The 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix, which closed the season, didn’t exactly go the way Rubens Barrichello might have wished.

Having qualified his Williams-Cosworth 12^th – a position which considerably flattered the car – he then made a terrible start, so that even a fine drive thereafter got him only as high as 14^th at the flag.

It wasn’t the race Barrichello had been hoping for, but then his luck at home had always been famously awful. More than once, in the Ferrari days, he had the race bought and paid for, only for something to go wrong. Born within shouting distance of the circuit, Rubens not surprisingly wanted to win at Interlagos more than anywhere else, but the cards never fell his way.

Last November, though, the race had an added ingredient for him, because the chances were high that it would be the last time he would race a Grand Prix car – not merely in front of his own people, but anywhere. In difficult circumstances he had done an excellent job for Williams – particularly in 2010, his first season with the team – but while cash-rich Pastor Maldonado was sure to keep his drive for ’12, there was no word as to who would partner him. Barrichello, although closing on his 40^th birthday, had his hopes of staying on to enjoy a 20^th season in Formula 1, but other, younger, men were in the frame, some of them ‘with a budget’, and many doubted that Rubens would get the nod.

He refused to contemplate such a thing, however, brushing away suggestions that he should turn the Interlagos weekend into an emotional farewell to his fans. Barrichello well knew that the moment would come to call time on his F1 career, but in his mind he wasn’t there yet. Sadly, as with Jean Alesi, others made the decision for him.

I say ‘sadly’ because, of all the Grand Prix drivers I have known, only Clay Regazzoni matched Barrichello in his pure love of what he was doing. Rubens was 19 when he made his F1 debut with Jordan back in 1993, and in the intervening years never gave so much as a momentary thought to retirement – indeed if anything his enthusiasm for life as a Grand Prix driver only increased as he got older.

Like Regazzoni, Barrichello was occasionally a winner, and on merit, but neither man was driven in the manner of a Senna, and each had values not always found in their contemporaries. It is often said of a driver who fails to make it to the very highest echelon that he was ‘too nice a guy’, and perhaps Rubens comes into this bracket. He lacked the killer instinct probably necessary to make it to the very top – not so much on the track as in his behaviour off it. Not long ago he told me that, whereas most top drivers would insist, if only one new front wing or whatever were available, on having it, such a thing made him feel only guilty: he preferred to compete on equal terms. Trust me, you don’t meet many like this…

Because of that, and because his Latin heart was always so obviously on his sleeve, some of Barrichello’s rivals considered him a bit ‘soft’, but I always thought that unjust. Certainly Rubens was always more emotional, more willing to say what he thought, than most, but he was no push-over on the race track – even if, like Alain Prost, he had a strong sense of right and wrong, and would never endanger a rival.

Like Prost, too, Barrichello was superb at setting up a race car, and when he had it to his liking, and the mood was on him, sometimes he could be unbeatable. I think now of the 2003 British Grand Prix at Silverstone – the notorious race in which a lunatic ran amuck on the Hangar Straight – when his drive was a masterpiece of controlled aggression. Twice he took on, and passed, Kimi Raikkonen, first getting by the McLaren on the outside into Abbey, then later daring to threaten Kimi into Bridge, which made him run wide at the exit, and settled the affair once and for all.

For six seasons as Schumacher’s Ferrari team mate Barrichello was obliged to race under severe constraints, often – as in Austria two years running – being obliged to obey Jean Todt’s orders, and give way to Michael after consummately out-driving him. No, of course he didn’t enjoy it, but he would argue that at that time the second Ferrari was better than the first anything else, and it was difficult to take issue.

Finally, after an incident at Indianapolis in 2005, Rubens concluded that enough was enough, and asked to be released from his contract a year early, so as to join Honda. After three seasons with uncompetitive cars, partnering Jenson Button, there followed an Indian Summer with the team – now reconstituted as Brawn: in 2009 Barrichello won twice, and was a factor everywhere. We’re only talking about a couple of years ago…

Now, though, with Bruno Senna signed at Williams, it seems to be all over for Rubens in F1, and in Brazil he will be grieving, for he has known nothing else. It’s unlikely now that he will ever be offered a worthwhile drive again, and – maybe I’m wrong – it’s difficult to envisage his being tempted into a lesser form of motor racing, so entirely has his career been based around F1. So I offer a salute to a very fine Grand Prix driver, on occasion a great one, and a delightful man, with values from another time.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Austin, Texas, my American friends tell me, is a pleasing town very different in character from such as Dallas or Houston, and ever since plans were announced for a new state-of-the-art circuit, bringing Formula 1 back to the USA, I had been looking forward to going there for the inaugural race in 2012 – particularly after it was rescheduled from June, when the temperature would have been off the clock, to November.

Now, however, it looks to be the case that the US Grand Prix at Austin won’t take place until 2013 – if ever. Disputes – inevitably financial – have broken out between different entities in Texas, construction work on the circuit has ceased – at least for the moment – and the whole thing not surprisingly has infuriated Bernie Ecclestone. If there’s one thing Bernie can’t stand it’s dithering: if something is promised, then not delivered, his patience swiftly evaporates.

History shows, too, that Ecclestone’s fuse tends to be shorter when dealing with the USA than with anywhere else (save perhaps Silverstone). Although the F1 teams – and particularly their sponsors – have repeatedly made clear to him the importance of having at least one Grand Prix in America, Bernie and rights holder CVC have preferred to expand F1 in the Far East, where most people couldn’t care less about motor racing but cash-rich governments are apparently prepared to spend whatever it takes for the prestige of hosting a Grand Prix.

F1 first ventured to the USA at the end of 1959 (above), and the venue chosen was Sebring, already long familiar to most of the drivers as the home of the 12 Hours. Although the final race of the year, and a World Championship decider, the event was not a great success – resonating with American fans far less than the sports car race – and in 1960 the US Grand Prix transferred to Riverside, one of the country’s finest circuits. Again, though, it failed to raise much of a ripple and the ’61 race, it was announced, would be run at Watkins Glen in upstate New York.

This was the start of the great period in Grand Prix racing in America. The Glen was a success from the beginning, and at last the US Grand Prix had found itself a natural home. Throw in the fact that at that time such as Clark, Brabham, Hill, Stewart, Hulme, Rindt et al also became Indianapolis 500 regulars, and that many of the top F1 drivers competed in the Can-Am series, and you can readily see how their names became part of the American racing fabric. You went to the Glen and you saw fans every bit as committed – and knowledgeable – as their counterparts in Europe, F1’s spiritual homeland.

The whole thing started to get even bigger in the mid-70s, when Chris Pook put on an inaugural race for F5000 cars through the streets of Long Beach, and then announced that in 1976 the event would be a round of the F1 World Championship. Again, it was a great success, and – briefly – we had the ideal situation in America with a Grand Prix on the West Coast at the beginning of the season, another on the East Coast at the end.

It didn’t last, though. By the late ’70s crowds were starting to dwindle at the Glen (above) – and, in this new era of F1, the price of putting on a Grand Prix was going up. At the time much was also made of the fact that Watkins Glen, quite a way from any metropolitan centre, lacked the sort of five-star hotels and restaurants required by sponsors and their guests. (Quite clearly this problem was put on ice during negotiations for a Korean Grand Prix, where the joys of Mopko awaited, but hey, look at the cheque…)

The last Grand Prix at the Glen was run in 1980, but at least Long Beach continued to thrive – and had it remained on the F1 calendar, as it should have done, the sport in America would today be very much stronger than it is, for the link would not have been broken.

In 1981 and ’82, there were abortive races in Las Vegas, and perhaps someone somewhere should have taken on board that F1 wasn’t necessarily welcome in all parts of the USA. They didn’t, though, and when we went to Long Beach in 1983, it was for the last time. I remember talking to Pook that weekend: “Bernie’s trying to nail us to the cross on a future contract. I’ve told him we have to make money, too, and given him the figure that makes financial sense to us – and if he can’t accept that, on Tuesday I’m announcing that the 1984 Long Beach Grand Prix will be a CART race…”

This Chris duly did, for Bernie had called his bluff, and found that it wasn’t bluff at all. To this day, even with Indycar racing in a poor state, the Long Beach Grand Prix gets a good crowd, and it has always seemed to me that Ecclestone’s letting the race slip away was one of the few major miscalculations he has ever made.

By now, of course, we also had a Grand Prix through the streets of Detroit, and that ticked over for a few years until 1989 when it, too, became a CART race. In 1984 there was a one-off in Dallas, and if the race was chaotic with the appallingly laid track breaking up in the July heat, it certainly attracted a lot of spectators and seemed to have a future – except that someone went AWOL with the mess takings, and F1 never got paid. Went down very badly, that.

After the demise of Detroit another deal was struck, another city – Phoenix – tried, but the less said about those three races, from 1990-92, the better. One year there was a conflicting event – for ostrich racing – and it pulled a bigger crowd.

As F1 flitted around the USA, trying this venue and that, with sometimes a race in the World Championship calendar, sometimes not, it’s hardly surprising that it slipped increasingly out of the American consciousness. The fans had known all about Niki Lauda and James Hunt, but who were all these new guys?

When Ecclestone finally did a deal with Tony George for a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it seemed that perhaps – at last – Formula 1 had found a new permanent home in the USA. The first race, in 2000, attracted more than 200,000 spectators, and if this were small compared with a 500 crowd, still it was a figure unapproached in Grand Prix racing since the great days of the Nordschleife. Subsequent crowds were never to match it, but even so remained substantial by comparison with other F1 races.

After eight races at Indy, though, it was all over. Having spent a fortune not only on constructing a road circuit, but also partially remodelling the IMS as an F1 venue (in terms of covered pits, and so on, which did not sit well with traditional 500 aficionados), Tony George found himself unable to meet Ecclestone’s fiscal demands for 2008 and beyond. Many, myself included, have always felt that Indianapolis – in more ways than one – was treated shamefully by F1, which was now, yet again, out of America.

As F1 continued to spread itself ever wider towards the Far East and all that loot, the team owners maintained that something had to be done about the USA. Amid endless trumpeting about the need for a World Championship, it was patently absurd that North America – Canada apart – was missing from the schedule. Then the Austin project came up, and very promising it seemed…

Who knows where it is now – but perhaps it has suddenly become less crucial to the F1 business plan, for recently it was announced that in 2013, the weekend after the Canadian Grand Prix, another race will take place in the US on a street circuit in New Jersey, just across the river from Manhattan. This is as close to Ecclestone’s long-held dream of a New York Grand Prix as ever we will get – and closer than most of us imagined could ever happen.

Many in the paddock have long maintained that there should be a minimum of two Grands Prix in the USA, and the New Jersey announcement was greeted with delight – even if it didn’t go down well with those involved in the Austin project. Now it may be that Jersey will be the country’s only race once more: here there’s no need to spend untold millions on building a track, and all the investment is private, so there should be no controversies about ‘wasting tax payers’ dollars’ in a time of economic stringency. As for Austin, well, time will tell…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Seventeen races into the 2011 Grand Prix season, and the scorecard reads thus: Sebastian Vettel 11, The Rest 6.  At the inaugural Indian Grand Prix Vettel comfortably took pole position, took the lead at the start, and was never – even during tyre stops – headed.  If Sebastian never led by more than a few seconds, so he never looked like being seriously threatened – only Jenson Button, indeed, was anywhere in the vicinity of the Red Bull.

There had been some misgivings about this first race in India – suggestions that construction work was running late, just as in Korea a year ago – but although undeniably there was scope for improvement in the infrastructure at the Buddh International Circuit, the track itself drew nothing but praise from the drivers.  Undulating, and offering a fine mix of fast and slow corners, it was widely hailed as Hermann Tilke’s best track design to date.  As in Korea, the drivers disliked the pitlane exit, but otherwise they had only compliments for the new circuit.

One abiding problem, though, was dust.  New circuits always seem to be troubled this way, and doubtless the situation will be very much better when Formula 1 ventures back to New Delhi in a year’s time, but undoubtedly it hampered the racing in this first event.  Every time a driver put a wheel off, a cloud of thick dust would fly up – and inevitably, to some degree, settle on the track surface.

What made it particularly unfortunate was that Tilke had – for the first time – designed into the track extra-wide entrances to some of the corners, the hope being that this would offer a variety of different lines, and potentially improve overtaking.  As it was, the track was dirty everywhere – and obviously particularly so off the normal accepted line, which meant that drivers were reluctant to stray very far from it.

Singapore apart, additions to the F1 calendar in the relatively recent past – Shanghai, Istanbul, Sepang, Yeongam – have sparked little or no interest in the local populace, but there was evidence of keen interest in India: the place may not have been full, but the crowd was sizeable, and the F1 fraternity came away convinced that this new Grand Prix was a keeper.

Having no previous experience of the circuit on which to draw, Pirelli took a conservative approach to choosing its compounds for this race, going for soft and hard, and forgetting about super-soft and medium.  This was of some concern to Ferrari, whose cars have struggled on the hard compound this season, but in point of fact Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa were agreeably surprised in India.  Certainly there was a sizeable time gap between the two compounds – a second and a half a lap, according to some – but it seemed to be that way for all the cars. Well, apart from Red Bull, anyway…

As it turned out, Pirelli could have been more adventurous in its approach, for tyre degradation proved to be unusually low, but of course no one was to know that in advance.

In qualifying no one offered a serious threat to Vettel, who was quickest by three-tenths, and the man nearest at hand – Lewis Hamilton – actually lined up fifth, rather than second, having been ‘fined’ three grid positions for ignoring waved yellow flags during practice on Friday.

Thus the second Red Bull of Mark Webber was promoted to the front row, with Alonso and Button on row two, and Hamilton and Massa – those two again – on row three.  Almost inevitably, Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes was best of the rest, seventh, but Michael Schumacher surprisingly failed to make it out of Q2, and lined up only 12^th.  He would swiftly make amends for that when the race got underway.

Before the cars went to the grid a minute’s silence was observed in respect of Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli, and many cars and drivers also carried stickers in memory of the two fallen men.

Then it was away to the start, and many had hoped that Alonso might make one of his bullet getaways, as at Monza, and lead – or at least split – the Red Bulls for a lap or two.  Fernando got off the line well enough, but in trying to get by Webber into the first right-hander left his braking too late and ran wide, which allowed Button’s McLaren through into third place.

In the course of that first lap Jenson also got by Webber, the Mercedes-powered McLaren vastly quicker in a straight line – even though DRS was not yet enabled – than the Renault-engined Red Bull.  That, though, was as far as Button was going, for already Vettel – yet again – was motoring away into the distance.  By lap four he was almost three seconds to the good, and every time around added a few tenths more.

“In the early laps,” said Jenson, “I concentrated on keeping Mark behind me, and eventually I think we ‘broke’ his rear tyres, so that I was able to build a gap. Then I tried to set about Seb – but it was very hard to close him down…”

If Button found it impossible to do much about Vettel, still he was having another splendid afternoon at the races, but the same could not be said of his team-mate. Following his well-documented personal woes, Hamilton appeared to be in a slightly better frame of mind in India, and in the days before the race spoke of putting everything but racing out of his head. Certainly he appeared more animated and at ease than in Korea, and there were hopes that his fine drive to second at Yeongam might have helped him begin to turn a corner in his life, to drive again like Lewis Hamilton. As it was, though, he was beaten away from the start by Massa, and in the first stint of the race ran a quite distant sixth, nowhere near the pace of his team-mate.

For the front-runners the first stops began on lap 16, when Webber, Alonso and Hamilton came in for more of Pirelli’s soft compound tyres, followed, on successive laps, by Massa and Rosberg, by Button and Schumacher, and finally, on lap 19, by Vettel. Almost at once Sebastian cranked out a new fastest lap, readily maintaining a four-second lead over Button, who led Webber by six seconds. Next came the Ferraris, Alonso a couple of seconds up on Massa, and Hamilton’s McLaren. As Lewis began to close on Felipe, everyone held their breath – surely it couldn’t happen again, could it?

It could. On lap 22, going into the slow ‘one-by-one’ section of the track, Hamilton tried to put a move on Massa – and instantly there was contact, the pair of them going off the road, then rejoining. At once Lewis came to the pits for a new nose, and it was announced that the incident was ‘under investigation’ by the stewards.

In the eyes of most onlookers this was ‘a racing incident’. That said, there was no doubt that the McLaren was by no means fully alongside the Ferrari at the time of the coming-together, and Massa – as the driver ahead – felt justified in keeping to his line. While the general hope was that neither driver would be punished, if blame were to be apportioned it seemed likely that Hamilton would be the driver to get the penalty. Thus there was some considerable… surprise when it was announced that Massa would get a ‘drive-through’…

“I didn’t feel like I was at fault,” said Lewis. “It was a racing incident…”

Perhaps not surprisingly Felipe didn’t see it that way. “I can only say that I don’t share the opinion of the stewards. I simply stayed on the ideal line, braking on the limit and staying on the part of the track that was rubbered in. What else could I do? It’s the umpteenth time that Hamilton runs into me this year, and it seems it’s some sort of fatal attraction…”

At the same corner Hamilton was noticeably more circumspect thereafter, not least in his attempts to get by Jaime Alguersuari’s Torro Rosso, which delayed him a while. As for Massa, his race ended when he went too hard, too deep, over a kerb and broke the Ferrari’s front suspension, just as he had done at the end of qualifying.

It may have been a great occasion, this first World Championship race in India, but in truth it was by no means a classic race. Although Button was able to make up time on Vettel around the time of pitstops, as soon as Sebastian settled into a rhythm again it was game over. “In terms of team effort, we did everything right today,” said Jenson. “I think we delivered the maximum possible – our car just wasn’t quick enough to win…”

The best scrap going on was that between Webber and Alonso, and Mark had slightly the upper hand until the last stops, when it was time for the obligatory switch to hard compound tyres. On lap 37 he came in, but Fernando made his soft Pirellis last a couple of laps longer – and made good use of them, so that when he rejoined after his own stop he was in front of the Red Bull. What’s more, he found the Ferrari behaving better on the hard tyres than previous experience of them might have led him to expect. In the closing laps of the race Webber began to catch him, but he was unable quite to get on terms, and it was Alonso who made the third step of the podium.

There never was any doubt, though, that Vettel and Button – one and two in the World Championship for some time now – would finish that way in the race. Alonso and Webber followed them in, and then – more than a minute behind the winner – came the Mercedes duo of Schumacher and Rosberg, Michael having got ahead of Nico at the final stops. Alguersuari again impressed, finishing eighth, and the final point scorers were Force India’s Adrian Sutil and Sauber’s Sergio Perez. For the locals, it was especially pleasing that Narain Karthikeyan, granted a rare race drive by HRT, made it to the finish, having driven well – if a little obstructively – all weekend.

In light of the recent tragedies in the sport, the podium in India was appropriately more subdued than usual, the drivers’ expressions reflective rather than exultant. Now come only Abu Dhabi and Interlagos – both of which were won last year by… Sebastian Vettel…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

In recent days, following his visit to the Williams HQ, there has been considerable speculation about the possibility of a Formula 1 return for Kimi Räikkönen. Do we take the stories seriously or not? The evidence is that we should.

Räikkönen is such a maverick that probably nothing about him should surprise us by now, but I’ll confess to being at least a little taken aback when I learned of his visit to Grove. His two-year excursion into the World Rally Championship has been rather less successful than anticipated, and it didn’t amaze me when he briefly dabbled with NASCAR earlier this year.

A return to F1 though… that was a different matter, not least because as soon as he had swapped Ferrari overalls for Citroen, Kimi missed no opportunity to stress how much he wasn’t missing F1, how much better suited to his personality was this new and more relaxed world of rallying.

Perhaps if his outings in the Citroen had gone better Räikkönen might now be contemplating a long-term future in the WRC, but the company’s motor sport director Olivier Quesnel recently made clear his disappointment in the way things had turned out, and now Kimi must find something new. His couple of NASCAR outings amused him, but when a permanent move there was mooted some gently pointed out that they couldn’t see him committing to a 36-race schedule..

Räikkönen himself has often said that he was born too late, that his personality would have been better suited to the Formula 1 of 30 and 40 years ago. Not by chance did he once use the pseudonym ‘James Hunt’ when putting in an entry for a powerboat race. As party animals, the two had much in common, and undoubtedly Kimi would have thrived in a more relaxed F1 than the one we have today. Lewis Hamilton may have complained of late about the PR demands made of him by McLaren, but Räikkönen’s distaste for such work was on another level altogether, and it’s difficult to imagine that his outlook has changed – or will change.

It is said that Kimi’s Ferrari contract was the most lucrative in motor racing history, but if the team was looking for another motivator, in the Schumacher mould, it was to be sadly disappointed. While he was liked by Ferrari personnel, he rarely visited Maranello, and never became part of the fabric of the team. As always with Räikkönen, there were flashes of brilliance – even genius – but they didn’t come as frequently as in his McLaren days, and too often he was outshone by Felipe Massa, a man earning way, way less, yet one who gave his heart and soul to Ferrari in a way Kimi never did.

It was interesting that after Massa’s accident in Hungary in August 2009 (which ended his season) Räikkönen, partnered now by such as Badoer and Fisichella, stepped up to the plate in Felipe’s absence and turned in far better performances than earlier in the year. It was, however, too little too late for by now Luca di Montezemolo – at whose instigation Kimi had gone to Ferrari in the first place thus ending Schumacher’s Maranello career – had concluded he could wait no longer to get Fernando Alonso aboard. Already contracted for 2011, Alonso went there a year early, while Ferrari paid off the final season of Räikkönen’s contract.

When Kimi left F1 for the WRC it was, as I said, apparently without a backward glance so now, if he is seriously contemplating a return, why so? If the rallying had been successful would he be thinking that way? If he hasn’t missed the ambience of the F1 paddock, has he missed driving a Grand Prix car? His former McLaren team mate, Juan Pablo Montoya after all, has admitted that while he prefers the freer atmosphere of NASCAR and savours the non-stop racing, for sheer visceral driving pleasure there is nothing like a Grand Prix car.

If Räikkönen returns, and with Williams, the sword is double-edged for both parties. The team’s fortunes after all are at an all-time low point, with only five points scored in this year’s World Championship. As for Kimi, he is apparently in limbo. When he parted from Ferrari two years ago no comparable F1 opportunity presented itself – and none does now.

For the last couple of years the Williams team leader has been Rubens Barrichello (who lest we forget won two Grands Prix for Brawn as recently as 2009). Sam Michael, who leaves Williams for McLaren for 2012, has said that Barrichello is the best driver he has ever worked with and there is no doubt that his experience and expertise with feedback has been hugely beneficial to the team, perhaps more so last year than this. Rubens is keen to carry on for a 20th F1 season, but there have been signs this summer past that, faced with yet another middling car, his motivation has finally wilted a little.

Barrichello is not cheap, certainly in Williams terms, and is said also to be less than enthusiastic about PR commitments. Therefore, while Pastor Maldonado – with his Venezuelan petro-dollars – will assuredly stay for 2012, Rubens’s future with Williams is in considerable doubt.

Will a deal with Räikkönen therefore be done? Kimi will appreciate that lofty fiscal requirements are out of the question – but he will have known that before ever he made his factory visit. And he will know too that an ultra-competitive car – such as he was accustomed to with McLaren and Ferrari – is unlikely to materialise.

As for Williams, they know all about the free spirit that is Kimi and everything that entails. They know too that he’s not the greatest test driver and that his motivation is not always what it should be. “Race to race,” a McLaren man said, “we never knew which Kimi we were going to get…”

On the other hand, at their best, Williams has been one of the great teams and Räikkönen one of the great drivers. Back in 1976 Mario Andretti finally committed himself to fulltime F1, with Lotus, but not too many eyebrows were raised. “I had a talk with Colin (Chapman),” Mario said. “I guess we were both experiencing some kind of low in our careers – but it wasn’t just that misery loves company. I couldn’t see Colin staying down indefinitely, and he thought the same about me. ‘Let’s see if we can help each other’ we decided, and I guess it worked out…”

Very well, that was then, and this is now, but maybe – just maybe – Williams and Räikkönen might work out too. Kimi after all, might appreciate a less pressured F1 environment, might savour the thought of trying to tweak the noses of McLaren and Ferrari, while at Williams they would surely relish the prospect of having one of his talent aboard again.

Both team and driver have delivered in the past, that much is beyond a doubt. Whether or not they can do so again in the future is more open to question, but it seems to me that at this point neither side has too much to lose by giving it a try…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Red Bull people insisted afterwards that they had not gone to Monza with the highest expectations, for the cars had struggled there in 2009 and ’10, and again they had suspected that the track’s characteristics would not favour them.

If they truly meant what they said, a pleasant surprise awaited them at Monza, for Sebastian Vettel not only conclusively outpaced everyone in qualifying, but also left them behind on race day, too. After one of his stupendous starts, Fernando Alonso thrilled the fans by leading briefly in his Ferrari, but it was only a matter of time before Vettel went by, and soon the Red Bull disappeared into a race of its own. The Italian Grand Prix victory was Sebastian’s eighth of the season. No one else has won more than two.

McLaren fancied their chances in Italy, and indeed both Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton featured prominently, but they had no answer for Vettel, and in fact were split – second and fourth – by Alonso’s Ferrari.

Fifth, after a fine drive at one of his favourite hunting grounds, was Michael Schumacher, who made the very most of his Mercedes’ spectacular top speed, and had a long scrap with Hamilton which, for many, was the highlight of the afternoon. And this was an afternoon with many highlights, a Grand Prix to remember.

Monza, as we said, was not, according to Red Bull people, a track which played to the strengths of their car: “Not that many corners where we’re quick,” commented Mark Webber, “and plenty of long straights where we’re not…”

There again, before Spa they said much the same: it wasn’t a ‘Red Bull circuit’. Result: Vettel first, Webber second…

And so to qualifying at Monza. “Clearly we’re very competitive here,” said Hamilton, “but… Sebastian was mega-quick today. It looked like Jenson and I would be in with a chance of the pole, but Seb’s final lap… he was just untouchable…”

Indeed he was. The pole at Monza is normally won by hundredths, sometimes thousandths, but Vettel was all but half a second faster than Hamilton and Button, with Alonso – who started from pole last year and went on to win the race – fourth.

“I have good memories of Monza,” said Sebastian, “because I won my first race here. I also like the track, although it’s not one of our best – I just feel I got everything out of the car today. My confidence is quite high – certainly more than it was at Spa.” Where he won, of course.

“Fortunately,” commented Button, “pole isn’t as important here as it was in previous years, because now we’ve got DRS. I don’t think Red Bull are going to have it all in their favour – I think we’re definitely in the mix, and I also think it could be a very good race…”

Part of the reason for cautious optimism among Red Bull’s leading rivals was that Vettel was clearly running a short top gear. Fine for a banzai qualifying lap – but Seb’s car was actually slowest of all through the speed trap before the first chicane, and could clearly be heard ‘running on the limiter’ for several hundred yards.

The thinking was, therefore, that Vettel needed a bullet start, then several blistering laps to get himself out of range when DRS came into operation after three laps. If he got mired in traffic, well, he might be in trouble…

That was the theory, anyway. Alonso, though, said he suspected it wouldn’t be as crucial as that. “If qualifying was any guide,” he said, “Sebastian’s car is a lot quicker than anything else – maybe McLaren are able to do something, but I don’t think Ferrari can compete with Red Bull. I’ll try, of course – the first thing I need to do is make up some places at the start…”

It was again blazing hot on race day, which was good news for Ferrari, given the problems they have had through this cool, damp summer in getting their tyres up to temperature. “Yes, that’s good,” Fernando agreed, “but what we need is to be competitive on all types of tyre – we’re always quick on the soft compound, but we lose a lot of time on hard or medium.” The compounds on offer from Pirelli at Monza were soft and medium.

Nico Rosberg qualified only ninth, which was a surprise until one appreciated that he had set his best time on the medium compound tyres, and would therefore go to the grid equipped differently from any of the other front runners.

That raised an intriguing prospect, but we were never to know if Rosberg’s tactic had been inspired or not, for his Mercedes – together with Petrov’s Renault – was wiped out at the chicane immediately after the start when Tonio Liuzzi made a novice’s mistake under braking, slithered across the grass and into the pack, causing mayhem. Others cars, too, were damaged – including Barrichello’s Williams – but all save Petrov, Rosberg – and, of course, Liuzzi – were able to continue after treatment.

The start had been spectacular indeed, with Hamilton alongside poleman Vettel, running to his right – and then Alonso, from fourth on the grid, running to the right of Lewis!

“I was,” Vettel said, “taken by surprise by Fernando at the start – I didn’t know where he came from, and it took me a while to realise we were actually three abreast as we went towards the first turn…”

To the delight of the tifosi Alonso had momentum on both his rivals, and led cleanly into the chicane. “We definitely were not competitive with Red Bull and McLaren this weekend,” he said, “and I knew it wouldn’t last, but still it was important to do it…”

And of course it didn’t last. After a couple of laps behind the safety car (following the Liuzzi fracas) they were sent on their way again, and at once Vettel was all over the Ferrari. Alonso defended well, but into the Curva Grande on lap five the Red Bull was right on him, Vettel initially undecided which side to go. Ultimately he chose to try then move on the outside, which was risky, and afterwards he said that Alonso had not given him much room. No surprise there, for Fernando was not about to make it easy for him – and anyway needed a lot of road himself. Neither man lifted and Sebastian came out of the corner ahead – but at the moment of overtaking had two wheels on the grass. It was breathless stuff.

Once in front, the Red Bull pulled effortlessly away, at close to a second a lap, and sometimes more. Barring a mechanical problem, it was game over, and indeed no one got near the World Champion again.

Gone from the proceedings in the meantime was his team-mate. On lap five Webber had a coming-together at the first chicane with Massa’s Ferrari, which removed the Red Bull’s nose. Mark continued on round, heading for the pits, but went into Parabolica at a speed which required more front downforce than his car now possessed. At some speed the Red Bull skittered over the gravel trap and into the tyre barrier. Webber, second in the World Championship at the beginning of the day, would drop to fourth by the end of it.

While Vettel tore away in the lead, Alonso looked likely to come under threat from Schumacher and Hamilton, duelling away behind him.

No question about it, Michael is driving more like his old self at the moment. No one suggests that he will ever again be the driver he was, but his famously combative spirit is alive and well, and in a Mercedes prodigiously quick in a straight line he was making the most of an excellent start, and clearly savouring his first hand-to-hand battle with Lewis.

The pair circulated as one for lap after lap, and although it was apparent that the McLaren was quicker, getting it past Schumacher was a different matter. Michael used all his experience, plus some of the weaving for which he is notorious, and Lewis seemed stuck.

The most remarkable aspect of the scrap was the McLaren – even with DRS deployed – was unable to get on terms with the Mercedes, be it on the approach to the Ascari chicane or on the long pit straight.

It was clear, though, that Hamilton was getting held up, and before long had team-mate Button – who made a poor start – right behind him. On lap 16 he took a run at Schumacher into the Curva Grande, but the door was swiftly shut, and Lewis – half on the grass – was obliged to back off. Having lost momentum he was then passed by Jenson, who, to add insult to injury, proceeded to pass Schumacher into the Ascari chicane at the first attempt!

It was a brave move, you could say that, and Button acknowledged as much. “It was probably one of the best passes I’ve ever made. Michael doesn’t… give you much room, and I was overtaking him round the outside. I pretty much closed my eyes as I turned in…”

One wondered why, with the first round of pitstops imminent, Hamilton had put himself into a situation like that. As the leading McLaren driver, after all, he would have been the first to pit, and there was every likelihood that he would leapfrog Schumacher in the course of the stops. As it was, while Button raced away, he was obliged to sit behind the Mercedes for many more laps.

Essentially this compromised his entire afternoon. Schumacher pitted on lap 16, Hamilton two laps later – but when he rejoined the race, once again it was immediately behind Michael. Not until lap 27 – the halfway point – did he finally get by, but by then his team-mate was nine seconds up the road.

By this stage Button had been putting Alonso under severe pressure for some time, but Fernando continued to drive to his car’s limit, and it wasn’t until lap 36 that Jenson was able to find a way past.

“Once we’d made our final stops, and had to put on the harder tyres,” he said, “I could see that Fernando was having grip problems. We had a great fight, and I really enjoyed it – just a pity it wasn’t for the lead…”

Overtaken by Button, Alonso’s next concern was Hamilton. The Ferrari, as we have said, was hobbled on the harder Pirellis, whereas the McLaren was emphatically not. Setting a succession of new fastest laps, Lewis began to close very swiftly, and it looked as if he might have just enough laps to get himself on to the podium: four to the flag, three seconds behind…

In the event, though, Alonso predictably kept his cool – and his third place, half a second clear of Hamilton. “Another two or three laps, and he would have passed me,” Fernando said. “We were lucky today that he lost so much time behind Schumacher…”

Michael had fallen some way back by this time, but still he finished fifth, and said he had enjoyed the race – particularly the intense battle with Hamilton. Had Lewis viewed it the same way? “Mmm, it was motor racing…” he said.

The ‘classic’ portion of the season is not yet done – Suzuka and Interlagos are among the six races still to be run – but in the space of two weeks we have had two immensely satisfying Grands Prix, at Spa and Monza, motor racing theatres of the purest kind.

If the races have been exhilarating, for the other drivers they have been a touch demoralising, too, for Sebastian Vettel has conclusively won both of them, burying any mid-season hopes that perhaps he and Red Bull were beginning to lose a little of their magic. These two circuits, remember, were among those at which the team had previously not excelled.

Wins seven and eight in 2011 have taken Vettel’s points total to 284, his lead a staggering 112. Next in line sit Alonso (172), Button and Webber (167) and Hamilton (158). As Niki Lauda put it, “Without Sebastian, you know, this would be a hell of a close championship…”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

A very good Grand Prix, and for the first dozen laps a great one. True, eventually the inherent superiority of the Red Bull RB7 asserted itself at Spa, so that Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber scored a comfortable enough 1-2, but in the first part of the race the action at the front was frantic – indeed four different drivers led before an accident on lap 13, which eliminated Lewis Hamilton and brought out the safety car. At the finish Hamilton’s McLaren team-mate Jenson Button was third, followed by the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso and the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg.

It’s been said before, but it can never be said enough times: take them to a proper circuit, and you get a proper race.

Qualifying at Spa is invariably unpredictable, sometimes chaotic. The weather sees to that, and it’s been that way since the running of the first Belgian Grand Prix here, back in 1925. Fickle doesn’t make a start on it. Torrential rain can materialise from nowhere, and it is not unusual for one part of the circuit – at 4.35 miles it’s the longest in Formula 1 use – to be bone dry while another is streaming.

Conditions on both Friday and Saturday were mixed, but very rarely was the track entirely dry, and after qualifying all the drivers lamented the lack of dry running, for the the forecast for race day suggested that the sun would shine.

For all the uncertain conditions it was the usual suspects who figured most strongly in qualifying. There were, however, some anomalies. Right at the beginning of Q1, for example, Schumacher’s Mercedes shed its right rear wheel on the climb to Les Combes.

The Spa circuit is situated only 50 kilometres from Kerpen, Michael’s birth place, so he not surprisingly refers to it as ‘my garden’. In the days of his pomp he won here six times, and he had reckoned that the Mercedes, while not competitive with Red Bull, McLaren or Ferrari, might be better suited to Spa than some of the recent F1 venues. In that he was right – team-mate Rosberg qualified fifth – but it was hardly surprising that he was dismayed by the thought of starting dead last. This weekend, after all, marked the 20th anniversary of his Formula 1 debut.

If Schumacher didn’t figure, neither – more suprisingly – did Button. In Q1 Jenson was fastest of all, predictably much at ease in the sort of mixed conditions in which he excels. In Q2, too, he topped the lists for a while, but in the late minutes the track was drying fast, and the name of Button began sliding down the list. It didn’t look like a problem, for he was surely capable of responding, and thus he backed off, cooling the tyres, having been informed by McLaren that there was time for one more quick lap.

There wasn’t, though. By the time Jenson made it back to the start-finish line the allotted time had ticked away to zero, and he found himself out of Q1, back in 13th place. And frustrated, you might say.

And there were others, too, notably Alonso. An abiding problem for Ferrari this season has been getting heat into the Pirelli tyres – in a normal summer, with plenty of races in hot weather, this would have become a virtue, of course.

As it is, we have had a succession of races run in unusually cool conditions, and if that has hampered Ferrari it has very much aided McLaren, where there is no problem getting the tyres up to temperature – indeed on hot days it works against them.

Alonso was well in the mix through most of qualifying, and indeed set fastest time in Q2. In Q3, though, he was delayed by Perez on two of his laps, and on the last one slowed at the chicane to let Webber through, fearing that otherwise he might get a penalty. When Alonso is slower than team-mate Massa it raises eyebrows; when he is a second slower something somewhere doesn’t compute. Eighth was not where Fernando had expected to start.

Vettel-Hamilton-Webber is how the first three lined up, but this wasn’t a typical Vettel pole position. In Q1, he admitted, he didn’t feel comfortable with the car. “Then, in Q2 I discovered Spa again – and in Q3 everything was fine. On the last lap I pushed as hard as I could…”

Most of the time Webber looked the more likely of the Red Bull drivers to take pole, but in the end Mark – celebrating his 35th birthday, and also the signing of a new contract for 2012 – set third best time, beaten to the front row by Hamilton.

Lewis always excels at Spa. “I had pole for about five seconds,” he said, after setting his time at the very end of the session, “but then Sebastian came over the line…”

En route to his fastest lap Hamilton was undoubtedly… muscular as he passed Pastor Maldonado’s tardy Williams at the final chicane, but really he had little option. After the chequered flag had fallen the two cars made contact as they went down the hill to Eau Rouge, and while neither driver appeared entirely blameless the Venezuelan was adjudged more culpable than Hamilton, and ‘fined’ five grid positions. Lewis got away with a reprimand.

Undoubtedly the most startling performance in qualifying came from Bruno Senna, seventh for Lotus Renault GP, three places ahead of team-mate Vitaly Petrov. Ayrton’s nephew has been drafted into the team for the rest of the season, replacing the disappointing Nick Heidfeld, who was frequently outpaced by Petrov. Given the testing ban, Senna has had almost no cockpit time this year, and his showing certainly raised an eyebrow or two.

The circumstances of qualifying created an interesting scenario for race day – when rain threatened, but never materialised. As we have said, it’s a long lap at Spa, and in Q3 the drivers – very much keeping the weather in mind – stayed out on one set of tyres rather than the usual practice of running a quick lap, changing to a new set of tyres, then running a second quick lap. In normal circumstances, therefore, you start the race on a lightly used set – but at Spa the top 10 drivers went to the grid on tyres that had done 20 or 25 miles. Throw in the fact that there had been very little dry running, and it was hardly surprising that the drivers were a little apprehensive.

“We were going very much into the unknown today,” said Webber, “in terms of what the tyres might do – and I’m not just talking about blisters…” Vettel agreed: “When the front tyres blistered, there was a lot of vibration, and it really wasn’t very comfortable going into Eau Rouge or Blanchimont like that. In the end, we’re sitting in the cars…”

As a rule of thumb, then, the intention was to change tyres as soon as practicable, to get rid of the set that had run in Q3. Medium and soft were the compounds brought by Pirelli on this occasion, and of course the top 10 drivers necessarily started on soft. Button, though, hadn’t made it to Q3, and was therefore able to take a different tack, and start on the medium tyres.

Although the start was reasonably straightforward, there was chaos at La Source, as invariably there is on lap one. Senna, sadly, undid all his good work in qualifying by slamming hard in Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso, which had started an impressive sixth. And behind them cars started bouncing off one another.

“I got a terrible start,” said Webber. “The anti-stall kicked in, and I thought I’d get passed by about 30 cars – but fortunately most of them hit each other at the first corner…”

The sensation at the start was Rosberg, who came out of La Source with only Vettel ahead of him, and on the long climb to Les Combes – the designated ‘DRS Zone’ at this track – Nico was able to take the lead quite easily.

This was to become a phenomenon of the afternoon. Some are in favour of DRS, and some are not, but either way there was no doubt that at Spa the zone was too long, making overtaking too straightforward. Any driver leading another narrowly out of Eau Rouge was like a tethered goat. On lap three Vettel took back the lead from Rosberg in exactly the same way, and we would see it time and again throughout the race.

Sebastian immediately began to pull away, but after five laps was into the pits, keen to get rid of that first set of tyres. Webber, indeed, had stopped a couple of laps earlier than that, as had Button, who had had his required run on the medium Pirellis, and wanted to be on the soft ones as soon as possible.

In the first part of the race, though, the man really going motor racing was Alonso. From his eighth grid position Fernando was up into fifth by the end of the first lap, and on the second he got by Hamilton. By lap six he had also passed Massa and Rosberg, and that – given that Vettel had pitted by now – took the Ferrari into the lead.

Alonso made his first stop on lap eight, and that briefly put Hamilton into the lead – until he came in on lap 10. Briefly Rosberg was now in front once more, but in a staggering demonstration of his confidence in the Red Bull – and in his own abilities – Vettel passed the Mercedes on the outside at flat-out Blanchimont…

That was a move to make you doubt your own eyes – and there had been another a couple of laps earlier. As Alonso accelerated down the hill to Eau Rouge, immediately after his stop, Webber was closing on him – and going into the first, left-hand swerve, he went by! No one could ever remember a pass – a competitive pass – being made here in any F1 race at Spa, and it said much for both drivers that the moment didn’t end in tears.

“Yeah,” Mark agreed, “it takes two guys for that situation to work out OK. Fernando’s a great driver, and he’s also smart enough to know when enough’s enough. Believe me, there are a lot of guys I wouldn’t have tried that with…”

On lap 13 Hamilton, running fifth behind Kobayashi’s Sauber (which had not yet made a stop), overtook – DRS again – on the hill, but as they approached Les Combes Kamui closed again, and was almost alongside (on the outside) as they reached the turn-in point.

Perhaps Lewis had not expected the Sauber still to be close at hand. Whatever, he steered slightly left, giving himself the ideal line into the corner – and the cars touched. At once the McLaren pitched into the guard rail more or less head on, and when it came to rest there was initially no movement from the driver. Eventually Hamilton stirred, and removed the steering wheel, but he seemed shaky as he stepped out, another to rejoice in the strength of the contemporary Grand Prix car.

As soon as the safety car was deployed, Vettel dived straight into the pits, and really this put his victory beyond doubt, for when they were given the signal to go again, three laps later, he was on new tyres, where his rivals were not. Although Alonso led them away again, it wasn’t long before Vettel was able to DRS him on the long hill. And once into the lead anew, Sebastian pulled easily clear.

His team-mate might, who knows, have been able to go with him had he, too, stopped for tyres as the safety car came out. “I radioed in,” said Webber, “saying that I wanted to come in, but I never heard anything back…” As it was, Mark had to run a very long stint on his second set of tyres.

The final round of pitstops, at which most drivers were required to take the slower, medium compound tyres, began on lap 29, with Alonso followed by Vettel on 30 and Webber on 31. On lap 32 Button, who had been making striking progress, was also in – but he of course had started the race on the medium tyres, and was therefore able to stay with the soft ones.

On lap 37 Webber passed Alonso again, this time less dramatically (DRS on the hill) than before, and began slightly to close on Vettel. But the pattern was now set, and the Red Bulls simply swept on to the finish. Alonso, meantime, had no answer for the soft-tyred Button, who moved by – yes, DRS again – on lap 42, thereby claiming the last spot on the podium.

The other talking point in the late laps concerned the Mercedes drivers. Schumacher, having started from the back, indeed drove an extremely good race at this track he loves, and was up to sixth, behind team-mate Rosberg. We began to wonder if ‘team orders’ – now fully legal again, of course – might come into the reckoning…

Finally there came a message on the radio: ‘Nico, we need you to save some fuel…’ Given that three of the 44 laps had been run behind the safety car, that seemed a touch unlikely, but Rosberg duly acquiesced, and the Mercedes hierarchy had the finishing order it perhaps preferred…

Three races – Silverstone, the Nürburgring, the Hungaroring – had gone by since the last Red Bull victory, and some had begun to wonder if perhaps a little of the earlier magic had been lost. On the strength of Spa, they should not put too much store by that theory. “The car,” said Vettel, “was simply fantastic today – maybe the best it’s been all season…”

Button, meantime, was left to ponder how different his race might have been, had it not been for that ‘communication’ mistake in qualifying…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

It’s still a place where you need to have your wits about you, but time was when a Formula 1 pitlane was a very dangerous place to be. After the utterly disastrous San Marino Grand Prix weekend in 1994 a whole raft of changes, to both technical and sporting regulations, was introduced, and one of these had nothing to do with the fatal accidents to Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger.

Late in the race at Imola Michele Alboreto’s Minardi (below) shed a wheel as it accelerated out of pitlane, and several mechanics were injured. When Max Mosley announced the forthcoming changes, in Monaco two weeks later, one of them was that henceforth there should be a speed limit in the pitlane.

It may be argued that this detracted from the drama of pitstops, and certainly it was an almighty experience to be close at hand for a ‘full speed’ stop, but if I have sometimes railed against changes made in the interests of safety – like ‘safety car’ rolling starts whenever the day is wet, for example – I never had any problems in accepting a pitlane speed limit. Yes, it’s true that at first it seemed almost comical to watch a car crawl towards its pit, there to be set upon by a horde of mechanics working like dervishes, only for it then to crawl away again. The effect was similar to playing with fast-forward on a remote, but we soon got used to it, and eventually the practice was embraced by every major racing series on earth.

Watch a pre-94 pitstop now, and it’s hard to take in that it could ever have been like that: harder still to believe that it didn’t cost a lot of lives over time.

Back in 1981 I was in the pits during a morning practice session at the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, and witnessed something that I wish I had not. The old pitlane at Zolder was ludicrously narrow, and as I watched Carlos Reutemann (below) coming towards me, slowly – this was only practice remember – making his way out, so I also saw someone fall backwards from the pitwall, right into the path of the Williams.

There was not a thing Reutemann could do, and the sight of his car literally bouncing into the air has not surprisingly stayed with me. There was nothing to be done. The young Osella mechanic, who had stepped backwards into nowhere, died immediately.

Only a few days later I was at Indianapolis, walking down the pitlane at the end of Carburation Day, the traditional final practice session before the 500. Believing everyone to be back in the pits, I was strolling along – my back to the entry to pitlane – when something literally brushed my leg, nicking my trousers and leaving the minutest of nicks in my right calf. It was the blue Lightning-Cosworth of Gary Bettenhausen (below), the last man to come off the track, and as he turned into pitlane he cut the engine, and was thus still travelling in complete silence – and still at huge speed.

Gary Bettenhausen (McLaren-Offenhauser) in the 1974 USAC Indycar Series

It was entirely my own fault – I simply wasn’t paying enough attention – but even now, 30 years on, I can still recall the fear of that instant. Nothing else in my life has come close to it.

Now, in the interests of ‘being seen to be green’, the proposal from the FIA is that from 2014, when the new more environmentally-friendly V6 turbo engines arrive, cars should run on ‘electric power’ only when running the pits.

The idea apparently came originally from Max Mosley, who owned a Toyota Prius and was much into this sort of thing – indeed it was he who, looking to the F1 of the future, seriously asked me if I thought ‘the noise’ was important to race fans.

I said yes, I did – emphatically – think so, indeed suggested that to F1 aficionados the sound of a car was probably as important as the sight of it. Max seemed surprised by my response – for him, he said, the noise rather got in the way of the commentary. Clearly, there was to be no meeting of minds on this.

At the time, of course, we were talking about cars out on the track racing, and it may well be – some time, I hope, after I have ceased to care – that Grand Prix cars will be all-electric, still proceeding with great speed but in total silence.

In the shorter term comes this proposal that they be all-electric in the pitlane, and – short of speed bumps – I cannot conceive of anything more asinine. For a sport these days literally obsessed with safety, could there be a more potentially hazardous introduction?

As is so often the way with blinkered change, it stems in essence from political correctness, from fear of being judged, of being thought out of step. If cars negotiate their way through pitlane in total silence, the mandatory speed limit will make little difference – Reutemann was doing maybe 10mph when he hit the Italian lad.

Bernie Ecclestone, not surprisingly, is one who passionately believes that the sound of motor racing is vital to its survival, and nowhere more so than in the pits. Bernie has rightly condemned this FIA plan for 2014, and I hope they have the common sense to take note. It’s an absurdity, and a criminally dangerous one at that.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

To watch the McLaren team at Silverstone was to see a race team apparently in something close to despair. Given that both cars had qualified in the first 10, the response seemed perhaps a bit over the top, but this is an outfit with lofty expectations, as we know, and to be off the pace not only of Red Bull, which might have been expected, but also of Ferrari affected everyone very seriously indeed.

Martin Whitmarsh, though, stressed that McLaren would fight back, that no team was better at responding to adversity, and he was right. Such is the way of Formula 1 these days that a car can be literally transformed by the latest package of updates from the engineering team. At Silverstone Ferrari benefited that way, and at the Nürburgring it was McLaren’s turn.

On Sunday, for the second time in a fortnight Red Bull failed to win a Grand Prix, and on each occasion, as Mark Webber said, they were plain beaten. At Silverstone it was Fernando Alonso who won for Ferrari, and at the Nürburgring Lewis Hamilton did the job for McLaren, with Alonso second and Webber third.

As Mark said, it is Red Bull’s pace on Sundays that perhaps needs to be addressed: as at Silverstone, he took pole position, but again was unable to convert it into victory. “We definitely have to improve the race pace,” he said, “and that’s a situation that’s been brewing a while…”

The German Grand Prix was a close affair, without being an especially rivetting race. At different times Hamilton, Webber and, briefly, Alonso led, but the real curiosity at the Nürburgring was that Sebastian Vettel failed to play a starring role in either qualifying or race. To start third, and finish fourth, is hardly a disaster in absolute terms, but this was the first time in 15 races that Vettel didn’t make the front row, and the first time this season he was absent from the podium.

We were back to square one at the Nürburgring, in the sense that the FIA’s rules, regarding ‘off-throttle (hot or cold) blown diffusers’, reverted to what they had been at Valencia. Only at Silverstone, in other words, had they been different.

Forgive me, I know all this is tedious, but unfortunately it makes a difference – in some cases, quite a profound one – to how Formula 1 cars perform. McLaren, merely thereabouts at the British Grand Prix, were much to the fore in Germany – so much so that, after qualifying, Hamilton was moved to describe his car as “fantastic”. It had been a very long time since Lewis expressed such delight in what he had been given to drive.

He did the car justice, too, actually splitting the Red Bulls, and qualifying second to… not Vettel, as you might have expected on the strength of this season’s results to date, but Webber, who had a slight edge on his team-mate throughout practice and qualifying in Sebastian’s home land.

It was just so two years ago, when F1 last visited the Nürburgring – and Mark went on to score his first Grand Prix victory, despite suffering a drive-through penalty. “I think my performances have been getting a little better in the last few races,” he said on Saturday afternoon, “and this track seemed to be not too bad for me in the past. After my best lap in Q3, as I drove back to the pits, I was thinking, ‘If someone gets me, they deserve it, as I couldn’t have got much more out of it – it was my complete limit…”

Hamilton certainly came close – within a hundredth of a second, in fact. “We suffered from the change in the diffuser rules at Silverstone, so to have them changed back again has defininitely helped us here. We’ve also had some new upgrades this weekend – I think we massively underestimated how good the car would be when we went to light fuel, and my lap was one of the best I’ve ever done. We’re not far from the Red Bulls, so it’s a good step for us.”

Vettel’s home race weekend didn’t start as he would have wished: “On Friday I didn’t really find a good balance with the car, but it was much better on Saturday – a good recovery. Maybe we should have been a little bit quicker, but there wasn’t much missing to Mark and Lewis. I guess if it’s dry we have a very good chance, but it might not be the case, so we’ll see…”

The last member of the leading quartet – Silverstone winner Alonso – was where he expected to be on the grid. “We thought the Red Bulls would be three or four tenths quicker here, and so they are, but Hamilton is also very quick – McLaren have a lot of new parts here, and you could see that they were working. I think we have maybe a 25 per cent chance of winning if it’s dry – slightly less if it’s wet…”

And the chances were that it would be wet. Who knows what has happened to the weather in Europe this summer, but in the Eifel region – often suffocatingly hot and humid over Grand Prix weekend – the temperature was as low (around 12 degrees) as the black clouds. It tried to rain on Friday and Saturday, and race morning dawned to mist and steady drizzle.

Fortunately, though, the rain had no real role to play. An hour or so before the start it began to come down again, but only lightly, and not for long.

When the lights went out the track surface was dry, and Hamilton made a bullet getaway, snatching the lead from Webber before the first corner. “We’ve been working our starts recently,” Lewis said, “and I think that was perhaps one of my best ever – if just felt fantastic as we went down to the first corner…”

Out of that turn the McLaren led, followed by Webber, Alonso, and Vettel. Sebastian had got away poorly, but on the second lap scrabbled past Alonso, and it was expected that he would begin putting pressure on his team-mate, and then – perhaps – Hamilton.

Not a bit of it. In point of fact, Vettel was unable quite to keep pace with Hamilton and Webber – and by lap eight had been repassed by Alonso. Not in the script at all, this.

As the race settled down Hamilton led narrowly from Webber and Alonso, while Vettel guaranteed himself an even longer afternoon by spinning on lap nine.

Three laps later Webber took a run at Hamilton, and succeeded in getting by, only for Lewis to steam straight past him again on the following straight. On lap 14 Mark made his first stop, and a couple of laps later took the lead when both Hamilton and Alonso came in.

If we expected at this point that the Red Bull would begin to stretch its advantage, as has happened so often this year, it didn’t turn out that way at all. Instead Hamilton and Alonso shadowed Webber for many laps, the three of them covered by two to three seconds.

On lap 30 Mark was in again, and this time the stop was not so good: when Hamilton (lap 31) and Alonso (32) came in for their third set of Pirellis they rejoined in first and second places, with Webber now relegated to third.

Momentarily, indeed, the Ferrari was ahead as it came out of the pitlane, but Fernando’s tyres were not up to temperature and he could nothing to fend off a very motivated Lewis.

The three front-runners played a cat-and-mouse game for the next little while, Hamilton and Alonso circulating a couple of seconds apart, and gradually pulling away a little from Webber, who was trying to conserve his tyres so as to make his final stop – to take on the harder Pirellis – as late as possible.

Occasionally Alonso would take a couple of tenths from Hamilton, but essentially Fernando knew that he had nothing for the McLaren on this day, and in fact was agreeably surprised to be heading apparently for second place. “Hamilton wasn’t on pole,” he said, “but he did almost the same time as Webber – and we were four-tenths away, so I thought we would struggle to race with both of them…”

Hamilton dashed into the pits for the final time on lap 51, and Alonso on 53. That put Webber temporarily into the lead, with only a handful of laps to the flag, but it meant nothing, of course, for he, too, had to come in again, and when he did – on lap 56 – he was duly relegated to third place once more.

Behind the leading trio Felipe Massa, in the second Ferrari, fought to keep Vettel from stealing his fourth place for virtually the entire race, and both came in for the final stop on lap 59 – with only lap to go. Sadly for Massa, Ferrari fluffed the stop, which allowed Vettel to get out first – and to finish ahead.

Fourth place, 12 points… it really wasn’t too bad a day for the World Champion. He had brake balance problems with the car, he said, and never really got the brakes to his liking; come to that, he had not at any stage of the weekend felt truly happy with the chassis balance, either, and it’s a long time since he said anything like that.

Vettel’s World Championship lead remains daunting, however. Yes, nine races remain, and a lot can – and surely will – happen, but Sebastian heads team-mate Webber by 77 points, with Hamilton third and Alonso fourth.

At the post-race press conference Fernando was asked if he could account for Sebastian’s off day: “Well,” he said, “when you’re on pole by a second, and you lead all the way, it’s easy, isn’t it? When there’s competition, it’s different…”

Assuredly Red Bull, as Webber conceded, have been closed on, if not caught, by both McLaren and Ferrari, and it seems unlikely that Vettel and/or Webber will dominate another race to the degree that they did in the first part of the season. Having said that, though, Alonso knows as well as anyone what Adrian Newey and his boys are capable of, and it would be no great surprise if Vettel were to march off with victory number seven in Budapest next weekend.

McLaren and Ferrari will of course be doing everything possible to prevent that. “I can’t believe the progress we’ve made this weekend,” said Hamilton. “I never expected to come here and be this fast – I really thought we’d be trailing the Red Bulls and Ferraris. I reckon this was one of my best wins.”

“I’m extremely happy with this result,” said Alonso. “We didn’t really expect to be quick here, and it’s true that we couldn’t catch Lewis, but the last three races have been at different sorts of tracks – and we’ve been competitive at all of them. I’m optimistic about Hungary – here we’ve had almost winter temperatures, but it should be hot in Budapest, and that should definitely help us from the point of view of tyres.”

Webber, still to win a race in 2011, was a little deflated, but by no means down. “We’ve been beaten fair and square in the last two races, and definitely we need to do something about our race pace,” he said, “but Budapest should suit our car, I think…”

No one believes for a second that Red Bull is on the slide. “Silverstone suited Ferrari,” Alonso smiled, “and the Nürburgring suited McLaren. But Red Bull is always there…”

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The night before the British Grand Prix Fernando Alonso murmured that he thought he really might be able to do something about the Red Bulls this time. He wasn’t overt in his remarks, for that is not Alonso’s way, but merely made the point that of late Ferrari’s race pace had been appreciably more competitive than in qualifying. Even when a second or so from Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber on Saturday, he had been able to show them something on Sunday afternoons – and this time he was within a tenth or so…

An hour or so before the start Fernando took to the track in Bernie Ecclestone’s Ferrari 375, similar to the car with which Froilán González scored the team’s first World Championship victory at Silverstone in 1951. It appeared, in similar circumstances, a few years ago, driven by Michael Schumacher, but Alonso got rather more into the spirit of the thing, and steered the car on the throttle in a manner which would have delighted the flamboyant González. There was a pleasing symmetry about the day, therefore, when Fernando was able to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Froilán’s great day by scoring his – and Ferrari’s – first victory of the season.

There was drama aplenty in this British Grand Prix, and that was good, for the weekend – right up to race time, anyway – was sadly dominated by endless discussion of the wretched blown diffuser rules, which seemed to change by the hour. Not unnaturally it was a matter of overwhelming interest to those directly involved, of course (and every one of them seemed to claim their cars had been more adversely affected than any others), but for everyone else it was simply a consummate bore.

There was unhappiness that a rule change should have been introduced in the middle, rather than at the end, of a season, and bewilderment that the rule change was then amended – and amended and amended…

Eventually one o’clock on Sunday arrived, and it was time simply to get on with it, to go racing. In tricky conditions the day before Webber had taken a very brave pole position, shading team-mate Vettel, with the Ferraris of Alonso and Massa on row two. Jenson Button was happy enough with his position on the grid – fifth – but less so with the fact that his time was a second and a half away from pole. He was, however, a picture of contentment compared with McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who blamed the team for sending him out on the wrong tyres in Q3, and qualified only 10th. He hoped for a wet race, he said.

In part, he got one, at least for a while, for an hour before the start one of the widely forecast showers arrived – but only on part of the circuit. Thus, the start-finish area (now on what used to be the far side of the circuit, of course) was pretty dry, but in other places drivers reported aquaplaning. Although the start was conventional (rather than behind the safety car), the obvious tyre choice was intermediates – which meant, in turn, that the obligation to use both of the slick compounds on offer evaporated.

One of these was the hard compound not seen since Barcelona, where they emphatically did not suit the Ferraris, so it could be that Alonso benefited from a stroke of luck, but on the other hand he claimed that in practice the car now worked very well on the hard Pirellis. “All the recent changes we’ve made to the car have been good,” he said. “We brought quite a big aero update to Silverstone, and everything worked fine. I’m very proud of the team for the recovery they have done…”

Initially, though, it didn’t look as if Alonso – or anyone else – would trouble Vettel this day, the British Grand Prix looking like so many gone before this season. In the – very – mixed conditions Sebastian looked much at ease as he quickly built a lead over Webber, whom he had passed away from the line. Five laps in, he was virtually five seconds to the good.

Alonso ran a couple of seconds behind Webber, but the man really on the move at this stage appeared to be Hamilton, who was quickly up to fifth (from his 10th place on the grid), and picked off Felipe Massa’s Ferrari immediately before the first stops. Although the track had been drying there was some uncertainty as to when the optimum time to go to slicks would be – indeed Webber later said that the leaders probably stayed out too long on the intermediates, nervous of making the switch before the track was truly ready for slicks.

In fact, it was Michael Schumacher who settled the issue – and somewhat inadvertently. On lap nine he rather cack-handedly collided with Kobayashi’s Sauber, which meant an immediate stop. Slicks were put on the Mercedes, and soon Michael was setting new fastest laps, which of course brought the front runners in, Webber, Alonso and Hamilton on lap 12, Vettel and Massa on lap 13.

The stops done, Vettel led from Webber once more, with Hamilton now third, then Alonso, Button and Massa. Next up, after the top six, was the highly impressive Paul di Resta, who had qualified a superb sixth for Force India.

The race was moving on apace, five drivers – Button, Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton, Webber – setting fastest lap on consecutive laps, between 16 and 20. Having been passed earlier by Hamilton, Alonso went by the McLaren again on lap 24, at which point Lewis immediately came in for his second stop.

A couple of laps later Webber was in, but the turning point of the race came on lap 27 when Vettel and Alonso pitted together – and it was Fernando, rather than Sebastian, who came out first, for Red Bull had had a rear jack fail before the left rear wheel had been properly changed.

Initially, it didn’t like look the end of the world for Vettel, who had dropped only three or four seconds – but if he had lost the lead to Alonso in the pits, he had also simultaneously lost second place to Hamilton, who had pitted before them, had tyres that were well up to temperature, and was charging.

Getting by Lewis would not prove to be the work of a moment for Seb – and all the time Fernando was away in the lead, building a gap, looking increasingly unstoppable.

Would Alonso have won, had Vettel not been delayed in the pits? “I honestly don’t know,” he shrugged. “I think we were very quick today, but Sebastian had track position on us at the time, and overtaking – even with DRS – is not so easy here…” From Vettel there was a similar response: “For sure it would have been a very tight race – Ferrari certainly had very good pace today…”

Indeed they did. Once into the lead – with Vettel endlessly frustrated in his efforts to get by Hamilton – Alonso cranked out a whole serious of fastest laps, increasing his lead from two to 10 seconds in a matter of half a dozen laps.

The final round of pit stops began with Vettel, on lap 36, and when they were all done Alonso remained serenely in front, 10 seconds to the good, beyond reach. By lap 50, with two to the flag, he was 20 seconds up, and Vettel now had a new worry – in the shape of his team-mate, whose Pirellis were two laps newer.

Webber had passed Hamilton for third place on lap 46, Lewis immensely frustrated by an instruction from his team that he should save fuel if he wished to make the finish. Once by the McLaren, Mark began making inroads into his team-mate’s four-second advantage, and through the last couple of laps was right on Vettel’s tail.

This was a matter of some concern to the Red Bull, who requested – nay, instructed – that the drivers hold station to the flag, and not put in jeopardy a basinful of World Championship points.

Webber decided that he was a racing driver, quicker at that stage of the race than his team-mate, and frankly admitted that he simply ignored the order, issued four or five times, to keep behind Vettel. In the end Sebastian just kept his second place, but afterwards Mark was completely unrepentant about disobeying his team – indeed he made it clear that he was thoroughly unhappy that such an order should have been made. “Let’s face it, if Fernando had retired on the last lap for some reason, this would have been a matter of fighting for a victory…”

Vettel, it must be said, offered no criticism of Webber’s attempt to get by him – indeed appeared, if anything, sympathetic, as if suggesting that in the same position he would have done the same as Mark. Red Bull has been so much more harmonious this year than last; one hopes this doesn’t precipitate another summer of discontent.

The pair of them went over the line almost as one, and a few seconds later there was more of the same, as Massa – who had closed on the fuel-hampered Hamilton at the rate of three seconds a lap – tried to separate the McLaren-Mercedes from fourth place. Lewis offered what may be termed a muscular defence: at the very last corner the cars touched, and Felipe’s Ferrari ran very wide. He didn’t lift, but Hamilton just beat him to the line.

All at Ferrari were of course ecstatic about Alonso’s victory, 60 years on from that historic day when González beat the Alfas for the first time. “It’s a perfect day,” Fernando beamed. “To win at Silverstone is such a special thing – I think all the Formula 1 drivers feel the same about it. It was a privilege to drive Froilán’s car earlier today, and now Ferrari has won the British Grand Prix again – with just the same passion as then…”

And what of all the debate and dissension regarding the blown diffuser rules? “Well,” said Fernando, “before all this Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren were the competitive teams – and today Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren were the front runners in the race, so maybe too much has been made of it. I mean, I didn’t notice a Force India or a Sauber suddenly competing for victory…”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The Canadian Grand Prix was a frantic affair in every respect, and not surprisingly so. It’s difficult to categorise the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve – in essence it’s a normal road circuit, but it was built before huge run-offs were the norm, and the proximity of the guardrails and walls serves to convey the impression of a street track. By current standards, it is therefore extremely unforgiving – make a mistake, and the chances are that you will hit something.

That’s on a typically dry day. Safety cars tend to feature abnormally in the Canadian Grand Prix, and when you threw in the element of rain – such as we had for this year’s race – there was the potential for chaos. Before the start everyone was speculating about the number of safety car periods there might be, and it was sure that Bernd Maylander was in for a busy afternoon, but no one expected the sort of rain that eventually came down after 20 laps or so – the forecast had originally been for ‘showers’…

What we got, though, was effectively a monsoon, and after the pack had trailed around behind the safety car for half a dozen laps Charlie Whiting decided enough was enough and brought the race to a halt. There was a lot of noisy protest from sections of the crowd, but unquestionably it was the right call – within minutes the whole place was awash, and one thought back to Adelaide in 1991 when the race was red-flagged after only 14 laps, and never restarted. By calling a halt to things when he did, Whiting allowed for the possibility of further racing taking place later – more than two hours later, as it turned out.

They are fanatical about Formula 1 in Montréal, and few – if any – spectators drifted away during the enforced stop, even though it felt as though the rain would never stop. When it did, finally, they had every reason to rejoice that they had stayed. After nine more laps behind the safety car – in total, Maylander paced the field for 31 of the 70 laps – they were away again, and Jenson Button, after experiencing every racing incident known to man, wasn’t in the top 15.

As we know, a combination of two further safety car periods, clever tyre choice – and inspired driving – led to a situation where Button scythed up the order and took the lead on the very last lap, when Sebastian Vettel, who had comfortably led throughout, allowed himself to be pressured into a rare mistake. It was a scintillating drive by Jenson, perhaps the best we have ever seen from him: how often he excels in mixed conditions, such as at Melbourne last year, when again he was the winner.

Through the ‘second’ segment of the race someone else excelled, too. Even more than Button, Michael Schumacher long enjoyed a reputation for supremacy in uncertain conditions, but since his comeback at the beginning of last season, there have been very few occasions when Schumacher reminded one of the driver he had been.

In dry qualifying at Montréal, Michael had – as usual – been outqualified by Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, and he followed him, too, in the first segment of the race. When the deluge had abated, however, and the race restarted behind the safety car (with everyone on full wets), Schumacher dived into the pits as soon as Maylander pulled off and took on intermediates. Back in 12th place, in truth there was little to be lost, but his willingness to chance intermediates – and it was his decision to switch to them – was not only brave, but also inspired.

Over the next couple of laps the world and his wife came in for inters, but by then Michael was already enjoying the superiority of them. As others fell foul of the conditions, he began to move up, and his one-fell-swoop pass of the squabbling Massa and Kobayashi duo was pure Schumacher opportunism at its best.

By lap 51, with 19 to the flag, he was up into second place, and it began to look as though he would make the podium for the first time since his return. On lap 58, though, there was yet another three-lap safety car period (after Heidfeld had clattered into a wall) which closed up the pack once more, and on top of that Charlie Whiting decided by lap 63 that conditions – there was a dry ‘line’ all round the track by now – were such that DRS (the ‘moveable’ rear wing) could be enabled for the first time in the race.

Although he fought hard, Schumacher in this situation was unable to resist both Button and Webber, so in the end he finished fourth, and just missed that podium. I don’t suggest that Michael will ever again be the driver he was – in the dry he simply isn’t quick enough any more – but on a day of tricky and uncertain conditions, when experience and guile had a major role to play, he gave us the first real reminder of the greatness that once was. Afterwards he chose to shrug it off, but I’ll warrant that inwardly Schumacher got more satisfaction from this day in Montréal than any other since the comeback.

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So he is human, after all. As on so many other occasions this year, Sebastian Vettel dominated the Canadian Grand Prix – but only for 69 and a half of the 70 laps. Under pressure from Jenson Button on the last lap, Vettel got momentarily off the dry line, flicked sideways – and that was all Button needed. “In lots of ways I was lucky today,” Jenson said, “but still it was a very sweet win – maybe my best ever…”

The unforgiving Circuit Gilles Villeneuve invariably throws up an eventful Grand Prix, but this one was something else again. On a day of appalling weather, the race started behind the safety car, and Bernd Maylander would take to the track on four further occasions before the afternoon was done. So overwhelming was the rain that, 45 minutes into the race, after 15 laps behind the safety car, it was decided to bring out the red flag.

Unquestionably it was the right thing to do, and the right time to do it. Soon the rain was ferocious, and it went on and on. By the time it eased, then finally stopped, the track was pretty well waterlogged. When the safety car led them away once more, for the restart, a little over two hours had elapsed since the halt.

As usual Vettel started from pole position, but on this occasion his margin of superiority was rather less than usual – less than a couple of tenths – and Fernando Alonso, on the front row of the grid for the first time this year, quite fancied his chances. “This was always going to be one of Ferrari’s best circuits,” he said, “because it doesn’t have any really fast corners, so our lack of downforce is less of a problem than usual…”

By the same token, Red Bull – whose cars are unapproachable in quick corners – expected Montreal to be one of their weaker tracks. “Of course I’m pleased to be on pole,” said Vettel, “but actually I’m a little surprised…”

Perhaps Seb was being a touch disingenuous. The Red Bull may excel on circuits where aerodynamic grip is all, but it’s not less than outstanding anywhere. Mark Webber qualified fourth – behind the two Ferraris – but when you factored in that he had missed Saturday morning practice because of KERS problems on his car, and then qualified without KERS, his time said everything about Adrian Newey’s latest sublime design.

The team which disappointed most in qualifying was undoubtedly McLaren, with Lewis Hamilton fifth fastest, and Button seventh. Hamilton won here last year, and hopes were high of a repeat, but on Saturday evening he glumly said that the car was ‘simply too slow’. Martin Whitmarsh conceded that probably McLaren had run too much wing, and consequently suffered on straight line speed; on the other hand, he pointed out, if it were – as forecast – to rain on race day, Lewis and Jenson might find themselves in the pound seats.

It didn’t quite start out that way, however. After four laps behind the safety car, the field was flagged away on a wet track – and at the very first corner Hamilton tagged the back of Webber, putting the Red Bull into a spin. “I think,” Mark drily observed, “that Lewis saw the chequered flag at turn three…”

They raced for only three laps before the safety car was out again – this time because the McLarens had contrived to run into each other on the pit straight, Hamilton trying to pass on the left, and getting squeezed into the wall. “I’ve apologised to Lewis,” Jenson said. “I honestly couldn’t see a thing behind me…” Hamilton’s brief, but eventful, Canadian Grand Prix was over.

The safety car was out for five laps on this occasion, and when they restarted, at the end of lap 12, Vettel immediately disappeared into his own race again, pulling out 2.5 seconds on Alonso in the course of a single lap. Webber, meantime, was working his way back through the field following the first lap altercation with Hamilton. It was announced around this time, too, that Button had been given a ‘drive through’ penalty for a safety car infringement.

On lap 17 Ferrari brought Alonso in for a change from wets to intermediates, and the team’s timing could not have been worse. Within a couple of minutes the rain began to come down hard again, and, as Fernando stopped once more, to take on more wets, out came the safety car again, this time simply because the conditions were adjudged too dangerous to allow racing to continue. After 15 laps of tooling round, the decision was taken to halt proceedings until the rain began to ease off.

The wait was longer than anyone might have anticipated – it began at 1.45, and it was not until 3.50 that the race was restarted, again behind the safety car, of course, for it appears that the days of conventional starts on wet days are now consigned to history.

When the race did get away again – on lap 26 – it was brief indeed, for Alonso and Button touched as Jenson tried to pass on the inside of a right-hander, and the Ferrari spun over the kerb, and was instantly beached. Safety car once more – and for Alonso no points from a race of which he had had such high expectations. As Button made his way to the pits to replace a punctured tyre, it was announced that the incident – like countless others on this day – was ‘under investigation by the stewards’.

Conditions remained extremely treacherous, and clearly they brought out the best in Schumacher, who was turning in the best performance of his unhappy ‘second career’. On lap 42 Michael passed Webber, and proceeded to close up on Kobayashi and Massa, who were scrapping over second place.

Unlike most drivers Kamui, at the time the race was red-flagged, had not yet made a tyre stop, which meant that he (and both the Renault drivers) effectively got the stop free, the tyre changing being done during the enforced break. He drove a typically spirited race in Montreal, but when at one point he moved to cover a move by Massa the effect was to slow both of them – and Schumacher, close at hand, took the opportunity to snick by into second place! Michael perhaps on the podium again…in the Mercedes pit they could barely contain their excitement.

By lap 56, with 14 to the flag, Vettel led comfortably from Schumacher, who was fending off Webber, then Button, Kobayashi, Heidfeld and Massa. Out of the second turn Heidfeld ran into the back of Kobayashi’s Sauber, and damaged his front wing – which then broke violently enough to lift the front wheels from the ground: the Renault pitched into a wall, and out came the safety car again…

It was this incident which was to change the outcome of the race – and there was something else, too. The rules prohibit the use of DRS (the opening rear wing) in the wet, but now the track – or at least a ‘line’ round the track – was swiftly drying out, and everyone was on slicks. One wondered if and when Charlie Whiting would use his discretion to enable DRS again. It would not be long.

As before, Vettel charged away again on the restart, and looked firmly set on another 25 points. Within a couple of laps he was three seconds clear, but then, as he admitted later, he took it perhaps a little too conservatively – and perhaps reckoned without the effect of DRS on some of those behind him.

By lap 63 it was operational, and its dramatic effect – whether you like it or not – was clearly seen, for Webber, having been unable to pass Schumacher without it, now went past as if the Mercedes were parked. Immediately, though, Mark went over the final chicane, and although he had already cleared Schumacher he was concerned that he might be penalised – considered to have gained by cutting the chicane – and therefore he handed the place back to Michael. On the following lap he might have hoped to take the position for good, but instead was passed by Button, who was clearly on a charge.

“I love conditions like we had towards the end of the race,” Jenson said, “and the car was working beautifully…” On lap 65 he was 3.1 seconds behind Vettel; on lap 66 the gap was down to 1.6.

At this point we expected Sebastian simply to respond, to draw away again in the manner we have so often seen. He didn’t, though – indeed Button continued, little by little, to close.

On lap 67, with three to go, Webber got past Schumacher again, and this time made it stick, putting and end to Michael’s hopes of at last making a podium. No matter: this was consummately the best performance we have seen from him since his return, and fourth place was a good result.

Lap 68, and Vettel set the fastest lap of the race – which was instantly beaten by Button. Now the gap was an even second, so Jenson was bringing himself into DRS range of the World Championship leader. Next time round he was fractionally closer still, but not able to take a run at Seb: it would all come down to the last lap.

We expected that Button’s move would come – DRS-assisted – on the long straight at the end of the lap, but in the event he had no need of any such thing, for Vettel, responding to the pressure, got slightly off the dry line, and although he held the consequent slide it was too late to prevent the McLaren from going by. Half a lap from the end of the Canadian Grand Prix Jenson was into the lead, and there he stayed.

A tumultuous race, you might say, in every conceivable respect. How often does a driver come through five safety car periods, six pit stops, including a ‘drive through’ penalty, a puncture, contact with (at least) two other cars – and win a Grand Prix? I can remember nothing comparable. Button admitted that luck had been with him – “I couldn’t have done it without DRS and all the safety car periods” – but perhaps the biggest slice of it came from Emerson Fittipaldi, this weekend the driver advising the stewards.

On these occasions Fittipaldi has always shown himself to be fundamentally ‘on the side of the drivers’, and not given to dishing out penalties in an era when every little incident is scrutinised. It would have been criminal to have robbed Jenson of what he referred to as ‘his sweetest victory’. This was a wonderful drive.

Vettel, it must be said, was entirely magnanimous in defeat. After the last safety car period, he said, he probably should have gone harder, built up more of a lead, but who could blame him – in this season of endless victories – for being perhaps a touch complacent? No one’s saying it, of course, but the 2011 World Championship is already effectively won.

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A dramatic Monaco Grand Prix, you’d have to say, and by any standards. Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull won it – their fifth victory in six races this year – and the other places on the podium were taken by a Ferrari (Fernando Alonso) and a McLaren (Jenson Button). If you simply saw the results in the paper, and knew nothing else of the race, you might reasonably assume that it had been just another Sunday in F1, the kind of outcome to which we have become accustomed this year.

It was anything but. True enough, the first three at the opening corner of the race were the first three over the line (save that Alonso finished ahead of Button), and all of them drove quite brilliant races, free of significant driving error at this most unforgiving of circuits. In their wake, however, there was all manner of chaos…

In each of the three practice sessions Alonso had been fastest, giving rise to speculation that maybe something other than a Red Bull might be on pole for the first time this season, but in the event Vettel came out ahead, followed by Button and the second Red Bull of Mark Webber, with Alonso a disappointed fourth. Going into Q3 there seemed good reason to believe that the favourite for pole was Lewis Hamilton, but a decision that he should make but one run – and at the very end of the session – would have consequences not only for his grid position, but for an…erratic performance on race day.

Towards the end of qualifying Sergio Perez – into Q3 for the first time in his brief F1 career – had an accident at the chicane very similar to one suffered by Nico Rosberg earlier in the day, but where Rosberg’s Mercedes slithered on down the road without hitting anything solid, Perez’s Sauber slid sideways into a barrier at considerable speed. It was eerily reminiscent of Karl Wendlinger’s practice accident in 1994, after which the Austrian’s life hung in the balance for many weeks. Happily, modifications both to the barrier and to F1 cars’ cockpits allowed Perez to escape serious injury, but he was badly concussed, and obviously could take no further part in the race weekend.

Less than two and a half minutes of the session remained when the red flag was waved, and at the time Hamilton had yet to set a time in Q3. After 40 minutes qualifying resumed, and in unsettling circumstances Lewis had time enough for only one quick lap – which he ruined by cutting a corner near the swimming pool. As expected, the stewards discounted the lap, which meant that he would start 10th (last of the Q3 runners), which became ninth when Perez was withdrawn.

Hamilton has more than once exhibited signs of a persecution complex, as we know, and on this occasion he made it abundantly clear that he was less than thrilled by his team’s original decision to send him out – for his only run – at the very end of the session. You could see his point – anything can happen at Monaco – but again one wondered why he had simply gone along with the team, and not suggested getting out early (as Button did), and at least putting in a ‘banker’ lap. His race the following day would suggest that he went into it in a somewhat overwrought frame of mind.

At the start Vettel was cleanly away, and Button successfully anticipated any thoughts Webber may have had about nicking second place before Ste Devote – indeed Mark lost a place, for Alonso, as in Barcelona, made a lightning getaway, and had the Ferrari up into third at the first corner.

Having qualified fifth, his best grid position of the year by far, Michael Schumacher, meantime, made a terrible start, and was 10th as they went up the hill to Casino Square for the first time. Among those who had passed him was Hamilton, but as they got to the hairpin (nee Station, then Loews), Michael gave evidence that if much of his pace has deserted him, his sense of opportunism abides: in a trice he had the Mercedes down the inside of the McLaren, and if there was light contact between the two it was close to a perfectly executed move at a spot where overtaking – as Hamilton himself would demonstrate later – is mighty difficult to pull off cleanly.

Vettel’s pace in the early laps was daunting – after the first he was 2.4 seconds up on Button – but soon it began to stabilise, with Alonso not far behind in third. On lap 15 Jenson came in for more of Pirelli’s super-soft tyres (soft and super-soft were the compounds taken to Monaco), and it wasn’t long before McLaren looked to be in the pound seats, for Red Bull – most untypically – made a complete mess of their stops. For one thing, Vettel and Webber came in on the same lap; for another, it appeared as though the team was expecting neither…

Both went for the soft compound (in other words, the harder of the two), and both lost time – in Webber’s case, a lot of time. As it was, Button – flying on his super-soft tyres – had gone past by the time Vettel rejoined the race, and it wasn’t long before Button began building a handy lead. Alonso, too, switched to the ordinarily soft Pirellis, so at this point Jenson had a decided grip advantage over his serious pursuers, and made the most of it.

Hamilton, who – unlike those ahead of him – had started on the harder compound, pitted on lap 22, but again it seemed as though a team of mechanics was not ready for its driver. The stop was slow, and Lewis’s state of mind took another downward turn.

Five laps later he attempted to pass Felipe Massa’s Ferrari into the hairpin, and by any standards the move was cack-handed – indeed when the cars made sizeable contact all four wheels of Hamilton’s McLaren were over the kerb. They continued, the Ferrari ahead, but when they got to the tunnel Massa’s damaged car slammed into the barrier, and that was that.

Later Hamilton was given a ‘drive through’ penalty, but Massa, incensed, thought that insufficient. “What he did today was unbelievable – and not just with me. The FIA needs to think about something more for him, or he will not learn…” Lewis was indeed not yet done for the day.

Immediately before this happened Button, now well in the lead, made his second stop, and the timing looked good, for he came out to a clear road. While the wreckage of Massa’s Ferrari was cleared away, however, the safety car was deployed, and although Alonso took the opportunity to dash in for more tyres – again the harder of the two compounds, for he was thinking now to run through to the end – Vettel decided that his overriding priority, in this of all races, was track position, and stayed out.

At the end of lap 38 the safety car came in, and by the time Button had got by a bit of slow traffic Vettel was four seconds to the good. In a single lap, though, Jenson virtually halved the gap, and with Alonso still lurking close at hand, Red Bull’s prospects looked tenuous, at best.

Vettel, though, continued to drive brilliantly, and offered Button no opportunities to pass. As long as he kept the McLaren at bay, he was of course negating Button’s newer tyre advantage – but surely it couldn’t be long before he, too, made a second stop.

Then it began to dawn on everyone: if Sebastian came in again, the race was surely lost; if he stayed out, he just might be able to make it to the end – and to keep Jenson and Fernando from passing…

Having run two stints on the softer tyres, Button was of course obligated to come in again, so to change to the harder Pirellis, and this he did on lap 48, which put Alonso into second place.

At this point Ferrari looked to be in a strong position, for Alonso’s tyres were younger than Vettel’s, but although he caught the Red Bull without much difficulty, getting by it was another matter. The ‘DRS Zone’ was in the only place it could be at Monaco – towards the end of the pit straight – but so much better was the Red Bull’s traction out of Rascasse that Fernando was never close enough to capitalise on the advantage of his ‘opening rear wing’. And while he and Sebastian played cat-and-mouse for lap after lap Button’s newly-tyred McLaren reeled them in. By lap 65 the three of them were all of a bunch, and the Monaco Grand Prix looked like having a hell of a finale.

“Fernando was pushing Seb really hard,” said Jenson. “I could tell he was getting ready to have a real go into Ste Devote – it was fun to watch because either they were going to crash, or maybe something else was going to happen that would give me an opportunity to get through. Any of us could have won at that point…”

As well as that, the three leaders were staring at the prospect of dealing with a gaggle of cars to be lapped, all of which were scrapping for places in the points. And it was this group which inadvertently settled the outcome of the day.

Into Tabac Pastor Maldonado’s Williams put a move on Adrian Sutil’s Force India, which clipped the barrier at the exit of the corner, and instantly punctured its right rear tyre. Sutil, instantly hobbled, of course slowed, and behind him – at the entry to the swimming pool complex – there was chaos. Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso tanked into the back of Hamilton, and at the exit of the turn both Sutil and Vitaly Petrov (who had nowhere to go) clouted the guardrail hard.

Somehow the leaders threaded their way through the mess unscathed, but again the safety car came out, and when there emerged some concerns for Petrov’s health – he was initially unconscious – out came the red flag.

Given that there were but six laps to the flag, there was some surprise when it was announced that the race would be re-started – and Maldonado, for one, would have cause to regret that decision.

In the correct fashion the cars came to a halt on the grid, and there all manner of work was – quite legally – carried out on the cars. The McLaren mechanics, for example, went to work on Hamilton’s rear wing, but more significant by far, in terms of the race, was that tyre changes were allowed. Thus, Vettel’s problem was solved, for his ruined Pirellis were replaced by fresh ‘super softs’, and in its rejuvenated state the Red Bull was not to come under serious threat again.

After a lap behind the safety car, they were given the signal to go again, and although the alert Alonso went with Vettel there was quite a gap to Button, who had been caught napping. Soon Jenson closed the gap, but it was obvious that no further moves would be made.

Briefly it looked as though the safety car, having gone in, would need to come right out again, for on the restart Hamilton tried to force his way past Maldonado into Ste Devote, and that put the Williams into the fence. A great shame, this, for the rookie had driven superbly throughout the Monaco weekend, and was on course for what would have been his first World Championship points.

If Hamilton felt any contrition, he failed to reveal it. After the race he was summoned to the stewards, and although given a time penalty did not lose the sixth place from which he had separated Maldonado. Most thought him extremely fortunate, but Lewis then did himself a lot of no good by angrily suggesting that the stewards were biased against him – that first Massa, then Maldonado, had turned in early to block his entirely legitimate passing moves. If he truly believed that, the boy has a problem, and it’s time he found a sense of perspective, and grew up a little.

On the other hand Sebastian Vettel – five wins and a second place in six races – appears to have no problems at all. “It really wasn’t easy today,” he said, and indeed it wasn’t, but at the moment his luck is a match for his talent, and no more need be said. At this rate, even as early as May, his second World Championship looks like a formality.

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