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Archive: Canadian Grand Prix

End-of-season driver rankings: #22-12

30 November 2008 21:46

Well, the season is well and truly over, and we have now had over two weeks to digest the happenings. It is high time I gave the season a thorough review, starting with my opinion on all of the drivers.

First off, I should point out that I think the standard of driving was exceptionally high in the 2008 Formula 1 season. It was the first time in history that all of the teams on the grid kept the same drivers all season.

Even Nelsinho Piquet, who was almost universally derided early on in the season, has clung on to his seat and will even continue to race for Renault next season. Indeed, I think that almost all of the 2008 season’s drivers deserve to remain in F1, with the possible exception of David Coulthard who has retired anyway.

So it is a tough job to rank all of the drivers, and inevitably I have had to make some tough choices that will no doubt surprise some. Without further ado, here is the first part of my driver rankings.

The first number in brackets denotes a driver’s placing in my mid-season rankings. The second number denotes his placing in last year’s rankings.

22. Anthony Davidson (20; 23)

Poor Anthony Davidson has never really had a proper chance to demonstrate his talents as a race driver, always being lumbered with inferior machinery. But at the same time, he has had a handful of chances to prove why he should be given a better chance, and he has never taken them. He was not demonstrably better than his Super Aguri team mate Takuma Sato, and I struggle to see why he should expect to get a race seat with a better team, particularly with so many youngsters waiting in the wings.

21. Takuma Sato (19; 14)

Like Davidson, Takuma Sato had little opportunity to show what he is made of this season. However, I place him above the Brit because I maintain that Sato is a better driver than Davidson, a subject I covered in this post.

20. Giancarlo Fisichella (22; 16)

I have to say that I’m now struggling to see why Fisichella deserves to stay in F1. I always thought that Force India were wrong to hire him, and I can’t say I’ve seen anything this season that’s made me eat humble pie. On the contrary, his ridiculously dangerous driving into the first corner in Turkey would have seen a less well-respected driver receive a ban. Yuji Ide lost his super license for less.

In fairness, it can’t be easy to shine in what is undoubtedly the worst car on the grid. But he rarely showed what he is made of. Perhaps most worryingly, his best results all came at the start of the season. Fisichella began to look more and more jaded as the season wore on.

Fisichella’s one and only main achievement of the season is to make it into Q2 for the Italian Grand Prix. He qualified an impressive 12th, but he has the weather to thank for that as much as anything else.

19. Adrian Sutil (17; 15)

As with his Force India team mate, I’m struggling to see why Adrian Sutil should remain in Formula 1. Some people say he is supremely talented. And while it’s true that it’s difficult to show your talent in the dogs that Sutil has driven during his two years in Formula 1, the fact is that he shows no signs of moving up the ladder.

His showing in Monaco was highly impressive, whether or not he deserved to be as high up as 5th position (having overtaken some cars under yellows). That is the reason I have placed him above Fisichella. But besides that, Sutil has remained anonymous, and I doubt whether he truly deserves a third year in F1 when there are drivers that we know are talented and are being wasted as test drivers.

18. David Coulthard (14; 11)

DC had a tough final season, as it seemed as though he simply couldn’t stop crashing. It was a blunder-heavy season for DC, and there is no question that a number of his crashes were of his own making. It’s sad to say it, but his rustiness this season makes it look like he stayed in F1 just a season too long.

The season was not without its highs though, and the podium finish in Canada was a flash of the talented driver we came to know over the previous decade or so. You can question whether or not he deserved that podium, but there is no question that he totally outshone his team mate Mark Webber during that weekend, albeit not across the rest of the season.

17. Nelsinho Piquet (18; -)

There is no escaping the fact that Nelsinho Piquet failed to consistently meet the standard expected of him. Whether that is because he has to live up to his father’s name (literally), or we have heightened expectations of what a rookie can achieve after Hamilton, or Piquet is simply just crap, is something we can only find out after another season.

That is why I agree with Renault’s decision to keep Piquet on for one more season. For while he had a number of rather embarrassing blunders scattered throughout the season, he did manage to impress on occasion. The 2nd place in Germany, although slightly lucky, showed that he has the maturity not to throw away a good result when the opportunity arises. Meanwhile, his 4th place finish in Japan was almost forgotten under the celebrations of Alonso’s victory. By no means was Piquet’s season a washout, which is why he deserves another year.

16. Jenson Button (15; 7)

Last year I was impressed by Button’s ability to grab a few decent results in that dog of a Honda car, compared with Barrichello’s slightly heel-dragging demeanour. This year, the roles have been reversed. Button finished in the points just once all season in what was an otherwise depressingly anonymous season for the Brit.

15. Kazuki Nakajima (12; 21)

Nakajima impressed many this season with his ability to quietly collect the points on a fairly consistent basis. While his team mate Nico Rosberg is flashier, he is also more accident-prone.

That is not to say that Nakajima has kept his nose clean all season. But for a significant portion of the season, the pair were separated by only 1 or 0 points. Considering Rosberg is supposed to be one of the hottest drivers around, while Nakajima is meant to be another crap Japanese driver who is only there to pay for the engines, that’s not bad going at all. Sure, Rosberg finished a good eight points ahead in the end, but whether he deserved quite as many points as he got in Singapore is highly doubtful.

14. Nico Rosberg (13; 8)

Nico Rosberg had an okay season. He did lose a worryingly high number of front wings. But he also gained a couple of podiums, which is not exactly to be sniffed at.

But next season will be a make or break year for Rosberg. Mediocre machinery or not, the fact is that observers are still in the dark as to whether or not Rosberg is genuinely talented enough to ever be a regular front-runner. After three seasons, Rosberg needs to start showing why he deserves a 4th and a 5th season, because his record as it stands isn’t quite enough in my view.

13. Sébastien Bourdais (21; -)

In retrospect, my mid-season verdict on Sébastien Bourdais is extremely harsh. There is no question that during the first half of the season he failed to meet up to expectations. That was despite an extremely strong showing at the Australian Grand Prix where he was set to finish in 4th position.

The second half of his season was significantly stronger. The only reason he didn’t get the results was because of a barrage of bad luck. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for the Frenchman as he choked back the tears recounting the final lap of the Belgian Grand Prix, where he was set to finish 4th, only to struggle with grip on dry tyres in wet conditions. And we can only speculate as to what he could have achieved in Italy had his engine not stalled. This man deserves another year in F1, if only so that we can see for real what he is capable of.

12. Rubens Barrichello (10; 20)

What an improvement Barrichello has made on the 2007 season. Last year, Barry was beginning to look past it. This season, despite driving one of the very worst cars on the grid, it has looked like the Brazilian has had a renewed vigour.

A podium finish in very tough conditions in Silverstone that made mincemeat of his compatriot title contender, Felipe Massa, is testament to that. What a shame that the Honda 8 ball doesn’t appear to have noticed this! In my book, the most experienced driver in F1 history deserves to become even more experienced.

My top 11 drivers of the season will be published later this week.

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Memories of ITV-F1

14 November 2008 00:45

Categories: History, Opinion, Report

ITV showed that when it mattered, they could cover an unfolding event properly. Even though it was a low point for Formula 1, the 2005 United States Grand Prix was a high point for ITV’s coverage. When it became clear that there was a chance that the race would go ahead without the Michelin runners, ITV ripped up the running order and covered the unfolding scenario almost as though it was a rolling news channel.

When the Michelin runners pulled in at the end of the formation lap, ITV could easily have chosen to dump the coverage. Apparently, some channels around the world did. But ITV, to their credit, stuck with the race which was in a prime-time slot, knowing that what was happening was a huge story for Formula 1. The coverage itself was superb, striking just the right balance and bringing across to the viewer just what a farce it had become.

As James Allen says:

Commentating on the ‘race’ was completely different from any other race, as the story was as much about how the situation had arisen, how the crowd was taking it and where the sport would go next as it was about race action.

And Ted Kravitz points out:

Open hostility amongst the teams, the drivers literally powerless, and us on ITV broadcasting a meaningless race with six cars and ripping into the product we were meant to be promoting: a business that had forgotten it should be a sport.

That edition was nominated for a Bafta, but it didn’t win. Instead, ITV won Baftas for its coverage of the first race wins for Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. In both instances, the coverage was not particularly good for a host of reasons which I have outlined before.

ITV pulled off a master-stroke by selecting Martin Brundle has Murray Walker’s co-commentator. By all accounts, Brundle was a revelation as a television presenter, apparently leaving producers agog at his seemingly natural talent in front of the camera. It is all the more impressive when you consider the fact that Martin Brundle didn’t even want to be with ITV — he was still after a race seat!

Martin Brundle’s gridwalks have been one of the few must-see aspects of ITV’s pre-race coverage. However, over time it has become more and more farcical, as Brundle was increasingly asked by producers to interview irrelevant celebrities, and drivers continually give him the cold shoulder.

Mind you, the gridwalk has provided one of ITV’s finest comedy moments.

It wasn’t the only time a potty-mouthed driver let rip on live television. One of the most memorable was Mark Webber being interviewed after Sebastian Vettel crashed into him at Fuji last year. Live on British breakfast television, he explained, “It’s just kids. They do a good job, then they fuck it all up!”

And in Australia 2008, David Coulthard actually threatened to kick “three colours of shit out of the little bastard” Felipe Massa.

Meanwhile, Louise Goodman has said that this classic DC moment was her most memorable interview at ITV. Check out the professionalism of Jim Rosenthal!

In the background of that clip you can hear pundit Tony Jardine trying his hardest to stifle his laughter. The analyst was the only person other than Murray Walker to make the leap from the BBC to ITV in 1997, albeit in a different role (he was pitlane reporter at the Beeb). Tony Jardine remained with ITV until a few years ago. The decision to dispose of him in favour of Mark Blundell is one of the many questionable decisions that ITV have taken in recent years.

Simon Taylor used to work alongside Tony Jardine as pundit. He provided another comedy moment in 1997 when ITV inadvisedly presented the coverage for the Monaco Grand Prix from a yacht in the harbour. The boat bobbed up and down so much that Simon Taylor was unable to broadcast because he became seasick! I think a few viewers probably felt a bit seasick as well. ITV opted to present its Monaco coverage from a balcony in later years.

Simon Taylor was less engaging as a pundit and did not feature in ITV’s coverage for long. In fact, looking at the retrospective on ITV’s own website, it is as though Tony Jardine and Simon Taylor never existed.

All-in-all, I think the story of ITV’s coverage since 1997 is one that started off earnestly but dropped off over the years. The decision to hire experienced and respected analysts like Tony Jardine and Simon Taylor along with Murray Walker was the right move. It kept the F1 purists happy.

It certainly made up for the decision to employ Jim Rosenthal, someone who had no interest in F1 at the start, as the show’s anchor. I thought Jim Rosenthal did a very good job considering his inexperience of F1, and I think his understanding of the sport was very good by the time he left ITV-F1 a few years ago.

It was clear that ITV was proud that it had F1 coverage in 1997. I recall that in the run-up to their first race in Australia, ITV broadcast an entire evening of F1-based programming including a one-off chat show presented by Clive James and featuring several drivers, and a showing of the classic film Grand Prix.

And check out the original title sequence. It is dark, mysterious, and classy — a complete world away from the cheese-fest that ITV-F1 has become.

Looking at some of ITV’s programmes from the early years, which can be easily found on YouTube, the tone of the programme is surprisingly different. The pace is slower, as though the coverage is being given room to breathe — very different from the frenetic Hamilton worshipping of later years.

Over the years, the best aspects of ITV’s coverage were stripped away one-by-one. Murray Walker’s retirement was a big blow which I don’t think ITV ever quite recovered from. While in the early years ITV hauled a dedicated studio around the world to present its track-side coverage from, more recently the poor presenters have been left shouting above the noise of engines in the pitlane — completely pointless.

The decision along the line to ditch its respected analysts in favour of the more populist Mark Blundell was questionable. And the general focus on light features and Hamilton-hype in the later years left a sour taste.

Having said that, F1 coverage has undoubtedly come on leaps and bounds. Occasional technical features fronted by Martin Brundle were excellent. And it has to be said that the hour-long build up that ITV typically offered was a tremendous commitment, even if all too often the post-race analysis was hurriedly wrapped up if the race was longer than expected (i.e. any time it rained, or any grand prix shown in prime time).

And you have to feel sorry in a way for ITV. When they picked up the F1 rights in 1996, they will have been expecting F1 to be on the cusp of a Damon Hill era, thereby guaranteeing British bums on seats. Unfortunately, the Damon Hill era fizzled out even more quickly than it began, as Hill drove for the hopelessly uncompetitive Arrows team in 1997. Then ITV had to suffer the ignominy of covering the dull years of Schumacher dominance and Ferrari dirty scheming.

So it’s worth saying thank you to ITV and North One for the work they have put into bringing F1 to our homes for the past twelve seasons. We complained about the adverts and James Allen, but they also brought F1 coverage in the UK to a new level and the BBC have been given a tough act to follow.

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The career of David Coulthard

6 November 2008 17:15

Categories: History, Opinion

The Brazilian Grand Prix heralded the end of David Coulthard’s career. Unfortunately, the race ended in a turn 1 smash. It deprived David Coulthard of a dignified send-off to his career, as well as depriving us of the awesome helmet cam, used by FOM for the first time since 1994.

In most ways it sums up David Coulthard’s 2008 season, which has seen him become a magnet for crashes. It was a most unfortunate season for the Scot with only one or two highlights — most notably 3rd place in the Canadian Grand Prix. Overall, though, the impression left is that DC may have been better off retiring one year earlier.

It is going too far to say that the first corner crash sums up DC’s career. Even though he could never count himself among F1′s very most talented, the statistics of his career make for pleasant reading. With 246 grand prix starts under his belt, he is the fourth most experienced Formula 1 driver of all time.

He is arguably the most successful British driver of all time. His tally of 13 race wins is relatively modest compared to other British drivers, particularly Nigel Mansell, Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark. But he has scored more points than any other British driver — 535. By this measure, he is the 5th most successful driver of all time.

For the majority of his career, David Coulthard has been lucky enough to have the best machinery. His race début came in the saddest of circumstances, as he was chosen to replace Ayrton Senna when the Brazilian died in 1994. But he raced for a Williams team that was just entering a phase of true dominance.

When he moved to McLaren just a few years later, it was in time for the Woking squad to make its own major resurgence. Ace designer Adrian Newey had moved across to McLaren from Williams at roughly the same time.

But at both Williams and McLaren, his team mate usually made much more of the opportunities the best car provided them. Damon Hill was a major contender for the 1995 World Championship. Meanwhile, Mika Häkkinen strung together two World Championships in a row in 1998 and 1999.

It is too easy to say that Häkkinen got favourable treatment at McLaren. DC may have moved over for the Finn in two successive races, in Jerez 1997 and Melbourne 1998. Critics point out that nice guys never win, and that DC’s apparent happiness to let his team mate past was evidence that DC did not have what it really takes. But the fact is that Coulthard struggled to get to grips with his McLaren car from 1998 onwards. That may have been due to the introduction of grooved tyres or whatever.

DC was to be further thwarted by another rule change a few years later. The Scot never could get to grips with one-lap qualifying. When the pressure was on him to deliver at the first time of asking, he more often than not found himself unable to deliver. Things did not improve much when the knock-out format was introduced.

Despite the patchy record, though, DC has had some great highlights during his career. When Häkkinen lost his motivation, DC was in prime position to challenge Schumacher for the title in 2001. He did, admittedly, finish up a long way behind Schumacher, having scored just 65 points. But he was definitely best of the rest that season, and the only person who could seriously claim to have given Schumacher any bother that season.

And a tally of 13 wins, no matter how good his machinery was, is fairly impressive stuff. David Coulthard was no fool.

Just when it looked as though DC’s career was coming to a halt, he moved from McLaren to Red Bull. It breathed new life into his career. He was reinvented as Formula 1′s elder statesman, a role he adapted well to. In his first season at the midfield Red Bull team in 2005, he scored as many points as he had at McLaren in 2004.

Since then he has been reunited with the chassis designer that has accompanied him throughout his career, Adrian Newey. He scooped up a clutch of great results, including two podiums along the way.

Overall, throughout his many many seasons, David Coulthard has driven for just three teams in his entire career. That demonstrates just how valuable every team felt he was to the package.

All the while, David Coulthard was great entertainment off the circuit as well as on it. Even though some nicknamed him ‘David Cardboard’ at first, he quickly developed a strong personality and was unafraid to use colourful language in his interviews.

Now his career has fizzled out. And even though DC never achieved the status of true greatness, and the World Championship eluded him, I think he has a lot to be proud of.

Thankfully, this colourful character promises not to go away for good. He will remain at Red Bull in an advisory role, proving yet again that teams invariably appreciate his input. Furthermore, it looks almost certain that DC will form part of the BBC’s team covering F1 from 2009 onwards. At least it looks like he will be entertaining us for years to come.

And here is one of the most entertaining moments in F1, provided by David Coulthard himself:

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Lewis Hamilton: A deserving champion

4 November 2008 01:19

Categories: Opinion, Report

This is the first of a series of posts rounding up my final thoughts on the season.

You probably don’t need to be told that Lewis Hamilton is the 2008 Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion. At the age of 23 years and 300 days, he eclipses Fernando Alonso to become the youngest ever World Champion. He has done so in just his second season.

No matter how well-protected Lewis Hamilton has been by the McLaren team, you don’t achieve that sort of thing by luck. Hamilton is lucky in that he has always been in a great car. It is unprecedented for such a strong team to offer a race drive to a rookie. As such, the statistics flatter him.

However, it is highly questionable that this year’s McLaren MP4-23 was the best car in the field. Ferrari did, after all, win the Constructors’ Championship. Certainly, the McLaren car put in some dominant performances, most notably at Silverstone and Hockenheim. But in both races Hamilton truly overshadowed his team mate, Heikki Kovalainen.

The Finn finished a distant 7th in the Championship, a massive 43 points behind Hamilton. No other inter-team battle has been so comprehensive in its outcome — not even in Renault. Whether the gulf was caused by Hamilton’s superiority or Kovalainen’s inferiority is a matter of interpretation. I suspect it was both.

Kovalainen will point to the fact that he was always put on the more unfavourable strategy, giving him a heavy car during qualifying. This makes his pole position in Silverstone all the more special. But Kovalainen had only one race win which, let us be clear, was a fluke.

Other drivers on the grid have been more flawless. Fernando Alonso, Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel spring to mind. But impressive though those drivers have been, the spotlight does not shine so intensely in the midfield. Nor were any of those drivers regularly in contention for wins like Hamilton and Massa were.

In the end, the Championship battle rightly came down to a showdown between Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton. Both drivers have made their fair share of mistakes. While Massa had a few spins throughout the season (Malaysia, Britain), Hamilton had a couple of unforgivable crashes (Bahrain, Canada).

Both drivers have also had some bad luck. Ferrari’s pitlane blunder in Singapore cost Massa a sure win and was completely out of Massa’s control. Meanwhile, Hamilton found himself at the rough edge of a suspiciously high number of stewards’ decisions.

It would have been unfortunate if Massa had won the Championship for that reason alone. There is enough anger surrounding the stewards’ decisions this year that had Massa won the Championship many people would regrettably have viewed it as a tainted win. As Clive says, just like Räikkönen’s triumph last year, Hamilton’s Championship victory is the best for international relations.

In the end, I think across the year Hamilton has shown that he deserves to become World Champion. He demonstrated that 2007 was no fluke. Mind you, in a lot of ways Hamilton’s 2008 season was a great deal worse than 2007. It was certainly less consistent. Hamilton never looked even close to equalling his staggering run of nine consecutive podiums achieved in 2008. The problem with 2007 was that Hamilton’s season completely collapsed right at the end. This year the foul-ups were interspersed all across the season — and they weren’t as severe for the most part.

This is key to why Hamilton has won this year when the title eluded him last year. He could afford the odd blow here and there as long as he didn’t let the whole thing unravel at the end. His approach towards the final two races was a world away from the immature hot-head that went to China and Brazil last year. ‘Discipline’ was the keyword emanating from the McLaren camp.

Hamilton’s Championship victory was calculated. The McLaren team’s preparations were so meticulous that it all came down to a confident weather call. Hamilton did not lash out at Vettel once the German had overtaken him, as the Hamilton of old may have done. Instead, he waited for the rain to come and spoil Glock’s final lap.

It was a calculated gamble, and it almost didn’t pay off. But McLaren and Lewis Hamilton knew exactly what they were doing. What a contrast to last year’s bungle which saw McLaren leave it too long to change Hamilton’s tyres in China and Hamilton being too eager to needlessly make up positions in Brazil.

Even though Hamilton’s performance in Fuji this year caused some raised eyebrows, that looks like it was a one off. The overall picture of Lewis Hamilton this season is one that has learned from the mistakes of last year. He has reined in the impatient streak and has learnt not to needlessly go for the win.

For me, it would have been a shame for Hamilton to have lost out on the Championship for a second time, having come so agonisingly close twice. Massa showed that he has what it takes to be a Championship contender. But Hamilton has now done it twice. And even though he couldn’t make it stick in 2007, it would have been cruel to let all of his effort and now obvious talent go unrewarded for a second year.

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Fernando flies in Fuji while Hamilton self-destructs

16 October 2008 21:42

Categories: Report

Well I was absolutely overjoyed to see Fernando Alonso win a second race in a row after such a torrid season. The Singapore GP win must have been nice for him, but it can’t have been satisfying. That was down to luck and the ridiculous Safety Car rules.

This one, though, was a proper win, achieved completely on merit. Okay, so he benefited from the slightly clown-like snafus (yet again!) of McLaren and Ferrari. But he was able to get past the hard-working Robert Kubica and genuinely had a better race than probably any other driver in the field.

Part of this must undoubtedly be down to the improvements made by Renault towards the end of this season. What had been a nightmare of a season so far has been salvaged. From nowhere, all of a sudden Alonso has as many wins this season as the reigning World Champion. Good work.

Renault’s enhanced form is underlined by the fact that Nelsinho Piquet finished 4th. Not to do the Brazilian down, but I think we can safely say that a lot of the improved performance comes down to his car.

Renault’s resurgence also underlines the problem that Red Bull face. Beforehand they could just blame the engine. Now that Renault have won two races on the trot, that is beginning to look like a poor excuse. Of course, Red Bull could still be stuck with the old engines, but I would have thought Renault might be up for playing the great Red Bull engine comparison PR game as well as Ferrari have.

You have to hand it to Robert Kubica as well. With two races still to go, he is still in the championship. And as good as the BMW car is, I doubt many other drivers would have been able to achieve that.

After the Italian Grand Prix I wanted to write a post pondering if Kubica still had a chance to win the title, but I didn’t have the time. After the Singapore GP, I thought Kubica really had dropped out of the hunt, so I didn’t post it. Now it seems as though my gut instinct was correct. It is, of course, a slim chance. His deficit is twelve points. But, as is well recorded, Kimi Räikkönen came back from a 17 point deficit in the final two races of the season.

If Ferrari and McLaren keep on screwing it up, anything can happen. There is absolutely no doubt that Hamilton completely screwed up in Fuji. Even the arrogant one himself put his hands up and admitted that he had made a mistake. And I have to say, he looked rather upset with himself in the post-race interview with ITV’s Louise Goodman.

This is ominous for Lewis Hamilton fans. He was meant to have sorted himself out. He had got rid of the childish “win or nothing” mentality, and now had the composure to time his moves correctly. In short, he was supposed to have ditched his impatience.

So much for that then. He had a bad start and then appeared to totally panic, getting the first corner completely wrong. After a tap from Massa he ended up at the back of the field. What was perhaps most worrying about Hamilton’s performance in Fuji was that he completely failed to make any progress after reaching the back — possibly because of a rushed strategy call from McLaren.

McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen also had a rare engine failure. It is worrying for reliability issues to appear at this stage of the season.

Felipe Massa found himself in a similar predicament to Hamilton. He is reputed to be bad at coming back through the field, but I actually think one of Massa’s strongest points is his ability to overtake. In 2007 he passed more cars than anyone else and he has produced my favourite move of the season so far in Canada.

The end result is that Massa salvaged two points from a disastrous race, while Hamilton got bogged down in the midfield. Hamilton should have made more of this race, and when you remember that he could have made do with a safe result in the points rather than a risky attempt for the win, this is not what his fans will want to see. Even more worrying is the fact that he promises to go all out for the win in China. This is not necessary. Did he not learn from last season?

Just like last year, it looks like it is beginning to all fall apart from Hamilton at the very end of the season. What should perhaps be worrying for Lewis Hamilton fans is that he appears to have hit the ‘self destruct’ button a whole race earlier than last season. Moreover, this year the gap to his nearest rival is just five points, and the gap to the outside bet is 12 points. Last year it was 17 points and he still lost.

Finally, spare a thought for Adrian Sutil. He had a storming first lap, avoiding the first corner carnage to hit the apex. He was running in an excellent 10th position when a puncture put paid to his race.

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