Dodging Debris In Deutschland

RACE TRACK: Radio Gaga - Queen

There were certainly some interesting broadcasts on the team radio during this race... Highlights were from the McLaren boys this time, with Lewis' rather pessimistic suggestion that they retire the car, and Jenson's sarcastic, indirect message to Charlie Whiting regarding Sebastian Vettel's questionable overtake.

But it was Felipe Massa who kicked it all off in Hockenheim, parting company with his front wing on the first lap.

Perhaps he was just missing Rob already. But anyway, the debris from this incident (that we never really saw) was littering the track but the FIA decided, hey, don't worry about it, and the race continued. Victims of the bits and bobs of prancing horse other than Felipe himself included Bruno Senna, Romain Grosjean and, the nation's sweetheart, Lewis Hamilton. All four of these drivers ended up trundling about with the backmarkers, having been forced to pit for various repairs. Seeing him towards the back of the field, the delightful Massa conspiracy theorists piped up once more, but I'd like to point out that he finished the race in 12th. Now although this isn't a points finish, Felipe actually did brilliantly to work his way through the field. As for the other three, the best they could muster was 17th, 18th and a DNF. So actually, despite some trials and tribulations, a nice fight back from Massa. Celebratory smack on the arse for you, Felipe baby. (You go Felipe baby.)

And now onto Lewis Hamilton race which, for the most part, was rather amusing - for his fans as well as his sceptics. So after picking up a puncture from the debris, Hamilton ended up a lap down on the front runners. In a rather out of character moment, he radioed to the McLaren pit wall saying he felt they "should retire the car" after only 2 racing laps - a strange message, somewhat reminiscent of Fernando Alonso's (in)famous "I give up, I give up" during last year's Korean Grand Prix. But the McLaren boys must have insisted that Lewis earn some of his millions for a few more laps, because he carried on until lap 56 before parking up in the garage. But before then, Hamilton was confusing the rest of the grid left, right and centre. Poor Vitaly Petrov apparently accidentally let Hamilton past, assuming that, having seen a McLaren in his mirrors, he must be being lapped rather than racing for position. Then, further up the road, perhaps forgetting that he was racing for about 20th position rather than 2nd, Lewis began to duel with the leaders - much to their annoyance.

Seb has been known for some... unfriendly hand gestures towards back markers, but this time I think it was pretty justified. And not just because it's Notorious H.A.M. Of course, everybody has a right to unlap themselves if they have the speed, otherwise they'd never get anywhere. But I think in this situation, Hamilton didn't have enough speed to unlap and then pull sufficiently away, out of the blue flag zone. In reality, Hamilton swooped past Vettel and promptly loitered about right in front of him, instantly inviting the blue flags (and the hand gestures) yet again. Was he genuinely thinking he could begin hunting down those in front while staying on the lead lap? Or had he had a mental abberation and was reverting back to fighting with his more usual company? I could suggest that he was part of a McLaren strategy to hold up Vettel and allow Jenson Button to catch up, but putting his teammate above himself would be even further out of character for Lewis. In this instance, I'd put it down to a bit of trolling - and I'm not complaining really, it probably did inadvertently help Button to chase down Vettel and it was certainly a laugh, but I'm quite surprised the stewards didn't have a quiet word with him about the concept of blue flags. Maybe he should have asked Kimi.

But now from Vettel the victim to Vettel the villain! Having just made it out in front of Seb after a round of pit stops, Jenson was happily cruising about in 2nd place (a dizzyingly high position given some of his performances lately), until a badly flat-spotted tyre sent him back into Vettel's clutches. But instead of having a little patience (he is an F1 driver, after all), Sebastian rather cocked up his attempted overtake, and gained second place with all four wheels completely off the circuit.

It's difficult to form a coherent opinion when the FIA have zero consistency, but the go-to argument is that the white lines define the circuit. Article 20.2 of the FIA sporting regulations (look at me, coming over all technical, like) states that "drivers must use the track at all times. For the avoidance of doubt, the white lines defining the track edges are considered to be part of the track, but the kerbs are not." Well Vettel wasn't even on the kerb, he was completely on the run-off area when he pulled in front of Button. I admit that Sebastian would easily have gotten past Jenson before the end of the race, but this overtake was completely illegal. And I think both drivers knew it; Jenson's sarcastic radio message and Seb's rather awkward demeanour on the podium were clear signs of this.

And the stewards eventually worked all this out after the race (better late than never) and issued Vettel a 20 second time penalty. This promoted Button to 2nd, Raikkonen to 3rd (ideal situation for Kimi: all the points of a podium finish without the tedious interview) and Kamui Kobayashi to an excellent 4th place finish for Sauber.

This race result was what Jenson Button really needed. Being back on the podium, getting some good points and showing he can still race. After so many dismal races with only a tiny smattering of points, Button really impressed this weekend, showing us plenty of badass overtaking moves that reminded us of the fast and feisty Jenson we know and love.

In other somewhat positive McFail McLaren news: it seems they finally got their act together and set an all-time record pit stop (stationary) time of 2.31 seconds. Blink and you'll miss it...

This is, of course, ridiculously impressive, but I really hope McLaren don't think their work here is done. A one-off, blisteringly quick pit stop doesn't make up for all the previous bumbling efforts of 2012 so far - I'm sure Lewis Hamilton can agree with me here, as Button enjoyed this record-breaking speed in the pits while Hamilton's had the brunt of McLaren's amateur hour pit stops. What we need now from McLaren is some consistency - if they can do frequent pit stops around the 3 second mark, as opposed to 5, 10, 15 second efforts with an occasional 2.4 thrown in, then they'll be back up to the proper standard of their end of the pit lane.

What else? Oh yeah, Fernando Alonso won! He was so dominant that I pretty much forgot about him. Not much to say about it really, other than he is certainly looking damn near unbeatable in the championship as we pass the halfway point of the season. In other news from the Spanish-speaking contingent: Pastor Maldonado didn't hit anyone! Hurray!

Gold star, sweetheart. He might have only finish 15th and a lap down, but at least I can have a break from rigorously defending him every race weekend. I suspect Gabriela succeeded in helping him relax this time. No doubt he'll be back to his usual mad shenanigans soon, to entertain and frustrate us in equal measure.

Finally, I figure I should mention the excellent shindig I had while watching this Grand Prix. Bit of a link-tastic paragraph, but let's just go with it. I was at F1 In Pubs again (the Birmingham division) where a raucous and most bodacious time was had by all. This time, I had company from Twitter pals Dom and David, who roped me into a rather insane GROUP edition of Fan Formula! I thoroughly recommend both F1 In Pubs, for a great place to watch a GP with fellow (equally-mad) F1 fans, and Fan Formula (to contribute or just watch) for a brilliant format for F1 opinions. So if you just can't get enough mad waffling about the German Grand Prix, head over to YouTube to watch our ramblings, live from the pub - part 1 here and part 2 here.

Anyway, I have rambled on long enough now. As always, you can leave your comments below, tweet me @F1_Obsessive, and now you can also have a gander at my new YouTube channel, where I'll be uploading Fan Formula entries each week. So I hope you enjoyed the German Grand Prix, and I'll see you next time for Hungaroring - byeeeeeeeeeee!

Cucumbers At Dawn

RACE TRACK: Fernando - Abba (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

First things first: CHECO YOU LITTLE LEGEND!

For those baffled by this picture, it is merely a comparison that my warped mind made last year ('Dull Down Under'). In Melbourne, Perez amazed us by climbing from 22nd on the grid to finish in a closely-fought 8th, and only a week later we find him in an incredible second place, giving double world champion Fernando Alonso a run for his money in the final few laps. I genuinely think Sergio could've pressured him into a mistake in the closing stages... if it wasn't for his own minor wobble. I was not jumping to join the conspiracy theorists who claimed that, as a future Ferrari driver (potentially as early as the next round in China), Perez was obliged to acknowledge "Fernando is faster than you." No, Perez was gunning like hell for that first place and made a small mistake, like most drivers would under that amount of pressure (look at Sebastian 'Flawless' Vettel in Canada '11). And if I was Sergio's race engineer, I'd almost certainly be holding my breath and begging him to be careful! But enough of the conspiracy crap: Perez can be added to the long list of drivers who are showing Hamilton how you're supposed to look when you make it onto the podium...

On the left: an appropriate face to pull if you've retired after 1 lap. On the right: an appropriate face to pull if you're on the podium. As ever Lewis, despite being the envy of most of the world by earning millions doing one of the coolest jobs in existence, you manage to have a face like a slapped arse. If you were in your teammate's position, trundling miserably around in 14th, I'd understand your frustration. Here's Jenson looking hugely disappointed:

The miserable bastard. But seriously, Button gave a great and honest post-race interview. He didn't moan, he didn't blame anybody else, he just said, "I can't do anything but laugh really because it was such a horrendous race!" The only time Lewis' comments made me laugh this weekend was when he managed to say "I can't complain" about three times in one short interview. Looks like all the time the McLaren PR people have spent beating that concept into him (probably since Monaco '11) has finally paid off!

Another man in stark contrast to the diplomatic Mr Button was Sebastian 'Eternally-Cheerful' Vettel. After his wing-flinging moment with Button, poor old Karthikeyan was observing the blue flags (no Kimi, not for you) and moving out of the way of Vettel when he unfortunately clipped the Red Bull's rear tyre. The tyre disintegrated, as did Seb's race... and his patience:

I know Vettel is famous for his finger, but really. His troubles then continued with a series of baffling and contradictory team radio messages from his race engineer: "Box, box, box, we're going to retire the car, retire the car, retire the car... stay out, stay out, stay out, stay out... stop the car, stop the car, emergency, stop the car." So when he did eventually stop the car and was shoved in front of the microphones, his usual happy grin was nowhere to be seen. About the coming together with Karthikeyan he said, "As in real life, there are a few cucumbers on the road." First of all, what is Formula 1 if not real life (for him anyway)? Secondly, cucumbers?? When interviewed shortly afterwards by the BBC, he went for the word "idiots" instead, but I definitely prefer the mad imagery of his first answer. Unfortunately for Seb, #CUCUMBERGATE rumbles on, with Narain calling him "unprofessional" and a "crybaby". To add insult to injury, he's also apparently in trouble with his team for ignoring their order to stop the car, and with the FIA for the use of his other finger. I like and support Vettel, but this has not been a good weekend for him; this has been a Hamilton-at-Monaco kind of meltdown. Nicht gut, Wunderkind.


What else? I realise I'm going about this in entirely the wrong order but that's clearly how I roll. The red flag period had a fair few fun moments, as ever. Gratuitous picture number 1: hands up who wants to high-five me!

That face just screams "where's my Magnum?" (If you can bear to hear more Kimi-five/Magnum ramblings, check out my shenanigans at Top Gear here.) While the drivers conferred and stretched and scowled, the teams were busy hosting the 1st Annual B&Q Malaysian Gazebo Grand Prix, competing for titles including 'Quickest Gazebo Assembly', 'Driest Chassis' and the prestigious 'Largest And Most Compensatory Gazebo'. Some unfortunate teams had obviously spent their funding elsewhere and had to make do with a rather forlorn collection of brollies and what looked like clingfilm. And here's gratuitous picture number 2: a surly, soggy Rob Smedley (or R. Smedley if you're saying it out loud), again for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Aside from Seb's rather unfortunate tantrum, the other thing from Malaysia that really grinds my gears is the curse that appears to be following Maldonado and Grosjean around. Two weekends in a row now, Pastor has been driving well inside the top ten, when his race comes to an abrupt end in the final stages of the race. Admittedly the first time it was a driver error whilst hounding Alonso, but an engine blow out? In 2012? That's just cruel, fate. At least this time Bruno Senna was on hand to score Williams 8 points, making up 7 places to finish 6th. And as for poor Romain, he qualifies well, he starts well and then, only a few laps in, ends up in the gravel. Here's Grosjean's reaction after his incident:

Pauvre bébé. Right, that's enough rambling and teasing from me now. Late post is late but I'm still not as slow as FOM are with their race edits - success! Feel free to comment below or tweet me @F1_Obsessive - ooh, and don't forget to vote in the poll on the right: this week, your bet for the championship leader after Round 3 in China. Until then my lovelies!