My Motorsport Blog

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.

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.

So! Like an undecided widower thinking about having an affair with the next door neighbour, with real concern that the family might think I did this before the demise of my spouse, I have been following the exhibition that Bernie and Max are selling us with anticipation but also with real concern about what is happening in F1.

Rumours of teams leaving does no good for the sport and with Brawn GP having a field day with the SERIOUS teams like Ferrari and McLaren I can see what concerns the “Bean Counters” a.k.a. Accountants have in justifying the cost of the sport to the board of directors.

Will Ferrari and their progress of late review their position? Will BMW develop and listen to their drivers or will we have an early “silly season” and change teams right now. The point I am trying to make is this; teams will reign for periods (even years) but there will always be a new kid on the block that will make you regret your complacency.

The fact remains that teams have circuits where they perform well while others are just pure hell on cars and drivers. I think the shortfall of the new regulations rest in the fact that new drivers have little opportunity to gain experience within a F1 team and this will make managers reluctant to give a “Rookie” a car to bend.

Oh! By the way, I miss the DTM and do not wish to buy another channel just for one formula. What else can I look forward to if I do buy it other than football?

Ferrari Disaster: As if the qualifying strategy for Ferrari were not bad enough, the Prancing Horse Team decided to make a total hash of it with their disastrous decision to bring Kimi in for full wet tyres on a dry track. Even intermediate tyres would have lasted longer and would have made their gamble pay off. Common sense tells me that full wets would only last for about two  laps of serious racing and then turn to jelly. Ferrari will have to get another “Ross Brawn” to help with racing strategy because I do not believe Michael Schumacher’s consultations are paying off, if, that is what he is there for. I might be wrong and Michael’s only responsibility is mentoring Massa, but Ferrari will have to do something to improve this aspect of their racing. Brawn GP is showing their true colours and they are contenders for the driver and constructors championship.

McLaren Chaos; This team really have to get their act together and a reduction in media coverage might not be a bad idea. Lewis is seen as Ron Dennis’s “spoilt brat” and people blaming Dave Ryan’s suspension from the McLaren team on Lewis might not be far from wrong. I am not sure if I agree, but even the excuse that Lewis happens to be a “Young Man” is rubbish. He is the number one driver in a very high profile F1 team and should leave if he can not handle the heat at the moment.

Did Dave Ryan hold a gun to his head when they went to the stewards in Melbourne? I think not. Would he have been fired if he refused to lie in the initial hearings? Again I think not. The investment in Lewis is huge and span over many years and more money than most of us can imagine. Lewis can not claim the innocent young man attitude in a very serious and expensive sport.

Formula One is a “big boys with serious toys” fraternity and Lewis should not just threaten to walk as his camp apparently indicated in a phone call to Max Mosley but do so.  An old proverb says “Strange new experiences will add to your joy of living”, Lewis is certainly not having much of this at the moment.

While we are on turmoil aspects of F1 in 2009 I would like to add that the late start in these countries (Malaysia and Australia) really do not work due to weather and lighting aspects. The quality of the race is being influenced by these aspects and this is unfair to the local fans who attend the race at the circuit. The regulations or the start times will have to be changed to allow for weather and enough daylight conditions when things go wrong as we have seen in Malaysia. Bernie should realise that motorsport fans do have toys like DVD and video recorders, some even have access to that wonderful item called Sky Plus, to record the races. Even though it is risky I do this all the time and make sure I do not listen to the news or any broadcasting media until I have looked at the programme. Stating that he is catering for the European TV viewers must be the worst excuse he could think of. Bernie looks after number one and that would be the money in his back pocket!

Overconfidence: Ferrari made a huge error in judgement and while looking at the qualifying times I could see them drop but they remained in the pits in the first qualifying. This bad judgement from the team and engineer could cost Massa some championship points which could cost him winning a drivers championship. No doubt they could perform because Räikkönen stayed in the top 10.

Surprises: Both McLaren cars out of the final qualifying with Heidfeld and Nakajima following suit. Alonso managed to get into the final qualifying with a ear infection, now that surprised me because ear infections makes you feel off balance I thought.

The final qualifying saw me not putting a jinx on the drivers by my predicting the top 10, bar Hamilton, who dropped out in the second qualifying. Overall the biggest surprise was Massa out in the first and Alonso in the top 10. We have a race.