Sunday 23 May 2010

Monaco Grand Prix



As you may be able to tell from the picture, Red Bull had a good race.

Once again Mark Webber lead from start to finish followed by his teammate Sebastian Vettel to secure a Red Bull one-two, and further demonstrate Red Bull's dominance.

The whole story of the race started on Saturday with Free Practice 3. Fernando Alonso crashed his car and damaged it beyond repair. This caused him to sit out qualifying and he started from the pit lane. The qualifyer who looked consistantly strong was Renault's Robert Kubica, but in typical Red Bull fashion he was robbed of Pole Position in the last seconds by Mark Webber. Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa lined up behind them which was a bit of a downer on Massa as both Webber and Kubica have both been linked with his seat. Britain's own Lewis Hamilton and his German counterpart Nico Rosberg were on the 3rd row. Behind them were their teammates with Michael Schumacher taking 7th and Jenson Button was 8th. The top ten was finished up with Williams' Rubens Barrichello taking 9th and Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Moving onto the race. Monaco is know for it's demanding track and retirements are almost a certainty. When I say that half of the racers retired, I'm not exaggerating. 12 out of 24 drivers made it to the finish line. The most notable retiree was the defending World Champion Jenson Button. An amateur mistake by his McLaren team saw his engine overheat and stop. The big one though was Jarno Trulli crashing with Karun Chandhok. Trulli's Lotus landed on top of Chandhok's Hispania and nearly on top of Chandhok himself. Fortunatley both drivers walked away unharmed. Joining Jenson Button (Lap 2), Jarno Trulli and Karun Chandhok (both Lap 70) as retirees were Nico Hülkenberg (Lap 1), Pedro de la Rosa (Lap 21), Timo Glock (Lap 22), Lucas di Grassi (Lap 25), Kamui Kobayashi (Lap 26), Rubens Barrichello (Lap 30), Bruno Senna (Lap 58), Heikki Kovalienen (Lap 58), and Vitaly Petrov (Lap 73).

The man of the race was clearly Mark Webber. Him aside that honour goes to Fernando Alonso who started from the pit lane and finishing 6th. He kept climbing up the field using his superior Ferrari to simply pass the Hispanias, Lotuses (Loti?) and Virgins. The Monaco Grand Prix is often precessional as it is a narrow track with very few opportunities for overtaking.So the top ten finished as so: 1st place went to Mark Webber and his teammate finished behind him in 2nd. The 3rd podium spot was taken by Robert Kubica. Lewis Hamilton was in a Ferrari sandwich. Massa took 4th, Hamilton 5th and Alonso 6th. Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Sebastien Buemi finished off the top ten.

The story of the race was actually an incident which happened on the last lap. The race ended under the safety car and on the last lap, the safety car went into the pits, as it does. When the safety car pulled in Michael Schumacher took advantage of a mistake from Alonso and overtook him. This raised debate as many were under the assumption that the race was finished because the safety car was out on the final lap. After a long debate the move was deemed illegal and Michael Schumacher was given a 12 second penalty. This demoted him to 12th place. The FIA has since revised its safety car rule.

So that is the story of the Monaco Grand Prix. I should also add that Mark Webber is now performing better than his Seriously Uncool teammate and has won the Monaco Grand Prix. This has made him jump from Uncool to Sub-Zero

Saturday 15 May 2010

Spanish Grand Prix



Firstly, I wish to do some teenage complaining. My parents have become Seriously Uncool due to nagging.

Qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix continued the theme of Red Bull on pole. For this Grand Prix Red Bull locked out the front row. Another intresting fact was 3rd through 6th was taken by the world champions on the grid. Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso took up the second row while Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher lined up behind them. Kubica, Rosberg, Massa and Kobayashi finished off the top ten.

The race wasn't the most entertaining race. The Circuit de Catalunya is a very demanding circuit with few opportunities for overtaking. Mark Webber lead from start to finish and easily brought 25 points to Red Bull and put himself back into the title race. His teammate had a familiar scenario of nursing the car home and picked up a lucky 3rd.McLaren had a good race for one of their drivers, Jenson Button finished in a solid 5th place. Lewis Hamilton ended up dissapointed as he was on course for 2nd but got a puncture on the penultimate lap and ended up retiring. To make matters worse for Lewis the person who did take second place was his bitter rival Fernando Alonso. Alonso's teammate didn't do as well 6th place was all he could manage and questions have been raised about him. Robert Kubica who finished 8th has been linked with his seat for next season. It is known that Kubica is admired by Ferrari and he is good friends with Alonso.

The new teams didn't have the best weekend. Lotus' Heikki Kovalainen did not start while his teammate Jarno Trulli finished 17th. Virgin had both cars make it to the finish line, Timo Glock in 18th and Lucas di Grassi 19th. Hispania had worse luck as drivers Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna both retired.

So that's what happened in Spain. Next week we are heading to Monte Carlo for probably the most famous Grand Prix.

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Cool Wall Update.




A quick update on the cool wall. We are heading to Mercedes. Not the team, but it's drivers.

After Three time world champion Jackie Stewart said Nico Rosberg has extraordinary talent. This along with his father being a world champion and him not being a Formula 1 failure make Nico Rosberg Cool. For his teammate the news isn't so good. Jackie Stewart also said Michael Schumacher was incapable of driving a difficult car. While some may disagree, I cannot ignore the words of Britain's most successful Formula One driver. Michael Schumacher has gone from Sub-Zero to Cool. He is not uncool yet.