Singapore GP - Easy night shift for Seb

Gotta love the Singapore GP.

I have what I describe as a ‘vintage’ TV. Its fair to say that others call it ‘old, crappy and it doesn’t even have telextext’, but the Singapore race even looks good on my old Sony box (although widescreen means big black areas at the top and bottom, so I have to go in-between, or I can’t read the positions). And, as a special treat this year, Seb had a sparkly helmet! There is something about a night race though – it just seems that extra bit magical.

Petrov probably didn’t find much magical in qualifying though – a slightly-faster lap by his new team-mate Senna saw him drop out in Q1. Kobayashi went flying in Q2, bringing out the red flag whilst bits of Sauber were scraped off the sky, and Hamilton sent out an early warning for a stormy race ahead, by failing to get out in time for a final run and copping a puncture.

Yet again, the rain failed to arrive on race day (I won’t be doing that naked rain dance in the street again) and as the red lights went out, Seb once again pressed the ‘win easily’ button on his steering wheel and relaxed as he pulled neatly into the lead, pursued forlornly by Button and Alonso. Lewis dropped to 7th – was that thunder?

Lewis nipped past Schumi on Lap 4 then Rosberg on Lap 5, by which time Seb was already 5 seconds ahead of Jenson.

Webber continued his trend of making Alonso look a tad stupid by nailing him again for 3rd on Lap 10, before the thunderstorm that is Lewis Hamilton finally broke a few laps later, unleashing its wrath upon Massa (who Lewis had already royally annoyed in qualifying). Hamilton’s front wing punctured Massa’s rear tyre, whilst the hapless wing found itself liberally distributed about the track. Lewis gained himself a drive-thru penalty, whilst Massa struggled to recover from the time lost whilst limping back to the pits.

Seb (remember him?) had a 15 second lead by Lap 23, but that was undone on lap 30 when Schumi got a bit too close to Sergio, with no obvious place to go. Much like Webber last year, the slower car lifted earlier for the corner that his pursuer... and Michael got a closer look at the lights around the track than he was expecting.

The ensuing safety car did nothing to alter the lead, but Webber once again nobbled Alonso for 3rd straight away when it retired to the pits. Hamilton put in a startling run, overtaking Sutil, Rosberg and di Resta on his way to 5th, whilst Kobayashi bagged a drive-thru for ignoring blue flags, before late pit-stops allowed Webber to jump Hamilton and Seb to have his only scary moment of the race when a Lotus was released into his path – handily, he had that much spare capacity, he was looking at their pit lights and realised it was happening. Damn, he’s good.

Jenson reeled Vettel in over the last 10 laps, but the 1.7 second gap between them at the finish belied the fact that Vettel made it all look remarkably easy. Again.

On the bright side, pointyfinger didn’t wrap up the championship. On the distinctly gloomy side, only Jenson can now challenge him for the title – assuming he wins all the remaining races and Seb doesn’t score any points. Congratulations then, Mr Vettel...

Did you catch the footage of Massa accosting Hamilton post-race? Look it up on the BBC F1 website if you didn’t – sarcasm used in the finest way. Easy Felipe baby.

(Continuing the CD A-Z, this report was brought to you by a-ha's live album "How Can I Sleep With Your Voice In My Head". Damn good it is too.)

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 ...

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...

grumpyf1

Search This Blog