Monday 2 August 2010

Bloody awesome mate!

Justin: The Hungarian grand prix was a classic, no doubt about it. The safety car prevented it from being a walk in the park for Vettel, who at the end of lap 7 was somewhere near 8 seconds ahead of Fernando.

After the safety car, for what I believe was some debris on track, all hell broke loose. Before the safety it was Vettel being chased by Fernando, with Webber seemingly running his engine in fuel save mode for later on. Then you had Massa being followed by Lewis.

The safety car comes and goes and they emerge as Webber (not having stopped during this period), Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton jumping Massa in the pits due to Massa's tyres still being in the garage.

Now....step forward Mark Webber if you please! Webber starts pumping in some stonking lap times....around 25 qualifying laps one after the other. The idea behind this of course was to originally get enough time over Alonso for a pit stop and come out in second behind Vettel. This plan was to change soon enough.

Whats this? Vettel being investigated by the stewards? Another obscure, not very well known safety car rule? Vettel had been caught napping on the restart and had fallen more than ten car lengths behind the leader. Thing is of course, this isnt a very well known rule for the fans, but as DC said after the race, this is racing, these things happen, rules are there for reasons, and in the driver safety meetings they do discuss rules such as this, so Vettel would have been perfectly aware of all this. More on his weasly excuses and whinging later on.

So, Vettel gets awarded a drive through penalty, which shifts the momentum of the race away from him and towards Webber and Alonso. Alonso was pretty consistent in being the best outside Red Bull all weekend really and he managed to mix it up well with them on race day. So with Webber first and Alonso second, with Vettel not far behind at all, Webber now had to really pump in the times to get out ahead of Alonso and go for the win.

During this time, Button was crawling around in 11th and Lewis had retired with a gearbox failure. So for Red Bull and Alonso it was looking quids in for the title race.

Right up to his pit stop Mark Webber drove like a bat out of hell. He got the gap needed and emerged comfortably ahead of Alonso, who by now had the much faster Vettel up his exhaust pipe.

Now, I'm not known in blogging circles for my descriptive analysis of each race as it happened, but this is an exception as Mark Webber drove an astonishingly accomplished race. He was fortunate with what happened to Vettel, but you need to be in position to take advantage and be good enough to take advantage and he was definately both of those.

Webber has now won twice as many races as anyone else this season and stands atop of the driver standings. Thoroughly deserved stuff Mark, well bloody done mate.

Now lets get to Vettel. You fucked up mate, deal with it. Stop reacting like a child and get on with it. Red Bull knew he was going to say something stupid to the media when over the radio they told him not to say anything and we'll talk later about it. At least later on he admitted he was asleep at the restart, though I'm sure I caught a hint that he was trying to blame Webber just a bit.

One win from seven poles just isn't championship form Sebastian. You can do it on a Saturday, but you have someone over the other side of the garage who is better than you on a Sunday mate. Bonza!

This is going to be a huge blog, mostly because the race was so exciting, but partly too because the three top teams had such differring fortunes. Red Bull we have done.

Ferrari - Alonso said, as Martin Brundle pointed out on the forum after the race, after the rubbish race he had at Silverstone, that he could still win the title....did he say could...or would? Anyway, he now stands just 20 points behind Webber in the title race and you wouldnt want to put money against him really now. Yes I know, I had thoughts of almost admitting his championship was over a few blogs ago, what can I say, I'm the Murray Walker of this blogging partnership, I'm emotional sometimes. Alonso had a superb start in Hungary and that set him up for battling with the Red Bulls for the entire race.

And, lets not change the ritual here.....where the hell was Massa when Vettel had his drive through? Had he pushed like crazy and shown some of the pace that Alonso had, then perhaps he could have jumped Vettel....as Rob Smedley indicated in the radio transmission we heard...but nope...Massa just simply isnt as fast as Alonso, nowhere really near in fact.

As Brundle again pointed out, sooner or later the other teams will have to do what ferrari have already done, that is getting behind one man at the expense of the other guy. People may not like it, but Ferrari were right to get Alonso past Massa in Germany as Alonso is now well in the hunt and was and always has been this year their best bet.

Mclaren - when Lewis retired the face of the title race changed completely as the guys who had the most ground to make up were suddenly the guys with everything to gain. I don't know what Button was up to all day. In quali he complained of having no grip. This is the issue with Jenson. Put him in a perfect car to his liking and there is nobody better, anything else and he fails to drive around the issues of the car unlike a Hamilton or an Alonso. He needs to get himself sorted quickly. He was lucky that Lewis retired today really.

A quick note on quali - it is scary seeing how fast Red Bull are compared to the rest! But as Vettel knows, qualifying pace means absolutely sod all if you cannot do the job on a Sunday, whinging little weasel.

Michael Shumacher.....what can you say? I've seen all Schumi's questionable blocking techniques over the years....Hill in 94, Villeneuve in 97, lapping a slowing DC in 98 so he just rams him off the road....whilst I'm not shocked that he desperately tried to keep Rubens behind him by almost planting his former colleague into the pit wall, I am surprised that he still even bothers.

Ramming people off the road seems to be the one thing he can do in this new career as well as he did in his old career. Oh that and totally denying any knowledge of any wrong doing and blaming everything on poor Rubens. Fuck off back into retirement Schumi. It was a disgusting move on Rubens and as DC and Brundle pointed out, if the pit wall had continued that's an "aeroplane crash" right there...devastating. Alex Wurz is a steward/ driver association guy and he wasnt the least bit impressed either.

Elsewhere Hungary provided plenty of pitlane fun - Rosberg losing his tyre, the Renault lollipop guy possibly seeing said tyre bouncing towards him and releasing Kubica into the side of Sutil. Opps.

So....lets face facts....its a pure and utter vintage year of F1........5 guys seperated by 20 points....with 25 for a win and 18 for second.....its going to be a fantastic run in.

A month without F1....what will we do???!!! Nooooooooo! Don't worry, blogs will happen as and when.

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