European Grand Prix 2010

Yesterday was a fine day to be a German sports fan. Not only did England get predictably obliterated in the World Cup match, but Germany scored another victory over England thanks to Sebastian Vettel, who triumphed over the English McLaren pair of Hamilton and Button who joined him on the podium. It may have been a far closer contest than it was however, with more safety car confusion earning Lewis a drive-through penalty. Despite that, home hero Fernando Alonso and his Ferrari team were galled at the fact said penalty didn't actually cost Lewis any track position. To make matters worse, the F1 fraternity were forced to look on with raised eyebrows at how little impact the updates for the cars in red had seemingly made.
That was first alluded to with a somewhat lacklustre 4^th on the grid for the Spaniard, with stable-mate Felipe Massa one place behind, and good friend Hamilton one ahead. The front row however fell not for the first time entirely to Red Bull – Vettel secured Pole number 4 of the season, less than a tenth of a second ahead of the sister car of Mark Webber. Kubica lined up in a solid 6^th place, whilst both Mercedes languished. Rosberg could only muster 12^th place, Schumacher a miserable 15^th.
As the pack got away, the man on the move immediately was Hamilton – he catapulted his way past Webber's RB6, before launching an attack on Vettel's similar machine. The pair indeed made slight contact midway round the first lap as Hamilton made a hopelessly optimistic lunge up the inside of Vettel which he thought better of a tad late. The damage sustained however was minimal, and Lewis comfortably held second from that point onwards. Webber made a solid enough getaway, but his lines through the opening sequence of turns seemed questionable as Hamilton, Alonso, Massa, Kubica, Button and both Williams cars poured past in fairly quick succession to leave the erstwhile championship leader in 9^th place at the end of Lap 1.
Things were scarcely about to improve for him either. He opted for an early pit stop on lap 8, and rejoined the action firmly amongst the new-team cars over which he enjoyed a huge speed advantage. This fact was made clear as day as he drew to the back of Kovalainen's Lotus in a battle for 17^th place at turn 12, only to launch straight over the rear of the Finn's car, flipping over in mid-air, landing and ploughing into a tyre barrier at 200mph. Miraculously, both men emerged completely unscathed: a testament to the strength and safety of modern F1 cars.
This mother and father of all crashes inevitably brought out the safety car. This where the controversy occurred – whilst race leader Vettel easily cleared the safety car as it came onto the track, Hamilton held his speed, before seemingly hesitating and falling a fraction behind the safety car as it crossed the line. He then sped back up to pass it, which clearly contravened the rules. The thing that got Ferrari's metaphorical knickers in a twist was the fact Alonso and Massa were then forced to slow down behind the safety car, whilst Hamilton continued at green flag pace to complete the remainder of the lap before making his pit stop.
This left Vettel at the head of the pack, from the somewhat jammy Hamilton, Kobayashi who had yet to stop, Button, Barrichello and Kubica, who conceded places in the pitstops. Alonso was spat out from the stops in a lowly 10^th place to the dismay of his adoring Spanish fans, with Massa down in 15^th having lost even more time being forced to queue behind Alonso in the stops. Ferrari's de facto number one made his anger very clear at what he considered to be nothing short of downright cheating from Hamilton over the radio, and sure enough the stewards began to investigate the incident. Only 15 laps after the offence was committed did Hamilton receive his drive through punishment, and the Briton had already pulled out enough of a gap from Kobayashi's Sauber to ensure the punishment actually cost him zero track position. It did however effectively destroy any hope of challenging Vettel out front.
It was an utterly spirited drive from Kobayashi, displaying for the first time since Abu Dhabi last year exactly why Peter Sauber chose him to pilot one of his cars over the likes of Nick Heidfeld and Giancarlo Fisichella. Not only did he repel Button to maintain 3^rd to his late pitstop, but he was actually able to extend a small advantage over the reigning champion. When he finally made his stop 4 laps from home, he did fall to 9^th position, but using his fresh rubber he skilfully negotiated his way though Alonso and Buemi to reach a creditworthy 7^th place in the race's dying moments.
Back to the head of the field, there was simply no challenging Vettel who duly crossed the line for his second win of the season, whilst Hamilton's 2^nd place finish ahead of Button's 3^rd place ensured the former extended his championship lead over the latter. Barrichello took William's finest result of the year in 4^th ahead of Kubica's Renault, whilst Sutil completed the top 6 ahead of Kobayashi, Buemi, a visibly fuming Alonso and Rosberg, after another fairly dire outing for the Mercedes team.
Whilst it was probably too much to ask for Valencia to actually produce much overtaking, the race did at least provide intrigue in the way of a rather hair-raising incident for motorsport's favourite Aussie, and the ensuing hullabaloo regarding a certain Mr. Hamilton and the Safety car. No matter how much Ferrari whine though, the fact remains: their car simply isn't fast enough. Fernando is beginning to lose touch with the championship leaders, and any aspirations of a third title really needs a shot in the arm before it's too late.

Canadian Grand Prix 2010

First off, sorry about 2 consecutive weekends with no posts; allow me to explain myself... The first instance once again revision for exams left me no time, and last weekend I was away enjoying some motorsport of a different kind: The legend that is the 24 Hours of Le Mans. No excuses this weekend though, and sure enough here I am.

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is one of the few circuits still on the calendar that seems to have no problem, year in year out, producing a corker. 2010 was certainly no exception. It's a massive hit with teams, drivers and most importantly fans – its disappearance from last year's calendar was nothing short of travesty. The main reason that the majority of dry races this year have been a tad dull is that the longevity of the tyres hitherto allowed for very little scope to deviate from the standard 'start on options, pit when they start graining, finish on primes' strategy. As it happened though, not even the harder tyres at Canada were durable enough to allow any teams to do that, which opened up the array of strategy options us nostalgia buffs so craved for.

Qualifying was also unusual in the sense that it wasn't a Red Bull on pole position – that honour instead fell to Lewis Hamilton after a scorching lap in his McLaren-Mercedes. The usual pacesetters were thus forced to concede defeat and start from 2^nd and 3^rd positions, championship leader Mark Webber ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Fernando Alonso came next, from Jenson Button, and 6^th place deservedly went to Force India's Tonio Liuzzi. Webber however was docked 5 positions for a gearbox change, meaning it would actually be Vettel who lined up alongside Lewis on the front row. Mercedes on the other hand were strangely off the pace – Rosberg could only manage 10^th, and Schumacher failed to even make Q3 in a lowly 12^th.

Come race day, drama was unfolding even before all 24 cars passed the starting gantry. Whilst Hamilton emerged from the first 2 corners as leader from Vettel and Alonso, Liuzzi after a fine qualifying performance was tagged 3 times in one corner by the fast-starting Ferrari of Massa. The net result for the Italian was a spin which saw him fall behind everyone but Petrov and De La Rosa, who were too busy having their own accident further back. The former would continue, but the latter would not – and the Spaniard was soon to be joined on the list of retirees by teammate Kamui Kobayashi, after a tangle with Nico Hulkenberg and subsequently the dreaded 'Wall of Champions' at the end of Lap 1. This gave the Sauber team a rather unenviable finishing record of 25% for 2010.

The initial round of pitstops was passed without much incident, even if they did allow Sebastien Buemi to lead his first ever lap of an F1 race, though Red Bull elected to give their drivers differing pit strategies – Webber would run his softer tyres in the final stint, Vettel the middle. In exiting the pits himself, Schumacher displayed shades of his old self by squeezing the Renault of Robert Kubica onto the grass on the approach to turn 3 – both pilots were fortunate to not make contact or even lose any places.

Webber's strategy appeared to have been the correct one at first, but found tyre wear an increasing issue as his middle stint wore on in spite of using the harder compound tyres. Hamilton, closely shadowed by Alonso, rapidly closed the gap to the Red Bull, and with 20 laps to go, both relatively easily passed the Australian. Alonso proceeded to have an attempt to the lead of the race, but found himself baulked by backmarking traffic before Hamilton opened himself a small gap that he would maintain to the end of the race. Webber thus was forced to pit earlier than planned to make the compulsory stint on soft tyres, and exited in 5^th place, behind his teammate Vettel.

Jenson Button then suddenly found a late turn of speed with which he surprisingly effortlessly dispatched Alonso, before making serious headway into his fellow McLaren driver's lead. He was able to narrow the margin to just 2 seconds with 10 laps to go, but Hamilton duly responded and the gap remained constant until the end of the race. Thus McLaren scored their second one-two finish in as many races, with Hamilton's erstwhile arch-rival Alonso completing the podium some 7 seconds behind Button. Vettel nursed an alleged gearbox issue home to claim a somewhat lacklustre 4^th, ahead of the man who was usurped from the championship lead – Mark Webber.

The top 10 were completed by Rosberg, Kubica, an impressive Buemi, and the Force Indias of Sutil and Liuzzi who had both passed the ailing Schumacher on the final lap. The 91-time victor simply couldn't find any grip with which to fend off the duo, and was left with nil point to reflect on what Martin Brundle described as the 'worst weekend of his career'. Uncharacteristically for the circuit, the rate of attrition was remarkably low – the lowest all season in fact. Only Glock, Trulli and Senna failed to finish along with the luckless Saubers, and all with mechanical issues. Perhaps even more astonishing was the notable absence of the safety car all race long.

So, with two back-to-back wins firmly under his belt, Lewis Hamilton has retaken the championship lead by just 3 points from Jenson Button, and 6 from Mark Webber. Chuck in Mr. Alonso and Mr. Vettel who are just another 9 and 13 points back respectively, and the fact we still have 11 grand prix left to run, along with major updates packages for all 3 major teams in the next two races, and there's no doubt that this championship is well and truly wide open.