Skip to main content

Bahrain Race... Alonso leads redwash



Well... what did you think?

The first race of 2010 wasn't stunningly exciting, was it? Pretty unexciting in fact. Interesting yes, but not a thriller.

The new kids on the block (Lotus, Hispania & Virgin) weren't as far off the pace as expected, but were pretty much about as reliable as we expected (ie, not very) with the exception of Lotus, who got 1 car to the end and the other at least classified as a finisher. Hispania just got the better of Virgin when Senna dragged his car into it's 19th lap before it finally packed up. Chandhok managed less that 5 laps in the entire weekend in his Hispania - a bump he didn't even know was there got him on his 2nd race lap.

After my irritation with BBC commentator Jonathan Legard last year ("Hamilton pushes on"), Pit lane poppet Lee Mackenzie got my goat this weekend with her brilliant questioning style. I think she instructed every driver that dropped out of the race to "Just tell us what happened". Oooh. Good idea Lee. They probably hadn't thought of that.

Anyway, the race itself saw Webber deploying a brilliant smokescreen tactic to try and stop anyone from overtaking him, and Alonso laid down the first marker to his team mate by nipping past Massa at the start. Vettel looked to have it in the bag until a dodgy spark plug caused him problems (it wasn't the exhaust, no. The big hole in his bodywork was though). The inevitable happened, and he was passed by Alonso, Massa and Hamilton. Schumacher didn't shine, getting beaten by Rosberg (bet he's happy!) and Button wound up 7th. Welcome to McLaren Jens - I suspect you'd better get used to this. The Saubers seem to have been fast in testing only, and neither of them made it to the end either.

So Alonso won on his first outing for Ferrari. Shame he hadn't practiced what to do during the Italian national anthem. Schumi used to conduct the team, Massa always does a spot of chest thumping. Kimi looked, er, well, bored. Nando looked decidedly awkward and uncomfortable. Still, he'll get used to it.

As for the rule changes, the pit stops were great, cars nipping in and out rapidly, but there wasn't much in the way of overtaking on track and nearly everyone changed tyres once only. Even then, no-one seemed to be clinging on to the track by the tips of their tyres. What's the betting we get a mandatory 2 stops introduced if that keeps up?

F1 2010 - 7 out of 10. Must try harder.

(The Monkees would very much like you to board the Last Train To Clarksville.)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Faking it for real

As Donald “I’m really great, everybody says so” Trump is so fond of pointing out, there is a lot of fake news around nowadays. Honest. Your friends at Facebook think so too, and have recently been publishing their top tips for spotting false news – by placing them as ads in newspapers. Considering they came in for considerable criticism themselves, that’s like shouting “Squirrel!” and pointing at a tree whilst you hastily kick away the prize begonias you just trampled. To help you make sense of this (and because I’m a caring person), I thought I’d run you through their suggestions and help to explain them for you. I know. I’m lovely. 1. Be sceptical of headlines READING THIS ARTICLE WILL IMPROVE YOUR SEX LIFE!!! And explain that catchy headlines, or stuff all in capitals might be a bit iffy. 2. Look closely at the URL You can find out more about this at www.wowyouregullible.com if you want to understand how phony web addresses are a sure sign of dodgyness. 3. Investigate...

Going Underground

The US presidential election and Brexit must have made me more nervous than I’d realised. It seems I’ve created an underground bunker without realising I was doing it. Still – we’ve all done that at some point, right? No? Ah... In that case, the fact that I have inadvertently turned my cellar into a rudimentary survival shelter, just in case it all kicks off, demonstrates a severe case of bunker mentality. Fretting about Donald and his wall, and Hillary and her emails, clearly made me more paranoid that I thought about the possibility of WW3 kicking off. Whilst attempting to find a specific size of imperial washer the other day (turns out I’d mis-filed it in the nut cabinet – Tsk!) I was struck by what a lot of jam and chutney we have in the cellar. And I do mean a LOT. There are boxes of boiled-up sugar and fruit and more boxes of boiled up vinegar and fruit. We’re still only part way through 2015’s output too. Then there’s the plastic containers holding pasta in various for...

Is it cold? Snow way...

Lunch out? Not unless you want snow balls... I’ve got a confession to make.  Lean in a bit, because I’m going to whisper it. Bit more. Did you have curry for tea? OK, good. I’m a weather nerd. There, I said it. When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be an astronaut or a fireman – I wanted to present the weather on the TV. I was lining myself up for a career at the Met Office when, at about 18 years of age, I discovered I was allergic to studying. Anyway, despite a jam-packed and varied career over the subsequent years, I still have a fascination for the world of meteorology. I even have one of those clocks that projects the time and the external temperature onto the ceiling at night, so I can see how cold it is outside whilst lying awake worrying that I might have wasted my life and been more successful with girls if I’d been more into cars than clouds. So far this year, I’ve gazed at a chilly reading of -5C a couple of times, and been grateful for previous sensible ch...