1 and the dropping of Kazuki Nakajima being contributors to this decision. There is a worry from Williams that the same costly unreliability that plagued their early 2006 performance advantage with Cosworth will return for the start of 2010, however without the performance advantage.

Rubens Barrichello brings his considerable F1 experience to Williams as championship runner up and off the back of one of his most glittering seasons. Barrichello will probably struggle to match the highs of last season unless Williams have produced their best car in years, and if they have, Rubens has demonstrated that he still has the capacity to win races and put up a fight. While Rubens may finally enjoy unofficial number one status at Williams, the team will be grateful for his renowned ability to set a car up considering the fact that his teammate is German prodigy Nico Hulkenburg. The young rookie has a marvellous record in feeder formula series, boasting a GP2 championship, a Euro F3 championship, a dominant A1GP title and even exclusion from Formula BMW finals for questionable driving. There was never a doubt about his F1 trajectory, he has enough talent and testing experience to make a real impact this year.

BMW Sauber

While the name remains, the manufacturer does not. Peter Sauber has bought back his old team in order to ensure their position on the 2010 grid. After a thoroughly disappointing season for BMW in which they were expected to blossom as genuine title contenders, the board decided that F1 was no longer a justified activity and they withdrew. That withdrawal means Ferrari will be supplying the engines for the C29 with apparently little objection to the BMW name still being in evidence for the time being.

Sauber have hired long-time McLaren tester Pedro De La Rosa as lead driver for his technical knowledge and vast experience. From winter testing it seems that the C29 has a very strong baseline upon which to build which is good news for De La Rosa. Luca Badoer’s, and less recently Alex Wurz’s, experience in an F1 race seat have clearly not worried Peter Sauber who has faith in De La Rosa’s ability to help develop a car. This may well be due to the fact that in the other car Sauber has employed the eye-catching late-season debutant Kamui Kobayashi. Star performances at Interlagos and Abu Dhabi put Kobayashi firmly on the map, and the withdrawal of Toyota made him (and their 2010 grid slot) available. Kamui is the first Japanese driver for a while who is hired on the basis of his ability and promise alone, instead of as the by-product of an engine deal or a country’s desire to start a team for their national hero. Sauber may well be hoping that De La Rosa, 39, is able to fine tune an already promising car into a competitive machine for the racy, aggressive and fearless Kobayashi.

Force India

Is this the year that everyone really takes Vijay Mallya and Force India seriously? Podiums, points and front row starts in 2009 which were certainly no fluke have added greatly to Force India’s credibility. This season their launch was earlier as was their testing debut leading to a feeling in the team that 2010 will start positively and that points will be a regular possibility on all types of circuit. Having incorporated the double diffuser from birth, the VJM03 should build on the improvements of late 2009.

Both Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi have been retained for this year, the continuity of which will do Force India no harm at all. Considering what was possible at Spa and Monza for Force India in 2009, if this year’s car allows Sutil and Liuzzi to mix it with the points scorers more often, it really is the last chance make or break season for these guys. As the team grow stronger by the year, their ability to attract the fastest drivers will increase, so Sutil and Liuzzi really must show that their own game has risen to the point that potential opportunities are closed out with points and podiums whenever possible. Sutil will probably have the edge over Liuzzi, but episodes like Singapore will have to disappear from Adrian’s equation if his career is to take the next step. Newly-appointed reserve driver Paul Di Resta is a real talent with a fantastic record in Euro F3 and DTM, limited testing will mean he has little opportunity to stake his claim for a race seat, but the extra pressure on Liuzzi and Sutil is there already.

2010 Season Preview (Part 1) - 25/02/10

2010-02-25T23:22:00.000Z

Mercedes GP

The Deutsche Dream Team, the reigning constructors’ champions Brawn GP have sold a majority stake holding to Mercedes and have successfully drawn 7-times world champion Michael Schumacher out of retirement, complete with a healthy neck. For first signing Nico Rosberg, this move was always going to be the defining of his career and legacy, either he would be current champion Button’s teammate, former champion Raikkonen’s partner or legend Schumacher’s fellow Merc driver. Despite Barrichello’s open statement of warning to Rosberg, one fails to see how Felipe Massa has suffered from his time as Schumacher’s teammate. However, whether Nico forms a similar bond with a newer, hungrier, recharged Schumi and endears himself to the Brackley squad, this key moment and period in Rosberg’s career could be the beginning of the end of it. Rosberg will be hoping to steal a march on his teammate as Schumacher gets up to speed, this is a real opportunity for Nico and must be taken advantage of.

This team last year started off with the best equipment and were still capable of race wins by the end of 2009 despite a relatively tame pace of development, a credit to the racing nous of Ross Brawn and his men. If their 2010 offering has had anything like the input of the BGP-001, and Mercedes have contributed healthily to the budget, there is true potential here. Although it should be remembered that one of the main reasons Mercedes bought into Brawn GP was their ability to succeed on a tighter budget than McLaren.

Red Bull Racing

Having tasted the sweetness of a championship battle as a constructor, having had Adrian Newey’s modern and ambitious design philosophy vindicated, having a blistering talent such as Sebastian Vettel mature into a serious and intense championship prospect and multiple race winner, having Mark Webber returning to full fitness and fresh with race winning confidence, Red Bull have just had the season BMW-Sauber dreamed of. However, with the shifting of expectations and the transitory nature of F1’s hierarchy, RBR can only be aiming to have a season that Brawn GP enjoyed in 2009.

Another season consisting of race victories may be the Promised Land for most of the grid, but Dietrich Mateschitz will expect a serious championship challenge unhampered by unreliability and costly mistakes on the racetrack. There is no reason to believe that Red Bull should not be able to build another superb car, without the need to incorporate a double diffuser mid-season resulting in compromised packaging or design. Without the car advantage RBR enjoyed last year over most teams, Mark Webber may find it hard to win races this season but Vettel is now an accepted title challenger and most likely will be for years to come.

Ferrari

In the Latin corner, weighing in mere milligrams above the (non-vetoed) regulation minimum weight, Ferrari poise themselves for what could be a serious title fight. Double world champion Fernando Alonso joins his third team in four years in a bid to add to his drivers’ titles. Once again Alonso is joining a huge team where his teammate has already firmly established roots. Fernando will be hoping the leadership, speed, focused desire and consistency of top form for which he has become renowned will swing Maranello favour in his direction. The Tifosi will take to him with ease and he will be expected to deliver immediately. If the Ferrari F10 is born a winner, Alonso’s unquestionable duty is to make it a champion.

It will be Felipe Massa’s job to stop him. The new era of no team orders at Ferrari means the boy from Brazil will be given every opportunity to use his team knowledge and hard-earned status within Maranello to give Alonso a repeat of 2007. There appear to be no lasting effects from Massa’s Hungaroring horror, but maybe that can only truly be assessed throughout a Grand Prix weekend. If indeed he is fully recovered and Ferrari have delivered a gem, then this is a huge year for Felipe. Once again partnering a multiple world champion, Massa has enough on his side, and no excuse behind which to hide.

McLaren

Once again McLaren will carry the #1 on their car, this time as a result of hiring current world champion Jenson Button to drive alongside the team talisman, Lewis Hamilton. The creation of this British F1 super-team allowed Mercedes to form Team Germany GP with Schumacher, in the process making McLaren a customer instead of a partner. Like Ferrari, it is expected that the removal of KERS systems on the McLaren will allow for a much less compromised design and rediscovered form, even though McLaren were at the sharp end again towards the latter part of 2009.

Much has been made of Jenson Button’s move to McLaren with just about every nuance of its conception drawing criticism. He’s moved for more money, but Ross Brawn would have paid him more. He’s stupid to take on Hamilton in his own back yard, but Button has said it was time for a new challenge. Unlike the situation in 2007 where Alonso partnered Hamilton, Lewis will be expected to beat Jenson convincingly this year, such is the predominant opinion on their respective talents. Button however has a marvellous opportunity to augment his reputation as a world champion who lucked into a brilliant car. If he doesn’t match Hamilton everywhere, he will have the excuse of new surroundings. If he beats Hamilton as much as he gets beaten, his stock will rise even further. Jenson’s kindness to tyres is expected to serve him well in a season where cars will run the whole race without refuelling. Lewis is expected to step up from a character-building year and use more of his newfound maturity to become world champion again.

Brazilian Grand Prix 2009 Part 2- 27/10/09

2009-10-28T00:43:00.000Z

With the celebrations in full swing at Interlagos, and Jenson Button having been on fire as opposed to his ‘08 Honda, it was easy to forget what else transpired in Brazil. Excluding Michael Schumacher’s memorable charge through the Interlagos field during his 2006 swansong, the last time we saw such an impressive aggressive scalpel cut through the field was Nico Rosberg on his Bahrain debut in the same year. On the way to setting the fastest lap of the race, we were afforded a glimpse of a future champion, or so we thought. But is it fair to have expected Nico to have achieved more in the three and a half years since then?

This season has predictably been a case of horses for courses, and Williams’s constant early season chart-topping practice performances flattered to deceive. Having said that, Rosberg has produced a consistent string of good points finishes just short of a podium during a season where many teams have had flashes of frontrunning competitiveness. What is not in question is that having been fastest in Q2 and running in a podium position, Williams and Rosberg should have left Brazil with more than one broken gearbox and Nakajima’s crushed FW31.

Nakajima was helped into race and possibly career retirement by Toyota debutant Kamui Kobayashi, who despite that ‘racing incident’ had a promising weekend. His positive exposure was of course helped awfully by the fact that his most noteworthy battle was with the world champion elect, but Kamui didn’t disappoint. He fought Button without a hint of appearing out of his depth, not to mention having qualified in an accomplished 11th place. Toyota will have been eager to have Glock back in the car for Abu Dhabi as it will be the sort of track that suits his abilities. As Kobayashi remains in the Toyota, his undoubtedly impressed employers will ask for more care and courtesy in braking zones, Kamui has already made his point and his claim. It should not however be forgotten that Nakajima himself made an interesting debut at Interlagos not so long ago, and is now staring an F1 exit full in the face. Longevity and success in Formula 1 is about much more than a memorable debut, something Nico Rosberg knows all too well.

The second Toyota of Jarno Trulli and Adrian Sutil’s Force India were involved in another quite spectacular ‘racing incident’ very early on that also accounted for Fernando Alonso’s Renault. The resulting safety car rescued Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen’s afternoon. Hamilton was able to use a stop under safety car conditions to effectively eliminate the weaker tyre stage and move onto a strong one stop strategy. Starting 17th, finishing 3rd and passing a desperate Rubens Barrichello was also worthy of being called a champion’s drive. It’s a shame that Lewis’s pass on Rubens resulted in a puncture for the home favourite, effectively handing the title to Button. On the podium, it seemed that Hamilton was bereft of any joy amidst the realisation that he was no longer the world champion, no longer driver of car number 1.

Aside from world championships, big screen debuts, massive crashes and pitlane flash fires, someone actually won the race. Mark Webber qualified his Red Bull second with a strategic fuel load, allowed Rubens to lead the first stint and passed him during the pitstops while the entertainment unfolded behind him. Webber’s whole weekend and race victory was massive for him, but as events transpired, somewhat inconsequential in the closing context of 2009. This is a shame because as all eyes were elsewhere, he was quietly achieving what people had placed far above him throughout his career. Presumably, with a fully healed leg and race victories now under his belt, an improved 2010 Red Bull (Cosworth?) will be Webber’s last chance at a championship. One feels however that if the next Adrian Newey creation is a reliable frontrunner, it will be championed by Sebastian Vettel, who has silently transformed from a Little Britain-quoting darling of the paddock to a very serious and intense Formula 1 driver, worthy of all the fear and respect the others can afford.

Brazilian Grand Prix 2009 - 26/10/09

2009-10-26T11:05:00.000Z

It´s the Brazilian Grand Prix and the home favourite, the title challenger, started on pole position. The Englishman in car 22 is within touching distance of his first world championship. Inevitably it ends in heartbreak for the thousands of Paulistas gathered there to cheer on He Who Would Emulate Ayrton. The Englishman in his British car and its German heart finished 5th, finally having passed the labouring but impressive and combative Toyota, but behind the flying young German wonderkid and his energy drink, the star of the future. That was 2008.

In 2009, history saw fit to shatter those collected hearts once more as Jenson Button driving a Brawn Mercedes joined Lewis Hamilton and his McLaren Mercedes on the champions´ list. This was no cruise-to-collect drive though, Button forcefully and purposefully overcame the obstacles of his own creation to seal the title in resonating fashion. Some called it a champion’s drive, and certainly pulling off that many aggressive overtaking moves with so much at stake, climbing from 14th to 5th in the process was the mark of a tremendous driver. However, in a slightly alternate championship context it could have been viewed so differently. After all, without Barrichello’s puncture, all 3 of Button’s title rivals would have finished ahead of him with Vettel even getting in front having started behind.

As it was though, the championship situation was such that Jenson only needed to come home with a handful of points to wrap up the prize, and instead he blasted his way through the midfield and into respectable points. Despite Rubens starting on pole and scampering away, despite Webber’s magnificent chase and overhaul of Barrichello, despite Hamilton’s incredible rise from 17th to 3rd, Jenson hogged the camera and thrilled with his textbook manoeuvres which is more than can be said for Trulli and Sutil, Rubens and Lewis, Kobayashi and Nakajima. Button’s recent woeful qualifying performances remain the sole question mark over an otherwise faultless campaign.

How deserving Button is of the title has somehow become a topic of debate in the latter half of the year. Undoubtedly, world champions in their hallmark season are expected to challenge for race wins at practically every meeting, but Button’s pace in qualifying has restricted him to midfield starts and mountains to climb on race day. A string of 9 races yielding only one podium stands in stark contrast to six wins out of seven races at the start of the season. Nevertheless, mountains he has climbed. Button has on nearly every occasion moved forward during the race and kept out of trouble, constantly putting pressure on his title rivals to push it as far as it can go because they know Jenson will always score points and barring the odd Grosjean, finish.

Facts are nice, they can support either side of the argument for a worthy champion. As well as the aforementioned downturn in race victories, the facts show that in his championship season Button has so far won more races and had more fastest laps than Hamilton did in 2008, he’s had fewer penalties, he hasn’t caused any controversial accidents or performed any questionable race antics. As expected, Hamilton’s qualifying record is better in his championship year than Button’s, 7 poles to 4. This season alone Button has twice as many wins as his nearest competitor (Vettel), the same number of poles and fastest laps as his nearest competitor (Vettel), but you know what they say about statistics. The overall picture, and fact, is that Jenson Button is the most deserving recipient of the World Championship this year. How that stacks up against previous world championship campaigns by drivers such as Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen however, is a different story.

Italian Grand Prix 2009 - 17/09/09

2009-09-17T18:43:00.000+01:00

Beneath the growing shadow of Renault’s race-fixing allegations, the 2009 Italian Grand Prix took place. This was a race of returns. The return on McLaren’s enormous investment into the originally woeful MP-4/24 was a return for Lewis Hamilton to the front of the grid in recent events, re-united with Adrian Sutil on the front row of a race event at Monza. The return of the Brawn team to the top steps of the podium in 2009, which has sounded the death knell for Red Bull’s championship aspirations. The return of the old Jordan crew, now Force India, to giant-killing ways has led to the return of Vitantonio Liuzzi to the limelight in Formula 1. Finally the return of the ghost of Nelson Piquet Jr’s 2008 Singapore GP has resulted in the resignation of Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds. In fact, just about the only team not making headlines at the Italian Grand Prix was Ferrari.

From 1st and 4th on the Monza grid, McLaren would have expected better than having Hamilton leapfrogged by the Brawns and subsequently binning it on the last lap as well as having Kovalainen suffer such a catastrophic opening stint. Heikki and McLaren failed to make his one stop strategy benefit them over the race distance in the way that Barrichello, Button and Raikkonen were able to profit from theirs, adding to the ever-growing list of disappointing race day outcomes for the McLaren No.2. Lewis delivered all that could be expected of him in his first and second stints, and even for the best part of the third stint. Opinion is very split down the middle as to the wisdom of Hamilton’s end of race rampage and the subsequent shrapnel. While many have flocked to the defence of World Champion Hamilton’s unyielding racing spirit, equally as many have questioned the risking of 6 driver’s and constructor’s points in addition to the associated financial bonus and podium glory on the last lap when Button was seemingly uncatchable. On the one hand you can understand that his competitors realise he will push beyond a reasonable limit right up until the very last yard and that has its benefits for Hamilton, but on the other hand it has granted them a psychological footnote that on the ragged edge, at a crucial time in a race even with full focus, Lewis is still capable of dropping the ball spectacularly. One thing you cannot dispute is the entertainment value of having a driver like this in F1, and any attraction to the racing side of the sport is thoroughly welcome this season.

Conversely, Brawn GP will be ecstatic at how the Monza weekend unfolded for them. Their textbook execution of a smart one-stop strategy beginning with a positive and forceful opening lap for both Barrichello and Button has catapulted them once again into the sole championship spotlight. Rubens had the better weekend, qualifying ahead of Button with a lap more worth of juice and making the tyres work for him throughout the stints, unlike Button who struggled in the opening section of each stint only to find better pace towards the latter half of each segment. While Brawn may secretly have hoped for Jenson to take the lion’s share of the points in order to tie up both championships as soon as possible thereby allowing them to focus entirely on next year, Rubens winning races and showing his most ebullient racing colours can only be good for overall team morale and Formula 1. Seeing a downtrodden, suspicious Rubens end his career in the shadow of his teammate (again) is far less preferable than having two previously forgotten drivers going at it hammer and tongs for the rest of the season in marvellous machinery while having the greatest of respect for each other. Those who are supporting Jenson will also be greatly heartened to see him defeat a resurgent Barrichello in the final races of the season and really wrap up the title in style. Melbourne-style, Bahrain-style, Barcelona-style, Turkey-style, Monaco-style. Jenson had the last (unintentional) Monza laugh though when he inadvertently questioned the sexual persuasion of the second Lesmo corner during the TV press conference. Watch and listen carefully to the world feed at around 2’33.

This week’s episode of the Ferrari vs Force India war was waged between Kimi Raikkonen and Adrian Sutil. In hindsight one cannot help but feel that a lap or two’s worth of extra fuel may really have paid dividends for Sutil seeing as how Kimi was always going to rocket ahead of him and the way things went for Kovalainen and his cumbersome fuel load. An extra lap on low fuel for Sutil could have made all the difference. As it happens though, when Sutil is facing the possibility of points and there is a hint of Kimi in the air, he must hit something. Sure enough, the unfortunate recipient was one of Sutil’s own pit crew. With Ferrari and Raikkonen also botching their pit stop, this was the moment that slick Force India pitwork would have reaped the sweetest reward, but it was not to be. BBC’s featured coverage of Force India pit stops to the calming soundtrack of Sigur Ros in their pre-race build-ups may well need to be broadcast in the Force India briefings! Unwarranted ridicule aside, this was a tremendous result and follow-up performance by Force India when you consider the mightily impressive return of Tonio Liuzzi in the sister car. Qualifying 7th on his 2009 debut and going so well in the race, he deserved better than a retirement. Liuzzi has however placed himself firmly back on the F1 map, capably occupying the seat vacated by Ferrari newboy Fisichella whose own Italian GP weekend was undoubtedly disappointing for him.

No current piece of F1 writing is complete without a mention of the Renault race-fixing scandal sadly, and the consequences of the aftermath will be long-remembered. Fernando Alonso’s name is once again linked to thoroughly distasteful sporting malpractice after a painful season spent rebuilding a tarnished reputation. One hopes for his sake and that of F1 that what emerges over the next few days does not tar him the way Michael Schumacher’s transgressions coloured people’s view of his glittering and worthy career.

All eyes on Romain Grosjean at the 2009 Grand Prix of Singapore…

Late Season Thoughts - 12/09/09

2009-09-12T23:26:00.000+01:00

After a conqueror’s start to the 2009 campaign, Jenson Button and Brawn GP have begun to face question marks being raised against their title credentials and overall worthiness of an inevitable championship. While recent results have brought his title run-in under unwelcomed scrutiny, Button is yet to throw away valuable points or wins by going off the circuit on the first lap and handing the lead to a rival, needlessly over-defending a position at the end of a race resulting in retirement and sacrificing a certain podium, engage the anti-stall on the starting grid multiple times, incur a race penalty through questionable driving and causing accidents, spin off during a wet race with a high attrition rate, try to have another driver and team penalised for unavoidable action under a safety car or publicly lambast his team strategy. Every win that was there for the taking has been taken. His is a championship lead earned and deserved, but regardless of all the above, history will judge his season on the smaller percentage that remains.

There have been some notable casualties in Formula 1 this year in all areas including drivers, management and even a whole manufacturer. Following McLaren’s Melbourne Muppetry, Ron Dennis stepped out of the light and Martin Whitmarsh, Dave Ryan and Lewis Hamilton rightfully bore the public brunt of their misdemeanour. This of course was conveniently being forgotten about until Renault’s recent issue with Nelson Piquet Jr reminded us what plagues F1. Piquet’s overdue sacking earned Romain Grosjean an early F1 baptism, but his debut outings were spared intense public analysis due to Luca Badoer’s woeful performances. Sebastien Bourdais made way for Jaime Alguersuari at Scuderia Toro Rosso to the simultaneous disappointment of some who felt the Frenchman never had the luck required on days where big results were possible, and the relief of those who believed there was no room in F1 for a downbeat so-called champion who could not convincingly show Buemi up as the rookie driver. Of all the departures, BMW-Sauber’s decision to withdraw from Formula 1 at the end of 2009 is the most disappointing. While it’s hard to ever class the BMW-Sauber operation as passionate, their measured positive-gradient-graph approach and success in F1 was great to see as a stark contrast to Scatter Graph Toyota.

Ferrari have demonstrated clearly that there is a right and a wrong time for charitable and emotional decision-making. The sentiments expressed by the team in the wake of Felipe Massa’s freak (and it was freak) accident in Hungary were touching and thoroughly believable. The decision to place Luca Badoer in a race seat for Valencia and Spa Francorchamps in Massa’s absence was slightly less believable. A driver who had, in a previous life, shown no spark of talent worthy of a Ferrari race seat and had been deprived of racing experience for a decade was clearly being rewarded for services rendered. Uncompetitive machinery can only go so far as an excuse since all other recent Ferrari drivers have shone in uncompetitive machinery at some point in their careers. While on the subject of Ferrari drivers’ careers, Kimi Raikkonen has gone from 6 non-scores out of 9 races to claiming three podium finishes on the trot, culminating in a customary yet harassed win at Spa. Giancarlo Fisichella, the driver responsible for the aforementioned harassment, will of course take the second Ferrari race seat from Monza onwards. One hopes this does not turn out to be yet another ill-advised charitable and sentiment-laced decision.

Brazilian Grand Prix 2008 - 15/11/08

2008-11-15T22:25:00.000Z

A little way before the halfway point of the 2008 F1 championship, the season began threatening to become a classic. Having witnessed what will undoubtedly stand as one of the most dramatic, memorable and last-minute championship deciders in the history of Formula 1, that threat has been realised. When Felipe Massa crossed the finish line at Interlagos in 2008 as the race winner, he was world champion. Thirty-nine seconds later, Lewis Hamilton had crossed the same line in 5th position and stolen the title back from Massa by passing Timo Glock's dry-shod Toyota after Juncao corner.

Had Timo Glock and Toyota followed the same strategy as the other frontrunners and pitted for intermediates, he wouldn't have finished as high up as he eventually did, so that was entirely the correct decision for him and his team. It would have stood as an even better decision had the rain not intensified on the final lap. Sebastian Vettel's pass on Lewis Hamilton came about because McLaren had set up Hamilton's car with little downforce. Compared to Vettel's Toro Rosso, the McLaren's wet weather pace was compromised as it was primed for straightline speed.

Vettel and Toro Rosso (not to mention Fernando Alonso and Renault) had put themselves in a position to capitalise on Hamilton's wet weather pace by pitting early for dry weather tyres. Alonso was able to run and finish as high as second due to the early switch. Vettel spent a significant amount of time towards the front as a result of running a light 3-stop strategy. All of the above combined to allow Vettel a shot at Hamilton in the wet closing stages. Demoting Hamilton to 5th, a thrilling finale was set up.

For their part, Ferrari played clean and gave it their best shot. Much blame has been directed the team's way for pit-stop blunders and reliability issues. At Interlagos, Ferrari and Massa were flawless. Felipe led the majority of the race, being headed only during pitstop windows. On Saturday he had stated his intentions with a quite spellbinding laptime for pole position. Kimi Raikkonen came through in third place having been advised to not take risks with second-placed Alonso.

Before the race, McLaren and Lewis Hamilton knew they just had to stay out of trouble and finish fifth or better for the title, which they did. However, to say they had the ball firmly in their own hands to drop would be to disregard the role played by all of the above competitors. Toro Rosso, Renault and Toyota all made key strategic decisions that made the finale what it was. But is it fair to say that Hamilton was lucky to win the title because of the increase in rainfall right at the end? Is it right for Massa to feel robbed?

There are a number of things that must be remembered above all else. The championship was allowed to be decided by racing teams, racing cars and racing drivers doing what they signed up to do best. Racing. There was no political controversy, no questionable driving or team tactics, no penalties, nothing to cloud the decision. The fact that so much wrath has been directed at Timo Glock is regrettable to say the least. Anyone who followed Glock's exploits in GP2 and Champ Car will know he rolls over for no man, will know that at his core he is a tough-as-nails fighter and competitor who will grab any and every opportunity to move up. There can be no doubting his or Toyota's integrity in this instance.

One must recall Hamilton driving away from the field at China and obliterating absolutely everyone on a washed-out day in Silverstone. One must remember how lucky we've been to have two drivers completely deserving of the title being able to lock horns until the last corner of the last lap of the last race. One must remember that despite all the interference throughout the year, it was settled on the track. And one must ask himself, had Felipe Massa been world champion, would 2008 have been remembered for its last racing lap or replays of penalties awarded for first-corner clashes at Spa and Fuji?

Chinese Grand Prix 2008 - 29/10/08

2008-10-30T01:46:00.000Z

The Chinese GP was one of little excitement or incident, but to dismiss it as such would be an injustice to a faultless, deeply impressive and crushing victory by Lewis Hamilton and McLaren. Squaring up and consummately defeating both Ferraris without any outside assistance or circumstance will provide immense psychological benefits to McLaren ahead of the title showdown in Brazil.

Other points of note included an interesting first-lap tussle between Fernando Alonso's Renault and Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren. Initially it may have seemed as though Alonso and Renault had risen to the point of actually beating a McLaren in a straight fight, however the truth lies more in the fact that Kovalainen's car had its front tyres on the wrong way around leading to chronic understeer. Also on the first lap, Jarno Trulli and Sebastien Bourdais collided. Trulli had the chance to score some good points at Shanghai, highlighted by Timo Glock's rise from twelfth to seventh by the end of the race.

On the subject of Toyota, there must be some disappointment as to how 4th place in the constructors' championship has been lost to Renault. It wasn't all that long ago that Jarno Trulli earned 3rd place at Magny Cours and Glock 2nd place at the Hungaroring. With a podium each, one championship position and eight points separating them, it's easy to believe that Glock has matched Trulli over the course of the year. It is even possible to conclude that Glock, for the most part a rookie, has been more impressive than Trulli. Is it the truth though?

The number of times you will have read about the so-called "Trulli Train" phenomenon negates the need for it to be re-iterated here, but the fact that Jarno has out-qualified Glock 13-4 suggests that Trulli's ability during Saturday is the direct cause of this phenomenon. Again, this is old news. Trulli has scored on nine occasions compared to Glock's five in 2008, with 3 retirements to 4 respectively. On paper, Trulli has clearly had the better season but considering that this is Glock's first full year in F1 the fact that he is only 8 points behind Trulli at this stage is a huge credit to him. Renowned as a strong racer and fighter, he has more than justified a second season alongside Trulli. However, he will be expected to match or better Jarno for next year if his stock is to continue rising.

Toyota's example also shows how one race can completely alter the way things look at the end of a season. Had Trulli not collided with Bourdais, he may well have finished ahead of Heidfeld and Kubica in 5th place. As a result, he would have 2 retirements instead of 3, and we could say he had "half" that of Glock. Also he would be somewhere in the region of 14 points clear of Glock (taking into account both Trulli and Bourdais finishing ahead of Timo in the race). That would have put Trulli ahead of Vettel in the championship and Webber ahead of Glock. Instead of one championship position between them, there would have been three. That makes for very different reading at a glance.

But how will things look at the end of the season as far as the top of the championship is concerned? As demonstrated above, one race makes all the difference, and one race is all that remains. If the race is as incident-light as China and the contenders qualify at the sharp end, the outcome will favour Hamilton. Also, when Hamilton has had bad races this season, Massa and Ferrari have more often than not failed to fully capitalise. It's a shame that foul play is a major consideration in most race predictions, and most feel the stewards will have a part to play. There has been much advice for Hamilton published and reported across the F1 media. All Hamilton and McLaren will be hoping for is that the Brazilian Grand Prix is as incident-free and unexciting as the Chinese Grand Prix.

Japanese Grand Prix 2008 - 27/10/08

2008-10-28T02:24:00.000Z

Seeing the Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji in the dry, you almost felt that it was the first running of the new layout after 2007's washout offering. The format of the outcome followed a number of recently-emerging but almost established 2008 trends, such as questionable penalty decisions, surprise winners and common losers.

Lewis Hamilton received a penalty for an over-zealous attempt at the first corner that looked to have effectively scuppered the first half of the race for Felipe Massa and fellow front-row starter Kimi Raikkonen. The resulting heavy braking significantly flat-spotted his tyres to the point of needing to pit at the end of the first lap anyway. Felipe Massa then received a similar penalty halfway down the same lap for turning Hamilton around at the chicane after being passed. Massa had to take to the grass and kerbing for his attempted re-passing of Hamilton, the rest is history (with a dose of mystery). Thus, the title contenders were relegated to the tail-end of the field. With all of this going on, Robert Kubica assumed the lead with a chasing Fernando Alonso sizeing up another classic kill.

Since Hamilton had to pit for tyres straight away, two consecutive pit sojourns dropped him clean out of contention for points. Damage from the collision with Massa didn't help matters. Massa still had a shout of gaining some points and reducing the deficit to Hamilton in the title race. While Fernando Alonso was carrying out his 2006 re-enactment at the front of the field with mesmerisingly consistent fast laps during an inspired short-fuelled second stint, Felipe Massa came across Sebastien Bourdais exiting the pitlane. Bourdais, with nowhere else to go, slowed and took as much of the kerbing on the inside of turn 1 as possible. Massa proceeded to drive into him and spin, resulting in a 25-second penalty for Bourdais after the race. This meant that Massa's eventual 8th place and solitary point gain on Hamilton became 7th place and 2 points gained.

All were at a loss to explain the penalty handed out to Bourdais in arguably his best lights-to-flag performance of the season. In normal circumstances, a team like Toro Rosso would have appealed such an obviously ridiculous penalty in order to regain the valuable points and end-of-season prize money. Why was there no appeal? Well, just remind yourself of who supplies Toro Rosso with their performance-enhancing engines...

And so it was that Fernando Alonso, against a season's worth of odds, won back to back races in Singapore and Japan. With the title protagonists dropping the ball on such a regular basis, these performances have elevated Alonso back into the limelight for all the right reasons that brought him to our welcoming attention originally. Cue notable F1 journalists engaging emergency backtracking gears.

Going back to McLaren and Hamilton, Mercedes big cheese Norbert Haug was asked how he felt about the reduced points deficit with 2 races remaining. Haug's response typified the almost perverse optimism and forced positivity F1 people adopt in interviews these days. He said that the average points per race situation had improved from 7 points over 3 races (2.33), to 5 points over 2 races (2.50). Credit to the man, pulling that one out must have taken some doing.

Singapore Grand Prix - 04/10/08

2008-10-04T17:49:00.000+01:00

The inaugural Grand Prix of Singapore was a success, the kind of success that puts into sharp perspective just how much other such events have failed to live up to the term ‘success’. The event had an inescapably unique allure and identity. Fans of Champ Car will have known what the cars would have looked like under lights, but the breathtaking surroundings and skyline of Singapore were woven into much of the TV coverage, unlike at Valencia. Yes the drivers complained of bumps and sparks, however you will be hard pressed to find any viewer who shared their complaints.

Admittedly the success of the race was helped by the dramatic turn of events during Sunday’s race, but that could be said of many a Grand Prix. Singapore’s presentation of this event, and the undeniably attractive setting, must be recognised as significant positive factors.

Just one race after the sport crowned Sebastian Vettel as the youngest winner in the history of F1, the previous holder of that mantle reminded all naysayers of his enduring talent and remarkable ability to bring a win home given the slightest sniff. Fernando Alonso has been branded many things, but he’ll always be a race winner and champion. Well-known F1 journos had happily said they did not believe Alonso would ever win a race again. I myself had said a few weeks ago that his performances had been a little shy of what we had come to expect of past champions in slightly inferior machinery.

While Alonso’s victory owed much to the safety car, it should be remembered that he was fastest in practice 2 and 3 and set the third fastest lap of the race behind only Massa and Raikkonen. Ferrari saw to Massa’s chances, and he later spun himself also, plus Raikkonen crashed out. Alonso was fast, made no errors and executed an overtaking move on Trulli equally as impressive as the one Hamilton pulled on Coulthard (a direct result of Alonso’s pit exit). The difference in performance of Renault over Toyota is much smaller than the difference between a McLaren’s performance and that of a Red Bull, so that should reduce the shine taken off Alonso’s move due to Trulli’s fuel load. If you listened to ITV’s commentary, James Allen and Martin Brundle mentioned how many believe Alonso to still be the best driver in the sport. Anyone unfamiliar with the history of F1 tuning in this year would have wondered where those statements had come from seeing as how so much coverage and praise is usually reserved solely for Ferrari and McLaren, specifically Hamilton.

Nico Rosberg rekindled some of the early season promise of Williams by achieving his second career podium. Interestingly, out of the 15 world championship rounds so far this season, Rosberg has qualified in the top ten on 7 occasions. Of those, 5 have been at all the temporary/partially temporary street and public tracks that F1 visits (Melbourne, Monaco, Canada, Valencia, Singapore), which shows Rosberg and Williams’ strength at this kind of venue in 2008. Rosberg was one of the main beneficiaries of the safety car situation on Sunday despite making his stop when the pits were closed. The length of time taken to issue him with a stop-go penalty allowed him to pull out such a lead over those held up behind Trulli and Fisichella, that he eventually finished second just ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

It is said that the reason it took so long to issue his and Kubica’s penalties was that the stewards were debating what to do about Massa and Ferrari’s botched pit stop and unsafe pit release. The incredibly cynical amongst you could say that Ferrari and the stewards once again cost Hamilton points by delaying what should have been an immediately issued penalty for Rosberg, thereby allowing him the opportunity to make up enough time to emerge in front of Hamilton. But that’s probably taking things a little too far, eh?

Rosberg’s old Williams team-mate Mark Webber once again demonstrated his disastrous bad luck by retiring his car due to the gearbox attempting to select two gears at once. The cause of this was said to be an electrical surge originating from a passing tram, whose tracks Webber was driving over at the time. You could not make this stuff up.

This week saw Ferrari’s Luca Di Montezemolo make a number of fierce remarks about the current state of F1, and its need of the safety car to produce any amount of excitement. Some would argue that Ferrari’s own drivers and pit crew, just as in Valencia, are capable of providing enough drama and entertainment quite without the aid of a safety car. Montezemolo also reserved some strong words for the state of the Singapore GP venue, suggesting it would be a more fitting location for a circus than a motor race. The accusations levelled at Singapore’s Marina Bay circuit by Montezemolo are hard to accept as anything beyond intense disappointment at a ruined opportunity by Ferrari to pull out a lead over McLaren.

Following on from last week’s column, it now appears that Renault are leaning towards promoting Lucas Di Grassi to a 2009 race seat after recent impressive and consistent testing performances. Romain Grosjean may well need to win the GP2 championship next year in order to earn a seat in F1 for 2010. Although, if Nelsinho Piquet is binned by Renault in favour of Di Grassi, Grosjean will undoubtedly take over the mantle of lead test driver.

Who Will Make It To F1? 25/09/08

2008-09-25T22:50:00.000+01:00

As the end of the F1 season fast approaches, talk begins about which drivers will have their contracts renewed and who will move where next year. There is also a healthy amount of guesswork as to which rising star will be the next to make it to the highest echelon of motorsport. There are a number of candidates, and as usual the most likely of these will be GP2 graduates with close ties to current F1 teams.

Bruno Senna is one of the most likely to make it to F1 in the coming years, and some would argue cynically that he would have made it based on the strength of his surname regardless. Traditionally, the GP2 champion and runner-up have the best chance of being picked up. With this year’s GP2 champion Giorgio Pantano not garnering much interest, Senna is the more attractive option. He is undoubtedly a marketer’s dream for obvious reasons, and considering his close ties with Toro Rosso’s Gerhard Berger, his performances in GP2 with relatively minimal racing experience make him worth a look. He does however have fewer race wins to his name than other GP2 alumni such as Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen, Nelsinho Piquet and Timo Glock. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop Kazuki Nakajima from bagging a race seat.

Other GP2 drivers in with a very serious shout of being F1 drivers are Sebastien Buemi, Lucas Di Grassi and Romain Grosjean. Buemi is a Red Bull favourite who impressed with third on the grid at Monaco on his GP2 debut. Having already tested for Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso, his familiarity with F1 machinery and Dietrich Mateschitz’s favour, he stands an excellent chance of being on the F1 grid sooner rather than later. Some say the confirmation of his place at Toro Rosso in 2009 is imminent. Despite this, he didn’t really feature heavily for the 2008 GP2 crown.

Romain Grosjean and Lucas Di Grassi are both part of Renault’s young driver development scheme and both have had seat time in this year’s Renault R28. With the lack of a successful French driver in F1 for some years now, Grosjean could be the favoured choice here. Considering Piquet’s uncertain F1 future, both of these drivers must feel that they have a good chance of a Renault seat next year or the year after. Grosjean practically dominated the inaugural GP2 Asia series but has found the main series much tougher going. Both he and Di Grassi have victories this year, but Brazilian Di Grassi finished one point ahead of Grosjean (and only one behind Senna) despite not participating in the opening races of the season. Di Grassi did of course finish runner-up to Timo Glock in 2007’s GP2 title race. Even though it looks impressive to have returned late to the highly competitive feeder series and recorded victories, Adam Carroll did much the same thing in 2007 yet no F1 opportunity materialised for him. Di Grassi’s Renault connection puts him in a better position than Carroll ever was.

Adam Carroll won the 2007 Hungarian GP2 race for FMS

Another driver that cannot be discounted is India’s Karun Chandhok. Force India owner Vijay Mallya has already expressed his admiration for Chandhok, on paper that combination seems to be something of a no-brainer. The reality might be somewhat different though as Red Bull-backed Chandhok has not delivered the results expected of a driver in his second year of GP2 in a championship-capable team. Mallya has also said that he will not place anyone in a race seat for the sake of having an Indian driver in F1, he is after success and has not been able to altogether conceal some disappointment at his team’s 2008 season.

Of those who competed outside of GP2 in 2008, Nico Hulkenburg probably has the greatest F1 prospects. Already a Williams F1 tester, his complete domination of the second A1GP season is hard to forget. That did not immediately translate into race-winning form in the F3 Euroseries in 2007, but this year he is leading that championship and a Williams F1 seat could depend on the outcome of a season in GP2. On the subject of Euroseries champions, another driver who may be re-entering the single-seater radar is Paul di Resta. Having won the Euroseries in 2006, he has followed that up with two incredibly impressive seasons in the popular DTM series against such talents as Jamie Green, Bernd Schneider, Mattias Ekstrom and of course, Mika Hakkinen. His relatively instant success and assured performances in that series could send him the opposite way to Alexandre Premat, against the tide and into GP2, with an excellent shot at F1. Di Resta’s Mercedes backing will benefit him, whereas one feels it may be too late for another former Euroseries champion, Jamie Green.

Finally, moving out of Europe altogether, there is Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal in the Indy Racing League. Both are young and come from immensely well-known and successful American racing families and demonstrated massive potential in their formative years in the series. Andretti has tested for the Honda F1 team and Graham Rahal was close to a GP2 switch a couple of years ago but opted to stay in Champ Cars and subsequently the IRL. Formula 1’s perception of the quality of the US racing scene remains a massive barrier for these two hopefuls, plus Sébastien Bourdais’s progress in F1 will act as a benchmark for any IRL defector in the near future. At the very least, one of these two drivers must win the IRL crown convincingly to attract any sort of meaningful attention from F1 teams, despite the glaring American-driver-sized hole in the sport.

Italian Grand Prix and Comparisons - 17/09/08

2008-09-17T19:46:00.000+01:00

The Italian Grand Prix provided a good opportunity to run some comparisons and highlight the differences in form between various teams and their drivers. One glaring comparison comes in the form of Toro Rosso scoring their first pole position and grand prix victory courtesy of the magnificent man of the moment, Sebastian Vettel. Of the Red Bull teams, few would have expected the smaller of the two to be the first to achieve those kind of heights. It makes you wonder how much Christian Horner and company regret their efforts in shifting the customer Ferrari engines to Toro Rosso in favour of the customer Renault engines. The differing fortunes of the two Toro Rosso drivers was discussed in detail last week, however you can’t help but notice that the significant divide in luck and results between Vettel and Sébastien Bourdais widened as Bourdais’s fourth spot on the grid tragically morphed into last.

Staying with Red Bull, this year it seems that Mark Webber is more consistently outperforming his retirement-bound teammate David Coulthard. His qualifying prowess was never in doubt, but it has also been Webber scoring the lion's share of points for Red Bull. Out of 26 points in total, 20 of them have been scored by Webber. However, the only podium for Red Bull Racing this year has been scored by David Coulthard in his solitary points-scoring performance in Canada.

Red Bull's situation mirrors that of the factory Renault F1 team where lead driver Fernando Alonso continues to regularly score significant points for the team and qualify well, but struggling Nelsinho Piquet has given the team their one and only podium of 2008. The real Alonso has now shown up and finished fourth at three of the last four races whereas Piquet has scored only three times all year, also sporting 7 retirements in 2008. It must be growing harder and harder for Flavio Briatore to justify Piquet's position in the team for 2009.

At this point in 2007, there was much less to choose from between the two McLaren and Ferrari drivers, but this year the relative performance of the drivers in each team has made the prioritisation of a championship contender much easier for 2008. At Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen has time and again demonstrated his excellent race pace, but his failure to deliver in qualifying has compromised many a race this year. A total of only 6 podium finishes out of 14 and effectively three key retirements have made this a relatively underachieving year for Raikkonen. He will no doubt have to play second fiddle to the much-improved Felipe Massa, who already has a season and career best 5 victories to his name. We can call it 5 victories seeing as how the fortuitous Belgian GP victory makes up for the cruel way in which the Hungarian GP slipped away from him.

Over at McLaren, the Italian GP once again highlighted the different type of season that one team's drivers can have. You would have thought that Heikki Kovalianen finishing second would be more pleased with his result than Lewis Hamilton finishing 7th. However, would anyone have expected Vettel to win the Italian GP quite as unchallenged had Hamilton been the one starting alongside him on the front row? Hamilton's relief at the result comes from minimising the damage his starting position of fifteenth did to his title hopes, with Massa gaining only one point more than Hamilton on Sunday. Despite McLaren’s infamous equality policy, you feel that Kovalainen will have to back up Hamilton’s title bid from here on in, if he wasn’t already.

Belgian Grand Prix and Sébastien Bourdais - 08/09/08

2008-09-17T14:30:00.003+01:00

The Belgian Grand Prix, at least on track, made amends for the deeply disappointing bore that was the European Grand Prix a fortnight ago. A wonderful race with surprises, lead changes, a number of superstar performances, heartbreak and plenty of excitement. There are undoubtedly numerous detailed reports on the race as a whole, so we'll focus on two key issues relating to Sunday's events.

2008 has been a season where miraculous results by underdog drivers have been within touching distance, and yet the bringing home of said result has been scuppered at the very last hurdle. One is reminded of Adrian Sutil and Force India's tragic loss of 4th place in the closing stages of the Monaco GP. Toro Rosso's Sébastien Bourdais has now suffered two similar occurrences, bookending his 2008 season so far. Bourdais was inches away from a debut 4th place finish at the season-opening Australian GP when his car suffered its retirement.

Staying on the subject of Sebastién Bourdais, ever since the introduction of the STR3 at the Monaco GP, he has failed to match the pace of the up-and-coming Sebastian Vettel in the sister Toro Rosso. If Bourdais had any hope of progressing in F1 and proving his ultimate worth in this pinnacle series, he had to get the better of his highly-rated teammate on a regular basis. Before the STR3, he was doing a good enough job of outqualifying Vettel and bringing the car home, something Vettel failed to do at the start of the season on a number of occasions. Since then, Vettel has deservedly owned the limelight at Toro Rosso with a few points finishes and marvellous qualifying runs.

However, Bourdais seems to have rediscovered some form as of late, undoubtedly a result of no longer making sweeping changes to the STR3's setup and instead focusing on smaller details to better adapt the car to his driving style. His first appearance in Q3 at Valencia was followed by a 9th place on the grid for the Belgian GP last weekend. His race form was superb, comfortably running in the top 5 all race after an excellent start, albeit via a trip up Jarno Trulli's backside. At the start of the final lap, Bourdais was 3rd! Could it be that despite all of Vettel's consistent performances, it would be Bourdais who would fulfil the promise of that first race and earn Toro Rosso's maiden podium?

The answer was to be no, on the final lap with the rain falling, Bourdais's luck ran out and he was passed by the intermediate-shod Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso. How could anyone ever count those two wiley competitors out of the reckoning? But to add insult to injury to injustice, teammate Vettel and BMW's Robert Kubica also passed him on that last lap having run behind him throughout the entirety of the race. So, what could have been the most glorious vindication of his transformation from Champ Car deity to simply Formula 1 driver, ended up as another near-victory for the underdog and yet another race where Vettel beat him to the line.

It is unclear at this time precisely what happened to Bourdais on that final lap, but it shouldn't overshadow what was a timely reminder of the skill he possesses with a racecar. This is the same driver who literally dominated the Champ Car scene for 4 consecutive years, setting numerous Schumacher-standard records on the way to his titles. In the same machinery as his competitors, one recalls that he was 1.5 seconds a lap quicker in qualifying than his rivals at the famous and majestic Road America circuit, a circuit not unlike Spa in its characteristics, challenges and length. Over the years his competitors have included Timo Glock, Cristiano Da Matta and Justin Wilson, the class of whom cannot be doubted. Hopefully, Bourdais's performance on Sunday will justify his place in F1 for next season just as a series of incidents and one near-fourth place at Monaco appear to have done for Adrian Sutil.

Speaking of incidents, true to recent 2008 form, the result of a GP was again decided off the track and after TV viewers would have enjoyed all proceedings. Lewis Hamilton was given a significant time penalty, relegating him from the position of victor to third place, behind Felipe Massa and Nick Heidfeld (could have been Bourdais...). Hamilton was adjudged to have received an unfair advantage by cutting across the final chicane in his chase of Kimi Raikkonen. Hamilton did lift off and let Raikkonen retake the lead, however he then outbraked him into La Source and regained 1st place. That's fine. He gave the place back and his move at La Source was a different corner and a different story, right? Wrong. Had Hamilton not shortcut the chicane, he would have had to stand on the brakes to avoid running into the back of Raikkonen (again), and would therefore not have been in a position to take 1st place at La Source.

From that angle, it would appear that his penalty was justified. However, what about Massa's post-race penalty at Valencia? That was relatively tame in comparison. The difference most likely comes from the fact that the Massa incident did not decide the outcome of the race on track, but Hamilton's move on Raikkonen at Spa did. Had Massa been released into Hamilton's path at Valencia instead of Sutil's, the outcome may have been different, although some would argue not.

Two weeks ago I argued that if Massa had been given a time penalty, therefore handing his well-earned victory to Hamilton, that would constitute using the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law. The incident at Spa is probably not entirely within the same vein. Hamilton would undoubtedly have passed Kimi sooner or later. However, the conditions proved that nothing is certain, and Hamilton himself handed the lead back to Kimi because of the prevailing wet weather and an attempt to avoid crashing into Nico Rosberg. So who knows what the outcome would have been had Lewis not cut the chicane. Apparently Ferrari did not go to the stewards initially concerning the incident, so had the Spa stewards not punished Hamilton, would anyone have complained?

Fernando Alonso 2008 - 28/08/08

2008-09-17T14:30:00.002+01:00

We would all love to think that having returned to Renault, Fernando Alonso would once again be the gritty but cheery fighter who had earned the respect of one and all. The driver who ended the reign of Michael Schumacher and could possibly become the greatest driver of his generation. However, how has Fernando Alonso really done so far in 2008? Is he still the same Fernando Alonso fondly remembered from the 2005 and 2006 championship campaigns?

As much as it had become one of last year's most attractive bandwagons, did anyone actually feel that F1 was a better place having Alonso to direct all of their negative sentiment towards? There was McLaren's punishment and Lewis Hamilton's "delayed" first victory. Then there was the lack of loyalty, sportsmanship and camaraderie in today's super-competitive business-driven F1. Finally, there was the matter of espionage between top F1 teams. Alonso became a manifestation of all the above and a convenient scapegoat for everyone's distaste for the aforementioned issues.

In order for people to love him again, they would first have to forgive him. Many will feel too aggrieved by his oft-mentioned disagreements with McLaren, Ron Dennis and Lewis Hamilton. Some may never love him again. However, in order to respect him again, Alonso would have to deliver on the track. Everybody remembers Schumacher's stellar performances in inferior Ferraris throughout the years. In comparison, this year's Renault R28 is far from the second or even third best car. Alonso's performances would have to be judged accordingly.

The first race of the season was classic Alonso, a gritty and never-say-die race performance that lasted until the very final lap, resulting in an opportunistic last gasp fourth place at the hands of Heikki Kovalainen and his steering wheel. The fire within, set alight by last year's McLaren experience, was evident in his immediate post-race comments. Since then, notable performances include a slightly misleading front row grid slot in Barcelona and good race (until retirement). Alonso's fourth place at the Hungaroring was also impressive.

If we assume that for the better part of the season so far, Renault have been the fourth best team, does Alonso's championship position reflect this fact? Currently lying 8th with 18 points, it's a fair reflection of the team's form and general position respective to the others. However, in the case of a double world champion, should this championship position reflect the relative strength of Alonso's team? Shouldn't it be the case that a driver who won both of his titles while in cars not considered to be the best over any entire season, be further up the order?

Yes there have been retirements, but also mistakes. Canada was an example of a great opportunity to score strong points, as was Monaco. The wrong choice of tyres have also cost Alonso on a couple of occasions. Before last year, Fernando was renowned as a driver who made extremely few mistakes. Undoubtedly things have changed for him in terms of motivation and having different things to prove, and of course he has not got a vehicle capable of being a frontrunner. That has not been the case since his year at Minardi. Despite all of this, you can't help but feel that he should have been higher up the standings, at least ahead of Jarno Trulli. This is a driver who qualified fifth at Monza in a car which had aero pieces broken off, then suffered a penalty, started 10th and made his way up to 3rd in the same race. To be fair, Alonso has put in some stellar qualifying performances this year, but had he put himself in better positions in the races maybe the sole Renault podium this year would not belong to Nelsinho Piquet.

Fernando Alonso has a reputation for being a driver who if given even the slightest sniff of a victory, will put on a devastating charge. Also he is known as a driver who can majestically dominate a race from the front, destroy the opposition without putting a single wheel wrong. In 2008, Alonso has generally not had a car to challenge for top positions and you are forced to wonder how driven he has felt at various times in the cockpit.

We are talking about a man who, lest we forget, is the most successful driver on the current grid of drivers. A man who came within one solitary point of a third consecutive drivers' championship in a team with which all communication and affection had broken down. And so we hope that when given the opportunity to run towards the front, we will once again see the best of that man, Fernando Alonso. So far this year, we have not yet seen this man.

European Grand Prix 26/08/08

2008-09-17T14:30:00.001+01:00

It is often said in F1 journalism that the television viewer can only grasp a certain amount of the big picture when it comes to any particular Grand Prix weekend. There are of course a multitude of websites and publications that allow the more interested viewer the benefit of an experienced journalist or analyst's insight on the weekend's events. However if you are strictly a Sunday afternoon viewer, what would you have seen of the European Grand Prix in Valencia?

First of all, you would have been greeted by lavish praise being heaped on the brand new Valencia circuit by the drivers, teams and ITV team. The location is of course breathtaking, and the unique features of the track such as the bridge make it a special event. The aerial shots of the track were impressive, no doubt. The track itself has some superb high-speed sections which were enjoyable when viewed from in-car cameras. However, most of the race was at track level and from that level the racetrack looked incredibly dull. Just rumble strips, fencing, featureless walls and run-off areas. It was very reminiscent of Champ Car races on temporary street circuits. Viewers may have been quite disappointed that the whole event wasn't slightly more visually appealing and as breathtaking as they were led to believe it would be. Monte Carlo can certainly spoil a person's visual perception of how a street event can be presented.

Unfortunately, the racing did not make up for the lack of visual stimulus. There were of course mighty impressive performances to be witnessed, such as Sebastian Vettel's 6th place for Toro Rosso (formerly Minardi let's not forget), Felipe Massa's domination of the event from lights to flag, Lewis Hamilton's solid drive to 2nd while suffering the after effects of illness and Timo Glock's rise to 7th by virtue of a good 1-stop strategy. However, when you compare the top finishing positions to each driver's starting position, it makes for grim reading…

Felipe Massa, Started 1st, Finished 1st
Lewis Hamilton, Started 2nd, Finished 2nd
Robert Kubica, Started 3rd, Finished 3rd
Heikki Kovalainen, Started 5th, Finished 4th
Jarno Trulli, Started 7th, Finished 5th
Sebastian Vettel, Started 6th, Finished 6th
Timo Glock, Started 13th, Finished 7th
Nico Rosberg, Started 9th, Finished 8th
Nick Heidfeld, Started 8th, Finished 9th
Sébastien Bourdais, Started 10th, Finished 10th

Out of the above, five drivers (half) finished where they started. The only reason Heikki and Nico finished one place above their starting slot is because of Kimi's retirement. Obviously these details have been manipulated to suit my point, but you get the picture. The TV viewer would not have seen any interesting top 10 passing moves…because there weren't any. There was a terrible case of field spread and therefore the much vaunted three main overtaking opportunities provided no passing of note. Raikkonen's aforementioned retirement and Ferrari's dodgy pit work were the closest we got to any sort of drama or interest. It makes you wonder how many viewers were lost to the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympics.

This was a wonderful opportunity for Formula 1 to net a whole new selection of viewers who may or may not have been aware of a brand spanking new event on the marina-lined streets of sunny Valencia. What they received sadly was a very dull spectacle on a track that only really showed its beauty from high in the sky, and even the eventual winner was not clear! Felipe Massa, having been released into Adrian Sutil's path after his second pitstop, came under investigation by the Valencia stewards. The rules are pretty clear; if a driver is released into the path of another driver in a manner deemed to be unsafe then there must be a penalty. It was not close enough to the end of the race to warrant waiting for proceedings to come to an end before deciding the punishment. So not only did viewers not know for sure if Massa and Ferrari would keep the victory, they were confused further by the fact that the letter of the law was not exactly followed with Ferrari not being punished there and then with a drive-through penalty.
Later on, Ferrari and Massa were allowed to keep the victory but were fined 10,000 Euros for their misdemeanour. You could argue that had Ferrari been penalised, the letter of the law would have been used to defeat the spirit of the law, as they thoroughly deserved their victory. But rules are rules, and Formula 1 has enough complicated rules that viewers are unaware of, let alone ones that aren't even being followed.

As for the spectators who actually attended the event, well their interest would have dive-bombed before the first lap was even completed. This was due to the fact that Kazuki Nakajima's collision with Fernando Alonso lead almost immediately to Alonso's retirement from effectively 2008's second Spanish Grand Prix on lap 1. Considering that the only reason Spain has two annual F1 events is Alonso's immense popularity in Spain, the guaranteed ticket sales and fever his success has generated for F1, those spectators will have felt hard done by having spent their hard-earned cash only to see their hero involved in a first lap collision. That however is what they call a racing incident, which is also a very suitable analysis of the European Grand Prix of Valencia. Not so much an 'event', just more of a 'racing incident'.

Incidentally, there wasn't much racing after lap 1…

Hamilton Mania 10/04/07

2008-09-17T14:30:00.000+01:00

It is a difficult thing to write about Formula 1 and not state the obvious, but it's almost unavoidable. The direct relationship between success, television coverage and public perception is one of those obvious facts of F1. If a team or driver is experiencing a consistent run at the front of the pack, they will receive more television coverage and column inches than those who aren't. A very good example of this is the relative disappearance of Renault F1's Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds from ITV's F1 coverage over the first two grands prix of the 2007 season. You would be forgiven for thinking that they were no longer a part of the F1 circus if ITV's coverage is anything to go by. They have of course not gone anywhere, they just aren't winning races or achieving podiums, but they are still scoring points. A massive drop-off in performance compared to Ferrari, McLaren and BMW Sauber has made them midfield point-scorers as opposed to race winners as they were over the past two seasons. As a result, we are no longer graced with Flav's sweat patches and flamboyant and emotional reactions during the races or Symonds's sensible post-race analyses.

One rather downplayed reason for Renault's lack of front-running form is World Champion Fernando Alonso's move to McLaren. It is doubtful that Alonso would be challenging for race wins in the current R27 Renault, but you just know he would be eclipsing Fisichella's current best effort of 5th, and may well have scored a podium at either Melbourne or Sepang. As it is however, he has scored a second place and win at those tracks respectively. His performance at Sepang last Sunday was nothing short of imperious, a lesson in how to lead and control a race, not to mention deliver a victory in only your second race for a new team, a team who didn't win a single race the previous year. Kimi Raikkonen's achievement of delivering Ferrari a race win on his debut is an equally impressive feat, although Ferrari are not coming off an unsuccessful winless season as McLaren are.

However, living in the UK and watching ITV's coverage, how can anyone follow any aspect of F1 and not hear about rookie Lewis Hamilton? Whether you follow him with a bursting sense of much-deprived British national pride or are sick to the teeth of the amount of times you've heard his name to the point where you'd be forgiven for thinking he was the only driver in the race on Sunday, it cannot be denied that his debut performances have been superb. Withstanding pressure from two faster Ferraris, two extremely talented and more experienced drivers, two podiums in two appearances, two completed races and two accomplished team performances. The boy has most certainly done good, but I fear the public perception is being annoyingly influenced by the television coverage. Let's not forget that he was 0.7 seconds off Alonso in qualifying and finished almost 20 seconds behind him in the race. Fernando Alonso could not have done anything better in the two races he has driven for McLaren so far. Having been blocked off by Heidfeld, Hamilton was ahead of Alonso for most of the Australian GP, so Alonso knowing there was no pace to match the Ferrari, planned how to usurp second from Hamilton. From that point on he didn't stress his engine, conserved fuel and tyres over 2 stints and when the time came, he had more fuel than expected, managed a whole extra lap on low fuel, rattled off a couple of searing laps and came out comfortably ahead of Hamilton for the last stint, and then proceeded to pull away. What else was to be expected of him? Was he supposed to hassle his team mate, risk an accident, stress an engine that was required for the furnace of Malaysia and waste fuel? No.

But how did it look to the public and how was it portrayed? It looked as though Fernando didn't have the speed to match Hamilton and couldn't catch or pass him. But he did. I think to expect Hamilton to have gotten the better of Alonso on his debut was asking way too much. What Hamilton had achieved was stellar enough! In Sepang, Hamilton holding up the Ferraris also helped Alonso scamper away at the front without the threat of Massa or Raikkonen breathing down his neck. However, if neither of the Ferraris could actually pass Hamilton (the slower McLaren) successfully, how did anyone expect them to pass Alonso when he was faster than Hamilton? Alonso would probably have won the race had Massa and Raikkonen passed Hamilton, but by no means as easily as he did. Hamilton did however set the fastest lap of the race, but it should be remembered that he did this on the most optimal combination of low fuel/fresh soft tyres of the 2 McLarens over the whole race distance.

After the race, when Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen were waiting to mount the podium, James Allen commented that of all the drivers Hamilton appeared the freshest and least exhausted. Yet, in the press conference Hamilton was struggling for breath and looked absolutely shattered. This is all perfectly understandable, his first Malaysian GP spent mostly defending under pressure, and Lewis is without a doubt the brightest new talent in F1. He will be world champion one day. My problem is with the shameless bias shown towards him by the ITV crew. It's almost an insult to the intelligence of the viewers to have the commentators harp on about Hamilton incessantly and to the point where they are actually making inaccurate comments about his performance, fitness and ability relative to the other competitors...yes there were other people racing in the last 2 GPs. Honest.

The absolutely stunning performances of Williams Toyota's Nico Rosberg in both Australia and Malaysia should remind everyone of the talent he possesses as another of the new generation, and he is actually younger than Hamilton. His vehicle is also vastly inferior to the race winning McLaren, as it was last year. Fisichella has also put in two faultless performances for Renault to drag them into the points from lowly qualifying positions. There is such a danger of the excellent performances of such drivers being completely neglected by the television presenters because they are not at the very front, and because they are not Lewis Hamilton. Lewis once again was awarded Martin Brundle's driver of the day despite Alonso's absolutely perfect performance with a faulty radio. Lewis even admitted he made the mistake of thinking the gap to Alonso on his pit board was the gap to Raikkonen and ended up relaxing more than he should have.

One thing I should make clear, Hamilton has been spellbinding in his first two races and has made only rookie errors, neither of which have been costly. He has done everything expected of him and more, completely justifying his selection ahead of Pedro De La Rosa and Gary Paffett. He is however in a front-running team and I believe Rosberg could perform to the same level given a McLaren Mercedes MP4-22 with the preparation Hamilton has had, and for those saying that we should be expecting a win from him in Bahrain...take it easy guys.

So, if you've happened to miss the first two grands prix of the year and want to know the TV version of what transpired, let me sum it up for you: Lewis Hamilton is the biggest star of the season with two podiums so far, Renault, Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds are no longer in F1, and the two races were won by some other unfit blokes…can't remember who.