Scuderia Ferrari immediately tweeted on their official Twitter account:

Fernando passed Felipe using the DRS

9 October 2011 07:12 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@InsideFerrari

Scuderia Ferrari

Just for fun, I cheekily replied:

...and his status within the team. RT @InsideFerrari: Fernando passed Felipe using the DRS

9 October 2011 07:13 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@vee8

Duncan Stephen

They responded!

@vee8 Be serious and look the race....

9 October 2011 07:13 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@InsideFerrari

Scuderia Ferrari

I have to admit to doing a little victory dance in my chair at having riled Ferrari enough to provoke them to reply.

I wasn’t being terribly serious with my tweet. It’s not especially that I thought Massa let Alonso through, or even that doing so would be wrong. Nor was my tweet about team orders. It was more about how Alonso can assert his authority at Ferrari.

But it’s interesting that Ferrari are touchy about the suggestion.

All good banter though.

Beneath the jump, an image of the tweet for posterity.

The morning of Saturday 20 August 2011 at Silverstone was warm and sunny. It was difficult to imagine that the weather would be a problem. As I was staying in a campsite just a stone’s throw away from the circuit, I thought nothing of just heading there in a t-shirt.

The morning was brilliant. As outlined in a previous post, I had a brilliant time wandering around the circuit and watching the qualifying sessions that were taking place.

The big race that I was looking forward to, the Formula Renault 3.5 race, was approaching. A breeze picked up, and it even began to rain. There was no way I could nip back to the campsite to pick up some warmer clothes. I had to sit it out, high up in a stand, with the bitter wind blowing right through me.

I didn’t actually feel too cold. The buzz of watching the race allowed me to ignore it more than I otherwise would. I did have a cold for about a week afterwards. But it was definitely worth it.

We opted to sit in the stand at Maggotts, where you can see the cars twice a lap. Early on in the race one driver dropped back significantly, so for almost the entire race there was always something to see.

I had worried about what it would be like trying to watch a race from the side of the track rather than the living room. Television has the obvious advantage of being able to follow the cars all the way round the track, rather than simply making do with them blasting past.

Of course, watching a race in the flesh is an exhilirating experience. But it requires a bit of skill. Sure, there are are the commentators on the public address system. But you can’t hear that when there are cars in the vicinity. So it’s a matter of taking the bits you can see with your eyes, and the shards of whatever you hear from the commentators, and piecing them together.

For Saturday’s Formula Renault 3.5 race I could almost never hear the commentators. My interest in the race did not wane though.

The main interest at the start of the race was watching Jean-Eric Vergne make his way back through the field. Vergne had to start from the pits after an apparent electrical problem on the grid. But his class was clear to see as he was able to make up several places during the race.

A clear top three emerged, with Robet Wickens, Alexander Rossi and Daniel Ricciardo opening a significant gap to the next small group of cars. For a couple of laps it looked like Rossi was capable of passing Wickens. But in the end, Ricciardo in fact got the better of Rossi, and the promising American had to make do with third.

I assumed that Wickens had won, because I couldn’t hear the commentators and we were nowhere near the finish line. I was only while I was walking round the circuit again after the race that I managed to find out for sure!

(I trudged back to the campsite to retrieve my jacket. Right on cue, the blazing sun came out again.)

It was a crushingly dominant weekend for Robert Wickens. He turned up late for Sunday qualifying after being stuck in traffic on the way to Silverstone, but that still didn’t stop him from taking pole and another win.

For Sunday’s race we opted to sit on the outside of Copse, opposite the sole television screen in the circuit. The idea was to get a fuller picture of what was going on in the race. This location has the added bonus of being at the pitlane exit, so we saw the moment when the weekend got from bad to worse for Jean-Eric Vergne!

The start of the race went well for him, as he was running in second place. But a wide range of different strategies were used by the drivers, and Vergne ended up behind Ricciardo after his pitstop. The pair had a pretty good battle, and Vergne had a good look at Ricciardo going into Copse.

They were so close that it was impossible to imagine any car separating them. So imagine the sensation when Nathanael Berthon emerged from the pits just in front of Vergne! From looking set for second, Vergne ended up in fifth! Definitely a weekend to forget for Vergne.

But a weekend to remember for Robert Wickens and his team, Carlin. They wrapped up the Teams’ Championship at Silverstone.

Formula Renault 3.5 wasn’t the only category to provide major excitement though. After our visit to the village, we emerged to see Mégane Trophy Eurocup cars completing their qualifying session. They were instantly captivating. For me, these cars were the surprise highlight of the racing action.

The championship may be crushingly dominated by one man, Stefano Comini, who has won 10 of the 12 races so far this season. But that doesn’t matter because these cars are so entertaining to watch. They look fantastic, but best of all they sound fantastic.

Later on in the day we watched race from Vale. Stefano Comini had a poor getaway but soon made his way up to second, behind his teammate Niccolò Nalio. The battle was hugely exciting to watch. Comini was clearly superior on the brakes, and I am sure at one point they even touched here at Vale.

It was only a matter of time before Comini would pass. In fact, I wondered if Comini’s advantage was only at Vale, because it was inconceivable that he could be so clearly superior, yet still unable to pass.

I later spoke to someone who watched the race from another part of the circuit, and he confirmed that Comini also looked stellar there as well. It just goes to show. Catching is one thing. Passing is another matter.

Comini did manage to pass Nalio in the end. A class act in the Méganes.

For the 2010 World Champion, 2011 is looking much easier. Some drivers, like Kimi Räikkönen, lose their hunger after they become World Champion. Others are taken to a new level. When the best driver in the world becomes better, it’s truly scary.

But despite his World Champion status, some still argue that Sebastian Vettel somehow isn’t the best driver.

Mechanical advantage

After all, he has the best car — and that is indisputable. Who can say what Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton or Jenson Button might be able to achieve in that awesome Red Bull?

On the other hand, Vettel has the upper-hand over Mark Webber. Vettel’s advantage was marginal last year. But this year he is much more dominant. Comparatively, Mark Webber is struggling in the supposedly all-conquering Red Bull.

Ah, they say. Red Bull favour Sebastian Vettel. Webber must have a different car, says his manager Flavio Briatore. “Each time something happens, it happens to Mark.” That glosses over the kers issues that Vettel has constantly suffered from, along with Webber.

For most of his career, Webber has had more than his fair share of bad luck. That has continued this year. It is nothing more malicious than that.

Question mark over wheel-to-wheel combat

“Oh! But Vettel can’t overtake!” Oh really? I have long found this argument spurious.

Partisan Brits may still fume at his accident with Button in Spa, but in low-grip conditions it can happen to anyone. It was just bad luck that Button happened to be there at the time. All drivers lose control from time to time.

Jibes about the number of wins Vettel has taken from pole are unimpressive too. It is hardly a revelation that it is easier to win a race from pole position than any other place on the grid. But Vettel the idea that all of Vettel’s wins have been plain sailing affairs from pole is just wrong.

Those three crucial passes on his out lap in Spain ought to have put this to bed once and for all. Sebastian Vettel can overtake.

Defensive driving under pressure

Vettel can also soak up the pressure. Also in Spain, Vettel had to fend off a hard-charging Lewis Hamilton. Martin Brundle noted in the post-race analysis that Vettel was modifying his line according to how close Hamilton was to passing. He knew when he needed to defend, and he knew when not to. A masterclass of efficient driving.

Making the most of a bad strategy

In Monaco, Vettel demonstrated that he could make a bad strategy — even a strategy cock-up — work well. The race threatened to unravel during his disastrous pitstop when he ended up on ‘prime’ soft tyres, when a second set of ‘option’ super-softs was apparently in order. Apparently a radio jam caused the confusion.

That could have been disaster for Vettel. But instead, the strategy was modified brilliantly, and it caught strategy masters Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso off guard.

Button went for a three-stop strategy that probably worked in the simulations. Alonso went for a two-stopper. But Vettel held out on a one-stop strategy. It is almost unthinkable with this year’s Pirelli tyres, but Vettel lasted a mind-boggling 56 laps on soft tyres.

Of course, the red flag helped matters. Theoretically, Vettel would have run out of grip sooner or later — certainly before Alonso, who would in turn lose grip before Button. We can never know if that would have been the case.

But I was keeping an eye on the timing screen as the battle was intensifying, and Vettel was normally the second fastest man on track at any one time. His lap times were holding up remarkably well. There was no sign that Alonso or Button were on the verge of actually getting past.

The reality is that Vettel came out on top. Even though the circumstances with the red flag were unusual, the bottom line is that Vettel’s radical emergency strategy paid off as well as it possibly could have. He won the race.

How does Vettel compare to his rivals?

What else has Vettel got to prove? Well, who are the rivals for the mantle of “most complete driver in F1″?

Jenson Button is reliable and smart. But he doesn’t always have the fire in his belly, and consequently his awesome drives are mixed with anonymous tours.

Lewis Hamilton certainly has the fire in his belly, and his talent is awesomely supreme. But his enthusiasm often gets the better of him and he is prone to making massive errors in the heat of the moment.

Fernando Alonso is normally cited as being the “most complete” driver. There is no doubt that he is a formidable talent. And despite not having the equipment to win the Championship in recent years, Alonso remains a joy to watch. His qualifying lap in Spain is just one example of how Alonso passionately drives out of his skin.

But he has also begun to make a few too many mistakes. His errors in 2010 — at China, Monaco, Silverstone and Spa — are well documented.

Alonso remains fearsomely awesome. Just look at his starts in Spain and Monaco to see just one instance where Alonso excels.

But I am beginning to wonder if Sebastian Vettel is now the closest F1 has to the “complete package”. Whether he is or not, his youth alone should be a cause for concern among his rivals. Vettel is currently showing up drivers with masses more experience than him.

If Vettel is still learning, and he is already trouncing the opposition, it boggles the mind to imagine just how good he might become.

Pirelli’s tyres held up for a change, meaning genuinely good racing through strategy, not cartoon-style degredation. The DRS is little use round here too, meaning it had little effect.

A beautiful move on Schumacher

DRS did play a role. But even so, passing into Sainte Dévote requires a massive pair, whether you have DRS or not. And that is just what Lewis Hamilton did. He pulled off a stunning move on Michael Schumacher that brilliantly caught the veteran off guard.

It was brave, but it was also perfectly judged. Both gave each other racing room. It was just the sort of passing that we want to see in F1.

Hamilton loses the plot against Massa and Maldonado

But sadly it went pear-shaped from there. It seems as though, after completing the move of the season, he seemed to believe he was invincible.

An over-ambitious move on Felipe Massa at the Lowes hairpin was a poor misjudgement. His drive-through penalty echoed that handed out to Paul di Resta who made a similar error.

Having damaged the Ferrari, Hamilton then opted to overtake Massa in the tunnel. It is not news that there is only one line through the dangerous and high-speed tunnel. Hamilton’s move forced the Brazilian onto the marbles and ultimately the barrier.

Then after the re-start, he attempted to repeat the move he made near the start on Schumacher. This time his target was Pastor Maldonado, but unfortunately this time target was meant in the literal sense. Hamilton barged straight into Maldonado, in the sort of move that only really belongs in a touring car race, if it even belongs there.

Post-race petulance

Hamilton’s excuse? It can be paraphrased: “Well, at least I was trying to race.”

I’m not buying that. There was plenty of excellent overtaking going on during the Monaco Grand Prix that didn’t involve punting others off. There were lots of examples of aggressive, but clean racing.

Hamilton managed it himself early on against Schumacher. But there was Schumacher’s move on Rosberg. Barrichello’s on Schumacher. Massa and Maldonado against Rosberg. Clean racing is possible, even at Monaco — no contact required. Check out the excellent highlights video at Axis of Oversteer to see them all.

But Hamilton couldn’t hold his hands up and admit that he had a bad race. He instead chose to question why he had been called to see the stewards at five out of the six races this season so far.

Here is a clue. Don’t cause three crashes in one race. Then you might not get hauled in front of the stewards. As it is, Hamilton is lucky not to have got the black flag for driving dangerously and ending the race of two other drivers.

Instead, Hamilton chose to “joke” that “maybe it’s because I’m black”.

A reminder of why Hamilton is so divisive

It’s too easy to blame the stewards. Worryingly, Hamilton seems to genuinely believe that he should be untouchable — that he can get away with whatever he wants.

Paul di Resta caused an accident, got penalised, and held his hands up after the race. He admitted that he made a rookie error, that he needs to learn from it and improve for next time.

For Lewis Hamilton? As Martin Brundle said in the BBC’s post-race F1 forum, the problem with Hamilton is that it’s always someone else’s fault. He has never been able to accept his mistakes, and he is always the first one to get straight on the radio and whine about non-existant instances of bad driving he has seen from other drivers.

All-in-all, this weekend has been a reminder of what made Lewis Hamilton such a divisive figure when he burst onto the scene in 2007. Back then his cockiness grated, but he was young and arrogant. In that sense, maybe it could be understood.

In more recent years, he seemed to have mellowed. He deserved to win his championship in 2008. Ever since he has done a good job at McLaren, and has managed to keep the lid on his post-race outbursts, even if he is quick to get on the radio to whine during the race.

But Monaco brought it all back to square one.

And it was such a fine start to the race as well. If he’d just left it there, his original, clean move on Schumacher would probably have ended up being my pass of the season. As it is, I have been left angered by the cockiness of a driver that really ought to know better by now.

But I wasn’t feeling it quite as much as many others were. I thought the Chinese Grand Prix was okay. But the reaction of others left me perplexed. All kinds of platitudes were bandied about. “The best dry race in decades!” “The best since Japan 2005!” Really? I wasn’t feeling that at all.

But I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was leaving me cold about F1 in 2011. There have been a lot of changes for this season, which has led to a very different style of racing. But what was it about the new F1 that was leaving me less thrilled than others?

It took me some time to work it out. But once I hit on it, the worse it seemed — and it has left me feeling a bit pessimistic about the prospects for truly good racing in 2011.

A pain in DRS?

A lot of attention has been focused on the brand new drag reduction system. Results of the DRS have been patchy.

At some races — particularly Australia — the DRS has been just enough to allow a driver behind to catch up. At the opposite extreme, in Turkey it was obvious that the DRS zone was far too long, and drivers were making easy passes that were not pleasing to watch.

The core problem is that it gives one driver and advantage over another — a significant deviation from the purity of racing. Comparisons to turbo boosts in the 1980s are no good. It may be a button that drivers can press, but there the similarity ends.

Back then, all of the options were open to everyone. You could choose to have a turbo or not, and you could use it whenever you wanted. But to say who can use a device and when they can use it is not on.

To artificially give the trailing driver a speed advantage is taking us into Mario Kart territory. As a friend said to me, “It’s like they have allowed cheating”. It is fundamentally wrong and does not belong in any event that calls itself a sport.

I love the idea of moveable rear wings, but the implementation is all wrong. I don’t even understand why it can only be used in one part of the circuit. As Niki Lauda said, why is it the FIA’s job to say where drivers can pass each other?

Moreover, the hit and miss nature of the DRS zone is leading to different sorts of results in different races. The zones change size, and sometimes the FIA have got it wrong. They have even changed the position of the DRS activation point during a race weekend. What other word is there for this apart from ‘manipulation‘?

This may be a device designed to “fix” the “problems” with overtaking. Instead, we have come one step away from fixing the results.

F1 has sold its rubber soul

But I am more concerned about the situation with the new Pirelli tyres. While the DRS is widely criticised, people have been much kinder about the tyre situation. Indeed, one of the more popular refrains this year has been “thank you Pirelli”. But I am in no mood to thank them.

They are designed to degrade artificially quickly. This is a significant deviation from the concept of F1. Formula 1 is now no longer about the best drivers in the best cars. It’s about the best drivers in the best cars — with the worst tyres.

While technical regulations have always restricted cars (it is the “formula” in Formula 1, after all), the tradition has always been to maximise the performance to create the fastest car possible that adheres to the formula of the day. That is what brings us radical ideas like the double diffuser and the F-duct, that many F1 fans love to talk about.

With the tyres, Pirelli have deliberately made them perform badly. Come on, this is supposed to be elite motorsport.

Moreover, these dodgy tyres have now become the central issue of a grand prix weekend. I have long bemoaned the dominance of tyres in F1. If a car has better aerodynamics, you can see it. If an engine is faster, you can hear it. But the tyres? They are just black boxes that sit in the four corners.

But there is no getting away from it — tyres are hugely important to the performance of a car. What I don’t understand is why you would want to accentuate that.

Critics of F1 often complain that the drivers of the best cars always win. What these people misunderstand is that F1 is all about engineering excellence, just as much as it is about great driving.

But now we have now reached a stage where the deciding factor is neither the driver nor the car. It is now all about strategy — driven by deliberately dodgy tyres — above all else.

They are now so important that the situation is now threatening to make qualifying a complete non-event. After all those years spent tweaking the format of qualifying in the name of “the show”, you have to laugh when further changes totally break a format they finally got right.

The reason? Because you need as many fresh sets of tyres as possible to last the whole race. This means less track action on Saturday, as teams are fearful of using too many sets of tyres. What is this, Formula 1 bean counting, or Formula 1 motor racing?

Divergent strategies reduce real racing

In addition to spearing Saturday action, it is my view that the tyres situation is making Sundays less exciting too.

Take the experience of Mark Webber. He climbed from 18th on the grid to finish 3rd in China. You’d think if anyone would be excited about the wheel-to-wheel action in 2011, it would be him. Not so much.

After the race he told the BBC, “Sometimes the overtaking moves aren’t that genuine because the guys really have nothing to fight back with. It’s more tactical now, and a bit less racing.” During the BBC’s broadcast from Turkey, Martin Brundle revealed that Webber had told him privately that he got no satisfaction out of the progress through the field in China. James Allen further hinted at Webber’s distinct unhappiness at the situation.

Following Turkey, Jenson Button lay the blame for his poor result squarely on his strategy. Asked about what happens when his tyres go off, Button said, “You’re not racing any more. You’re trying your best to get the best out of the car, but you’re not racing anyone around you because you are a sitting duck… They just come past you and you can’t do anything.”

Overtaking has looked like it’s too easy this year, and it is not just because of DRS. The situation with the tyres means that drivers are dealing with such radically different levels of grip that the slower driver does not even bother to defend any more.

Many celebrated Lewis Hamilton’s pass on Sebastian Vettel for the lead of the Chinese Grand Prix. But for me, it killed the race as soon as it happened. I was hoping for Vettel to be able to defend, but he simply couldn’t. As it was, the pass was inevitable for laps in advance.

In the laps between Hamilton’s pitstop and his pass on Vettel, the McLaren driver was an average of 0.9s a lap faster than the Red Bull. (At one point he set a lap time 1.6 seconds up on Vettel.) To put this into perspective, during Q1 in China, a 0.9s gap to the fastest driver would have earned 18th on the grid.

Is it really exciting to watch a car that’s got an advantage of around one second a lap breeze on by? Not for me. This isn’t overtaking — it’s merely passing. It’s hardly Dijon 1979, is it? Today René Arnoux would flip his flap, press his boost button and head off into the distance on his superior tyres — race over.

The performance differences are huge, and it is all down to decisions that are made by computers far in advance. It is out of the driver’s hands. What is this, the Excel Grand Prix of Spreadsheet?

It is right that strategy plays a part in a race. But this year the balance has been tipped way over the edge, to the point where the driver’s influence on the outcome of the race has been severely diminished. You almost may as well hold the grand prix on a computer where all of the strategies have been put in.

To open up strategy options for this season without resorting to crap tyres that create crap pseudo-racing, they could simply have ditched the rule whereby drivers are forced to run on both compounds. This would have opened up the possibilities of running a 0, 1 or 2 stop strategy.

Instead, we are now seeing record-breaking levels of pitstops — upwards of 80 pitstops a race — for no good reason. This has taken away the emphasis from the on-track action, and has made huge amounts of the “racing” totally irrelevant.

It wasn’t broke, so why “fix” it?

The most disturbing thing about all the changes this season is the fact that there was very little wrong with Formula 1 in the first place. I didn’t complain that Formula 1 is dull. And while there was room for improvement, I have long bemoned the gimmicky thinking that has come about through efforts to “improve the show”. Now it is in danger of jumping the shark.

I love Formula 1 motor racing. I have done since the mid-1990s. There were lots of other people who claimed they also loved F1 — but at the same time complained about “processional races”. They said that F1 was too dull. Yet, for some reason, they still watched it anyway, and demanded changes. Huh?

I feel like the sport I love has been hijacked.

I also believe that the criticisms of the new format have been misunderstood by some insiders. It is not “too much overtaking” or “too much of a good thing”.

James Allen said, “it’s a bit like going into a sweet shop and eating half the stock, when you’ve only been used to getting a packet of Polos at best.” That’s not how I feel. It’s actually more like going into a nice restaurant expecting a good meal and being served a Big Mac instead.

Time to end the fixation with “the show”

Don’t get me wrong. I am still deriving satisfaction from Formula 1 this season. But the wheel-to-wheel action has become a lot more insipid this year, and bland passing has become so prevalent that overtaking has become devalued.

Kers is great for Formula 1. But the tyres situation, combined with DRS, is threatening to spoil the party. It wasn’t broke, but they fixed it anyway. But in “fixing” the racing, we have come just one step away from fixed races. The positioning of the DRS zone, determined by an FIA mandarin, could potentially make the difference between who wins and who loses.

Somewhere along the line, F1 has become so fixated on “the show” that it has forgotten about the race. There are now too many gimmicks and complications that deviate from the core concept that has served motorsport well for over a century: put a bunch of cars on a track and discover which is the fastest.

Of course, motorsport must always seek to entertain the audience. It wouldn’t exist otherwise. But you also need to remember why fans of motorsport tune in. Clue: it’s because they want to see a motor race. There are plenty of other places where you can be entertained by contrived or fictitious means.

But sport is supposed to be based on merit. It needs to be real.

When Renault’s James Allison said “We are an entertainment business,” it showed how wrong this whole approach is. We are dangerously striding towards WWE territory. If James Allison wants to work in an entertainment business, he can go to work in Hollywood. I want to watch a race.

The toxic focus on “the show” needs to stop.

This is a show:

This is a race:

Now, let’s go racing.

Last year in particular was a pretty poor year for MotoGP in my view. It was all too predictable. Even the prospect of someone other than Valentino Rossi winning the World Championship was not enough to reel me in. The reality was that Rossi’s mid-season injury made the championship a shoo-in for Jorge Lorenzo.

It had all just become a bit boring and predictable. But I hadn’t even realised that was the problem — until this year.

2011′s big MotoGP shakeup

MotoGP in 2011 has a very different feel to it. The pecking order is very definitely different. Valentino Rossi has switched to the temperamental Ducati bike. Casey Stoner has moved to Honda, who have stepped up to the plate. Meanwhile, Jorge Lorenzo has become the definitive team leader at Yamaha. This has all given MotoGP a fresher feel.

Last weekend’s MotoGP race at Jerez was an absolute sizzler that had it all. In damp conditions, there was more action in that race than the whole of last season. Everything that MotoGP has been lacking recently was here.

An amazing race

Valentino Rossi, struggling on his Ducati, started from the middle of the grid, and slowly worked his way up. Out front, Stoner was struggling more than form would suggest.

Sensationally, Marco Simoncelli took the lead on the satellite Gresini Honda. The fancied youngster has a great record from the more junior categories, but up to this point his best race finish had been fourth. I am a Simoncelli fan, and I was personally getting quite excited at the prospect of a race victory for him.

Stoner had dropped to second, and Rossi was up to third. In an audacious move, Rossi overtook Stoner — but fell off his bike, taking out Stoner in the process. Rossi rode on, but needless to say, Stoner was not too impressed.

This was a moment of high drama that only the likes of Rossi can produce. I probably haven’t been so excited about a moment of MotoGP since Rossi’s incredible last-corner move on Lorenzo at Catalunya in 2009.

From there it should have been easy for Simoncelli, but he fell off his bike of his own accord in the damp conditions.

This allowed Lorenzo, who had been unspectacular for the whole race up to this point, to breeze by into the lead. The race became a Lorenzo masterclass. A study in precise riding — reaching the edge while never exceeding it.

It could even have been a Yamaha 1-2, as Ben Spies was also able to capitalise on all the mayhem, as well as passing Dani Pedrosa, to run in second. That was until he, too, fell off his bike. Colin Edwards was then running in third when he beached it in the gravel.

All the while, there were developing issues with Pedrosa’s pace dropping off as he continues to struggle with arm issues from a crash at Motegi last year. It was the opposite story for Rossi, who, despite the big accident earlier on in the race, managed to fight his way back up to fifth again.

I concur with Pat Wotton. If you haven’t seen this race, you really ought to watch it. It is up on iPlayer.

MotoGP has all the ingredients for great racing

I loved the race not just because of the madness or the wet weather. I was hooked even before riders started falling off left, right and centre.

What struck me was that I was watching racing. It wasn’t a procession by any stretch. But nor was it an overload of devalued overtaking that bike racing sometimes seems like to me.

I saw riders fade in and out of contention. They slipped away because of fatigue. They fought through in inspired bursts. They defied the odds. They raced tactically, and with no mandatory pitstops in sight.

And there was no need for an “overtaking working group” to come up with half-baked and ill thought-through ideas like F1′s DRS. There was no contrived nonsense about tyre compounds. No flexi-wing controversies. No stewards’ decisions.

I love Formula 1. But right now it looks like MotoGP has the right recipe for racing excitement. And what is most promising about it all is that it is not contrived. It is so free of gimmicks. It is pure racing, and I am looking forward to taking it all in this year.

Because even when everyone was getting excited about the magical combination of Casey Stoner and Honda dominating rather than the Yamaha routs we had become accustomed to, Jerez showed that the reality is much more complicated than that — and more exciting too.

I remember Martin Brundle once describing how the fact that he was the oldest driver in the 1996 season caught up with him and began to define him as a driver. Despite having a reasonable season, by the following year he had switched to his new career in broadcasting.

Meanwhile, David Coulthard’s final season in F1 was littered with clumsy accidents. Didn’t his first corner coming-together in the final race of 2008 just sum up his season?

Now it looks like it might be Rubens Barrichello’s turn to have a rusty final season. Certainly, his Australian Grand Prix weekend was about as error-strewn as it gets these days.

There was an off during Practice 2. A further spin in Qualifying 2 ended his session early, cementing 17th slot on the grid.

Then on lap one of the race he went off at turn 4. Some time later, he steamed into Nico Rosberg at the same corner. It looked suspciously like a ridiculously optimistic overtaking move that was only ever going to go wrong. But Barrichello later blamed his tyres. This sounds like a tall tale to me.

Rubens Barrichello is not the oldest driver on the grid this year. That accolade falls to Michael Schumacher, who is probably seen by most as a separate case. Schumacher faces his own kind of pressure — the over-the-hill seven times champion who should have stayed in retirement while his reputation was still in tact.

Beyond that, Barrichello is the stand-out old guy in F1. He certainly has the longevity and experience in F1 that no-one else has. He has started a truly staggering 300 grands prix. That is an astonishing 36% of all Formula 1 grands prix that have ever been held! But the experience doesn’t seem to be doing him much good at the moment.

I hope it doesn’t turn out to be the case. It’s impossible not to have a soft spot for the Brazilian. But I fear already that he may be having his “Coulthard year”.

It’s easy to see why Button became impatient — he was clearly faster than Massa for several laps, but just couldn’t quite find a way past. The result was a desperate attempt at the high-speed chicane, which wouldn’t normally be regarded as an overtaking spot. Finding that two cars can’t run side-by-side here, Button had no option but to take to the escape road.

Button’s rare error of judgement

What was remarkable was that Button didn’t just give the place back straight away. Button is a mature and intelligent driver, and you would have thought he would know that it was plain for all to see that he gained an unfair advantage by overtaking Massa by cutting a corner.

My initial thought was that, having had to back out and take the escape route, he would immediately give the place back to Massa. I was stunned when he didn’t because, the scale of his unfair advantage was so huge and clear.

Then Ferrari did the smart thing and swapped Alonso and Massa, ensuring that if Button had to let Massa back past, he’d have to let Alonso through too. Smart thinking from Ferrari, and a rare gaffe from Button who can’t have realised that this could be done.

Meanwhile, the stewards investigated Button. Presumably the discussion was more about what the penalty should be than whether he should get a penalty. When Massa pitted, this decision was made for them — it had to be a drive-through penalty.

McLaren show they have failed to learn lessons

What amazes me even more though is McLaren’s naive approach towards the situation too.

After the race, Martin Whitmarsh said that they tried to deal with the situation by seeking advice from Charlie Whiting and Race Control, then waiting and waiting until a penalty arrived. I wouldn’t be surprised if Race Control were like this just to punish McLaren for having the cheek to ask about a situation in which they were so clearly in the wrong.

McLaren have been damaged by this approach before, most notably two years earlier at the same race when Lewis Hamilton got mixed up behind the safety car. Here, too, McLaren sought advice from Charlie Whiting, only to find that it was not forthcoming.

In addition, Martin Whitmarsh claimed that McLaren were not in a position to just tell Jenson Button to move over themselves, as no-one on the McLaren pit wall saw the incident — despite the fact that it was broadcast clearly on the world feed, complete with replays. This simply beggars belief — it cannot be true.

McLaren’s constant mis-steps with the FIA

McLaren are notoriously nervous when it comes to dealing with the FIA. This has particularly been the case since 2007′s famous $100 million fine. As such, McLaren often make the most incredible errors of judgement.

By now they really ought to have shaken this off, or at least come up with some proper procedures as to how to deal with the FIA. McLaren know from experience that asking Race Control for advice doesn’t always work. So why do they still do it?

Is it a simple case of ducking responsibility? Martin Whitmarsh basically blamed Button and the FIA for the whole incident. But McLaren ought to take responsibility for their decisions too. They lose vital points simply as a result of failing to do the right thing.

A few of the journalists were pretty effusive about the race. Will Buxton was particularly euphoric:

Epic race. One of the best of the season. Wow.

I saw that this drew a few hoots of derision, including from me! Because from the comments made by other fans watching at home was that… well… it was a bit dull really.

It wasn’t a stinker by any means. There was some good action and a fair few talking points. But large stretches of the race were rather processional. Hardly epic.

The epic race without the racing

Will Buxton justified his comments:

No sarcasm. Epic race. ALO VET lap trading, WEB early stop and brill drive, HAM / WEB moment, GLO driving arse off. KUB amazing.

There is some truth in what he says. While Webber and Kubica provided some entertainment, this was only because they were out of phase with the surrounding cars strategy-wise, so were not on an equal footing with the drivers they were battling with.

As for the battle at the front, the problem was that Alonso’s victory was never truly in doubt. He commanded the track all weekend, and always even looked like he might have a bit extra left in the tank too.

During the first phase of the race, Vettel drifted back to 3.5s behind Alonso. After the pitstops, the gap eventually grew to over 2s before slowly decreasing again. Vettel did get mighty close to the end of the race, but this was typical Alonso driving conservatively.

Renault engineers always talked about how conservative Alonso was as a driver. They never had to tell him to turn the engine down; he had already done it.

So it was in Singapore. Alonso had done just enough to establish himself as the certain winner of the Singapore Grand Prix and had the whole situation under control.

It may have looked good on the timing screens. I did indeed get excited when purple sectors were being set and Vettel started to decrease the gap. But the “lap battle” was partly down to the street circuit becoming cleaner and faster towards the end of the race.

I’m sure they were playing with each other, but neither looked to be pushing particularly hard. Alonso was always in control, and Vettel never looked interested in truly pressurising.

At the start of the race, Vettel had ceded the first corner, setting the tone for his race. It did not look like he was particularly interested in winning — a suspicion confirmed by Vettel’s comments that passing Alonso would have been too risky. And why bother? Alonso is the ultimate defensive driver, as his amazing battle with Michael Schumacher at the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix demonstrated.

The bottom line is that if you hold a race on a street circuit with one overtaking spot — two at a push — then the racing isn’t epic. There might be stuff surrounding the racing — strategy, crashes, pretty buildings… But not much overtaking.

Interesting, yes. Epic, no. The ingredients simply weren’t there.

Epic racing or epic facilities?

There is a trend for certain venues to be talked up a lot by the F1 circus, no matter how good the racing is. I particularly remember Valencia Street Circuit — which has served up three of the most turgid grands prix seen in the last decade — was universally praised by the teams as being a great venue for grand prix racing.

Scratch the surface of the headlines, though, and you see that they are not so interested in the racing itself. Ron Dennis said that the 2008 European Grand Prix at Valencia was so great that it made him “ashamed to be English”. But it left most others ashamed to be F1 fans, it was so bereft of racing.

Of course, Ron Dennis was thinking about the facilities. Facilities are apparently the only thing that matter in F1 these days. Never mind what the viewers at home make of the track. As long as the venue is equipped with a shiny silver throne for the McLaren chief to do his golden business in, who cares about the people at home?

Similarly, the journalists have clear favourite places to visit and places they can’t stand. China? Don’t talk to them about it. And spare a thought for poor, poor Magny-Cours. It was so awful — not because of the circuit, of course, but because it was in the middle of nowhere, as the journalists never missed the chance to remind us!

Meanwhile, Melbourne is always the “great place for a race” — is that code for a booze-up? And Singapore is now “epic”.

Never mind the fact that the Marina Bay Street Circuit is not great for overtaking. Never mind that the 2008 race needed a manufactured crash to pep it up, and that the 2009 race was voted the fourth worst of the season by F1 Fanatic readers.

TV coverage demonstrates skewed priorities

The scenario was not helped by some rather lacklustre television coverage from FOM this weekend. It looked to me like the director was more used to directing pop music videos than motorsport.

Coverage at night races is always dominated by shots of the lit-up buildings and the scenery surrounding the circuit. It feels more like the Singapore Grand Prix is more like an advert for Singapore than a motor race. Who was going to bed last weekend without seeing that flashing “Your Singapore” banner in their sleep?

When it comes to races like this, Bernie Ecclestone’s priorities are clear. Why else would the bland coverage of last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix have won an FIA award for best coverage of the season? Much of the race action was missed. Anyone not paying full attention would have thought that the race was won by a hotel that looks like a giant flashing lady-toy, so fixated were the cameras on anything but the cars.

Those in the inner circle in F1 should remember that the fans at home are looking for epic racing — not epic Holywood movies, epic nightlife or epic superloos.

Another clumsy mistake from Vettel

That does not excuse what Sebastian Vettel did. I am a great admirer of Sebastian Vettel. But I am sorry to have to say that today he demonstrated just why he does not deserve to win the Drivers’ Championship this season.

Vettel’s speed is not in doubt. But in a wheel-to-wheel situation his judgement is left in question. This season he has made several unnecessary mistakes. His clash with Jenson Button is just the latest one, and it would not surprise me if there is at least one more this season.

It does seem to be Vettel’s greatest weakness. For a while he had a reputation for being a driver who was unable to overtake. He had shaken that off, but these scrapes that he is increasingly getting himself into are threatening to make this question return.

People talk about experience. David Coulthard certainly brought that up plenty of times during the BBC’s coverage. But experience has little to do with it. Lewis Hamilton was able to handle life at the front of the grid much earlier in his career without constantly putting his foot in it in this way. Yes, Hamilton made mistakes, and he still does. But he was not clumsy in the same way.

Meanwhile, the most experienced Formula 1 driver in history, Rubens Barrichello, also managed to lose control at the very same corner, steaming straight into Fernando Alonso with great force. That is not a reflection on Rubens Barrichello’s skill. With 300 races under his belt, no-one can question his skill or experience.

Accidents will happen

Instead, it underlines that accidents will happen in racing. Sometimes you come off well, sometimes you come off badly. F1 is a risky endeavour by its very nature. There is not a driver on the grid who can say he has never caused an accident. This is what happens when you are racing on the edge. It doesn’t matter how good you are or how much experience you have. In tough conditions, mistakes are made. That is racing.

That is why I have to question whether it was necessary for the stewards to punish Sebastian Vettel by making him serve a drive-through penalty. Yes, what Vettel did was a bit silly. It seems like he got mixed up in a car that was clearly faster than Jenson Button’s and didn’t know what to do when he suddenly found himself halfway up the McLaren’s gearbox.

Incidentally, if my reading of some of the post-race interviews is correct, it seems as though it was part of Jenson Button’s job to hold up the other cars to give Hamilton maximum advantage. Were team orders at play? Was Jenson Button deliberately holding up the pack? Notice how in his post-race interview with the BBC, Lewis Hamilton says, “he did everything he could to back us up and get the most points”.

Nonetheless, Sebastian Vettel got himself into a situation that he did not need to be in. The consequences were disastrous — for both Button and Vettel. The thing is, these incidents have killed Vettel’s title challenge. That in itself is the penalty a driver faces for poor driving standards.

Penalty-creep

Formula 1 is a sport, not a court. The problem is that the stewards often find themselves in a power trip and like to hand out penalties willy-nilly for increasingly minor indiscretions. Whether or not there is a former driver in the stewards’ room, this is the main problem with the stewarding system.

For years, I have been fearing that Formula 1 is in danger of banning racing. Instead of Formula One, the sport is in danger of becoming Formula None. As far as I see it, Sebastian Vettel was penalised today for attempting an overtaking manoeuvre. Yes, it was a manoeuvre that went wrong. But motor racing is inherently risky. If overtaking wasn’t difficult, it wouldn’t be exciting to watch.

These are drivers racing on the edge of what is possible with today’s machinery. In changeable conditions, Vettel got the balance wrong. But it was a judgement call that he had to make in a very short space of time.

A clumsy driver punishes himself enough

One of the beautiful things about motor racing is that it is all about balancing risk in real-time, in a very natural way. That is what we see every time there is a wheel-to-wheel battle. Everyone knows in this situation there is a chance that things might go wrong. Drivers are ready to face the consequences when things go wrong.

Sebastian Vettel’s real penalty was the natural one. His race was ruined by his mistake. With a damaged car, having to make a pitstop to change his front wing, the potential of a second place finish went up in smoke.

For some reason, the stewards decided to interfere in this natural justice system that is inherent in motor racing. Now when drivers see that they can be penalised for attempting an overtaking manoeuvre, they will soon enough stop attempting as it will no longer be worth the risk. The balance will have tipped too far in the opposite direction, and in an artificial manner.

And people wonder why there is not enough overtaking in F1?

A penalty should be handed out in the most extreme circumstances. I would say that Michael Schumacher’s barge in Hungary was a perfect example. That was a clear, premeditated move that was carried out over the course of a number of seconds. Vettel made a split-second move that suddenly went wrong. The intentions are different, and the seriousness of Vettel’s mistake is not in the same league.

Racing should be allowed. If it is not, the sport will be dead. But yet again, F1 finds itself curiously punishing someone for trying to race. Sebastian Vettel punished himself enough.