Monday 22 April 2013

Ba-never-rain(s)

That was the worst blog title in history

Yes the blog title may have been as bad as watching a man eat a live kitten on national TV (I heard this happen in Croatia, but I'm sure it was a joke... I hope) but the race I'm mentioning was rather good.

Very close racing, wheel to wheel stuff and a double lotus podium, so what's the story this week?

Top 5

Hamilton takes part in a remake of
Apocalypse Now
Winning was Vettel, not shocking really, but he did well on the first lap and just commanded from there, a few good overtakes against Rosberg and Alonso, but apart from that nothing spectacular. The rear exhaust shizzle that RBR run aided the car massively and does compliment Seb's driving style, clearly it does not suit Webber's quite as much.

Kimi came in second with a different 2-stop strategy, impressive considering he started 8th on the grid, he ran a good race and had some good passes.

Kimi's teammate Grosjean, again didn't crash, and came third; the careful driving is still there as he was wheel to wheel many times during the race with various people but his speed has returned.

Being a Di Resta fan I was ecstatic when I realised that a podium was in sight for the Scotsman who had his 27th birthday just last week. Then cruel fate, and lack of tyres forcing him to do a 2-stopper, snatched third place from him when Grosjean shot past with DRS about 10 laps 'till the end. Then I noticed something that
So close, but no Rose Water
many of the main media outlets didn't, with 3 laps to go Grosjean slowed RIGHT down, loosing about a second per lap to Paul, in fact they were just over one second apart when finishing, I think Roman's tyres went straight down the cliff, if the race was only a few laps longer. Still I can hope for the future.

Finally Hamilton somehow made it to 5th, ahead of his teammate who started on Pole, again showing that the Merc has good speed, but not-so-good race pace.

The Others

Ferrari where uncharacteristically unlucky, Alonso's DRS got stuck open so he had to pit to have the mechanics thump it back down, then he immediately forgot what just happened and opened it again, only to have to pit for a second time in two laps because rather shockingly whacking a precise piece of engineering and aerodynamic bodywork does not fix the problem permanently and the DRS was stuck open again. With Alonso not able to use DRS throughout the race, and Massa's sudden tyre explosions that were caused by divine intervention, Ferrari had a bad day finishing 8th and 15th.

The man who literally never stops
McLaren had some issues too, but this time it wasn't their car which was almost looking competitive enough to start winning races in Europe, the issue lay with their drivers. Button and Checo had some of the closest racing we've seen all year, lap after lap they raced wheel to wheel, one forcing the other slightly off the track; but no team orders. You have to give it to Whitmarch, he must have nerves of steel because I was terrified that they were going to punt (Slang for push, for the non-brits) each other off.

Paul Di Resta had some luck for once, but the curse of the Force fell onto Sutil who suffered damage when Massa gave him a little knock on the first lap, nothing serious but it pushed him down to 13th, shame considering how strong that car looked this weekend.

Are these toy cars, it's genuinely hard to tell
Merc had an alright race, except Rosberg inexplicably going backwards at an alarming rate.

Webber had an adequate race too, he tweeted it was an "Interesting day at the races" and he was wheel to wheel with several drivers all day, fantastic to watch.

All in all, a great race that was fantastic fun to watch, side by side, nail biting stuff, we all hope that this kind of racing can continue in Barcelona in a few weeks time.

Side Note: The article that I promised on McLaren is coming some time this week, so yay for that.

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