Hungary Hungary Hamilton

RACE TRACK: Back To The Start - Razorlight

We'll start with the start today (chronological order, who'd have thought?), because there we witnessed quite the display of senility from a certain Mr Schumacher. Here's a view of the first attempted race start from fans in the grandstand:

So all 24 cars had set off on their warm-up lap at the Hungaroring and all the drivers were taking up their starting positions, ready for lights out. Except Michael Schumacher. He qualified a dismal 17th, but he must've been feeling self-deprecating as he pulled up in the 19th slot on the grid. Now I'm sure it must be difficult, when all the grid slots look the same and you've got a million things to think about in the cockpit of your F1 car... but surely you'd see that inviting, empty space right in front of you? But no, Michael was happy with 19th apparently and awaited the 5 red lights like the rest of the field. At this point, one can assume that poor Narain Karthikeyan was meandering about in no man's land, looking for a 25th grid slot to park his HRT. So with the back few rows all out of position, Charlie Whiting initiated a second warm-up lap, with flashing yellow lights on the gantry.

Now this is a pretty rare circumstance, so a few drivers were understandably confused by the proceedings - you can see from the video that several of the less experienced drivers were hesitant when setting off for the second time. But for some bizarre reason, the seven-time world champion got himself even more confused and promptly switched off his engine. Right, that makes sense. See an empty grid slot in front of you? Never mind that. See all cars in front of you driving off slowly? Turn off the engine, obviously. I might sound a bit harsh here, but you'd expect this sort of cock-up perhaps from an inattentive rookie, but not the most experienced driver on the grid!

And as if his race couldn't get any worse, when the Mercedes crew raced down the grid to push Schumacher's stricken car into the pitlane (hopefully in time for the proper start of the race), he reportedly picked up a puncture on a drain. So despite trying his very best to bugger up his race by leaving his brain at home, a healthy dose of bad luck was there to kick him when he was down. Strange, strange start to a race.

Now I have to say, it wasn't the most fascinating of races. The Hungaroring is never an easy place to overtake, but it seemed like all the position changes took place thanks to pit stops, rather than out on track. Although there was an inbetweeny moment between the Lotus drivers, when Grosjean was heading into the first corner as Raikkonen exited the pits.

This was on lap 46, and whichever Lotus driver came out in front would likely be the only challenger to the leader, Hamilton. Romain might have had his tyres up to temperature, but Kimi had the inside line. It's always stressful when two drivers you like/support/are emotionally invested in get that close to each other on track, but sensible driving from the pair of them meant that the gentle nudge merely pushed Grosjean wide and didn't cause either car any damage. I'll be honest: I would have been DELIGHTED if it was the happy giraffe scampering after Hamilton, but Kimi earned that strong second place and it was great to see both the Lotus guys on the podium - the delicious bread of a rather unsavoury sandwich. Romain was, of course, predictably miserable at having lost out on second - or possibly first - place:

Seriously. This was his face when he was explaining that he was "not such happy" and "not happy at all" with finishing third after fighting for the win for the most part of the race. Not such happy?!

Elsewhere on the circuit, Sebastian Vettel had apparently become bored of being a racing driver. Lapping behind Jenson Button, Vettel radioed his race engineer saying, "I can go much faster than him, so do something." Erm, I think the doing of things is meant to be down to you? I'm sure it was only said in the frustration of the moment, but it did cause a fair few raised eyebrows where I was watching, at F1 In Pubs. I'm not one of the people that insist Seb can't overtake, but comments like that will not help eliminate that opinion of him. Dear me, Seb and Jenson just can't seem to keep away from each other these past few races...

Cute cute cute. Gratuitous Sebson because boring race was boring. 

Aside from gratuitous, borderline-irrelevant pictures, what else is a regular feature of this blog? OH YES, defiantly defending Pastor! This week's 'victim' was Paul di Resta. In my view, this was a similar 'incident' (if you can call it that) to the Lotus drivers duelling at Turn 1. One driver had the inside line into the corner (Raikkonen and Maldonado), whilst the other was pushed wide (Grosjean and di Resta). The only difference I can see is that Pastor and Paul (that sounds like a really dire TV programme) made contact very slightly, where the Lotus cars did not. The end result in both circumstances was identical: no damage to either car and both still close together on track, with the possibility of swapping positions. And yet, poor Pastor Maldonado received a drive-through penalty for the 'collision' that barely even happened, ruining his race and any chance he had of a point or two. I know I defend him every race weekend, but sometimes I can see sense in punishing him (Valencia, for example). This week, however, I completely disagree. I've said before that I believe the main point of a penalty is to make the suffering equitable for both drivers involved. So if you give someone a puncture and carry on unhindered, you deserve a penalty to punish you in the same way that the other driver was. But Paul didn't suffer at all. He was slow at the time and was inevitably going to be overtaken by a car or two. Yes, Pastor nudged him ever so slightly during his overtaking manoeuvre, but no damage was done! I think if the stewards want to set a precedent for dishing out a penalty every time that F1 cars touch each other, despite no damage being caused, then they're going to end up awfully busy. Romain speaks sense on this sort of subject: despite being very unhappy with losing his position to Kimi, he refers to their coming together as "racing". And that's what we love! So I really hope that Pastor's 'previous' with the stewards isn't having an impact on some of their decisions, because I think, in this case certainly, a penalty was completely unnecessary.

As for the other Williams, Bruno Senna had a belter of a race! He got his race weekend off to a great start by qualifying ninth, ahead of both Mercedes, both Force Indias and even Mark Webber. Bruno was then feisty for the entire duration of the Grand Prix and finished in a great seventh place, only a couple of seconds behind Jenson Button. He might not have spent as long at the very front of the field this year as his teammate, but Bruno Senna has shown some great driving ability and delivered good, consistent finishes. I know it's Pastor that I'm usually raving about, but I really rate Bruno as well. Just as it annoys me that people seem to pick on certain drivers for bringing money to their team (erm, they all do), it infuriates me that people claim Bruno is only in F1 because of his name, and that he's 'not as good as Ayrton'. Why should he have to be compared to his uncle? You can't expect that of him. You wouldn't expect Ralf to be the same as Michael, or Nico to be the same as Keke. I think Senna's performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix has shut a few people up on that subject, so I hope to see him at the front of the grid again in the second half of the season - is a podium too much to hope for? I hope not.

Gratuitous naked time because... because Bruno Senna.

Aaaaaanyway, that's enough ranting and rambling. Having been welcomed into the Fan Formula family, I spouted even more gibberish on the Hungarian Grand Prix on YouTube, so you can see my 'Hungaroboring' video here and the neatly edited group opinions video here. I also had the huge pleasure once more of watching the GP with the delightfully mad Tiff and David at the Après bar in Birmingham, as well as plenty of other F1 fans there for F1 In Pubs. I thoroughly recommend it if you can find a venue near to you, as it is bloody brilliant.

And I think that's it from me. I hope you all enjoy/survive the F1 summer break, and of course I'll still be tweeting away despite no F1 action at @F1_Obsessive. I shall leave you with the greatest picture to emerge from this race weekend, or possibly EVER: a member of the Lotus team completely trolling and ruining the McLaren celebratory team photo.

 All the awards, Lotus. Amazing. Right, I'm off, see you in Spa!

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!

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.