That way, I’d have something more interesting to watch if necessary. Good job I didn’t (it’s quite a nice colour anyway) as the race turned out, for the first time in it’s miserable history, to be a corker.
The lap record around the circuit is held by Timo Glock, back in the days when he drove a Toyota very rapidly. Unfortunately, the only thing he was doing rapidly this weekend was nipping to the loo. Although it’s possible he might have broken some kind of record for that too, as he was poorly enough to miss the race.
Qualifying saw a dejected Webber out in Q1, his DRS not working, whilst a thrilled Kovaleinen made it into Q2.
The second part of quail wasn’t a good one for those driving red cars, as both Ferrari drivers failed to make it through to the shoot out, with the top 10 covered by a measly 0.22 seconds. Whilst it looked like it would be similarly close in Q3, Vettel put together a lap of startling accuracy, threading his Red Bull through the maze of walls to finish a third of a second ahead of Hamilton, with Maldonado a decent 3rd on the grid. Although I’m henceforward referring to him as Maldonad’oh.
Everyone made a clean start on Sunday, with Raikkonen bagging Maldonad’oh’s place, and Alonso moving steadily forward from his 11th place grid slot over the opening laps, as did Kobayashi, whilst Button began a sadly all too familiar descent through the order.
5 laps in, and The Sebulator had a 6 second lead, and suddenly it felt like the first 7 races of the season hadn’t happened, and this was just another 2011 Seb-fest.
On lap 10, the ever-improving Grosjean boldly nabbed 2nd place from Hamilton, whilst Raikkonen finally regained the place he’d subsequently lost to Maldonad’oh on the 2nd attempt a few laps later. Hamilton pitted on lap 14, leaving the top 3 a slightly surprising Vettel, Grosjean and Kobayashi.
Further pitstops from the front runners saw Alonso and di Resta taking over 3rd, before Seb pitted on lap 16, rejoining in clean air, as Grosjean dived in too. A titanic battle for 4th saw Grosjean, Hamilton, Schumacher, Senna, Webber and Alonso slugging it out, with Fernando bagging the two ahead of him in quick succession.
Senna bizarrely closed the door on Kobayashi on lap 20, and was lucky to miss the walls in a lurid spin, crawling back to the pits with a puncture dead last. Bruno subsequent received a deserved drive through for his misdemeanour.
By lap 24, only di Resta had failed to stop, but his steady descent suggested that the strategy might not be working too well. At half distance, Seb had a comfy 20 seconds over Grosjean, and it looked rather like we were on for a return of the waggly finger. Lap 28 shook things up though, as Kovaleinen was mugged by Vergne is a spectacularly clumsy move, followed by Jean-Eric shredding his car with his own tyre as he raced back to the pits.
The tangle had left assorted bits of Caterham and Toro Rosso scattered over the circuit, leading to the first appearance of the Safety Car at the track. Just about everyone dived pitwards at this point, with Hamilton suffering from yet another bodged pitstop, involving a comedy of errors including two from jacks and a wheel that wouldn’t go on. Behind the Safety Car waiting from the restart were Vettel, Grosjean, Alonso and Ricciardo, Daniel preparing himself for a steady drift down the order.
As the race re-started, a fired-up Alonso took his chances with Grosjean, nipping into 2nd place. Continuing a developing theme of leery crashes, Kobayashi (whose trouble magnet seems to be permanently switched to maximum) and Massa collided, but this was quickly overshadowed by the sight of a coasting Red Bull – Vettel was out on lap 34!
Just 5 laps later, Grosjean was gone too, both seemingly suffering identical alternator issues with their Renault packages. So now Alonso led, with Hamilton and Raikkonen behind. But who needed tyres..?
Ricciardo and Petrov had a smashing time with us each other as the laps remaining dwindled, and, with 8 left, Button was in a familiar state of decline once again, losing places to Schumacher and Webber in quick succession and drifting down to 10th. A small bit of fortune was heading JB’s way to move him a couple of places up the order, as his team mate struggled and was nearly passed by Raikkonen, before the Kimster made is stick on the 2nd attempt.
Maldonad’oh then challenged Lewis with only 2 laps remaining, got alongside, went off the circuit, and then inexplicably came back on right into Hamilton. An irate Lewis crashed into a wall, and then did extra damage to his chassis by beating the crap out of it, before chucking a very expensive steering wheel out of the car to finish off his tantrum. I expect McLaren are still trying to hammer the fist-shaped dents out.
Schumi inherited 3rd, as Maldonad’oh plummeted down the order with a reasonable percentage of his car absent (along with his brains).
With Fernando pulling off an emotional win, Raikkonen 2nd and Schumi 3rd, 3 World Champions shared the spoils, with Webber coming home a creditable 4th from his lowly grid slot, and Maldonad’oh penalised 20 seconds, dropping him out of 10th, and proving, yet again, that he is more than capable of bunging away a podium place by being a tit.
Hang on... hasn’t Alonso already won once this year? Is that allowed..?
(Apologies for the delay - I was on a training course in Leeds. Apparently, I can now build a Wordpress website. I'm pondering that one. Music tonight from the genius of The Kinks - The Ultimate Collection.)
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