May The 4s Be With You

RACE TRACK: Tired Of Waiting For You - Green Day (or: 'Ode To The McLaren Pit Crew')

You'll have to forgive the Star Wars reference (or enjoy it, whatever floats your boat), but Bernie was on top evil-dictator form this weekend in tumultuous Bahrain. For those who don't really know their Star Wars, the character of Emperor Palpatine is best described as "the supreme ruler of the most powerful tyrannical regime the galaxy had ever witnessed". But for fear of being sued or otherwise 'silenced', I shall point out that this bears absolutely no resemblance to F1 'supremo' Bernard Charles Ecclestone... at all... nope... definitely not.

 

But anyway, now it is time to use the 4s! And hopefully end these terrible Star Wars puns. Because this Bahrain GP ended with an awful lot of '4' milestones...

• Despite fears for safety amongst political unrest in the country, this year's Bahrain GP went ahead and was the 4th race of the 2012 F1 season.
• In an alarming display of consistency, this race marks Mark Webber's 4th 4th place finish in a row. Lewis Hamilton was only able to achieve 3 3rd place finishes in a row.
• Sebastian Vettel was the 4th different race winner of the season so far. After Jenson Button sailed to victory in Melbourne, Fernando Alonso silenced Ferrari's critics in Sepang, and Nico Rosberg took his maiden victory in Shanghai, 'Finger Boy' Sebastian Vettel was back on top.
• Bahrain also resulted in a 4th different constructor to win a race this year. McLaren took the Australian GP, Ferrari the Malaysian, Mercedes the Chinese and now Red Bull in Bahrain.
• The top 4 finishers were all driving cars with Renault engines: the Red Bulls of Vettel and Webber in 1st and 4th respectively, along with the Lotuses (Loti?) of Raikkonen and Giraffe Grosjean in 2nd and 3rd.
• And finally, the Bahrain GP gave us a 4th different championship leader after only 4 races of 2012. Button's win in Australia put him atop the WDC, then Alonso led after Malaysia. Hamilton's consistent 3rd place finishes put him in the lead following the Chinese GP but now it's back to business as usual with Vettel leading the WDC despite lacking his usual level of dominance.

Without a doubt the best of these milestones are the 4 different winning drivers, winning constructors and championship leaders. It's a glorious amount of unpredictability - something that we didn't see much of in 2011. I mean, after the world's media had pretty much written off the 2012 Ferrari, who'd have thought the magician Alonso would be able to drag it to a victory this early on? And having spent 6 years just about on the good side of mediocre, we see Britney Nico Rosberg finally taking his first win. Who's going to win next time? Charles Pic? Pedro de la Rosa? Or even Felipe baby!

Gratuitous Felipinho photo. ...I'll let you decide which of these Felipe Babies is most likely to win a race.  
PS. Feliz aniversário Felipe! 31 today, but not looking a day over 13.

But anyway, on with the show. Rosberg was certainly pushing his luck AND the other drivers with a fair bit of dodgy defending from Hamilton and then Alonso:

 

Nico's indignant team radio after that first tussle with Hamilton was that he passed him "off the track", which made me think at first that Lewis might be due a visit to his old pals the stewards. But seeing it a second time, Rosberg pushing Alonso off the track in the same place, Nico started to look like the repeat offender. Regular readers will know that I'd have no problem in condemning Hamilton when he does something wrong, but this time I think Nico was the one making the dodgy moves. I was quite surprised that he didn't get any penalties, not even a reprimand, despite being investigated for both incidents after the race. My conclusion is that this is similar to Schumacher pushing Barrichello right up against the pit wall in Hungary 2010: definitely madness, but apparently allowable. That's racing...

But someone who was definitely NOT racing was everyone's least favourite McLaren mechanic, Mr Left Rear! As someone who dislikes Hamilton immensely, you can imagine my hysterical laughter when his first pit stop was a dismal 9.9 seconds due to some flailing with the wheel nut on the left rear.

But even I was shaking my head when the same mistake happened again, giving Hamilton an even worse 12.2 second stop. Apparently McLaren let the poor bloke off the last pit stop, letting him have his mental breakdown quietly in the corner of the garage as opposed to in the pit lane. But their best effort for Hamilton in this race was 5.4 seconds - still a good 2 seconds off what they should be doing. Red Bull are happy to be seeing a certain finger again, but I think the McLaren boys should start to get more used to this one:

So grinding my gears this week was definitely McLaren. Just so you don't think I've been kidnapped and replaced by some sort of Hamilton sympathiser, I was still laughing my head off at his misfortune, but the team's errors are getting ridiculous now. In China it was Button who suffered worse with that blasted left rear (and with similar pit crew incompetence in Silverstone last year) so my rage at them makes a bit more sense from that point of view. As for this race, it's safe to say I was making a similar noise to Jenson's engine when he retired - GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. So McLaren, please get your act together ready for next race. Stop grinding my gears and I might stop grinding my teeth.

But let's end on a happier note. In fact, the happiest thing on the planet most likely: the eternally-grinning giraffe himself, Monsieur Romain Grosjean!

It honestly looks like he hasn't moved since after qualifying in Australia. Look, exactly the same gleeful face! But I must admit, I was smiling too. Just look at this podium! After Romain's apparent jinx in the first two races, and some bad tyre strategy from Lotus for Kimi in China, it was great to see both of them on the podium in Bahrain. Although Kimi claimed to be 'disappointed' with second (as most racing drivers would be), I think him and aaall his fans were grateful that he made it to a good finish without his tyres committing suicide, like last week. And as for Grosjean, I'm glad he's finally getting a chance to silence his critics from all the way back in 2009. I mean, at the start alone, he was flying!

I know, I know, more giraffe-related Grosjean-teasing. Hey, be grateful I've stopped the Star Wars puns.

But seriously, I'm pleased for the guy - how can you not be, looking at that sweet little face?! Here's hoping Lotus can keep up in the development race and give us more amusement from Romain 'the happiest giraffe in the zoo' Grosjean and Kimi 'Kimi-face' Raikkonen in some top three press conferences.

I'm signing off now, but I'll be back spouting more rubbish after everyone's favourite and exhilarating race, the Spanish Grand Prix! As always, feel free to tweet me in the meantime @F1_Obsessive, comment your thoughts on the race below, or vote in my poll over to the right. See you next time!

Lemmings: Proud Sponsors Of Pirelli

RACE TRACK: I've Just Begun - Nico Rosberg Britney Spears

Those tyres threw themselves off the cliff pretty hard and fast this weekend. Don't get me wrong, the Pirellis certainly don't grind my gears. I LOVE the element of unpredictability they provide during the races, but my heart couldn't help but break when Kimi's tyres went off and he plummeted 12 places in only 2 laps. 'Poor Kimi' was even trending on Twitter! I scoured the many faces of Kimi Raikkonen to find his reaction to his ruined race and I guess any of these would probably cover it.

But despite Kimi missing out on a potential podium finish, tyres acting like lemmings didn't grind my gears too badly. This week, that coveted position is awarded to the Mercedes and McLaren pit crews! I know, I know, they all work exceptionally hard, have to work under extreme pressure and 99% of the time do a great job, but that didn't stop me screaming at the television watching the pit stops for Schumacher and Button.

The mechanics across from him are totally wondering who this guy's waving to. I've never been a die-hard Schumacher fan (I grew up watching him dominate F1 and everyone gets bored of the guy who wins all the time), but I was pretty devastated that we lost out on seeing him fight for the win for the first time since his return. The man himself was a lot more forgiving of his pit crew than I was, offering a hug to the poor bloke on the right front tyre.

As for Button, it was an agonisingly long wait while the McLaren mechanic fought to get the left rear tyre on properly. I suppose I should be grateful that they held him and didn't let him trundle off with only 3 like in Silverstone last year (significantly more rage from me then) but, for the second time this race, I found myself frustrated at the pit crew for eliminating the possibility of a fight at the front. And yet again I was getting far more cross than the person who actually suffered from it. Jenson was magnanimous (yes, I learn my vocabulary mostly from Mr. Smedley) when asked about it, saying "It's frustrating but you know, this happens. I made a mistake in Malaysia, someone's made a mistake here, we've just got to learn from that." It never ceases to amaze me what an all-round good guy Jenson Button is. He could've been like me, shouting screaming swearing, but instead he accepted it, kept his cool, and fought back to a respectable second place. Who knows, maybe if he'd repeated his pit strategy from last year's Chinese GP, he might've had a quicker stop with Red Bull...

 

Aaaanyway, what else? Oh yes, cursed crashers Grosjean and Maldonado actually FINISHED THE RACE. Congratuwelldone boys! Finally! Both of them managed to survive the train of about 8 or 9 cars lapping in close company for the majority of the race. It was this traffic that made Button's life more difficult after his slow stop, but it was great to see such close battles going on for the full duration of the race. It's not often that you see cars within a second or two of each other on the final lap without a safety car! In amongst an ever-changing top ten, both Senna and Maldonado got a good haul of points on the eve of Sir Frank Williams' 70th birthday. Another fun moment mid-race was Mark Webber's continued disregard for gravity:

How one does a wheelie in a Formula 1 car, I will never know. Keep flying, Mark.

This week I was again able to enjoy the F1 coverage on Sky as well as on the BBC. So to briefly summarise my opinion on this coverage 'war': both are good in their own way. I prefer Sky for the serious action, and I'll never want to miss the LIVE race, but the BBC are good for a bit of F1 humour. My highlight of the Sky coverage this weekend was the live interview with Martin Whitmarsh after the race where he tried, in vain, to hide a rapidly-melting Magnum ice cream behind his back. A disembodied hand appeared from off camera offering Raikkonen-approved refreshment for all the Sky presenters and pundits, and Martin Brundle impressed greatly by managing to scarf down his entire Magnum during the cut-away to the Skypad. Man's got skills. My highlight of the BBC coverage was probably their personification of the 'Now Kiss!' meme during the post-race forum. Firstly they insisted that Nico Rosberg kiss his 1st place trophy on camera, then Jake and Jenson indulged the Twitter fangirls with this slightly-awkward-but-kind-of-funny moment:

Before you ask: no, I am not going to take the whole BBC VS. SKY FIGHT TO THE DEATH thing seriously. We get a choice, just enjoy it, who KERS?

And finally, to the race winner, Princess Britney NICO Rosberg. Again, I'm not his biggest fan and I have to admit I've been somewhat underwhelmed by him in the past. But this weekend he was on fire (not in a Heikki Kovalainen way) and I was immensely pleased to see him take his first victory. He certainly looked at home receiving his award for 1st place...

...Sorry. That was inevitable. It was also bittersweet to hear the statistic that Keke and Nico Rosberg are the only father-and-son GP winners where the father has been alive to see the son achieve an F1 victory. A sad fact overall, but nice for Nico, Keke and their family. But anyway, it might've been Nico's Only Wish This Year to win a race, he was definitely Lucky in some aspects, but now he's Stronger. This weekend in China he's Just Begun (Having His Fun), and I'm sure Kimi will be saying Ooops if Nico Does It Again and- oh god I have to stop.