I have taken so long to write this post about the European Grand Prix because there was so much action, I hardly know where to begin.

I think I might start with Lewis Hamilton, because I predicted that he would have to run into some bad luck sooner or later. And he ran into it big time at the Nürburgring.

Of course there was that crash during qualifying, which was what I believe drivers call a “big one”. It was not Hamilton’s fault, and he was a complete passenger in the accident. And while the crash did not look as scary as Robert Kubica’s at Montreal earlier this year, Hamilton’s impact was exactly the kind that took Michael Schumacher out of the 1999 season with a broken leg at Silverstone.

Come race day and nothing seemed to go right for Hamilton. Some of it was his fault, and some of it wasn’t. For me, this was a major test for Hamilton. We had yet to see him drive in the wet, and we had yet to see him come through the field. He had to do both this weekend, and he did not exactly pass with flying colours.

Coming through the field was not actually much bother for Hamilton. He made several excellent overtaking manoeuvres. He probably made more passes during that race than some drivers will make in an entire season.

But on the wet track he was not so hot. He was one of several drivers to aquaplane off the circuit during the early downpour. And while many joined him in the gravel trap, it should be noted that Massa and Alonso negotiated the corner with no major problem just seconds before Hamilton flew straight off.

He had his brain engaged though, and managed to persuade the marshals to get crane his car back onto the racetrack! It is a bit of the evil exploitation of the rulebook that Michael Schumacher specialised in. It’s not always pretty, but it’s the stuff champions are made of.

Hamilton also had a lacklustre time with his tyre choices. Bad strategy and the trip into the sandpit meant that Hamilton failed to score a point for the first time in his career, even though there was nothing wrong with his car. Evidence that Hamilton still has stuff to learn.

Someone else with stuff to learn is Felipe Massa. He has historically had a reputation as a bit of an erratic, incomplete driver. In the last couple of years, in a tip-top Ferrari car, he has managed to bluff his way to a better reputation. But every so often something happens to remind you that Massa is not yet a complete driver, and possibly never will be.

His is absolutely dire in the wet. Alonso was all over him. And this was a race that Massa had seemingly sewn up. A 4 second lead evaporated in the space of one lap. All it takes is a bit of drizzle, for Massa to become a seriously average racing driver.

The McLaren victory was a complete surprise to me, as I had really thought that Ferrari had the race in the bag. On balance, Ferrari probably have a slightly better car, but there is no doubt that McLaren’s driver line up is much stronger. How many other people would have managed to overtake Massa like that, even in a superior car?

But while Alonso won the race, surely the driver with the most to cheer about was Markus Winkelhock. It was his first ever Formula 1 Grand Prix and he led it for six laps. Okay, so it was mostly down to luck, as a risky tactical masterstroke from the Spyker team saw him starting the race from the pits on intermediate tyres while everyone else was sitting on the grid on slicks.

But Winkelhock kept it on the island while so many others were flying off the circuit, and apparently at one point his lead was 30 seconds. He led from the restart, at which point everyone else ganged up on him. A second risk to put him on extreme wet tyres failed, and he soon found himself dead last apart from Hamilton. Then his car failed.

His moment of glory had come and gone. It looks as though his career may last for just that one race. It would put him in a strange position of having led his début Grand Prix in a grotesquely underperforming car, yet never being invited back. A day to remember for Winkelhock.

The Red Bulls were outstanding. Webber took a rare podium for him, although he almost lost it to Wurz on the penultimate corner! Does anyone else notice how Wurz seems to have a pretty anonymous time in an F1 car, but when he gets a result it is absolutely awesome?

The BMWs were disappointingly poor. They did not help themselves by running into each other at the start. But even taking that into consideration they were strangely off-colour. I wonder if they are slipping behind a bit in terms of development.

The best moment, though, came during the podium ceremony. Hilariously, Michael Schumacher presented Ron Dennis with the Constructor’s trophy. Hahahah! I haven’t laughed so much in ages.

What a championship we now have on our hands though! Hamilton’s 12 point lead has been slashed to a fragile 2 points and the Ferrari resurgence is surely due to kick in at some point.

I think Sunday was quite a bad day for media hype. A good thing, I’m sure you’ll agree.

First of all there was Jamie Murray’s victory at Wimbledon, which I find absolutely hilarious. It certainly puts the past two years of hype surrounding Andrew Murray to shame a bit. Of all the people who could usurp saintly young tennis genius media darling Andrew Murray, it would be his brother who has not received even a fraction of the attention. Well done MSM!

Then of course, there was the British Grand Prix, where Lewis Hamilton put in a frankly lacklustre performance. It was by far his worst of the year, which is also absolutely hilarious because the media was getting into a frenzy over the prospect of a Brit winning the British Grand Prix. Ha ha!

My favourite part of the British Grand Prix coverage was actually just before the race started. The usually bearable Martin Brundle had fallen into the Lewis lovey-dovey-vortex. “There is a massive crowd here at Silverstone,” he said, “and they are all hoping for a…” Just in time, a man with a Spanish flag stood up to dominate the camera shot. Brundle battled on. “Errr. Err. Man with a Spanish flag there. Brave man.” Hahahah!

Of course, Hamilton’s poor showing at the British Grand Prix could not possibly have had anything to do with Hamilton himself. The media were already making his excuses for him — even before the race was finished. After the race, ITV pundit Mark Blundell was adamant that Hamilton must have had a problem with his car.

Well, I have not heard anything about what this problem with his car is — probably because it didn’t exist. That was just the media trying to cover its sorry arse.

There probably was an issue with the set up of the car. But guess whose job it is to set up the car? That’s right, Lewis Hamilton’s. Fernando Alonso didn’t have any trouble setting up his car, did he?

We have also seen that Lewis Hamilton does crack under pressure. To be honest, the fact that he could stick to the racing line when he was put under pressure by, say, Alonso, was the most impressive thing about Hamilton. Alonso could have stripped naked and Hamilton wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.

Not so at the British Grand Prix, where Hamilton got so wound up that he ended up trying to leave the pits far too early. He managed to stop before causing an Albers-esque situation, but he was close to doing that. (Incidentally, Albers has lost his job — but it’s nothing to do with the pitlane incident, oh no!)

The media’s story is that Hamilton had lightning-quick reactions to stop his car before anything worse happened. But the point is that he shouldn’t have had his car moving in the first place!

The rest of Hamilton’s race wasn’t much better, and once again he had a fair bit of good luck on his side. If Felipe Massa hadn’t stalled his engine and had to start from the pitlane, there is no way Hamilton would have finished on the podium. Imagine that. The first time he would have failed to get on the podium. Golden boy Lewis had his worst race at the British Grand Prix!

Hamilton still has an intimidating lead in the Drivers’ Championship. But all of his main rivals — Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa — have had more than their fair share of bad luck. The second half of the season will be much more difficult for Hamilton. It will be very interesting to see how he copes with the pressure from now on.

…in the form of a 4cm×2cm rectangle.

Red Bull Racing are giving fans the chance to have their face appear on their F1 cars at the British Grand Prix. All they ask in return is that you make a minimum donation of £10 to the Wings for Life charity, promoting research into spinal cord injuries.

And because I am really generous / self-important (delete according to your views about me), I have bought two of the 2cm×2cm squares. So my face will be appearing next to the doctorvee logo.

The square on the right is probably enough to unsettle anybody. So if you want to avoid it, be aware that I will be on David Coulthard’s left sidepod.

I think it is fair to say that, in terms of ugliness, the Red Bull will rival the explosion-in-a-paint-factory Honda “Earth car”. But that is not really the point, because it is all for a good cause.

I am joining other F1 bloggers such as Ollie White at BlogF1, Christine Blachford at Sidepodcast and Craig at craigblog.co.uk.

There is only around a day to go for you to reserve your space. So if you want to join in and get your face on an F1 car as well as the “warm glow” of giving to charity, head on over to Faces for Charity.

Lots of talking points, even though there wasn’t that much on-track action.

Infact, the first session of qualifying was probably the most interesting part of the whole weekend. Track conditions were clearly not too good, probably as a result of Silverstone’s famously unpredictable wind conditions. All of the drivers seemed to be struggling badly until the very end of the session. Even then, there seemed to be a somewhat pedestrian feel to the session, as though nobody could quite be bothered to put a lap in.

The laid-back attitude combined with the windy conditions meant that two big names dropped out in the first knockout stage — Mark Webber and Jenson Button. Button qualified in a truly awful 19^th position. This put him ahead of only Jarno Trulli, who was unable to set a time because his engine blew, and the chronically slow Super Aguris. Super Aguri is meant to be a Honda B-team, but given Button’s recent form they may as well toss a coin to decide which is the B-team.

It is yet another example, though, of Honda’s silly little mistakes. Honda hoof it over the bar time and time again. Jenson Button did lose three minutes in the qualifying session by being randomly called in to be weighed. But every driver knows that there is a possibility that they will be weighed. It is a part of the sport and the team should have factored this in when planning Button’s schedule. It is not an excuse. At least Honda seem to be holding their hands up and taking the blame, but they shouldn’t have done that in the first place. Some commentators, notably ITV’s Ted Kravitz, claimed that Button still had time to set another lap, but Honda chose not to. If that is the case, then the error is scandalous.

At least the race looked a bit brighter for Button. He had a really good start to the race. He was looking fast and got up to 12^th when he had an oil leak that spun him into retirement. At least you can put this down to bad luck, as I don’t think the oil leak is a common problem for Honda. A chink of light at the end of the tunnel for Honda perhaps.

The season so far for Honda can definitely be split into two. The first few races saw the sort of overblown hype we’ve come to expect from Honda following a highly successful winter of testing. Button seemed convinced that he would win a race this season, and he was qualifying superbly, even if the race pace wasn’t quite there. Rubens Barrichello, meanwhile, was struggling to get to grips with his new car.

Then there was a change at the Nürburgring. Since then it has been Barrichello who has been coming up with the results for Honda. Button’s qualifying pace has disappeared, and race results have fallen through the floor. Button’s confidence has gone. His shoulders are slumped. His Honda is no longer a potential race-winning car. Honda have a lot of work to do if they are to become serious World Championship contenders. And they need to start by cutting out the silly errors.

(Update: No quick fix for Button.)

The starting grid was mouthwatering. At last, we had the three greatest drivers in the world occupying the top three positions. Kimi Räikkönen really pulled one out of the bag to qualify second. He left it really late to set his final flying lap. He had to treat his out lap like a qualifying lap. It may wear down the tyres, but I wonder if it was actually (unintentionally) advantageous to Kimi. Instead of touring round on the out lap to conserve tyres, Kimi was going full speed. He must have been really pumped up, and he ended up setting a blistering time.

It wasn’t quite enough to beat Fernando Alonso, and the Spaniard proved today that he really is the driver to beat at the moment. At the start of the race it looked like we would have a close battle between the three best drivers in the world: Alonso, Räikkönen and Michael Schumacher. But Alonso just sat back and drove off into the distance.

Räikkönen must have had a fantastic lap to be able to qualify second, because his McLaren simply hasn’t got the pace of the Renault or the Ferrari. It is probably fair to say that Räikkönen impeded Michael Schumacher today. Räikkönen looked like he had 2^nd in the bag, but Ferrari’s tactician Ross Brawn came up with a genius plan which gave Michael Schumacher one lap on a clear track to overtake Kimi in the pits. Schumacher did his duty and set the timing screen alight. After Räikkönen’s pit stop, Schumi was easily ahead. I dread to think where Räikkönen would have finished the race had he not qualified so well yesterday.

Despite Räikkönen’s problems, the fact that these three drivers were at the head of the field for the entire race is good for Formula 1. It is a demonstration that being a winner doesn’t just depend on having a good car. The top three all came from different teams. Renault, Ferrari and McLaren each have a world-class driver, but they also each have a mediocre driver. There are reports today that Montoya will not have his McLaren contract renewed. Fisichella has a mountain to climb if he is to stay at Renault. And I will be amazed if Felipe Massa is still driving a Ferrari next year. Then again, the top six places were all occupied by these six drivers.

7^th and 8^th were taken by BMW, in another solid weekend for them. They look like finishing ahead of Williams in this year’s Constructors’ Championship. Rosberg missed out on a point by just 0.8 seconds. Honda and Toyota both had another underachieving race.

The only other notable incident was the crash involving Scott Speed, Ralf Schumacher and Mark Webber. Martin Brundle was quick to criticise Scott Speed. I am not so sure. I see it as a borderline racing incident. Speed didn’t really have anywhere else to go, because Vitantonio Liuzzi was right behind him, so if he hit the brakes that might have caused a different crash. Certainly, Ralf Schumacher and Mark Webber were innocent parties there.

Formula 1 is moving on to North America next. Let’s hope they don’t bollocks it up this time!

• Race result
• Update: F1Fanatic: 2006 Stats Update: Britain
• Update: F1Fanatic: British Grand Prix 2006 Review. There were many drives of quality at Silverstone this year. But you could only see them by squinting at the timing sheets after the race and by putting qualifying performances in the context of race fuel loads.
• BlogF1: Alonso Takes British Victory

Another disappointing race, but there were more incidents than there were in France.

The McLarens looked superb once again. Juan Pablo Montoya’s start was fantastic, and that’s probably what sealed the win for him, as well as just managing to snatch the lead after Alonso’s first pit stop.

There’s not much else to say, except to say that for the second time in a row we’ve been robbed of a fantastic race thanks to a combination of a major chink in McLaren’s armour and this year’s engine rules. For the second race running there can be no doubt that Kimi Räikkönen was the best driver, but because he was forced to start ten places on the grid back he was only able to finish third.

Räikkönen and Alonso are the best drivers in the field at the moment; the major contenders for the Drivers’ Championship. Yet we’ve not yet properly seen them wheel-to-wheel yet. It’s the wheel-to-wheel battles that go down in history, not the long-term spreadsheet that is the Drivers’ Championship standings. And if McLaren keep on having as many reliability problems, they are going to say goodbye to Räikkönen’s already pretty slim-looking championship hopes. Still McLaren look like they have the momentum — but it’s looked that way for months, and somehow Renault and Alonso still seem to manage to get the better of McLaren and Räikkönen.

Räikkönen also spent a good chunk of the race being held up by Michael Schumacher. Commentators are now saying that it’s about the new aerodynamics regulations. There’s something that makes me a bit reluctant to place the blame on the new aerodynamics. There was enough overtaking at the start of the season. I remember Pedro de la Rosa seemed to get quite a lot done at Bahrain. And there were a couple of decent overtaking manoeuvres today — the best being Jacques Villeneuve on David Coulthard, unfortunately only for something like 14^th position.

Jarno Trulli still manages to stun people by being unbelievably slow during races compared with his qualifying performances.

Another notable thing about today’s grand prix is the incredible reliability. Takuma Sato and Giancarlo Fisichella had electronic glitches, yes, but they finished the race. There was only one retirement. Tiago Monteiro therefore continues his fantastic record-breaking run — he has finished all of his first eleven races. Incredible!

What was that Max?