Alonso doubles up to take emotional home win

What a European Grand Prix that was; who’d have thought the Valencia venue had it in it to produce such a thrilling and frenetic race.

Sebastian Vettel looked like he was cruising to become the first double winner of 2012, but it was Fernando Alonso who ended up on top of the podium as the race changed dramatically half way through…Such is 2012.

Alonso’s qualifying hadn’t gone according to plan, when despite being only 2/10ths slower than the fastest time of Q2 he missed out on the top ten shoot out to line up 11^th. A brilliant start and opening lap left him in 8^th.

He fought hard during the opening half of the race, making the moves to push himself up the order ready to take advantage of any opportunity that came his way. He wasn’t too far away from Romain Grosjean’s Lotus in 2^nd with Lewis Hamilton 4^th, but Sebastian Vettel was reliving his 2011 glory days and had disappeared into the distance with a 20 second lead.

On Lap 28 an incident between Heikki Kovalainen’s Caterham and the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne left debris all over the track, the safety car was deployed. Vergne later received a 10 place grid drop for Silverstone.

Everyone jumped into the pits, Alonso emerging ahead of Lewis as the McLaren driver suffered another slow pit stop. The race was beginning to come to him as he lay in third behind Vettel and Grosjean.

The safety car headed the field for five laps before they were allowed to commence battle once again. Alonso is seldom not ready to fight, he unleashed the Ferrari down the start finish straight, tight behind Grosjean, he went to the outside for turn two, hit his brakes as late as could be, nearly brushed the wall, but he was through into second place.

Next was Vettel, the dominant leader for so long in Valencia we’d not seen much of him on the television coverage apart from behind the safety car. But the next time we saw him the car was slowing, an alternator belt snapped in his Renault engine eliminating him from a Grand Prix that was surely his for the taking just half a lap after the restart.

Vettel had done everything right, pole, a brilliant start, dropping everyone behind him, he looked supreme. But it wasn’t to be for him today, Alonso swept by, a scarlet streak past the Red Bull as Vettel saw him vanish over a race win in points ahead of him.

Grosjean wasn’t about to disappear though, and filled the Ferrari’s mirrors before he too on lap 41 had a similar problem to Vettel with his Renault engine. Grosjean had looked threatening all weekend and would surely have mounted a challenge after a brilliant drive.

It wasn’t done for Alonso yet though, he pushed on ahead of the following Lewis Hamilton, but he had to make his tyres last. At one point it seemed the McLaren was cruising up to the back of him again just like in Canada.

But not this time, this time it was the Spaniard who just about kept his tyres together while the McLaren eventually faded before an accident took Lewis out of the race. Not even once Kimi Raikkonen was through into second place was Alonso really threatened and he reeled off the final laps to take his 29^th career victory ahead of the Lotus driver.

His car stopped on the slowing down lap, and with Spanish flag in hand was clearly emotional as he stepped from the car in front of his countrymen. He never gives up and when a door opens for him, he walks straight in. With retirements for both his main title rivals and with the consistency he’s shown so far this year, a 20 point lead in the title hunt looks very handy indeed.

Lewis Hamilton vs Pastor Maldonado

Both these drivers had qualified well, second and third for Hamilton and Maldonado respectively. Lewis maintained position at the start but after fighting hard his tyres began to fade in the closing stages. After holding off Kimi he eventually conceded the place, but Maldonado was straight on to the back of him and on lap 56 with just one lap left he made his move.

There’s two perspectives on what followed, the first is that Lewis knew his tyres were done, if he let Maldonado through he was far enough ahead of fifth placed Michael Schumacher to just about maintain fourth and take 12 points home with him and lie just 11 points behind Alonso. As it is he is now 23 points behind. Mr consistency that he has been this year might just have yielded.

But why should he do that, he was on the podium, he was racing, he is the ultimate racer and Maldonado wasn’t coming through without at least a fight. Lewis had been fighting all day, being passed, passing back, he was in the zone.

Entering the DRS zone Maldonado made the move on the outside into turn 12. Lewis Hamilton had the line, and squeezed the Williams driver off the track. Maldonado should have given up the corner, come back on the track and tried pass him down into turn 17. He still had plenty of opportunity, but he jumped over the kerb into the McLaren sending Lewis into the wall and dropping the Williams down to 10^th place at the finish.

Maldonado blames Hamilton for not giving him room but it was Lewis’ corner, Maldonado was off the track and was obliged to give way. The stewards thought the same and have penalised him 20 seconds dropping him to 12th.

Could this cost Lewis the championship? Too early to tell yet, but it’s given Alonso a mighty advantage with which to play with.

Schumacher back on the podium

What a wonderful moment it was to see Michael Schumacher back on the podium for the first time since he won the Chinese Grand Prix back in 2006. That it should come with a hint of controversy too seems perfectly apt.

He passed some double waved yellow flags on the final lap, Schumacher was seen to open his DRS which isn’t illegal but seems to show him still pushing. Luckily the stewards ruled that he had slowed down enough to avoid a penalty.

Still, it was a fighting drive to the podium; he looked adrift during the opening half of the race after 

starting 12^th, he was one of the few to start on the medium harder compound so expected to run longer than most. He worked his way up the order as others pitted but soon had a train of cars behind him as his tyres drained their grip.

The safety car turned the race for him. Most of the front runners had pitted for the second time so Schumacher found himself lying just behind his team mate Nico Rosberg in eighth.

With the safety car gone you can overtake into the final corner and ever the opportunist, Schuey dived around Rosberg. It wasn’t caught in the coverage but he was through and away.

He pitted on lap 42, exiting ahead of Webber and from then on they were in tandem as they fought through the field from 11^th and 12^th places. One by one they picked them off with their fresher rubber; Button, Perez, the Force India’s fell to the wayside. Schumacher had to be incisive with his overtaking as he never had Webber more than a second adrift.

Having just passed Nico Hulkenberg for fifth, Hamilton and Maldonado were in the wall and suddenly for once luck was on his side and he crossed the line for a fighting third place. He was ecstatic and it was nice to see Schumacher back where he belongs, a great result.

Lotus

If one of their drivers is going to win, you have to say it’s going to be Romain Grosjean. He fought valiantly all race with some good passing and was unlucky to suffer a rare mechanical failure just as it looked like he had victory for the taking.

Kimi Raikkonen needs to sort out his qualifying, he is being outshone by Grosjean in that department but also in recent races when it really counts on the Sunday. Still it was a good second place but again one he was unhappy with as he felt he should have had the win.

That’s about the third race he reckons should’ve been his, it’s time for him to step up a bit because Lotus should have won by now, but if and when they do win you wouldn’t put your money on Kimi at the moment.

Rest of the top 10

Mark Webber had various problems in practice and he couldn’t resolve them in time for qualifying. He started 19^th and through the pit stops made some progress. After the safety car he followed Schumacher through the field to earn a brilliant fourth place and second in the championship.

Nico Hulkenberg scored his best result of his career with fifth for Force India maximising his strategy but just not able to hold off Schumacher or Webber to score what could have been a podium.

Nico Rosberg was dropped a lot of places after the restart but after pitting for a second time used that fresh rubber to charge back into the points with sixth.

Paul di Resta reckons he should have started from fourth but tenth was what he got so seventh on the only one stop strategy wasn’t a bad result and showed Force India really getting back into contention in the midfield constructors battle.

Jenson Button has had a terrible time over recent races, he was happy with his race pace but the result wouldn’t have been what he wanted, although it wasn’t so bad after he’d been pushed down the order at the start so it was a decent enough recovery but he needs more points quickly if he wants to be a title contender.

Ninth went to Sergio Perez in the Sauber so they at least got two points after Kamui Kobayashi was running fourth but an incident with Bruno Senna then Felipe Massa forced him to retire.

Bruno Senna finished 11th but claimed the final point after his team mates penalty.

Caterham moved forward this weekend with Kovalainen getting into Q2 on merit while Petrov ran as high as tenth. HRT also outpaced Marussia but Timo Glock didn’t race due to illness.

Title battle: Advantage Alonso, but Vettel confident

The British Grand Prix is next up where Alonso took his only race win of 2011. He now has a decent lead to defend, while what he considers his two main title challengers have ground to make up.

Lewis Hamilton will be angry to have lost big points when Vettel had retired. He’ll desperately want to get back on track at his home race after what had previously been a very consistent points gathering season.

Vettel was disappointed with retirement but he remains confident. He has every reason to be, despite how close qualifying appeared to be he took pole by 4/10ths, and was well ahead when the safety car appeared. The Red Bull has certainly found an extra turn of speed that will help both Vettel and 2^nd placed Webber.

It’s still very open, but none of them can afford another bad weekend, especially not Vettel or Hamilton; the fight continues at Silverstone.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Engines and costs debate as Valencia approaches

After scanning the Formula 1 press and the general motor racing press I thought I would offer a few thoughts.

First of all I’d like to wish Sky pundit Anthony Davidson a swift recovery after a major crash at the Le Man 24 hours in his LMP1 class Toyota. He got a fair bit of air after he made contact with a GTam Ferrari and managed to break two vertebrae. 

Thankfully he should make a full recovery. Le Mans is quite a hypnotic race to watch, with so many elements coming at you in the space of a day, it’s certainly something I’d love to attend in the future. Audi have dominated over the last decade and they won again but it was also the first win for their hybrid car of a diesel engine and flywheel technology driven by Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler, something Formula 1 will be increasingly going down the road of over the coming years although not with diesel, that would be silly.

New Engines

There’s been a lot of talk about the Formula 1 regulations for the coming years. The new V6 Turbo 

engines fully equipped with more powerful hybrid technology are due to be introduced in 2014 having already been delayed by a year.

There’s still debate about whether this will go ahead with Bernie Ecclestone known to be against it, while some of the smaller teams are worried about how much these new engines will cost them. Mercedes boss Norbert Haug has admitted that initially they’ll cost more as they develop the new technology having run the current engines for seven years.

At the moment customer teams pay around 15million Euros for their power plants, this could more than double in 2014, although Mercedes have said that over a five period the initial costs would average the same as today.

This new Formula will be about fuel efficiency and is more relevant to the road car industry which manufacturers like Mercedes and Renault are keen for. Formula 1 has to adapt and I certainly see this as a step forward.

Natural resources are not finite, and for Formula 1 to continue guzzling gas and not to at least be seen to be developing towards a greener future would eventually make the sport unsustainable.

Standardisation would cost too

Of course this is going to cost money, and there has been a lot of further debate about cost reduction, with the resource restriction agreement possibly being officially written into the rules. I’m all for bringing costs down, but I hope this doesn’t create a raft of changes that force upon the teams more standard parts.

Formula 1 is the top tier of motor sport and it should be allowed to develop and express itself with not too many restrictions. Standardisation of more and more elements would make it a GP2 equivalent which is not what I think the fans would want to see.

I read an interesting article by former Jordan designer and now BBC analyst Gary Anderson here, where he suggests you regulate how many updates a team can bring during the season, thereby limiting wastage of parts that they discard if they don’t work properly. It’s certainly a simple proposal and I think would be quite effective.

Valencia

 Practice around the streets of Valencia starts on Friday, the wall lined track is actually pretty quick, although traditionally not that exciting with little room to pass, not even last year with the DRS did the heart beat much faster.

It should be quite hot in Spain, which would look to favour Lotus, who seem to use the Pirelli’s that bit better in the heat. They’re looking for their first win of the year, but who would get it? On current form, as long as he gets through the first lap, you’ve got to go with Romain Grosjean. He’s certainly a much improved version than the one from 2009, where he was thrown unexpectedly in the deep end after replacing Nelson Piquet Jnr half way through the year.

He’s out qualified Kimi Raikkonen six times already, and has been getting increasingly stronger in the races, well like I said, once he’s through the first few corners.

Michael Schumacher is optimistic too. How he can be I don’t know? Maybe it’s because he knows he has nothing to prove and he’s still just continuing to enjoy being in the F1 bubble, or maybe he knows that at some point luck has to change.

Well it didn’t change much in his first career, where he had an awful lot of good luck, but certainly he is due a good result, it can’t go wrong all the time can it? Mercedes are assuring him they will get to the bottom of his reliability problems and you only hope that at least once it comes together for him.

Those are the options for eight winners out of eight races, but I think we might finally get our first double race winner with my options coming from our championship leaders, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.

I think many are assuming the title fight will boil down to these three, I’m not jumping off the fence on that one quite yet, but it’s time someone stole a march and took a grip on the title. Vettel is looking for the hat trick, having won the last two years, while Hamilton has finished second twice.

Ferrari have improved a lot since the start of the year, and Alonso will be a contender for a podium, but I can see this one being a Hamilton and Vettel showdown for the victory. Although that might lead you to believe it’ll be a predictable race with the top contenders fighting it out at the front, Valencia isn’t known for excitement generally either, but this year you can never know for sure.

So in that case, Kamui Kobayashi will be standing atop the podium! Which actually Sauber are still quick in the races, if they can qualify that bit better, they shouldn’t be ruled out, and after Perez’s exploits it’s about time Kobayashi had a podium too. As ever though only tyres will tell.

Silverstone

I received my British Grand Prix tickets a few weeks ago, they are secured away nicely. Route is already planned, new camera is about to be bought, can’t wait!

all photo's taken from autosport.com

European Grand Prix preview

We’re approaching round 8 this weekend, the European Grand Prix around the docks of Valencia. I’m writing this as first practice is about to begin, it’s looking a bit overcast in Spain this morning but according to the forecast rain won’t be an issue.

One thing this season has taught us is to expect the unexpected (apart from the winner generally). With the variations in tyres and the strategies this results in, we have had some quite amazing and thrilling races, even in Spain. This weekend actually promises to bring us another exciting grand prix with close concrete walls, a new tyre compound and a double DRS zone adding extra complexity to the team’s tasks.

The first point of interest though is engine mapping. Might not sound particularly exciting, but this could be crucial in qualifying. In addition to the hot exhaust blown diffuser ban that is being introduced at the British Grand Prix, the FIA have decided to ban teams changing engine maps between qualifying and the race.

This means that teams will no longer be able to run extreme engine maps in qualifying which burns more fuel and blows more hot air through the diffuser creating more down force and then revert to a safer map for the race. It is thought this is one area which Red Bull have maximised and given them greater performance in qualifying than other teams.

So if it affects Red Bull more than others we could have a new team on pole position which would be quite the novelty this year. Having said that, I can’t look past Red Bull for the win in Valencia, this track is a fast flowing track for them to fully exploit. They’re far more than just a blown diffuser, so I expect them to be strong, particularly with Sebastian Vettel who won last year.

The other variable is the choice of tyres with Pirelli bringing the medium compound for the first time as well as the super soft. This might throw a few surprises into the mix as teams adjust to them.

So, apart from Sebastian Vettel who else could challenge for victory? Lewis Hamilton will be determined to prove himself and I would still expect a few aggressive moves from him, but I’ve a feeling they may actually come off this time. He’s finished 2^nd three times in Valencia so he’s more than capable of going that one step further. Lewis is a racer and he’ll not care what anyone thinks of him, but it is crucial he gets a result this time.

McLaren team mate Jenson Button is also in with a shout. He had an inspired race in Canada and could have won the last 2 grand prix if things had fallen his way in Monaco. He’s in good form and will be one to watch. With Lewis under pressure, Jenson will be looking to push to the forefront and become McLaren’s main championship challenger.

We mustn’t forget Vettel’s team mate Mark Webber. He may not be having the greatest season so far. He’s finished behind Vettel in every race this year, so he needs a strong weekend to reassert himself in the team. He’s looked subdued all season and he’s complained about the tyres not suiting him, but he’s not one for giving up, and if anyone can pull out a surprise result when his back is against the wall it’s Mark. He is in a Red Bull after all.

Ferrari is an unknown force coming into this weekend. Despite good pace the last few races they come here still unsure about how to use the harder compounds. Although the medium compound tyre is softer than the hard, there still seems to be issues over getting heat into the tyres with the more durable compounds.

One thing that is guaranteed is Fernando Alonso will be going all out to give his countrymen a great performance. In his own words ‘everything that could go wrong, did go wrong’ in Canada and he’ll be looking for a strong result.

Felipe Massa will just be looking to continue his strong showing from North America. He was near the front for a long time, and fought till the end. Massa still hasn’t shown us his true potential since his accident, and he’ll have to soon unless he wants to give another victory away to Alonso.

The Mercedes pair will want strong results with both being optimistic of a good race and with strong straight line speed, the best DRS wing with two DRS zones to exploit, they could be dark horses for a podium. Michael Schumacher is looking confident and Nico Rosberg just wants to get ahead again.

Renault need to step and get some more consistency if they want to beat Mercedes to fourth in the constructors championship. Vitaly Petrov is still susceptible to some off road moments despite his strong fifth in Canada. Nick Heidfeld was running well there too before his accident, and will want a good points finish this time. They could be strong, but I don’t expect them to challenge for a win.

A track which is lined by concrete walls is bound to attract a few cars to visit, so the final variable here is safety cars. It caused controversy last year when it split the pack causing Fernando Alonso to throw many a toy out of the cockpit after Lewis Hamilton gained an advantage by overtaking the safety car as it left the pits, leaving Alonso trapped behind.

Other notables to watch out for include Kamui Kobayashi, who will pass where not even Lewis would dare to tread. Also look out for Pastor Maldonado in the Williams, who is quietly outshining his vastly more experienced team mate Rubens Barrichello. For someone who was regarded as a pay driver at the beginning of the year, he’s showing some great speed.

Anyway, first practice has ended and as much as the times mean nothing, Mark Webber is heading the times. Let’s see if he can sustain a challenge to his team mate over the weekend.

The main thing now is we need one consistent challenger to Vettel, with all the variables of tyres, engine mapping and a double DRS zone maybe one could rise from the pack. However, Red Bull are more than a one trick bovine, and despite the engine mapping perhaps affecting them more than others, they’ll still be very tough to beat.