THIS WEEK IN F1
- 21 May 2013
All the facts, fiction, rumour and innuendo….
This week in F1 it rained. Then it rained some more. And then it rained really hard. In this case the rain on the plain fell mainly on the Spaniard. Alonso’s hopes of three titles in a row took a bit of a soaking as he planted the McLaren arse first into the tyre wall at turn six of the Fuji International Raceway handing team-mate (and I use the word in it’s loosest possible context) another win and a twelve point lead in the championship with just two races to go.
Hamilton had the edge over Alonso all weekend at Fuji and came away with the championship all but wrapped up. Even if Fernando wins both of the remaining races Lewis needs just nine points (second & eighth place, third & sixth or fourth & fifth) to become the sports only rookie champion. With his current form and the reliability that McLaren has shown thus far, it seems pretty unlikely that he could lose it from here. Still, stranger things have happened…
Hamilton nicked pole at the very end of qualifying by just 7/100s of a second and apart from the tyre stop period, led the entire race. Or should I say apart from the tyre stop period and the lengthy periods behind the safety car. The race was 19 laps old when Hamilton finally became the first car on the road and by this time some fairly significant things had occurred. Ferrari for example had made a complete cock-up of its tyre choice sending both cars out on intermediates. After just three laps behind the safety car Felipe Massa had already shun, dropped to the back of the field and then made up the places, which is not allowed under yellow flags. A drive through penalty was awarded. It was then discovered that Ferrari had made an even bigger blunder. All teams had been advised that they actually didn’t have any choice when it came to their tyres at the start of the race and as the race was being started behind the safety car, all cars had to be on full wets. Both Ferraris had to pit to change onto the correct tyres and this left them at the rear of the field.
They, along with several other cars, then pitted later in the safety car period to top up with fuel but for some reason did not take on enough to get them to the end of the race. The upshot was that when the green flag finally came out and the first four cars vanished into the distance, the Ferraris were wallowing about on heavy fuel loads with the same amount of pit stops to make as the front runners.
The four cars vanishing into the distance was an unusual combination as well. Although the first two were McLarens, no great surprise there, the next two were Vettel in the Toro Rosso and Webber in the Red Bull. Doing a great job at holding up the following pack was Jenson Button in the Honda. Poor old Alex Wurz did his further career prospects no good at all losing it, and his front left wheel on the very first corner after the green flag was shown. Amazingly he didn’t take Massa with him despite clouting the Ferrari on the way through although that would not have made a huge difference to Felipe’s result on the day. It would, though, have robbed us of an excellent scrap between Massa and Robert Kubica over the final lap that was reminiscent of the Villeneuve/Arnoux wheel banging battle at Dijon in 1979. Like then too, Kubica said he thought it was great fun. Wonder what Massa thought about it, haven’t heard a quote from him yet.
Alonso was the first to pit and came back out in traffic. Hamilton was next, and he did not, although he was behind both Renaults. This left us with the strange sight of Vettel in the Toro Rosso in the lead from Webber. A lead he held for four laps until pitting himself. Then it was Webber’s turn for glory and he spent five laps at the front before coming in. Those extra laps and an excellent turn around by the Red Bull pit crew meant that Webber emerged in fourth place and when the Renaults came in a few laps later it was Hamilton leading by just a few seconds from Webber, Vettel and Alonso in fourth. Webber then began applying the pressure and the gap dropped down to just two seconds before Alonso did his dance with the wall.
Once again the safety car came out and with the gap now down to a matter of feet, Webber must have believed that here was his best ever chance of winning a Grand Prix so far. That is until he was clobbered from behind by Vettel who had been a bit erratic behind the safety car all day. The result was that Webber was out on the spot with only three wheels on his wagon and Vettel only made it back to the pits before retiring. The two Red Bull stable mates had just thrown away a pair of likely podium spots and a possible win. Vettel was inconsolable crying in the pits. Mark, understandably, was uncontrollably livid to have been taken out in such a stupid fashion. Naughty words were said in his interview. It’s probably a good thing that he had already thrown up in his helmet earlier in the race as this piece of bad luck would have been enough to make anyone sick, and chundering in front of a TV audience of millions may have been a bit embarrassing.
In the end Hamilton had a comfortable win from the Renault of Heikki Kovalainen who just held off the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen who had put in one of those drives that only he is capable of, to come from the back of the field to third place. It was just enough to keep him in the title chase, but really only mathematically. David Coulthard salvaged what could have been a miserable day for Red Bull with a fine fourth place ahead of Fisichella in the other Renault. In sixth and seventh were Massa and Kubica after their titanic last lap duel and Vitantonio Liuzzi would have taken the final point for Toro Rosso had he not passed Adrian Sutil under yellow flags. The resultant 20 second penalty meant that Sutil and Spyker scored their first point of their respective careers.
There may have been a lot of tooling about behind the safety car but there was an awful lot of action in the other forty odd laps. Didn’t get to see much of Mount Fuji though, unless you were there on Friday morning. There was a rumour going about that Toyota, who own the track, were going to have artificial snow pumped onto the peak to make it look more like the post cards. Not much point in the end. Oh, and here's a surprise, Ralf Schumacher has lost his Toyota drive for next year. One can’t see too many takers for his services in the future. The end of an era? It would be the first year since 1990 without a Schumacher on the grid.
Sam Snape
3-10-07