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German GP thoughts

17 July 2009 19:04

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When I published my mid-season driver rankings a couple of weeks ago, Pink Peril rebuked me for not placing Mark Webber higher. I explained that Webber was yet to win an F1 race in his career, and winning is the bottom line.

Well he now has that win. And it was a truly dominant win at that. His car was clearly majestic at the Nürburgring, but he also comprehensively outclassed Sebastian Vettel all weekend. Not only that, but Webber did this even when his typical bad luck hit him.

Webber’s drive-through penalty did seem a bit harsh. He clearly made a move across into Barrichello’s portion of the track, so there was the potential for there to be a nasty accident. But both drivers were in control of the situation. Plus, Michael Schumacher did this sort of thing on a race-by-race basis without the FIA so much as raising its eyebrows.

You would never have guessed he had a drive-through penalty, because it didn’t seem to affect his race in the slightest. This was helped by the fact that the Red Bull team cleverly kept him out for as long as possibble before he had to serve his penalty, ensuring that he had time to build up more of a gap. This is a signal that Red Bull as a team is maturing too.

It’s worth remembering too that Mark Webber still has a chunk of metal in his right leg from his bicycle accident over the winter. It is easy enough to imagine how much of a hindrance this is in terms of confidence in the cockpit and the physical pain that may be present. But the metal also adds a load of weight to the driver. This is real hindrance particularly to someone like Webber who, being tall, is one of the heaviest drivers on the grid even without lumps of metal in his leg.

All-in-all, this makes it a big, big win for Webber. Despite all the woes that hit the Brawn team over winter, this win was more hard-fought than any of Button’s this year. A straightforward lights-to-flag victory wouldn’t be Webber’s style, but I guess that makes it all the more rewarding.

This makes both Red Bull drivers now major title contenders. If it comes to crunch time towards the end of the season, the team faces a tough choice between which of the two drivers to rely on the most — the ostensibly quicker Vettel, or the more experienced Webber? An internal Red Bull battle will play into Jenson Button’s hands.

After all, it is not difficult to guess which driver Brawn will favour. It might be strange for them to think of that given Barrichello’s extraordinary post-race outburst. I doubt the team is interested in further antagonising a driver who is clearly paranoid. But maybe if they sit him down and give him some more “blah blah blah blah blah”, he will understand that it makes no sense for a team to forfeit Button’s races in favour of a slower driver.

It is true that Barrichello led into the first corner (sort of) but on his light fuel load he was never going to be a favourite for the win here, and neither was Button. A fuel rig problem, outwith the control of the Brawn team, of course did not help matters.

Perhaps a more pressing concern to the Brawn team will be the fact that they now genuinely look like they do not have the best car. Like Britain, the German GP was particularly cool, which favours Red Bull and disadvantages Brawn. But notably, both Brawn cars finished behind a Ferrari and a Williams, two teams that had a pretty torid start to the season. The advantage they had at the start of the season has been whittled away.

It remains to be seen if the warmer races will see the pendulum swing back in Brawn’s favour. But one thing seems certain: the second half of the season won’t be nearly as easy as the first half for them.

Rubens reckons he led into the first corner, although another driver who could claim to have been leading in the first corner is Lewis Hamilton. Unfortunately, in the scramble for the first corner, he was tagged by the front wing of Webber’s car and had to trail round for the whole lap with a puncture before being able to pit. The tyre damaged his car further, meaning that his race was effectively over in turn 1.

I think Hamilton and McLaren can take a lot of heart from the weekend’s events though. Who knows how the race would have unfolded had Hamilton emerged as the leader for the first stint. He did have the third lightest fuel load on the grid, but he was heavier than the Brawns.

Fuel-adjusted, Hamilton was the third fastest in qualifying, 9 tenths ahead of Heikki Kovalainen who didn’t have the upgraded package. It looked so unlikely just a few weeks ago, but McLaren could be challenging for wins in the second half of this season.

The other major surprise up the grid was Adrian Sutil. He managed to qualify 7th which was stunning enough, but my jaw hit the floor when I saw that he had the heaviest car in the top 10! Sadly, it didn’t come together for him during the race with yet another racing incident involving Kimi Räikkönen. These things happen.

You sense that Force India are very close to their first point. In truth, a bucketful of bad luck is the only thing that has prevented them from scoring so far. Even Giancarlo Fisichella is in good form right now. During the first stint he looked very pacey indeed, overtaking a number of cars. All in all he gained nine places before making his first pit stop.

Another driver who had a great first stint was Nico Rosberg. He gained six places on lap one alone (as did Kubica, indeed, not that he could make much of it in that dog of a BMW). Rosberg continued to steadily climb throughout the race, and ultimately finished a very well-deserved fourth. Rosberg continues to impress me this season.

The Hungarian Grand Prix will be an important one, not so much for the racing (which probably won’t be very good on that circuit), but as a signal of what to expect for the rest of the season. Is Brawn’s slump more permanent, or was it a blip caused by cool conditions?

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links for 2008-06-06

6 June 2008 18:30

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links for 2008-05-20

20 May 2008 18:23

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Lewis Hamilton's Jekyll and Hyde career

8 April 2008 19:43

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Well I think it’s fair to say a lot of people will be scratching their heads about Lewis Hamilton now. After his disastrous performance in Bahrain, Hamilton’s detractors now have plenty of ammunition.

Of course, caution is advised. Just as an amazing first few races didn’t make Hamilton the new Senna automatically, one lacklustre trip to Bahrain doesn’t make him the new Andrea de Cesaris.

But today F1 Wolf has written a fantastic post that outlines the dramatic nature of Lewis Hamilton’s decline since his incredible start to the 2007 season. It deserves a wide audience and I hope F1 Wolf doesn’t mind if I repeat a bit of his analysis here.

Here are the results of Hamilton’s first nine Formula 1 races:
3 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 3 – 3
An unprecedented run of nine consecutive podium finishes from his début onwards.

Here are the results of his last nine F1 races:
5 – 2 – 4 – 1 – DNF – 7 – 1 – 5 – 13
Not quite so impressive, you must agree.*

At the risk of coming across as smug, it is tempting to say that this vindicates the views of people like me who were calling for caution all last season in the midst of the British media’s Hamilton hype. I constantly pointed out, for instance, that Hamilton had not experienced much in the way of bad luck. There are people in the pitlane who can tell you all about how important luck is — Mark Webber springs to mind. You can say that he has now experienced some bad luck, and this is partially reflected in his results. In this sense, his first nine races were a bit of a fluke.

I once read someone say, “Am I the only person who thinks that all Hamilton has ever done is cruise to podium positions in the fastest car?” And I have now noticed a lot of people pointing out that Hamilton has never won a race from anything other than pole position.

Given that one of the media’s favourite memes was to wax lyrical about Hamilton’s prodigious overtaking ability, we are beginning to see a Jekyll and Hyde career of Lewis Hamilton. No doubt, in his first few races Hamilton pulled off some amazingly opportunistic overtaking manoeuvres that made my jaw drop to the floor. His hoodwinking of Massa in Malaysia springs to mind, but his moves into turn one in the first couple of races were also particularly awesome.

But since then, he has become rather less impressive. He spent parts of the Malaysian Grand Prix unable to negotiate Mark Webber and Jarno Trulli. Meanwhile in Bahrain he made a hash of passing Alonso in the most embarrassing way possible, while later on in the race he got frustrated behind the Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella.

This was touched on in F1Fanatic’s liveblog at the weekend. See the conversation from 2:01 Rikhart onwards. I briefly forgot the no-swearing guideline… Sorry Keith! But I will repeat it in all its glory:

  • [Comment From Rikhart]
    Starting to get the feeling hamilton was one of the drivers who was most affected by driver aids ban!
  • Journeyer – rik, you’re right, but i think it still affects massa more.
  • Scott Joslin – good point, he does not seem to be able to move through the field like before
  • Scott Joslin – but he is still young and will learn
  • doctorvee – it’s the same old. new f1 driver comes in and blasts everyone away, then becomes a boring old bastard by his 15th race
  • Journeyer – you’re referring to lewis, scott?
  • Scott Joslin – yeah
  • Journeyer – hahaha! good point, doc. it must be that lack of fear that makes drivers so quick at the start… then the sophomore slump. the best indicator of how good a driver is is usually in his 3rd season.

I am now seeing more and more mentions of “second season syndrome” (see, for instance, Ed Gorman). I love to compare Lewis Hamilton to Jacques Villeneuve. This is partly because Jacques Villeneuve was the last person to have such a successful début season and it also highlights the fact that a storming start to your F1 career is no indication of how it will be viewed in full. But at least Jacques Villeneuve won the Championship in his second season! What if Hamilton doesn’t manage that?

It is not uncommon to see a driver looking full of energy and creativity in his early races only to become conservative and mundane quite quickly. For some reason, something happens in a driver’s career that makes him become cautious.

I can’t help feeling that Lewis Hamilton’s lacklustre end to the 2007 season has contributed to his creative slump. He managed to lose a massive 17 point lead in the two final races. It is generally accepted that Hamilton’s over-aggressive approach in those final two races contributed to his Championship loss.

He was racing for the win when he didn’t need to. He stormed off into the lead in Shanghai thereby giving him excessive tyre wear which eventually landed him in the gravel trap. Then an over-ambitious move into turn 1 at Interlagos put paid to his Championship chances for good. I have to wonder if this is a case of twice bitten, thrice shy.

To Lewis Hamilton’s real credit, he has immediately put his hands up and taken full responsibility for his lacklustre weekend at Bahrain. That is the first step to starting a strong fightback. It is amusing, though, that the British media nevertheless leapt to his defence, blaming Alonso for the crash. Normally it is the drivers who come up with the cheesy, half-baked excuses.

Now I get the impression that it is more important for British journalists than it is for Lewis Hamilton himself that Hamilton becomes Champion this year. The journalists will be sorely discredited if he doesn’t. Meanwhile, the natural peaks and troughs of a Formula 1 career play out in full for Lewis Hamilton.

* As an aside, it is worth drawing attention to F1 Wolf’s analysis of Felipe Massa’s last nine races. It is very interesting, revealing that Massa has in fact had the more successful career of late. And yet, Hamilton reamins the golden boy, while everyone is out to throw stones at Massa.

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Why Max Mosley has to go

2 April 2008 19:05

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Yesterday, Max Mosley finally responded to the News of the World‘s allegations. And I have to say, if the allegations were not enough to make one think that Max Mosley can no longer be the President of the FIA, then his pathetic letter ought to be.

The letter has been taken apart by Ollie, Negative Camber and Clive.

One the face of it the letter is a confession. However, he denies the “Nazi connotation”. This might be key if Mosley wants to survive as FIA President. It is generally agreed that if it was a mere sex scandal, people would not have been so offended. It is the alleged Nazi element that has riled most people.

But can we be convinced that there was no Nazi connotation? Planet-F1 says that Mosley could be heard on the video saying in a German accent, “She needs more of ze punishment.” And according to Clive,

not only were the participants dressed in Nazi uniforms, but at least one was attired in concentration camp pajamas.

Whatever Mosley’s explanation that this is not a Nazi fantasy is, it had better be convincing.

We now come on to another uncomfortable point of the letter, which is Mosley’s seeming implication that the fact that this information came about as a result of a private investigation somehow exonerates him. We can see that this is what Mosley believes as he continually puts the blame for his current predicament on those who did the investigation, and not himself for behaving in the way that he did.

Regrettably you are now familiar with the results of this covert investigation and I am very sorry if this has embarrassed you or the club…

I shall now devote some time to those responsible for putting this into the public domain but above all I need to repair the damage to my immediate family who are the innocent and unsuspecting victims of this deliberate and calculated personal attack.

How utterly outrageous. Max Mosley’s family are not “the innocent and unsuspecting victims of this deliberate and calculated personal attack.” They are the innocent and unsuspecting victims of Max Mosley’s offensive behaviour.

I have said often enough that an invasion of someone’s private life is not acceptable. I do not for one second subscribe to the News of the World style of journalism. Samuel has been particularly vocal in the comments to a previous post here. For instance:

Western democracies defend the right of privacy for everyone. The devil himself should have the right to maintain his private life private. I firmly believe in civil rights so for me Max is the only victim. Period. For me it’s the end of the story.

This may be true, but the fact is that nothing can be done about that now. It is a sunk cost. The damage has been done, and Max Mosley’s privacy has been invaded. Wringing our hands about that will do nothing.

We now have to face the apparent reality that Max Mosley has hired prostitutes for an allegedly Nazi-themed sex orgy. The motor racing community has to ask itself: now that we have knowledge of Max Mosley’s behaviour, is he an appropriate person to be running the FIA? And the answer must surely be ‘no’.

Mosley himself knows this. It appears as though he will not attend the Bahrain Grand Prix. Bernie Ecclestone revealed that the Bahraini Royal Family would not appreciate it. No shit, Sherlock.

So will they appreciate it in 12 months’ time when Formula 1 next races in Bahrain? Will the King Juan Carlos appreciate it when F1 moves to Spain in a few weeks’ time? We can go on throughout the calendar. No-one will appreciate it. This severely restricts the ability of Formula 1′s powers-that-be to do the deals that are essential to the survival of the sport. For this reason alone, Max Mosley must resign.

But as if that was not enough, the rumours that have come out since then have rubbed salt into the wound as far as I’m concerned. You can be assured that Max Mosley is not embarrassed about these rumours, and indeed he has partially confirmed them, without a hint of shame, in his letter.

It demonstrates everything we know about Mosley’s arrogance, unsavoury thirst for power and complete self interest that he refuses to stand down as FIA President. Not only that, but he now apparently wants to stand for another term as FIA President! You would never expect Mosley to do the honourable thing, but this just takes the biscuit.

Then there is the fact — which Mosley parades in his letter — that he has received “a very large number of messages of sympathy and support from those within the FIA”. This just demonstrates that the FIA has been filled with Max Mosley lackeys and yes-men over the past decade and a half.

If for anything else, Max Mosley has revealed himself to be unfit for the role of the FIA’s Presidency due to his failure to face up to the truth and for his despicable attempts to blame others for his own wrongdoings.

It is clear that Max Mosley has brought the sport of Formula 1 into disrepute. There can be no doubt about this. This was, you will recall, the same thing that McLaren were found guilty of last year in Max Mosley’s personal, vendetta-driven “spy(sic)gate” farrago. I await the $100 million fine landing on Mosley’s desk. But of course, under Mosley’s direction, you can never expect the FIA to hand out punishments consistently.

Update: Max Mosley is now claiming that the only reason he was speaking German was because some of the prostitutes were German.

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