Put it away lad, you've not won the cup yet!
Well what a race that was, finally someone has the cracking
idea of taking the all the memorable bits from around the world and sticking
them on one track. Take Beckets from Silverstone,
The horse shoe turn seven eight and nine from Turkey, the uphill turn two from
the A1 ring in Austria and you end up with a superb track.
Just how superb it’ll be with soft sticky tires remains to
be seen. But with hard solid tires the cars looked like they were driving on
ice at times. The exit of turn 19 was especially difficult for everyone with
pretty much everyone taking a trip across the run off during the weekend. The
only driver to look like he had his car dialled in was Vettel who was a good
half second faster than everyone during the practice sessions. He looked a shoe
in for pole but had to work at it in the end to stay ahead of Hamilton, who
just got better and better as the track came to him.
A driver not looking like he had any idea what the car was
going to do from one corner to the next was Alonso. He was all over the show as
the grip appeared to desert his car. He trashed it within an inch of its life but
still only made it to ninth when the chequered flag dropped. To keep the
championship alive he needed to be as close to Vettel as possible, he wasn’t
going to get much done from back there. Meanwhile Massa qualified in sixth
ahead of Alonso and looked to have a much better handle on the car.
Grosjean had to change his gearbox, so got a five place
penalty pushing him back to tenth and Alonso to eighth and the dirty side of
the grid. Normally the start grid of a
track will have a ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ side to it, the racing line will have
plenty of rubber on it and all the dust will be swept off to the other side.
But this track has seen no action before this weekend, is still green and dusty
off line and the tires were taking four laps to get proper grippy. So all the
car on the even numbered dirty side at the start were predicted to be two
places further back by the time they got up the hill to turn one.
Any team worth its FIA entrance fee has a Zen master who has
read the rules cover to cover and divined every single word and every single nuance
of the rules and they’re exact meaning and the subtext to that meaning and the
legal and ethical meaning to that meaning. Then they read them again.
Ferrari spotted that
if Massa in sixth was to have a gearbox ‘issue’ he would be penalised five
places back to eleventh which would promote Alonso up to seventh and they’d
both be on the clean side of the grid .
They wrung their hands for about two nano seconds over the
ethical nature of this course of action, then broke the seal on Massas gearbox
and called the FIA over to have a look. Redbull climbed on its high horse about
other teams having to use ‘cynical tactics’ to keep their championship alive,
how Horner kept a straight face I’ll never know.
So once all the hoo harr was over with we got a race, and
what a race it was. The prediction that the even numbered grid slots would lose
two places off the line was a little wide of the make. Hamilton lost second place to Webber as Vettel
took off into the distance and Alonso had a cracking start and was up to forth
by the end of the first lap.
What happened next were 20 laps of wheel to wheel action as
cars struggled to find any grip and actual real driver skill made the
difference. Hamilton caught and passed Webber after four laps and was soon up
behind Vettel making life uncomfortable for the German. Lap after lap the Redbull
and McLaren traded fastest laps. Hamilton would nail the long fast sweeping corners
of sector one but couldn’t quite close the gap to under a second for the DRS to
kick in. Down the long fast back straight they were even stevens with McLaren
just closing up as the very end of the straight. Vettel’s Redbull just had phenomenal
drive out of the hairpins of sector three enough to pull put an advantage and
stay ahead each lap.
Webbers race lasted until lap 16 before that pesky Renault
alternator packed in again and left the grumpy Australian stranded out on the
circuit. Thankfully this is FIA racing so we didn’t have to sit around for eight
laps behind a safety car as the American marshals got their act together. Webber
was cleared with the minimum of fuss as the race got on around it.
The two leaders came in for tires, Hamilton was stuck behind
Kimi for three laps before the lotus driver made his stop and the fight for
first could be rejoined. Hamilton crept
up to the back of the Redbull then fell back as Vettel pulled another fastest
lap out of the bag, then he got a message from the team that the tires and fuel
were going to be okay and he could turn the McLaren all the way up to 11 and
take the fight to Vettel. For 18 laps he was tantalisingly close to the Redbull
but never quite close enough for the DRS to give him that slingshot into the
lead. Then on lap 42, our favourite last place driver Karthikeyan who was
minding his onw business in last place suddenly found he had two much faster
cars behind him in the middle of the fast sweeping turns of sector one. He desperately
tried to get out of the way but with nowhere to go he held Vettel up fo r that
crucial half second that Hamilton needed. Onto the back straight Lewis was now close
enough to pick up the tow from Vettel and DRS did the rest. Vettel went to the
inside to defend the corner but Lewis was already past before they got there.
Vettel wasn’t quite beaten yet and stayed with the McLaren
as the two drivers continued to trade fastest lap. Alonso up to third with a
good driver was 30 seconds down the road so wasn’t going to trouble the
leaders. Vettel perhaps mindful of the championship didn’t try too hard to beat
Hamilton and was only 0.6 seconds behind as they crossed the line.
Hurrah, it’s always good to say a race won with a pass for
the lead.
So with that second and Alonso back in second the
championship will be decided in Brazil next weekend. It’s always good for the
championship to finish with a race that matters, Can Alonso steal this from
under Vettel nose ? i don’t think so, but it’s going to be fun to watch.
Hamilton first and he thoroughly deserves it. I'm not too
sure if he’s going to miss McLaren more than they miss him, but their
partnership has been one of the more successful stories for the Woking based
team. I think he’s now ahead of Prost in the all time list of McLaren winners.
He just got faster and faster all weekend in Austin, he needed Vettel to be
held up for just that half second to take the win, but you make your own luck
in this game. He never stopped trying and
it was wonderful to see the happy bouncy Lewis of old when he got out of the
car at the end of the race. After the
heartbreak in last few races.
Vettel second and pretty much has both hands on the trophy
now. He’ll need to not finish and Alonso will have to be in the top three for
the German to fail to become the youngest back to back triple world champion.
Given than Renault doesn’t appear to have fixed that pesky alternator issue and
if Alonso’s jammy luck makes a sudden return, that’s not beyond the bounds of
reason. In reality Vettel just has to finish in the top ten and not be too far
behind Alonso. But the Redbull is on song right now and Vettel seems to be able
to stroke it to the podium. He’ll want to go for the pole, win and fastest lap
just to prove a point. And that might just be his downfall.
Alonso, despite Massa taking one for the team he was still
almost 40 seconds down the road at the end. Can he steal this at the end, I
just can’t see it. It’s going to need that Renault alternator to go bang mid
race, for the Spaniard to stand any chance. The Redbull is just faster than the
Ferrari despite Alonso driving the nuts off the scarlet pony and that been the
story of the season.
Massa was fourth with a pretty damn good drive in the end.
You could call the gearbox penalty as unsporting by Ferrari, i think is a bit
cynical at worst, but they didn’t have anything else on the table and ultimately
it worked for them. Massa has a contract for next year and he’s back to the
form that took him to within one point of the title. Whilst the likes of Webber
moaned about having to follow team orders, Massa gave a rueful smile and said “Alonso
was lucky to have a team mate like him”. He out qualified Alonso with ease and
if he’d not been bumped at back to Eleventh i think he might very well have
made the podium.
Button couldn’t find the grip in qualifying and started way
back in 12 but like Lewis the track came to him and he was able drag the car
back up the grid to fifth at the end. He’ll be the day facto team leader next
year and drives like this will help him cement that. Perez can’t qualify either
so the two of them will be having fun driving through the field next year.
Kimi was sixth and with a car that spent as much time going sideways
as forward. It looked a handful for most
of the weekend and must have been a bit of a come down after the win last time
out.
Grosjean too spent a lot of time trying to catch the car as
it tried to spin out of the corners. He was his usual banzi self with several heart
in the mouth moves on his way to seventh. It looks like he’ll keep his seat for
next year, due mainly to the sponsorship rather than his racing skill though.
Hulkenberg confirms his best Force India driver tag with
another fine top ten finish. Di Resta is most certainly yesterday’s man as the
Hulk brings it home in eight.
Maldonado continues his rehabilitation with a ninth place
result, passing Senna with a handful of laps to go just to prove there’s more
to him that a dirty great shed full of state money backing him.
And the still contractless in 2013 Senna rounds out the top
ten.
Karthikeyan was dean last as usual and that is Austin GP
review.
Only one race left this year and thats next week. Good luck and good night.
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