Bahrain GP - The Race

Alonso racing in Bahrain (by the 4 year old)

Well despite the collective might of the Bahraini protestors, Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and George Galloway (oh and 17 MPs), the Bahrain GP did actually take place. Time for George to move on and find another cause célèbre to vent his spleen on. Oh here’s an idea, maybe he could just focus some of his energy on his new constituency of Bradford West, a by-election victory modestly described by George as “the most sensational victory in British political history. Although admittedly this statement was made by the same man who pretended to be a cat on Celebrity Big Brother. I need say no more. I thought Martin Brundle as ever summarised the issues very succinctly at the start of the race. His two abiding emotions were confusion that he couldn’t reconcile the images of violence that we all were seeing on TV going on in Bahrain and his personal impressions of the country. And also sadness for F1 as this weekend just had not worked. He pointed out that there had been cricket and golf tournaments taking place in Bahrain on preceding weekends and no one hadn’t given a monkey’s. Quite.

Right that’s the boring political stuff over and so back to race-blogging. In a round-up of news since qualifying, the 4 year old received the further devastating news that Schumacher was now starting from 22^nd having changed his gear box overnight. More plaintive cries of “why does Schumacher never win?”. At this rate, I might have to buy him a boxset of F1 in the 90s and early 00s where he can watch Schuey cruising to endless victories lapping everyone else in the field 72 times whilst having time to have a quick picnic lunch and rejoin in the lead.

Ho hum, I’m perusing my notes (helpfully scribbled all over by the 1 year old) of the several hours of build up on Sky and most of it was deathly dull to be honest. Simon Lazenby is a bit like a Dementor – he just sucks the life and excitement out of every race. We had Natalie Pinkham interviewing Bruno Senna in an acid bright t-shirt and khaki hotpants (Natalie, not Bruno). All very on trend and maybe that is simply the point of Natalie. We’re not actually meant to take her seriously are we? Anyway who knows as my brain temporarily turned to mush during the interview with poor Bruno. We were told that a sandstorm might be on the way. Time to power up the Sand Monitor of Doom – surely McLaren with their endless freight containers of technological equipment would have such a thing…!?

Next up, Martin Brundle and Michael Schumacher were doing the Track Guide. Not quite sure why they were sitting back to back (maybe someone can enlighten me?) but Schuey was straight in with a ‘joke’ about how they were like a grandfather talking to a grandmother. Bless. Its amazing to think that 20 years ago they were both team-mates (sometimes I feel very old) before the days when Schumacher was All Powerful and would veto potential team-mates. Brundle said drivers really had to multi-task to assimilate all the details and information in just negotiating one corner and they both agreed that women were brilliant multi-taskers. I wonder if Brundle and Schuey once came back from an overseas race with a poxy fridge magnet for Mrs Brundle and Mrs Schumacher and they’re still frantically trying to make for it. Yes, there is a story there and it’s a sad one. You could tell Martin really enjoyed talking about the track with Schuey and even Damon (presumably with a gun held to his head) managed to say the Mercedes team owed a lot to Michael.

Bit of Sky filler (including the first Christian Horner interview – many more to follow – of the afternoon) and it was time for the Martin Brundle Gridwalk™. He told us that Kimi had dozens of new tyres to play with and would be One to Watch. He had a quick chat with Paul Di Resta and commented on his very impressive achievement of missing the second practice session and still managing to qualify in 10^th place. Maybe the 2012 season is going to be all about the tyres. Come Monaco, no one will bother with practice and will just rock up on qualifying day with dozens of sets of shiny, new tyres causing Jean Todt to spontaneously combust. As if to echo my (barking mad) thoughts, Ross Brawn confirmed it would be a multi-stop race and ‘tyre degradation’ would be critical. Its safe to say that tyre degradation was the buzzword(s) of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Everyone was banging on about it ad infinitum and, to be honest, ad nauseum.

Then Martin spotted that there was Something Different on the Red Bull car. He couldn’t actually tell us what it was as the back of the car was being guarded by Red Bull mechanics. How 2010 and indeed how 2011. What utterly brilliant and ingenuous little device has Adrian Newey dreamt up now? Or as the husband called him (in a moment of rare wit for the husband a Sunday), the Master of the Dark Arts. Martin interrogated someone called ‘Peddles’ from Red Bull who said they might have changed something but we would need to go back to last week’s coverage and work out what’s different. What a tease this Peddles is! Its probably something to do with a diffuser that all the other teams (Lotus, Mercedes) will complain about. Sadly for the second race in a row there was no Random Celebrity at a Race (not even a glimpse of never-knowingly-overdressed Nicole Scherzinger sashaying through the paddock). I’m sure normal service will be resumed in Barcelona not to mention Monaco which will be fit to bursting with minor Royals, stellar heavyweight celebs (J Lo, George Clooney etc) and z-listers like Geri Halliwell. Rest assured, I’ll be in full rant mode about their petrolhead credentials come that race weekend.

Apparently not since 2003, has there been 4 different winners in the first 4 races. Who won the title in 2003? Michael Schumacher just as he had the previous 3 years so lets not get too excited shall we? Anyway its Go! Go! Go! In Bahrain. Vettel zoomed off into the lead and both Rosberg and Button had diabolical starts. But then Button always has rubbish starts (maybe he needs a Race Start Strategy Guy of his own – hopefully Martin Whitmarsh is on the case). Grosjean propelled himself into 4^th place and Alonso was just behind him in 5^th. All the cars seemed to get make it round the Difficult First Corner, even the HRTs.

Suddenly OUT (we were told) was Petrov who appeared to have no wheel. Although this turned out to be Kovalainen but I missed the bit where they corrected themselves so spent most of the race totally confused about the fortunes of the Caterham drivers. In the nicest possible way it didn’t really impair my enjoyment of the race. On lap 3 in a utterly shocking development, Massa did a great move to get past Kimi of all people for 7^th place. As Brundle said, he’s driving like a man possessed. Wouldn’t you if you faced the sack every week or maybe he’s trying to make sure when he does get sacked, another team does actually want to hire him. Poor Felipe, he’s too kind a soul really for the grim dog-eat-dog world of Ferrari. By lap 5, Kimi had bludgeoned his way past Massa again and Grosjean was absolutely flying. First he overtook Webber and then much more impressively he did a brilliant move to squeeze past Lewis Hamilton on lap 7. Poor old Lewis. When is it all going to go right (clue – it goes a lot more wrong before the end). There was a mention of Daniel Ricciardo and I suddenly realised I had forgotten about all about him. From 6^th on the grid to 17^th. That’ll take some explaining.

Already by lap 8, Button was on the radio reporting problems with his tyres and the first round of pitstops kicked off. Gre-a-t. Blogs are hard enough to write without everyone starting to pit from lap 8. The 4 year old suddenly piped up “Alonso’s tyres are going off too and can you write that down”. So there you have it, my child can’t read anything more complex than ‘Mum went shopping’…‘Dad got cross’ (or is that real life?) but is able to opine accurately on tyre degradation. Sure enough Alonso went hurtling off into the pits. Hamilton also came into the pits and there was a Mini-Disaster as the left rear wheel-nut got stuck and both Alonso and Webber leap-frogged him out of the pits. There was a massive tussle between Lewis and Rosberg for position (its fair to say both are ‘uncompromising’ drivers) where IMHO Rosberg forced Lewis wide. Anyway Lewis edged back in front and radioed into the team to ask “what happened”. A very calm voice replied there was a long way to go. Not that they were fearing a Lewis meltdown but the person on the other end did sound a bit like a trained counsellor. We were told that Rosberg and Lewis were ‘under investigation’ for that incident. Rosberg started protesting it wasn’t his fault. Er, the camera doesn’t lie, Nico.

Lap 13 and we were told that Di Resta was leading (ok briefly). There was so much overtaking going on all over the track just like at the last race. Button passed Alonso in a cool Button-esque move, Kimi took Webber and the learned commentators remarked this was a very unusual place to overtake. As if normal racing rules apply in the world of Kimi Raikkonen! Then Hamilton passed Alonso for 8^th place and given Lewis and Fernando aren’t exactly best buds ever since their “I hate my McLaren team-mate” season (a modern variant of the Prost-Senna “I hate my McLaren team-mate” season) that must have cheered Lewis up a tiny bit.

So time to take stock on lap 16 – the frontrunners were 1. Vettel, 2. Grosjean, 3. Kimi, 4. Webber, 5. Button and 6. Lewis. Michael Schumacher was in 13^th place having started 22^nd – but there were a lot of good cars and drivers ahead of him (having scythed through the dross) so it was hard to see him picking up too many points. Poor Schumi. Radio McLaren contacted Lewis to say they were switching to Plan B. Tannoy alert for Ted to find out what Plan B was (I’m heavily resisting any music related ‘jokes’). Meanwhile Vettel was out there in the lead doing what he does best, ie. driving a car with an ‘innovative’ secret device that gives him a massive advantage. Not saying anything but this car was the same car that being guarded in the pitlane. I wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen Ross Brawn and Martin Whitmarsh filling up Complaint Forms at their respective track-side desks with all the monitors. Although they probably have minions to do those kind of things.

Meanwhile finally after being all over the back of Grosjean’s car for a few laps, Kimi got in front of him on lap 25. Time for another round of pitstops. In went Lewis and there was ANOTHER Mini-Disaster with the left rear wheel-nut. I’m guessing his radio-feed would be fairly unprintable. Martin Whitmarsh might actually need to shout at some people. Just like Ron Dennis would have. Good old Ron – what a (non ray) of sunshine he was but its fair to say this sort of thing wouldn’t have kept happening on his watch.  

There was some brilliant hammer and tongs racing between Alonso and Rosberg which led to some very aggressive driving from Rosberg to keep Alonso behind including his new specialty of forcing a driver off the track. We had some classic fist-shaking from Alonso and a further announcement that Rosberg’s and Alonso’s cars were being investigated. Two investigations have been opened and one driver features in both. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that Nico might be in a spot of bother. All this palaver for 8^th place – still 4 points is 4 points I guess. If this had been Schumacher forcing drivers off the track, there would have been general condemnation and blood-letting but as it was baby-faced Nico, the commentators didn’t seem too bothered. Just saying.

So the half-way point roll call read: 1. Vettel, 2. Kimi, 3. Grosjean, 4. Di Resta, 5. Webber, 6. Button. However, Kimi was really catching Vettel – there might be a danger that Vettel might actually have to race someone for his lead and it would be a lunatic in a Lotus to boot. How marvellous! It was quickly time for a Williams Retirement™. Maldonaldo’s car appeared to blow up (ok he got a puncture but there was a lot of spinning and smoke) and that was the end of his race. Webber managed to pass Di Resta for his favoured fourth place but we didn’t really care as Kimi was now RIGHT BEHIND the Red Bull of Vettel. Brundle started waxing lyrically about seeing Kimi sauntering down the pitlane without a care in the world before the race. Maybe Kimi is the new James Hunt. I like him way more now than in his McLaren and Ferrari era. I’m so fickle. On lap 36, Kimi had a long look down the inside of Vettel but didn’t quite manage to pass the Red Bull. Non-Turning Point Alert.

Time for yet more pitstops and this time McLaren didn’t manage to stuff it up but the damage was already done as Lewis was languishing in 10^th place or as the 4 year old said the mechanics were ‘silly poo-poo heads’. Lap 40 and Vettel and Kimi pitted AT THE SAME TIME but Vettel stayed in the lead. Red Bull called the shots there and really Lotus should have bought in Kimi a lap or two earlier. Vettel then just started tediously pulling away. Oh buggeroo – we wanted a wheel to wheel Grandstand Finish and it didn’t look we were going to get one.

At this point, the commentators suddenly said ‘if you’re joining us after the 4-4 thriller from Old Trafford…’ and in one fell swoop sent the husband into a huge depression as this meant his football team now only had a 3 point lead at The Top of the Premiership. How cruel can life be? Imagine his misery if he was a supporter of Portsmouth or Wolves. Of course, as he tells me on many many occasions, he too has known dark times when his team didn’t win something for one year in the 1970s.

Back to lap 52 of the Bahrain GP and Nico managed to muscle past Di Resta. It might be worth, Paul, complaining loudly on your team radio, that you were pushed off the track by Nico – not saying this actually  happened but it would be highly believable. In a supreme moment of Murrayness, just after Radio McLaren told Button he was doing a great job and there were places to be had, he came in for a 4^th pitstop with a left rear puncture. What is the deal with McLaren and left rear wheels! He rejoined only to have his car start making some really bad noises and he was forced to retire. What a stinker of a weekend for McLaren. Ron, come back soon, your old team needs you!

And so to the chequered flag where Vettel won his first race of the season. Cue the Vettel raised finger of victory. That finger really bugs me.

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

1.     Vettel – Led from start to finish just like old times. Yawn.

2.     Raikkonen – All hail, Kimi. Its great to have you back!

3.     Grosjean – Great racecraft and he has improved as a driver beyond all belief.

4.     Webber – His fourth 4^th place in 4 races. Says it all.

5.     Rosberg – Subsequently cleared by the stewards and this was Alonso’s response on Twitter: I think you are going to have fun in future races! You can defend position as you want and you can overtake outside the track! Enjoy! ;)))

6.     Di Resta – Fantastic job by driver and team.

Quick mention for the most cringeworthy moment of the entire Sky coverage – when Natalie Pinkham asked Kimi after the race if he was going to have a celebratory ice-cream. The look on Kimi’s face was priceless. We’re four races in now and Sky just isn’t doing it for me with the exception of Martin Brundle. Even the commentary this week was riddled with mistakes and Croft needs to STOP SHOUTING ALL THE TIME. I miss the relaxed, friendly banter of the Beeb team who actually look like they have fun at races. The Sky team in comparison are wooden, awkward and have zero charisma. There was a great moment when Jake and DC bumped into Martin after the race –  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/17808455. “He’s still working in television apparently”. Love it.

Next up, the Circuit de Catalunya. I’m a huge fan of Barcelona as a city but the races there are normally a massive snoozefest. I’m praying for rain. Will we have a 5^th different winner in 5 races? We shall have to see. Til then, adios!

Bahrain GP - Qualifying

Oh how we loved all loved China with its brilliant racing. And best of all there wasn’t a single petrol bomb or Molotov cocktail in sight.

Welcome to Bahrain where we have petrol bombs, grenades, Molotov cocktails and shootings galore! According to Jean Todt, the FIA is only interested in sport not politics. Sure it is Jean. Given his political manoeuvrings over the years (just ask Luca Montezemolo) and the fact he has morphed from a cuddly dude in a Ferrari jumper in the corner of a podium into the shadowy éminence grise of Formula 1, this does stretch the bounds of credulity. But to be fair the FIA isn’t all about the politics. No, what it really likes is the Big Dollar (and lots of them) or in this particular context, the Bahraini dinar. Ahem.  

Maybe it escaped Jean’s attention (possibly while perusing his Swiss bank account statements on the way to Bahrain in his private jet) that the ruling Bahraini regime has been using the slogan 'UniF1ed - One Nation in Celebration' as part of its propaganda for the last 3 months. It would appear not everyone in Bahrain agrees with this but shhhh… don’t tell Jean or Bernie. Mind you if you did, they wouldn’t care anyway. I mean whenever has Bernie has shown any interest in politics like…er…say making a donation of £1m to a political party.

And talking of Bernie, what calming and diplomatic words did he have on the eve of the race. Well take your pick. "What we really need is an earthquake or something like that, so you can write about that now.”...or… “Go to Syria, it's more important than here.” Good old Bernie. You gotta love him.

Now the politicians back at home have decided to stick their oar in. Ed Miliband has joined 17 MPs (wow a whole 17 – that’ll definitely make Bernie have a rethink) calling for the event to be scrapped. Yvette Cooper (possibly the world’s most boring woman, sorry person) said that both Britain’s drivers, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, should boycott the race. So Yvette doesn’t mind if Paul Di Resta (who is British at the last time of checking) takes part in the race then. I’m going to take a wild punt here and suggest that Yvette doesn’t watch much Formula 1 (because that would be too much like having fun) and probably has never heard of Paul Di Resta. Still I’m sure Paul will get over it. I was just thinking that it won’t be long until George Galloway wades in with some kind of ‘blood on their hands’ soundbite and sure enough, George has been flooding the airwaves with his not at all inflammatory thoughts on the matter. “There is blood on the tracks and anyone who drives over there will never be forgiven.” At some stage I’m sure he will be pinning the blame on ‘Mr Blair’ for all of this.

So far the Force India team (note to Ms Cooper – this is who Paul Di Resta drives for) and the Sauber team have all been targeted (whether randomly or otherwise) or caught up in dangerous situations. The Force India team was sufficiently spooked to take the decision not to take part in Friday’s 2^nd practice session. To show the world how safe and lovely Bahrain is, Bernie even offered to travel back with members of the Force India team to their hotel at night without an escort. Given Bernie’s usual security detail would probably outstrip Barack Obama’s, the Force India team would have been as safe as houses but fair do’s.

Oh man, I start a blog (which took a lot of persuasion from the husband though deep down I’m sure he thought it would distract me away from online shopping now I am a ‘lady of leisure’ – arf) and I find myself getting embroiled in political and moral issues. This wasn’t meant to happen. I did a paper on modern history in the Middle East as part of my finals and it was a total minefield (no pun intended). It was all a haze even at the time but that’s probably because I was writing the paper as per usual at 2 in the morning. Mind you all those essay crisis all-nighters were excellent preparation for having small children.

What I would say though (serious hat on etc) is can it be right to have a Grand Prix in a country where the Foreign Office has advised British F1 fans against travelling to the race. There are so many countries in the world who would love to host a Grand Prix and have a much greater tradition of motorsport (eg. Buenos Aires, Estoril, Kyalami) than Bahrain. Just a thought.

Anyhoo, I went through the pointless rigmarole of a debate with the husband about whether to watch the qualifying coverage on the Beeb or Sky only to discover this isn’t one of the Beeb’s live races. Pity, who wouldn’t want to hear Eddie Jordan’s thoughts on the strife in Bahrain while standing the pit-lane in a florescent neon-pink shirt. But F1 needs those characters (and I use the word advisedly!). God forbid we should all turn into David Coulthard-bots. And Damon Hill was back from wherever he had been for the Chinese GP. Way to pick races, Damo. He misses the thriller in Shanghai but is back in time to dodge Molotov cocktails in Bahrain. But Damon is a man who does a good ‘serious face’. Slightly sticky moment I felt when Simon Thingy asked him about his change of heart on whether to race in Bahrain (by way of background, Damon was vehemently opposed to it but now is ok with the race taking place for reasons that were not totally clear). He said though the FIA should make some kind of statement on human rights. Dream on, Damon. Martin Brundle’s take on matters was that holding the race was something of an ‘own goal’ and actually it had just given the protestors a platform and a voice. So maybe Bernie has done them a favour after all. Confused? Let’s move on!

I was merrily fast-forwarding through a segment with Georgie Thompson and the lovely Anthony Davidson (sorry Ant) on their super-whizzy Sky Pad when the husband suddenly asked for the remote and mumbled something about needing to rewind as he wanted to watch Ant’s technical explanations of how the double DRS system on the Mercedes worked (no, I haven’t a scoobie either). Georgie was pretending to understand but this is a girl who wears a LBD day and night which doesn’t really smack of petrolhead to me. Bless her – she doesn’t really care how airflows are routed through the car but she made a valiant effort to look faintly interested as she mentally counted down the weeks to Monaco.

So time for qualifying. At this point the 4 year old suddenly announced he had a dream about the race last night and it finished 1. Alonso, 2. Schumacher, 3. Hamilton. My son is already dreaming about Formula 1. Not sure if this a good or bad development – it is most probably linked to the thousands of hours he has spent playing Mario Kart Wii. At the time this made sense as a throw-in stocking filler but now I’m wondering whether the 4 year old has developed a passion for The Most Expensive Sport in the World to Finance.

So Q1 kicked off with Michael Schumacher blowing a kiss to the camera. The 4 year old blew one back. I think Schuey might be his first sporting idol. I hope he’s not bullied at school for this. Mine was Stefan Edberg (still would) and at my all-girls school, I was not alone. It was the usual mundane affair of the fast cars going fast and the slow ones going slow and with 2 minutes to go, the 4 year old (on full-time Schumacher Watch) said “Michael Schumacher is 9^th”. Indeed, what could possibly go wrong? Well as the middle-of-the-road pack all started putting in flying laps it all went terribly, terribly wrong for poor Schuey. In the form of Heikki Kovalainen who drove the lap of his life to squeeze himself into 17^th place and dump Schuey into the drop-zone. All the meanwhile, Schuey had been sitting in his garage preparing for Q2. Well might Ross Brawn look grim-faced. Poor old Norb was probably weeping buckets. Schuey did look quite cross and threw his gloves on the floor. Earlier in the week, I had (portent alert) said to the 4 year old who was in meltdown after not winning some Mario Kart race, “just think what would Michael Schumacher do, would he give up?”. Not sure where that kind of tactic features in the parenting manual. Anyway it worked. Sort of.

So Q1 finished 1. Perez, 2. Ricciardo (say what?), 3. Webber. Actually what’s the point of listing the Q1 order when Alonso, Button and Hamilton were 14^th, 15^th and 16^th respectively. You can see what Schuey was trying to do in preserving tyres etc but the gamble obviously backfired. Boo Schmoo.

Then we were onto Q2 (trying to speed up here as it’s a Saturday night and the husband is playing some ‘interesting’ music in the kitchen – think 80s revival night and you’re there!). It finished 1. Hamilton, 2. Rosberg, 3. Grosjean, 4. Webber, 5. Alonso (almost superhuman effort from Alonso to haul that piece of junk Ferrari there) and 6. Button.

Top-ten shoot out time. And the Red Bulls were really, really on the pace. Rosberg did the slowest outlap in the world (presumably as the car had the tiniest amount of fuel in it) but didn’t reproduce his stunning pole-position lap-setting form from China. At the death, it was a Red Bull 1-2 (Vettel and Webber) until Lewis came along and ruined the party by splitting the two Red Bulls so the grid for tomorrow will line up:

1. Vettel, 2. Hamilton, 3. Webber, 4. Button – hey like old times guys. From P5 to P10 are Rosberg, Ricciardo (that is just an incredible qualifying in a Toro Rosso), Grosjean, Perez, Alonso and Paul di Resta (take that Yvette!).

Apologies for the lateness of the hour in posting this. Its all the husband’s fault for having to work from home and hogging the laptop all afternoon. Apparently it was worse for him. But many, many thanks to those who have posted comments. It really does make it all worthwhile. À demain.

Chinese GP - The Race

Ok here’s the thing. I think I might have called F1 races in China a bit ‘meh’ in my qualifying blog. But then what do I know? It turned out to be a frigging brilliant Chinese Grand Prix full of (shock horror) wheel to wheel racing from beginning to end. Mind you, it does lack yachts and the bling factor. At least I got that bit right.

So after much debate (me to the husband at 7am “lets watch it on the Beeb” though I can’t actually remember if the husband responded), I merrily jettisoned the Sky offering and Just Pressed One (as Jake would say and indeed does say a lot on Twitter). This might not have been my smartest move ever but stay with me for the ride. We started off with a strange little intro entitled ‘F1 and the city’ featuring Jake Humphrey, Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard. I’m not sure if this was a pastiche on Sex in the City but who knows as I have never watched it (which probably makes me an outcast among womenkind). Maybe it was a spoof on some other supremely cool cult film that has passed me by. I fear it will forever remain a mystery to me. Tell you what though, a ‘Dallas’ segment with Eddie is absolutely nailed on for the US Grand Prix.

              

We then had a very bizarre film basically where Jake, Eddie and DC all went shopping and had jackets made for each other. Yes, it really was that weird. This metrosexual thing is getting out of hand. Not sure this was the best way for the Beeb to kickstart its ‘live’ coverage for the season. DC looked physically ill when he had to put on his jacket in the pitlane which had the loudest car print you have ever seen. This is a man who is a Disciple of white jeans and pink shirts and literally has nothing else in his wardrobe. Heck he probably has more white jeans than Liz Hurley.

Next up, we had some footage of Keke Rosberg (father of little Nico, today’s pole-sitter) which got the husband wildly excited because it was from Brands Hatch in 1982 (ie. back when the husband was young.) Then we saw DC’s first pole. Yawn. One interesting thing that emerged was that it was arguably better to qualify 2^nd for this race as it was generally felt that pole was positioned on the wrong side of the track. A less suspicious person would almost think the person who had qualified 2^nd on the grid had done so deliberately but its hard to believe such a thing of Michael Schumacher. There was a brief interview between Lee McKenzie and Schuey which had to be rewinded about 5 times for the benefit of the 4 year old. I think Schuey has a soft spot for our Lee ever since she took part in that western-style horseriding ‘reining’ competion at the Schumacher Ranch. I bet Michael is a mahoosive Dallas fan too. The Texas Grand Prix will be out of control.

The Beeb had been rifling through the old Blue Peter archives as you do and had dug up some footage of a very young Lewis Hamilton racing remote control cars. So then to show us how relaxed and fun he really is, Lewis raced some more remote control cars around McLaren HQ with Jake Humphrey. Maybe it was just me but it felt a little bit ‘Top Gear’. This is not a good thing.

Anyway back to the Chinese GP (the BBC producer is more prone to going off on daft tangents than me!). A little box came up telling us the track temperature was 286° before someone spotted the typo (along with millions of viewers) and corrected the temperature to a far more boring twentysomething degrees.

Still chin up, it was time for DC’s first gridwalk – I had grave doubts as to how this was going to bear up to the legendary Martin Brundle Gridwalk™. The fate of the BBC coverage (for us anyway) might hinge on the next 10 minutes. My scrawly notes simply say ‘Button, Kobayashi, Newey, Webber. BORING’. Poor old DC – he really was a fish out of water and by the end he was just scrabbling around interviewing his Red Bull mates (he used to drive for Red Bull you know – before they were good) with a deeply annoying faulty microphone. Its safe to say he is no David Frost or indeed Martin Brundle. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, the producer in a moment of utter insanity decided to cross over to Eddie Jordan who was seemingly taking over the gridwalk mantle. First up, a quick word with Jean Todt, a man who seems to become more small and sinister with age – in fact the husband did absentmindedly comment on how Balestre was being interviewed. The poor love is stuck in the 1980s (the husband not Jean Todt). Then Eddie just started some long monologue culminating in some some horrifically cringy speech about much he adored and loved Frank Williams (yes really). Probably my personal highlight of Eddie’s gridwalk was his attempt to interview Charlie Whiting. “Can we have a few words”. “No”. It was desperate stuff.

Quick confer with the husband (occasionally it happens) and we decided to jump ship (ie. off the Titanic) and switch over to Sky. We were just in time for the Martin Brundle Gridwalk™ which was just immediately SO much better. Unfortunately we had to see Jean Todt being interviewed again but Martin did manage to interview Bernie which is always good value. I shudder to think how a Bernie/Eddie interview would have gone. Bernie said he would like to see Michael win. Some things never change! Martin was unable to interview Nico Rosberg who was talking to a Race Start Strategy Guy – who knew such jobs existed? Interestingly Johnny Herbert was there with Simon Thingy and not Damon Hill. Hmmmm. What can be we conclude from this? Hmmmm, Johnny was doing a great job but I love Damon so I’m not going to say anything more. Suddenly realised we hadn’t had our Random Celebrity at a Race then Mika Hakkinen popped up. Its not much but he’ll do for this week.

So it was time. The Schumacher Watch (ie. the 4 year old) was in place, the Race Start Strategy Guy had imparted his wisdom (‘drive fast and stay in the lead’) and it was GO GO GO. After predicting carnage at the start (with my beady eye trained on Kobayashi) , there was in fact no carnage and no crashes. Button had a fantastic start and was up in 3^rd place. Poor Kobayashi was just slipping off the radar after his great qualifying. Vettel had an awful start and was down to 15^th place. A few laps in, he complained that he just couldn’t get past Paul Di Resta (its Di Resta for heaven’s sake, not Fangio). Life is tough isn’t it, Seb, when you don’t have the best car…welcome to Narain Karthikeyan’s world.

As Rosberg pulled away from the pack, there was an almighty scrap for 2^nd place between Schuey, Button, Kimi, Lewis and Perez. The two McLarens pitted quite early on and Lewis was wheel to wheel with Kimi in the pitlane. This really could have ended up messily but Lewis just inched ahead leaving Kimi to get tangled up with Webber.

Then Schuey came in for his first pitstop. Just as I was thinking (I kid you not) how brilliant it was going to be to see Schuey on the podium again, the next thing we saw was Schuey’s car pulling over onto some grass and he was OUT OF THE RACE. This was a tragedy. The only crumb of comfort being I wasn’t listening to DC who probably was commentating on this development with barely disguised glee. I had to break the news to the 4 year old who burst into tears and said “Michael Schumacher never, ever wins”. It occurred to me that he might actually see Schuey as some kind of plucky ‘Johnny Herbert’ underdog and maybe that’s why he likes him. Oh the irony. Apparently it was due to an untightened wheel-nut. Who cares, my dream of a Schuey podium was in tatters and I had a hysterical 4 year old who no longer wanted the Grand Prix on. Still there was a race to watch and so the 4 year old was overruled much to his distress.

By lap 15, Perez was in the lead after Rosberg pitted but as he cruised around dreaming of Ferraris and Tuscan villas, mini-disaster struck and he locked up a wheel. Ironically this meant that Massa temporarily led the race. Enjoy it while it lasts my friend. Eventually Massa pitted and slid back to a position of nothingness. To the obvious amazement of Brundle and Croft, Rosberg was driving very well and looking like he might well win this race. The two McLarens behind him in 2^nd and 3^rd came in for hard tyres so by lap 28, the front-runners were 1. Rosberg, 2. Kimi, 3. Grosjean, 4. Vettel (how did that happen?), 5. Perez and 6. Button. How on earth was Rosberg staying out so long? Eventually on lap 35, Rosberg pitted no doubt in line with a Ross Brawn Genius Strategy and came out 2^nd behind Jenson Button. Hamilton meanwhile was stuck behind Perez who was driving the wheels off his Sauber and not in any way trying to impress anyone back in Maranello.

With classic Murray Walker timing, just after Button got a message saying he was still in this race to win, he had a disastrous pitstop on lap 39 and ended up rejoining in 6^th place. The husband was noticeably distraught (he has a man-crush on JB, say no more). Rosberg was being warned to look after his tyres otherwise the Ross Brawn Genius Strategy would be all in vain (I might have ad-libbed the last bit).  Everywhere you looked, there were cars wheel to wheel – it was absolutely awesome stuff. All those clever suits who came with new rules, we salute you!

So by lap 44, it was 1. Rosberg, 2. Kimi, 3. Vettel (still confused about how this happened!) and 4. Button. There was another stonking battle for 2^nd going on. For all we knew, Rosberg could have won as it was so long since we had seen him. We were told he could still pit and take the lead. Its as if Ross Brawn had devised the strategy. Oh yeh he did. Then on lap 49, Kimi’s tyres just fell off a cliff and he started skidding backwards and in the space of a lap had dropped from 2^nd to 12^th. Oh dear.

It was basically then total pandemonium – everyone was top of everyone else trying to overtake as if their lives depended on it. Remember those races where no one overtook and they were ‘won’ in the pits. They were dark days. Finally Button got past Vettel with an audacious move and there was a highly amusing radio message from his engineers telling him to pull away before Lewis got past Vettel. Either they rate Lewis or they know Vettel has turned into Kevin the Teenager or both. Sure enough, on the penultimate lap, Lewis passed Vettel for 2^nd place. Remembering there was some dude driving a Mercedes in the lead, we just managed to rejoin Nico as he won the Chinese GP and his very first race in F1. Schumacher feigned joy on the pit-lane but that must have been very hard to take. Those poor Mercedes mechanics won’t get a minute’s sleep until Bahrain. Never mind having to face Schuey, imagine how cross Bernie is with them all. I wouldn’t like to ever see a cross Bernie.

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

1.     Rosberg – a commanding drive and will be interesting to see how he performs now he has the ‘first race win’ monkey off his back.

2.     Button – oddly for Jenson, he seemed very dejected…he should go and sink a beer with Michael and compare useless mechanics.

3.     Hamilton – his 3^rd third place of the season and is now leading the Championship. Crikey!

4.     Webber – ahead of Seb…bet Mark likes that. A lot.

5.     Vettel – what’s gone wrong dude?

6.     Grosjean – well done that man.

So lots of happy Mercedes bods and happiest of all might have been Norbert Haug. I think our Norb has been on a bit of a diet – there’s definitely less of him these days. He was up on the podium where possibly the most hideous trophies ever in the history of motorsport were handed out. They are just like those robotic ‘techno trousers’ from Wallace and Gromit that the evil penguin stole.

But trophies aside, what a brilliant, brilliant humdinger of a race. The drivers loved driving it (except for Schumacher, sob). We loved watching it. Its shaping up to be a vintage F1 season. See you all bunkered down in Bahrain!

Chinese GP - Qualifying

To my utter astonishment the other day I discovered that this will be the 9^th Chinese Grand Prix. And there was me thinking this was a new-ish race on the F1 calendar. I do have a blurry memory of Schumacher winning one race in China and more recently various McLarens winning and…er…that’s pretty much it. Now I know I have lost random chunks of time in recent years due to the arrival of the sprogs (who never seem to appreciate the need for peace and quiet during sporting events) but surely not every Chinese GP bit the dust under an avalanche of nappies and wails. Turns out there were 3 whole Chinese GPs before the first sprog was a twinkle in the husband's eye. Lets face it the races in China are generally a bit meh and are somewhat lacking in the yacht/glamour quotient which might otherwise elevate a boring, processional race (like Monaco can sometimes be) into a Must Keep Watching event.

To prove my F1 credentials (and basically to give everyone a laugh), there is a photo of me at the 1999 British Grand Prix (but you have to read/scroll to the end of the blog first!). Next time I shall dig out one of the husband so he can stop sniggering!

As that great sage of our age Nico Hulkenberg put it “it’s not my favourite race of the year”. For that read ‘boring and bland’ but Nico H is far too polite (or rather, paid vast sums of money) to be rude about the Chinese GP. Sorry, the 2012 Formula 1 UBS Chinese Grand Prix. See what I mean? Spa, it ain't. And you know who I think is to blame? Obviously I’m not going to say Bernie in case he knows where I live. So take a bow, Hermann Tilke, the designer of the track in Shanghai. It would appear that Mr Tilke has been a very busy man for he is responsible for giving the world the following circuits: Sepang, Bahrain, Istanbul, Singapore, Valencia, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, India and coming to a TV near you this November, the brilliantly named 'Circuit of the Americas' track for the new US Grand Prix in Texas. I'm already having worrying premonitions that we might be treated to a special ‘Dallas’ segment on the Beeb’s build-up before that race with Eddie Jordan decked out as JR Ewing…or actually maybe he is more a Cliff Barnes? Ooops had better swiftly return to F1 before I get carried away (the husband knows of my obsession with Dallas and will be fearing the worst so I’ll leave it there – no promises come Texas though!).

It caused great excitement when Michael Schumacher went fastest in practice yesterday (so the 4 year old will watch a F1 practice session over breakfast but ordinarily has an epic meltdown if I have the audacity on a school-day to flick onto the news or whatever dross is on Daybreak). Now he can vaguely read, he has worked out that MSC stands for Schumacher so we are treated to a constant stream of updates (Schumacher is 9^th, 10^th, 5^th etc). So we get to watch F1 with our very own in-house Schumacher Watch (eat your heart out Sky Towers) and support our child’s education all in one go. Winner!

In other eve-of-qualifying news, the FIA has rejected Lotus’ protest about the Mercedes’ Innovative and Controversial Rear Wing™. Of course they did! Silly Lotus for wasting everyone’s time. Can’t they just settle down and concentrate on having a nice, normal race weekend with no hospitality fires or flash floods for a change. Apparently we may be in for some rain this weekend so expect shots a-plenty of the Weather Monitor of Doom.

Normally not many things irk me more than being awake at stupid o’clock on Saturday morning when everyone else in the house is still asleep. However as I zoomed through my timeline on Twitter under the duvet, I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to Sky Plus the Beeb’s qualifying (live coverage for the first time this season). After weighing up the alternatives for a nanosecond of watching Lovely Jake Humphrey or dull dull dull Simon Lazenby, I sprinted downstairs and flicked on the Beeb. I’m sure the husband would have cast a vote for Georgie Thompson and her come hither eyes (I nearly wept for the poor woman interviewing the no-nonsense Patrick Head the other day) but hey that’s the price he pays for having a lie-in.

For those who might not have seen qualifying yet, Do Not Adjust Your TV Set. Eddie Jordan really was wearing an 80s-tastic purple paisley shirt. Still at least he showed some originality – Jake and DC are stuck in a never-ending metrosexual timewarp of pink shirts.

Also it looks like the Bahrain GP will be taking place in a week’s time after all. Luckily all the unrest from the Arab Spring in 2011 that led to that year’s race being cancelled is all over and done with. Oh hang on its still going on. But to be fair, I never did have Bernie down as some kind of human rights crusader. According to Bernie, he knows people who live there (the royal family?) and ‘it’s all very quiet and peaceful’. Lovely jubbly. We’ll gloss over pictures of protestors currently burning Bernie flags and dressed up in F1 overalls carrying machine guns.

Anyway it was time to drop the proverbial trousers and get Q1 underway. Poor old Lewis has been given a 5 place grid penalty for changing his gearbox so already the highest position he can start from is 6^th place. All the cars came out, trundled around, did their laps and by the end of Q1 we had an unlikely fastest top three of Perez, Alonso and Grosjean (or Crashjean as I sometimes think of him). Bet Stefano Domenicali was wishing he had told his employment lawyer to go ahead with the ‘you’re fired’ letter to Felipe Massa. Its safe to say its in the pending tray.

As always things got much more interesting in Q2 (I might have fast-forwarded parts of Q1) and the two Mercedes cars were looking mighty fast (whoops of joy all round, ok it was just the 4 year old and me!). The Big Story (as the Beeb told us over and over again) was that none other than Sebastian Vettel (the current F1 champion and the best driver to ever come out of Germany since...er…Michael Schumacher who is currently much faster than him but anyway) did NOT make the cut for the top 10 shoot-out. To compound Seb’s misery, his team-mate Mark Webber topped the timesheet for Q2 ahead of the two Mercedes. Who’da thunk it (certainly not Vettel anyway). Personally I think things might have gone wrong when he called his 2012 Red Bull ‘Abbey’. What kind of name is that for a car? I liked Luscious Liz. It had a pleasing ring to it.

And so the unbearable tension was almost over and we were into Q3 (WITHOUT SEBASTIAN VETTEL) just in case anyone had suddenly been shunted off to Mars or slipped into a coma for the last 15 minutes. Far less surprising was the news that Massa had failed to make the top 10. Again. Somewhere in Maranello an employment lawyer is being called into the office on a Saturday.

Who would finish where was anyone’s guess as (stat alert!) we were told that 3/10^ths covered the top 10 drivers.  Schumacher Watch was in full swing – would Michael get his first pole in 6 years? Then all of a sudden, Nico Rosberg put in a blistering lap to smash everyone else’s time and take provisional pole. There was a great bit where Schuey radioed to ask what was Nico’s lap-time and when told, said ‘not bad’. According to DC it was very significant that Schuey asked this question because it showed all he was concerned about was his team-mate. Er, no David you dingbat. I think Schuey had just worked out that the only person who could beat him to pole was Nico (especially as Lewis had a 5 place demotion looming). So the line-up for tomorrow is 1. Rosberg, 2. Lewis, 3. Schumacher, 4. Kobayashi, 5. Raikkonen, 6. Button. But as Hamilton will start in 7^th place, this means we have an all-Mercedes front row for the first time since 1955 (name that driver line-up if you will!). All hail the genius that is Sir Ross Brawn (if he isn’t a Sir, then he frigging well should be knighted pronto!). I cannot wait for the start tomorrow. Its going to be MEGA.