Fantastic Race! Best of the season!

Justin: If my fellow blogger missed this race through the crapness of TV people and Virgin broadband, then he missed an absolute corker, the best of the season in my opinion.

I have no idea how to even begin to cover what happened, but let's start with a man close to my heart, Fernando Alonso. I actually emailed the f1 forum on the red button after the race and asked:

"Do you think alonso taking massa in the pit entrance is going to cause issues? Im a alonso fan and see it as alonso saying "have that" after being held up by massa in a couple of the previous races?"

Incidentally, whilst the question wasn't answered, I have made it my quest to get one email answered live on air before the season is done.

It was a cheeky move, but one quite possibly born out of frustration of having a slower team mate - he thought "I dont want to pit behind him, so have that Massa!". There wasnt much comment made on it, as the big uproar and analysis was about the Vettel Vs Hamilton pit incident, but at the time Ted Kravitz reported from the Ferrari garage saying that Massa wasnt happy at all. The way I see it though, thats the difference between a world champion and a world chump. Besides, Lewis did the same to Vettel anyway. All four were called to the stewards after the race - we await to see what punishments are handed out, if any at all.

What an action packed race! I got rather excited when Alonso made a clean start, then realised he jumped it a mile and pondered what would happen to him.

When the rain comes the Red Bull's just arent as dominant at all. It was literally hard to keep up with what the smeg was going on during this race. Pit stops and rain aplenty! Plenty of overtaking too...a real fantastic ding dong battle between Lewis and Shumi went on for a few laps.

I'll leave my esteemed colleague to pick driver of the day, but in case he didnt see the race, he has plenty to pick from. The two Renault guys deserve a mention too, driving pretty smoothly through all the chaos.

Shumi was interviewed just after the race and he seemed pretty down about his whole weekend. We were discussing him before the race in China and once again Nico Rosberg out qualified him by nearly a second before finishing a fine third (to take second in the title race) to Shumi's tenth.

Very interesting seeing Norbert Haug (spelling correct?) trying to defend Shumi to everyone after in the F1 forum. Martin Brundle started saying "I dont want to lay into Michael because I have enourmous respect for him and his abilities...BUT...." then proceeded to say what a rubbish weekend it had been. Old Norbert almost looked embaressed. Will be interesting to see where the Shumi comeback express goes next as right now its destination nowheresville.

Everyone knows I love Alonso, but even my esteemed co-blogger will probably admit whilst the heavens were on his side (a 70 second gap to Button becoming a 12 second gap in the safety car period), Alonso still had to drive his ass off to grab 4th. Could be a valuable drive come the end of the year.

You may be surprised that as yet I have not mentioned Button at all. Thinking about it, he has to be driver of the day frankly. Serene, calm, out front, beautiful, called the tyres perfectly....As Martin Brundle said, Jenson is the best guy out there at finding good grip in dampening conditions with slick tyres. He seems to be able to read the track conditions so well too.

So, anyone who thought Jenson going to McClaren was a bad idea, thats Jenson 2 - Lewis 0 on race wins this year. I'd imagine Jenson is rather getting used to the view from the top by now. 60 points, over Rosberg on 50, with Alonso and Lewis both on 49.

On to Barcelona in 3 weeks time.

Skiver of the day, note to my colleague...surely thats EJ who didnt even turn up :-).