Tuesday 7 September 2010

Today: I Read a Guardian Blog for the First Time

Long time no-blog!

Well after an eventful weekend in Spa Where new dislike and insults were added to the up and coming Sebastian Vettel, I was of course in a very grumpy mood!

I did infact write a 4-page blog (on Word as i was at work at the time!) Which unfortunately.... didn't get saved! So i did what any other student would do - i stropped and played playstation and went to visit my Mum.

So here is my general summary of the Spa weekend!

Red Bull had a great qualifying with Mark Webber on pole and Sebastain Vettel in 4th, with a strong showing from Lewis Hamilton and the blisteringly quick Renault of Robert Kubica between them, Jenson Buttin managed 5th, whilst the Ferrari's of Massa and Alonso could only manage 6th and 10th with season best qualifier for Barichello on his 300th GP in 8th.

The first lap was all but uneventful, Drizzle across half the track meant that the slicks sped through the dry and skidded through the drizzle! Barichello was an unfortunate victum of the Spa microclimate where he locked both wheels and skidded straight into Alonso, finishing his 300th GP before finishing the first lap. The general chaos from this bought out the safety car.

Few laps on and Vettel makes the move on the slower Button, and doesn't get it right. AT ALL. He manages to salvage his race and hobbles into the pitlane whilst Button is forced to retire, furious at the event that has just occured.

Skip to the pits and Kubica makes a mistake and is distracted whilst pulling into his pit box, totally overshooting it and taking out one of his mechanics in the process, Allowing the Terrible start Mark Webber had to be 'undone' as he took second position from Kubica.

Vettel had his drive through, puncture, and about 40 pitstops....

The race finished with the Brit Lewis Hamilton on the topstep, Mark Webber's salvaged second step was a relief after his poor start, and Kubica maintaining his 3rd place qualifier to take the third step.

Petrov and Schumacher drove crakers to make up 14 places each and kamoui Kobayashi made it into the points as well.

The next race is at Monza where RBR are said to struggle with the long straights whilst Mclaren and Force India are said to thrive. The Mercedes engine - which has more horsepower than the Renault engine- showed itself at Spa and teams with this engine are looking pretty smug!

The next big thing however is the WMSC on Wednesday this week, where the fate of the long standing Ferrari will be decided. General concensus from in the F1 camp is that they deserve a punishment, but won't get anything substantial after their $100,000 fine. The fans who feel robbed (Ferrari fans as well) want them to be banned - constructors points removed -driver points re-dished out from the race - Alonso to be made to wear a dress, you name it they want it.

Richard Williams posted a erm intersting article [here] on The Guardian about the up and coming WMSC defending Ferrari's actions, whilst it's all well and good saying that team orders have helped people in the past, most of these instances have been in the FINAL race of the season, where the other guy in your team has NO chance of winning the WDC. Nowadays team orders are against the rules. Just like KERS for the 2010 season, just like ride height, just like anyother rule in the book.

Ferrari broke this rule, and hence should be punished!

He goes on to say that team orders are in place for team principals to control their drivers. Then goes on to use RBR and Turkey as an example. Now at the time, as an RBR fan i was very very very annoyed. But then After i went to Germany to watch the GP and experienced first hand the 'team orders' debacle, i am glad to say that RBR crashed into each other. Woul i prefer it not to happen? Yes. Would i want to be robbed of a race? No. I feel i was robbed by Ferrari.

I dislike Alonso and i make no attempt to hide it, however if he had won fair and square by properly over taking Massa i would have been annoyed yes. But i wouldn't have felt the anger and dissapointment that Ferrari made me feel.
"Team orders that interfere with a race result are strictly forbidden"

This is the rule for the sport today. They aren't racing 50 years ago. Yes this is a buisiness, but we as the fans are the clients. You race to please us.