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Archive: Pedro de la Rosa

The most biased article about Lewis Hamilton I have ever read

11 October 2007 15:03

Categories: Entertainment, Formula 1, Newspapers, Television

And that’s saying something!

And would you credit it, it was by ITV-F1. WHY LEWIS IS TAKING THE FLAK, the headline screams, stomping its feet.

The article by Mark Hughes (who is normally one of the more sensible ITV-F1 people) starts as it means to go on, by taking a true event and completely twisting it out of shape:

When Lewis Hamilton put his car into the Shanghai pit lane’s gravel trap there was a lot of spontaneous and ill-concealed cheering in the non-British sector of the press room.

Yeah, do you know why? Because it was a spectacular event that turned the season on its head, just like when Nigel Mansell’s tyre exploded or when Michael Schumacher’s engine exploded last year. Not cheering when Hamilton beached his car in the gravel trap would be like not cheering when a goal is scored in the 89th minute of the football World Cup final. Only the most partisan of people would be unable to see this.

For an explanation from journalists — journalists who are British, but who aren’t hopelessly biased like the morons at ITV — of exactly why there would be cheering in the press room, just listen to the latest edition of the BBC (yes, that is British Broadcasting Corporation) Chequered Flag podcast.

David Croft: You mentioned a stampede in the press room. I hear there was quite a cheer in the press room as well when Lewis went out. Is that right?

Jimmy Roberts: Well, it was more a cheer of… Unbelievable scenes. We can’t imagine what we’re watching. The thing is, Formula 1 — it never fails to excite, it never fails to generate moments of sheer sporting drama. It reminded me of when Nigel Mansell’s tyre blew in 1986, and it was just one of those moments where you just have to shout. There was just pandemonium.

[...]

Maurice Hamilton: I remember the reaction in ’86. It’s an exclamation! “Whoa, look at that! How did that happen?” And the same thing, there’s Lewis Hamilton stuck in the gravel trap. I think the vision of that McLaren beached with its rear wheels spinning in the gravel will just live with Formula 1 forever. It’s one of those emblematic shots that people will forever remember.

In short, history was being made in front of our eyes. How can you just sit there? Despite the fact that even British mainstream journalists can see this, Mark Hughes is playing the usual game that British MSM journalists have been playing. According to them, it’s Brits versus the world (and Spain in particular).

You could even see this in some of the press coverage of the Stepneygate scandal, where some consumers of news were left with the impression that there was golden boy Britain’s Lewis Hamilton keeping his nose clean. It was those dirty Spaniards, Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso, who were at the centre of all this!

Let us just gloss over the fact that the real people who were at the centre of the scandal — Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan — were both British. But this just doesn’t fit in with the story that the racist British media wants to project. In this ITV-F1 article, Mark Hughes is pressing all of the same buttons, albeit a bit more subtly. You ought to be able to expect better from the country’s biggest commercial broadcaster. But I have given up.

Mark Hughes carries on through the article. I really wish it was good, but I am afraid it is just straw man after straw man.

Even Hamilton’s summoning for the marshals to push him out of the gravel was greeted with jeering by onlookers.

Just as it was when Michael Schumacher did the same thing. British journalists weren’t too keen about Michael Schumacher got pushed out of the gravel either. But even Schumacher never used a crane to re-join the race. Interestingly, Mark Hughes makes no mention of the crane incident anywhere in his article.

He goes on to take a look at Hamilton’s “on-track etiquette” before going on to talk about a number of Lewis Hamilton’s moves. Unfortunately, he paints a picture that all of the complaints about Hamilton’s etiquette are about hard moves. This is simply not the case.

Even so, though, let’s not forget how put out Hamilton was when Alonso played a similarly hard move on Hamilton at the Belgian Grand Prix. It’s so different when the boot’s on the other foot, huh? The other drivers lived with it, while Hamilton just started moaning about it.

Mark Hughes then completely twists the tale of Hamilton’s erratic driving behind the Safety Car at Fuji, completely glossing over the real issues. He mentions the first re-start, when Alonso was behind Hamilton. There is one particular point about this paragraph that makes me laugh so much (emphasis mine)!

On the restart behind the first safety car in Fuji he was perhaps a little over-aggressive in getting the jump on Alonso, braking so hard that Alonso (technically illegally) passed him to avoid an accident.

I love it! When Fernando Alonso does something technically illegal it merits a mention. As one of Hamilton’s defenders, Tom, said in the comments on another post on this blog, this rule is really a grey area — particularly if the car in front is effectively brake-testing.

But when Lewis Hamilton does something which is actually illegal, it is completely glossed over or just downright ignored in this article. The incident that provided the most controversy — the one when Hamilton brake-tested Webber and Vettel — does not get a single mention in this article. Yet this is the incident where it has been proved that Hamilton broke two rules.

First of all, Hamilton was driving erratically. This is against the rules, and there is no room for games behind the Safety Car. Drivers are not racing, and the purpose of the Safety Car is to make the track safer and to stop drivers from doing dangerous things. Hamilton did the complete opposite — as we can see from the number of accidents that happened in Safety Car periods compared to during the race.

Secondly, Hamilton strayed more than five car lengths behind the Safety Car. This is not some technicality that the FIA put in there for the hell of it. The Safety Car is designed to bunch the drivers up. This is partly to give the marshals plenty of time to clean up on-track debris. If the cars are more spread out, the marshals have less time (and less safety) to do this. Hamilton had complete disregard for this rule.

The FIA have since changed the rules so that a leader is allowed ten car lengths. This trick of changing a rule after it has been broken is usually reserved for pro-Ferrari purposes. And oh, how many times the British media has lambasted the FIA for it.

Hamilton effectively brake-tested Webber. Webber slowed down to avoid being “technically illegal” just like Alonso was. This is what caused Vettel to go straight into the back of him. It was all Hamilton’s fault, and you can see this in the video. But the British media just aren’t prepared to admit this — and you can see this in the fact that Mark Hughes has completely ignored this incident in his article.

So anyone with some vague notion of “Hamilton being controversial behind the Safety Car in Japan” will have the impression that Hamilton was completely in the right after reading this article. In reality, Mark Hughes has skirted round the issue completely. Nice piece of obfuscation there.

I find the views expressed by Alan Permane and Steve Nielsen in the latest Renault podcast interesting. You could say that they had a vested interest in Hamilton losing the Japanese Grand Prix, although they also say that he shouldn’t have been disqualified from the race, but given a grid penalty for China. Besides which, I think you would struggle to find many sensible F1-heads (that is, F1-heads that don’t have a vested interest in a British driver succeeding) disagreeing much with what they say.

Steve Nielsen: During the race, the only time we became aware of it was when the FIA came onto the intercom to us and said that Heikki [Kovalainen] should watch his distance to Lewis. Which is very unusual. What was implied was that we were too close — dangerously close — and so we conveyed that message to Heikki. And it wasn’t really until after the race, talking to a couple of the other drivers, and then the now famous bit of film that was on YouTube, that we became aware that Lewis actually was far from innocent in all of that and that his driving was questionable — very questionable in a couple of instances. And my own personal view is that he caused the accident between Vettel and Webber.

Alan Permane: Yeah, I find it a bit odd that Vettel got penalised, then they realised that actually it was not his fault, but we’re not going to penalise anybody. To me it was Lewis’s fault.

SN: And at that very race on Friday in the drivers briefing, Charlie [Whiting] told both the McLaren drivers that their driving behind the Safety Car at Monza — which was two races previous — had not been good enough. It was too erratic. And Lewis had a kind of — not a problem with it, but he certainly raised concerns and said he thought it was okay and was surprised that it wasn’t okay. And yet here we are two days later and he repeated it. And as Alan’s just said, for that to go totally unpunished, I’m a bit surprised at.

AP: What I find strange is that they felt that punishment was needed. And Vettel got that punishment. And then when the blame was reapportioned, or it was figured out it wasn’t [Vettel's] fault, that punishment [should] still [be] there, so whose fault was it? I don’t think it was just a racing incident or one of those things. It clearly looks like Lewis stops the car and it causes a bit of a pile-up. I think to exclude him from Fuji would have been way too much. That really would have been unfortunate for the Championship. But maybe a grid penalty or something in China, I dunno. Anyway, that’s all history now.

It is painfully clear to me that the FIA were aware that Lewis Hamilton was driving dangerously behind the Safety Car. Not only had they warned him about his driving at Monza, but they were also aware that he was doing exactly the same thing during the Japanese Grand Prix. We know this because after the accident between Vettel and Webber, Heikki Kovalainen was told by the FIA to keep an extra distance behind Hamilton during Safety Car periods.

Yet, they didn’t punish Hamilton for it. Yes, Hamilton really is getting all of the flak, isn’t he!

Back to Mark Hughes’s article.

There was also some glee from his detractors when Ron Dennis revealed that the circumstances leading to Alonso’s blocking of Hamilton in the Hungary pit lane during qualifying had been triggered by Hamilton’s non-compliance with a team request at the beginning of the session.

This, for me — and many other F1 fans — is the defining moment of Hamilton’s career so far. Yet, once again, Mark Hughes completely glosses over it. He even implies that Hamilton’s actions were somehow mitigated by the fact that there was “glee from [Hamilton's] detractors”. Give me a break!

Why do we have to keep on putting up with ITV’s awful, biased coverage?

16 comments

Is it safe to say something now?

16 September 2007 02:37

Categories: Formula 1

I am quite reluctant to write about the week’s off-track events in the world of Formula 1. Originally I wanted things to settle down before I wrote anything. But ever since then, things have steadfastly refused to settle down. A few people come along to kick some dust into the air and the whole issue is flipped on its head again. Hopefully things have at last settled down now.

First things first. The evidence against McLaren was fairly damning. In the original hearing, McLaren’s defence was that Mike Coughlan was a rogue employee and that no other employee had access to any confidential Ferrari information. Furthermore, most of the evidence pointed to Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan intending to use the documents at Honda, where they jointly applied for a job, rather than McLaren.

The new evidence demonstrates that there was, to an extent, an intention to use Ferrari information to guide development at McLaren. Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso also knew about the documents and discussed information from them. And, as the WMSC pointed out (points 3.10, 3.11), it is highly likely that other employees must have known about this.

Otherwise, the implication is that Pedro de la Rosa has the sole say on which weight distributions get tested on the simulator and whether to try out a special type of gas on the tyres. Common sense says that somebody else other than the test driver is involved in these decisions.

However, this also conclusively proves that Ferrari information was not flowing among McLaren employees freely. My guess is that Mike Coughlan probably knew that he would end up in big trouble if enough people found out that he had special access to Ferrari information.

It is notable that Pedro de la Rosa — somebody who Coughlan will have known since his days at Arrows — is at the centre of all the email conversations. He was clearly being used as a kind of middleman between Coughlan and whichever other employees de la Rosa was working with.

Perhaps it was Coughlan’s intention to keep the Ferrari documents to himself all along. It is possible that he accidentally let it slip to his friend Pedro that he was in regular contact with Nigel Stepney. From then on, de la Rosa’s curiosity forced Coughlan to look up the documents and the rest we see in the emails. de la Rosa let his compatriot Alonso in on the secret. This explains why Lewis Hamilton had no incriminating emails.

And it is still possible that no other employees were aware of the Ferrari documents, although de la Rosa was providing helpful suggestions to his colleagues. In this sense, the McLaren team is no more guilty now than it was in July. It was just the actions of one (or two or three) rogue employees in a company which must have several hundred employees.

What the new evidence also reveals is that the Ferrari data was probably not much use to McLaren anyway. The revelations about weight distribution suggest that the Ferrari data was so different to what McLaren was used to that it was deemed useless for their car to the extent that Fernando Alonso doubted the accuracy of the data. It backs up what I said in my previous post on this subject — that it would be like putting together pieces from two different jigsaws.

There remains precious little evidence that McLaren actually did use any of the Ferrari data in the end. It’s a shame that, because of the way this story has been presented by the media, most people seem to think that McLaren were found guilty of “spying” on Ferrari and copying Ferrari parts and therefore having an illegal car.

McLaren were actually found guilty of the catch-all “bringing the sport into disrepute”. This (along with the fact that all of McLaren’s drivers provided the FIA with the relevant emails) explains why the drivers have kept their points while McLaren have lost all of theirs. It is close to the prediction I made in my previous post — that McLaren would be punished heavily while Hamilton (the story of the season, remember) would get away scot-free.

It is cynical of the FIA to do this. But there was not much else they could do. They had got themselves into a situation where they had to punish McLaren, but at the same time they did not want to jeopardise the story of entire season (the emergence of Lewis Hamilton and an exciting 3- or 4-way title battle). It is fair, though, for the drivers to keep their points as they have not been driving an illegal car.

A lot of the problem came down to the fact that the WMSC had to be seen to be punishing McLaren harshly. The media latched onto this story in an unprecedented way, and in many respects it was sensationalised and blown out of proportion. As such, the punishment is suitably sensationalised and overblown.

The $100 million fine was clearly designed to attract headlines, not least because this is nothing like what McLaren will have to pay. Some of the money will come out of the earnings they will lose as a result of being thrown out of this year’s Constructors’ Championship. McLaren won’t even have to pay half of the $100 million.

Another aspect of the coverage that has annoyed me is the way that it has become known as “spygate”. You will notice that I continue to call it by its original name, “Stepneygate”. Why? Because there was no spying going on! Mike Coughlan did not break into Maranello and hide in Jean Todt’s cupboard. He was approached by a Ferrari employee, Nigel Stepney, and from there a relationship was formed.

No bugs. No wiretaps. No covert break-ins. Just one Ferrari employee exchanging information with one McLaren employee. As far as I am concerned, this all began with the wrongdoing of a Ferrari employee, not the McLaren team. It begs the question once again — why were Ferrari not also charged with bringing the sport into disrepute? It was their employee who started this whole sorry episode. A rogue employee, yes — just like Mike Coughlan.

In fact, if anyone has been the victim of spying, it is Nigel Stepney. Earlier this year he claimed that he feared for his life after finding that he had been bugged. He says he was also involved in “Mafia-like” high-speed car chases and subsequently fled Italy.

This is where the whole tale becomes darker. Clive at Formula 1 Insight says that certain articles on some websites have mysteriously disappeared. I am certain of this as well, because I can not find any reference to Stepney’s car chase claims on the reputable F1 websites that I read, although I am certain that I must have read of them there.

This leads us nicely onto conspiracy theories. The FIA’s institutional pro-Ferrari bias is well known and barely contested by anyone except the most blindly ardent Ferrari fans. For instance, the World Motor Sport Council — the body that found against McLaren on Thursday — has more representatives from Ferrari than any other team. The governing body’s constant attempts to rig the championship in Ferrari’s favour has done far more to place the sport into disrepute than anything Ron Dennis or McLaren have done.

A lot of people are asking why McLaren have been so harshly punished. One of the things that I am reading time and time again is that this sort of thing is apparently fairly commonplace in Formula 1 (although perhaps not to the same extent). I mentioned Peter Windsor’s comments on this blog before (near the bottom of the post).

Many are also drawing parallels with the incident that involved Toyota a few years ago. The FIA stayed well away from that — the whole matter was kept to the Italian courts.

So, why have McLaren been singled out in this way? The FIA’s pro-Ferrari bias can’t explain it all. The Toyota case also involved Ferrari blueprints. Obviously, the way the media latched onto the story explains part of it. But the media latched onto it for a reason. Ferrari pushed this for all it was worth and asked the FIA to get involved (unlike the Toyota case). But was there something else at play?

Many claim that FIA president Max Mosley has a personal vendetta against Ron Dennis. Mosley didn’t do much to change this perception with his comments at Spa yesterday morning (awkward photo opportunity or not).

It seems to me that Max Mosley’s comment that the large fine was designed partly to “bring… his [Ron Dennis's] budget down to the level of some of the other top teams in the paddock” backs up this notion that Mosley is anti-Dennis and pro-Ferrari. It sounds like a calculated plan to damage McLaren and help its rival teams.

Paul Stoddart certainly put in more than his two cents in a must-read interview with Pitpass. Stoddart was an old nemesis of Max Mosley, but he was hardly best pals with Ron Dennis either. It is notable therefore that Paul Stoddart should come out so strongly in Ron Dennis’s favour.

As an aside, note Stoddart’s claim that Max Mosley was the person who prevented there being a proper race at Indianapolis in 2005. He and Jean Todt were the only people who were not willing to compromise for the sake of the sport. Even Bernie Ecclestone was so incensed at Mosley’s stubbornness that he threw his phone at him. This is a real (albeit thoroughly unsurprising) insight into Max Mosley’s character.

Speaking of Max Mosley, Ron Dennis and character, another thing I have read about time and time again is the integrity of Ron Dennis. It is difficult to imagine Ron Dennis cheating or knowingly allowing cheating to go on in his team. He is clearly a proud individual — not just proud of himself, but proud of McLaren as well.

His company has a strict policy whereby the drivers are treated equally. This had already got the team into trouble at least twice this year (at Monaco and Hungary). Still, Ron Dennis refused to deviate from the policy.

Well, seemingly it is the equality stance that has landed McLaren in the deep doo-doo that it has found itself in. Apparently Fernando Alonso confronted Ron Dennis on the morning of the Hungarian Grand Prix. He told Ron Dennis about the incriminating emails and threatened to hand them over to the FIA unless he was made number one driver.

It is interesting that Ron Dennis preferred to hand over the information himself rather than capitulating to the powerful Alonso’s demands. He risked the reputation of his team to preserve the integrity of his team. Very, very admirable. Allegedly, Alonso and Dennis have not spoken since the incident.

It has to be said, this casts Alonso in a very bad light. Not only did he sit on incriminating information, but he also effectively blackmailed his boss in an attempt to get preferential treatment. I bemoaned Lewis Hamilton’s arrogance a few weeks ago, but Fernando Alonso is obviously not squeaky clean either.

I am just glad that there is a race tomorrow so that hopefully this whole sorry affair can be put to rest at last. For some light relief, check out this amusing animated version of the Stepneygate saga (via Ed Gorman). The captions are all in Spanish (or something), but I can still understand it all perfectly!

7 comments

Is there a witch hunt against McLaren?

11 September 2007 15:27

Categories: Formula 1

This has turned out to be McLaren’s annus horribilis when it should have been a year of celebration. After an unprecedented series of years in the doldrums on the track, McLaren have finally gone back to their winning ways. But off the track, it is difficult to imagine what else could have gone wrong.

It would have been bad enough had it just been the Stepneygate scandal from which McLaren (at the time) escaped any harsh punishment (probably rightly given the evidence there was at the time). But despite escaping punishment, the cloud of suspicion lingered, the media was not impressed and the tifosi were livid.

But there have also been rows over team orders and the status of the drivers which was kicked off by a deterioration in the relationship between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. McLaren probably have the two best drivers in the world in their cars, but instead of being an unmitigated success it has turned out to be a disaster.

At Hungary the FIA stepped in to prevent McLaren from scoring constructors’ points due to what was essentially an issue between the two drivers. It was harsh to levy such a heavy penalty on McLaren due to something that the team itself was seemingly quite peripheral to.

Then at Monza the race stewards decided to fine the team $50,000 for running a lightweight gearbox at the Hungaroring. The race stewards say that the new gearbox should have been crash tested prior to being run. For their part, McLaren say they were open with the FIA at all times about the existence their new gearbox.

Even if the FIA were not made aware of the situation, you have to ask the question: what were the Italian stewards doing passing judgement on something that happened two races ago? There is a discussion on this over at BlogF1. This is the equivalent of a referee in a football match giving a footballer a yellow card for something he did three weeks ago.

This is not to say that the FIA should not have punished McLaren. But the race stewards are not the people to do it. And the scrutineers at Hungary were seemingly okay with the new gearbox. It all looks a bit fishy to me, particularly since it happened at the Italian Grand Prix. Italy is, of couse, the country where Ferrari almost rivals Catholicism as the biggest religion.

A similar thing happened last year at the Italian Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso was penalised for “blocking” a Ferrari that was a hundred metres behind him. The video of the entire lap is still available. Yes, that distant speck on the horizon is meant to be blocking Felipe Massa. The only people in the world who actually believe this are FIArrari.

But the FIA does not have to be in Italy to unfairly find in favour of Ferrari and against every single other team. Jackie Stewart rightly pointed this out today.

Now the whole Stepneygate saga is being opened up again, and the World Motor Sport Council is meeting on Thursday to discuss it. It will be a big day for Formula 1. Will the FIA cave into their pro-Ferrari instincts and award the Scuderia the Championship in the courtroom? Or will they act like the governing body of a sport and allow the Championship to be won and lost on the racetrack?

This series of events has prompted some to ask: are McLaren being picked on by the FIA this season? Craig has also taken a look at this. Many have mentioned the fact that FIA president Max Mosley has a pretty frosty relationship with Ron Dennis. The FIA deny that there is a witch hunt, but they would say that wouldn’t they?

For what it’s worth, I do not think that the FIA are deliberately singling out McLaren. At least, not beyond the extent we have come to expect from the FIA’s pro-Ferrari bias. But I think the adverse reaction to the original WMSC hearing in July has encouraged the FIA to punish McLaren heavily for the slightest wrongdoing.

The FIA are quite right to re-open the Stepneygate case if they think there is sufficient evidence. The integrity of the sport is important, and if McLaren are found to have benefited from Ferrari documents then they should face a heavy punishment.

But to me, it just does not stack up for the reasons I explained in my previous post on Stepneygate. The McLaren car had already been built by the time Mike Coughlan got his hands on the documents, and from then on basing developments on Ferrari blueprints would surely be like trying to piece together pieces from two different jigsaw puzzles.

But the whole saga became much more serious when drivers became involved. It is suggested that Fernando Alonso gained some insight into set-up data as a result of an email conversation with test driver Pedro de la Rosa, who is good buddies with Mike Coughlan.

This could prove crucial because beforehand McLaren had claimed that no employee was aware of the Ferrari information except for Mike Coughlan. If it transpires that de la Rosa and Alonso also knew, then there could be serious consequences.

A lot of people are asking themselves how the FIA could punish McLaren (if they are found guilty) without damaging the great story of this World Championship — particularly the emergence of the hugely exciting Lewis Hamilton. There is a nasty idea in my head that the FIA could end up punishing McLaren and punishing Alonso (because of the emails) but exonerating Hamilton. That way, Hamilton can win the World Championship while McLaren still get punished.

Yesterday Rory left a comment on this blog pointing out that the rumoured conversation between de la Rosa and Alonso was infact a fabrication. But that does not mean that the emails did not exist. They could have contained perfectly innocent information — or it could have been far worse than suggested by La Gazzetta dello Sport.

For the integrity of F1, and for the sake of this year’s fantastic World Championship, let us hope it is the former.

Update: See also Formula 1 Insight: Sport and Politics in Formula One.

7 comments

2006 Chinese Grand Prix

1 October 2006 17:41

Categories: Formula 1

An entertaining race, well worth getting up at 6am for. Even if it’s zombified me for the rest of the day. It seemed as though Renault were going to walk away with it today. With the changeable conditions, the Michelins were clearly coping better in the wet.

At least that was the case in qualifying. You could literally have split the running order in two — the top half was of Michelin runners, the backmarkers were all on Bridgestones. The only person to spoil it was Michael Schumacher who incredibly qualified his car in 6th. The next Bridgestone runner was his team mate Felipe Massa way back in 13th. Imagine if everybody was on the same tyres! Schumacher would have completely blitzed the field.

So the buildup to the race this morning went pretty much along the lines of, ‘Schumacher is great. Just a shame his tyres are useless.’ James Allen said that somebody up there was being kind to Fernando Alonso this weekend. Well today that person up there must have decided that he was too kind yesterday, and conspired to give Alonso the lion’s share of bad luck in the race.

It looked good to start off with. Alonso was absolutely supreme in the first corner, as was Kimi Räikkönen. Alonso built up a big lead in the first stint, but problems came after his first pitstop. The front tyres needed changing, but they kept the old rear tyres on. It seemed like a strange decision, and it turned out to be the wrong one indeed as Alonso’s lead was cut to zero before he had to relent to Giancarlo Fisichella and Schumacher.

It wasn’t over for Alonso though. On a decent set of tyres he was still the fastest driver. But during his pitstop where he changed to dry tyres a wheel nut got stuck, adding at least 10 seconds to his time. Were it not for that, Alonso could well have won.

As it was, Schumacher was able to take the victory. The first lap out on dry tyres was clearly crucial. The track was still damp and cold in spots, and we clearly saw that those who fully committed — Alonso, Schumacher — benefited. Meanwhile drivers who tentatively tiptoed out of the pits — Fisichella, Kubica (who changed to dries too early anyway) — lost ground big time. Schumacher’s move on Fisichella into turn 1 on Fisi’s out lap was outstanding.

It was a weekend of good drives. Not only had Schumacher and Alonso excelled themselves, but Jenson Button also shone in the final phase of the race with the drying track. After a little off where he lost a place to Pedro de la Rosa, Button came back in the final laps to spectacularly climb his way up to 4th which culminated in an amazing scrap at the penultimate corner of the race.

Six cars into one corner doesn’t go. But Button drove smartly to take Barrichello, then Heidfeld. The latter two were both disadvantaged by the traffic, and de la Rosa was able to take 5th. Takuma Sato was subsequently disqualified for “blocking faster drivers”. Yes, it’s funny how his presence benefited his pseudo-team mate Button. But Sato’s team mate, Sakon Yamamoto, can congratulate himself for finally finishing a race for the first time!

As for the tyre war, during the race it seemed as though the Michelins weren’t quite as dominant as they were in qualifying. Looking at the results, I am no longer so sure. The only Bridgestone runners to get a decent result were Schumacher and Mark Webber (who scored an increasingly rare point for Williams).

Schumacher’s team mate, Massa, had a torrid race which culminated in a clumsy crash with David Coulthard. I am now absolutely convinced that Michael Schumacher drove out of his skin today. He was ecstatic at the end of the race. He obviously desperately wants to end his career on a high.

But Alonso will also be determined to win the Championship this year. He must be looking on at his future team, McLaren, with trepidation. Räikkönen’s car failed yet again today. Reliability is still a major problem for McLaren. This could be Alonso’s last chance to win the Championship for a while.

Anyway, today’s result leaves Schumacher and Alonso tied at the top with 116 points each. But officially Schumacher leads the championship because he’s won more races. Contrary to what most people are saying, the championship is not guaranteed to go down to the wire.

If Alonso fails to score and Schumacher wins in Japan, Schumi’s lead will be unassailable. Even though Alonso could win in Brazil to level the scoring again, Schumacher would still win the championship because he has won more races this year. That would be the closest championship in history. It’s certainly a pleasure to be watching it, even at silly o’clock.

Full race result

Update: F1 Fanatic Keith Collantine points out:

Fernando Alonso would be leading this year’s championship by 15 points if it weren’t for the man who changes his right-rear wheel.

7 comments

2006 Hungarian Grand Prix

8 August 2006 16:05

Categories: Formula 1, General, Personal

Sorry I’m so late with this post on the most incredible grand prix of the year. I’ve been very busy recently, and when I’ve not been busy I’ve been tired.

Anyway, from an early age — probably when I turned 4 in 1990 — I learned that everything bad in life can be attributed to the 1980s. VHS is one of the decade’s prime bad-ups. I missed the final five laps of the Hungarian Grand Prix because I had to go to work. I thought I would be okay, but being a wet race it lasted much longer than most races do. No worry, I thought: the race is being taped for my brother anyway. Yeah, well it would have been okay had the tape not chewed up and just displayed a lot of white noise. Gah.

Still, the happiness / grumpiness balance was slightly positive on Sunday because what I had seen of the race was absolutely fantastic.

It didn’t just start on Sunday. Fernando Alonso was given a 2 second penalty in qualifying for overtaking under a yellow flag and bizarrely brake-testing, shaking his fist at and veering towards Red Bull test driver Robert Doornbos. Apparently Alonso felt as though Doornbos was holding him up — but this is practice. It’s not as if it’s important. And why single out poor Doornbos? What has he ever done wrong? It seems as though Alonso has a lot of frustration at the moment, and he is letting it out on the racetrack in some bizarre ways.

But as if Alonso’s penalty wasn’t incredible enough, Michael Schumacher ended up getting a 2 second qualifying penalty aswell for overtaking under a red flag, which is a big no-no. Schumi says he was given no option but to overtake, after Alonso slowed a queue of cars right down. Looking at the footage, that is a convincing explanation. But there was still no need for Schumacher to overtake under a red flag. It’s not difficult to hit the brakes.

Under those circumstances, the race was always going to be good. But then came the rain. How long is it since there’s been a wet race? Two or three years? Too long, that’s for sure. It was to turn out to be one of those days where all of the big names cracked.

Michael Schumacher had an incredible start — up from 11th on the grid to 4th after just one lap. Alonso took longer to make his way through the field, but eventually he was up to the lead. Not before Alonso and Schumacher had a fun battle on the track. You seldom see championship contenders battling like that on-track — mostly they make their moves via impenetrable pit strategies. But in that phase of the race — on a wet track — Alonso’s Michelin tyres were so much better than Schumacher’s Bridgestones. With Alonso stroming up so quickly they had no choice but to meet on the track.

Kimi Räikkönen was initially looking quite good for the win. But he ran into trouble — and another car — when it came to lapping Vitantonio Liuzzi. It was a spectacular crash, with Kimi practically climbing over the top of Liuzzi’s car. It was difficult to say from the replays exactly who was to blame. It looked as though Räikkönen was just too slow to move out of Liuzzi’s way. But right now Liuzzi seems to be getting the blame for slowing down too much.

After Kimi’s crash, Alonso had taken the lead. After Renault’s poor form since the US Grand Prix and Alonso’s disastrous build-up to the race, this was quite a turn up for the books — but Alonso looked as though he was going to win. That was before he had the most bizarre “driveshaft failure” in history. It was the sort of driveshaft failure that makes your car go all wobbly and throws a few wheel nuts off your car straight after a pitstop.

I don’t think many people buy Alonso’s explanation — which he gave unprompted. It seemed to everybody else as though the tyre change didn’t go to plan. But did Alonso and Renault really have to make up a driveshaft failure? It is more embarassing for Renault to have wheel nuts flying off their car than it is for their car to have a driveshaft failure?

With Alonso dispatched, the lead was taken by, of all people, Jenson Button. Like Alonso and Schumacher, Button started low down in the grid due to an engine penalty. Button felt good about his car, but the engine change caused a worry plus an extra ten cars to pass.

But the wet conditions really showed up the current qualifying rules for their ridiculousness. It was actually an advantage to qualify outside the top ten because further down the grid you are allowed to change your fuel load between qualifying and the race. Meanwhile, the top ten qualifiers were stuck with the same fuel loads that they used during qualifying — fuel loads designed for a dry race. When the heavens opened, the strategy of everybody in the top ten was dumped on.

Button drove a great race though. He made some great overtaking manoeuvres — most memorably on Michael Schumacher at turn 1, a clean and brave move. And now Button only needed to finish the race and he would win.

But the race wasn’t over. Most of the action seemed to revolve around Michael Schumacher. He lost part of his front wing in an edgy battle with Fisichella. He then overdid it against Pedro de la Rosa, skipping the same chicane twice. He should have been penalised, but it didn’t matter in the end because de la Rosa was so fast that he overtook Schumacher anyway. Then there was yet another battle with Heidfeld, when Schumacher parked his car in the garage. It seemed as though both World Championship contenders had come away from this pivotal race without scoring!

Meanwhile, Button was still out in the lead. James Allen and Anthony Davidson, ITV’s commentators, were buzzing. Allen had put several curses on Button by talking up his chances of a win. Meanwhile Davidson — Honda’s test driver — very much looked at things from the team’s point of view. “Don’t forget,” Davidson said when Jenson first took the lead, “that I chose the tyres for this race — so this is a pretty nervous moment for me aswell.”

When Button finally met the chequered flag for the first time in his Formula 1 career, Davidson yelped, “I can’t believe I was on television for this race! Martin Brundle, what have you done?!” Brundle was on holiday. I’ve read on some places that Brundle deliberately missed out the Hungarian Grand Prix because it is usually a boring race. I’m pretty sure it’s not the first time that Brundle has skipped the Hungarian GP. But he chose the wrong one to skip this year.

The Hungaroring has a reputation for being a processional race circuit where it is impossible to overtake. Maybe some of that is justified, but all circuits have seen processional races, and I can remember quite a few exciting races there. How could you forget the drama of the 1997 race where Damon Hill took his drastically underpowered Arrows within a whisker of a win? Or last year when Räikkönen recovered from a nightmare situation — having to start first in qualifying — to win the race?

And I certainly don’t think many people would consider this race to be boring. Button has finally broken his duck. Although I’m not his biggest fan, his first win has been long overdue after 115 entries. This is also Honda’s first win as a constructor since 1967, although of course they had plenty as engine manufacturers in the 1980s and 1990s.

It marks the end of a three year long drought of British winners — the longest in history apparently. Button is also the first Englishman to win a race since Johnny Herbert took the flag at the 1999 European Grand Prix — another crazy wet race.

It was also great to see Pedro de la Rosa take his first-ever podium and Nick Heidfeld, perhaps the most ignored driver of the past decade, taking a well-deserved third place.

Even after the chequered flag had fallen, though, the drama wasn’t over. Robert Kubica — Poland’s first F1 driver in his first race — had finished 7th to take two Championship points. But in scrutineering his car was found to be 2kg underweight. Apparently this was down to excessive tyre wear, with no malicious intentions. What a terrible shame for Kubica.

But his disqualification meant that Schumacher was awarded a point, so the Championship lead has been cut down to just ten points!

All-in-all, this was a race that reminded you of how much can change in F1 in just a couple of months. Just a couple of months ago Alonso’s Championship lead looked virtually unassailable. And if you asked me a couple of months ago if I thought Button would win a race this year I would have laughed.

Now we’re being lined up for an exciting down-to-the-wire Championship battle. The next race is at Turkey. I can’t wait.

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