My Motorsport Blog

“APPALLING” is what Eddie Jordan said about Ferrari and McLaren’s decision to sit in the pits and wait for better weather and track conditions. I say they received their just deserve by Jenson starting 17th, Alonso 19th and Hamilton and Massa in 20th and 21st respectively. This will ensure that fans see some very interesting and exiting opening laps, and, I hope they can stay out of trouble in the first few corners or we will have  a major change to the Championship point standings by the end of Sunday. Hopefully all the teams will take note of the risk they run by not getting a “Banker lap time”  as Eddie Jordan described it.

In the past teams have been on the receiving end of similar set backs in qualifying due to accidents or mechanical failures. If predictions that have been made in the past come true the fight for the drivers World Championship position will be a serious contest between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. I am not a great supporter of Webber but he has been phenomenal on the track. If Mark could only realise that he needs to stay calm and not take silly risks he will be breathing down Sebastian Vettels neck all the time. I would love to put my money on Sebastian Vettel but the Red Bull just does not have the reliability at the moment. The Red Bull cars have the best opportunity to get serious points before the rest of the field catch up or their opportunities will fade away. Ross Brawn and Mercedes GP will be contesting pole and the podium positions soon and time is running out for Ferrari and Red Bull.  

If we have a wet race tomorrow as predicted Ferrari and McLaren will rue the descision to stay in the pits when they could have been putting in qualifying times in the first outing. Nico Hulkenberg, Robert Kubica and Kamui Kobayashi will not be intimidated by the world champions in this formula and will ensure that each point will be hard fought for. I am thus sure that we will see Red Bull in a podium position but will we have Adrian Sutil making things difficult for the front runners?

The face of determination and a serious contender? An excellent result for Ferrari in the first round and well done Alonso. I am not surprised that Ferrari achieved the results they did with a first and second on the podium. This  must concern other teams. Button and Hamilton are world champions and the first thing Buttons does is have a negative attitude in the end of race interview, come on Jenson, you will trip over your own lip and this at the first race!!!! Oh well, no surprise there then!  Vettel and Webber’s achievements with reliability issues could be of concern and I expect more in the form of achievement from the Red Bull Team in future but as with most teams this might have been a good testing first round.

Many would say not refuelling removes some excitement from the race but I think not. Drivers now have to consider the race as a whole and not just the short bursts between refuelling and tyre changes. What does reduce the value of spectatorship would be the amount of teams that fell out in the early laps of this race. Formula One never has or will be a cheap sport no matter what you try to do or write in the regulations. I would rather look at 20 cars racing and 18 finishing due to track incidents than 24 starting and 15 finishing JUST. It impedes on the value of the sport and we need more time for the teams to test. We need more practise and development time.

New teams and their sponsors would have been better off entering after the first or second round to become more competitive and overcome reliability issues. Virgin, Hispania Racing and worst of all Sauber BMW, not having a single car finished this race must be a great disappointment. Shumi at the ripe old age of 41 still showed that his performance is as good as any of the others and wait for the 3rd or even the 4th round before we adjourn court on the man. There will be a podium yet when the German National anthem rings out…twice!!!!. As for Rosberg, Alonso and Massa, they will be Vettel’s nemesis in the future and he would do well to check the rear view mirror before viewing the 2010 Drivers Championship trophy by the end of the year. I would like to add that he (Vettel) would be my driver of choice to get to the trophy at this stage.

What about Button and Hamilton? All I will say is that we have some great racing ahead and let the teams settle. This partnership between Jenson and Lewis will head for disaster and it will be the British press that will spoil it just for headline sake and I expect this to happen soon.

Congratulations should go to Lotus as they had one car finish the first race and the gold and green colours of Lotus is a welcome sight to this formula. I hope to see more of them in the future at a much higher ranking. Thanks to the Chapman family for allowing us to bring this marque back to the F1 fraternity where it belongs.

So Michael has returned to Formula One and joined Ross Brawn in the Mercedes Benz F1 team. Although I am happy about his return and that of Mercedes Benz I have to wonder if he could be a serious contender to this years F1 World Championship. With youngsters like Vettel, Alonso, Massa , Hamilton, Buttons and the rest of a very young and competitive drivers lineup the road to success will not be easy.

I am not being misled by the first days testing in Valencia where Michael outpaced team mate Nico Rosberg and managed get the third best lap time of the days testing, Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber) took the first and second best times respectively. I will wait and see what happens in Bahrain on the 14th March when the cars will be on their first full fuel load and being driven in anger.

In the first race of the 1991 Sports Prototype Season Michael drove a Mercedes in full silver trim at Suzuka but some severe overheating issues hampered him. It will be good to see the “Silberpfeile” back in action with a full compliment of German drivers.

Firstly, well done Rubens! The world of Motorsport can see what your abilities are when you get a car which can perform the same as your team mate and the other top ten runners on the grid.

Having read coverage and other blogs on this I wonder why it is that we have so much dishonesty in the sport revealed recently? It is only with hindsight ( a week break to Paxos does that to you) that I realise that it is not really something new or even recent, we have always had dishonesty, but nobody were caught! As we move forward in the age of technology it appears that we have more and more “Whistle Blowers” in big business and now in motorsport. Wouldn’t you love to see the proof that the Piquet’s produced to achieve this.

The Nelson Piquet debacle really makes me wonder what the two Nelsons (Sounds like a wrestling match) will actually achieve or gain from this. Personally I think they should also be suspended as well as their GP2 Team as they have admitted that they are open for bribery and guilty of this by young Piquet’s action in causing a premeditated crash by his confession.

Let’s face it, they have achieved what Max Moseley had wanted and finally Briatore has left F1. If I were not such a pessimist I would say watch out Ferrari you might be next in certain sights.

For the last couple of months I have found it very depressing looking at the Formula 1 coverage, not because the racing was bad or even boring but because I am tired of the politics surrounding this sport. I am sure I do not stand alone in this and have found that the less said the better. I have to say a big thank you to the BBC coverage of the practice rounds but especially to the commentators trying to keep FIA & FOTA politics away.

It is great to see some regular front runners at the leading edge of the grid although it must be said this happens to be the practise rounds but the McLaren and Toyota teams appear to have become more competitive with some good comments from Robert Kubica about the BMW’s handling yesterday. Let’s hope that they get through to the second round of qualifying tough.  

I am sure Sebastian Vettel and Webber will have something to say during qualifying and prove that they are the force to be reckoned with. Brawn GP certainly have their work cut out for them and we are certain to see some surprises today.