Jenson Button is a class act. In the ‘green room’ before the podium ceremony he smiled and warmly congratulated the new World Champion as he walked through the door – then firmly made it clear that he won’t forget Sebastian Vettel’s ruthless chop at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix.

“Didn’t you see me at the start?” asked Jenson. “You were behind me,” replied an audibly defensive Sebastian. “I was on the grass,” said the race winner, and then laconically: “So that’s how we’re racing then.” No sulking, no histrionics and totally magnanimous towards the deserving World Champion. But he made his point.

As we have come to expect, Button drove a beautifully judged race around the glorious Suzuka circuit, conserving his tyres in what was a tough race for the Pirelli rubber and only pushing when he really had to. That included the final laps of this hard-fought Grand Prix as the McLaren man had to put a spurt on to defend his lead from Fernando Alonso. He had enough in hand, but only just. Having crossed the line, Button pulled up at the pitlane exit, his McLaren short of fuel. It’s become a cliché… but as victories go, there were echoes of Alain Prost.

Vettel had every reason to savour his moment as the youngest back-to-back World Champion. But his actions at the start undoubtedly cast a faint shadow over his crowning glory.

Starting on the dirty side of the front row, Button still made the better get away and had the momentum to charge into the lead. But Vettel clearly had no intention of ceding. He’d said before the race he wanted to win this title from the front and wouldn’t be racing simply for that vital single point, and so it proved. Button wasn’t alongside the Red Bull by any means, but still he was left with no option but to trim the grass on the approach to Turn 1, a moment that allowed his team-mate Lewis Hamilton to sweep around him to claim second place.

“He’s got to get a penalty for that,” said Button on the radio at the end of lap one. But no. Vettel hadn’t done anything illegal. The stewards took another look at it and decided upon no further action. We’ve seen the Vettel chop before, during his first championship year (remember Hockenheim and Silverstone 2010?). Within the rules, it’s not deemed as foul play – but that doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. It’s an ugly tactic – and a dangerous one, too.

Vettel had his lead, but with tyre degradation a heavy factor here at Suzuka he couldn’t just put the hammer down to break from the McLarens. Behind Hamilton and Button, Alonso passed his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa – who had outqualified the former double World Champion – with a DRS-assisted move into Turn 1 at the start of lap six.

After his recent troubles, Hamilton’s gifted second place might have given him hope for a turn in fortunes. Such thoughts would have been wiped out on lap eight as the team notified him that he had a slow puncture on the right rear. Button passed him at Spoon and Lewis made it back to the pits, at least losing a minimum amount of ground in the process. He only lost a single place, to Alonso.

Hamilton’s first pit visit was only a lap ahead of Vettel’s first scheduled stop for another set of option Pirellis, with Button, Alonso and Mark Webber coming in a lap later. Massa made his stop next and emerged behind his ‘mate’ Hamilton and set upon the chase to claim fourth place from the McLaren.

Vettel’s second stint lasted just 10 laps before he was in again, and likewise Button was in a lap later. But this time Jenson had the pace to gain his revenge for the chop. He returned to the track ahead of his rival, in a lead that would prove to be decisive.

But for his team-mate, it was a case of here we go again as Hamilton clashed once again with Massa. On lap 22 Felipe edged alongside Lewis on the outside line as they approached the chicane – and as they had in Singapore, they came together. Hamilton claimed the small, useless mirrors on F1 cars left him with no awareness that Massa was there, and his ignorance of the Ferrari’s position was obvious. There were echoes of Spa and his frightening crash with Kamui Kobayashi, but this time at slower speed both cars survived, although Massa lost some bodywork in the incident. No major drama then, but for Lewis it had been a clumsy moment once again. The 2008 World Champion would later describe his race as “shocking”, and by his high standards it was an accurate assessment.

Massa’s debris and more elsewhere on the circuit brought out the safety car shortly after. At the restart, Button bunched the pack (perhaps over-doing it as they approached the chicane), then made his charge across the line ahead of Vettel, Alonso, Webber, Massa, Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.

Having lost the lead in the second round of stops, Vettel dropped another place at the third and final pit visits. Alonso’s Ferrari stopped four laps later than the Red Bull and grabbed second, but Sebastian wasn’t about to settle for a safe third – to his credit. He harried Alonso and looked set to use his DRS to take the place back, only for traffic (in the form of Jerome d’Ambrosio) to thwart him. His angry fist-waving as he passed the Virgin Racing car gave further indication to Vettel’s determination to win his title by going for “glory”. The lad can never be accused of lacking ambition!

As the race entered its closing stages, it became obvious that Button was far from home and dry. Alonso was still well within range of the McLaren – but crucially not quite within the one-second DRS range to deploy the wing down the start/finish straight. Button responded to the threat and kept Fernando at arm’s length to claim his third win of the season. Given his affinity with Japan and his love of the country, his victory was a popular one.

Vettel made the podium to claim his historic second title, ahead of team-mate Webber, Hamilton and best-of-the-rest Schumacher, who even lead the Grand Prix with an out of sequence strategy.

Sauber’s Sergio Perez scored an excellent seventh, ahead of Lotus Renault’s Vitaly Petrov and the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, who scored the final point having started from the back of the grid.

Next stop, Korea. The championship is over, but in reality it has been for most of the season. Still this season offers much to keep us hooked.

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Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

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…”

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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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Another ‘week in motor sport’ episode where I talk to the editor Damien Smith about Lewis Hamilton’s stunning victory in the Chinese Grand Prix, Mark Webber’s rise through the field and the new ‘gimmicks’ in F1 like the DRS and KERS.

We also discuss Mike Conway’s first IndyCar win, Sebastien Ogier’s second WRC win on the trot and Silverline Chevrolet’s effort to get Jason Plato’s car ready for race 3 in the BTCC at Donington. Oh, and we also touch on two future Grand Prix champions who have just started karting.

The week in motor sport

We hope you enjoy it and – as always – do let us know your views.

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We don’t often see Lewis Hamilton well up with emotion, but it was more than understandable as he prepared to step out on to the podium in Shanghai. His victory in the Chinese Grand Prix will go down as one of his finest after a scintillating race that was packed with incident and excitement.

McLaren’s first win of the season, breaking Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel’s seemingly iron grip on the top spot, came through great strategy, wonderful driving – and heart-in-mouth work from the mechanics. A fuel leak as Hamilton prepared to leave his garage to take the start almost destroyed his day before it had really begun. Team principal Martin Whitmarsh reckoned Lewis only made it to the grid with about 10 seconds to spare as the mechanics raced to quell the leak. The boys at McLaren earned their win bonuses in those vital seconds and have every right to enjoy a few Tsingtaos before the flight home.

Dominant pole position man Vettel was on the back foot after bogging down at the start and although he recovered to lead this Grand Prix, his two-stop strategy fell four laps short of delivering him a hat trick of victories for the season.

Jenson Button, starting second, swept into Turn 1 in the lead from the lights, as Hamilton left Vettel scrabbling to hold on to third place from Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes. The two McLarens and the Red Bull ran in close formation until lap 14 when Button and Vettel both made their first stops. Button had already run a lap longer than he was supposed to and then made a glaring error as he tried to stop in Vettel’s pitbox! “I was looking down as I came into the pits,” explained the sheepish Englishman afterwards.

A bemused Vettel followed Button into his pitbox and emerged from the stops after only a slight delay, and in front of the McLaren. Hamilton pitted a lap later, but his hopes of jumping the pair were thwarted after a poor in-lap during which Felipe Massa’s Ferrari passed him.

At this stage, Mercedes had made the biggest gains after Rosberg and Michael Schumacher’s early stops on laps 12 and 10 respectively. Indeed, Rosberg found himself in the lead from Vettel, Button, Massa, Hamilton, Schumacher and a subdued Fernando Alonso.

Meanwhile, Mark Webber appeared to be making little progress from his lowly 18^th on the grid following his troubled practice and qualifying. He’d started the race on the hard prime tyres and only made up a couple of places before stopping for a set of softs on lap 10. It looked like being a long afternoon for the Australian at this stage, but his patience would be rewarded…

At the front, Button would be the first to stop for his second set of Pirellis, on lap 24 – a clear indication that McLaren had chosen a three-stop strategy. Rosberg stopped a lap later, so Vettel now led from Massa’s two-stopping Ferrari. Nico rejoined still ahead of Button and Hamilton, and at this stage it appeared the race might be slipping away from McLaren.

But not for long. Vettel would make his second and final stop on lap 31, leaving him a daunting 25 laps to nurse his tyres to the flag, and a few laps later Hamilton began to make his move. He closed in on Button and made a decisive move on his team-mate into Turn 1 at the start of lap 36. The battle of the two Englishman had been decided.

Lewis followed leader Rosberg into the pits three laps later, allowing Vettel and Massa back in front – and now the chase was on. By lap 42 Hamilton was monstering Rosberg, who offered little resistance at Turn 6 as the McLaren outbraked the Mercerdes. He despatched Massa at Turn 1 on lap 45 and now there were 10 laps for him to catch and pass the World Championship leader.

On tyres eight laps fresher, it was an uneven contest. Four laps from the finish Hamilton looked unstoppable and so it would prove. He jumped Vettel with another terrific move, this time at Turn 7 – pleasingly taking the lead without the need for his rear wing Drag Reduction System.

The race was won, but the action was far from over. Webber was finally feeling the benefit of those fresh soft ‘option’ tyres that his poor qualifying had saved him for the race. His pace towards the end of the Grand Prix, after an aggressive three-stop strategy, was astounding and he closed in on an incredible podium finish. Rosberg was picked off at Turn 6 two laps from the flag, then Button – who admitted he’d uncharacteristically struggled to look after his rear tyres – was powerless to stop Mark sweeping by on the long back straight. From his lowly grid spot, Webber was just seven seconds behind winner Hamilton. It was a performance that might just rejuvenate the Australian as he fights to get back on terms with his World Champion team-mate.

Rosberg scored a creditable fifth behind Button, the Mercedes ace producing the goods to beat Massa who looked much more like his old self for Ferrari in China. He beat Alonso to sixth, while Fernando worked hard to hold off a determined Schumacher. These old rivals had enjoyed a spirited battle earlier in the race, with Alonso pulling off a perfect ‘undercut’ pass on the drag out of the hairpin. That his DRS appeared to be malfunctioning during this battle gave a clue that his afternoon had not gone entirely according to plan.

Hamilton paid great tribute to the team he has criticised of late, while Vettel took defeat with a smile after a day when radio problems had made communication with his pitwall difficult. Once again the team struggled to make its KERS run reliably and the pressure is back on Red Bull and Adrian Newey to solve the problems before the Turkish Grand Prix.

As modern Formula 1 races go, this was one of the best. Yes, DRS is a gimmick, Pirelli has been asked to provide ‘flawed’ tyres and a question mark remains over the benefits offered by KERS. But right now, the combination is creating races full of variables and plenty of passing moves that could never be described as easy. Artificial racing? Maybe. But you can’t deny it’s exciting.

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“Fantastic job, fantastic job. In the heat we kept our heads cool,” commented Sebastian Vettel on the radio after he won the Malaysian Grand Prix. “Every week it’s a pleasure driving for you and I’m loving it, I’m loving it…”

I’m sure Vettel is loving his time at Red Bull at the moment as even without his KERS – which stopped working early on in the race – he never looked flustered, or troubled. He has now won five of the six last Grands Prix and he is oozing confidence. No doubt there’ll be plenty to get on with back in Milton Keynes after the KERS systems of both Mark Webber and Vettel failed to work, but you get a sense that any teams that want to compete with Red Bull have their work cut out.

3.2 seconds behind Vettel was McLaren’s Jenson Button who, having qualified fourth, drove a strong race. His team-mate had the measure of him for most of the weekend, and indeed, for most of the race. However, at Hamilton’s third stop the team opted for the harder of the two compounds, his front left took time to be changed, and from then on the Brit struggled to keep the same pace as the leaders. Button, who had been running behind Hamilton, jumped him when he finally stopped for the third time, but even if he hadn’t, there’s no doubt he would have got past soon enough. Only 10 laps later and he was over 15 seconds down the road.

Fernando Alonso quickly closed onto the back of Hamilton’s struggling McLaren, but clipped his front wing on the back of the car while trying to pass and had to pit for a new front nose that lap. If Hamilton thought his troubles were over he was sadly mistaken, as both Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber closed up onto the back of his gearbox and made their way past soon after, Webber doing so after Hamilton ran wide. After another pitstop to change his ruined tyres, Hamilton finally finished seventh.

It was another good weekend for Renault as after both Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov got off the line brilliantly they maintained a good race pace. Heidfeld finished an encouraging third while Petrov, who had run well for much of the race, finally ran wide and while coming back onto the track managed to traverse a rain gulley that pitched the Renault off the ground. The car came down with an almighty thump and, astonishingly, the steering column came away from the rack leaving him with no steering at all.

Thankfully by this time Petrov was going slow enough to come to a halt a few metres down the road, but no doubt the Russian was cursing his decision to take the rain gulley flat. He may have shown how far he has come on in Australia, where he finished a promising third, but mistakes like that will go down badly with any team that looks set to pick up points.

Mark Webber, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, but it was the Australian that stole the show. On the way to the grid he reported that his KERS didn’t work and it was this problem, combined with a slow getaway, that relegated him to 10th by the end of the first lap.

He recovered well though and got some strong points. However, he has to start beating his team-mate in qualifying and the race to stand a chance of the championship, and at the moment can you see that happening?

It was another good result for Scot Paul di Resta who managed to out-qualify and out-race his team-mate Adrian Sutil. The Force India is clearly off the pace at the moment and there’s no doubt that Sutil and di Resta are getting the most out of the car. The team will be reasonably relieved with their 10th and 11th positions.

So what of next weekend in China? McLaren is undoubtedly closer to Red Bull than it was in testing and the first race. Ferrari seem to have dropped back even further on one-lap pace since Australia, and Mercedes had a woeful weekend in Malaysia with Schumacher finishing ninth and Rosberg a very quiet 12th. It looks like Vettel and Red Bull will be the combination to beat again in seven days time and if the other teams aren’t careful, they could go to Istanbul for the start of the European season with a certain German sitting on 75 points at the lead of the championship.

On Sunday evening Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were each given 20-second penalities. The McLaren driver was given his for making more than one move while trying to block Alonso, and the Ferrari driver was penalised for causing an avoidable accident. The penalties mean that Hamilton drops to eighth place, but Alonso stays in sixth.

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I’ll admit to being surprised by Stefano Domenicali’s recent revelation that, in the aftermath of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, he considered resigning his post as Ferrari team principal.

Yes, it’s undeniable that a team mistake on pitstop strategy cost Fernando Alonso the World Championship. But, truth be told, mistakes of that kind are made by every team at some stage, although usually – as Stefano said – without such devastating effects.

Right after the race there were rumours from Italy that heads would roll, and of course there was speculation that Domenicali, as the man in charge, would be at the top of the list. Fortunately rumours were all they turned out to be, and quite rightly he remains at the helm. The job Stefano has done, not least in transforming Ferrari’s image in the paddock, deserves high praise.

As well as that, we wouldn’t care to see Formula 1 follow the path well trodden in the Premiership, where a manager gets pitched if his players don’t perform for three or four games on the trot. Well, I wouldn’t, anyway – but then I’m invariably keen to have comparisons between motor racing and football kept to a minimum in all respects.

“But… we always have one driver who is faster than the other…”Now, as Ferrari prepares for the coming season, there will be a good deal of focus on Felipe Massa, so disappointing in 2010. While the team – even in the Schumacher days – never officially nominated a number one driver, it’s a fact that Alonso is unequivocally regarded as that, and not surprisingly so. “At Ferrari,” Mauro Forghieri used to say, “we never have a number one driver.” Pause. “But… we always have one driver who is faster than the other…”

Just so. In 2010 Alonso comprehensively outperformed Massa, and if Felipe’s act isn’t more – much more – together this season, it’s a given that he will be out at the end of it. “Every driver,” said Domenicali, “in order to race, must feel the strongest. When they don’t manage to be the strongest, it’s very hard to clear their heads from those excuses everyone creates when things go wrong.

“I think this was the cause of Felipe’s bad season, but he’ll come out of it if he works on that. That’s why I’m certain we’ll see a great Massa in 2011. He knows full well he can’t afford another season like the last one…”

Well, we’ll see. If Stefano’s diagnosis of Felipe’s problems is the right one – and I think it is – I don’t find it easy to agree with his prediction of a great season for him in 2011. Invariably he found it difficult to keep pace with Alonso last year, and after the Hockenheim incident, where Ferrari ‘asked’ him to move over for Fernando, his head seemed to droop for the balance of the year.

Interlagos, where he had become nigh invincible, told its own tale. At his home race he won from pole for Ferrari in 2006, took pole and handed victory to team-mate Kimi Räikkönen in ’07, took pole and won in ’08. The ’09 race he missed, of course, still recuperating from the injuries sustained in Hungary, but last year he qualified only ninth – more than a second from Alonso – and made no impression in the race.

In truth, once it became clear that Ferrari was concentrating its efforts on Alonso for the World Championship, Massa looked like a man who couldn’t wait for the season to be over. I can see Felipe sparkling occasionally this year, particularly in the early races, but it’s unlikely he can ever feel, in Domenicali’s words, ‘the strongest’ while he’s teamed with a driver like Alonso. Within the team Massa is immensely popular, and understandably so, but if he doesn’t show a lot more fight – and consistent pace – than he did in 2010, his days at Ferrari will be done. Some indeed think the decision is already taken.

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It has become a custom for me to offer some predictions for the season ahead. Actually, it has become a source of much amusement and derision among my colleagues, who are never shy of reminding me how unreliable my predictions are. I will, however, continue the custom for those of you who enjoy a bit of harmless amusement.

So, here’s what may happen as we move through a new season of motor racing in 2011. In no particular order:

1. Sébastien Ogier will be a lot closer to Sébastien Loeb and will challenge for the World Rally Championship title.
2. Valentino Rossi will win a race on a Ducati.
3. Audi will win Le Mans.
4. Red Bull will start the season winning Grands Prix.
5. Paul di Resta will impress in the Force India (if he actually gets to drive one of the cars Rob… Ed).
6. Dario Franchitti will win the Indycar championship.
7. Felipe Massa will be replaced at Ferrari during the year.
8. Rubens Barrichello will retire at the end of 2011.
9. Dean Stoneman will be on the podium in GP2.
10. Ferrari will threaten to leave Grand Prix racing if the rules for 2013 are not changed to accommodate a V6 turbo engine.

All nonsense? Yes, probably, but let’s be bold this year. You will have your own thoughts on the season ahead, or you may decide to keep them to yourselves, which is probably more sensible. But remember, I did predict that Vettel would win the Formula 1 title in 2010

While we’re listing things, here’s 10 events not to miss in 2011. Again, in no particular order:

1. The Monaco Grand Prix – F1 cars are as exciting as ever they were on this circuit. Pure drama, with or without overtaking.
2. Indycars on any of the ovals. Still a thrilling spectacle.
3. IRC Ypres Rally. An easy drive from the UK and a lovely town with the service area in the main square.
4. The Goodwood Revival. Simply the best.
5. MotoGP at Mugello. Take a walk around the circuit and be amazed.
6. BTCC at Brands Hatch. Audi joins the fray this year. Great circuit.
7. WRC Rally New Zealand. Breathtaking scenery.
8. Algarve Historic Festival. Sunshine, beaches and mouth-watering cars.
9. The Brazilian Grand Prix. Crackling atmosphere, always a good race.
10. Midget cars on any dirt oval. You can combine this with the Indy 500.

Go on, treat yourself. It will only be more expensive next year. Whatever you do, wherever you are, let’s look forward to another great season.

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As Fernando Alonso chased Nico Hulkenberg in the early stages of the Brazilian Grand Prix, it was apparent that on the long climb at the end of the lap the Ferrari was making little impression on the Williams, and you had to be impressed by what Cosworth has achieved this season. Rubens Barrichello suggests that ‘driveability’ isn’t all it might be, but on horsepower – so long as the engine is reasonably fresh, anyway – it apparently lacks for little. Pretty impressive, you’d have to say, for what is supposedly a ‘customer’ engine, supplied to four teams: whatever else Lotus, Virgin and HRT have been short of in their debut season, it hasn’t been grunt.

Alonso found himself in the unusual position of chasing Hulkenberg because the young German – although swiftly dispensed with by the Red Bulls – had succeeded in putting his Williams on pole, and it was pleasing that this should have occurred at Interlagos, where the team’s last victory – by Juan Pablo Montoya – was scored six long years ago.

The manner in which Hulkenberg achieved his pole position reminded me rather of qualifying for the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in 1975, when Jody Scheckter – in freezing conditions – threw his Tyrrell around with such vigour that he alone got decent temperature into his tyres, and achieved a time no one else could approach. In the case of Hulkenberg, a wet Interlagos was drying out by the end of qualifying, and he – one of the first out on slicks – drove as quick an out-lap as he dared, got his tyres up to temperature, and went for it, setting a time more than a second faster even than the Red Bulls.

As we saw so often in the season past, Adrian Newey’s wonder cars duly waltzed it in the race, but Alonso wasn’t very far behind Webber at the flag, and might have been able to exert a little more pressure had he not lost a significant amount of time behind Hulkenberg in the early laps. The importance of qualifying is perhaps even greater today than at any point in the past.
Most would agree, I think, that on many occasions in this era of Formula 1 the highlight of the weekend – in terms of excitement – is Q3, that final 10-minute period when only the 10 fastest cars are out, and the track is relatively uncluttered. Since refuelling was dropped, thank God, so the need to ‘qualify with fuel for the first stint of the race’ has gone with it, and thus the cars are in pure, ultra-light ‘qualifying spec’.

Think of Singapore. Alonso stole that race from the faster Red Bull of Vettel because he drove a perfect qualifying lap, and Sebastian, heading for pole on his final run, lightly clipped a guardrail. That meant starting second, and although he pressured Fernando for the entire race, second was where he finished, too. Saturday, in other words, decided Sunday, and often it has been that way because overtaking, as we know, is extremely difficult with F1 cars of the contemporary era.

The top six drivers in the 2010 World Championship represented three teams. At Red Bull, Vettel out-qualified Webber 12-7, at McLaren Hamilton beat Button 14-5, and at Ferrari Alonso was ahead of Massa 15-4. Ten times Vettel started from pole, followed by Webber (five), Alonso (two) and Hamilton and Hulkenberg (one apiece).

No wonder the young man looked so gratified in Brazil. It’s a tragedy that financial considerations – Hulkenberg isn’t loaded down with personal sponsorship – have obliged Williams to part with him, but Nico will surely get a drive elsewhere for 2011. Most drivers, after all, go through an entire F1 career without once starting from the front.

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After Sunday’s excitement the editorial team wasn’t that quick to get down to work on Monday morning. Instead we spent a reasonable amount of time discussing who our top 10 drivers of the season would be (don’t tell the MD).

You’ll have to wait until our full season review comes out at the beginning of December to see what the final result was, but for what it’s worth, here’s mine.

1. Sebastian Vettel: Yes, he made some mistakes, most notably at Spa and Hungary, but he also suffered from mechanical failures which robbed him of certain wins. When neither of those happened, he was unstoppable.

2. Mark Webber: No one thought he could really challenge Vettel on raw pace, but he did. His win at Monaco was sublime and this was his best F1 season to date. Shame nerves got the better of him in Abu Dhabi.

3. Fernando Alonso: The Spaniard regularly put the Ferrari further up the grid than it had any right to be and his second half of the season was a lesson on why not to give up. Hockenheim incident doesn’t take anything away for me.

4. Lewis Hamilton: He put in some flawless drives and some superb qualifying performances. He struggled all year with a McLaren that was never quite fast enough to compete with the Red Bulls at every track. A few too many mistakes, but that’s what happens when you’re pushing a car beyond its limits.

5. Robert Kubica: OK, he didn’t have much competition from his team-mate and he didn’t actually win a Grand Prix. However, he seems to have galvanised Renault and he put in some superb performances in Australia, Monaco and Belgium. Also extremely consistent and mistake free.

6. Jenson Button: His two wins were absolutely brilliant examples of what a wise head can pull out of the bag. He made fewer mistakes than Hamilton, but his qualifying pace needs to be sorted for next year.

7. Nico Rosberg: There was much talk before the season that Rosberg was going to be blown away by Herr Schumacher. The exact opposite happened, and for me Nico was one of the most underrated drivers of the season.

8. Rubens Barrichello: Williams has looked like a proper team on more occasions than not this year and much of that has been thanks to the experience and hard work of Barrichello. Never underestimate the brilliance of the Brazilian.

9. Kamui Kobayashi: He made plenty of mistakes and wasn’t that consistent, but wow, when he was racing he found gaps where no other driver could and provided so much entertainment he has to be in the top 10.

10. Felipe Massa: Before this year Massa has only ever qualified on pole in Brazil when he has been driving a Ferrari. In 2010 he was ninth on the grid and then 15th at the end of the race. However, before he was asked to move over in Hockenheim he was doing a great job after receiving one of the worst head injuries you can imagine.

The great thing about these lists is that they vary from person to person… so what do we all think?

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I’ve been thinking. Yeah, I know, but bear with me. As the days get shorter, we approach the penultimate race of this extraordinary season of Grand Prix racing. The year 2010 will surely be recorded as one of the great seasons, and certainly it has been the most exciting since this century began.

We can’t wind the clocks back – actually, we’ve just done that in the UK as we move into our ‘winter’ time zone. But, if you skate back over the season so far, even a cursory glance at the races brings to mind one of the most oft-used words in the lexicon of motor racing. If. A short word, but one with so many ramifications.

If Massa had not been forced to allow Alonso to overtake at Hockenheim. If Alonso had not hit the barrier in Monte Carlo. If Button had not left the pits with his radiators blanked. If Hamilton had not crashed at Monza and in Singapore. If Vettel and Webber had not collided in Turkey. If Webber had not thrown it away in Valencia and in Korea. If…

It is a season almost defined by what ifs, and perhaps more so than for many a year. This may be explained by the constant pressure, the constant excitement, or the batch of top drivers in top cars we have right now. Whatever, not once since March has it been clear who would take the 2010 title. Not to me, anyway.

And, even more remarkably, it is barely any clearer as we approach the Brazilian Grand Prix. There isn’t a sport on earth that would not be revelling in such a cliffhanger. And you can bet your salary that Bernie Ecclestone, not to mention the television companies, are doing just that.

OK, it does look a tall order for Button and Hamilton. And to a lesser extent for Vettel, lesser because he has the best Formula 1 car we’ve seen this season. So, it’s down to the wire between Alonso and Webber, right? Wrong. Because we are going to São Paulo, where the weather is fickle and where there is almost invariably some kind of drama.

The great Grand Prix circuits, of which Interlagos is indubitably one, have the elements of drama, tragedy and comedy ingrained into the very asphalt itself. There is the grid, painted onto a steep gradient, and then there is the first corner. There are those long, long corners with their tricky cambers and terrible drainage. There is the crowd, a seething, passionate mass of people who just love this sport to bits. The rickety grandstand opposite the pits trembles with anticipation on the warm-up lap. I am not joking. The drummers and the dancers, draped in national flags, are there at dawn. It is Grand Prix racing at its gladiatorial best.

Yeah, but Alonso will do it for Ferrari, Massa will help him, and Webber will have some kind of stupid failure. Wrong. Anything can happen, as we wait for the lights next Sunday afternoon. What happens at Interlagos, I do believe, will decide the season. A week later, in Abu Dhabi, things will simply be quietly confirmed.

On paper, it has to be Webber. He has the best car and is the man in the lead. On paper, it has to be Alonso. He is the best driver. On paper, it has to be Vettel. He is the man in form, arguably the bravest.

Every Grand Prix at Interlagos is a wonderful event, a thrilling experience, and this year – one way or the other – will be one of the best of them all. If…

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As I write, there is some uncertainty that the Korean Grand Prix – a race no one within the sport, save Bernie Ecclestone, seems to want – will actually take place. Deadlines for track inspections and signings-off have been missed (and not by just a few weeks, either), and for reasons not immediately clear the Korean organisers appear to be cut far more slack than is normal for Formula 1’s powers-that-be.

Given that there has always been minimal enthusiasm for this race in the paddock, many will be only too glad not to have to schlep to the Far East for the third time in a month. But the five World Championship contenders – or some of them, anyway – necessarily feel differently, for if Korea evaporates, only three Grands Prix will remain on the 2010 schedule.

If you’re Mark Webber, that won’t cause you too much concern, for you lead the World Championship by 11 points, and one fewer race means one fewer opportunity for the rest to catch you; if, on the other hand, you are Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel or Jenson Button, you want as many chances as possible to do just that.

Be it three races or four, we are now into the red meat of the World Championship, and usually by this point in the season we are down to two, rarely three, protagonists. The fact that five drivers still have a shot is testimony to the extraordinary year F1 has had: three teams have produced cars good enough to win several Grands Prix: Red Bull has six, McLaren five, Ferrari four.

Whereas both Red Bull and both McLaren drivers have won races, however, only Alonso has won for Ferrari – yes, I know you can argue reasonably enough that Felipe Massa would have won in Germany, were it not for the ‘team orders’ imposed that day. But the fact is that, although Massa drove a fine race, only circumstances at the start – poleman Vettel delaying both himself and Alonso – put him in a position to win. Hockenheim apart, Felipe has not looked like a potential winner this year.

That being so, Ferrari some time ago opted to concentrate – in terms of the World Championship – on Alonso, and rival teams have criticised it for so doing. Never at Ferrari – even in the autocratic days of Michael Schumacher – is there an official number one driver, but usually someone, simply by being clearly quicker, becomes the de facto team leader, and the situation with Alonso and Massa reminds me rather of that in the mid-70s with Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni.

Going into these crucial end-of-season races, therefore, Alonso has one clear advantage over his rivals for the championship, in that he does not have to fight his own team-mate. His team’s decision is already taken, whereas Red Bull and McLaren still have both drivers in contention, and the time awaits when they have to put their emphasis on one, and require the other to play a supporting role. Red Bull has suggested that that time has not yet come, and McLaren has been even more bullish, suggesting that it would never favour one of its drivers over the other (even though this has not always been the case in the past).

Of course it may not come to that: while unlikely, it is not impossible that Webber and Vettel, Hamilton and Button will go off to Abu Dhabi still with at least a mathematical chance of lifting the 2010 World Championship.

In Singapore Massa, thanks to a gearbox problem in qualifying, started stone last, and therefore was never in a position to be of assistance to Alonso. As we know, Fernando’s superb drive brought him 25 points, but had Felipe started from a normal grid position he might well have been able to steal points from some of his team-mate’s rivals – if not Vettel, then certainly the hobbled Webber, who finished third.

Alonso has no real need to worry about Massa’s points tally, for Felipe is too far behind to become a factor in the title race, but of course he would appreciate it deeply if Felipe could keep a rival out of third or fourth place or whatever. Webber, on the other hand, has to worry about Vettel, and Hamilton has to worry about Button.

In 1973 Lotus won the constructors’ championship with seven victories in the 15 races, four to Ronnie Peterson, three to Emerson Fittipaldi. Tyrrell was runner-up with five wins – but all of them went to Jackie Stewart, who won the World Championship.

In 1986 Williams easily won the constructors’ championship with nine victories in the 16 Grands Prix, six to Nigel Mansell, three to Nelson Piquet. McLaren was runner-up with four wins – but all of them (together with a great many second places) went to Alain Prost, who won the World Championship.

Only three years ago McLaren drivers Hamilton and Alonso finished the season with 109 points apiece – but finished second and third in the World Championship behind Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen, who had 110.

In every case two ‘number one’ drivers won a lot of races – while another driver, in a slower car, nicked the title. If Christian Horner and Martin Whitmarsh stick to the bitter end with their policy of allowing their drivers to race each other, I will admire them for it. But then I’m not a sponsor…

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Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

As if working to a Bernie Ecclestone script, Formula 1 came up with the goods again at Monza. A fortnight earlier, at Spa, there seemed like the beginnings of a breakaway in the World Championship fight, with Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber finishing 1-2, but the three other title contenders all failing to score.

Monza was completely different. Hamilton crashed on the opening lap, Webber came home a disappointing sixth, while Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel finished first, second and fourth respectively. Thus, in the standings, the top five are separated only by 24 points – by less, in other words, than a Grand Prix victory.

Alonso ascended to the Monza deity on Sunday. After a bad result in Belgium, Fernando – and Ferrari – were under the greatest pressure to deliver at home. In a superb qualifying session, he pipped Button to pole position, with the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa next up. On race day, they finished in the same order.

It wasn’t quite as simple as that, however, for Button led more than half the race, and there seemed nothing that Alonso could do about it. “My car was faster than Jenson’s in a straight line,” he said, “and I felt that if I could get out of Parabolica close behind him, I could maybe get by on the pit straight, before the first chicane. But Jenson drove really superbly, making no mistakes at all, and every time we came out of Parabolica the gap was about the same – I’d close on him down the straight, but I was never close enough to try to overtake…”

What made this Italian Grand Prix fascinating was that, in the post-refuelling era – with the dreary sprint-stop-sprint syndrome mercifully consigned to history – different strategies came into it, even, in some cases, within the same team.

When McLaren arrived at Monza, Martin Whitmarsh said he wasn’t yet sure which strategy his drivers would follow. On the one hand, there was the F-duct route, on the other the traditional Monza route of ultra-low downforce. The latter offered an advantage, in terms of top speed (340kph, compared with 330), but the former was perhaps a better compromise, for the F-duct offered the opportunity to run much more downforce.

Both Button and Hamilton began practice in ‘F-duct spec’, but whereas Jenson was quite happy with it, Lewis decided he wanted to try the low downforce configuration. What was more, having done that, he decided to stick with it. Yes, the car would be relatively slow through the turns, and certainly it would slide a lot, but that higher top speed, Hamilton reckoned, could be crucial in the race.

After qualifying, though, he was less confident – indeed, it was clear that he feared that he – and his side of the McLaren garage – had made the wrong choice, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Where Button fought Alonso hard for pole position, eventually qualifying second, Hamilton was only fifth, which put him one place behind Webber, his closest pursuer in the championship.

We anticipated quite a bit of drama in the race, with Hamilton potentially arriving quite a bit quicker than his rivals at the end of the pit straight – but then having far less downforce than they to help him get it stopped for the tight right-left. Nothing is better for racing than having different cars quick in different ways, and we wondered how Lewis’s strategy would work for him.

As it was, that question was to remain unanswered. After qualifying, he had said that his main focus for the race was on Webber, on finishing ahead of his nearest championship rival. Come the start, and Mark – as at Spa – was slow to get on his way, and Lewis was immediately ahead of him. It might have been a sound plan simply to hold position for a while, but halfway round the first lap he tried to pass Massa’s Ferrari in a move that was never on, and the McLaren was out on the spot. Hamilton was suitably contrite, freely admitting his mistake, but it might cost him very dear when they tot up the points at Abu Dhabi in a couple of months’ time.

Although Massa was never more than three or four seconds behind them, the Italian Grand Prix was strictly a two-hander, between Button and Alonso. While there remained a suspicion that the Ferrari was potentially a shade quicker than the McLaren, Alonso was running in Button’s ‘dirty air’, and could never get within four-tenths of a second of him. If he were to find a way by, it would have to come at the tyre stops.

In this, Alonso had a little help, for McLaren, knowing that the harder Bridgestones would be quicker than increasingly worn soft ones, decided to bring Button in a lap earlier than originally intended – and that, of course, allowed Fernando a clear lap in which to make hay. This he duly did, and the Ferrari mechanics then performed an astonishingly quick tyre change: “I was amazed – when I saw the green light to go, I was just putting it into first gear…”

At the same time Jenson found his car short of grip on its first lap on the hard tyres, so all these things came together to allow Fernando to get out of the pits, and to sneak into the first corner just ahead of the McLaren. And once in front, the Ferrari duly pulled away – not by much, but by a little every time around. At the flag Alonso was three seconds up on Button, with Massa a further four adrift.

After the erratic performances of the recent past, Vettel had an unusually subdued race in Italy, finishing fourth after qualifying sixth. Nico Rosberg did his usual excellent job for Mercedes, taking fifth place, and – as usual – putting team-mate Michael Schumacher thoroughly in the shade. Schumacher, who won this race for Ferrari in 2006 (and announced his retirement at the subsequent press conference), was again lost in midfield, and eventually finished ninth.

Webber, sixth, was disappointed – on a day when Hamilton failed to score – not to put more space between them in the points table, but overtaking at Monza is not easy (particularly when you have other than the best engine), and that poor start made for a frustrating afternoon. For a long time he was trapped behind the Williams of Nico Hulkenberg, the young German quick, but somewhat unruly in his attempts to keep Mark at bay. The Red Bull finally moved into sixth place with three laps to go.

Not a classic race, perhaps, but a good one, with plenty of tension, brilliant drives by Alonso and Button, and a closing up on the championship points battle. It’s been said many times before, but on Sunday afternoon Fernando said: “For a racing driver, nothing can ever be better than to win at Monza in a Ferrari…”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Welcome to another Motor Sport audio podcast. There was no avoiding the team orders scandal from Hockenheim, but we also have a look at the Formula 1 driving standards, the relationship between Vettel and Webber and whether it’s too late for Schumacher to start producing the results.

Anyway… enjoy and do let us know what you think. We’ll be back on air later this month or early next month with another guest so ‘stay tuned’.

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An unexpectedly boring German Grand Prix, this, for Hockenheim usually provides for more overtaking than most circuits, but if there was little excitement, there was certainly controversy. From the start the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso ran first and second, and on lap 49 they swapped positions, Massa very obviously backing off to let Alonso by.

Immediately there were howls of outrage, for ‘team orders’ are supposedly banned, and a ‘team order’ this unquestionably was, prompting some to compare the incident with the notorious happenings in the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, when Rubens Barrichello was ordered to let Michael Schumacher through.

Team orders are never welcome, of course, most people in the sport feeling that drivers should be allowed to race their team-mates, the only proviso being that they do not ‘take each other off’.

That said, to compare Hockenheim ’10 with the A1-Ring ’02 strikes me as a touch farcical. In Austria Barrichello completely outpaced Schumacher in both qualifying and race, and by the time the order came through from sporting director Jean Todt he had built up a considerable lead, and was not many laps away from the chequered flag. As well as that, the Ferraris were under no threat from any rival – and Schumacher already had an enormous lead in the World Championship. On the run up to the finish line, Barrichello had almost to stop in order to allow him to catch up.

At Hockenheim Alonso was considerably quicker than Massa in qualifying, but being second fastest (to Vettel) he necessarily started on the ‘dirty’ side of the grid, whereas Massa – third – was on the clean side. Away from the grid Vettel predictably chopped across to block Alonso, and as the two of them messed around Massa swooped around the outside of the pair of them.

It was a little like Malaysia, where Vettel snicked by team-mate Webber into the first turn, and the race result was decided right there. So difficult is passing in F1 – particularly between identical cars – that he who leads into the first corner is, all things being equal, going to win the race.

So why did ‘team orders’ come into play at Hockenheim? In their post-race remarks, the drivers offered little clue. Massa was plainly upset by what had happened, Alonso plainly embarrassed. There was a lot of mumbling about it being ‘a good day for the team’, and so on. Massa, asked to comment on the moment he backed off, smiled sadly: “I don’t think I need to say anything about what happened…”

“I think,” Alonso said, “that sometimes you’re quick, and sometimes you’re slow, depending on your tyres…” And Massa allowed that, on the very hard Bridgestones on which they ran for the bulk of the race, he was ‘struggling’ (although it hardly looked that way).

If Ferrari had a concern, it was surely that Vettel still lurked in third place, and not very far behind. Alonso may have been the faster of the Ferrari drivers, but he couldn’t get past Massa. The supposition was that if Vettel mounted a strong late-race challenge, Ferrari considered that Alonso would be better able to keep him at bay. May be right, may be wrong, but that’s what most people thought.

Whatever, the post-race atmosphere was certainly clouded, and that was a pity, because in all other respects Ferrari – after a run of miserable luck – could hardly have impressed more. It was good to see Alonso and Massa in the think of things, where they belong, and where they should have been all season long. “The car has been much better in the last few races,” Alonso commented. “We were very competitive at Valencia and Silverstone – but we came away with no points…”

Despite that, in recent weeks Alonso refused to rule himself out of the World Championship reckoning, and on the strength of the red cars’ pace in Germany he was right to do so. It was good that the Ferraris were so quick, too, for otherwise Red Bull would have been completely unopposed, McLaren being off the pace this time out. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finished fourth and fifth, banking more World Championship points, but they were fully half a minute adrift of Alonso at the flag.

It was a low-key weekend, too, for Mark Webber, who started fourth after making a mistake on his final qualifying lap, but was obliged to take it easy for much of the race, the team much concerned by his engine’s excessive oil consumption. In the circumstances, Mark was happy enough to come away with sixth place, and eight points. The two Red Bull drivers, incidentally, now have 136 apiece, Webber ahead of Vettel in the standings by virtue of more victories, three to two.

If McLaren had a middling time at Hockenheim, for Mercedes it was not less than disastrous. Initially Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were encouraged by technical updates on the car, and spoke in terms of qualifying in the first six. When it came to it, though, Rosberg only just made it into Q3 – but Schumacher did not. Both finished in the points, Nico ahead of Michael as usual, but eighth and ninth places – behind Robert Kubica’s Renault – were not what Mercedes was looking for in its home race.

On Sunday evening Ferrari was required to explain its actions to the FIA stewards, and later it was announced that the team had been found in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code, and would be fined $100,000. As well as that, the stewards’ statement said, the case is to be referred to the FIA World Motor Sport Council ‘for further consideration’.

Amid all the huffing and puffing and outrage, more reasoned observers considered this a lot of fuss about not very much. “Ferrari were too honest,” one cynic laughed. “All this talk on the radio, all this apologising to Massa… other teams do this sort of thing so much better, don’t they? They slow this driver or that by telling him he’s low on fuel, and need to turn his engine down, or something like that…”

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When it was announced, in September 2009, that Ferrari had decided to terminate Kimi Räikkönen’s contract a year ahead of time, and to put Fernando Alonso in with Felipe Massa, there was no surprise in Formula 1 circles. His first season with the team (2007, when he won the World Championship) apart, Räikkönen’s time with Ferrari had undeniably fallen short of expectations – more often than not, he was outpaced by Massa, a man on a smallish fraction of his retainer.

This has been a pricey season for Ferrari, which has not only had to pay off Kimi’s contract (while he contests the World Rally Championship for Citroën), but also to stump up for Fernando, who may be earning somewhat less than Kimi did (and certainly less than Mercedes is paying Michael Schumacher), but is still at the high end of the pay scale.

I’ll admit that when Alonso’s signing was confirmed I thought it good reason for other teams to quake a little. In the two years when Fernando won the World Championship, 2005 and ’06, Schumacher was still in his pomp, yet Alonso – with Renault – beat him. Put all that talent and commitment to work at Maranello, and how could anything much go wrong? When Fernando won the opening Grand Prix, in Bahrain, it seemed to suggest a stellar season for Ferrari.

As I write, immediately before Hockenheim, that remains the team’s only victory in 2010. All season long Red Bull has had unquestionably the quickest car, but it has been by no means the most reliable – and that, whatever else, has always been one of Ferrari’s strongest suits. When Sebastian Vettel’s car faltered in Bahrain, it was Alonso and Massa who took over.

Since then, though, it has been McLaren which has benefited most from Red Bull failings – and rightly so, because its car has been consistently developed, in the traditional McLaren manner, and if the MP4-25 is not the equal of the Red Bull (particularly in qualifying), in most of the races it hasn’t been far away. Thus, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button sit first and second in the point standings.

Ferrari, meantime, has had a pretty thin season, and although Alonso has predictably outpaced Massa, one may be sure that he never envisaged, at mid-season, being only fifth in the championship, 47 points adrift of Hamilton.

In part this is because Fernando has made mistakes, which is uncharacteristic of him. There have been tangles at the first corner, an unfathomably jumped start, a shunt at Monte Carlo, which obliged him to miss qualifying and therefore start from the back – after being quickest of all in the first two practice sessions…

Many of the mistakes, I would suggest, have occurred because for a long time Alonso has necessarily been driving right at the edge in a car not truly on the pace. After an encouraging start to the season, Ferrari failed to keep pace with the developments other teams were introducing, and only in the last three races have decent innovations come through – in Montréal Fernando was right there, and only a couple of backmarkers kept him from threatening Hamilton in the late laps. In Valencia he was on Lewis’s tail, in third place, when the controversial safety car incident removed him from the reckoning. At Silverstone a drive-through penalty – also controversial – put him out of the points.

In Italy there is much talk of a crisis at Ferrari, and even speculation – misplaced, one hopes – about the future of Stefano Domenicali. Yes, the team has been through a very bad patch, but Alonso continues to insist that he can still be World Champion this year. He loves the team, and they him, but the time has come for a series of good results, and everyone knows it. I’m betting that Fernando will come on very strong through the balance of this season…

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My thanks to those of you who have so mercilessly pointed out the weaknesses in my 2010 motor sport predictions. I do like a bit of feedback…

I am a huge fan of opera, particularly Italian opera. More specifically I am a devotee of Giacomo Puccini whose passions in life, other than his music, were women and fast cars. The music brought him wealth, enabling him to indulge in the fastest and raciest of the 1920s. I am referring here to the cars.

In daring to predict the outcome of a sport such as Formula 1, risks must be taken. Following the premieres of La Boheme and Tosca, two of Puccini’s finest, both were demolished by the critics who were they alive today would be squirming.

This brings me to motor racing, which aside from food and opera is the abiding passion in Italy. Ferrari of course is akin to a religion, vying with the Vatican and Serie ‘A’ football for devotion.

Back in the day, a Grand Prix grid without Italians was unthinkable, whether they were hotshots from lower formulae or sons of a wealthy Papa who brought bags of lire to the party. Both were welcome. There has been a Gran Premio d’Italia every year since 1950 without exception, and always at L’Autodromo Nazionale Monza, a circuit first used for racing in 1922. The country oozes motor racing and has done all the way from Ascari to Zanardi and beyond. Astonishingly, Alberto Ascari was the last Italian to win the World Championship in 1953, unless we’re counting Mario Andretti as an Italian. Today, there are but two Italians on the F1 grid: Jarno Trulli, in his twilight years, and Vitantonio Liuzzi fighting to keep his seat.

What on earth has gone wrong? The last Italian to win a Grand Prix in a Ferrari was Michele Alboreto in 1985. Only Luca Badoer and Giancarlo Fisichella have raced recently for the Scuderia, and only then in place of the injured Felipe Massa.

Some lay the blame at the gates of Maranello. Enzo Ferrari could not tempt the likes of Moss, Clark and Hill to race the red cars, but he wanted them. The (itals) Commendatore cared not where his driver came from as long as he was the fastest, and the Prancing Horse won the race, taking all the glory. If you look upon Ferrari as the university of Italian motor racing, you’ll see that precious few locals have gained entry, let alone graduated with any kind of honours. In recent decades not one Italian has raced regularly for the team, and this may have adversely affected the country’s ‘staircase of talent’, as Sir Jackie Stewart likes to call it. Not Agip, Fiat or Marelli have been of much assistance in the way that Elf and Gitanes have invested in the future of French motor racing.

It is extraordinary to note that post-Tazio Nuvolari, Alberto Ascari remains the most successful Italian with 13 Grand Prix wins followed by ‘American’ Andretti with 12 – and these are the only two in double figures. Riccardo Patrese scored six, while Giuseppe Farina and Michele Alboreto won five apiece. Fisichella took three and de Angelis two, while the rest have only a single victory. This only reflects the modern World Championship, but it does tell a story.

The Scuderia has recently tested three young Italians, including Formula 3 hotshot Mirko Bortolotti. At the same time its ‘Advanced Driver Programme’ includes an 11-year-old Canadian boy who’s been winning kart races in Quebec. As stated, it’s winners they want, wherever they come from.

Forza Italia. Viva Veloce. But when? Not any time soon, it seems. And that’s a real sadness for someone like me, who would choose Italy over any country were I to move from Britain.

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As Martin Brundle said: “Lewis Hamilton has driven a great race, but Jenson was just that little bit better”. Having only qualified fifth Button made the call to stay out on slicks early in the race when much of the rest of the grid pitted for intermediates. It was this that put him right behind Rosberg who he then passed a few laps later.

Rain came again later in the race, but this time there was no question whether or not intermediates were needed. From then on Jenson confirmed how good he is in these tricky conditions and nursed his car, and most importantly his tyres, to the flag to record his second win of the season.

It really was a case of nursing the tyres as by the end of the race almost everyone’s intermediates looked like slicks. Add to this the fact that it started raining again a few laps from the end and it was quite astonishing that (almost) everyone managed to stay on the Tarmac.

This is what we’ve all been waiting for: a race where there are changeable conditions, drivers having to make quick, race–making decisions and most importantly, being able to see how hard these cars are to control. Too often recently you can look at a Grand Prix car and be non-plussed about how difficult they are to drive. But with damp track conditions and some old tyres… what a spectacle it is.

It’s doubtful that the Red Bull team is feeling so upbeat about the race, however. Having locked out the front row in qualifying, neither driver made the right choice at the right time when it came to tyres and neither car looked like it could seriously challenge those ahead of it. Vettel finishing sixth and Webber down in eighth will leave Christian Horner with plenty to think about.

Alonso had a typically feisty race, overtaking his team-mate down the pit access road on the way to fourth. He served a drive through penalty for jumping the start and pitted a further four times and still managed to finish within spitting distance of the podium. It was another great drive by the Spaniard.

Schumacher had another lacklustre race, which was only highlighted further by the fact that Rosberg finished on the podium. The seven-time world champion didn’t seem to have any traction exiting corners and was, at times, a moving chicane. Don’t write him off yet though as once he gets the car sorted he’ll be making his team-mate’s life a little bit harder.

So another Grand Prix, and what a great one it was. Did we complain a little early at the beginning of the season about the quality of the spectacle? Perhaps, but don’t expect every race to have quite so much action. Unless of course they implement the ‘sprinkler system’…

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Welcome to another Motor Sport audio podcast. This month we take a look at the first three races, the drivers, the teams and of course the racing.

One of our favourite parts of doing these podcasts is the variety of questions that we get sent in so if you haven’t yet done so, make sure you ask the team a question for next month by clicking here.

And because it features so much in this month’s recording… here’s that radiator…

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It’s a fact that many of us left Bahrain in a downbeat frame of mind, for this 2010 Grand Prix season had been anticipated – for a variety of sound reasons – with a great deal of relish. Yet the opening race of the season had been one of the most boring in recent memory, like a re-run of qualifying in slow motion.

Many immediately suggested it had been a mistake to get rid of refuelling and demanded immediate changes, some of which had merit, some not. Bernie Ecclestone counselled against knee-jerk reactions, and anyone with half a brain agreed with him.

Race two, in Melbourne, was as diverting as Bahrain had been bland, and much of this – rightly – was put down to uncertain weather conditions, which have spawned exciting races since the beginning of time. It isn’t much of an intellectual stretch to understand that when you get a wet race track – even a damp one – you have less grip, and when you have less grip you get more driving errors and therefore changes in the order.

Not rocket science, is it? Which makes it the more unbelievable that, between them, the FIA and the Formula 1 teams – all of which have recently wakened up to the fact that racing fans like racing – cannot between them come up with a set of regulations to promote it. Last year, those teams which designed ‘trick’ double-diffusers into the concept of their cars deliberately ignored the aims of the FIA Overtaking Working Group – and the governing body then shamefully declared them permissible.

All concerned knew of the adverse effect this would have on the sport’s appeal, and all – for reasons of self-interest – chose to ignore it. A plague on their houses, as far as I’m concerned – but the FIA Court of Appeal stands especially culpable, for while it is in the DNA of F1 designers to look for loopholes in the rules, it is the interests of the sport which should always be paramount to the people who run it.

Patrick Head once pointed out that the Monaco Grand Prix would be highly diverting if all the cars ran with ‘Hockenheim wing settings’, and on another occasion even more radically suggested that wings be banned altogether – although that, he smilingly admitted, would never be accepted by the team owners given the amount of ‘sponsorship area’ on the car that would be lost.

For the fans, the people to whom manufacturers and sponsors are trying to sell things – and therefore, in the end, the people who pay for this sport – what constitutes the ideal racing car? No one ever defined that better than Tony Brooks, the great Vanwall and Ferrari driver of half a century ago: “A Grand Prix car,” he said, “should always have slightly more power than the chassis can comfortably handle…”

Simple, isn’t it? And the abiding problem of contemporary F1 is that the ratio between power and grip is out of kilter. The ban on traction control was a good move, but still the fact remains that F1 cars race today with 300 horsepower fewer than we have seen in the past – and don’t tell me that the grip levels in the 1980s (during the turbo era) were anything like those of today.

Some years ago Max Mosley decided that horsepower was getting out of control, and declared that the 3-litre V10 engine should be replaced by a 2.4-litre V8. He then imposed the ‘frozen engine spec’ rule, and that was probably essential, given the amounts of money being spent on the endless quest for another 10bhp.

Unfortunately, attempts to change the aerodynamic rules – so as to cut back on grip – have proved far less effective, and thus we have a situation where a dry day means a procession, where only adverse weather conditions can guarantee a memorable afternoon. Can’t be right.

After Bahrain, there was hand-wringing by some of the team principals, who had apparently become suddenly aware that a Grand Prix can be boring, and were demanding all manner of instant changes to spice up ‘The Show’. One instant change might be to be receptive in future to technical changes proposed by the Overtaking Working Group, rather than ignore them for the sake of self-interest.

And to think there was a time when we used to joke about spinklers…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Welcome to our March podcast with 1996 Formula 1 World Champion and current BRDC president Damon Hill.

He played a big hand in securing the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and has an interesting perspective on Formula 1 at the moment, a perspective he’s not afraid to air.

Enjoy… We all certainly did.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

As the 2010 Grand Prix season beckons, most of my acquaintance are agreed that it’s been a very long time since we anticipated a year with such relish. Schumacher back… Alonso at Ferrari… Button with Hamilton at McLaren… four World Champions in the pack… the prospect of four highly competitive teams… All right, we have lost BMW and Toyota (after Honda), and one or two of the new teams look more than a little flaky, but overall the prospects are indeed enticing.

It’s interesting that, when forecasting the likely World Champion, most seem to be choosing between Schumacher, Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel – to be focusing, in other words, on one driver in each of the four top teams.

There’s no denying that, in the normal course of events, within a team one driver tends to assert his superiority over the group, to become the de facto number one, even if this is not officially acknowledged. And it’s a fact, too, that Michael, Lewis, Fernando and Sebastian have all shown themselves to be very keen on this thing of having the team revolve primarily around them. But I wonder if it’s going to be as clear-cut as some imagine.

Consider the ‘other’ driver in each team: Rosberg (Mercedes), Button (McLaren), Massa (Ferrari) and Webber (Red Bull). Of these only Nico has yet to win a Grand Prix, but then he has never – until now – had the car to enable him to do so. Shout me down if you will, but I have a suspicion that he will show a great deal better against Schuey than most appear to believe. Although Ross Brawn presided over a Ferrari team that for years clearly favoured Michael, he has publicly said that such will not be the situation at Mercedes.

Over at McLaren, Martin Whitmarsh has said the same about Hamilton and Button – and, again, I expect the performance gap between them to be far less than some suggest.

On to Ferrari. While I believe Alonso to be the best driver in the world, don’t forget that Massa – fully recovered – largely dominated Kimi Räikkönen, and came within a Toyota dry tyre of winning the 2008 World Championship. Felipe is cowed by no one these days, and quite right, too.

Finally, there is Red Bull: Bernie Ecclestone has predicted that Vettel will win the championship this year, and that’s not the silliest thing he has ever said, for Sebastian is prodigiously talented, with ambition to match.

I do, however, think it would be a great mistake to underestimate Webber. Because he’s in his thirties, and has been around a while, Mark is sometimes overlooked, but remember that last year he won twice – and that included a sound defeat of Vettel in Germany. Webber is Trulli-quick over one lap, and in a race no one fights harder. Twelve months ago he began the season with virtually no testing behind him, legacy of the badly broken leg sustained the previous autumn, but he never moaned about the discomfort, put up with his team-mate’s occasional tantrums, and simply put his head down and got on with it. I’m sure he will do the same in 2010.

Four top teams, then – but there are more than four drivers in the mix, and that’s what makes the forthcoming season so mouth-watering. And I’d add a final thought: if Renault comes up with competitive package, expect Robert Kubica – as talented as there is – to be in the thick of it.

If pushed, my money would be on Alonso for the title – but I’m not sure I’d bet very much…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Shows how much I know, doesn’t it? All week I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen, including the millions of viewers who watch Formula 1 on ESPN Star Sports in Asia, that it was ‘fanciful’ that Michael Schumacher would be tempted to come back in place of the injured Felipe Massa. Oops.

But forget the egg dripping slowly down my face. This is sensational news! Suddenly, the European Grand Prix on the less than interesting Valencia harbour-side street track can’t come soon enough.

I thought it would be too much for Schumacher to contemplate a return nearly three years since he retired. He hasn’t even driven a Formula 1 car since April 2008, and obviously has no experience of the latest spec Ferrari. He hasn’t raced on slick tyres since 1997, he doesn’t know Valencia, he’s 40 years old, he’s nursing back and neck injuries from a bike racing tumble – and apparently he’s started drinking whiskey. Too much risk that he could just do without – or so I thought.

What I hadn’t accounted for is that Michael Schumacher just loves racing. Love him or loathe him – and I know which one many of you would select from that choice – his place as the greatest racing driver of his generation was earned because of a burning competitive instinct and an addiction to motor sport. That’s why he’s been dabbling with the bikes.

I’ve always admired Schumacher despite his faults, and I felt privileged to watch him in his pomp. Now my respect for him, which was always overshadowed by his dubious sporting ethics, is renewed. You’ve got to admire him for having a go.

How will Kimi Räikkönen be feeling this morning? Knowing Kimi, he won’t give a wotsit. But I bet it’ll fire him up if Schuey is anywhere near his pace come Friday morning in Valencia. And Lewis Hamilton, who has never raced against Michael, will be delighted at the news.

So how will he get on? Well, as long as his fitness is up to it (which it will be even if it takes him some time to get his neck back into F1 shape), Schuey could race through to the end of the year. William Hill is offering odds of 5/4 for him to take a pole position this year – and 12/1 to win the Italian GP. That’s got to be worth a punt!

In the same week that BMW lamely pulled the plug on its F1 programme, Schumacher’s return has put Grand Prix racing back in the spotlight for all the right reasons. As you can tell, I’m excited – but what do you think?

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Another Grand Prix and another win for Button. He may have lost a place to team-mate Barrichello at the start, but the Brit got his head down and gave us another remarkable display of driving and getting the most out of the car and tyres. A large shunt at the beginning finished Trulli’s, Fisichella’s, Sutil’s, Bourdais’ and Buemi’s race but the other talking point of the afternoon was just how wrong it all went for Ferrari. Again.

Here’s how they all stacked up…

Jenson Button (1^st)
On finishing the race, just before going onto the podium Button asks “sorry, where do I go”? A sign of just how many times the Brit has visited the podium in Barcelona. Another great day, even though he lost first place to Barrichello at the start, he proved that when a driver is at the top of their game nothing can stop them. Or indeed go wrong – he crossed the start/finish line 1.6secs before the end of the Q3 session to start his flying lap that got him pole. Changing to a two-stop strategy in the race (rather than three) certainly helped. 9.5/10

Rubens Barrichello (2^nd)
“I don’t know how I lost that race man.” He was quicker than Button throughout the weekend (bar Button’s stunning qualifying lap) and humbled the Brit at the start. However, he couldn’t get his tyres to work in the second and third stints meaning that almost certain victory slipped through his hands. A good sign for Brawn though when one of their drivers is disappointed with second. If he can’t pin Button back in the next few GPs it’ll be like Ferrari all over again where he had to play second fiddle to Schumacher for so long. 7/10

Mark Webber (3^rd)
He’s so far been outclassed by his team-mate Vettel this year and this weekend looked to be going along the same depressing lines for the Australian. As soon as he tussled with Alonso in the opening stint though we knew we were watching a man on a mission. A great drive and one which heralded receiving the ‘Drive of the Day’ award from Coulthard. Anyone else notice how he always backs the Red Bull drivers? Funny old world… 9/10

Sebastian Vettel (4^th)
Tipped by Coulthard to win the race. The German’s afternoon effectively ended when Massa ‘KERSed’ him off the line. If Red Bull need any information on the Ferrari rear-end though, I’m sure Vettel will be able to tell them exactly what it looks like after staring at it for an hour and a half. 6/10

Fernando Alonso (5^th)
All he had to do was overtake a back marker and the crowd would erupt. Which is exactly what they did when he fortuitously took fifth in the dying laps when Massa had to slow because of a lack of fuel. Probably would have won if he was being powered by the support for him during the weekend. As luck would have it, he was in a Renault and was lucky just to get points. Solid drive. But that’s the least we expect from him… 7/10

Felipe Massa (6^th)
Ferrari has certainly improved ­– the car that is rather than their general running of the team – but I suggest Massa flattered them somewhat today. A catastrophic error in the final pitstop meant that he didn’t have enough fuel to finish the race, so had to give up fourth to Vettel and then fifth to Alonso. Only managed to keep Vettel behind him for that long though thanks to KERS. At least his car didn’t come to a grinding halt. Ah, of course it did, it ran out of fuel just before the end. 7/10

Nick Heidfeld (7^th)
A pretty quiet race for Heidfeld although he did well to keep Räikkönen behind him in the opening stages. The BMW is faster, but definitely not fast enough. Had the measure of Kubica though. When you drive reasonably well, only 14 cars finish, you’re in a car that was fighting for the World Championship up until the last few races the season before and you don’t even get a point you’ve got to struggle to see the point of it all. 6/10

Nico Rosberg (8^th)
Continues to excel in Friday practice, but that doesn’t really help a team get points on the board. Could be worse, he could have a team-mate who pushed him more… Good, long first stint though after punting Trulli off on the first lap. 6/10

Lewis Hamilton (9^th)
“What did you feel when Jenson Button lapped you near the end of the Grand Prix?” Hamilton, deadpan face: “nothing”. I very much doubt that Mr Hamilton. It must have felt like one last kick in the tender area after another weekend of having no grip whatsoever. This season is going to feel as long as 2008 was exciting for the current World Champion. 5.5/10

Timo Glock (10^th)
Qualified well but just slipped further and further back in the race. He out-drove Trulli, but only because his team-mate’s race ended on the first lap. An afternoon Glock will want to forget. If Hamilton is as unhappy as he is with ninth then Glock in a Toyota – which, lest we forget, is supposed to be one of the fastest cars in 2009 ­– finishing behind him must be as painful as being stuck with a Toyota Prius as a courtesy road car (I’m sure he has something a lot more interesting). 4.5/10

Robert Kubica (11^th)
He’s never sought out the limelight and even when he was battling for the World Championship last year he was quiet. Now though, he looks positively rock star noisy last year compared to how he is now. We know he’s one of the most naturally quick drivers on the grid, but you might as well put him in a soapbox at the moment judging by how fast the BMW is. An improvement, but an improvement to 11^th can’t put his mind too much at ease. 5/10

Nelson Piquet (12^th)
Crasher Piquet didn’t crash, and drove a solid – if uninspiring race – to finish where he did. However, it does look as though he’s happy to just coast round the track, but with Alonso – one of the most exciting and aggressive F1 drivers around – as team-mate, he isn’t going to look like Senna is he? The last two races haven’t been bad, but his likely replacement, Romain Grosjean, only went and took pole, a race victory and a second place in the GP2 round this weekend. News about as welcome as a kick to the head you feel. 5/10

Kazuki Nakajima (13^th)
‘Copy’ and ‘paste’ first sentence of Piquet’s report here. Pitted early after contact at the start, rejoined at the back, but drove a long, solid second stint to move up the order. End of the day though, he finished in 13^th. With only 14 runners at the end of the race. 4/10

Giancarlo Fisichella (14^th)
Qualified last, and was last in the race (out of the finishers). The Force India is not the fastest car out on the track at the moment – quite the opposite in fact – but you have to ask yourself whether the Italian is the right man to push this team forward. Personally, I think this is his last season. Here’s hoping he can go out with a bang. I.e. points, not an explosion. 3/10

Kimi Räikkönen (15^th – RET)
Some say he lacks motivation, but how can you have any motivation when your team doesn’t persuade you to set another time in Q1, to make sure you make it into Q2? Out he went in Q1, and then started the race complaining that his KERS wasn’t working. He seemed to be all the better for it though after making up six places in the opening racing laps. Oh, and he also couldn’t see the lights at the start because the new rear wings are so big. All this then his car came to a grinding halt on lap 18. You could argue that he should have made the call to go back out in Q1 but when you have this much bad luck on race day it doesn’t really matter at all. A sentiment I am sure Raikkonen shares. 6/10 (for making up places at the start) 1/10 (Ferrari’s management of the Finn) 10/10 (for bad luck)

Heikki Kovalainen (16^th – RET)
It wasn’t a day for the Finns was it? A lacklustre qualifying performance followed by gearbox failure. He seems very relaxed for a man that has been completely outperformed by his team-mate this season, even if he has admittedly only finished two races thanks to a healthy dose of bad luck. 3/10

Jarno Trulli (17^th – RET)
Nudged off by Rosberg at the start and then rejoined the track, facing sideways. Cue a pile up that took out all the drivers below. A racing incident but not what Toyota need. 1/10

Sébastien Buemi (18^th – RET)
Taken out on lap one. 1/10

Sébastien Bourdais (19^th – RET)
Taken out on lap one. 1/10 (Level of anguish at Toro Rosso after both cars need collecting on a truck after not even completing one lap? 10/10)

Adrian Sutil (20^th – RET)
Went wide at turn one, only to rejoin the track at turn two, into Trulli. Not really his fault but when you don’t even make it round one turn successfully… 0/10

On an unrelated note, did anyone notice that the podium looked quite, umm, ‘old’ this weekend? Button, Barrichello, Webber… A combined age of 97 must be some sort of a record in recent years.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine