Spanish Grand Prix - Everything changes and then stays the same

It was an interesting couple of weeks in F1-land as we headed off to the normally rather dull Spanish Grand Prix.

Alonso failed to spot that his contract said 2016 and signed it (he probably thought it said £2016 Million) and Sutil apparently got into "racing incident" with a chap named after some soap and duffed him up a bit in a nightclub, which I'm sure lifted his mood no end, and took his mind of the fact that di Resta is making him look decidedly average so far this season.

As the practice sessions got underway it turned out that someone at Pirelli had inadvertently added a extra bucket of 'slow' to the hard tyre, and Heidfeld calmly said "fire" on the radio whilst his elbow and half the car caught fire, keeping him out of quali whilst Renault scraped the black bits off the car.

Qualifying saw Crikey Heikki through to Q2, although possibly because the Force India team decided not to use the softer tyres, preferring to keep them for the race. Vettel once again seemed to have no KERS, and an unfortunate side-effect of the rapidly-fading tyres that have improved the racing showed up again, as it was all over in Q3 after 1 run and with 5 minutes to go. Red Bull at the front again, but surprisingly it wasn't Seb, but a startled looking Webber up front. Alonso seemed remarkably pleased with 4th, but maybe he was just remembering the £'s on his contract again...

On race day, Mark got his customary average start underway and was promptly passed by Seb, when much to their (and let's face it our) surprise, the surly Spanish one flung his motor up the inside in front of the home crowd to take the lead. Cue a massive amount of celebration from the entirely unbiased crowd.

Button had apparently set off in the wrong direction and was down to 10th, whilst Heidfeld took a look at the 23 cars in front of him as the lights went out and thought "Top ten finish? Why not..."

Vettel pitted first for tyres, but with multiple stops and copious amounts of strategy coming into play, the fact that he rejoined behind other cars didn't really matter. By lap 18, Alonso, Vettel, Webber and Hamilton were within a couple of seconds of each other. Good pit work by Seb's crew saw him take the lead by Lap 26 with Hamilton in pursuit, with Alonso getting released into the path of Webber, but without a penalty.

The DRS zone seemed unable to provide the overtaking overdose seen recently, and the race was all the better for it as proper hard racing ensued, with great scraps between Webber and Alonso as the Ferrari faded and Button taking the pair of then in the space of a lap.

A lack of decent tyres that could go the distance saw Alonso fall even further behind as he donned a second set of hard tyres. Kovaleinen proved good qualifying can't remove the jinx of the circuit for him and he crashed out, whilst Vettel and Hamilton were out front with 11 laps left and Seb's KERS playing up big time.

A brilliantly intense scap ensued but Lewis couldn't find a way past, and the pair finished just 0.6 seconds apart to give Seb (who produced a deeply annoying Crazy Frog victory noise after he passed the flag, proving once again that Germans cannot be trusted in the 'cool' stakes) his 4th victory in 5 races, and a hefty lead in the championship. Button's different tyre strategy saw his salvage a tidy podium place whilst Webber's chance to take back the initiative resulted in quite the opposite as he trailed home 4th. Alonso was 5th, but lapped (no doubt giving him an interesting few moments in which to contemplate a contract lasting 5 more years) and Schumi finally beat Rosberg.

Heidfeld? Yup, he came through for 8th place, having caught the two Mercs up by 15 seconds in the last 8 laps. He was right behind them too, so another lap or two could have seen him even higher. Fresh tyres you see?

In 2011, it's all about the tyres...

(Top tuneage for creating this post provided by Peter Gabriel. His unique album naming style means I can only tell you it's the one sometimes referred to as 'scratch' from 1978)

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

grumpyf1

Search This Blog