European Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Fernando Alonso took a sensational second victory of the season at an action-packed European Grand Prix around the streets of Valencia. As his rivals suffered a range of mishaps, Alonso gradually brought his Ferrari into contention having started from eleventh on the grid, not putting a foot wrong en route to take a well-deserved victory from Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher.


It was Sebastian Vettel that set the pace on Saturday, taking pole position by a comfortable margin of three tenths from Lewis Hamilton. Pastor Maldonado, who won for Williams during Formula One’s previous visit to Spain, qualified an impressive third ahead of the two highly fancied Lotus machines of Romain Grosjean and Raikkonen. With the field so tightly packed, a number of big names found themselves down the grid – Jenson Button qualified ninth, Alonso eleventh and Schumacher twelfth, whilst DRS failure for Mark Webber saw the Australian drop out of Q1 and line up nineteenth on the grid.


As the lights went out, Vettel and Hamilton made solid getaways to hold the first two positions, whilst the two Lotus drivers made strong starts. Raikkonen backed off as he tried to pass Maldonado up the inside of the flat-out first corner, whilst teammate Grosjean sliced inside at the tighter second turn to take third ahead of the Venezuelan driver. Raikkonen was then passed by Kamui Kobayashi, who made a good start from seventh on the grid, the Japanese proceeding to pass Maldonado later in the lap to complete the initial tour in fourth place.


Vettel was able to set a blistering pace at the head of the field, building up a gap of four seconds back to Hamilton by the end of the second lap. As Vettel continued to make good his escape, Grosjean was finally able to make a pass on Hamilton after several aborted attempts with the help of the DRS, situated on the approach to turn 12, on lap 10. Hamilton was the first of the front-runners to dive for the pit-lane for a fresh set of tyres, doing so at the end of lap 13, and held third position behind runaway leader Vettel and Grosjean, who both made their stops three laps later.


Behind Hamilton now lain Alonso, who had made his way up to a net fourth place with a great start and strong pace prior to his first stop on lap 15. Raikkonen at the same time was able to vault ahead of Kobayashi during the first round of pit-stops to take fifth, though the Japanese driver was removed from contention on lap 20 after being squeezed into the wall on the approach to turn 4 by a yet-to-stop Bruno Senna, necessitating a change of front wing for the Sauber driver.


The second round of stops arrived just as the safety car was deployed as a result of a shower of debris that arose from contact between Heikki Kovalainen and Jean-Eric Vergne, precipitated by a botched overtaking move at turn 12 by the latter. The net positions of the top six were unchanged save for Hamilton, who dropped behind Alonso and Raikkonen as a result of yet another mishandled pit-stop by the McLaren pit-crew. As the race got underway once more on lap 34, Vettel continued to lead until an abrupt alternator failure saw his Red Bull coast to a halt, handing the lead to Alonso who had surged past Grosjean with a bold pass at turn 2 at the restart.


Alonso’s miraculous luck continued on lap 41 as Grosjean’s car suddenly suffered the same fate as Vettel's, giving the home-hero a four second lead over Hamilton, who overtook Raikkonen shortly after the restart at turn 12, and Maldonado. Hamilton's efforts to reduce the gap to Alonso were soon curtailed by excessive rear tyre wear in a role-reversal of the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks earlier. Raikkonen subsequently began to close in, and Hamilton’s superb defending served only to delay the inevitable demotion as Raikkonen was able to get superior drive out of the turn 17 hairpin with two laps to go to take second position.


Maldonado now sensed his opportunity to grab his second podium of the season, and in a matter of corners he had positioned his Williams nose-to-tail with the ailing McLaren. Maldonado made his move around the outside of turn 12 on the penultimate lap, but Hamilton stuck steadfastly to his line whilst Maldonado outbraked himself, left the track to his outside and then clattered into the side of the McLaren as he tried to force his way back on to the circuit. The upshot of this collision was a broken front wing for Maldonado and retirement for a visibly frustrated Hamilton, whose McLaren was launched directly into the retaining barrier.


With his two closest championship rivals eliminated from the race, Alonso took the chequered flag for the 29th time in his career to become 2012’s first repeat winner and to take the championship lead. Raikkonen finished a comfortable second position, whilst the accident between Hamilton and Maldonado allowed the final podium position to be filled by Schumacher, who with the help of making a late pit-stop on lap 42 was able to scythe his way past numerous drivers on older rubber to take an overdue first post-comeback podium finish. Hot on the German’s heels was Webber, who adopted a similar strategy to Schumacher to take fourth place – something the Australian would not have been expecting following his dismal showing in qualifying.


Nico Hulkenberg was able to stay out of trouble to cross the line in a career-best fifth place, the Force India putting in its most competitive showing of the year so far. Paul di Resta came close to finishing sixth with a one-stop strategy, but was just beaten to the line by Nico Rosberg who was able to claw back some of the ground he lost with a poor start from sixth on the grid with a last-gasp pit-stop on lap 46. Button scored his first points since Catalunya in a fairly anonymous if not disastrous run to eighth place, ahead of Sergio Perez who was mysteriously unable to pull off his customary long first stint despite starting on medium tyres.


Maldonado crossed the line tenth, but a post-race penalty for his clash with Hamilton dropped him to twelfth position; this gave teammate Senna the final point despite the Brazilian being handed a drive-through penalty for his collision with Kobayashi. Daniel Ricciardo had a brief coming-together with Vitaly Petrov en route to what would become eleventh place. Behind Maldonado finished Petrov and Kovalainen, who were both forced to pit following their respective incidents with the Toro Rossos of Ricciardo and Vergne. The Frenchman promptly retired and was handed a ten-place grid penalty for the next round at Silverstone for his misdemeanour.


Charles Pic brought home Marussia’s sole entry in the race in fifteenth with Timo Glock absent due to illness, ahead of Felipe Massa who was another to have to pit for repairs after a recovering Kobayashi harpooned into the side of his Ferrari at turn 10 immediately after the restart. The Japanese driver was eliminated on the spot, and will take a five-place grid penalty at Silverstone to add insult to injury. The two HRTs of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan were left to complete the list of finishers, the latter incurring a drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding at mid-distance.


Alonso’s lead of twenty points is hardly what you would call secure, but it is the largest margin any driver has enjoyed in the championship up to now. The Ferrari is still some way from being an entirely competitive package, but it has been Alonso’s relentless consistency and opportunism that sees the Spaniard on top for the time being. The unpredictable nature of this season has placed a premium on constant points-scoring – if that’s what this year’s title tight ultimately comes down to, it would take a brave soul to bet against Alonso getting the job done.

European Grand Prix 2012 - Preview

The Valencia Street Circuit has acquired something of a reputation for producing boring races since it joined the Formula One calendar four years ago. In this most unpredictable of seasons however, that could all be about to change.

Despite being a street track in the technical sense of the term, Valencia’s circuit layout is more akin to a permanent track that happens to be located within a city. It has a series of fairly long, curved straights, particularly by street circuit standards, broken up by numerous slow corners and chicanes with expansive run-off areas. Overtaking has traditionally being extremely challenging, the race having been won from pole position on three of four occasions, and the DRS zone located on the long back straight on the approach to turn 12 is unlikely to make passing much easier. Pirelli will be providing its soft and medium compound tyres for the teams to make use of this weekend, high temperatures likely to make tyre management as important as always.

Incredibly, we’ve had seven different winners from seven races so far, and bidding to make that eight will be the Lotus team. Despite having had an excellent car since the start of the season, neither driver has taken that illusive victory, though both Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean have both a second and third place apiece to their name. Temperatures in Valencia are set to be relatively high, which should benefit the Lotus machine much as it did at Bahrain, but what will determine the extent to which the Renault-powered cars can be in contention will be qualifying, as it has been low grid positions that have arguably prevented them from winning races that they perhaps may have done. Raikkonen has suffered a difficult couple of races through little fault of his own and should be right on the pace if the car is up to task; Grosjean meanwhile managed his tyres excellently at Montreal, a handy skill to be able to count on at a circuit like Valencia. A first win for the Franco-Swiss driver isn’t totally out of the question.

The last two races at Valencia have been won by Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull, and it would take a brave soul to bet against the German making it a hat-trick. The car’s lack of top-end speed harmed its prospects at Montreal, but its prowess through the twisty stuff is in little doubt. The high temperatures that saw Vettel win in Bahrain will of course help proceedings as well, so it may be tyre wear towards the end of the race that could potentially prove their biggest problem, particularly if the chasing Lotus cars are able to conserve their rubber better. Mark Webber will be equally keen to atone for a disappointing outing at Montreal with traffic and tyre wear, and his Monaco victory should hold him in good stead at a track that features some similar low-speed bends.

Lewis Hamilton appears to be back on top form for good following his Canada win, which always makes him a formidable competitor. However, McLaren’s lack of pace relative to the Red Bull and Lotus cars at Bahrain perhaps makes a second win on the trot a rather tall order for the Brit – it will be interesting to see whether the ‘new improved’ Hamilton will be willing to settle for a fourth or fifth place finish it that is all the car is capable of. Jenson Button on the other hand hardly looks like the same driver that took victory so assuredly at Melbourne. He’s slumped to eighth in the standings following another non-scoring race in which he was lapping faster than only the Marussia cars at certain stages, and desperately needs to find some form as a matter of urgency to maintain any realistic title hopes. Button is set to adopt Hamilton’s set-up for practice in a desperate search for pace, though it remains to be seen if this tactic will bear any fruit.

Fernando Alonso can never be ruled out of the running, not at least at one of his two home circuits, and despite the Ferrari not being particularly quick at Bahrain, it has received a number of major upgrades since. Felipe Massa in the other side of the garage seems to fancy his own chances of becoming winner number eight at a circuit at which he won back in 2008, but that particular prediction does smack somewhat of over-optimism. Michael Schumacher will be equally keen to assert himself after another race-ending gremlin at Canada, but the Mercedes may suffer more severely with tyre wear than most which will render expectations of the seven-time champion and his teammate Nico Rosberg in the race fairly modest, even if the double-DRS system facilitates solid grid positions.

Sergio Perez secured a second podium finish of the year at Canada with another tyre-preservation masterclass, and the Mexican could be on course for another fair haul of points if he can put in another level-headed and consistent drive. Kamui Kobayashi in the other Sauber is in danger of being overshadowed by his teammate, and would do well to re-discover the turn of speed that saw him take seventh at Valencia two years ago. Williams conversely have had something of a lean spell since Pastor Maldonado’s Catalunya victory, but the warm temperatures twinned with slow corners where their car has proved adept previously means a solid points finish is a real possibility for both Maldonado and Bruno Senna.

Qualifying Prediction:
1. Vettel, 2. Webber, 3. Hamilton, 4. Alonso, 5. Grosjean, 6. Rosberg, 7. Raikkonen, 8. Schumacher, 9. Maldonado, 10. Massa

Race Prediction:1. Vettel, 2. Grosjean, 3. Raikkonen, 4. Webber, 5. Hamilton, 6. Alonso, 7. Perez, 8. Massa, 9. Rosberg, 10. Kobayashi

If Vettel puts the Red Bull on pole, which I think he will, it’s hard to see who will stop him barring an uncharacteristic poor start or a mechanical problem. Webber will make it an all-Red Bull front row, but a poor start will knock him off his stride from the get-go. The Lotus cars will make their way through the order much as they did at Bahrain, only this time it will be Grosjean that leads home his more illustrious teammate to secure a second straight runner-up position. Webber will be able to fend off the advances of Hamilton and Alonso behind to take his customary fourth place, with Perez stealthily working his way well inside the points ahead of the second Ferrari of Massa. Rosberg will limp home to ninth as his rear tyres suffer some serious degradation during the closing stages of the race, Kobayashi securing the final point but still finding himself upstaged by his Sauber teammate. Button will remain in the doldrums until further notice, whilst Mercedes’ tyre woes will prevent Schumacher from scoring.

Canadian Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Lewis Hamilton takes an overdue first win of the season at the Canadian Grand Prix, making it seven different winners in as many races. Executing a two-stop strategy to perfection, the McLaren driver was able to cruise by Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in the closing stages of the race to take his third win at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

It was Vettel who appeared the man to beat on Saturday, taking his Red Bull to pole position by a margin of three tenths from Hamilton and Alonso’s Ferrari. Mark Webber lined up in fourth position in the second Red Bull, ahead of Nico Rosberg whose Mercedes wasn’t quite as fast as many (including myself) had predicted, and the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa.

The start saw all of the leading runners making evenly-matched starts, and the top six held their grid positions as Paul di Resta was able to pass Romain Grosjean at the first corner to take seventh position. This soon became sixth position as Rosberg immediately began to struggle for pace, the German falling behind Massa and the Scot at the final chicane during the second and third laps respectively. Sixth soon became fifth for Di Resta as Massa plummeted down the order after spinning at the first corner on lap six.

In the meantime, Vettel initially pressed home his advantage, but Hamilton was able to catch up to the reigning champion somewhat as the first round of pit-stops loomed. Vettel dived for the pit-lane at the end of lap 16 for a fresh set of the harder soft compound tyre, Hamilton doing likewise a lap later and leapfrogging his adversary with a faster in-lap. Alonso however stayed out for an additional two laps with a strong pace and retained the lead ahead of Hamilton and Vettel as he re-joined the track.

Hamilton was in no mood to sit in Alonso’s wake, and at the end of the lap surged past with the help of DRS to take the lead of the race. The Brit proceeded to get away from the Ferrari at first, but Alonso was able to peg the gap at around three seconds once his tyres got up to temperature. Vettel was beginning to lose ground in third position, Kimi Raikkonen and Sergio Perez having moved up into fourth and fifth places ahead of Webber by half-distance having not yet made a pit-stop.

The jury was still out at this stage as to whether the leading trio were going to make additional pit-stops, or try to eke out their soft tyres until the chequered flag. In anticipation of his rivals doing likewise, Hamilton made a second stop on lap 55, putting him around twelve seconds in arrears of Alonso. Five laps went by and neither Alonso nor Vettel had come into the pits – it was clear that they were hoping to keep the much faster Hamilton at bay for the remaining laps.

Closing the gap at a second per lap, it became increasingly apparent as the laps ticked down that this would be an impossible task. Having halved the gap to Alonso by lap 60, Hamilton made short work of Vettel in the DRS zone on lap 62, with Alonso at this stage just over two seconds further up the road. Sure enough, the Woking-built machine zeroed in on its target, and by the start of lap 64 was swarming all over the back of Alonso’s ailing Ferrari. Hamilton wisely bided his time, waiting until the DRS zone to re-take a lead he would comfortably maintain all the way to the chequered flag.

It was clear by now that Alonso’s tyres were rapidly deteriorating, and the Spaniard was soon coming under pressure from Grosjean’s Lotus who had been nursing his soft tyres since his sole pit-stop on lap 21 to gradually ascend his way up to fourth position, which became third after Vettel made a late switch to super-softs on lap 63. Sure enough, the Franco-Swiss driver easily swept by Alonso in the DRS zone to move into second position and claim the second podium finish of his fledgling F1 career.

Also nabbing an unlikely spot on the podium for Sauber was Perez, whose one-stop strategy played out beautifully – after a long first stint on the soft tyre starting from fifteenth on the grid, The Mexican made his stop at the end of lap 41 to slot between Rosberg and Raikkonen, who had fallen behind the faster Perez having made his only stop a lap earlier. Perez took advantage of Rosberg illegally passing the out-of-sequence Massa by cutting the final chicane at the end of lap 57 to move past both drivers at the first corner on the following lap, and from there set a scintillating pace to ultimately move ahead of Alonso in the DRS zone with two laps remaining and book his place on the podium.

Vettel set the fastest lap of the race after his late second pit-stop en route to passing Alonso at the hairpin on the penultimate lap, sealing fourth position. Alonso was able to narrowly hang on to fifth position, ahead of the two-stopping cars of Rosberg and Webber. Raikkonen wasn’t able to capitalise on his long first stint quite as spectacularly as Perez, taking eighth position having started from twelfth on the grid. Kamui Kobayashi banked two points for Sauber with a similar strategy to Grosjean, ahead of Massa who recovered from his earlier spin to claim the final point of the day with a two-stop strategy.

Di Resta’s two stop-strategy cost him dear as he fell behind a number of one-stopping drivers to finish eleventh, albeit not his Force India teammate Nico Hulkenberg who simply lacked the pace to make his one-stop strategy work, the German crossing the line in twelfth. Pastor Maldonado put in a solid effort for Williams to climb from a lowly grid position of 22^nd, a result of a spin during qualifying and a gearbox change, to an eventual thirteenth. Toro Rosso were once again underwhelming, Daniel Ricciardo spinning late in the race on the way to fourteenth, Jean-Eric Vergne falling behind his teammate having passed him at the start thanks to a drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding.

Whilst Lewis Hamilton powered to victory, his teammate Jenson Button was once again at sea all weekend. The beleaguered Brit qualified tenth on worn soft tyres, and suffered badly from tyre degradation throughout the race; three pit-stops later and Button trundled across the finish line in a despondent sixteenth place.  Michael Schumacher was running immediately ahead of Button during the opening stages, but was denied the chance of points when his DRS mysteriously became stuck open, incredibly warranting a fifth retirement in seven races.

Bruno Senna had a torrid afternoon for Williams during which he glanced the wall and could do no more than seventeenth after spending much of the first stint behind Heikki Kovalainen, who finished in eighteenth ahead of Caterham teammate Vitaly Petrov and the Marussia of Charles Pic. Timo Glock along with both HRT drivers was forced to retire due to brake problems.

Following his eighteenth career victory, moving him level with Raikkonen, Hamilton now has a slender two-point advantage over Alonso with Vettel a further point behind. This could be the stage of the season where the trio, regarded by many as the cream of the current F1 crop, begin to pull away from the rest of the field to commence in earnest a three-way title scrap of epic proportions. If that’s the case, whoever comes out on top come November will have surely earned their place in F1 history.

Canadian Grand Prix 2012 - Preview

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve perhaps more so than any other circuit on the Formula One calendar has a habit of serving up fantastic races. Jenson Button's incredible last-to-first win last year will remain firmly etched in the minds of motor racing aficionados for years to come, the Brit's triumph being just the latest in a long series of memorable thrillers we've been treated to since Villeneuve himself won upon F1's first visit to the circuit back in 1978.

The layout of the circuit, situated on the man-made Île Notre Dame in the middle of the St. Lawrence river, consists mostly of long straights and slow to medium-speed corners. The relatively small amount of run-off lends the venue a street circuit feel, whilst also ensuring an appearance from the Safety Car is a probability rather than a mere possibility. Rain can often be a feature too, which contributes to the unpredictable action seen on the circuit still further - barring a repeat of last year's deluge which made the event the longest in F1 history, the two softest tyre compounds will be in use this weekend. Unlike last year's race, there will be just a single DRS zone which will be located along the straight preceding the final chicane.

One team you can expect to come to the fore this weekend is Mercedes. On paper, the circuit should suit the Silver Arrows perfectly: their 'double-DRS' system will be a big advantage along the long straights of Montreal much as it was at Shanghai, particularly so in qualifying, and the comparatively cool temperatures, which also contributed to Nico Rosberg's victory in China, will also aid proceedings. The team's form at Monaco furthermore suggests the car possesses strong traction out of slow corners, a must for being in contention in Canada.

What's more, Montreal is a circuit where Michael Schumacher has a particularly formidable record. The German has taken seven victories there over the years, and there's every chance he could add an eighth this weekend. He was the fastest man in Q3 at Monaco, another track at which he has excelled in the past, and if not for his indiscretion with Bruno Senna at Catalunya he would have started from pole position. Remove his loss of oil pressure from the equation as well, and Schumacher may well have notched up win number 92 by now. Nico Rosberg is on strong form too, and the fact he's scored the most points of anybody in the last four races means he's a definite contender to become our first multiple winner of the season.

Conversely, Montreal is considered the 'bogey' circuit for Red Bull. Besides the yet-to-be-completed Austin circuit, the track is the only one on this year's calendar at which the Anglo-Austrian outfit is yet to win; the nature of this season nonetheless gives the team their best ever chance of breaking their duck. Mark Webber's confidence will be riding high following his Monaco victory, so it could well be the Australian who takes honours if the car is up to task. Sebastian Vettel meanwhile will be eager to re-assert his authority over his teammate, particularly as the pair currently stand level in the championship standings.

Both are three points adrift of championship leader Fernando Alonso, whose supreme consistency has kept him very much in the hunt even at the wheel of a car that appears to remain only fifth in the current pecking order. Further updates to the Ferrari for this weekend will only make Alonso even more of a threat in theory, but their effect on the Italian team's competitiveness will only become clear after Friday's practice sessions. Felipe Massa enjoyed by far his most convincing drive of the year at Monaco with a sixth place finish, but the Brazilian has to consistently replicate that level of performance to maintain any hope of being retained by Ferrari.

Lewis Hamilton meanwhile heads to the scene of his first ever F1 win five years ago in search of that illusive first win of 2012. He has easily had the measure of teammate Jenson Button since Bahrain, and the straight-line speed of the McLaren should mean he's very much in contention for a third Montreal victory. Button on the other hand has scarcely looked like the same driver that triumphed in Melbourne so convincingly just a couple of months ago. His race at Monaco may have been ruined by getting stuck behind Heikki Kovalainen's Caterham, but his dismal showing in qualifying was ultimately responsible for that mishap. Button runs the risk of being left behind in the title battle, as he now sits seventh having scored only two points in three races. Getting on top of his car's setup early on at Montreal, something he has been having difficulty in doing recently, will be the key to turning this recent form around.

We didn't get to see much of Lotus at Monaco, with Romain Grosjean getting spun out of contention the first time through Sainte-Devote and Kimi Raikkonen's weekend ultimately being compromised by limited practice running. That makes it hard to predict how the black-and-gold cars shall fare at Canada, though the team's relatively strong showing at Shanghai bodes well. Sauber are once again shaping up to be a competitive proposition, even if the races of both Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi were ruined during qualifying and the first corner respectively at Monaco, whilst it remains to be seen whether Williams can re-capture the pace that took Pastor Maldonado to victory at Catalunya. Wet weather would undoubtedly come as a blessing for Williams and Sauber as well and Force India and Toro Rosso, both of whom still have work to do to catch up with their midfield rivals.

Qualifying Prediction
1. Rosberg, 2. Hamilton, 3. Vettel, 4. Schumacher, 5. Webber, 6. Alonso, 7. Grosjean, 8. Raikkonen, 9. Button, 10. Perez

Race Prediction
1. Rosberg, 2. Hamilton, 3. Schumacher, 4. Alonso, 5. Vettel, 6. Raikkonen, 7. Webber, 8. Perez, 9. Di Resta, 10. Senna

Choosing Hamilton for the win arguably would have been the safe option - the law of averages dictates he's going to win a race sooner or later, and Montreal is one of his best tracks based on past form. My compunction however is that the double-DRS system will allow Rosberg to edge out Hamilton for pole, and as per Shanghai, barring a poor start or botched pit-stop I can't see anyone stopping him. Hamilton will still secure his best result of the year yet with second, but that tantalising wait for a first win will have to go on a little longer. Schumacher meanwhile will take his long-awaited first podium visit since his comeback, ahead of Alonso and Vettel who will slip down to fifth position in light of the Ferrari's generally stronger race pace. Raikkonen will have a relatively low-key run to sixth ahead of Webber, who will return to his old habit of botching the start, with Perez, Paul di Resta and Senna completing the top ten as Button and Massa both fail to add to their respective points tallies.

F1 & IndyCar: A Two-Way Street

It’s a shame that two of the three greatest motorsport events of the year should occur on the same day – the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500. Each is the respective jewel in the crown of Formula One and IndyCar championships, and once upon a time it was possible to compete in both – just ask Alberto Ascari, Graham Hill, Jim Clark or Mario Andretti.

This year’s Indy 500 did see a number of former F1 drivers compete, with varying degrees of success. For starters, Takuma Sato, who drove for Jordan, BAR and Super Aguri over the course of the 2000s, came very close to winning the whole race. He was running second as the leaders crossed the line to commence the final lap, and anybody familiar with Sato’s antics in F1 knew it would be a case of death or glory for the Japanese. He lunged to the inside of race leader Dario Franchitti, the door was firmly closed on him, and he spun helplessly into the tyre barrier. Whoops.

That meant ex-Minardi and Jaguar driver Justin Wilson would be the highest-placed of the F1 veterans in seventh with ‘rookie’ Rubens Barrichello eleventh, Sato classified seventeenth and Sebastien Bourdais coming home in twentieth. Jean Alesi meanwhile took the start, but his participation in the race was ill-fated to say the least, the one-time Grand Prix winner having been as much as 16mph slower than the pace-setters during practice. Predictably, his hopelessly underpowered Lotus-engined car was pulled from the race after just nine laps in the interests of safety.

Barrichello is the latest F1 veteran to have sought refuge in IndyCar following a successful (or otherwise) career in F1, with Teo Fabi, Emerson Fittipaldi, Stefan Johansson, Mauricio Gugelmin, Michele Alboreto, Mark Blundell and most famously Nigel Mansell having all made the jump over the course of the last twenty or so years. This trend belies a number of key differences between the two championships: IndyCar is currently a single-chassis series (albeit now with multiple engine manufacturers), fuel strategy plays an integral part in the outcome of the races, and most importantly oval tracks make up around half of the calendar.

The predominantly US-based series is on the road to recovery after some lean times. For those unaware of the infamous IndyCar ‘split’, allow me to explain – during the mid-1990s, when the championship had reached its peak in terms of popularity, Indianapolis circuit owner Tony George took the decision to found a rival series in 1996 known as the Indy Racing League (IRL), disillusioned with the ever-increasing emphasis on road courses and non-American drivers. The IRL eventually morphed into the current IndyCar championship, with the existing series continuing under the guises of CART and later Champ Car before merging with IndyCar in 2008 following bankruptcy.

Mansell’s unexpected leap from F1 to IndyCar was a major factor in the latter’s surge in popularity. The moustachioed reigning F1 champion inked a deal with the crack Newman-Haas outfit in 1993 to replace the F1-bound Michael Andretti after failing to agree terms to remain at Williams, duly winning the title in his first season. In spite of Fittipaldi’s title win four years before, IndyCar’s popularity was up to this point limited outside the States; Mansell’s success changed that to a considerable extent and by the time of the split the popularity of the series was beginning to challenge that of F1. Alas, by the early 2000s the rivalry between IRL and CART had turned off the fans, who in the States by and large switched their attentions to NASCAR.

Not only have plenty of F1 drivers found a home in IndyCar, but a number of IndyCar drivers have similarly tried their hand at F1, the two success stories in this department being Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya. Villeneuve took honours in both the Indy 500 and the overall title in 1995 at his second attempt, and consequently joined the ranks of F1 the following season with Williams, where he pushed teammate Damon Hill all the way in his rookie season before sealing the title himself in 1997. Montoya joined the Chip Ganassi CART team in 1999 having won the previous year’s Formula 3000 crown in convincing style, and followed in Mansell’s footsteps by sealing the championship at the first time of asking, paving the way to join the F1 fold whereupon he would go on to win seven races for Williams and McLaren.

There are others whose forays have been somewhat less successful. The most notorious among these was of course the aforementioned Andretti, who headed to the McLaren team in 1993 with ambitions of replicating his father Mario’s F1 title fifteen years beforehand. However, his inability to adapt the more technologically advanced cars in F1 along with his refusal to relocate from the US to Europe meant that he was made to look extremely average by teammate Ayrton Senna. With only three top-six finishes to his name after thirteen races, Andretti parted ways with McLaren with three races still to run to arrange a return to IndyCar, future F1 champion Mika Hakkinen taking his place at the Woking-based équipe.

More recently, Cristiano da Matta joined the Toyota F1 team in 2003 fresh from winning CART in 2002, and quietly impressed by outscoring more experienced teammate Olivier Panis in his debut year. His sophomore season was decidedly lacklustre however, leading to his replacement by Jarno Trulli, who in turn had been recently dismissed by Renault. Sebastien Bourdais, who joined Toro Rosso in 2008 after stringing together no fewer than four Champ Car titles from 2004 to 2007, was also axed after a season-and-half of anonymity compared with his namesake teammates Vettel and Buemi, Jaime Alguersauri taking the Frenchman’s place in mid-2009.

Going back to the present day, Barrichello’s defection to IndyCar is just what the series needs. In much the same way as Mansell made the British audience sit up and take notice of IndyCar, Rubinho’s exploits in the US are sure to be closely followed by his legion of Brazilian fans. Such a boost could scarcely have arrived at a more apt time. Not long after Danica Patrick, international motorsport’s most successful female driver of recent years, announced her plans to move to NASCAR, a horror shunt at the final round of last year’s IndyCar championship at Las Vegas tragically claimed the life of popular British champion Dan Wheldon, robbing the sport of another of its finest ambassadors.

The arrival of a new car for the championship, fittingly named in Wheldon’s honour, could thus be seen to mark a new era in IndyCar, one that could potentially allow the series to scale the heady heights of the mid-1990s once more. Rumours are already afoot that Felipe Massa, who looks all but certain to lose his Ferrari drive by the end of the year, could well join his compatriot Barrichello in forging a fresh career across the pond; if he does, you can bet he won’t be the only one member of the current F1 grid to do so at some stage in their career. Meanwhile, it’s not impossible that one or two of the more accomplished IndyCar field may head the other direction against the backdrop of a unique relationship between the two most prestigious single-seater series on the planet.