Red Mist

Justin: Well, first up, once again apologies for my slightly late blog. My ever popular co-blogger did his blogging well though and more than made up for my lack of blog until now ;-).

You know it. I'm going to start with the guy driving through a seething red mist. Fernando Alonso. This blogger received a rather unfair text saying he was a crap driver and spouting crap in the interviews afterwards. Me thinks this was half said to try and wind me up but also half because the texter actually believes this.

Let me address this issue now. What Hamilton did, knowingly or unknowingly (as much as I hate Hamilton I suspect it was the latter) WAS unfair on Alonso. Until that point Fernando was gaining on Lewis and was setting fastest laps and it was looking like a total dingdong battle between Vettel, Lewis and Fernando. Andrew Benson makes some interesting remarks here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/06/post.html

I think, given the radio communications that we heard, that what made Alonso descend into the red mist was the fact that it took the FIA 20 minutes or so to do anything about what had happened, by which point a drive through penalty had no effect on the placing of Hamilton and the damage the incident had caused to Alonso's race.

"Where was he? And where is he now?" we heard an irate Alonso yell into his headset. The answer came back "He was second and he still is second Fernando". Oh dear. Red mist descends and Alonso drives like a man possessed and starts overdriving and eventually getting impatient and cocking things up in the last couple of laps.

My co-blogger said there was a lot of bad blood between Alonso and Hamilton, which is true. But I suspect if you replace Hamilton with any other driver, Alonso would still have reacted in the same manner - it just added more of an edge given that it was Hamilton.

The utter frustration boiling over in the cockpit - you have car updates, you know your car is good enough to fight for a podium at least, you need the championship points, fans all over the world and indeed in your home race are urging you on, and the chance to fight is unfairly swept away by a safety car incident. It's the Latino Heat!

Given the Ferrari is clearly the third best car on the grid, Alonso has been mega in actually managing to stay anywhere near the title fight - just look at Massa in the same car! So, Alonso isnt a crap driver and he was spouting utter, utter frustration at the situation in the race.

But now of course, you could say the extra points he gained in the after race shuffle could be crucial in his championship...but...you could also say now that he is more than a race win away from top spot, which halfway through the season isnt looking as good as it was.

Mark Webber - fuck me what a crash! He was cool as a cucumber afterwards though. Does anything ruffle his feathers???!!! Does anyone know what he got such a crap start though and found himself down the field like that? Come on Mark - you are supposedly fighting for the title...get on with it man!!

I believe my esteemed colleague neglected to name his skiver of the day. I'm going to name Heinz Harald Frentzen - never did like him anyway, and given he was the fourth steward and they took forever to even bother looking into Hamilton's safety car shennanigans, then he is my skiver of the day!

Michael Shumacher - go home! You are cack mate!

Good to see Williams once again up there fighting for points and with good grid positions. Heres hoping they can push on from this a bit!

Oh and yes readers, and co blogger, I shouldnt say TOO much about Fernando and safety cars as one incident worked out pretty well for him not so long ago (has to be said, Piquet cheating aside he doesnt have much luck with the safety car at all).