Not-So-Great British Drivers

RACE TRACK: I'm Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage

Hard to believe that, after the rain-soaked chaos of Friday and Saturday (on and off the track), we had a completely dry race! A wonderful reprieve for the brave souls at the circuit of course but, for those of us safely ensconced in front of the TV, a bit of slipping and sliding come race day wouldn't have gone amiss. But despite the dry running there was plenty of action to discuss, so on with the show...

Firstly, congratuwelldone to Mark Webber for being only the second double-winner this season! Of course he celebrated his win in typical mental fashion:

I dread to think what his passport photo looks like. Good ol' Mark, providing us with ridiculous material for photoshopping since 2002.

This first section will contain a small amount of casual Red Bull fangirling, before we get into the usual torrent of rants. Not only did RBR have the wonderful Simon Pegg as a guest this weekend (who, when Webber took the lead, appeared to be TRAPPED IN A plastic GLASS CASE OF EMOTION), but they also had the most stunning livery.

It's not just 25,000 pretty faces, it raised over €1 million for Red Bull's Wings For Life charity. So it was certainly an added bonus for the thousands of donors that they were able to accompany Mark Webber as he took the chequered flag at Silverstone. For both drivers to finish on the podium even with all those people in the cockpit with them (ooer) is quite an amazing result. And so, cue Mark's jet-propelled podium jump, Seb cheekily pouring champagne onto Jackie Stewart's head and the various presenters and pundits having to bellow over the top of the exceptionally loud music coming from the Red Bull garage.

Onto rather more useless teams: McLaren strike again! Supposedly the second best team on the 2012 grid, both McLaren cars showed an alarming lack of pace throughout the entire weekend. I'll point out at this stage that being a Jenson Button fan is not the same as being a McLaren fan. Jenson's qualifying was yet another dismal affair, resulting in him starting from a lowly 16th place on the grid. In the past few Grands Prix, Button has been diagnosed by some with the Felipe Massa Effect (please note: I despise this concept, merely referencing what I've heard), of losing your mojo alongside a superstar teammate (I, however, rooted out his problem from his facial hair). But at Silverstone, the mediocrity reached Lewis Hamilton as well. At least Button managed to work his way up 6 places to 10th and earn himself 1 world championship point (THRILLING) - Hamilton couldn't gain on his start position at all. And aside from the downright lack of pace, yet again the strategy wasn't all there. Hamilton was on the radio saying "we shouldn't have covered Grosjean, he's much faster than me" only a few moments before the giraffe in the Lotus galloped right past him. So a very poor showing from MEHcLaren, and as for the other British driver, well he wobbled off the track in the first lap. ...Not the best showing in front of the home fans, boys.


But I suppose one consolation for McLaren fans (hello? anybody out there?) is that they didn't have the worst pit stop of the weekend. That award, sadly, goes to Kamui Kobayashi and Sauber.

I am very glad to report that none of the Sauber pit crew were seriously hurt, although apparently one mechanic is receiving treatment for an injured thumb - get well soon! Hopefully Kamui will get back to his usual method of KKing people next time out...

Now I suppose it's time for my semi-regular segment: tirelessly and defiantly defending Pastor Maldonado! For the record, I'll just point out that I really like Sergio Perez too. He's a good driver, interesting on strategy and I wish he'd won in Malaysia. But I think sweet little Checo might have overreacted just a tiiiny bit after his retirement from the race following this incident with Pastor:

Yes, it was an unfortunate incident, and Maldonado hasn't exactly had the best record for clean races this year, but... you can see he's lost control of the car before the contact with Perez. Even if the Sauber hadn't been there, I think Maldonado would have lost it in that corner and spun off. So I find it difficult to agree with Sergio's slightly mad rant where he called Pastor a "stupid and dangerous driver" and worried that he "could hurt someone". I understand that tensions run high so soon after a frustrating incident, but sadly this has fuelled a lot more blind hatred for the Venezuelan. I think he just hasn't had the chance to build up a fanbase that contains more than just me. If he had anything like the number of insane fans that Lewis Hamilton has built up over the years, Maldonado's driving would merely be 'aggressive' and it would win their hearts. Let's just be grateful he hasn't said he's being picked on because he's Latino. But really, I only hope that Pastor can have a few good, clean races in the weeks to come, so that people might remember his mighty drive to his maiden victory in Spain, rather than the recent dodgy incidents. ...Plus if he stops crashing about, I can stop ranting on and on defending him! Because someone in the one-person fan club has got to.

Huge thanks to @F1ML for bringing to life the equal-parts brilliant and terrifying image of my Pastor Pom Poms!

Now I'm throwing my second mini-rant in here, so that we can end on something nicer... the British Biased Coverage was making me rather angry this weekend. I'm not talking about the focus being on the British drivers, because that makes sense and of course they'll do the same at every circuit with the driver(s) from that country. I'm referring to the fanatical lunacy that Jake Humphrey championed at Silverstone on the BBC. Encouraging support for specific (British) drivers is all well and good, but Humphrey decided that it would be a good laugh to get the (predominantly sane) British fans to pick which (non-British) drivers they hated the most and boo them. ...Really? Really, Jake? So of course Lewis' best mates Fernando and Pastor were getting a fair bit of a abuse, spurred on by the prominent Hamilton brown-noser Mr Humphrey. Even worse than this were the representatives of the worst kind of F1 fans on Twitter, some of whom even threatened to kill Pastor Maldonado if he 'touched' their beloved Lewis (why is it always Lewis fans being mentally deranged?). I was pleased, however, to see that this particular comment was met with much disgust online. Of course we all have our favourite and our least favourite drivers but, after a weekend of a very shoddily organised British sporting event, I don't think Silverstone 2012 needed to be remembered for anti-British hate-spewing as well.

I'd apologise for the excessive ranting, but I imagine you come here expecting it. Or you've blundered onto here by mistake, in which case: HI! Sorry!

But let's end on a more cheery note: Felipe baby is back in action!

As I said before, I find Felipe-bashing deeply upsetting, so having him back on good form in the past few races has been glorious. Felipe managed to bring his Ferrari home in 4th place and pulled off a fair few badass overtaking moves throughout the race. As I'm still bitter about Brazil 2008, him being back in points-paying positions is lovely to see. Here's hoping he can repeat these recent good performances in the rest of the season, and maybe soon we'll be hearing 'Fernando, Felipe is faster than you'.

Anyway, that's all from me. The ranting has gone on long enough. Is anyone even still reading? WELL DONE YOU. If you like, you can follow me on Twitter @F1_Obsessive, where I spout this kind of rubbish aaall day long. See you next time for the German Grand Prix!