Right then, you remember that rule I had last year about the
number of cars finishing and not counting them if there weren’t enough to make
a top ten. Yeah, how we never needed to use it because all the cars turned out
to be pretty much bullet proof, well I actually had to dust off the rule book
and find what I’d actually written last year after four laps of the race.
I was prepared for the fact Caterham weren’t there. That was
fine, they were a mess and I never liked them anyway. And I was ok with Manor
racing turning up and not actually fulfilling the “Racing” part of their name,
I had kind of expected them to at least practice a bit not just sit and watch
the whole thing from the stands.
But I had sort of kidded myself that McLaren had been
fooling us all and would roll up with a car that could actually move quite fast
and be a credit to the name “racing car”. Not limp around half heartedly like a
Lib Dem candidate apologising for getting in the way and making a nuisance himself. Then to add insult to injury Magnusson’s
engine blew up spectacularly on the way to the starting line! Not even racing!
Not even giving it some beans off the line, or seeing how fast it could go. No,
trundle, trundle POP!
Alonso must have been sitting at home, glass of Rioja in one
hand and his McLaren contract in the other. Staring dumbfound from the TV to
his contract, searching desperately for the get out clause.
 |
| Alonso after reading his contract earlier today |
I don’t know if you
can get secondary concussion by association, but if I was the FIA doctor I’d
want to check over Jenson who calmly sat and told Martin Brundle that the car
was going to be winning races by the end of the year.
Not getting much further was Kvyat. The newly promoted Redbull
Russian managed to lunch his gearbox whilst on his way to the formation grid. Horner
turned up all self righteous indignation and blowing his “It’s all Renaults
fault” trumpet as loudly and as single not drone as ever. Apparently vibrations
form the engine at destroyed the internal mechanics of the gearbox, written
rude notes on the toilet wall about Horner’s wife and stolen the tuck money
from matrons locked desk. They were very naughty and he wasn’t happy, not at
all.
Renault just shrugged and walked
off.
Also failing to start (gosh this is a long list) was Bottas,
who somehow managed to compress a vertebrae in qualifying when he ran off the
road at the last corner. I know these cars have very little actual suspension,
but the bounce of the curb didn't look all that harsh and yet Bottas failed the
mandatory “get out of the pretend fiery car ASAP” test that the FIA like to use
when drivers have injured themselves. So he was told he wasn’t allowed to take
part in the race and had to watch from the garage whilst sitting on one of the
garden chairs the mechanics are made to sit on. There is a certain amount of
speculation that Suze Wolf might get to drive the car if Bottas is still
injured for the next race. But I'm pretty sure she doesn’t currently have a
super licence at the moment.
Someone else short of a super license this weekend was Guido
Van De Garde. He of Caterham fame, he was under the mistaken impression he had
a race seat for 2015 with Sauber. The clue he didn’t, might have presented
itself when he didn’t do any winter testing and wasn’t invited to join in the
team photo at Christmas.
He rocked up in Australia with a court order and a
massive chip on his shoulder. The team and driver trooped down to the court
house on Thursday and the judge said, “Well, it says here he paid for the
testing job in 2014 and a race seat in 2015 ... so he should be in the car”.
The team mumbled something about not having a seat that would fit him. The
judge gave them a VERY hard stare and said, “I know he’s a bit rubbish and irritating,
but he paid for the drive and if he doesn’t get it I will take all of your
equipment and cars and we’ll go though all your contracts with a fine tooth
comb ... case dismissed”.
The team trooped back to the race circuit and went to see
the FIA and said, “yeah errrrr, right. Err Does Guido have a super licence and
if not don’t give him one, cos we’re not paying for it”.
Guido turned up to the circuit followed by the world media
in a feeding frenzy, he waved his FIA pass at the machine and assumed a
nonchalant air of someone who’s got right on his side a court order to prove
it. There was a beep, Guido strode
forward and was almost cut in two as the gate failed to open, he frantically
waved his pass at the machine which continued to beep at him and resolutely fail
to open the nonchalant air dissolved into petulant shouting at bouncers and desperate
pleading to those with working passes to let him in and the media frenzy went
into over drive.
Eventually, Perez came out with a spare Force India pass and
the show moved to the Sauber garage. There
Guido was grudgingly given a seat
fitting and told he didn't have a super licence so it was all a moot point
anyway. There was much hurrumphing from
all concerned, the media followed everyone around and the Sauber cars sat in
the pits for the first practice session.
Eventually Bernie was roused by the hubbub to come down and
sort things out. He quite rightly pointed out to Guido that Sauber were two
inches from bankruptcy and simply didn’t have the money to either give him his
money back or give the other two drivers their money back and give him a race
seat. What happened next is anyone guess, they all went into Bernie’s VIP
trailer and thrashed something out. I like to think Bernie dipped in to his
lose change draw and paid off the various parties and told them to stop airing their
dirty laundry in public and sort these things out before the first race of the
season. What probably happen was Bernie looked annoyed until Guido walked away
from the circuit and wasn’t seen for the rest of the weekend and Sauber got on
with the job of racing.
Back in the normal (rich) end of the F1 world, Mercedes
carried on as normal with Lewis and Nico trading fastest laps in practice.
Redbull complained that Renault engine was junk, Ferrari continued to look surprised
that the car was going well, and Williams punched above its weight.
The qualifying for pole was a two horse Merc race. Nico had
topped all the time sheet in practice, but Lewis took the last of his gold
chains off in Q2 and was about five minutes faster than everyone else for the
rest of the day. He was so far ahead
with his first run in Q3 that he could have got out of the car with 10 minutes
to go and put his feet up. Nico simply had no answer, but Lewis still went out
again and was even faster. The lad will be on song then, maybe all those
winsome pictures of Rocco and sunset beaches did the job after all.
Right then, so yes, the race. Well once we’d lost Magnussen
and Kvyat, along with the two Manor boys who were still sitting in the stands. As
the lights went out for the start of the race, we had the glorious sound of 15 F1
cars starting the 2015 season for 200 yards. Roughly the length of the track from
the start line to the first corner, where Vettel bumped across the inside curb,
bounced sideways into Kimi, who ran onto the grass on the outside of the corner
before cutting back to nudge Verstappen into Maldonardo who spun into the wall
and wiped out the left side of his car. For once I can’t even be rude about Pastor; he
was the innocent victim of a racing incident for a change, not its instigator,
which has to be a first!
So we were down to 13 cars. This was going to be a dull race
then.
We had a handful of safety car laps to clear up Pastor and
then I kind of lost interest as it was early and there wasn’t much racing on
offer.
Button and Perez traded a bit of carbon fibre, errrr Ricciardo
got stuck behind Kimi I think and ... look
I wasn’t really concentrating ok. 11 cars following the two Merc miles ahead is
pretty dull. Not even Merc were letting the boys have at it. Nasr in the Tesco
Value Sauber was doing alright, that was a bit interesting. And I suppose well
done to Jenson on doing the longest run the car has yet seen.
But no, not really a classic race.
Okay so the result then.
Hamilton just looked awesome all weekend and especially against
his team mate. I thought Nico would carry over his practice times to qualifying
or the race and make an actual race of it. But no, he was well beaten on Saturday
afternoon and I suspect Lewis didn’t break a sweat all Sunday. Just to
underline how far ahead of everyone he was, Lewis was trading fastest laps with
himself for most of the second half of the race. It confirms the Merc are a
country miler ahead of everyone else and Lewis is odds on favourite for the
title now. This year might just test my
love for F1 if it’s like this every weekend.
Nico was second and then had to suffer the indignity of
being asked what it was like to be the second best driver of the day by Arnie Schwarzenegger
grinning like an idiot on the podium interview. It’s going to be a question he
gets used to answering this year I suspect.
Blow me down with a feather Vettel was third in a Ferrari, who
had money on that?? Not me I can tell you. Ok so they looked alright in testing
and stuff, but you know, I thought that was all bluff? Not actual race
pace. He nerfed into Kimi at the first
corner and didn’t look back from there. Post race Nico said he hoped Ferrari
could develop the car nice and quick to give them a bit of competition, which
is the same as saying “We’ll give you a five lap head start if you like?”. This year is going to be about Williams and
Ferrari coughing on Mercs dust. Still Vettel did all right, he didn't have to
overtake anyone, it was all done in the pits, something he’s good at.
Massa was fourth and another one I didn’t see all afternoon.
Fifth was interesting. Nasr might just have demonstrated
that the new Ferrari engine is actually pretty good and he, Nast, might be
rather handy. Ericsson in the sister car was only eighth and never really
looked like taking the fight to anyone. Nasr spent a lot of the race with some
serious talent behind him, he wasn’t fazed, didn’t get all unnecessary and
picked up desperately needed points for Sauber. In short it was exactly what
was required of him after all the distractions of the “Who has a contract to
drive the car this weekend” farce, let’s see if he can repeat that.
Ricciardo was sixth and it looks like Redbull have a lot of
work to do this year. They need to stop pointing at Renault and telling everyone
it’s their fault, it’s getting boring now. They need to sit down and work out why
they have a problem and be honest that Newey has designed yet another no compromise
car which doesn’t look that easy to set up. They’ll be back up the sharp friend
eventually, but not on any power circuits.
Hulkenberg was seventh with a careful steady drive. The
Force India boys had only had four days testing up to this point and whilst the
car has a Merc engine and so should be reliable, the rest of the car was still
a bit of an unknown. So to go out and come back with a solid points finish is
again exactly what was required of him. Like Sauber, Force India are just
moments from the bankrupt courts and need all the help they can get, they had
to scrap around under the filing cabinets to find the change to pay for this
year’s car to be finished. Points this early in the season are a God send, because
McLaren might one day get their act together, Williams and Redbull only had a
single car in the race so Force India had to come away with something here. Sauber
got two cars home in the points and Nasr made it look effortless, if you had to
put money on which of these two drivers would be in the top ten again, right
now I’d have my money on the Sauber, Force India are still on the back foot and
in trouble.
Ericsson and his enormous cheque book were eighth. Not very
exciting and he benefited from others misfortune really. I don’t expect him to
trouble the top ten much more this season.
Sainz was the only Torro Rosso to make it home in the battle
of the rookies. He seemed pretty good , didn’t make too many mistakes and kept
his nose clean.
Perez was tenth and made hard work of that.
And finally in eleventh and last man running was Button. In
a car that looked slow and heavy and twitchy and just awful. Jenson assuring
Brundle that the car was a winning is just laughable. I could be wrong of
course, season veterans of this game will attest to that. But that car is just
utter rubbish right now.
What were Honda been doing all last year? I mean they have
half a dozen other race programs around the world, why didn't they stick the
engine and KERS systems into a mule and test the thing to get it all working
BEFORE they embarrassed Big Ron and the boys and girls or McLaren?
The word is, the Japanese KERS system they began developing
when they pull out of F1 in 2009 was pretty capable and could have been the
basis of an integrated 2015 system. But they binned it and jerry rigged an old
Merc system that McLaren had developed in house years ago. Its just not good
enough and no amount of money is going to save them here.
And as for Alonso, I really don’t he’s going to come back.
Why would he? The car is 50/50 on making the formation grid and Alonso is a
better driver than that.
So there you go.
Mercedes was the big winner of the weekend, the paying public and McLaren the big losers
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