Meesta Brundoo For The Win!

(If you saw the race build-up with Massa and Smedley's [adorable] track guide, the title makes sense. If you didn't, you think I've gone insane. Oh well.)


RACE TRACK: Well That Was Easy - Franz Ferdinand

First off all, late blog post is late. My apologies. Not that I expect people are screaming and running into walls because of my brief absence. ANYWAY.

It's looking like a video-heavy post this week so we'll open with the aforementioned track guide from Felipe Massa and Rob Smedley which was beyond lovely:

But now onto the main 'action'. For a race with 126 overtakes (yes, really), it was bordering on uneventful. Every race so far this season has had a stand-out moment of the race - whether that's epic rookies ending up disqualified, flying Russians or blind Buttons - but this one kind of didn't. Sure it was kind of entertaining seeing the McLarens wheel to wheel and the Renaults shoving each other around, but if we talking team squabbles, I think we all found last year's Red Bull battle a bit more exciting.

(makes me want to watch SPEED, their synchronised "OHH NOOOOOO" was pleasingly comical)

The reason we all enjoyed this more than this year's playfighting is because, if we're honest, we can't resist a good crash. Now don't freak out and think I'm wishing dangerous situations upon drivers because I'm not - plus there's next to zero chance of people getting hurt in modern Formula 1 (thankfully). But it's always more fun with that possibility. And I know I'm not alone, millions of people end up on YouTube watching the more dramatic F1 crashes:

 

(I could've just put pictures, but you know you want to be viewer 1000001)

It's like what Martin was saying in the commentary, DRS takes away the desperation. With DRS, a driver can have a sensible go at the car in front and, if it doesn't work out, they only have to wait until the next lap to try again. Without it, there's the enjoyable crazy desperation that says, 'I might not be this close again' and we get to enjoy watching entertaining (if sometimes crazy) moves throughout the race. Don't get me wrong, we did see some fun fighting from Button and co. miles from the DRS zone, but it was the impossibly-easy breezing by that happened a few times that was letting this race down. I mean imagine if we'd had this kind of DRS zone in Brazil 2009 - we wouldn't have seen half of the mental moves Jenson made to wrap up the championship (particularly alongside everyone's favourite mentalist Mr. Kobayashi) and I think we can all agree that that race was where JB really earnt that title. If he'd simply sailed from 14th place to win the world championship I think there'd be a lot of sighing and raised eyebrows. Anyway, Martin Brundle (or if you're Felipe Massa, MEESTA BRUNDOO!) says it far better than me (from 09:46):

Martin calling Mark Webber 'mardy' was probably my highlight of that video, but I agree with Martin, and even Eddie - we'll have to ignore Jake on this occasion, loved Martin wincing as Jake strayed further and further from the point he intended to make. I defended DRS after the Malaysian Grand Prix because there is absolutely no point in taking away technology from Formula 1, but it just needs fine-tuning to avoid it looking like the guy in front has run out of fuel. Meesta Brundoo says it all. But he was on fire all weekend really, I mean, what a grid walk for starters. Well, he started out by showing us all how easy motorsport journalism really is, by simply shouting "JB!" in Button's ear and then following it with the journalistic prowess that is "...And?" But after the bewildered silence that followed, it was back to business as usual: elbowing people left and right, important interview topics such as Toblerone and EJ's wardrobe, and referring to Kai Ebel as a "right pain in the... microphone" (nice save). Given how bored I - like many - are getting with a certain Mr Vettel, Meesta Brundoo is looking like the lead contender for my driver of the day!

But I guess we can't not mention Seb here. My race track for this weekend says it all: well that was easy. I have to keep reminding myself that Vettel's a nice guy and an excellent driver, because no one likes a guy who wins so effortlessly. We just have to face it that, currently, that car with that driver is verging on unstoppable. I mean look at qualifying, it was both astounding and infuriating that Vettel could just sling his Red Bull around the lap once in Q3, park up, then sit back and watch the remaining minutes unfold on the television like the rest of us.

That preposterous level of ease is not going to give the tight championship battle that we all enjoyed in 2010. So I guess we just have to hope that a few things start to mix it up a bit as the season progresses - maybe upgrades from other teams, maybe some different strategy decisions for Vettel, who knows, but for now we truly have a Mini Schumi on our hands.

Over and out- oh, but seeing as I'm bothering with Twitter nowadays, feel free to send any 140 character ramblings you might have my way @F1_Obsessive (that is if you made it this far given how tl;dr this post ended up!)