Sunday 29 July 2012

Hungarian GP - Qualifying


Olympics or Formula 1? No medals or a Brit on pole...its off to Hungary we go!

Confession time. I am officially a sports addict. Its likely that I might need some kind of therapy before the summer is over. Before qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix had even begun, I had been gorging myself on Olympics coverage all morning – rowing, cycling, swimming, archery, gymnastics. One of the things I love most about the Olympics is that you end up watching all manner of obscure sporting events that you don’t normally have a scintilla of interest in (or indeed any understanding of).

It is totally off topic (still that has never stopped me before!) but the Olympics Opening Ceremony was one of the ALL TIME best things I have ever watched on TV. It was simply epic and a gloriously uplifting (and at times very moving) celebration of all things quintessentially British.

The Red Arrows, the Tolkein-esque shires, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (aka Kenneth Branagh) reciting Shakespeare, the dark Satanic mills of the Industrial Revolution, an unexpected but powerful tribute to the NHS and Great Ormond Street, a celebration of children’s literature, a genius Mr Bean and Chariots of Fire sketch, a truly terrific music sequence (Bowie, Stones, Sex Pistols, the Prodigy and Muse…though I fear at the End of Time, Macca will be there doing karaoke to Hey Jude), David Beckham driving a speedboat and a marvellously understated performance of Abide With Me. The husband and me were emotional wrecks. Oh yes and the Beeb’s coverage was introduced by Benedict Cumberbatch. Be still my beating heart.

One for the ladies (hey, its topical ok!)

But the single, best stand-out moment was when the Queen turned around and said ‘good evening, Mr Bond’. Just unimaginably brilliant. Mr Danny Boyle, we salute you! Knighthood is in the post.

Anyhoo, there is a Grand Prix this weekend in Hungary. Luckily while I was scripting this marvellous (ha!) intro, I didn’t miss too much from qualifying. Ross Brawn interview (looking faintly disgruntled), Martin Whitmarsh interview (looking faintly depressed) and the first Christian Horner interview of the day (looking his usual chippy, chirpy self). Apparently some of the drivers (ie. Mark Webber) are getting a little miffed about all the plaudits Alonso has been getting for producing blinding drives from a relatively mediocre car. Yes, the Ferrari was utter crud at the start of the season but now it is pretty frigging fast. But, c’mon Mark…would you have got the same scores on the door as Fernando?! We all know the answer to that one.

In other news, since the German GP last weekend, the FIA has rushed through a rule change to close the ‘engine map’ loophole that Red Bull were exploiting ingeniously/deviously [delete as appropriate). Poor old Adrian Newey – his evil genius keeps getting thwarted by those pesky kids at the FIA. Voldemort had the same kind of problems.

The Hungaroring - it doesn't conjure up Eastern Bloc memories at all!
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Two Important Things to note just before the start of Q1: (1) qualifying performance is normally crucial here as like Monaco, this is a very difficult track for overtaking and (2) Lewis Hamilton was looking ominously fast (just as he had in Friday’s practice sessions). So Lewis to get pole and win then?

No mahoosive shocks in Q1. Out went HRT x2, Caterham x2, Marussia x2 and Toro Rosso (Ricciardo). Although Vettel and Webber only just scraped through into Q2 in 16th and 17th place. Hamilton topped the times, with Di Resta and Button just behind him. Go Team GB. Whoop!

Button's first win came at Hungary in 2006 from 14th on the grid.
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Next up, some Q2 action and a fair few surprises. At the absolute death, Pastor Maldonaldo shot up to 3rd place and in the process destroyed Schuey’s final lap by kicking up a heap of dust that made him slightly back off. This meant to the horror of the 5 year old that Schuey will be starting in 17th place tomorrow. I’ve decided to keep quiet about the critical importance of qualifying. The 5 year old knows who is The Rainmeister so he prays for rain at the start of most races anyway.

Other casualties who missed the top ten shoot out were Webber (starts in 11th), Di Resta (12th) and Nico Rosberg (13th). Another bad, bad weekend for Mercedes (so far). Congratulations to wee Bruno Senna for making Q3 for the first time this season.

So squeaky bum time aka Q3. Who would get pole? In a not very earth-shattering development it turned out to be Lewis Hamilton by A Country Mile. He is looking seriously freaking fast around here. So the grid lines up tomorrow as follows:

1. Hamilton, 2. Grosjean (that mixes it up nicely), 3. Vettel, 4. Button, 5. Kimi, 6. Alonso, 7. Massa, 8. Maldonaldo, 9. Senna and 10. Hulkenberg.

Lewis is in a happy place these days. Honestly, he really is!

Those who also follow Lewis on Twitter will know that he is channelling a lot of positive energy this weekend and seeking inspiration from Nas and Meek Mill (the world of google tells me they are rappers!). We could be in for a very interesting and emotional race. Time to hit the build-up now!

Tuesday 24 July 2012

German GP - The Race


Hockenheimring (I miss the forest but still a classic track)
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)


Firstly a HUGE apology for failing (again…slinks off in shame) to post any form of qualifying blog. In my defence, it was not a good weekend. The husband was ill with some kind of Man Tummy Bug which I did show a degree of sympathy towards until he mentioned that he might need to retire to bed in the afternoon. Obviously that got vetoed but our weekend was a bit all over the shop. And now the 5 year old is on School Holidays for Six Weeks meaning I have even less free time than normal (ie. we are now talking negative terms) to do things like blogging! So far just to cope with the first morning of the school holidays, I have had a steak for lunch and two of the strongest possible coffees. I realise that makes me sound practically French.

The most annoying man on TV?

Currently I’m trying to block out the ear-shattering tones of Mister Maker (possibly The Most Annoying Man on the Planet) and the sound of lots of frenzied scissor cutting from downstairs. God, its going to be a long six weeks. The 1 year old is currently asleep so this is one tiny window of opportunity to speed-type about the German GP.

Its safe to say this blog won’t be so much a labour of love but a race against time though more of the Maldonaldo car crash variety than a serene Alain Prost canter through the race.

No ‘live’ Beeb coverage as over at the Beeb they are preparing for the Very Important Olympics so unhelpfully, given severe child-imposed time constraints, I had to wade through Sky’s epic coverage. Well that’s not really true. Huge swathes of chat, analysis and waffle were fast-forwarded through but I have at least watched the race. Huzzah.

In the interests of time and my need for the occasional few snatched hours of sleep, I’ll rattle through qualifying as follows:

1.     Alonso
2.     Vettel
3.     Webber (demoted 5 places after gearbox change)
4.     Schumacher
5.     Hulkenberg
6.     Maldonaldo
7.     Button
8.     Hamilton
9.     Di Resta
10.  Raikkonen

Blimey that was easy. So onto Sunday’s extravaganza show! We had a quick montage of Martin Brundle’s best gridwalk bits (not sure why they randomly put this together for the German GP) where we were able to relive Martin’s attempted interview with that ol’ charmer, Owen Wilson, all the way back in Malaysia. No wonder Kate Hudson ran for the hills although I’m keeping a close eye on any Yoko antics from her now she has hooked up with the lead singer from My Favourite Band in the World. The Random Celebrity at a Race quotient hasn’t been quite as stellar this year at the F1 races. I’m praying that the cast of Dallas might rock up to the Austin Grand Prix. Still just as long as Victoria Beckham doesn’t show up doing her wannabe Anna Wintour impression in the paddock. *Shudder*

How things might have unfolded had Bernie popped along to the race

Even Bernie wasn’t gracing Hockenheim with his presence this weekend. A fact which I am sure was entirely unconnected with the recent law case where a business associate of Bernie’s got jailed for 8½ years for various misdemeanours like…er…taking £28m in bribes from Bernie. Thoughtfully, Bernie didn’t want to be a distraction at the race. I guess that the dramatic arrest of the F1 supremo in the pitlane 20 minutes before the race could potentially have been a distraction to be fair. Still (chooses words carefully), none of us know the full facts of the matter and it would be unwise to comment or speculate further.

It was time for #MartinsGridWalk (not a pointless montage but the real one). Both Rosberg and Grosjean seemed surprised (but not overly bothered!) to be so far back on the grid. Er, surely the classifications post-qualifying would have revealed all.

The Engine Map Controversy (frighteningly this is document 45 - bloody lawyers hey!)

The big pitlane news was that Red Bull had escaped punishment for using an ‘engine map’ [goes off to google what an engine map is] following an investigation (of which I had been previously unaware!). Basically they are altering the engine mapping to change the torque (nope, not got a clue!) output of the engine which in some way is helping the cars aerodynamically. Apparently "while the stewards do not accept all the arguments of the team, they however conclude that as the regulation is written the map presented does not breach article 5.5.3 of the technical regulations". This is lawyer speak for ‘Red Bull are doing something a bit sneaky outside the spirit of the rules but we can’t actually stop them on a strict interpretation of the wording’. Naughty Red Bull. Again. Still, lets hope their drivers both drive cleanly and fairly to avoid further controversy. Especially Vettel.

The lovely Tanja from German TV

Brundle conveniently ran into Ross Brawn and asked him about the stewards’ decision and Ross, in his usual lugubrious way, said he didn’t know enough of the facts but was sure that wouldn’t be an end to the matter. I bet it won’t. Martin then had a brief encounter with the lovely Tanja from German TV. Ah now there is a chemistry that DC and Eddie could only dream of on the pitlane! Then time for the German National Anthem which isn’t really worthy of note except for the fact that it was being sung by someone who appeared to be wearing a white and black splattered suit made of tinfoil. Marvellous. I just love Germany.

Time For the Start and Go Go Go...! An awesome start from Alonso to leave Vettel trailing in his wake with Schuey all over the back of his car. By lap 2 it appeared that all the cars were driving through bits of carbon fibre and general car debris with no apparent clue where it came from. Oh, and it was from Felipe Massa’s car. Yup, he would have made my top five list of suspects! Awaited imminent appearance of the Safety Car but no, the stewards and officials thought it would be fun to spice things up and see who came out unscathed from the carbon fibre lottery! The unlucky ones were Massa (actually it was all his fault so fair do’s), Grosjean and Senna.

Note to Lewis - this is what a really bad puncture looks like (poor Nige)

It looked like Hamilton already had a left rear puncture and he radioed in to say he should retire. Well, Lewis, maybe when you’re getting a gazillion pounds a week, you should try and bring the car into the pits to see if you can continue. I think someone relayed that exact message to him (or reminded him that Scary Ron D was watching) as he came into the pits and then shock horror was in fact able to continue.

Paul di Resta and Kimi meanwhile had a ferocious battle going on for 8th place and not too surprisingly, Kimi ‘balls of steel’ Raikkonen eventually pulled off a fierce overtaking move on Di Resta. Somehow, Button had already manoeuvred his way up into 4th place by lap 8 after passing The Hulk. This was a bit more like the Jenson of old, ie. the wily, smooth racer of yesteryear as opposed to the pretty diabonical Jenson of 2012. Hamilton, meanwhile, was a whopping 18 seconds behind Narain Karthikeyan. It doesn’t get much worse than that really.

By lap 11, Button had overtaken Schuey for P3. The Mercedes just seems to lack raw speed which is an odd thing to say about a ‘Silver Arrow’. It’s the 3rd year of a three year project, guys. Not. Good. Enough.

The Hulk never features much so here he is!
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The first round of pitstops kicked off starting with Di Resta, then in rapid succession, in whizzed Rosberg, The Hulk, Webber, Maldonaldo but the big winner was Kimi who leapfrogged up a couple of places. Schuey emerged from his pitstop right into the path of the unsuspecting Hulk and was clearly steaming at this turn of events – eventually he pulled off a brilliant move to overtake the Hulk and to add insult to injury, Kimi took full advantage and sneaked past as well. Next to be gobbled up by Schuey was Daniel Ricciardo until the Very Fast but Twitchy Lotus managed to pass Schumacher on lap 21.

By this stage all the front runners had pitted with little incident (even at the McLaren garage) and the order of play was shaking out as follows: 1. Alonso, 2. Vettel, 3. Button, 4. Kimi, 5. MSC and 6. The Hulk. And we had the usual upbeat ‘deckchairs on the Titanic’ messages from McLaren. First to Jenson, saying they were racing to win (that must have amused Ferrari who had The Best Driver currently in F1 leading the race) and a very calm therapist type person telling Hamilton they still might be able to make it work. Good luck with that one guys.

In all fairness, Button was looking right on the pace so clearly the much needed upgrades were working out well. Vettel was closing on Alonso which allowed Button in turn to make inroads into the gap from P2 to P3. By the half-way point, the top 5 order was unchanged from the first lot of pitstops which doesn’t mean it was the most boring race in the world but my eyelids may have closed on more than one occasion.

Blue flags (who knows when they apply!)

All of a sudden it emerged that Lewis Hamilton (in 18th place) was right behind Vettel (in 2nd place) with Button closing up on them both. Cue a message on the radio to remind Hamilton not to hold up Jenson. There then followed an explanation of the unlapping and blue flag rules by Martin Brundle which were so idiotic and convoluted that I had to rewind what he said about 4 times. In a nutshell, if Lewis wanted to unlap himself that was fine (so therefore he could ‘race’ Vettel and Alonso) BUT if the race leader (ie. Alonso) was behind him, then he could technically get ‘blue flagged’, ie. instructed to let Alonso go past.

Anyway those daft rules weren’t going to trouble Lewis who probably just thought ‘I’m in a car, there is a car ahead of me and I want to overtake it’. So that’s what exactly he did on lap 36 when he overtook Vettel (and unlapped himself). That made Vettel very cross and there was lots of hand waving. Oh stop sulking Seb…you would have done the same.

The next lot of pitstops were underway with Kimi and Schuey coming in early doors. Lewis meanwhile was harrying Alonso like a demon and there were lots of demented sounded Italian messages over the radio from Ferrari. I heard a rumour that McLaren have employed an Italian translator to tell them what’s going on at Ferrari. Lets hope, the translator wasn’t born anywhere near Maranello though that’d be a marvellous twist. There was some temporary big excitement at seeing some blue flags finally but they were only for Pic who was presumably somewhere near the back being troublesome.

Just as the Wise and Learned Martin Brundle predicted, in came in Button on lap 40 for his final pitstop. Then there was a Race Defining Moment on lap 41 when both Alonso and Vettel came into the pits at the same time and as they rejoine the track, Jenson Button was side by side with the Red Bull and made his move stick to move up into 2nd place. Button was absolutely flying and gradually starting eating into Alonso’s times. With still 20 laps to go, he had brought the gap down to under a second. In unrelated news, Kobayashi had forced his way up to 6th place and was having a cracking race.

By lap 50, all 24 cars were still running. Not a single retirement although Grosjean gave it a good stab with a massive detour into the gravel. The 5 year old was most unimpressed to see Schumacher dart into the pits on lap 53. All most confusing but presumably 5th place is nowhere in Schuey’s world so he thought he might as well go for broke on some faster tyres. With ten laps to go, there was only 0.6 seconds between Alonso and Button. We were all set for a Mega Grandstand Finish although the one guy you really wouldn’t want to have to pass to a win a race was Fernando. Damn and blast.

This is where Lewis should stick his memories of Hockenheim 2012 (blame Sky commentary not me!) 

Oooooh our first retirement and it was … pray silence please … Lewis Hamilton. Still he had been threatening to retire since almost the start. As Crofty put it, time for Lewis to consign this race to the dustbin of memory (where it can languish alongside most of Narain’s and Massa’s races and Fisichella, the Ferrari Era).

Suddenly in a very unwelcome development, Vettel was catching Button and on the penultimate lap, he passed Button for second place. But wait, he overtook him while OFF THE TRACK. Audacious or outrageous? The way I see it is if there had been a wall there instead of a run off zone, then Button would have finished that race in 2nd place. End of. Or another way of looking at the incident is if Schumacher had executed such a move, David Coulthard would have imploded in self-righteous indignation.

Our race winner, Fernando Alonso. This man is on fire (not literally).
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

So are are the results from the German Grand Prix 2012:

1.     Alonso – His third race win of the season and an utterly dominant drive from start to finish. He is the man to beat this season.
2.  Vettel – Engine maps, illegal overtaking moves, childish strops over perfectly acceptable overtaking manoeuvres. I’m kind of going off Seb.*
3.     Button – Hooray, finally a return to form. Hopefully Jenson has got his mojo back.
4.     Kimi – A very creditable 4th place.
5.     Kobayashi – Up 8 places from his grid position. Great job by Kamui and Sauber.
6.     Perez – Slightly overshadowed by his team-mate but Team Sauber will be delighted with the weekend.

*Vettel demoted to 5th after 20 second drive through penalty. Epic fail.

Just one week’s rest until the fun and games at the hot and twisty Hungaroring. I have a massively soft spot for the Hungarian Grand Prix which has thrown up at least 3 of my all time favourite races. Should be an extra lively affair after the German GP which ended off with Vettel calling Hamilton “a bit stupid”, Hamilton responding by saying of Vettel “it shows his maturity”, lots of unpredictable contract negotiations going on (see Schumacher, M and Hamilton, L) and some frantic re-writing of the rule book to cover those naughty Red Bull engine maps. The F1 season is hotting up nicely. Just like the English summer. Finally!

Tuesday 10 July 2012

British GP - The Race


Mark Webber, only the second man to win two races this year!
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Apparently  8 July 2012 was the biggest day in the world of sport in my lifetime. Perhaps ever. Well maybe not but let's just pretend. Actually when I put this notion to the husband, he mumbled something about Euro 1996. This is the last time England was apparently good at football. Sixteen years of hurt (mainly involving constantly losing in penalty shoots) and counting. Yawn.

My nerves were utterly shredded even by lunchtime on Sunday with the imminent start of the biggest motor race of the season AND the fact we had a British player in the Wimbledon Final which was scheduled to begin one hour after the race got underway. Total logistical nightmare. After consultation with fellow tennis/F1 fanatics, I had a cunning plan which involved watching the build-up and the first hour of the Grand Prix, moving across onto the tennis, then catching up with the race after the tennis had ended. Beautiful in its simplicity but so flawed in the execution.

Now we are quite used to watching sporting events in a parallel time-delayed universe but due to various unforeseen eventualities like me feeling ill (not bed-ridden but just enough to find everything a massive struggle) and the incessant torrential rain meaning the children were under our feet all afternoon (unhelpfully standing in front of the television or wanting assistance with making Star Wars lego at Crucial Moments) our best laid plans imploded pretty rapidly. Oh yes, and one of the (many) monsoon rainstorms actually caused our TV to lose satellite signal and STOP WORKING. 




Federer - cruel slayer of a nation's dreams
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
 
Also what I hadn’t factored in was that the Wimbledon Final would reach its conclusion (when inevitably Federer would win and descend to heaven on a cloud of smugness) just around the time of the kids’ tea-time and the start of the long, tortuous slow process that normally lasts a couple of hours to get them into bed. So I watched the last 30 laps of the Grand Prix at stupid o’clock late on Sunday on iPlayer and only managed to catch up with the build-up and post-race analysis on Monday and Tuesday. Needless to say, I have watched this race (in several disjointed chunks) on the Beeb. If I was trying to get through it all on Sky, I would be still blogging about the British GP during the middle of Hockenheim qualifying. That could get quite confusing!



One helluva way to open a show

And it was an EPIC start to the BBC coverage. Jake Humphrey, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan were flying over Silverstone strapped vertically to the top of small aeroplanes (awaits husband to post a nerd comment about the model and age of said small aeroplanes). Still beat that for an intro, Sue Barker and Nice but Tim. Obviously, I missed the intro to the tennis so its possible they might have parachuted down onto Centre Court. We will never know.

Eddie was sporting the Beatles-esque jacket that he got made for him when they all went shopping in China a few races ago. Actually it did quite suit him but then Eddie is…ahem…quite rock ‘n’ roll (more Bob Seger than Kurt Cobain obviously). Sometimes, it is hard to believe that he ran an F1 team not all that long ago and must have had to attend Team Principal meetings with Ron ‘death stare’ Dennis. DC had decided to opt for the ‘City banker on dress-down Friday’ look. He is no fun. I dream of a time when he wears his ‘China’ jacket with the loudest possible car print ever. Children in Need need to get onto this and sort something out and whilst they’re at it, make Jezza Clarkson do something really embarrassing all in the Name of Charidee…

Ah a sudden glimpse of Monaco and a feature with DC and Jenson about the triathlons that Jenson does in his spare time to unwind. As you do. Some people take root on the sofa in front of Soccer Saturday for 3 hours or while away the afternoon in a nice country pub. These F1 drivers are seriously mad. The French Riviera and the Italian Riviera just look flipping gorgeous. I had almost forgotten what sun looked like. *Sticks both destinations on holiday wish-list for when we win the lottery. 



Her Maj - quite clued up on F1 apparently
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
 
Apparently Jenson met the Queen once and she was surprisingly knowledgeable. I like to think the Queen quizzed him on how much of advantage he gained from the Brawn double diffuser and why he is struggling to cope with the lack of rear end downforce this season. Still I suspect Martin Whitmarsh would quite like an answer to the last question.

Back to the pitlane where Jake, DC and Eddie were having a chat about Jenson’s disappointing performances (whilst standing outside Jenson’s garage and poor old John Button was a mere 5 metres away). Stick the knife in guys why don’t you! I’m not sure of the wisdom of having the pre-match chat right in the pitlane as we couldn’t actually hear most of what they were saying over the screeching engines of F1 cars. One of the biggest relevations from going to a F1 race is how stupendously loud F1 cars really are. I seem to remember we had to run around Monaco after the first practice session to buy emergency ear-plugs. Those were the days. Wistful sigh.

And we already had our first casualty of the race. Before the race had even started. Vitaly Petrov’s car was smoking a lot and turned out they had lost the engine. One Caterham down, one to go. 



Some F1 drivers on the back of a lorry
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)


Lee McKenzie was on board the Drivers Parade Lorry (don’t know why but I always find it quite amusing to see the drivers all piled onto a trailer and getting carted around the track). Lewis was quite overwhelmed at all the flags 'just for him and Jenson'. I hate to break it to Lewis but there were quite a lot of flags for other drivers as well! Jenson seemed quite upbeat but was clearly praying for rain. Fernando had been briefed as to the vagaries of the English Summer and was in full arctic explorer gear. He even had a woolly hat on. Its July for crying in a bucket.

Next up (after some more waffle which I may have fast-forwarded) was David Coulthard’s gridwalk (no hashtag for obvious reasons). And the first person he bumped into was Martin Brundle doing the #MartinsGridWalk. DC then spotted Derek Warwick, the president of the BRDC. Derek told us that apparently this is the race that all drivers want to win, along with Monaco and Monza. Er, what about Spa? Anyway our first Random Celebrity at a Race was…drum-roll please…Goldie. At the risk of sounding like Alan Partridge, Goldie is described on Wikipedia as English electronic music artist, disc jockey, visual artist and actor. I best remember him from Eastenders which says it all really. DC then did a ‘John Terry’ and blundered into a photo that was being taken of Mark Webber with some minor celebrity. Usual Mark Webber interview – he spoke very fast, seemed pretty chipper, everything was bonzer etc.

Hugh Grant looking suave
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

DC then walked up and down the pitlane FOR AN ETERNITY without actually interviewing anyone. There weren’t any drivers loitering about but surely there must have been gazillions of celebs to pounce on. Eventually he just told the poor camera-man to take the lead and ended up interviewing Gary Anderson who works for the BBC. Then Eddie Jordan suddenly reappeared to say he had located Hugh Grant. Well that was more like it! Eddie was straight in with a producer-fed question about a science fiction movie that Hugh is currently making. Apparently Hugh plays six small evil parts in the film, wears a lot of prosthetic make-up and its the most expensive independent movie ever made. Hmmm think I’ll give that one a miss. As the interview lurched out of Eddie’s control, we rapidly flipped back to Jake ‘safe hands’ Humphrey. As grid-walks go, that one was an unmitigated disaster.

As the start of the race approached, the sun was shining. Absolutely typical. The worst summer ever, ever, ever (sorry I know I’m obsessed) and we don’t even get the prospect of a wet British Grand Prix. Stamps feet.

The build-up signed off with a final beautiful montage involving Murray Walker, Elgar and flashes of Damon Hill, Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Sterling Moss and Jim Clark. Although I did note that footage of Schumacher was shown in the background as Murray talked of ‘villains stalking the stage’. The Beeb just can’t help themselves.

Time For the Start and Go Go Go...! Unhelpfully, it appeared that the camera man filming the start of the race was strapped to one of those small bi-planes that we saw at the very start. The overhead shot was so distant that you could hardly make anything out. Still its not as if the start is crucial or anything.

The front runners all got away cleanly and, unless my eyes were deceiving me, it looked like Massa had passed Vettel. With the race barely seconds old, it had all gone wrong for Paul Di Resta who had picked up a puncture after contact with Romain Grosjean. It turned out to be terminal for poor old Paul. I remember wondering at the time whether this was a bad omen. Both Paul Di Resta and Andy Murray being Scottish and all that. And it was. *bursts into tears at the memory of the Wimbledon Final.

Felipe Massa (working hard to stay in F1 next year)
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Button meanwhile had a storming start and was furiously scrapping with Grosjean and Perez but just as Grosjean re-passed Button, Perez also slipped by.  Further up the track, Vettel was all over Massa and for a while they were racing alongside each other but Massa (yes, really!) quite brilliantly managed to hold his position and then began swarming all over the back of Schumacher. Steady on, Felipe...know your place lad!

Lap 5 and time for Lewis to get on the blower reporting that he had no pace. Not really a situation you want to be in at your home Grand Prix. Meanwhile Schumacher was holding up a lot of cars in his slowish Mercedes which was manna from heaven for Alonso and Webber cruising off into the distance. Schuey fought Massa off valiantly for a few laps but on lap 12 he yielded his position. I really hoped for more from Mercedes – generally speaking but especially on a cold, damp circuit like Silverstone. Might be time for Norbert to open the cheque-book, leave the amount blank and hand it to Adrian Newey.

The first flood of pitstops were now underway with little drama or incident, even for McLaren. Oh yes, that’s right, their drivers hadn’t come in yet. Turned out that Bad Driver Maldonaldo had rocked up to the British Grand Prix. His unwitting victim today was poor old Sergio Perez who was just minding his own business when Maldonaldo clattered into him and promptly terminated his race. I quizzed the husband some more about why he likes Maldonaldo and he said he reminded him of Senna. Yes, he really meant Ayrton not Bruno (I did check!). I get more sense from the 5 year old.

Lap 16 and Alonso pitted for the usual military precision Ferrari pitstop and he emerged ahead of Mark Webber. Button, was now running in 8th place and yet to stop. Just as I started pondering whether a vintage Button drive, surging up through the grid to a podium/win was on the cards (forgetting temporarily the complete aberration that is his 2012 season), he was caught napping and was passed by Vettel for 7th place. Next up to have a sniff was Massa who also overtook Jenson. So after that minor catastrophe, Button skulked off into the pits for new tyres.

I suddenly realised that Lewis hadn’t stopped and was now LEADING the race. It seemed like it took a very long time for the commentators to notice this stunning fact. Ok, he still hadn’t pitted but lets try and cling on to some excitement guys!

So a quick round up of where we were on lap 18 – 1. Lewis 2. Alonso 3. Webber 4. Vettel 5. Massa 6. Schuey.

There was a truly fantastic tussle between those two former ‘no love lost’ team-mates, Lewis and Alonso. First Alonso took the lead, then Lewis somehow clawed the lead back even on his shot-to-pieces tyres while Alonso was using DRS. Talk about putting a show on for the fans! Sadly Lewis couldn’t hold on but that little cameo was pure racing magic at its best. And on lap 21, Lewis pitted and the McLaren Disastometer of Doom didn’t even flicker. It was in fact the fastest pitstop of the day so far. Maybe they did give the Sky F1 team new jobs after all although I secretly like to think Ron Dennis had replaced the pitlane crew with some cloned Orcs.

Will this car win a race this season?
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Lewis fed back into 7th place just behind a very close battle between Schuey and Kimi. That Lotus looks so freaking fast – its actually a mystery how a Lotus hasn’t won a single race so far this year. I might go and see what odds you could get on that. Well realistically I won’t probably do this but as and when Lotus win a race, I can sit back smugly and say ‘yeh I would have put money on that’. I’ll never die rich that’s for sure. Kimi and then Lewis passed Schuey. The 3rd place in qualifying that promised so much was being gradually eroded by the fact that Schuey was driving a car that wasn’t much faster than a Volvo.

We heard on the airwaves that Perez had been ranting about Maldonaldo, the new Senna (hehehehe!). How he doesn’t respect drivers, how everyone is concerned about him (not in a good way) and how the stewards have to do something. He is a real old conundrum is Pastor – unlike a lot of irresponsible drivers, he does seem quite talented but then again has an unfortunate habit of crashing into people. A lot.

Yikes, Hamilton was suddenly back in for another pitstop. Deliberate strategy or was the middle stint not going as planned or maybe the Orcs needed to cut and run? So in he came, and out he came behind Rosberg and Button. No matter, Lewis was in front of both of them by lap 32 but then had the much more troublesome matter of Grosjean to deal with who was looking very nippy on the prime tyre.

We were now well into the next and presumably final round of pitstops unless you were unlucky enough to get Maldonaldo-ed before the end of the race. In came Vettel, Kimi, Schuey and Webber in quick succession meaning for a brief few momentary moments, we had a Ferrari 1-2. Slight Portent Alert, after his pitstop, Webber started really motoring and reeling off one fastest lap after another.

Gary Anderson who works for the BBC now

Gary Anderson, technical analyst extraordinaire, told us that Alonso should be aiming to stop around lap 42 and in that time, Webber would need to try and reduce the gap to 15 seconds. BUT NO, on LAP 38, Alonso came into the pitstops meaning he would have to do 14 laps on those tyres. This isn’t what Gary predicted. Uh oh, as the 1 year old would say.

Not wanting to be outdone by Maldonaldo as the ‘enfant terrible’ of F1, Kamui Kobayashi decided on a kamikaze pitstop to liven things up. Trying to run over your mechanics isn’t really going to give your race the boost it needs. Some post-race research confirms that three mechanics were hit but none were seriously injured thankfully.

So with nine laps to do, Webber was only 3.5 seconds behind Alonso. Gary Anderson told us that Alonso currently had some tyre graining so Webber would need to make his move before Alonso’s tyre performance cleared up. Man, its those pesky tyres again. I have learnt more this year about tyres (although to be fair, I knew diddly squat at the start of the year) than during all my many years of following F1.

A slow car overtakes an even slower car (see Schumacher, M and Hamilton, L)

Lap 47 and we had the slightly bizarre sight of a slow Mercedes driven by Schuey overtaking the even slower McLaren of Hamilton. Hmmm, Lewis was not kidding when he said his car had no pace. Meanwhile the battle between last year’s winner and the year before’s winner (Alonso and Webber) was sensationally close but it was going to be very hard to see how Alonso could hang on. Maybe in a pre-KERS world, a genius driver like Alonso could have found a way to defend his lead. On lap 48, Webber pulled a stunning move on Alonso to pass him on the outside at Brooklands to LEAD the British Grand Prix.

The Hulk (of whom we don’t hear much) had been pootling around anonymously in 9th place when with one lap to go, Senna and then Button passed him. Was it worth including that? Ah well, I’ve typed it now. And so, finally, passing the chequered flag in first place was Mark Webber.

So here are the results from the British Grand Prix 2012:

1.     Webber – A peerless drive with a stand-out overtaking move to win the race at the end.
2.     Alonso – Did a great job but Ferrari need to up their game with tyre/pit strategies.
3.     Vettel – Looks over at supposedly inferior team-mate enviously…
4.     Massa – There’s life in the old Felipe yet, well there's still a detectable pulse.
5.     Kimi – Good, solid race. How un-Kimi.
6.     Grosjean – Did extremely well to get 6th after the disaster near the start.

So we have our second repeat winner and it is NOT a former world Champion. Hearty back-slapping congrats to Mark Webber who really seems like a top bloke. He is only 13 points being Alonso which is most impressive and wouldn’t it be fantastic to see him taking the title challenge down to the wire.

Now is probably a good time to have a quick canter through the driver standings:

1.     Alonso – 129 points
2.     Webber – 116 points
3.     Vettel – 100 points
4.     Hamilton – 92 points
5.     Raikkonen – 83 points
6.     Rosberg – 75 points

And sneaking a peak at the constructors’ standings: 1. Red Bull – 216 points, 2. Ferrari – 152 points, 3. Lotus – 144 points and 4. McLaren 142 points. Holy Cow. McLaren is in 4th place behind Lotus. Who’da thunk it!

Hockenheimring. Two weeks time. See you then!