Monday 26 March 2012

Malaysian GP - The Race


Strong black coffee. Check.
Illegible scrawled notes. Check.

Right then. Here we go.

The first thing to say about the 2012 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix is that it was a very long race. Two hours and forty eight minutes to be precise. My second race blog ever and it was one of ‘those’ lunatic Spa type races featuring a huge round of pit stops in the first few laps, torrential rain, a Safety Car, thunder and lightning strikes, black-out in the commentary box, race red-flagged and that was all by lap 9.

The husband chirruped away (with more than a hint of glee) about how I’d have fun blogging this race. I must admit I was getting ever so slightly nervous that we would have another 2011 Canadian GP on our hands until we were told there was a New Rule this year that a race has a maximum time-limit of 4 hours. Given the Canadian GP was only 4 hours and 4 minutes long (and that was the longest race for several hundred years), did we really need a New Rule? Maybe some of the dignitaries went and complained to Bernie in Montreal that the race was too long. Was Lenny Kravitz there do we know?

Anyway back to the build-up when all that pesky rain was merely a distant black cloud in the sky. To get us started, Sky did a slightly odd sepia intro with the faces of drivers projected onto down-town derelict looking Kuala Lumpur buildings. As adverts go for Malaysia, it wasn’t really Sky’s finest hour. In the interests of research (and being notoriously terrible at geography), I googled Sepang. Until 2000, the Sepang district was just a flat stretch of palm oil plantations and apparently the best eating options are at the airport. I think that says everything. When the lottery millions come rolling in, I might give Sepang a miss.

Sunglasses Watch: Button still sporting his Oliver Peoples Sheldrakes and Schuey was rocking the ‘Top Gun’ look in his Ray Ban Aviators. I think the 1980s rule supreme in the Schumacher Mansion.

Rather alarmingly, I have written on my scribbled notes ‘build-up too long’. This is on line 4 of my notes. One of the problems with Sky is that they literally bludgeon you to death with stats and analysis and that frigging sky-pad for 90 minutes and by the start you’re almost a gibbering wreck praying for the red lights to go off.

Oooooh Nerd Alert. Just had a small segment showing the iconic 1979 title-winning Ferrari 312T4 (and Jody Scheckter). Its so ugly that in fact its stunningly beautiful. Apparently Martin Brundle agrees too and has a model of this car in his study. Martin Brundle has a study?! I sort of pictured him as a man who creosotes his fence and mows the lawn on a non-race weekend. A gross underestimation it would appear.

Next up was an interview with Ross Brawn and the Mercedes drivers by Georgie Thompson. Expect withering looks and quizzical eyebrows aplenty! According to Schuey, Mercedes were ‘nowhere’ last season. Get used to it, Michael. At the end of that interview, the husband (inexplicably) said “putting your eggs into one basket will only work if the basket comes off”. And he wonders sometimes why I don’t respond.

First shot of the Weather Monitor of Doom. It says there is a large rain shower at 10km north-east, moving towards the circuit. Its like that scene from the Wizard of Oz when the tornado is coming and Dorothy is trying to get home in time. Ok my mind is prone to tangents. Keep an eye on this weather folks. It changes EVERYTHING.

Apparently it was very hot in Sepang. Just in case we (as idiot viewers) could not imagine what it felt like being hot, Sky Towers felt it incumbent upon themselves to explain the effects of heat. This involved some footage of Natalie Pinkham in tight black lycra (in full make-up) jogging along telling us how she felt like she was wrapped in clingfilm. Thanks, Natalie. Honestly who comes up with these ideas – have they employed Gareth from The Office?!

Some more fast-forwarding and it was time for Martin’s Gridwalk. Today’s Random Celebrity at a Race was Owen Wilson. I bet Martin has never seen an Owen Wilson film but manfully he tried to ‘have a quick word’. And indeed it was a very quick word. It is safe to say that Owen practically snubbed Our Martin. Bring back Lenny Kravitz with his loquacious and charming ways. Who is Owen Wilson anyway? Luckily, as always, Christian Horner was on hand (ie. actually waiting for Martin to turn around) for a quick interview. Bless.

I caught sight of Jake Humphrey strolling up the pit-lane followed by a phalanx of cameras. Would he make eye contact with Martin? Would they blank each other? Its like Angelina and Jennifer all over again. Anyway Jake was in Focused Professional Mode and strode past quickly (hopefully he hadn’t spotted Owen Wilson and decided to sprint up and have a ‘quick word’!).

Schuey’s car was the last to make its way onto the track. Random Mercedes bod that Brundle pounced on wasn’t aware of the reason for the delay but didn’t think there was a problem. That meant there was a problem. OH NO. It was already raining but the drivers were only on intermediate tyres. It was going to be carnage. Hurrah.

Time. For. The. Start (just another two hours and forty eight minutes to go, folks!).

Both McLarens got away cleanly and this time Hamilton didn’t surrender his lead. Schumacher’s Mercedes just appeared to go backwards at the start and at turn 4 he spun massively after contact with Grosjean meaning by lap 2 he was in 16th place. This was not in the Schumacher Rainmeister script and 4 year old was once again absolutely distraught. He had even prayed to God for rain to help Schumacher and you know what, God had listened.

As the heavens opened, the cars all became very twitchy and the drivers started to flood into the pits to change onto wet tyres. First into the pits for wets on lap 2 was Sergio Perez. Remember that. As the camera panned to Grosjean’s car sitting in some gravel (again), Hamilton radioed in to say he was aquaplaning. Never words any F1 driver wants to utter in the middle of a race. Off into the pits then for Lewis while Jenson reported that the last sector was like a lake. Spare a thought for HRT, they finally qualify for a race and have to cope with flash-flood conditions and lightning strikes on the circuit. Suddenly the TV lost all picture before coverage resumed with a nervous sounding Croft telling us the lights just went out in the commentary box. Grow a pair, man, think what it was like for Karthikeyan dicing death in an HRT.

The Safety Car was rapidly deployed (bet the safety car driver was overjoyed to get that message) and this gave me a chance to work out who was where. The top 3 were Lewis, Jenson and Perez. In 10th place, it was none other than an HRT (did anyone see Schumacher actually get into a Mercedes, he didn’t just decide to drive the HRT for a laugh did he?!). Possibly even more stunning was that Vergne was in 7th place still on intermediates. WTF? Seriously impressive.

Lap 9 – RACE RED-FLAGGED. I scooted off to make a vat of coffee as I had one hour’s less sleep than normal due to the start of BST and the swines inconsiderately put a Grand Prix on early.

Well how about that, some of the teams brought gazebos with them to keep the cars and drivers nice and dry. McLaren definitely won the award for best gazebo. I like to think Martin Whitmarsh popped into John Lewis and got one just in case. Did Karthikeyan have a gazebo? I was worried for him. We got a moody shot of Adrian Newey looking like a cross between that sinister monk from the Da Vinci Code and the husband on a holiday in Cornwall. The commentators were very downbeat about the fact there had been no rain all week and now they’ve had the storm to end all storms. Welcome to my world, dudes, of endless holidays where we arrive in blazing sunshine the day before a cold front moves in. Life can be cruel.

We then got a lot of ‘filler’. Mildly (ie. not really) interesting shots of Vettel and Alonso having a big chat. Other best buds are seemingly Massa and Schumacher. Reminiscing about those good ol’ Ferrari years. Hang on, Massa is still at Ferrari. Well kind of. The poor old commentators at Sky Towers were really struggling. I bet it was so much easier at the Beeb where they could simply hand the mike over to Eddie Jordan and leave him to drone on ad infinitum about Jordan’s 1-2 at Spa in 1998 (in torrential rain). Is it time yet to mention Spa 1998 was the subject of the husband’s first ever chat up line to me. He was a smooth operator.

After an eternity, we were told the race would resume behind the safety car on wets. On lap 14, the safety car buggered off and all the drivers started coming to the pits. Hamilton had a terrible pit-stop and ended up coming out behind Alonso. Turning-point alert! Further disaster for McLaren as Jenson Button clattered into the back of Karthikeyan and broke his front wing. Perez did his stop and was still leading the race. At some point Alonso overtook Perez. Did we see this? Who knows. Anyway the race order at lap 20 was Alonso, Perez and Hamilton – and Hamilton was spectacularly failing to close on Perez.

According to the Weather Monitor of Doom, there was more rain coming. Oh FFS enough already. Button came in again for more intermediates and ended up battling with Massa for 16th place. Oh the ignominy. In the meantime, Perez was rapidly gobbling up Alonso.

On my increasingly incomprehensible notes, I appear to have written ‘Massa in guinea-pig sticks’. Oh yes, Massa pitted for slicks (in my opinion) to test them out for Alonso who was coming under incredible pressure from Perez. Hamilton had another rubbish pit-stop. Hope the therapist was on hand post-race. Poor Lewis.

Meanwhile, Perez was hunting down that Ferrari like a man possessed. Pulling out fastest laps one after another. What a stunning drive by the young man from Guadalajara.

Ten laps to go and Vettel suddenly got a puncture. There were bits of rubber disintegrating everywhere. It would appear that Vettel hit the back of Karthikeyan’s HRT. Poor Narain – he must feel like he has a death-wish. First a torrential rainstorm then F1 world champions kept crashing into him. Anyway, Vettel did a lot of fist-shaking. Kevin the Teenager was in the house.

Nearly there! With 6 laps to go, Perez was now RIGHT BEHIND Alonso, then suddenly he got a team radio message saying ‘be careful, we need this position’. Er why wait until he practically catches Alonso before calling him back? I’m not saying this is a coded message but Sauber has a Ferrari engine. Just saying. Anyway Perez (in his car with a Ferrari engine) then made a mistake so it was all academic.

Just as I turned to the husband and said I thought Williams might win a race this year, plumes of smoke shot out of Maldonaldo’s car on the penultimate lap. I am truly the kiss of death. There was also some final drama with Vettel’s car when he was told to stop the car, then carry on and then we heard ‘its an emergency, stop the car’. How mystifying.

Anyhoo, here are the results from the Malaysian Grand Prix 2012:
  1. Alonso (qualified 9th and won the race – superb drive and it definitely made no difference at all that the 2nd place driver also had a Ferrari Engine and is a member of Ferrari’s young driver academy).
  2. Perez (a truly brilliant, brilliant drive and duh Brundle/Croft, of course he is the driver of the day).
  3. Hamilton (two poles, no wins – this could spook a more fragile character).
  4. Webber (another 4th place – yawn).
  5. Raikkonen (fully deserved alone for sending ice-creams to all the media – a loon but at least he’s a loon not a boring automaton of a driver).
  6. Senna (a fine drive).

Two weeks rest before China and another crack-of-dawn start. See you there!

In the meantime, please do leave comments. I’d love to hear from you!

Sunday 25 March 2012

Malaysian GP - Qualifying


You wait all year for an F1 race and whatd’ya know, two come along in 7 days. I’d barely drawn breath since completing my humungous Australian GP blog when it was time to sprint downstairs to catch (most of) the Qualifying in Sepang. Admittedly at the far more civilised hour of 8am so by this point my children had been up for hours and 4 year old was already getting himself into a state about  the whereabouts of Michael Schumacher. This week he drew a picture of Schumacher for his school diary and his teacher wrote ‘my favourite driver is Jenson Button’. Must be the cool shades (which I did find a moment to google – Oliver Peoples Sheldrake apparently).

Between the two races, there had been some boring ‘your car is better than ours and its not fair’ challenge from Red Bull and Lotus on the legality of the Mercedes rear wing and the front wing F-duct (nope, no idea either!). I love the way its always a leading team that challenges these innovative devices while the likes of HRT don’t give a flying fig and are just frantically trying to build a new a car that Martin Brundle won’t keep calling a ‘mobile chicane’.

Anyway the FIA ruled in favour of Mercedes presumably moments after receiving a fax from Mr Bernard Charles Ecclestone (“do not, I repeat, do not mess with Schumacher’s fast car”). I like to think he is old-school and still fires off faxes to all corners of his empire. Only joking, Bernie, if you’re reading this – oh and also, my Dad says ‘hi’ (random fact: my Dad bought his first ever car from Bernie!).

So back to Qualifying...

Thoughtfully knowing I was writing a blog, the husband had started watching the qualifying (er, what do we have Sky Plus for?) so I had to ask what had happened so far in Q1. I can’t remember what he said as my 4 year old was bleating away incessantly about Schumacher who was topping the timesheets until that arch-villain Mark Webber (who would have thought?) had the temerity to pip him and set the fastest time. Brilliantly though for HRT, they managed to qualify both cars for the race and even better they won’t even start last due to Kovalainen's five-place grid penalty. What’s the betting that an HRT does something daft while being lapped by a front-runner?!

Not a great qualifying for Williams as in Q2, Pastor Maldonaldo managed to slither off into a load of gravel and trash part of his car. It all got a bit fast and frenetic towards the end and with a couple of minutes to go, Schuey and Massa were languishing in 11th and 12th place respectively. One driver out  of the two managed to make it into the top ten and it wasn’t Felipe. A precision lap by Schuey (it was never in doubt) to finish 4th ensure he made it through to the final shoot-out.

Apparently there was a fire in the Lotus hospitality building overnight. I hope someone didn’t forget to take out the sausage rolls. I quite like the idea of some VIPs all trying to sneak into the McLaren tent to pilfer a ham sandwich and some pringles. Actually Martin Whitmarsh is such a bloody nice bloke he’s probably offer round the nibbles himself.

Anyway time for Q3. This is what it all comes down to. Alarmingly, we were told that Mercedes were only doing one run this session. By this point, Lewis Hamilton had already done an absolutely blistering lap to gain provisional pole. Rosberg was the first of the two Mercedes’ drivers out and basically made a complete hash of it. I wondered last week whether Nico could cope with the pressure of having a potentially race-winning car and it would seem possibly not. Also it can’t be great having your 43 year old team-mate suddenly out-qualifying and out-racing you. Schumacher went purple in the 1st and 3rd sector and  managed to set the 2nd fastest time. Much whooping from 4 year old! The last time Michael Schumacher qualified so high up the grid was at the Japanese GP in 2006 when he was a mere 37 year old whippersnapper.

Not to be outdone, at the death, Button did a stunning lap and ensured there would be another McLaren 1-2 for the second race in a row. So the line-up for tomorrow is 1. Hamilton, 2. Button, 3. Schumacher, 4. Webber, 5. Raikkonen, 6. Vettel. Gazooks, that means 5 world champions on the front 3 rows. Sky Towers will be verily giddy with excitement!

There was a great moment in the post-qualifying press conference when Schuey was asked if it could have been pole today. Cue death stare and a classic Schuey response that they had achieved the maximum that was available! Interestingly by the end of the press conference, Lewis didn’t seem too sure after all that being on pole was a good thing (as it was a long haul down to turn 1. Yikes, don’t say he’s going to pieces already. There was just time for the camera to show Vettel with his Kevin the Teenager face going into the FIA garage to be weighed. Not sure what is worse for him, qualifying 6th or being out-qualified by Mark Webber. We will see what he is made of tomorrow and what thrills, spills and crashes the Malaysian GP has in store for us.

Saturday 24 March 2012

Australian GP – The Race


Well, thanks to the miracle of small children we managed to watch the race almost live. I dipped my toe into the Sky build-up on Friday (starting with the practice sessions) and found myself pleasantly surprised. To a total petrolhead like me, having a dedicated F1 channel is truly like manna from heaven but Sky does have a very different feel to the Beeb and it will take some getting used to. Still more of that later.

Just before the start of the race, the husband was shrieking “look at Button”… “look how he is angled” (and to be fair he is a long-time Button fan way before everyone else pretended they had rated him all along). Perhaps he might know a thing or two about motor racing because sure enough Jenson took Hamilton on the inside on the first corner and never looked back.

Romain Grosjean must have looked the Big Time in the eye at the start and suddenly hit the small time meltdown button as he plummeted down from 3rd to 6th in the blink of an eye and then crashed out on the second lap after a coming together with Pastor Maldonaldo. He is one to watch though. Rosberg had a storming start and it was looking very nice indeed for Mercedes with Schumacher and Rosberg running 3rd and 4th respectively until (1) Vettel passed Rosberg in a stunning move that stuck two fingers up to all those who think he is not a ‘racing’ driver but just a good driver who had a brilliant car and (2) Schumacher had to retire with gearbox problems (boo hiss).

The first round of McLaren pitstops resulted in Button (the first to pit) regaining the lead after Hamilton pitted. Unfortuntely for Lewis, he emerged behind a tenacious Sergio Perez (who was matching Button’s pace!). Time for the first Safety Car of the season on lap 37 after Petrov’s Caterham ended up stuck on  the start/finish straight. Cue another round of pitstops which allowed Vettel to move into 2nd place ahead of Hamilton.  When the Safety Car trundled off at lap 41, Button did a scorching restart and Hamilton ended up having to worry more about holding off Webber to keep 3rd place than being able to get anywhere close to Vettel to challenge for 2nd spot. Massa and Senna had a coming together on lap 46 (hmmm Massa having another crash incident…anyone spot a trend here?) which resulted in both drivers eventually retiring from the race with punctures.

No sooner had I uttered the words to the husband “…Williams have had a great race” when Maldonaldo in hot pursuit of Alonso (whose tyres were clearly screwed) showed that F1 cars can be driven too hard and ended up spinning and crashing into a wall. Murray Walker eat your heart out. There was such fierce scrapping on the final lap between Rosberg, Raikkonen, Vergne, Ricciardo and Di Resta and Perez that I entirely lost track of who ended up where. To be fair, 8th to 11th was separated by 0.4 seconds (which given they have been going hammer and tongs around the track for 58 laps is pretty damn close). Raikkonen finished 7th so after a rubbish qualifying, he massively redeemed himself.

So here are the results from the Australian Grand Prix 2012:
1. Button (all hail Jenson, the coolest of them all and loving those shades – might have to google those!)
2. Vettel (a tidy result if I may slip into Gavin & Stacey parlance)
3. Hamilton (on the podium but Lewis had his Kevin the Teenager face at the end which says everything)
4. Webber (he hung on in there but really I’d sooner watch paint dry and oddly enough I did yesterday – don’t worry I’ll leave it there before the husband slips into a coma!)
5. Alonso (brilliant result in that pig of a car)
6. Kobayashi (actually this totally escaped me – he is another one to watch because – and take note Mark Webber – he is exciting and entertaining to watch)


So what did we learn from the first race of the season:

1. Button is a bloody good driver. Actually he might be a better driver than his team-mate. Better doesn’t necessarily have to be faster. There is far more to being a great F1 driver than having pure raw speed. Ralf Schumacher was fast. Quite.
2. Vettel will push Button all the way. From 6th on the grid, he finished 2nd. A statement of intent. But Red Bull are unlikely to dominate and this is a good thing.
3. Williams are much, much better than they have been a long time. Hopefully their long years in the wilderness are over. I think I may have just about forgiven Frank Williams 15 years on for the cruel dumping of Damon Hill for Heinz-Harald (‘faster than Schumacher’) Frentzen .
4. Ferrari are terrible and Alonso worked miracles to finish 5th.
5. Mercedes did not live up to the pre-season hype but the jury is still out. Malaysia will be very interesting and please dear Lord let Michael Schumacher have a good race as my 4 year old was in floods of tears after he crashed out in Australia. Oh yes, he has been trained well. As he said to me the other day, “everyone likes Michael Schumacher” (he also said the same thing about Wayne Rooney!). He has a lot to learn.
6. Lewis should keep an eye on Martin Brundle. Our Martin definitely has a deep appreciation of the exotic charms of Ms Scherzinger!
7. Lenny Kravitz…WTF? Away with you back to Nascars (which I’m sure you follow fanatically given your phenomenal motor-racing passion…cough). Give me lovely Ted any day!
8. The new Sky commentator (David Croft) was pretty darn good. Brundle (rapidly becoming an F1 institution who any TV channel must buy at any cost) is as brilliantly laconic and knowledgeable as ever. Some might say that Damon was a little stuttery and a tad wooden but I Love Damon Hill and no one is ever allowed to say a single word against him. I just adore that man.
9. Message to Georgie Thompson – I want to give you a chance but for the love of God woman, please just tone it down. The leather trousers, over-styled hair and heavy make-up just look ridiculously OTT and she is in danger of making Nicole Scherzinger look scruffy. Even if Georgie could name every single winner of every single Grand Prix race since 1950, who can take her seriously pouting away in her leathers. Shut up, husband.
10. Simon Lazenby is not even a poor man’s Jake Humphrey. What chance a Sky megabucks offer comes Jake’s way during the season.

Well folks that was Australia. See you in Sepang!

Australian GP - Qualifying


To steal Vettel’s brilliant line, it was finally time for the drivers to drop their trousers and show what they’ve got. After weeks of smoke and mirrors, we were all about to find out how the pack was going to shake out for the 2012 season. The one thing everyone was certain about was that they were uncertain where any particular car or driver would be on the grid for the first Grand Prix (although I would happily have staked my very small collection of Mulberry handbags on Vettel not being last).

The main point to note from Q1 was that Kimi missed the cut (subsequently there was some debate as to why – in the world of Kimi there was an issue with the car – in the real world, Kimi clearly made a mistake on exiting turn 12). Both HRT cars failed to qualify within the 107% limit and ultimately missed the race. Q2 saw the shock elimination of Alonso and the less shocking elimination of Massa. Clearly Ferrari is going to have one of ‘those’ seasons. Must be hard for the Tifosi to remember those halycon years (though they were quite boring for everyone else) when Ferrari won all the time.

Q3 was an frenzied see-saw of drivers swapping fastest lap-times and culminated in McLaren’s first 1-2 (Lewis-Jenson) on the grid since the European Grand Prix of 2009 the first time since Monza in 2010 that a Red Bull wasn’t on the front row and (just to chuck in another stat) the first time since the Australian GP in 1995 that two British drivers were on the front row. Blimey.  Schumacher looked set to take 3rd place until a flying lap from Romain Grosjean in a Lotus pushed Schuey down to 4th place. A brilliant moment for Grosjean although you did wonder what would be going through his mind at the start of the race knowing he had two of the afore-mentioned world champions right behind him. Welcome to the big time Romain!

We are less than 24 hours away from the First Race of the Season. Scream!    

On the eve of the 2012 F1 Season...


Formula 1 is back and how we have missed it. Despite there being more races than ever before, the final race of the previous season seems like a lifetime ago. Was it Interlagos or Abu Dhabi? I haven’t the foggiest. For some reason the 2011 season failed to ignite and capture the imagination. While we can all admire a brilliant driver in a brilliant car (heck, Sebastian Vettel even found time to smash the lap record in the Reasonably Priced Car and demonstrate an impressive array of regional English accents on Top Gear), it simply does not make for a thrilling Grand Prix season.

The one stand out race (and to be fair it was an absolute corker) was the Canadian Grand Prix – undoubtedly Jenson Button’s greatest victory to date. Trapped in our cottage in Cornwall as the torrential rain beat down outside (much like in Montreal), we spent 4 hours gripped and entranced by this most surreal and dramatic of races.  It really felt like a rite of passage – one of those races that made you fall in love with F1 all over again.

So what will we remember from 2011?
1.     Aside from the thrilling Canadian Grand Prix, there were a lot of dull, dull, dull races. Valencia springs to mind though I literally can remember nothing at all about the race. Did Vettel win? Probably.
2.     Red Bull blew the rest away (though only when driven by a German) and Adrian Newey is a genius. But then we knew that already.
3.     To say the Williams team is a shadow of its former self is an understatement. It was a desperately poor season even by the mediocre standards of recent years.
4.     The numerous Hamilton/Massa collisions – they took their random crash roadshow to Monaco, Silverstone, Singapore, Japan and India.  Though this did throw up one of the more quirky yet memorable F1 moments of 2011 – Rowan Atkinson’s great ‘Mr Bean’ face after yet another coming together at the inaugural Indian GP. Maybe this year we will be treated to a ‘Blackadder’ face. But I digress (something I tend to do a lot).
5.     Which brings me onto Hamilton’s season. The only driver to snatch a pole from Red Bull (at the South Korean GP) all year but by and large it was a chaotic and calamitous season. As well as the messy spats with Massa, he was out-performed by his own team-mate and petulant outbursts such as “maybe it's because I'm black…that's what Ali G says” and “it's an absolute frickin' joke…I've been to see the stewards five times out of six this season” (er maybe that’s because you keep crashing into people, Lewis) were reminiscent of Kevin the Teenager. But say what you like about Lewis (and many do, especially his long-suffering mechanics I would imagine!) he is never dull.

And so to Melbourne.

After the long winter of ‘behind closed doors’ car development (what will be this year’s secret-weapon diffuser?), the hours and hours of testing, the unveiling of the new cars, the great and the good and the not so good of Formula 1 (oh and Lenny Kravitz too) finally arrived in Melbourne for the start of the new season.

The Big Excitement (especially at Sky Towers) was the fact that SIX former and current world champions would be competing on the grid (Schumacher, Alonso, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Button and Vettel) for the first time ever.  And I have to admit that is pretty cool although my all-time dream race starring six champions (at the peak of their powers) would be Fangio, Jim Clark, James Hunt (well I had to sneak him in), Senna, Mansell and Schumacher.

I happened to stumble across the Sky commentators in one of the practice sessions debating which of the 6 drivers would win the title if they all had the same car. Rather disappointingly, they sat on the fence big style and waffled on about how any particular car would suit one driver more than another and so the ultimate winner would depend on the set up and design of the car etc. Yawn. Where’s Eddie Jordan with an opinion when you need him! Well for what it worth (precisely squat diddly) I think it would be a fight to the finish between Alonso and Vettel (10 years ago the answer would have been Schumacher no question). However, chuck a bucketload of rain into the equation and I think the Rainmeister (Schumacher) would still be the man to beat. Biased much?

Qualifying will reveal all. Or not as the case may be!