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!

Alternator Aggravator

RACE TRACK: Spanish Stroll - Mink DeVille

...Because even when he's coming from 11th on the grid, Fernando makes it looks easy. And so, we didn't get a record-breaking eighth different winner in the first eight races, because Magic Alonso stormed to victory in Valencia, taking his second win of the 2012 season and securing a 20 point lead in the drivers' championship.

His trackside celebrations in front of the predominantly Spanish crowd were fun. I mean, usually the FIA don't even let you touch anything before being weighed to ensure all regulations are met, so it was nice to see some post-race shenanigans from Fernando. Driving along with the Spanish flag, dancing about with the marshalls, and eventually being dragged away to the slightly delayed podium after several minutes' unauthorised frolicking.

When he eventually made it onto the top step, we were greeted with a blast from the past, seeing Alonso, Raikkonen and Schumacher in the top three finishing positions.

 

Some fun facts for you regarding this very successful trio...

• These three drivers have now shared the podium on 5 different occasions.
• In all these instances, Fernando Alonso has been on the top step, with Kimi Raikkonen taking the second place spot twice, to Michael Schumacher's three times.
• Between them, they have TEN world drivers' championships - 7 for Michael of course, 2 for Fernando and 1 for Kimi.
• This trio also have every WDC between the years of 2000 and 2007.
• All three have driven for Ferrari during their careers, although Fernando Alonso is yet to win a championship with them.

So yes, a rather retro podium, but lovely to see Fernando's emotional celebrations, Kimi getting another good points finish, and Michael finally getting a bit of luck! But onto the rest of the race now...

I'd say it's pretty rare that we see reliability problems in more recent years, but this race had 2 major retirements due to alternator failure. Of course (as regular readers and my Twitter followers will have come to expect) my heart broke into a million pieces when the legendary giraffe Monsieur Grosjean slowed to a halt after 41 of the 57 laps. All the more devastating given that he was within a second of the leader when it happened, he was potentially our 8th different winner!

His reaction was classic Romain: a shrug of mild disappointment, and then immediately back to his usual, smiley self as he walked back to the garage. A slightly more extreme reaction came from Sebastian Vettel who, a few laps earlier, had retired from the race with what turned out to be the exact same issue. We've seen one or two stroppy moments from the reigning world champion since he's not been dominating the races like he used to (such as Cucumbergate and the use of his other finger in Malaysia) and, after his retirement from this race, he provided us with a frustrated but rather jazzy glove slap. Cue the remixed GIFs - and feel free to add some dance music in your head.

But my 'most twatty flamboyant reaction of the race' award goes, naturally, to Lewis Hamilton. I'm sure the McLaren budgeting department winced a lot when he threw his £50,000 steering wheel out of his car in annoyance after his collision with Pastor Maldonado on the penultimate lap of the race. Literally throwing (very expensive) toys out the pram (/cockpit).

I guess my rant of the race will have to be on that Hamilton/Maldonado incident. I tweeted and tweeted about it at the time, but there's no point in stopping now. First of all, let's remember that both drivers ended up with nil points where they might've had 15 or 12. And so both of them lost out equally, if not slightly less lost for Hamilton as his tyres were going off the cliff anyway. But the main point really is that they both COULD have chosen to act differently in that split second to avoid the collision. Hamilton could've left space for Maldonado on the track. Maldonado could have cut the corner completely rather than trying to rejoin straight away. Hamilton could've anticipated Maldonado rejoining the track at that moment and gone a little bit wide to leave some space. But they didn't. And to be honest, I didn't really expect them to, because they're racing drivers. Of course neither one of them wants to yield to another driver, it's their natural instinct to fight to win. And yes, sometimes this attitude causes avoidable accidents, but that's motor racing. Plus, in that moment, they have the tiniest fraction of a second to decide where to look, which pedal to push, which buttons to press, and which direction to steer. So I don't think either driver is to blame really. They both made a decision that wasn't the most sensible, and they both paid for it. Although I think of it as a racing incident, I suppose Maldonado's penalty is reasonable as it gives him a result equal to Hamilton (0 points) - it would've been quite cheeky if Pastor had gotten a point out of all this. But mad Hamilton fans the people calling for him to be banned from Formula 1 for dangerous driving... well they obviously haven't seen any of Lewis' driving. Anyway, I really should shut up on this now, but that's my view. If you disagree, we can agree to do so, that's fine (and feel free to put forward your opinion in the comments), but let's not try and force each other to change our views. Because that is truly maddening. Ok? Ok.

As for the rest of the race... well I forgot we were in Valencia for sure! There was actually overtaking - although some more successful than others. Obviously JEV's cutting across Heikki stands out as maddest move of the race (some nice expletives from KOV in the official race edit), not to mention how fast he was driving with that severely punctured tyre. Although at the time, I was desperate for a safety car to give Vettel some company at the front again, so no complaints really.

What else? Well it was good to see the Lotuses/Loti/Kimi-and-Romain doing very well, both drivers making some excellent passes - think it could've been a Lotus 1-2 if things had happened differently... but you know I don't do what-ifs! And more LOLZ at the outstanding McLaren pit crew, as Hamilton's reserve front jack man did a nervous jig trying to work out if he was needed. It must've been amateur hour in the Valencian pitlane because there were dodgy stops from more than just McLaren for once, even some mismatched tyres on one car.

So overall, the European Grand Prix was a pleasant surprise. Usually we all expect to doze off like we're watching a Paul di Resta interview or something, but 2012 offered a good amount of race action. But that's all from me for now! Feel free to follow me on Twitter @F1_Obsessive aaaaaand I'll see you next time for the British Grand Prix - where perhaps the Jubilee/regal theme of 2012 will rub off on Silverstone and provide race vehicles more like this...

Tyred All The Time

RACE TRACK: 7 - Arctic Monkeys

For the first time in the history of Formula 1, there have been 7 different winners of the opening 7 races of the season. Some guy with an American accent and a chinstrap won apparently. Moving on...

What a difference the tyres make! While two double world champions had to make the choice between limping to the finish on a badly worn set of tyres, or losing time in the pits for fresh ones, a couple of young whippersnappers were able to cruise up and onto the podium. So thanks, Pirelli, for providing us with some surprise wildlife (other than the usual marmots) in the top three, in the form of Sergio 'Naked Mole Rat' Perez and Romain 'Giraffe' Grosjean!

Apologies to those of a nervous disposition, I forgot that this picture contains Martin Whitmarsh in a champagne-soaked shirt.

So we already knew that Checo is the king of the one-stop strategy, but he sure as hell came out of nowhere in Montreal. Starting in a very lowly 15th position, Perez was fairly invisible on the world feed for most of the race. But suddenly, with a few laps to go, Vettel has dived into the pits, Alonso is slipping back on old tyres, and Sergio has gone from grid slot number 15, to 15 points for a third place finish. And as for Romain, he started a respectable 7th, stayed out of trouble and miraculously appeared behind the ailing Alonso in the closing stages. The galloping giraffe dispatched the Spaniard with ease and achieved his highest ever finish in F1.

Many thanks to Nicola for sending me this amazing photo. Proof that Romain IS the happiest man (/giraffe) alive: you can still see his enormous grin even when he's wearing a helmet. Brilliant. Also, given the slightly weird angle, it looks like the Lotus man has a leg for an arm, don't you think? ...I think I've looked at this picture for too long.

So it was a two-thirds lovely podium for me. However much I'd like some of the front runners (Button, Vettel, Alonso), I'm always delighted to see drivers from (supposedly) lower down the grid doing well. I say lower down but, in the current standings, Grosjean is actually 8 points ahead of Button! As a loyal Jenson fan, I wish he could've done well in this race. And as a childish moron, I wish he'd finished first so that the top three would read: BUTGROPER. More on the curious case of Jenson Button later...

But now for a bad F1 joke: how many Mercedes mechanics does it take to close a moveable rear wing?

Michael's clearly invited a black cat to be his mascot and has been going round smashing mirrors - I bet he went to smash something or other after this FIFTH retirement from seven races. And as Schumacher seems to be a key feature in something that is grinding my gears, I shall take this moment to have my little rant about 'what if' scenarios. I did tweet about this already, but I'm saying it here in a few more characters. This isn't a rant at Schumacher - more at his fans, or rather ANY fans that consider ridiculous hypothetical situations to be factual in order to claim their driver's brilliance. Somebody has worked out that Michael Schumacher would currently be leading the championship if it wasn't for pit stop errors, reliability issues and general misfortune. Ok, sure, he's had a few races where he's been running well before having a problem. But having a 'what if' in which you change every outcome of every race is, as James Hunt would say, bullshit. If we're going to do that then we might as well say Narain Karthikeyan could/would/should be top of the drivers' standings. By all means, keep supporting/defending your favourite driver(s) in good times and bad, but please do so in the real world rather than the alternate universe you've created for them.

So the Canadian Grand Prix wasn't a patch on the EPIC that was last year's. But what's bugging me more is that neither is Jenson Button. Which brings me to this exceptionally modest comment:

I have successfully identified Jenson's problem. And I have a solution.

It's not what you think. It's not grip or balance, understeer or oversteer, not even the dreaded 'happy bubble' being popped. No... it's the facial hair. I'm only half joking. To explain, here are some examples from the Button Beard Database (BBDB).

Left: The all-over Jenson Button face fuzz that we know and love. This look was a constant throughout 2009 - a championship-winning beardy item, worthy of his 95 points.

Centre: A tad less raggedy, but still recognisably similar to the 09 spec. Button put world champion Vettel under pressure in the wet to take a stunning victory, despite having been through the pits 6 times - 25 points for the win.

Right: Face fuzz still all over, although more refined than the old days. Jenson took his pole-sitting teammate into the first corner and got his 2012 championship challenge off to the perfect start - 25 points and top of the tables.

Left: First sighting of the very dodgy, Damon Hill-esque facial hair. Trundled home in 9th place and, when asked about his race, said "I was just slow" - a lowly 2 points for that effort.

Centre: Hill impression still going strong, although looking slightly less two-tone. Button retired after repeated collisions with the Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen - classified 16th, worth nil points.

Right: I had my hopes up on Saturday having seen some Brawn-era facial hair as Jenson miraculously made it into Q3. But the fool must've shaved before the race and the clean-shaven look did nothing for him. Came home in 16th and a lap down - yet another zero on the scoreboard.

And so, the answer is clear: BRING BACK THE 2009 FACIAL HAIR. It might seem silly, but the evidence I've compiled proves it - there really is a direct correlation between the state of his beardy item and his race results. As much as I'd love to see an eighth different winner (preferably Romain, Kimi or Felipe), Button needs to get back to his winning ways and start climbing his way up from eighth in the championship standings. If he wants to do that 'W' again, he's got to start fixing the facial hair.

So I suppose this concludes my (frankly ridiculous) race review. Compared to previous years, 2012 didn't provide a great deal of action in Canada - nobody even smashed into the Wall Of Champions during the race! But just for fun, here is a great video of how to crash into said wall like a boss:

And on that unrelated note I suppose I should bid you farewell. Oohh, I should probably mention that the lovely @lookingspiffy runs a far more professional blog reviewing the facial hair of F1 drivers (of high importance, this) at #F1BEARDWATCH, so you should definitely go check that out. As for me, you can tweet/follow me on Twitter (if you dare) @F1_Obsessive aaaand don't forget to vote in this week's poll (above right) about your favourite 2012 liveries. Until next time - the excitement overload that is Valencia - byeeeee!

The Williams Phoenix Rises

RACE TRACK: Fire - The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown

Those of you who know me in real life or on Twitter (you poor buggers) may know that I've had a half-joking love for a certain Venezuelan Formula 1 driver since his debut in Melbourne 2011. It started out just enjoying how much he looked like a serial killer, but at Monaco last year, I began to root for him for real. He was finally able to prove his driving talent around the street circuit, before... I'm getting angry just thinking about it. When the spat continued at Spa, I think it's safe to assume he was one of the most disliked drivers on the grid. And so, alas, I was the sole member in his forlorn little fan club.

Until now.

DELIGHTED to be typing this: Pastor Maldonado WINS the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix!

So many achievements by that man this weekend. Pole position (which I predicted after FP3 actually, but foolishly did not put money on), first time having the Venezuelan national anthem on the podium (quite jazzy actually), first win for Williams in 8 long years (a wonderful gift for Sir Frank's 70th birthday), and 25 times his points in the whole of 2011, all in one glorious race. Oh, and not forgetting providing us with a FIFTH different winning driver and constructor. 2012 is a sensational season so far. Also, I can't imagine any driver more frightening to be breathing down your neck for most of a race than Fernando Alonso.

Ok, so maybe that photograph wasn't the best choice to convey the intimidating nature of a double world champion, on home turf, tearing after you, but my point still stands. Maldonado has only a fraction of the experience Alonso has in F1 and yet he was able to stay in front despite the Spaniard's relentless efforts from less than a second behind and within the DRS zone. I like to think that people who thought he was just a 'pay driver' may start to take note of his driving ability here. The race had no big crashes or adverse weather conditions to explain away Maldonado's presence at the front of the grid - he won on pure merit. Amazing drive. I'll come back to the emotional rollercoaster of the post-race drama at Williams, but for now, I'm reviewing the race action.

...Or what there was of it. During the race, I was naturally caught up in the madness that was seeing "P1 MAL" on my television screen and had consequently developed the Christian Horner foot-jiggle. It was only hours later, whilst pondering who might be runner-up to Pastor for driver of the day, that I realised: none of the others did very well. In the midfield and back, the Toro Rossos and the Force Indias were bordering on invisible (and not because of FOM this time), the Caterhams didn't make the leaps and bounds they promised, and the HRTs were still acting like bloody cucumbers. As for those who SHOULD be further up front: Felipe baby was finally acting a bit racy, only to drop out of the points after a drive-through, and Webber and my beloved Button hardly moved the whole race! When asked after the race what went wrong, Jenson laughed and said, "I was just slow." Sad times.

Ok, Lewis Hamilton gaining 16 places isn't bad. But it's hard to get excited about an 8th place finish for a driver in arguably the best team on the grid, even if you're actually a fan of the muppet. I found myself in the rare position of having not much to complain about with Notorious H.A.M. this weekend - especially having successfully not smashed Massa out of the race. But of course it was back to usual as soon as he opened his mouth in the interviews, unnecessarily slagging off his teammate and anyone who calls his driving style aggressive (which it is, and is not an insult). So it's the usual suspect grinding my gears this week, along with the surprising mediocrity of so much of the field on Sunday. But now back to the better things...

Straight in with a photograph of the happiest giraffe in the zoo and all gear-grinding is eradicated. This was his face when describing his race as "alright". Can you imagine his expression when he has a better-than-alright race?! I think my tweet that he could cure depression makes a perfectly valid point. But yes, a shame we didn't see him on the podium but some more good points for Romain and less of the bad luck from earlier in the season.


Aside from the adorable giraffe, another shining beacon of hope for my cynical soul was Sky F1's success in making me laugh almost constantly during their coverage. A particular highlight for me was Martin's gridwalk, where he attempted his 'Marty's Random Person' segment:

...And failed. What that video sadly cuts off is the next part when Martin strides up to Bernie Ecclestone and asks if he speaks English - Bernie's face was priceless.

After the race, while the BBC was showing you Eddie Jordan's foot, Simon Lazenby on Sky was busy giggling helplessly having asked Pastor Maldonado's fiancée live on television what she does to help him relax. Raised eyebrows and laughter all round. Simon was certainly earning his new nickname of Lolzenby. And he's the perfect candidate for a caption competition:

I'm thinking, "I said WHAT to Gabriella?!" Feel free to comment or tweet me your ideas!

On a rather less fun note, I can't really review this race without mentioning the fire in the Williams garage. I think it's a truly wonderful thing that somehow the positive stories following this outweighed the negative ones. Thankfully, news of injuries were few and tales of heroism were plenty. It was fantastic to see members of all the teams up and down the pit lane racing to extinguish the fire, and managing to have it under control before the circuit's fire engines had even arrived. The photograph of a cameraman dropping his equipment to help a mechanic out of the flaming garage was an incredible sight. But the one that I think warmed the most hearts after a scary afternoon was the shot of race winner, driver of the day and man of the moment, Pastor Maldonado, carrying his young cousin through the smoke to safety. I can't help but make this comparison.

Please forgive the metaphor, but this Spanish Grand Prix has given the Williams phoenix a chance to rise from the ashes. Williams is a beloved team to so many, and after such a terrible season in 2011, it's brilliant to see the start of a resurgence. Oh, and I should probably mention that my one-person Maldonado fan club is officially accepting new members. And on that note, I'm signing off. Apologies for this being quite excessively long but, you know, stuff happened. As usual, if you have any comments, leave them below or tweet me @F1_Obsessive, ¡VIVA VENEZUELA! aaaaaand see you in Monaco baby! ^^